3"
 
 MARJORIE DAW 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 hCbc rirucrsiDc press, Cambridge 
 1894
 
 ?s 
 
 / r\ ^ f " 
 I Jo*-<J 
 
 Copyright, 1873 and 1885, 
 BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH. 
 
 Copyright, 1894, 
 BY HOUGHTOX, MIFFLIN & CO. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Ufass., U. S. A. 
 Klectrotyped and Printed by H. Houghton & Co.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 MARJORIE DAW 7 
 
 Miss MEHETABEL S SON 53 
 
 OUR NEW NEIGHBORS AT PONKAPOG 93 
 
 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY 103 
 
 MADEMOISELLE OLYMPE ZABRISKI 140 
 
 A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 164 
 
 PERE ANTOINE S DATE-PALM 185 
 
 QUITE So 196 
 
 A RIVERMOUTH ROMANCE 221 
 
 THE LITTLE VIOLINIST 273
 
 MARJORIE DAW. 
 
 i. 
 
 DR. DILLON TO EDWARD DELANEY, ESQ., AT THE 
 PINES, NEAR RYE, N. H. 
 
 August 8, 1872. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR : I am happy to assure 
 you tliat your anxiety is without reason. 
 Flemming will be confined to the sofa for 
 three or four weeks, and will have to be 
 careful at first how he uses his leg. A frac 
 ture of this kind is always a tedious affair. 
 Fortunately the bone was very skilfully set 
 by the surgeon who chanced to be in the drug 
 store where Flemming was brought after his 
 fall, and I apprehend no permanent incon 
 venience from the accident. Flemming is 
 doing perfectly well physically ; but I must 
 confess that the irritable and morbid state 
 of mind into which he has fallen causes me 
 a great deal of uneasiness. He is the last 
 man in the world who ought to break his
 
 8 MARJOR1E DAW. 
 
 leg. You know how impetuous our friend 
 is ordinarily, what a soul of restlessness and 
 energy, never content unless he is rushing at 
 some object, like a sportive bull at a red 
 shawl ; but amiable withal. lie is no longer 
 amiable. His temper has become something 
 frightful. Miss Fanny Hemming came up 
 from Newport, where the family are staying 
 for the summer, to nurse him ; but he packed 
 her off the next morning in tears. He has 
 a complete set of Balzac s works, twenty- 
 seven volumes, piled up near his sofa, to 
 throw at Watkins whenever that exemplary 
 serving-man appears with his meals. Yes 
 terday I very innocently brought Flemming 
 a small basket of lemons. You know it was 
 a strip of lemon-peel on the curbstone that 
 caused our friend s mischance. Well, he no 
 sooner set his eyes upon those lemons than 
 he fell into such a rage as I cannot ade 
 quately describe. This is only one of his 
 moods, and the least distressing. At other 
 times he sits with bowed head regarding his 
 splintered limb, silent, sullen, despairing. 
 When this fit is on him and it sometimes 
 lasts all day nothing can distract his mel 
 ancholy. He refuses to eat, does not even 
 read the newspapers ; books, except as pro-
 
 MARJORIE DAW. 9 
 
 jectiles for Watkins, have no charms for 
 him. His state is truly pitiable. 
 
 Now, if he were a poor man, with a 
 family depending on his daily labor, this 
 irritability and despondency would be nat 
 ural enough. But in a young fellow of 
 twenty-four, with plenty of money and seem 
 ingly not a care in the world, the thing is 
 monstrous. If he continues to give way to 
 his vagaries in this manner, he will end by 
 bringing on an inflammation of the fibula. 
 It was the fibula he broke. I am at my 
 wits end to know what to prescribe for him. 
 I have anaesthetics and lotions, to make peo 
 ple sleep and to soothe pain ; but I ve no 
 medicine that will make a man have a little 
 common-sense. That is beyond my skill, 
 but maybe it is not beyond yours. You 
 are Flemming s intimate friend, his jidus 
 Achates. Write to him, write to him fre- 
 quently, distract his mind, cheer him up, 
 and prevent him from becoming a confirmed 
 case of melancholia. Perhaps he has some 
 important plans disarranged by his present 
 confinement. If he has you will know, and 
 will know how to advise him judiciously. I 
 trust your father finds the change beneficial ? 
 I am, my dear sir, with great respect, etc.
 
 10 MARJORIE DAW. 
 
 II. 
 
 EDWARD DELANEY TO JOHN FLEMMING, WEST 
 38TH STREET, NEW YORK. 
 
 August 9, 1872. 
 
 MY DEAR JACK : I had a line from Dil 
 lon this morning, and was rejoiced to learn 
 that your hurt is not so bad as reported. 
 Like a certain personage, you are not so 
 black and blue as you are painted. Dillon 
 will put you on your pins again in two or 
 three weeks, if you will only have patience 
 and follow his counsels. Did you get my 
 note of last Wednesday ? I was greatly 
 troubled when I heard of the accident. 
 
 I can imagine how tranquil and saintly 
 you are with your leg in a trough ! It is 
 deuced awkward, to be sure, just as we had 
 promised ourselves a glorious month to 
 gether at the sea-side ; but we must make 
 the best of it. It is unfortunate, too, that 
 my father s health renders it impossible for 
 me to leave him. I think he has much im 
 proved ; the sea air is his native element ;
 
 MARJORIE DAW. 11 
 
 but he still " needs my arm to lean upon in 
 his walks, and requires some one more care 
 ful than a servant to look after him. I 
 cannot come to you, dear Jack, but I have 
 hours of unemployed time on hand, and I 
 will write you a whole post-office full of let 
 ters, if that will divert you. Heaven knows, 
 I have n t anything to write about. It is n t 
 as if we were living at one of the beach 
 houses ; then I could do you some charac 
 ter studies, and fill your imagination with 
 groups of sea-goddesses, with their (or 
 somebody else s) raven and blonde manes 
 hanging down their shoulders. You should 
 have Aphrodite in morning wrapper, in 
 evening costume, and in her prettiest bath 
 ing suit. But we are far from all that here. 
 We have rooms in a farm-house, on a cross 
 road, two miles from the hotels, and lead 
 the quietest of lives. 
 
 I wish I were a novelist. This old house, 
 with its sanded floors and high wainscots, 
 and its narrow windows looking out upon a 
 cluster of pines that turn themselves into 
 seolian harps every time the wind blows, 
 would be the place in which to write a sum 
 mer romance. It should be a story with 
 the odors of the forest and the breath of
 
 12 MARJOR1E DAW. 
 
 the sea in it. It should be a novel like one 
 of that Russian fellow s what s his name ? 
 Tourguenieff, Turguenef , Turgenif , Toor- 
 guniff, Turgenjew nobody knows how to 
 spell him. Yet I wonder if even a Liza 
 or an Alexandra Paulovna could stir the 
 heart of a man who has constant twinges in 
 his leg. I wonder if one of our own Yan 
 kee girls of the best type, haughty and 
 spirituelle, would be of any comfort to you 
 in your present deplorable condition. If 
 I thought so, I would hasten down to the 
 Surf House and catch one for you ; or, bet 
 ter still, I would find you one over the way. 
 Picture to yourself a large white house just 
 across the road, nearly opposite our cottage. 
 It is not a house, but a mansion, built, per 
 haps, in the colonial period, with rambling 
 extensions, and gambrel roof, and a wide 
 piazza on three sides a self-possessed, 
 high-bred piece of architecture, with its 
 nose in the air. It stands back from the 
 road, and has an obsequious retinue of 
 fringed elms and oaks and weeping willows. 
 Sometimes in the morning, and oftener in 
 the afternoon, when the sun has withdrawn 
 from that part of the mansion, a young 
 woman appears on the piazza with some
 
 MARJORIE DAW. 13 
 
 mysterious Penelope web of embroidery in 
 her hand, or a book. There is a hammock 
 over there of pineapple fibre, it looks 
 from here. A hammock is very becoming 
 when one is eighteen, and has golden hair, 
 and dark eyes, and an emerald-colored illu 
 sion dress looped up after the fashion of a 
 Dresden china shepherdess, and is chaussee 
 like a belle of the time of Louis Quatorze, 
 All this splendor goes into that hammock, 
 and sways there like a pond-lily in the 
 golden afternoon. The window of my bed 
 room looks down 011 that piazza and so 
 do I. 
 
 But enough of this nonsense, which ill 
 becomes a sedate young attorney taking his 
 vacation with an invalid father. Drop me 
 a line, dear Jack, and tell me how you really 
 are. State your case. Write me a long, 
 quiet letter. If you are violent or abusive, 
 I 11 take the law to you.
 
 14 MARJORIE DAW. 
 
 III. 
 
 JOHN FLEMMIXG TO EDWARD DELAXEY. 
 
 August 11, 1872. 
 
 YOUR letter, dear Ned, was a godsend. 
 Fancy what a fix I am in I, who never 
 had a day s sickness since I was born. My 
 left leg 1 weighs three tons. It > embalmed 
 in spices and smothered in layers of fine 
 linen, like a mummy. I can t move. I 
 have n t moved for five thousand years. I m 
 of the time of Pharaoh. 
 
 I lie from morning till night on a lounge, 
 staring into the hot street. Everybody is 
 out of town enjoying himself. The brown- 
 stone-front houses across the street resemble 
 a row of particularly ugly coffins set up on 
 end. A green mould is settling on the names 
 of the deceased, carved on the silver door- 
 plates. Sardonic spiders have sewed up the 
 key-holes. All is silence and dust and deso 
 lation. I interrupt this a moment, to take 
 a shy at Watkins with the second volume of 
 Cdsar Birotteau. Missed him ! I think I
 
 MARJORIE DAW. 15 
 
 could bring him down with a copy of Sainte- 
 Beuve or the Dictionnaire Universe!, if I 
 had it. These small Balzac books somehow 
 do not quite fit my hand ; but I shall fetch 
 him yet. I ve an idea that Watkins is tap 
 ping the old gentleman s Chateau Yquem. 
 Duplicate key of the wine-cellar. Hibernian 
 swarries in the front basement. Young 
 Cheops up stairs, snug in his cerements. 
 Watkins glides into my chamber, with that 
 colorless, hypocritical face of his drawn out 
 long like an accordion ; but I know he grins 
 all the way down stairs, and is glad I have 
 broken my leg. Was not my evil star in 
 the very zenith when I ran up to town to at 
 tend that dinner at Delmonico s ? I did n t 
 come up altogether for that. It was partly 
 to buy Frank Livingstone s roan mare Mar- 
 got. And now I shall not be able to sit in 
 the saddle these two months. I 11 send the 
 mare down to you at The Pines is that 
 the name of the place ? 
 
 Old Dillon fancies that I have something 
 on my mind. He drives me wild with lem 
 ons. Lemons for a mind diseased ! Non 
 sense. I am only as restless as the devil 
 under this confinement a thing I m not 
 used to. Take a man who has never had
 
 16 MARJORIE DAW. 
 
 so much as a headache or a toothache in 
 his life, strap one of his legs in a section of 
 water-spout, keep him in a room in the city 
 for weeks, with the hot weather turned on, 
 and then expect him to smile and purr and 
 be happy ! It is preposterous. I can t be 
 cheerful or calm. 
 
 Your letter is the first consoling thing I 
 have had since my disaster, ten days ago. 
 It really cheered me up for half an hour. 
 Send me a screed, Ned, as often as you can, 
 if you love me. Anything will do. AVrite 
 me more about that little girl in the ham 
 mock. That was very pretty, all that about 
 the Dresden china shepherdess and the pond- 
 lily ; the imagery a little mixed, perhaps, 
 but very pretty. I did n t suppose you had 
 so much sentimental furniture in your upper 
 story. It shows how one may be familiar 
 for years with the reception-room of his 
 neighbor, and never suspect what is directly 
 under his mansard. I supposed your loft 
 stuffed with dry legal parchments, mortgages, 
 and affidavits ; you take down a package of 
 manuscript, and lo ! there are lyrics and 
 sonnets and canzonettas. You really have a 
 graphic descriptive touch, Edward Delaney, 
 and I suspect you of anonymous love-tales in 
 the magazines.
 
 MARJORIE DAW. 17 
 
 I shall be a bear until I hear from you 
 again. Tell me all about your pretty incon- 
 nue across the road. What is her name ? 
 Who is she ? Who s her father ? Where s 
 her mother ? Who s her lover ? You can 
 not imagine how this will occupy me. The 
 more trifling, the better. My imprisonment 
 has weakened me intellectually to such a 
 degree that I find your epistolary gifts quite 
 considerable. I am passing into my second 
 childhood. In a week or two I shall take 
 to India-rubber rings and prongs of coral. 
 A silver cup, with an appropriate inscrip 
 tion, would be a delicate attention on your 
 part. In the mean time, write !
 
 18 MARJORIE DAW. 
 
 IV. 
 
 EDWARD DELANEY TO JOHN FLEMMIXG. 
 
 August 12, 18T2. 
 
 THE sick paslia shall be amused. Bis- 
 millah! he wills it so. If the story-teller 
 becomes prolix and tedious the bow-string 
 and the sack, and two Nubians to drop him 
 into the Piscataqua ! But truly, Jack, I have 
 a hard task. There is literally nothing here 
 except the little girl over the way. She 
 is swinging in the hammock at this moment. 
 
 o o 
 
 It is to me compensation for many of the 
 ills of life to see her now and then put out 
 a small kid boot, which fits like a glove, and 
 set herself going. Who is she, and what is 
 her name ? Her name is Daw. Only daugh 
 ter of Mr. Richard W. Daw, ex-colonel and 
 banker. Mother dead. One brother at 
 Harvard, elder brother killed at the battle 
 of Fair Oaks, ten years ago. Old, rich 
 family, the Daws. This is the homestead, 
 where father and daughter pass eight months 
 of the twelve ; the rest of the year in Balti-
 
 MARJORIE DAW. 19 
 
 more and Washington. The New England 
 winter too many for the old gentleman. 
 The daughter is called Marjorie Marjorie 
 Daw. Sounds odd at first, does n t it ? But 
 after you say it over to yourself half a dozen 
 times, you like it. There s a pleasing 
 quaintness to it, something prim and violet- 
 like. Must be a nice sort of girl to be 
 called Marjorie Daw. 
 
 I had mine host of The Pines in the wit 
 ness-box last night, and drew the foregoing 
 testimony from him. He has charge of Mr. 
 Daw s vegetable-garden, and has known the 
 family these thirty years. Of course I shall 
 make the acquaintance of my neighbors be 
 fore many days. It will be next to impos 
 sible for me not to meet Mr. Daw or Miss 
 Daw in some of my walks. The young lady 
 has a favorite path to the sea-beach. I shall 
 intercept her some morning, and touch my 
 hat to her. Then the princess will bend her 
 fair head to me with courteous surprise not 
 unmixed with haughtiness. Will snub me, 
 in fact. All this for thy sake, O Pasha of 
 the Snapt Axle-tree ! . . . How oddly things 
 fall out ! Ten minutes ago I was called 
 down to the parlor you know the kind of 
 parlors in farm-houses on the coast, a sort
 
 20 MARJORIE DAW. 
 
 of amphibious parlor, with sea-shells on the 
 mantel-piece and spruce branches in the 
 chimney-place where I found my father 
 and Mr. Daw doing the antique polite to 
 each other. He had come to pay his re 
 spects to his new neighbors. Mr. Daw is a 
 tall, slim gentleman of about fifty-five, with 
 a florid face and snow-white mustache and 
 side-whiskers. Looks like Mr. Dombey, or 
 as Mr. Dombey would have looked if he 
 had served a few years in the British Army. 
 Mr. Daw was a colonel in the late war, com 
 manding the regiment in which his son was 
 a lieutenant. Plucky old boy, backbone of 
 New Hampshire granite. Before taking his 
 leave, the colonel delivered himself of an 
 invitation as if he were issuing a general 
 order. Miss Daw has a few friends coming, 
 at 4 P. M., to play croquet on the lawn (pa 
 rade-ground) and have tea (cold rations) on 
 the piazza. Will we honor them with our 
 company? (or be sent to the guard-house.) 
 My father declines on the plea of ill-health. 
 My father s son bows with as much suavity 
 as he knows, and accepts. 
 
 In my next I shall have something to tell 
 you. I shall have seen the little beauty face 
 to face. I have a presentiment, Jack, that
 
 MARJORIE DAW. 21 
 
 this Daw is a rara avis 1 Keep up your 
 spirits, my boy, until I write you another 
 letter and send me along word how s 
 your leg.
 
 22 MARJORIE DAW, 
 
 V. 
 
 EDWARD DELAXEY TO JOHX FLEMMFNG. 
 
 August 13, 1872. 
 
 THE party, my dear Jack, was as dreary 
 as possible. A lieutenant of the navy, the 
 rector of the Episcopal Church at Stillwater, 
 and a society swell from Nahant. The lieu 
 tenant looked as if he had swallowed a 
 couple of his buttons, and found the bullion 
 rather indigestible ; the rector was a pensive 
 youth, of the daffydowndilly sort; and the 
 swell from Nahant was a very weak tidal 
 wave indeed. The women were much bet 
 ter, as they always are ; the two Miss Kings- 
 burys of Philadelphia, staying at the Sea- 
 shell House, two bright and engaging girls. 
 But Marjorie Daw ! 
 
 The company broke up soon after tea, and 
 I remained to smoke a cigar with the colonel 
 on the piazza. It was like seeing a pic 
 ture, to see Miss Marjorie hovering around 
 the old soldier, and doing a hundred gra 
 cious little things for him. She brought
 
 MARJORIE DAW. 23 
 
 the cigars and lighted the tapers with her 
 own delicate fingers, in the most enchant 
 ing fashion. As we sat there, she came and 
 went in the summer twilight, and seemed, 
 with her white dress and pale gold hair, like 
 some lovely phantom that had sprung into 
 existence out of the smoke-wreaths. If she 
 had melted into air, like the statue of Gala 
 tea in the play, I should have been more 
 sorry than surprised. 
 
 It was easy to perceive that the old colo 
 nel worshipped her, and she him. I think 
 the relation between an elderly father and a 
 daughter just blooming into womanhood the 
 most beautiful possible. There is in it a sub 
 tile sentiment that cannot exist in the case 
 of mother and daughter, or that of son and 
 mother. But this is getting into deep water. 
 
 I sat with the Daws until half past ten, 
 and saw the moon rise on the sea. The 
 ocean, that had stretched motionless and 
 black against the horizon, was changed by 
 magic into a broken field of glittering ice, 
 interspersed with marvellous silvery fjords. 
 In the far distance the Isles of Shoals loomed 
 up like a group of huge bergs drifting down 
 on us. The Polar Regions in a June thaw ! 
 It was exceedingly fine. What did we talk
 
 24 MARJORIE DAW. 
 
 about? We talked about the weather 
 and you ! The weather has been di^greea- 
 ble for several days past and so have you. 
 I glided from one topic to the other very 
 naturally. I told my friends of your acci 
 dent ; how it had frustrated all our summer 
 plans, and what our plans were. I played 
 quite a spirited solo on the fibula. Then I 
 described you ; or, rather, I did n t. I spoke 
 of your amiability, of your patience under 
 this severe affliction ; of your touching grat 
 itude when Dillon brings you little presents 
 of fruit ; of your tenderness to your sister 
 Fanny, whom you would not allow to stay in 
 town to nurse you, and how you heroically 
 sent her back to Newport, preferring to re 
 main alone with Mary, the cook, and your 
 man Watkins, to whom, by the way, you 
 were devotedly attached. If you had been 
 there, Jack, you would n t have known your 
 self. I should have excelled as a criminal 
 lawyer, if I had not turned my attention to 
 a different branch of jurisprudence. 
 
 Miss Marjorie asked all manner of lead 
 ing questions concerning you. It did not 
 occur to me then, but it struck me forcibly 
 afterwards, that she evinced a singular inter 
 est in the conversation. When I got back
 
 MARJORIE DAW. 25 
 
 to my room, I recalled how eagerly she 
 leaned forward, with her full, snowy throat 
 in strong moonlight, listening to what I said. 
 Positively, I think I made her like you ! 
 
 Miss Daw is a girl whom you would like 
 immensely, I can tell you that. A beauty 
 without affectation, a high and tender na 
 ture if one can read the soul in the face. 
 And the old colonel is a noble character, 
 too. 
 
 I am glad that the Daws are such pleasant 
 people. The Pines is an isolated spot, and 
 my resources are few. I fear I should have 
 found life here somewhat monotonous before 
 long, with no other society than that of my 
 excellent sire. It is true, I mi^ht have 
 
 O 
 
 made a target of the defenceless invalid; 
 but I have n t a taste for artillery, moi.
 
 26 MARJORIE DAW. 
 
 VI. 
 
 JOHN FLEMMING TO EDWARD DELANEY. 
 
 August 17, 1872. 
 
 FOR a man who has n t a taste for artil 
 lery, it occurs to me, my friend, you are 
 keeping up a pretty lively fire on my inner 
 works. But go on. Cynicism is a small 
 brass field-piece that eventually bursts and 
 kills the artilleryman. 
 
 You may abuse me as much as you like, 
 and I 11 not complain } for I don t know 
 what I should do without your letters. They 
 are curing me. I have n t hurled anything 
 at Watkins since last Sunday, partly be 
 cause I have grown more amiable under 
 your teaching, and partly because Watkins 
 captured my ammunition one night, and 
 carried it off to the library. He is rapidly 
 losing the habit he had acquired of dodg 
 ing whenever I rub my ear, or make any 
 slight motion with my right arm. He is 
 still suggestive of the wine-cellar, however. 
 You may break, you may shatter Watkins,
 
 MARJOR1E DAW. 27 
 
 if you will, but the scent of the Roederer 
 will hang round him still. 
 
 Ned, that Miss Daw must be a charming 
 person. I should certainly like her. I like 
 her already. When you spoke in your first 
 letter of seeing a young girl swinging in 
 a hammock under your chamber window, 
 I was somehow strangely drawn to her. I 
 cannot account for it in the least. What 
 you have subsequently written of Miss Daw 
 has strengthened the impression. You seem 
 to be describing a woman I have known in 
 some previous state of existence, or dreamed 
 of in this. Upon my word, if you were to 
 send me her photograph, I believe I should 
 recognize her at a glance. Her manner, 
 that listening attitude, her traits of charac 
 ter, as you indicate them, the light hair and 
 the dark eyes they are all familiar things 
 to me. Asked a lot of questions, did she ? 
 Curious about me ? That is strange. 
 
 You would laugh in your sleeve, you 
 wretched old cynic, if you knew how I lie 
 awake nights, with my gas turned down to 
 a star, thinking of The Pines and the house 
 across the road. How cool it must be down 
 there ! I long for the salt smell in the air. 
 I picture the colonel smoking his cheroot
 
 28 MARJORIE DAW. 
 
 on the piazza. I send you and Miss Daw 
 off on afternoon rambles along the beach. 
 Sometimes I let you stroll with her under 
 the elms in the moonlight, for you are great 
 friends by this time, I take it, and see each 
 other every day. I know your ways and 
 your manners ! Then I fall into a truculent 
 mood, and would like to destroy somebody. 
 Have you noticed anything in the shape of 
 a lover hanging around the colonial Lares 
 and Penates ? Does that lieutenant of the 
 horse-marines or that young Stillwater par 
 son visit the house much ? Not that I am 
 pining for news of them, but any gossip of 
 the kind would be in order. I wonder, Ned, 
 you don t fall in love with Miss Daw. I am 
 ripe to do it myself. Speaking of photo 
 graphs, could n t you manage to slip one of 
 her. cartes-de-visite from her album she 
 must have an album, you know and send 
 it to me ? I will return it before it could 
 be missed. That s a good fellow ! Did the 
 mare arrive safe and sound ? It will be 
 a capital animal this autumn for Central 
 Park. 
 
 Oh my leg ? I forgot about my leg. 
 It s better.
 
 MARJORIE DAW. 29 
 
 VII. 
 
 EDWARD DELANEY TO JOHX FLEMMING. 
 
 August 20, 1872. 
 
 You are correct in your surmises. I am 
 on the most friendly terms with our neigh 
 bors. The colonel and my father smoke 
 their afternoon cigar together in our sitting- 
 room or on the piazza opposite, and I pass 
 an hour or two of the day or the evening 
 with the daughter. I am more and more 
 struck by the beauty, modesty, and intel 
 ligence of Miss Daw. 
 
 You ask me why I do not fall in love 
 with her. I will be frank, Jack : I have 
 thought of that. She is young, rich, ac 
 complished, uniting in herself more attrac 
 tions, mental and personal, than I can recall 
 in any girl of my acquaintance ; but she 
 lacks the something that would be necessary 
 to inspire in me that kind of interest. Pos 
 sessing this unknown quantity, a woman 
 neither beautiful nor wealthy nor very young 
 could bring me to her feet. But not Miss
 
 30 MARJORIE DAW. 
 
 Daw. If we were shipwrecked together on 
 an uninhabited island let me suggest a 
 tropical island, for it costs no more to be 
 picturesque I would build her a bamboo 
 hut, I would fetch her bread-fruit and cocoa- 
 nuts, I would fry yams for her, I would lure 
 the ingenuous turtle and make her nourish 
 ing soups, but I would n t make love to her 
 not under eighteen months. I would like 
 to have her for a sister, that I might shield 
 her and counsel her, and spend half my 
 income on old thread-lace and camel s-hair 
 shawls. (We are off the island now.) If 
 such were not my feeling, there would still 
 be an obstacle to my loving Miss Daw. A 
 greater misfortune could scarcely befall me 
 than to love her. Hemming, I am about to 
 make a revelation that will astonish you. I 
 may be all wrong in my premises and con 
 sequently in my conclusions ; but you shall 
 judge. 
 
 That night when I returned to my room 
 after the croquet party at the Daws , and 
 was thinking over the trivial events of the 
 evening, I was suddenly impressed by the 
 air of eager attention with which Miss Daw 
 had followed my account of your accident. 
 I think I mentioned this to you. Well, the
 
 MARJORIE DAW. 31 
 
 next morning, as I went to mail my letter, 
 I overtook Miss Daw on the road to Rye, 
 where the post-office is, and accompanied 
 her thither and back, an hour s walk. The 
 conversation again turned on you, and again 
 I remarked that inexplicable look of interest 
 which had lighted up her face the previous 
 evening:. Since then, I have seen Miss Daw 
 
 O 
 
 perhaps ten times, perhaps oftener, and on 
 each occasion I found that when I was not 
 speaking of you, or your sister, or some per 
 son or place associated with you, I was not 
 holding her attention. She would be absent- 
 minded, her eyes would wander away from 
 me to the sea, or to some distant object in 
 the landscape ; her fingers would play with 
 the leaves of a book in a way that convinced 
 me she was not listening. At these mo 
 ments if I abruptly changed the theme I 
 did it several times as an experiment and 
 dropped some remark about my friend Flem- 
 ming, then the sombre blue eyes would come 
 back to me instantly. 
 
 Now, is not this the oddest thing in the 
 world ? No, not the oddest. The effect 
 which you tell me was produced on you by 
 my casual mention of an unknown girl 
 swinging in a hammock is certainly as
 
 32 MARJORIE DAW. 
 
 strange. You can conjecture how that pas 
 sage in your letter of Friday startled me. 
 Is it possible, then, that two people who 
 have never met, and who are hundreds of 
 miles apart, can exert a magnetic influence 
 on each other ? I have . read of such psycho 
 logical phenomena, but never credited them. 
 I leave the solution of the problem to you. 
 As for myself, all other things being favor 
 able, it would be impossible for me to fall in 
 love with a woman who listens to me only 
 when I am talking of my friend ! 
 
 I am not aware that any one is paying 
 marked attention to my fair neighbor. The 
 lieutenant of the navy he is stationed at 
 Rivermouth sometimes drops in of an 
 evening, and sometimes the rector from 
 Stillwater ; the lieutenant the oftener. He 
 was there last night. I should not be sur 
 prised if he had an eye to the heiress ; but 
 he is not formidable. Mistress Daw carries 
 a neat little spear of irony, and the honest 
 lieutenant seems to have a particular facility 
 for impaling himself on the point of it. He 
 is not dangerous, I should say ; though 1 
 have known a woman to satirize a man for 
 years, and marry him after all. Decidedly, 
 the lowly rector is not dangerous ; yet, again,
 
 MAEJORIE DAW. 33 
 
 who has not seen Cloth of Frieze victorious 
 in the lists where Cloth of Gold went down ? 
 
 As to the photograph. There is an ex 
 quisite ivorytype of Marjorie, in passe-par 
 tout, on the drawing-room mantel-piece. It 
 would be missed at once if taken. I would 
 do anything reasonable for you, Jack ; but 
 I ve no burning desire to be hauled up be 
 fore the local justice of the peace, on a 
 charge of petty larceny. 
 
 P. S. Enclosed is a spray of mignonette, 
 which I advise you to treat tenderly. Yes, 
 we talked of you again last night, as usual. 
 It is becoming a little dreary for me.
 
 34: MARJORIE DAW. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 EDWARD DELANEY TO JOHN FLEMMING. 
 
 August 22, 1872. 
 
 YOUR letter in reply to my last has occu 
 pied my thoughts all the morning. I do not 
 know what to think. Do you mean to say 
 that you are seriously half in love with a 
 woman whom you have never seen with a 
 shadow, a chimera ? for what else can Miss 
 Daw be to you? I do not understand it at 
 all. I understand neither you nor her. 
 You are a couple of ethereal beings moving 
 in finer air than I can breathe with my com 
 monplace lungs. Such delicacy of senti 
 ment is something that I admire without 
 comprehending. I am bewildered. I am 
 of the earth earthy, and I find myself in the 
 incongruous position of having to do with 
 mere souls, with natures so finely tempered 
 that I run some risk of shattering them in 
 my awkwardness. I am as Caliban among 
 the spirits ! 
 
 Reflecting on your letter, I am not sure
 
 MARJORIE DAW. 35 
 
 that it is wise in me to continue this cor 
 respondence. But no, Jack ; I do wrong to 
 doubt the good sense that forms the basis of 
 your character. You are deeply interested 
 in Miss Daw ; you feel that she is a person 
 whom you may perhaps greatly admire when 
 you know her : at the same time you bear in 
 mind that the chances are ten to five that, 
 when you do come to know her, she will fall 
 far short of your ideal, and you will not care 
 for her in the least. Look at it in this sen 
 sible light, and I will hold back nothing 
 from you. 
 
 Yesterday afternoon my father and myself 
 rode over to Rivermouth with the Daws. A 
 heavy rain in the morning had cooled the 
 atmosphere and laid the dust. To River- 
 mouth is a drive of eight miles, along a 
 winding road lined all the way with wild 
 barberry-bushes. I never saw anything 
 more brilliant than these bushes, the green 
 of the foliage and the faint blush of the ber 
 ries intensified by the rain. The colonel 
 drove, with my father in front, Miss Daw 
 and I on the back seat. I resolved that for 
 the first five miles your name should not 
 pass my lips. I was amused by the artful 
 attempts she made, at the start, to break
 
 36 MARJORIE DAW. 
 
 through my reticence. Then a silence fell 
 upon her ; and then she became suddenly 
 gay. That keenness which I enjoyed so 
 much when it was exercised on the lieu 
 tenant was not so satisfactory directed 
 against myself. Miss Daw has great sweet 
 ness of disposition, but she can be disagree 
 able. She is like the young lady in the 
 rhyme, with the curl on her forehead, 
 
 " When she is good, 
 
 She is very, very good, 
 And when she is bad, she is horrid ! " 
 
 I kept to my resolution, however ; but on 
 the return home I relented, and talked of 
 your mare ! Miss Daw is going to try a 
 side-saddle on Margot some morning. The 
 animal is a trifle too light for my weight. 
 By the bye, I nearly forgot to say that Miss 
 Daw sat for a picture yesterday to a River- 
 mouth artist. If the negative turns out 
 well, I am to have a copy. So our ends will 
 be accomplished without crime. I wish, 
 though, I could send you the ivorytype in 
 the drawing-room ; it is cleverly colored, and 
 would give you an idea of her hair and 
 eyes, which of course the other will not. 
 
 No, Jack, the spray of mignonette did 
 not come from me. A man of twenty-eight
 
 MARJORIE DAW. 37 
 
 does n t enclose flowers in his letters to 
 another man. But don t attach too much 
 significance to the circumstance. She gives 
 sprays of mignonette to the rector, sprays 
 to the lieutenant. She has even given a 
 rose from her bosom to your slave. It is 
 her jocund nature to scatter flowers, like 
 Spring. 
 
 If my letters sometimes read disjointedly, 
 you must understand that I never finish one 
 at a sitting, but write at intervals, when the 
 mood is on me. 
 
 The mood is not on me now.
 
 38 MARJORIE DAW. 
 
 IX. 
 
 EDWARD DELANEY TO JOHN FLEMMING. 
 
 August 23, 1872. 
 
 I HAVE just returned from the strangest 
 interview with Marjorie. She has all but 
 confessed to me her interest in you. But 
 with what modesty and dignity ! Her words 
 elude my pen as I attempt to put them on 
 paper ; and, indeed, it was not so much what 
 she said as her manner ; and that I cannot 
 reproduce. Perhaps it was of a piece with 
 the strangeness of this whole business, that 
 she should tacitly acknowledge to a third 
 party the love she feels for a man she has 
 never beheld ! But I have lost, through 
 your aid, the faculty of being surprised. I 
 accept things as people do in dreams. Now 
 that I am again in my room, it all appears 
 like an illusion the black masses of Rem- 
 brandtish shadow under the trees, the fire 
 flies whirling in Pyrrhic dances among the 
 shrubbery, the sea over there, Marjorie sit 
 ting on the hammock !
 
 MARJOR1E DAW. 39 
 
 It is past midnight, and I am too sleepy 
 to write more. 
 
 Thursday Morning. 
 
 My father has suddenly taken it into his 
 head to spend a few days at the Shoals. In 
 the meanwhile you will not hear from me. 
 I see Marjorie walking in the garden with 
 the colonel. I wish I could speak to her 
 alone, but shall probably not have an oppor 
 tunity before we leave.
 
 40 MARJORIE DAW. 
 
 X. 
 
 EDWARD DELANEY TO JOHN FLEMMING. 
 
 August 28, 1872. 
 
 You were passing into your second child 
 hood, were you? Your intellect was so re 
 duced that my epistolary gifts seemed quite 
 considerable to you, did they? I rise su 
 perior to the sarcasm in your favor of the 
 llth instant, when I notice that five days 
 silence on my part is sufficient to throw you 
 into the depths of despondency. 
 
