Accesi 
 
 BANCROFT 
 LIBRARY 
 
 o 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 FUND. 
 
Jitarp l^allodi Jocte. 
 
 THE LEO-HORSE CLAIM. A Romance of a. 
 Mining Camp. Illustrated by the Author. 
 i6mo, $1.25; paper, 50 cents. 
 
 JOHN BODEWIN'S TESTIMONY. i2mo,$i.so; 
 paper, 50 cents. 
 
 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL i6mo, $1.25. 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK. 
 
THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL 
 
 AND 
 
 THE FATE OF A VOICE 
 
 BY 
 
 MARY HALLOCK FOOTE 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE 
 
 ".AND "JOHN BODEWIN'S 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 1889 
 
Copyright, 1886, 
 BY THE CENTURY COMPANY. 
 
 Copyright, 1889, 
 BY MARY HALLOCK FOOTE. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A. 
 Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. 
 
IE Is 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 5 
 
 PART I. THE SITUATION .... 9 
 PART II. THE SITUATION DEVELOPED . . 82 
 PART III. THE CATASTROPHE . . . 136 
 
 THE FATE OF A VOICE . . 215 
 
THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 THE East generalizes the West much as 
 England has the habit of generalizing Amer- 
 ica ; taking note of picturesque outward dif- 
 ferences, easily perceived across a breadth of 
 continent. Among other unsafe assump- 
 tions, the East has decided that nothing can 
 be freer and simpler than the social life of 
 the far West, exemplified by the flannel 
 shirt and the flowing necktie, the absence of 
 polish on boots and manners. 
 
 But as a matter of experience, no society 
 is so puzzling in its relations, so exacting in 
 its demands upon self-restraint, as one which 
 has no methods, which is yet in the stage of 
 fermentation. Middle age has decided, or 
 has learned to dispense with, many things 
 which youth continues to fash itself about ; 
 
6 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 and the older societies, with all their perpet- 
 uated grooves and deep-rooted complexities, 
 are freer and more cheerful than the new. 
 
 In constructing a pioneer community one 
 must add to the native, Western-born ele- 
 ment, the "tenderfoot" element, so called, 
 self-conscious, new to surrounding standards, 
 warped by disappointment or excited by suc- 
 cess, torn, femininely speaking, between a 
 past not yet abandoned and a present reluc- 
 tantly accepted. Add, generally, the want 
 of homogeneity in a population hastily re- 
 cruited from divers States, cities, nationali- 
 ties, with a surplus of youth, energy, inca- 
 pacity, or misfortune to dispose of ; add the 
 melancholy of a land oppressed by too much 
 nature, not mother nature of the Christian 
 poets, but nature of the dark old mythologies, 
 the spectacle of a creation indeed scarcely 
 more than six days old. When Adam's 
 celestial visitor (in the seventh book of Par- 
 adise Lost) condescends to relate how the 
 world was first created, he gives an astonish- 
 ing picture of the sixth and last great act ; 
 when the earth brought forth the living 
 creature after its kind regardless of zones 
 and habitudes, crawling, wriggling, pawing 
 
INTROD UCTOR Y. 7 
 
 from the sod, rent to favor the transmission. 
 Life on the surface could not have been sim- 
 ple, for a few days at least, after that violent 
 and promiscuous birth. 
 
 The life of the West historically, like the 
 story of Man, is an epic, a song tale of grand 
 meanings. Socially, it is a genesis, a form- 
 less record of beginnings, tragic, grotesque, 
 sorrowful, unrelated, except as illustrations 
 of a tendency towards confusion and failure, 
 with contrasting lights of character, and high 
 personal achievement. The only successful 
 characterizations of it in literature have 
 treated it in this episodic manner. 
 
 But looking forward to the story in peri- 
 ods, the West has a future, socially, of enor- 
 mous promise. It has all the elements of 
 greatness, when it shall have passed the 
 period of uncouth strivings, and that later 
 stage of material satisfaction which is the 
 sequel to the age of force. The East denies 
 it modesty, but there is a humility that 
 apes pride as well as a pride that apes 
 humility. It has never been denied gen- 
 erosity, charity, devotedness, humor of a 
 peculiarly effective quality, a desire for self- 
 improvement, unconquerable, often pathetic, 
 
8 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 courage, and enthusiasm. It has that 
 admixture of contrasting national types 
 which gives us the golden thread of genius. 
 Finally, the New South is seeking its fu- 
 ture there not a future of conquest, but 
 of patience and hard work. 
 
 The West is not to be measured by home- 
 sick tales from an Eastern point of view. 
 The true note will be struck when the alien 
 touch no longer blunts the chord, groping for 
 futile harmonies, through morbid minor 
 strains ; when we have our novelists of the 
 Pacific slope, cosmopolite by blood, accli- 
 mated through more than one generation to 
 the heady air of the plains, bred in the tra- 
 ditions of an older civilization or, better 
 still, with a wild note as frank as that which 
 comes to us from the sad northern steppe. 
 
PART I. 
 
 THE SITUATION. 
 
 THE overland train which took westward, 
 in the fall of 1879, Francis Embury, aged 
 twenty-four, swung along to the rhythm of 
 certain well-strummed stanzas that sang in 
 the young man's head with as genuine, pas- 
 sionate iteration as once they must have beat 
 in the brain of the poet. 
 
 O my cousin, shallow-hearted ! O my Amy, mine no 
 more ! 
 
 We, whose pretty girl cousins are get- 
 ting to be middle-aged ladies, and who have 
 ceased to shiver at the sounding metres of 
 Locksley Hall, may smile at these words, 
 but they had tingling meanings for the cousin 
 of Miss Catherine Mason of Mamaroneck, in 
 the county of Westchester. 
 
 O the dreary, dreary moorland ! O the barren, barren 
 shore I 
 
10 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 We know there are no moorlands about 
 Mamaroneck ; but moorlands or marsh-lands, 
 Amy or Catherine, the train clanked on, in- 
 different to the new burden or the old, and 
 as to the dreariness and the barrenness and 
 the shallow - heartedness, nothing need be 
 conceded on the score of youthful wretched- 
 ness. 
 
 But it would have been going too far, even 
 for the sake of putting her more in the 
 wrong, to have insisted that Catherine 
 Mason was to be " mated with a clown." 
 The clown of Westchester County, whatever 
 may be the nature of him, has no attractions 
 that we know of for the parents of pretty 
 cousins, nor were Mr. and Mrs. Ennis Mason 
 at all likely to bestir themselves in the mat- 
 ter of a marriage connection for their daugh- 
 ter. It was only in a negative way that they 
 concerned themselves, and, as their disaf- 
 fected young relative bitterly reflected, where 
 the claimant was of their own blood. 
 
 The difficulty itself was a despairingly 
 simple one. Eleanor Mason, Catherine's 
 elder sister, had married her first cousin, 
 after a good deal of quiet but exceedingly 
 earnest discussion, which had gone on over 
 
THE SITUATION. 11 
 
 the heads of the younger members of the fam- 
 ily. Francis Embury was not a first cousin, 
 but when his turn came Mrs. Mason had de- 
 clared, without any discussion, that she de- 
 sired no more cousins in her family, whether 
 once or twice removed, in the capacity of 
 sons-in-law. Her husband was effectually of 
 the same mind, and the Emburys, father and 
 mother, were not behind in their objections. 
 It might have been urged that Eleanor's 
 marriage, having proved a happy one with 
 all the usual blessings and some that were 
 unusual upon it, should have supplied a 
 family precedent, but the parents on both 
 sides illogically refused to consider it as 
 such. They talked with their children apart, 
 and in these conferences strange lights were 
 thrown upon the family history, a branch of 
 research young people are usually indifferent 
 to until they become heads of families them- 
 selves, and begin to look for tendencies in 
 their children, or excuses for the same when 
 found. Old seals of silence were broken; 
 records, which the elders of the family keep, 
 like sibylline books, closed against the day of 
 doubt and confusion, were consulted, and the 
 sky of youth, painted with rosy dreams, 
 
12 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 showed portents which the fathers and mo- 
 thers spared not to interpret with prophetic 
 plainness. 
 
 The young man was wild against his 
 parents, against her parents, against the girl 
 herself, who faltered and sickened and gave 
 up her hope. 
 
 She swept up the bangs from her fair fore- 
 head, which was over high for such strenu- 
 ous treatment, and clung more than ever to 
 the mother who, with pain not less than her 
 own, had dealt her the blow. It is the na- 
 ture of some girls to be " servile " in this way, 
 as it is the nature of the young men who suf- 
 fer from their want of spirit to call them 
 cold, characterless, shallow-hearted " pup- 
 pets," in short. 
 
 Catherine's conduct, it must be confessed, 
 was not in the spirit of her time and her 
 country ; she would not declare for happiness 
 and her lover. The family verdict prevailed, 
 and Frank Embury hurled himself across 
 the continent by the first train westward. 
 
 The great mining boom of 1879-80 was 
 then in the ascendant. No doubt many of 
 the young men who joined the stampede for 
 Leadville at this time went, like Frank, under 
 
THE SITUATION. 13 
 
 conviction of the worthlessness of all that 
 remained to them of life, especially the femi- 
 nine portion of it, and were the more inclined 
 to be reckless in their bids for that ironical 
 species of fortune which is said to perch 
 upon the banner of love, at half-mast. 
 
 A concussion of the heart, at a time when 
 the circulation is restoratively active, has 
 pitched many a good husband and useful 
 citizen safely into the midst of a prosperous 
 career ; but an average result in these cases 
 must be difficult to arrive at so long as the 
 publicity of the experiment depends upon its 
 success. The failures go down upon private 
 records, not easily traced or verified. In the 
 case of Frank Embury nothing worse seemed 
 likely to come of his mishap, his parents 
 flattered themselves, than a little timely at- 
 tention to business in a direction hitherto 
 distasteful to the young man. He remem- 
 bered that he had a profession adopted to 
 please his family and coquetted with since, 
 on various pretexts satisfactory to no one but 
 himself. He did not know, perhaps, that 
 there were already in the camp upwards of 
 twenty graduates of the Columbia School of 
 Mines alone, besides representatives of every 
 
14 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 other institution in the country which has 
 the honor of producing a yearly crop of civil 
 or mining engineers. But if he had known 
 it, it is not probable the fact would have de- 
 terred him from projecting himself upon his 
 fate. The malcontents of all kinds inevi- 
 tably go West, if they are young and not 
 well provided with this world's goods. 
 
 Frank lighted upon his feet in one of 
 those communities which are proverbially 
 engaged in burning the candle at both ends. 
 Here were no fathers and mothers of an age 
 to balk youth of the courage of its impulses. 
 Men not much older than himself gave the 
 tone in society and in business ; rushed into 
 alliances, offensive and defensive ; declared 
 war and laughed in each other's faces over 
 their shot-guns. Life and death were lightly 
 held compared with questions affecting the 
 egoism of youth, its rights and privileges, its 
 haughty immunities. Social knots, which 
 have been patiently picked at for genera- 
 tions, these jaunty civic fathers disposed of 
 at a blow. 
 
 Across the continent, clans and families 
 looked on aghast as the spindle whirled and 
 the thread of these tense young lives was 
 
THE SITUATION. 15 
 
 swiftly spun ; and the shears, which in older 
 communities are wont to creak a little and 
 give a poor moment's warning, were ready 
 with their work. 
 
 Embury arrived, in time to dispute with an 
 older graduate of his own college the ominous 
 distinction of thirteenth assayer in the camp. 
 The young men concluded to divide the ob- 
 jectionable number between them, and each 
 became the twelfth and a half. The sign of 
 Williams and Embury invited patronage as 
 assayers of metals or as experts in the exam- 
 ination of mines ; though it may be assumed 
 that in the latter capacity the experience of 
 both young partners put together could have 
 been but an expensive sort of guesswork, for 
 those who employed it. 
 
 The town was in a state of chaotic expan- 
 sion, with throes of laughter at its own un- 
 wieldiness* It was difficult to get enough to 
 eat, impossible to find a decent place to eat 
 it in. Ancient deplorable jokes about the 
 " Forty-niners," who slept in barrels at five 
 dollars a night, with their feet outside, were 
 revived with childish appreciation of their 
 humor. Soft-handed youths, fresh from East- 
 ern colleges and ball-rooms, found themselves 
 
16 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 twirling frying-pans as familiarly as if they 
 had been pretty girls' fans or favors in a 
 german, and better than a rose in a button- 
 hole was the button itself, when it could be 
 relied upon not to come off. 
 
 The Clarendon Hotel was then building ; 
 the Windsor had not been projected. Ranks 
 of men in triple file lined the counters in 
 every eating-shop, tables and chairs were 
 as yet not thought of, laughing, shoving, 
 gesticulating, endeavoring by bribes and 
 curses to influence the impartial tide of bad 
 victuals steaming in from the reeking kitch- 
 ens. Much time as well as temper was lost 
 in these periodic struggles, and the food 
 when captured was execrable. Our two 
 young men therefore adopted a mode of life 
 then common in the camp, called " baching 
 it," in the two bare rooms they had striven 
 for with several other applicants, before the 
 roof was over them. 
 
 Frank, who had no gift for cooking, was 
 unable to dispute his manifest destiny as 
 dishwasher. It was he, therefore, who first 
 tired of the mutual housekeeping, and who 
 roamed the town, every hour he could spare 
 for research, in the hope of finding the com- 
 
THE SITUATION. 17 
 
 ing woman. Chinese labor had been ex- 
 cluded from this camp of idealists, yet the 
 demand for white labor had not created the 
 supply ; there was dearth of woman's cook- 
 ing, and eke of woman's dishwashing, 
 thought poor Frank. 
 
 About this time a gleam of hope came to 
 him from the "Tent Bakery," as it was 
 called, where, in the white photographic light 
 of a canvas roof, bread and pastry could be 
 bought which had the home-made flavor. He 
 induced Williams to throw aside his skillets 
 and saucepans, and the pair took home 
 schoolboy meals in paper-bags, subsisting 
 upon buns and canned meats and wearying 
 for the taste of a hot broiled steak. They 
 agreed that this state of things could not last, 
 watching hungrily meanwhile the progress 
 of the new hotel, which filled an entire block 
 of Harrison Avenue with ample promise of 
 hospitality. 
 
 In the mean time there had come to the 
 camp an intrepid little widow of let us say 
 Denver, not to be personal. She was a wo- 
 man of a practical turn, which did not pre- 
 vent her from being decidedly pretty. Mrs. 
 Fanny Danskeq had not been slow to per- 
 
18 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 ceive the advantages of the new camp as a 
 place wherein to make a little money quickly 
 in a way she had thought of, and to invest it 
 with what chances who could say? Her 
 way of making money was a very simple one. 
 For most women, and under the usual cir- 
 cumstances, there are few ways that are 
 harder ; but Mrs. Dansken purposed to re- 
 verse the usual anxious order of things in the 
 business of taking boarders, and instead of 
 seeking, allow herself to be sought. In that 
 homeless, hungry, distraught community of 
 men she had reason to believe that her ex- 
 periment would be unique. 
 
 She took a high tone from the beginning, 
 a comically lofty one, considering her re- 
 sources ; but she was careful that no one but 
 the author of the situation should see the 
 fun of it. She trusted to be able to hold her 
 own until she could afford, financially speak- 
 ing, to ship her oars and spread her sails to 
 the rising gale that was humming through 
 the stock market, from Wall Street to the 
 Golden Gate. Then it would be time 
 enough to share the joke. 
 
 She opened her house on Harrison Avenue, 
 on the west side, a few blocks above the skel- 
 
THE SITUATION. 19 
 
 eton stories of her formidable rival, the Clar- 
 endon. No. 9 had the usual square board 
 front, thinly painted, the new pine showing 
 with cold pinkness through a scumbling of 
 white lead. To the original four-room cabin 
 she had caused to be added a long extension, 
 running back into the lot in which the house 
 stood alone. From the kitchen door a path 
 led out upon some vague, parallel street, 
 where the buildings as yet were too far apart 
 to obstruct the prospect across such a hag- 
 gard stretch of country as made the new ten- 
 ant homesick to look at, although she was not 
 an imaginative person, and for many years 
 had called no place in particular her home. 
 Beyond were the mountains, giving perpetual 
 emphasis to the human achievement; for 
 every item of manufactured material that 
 had gone to the building and plenishing of 
 this gaunt, growthy young settlement, every 
 circumstance that contributed to its insatiate 
 life, from the piano in its dance-halls to the 
 shards and rags on its dust-heaps, had come 
 over those sternly unimplicated mountains, 
 by ways needless to describe to those who are 
 familiar with such ways, and impossible to 
 those who are not. The journey in itself 
 
20 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 constituted an understood bond among the 
 citizens. Each knew how the others had 
 got there, and could guess, within limits, why 
 they had come. It was not for their health, 
 they gayly admitted, looking about them at 
 those bony foster-mothers, Breece and Freyer 
 and Carbonate Hills. 
 
 Mrs. Dansken found, as she had antici- 
 pated, that in making up the tale of her 
 guests she could take her pick of the town. 
 The process of selection was necessarily a 
 hasty one ; but, considering the place, she 
 made very few mistakes. It was under- 
 stood that a seat at her table was to be well 
 paid for, outside of the privilege itself. She 
 was perhaps lucky in her first applicants; 
 these implied others of the same sort. Very 
 soon a company of sunburned faces that 
 would have been presentable anywhere, met 
 nightly in the light of the crimson silk- 
 shaded lamp, the sun and centre of Mrs. 
 Dansken's dinner-table. 
 
 It is laughable, it is pitiful, to remember 
 how little it took to create something like an 
 environment in that home of the self-exiled. 
 A lamp with a soft lustre; a pretty little 
 stranger woman at the head of a table, spread 
 
THE SITUATION. 21 
 
 with clear glass and spotless linen and the 
 best an inchoate market could afford ; chairs 
 that stood upon four legs without wobbling ; 
 good health, youthful appetites, not too much 
 knowledge of each other ; distant homes and 
 loves and friends in the background, to 
 whom all this strangeness was tenderly re- 
 ferred. Outside, the shrill air of the spring 
 twilight at an altitude of eleven thousand feet 
 above the level of the sea ; six inches of snow 
 on the board sidewalks, mountains whiter 
 than the clouds, and black with patches 
 of burnt forest ; smoke of smelters languidly 
 rising ; voices and footsteps, all of strangers ; 
 over all an atmosphere of insensate gayety, 
 of fantastic success. 
 
 II. 
 
 MES. DANSKEN stood in the path behind 
 her kitchen door one morning, watching 
 across the street the funeral of a well-known 
 " jumper," who had been shot in a quarrel 
 over a piece of disputed land. The poor 
 cabin could not contain the new-made wid- 
 ow's grief. She was crying, bare-headed, in 
 
22 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. % 
 
 the bleak noon sunlight, while her husband's 
 confreres, in Masonic bibs and aprons, were 
 shouldering the coffin into the plumed hearse. 
 The children of the neighborhood had gath- 
 ered to the spectacle, and followed as it 
 moved down the street with throbbing of 
 drums, wailing of fifes, and buzzing of brass. 
 The widow and her brood had been bundled 
 into the carriage magnificently provided by 
 charity, at a cost that would have fed them 
 for a month. They sat in it charily, in their 
 shabby weeds, eying its soiled upholstery 
 with an awe which even the freshness of their 
 grief could not blunt. 
 
 Mrs. Dansken buried her face in her apron 
 and laughed, hysterically. Looking up, she 
 saw a young man at the gate, studying the 
 house as if to reassure himself of his locality. 
 He beamed, hat in hand, at the sight of her 
 brightly illumined figure in the sunny path ; 
 perhaps with relief that she had not, as he 
 had at first supposed, been crying. 
 
 "Is this No. 9?" he inquired. "I seem 
 to have come out on the wrong street." 
 
 " Yes, our front door is on Harrison Ave- 
 nue ; but it does n't matter. Will you come 
 in?" 
 
THE SITUATION. 23 
 
 " Is this Mrs. Dansken ? I 'm sure it is ! " 
 He smiled down at the shining brown head 
 and white lawn apron, tied in a bow in front 
 of a neat waist. 
 
 Mrs. Dansken laughed. " Then I need not 
 say that it is, if you are sure." They were 
 skirting the kitchen regions towards the front 
 door. 
 
 " I hope you '11 forgive me for insisting 
 that you 're Mrs. Dansken, but I 'm so aw- 
 fully anxious to know if you will have room 
 for us, my partner and me." 
 
 "Yes, perhaps, when I know who you are. 
 You know there are a great many of you." 
 
 " And only one of you, unfortunately." 
 
 This was the way Mrs. Dansken liked to be 
 approached. She looked the new applicant 
 over in the shade of her doorway. He was 
 extremely good-looking, so far as that went ; 
 but Mrs. Dansken did not choose her board- 
 ers for their bright eyes or for the number 
 of inches they stood in their boots. She 
 let this one produce his credentials, begin- 
 ning with his name, Mr. Francis Embury, 
 No. 174 of a respectable - sounding street, 
 with New York added in pencil, on the card 
 he gave her. Of his partner, Hugh Wil- 
 
24 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 liams, she already knew something ; indeed, 
 young Embury was not altogether a stranger 
 to her, as she allowed him to suppose, while 
 she sat calmly considering his proposal. If 
 she understood her part in the negotiation, 
 it was plain to her that he was by no means 
 unpracticed in his. But in this she was mis- 
 taken : Frank was simply one of these 
 charming young fellows to whom the art of 
 coaxing comes by nature, but who are found 
 to be exceedingly obstinate when the same 
 sort of pressure is applied to themselves. 
 
 She smiled at him, out of her narrow 
 shining eyes, with merry little creases at the 
 corners. He was gayly insistent. He pro- 
 posed to present himself with his partner at 
 dinner that same evening. They were fam- 
 ished, he declared. They had been living 
 upon husks, and had done nothing to de- 
 serve it. 
 
 Mrs. Dansken could only promise them a 
 very small portion of a fatted calf, she said, if 
 they were resolved upon coming that night ; 
 and then she coyly mentioned sweet-breads, 
 at which the young fellow fairly howled with 
 delight, so that it was impossible to help 
 laughing. They laughed together, like old 
 acquaintances, and the business was settled. 
 
THE SITUATION. 25 
 
 Mrs. Dansken was in the habit of shar- 
 ing her news, if it was good news, with her 
 silent partner in the kitchen, Ann Matthews, 
 an old servant of her mother's whom she 
 had imported at considerable expense, with 
 a far-sighted eye to the foundations of suc- 
 cess in a camp without a cuisine. 
 
 Ann's excellent skill in cooking was a 
 gift which had upheld its possessor in the 
 darkest hours of a somewhat morose dispo- 
 sition. In these moods she could absorb flat- 
 tery as a black garment gathers the rays 
 of the sun, and Mrs. Dansken gave it her 
 in the universal belief in the efficacy of this 
 simple remedy ; though Ann, unlike the trav- 
 eler in the fable, clung to her cloak long af- 
 ter she was warmed through and through. 
 Ann would have been called a " far-downer " 
 by her lively countrymen from Cork ; but 
 she gloried in having " come from the 
 County Tyrone, among the green bushes," 
 and if her lips had ever been intimate with 
 the Blarney Stone the spell, upon her caustic 
 tongue, had lost its power. 
 
 " Well, Ann, what do you think of our 
 youngest ? " the mistress demanded in her 
 gayest tone as she stepped into the kitchen. 
 
26 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 " I saw you on the lookout as we came by 
 the window." 
 
 This was a deliberate tease, and no time 
 was lost in taking up the challenge. 
 
 " Me on the lookout, is it ? Not fur the 
 likes of him, thin ! I seen the two av yez 
 come laughin' up the walk an' the ' Dead 
 March ' playin' behind yez. Sure it 's God's 
 own wurrld fur all the trouble that 's in it, 
 an' there 's plinty to look at besides a giddy 
 b'y like him." 
 
 " Well, I 'm not so fond of funerals as 
 you are, Ann. I 'd much rather look at a 
 ' giddy b'y ' who wants to put forty dollars 
 a week into my pocket." 
 
 " Forty dollars, is it ? " 
 
 " There are two of them Mr. Embury 
 and Mr. Williams, partners." 
 
 " An' where will it all go to ? Into thim 
 prospects, like pourin' water down a rat-hole, 
 an' that 's the last ye '11 see av it. Ye 'd 
 better put it in the crack av the flure. 
 It '11 be safe there, anyways." From which 
 will be seen the direction Mrs. Dansken's 
 investments were taking, and what encour- 
 agement she found in the bosom of her 
 family. 
 
THE SITUATION. 27 
 
 Before many weeks it became necessary 
 to add a second story to the main part of the 
 cabin, and with this Mrs. Dansken declared 
 she had reached her limit. She had a per- 
 fect company, more would be a mob. She 
 now began in her own way, which was not a 
 groping way, to materialize her ideal of do- 
 mestic comfort and prettiness. It became 
 one of the amusements of her guests to fol- 
 low her processes. She did not attempt too 
 much, and so she never failed in the dis- 
 couraging and pitiable manner of more im- 
 aginative decorators. She had no artistic 
 principles to bother her, she said ; nor did 
 she pretend to any superior light in a con- 
 ventional way. She flattered her admiring 
 constituency by appealing to their own later 
 standards, presumably higher than her own. 
 Was it thus, or so, at their mamma's table, 
 or in her drawing - room ? not that one 
 could hope to do more than suggest, but 
 one's suggestions might as well take the 
 right direction. She was nothing but an 
 imitator, but she liked good models when 
 she could get them. 
 
 Mrs. Dansken had a design in these cajol- 
 eries, perfectly creditable to more than the 
 
28 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 business side of her character. Her young 
 men, she was pleased to observe, were get- 
 ting the habit of rushing home after busi- 
 ness hours, to be in time for tea in the much 
 discussed little parlor, which had become the 
 property of all, since each had contributed, 
 by his advice at least, to its development. 
 Many of them would gladly have contri- 
 buted, out of their absurd young affluence, 
 in more substantial ways, but the landlady 
 was resolute on the subject of gifts. She 
 accepted the help of long arms and strong 
 backs when pictures and curtains were to be 
 hung, and of vociferous tongues on all oc- 
 casions when her own was not the " domi- 
 nant persistent," but she preserved her inde- 
 pendence of their pockets, beyond the weekly 
 stipend by which she held her own, with 
 something over to put into prospect-holes. 
 
 No. 9 was getting a reputation as one of 
 the show cabins of the camp. Nothing was 
 expected of the outside of a Leadville cabin, 
 but there was sharp rivalry as to the compar- 
 ative merits of interiors. The young men 
 boasted with caution, but it was matter for 
 gossip that Mrs. Fanny Dansken was mak- 
 ing her family comfortable in ways that were 
 
THE SITUATION. 29 
 
 clever beyond those of the ordinary frontier 
 housekeeper. The practical gifts, after all, 
 are the ones which give a woman vogue 
 among other women. Beauty or personal 
 charm may do more with men, apparently, 
 but women know, and men discover, that 
 these triumphs are slight and temporal com- 
 pared with the secret, possessed by the few, 
 of an unobtrusive mastery over the means 
 of modern living. 
 
 The ladies who were the pioneers of so- 
 ciety in Leadville began to recognize Mrs. 
 Dansken's " afternoons " with the courage 
 of an indifference that was a trifle insolent 
 she had announced herself "at home" on 
 Saturdays as one of the institutions of 
 the camp ; the more readily, perhaps, that 
 Mrs. Dansken's young gentlemen, all of 
 them who could manage it, made a point 
 of getting home early on their landlady's 
 " day," not to miss the exciting privilege of 
 carrying about cups of tea and plates of 
 biscuits, which they subsequently emptied 
 themselves, and chuckling over their per- 
 formances afterwards with their hostess, in 
 those too brief moments by the parlor fire 
 between dusk and the summons to dinner. 
 
30 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 They swore to each other that she was the 
 best little woman in the world the very 
 woman for the place ; and as they were the 
 very men for the place, there could be no 
 question as to mutual fitness. They knew 
 by heart all the playful, mocking changes of 
 her bright, untender face. It was not a re- 
 markable face, taking it feature by feature, 
 but it kept one interested. Mrs. Dansken 
 had the sort of person, both as to face and 
 figure, which suits the dress of the period, 
 whatever the fashion of it may be ; which 
 is not to say she lacked individuality, but 
 that her individuality had an alertness and 
 a certain hardihood capable of withstanding 
 casual effects of costume. She had exceed- 
 ingly small hands, pretty in the way which 
 is said to be American, and she used them 
 with charming facility. They were, indeed, 
 prettier to watch than her face ; and the 
 young men used to tell her that a second cup 
 of coffee at breakfast was desirable, for 
 aesthetic reasons. 
 
 As a matter of course her name went 
 East, with extravagant praise of her virtues, 
 celebrated in letters to mothers and sisters, 
 who discussed this remarkable woman with 
 
THE SITU A 
 
 a degree of skepticism not unnatural under 
 the circumstances, and wondered if she had 
 charms as well as virtues. 
 
 If Mrs. Dansken's experiment was a suc- 
 cess, it was because, in the language of the 
 camp, she had put herself into it for all she 
 was worth. The mothers had no cause for 
 anxiety ; it was not their precious sons she 
 wanted, only a little of their sons' precious 
 money. This queen of landladies had no idea 
 of entertaining herself or her boys, as she 
 called them, in a way that would ultimately 
 be bad for business. As for any folly more 
 serious, Mrs. Dansken was a clever woman, 
 thirty-four years old ; marriage for its own 
 sake had no illusions for her, and she would 
 as soon have thought of sacrificing the re- 
 mains of her complexion to a pink bonnet 
 as of arranging herself for the rest of her 
 life in trying conjunction with a husband 
 obviously her junior. The ages of her boys 
 were charming ages, but they were not the 
 ages that were becoming to her own. 
 
 But all this does nothing like justice to her 
 good sense and good faith. She knew that 
 she was in the land of inflated values, where 
 pippins were as good as pineapples so long 
 
32 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 as the latter were not obtainable ; but she 
 had no desire to pass for anything other 
 than the honest, shrewd little pippin she was, 
 and a last year's pippin at that. Her young 
 men, she saw, were of a stamp more likely 
 to be endangered by the tragic delusions of 
 the place than by its cheap temptations ; 
 and stoutly she resolved that, if the chance 
 were given her, she would be as loyal to 
 them as they had been to her. In the mean 
 time she catered for them devotedly. She 
 trotted all over the town in search of sur- 
 prises for those brave appetites. Every 
 marketman and purveyor in the place knew 
 her and liked her, not only for her pleasant, 
 praising ways, but for her keenness in de- 
 tecting a substitute for a good bargain, even 
 when offered with the best of excuses. The 
 sweeter side of her nature was coming out 
 in the sunshine of kind, admiring looks, and 
 of the chivalrous appreciation she had won 
 and all in the way of business. It was 
 just the success she had planned, only so 
 much more gracious. Her boys had lifted 
 her life out of its sordidness, and lent a 
 touch of benignity to her bald little scheme. 
 When the ladies who were working for the 
 
THE SITUATION. 33 
 
 new hospital came to her for assistance, she 
 told them she was too busy to work and too 
 poor to pay, but she assured them that she 
 was cooperating with them in her own way, 
 by keeping men out of the hospital and out 
 of the places that led to it. It was fortunate 
 for Mrs. Danksen, said the ladies to each 
 other and subsequently to other ladies, that 
 she was able to combine business and charity 
 so conveniently. Her little boast was widely 
 quoted, and came at last to the ears of her 
 boys, much to her chagrin. They did not 
 push the joke too far, seeing that it troubled 
 her ; she was indeed far from priding herself 
 upon anything she did for them. They were 
 paying a proud price for more than the best 
 she could give. But there was one service 
 she openly threatened them with if it came 
 in her way. It was part of her duty, she de- 
 clared, in the station to which she was called, 
 to preserve them in the absence of their 
 female relatives and of legitimate objects for 
 their affections from the Western mar- 
 riage, so often fatal to Eastern boys. 
 
 " I may say, always" she emphasized. 
 " Eastern women may be wanted in the 
 West, but Western women are never wanted 
 
34 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 in the East. Why ? Because there are wo- 
 men enough there already women who are 
 acclimated, body and soul. And how does it 
 end? You forsake your East for the sake 
 of your wife, or your wife for the sake of 
 your East ! " 
 
 " There seems to be a good deal of forsak- 
 ing, whichever way you put it," Hugh Wil- 
 liams, the stout and calm bachelor of the 
 company, observed in the silence that fol- 
 lowed Mrs. Dansken's words. 
 
 " Behave yourselves, my dear boys, and go 
 home and marry your own girls, to the hap- 
 piness of all concerned. And I shall have 
 earned the prayers of your anxious parents." 
 
 " How do you know but that some of us 
 may have come out here just on account of 
 our own girls ? Are n't we to have any girls, 
 East or West? " asked Williams. 
 
 " How many of you, I should like to know ! 
 Let the blighted ones hold up their hands." 
 
 An emulous brandishing of hands replied 
 to this demand. Every pair in the room 
 went up, amidst shouts of laughter every 
 pair but one. Frank Embury, with a face 
 that was scarlet, was stooping and poking the 
 fire. 
 
THE SITUATION. 35 
 
 " Oh, my poor boy ! " thought Mrs. Dan- 
 sken, seeing that it was her favorite the ran- 
 dom shaft had pierced. " You are the one I 
 shall have to look out for." 
 
 III. 
 
 AT this time, the spring of 1880, there 
 were no girls to speak of, and not more than 
 a dozen married ladies, in the camp. Four 
 of these young matrons were at Mrs. Dan- 
 sken's on one of her Saturdays, when the 
 young men were at home, making the most 
 of their simple privileges. One of them, a 
 pretty little blonde man named Blashfield (a 
 general favorite, chiefly on account of an art- 
 less way he had of exposing himself to gen- 
 eral ridicule, and taking it angelically when 
 it came), was trying dance-tunes on the 
 banjo, while the ladies of New York or 
 Chicago or St. Louis, as the case might be 
 experimented fitfully with each other's 
 steps in the round dances that were then in 
 fashion. The young men looked on rest- 
 lessly, protesting that this sort of thing 
 would not do, and the ladies were finally 
 
36 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 separated, and divided, so far as they would 
 go, among the superfluous sex. 
 
 Blashfield's performance was so ungrate- 
 fully received that he presently put down his 
 banjo and claimed a share in the dancing, to 
 music furnished by his critics. One of the 
 ladies then took off her gloves and played 
 waltzes on Mrs. Dansken's hired piano with 
 verve and passionate precision. The springs 
 of rapture were touched. The merry ma- 
 trons, blushing like school-girls in the heat of 
 the room, were silently passed from hand to 
 hand, while more and more dancing was the 
 plea. 
 
 The late spring twilight, prolonged by 
 snow reflections, stole away and left them 
 circling round by the light of the fire, with 
 a mimic rout of shadows gyrating on the 
 walls above their heads. The ghost of joy 
 was not yet laid when the ladies trooped 
 homewards, with a husband apiece who had 
 come to look them up, and Ann, putting her 
 head in at the dining-room, inquired, "Do 
 yez want any dinner the night ? " 
 
 This was the origin of a series of dances 
 which called itself, with the touch of laughter 
 inseparable from everything the caaip did at 
 
THE SITUATION. 37 
 
 this time, the " Assembly." Its meetings 
 were fortnightly, in the dining-room of the 
 new hotel ; and here, on Assembly nights, 
 the Cymons and Crelebs of a crude genera- 
 tion in flannel shirts, it must be confessed, 
 and " wearing their own hair " claimed 
 the hands of the lively Jocastas and Pam- 
 elas, in dresses they could afford to sacri- 
 fice to the new pine floor of the Clarendon. 
 The ladies were amused and flattered to 
 find themselves again on the footing of girls 
 of one season. It was one of the little 
 insanities of the place that these modest 
 and hitherto uncelebrated dames should find 
 themselves temporarily representing the fem- 
 inine idea. It was a pleasing responsibility 
 while it lasted, and perhaps it was as well 
 that it lasted no longer ; for this phase of a 
 new society, when married women frankly do 
 duty for young girls, is one of the briefest. 
 
 Before autumn much of the simplicity had 
 departed. The day of competition and of 
 preferences had begun. As the ladies pro- 
 gressed in splendor they were openly congrat- 
 ulated upon their costumes as so much con- 
 tributed to the glory of the camp, and the 
 first dress-coat made a paragraph in the daily 
 
38 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 paper. There were other changes, showing 
 how in the newest society the old experiments 
 are repeated in the sequence history has 
 made us familiar with. 
 
 The camp was forming into crowds. There 
 were the iron-mine crowd, the famous Chry- 
 solite crowd, the Evening Star crowd ; Chi- 
 cago had its crowd, St. Louis, and New 
 York ; and the society of the camp, made up 
 of these coalitions with their respective fol- 
 lowings, revived the period of the oligarchy, 
 under conditions, it must be owned, that 
 made the renaissance something of a bur- 
 lesque. 
 
