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 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
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 GIFT OF 
 
 Mary Randall 
 
MISS TOMMY 
 
 Homame 
 
 AND 
 
 IN A HOUSE-BOAT 
 
 21 Journal 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 "JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN" 
 
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 GIFT 
 
CS87 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 IN the exciting blaze of modern fiction the 
 glowworm light of this simple and old-fashioned 
 story almost seems to need apology ; except that 
 it is, in degree, a true story; and truth is al- 
 ways worth something. My heroine really lived ; 
 about half a century ago ; she was very beautiful 
 and charming; her name was Thomasina, and she 
 was generally called " Miss Tommy.''" 
 
 Perhaps, in these days, when so many women 
 disdain to be such contemning domestic life, 
 and, by a curious contradiction, at once imitating 
 and despising men, it may be excusable to have 
 painted one who was "only a woman" noth- 
 ing more. 
 
 M854163 
 
MISS TOMMY 
 Romance 
 
MISS TOMMY. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 | OU should call her Thomasi- 
 na," said I, as I held in my 
 arms a friend's first baby, 
 whose dear and honored fa- 
 ther bears the old-fashioned 
 name of Thomas, though 
 suppressed into an initial. 
 
 " Thomasina ?" repeated the young mother 
 with polite hesitation. " Isn't it a rather a 
 long name? And if it were shortened fancy 
 
 her being called ' Tom ' or c Tommy ' !" 
 > 
 
 " Why not ? The most charming woman I 
 
 ever knew was named Thomasina, and all her 
 life was called * Miss Tommy.' ' 
 
 While I spoke the old days came back upon 
 
2 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 me the days when I was a girl, who ain now a 
 middle-aged mother. I saw her clear as if it 
 were yesterday, my dear " Miss Tommy," whom 
 I loved with a kind of passionate admiration, 
 such as a girl often conceives for an elderly 
 woman, and which she returned with the ten- 
 derness that warm childless hearts give, and are 
 glad to give, to other people's children. 
 
 She rises up before me now her pale, pure 
 face, her small, dainty figure, her gentle way of 
 moving and speaking, and her dear little soft 
 hands she had such pretty hands to the very 
 last. But her beauty was not obtrusive. You 
 might be in the room with her for ever so long 
 and not notice Miss Tommy, till you came and 
 sat beside her found her out, so to speak ; and 
 then you were never likely to forget her. I 
 never did, from the first hour when I made her 
 acquaintance. 
 
 It was in a ball-room, of all places in the world 
 a London ball-room. I was sitting in a corner, 
 dull and silent, refusing to dance, for the only 
 one I cared to dance with had just gone off to 
 India, and as I was only nineteen and he two 
 
MISS TOMMY. 
 
 and-twenty, our parents would not let us be en- 
 gaged ; they said we would change our minds 
 half a dozen times during the three years that he 
 was to be away which might have been true, 
 though it wasn't. So I wore the willow, half in 
 sorrow, half in anger, for Charlie Gordon's sake, 
 and thought myself the most miserable and ill- 
 used girl in the world. 
 
 Everybody that is, the "everybody" of a 
 large family and a circle of affectionate friends 
 knew of my griefs and my wrongs. Some 
 blamed, no doubt, and some sympathized, for 
 Charlie was a universal favorite. He was away, 
 luckily for him, and out of it all ; for me, I bore 
 my heart-break as best I could, and tried to wear 
 my willow rather ostentatiously, but with a dig- 
 nified grace which raised me very much in my 
 own opinion, and even afforded me a certain con- 
 solation. 
 
 I can smile at myself now, at the folly of sup- 
 posing that the whole order of things was to be 
 turned upside down to make two lovers happy 
 two creatures, young and foolish, with not a half- 
 penny between them. And yet I am a little 
 
4 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 sorry for my old self too, for it was a very hon- 
 est self, and its pain was a very real pain. I 
 should not like to inflict the like on my own 
 children without serious cause. 
 
 Enough of this, however, though it is not so 
 much outside my story as it appears to be. 
 
 I had been sitting, silent and sullen, watching 
 the couples waltzing round, and declining every 
 partner who came up to me, with a scarcely civil 
 negative they were decent young men enough, 
 but, oh, so inferior to Charlie ! when I heard 
 some one beside me say, in a gentle tone, " Do 
 you dislike dancing ?" 
 
 It was a small and rather elderly lady a 
 " wall-flower" like myself but with such a beau- 
 tiful face, and such a pretty dress a dove-colored 
 silk trimmed with rich old lace. But her toilet 
 was not of the youthful style that the London 
 ladies of her age made themselves look old and 
 ugly in nay, might even have been called " pro- 
 vincial " had it not been so very suitable and 
 graceful. Who she was I had no idea, and yet, 
 as the ball was in my aunt's house, I knew nearly 
 all the guests. And I might have resented this 
 
MISS TOMMY. 5' 
 
 question from a stranger, but for the exceedingly 
 gentle way in which it was put. I did not an- 
 swer it, however, and the lady continued : 
 
 "I think I have seen you before, Miss Murray, 
 but you were quite a little girl then. It is some 
 years since I visited your aunt, for I seldom come 
 up to London. My home is at Dover." 
 
 " Dover !" It was the place dear Charlie's last 
 letter was dated from. " Do you know Dover, 
 and and the regiments stationed there ?" I eager- 
 ly asked. 
 
 "No ; I am an humble civilian," said she, with 
 a quiet smile. " I have no military connections. 
 But the other day I watched a regiment leave for 
 India the th." 
 
 It was Charlie's own. And by her way of 
 looking down and not at me, and by a certain 
 tender intonation in her voice, I was sure she 
 knew about me and Charlie. Perhaps she was 
 sorry for. us. I grasped her hand. 
 
 " Indeed, I ought to know you, to remember 
 you ; but I forget your name." 
 
 " I am Miss Trotter Thomasina Trotter - 
 sometimes called * Miss Tommy.' " 
 
6 . MISS TOMMY. 
 
 She laughed and I laughed, which prevented 
 my crying which I was ready to do. To think 
 of this little old lady having had the last precious 
 glimpse denied to me the sight of my Charlie 
 before he sailed ! 
 
 " Miss Tommy ! What a funny name ! I 
 must tell it to " And then the thought that I 
 had now no Charlie to tell anything to, for our 
 parents would not let us correspond, came upon 
 me with such a pang that I could hardly keep 
 back the tears. 
 
 Miss Trotter touched my hand softly, and 
 then stood up in front of me, as if admiring 
 the dancers, till I had recovered my composure. 
 
 " I beg your pardon. I ought not to be so 
 silly ; but, oh !" here my grief burst out " he 
 is just gone to India, and that was his regiment 
 you saw, and if you had ever known Charlie 
 Gordon" 
 
 The old lady she seemed old to me who was 
 nineteen started slightly, and a sudden color 
 flushed all over her delicate features. " My 
 dear," she said, taking my hand, " I did not know 
 this Charlie Gordon, but from all I hear of him 
 
MISS TOMMY. 7 
 
 I can imagine that his friends must miss him 
 sorely. And to part with any one dear to us, 
 for a long absence abroad, with all the chances 
 and risks of absence, is" here her voice fal- 
 tered " is a hard thing." 
 
 Then she did know all. How I blessed her 
 for her kind words ! 
 
 " But," she continued, suddenly brightening, 
 " let us hope he will come back safe and sound, 
 and just the same." 
 
 Yes, she did understand. I, who thought my 
 love affair the most important affair in the world, 
 was grateful to the old lady, and felt that I could 
 have loved her in spite of her ugly and vulgar 
 name, " Miss Tommy Trotter." Who could she 
 be ? I had never heard of her ; but then my 
 aunt had a large circle of friends outside our 
 circle, and for many months past my interests 
 had narrowed down to one person. I cared lit- 
 tle for anybody or anything that was not con- 
 nected with Charlie. 
 
 I should soon have poured out into her sympa- 
 thizing bosom the whole story of me and Char- 
 lie, but for the unromantic intervention of supper t 
 
B MISS TOMMY. 
 
 to which some one took her in, and she disap- 
 peared. I might have forgotten her altogether, 
 for in my preoccupied state of mind I was apt 
 to forget both people and things, everything but 
 Charlie, had not my mother one day, sitting by 
 my bed-side I had fretted myself at last into 
 real illness said suddenly : 
 
 " Decie " ( being the tenth, I had been chris- 
 tened Decima), "where did you meet Miss Tom- 
 my Trotter?" 
 
 " Miss Tommy Trotter 1" 
 
 "An old friend of your aunt's, now staying 
 with her. She was asking kindly after you, and 
 sorry you were ill. She also said, as you had 
 been ordered sea air, and as it is so inconvenient 
 for me to leave home, if I would trust you to 
 her at Dover" 
 
 " Dover ? Yes, I will go. Please let me go 
 at once," cried I, with an eagerness that must 
 have given a pang to my tender mother, with 
 whom I had steadily refused to go anywhere. 
 But she had already learned, as mothers must, 
 that there had come a time w r hen even she could 
 not make her darling happy. Years after, when 
 
MISS TOMMY. 9 
 
 she slept peacefully " under the daisies," I found 
 out by my own experience how miserable I must 
 have made my poor mother in those days. 
 
 "Very well, dear," was all she said. "Miss 
 Trotter, your aunt tells me, is a most sensible 
 woman, and will look after your health. And 
 you will have sufficient comforts, even luxuries, 
 for she is a lady of fortune, inherited from her 
 uncle, Mr. Thomas Trotter ; a most respectable 
 man, but not quite a gentleman ; in fact, a tailor 
 an army tailor." 
 
 We Murrays were proud of our blue blood, and 
 since I had known the Gordons I was prouder 
 still. For a moment I hesitated, and wished I 
 had not so readily consented to visit a tailor's 
 niece. 
 
 " But she looks and speaks like a gentlewoman, 
 Miss Trotter herself " 
 
 "And she is a gentlewoman, or your aunt 
 would not have kept up acquaintance with her. 
 She first heard of her through a mutual friend, 
 who said the Trotters were always ' quite re- 
 spectable.' J: 
 
 What friend P 
 
10 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 " Major Gordon," my mother answered, hesi- 
 tating, for that was Charlie's old uncle in India. 
 His name turned the balance. I was now de- 
 termined to go to Dover. In truth, I would al- 
 most have gone anywhere to get away from 
 home. 
 
 Two days after for I rose from my bed and 
 packed my things myself the very next day, as 
 if I had never been ill at all two days after 
 I found myself breathing the salt sea air, and 
 gazing across the stormy ocean which had car- 
 ried away my Charlie. Indeed, the first walk I 
 insisted on taking was to the pier -head, where 
 his dear feet, in those lovely military boots about 
 which he was so particular, had last touched Eng- 
 lish shores. To be sure, that sacred spot was now 
 occupied by a burly sailor, who, from his huge 
 boots to his old sou'wester, formed a striking 
 contrast to my Charlie ; still, I viewed him with 
 tender interest; and there, with the sea-breeze 
 blowing my tears away, and the bright winter 
 sun if the winter sun shines anywhere, it shines 
 at Dover making me feel hopeful in spite of 
 myself, I told Miss Tommy my love - story from 
 
MISS TOMMY. 
 
 11 
 
 " THAT SACKED SPOT WAS NOW OCCUPIED BY A BURLY SAILOR." 
 
 beginning to end. We were keeping her car- 
 riage waiting at the pier-head all the time, but I 
 never thought of that ; in those days I was not 
 in the habit of thinking much about anybody 
 except myself and my sorrows. 
 
 Miss Trotter listened to them with great pa- 
 tience, though with not quite so much mournful 
 
12 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 sympathy as I bad expected. In fact, when 1 
 had finished, she actually smiled. 
 
 "The end? No, my dear; I cannot call it the 
 end yet: you are but nineteen. And now, as it 
 is a little chilly, what do you say to our going 
 home to tea?" 
 
 I did not care for tea not I ! I would much 
 rather have driven up and down the pleasant 
 esplanade, to watch the sun setting behind the 
 heights and throwing his last glimmer on Dover 
 Castle, where Charlie had spent those few sad 
 last days, thinking of me (at least I hope so). 
 But my companion said gently, though decisively, 
 " We must go in" and we \vent in. 
 
 The house was not near so grand as I expected, 
 from what I had heard of Miss Trotter's large 
 fortune. Eight hundred a year or so I was try- 
 ing to grow learned about incomes would have 
 kept it luxuriously. It was a very pretty house, 
 sitting to speak metaphorically with its back 
 under the cliff and its feet to the shore, a little 
 garden alone parting it from the sea ; indeed, in 
 very high winter tides the waves actually washed 
 into the flower beds, creating much destruction, 
 
MISS TOMMY. 13 
 
 which, however, was always repaired by spring. 
 For it was such a sheltered, sunshiny nook ; and 
 the rooms, though small, were most daintily and 
 tastefully furnished : the whole atmosphere with- 
 in and without was so redolent of cheerful peace, 
 that on entering I gave a great sigh of satisfac- 
 tion, and wondered if Charlie had ever seen it. 
 
 " I really cannot say," replied my hostess, smil- 
 ing, " not having had the honor of Lieutenant 
 Gordon's acquaintance. And 
 
 'How should I your true-love know 
 From another one' 
 
 of the many young officers who walk up and 
 down here ? Dover town is all dotted with bits 
 of scarlet ; and hark ! there is the bugle we 
 are quite a military community, you see." 
 
 " I am so glad !" For it warmed my heart and 
 made me happy being "a lass that loved a sol- 
 dier," and fain to cast my lot with him for good 
 or ill. Silly enough, and yet 
 
 Miss Tommy regarded me with a curious, ten- 
 der kind of observation, till the smile on her lips 
 melted into a half -sigh. She turned away and 
 began making the tea, which she always did with 
 
14 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 her own hands, despite her well-appointed house- 
 hold of servants women -servants only. There 
 was apparently no butler in her establishment; 
 and though the carriage we had just stepped out 
 of was exceedingly comfortable, there were no 
 footmen in livery behind it. We had to open 
 and shut its doors ourselves. Altogether, even on 
 this my first day at Miss Trotter's house, I was 
 much struck by the total absence of show and 
 formality ; by refinement without lavishness, and 
 comfort without luxury. 
 
 "An old maid's house," as she placidly called 
 it, hoping I should be happy therein. Could I? 
 Are old maids ever happy? Which of course I 
 disbelieved, at nineteen. After many more years' 
 experience and observation of life I incline to 
 reconsider my verdict. 
 
 Even now to me who had just gone through 
 a great domestic convulsion, to say nothing of 
 the small tempests in teapots that were always 
 brewing in our numerous and tumultuous family 
 the exceeding repose of the maiden household 
 I had dropped into, where nobody squabbled and 
 nobody " fussed," was most soothing and pleasant. 
 
MISS TOMMY. 15 
 
 It was, of course, a silent house no children 
 running about or girls singing up and down the 
 stairs; but when one has had rather too much 
 of domestic noise, silence is agreeable for a time. 
 And it was a small house, much smaller than I 
 had expected which, perhaps, in some youthful- 
 ly incautious manner I betrayed, for Miss Trotter 
 said, in the course of our tea-dinner not a regular 
 late dinner at all: 
 
 "I hope, my dear, you will be able to make 
 yourself happy here. You see, I live quite sim- 
 ply. Where would be the use of anything else? 
 There is only myself. One cannot eat more 
 than one dinner, or sleep in more than one room, 
 at the same time. Still," she added, with that 
 curiously bright smile she had a mixture of 
 pain struggling with pathos, like a person who 
 had tried to be happy all her life in spite of cir- 
 cumstances "still I must own that I like a nice 
 dinner and a pretty room." 
 
 "And certainly you have them," I answered, 
 with a full sincerity that evidently pleased her. 
 
 " Yes, I think this is pretty," said she, glancing 
 round the room and out of the window, where 
 
16 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 the last gleam of sunset was shining on the dis- 
 tant sea. "Sycamore Hall, my uncle's place in 
 the country, is much larger and grander, and I 
 have to live there in summer-time, and I try to 
 keep it up properly, but I like my little Dover 
 house much better." 
 
 Here the conversation ceased, for I felt it 
 awkward. In her place I should have ignored 
 as much as possible this defunct tailor- uncle 
 "quite respectable" as he had been termed by 
 Major Gordon; but Miss Trotter referred to him 
 and to his Sycamore Hall no doubt a mansion 
 full of coarse and vulgar splendors as calmly as 
 she did to her own small house and simple way 
 of living. She must be an "odd" sort of per- 
 son, I thought, and very different from the peo- 
 ple among whom I had been accustomed to move 
 " our circle," as my sisters sometimes called it. 
 
 Miss Trotter, as I found out in course of our 
 talk, had no sisters, no relations at all. She 
 was, in the full sense of the term, a solitary old 
 maid, yet the least like an old maid, and, as I 
 soon discovered, the least solitary, of any lady I 
 ever knew. For a "lady," even in my sisters' 
 
MISS TOMMY. 17 
 
 reading of the word, no one could doubt she 
 was, in spite of her uncle the tailor. 
 
 She devoted herself to me with a cordial po- 
 liteness, though mingled with occasional fits of 
 what appeared to me like shyness, for the whole 
 of the first day, for I was very tired, and perhaps 
 just a trifle cross "depressed," as I called it 
 and, like many another young goose, I had come 
 to consider depression that condition in which 
 one sits dumb and dogged, with downcast eyes, 
 and cheek leaning on one's hand as rather a 
 virtue than not. It took all my hostess's kindly 
 pains to rouse me from it, by talking to me and 
 showing me the town of Dover that dear, old- 
 fashioned town, which I shall always love to the 
 bottom of my heart. 
 
 It has changed little since those days, or, in- 
 deed, since days long before then. In its narrow 
 streets and quaint back alleys you may still come 
 upon bits of Roman brick-work, mediaeval stone- 
 work, and solid last -century wood -work. The 
 place is full of relics interesting to the archaeolo- 
 gist, from the time of Julius Caesar upwards. 
 You, continental travellers, rushing through it, 
 
18 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 and you, fashionable diners at the "Lord War- 
 den," have no idea how picturesque Dover can 
 look, with its quaint, foreign-like Snargate Street, 
 its old-world Castle Street, with a noble view of 
 the Castle framed in at the end, and finally the 
 Castle itself, which Charlie had told me about, 
 and which I was so eager to see walking about 
 the embattled rock, up and down steps, and in 
 and out of fortifications, with feet as active as if 
 I had never been ill. 
 
 In truth, I did not feel very ill, the air was so 
 pure and invigorating, the sense of freedom and 
 hope so strong, and the little old lady by my 
 side was such a bright companion, taking sucli a 
 hearty interest in everything about her, including 
 me. For I could see that I, Decima Murray, 
 really was an object of interest to her, at which 
 in my youthful conceit I was not at all surprised, 
 nor at the unwearied patience with which she 
 listened to my endless references to my sorrows 
 of course, the most important subject in the 
 world was that of Charlie and me. 
 
 I was, however, " taken down a peg," as Char- 
 lie would have said, when, after breakfast on the 
 second day, Miss Tommy rose at once. 
 
MISS TOMMY. 21 
 
 "Now, my dear, I must leave you to amuse 
 yourself. Being rather a busy woman, I never 
 attempt to entertain my guests. Here are plenty 
 of books and music ; and there is the shore it 
 is very pleasant sitting on the shingle in front 
 of the house, if you have nothing else to do; 
 dinner is at one ; and the carriage will be round 
 soon after two, and " 
 
 She went on to outline the day arid my duties 
 in it, making me out to be a mere portion of the 
 household life, instead of the pivot upon which 
 it all turned. Not very flattering, but she did it 
 so naturally and cheerfully that one could not be 
 offended. 
 
 "I hope you will not be dull, my dear. My 
 young guests seldom are, and I have a good 
 many from time to time. It is very pleasant to 
 an old woman to have a girl in the house. They 
 help me, too, in many ways." 
 
 Now, I had never been accustomed to help 
 anybody. I always expected everybody to help 
 me. Being the youngest, and the beauty of the 
 family, from the time I left school I had idled 
 about in great enjoyment. From the choosing 
 
22 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 of a dress to the sewing on of a glove-button, 
 everything had been done for me, and I had no 
 mind to change this order of things. I was no 
 longer a light-hearted girl, but an ill-used woman 
 and an interesting invalid. So I tacitly ignored 
 the suggestion of my being useful, and began 
 killing time, ornamentally, in my customary 
 way 
 
 Still, after a while this became rather monoto- 
 nous, especially when I saw my hostess busy day 
 after day, occupied from morning to night with 
 duties domestic and duties social ; for she had 
 evidently a large circle of friends, in which she 
 was an important element a rich single woman 
 always is. Even when she found time for a 
 brief chat with me, she had always her knitting 
 or sewing at hand, to work while she talked. 
 Our two hours' drive every afternoon for the 
 good of my health was, I think, the only portion 
 of the day in which I ever saw her idle. 
 
 I wondered at her. An elderly woman, and 
 an old maid too, for whom life was over or, 
 rather, for whom it had never begun, for what 
 is life without love in it? how could she be so 
 
MISS TOMMY. 23 
 
 cheerful? For cheerful she invariably was; not 
 with any exuberant spirits, but with a quiet un- 
 der-current of placid gayety, that I shall I say 
 I envied? Not exactly. Sometimes I almost 
 pitied her for having had either no heart at all 
 or no use for one ; and I hugged my grief, turned 
 away from the sight of Miss Trotter's bright face, 
 let my listless hands drop idle on my lap, and sat 
 and mourned for Charlie. 
 
 "Are you not sorry for me?" I asked one day, 
 when we had been sitting talking as we drove; 
 at least, I had talked, and all about myself, of 
 course. So preoccupied was I that I never no- 
 ticed all the beauty of ocean and sky, Walmer 
 Castle, St. Margaret's, and the Goodwin Sands 
 that smiling, glittering expanse of sea where 
 many a ship has gone down. " Surely you must 
 be sorry for me?" 
 
 " Yes, very. But," after a pause, " not exactly 
 for what you suppose." 
 
 "Not for being parted from Charlie? Why, 
 I am the most unhappy girl in the world." 
 
 " Are yon ?" she said, smiling. Then sudden- 
 ly changing into seriousness, "No girl can be 
 
24 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 considered ' the most unhappy girl in the world,' 
 be her love ever so unfortunate, if she has loved, 
 and if the object of her affection has never been 
 unworthy of it." 
 
 " What, not if she was torn from him, as I 
 from Charlie? or lost him in some way if he 
 died, or married somebody else ?" 
 
 Miss Tommy (I like to call her thus) sat silent, 
 her little hands folded over her muff, and her 
 eyes looking straight forward with a sort of 
 wistfulness in them those sweet brown eyes, 
 so merry, bright, and clear ! 
 
 "Different people, my dear, have different 
 opinions, and yours may not agree with mine. 
 But I think, and I have always thought, that if 
 a girl has a real true affection I will not say a 
 passion, which is a selfish thing, but a devotion, 
 which is the most unselfish thing on earth and 
 has the strength to keep to it, nothing can ever 
 make such an attachment 'unfortunate, 5 except 
 the man's sinking so low that to love him be- 
 comes worse than a folly a degradation. But 
 I must not become didactic," added she, with a 
 sudden change of tone and manner. "If there 
 
MISS TOMMY. 25 
 
 is a tiling that frightens young people, it is 
 preaching I never preach." 
 
 That was true. If I had now and again felt 
 so ashamed of my idleness that I seriously con- 
 templated asking her to give me something to 
 do, it was not because she ever told me I was 
 lazy ; only, contrasted with her busy life, I be- 
 gan to see the fact only too plainly. 
 
 " My love for Charlie could never be a degra- 
 dation," I replied, with dignity. " He is the best 
 of men. Indeed, the Gordons are all honorable 
 men. His father is long dead, killed in battle, 
 as you know " of course, I supposed everybody 
 to know and remember every small fact con- 
 nected with Charlie "but his uncle and god- 
 father is, he says, quite a preux chevalier, a Bay- 
 ard, a Don Quixote, as they call him in the fami- 
 ly. You must have heard of him. Perhaps you 
 know him ?" 
 
 Yes." 
 
 And then I remembered it was Major Gor- 
 don who had vouched for the Trotters being " re- 
 spectable." Probably the departed Thomas Trot- 
 ter had been his tailor. I felt a little shy of the 
 
 2 
 
26 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 subject. To me the idea of a tailor in the family 
 was as bad as a sheep-stealer ; worse, indeed, for 
 I could quite sympathize with Charlie when he 
 told me of his ancestors the Border chieftains, 
 "several of whom were hanged, and a good many 
 more ought to have been." But a tailor ! I 
 turned away my eyes from my companion's sweet 
 face, and contemplated Dover Castle in the dis- 
 tance ; would have changed the subject, but Miss 
 Trotter evidently had no intention of avoiding 
 it. 
 
 " I knew Major Gordon when he was a young 
 man," she said. " He first made acquaintance 
 with my uncle in the way of business, and then 
 he met my father, who was a country clergyman, 
 and a very clever man. He came often to our 
 house at one time." 
 
 " And you know him still. What is he like ?" 
 I asked, eagerly ; for anything or anybody con- 
 nected with Charlie was interesting to me. 
 
 " Yes, I may say I know him still ; for he is 
 not one to neglect an old acquaintance. I have 
 seen him every time he has returned to Eng- 
 land." 
 
MISS TOMMY. 2T 
 
 " That has not been very often. Do you know 
 have you ever heard " I stopped, remember- 
 ing the " skeleton in the house," which Charlie 
 had confided to me. "Did you ever see his 
 wife ?" 
 
 " Yes ; she was a very beautiful woman a 
 good deal older than he." 
 
 "And was she bad or mad or what? Did 
 she run away from him, or was he obliged to 
 shut her up ? Charlie did not know ; nobody 
 did know, he says. Poor Major Gordon was al- 
 ways quite silent both as to his sorrows and his 
 wrongs. But it does not matter she is dead 
 now." 
 
 " Dead I" 
 
 " Yes ; she died six months ago. Charlie said 
 his uncle might possibly be coming home soon ; 
 but he hoped and I hope too it would not be 
 just yet, till he himself had reached India. An 
 uncle of Major Gordon's high character would be 
 so very useful to Charlie." 
 
 " Yes," answered Miss Trotter, rather vaguely ; 
 and then the conversation dropped. Nor in 
 spite of my anxiety to get as much out of her 
 
28 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 as I could respecting this uncle and namesake, 
 upon whose will and power to help Charlie, by 
 promotion or otherwise, depended so much of 
 our future did I succeed in eliciting any more 
 facts about Major Gordon. Indeed, I soon came, 
 perhaps hastily, to the conclusion that there were 
 none to discover; that the acquaintance between 
 them had been so slight, and renewed so briefly, 
 and at such long periods, as to leave nothing to 
 talk about. 
 
 At any rate, Miss Trotter would not talk, either 
 about his personal appearance, which Charlie had 
 said was " so queer," or his income, or his rela- 
 tions with his unfortunate wife. She just an- 
 swered my questions as briefly as civility allowed, 
 and spoke of something else. In this, as in most 
 other matters, I soon found Miss Trotter disliked 
 "talking over" things. If she was an old maid, 
 she was an old maid not given to gossip. 
 
 As time went on my visit extending from 
 days to weeks I almost forgot she was an old 
 maid. She had such motherly ways with the 
 heaps of young people who were perpetually 
 haunting her house, making it anything but a 
 
MISS TOMMY. 29 
 
 dull house ; and she moved about it so brightly 
 and actively, with her little, light figure and her 
 pretty face I think small women keep young 
 much longer than big ones. Miss Trotter seemed 
 to me to grow younger and younger every week ; 
 there was a sunshine in her smile and an elas- 
 ticity in her step ; and then her complexion, that 
 " crux " of elderly ladies, was kept so fresh and 
 fair by her simple, regular life, her busy habits 
 and placid mind, that sometimes, to call her, as 
 she always called herself, " an old woman," seemed 
 quite ridiculous. 
 
 And then she had such a young heart. She 
 would laugh like a child over a funny story, cry 
 like a child over a pathetic book. But she was 
 not sentimental. By and by, whenever I began 
 talking of my woes, she adroitly changed the con- 
 versation, gave me something else to think about 
 something to do. Doing, not talking, was her 
 characteristic. She was decidedly a woman of 
 few words. She said she " liked thinking best ;" 
 and whenever we were together, after we had 
 grown familiar with one another, there used to 
 come long pauses of busy silence, during which, 
 
30 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 fast as our fingers moved for I at last conde- 
 scended to work too we scarcely interchanged a 
 single word. 
 
 Sometimes, when I got tired of thinking, even 
 about my Charlie, I used to wonder what in the 
 world Miss Trotter was thinking about what 
 she could find to think about, old as she was, 
 and with no Charlie. Once I asked her. 
 
 She colored up, almost as vividly as I should 
 have done had I been thinking of Charlie. 
 
 " What do I think about, did you say ? Why, 
 my dear, I can hardly tell. I have always been 
 a rather meditative person, and during my life I 
 have had a good deal to think of, and a good 
 many people too. That was when I was very 
 poor ; it is not likely to be different now I am 
 rich." 
 
 " Are you very rich ?" a question that would 
 have been impertinent were it not so silly. But 
 I meant no offense, nor did she take any. 
 
 " I have enough for all I want or wish, my 
 dear ; and after that, enough, thank God, to give 
 to a few others what they want. So I pay back 
 in my old age the debts of kindness of my youth. 
 
MISS TOMMY. 31 
 
 And I rejoice in my riches, even though they are 
 often a care." 
 
 " A care ! How can that be possible ?" 
 
 Miss Trotter turned, with a rather sad look in 
 her eyes. " Decie, if yon were wearing a warm 
 cloak, and saw another, or several others, stand- 
 ing in the cold all in rags, yet knew not how to 
 amend things, would you not sometimes long to 
 take off your delightful silks and furs? But I 
 am talking nonsense. All I mean to say is the 
 very trite remark, 'that we all have our cares.' r 
 
 " Yes, indeed !" I reverted to mine, and be- 
 moaned for the hundredth time the cruel fate 
 which divided me from Charlie, and behaved, or 
 misbehaved, myself as love -sick young people so 
 constantly do, to the grief of their parents, the 
 annoyance of their relations, and the ridicule of 
 their friends. 
 
 But Miss Trotter neither laughed nor was an- 
 gry. A little quiet smile was all she indulged 
 in. 
 
 " My dear, the separation is only for three 
 years, till you are twenty-one and he twenty-four 
 no very great age. And some lovers have 
 
32 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 been parted for a whole lifetime, arid had to bear 
 it. Do you think yon are the only person who 
 ever suffered? If yon knew the sad stories 
 many of them love stories that I have listened 
 to for the last thirty years. Yet I listen still." 
 
 "It is very kind of you." And it began to 
 dawn upon me that she was very kind this 
 busy, active, maiden lady, with every hour of 
 her day, every corner of her kindly heart, as full 
 as it could hold to listen to me in my self-ab- 
 sorbed grief, which seemed, in my morbid fancy, 
 to be the only sorrow in the world. " But these 
 others ; what has become of them all ?" 
 