 We returned only this morning from Ap- 
 pledore, that enchanted island at four 
 dollars per day. I find on my desk three 
 letters from you ! Evidently there is no 
 lingering doubt in your mind as to the 
 pleasure I derive from your correspondence. 
 These letters are undated, but in what I 
 take to be the latest are two passages that 
 require my consideration. You will pardon 
 my candor, dear Flemming, but the convic 
 tion forces itself upon me that as your leg 
 grows stronger your head becomes weaker.
 
 MARJORIE DAW. 41 
 
 You ask my advice on a certain point. I 
 will give it. In my opinion you could do 
 nothing 1 more unwise than to address a note 
 to Miss Daw, thanking her for the flower. 
 It would, I am sure, offend her delicacy be 
 yond pardon. She knows you only through 
 me ; you are to her an abstraction, a figure 
 in a dream a dream from which the faint 
 est shock would awaken her. Of course, if 
 you enclose a note to me and insist on its 
 delivery, I shall deliver it ; but I advise you 
 not to do so. 
 
 You say you are able, with the aid of a 
 cane, to walk about your chamber, and that 
 you purpose to come to The Pines the in 
 stant Dillon thinks you strong enough to 
 stand the journey. Again I advise you not 
 to. Do you not see that, every hour you re 
 main away, Marjorie s glamour deepens, and 
 your influence over her increases ? You will 
 ruin everything by precipitancy. Wait un 
 til you are entirely recovered ; in any case, 
 do not come without giving me warning. I 
 fear the effect of your abrupt advent here 
 under the circumstances. 
 
 Miss Daw was evidently glad to see us 
 back again, and gave me both hands in the 
 frankest way. She stopped at the door a
 
 42 MARJORIE DAW. 
 
 moment this afternoon in the carriage ; she 
 had been over to Rivermouth for her pic 
 tures. Unluckily the photographer had spilt 
 some acid on the plate, and she was obliged 
 to give him another sitting. I have an in 
 tuition that something is troubling Marjorie. 
 She had an abstracted air not usual with 
 her. However, it may be only my fancy. 
 ... I end this, leaving several things un 
 said, to accompany my father on one of 
 those long walks which are now his chief 
 medicine and mine !
 
 MARJORIE DAW. 43 
 
 XI. 
 
 EDWARD DELANEY TO JOHN FLEMMING. 
 
 August 29, 1872. 
 
 I WRITE in great haste to tell you what 
 has taken place here since my letter of 
 last night. I am in the utmost perplexity. 
 Only one thing is plain you must not 
 dream of coming to The Pines. Marjorie 
 has told her father everything ! I saw her 
 for a few minutes, an hour ago, in the gar 
 den ; and, as near as I could gather from 
 her confused statement, the facts are these : 
 Lieutenant Bradly that s the naval offi 
 cer stationed at Ri vermouth has been pay 
 ing court to Miss Daw for some time past, 
 but not so much to her liking as to that of 
 the colonel, who it seems is an old friend of 
 the young gentleman s father. Yesterday 
 (I knew she was in some trouble when she 
 drove up to our gate) the colonel spoke to 
 Marjorie of Bradly urged his suit, I in 
 fer. Marjorie expressed her dislike for the 
 lieutenant with characteristic frankness, and
 
 44 MARJORIE DAW. 
 
 finally confessed to her father well, I 
 really do not know what she confessed. It 
 must have been the vaguest of confessions, 
 and must have sufficiently puzzled the colo 
 nel. At any rate, it exasperated him. I 
 suppose I am implicated in the matter, and 
 that the colonel feels bitterly towards me. 
 I do not see why : I have carried no mes 
 sages between you and Miss Daw ; I have 
 behaved with the greatest discretion. I can 
 find no flaw anywhere in my proceeding. I 
 do not see that anybody has done anything 
 except the colonel himself. 
 
 It is probable, nevertheless, that the 
 friendly relations between the two houses 
 will be broken off. " A plague o both your 
 houses," say you. I will keep you informed, 
 as well as I can, of what occurs over the 
 way. We shall remain here until the sec 
 ond week in September. Stay where you 
 are, or, at all events, do not dream of join 
 ing me. . . . Colonel Daw is sitting on 
 the piazza looking rather wicked. I have 
 not seen Marjorie since I parted with her in 
 the garden.
 
 MARJORIE DAW. 45 
 
 XII. 
 
 EDWAED DELANEY TO THOMAS DILLON, M. D., 
 MADISON SQUARE, NEW YORK. 
 
 August 30, 1872. 
 
 MY DEAR DOCTOR : If you have any in 
 fluence over Flemming, I beg of you to 
 exert it to prevent his coming to this place 
 at present. There are circumstances, which 
 I will explain to you before long, that make 
 it of the first importance that he should not 
 come into this neighborhood. His appear 
 ance here, I speak advisedly, would be dis 
 astrous to him. In urging him to remain in 
 New York, or to go to some inland resort, 
 you will be doing him and me a real service. 
 Of course you will not mention my name in 
 this connection. You know me well enough, 
 
 O ~ 
 
 my dear doctor, to be assured that, in beg 
 ging your secret cooperation, I have rea 
 sons that will meet your entire approval 
 when they are made plain to you. We shall 
 return to town on the 15th of next month, 
 and my first duty will be to present myself
 
 46 MARJORIE DAW. 
 
 at your hospitable door and satisfy your 
 curiosity, if I have excited it. My father, 
 I am glad to state, has so greatly improved 
 that he can no longer be regarded as an in 
 valid. "With great esteem, I am, etc., etc.
 
 MARJORIE DAW. 47 
 
 XIII. 
 
 EDWARD DELANEY TO JOHN FLEMMESTG. 
 
 August 31, 1872. 
 
 YOUR letter, announcing your mad deter 
 mination to come here, has just reached me. 
 I beseech you to reflect a moment. The 
 step would be fatal to your interests and 
 hers. You would furnish just cause for 
 irritation to R. W. D. ; and, though he 
 loves Marjorie devotedly, he is capable of 
 going to any lengths if opposed. You would 
 not like, I am convinced, to be the means of 
 causing him to treat her with severity. That 
 would be the result of your presence at 
 The Pines at this juncture. I am annoyed 
 to be obliged to point out these things 
 to you. We are on very delicate ground, 
 Jack ; the situation is critical, and the slight 
 est mistake in a move would cost us the 
 game. If you consider it worth the win 
 ning, be patient. Trust a little to my saga 
 city. Wait and see what happens. More 
 over, I understand from Dillon that you are
 
 48 MARJORIE DAW. 
 
 in no condition to take so long a journey. 
 He thinks the air of the coast would be 
 the worst thing possible for you; that you 
 ought to go inland, if anywhere. Be ad 
 vised by me. Be advised by Dillon.
 
 MARJOR1E DAW. 49 
 
 XIV. 
 
 TELEGRAMS. 
 
 September 1, 1872. 
 
 1. To EDWARD DELANEY. 
 Letter received. Dillon be hanged. I 
 think I ought to be on the ground. 
 
 J. F. 
 
 2. To JOHN FLEMMING. 
 Stay where you are. You would only 
 complicate matters. Do not move until you 
 hear from me. E. D. 
 
 3. To EDWARD DELANEY. 
 My being at The Pines could be kept 
 secret. I must see her. J. F. 
 
 4. To JOHN FLEMMING. 
 Do not think of it. It would be useless. 
 R. W. D. has locked M. in her room. You 
 would not be able to effect an interview. 
 
 E. D. 
 
 5. To EDWARD DELANEY. 
 Locked her in her room. Good God. 
 That settles the question. I shall leave by 
 the twelve-fifteen express. J. F.
 
 50 MARJORIE DAW. 
 
 XV. 
 
 THE ARRIVAL. 
 
 ON the second day of September, 1872, 
 as the down express, due at 3.40, left the 
 station at Hampton, a young man, leaning 
 on the shoulder of a servant, whom he ad 
 dressed as Watkins, stepped from the plat 
 form into a hack, and requested to be driven 
 to " The Pines." On arriving at the gate 
 of a modest farm-house, a few miles from 
 the station, the young man descended with 
 difficulty from the carriage, and, casting a 
 hasty glance across the road, seemed much 
 impressed by some peculiarity in the land 
 scape. Again leaning on the shoulder of 
 the person Watkins, he walked to the door 
 of the farm-house and inquired for Mr. Ed 
 ward Delaney. He was informed by the 
 aged man who answered his knock, that Mr. 
 Edward Delaney had gone to Boston the 
 day before, but that Mr. Jonas Delaney was 
 within. This information did not appear 
 satisfactory to the stranger, who inquired if
 
 MARJORIE DAW. 51 
 
 Mr. Edward Dclaney had left any message 
 for Mr. John Flemming. There was a let 
 ter for Mr. Flemming, if he were that per 
 son. After a brief absence the aged man 
 reappeared with a Letter.
 
 52 MARJORIE DAW. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 EDWARD DELANEY TO JOHN FLEMMING. 
 
 September 1, 1872. 
 
 I AM horror-stricken at what I have done ! 
 When I began this correspondence I had no 
 other purpose than to relieve the tedium of 
 your sick-chamber. Dillon told me to cheer 
 you up. I tried to. I thought that you en 
 tered into the spirit of the thing. I had no 
 idea, until within a few days, that you were 
 taking matters au grand sSricux. 
 
 What can I say ? I am in sackcloth and 
 ashes. I am a pariah, a dog of an outcast. 
 I tried to make a little romance to interest 
 you, something soothing and idyllic, and, by 
 Jove ! I have done it only too well ! My 
 father does n t know a word of this, so don t 
 jar the old gentleman any more than you can 
 help. I fly from the wrath to come when 
 you arrive ! For oh, dear Jack, there is n t 
 any colonial mansion on the other side of the 
 road, there is n t any piazza, there is n t any 
 hammock there is n t any Marjorie Daw J
 
 MISS MEHETABEL S SON. 
 
 THE OLD TAVERN AT BAYLEY 8 FOUR-CORNERS. 
 
 You will not find Greenton, or Bayley s 
 Four-Corners, as it is more usually desig 
 nated, on any map of New England that I 
 know of. It is not a town ; it is not even a 
 village ; it is merely an absurd hotel. The 
 almost indescribable place called Greenton 
 is at the intersection of four roads, in the 
 heart of New Hampshire, twenty miles from 
 the nearest settlement of note, and ten miles 
 from any railway station. A good location 
 for a hotel, you will say. Precisely ; but 
 there has always been a hotel there, and for 
 the last dozen years it has been pretty well 
 patronized by one boarder. Not to trifle 
 with an intelligent public, I will state at 
 once that, in the early part of this century, 
 Greenton was a point at which the mail-
 
 54 MISS MEHETABEL S SON. 
 
 coach on the Great Northern 11 onto stopped 
 to change horses and allow the passengers 
 to dine. People in the county, wishing to 
 take the early mail Portsmouth-ward, put 
 up overnight at the old tavern, famous for 
 its irreproachable larder and soft feather- 
 beds. The tavern at that time was kept by 
 Jonathan Bayley, who rivalled his wallet in 
 growing corpulent, and in due time passed 
 away. At his death the establishment, which 
 included a farm, fell into the hands of a son- 
 in-law. Now, though Bayley left his son-in- 
 law a hotel which sounds handsome he 
 left him no guests ; for at about the period 
 of the old man s death the old stage-coach 
 died also. Apoplexy carried off one, and 
 steam the other. Thus, by a sudden swerve 
 in the tide of progress, the tavern at the 
 Corners found itself high and dry, like a 
 wreck on a sand-bank. Shortly after this 
 event, or maybe contemporaneously, there 
 was some attempt to build a town at Green- 
 ton ; but it apparently failed, if eleven cel 
 lars choked up with debris and overgrown 
 with burdocks are any indication of failure. 
 The farm, however, was a good farm, as 
 things go in New Hampshire, and Tobias 
 Sewell, the son-in-law, could afford to snap
 
 MISS MERET ABEL S SON. 55 
 
 his fingers at the travelling public if they 
 came near enough which they never did. 
 
 The hotel remains to-day pretty much the 
 same as when Jonathan Bayley handed in his 
 accounts in 1840, except that Sewell has from 
 time to time sold the furniture of some of 
 the upper chambers to bridal couples in the 
 neighborhood. The bar is still open, and 
 the parlor door says PARLOUR in tall black 
 letters. Now and then a passing drover 
 looks in at that lonely bar-room, where a 
 high-shouldered bottle of Santa Cruz rum 
 ogles with a peculiarly knowing air a shriv 
 elled lemon on a shelf ; now and then a 
 farmer rides across country to talk crops and 
 stock and take a friendly glass with Tobias ; 
 and now and then a circus caravan with 
 speckled ponies, or a menagerie with a soggy 
 elephant, halts under the swinging sign, on 
 which there is a dim mail-coach with four 
 phantomish horses driven by a portly gentle 
 man whose head has been washed off by the 
 ratu. Other customers there are none, ex 
 cept that one regular boarder whom I have 
 mentioned. 
 
 If misery makes a man acquainted with 
 strange bed-fellows, it is equally certain that 
 the profession of surveyor and civil engineer
 
 56 MISS MEIIETABEL S SON. 
 
 often takes one into undreamed-of localities. 
 I had never heard of Greenton until my du 
 ties sent me there, and kept me there two 
 weeks in the dreariest season of the year. I 
 do not think I would, of my own volition, 
 have selected Greenton for a fortnight s so 
 journ at any time ; but now the business is 
 over, I shall never regret the circumstances 
 that made me the guest of Tobias Sewell, 
 and brought me into intimate relations with 
 Miss Mehetabel s Son. 
 
 It was a black October night in the year 
 of grace 1872, that discovered me standing 
 in front of the old tavern at the Corners. 
 
 Though the ten miles ride from K had 
 
 been depressing, especially the last five miles, 
 on account of the cold autumnal rain that had 
 set in, I felt a pang of regret on hearing the 
 rickety open wagon turn round in the road 
 and roll off in the darkness. There were no 
 lights visible anywhere, and only for the big, 
 shapeless mass of something in front of me, 
 which the driver had said was the hotel, I 
 should have fancied that I had been set 
 down by the roadside. I was wet to the 
 skin and in no amiable humor ; and not be 
 ing able to find bell-pull or knocker, or even 
 a door, I belabored the side of the house
 
 MISS MEHETABEUS SON. 57 
 
 with my heavy walking-stick. In a minute 
 or two I saw a light flickering somewhere 
 aloft, then I heard the sound of a window 
 opening, followed by an exclamation of dis 
 gust as a blast of wind extinguished the can 
 dle which had given me an instantaneous 
 picture en silhouette of a man leaning out of 
 a casement. 
 
 " I say, what do you want, down there ? " 
 inquired an unprepossessing voice. 
 
 " I want to come in ; I want a supper, and 
 a bed, and numberless things." 
 
 " This is n t no time of night to go rous 
 ing honest folks out of their sleep. Who 
 are you, anyway ? " 
 
 The question, superficially considered, was 
 a very simple one, and I, of all people in the 
 world, ought to have been able to answer it 
 off-hand ; but it staggered me. Strangely 
 enough, there came drifting across my mem 
 ory the lettering on the back of a metaphys 
 ical work which I had seen years before on 
 a shelf in the Astor Library. Owing to an 
 unpremeditatedly funny collocation of title 
 and author, the lettering read as follows : 
 " Who am I ? Jones." Evidently it had 
 puzzled Jones to know who he was, or he 
 would n t have written a book about it, and
 
 58 MISS MEffETABEL S SON. 
 
 come to so lame and impotent a conclusion. 
 It certainly puzzled me at that instant to de 
 fine my identity. " Thirty years ago," I re 
 flected, " I was nothing ; fifty years hence I 
 shall be nothing again, humanly speaking. 
 In the mean time, who am I, sure enough ? " 
 It had never before occurred to me what an 
 indefinite article I was. I wish it had not 
 occurred to me then. Standing there in the 
 rain and darkness, I wrestled vainly with 
 the problem, and was constrained to fall 
 back upon a Yankee expedient. 
 
 " Isn t this a hotel?" I asked finally. 
 
 " Well, it is a sort of hotel," said the 
 voice, doubtfully. My hesitation and pre 
 varication had apparently not inspired my 
 interlocutor with confidence in me. 
 
 " Then let me in. I have just driven over 
 
 from K in this infernal rain. I am wet 
 
 through and through." 
 
 " But what do you want here, at the Cor 
 ners? What s your, business? People 
 don t come here, leastways in the middle of 
 the night." 
 
 " It is n t in the middle of the night," I 
 returned, incensed. "I come on business 
 connected with the new road. I m the su 
 perintendent of the works."
 
 MISS MEHET ABEL S SON. 59 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 " And if you don t open the door at once, 
 I 11 raise the whole neighborhood and 
 then go to the other hotel." 
 
 When I said that, I supposed Greenton 
 was a village with a population of at least 
 three or four thousand and was wondering 
 vaguely at the absence of lights and other 
 signs of human habitation. Surely, I 
 thought, all the people cannot be abed and 
 asleep at half past ten o clock : perhaps I am 
 in the business section of the town, among 
 the shops. 
 
 " You jest wait," said the voice above. 
 
 This request was not devoid of a certain 
 accent of menace, and I braced myself for 
 a sortie on the part of the besieged, if he 
 had any such hostile intent. Presently a 
 door opened at the very place where I least 
 expected a door, at the farther end of the 
 building, in fact, and a man in his shirt 
 sleeves, shielding a candle with his left 
 hand, appeared on the threshold. I passed 
 quickly into the house, with Mr. Tobias 
 Sewell (for this was Mr. Sevvell) at my 
 heels, and found myself in a long, low-stud 
 ded bar-room. 
 
 There were two chairs drawn up before
 
 60 MISS MEIfETABEL S SON. 
 
 the hearth, on which a huge hemlock back 
 log was still smouldering, and on the un- 
 painted deal counter contiguous stood two 
 cloudy glasses with bits of lemon-peel in the 
 bottom, hinting at recent libations. Against 
 the discolored wall over the bar hung a yel 
 lowed handbill, in a warped frame, announ 
 cing that " the Next Annual N. H. Agricul 
 tural Fair " would take place on the 10th of 
 September, 1841. There was no other fur 
 niture or decoration in this dismal apart 
 ment, except the cobwebs which festooned 
 the ceiling, hanging down here and there 
 like stalactites. 
 
 Mr. Sewell set the candlestick on the man 
 tel-shelf, and threw some pine-knots on the 
 fire, which immediately broke into a blaze, 
 and showed him to be a lank, narrow-chested 
 man, past sixty, with sparse, steel-gray hair, 
 and small, deep-set eyes, perfectly round, 
 like a fish s, and of no particular color. 
 His chief personal characteristics seemed to 
 be too much feet and not enough teeth. 
 His sharply cut, but rather simple face, as 
 he turned it towards me, wore a look of in 
 terrogation. I replied to his mute inquiry 
 by taking out my pocket-book and handing 
 him my business-card, which he held up to
 
 MISS MEHETABEDS SON. 61 
 
 the candle and perused with great delibera 
 tion. 
 
 " You re a civil engineer, are you ? " he 
 said, displaying his gums, which gave his 
 countenance an expression of almost infan 
 tile innocence. He made no further audi 
 ble remark, but mumbled between his thin 
 lips something which an imaginative person 
 might have construed into " If you re a 
 civil engineer, I 11 be blessed if I would n t 
 like to see an uncivil one ! " 
 
 Mr. Se well s growl, however, was worse 
 than his bite owing to his lack of teeth 
 probably for he very good-naturedly set 
 himself to work preparing supper for me. 
 After a slice of cold ham, a^d a warm 
 punch, to which my chilled condition gave a 
 grateful flavor, I went to bed in a distant 
 chamber in a most amiable mood, feeling 
 satisfied that Jones was a donkey to bother 
 himself about his identity. 
 
 When I awoke, the sun was several hours 
 high. My bed faced a window, and by rais 
 ing myself on one elbow I could look out on 
 what I expected would be the main street. 
 To my astonishment I beheld a lonely coun 
 try road winding up a sterile hill and disap 
 pearing over the ridge. In a cornfield at
 
 62 MISS MEHETABEVS SON. 
 
 the right of the road was a small private 
 graveyard, enclosed by a crumbling stone 
 wall with a red gate. The only thing sug 
 gestive of life was this little corner lot 
 occupied by death. I got out of bed and 
 went to the other window. There I had an 
 uninterrupted view of twelve miles of open 
 landscape, with Mount Agamenticus in the 
 purple distance. Not a house or a spire in 
 sight. " Well," I exclaimed, " Greenton 
 does n t appear to be a very closely packed 
 metropolis ! " That rival hotel with which 
 I had threatened Mr. Sewell overnight was 
 not a deadly weapon, looking at it by day 
 light. " By Jove ! " I reflected, " maybe 
 I m in the wrong place." But there, tacked 
 against a panel of the bedroom door, was a 
 faded time-table dated Greenton, August 1, 
 1839. 
 
 I smiled all the time I was dressing, and 
 went smiling down stairs, where I found Mr. 
 Sewell, assisted by one of the fair sex in the 
 first bloom of her eightieth year, serving 
 breakfast for me on a small table in the 
 bar-room ! 
 
 " I overslept myself this morning," I re 
 marked apologetically, " and I see that I 
 am putting you to some trouble. In future,
 
 MISS MEHETABEDS SON. 63 
 
 if you will have me called, I will take my 
 meals at the usual table d hote" 
 
 " At the what ? " said Mr. Sewell. 
 
 " I mean with the other boarders." 
 
 Mr. Sewell paused in the act of lifting a 
 chop from the fire, and, resting the point of 
 his fork against the woodwork of the mantel 
 piece, grinned from ear to ear. 
 
 " Bless you ! there is n t any other board 
 ers. There has n t been anybody put up 
 here sence let me see sence father-in- 
 law died, and that was in the fall of 40. 
 To be sure, there s Silas ; he s a regular 
 boarder ; but I don t count him." 
 
 Mr. Sewell then explained how the tavern 
 had lost its custom when the old stage line 
 was broken up by the railroad. The intro 
 duction of steam was, in Mr. Sewell s esti 
 mation, a fatal error. "Jest killed local 
 business. Carried it off, I m darned if I 
 know where. The whole country has been 
 sort o retrograding ever sence steam was in 
 vented." 
 
 * You spoke of having one boarder," I 
 said. 
 
 " Silas ? Yes ; he come here the summer 
 Tilda died she that was Tilda Bayley 
 and he s here yet, going on thirteen year-
 
 64 MfSS MEHETAEEVS SON. 
 
 He could n t live any longer with the old 
 man. Between you and I, old Clem Jaffrey, 
 Silas s father, was a hard nut. Yes," said 
 Mr. Sewell, crooking his elbow in inimitable 
 pantomime, " altogether too often. Found 
 dead in the road hugging a three-gallon 
 demijohn. Habeas corpus in the barn," 
 added Mr. Sewell, intending, I presume, to 
 intimate that a post-mortem examination 
 had been deemed necessary. " Silas," he 
 resumed, in that respectful tone which one 
 should always adopt when speaking of cap 
 ital, " is a man of considerable property ; 
 lives on his interest, and keeps a hoss and 
 shay. He s a great scholar, too, Silas ; 
 takes all the pe-ri-odicals and the Police 
 Gazette regular." 
 
 Mr. Sewell was turning over a third chop, 
 when the door opened and a stoutish, mid 
 dle-aged little gentleman, clad in deep black, 
 stepped into the room. 
 
 " Silas Jaffrey," said Mr. Sewell, with a 
 comprehensive sweep of his arm, picking up 
 me and the new-comer on one fork, so to 
 speak. " Be acquainted ! " 
 
 Mr. Jaffrey advanced briskly, and gave 
 me his hand with unlooked-for cordiality. 
 He was a dapper little man, with a head as
 
 MISS MEHETABEL S SON. 65 
 
 round and nearly as bald as an orange, and 
 not unlike an orange in complexion, either ; 
 he had twinkling gray eyes and a pro 
 nounced Roman nose, the numerous freckles 
 upon which were deepened by his funereal 
 dress-coat and trousers. He reminded me 
 of Alfred de Musset s blackbird, which, with 
 its yellow beak and sombre plumage, looked 
 like an undertaker eating an omelet. 
 
 " Silas will take care of you," said Mr. 
 Sewell, taking down his hat from a peg be 
 hind the door. " I ve got the cattle to look 
 after. Tell him, if you want anything." 
 
 While I ate my breakfast, Mr. Jaffrey 
 hopped up and down the narrow bar-room 
 and chirped away as blithely as a bird on a 
 cherry-bough, occasionally ruffling with his 
 fingers a slight fringe of auburn hair which 
 stood up pertly round his head and seemed 
 to possess a luminous quality of its own. 
 
 " Don t I find it a little slow up here at 
 the Corners? Not at all, my dear sir. I 
 am in the thick of life up here. So many 
 interesting things going on all over the world 
 inventions, discoveries, spirits, railroad 
 disasters, mysterious homicides. Poets, mur 
 derers, musicians, statesmen, distinguished 
 travellers, prodigies of all kinds turning up
 
 66 MISS MEHETABEL S SON. 
 
 everywhere. Very few events or persons 
 escape me. I take six daily city papers, 
 thirteen weekly journals, all the monthly 
 magazines, and two quarterlies. I could 
 not get along with less. I could n t if you 
 asked me. I never feel lonely. How can I, 
 being on intimate terms, as it were, with 
 thousands and thousands of people ? There s 
 that young woman out West. What an en 
 tertaining creature she is ! now in Mis 
 souri, now in Indiana, and now in Minne 
 sota, always on the go, and all the time 
 shedding needles from various parts of her 
 body as if she really enjoyed it ! Then 
 there s that versatile patriarch who walks 
 hundreds of miles and saws thousands of 
 feet of wood, before breakfast, and shows no 
 signs of giving out. Then there s that re 
 markable, one may say that historical col 
 ored woman who knew Benjamin Franklin, 
 and fought at the battle of Bunk no, it is 
 the old negro man who fought at Bunker 
 Hill, a mere infant, of course, at that period. 
 Really, now, it is quite curious to observe 
 how that venerable female slave formerly 
 an African princess is repeatedly dying in 
 her hundred and eleventh year, and coming 
 to life again punctually every six months iu
 
 MISS MEHETABEDS SON. 67 
 
 the small-type paragraphs. Are you aware, 
 sir, that within the last twelve years no 
 fewer than two hundred and eighty-seven 
 of General Washington s colored coachmen 
 have died ? " 
 
 For the soul of me I could not tell 
 whether this quaint little gentleman was 
 chaffing me or not. I laid down my knife 
 and fork, and stared at him. 
 
 " Then there are the mathematicians ! " 
 he cried vivaciously, without waiting for 
 a reply. "I take great interest in them. 
 Hear this ! " and Mr. Jaffrey drew a news 
 paper from a pocket in the tail of his coat, 
 and read as follows : "It has been estimated 
 that if all the candles manufactured by this 
 eminent firm {Stearine $ 6 Y o.) were placed 
 end to end, they would reach 2 and \ times 
 around the globe. Of course," continued 
 Mr. Jaffrey, folding up the journal reflec 
 tively, " abstruse calculations of this kind 
 are not, perhaps, of vital importance, but 
 they indicate the intellectual activity of the 
 age. Seriously, now," he said, halting in 
 front of the table, " what with books and 
 papers and drives about the country, I do 
 not find the days too long, though I seldom 
 see any one, except when I go over to K
 
 68 MISS MEHETABEDS SON. 
 
 for my mail. Existence may be very full to 
 a man who stands a little aside from the 
 tumult and watches it with philosophic eye. 
 Possibly he may see more of the battle than 
 those who are in the midst of the action. 
 Once I was struggling with the crowd, as 
 eager and undaunted as the best ; perhaps 
 I should have been struggling still. Indeed, 
 I know my life would have been very dif 
 ferent now if I had married Mehetabel 
 if I had married Mehetabel." 
 
 His vivacity was gone, a sudden cloud 
 had come over his bright face, his figure 
 seemed to have collapsed, the light seemed 
 to have faded out of his hair. "With a shuf 
 fling step, the very antithesis of his brisk, 
 elastic tread, he turned to the door and 
 passed into the road. 
 
 " Well," I said to myself, " if Greenton 
 had forty thousand inhabitants, it could n t 
 turn out a more astonishing old party than 
 that!"
 
 MISS MEHETABEL S SON. 69 
 
 II. 
 
 THE CASE OF SILAS JAFFREY. 
 
 A MAN with a passion for bric-d-brac is 
 always stumbling over antique bronzes, in- 
 tagiios, mosaics, and daggers of the time 
 of Benvenuto Cellini; the bibliophile finds 
 creamy vellum folios and rare Alduses and 
 Elzevirs waiting for him at unsuspected 
 bookstalls ; the numismatist has but to stretch 
 forth his palm to have priceless coins drop 
 into it. My own weakness is odd people, 
 and I am constantly encountering them. It 
 was plain that I had unearthed a couple of 
 very queer specimens at Bayley s Four-Cor 
 ners. I saw that a fortnight afforded me 
 too brief an opportunity to develop the rich 
 ness of both, and I resolved to devote my 
 spare time to Mr. Jaffrey alone, instinctive 
 ly recognizing in him an unfamiliar species. 
 My professional work in the vicinity of 
 Greenton left my evenings and occasionally 
 an afternoon unoccupied ; these intervals I 
 purposed to employ in studying and classi-
 
 70 MISS M EH ETA BEL S SON. 
 
 fying my fellow-boarder. It was necessary, 
 as a preliminary step, to learn something 
 of his previous history, and to this end I 
 addressed myself to Mr. Sewell that same 
 night. 
 
 " I do not want to seem inquisitive," I 
 said to the landlord, as he was fastening up 
 the bar, which, by the way, was the salle d 
 manger and general sitting-room "I do 
 not want to seem inquisitive, but your friend 
 Mr. Jaffrey dropped a remark this morning 
 at breakfast which which was not alto 
 gether clear to me." 
 
 "About Mehetabel?" asked Mr. Sewell, 
 uneasily. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Well, I wish he would n t ! " 
 
 " He was friendly enough in the course of 
 conversation to hint to me that he had not 
 married the young woman, and seemed to 
 regret it." 
 
 " No, he did n t marry Mehetabel." 
 
 " May I inquire why he did n t marry 
 Mehetabel?" 
 
 " Never asked her. Might have married 
 the girl forty times. Old Elkins s daughter, 
 
 over at K . She d have had him quick 
 
 enough. Seven years, off and on, he kept
 
 MISS MEHETABEDS SON. 71 
 
 company with Mehetabel, and then she 
 died." 
 
 " And he never asked her ? " 
 
 " He shilly-shallied. Perhaps he did n t 
 think of it. When she was dead and gone, 
 then Silas was struck all of a heap and 
 that s all about it." 
 
 Obviously Mr. Sewell did not intend to 
 tell me anything more, and obviously there 
 was more to tell. The topic was plainly dis 
 agreeable to him for some reason or other, 
 and that unknown reason of course piqued 
 my curiosity. 
 
 As I was absent from dinner and supper 
 that day, I did not meet Mr. Jaffrey again 
 until the following morning at breakfast. 
 He had recovered his bird-like manner, and 
 was full of a mysterious assassination that 
 had just taken place in New York, all the 
 thrilling details of which were at his fingers 
 ends. It was at once comical and sad to 
 see this harmless old gentleman with his 
 naive, benevolent countenance, and his thin 
 hair flaming up in a semicircle, like the foot 
 lights at a theatre, revelling in the intrica 
 cies of the unmentionable deed. 
 
 "You come up to my room to-night," he 
 cried, with horrid glee, " and I 11 give you
 
 72 MISS ME11ETABEUS SON. 
 
 my theory of the murder. I 11 make it as 
 clear as day to you that it was the detective 
 himself who fired the three pistol-shots." 
 
 It was not so much the desire to have this 
 point elucidated as to make a closer study 
 of Mr. Jaffrey that led me to accept his in 
 vitation. Mr. Jaffrey s bedroom was in an 
 L of the building, and was in no way notice 
 able except for the numerous files of news 
 papers neatly arranged against the blank 
 spaces of the walls, and a huge pile of old 
 
 magazines which stood in one corner, reach 
 es 
 
 ing nearly up to the ceiling, and threatening 
 to topple over each instant, like the Leaning 
 Tower at Pisa. There were green paper 
 shades at the windows, some faded chintz 
 valances about the bed, and two or three 
 easy-chairs covered with chintz. On a black- 
 walnut shelf between the windows lay a 
 choice collection of meerschaum and brier- 
 wood pipes. 
 
 Filling one of the chocolate-colored bowls 
 for me and another for himself, Mr. Jaffrey 
 began prattling ; but not about the murder, 
 which appeared to have flown out of his 
 mind. In fact, I do not remember that the 
 topic was even touched upon, either then or 
 afterwards.
 
 MISS MEHETABEUS SON. 73 
 
 " Cosey nest this," said Mr. Jaffrey, 
 giant-ing complacently over the apartment. 
 " What is more cheerful, now, in the fall of 
 the year, than an open wood-fire? Do you 
 hear those little chirps and twitters coming 
 out of that piece of apple-wood ? Those are 
 the ghosts of the robins and bluebirds that 
 sang upon the bough when it was in blos 
 som last spring. In summer whole flocks 
 of them come fluttering about the fruit-trees 
 under the window : so I have singing birds 
 all the year round. I take it very easy here, 
 I can tell you, summer and winter. Not 
 much society. Tobias is not, perhaps, what 
 one would term a great intellectual force, 
 but he means well. He s a realist be 
 lieves in coming down to what he calls the 
 hard pan ; but his heart is in the right 
 place, and he s very kind to me. The wisest 
 thing I ever did in my life was to sell out 
 
 my grain business over at K , thirteen 
 
 years ago, and settle down at the Corners. 
 When a man has made a competency, what 
 does he want more ? Besides, at that time 
 an event occurred which destroyed any am 
 bition I may have had. Mehetabel died." 
 " The lady you were engaged to? " 
 " N-o, not precisely engaged. I think it
 
 74 MISS MEHETABEDS SON. 
 
 was quite understood between us, though 
 nothing had been said on the subject. Ty 
 phoid," added Mr. Jaffrey, in a low voice. 
 
 For several minutes he smoked in silence, 
 a vague, troubled look playing over his 
 countenance. Presently this passed away, 
 and he fixed his gray eyes speculatively upon 
 my face. 
 
 " If I had married Mehetabel," said Mr. 
 Jaffrey, slowly, and then he hesitated. I 
 blew a ring of smoke into the air, and, rest 
 ing my pipe on my knee, dropped into an 
 attitude of attention. " If I had married 
 Mehetabel, you know, we should have had 
 ahem ! a family." 
 