 This picturesque but belated tendency 
 may have been assisted by the presence of 
 the aristocratic element in unusual force. 
 There were many young Southerners, re- 
 cruited from families impoverished by the 
 war, who brought with them the feudal feel- 
 ing and the need for personal distinction ; 
 there were sons of Northern families, bred 
 in the same exclusiveness, but with more 
 practical adaptability. These young gentle- 
 men, many of them, were incidentally en- 
 gaged in chopping their own wood, cooking 
 their dinners, and mending their trousers ; 
 
THE SITUATION. 39 
 
 but they did these things to their own aston- 
 ishment and the admiration of their friends, 
 not in the least identifying themselves with 
 the part of the laboring-man. 
 
 None of the social expedients of the fron- 
 tier will ever have the fascination of the 
 " crowd." None of them so completely illus- 
 trates the boy and girl element so conspicu- 
 ous in the life of the new West the min- 
 ing and engineering and military, not the 
 rural West. It appeals to those fine roman- 
 tic instincts, loyalty and personal leadership 
 in men and faithfulness and concentration 
 of feeling in women. Woman, who, as the 
 "Pilgrim's Scrip" says, "will probably be 
 the last thing civilized by man," is notori- 
 ously happy in a " crowd," and never more 
 herself for to lose herself with a woman 
 is to find herself. 
 
 When an Eastern woman goes West, she 
 parts at one wrench with family, clan, tra- 
 ditions, clique, cult, and all that has hith- 
 erto enabled her to merge her outlines 
 the support, the explanation, the excuse, 
 should she need one, for her personality. 
 Suddenly she finds herself " cut out," in the 
 arid light of a new community, where there 
 
40 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 are no traditions and no backgrounds. Her 
 angles are all discovered, but none of her 
 affinities. A husband does not help her to 
 be less conspicuous ; he is another figure cut 
 out beside her own, often another vantage 
 for attack. She hastens to lose herself in 
 her husband's crowd. She will conform to 
 any restrictions that will secure her in this 
 immunity from general observation, which 
 implies general criticism. And so restful is 
 the sense of support, so emancipating the 
 obscurity, so stimulating the intimacies and 
 passionate partisanships of the inner circle, 
 that it is not wonderful if these privileges 
 are somewhat jealously extended, and only to 
 those who can be relied upon to preserve as 
 well as to enjoy them. 
 
 For plainly it is not every one who can be- 
 long to a crowd. It is a matter of tempera- 
 ment, of breeding, of religion even, of prog- 
 ress in the lessons of humanity. The ele- 
 ment that loves the chatter of the streets and 
 does not mind being chattered about, the 
 honest Samuel Pepys's element, will stay out- 
 side ; so will the element that uses its friends 
 for ulterior purposes; so will the element 
 that yearns for popularity the members of 
 
THE SITUATION. 41 
 
 a crowd are never popular ; so will most that 
 is broadest, kindest, most human and demo- 
 cratic in our modern life. The crowd is the 
 fortress on the hill, opposed to the noisy, 
 sunny, gossipy streets of the great free city 
 on the plain. It will exist yet for many years 
 on the feudal frontier. 
 
 A Western crowd comes easily together on 
 a basis of common interest or convenience, 
 but some deeper sentiment than this is re- 
 quired to give it entity, to make it a force 
 for good or evil. It must have a soul as well 
 as a body. In this respect Mrs. Dansken's 
 house was built upon sand. The only prin- 
 ciples on which it rested were personal com- 
 fort and the making of money. All beyond 
 was boyish gallantry and extravagance, and 
 the sentiment any woman who is not un- 
 natural can awaken in a generous and pure 
 young heart. So far as moral support went, 
 Mrs. Dansken knew that she had reason to 
 be content ; but she had her little troubles, 
 of a sort the most devoted constituency can- 
 not keep from the door. She had saved out 
 of her experiment considerable money, which 
 she had promptly invested with a courage 
 worthy of better success. Several of her 
 
42 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 young men had tried to give her points ; but 
 she did not see her way, she said, out of the 
 camp that year nor the next, and the young 
 men were ungenerous enough to say they 
 were very glad to hear it. 
 
 An internal difficulty had also arisen which 
 threatened the foundations of her scheme. 
 Without Ann Matthews the business of the 
 house could not go on ; and, whether from 
 the effect of the harsh mountain climate at 
 that great altitude, or the pressure of her 
 work, which was more miscellaneous than she 
 had been used to, Ann's strength was visibly 
 on the decline. Anything like sympathy or 
 assistance from her mistress she fiercely re- 
 pelled ; but by substituting her own steps for 
 Ann's whenever on one pretext or another 
 it was possible to do so, Mrs. Dansken con- 
 trived to keep the house going, and to shield 
 her testy old servant from the young men's 
 criticisms. 
 
 " Why do you let her bully you so, and 
 why do you do all her work ? " they inquired, 
 with that air of superior enlightenment as to 
 methods which no housekeeper can be ex- 
 pected to tolerate. 
 
 " She does n't bully me. Do I look like a 
 
THE SITUATION. 43 
 
 person to be bullied? She is nervous, poor 
 old thing ! It 's the climate." 
 
 "Does the climate never make you ner- 
 vous?" 
 
 "Ask Ann," said Mrs. Dansken. Ann 
 would have said that if there were any nerves 
 in that house they belonged to the mistress. 
 
 Mrs. Dansken herself had discovered that 
 to be the centre of a circle of magnetic young 
 spirits, whose bodies one has agreed to main- 
 tain at a persistently high level of comfort 
 in an essentially uncomfortable place, is not 
 a restful position for a woman to hold. But 
 she was determined to hold it, and to hide the 
 cost. She could not hide the cost from Ann, 
 who was convinced that her mistress was kill- 
 ing herself, and so spurred on in the race be- 
 tween the two, which should exert herself and 
 spare the other more ; but a deliberate word 
 of affection rarely passed between them. 
 One Sunday morning when they were mak- 
 ing beds together in the extension, Ann was 
 inveighing as usual against the young men 
 the claims they made, and which the mis- 
 tress allowed, upon her time and strength. 
 
 " The more ye do fur thim the more 
 ye may do ! Is n't it enough ye bed 'em 
 
44 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 an' boord 'em, but ye must be feeclin' 'em 
 wid the words out av yer mouth an' the 
 breath out ay yer body ? Don't I hear }^e, 
 talkiii' the flesh off yer bones below there 
 nights?" 
 
 " You think I need my beauty sleep, 
 Ann ? " 
 
 " Indeed an' it 's little beauty ye '11 get 
 in this place, nor anythin' else, forbye the 
 money ye '11 make wan day an' lose it the 
 next." 
 
 " What we want in this house is some- 
 body young," said Mrs. Dansken, decisively. 
 
 Ann looked up from under her brows. 
 Her head was bent and her mouth distended 
 with the effort to hold a pillow under her 
 chin while she parted the folds of the case. 
 
 " In the place av ould Ann, is it ? " she 
 presently asked. 
 
 " You know very well that I want nobody 
 in Ann's place but Ann," said the mistress. 
 " So what is the use of talking foolishness ? 
 You are tired out, and you say that I am. 
 Perhaps I am. Anyhow I intend to find 
 somebody to wait upon us both ; to give us a 
 rest. There must be girls in the place by 
 this time." 
 
THE SITUATION. 45 
 
 " There 's girls iverywhere, if it 's green 
 sticks ye want, or maybe rotten. Ye '11 get 
 no rest, I 'se be bound, out av anythin' ye '11 
 pick up here." 
 
 " Well, there 's no harm in trying," Mrs. 
 Dansken sighed. " We must have more 
 help this winter, with the fires, and the water 
 to carry." 
 
 She sighed again that evening, inadver- 
 tently, in the midst of the circle lounging 
 about the parlor in various attitudes of re- 
 pletion, under the depressing effect of the 
 Sunday custom of two meals a day, and both 
 at the wrong time. She laughed, and plucked 
 herself out of her momentary abstraction, as 
 the cause of her sighing was demanded. 
 
 " Oh, breakfast too late and dinner too 
 early, and nothing in the house to give you 
 for tea!" 
 
 " Come, you were n't sighing about our 
 appetites," said Frank Embury. He looked 
 at Mrs. Dansken with rather a tender expres- 
 sion in his soft eyes. " What is the matter, 
 please ? " he added, lowering his voice. 
 
 Mrs. Dansken raised her own, giving him 
 a smile at the same time. " We need some- 
 body young in the house," she repeated. 
 
46 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 " Madam, are n't we young enough for 
 you, on an average ? " Williams demanded. 
 
 "It is a question of my youth, not of 
 yours. I am young enough to be your land- 
 lady, perhaps, but not to be your landlady's 
 servant." 
 
 " Ann's servant, you mean." 
 
 "Well, Ann's servant, then. I want to 
 hear a young pair of feet not in boots, if 
 you please go slip, slip, up the stairs in the 
 morning before I 'm out of bed, not pad, 
 pad, poor Ann ! and a groan at the top. 
 I positively have to fly to keep her from do- 
 ing things she knows she has no business to, 
 with her lame knee, and the colds she gets." 
 
 " Why don't you let her go on, and be a 
 martyr if she wants to ? " 
 
 " Because she would make herself sick, and 
 then / should be the martyr, and I don't en- 
 joy it." 
 
 " Where is the need of so much work in a 
 house, anyhow ?" This unsleeping question 
 was duly propounded, as it always will be in 
 a domestic crisis, by the male members of the 
 family. " All this sweeping, for instance ; 
 you only stir up a lot of dust to wipe away 
 when you 've done." 
 
THE SITUATION. 47 
 
 " And who is it fills the water-pitchers, by 
 the way? " asked Embury. "I swear I saw 
 the skirt of Mrs. Dansken's gown whipping 
 round the stairhead when I pulled in my 
 pitcher this morning." 
 
 Mrs. Dansken inquired if he were sure 
 that he knew her gowns from Ann's. 
 
 " We '11 introduce the fag system," said 
 Williams, " and begin with the smallest. 
 Blasshy, you '11 please to hop out to-morrow 
 morning when you hear ' Fag ! ' : 
 
 " Fagging is obsolete. We '11 go down in 
 a democratic body " 
 
 " In Blasshy's body " 
 
 " You '11 stay upstairs, in your beds, 
 where you belong," said Mrs. Dansken. " I 
 don't propose to have a procession of half- 
 dressed young men promenading the house 
 before breakfast. I do my own promenad- 
 ing then, and my crimping-pins are not be- 
 coming." 
 
 " Fill the pitchers overnight ; nothing sim- 
 pler, I 'm sure." 
 
 "Extremely simple, you will find, when 
 the water freezes and breaks my two-dollar- 
 and-a-half stone-china pitcher." 
 
 " Why do you have pitchers ? Have pails. 
 
48 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 We had pails," said Williams, out of the 
 experience of the past. 
 
 " Pails are squalid," said Mrs. Dansken. 
 
 " Frank, were our pails squalid ? " 
 
 " I should like to know," interrupted Mrs. 
 Dansken, " who the misguided creatures were 
 that mobbed Chinamen out of this camp? 
 Were they men with sisters dear ; were they 
 men with mothers and wives ? " 
 
 " Men with wives they call ' the old wo- 
 man.' Wives can work cheaper than China- 
 men, don't you know, and they don't inter- 
 fere with the price of men's labor." 
 
 " And the rest of you let them have it all 
 their own way, as usual." 
 
 " Some of us were n't here ; and we did n't 
 come out here to be mayors and city council- 
 men. And we claim that it is n't a mistake. 
 The Chinese element " 
 
 " Oh, I 've heard all about the Chinese ele- 
 ment since before any of you were born ! It is 
 a mistake from my little point of view ; any- 
 how, mistake or not, I want you all to keep 
 your eyes open and think of the water-pails 
 pitchers, I mean if you see anybody of 
 the female persuasion, who looks young and 
 strong and not too affluent." 
 
THE SITUATION. 49 
 
 IV. 
 
 IT was Mrs. Dansken herself who first met 
 with the person answering to these specifica- 
 tions. She was one day at Daniel & Fish- 
 er's, the great dry-goods store of the camp, 
 looking at walking-jackets. The salesman 
 had laid one across the padded shoulders of 
 a female torso, clad in pink cambric. " It 's 
 an elegant shape," he said, referring to the 
 jacket " after an English model. Won't 
 you try it on ? " 
 
 Mrs. Dansken shook her head disparag- 
 ingly, but kept her eyes upon the jacket, 
 while she meditated whether, after all, it was 
 worth while buying an intermediate garment 
 so close upon winter. 
 
 The clerk, misunderstanding her hesita- 
 tion, opened the door of a back room, where 
 carpets were being made and sewing-ma- 
 chines were clashing through breadths of 
 coarse sheeting, scattering motes through the 
 long beams of light that slanted from the 
 high, uncurtained windows. 
 
 " Miss Robinson," he called, " will you 
 step this way a moment ? " 
 
50 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 " Don't give yourself any more trouble," 
 said Mrs. Dansken; "I shall not take the 
 jacket." But she felt compelled to wait until 
 Miss Robinson made her appearance, brush- 
 ing threads from the front of her shabby 
 black jersey. 
 
 The clerk held out the jacket; the girl 
 slipped her arms into the sleeves without a 
 word, and stood beside the absurd dummy, 
 filling out with a faultless form, the nicely- 
 adjusted curves of the jacket. 
 
 " You see, it is perfect," said the clerk, as 
 Miss Robinson slowly rotated on the heels of 
 her boots. 
 
 " I see that the young lady's figure is per- 
 fect," said Mrs. Dansken. The eyes of the 
 two women coldly met. 
 
 " Not more so than yours, I am sure," said 
 the clerk, with a glance at Miss Robinson. 
 
 Mrs. Dansken was aware that she herself 
 was responsible for this affability. It was 
 one of the days when she found life intensely 
 objectionable in all its features; and now 
 she included the girl and the jacket and the 
 man who was trying to sell it. 
 
 " It would not suit me at all. Thank 
 you," she added, with a curt little bow to 
 
THE SITUATION. 51 
 
 Miss Robinson. The clerk smiled patiently 
 as he refolded the jacket. He amused him- 
 self for some time afterwards, standing in the 
 door of the workroom, staring at Miss Rob- 
 inson, who was rushing a long seam through 
 the jaws of her machine. He made a num- 
 ber of little jokes, at which the other girls 
 looked up and laughed, but the handsome 
 one kept her head down, and blushed with 
 anger. 
 
 Mrs. Dansken had put an advertisement 
 in the paper, carefully worded not to attract 
 the wrong class of applicants. Two or three 
 showy young women called, chiefly out of 
 curiosity, it would seem. She was becoming 
 discouraged when, on the afternoon of the 
 fourth day, she was surprised by a visit, evi- 
 dently in good faith, from Miss Robinson. 
 The girl looked very nice in her close, plain 
 turban and black clothes. Mrs. Dansken 
 noticed there was a poor suggestion of mourn- 
 ing in her dress. The short afternoon was 
 falling dark, and she had walked fast, as her 
 pure, deep color showed. She glanced about 
 her, rather wistfully, at the pretty parlor 
 in the firelight : Mrs. Dansken liked her the 
 better for seeming not so much at her ease 
 
52 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 as she had with the English-modeled jacket 
 on. 
 
 But the girl was tremendously handsome. 
 Mrs. Dansken told her frankly she should 
 expect her to give some account of herself, 
 since, as she said, she had never lived out 
 before, and could give no references. This 
 Miss Robinson seemed to have expected. 
 The two women had a long talk together in 
 Mrs. Dansken's bedroom, where as the din- 
 ner hour approached they took refuge to 
 escape interruption. 
 
 During dinner the mistress was preoccu- 
 pied with the question, Will she do ? It was 
 her way to make the most of small domestic 
 incidents for the amusement of the family. 
 Everything was grist that came to her mill. 
 It would not have occurred to her to have 
 disposed of Miss Robinson, even had her 
 case been less interesting, without first tak- 
 ing lively counsel upon it in the fireside con- 
 clave. She informed her household that she 
 had found the " somebody young," and ex- 
 plained, upon being congratulated, that it 
 must depend upon them whether she should 
 venture upon her. 
 
 " She is n't a servant ; she is just one of 
 
THE SITUATION. 63 
 
 the chances of the place ; and she is the 
 prettiest girl I ever laid my eyes on, I 
 think." 
 
 " Oh, think again, Mrs. Dansken," she 
 was advised. 
 
 " You have no idea how pretty she is, un- 
 less you have seen her. Have you seen 
 her ? " There were conscious faces in the 
 group. 
 
 Mrs. Dans-ken reddened. " Well, if you 
 know my young lady, you must know better 
 than I can if she is possible." 
 
 " But who is the young lady, Mrs. Dan- 
 sken?" 
 
 " Don't be evasive." 
 
 " Is she the girl with copper-colored hair 
 who runs the machine at Daniel & Fisher's ? " 
 Hugh Williams asked, composedly. 
 
 " Why, yes, I suppose so," said Mrs. 
 Dansken, vaguely relieved by his manner. 
 "Her hair is rather of the metallic order. 
 What do you know about her ? " 
 
 " She made me some sample-bags once. 
 She sewed 'em up good and strong, and I 
 was pleased with the way she snubbed a 
 young man who was giving her a good deal 
 of his advice." 
 
54 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 " A talent for snubbing will not improve 
 her for iny use," said Mrs. Dansken. She 
 perceived from words that followed that 
 there had been some harmless joking about 
 the girl at Williams's expense ; the others 
 had perhaps coveted a share in it. She was 
 " out of it " herself, and it did not please 
 her to be " out " of anything that interested 
 her crowd. " It is really very funny that I 
 should set up to introduce you -to my discov- 
 ery. It seems she is your discovery." 
 
 " Not one of them ever spoke a word to 
 her, Mrs. Dansken," said Blashfield, in his 
 good-natured, literal way, " except Williams 
 about the bags. She is a very nice young 
 lady. I know she will never look at a fel- 
 low on the street." 
 
 There was a laugh at Blashfield's modest 
 confession. 
 
 " Oh, this will never do," said Mrs. Dan- 
 sken. "She is n't a young lady. You 
 don't expect to treat her like one, do you, 
 when she comes here to wait upon Ann? 
 How will you treat her, I should like to 
 know?" 
 
 " Any way you like," said Williams, who 
 was always obliging. 
 
THE SITUATION. 55 
 
 " No, it 's no use. You Ve begun joking 
 about her " 
 
 " We can leave off, I suppose." 
 
 " It y s too bad and I want her so much ! 
 I can see by the creatures that came before 
 her what my chances are if I don't take this 
 one." 
 
 " Why don't you take her ? I can't see 
 for my life what the matter is." 
 
 "The matter is, excess of participation. 
 You are on the qui vive, every one of you." 
 
 " Because you won't tell us anything 
 about her. You excite our curiosity and 
 leave us a prey to it. Has n't she a story ? " 
 
 " Yes, she has a story quite a pathetic 
 one. I don't care for their stories as a gen- 
 eral thing " 
 
 " Whose stories, Mrs. Dansken ? " Frank 
 interrupted, rather impertinently, Mrs. Dan- 
 sken thought. She answered with asperity : 
 
 " Their stories." 
 
 " I thought she was n't one of ' them/" 
 
 " She will have to be if she comes here. 
 She does n't come as a protegee of mine, or 
 a young lady in distressed circumstances." 
 
 " But what is she now ? What is her 
 present status, besides running a machine at 
 Daniel & Fisher's ? " 
 
56 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 " If you '11 listen you will find out 
 that is, if her story is true. Her name, to 
 begin with, is Milly Robinson. She is a 
 Canadian English, not French. That ac- 
 counts for her complexion, I suppose, and 
 that indestructible look she has. She had 
 a brother out here mining. He wrote to her 
 that he was doing well and sent her money 
 to come on with. She arrived last April, 
 with about five dollars in her pocket, and 
 those red cheeks, which she could n't put in 
 her pocket. She seems to have expected her 
 brother would be the first person to meet 
 her as she stepped out of the stage, and that 
 his mine would be across the street. The 
 mine turned out to be a prospect-hole, fifty 
 miles away, and nobody knew anything 
 about the brother. She was completely up- 
 set by this turn of affairs, after her journey 
 and all. She was sick nearly a month at 
 the Sisters' Hospital (I wonder if she is a 
 Catholic). The Sisters were very good to 
 her. I believe they took her to their house, 
 and they wrote to the brother's address. 
 His partner answered, after a while. The 
 brother was dead, and the partner seems to 
 have got all the money. His story was that 
 
THE SITUATION. 57 
 
 the brother sold out his share and 4 blew it 
 all in ' in about a week down at the Basin, 
 and then started for the Gunnison early in 
 the spring while the snows were deep. He 
 started in a condition to miss almost any 
 thing he aimed for, and so he missed the 
 trail, and dropped off, and his horse fell on 
 him " 
 
 " Lively narrative style, Mrs. Dansken 
 has," Hugh Williams observed. 
 
 Mrs. Dansken made a little face at him 
 and continued : " After she left the Sisters 
 she went to Daniel & Fisher's ; but she says 
 she cannot stand the machine work. I told 
 her if she was out of health this would not 
 be the place for her, but she said housework 
 was just the change she needed, which is 
 very true ; but I doubt if she is leaving the 
 store on account of her health. She seems 
 to have a certain amount of sense. She is 
 quite willing to take the place on my terms, 
 hard work and good pay, and no question 
 of what she has been used to. I told her 
 she 'd have to sleep with Ann and take her 
 meals in the kitchen. She will be just like 
 the little Irish girl in a cap and apron, who 
 sweeps down your mother's stairs. What I 
 
58 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 want to know is, can you treat her the same ? 
 Are you going to make a heroine of her ? " 
 
 " We will if you insist upon it." 
 
 " I 'm perfectly serious. It 's a situation, 
 I can tell you ! " 
 
 " A very good one, I hope, for Miss Bob- 
 inson." 
 
 " You may laugh, but it 's not so simple." 
 
 " I should think it might be as simple for 
 us as for her. Do you really want the girl, 
 Mrs. Dansken?" 
 
 " I really do, Mr. Williams ; or rather, to 
 be honest, I don't want her, but I need her." 
 
 "You wish to engage the services of a 
 young person and leave the young person 
 out of the transaction ? " 
 
 " Precisely. It does n't sound very amia- 
 ble, does it?" 
 
 "It sounds a little difficult; but if she 
 agrees, and if it is on her own account " 
 
 " Oh, it is n't. It 's on my account and 
 on yours." 
 
 " What is the matter with us ? " 
 
 " Don't you see ? I am letting the wolf 
 into the fold. Here is a girl, beautiful, un- 
 protected, as they always are, going about 
 the house as if she were struck dumb ; no- 
 
THE SITUATION. 59 
 
 body knows what she is, or what she is think- 
 ing about. She is a mystery, while you are 
 all in evidence. She serves and you accept 
 her services. Don't you see what a situa- 
 tion it is ? Pretty girl-help in a land where 
 there are no girls." 
 
 " Mrs. Dansken, you are a woman of im- 
 agination." 
 
 " Not at all. However, I believe I have 
 impressed myself, if I have n't you. I shall 
 not dare to have her ! " 
 
 " Oh, you must ! For the sake of the sit- 
 uation." 
 
 " Never ! Unless you will agree to take a 
 solemn oath one that will hold water a 
 regular iron-clad " 
 
 " Let us have it. We will take it as one 
 man." 
 
 " I shall not give it to you that way. You 
 are expected to take it solely and separately, 
 on your individual and sacred honors. I 
 have my conditions all ready for you. I in- 
 tend to be explicit. First, you are not to 
 call Milly ' Miss Robinson.' You are not 
 to bandy her name about with all manner 
 of jokes and teasing of one another about 
 her. You are not to talk to her except in 
 
60 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 the way of her work ; not to be trying to 
 spare her, or furtively doing her work for 
 her, or wondering if she is happy, or how 
 she stands it, or concerning yourselves about 
 her in any way, shape, or manner. Is that 
 enough ? " laughed Mrs. Dansken. 
 
 " It is enough to make me feel that I shall 
 probably elope with Miss Eobinson I 
 mean Milly before she has been in the 
 house a week," said Hugh Williams. 
 
 Lightness of touch was not one of Mrs. 
 Dansken's social qualities. When she was 
 gay she was aggressively gay, and when she 
 was morbid she called the household to wit- 
 ness. But even in the enthusiasm of her 
 bargain she had a pathetic faith in bar- 
 gains she perceived that something had 
 gone wrong. 
 
 Hugh Williams was fond of this little 
 business woman, and thought it a pity for 
 her, still more for her boys, that she should 
 have given such a blow to her influence in 
 the house. He tried to open for her a way 
 of retreat while yet the lapse of taste might 
 pass for a joke. But Mrs. Dansken re- 
 fused his assistance. She had meant to be 
 unselfish towards her household, and per- 
 
THE S1TUA 
 
 haps she was, so far as her thought went ; 
 she felt that injustice had been done both to 
 her judgment and to her motives, and she 
 permitted herself to sulk a little over her 
 mistake. She insisted that she was perfectly 
 serious about the promise she intended to 
 exact from each one of the young men be- 
 fore the anomalous Milly should come into 
 the house. The pledge was giddily and de- 
 risively taken by all except Williams, who 
 said it meant something or nothing, and he 
 would have nothing to do with it either way. 
 When he parted with Mrs. Dansken for the 
 night, having outsat the others an hour or 
 more by the fire, he was impelled to venture 
 upon these words : 
 
 " My dear Mrs. Dansken, the charm of this 
 house has been that we are all solid. There 
 has n't been a leak in our mutual confidence. 
 We are solid for you, solid for one another, 
 solid for old Ann. Do you suppose one of 
 us would give the old girl away, her cook- 
 ing, supposing it was n't perfect, as it always 
 is, or permit an outsider to intimate that 
 she had n't the temper of an angel ? " 
 
 Mrs. Dansken laughed nervously. " And 
 now you want to know if the future Milly 
 
62 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 is going to be included in the general 
 solidity?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "That depends. She may be solid al- 
 ready, in some other direction." 
 
 " Her story does n't sound like it." 
 
 " Well, don't you think we have had 
 enough of Milly Robinson for one evening ? " 
 
 " I think we have had more than was nec- 
 essary. I am sorry you are going to have 
 her." 
 
 " I must have her. It 's impossible to 
 keep on in this way, and there 's no genuine 
 help in the camp thanks to your anti- 
 Chinese patriots." 
 
 " Can't you import somebody who would n't 
 be so conspicuous ? " 
 
 " She will not be conspicuous, if none of 
 you make her so." 
 
 " But you have already made her so." 
 
 " I had my reasons. She is my girl, Mr. 
 Williams. If you will mind your promises 
 and let her alone, I can manage her." 
 
 " Will she be your girl ? Are you going 
 to make her so, and keep her so, as you do 
 Ann? You know these boys they are 
 bound to see fair play," 
 
. THE SITUATION. 63 
 
 " What in the world do you mean ? Do 
 you think I 'm going to trample on the girl ? 
 I intend to treat her as other people treat 
 their girls." 
 
 " How do people treat their girls in a place 
 like this, where, as you say yourself, there 
 are no girls ? We both see the situation, but 
 you see it only as it affects us. Consider one 
 moment : would n't it be safer for us if 
 you should look at it from the point of view 
 of the young woman ? " 
 
 " What do you wish me to do have her 
 in the parlor evenings to entertain the com- 
 pany ? I think you are insane on the subject 
 of Milly Robinson. However, it 's not for 
 you that I concern myself." 
 
 v. 
 
 THE first evening of Milly Robinson's or- 
 deal, when she appeared, blushing high above 
 the soup-tureen, Mrs. Dansken thought the 
 unconsciousness of her boarders somewhat 
 overdone. It was not likely, however, that 
 the girl would perceive it. Her excessive 
 color was the only sign of embarrassment 
 
64 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 she showed. She had a very good manner. 
 Her long, silent step and precision of move- 
 ment were restful, and showed that she was 
 not going to be overcome by her new position. 
 After all, was she so alarmingly pretty? 
 Crimson cheeks and copper-colored hair, 
 even with streaks of gold in it, did not go 
 particularly well together. Large hands im- 
 plied large feet. On the whole, Mrs. Dan- 
 sken was rather ashamed of her oaths and 
 conjurations. She had had no reason, how- 
 ever, to suppose that the young men were 
 taking their vows much to heart. They were 
 strolling about the parlor after dinner, light- 
 ing their cigars, as they were- privileged to 
 do ; Embury was stooping to poke the fire, 
 laughing, with his face to the room, when 
 Mrs. Dansken saw his expression change. 
 
 Milly had put aside the portiere, and 
 stood, with the coffee-tray on her hand, look- 
 ing about her for a table. There was some- 
 thing admirable in her controlled hesitation, 
 in the presence of a roomful of strangers who 
 had all turned to look at her, unprepared for 
 her appearance in place of the familiar figure 
 of old Ann. Her eyes sought those of her mis- 
 tress, who silently directed her towards a low 
 
THE SITUATION. 65 
 
 table, where she placed the tray. She then 
 retreated, getting herself very nicely out of 
 the room with one more look at her mistress, 
 as if to ask if all were right. 
 
 The parlor lamps had not been lighted. 
 The fire-light reddened her figure as she 
 stood a moment, facing the room, in her 
 black dress and wide, white apron, against 
 the dull blues and greens and orange of the 
 curtain. Amber lights floated in her full 
 eyes under the soft shadow arched above 
 them ; all the color in the room, revealed in 
 the dusky fire-glow, seemed to focus in her 
 hair. 
 
 The latest arrival among Mrs. Dansken's 
 guests was a young man, unaccounted for ex- 
 cept by the name of Strode. Williams had 
 not been thinking of Mr. Strode when he de- 
 scribed the house as solid. Strode was tacitly 
 held as an outsider, partly because he be- 
 longed distinctly to one of the crowds in the 
 camp with which Mrs. Dansken's crowd had 
 no affiliation. 
 
 As the curtain fell behind Milly this young 
 man showed his teeth in a smile of appreci- 
 ation, and noiselessly clapped his applause. 
 Not another smile was to be seen in the 
 
66 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 room. Mrs. Dansken preceived this as she 
 did many things, sometimes when it was too 
 late. 
 
 " They are solid for Milly," she reflected, 
 and she resented this championship of a 
 stranger, on the part of her crowd, before 
 the crowd's mistress had signified her con- 
 sent. 
 
 "Did you ever see anything more per- 
 fect?" she exclaimed. "The room was all 
 cluttered up with you, every one of you star- 
 ing at her, and she did n't see a single soul. 
 And did you see her look at me ? " She ex- 
 patiated upon the girl's manner, which she 
 explained was that of a perfect servant, 
 provoking an argument as to whether the 
 qualities which go to make this vaunted 
 manner in the servant are not much the same 
 as those which distinguish the perfect mis- 
 tress, since to each belong self-control, tact, 
 and carefulness for the wants of others, com- 
 bined with an absence of fussiness. Mrs. 
 Dansken was quite sure this was a subject 
 heretofore of little interest to her young 
 men ; and the side she took in the discussion 
 did not gain in popularity by the fact that 
 Strode was her only ally. 
 
THE SITUATION. 67 
 
 Embury was at the piano, trying the 
 accompaniment to a tune he was whistling, 
 when Milly came back for the coffee-tray. 
 " Go on ! " Mrs. Dansken was obliged to 
 whisper. The young man did not look par- 
 ticularly grateful for the hint. 
 
 " These are the preliminaries ; we shall 
 get used to our minion after a while," she 
 said, as Milly left the room. 
 
 " How easily ladies call names ! " Embury 
 murmured, smiling. 
 
 " I suppose because when we were little 
 girls we did n't get kicked for it, as little 
 boys do," said Mrs. Dansken, with her usual 
 frankness. 
 
 When the young men went to their rooms 
 that night, each found his candle lighted, the 
 fire intelligently laid, window-shades drawn 
 down, pillow-shams one of the hostess's 
 troublesome little household fopperies 
 neatly folded out of the way. Each occu- 
 pant surveyed his arrangements with com- 
 placency, if with some amusement, at this 
 latest step in the direction of their landlady's 
 ideal for which the new maid must be re- 
 sponsible. Each man emptied his precious 
 water-jug and set it outside of his door. 
 
68 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 Smiles were exchanged across the passage. 
 
 " I shall leave my slippers in the wood- 
 box to-morrow morning, just to see what be- 
 comes of 'em," said Blashfield to his next- 
 door neighbor. 
 
 " Old Ann would heave 'em on the dust- 
 heap." 
 
 " But Milly won't, you bet ! " 
 
 " Blasshy, we '11 report you," said another 
 voice. 
 
 "What for?" 
 
 " Taking the name of Milly in vain." 
 
 " Look here, boys ; I shall have to tie a 
 knot in my watch-chain if I 've got to re- 
 member to " 
 
 " ' I have struggled to forget,' " the voice 
 sang out, " 4 but the struggle was in vain ! ' ' 
 
 The young men came down to breakfast 
 next morning, each, with the exception of 
 Williams, wearing a bit of blue ribbon in 
 his button-hole. Somebody, it was evident 
 from the raveled edges, had sacrified a neck- 
 tie. Mrs. Dansken dared not ask the signi- 
 ficance of this decoration ; but when Milly 
 was gone it transpired that they were Mrs. 
 Dansken's good little boys, and had taken an 
 oath which the blue ribbon would doubtless 
 
THE SITUATION. 69 
 
 help to remind them of, since it was such a 
 very slippery oath Blashfield having al- 
 ready foresworn himself the very first night. 
 Mrs. Dansken confiscated the ribbons be- 
 fore the young men left the house, and made 
 them into a breast-knot which she wore in 
 her dress at dinner, to the intense delight of 
 the boys, who forgave her the oath for the 
 sake of the fun they intended to get out 
 of it. 
 
 Ann, as a matter of course, was bitterly 
 jealous ; the more so that she could find no 
 reasonable ground for objecting to the new 
 favorite. She called her "The Duchess," 
 and scouted the idea that she had never 
 lived out before. 
 
 " Look at her hands ! " said Ann. 
 
 " Well, look at mine ! Look at every- 
 body's hands in this place, with this water 
 and, suppose she has lived out, what dif- 
 ference does that make ? " 
 
 A very great difference it made to Ann, 
 whose experienced services were thrown 
 quite in the shade by those of the alleged 
 amateur. Her undisputed honors as cook 
 failed to console her for the suspicion that, 
 
70 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 as a waitress, she had not been considered a 
 success. 
 
 Mrs. Dansken was relieved to find that 
 Milly took little notice of Ann's hostility. 
 There was a cool self-sufficiency about the 
 girl, or an apathy, which gave her an atti- 
 tude of singular independence in the midst 
 of the life of the house, from which on all 
 sides she was excluded. Her fellow-servant 
 had not made common cause with her ; her 
 mistress, she had understood from the begin- 
 ning, was to be merely the other party to a 
 bargain, by which, as Hugh Williams had 
 put it, the services of a young woman were 
 to be secured and the young woman left out 
 of the question. Mrs. Dansken admired 
 Milly's philosophy. " I should behave just 
 so in her place," she assured herself ; but 
 she found herself thinking about the girl 
 much more than she had intended, more in- 
 deed than was restful. Practically Milly 
 had been left out, but she was there all the 
 same. Her mistress fancied there was some- 
 thing uncanny about the girl, some hint of 
 experience beyond her years, which sustained 
 her in the blank isolation of her life. For 
 she had no outside support ; her connection 
 
THE SITUATION. 71 
 
 with the camp had ceased, apparently, from 
 the day she became one of the family at No. 
 9. But then Mrs. Dansken bethought her- 
 self how easily an older woman can make 
 mistakes about a young girl ; how apt she is 
 to exaggerate meanings or the absence of 
 meanings, to think her stolid or secret when 
 she is merely shy. 
 
 Nothing, meanwhile, could have been less 
 sinister than the aspect of the household 
 sphinx. She bloomed like a winter sunrise. 
 The work which two women had found op- 
 pressive, divided among three went smoothly 
 on, and Milly's share seemed no more than 
 the exercise her vigorous youth required. 
 She went about the house, with her look of 
 intense life, seen of all but looking at no one, 
 hearing all the household talk but never 
 speaking, ministering to comforts in which 
 she had no share. It is appalling to think 
 how starved her importunate young egoism 
 must have been ; how few words were said to 
 this young girl, during her first months of 
 service, which had any personal value or 
 reference to herself ; how many were lightly 
 tossed over her head, between the gay, privi- 
 leged young men and the mistress, who was 
 the providence of the house. 
 
72 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL, 
 
 Did all this difference lie in the fact that 
 one was employed and the others were em- 
 ployers ? 
 
 The oath was kept with ironical ostenta- 
 tion. It was Mrs. Dansken who could never 
 let the name of Milly rest. She eulogized 
 the girl continually, but always in her menial 
 capacity. Perhaps she insisted too much, 
 for one evening when Milly's name was in- 
 troduced, as usual in connection with her ex- 
 quisite usefulness, Williams said in his 
 moderate way that one might suppose, from 
 the remarks that were made about her, that 
 Milly Robinson had come into the world 
 labeled " Mrs. Dansken's Second Girl." 
 