 She answered softly, 
 
 " * Some are married, some are dead,' 
 
 as Longfellow sings, in his < Old Clock on the 
 Stairs.' Life always goes on to the same tune, 
 4 Forever never! Never forever!' and some- 
 times, strange to say, the ' never' creates the 
 ' forever !' " 
 
 Though I did not take in her meaning, her 
 manner rather surprised me, and the voice, though 
 calm, had a tone of sadness in it. Could it be 
 
MISS TOMMY. 33 
 
 that she understood, of her own experience, the 
 pain I was enduring ? that she this bright little 
 middle-aged woman, so full of thought for others, 
 living such an active, useful, happy life had ever 
 " loved and lost " ? There was a tradition, my 
 aunt had said, that Miss Tommy Trotter had once 
 been the belle of the neighborhood, and had re- 
 fused at least twenty offers. But she was an old 
 woman now, and I, with the favorite belief of the 
 young, that the old never feel anything, and be- 
 ing preoccupied with my own affairs, put the 
 question aside. A minute or two after, we were 
 both laughing so merrily at some accidental re- 
 mark she made that I forgot all about it. 
 
 One of Miss Tommy's strongest characteristics 
 was her keen sense of humor. Not that she was 
 at all that very doubtful personage, a female wit, 
 but she dearly liked to be merry, and had a tal- 
 ent for seeing the comic side of things. I one 
 day told her she would " create a joke upon the 
 ribs of death," as Shakespeare says. 
 
 " Well, and if I do !" she answered. " One 
 must bear things somehow, and it is better to 
 bear them with a laugh than a moan. Besides, 
 2* 
 
34 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 an innocent joke is like a life- boat, it often car- 
 ries us over the roughest seas." 
 
 That, I often thought, was the reason young 
 people liked her company. She was so amusing, 
 as well as sympathetic. She had always a cloud 
 of girls about her young men too, though there 
 were not many at Dover. But, on the whole, I 
 think she did not care for men. She won great 
 deference from the other sex, but she never flat- 
 tered them, nor was put into any great flutter of 
 felicity by their attentions, as I have seen young 
 and old maids too betray. Perhaps she saw their 
 weak points a little too plainly to be universally 
 adored, in spite of the twenty traditional wooers, 
 of whom she was said never to have encouraged 
 one. 
 
 So time passed on. My stay extended from 
 weeks to months, for I was not wanted at home ; 
 probably, as I now think, they were glad to get 
 rid of me, for I could not have been pleasant 
 company to either my mother or my sisters. But 
 Miss Trotter endured me made the best of me. 
 I grew stronger in health and less morbid in 
 mind. Now and then, instead of weeping, I 
 
MISS TOMMY. 35 
 
 caught myself laughing as I had never laughed 
 since Charlie went away. 
 
 He had now been gone six months. The win- 
 ter was over, the spring was fast coming on. In 
 the lengthening twilight we used to walk up and 
 down the shore and watch the sunset colors of 
 the sea, and make plans for taking drives inland 
 to see if the hedges were beginning to bud, and 
 from what sheltered nooks came those baskets of 
 primroses which little dirty girls and boys were 
 daily offering to us, with a pathetic entreaty that 
 Miss Trotter found irresistible, as well the little 
 villains knew. 
 
 " Those primroses must be growing some- 
 where," she would say, sententiously. " We must 
 go and look for them." 
 
 But still we never went, for the bitter east 
 winds the one only fault of Dover made driv- 
 ing difficult. We liked to spend every afternoon 
 in walking up and down the shore, not seldom 
 wandering on to the Admiralty Pier, then newly 
 begun, to watch the workmen there, and to see 
 the Calais boat come in. 
 
 This was and maybe still is the great amuse- 
 
36 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 ment of Dover, especially on rough days. Miss 
 Tommy and I used to laugh over the innate 
 cruelty of human nature in going to watch the 
 landing of miserable foreigners or returning Brit- 
 ons who had been unwise enough to trust them- 
 selves away from our happy island. Many an 
 " odd fish " we saw and smiled at, and many an 
 invalid at whom we did not smile, for the home- 
 ward route from the East was then often by 
 Calais and Dover, and everything Indian had the 
 deepest interest for me. My companion too 
 sometimes I saw her kind brown eyes fixed with 
 the most earnest inquiry upon some sallow-faced, 
 sickly passenger perhaps a liver-tormented cross 
 old Indian, burned up with years of hot climate 
 and brandy pawnee. Would Charlie ever look 
 like that? Could I imagine him with a dried- 
 up, bronzed, unlovely face, like those faces which 
 made Miss Tommy stop her harmless jokes to re- 
 gard wistfully, even with a sort of tenderness ? 
 
 " I am so sorry for them," she would say. She 
 was sorry for everybody who was sick, or sad, or 
 even naughty, as I sometimes told her ! And she 
 answered " that sickness or sadness often made 
 
MISS TOMMY. 37 
 
 naughtiness." Yet she herself was sometimes 
 both she was not very strong, as I slowly found 
 out but this never made her " naughty." 
 
 One day shall I ever forget it ? a blustering 
 March day, when we could hardly keep our foot- 
 ing, or succeed always in "dodging" the sudden 
 waves that came sweeping against the pier over 
 it sometimes, in a shower of spray she and I 
 went as usual to see the boat come in. I liked to 
 go ; the wild weather never harmed me, and some- 
 how even the sight of the ocean which divided 
 us seemed to bridge over the distance between 
 me and Charlie. I once said as much to my com- 
 panion, and she answered that it was " natural." 
 
 She, too, enjoyed the sea on stormy days, so 
 we stood our ground almost the only ladies 
 who did so and watched the little dot of a boat 
 come nearer across the Channel, appearing and 
 then almost disappearing among the high waves 
 " like a human life," Miss Trotter said till it 
 got home at last. 
 
 She counteracted the sentimental remark by a 
 series of harmless jokes, which made me laugh in 
 spite of myself. I had put my arm round her 
 
38 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 as I did sometimes, being a very tall girl and she 
 such a little woman that I almost thought she 
 would be blown away when I suddenly felt her 
 start, and saw her eyes were fixed with something 
 more than curiosity on one of the passengers. 
 
 He stood on the deck a little apart, waiting till 
 the crowd at the gangway should melt away, and 
 idly looking up at the white cliffs, as if it had 
 been many a long year since he had last seen 
 them. He was a tall gentleman, tall and thin. 
 If I say he reminded me of Don Quixote I mean 
 no offense to that hero always a great favorite 
 of mine or to this man, who looked a man in 
 the best sense of the word. Gaunt and gray, and 
 rather shabbily dressed, in half -military fashion, 
 with a decidedly military bearing, he never could 
 have beon mistaken for anything but that rather 
 rare article " a man and a gentleman." 
 
 Following the direction of Miss Trotter's eyes, 
 he attracted mine too. 
 
 " Who can he be ? Is he anybody you know ?" 
 
 "I think so," she answered beneath her breath. 
 " Come with me to the gangway, Decie ! you will 
 be so glad." 
 
MISS TOMMY. 41 
 
 Her lips were quivering, but her smile, as she 
 turned to me I shall never forget it! never 
 cease to be grateful for her kind thought of me 
 just then. 
 
 In another minute I saw her hold out her 
 hand " Major Gordon, I believe ?" 
 
 Major Gordon ! Charlie's uncle ! 
 
 The tall gentleman started, and, perceiving us, 
 lifted his hat. 
 
 " I am Major Gordon. But pardon me ; my 
 memory often fails me." 
 
 He accepted, bowing, her offered hand ; he 
 looked down intently into her face, without the 
 slightest sign of recognition. 
 
 "I beg your pardon I ought to know you, 
 and yet " 
 
 " I am Miss Trotter, Mrs. Murray's friend. 
 And this is Miss Decima Murray." 
 
 "Ah, yes!" A light seemed to break upon 
 him ; he turned to me and shook my hand warm- 
 ly. Then Charlie must have told him. Perhaps 
 he had even seen Charlie. 
 
 I was so delighted, that, as the children say, I 
 " hardly knew whether I stood on my head or 
 
42 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 iny heels." He had come home, this uncle from 
 India, who was to prove a sort of protecting an- 
 gel to Charlie, whom probably he had met be- 
 fore he started, and who had told him to come 
 and see me. He looked as if he liked me, as if 
 he meant to like me the dear old gentleman ! 
 For he was an old gentleman that is, he might 
 be something between fifty and seventy ; but 
 after forty everybody was " old " to me then. 
 
 " I have heard of you, Miss Murray ; I meant 
 to come and see you. This chance meeting is a 
 great pleasure to me, and also to find you with 
 an old friend " 
 
 He turned to Miss Trotter, who stood a little 
 aside, and spoke to her kindly and cordially. 
 Evidently he had no feeling about the tailor- 
 uncle, but asked after " all the family " with a 
 slightly hesitating air, as if trying to remember 
 of what it had consisted, and where they all now 
 were. 
 
 Miss Trotter soon set him at ease. " I have no 
 relations ; they are all dead long ago. There is 
 only me." 
 
 Major Gordon shook her hand warmly again 
 
MISS TOMMY. 43 
 
 and again, thanking her for being " so very 
 kind " as to remember him for all these years 
 since he had been last in England. " How many 
 years ? for really I have lost count. One forgets 
 so many things I can hardly believe that I am 
 again at home. Arid how strange to find one 
 face, not to say two faces" he bowed and smiled 
 to each of us ; a most pleasant smile, that lighted 
 up his worn face into something like youthf ulness 
 " to meet me with such a kindly welcome." 
 
 " Luggage, sir," cried an officious porter, just 
 taking away the gangway ; and we dropped into 
 the business of life again. 
 
 He had very little luggage surprisingly little 
 for a gentleman home from India ; but then he 
 was a soldier, and accustomed to rough it, as evi- 
 dently he did. My Charlie would have been 
 horrified at travelling with such a portmanteau. 
 Major Gordon caught me looking at it. 
 
 " Old and battered, like myself," said he with 
 a smile. " Never mind, it has seen good service. 
 And now it also is coming home." 
 
 A slight sigh, almost immediately repressed, 
 and Major Gordon stood, looking around him 
 
44: MISS TOMMY. 
 
 with a half -bewildered air, and faintly putting 
 aside, with a rather irritable gesture, the appeal- 
 ing porters, or inn-touters, who began to gather 
 round him. 
 
 " Where am I going? I don't know, my good 
 man. Nowhere particular. The custom - house ? 
 yes, the custom-house I must follow the rest. 
 Good day adieu ! and thank you, ladies." 
 
 But Miss Trotter came forward, with her prac- 
 tical, business-like air she was the most thorough 
 " woman of business " I ever knew. 
 
 " I am a resident here, and can easily get your 
 luggage examined and passed. Also, my carriage 
 is waiting at the head of the pier, and if you 
 would return and dine with us " 
 
 I hung upon his hand he was my Charlie's 
 dear old uncle ! and begged him to come. I was 
 sure quite sure Miss Trotter would be glad to 
 see him. " Do come with us," I implored ; " do 
 come home." 
 
 " Come home !" he repeated, with a strange 
 pathos in the words. " You are very kind," turn- 
 ing to Miss Trotter, " arid I thank you. Yes, I 
 will come." 
 
MISS TOMMY. 45 
 
 And so it befell that Major Gordon's first day 
 in England, after so many years, was spent in 
 Miss Trotter's house, with herself and me. A 
 very pleasant day and to me, at least, a real fe- 
 licity. How I blessed the " chance," as I thought 
 it (not being aware till long afterwards that some 
 of his friends had known he was daily expected 
 in England) the happy chance which brought 
 Charlie's uncle to Dover, and brought me to the 
 Admiralty Pier at the very moment of his land- 
 ing. Nor did he himself disguise his pleasure. 
 An Indian officer, retired invalided upon half- 
 pay, with no relations and no money, is not like- 
 ly to have a very jubilant welcome home. 
 
 He said as much, or, rather, it dropped from 
 him unawares, while sitting peacefully at our fire- 
 side I had become so much at home there that 
 I often called it " ours." But otherwise he spoke 
 very little of himself or his affairs. 
 
 Nor, eagerly as I expected it, did he once re- 
 fer to mine. He watched me. I felt he was 
 "taking stock of me" noticing every word I 
 said, everything I did, with a sharp observance 
 almost amounting to suspicion ; but except in 
 
46 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 answer to a question or two from Miss Trotter 
 bless her for that ! he never mentioned Charlie. 
 
 I should have been angry with him, except 
 that, as he sat warming his long brown hands 
 at the fire his gray mustache and thin, sallow 
 face giving him more the air of a Don Quixote 
 than ever he looked such a lonely man that I 
 felt sorry for him. After a time, however, he 
 brightened up and turned to Miss Trotter, who 
 sat in the shadow her little figure half buried 
 in the depths of her favorite arm-chair. He be- 
 gan talking with her of old times. 
 
 " It was so kind of you to speak to me. I 
 cannot imagine how you recognized me, after 
 all the years that have passed since we met I 
 forget how many." 
 
 " Not so very many ten perhaps " 
 
 " And where was it I saw you last ? I ought 
 to recollect, but my memory is so bad. I am 
 getting quite an old man now." 
 
 "At Mrs. Murray's just before you sailed. 
 Also, if you remember, you came to see me at 
 Crookfield my father had just died." 
 
 " Ah, yes, I came once, and I ought to have 
 
MISS TOMMY. 47 
 
 come oftener but " a dark shadow crossed hi? 
 face " my time was much engrossed just then." 
 
 Miss Trotter said nothing, and after a minute 
 or so he again recurred to her father. 
 
 "The dear old rector how kind he was to 
 me when I was a young man ! Not so very 
 young neither I was nearly thirty, but I felt 
 like a boy during all that furlough. How I en- 
 joyed fishing in the rectory stream, and making 
 hay in the rectory meadow ? It seems all like a 
 dream now so very long ago. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "But perhaps you will hardly recollect you 
 must have been such a mere child then, Miss 
 Trotter fourteen or thereabouts." 
 
 " Seventeen. I was older than I looked." 
 
 "And you have changed very little. I could 
 almost see the face of the little girl in the hay- 
 field." 
 
 Was it my fancy, or a sudden red glow from 
 the firelight? but I saw the delicate pink cheek 
 Miss Trotter had the complexion of a girl still 
 change to a deep- carmine. Our guest never saw 
 it; he was gazing absently into the glowing coals 
 
48 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 indeed, lie had mechanically taken up the poker 
 to stir them, but dropped it with a smile. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, Miss Trotter and yet 
 I have certainly known you more than seven 
 years." 
 
 She too smiled, and said gently that he need 
 not apologize she did not consider him as a 
 stranger ; and then she rose and made the tea, 
 leaving him and me to sit and talk. But he did 
 not profit by the opportunity ; he still told me 
 not a scrap of news about poor Charlie. Either 
 he was very reticent men are so much shyer 
 about love-affairs than women or else the time 
 for him to take any interest in such things had 
 long passed by. Very likely ! Whatever he had 
 been, he was certainly growing into an " old 
 fogy " now. Not even a rich " old fogy," as I 
 had somehow imagined him to be. His clothes 
 were decidedly shabby ; and when there was a 
 talk of his going to sleep at the Lord Warden, 
 he said it would be " too expensive," and decided 
 with a dignified indifference that I marvelled at 
 so unlike Charlie ! to take up his quarters at a 
 much inferior hotel. 
 
MISS TOMMY. - 49 
 
 " Not that I have sunk to the ' worst inn's worst 
 room,' as Pope has it how fond your father was of 
 Pope, Miss Trotter ! but I am obliged to take care 
 of my pence, else my pounds would not take care of 
 themselves. And I am growing an old man now." 
 
 No one contradicted the fact which indeed 
 was only too true. As he sat thoughtfully twirl- 
 ing his gray mustache, and sometimes putting a 
 hand upon his broad forehead, bald to the crown, 
 as if to remove a certain feeling of confusion 
 there, no one would have imagined Major Gor- 
 don anything but an old man. 
 
 And with an old man's peculiarity he again and 
 again reverted to the days of his youth, and this 
 pretty village of Crookfield, of which Miss Trot- 
 ter's father had been rector. 
 
 " How long is it since you were there ? Is 
 it much changed ?" lie asked. " Everything is 
 changing nowadays everything and everybody; 
 I should hardly like to see it again. I have never 
 seen it but that once, since let me consider I 
 believe not since the day your father married me. 
 You know" turning suddenly to Miss Trotter 
 " you know that my wife is dead ?" 
 3 
 
50 MISS TOMMY, 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 He stated the fact indeed, the two facts, be- 
 tween which had come such a lifelong tragedy (I 
 found it all out afterwards) merely as facts, noth- 
 ing more. With the silent dignity which makes 
 most men not, alas! women cover over their 
 domestic wounds, he wrapped his mantle round 
 him, Caesar-like, hiding every drop of blood, every 
 quiver of pain. He had always done it, I heard, 
 and he did it still. 
 
 But all was ended now. As we watched him 
 from our wicket-gate walk down the moonlight 
 shore we had gone a few steps outside to show 
 him the way to his hotel upright still, and 
 soldier-like in his bearing, but so thin and with- 
 ered-up and melancholy-looking, one wondered if 
 he had ever been young. I said as much to Miss 
 Tommy. 
 
 " A nice old gentleman, though, but rather 
 grim. No wonder they call him Don Quixote. 
 But how anybody could ever say that, even in his 
 young days, he was like my Charlie" 
 
 Miss Trotter turned, with just the shadow of 
 sharpness in her gentle voice. "You girls are apt 
 
MISS TOMMY. 51 
 
 to make severe criticisms and rash judgments. 
 Had you known Major Gordon in his ' young 
 days/ as you call them, perhaps you would have 
 thought differently. He might not have been 
 exactly handsome, but there was no one so grace- 
 ful, so courteous, such a true gentleman. Still, 
 like Don Quixote, if you will," she added, with a 
 little laugh, but I saw in the moonlight that her 
 eyes were glittering with tears. 
 
 " He certainly is very like Don Quixote now," 
 said I ; " and what a mercy his Dulcinea is dead ! 
 Did you notice he never talked about her ? Per- 
 haps he loved and admired her to the last. And 
 so they were married at your village ?" 
 
 " Yes ; she came from near there." 
 
 " And she was very beautiful, and he was very 
 much in love with her ? They went out to India 
 and then they came back for a year, with the 
 little daughter that died here, and he returned 
 alone ?" 
 
 I put these facts, which I had heard, in the form 
 of questions, hoping to find out more, but Miss 
 Trotter merely answered, " I believe so." She 
 was as reticent as the Major himself. Whatever 
 
52 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 she knew of his affairs she kept in as sacred 
 silence as he did. And there was no getting out 
 of her what she did not choose to tell. Small as 
 she was, simple in her bearing and feminine in 
 her manner, no one could ever take a liberty with 
 Miss Tommy. 
 
 In those days people did not rush about with 
 the speed of " From London to Paris in ten 
 hours." Major Gordon, intending to rest at 
 Dover three days, stayed three weeks. After so 
 much knocking about the world he seemed not 
 eorry for even a brief repose. He and his battered 
 portmanteau removed from the second-rate hotel 
 which he calmly affirmed was " rather too dear for 
 him," and took up their quarters in a lodging found 
 for him by Miss Trotter with a widow woman, 
 one of her numerous "friends" she had as many 
 friends among the poor as the rich, arid she always 
 gave them that pleasant name. 
 
 Most people are "known by their friends," who 
 catch the reflection of themselves, more or less. 
 Major Gordon never came to us and he came 
 every day without singing the praises of his ex- 
 cellent landlady. Mrs. Wilson was so "good," 
 
MISS TOMMY. 53 
 
 so "clever," so "kind.' 7 He seemed surprised to 
 find these qualities in a woman, and dwelt upon 
 them, in the smallest trifles, with an earnest grati- 
 tude that would have been amusing, had it not 
 been so pathetic. 
 
 And how he did enjoy his cosey, sunshiny rooms, 
 half-way up the Castle Hill ; even though on one 
 side the sunshine rested on the white stones and 
 green trees of an old churchyard. In front of the 
 house was a sloping garden, where the birds were 
 just beginning to build. There, too, he had the 
 familiar military element to amuse him, for all 
 the traffic of the Castle passed his door, and he 
 would prick up his ears like an old war-horse, 
 Mrs. Wilson said, at the tramp of a regiment or 
 the music of a band. 
 
 Major Gordon was not exactly a reading man. 
 His eyes were weak, he told us ; he had once had 
 slight ophthalmia in Egypt ; and his wandering, 
 soldier's life had tended to the study of men 
 rather than of books. But he was a shrewd old 
 fellow, as I soon saw. He had gone through the 
 world with his eyes open, and his observations on 
 things and people were often very acute ; though 
 
54: MISS TOMMY. 
 
 with regard to himself and his own affairs he had 
 the simplicity of a child. 
 
 In fact, as I said to Miss Trotter, Charlie's uncle 
 amused me exceedingly "he was such a queer 
 combination of the serpent and the dove." I 
 laughed with him and at him ; I admired him and 
 criticised him, after the boldly candid fashion of 
 young people. But Miss Tommy never made any 
 comments upon him at all. 
 
 As I said, instead of three days he stayed throe 
 weeks, before going on to London, which he 
 seemed in no hurry to do. 
 
 " My business can stand over, and keep no one 
 waiting; nobody expects me," he said one day, 
 with a smile, half sad, half cynical there was a 
 touch of cynicism in many of his remarks, which 
 always had the effect of making Miss Trotter 
 silent. " All I have to do can be done at any 
 time." 
 
 "No time like the present, as Miss Trotter 
 would say," I answered, laughing. 
 
 "Young lady," said the Major, turning upon 
 me with a sharpness so unwonted that it actually 
 made me start, " if you had no future and no past, 
 
MISS TOMMY. 55 
 
 you would trouble yourself very little about the 
 present." 
 
 Which seemed to be his way a kind of indif- 
 ferent drifting with the tide, sad to see in a man 
 who has passed his prime, from whom youth's 
 energy has naturally departed, leaving behind 
 neither the firm resolve of middle life nor the 
 calm contentment of old age. 
 
 Possibly I give my impressions of Major Gor- 
 don more from what I afterwards knew of him 
 than from what I first observed, for he was not 
 one of those people who take you by storm 
 it required time and opportunity to find him 
 out. We had both. He seldom missed a day 
 in coming to East Cliff, though never until af- 
 ternoon ; for Miss Trotter's mornings were al- 
 ways full mine, too, by the force of example, 
 which was ten times better than precept. But 
 in the lengthening spring evenings, when day- 
 light began to fade, we used to see his tall, thin 
 figure, with that old fur coat buttoned to the 
 throat, appearing in the distance down the Es- 
 planade; he would join us and walk home with 
 us, sit down by our fireside " for just ten min- 
 
56 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 utes," and when he once sat down he never got 
 up again. 
 
 One could scarcely wonder at this. The bright 
 room, the cosey tea-table not your careless, come- 
 and-go, afternoon tea, which had not then been in- 
 vented, but the good old-fashioned evening meal, 
 with the hissing urn, the hot muffins, the yellow 
 marmalade and tempting jam, and the mistress of 
 it all sitting at the head of her table, with her 
 placid, homelike smile. No wonder that her guest 
 sometimes put his cup clown and regarded her 
 wistfully. 
 
 " Miss Trotter," he said one day, " you are the 
 most comfortable-looking woman I ever knew, 
 and the cleverest at making other people com- 
 fortable." 
 
 " Thank you," she laughed. 
 
 " And I remember you were the same as a 
 child. How your father used to call you his ' lit- 
 tle house-mother !' What a pity " He stopped ; 
 perhaps he had been going to say, " What a pity 
 you were never married," but politeness made 
 him alter it to " What a pity more women were 
 not like you 1" 
 
MISS TOMMY. 57 
 
 That simple, open admiration so outspoken 
 and free from all reserve it seemed sometimes 
 rather to wound its object. She always turned 
 the conversation, as now. 
 
 " Yes, my father had many a pleasant nickname 
 for his favorites. Yours, I remember, was ' Bon- 
 nie Prince Charlie.' " 
 
 Major Gordon laughed heartily. " What a mis- 
 nomer ! The adjective should have been applied 
 to you ; for I think you were the 4 bonniest ' little 
 girl I ever saw. It was a pleasure to look at you 
 as it is still " with a courtly bow, so complete- 
 ly belonging to the stately compliments of the old 
 school that no one could be offended at it. 
 
 And yet I fancied I saw that pained look again 
 cross Miss Tommy's face the sweetest " old 
 lady's" face that ever was, as I thereupon declared. 
 She made us both a little bow, and bade us "go 
 on with our tea, and talk no more nonsense." 
 
 Thus we enjoyed our innocent jokes, a very 
 happy trio ; or, if not happy, at least contented. 
 If two of us had felt inclined to keep up the 
 " winter of our discontent," it was " made glorious 
 summer" by the sunshiny nature of the third. 
 3* 
 
58 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 Miss Tommy honestly declared that she liked to 
 be happy; and no one could live with her, as I 
 had done all these months, without becoming, in a 
 moderate and decorous degree, happy too. 
 
 I said so to Major Gordon, one day when he and 
 I were walking together, as we sometimes did, for 
 many a merry mile, Miss Trotter following us in 
 her little pony carriage ; for she was not strong, 
 and often said what a "thankfulness" it was to 
 her that, having walked so much in her youth, she 
 could in her old age afford the luxury of driving. 
 But we two were still young and active, she told 
 us, and she watched us striding along through the 
 pleasant lanes and sweeps of undulating country 
 which lie inland, just beyond Dover town. 
 
 We were bound to St. Kadegund's Abbey, which 
 we wished to show Major Gordon before he left. 
 His departure, fixed and unfixed again several 
 times, was finally settled for to-morrow; and, the 
 week after, so was mine. I too was going to Lon- 
 don, to resume my family's usual round of " the 
 season ;" to be speculated upon by match-making 
 mothers, criticised by ugly sisters, and flirted with 
 by undesirable younger brothers, to my mother's 
 
MISS TOMMY. 59 
 
 great alarm. No need ! My heart was bound up 
 in my absent Charlie. 
 
 His uncle had told me nothing about him. Our 
 affair, if he knew it, and I could not help fancying 
 he did know, was apparently of no importance to 
 him a mere specimen of the "calf-love " which I 
 had more than once heard him contemptuously 
 refer to in conversation. The " tender passion " 
 was clearly not in his line. He treated me much 
 like any other young lady politely, paternally, 
 but without showing any special interest in me or 
 recognizing my possible future tie to himself. 
 Now I, though sometimes he vexed me by the 
 stolidity with which he ignored all my " fishing 
 questions," having all one aim Charlie I could 
 not help feeling a deep interest in him and a sense 
 of regret at his departure, which surprised myself. 
 
 " What is there in some people that, though w r e 
 are glad to see them, we never miss them ; while 
 others, .whenever they go away, they leave a large 
 hole behind ? 
 
 I had said this to Miss Tommy as she was tying 
 on her bonnet for our expedition ; and I happened 
 to catch in the glass the reflection of her face. 
 
60 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 Such a mournful expression it had, with its wide 
 eyes that saw nothing, and its close-set mouth, as if 
 fixed for the endurance of an eternal want, a per- 
 petual pain. 
 
 It haunted me all through the walk, though 
 whenever she passed us her face was dressed in 
 smiles so much so that Major Gordon said : 
 
 " "What a very happy woman Miss Trotter 
 seems to be ! a great deal happier, perhaps, than 
 if she had been married." 
 
 Which was one of many severe remarks on the 
 married state which continually fell from him, 
 inclining me to rise up and do battle with him, 
 except that he had the advantage of me, and of 
 Miss Trotter too, in having been married. But, 
 as she said to me once, there are two kinds of 
 cynics those who do not believe at all, and those 
 who believe so intensely that they will accept 
 nothing short of absolute truth absolute perfec- 
 tion. Was that the reason she had never mar 
 ried? 
 
 Arrived at St. Kadegund's, I took out my 
 sketch - book Charlie had a fancy for art, and 
 had given me once some lessons, so of course I 
 
MISS TOMMY. 61 
 
 stuck to my drawing valorously. I had talked to 
 Charlie's uncle as long as I could, but still he was 
 an " old fogie ;" the young and old have not 
 many points in common, and after a while find 
 one another's society a trifle dull. Now, elderly 
 folk do not seem to mind dulness, but can go on 
 together, as I have known Major Gordon and 
 Miss Trotter do, for ever so long, without ex- 
 changing a dozen words. 
 
 They did so now. After we had examined the 
 ruins, and speculated on the departed St. Rade- 
 gund, who, I believe, was a lady abbess, and this 
 her convent ; but really I felt little interest in 
 iier, a long dead and buried woman, while I was 
 a living woman, oh ! so keenly, painfully alive ! 
 1 left my two respected seniors to their mutual 
 society, and took refuge in my own, which waa 
 much more interesting. Soon I had settled my- 
 self in a secluded corner to make my sketch, and 
 think of. Charlie. 
 
 Both these useful occupations had absorbed me 
 for a good half-hour, when I heard voices behind 
 me ; there was a broken wall between, and they 
 evidently did not know I was there. Indeed, 
 
62 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 they were in such earnest talk those two worthy 
 friends of mine that I should not have troubled 
 myself about them, any more than they about 
 me, had I not, after a minute or so, caught 
 Charlie's name. 
 
 " Yes, he is a real good fellow, that nephew of 
 mine ! I only wish I could be a better uncle and 
 godfather to him ; but I have little influence and 
 no money. Besides, he is in the queen's service, 
 and I in ' John Company's.' His only way of 
 getting promotion is by purchase. If I had the 
 money I once made you know I never was ex- 
 travagant, and I did hope to keep enough to be 
 comfortable in my old age, and perhaps have a 
 trifle for Charlie well, it is gone, and there is 
 little use in speaking about it." 
 
 "Wo." There was something strangely pa- 
 thetic in these monosyllables of Miss Trotter's, 
 which implied and concealed so much. Her 
 soft " No " and " Yes "I can almost hear them 
 still ! 
 
 "You are right. Let bygones be bygones. 
 That has always been my principle and practice. 
 The loss of the money was not my fault, only my 
 
MISS TOMMY. 63 
 
 misfortune. With my small needs I can do with- 
 out it. And now about Charlie." 
 
 Was I mean ? I think I was ; yet the impulse 
 to listen was irresistible. For three weeks I had 
 been kept on the tenter-hooks of suspense ; not 
 a word, good, bad, or indifferent, did his uncle 
 say of my poor Charlie. Of course, the ideal 
 and honorable thing just now would have been 
 a good loud cough I But that might have per- 
 plexed them. Indeed, I had already heard a lit- 
 tle too much, for it was easy to guess that Major 
 Gordon's " misfortune " was his wife. I made 
 this excuse to myself at the time for doing what 
 I did. Well, I did it, and there's an end. 
 