 " Very likely," I assented, vastly amused 
 at this unexpected turn. 
 
 " A Boy ! " exclaimed Mr. Jaffrey, ex 
 plosively. 
 
 " By all means, certainly, a son." 
 
 " Great trouble about naming the boy. 
 Mehetabel s family want him named Elka- 
 nah Elkins, after her grandfather ; I want 
 him named Andrew Jackson. We compro 
 mise by christening him Elkanah Elkins 
 Andrew Jackson Jaffrey. Rather a long 
 name for such a short little fellow," said 
 Mr. Jaffrey, musingly.
 
 MISS MEHETABEL S SON. 75 
 
 " Andy is n t a bad nickname," I sug 
 gested. 
 
 "Not at all. We call him Andy, in the 
 family. Somewhat fractious at first colic 
 and things. I suppose it is right, or it 
 would n t be so ; but the usefulness of mea 
 sles, mumps, croup, whooping-cough, scar 
 latina, and fits is not clear to the parental 
 eye. I wish Andy would be a model infant, 
 and dodge the whole lot." 
 
 This supposititious child, born within the 
 last few minutes, was plainly assuming the 
 proportions of a reality to Mr. Jaffrey. I 
 began to feel a little uncomfortable. I am, 
 as I have said, a civil engineer, and it is not 
 strictly in my line to assist at the births of 
 infants, imaginary or otherwise. I pulled 
 away vigorously at the pipe, and said noth 
 ing. 
 
 " What large blue eyes he has," resumed 
 Mr. Jaffrey, after a pause ; " just like Het 
 ty s ; and the fair hair, too, like hers. How 
 oddly certain distinctive features are hand 
 ed down in families ! Sometimes a mouth, 
 sometimes a turn of the eyebrow. Wicked 
 
 little boys over at K have now and 
 
 then derisively advised me to follow my nose. 
 It would be an interesting thing to do. I
 
 76 MISS MEHETABEL S SON. 
 
 should find my nose flying about the world, 
 turning up unexpectedly here and there, 
 dodging this branch of the family and re-ap 
 pearing in that, now jumping over one great 
 grandchild to fasten itself upon another, 
 and never losing its individuality. Look 
 at Andy. There s Elkanah Elkins s chin to 
 the life. Andy s chin is probably older than 
 the Pyramids. Poor little thing," he cried, 
 with sudden indescribable tenderness, " to 
 lose his mother so early ! " And Mr. Jaf- 
 frey s head sunk upon his breast, and his 
 shoulders slanted forward, as if he were ac 
 tually bending over the cradle of the child. 
 The whole gesture and attitude was so nat 
 ural that it startled me. The pipe slipped 
 from my fingers and fell to the floor. 
 
 " Hush ! " whispered Mr. Jaffrey, with a 
 deprecating motion of his hand. " Andy s 
 asleep ! " 
 
 He rose softly from the chair and, walk 
 ing across the room on tiptoe, drew down 
 the shade at the window through which 
 the moonlight was streaming. Then he re 
 turned to his seat, and remained gazing with 
 half-closed eyes into the dropping embers. 
 
 I refilled my pipe and smoked in profound 
 silence, wondering what would come next.
 
 MISS MEHETABEL S SON. 77 
 
 But nothing came next. Mr. Jaffrey had 
 fallen into so brown a study that, a quarter 
 of an hour afterwards, when I wished him 
 good-night and withdrew, I do not think he 
 noticed niy departure. 
 
 I am not what is called a man of imagina 
 tion ; it is my habit to exclude most things 
 not capable of mathematical demonstration ; 
 but I am not without a certain psychological 
 insight, and I think I understood Mr. Jaf- 
 frey s case. I could easily understand how 
 a man with an unhealthy, sensitive nature, 
 overwhelmed by sudden calamity, might take 
 refuge in some forlorn place like this old 
 tavern, and dream his life away. To such 
 a man brooding forever on what mie ht 
 
 o o 
 
 have been and dwelling wholly in the realm 
 of his fancies the actual world mi<rht in- 
 
 O 
 
 deed become as a dream, and nothing seem 
 
 o 
 
 real but his illusions. I dare say that thir 
 teen years of Bayley s Four-Corners would 
 have its effect upon me ; though instead of 
 conjuring up golden-haired children of the 
 Madonna, I should probably see gnomes and 
 kobolds, and goblins engaged in hoisting 
 false signals and misplacing switches for 
 midnight express trains. 
 
 " No doubt," I said to myself that night,
 
 78 MISS MEHETABEDS SON. 
 
 as I lay in bed, thinking over the matter, 
 " this once possible but now impossible child 
 is a great comfort to the old gentleman 
 a greater comfort, perhaps, than a real son 
 would be. Maybe Andy will vanish with 
 the shades and mists of night, he s such an 
 unsubstantial infant ; but if he does n t, and 
 Mr. Jaffrey finds pleasure in talking to me 
 about his son, I shall humor the old fellow. 
 It would n t be a Christian act to knock over 
 his harmless fancy." 
 
 I was very impatient to see if Mr. Jaf- 
 frey s illusion would stand the test of day 
 light. It did. Elkanah Elkins Andrew 
 Jackson Jaffrey was, so to speak, alive and 
 kicking the next morning. On taking his 
 seat at the breakfast-table, Mr. Jaffrey whis 
 pered to me that Andy had had a comforta 
 ble night. 
 
 " Silas ! " said Mr. Sewell, sharply, " what 
 are you whispering about ? " 
 
 Mr. Sewell was in an ill-humor ; perhaps 
 he was jealous because I had passed the 
 evening in Mr. Jaffrey s room ; but surely 
 Mr. Sewell could not expect his boarders to 
 go to bed at eight o clock every night, as he 
 did. From time to time during the meal 
 Mr. Sewell regarded, me unkindly out of the
 
 MISS MEHEI ABEL S SON. 79 
 
 corner of his eye, and in helping me to the 
 parsnips he poniarded them with quite a sug 
 gestive air. All this, however, did not pre 
 vent me from repairing to the door of Mr. 
 Jaffrey s snuggery when night came. 
 
 "Well, Mr. Jaffrey, how s Andy this 
 evening ? " 
 
 " Got a tooth ! " cried Mr. Jaffrey, viva 
 ciously. 
 
 " No ! " 
 
 " Yes, he has ! Just through. Gave the 
 nurse a silver dollar. Standing reward for 
 first tooth." 
 
 It was on the tip of my tongue to express 
 surprise that an infant a day old should cut 
 a tooth, when I suddenly recollected that 
 Richard III. was born with teeth. Feeling 
 myself to be on unfamiliar ground, I sup 
 pressed my criticism. It was well I did so, 
 for in the next breath I was advised that 
 half a year had elapsed since the previous 
 evening. 
 
 " Andy s had a hard six months of it," 
 said Mr. Jaffrey, with the well-known narra 
 tive air of fathers. " We ve brought him 
 up by hand. His grandfather, by the way, 
 was brought up by the bottle " and 
 brought down by it, too, I added mentally,
 
 80 MISS MEIIETABEL S SON. 
 
 recalling Mr. Sewell s account of the old 
 gentleman s tragic end. 
 
 Mr. Jaffrey then went on to give me a 
 history of Andy s first six months, omitting 
 no detail however insignificant or irrelevant. 
 This history I would in turn inflict upon 
 the reader, if I were only certain that he is 
 one of those dreadful parents who, under the 
 segis of friendship, bore you at a street- 
 corner with that remarkable thing which 
 Freddy said the other day, and insist on 
 singing to you, at an evening party, the 
 Iliad of Tommy s woes. 
 
 But to inflict this enfantillage upon the 
 unmarried reader would be an act of wan 
 ton cruelty. So I pass over that part of 
 Andy s biography, and, for the same reason, 
 make no record of the next four or five in 
 terviews I had with Mr. Jaffrey. It will be 
 sufficient to state that Andy glided from ex 
 treme infancy to early youth with astonish 
 ing celerity at the rate of one year per 
 night, if I remember correctly ; and must 
 I confess it ? before the week came to an 
 end, this invisible hobgoblin of a boy was 
 only little less of a reality to me than to Mr. 
 Jaffrey. 
 
 At first I had lent myself to the old
 
 MISS MEHETABEL S SON. 81 
 
 dreamer s whim with a keen perception of 
 the humor of the thing; but by and by I 
 found that I was talking and thinking; of 
 
 O O 
 
 Miss Mehetabel s son as though he were a 
 veritable personage. Mr. Jaffrey spoke of 
 the child with such an air of conviction ! 
 as if Andy were playing among his toys in 
 the next room, or making mud-pies down in 
 the yard. In these conversations, it should 
 be observed, the child was never supposed to 
 be present, except on that single occasion 
 when Mr. Jaffrey leaned over the cradle. 
 After one of our seances I would lie awake 
 until the small hours, thinking of the boy, 
 and then fall asleep only to have indigestible 
 dreams about him. Through the day, and 
 sometimes in the midst of complicated cal 
 culations, I would catch myself wondering 
 what Andy was up to now ! There was no 
 shaking him off ; he became an inseparable 
 nightmare to me ; and I felt that if I re 
 mained much longer at Bayley s Four-Cor 
 ners I should turn into just such another 
 bald-headed, mild-eyed visionary as Silas 
 Jaffrey. 
 
 Then the tavern was a grewsome old shell 
 any way, full of unaccountable noises after 
 dark rustlings of garments along unfre-
 
 82 MISS MEllETABEVS SON. 
 
 quentecl passages, and stealthy footfalls in 
 unocciapied chambers overhead. I never 
 knew of an old house without these mys 
 terious noises. Next to my bedroom was a 
 musty, dismantled apartment, in one corner 
 of which, leaning against the wainscot, was 
 a crippled mangle, with its iron crank tilted 
 in the air like the elbow of the late Mr. 
 Clem Jaffrey. Sometimes, 
 
 " In the dead vast and middle of the night," 
 
 I used to hear sounds as if some one were 
 turning that rusty crank on the sly. This 
 occurred only on particularly cold nights, 
 and I conceived the uncomfortable idea that 
 it was the thin family ghosts, from the neg 
 lected graveyard in the cornfield, keeping 
 themselves warm by running each other 
 through the mangle. There was a haunted 
 air about the whole place that made it easy 
 for me to believe in the existence of a phan 
 tasm like Miss MehetabeTs son, who, after 
 all, was less unearthly than Mr. Jaffrey him 
 self, and seemed more properly an inhabitant 
 of this globe than the toothless ogre who 
 kept the inn, not to mention the silent 
 Witch of Endor that cooked our meals for 
 us over the bar-room fire. 
 
 In spite of the scowls and winks bestowed
 
 MISS MEHETABEL S SON. 83 
 
 upon me by Mr. Sewell, who let slip no op 
 portunity to testify his disapprobation of the 
 intimacy, Mr. Jaffrey and I spent all our 
 evenings together those long autumnal 
 evenings, through the length of which he 
 talked about the boy, laying out his path 
 in life and hedging the path with roses. He 
 should be sent to the High School at Ports 
 mouth, and then to college ; he shoidd be 
 educated like a gentleman, Andy. 
 
 " When the old man dies," remarked Mr. 
 Jaffrey one night, rubbing his hands glee 
 fully, as if it were a great joke, " Andy will 
 find that the old man has left him a pretty 
 plum." 
 
 " What do you think of having Andy 
 enter West Point, when he s old enough ? " 
 said Mr. Jaffrey on another occasion. " He 
 need n t necessarily go into the army when 
 he graduates ; he can become a civil engi 
 neer." 
 
 This was a stroke of flattery so delicate 
 and indirect that I could accept it without 
 immodesty. 
 
 There had lately sprung up on the corner 
 of Mr. Jaffrey s bureau a small tin house, 
 Gothic in architecture and pink in -color, 
 with a slit in the roof, and the word BANK
 
 84 MfSS MEHETABEL S SON. 
 
 painted on one facade. Several times in the 
 course of an evening Mr. Jaffrey would rise 
 from his chair without interrupting the con 
 versation, and gravely drop a nickel into the 
 scuttle of the bank. It was pleasant to ob 
 serve the solemnity of his countenance as he 
 approached the edifice, and the air of tri 
 umph with which he resumed his seat by the 
 fireplace. One night I missed the tin bank. 
 It had disappeared, deposits and all, like a 
 real bank. Evidently there had been a de 
 falcation on rather a large scale. I strongly 
 suspected that Mr. Sewell was at the bottom 
 of it, but my suspicion was not shared by Mr. 
 Jaffrey, who, remarking my glance at the 
 bureau, became suddenly depressed. " I in 
 afraid," he said, " that I have failed to in 
 stil into Andrew those principles of integ 
 rity which which" and the old gentle 
 man quite broke down. 
 
 Andy was now eight or nine years old, 
 and for some time past, if the truth must be 
 told, had given Mr. Jaffrey no inconsider 
 able trouble ; what with his impishness and 
 his illnesses, the boy led the pair of us a 
 lively dance. I shall not soon forget the 
 anxiety of Mr. Jaffrey the night Andy had 
 the scarlet-fever an anxiety which so in-
 
 MISS MEHETABEUS SON. 85 
 
 fected me that I actually returned to the 
 tavern the following afternoon earlier than 
 usual, dreading to hear that the little spec 
 tre was dead, and greatly relieved on meet 
 ing Mr. Jaffrey at the door-step with his 
 face wreathed in smiles. When I spoke to 
 him of Andy, I was made aware that I was 
 inquiring into a case of scarlet-fever that 
 had occurred the year before ! 
 
 It was at this time, towards the end of 
 my second week at Greenton, that I noticed 
 what was probably not a new trait Mr. 
 Jaffrey s curious sensitiveness to atmospher 
 ical changes. He was as sensitive as a ba 
 rometer. The approach of a storm sent his 
 mercury down instantly. When the weather 
 was fair he was hopeful and sunny, and 
 Andy s prospects were brilliant. When the 
 weather was overcast and threatening: he 
 
 o 
 
 grew restless and despondent, and was afraid 
 that the boy was not going to turn out 
 well. 
 
 On the Saturday previous to my depar 
 ture, which had been fixed for Monday, it 
 rained heavily all the afternoon, and that 
 night Mr. Jaffrey was in an unusually excit 
 able and unhappy frame of mind. His mer 
 cury was very low indeed.
 
 86 MISS MEHETABEL S SON. 
 
 " That boy is going to the dogs just as 
 fast as he can go," said Mr. Jaffrey, with 
 a woful face. "I can t do anything with 
 him." 
 
 " He 11 come out all right, Mr. Jaffrey. 
 Boys will be boys. I would not give a snap 
 for a lad without animal spirits." 
 
 " But animal spirits," said Mr. Jaffrey 
 sententiously, " should n t saw off the legs of 
 the piano in Tobias s best parlor. I don t 
 know what Tobias will say when he finds it 
 out." 
 
 " What ! has Andy sawed off the legs of 
 the old spinet?" I returned, laughing. 
 " Worse than that." 
 " Played upon it, then ! " 
 " No, sir. He has lied to me ! " 
 " I can t believe that of Andy." 
 "Lied to me, sir," repeated Mr. Jaffrey, 
 severely. " He pledged me his word of 
 honor that he would give over his climbing. 
 The way that boy climbs sends a chill down 
 my spine. This morning, notwithstanding 
 his solemn promise, he shinned up the light 
 ning-rod attached to the extension, and sat 
 astride the ridge-pole. I saw him, and he 
 denied it ! When a boy you have caressed 
 and indulged and lavished pocket-money on
 
 MISS MEHETABEL S SON. 87 
 
 lies to you and will climb, then there s 
 nothing 1 more to be said. He s a lost child." 
 
 " You take too dark a view of it, Mr. Jaf- 
 frey. Training and education are bound to 
 tell in the end, and he has been well brought 
 up." 
 
 " But I did n t bring him up on a light 
 ning-rod, did I? If he is ever going to 
 know how to behave, he ought to know now. 
 To-morrow he will be eleven years old." 
 
 The reflection came to me that if Andy 
 had not been brought up by the rod, he had 
 certainly been brought up by the lightning. 
 He was eleven years old in two weeks ! 
 
 I essayed, with that perspicacious wisdom 
 which seems to be the peculiar property of 
 bachelors and elderly maiden ladies, to tran 
 quillize Mr. Jaffrey s mind, and to give him 
 some practical hints on the management of 
 youth. 
 
 " Spank him," I suggested at last. 
 
 " I will! " said the old gentleman. 
 
 " And you d better do it at once ! " I 
 added, as it flashed upon me that in six 
 months Andy would be a hundred and forty- 
 three years old ! an age at which parental 
 discipline would have to be relaxed. 
 
 The next morning, Sunday, the rain came
 
 88 MISS MEIIETABEL S SON. 
 
 down as if determined to drive the quick 
 silver entirely out of my poor friend. Air. 
 Jaffrey sat bolt upright at the breakfast- 
 table, looking as woe-begone as a bust of 
 Dante, and retired to his chamber the mo 
 ment the meal was finished. As the day 
 advanced, the wind veered round to the 
 northeast, and settled itself down to work. 
 It was not pleasant to think, and I tried not 
 to think, what Mr. Jaffrey s condition would 
 be if the weather did not mend its manners 
 by noon; but so far from clearing off at 
 noon, the storm increased in violence, and 
 as night set in the wind whistled in a spite 
 ful falsetto key, and the rain lashed the old 
 tavern as if it were a balky horse that re 
 fused to move on. The windows rattled in 
 the worm-eaten frames, and the doors of 
 remote rooms, where nobody ever went, 
 slammed to in the maddest way. Now and 
 then the tornado, sweeping down the side 
 of Mount Agamenticus, bowled across the 
 open country, and struck the ancient hos 
 telry point-blank. 
 
 Mr. Jaffrey did not appear at supper. I 
 knew that he was expecting me to come 
 to his room as usual, and I turned over in 
 my mind a dozen plans to evade seeing him
 
 MISS MEIIETABEL S SON. 89 
 
 that night. The landlord sat at the op 
 posite side of the chimney-place, with his 
 eye upon me. I fancy he was aware of the 
 effect of this storm on his other boarder, 
 for at intervals, as the wind hurled itself 
 against the exposed gable, threatening- to 
 burst in the windows, Mr. Sewell tipped me 
 an atrocious wink, and displayed his gums 
 in a way he had not done since the morning 
 after my arrival at Greenton. I wondered 
 if he suspected anything- about Andy. There 
 had been odd times during the past week 
 when I felt convinced that the existence of 
 Miss Mehetabei s son was no secret to Mr. 
 Sewell. 
 
 In deference to the gale, the landlord sat 
 up half an hour later than was his custom. 
 At half-past eight he went to bed, remark 
 ing that he thought the old pile would stand 
 till morning. 
 
 He had been absent only a few minutes 
 when I heard a rustling at the door. I 
 looked up, and beheld Mr. Jaffrey standing 
 on the threshold, with his dress in disordei , 
 his scant hair flying, and the wildest expres 
 sion on his face. 
 
 " He s gone ! " cried Mr. Jaffrey. 
 
 " Who ? Sewell ? Yes, he just went to 
 bed."
 
 90 MISS MEHETABEL S SON. 
 
 " No, not Tobias the boy ! " 
 
 " What, run away ? " 
 
 " No he is dead ! He has fallen from a 
 step-ladder in the red chamber and broken 
 his neck ! " 
 
 Mr. Jaffrey threw up his hands with a 
 gesture of despair, and disappeared. I fol 
 lowed him through the hall, saw him go into 
 his own apartment, and heard the bolt of 
 the door drawn to. Then I returned to the 
 bar-room, and sat for an hour or two in the 
 ruddy glow of the fire, brooding over the 
 strange experience of the last fortnight. 
 
 On my way to bed I paused at Mr. Jaf- 
 frey s door, and, in a lull of the storm, the 
 measured respiration within told me that 
 the old gentleman was sleeping peacefully. 
 
 Slumber was coy with me that night. I 
 lay listening to the soughing of the wind, 
 and thinking of Mr. Jaffrey s illusion. It 
 had amuse?! me at first with its grotesque- 
 ness ; but now the poor little phantom was 
 dead, I was conscious that there had been 
 something pathetic in it all along. Shortly 
 after midnight the wind sunk down, com 
 ing and going fainter and fainter, floating 
 around the eaves of the tavern with an un 
 dulating, murmurous sound, as if it were
 
 MISS MEHETABEL S SON. 91 
 
 turning itself into soft wings to bear away 
 the spirit of a little child. 
 
 Perhaps nothing that happened during 
 my stay at Bayley s Four-Corners took me 
 so completely by surprise as Mr. Jaffrey s 
 radiant countenance the next morning. The 
 morning itself was not fresher or sunnier. 
 His round face literally shone with genial 
 ity and happiness. His eyes twinkled like 
 diamonds, and the magnetic light of his hair 
 was turned on full. He came into my room 
 while I was packing my valise. He chirped, 
 and prattled, and carolled, and was sorry I 
 was going away but never a word about 
 Andy. However, the boy had probably been 
 dead several years then ! 
 
 The open wagon that was to carry me to 
 the station stood at the door ; Mr. Sewell 
 was placing my case of instruments under 
 the seat, and Mr. Jaffrey had gone up to his 
 room to get me a certain newspaper contain 
 ing an account of a remarkable shipwreck 
 on the Auckland Islands. I took the op 
 portunity to thank Mr. Sewell for his cour 
 tesies to me, and to express my regret at 
 leaving him and Mr. Jaffrey. 
 
 " I have become very much attached to 
 Mr. Jaffrey," I said ; " he is a most inter-
 
 92 MJSS MEUETABEDS SON. 
 
 esting person ; but that hypothetical boy of 
 his, that son of Miss Mehetabel s " 
 
 " Yes, I know ! " interrupted Mr. Sewell, 
 testily. " Fell off a step-ladder and broke 
 his dratted neck. Eleven year old, was n t 
 he ? Always does, jest at that point. Next 
 week Silas will begin the whole thing over 
 again, if he can get anybody to listen to 
 him." 
 
 " I see. Our amiable friend is a little 
 queer on that subject." 
 
 Mr. Sewell glanced cautiously over his 
 shoulder, and, tapping himself significantly 
 on the forehead, said in a low voice, 
 
 " lioom To Let Unfurnished ! "
 
 OUR NEW NEIGHBORS AT 
 PONKAPOG. 
 
 I saw the little house building, an 
 eighth of a mile beyond my own, 011 the Old 
 Bay Road, I wondered who were to be the 
 tenants. The modest structure was set well 
 back from the road, among the trees, as if 
 the inmates were to care nothing whatever 
 for a view of the stylish equipages which 
 sweep by during the summer season. For 
 my part, I like to see the passing, in town or 
 country ; but each has his own unaccount 
 able taste. The proprietor, who seemed to 
 be also the architect of the new house, su 
 perintended the various details of the work 
 with an assiduity that gave me a high opin 
 ion of his intelligence and executive ability, 
 and I congratulated myself on the prospect 
 of having some very agreeable neighbors. 
 
 It was quite early in the spring, if I re 
 member, when they moved into the cottage 
 a newly married couple, evidently : the 
 wife very young, pretty, and with the air of
 
 94 OUR NEW NEIGHBORS AT PONKAPOG. 
 
 a lady ; the husband somewhat older, Imt 
 still in the first flush of manhood. It was 
 understood in the village that they came 
 from Baltimore ; but no one knew them per 
 sonally, and they brought 110 letters of intro 
 duction. (For obvious reasons I refrain from 
 mentioning names.) It was clear that, for 
 the present at least, their own company was 
 entirely sufficient for them. They made no 
 advances toward the acquaintance of any of 
 the families in the neighborhood, and conse 
 quently were left to themselves. That, ap 
 parently, was what they desired, and why 
 they came to Ponkapog. For after its black 
 bass and wild duck and teal, solitude is the 
 chief staple of Ponkapog. Perhaps its per 
 fect rural loveliness should be included. 
 Lying high up under the wing of the Blue 
 Hills, and iu the odorous breath of pines 
 and cedars, it chances to be the most en 
 chanting bit of unlaced dishevelled country 
 within fifty miles of Boston, which, more 
 over, can be reached in half an hour s ride 
 by railway. But the nearest railway sta 
 tion (Heaven be praised !) is two miles 
 distant, and the seclusion is without a flaw. 
 Ponkapog has one mail a day ; two mails a 
 day would render the place uninhabitable.
 
 OUR NEW NEIGHBORS AT PONKAPOG. 95 
 
 The village it looks like a compact vil 
 lage at a distance, but unravels and disap 
 pears the moment you drive into it has 
 quite a large floating population. I do not 
 allude to the perch and pickerel in Ponk- 
 apog Pond. Along the Old Bay Road, a 
 highway even in the colonial days, there are 
 a number of attractive villas and cottages 
 straggling off towards Milton, which are oc 
 cupied for the summer by people from the 
 city. These birds of passage are a distinct 
 class from the permanent inhabitants, and 
 the two seldom closely assimilate unless 
 there has been some previous connection. It 
 seemed to me that our new neighbors were 
 to come under the head of permanent inhab 
 itants ; they had built their own house, and 
 had the air of intending to live in it all the 
 year round. 
 
 " Are you not going to call on them ? " 
 I asked my wife one morning. 
 
 " When they call on us" she replied 
 lightly. 
 
 " But it is our place to call first, they 
 being strangers." 
 
 This was said as seriously as the circum 
 stance demanded ; but my wife turned it off 
 with a laugh, and I said no more, always 
 trusting to her intuitions in these matters.
 
 96 OUR NEW NEIGHBORS AT PONKAPOG. 
 
 She was right. She would not have been 
 received, and a cool " Not at home " would 
 have been a bitter social pill to us if we had 
 gone out of our way to be courteous. 
 
 I saw a great deal of our neighbors, never 
 theless. Their cottage lay between us and 
 the post-office where he was never to be 
 met with by any chance and I caught fre 
 quent glimpses of the two working in the 
 garden. Floriculture did not appear so 
 much an object as exercise. Possibly it was 
 neither ; may be they were engaged in dig 
 ging for specimens of those arrowheads and 
 flint hatchets which are continually coming 
 to the surface hereabouts. There is scarcely 
 an acre in which the ploughshare has not 
 turned up some primitive stone weapon or 
 domestic utensil, disdainfully left to us by 
 the red men who once held this domain 
 an ancient tribe called the Punkypoags, 
 a forlorn descendant of which, one Polly 
 Crowd, figures in the annual Blue Book, 
 down to the close of the Southern war, as a 
 state pensioner. At that period she appears 
 to have struck a trail to the Happy Hunting 
 Grounds. I quote from the local historiog 
 rapher. 
 
 Whether they were developing a kitchen.
 
 OUR NEW NEIGHBORS AT PONKAPOG. 97 
 
 garden, or emulating Professor Schliemann 
 at Mycenae, the new-comers were evidently 
 persons of refined musical taste : the lady 
 had a contralto voice of remarkable sweet 
 ness, although of no great compass, and I 
 used often to linger of a morning by the 
 high gate and listen to her executing an 
 arietta, conjecturally at some window up 
 stairs, for the house was not visible from the 
 turnpike. The husband, somewhere about 
 the grounds, would occasionally respond with 
 two or three bars. It was all quite an ideal, 
 Arcadian business. They seemed very happy 
 together-, these two persons, who asked no 
 odds whatever of the community in which 
 they had settled themselves. 
 
 There was a queerness, a sort of mystery, 
 about this couple which I admit piqued my 
 curiosity, though as a rule I have no morbid 
 interest in the affairs of my neighbors. They 
 behaved like a pair of lovers who had run 
 off and got married clandestinely. I wil 
 lingly acquitted them, however, of having 
 done anything unlawful ; for, to change a 
 word in the lines of the poet, 
 
 " It is a joy to think the best 
 We may of human kind." 
 
 Admitting the hypothesis of elopement, there
 
 98 OUR NEW NEIGHBORS AT PONKAPOG. 
 
 was no mystery in their neither sending nor 
 receiving letters. But where did they get 
 their groceries? I do not mean the money 
 to pay for them that is an enigma apart 
 but the groceries themselves. No express 
 wagon, no butcher s cart, no vehicle of any 
 description, was ever observed to stop at 
 their domicile. Yet they did not order fam 
 ily stores at the sole establishment in the 
 village an inexhaustible little bottle of a 
 shop which, I advertise it gratis, can turn 
 out anything in the way of groceries, from a 
 handsaw to a pocket-handkerchief. I con 
 fess that I allowed this unimportant detail 
 of their manage to occupy more of my spec 
 ulation than was creditable to me. 
 
 In several respects our neighbors reminded 
 me of those inexplicable persons we some 
 times come across in great cities, though 
 seldom or never in suburban places, where 
 the field may be supposed too restricted for 
 their operations persons who have no per 
 ceptible means of subsistence, and manage 
 to live royally on nothing a year. They hold 
 no government bonds, they possess no real 
 estate (our neighbors did own their house), 
 they toil not, neither do they spin ; yet they 
 reap all the numerous soft advantages that
 
 OUR NEW NEIGHBORS AT PONKAPOG. 99 
 
 usually result from honest toil and skilful 
 spinning. How do they do it ? But this is a 
 digression, and I am quite of the opinion of 
 the old lady in " David Copperfield," who 
 says, " Let us have no meandering ! " 
 
 Though my wife had declined to risk a 
 ceremonious call on our neighbors as a fam 
 ily, I saw no reason why I should not speak 
 to the husband as an individual, when I 
 happened to encounter him by the wayside. 
 I made several approaches to do so, when it 
 occurred to my penetration that my neigh 
 bor had the air of trying to avoid me. I 
 resolved to put the suspicion to the test, and 
 one forenoon, when he was sauntering along 
 on the opposite side of the road, in the 
 vicinity of Fisher s sawmill, I deliberately 
 crossed over to address him. The brusque 
 manner in which he hurried away was not 
 to be misunderstood. Of course I was not 
 going to force myself upon him. 
 
 It was at this time that I began to formu 
 late uncharitable suppositions touching our 
 neighbors, and would have been as well 
 pleased if some of my choicest fruit trees 
 had not overhung their wall. I determined 
 to keep my eyes open later in the season, 
 when the fruit should be ripe to pluck. In
 
 100 OUR NEW NEIGHBORS AT PONKAPOG. 
 
 some folks, a sense of the lelicate shades of 
 difference between meum and tuum does not 
 seem to be very strongly developed in the 
 Moon of Cherries, to use the old Indian 
 phrase. 
 
 I was sufficiently magnanimous not to 
 impart any of these sinister impressions to 
 the families with whom we were on visiting 
 terms ; for I despise a gossip. I would say 
 nothing against the persons up the road 
 until I had something definite to say. My 
 interest in them was well, not exactly 
 extinguished, but burning low. I met the 
 gentleman at intervals, and passed him with 
 out recognition ; at rarer intervals I saw the 
 lady. 
 
 After a while I not only missed my occa 
 sional glimpses of her pretty, slim figure, 
 always draped in some soft black stuff with 
 a bit of scarlet at the throat, but I inferred 
 that she did not go about the house singing 
 in her light-hearted manner, as formerly. 
 What had happened ? Had the honeymoon 
 suffered eclipse already ? Was she ill ? I 
 fancied she was ill, and that I detected a 
 certain anxiety in the husband, who spent 
 the mornings digging solitarily in the gar 
 den, and seemed to have relinquished those
 
 OUR NEW NEIGHBORS AT PONKAPOG. 101 
 
 long jaunts to tb brow of Blue Hill, where 
 there is a superb view of all Norfolk County 
 combined with sundry venerable rattlesnakes 
 with twelve rattles. 
 
 As the days went by it became certain 
 that the lady was confined to the house, per 
 haps seriously ill, possibly a confirmed in 
 valid. Whether she was attended by a phy 
 sician from Canton or from Milton, I was 
 unable to say ; but neither the gig with the 
 large white allopathic horse, nor the gig with 
 the homoeopathic sorrel mare, was ever seen 
 hitched at the gate during the day. If a 
 physician had charge of the case, he visited 
 his patient only at night. All this moved 
 my sympathy, and I reproached myself with 
 having had hard thoughts of our neighbors. 
 Trouble had come to them early. I would 
 have liked to offer them such small, friendly 
 services as lay in my power ; but the mem 
 ory of the repulse I had sustained still ran 
 kled in me. So I hesitated. 
 
 One morning my two boys burst into the 
 library with their eyes sparkling. 
 
 " You know the old elm down the road ? " 
 cried one. 
 
 "Yes."
 
 102 OUR NEW NEIGHBORS AT PONKAPOG. 
 
 " The elm with the hang-bird s nest ? " 
 shrieked the other. 
 
 " Yes, yes ! " 
 
 " Well, we both just climbed up, and 
 there s three young ones in it ! " 
 
 Then I smiled to think that our new 
 neighbors had got such a promising little 
 family.
 
 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. 
 
 IT was close upon eleven o clock when I 
 stepped out of the rear vestibule of the Bos 
 ton Theatre, and, passing through the nar 
 row court that leads to West Street, struck 
 across the Common diagonally. Indeed, as 
 I set foot on the Tremont Street mall, I 
 heard the Old South drowsily sounding the 
 hour. 
 
 It was a tranquil June night, with no 
 moon, but clusters of sensitive stars that 
 seemed to shiver with cold as the wind swept 
 by them ; for perhaps there was a swift cur 
 rent of air up there in the zenith. However, 
 not a leaf stirred on the Common ; the foliage 
 hung black and massive, as if cut in bronze ; 
 even the gaslights appeared to be infected by 
 the prevailing calm, burning steadily behind 
 their glass screens and turning the neighbor 
 ing leaves into the tenderest emerald. Here 
 and there, in the sombre row of houses 
 stretching along Beacon Street, an illumi-
 
 104 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. 
 
 nated window gilded a few square feet of 
 darkness ; and now and then a footfall 
 sounded on a distant pavement. The pulse 
 of the city throbbed languidly. 
 
 The lights far and near, the fantastic 
 shadows of the elms and maples, the gather 
 ing dew, the elusive odor of new grass, and 
 that peculiar hush which belongs only to 
 midnight as if Time had paused in his 
 flight and were holding his breath gave to 
 the place, so familiar to me by day, an air 
 of indescribable strangeness and remoteness. 
 The vast, deserted park had lost all its 
 wonted outlines ; I walked doubtfully on the 
 flagstones which I had many a time helped 
 to wear smooth ; I seemed to be wandering 
 in some lonely unknown garden across the 
 seas in that old garden in Verona where 
 Shakespeare s ill-starred lovers met and 
 parted. The white granite facade over yon 
 der the Somerset Club might well have 
 been the house of Capulet : there was the 
 clambering vine reaching up like a pliant 
 silked ladder; there, near by, was the low- 
 hung balcony, wanting only the slight girlish 
 figure immortal shape of fire and dew ! 
 to make the illusion perfect. 
 