 " Now when Frank and I were baching 
 it," he continued, " I used to cook the grub, 
 but I did n't give myself out as a cook not 
 generally. I continued to retain a small 
 portion of my individuality ; enough to keep 
 Frank up to his work, which was the dish- 
 washing, you know." 
 
 " That is a perfectly childish argument. 
 If you had come here and cooked my food, I 
 should have given you out as my cook, and 
 treated you accordingly, and not very bad 
 treatment either : ask Ann." 
 
THE SITUATION. 73 
 
 " Illustration is n't argument, of course : I 
 only wished to ask you if you think we are 
 to be classed strictly according to our occu- 
 pations," said Williams. 
 
 "It depends upon the occupation. The 
 occupation of a servant makes a servant, for 
 the time being, unless the occupation is 
 neglected ; in that case the servant is a bad 
 servant, and had better try some other occu- 
 pation." 
 
 " Then if I should elope with Milly, as 
 I 've been thinking of doing, you know, just 
 as soon as you can find another girl, and 
 we should come back after a while, and ask 
 you to make room for Mrs. Williams at the 
 table, then the other girl would be the ser- 
 vant, and Mrs. Williams " 
 
 " ' Illustration is not argument,' Mr. Wil- 
 liams, and there is n't going to be any argu- 
 ment or any illustration, I hope. I captured 
 the position to begin with because I knew 
 just how it would be with you theorists. 
 Wait till you get servants of your own and 
 wives of your own to manage them. I think 
 the wives will agree with me." 
 
 " Well, we have n't got to the wives yet. 
 It 's an abstract question with us so far." 
 
74 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 " It 's never an abstract question. It 's 
 always a question of a particular person 
 when you come to live in the same house 
 with them. In this case it 's a question of 
 a very pretty girl." 
 
 " It is just possible that even a pretty girl 
 may be human," said Frank Embury. 
 
 " We 're sure to hear from Frank when 
 the pretty girl needs a champion," said Mrs. 
 Dansken. " And what is there about Milly's 
 position here which is altogether volun- 
 tary, remember that strikes you as in- 
 human?" 
 
 " I think I know one or two pretty girls 
 who would n't care to change places with 
 her." 
 
 " We cannot change places in this world, 
 my dear boy. We have our little fitnesses 
 and unfitnesses, and we '11 find ourselves in 
 the long run pretty much where we belong." 
 
 " I should hardly say it had come to the 
 long run yet with Milly Kobinson. How 
 long is it since her fitness for this place was 
 discovered ; and what was the place she fitted 
 before she came here ? " 
 
 " Well, when I saw her first," laughed 
 Mrs. Dansken, " she fitted a very nicely 
 
THE SITUATION. 75 
 
 made walking-jacket they were trying to sell 
 me* at Daniel & Fisher's." 
 
 "What, Mrs. Dansken?" 
 
 " She was trying on jackets for customers 
 at Daniel & Fisher's," said Mrs. Dansken, 
 explicitly. " How would your pretty girl like 
 that?" No one answered; and Mrs. Dan- 
 sken, in a very good humor, asked them then 
 if they had ever heard the story of the prin- 
 cess and the wishing-chair. " Ann used to 
 tell it when I was a little girl. Could you 
 listen to a story, supposing I can remember 
 half of it, and make up the other half ? 
 
 " Well, once there was a king who had six 
 beautiful daughters ; and in one room of the 
 palace stood the wishing-chair on a dais, with 
 a curtain before it, and on her sixteenth 
 birthday each of the princesses in turn was 
 allowed to sit in the wishing-chair and wish 
 the wish of a lifetime. The youngest prin- 
 cess was a madcap. She made fun of the 
 stupid old chair and of her sisters' wishes for 
 jewels and castles and handsome young hus- 
 bands, that would have come of themselves 
 in due time. She said when her turn came 
 she would wish a wish that would show what 
 the old chair could do. 
 
76 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL, 
 
 "There was a prince in that county of 
 Ireland very wealthy and powerful, and he 
 was bewitched, so that he was obliged to spend 
 half of his time roaming the country in the 
 shape of a terrible wild roan bull, and he was 
 called the Roan Bull of Orange. Now the 
 youngest princess, when she got into the chair 
 at last, turned rather pale, and she wished, 
 while her father and mother and all the 
 happy sisters wept and pleaded, that she 
 might be the bride of the Roan Bull of 
 Orange. And then she flew out of the chair 
 and hugged them all round, and said that it 
 was all nonsense the chair was as deaf as 
 a post, and the Roan Bull would never hear 
 of her wish. 
 
 " However, he came that night, trampling 
 and bellowing about the house, and demanded 
 the princess. And the princess went and 
 hid behind her mother's bed. They took the 
 daughter of the hen-wife instead, and dressed 
 her up in the princess's clothes and packed 
 her off ; and when the Bull had carried her 
 on his back across the hills and the valleys to 
 his castle, he gave her an ivory wand and 
 charged her, on her life, to tell him what she 
 would do with it ; and she sobbed out she 
 
THE SITUATION. 77 
 
 would shoo her mother's hens to roost with it. 
 So the Roan Bull took her on his back again, 
 and over the mountains with her, and 
 slammed her down at the door of the king's 
 palace, ' fit to break every bone in her body,' 
 and demanded his princess. After they had 
 heard the hen-wife's daughter's story they 
 took the daughter of the swineherd, and 
 charged her, if the Roan Bull gave her an 
 ivory wand, she was to say she would guide 
 her milk-white steeds with it ; and so should 
 she save the life of her dear little princess. 
 But she thought as much of her own life, it 
 seems, as she did of the princess's, or perhaps 
 she was so frightened she could n't speak 
 anything but the truth ; for when the Roan 
 Bull gave her the wand and glared at her 
 with his awful eyes, she said nothing at all 
 about milk-white steeds, but whispered she 
 would drive her father's pigs with it. So 
 back she went like the first one, and was 
 slammed down at the door, and this time the 
 Bull fairly raved for his princess. They had 
 an awful night of it in the palace, for the 
 princess had ' got her mad up,' and said she 
 would have no more of these silly substitutes. 
 She took the Bull by the horns, as it were, 
 
78 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 and off she went, in the clothes she had on ; 
 and when the wand was given to her she said 
 without the least hesitation that it would be 
 very convenient to beat the maid with who 
 did her hair, when she pulled the tangles in 
 it. So the Roan Bull knew he had got the 
 right one at last ; and if you don't see the 
 application " 
 
 44 But what became of the naughty little 
 princess?" 
 
 " Oh, miracles were performed to save her 
 from getting what she deserved I don't 
 remember that part ; it never seemed real to 
 me, like the other. What I wish you to ob- 
 serve, is the Roan Bull's ingenious way of 
 testing for metals. And there my illustra- 
 tion comes in, don't you see ; for when dire 
 necessity gets us in a tight place, and puts 
 the wand of opportunity into our hands, we 
 discover pretty suddenly that we are what 
 we are, neither more nor less, and some of 
 us turn out to be keepers of highly select 
 boarding-houses, and some of us wait on the 
 boarding-house table, and we do it much bet- 
 ter than if we had been born princesses." 
 
 "And I hope you respect yourselves more 
 than if you had gone and hid behind the bed, 
 
THE SITUATION. 79 
 
 and let some one else face dire necessity in 
 your place." 
 
 " Of course we do. I don't say we are not 
 much better than princesses, only we are dif- 
 ferent. We could n't change places without 
 being found out. Now I insist that Milly 
 Robinson, who seems to be the text of all our 
 sermons lately, has somehow got the sort of 
 discipline that makes it possible for her to live 
 in this house in the way you see. It 's very 
 strong, if you like, and very admirable, but I 
 don't feel called upon to be a bit more sorry 
 for her than I am for myself." 
 
 " I don't see why you should n't be sorry 
 for yourself, if you want to. You were not 
 born a Leadville landlady, were you, Mrs. 
 Dansken ? " 
 
 Mrs. Dansken blushed. "I don't know 
 what I was born. I know that I am one 
 pro tern., and not so very tern, either. As 
 you say, it 's better than hiding behind the 
 mother's bed, but I really do not feel there 
 is any great virtue in it, so long as there is 
 no mothers bed to hide behind. My point 
 is simply this : your mothers could not be 
 successful where I have been successful, 
 thanks to you, my dear boys, and yet not all 
 
 Of '*' 
 
 XJ^IVE 
 
80 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 thanks to you. Your sisters, probably, 
 would not suit me as well as Milly does, in 
 Milly's place. But I hope you don't think 
 it 's anything against them. I don't ; I 
 could n't imagine one of your sisters trying 
 on jackets at Daniel & Fisher's." 
 
 The young men considered this second ref- 
 erence to the jacket unfair ; Mrs. Dansken 
 herself knew that it was, since exhibiting 
 jackets on her person had not been Milly's 
 occupation. She forgave them, therefore, 
 the heat of their reply. But the retorts on 
 both sides were now too hotly engaged for 
 mutual consideration, much less strict justice 
 to the cause of the fray. 
 
 " How do I know what she was, or is, for 
 that matter? I have only her word for it. 
 They make a great point of never having 
 lived out, when the most of them have never 
 been so comfortable, nor so cared for, in their 
 lives before." 
 
 "'Them' 'they I' Who are 'they,' 
 Mrs. Dansken ? " 
 
 " Anybody who is n't us," said Mrs. Dan- 
 sken. 
 
 A silence fell upon the room as the shut- 
 ting of a drawer was heard, and the door 
 
THE SITUATION. 81 
 
 leading from the dining-room into the kitchen 
 closed quietly. 
 
 The combatants looked at each other rather 
 sheepishly. 
 
 " You are safe, my dear boys. She could 
 only have heard the voice of her natural 
 enemy." 
 
 The voice of the " enemy " had the quality 
 which carries. 
 
PAET II. 
 
 THE SITUATION DEVELOPED. 
 I. 
 
 IT was two months or more after Milly 
 came that Mrs. Dansken began to fancy 
 the situation was becoming strained. The 
 weather was now extremely cold ; the ice on 
 the water-cask of a morning was so thick 
 that it was necessary to cut it with a hatchet. 
 In doing this Milly had cut her hand, and 
 again there was an uprising on the subject 
 of the water-pitchers. Mrs. Dansken was 
 immovable and logical, as usual. 
 
 Had it ever occurred to the young men to 
 inquire how the little woman who did their 
 washing managed to get her tubs filled, this 
 winter weather, with the " ditch " half a 
 mile from her cabin ? It had not occurred 
 to Mrs. Dansken to make active inquiries 
 on this subject herself. She considered it 
 was none of her business ; nor was it the 
 
THE SITUATION DEVELOPED. 83 
 
 business of her young men to concern them- 
 selves how their water-pitchers were filled. 
 Both were paying to have these things done 
 without inquiries. But for the sake of con- 
 sistency, would they tell her how they could 
 put on a clean shirt without thinking of the 
 woman who washed it a little woman, not 
 half so big as Milly, and an old woman at 
 that ? " As for the little scratch Milly has 
 given herself well, it is n't the fashion to 
 speak of such things, but you should see 
 Mrs. Murphy's wrists ! If you can only 
 accept service that costs nothing, you '11 cer- 
 tainly have to wash your own shirts." 
 
 After breakfast Strode handed to Mrs. 
 Dansken an unopened pot of vaseline. 
 
 " What 's this for ? " she asked. 
 
 " For the wrists it is not the fashion to 
 mention." 
 
 "Oh, I gave her some myself. Even a 
 hard-hearted person like me can spare a lit- 
 tle vaseline. Pray keep it, or give it to 
 Milly. If we should take up a contribution 
 for her wounds, she might anoint herself 
 from head to foot, like a Fijian bride." 
 
 This time, decidedly, there was temper 
 shown on both sides. But the little washer- 
 
84 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 woman told Mrs. Dansken, with tears of 
 gratitude, when she came with her weekly 
 basket, how kind the young men had been 
 how they had sent a man to dig a little 
 channel from the main hydraulic mining 
 ditch to her cabin, so that now she had the 
 water at her door. 
 
 Mrs. Dansken knew that this tapping of 
 a main ditch meant considerable trouble as 
 well as money, but she did not attempt to 
 sully the widow's gratitude by casting doubts 
 upon the motives of her benefactors. It 
 was Mrs. Dansken's opinion that one motive 
 was as good as another, so long as the result 
 was the same. 
 
 As Christmas drew near, the subject of 
 gifts was mooted. The young men made 
 sarcastic allusions to the rules of the house, 
 and asked if their oath permitted them 
 to remember the waitress, as well as the 
 cook. " As a waitress, certainly," they were 
 informed. And how were they to make it 
 sufficiently understood that the remembrance 
 applied to the waitress to the exclusion of 
 the girl? 
 
 " Easily enough," Mrs. Dansken explained, 
 with gravity equal to their own. Let the re- 
 
THE SITUATION DEVELOPED. 85 
 
 memb ranee take the form of a general gift 
 from them all to Milly, not from each one 
 of them to Miss Robinson. 
 
 It might be difficult, the young men ob- 
 jected, to unite on a single gift that should 
 represent them all. 
 
 Would they find it difficult to unite on a 
 gift for Ann? 
 
 The session broke up with something of 
 the old hilarity ; only Mrs. Dansken insisted 
 that the gift should be appropriate. The 
 term was allowed, without discussion of its 
 application to a gift for Milly. But an op- 
 portunity was not long delayed for further 
 elucidation of Mrs. Dansken's views on this 
 subject. 
 
 A few of her guests, among them Frank 
 Embury, were in the habit of knocking occa- 
 sionally at the door of the sitting-room where 
 she betook herself to wrestle with her ac- 
 counts, or make over her dresses, or hold 
 consultations with Ann. She had drawn 
 closer in these days to the older woman, and 
 liked a quiet talk with her on matters which 
 had been their own before the stranger had 
 come into the house. 
 
 Frank knocked and entered with a pile of 
 
86 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 books under his arm ; they slid to the floor 
 as he took a seat. Mrs. Dansken was care- 
 ful not to look at them too closely, thinking 
 they were for herself. Frank saw that she 
 thought so, and this made it more difficult 
 for him to say that they were for Milly. 
 
 Mrs. Dansken recovered herself, and 
 looked at the books with the most amiable 
 interest. " Is this the general gift ? " she 
 asked, wondering not a little at the choice 
 of a modern edition of Miss Austen's novels. 
 
 "No," said Frank. "It is something I 
 thought of doing on my own account; or, 
 rather, of getting you to help me to do." 
 
 " You wish me to help you give these 
 books to Milly Robinson ? " 
 
 " Yes that is, they are submitted first, 
 of course, to the public censor of gifts." 
 
 Mrs. Dansken did not like to be called 
 names, though she could sometimes give 
 them to others with great facility. 
 
 " Frank ! " she exclaimed, " really it 
 seems almost perverse of you to insist upon 
 this sort of thing! These are books you 
 could give your sister. Why do you wish 
 to give her books? " 
 
 " I don't wish to give her poor ones. 
 
THE SITUATION DEVELOPED. 87 
 
 That 's the kind she seems to be reading 
 now." 
 
 " Dear me ! How do you know what she 
 reads?" 
 
 " Oh, I happen to know," said Frank. 
 
 " But these are books entirely over the 
 head of a girl like Milly. Have you ever 
 read Miss Austen ? " 
 
 Frank owned that he had not. 
 
 " I have n't either, but I 've got an idea 
 she is a sort of fad nowadays, like old mini- 
 atures and paintings on velvet." 
 
 " Oh, I don't think she 's a fad. My sis- 
 ters were reading her in an old edition that 
 belonged to one of my aunts board covers 
 and paper labels and jolly rough edges." 
 
 " Well, your sisters may come naturally 
 by their Miss Austen in board covers. I 
 don't mean she would be a fad for every- 
 body. ' Pride and Prejudice ! ' ' Sense and 
 Sensibility ! ' Now, Frank, do you suppose 
 when Milly Robinson has got through one 
 of these books which I doubt if she ever 
 does she will have the faintest idea what 
 even the title means?" 
 
 " I don't know, I am sure," said Frank, 
 sulkily. He was not so confident himself 
 
88 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 about his choice, which was one reason for 
 indulging ill-humor now that it was being 
 criticised. 
 
 " Oh, well, give her the books if you want 
 to," said Mrs. Dansken, relenting in amuse- 
 ment at his disgust. " She will be the chief 
 sufferer." 
 
 " I wanted you to give them to her." 
 
 " Well, I shall not ! She 'd think I was 
 making fun of her." 
 
 " Then keep them, and read them your- 
 self," said Frank, maliciously. 
 
 " No, you must take this admirable female 
 back, and get something of Mrs. Whitney's 
 no, Mrs. Whitney writes about high-toned 
 servant girls. I 'm afraid she would be de- 
 moralizing. Are n't Grace Aguilar's books 
 read a good deal by young girls ? " 
 
 " By young servant girls, do you mean ? " 
 
 " I 'm afraid we would not make much of 
 a committee on books for girls, Frank," said 
 Mrs. Dansken, forgiving him entirely now 
 that she had made him lose his temper. 
 " Don't you know any books that are safe 
 and easy to understand ? " 
 
 " That is the kind I read," said Frank. 
 " I 'm afraid the 4 Weekly Light of Home ' 
 is n't very safe." 
 
THE SITUATION DEVELOPED. 89 
 
 "Is that what Milly reads ? " 
 
 " I think so, sometimes." 
 
 " Well, I must look after her reading, for 
 your sake. But I wish you would tell me 
 how you came to know so much more about 
 it than I do ? " 
 
 " It 's not much that I know. You could 
 easily get the inside track of me there." 
 
 Mrs. Dansken seemed struck by this ex- 
 pression. " The inside track ! Yes, of 
 course, there are two ways of getting there. 
 Don't you suppose I know that my way is 
 n't the true way ? Frank," she exclaimed in 
 a burst of harassed confidence, " if I could 
 only be fond of the girl, as I am of crabbed 
 old Ann if I could make her like me and 
 trust me, as Ann does ! Well, I should 
 know all about her then more than any 
 of you could know. But I cannot do it. 
 Good people, I think, have no likes or dis- 
 likes." ( Mrs. Dansken always spoke of 
 good people with toleration as a race by 
 themselves, alien in some sense to the rest 
 of humanity.) " I would like to make 
 Milly believe that I like her, but she has her 
 intuitions. I would get rid of her, if I could 
 possibly get on without her. I hate to ac- 
 
90 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 knowledge what a difference she has made 
 in the house. And yet, there are days 
 oh, well, this is all ' nerves,' don't you know ? 
 Did you ever find yourself nursing an an- 
 tagonism ? You have no idea how it occu- 
 pies the mind. It 's as exciting as the first 
 stages of a love affair." 
 
 "How queer women are about their busi- 
 ness relations," said Frank. " They are so 
 personal. Men never think whether they 
 like each other or not. They get on together 
 all the same." 
 
 " So do I get on. Don't I get on most 
 beautifully ? I 've never had a word with 
 Milly and yet there are mornings when I 
 wake up and think, I 've got to go down 
 stairs and say, ' Good-morning, Milly ! ' and 
 look at her without meeting her eyes. She 
 never looks at me ! Well, I wish I had 
 the house clear of her and the work just as 
 hard as it was before." 
 
 "Mrs. Dansken, you are certainly mor- 
 bid." 
 
 " I told you I was. I 've let myself go. 
 Do you see anything uncanny about her, 
 Frank ? Honestly, apart from all our bad- 
 gerings, does she seem to you a nice girl ? " 
 
THE SITUATION DEVELOPED. 91 
 
 " I don't know anything about her, Mrs. 
 Dansken, or about girls anyway. You know 
 they are all mysteries to us." 
 
 " 4 They,' 4 us ' ! " said Mrs. Dansken, in 
 great irritation. " I 'm not asking you about 
 Milly Robinson as a parti" 
 
 " Do you mean, do I think she would steal 
 the spoons ? " shouted Frank. 
 
 " There are things in this house besides 
 spoons that do not belong to a girl in Milly's 
 position." 
 
 " Good heavens, Mrs. Dansken ! Have we 
 any of us any position that we can hold all 
 alone ? Are we blocks of stone in a quarry, 
 set up alongside of one another ? " 
 
 " Frank, I wish you had a block of stone 
 in place of that soft heart of yours." 
 
 Frank blushed angrily. " Yes, when peo- 
 ple talk about other people's soft hearts, 
 they generally mean their soft heads." 
 
 Mrs. Dansken laughed outright at this; 
 and before Frank carried the estimable Miss 
 Austen away, the quarrel was made up. 
 
 " Superintend her education, if you want 
 to," were Mrs. Dansken's parting words. " I 
 shall not interfere. I won't have it on my 
 conscience that if I 'm not good myself I 
 keep others from being good." 
 
92 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 In spite of the little taunt, Frank under- 
 stood that Mrs. Dansken meant to trust him 
 in all that concerned Milly. He was too 
 young a philosophizer about women to be 
 able to conclude how much of her confession 
 was a true mental record and how much had 
 been evolved in the excitement of controversy 
 and self -revelation. His own simple judg- 
 ment in the matter was, that if she would 
 stop thinking that she felt thus and so about 
 Milly, she would cease to feel so. 
 
 For several days after Mrs. Dansken's talk 
 with Frank, in which she had let her aver- 
 sion see the light of day, she felt its hold re- 
 lax. She refrained from watchfulness ; she 
 did not refer to Milly as the Sphinx, or the 
 Phenomenon, or the Perfect Treasure : she 
 spoke of her by name, quite simply and 
 humanly, without any exhibitory adjectives. 
 She looked her antagonism in the face and 
 saw only a pretty girl in an attitude of set, 
 despondent passivity, and of continuous hard 
 work. She could not accuse herself of hav- 
 ing failed in her part of the agreement under 
 which Milly had been glad to come ; nor had 
 Milly, on her own part, ever complained or 
 protested. 
 
THE SITUATION DEVELOPED. 93 
 
 Why, then, should Mrs. Dansken have 
 dreaded to meet the girl on the stairs, or 
 alone in her bedroom, engaged in those in- 
 timate services we call menial, which are 
 assuredly as difficult to accept as to render 
 in a forced relation ? 
 
 II. 
 
 ON Christmas morning, after a late break- 
 fast, the tree was lighted in the darkened 
 parlor, and the family gathered around it. 
 Ann and Milly came in after the others had 
 assembled, and stood a little apart, but not 
 together. 
 
 Two of the young men gathered the fruits 
 of the tree and gave them into Mrs. Dan- 
 sken 's lap as she sat in the most prominent 
 place in the room and called the names at- 
 tached to the gifts. She had not meant to 
 watch the effect of the young men's "re- 
 membrance" upon Milly; but when the 
 cumbersome box was handed to her, contain- 
 ing a muff and cape of long dark fur, which 
 Mrs. Dansken had selected, thinking of the 
 color of Milly's hair, curiosity as to how the 
 
94 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 girl would demean herself overcame her. 
 The manner of accepting a gift is one of the 
 tests of breeding, even more than the manner 
 of giving, since the passive part is always 
 the hardest. 
 
 " From the young gentlemen, Milly," said 
 Mrs. Dansken. " Won't you open it ? " she 
 added, as the girl took the box and held it 
 awkwardly, looking discomposed rather than 
 happy. 
 
 Milly sat down there was no chair very 
 near and bungled with the string. One or 
 two of the young men looked at her, but most 
 of them found something to take their atten- 
 tion elsewhere. Ann regarded Milly's part 
 with toleration, holding her own present on 
 her arm a fur-lined mantle, of a quality of 
 silk superior to that of her mistress's, as the 
 latter had playfully remarked, adding that 
 she should have to borrow Ann's cloak when 
 she wished to be fine. 
 
 " Do cut this string, somebody," Mrs. 
 Dansken demanded on behalf of Milly. She 
 looked at Frank Embury, who immediately 
 looked away. The string was cut and the 
 cape unfolded from its paper wrappings. 
 
 "Now let us put it on you, Milly," she 
 
THE SITUATION DEVELOPED. 95 
 
 said. " We must show them how it becomes 
 you. I feel responsible, because I chose it." 
 She was helping Milly to disburden herself 
 of her gratitude, if it were that which op- 
 pressed her. More likely, in Mrs. Dansken's 
 opinion, the girl was sulking because she 
 had thought Ann's present handsomer than 
 her own. 
 
 Milly submitted to be dressed in her 
 costly gift before the eyes of the givers. 
 There had been nothing from Milly to the 
 young gentlemen. As a matter of course 
 the liberty to give belonged to them. Her 
 part was to accept and be thankful. She 
 stood up, looking embarrassed and sullen, 
 and said, without raising her eyes, that she 
 was very much obliged to the gentlemen. 
 And then suddenly she looked at Frank 
 Embury. His eyes met hers with an inex- 
 plicable expression of humility, of apology : 
 Milly may have understood what the look 
 meant. 
 
 Mrs. Dansken saw it, but in her mood of 
 forbearance she would not permit herself to 
 take alarm. 
 
 There was a dance that evening in the 
 parlor of No. 9. Ann, who had exhausted 
 
96 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 her energies on the Christmas dinner, had 
 been dismissed to bed. At ten o'clock a 
 waiter from the Clarendon knocked at the 
 kitchen door with a parcel of cakes and a 
 form of ices. The mistress, on the alert in 
 the midst of the lanciers, signaled to Em- 
 bury. 
 
 " Go and help Milly," she whispered. 
 " Show her how to dump the cream." 
 
 Frank took this command as a recognition 
 of the new compact between them, as well as 
 a concession to the spirit of the day. But he 
 gave her an arch look of inquiry, as if to ask, 
 " Do you really mean it ? " Appealing glances 
 from other partnerless youths, propping the 
 walls of Mrs. Dansken's parlor, signified their 
 desire to be of use, but were laughingly par- 
 ried. 
 
 As the dance went on, subdued sounds of 
 voices and steps and the quiet tinkle of silver 
 could be heard behind the dining-room cur- 
 tain. An occasional bumping of plates be- 
 trayed to the housekeeper's ear the unprac- 
 ticed masculine touch. Mrs. Dansken was 
 tired of her vigils. " What business is it of 
 mine?" she asked herself. "Let nature 
 have its way." But nature's ways are wild 
 
TflE SITUATION DEVELOPED. 97 
 
 ways, under conditions that are not legiti- 
 mate when the wives usurp the young 
 girls' places in the dance, and the young girl 
 of the house has no friends in it, and no par- 
 tisans, except the young men of the house. 
 Mrs. Dansken had created this situation, had 
 set it on wheels, confident that she could 
 steer it safely and make profit to herself out 
 of it. But the vigilance of suspicion is never 
 so sure or so untiring as the vigilance of 
 love. Mrs. Dansken's way was the way of 
 all expedients, by which we hope to avoid 
 the consequences of some fundamental ill- 
 adjustment in our plans. 
 
 At eleven o'clock, when the supper was 
 over, the mistress said : " You may go to bed 
 now, Milly ; I shall not call you till half -past 
 seven to-morrow." 
 
 No mistress, not the most forbearing, could 
 have liked to be smiled at in the way in 
 which Milly smiled whenever Mrs. Dansken 
 tried to be, as she called it, " nice " to the 
 girl. At such times Milly herself was not 
 nice, nor pleasant to look at, for all her 
 prettiness. The impression blotted all the 
 back pages of Mrs. Dansken's mental record 
 of the girl ; she seemed to have been always 
 
98 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL, 
 
 smiling in that unpleasant way, without rais- 
 ing her eyes. 
 
 Milly locked the silver-drawer, put the key 
 in its place, and returned to the kitchen. 
 Here she remembered that she had not her 
 kindlings for the morning fires, and taking 
 an old shawl from its nail behind the door, 
 she wrapped her head and shoulders in it 
 and went out. 
 
 The night was clear and piercingly cold. 
 Her breath made a little cloud before her in 
 the moonlight as she crossed the trodden 
 space between the kitchen and the wood- 
 shed. At the door of the shed she encoun- 
 tered Mr. Embury with his hands full of 
 light-wood and shavings sifting dust over his 
 evening trousers. 
 
 " I heard you say that you had forgotten 
 your kindlings ; and it 's so late, you know, 
 and so horribly cold " 
 
 Certainly the thing he was doing, waiting 
 upon Mrs. Dansken's waitress, called for an 
 apology, even to the waitress herself. 
 
 He was bareheaded. The wind was blow- 
 ing up the short locks from his forehead. He 
 looked very kind and handsome, but, as he 
 felt, very much out of place. 
 
THE SITUATION DEVELOPED. . 99 
 
 Milly held out her apron. " Run in ; run 
 in, quick ! " he commanded. " You '11 freeze 
 to death ! " 
 
 She laughed excitedly as she ran before 
 him into the kitchen and closed the door upon 
 them both. It occurred to Frank that he 
 had never heard her laugh before he had 
 never heard, in the camp, a girl's laugh that 
 was innocent. 
 
 Milly drew out from behind the stove a 
 box into which Frank noiselessly deposited 
 the kindlings. The kitchen lamp, not smok- 
 ing, as kitchen lamps are apt to, but burning 
 clean and clear, showed the state of his 
 trousers. 
 
 " Shall I slip up stairs and get your clothes- 
 brush?" 
 
 "No," he said, beating himself with his 
 hands. 
 
 " Let me sweep you off, then. I 've a 
 clean broom in the closet here." 
 
 He stood up, laughing, to be swept down. 
 " How about this ? " he said, glancing at the 
 spillings of his handful of kindlings on the 
 floor. " Ann will know you never did that." 
 Instinctively, and without being at the least 
 pains, he was as secret as if he had spent his 
 life in kitchen conspiracies. 
 
100 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 " I '11 sweep it all up," said Milly. " I 'm 
 sure I 'm much obliged," she added ; and al- 
 though she looked at him as if she expected 
 him to say good-night, Frank noticed that she 
 seemed happy and at ease. 
 
 " It 's late for you to be up. You must be 
 very tired," he said, raising one foot to the 
 stove hearth and leaning his arm on his knee, 
 in an attitude for conversation. 
 
 Milly softly lifted one of the covers of 
 the stove and stirred the coals into a glow. 
 The kitchen, with its lamp turned low, and 
 its one cold, moonlit window at the dark 
 end, took on a look of extreme comfort and 
 seclusion. 
 
 " 'Most always I 'd rather sit up than go 
 to bed," said Milly, reflectively. 
 
 " Don't you get awfully sleepy with no 
 one to talk to evenings? " 
 
 " Yes, no one but Ann ; I suppose it 's 
 because she is almost always sick, but she 's 
 awful cross. She wants the whole bed. I 
 wish she had it. I 'd a good deal sooner 
 sleep on the floor, if it was n't so cold." 
 
 Frank did not know what to say to this ; 
 there was an appalling frankness about it 
 as a revelation of the undercurrent of life 
 
THE SITUATION DEVELOPED. 101 
 
 in the house. A sudden irruption of male 
 voices and footsteps from the parlor into the 
 dining-room brought him to a sense of his 
 own position. Milly looked at him in un- 
 disguised alarm. She made haste silently 
 to cover the light of the stove ; and as she 
 blew out the lamp and slipped into the pan- 
 try, a young man, hitherto unpracticed in 
 hasty retreats into back regions of his 
 friends' dwellings, found himself cooling his 
 hot face in the moonlight among Mrs. Dan- 
 sken's wash-tubs and water-barrels, reflecting 
 upon the fact that of all the men in the 
 house he had got himself chosen as the 
 worthiest of its mistress's confidence. 
 
 For several days after the episode of the 
 kindlingwood, Frank's behavior to Milly 
 took on a tone of extreme loftiness. He 
 had scarcely spoken six words to the girl 
 before that evening, except such as Mrs. 
 Dansken might have indorsed from her own 
 point of view ; yet the change in his manner 
 was felt by Milly as distinctly as if he had 
 tapped her on the head by way of enforcing 
 it. She resented the young man's accession 
 of dignity and copied it faithfully, so far as 
 the negations of their intercourse permitted 
 
102 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 the one who served to copy the manner of 
 the one who was served. 
 
 From his attitude of dignified reserve 
 Frank lapsed suddenly into an extreme fit 
 of homesickness. Visions of his cousin, 
 of the marshes and the shore, swept in upon 
 him in a great wave of bitterness that ob- 
 literated the tide-marks left by the restless 
 risings and fallings of his spirit. He was 
 honestly sure of his case; so sure and so 
 unhappy, and so lonely in his unhappiness, 
 that one day when he took his landlady out 
 on the Soda-springs road for a sleigh-ride, 
 and they had plunged along for a mile or 
 more in silence, he was moved to unburden 
 himself. It was a natural but most unfor- 
 tunate incident of his friendship with Mrs. 
 Dansken, confirming her, as he did, in his 
 present faith and perfect openness, his sor- 
 row and preoccupation, and convincing her 
 later of his duplicity. 
 
 There is no un truthfulness so confounding 
 as that which a perfectly sincere nature oc- 
 casionally can perpetrate. Frank came 
 home from this ride intrenched in Mrs. Dan- 
 sken's confidence, and in his own belief in 
 the incurableness of his old love. In his 
 
THE SITUATION DEVELOPED. 103 
 
 pity for himself he was very tender, very 
 lenient, to the sufferer. He felt he was en- 
 titled to all that woman's friendship can do 
 for one whom love for a woman had blighted. 
 And if he was tender with himself, he did 
 not forget to be tender towards others. He 
 felt very old and beneficent when he thought 
 of Milly. He decided that he would forget 
 all about that ridiculous scene in the kitchen, 
 and, above all, cease to visit his annoyance 
 with himself upon her. Had he been more 
 than simply helpful, as a man should be to 
 women, in all circumstances? Would he not 
 do the same thing again if it came in his 
 way ? with this difference : he would not 
 retreat among the wash-tubs, and leave poor 
 Milly to think he was ashamed to be seen in 
 her company. If his breeding could not 
 support such a situation as that, what was 
 breeding good for ? 
 
 Mrs. Dansken held out her hand to him 
 when they parted after their ride, at the foot 
 of the hall stairs. Because it was a pretty 
 hand, and because its owner had been kind 
 to him in ways he could never return, he 
 stooped and kissed it. As they stood in this 
 attitude, as becoming to a tall young man 
 
104 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 with a charming profile as to a little woman 
 with a pretty white hand, the dining-room 
 door opened and Milly Robinson appeared, 
 with a freshly ironed tablecloth upon her 
 arm. 
 
 "Excuse me," she said, avoiding Mrs. 
 Dansken's stare of inquiry. 
 
 " Well, what is it ? " 
 
 " The wash is n't home yet, Mrs. Dan- 
 sken, and this is the last tablecloth in the 
 drawer, and it 's got a slit in the middle." 
 
 " Put one of the table-scarfs over it the 
 one with the poppies." 
 
 " I thought you did n't want them used 
 every day," said Milly, stung by the insinu- 
 ation that the interruption had been need- 
 less. 
 
 " It is n't every day we have a slit in the 
 tablecloth," the mistress retorted, sharply. 
 
 Frank was shaking with laughter as he 
 went along the hall to his room; but be- 
 tween the two women there was no merri- 
 ment. 
 
THE SITUATION DEVELOPED. 105 
 
 III. 
 
 THERE was another dance at No. 9, this 
 time an impromptu one, an evening or two 
 later. Ann and Milly, who were not on 
 duty, were supposed to be in bed and asleep. 
 Ann was asleep, but Milly, restless with the 
 sound of the music, had crept up the stair- 
 case, past the door of the parlor, where all 
 went merry as a marriage-bell, and seated 
 herself on one of the upper steps, with her 
 head against the partition wall, listening 
 with benumbed attention to the soft tread 
 of feet keeping time to the continuous beat 
 of the music. 
 
 She roused as the piano stopped : there 
 was a discussion of some sort among the 
 dancers, and Embury, who was obliging and 
 quick on his feet, shot out of the parlor- 
 door and up the stairs in quest of Blash- 
 field's banjo. 
 
 In his charge upon the staircase he had 
 very nearly tumbled over Milly before he 
 perceived her, crouched on the steps in 
 shadow. He passed her, as she rose, with 
 a look of surprise and a hasty apology, f um- 
 
106 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 bled about in Blashfield's bedroom, seized 
 the banjo, and found himself face to face 
 with Milly again, in the dusk upper hall. 
 
 44 1 did n't mean to go bowling into you 
 like that," he said. "I didn't know you 
 were there." 
 
 " I was listening to the music," Milly ex- 
 plained, looking at him earnestly, as if to 
 compel his attention. 
 
 " Are you fond of dancing ? " Frank 
 asked, kindly. 
 
 Milly did not answer ; she hesitated as if 
 she had something more to say. Frank 
 smiled at her encouragingly. 
 
 " You won't speak of it in there, will 
 you?" 
 