 " Charlie, poor lad ! Well, he may be a great 
 fool a young man in love usually is but he is 
 an honest fool. He told me everything, and 
 made me promise to go and see his young lady 
 as soon as I reached England. This was the 
 cause of my inflicting myself so long on your 
 kindness, Miss Trotter." 
 
 " I perceive." 
 
 " It was my only chance of finding out what 
 stuff the girl was made of. Not a bad sort of 
 
04 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 girl. As you say, Charlie might have done worse ; 
 but }ie would have done better not to have got 
 into the entanglement at all." 
 
 Entanglement ! Charlie's devotion to me an 
 " entanglement !" I was furious, first at Major 
 Gordon and then at Miss Trotter. What could 
 these two old idiots know about love such love 
 as mine and Charlie's? 
 
 After a pause I heard the latter say gently, 
 " What is your objection ?" 
 
 " First and foremost she has money." 
 
 Was it my fancy, or a real tremble in her 
 voice, as Miss Trotter answered, " Few people 
 besides yourself would count that an objection. 
 Why ?" 
 
 " Can you ask ? when Charlie has not a half- 
 penny f No, no ; a man with proper pride would 
 never have dreamed of such a thing." 
 
 "Is not that rather hard for Decie? When she 
 herself is worth much more than her fortune?" 
 
 And then my dear Miss Tommy spoke up for 
 me, warmly, kindly, generously, until I felt my- 
 self blushing to the ears, and wished with all my 
 heart I had been half as good as she thought me. 
 
MISS TOMMY. 65 
 
 " We will let that pass," replied Major Gordon 
 in his most worldly tone ; he was both worldly 
 and matter-of-fact sometimes, or liked to appear 
 so. " My dear Miss Trotter, you always believe 
 the very best of everybody. Yet the girl is a 
 good girl enough ; but how do we know what 
 sort of woman she will turn out ? Many a man 
 is deceived by a pretty face ; he marries it, and 
 learns afterwards to loathe it. A handsome girl 
 a girl with money ; how can you tell that she 
 will not grow into an arrant flirt a married 
 flirt, the worst of all or a scolding, extravagant 
 jade, or some of those delightful forms of the 
 genus woman that we sometimes see in India? 
 Never in England, of course ;" and I could im- 
 agine the Major's courteous, deprecatory bow. 
 Though I heard also his bitter laugh, which nega- 
 tived it. 
 
 And after a minute I heard the sweet pleading 
 voice : " We need not talk ; it is enough, gener- 
 ally, to act. What can be done for these foolish 
 young people? They are very fond of one an- 
 other." 
 
 "Fond? as a child is fond of a stick of sugar- 
 
66 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 candy. Take it away and they will soon get over 
 it. Best that they should get over it." 
 
 " Are you sure of that ?" 
 
 " Quite sure. A man who marries young is a 
 fool ; if he marries late in life he often takes 
 the crooked stick and repents it til) death. The 
 wisest man is he who never marries at all. And 
 so I said to my nephew Charlie." 
 
 " And he said" 
 
 " The usual thing ! Did any young man in 
 love ever listen to anybody's advice, or feel any- 
 thing but hatred to the prudent parent or friend 
 that stood between him and his madness?" 
 
 "Have you done this?" 
 
 "Not at all. My bark is worse than ir*y bite, 
 I assure you. I only told him he was a very 
 great fool, and that I could not help him in the 
 least. Had I been a rich man now, I might have 
 been a fool too, for I like the lad I might have 
 bought his promotion, and sent him home in 
 three years, a colonel perhaps, to marry Miss 
 Decie, supposing she is still true to him, which 
 is not over likely. Could any girl of nineteen 
 keep true for a twelvemonth to any man ?" 
 
MISS TOMMY. 67 
 
 Miss Trotter made no answer, and Major Gor- 
 don went on to thank her for her interest in his 
 nephew. 
 
 "And he really is a good fellow, who will work 
 his way and get promotion also gray hairs. Miss 
 Murray will by that time be the happy wife of 
 an earl or a millionaire. Your rich people gen- 
 erally marry money carrying coals to Newcas- 
 tle. I hope, by-the-bye, that Mrs. Murray will 
 not suspect me of doing anything to forward my 
 nephew's cause by my visit here ?" 
 
 " I will take care she shall not." 
 
 "And, Miss Trotter, do not imagine I think ill 
 of your young protegee, who is most fortunate in 
 having you for her friend. She is a very pleas- 
 ant person ; she might make a good wife ; arid, 
 if I could earn money enough to buy Charlie's 
 promotion Do you think anybody would give 
 work paying work to a broken-down old sol- 
 dier?" 
 
 He said this with a laugh, but evidently meant 
 it an intention so kindly that I forgave him a 
 good deal ; forgave too the answer by which Miss 
 Trotter negatived it. 
 
C8 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 " I think it is the young who ought to work. 
 The old should take rest ; they need it, and de- 
 serve it." 
 
 " But you you never seem to rest ? Ton are 
 busy from morning till night, chiefly for other 
 people. You are able to throw yourself out of 
 yourself in the most marvellous way. You think 
 of everybody ; does anybody ever think of you ? 
 Nay, here am I, keeping you standing discussing 
 Charlie's affairs and my own, when you ought to 
 be sitting in your carriage. Where is it ? Shall 
 I go and fetch it ?" 
 
 " If you please." 
 
 I heard him stride away heard her creep for- 
 ward and sit down on a stone a broken pillar. 
 The bent little figure, the hands tight-clasped on 
 her lap, the head drooped down as in patient ac- 
 quiescence under a long- familiar burden I can 
 see her still, my dear Miss Tommy ! 
 
 But just then I saw nothing but myself, and 
 my own indignation, which at last boiled over. I 
 startled her by my sudden appearance. 
 
 " Miss Trotter, you must drive me home. I 
 will not walk back with Major Gordon. I have 
 
MISS TOMMY. 69 
 
 heard I don't care whether I was right or wrong 
 but I overheard, accidentally, every word he 
 has been saying to you about me and Charlie. 
 And I hate him !" 
 
 Whereupon I burst at once into a storm of 
 tears. 
 
 Miss Trotter rose and came beside me. I felt 
 my hand taken, with a firm, soft clasp, which 
 calmed me in spite of all my wrath. 
 
 " My dear, they say listeners never hear any 
 good of themselves, but you cannot have heard 
 much harm. And people are often mistaken 
 without being actually wrong. We need not 
 6 hate ' them. We should rather be sorry for 
 them." 
 
 "I am not sorry for him at all the hard, 
 worldly-minded, mean old fellow." 
 
 Here a little hand was laid upon my mouth. 
 
 "Not mean he never could be mean. And 
 you never could speak ill of Charlie's uncle. He 
 is fond of Charlie." 
 
 I looked down in her face with its soft, pale 
 smile not till now had I noticed how exceed- 
 ingly pale she was and it seemed to comfort me. 
 
70 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 "I can't imagine how it is that you under- 
 stand everybody's troubles, and have a cheering 
 word to say to everybody. It must be because 
 you are so happy and have had such an easy 
 life." 
 
 " Must it ? Well, never mind. Dry your 
 tears, Decie an April shower on an April day, 
 for indeed it is no more. Look, there comes 
 the carriage, and Major Gordon, carrying a great 
 bunch of primroses. Does that look ' worldly- 
 minded ?' Forgive him, my dear. Take no no- 
 tice of anything. Do your best and leave the 
 rest." 
 
 I obeyed her. I received Major Gordon and 
 his floral offering which he presented to me 
 with the air of a knight of the Middle Ages 
 without betraying any grudge against him. Nay, 
 I even walked home with him, conversing in the 
 most amicable manner on the beauties of spring, 
 and the pity it was to waste May mornings and 
 June evenings in the follies of the London sea- 
 son, just as if I had never " hated " him at all. 
 
 It was impossible indeed to hate him long. 
 There was such an extraordinary sweetness about 
 
MISS TOMMY. 71 
 
 him that mixture of sweetness and strength 
 which in a man is so fascinating, at any age. 
 Charlie had it in degree; but I must confess I 
 never saw it so strongly marked in any man as 
 in Charlie's uncle, despite his bald crown and 
 gray hairs. 
 
 "He might almost win a woman's heart yet," 
 I said to Miss Trotter, after he had departed that 
 night, bidding us a rather lingering good-bye, 
 for he was to start at eight next morning. He 
 seemed quite uncertain when he should come 
 back, if he came back at all. " Perhaps he may 
 find some rich widow who would take him, oddi- 
 ties and all, or some benevolent and eager-to-be- 
 married old " 
 
 I stopped, ashamed, for I had ceased to laugh 
 at old maids since I had known Miss Tommy. 
 Though no one could be less like the received 
 type of an old rnaid than she was, with her love- 
 ly old face, so peaceful and smiling, her contented 
 air, and her universal and most motherly tender- 
 ness, especially over the young. 
 
 " Some ' unappropriated blessing,' which is the 
 polite term for an unmarried woman," said she, 
 
72 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 with a gentle smile. "No, I do not think Major 
 Gordon is likely to marry. But he might have 
 a long and useful life yet. I trust he will have. 
 He deserves it." 
 
 She rose and took up his gloves such an old 
 and shabby pair ! which he had left behind on 
 his favorite arm-chair the Major's chair we had 
 got to call it ; it looked sad and empty now. 
 
 " We will send them after him when we know 
 where he has gone to," she said, and folded them 
 up and laid them carefully in a drawer. 
 
 That night she went to bed rather early we 
 had got into a habit of sitting " four feet on a 
 fender" over the dying fire till midnight and 
 she looked very tired all next day. But she 
 said she had to do double duty consequent on 
 yesterday's idleness, so went about as usual, while 
 I busied myself in preparing for my melancholy 
 departure. 
 
 I had not thought till I came to leave her how 
 sorry I should be to do it how I should miss 
 her genial smile, her ceaseless care and thought 
 for me. That busy life seemed still to have room 
 for everything and everybody. 
 
MISS TOMMY. 73 
 
 " Good-byes are sore things," I said, thinking 
 sorrowfully of mine with Charlie ; of which Miss 
 Trotter might have been thinking too, for she an- 
 swered : 
 
 " And yet it is something to have the right to 
 grieve to know that the grief is mutual to feel 
 that the parting is not indefinite. There are 
 those who have none of these consolations, yet 
 they have to bear the same pang. Some part- 
 ings are like death itself, only without its peace." 
 
 I looked up from my packing, for she spoke 
 w T ith keen sympathy, even emotion. 
 
 " Yes, there must be some poor young creat- 
 ures even more miserable than I and Charlie." 
 
 " I and Charlie," " Charlie and me !" I wonder 
 she was not sick of that perpetual chorus of ego- 
 tistical woe, which I, like many another foolish 
 girl, inflicted upon my affectionate friends at 
 least upon this friend. She insisted that I should 
 " keep myself to myself " with other people ; 
 especially with my family, who, I shrewdly sus- 
 pected, would not stand as much as she did. I 
 should have henceforth to conceal my sorrows, 
 or try and rise superior to them, and make roy- 
 
 4 
 
74: MISS TOMMY. 
 
 self as happy as I could, with Charlie away ; 
 which seemed a sort of infidelity to Charlie. 
 
 When I said so. Miss Tommy smiled. 
 
 " My dear, young people in love always think 
 it a duty to be miserable. By and by they learn 
 a higher duty that if you are not happy your- 
 self you have the more need to make other peo- 
 ple happy. The weakest, the most unchristian 
 thing a woman can do, or a man either, is to die 
 of a broken heart." 
 
 " Yet people have died." 
 
 " And lived which is harder. But what non- 
 sense we are talking ! You will not die broken- 
 hearted after parting with me, my dear," and 
 she laughed her own merry laugh. "And for 
 Charlie, I would advise you, for the next three 
 months at least, not to say a word about Charlie. 
 You may think of him all the sarne^ you know." 
 
 "Don't laugh at me." 
 
 " I am not laughing. I want you to think of 
 him. I hope you will keep true to him ; for one 
 real love, be it ever so sad, is better than twenty 
 'fancies,' or a hundred < flirtations.' " 
 
 "Thank you thank you; you are not like 
 
MISS TOMMY. 75 
 
 Major Gordon. You believe in me ; you do not 
 think I shall ever forget Charlie." 
 
 "No." 
 
 We stood at the wicket -gate for a breath of 
 the salt sea, just to refresh us before bedtime. 
 The moonlight nights were over ; but through 
 the clear darkness we could trace the beautiful 
 curve of the bay, studded with its ring of lighta 
 the incoming tide, heard rather than seen, on 
 the one hand, and the dim outline of white cliffs 
 on the other. How many a night we had walked 
 up and down, the two of us latterly the three 
 and now it was all come to an end. 
 
 "You will have to take your walks alone," I 
 said. 
 
 " Yes ; I am used to it." 
 
 That phrase, with its infinite pathos ! I did 
 not notice it then, nor understand it ; I was too 
 young to have "got used" to anything. But I 
 somehow felt my heart yearn towards the soli- 
 tary woman. Any unmarried woman must be 
 solitary, I thought. I put my arms round her 
 and kissed her, not as a mere salutation, but 
 with the warm kisses of youth, as I used to kiss 
 
76 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 Charlie (no ! let me correct myself, as Charlie 
 used to kiss me). She kissed me back again, 
 with, to my surprise, a great sob ; and then and 
 there in the silent starlight, to my still greater 
 surprise, she like the people in the Bible " fell 
 on my neck and wept." My dear Miss Tommy ! 
 
PAKT II. 
 
 CHARLIE GORDON did come back at the three 
 years' end; and, despite his uncle's prophecy, 
 he did find me true, and not married either 
 to an earl or a millionaire. I will not say that 
 I had not been asked ; but that is neither here 
 nor there, and, as Miss Trotter once observed, 
 the less a woman says about her rejected lovers 
 the better. 
 
 She my dear Miss Tommy happened to be 
 sitting with me when Charlie suddenly appeared. 
 
 It was the day after my twenty -first birthday, 
 which, though lively enough, I cannot say was 
 very happy. But I tried hard to make it so ; for 
 I had by this time learned my lesson the lesson 
 first taught me by her dear old self in her pretty 
 house at Dover, during the peaceful three months 
 when she "took me in" me, almost a "stranger" 
 and returned me back to my parents healed in 
 body and mind. At least I was so much better 
 
78 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 that I endured the ensuing three years without 
 making myself unendurable to my family, as is 
 the way with so many young people who have 
 been " crossed in love." Much pity I have for 
 them, poor things! the tender pity that Miss 
 Tommy had for me; but my pity never blinds 
 me, as it never blinded her, to the truth of the 
 matter, namely, that to waste one's life, with all 
 its duties, all its blessings and few lives are void 
 of the latter, none of the former to sacrifice it on 
 the shrine of any one human being, is, as some 
 statesman said of a great political error, " worse 
 than a crime a blunder." And had I for those 
 three years made myself and my family utterly 
 miserable on Charlie's account, I should certainly 
 have committed a great blunder; for I should 
 have taught them to despise me and hate him 
 hate my dear Charlie, the best, nicest, pleasantest 
 but I will not forestall things. 
 
 On my birthday which was a rather important 
 date, since on coming of age I inherited some 
 money from an old great-aunt I had all my own 
 people about me : my married brothers and their 
 families, my two elder sisters, both engaged and 
 
MISS TOMMY. 79 
 
 making "excellent matches" to my mother's 
 great delight. For me, I would not have married 
 either of my brothers-in-law elect for the world ! 
 But I was very civil to them, and took with com- 
 posure the jokes about my "unattached" condi- 
 tion, without a single creature to pay me attention 
 either in the house or at the birthday ball. In- 
 stead, I occupied myself with paying attention to 
 my dear Miss Tommy, who, though I had not been 
 allowed to visit her again, was always considered 
 in the family as my particular friend, and invited 
 to our house whenever I desired it. 
 
 Not since that pleasant fortnight which I spent 
 with him had I again seen Major Gordon. My 
 family met him once in society, and by all ac- 
 counts gave him so unmistakably the "cold 
 shoulder" that I scarcely wondered he had left 
 unfulfilled his promise of coining to see me when 
 he was "settled" in London. But possibly he 
 never had settled anywhere; for I had heard 
 nothing of him until quite lately, when, in answer 
 to my questions, Miss Trotter said that in an ac- 
 cidental letter which she had received from him 
 he " inquired kindly " after me. 
 
80 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 This was all. She evidently wished to say as 
 little as possible about the Gordons uncle and 
 nephew which did not contribute to the happi- 
 ness of my birthday. But, I reflected, no doubt 
 she felt bound in honor to tell me nothing about 
 Charlie, and perhaps after all she had very little 
 to tell. For when I communicated to her the 
 only news which had reached me of Major Gor- 
 don how some mutual friend had met him in 
 the city looking very shabby, worn, and old she 
 seemed both surprised and pained. 
 
 But to return to me and Charlie. By-the-bye, 
 it was a creditable novelty in me to " return " to 
 Charlie, instead of making him, as aforetime, the 
 one sole subject of my conversation. He ap- 
 peared, as I have said, the very day after my birth- 
 day. We were sitting among the debris of the 
 ball, in the dulness of tired-out folk, when: the 
 footman suddenly announced " Colonel Gordon." 
 
 " It must be a mistake and mamma and the 
 girls are out," I said to Miss Trotter ; but she only 
 smiled. 
 
 " It's you, miss, that the young gentleman asks 
 for," said our old John, with a grin well he knew 
 
MISS TOMMY. 81 
 
 Charlie in the old days! "And he told me to say 
 Colonel Gordon." 
 
 So in he walked, as composedly as if he had 
 been the fairy prince come to demand the hand 
 of the beautiful princess, which he did within an 
 hour or two, of her astounded parents! 
 
 There was no reason why he should not. He 
 was no longer Mr., but Colonel, Gordon. A lucky 
 battle (alas! that we should call it so) had pro- 
 moted him had enabled him to come home in 
 time to keep his tryst with me, and to " come for- 
 ward," as the phrase goes, with dignity and inde- 
 pendence, to ask me of my father. 
 
 We sat together in the little boudoir, hand-in- 
 hand, like children; sat and cried for joy kissing 
 one another between whiles, also like children ; 
 for there was no one near except Miss Trotter, 
 knitting energetically in the big drawing-room. I 
 introduced Charlie to her, saying she was a friend 
 of his uncle ; but he did not seem to have heard 
 of her or to think much about her. In truth, 
 poor dear fellow ! at that moment he thought of 
 nothing but me; and declared he had thought of 
 nothing but me all the time he had been parted 
 4* 
 
82 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 from me. Which I hope was true. At any rate, 
 I saw no reason to doubt it. 
 
 "A colonel's pay is not a fortune, my Deeie, 
 but it is quite equal to what you have, and so my 
 pride is satisfied my uncle's too. He met me 
 when I reached London yesterday. We had a 
 long talk, and though he did not exactly advise 
 me to come here to-day, he did not object to it. 
 He said he liked you very much, and that if I 
 must be so foolish as to marry, perhaps I had 
 better marry you ; and so " 
 
 Here Charlie ended his sentence in another but 
 equally satisfactory way. Oh, dear me"! how fool- 
 ish we are when we are young, and yet how sweet 
 is the folly ! 
 
 And then he told me confidentially a remark- 
 able fact which there was no need to make a 
 matter of public talk that when he came home he 
 found lying at his banker's a large sum of money, 
 which, added to his colonel's pay, would give an 
 income sufficient to enable us to marry at once. 
 It had been paid into the bank anonymously by 
 whom, he had not the remotest idea. 
 
 This latter fact was rather " uncomfortable," he 
 
MISS TOMMY. 83 
 
 owned, and I agreed with him; still it did not 
 strike me as wonderful that anybody should do 
 anything for Charlie ; and among his numerous 
 friends probably there was one who had a fancy 
 for secret benevolence. 
 
 " I thought at first it was my uncle, but found 
 the dear old fellow knew nothing at all about the 
 matter, of which I was very glad, for though he 
 declares he is not poor, that no gentleman is poor 
 who knows the extent of his income and lives 
 within it, still he must have great trouble to make 
 ends meet. And he ought to have more comforts 
 than he has, an old man like him better clothes, 
 better food, and perhaps some one to do his writ- 
 ing and reading for him: his sight is not good, 
 though from long habit he manages extremely 
 well. He is at once very independent and very 
 helpless poor Uncle Gordon !" 
 
 Here Miss Trotter, who had sat in the back- 
 ground absorbed in her knitting, looked up. (I 
 had told Charlie he need not mind her; she 
 knew all about us, and would play propriety 
 in the most harmless way till my mother came 
 home.) 
 
84: MISS TOMMY. 
 
 "Has Major Gordon changed his address? 
 Will you give it to me ? I am an old friend of 
 his." 
 
 Charlie bowed. He admired pretty women of 
 all ages; and I could see he was quite taken by 
 the sweet-looking little old lady. 
 
 "Who in the world is she? Trotter? Not 
 Trotters the army- tailors?" 
 
 I stopped his whispers with the severest of 
 frowns, made him write down the address of his 
 uncle's new lodgings it was in a very shabby 
 and dreary London street and gave it to Miss 
 Tommy. Shortly afterwards she made some ex- 
 cuse and left us together, which was, we both 
 agreed, the very kindest thing she could do. 
 
 So it was all soon arranged, for Charlie was one 
 who never allowed any grass to grow under his 
 feet. He was determined, and so was I. We had 
 both an independent income, small, but sufficient ; 
 and we were young and strong enough to "rough 
 it " a little if necessary. Though it scarcely would 
 be necessary, as, to my mother's great relief, the 
 regiment was coming home, so that Charlie would 
 have, for the present at least, no more fight- 
 
MISS TOMMY. 85 
 
 ing, nor would my parents lose their youngest 
 darling. 
 
 I was their darling, I felt ; and they had meant 
 me no harm, nor done it either, by insisting on 
 the temporary separation between my lover and 
 me. It had only made us the worthier and, if 
 possible, the dearer to one another. True love is 
 all the truer for being tried. 
 
 When, next day, I received the congratulations 
 of our mutual families though his consisted only 
 of his uncle, for his only living relative, a married 
 sister, lived in the far north of Scotland I think 
 rny Charlie's fiancee was the happiest girl in the 
 world. Far happier than if I had at once got 
 what I wanted, and oh ! a thousand times happier 
 than if I had withstood or disobeyed my parents, 
 sulked with my brothers and sisters, and made 
 myself generally disagreeable at home the dear 
 familiar home which would be mine now for so 
 very short a time. Another home might be fuller, 
 wider, brighter ; but there is something in the in- 
 nocent girl-life, free from cares and responsibili- 
 ties, safe hidden in the warm nest, and cherished 
 under the soft, motherly wing something which 
 
86 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 a girl never gets again in all her days, and never 
 thoroughly understands or appreciates till it is 
 hers no more forever. 
 
 Yet, as I said to Miss Tommy, for once in my 
 life quoting poetry, 
 
 "Love is sweet, 
 Given or returned " 
 
 to which she only answered, " Yes " her usual 
 gentle " Yes." But she kissed me fondly. I am 
 sure she was glad in her inmost heart to see me so 
 happy. 
 
 And, looking back through many years, through 
 " all the chances and changes of mortal life," as 
 the prayer-book has it, I can remember vividly 
 that day, and feel that it was good to be happy. 
 I can see myself sitting in my usual place at the 
 family dinner-table, beside my father, but with 
 Charlie on my other side, an accepted lover, and 
 both of us, we flattered ourselves, sustaining our 
 new position with dignity and grace. Still we 
 were both a little nervous I am sure I was and 
 it was quite a relief that there were no strangers 
 present, except two who could hardly be called 
 such Miss Trotter and Major Gordon. 
 
MISS TOMMY. 87 
 
 They happened to sit together at the other end 
 of the table, for my mother had, of course, been 
 taken in to dinner by Charlie's uncle, and my 
 father he was a little distrait, poor man, and no 
 wonder ! had forgotten Miss Tommy. She would 
 have had to walk in alone, had not Major Gordon, 
 ever courteous, turned and given her his other 
 arm. 
 
 So the two old acquaintances were placed side 
 by side, which they seemed to enjoy, for they 
 talked a good deal. And, as I noticed to Charlie 
 (it was such a comfort to have Charlie to tell 
 everything to once more!), his uncle grew less 
 solemn and Don Quixotish as who would not 
 under the sunshiny influence of my dear Miss 
 Tommy? (N.B. I never called her that to her 
 face, but she knew we often did so behind her 
 back ; nor do I think she disliked it she once told 
 me that her father's pet name for her was always 
 " Tommy.") 
 
 As I sat in my usual place, radiant in my new 
 happiness, with all my dear ones about me, and 
 especially the dearest of all, more than once I 
 caught Miss Trotter's glance wandering towards 
 
88 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 me with a wistful tenderness almost amounting to 
 sadness, and I wondered, with a sudden flash of 
 intuition, born of my deep bliss, what her youth 
 had been, whether she had ever known, even for 
 a brief moment, the felicity which, thoughtless as 
 I was in these early days, I thought of with a sigh 
 of content, saying with old King David, " My cup 
 runneth over." 
 
 " I am glad to see Major Gordon here," whis- 
 pered I to Charlie. " He looks a good deal older 
 since I saw hiin first. I wonder what he was like 
 as a young man." 
 
 " They say he was like me." (To which I re- 
 sponded indignantly, " Oh no !") " But he would 
 not be an ill-looking fellow, poor Uncle Gordon, if 
 only he would spruce himself up a bit, as he has 
 done to-day, for the credit of the family. He is 
 not vain, but he is most awfully proud. Would 
 you believe it, he is vexing his very life out be- 
 cause he cannot discover the anonymous friend to 
 whom I owe that money, and he cannot bear 
 being indebted to any human being. I think he 
 is more angry than grateful. Now, I am very 
 grateful." 
 
MISS TOMMY. 89 
 
 And so was I, without perplexing myself about 
 the matter, which, however, Major Gordon did 
 not refer to at all ; but whenever he fell into 
 tits of silence or abstraction, as was not seldom, 
 Charlie whispered, "He is worrying himself about 
 the money, poor old dear !" 
 
 The "old dear," however, was very benignant 
 to me, informing Charlie that "he had always 
 liked me." Though a little stately and formal, 
 not at all like the " gay Gordons " of the ballad, 
 which I took care to quote to Charlie 
 
 "He turned about lightlie, as the Gordons does a', 
 I thank you, Leddy Jean, my love's promised ava " 
 
 still, taking him altogether, I confessed, and after 
 he had left my mother confessed also, that Major 
 Gordon was not an uncle to be ashamed of. 
 
 It sounded odd to call him major and his 
 nephew colonel ; but he did not seem to mind it, 
 they being in different services. Besides, as I 
 heard him say to Miss Trotter, what did it mat- 
 ter ? " his day was done." A sad remark, to 
 which she made no answer; but as he turned 
 away, I saw her eyes follow him with a long, wist- 
 ful look which opened mine. 
 
90 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 I was only one-and-twenty, and she well! I 
 had never heard exactly how old she was ; but 
 there are some people and some things which 
 never grow old. From that minute there dawned 
 upon me an idea, which I had the good sense and 
 delicacy to keep entirely to myself, but which 
 furnished me with a clue to many mysteries 
 even to that grand mystery of Charlie's money. 
 And so, perhaps, I was the only person not sur- 
 prised when, two days after, as we ladies were all 
 sitting in the morning-room, there came a mes- 
 sage that Major Gordon was below, and " wished 
 to speak to Miss Trotter for five minutes on busi- 
 ness." 
 
 " Do not be frightened, Decie ; I know what it 
 is," said she, taking my hand hers was cold and 
 nervously trembling ; but she sat still and said no 
 more. 
 
 Major Gordon walked into the room, looking 
 more than ever " as if he had swallowed a poker," 
 my sisters said. He exchanged a few civilities 
 with my mother, and then, as she was leaving the 
 room, stopped her. 
 
 " Do not go, Mrs. Murray ; I have no secrets 
 
MISS TOMMY. 91 
 
 with Miss Trotter. The ' business' I wished to 
 speak to her about is public enough only too 
 public. I should prefer you all hearing the ques- 
 tion I have the pleasure, or pain, of putting to 
 her, and which, I trust, she will answer can- 
 didly." 
 
 Miss Tommy looked up full in his face. It was 
 a look quite different from that she bestowed on 
 any of us. In it was something at once sad, ear- 
 nest, yet restful something of a child's look, dif- 
 fident and hesitating, but full of trust, reminding 
 me of what she had once said of him, that if he 
 had one quality more than another, it was relia- 
 bleness. 
 
 "I will speak at once and resolve my doubts," 
 he said, crossing over to her. "Miss Trotter, 
 the unknown friend who placed that large sum to 
 my nephew's credit at his banker's was, I have 
 reason to believe, yourself. Am I right ?" 
 
 She grew crimson all over, then paled again, 
 and said gently, almost deprecatingly : "Yes, it 
 was I." 
 
 " And why did you do it ?" 
 
 " Ah, Major Gordon !" I cried, reproachfully, 
 
92 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 and ran to embrace my dear Miss Tommy in a 
 burst of gratitude, but she softly put me aside." 
 
 " Why should I not do it ? I have no one to 
 spend my money upon, or leave it to neither 
 husband, child, nor near relation. I chose to do 
 this, and I think I was justified in doing it." 
 
 She spoke with a mingled dignity and pathos 
 which could not fail to strike anybody. It seemed 
 to strike Major Gordon, arid remind him that in 
 his pride he had a little failed of courtesy : grati- 
 tude, I suppose, could not have been expected 
 from him. 
 
 " Forgive me. I acknowledge your generosity; 
 but there are two sides to the subject, ours and 
 yours. It is hard enough for us, poor as we are 
 my nephew and I to be connected with a 
 wealthy family by marriage ; but it is harder still, 
 it is almost humiliating, to be indebted to " 
 
 " I beg your pardon," interrupted Miss Trotter; 
 and her voice had a quiver of keen pain. " You 
 are not indebted to me, Major Gordon. What I 
 did I did for the sake of this little girl here, and 
 for a young man who, by what I have learned 
 and I took some pains to find out all about him 
 
MISS TOMMY. 93 
 
 deserves every good thing that Fortune can be- 
 stow. For me, I am merely a tool in the hands 
 of Fortune, or Providence, to make two people 
 happy. There is not so much of happiness in this 
 world that I or any one need regret the deed." 
 
 The words were a little sad, but the smile was 
 so sunny that even Major Gordon must have been 
 a stone to resist it. He extended his hand, and 
 clasped hers warmly. 
 
 " You are a good woman, an exceedingly good 
 woman; and my nephew is fortunate in having 
 your esteem your patronage, shall I say ? No, 
 your kind offices. I hope he will be grateful to 
 you I think he will." 
 
 " He ought to be !" cried my mother, warmly. 
 She had no pangs of wounded pride, and her prac- 
 tical mind at once leaped to the obvious conclu- 
 sion that so affectionate and wealthy a friend an 
 old maid, too implied a very comfortable future 
 for Charlie and me. " But, my dear Miss Trotter, 
 how well you kept the secret, and what a roman- 
 tic idea to take into your head !" 
 