 I do not know what suggested it ; perhaps
 
 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. 105 
 
 it was something in the play I had just wit 
 nessed it is not always easy to put one s 
 finger on the invisible electric thread that 
 runs from thought to thought but as I 
 sauntered on I fell to thinking of the ill-as 
 sorted marriages I had known. Suddenly 
 there hurried along the gravelled path which 
 crossed mine obliquely a half-indistinguisha 
 ble throng of pathetic men and women : two 
 by two they filed before me, each becoming 
 startliugly distinct for an instant as they 
 passed some with tears, some with hollow 
 smiles, and some with firm-set lips, bearing 
 their fetters with them. There was little 
 Alice chained to old Bowlsby ; there was 
 Lucille, " a daughter of the gods, divinely 
 tall," linked forever to the dwarf Perry win 
 kle ; there was my friend Porphyro, the 
 poet, with his delicate genius shrivelled in 
 the glare of the youngest Miss Lucifer s 
 eyes ; there they were, Beauty and the 
 Beast, Pride and Humility, Bluebeard and 
 Fatima, Prose and Poetry, Riches and Pov 
 erty, Youth and Crabbed Age Oh, sorrow 
 ful procession ! All so wretched, when per 
 haps all might have been so happy if they 
 had only paired differently ! 
 
 I halted a moment to let the weird shapes
 
 106 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. 
 
 drift by. As the last of the train melted 
 into the darkness, my vagabond fancy went 
 wandering back to the theatre and the play 
 I had seen Romeo and Juliet. Taking a 
 lighter tint, but still of the same sober color, 
 
 o ~ 
 
 my reflections continued. 
 
 What a different kind of woman Juliet 
 would have been if she had not fallen in 
 love with Romeo, but had bestowed her affec 
 tion on some thoughtful and stately signior 
 on one of the Delia Scalas, for example ! 
 What Juliet needed was a firm and gentle 
 hand to tame her high spirit without break 
 ing a pinion. She was a little too viva 
 cious, you might say " gushing " would 
 perhaps be the word if you were speaking 
 of a modern maiden with so exuberant a 
 disposition as Juliet s. She was too ro 
 mantic, too blossomy, too impetuous, too 
 wilful ; old Capulet had brought her up in 
 judiciously, and Lady Capulet was a nonen 
 tity. Yet in spite of faults of training and 
 some slight inherent flaws of character, 
 Juliet was a superb creature ; there was a 
 fascinating dash in her frankness ; her mod 
 esty and daring were as happy rhymes as 
 ever touched lips in a love-poem. But her 
 impulses required curbing ; her heart made
 
 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. 107 
 
 too many beats to the minute. It was an 
 evil destiny that flung in the path of so rich 
 and passionate a nature a fire-brand like 
 Romeo. Even if no family feud had existed, 
 the match would not have been a wise one. 
 As it was, the well-known result was inevi 
 table. What could come of it but clandes 
 tine meetings, secret marriage, flight, de 
 spair, poison, and the Tomb of the Capulets ? 
 I had left the park behind, by this, and 
 had entered a thoroughfare where the street- 
 lamps were closer together ; but the gloom 
 of the trees seemed still to be overhanging 
 me. The fact is, the tragedy had laid a 
 black finger on my imagination. I wished 
 that the play had ended a trifle more cheer 
 fully. I wished possibly because I see 
 enough tragedy all around me without going 
 to the theatre for it, or possibly it was be 
 cause the lady who enacted the leading 
 part was a remarkably clean-cut little per 
 son, with a golden sweep of eyelashes I 
 wished that Juliet could have had a more 
 comfortable time of it. Instead of a yawn 
 ing sepulchre, with Romeo and Juliet dying 
 in the middle foreground, and that luckless 
 young Paris stretched out on the left, spit 
 ted like a spring-chicken with Montague s
 
 108 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. 
 
 rapier, and Friar Laurence, with a dark lan 
 tern, groping about under the melancholy 
 yews in place of all this costly piled-up 
 woe, I would have liked a pretty, mediaeval 
 chapel scene, with illuminated stained-glass 
 windows, and trim acolytes holding lighted 
 candles, and the great green curtain slowly 
 descending to the first few bars of the Wed 
 ding March of Mendelssohn. 
 
 Of course Shakespeare was true to the 
 life in making them all die miserably. Be 
 sides, it was so they died in the novel of 
 Matteo Bandello, from which the poet indi 
 rectly took his plot. Under the circum 
 stances no other climax was practicable ; 
 and yet it was sad business. There were 
 Mercutio, and Tybalt, and Paris, and Ju 
 liet, and Romeo, come to a bloody end in 
 the bloom of their youth and strength and 
 beauty. 
 
 The ghosts of these five murdered persons 
 seemed to be on my track as I hurried down 
 Revere Street to West Cedar. I fancied 
 them hovering around the corner opposite 
 the small drug-store, where a meagre apothe 
 cary was in the act of shutting up the fan- 
 like jets of gas in his shop- window. 
 
 " No, Master Booth," I muttered in the
 
 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. 109 
 
 imagined teeth of the tragedian, throwing 
 an involuntary glance over my shoulder, 
 " you 11 not catch me assisting at any more 
 of your Shakespearean revivals. I would 
 rather eat a pair of Welsh rarebits or a seg 
 ment of mince-pie at midnight than sit 
 through the finest tragedy that was ever 
 writ." 
 
 As I said this I halted at the door of a 
 house in Charles Place, and was fumbling 
 for my latch-key, when a most absurd idea 
 came into my head. I let the key slip back 
 into my pocket, and strode down Charles 
 Place into Cambridge Street, and across the 
 long bridge, and then swiftly forward. 
 
 I remember, vaguely, that I paused for a 
 moment on the draw of the bridge, to look 
 at the semi-circular fringe of lights duplicat 
 ing itself in the smooth Charles in the rear 
 of Beacon Street as lovely a bit of Vene 
 tian effect as you will get outside of Venice ; 
 I remember meeting, farther on, near a stiff 
 wooden church in Cambridgeport, a lumber 
 ing covered wagon, evidently from Brighton 
 and bound for Quincy Market ; and still 
 farther on, somewhere in the vicinity of 
 Harvard Square and the college buildings, I 
 recollect catching a glimpse of a policeman,
 
 110 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. 
 
 who, probably observing something suspi 
 cious in my demeanor, discreetly walked off 
 in an opposite direction. I recall these tri 
 fles indistinctly, for during this preposterous 
 excursion I was at no time sharply conscious 
 of my surroundings ; the material world pre 
 sented itself to me as if through a piece 
 of stained glass. It was only when I had 
 reached a neighborhood where the houses 
 were few and the gardens many, a neighbor 
 hood where the closely-knitted town began 
 to fringe out into country, that I came to 
 the end of my dream. And what was the 
 dream ? The slightest of tissues, madam ; 
 a gossamer, a web of shadows, a thing woven 
 out of starlight. Booking at it by day, 
 I find that its colors are pallid, and its 
 threaded diamonds they were merely the 
 perishable dews of that June night have 
 evaporated in the sunshine ; but such as it 
 is you shall have it.
 
 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. Ill 
 
 II. 
 
 THE young prince Hamlet was not happy 
 at Elsinore. It was not because he missed 
 the gay student-life of Wittenberg, and that 
 the little Danish court was intolerably dull. 
 It was not because the didactic lord cham 
 berlain bored him with long speeches, or 
 that the lord chamberlain s daughter was 
 become a shade wearisome. Hamlet had 
 more serious cues for unhappiness. He had 
 been summoned suddenly from Wittenberg 
 to attend his father s funeral ; close upon 
 this, and while his grief was green, his 
 mother had married with his uncle Claudius, 
 whom Hamlet had never liked. 
 
 The indecorous haste of these nuptials 
 they took place within two months after the 
 king s death, the funeral-baked meats, as 
 Hamlet cursorily remarked, furnishing forth 
 the marriage - tables struck the young 
 prince aghast. He had loved the queen his 
 mother, and had nearly idolized the late 
 king ; but now he forgot to lament the death
 
 112 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. 
 
 of the one in contemplating the life of the 
 other. The billing and cooing of the newly- 
 married couple filled him with horror. An 
 ger, shame, pity, and despair seized upon 
 him by turns. He fell into a forlorn con 
 dition, forsaking his books, eating little save 
 of the chameleon s dish, the air, drinking 
 deep of Rhenish, letting his long, black 
 locks go unkempt, and neglecting his dress 
 he who had hitherto been " the glass of 
 fashion and the mould of form," as Ophelia 
 had prettily said of him. 
 
 Often for half the night he would wander 
 along the ramparts of the castle, at the im 
 minent risk of tumbling off, gazing seaward 
 and muttering strangely to himself, and 
 evolving frightful spectres out of the shad 
 ows cast by the turrets. Sometimes he 
 lapsed into a gentle melancholy ; but not 
 seldom his mood was ferocious, and at such 
 times the conversational Polonius, with a dis 
 cretion that did him credit, steered clear of 
 my lord Hamlet. 
 
 He turned no more graceful compliments 
 for Ophelia. The thought of marrying her, 
 if he had ever seriously thought of it, was 
 gone now. He rather ruthlessly advised her 
 to go into a nunnery. His mother had sick
 
 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. 113 
 
 enerl him of women. It was of her he 
 spoke the notable words, " Frailty, thy name 
 is woman ! " which, some time afterwards, 
 an amiable French gentleman had neatly en 
 graved on the head-stone of his wife, who 
 had long been an invalid. Even the king 
 and queen did not escape Hamlet in his dis 
 tempered moments. Passing his mother in 
 a corridor or on a staircase of the palace, he 
 would suddenly plant a verbal dagger in 
 her heart ; and frequently, in full court, he 
 would deal the king such a cutting reply as 
 caused him to blanch, and gnaw his lip. 
 
 If the spectacle of Gertrude and Clau 
 dius was hateful to Hamlet, the presence of 
 Hamlet, on the other hand, was scarcely a 
 comfort to the royal lovers. At first his un 
 cle had called him " our chief est courtier, 
 cousin, and our son," trying to smooth over 
 matters ; but Hamlet would have none of it. 
 Therefore, one day, when the young prince 
 abruptly announced his intention to go 
 abroad, neither the king nor the queen 
 placed impediments in his way, though, 
 some months previously, they had both pro 
 tested strongly against his returning to Wit 
 tenberg. 
 
 The small-fry of the court knew nothing
 
 114 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. 
 
 of Prince Hamlet s determination until he 
 had sailed from Elsinore ; their knowledge 
 then was confined to the fact of his depart 
 ure. It was only to Horatio, his fellow- 
 student and friend, that Hamlet confided 
 the real cause of his self-imposed exile, 
 though perhaps Ophelia half suspected it. 
 
 Polonius had dropped an early hint to his 
 daughter concerning Hamlet s intent. She 
 knew that everything was over between 
 them, and the night before he embarked 
 Ophelia placed in the prince s hand the few 
 letters and trinkets he had given her, re 
 peating, as she did so, a certain distich 
 which somehow haunted Hamlet s memory 
 for several days after he was on shipboard : 
 
 " Take these again ; for to the noble mind 
 Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind." 
 
 " These could never have waxed poor," 
 said Hamlet softly to himself, as he leaned 
 over the taffrail, the third day out, spread 
 ing the trinkets in his palm, " being origi 
 nally of but little worth. I fancy that that 
 allusion to rich gifts was a trifle malicious 
 on the part of the fair Ophelia ; " and he 
 quietly dropped them into the sea. 
 
 It was as a Danish gentleman voyaging 
 for pleasure, and for mental profit also, if
 
 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. 115 
 
 that should happen, that Hamlet set forth 
 on his travels. Settled destination he had 
 none, his sole plan being to get clear of 
 Denmark as speedily as possible, and then 
 to drift whither his fancy took him. His 
 fancy naturally took him southward, as it 
 would have taken him northward if he had 
 been a Southron. Many a time while climb 
 ing the bleak crags around Elsinore he had 
 thought of the land of the citron and the 
 palm ; lying on his couch at night, and lis 
 tening to the wind as it howled along the 
 machicolated battlements of the castle, his 
 dreams had turned from the cold, blonde 
 ladies of his father s court to the warmer 
 beauties that ripen under sunny skies. He 
 was free now to test the visions of his boy 
 hood. So it chanced, after various wander 
 ings, all tending imperceptibly in one direc 
 tion, that Hamlet bent his steps towards 
 Italy. 
 
 In those rude days one did not accom 
 plish a long journey without having wonder 
 ful adventures befall, or encountering divers 
 perils by the way. It was a period when a 
 stout blade on the thigh was a most excel 
 lent travelling companion. Hamlet, though 
 of a philosophical complexion, was not slower
 
 116 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. 
 
 than another man to scent an affront ; he 
 excelled at feats of arms, and no doubt his 
 skill, caught of the old fencing-master at 
 Elsinore, stood him in good stead more than 
 once when his wit would not have saved 
 him. Certainly, he had hair-breadth es 
 capes while toiling through the wilds of 
 Prussia and Bavaria and Switzerland. At 
 all events, he counted himself fortunate the 
 night he arrived at Verona with nothing 
 more serious than a two-inch scratch on his 
 sword arm. 
 
 There he lodged himself, as became a gen 
 tleman of fortune, in a suite of chambers in 
 a comfortable palace overlooking the swift- 
 flowing Adige a riotous yellow stream 
 that cut the town into two parts, and was 
 spanned here and there by rough-hewn 
 stone bridges, which it sometimes sportively 
 washed away. It was a brave old town that 
 had stood sieges and plagues, and was full 
 of mouldy, picturesque buildings and a gay- 
 ety that has since grown somewhat mouldy. 
 A goodly place to rest in for the wayworn 
 pilgrim ! He dimly recollected that he had 
 letters to one or two illustrious families; 
 but he cared not to deliver them at once. 
 It was pleasant to stroll about the city, un-
 
 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. 117 
 
 known. There were sights to see : the Ro 
 man amphitheatre, and the churches with 
 their sculptured sarcophagi and saintly rel 
 ics interesting joints and saddles of mar 
 tyrs, and enough fragments of the true cross 
 to build a ship. The life in the piazze and 
 on the streets, the crowds in the shops, the 
 pageants, the lights, the stir, the color, all 
 mightily took the eye of the young Dane, 
 lie was in a mood to be amused. Every 
 thing diverted him the faint pulsing of a 
 guitar-string in an adjacent -garden at mid 
 night, or the sharp clash of gleaming sword 
 blades under his window, when the Mon- 
 tecchi and the Cappelletti chanced to en 
 counter each other in the narrow footway. 
 
 Meanwhile, Hamlet brushed up his Ital 
 ian. He was well versed in the literature 
 of the language, particularly in its dramatic 
 literature, and had long meditated penning 
 a gloss to " The Murther of Gonzago," a 
 play which Hamlet held in deservedly high 
 estimation. 
 
 He made acquaintances, too. In the 
 same palace where he sojourned lived a 
 very valiant soldier and wit, a kinsman to 
 Prince Escalus, one Mercutio by name, 
 with whom Hamlet exchanged civilities on
 
 118 A MIDNIGUT FANTASY. 
 
 the staircase at first, and then fell into com 
 panionship. A number of Verona s noble 
 youths, poets and light-hearted men-about- 
 town, frequented Mercutio s chambers, and 
 with these Hamlet soon became on terms. 
 
 Among the rest were an agreeable gen 
 tleman, with hazel eyes, named Benvolio, 
 and a gallant young fellow called Romeo, 
 whom Mercutio bantered pitilessly and 
 loved heartily. This Romeo, who belonged 
 to one of the first families, was a very sus 
 ceptible spark, which the slightest breath 
 of a pretty woman was sufficient to blow 
 into flame. To change the metaphor, he fell 
 from one love affair into another as easily 
 and logically as a ripe pomegranate drops 
 from a bough. He was generally unlucky 
 in these matters, curiously enough, for he 
 was a handsome youth in his saffron satin 
 doublet slashed with black, and his jaunty 
 velvet bonnet with its trailing plume of os 
 trich feather. 
 
 At the time of Hamlet s coming to Ve 
 rona, Romeo was in a great despair of love 
 in consequence of an unrequited passion for 
 a certain lady of the city, between whose 
 family and his own a deadly feud had ex 
 isted for centuries. Somebody had stepped
 
 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. 119 
 
 on somebody else s lap-dog in the far ages, 
 and the two families had been slashing and 
 hacking at each other ever since. It ap 
 peared that Romeo had scaled a garden 
 wall, one night, and broken upon the med 
 itations of his inamorata, who, as chance 
 would have it, was sitting on her balcony en 
 joying the moonrise. No lady could be in 
 sensible to such devotion, for it would have 
 been death to Romeo if any of her kinsmen 
 had found him in that particular locality. 
 Some tender phrases passed between them, 
 perhaps ; but the lady was flurried, taken 
 unawares, and afterwards, it seemed, altered 
 her mind, and would have no further com 
 merce with the Montague. This business 
 furnished Mercutio s quiver with innumera 
 ble sly shafts, which Romeo received for the 
 most part in good humor. 
 
 With these three gentlemen Mercutio, 
 Benvolio, and Romeo Hamlet saw life in 
 Verona, as young men will see life wherever 
 they happen to be. Many a time the night 
 ingale ceased singing and the lark began 
 before they were abed ; but perhaps it is 
 not wise to inquire too closely into this. A 
 month had slipped away since Hamlet s ar 
 rival ; the hyacinths were opening in the 
 gardens, and it was spring.
 
 120 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. 
 
 One morning, as he and Mercutio were 
 lounging arm in arm on a bridge near their 
 lodgings, they met a knave in livery puzzling 
 over a parchment which he was plainly un 
 able to decipher. 
 
 " Read it aloud, friend ! " cried Mercutio, 
 who always had a word to throw away. 
 
 " I would I could read it at all. I pray, 
 sir, can you read ? " 
 
 " With ease if it is not my tailor s 
 score ; " and Mercutio took the parchment, 
 which ran as follows : 
 
 " Signior Martino, and his wife and 
 daughters; County Anselmo, and his 
 beauteous sisters ; the lady widoiu Vitru- 
 vio ; Siynior Placentio, and his lovely 
 nieces; Jlfercutio, and his brother Valen 
 tine ; mine uncle Capulct, his wife and 
 daughters ; my fair niece Rosaline ; Lima ; 
 Sianior Valentio, and his cousin Tybalt ; 
 Lucio, and the lively Helena" 
 
 " A very select company, with the excep 
 tion of that rogue Mercutio," said the sol 
 dier, laughing. " What does it mean ? " 
 
 " My master, the Signior Capulet, gives a 
 ball and supper to-night ; these the guests ; 
 I am his man Peter, and if you be not one 
 of the house of Montague, I pray come and
 
 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. 121 
 
 crush a cup of wine with us. Rest you 
 merry ; " and the knave, having got his bil 
 let deciphered for him, made off. 
 
 " One must needs go, being asked by both 
 man and master ; but since I am asked 
 doubly, I 11 not go singly ; I 11 bring you 
 with me, Hamlet. It is a masquerade ; I 
 have had wind of it. The flower of the city 
 will be there all the high-bosomed roses 
 and low-uecked lilies." 
 
 Hamlet had seen nothing of society in 
 Verona, properly speaking, and did not re 
 quire much urging to assent to Mercutio s 
 proposal, far from foreseeing that so slight 
 a freak would have a fateful sequence. 
 
 It was late in the night when they pre 
 sented themselves, in mask and domino, at 
 the Capulet mansion. The music was at 
 its sweetest and the torches were at their 
 brightest, as the pair entered the dancing- 
 hall. They had scarcely crossed the thresh 
 old when Hamlet s eyes rested upon a lady 
 clad in a white silk robe, who held to her 
 features, as she moved through the figure of 
 the dance, a white satin mask, on each side 
 of which was disclosed so much of the rosy 
 oval of her face as made one long to look 
 upon the rest. The ornaments this lady
 
 122 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. 
 
 wore were pearls ; her fan and slippers, like 
 the robe and mask, were white nothing 
 but white. Her eyes shone almost black 
 contrasted with the braids of warm gold hair 
 that glistened through a misty veil of Vene 
 tian stuff, which floated about her from time 
 to time and enveloped her, as the blossoms 
 do a tree. Hamlet could think of nothing 
 but the almond-tree that stood in full bloom 
 in the little cortile near his lodging. She 
 seemed to him the incarnation of that ex 
 quisite spring-time which had touched and 
 awakened all the leaves and buds in the 
 sleepy old gardens around Verona. 
 
 " Mercutio ! who is that lady ? " 
 
 " The daughter of old Capulet, by her 
 stature." 
 
 " And he that dances with her ? " 
 
 " Paris, a kinsman to Can Grande della 
 Scala." 
 
 " Her lover ? " 
 
 " One of them." 
 
 " She has others ? " 
 
 " Enough to make a squadron ; only the 
 blind and aged are exempt." 
 
 Here the music ceased and the dancers 
 dispersed. Hamlet followed the lady with 
 his eyes, and, seeing her left alone a mo-
 
 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. 123 
 
 ment, approached her. She received him 
 graciously, as a mask receives a mask, and 
 the two fell to talking, as people do who 
 have nothing to say to each other and pos 
 sess the art of saying it. Presently some 
 thing in his voice struck on her ear, a new 
 note, an intonation sweet and strange, that 
 made her curious. Who was it ? It could 
 not be Valentine, nor Anselmo ; he was too 
 tall for Signior Placentio, not stout enough 
 for Lucio ; it was not her cousin Tybalt. 
 Could it be that rash Montague who 
 Would he dare ? Here, on the very points 
 of their swords ? The stream of maskers 
 ebbed and flowed and surged around them, 
 and the music began again, and Juliet lis 
 tened and listened. 
 
 " Who are you, sir," she cried, at last, 
 " that speak our tongue with feigned ac 
 cent ? " 
 
 " A stranger ; an idler in Verona, though 
 not a gay one a black butterfly." 
 
 " Our Italian sun will gild your wings for 
 you. Black edged with gilt goes gay." 
 
 " I am already not so sad-colored as I 
 was." 
 
 " I would fain see your face, sir ; if it 
 match your voice, it needs must be a kindly 
 one."
 
 124 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. 
 
 " I would we could change faces." 
 
 " So we shall at supper ! " 
 
 " And hearts, too ? " 
 
 " Nay, I would not give a merry heart for 
 a sorrowful one ; but I will quit my mask, 
 and you yours ; yet," and she spoke under 
 her breath, " if you are, as I think, a gen 
 tleman of Verona a Montague do not 
 unmask." 
 
 " I am not of Verona, lady ; no one knows 
 me here ; " and Hamlet threw back the hood 
 of his domino. Juliet held her mask aside 
 for a moment, and the two stood looking 
 into each other s eyes. 
 
 " Lady, we have in faith changed faces, 
 at least as I shall carry yours forever in my 
 memory." 
 
 " And I yours, sir," said Juliet, softly, 
 " wishing it looked not so pale and melan 
 choly." 
 
 " Hamlet," whispered Mercutio, plucking 
 at his friend s skirt, " the fellow there, talk 
 ing with old Capulet his wife s nephew, 
 Tybalt, a quarrelsome clog suspects we 
 are Montagues. Let us get out of this 
 peaceably, like soldiers who are too much 
 gentlemen to cause a brawl under a host s 
 roof."
 
 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. 125 
 
 With tliis Mercutio pushed Hamlet to 
 the door, where they were joined by Ben- 
 volio. Juliet, with her eyes fixed upon the 
 retreating maskers, stretched out her hand 
 and grasped the arm of an ancient serving- 
 woman who happened to be passing. 
 
 " Quick, good Nurse ! go ask his name 
 of yonder gentleman. Nay, not the one in 
 green, dear ! but he that hath the black 
 domino and purple mask. What, did I 
 touch your poor rheumatic arm? Ah, go 
 now, sweet Nurse ! " 
 
 As the Nurse hobbled off querulously on 
 her errand, Juliet murmured to herself an 
 old rhyme she knew : 
 
 "If he be married, 
 My grave is like to be my wedding bed ! " 
 
 When Hamlet got back to his own cham 
 bers he sat on the edge of his couch in a 
 brown study. The silvery moonlight, strug 
 gling through the swaying branches of a 
 tree outside the window, drifted doubtfully 
 into the room, and made a parody of that 
 fleecy veil which erewhile had floated about 
 the lissome form of the lovely Capulet. 
 That he loved her, and must tell her that 
 he loved her, was a foregone conclusion ; 
 but how should he contrive to see Juliet
 
 126 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY, 
 
 again ? No one knew him in Verona ; he 
 had carefully preserved his incognito ; even 
 Mercutio regarded him as simply a young 
 gentleman from Denmark, taking his ease 
 in a foreign city. Presented, by Mercutio, 
 as a rich Danish tourist, the Capulets would 
 receive him courteously, of course ; as a vis 
 itor, but not as a suitor. It was in another 
 character that he must be presented his 
 own. 
 
 He was pondering what steps he could 
 take to establish his identity, when he re 
 membered the two or three letters which lie 
 had stuffed into his wallet on quitting Elsi- 
 nore. He lighted a taper, and began exam 
 ining the papers. Among them were the 
 half dozen billet-doux which Ophelia had 
 returned to him the night before his depar 
 ture. They were neatly tied together by a 
 length of black ribbon, to which was at 
 tached a sprig of rosemary. 
 
 " That was just like Ophelia ! " muttered 
 the young man, tossing the package into the 
 wallet again ; " she was always having cheer 
 ful ideas like that." 
 
 How long ago seemed the night she had 
 handed him these love-letters, in her demure 
 little way ! How misty and remote seemed
 
 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. 127 
 
 everything connected with the old life at 
 Elsinore ! His father s death, his mother s 
 marriage, his anguish and isolation they 
 were like things that had befallen somebody 
 else. There was something incredible, too, 
 in his present situation. Was he dreaming ? 
 Was he really in Italy, and in love ? 
 
 He hastily bent forward and picked tip 
 a square folded paper lying half concealed 
 under the others. 
 
 " How could I have forgotten it ! " he ex 
 claimed. 
 
 It was a missive addressed, in Horatio s 
 angular hand, to the Signior Capulet of Ve 
 rona, containing a few lines of introduction 
 from Horatio, whose father had dealings 
 with some of the rich Lombardy merchants 
 and knew many of the leading families in 
 the city. With this and several epistles, 
 preserved by chance, written to him by 
 Queen Gertrude while he was at the uni 
 versity, Hamlet saw that he would have no 
 difficulty in proving to the Capulets that he 
 was the Prince of Denmark. 
 
 At an unseemly hour the next morning 
 Mercutio was roused from his slumbers by 
 Hamlet, who counted every minute a hun 
 dred years until he saw Juliet. Mercutio
 
 128 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. 
 
 did not take this interruption too patiently, 
 for the honest humorist was very serious as 
 a sleeper ; but his equilibrium was quickly 
 restored by Hamlet s revelation. 
 
 The friends were long closeted together, 
 and at the proper, ceremonious hour for 
 visitors they repaired to the house of Capu- 
 let, who did not hide his sense of the honor 
 done him by the prince. With scarcely any 
 prelude Hamlet unfolded the motive of his 
 visit, and was listened to with rapt attention 
 by old Capulet, who inwardly blessed his 
 stars that he had not given his daughter s 
 hand to the County Paris, as he was on the 
 point of doing. The ladies were not visible 
 on this occasion ; the fatigues of the ball over 
 night, etc. ; but that same evening Hamlet 
 was accorded an interview with Juliet and 
 Lady Capulet, and a few days subsequently 
 all Verona was talking of nothing but the 
 
 ,- 
 
 The destructive Tybalt scowled at first, 
 and twirled his fierce mustache, and young 
 Paris took to writing dejected poetry ; but 
 they both soon recovered their serenity, see 
 ing that nobody minded them, and went to 
 gether arm in arm to pay their respects to 
 Hamlet.
 
 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. 129 
 
 A new life began now for Hamlet. He 
 shed his inky cloak, and came out in a doub 
 let of insolent splendor, looking like a dag 
 ger-handle newly gilt. With his funereal 
 gear he appeared to have thrown off some 
 thing of his sepulchral gloom. It was im 
 possible to be gloomy with Juliet, in whom 
 each day developed some sunny charm un- 
 guessed before. Her freshness and coquet 
 tish candor were constant surprises. She 
 had had many lovers, and she confessed them 
 to Hamlet in the prettiest way. " Perhaps, 
 my dear," she said to him one evening, with 
 an ineffable smile, " I might have liked 
 young Romeo very well, but the family were 
 so opposed to it from the very first. And 
 then he was so so demonstrative, don t you 
 know?" 
 
 Hamlet had known of Romeo s futile pas 
 sion, but he had not been aware until then 
 that his betrothed was the heroine of the 
 balcony adventure. On leaving Juliet he 
 went to look up the Montague ; not for the 
 purpose of crossing rapiers with him, as an 
 other man might have done, but to compli 
 ment him on his unexceptionable taste in 
 admiring so rare a lady. 
 
 But Romeo had disappeared in a most un-
 
 130 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. 
 
 accountable manner, and his family were in 
 great tribulation concerning him. It was 
 thought that perhaps the unrelenting Ro 
 saline (who had been Juliet s frigid prede 
 cessor) had relented, and Montague s man 
 Abrarn was dispatched to seek Romeo at her 
 residence ; but the Lady Rosaline, who was 
 embroidering on her piazza, placidly denied 
 all knowledge of him. It was then feared 
 that he had fallen in one of the customary 
 encounters ; but there had been no fight, 
 and nobody had been killed on either side 
 for nearly twelve hours. Nevertheless, his 
 exit had the appearance of being final. 
 When Hamlet questioned Mercutio, the hon 
 est soldier laughed and stroked his blonde 
 mustache. 
 
 " The boy has gone off in a heat, I don t 
 know where to the icy ends of the earth, 
 I believe, to cool himself." 
 
 Hamlet regretted that Romeo should have 
 had any feeling in the matter ; but regret 
 was a bitter weed that did not thrive well 
 in the atmosphere in which the fortunate 
 lover was moving. He saw Juliet every 
 day, and there was not a fleck upon his hap 
 piness, unless it was the garrulous Nurse, 
 against whom Hamlet had taken a singular
 
 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. 131 
 
 prejudice. He considered her a tiresome 
 old person, not too decent in her discourse at 
 times, and advised Juliet to get rid of her ; 
 but the ancient serving-woman had been in 
 the family for years, and it was not quite 
 expedient to discharge her at that late day. 
 
 With the subtile penetration of old age 
 the Nurse instantly detected Hamlet s dis 
 like, and returned it heartily. 
 
 " Ah, ladybird," she cried one night, " ah, 
 well-a-day ! you know not how to choose a 
 man. An I could choose for you, Jule ! By 
 God s lady, there s Signior Mercutio, a, 
 brave gentleman, a merry gentleman, and 
 a virtuous, I warrant ye, whose little finger- 
 joint is worth all the body of this blackbird 
 prince, dropping down from Lord knows 
 where to fly off with the sweetest bit of 
 flesh in Verona. Marry, come up ! " 
 
 But this was only a ripple on the stream 
 that flowed so smoothly. Now and then, 
 indeed, Hamlet felt called upon playfully 
 to chide Juliet for her extravagance of lan 
 guage, as when, for instance, she prayed 
 that when he died he might be cut out in 
 little stars to deck the face of night. Ham 
 let objected, under any circumstances, to 
 being cut out in little stars for any illumi-
 
 132 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. 
 
 nating purposes whatsoever. Once she sug 
 gested to her lover that he should come to 
 the garden after the family retired, and she 
 would speak with him a moment from the 
 balcony. Now, as there was no obstacle to 
 their seeing each other whenever they 
 pleased, and as Hamlet was of a nice sense 
 of honor, and since his engagement a most 
 exquisite practicer of propriety, he did not 
 encourage Juliet in her thoughtlessness. 
 
 " What ! " he cried, lifting his finger at 
 her reprovingly, " romantic again ! " 
 
 This was their nearest approach to a lov 
 ers quarrel. The next day Hamlet brought 
 her, as peace-offering, a slender gold flask 
 curiously wrought in niello, which he had 
 had filled with a costly odor at an apothe 
 cary s as he came along. 
 
 " I never saw so lean a thing as that same 
 culler of simples," said Hamlet, laughing ; 
 " a matter of ribs and shanks, a mere skel 
 eton painted black. It is a rare essence, 
 though. He told me its barbaric botanical 
 name, but it escapes me." 
 
 " That which we call a rose," said Ju 
 liet, holding the perfumery to her nostrils 
 and inclining herself prettily towards him, 
 " would smell as sweet by any other name."
 
 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. 133 
 
 O Youth and Love ! O fortunate Time ! 
 
 There was a banquet almost every night 
 at the Capulets , and the Montagues, up the 
 street, kept their blinds drawn down, and 
 Lady Montague, who had four marriageable, 
 tawny daughters on her hands, was livid 
 with envy at her neighbor s success. She 
 would rather have had two or three Monta 
 gues prodded through the body than that the 
 prince should have gone to the rival house. 
 
 Happy Prince ! 
 
 If Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and 
 Laertes, and the rest of the dismal people 
 at Elsinore, could have seen him now, they 
 would not have known him. Where were 
 his wan looks and biting speeches ? His 
 eyes were no longer filled with mournful 
 speculation. He went in glad apparel, and 
 took the sunshine as his natural inheritance. 
 If he ever fell into moodiness it was 
 partly constitutional with him the shadow 
 fled away at the first approach of that 
 loveliest weight on lightest foot." The 
 sweet Veronese had nestled in his empty 
 heart, and filled it with music. The ghosts 
 and visions that used to haunt him were laid 
 forever by Juliet s magic. 
 
 Happy Juliet !
 
 134 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. 
 
 Her beauty had taken a new gloss. The 
 bud had grown into a flower, redeeming the 
 promises of the bud. If her heart beat less 
 wildly, it throbbed more strongly. If she 
 had given Hamlet of her superabundance of 
 spirits, he had given her of his wisdom and 
 discretion. She had always been a great 
 favorite in society ; but Verona thought her 
 ravishing now. The mantua - makers cut 
 their dresses by her patterns, and when she 
 wore turquoise, garnets went out of style. 
 Instead of the groans and tears, and all 
 those distressing events which might pos 
 sibly have happened if Juliet had persisted 
 in loving Romeo listen to her laugh and 
 behold her merry eyes ! 
 