 " Speak of what, Milly ? " 
 
 " You won't say I was sitting on the 
 stairs ? She 'd ask what was I doing there, 
 before them all ; she 'd think I was listen- 
 ing." 
 
 " Milly, you ought to know there is no 
 one in this house thinks such things of you 
 as that." 
 
 " She does," said Milly. " She thought I 
 was listening that time in the dining-room. 
 You were all talking so loud I couldn't 
 
THE SITUATION DEVELOPED 107 
 
 help it. I heard her say she was my enemy, 
 and so she is ! I would n't stay here if I had 
 any place to go to." 
 
 44 Child, you have n't an enemy in this 
 house. Mrs. Dansken was only joking. 
 Don't you know her way? I must have a 
 little talk with you some time, but not now 
 I must go back now," said Frank, dis- 
 tracted at the possibility of a relief sent out 
 from the parlor for the recovery of himself 
 and the banjo, and forgetting his resolve to 
 face whatever contingency might arise in his 
 championship of Milly. 
 
 " Is anybody keeping you? " asked Milly, 
 bridling. 
 
 " Yes, you are keeping me you poor 
 sweet " The banjo softly boomed against 
 the banister. Milly released herself, and 
 Frank was left alone at the stairhead, with 
 the astonishing consciousness upon him that 
 he had just kissed Milly Robinson. He was 
 never able to explain to himself how he came 
 to do so; but the fact remained, and also 
 the fact that he must return to the parlor 
 with that kiss added to the other suppressed 
 entries in his account with Mrs. Dansken. 
 And besides his account with Mrs. Dan- 
 
108 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 sken, there was his account with Milly. 
 How is a young man to make a girl, who is 
 relegated socially to a sphere below his own, 
 believe that a kiss, given in secret and ac- 
 companied by words of endearment, is 
 merely a token of respectful sympathy ? 
 
 For several days he thought about Milly 
 continually, seeking opportunities to speak 
 with her, and shirking them when they came. 
 Her conscious looks alarmed him. He had 
 a foreboding that he should get himself into 
 further trouble if he recurred to that meet- 
 ing on the stairs ; yet to let it pass without 
 a word seemed like assuming that Milly was 
 accustomed to being treated in that way and 
 expected no apology. 
 
 His cheeks burned when he thought of 
 Mrs. Dansken's probable comments on such 
 a situation ; and when he thought of his 
 cousin, the girl he used to know so well, but 
 who was now estranged from him in ways 
 she could never dream of, he knew it was 
 not the decrees of parents that had put that 
 distance between them. He was restless and 
 miserable. The attraction of his thoughts to 
 Milly increased in proportion as he blamed 
 himself for his conduct towards her. The 
 
THE SITUATION DEVELOPED. 109 
 
 idea that he had wronged her, and that he 
 owed her some reparation, came to have a 
 charm for him. He dwelt upon it, and at 
 last came the inevitable talk with Milly. 
 
 There was more than one talk perhaps 
 before Frank found himself in a position 
 which made it necessary for him to bring his 
 case again before Mrs. Dansken. The sub- 
 mission of Miss Austen was a trifle to this, 
 he knew; and his heart was thumping as he 
 knocked at the door of the little sanctum 
 where judgment awaited him. He took a 
 long breath, and went in. 
 
 It was about a week before the evening of 
 the next Assembly Ball. Mrs. Dansken was 
 preparing a dress for the occasion, out of 
 material furnished by one that she had laid 
 aside some years before as "too young." 
 Her Leadville season had been so reassuring 
 that she had been led, urged by economical 
 reasons as well, to reconsider certain reso- 
 lutions as to colors and styles. The woman 
 who hesitates on a point so delicate as this 
 is usually the better for a little unprejudiced 
 advice from some near member of her own 
 family. There was no such person to come 
 to Mrs. Dansken's assistance ; the dim, side 
 
110 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 light upon her mirror was delusive ; she was 
 actually embarked upon the venture of a 
 Nile-green silk, and was ripping the breadths 
 of the train when Frank came with his 
 troubles to her door. 
 
 She blushed a little over her finery as she 
 admitted him, but he was much too self-ab- 
 sorbed to have known whether she were mak- 
 ing a ball-dress or a shroud. She wondered 
 what the young man could have upon his 
 mind now. Could he have had bad news 
 from home? had the family relented, as 
 she had freely assured him they were certain 
 to do ? He did not look particularly happy. 
 
 " Are you very busy ? " he began, frown- 
 ing absently at the gay disorder about him. 
 " There 's a little thing I wish to speak to 
 you about." 
 
 It is not a little thing, Mrs. Dansken con- 
 cluded, as she looked at him ; but she smiled 
 encouragingly, and deposited her lapful of 
 silks upon the sofa. 
 
 His eyes followed her anxiously about the 
 room. " It 's the forbidden topic, Mrs. Dan- 
 sken ; but you said you would trust me 
 about Milly, you know and of course that 
 puts me on my honor." 
 
THE SITUATION DEVELOPED. Ill 
 
 Frank found it difficult to say these words. 
 Some of us may know the impulse of self- 
 mortification that impelled him to urge them 
 upon himself, and he had his intentions to 
 support him. 
 
 " It 's not her education this time ; it 's 
 her amusements. She has n't any, you 
 know," he added, as Mrs. Dansken did not 
 speak. 
 
 "Hasn't she?" said Mrs. Dansken, 
 curtly. " I 'm very sorry, but I did not 
 promise to amuse my waitress when I en- 
 gaged her." 
 
 " You did not promise to amuse your 
 boarders, but you have done much more for 
 us than feed and shelter us." 
 
 Mrs. Dansken flushed. No woman likes 
 to be reminded by a man that she has been 
 kinder to him perhaps than was necessary. 
 
 " Then be modest about your privileges," 
 she said, " and don't be trying to instruct 
 me in my duty to others." 
 
 " I had no such idea, Mrs. Dansken ; I 
 ask only your permission I want to give 
 Milly a good time, myself. Just one good 
 time, such as any other girl might have." 
 
 Mrs. Dansken sighed. " How do you pro- 
 
112 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 pose to give it to her from your superior 
 station above her? In that case I don't 
 think she will enjoy herself." 
 
 " Of course not. I don't mean to be 
 superior. It 's going to be partly my good 
 time." 
 
 " It 's going to be, is it ? Then why do 
 you come to me ? " 
 
 " You know why, Mrs. Dansken." 
 
 " But you have already smashed our con- 
 tract all to pieces." 
 
 " You absolved us from that first contract. 
 You said I should do as I pleased," said 
 Frank. 
 
 " It seems you have done as you pleased. 
 Now if you will tell me what you have 
 done" 
 
 " You make it very difficult. If I tell you 
 why I wish to do this, you will say I am in- 
 structing you." 
 
 " You need not tell me all the whys. I 
 want to know what you have been about." 
 
 " I have asked Milly to go with me to the 
 Assembly, Friday night." 
 
 " Then all I have to say is, you have made 
 a precious fool of yourself ! " But this was 
 not all she had to say, by any means ; for 
 
THE SITUATION DEVELOPED. 113 
 
 directly she added more gently, feeling that 
 she had lost ground at the outset in los- 
 ing her temper, "Frank, it is simple mad- 
 ness." 
 
 " But listen to me, Mrs. Dansken. Here 
 is a young girl who goes nowhere " 
 
 " She has every Wednesday afternoon to 
 go where she pleases," Mrs. Dansken inter- 
 jected. 
 
 "But the fact is, she goes nowhere. 
 Where could she go, in a place like this, 
 with no friends ? " 
 
 " Is it my fault that she has been here 
 nearly a year and has n't a friend in the 
 place?" 
 
 " It may not be her fault either." 
 
 44 It 's not my fault and it 's not my busi- 
 ness ; still less yours, Frank Embury ! I 
 don't say I have done my perfect duty by 
 Milly ; I 'm not perfect in any capacity ; but 
 as to your duty, there is n't the slightest 
 question. From this moment you are to 
 leave that girl alone ! " 
 
 Frank looked the anger he felt. Mrs. 
 Dansken could not know what had led to 
 his inviting Milly to the ball ; her unmiti- 
 gated view of it only made him feel prouder 
 
114 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 and more apart from all such poor, low con- 
 structions. But, for Milly's sake, he must 
 temporize. He knew he could not afford to 
 dispense with the countenance of an older 
 woman for the girl he sought to distinguish. 
 So he shut down upon his wrath and pleaded 
 with all the ingenuity he was master of, and 
 with all the power of his charming looks 
 never more needed nor in a more unhappy 
 cause. 
 
 " Let us talk it over in the abstract, for 
 the sake of the humanities " 
 
 " For the sake of the fiddlesticks ! I don't 
 wish to hear any more of this missionary 
 talk. You know perfectly well that if Milly 
 Robinson was not a stunning-looking girl 
 you wouldn't be seen with her at the As- 
 sembly. But don't you see, Frank, of 
 course you see, that only makes it the 
 worse for her ? " 
 
 Mrs. Dansken too was condescending to 
 plead, from the force of her alarm for Em- 
 bury. It was the soft-hearted, headstrong 
 boy she feared for, not the girl, with her 
 curious, passive force, that drew to her 
 everything that she wanted, without an ef- 
 fort of her own. She had not the least 
 
THE SITUATION DEVELOPED. 115 
 
 anxiety for Milly; but she knew that she 
 could only reach Milly's champion through 
 the girl he was crazily befriending. 
 
 " It is one of the things that cannot be 
 done, Frank," she patiently explained; "be- 
 cause when it is done it cannot be undone. 
 Nothing can ever be as it was before, be- 
 tween you and Milly, after you have had one 
 dance together. And what is to come next ? 
 How do you propose to get back into real 
 life after this masquerade ? " 
 
 Some access of excitement altered the ex- 
 pression of Embury's face. His brilliant 
 eyes looked away from the cogent common 
 sense of Mrs. Dansken's argument. She 
 was not sure that she had touched the right 
 string, but she kept on, striking more or less 
 at random. " And how do you propose to 
 ask her ? If you ask her as a young lady, 
 she must have a chaperone ; if you ask her 
 as my servant, she must come to me for per- 
 mission to go, and I shall certainly refuse." 
 
 " But tell me why, Mrs. Dansken. Is it 
 truly for Milly's sake, or is it that theory of 
 yours that we are all in danger of spoiling 
 our little futures ? " 
 
 " There are plenty of reasons before we 
 
116 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 come to your future. There are the rules of 
 the Assembly, after you have demoralized all 
 my rules. Every gentleman is allowed to 
 ask two ladies not two persons the other 
 members may not care to meet." 
 
 Frank made a movement of impatience. 
 
 " Don't listen to my words ; listen to my 
 meaning. I can't stop to choose my words. 
 Now / 'd just as soon dance with Milly, or 
 with Ann either, as to wipe dishes or make 
 beds with them ; but I 've no business to 
 make it awkward for the others. You '11 
 find the St. Louis ladies are particular whom 
 they dance with. I 'm hardly up to the mark 
 myself. The woman who works for her liv- 
 ing must expect to rank below the woman 
 who has got a husband to work for her." 
 
 " Why do you say those things ? You 
 know they are not true." 
 
 " They are perfectly true. I have n't 
 enough prestige to make Milly go down with 
 the others, if I were to try. I might take 
 her to the Assembly under my wing and 
 say, 4 Here is a nice little girl who does my 
 chamber work. I 've brought her to have a 
 good time, because she has nowhere else to 
 go.' Do you think they would help her to 
 
THE SITUATION DEVELOPED. 117 
 
 enjoy herself ? She would be the stray 
 chicken in the hen-yard ; they 'd peck her 
 all to pieces. And there is sense in it too. 
 You can easily see, if each one of you is al- 
 lowed to use his private judgment as to what 
 constitutes a lady, in the sense of a partner, 
 why there are other young persons in the 
 place you must see I 'm not narrow about 
 this. It is simply one of the things all the 
 world knows is impossible. Milly is all 
 right as she is ; she is n't having a very good 
 time, but it is only six months since her 
 brother died " 
 
 " Ten months," Frank corrected. 
 
 " And she is saving money to go to her 
 friends, and they are the ones to look after 
 her. She will have plenty of time to amuse 
 herself after she is done with this place. 
 But take her and set her up in a position 
 that antagonizes everybody why, she '11 be 
 attacked right and left. This is what would 
 happen if I undertook to set her up ; but if 
 you should try it, Frank Embury, she will 
 be lost. And whatever comes of it you will 
 have to gee her through." 
 
 " I intend to see her through. I have 
 asked her as I would ask any girl, and I shall 
 
118 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 not insult her by backing out, on account of 
 the sneers of the women. There 's no sense, 
 nor justice, nor kindness in it." 
 
 " Justice and kindness you '11 find are lux- 
 uries, my child. Minding one's own affairs 
 is the main business of life and paying 
 one's debts, and keeping one's promises." 
 
 Embury was hard hit this time, but he 
 was past wincing. 
 
 "Just to show you, Frank, how these 
 things work : I 'm not in the least angry 
 with you, who really deserve it, but I have 
 lost every bit of faith I ever had in that 
 girl." 
 
 " For Heaven's sake, what has she done ? " 
 
 " Nothing, perhaps ; but I feel it is her 
 fault, all the same. It 's the fatal twist in 
 the situation. You '11 find it will meet you 
 at every turn." 
 
 " Suppose she refuses to go. How will 
 the situation strike you then ? " 
 
 " Has she refused ? " 
 
 " She has n't accepted." 
 
 " Oh, she means to go. If she did n't, 
 she would have told you. It was really very 
 clever of her to reserve her answer." 
 
 " I don't know why you call it clever. I 
 
THE SITUATION DEVELOPED. 119 
 
 thought it rather a pitiful acknowledgment 
 that she was not her own mistress." 
 
 " Is that what she said ? " 
 
 " She said nothing." 
 
 " Ah, she has a talent for saying nothing. 
 She is a very deep young person. Her 
 friends, if she has any, are not anxious about 
 her, I think ; she has not received a letter 
 since she came." 
 
 " Do you bring that up against her ? " 
 
 " I '11 bring up anything against her I can 
 possibly think of, to keep you out of this 
 mess you are getting yourself into. It will 
 all come upon her in the end. If you had 
 picked out the right girl, any girl who 
 was possible, we should all be only too 
 glad to give her our blessing. We should be 
 enchanted with a real young girl, an ingenue, 
 in the camp at last. But she must be the 
 genuine thing. We are not going to be im- 
 posed upon. Women are always the judges 
 of women, and men who have any sense 
 accept their judgment. They scold and 
 they sneer at us, but they expect us to keep 
 society in order, while they do as they please 
 outside." 
 
 Mrs. Dansken's philosophy was often un- 
 
120 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 pleasant to Frank, but in his present temper 
 it was revolting. 
 
 " This may be true, Mrs. Dansken, but I 
 don't see how it applies to Milly Robinson. 
 Is there anything in her appearance that 
 would not do for an ingenue ? " 
 
 " Her appearance is the whole trouble." 
 
 "Or her story?" 
 
 " Oh, her story ! What do I know it 's 
 her story. I traced it as far as " 
 
 " Mrs. Dansken, I swear I cannot stand 
 this ! " 
 
 "Of course you can't. You are young 
 Romance, with a touch of modern philan- 
 thropy, and I am middle-aged Common 
 Sense, without any philanthropy at all ; but 
 it 's Milly who is going to be the victim." 
 
 Mrs. Dansken did not believe that Milly 
 would be the victim, but she thought it well 
 to say so. " But what nonsense this is ! 
 To put it plainly, one of my boarders has 
 been meddling with one of my servants." 
 
 It was the fate of this facile talker often 
 to say the word too much, and to make it 
 the word that stings. 
 
 " You have been very kind to me, Mrs. 
 Dansken," Frank began, in a tone of lofty 
 forbearance. 
 
THE SITUATION DEVELOPED. 121 
 
 " I 've been very fond of you, but you 
 need n't spare me on that account. Be as 
 furious with me as you like, but let that girl 
 alone. Promise me you will, Frank. You 
 can't think how serious I am. I have a 
 hard way of putting things, I know, but I 
 am frightened for you both. It is n't possi- 
 ble you can be so innocent as not to see what 
 I mean." 
 
 " Mrs. Dansken, I suppose you know we 
 fellows all have our record here in the camp. 
 We are pretty well known for what we are. 
 Well, I 'm not ashamed of my record. If 
 I take a girl to a dance where there are la- 
 dies it will be because she is a nice girl, and 
 she will be none the worse, in the eyes of 
 the men at least, for any little attention I 
 may show her." 
 
 " Oh, my dear, it 's too pathetic to hear 
 you talk ! You are a lamb a pair of lambs 
 if you will going to the sacrifice. It 's 
 perfectly idiotic, but it is the pitifulest 
 thing I ever heard of. And I have got to 
 stand by and see it done ! Look here, 
 Frank," she continued, with a change of 
 tone, seeing that he was unmoved. " You 
 say Milly has not told you yet if she means 
 
122 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 to go. If she does go, if she accepts, I shall 
 know how to place her. She has no illu- 
 sions, you may be sure, as to how she will 
 be received. If she goes to that ball with 
 you, she deserves whatever she may get." 
 
 In the upper hall, after dinner, Mrs. Dan- 
 sken found Frank standing by the frosty 
 window, a figure of expectation or of de- 
 spondency, she wondered which. 
 
 " Will you listen to one word more ? " 
 she ventured. 
 
 " As many as you like," said Frank, so 
 civilly that she knew his impatience had 
 cooled into resentment. 
 
 " If you will let me, I will speak to Milly ; 
 kindly, gently as I know how. I will tell 
 her you have spoken to me about her going, 
 and that I have discouraged it for her own 
 sake." 
 
 Frank smiled his disbelief in Mrs. Dan- 
 sken's influence with Milly the girl for 
 whom she had confessed she entertained an 
 aversion. 
 
 Mrs. Dansken felt the smile and the impli- 
 cation keenly. " That will let you out," she 
 continued but now she had lost faith in 
 this her last appeal ; " and if I can't make 
 
THE SITUATION DEVELOPED. 123 
 
 her see what a mistake it would be for her, 
 it will be because she does not wish to see. 
 If she is the nice girl we hope she is, wild 
 horses could not drag her there ; and if she 
 is n't, if she is a brazen, pushing thing, 
 surely, Frank, you cannot wish to take 
 her ! If you had the record of an angel you 
 could n't carry it through." 
 
 Frank was himself anxious as to what he 
 was doing, and how it was going to end. He 
 would not for pride's sake have had Mrs. 
 Dansken know how, purely by accident, as it 
 seemed, and without the least intending it, 
 he had got so far on this path of perilous 
 kindness. If a happier word could have 
 been spoken it might have helped him in 
 this moment of indecision. But the slip 
 could not be recalled the allusion to his 
 boasted record, the intimation that he de- 
 sired his release, and the epithets awaiting 
 Milly's decision. 
 
 Is there any better thing that breeding 
 can do for us than to develop our sympa- 
 thies, so surely and on such fine lines of di- 
 vine instinct, that we cannot make mistakes 
 in these delicate dealings with those whom 
 we are brought into relations with? The 
 
THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 habit of thinking kindly, the quality of gen- 
 tleness and precision in speech, are trifles 
 perhaps, but trifles are occasionally decisive 
 since it is not enough to be in the right, 
 and to have stern common sense on our side, 
 when it comes to influencing passionate and 
 stubborn young hearts in moments of pre- 
 cipitation. 
 
 Frank hardened his heart, and Mrs. Dan- 
 skeii hardened her own ; and as she hard- 
 ened she lapsed into coarseness as well. 
 
 " I believe you are bent upon nothing but 
 your own selfish pleasure and your triumph 
 over the other men." 
 
 Frank turned and went into his room and 
 shut the door in her face. He did not ap- 
 pear at dinner, nor in the parlor until late 
 that evening, and then he came in looking 
 cold and pale, but refusing a seat by the fire 
 and taking a book so far from the light that 
 he could not possibly have been able to 
 read it. 
 
 Mrs. Dansken had been mentally prefig- 
 uring a scene there was little likelihood of 
 her having a chance to enact, or of wishing 
 to do so should the chance present itself. 
 But here was the opportunity, and here was 
 
THE SITUATION DEVELOPED. 125 
 
 the audience, without which a dramatic pre- 
 sentation would fail of its effect. Her im- 
 aginary climax suddenly took possession of 
 her, with all the force of a calculated decis- 
 ion. There sat the foolish fellow she had 
 flattered with her confidence, who had given 
 her his in return, who had made her believe, 
 unbeliever as she was, in the sincerity of his 
 pure, young grief. She knew the force of 
 her arguments better than the quality of her 
 words ; nothing, she believed, could have 
 withstood them but a deliberate courting of 
 consequences. 
 
 She spoke up in her ringing voice and in 
 a strain of high sarcasm, informing upon 
 the culprit who had stolen a march upon 
 them all and made good his intentions before 
 declaring them. But as her voice began to 
 shake she abandoned sarcasm for a plain 
 statement of the case, in a silence that gave 
 to her words the force of a tribal judgment. 
 
 " You know we agreed, about Milly Rob- 
 inson, that if any of you fellows found he 
 could n't keep faith with me, he was to let 
 me know ; and if he broke his word in- 
 nocently, and it came to be found out, he 
 was to have warning." As Mrs. Dansken 
 
126 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 recapitulated the terms of that famous 
 agreement, it sounded very silly and unreal, 
 like child's play like vulgar child's play; 
 but there was no amusement in the faces set 
 towards her own. 
 
 She was white with despair at the thing 
 she was doing. " And if he persisted, after 
 he was warned," she went on, " we said, you 
 know, that he was to be ' fired out.' ' She 
 laughed weakly, but the laugh was all her 
 own. In the silence of these grave faces it 
 had the effect of a sob. " But what shall 
 be done," she went on, " with one who was 
 released from all his promises because I was 
 ashamed to let him promise anything, I 
 trusted him so ? He said himself he was 
 upon his honor ; and he asks me now if he 
 may take my waitress to the Assembly and 
 if I will introduce her." 
 
 " No, Mrs. Dansken ; I never asked you 
 that. The girl I take to the Assembly shall 
 need no introduction more than you do your- 
 self. And you may consider my room va- 
 cant, if you please, after to-morrow." 
 
 " Is this to punish me ? " she asked, rather 
 wildly "a pecuniary punishment, for a 
 mercenary woman who was once your friend, 
 Mr. Embury." 
 
THE SITUATION DEVELOPED. 127 
 
 Frank was at the door. He looked at 
 her in utter amazement, made her a bow, 
 and left the room. 
 
 iv. 
 
 MILLY had said nothing to her mistress, 
 and Mrs. Dansken was still in doubt as to 
 the girl's intentions, when Frank, the next 
 morning, was moving out of the house. 
 
 The late friends did not refuse to 
 " speak." That would have been too child- 
 ish ; and there were practical topics on 
 which silence would have been inconvenient, 
 not to say ridiculous, as it would have called 
 for the intervention of a third party ; but 
 they were brief and sadly cold with each 
 other. 
 
 Mrs. Dansken hung about on various pre- 
 texts while the packing was going on, feel- 
 ing that she had been extreme, and hoping 
 the boy would relent. Middle age is often 
 hard, but it is not so hard as youth, when it 
 comes to a collision. 
 
 Frank was taking down his pipe-rack 
 from the space it had decorated on the par- 
 
128 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 lor wall, and the pipes were hanging at all 
 sorts of critical angles, while his eyes sought 
 a place to rest the rack upon. 
 
 Mrs. Dansken suffered a little heart-break 
 at the sight of each bare space where one of 
 his " things " had been. He was a young 
 fellow possessed of many "things," not 
 always kept in the most perfect order, which 
 borrowed very quickly a suggestion of his 
 own personality. Mrs. Dansken could tell 
 his belongings without looking at them, his 
 books and odd gloves and silk mufflers, when 
 she picked them up about the house. His 
 hats were a portrait of him, his old slippers 
 would have been a sort of fetish to one who 
 held him dear. In his sweetly imperious 
 way he had required a good deal of wait- 
 ing upon ; he would be missed when he left 
 the house, Mrs. Dansken knew, but not for 
 the trouble he had made. More and more 
 she felt how lovable, how human, he was, 
 how helplessly drawn towards humanness in 
 others ; and as the time for his departure 
 came and she marked his excitement, that 
 was not all triumph, she was more sure than 
 ever that some occult reason lay at the bot- 
 tom of his lunacy. 
 
THE SITUATION DEVELOPED. 129 
 
 There was never an emptier place than 
 Frank's at dinner that evening. The house- 
 hold to a man were on the side of the offen- 
 der. Mrs. Danskeii felt that she was in 
 disgrace at the head of her own table. It 
 was so like men, as she said to herself or, 
 rather, it was so like boys ; and unhappy as 
 she was, she found some comfort in the char- 
 acteristic unfairness of the situation. 
 
 But she did not greatly care ; her dream 
 of leadership had vanished. She wished for 
 her sensible old ally, Hugh Williams, that 
 she might take counsel with him, and be 
 scolded by him, as usual. He had gone, 
 three days before, to one of the new camps 
 to examine a mine, and would not be back 
 until Friday. She sat down that evening 
 and wrote him a long letter, setting her 
 anxieties before him. A reply would be im- 
 possible, but she trusted he might get her 
 news in time to hurry home and use his in- 
 fluence with his friend. 
 
 Frank had begun to realize for what 
 stakes he was playing, with the pretty part- 
 ner whom fate and his own rashness had set 
 before him. The silly counters had been 
 removed, and in their place were risks he 
 
130 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 could not pretend to ignore. But the ex- 
 citement of the game had gone to his head. 
 
 He was obliged to take his departure with- 
 out seeing Milly, owing, he believed, to Mrs. 
 Dansken's diplomacy ; but it was the girl 
 herself who had quietly defeated his efforts 
 to speak to her and to get her answer. He 
 knew her list of outside errands, and the 
 time of her comings and goings. On Mon- 
 day and Thursday evenings she went to the 
 Tent Bakery to fetch a certain kind of 
 breakfast-roll promulgated on those days. 
 The bakery was at the extreme end of Har- 
 rison Avenue, on the same side as Mrs. Dan- 
 sken's, close to the new bridge that was then 
 being built across the hydraulic ditch. It was 
 not half-past five o'clock, but the workmen 
 had left the bridge ; Frank did not know for 
 what reason, but he mentally noted the de- 
 serted look of the place. 
 
 At the hour which had been the gayest 
 and happiest in the landlady's parlor Frank 
 took his station on the bridge and watched 
 for Milly. He had not long to wait before 
 he saw her coming. She had a brown veil 
 bound tightly over her hat ; he would have 
 liked to see her face, and her beautiful pure 
 
THE SITUATION DEVELOPED. 131 
 
 color in the winter cold, yet the veil was 
 well. He caught the rich burnish of her 
 low-knotted hair as she whisked into the 
 bakery. The bakery was crowded; it was 
 a long time before she came out. In a mo- 
 ment he was at her side. She seemed not 
 much surprised to see him. He took her 
 warm parcel from her, and asked her, in a 
 tone of command, to go back with him to 
 the bridge. He marched off with the bun- 
 dle of rolls and she followed him. 
 
 "How late is it?" she inquired as they 
 reached the bridge. 
 
 " It is n't half-past five," said Frank with- 
 out consulting his watch. 
 
 " Won't you look, please ? " 
 
 " It is n't necessary. I want only five 
 minutes, Milly, for your answer. You are 
 going with me Friday night ? " 
 
 " No, I never said I 'd go." 
 
 " But you mean to go ? " 
 
 " I could n't go, any way at all. You 
 ought to know that, Mr. Embury." 
 
 " And is this all you have to say to me, 
 Milly?" 
 
 Apparently it was, for Milly was silent. 
 Frank felt that he would like to take her 
 
132 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 by her pretty shoulders and shake her, just 
 to wake her up, now that matters had come 
 to a crisis. "Milly oh, do take off that 
 veil ! How can a man talk to a brown veil ? " 
 
 Milly's lips closed on a little fold of the 
 veil, and then expanded. She did not wish 
 to smile, but she could not help it. These 
 new, peremptory ways of his were even more 
 fascinating to her trampled vanity than his 
 humilities and explanations had been. 
 
 " I know your cheeks are the color of that 
 light on the mountains," he went on with 
 wild irrelevancy. "Oh, if you would look 
 at me, Milly ! " This was undisguised love- 
 making, Frank knew well ; and making love, 
 even to a brown veil, and with a bundle of 
 rolls warming the inside of his arm, came 
 easy to his temperament. (There could be 
 no question as to the angle of his nose, 
 which M. Coquelin considers decisive in this 
 role.) The boyish reckless side of his na- 
 ture had now got the upper hand of him ; he 
 considered that he had paid the price of his 
 escapade, and he would not now be balked 
 of whatever excitement there might be in it. 
 
 " Come over the bridge a little way, 
 Milly. See, here is the plank." 
 
THE SITUATION DEVELOPED. 133 
 
 " I 've got to get home, Mr. Embury ; and 
 I could n't go to the ball, not if you were to 
 keep me here all night." 
 
 " Oh, stop that eternal Mr. Embury ! 
 Why did n't you tell me so before ? " 
 
 Milly did not answer. " You said noth- 
 ing. I thought of course you meant to go. 
 You have cheated me, Milly." 
 
 " You are so quick I can't ever talk to 
 you." 
 
 " I am quick because you are so slow. 
 But I like your slowness ; it 's sweet, if 
 you '11 only give me what you make me wait 
 for. I consider that you have as good as 
 promised ; I shall hold you to it." 
 
 " Not if it lost me my place ? " 
 
 " You will not lose your place. Mrs. 
 Dansken told me herself that she could n't 
 get on without you." Frank gave this infor- 
 mation unhesitatingly, regardless of the way 
 in which he had gained it. 
 
 " She never told me that much," said 
 Milly. " She would n't give me the satisfac- 
 tion. I 'd like to go, if it was only to show 
 her I 'm not the dirt under her feet." 
 
 " Oh, no, not for that ; but to dance with 
 me. You need not mind Mrs. Dansken, or 
 any of the women." 
 
134 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 " I can't go, and I never meant to go, Mr. 
 Embury, whatever you may think. I 've got 
 my reasons." 
 
 Frank hesitated, thinking of the brother 
 with whose memory Milly might be shyly 
 keeping faith, through all his obtrusive blan- 
 dishments. He felt rebuked and drew away 
 from her, out of respect for the modest 
 grief he had been wounding. 
 
 " Could n't you tell me what the trouble 
 is ? I did n't mean to tease you, but I did 
 want you to have this one good time." 
 
 " It 's my clothes," said Milly, reluc- 
 tantly. " I 've got nothing I 'd look fit to 
 be seen in." 
 
 Frank laughed. His respectful mental 
 distance from Milly instantly decreased, 
 and he said gayly, " Oh, we '11 fix that all 
 right, if that 's all." 
 
 " But Mrs. Dansken 's got all my wages 
 for two months back, and I won't go to her 
 not for a penny ! " 
 
 " Of course not. I will send you a dress, 
 Milly. I can't send you a bouquet, because 
 there are no flowers to be had ; but you shall 
 have the prettiest dress in Leadville, and it 
 won't cost more than the flowers a girl car- 
 
THE SITUATION DEVELOPED. 135 
 
 ries sometimes to a party in New York. I 
 speak of it so you won't mind taking it." 
 
 " I could n't take it from you, Mr. Em- 
 bury. She 'd know I never bought it." 
 
 " Milly, you are in the cruelest position that 
 ever a girl was in in this world, and I intend 
 to set you right, to put you where you be- 
 long. Who are they, I should like to know, 
 setting up to tell us whom we shall dance 
 with ! A man dances with the girl he chooses, 
 as a general thing. I have chosen you, 
 dress or no dress. But we will see about 
 the dress. I shall be here Thursday, at the 
 same time. I shall expect you. Now run 
 home with your parcel ! " 
 
 Frank had got to the point of believing 
 that the Old World and all its traditions 
 were wrong, since otherwise he, in his pres- 
 ent undertaking, could not be right. He even 
 persuaded himself that it was a romantic and 
 touching thing that he should be clothing 
 his partner out of his own pocket for the 
 dance. He went about his purchase with 
 shy ardor, wishing that he had studied the 
 details of a girl's evening costume more 
 thoroughly ; for he was resolved that noth- 
 ing should be wanting to complete Milly's 
 triumph, and his own. 
 
PART III. 
 
 THE CATASTROPHE. 
 I. 
 
 AT ten o'clock on Thursday morning Mrs. 
 Dansken answered a knock at her front door 
 and found there a man, whom she recog- 
 nized as one of the waiters from the Claren- 
 don, who presented her with a box addressed 
 to Miss M. Robinson. It was a large, flat, 
 white box such as tailors and dressmakers 
 send home their wares in. There were no 
 wrappings or bills of expressage on it ; evi- 
 dently it had not traveled far. Mrs. Dan- 
 sken asked the man if there was no message 
 with the box. He said he did not know of 
 any, and Mrs. Dansken refrained from the 
 question who had sent him. 
 
 Now if Milly Robinson had been like any 
 other girl, Mrs. Dansken meditated, she 
 would have been in a flutter over that box ; 
 would have wondered who had sent it and 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 137 
 
 what was in it, and have opened it at once, 
 for all to admire. Instead, she had packed 
 it off, without any excitement at all, to her 
 bedroom in the attic, and no more had been 
 heard of it. 
 
 Ann had made tea-cake and there was no 
 need for Milly to go for rolls that afternoon. 
 At her usual time of coming down, after 
 changing her dress, to lay out the tea-things 
 in the parlor and set the table for dinner, 
 she did not appear. Instead of calling her 
 from the stairs, Mrs. Dansken took the 
 trouble to go up to her room. The girl did 
 not open to her knock at once ; she held the 
 door ajar, a very little way, to answer her 
 mistress's demand when she would be down. 
 
 "I'm coming, right away, ma'am." Mrs. 
 Dansken fancied the voice from within the 
 room had not quite a natural sound. An ex- 
 cuse for entering occurred to her simultane- 
 ously with the resolve that she would get on 
 the inside of that guarded door. 
 
 " Let me come in, Milly. I want to meas- 
 ure the sash of your window. Ann says one 
 of the panes is cracked." 
 
 " Ann told her that two months ago," 
 Milly said to herself. " I '11 give you the 
 size of it, ma'am," she said aloud. 
 
138 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 " You have n't time ; it 's five o'clock now. 
 Let me come in, Milly." 
 
 Mrs. Dansken's voice was peremptory, but 
 again there was a pause before the door 
 was yielded. Milly had her dress on, but 
 the waist was still unbuttoned, though she 
 had been in her room, Mrs. Dansken knew, 
 three quarters of an hour. The quick eye 
 of the mistress, roving the room, perceived 
 that the covers of the bed had been turned 
 back, but that the pillows were smooth. 
 
 " Were you going to lie down, Milly ? 
 Don't you feel well ? " As she spoke, insin- 
 cerely, for she believed that Milly was per- 
 fectly well, she saw protruding from the bed- 
 covers a white sleeve, an evening sleeve, 
 shortened to the elbow and delicately finished 
 with lace. So, then, there was something 
 beneath, which the covers had been hastily 
 thrown back to hide. With one of her quick 
 movements she flung them into place again, 
 exposing the guilty box upon the bed, its 
 contents crammed into it, hurriedly and un- 
 successfully, as the white sleeve bore witness. 
 
 " What is this, I should like to know ? " 
 Mrs. Dansken demanded in a high, exasper- 
 ating voice. Forgetting her own intrusion 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 139 
 
 on a false pretense, she gave way to the 
 thrill of anger and disgust which possessed 
 her. She felt that she could almost have 
 struck the girl for her stupid, coarse con- 
 cealments. " What have you got here that 
 you are ashamed to show me ? " She tilted 
 off the box-lid with the tips of her fingers 
 and looked contemptuously at the pile of 
 soft wool and lace and ribbon that repre- 
 sented Frank's first essay in the part of 
 King Cophetua. 
 
 " That 's a very handsome dress to be 
 tumbled about like that. Were you going 
 to put it on to wait on table in ? " 
 
 Milly had been silent because her shame 
 and rage had simply taken away her power 
 to speak. 
 
 Mrs. Dansken herself was trembling from 
 head to foot ; she was losing control of her- 
 self, and felt that she could not be accounta- 
 ble for what she might say next if that girl 
 continued to stand there, smiling faintly, in 
 a fixed way, and as speechless as a stone. 
 
 " I will see you by and by. You and I 
 must have a little talk." She went down to 
 her room and threw herself upon the bed ; 
 all the strength had gone out of her. 
 
140 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 "Ann," she whispered, when the old 
 woman came in to ask her what had become 
 of Milly, " that girl will kill me yet ! " But 
 there was no time to get comfort from Ann. 
 Dinner was served, and the hostess must be 
 in her place at the head of the table. " Ann, 
 go upstairs, will you, and tell Milly to come 
 down." The farce must go on, and mistress 
 and maid must take their parts. Mrs. Dan- 
 sken sickened at her own, but she was emi- 
 nently a woman of business. 
 