 "Not at all!" laughing in her old, pleasant 
 way. "May not a woman do as she likes with 
 
94" MISS TOMMY. 
 
 her own ? an unmarried woman especially. That 
 is the advantage we have over you British ma- 
 trons ; there is no one to argue with us, no one to 
 contradict us. Besides " here she took a graver 
 tone, and (I thought) turned more towards Major 
 Gordon as she spoke " I am rich now, but I was 
 poor once, very poor. It teaches me to under- 
 stand poverty. I mean " and now she addressed 
 him directly " that you must disabuse your 
 nephew's mind of any idea of obligation to me. 
 I am merely paying back, in my old age, the debts 
 of my youth. Do not speak of the matter again. 
 Forget it. Will you promise me this ?" 
 
 She laid her hand on his coat sleeve a rather 
 shabby sleeve. Now, in full daylight, any eye 
 certainly a woman's might have detected sad ev- 
 idences that he had no woman to take care of 
 him : frayed wristbands, holes in gloves, buttons 
 missing from shirt-fronts 3 etc. Poor Major Gor- 
 don! 
 
 "I do promise!" he said, with much feeling; 
 and, taking up the little hand, he kissed It in 
 knightly fashion before us all an action so sud- 
 den, so unlike what one would have expected of 
 
MISS TOMMY. 95 
 
 him that I did not wonder to see her start. But 
 the expression of her dear old face was less of 
 pleasure than pain. 
 
 Major Gordon soon left, saying, in his usual 
 formal manner, " that he would now go in search 
 of his nephew, explain to him this discovery, and 
 send him to offer his own acknowledgments to 
 his benevolent friend," indicating Miss Trotter by 
 a stately bow, which forced me to clasp her round 
 the neck in a fervor of enthusiasm. 
 
 "I shaVt call you my ( benevolent friend," 3 
 exclaimed I, half crying, half laughing. "I love 
 you ; that is all." 
 
 " And that is enough," she answered, stroking 
 my hair in a fond way she had. Shortly after- 
 wards she went to her own room, whence she did 
 not emerge for some hours. 
 
 Next day she bade us adieu, and departed from 
 our large, merry household to her own 'solitary 
 home. 
 
 My mother declared she could not possibly stand 
 three weddings at once, and that Charlie and I 
 must wait a little, which I was not sorry to do. I 
 liked to prolong the sweetness of the courtship 
 
96 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 time; indeed, as I confided to Miss Tommy, I 
 would not have minded ever so long an engage- 
 ment now that I really belonged to Charlie, and 
 could be a comfort to him in all things, as he to 
 me. And she answered that I was right. " True 
 love was always true, whether or not it ever ended 
 in marriage" a sentiment in which Charlie did 
 not wholly agree with her. 
 
 But he did agree with her, and so did I, in pro- 
 testing against a grand \vedding like my sisters', 
 with three clergymen to tie the knot, and twelve 
 bridesmaids to " assist " at the performance, which 
 was a real "performance," and went off admira- 
 bly. But I would have preferred being married 
 in a cotton gown, with the pew-opener for my 
 bridesmaid. 
 
 When I said this, however, Miss Tommy 
 laughed, and declared I was going a step too far ; 
 that there were certain duties we owed to society ; 
 and, for her part, she thought it might be a pleas- 
 ant thing to be married with all one's family 
 about one. 
 
 "A blessing we solitary ones perhaps appreci- 
 ate more than yon," she added; and then we fell 
 
MISS TOMMY. 97 
 
 into a discussion upon family ties, d propos of 
 Scotch clannishness, and of Major Gordon, in 
 whom it was very strong. I was sure he liked 
 Charlie, not merely for himself, dear fellow ! good 
 as he was, but because he belonged to " the fain- 
 
 fly." 
 
 " And, as lie once argued with me we are very 
 good friends now, you know he cannot under- 
 stand why you should like Charlie so much, see- 
 ing he does not belong to you is not connected 
 with you by any tie of blood. Nor am I, for that 
 matter; yet you like me a little, don't you?" 
 
 She pressed my hand tenderly, and then said : 
 " Yes, you are right. The tie of blood that is 
 all Major Gordon cares for. Some have this feel- 
 ing very strong so strong that it blunts all sense 
 of other tics. I have known parents, most de- 
 voted to their own children, who had no tender- 
 ness, no justice even, for other people's children ; 
 and brothers and sisters who thought whatever 
 they did was right, and what outsiders did infalli- 
 bly wrong. But perhaps I judge harshly, Decie, 
 my dear, and from my own point of view. What 
 would become of me if I had no heart except for 
 5 
 
98 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 my own kith and kin, of whom I have none in 
 the wide world ?" 
 
 It was not often that she spoke thus ; seldom, 
 indeed, of herself at all. She once said, laughing, 
 "that she did not find it an interesting subject." 
 But to-day, in the pleasure of having me with 
 her, and on this visit the last I should pay her 
 before I was married our hearts seemed to open 
 out one towards one another. 
 
 We were sitting on the Castle Hill, near the 
 top of the steps, and looking down on Dover town 
 and bay, which lay so still and bright, with the 
 autumn sunset reflected in it. Miss Trotter still 
 came, every winter, to her little house at Dover. 
 She liked it better, she owned, than -her grand 
 mansion in the country ; and so did I. We agreed 
 that my farewell visit as Decie Murray should be 
 to Dover. Accordingly, we fell into our old ways, 
 and walks too. But I noticed she could not walk 
 quite so far; she had often to stop and rest, as 
 now. And when Charlie came down, she let us 
 go off on our rambles by ourselves, and Major 
 Gordon by himself. For he, too, appeared once 
 or twice, and took up his quarters with his old 
 
MISS TOMMY. 101 
 
 landlady, who thought him " the nicest old gen- 
 tleman that ever was." 
 
 Scarcely an "old" gentleman, unless one saw 
 his face. He was so thin slim, one might say 
 and upright that, walking behind him and Char- 
 lie, you could hardly say which was the uncle and 
 which the nephew. How often we watched them 
 both, Miss Tommy and I, standing by the window 
 of her little drawing-room watched them walk 
 away together, like father and son, we looking 
 after them was it like mother and daughter ? or 
 aunt and niece ? or simply friends chosen friends? 
 
 People may talk as they will of the "ties of 
 blood," but the ties of friendship, of voluntary 
 election, firm and well founded, are fully as close 
 and as strong comparable to nothing, I think, 
 except the tie of marriage ; that is, the real mar- 
 riage of heart and soul, which I was now begin- 
 ning to understand. 
 
 "I believe," said I one day to Miss Tommy 
 when 1 was standing by her side, watching those 
 two, who had just left us, and were coining back 
 to dinner " I believe, if anything happened that 
 I did not marry Charlie, I should break my heart." 
 
102 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 "No, you would not," she answered gently, but 
 without hesitation. " Being a good woman, you 
 would live and bear it. But whether he lived or 
 died, if he did nothing to make him unworthy of 
 love, you would feel like his wife to the end of 
 your days." 
 
 I looked at her, just on the point of saying 
 " that this was true ; only, how could she possibly 
 understand?" and then I changed my mind and 
 said nothing. 
 
 I cannot say I altogether liked Major Gordon's 
 settling himself at Dover, and so persistently com- 
 ing here with his nephew, like the old song 
 
 "You'll in your girls again be courted, 
 And I'll go wooing with my boys," 
 
 which the boys might not wholly approve of. 
 Charlie did not, but I calmed him down. And, 
 for certain reasons of my own, I forgave the Ma- 
 jor, and gave him no hint of being unwelcome. 
 He really was not so very much in the way after 
 all. Accustomed to long solitude, he needed very 
 little to amuse him ; and if he had done so, Miss 
 Trotter was fully equal to the occasion. Though 
 not exactly clever, she had the quick sympathy 
 
MISS TOMMY. 103 
 
 which is almost better than cleverness. She was 
 always inventing some little pleasure, outside, for 
 him and for us ; and inside the house her constant 
 cheerfulness, her unfailing sweet temper, and, 
 above all, her bright sense of fun, made an atmos- 
 phere that would have sunned into pleasantness 
 the grimmest old curmudgeon alive. 
 
 But Uncle Gordon was no curmudgeon, nor 
 grim, though I sometimes accused him of being 
 so. By degrees he seemed to become accustomed 
 to our peaceful life, took an interest in all Miss 
 Trotter's work, and in our play, as he called 
 our harmless love-making, which was so soon to 
 merge in the busy duties of life; he warned us 
 once that we were " like a couple of lambs sport- 
 ing on the edge of a precipice." However, his 
 bitter sayings grew fewer and fewer : he seemed 
 to accept the fact that Charlie and I were happy, 
 and to condescend to be happy himself after his 
 fashion. He owned that he " really enjoyed " our 
 quiet evenings, all four together, to which I sto- 
 ically submitted and compelled Charlie to submit ; 
 not shutting ourselves up in a separate nook, as 
 most lovers do. For, as I told the dear fellow, 
 
104 MISS TOMMY, 
 
 when he got impatient and cross, we should soon 
 have our evenings all to ourselves, and have to sit 
 " four feet on a fender " all our lives long. 
 
 When I thought of this future how sweet it 
 was, how dear and familiar Charlie had grown to 
 me, how impossible it would now be to carry on 
 life without him more and more it was borne in 
 upon me what those suffer who have to live their 
 whole life without the one human being who is 
 their other self, the entire satisfaction and comple- 
 tion of their existence. And I felt such pity 
 the deep pity that only happy folks can feel for 
 those who had been, for any cause, what is termed 
 " disappointed in love." 
 
 Major Gordon might never have been in love 
 at all, by the little sympathy he showed for 
 Charlie and me. Instead of going and talking 
 with Miss Trotter, which he could so easily have 
 done, he would persist in keeping up desultory 
 general conversation, which sometimes drifted 
 back into old times, familiar to our respected 
 seniors, but a little dull for us. They belonged 
 to the old world we to the new; and, fond as 
 we were of them, there seemed a gulf between 
 
MISS TOMMY. 105 
 
 them and us. In spite of our heroic self-sacri- 
 fice, we found our evenings rather dreary, and 
 were glad to propose a game at whist, or a book 
 to read. Charlie read aloud remarkably well, and 
 therefore was very good-natured in doing it. 
 
 But it was difficult to find anything he con- 
 sidered worth reading in the rather limited li- 
 brary of Miss Trotter, who, I must confess, was 
 not a literary lady. Her books had chiefly be- 
 longed to her father. I discovered among them, 
 to my surprise, some which Major Gordon must 
 have given her when she was a girl. But neither 
 he nor she was a book-lover now. His life had 
 been too completely that of a wandering soldier, 
 and hers was absorbed in the responsibilities of 
 her large fortune and still larger heart. Still 
 they both liked to hear " a pretty story," or a 
 " little bit of poetry " something which be- 
 longed to their young days something they 
 could understand. And one evening, when we 
 were at our wits' end, Charlie and I, to find 
 something "old-fashioned" enough for our dear 
 but rather difficult friends, we lighted upon an 
 odd volume of Crabbe, which, no doubt, in the 
 5* 
 
106 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 days of the departed Reverend John Trotter had 
 been considered " delightful " poetry. 
 
 Charlie opened it by merest chance at a poem 
 called " Procrastination," which probably this 
 generation has never heard of, and yet it is very 
 touching as well as clever in its way. It is the 
 story of two lovers, affianced early in life. 
 
 "The prudent Dinah was the maid beloved, 
 And the kind Rupert was the youth approved." 
 
 Fortune is against them, however, and Dinah's 
 " prudence," together with the advice of the 
 wealthy aunt with whom she lives, causes the 
 marriage to be put off and off. Rupert goes 
 abroad to earn money ; the aunt dies and leaves 
 Dinah her heiress, but Eupert, still poor, is not 
 summoned back. The letters between them grow 
 fewer and colder. Prosperity hardens the elderly 
 maiden's heart. She spends month after month 
 
 "In quiet comfort and in rich content. 
 Miseries there were, and woes the world around, 
 But these had not her pleasant dwelling found. 
 She knew that mothers grieved and widows wept, 
 And she was sorry said her prayers and slept." 
 
 At last there appears before her 
 
MISS TOMMY. 107 
 
 "A huge, tall sailor with his tawny cheek 
 And pitted face." 
 
 It is Rupert, poor as ever, but loving and faith- 
 ful too faithful even to dread infidelity. The 
 lady calls him " friend," suggests that they are 
 both frail and old, too old to think of love or 
 marriage. With a mixture of religious senti- 
 ment and worldliness, she gives him what is ele- 
 gantly termed " the sack." 
 
 "She ceased. With steady glance, as if to see 
 The very root of this hypocrisy, 
 He her small fingers moulded in his hard 
 And bronzed broacl hand ; then told her his regard, 
 His best respect, were gone : but love had still 
 Hold in his heart, and governed yet the will, 
 Or he would curse her. Saying this, he threw 
 The hand in scorn away, and bade adieu. 
 Proud and indignant, suffering, sick and poor, 
 He grieved unseen, and spoke of love no more." 
 
 Sinking lower in fortune, he " shares a parish 
 gift " in this his native place. There sometimes 
 
 4 'At prayers he sees 
 
 The pious Dinah dropped upon her knees; 
 Thence, as she walks the street with stately air, 
 As chance directs, oft meet the parted pair. 
 When he with thick-set coat of badge-man's blue 
 Moves near her shaded silk of changeful hue 
 
108 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 When his frank air and his unstudied pace 
 
 Are seen with her soft manner, air, and grace, 
 
 And his plain artless look with her sharp meaning face, 
 
 It might some wonder in a stranger move 
 
 How these together could have talked of love." 
 
 At this point of his reading Charlie paused ; 
 lie had read very well, growing interested in 
 the story in spite of himself. So was I too. 
 The " pious Dinah," how I hated her ! We sat 
 in a circle round the fire; well I remember the 
 picture ! Miss Trotter in her little chair, knit- 
 ting she said she was obliged to knit to keep 
 herself awake ; yet she did not seem asleep now, 
 though the knitting had dropped. Her wide- 
 open eyes were fixed with a sad, yearning, un- 
 speakably tender gaze on the arm-chair opposite, 
 where, in comfortable shadow she always ar- 
 ranged the light so that his eyes should not be 
 troubled by it sat Major Gordon. 
 
 He was not sleeping either, but listening in- 
 tently ; he always listened to a story with the 
 earnest simplicity of a child. 
 
 " Shall I finish it, uncle, or are you tired ?" 
 
 " Not tired no ! But go on go on," he an- 
 swered irritably. " Let us see how it ends." 
 
MISS TOMMY. 109 
 
 There was very little more. Only a picture 
 I wonder no artist has ever painted it of one of 
 those chance meetings, when Rupert, sitting on 
 a roadside seat, watches " the lady " giving or- 
 ders to a tradesman, arid moralizes upon how he 
 should have treated her had their positions been 
 reversed 
 
 "Ah, yes! I feel that I had faithful proved, 
 And should have soothed and raised her, blessed and loved." 
 
 And then 
 
 "Dinah moves on she had observed before 
 The pensive Rupert at a humble door : 
 Some thoughts of pity raised by his distress, 
 Some feeling touch of ancient tenderness, 
 Religion, duty, urged the maid to speak 
 In terms of kindness to a man so weak. 
 But pride forbade, and to return would prove 
 She felt the shame of his neglected love 
 Nor wrapped in silence could she pass, afraid 
 Each eye would see her and each heart upbraid. 
 One way remained the way the Levite took 
 Who without mercy could on misery look 
 (A way perceived by craft, approved by pride). 
 She crossed, and passed him on the other side." 
 
 " The " I am afraid it was really that strong 
 expletive " the devil she did !" exclaimed Major 
 Gordon, starting up in his chair, and then laugh- 
 
110 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 ing at himself in a sort of shamefaced way at his 
 great excitement over " a mere bit of poetry." 
 
 "Not poetry at all," protested Charlie, with 
 lofty disdain. " A piece of common human nat- 
 ure, nothing more." 
 
 " Yes, of course it is only human nature," said 
 his uncle, calming down. "And it served the 
 fellow right. He was a fool to trust a woman. 
 And any man any poor man who marries a 
 rich woman is worse than a fool, a knave." 
 
 To do Major Gordon justice, I believe that, in 
 his simplicity of nature, his entire freedom from 
 egotism or self -consciousness, he had no idea of 
 the drift of what he was saying. I should have 
 given him a gentle hint that his remark was, if 
 not untrue, at least uncivil, but I caught sight of 
 Miss Trotter's face and held my tongue.. 
 
 What a sad, strange thing it is, the way the 
 best of people often wound others quite unin- 
 tentionally ! How often I have seen hands that 
 would not willingly have hurt a fly, stab some 
 tender heart to the very core, and pass on, never 
 even noticing the blow, or guessing that they had 
 wounded another, perhaps to death. 
 
MISS TOMMY. Ill 
 
 Miss Trotter rose from her little chair. As she 
 did so, her rustling gown she always dressed 
 richly and becomingly reminded me of the 
 " shaded silk of changeful hue." But there the 
 parallel ended. . 
 
 " Decie," she said, leaning on me as she passed, 
 for she moved feebly and unsteadily, "your Char- 
 lie reads well ; I like to hear him. He has been 
 very kind. And now, if Major Gordon approves, 
 we will go to our game at whist." 
 
 Her smile, as she turned towards him, was some- 
 what fixed in its sweetness, and there was a me- 
 tallic evenness in her tone not customary with 
 her. Then, rearranging the light so as not to 
 incommode Uncle Gordon, whose eyes always 
 troubled him more or less, she took her place at 
 the card-table and played for an hour. 
 
 "When our guests left she sat talking with me 
 for a little while. I think it was about the color 
 of my drawing-room furniture, and whether I 
 should have chintz or damask. But as we parted 
 on the top of the stairs, the cheek I kissed and 
 the hands I held were as cold as stone. 
 
 Lying awake that night I thought a good deal, 
 
112 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 and before morning I made up my mind, perhaps 
 in grievous error I was still a girl, with a full 
 and happy heart, which saw only one perfect 
 happiness love in existence but I meant well. 
 I repeat though I think of it now with an an- 
 guish of remorse, perhaps wholly unneeded that 
 I meant well. 
 
 The next day was one of those lovely autumn 
 mornings that we often have at Dover bright, 
 mild, and so clear that the windows in Calais 
 town were plainly visible, glittering in the sun- 
 shine across a placid sea. I had a curious fancy 
 about Dover and Calais, places so like and so un- 
 like, so near and yet so apart. They reminded 
 me of two people sitting looking at one another 
 over an easily crossed barrier two who had been 
 friends all their lives, and never anything more. 
 " Friends lovers that might have been." 
 
 I made the remark perhaps a very stupid re- 
 mark this day, and at luncheon, that everybody 
 might hear. But nobody did hear apparently, 
 except Charlie, who laughed at rne for quoting 
 poetry, and declared that Dover and Calais were 
 not friends, but bitter enemies, and then retold 
 
MISS TOMMY. 113 
 
 the old tale of Queen Philippa and the burghers 
 coming with ropes round their necks, till, if he 
 had not been such a dear innocent donkey, I 
 could have boxed his ears. 
 
 It was such a remarkably clear day that Miss 
 Trotter proposed a walk to the Castle. Charlie 
 had never seen the view from the top of the 
 Keep, and Major Gordon was never weary of 
 going round the fortifications, explaining military 
 tactics, and " fighting his battles o'er again," as 
 is so pleasant to old soldiers. Sometimes, in the 
 midst of it, he would sigh and declare " his day 
 was done," at which we only laughed at him, for, 
 though so excessively thin, he was a hale man 
 yet, and had grown much stronger since his re- 
 turn to England. But he was just at the time 
 of life w r hen many people, feeling the approach 
 of old age, dread it and resist it, instead of ac- 
 cepting it with its good as well as its ill. He 
 was continually trying to do too much, and then 
 calling himself "a broken-down man, fit for noth- 
 ing in this world." 
 
 As he did tin's day, when, having already 
 walked to St. Radegund's and back, he persisted 
 
114 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 in climbing the Castle, and explaining to us 
 every inch of the forts and fortifications. At 
 last, fairly tired out, he sat down on the turf 
 behind the .Roman Pharos, now an adjunct to the 
 Castle church, and prepared for a quiet smoke, 
 the one only luxury which he allowed himself. 
 
 I can see him at this minute his sallow, 
 bearded face, his long, thin, brown hands ; he 
 never wore gloves now, saying they were " too 
 expensive," and, indeed, all his clothes were a lit- 
 tle "seedy" in character. But his figure was so 
 upright, his carriage so graceful, that if he had 
 been clothed in a sack Major Gordon would have 
 looked like a gentleman. 
 
 I sat down beside him, owning I was tired, and 
 sending Charlie off to the keep in company with 
 Miss Trotter, who volunteered to accompany him. 
 
 " How young and active she is still !" said 
 the major, following them with his eyes. " She 
 walks as fast as Charlie himself." 
 
 " Yes ; she has spirit enough to do anything 
 she has set her mind to do. She is a dear soul, 
 and so sweet-looking still. I think I never saw 
 such a pretty old lady." 
 
MISS TOMMY. 115 
 
 " Scarcely an old lady yet ; she must be ten or 
 twelve years younger than I, and much younger 
 in character and feelings. But she was always 
 light-hearted." 
 
 "Was she?" 
 
 " And is so still. What a peaceful face it is ! 
 What an even, happy life she must have had !" 
 
 I said nothing. This chance turn which the 
 conversation had taken was gradually bringing 
 about providentially, was it? that to which I 
 had made up my mind. 
 
 " You women are incomprehensible creatures, 
 Decie," continued Major Gordon, with a long puff 
 at his pipe, " else I should have thought it a curi- 
 ous circumstance that Miss Trotter, with all her 
 attractions, has remained unmarried." 
 
 I answered that I did not find it curious at all. 
 Some of the very best and most charming women 
 never did marry, not because nobody asked them, 
 but because they were asked by nobody they 
 cared to accept. For my part, I said, I would 
 have been an old maid and gloried in it but for 
 Charlie ! 
 
 Charlie's uncle laughed heartily, regarding me 
 
116 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 with that amused paternal air which sometimes 
 pleased, sometimes vexed me. Now, when I 
 was so desperately in earnest, it altogether vexed 
 me. 
 
 "You men are often as blind as bats," I cried. 
 " My dear Miss Tommy is worth a hundred of 
 you. Is it possible, Major Gordon, that it has 
 never occurred to you why she never married?" 
 
 "No." And he turned upon me a countenance 
 of most simple-minded astonishment blank aston- 
 ishment, nothing more. 
 
 " And does it not occur to you now that the 
 wisest and best thing you could do, for both your 
 sakes, would be to to make her Mrs. Gordon ?" 
 
 For a minute he seemed perfectly paralyzed 
 but with surprise, mere surprise then he seemed 
 dimly to understand. His sallow face grew scar- 
 let; it was strange to see an old man blush like a 
 girl. He drew himself up with a haughty dignity 
 that I had never seen before, even in him. 
 
 " You are utterly and entirely mistaken. What 
 you say is worse than a mistake an insult to her 
 and to me." 
 
 I was so confounded that I had not a word to 
 
MAJOR GORDON. 
 
MISS TOMMY. 119 
 
 say. My only answer was a burst of tears futile, 
 childish tears. 
 
 Major Gordon was one of those men who, in 
 their worst anger, are mollified at once by seeing 
 a woman weep. 
 
 " Don't, my dear girl, pray don't," he muttered, 
 hastily ; " I forgive you. I know you meant no 
 harm; only you must never mention this this 
 folly, not even to Charlie. On no account what- 
 ever to Charlie," added he, earnestly. "It is a 
 pure invention of your silly little brain, which 
 must never be repeated to any human being." 
 
 He rose, letting his pipe drop as he did so ; it 
 was broken to bits, and it was a very favorite pipe 
 too; but he never stopped to pick it up; he just 
 rose and walked away. I saw him through my 
 burning tears marching up and down, with his 
 head bent and his hands clasped behind him, 
 but he made no effort to come back to me again. 
 
 Nor did I attempt to go to him. I could have 
 bit my tongue off, knocked my head against the 
 wall, in my anguish and vexation of spirit. And 
 yet, as he truly said, I had meant no harm. I had 
 only tried in my rash and silly way to play Prov- 
 
120 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 idence to put things right, which often go so 
 cruelly wrong in this world and I had failed. 
 
 But perhaps I had been mistaken after all ? In 
 him I certainly had. There was evidently not an 
 atom of tenderness or emotion in him. To see 
 him walking to and fro there, as stiff as a bronze 
 statue, and then go forward to meet Charlie and 
 Miss Trotter as if nothing had happened; oh! it 
 was aggravating beyond all words ! 
 
 Maybe it was to punish me, I thought, or to 
 prevent my betraying anything to Charlie, that 
 he put his arm through his nephew's, and they 
 walked ahead together to East Cliff; much to the 
 annoyance of my poor boy, who naturally wanted 
 to walk with me. For Miss Trotter my dear 
 Miss Tommy ! she accepted the arrangement, as 
 she usually did any fancy of Major Gordon's, and 
 followed with me, talking in her usual sweet way 
 contented always in others' contentment. For 
 me there was nothing left but to practise the self- 
 control which she had taught me ; I kept my 
 misery to myself, and, either from pride or pain, 
 I think I was more than usually cheerful all that 
 day. 
 
MISS TOMMY. 121 
 
 It had struck me as not impossible that Major 
 Gordon might not appear in the evening as usual; 
 indeed, I should have thought better of him had 
 he stopped away. But he did not. He came in 
 rather late, and when Charlie whose quarters 
 were at the Lord Warden was just beginning to 
 wonder what had become of his uncle; but he did 
 come, and sat in his arm-chair, and played his 
 game at whist in the old way. If once or twice 
 he seemed absent or even a little sad, this was so 
 much his habit that we none of us noticed it at 
 least, we never said we did ; but he said " Good- 
 night " to us with his usual gentle courtesy not 
 a word more than " Good-night." 
 
 Next morning, when we were sitting at break- 
 fast, there came a note to Miss Trotter. She read 
 it, then walked to the window and read it again. 
 Lastly, she gave it to me to read 
 
 DEAR Miss TKOTTEK, Will you say to my 
 nephew that unexpected business demands my 
 presence in London to-day for some time ? I have 
 accordingly given up my rooms offering good 
 Mrs. Wilson a week's rent instead of the proper 
 
 6 
 
122 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 notice. She has refused it. Therefore I am 
 obliged to trouble you with the sum enclosed, 
 begging you to make it useful to her in some 
 way. 
 
 " To yourself I can only offer my excuses for 
 not making any formal adieu, and thank you from 
 my heart for your many kindnesses. 
 "Yours sincerely, 
 
 "CHAKLES EVERETT GORDON." 
 
 I returned the letter in silence, and without 
 looking at her. For myself, I could have burst 
 out sobbing, or torn my hair in despair, had not 
 such proceedings been utterly ridiculous as the 
 result of a formal note of farewell from Charlie's 
 uncle. At which, moreover, Charlie himself, who 
 came in shortly afterwards, did not seem in the 
 least surprised. 
 
 " Poor old fellow ! he is so restless, he never 
 settles anywhere. My only wonder was that he 
 stayed here so long." 
 
 And so the matter was put aside. We found 
 on inquiry that Major Gordon had packed up his 
 portmanteau at night it really seemed a part of 
 
MISS TOMMY. 123 
 
 himself, that old portmanteau ! and started at 
 eight the next morning, leaving no address. 
 
 And so the wave of life closed over him, and 
 more than him. Even Charlie and I soon forgot 
 him, for we were young and happy, and had a 
 great deal to talk about and arrange. Miss Trotter 
 too was busy, as she always was ; and I saw little 
 of her all day long. But at night, when Charlie 
 and I crept into a corner to carry on our harmless 
 love-making, I caught sight of her, sitting oppo- 
 site the empty chair, doing nothing, her hands 
 folded on her lap, in an attitude was it of peace, 
 of patience, or only resignation ? 
 
 After that, during the few days I stayed, we 
 mentioned Major Gordon very seldom, and then 
 only in the most cursory and superficial way. 
 Once, when, as no second letter came, I carelessly 
 accused him of "forgetting" us, she answered 
 with grave reproof : 
 
 " No, that is not likely. He is one of the few 
 who never forget. Perhaps, as Charlie suggested, 
 he found Dover and us a little dull, and was 
 glad to get away. But," with a quiver of the lip, 
 " he need not have spoken of my c kindness.' " 
 
PAET III. 
 
 I HAD been married over two years. If I did 
 not absolutely adore my Charlie, nor he me, as in 
 our silly sweet courtship days, we loved one an- 
 other in a sensible, rational way, which was far 
 better. We had found out all each other's faults, 
 crotchets, and foibles quarrelled, and got over it. 
 To suppose that married people never quarrel is 
 simple nonsense, but then, if they have any com- 
 mon-sense and right feeling, they will soon get 
 over it all the more perhaps from the feeling 
 that they must get over it. 
 
 It may be a commonplace and unsentimental 
 view of things, but, as I often tell Charlie, I be- 
 lieve that once or twice during our first year of 
 married life, if he could have got rid of me, he 
 would have done it. And I well, I won't say. 
 But as we could not get rid of one another, but 
 were obliged to run quietly together, like two 
 hounds in a leash why, we did it, and so learned 
 
MISS TOMMY. 125 
 
 to make the best of one another, as I trust we 
 shall always continue to do. 
 
 And we made more than the best, if possible, 
 of our little son when he came our "son and 
 heir," though we had not much for him to be heir 
 to ! We resolved that he should be Charles Ev- 
 erett Gordon, the third of the name now extant; 
 which reminded us that we ought to give him 
 for godfather his great-uncle, Major Gordon. And 
 as, being a boy, he only required one godmother, 
 it was a difficult and delicate question as to who 
 that important personage should be. My mother 
 said she was too old, and besides she had about 
 seventeen other godchildren. We were in con- 
 siderable perplexity, when Charlie suddenly sug- 
 gested Miss Trotter. 
 
 I hesitated, which made him very angry. (N.B. 
 If my husband has a fault, it is that he always 
 likes everybody to agree with him in everything, 
 especially his wife.) 
 
 " Why not, Decie ? What extraordinary notion 
 have you got into your head ? Why not, I ask ? 
 Because you think she'll think that you think she 
 ought to provide for him, or at least to educate 
 
126 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 him ? which she might easily do, rich woman as 
 she is, with not a relative in the world." 
 
 I protested, with entire sincerity, that no such 
 idea had ever entered my mind. In truth, her 
 riches were the last thing one thought of in re- 
 lation to Miss Tommy. My reasons had been 
 altogether different. But I did not give them. 
 I never could see that even the most loving wife 
 has a right to tell her husband other people's 
 secrets. Also, as I once heard Miss Trotter say, 
 a secret discovered by chance should be kept as 
 sacredly as if it had been specially confided. 
 