 Every morning either Peter or Gregory 
 might have been seen going up Hamlet s 
 staircase with a note from Juliet she had 
 ceased to send the Nurse on discovering her 
 lover s antipathy to that person and some 
 minutes later either Gregory or Peter might 
 have been observed coming down the stair 
 case with a missive from Hamlet. Juliet 
 had detected his gift for verse, and insisted, 
 rather capriciously, on having all his replies 
 in that shape. Hamlet humored her, though 
 he was often hard put to it ; for the Muse
 
 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. 135 
 
 is a coy immortal, and will not always come 
 when she is wanted. Sometimes he was 
 forced to fall back upon previous efforts, as 
 when he translated these lines into very 
 choice Italian : 
 
 "Doubt them the stars are fire, 
 
 Doubt that the sun doth move; 
 Doubt Truth to be a liar, 
 But never doubt I love." 
 
 To be sure, he had originally composed 
 this quatrain for Ophelia ; but what would 
 you have ? lie had scarcely meant it then ; 
 he meant it now ; besides, a felicitous rhyme 
 never goes out of fashion. It always fits. 
 
 While transcribing the verse his thoughts 
 naturally reverted to Ophelia, for the little 
 poesy was full of a faint scent of the past, 
 like a pressed flower. His conscience did 
 not prick him at all. Plow fortunate for 
 him and for her that matters had gone no 
 further between them ? Predisposed to mel 
 ancholy, and inheriting a not very strong 
 mind from her father, Ophelia was a lady 
 who needed cheering up, if ever poor lady 
 did. He, Hamlet, was the last man on the 
 globe with whom she should have had any 
 tender affiliation. If they had wed, they 
 would have caught each other s despond-
 
 136 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. 
 
 ency, and died, like a pair of sick ravens, 
 within a fortnight. What had become of 
 her ? Had she gone into a nunnery ? He 
 would make her abbess, if he ever returned 
 to Elsinore. 
 
 After a month or two of courtship, there 
 being no earthly reason to prolong it, Ham 
 let and Juliet were privately married in the 
 Franciscan Chapel, Friar Laurence officiat 
 ing ; but there was a grand banquet that 
 night at the Crfpulets , to which all Verona 
 went. At Hamlet s intercession, the Mon 
 tagues were courteously asked to this fes 
 tival. To the amazement of every one the 
 Montagues accepted the invitation and came, 
 and were treated royally, and the long, lam 
 entable feud it would have sorely puz 
 zled either house to explain what it was all 
 about was at an end. The adherents of 
 the Capulets and the Montagues were for 
 bidden on the spot to bite any more thumbs 
 at each other. 
 
 " It will detract from the general gayety 
 of the town," Mercutio remarked. " Sig- 
 nior Tybalt, my friend, I shall never have 
 the pleasure of running you through the dia 
 phragm ; a cup of wine with you ! " 
 
 The guests were still at supper in the
 
 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. 137 
 
 great pavilion erected in the garden, which 
 was as light as day with the glare of in 
 numerable flambeaux set among the shrub 
 bery. Hamlet and Juliet, with several 
 others, had withdrawn from the tables, and 
 were standing in the doorway of the pa 
 vilion, when Hamlet s glance fell upon the 
 familiar form of a young man who stood 
 with one foot on the lower step, holding his 
 plumed bonnet in his hand. His hose and 
 doublet were travel-worn, but his honest 
 face was as fresh as daybreak. 
 
 " What ! Horatio ? " 
 
 " The same, my lord, and your poor ser 
 vant ever." 
 
 " Sir, my good friend : I 11 change that 
 name with you. What brings you to Ye- 
 roiia ? " 
 
 " I fetch you news, my lord." 
 
 " Good news ? Then the king is dead." 
 
 " The king lives, but Ophelia is no 
 more." 
 
 " Ophelia dead ! " 
 
 " Not so, my lord ; she s married." 
 
 " I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow- 
 student." 
 
 " As I do live, my honored lord, t is true." 
 
 " Married, say you ? "
 
 138 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. 
 
 " Married to him that sent me hither 
 a gentleman of winning ways and a most 
 choice conceit, the scion of a noble house 
 here in Verona one Romeo." 
 
 The oddest little expression flitted over 
 Juliet s face. There was never woman yet, 
 even on her bridal day, could forgive a jilted 
 lover marrying. 
 
 " Ophelia wed ! " murmured the bride 
 groom. 
 
 " Do you know the lady, dear?" 
 
 " Excellent well," replied Hamlet, turn 
 ing to Juliet ; " a most estimable young- 
 person, the daughter of my father s cham 
 berlain. She is rather given to singing bal 
 lads of an elegiac nature," added the prince, 
 reflectingly, "but our madcap Romeo will 
 cure her of that. Methinks I see them 
 now " 
 
 " Oh, where, my lord ? " 
 
 " In my mind s eye, Horatio, surrounded 
 by their little ones noble youths and 
 graceful maidens, in whom the impetuosity 
 of the fiery Romeo is tempered by the pen- 
 siveness of the fair Ophelia. I shall take 
 it most unkindly of them, love," toying with 
 Juliet s fingers, " if they do not name theii 
 first boy Hamlet."
 
 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. 139 
 
 It was just as my lord Hamlet finished 
 speaking that the last horse-car for Boston 
 providentially belated between Water- 
 town and Mount Auburn swept round 
 the curve of the track 011 which I was walk 
 ing. The amber glow of the car -lantern 
 lighted up my figure in the gloom, the 
 driver gave a quick turn on the brake, and 
 the conductor, making a sudden dexterous 
 clutch at the strap over his head, sounded 
 the death-knell of my fantasy as I stepped 
 upon the rear platform.
 
 MADEMOISELLE OLYMPE 
 ZABRISKI. 
 
 I. 
 
 WE are accustomed to speak with a cer 
 tain light irony of the tendency which 
 women have to gossip, as if the sin itself, 
 if it is a sin, were of the gentler sex, and 
 could by no chance be a masculine pecca 
 dillo. So far as my observation goes, men 
 are as much given to small talk as women, 
 and it is undeniable that we have produced 
 the highest type of gossiper extant. Where 
 will you find, in or out of literature, such 
 another droll, delightful, chatty busybody 
 as Samuel Pepys, Esq., Secretary to the Ad 
 miralty in the reigns of those fortunate 
 gentlemen Charles II. and James II. of 
 England? lie is the king of tattlers as 
 Shakespeare is the king of poets. 
 
 If it came to a matter of pure gossip, I 
 would back Our Club against the Sorosis or 
 any women s club in existence. Whenever
 
 MADEMOISELLE OLYMPE ZABRISKI. 141 
 
 you see in our drawing-room four or five 
 young fellows lounging 1 in easy-chairs, cigar 
 in hand, and now and then bringing their 
 heads together over the small round Japan 
 ese table which is always the pivot of these 
 social circles, you may be sure that they are 
 discussing Tom s engagement, or Dick s ex 
 travagance, or Harry s hopeless passion for 
 the younger Miss Fleurdelys. It is here 
 old Tippleton gets execrated for that ever 
 lasting bon mot of his which was quite a 
 success at dinner - parties forty years ago ; 
 it is here the belle of the season passes 
 under the scalpels of merciless young sur 
 geons ; it is here B s financial condition 
 is handled in a way that would make B s 
 hair stand on end ; it is here, in short, that 
 everything is canvassed everything that 
 happens in our set, I mean, much that never 
 happens, and a great deal that could not 
 possibly happen. It was at Our Club that 
 I learned the particulars of the Van Twiller 
 affair. 
 
 It was great entertainment to Our Club, 
 the Van Twiller affair, though it was rather 
 a joyless thing, I fancy, for Van Twiller. 
 To understand the case fully, it should be 
 understood that Ralph Van Twiller is one
 
 142 MADEMOISELLE OLYMPE ZABRISKI. 
 
 of the proudest and most sensitive men 
 living. He is a lineal descendant of Wouter 
 Van Twiller, the famous old Dutch governor 
 of New York Nieuw Amsterdam, as it 
 was then ; his ancestors have always been 
 burgomasters or admirals or generals, and 
 his mother is the Mrs. Vanrensselaer Van- 
 zandt Van Twiller whose magnificent place 
 will be pointed out to you on the right bank 
 of the Hudson, as you pass up the historic 
 river towards Idlewild. Ralph is about 
 twenty-five years old. Birth made him a 
 gentleman, and the rise of real estate 
 some of it in the family since the old gov 
 ernor s time made him a millionaire. It 
 was a kindly fairy that stepped in and made 
 him a good fellow also. Fortune, I take it, 
 was in her most jocund mood when she 
 heaped her gifts in this fashion on Van 
 Twiller, who was, and will be again, when 
 this cloud blows over, the flower of Our 
 Club. 
 
 About a year ago there came a whisper 
 if the word " whisper " is not too harsh a 
 term to apply to what seemed a mere breath 
 floating gently through the atmosphere of 
 the billiard-room imparting the intelli 
 gence that Van Twiller was in some kind
 
 MADEMOISELLE OLYMPE ZABRISKI. 143 
 
 of trouble. Just as everybody suddenly 
 takes to wearing square-toed boots, or to 
 drawing his neckscarf through a ring, so it 
 became all at once the fashion, without any 
 preconcerted agreement, for everybody to 
 speak of Van Twiller as a man in some 
 way under a cloud. But what the cloud 
 was, and how he got under it, and why he 
 did not get away from it, were points that 
 lifted themselves into the realm of pure 
 conjecture. There was no man in the club 
 with strong enough wing to his imagination 
 to soar to the supposition that Van Twiller 
 was embarrassed in money matters. Was 
 he in love? That appeared nearly as im 
 probable ; for if he had been in love all the 
 world that is, perhaps a hundred first 
 families would have known all about it 
 instantly. 
 
 " He has the symptoms," said Delaney, 
 laughing. " I remember once when Jack 
 Flemming " 
 
 " Xed ! " cried Flemming, "I protest 
 against any allusion to that business." 
 
 This was one night when Van Twiller 
 had wandered into the club, turned over the 
 magazines absently in the reading-room, and 
 wandered out again without speaking ten
 
 144 MADEMOISELLE OLYMPE ZABRISKI. 
 
 words. The most careless eye would have 
 remarked the great change that had come 
 over Van Twiller. Now and then he would 
 play a game of billiards with De Peyster 
 or Haseltine, or stop to chat a moment in 
 the vestibule with old Duane ; but he was 
 an altered man. When at the club, he was 
 usually to be found in the small smoking- 
 room up-stairs, seated on a fauteuil fast 
 asleep, with the last number of The Nation 
 in his hand. Once, if you went to two or 
 three places of an evening, you were certain 
 to meet Van Twiller at them all. You 
 seldom met him in society now. 
 
 By and by came whisper number two 
 a whisper more emphatic than number one, 
 but still untraceable to any tangible mouth 
 piece. This time the whisper said that Van 
 Twiller was in love. But with whom ? 
 The list of possible Mrs. Van Twillers was 
 carefully examined by experienced hands, 
 and a check placed against a fine old 
 Knickerbocker name here and there, but 
 nothing satisfactory arrived at. Then that 
 same still small voice of rumor, but now 
 with an easily detected staccato sharpness to 
 it, said that Van Twiller was in love with 
 an actress ! Van Twiller, whom it had
 
 MADEMOISELLE OLYMPE ZABRISKI. 145 
 
 taken all these years and all this waste 
 of raw material in the way of ancestors to 
 bring- to perfection Ralph Van Twiller, 
 the net result and flower of his race, the 
 descendant of Wouter, the son of Mrs. Van- 
 rensselaer Vanzandt Van Twiller in love 
 with an actress ! That was too ridiculous to 
 be believed and so everybody believed it. 
 Six or seven members of the club abrupt 
 ly discovered in themselves an unsuspected 
 latent passion for the histrionic art. In 
 squads of two or three they stormed succes 
 sively all the theatres in town Booth s, 
 Wallack s, Daly s Fifth Avenue (not burnt 
 down then), and the Grand Opera House. 
 Even the shabby homes of the drama over 
 in the Bowery, where the Germanic Thespis 
 has not taken out his naturalization papers, 
 underwent rigid exploration. But 110 clue 
 was found to Van Twiller s mysterious at 
 tachment. The opera bouffe, which prom 
 ised the widest field for investigation, pro 
 duced absolutely nothing, not even a crop 
 of suspicions. One night, after several 
 weeks of this, Delaney and I fancied that 
 we caught sight of Van Twiller in the pri 
 vate box of an up-town theatre, where some 
 thrilling trapeze performance was going on,
 
 146 MADEMOISELLE OLYMPE ZABRISKI. 
 
 which we did not care to sit through ; but 
 we concluded afterwards that it was only 
 somebody who looked like him. Delaney, by 
 the way, was unusually active in this search. 
 I dare say he never quite forgave Van Twil- 
 ler for calling him Muslin Delaney. Ned 
 is fond of ladies society, and that s a fact. 
 
 The Cimmerian darkness which sur 
 rounded Van Twiller s inamorata left UK 
 free to indulge in the wildest conjectures. 
 Whether she was black-tressed Melpomene, 
 with bowl and dagger, or Thalia, with the 
 fair hair and the laughing face, was only to 
 be guessed at. It was popularly conceded, 
 however, that Van Twiller was on the point 
 of forming a dreadful mesalliance. 
 
 Up to this period he had visited the club 
 regularly. Suddenly he ceased to appear. 
 He was not to be seen on Fifth Avenue, 
 or in the Central Park, or at the houses he 
 generally frequented. His chambers and 
 mighty comfortable chambers they were 
 on Thirty-fourth Street were deserted. He 
 had dropped out of the world, shot like a 
 bright particular star from his orbit in the 
 heaven of the best society. 
 
 The following conversation took place one 
 night in the smoking-room :
 
 MADEMOISELLE OLYMPE ZABRISKI. 147 
 
 "Where s Van TwiUer?" 
 
 " Who s seen Van Twiller ? " 
 
 " What has become of Van Twiller? " 
 
 Delaney picked up the Evening Post, and 
 read with a solemnity that betrayed 
 young Firkins into exclaiming, " By Jove, 
 now ! " 
 
 "Married, on the 10th instant, by the 
 Rev. Friar Laurence, at the residence of the 
 bride s uncle, Montague Capulet, Esq., Miss 
 Adrienne Le Couvreur to Mr. Ralph Van 
 Twiller, both of this city. No cards." 
 
 " Free List suspended," murmured De 
 Peyster. 
 
 " It strikes me," said Frank Livingstone, 
 who had been ruffling the leaves of a maga 
 zine at the other end of the table, " that you 
 fellows are in a great fever about Van Twil 
 ler." 
 
 " So we are." 
 
 " Well, he has simply gone out of town." 
 
 " Where ? " 
 
 " Up to the old homestead on the Hud 
 son." 
 
 " It s an odd time of year for a fellow to 
 go into the country." 
 
 " He has gone to visit his mother," said 
 Livingstone.
 
 148 MADEMOISELLE OLYMPE ZABRISKI. 
 
 " In February ? " 
 
 " I did n t know, Delaney, that there was 
 any statute in force prohibiting a man from 
 visiting his mother in February if he wants 
 to." 
 
 Delaney made some light remark about 
 the pleasure of communing with Nature 
 with a cold in her head, and the topic was 
 dropped. 
 
 Livingstone was hand in glove with Van 
 Twiller, and if any man shared his confi 
 dence it was Livingstone. He was aware 
 of the gossip and speculation that had been 
 rife in the club, but he either was not at lib 
 erty or did not think it worth while to re 
 lieve our curiosity. In the course of a week 
 or two it was reported that Van Twiller was 
 going to Europe ; and go he did. A dozen 
 of us went down to the Scythia to see him 
 off. It was refreshing to have something 
 as positive as the fact that Van Twiller had 
 sailed.
 
 MADEMOISELLE OLYMPE ZABRISKI. 149 
 
 II. 
 
 SHORTLY after Van Twiller s departure 
 the whole thing came out. Whether Liv= 
 ingstone found the secret too heavy a bur 
 den, or whether it transpired through some 
 indiscretion on the part of Mrs. Vanrens- 
 selaer Vanzandt Van Twiller, I cannot say ; 
 but one evening the entire story was in the 
 possession of the club. 
 
 Van Twiller had actually been very deep 
 ly interested not in an actress, for the 
 legitimate drama was not her humble walk 
 in life, but in Mademoiselle Olympe Za- 
 briski, whose really perilous feats on the 
 trapeze had astonished New York the year 
 before, though they had failed to attract 
 Delaney and me the night we wandered into 
 the up-town theatre on the trail of Van 
 Twiller s mystery. 
 
 That a man like Van Twiller should be 
 fascinated even for an instant by a common 
 circus-girl seems incredible ; but it is always 
 the incredible thing that happens. Besides, 
 Mademoiselle Olympe was not a common
 
 150 MADEMOISELLE OLYMPE ZABRISKI. 
 
 circus-girl ; she was a most daring and start 
 ling gynmaste, with a beauty and a grace 
 of movement that gave to her audacious 
 performance almost an air of prudery. 
 Watching her wondrous dexterity and 
 pliant strength, both exercised without ap 
 parent effort, it seemed the most natural 
 proceeding in the world that she should do 
 those unpardonable things. She had a way 
 of melting from one graceful posture into 
 another, like the dissolving figures thrown 
 from a stereopticon. She was a lithe, ra 
 diant shape out of the Grecian mythology, 
 now poised up there above the gaslights, 
 and now gleaming through the air like a 
 slender gilt arrow. 
 
 I am describing Mademoiselle Olympe as 
 she appeared to Van Twiller on the first 
 occasion when he strolled into the theatre 
 where she was performing. To me she was 
 a girl of eighteen or twenty years of age 
 (maybe she was much older, for pearl-pow 
 der and distance keep these people perpet 
 ually young), slightly but exquisitely built, 
 with sinews of silver wire ; rather pretty, 
 perhaps, after a manner, but showing plainly 
 the effects of the exhaustive drafts she was 
 making on her physical vitality. Now, Van
 
 MADEMOISELLE OLYMPE ZABRISKI. 151 
 
 T wilier was an enthusiast on the subject 
 of calisthenics. " If I had a daughter," 
 Van T wilier used to say, " I would n t send 
 her to a boarding-school, or a nunnery ; I d 
 send her to a gymnasium for the first five 
 years. Our American women have no phy 
 sique. They are lilies, pallid, pretty and 
 perishable. You marry an American wo 
 man, and what do you marry ? A head 
 ache. Look at English girls. They are at 
 least roses, and last the season through." 
 
 Walking home from the theatre that first 
 night, it flitted through Van Twiller s mind 
 that if he could give this girl s set of nerves 
 and muscles to any one of the two hundred 
 high-bred women he knew, he would marry 
 her on the spot and worship her forever. 
 
 The following evening he went to see 
 Mademoiselle Olympe again. " Olympe 
 Zabriski," he soliloquized, as he sauntered 
 through the lobby " what a queer name ! 
 Olympe is French, and Zabriski is Polish. 
 It is her nom de guerre, of course ; her real 
 name is probably Sarah Jones. What kind 
 of creature can she be in private life, I 
 wonder ? I wonder if she wears that cos 
 tume all the time, and if she springs to her 
 meals from a horizontal bar. Of course she
 
 152 MADEMOISELLE OLYMPE Z A BRISK I. 
 
 rocks the baby to sleep on the trapeze." 
 And Van Twiller went on making comical 
 domestic tableaux of Mademoiselle Zabriski, 
 like the clever, satirical dog he was, until 
 the curtain rose. 
 
 This was on a Friday. There was a mat 
 inee the next day, and he attended that, 
 though he had secured a seat for the usual 
 evening entertainment. Then it became a 
 habit of Van Twiller s to drop into the 
 theatre for half an hour or so every night, 
 to assist at the interlude, in which she ap 
 peared. He cared only for her part of 
 the programme, and timed his visits accord 
 ingly. It was a surprise to himself when 
 he reflected, one morning, that he had not 
 missed a single performance of Mademoiselle 
 Olympe for nearly two weeks. 
 
 " This will never do," said Van Twiller. 
 " Olympe " he called her Olympe, as if 
 she were an old acquaintance, and so she 
 might have been considered by that time 
 " is a wonderful creature ; but this will 
 never do. Van, my boy, you must reform 
 this altogether. 
 
 But half past nine that night saw him in 
 his accustomed orchestra chair, and so on 
 {or another week. A habit leads a man so
 
 MADEMOISELLE OLYMPE ZABRISKI. 153 
 
 gently in the beginning that lie does not 
 perceive he is led with what silken threads 
 and down what pleasant avenues it leads 
 him ! By and by the soft silk threads be 
 come iron chains, and the pleasant avenues 
 Avernus ! 
 
 Quite a new element had lately entered 
 into Van Twiller s enjoyment of Mademoi 
 selle Olympe s ingenious feats a vaguely 
 born apprehension that she might slip from 
 that swinging bar ; that one of the thin cords 
 supporting it might snap, and let her go 
 headlong from the dizzy height. Now and 
 then, for a terrible instant, he would imagine 
 her lying a glittering, palpitating heap at the 
 foot-lights, with no color in her lips ! Some 
 times it seemed as if the girl were tempting 
 this kind of fate. It was a hard, bitter life, 
 and nothing but poverty and sordid misery 
 at home could have driven her to it. What 
 if she should end it all some night, by just 
 unclasping that little hand ? It looked so 
 small and white from where Van Twiller 
 sat ! 
 
 This frightful idea fascinated while it 
 chilled him, and helped to make it nearly 
 impossible for him to keep away from the 
 theatre. In the beginning- his attendance
 
 154 MADEMOISELLE OLYMPE ZABRISKT. 
 
 had not interfered with his social duties or 
 pleasures ; but now he came to find it dis 
 tasteful after dinner to do anything but 
 read, or walk the streets aimlessly, until it 
 was time to go to the play. When that was 
 over, he was in no mood to go anywhere but 
 to his rooms. So he dropped away by in 
 sensible degrees from his habitual haunts, 
 was missed, and began to be talked about at 
 the club. Catching some intimation of this, 
 he ventured no more in the orchestra stalls, 
 but shrouded himself behind the draperies 
 of the private box in which Delaney and I 
 thought we saw him on one occasion. 
 
 Now, I find it very perplexing to explain 
 what Van Twiller was wholly unable to ex 
 plain to himself. He was not in love with 
 Mademoiselle Olympe. He had no wish to 
 speak to her, or to hear her speak. Nothing 
 could have been easier, and nothing further 
 from his desire, than to knosv her personally. 
 A Van Twiller personally acquainted with a 
 strolling female acrobat ! Good heavens ! 
 That was something possible only with the 
 discovery of perpetual motion. Taken from 
 her theatrical setting, from her lofty perch, 
 so to say, on the trapeze-bar, Olympe Za- 
 briski would have shocked every aristocratic
 
 MADEMOISELLE OLYMPE ZABRISKI. 155 
 
 fibre in Van Twiller s body. He was sim 
 ply fascinated by her marvellous grace and 
 elan, and the magnetic recklessness of the 
 girl. It was very young in him and very 
 weak, and no member of the Sorosis, or all 
 the Sorosisters together, could have been 
 more severe on Van Twiller than he was on 
 himself. To be weak, and to know it, is 
 something of a punishment for a proud man. 
 Van Twiller took his punishment, and went 
 to the theatre, regularly. 
 
 " When her engagement comes to an 
 end," he meditated, " that will finish the 
 business." 
 
 Mademoiselle Olympe s engagement final 
 ly did come to an end, and she departed. 
 But her engagement had been highly bene 
 ficial to the treasury-chest of the up-town 
 theatre, and before Van Twiller could get 
 over missing her she had returned from a 
 short Western tour, and her immediate re 
 appearance was underlined on the play-bills. 
 
 On a dead-wall opposite the windows of 
 Van Twiller s sleeping-room there appeared, 
 as if by necromancy, an aggressive poster 
 with MADEMOISELLE OLYMPE ZABRISKI on 
 it in letters at least a foot high. This thing 
 stared him in the face when he woke up, one
 
 156 MADEMOISELLE OLYMPE ZABRJSKI. 
 
 morning. It gave him a sensation as if she 
 had called on him overnight, and left her 
 card. 
 
 From time to time through the day he re 
 garded that poster with a sardonic eye. He 
 had pitilessly resolved not to repeat the folly 
 of the previous month. To say that this 
 moral victory cost him nothing would be to 
 deprive it of merit. It cost him many in 
 ternal struggles. It is a fine thing to see 
 a man seizing his temptation by the throat, 
 and wrestling with it, and trampling it un 
 der foot like St. Anthony. This was the 
 spectacle Van Twiller was exhibiting to the 
 angels. 
 
 The evening Mademoiselle Olympe was to 
 make her reappearance, Van Twiller, having 
 dined at the club, and feeling more like him 
 self than he had felt for weeks, returned to 
 his chamber, and, putting on dressing-gown 
 and slippers, piled up the greater portion of 
 his library about him, and fell to reading 
 assiduously. There is nothing like a quiet 
 evening at home with some slight intellect 
 ual occupation, after one s feathers have 
 been stroked the wrong way. 
 
 When the lively French clock on the 
 mantel - piece a base of malachite sur<
 
 MADEMOISELLE OLYMPE ZABRISKI. 157 
 
 mounted by a flying bronze Mercury with 
 its arms spread gracefully 011 the air, and 
 not remotely suggestive of Mademoiselle 
 Olympe in the act of executing her grand 
 flight from the trapeze when the clock, I 
 repeat, struck nine, Van Twiller paid no at 
 tention to it. That was certainly a triumph. 
 I am anxious to render Van Twiller all the 
 justice I can, at this point of the narrative, 
 inasmuch as when the half hour sounded 
 irmsieally, like a crystal ball dropping into a 
 silver bowl, he rose from the chair automat 
 ically, thrust his feet into his walking-shoes, 
 threw his overcoat across his arm, and 
 strode out of the room. 
 
 To be weak and to scorn your weakness, 
 and not to be able to conquer it, is, as has 
 been said, a hard thing ; and I suspect it 
 was not with unalloyed satisfaction that Van 
 Twiller found himself taking his seat in the 
 back part of the private box night after 
 night during the second engagement of 
 Mademoiselle Olympe. It was so easy not 
 to stay away ! 
 
 In this second edition of Van Twiller s 
 fatuity, his case was even worse than before. 
 He not only thought of Olympe quite a 
 number of times between breakfast and din-
 
 158 MADEMOISELLE OLYMPE ZABR1SKI. 
 ner, he not only .attended the interlude re<m- 
 
 / O 
 
 larly, but he began, in spite of himself, to 
 occupy his leisure hours at night by dream 
 ing of her. This was too much of a good 
 thing, and Van Twiller regarded it so. Be 
 sides, the dream was always the same a 
 harrowing dream, a dream singularly adapt 
 ed to shattering the nerves of a man like 
 Van Twiller. He would imagine himself 
 seated at the theatre (with all the members 
 of Our Club in the parquette), watching 
 Mademoiselle Olympe as usual, when sud 
 denly that young lady would launch herself 
 desperately from the trapeze, and come fly 
 ing through the air like a firebrand hurled 
 at his private box. Then the unfortunate 
 man would wake up with cold drops stand 
 ing on his forehead. 
 
 There is one redeeming feature in this in 
 fatuation of Van Twiller s which the sober 
 moralist will love to look upon the serene 
 unconsciousness of the person who caused 
 it. She went through her role with admira 
 ble aplomb, drew her salary, it may be as 
 sumed, punctually, and appears from first to 
 last to have been ignorant that there was a 
 miserable slave wearing her chains nightly 
 in the left-hand proscenium-box.
 
 MADEMOISELLE OLYMPE ZABRISKI. 159 
 
 That Van Twiller, haunting the theatre 
 with the persistency of an ex-actor, con 
 ducted himself so discreetly as not to draw 
 the fire of Mademoiselle Olympe s blue eyes 
 shows that Van Twiller, however deeply 
 under a spell, was not in love. I say this, 
 though I think if Van Twiller had not been 
 Van Twiller, if he had been a man of no 
 family and no position and no money, if 
 New York had been Paris and Thirty-fourth 
 Street a street in the Latin Quarter but 
 it is useless to speculate on what might have 
 happened. What did happen is sufficient. 
 
 It happened, then, in the second week of 
 Queen Olympe s second unconscious reign, 
 that an appalling Whisper floated up the 
 Hudson, effected a landing at a point be 
 tween Spuyten Duyvel Creek and Cold 
 Spring, and sought out a stately mansion of 
 Dutch architecture standing on the bank of 
 the river. The Whisper straightway in 
 formed the lady dwelling in this mansion 
 that all was not well with the last of the 
 Van Twillers ; that he was gradually estrang 
 ing himself from his peers, and wasting his 
 nights in a play-house watching a misguided 
 young woman turning unmaidenly somer 
 saults on a piece of wood attached to two 
 ropes.
 
 160 MADEMOISELLE OLYMPE ZABEISKI. 
 
 Mrs. Vanrensselaer Vanzandt Van T wilier 
 came down to town by the next train to look 
 into this little matter. 
 
 She found the flower of the family taking 
 an early breakfast, at 11 A. M., in his cosey 
 apartments on Thirty-fourth Street. With 
 the least possible circumlocution she con 
 fronted him with what rumor had reported 
 of his pursuits, and was pleased, but not too 
 much pleased, when he gave her an exact 
 account of his relations with Mademoiselle 
 Zabriski, neither concealing nor qualifying 
 anything. As a confession, it was unique, 
 and might have been a great deal less enter 
 taining. Two or three times in the course 
 of the narrative, the matron had some diffi 
 culty in preserving the gravity of her counte 
 nance. After meditating a few minutes, she 
 tapped Van Twiller softly on the arm with 
 the tip of her parasol, and invited him to 
 return with her the next day up the Hudson 
 and make a brief visit at the home of his 
 ancestors. He accepted the invitation with 
 outward alacrity and inward disgust. 
 
 When this was settled, and the worthy 
 lady had withdrawn, Van Twiller went di 
 rectly to the establishment of Messrs Ball, 
 Black, and Company, and selected, with un-
 
 MADEMOISELLE OLYMPE ZABRISKI. 161 
 
 erring 1 taste, the finest diamond bracelet 
 procurable. For his mother? Dear me, 
 no ! She had the family jewels. 
 
 I would not like to state the enormous 
 sum Van Twiller paid for this bracelet. It 
 was such a clasp of diamonds as would have 
 hastened the pulsation of a patrician wrist. 
 It was such a bracelet as Prince Camaralza- 
 inan might have sent to the Princess Ba- 
 doura, and the Princess Badoura might 
 have been very glad to get. 
 
 In the fragrant Levant morocco case, 
 where these happy jewels lived when they 
 were at home, Van Twiller thoughtfully 
 placed his card, on the back of which he had 
 written a line begging Mademoiselle Olympe 
 Zabriski to accept the accompanying trifle 
 from one who had witnessed her graceful 
 performances with interest and pleasure. 
 This was not done inconsiderately. " Of 
 course I must enclose my card, as I would 
 to any lady," Van Twiller had said to him 
 self. " A Van Twiller can neither write an 
 anonymous letter nor make an anonymous 
 present." Blood entails its duties as well 
 as its privileges. 
 
 The casket despatched to its destination, 
 Van Twiller felt easier in his mind. He
 
 162 MADEMOISELLE OLYMPE ZABRISKL 
 
 was under obligations to the girl for many 
 an agreeable hour that might otherwise have 
 passed heavily. He had paid the debt, and 
 he had paid it en prince, as became a Van 
 T wilier. He spent the rest of the day in 
 looking at some pictures at Goupil s, and at 
 the club, and in making a few purchases for 
 his trip up the Hudson. A consciousness 
 that this trip up the Hudson was a disorderly 
 retreat came over him unpleasantly at inter 
 vals. 
 
 When he returned to his rooms late at 
 night, he found a note lying on the writing- 
 table. He started as his eye caught the 
 
 words " Theatre" stamped in carmine 
 
 letters on one corner of the envelope. Van 
 T wilier broke the seal with trembling fingers. 
 
 Now, this note some time afterwards fell 
 into the hands of Livingstone, who showed 
 it to Stuyvesant, who showed it to Delaney, 
 who showed it to me, and I copied it as a lit 
 erary curiosity. The note ran as follows : 
 
 MR VAX TWILLER DEAR SIR i am verry 
 greatfull to you for that Bracelett. it come just 
 in the nic of time for me. The Mademoiselle 
 Zabriski dodg is about Plaid out. my beard is 
 getting to much for me. i shall have to grow a 
 mustash and take to some other line of busyness,
 
 MADEMOISELLE OLYMPE ZABRISKI. 163 
 
 i dont no what now, but will let you no. You 
 wont feel bad if i sell that Bracelett. i have seen 
 Abrahams Moss and he says he will do the square 
 thing. Pleas accep my thanks for youre Beauti- 
 full and Unexpected present. 
 
 Youre respectfull servent, 
 CHARLES MONTMORENCI WALTERS. 
 
 The next day Van Twiller neither ex 
 pressed nor felt any unwillingness to spend 
 a few weeks with his mother at the old home 
 stead. 
 
 And then he went abroad.
 
 A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 
 
 ONE morning as I was passing through 
 Boston Common, which lies between my home 
 and my office, I met a gentleman lounging 
 along The Mall. I am generally preoccu 
 pied when walking, and often thrid my way 
 through crowded streets without distinctly 
 observing any one. But this man s face 
 forced itself upon me, and a singular face it 
 was. His eyes were faded, and his hair, 
 which he wore long, was flecked with gray. 
 His hair and eyes, if I may say so, were 
 sixty years old, the rest of him not thirty. 
 The youthfulness of his figure, the elasticity 
 of his gait, and the venerable appearance of 
 his head were incongruities that drew more 
 than one pair of curious eyes towards him. 
 He excited in me the painful siispicion that 
 he had got either somebody else s head or 
 somebody else s body. He was evidently an 
 American, at least so far as the upper part 
 of him was concerned the New England
 
 A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 165 
 
 cut of countenance is unmistakable evi 
 dently a man who had seen something of 
 the world, but strangely young and old. 
 
 Before reaching the Park Street gate, I 
 had taken up the thread of thought which 
 he had unconsciously broken ; yet through 
 out the day this old young man, with his un- 
 wrinkled brow and silvered locks, glided in 
 like a phantom between me and my duties. 
 