 There was a long pause after the soup, 
 which Ann herself had brought in and re- 
 moved. " Where is Milly ? " Mrs. Dan- 
 sken asked, as Ann reappeared with the 
 chicken patties. 
 
 " She 's packin' her things ! " said Ann. 
 
 Mrs. Dansken whirled round in her chair. 
 " You will ask her to please come down and 
 attend to her work at once. She can pack 
 her things to-morrow." 
 
 "Mem?" said Ann. 
 
 "Excuse me," Mrs. Dansken put down 
 her napkin and looked at the tableful of 
 boarders : her voice was unsteady, " Ann 
 will wait upon you," she managed to say. 
 Blashfield sprung and opened the door for 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 141 
 
 her, and every man at the table rose as she 
 left the room. 
 
 She had meant to get to her own room as 
 quickly as possible for an outburst of tears, 
 but she felt so upheld by this unexpected 
 return of the old loyalty that she was ready 
 to encounter even Milly. She was sure that 
 she could be calm, perhaps she could be just 
 to the girl ; for what had she discovered, 
 after all, that was so heinous, considering 
 the way she had discovered it? Sympathy, 
 delicacy, dignity, Mrs. Dansken had not; 
 but honesty, even with herself, lay at the 
 bottom of her soul. She ran up the cold 
 attic stairs in a better mood for a talk with 
 Milly than she could have hoped for ; but 
 Milly was not there. Her trunk stood in 
 the middle of the room ; her hat and shawl, 
 and the box from off the bed, were gone. 
 
 II. 
 
 MRS. DANSKEN had lain long in the 
 darkness of her own room. Faint sounds 
 from the dining-room told that dinner was 
 quietly progressing. "If they had just 
 
142 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 carried me out a corpse they would go back 
 to their chicken patties," she reflected, and 
 laughed feebly to herself, not in the least 
 resenting this conspicuous masculine trait. 
 " It would be a tribute to the patties, any- 
 how," she added in her musings. The dark- 
 ness was peaceful, and she was glad, after 
 all, that she had not been able to see Milly. 
 " She must have gone out into the street for 
 a moment to get some one to come for her 
 trunk. She will want her wages, and it is 
 better she should go without any more words 
 between us. We were never meant to live 
 together. We bring out all that is worst in 
 each other. Even Ann sees that." 
 
 At this moment Ann came stumbling in 
 with a clinking tray, which she placed upon 
 a chair by the bed while she lighted the 
 lamp. 
 
 " Are ye sick ? " she asked, turning to 
 look at her mistress. 
 
 Mrs. Dansken could have kissed her grim 
 old face, for the sense of nearness and con- 
 fidence it gave her. After all, was there 
 any one in the world she cared for more 
 than for this old bit of wreck saved from 
 the home that had gone to pieces so long 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 143 
 
 ago? She fell to weeping weakly on her 
 pillow, while Ann felt of her hands, and 
 pulled up the down quilt over her shoulders. 
 
 "Oh, I 'm roasted!" said Mrs. Dan- 
 sken, throwing it off. Then she nestled 
 down again, murmuring, " Thank you, you 
 dear old thing ; I knew you would n't for- 
 get about me." 
 
 " Ye better take a drink o' this tea. Are 
 ye worryin' about Milly Robi'son ? Sure 
 it 's better she 's goin'. I knew ye 'd never 
 do with the likes av her. She 's nayther one 
 thing nor another. I 've not got a ha'porth 
 agin her, myself. I cVd do with her well 
 enough. Where 's yer shawl ? " Ann looked 
 about and found it, and attempted to put 
 it about her mistress's shoulders as she 
 raised herself in bed. " Are ye layin' here 
 widout any fire ? " 
 
 " I don't want any fire. This tea tastes 
 so good. Ugh ! I 'm as hot as fire and as 
 cold as ice ! I Ve had such a scene with 
 that girl, Ann. I hate a row except with 
 you." 
 
 " 'Deed an' ye 're not much afraid o' me, 
 that 's a fact. Was it along o' the frock 
 she had sent her ? " 
 
144 TEE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 Mrs. Dansken nodded. 
 
 " She 's not so much to blame for that, as 
 I can find out. ' What 's in it ? ' says I, 
 whin I see the box layin' on the bed. An' 
 whin she opened it she went red in the face, 
 an' says she, ' I know who sent it, an' I 'm 
 goin' to send it back.' ' 
 
 " That 's a likely story ! " Mrs. Dansken 
 cried out. " She 'd been trying it on. She 
 had just crammed it back into the box when 
 I went upstairs to call her." 
 
 Ann looked at her mistress shrewdly. 
 "Was ye in the room?" 
 
 " Of course I was in the room. How did 
 I see the dress if I was n't in the room ? " 
 
 "Well, ye 'd better have kept out, an' let 
 her have her things to herself. I 'd niver 
 want the missus thrackin' me about. A 
 gurl 's got a right to some place av her own." 
 
 " Don't scold me, Ann. I own I was 
 stupid about that but I tell you, she is a 
 girl who needs watching." 
 
 " Ye had me to watch her, an old woman 
 that knows what gurls is. I niver see noth- 
 in' wrong wid her, barrin' she 's a bit close 
 about herself ; an' it 's what they have to be 
 when they 've got themselves to look out 
 for." 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 145 
 
 44 1 thought you hated her." 
 
 Ann laughed shortly. "I was none so 
 fond av her at the first off, but whin I see 
 who 's that goin' out ? " 
 
 The street door had closed, somewhat 
 early for the young men to be taking their 
 departure. 
 
 44 It 's Milly coming back, I should n't 
 wonder," said Mrs. Dansken, listening for a 
 step on the stairs. 
 
 44 Comin' back ? " Ann repeated. 
 
 44 Yes ; did n't you know she was gone ? " 
 
 44 Wheriver has she gone to, for the good 
 Lord's sake ? " said Ann, rising up. 44 She 
 tould me she 'd not sleep in this house an- 
 other night. 4 Very well,' says I ; 4 wait till 
 I get my kitchen red up an' I '11 go wid. 
 ye to the Sisters'.' An' how long is she 
 gone ? " 
 
 44 Why, ever so long. I thought she was 
 coming back. Her trunk is here." 
 
 44 1 '11 jist out, thin, an' afther her. Will 
 ye be gettin' up now ? " Ann hesitated, look- 
 ing at her mistress. Mrs. Dansken saw that 
 she was uneasy. 
 
 44 Go along, you best old creature ! Ann, 
 wait a minute ! Do you know who sent her 
 the dress?" 
 
146 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 " Sure, w'u'd I ask a gurl a thing like 
 that? An' she 'd niver have tould me, any- 
 way." 
 
 " I 'm jealous," said Mrs. Dansken, throw- 
 ing herself back in the bed. " Here you Ve 
 been making me believe you despised that 
 girl, and thought about her just the same as 
 I did, and all the while you were on her 
 side." 
 
 " No 'm, I 'm none so fond av her," Ann 
 maintained. But she did not wait to " red 
 up " the kitchen. Mrs. Dansken heard the 
 street door again a very few moments after 
 Ann had left her. The young men were 
 laughing over their cigars in the parlor. 
 She put on an apron, entered the dining- 
 room by the hall door, and began to clear 
 the table, keeping the curtain closed, for she 
 did not wish to be questioned. Ann should 
 not find her work waiting for her when she 
 returned from her walk in the dark snowy 
 streets. If Williams had been at home 
 or if Frank had not gone, how quickly she 
 would trust him now, to go in search of 
 Milly. 
 
 Ann walked slowly up and down Harrison 
 Avenue, passing and repassing the windows 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 147 
 
 of the Clarendon, looking down all the side 
 streets ; finally she ventured to ask one or 
 two respectable wayfarers if they had seen 
 a young woman in a dark cloth jacket and 
 a turban, and carrying a big white box. 
 Ann was sure the box was in some way 
 responsible for Milly's giving her the slip. 
 She meant to cast about in their own neigh- 
 borhood before taking that long walk across 
 the town to the Sisters'. She stopped one 
 of the waiters in the door of the Clarendon 
 as she passed down on that side of the street. 
 It was the one whom, without knowing his 
 nationality, she called the Swedener, who 
 occasionally brought Mrs. Dansken's orders 
 for her little festivities. Had he seen Milly 
 Kobinson that evening ? 
 
 " Yes," the man replied. " She coom mit 
 a pox ; an' she say, leef it in t'e offis for 
 Mist' Embury. Mist' Embury he coom 
 shust t'en; unt he say, send t'e pox up to 
 his room. Unt t'ey walk town street to- 
 gedder." 
 
 Ann gave a grunt. " N-n ! " she objected, 
 in that indescribable form of dissent which 
 the West has imported from the South. 
 " That 's not Milly Robinson." 
 
148 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 " She vas Milly." 
 
 " N-n ! " Ann persisted. 
 
 " It vas t'e pox, anyhow," the man de- 
 clared. " I see t'e man vat pack dat pox 
 over to Mis' Dansken, unt he say it vas for 
 Milly." 
 
 " Sure I hope it was Milly," said Ann, 
 changing her ground of defense. " That 's 
 all I wan' to know. Is she along av our 
 Misther Embury ? " 
 
 "She vas mit him. Dey vent town t'e 
 street togedder." 
 
 Ann did not go to the Sisters', but she 
 told her mistress that Milly was there ; and 
 Mrs. Dansken was too glad of the assurance 
 to reflect that it was a mile or more to the 
 Sisters' hospital, and that Ann could hardly 
 have gone and returned in the time she had 
 been absent. 
 
 " Ye 're to pay her money to me, an' 
 she '11 send for her thrunk in the mornin'." 
 
 In her toilsome walk in life Ann had seen 
 many cases of folly and sin end as the case 
 of Milly seemed likely to end, but never one 
 of knightly championship. She had never 
 met with a case of this kind, and out of her 
 experience she drew her conclusions. It 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 149 
 
 hurt her that the girl should have taken her- 
 self off without even saying good-by to her 
 old comrade, who had sincerely conquered a 
 prejudice for kindness' sake. 
 
 " I doubt but the missus was in the right : 
 she 'd a bad heart, or she 'd niver have give 
 me the slip like that." But, in spite of her 
 own belief, nothing could have induced Ann 
 to destroy the girl's last chance of retreat 
 should the heart not prove so bad after all. 
 
 in. 
 
 FRANK and Milly were by the bridge 
 again, and this time there was no brown veil 
 between them. Milly's cheeks were not pink 
 like the sunset color on the eastern peaks ; 
 they were pale as the snow which starkly 
 outlined them against the night sky. She 
 was awake at last. Frank thought he had 
 never seen a face so beautiful as hers while 
 she told him the story of her wrongs and 
 her insults. Not a word accused him, but 
 he felt that he was responsible for all that 
 had cost her an honorable refuge, a place of 
 safety, if not a home. No doubt he sup- 
 
150 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 posed himself to be thinking while he lis- 
 tened to Milly's story and looked at her 
 beautiful face, but he was merely tingling 
 with a mixture of passionate promptings. 
 He scarcely heard what she was saying as 
 she urged that she must go back, and re- 
 minded him for the third or fourth time that 
 she had come out not expecting to see him, 
 only to get rid of the dress, which she had 
 never meant to take. 
 
 " And I made you take it. I have 
 brought all this trouble upon you, Milly ; 
 but, dear, happiness shall come of it. It 
 was all for the best to bring us together, 
 my darling." 
 
 " I must go back I must ! " Milly 
 pleaded. 
 
 "You shall never go back," said the 
 dreamer. " Is it more insults you want ? " 
 
 " I promised to go back. Ann is going 
 with me to the Sisters'." 
 
 " The Sisters' ! Milly, I am the one to 
 take care of you now." 
 
 " No, sir. No, Mr. Embury. You must 
 n't kiss me I 'm not oh, you don't 
 know, you don't know ! " 
 
 " Milly," said Frank, " God knows how 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 151 
 
 we have got where we are but here we are. 
 We are never going to part any more. Do 
 you understand ? " 
 
 " I did n't think you 'd say such things to 
 me," sobbed Milly. 
 
 " Who, in the name of Heaven, should 
 say such things, if not I ? Do you know 
 what I mean ? " 
 
 " Oh, let me go, sir, please ! They '11 be 
 out after me." 
 
 " Stop sirring me, will you? Who will be 
 out after you ? Is there any one in that house 
 who is likely to care what becomes of you? " 
 
 " There 's Ann, sir " 
 
 " Ann be hanged ! Can Ann take care 
 of you ? Ah, Milly, listen to me ! For 
 Heaven's sake, what is the matter ? " 
 
 " Look at me ! " sobbed the girl, with 
 such wild deprecation in her face that Frank 
 was forced to heed her. " Can't you see ? " 
 
 " Can't I see ? I see that you are a dear, 
 good, helpless girl, who is going to be my 
 wife. We are going to be married to-night. 
 Hush, hush ! not a word. I don't know 
 anything about you ? Do you know any- 
 thing about me ? No, I won't hear a word. 
 Can't I see, indeed ! I see that you are my 
 
152 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 darling. There, there ! What, more tears, 
 Milly ? Am I such a monster ? " 
 
 " You are good," said Milly. " You are 
 the best I ever saw ; but you don't know 
 you don't know ! Let me go, to-night. 
 Let me tell you what I said I must." 
 
 " You shall tell me all to-morrow. There 
 are things / might tell. We will take each 
 other 011 trust, and I shall get the best of 
 the bargain, my lovely one. Do you know 
 what we are going to do ? That poor, in- 
 sulted little gown I made you take you 
 shall wear it to-morrow night. You will 
 need no chaperone as my wife." 
 
 " I can't, I can't ! " Milly protested, but 
 no longer with the same force of denial. 
 She struggled in his arms, and he let her go, 
 seeing that some one was approaching. 
 
 They were not in a nice part of the town, 
 if any part of it could be called nice after 
 nightfall, when the mountains withdrew 
 their countenances and left it to the light 
 of its flaring windows, its occasional smoky 
 street-lamps and intervals of slippery dark- 
 ness. They were out of the centre of lamps 
 and lighted windows, except the windows of 
 a suburban groggery where a fiddle was tun- 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 153 
 
 iiig up in a crazy way, as if the ear and the 
 hand went wild that were groping for the 
 tune. The light of this squalid revelry was 
 cast upon the foul snow at their feet ; it 
 shone upon the two young faces, pictured 
 upon the darkness, close together, eye to eye 
 in the struggle between two wills one fiery 
 and undisciplined, and one that was strong, 
 but sluggish, and sick with fear. 
 
 The stranger stared hard, and looked 
 back as he passed them. He looked back 
 more than once, and then retraced his steps. 
 He was a thin, cold-looking man, in a shabby 
 suit of black, with a pair of dilapidated 
 "arctics" exaggerating to enormities the 
 size of his feet. He addressed them in a 
 voice nasal but sweet. 
 
 " My young friends, have you found the 
 Lord ? Is he leading you by the hand to- 
 night?" 
 
 He paused for an answer. " I do not 
 know the face of this young sister," the 
 exhorter continued as neither of the young 
 people spoke ; " but, if I am not mistaken, 
 this young man is Mr. Embury, of the firm 
 of Williams & Embury yes ? " 
 
 " That 's my name," said Frank. " Are 
 you a clergyman, sir ? " 
 
154 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 " The Rev. Mr. Black, of the Methodist 
 Mission in Second Street. And if you will 
 excuse an old man's advice, Mr. Embury, I 
 think, sir, if this young woman's parents 
 reside in the city, you would better take her 
 home. It is late, my dear young friends, 
 except for such as are out, like myself, upon 
 errands of necessity or mercy." 
 
 "Mr. Black," said Frank, u you can do 
 me a very great service, if you will." 
 
 Begging Milly to excuse him, he drew the 
 minister aside and spoke with him earnestly, 
 while Milly waited, helplessly sure what this 
 service was likely to be. 
 
 " Is the young woman quite satisfied in 
 her mind as to the step she is taking? " 
 
 Mr. Black came close to Milly and took 
 her hand, smiling upon her with his intimate, 
 pastoral smile. Milly drew away her hand. 
 
 " If she has the least doubt, before it is too 
 late I would advise a talk with my wife 
 an excellent woman, though I say it, and 
 a woman of great experience where young 
 girls are concerned." 
 
 Milly looked repellent. u You don't wish 
 to talk to anybody, do you, Milly ? " Frank 
 answered for her. She assented silently. 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 155 
 
 " Very well ; then let us go to my home, 
 and take counsel with our thoughts as we go. 
 And if no objections arise, and you feel that 
 you can trust the state of mind you are 
 
 IV. 
 
 FRANK had a few moments alone with 
 Milly in the parlor of the parsonage after 
 the ceremony, while Mr. Black consulted 
 with his wife whether it would be possible 
 for them to keep the bride over night. 
 
 " I must not take you to the Clarendon 
 to-night, Milly. We cannot have it said 
 around town that I brought you in out of the 
 streets at eleven o'clock at night. I shall 
 take rooms for my wife and come for her 
 the first thing in the morning my sweet ! 
 You won't be lonesome, will you ? Does it 
 seem a strange way to take care of you ? I 
 want to be so careful of you now, because 
 it had to be so sudden. And this is quite 
 the right sort of place for you to stay." 
 
 " I don't want to stay," whispered Milly ; 
 " I did n't want to do any of it." 
 
 "Oh, please, Milly ! when I must leave 
 
156 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 you so soon. There was nothing else for 
 us to do, my darling. If we had not been 
 meant for each other should we ever have got 
 where we are ? I will not believe you don't 
 care for me I will make you care ! " 
 
 " It 's no use my talking," said Milly, 
 relenting. " You do just what you want with 
 me. You always did." 
 
 "I always intend to and it shall be just 
 what my darling likes best." 
 
 Mrs. Black, it seemed, could keep Milly 
 by a little hospitable management. Milly 
 made no further objection, and Frank had no 
 scruples in accepting the obligation. It is 
 not unlikely that he felt he was honoring 
 the parson's dwelling. While the daughter 
 made the necessary changes for the night, a 
 simple entertainment was set forth by the 
 minister's wife for the young couple who 
 were beginning their life together under the 
 roof of strangers, without the blessing of 
 kith or kin. 
 
 Little was eaten and little was said, ex- 
 cept by the minister, whose words fell in the 
 silence without meaning for those they were 
 intended to encourage and to warn. Frank 
 took his leave as soon as possible, kissing 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 157 
 
 his wife quietly, and commending her, with 
 a look that the minister's wife said was 
 beautiful, to the good woman's care. 
 
 She was a woman whose goodness was the 
 most apparent thing about her, except a 
 large forehead and nose that gave a benig- 
 nant look of authority to her countenance. 
 It was plain that she was mistress of the 
 parsonage, if not of the parson himself. If 
 she had said that he must not marry the 
 young people, he would probably have de- 
 clined to do so. What she did say, in the 
 brief matrimonial conference in the kitchen 
 before the ceremony was performed, was 
 much to the effect of St. Paul's words on 
 the same question ; also, that if " they," 
 meaning her husband, refused to marry 
 them, the young couple could easily find 
 some one else who would. 
 
 When Milly had been half an hour alone 
 in the room vacated by the minister's 
 daughter, Mrs. Black went up to her door 
 and knocked. Milly had been sitting on 
 the side of the bed, with her clothes on but 
 in her stocking feet, for her shoes were 
 damp with snow. She had been going back 
 over her poor past, trying to imagine her- 
 
158 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 self opening that foolish, blotted page be- 
 fore the eyes of the delicate, imperative 
 young gentleman who had just bound his 
 fate to hers for better or for worse. And 
 when she looked into the future the prospect 
 was no surer ; it was impossible to think of 
 it as their future. She had told the simple 
 truth when she had said that he could do 
 what he pleased with her ; but not he nor 
 any other hero of a girl's fancy could have 
 power to do away with certain facts which 
 made this marriage a problem, even to the 
 slow, unimaginative nature that was dumbly 
 struggling with it. When she heard the 
 heavy step on the stairs and the gentle but 
 confident knock, Milly could have given a 
 cry of welcome to this last chance of coun- 
 sel, if not of escape. 
 
 "My dear," said Mrs. Black, coming 
 promptly to her side, " I came up to see if 
 you had bed-covers enough but of course 
 you can't go to sleep yet," she added, glan- 
 cing at Milly's dress. u There 's a little fire 
 in my bed-room, right across the hall. 
 Would you like to come in and sit awhile? 
 Mr. Black he 's downstairs doing some 
 writing. He don't write out his sermons as 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 159 
 
 a general thing, but this is a letter to a 
 newspaper, one of our church papers at 
 home, he 's occasional correspondent for. 
 They like to know what progress we 're 
 making here. It 's a wonderful place for 
 awakenings. It seems when we get right 
 amongst all that 's blackest and sinfulest in 
 our poor human nature we find the most 
 helpfulness, one for another. You 'd be 
 surprised the rescuer and comforter my 
 husband 's been able to be, and all because 
 the work is ready and waiting for any one 
 who '11 take hold and believe. Well, dear, 
 what 's your trouble ? We 've all got some- 
 thing. You don't suppose I can't see it is 
 n't all quite clear before you. How could 
 it be, poor child ! But he 's a lovely young 
 man and you 're very pretty, my dear. 
 You 've got it all in your own hands." 
 
 " It 's no use my being pretty," replied 
 Milly, despondently. She was sitting in a 
 low chair by the stove in Mrs. Black's bed- 
 room, forgetting to care that her feet, in 
 their soiled stockings, were visible. Mrs. 
 Black was in the big scroll-back rocking- 
 chair opposite, rocking and talking, and 
 looking at Milly, not at Milly's stockings, 
 
160 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 and snipping her darning threads, without 
 the least confusion of impulses. 
 
 " No, not if pretty 's all there is of it. 
 But it 's a good thing when the young man 's 
 so good-looking. It 's best not to have the 
 looks all on his side. Now it ain't because 
 you 're pretty you 're worrying to-night." 
 She examined Milly with her practiced 
 motherly glance. " My dear, you better 
 go lie down this minute. What have you 
 been through to make you look like that ! " 
 She got Milly quickly into her bed and felt 
 her over carefully. " Where do you feel 
 sick?" 
 
 " I 'm not sick," said Milly. 
 
 " Well, now, out with it, same as if I 
 was your mother ! There 's trouble here 
 somewhere." 
 
 Mrs. Black waited, holding the girl's 
 hands in her own, looking at her steadily 
 with her mild, strong, dark eyes. 
 
 Milly gave a little groan and turned away 
 her face. " Mrs. " She hesitated. 
 
 " Mrs. Black," prompted that lady. 
 
 "Mrs. Black v l 'm a married woman." 
 
 " Of course you are, my dear," said Mrs. 
 Black, with an encouraging squeeze of 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 161 
 
 Milly's hands. " I was your witness myself, 
 and I 'd uphold you in it, for I saw plain 
 enough that young man was bound to have 
 his way." 
 
 " I was married and had a child before I 
 ever saw him." 
 
 " And does n't he know you 're a widow ? " 
 Mrs. Black asked, after a silence. 
 
 " I 'm not a widow, like any other widow." 
 
 " Is n't your husband dead ? " 
 
 " Yes, but he left me, first. I never put 
 on black for him, or saw him ; I passed my- 
 self off for a girl." 
 
 '* What did you say, my dear? " 
 
 " I don't know how to tell you what I did. 
 I did n't do anything ; it came of itself 
 somehow, and I let it go on." 
 
 "Yes," said Mrs. Black. "It 's the 
 easiest way sometimes. I suspect we 're all 
 inclined that way." She waited for Milly's 
 next words. 
 
 " He left me, and I had to come after him. 
 Last spring I got here. I had to come. I 
 was n't to my own home. My home 's in 
 Canada. He took me away from there and 
 he never found me no other home. My 
 father did n't like him, and we were married 
 
162 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 secret, and I went away with him when it 
 had to be known. My father he 's slow, but 
 he 's awful stubborn. When I got here I 
 found he 'd left me and no word where I 
 was to find him, and then I knew he 'd left 
 me for good. And my baby was born at the 
 Sisters' hospital. It died. And when I got 
 strong enough I went to work at Daniel & 
 Fisher's. I told them I was Mrs. Robinson. 
 They did n't understand me, somehow ; I 
 suppose they thought I looked young. They 
 called me Miss Robinson ; and all of a 
 sudden that seemed the easiest way. All 
 those girls in the store were lookin' me over, 
 and talkin' about other girls they knew, and 
 I knew they 'd talk that way about me. If 
 I 'd said I was Mrs., they 'd have wanted to 
 know where was my husband, and I did n't 
 know then he was dead. I was weak and 
 sick and I did n't want to answer questions, 
 and I let it go on. And every day it got 
 harder to get it back." 
 
 " My dear, that was a terrible risk you 
 took, besides its being so wrong though 
 you 're punished for it this minute, and I 
 need n't remind you." 
 
 " I know it was wrong, Mrs. Black ; but 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 163 
 
 I did n't seem to care, if only I -could be let 
 alone. And nobody knew but the Sisters, 
 and they 're the same as dead to what 's out- 
 side of their own work. But I did n't care, 
 that 's the truth. I did n't think I was 
 going to live long, I felt so sick." 
 
 " Oh, my ! That 's because you never 
 felt that way before. I don't doubt you felt 
 miserable enough, my dear ; but it ain't so 
 easy for women to die. We 're dreadful 
 tough." 
 
 " Well, I got better, and I thought I 'd 
 tell the lady I went to work for, after I left 
 the store. I left partly for that, so I could 
 make a fresh start. But I could n't tell her. 
 Don't you know there 's folks you can't tell 
 things to and there 's some you can ? I could 
 have told you." 
 
 "Well, I 'm just an ordinary woman," 
 said Mrs. Black, " and I 've seen such a 
 sight of trouble. Nothing could ever sur- 
 prise me." 
 
 " I thought perhaps I could tell her, after 
 a while, when I got used to her ; but when I 
 came to hear her talking I knew I 'd never 
 tell her. She 'd have had it all over the 
 house ; and when she told things they some- 
 
164 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 how sounded different to what they were. 
 She could make things sound any way she 
 liked. Ann, the cook she had, found out 
 I 'd had a child. The Sisters told her, and 
 then I told her the rest. But I did n't 
 mind Ann. I knew she 'd never tell on me. 
 And after she knew, she was awful good to 
 me." 
 
 " When was it your husband died ? " 
 
 " It was June when I heard from his 
 partner that he 'd been found. His horse 
 slipped off the trail and fell on him." 
 
 " And you did mourn for him some, I 
 know!" " 
 
 " I had my own troubles," said Milly, 
 sullenly. " It was he brought them on me, 
 and he never took none of 'em on hiuiself. 
 He took me away from a good home and he 
 never give me another." 
 
 " Well, you have got trouble now, that 's 
 a fact. But the first thing you 've got to do 
 is to straighten this all out with your hus- 
 band. You ain't much acquainted, are you ? 
 How did you come to meet with him ? " 
 
 " He boarded in the house where I was 
 working." 
 
 " Well, surely that shows he ain't got 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 165 
 
 prejudices. And if he loved you before he 
 knew you 'd had trouble, he won't love you 
 a bit the less now." 
 
 " He knew I 'd had trouble, but not 
 that kind. I know I tried to tell him. 
 I did try, Mrs. Black ! " 
 
 " Ah, I 'm afraid you put it off too long, 
 my dear. If you 'd only come to me before 
 the ceremony and told me, I could have 
 made him understand. You 'd have known 
 then how much he thought of you ; but it 
 ain't for me to remind you. And now you 're 
 afraid to out with it ain't that so ? Well, 
 I guess he 's human, same 's the rest of us. 
 I can see what he is headstrong and proud 
 and full of his fine notions, and wants to 
 be loved, like any other man, but dreadful 
 particular who he loves. I don't say it 's 
 the safest sort of marriage ; but it 's made 
 and done with now, and you 've got your 
 pretty face, and if he ain't sorry for you 
 when you tell him what you 've been 
 through " 
 
 " He 'd be sorry, but oh, you don't 
 know him ! " 
 
 " I know we are prone to error, every one 
 of us, as the sparks fly upward. I guess if 
 
166 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 you were to go back into the history of that 
 young man you 'd find he 's done things he 's 
 wished he had n't done. But it all depends 
 on how much you care for each other. Do 
 you love him, my dear ? " 
 
 "I don't know," said Milly. "I ain't 
 like myself when I 'm with him. He thinks 
 I 'm different to what I am, and that makes 
 me different." 
 
 " Of course I see how it is. But it 's 
 no use worrying about the future. You 
 know what you Ve got to do now. You 've 
 got to tell him first thing to-morrow morn- 
 ing, and no bones about it ! Don't you let 
 him take you in his arms as his wedded wife 
 without your soul is clear before him. If 
 you do, you '11 both repent it to the longest 
 day you live." 
 
 "I can't ever be his wife, Mrs. Black. 
 That 's never going to be. Something will 
 happen to stop it, I know." 
 
 " Don't you go to trusting to any such 
 feelings as those. You 've trusted and let 
 things go on too much already, my dear ; 
 and that 's your way, I see. What you need 
 is more confidence. Now don't go to de- 
 spairing of your marriage. It 's begun 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 167 
 
 badly, but that ain't all your fault. I can 
 see what chance you had with a young fel- 
 low like him. He 's got a good deal too 
 much confidence. But don't you let his con- 
 fidence be the ruin of you both, and when it 
 comes to marriages why, there 's all sorts, 
 and it 's amazing how comfortable they turn 
 out, spite of everything. There 's always 
 marriages just as risky as yours is, when 
 a new country is being settled up young 
 men and women meeting together, with all 
 sorts of families back of them, so pleased 
 with all the new ways of seeing one an- 
 other, and nothing plain and natural to show 
 'em their inside differences. Why, it 's the 
 greatest wonder in the world they ever make 
 out as they do, the most of 'em. If you 
 were to go back in his own family, I guess 
 you 'd find the mates were n't all matches. 
 It gets evened up somehow, when they come 
 to live together. There 's a blessing, I tell 
 you, on the relation." 
 
 Mrs. Black had indulged a strain of 
 extreme leniency and hopefulness, to give 
 Milly courage for her duty. What she said 
 to her husband, before they slept, was nearer 
 her true judgment of the case. 
 
168 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 " I wish we had n't been the means of it, 
 Samuel. It was mainly my doings, and I 'm 
 punished for thinking they were past reason- 
 ing with, both of 'em. I don't know as I 
 ever saw two misguided young creatures in 
 such a fix. I tried to encourage her all I 
 could, but she 's made a miserable piece of 
 work of it so far ; and I 'm sorry for him, 
 when he comes to write that letter home." 
 
 " And when I saw those two young peo- 
 ple in the street," said Mr. Black, " he was 
 the one I took to be the deceiver." 
 
 " He 's the kind of deceiver that deceives 
 nobody but himself and I don't know but 
 that 's as bad as any kind." 
 
 " Not in the eyes of the Lord, Martha." 
 
 " The Lord can forgive more sins than 
 they two '11 ever commit," said Martha 
 Black, who had a tenderness for the heart 
 that had unburdened itself to her sympa- 
 thy, and who knew that Milly's troubles had 
 just begun. 
 
 Frank's letter to his mother was to have 
 been written before he went to fetch his 
 wife. He rose early for the purpose, after 
 one of those nights of wakefulness we re- 
 member for years afterwards as a distinct 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 169 
 
 experience. In his watchings he had com- 
 posed a number of letters, but when it came 
 to writing them out he got no farther than 
 " Dear Mother." It was to the mother, who 
 takes the brunt of unpleasant family news, 
 he addressed himself. When he had got as 
 far as this he could see his mother's face, he 
 could hear her voice asking his father to 
 step into the library a moment. He could 
 see both their faces as they sat down and 
 looked at each other, with the letter between 
 them. On the whole he concluded to wait 
 until after the ball. He could then tell 
 them of his wife's first appearance in the 
 society of the town, and of her reception. 
 
 He had no doubts on this score. It is the 
 men, he theorized, who decide a girl's fate at 
 a ball. 
 
 He had changed his small second-story 
 room at the Clarendon for a large one on 
 the first hall, opposite the ladies' parlor. 
 When the arrangement had been concluded 
 at the desk, the clerk remarked that the 
 bridal chamber was coming it rather strong 
 for a single man. Frank flushed, but gave 
 the information with dignity that he had 
 been married the evening before at the Rev. 
 
170 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 Mr. Black's, where his wife was now stay- 
 ing. 
 
 The clerk smiled the smile of the foolish, 
 and inquired if the lady was any connection 
 of Mr. Black's ; and Frank was obliged to 
 relinquish this straw of respectability which 
 he had grasped at for the sake of Milly's 
 antecedents. 
 
 Milly had lamented to Mrs. Black, as the 
 chief of her excuses, that she had never had 
 a chance to speak with Frank without fear of 
 interruption, except in the open streets. But 
 now they were alone, for a lifetime, in the 
 bridal chamber of the Clarendon, with win- 
 dow-blinds closed to shut out the staring 
 daylight, with no idea between them of 
 the time, or of how the world was going 
 outside. The world for them had centred 
 in this their first day together. 
 
 Frank had bought a belated wedding-ring 
 and was trying it on the finger of his bride. 
 
 " You have worn a ring on this finger be- 
 fore," he said, feeling the little depression 
 that encircled Milly's third finger. " What 
 sort of a ring was it ? I like to know all 
 about you, how you looked and what you 
 used to wear, before I ever saw you." 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 171 
 
 This was Milly's opportunity, as if offered 
 her by Heaven. But it had come too sud- 
 denly, almost threateningly ; she shrunk from 
 it, and the next moment it was gone. 
 
 Something within her, perhaps the habit 
 of concealment, confirmed through months 
 of perilous practice, seemed to answer for 
 her, while her stunned conscience listened 
 amazed. 
 
 " It was n't a ring I cared for ; I took it 
 off because it was too small for me." 
 
 After that the day passed hopelessly for 
 her. She was under the spell of her failure, 
 and of Frank's awful unconsciousness.. 
 
 More and more she felt his standards op- 
 press her. The nameless little refinements 
 of his manner were her despair ; she could 
 not meet them out of any social practice in 
 the past, nor with the simplicity of inno- 
 cence and faith. She longed to escape, back 
 into the miserable muddle of her old life 
 where she had felt at home anywhere 
 away from this horrible masquerading. 
 
 As for Frank, he was the husband now. 
 He was studying his new possession in the 
 light of old, persistent standards those 
 standards which Milly instinctively feared. 
 
172 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 He studied her because he could not get near 
 enough to her to lose himself in her attrac- 
 tion for him. Something clouded the attrac- 
 tion ; something undefinable between them 
 that embarrassed him, and balked him of 
 all the allusions, the fond recapitulations, 
 the exchange of ideals and purposes, which 
 should have glorified the day. 
 
 She has all that the first woman had, 
 youth, beauty, purity, and helplessness, 
 Frank thought, while she dressed for the ball 
 and he gazed at her shyly with beating heart. 
 She is a girl without a family and without a 
 history. Her husband shall give her both. 
 
 V. 
 
 FRIDAY, the anniversary of the Assem- 
 bly Ball, was general sweeping-day at Mrs. 
 Dansken's. Ann had taken cold, or so she 
 chose to assert, perhaps as an excuse for an 
 irritability that vented itself in savage ex- 
 cesses of work. Milly's help was wanting, 
 but Ann wrought for both. She worried 
 her tasks, growling like a dog with a bone 
 when her mistress attempted to take a share. 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 173 
 
 It was matter for curiosity for Mrs. Dan- 
 sken and for solitary headshakings for Ann 
 that Milly's trunk still stood in the hall, 
 a silent postulate, no one inquiring for it, 
 and no sign of the owner's interest in its 
 disposal. 
 
 " Don't ye be frettin'," said Ann, who 
 was doing all the fretting herself. " She '11 
 not be long parted from her clothes. Belike 
 she 's sick like meself, with thrampin' thini 
 snawy streets." 
 
 Mrs. Dansken, in the Nile -green silk, 
 looked and felt every year of her age as 
 she took her place at table, opposite Hugh 
 Williams, to give him his late supper. He 
 had just presented himself, although the 
 stage had been in an hour. He had not 
 seen his partner. Mrs. Dansken had the 
 field to herself, but she took no advantage. 
 She gave Williams the history of the house- 
 hold during his absence from a point of view 
 that was magnanimous, considering the sore- 
 ness of the narrator. 
 
 " And where is the girl now ? " Williams 
 asked. 
 
 " She is at the Sisters'." 
 
 " No, she is n't ; because I 've just been 
 
174 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 there myself, to make some inquiries about 
 her. I got on the track of that brother of 
 hers turns out to be her husband." Mrs. 
 Dansken listened with relief and entire con- 
 viction toWilliams's account of what he had 
 learned about Milly. 
 