 So I let Charlie say his say dear hot-tempered 
 young villain as he is! and then mildly sug- 
 gested that the plain truth was our best course 
 it often is. Why not write to Miss Trotter, 
 saying that we asked her for pure love, that we 
 did not want her to do anything for our boy, 
 not even to give him a christening fork and 
 spoon ? 
 
 " That silver spoon which was not in his mouth 
 when he was born, I fear !" laughed Charlie. 
 " And we will say the same thing to Uncle Gor- 
 don, and tell her what we have said. She can't 
 
MISS TOMMY. 127 
 
 suppose we want to get anything out of him. 
 She knows for I told her myself that he is as 
 poor as a church mouse." 
 
 The letters were written, and an answer in the 
 affirmative came to both, amusing Charlie ex- 
 tremely. 
 
 "Such formal, old-fashioned epistles. They 
 may well come from an old maid, and an old 
 well, Uncle Gordon is as good as a bachelor. 
 But I dare say both will feel kindly enough to 
 the little fellow. And at any rate we have paid 
 them the compliment." 
 
 Which, in the pride of our youthful parent- 
 hood, we considered a very great compliment in- 
 deed. We were glad to pay it, having seen but 
 little of either Miss Trotter or Major Gordon 
 since our marriage, at which they were both pres- 
 ent. Directly afterwards Miss Trotter had gone 
 to Sycamore Hall, her country place, which she 
 did not much care for. It was of the genteel 
 villa order, only a dozen miles from London by 
 rail. But she stayed there longer than usual, 
 having lent her Dover house to some invalid 
 friends, of whom she always had a large stock 
 
128 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 on hand. The poor, the helpless, the sick, the 
 sorrowful, always gravitated towards her as by 
 a natural impulse. She said it was one of the 
 compensating laws of Providence, to give her 
 that great stronghold of solitary lives some- 
 thing to do. 
 
 For Uncle Gordon, whether he did anything 
 or nothing, we could not find out. I fear, alas ! 
 that in our young happiness we did not trouble 
 ourselves overmuch to find out. We resided in 
 barracks at Chichester, he in London. He had 
 enough to live upon we knew that at least 
 enough for a man of his simple and almost as- 
 cetic habits. And he was " eccentric," Charlie 
 said. He did not like to be interfered with ; so 
 when, instead of giving us his address at the 
 lodgings which we supposed he had, he only 
 gave it at his club, we accepted the fact, and 
 thought no more about it or him. 
 
 " Evil is wrought by want of thought, 
 As much as want of heart." 
 
 And so it befell that, without intending it, 
 we had actually never seen these two dear old 
 friends, nor, I believe, had they seen ea^h other, 
 
MISS TOMMY. 129 
 
 since my marriage -day, until we all met at the 
 church on the day of my boy's christening. 
 
 It was a London church, for my mother had 
 insisted on having me with her when baby was 
 born, and it was dull and gloomy as London 
 churches often are. But there seemed to come 
 sunshine into it with the arrival of baby's god- 
 mother. 
 
 Miss Trotter had driven up from Sycamore 
 Hall. When she entered, in her soft gray dress, 
 her white bonnet and shawl, I thought she looked 
 as pretty as ever ; and when she took baby in her 
 arms, admired and kissed him, her smile was as 
 bright and innocent as his own (dear lamb that 
 he was ! and of course the finest baby that ever 
 was seen) ; but afterwards it seemed to me she 
 was both paler and thinner, and a good deal aged, 
 since those happy days at Dover. 
 
 However, I alone noticed this. Charlie ap- 
 proved of her very much, and whispered that 
 she looked "a regular fairy godmother." But 
 at this moment there marched up the aisle, a 
 little late and hurried, though upright and mili- 
 tary-looking as ever, Major Gordon. 
 
130 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 He seemed confused among us all ; shook 
 bands with me as if he scarcely knew me, and 
 bowed to Miss Trotter and my mother as if un- 
 certain who they were, until I explained, saying 
 that the former was to be godmother. Then he 
 shook hands with her warmly. 
 
 " I beg your pardon ; I really did not know 
 you, I am growing so blind." 
 
 She looked up at him with a sudden, startled 
 air. I too recalled with almost a "stound" of 
 pain how Charlie and I had laughed over his bad, 
 irregular writing; and how I had quite forgotten 
 what he once told me, and which I had smiled 
 over as a morbid fancy, that in course of years he 
 would infallibly pay the penalty of his Egyptian 
 experience, and perhaps lose his sight entirely. 
 
 Was it that was it because he could not see 
 how shabby his clothes were, that he looked so 
 untidy, so unlike himself ? And did anybody no- 
 tice this ? 
 
 But I had no time for speculation or for con- 
 trition. The ceremony began. The sponsors 
 my young brother was the third took their 
 places round the font ; and Uncle Gordon, stand- 
 
MISS TOMMY. 131 
 
 ing by Miss Trotter's side, repeated after her, 
 with great unction and earnestness, his part in 
 the service. When it was ended, he even con- 
 descended, guided by her, to kiss the little morsel 
 of humanity for whom he had made these vows. 
 
 " And I mean to keep them," said he, in his 
 direct and simple way ; " or if I fail, she will. 
 The third Charles Everett Gordon shall turn out 
 better than both the two former eh, Charlie ?" 
 
 He was very cheerful, and seemed glad to come 
 among us again, and proud to be a great-uncle and 
 godfather. When we returned to my mother's 
 we had a most merry christening breakfast " al- 
 most like a wedding breakfast," Charlie declared, 
 if there had been a bride for the infant bride- 
 groom. So after the health of the hero of the 
 feast had been given, he gave that of the god- 
 mother ; whereupon Major Gordon rose, with 
 great dignity and grace, and returned thanks for 
 Miss Trotter, referring to the many years he had 
 known her, his exceeding respect for her, etc., etc. 
 a series of the usual kindly commonplaces, but 
 said with an earnestness very pleasant to see. 
 
 She listened, much as people do listen under 
 
132 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 such circumstances, with her eyes fixed on the 
 table - cloth ; but her hand, when I took it, 
 clutched mine with a nervous grasp as if I were 
 something to hold by, while everybody and every- 
 thing went drifting away. 
 
 She had obeyed our request literally, and 
 brought baby nothing but her blessing. Uncle 
 Gordon, however, touched me exceedingly by 
 giving me, just before he left, a silver coral and 
 bells. 
 
 "Take it it belonged to my little girl that 
 died," was all he said, and went away. 
 
 To think that after all these years thirty at 
 the least he should have kept something of his 
 dead child's, whom everybody else had long for- 
 gotten ! But, as Miss Trotter once said of him, 
 he "never .forgot." And I vowed to myself 
 that I too would never forget, but in years to 
 come would try to do all I could for Uncle Gor- 
 don. 
 
 Alas ! resolutions melt away, especially when 
 one is not strong and has a good many cares. 
 My baby fell ill, and during the days and weeks 
 of suspense that I hung over his little cradle, 
 
MISS TOMMY. 133 
 
 feeling that the spark of flickering life, which 
 was nothing to the outside world, was every- 
 thing to me, I never thought of other lives. His 
 godfather quite passed from my remembrance, 
 and his godmother too, until one day, when he 
 had fairly turned the corner, and began to get 
 well, I was told that Miss Trotter was below 
 waiting to see me. 
 
 How I rushed into her arms ! What torrents 
 of thankful tears I wept upon her shoulder ! 
 How much I had to tell her of baby's danger, 
 his beauty, his sweetness the heartbreak it would 
 have been to lose him all my griefs, my hopes, 
 my joys as I had always been accustomed to 
 talk about to her. But so did everybody. 
 
 She listened, as she always listened to every- 
 body, with that keen quick sympathy of hers, 
 entering into everything as if there were, for the 
 time being, no other interest in the wide world. 
 My mother had been very kind we were in her 
 house all this time but then she was a busy 
 mother of a family, and a fashionable lady be- 
 sides. Now, Miss Tommy was a woman, which 
 not all are who call themselves so ; and not every 
 
134 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 real mother has so much of the motherly heart as 
 she. 
 
 I said so to her, thanking her for having come 
 all the way to London to see me, such a deal of 
 trouble for an old lady to take. 
 
 "Yes. I am an old lady now I can do as I 
 like," she answered, smiling. " But I did not 
 come up from Dover, I am at Sycamore Hall still. 
 I had business." 
 
 " Other folks' business of course ! You may 
 not always ' love your neighbor as yourself,' but 
 you wear out your life for him all the same. 
 Uncle Gordon always used to say so." 
 
 "It was about your Uncle Gordon I wanted to 
 speak to you, Decie, if you can spare me ten 
 minutes." 
 
 Saying this, she looked so sad, so grave, that 
 suddenly I remembered, with a pang of contri- 
 tion, my good resolutions on the christening day, 
 entirely forgotten since. 
 
 " Is anything amiss with Uncle Gordon ? Sure- 
 ly nothing has happened ?" 
 
 " No, my dear, nothing serious ; but I am 
 afraid there is a good deal amiss with him, and 
 
MISS TOMMY. 135 
 
 I waited to consult you about it, as soon as your 
 own trouble was over." 
 
 And then she told me what I ought to have 
 known already what Charlie and I ought to 
 have had the sense to find out, how she found it 
 out, Heaven only knows ! that Uncle Gordon 
 had been far from well of late ; that he was liv- 
 ing in shabby London lodgings, alone, un cared 
 for, in much discomfort, if not in actual poverty. 
 No wonder! We all knew his income was small, 
 requiring the utmost management to make it do 
 at all, and how could he manage with his failing 
 sight and advancing years? how could he save 
 himself from falling a prey to dishonest servants 
 and unscrupulous landladies? 
 
 " He cannot take care of himself, and there is 
 nobody to take care of him. What can be done, 
 Decie?" 
 
 "I will go and see him." And I started up in 
 remorse. " Poor Uncle Gordon ! To think that 
 we, his own people, have forsaken him, while you 
 but I must go to him at once." 
 
 " Will you take me with you ?" she said it al- 
 most as if asking a favor. " I have the address, 
 
136 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 somewhere in St. Pan eras and there is a cab 
 waiting outside. Shall we go 1" 
 
 " Ah ! that is so like you. When you want to 
 do a good deed, you do it at once." 
 
 " My dear," she answered, with a faint smile, 
 " the young may wait the old cannot." 
 
 So, ashamed of my hesitation, I ran up-stairs, 
 to find my baby sleeping the peaceful sleep of 
 convalescence. There was no reason why I should 
 not go, so I went. 
 
 She had waiting only a common cab ; her own 
 comfortable carriage and sleek horses would have 
 indeed startled the natives of that narrow street 
 one of the many semi-genteel streets which lie 
 between Russell Square and King's Cross, free 
 from shops and chiefly let as lodgings ; perfect- 
 ly respectable, but oh ! how unutterably dreary ! 
 Especially on the shady side, where we found the 
 number we were in search of ; aided by a woman 
 who went crying, " Strawberries ! strawberries !" 
 down the long, hot pavement, the only indication 
 that summer was at hand. 
 
 But no spring or summer, no sunshine or 
 Afresh, sweet air, ever came into those dark, dirty 
 
MISS TOMMY. 137 
 
 rooms, wliich were all Major Gordon had of 
 " home." 
 
 Miss Trotter looked up at the gloomy windows 
 with a sigh. "After all his happy youth, all his 
 long wanderings, this 1" I heard her say, as if 
 more to herself than me ; and then we entered. 
 
 " Two ladies a-wanting to see old gen'leman in 
 parlor," screamed the little lodging-house ser- 
 vant, as if with intense astonishment at such a 
 visit. 
 
 He needed to be a " gentleman " to face it. 
 Bousing himself, half asleep, from an old leather 
 arm-chair, wrapped in a once gay but now most 
 shabby Indian dressing-gown, his hair unkempt, 
 his beard neglected dull, untidy-looking every- 
 thing, in short, but dirty, which would have been 
 impossible to the dainty habits of the dear old 
 man. He rose up tall, gaunt, more like Don 
 Quixote than ever, none the less so from his 
 never-forgotten knightly courtesy. 
 
 " To what am I indebted I mean, who is do- 
 ing me this honor ?" 
 
 " Oh, Uncle Gordon, it's only me Decie and 
 and Miss Trotter." 
 
138 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 " Miss Trotter !" I could see him start. " It is 
 very kind of Miss Trotter to come and see me 
 here." 
 
 They shook hands ; and I think neither he nor 
 she noticed my bad grammar nor indeed any- 
 thing about me at all for the moment. 
 
 He was evidently very glad to see us her es- 
 pecially. Looking round the room for a chair 
 and finding none, he pushed forward the arm- 
 chair. 
 
 " It is not so very uncomfortable, especially 
 when one is asleep, as I fear I was when you en^ 
 tered. These long afternoons one gets tired, I 
 find. Allow me." 
 
 With the air of a Bayard he placed her in the 
 chair, felt for a footstool, and put it under her 
 feet, then turned to me and thanked me warmly 
 for coming to see him. 
 
 " But how did you find me out ? I never gave 
 any address. I thought the club was sufficient," 
 added he, returning to his hard, dry, dignified 
 manner. "This is not exactly a a palace in 
 which to receive ladies." 
 
 I made some excuse about Miss Trotter's hav 
 
MISS TOMMY. 139 
 
 ing heard where he lived, and that he had not 
 been well, so we were anxious. Then I darted 
 at once into my own affairs, and how ill his god- 
 son had been, occupying his attention entirely for 
 two or three minutes. Meanwhile Miss Trotter 
 sat in the arm-chair with her veil down. 
 
 I could have cried almost when I looked at 
 Uncle Gordon", and then at the wretched lodging- 
 house parlor, grimy and gloomy, with just the 
 ordinary shabby lodging-house furniture a table, 
 six chairs, and a horse-hair sofa. No pictures, no 
 books, no adornments of any kind. Such an air 
 of dreary neglect about everything; even the 
 half-eaten mid-day dinner being left on the table 
 where it was laid, as if nobody could take the 
 trouble to fetch it away. Yes, I even I could 
 have wept ; what must it have been with others ? 
 those who knew him when he was young, like 
 my Charlie. Would Charlie would my little 
 Carl ever come to this ? 
 
 And yet, wreck as we found him, sitting as he 
 half comically, half bitterly said, pointing to the 
 debris of dinner "like Marius among the ruins 
 of Carthage," there was a dignity, a patience, even 
 
140 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 a sweetness in his look that made it impossible to 
 pity him. The feeling concerning him was some- 
 thing quite different something that dried the 
 tears in one's eyes, and made one involuntarily use 
 a softer tone in speaking, and be more punctilious 
 than ever in what one said to him, as if he had 
 been a duke or a prince instead of a poor, broken- 
 down, half-pay officer. 
 
 He gave us tea the nastiest tea and the saltest 
 butter I ever tasted. What would Charlie have 
 said to them ? But they might have been nectar 
 and ambrosia, by the way he offered, and Miss 
 Trotter officiated at, that miserable meal. He had 
 asked her to do so, and when she took off her veil 
 and gloves and sat down to that feminine duty, 
 she seemed to make "a sunshine in a shady 
 place." 
 
 It was a very shady place indeed. " This room 
 has a north aspect, the sun never enters it," said 
 Major Gordon. " The other side of the street is 
 brighter, but then lodgings are much dearer, and, 
 besides, it is very little matter to me ; I am quite 
 content here." 
 
 "Sweet are the uses of adversity." In all that 
 
MISS TOMMY. 141 
 
 visit I never heard him say one of the bitter 
 things of which he used to say so many at Dover. 
 But now something seemed to have softened him, 
 and made him less restless and irritable. Was it 
 the long solitude, or the shadow of corning blind- 
 ness, of which he spoke with such composure that 
 I was amazed ? 
 
 " I try my best, Decie, but I fear I am growing 
 more helpless every day. I doubt if I shall be 
 competent to pass an opinion upon my godson's 
 beauty if I do not come to see him very soon." 
 
 " You must come," I eagerly urged. " Why 
 not? You can have almost nothing to do." 
 
 " Nothing that I can do reading and writing 
 are becoming impossible. Yes, the days are rather 
 long; that is why you found me asleep, I sup- 
 pose." 
 
 "Do you never go out?" asked Miss Trotter, 
 gently. 
 
 "Oh, yes; regularly every day. I do not want 
 to get ill and fall a burden upon other folk before 
 my time. And my doctor in India told me I 
 should always be able to see light, as oculists call 
 it, so as to find my way about, which is a great 
 
142 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 comfort. For the rest, when one knows the 
 worst, one can always face it, at least, when one is 
 old and has not much to lose. It is the young 
 who are frightened, is it not, Miss Trotter?" added 
 he, turning to her with a smile, and repeating his 
 thanks. " It was so kind of you to take all this 
 trouble, when, I fear, I have neglected common 
 politeness." 
 
 " But not kindness," she answered. " Your 
 old landlady, Mrs. Wilson, can never be grateful 
 enough to you for getting her son that situation 
 in London. She will bless you, she says, to her 
 dying day." 
 
 " Then I am sure I hope I shall be blessed for 
 a long time. Will you tell her so when you go 
 back to Dover ?" 
 
 " Suppose," said Miss Trotter, after a moment's 
 hesitation, " you were to tell her yourself ?" 
 
 " What do you mean ?" 
 
 "Her lodgings have stood empty a long time. 
 It would be a great advantage to her if some one 
 who gave little trouble, like yourself, some one 
 she could rely on poor widow woman as she is 
 would take her two rooms. Dover may be dull 
 
MISS TOMMY. 143 
 
 I dare say you found it so but it is pleasanter 
 than London in hot weather ; and Mrs. Wilson's 
 rooms are very comfortable." 
 
 " Yes ; and I liked the green bank in front 
 and the green churchyard my quiet neighbors I 
 called them behind. Yes but No !" 
 
 "By and by I hope to have Decie with me; 
 also your godson. Isn't it your duty to come 
 and see that the boy is brought up in the way he 
 should go ?" 
 
 "He cannot fail to be, with such a mother 
 and such a godmother," said Major Gordon, bow- 
 ing to each of us in his old formal way. But he 
 said no more about Dover and Mrs. Wilson, nor 
 did Miss Trotter. The pained look on her face, 
 which he could not see, and her silence, which he 
 did not seem to notice I understood both, and 
 wondered, angrily, Is there a man in the world 
 who is worth a woman's devotion ? 
 
 Major Gordon talked a good deal more, asking 
 numerous questions about Charlie and the boy, 
 and scarcely speaking of himself at all. He 
 seemed very quiet, very patient, but as if he had 
 lost all interest in life, and was just drifting on 
 
144 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 from day to day, without troubling himself much 
 about anything. 
 
 We rose at last. 
 
 "Pardon ! but I must go with yon till you find 
 a cab. I will not detain you a minute." 
 
 He did, though a good many minutes, poor 
 fellow! till he emerged from the next room 
 spruced up his old self in some degree as thin 
 and upright and military-looking as ever, and 
 showed us out with great state, explaining, in an- 
 swer to some remonstrances, that we need not be 
 in the least uneasy about him with the help of 
 his stout stick he could pilot himself anywhere. 
 
 " I have not sunk to a dog and a string yet, you 
 see, though it may come to that who knows? 
 And I arn very careful of stumbling. I have 
 stumbled a good deal in my lifetime, but I keep a 
 firm footing now. I mean to be independent as 
 long as ever I can." 
 
 And then with exceeding earnestness I urged 
 him to come and stay a little a good while all 
 summer with Charlie and me, his own flesh and 
 blood. 
 
 " Do you really mean it ?" said he, in a touched 
 
MISS TOMMY. 145 
 
 voice. "Would not you young people weary of 
 me ? But yet, as you say, I am your own flesh 
 and blood." 
 
 "And you will come?" 
 
 "Perhaps." And then, with a hearty "Good- 
 bye, and thank you," he parted from us. We 
 passed him as we drove, feeling his way carefully 
 with his stick. Hearing the wheels, he paused a 
 moment and took off his hat with his old stately air. 
 
 " Poor Uncle Gordon ! I do hope he will 
 come." 
 
 "Yes, to Chichester not Dover. He cares 
 only for his own flesh and blood. Many people 
 are like that," Miss Trotter added, hastily. "It 
 is a fine quality to have." 
 
 "Uncle Gordon has innumerable fine quali- 
 ties," I said. "But" I couldn't help adding 
 " if I had had the making of him, I think I would 
 have made him a little different." 
 
 Miss Trotter said she was going straight home. 
 What a contrast that luxurious, empty Sycamore 
 Hall must be to the "home" we had just quitted ! 
 So I left her at Victoria Station, sole occupant of 
 a comfortable, first-class carriage, looking so sweet 
 
 7 
 
14:6 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 in her rich black silks, her soft whites and grays 
 just the dress for an elderly lady who wishes 
 and rightly wishes to look " lovely " to the end. 
 Outwardly she was the picture of peace and pros- 
 perity; but after she had bade me a smiling 
 good-bye, I saw what she did not mean me to 
 see the weary face, the clutch of the clasped 
 hands pressed tightly together, as when we nerve 
 ourselves to bear an almost unbearable pain. 
 
 Yet there was nothing to do, nothing to say. 
 It was one of those "mysterious dispensations of 
 Providence," as people call them, in which no 
 one can interfere except Providence ; and the only 
 safe plan is to sit still and hold one's tongue. 
 
 I carried my son home in triumph to Chichester, 
 and all the ladies of the regiment declared that 
 there never was such a baby ! At least, they told 
 me so in which opinion I agreed. And even 
 now, in spite of the six which came after, I hold 
 the flower of my flock to be Charles Everett Gor- 
 don the third. 
 
 That his godfather and namesake did not come 
 and see him was a great blow to my maternal 
 pride. I wrote several touching letters, setting 
 
MISS TOMMY. 147 
 
 forth the perfections of the young gentleman, and 
 asking no answer except the welcome sight of our 
 dear old uncle ; but neither that nor any other 
 reply came. Then Charlie, happening to be a day 
 in London, called, missed him, and came back in- 
 dignant at the folly of any man's burying himself 
 in such a "horrid hole." 
 
 " But then Uncle Gordon was always eccentric, 
 and did not care a pin for outside things" which 
 was a great eccentricity to my dear, matter-of-fact 
 Charlie. " He cannot be ill, for he was out walk- 
 ing. I left my card, with a message that we 
 hoped to see him at Chichester immediately. If 
 he does not come, it must be because he does not 
 care to come, and we must just leave him alone. 
 It is the only way." 
 
 I was not so sure of that, and I did not leave 
 him alone, but wrote again and again ; in vain. 
 After that, feeling that there was no more to be 
 done, unwillingly I sank into silence. 
 
 The hot summer days came and went. In Au- 
 gust my boy began to flag a little, and by Septem- 
 ber I was sure he needed sea air. So, after think- 
 ing of the matter on all sides not wholly on my 
 
HS MISS TOMMY. 
 
 own side, for my baby, instead of making me 
 more selfish, seemed to have knocked the selfish- 
 ness out of my heart, and opened it to other 
 people's sorrows and cares I wrote to my dear 
 Miss Tommy, and proposed that we should come 
 to Dover, to Mrs. Wilson's lodgings, which were 
 good enough for us, as they had once been for 
 Major Gordon. 
 
 "And then we should be no trouble to you," 
 I added, " for you might not like a baby in the 
 house." 
 
 Which was a great piece of hypocrisy on my 
 part, for who on earth could object to such a 
 domestic sunbeam as my little Carl ? Though he 
 was not quite as silent as sunbeams he shouted, 
 cooed, laughed, and, very occasionally, cried. Still, 
 though politeness made me disguise my opinion, I 
 felt he would be a great attraction in any old 
 maid's house, and was neither surprised nor sorry 
 when Miss Trotter wrote that we must come to 
 East Clifi and nowhere else. So we came. 
 
 There was no change in the place or the house, 
 except that by some miraculous agency my former 
 bedroom had been turned into a nursery ! But 
 
MISS TOMMY. 149 
 
 there was a great change in me from the idle, 
 sentimental, love-sick girl to the busy wife and 
 mother, who had won from Fate all she craved. 
 Was it worth the winning? Do we ever find a 
 fulfilled desire as perfect as we thought it ? 
 
 But let me not lightly condemn either myself 
 or my Charlie. If in some things I had not 
 gained exactly what I expected, I had gained 
 much that I did not expect experience, which is 
 a possession in itself ; a full, busy, active life, in 
 which one has hardly time to consider whether it 
 is a perfectly happy life or not. Also, I had 
 gained, in a sense, myself ; had learned to guide 
 and control myself, which is the great secret of 
 guiding and governing others. In so doing I had 
 also learned to live out of myself, and in and for 
 others the real mystery and best blessing of mar- 
 riage. 
 
 " No ; don't imagine I ever wish I had not been 
 married," said I one day to Miss Tommy, when I 
 had been opening up to her a fardel of cares do- 
 mestic, small in themselves, but amounting often- 
 times to a heavy burden, such as unmarried girls 
 free, careless creatures! can hardly under- 
 
150 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 stand. " How people can ever go on making nov- 
 els and plays end with marriage, and dismiss their 
 characters to live happy ever after, passes my 
 comprehension ! But for all that for all that " 
 
 I looked at my sweet Carl, asleep on his rug 
 on the shingle, with an umbrella over him, and 
 thought of his kind young father, who was so 
 proud of him and so fond of him, in an ignorant, 
 masculine way. And I felt that, spite of all cares, 
 mine was the true life, the natural life ; that I had 
 need to rejoice in it, and to thank God for it, as I 
 hope I did. 
 
 We were sitting on the shore just in front of 
 Miss Trotter's house our usual morning encamp- 
 ment with books and work, though, I fear, we 
 did little at either, but sat watching the waves, in 
 sleepy peace, migrating backward from time to 
 time not being of the courtiers of Canute tribe, to 
 make believe that our individual wills could con- 
 trol the routine of the universe. How little can 
 any one life fashion its destiny ! except so far as 
 it takes its lot into its own hands, accepts it, and 
 makes the best of it. 
 
 I had not to look far for an example of this. 
 
MISS TOMMY. 151 
 
 Corning back with clearer eyes to my old haunts, 
 I admired more than ever my dear Miss Tommy. 
 I enjoyed, too, having her all to myself, at least, 
 so far as was possible in her busy life. It seemed, 
 however, a little less busy than it used to be, and 
 she herself less active and energetic. More than 
 once she owned to being " tired." And when I 
 suggested that she had come to the time of rest, 
 and ought to rest, she did not deny it, unless by a 
 faint smile, and a whisper of "Not yet; not just 
 yet, my dear." And as she sat beside me on the 
 shingle, ostensibly keeping guard over Carl's slum- 
 bers, and knitting the while, I noticed that her 
 eyes were often neither on the child nor her 
 work, but fixed with a quiet sadness on the shining 
 water the " illimitable sea without a bound " 
 which, I think, when people come to the verge of 
 this our little life they seem to yearn to, as if it 
 reminded them of that eternity which, we pray, 
 may satisfy all that was incomplete in time, and, 
 in some way or other, round our poor, petty ex- 
 istence as the ocean rounds the world. 
 
 Though I had been at Dover some days, and 
 we had had a great deal of talk, we had never 
 
152 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 once spoken of Uncle Gordon till this morning, 
 when, missing my daily letter from my husband, 
 and knowing he was to go up to London on the 
 Saturday, I wondered whether anything had gone 
 wrong, and communicated my doubts to my com- 
 panion. 
 
 Miss Trotter looked up. " The Monday letters 
 come in late from London." She took out her 
 watch. " They will arrive in live minutes. Stay 
 here, Decie, while I go and fetch them." 
 
 And she watched me while I tore open Char- 
 lie's ; feeling glad to see his dear, old, ugly scrawl 
 again, more illegible than ever, as if he had writ- 
 ten in great haste. (He must have done so, for 
 he never mentioned Carl.) 
 
 " < I want you to come up to London and see 
 Uncle Gordon. He has fallen into the hands of 
 a confounded quack, who promises to cure his 
 weak sight, but it seems more a case of kill than 
 cure. He won't listen to me ; he may to you, or 
 perhaps to Miss Trotter, if you could get her to 
 come. He has evidently a great respect for her 
 judgment. Bring her, and come at once.' 
 
 "It is impossible!" I cried. "Leave my Carl 
 
MISS TOMMY. 153 
 
 for two days ! what is Charlie thinking of ? How 
 stupid men are, even when husbands and fathers ! 
 Impossible !" 
 
 Miss Trotter, who had sat down on the shingle, 
 rose up. There was a new energy in her move- 
 ments, a new brightness in her eyes. 
 
 "My dear, let us try if we cannot make it pos- 
 sible. I will go with you, and Carl too; the jour- 
 ney will riot harm him, and he can stay with a 
 friend of mine in London " my mother was 
 abroad. "Let me see. The next train starts in 
 two hours. Could you be ready ?" 
 
 There was no resisting her quiet resolution. 
 " We'll try," I said, and rose. 
 
 "You will never regret it. Look here" she 
 pointed out a postscript which I had not noticed 
 in Charlie's letter. " 'Unless you come at once it 
 may be too late. The operation is fixed for Tues- 
 day.' " 
 
 " And this is Monday. Poor Uncle Gordon !" 
 
 "It must not be too late," Miss Trotter said. 
 "We will go to him to-night, and get him to come 
 right away from London here, perhaps. You 
 must persuade him, Decie," 
 
154 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 "You must, Charlie said." 
 
 " Oh, no ; he only cares for his own people," 
 was the answer, with a sad kind of smile. 
 
 How we managed it I hardly knew, but we did 
 manage it : we caught our train, and arrived safely 
 in London. She took me to her "friend," an old 
 servant, who had married from her house, and 
 who now let most comfortable lodgings. There 
 we established Carl and his nurse, Miss Trotter 
 waiting patiently beside me till my screaming lit- 
 tle angel was put to bed and asleep, and myself 
 fed, rested, and refreshed how she thought of 
 me in all these little things ! Then she said, 
 "Shall we go?" and we went. 
 
 It was an August evening sunless, airless all 
 the more dreary because one knew that the sun 
 was setting and the breezes blowing somewhere 
 in the world ; somewhere that one might get to, 
 and yet could not. I often think the saddest of all 
 wants or losses is a loss that one feels to be needless. 
 
 " Why will he shut himself up in this miserable, 
 dull street," I cried, as we entered it, "when he 
 might make himself so happy among us all? His 
 life is not near done yet." 
 
MISS TOMMY. 155 
 
 u No; look!" she grasped my hand. "Is not 
 that lie at the door ?" 
 
 It was, indeed, poor Uncle Gordon taller, thin- 
 ner, shabbier than ever, I thought standing on 
 his door-step, with his head raised, staring up at a 
 bright glimmer of light, the last ray of sunset 
 caught by the attic windows opposite. He watched 
 it till it vanished, and then, feeling his way with 
 his stick, walked slowly down the street. But he 
 did not see us till I touched him, nor recognize us 
 till I mentioned our names. 
 