 The next morning I again encountered 
 him on The Mall. lie was resting lazily on 
 the green rails, watching two little sloops in 
 distress, which two ragged ship-owners had 
 consigned to the mimic perils of the Pond. 
 The vessels lay becalmed in. the middle of 
 the ocean, displaying a tantalizing lack of 
 sympathy with the frantic helplessness of the 
 owners on shore. As the gentleman observed 
 their dilemma, a light came into his faded 
 eyes, then died out, leaving them drearier 
 than before. I wondered if he, too, in his 
 time, had sent out ships that drifted and 
 drifted and never came to port ; and if these 
 poor toys were to him types of his own 
 losses. 
 
 " That man has a story, and I should like 
 to know it," I said, half aloud, halting in 
 one of those winding paths which branch off
 
 166 A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 
 
 from the pastoral quietness of the Pond, and 
 end in the rush and tumult of Tremont 
 Street. 
 
 " Would you ? " exclaimed a voice at my 
 
 side. I turned and faced Mr. H , a 
 
 neighbor of mine, who laughed heartily at 
 finding me talking to myself. " Well," he 
 added, reflecting!} 7 , " I can tell you this 
 man s story ; and if you will match the nar 
 rative with anything as curious, I shall be 
 glad to hear it." 
 
 " You know him, then ? " 
 
 " Yes and no. That is to say, I do not 
 know him personally ; but I know a singular 
 passage in his life. I happened to be in 
 Paris when he was buried." 
 
 " Buried ! " 
 
 " Well, strictly speaking, not buried ; but 
 something quite like it. If you ve a spare 
 
 half hour," continued my friend H , 
 
 " we 11 sit on this bench, and I will tell you 
 all I know of an affair that made some noise 
 in Paris a couple of years ago. The gentle 
 man himself, standing yonder, will serve as 
 a sort of frontispiece to the romance a 
 full-page illustration, as it were." 
 
 The following pages contain the story 
 which Mr. H related to me. While he
 
 A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 167 
 
 was telling it, a gentle wind arose ; the 
 miniature sloops drifted feebly about the 
 ocean ; the wretched owners flew from point 
 to point, as the deceptive breeze promised 
 to waft the barks to either shore ; the early 
 robins trilled now and then from the newly 
 fringed elms ; and the old young man leaned 
 on the rail in the sunshine, little dreaming 
 that two gossips were discussing his affairs 
 within twenty yards of him. 
 
 Three persons were sitting in a salon 
 whose one large window overlooked the 
 Place Vendchne. M. Dorine, with his back 
 half turned on the other two occupants of 
 the apartment, was reading the Journal des 
 Debats in an alcove, pausing from time 
 to time to wipe his glasses, and taking scru 
 pulous pains not to glance towards the 
 lounge at his right, on which were seated 
 Mile. Dorine and a young American gentle 
 man, whose handsome face rather frankly 
 told his position in the family. There was 
 not a happier man in Paris that afternoon 
 than Philip Wentworth. Life had become 
 so delicious to him that he shrunk from 
 looking beyond to-day. What could the 
 future add to his full heart, what might it
 
 168 A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 
 
 not take away ? The deepest joy has al 
 ways something of melancholy in it a 
 presentiment, a fleeting sadness, a feeling 
 without a name. Wentworth was conscious 
 of this subtile shadow that night, when he 
 rose from the lounge and thoughtfully held 
 Julie s hand to his lip for a moment before 
 parting. A careless observer would not 
 have thought him, as he was, the happiest 
 man in Paris. 
 
 M. Dorine laid down his paper, and came 
 forward. " If the house," he said, " is such 
 as M. Cherbonneau describes it, I advise 
 you to close with him at once. I would 
 accompany you, Philip, but the truth is, I 
 am too sad at losing this little bird to assist 
 you in selecting a cage for her. Remember, 
 the last train for town leaves at five. Be 
 sure not to miss it ; for we have seats for 
 Sardou s new comedy to-morrow night. By 
 to-morrow night," he added laughingly, "lit 
 tle Julie here will be an old lady it is 
 such an age from now until then." 
 
 The next morning the train bore Philip 
 to one of the loveliest spots within thirty 
 miles of Paris. An hour s walk through 
 green lanes brought him to M. Cherbon- 
 iieau s estate. In a kind of dream the
 
 A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 169 
 
 young man wandered from room to room, 
 inspected the conservatory, the stables, the 
 lawns, the strip of woodland through which 
 a merry brook sang to itself continually , 
 and, after dining with M. Cherbonneau, 
 completed the purchase, and turned his 
 steps towards the station just in time to 
 catch the express train. 
 
 As Paris stretched out before him, with 
 its lights twinkling in the early dusk, and 
 its spires and domes melting into the even 
 ing air, it seemed to Philip as if years had 
 elapsed since he left the city. On reaching 
 Paris he drove to his hotel, where he found 
 several letters lying on the table. He did 
 not trouble himself even to glance at their 
 superscriptions as he threw aside his travel 
 ling surtout for a more appropriate dress. 
 
 If, in his impatience to return to Mile, 
 Dorine, the cars had appeared to walk, the 
 fiacre which he had secured at the station 
 appeared to creep. At last it turned into 
 the Place Vendome, and drew up before M. 
 Dorine s hotel. The door opened as Philip s 
 foot touched the first step. The valet si 
 lently took his cloak and hat, with a special 
 deference, Philip thought ; but was he not 
 now one of the family ?
 
 170 A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 
 
 " M. Dorine," said the servant slowly, 
 " is unable to see Monsieur at present. I le 
 wishes Monsieur to be shown up to the 
 salon." 
 
 " Is Mademoiselle " 
 
 " Yes, Monsieur." 
 
 " Alone ? " 
 
 " Alone, Monsieur," repeated the man, 
 looking curiously at Philip, who could scarce 
 ly repress an exclamation of pleasure. 
 
 It was the first time that such a privilege 
 had been accorded him. His interviews 
 with Julie had always taken place in the 
 presence of M. Dorine, or some member of 
 the household. A well-bred Parisian girl 
 has but a formal acquaintance with her 
 lover. 
 
 Philip did not linger on the staircase ; 
 with a light heart, he went up the steps, two 
 at a time, hastened through the softly lighted 
 hall, in which he detected the faint scent of 
 her favorite flowers, and stealthily opened 
 the door of the salon. 
 
 The room was darkened. Underneath 
 the chandelier stood a slim black casket on 
 trestles. A lighted candle, a crucifix, and 
 some white flowers were on a table near by. 
 Julie Dorine was dead.
 
 A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 171 
 
 When M. Dorine heard the sudden cry 
 that rang through the silent house, he hur 
 ried from the library, and found Philip stand 
 ing like a ghost in the middle of the chamber. 
 
 It was not until long afterwards that 
 Wentworth learned the details of the ca 
 lamity that had befallen him. On the pre 
 vious night Mile. Dorine had retired to her 
 room in seemingly perfect health, and had 
 dismissed her maid with a request to be 
 awakened early the next morning. At the 
 appointed hour the girl entered the chamber. 
 Mile. Dorine was sitting in an arm-chair, ap 
 parently asleep. The candle in the bougeoir 
 had burnt down to the socket ; a book lay 
 half open on the carpet at her feet. The 
 girl started when she saw that the bed had 
 not been occupied, and that her mistress still 
 wore an evening dress. She rushed to Mile. 
 Dorine s side. It was not slumber ; it was 
 death. 
 
 Two messages were at once despatched to 
 
 Philip, one to the station at G , the other 
 
 to his hotel. The first missed him on the 
 road, the second he had neglected to open. 
 On his arrival at M. Dorine s house, the 
 valet, under the supposition that Wentworth 
 had been advised of Mile. Dorine s death,
 
 172 A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 
 
 broke the intelligence with awkward cruelty, 
 by showing him directly to the salon. 
 
 Mile. Dorine s wealth, her beauty, the sud 
 denness of her death, and the romance that 
 had in some way attached itself to her love 
 for the young American drew crowds to 
 witness the funeral ceremonies, which took 
 place in the church in the Rue d Aguesseau. 
 The body was to be laid in M. Dorine s 
 tomb, in the cemetery of Montmartre. 
 
 This tomb requires a few words of de 
 scription. First there was a grating of 
 filigraned iron ; through this you looked 
 into a small vestibule or hall, at the end 
 of which was a massive door of oak opening 
 upon a short flight of stone steps descend 
 ing into the tomb. The vault was fifteen 
 or twenty feet square, ingeniously ventilated 
 from the ceiling, but un lighted. It con 
 tained two sarcophagi: the first held the 
 remains of Madame Doriiie, long since 
 dead ; the other was new, and bore on one 
 side the letters J. D., in monogram, inter 
 woven with fleurs-de-lis. 
 
 The funeral train stopped at the gate of 
 the small garden that enclosed the place of 
 burial, only the immediate relatives follow 
 ing the bearers into the tomb. A slender
 
 A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 173 
 
 wax candle, such as is used in Catholic 
 churches, burnt at the foot of the uncovered 
 sarcophagus, casting a dim glow over the 
 centre of the apartment, and deepening the 
 shadows which seemed to huddle together in 
 the corners. By this flickering light the 
 coffin was placed in its granite shell, the 
 heavy slab laid over it reverently, and the 
 oaken door swung on its rusty hinges, shut 
 ting out the uncertain ray of sunshine that 
 had ventured to peep in on the darkness. 
 
 M. Dorine, muffled in his cloak, threw 
 himself on the back seat of the landau, too 
 abstracted in his grief to observe that he 
 was the only occupant of the vehicle. There 
 was a sound of wheels grating on the grav 
 elled avenue, and then all was silence again 
 in the cemetery of Montmartre. At the 
 main entrance the carriages parted com 
 pany, dashing off into various streets at 
 a pace that seemed to express a sense of 
 relief. 
 
 The rattle of wheels had died out of the 
 air when Philip opened his eyes, bewildered, 
 like a man abruptly roused from slumber. 
 He raised himself on one arm and stared 
 into the surrounding blackness. Where 
 was he? In a second the truth flashed
 
 174 A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 
 
 upon him. He had been left in the tomb ! 
 While kneeling on the farther side of the 
 stone box, perhaps he had fainted, and dur 
 ing the last solemn rites his absence had 
 been unnoticed. 
 
 His first emotion was one of natural 
 terror. But this passed as quickly as it 
 came. Life had ceased to be so very pre 
 cious to him ; and if it were his fate to die 
 at Julie s side, was not that the fulfilment of 
 the desire which he had expressed to himself 
 a hundred times that morning ? What did 
 it matter, a few years sooner or later ? He 
 must lay down the burden at last. Why not 
 then ? A pang of self-reproach followed the 
 thought. Could he so lightly throw aside 
 the love that had bent over his cradle ? 
 The sacred name of mother rose involunta 
 rily to his lips. Was it not cowardly to 
 yield up without a struggle the life which 
 he should guard for her sake ? Was it not 
 his duty to the living and the dead to face 
 the difficulties of his position, and overcome 
 them if it were within human power ? 
 
 With an organization as delicate as a 
 woman s he had that spirit which, however 
 sluggish in repose, leaps with a kind of exul 
 tation to measure its strength with disaster,
 
 A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 175 
 
 The vague fear of the supernatural, that 
 would affect most men in a similar situation, 
 found no room in his heart. He was simply 
 shut in a chamber from which it was neces 
 sary that he should obtain release within a 
 given period. That this chamber contained 
 the body of the woman he loved, so far from 
 adding to the terror of the case, was a cir 
 cumstance from which he drew consolation. 
 She was a beautiful white statue now. Her 
 soul was far hence ; and if that pure spirit 
 could return, would it not be to shield him 
 with her love ? It was impossible that the 
 place should not engender some thought of 
 the kind. He did not put the thought en 
 tirely from him as he rose to his feet and 
 stretched out his hands in the darkness ; but 
 his mind was too healthy and practical to 
 indulge long in such speculations. 
 
 Philip, being a smoker, chanced to have 
 in his pocket a box of allumettes. After 
 several ineffectual essays, he succeeded in 
 igniting one against the dank wall, and by 
 its momentary glare perceived that the can 
 dle had been left in the tomb. This would 
 serve him in examining the fastenings of 
 the vault. If he could force the inner door 
 by any means, and reach the grating, of
 
 176 A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 
 
 which he had an indistinct recollection, he 
 might hope to make himself heard. But the 
 oaken door was immovable, as solid as the 
 wall itself, into which it fitted air-tight. 
 Even if he had had the requisite tools, there 
 were no fastenings to be removed ; the 
 hinges were set on the outside. 
 
 Having ascertained this, Philip replaced 
 the candle on the floor, and leaned against 
 the wall thoughtfully, watching the blue fan 
 of flame that wavered to and fro, threaten 
 ing to detach itself from the wick. " At 
 all events," he thought, " the place is ven 
 tilated." Suddenly he sprang forward and 
 extinguished the light. 
 
 His existence depended on that candle ! 
 
 He had read somewhere, in some account 
 of shipwreck, how the survivors had lived 
 for days upon a few candles which one of the 
 passengers had insanely thrown into the 
 long-boat. And here he had been burning 
 away his very life ! 
 
 By the transient illumination of one of 
 the tapers, he looked at his watch. It had 
 stopped at eleven but eleven that day, 01 
 the preceding night ? The funeral, he knew. 
 had left the church at ten. How many 
 hours had passed since then ? Of what du-
 
 A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 177 
 
 ration had been his swoon ? Alas ! it was 
 no longer possible for him to measure 
 those hours which crawl like snails by the 
 wretched, and fly like swallows over the 
 happy. 
 
 He picked up the candle, and seated him 
 self on the stone steps. He was a sanguine 
 man, but, as he weighed the chances of es 
 cape, the prospect appalled him. Of course 
 he would be missed. His disappearance 
 under the circumstances would surely alarm 
 his friends ; they would institute a search 
 for him ; but who would think of searching 
 for a live man in the cemetery of Montmar- 
 tre ? The pre*f et of police would set a hun 
 dred intelligences at work to find him ; 
 the Seine might be dragged, les miserables 
 turned over at the Morgue ; a minute de 
 scription of him would be in every detec 
 tive s pocket; and he in M. Dorine s fam 
 ily tomb ! 
 
 Yet, on the other hand, it was here he 
 was last seen ; from this point a keen de 
 tective would naturally work up the case. 
 Then might not the undertaker return for 
 the candlestick, probably not left by de 
 sign ? Or, again, might not M. Dorine send 
 fresh wreaths of flowers, to take the place
 
 178 A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 
 
 of those which now diffused a pungent, aro 
 matic odor throughout the chamber ? Ah ! 
 what unlikely chances ! But if one of these 
 things did not happen speedily, it had better 
 never happen. How long could he keep life 
 in himself ? 
 
 With his pocket-knife Wentworth cut 
 the half -burned candle into four equal parts. 
 " To-night," he meditated, " I will eat the 
 first of these pieces ; to-morrow, the second ; 
 to-morrow evening, the third ; the next day, 
 the fourth ; and then then I 11 wait ! " 
 
 He had taken no breakfast that morning, 
 unless a cup of coffee can be called a break 
 fast. He had never been very hungry be 
 fore. He was ravenously hungiy now. But 
 he postponed the meal as long as practicable. 
 It must have been near midnight, according 
 to his calculation, when he determined to try 
 the first of his four singular repasts. The 
 bit of white-wax was tasteless ; but it served 
 its purpose. 
 
 His appetite for the time appeased, he 
 found a new discomfort. The humidity of 
 the walls, and the wind that crept through 
 the unseen ventilator, chilled him to the 
 bone. To keep walking was his only re 
 source. A kind of drowsiness, too, occasion
 
 A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 179 
 
 ally came over him. It took all his will to 
 fight it off. To sleep, he felt, was to die ; 
 and he had made up his mind to live. 
 
 The strangest fancies flitted through his 
 head as he groped up and down the stone 
 floor of the dungeon, feeling his way along 
 the wall to avoid the sepulchres. Voices 
 that had long been silent spoke words that 
 had long been forgotten ; faces he had 
 known in childhood grew palpable against 
 the dark. His whole life in detail was un 
 rolled before him like a panorama ; the 
 changes of a year, with its burden of love 
 and death, its sweets and its bitternesses, 
 were epitomized in a single second. The 
 desire to sleep had left him, but the keen 
 hunger came again. 
 
 " It must be near morning now," he 
 mused; "perhaps the sun is just gilding the 
 towers of Notre Dame ; or, may be, a dull, 
 drizzling rain is beating on Paris, sobbing 
 on these mounds above me. Paris ! it seems 
 like a dream. Did I ever walk in its gay 
 bjulevards in the golden air? Oh, the de 
 light and pain and passion of that sweet 
 human life ! " 
 
 Philip became conscious that the gloom, 
 the silence, and the cold were gradually
 
 180 A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 
 
 conquering him. The feverish activity of 
 his brain brought on a reaction. He grew 
 lethargic ; he sunk down on the steps, and 
 thought of nothing. His hand fell by 
 chance on one of the pieces of candle ; he 
 grasped it and devoured it mechanically. 
 This revived him. " How strange," he 
 thought, " that I am not thirsty. Is it pos 
 sible that the dampness of the walls, which 
 I must inhale with every breath, has siip- 
 plied the need of water? Not a drop has 
 passed my lips for two days, and still I ex 
 perience no thirst. That drowsiness, thank 
 Heaven, has gone. I think I was never 
 wide awake until this hour. It would be an 
 anodyne like poison that could weigh down 
 my eyelids. No doubt the dread of sleep 
 has something to do with this." 
 
 The minutes were like hours. Now he 
 walked as briskly as he dared up and down 
 the tomb ; now he rested against the door. 
 More than once he was tempted to throw 
 himself upon the stone coffin that held 
 Julie, and make no further struggle for his 
 life. 
 
 Only one piece of candle remained. He 
 had eaten the third portion, not to satisfy 
 hunger, but from a precautionary motive.
 
 A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 181 
 
 He had taken it as a man takes some dis 
 agreeable drug upon the result of which 
 hangs safety. The time was rapidly ap 
 proaching when even this poor substitute 
 for nourishment would be exhausted. He 
 delayed that moment. He gave himself a 
 long fast this time. The half-inch of candle 
 which he held in his hand was a sacred 
 thing to him. It was his last defence against 
 death. 
 
 Finally, with such a sinking at heart as 
 he had not known before, he raised it to his 
 lips. Then he paused, then he hurled the 
 fragment across the tomb, then the oaken 
 door was flung open, and Philip, with daz 
 zled eyes, saw M. Dorine s form sharply de 
 fined against the blue sky. 
 
 When they led him out, half blinded, into 
 the broad daylight, M. Dorine noticed that 
 Philip s hair, which a short time since was 
 as black as a crow s wing, had actually 
 turned gray in places. The man s eyes, too, 
 had faded ; the darkness had dimmed their 
 lustre. 
 
 " And how long was he really confined in 
 the tomb ? " I asked, as Mr. H con 
 cluded the story.
 
 182 A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 
 
 " Just one hour and twenty minutes ! " 
 replied Mr. H , smiling blandly. 
 
 As lie spoke, the Lilliputian sloops, with 
 their sails all blown out like white roses, 
 came floating bravely into port, and Philip 
 Wentworth lounged by us, wearily, in the 
 pleasant April sunshine. 
 
 Mr. II s narrative haunted me. Here 
 
 was a man who had undergone a strange 
 ordeal. Here was a man whose sufferings 
 were unique. His was no threadbare experi 
 ence. Eighty minutes had seemed like two 
 days to him ! If he had really been im 
 mured two days in the tomb, the story, from 
 my point of view, would have lost its tragic 
 value. 
 
 After this it was natural that I should re 
 gard Mr. Wentworth with stimulated curi 
 osity. As I met him from day to day, pass 
 ing through the Common with that same 
 introspective air, there was something in his 
 loneliness which touched me. I wondered 
 that I had not read before in his pale, med 
 itative face some such sad history as Mr. 
 
 H had confided to me. I formed the 
 
 resolution of speaking to him, though with 
 no very lucid purpose. One morning we
 
 A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 183 
 
 came face to face at the intersection of two 
 paths. He halted courteously to allow me 
 the precedence. 
 
 " Mr. Wentworth," I began, " I " 
 
 He interrupted me. 
 
 " My name, sir," he said, in an off-hand 
 manner, " is Jones." 
 
 " Jo-Jo-Jones ! " I gasped. 
 
 " No, not Joseph Jones," he returned, with 
 a glacial air " Frederick." 
 
 A dim light, in which the perfidy of my 
 friend II was becoming discernible, be 
 gan to break upon my mind. 
 
 It will probably be a standing wonder to 
 Mr. Frederick Jones why a strange man ac 
 costed him one morning on the Common as 
 " Mr. Wentworth," and then dashed madly 
 down the nearest foot-path and disappeared 
 in the crowd. 
 
 The fact is, I had been duped by Mr. 
 II , who is a gentleman of literary pro 
 clivities, and has, it is whispered, become 
 somewhat demented in brooding over the 
 Great American Novel not yet hatched. 
 He had actually tried the effect of one of 
 his chapters on me ! 
 
 My hero, as I subsequently learned, is a 
 commonplace young person, who had some
 
 184 A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 
 
 connection, I know not what, with the build 
 ing of that graceful granite bridge which 
 spans the crooked silver lake in the Public 
 Garden. 
 
 When I think of the readiness with which 
 
 Mr. H built up his airy fabric on my 
 
 credulity, I feel half inclined to laugh, 
 though I am deeply mortified at having been 
 the unresisting victim of his Black Art.
 
 P^RE ANTOINE S DATE-PALM. 
 
 NEAR the Leve*e, and not far from the 
 old French Cathedral in the Place d Armes, 
 at New Orleans, stands a fine date-palm, 
 thirty feet in height, spreading its broad 
 leaves in the alien air as hardily as if its 
 sinuous roots were sucking strength from 
 their native earth. 
 
 Sir Charles Lyell, in his Second Visit to 
 the United States, mentions this exotic : 
 " The tree is seventy or eighty years old ; 
 for Pere Antoine, a Roman Catholic priest, 
 who died about twenty years ago, told Mr. 
 Bringier that he planted it himself, when he 
 was young. In his will he provided that 
 they who succeeded to this lot of ground 
 should forfeit it if they cut down the palm." 
 
 Wishing to learn something of Pere An- 
 toine s history, Sir Charles Lyell made in 
 quiries among the ancient Creole inhabitants 
 of the faubourg. That the old priest, in his 
 last days, became very much emaciated, that
 
 186 PERE ANTOINE S DATE-PALM. 
 
 he walked about the streets like a mummy, 
 that he gradually dried up, and finally blew 
 away, was the meagre and unsatisfactory 
 result of the tourist s investigations. This 
 is all that is generally told of Pere Antoine. 
 In the summer of 1801, while New Or 
 leans w r as yet occupied by the Confederate 
 forces, I met at Alexandria, in Virginia, a 
 lady from Louisiana Miss Blondeau by 
 name who gave me the substance of the 
 following legend touching Pere Antoine and 
 his wonderful date-palm. If it should ap 
 pear tame to the reader, it will be because 
 I am not habited in a black ribbed-silk 
 dress, with a strip of point-lace around my 
 throat, like Miss Blondeau ; it will be be 
 cause I lack her eyes and lips and Southern 
 music to tell it with. 
 
 When Pere Antoine was a very young 
 man, he had a friend whom he loved as he 
 loved his life. Emile Jardin returned his 
 passion, and the two, on account of their 
 friendship, became the marvel of the city 
 where they dwelt. One w r as never seen 
 without the other ; for they studied, walked, 
 ate, and slept together. 
 
 Thus began Miss Blondeau, with the air
 
 PERE AXTOINE S DATE-PALM. 187 
 
 of Fiammetta telling her prettiest story to 
 the Florentines in the garden of Boccaccio. 
 
 Antoine and Ernile were preparing to en 
 ter the Church ; indeed, they had taken the 
 preliminary steps, when a circumstance oc 
 curred which changed the color of their 
 lives. A foreign lady, from some nameless 
 island in the Pacific, had a few months be 
 fore moved into their neighborhood. The 
 lady died suddenly, leaving a girl of sixteen 
 or seventeen, entirely friendless and unpro 
 vided for. The young men had been kind 
 to the woman during her illness, and at her 
 death melting with pity at the forlorn sit 
 uation of Anglice, the daughter swore be 
 tween themselves to love and watch over her 
 as if she were their sister. 
 
 Now Anglice had a wild, strange beauty 
 that made other women seem tame beside 
 her ; and in the course of time the young 
 men found themselves regarding their ward 
 not so much like brothers as at first. In 
 brief, they found themselves in love with 
 her. 
 
 They struggled with their hopeless pas 
 sion month after month, neither betraying 
 his secret to the other ; for the austere or 
 ders which they were about to assume pre-
 
 188 FERE ANTOfNE S DATE-PALM. 
 
 eluded the idea of love and marriage. Until 
 then they had dwelt in the calm air of re 
 ligious meditations, unmoved except by that 
 pious fervor which in other ages taught 
 men to brave the tortures of the rack and 
 to smile amid the flames. But a blonde 
 girl, with great eyes and a voice like the 
 soft notes of a vesper hymn, had come in 
 between them and their ascetic dreams of 
 heaven. The ties that had bound the young 
 men together snapped silently one by one. 
 At last each read in the pale face of the 
 other the story of his own despair. 
 
 And she? If Anglice shared their trou 
 ble, her face told no story. It was like the 
 face of a saint on a cathedral window. 
 Once, however, as she came suddenly upon 
 the two men and overheard words that 
 seemed to burn like fire on the lip of the 
 speaker, her eyes grew luminous for an in 
 stant. Then she passed on, her face as im 
 mobile as before in its setting of wavy gold 
 hair. 
 
 "Entre or et roux Dieu lit ses longs cheveux." 
 r 
 
 One night Emile and Anglice were miss 
 ing. They had flown but whither, no 
 body knew, and nobody, save Antoine, cared. 
 It was a heavy blow to Antoine for he
 
 PERE ANTOINE 9 S DATE-PALM. 189 
 
 had himself half resolved to confess his 
 love to Anglice and urge her to fly with 
 him. 
 
 A strip of paper slipped from a volume 
 on Antoine s prie-dieu, and fluttered to his 
 feet. 
 
 " Do not be angry," said the bit of paper, 
 piteously ; "forgive ws, for we love." (Par- 
 donnez-nous, car nous aimons.) 
 
 Three years went by wearily enough. 
 Antoine had entered the Church, and was 
 already looked upon as a rising man ; but 
 his face was pale and his heart leaden, for 
 there was no sweetness in life for him. 
 
 Four years had elapsed, when a letter, 
 covered with outlandish postmarks, was 
 brought to the young priest a letter from 
 Anglice. She was dying ; would he for 
 give her ? Emile, the year previous, had 
 fallen a victim to the fever that raged on 
 the island ; and their child, Anglice, was 
 likely to follow him. In pitiful terms she 
 begged Antoine to take charge of the child 
 until she was old enough to enter the con 
 vent of the Sacre -Cceur. The epistle was 
 finished hastily by another hand, informing 
 Antoine of Madame Jardin s death ; it 
 also told him that Anglice had been placed
 
 190 PERE ANTOINE S DATE-PALM. 
 
 on- board a vessel shortly to leave the island 
 for some Western port. 
 
 The letter, delayed by storm and ship 
 wreck, was hardly read and wept over when 
 little Angliee arrived. 
 
 On beholding her, Antoine uttered a cry 
 of joy and surprise she was so like the 
 woman he had worshipped. 
 
 The passion that had been crowded down 
 in his heart broke out and lavished its rich 
 ness on this child, who was to him not only 
 the Anglice of years ago, but his friend 
 Kmile Jardin also. 
 
 Anglice possessed the wild, strange beauty 
 of her mother the bending, willowy form, 
 the rich tint of skin, the large tropical eyes, 
 that had almost made Antoine s sacred robes 
 a mockery to him. 
 
 For a month or two Anglice was wildly 
 unhappy in her new home. She talked con 
 tinually of the bright country where she was 
 born, the fruits and flowers and blue skies, 
 the tall, fan-like trees, and the streams that 
 went murmuring through them to the sea. 
 Antoine could not pacify her. 
 
 By and by she ceased to weep, and went 
 about the cottage in a weary, disconsolate 
 way that cut Antoine to the heart. A long-
 
 FERE ANTOJNE S DATE-PALM. 191 
 
 tailed paroquet, which she had brought with 
 her in the ship, walked solemnly behind her 
 from room to room, mutely pining, it seemed, 
 for those heavy orient airs that used to ruffle 
 its brilliant plumage. 
 
 Before the year ended, he noticed that the 
 ruddy tinge had faded from her cheek, that 
 her eyes had grown languid, and her slight 
 figure more willowy than ever. 
 
 A physician was consulted. He could 
 discover nothing wrong with the child, except 
 this fading and drooping. He failed to ac 
 count for that. It was some vague disease 
 of the mind, he said, beyond his skill. 
 
 So Anglice faded day after day. She 
 seldom left the room now. At last Antoine 
 could not shut out the fact that the child was 
 passing away. He had learned to love her 
 so! 
 
 " Dear heart," he said once, " what is t 
 ails thee ? " 
 
 " Nothing, mon pere," for so she called 
 him. 
 
 The winter passed, the balmy spring had 
 come with its magnolia blooms and orange 
 blossoms, and Anglice seemed to revive. In 
 her small bamboo chair, on the porch, she 
 swayed to and fro in the fragrant breeze,
 
 192 PERE ANTOINE S DATE-PALM. 
 
 with a peculiar undulating motion, like a 
 graceful tree. 
 
 At times something seemed to weigh upon 
 her mind. Antoine observed it, and waited. 
 Finally she spoke. 
 
 " Near our house," said little An^lice 
 
 O 
 
 " near our house, on the island, the palm- 
 trees are waving under the blue sky. Oh, 
 how beautiful ! I seem to lie beneath them 
 all day long. I am very, very happy. I 
 yearned for them so much that I grew ill 
 don t you think it was so, mon pere ? " 
 
 " Helas, yes ! " exclaimed Antoine, sud 
 denly. " Let us hasten to those pleasant 
 islands where the palms are waving." 
 
 Anglice smiled. 
 
 " I am going there, mon pere." 
 
 A week from that evening the wax candles 
 burned at her feet and forehead, lighting 
 her on the journey. 
 
 All was over. Now was Antoine s heart 
 empty. Death, like another Emile, had 
 stolen his new Anglice. He had nothing to 
 do but to lay the blighted flower away. 
 
 Pere Antoine made a shallow grave in his 
 garden, and heaped the fresh brown mould 
 over his idol. 
 
 In the tranquil spring evenings, the priest
 
 PERE ANTOINE S DATE-PALM. 193 
 
 was seen sitting by the mound, his finger 
 closed in the unread breviary. 
 
 The summer broke on that sunny land ; 
 and in the cool morning twilight, and after 
 nightfall, Antoine lingered by the grave. 
 He could never be with it enough. 
 
 One morning he observed a delicate stem, 
 with two curiously shaped emerald leaves, 
 springing up from the centre of the mound. 
 At first he merely noticed it casually ; but 
 presently the plant grew so tall, and was so 
 strangely unlike anything he had ever seen 
 before, that he examined it with care. 
 
 How straight and graceful and exquisite 
 it was ! When it swung to and fro with the 
 summer wind, in the twilight, it seemed to 
 Antoine as if little Anglice were standing 
 there in the garden. 
 
 The days stole by, and Antoine tended the 
 fragile shoot, wondering what manner of 
 blossom it would unfold, white, or scarlet, or 
 golden. One Sunday, a stranger, with a 
 bronzed, weather-beaten face like a sailor s, 
 leaned over the garden rail, and said to him, 
 
 " What a fine young date-palm you have 
 there, sir ! " 
 
 " Mon Dieu ! " cried Pere Antoine start 
 ing, " and is it a palm ? "
 
 194 PERE ANTOINPS DATE-PALM. 
 
 "Yes, indeed," returned the man. "I 
 did n t reckon the tree would flourish in this 
 latitude/ 
 
 " Ah, mon Dieu ! " was all the priest 
 could say aloud; but he murmured to him 
 self, " Bon Dieu, vous m avez donne cela ! " 
 
 If Pere Antoine loved the tree before, he 
 worshipped it now. He watered it, and nur 
 tured it, and could have clasped it in his 
 arms. Here were Emile and Anglice and 
 the child, all in one ! 
 
 The years glided away, and the date-palm 
 and the priest grew together only one be 
 came vigorous and the other feejjle. Pere 
 Antoine had long passed the meridian of 
 life. The tree was in its youth. It 110 
 longer stood in an isolated garden ; for pre 
 tentious brick and stucco houses had clus 
 tered about Antoiiie s cottage. They looked 
 down scowling on the humble thatched roof. 
 The city was edging up, trying to crowd him 
 off his land. But he clung to it like lichen 
 and refused to sell. 
 
 Speculators piled gold on his doorsteps, 
 and he laughed at them. Sometimes he 
 was hungry, and cold, and thinly clad ; but 
 he laughed none the less. 
 
 "Get thee behind me, Satan!" said the 
 old priest s smile.
 
 PERE ANTOINE S DATE-PALM. 195 
 
 Pere Antoine was very old now, scarcely 
 able to walk ; but he could sit under the 
 pliant, caressing leaves of his palm, loving 
 it like an Arab ; and there he sat till the 
 grimmest of speculators came to him. But 
 even in death Pere Antoine was faithful to 
 his trust. 
 
 The owner of that land loses it if he harm 
 the date-tree. 
 
 And there it stands in the narrow, dingy 
 street, a beautiful, dreamy stranger, an ex, 
 quisite foreign lady whose grace is a joy to 
 the eye, the incense of whose breath makes 
 the air enamored. May the hand wither 
 that touches her ungently ! 
 
 " Because it grew from the heart of little 
 Anglice" said Miss Blondeau tenderly.
 
 QUITE SO. 
 
 I. 
 
 OF course that was not his name. Even 
 in the State of Maine, where it is still a 
 custom to maim a child for life by christen 
 ing him Arioch or Shadrach or Ephraim, 
 nobody would dream of calling a boy " Quite 
 So." It was merely a nickname which we 
 gave him in camp ; but it stuck to him with 
 such bur-like tenacity, and is so inseparable 
 from my memory of him, that I do not think 
 I could write definitely of John Bladburn 
 if I were to call him anything but " Quite 
 So." 
 