 " Oh, I shall give Master Frank a dose, 
 if he needs one," he ended. " We '11 have 
 him back here within the week. You don't 
 suppose he could have sent her the gown ? " 
 
 Mrs. Dansken flouted the idea. "Is it 
 like Frank Embury to be bribing servant 
 girls with cheap finery ? " Mrs. Dansken's 
 survey of Frank's purchase had been a hasty 
 and prejudiced one. 
 
 " No, of course that 's out of the ques- 
 tion," Williams agreed. " She has 4 smiled 
 and retreated ' with somebody else." 
 
 " I 'm not sure about that," said Mrs. 
 Dansken. " Ann insists she is all right 
 but then, they always stand up for one an- 
 other." 
 
 " I 'm perfectly satisfied, myself," said 
 Williams. " The Sisters had no idea they 
 were giving it away I 'm keeping you 
 from your party." He looked at his watch. 
 
 " Are n't you going ? " 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 175 
 
 " No ; I 've done my duty, and it seems 
 there was no hurry after all. And now I 'm 
 going to sleep." 
 
 Williams showed the brisk confidence of 
 an ally newly arrived with fresh informa- 
 tion on the scene of old complications. Mrs. 
 Dansken was doubtful that the last word 
 had been said ; but she knew herself to be 
 helpless, and was glad to leave the matter in 
 his hands. 
 
 She was not happy at the thought of 
 meeting Frank, with the difference between 
 them unhealed. The keystone had fallen 
 from the arch of domestic unity. She was 
 no longer sure of the allegiance of her boys. 
 It might transpire that a faction of separa- 
 tists had secretly been forming in Frank's 
 support ; and a revolted favorite has ever 
 been held the most dangerous of private 
 enemies. 
 
 It was a relief to find that at half-past 
 nine o'clock the Assembly assembled early 
 Frank was not there. 
 
 The ladies were all on the floor. Mrs. 
 Dansken noticed the exchange of emphatic 
 looks, the occasional low-spoken words, as 
 they crossed each other's orbits in the dance. 
 
176 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 The overstock of young men were whisper- 
 ing and smiling queerly in little knots 
 against the wall. Strode was waltzing with 
 a Mrs. Paul, one of the new ladies in the 
 camp, still under consideration by the other 
 ladies, but entirely acceptable, it seemed, 
 to Mr. Strode. The lady was in a thorough- 
 going mood to-night ; she neglected even the 
 business of waltzing for energetic conversa- 
 tion with her partner, and seemed impatient 
 of the coolness of his replies. 
 
 " He intends to capture the room take 
 us all by storm." Mrs. Dansken caught 
 these words as the pair swept by her. 
 " Good idea before you ladies have a 
 chance to combine." 
 
 " He 's too late, then," said Mrs. Paul. 
 " It does n't take us long, I can assure you, 
 when we 've got a cause." 
 
 Strode laughed and stooped to murmur 
 something in her ear, with a glance at Mrs. 
 Dansken. 
 
 "Does n't she know?" Mrs. Paul ex- 
 claimed aloud. " How very queer ! Some- 
 body must tell her at once." 
 
 The name of her escort, Mr. Blashfield, 
 was the only one on Mrs. Dansken's card ; 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 177 
 
 but now the waltz was over and she found 
 herself in the midst of her accustomed cir- 
 cle. She perceived that Strode was crossing 
 the room with Mrs. Paul, and instantly 
 fixed her features in an expression of uncon- 
 sciousne'ss until they were at her side, when 
 she turned in effusive surprise. But Mrs. 
 Paul proceeded at once to business. 
 
 " Mrs. Dansken, have none of these gen- 
 tlemen told you of the introduction we are 
 to be favored with to-night ? They are very 
 considerate, I 'm sure, but it 's no time now 
 to spare one another's feelings. We are to 
 be taken by surprise, it seems." 
 
 " Yes ? " said Mrs. Dansken. 
 
 "I think it 's perfectly abominable he 
 should n't have told you ! I 'm afraid you 
 don't look after your young gentlemen, Mrs. 
 Dansken. You are too busy making them 
 comfortable." 
 
 Allusions to her professional hospitality 
 were not pleasing to Mrs. Dansken, but she 
 merely smiled, and asked if it were Mr. 
 Strode who needed looking after. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Strode can take care of him- 
 self, I think. He is n't going to be run off 
 with by anybody's pretty waitress. It 's 
 
178 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 that poor young Embury and your Annie, 
 Allie, whatever her name is : they were mar- 
 ried last night goodness knows where ! 
 He 's going to present her to us this evening. 
 Do you mean to say you had n't the faintest 
 suspicion what was going on ? " 
 
 " My dear," said Mrs. Dansken, gallantly 
 hugging to her breast her deep chagrin, " I Ve 
 had these young persons on my mind all 
 day, especially ' my ' Annie, as you call her. 
 I had my suspicions, but I was ashamed of 
 them." She could not help a little huski- 
 ness in her voice. " But it seems one need 
 n't be ashamed of anything. I 'm happy to 
 say nothing that girl could do could possibly 
 surprise me." 
 
 " But it is too bad about Frank Embury ! 
 And the worst of it is, we can't punish her 
 without punishing him too. I think it 's the 
 brazenest performance I ever heard of ! The 
 question is, how are we to receive her as 
 what she is, or what he wants to make us 
 believe she is ? " asked Mrs. Paul. 
 
 " Oh, I don't care what she is ! She is his 
 wife now let him look out for her." Mrs. 
 Dansken disdained the applause that fol- 
 lowed this speech. It was bitter to her that 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 179 
 
 the catastrophe of her household should be 
 paraded in this way, and that a Mrs. Paul 
 should be the one to inform her of it. 
 
 " He 's quite capable of it," she went on, 
 her smarting eyes fixed on a far corner of 
 the room. " He has quite circumvented me. 
 I begin to think I 'in a perfect child." 
 
 " I don't see why Embury has n't a right 
 to bring his wife. I should want to bring 
 mine, if I had one," said Strode, judicially. 
 " Let them have their dance, I say. Em- 
 bury has paid for his share of the floor." 
 
 " They may have the whole of it for me," 
 said Mrs. Dansken. She asked Blashfield 
 to give her his arm, and he took her away 
 out of the discussion. 
 
 *' She 's all right," commented Mrs. Paul, 
 looking after her. " She will never forgive 
 him and I would n't either. Any young 
 man may be foolish, but to marry her, and 
 brazen it out to our very faces ! " 
 
 " I wish you would take me home," said 
 Mrs. Dansken. " I believe I 'm not much 
 of a fighter after all. Mrs. Paul seems to 
 have taken the whole thing upon her shoul- 
 ders. She will see that justice is done ; I 
 can't say I care to staj^ and look on. It will 
 
180 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 be thumbs down with every woman in the 
 room." 
 
 " I ain't anxious to see it myself," said 
 Blashfield. "But don't you think had 
 n't we better stand by him, Mrs. Dansken? 
 Frank 's a pretty good boy." 
 
 Mrs. Dansken gave him a look. "You 
 can come back and stand by him, if you 
 wish to. I think you '11 have your hands 
 full." 
 
 They were in the middle of the room, op- 
 posite the main entrance, when the whisper 
 went round, " There they come ! " 
 
 Blashfield fairly blenched. He fell back, 
 leaving Mrs. Dansken to face the trium- 
 phant young couple, advancing; Embury 
 looking handsomer than she had ever seen 
 him, with a girl on his arm who was the 
 apotheosis of Milly. 
 
 All his personal grievances had been out- 
 lawed in that day of Frank's seclusion with 
 his wife the day that had lasted years. 
 He saw Mrs. Dansken before him, as in 
 dreams one sees a friend from whom one has 
 long been separated. He remembered only 
 that she had been kind that now, if ever, 
 she must be kind. He looked at her ear- 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 181 
 
 nestly, insistently, imploringly, seeing that 
 her face remained cold. He held out his 
 hand. She swerved from him, and bore off 
 Blashfield with her to a bench against the 
 wall. 
 
 " Tell him to come to me one moment 
 without that girl." 
 
 Blashfield obediently crossed the room to 
 the place where Frank had seated his wife. 
 The neighboring ladies had instantly moved 
 away ; he was standing at her side, covering 
 her isolation. He had taken her fan and 
 was beating back the bright hair from her 
 temples, not daring to look at her now that 
 the ordeal was upon them. 
 
 He could have embraced Blashfield for 
 his bow to Milly and his matter-of-course 
 manner to them both, though the little man 
 was pink with embarrassment. He attempted 
 no foolish congratulations, but asked Milly, 
 quite naturally, if she were well, and said, 
 with a deeper blush, that they missed her 
 awfully. 
 
 Milly came out of her stony silence to 
 say, "Mr. Blashfield, would you give my 
 love to Ann, please, and tell her " A look 
 from Frank disturbed her and she stopped. 
 
182 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 "Yes, indeed, Mrs. Embury." Again 
 Frank would have liked to embrace poor 
 Blashfield, who was having a desperate time 
 of it. "Ann is a regular funeral in the 
 house ever since you left. Embury, Mrs. 
 Dansken wants to speak with you. Will 
 you let me stay with Milly ? " This was 
 somehow even better than the " Mrs. Em- 
 bury ; " a choking feeling in her throat 
 made Milly put down her head. 
 
 " Mrs. Dansken might have spoken to me 
 a moment ago," said Frank. " She did n't 
 seem particularly anxious then." 
 
 " She was taken by surprise, you know. 
 You 'd better go and speak to her, Embury. 
 Don't you think he had?" He addressed 
 himself to Milly, who turned her face away 
 and said, " I don't want to speak to Mrs. 
 Dansken." 
 
 Blashfield looked unhappy. He rose up 
 and bowed again to Milly. " Take her 
 away, for God's sake ! " he muttered to 
 Frank, apart. " She has n't a friend in the 
 room." 
 
 Frank was cool and savage. 
 
 " It would be all right if the women were 
 n't here. But you can't fight women with a 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 183 
 
 woman, you know and your wife. Take 
 her out of it." 
 
 " We '11 have a dance first," said Frank. 
 u But I thank you, Blashfield." 
 
 " I 'd like to dance with her myself," said 
 Blashfield, " but I 've got to take Mrs. Dan- 
 sken home." 
 
 " What is the matter with Mrs. Dan- 
 sken?" 
 
 " She is afraid there 's going to be a row. 
 Come and speak to her, Frank ; you ought 
 to, for your wife's sake." 
 
 " For my wife's sake ! " Frank echoed 
 scornfully. " I must go back to my wjfe. 
 Thank you, Blashfield." 
 
 " Blashfield is the flag of truce," the la- 
 dies said. But the flag of truce disappeared 
 a moment later with Mrs. Dansken, and the 
 ladies understood that the terms of surren- 
 der were off. 
 
 Frank and Milly took their places as third 
 couple in the lanciers. He had not dared 
 to ask her if she could dance, but she showed 
 no hesitation and bore herself to his entire 
 admiration. The manner of the perfect 
 servant, which Mrs. Dansken had approved, 
 did not forsake her now ; she stood up as 
 
184 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 calmly as if she had been behind her mis- 
 tress's chair, with the double file of laugh- 
 ing young men's faces in front of her. 
 
 " My brave girl my beauty," Frank 
 whispered, and the next moment he saw 
 that they were deserted. The set had melted 
 away and they stood in their places alone. 
 He whirled Milly off into another set that 
 was forming ; that too dissolved, and left 
 them, objects of commiseration or of deri- 
 sion to the room. 
 
 Then they took their seats. " I wish we 
 could go away," Milly said. 
 
 ^ We will go, after a while. I will not 
 skulk out of the room with you and leave a 
 trail of sneers behind us. Who are they ? 
 a lot of washed - out old women ; and 
 where did they come from, I should like to 
 know? Ladies don't assemble in mining 
 camps, as a rule." Frank stopped, and 
 Milly said : 
 
 " / 'm not a lady. I never pretended to 
 be." 
 
 " And they do pretend, that is just the 
 difference." He was more sure of himself, 
 now that the case was simple his bride to 
 buckler against the world. " We will have 
 one waltz together. Can you waltz, Milly ? " 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 185 
 
 Milly smiled faintly in reminiscence. 
 " What should I care about the music if 
 I M never danced to it ? " she asked. 
 
 " Ah, that night ! Poor Milly ! Hea- 
 vens, how beautiful you look ! You are my 
 Cinderella after all. We '11 make those 
 proud sisters own up who is the belle of the 
 ball. Wait till the men have their turn." 
 
 Frank was not himself to-night. He was 
 not in the habit of such speeches as these, 
 but the form of attack he was meeting called 
 forth all that was cruelest and coarsest in 
 his nature. The company had now got down 
 to the level of primitive instincts. It was 
 simply a tussle for supremacy. 
 
 When the waltz began Frank rose and 
 took Milly by the hand. Her hand was 
 cold. He looked at her beautiful face and 
 saw that she was colorless, except for her 
 bright hair and her opaque, gem-like eyes, 
 on which the light floated as on dark green 
 water. 
 
 " Can you go through with it ? " he whis- 
 pered. 
 
 "Can I waltz?" asked Milly. "You 
 will see." 
 
 " What are those poor things going to do 
 
186 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 now ? " Mrs. Paul exclaimed as they took 
 their places. " Does he imagine that she 
 can dance ? I propose we give them the 
 floor." 
 
 It was yielded them by tacit consent, 
 and they floated over it, a pair of dancers 
 who might have been chosen to incarnate 
 the spirit of the waltz. 
 
 "That 's business," Strode murmured, 
 and then not another word was spoken. The 
 company were reduced to the attitude of 
 mere spectators ; every eye following the 
 exalted, dreamlike motions of the beautiful 
 young pair. 
 
 This was Milly's triumph. Whether it was 
 worth the cost Frank did not ask himself. 
 He flung himself into it with an aching 
 forecast that such henceforth would be the 
 nature of his wife's triumphs conquered 
 by strife, and in a field open to all com- 
 petitors without subtle distinctions. A per- 
 fect physical endowment ; a sense of rhythm ; 
 muscles true to the quiver of a nerve ; a 
 " calm, uneager face." The soul of the waltz 
 passed, in anguished ecstasy, before the 
 silent company, and the hearts of the women 
 were pained and the men were at Milly's 
 feet. 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 187 
 
 But none the less was she doomed. 
 
 " Really, one would think it was profes- 
 sional," said Mrs. Paul. "How does she 
 keep herself in practice ? " 
 
 " By Jove, she 's stunning ! It does n't 
 look as if she needed much practice," said 
 Strode. 
 
 Such remarks did not help Milly's case, 
 especially as a majority of the young men 
 carried their defection to the point of going 
 over to her in a body, asking to be intro- 
 duced, and crowding her card with their 
 names. 
 
 The ladies were beaten from the field. 
 Those who had escorts summoned them, and 
 at eleven o'clock Milly was the only woman 
 in the room. 
 
 The best of the men had gone with the 
 ladies. It needed but a glance to show 
 Frank that the tables were turned, and that 
 the retreat of the women had been a stroke 
 of vengeance. The men whose names were 
 on Mijly's list were not such as he intended 
 that his wife should dance with. 
 
 When it was seen that he was taking his 
 beautiful waltzer away, a crowd of protes- 
 tants gathered about them, reproaching her 
 
188 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 familiarly and joking with Frank in a way 
 that drove him wild. Some of them had 
 been drinking. Decidedly Strode was not 
 himself. He had disposed of Mrs. Paul at 
 her door and had hastened back, pausing for 
 a parenthetical glass at the bar, to confirm 
 his indorsement of Milly. It was he who 
 followed up the retreat, who intercepted the 
 pair at the foot of the staircase, and tipsily 
 demanded his dance with the bride. The 
 stairs went up from the office of the hotel, 
 where a crowd of men were laughing wit- 
 nesses of the scene. 
 
 " Some other time, Strode," said Frank, 
 controlling himself. 
 
 " Wha' 's your hurry ? Have n't you cut 
 her out and got you' brand on her? " Strode 
 muttered, lapsing into cowboy slang. 
 
 They had reached the first landing, Strode 
 pursuing. Frank turned upon him. " Clear 
 out, before I kick you downstairs." 
 
 Strode braced himself and Frank took 
 him by the collar and flung him backwards 
 off the landing. It was not far to fall. 
 Strode was up and at the bedroom door, 
 sobered and white with rage, as Frank shut 
 the door upon his wife and faced about to 
 meet him. 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 189 
 
 Strode looked into his eyes. " You 've 
 got to apologize," he muttered. 
 
 Frank laughed at this proposition follow- 
 ing the scene on the stairs. He was per- 
 fectly cool. " Do you want any more of 
 the same sort? " he asked. 
 
 " When will you meet me like a gentle- 
 man?" 
 
 " Like an idiot, you mean ! Gentlemen 
 don't fight duels, off the stage." 
 
 "Gentlemen, with us, don't use their 
 fists," said the Arkansas boy. " You are a 
 coward ! " 
 
 " Am I ? You shall prove it any ridic- 
 ulous way you like, and as soon as you like." 
 
 " Twelve o'clock, then, out here in the lot 
 back of the hotel. Who 's your friend ? " 
 
 Frank thought a moment. " Blashfield," 
 he said. " You need n't make a noise about 
 it." 
 
 " I think you will squeal first," said 
 Strode. 
 
 " Hound ! " said Frank, looking after him. 
 
 He went into his room and took Milly in 
 his lap, putting his head down upon her 
 shoulder. She laid her hands timidly one 
 on each side of his temples, and felt the hot 
 
190 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 veins throbbing. Her heart was very soft 
 towards him, her wonderful young lover, her 
 protector, whom she found more formidable 
 than all the dangers he had tried to save her 
 from. 
 
 " He 'd taken too much, had n't he ? " she 
 whispered. 
 
 Frank shuddered. 
 
 "You ain't afraid he '11 make you trou- 
 ble ? " 
 
 He shook his head. He gripped her to 
 him, gave her a little shake, and put her 
 down from his knees. 
 
 " Why would n't you let me dance ? " she 
 asked presently, following him with her eyes 
 as he strode about the room. " You was n't 
 jealous, was you ? " 
 
 He threw up his head like a creature that 
 feels itself stifling. It was clear that Milly 
 had not perceived the nature of her success, 
 and was immensely supported by it. Her 
 exhilaration was even more dreadful to him 
 than the incomprehension he had been beat- 
 ing himself against all day. 
 
 " Milly," he said, " did I ever show you 
 my mother's picture ? " 
 
 " Is it that one in a leather frame on your 
 bureau ? " 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 191 
 
 Again, was it possible he could be sensi- 
 tive on so slight a point as that Milly should 
 be already intimate with his personal belong- 
 ings in her domestic capacity ? " Yes," he 
 said, with a sigh. Once he had compared 
 this beautiful girl to Enid, who was so sweet 
 and serviceable, and had sympathized with 
 Geraint in his desire to " kiss the tender 
 little thumb that crossed the trencher as she 
 laid it down ; " though as a matter of fact 
 Milly's thumb was neither little nor tender, 
 and she had been instructed by Mrs. Dan- 
 sken never to let it cross the trencher. 
 
 " My mother was never anything but kind 
 to any living soul, I believe. Do you think 
 you could be fond of her, Milly? Have you 
 looked at her face ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Milly, listlessly. " She looks 
 older," she hesitated, " but that, maybe, 
 is the way she 's dressed." 
 
 "The way she is dressed? Why, how 
 should she be dressed ? " Did Milly suppose 
 his mother wore her hair in a fuzz on her 
 forehead, like Mrs. Dansken, and dressed in 
 Nile-green silk? Then he remembered that 
 the picture had been taken when she was in 
 mourning. But it did not matter. He felt 
 
192 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 as if he should never speak of his mother 
 again. 
 
 Milly was silent, feeling that she had 
 missed the right words, as usual. She had 
 not been thinking much of what she was 
 saying. She had not got as far as Frank's 
 mother yet. Frank saw that she had sunk 
 into that attitude of stolid watchfulness, 
 with something reproachful in it, that all 
 day had been his despair. Her triumph was 
 cold. He looked at her, fair as she was, 
 with a face of that simple but elusive type 
 the masters felt for, with broad, soft touches, 
 in palest chalks, on the margins of bolder 
 conceptions ; he thought of Andrea del 
 Sarto, of Lydgate, of all the men who had 
 wrecked their lives in such frail craft as this. 
 He thought of that nameless youth who was 
 surprised and stabbed as he stepped from 
 a gondola after a night's delirious drifting 
 the youth who boasted that he had 
 " lived." But he could not find the com- 
 fort of a prototype, either in romantic real- 
 ity or in realistic romance. He was no 
 Andrea, no Lydgate ; he was not even a 
 youth who had " lived ; " he was merely the 
 husband of Milly. As for the duel, it was 
 
THE CATASTROPHE, 193 
 
 of a piece with all the rest. Last night he 
 had married Milly ; to-night, driven by the 
 same fantastic chain of tragic common- 
 places, he was to fight a duel for her sake ; 
 or to go through the form. He most cer- 
 tainly did not intend to hit Strode, and he 
 doubted on general principles that Strode 
 would be able to hit him, should the affair 
 culminate in their pointing pistols at each 
 other. 
 
 At a quarter to twelve Blashfield came to 
 the door. " Strode will apologize," he said, 
 " if you will give him a chance." 
 
 " I '11 give him every chance when we get 
 on the ground." 
 
 " He is downstairs now. He has come to 
 himself. There 's no sense in this meeting, 
 you know." 
 
 " What do you want of me ? It 's a quar- 
 ter to twelve now. Let him meet me where 
 he said he would and we will shake hands. 
 No, I won't go downstairs, Blashfield. I 
 shall punch his head if I do." 
 
 " Are you going to be reasonable ? *' 
 
 "I have been reasonable. Strode was 
 tipsy. Let him say so, when the time comes, 
 and ask my pardon. I 'm not going to hunt 
 him up." 
 
194 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 " I 11 bring him up here." 
 
 " Thank you, I 've no use for him up 
 here. Keep an eye on him, Blasshy, if 
 you 're afraid he won't stay with it." 
 
 " He is n't my man." 
 
 " Keep with him all the same. I '11 meet 
 you at the barber's." 
 
 The quarter-hour was passed. Frank had 
 said to Milly that he would have to go out 
 for a few moments ; it was the little engage- 
 ment he had told her he would have to sit 
 up for. He would tell her about it and 
 make her laugh, when he returned. He him- 
 self laughed as he kissed her. 
 
 He was leaving the hotel when he met 
 Hugh Williams, beaming with outstretched 
 hand. 
 
 "The dance lets out early to-night," he 
 remarked pleasantly. " I did n't know Mrs. 
 Dansken was at home until I stumbled over 
 Blashfield." 
 
 Frank decided, after a look at Williams, 
 that Blashfield had kept the meeting quiet. 
 
 " Well, how 's everything since I 've been 
 away? I 've been asleep for two hours. 
 Mrs. Dansken gave me some supper and, 
 by the way, I 'in mightily pleased that girl 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 195 
 
 has gone." Williams had concluded to give 
 Frank his " dose " while he could speak 
 without apparent knowledge of all that had 
 taken place in his absence, since it would 
 never do to let Frank suppose he had been 
 talked over. 
 
 "What girl?" 
 
 " Come out here, Frank," said Williams ; 
 and when they were in the street he said, 
 "You know who I mean the Perfect 
 Treasure. I met the partner of her brother. 
 The brother turns out to be a husband. He 
 was n't a particularly good one, it seems, 
 and so she hedges a little and calls him " 
 
 " It 's a lie." 
 
 " I thought it was a lie myself, Frank." 
 Williams would not look at his friend to see 
 how he was taking it. " I 'm not much in 
 the habit of packing lies about, especially 
 lies about a woman, so I stepped round to 
 the Sisters'," he went on, trying to speak 
 naturally and in an unpremeditated way 
 " who took care of her, you know, when her 
 child was born " 
 
 Frank clutched him by the shoulders. 
 " Stop ! " he panted, " you are talking about 
 my wife." 
 
196 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 The two men reeled apart and stared at 
 each other. 
 
 "Curses on it, why did n't you tell 
 me?" 
 
 " Why did you open on me, before I could 
 speak ? Out with it now, to the last word ! " 
 
 " I have nothing to say about your wife, 
 Frank." 
 
 " I '11 have it out of you, I say." 
 
 Blashfield, who had been waiting for his 
 principal, caught sight of him and joined 
 them. He gripped him by the elbow. " Do 
 you know what time it is ? " he suggested. 
 
 " I '11 be with you in a moment, Blash- 
 field ; I want to speak with Williams I '11 
 be around." 
 
 Blashfield gave his arm another squeeze 
 and ran off to the rendezvous. 
 
 "Frank," said Williams, "I can't take 
 those words back, but you should allow for 
 my ignorance. I 've been gone a thousand 
 years, it seems." 
 
 " You can say you believe me when I tell 
 you those words are false." 
 
 Williams did not speak. 
 
 "Your silence, do you know, is insulting." 
 
 " I have nothing to say about your wife, 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 197 
 
 Frank," Williams repeated, " except that 
 she is a very handsome girl and I hope you 
 will be happy." 
 
 " It is kind of you to mention her beauty." 
 
 " I think we had better not talk any more 
 to-night. There 's all to-inorrow, you know." 
 
 " I have no desire to talk, but I think 
 there is something more for you to say." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " You will finish what you began to tell me, 
 and then you will say whether you believe it 
 is true." 
 
 " What does it matter what I believe ? 
 Go to your wife and find out the truth." 
 
 " Go to my wife, and ask her if she has 
 had a child?" 
 
 " God help you, Frank. Go to her and 
 learn to know your wife ; and be thank- 
 ful, whatever she is, that she is no worse. 
 You 've got to know the truth, sooner or 
 later. It 's all over the camp to-night." 
 
 " What is the truth ? " 
 
 " Go to her, man. Don't ask me. For 
 God's sake, am I to tell you she has been a 
 mother ; that her child was born at the hos- 
 pital ; that its father deserted her before it 
 was born ? I 'd have kept it from you with 
 
198 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 my life, but I told Mrs. Dansken two hours 
 ago, before she went to the ball. It 's all 
 over the town by now, God forgive me ! " 
 
 Frank could not have been sure that he 
 heard the last words of his friend, or that 
 he was the man who was being led up and 
 down the street, brokenly, like one drugged 
 or intoxicated. 
 
 The rage had all gone out of him, the 
 flame that had driven him for the past five 
 days, since the evening he was published be- 
 fore the household. In its place was a light- 
 headed calmness, in which he could think of 
 Milly with a strange indifference. 
 
 " Have you got any money about you ? " 
 were the first words he said. 
 
 "Any money?" said Williams. "Do 
 you want money to-night ? " 
 
 " Yes, I want some money. I want a 
 good deal. Do you know it 's my wedding 
 night?" 
 
 Williams stopped him in the street and 
 fairly shook him, to get his attention. 
 
 " Frank, do you mean she is n't your wife 
 
 yet?" 
 
 " Yes, she 's my wife. I was married last 
 night." 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 199 
 
 " Then, it is too late " - 
 
 " Too late to desert her ? She 's been de- 
 serted once, you say ? " 
 
 Williams groaned, and they resumed their 
 aimless walk. 
 
 " Did you say you had n't any money in 
 your clothes ? " 
 
 " I 've got two dollars and a half." 
 
 " Don't get excited," said Frank ; " I 'm 
 not out of my head. I 'm going upstairs a 
 moment. You need n't follow me. Can't a 
 man speak to his wife ? " 
 
 He went up swiftly to the door of his 
 room. There was something he had yet to 
 do; it was rather a crazy thought, but it 
 chimed in with his fancy that he must not 
 be ungentlemanly, whatever he meant by 
 that. He stood a moment listening by the 
 door. The room was quiet. Could she be 
 asleep on her wedding night his bride 
 without a history ; the girl who within the 
 year had suffered, in poverty and deser- 
 tion, the agony of motherhood ; who had 
 buried her child ; who had waltzed in his 
 arms that night, a spectacle how had he 
 paraded his shame ! This was why the 
 ladies had retreated and the men had stayed, 
 
200 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 those who were suited to the company of his 
 bride. He prayed that she might be asleep. 
 
 Milly had been lying dressed and awake 
 on the bed when she first heard her hus- 
 band's step, and knew that the moment she 
 had been drifting upon had come, and that 
 she must meet it at last with her lamp un- 
 lighted and the darkness -of falsehood in her 
 soul. She wondered if it might be possible 
 for her to speak even now; but as Frank 
 approached the bed the instinct of dread 
 alone prevailed, and she lay still, scarcely 
 breathing, and trembling like a hare in its 
 form. 
 
 He stooped over her and thought that she 
 slept ; but with that horrible weak yet heavy 
 beating of the heart going on inside his 
 breast he would not have known if it had 
 been death he looked upon, instead of sleep. 
 In the hollow of her arm that was nearest 
 him he deposited all the gold and silver he 
 could find in his pockets, softly, one piece 
 laid against another, not to waken the 
 sleeper. He did not despoil himself further. 
 His watch and the ornaments that completed 
 his dress he kept upon his person. He 
 looked at her once more, her face turned 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 201 
 
 away from the little heap of coin gleaming 
 against the whiteness of her arm. The sight 
 smote him, and yet what more did he owe 
 her now ? 
 
 Williams watched him as he came through 
 the office. He stopped at the bar and asked 
 for a glass of brandy ; he drank it and then 
 went over to the desk and spoke to the clerk, 
 saying something about feeling the brandy 
 in his head. His behavior struck Williams 
 as simply idiotic under the circumstances, 
 unless the boy had some purpose in making 
 a fool of himself. He caught sight of Wil- 
 liams and smiled in a way that did not allay 
 his friend's uneasiness. Hugh took him by 
 the arm and said, speaking low as they stood 
 by the door together : 
 
 " This is n't fair to her, Frank. You 
 ought to give her a chance to explain." 
 
 " She can't explain now," said Frank, 
 lightly. " She 's asleep. And I have an 
 engagement. Will you go up there and 
 wait till I come back? The room is the 
 one opposite the ladies' parlor. Stay round 
 where you can hear her if she calls." 
 
 " Where in the world are you going ? I 
 don't like your engagement at twelve o'clock 
 at night." 
 
202 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 " A man can't help his engagements," 
 said Frank. " You heard me promise 
 Blasshy I 'd be there. You were pretty 
 rough on her, Hugh. You owe her a good 
 turn. And if your friend's wife is n't all 
 you 'd like her to be, is that any reason 
 you should n't stand by her ? " 
 
 " I should prefer just now to stand by 
 you." 
 
 " So you will, if you '11 just wait, you 
 know. Wait up there till I get back." 
 
 " Go on, then ; I will wait ; and don't be 
 out all night." 
 
 Frank smiled back at his friend with that 
 wretched, inconsequent smile. 
 
 Hugh was still uneasy, but the fact that 
 Blashfield was concerned with Frank's en- 
 gagement comforted him somewhat : his 
 friend could not have any very desperate 
 or tragic intentions with Blasshy in tow. 
 
 The ladies' parlor was empty, but Wil- 
 liams was too restless to compose himself to 
 solitary contemplation of its splendors. He 
 walked the length of the hall, back and 
 forth, pausing once at Milly's door when 
 he thought he heard a sound of weeping. 
 " Poor little fool," he said to himself, " I 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 203 
 
 could be sorry for her if it were not for 
 Frank his life spoiled at twenty-four." 
 
 He stood in one spot in the middle of 
 the hall for some moments, thinking of his 
 friend's future. 
 
 " And what is he up to now, I wonder ? " 
 He looked at his watch and saw that Frank 
 had been gone three quarters of an hour. 
 
 A window at the lower end of the hall 
 was open and the wind blew harshly in, 
 making the lamps flicker. He stepped down 
 the hall to close it, and as the keen night 
 air crossed his face he heard the report of 
 a pistol. He went to the window and looked 
 out. It was a high window, opening on the 
 narrow fenced alley between the hotel 
 kitchen and the open lot behind. The alley 
 was lighted for a short distance by the 
 lamps of late workers in the kitchen ; be- 
 yond, as far as he could see in the direction 
 of the shot, all was dark. 
 
 Williams found the door of a back stair- 
 way and ran down to a rear entrance open- 
 ing upon the fenced passage. One or two 
 of the hotel servants there were but few 
 up at that hour stood bareheaded in the 
 alley, in the light from the hot kitchen, star- 
 ing into the blackness of the lot. 
 
204 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 " What is it ? " Williams asked. 
 
 " Some young fellows went by here a 
 while back," one of the waiters said, peering 
 ahead of him. " I do' know what they 're 
 up to." 
 
 Williams crowded past him and met 
 Blashfield, a few steps farther on, running, 
 his face towards the light. 
 
 " Who is hurt ? " asked Williams, seeing 
 that something was wrong. 
 
 " Embury." 
 
 " How - who did it ? " 
 
 Blashfield did not answer, but ran on. He 
 gave money to one of the waiters, who dis- 
 appeared and himself took the nearest way 
 into the street. 
 
 Williams ran blindly forward towards a 
 spot of light near the rear fence of the lot. 
 There were figures moving against it ; those 
 nearest the light were motionless, but one 
 was moving back and forth in a curious trot. 
 A few steps brought Williams near enough 
 to see that it was Strode, still in evening 
 dress except that he had changed his coat 
 for a reefing jacket. He grasped Williams 
 by the hand and began a childish babbling. 
 Hugh could not shake him off ; he ran be- 
 side him talking excitedly. 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 205 
 
 " I thought you were the sheriff. I 'm 
 waiting to give myself up ; but the boys will 
 tell you, Williams, I never meant to fight. 
 I had n't a thing against him. I offered to 
 apologize. I was n't even heeled. The 
 boys will tell you one of 'em had to lend me 
 a pistol ; I had n't a weapon on me." 
 
 " Let go of me, Strode. Where is he ? " 
 
 " I 'm taking you there. He was bound 
 to have the thing come off. You can ask 
 the boys if I could help myself. I don't 
 know how I came to hit him. I never meant 
 to do it. And he never fired a shot. His 
 pistol was cold. I think he was drunk, 
 Williams, or else he 's off his head. Why, 
 good Lord, it was nothing what I said." 
 
 The figures by the spot of light moved 
 aside and showed one that lay on the snow, 
 in an angle of the fence, sheltered from the 
 wind. A lantern at his feet shone upward 
 upon his blanched hands and chin and 
 throat. 
 
 " How are you now, Embury ? " asked 
 Strode, pressing up. " You ain't much hurt, 
 are you ? " 
 
 Hugh put him aside. " Where is it, 
 Frank ? " he said. " Are you bleeding 
 much?" 
 
206 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 Frank groaned as Hugh passed his hand 
 over the soaked clothing, feeling for the 
 wound. 
 
 " It was the brandy," he muttered. " You 
 saw me take it, Hugh. Went to my head 
 like keep them off a minute," he whis- 
 pered. 
 
 "Has Blashfield gone for a doctor?" 
 Hugh inquired. 
 
 "Yes," he was told. "We thought we 
 had n't better move him." 
 
 " Well, step away, boys, a moment, will 
 you? O Frank, I could curse myself to 
 death, if that would save you ! " 
 
 " I 've got what I wanted. You '11 hush 
 up the talk, Hugh ? Let them think it was 
 the brandy went to my head," he mur- 
 mured wanderingly. 
 
 " Is there anything else, dear boy ? You '11 
 get a chill lying here." 
 
 "No I wanted to tell you I 've got 
 what I wanted," Frank repeated dreamily. 
 "You must not think that you" He 
 sighed, and gave up the effort to explain. 
 " It was not happy," he whispered, trying 
 to fix his eyes upon his friend's face. They 
 could not hold the look ; the meaning faded 
 out of them, and he spoke no more. 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 207 
 
 " We must get him in," said Hugh. They 
 laid him on an overcoat stretched upon the 
 snow, and carried him in, past the lights of 
 the kitchen, by the servants' entrance. 
 
 " Not upstairs," Hugh whispered. 
 
 They turned into the dining-room, where 
 the tables were set in order again for the 
 morning, and laid him on the floor with a 
 pile of cheap quilts from one of the waiters' 
 beds beneath him. 
 
 The doctor had gone, commanding that 
 Frank should not be moved, his slender 
 chance for life depending on absolute quiet. 
 
 It was a Leadville night, wind and sharp 
 volleys of sleet succeeding the early hours 
 of still darkness. From time to time the 
 watchman came in and put coal, noiselessly, 
 with his mittened hands, upon the fire. 
 
 Frank had not spoken since his fainting- 
 fit when they carried him in. Towards 
 morning he opened his eyes and turned 
 them upon Hugh, with that look which those 
 who have watched by the dying recognize as 
 the approach of the final change the look 
 that obliterates personality, that makes the 
 young face old and the old face young. 
 
208 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 Hugh saw that he wished to speak. He 
 gave him the stimulant the doctor had 
 ordered in case of a return to consciousness, 
 and waited for its effect. 
 
 " Could you go up softly, before she 
 wakes, and take that money away ? " Frank 
 whispered. 
 