 For the moment a gleam of pleasure crossed his 
 face " Oh, how good ! how kind !" and then the 
 light faded. "How did you come, and why? 
 Did Charlie say anything?" 
 
 I answered as Miss Trotter had decided I should 
 answer, if necessary ; for it was the truth, though 
 not all the truth "Since you willnot come and 
 see your godson, I have brought him to see you; 
 at least, I shall bring him to-morrow morning." 
 
 "To-morrow? That will be too late." He 
 could not restrain a slight shudder. "Did not 
 Charlie tell you?" 
 
 " We know it all, and we have come to talk with 
 
156 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 you about it," said Miss Trotter, in her firm, soft 
 voice; and I saw her, to my surprise, put her arm 
 through his, and guide him across the street cor- 
 ner. He, too, seemed surprised, and then he 
 pressed the hand close to his side, with a sort of 
 acknowledgment of the kindness, and as if he 
 found a certain comfort in it. 
 
 "I was going out for my evening walk my 
 last ; for I arn to be shut up some weeks in total 
 darkness. Indeed, who knows if I may ever see 
 again ? It is just a chance ; but I think it right 
 to take it ; do not you ?" 
 
 " I am not sure." 
 
 "But I must take it," said he, irritably. "1 
 am growing so helpless ; and if I have to live on 
 for the next five, ten, twenty years no, no, 
 thank God, not twenty ! But even five would be 
 too many, as I am now." 
 
 He spoke in such intense despondency that I 
 was frightened. I did not understand trouble I 
 had seen so little of it in my young life or morbid 
 melancholy; for Charlie, bless him! takes every- 
 thing easily, and is the cheeriest, most light-heart- 
 ed soul ! But my dear Miss Tommy, she was 
 
MISS TOMMY. 157 
 
 familiar with sorrow, as all sorrowful people in- 
 stinctively knew. I fell behind a little, leaving 
 the two " old folks " to walk on together. 
 
 Soon Major Gordon stopped. "How thought- 
 less of me ! You will be tired this close evening. 
 Shall we go back to my lodgings ?" 
 
 " Or shall we go into the Regent's Park, close 
 by ? It will be cooler there." 
 
 " Just as you choose." 
 
 He contentedly submitted to be led, and his 
 companion, with a new impulse, as it were, took 
 the leading of him. She was usually rather a si- 
 lent person, especially with Major Gordon; but 
 now she talked, and got him to talk. I heard him 
 tell her, as if it were a relief, all he had suffered 
 of late the weary helplessness, the intolerable ir- 
 ritation of compelled idleness. 
 
 " If I were a feeble old man it might be easier, 
 but I am not feeble. I can walk miles and miles. 
 Sometimes I go on walking for hours, round and 
 round the Regent's Park ; the park-keepers must 
 take me for the Wandering Jew, or one of the 
 wild beasts escaped from the Zoological Gardens. 
 I almost think I see myself, like the brown bear 
 
158 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 there, pacing to and fro everlastingly in his cage 
 nothing to hope for, nothing to do. That is the 
 worst of it," turning suddenly round upon her as 
 she sat beside him on the bench, in that long ave- 
 nue which makes Kegent's Park a pleasant place 
 even in the dullest summer evenings. "Fancy 
 you, who have such a busy, bright life what it 
 must be to have nothing to do all day long; to sit 
 thinking, thinking, till your head whirls round; 
 to go back and back upon your whole life, and see 
 all the mistakes of it, too late to remedy " 
 
 " Is it too late ? Is anything ever too late while 
 life and strength last ?" 
 
 " But they may not last long, and then I shall fall 
 a helpless burden upon somebody. But no; I'll 
 take care it never comes to that. For the burden 
 I am to myself" he stuck his stick fiercely into 
 the turf, as if he were slaying an enemy "I only 
 wonder sometimes that I have not blown my 
 brains out." 
 
 Here I could not help a little cry. 
 
 " No, my kind niece ; no, my good old friend," 
 said Uncle Gordon, patting our hands as he sat 
 between us; "you need not be afraid. It will 
 
MISS TOMMY. 161 
 
 never come to that. I am a Christian man; and, 
 besides, I must keep up the dignity of the family. 
 It would never do, would it, Decie, for the third 
 Charles Everett Gordon to be ashamed of the 
 first?" 
 
 "He never will! Oh, Uncle Gordon, if you 
 would only come to us ; to baby and me ; we are 
 staying with Miss Trotter, and you might go to 
 your old lodgings, and Mrs. Wilson would be de- 
 lighted to take care of you." 
 
 " I don't want anybody to ' take care ' of me," 
 was the sharp answer; and then he begged my 
 pardon. " Ah, yes, I do ; I feel I do ; but 
 However, perhaps to-morrow " 
 
 " It is a great risk." 
 
 "No more than the risk of a battle; one con- 
 quers or dies." 
 
 " Or lives on, wounded and useless, which is 
 much harder than dying." 
 
 " You are right, Miss Trotter ; I never thought 
 of that." 
 
 " If this man you own he is a quack should 
 fail; if he should leave you worse than before, 
 which he says he may, what then ?" 
 
1G2 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 "Nothing. I shall have done it by my own 
 choice, and the result matters to nobody." 
 
 " Is there any human being who can say, who 
 dare venture to say, that his well-being matters to 
 nobody ?" 
 
 He seemed startled, uneasy. She went on. 
 
 "To throw up one's life, saying it belongs to 
 one's self alone, is some people's creed, I know; 
 but is it not a very selfish one? Ought we not to 
 do the best we can with the life Heaven gives, 
 until Heaven takes it away ? But I did not mean 
 to preach I am not good at preaching only to 
 suggest a practical idea." 
 
 " You were always good at practical ideas," he 
 answered, with a smile. " Say on." 
 
 She explained tlfat she had a friend the first 
 oculist of the day. With so many invalids on 
 hand she had no end of friends among doctors. 
 She proposed to bring the great man for a consul- 
 tation with the other one, who could not possibly 
 object to this before anything was done. 
 
 " Give me his address ; he shall be written to, 
 and the whole trouble taken off your hands/' 
 added this Machiavelian woman. "It will only 
 
MISS TOMMY. 163 
 
 be a day's delay, and then, if you still wish 
 for the operation" she glanced up at his poor, 
 dim eyes beautiful eyes they must have been 
 when he was young and shivered, like a mother 
 who feels cruelly in every nerve every hurt 
 to her child "you will have at least the satis- 
 faction of having done nothing that was not in- 
 evitable." 
 
 " You are right," he said. 
 
 "She always is right," I added, eagerly; but 
 Miss Tommy laid her hand on my mouth, took 
 out her tablets, wrote down the address he gave, 
 then asked him to put us in a cab, and we would 
 go home. 
 
 "I am glad to be of some use still," he said, 
 rising. "I shall see you to-morrow. You will 
 bring the great man ? I can afford to pay him. 
 Just this one more chance !" 
 
 He breathed hard, as if a weight were taken 
 off his mind, and, thanking us warmly for all our 
 kind thought of him, he bade us adieu. 
 
 " Poor Uncle Gordon !" I sighed once more. 
 But she did not sigh. She said nothing, yet I 
 thought I saw a change in her dear face, of some- 
 
164: MIBS TOMMY, 
 
 thing not exactly happiness, but what I had 
 heard her say was better blessedness. 
 
 The ass in the lion's skin we afterwards found 
 out how great an ass he was, and how completely 
 he had taken in the simple old soldier did not 
 stay to face the great lion, but sent word that he 
 had to go to a case a hundred miles off, and could 
 not attend the consultation. 
 
 "I thought as much," laughed Miss Trotter's 
 eminent friend, when he heard the name. " You 
 will never see any more of him." And we never 
 did. 
 
 The great doctor was a character, as most great 
 doctors are. When we brought him into Major 
 Gordon's dull room his large, kindly presence 
 seemed to carry sunshine with it mental and 
 moral. He took by storm the sickly, morbid, 
 nervous man, encouraged him by pleasant words, 
 and then proceeded to business. 
 
 " I must have some one of you with me. Who 
 will stay ?" 
 
 "I will," said Miss Trotter, at once, and Uncle 
 Gordon said, " Thank you." 
 
 So they turned us out, Charlie and me. For 
 
MISS TOMMY. 165 
 
 nearly an hour we perambulated the streets, in 
 sore suspense. I might have felt it more had my 
 poor Charlie felt it less, but I never saw him so 
 unmanned. When at last we were summoned 
 back to no very ill news, as I saw at a glance 
 Charlie quite gave in, and wrung his uncle's hand 
 with something very like a sob. 
 
 "Well, my boy," said Major Gordon, cheerily, 
 "I know the worst now, and no one shall ever say 
 of me, * A soldier, and afeard.' " 
 
 "No, indeed," added the great man. "Mrs. 
 Gordon, I have been giving your uncle here a 
 piece of my mind. He will never see better 
 than he does now, but he may not see much 
 worse, if he lets well alone. Of course, I could 
 try all sorts of experiments, but they would be 
 mere experiments all might fail; and at his 
 age, I repeat, it is better to let things alone. 
 There is a story about a man who < sought not 
 unto the Lord, but unto the physicians' which 
 means, I take it, that he would not trust Nat- 
 ure, would neither believe in her curative power, 
 nor accept her natural laws of decay. We often 
 do the same thing, and worry ourselves and our 
 
166 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 friends to death, for fear of dying, until we actu- 
 ally die." 
 
 " But it is not a question of dying here. I may 
 live to be ninety, you say. The question is, how 
 I am to face my life such as it is ?" 
 
 "My dear friend" with this honest, good man 
 all his patients were his dear friends "you have 
 but to live a day at a time, and it will grow easier 
 as you get used to it. I have known many blind 
 men who led the merriest and happiest of lives. 
 And ' better bear the ills you have,' as my dear old 
 Shakespeare tells ine, 'than fly to others that 
 you know not of;' which might have been your 
 fate had you risked that operation. We know 
 a good deal we doctors; but I think the best 
 thing we know,*and the cleverest of us learn it 
 soonest, is our own ignorance." 
 
 Everybody laughed ; and the tragedy melted 
 into comedy. 
 
 A few more wholesome advices Miss Trotter's 
 friend gave, one of which was to " clear out of 
 here as fast as possible." And on receiving his 
 fee he put it back on the table, saying that he, 
 a man of peace, made it a point of honor never 
 
MISS TOMMY. 167 
 
 to take anything from " our national defenders." 
 So, shaking hands all round, he jumped into his 
 carriage and departed. I never see his name in 
 print now without remembering the good deed he 
 did that day. 
 
 Charlie, too, departed. " You women will man- 
 age all the rest," he whispered. But I could 
 manage nothing; my nerves had been thoroughly 
 shaken. I was glad Uncle Gordon could not see 
 me, as I sat in a corner and cried. He, too, looked 
 exceedingly pale and exhausted. 
 
 But there was one of us whose strength never 
 was exhausted as long as there was anything to be 
 done. Nor her patience and it required a good 
 deal ; for at first he was deaf as an adder to all her 
 charming. Gradually she reasoned him into ac- 
 knowledging that Mrs. Wilson, and Mrs. Wilson's 
 delicate son, who was a good scholar and a sweet- 
 natured lad, would be useful to him; while his tak- 
 ing possession of his old lodgings would be a very 
 great advantage to them which, perhaps, was 
 the wisest argument she could use. The sharpest 
 sting of Uncle Gordon's lot seemed to be that 
 he was now, as he said, " of no use to anybody." 
 
168 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 "But we will make you of use, Miss Trotter 
 and me, and, at worst, you can play with the 
 baby." 
 
 "Is it come to that?" said he, with a hearty 
 laugh, which looked like acquiescence. "And 
 that lad Wilson, who is so to benefit by the 
 pleasure of reading to me, and enjoying my 
 sweet society. I suppose you think, Miss Trot- 
 ter, that I am like the Countess of Pembroke, 
 and that ' to love me is a liberal education !' A 
 pity the experiment has never been tried. But it 
 would fail with me everything has failed." 
 
 That mixture of bitterness and sadness, with a 
 strange vein of sweetness running through it all, 
 intense gratitude for the smallest kindness, and a 
 thoughtfulness for others which I have never 
 seen in any other man no, I did not wonder at 
 anybody's loving Uncle Gordon. 
 
 Miss Trotter went up to him as he stood at the 
 window, and laid her hand on his arm. 
 
 " I don't think I ever asked anything of you in 
 all rny life, but I ask you now Will you come 
 back to Dover with Decie and me ?" 
 
 There was evidently a struggle in his mind as 
 
MISS TOMMY. 169 
 
 great as must have been in hers before she made 
 the request ; but both were conquered. 
 
 Major Gordon took the gentle hand, and pressed 
 it warmly in both his own, saying, in a broken 
 voice, " Thank you ; yes I will go." 
 
 What a jubilee of a journey it was ! How 
 happy he seemed, and how glad she looked to see 
 him happy ! And, as I said to Charlie afterwards, 
 these elderly folk, when they really do enjoy 
 themselves, do it thoroughly ; not like us young 
 people, who are always ready to find a crumpled 
 rose-leaf under all our felicities. But those for 
 whom life is slowly narrowing down to the sim- 
 plicities of childhood are, like children, contented 
 and amused with little things. 
 
 I had not expected Uncle Gordon to take the 
 least notice of his godson, but he did. He even 
 condescended to travel with him and with us, for 
 several stations, before retiring to his smoking-car- 
 riage; seemingly much interested in discovering 
 that young Carl had the right number of arms, legs, 
 and fingers which latter were used in pulling his 
 great-uncle's beard till that respected relative cried 
 for mercy. Nevertheless, when driven from the 
 8 
 
170 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 field, the Major came again and again to our car- 
 riage, asking if we were all right, and apparently 
 taking pleasure in being "a family man," as I told 
 him, and having somebody belonging to him to 
 take care of. 
 
 " Let me do it," I overheard him saying to 
 Miss Tommy, in some trifling difficulty about the 
 luggage. " Let me do all I can for you, and as 
 long as I can. The hardest thing possible is to be 
 compelled to do nothing." 
 
 That sentence struck the key-note, I think, of 
 all our relations with him, during those days which 
 followed halcyon days, which I look back upon 
 with a peace indescribable. It was September, 
 the pleasantest month in the year at Dover, where, 
 indeed, all months are pleasant; but this month 
 especially, with its clear, bright, cool days, its brill- 
 iant sunsets and harvest moonlights ; and last, not 
 least, as a variety, its equinoctial storms, when the 
 wind blew and the waves rose, sweeping right 
 over the Admiralty Pier and flooding the espla- 
 nade nay, once pouring in a torrent over the 
 poor flowers in our front garden, and departing^ 
 leaving it a wreck till next spring. 
 
MISS TOMMY. 171 
 
 "Next spring," said Miss Tommy, with her 
 usual cheerful acquiescence in the inevitable, " we 
 will make it all bright again." 
 
 She was in an especially bright mood, and look- 
 ing better than I had seen her look ever since my 
 marriage. She was a perfect slave to little Carl, 
 managing him as if she had been the mother of 
 ten, instead of an old maid. And she took care 
 of me for I was not strong as if she had been 
 my mother. How she found time for everything 
 was a mystery ; but, as she said, laughing, " If she 
 couldn't find time, she made it." Thus she made 
 time an hour every day to do writing and read- 
 ing for Major Gordon. 
 
 He had taken up his old quarters with Mrs. 
 Wilson, who received him with open arms. Her 
 little house had, I noticed, been made pretty and 
 comfortable from attic to basement, and, as she 
 had no other inmates, she was able to give Major 
 Gordon the range of all her rooms, and devote 
 herself to his comfort in a way which soon showed 
 itself in his changed appearance, even down to his 
 lovely white shirt-fronts, and his good, respectable 
 coats, hats, and boots. 
 
172 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 "I can't see them," he said, "but they feel 
 much tidier than they used to be, and I always 
 find them in the same place, and put them on with- 
 out any trouble. She almost perplexes me with 
 her gratitude, that poor woman. I can't think 
 why she is so kind to me, and how she continues 
 to make me so very comfortable at so very small 
 a cost." 
 
 But I could. 
 
 However, I only laughed, and told him he 
 would grow quite a dandy in his old age, now that 
 lie had a woman to look after him, to say nothing 
 of that lad Jack, who had installed himself as 
 amateur valet, and did his duty both with pride 
 and affection. For, odd as the old soldier un- 
 doubtedly was in his ways a mixture of irritabil- 
 ity and independence that made living with him 
 not always smooth sailing he had one peculiarity 
 which I only wish were commoner among his sex 
 he thought so little about himself that he made 
 everybody else think about him. From the eldest 
 to the youngest of the Wilson family there was 
 not one who would not have done anything in the 
 world for the comfort of Major Gordon. 
 
MISS TOMMY. 173 
 
 Yes, I repeat, those were halcyon days, to me, 
 who had had a good deal of suffering and care, and 
 to my two companions, who gradually became, in a 
 way I had not noticed before, companions to one 
 another. Not of mornings; Miss Trotter was al- 
 most always busy then, and it was not her way to 
 neglect business. She sometimes looked after us 
 with wistful eyes, when she started us off, baby 
 and me to our encampment on the shore, Major 
 Gordon for his long morning stroll; he grew 
 daily more active and strong, and his eyes did not 
 seem worse, so we said as little about them as pos- 
 sible ; but she neither walked with him nor idled 
 with me, until, punctually as the twelve o'clock 
 gun fired, we used to see the little figure emerg- 
 ing from the house, and coming towards us wher- 
 ever we were which she always seemed to know. 
 And then we all sat and chatted together for an 
 hour, till dinner-time. 
 
 After dinner we always drove, far away inland, 
 or through the flat and dull country not pretty 
 to look at, but fresh with salt wind, and glimmer- 
 ing with continual glimpses of sea towards Wal- 
 mer and Deal. Uncle Gordon always liked the 
 
174: MISS TOMMY. 
 
 sea best. He said he had been brought up near 
 it in his youth, and had never got over the love 
 of it and the delight in it. The mere "smell of 
 the sea," he sometimes declared, seemed " to kill 
 fifty years," and make him feel like a boy again. 
 
 There was at times a curious youthfulness about 
 him still ; or it seemed to have sprung up of late, 
 like autumn crocuses. He took an interest in all 
 our proceedings, women as we were. But we were 
 neither silly nor idle women certainly, one of us 
 was not. Accustomed for years to manage her 
 large fortune entirely herself, Miss Trotter's re- 
 sponsibilities and sphere of action were very wide. 
 Until I listened to her talks with Major Gordon, 
 whose advice and opinion she often asked for it 
 gave him something to think of, and occasionally 
 his great longing, "something to do" I had no 
 idea how largely useful an old maid's life could be, 
 nor what an important element she was in the 
 community. These were before the days of wom- 
 en's rights. I do not believe Miss Trotter ever 
 dreamed of being made a common-council woman, 
 or of having a seat in Parliament, yet she could 
 have filled both offices better than a good many 
 
MISS TOMMY. 175 
 
 men I know. Her capacity for business was as 
 great as her delight in it real delight the pleas- 
 ure of seeing things work harmoniously, of em- 
 ploying all her energies, and using not abusing 
 all her money, since, as she sometimes said, the 
 one aim of life should be, " Let nothing be lost." 
 
 She was never much of a talker, but I noticed 
 that, seeing how dependent Major Gordon natu- 
 rally was upon conversation, she learned to talk 
 more. And, in spite of her shyness at reading 
 aloud, she taught herself to do it, and, of even- 
 ings, often read to us for hours "in humble 
 emulation of Charlie," she once said, when I, 
 who remembered that last reading of Charlie's 
 and the unlucky consequences which followed it, 
 felt conscience -stricken. But the Major sat im- 
 passive, never taking the slightest notice. Per- 
 haps he had entirely forgotten the unfortunate 
 incident perhaps 
 
 I never was inside a man's heart very queer 
 articles they must be sometimes ! I never knew 
 much of any man except my dear, simple-minded 
 spouse ; but I think, if anything ought to have 
 touched a man not his vanity, not his passions, 
 
176 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 but that highest and best self of him which all 
 good men have it would be that which had been 
 given to Major Gordon. However, I have not 
 to judge, only to record. 
 
 Day by day went on. Miss Trotter seemed to 
 have the art of filling up every hour with some- 
 thing pleasant. Carl grew into a young Her- 
 cules, and I into a very creditable mother of the 
 same. Every day Uncle Gordon appeared with 
 a brighter look and a lighter step. He was in- 
 deed, as Miss Trotter always declared, remarkably 
 hale and active for his years. Far more so, as 
 we both gradually found out, than she. 
 
 "She seems so tired," he said to me one day. 
 I had not given him credit for noticing the fact 
 men seldom do know whether we are tired or 
 not. I am sure I might be ready to drop be- 
 fore my dear innocent Charlie would ever find 
 it out but that is neither here nor there. 
 
 "She often is tired," I answered, "only she 
 doesn't say so. She hates to trouble anybody." 
 
 " Indeed !" and from that time his hand was 
 always ready to help her across the shingle, his 
 arm to sustain her in our walks up and down the 
 
MISS TOMMY. 177 
 
 esplanade. He accommodated his quick pace to 
 her slow one, his long strides to her tiny foot- 
 steps, turned when she turned, and stopped when 
 she seemed weary. 
 
 Those quiet walks, sometimes in sunshine, but 
 oftener in twilight, or even moonlight and star- 
 light for, on account of his poor eyes, Uncle Gor- 
 don liked walking at night how enjoyable they 
 were! What a fairy picture the old town be- 
 came, with its circle of glittering lights, echoed 
 by the lights of the Castle and the heights ; while 
 on the other side was the ever-moaning sea, a 
 dense black, dotted with masses of white foam, or 
 shining in that mysterious, moon-made " path of 
 rays" which 
 
 " We think would lead to some bright isle of rest.' 7 
 
 So beautiful, so dream-like, the scene often used 
 to be, that even I, happy wife and mother as I 
 was, with all the blessings of youth close in my 
 grasp, grew sentimental. It was enough to make 
 old people forget they were old, and wish they 
 could begin their life over again only, with a 
 difference ! 
 
 " I wonder how it would feel to be like that 
 8* 
 
178 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 little man of yours, Decie," said Major Gordon 
 one day, pointing to Carl, who was rolling about 
 on the sea-shore at St. Margaret's. We had taken 
 him with us there, as we were to be several hours 
 away. Uncle Gordon had said he should like 
 to have our tea picnic in a quite new place ; 
 and whenever he wished a thing, I noticed that, 
 soon or late, it came about. "Carl, my friend, 
 if my poor old soul could somehow get into 
 your little body, and begin life all over again, 
 what would I do with it ? Miss Trotter " turn- 
 ing to her as she sat on the shingle we had 
 investigated the picturesque village and the fine 
 old church, and the steep descent to the little 
 bay, and were sitting down she always seemed 
 glad to sit down "Miss Trotter, do you know, 
 I sometimes feel afraid of growing old. Do 
 you ?" 
 
 "No;" afterwards, with a gentle smile and a 
 firmer decision, she repeated, " Oh, no !" 
 
 " But you would like to be young ? I w r as al- 
 ways happy when I was young were not you ?" 
 
 " Happiness comes to some early, to others late ; 
 and perhaps it is best not to think much of hap- 
 
MISS TOMMY. 181 
 
 pi ness at all. One often finds it when one has 
 ceased to look for it." 
 
 " But I used to look for it here, there, and 
 everywhere eagerly, greedily and I never found 
 it. And now I am left ' on the bleak shore 
 alone,' as the song says. Solitary, useless, blind, 
 no wonder I am afraid of old age." 
 
 It was a good while before she answered, and 
 then it was in a slightly constrained tone. 
 
 " I think your fear of the future is needless. 
 
 As Dr. told you, one has but to live a day 
 
 at a time. Your eyes are never likely to be 
 worse than now ; and I have known people who 
 could not see at all, yet were neither dependent 
 nor helpless." 
 
 It was the wrong word, as she saw, with a sting 
 of pain, when too late to alter it. 
 
 " I hate to be helpless," he broke in, almost 
 fiercely ; " and as for being dependent, I should 
 loathe it. I mean to do all I can for myself, to 
 my very last breath." 
 
 " So do I," was the quiet reply. " I can under- 
 stand the man who was it ? that wished to 'die 
 standing.' But one cannot always stand, and 
 
182 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 stand alone. Sometimes I have to lean pretty 
 hard on Decie there. She does not mind it, and 
 I I rather like it." 
 
 " Thank you," I cried, impulsively clasping the 
 dear little soft hand. I had begun to compre- 
 hend the pride and pleasure it is for the young 
 to help the old, though I did not take in as I do 
 now how little we can help them how many 
 burdens they have to bear which God only can 
 lighten, until, in his own good time, he takes 
 them all away. 
 
 It went to my heart to see this dear woman 
 putting out her frail little hand to carry another's 
 burden, as if she had none of her own. 
 
 " I think," she said, " old age should be to us 
 a Sabbath after the week's work is done. We 
 should rest, and be glad to rest; we should not 
 try to do more than we can do, and then be 
 angry that we cannot do it. It is better often 
 to accept our infirmities than to struggle against 
 them. They may not be harder than many 
 things we suffered in our youth. I once heard 
 a sorely tried woman say, her greatest trial was 
 that her sufferings were only mental ; no sorrow 
 
MISS TOMMY. 183 
 
 ever made her ill, and it would have been such a 
 relief to be ill! Now, I, who never feel quite 
 well" 
 
 Major Gordon turned to her with a startled 
 air. 
 
 "I mean, very seldom. But I always feel quite 
 happy," she added, in her cheerfullest of tones. 
 
 And she looked happy. There was now in her 
 faded face a continual peace, deeper even than 
 when I first knew her. Then, there was a kind 
 of effort in it, a determination to be happy, spite 
 of fate. Now there was none she was happy. 
 She sat with my boy across her lap; he had 
 tired himself out, and then settled down (truly, 
 though I say it, there never was such a good 
 child as my little Carl!). She kept patting him 
 softly while she talked ; but her eyes looked out 
 far beyond him, beyond us all, to the great wide 
 sea shining in the sun the sea which she had 
 been so fond of all her life, across which her heart 
 must have fled many a time ; but it had no need 
 to do that now. 
 
 Major Gordon sat and smoked his pipe, perfectly 
 content. It was touching to see how very con- 
 
184: MISS TOMMY. 
 
 tent he could be, for a man who had knocked 
 about the world for half a century he once told 
 us he was a mere boy when he first went out to In- 
 dia. And he was content with such little things 
 our innocent, childish, tea picnic, and the book 
 afterwards. Miss Trotter generally produced a 
 book from her pocket wherever we went : it 
 whiled away the time to him, who could neither 
 scramble about nor enjoy views. And, as he 
 often said, it gave him something to think about. 
 
 We had been going through a course of Shake- 
 speare, which he enjoyed with the freshness and 
 simplicity of a boy he said he had never " culti- 
 vated his mind " before, and was determined to 
 do it now, or, rather, we were doing it for him. 
 
 "Go on with 'King Lear,' will you, Miss Trot- 
 ter, if Decie can put up with such a melan- 
 choly story ? But I have a fellow-feeling for the 
 poor old forsaken king, and the blind Gloucester. 
 You were just at the point where they got to 
 Dover fields, and he wanted to throw himself over 
 the cliff, and Edgar saved him was it not ?" 
 
 " Yes ; how well you remember !" 
 
 So he did, every word she read, with that pleas- 
 
MISS TOMMY. 185 
 
 ant voice of hers, " gentle and low, an excellent 
 thing in woman." How Uncle Gordon made us 
 laugh, even in that most pathetic passage over 
 Cordelia, by his emphatic " Yes, so it is !" His lis- 
 tening was the most earnest, absorbing thing, just 
 like a child's. 
 
 " Poor old Gloucester. What a take-in it was ! 
 And yet it was right. I hope he kept to the 
 4 free and patient thoughts ' which Edgar recom- 
 mended. But it isn't always easy for a blind man 
 to be patient," he sighed. "And that is your 
 Shakespeare's Cliff, Miss Trotter. I remember, 
 you told me to look out for it, the first day I went 
 back to India. I could see it then, I can't now. 
 But I could climb it still, if you would guide 
 me as Edgar did Gloucester. I'll promise not to 
 throw myself over." 
 
 He seemed so eager to go, with the restlessness 
 which still came over him at times, though much 
 seldomer than formerly, that Miss Trotter pro- 
 posed our driving direct from St. Margaret's to 
 Shakespeare's Cliff. 
 
 "We should get there before sunset, and the 
 sky looks stormy; we may have the equinoctial 
 
186 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 gales soon, and our cliffs are not safe in a high 
 wind. Perhaps we had better not lose this calm 
 day." 
 
 " That's right," said Uncle Gordon ; I like do- 
 ing things at once. I always did. "When one is 
 young one hates to lose time." 
 
 " And when one is old one has no time to lose." 
 
 She rose, gave Carl to his nurse, and soon we 
 were all climbing the steep ascent which leads 
 down to that lovely, lonely bay of St. Margaret's. 
 I noticed how often she paused, and how heavily 
 she sometimes leaned on me, or on the stronger 
 hand which was always at her service now. " Let 
 me help you," Uncle Gordon used to say ; " it 
 helps me too, you know." 
 
 On our drive home I thought my dear Miss 
 Tommy was rather silent, watching the sunset, 
 which promised to be very fine. Some of the 
 grandest sunsets I have ever seen have been from 
 the hill-road between St. Margaret's and Dover 
 Castle. She pointed it out to me, but still silent- 
 ly. We had both of us learned not to speak much 
 of pleasures in which poor Uncle Gordon could 
 not share. 
 
MISS TOMMY. 187 
 
 I know not why I should call him " poor " 
 Uncle Gordon, for, indeed, I had almost ceased 
 to pity him. He bore his affliction with such pa- 
 tient heroism the heroism of courage, not stoicism 
 ^for he let us help him and guard him as much 
 as ever we liked, except that he was so anxious 
 not to give us " trouble." 
 
 When we had deposited Carl and his nurse at 
 home, he was most eager to go on to Shake- 
 speare's Cliff; so we went as far as the carriage 
 could be taken, and climbed the rest a rather 
 hasty climb, for the sun was sinking fast. Miss 
 Trotter faintly suggested that Uncle Gordon and 
 I should go alone, but he would not hear of it. 
 
 "It is an easy ascent, you say, and Decie and I 
 will help you. Oh, no, you must not stay behind. 
 We could not possibly do without you we never 
 can." 
 
 She smiled, and went. 
 
 Everybody knows Shakespeare's Cliff the 
 haunt of Dover shop-girls and shop-boys on Sun- 
 day afternoons, and of Dover visitors all the week. 
 Nothing in the least adventurous about it ; just a 
 steep down, green and smooth, rising to a peak. 
 
188 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 where you can look over the sheer, precipitous cliff 
 into the sea. Not now, however, 
 
 * ' Half- way down 
 Hangs he who gathers samphire dreadful trade!" 
 
 Neither do 
 
 " The fishermen that walk upon the beach 
 Appear like mice." 
 