 It was one night shortly after the first 
 battle of Bull Run. The Army of the Po 
 tomac, shattered, stunned, and forlorn, was 
 back in its old quarters behind the earth 
 works. The melancholy line of ambulances 
 bearing our wounded to AVashington was not 
 done creeping over Long Bridge ; the blue 
 smocks and the gray still lay in windrows on
 
 QUITE SO. 197 
 
 the field of Manassas ; and the gloom that 
 weighed down our hearts was like the fog that 
 stretched along the bosom of the Potomac, 
 and enfolded the valley of the Shenandoah. 
 A drizzling rain had set in at twilight, and, 
 growing bolder with the darkness, was beat 
 ing a dismal tattoo on the tent the tent of 
 
 O 
 
 Mess 6, Company A, -th Regiment, N. Y. 
 Volunteers. Our mess, consisting originally 
 of eight men, was reduced to four. Little 
 Billy, as one of the boys grimly remarked, 
 had concluded to remain at Manassas ; Cor 
 poral Steele we had to leave at Fairfax 
 Court-House, shot through the hip ; Hunter 
 and Suydam we had said good-by to that 
 afternoon. " Tell Johnny Reb," says Hun 
 ter, lifting up the leather side-piece of the 
 ambulance, " that I 11 be back again as soon 
 as I get a new leg." But Suydam said noth 
 ing ; he only unclosed his eyes languidly and 
 smiled farewell to us. 
 
 The four of us who were left alive and un 
 hurt that shameful July day sat gloomily 
 smoking our brier-wood pipes, thinking our 
 thoughts, and listening to the rain pattering 
 against the canvas. That, and the occa 
 sional whine of a hungry cur, foraging on 
 the outskirts of the camp for a stray bone,
 
 198 QUITE SO. 
 
 alone broke the silence, save when a vicious 
 drop of rain detached itself meditatively 
 from the ridge-pole of the tent, and fell 
 upon the wick of our tallow candle, making 
 it " cuss," as Ned Strong described it. The 
 candle was in the midst of one of its most 
 profane fits when Blakely, knocking the 
 ashes from his pipe and addressing no one 
 in particular, but giving breath, uncon 
 sciously as it were, to the result of his cogi 
 tations, observed that " it was considerable 
 of a fizzle." 
 
 " The on to Richmond business ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " I wonder what they 11 do about it over 
 yonder," said Curtis, pointing over his right 
 shoulder. By " over yonder " he meant the 
 North in general and Massachusetts espe 
 cially. Curtis was a Boston boy, and his 
 sense of locality was so strong that, during 
 all his wanderings in Virginia, I do not be 
 lieve there was a moment, day or night, when 
 he could not have made a bee-line for Fan- 
 euil Hall. 
 
 " Do about it ? " cried Strong. " They 11 
 make about two hundred thousand blue flan 
 nel trousers and send them along, each pair 
 with a man in it all the short men in the
 
 QUITE SO. 199 
 
 long trousers, and all the tall men in the 
 short ones," he added, ruefully contemplat 
 ing his own leg-gear, which scarcely reached 
 to his ankles. 
 
 " That s so," said Blakely. " Just now, 
 when I was tackling the commissary for an 
 extra candle, I saw a crowd of new fellows 
 drawing blankets." 
 
 " I say there, drop that ! " cried Strong. 
 " All right, sir, did n t know it was you," 
 he added hastily, seeing it was Lieutenant 
 Haines who had thrown back the flap of the 
 tent, and let in a gust of wind and rain that 
 threatened the most serious bronchial conse 
 quences to our discontented tallow dip. 
 
 " You re to bunk in here," said the lieu 
 tenant, speaking to some one outside. The 
 some one stepped in, and Haines vanished 
 in the darkness. 
 
 When Strong had succeeded in restoring 
 the candle to consciousness, the light fell upon 
 a tall, shy-looking man of about thirty-five, 
 with long, hay-colored beard and mustache, 
 upon which the rain-drops stood in clusters, 
 like the night-dew on patches of cobweb in 
 a meadow. It was an honest face, with un 
 worldly sort of blue eyes, that looked out 
 from under the broad visor of the infantry
 
 200 QUITE SO. 
 
 cap. With a deferential glance towards 
 us, the new-comer unstrapped his knapsack, 
 spread his blanket over it, and sat down un 
 obtrusively. 
 
 " Rather damp night out," remarked 
 Blakely, whose strong hand was supposed to 
 be conversation. 
 
 " Quite so," replied the stranger, not 
 curtly, but pleasantly, and with an air as if 
 he had said all there was to be said about it. 
 
 " Come from the North recently ? " in 
 quired Blakely, after a pause. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " From any place in particular? " 
 
 " Maine." 
 
 "People considerably stirred up down 
 there ? " continued Blakely, determined not 
 to give up. 
 
 " Quite so." 
 
 Blakely threw a puzzled look over the 
 tent, and seeing Ned Strong on the broad 
 grin, frowned severely. Strong instantly 
 assumed an abstracted air, and began hum 
 ming softly, 
 
 " I wish I was in Dixie." 
 
 " The State of Maine," observed Blakely, 
 with a certain defiance of manner not at aU 
 necessary in discussing a geographical ques* 
 tion, " is a pleasant State."
 
 QUITE SO. 201 
 
 " In summer," suggested the stranger. 
 
 " In summer, I mean," returned Blakely 
 with animation, thinking he had broken the 
 ice. " Cold as blazes in winter, though 
 is n t it ? " 
 
 The new recruit merely nodded. 
 
 Blakely eyed the man homicidally for a 
 moment, and then, smiling one of those 
 smiles of simulated gayety which the novel 
 ists inform us are more tragic than tears, 
 turned upon him with withering irony. 
 
 " Trust you left the old folks pretty com 
 fortable? " 
 
 " Dead." 
 
 " The old folks dead ! " 
 
 " Quite so." 
 
 Blakely made a sudden dive for his 
 blanket, tucked it around him with painful 
 precision, and was heard no more. 
 
 Just then the bugle sounded " lights out," 
 bugle answering bugle in far-off camps. 
 When our not elaborate night-toilets were 
 complete, Strong threw somebody else s old 
 boot at the candle with infallible aim, and 
 darkness took possession of the tent. Ned, 
 who lay on my left, presently reached over 
 to me, and whispered, "I say, our friend 
 quite so is a garrulous old boy ! lie 11
 
 202 QUITE SO. 
 
 talk himself to death some of these odd times, 
 if he is n t careful. How he did run on ! " 
 
 The next morning, when I opened my 
 eyes, the new member of Mess 6 was sitting 
 on his knapsack, combing his blonde beard 
 with a horn comb. lie nodded pleasantly 
 to me, and to each of the boys as they woke 
 up, one by one. Blakely did not appeal- 
 disposed to renew the animated conversation 
 of the previous night ; but while he was 
 gone to make a requisition for what was in 
 pure sarcasm called coffee, Curtis ventured 
 to ask the man his name. 
 
 u Bladburn, John," was the reply. 
 
 "That s rather an unwieldy name for 
 every-day use," put in Strong. " If it would 
 n t hurt your feelings, I d like to call you 
 Quite So for short. Don t say no, if you 
 don t like it. Is it agreeable ? " 
 
 Bladburn gave a little laugh, all to him 
 self, seemingly, and was about to say, " Quite 
 so," when he caught at the words, blushed 
 like a girl, and nodded a sunny assent to 
 Strong. From that day until the end, the 
 sobriquet clung to him. 
 
 The disaster at Bull Run was followed, 
 as the reader knows, by a long period of 
 masterly inactivity, so far as the Army of
 
 QUITE SO. 203 
 
 the Potomac was concerned. McDowell, a 
 good soldier, but unlucky, retired to Arling 
 ton Heights, and McClellan, who had dis 
 tinguished himself in Western Virginia, took 
 command of the forces in front of Washing 
 ton, and bent his energies to reorganizing 
 the demoralized troops. It was a dreary 
 time to the people of the North, who looked 
 fatuously from week to week for " the fall 
 of Richmond ; " and it was a dreary time to 
 the denizens of that vast city of tents and 
 forts which stretched in a semicircle before 
 the beleaguered Capitdl so tedious and 
 soul-wearing a time that the hardships of 
 forced marches and the horrors of battle 
 became desirable things to them. 
 
 Roll-call morning and evening, guard- 
 duty, dress-parades, an occasional reconnois- 
 sance, dominoes, wrestling-matches, and such 
 rude games as could be carried on in camp 
 made up the sum of our lives. The arrival 
 of the mail with letters and papers from 
 home was the event of the day. We no 
 ticed that Bladburn neither wrote nor re 
 ceived any letters. When the rest of the 
 boys were scribbling away for dear life, with 
 drum-heads and knapsacks and cracker- 
 boxes for writing-desks, he would sit se*
 
 204 QUITE SO. 
 
 renely smoking his pipe, but looking out on 
 us through rings of smoke with a face ex 
 pressive of the tenderest interest. 
 
 "Look here, Quite So," Strong would 
 say, " the mail-bag closes in half an hour. 
 Ain t you going to write ? " 
 
 " I believe not to-day," Bladburn would 
 reply, as if he had written yesterday, or 
 would write to-morrow : but he never wrote. 
 
 He had become a great favorite with us, 
 and with all the officers of the regiment. 
 He talked less than any man I ever knew, 
 but there was nothing sinister or sullen in 
 his reticence. It was sunshine, warmth 
 and brightness, but no voice. Unassuming 
 and modest to the verge of shyness, he im 
 pressed every one as a man of singular pluck 
 and nerve. 
 
 " Do you know," said Curtis to me one 
 day, " that that fellow Quite So is clear grit, 
 and when we come to close quarters with our 
 Palmetto brethren over yonder, he 11 do 
 something devilish ? " 
 
 " What makes you think so ? " 
 
 " Well, nothing quite explainable ; the 
 exasperating coolness of the man, as much 
 as anything. This morning the boys were 
 teasing Muffin Fan [a small mulatto girl
 
 QUITE SO. 205 
 
 who used to bring muffins into camp three 
 times a week, at the peril of her life !] 
 and Jemmy Blunt of Company K you 
 know him was rather rough on the girl, 
 when Quite So, who had been reading under 
 a tree, shut one finger in his book, walked 
 over to where the boys were skylarking, and 
 with the smile of a juvenile angel on his 
 face lifted Jemmy out of that and set him 
 down gently in front of his own tent. There 
 Blunt sat speechless, staring at Quite So, 
 who was back again under the tree, pegging 
 away at his little Latin grammar." 
 
 That Latin grammar ! He always had it 
 about him, reading it or turning over its 
 dog s-eared pages at odd intervals and in 
 out-of-the-way places. Half a dozen times 
 a day he would draw it out from the bosom 
 of his blouse, which had taken the shape of 
 the book just over the left breast, look at it 
 as if to assure himself it was all right, and 
 then put the thing back. At night the vol 
 ume lay beneath his pillow. The first thing 
 in the morning, before he was well awake, 
 his hand would go groping instinctively un 
 der his knapsack in search of it. 
 
 A devastating curiosity seized upon us 
 boys concerning that Latin grammar, for
 
 206 QUITE SO. 
 
 we had discovered the nature of the book. 
 Strong wanted to steal it one night, but con- 
 eluded not to. " In the first place," reflected 
 Strong, " I have n t the heart to do it, and 
 in the next place I have ii t the moral cour 
 age. Quite So would placidly break every 
 bone in my body." And I believe Strong 
 was not far out of the way. 
 
 Sometimes I was vexed with myself for 
 allowing this tall, simple-hearted country 
 fellow to puzzle me so much. And yet, was 
 he a simple-hearted country fellow? City 
 bred he certainly was not ; but his manner, in 
 spite of his awkwardness, had an indescrib 
 able air of refinement. Now and then, too, 
 he dropped a word or a phrase that showed 
 his familiarity with unexpected lines of read 
 ing. " The other day," said Curtis, with the 
 slightest elevation of eyebrow, " he had the 
 cheek to correct my Latin for me." In short, 
 Quite So was a daily problem to the members 
 of Mess 6. Whenever he was absent, and 
 Blakely and Curtis and Strong and I got 
 together in the tent, we discussed him, evolv 
 ing various theories to explain why he never 
 wrote to anybody and why nobody ever 
 wrote to him. Had the man committed 
 some terrible crime, and fled to the army to
 
 QUITE SO. 207 
 
 hide his guilt ? Blakely suggested that he 
 must have murdered " the old folks." What 
 did he mean by eternally conning that tat 
 tered Latin grammar ? And was his name 
 Bladburn, anyhow ? Even his imperturb 
 able amiability became suspicious. And 
 then his frightful reticence ! If he was the 
 victim of any deep grief or crushing calam 
 ity, why did n t he seem unhappy ? What 
 business had he to be cheerful ? 
 
 " It s my opinion," said Strong, " that 
 he s a rival Wandering Jew ; the original 
 Jacobs, you know, was a dark fellow." 
 
 Blakely inferred from something Blad 
 burn had said, or something he had not said 
 which was more likely that he had been 
 a schoolmaster at some period of his life. 
 
 " Schoolmaster be hanged ! " was Strong s 
 comment. " Can you fancy a schoolmaster 
 going about conjugating baby verbs out of 
 a dratted little spelling-book? No, Quite So 
 has evidently been a a Blest if I can 
 imagine what he s been ! " 
 
 Whatever John Bladburn had been, he 
 was a lonely man. Whenever I want a type 
 of perfect human isolation, I shall think of 
 him, as he was in those days, moving remote, 
 self-contained, and alone in the midst of two 
 hundred thousand men.
 
 208 QUITE SO. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE Indian summer, with its infinite 
 beauty and tenderness, came like a reproach 
 that year to Virginia. The foliage, touched 
 here and there with prismatic tints, drooped 
 motionless in the golden haze. The delicate 
 Virginia creeper was almost minded to put 
 forth its scarlet buds again. No wonder the 
 lovely phantom this dusky Southern sister 
 of the pale Northern June lingered not 
 long with us, but, filling the once peaceful 
 glens and valleys with her pathos, stole 
 away rebukefully before the savage enginery 
 of man. 
 
 The preparations that had been going on 
 for months in arsenals and foundries at the 
 North were nearly completed. For weeks 
 past the air had been filled with rumors of 
 an advance ; but the rumor of to-day refuted 
 the rumor of yesterday, and the Grand 
 Army did not move. Heintzelman s corps 
 was constantly folding its tents, like the 
 Arabs, and as silently stealing away ; but
 
 QUITE SO. 209 
 
 somehow it was always in the same place 
 the next morning. One day, at last, orders 
 came down for our brigade to move. 
 
 " We re going to Richmond, boys ! " 
 shouted Strong, thrusting his head in at the 
 tent; and we all cheered and waved our 
 caps like mad. You see, Big Bethel and 
 Bull Run and BaU s Bluff (the bloody B s, 
 as we used to call them) had n t taught us 
 any better sense. 
 
 Rising abruptly from the plateau, to the 
 left of our encampment, was a tall hill cov 
 ered with a stunted growth of red-oak, per 
 simmon, and chestnut. The night before 
 we struck tents I climbed up to the crest to 
 take a parting look at a spectacle which cus 
 tom had not been able to rob of its enchant 
 ment. There, at my feet, and extending 
 miles and miles away, lay the camps of the 
 Grand Army, with its camp-fires reflected 
 luridly against the sky. Thousands of lights 
 were twinkling in every direction, some nest 
 ling in the valley, some like fire-flies beating 
 their wings and palpitating among the trees, 
 and others stretching in parallel lines and 
 curves, like the street-lamps of a city. Some 
 where, far off, a band was playing, at inter 
 vals it seemed , and now and then, nearer
 
 210 QUITE SO. 
 
 to, a silvery strain from a bugle shot sharply 
 up through the night, and seemed to lose 
 itself like a rocket among the stars the 
 patient, untroubled stars. Suddenly a hand 
 was laid upon my arm. 
 
 " I d like to say a word to you," said 
 Bladburn. 
 
 With a little start of surprise, I made 
 room for him on the fallen tree where I was 
 seated. 
 
 " I may n t get another chance," he said. 
 " You and the boys have been very kind to 
 me, kinder than I deserve ; but sometimes 
 I ve fancied that my not saying anything 
 about myself had given you the idea that all 
 was not right in my past. I want to say 
 that I came down to Virginia with a clean 
 record." 
 
 " We never really doubted it, Bladburn." 
 
 " If I did n t write home," he continued, 
 " it was because I had n t any home, neither 
 kith nor kin. When I said the old folks 
 were dead, I said it. Am I boring you ? If 
 I thought I was " 
 
 " No, Bladburn. I have often wanted you 
 to talk to me about yourself, not from idle 
 curiosity, I trust, but because I liked you 
 that rainy night when you came to camp,
 
 QUITE SO. 211 
 
 and have gone on liking you ever since. 
 This is n t too much to say, when Heaven 
 only knows how soon I may be past saying 
 it or you listening to it." 
 
 "That s it," said Bladburn, hurriedly; 
 " that s why I want to talk with you. I ve 
 a fancy that I sha n t come out of our first 
 battle." 
 
 The words gave me a queer start, for I 
 had been trying several days to throw off 
 a similar presentiment concerning him a 
 foolish presentiment that grew out of a 
 dream. 
 
 " In case anything of that kind turns up," 
 he continued, " I d like you to have my 
 Latin grammar here you ve seen me 
 reading it. You might stick it away in a 
 bookcase, for the sake of old times. It goes 
 against me to think of it falling into 
 rough hands or being kicked about camp and 
 trampled underfoot." 
 
 He was drumming softly with his fingers 
 on the volume in the bosom of his blouse. 
 
 " I did n t intend to speak of this to a liv 
 ing soul," he went on, motioning me not to 
 answer him ; " but something took hold of 
 me to-night and made me follow you up here. 
 Perhaps if I told you all, you would be the
 
 212 QUITE SO. 
 
 more willing to look after the little book in 
 case it goes ill with me. When the war 
 broke out I was teaching school down in 
 Maine, in the same village where my father 
 was schoolmaster before me. The old man 
 when he died left me quite alone. I lived 
 pretty much by myself, having no interests 
 outside of the district school, which seemed 
 in a manner my personal property. Eight 
 years ago last spring a new pupil was 
 brought to the school, a slight slip of a girl, 
 with a sad kind of face and quiet ways. 
 Perhaps it was because she was n t very 
 strong, and perhaps because she was n t used 
 over well by those who had charge of her, 
 or perhaps it was because my life was lonely, 
 that my heart warmed to the child. It all 
 seems like a dream now, since that April 
 morning when little Mary stood in front of 
 my desk with her pretty eyes looking down 
 bashfully and her soft hair falling over her 
 face. One day I look up, and six years have 
 gone by as they go by in dreams and 
 among the scholars is a tall girl of sixteen, 
 with serious, womanly eyes which I cannot 
 trust myself to look upon. The old life has 
 come to an end. The child has become a 
 Woman and can teach the master now. So
 
 QUITE SO. 213 
 
 help me Heaven, I did n t know that I loved 
 her until that day ! 
 
 "Long after the children had gone home 
 I sat in the school-room with my face resting 
 on my hands. There was her desk, the after 
 noon shadows falling across it. It never 
 looked empty and cheerless before. I went 
 and stood by the low chair, as I had stood 
 hundreds of times. On the desk was a pile 
 of books, ready to be taken away, and among 
 the rest a small Latin grammar which we 
 had studied together. What little despairs 
 and triumphs and happy hours were associ 
 ated with it ! I took it up curiously, as if it 
 were some gentle dead thing, and turned 
 over the pages, and could hardly see them. 
 Turning the pages, idly so, I came to a leaf 
 on which something was written with ink, in 
 the familiar girlish hand. It was only the 
 words Dear John, through which she had 
 drawn two hasty pencil lines I wish she 
 had n t drawn those lines ! " added Blad- 
 burn, under his breath. 
 
 He was silent for a minute or two, looking 
 off towards the camps, where the lights were 
 fading out one by one. 
 
 " I had no right to go and love Mary. I 
 was twice her age, an awkward, unsocial
 
 214 QUITE SO. 
 
 man, that would have blighted her youth. 1 
 was as wrong as wrong can be. But I never 
 meant to tell her. I locked the grammar 
 in my desk and the secret in my heart for a 
 year. I could n t bear to meet her in the 
 village, and kept away from every place 
 where she was likely to be. Then she came 
 to me, and sat down at my feet penitently, 
 just as she used to do when she was a child, 
 and asked what she had done to anger me ; 
 and then, Heaven forgive me ! I told her all, 
 and asked her if she could say with her lips 
 the words she had written, and she nestled in 
 my arms all a-trembling like a bird, and 
 said them over and over again. 
 
 " When Mary s family heard of our en 
 gagement, there was trouble. They looked 
 higher for Mary than a middle-aged school 
 master. No blame to them. They forbade 
 me the house, her uncles ; but we met in the 
 village and at the neighbors houses, and I 
 was happy, knowing she loved me. Matters 
 were in this state when the war came on. 
 I had a strong call to look after the old 
 flag, and I hung my head that day when the 
 company raised in our village marched by 
 the school-house to the railroad station ; but 
 I could n t tear myself away. About this
 
 Q.UFTE SO. 215 
 
 time the minister s son, who had been away 
 to college, came to the village. He met 
 Mary here and there, and they became great 
 friends. He was a likely fellow, near her 
 own age, and it was natural they should like 
 one another. Sometimes I winced at seeing 
 him made free of the home from which I 
 was shut out ; then I would open the gram 
 mar at the leaf where Dear John was 
 written up in the corner, and my trouble 
 was gone. Mary was sorrowful and pale 
 these days, and I think her people were wor 
 rying her. 
 
 " It was one evening two or three days 
 before we got the news of Bull Run. I had 
 gone down to the burying-ground to trim the 
 spruce hedge set round the old man s lot, 
 and was just stepping into the enclosure, 
 when I heard voices from the opposite side. 
 One was Mary s, and the other I knew to 
 be young Marston s, the minister s son. I 
 did n t mean to listen, but what Mary was 
 saying struck me dumb. We must never 
 meet again, she was saying in a wild way. 
 We must say good-by here, forever, good- 
 by, good-by ! And I could hear her sob 
 bing. Then, presently, she said, hurriedly, 
 JVo, no ; my hand, not my lips ! Then it
 
 216 QUITE SO. 
 
 seemed he kissed her hands, and the two 
 parted, one going towards the parsonage, and 
 the other out by the gate near where I 
 stood. 
 
 " I don t know how long I stood there, 
 but the night-dews had wet me to the bone 
 when I stole out of the graveyard and across 
 the road to the school-house. I unlocked 
 the door, and took the Latin grammar from 
 the desk and hid it in my bosom. There 
 was not a sound or a light anywhere as I 
 walked out of the village. And now," said 
 Bladburn, rising suddenly from the tree- 
 trunk, " if the little book ever falls in your 
 way, won t you see that it comes to no harm, 
 for my sake, and for the sake of the little 
 woman who was true to me and did n t love 
 me? Wherever she is to-night, God bless 
 her!" 
 
 As we descended to camp with our arms 
 resting on each other s shoulder, the watch- 
 fires were burning low in the valleys and 
 along the hillsides, and as far as the eye 
 could reach the silent tents lay bleaching iu 
 the moonlight.
 
 QUITE SO. 217 
 
 III. 
 
 WE imagined that the throwing forward 
 of our brigade was the initial movement of a 
 general advance of the army ; but that, as 
 the reader will remember, did not take place 
 until the following March. The Confeder 
 ates had fallen back to Centre ville without 
 firing a shot, and the national troops were in 
 possession of Lewinsville, Vienna, and Fair 
 fax Court-IIouse. Our new position was 
 nearly identical with that which we had occu 
 pied on the night previous to the battle of 
 Bull liun on the old turnpike road to 
 Manassas, where the enemy was supposed to 
 be in great force. With a field-glass we 
 could see the Rebel pickets moving in a belt 
 of woodland oil our right, and morning and 
 evening we heard the spiteful roll of their 
 snare-drums. 
 
 Those pickets soon became a nuisance to 
 us. Hardly a night passed but they fired 
 upon our outposts, so far with no harmful 
 result ; but after a while it grew to be a
 
 218 QUITE SO. 
 
 serious matter. The Rebels would crawl out 
 on all-fours from the wood into a field cov 
 ered with underbrush, and lie there in the 
 dark for hours, waiting for a shot. Then 
 our men took to the rifle-pits pits ten or 
 twelve feet long by four or five deep, with 
 the loose earth banked up a few inches high 
 on the exposed sides. All the pits bore 
 names, more or less felicitous, by which they 
 were known to their transient tenants. One 
 was called " The Pepper-Box, " another " Un 
 cle Sam s Well," another " The Reb-Trap," 
 and another, I am constrained to say, was 
 named after a not-to-be-mentioned tropical 
 locality. Though this rude sort of nomen 
 clature predominated, there was no lack of 
 softer titles, such as " Fortress Matilda " and 
 " Castle Mary," and one had, though unin 
 tentionally, a literary flavor to it, " Blair s 
 Grave," which was not popularly considered 
 as reflecting unpleasantly on Nat Blair, who 
 had assisted in making the excavation. 
 
 Some of the regiment had discovered a 
 field of late corn in the neighborhood, and 
 used to boil a few ears every day, while it 
 lasted, for the boys detailed on the night- 
 picket. The corn-cobs were always scrupu 
 lously preserved and mounted on the para-
 
 QUITE SO. 219 
 
 pets of the pits. Whenever a Rebel shot 
 carried away one of these barbette guns, 
 there was swearing in that particular trench. 
 Strong, who was very sensitive to this kind 
 of disaster, was complaining bitterly one 
 morning, because he had lost three " pieces : 
 the night before. 
 
 " There s Quite So, now," said Strong, 
 " when a Minie-ball comes ping ! and knocks 
 one of his guns to flinders, he merely smiles, 
 and does n t at all see the degradation of the 
 thing." 
 
 Poor Bladburn ! As I watched him day 
 by day going about his duties, in his shy, 
 cheery way, with a smile for every one and 
 not an extra word for anybody, it was hard 
 to believe he was the same man who, that 
 night before we broke camp by the Poto 
 mac, had poured out to me the story of his 
 love and sorrow in words that burned in my 
 memory. 
 
 While Strong was speaking, Blakely 
 lifted aside the flap of the tent and looked 
 in on us. 
 
 " Boys, Quite So was hurt last night," he 
 said, with a white tremor to his lip. 
 
 " What ! " 
 
 " Shot on picket.
 
 220 QUITE SO. 
 
 " Why, he was in the pit next to mine," 
 cried Strong. 
 
 "Badly hurt?" 
 
 " Badly hurt." 
 
 I knew he was ; I need not have asked the 
 question. He never meant to go back to 
 New England ! 
 
 Bladburn was lying on the stretcher in 
 the hospital-tent. The surgeon had knelt 
 down by him, and was carefully cutting 
 away the bosom of his blouse. The Latin 
 grammar, stained and torn, slipped, and fell 
 to the floor. Bladburn gave me a quick 
 glance. I picked up the book, and as I 
 placed it in his hand, the icy ringers closed 
 softly over mine. He was sinking fast. In 
 a few minutes the surgeon finished his ex 
 amination. When he rose to his feet there 
 were tears on the weather-beaten cheeks. 
 He was a rough outside, but a tender heart. 
 
 " My poor lad," he blurted out, " it s no 
 use. If you ve anything to say, say it now, 
 for you ve nearly done with this world." 
 
 Then Bladburn lifted his eyes slowly to 
 the surgeon, and the old smile flitted over 
 his face as he murmured, 
 
 " Quite so."
 
 A RIVERMOUTH ROMANCE. 
 
 I. 
 
 AT five o clock on the morning of the 
 tenth of July, 1860, the front door of a cer 
 tain house on Anchor Street, in the ancient 
 seaport town of Rivermquth, might have 
 been observed to open with great caution. 
 This door, as the least imaginative reader 
 may easily conjecture, did not open itself. 
 It was opened by Miss Margaret Callaghan, 
 who immediately closed it softly behind her, 
 paused for a few seconds with an embar 
 rassed air on the stone step, and then, throw 
 ing a furtive glance up at the second-story 
 windows, passed hastily down the street to 
 wards the river, keeping close to the fences 
 and garden walls on her left. 
 
 There was a ghost-like stealthmess to Miss 
 Margaret s movements, though there was 
 nothing whatever of the ghost about Miss 
 Margaret herself. She was a plump, short 
 person, no longer young, with coal-black hair
 
 222 A RIVERMOUTH ROMANCE. 
 
 growing low on the forehead, and a round 
 face that would have been nearly meaningless 
 if the features had not been emphasized 
 italicized, so to speak by the small-pox. 
 Moreover, the brilliancy of her toilet would 
 have rendered any ghostly hypothesis unten 
 able. Mrs. Solomon (we refer to the dressi 
 est Mrs. Solomon, whichever one that was) 
 in all her glory was not arrayed like Miss 
 Margaret on that eventful summer morning. 
 She wore a light-green, shot-silk frock, a 
 blazing red shawl, and a yellow crape bonnet 
 profusely decorated with azure, orange, and 
 magenta artificial flowers. In her hand she 
 carried a white parasol. The newly risen 
 sun, ricocheting from the bosom of the river 
 and striking point blank on the top -knot of 
 Miss Margaret s gorgeousness, made her an 
 imposing spectacle in the quiet street of that 
 Puritan village. But, in spite of the bravery 
 of her apparel, she stole guiltily along by 
 garden walls and fences until she reached a 
 small, dingy frame-house near the wharves, 
 in the darkened doorway of which she 
 quenched her burning splendor, if so bold a 
 figure is permissible. 
 
 Three quarters of an hour passed. The 
 sunshine moved slowly up Anchor Street, fin-
 
 A RIVERMOUTH ROMANCE. 223 
 
 gered noiselessly the well-kept brass knock 
 ers on either side, and drained the heeltaps 
 of dew which had been left from the revels 
 of the fairies overnight in the cups of the 
 morning-glories. Not a soul was stirring 
 yet in this part of the town, though the 
 Rivermouthians are such early birds that 
 not a worm may be said to escape them. 
 By and by one of the brown Holland shades 
 at one of the upper windows of the Bilkins 
 mansion the house from which Miss Mar 
 garet had emerged was drawn up, and 
 old Mr. Bilkins in spiral nightcap looked 
 out on the sunny street. Not a living crea 
 ture was to be seen, save the dissipated fam 
 ily cat a very Lovelace of a cat that was 
 not allowed a night-key who was sitting 
 on the curbstone opposite, waiting for the 
 hall door to be opened. Three quarters of 
 an hour, we repeat, had passed, when Mrs. 
 Margaret O Rourke, nSe Callaghan, issued 
 from the small, dingy house by the river, 
 and regained the door-step of the Bilkins 
 mansion in the same stealthy fashion in 
 which she had left it 
 
 Not to prolong a mystery that must al 
 ready oppress the reader, Mr. Bilkins s cook 
 had, after the manner of her kind, stolen
 
 224 A RivERMOurn ROMANCE. 
 
 out of the premises before the family were 
 up, and got herself married surreptitious 
 ly and artfully married, as if matrimony 
 were an indictable offence. 
 
 And something of an offence it was in 
 this instance. In the first place Margaret 
 Callaghan had lived nearly twenty years 
 with the Bilkins family, arid the old people 
 there were no children now had re 
 warded this long service by taking Marga 
 ret into their affections. It was a piece of 
 subtile ingratitude for her to marry without 
 admitting the worthy couple to her confi 
 dence. In the next place, Margaret had 
 married a man some eighteen years younger 
 than herself. That was the young man s 
 lookout, you say. We hold it was Margaret 
 that was to blame. What does a young 
 blade of twenty-two know? Not half so 
 much as he thinks he does. His exhaust- 
 less ignorance at that age is a discovery 
 which is left for him to make in his prime. 
 
 " Curly gold locks cover foolish brains, 
 
 Billing and cooing is alt your cheer ; 
 Sighing and singing of midnight strains, 
 Under Bonnybell s window panes, 
 Wait till you come to Forty Year! " 
 
 In one sense Margaret s husband had
 
 A R1VERMOUTII ROMANCE, 225 
 
 come to forty year she was forty to a 
 day. 
 
 Mrs. Margaret O Rourke, with the bad- 
 dish cat following closely at her heels, en 
 tered the Bilkins mansion, reached her 
 chamber in the attic without being inter 
 cepted, and there laid aside her finery. Two 
 or three times, while arranging her more 
 humble attire, she paused to take a look at 
 the marriage certificate, which she had de 
 posited between the leaves of her Prayer- 
 Book, and on each occasion held that potent 
 document upside down ; for Margaret s lit 
 erary culture was of the severest order, and 
 excluded the art of reading. 
 
 The breakfast was late that morning. As 
 Mrs. O Rourke set the coffee-urn in front of 
 Mrs. Bilkins and flanked Mr. Bilkins with 
 the broiled mackerel and buttered toast, 
 Mrs. O Rourke s conscience smote her. She 
 afterwards declared that when she saw the 
 two sitting there so innocent-like, not dream 
 ing of the comether she had put upon them, 
 she secretly and unbeknownt let a few tears 
 fall into the cream-pitcher. Whether or 
 not it was this material expression of Mar 
 garet s penitence that spoiled the coffee does 
 not admit of inquiry ; but the coffee was
 
 226 A Rl VERMOUTH ROMANCE. 
 
 bad. In fact, the whole breakfast was a 
 comedy of errors. 
 
 It was a blessed relief to Margaret when 
 the meal was ended. She retired in a cold 
 perspiration to the penetralia of the kitchen, 
 and it was remarked by both Mr. and Mrs. 
 Bilkins that those short flights of vocalism 
 apropos of the personal charms of one Kate 
 Kearney who lived on the banks of Killarney 
 which ordinarily issued from the direction 
 of the scullery were unheard that forenoon. 
 
 The town clock was striking eleven, and 
 the antiquated timepiece on the staircase 
 (which never spoke but it dropped pearls 
 and crystals, like the fairy in the story) was 
 lisping the hour, when there came three tre 
 mendous knocks at the street door. Mrs. 
 Bilkins, who was dusting the brass-mounted 
 chronometer in the hall, stood transfixed, 
 with arm uplifted. The admirable old lady 
 had for years been carrying on a guerilla 
 warfare with itinerant venders of furniture 
 polish, and pain-killer, and crockery cement, 
 and the like. The effrontery of the triple 
 knock convinced her the enemy was at her 
 gates possibly that dissolute creature with 
 twenty-four sheets of note-paper and twenty- 
 four envelopes for fifteen cents.
 
 A RIVERMOUTH ROMANCE. 227 
 
 Mrs. Bilkins swept across the hall, and 
 opened the door with a jerk. The sudden 
 ness of the movement was apparently not 
 anticipated by the person outside, who, with 
 one arm stretched feebly towards the re 
 ceding knocker, tilted gently forward, and 
 rested both hands 011 the threshold in an 
 attitude which was probably common enough 
 with our ancestors of the Simian period, but 
 could never have been considered graceful. 
 By an effort that testified to the excellent 
 condition of his muscles, the person instantly 
 righted himself, and stood swaying unstead 
 ily on his toes and heels, and smiling rather 
 vaguely on Mrs. Bilkins. 
 