 Hugh thought that he was wandering. 
 Presently he said, quite collectedly, " When 
 you take me home, tell them everything. 
 Perhaps they will not mind, if they know 
 I got what I wanted." 
 
 " Oh, my dear boy, was there no way out 
 of it but this ? " 
 
 " Not for me the way of the foolish," 
 he murmured. 
 
 But at the last, the smile that dawned 
 upon the still face was an awesome sight to 
 see. Williams thought, as he dwelt and 
 dwelt upon it, and tried to strengthen his 
 faith and ease his pain by gazing, that if 
 Frank's father and mother could but see 
 that look, there must have been consolation, 
 even for them, in that marvelous light shed 
 by the unknown upon this wreck of the 
 known. 
 
 When the smile, with its silent protest 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 209 
 
 against grieving, had been put away out of 
 sight, Hugh's pain returned ; he saw all the 
 wasted moments of retrieval, all the turning- 
 points that had been hurried past. 
 
 Mrs. Dansken showed him a letter she 
 had written to Frank's mother, bitterly ac- 
 cusing herself and giving minute details. 
 
 " You have n't said anything about what 
 I did," said Hugh, when he had read the 
 letter. 
 
 " You did nothing that I was not respon- 
 sible for." 
 
 " You can't tell the whole truth about 
 this matter, Mrs. Dansken. Better leave it 
 alone. I will tell them all that he wanted 
 them to know." 
 
 " But they will never know his provoca- 
 tion." 
 
 " They know their own boy and would 
 it comfort them to think we had muddled 
 his life away here among us ? You can't tell 
 the whole truth, Mrs. Dansken. We don't 
 know it ourselves." 
 
 There have been dancers and dancing on 
 the floor of the Clarendon dining-room since 
 the night of Milly's debut, but very few of 
 
210 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 the original Assembly ever appeared there 
 again in pursuit of pleasure. 
 
 There was one corner of the room, over 
 against the bench where Milly had sat at 
 bay, that was haunted for those who helped 
 to lay the young bridegroom there upon the 
 floor, as it might have been, at her feet. 
 Milly herself never entered the room again, 
 nor willingly looked in the face one of those 
 who witnessed her entrance and her exit 
 there. Six months after that evening, the 
 household at No. 9 had dispersed and knew 
 each other no more except by hearsay. 
 
 Blashfield continued on his amiable career 
 westward until he reached Honolulu, where 
 he married an heiress of the island, with a 
 shade, it is said, of the liberally dissemi- 
 nated blood of the royal family in her veins. 
 She is reported to be a beautiful woman, 
 with a yard or more of darkest brown hair, 
 and a constitutional leaning towards the 
 wearing of wrappers in the afternoon. 
 
 Mrs. Dansken continued to make Hugh 
 Williams the confidant of her grief and re- 
 pentance for the miscarriage of her relations 
 with Embury ; but in respect to Milly she 
 could never be brought to accuse herself 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 211 
 
 except for the fact of the girl's presence in 
 the house. With no audience to applaud, 
 Hugh ceased to try to make points against 
 her in conversation. Before a year had 
 passed he was the sole boarder at No. 9, and 
 this time the arrangement was a permanent 
 and an exclusive one. Mrs. Dansken was a 
 few years older than her philosophical hus- 
 band, but his was the elder temperament. 
 Hugh had parted with his best hopes in the 
 way of marriage some time before he made 
 the acquaintance of his Leadville landlady : 
 he had always liked the merry, capable, hon- 
 est little woman ; he used to feel her weari- 
 nesses, her mistakes, and humiliations al- 
 most as if they had been his own ; he did 
 not mind her sharp tongue or her rowdy 
 little ways, and she made him, he believed, 
 a better comrade in his wandering Western 
 life than a delicately bred, supersensitive, ro- 
 mantic girl from the more carefully weeded 
 ranks of society. But it was long since he 
 had known any girl of this sort, and his ideas 
 on the subject were somewhat vague. 
 
 Strode went to New Mexico, where the 
 story of his having killed his man in a duel 
 after a Leadville dance had preceded him, 
 
212 THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL. 
 
 and won for him prestige of a kind which, 
 under the circumstances, he did not covet. 
 He never had occasion to confirm the report 
 that described him as a dead-shot and a dan- 
 gerous man in a quarrel. 
 
 Milly went to live with Mrs. Black, who, 
 with her gift for discerning what was best in 
 those around her, discovered that Milly was 
 "a born sick-nurse" of the capable and 
 restful, rather than the intuitive, kind. 
 There was plenty of employment outside of 
 the hospitals for Milly's powers during the 
 succeeding season at the camp. Sometimes 
 it was the mother of a young babe at some 
 crazy cabin on a claim that the father was 
 " holding down," perhaps with barricade 
 and shotgun ; sometimes a houseful of little 
 children prostrated by an epidemic. Once 
 it was a traveler overtaken at his hotel 
 a big stock-raiser from Montana, in beaver 
 overcoat and diamond pin, who perforce 
 upon his recovery presented his pretty nurse 
 with the life he was pleased to owe to her 
 services. What Milly did with the gift, 
 after she went back with him to his cattle- 
 ranch, is not known. But Mrs. Black was 
 glad to have the girl off her mind, she 
 
THE CATASTROPHE. 213 
 
 said. " For a girl as pretty as that, who 
 has n't learned to say either yes or no, is n't 
 safe to have around in a place where there 
 are so many men folks." 
 
 Poor Frank, alas ! had given occasion for 
 all the family prophets who had ever doubted 
 him to say, " I told you so." But there is 
 one little girl who will always believe that if 
 they had only allowed her to marry her own 
 love all would have been so different. Per- 
 haps a belief of this kind is a better thing 
 than its realization could have been ; at all 
 events, Mr. and Mrs. Mason still think that 
 they knew best. 
 
THE FATE OF A VOICE. 
 
 THERE are many loose pages of the 
 earth's history scattered through the unpeo- 
 pled regions of the Far West, known but 
 to few persons, and these unskilled in the 
 reading of Nature's dumb records. One of 
 these unread pages, written over with pre- 
 historic inscriptions, is the canon of the 
 Klamath River. 
 
 An ancient lava stream once submerged 
 the valley. Its hardening crust, bursting 
 asunder in places, left great crooked rents, 
 through which the subsequent drainage from 
 the mountain slopes found a way down to 
 the desert plains. In one of these furrows, 
 left by the fiery ploughshare, a river, now 
 called the Klamath, made its bed. Hurl- 
 ing itself from side to side, scouring out its 
 straitened boundaries with tons of sand torn 
 from the mountains, it has slowly widened 
 and deepened and worn its ancient channel 
 into the canon as it may now be seen. 
 
216 THE FATE OF A VOICE. 
 
 No one can tell how long the river has 
 been making the bed in which it lies so rest- 
 lessly. Riding towards it across the sun- 
 burnt mountain pastures, its course may be 
 traced by the black crests of the lava bluffs 
 which line its channel, showing in the part- 
 ings of the hills. From a distance the bluffs 
 
 O 
 
 do not look formidable ; they seem but a 
 step down from the high, sunlit slopes, an 
 insignificant break in the skyward sweep of 
 their long, buoyant lines. But ride on to 
 the brink and look down. The bunch-grass 
 grows to the very edge, its slight spears 
 quivering in light against the canon's depths 
 of shadow. The roar of the river comes 
 up to your ears in a continuous volume of 
 sound, loud or low, as the wind changes. 
 Here and there, where the speed of the river 
 has been checked, it has left a bit of white 
 sand beach, the only positive white in the 
 landscape. The faded grasses of the hills 
 look pale against the sky [it is a country of 
 cloudless skies and long rainless summers] 
 only the dark canon walls dominate the 
 intensity of its deep unchanging blue. The 
 broad light rests, still as in a picture, on the 
 fixed black lines of the bluffs, on the slopes 
 
THE FATE OF A VOICE. 217 
 
 of wild pasture whose curves flatten and 
 crowd together as they approach the horizon. 
 A few black dots of cattle, grazing in the 
 distance, may appear and then stray out of 
 sight over a ridge, or a broad-winged bird 
 may slowly mount and wheel and sink be- 
 tween the canon walls. Meanwhile, your 
 horse is picking his way, step by step, along 
 the bluffs, cropping the tufts of dry bunch- 
 grass, his hoofs clinking now and then on a 
 bit of sunken rock, which, from the sound, 
 might go down to the foundations of the 
 hills ; there are cracks, too, that look as if 
 they went as deep. The basalt walls are 
 reared in tiers of columns with an hexagonal 
 cleavage. A column or a group of columns 
 becomes dislocated from the mass, rests so, 
 slightly apart ; a girl's weight might throw 
 it over. At length the accumulation of 
 slight, incessant, propelling causes over- 
 comes its delicate poise ; it topples down ; 
 the jointed columns fall apart, and their 
 fragments go to increase the heap of debris 
 which has found its angle of repose at the 
 foot of the cliff. A raw spot of color 
 shows on the weather-worn face of the cliff, 
 and beneath it a shelf is left, or a niche, which 
 
218 THE FATE OF A VOICE. 
 
 the tough sage and the scented wild syringa 
 creep down to and fearlessly occupy in com- 
 pany with straggling tufts of bunch-grass. 
 
 One summer a party of railroad engineers 
 made their camp in the river canon, distribut- 
 ing their tents along the side of a gulch lined 
 with willows and wild roses, up the first hill 
 above it, and down on the white sand beach 
 below. The quarters of the division engi- 
 neer, who had ladies with him in camp that 
 summer, the tents of the younger members of 
 the corps, the cook-tent, and the dining-shed 
 made a little settlement by themselves on the 
 hill ; while the camp of the " force " was lower 
 down the gulch. Work on that division of the 
 new railroad had been temporarily suspended, 
 and the engineer in charge, having finished 
 his part of the line to its junction with the 
 valley division, was awaiting orders from his 
 chief. 
 
 It was September, and the last week of 
 the ladies' sojourn in camp. They were but 
 two, the division engineer's wife and the 
 wife's younger sister, a girl with a voice. 
 No one who knew her ever thought of Made- 
 line Hendrie without thinking of her voice, 
 a Sact she herself would have been the last 
 
THE FATE OF A VOICE. 219 
 
 to resent. At that time she was ordering her 
 life solely with reference to the demands of 
 that imperious organ. An obstinate huski- 
 ness which had changed it since the damp, late 
 Eastern spring, and had veiled its brilliancy, 
 was the motive that had sent her, with her 
 sister, to the dry, pure air of the foot-hills. 
 In the autumn she would go abroad for two 
 or three years' final study. 
 
 It was Sunday afternoon in camp. Since 
 work on the line had ceased there was little 
 to distinguish it from any other afternoon, 
 except that the little Duncan girls wore 
 white dresses and broad ribbons at lunch 
 instead of their play frocks, and were al- 
 lowed to come to the six o'clock dinner in 
 the cook-tent. Mrs. Duncan had remarked 
 to her husband that Madeline and young 
 Aldis seemed to be making the most of their 
 farewells. They had spent the entire after- 
 noon together on the river beach, not in 
 sight of the camp, but in a little cove se- 
 cluded by willows, where the brook came 
 down. Mrs. Duncan could see them now 
 returning with lagging steps along the shore, 
 not looking at each other and not speaking, 
 apparently. The rest of the camp was on 
 its way to dinner. 
 
220 THE FATE OF A VOICE. 
 
 "I told you how it would be, if you 
 brought her out here, you know," Mr. Dun- 
 can said, waiting for his wife to pass him, 
 with her skirts gathered in one hand, along 
 the foot-bridge that crossed the brook to the 
 cook-tent. 
 
 " Oh, Madeline is all right," she replied. 
 
 But Aldis was missing at table, and 
 Madeline came down late, though without 
 having changed her dress, and during din- 
 ner avoided her sister's eye. 
 
 " You 're not going out with him again, 
 Madeline ! " Mrs. Duncan found a chance to 
 say to the girl after dinner, as she was hurry- 
 ing up the trail with a light shawl on her 
 arm. " All the afternoon, and now again ! 
 What can you be thinking of? " 
 
 Mrs. Duncan could see Aldis walking 
 about in front of the tents on the hill, evi- 
 dently on the watch for Madeline. 
 
 " I must," she said hurriedly. " It is a 
 promise." 
 
 " Oh, if it has come to that " 
 
 " It has n't come to anything. You need 
 not be troubled. To-night will be the last 
 of it." 
 
 " Madeline, you must not go. Let me 
 
THE FATE OF A VOICE. 221 
 
 excuse you to Aldis. I cannot let you go till 
 I Ve had a chance to talk with you." 
 
 " That is what I have promised him one 
 more chance. You cannot help us, Sallie. 
 Go back, dear, and don't worry about me." 
 
 These words were hastily whispered on 
 the trail, Aldis walking about and gloomily 
 awaiting the result of this flying conference 
 between the sisters. Mrs. Duncan went 
 back to the house only half-satisfied that she 
 had done her duty. It was not the first time 
 she had found it difficult to do her duty by 
 Madeline, when it happened to conflict with 
 the inclinations of that imperative youngest 
 daughter of the house of Hendrie. However, 
 it was not for Madeline that she was troubled. 
 
 The path leading to the bluffs was one of 
 the many cattle-trails that wind upward, with 
 an even grade, from base to summit of every 
 grass-covered hill on the mountain ranges. 
 Madeline and Aldis shortened the way by 
 leaving the trail and climbing the side of 
 the bluff where it jutted out above the river. 
 It was a steep and breathless struggle up- 
 ward, and Madeline did not refuse the accus- 
 tomed help of her companion's hand, offered 
 in silence with a look which she ignored. 
 
222 THE FATE OF A VOICE. 
 
 Mechanically they sought the place where 
 it had been their custom to sit on other even- 
 ings of the summer they had spent together, 
 one of those ledges a few feet from the 
 summit of the bluff, where part of a row 
 of columns had fallen. Cautiously they 
 stepped down to it, along a crevice slippery 
 with dried grasses, he keeping always be- 
 tween her and the brink. 
 
 The sun had already set to the camp, but 
 from their present height once more they 
 could see it drifting down the flaming west. 
 Suddenly, as a fire-ship burns to the water's 
 edge and sinks, the darkening line of the 
 distant plains closed above that intolerable 
 splendor. All the cool subdued tones of the 
 canon sprang into life. The river took a 
 steely gleam. Up through the gate of the 
 canon rolled the tide of hazy glory from 
 the valley, touched the topmost crags, and 
 mounted thence to fade in the evening sky. 
 The two on the bluffs sat in silence, their 
 faces pale in the deepening glow, but Mad- 
 eline had crept forward on the ledge, nearer 
 to Aldis, to look down. It was the first 
 confiding natural movement she had made 
 towards him since the shock of this new 
 
THE FATE OF A VOICE. 223 
 
 phase of their friendship had startled her. 
 Aldis was grateful for it, while resolved to 
 take all possible advantage of it. At his 
 first words she drew back, and he knew, be- 
 fore her answer came, that she had instantly 
 resumed the defensive. 
 
 " Everything has been said, except things 
 it would be unkind to say. Why need we go 
 over it all again? " 
 
 " That is what we came up here for, is it 
 not ? To go over it all once more and get 
 down to the very dregs of your argument." 
 
 " It is not an argument. It is a decision, 
 and it is made. There is nothing more I 
 can say, except to indulge in the meanness 
 of recrimination." 
 
 " Go on and recriminate, by all means ! 
 That is what I want, to make you say 
 everything you have on your mind. Then I 
 shall ask you to listen to me. What is it 
 that you are keeping back ? " 
 
 " Well, then, was it quite honest of you 
 to seem to accept the conditions of our 
 being together this summer, as we have been, 
 and all the while to be nursing this hope, 
 for me to have to kill? Do you think 
 I enjoy it?" 
 
224 THE FATE OF A VOICE. 
 
 " The conditions ? " he repeated. " What 
 conditions do you mean ? I knew you in- 
 tended yourself for a public singer." 
 
 The girl blushed hotly. "Why do you 
 say ' intended myself ' ? I did not choose 
 my fate. It has chosen me. You must 
 have known that marrying " the word 
 came with a kind of awkward violence from 
 her lips " anybody was the last thing I 
 should be likely to think of. A voice is a 
 vocation in itself." 
 
 " I did not propose marriage to you as a 
 vocation. As for that hope you accuse me 
 of secretly harboring, I have never held you 
 responsible for it. I took all the risks de- 
 liberately when I gave myself up to being 
 happy with you, and trying to make you 
 happy with me. You have been happy 
 sometimes, have you not ? " 
 
 " Yes," she confessed ; " too happy, if this 
 is the way it is to end." 
 
 "But it is not? Perhaps I ought to thank 
 you for being sorry for me, but that is not 
 what I want. I want to make you sorry 
 for yourself, and for the awful mistake you 
 are making." 
 
 " Oh, the whole summer has been a mis- 
 
THE FATE OF A VOICE. 225 
 
 take ! And this place and everj^thing have 
 been fatal ! But if you had only been hon- 
 est with me, it might have all been different. 
 I should have been on my guard." 
 
 " Thank heaven you were not ! Do you 
 suppose the man lives who would put a girl 
 on her guard, as you say, and endure her 
 company on such terms ? " 
 
 " You know what I mean. I am not free ; 
 I am not eligible. I thought you under- 
 stood that and admitted it. We were friends 
 on that basis." 
 
 " I never admitted anything of the kind 
 or accepted any basis but the natural one. 
 When you make your own conditions for a 
 man and assume that he accepts them, you 
 should ask yourself what sort of an animal 
 he is. Most of us believe we have an inal- 
 ienable right to try to win the woman we 
 have chosen, if she is not bespoken or mar- 
 ried to another man." 
 
 " I am bespoken then. Thank you for the 
 word. My life is pledged to a purpose as 
 serious as marriage itself. You need not 
 smile. Love is not the only inspiration a 
 woman's life can know. I shall reach far 
 more people through my art than I could by 
 just living for my own preferences." 
 
226 THE FATE OF A VOICE. 
 
 " You still have preferences, then ? " 
 " Why should I deny it. I don't call it 
 being strong to be merely indifferent. I 
 can care for things and yet give them up. 
 I don't expect to have a very good time 
 these next three years. I dare say I shall 
 have foolish dreams like other girls, and look 
 back and count the time spent. But what 
 I truly believe I was meant to do, that I 
 will do, no matter what it costs. There is 
 no other way to live. Listen ! " she 
 stopped him with a gesture as he was about 
 to speak. She raised her head. Her gray 
 eyes, which had more light than color in 
 them, were shining with something that 
 looked like tears, as she gave voice to one 
 long, heart-satisfying peal of harmony, pro- 
 longing it, filling the silence with its rich 
 cadences, and waking from the rocks across 
 the canon a faint eerie repetition, an echo 
 like the utterance of a voice imprisoned in 
 the cliff. " There," she said, " are the two 
 me's, the real me and what you would make 
 of me the ghost of a voice an echo of 
 other voices from the world I belonged to 
 once, calling in the wild places where you 
 would have me buried alive." 
 
THE FATE OF A VOICE. 227 
 
 He smiled drearily at this girlish hyper- 
 bole. " I think there is room here even for 
 a voice like yours. It need not perish for 
 want of breath." 
 
 " No, but for want of listeners. I could 
 not sing in an empty world." 
 
 " You would have one listener. I could 
 listen for ten thousand." 
 
 " Oh, but I don't want you. I want the 
 ten thousand. There are plenty of women 
 with sweet voices meant for only one listener. 
 You should find one of those voices and 
 listen to it the rest of your life." There was 
 a tremulous, insistent gayety in her manner 
 which met with no response. " As for me," 
 she continued, " I want to sing to multitudes. 
 I want to lean my voice on the waves of 
 great orchestras. I want to feel myself going 
 crazy in the choruses, and then sing all alone 
 in a hush oh, don't you know that intoxi- 
 cating silence ? It takes hundreds to make 
 it. And can't you hear the first low notes, 
 and feel the shudder of joy ? I can. I can 
 hear my own voice like a separate living 
 thing. I love it better than I love myself ! 
 It is n't myself. I feel sometimes that it is 
 a spirit that has trusted itself to my keep- 
 ing. I will not betray it, even for you." 
 
228 THE FATE OF A VOICE. 
 
 This little concession to the weakness of 
 human preference escaped her in the ardor 
 of her resolve. It was not lost upon Aldis. 
 
 " Do you think I wish to silence you," he 
 protested. " I love your voice, but not as a 
 separate thing. If it is a spirit, it is your 
 spirit. But I could dispense with it, easily ! " 
 
 " Of course you could. You don't care for 
 me as I am. You have never admitted that 
 I have a gift which is a destiny in itself. If 
 you did, you would respect it ; you could not 
 think of me, mutilated, as I should be if you 
 took away my one means of expression." 
 
 " Oh, nobody who has anything to express 
 is so limited as that. Besides, I would n't 
 take it away. I would enlarge it, not force 
 it into one channel. I would have the 
 woman possess the voice, not the voice pos- 
 sess the woman. I should be the last to 
 deny that you have a destiny ; but I have 
 one too. My destiny is to love you and to 
 make you my wife. There is nothing in 
 that that need conflict with yours." 
 
 " I should think there was everything ! " 
 
 " You have never let me get so far as a 
 single detail, but if you will listen." 
 
 " I thought I had listened pretty well for 
 
THE FATE OF A VOICE. 229 
 
 one who assumes that it is her mission to be 
 heard," Madeline again said, with a piteous 
 attempt at lightness, which her hot cheeks 
 and anxious eyes belied. 
 
 " Granting that it is your mission, this 
 part of the world is not so empty as it looks. 
 The people who would make your audiences 
 here are farther apart than in the cities, 
 but they have the enthusiasm that makes 
 nothing of distance. They would make pil- 
 grimages to hear you whole families in 
 plains-wagons with the children packed in 
 bed-quilts. And the cowboys! they would 
 gather as they do to a grand round-up. It 
 would be a unique career for a singer," he 
 continued ignoring an interruption from 
 Madeline, asking who would evoke this wide- 
 spread enthusiasm, and whether he would 
 have her advertised in the " Wallula News 
 Miner." 
 
 " There would be no money in it for us." 
 (Madeline winced at the pronoun.) " I would 
 not have your lovely gift peddled about the 
 country. There would be no floral tributes 
 or press notices you would care for, or inter- 
 views with reporters or descriptions of your 
 dresses in the papers. You might never 
 
230 THE FATE Of A VOICE. 
 
 have the pleasure of seeing your picture in 
 the back of the monthlies, advertising su- 
 perior toilet articles ; but to a generous 
 woman who believes in the regenerating 
 influence of her art, I should think there 
 would be a singular pleasure in giving it 
 away to those who are cut off from all such 
 joys. I know there are singers who boast 
 of their thousand-dollar-a-night voices ; I 
 would rather boast that mine was the one 
 free voice that could not be bought." 
 
 "There are no such vagrant, prodigal 
 voices. A beautiful, trained voice is one of 
 the highest products of civilization. It takes 
 the most civilized listeners to appreciate it. 
 It needs the stimulus of refined apprecia- 
 tion. It needs the inspiration of other 
 voices and the spur of intelligent criticism. 
 I know you have been making fun of my 
 ambitions, but I choose to take you seriously. 
 My standard would come down to the level 
 of my audiences the cowboys and the 
 children in bed-quilts." 
 
 " Oh, no, it would n't. Your genius is 
 its own standard, is it not ? You would be 
 like the early poets and the troubadours. 
 They sang in rather an empty world, did 
 
THE FATE OF A VOICE. 231 
 
 they not, and not always to critical au- 
 diences ? The knights and barons could n't 
 have been much above our cowboys." 
 
 " Oh, how absurd you are ! No, not ab- 
 surd, but unkind ; you are making desper- 
 ate fun of me and of my voice too, because 
 I make so much of it but you force me 
 to. It is my whole argument." 
 
 " I 'm desperate enough for anything, but 
 I 'm hardly in a position to make fun of my 
 rival. Madeline, sometimes I hate your 
 voice, and yet I love it too. I understand 
 its power better than you think. It has just 
 the dramatic quality which should make you 
 the singer of a new people. Oh, how blind 
 you are to a career so much finer, so much 
 broader, so much sweeter, and more wo- 
 manly ! Your mission is here, in the camps 
 of the Philistines. You are to bring a mes- 
 sage to the heathen ; to sing to the wander- 
 ing, godless peoples, to the Esaus and the 
 Ishmaels of the Far West." 
 
 " That is all very fine, but you know per- 
 fectly well that your Esaus and your Ish- 
 maels would prefer a good clog-dancer to all 
 the 4 messages ' in the world." 
 
 " Oh, you don't know them, and if 
 
232 THE FATE OF A VOICE. 
 
 they did, it would be the first part of your 
 mission to teach them a higher sort of 
 pleasure." 
 
 " And I am to go to Munich and study 
 for the sake of coming out here to regener- 
 ate the cowboys ? " 
 
 " That is n't the part of your destiny / 
 insist upon," Aldis said, letting the weari- 
 ness of discouragement show in his tones. 
 44 But you say you must have an audience. 
 And I must have you " 
 
 " But does it occur to you," Madeline 
 interrupted quickly, "what a tremendous 
 waste of effort and elaboration there would 
 be between the means and the effect? " 
 
 " I don't ask for the effort and the elab- 
 oration. That is the part you insist upon. 
 All I want is you, just as you are, voice or 
 no voice. You need not go to Munich on 
 my account." 
 
 " You expect me to give up everything." 
 
 " You would have to give up a good deal ; 
 I don't deny it. But is there any virtue in 
 woman that becomes her better ? " 
 
 "Perhaps not, from a man's point of 
 view. But it is no use listening to you. 
 You have n't the faintest conception of what 
 
THE FATE OF A VOICE. 283 
 
 my future is to me, as I see it, and all this 
 you have been talking is either a burlesque 
 on my ambition, or else it is the insanity of 
 selfishness masculine selfishness. I don't 
 mean anything personal. You want to ab- 
 sorb into your own life a thing that was 
 meant to have a life of its own, for all the 
 world to share and enjoy. Yes, why not? 
 I won't pretend to depreciate my gift ! I am 
 only the tenement in which a precious thing 
 is lodged. You would drive out the divine 
 tenant, or imprison it, for the sake of pos- 
 sessing the poor house it lives in." 
 
 " Good Heavens ! " Aldis exclaimed, with 
 a sort of awe of what seemed to him an 
 almost blasphemous absurdity. " What non- 
 sense you young geniuses can talk ! I wish 
 the precious tenant would evacuate and leave 
 you to your sober senses, and to me." 
 
 " And this is what a man calls love ! " 
 
 Aldis laughed fiercely. " Has there been 
 any new kind of love invented lately ? This 
 is the kind that came into the world before 
 art did." 
 
 " Art is love, without its selfishness," said 
 Madeline, with innocent conclusiveness. 
 
 " Where the deuce do you girls learn this 
 
234 THE FATE OF A VOICE. 
 
 sort of talk ? " Aldis demanded of the girl 
 beside him. 
 
 She answered him with unexpected gentle- 
 ness. She leaned towards him, and looked 
 entreatingly in his face. " This is our last 
 evening together. Don't let us spoil it with 
 this wretched squabbling." 
 
 " She calls it squabbling a man's fight 
 for his life ! " He turned and gave her back 
 her look, with more fire than entreaty in his 
 eyes. 
 
 " There is the moon," she said hurriedly. 
 " It is time to go home." 
 
 The fringe of grasses above their heads 
 was touched with- silver light, and the 
 shadow of the bluff lay broad and distinct 
 across the valley. 
 
 " We must go home," Madeline urged. 
 Aldis did not move. 
 
 " Madeline, would you marry me if I had 
 a lot of money? " 
 
 " Oh, hush ! " 
 
 " No, but would you ? Answer me." 
 
 " Yes, I would." She was tired of choos- 
 ing her words. " For then you would not 
 have to earn a living in these wild places." 
 
 " You would take me then as a sort of 
 
THE FATE OF A VOICE. 235 
 
 appendage ? You don't want a man with 
 work of his own to do ? " 
 
 " Not if it interferes with mine." 
 
 " That is your answer ? " 
 
 " Can I make it any plainer ? " 
 
 " You have not said you do not love 
 me." 
 
 44 1 don't need to say it. It is proved by 
 what I do I might have been nicer to you, 
 perhaps, but you are so unreasonable." 
 
 "Never mind if I am. Be nice to me 
 now ! " 
 
 " I meant to be. But it is too late. We 
 must go home." She felt that she was los- 
 ing command of herself through sheer ex- 
 haustion ; any hint of weakness or hesitation 
 now could only mislead him and prolong the 
 struggle. " Come," she said, " you will have 
 to get up first." 
 
 He did not move. 
 
 " Oh, sit still a little longer," he pleaded. 
 " I will not bother you any more. Let us 
 have one half hour of our old times together 
 only a little better, because it is the 
 last." 
 
 44 No, not another minute." She rose 
 quickly to her feet, tripped in her skirt, and 
 
236 THE FATE OF A VOICE. 
 
 tottered forward. Aldis had risen too. As 
 she reeled and threw out her hands, he 
 sprang between her and the brink, thrusting 
 her back with the whole force of his sudden 
 spring. The rock upon which he had leaped 
 regardless of his footing gave its final quake 
 and dropped into the abyss. It was the up- 
 permost segment of a loosened column. The 
 whole mass went down, narrowing the ledge 
 so that Madeline, by turning her head, could 
 look into the depths below. She did not 
 move or cry ; she lay still, but for the deep 
 gasping breaths that would not cease, though 
 all the life had seemed to go out from her 
 when he went down. The relief of uncon- 
 sciousness did not come to her. She was 
 aware of the soft, dry night wind growing 
 cool, of the river's soughing, of the long 
 grasses fluttering wildly against the moon 
 above her head. The perfume of wild sy- 
 ringa blossoms, hidden in some crevice of the 
 rock, came to her with the breeze. There 
 were crackling, rustling noises from the 
 depth of shadow, into which she dared not 
 look ; then silence, except the wind and the 
 river's roar, borne strongly upwards, as it 
 freshened. And all the words they had said 
 
TEE FATE OF A VOICE. 237 
 
 to each other in their long, passionate ar- 
 gument kept repeating themselves, forcing 
 themselves upon her stunned, passive con- 
 sciousness, she lying there, not caring if she 
 never stirred again, and he on the rocks 
 below ; and between them the sudden, awful 
 silence. She might have crept to the brink 
 and called, but she could not call to the 
 dead. 
 
 Gradually it came to her that she must 
 get herself back somehow to the camp with 
 her miserable story. It would be easier, it 
 seemed, to turn once over and drop off the 
 cliff, and let some one else tell the story for 
 them both. But the fascination of this im- 
 pulse could not prevail over the awakening 
 shuddering fact of her physical being. She 
 despised herself for the caution with which 
 she crept along the ledge and up the grass- 
 grown crevice. If he had been cautious she 
 would be where he was lying now. It was 
 her own rash girl's fancy for getting on the 
 brink of things and looking over, that had 
 brought them first to that fatal place. But 
 these thoughts were but pin-pricks following 
 the shock of that benumbing horror she was 
 carrying with her back to the camp. 
 
238 THE FATE OF A VOICE. 
 
 As she looked down upon its lights she 
 felt like one already long estranged from the 
 life of which she had been the gay centre but 
 two hours before. She knew how her sister's 
 little girls were asleep, the night wind softly 
 stirring the leaves outside their bedroom 
 window ; how still the house was ; how empty 
 and white in the moonlight the tents on the 
 hill ; how the camp was assembled on the 
 beach, waiting for her return with Aldis and 
 for the evening singing. Sing ! She could 
 have shrieked, sobbed, and cried aloud at 
 the thought of this home-coming she alone 
 with the burden of her sorrow, and by and by 
 Aldis, borne in his comrades' arms and laid 
 on his bed in that empty tent on the hill. 
 
 But there was a hard constriction, a dumb, 
 convulsive ache in her throat. She felt as 
 if no sound could ever be uttered by her 
 again. 
 
 If Aldis had been lying dead at the foot 
 of the bluffs, as Madeline believed, this story 
 would never have been told in print, except in 
 a cold-blooded newspaper paragraph, which 
 would have omitted to mention one curious 
 fact connected with the accident ; that a 
 
THE FATE OF A VOICE. 239 
 
 young girl, who was the companion of the 
 unfortunate young man when it occurred, 
 suffered a shock of the nerves from the sight 
 of his fall that deprived her entirely of her 
 voice, so that she could not speak except in 
 whispers. 
 
 It was not Aldis who was the victim of 
 this tragedy of the bluffs, but Aldis's suc- 
 cessful rival, the Voice. It was hushed, at 
 the very moment of its triumph. A blow 
 from the brain upon those nerve - chords 
 which were its life love shook the house 
 in which music dwelt, jarred it to its centre, 
 and the imperious but frail tenant had fled. 
 
 At the moment when Madeline's tortured 
 fancy was bringing him home a mangled 
 heap, and laying him in the last of that row 
 of tents on the hill, Aldis was getting him- 
 self home by the lower trail, as fast as his 
 bruises would let him. 
 
 He had fallen into a scrubby growth of 
 wild syringa, which flung its wax-white blos- 
 soms out from a cranny in the cliff, less than 
 half-way down. As he crashed into it, its 
 tough and springy mass checked his fall 
 enough to enable him to get a firm grasp 
 with his hands. He hung dangling at arm's 
 
240 THE FATE OF A VOICE. 
 
 length against the cliff, groping for a tem- 
 porary lodgment for his feet. In the dark- 
 ness he dimly perceived something like a 
 ledge, not too far below him, towards which 
 the face of the bluff sloped slightly out- 
 wards. 
 
 Flattening himself against the rock he let 
 go his hold and slid, clutching and grinding 
 downward, till his feet struck the ledge. 
 From this vantage, after getting his breath 
 and taking a deliberate view of his situation, 
 it was not a difficult feat to reach the slope 
 of broken rock below. He sat there while the 
 trembling in his strained muscles subsided, 
 scarcely conscious as yet of his torn and 
 scratched and bruised condition. He was 
 about to raise his voice in a shout to assure 
 Madeline of his safety, when the thought 
 turned him sick that, unnerved as she must 
 be with the sight of his fall, she might mis- 
 take the call for a cry for help, and venture 
 too near that treacherous edge to look down. 
 He kept still, while the horror grew upon 
 him of what might happen to Madeline 
 alone on the ledge, or trying to climb the 
 slippery crevice in the shadow of the bluff. 
 He knew that a mass of rock had fallen 
 
THE FATE OF A VOICE. 241 
 
 when he fell ; was there space enough left 
 on the ledge by which she could safely reach 
 the crevice ? He could not resist giving one 
 low call, speaking her name as distinctly 
 and quietly as he could, and bidding her not 
 move but listen. There was no answer ; 
 the roar of the rapids, borne on the wind 
 that nightly drew down the canon, drowned 
 his voice. Madeline did not hear him. He 
 waited until the silence convinced him that 
 she was no longer there ; then he took his 
 way toilsomely back to the camp. 
 
 A light showed in the window of the 
 office, which in the evening was usually 
 dark. He found the family assembled there 
 in the light of a single kerosene lamp, the 
 flame of which was streaming up the chimney 
 unobserved, while v all eyes were bent upon 
 Madeline, seated in one of the revolving 
 office chairs, with her back to the desk. 
 She leaned, shivering and whispering, to- 
 wards her sister, who knelt on the floor be- 
 fore her, holding her hands and staring with 
 a fearful interest into the girl's colorless 
 face. 
 
 The men who stood nearest the door 
 turned and started as Aldis entered. 
 
242 THE FATE OF A VOICE. 
 
 " Why, good God, Aldis ! " Mr. Duncan 
 exclaimed. " Why, man, we thought you 
 were dead. You don't mean to say it 's you 
 all of you?" 
 
 " I 'm all here," said Aldis. 
 
 " He 's all here, Madeline," Mrs. Duncan 
 shouted hysterically to the girl, as if she 
 were deaf as well as dumb. 
 
 The fateful voice was undoubtedly gone. 
 Madeline could no longer plead a higher call 
 when the common destiny of woman was 
 offered her. But if Aldis had thought to 
 profit immediately by her release from the 
 claims of art, he was disappointed. 
 
 What was the new obstacle ? Only some 
 more of Madeline's high-flown nonsense, as 
 her sister called it. She was always mak- 
 ing a heroic situation out of everything that 
 happened to her, and expecting her friends 
 to bear her out in it. 
 
 On the night of the adventure on the cliff 
 she had been put to bed, shaking with a ner- 
 vous chill. Next day's packing had been 
 suspended, and the eastward journey post- 
 poned. But in a day or two she was suffi- 
 ciently recovered to be walking again with 
 
THE FATE OF A VOICE. 243 
 
 Aldis on the shore, and the old argument 
 was resumed on a new basis. Madeline, 
 pale and wistful, with Aldis's head very 
 close to hers, that the river's intruding roar 
 might not drown her whispers, protesting 
 sometimes with sobs, sometimes with sudden, 
 tremulous laughter that shook her with 
 dumb convulsions hardly more mirthful than 
 the sobs that she could not and she would 
 not burden his life with the wreck she now 
 passionately proclaimed herself to be. 
 