 Doubtless the cliff is much less grand than it 
 was in Shakespeare's time, if Shakespeare ever 
 saw it; but it is grand still so dizzy a height 
 that I was not surprised to see Miss Tommy catch 
 hold again, of her own accord, of the hand which 
 had helped her up. He turned round and smiled. 
 
 " Don't be afraid ; I shall not jump over, and so 
 < shake patiently my great affliction off,' like poor 
 old Gloucester. I might have done so once I 
 don't know if you had not come and saved me." 
 
 TJncle Gordon said this with deep feeling. He 
 stood, holding tightly her hand, while with the 
 other hand he took off his hat and bared his head 
 to the wind, which blew sharp and keen. It was 
 a fine face, a noble face, with its look of quiet 
 heroism, with its smooth brow and shut eyes, 
 turned towards the gorgeous sunset, which, alas ! 
 
MISS TOMMY. 191 
 
 to him was nothing. Bat he had much enjoy- 
 ment left still ; and, what is rather rare, he seem- 
 ed to know it and own it. 
 
 " People talk of owing their lives to other peo- 
 ple, but, Miss Trotter, I think I shall owe you 
 more than my life the worth of it if, old as I 
 am, it ever gets to be worth anything; and I 
 hope I shall not forget. But you are shivering 
 I can feel your hand shake." 
 
 It was nothing, she said ; only she had been hot 
 with walking, and the wind up here was very 
 cold. 
 
 Major Gordon took up his outer coat, and, in 
 spite of all her remonstrances, wrapped her in 
 it. We hurried her down to the carriage, almost 
 carrying her between us, the little "fairy god- 
 mother," as he sometimes called her. She laugh- 
 ed at our anxiety, speedily recovered herself, or 
 seemed to do so, and was unspeakably bright and 
 gay all the evening, looking so pretty and so young 
 I wished Uncle Gordon had had his eyes. As 
 for his heart, it was an article so incomprehen- 
 sible that by this time I had ceased speculating 
 about it, and given it up in despair. 
 
192 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 Next day, for the very first time since I had 
 known her, Miss Tommy did not appear at break- 
 fast. She was not ill, she said, only she felt tired 
 rather more tired than usual ; but she should 
 certainly be up by noon. However, noon came, 
 and she was not up, to the great perplexity of 
 Major Gordon, who appeared, as usual, to have 
 his newspaper read to him. 
 
 I had to do it, but he complained that I did not 
 read half so well, nor could understand what he 
 wanted read, as did the "fairy godmother." At 
 which, when I told her, she laughed heartily, and 
 declared that, after going through life without 
 any accomplishments, it was most delightful to 
 have acquired in her old age that most useful one 
 the art of reading aloud. 
 
 " Tell Major Gordon his praise puts me on my 
 mettle. I shall certainly be up to-morrow." 
 
 And so she was ; but only to find that she was 
 able for nothing more than to lie on the sofa in 
 the sitting-room beside her bedroom the "par- 
 lor" we called it, because such endless talking 
 went on in it ; such a ceaseless stream of people 
 usually came to consult her there people in 
 
MISS TOMMY. 193 
 
 trouble, people in joy, people wanting money, 
 advice, sympathy, help; continual " wants," which 
 Miss Trotter was expected to supply, and did so, 
 as far as was in her power, every day of every 
 week. 
 
 But she could not do it now. She lay, smiling 
 still, and not "very" ill, she affirmed, but still 
 unable to see anybody. I had to keep guard at 
 the door no sinecure ! and tell all visitors that 
 it was " only a chill," and she would be better to- 
 morrow. 
 
 " That < only a chill !' I don't like it," said Uncle 
 Gordon, who came to the house about six times a 
 day, and sat patiently in the drawing-room, or 
 made himself useful in amusing little Carl, for 
 the child took an uncomfortable fancy of crying 
 for his mother. " You see, an old soldier learns 
 to be a bit of a doctor, and I know many a bad 
 illness comes from a mere chill. She must have 
 got it that evening on Shakespeare's Cliff, and it 
 was I who persuaded her to go." 
 
 He seemed so distressed, so remorseful, that I 
 made out my anxiety to be less than it really was, 
 and got him to stay the evening. I read to him, 
 9 
 
194 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 talked to him, but it would not do. He could 
 not rest; he seemed to be perpetually missing 
 her; indeed, the room looked so empty and felt 
 so silent without her, that I could hardly bear it 
 myself. It was a real relief when, at last, he fell 
 asleep in his favorite arm-chair, for he seemed un- 
 willing to leave the house till the latest possible 
 minute. Not till all was quiet, and I myself the 
 last person up, did I succeed in turning him out, 
 and watching his retreating figure such a firm, 
 active step it was still ! along the shore. 
 
 At eight in the morning he came back again, 
 " just to inquire." He looked sorely troubled to 
 find my invalid was no better, and when I went 
 up to her I could hear him pacing to and fro in 
 the room below, till I almost feared she must hear 
 him too. Once, I was sure she did. She was lying 
 with her eyes shut asleep, I thought when she 
 suddenly opened them. 
 
 " Is that Major Gordon ?" she asked. 
 
 I said "Yes;" and told her how I could hardly 
 get him out of the house, and how restless and 
 unhappy he was, blaming himself as the cause of 
 her illness. 
 
MISS TOMMY. 195 
 
 c < Oh, no," with the brightest of smiles. " Tell 
 him I am quite sure to be better to-morrow." 
 
 She closed her eyes and went to sleep again, 
 with a look as peaceful as that of my little Carl. 
 
 But she was not " better to-morrow," and I in- 
 sisted on sending for the doctor. 
 
 Miss Tommy did not like doctors ; busy people, 
 and people not given to trouble much about them- 
 selves, seldom do. She said imitating gayly 
 one of the Scotticisms that even yet Major Gor- 
 don occasionally let fall that "she couldna' be 
 fashed ;" that machines would wear out, and had 
 better wear out with as little fuss as possible ; but 
 to-day, when I urged our great anxiety his, as 
 well as mine she yielded. 
 
 . I was out when the doctor came; she had sent 
 me for my daily walk with Uncle Gordon. " He 
 must not miss it," she said; "and, besides, sick- 
 nurses ought to go out every day. I have had a 
 great deal of nursing to do in my life, but I never 
 was nursed before," she added, and put up her 
 face to kiss me, like a child. When I returned 
 the doctor had come and gone. 
 
 Miss Trotter was lying on her sofa in the par- 
 
196 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 lor. How sweet she looked in her soft gray 
 dressing-gown and close white cap ! But her face 
 was turned to the wall. She hardly noticed my 
 entrance, and, when I spoke, moved with a half- 
 startled look, as if I had roused her from sleep or 
 deep thinking. Her cheeks were flushed, and her 
 breathing was quick and hard. 
 
 "Decie," she whispered, "the doctor says I am 
 to go to bed and stay there. I think he is right, 
 but I waited till you came in. Also because" 
 she lifted herself up and looked in my face with 
 a sad, earnest expression "I want to see Major 
 Gordon, for just five minutes." 
 
 I hesitated. In truth, I was shocked to see the 
 change in her. 
 
 "It cannot harm him or me. I must see him. 
 You can stay. I have nothing, almost nothing, 
 to say to him ; but I must see him." 
 
 And she lay, scarcely moving, with her eyes 
 fixed on the door, until he came. 
 
 If I had not loved my Charlie and yet that 
 was a different sort of love too I could never 
 have understood that yearning gaze, nor the 
 quick, bright smile, followed by a look of intense 
 
MISS TOMMY. 197 
 
 content and rest, as Major Gordon sat down beside 
 her, and took her hand in both his which he 
 sometimes did now both to her and to me a pa- 
 thetic sign that the darkness was growing round 
 him, leaving only the sympathy of voice and touch. 
 
 I went and sat in the bow -window, watching 
 the long rollers of the tide that curled over and 
 broke against the sea-wall in showers of spray. 
 My full, bright life as full, bright, ay, and as 
 restless as that tide and these two quiet lives, all 
 but done, one, perhaps, just ebbing away what a 
 contrast ! 
 
 "I sent for you," she said, for Uncle Gordon 
 seemed too much moved to utter a word, " be- 
 cause the doctor tells me I shall not be able to see 
 any one for some time, and I thought I should 
 like to see you again, in case in case Not 
 that it much matters ; but one never knows." 
 
 He started. "You do not mean that? Oh, no, 
 no, no ! It was the chill on the cliff-top, and I 
 brought you there. It is I that have killed you." 
 
 " Not in the least," she answered, strongly and 
 firmly. "You must never imagine such such 
 utter nonsense. On the contrary," changing her 
 
198 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 little laugh into earnestness, " something you said 
 then will make me happy ; would have made me 
 happy for all my days to come. I wanted to tell 
 you so." 
 
 She paused, but he said nothing. She went on : 
 " Once you asked me if I had had a happy life. 
 No, not very. But I have tried to make the best 
 of it, as everybody can." 
 
 "I wish to God I had done so too !" 
 "You have," she answered, eagerly; "indeed 
 you have. I know it. You thought I knew 
 nothing, but I knew everything, and have known 
 it all along. And I say you have done all you 
 could, in all ways. It has been a comfort to me 
 for years and years, to feel this ; to think that 
 there was somewhere in the world, even if ever 
 so far away, a man so good as you." 
 
 She spoke with difficulty, and with long pauses 
 between, but distinctly and firmly, as people 
 speak on their deathbeds, when they have ceased 
 to have anything to hope for, anything to fear. 
 He could not see her face, but she could see his, 
 and I was glad she could. 
 
 " Now, my friend " (as she now and then called 
 
MISS TOMMY. 199 
 
 him, though generally nothing but Major Gor- 
 don) ; " now you must go." 
 
 "Presently. One word you are not so very 
 ill ? You will try to get better ?" 
 
 " Oh, yes ; I will try," speaking in the soothing 
 tone one uses to a child not unneeded, he being 
 utterly unmanned. 
 
 I rose, for I felt he must go. 
 
 "Good-bye, then; just for to-day," he mut- 
 tered. " Good-bye." 
 
 And, lifting her hand, he would have kissed it ; 
 but she drew him nearer to her, and, putting both 
 her arms round his neck, with unutterable tender- 
 ness, she kissed him on the forehead and on the 
 poor blind eyes. 
 
 " All my life all my life !" she murmured, with 
 a smothered passion almost like that of youth. 
 They kissed one another once more, solemnly and 
 lingeringly, as if for an eternal farewell, and then 
 I led him out of the room. 
 
 * * . # * * 
 
 My dear Miss Tommy did not die. For weeks 
 it was a struggle between life and death, but life 
 gained the victory. 
 
200 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 "I wish to live," she said, more than once. 
 " I have so much to live for; so much to do." 
 
 And well she might have said this, had she 
 seen the cruel "want" she was in the house, in 
 the neighborhood, even in the outside world. 
 Not till then for she had never had a dangerous 
 illness in her life not till then did anybody find 
 out how deeply Miss Trotter was beloved and 
 how widely respected. The rich came in their 
 carriages, the poor on their ragged feet, to her 
 door, and looked up with tears to that silent win- 
 dow, behind which the fight for life was going on. 
 Oh, it was a terrible time, and yet a peaceful one. 
 I came out of it an older and a graver woman 
 fitter to face life, or death, without being afraid. 
 
 I do not think she was afraid it was not in her 
 nature to be afraid of anything; but I think she 
 would have liked to stay just a little longer, " to do 
 her work," as she said. And I sometimes fancied 
 she was pleased with all those testimonies from 
 outside of what a noble life an " old maid " can 
 live, and how sorely she can be missed, even 
 though she leaves behind neither child nor hus- 
 band. Very sweet to her were all those tokens 
 
MISS TOMMY. 201 
 
 of universal love, which an unmarried woman 
 can always win ; a love neither of nature nor of 
 blood, but of choice and let not those who never 
 win it deceive themselves of deserving. 
 
 Slowly and steadily life came back into her 
 dear old face ; but it was quite an old face now, 
 the hair perfectly gray and the delicate complex- 
 ion gone. Nothing was left except her wonderful 
 look of sweetness and peace an abiding inward 
 peace, never absent now. Nor did it change 
 when, though she revived to convalescence, we 
 soon began to feel that perfect health, with all its 
 activities, energies, and enjoyments, was never 
 likely to be hers any more. 
 
 Still, after she came down-stairs, we tried our 
 very best to make everything go on just as be- 
 fore with, however, a difference. 
 
 Of course, all I had guessed, seen, and heard in 
 that supreme moment when she thought she was 
 dying was kept by me as sacred and silent as if I 
 had known nothing. Uncle Gordon never spoke 
 of it to me, nor did she. Whether they ever re- 
 ferred to it with one another, or whether they let 
 it all pass like a dream of the night which, in 
 9* 
 
202 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 truth, to me it sometimes seemed I cannot tell, 
 and I never heard. When they met, which was 
 as soon as the doctor allowed her to see anybody, 
 it was like ordinary friends close and tender and 
 tried, but still only friends. 
 
 There was no talk whatever of marriage. Such 
 an idea never seemed to have entered into any- 
 body's head regarding them, two such "old peo- 
 ple" as they were Uncle Gordon, with his 
 horror of matrimony, and Miss Tommy, who had 
 all her days shown such a total indifference to it. 
 But I, who had heard those words, " All my life 
 all my life !" read the history differently. 
 
 Possibly it was his pride, or their mutual 
 shrinking from the world's sneering comments on 
 elderly marriages, or it might have been that she 
 felt her own infirmities, and did not wish to be a 
 burden upon him for she had pride too, dear 
 soul! But, whatever it was, it was exclusively 
 their own concern, and both seemed entirely sat- 
 isfied. 
 
 They did not marry, yet it was hardly possible 
 to imagine a more perfect union. It did one 
 good to see them together, and they were now to- 
 
MISS TOMMY. 203 
 
 gether every day. How her face brightened at 
 the sight of him, and his at the sound of her 
 voice ! There was between them that entire sym- 
 pathy which even married people seldom have- 
 that comfort of companionship which, be it 
 friendship or love, and whether discovered early 
 or late, makes, when found, the utmost blessing 
 of life. All the more that neither of them had 
 any other close ties, except Charlie and me. But, 
 after carefully thinking it over, I decided not to 
 tell my secret, or, rather, their secret, even to 
 Charlie. 
 
 They did not marry. And sometimes, when I 
 saw the perfect oneness between them, and how 
 completely they belonged to one another, I felt 
 there was no need they should marry. They 
 were too old for the world to say a hard word 
 against them indeed, it never noticed them at 
 all. Daily was Uncle Gordon's tall, gaunt fig- 
 ure seen marching up and down the esplanade 
 beside her chair her illness had been rheu- 
 matic fever, and it was long before she could 
 walk. Later on, when she did walk, though very 
 feebly, she was supported by the arm which never 
 
204: MISS TOMMY. 
 
 failed her ; followed, perhaps, by a careless glance 
 or two from the groups of juveniles who haunt 
 the Dover shore ; young ladies, and young of- 
 ficers from the Castle, talking, laughing, and 
 flirting together, and possibly calling it " love." 
 How little they understood the word ! But these, 
 whose story nobody knew ? 
 
 Even my Charlie, now settled into a practical 
 man of the world and father of a family, never 
 suspected anything deeper than he saw. Perhaps 
 if he had, he, too, would only have smiled ; but 
 he was the best and dearest of husbands, and not 
 a bit jealous of my devotion to Miss Tommy. 
 Indeed, seeing that I was likely to be so much 
 at Dover, he proposed that we should come and 
 live there ; applied for and obtained a semi-mili- 
 tary post at the Castle. So we planted ourselves 
 beside her, at which Miss Trotter was very glad. 
 
 " I am an old woman now ; I want taking care 
 of," she said to me one day. " Others will have 
 to do my work for me. I must learn to be idle, 
 and rest." 
 
 But idleness was evidently a great punishment 
 to her. As soon as possible she had resumed her 
 
PHAROS AT DOVER CASTLE. 
 
MISS TOMMY. 207 
 
 usual " work," as well as that part of it which 
 she had done for Uncle Gordon ; such as read 
 ing his newspapers to him and writing his let 
 ters. But very soon the tables were turned ; 
 instead of her helping him, he began to help 
 her. 
 
 As I have said, in his youth Major Gordon had 
 an excellent head for business. Soldier as he 
 was, he had accumulated as in those days the 
 servants of the East India Company had many 
 opportunities of doing a considerable fortune. 
 It had all been wasted, and not by himself ; but 
 he never spoke of this, and I need not- 
 Still, his shrewdness and clear-headedness re- 
 mained, rather increased than diminished by his 
 dim sight nay, having once accepted his infirm- 
 ity, he, with his orderly and methodical soldierly 
 habits, succeeded in making the very best of it. 
 It was astonishing how much he did, and was 
 happy in doing, aided by his faithful secretary 
 Jack Wilson. 
 
 So I was scarcely surprised when, one day, call- 
 ing me into her room, the parlor, where they usu- 
 ally spent their mornings, sometimes with Jack 
 
MISS TOMMY. 
 
 to do writing for them, sometimes she and Major 
 Gordon alone, the dear godmother said : 
 
 "Deeie, we want to tell you something " 
 both often said " we " now. " We have come to 
 the conclusion that my life is rather too hard 
 for me. I mean, the endless amount of business 
 other people's business which I have always 
 done and cannot give up. I need help, and my 
 friend here" laying her hand on Uncle Gor- 
 don's as he sat beside her sofa alas, she was al- 
 most always lying down now! "has promised 
 to help me." 
 
 " I am so glad so glad !" 
 
 Perhaps she thought from my eagerness that I 
 had meant something different from what she 
 meant, for the faintest possible flush crossed her 
 cheek, and died out again. 
 
 " He is going to be my man of business ; to 
 look into all my affairs; to undertake all my 
 correspondence, with Jack as his lieutenant and 
 working secretary. He will be always ready to 
 give me his advice, and see that I am not cheated, 
 and that I don't cheat anybody an onerous duty. 
 In fact, as I said, he will take care of me." 
 
MISS TOMMY. 209 
 
 " And in return," added Major Gordon, with 
 a touch of his old pride, " Miss Trotter wishes to 
 give me and being a poor man I am content 
 to accept a regular salary, a much larger salary 
 than I think I deserve. We called you in, Decie, 
 to decide the point." 
 
 " It seems we need a mutual friend in this, if 
 in nothing else," said Miss Tommy, gayly ; and 
 she laid the disputed question before me ; in 
 which, of course, I decided for her, and against 
 Uncle Gordon. 
 
 " It is no use fighting against two women, and 
 one of them with such a strong will of her own," 
 said he, smiling, and turning to Miss Tommy 
 it was one of the prettiest things in the relation 
 between these two to see how they sometimes 
 made fun of each other's peculiarities "so I 
 submit." 
 
 " That is right, and Decie knows it is right. 
 She is a very sensible woman. But indeed it 
 matters little, between you and me ; we quite un- 
 derstand one another, do we not ?" 
 
 " My dear, yes !" he answered, softly. That 
 was the only difference in his manner to her, 
 
210 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 which, always so courteous, had now in it a touch 
 of reverent tenderness, such as he showed to no 
 one else. And when they were by themselves, 
 or with only me, he called her not " Miss Trot- 
 ter," but " Dear," or " My dear," with an intona- 
 tion such as I have heard between people who 
 had been fifty years married. 
 
 Thus all was settled ; and it was likewise set- 
 tled that we should live half the year at Dover, 
 in our three separate habitations, but that when 
 we went for the summer to Sycamore Hall we 
 should practically become one family " my 
 family," as Miss Trotter affectionately called us, 
 saying what a pride it was to have a family in 
 her solitary old age. 
 
 I think the next few years were the happiest 
 she had ever known. She often said so, looking 
 into my eyes with a wistful tenderness the ten- 
 derness of those who know one another's secrets, 
 yet never speak of them, even between them- 
 selves. Yes, she was perfectly happy, even though 
 she had her sufferings the inevitable physical 
 sufferings of declining years, which perhaps the 
 old bear better from knowing that they are in- 
 
MISS TOMMY. 211 
 
 evitable, that there is no way out of them except 
 through "the grave and gate of death," as the 
 Prayer-Book says. How much or how little she 
 thought of that, or of the " joyful resurrection " 
 with a new body, but (oh, God grant it !) with the 
 same soul, I could not tell. She had little need 
 to talk of the heavenly life ; she lived it here on 
 earth. 
 
 Uncle Gordon had his sufferings too, but they 
 were not those of weakness. His iron constitution 
 recovered itself; he bade fair to become a hale and 
 hearty septuagenarian or octogenarian. Cheerful, 
 too, in spite of his blindness, which never became 
 total darkness. In our happy domestic circle the 
 deadened heart of him burst out into full flower, 
 late, but lovely, " like a Glastonbury thorn," as I 
 sometimes said. But there was nothing of the 
 thorn-tree about him. He was more like a holly, 
 which loses all its prickles as it nears the top. 
 
 And he was the best of uncles to Charlie and 
 me and our boys we had three now, so that the 
 clan Gordon was not likely to end. Miss Trotter 
 delighted in them and petted them all, but none 
 was to her like her own Charles Everett the third 3 
 
212 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 whom I generally let her have all to herself, that 
 he might grow up as perfect as " old maids' chil- 
 dren " are said to be. Though, as Charlie some- 
 times observed, it seemed "funny" to call Miss 
 Tommy an old maid she, that was a sort of 
 mother to everybody who needed one. Her 
 motherliness was her strong characteristic. Many 
 grown-up people now living owe their life, health, 
 education all that makes existence worth having 
 to that childless woman, who never had a baby 
 of her own on her lonely breast. 
 
 But she was happy I know she was. Her 
 empty heart was filled, her anxious spirit at rest. 
 She, who all her life had suffered and labored for 
 others, now enjoyed her Sabbath of peace. She 
 saw of "the travail of her soul," and was satis- 
 fied. 
 
 Our last winter at Dover was, I rejoice to re- 
 member, the brightest we ever spent there. A 
 faint, cold fear, which had long hung over us, that 
 my husband might be ordered on foreign service, 
 was dispelled by his consenting to retire on half- 
 pay, which Miss Trotter earnestly desired. 
 
 " Don't leave me, Decie," she said, with a pa- 
 
MISS TOMMY. 213 
 
 thetic entreaty, the full meaning of which I un- 
 derstood afterwards. "Don't any of you leave 
 me for very long at a time." 
 
 We never did. Uncle Gordon, for one, was 
 never absent from her a single day not mere- 
 ly for her sake, either. Feeble as she was, he 
 seemed as if he could not do without her her 
 clear head, her bright, brave heart. He himself 
 was wonderfully well and strong, looking years 
 younger than his real age, taking a firm hold of 
 life still, and, as "man of business" to the ricli 
 Miss Trotter, able to make such a good use of it. 
 He liked the work too ; it interested him, and ex- 
 ercised all his dormant energies. He never now 
 complained of having nothing to do, and, indeed, 
 was becoming a remarkable instance of how much 
 even a blind man can do if he tries. 
 
 "How well it has all turned out, Decie, since 
 the day when you and I stood together on that 
 Admiralty Pier and watched the boat come in !" 
 
 We were standing, she and I, I remember, at 
 the window of her parlor ; I with my last baby 
 asleep on my shoulder, and she watching silently 
 her well-beloved sea. Also watching Uncle Gor- 
 
214 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 don, who was "taking his constitutional," as he 
 called it marching up and down the little jetty, 
 upright as an arrow, and evidently enjoying him- 
 self exceedingly. 
 
 " How well he looks, how strong he is !" I said. 
 " Never was there a man so changed." 
 
 " Yes!" she answered, with a smile, and suddenly 
 turned and kissed me or, rather, the baby with 
 her eyes full of tears. Then added, " I have had 
 such a happy life ! Happier altogether, I think, 
 than that of most women. And I thank God." 
 
 We stood a little while longer, until she noticed 
 how strong the wind was blowing, and how thin 
 Uncle Gordon's coat was. 
 
 "He forgets how keen our Dover east winds 
 are in March. He fancies himself as young as 
 ever; and yet he is" with a little low laugh of 
 complete content "we are both of us getting 
 really old. No, that coat won't do, Decie. I 
 must speak to him about it to-morrow." 
 
 " That to - morrow " she was away ! I say 
 " away," for I never could feel it like death. We 
 found her next morning, asleep, apparently, with 
 her hands clasped on her breast ; as she once told 
 
MISS TOMMY. 215 
 
 me she generally went to sleep " it felt so like 
 saying one's prayers." But she was away quite 
 away. 
 
 She had died, as she must have long known she 
 probably would die, of the heart disease which so 
 often follows rheumatic fever. All her afiairs 
 were left clear, down to the minutest item. She 
 had more than once said that a sudden death was 
 the happiest of all and she had it. Her great 
 fear that of living to be a burden upon others 
 she thus escaped. But her last thought was of 
 other people of him ; for I found written on the 
 little slate which always lay on her dressing-table, 
 as a slight help in the endless small things she 
 had daily to remember " Mem. To speak about 
 Major Gordon's coat to morrow." 
 
 * * * # # 
 
 When Miss Trotter's will was read it was 
 found that, many years ago, she had left half her 
 fortune to Charles Everett Gordon. By a later 
 codicil she left him the whole, with reversion to 
 his nephew and great- nephew. Except some 
 charitable annuities, and one or two small memo- 
 rial legacies, she left it to him absolutely, without 
 
216 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 restrictions " certain that he will use it as well 
 as it can possibly be used." 
 
 He did. For a time I thought this was im- 
 possible that he would never be himself again, 
 the blow struck him so very hard. At first he 
 seemed paralyzed by it, then for weeks he wan- 
 dered about aimlessly, scarcely noticing any of us, 
 looking always for some one else, whom he could 
 never find. But gradually he rose up and faced 
 his work her work, which she had left him to do 
 and did it faithfully to the end. 
 
 Uncle Gordon lived to be a very old man 
 winning age's best blessings 
 
 " Honor, love, obedience, troops of friends," 
 friends whom he helped to make happy, as his 
 wealth enabled him to do. But he himself re- 
 tained his simple, almost ascetic, habits. Many a 
 time I had to look after him and change his shabby 
 coat for a new one remembering, with the sa- 
 credness that death casts over the commonest 
 things, that last thoughtfulness of the woman who 
 loved him, as, he knew now, no one else had ever 
 loved him in all this world. 
 
 He never forgot her ; sometimes for months he 
 
MISS TOMMY. 
 
 217 
 
 HER GRAVB. 
 
 scarcely mentioned her name, but I was sure he 
 never forgot her. And often, when his day's work 
 was done, he would lean back in his arm-chair 
 with a tired look, and sit long silent a silence 
 that none of us ever ventured to break. 
 
 We had buried her, by her own written desire, 
 at Dover in St. James's churchyard, which was 
 10 
 
218 MISS TOMMY. 
 
 overlooked by Mrs. Wilson's house, where, when- 
 ever we went there, Uncle Gordon always took 
 up his old quarters. Once he drew me to the 
 window : it was a moonlight night, and the white 
 gravestones were shining, and the trees waving, 
 especially the tree in a corner we knew well, just 
 under the gray church-tower. 
 
 " Tell me, Decie, is it all right ? the marble 
 cross and the flowers? She was so fond of 
 flowers." 
 
 I told him it was a perfect little garden. Not 
 only we, but everybody, seemed to take care of it. 
 
 " Yes. Everybody loved her," he said. 
 
 After a little I drew down the blind, and made 
 his fireside comfortable for him the solitary fire- 
 side where he would sometimes sit, quite alone 
 and doing nothing, all evening long. Then, as I 
 led him to his arm-chair, he suddenly whispered, 
 catching my hand and grasping it hard : 
 
 "Decie, when my time comes remember be- 
 side her." 
 
 I have remembered. 
 
 THE END. 
 
IN A HOUSE-BOAT 
 
 21 Journal 
 
IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 
 
 21 Journal. 
 
 I HAD long heard of the house -boat, and had 
 once seen it (as you see it now, my readers, 
 in a sketch done by a girl little older than many 
 of you, but already a notable English artist). It 
 lies, summer after summer, moored in a tiny bay 
 on our river Thames, and twice it had been of- 
 fered to me for a week's occupation by its kind- 
 ly owner, but I never was able to go. When at 
 last I found I could go I was as ready to "jump 
 for joy " had that feat been possible at my age 
 as any of you young people. 
 
 To live in a house -boat on the broad river, 
 with a safe barricade of water between you and 
 the outside world, to fish out of your parlor door, 
 and if you wanted to wash your hands, to let 
 
222 
 
 IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 
 
 THE HOUSE-BOAT. 
 
 down your jug from your bedroom window; 
 moreover, to have unlimited sunrises and sun- 
 sets, to sleep with the "lap -lap" of a flowing 
 stream in your ears, to waken with the songs of 
 birds from the trees of the shore what could 
 be more delightful? Nothing except perhaps 
 " camping out " under the stars, which might be 
 a trifle damp and uncomfortable. 
 
 No dampness here. More than comfort act- 
 ual beauty. When I went down to look at it in 
 early spring, and the kind owner showed it with 
 pride pardonable pride I found the house-boat 
 
IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 223 
 
 adorned with Walter Crane's drawings and Will- 
 iam Morris's furniture, perfectly "aesthetic" in 
 its decorations, and as convenient as a well-ap- 
 pointed yacht. Also there was " a feeling" about 
 it as if the possessor loved it, and loved to make 
 people happy in it. There were mottoes from 
 Shakespeare, Shelley, Keats, Milton, in every room, 
 and pictures on every wall, besides the perpetual 
 pictures outside a gallery of ever-changing love- 
 liness. 
 
 I came home enthusiastic, and immediately set 
 about choosing "a lot of girls," as many as the 
 boat would hold, to share it. 
 
 Only girls. Any elderly person except the 
 inevitable one, myself would, we agreed, have 
 spoiled all. I did not choose my girls for out- 
 side things, though some of them were pretty 
 enough, too; but for good temper, good sense, 
 and a cheerful spirit, determined to make the 
 best of everything, and face the worst if neces- 
 sary. These were the qualities I looked for, and 
 found. 
 
 I shall not paint their portraits, except to men- 
 tion that three out of the six were .Katherines. 
 
224 IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 
 
 We had therefore to distinguish them as Kitty, 
 Kath, and Katie, the latter being our little maid- 
 of-all-work, our coachman's daughter. The other 
 three girls were: the artist whose name, Mar- 
 gery May, is public property and two girls, 
 specially mine, whom I shall designate as " Meum 
 and Tuum." All were between fifteen and 
 twenty-five happy age! and all still walked 
 "in maiden meditation, fancy free." So we had 
 not a man among us except our sole male pro- 
 tector, Katie's father, and our long -faithful ser- 
 vant. Him I shall call "Adam," after Shake- 
 speare's Adam in " As You Like It," whom he re- 
 sembles in everything but age. 
 
 Six girls afloat! And very much afloat they 
 were, swimming like ducks no, let us say swans 
 on a sea of sunshiny happiness. As we drove 
 from our last railway station, through the little 
 town the last town, too our open omnibus, 
 filled with bright-faced girls, seemed quite to in- 
 terest the inhabitants. And when we reached 
 the actual country, that lovely Thames Valley, 
 which all English artists know, the ringing laugh- 
 ter at every small joke startled the still July af- 
 
IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 225 
 
 ternoon, and made the birds dart fluttering out 
 of the hedgerows! Such hedgerows! full of 
 wild brier -roses, pink and deep-red honeysuckle, 
 traveller's joy, and dozens of other flowers useless 
 to name, as they may not grow in America. But 
 our English girls love them, our English fields 
 would be nothing without them. 
 
 " There it is ! There is the house-boat !" cried 
 Kitty, who had seen it before, having been with 
 me when we explored it domestically. 
 
 "Hurrah! we have nearly reached it our 
 'appy 'ome !" exclaimed Meum and Tuum, stand- 
 ing up in the carriage together. Two of the 
 Katherines followed their example; indeed, we 
 should have been considered a most ill -behaved 
 party, only fortunately there was no one to see 
 us except one laborer, lazily sitting on a mowing- 
 machine which was slowly cutting down all the 
 pride of the flowery meadow through which we 
 drove to the river-side. 
 
 There she lay, the Pinafore, and beside her the 
 Bib, a little boat, which was to be our sole link 
 with the outside world. In it sat the owner, who 
 
 had patiently awaited us there these two hours, 
 10* 
 
226 
 
 IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 
 
 THE LAZY MOWER. 
 
 and whose portrait I should like to paint if only 
 to show you a bachelor an old bachelor, you 
 young girls would call him who has neither 
 grown selfish nor cynical, who knows how to use 
 his money without abusing it, and who does use 
 a good part of it in making other people happy. 
 The Pinafore is his hobby. He had it built 
 on the top of a barge, under his own direction, 
 and from his own design. It consists of a saloon 
 at one end, a combination kitchen and dining- 
 room at the other, and four cabins between, with 
 two berths in each. A real little house, and well 
 might we call it our happy home for a week. 
 
IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 227 
 
 Our host showed us all over it once more, 
 pointed out every possible arrangement for our 
 comfort, partook of a hasty cup of tea, and then 
 drove back in our empty omnibus Londonward, 
 deeply pitied by us whom he left behind in his 
 little paradise. 
 
 The first meal ! its liveliness was only equalled 
 by the quickness with which it disappeared. 
 And then came several important questions. 
 
 "Business before pleasure," said the stern 
 mother. "Choose your room -mates, girls, and 
 then arrange your rooms. It is the fashion on 
 board the Pinafore to do everything for your- 
 selves. When all is ready we will take a row 
 and watch the sunset, then come back to bed." 
 
 This last would have been a pleasant business 
 if some of them had had to "turn in" to beds 
 of their own making. 
 
 " Ma'am," said Katie, who was beside me when 
 I peeped into one cabin, " hadn't I better do the 
 rooms? the young ladies do not quite understand 
 about it. I will have all ready by the time you 
 come back." 
 
 Katie, the best of little housemaids, was heartily 
 
228 IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 
 
 thanked, and her offer accepted. " But, girls, re- 
 member, it is to be the first and last time. After 
 to-night you must learn to do your own rooms 
 yourselves." 
 
 So we threw overboard the practical for the 
 poetical, and, like Hiawatha, went sailing "tow- 
 ard the sunset" in dreamy, lazy delight. 
 
 What a sunset it was! Everything seemed 
 full of rich summer life, from the stately pair of 
 swans sailing about with their six gray cygnets 
 after them, to the water-hen sitting among the 
 reeds, the willow -wren singing in among the 
 bushes, and the water-rat darting into his hole as 
 we passed. All was beauty, all was peace, and 
 
 4 'The cares that infest the day 
 Do fold their tents, like the Arabs, 
 And silently steal away." 
 
 Every one of my five girls could handle an oar, 
 some better, some worse; and how they did enjoy 
 their row! The two youngest took turns, and 
 succeeded at least in " catching crabs " with much 
 fun and ease. 
 
 On and on, till we were stopped by a lock. 
 The three evils of the Thames are locks, weirs, 
 
IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 229 
 
 and lashers. So we turned and let ourselves drift 
 back with the current, now running very fast. 
 Now and then we " hugged " the bank, and gath- 
 ered thence a huge handful of purple loosestrife, 
 blue and white bugloss, meadow-sweet, forget-me- 
 not the Thames is rich in water-flowers. On we 
 floated, over great beds of water-lilies, yellow or 
 white, which grew in a quiet little " back- water," 
 where we nearly got stranded on a shoal and 
 pierced with a snag. But " a miss is as good as a 
 mile," said we, and were more careful another 
 time. 
 
 "Look a private gallows!" exclaimed Tuum, 
 who had a droll, bright way of putting things. 
 " We mustn't go there on any account." But it 
 was only an odd arrangement for catching eels ; 
 so we examined it, laughed, and passed on. 
 
 The sun had long set, and the moon was setting 
 the little young moon, like a silver boat when 
 we re-entered our "happy home" for supper and 
 bed, the second speedily following the first, for 
 various excellent reasons, one being that the sup- 
 per-table was required for Adam's couch. He 
 had his choice whether to sleep on it or under it, 
 
230 IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 
 
 and preferred the latter, as being " more like a 
 four-poster." Adam is by nature almost as silent 
 as his horses, but his few remarks, terse, dry, and 
 shrewd, often pass into family proverbs. 
 
 So all the Pinafores crew sank into repose, 
 except one, who has an occasional bad habit of 
 lying awake " till the day break and the shadows 
 flee away." How gloriously it did break, that 
 dawn on the Thames ! and how strange were the 
 river sounds, the chirping of birds and the lowing 
 of cattle mingling with other strange noises, after- 
 wards discovered to be the tapping of swans' beaks 
 against the barge, and the water-rats careering 
 about underneath. 
 
 These swans, of which our artist has taken 
 gome portraits, are the pride and ornament of the 
 Thames. They belong to the Thames Conser- 
 vancy Corporation, and no one is allowed to 
 molest or destroy them. They sail about like 
 kings and queens, followed by their families, and 
 are petted and fed and admired until they become 
 quite tame. They used to gather round our boat 
 and eat out of the girls' hands; and their motions, 
 always full of grace, were a delight to behold. 
 
IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 
 
 231 
 
 FEEDING THE SWANS. 
 
 Dawn came, and with it the power to face and 
 enjoy another new day. 
 
 A holiday is never the worse when there runs 
 through it a stratum a very thin stratum of 
 work. So the two working bees, author and art- 
 ist, decided to be put ashore after breakfast and 
 left under two trees with their several tasks, while 
 the others enjoyed themselves till dinner-time, 
 
232 IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 
 
 when we expected friends, who were to row about 
 ten miles to spend the day with us. 
 
 Dinner reminds me of our domestic affairs, 
 which, considering that food for eight or ten 
 hungry people does not grow on every bush, were 
 important. Groceries and other stores we brought 
 with us, but bread, milk, butter, fruit, and vege- 
 tables we had to get from the inn opposite, which 
 also sent us our meat, ready cooked, it being im- 
 possible to roast a joint on board the Pinafore. 
 Fresh water, too, we had to get from the inn pump, 
 river water not being wholesome for drinking. 
 
 Great fun were those endless rows with jugs 
 and cans, for we were all thirsty souls, and all, 
 even Adam, teetotalers. The amount of milk we 
 got through was such that some one suggested it 
 would save trouble to fetch the cow on board. 
 The kindly landlady bade us "gather our fruit 
 for ourselves," so we often brought home a boat- 
 load of well-earned food potatoes, pease, crisp 
 lettuces pulled up by the roots, and eaten as rab- 
 bits eat them, with raspberries and cherries and 
 currants to our hearts' content. It was almost as 
 good as shooting or fishing one's dinner. And, 
 
IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 233 
 
 by-the-bye, the sight of the fish jumping up 
 round the boat brought the saddest look to 
 Adam's amiable countenance. 
 
 " If I had but a rod and line, ma'am, I'd catch 
 them for dinner." And very nasty they might 
 have been, I thought river fish generally are; 
 yet politeness would have obliged us to eat them, 
 so perhaps all was for the best. 
 
 After a mirthful day our guests departed, fear- 
 ing a thunder-storm, which never came, and, to 
 rest their arms, rny five girls decided to stretch 
 their legs and take a walk on shore. The said 
 walk became a run finally. "Let's have a run," 
 said the biggest of them and the most beautiful. 
 As she tucked up her skirts she looked a real Ata- 
 lanta. The second in height, and only a trifle less 
 in grace and activity, did the same ; and off they 
 started up what seemed a solitary road, when lo ! 
 suddenly appeared two young Oxford men, book 
 in hand ! What they thought of the apparition 
 of these two young athletes, and the three other 
 girls behind, all of whom collapsed suddenly into 
 decorum, will never be known ; but I doubt if 
 they read much for the next ten minutes. 
 
234: IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 
 
 The run thus stopped, we thought we would go 
 soberly into the village churchyard, where two 
 old men were solemnly making hay of the grass 
 cut over the graves. Thence we passed into a 
 quiet wood, and finally came home, hungry, as 
 usual, to supper, and so concluded our second 
 day. 
 
 No, not concluded. About eleven P.M. hap- 
 pened a most dramatic incident. A sudden and 
 violent bump caused the Pinafore to shake from 
 stem to stern, and woke us all up. Some declared 
 that they heard a voice exclaim, "Hullo, Bill; 
 where are you going to ?" and others vowed they 
 heard a great rattling at what we called our 
 " front door." Adam was loudly called, and he 
 and his mistress, in rather hasty toilets, care- 
 fully examined every corner, but all was safe. 
 Then we looked out, in case there had been an 
 accident ; but nothing could be seen. The river 
 flowed on, lonely, dark, and still. I entered the 
 cabin, where five maidens all in white stood to- 
 gether in a group not unlike the daughters of 
 Niobe, and took their evidence. However, as the 
 mystery, whatever it was, could not be solved, we 
 
IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 235 
 
 all went to bed ; and Adam having, with his usual 
 faithfulness, poked into every place that a thief 
 or even a fly could enter, made the brief remark, 
 "Pirates!" and retired again to his table. 
 
 The only result of this remarkable occurrence 
 was that about eight next morning, finding a sol- 
 emn silence instead of the usual tremendous chat- 
 ter, I went in to look at my girls, and found them 
 all five lying fast asleep, " like tops." As it was 
 a pelting wet morning, with the wind blowing 
 after a fashion which required all one's imagina- 
 tion to make believe that our dwelling was "quite 
 steady," this breaking of my Mede and Persian 
 rule of an eight-o'clock breakfast was less impor- 
 tant; but I said, remorselessly, "This must never 
 happen again." Nor did it. 
 
 Their laziness lost my girls the great excite- 
 ment of the day. A sudden outcry from Adam 
 of " The boat ! the boat !" revealed the alarming 
 sight of our little JBib, which had got unmoored, 
 drifting away calmly at her own sweet will down- 
 stream. There we were! Fora moment Adam 
 looked as if he meant to swim after her; then 
 he changed his mind and hallooed with all his 
 
236 IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 
 
 strength. Female voices joined the chorus. At 
 first we were in despair, for at that hour and on 
 such a wet morning there was not a soul to bo 
 seen at the hotel garden or ferry, whither the 
 pretty Sib was floating, just as if she had gone of 
 her own accord to fetch the letters. A last ago- 
 nized shout we made, and then we saw a man 
 push out, evidently thinking somebody was drown- 
 ing. He caught the position, and the boat, which 
 in another minute or two would have drifted 
 past, and brought her back to us in triumph. 
 
 After this we settled down, thankful that things 
 were no worse, in spite of a dreary down-pour 
 and a wind that rattled every door and window 
 of our frail dwelling. The girls' countenances 
 fell. "What in the world shall we do ?" 
 
 Now, though the happiest days of my life are 
 spent among young people, I have always found 
 that a certain amount of law and order is as good 
 for them as for myself, else we get "demoral- 
 ized." So, instead of hanging about and moan- 
 ing, wondering when it would clear up, and if it 
 didn't clear up what would become of us, I set 
 everybody to doing something. 
 
IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 237 
 
 Two of the girls cleaned the bedrooms, and ex- 
 ulted over the " dust " they swept away, another 
 wrote home letters, and a fourth gave us delight- 
 ful music on the harmonium. The artist had, of 
 course, her own proper work, sitting in the shelter 
 of the kitchen doorway. And when about eleven 
 the sky cleared, and it grew into a lovely July 
 day, breezy and bright, with white clouds careering 
 about, we felt we had well earned our happiness. 
 
 Still, it was too stormy to row much ; so we ex- 
 plored the shore on either side first, the abbey, 
 beside which was the hotel and its garden, and 
 also a farm-yard, with haystacks almost touching 
 the ancient ruins which date from the time of 
 King John. 
 
 Then, after the important interval of tea, came 
 a long walk on the opposite bank. There, pro- 
 tected from the wind by three umbrellas, the party 
 sat admiring the view, and themselves making a 
 picture, in which our artist has here immortalized 
 them. And lastly, as if to reward our cheerful 
 patience, the wind sank, and in the clear west, in 
 the midst of a brilliant after-sunset light, sat the 
 crescent moon. 
 
238 
 
 IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 
 
 -22, 
 
 "ADMIRING THE VIEW." 
 
 "We must go out again and have another 
 row!" and so we had, until twilight melted into 
 dark. 
 
 By eight o'clock on the third morning the 
 house-boat was as noisy as a magpie's nest. We 
 had arranged for a long expedition with a boat- 
 man who knew each lock, weir, lasher, every dan- 
 ger on the river, and leaving to him all the care 
 of the voyage, we determined to enjoy ourselves 
 solely. But before then I must needs arrange 
 something much sadder our going home. 
 
 There was a general moan : " Must we go 
 home? Only from Monday to Saturday the 
 inside of a week ! And we should have liked to 
 stay here a whole month !" 
 
IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 239 
 
 Vainly I represented that even had the be- 
 nevolent owner allowed it and he could not, 
 for there was another party of his friends wait- 
 ing to come in whenever we went out our affec- 
 tionate families could not possibly spare us after 
 Saturday. 
 
 But I stretched the time to the very longest 
 limit, and then, according to my habit, was mild- 
 ly firm. " When mother says No," observed one 
 who ought to know it, " there is an end of the 
 matter." So there was. 
 
 Our morning row was delightful, but brief, 
 since the four girls and the boat had to sit for 
 their portraits, as they appear on the following 
 page, the young artist having afterward drawn 
 herself (from memory) sitting in the bow. But 
 we had scarcely reached home when there came 
 the most awful down-pour. 
 
 I had warned them of this, having read in the 
 Times that a " depression " was travelling over 
 from America all our "depressions" do come 
 from America but of course they did not be- 
 lieve it. Even now, though the sky was a leaden 
 gray, and the river too, bubbling all over with the 
 
240 IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 
 
 sheets of rain which pelted on our flat roof, and 
 our " front garden '- and " back garden " (as we 
 called the two ends of the barge, using one as a 
 scullery, the other as a drawing-room) were soak- 
 ing with wet, my five girls would hardly believe 
 in their hard lot. 
 
 " It must clear ; it will clear," persisted they. 
 But it did not for six mortal hours. We soon 
 ceased to lament, and rejoiced that we were safe 
 under cover. We made the best of the after- 
 noon ; we read, we drew, we played games. Then 
 we took to music, did, or tried to do, some catches 
 and rounds ; finally our eldest gave us Mendels- 
 sohn on the little harmonium, and our youngest, 
 in her clear, fresh, pathetic voice, sang us Schu- 
 bert's songs from " Wilhelm Meister," until a boat- 
 load of soaked, white -jacketed youths were seen 
 to stop under the opposite bank listening to the 
 Lurlei-like strain. (N. B. I hope it did not 
 cause their deaths from rheumatic fever.) 
 
 But the worst times come to an end, if you only 
 wait long enough, and by seven P.M. we looked 
 out on a cloudless sky and a shining river. Ere 
 we started for another sunset row Adam said, 
 
IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 243 
 
 briefly, " There's fish for supper, ma'am." He 
 too had utilized the wet day, and there were a 
 dozen small dace, caught by some fishing-tackle 
 he had borrowed, swimming in a bucket, alike 
 indifferent to the hook they had swallowed and 
 the prospect of being speedily fried. But Adam's 
 pride in his fishing exploit was a little lessened 
 an hour after, when we found him with mingled 
 laughter and anxiety gazing after a majestic 
 swan, which had swallowed the baited hook, and 
 then swam away, carrying rod and line after 
 him. It took a long chase to recover both, but 
 they were recovered ; and so, we concluded, was 
 the swan, for he reappeared shortly after as if 
 nothing had ever happened to him, and ate the 
 food we threw out to him with his usual dignity 
 and grace. 
 
 The last day had now come at least, our last 
 whole day Friday. We resolved to make the 
 most of it, going up the river in the forenoon, 
 and down the river in the afternoon, taking with 
 us a frugal meal of bread - and - butter, milk, and 
 cherries, also the towing-rope, in case rowing up- 
 stream should be too difficult and too long a busi- 
 
244 
 
 IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 
 
 ON THE TOW-PATH. 
 
 ness. There is a towing-path all the way along 
 the Thames, at one side or other, and we used 
 often to see a young man or even a girl, or some- 
 times both amiably harnessed together, pulling 
 along a whole boatful of people with the greatest 
 ease. We thought the towing, if necessary, would 
 be great fun for the after-dinner row. 
 
 Our morning row was rather a failure ; it was 
 too " genteel." The river flowed between civil- 
 ized shores, dotted with splendid villas. Its banks 
 were elegantly boarded in for promenades; its 
 very boat-houses were palatial residences. No 
 osiers, rushes, and lovely water-plants ; the very 
 water-lilies looked " cultivated." We agreed that 
 our own bit of river was much the best, and that 
 
IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 245 
 
 not a single house-boat we passed half a dozen 
 at least was half so pretty or commodious as our 
 Pinafore. Content and hungry, we came back 
 to it, determined to eat our dinner in ten min- 
 utes, and be off again. But fate forbade. 
 
 "Listen! that's surely thunder. And how 
 black the river looks ! It's bubbling, too, all 
 over. Hark !" 
 
 Crash ! crash ! and down came the rain, regu- 
 lar thunder rain, continuing without a moment's 
 pause for three hours. Drenched boat-loads of 
 unlucky pleasure -seekers kept passing our win- 
 dows, struggling for the hospitable inn opposite. 
 Is there any satisfaction in watching the mis 
 fortunes of our neighbors? Was it the weakness 
 or meanness of our human nature which made us 
 congratulate ourselves that the rain had come on 
 exactly when it did, and so found us under safe 
 shelter, watching mildly these poor, half-drowned 
 creatures, instead of being in the same plight our- 
 selves ? 
 
 "Still, yesterday evening was lovely; to-night 
 may be the same," said the girls, determined to 
 keep up their spirits. And when at last the rain 
 
246 IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 
 
 did actually cease, and a bit of blue sky appeared, 
 "enough to make a cat a jacket," they set to 
 work, bailing out and drying the boat, protesting 
 the while that this soppy and quite unnecessary 
 occupation was " delightful." 
 
 Fortune favors the brave. It was seven o'clock 
 before we were able to start, but that last row 
 was the loveliest we had on the Thames. Such a 
 sunset ! Such views of osier beds, and islands of 
 tall rushes, and masses of woodland, and smooth 
 green parks with century -old trees, and noisy 
 weirs, and dark, silent locks ! We had grown fear- 
 less or desperate, and determined to go through 
 two locks. Some of us, I think, would have gone 
 on to London, drifting contentedly down the 
 stream ; but motherly wisdom saw the sun fast 
 dropping and the twilight darkening, and insisted 
 on turning homeward, and was obeyed. 
 
 Only once, when the crimson sunset, reflected 
 in the river from behind a fringe of low trees, 
 made a picture too lovely to resist, our artist im- 
 plored to be " dropped," as was her habit. This 
 being impossible at that hour, we compromised 
 by "lying to" near the bank while she painted, 
 
IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 
 
 or tried to paint, in the dim light. We sang a 
 quantity of old songs duets and glees. In the 
 pauses the corncrake put in his note from the 
 shore, and one or two other birds wakened up 
 with a sleepy chirp ; then all sank into silence, 
 and there was only the quiet river arid quiet sky, 
 up which the crescent moon was sailing brighter 
 and brighter. I think, however long my girls 
 may live, and whatever may happen to them, they 
 will never forget that night. 
 
 It was almost night, and brilliant moonlight, 
 when we reached our " 'appy 'ome." Our con- 
 sciences were not quite easy, for we had Adam's 
 little daughter on board with us, and we found 
 him anxiously watching for us. 
 
 "Did you think anything had happened that 
 we were all drowned ?" 
 
 " Yes, ma'am, I did," said he, briefly. Poor 
 Adam! Shut up in his floating prison, he had 
 evidently not spent the happiest of half -hours. 
 But he forgave us, and we at least had been 
 happy and it was our last night. 
 
 About eleven or so, when the magpie's nest 
 was all quiet, chancing to look out I saw the 
 
248 IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 
 
 loveliest moon-set. The large, bright crescent 
 close upon the horizon shone in a cloudless west- 
 ern sky, and was reflected in the river, with a 
 gulf of darkness between. After watching it for 
 several minutes, determined to see the last of it, 
 I went back into my cabin and took up a book 
 some sketches by Miss Thackeray. One on 
 " Friendship" interested and touched me so much 
 that I read on to the end, then started up and 
 rushed to the window. It was too late my 
 moon had set ! Only a faint circle of light in 
 the sky, and another, fainter still, on the river, 
 showed where she had been. 
 
 I went back to bed a little sad at heart and 
 vexed with myself for having missed the lovely 
 sight by about a minute, after having sat up on 
 purpose to watch it. Too late too late ! Why 
 cannot we always do, not only the right thing, 
 but at the right time ? 
 
 My girls had apparently discovered this secret. 
 Long before ever I was stirring, though old birds 
 are usually early birds, I heard a great clatter and 
 chatter in the parlor, or saloon. It was our two 
 "little ones," broom in hand, with their dresses 
 
IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 249 
 
 tucked up apron fashion, cleaning and sweeping, 
 throwing down tea -leaves, taking up rugs, dust- 
 ing tables and chairs, washing china in short, 
 fairly turning the house (or house -boat) out of 
 windows. The delighted laughter with which 
 they watched the dust and ddbris sail down the 
 river, a sort of floating island of rubbish 3 was 
 quite infectious. 
 
 " No, no ; we can't eat any breakfast until we 
 have done our work. We are determined to 
 leave the parlor as neat and beautiful as wo 
 found it," which noble sentiment I thoroughly 
 shared. 
 
 After breakfast there were the cabins to put 
 in order, and all the packing to be done. It 
 was eleven before we felt free to enjoy our- 
 selves ; and then the sky looked so threatening 
 that I protested against the long expedition that 
 was being planned. Suppose it rained in fact, 
 it had rained a little and we all got wet through, 
 and had to start for our long railway journey 
 without any possibility of drying ourselves. So, 
 in deference to the prudent mother, who never 
 
 denied them anything she could help, the good 
 11* 
 
250 IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 
 
 girls cheerfully gave up their pleasure, and we 
 spent a delightful hour or two in paddling about 
 close at home, and gathering water-lilies. 
 
 This last proceeding was not so easy as it 
 looked. Water-lilies have such thick, strong 
 stalks, and grow in such deep water, that in 
 plucking them one is apt to over -balance the 
 boat, especially if fully laden. We had to land 
 half of our crew on an osier -island, while the 
 others floated about, guiding themselves with the 
 boat-hook, and cautiously grasping at the dazzling 
 white blossoms and plate -like leaves which cov- 
 ered the surface of the water for many yards. A 
 risky proceeding it always is, gathering water- 
 lilies ; but oh ! when they were gathered, what 
 a handful nay, armful of beauty and delicate 
 perfume did we carry back ! 
 
 And we got back not a minute too soon. We 
 had scarcely sat down to dinner our last dinner 
 at which we laughed much, perhaps to keep 
 our spirits up, when, flash ! crash ! the storm was 
 upon us. A more fearful thunder-storm I never 
 saw. The river was one boiling sheet of plashing 
 rain, the clouds were black as night ; between 
 
IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 251 
 
 them and the water the forked lightning danced, 
 and once when, after a loud clap of thunder, a 
 column of white smoke burst out from the wood 
 opposite, we felt sure the bolt had fallen. 
 
 For two whole hours the storm raged, and then, 
 just as we were wondering if the carriage would 
 venture to come for us, and how we should ac- 
 complish our seven -mile drive without being 
 drenched to the skin, the rain ceased, the blue 
 sky appeared, and the world looked as the world 
 feels after the thunder-storm in Beethoven's Pas- 
 toral Symphony. 
 
 And so, with contented and thankful hearts, 
 although a little melancholy, and with the very 
 tune of the reapers' " Thanksgiving Song " out 
 of the said Symphony ringing in our ears, we 
 left our house -boat and our beautiful and be- 
 loved river, and went our several ways home. 
 
 "We may never in our lives have such an- 
 other week !" said one of the girls, mournfully, 
 which is very possible. But ought we not to be 
 glad that we ever had it at all ? 
 
 One particular thankfulness I had, and I can- 
 not end without uttering it, as a testimonial to 
 
252 IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 
 
 my five girls, and a bit of tender advice to many 
 others. 
 
 One day we passed a rather pathetic sight : a 
 motherly hen standing on the brink of the river, 
 and chuckling mournfully to a troop of lively 
 young ducklings which were swimming about in 
 utter indifference to her and her evident anxiety. 
 
 " Poor old thing !" said one of the most mis- 
 chievous of my girls, " she is just like ahem !" 
 
 I felt the soft impeachment, and, conscience- 
 smitten, tried to smile. 
 
 " But it really is very hard for the poor creat- 
 ure," gently observed another. " Once we had a 
 lien with a fine brood of ducklings ; they went 
 into the water ; the mother stood awhile watch- 
 ing them in an agony, and then she followed 
 them." 
 
 "And what became of her?" 
 
 " She floated awhile, paddling with her feet, 
 and puffing out her feathers, and then she sank, 
 and was drowned." 
 
 And perhaps if my girls had not every one of 
 them, however lively and daring by nature, been 
 thoughtful, cautious, considerate, using that com- 
 
IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 253 
 
 mon-sense prudence which is the truest unselfish- 
 ness both for themselves and me, I should during 
 our six days in the house-boat have led the life 
 and might finally have died the death of that 
 poor old hen. Instead of which not one of the 
 five was, I think, more truly happy than I. 
 
 THE END. 
 
BEN-HUR: 
 
 A TALE OP THE CHRIST. By LEW. WALLACE. 16mo, 
 Cloth, $150; Half Leather, $200; Three-quarter Leath- 
 er, $2 50 ; Half Calf, $3 00 ; Full Leather, $3 50 ; Three- 
 quarter Crushed Levant, $4 00. GARFIELD EDITION. 
 2 volumes. Illustrated with twenty full-page photo- 
 gravures. Over 1,000 illustrations as marginal draw- 
 ings by WILLIAM MARTIN JOHNSON. Crowii 8vo, Silk 
 and Gold, Uncut Edges and Gilt Tops, $7 00. (7n a 
 Gladstone box.) 
 
 Anything so startling, new, and distinctive as the leading feature of 
 this romance does not often appear in works of fiction. . . . Some of 
 Mr. Wallace's writing is remarkable for its pathetic eloquence. The 
 scenes described in the New Testament are rewritten with the power 
 and skill of an accomplished master of style. jV. Y. Times. 
 
 Its real basis is a description of the life of the Jews and Romans at 
 the beginning of the Christian era, and this is both forcible and brill- 
 iant. . . .We are carried through a surprising variety of scenes; we 
 witness a sea-fight, a chariot-race, the internal economy of a, Roman 
 galley, domestic interiors at Aiitioch, at Jerusalem, and among the 
 tribes of the desert; palaces, prisons, the haunts of dissipated Roman 
 youth, the houses of pious families of Israel. There is plenty of ex- 
 citing incident; everything is animated, vivid, and glowing. X. I". 
 Tribune. 
 
 It is full of poetic beauty, as though born of an Eastern sage, and 
 there is sufficient of Oriental customs, geography, nomenclature, etc., 
 to greatly strengthen the semblance. Boston Commonwealth. 
 
 "Ben-Hur" is interesting, and its characterization is fine and strong. 
 Meanwhile it evinces careful study of the period in which the scene is 
 laid, and will help those who read it with reasonable attention to real- 
 ize the nature and conditions of Hebrew life in Jerusalem and Ro- 
 man life at Aiuioch at the time of our Saviour's advent. Examiner, 
 N.Y. 
 
 The book is one of unquestionable power, and will be read with un- 
 wonted interest by many readers who are weary of the conventional 
 novel and romance. Boston Journal. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. 
 
 46^ The above work sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the 
 United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price. 
 
BY MARY E. WILKINS. 
 
 A NEW ENGLAND NUN, and Other Stories. 16mo, 
 Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25. 
 
 A HUMBLE ROMANCE, and Other Stories. 16mo, 
 Cloth, Extra, $1 25. 
 
 Only an artistic hand could have written these stories, and they will 
 make delightful reading. Evangelist, N. Y. 
 
 Tho simplicity, purity, and quaintness of these stories set them apart 
 in a niche of distinction where they have no rivals. Literary World, 
 Boston. 
 
 The reader who buys this book and reads it will find treble his money's 
 worth in every one of the delightful stories. Chicago Journal. 
 
 Miss Wilkins is a writer who has a gift for the rare art of creating the 
 short story which shall be a character study and a bit of graphic picturing 
 in one ; and all who enjoy the bright and fascinating short story will wel- 
 come this volume. Boston Traveller. 
 
 The author has the unusual gift of writing a short story which is com- 
 plete in itself, having a real beginning, a middle, and an end. The volume 
 is an excellent one. Observer, N. Y. 
 
 A gallery of striking studies in the humblest quarters of American 
 country life. No one has dealt with this kind of life better than Miss 
 Wilkins. Nowhere are there to be found such faithful, delicately drawn, 
 sympathetic, tenderly humorous pictures. N. Y. Tribune. 
 
 The charm of Miss Wilkins's stories is in her intimate acquaintance 
 and comprehension of humble life, and the sweet human interest she 
 feels and makes her readers partake of, In the simple, common, homely 
 people she draws. Springfield Republican. 
 
 There is no attempt at fine writing or structural effect, but the tender 
 treatment of the sympathies, emotions, and passions of no very extraor- 
 dinary people gives to these little stories a pathos and human feeling quite 
 their own. N. Y. Commercial Advertiser. 
 
 The author has given us studies from real life which must be the result 
 of a lifetime of patient, sympathetic observation. ... No one has done 
 the same kind of work so lovingly and so well. Christian Register, 
 Boston. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. 
 
 JUGS" The above works sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the 
 United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price.