 But would she not give him what he 
 wanted, had wanted, should continue to 
 want and to try for so long as they both 
 should live ? 
 
 No, he did n't he could n't possibly 
 want a ridiculous muttering shadow of a 
 woman beside him all the days of his life. 
 It was only his magnanimity. She wondered 
 he could believe her capable of the mean- 
 ness of taking advantage of it. 
 
 Aldis did not despair, but it was certainly 
 difficult, with happiness almost within his 
 reach, with the girl herself sometimes sob- 
 bing in his arms, to be obliged to treat this 
 obstacle as seriously as Madeline insisted 
 it should be treated. He appealed to Mrs, 
 
244 THE FATE OF A VOICE. 
 
 Duncan, who scolded and laughed at her 
 sister alternately, and quoted with elaborate 
 particulars a surprising number of similar 
 cases of voices lost and found again by 
 means of care and skillful treatment. But 
 hers was not a similar case, Madeline vehe- 
 mently declared. It was not from a cold, 
 like Mrs. So and So's ; it had not come on 
 gradually, beginning with a hoarseness, like 
 some one's else. It was the girl believed 
 in her heart that she had been made a sin- 
 gular and impressive example of the folly 
 and wickedness of pride in an exceptional 
 gift, and of triumph in its corresponding des- 
 tiny. The spirit she had boasted of harbor- 
 ing had deserted her. She deserved her 
 punishment, but she would not permit an- 
 other's life to be shadowed by it, especially 
 one so generous who, so far from resent- 
 ing her refusal of the whole loaf, was con- 
 tent, or pretended to be, with the broken and 
 rejected fragments. But all this Madeline 
 was careful to keep from the cheerful irrev- 
 erence of her sister's comments. She fal- 
 tered something like it to Aldis in one of 
 their long talks by the river ; his low tones 
 answering briefly and at long intervals her 
 
THE FATE OF A VOICE. 245 
 
 piercing whispers, that sometimes almost 
 shrieked her trouble in his ear. He could 
 feel that she was still thrilling with the 
 double shock she had suffered. He was in- 
 finitely tender with her, and patient with 
 her extravagant expositions of the situa- 
 tion between them. He longed to heap sav- 
 age ridicule upon them, but he forbore. He 
 listened and waited and let her talk until 
 she was worn out, and then they were hap- 
 piest together. For a few moments each 
 day it seemed that she might drift back to 
 him on the ebb of that overstrained tide of 
 resistance, and be at rest. 
 
 Madeline was always impatient of any 
 discussion of the chances of her recovery ; 
 but one day, just before the time of their 
 parting, Aldis surprised and captured an 
 admission from her that there might be such 
 a chance. Would she then, on the strength 
 of that possibility, consent to be engaged to 
 him and treat him as her accepted lover, 
 since nothing but her pride now kept them 
 apart ? 
 
 "Pride," Madeline repeated; "I don't 
 know what I have left to be proud of." 
 
 " There is a kind of stiff-necked humility 
 
246 THE FATE OF A VOICE. 
 
 that is worse than pride," said Aldis, smil- 
 ing at the easy way in which she shirked the 
 logic of the conclusion he was forcing upon 
 her. " You won't consent to the meanness, 
 as you call it, of giving me what you are 
 pleased to consider a damaged article, a 
 thing with a flaw in it ; as if a woman 
 would be more N lovable if she were proof 
 against all wear and tear. But if the flaw 
 can be healed, if there is a possibility that 
 the voice may come back, why should we not 
 be engaged on that hope ? " 
 
 " And if it never does, will you promise 
 to let me release you ? " 
 
 " You can release me at any time now, 
 if you like." 
 
 "But will you promise to take your re- 
 lease when I give it to you ? " 
 
 " We will see about that. Perhaps by 
 the time your voice does n't come back I 
 shall have been able to make you believe 
 that it is n't the voice I care for." 
 
 "And if it should come back," cried 
 Madeline with sudden enthusiasm, " I shall 
 have my triumph! I am done forever with 
 all that nonsense about Art and Destiny. 
 If my voice ever does come back, I shall 
 
THE FATE OF A VOICE. 247 
 
 not let it bully me. It shall not decide my 
 fate. You will see. Oh, how I wish you 
 might see ! I have learned my lesson in the 
 true, awful values of things. Thank Heaven 
 it has cost no more ! There is one less singer 
 in the world, perhaps, but there is not 
 one less life. Your life. If you had lost it 
 that night, and I had kept my voice, do you 
 think I should ever have had any joy in it 
 again ever lifted it up, as I boasted to 
 you I would some day, before crowds of lis- 
 teners ? Could I have gone before the foot- 
 lights, bowing and smiling, with my arms 
 full of flowers, and remembered your face 
 and your last look as you went down ? " 
 
 " Then it is settled at last, voice or no 
 voice?" 
 
 " Yes, but I am so sorry for you ! It 
 will not come back ; I know it never will, 
 and I shall go on whispering and gibbering 
 to the end of my days, and all your friends 
 will pity you ; it is such a painfully conspic- 
 uous thing ! " 
 
 " I want to be pitied. I am just pining 
 to be an object of general compassion. 
 Only I want to choose what I shall be pitied 
 for." 
 
248 THE FATE OF A VOICE. 
 
 " Choose ? " said Madeline stupidly. 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " Have I not chosen ? Now be as sorry 
 for me as you like. And we '11 ask for the 
 sympathy of the camp to-night. It will be 
 a blow to the boys my throwing myself 
 away like this ! " 
 
 " How ridiculous you are ! " sighed Made- 
 line. It was a luxury, after all, to yield. 
 And perhaps in the depths of her conscious- 
 ness, bruised and quivering as it was, there 
 lingered a faint image of herself, as a charm- 
 ing girl sees herself reflected in those flatter- 
 ing mirrors, the eyes of friends, kindred, 
 and adorers. Voiceless, futureless, spoiled 
 as was the budding prima donna, the girl 
 remained: eighteen years old and fair to 
 look upon, with perfect health, and all the 
 mysterious, fitful, but unquenchable joy of 
 youth thrilling through her pulses. Per- 
 haps in the innocent joy of her own inten- 
 tions towards him, she was not so sorry for 
 Aldis after all. The sobs, the frantic whis- 
 pers died away, and were hushed in a bliss- 
 ful acquiescence. She was not less fasci- 
 nating to her lover half amazed at his own 
 sudden triumph in her blushing, starry- 
 
THE FATE OF A VOICE. 249 
 
 eyed silences, than she had been in all the 
 eager redundance of her lost utterance. 
 That was a wonderful last day for the young 
 man to dream over, in the long months be- 
 fore they should meet again ! 
 
 The camp had moved out of the canon 
 and down upon the desert plains. It was an 
 open winter. Up to the first of January the 
 contractors had been able to keep their men 
 at work, following closely the locating party. 
 
 Aldis rode up and down the line, putting 
 in fresh stakes for the contractors, keeping 
 them true to the line, and watching incident- 
 ally that they did not pad their embank- 
 ments with sage-brush. His summer camp- 
 dress of broad-shouldered, breezy, flannel 
 shirt, and slender - waisted trousers, was 
 changed to a reefing-jacket, double-buttoned 
 to the chin, long boots, and helmet-shaped 
 cap, pulled low down to keep the wind out 
 of his eyes. Strong wintry reds and browns 
 replaced, 011 his thin cheek, the summer's 
 pallor. 
 
 Madeline Hendrie, dressing for dinner at 
 the Sutherland in New York, where she and 
 her sister were spending the winter, stood 
 
250 THE FATE OF A VOICE. 
 
 before her toilet -glass fastening her laces, 
 her eyes fixed alternately on her own reflec- 
 tion in the mirror and on a dim photograph 
 that leaned against the frame. It was not a 
 bad specimen of amateur photography. It 
 represented a young man on horseback in 
 a wide and windy country, with an expression 
 of sadness and determination in the dark 
 eyes that looked steadfastly out of the gray, 
 toneless picture. 
 
 They were the most beautiful eyes in 
 the world, Madeline thought to herself ; and 
 sinking on her knees before the low table, 
 with her arms crossed on the lace, rose-lined 
 cover, she would brood in a fond, luxurious 
 melancholy over the picture over the som- 
 bre line of plain and distant mountain and 
 the chilly little cluster of tents, huddled 
 close together by the river's dark, swift 
 flood flowing between icy beaches, below 
 barren shores, where a few leafless willows 
 shivered and the wild-twisted clumps of sage 
 defied the cold. 
 
 A moment later she was rustling softly 
 down the corridor at her sister's side, pass- 
 ing groups of ladies who looked after them 
 with that comprehensive but impersonal 
 
THE FATE OF A VOICE. 251 
 
 scrutiny which is a woman's recognition of 
 anything unusual in another's dress or ap- 
 pearance. Mrs. Duncan looked her sister 
 over with a quick, intelligent side glance, for 
 those silent eye comments were all turned 
 upon Madeline. She could see nothing amiss 
 with the girl; she was looking very lovely, a 
 trifle absent. Madeline had a way lately of 
 looking as if she were alone with her own 
 thoughts, on occasions when other women's 
 faces took on habitually a neutral and impas- 
 sive expression. It made her conspicuous, 
 as if hers were the only sensitive human 
 countenance exposed in a roomful of masks. 
 
 "Why do you never wear your light 
 dresses, Madeline ? " said Mrs. Duncan, 
 with the intention of rousing the girl from 
 her untimely dream. " You are very effec- 
 tive in black, with your hair, but I should 
 think you would like once in a while to vary 
 the effect." 
 
 "Do you suppose I am studying effects 
 for the benefit of these people ? I am sav- 
 ing my light dresses." 
 
 " Saving them ! What for ? " 
 
 " Do you never save up a pretty dress that 
 Will likes, when you are away from him ? " 
 
252 THE FATE OF A VOICE. 
 
 " No, indeed I don't. It would get out 
 of style, and he would see there was some- 
 thing wrong with it, though he might not 
 know what it was. Dresses won't keep! 
 Besides, do you think you are never to 
 have any new ones, now you are engaged to 
 an engineer ? " 
 
 " I shall not need many if I go West, and 
 a year or two behind won't matter to my 
 engineer ! " 
 
 " Oh, you poor innocent ! You don't know 
 your engineer yet ; and you don't know 
 your West, either. And one is always hav- 
 ing to pack up and come East at short 
 notice, and I know of nothing more insup- 
 portable than to find one's self dumped off 
 an overland train in New York in the mid- 
 dle of winter, for instance, with a veteran 
 outfit one has n't had the strength of mind 
 to 'give to the poor,' as Will says. You 
 never know how your clothes look till you 
 have packed them up on one side of the con- 
 tinent and unpacked them on the other. 
 And let me tell you it pays to dress well in 
 camp. Nothing is too good for them, poor 
 things, so long as it 's not inappropriate. 
 Do you suppose a man ever forgets how a 
 
THE FATE OF A VOICE. 253 
 
 woman ought to look? Wear out your 
 things, my dear, and take the good of them 
 before they get passe, and let the future take 
 care of itself." 
 
 Madeline was laughing, and the dreamy 
 soft abstraction had vanished. A stranger 
 might look into her liquid, half-averted eyes, 
 and see no more there than was meant for 
 the passing glance. 
 
 Aldis had the promise of a month's leave 
 of absence in March, but soon after the 1st 
 of January the weather turned suddenly cold. 
 The contractors took their men off the work, 
 and the time of Aldis's leave was thus antic- 
 ipated by two months. He telegraphed to 
 Mrs. Duncan that he would be in New York 
 by the 15th, allowing for all contingencies. 
 
 Madeline's joy over the telegram was in- 
 creased by one small item, of relief from the 
 necessity of delaying a communication which 
 she dreaded making by letter. With rest 
 and skillful treatment her voice had come 
 back, as her sister had prophesied, in its full 
 compass and purity. Her musical instructor 
 had urged her to try it once upon an audi- 
 ence, in a not too conspicuous role, before 
 she went abroad to study ; for Madeline had 
 
254 THE FATE OF A VOICE. 
 
 not yet found courage to confess her apos- 
 tasy. 
 
 The temptation to sing once as she had so 
 often dreamed of singing, with the support 
 of a magnificent orchestra; the longing to 
 know just how much she was resigning in 
 turning her back upon a musical career, 
 were overmastering. 
 
 Moreover, her music was the sole dowry 
 with which she could enrich her husband's 
 life. She had a curious, persistent humility 
 about herself, apart from the gift which she 
 had grown to consider the essential quality 
 of her being. She desired intensely to know 
 just how much it was in her power to endow 
 her lover with, over and above what his 
 generosity, as she insisted upon calling it, 
 demanded. For Madeline did nothing by 
 halves. She could abandon herself to a pas- 
 sion of surrender as completely as she had 
 done to the fire of resistance ; and while she 
 was about it, she wished to feel that it was 
 no paltry thing she was giving up. But she 
 was wise enough in her love to reflect that 
 possibly Aldis might not be able fully to 
 enter into the joy of her magnificent renun- 
 ciation. There might be a pang, an uneasi- 
 
THE FATE OF A VOICE. 255 
 
 ness to him, so far away from her, in the 
 thought that his old enemy was again in the 
 field. So Aldis only knew this much of her 
 recovery, that she could speak once more in 
 her natural voice. She would reserve her 
 triumph, if so it should prove, until his 
 home-coming, when she could lay it at his 
 feet with a joyous humility and such assur- 
 ances of her love as no letter could convey. 
 
 On the 13th of January she was to be the 
 soloist at a popular concert to be given that 
 evening ; one of a series where the char- 
 acter of the music and of the audience was 
 exceedingly good, and the orchestral support 
 all that a singer's heart could desire. On 
 the 15th Aldis would come home. 
 
 It was all delightfully dramatic; and 
 Madeline was not yet so in love with obscu- 
 rity as to be quite indifferent to the scenic 
 element in life. 
 
 In his telegram Aldis had allowed for a 
 two days' delay on business at Denver. Ar- 
 riving at that city, however, he found that, 
 in the absence of one of the principal parties 
 concerned, his business would have to be de- 
 ferred. He was therefore due in New York 
 on the 13th. He had not telegraphed again 
 
256 THE FATE OF A VOICE. 
 
 to his Eastern friends ; it had seemed like 
 making too much of a ceremony of his home- 
 coming. He dropped off the train from the 
 North at the Grand Central Depot in the 
 white early dusk of a snowy afternoon, 
 when the quiet up-town streets were echoing 
 to the sound of snow-shovels, and the muffled 
 tinkle of car-bells came at long intervals 
 from the neighboring avenues. He hurried 
 ahead of the long line of passengers, jumped 
 on the rear platform of a crowded car that was 
 just moving off, and in twenty minutes was 
 at his hotel. He tried to master his great 
 but tremulous joy, to dine deliberately, to 
 do his best for his outer man, before pre- 
 senting himself to Madeline ; but his lonely 
 fancy had dwelt so long and with such in- 
 tensity on this meeting that now he was 
 almost unnerved by the nearness of the 
 reality. 
 
 The reality was after all only a neat maid, 
 who said, as he offered his card at the door 
 of Mrs. Duncan's apartment, that the ladies 
 were both out. It was impossible to accept 
 the statement simply and go away. Were 
 the ladies out for the evening? he asked. 
 Yes, they had gone to a concert or the opera, 
 
THE FATE OF A VOICE. 257 
 
 or something, at the Academy of Music. 
 Mrs. Duncan always left word where she 
 was going when she and Miss Madeline both 
 went out, on account of the children. The 
 maid looked at him with intelligent friend- 
 liness. She was perfectly aware of the sig- 
 nificance of the name on the card she held. 
 She waited while Aldis scribbled a few words 
 on another card which he asked her to give 
 to Mrs. Duncan when the ladies returned, in 
 case he should miss them at the concert. In 
 the street he debated briefly whether to en- 
 dure a few more hours of waiting, or hasten 
 on to the mixed joy of a meeting in a crowd. 
 Yet such meetings were not always infeli- 
 citous. Delicious moments of isolation might 
 come to two in a great assembly, hushed, 
 driven together in a storm of music. There 
 seemed a peculiar fascinating fitness in the 
 situation. Music, which had threatened to 
 part them, should, like a hireling, celebrate 
 their reunion. 
 
 The violins were in full cry, behind the 
 green baize doors, mingling with the clear, 
 terse notes of a piano, as he passed into the 
 lobby of the Academy. While he waited 
 for the concerto to end, his eyes rested me- 
 
258 THE FATE OF A VOICE. 
 
 chanically upon the portraits of prima don- 
 nas, whose names were new to him, in smiles 
 and low corsages and wonderful coiffures of 
 the latest fashion ; and he said to himself that 
 well it was for those fair dames, but not for 
 his ladye his little girl, she was safe among 
 the listeners, unknown, unpublished. For 
 her, not of her, the loud instruments were 
 speaking, in that vast, hushed, resounding 
 temple of music. 
 
 He would see her first with her rapt face 
 turned towards the stage. He would know 
 her by the outline of her cheek, her little 
 ear, and the soft light tangle of curls hiding 
 her temples. She would not be exalted 
 above him in the Olympian circle of the 
 boxes ; she would be in the balcony, not in 
 full-dress, but with some marvel of a little 
 bonnet framing the color and light and 
 sweetness of her face. Her cloak would 
 have slipped down from her smooth, silken 
 sleeves and shoulders. In his restless, wait- 
 ing dream, while the music sank and swelled 
 in endless cadences behind the barriers, he 
 could see her with distracting vividness : her 
 listening attitude, her lifted, half-averted 
 face, her slender passive hands in her lap, 
 
THE FATE OF A VOICE. 259 
 
 her soft, deep, joyous breathing stirring the 
 lace or ribbons at her throat. 
 
 He was prepared to find her very dainty 
 and unapproachably elegant ; there had been 
 a hint of such formidable but delightful 
 possibilities in the cut of her simple camp 
 dresses and in the way she wore them. He 
 glanced disconsolately at his own modestly 
 dressed person, with which he was so monot- 
 onously familiar, and wondered if Madeline 
 would find him " Western." 
 
 The concerto was over at last. He passed 
 down the aisle and along the rear wall of 
 the balcony, keeping under the shadow of 
 the first tier of boxes, while he took a survey 
 of the house. It seemed bewilderingly bril- 
 liant to Aldis, seeing it in a setting of fron- 
 tier life for the first time in three years ; 
 a much more complex emotion to one born 
 to the life around him, and estranged from 
 it, than to him who sees it for the first time 
 as a spectacle in which he has never had a 
 part. It was with rather a heart-sick gaze 
 he searched the rows and rows of laughing 
 women's faces, banked like flowers against 
 the crimson and white and gold of the par- 
 titions. 
 
260 THE FATE OF A VOICE. 
 
 Suddenly the murmur pervading the house 
 sank into an expectant silence the musi- 
 cians' chairs were filling up ; but only the 
 grayheaded first violins were leaning to their 
 instruments and fingering their music. The 
 leader's music-stand had been moved aside 
 to make room for the soloist, a young de- 
 butante, so the whispers around him an- 
 nounced, who was now coming forward, 
 winding her silken train past the musicians' 
 stands, her hand in that of the leader. Now 
 she sank before the hushed crowd, dedicating 
 to it, as it were, herself, her beauty, her 
 song, her whole blissful young presence 
 there. 
 
 Aid is crushed the unfolded programme he 
 held in his hand. He did not need to con- 
 sult it for the name of the fair young can- 
 didate. The blood rushed into his face, and 
 then left it deadly white. His heart was 
 pounding with a raging excitement, but he 
 did not move or take his eyes from Made- 
 line's face. She stood, faintly smiling down 
 upon the crowd, folding and unfolding the 
 music in her hands, while the orchestra 
 played the prelude. Then on the deepen- 
 ing silence came the first notes of her voice. 
 
THE FATE OF A VOICE. 261 
 
 Aldis had never imagined anything like the 
 pang of delicious pain it gave him. Its per- 
 sonality pierced his very soul. Every word 
 of the recitative, in the singer's pure enun- 
 ciation, could be heard. The song was 
 Heine's " Lorelei, "-with Liszt's music, and 
 the orchestration was worthy of the music, 
 
 " I know not what it presages," the 
 recitative began, " this heart with sad- 
 ness fraught." Aldis took a deep, hard 
 breath. He knew the story that was coin- 
 ing. The rocks, the river, the evening sky 
 he knew them all. Had she forgotten ? 
 Did the great god Music deprive a woman 
 of her memory, her tender womanly com- 
 punction, as well as her heart? Was this 
 beautiful creature, with eyes alight and soft 
 throat swelling to the notes of her song, 
 merely a voice, after all, celebrating its own 
 triumph and another's allurement and de- 
 spair ? Was the heart that beat under the 
 laces that covered that white bosom merely 
 a subtle machine for setting free those won- 
 derful sounds that floated down to him and 
 seemed to bid him farewell ? 
 
 Now, in a wild crescendo, with a hurry of 
 chords in the accompaniment, the end has 
 
262 THE FATE OF A VOICE. 
 
 come ; the boat and man are lost. Then 
 an interlude, and the pure, pitiless voice 
 again, lamenting now, not triumphing 
 "And this, with her magic singing, the 
 Lorelei hath done the Lorelei hath done." 
 The song died away and ceased in mourn- 
 ful repetitions, and the audience gave itself 
 up to a transport of applause. It had won 
 a new singer ; and he had lost only his 
 wife. He stood there, unknown and un- 
 heeded, a pitiful minority of one, and ac- 
 cepted his defeat. 
 
 The frantic clappings continued. They 
 were demanding an encore. The friendly 
 old fellows in the orchestra were looking back 
 across the stage to welcome the singer's re- 
 turn. They had assisted at the triumph of 
 so many young aspirants and queens of the 
 hour. This one was coming back, flushed 
 and smiling, her face beautiful in its new 
 joy, as she sank down again with her arms 
 full of flowers, gratefully, submissively, be- 
 fore the audience at whose command she was 
 there. The great house was enchanted with 
 her and with its own unexpected enthusiasm. 
 A joyous thrill and murmur, the very breath 
 of that adulation which is dearest to the 
 
THE FATE OF A VOICE. 263 
 
 goddess of the foot-lights, floated up to the 
 intoxicated girl, wrapt in the wonder of her 
 own success. Aldis could bear no more. He 
 made his way out, pursued by the furious 
 clappings, by the silence, by the first thrill- 
 ing notes of the encore. He walked the 
 streets for hours, then went to his room, 
 and threw himself, face downward, on his 
 bed. The lace curtains of his window let 
 in a pallid glimmer from the electric lights 
 in the square, a ghastly fiction of a moon 
 that never waxes nor wanes. The night spent 
 itself, the tardy winter morning crept slowly 
 over the city and wrapt it in chill sea fog. 
 
 Mrs. Duncan woke with a hoarse feverish 
 cold, and wished that she had given Aldis's 
 card and message to Madeline the night be- 
 fore. She had kept them from her, sure 
 that they would rob the excited girl of what 
 was left of her night's sleep. Now she felt 
 too ill to make the disclosure and face Mad- 
 eline's alarm. She waited, with cowardly 
 procrastination, until the late breakfast was 
 over and her little girls had been hurried 
 off to school. She and Madeline had drawn 
 their chairs close to the soft coal fire to talk 
 over the concert, Madeline with a heap of 
 
264: THE FATE OF A VOICE. 
 
 morning papers in her lap, through which 
 she was looking for the musical notices, 
 when Mrs. Duncan gave her Aldis's note. 
 It required no explanation or comment. It 
 said that he .hoped to find them at the Acad- 
 emy of Music, but if he failed to do so, this 
 was to prepare them for an early call ; he 
 was corning as early as he could hope to see 
 them, nine o'clock, he suggested, with in- 
 sistence that made itself felt even in the 
 careless words of the note. It was now nearly 
 ten o'clock ; he had not come. The gray 
 morning turned a sickly yellow and the 
 streets looked wet and dirty. The papers 
 were tossed into a corner of the sofa, where 
 Mrs. Duncan had taken refuge from Made- 
 line's restless wanderings about the room. 
 
 A mass of hot-house roses, trophies of the 
 evening's triumph, were displayed on the 
 closed piano, shedding their languid sweet- 
 ness unheeded ; except once when Madeline 
 stopped near them, and exclaimed to her 
 sister : 
 
 " Oh, do tell Alice to take those flowers 
 away ! " and the next moment seemed to for- 
 get they were still there. 
 
 The ladies breakfasted and lunched in 
 
THE FATE OF A VOICE. 265 
 
 their own rooms, dining only in the restau- 
 rant below. When lunch was announced, 
 Mrs. Duncan rose from her heap of shawls 
 and sofa-cushions and went to the window, 
 where Madeline stood gazing out into the 
 yellow mist that hid the square. 
 
 "Come, girlie, come out and keep me 
 company. A watched pot never boils, you 
 know." 
 
 " Do you want any lunch ? " Madeline 
 asked incredulously. 
 
 Mrs. Duncan did not want any, but she 
 was willing to pretend that she did for the 
 sake of interrupting the girl's unhappy watch. 
 
 The two women sat down opposite each 
 other in the little dark dining-room, the one 
 window of which looked into a dingy well 
 inclosed by the many-storied walls of the 
 house. The gas was burning, but enough 
 gray daylight mingled with it to give a 
 sickly paleness to the faces it illumined. 
 
 There was a letter lying by Madeline's 
 plate. 
 
 " When did this come ? " she demanded 
 of Alice, the maid. 
 
 " They sent it up, miss, with the lunch- 
 tray." 
 
266 THE FATE OF A VOICE. 
 
 " Oh ! " cried Madeline. " It may have 
 been lying there in the office for hours ! " 
 
 She read a few words of the letter, got up 
 from the table, and left the room. Mrs. 
 Duncan gave her a few moments to herself, 
 and then followed her. She was in the par- 
 lor, turning over the heap of papers in a 
 distracted search for something which she 
 could not seem to find. 
 
 " Oh, Sallie," she exclaimed, looking up 
 piteously at her sister, " won't you find 
 when the Boston Shore line train goes out ? 
 I think it is two o'clock, and it 's after one 
 now." 
 
 "Why do you want to know about the 
 Boston trains ? " 
 
 " Read that letter I 'm going to try to 
 see him before he starts read the let- 
 ter ! " she repeated, in answer to her sister's 
 amazed expostulatory stare. She ran out 
 of the room while Mrs. Duncan was reading 
 the letter, and in her own chamber tore off 
 her wrapper and began dressing for the 
 street. Mrs. Duncan heard bureau-drawers 
 flying open and hurried footsteps as she 
 read. This was Aldis's letter : 
 
THE FATE OF A .VOICE. 267 
 
 Wednesday morning. 
 
 DEAR MADELINE, I saw you at the Academy 
 last night when the verdict was given that sepa- 
 rates us. 
 
 The destiny I would not believe in has become 
 a reality to me at last. I must stand aside, and 
 let it fulfill itself. 
 
 Last night I accused you of bitter things you 
 can imagine what, seeing you so, without any 
 forewarning ; but I am tolerably sane this morn- 
 ing. I know that nothing of all that maddened 
 me is true, except that I love you and must give 
 you back to your fate that claims you. You were 
 never mine except by default. 
 
 I am going on to Boston this afternoon. I 
 cannot trust myself to see you. I could not bear 
 your compassion or your remorse, and if you 
 were to offer me more than that, God knows 
 what sacrifice I might not be base enough to ac- 
 cept, face to face with you again. 
 
 Good-by, my dearest, my only one. I think 
 nothing can ever hurt me much after this. But 
 do not grieve over what neither of us could have 
 helped. The happiness of one man should not 
 stand in the way of the free exercise of a divine 
 gift like yours, and the memory of our summer 
 in the canon of our last days there together, 
 when my soul set itself to the music of those 
 
268 THE FATE OF A VOICE. 
 
 silences between us that is still mine. Noth- 
 ing can take that from me. Yours always. 
 
 HUGH ALDIS. 
 
 " Madeline, you are not going after him ! " 
 Mrs. Duncan protested, looking up from the 
 letter with tears in her eyes, as her sister en- 
 tered the parlor, in cloak and bonnet. 
 
 Madeline heard the protest ; she did not 
 see the tears. 
 
 " Don't talk to me, help me, Sallie ! 
 Can't you see what I have done? Find me 
 that Boston train, won't you ? I know there 
 is one in the evening, but he said afternoon. 
 Where is it ? " she wailed, turning over 
 with trembling hands sheet after sheet of 
 bewildering columns which mocked her with 
 advertisements of musical entertainments, 
 and even with her own name staring at her 
 in print. 
 
 " The train goes at two o'clock, but you 
 shall not go racing up there after him, you 
 crazy girl ! I 'd go myself, only I 'm too sick. 
 I 'm awfully sorry for him, but he '11 come 
 back they always do and give you a 
 chance to explain." 
 
 " Explain ! I 'm going to see him for one 
 
THE FATE OF A VOICE. 269 
 
 instant if I can. I 've got just twenty min- 
 utes, and nothing on earth shall stop me ! " 
 
 " Alice," Mrs. Duncan called down the 
 passage, as Madeline shut the outer door, 
 " put on your things and go after Miss Mad- 
 eline, quick Third Avenue Elevated to 
 the Grand Central. You '11 catch her if you 
 hurry, before she gets up the steps." 
 
 Mistress and maid reached the Grand 
 Central station together, a few minutes be- 
 fore the train moved out. The last of the 
 line of passengers, ticket in hand, were filing 
 past the door-keeper. It needed but a glance 
 to assure Madeline that Aldis was not among 
 them. It would be safer, she decided 
 quickly, to get out upon the platform in 
 broadside view from the windows of the 
 train. If Aldis were already on the train, 
 or, better still, on the platform, and should 
 see her, Madeline felt sure he would in- 
 stantly know why she was there. 
 
 " I only want to see a friend who is going 
 by the Boston train," she said to the door- 
 keeper. " I 'm not going myself." He hes- 
 itated, and said something about his orders. 
 " If I must have a ticket, my maid will get 
 me one, but I cannot wait ; you must let 
 
270 THE FATE OF A VOICE. 
 
 me through ! " She handed her purse to 
 Alice. The man at the gate said he guessed 
 it was no matter about a ticket. He looked 
 curiously after her as she sped along the 
 platform such a pretty girl, her cheeks red 
 and her hair all out of crimp with the damp- 
 ness, but with a sob in her voice and eyes 
 strained wide with trouble ! 
 
 44 Last train down on the right ! " he 
 called after her. " You '11 have to hurry." 
 Ominous clouds of steam were puffing out 
 of a smoke-stack far ahead of her ; men 
 were swinging themselves aboard from the 
 platform where they had been walking up 
 and down. 
 
 "Boston Shore line, miss?" a porter 
 lounging by his empty truck called to Made- 
 line as she came panting up to the rear car. 
 
 " Oh, yes ! " she sobbed. " Is it gone ? " 
 
 The train gave one heavy, clanking lurch 
 forward. The porter laughed, caught her 
 by the arms, and swung her lightly up to 
 the platform of the last car. The brakeman 
 seized her and shunted her in at the door. 
 The train was in motion. She clung wildly 
 to the door-handle a moment, looking back, 
 and then sank into the nearest seat and burst 
 
THE FATE OF A VOICE. 271 
 
 into tears. Curious glances were cast at her 
 from the neighboring seats, but Madeline 
 was oblivious of everything but the gro- 
 tesque misery of her situation. What would 
 Alice think, and what would poor, frantic 
 Sallie think, what even would the man at 
 the gate think, who had taken her word in- 
 stead of a ticket! The conductor came 
 round after a while, and Madeline appealed 
 to him. She had been put on the train by 
 mistake. She had no money and no ticket, 
 but there was, she thought, a friend of hers 
 aboard would the conductor kindly find 
 out for her if a Mr. Aldis were in any of 
 the forward cars, and tell him that a lady, a 
 friend of his, wished to see him ? 
 
 The conductor had a broad, purple, smooth- 
 shaven cheek, which overflowed his stiff shirt- 
 collar ; he stroked the tuft of coarse beard 
 on the end of his chin, as he assured the 
 young lady that she need not distress her- 
 self. He would find the gentleman if he 
 were on the train. Was he a young gentle- 
 man, for instance ? 
 
 "Yes, he was young and tall, and had 
 dark eyes " Suddenly Madeline stopped 
 and blushed furiously, meeting the conduct- 
 
272 THE FATE OF A VOICE. 
 
 or's small and merry eye fixed upon her in 
 the abandonment of her trouble. 
 
 The door banged behind him. The car 
 swayed and leaped on the track as the mo- 
 tion of the train increased. A long interval, 
 then a loud crash of noise from the wheels 
 as the door opened again at the forward end 
 of the car. A gentleman was coming down 
 the aisle, looking from side to side as if in 
 search of some one. 
 
 Madeline squeezed herself back into the 
 corner of her seat next the window. The 
 blood dropped out of her hot cheeks and 
 stifled her breathing. She turned away her 
 face, and buried it in her muff as some one 
 stopped at her seat, and said, leaning with 
 one hand on the back of it, " Is this the lady 
 who wished to see me ? " 
 
 Aldis's face was as white as her own. His 
 hand gripped the seat to hide its shaking. 
 Madeline swept back her skirts, and he took 
 the seat beside her. A long silence. Made- 
 line's cheek and profile emerged from the 
 muff and became visible in rosy silhouette 
 against the blank white mist outside the win- 
 dow. Her color had come back. 
 
 " Did you get my letter ? " 
 
THE FATE OF A VOICE. 273 
 
 " Yes. That is what brought me here." 
 
 Another silence. Madeline slid the hand 
 next to Aldis out of her muff. He took no 
 notice of it at first, then suddenly his own 
 closed over it, and crushed it hard. 
 
 " You must not go to Boston to-night," 
 she whispered. 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Because I am in such trouble ! I had 
 to see you, after that letter. I ran after the 
 train, and they caught hold of me and put 
 me on before I knew what they were doing ; 
 and here I am without a ticket or a cent of 
 money and all because you would not 
 come and let me tell you " She had 
 hidden her face again in her muff. 
 
 " Tell me what ? " His head was close 
 to hers, his arm against her shoulder. He 
 could feel her long, shuddering sobs. 
 
 " How could I come ? " he said. 
 
 She did not answer. The roar and rattle 
 of the train went sounding on. It was very 
 interesting to the people in the car; but 
 Madeline had forgotten them, and Aldis 
 cared no more for the files of faces than if 
 they had been the rocky fronts of the bluffs 
 that had kept a summer's watch over him 
 
274 THE FA TE OF A VOICE. 
 
 and the girl beside him, and the noise of 
 the train had been the far-off river's roar. 
 He was in a dream which could not last too 
 long. 
 
 Madeline lifted her head, and through the 
 lulling din he heard her voice saying : 
 
 " Oh, the river ! I seemed to hear it last 
 night when I was singing, and the light on 
 the rocks do you remember ? And I was 
 so glad the rest was not true. And then 
 your letter came " 
 
 " Never mind ; nothing is true only 
 this," he roused himself to say. 
 
 The crowded train went roaring and sway- 
 ing on, as it had during all the days and 
 nights of his journey home, mingling its 
 monotone with the dream that was coming 
 true at last. 
 
 Somewhere in that vague and rapidly les- 
 sening region known as the frontier, there 
 disappeared, a few years ago, a woman's 
 voice. A soprano with a wonderful mezzo 
 quality, those who knew it called it, and the 
 girl, besides her beauty, had quite a distinct 
 promise of dramatic power. But, they added, 
 she seemed to have no imagination, no con- 
 
THE FATE OF A VOICE. 275 
 
 ception of the value of her gifts. She threw 
 away a charming career, just at its outset, 
 and went West with a husband not any- 
 body in particular. It was altogether a 
 great pity. Perhaps she had not the artistic 
 temperament, or was too indolent to give the 
 time and labor required for the perfecting of 
 her rare gift at all events the voice was lost. 
 
 But in the camps of engineers, within 
 sound of unknown waters, on mountain trails, 
 or crossing the windy cattle-ranges, or in the 
 little churches of the valley towns, or at a 
 lonely grave perhaps, where his comrades 
 are burying some unwitting, unacknowledged 
 hero, dead in the quiet doing of his duty, 
 a voice is sometimes heard, in ballad or 
 gay roulade, anthem or requiem, a voice 
 those who have heard it say they will never 
 forget. 
 
 Lost it may be to the history of famous 
 voices, but the treasured, self -prized gifts are 
 not those that always carry a blessing with 
 them ; and the soul of music, wherever it is 
 purely uttered, will find its listeners ; though 
 it be a voice singing in the wilderness, in 
 the dawn of the day of art and beauty which 
 is coming to a new country and a new people. 
 
 I UNIVERSITY )