 It was a slightly -built but well-knitted 
 young fellow, in the not unpicturesque garb 
 of our marine service. His woollen cap, 
 pitched forward at an acute angle with his 
 nose, showed the back part of a head 
 thatched with short yellow hair, which had 
 broken into innumerable curls of painful 
 tightness. On his ruddy cheeks a sparse 
 sandy beard was making a timid debut. 
 Add to this a weak, good-natured mouth, a 
 pair of devil-may-care blue eyes, and the fact 
 that the man was very drunk, and you have 
 a pre-Iiaphaelite portrait we may as well
 
 228 A RIVERMOUTII ROMANCE. 
 
 say it at once of Mr. Larry O llourke of 
 Mullingar, County Westmeath, and late of 
 the United States sloop-of-war Santee. 
 
 The man was a total stranger to Mrs. 
 Bilkins ; but the instant she caught sight 
 of the double white anchors embroidered on 
 the lapels of his jacket, she unhesitatingly 
 threw back the door, which with great pres 
 ence of inind she had partly closed. 
 
 A drunken sailor standing on the step of 
 the Bilkins mansion was no novelty. The 
 street, as we have stated, led down to the 
 wharves, and sailors were constantly passing. 
 The house abutted directly on the street ; the 
 granite door-step was almost flush with the 
 sidewalk, and the huge old-fashioned brass 
 knocker seemingly a brazen hand that 
 had been cut off at the wrist, and nailed 
 against the oak as a warning to malefactors 
 extended itself in a kind of grim appeal 
 to everybody. It seemed to possess strange 
 fascinations for all seafaring folk ; and when 
 there was a man-of-war in port the rat-tat- 
 tat of that knocker would frequently startle 
 the quiet neighborhood long after midnight. 
 There appeared to be an occult understand 
 ing between it and the blue-jackets. Yeai S 
 ago there was a young Bilkins, one Pendex-
 
 A RIVERMOUTH ROMANCE. 229 
 
 ter Bilkins a sad losel, we fear who ran 
 away to try his fortunes before the mast, 
 and fell overboard in a gale off Hatteras. 
 " Lost at sea," says the chubby marble slab 
 in the Old South Burying-Ground, " cetat 
 18." Perhaps that is why no blue-jacket, 
 sober or drunk, was ever repulsed from the 
 door of the Bilkins mansion. 
 
 Of course Mrs. Bilkins had her taste in 
 the matter, and preferred them sober. But 
 as this could not always be, she tempered 
 her wind, so to speak, to the shorn lamb. 
 The flushed, prematurely old face that now 
 looked up at her moved the good lady s pity. 
 
 " What do you want ? " she asked kindly. 
 
 " Me wife." 
 
 " There s no wife for you here," said 
 Mrs. Bilkins, somewhat taken aback. " His 
 wife ! " she thought ; " it s a mother the 
 poor boy stands in need of." 
 
 " Me wife," repeated Mr. O Rourke, " for 
 betther or for worse." 
 
 " You had better go away," said Mrs. 
 Bilkins, bridling up, " or it will be the 
 worse for you." 
 
 " To have and to howld," continued Mr. 
 O Rourke, wandering retrospectively in the 
 mazes of the marriage service, " to have and
 
 230 A RIVERMOUTH ROMANCE. 
 
 to howld, till death bad luck to him ! 
 takes one or the ither of us." 
 
 " You re a blasphemous creature," said 
 Mrs. Bilkins, severely. 
 
 " Thim s the words his riverince spake 
 this moruin , standin foreninst us," ex 
 plained Mr. O Rourke. " I stood here, see, 
 and me jew l stood there, and the howly 
 chaplain beyont." 
 
 And Mr. O Rourke with a wavering fore 
 finger drew a diagram of the interesting 
 situation on the door-step. 
 
 " Well," returned Mrs. Bilkins, " if you re 
 a married man, all I have to say is, there s 
 a pair of fools instead of one. You had 
 better be off ; the person you want does n t 
 live here." 
 
 " Bedad, thin, but she does." 
 
 " Lives here ? " 
 
 " Sorra a place else." 
 
 " The man s crazy," said Mrs. Bilkins to 
 herself. 
 
 While she thought him simply drunk she 
 was not in the least afraid; but the idea 
 that she was conversing with a madman sent 
 a chill over her. She reached back her hand 
 preparatory to shutting the door, when Mr. 
 O Rourke, with an agility that might have
 
 A RIVERMOUTII ROMANCE. 231 
 
 been expected from his previous gymnastics, 
 Bet one foot on the threshold and frustrated 
 the design. 
 
 " I want me wife," he said sternly. 
 
 Unfortunately, Mr. Bilkiiis had gone up 
 town, and there was no one in the house ex 
 cept Margaret, whose pluck was not to be 
 depended on. The case was urgent. With 
 the energy of despair Mrs. Bilkins suddenly 
 placed the toe of her boot against Mr. 
 O Rourke s invading foot, and pushed it 
 away. The effect of this attack was to cause 
 Mr. O Rourke to describe a complete circle 
 on one leg, and then sit down heavily on the 
 threshold. The lady retreated to the hat- 
 stand, and rested her hand mechanically on 
 the handle of a blue cotton umbrella. Mr. 
 O Rourke partly turned his head and smiled 
 upon her with conscious superiority. At 
 this juncture a third actor appeared on the 
 scene, evidently a friend of Mr. O Rourke, 
 for he addressed that gentleman as " a spal 
 peen," and told him to go home. 
 
 " Divil an inch," replied the spalpeen ; 
 but he got himself off the threshold, and re 
 sumed his position on the step. 
 
 " It s only Larry, mum," said the man, 
 touching his forelock politely ; " as dacent a
 
 232 A RIVERMOUTII ROMANCE. 
 
 lad as iver lived, when he s not in liquor ; 
 an I ve known him to be sober for days to- 
 gither," he added, reflectively. " He don t 
 mane a ha p orth o harum, but jist now he s 
 not quite in his right moind." 
 
 " I should think not," said Mrs. Bilkins, 
 turning from the speaker to Mr. O Rourke, 
 who had seated himself gravely on the 
 scraper, and was weeping. " Has n t the 
 man any friends ? " 
 
 " Too many of em, mum, an it s along 
 wid dhrinkin toasts wid em that Larry got 
 thro wed. The punch that spalpeen has 
 dhrunk this day would amaze ye. He give 
 us the slip awhiles ago, bad cess to him, an 
 come up here. Did n t I tell ye, Larry, not 
 to be afther ringin at the owld gintlemaii s 
 knocker ? Ain t ye got no sinse at all ? " 
 
 " Misther Donnehugh," responded Mr. 
 O Rourke with great dignity, " ye re dhrunk 
 agin." 
 
 Mr. Donnehugh, who had not taken more 
 than thirteen ladles of rum-punch, disdained 
 to reply directly. 
 
 "He s a dacent lad enough" this to 
 Mrs. Bilkins " but his head is wake. 
 Whin he s had two sups o whiskey he be- 
 laves he s dhrunk a bar l full. A gill o
 
 A RIVERMOUTH ROMANCE. 233 
 
 wather out of a jimmy-john d fuddle him, 
 mum." 
 
 " Is n t there anybody to look after him ? " 
 
 " No, mum, he s an orphan ; his father 
 and mother live in the owld counthry, an a 
 fine hale owld couple they are." 
 
 " Hasn t he any family in the town" 
 
 " Sure, mum, he has a family ; was n t he 
 married this blessed mornin ? " 
 
 " He said so." 
 
 " Indade, thin, he was the pore divil ! " 
 
 " And the the person ? " inquired Mrs. 
 Bilkins. 
 
 " Is it the wife, ye mane ? " 
 
 " Yes, the wife : where is she ? " 
 
 " Well, thin, mum," said Mr. Donnehugh, 
 " it s yerself can answer that." 
 
 " I ? " exclaimed Mrs. Bilkins. " Good 
 heavens ! this man s as crazy as the other ! " 
 
 " Begorra, if anybody s crazy, it s Larry, 
 for it s Larry has married Margaret." 
 
 "What Margaret?" cried Mrs. Bilkins, 
 with a start. 
 
 "Margaret Callaghan, sure." 
 
 " Our Margaret? Do you mean to say 
 that OUR Margaret has married that that 
 good-for-nothing, inebriated wretch ! " 
 
 " It s a civil tongue the owld lady has,
 
 234 A Rl VERMOUTH ROMANCE. 
 
 any way," remarked Mr. O Rourke, criti 
 cally, from the scraper. 
 
 Mrs. Bilkins s voice during the latter part 
 of the colloquy had been pitched in a high 
 key ; it rung through the hall and penetrated 
 to the kitchen, where Margaret was thought 
 fully wiping the breakfast things. She 
 paused with a half-dried saucer in her hand, 
 and listened. In a moment more she stood, 
 with bloodless face and limp figure, leaning 
 against the banister, behind Mrs. Bilkins. 
 
 " Is it there ye are, me jew l ! " cried Mr. 
 O Rourke, discovering her. 
 
 Mrs. Bilkins wheeled upon Margaret. 
 
 " Margaret Callaghan, is that thing your 
 husband?" 
 
 "Ye-yes, mum," faltered Mrs. O Rourke, 
 with a wof ul lack of spirit. 
 
 " Then take it away ! " cried Mrs. Bilkins. 
 
 Margaret, with a slight flush on either 
 cheek, glided past Mrs. Bilkins, and the 
 heavy oak door closed with a bang, as the 
 gates of Paradise must have closed of old 
 upon Adam and Eve. 
 
 " Come ! " said Margaret, taking Mr. 
 O Rourke by the hand ; and the two wan 
 dered forth upon their wedding journey down 
 Anchor Street, with all the world before
 
 A RIVERMOUTn ROMANCE. 235 
 
 thorn where to choose. They chose to halt 
 at the small, shabby tenement-house by the 
 river, through the doorway of which the bri 
 dal pair disappeared with a reeling, eccen 
 tric gait ; for Mr. O Rourke s intoxication 
 seemed to have run down his elbow, and 
 communicated itself to Margaret. 
 
 O Hymen ! who burnest precious gums 
 and scented woods in thy torch at the melt 
 ing of aristocratic hearts, with what a pitiful 
 penny-dip thou hast lighted up our little 
 back- street romance!
 
 n. 
 
 IT had been no part of Margaret s plan to 
 acknowledge the marriage so soon. Though 
 on pleasure bent, she had a frugal mind. 
 She had invested in a husband with a view 
 of laying him away for a rainy day that 
 is to say, for such time as her master and 
 mistress should cease to need her services ; 
 for she had promised on more than one occa 
 sion to remain with the old people as long as 
 they lived. Indeed, if Mr. O Rourke had 
 come to her and said in so many words, 
 " The day you marry me you must leave the 
 Bilkins family," there is very little doubt 
 but Margaret would have let that young sea- 
 monster slip back unmated, so far as she 
 was concerned, into his native element. The 
 contingency never entered into her calcula 
 tions. She intended that the ship which 
 had brought Ulysses to her island should 
 take him off again after a decent interval of 
 honeymoon ; then she would confess all to 
 Mrs. Bilkins, and be forgiven, and Mr. Bil 
 king would not cancel that clause supposed
 
 A RIVERMOUTII ROMANCE. 237 
 
 to exist in his will bequeathing two first- 
 mortgage bonds of the Squedunk R. R. Co. 
 to a certain faithful servant. In the mean 
 while she would add each month to her store 
 in the coffers of the Rivermouth Savings 
 Bank ; for Calypso had a neat sum to her 
 credit on the books of that provident insti- 
 tution. 
 
 But this could not be now. The volatile 
 bridegroom had upset the wisely conceived 
 plan, and "all the fat was in the fire," 
 as Margaret philosophically put it. Mr. 
 O Rourke had been fully instructed in the 
 part he was to play, and, to do him justice, 
 had honestly intended to play it ; but des 
 tiny was against him. It may be observed 
 that destiny and Mr. O Rourke were not on 
 very friendly terms. 
 
 After the ceremony had been performed 
 and Margaret had stolen back to the Bilkins 
 mansion, as related, Mr. O Rourke with his 
 own skilful hands had brewed a noble punch 
 for the wedding guests. Standing at the 
 head of the table and stirring the pungent 
 mixture in a small wash-tub purchased for 
 the occasion, Mr. O Rourke came out in full 
 flower. His flow of wit, as he replenished 
 the glasses, was as racy and seemingly as
 
 238 A RIVERMOUTII ROMANCE. 
 
 inexhaustible as the punch itself. When 
 Mrs. McLaughlin held out her glass, inad 
 vertently upside down, for her sixth ladleful, 
 Mr. O Rourke gallantly declared it should 
 be filled if he had to stand on his head to do 
 it. The elder Miss O Leary whispered to 
 Mrs. Connally that Mr. O ltourke was " a 
 perfic gintleman," and the men in a body 
 pronounced him a bit of the raal shamrock. 
 If Mr. O Rourke was happy in brewing a 
 punch, he was happier in dispensing it, and 
 happiest of all in drinking a great deal of 
 it himself. He toasted Mrs. Finnigan, the 
 landlady, and the late lamented Finnigan, 
 the father, whom he had never seen, and 
 Miss Biddy Finnigan, the daughter, and a 
 young toddling Finnigan, who was at large 
 in shockingly scant raiment. He drank to 
 the company individually and collectively, 
 drank to the absent, drank to a tin-peddler 
 who chanced to pass the window, and indeed 
 was in that propitiatory mood when he would 
 have drunk to the health of each separate 
 animal that came out of the Ark. It was 
 in the midst of the confusion and applause 
 which followed his song, " The Wearing of 
 the Grane," that Mr. O Rourke, the punch 
 being all gone, withdrew unobserved, and
 
 A RIVERMOUTH ROMANCE. 239 
 
 went in quest of Mrs. O Rourke with what 
 success the reader knows. 
 
 According to the love-idyl of the period, 
 when Laura and Charles Henry, after un 
 heard-of obstacles, are finally united, all 
 cares and tribulations and responsibilities 
 slip from their sleek backs like Christian s 
 burden. The idea is a pretty one, theoret 
 ically, but, like some of those models in the 
 Patent Office at Washington, it fails to 
 work. Charles Henry does not go on sit 
 ting at Laura s feet and reading Tennyson 
 to her forever : the rent of the cottage by 
 the sea falls due with prosaic regularity ; 
 there are bakers, and butchers, and babies, 
 and tax-collectors, and doctors, and under 
 takers, and sometimes gentlemen of the jury, 
 to be attended to. Wedded life is not one 
 long amatory poem with recurrent rhymes 
 of love and dove, and kiss and bliss. Yet 
 when the average sentimental novelist has 
 supplied his hero and heroine with their 
 bridal outfit and arranged that little mat 
 ter of the marriage certificate, he usually 
 turns off the gas, puts up his shutters, and 
 saunters off with his hands in his pockets, 
 as if the day s business were over. But we,
 
 240 A RIVERMOUTII ROMANCE. 
 
 who are honest dealers in real life and dis 
 dain to give short weight, know better. The 
 business is by no means over ; it is just be 
 gun. It is not Christian throwing off his 
 pack for good and all, but Christian taking 
 up a load heavier and more difficult than 
 any he has carried. 
 
 If Margaret Callaghan, when she medi 
 tated matrimony, indulged in any roseate 
 dreams, they were quickly put to flight. 
 She suddenly found herself dispossessed of 
 a quiet, comfortable home, and face to face 
 with the fact that she had a white elephant 
 on her hands. It is not likely that Mr. 
 O Rourke assumed precisely the shape of a 
 white elephant to her mental vision ; but he 
 was as useless and cumbersome and unman 
 ageable as one. 
 
 Margaret and Larry s wedding tour did 
 not extend beyond Mrs. Finnigan s estab 
 lishment, where they took two or three 
 rooms and set up housekeeping in a humble 
 way. Margaret, who was a tidy housewife, 
 kept the floor of her apartments as white as 
 your hand, the tin plates on the dresser as 
 bright as your lady-love s eyes, and the cook 
 ing-stove as neat as the machinery on a 
 Sound steamer. When she was not rubbing
 
 A R1VERMOUTH ROMANCE. 241 
 
 the stove with lamp-black she was cooking 
 upon it some savory dish to tempt the pal 
 ate of her marine monster. Naturally of a 
 hopeful temperament, she went about her 
 work singing softly to herself at times, and 
 would have been very happy that first week 
 if Mr. O Rourke had known a sober mo 
 ment. But Mr. O Rourke showed an exas 
 perating disposition to keep up festivities. 
 At the end of ten days, however, he toned 
 down, and at Margaret s suggestion that he 
 had better be looking about for some employ 
 ment he rigged up a fishing-pole, and set out 
 with an injured air for the wharf at the foot 
 of the street, where he fished for the rest of 
 the day. To sit for hours blinking in the 
 sun, waiting for a cunner to come along and 
 take his hook, was as exhaustive a kind of 
 labor as he cared to engage in. Though 
 Mr. O Rourke had recently returned from 
 a long cruise, he had not a cent to show. 
 During his first three days ashore he had 
 dissipated his three years pay. The house 
 keeping expenses began eating a hole in 
 Margaret s little fund, the existence of which 
 was no sooner known to Mr. O Rourke than 
 he stood up his fishing-rod in one corner of 
 the room, and thenceforth it caught nothing 
 but cobwebs.
 
 242 A RIVERMOUTH ROMANCE. 
 
 " Divil a sthroke o work I 11 do," said 
 Mr. O Rourke, " whin we can live at aise on 
 our earnin s. Who d be afther frettin his- 
 self, wid money in the bank ? How much is 
 it, Peggy darlint ? " 
 
 And divil a stroke more of work did he 
 do. He lounged down on the wharves, and, 
 with his short clay pipe stuck between his 
 lips and his hands in his pockets, stared off 
 at the sail-boats on the river. Pie sat on 
 the door-step of the Finnigari domicile, and 
 plentifully chaffed the passers-by. Now and 
 then, when he could wheedle some fractional 
 currency out of Margaret, he spent it like a 
 crown-prince at The Wee Drop around the 
 corner. With that fine magnetism which 
 draws together birds of a feather, he shortly 
 drew about him all the ne er-do-weels of Riv- 
 ermouth. It was really wonderful what an 
 unsuspected lot of them there was. From 
 all the frowzy purlieus of the town they 
 crept forth into the sunlight to array them 
 selves under the banner of the prince of 
 scallawags. It was edifying of a summer 
 afternoon to see a dozen of them sitting in 
 a row, like turtles, on the string-piece of 
 Jedediah Rand s wharf, with their twenty- 
 four feet dangling over the water, assisting
 
 A EIVERMOUTH ROMANCE. 243 
 
 Mr. O Rourke in contemplating the islands 
 in the harbor, and upholding the scenery, as 
 it were. 
 
 The rascal had one accomplishment, he 
 had a heavenly voice quite in the rough, 
 to be sure and he played on the violin like 
 an angel. He did not know one note from, 
 another, but he played in a sweet natural 
 way, just as Orpheus must have played, by 
 ear. The drunker he was the more pathos 
 and humor he wrung from the old violin, his 
 sole piece of personal property. lie had a 
 singular fancy for getting up at two or three 
 o clock in the morning, and playing by an 
 open casement, to the distraction of all the 
 dogs in the immediate neighborhood and 
 innumerable dogs in the distance. 
 
 Unfortunately, Mr. O Rourke s freaks were 
 not always of so innocent a complexion. On 
 one or two occasions, through an excess of 
 animal and other spirits, he took to break 
 ing windows in the town. Among his noc 
 turnal feats he accomplished the demolition 
 of the glass in the door of The "Wee Drop. 
 Now, breaking windows in Rivermouth is 
 an amusement not wholly disconnected with 
 an interior view of the police-station (bride 
 well is the local term) ; so it happened that
 
 244 A RIVERMOUTU ROMANCE. 
 
 Mr. O Rourke woke up one fine morning and 
 found himself snug and tight in one of the 
 cells in the rear of the Brick Market. His 
 plea that the bull s-eye in the glass door of 
 The Wee Drop winked at him in an insult- 
 in manner as he was passing by did not 
 prevent Justice Hackett from fining the de 
 linquent ten dollars and costs, which made 
 sad havoc with the poor wife s bank account. 
 So Margaret s married life wore on, and all 
 went merry as a funeral knell. 
 
 After Mrs. Bilkins, with a brow as severe 
 as that of one of the Parcse, had closed the 
 door upon the O Rourkes that summer morn 
 ing, she sat down on the stairs, and, sinking 
 the indignant goddess in the woman, burst 
 into tears. She was still very wroth with 
 Margaret Callaghan, as she persisted in call 
 ing her; very merciless and unforgiving, as 
 the gentler sex are apt to be to the gen 
 tler sex. Mr. Bilkins, however, after the 
 first vexation, missed Margaret from the 
 household ; missed her singing, which was 
 in itself as helpful as a second girl ; missed 
 her hand in the preparation of those hun 
 dred and one nameless comforts which are 
 necessities to the old, and wished in his soul 
 that he had her back arain. Who coulj
 
 A RIVERMOUTB ROMANCE. 245 
 
 make a gruel, when he was ill, or cook a 
 steak, when he was well, like Margaret ? 
 So, meeting her one morning at the fish- 
 market for Mr. O Rourke had long since 
 given over the onerous labor of catching 
 cunners he spoke to her kindly, and 
 asked her how she liked the change in her 
 life, and if Mr. O Rourke was good to her. 
 
 " Troth, thin, sur," said Margaret, with a 
 short, dry laugh, " he s the divil s own ! " 
 
 Margaret was thin and careworn, and her 
 laugh had the mild gayety of champagne 
 not properly corked. These things were 
 apparent even to Mr. Bilkins, who was not 
 a shrewd observer. 
 
 " I m afraid, Margaret," he remarked sor 
 rowfully, " that you are not making both 
 ends meet." 
 
 " Begorra, I d be glad if I could make 
 one ind meet ! " returned Margaret. 
 
 With a duplicity quite foreign to his na 
 ture, Mr. Bilkins gradually drew from her 
 the true state of affairs. Mr. O Rourke was 
 a very bad case indeed ; he did nothing 
 towards her support ; he was almost con 
 stantly drunk ; the little money she had laid 
 by was melting away, and would not last 
 until winter. Mr. O Rourke was perpetually
 
 246 A RIVERMOUTII ROMANCE. 
 
 coming home with a sprained ankle, or a 
 bruised shoulder, or a broken head. He had 
 broken most of the furniture in his festive 
 hours, including the cooking-stove. " In 
 short," as Mr. Bilkins said in relating the 
 matter afterwards to Mrs. Bilkins, "he had 
 broken all those things which he should n t 
 have broken, and failed to break the one 
 thing he ought to have broken long ago 
 his neck, namely." 
 
 The revelation which startled Mr. Bilkins 
 most was this : in spite of all, Margaret 
 loved Larry with the whole of her warm 
 Irish heart. Further than keeping the poor 
 creature up waiting for him until ever so 
 much o clock at night, it did not appear that 
 he treated her with personal cruelty. If he 
 had beaten her, perhaps she would have 
 worshipped him. It needed only that. 
 
 Revolving Margaret s troubles in his 
 thoughts as he walked homeward, Mr. Bil 
 kins struck upon a plan by which he could 
 help her. When this plan was laid before 
 Mrs. Bilkins, she opposed it with a vehe 
 mence that convinced him she had made up 
 her mind to adopt it. 
 
 " Never, never will I have that ungrateful 
 woman under this roof ! " cried Mrs. BiL
 
 A RIVERMOUTH ROMANCE. 247 
 
 kins ; and accordingly the next day Mr. and 
 Mrs. O Rourke took up their abode in the 
 Bilkins mansion Margaret as cook, and 
 Larry as gardener. 
 
 " I m convanieut if the owld gintleman 
 is," had been Mr. O Rourke s remark, when 
 the proposition was submitted to him. Not 
 that Mr. O liourke had the faintest idea of 
 gardening. He did n t know a tulip from a 
 tomato. He was one of those sanguine peo 
 ple who never hesitate to undertake any 
 thing, and are never abashed by their hercu 
 lean inability. 
 
 Mr. Bilkins did not look to Margaret s 
 husband for any great botanical knowledge ; 
 but he was rather surprised one day when 
 Mr. O Rourke pointed to the triangular bed 
 of lilies-of-the-valley, then out of flower, 
 and remarked, " Thim s a nate lot o pur- 
 taties ye ve got there, sur." Mr. Bilkins, 
 we repeat, did not expect much from Mr. 
 O Rourke s skill in gardening ; his purpose 
 was to reform the fellow if possible, and in 
 any case to make Margaret s lot easier. 
 
 Reestablished in her old home, Margaret 
 broke into song again, and Mr. O Rourke 
 himself promised to do very well ; morally, 
 we mean, not agriculturally. His ignorance
 
 248 A RIVERMOUTII ROMANCE. 
 
 of the simplest laws of nature, if nature has 
 any simple laws, and his dense stupidity on 
 every other subject were heavy trials to Mr. 
 Bilkins. Happily, Mr. Bilkins was not with 
 out a sense of humor, else he would have 
 found Mr. O Rourke insupportable. Just 
 when the old gentleman s patience was about 
 exhausted, the gardener would commit some 
 atrocity so perfectly comical that his master 
 all but loved him for the moment. 
 
 " Larry," said Mr. Bilkins, one breathless 
 afternoon in the middle of September, " just 
 see how the thermometer on the back porch 
 stands." 
 
 Mr. O Rourke disappeared, and after a 
 prolonged absence returned with the mon 
 strous announcement that the thermometer 
 stood at 820 ! 
 
 Mr. Bilkins looked at the man closely. 
 He was unmistakably sober. 
 
 "Eight hundred and twenty what?" cried 
 Mr. Bilkins, feeling very warm, as he natu 
 rally would in so high a temperature. 
 
 "Eight hundthred an twinty degrays, I 
 suppose, sur." 
 
 " Larry, you re an idiot." 
 
 This was obviously not to Mr. O Rourke s 
 taste ; for he went out and brought the ther.
 
 A RI VERMOUTH ROMANCE. 249 
 
 mometer, and, pointing triumphantly to the 
 line of numerals running parallel with the 
 glass tube, exclaimed, " Add em up yerself, 
 thin ! " 
 
 Perhaps this would not have been amus 
 ing if Mr. Bilkins had not spent the greater 
 part of the previous forenoon in initiating 
 Mr. O liourke into the mysteries of the ther 
 mometer. Nothing could make amusing Mr. 
 O Kourke s method of setting out crocus 
 bulbs. Mr. Bilkins had received a lot of a 
 very choice variety from Boston, and having 
 a headache that morning, turned over to 
 Mr. O Rourke the duty of planting them. 
 Though he had never seen a bulb in his life, 
 Larry unblushingly asserted that he had set 
 out thousands for Sir Lucius O Grady of 
 O Grady Castle, u an illegant place intirely, 
 wid tin miles o garden- walks," added Mr. 
 O ltourke, crushing Mr. Bilkins, who boasted 
 only of a few humble flower-beds. 
 
 The following day he stepped into the 
 garden to see how Larry had done his work. 
 There stood the parched bulbs, carefully ar 
 ranged in circles and squares on top of the 
 soil. 
 
 " Did n t I tell you to set out these bulbs? " 
 cried Mr. Bilkins, wrathfully.
 
 250 A Rl VERM OUT II ROMANCE. 
 
 "An did n t I set em out? " expostulated 
 Mr. O ltourke. "An ain t they a settiu 
 there beautiful?" 
 
 " But you should have put them into the 
 ground, stupid ! " 
 
 " Is it bury em, ye mane ? Be jabbers ! 
 how could they iver git out agin ? Give the 
 little jokers a fair show, Misther Bilkins ! " 
 
 For two weeks Mr. O Rourke conducted 
 himself with comparative propriety ; that is 
 to say, be rendered himself useless about the 
 place, appeared regularly at his meals, and 
 kept sober. Perhaps the hilarious strains of 
 music which sometimes issued at midnight 
 from the upper window of the north gable 
 were not just what a quiet, unostentatious 
 family would desire ; but on the whole there 
 was not much to complain of. 
 
 The third week witnessed a falling off. 
 Though always promptly on hand at the 
 serving out of rations, Mr. O Rourke did not 
 even make a pretence of working in the gar 
 den. He would disappear mysteriously im 
 mediately after breakfast, and reappear with 
 supernatural abruptness at dinner. Nobody 
 knew what he did with himself in the inter 
 val, until one day he was observed to fall 
 out of an apple-tree near the stable. His
 
 A RIVERMOUTII ROMANCE. 251 
 
 retreat discovered, he took to the wharves 
 and the alleys in the distant part of the 
 town. It soon became evident that his ways 
 were not the ways of temperance, and that 
 all his paths led to The Wee Drop. 
 
 Of course Margaret tried to keep this 
 from the family. Being a woman, she coined 
 excuses for him in her heart. It was a dull 
 life for the lad, any way, and it was worse 
 than him that was leading Larry astray. 
 Hours and hours after the old people had 
 gone to bed, she would sit without a light in 
 the lonely kitchen, listening for that shuf 
 fling step along the gravel walk. Night 
 after night she never closed her eyes, and 
 went about the house the next day with that 
 smooth, impenetrable face behind which 
 women hide their care. 
 
 One morning found Margaret sitting pale 
 and anxious by the kitchen stove. O Rourke 
 had not come home at all. Noon came, and 
 night, but not Larry. Whenever Mrs. Bil- 
 kins approached her that day, Margaret was 
 humming " Kate Kearney " quite merrily. 
 But when her work was done, she stole out 
 at the back gate and went in search of him. 
 She scoured the neighborhood like a mad 
 woman. O Rourke had not been at the Fin-
 
 252 A RI VERMOUTH ROMANCE. 
 
 nigans . He had not been at The Wee Drop 
 since Monday, and this was Wednesday 
 night. Her heart sunk within her when 
 she failed to find him in the police-station. 
 Some dreadful thing 1 had happened to him. 
 She came back to the house with one hand 
 pressed wearily against her cheek. The 
 dawn struggled through the kitchen win 
 dows, and fell upon Margaret crouched by 
 the stove. 
 
 She could no longer wear her mask. 
 When Mr. Bilkins came down she confessed 
 that Larry had taken to drinking again, and 
 had not been home for two nights. 
 
 " Mayhap he s drownded hisself ," sug 
 gested Margaret, wringing her hands. 
 
 " Not he," said Mr. Bilkins ; " he does n t 
 like the taste of water well enough." 
 
 " Troth, thin, he does n. t," reflected Mar 
 garet, and the reflection comforted her. 
 
 " At any rate, I 11 go and look him up 
 after breakfast," said Mr. Bilkins. And 
 after breakfast, accordingly, Mr. Bilkins sal 
 lied forth with the depressing expectation of 
 finding Mr. O Kourke without much diffi 
 culty. " Come to think of it," said the old 
 gentleman to himself, drawing on his white 
 cotton gloves as he walked up Anchor Street, 
 "/don t want to find him."
 
 A RIVERMOUTII ROMANCE. 253 
 
 III. 
 
 BUT Mr. O Rourke was not to be found. 
 With amiable cynicism Mr. Bilkins directed 
 his steps in the first instance to the police- 
 station, quite confident that a bird of Mr. 
 O Rourke s plumage would be brought to 
 perch in such a cage. But not so much as a 
 feather of him was discoverable. The Wee 
 Drop was not the only bacchanalian resort 
 in Rivermouth ; there were five or six other 
 low drinking-shops scattered about town, 
 and through these Mr. Bilkins went con 
 scientiously. He then explored various blind 
 alleys, known haunts of the missing man, 
 and took a careful survey of the wharves 
 along the river on his way home. He even 
 shook the apple-tree near the stable with a 
 vague hope of bringing down Mr. O Rourke, 
 but brought down nothing except a few win 
 ter apples, which, being both unripe and un 
 sound, were not perhaps bad representatives 
 of the object of his search. 
 
 That evening a small boy stopped at the
 
 254 A RIVERMOUTII ROMANCE. 
 
 door of the Bilkins mansion with a straw 
 hat, at once identified as Mr. O Rourke s, 
 which had been found on Neal s Wharf. 
 This would have told against another man ; 
 but O Rourke was always leaving his hat on 
 a wharf. Margaret s distress is not to be 
 pictured. She fell back upon and clung to 
 the idea that Larry had drowned himself, 
 not intentionally, may be ; possibly he had 
 fallen overboard while intoxicated. 
 
 The late Mr. Buckle lias informed us that 
 death by drowning is regulated by laws as 
 inviolable and beautiful as those of the solar 
 system ; that a certain percentage of the 
 earth s population is bound to drown itself 
 annually, whether it wants to or not. It 
 may be presumed, then, that Ixivermouth s 
 proper quota of dead bodies was washed 
 ashore during the ensuing two months. There 
 had been gales off the coast and pleasure 
 parties on the river, and between them they 
 had managed to do a ghastly business. But 
 Mr. O liourke failed to appear among the 
 flotsam and jetsam which the receding 
 tides left tangled in the piles of the River- 
 mouth wharves. This convinced Margaret 
 that Larry had proved a too tempting mor 
 sel to some buccaneering shark, or had fallen
 
 A RIVERMOUTH ROMANCE. 255 
 
 a victim to one of those immense schools of 
 fish which seem to have a yearly appoint 
 ment with the fishermen on this coast. 
 From that day Margaret never saw a cod or 
 a mackerel brought into the house without 
 an involuntary shudder. She averted her 
 head in making up the fish-balls, as if she 
 half dreaded to detect a faint aroma of whis 
 key about them. And, indeed, why might 
 not a man fall into the sea, be eaten, say, 
 by a halibut, and reappear on the scene of 
 his earthly triumphs and defeats in the non 
 committal form of hashed fish ? 
 
 " Imperial Caesar, dead and turned to clay, 
 Might stop a hole to keep the wind away." 
 
 But, perhaps, as the conservative Horatio 
 suggests, t were to consider too curiously to 
 consider so. 
 
 Mr. Bilkins had come to adopt Margaret s 
 explanation of O Rourke s disappearance. 
 He was undoubtedly drowned ; had most 
 likely drowned himself. The hat picked up 
 on the wharf was strong circumstantial evi 
 dence in that direction. But one feature of 
 the case staggered Mr. Bilkins. O Rourke s 
 violin had also disappeared. Now, it re 
 quired no great effort to imagine a man 
 throwing himself overboard under the influ-
 
 256 A RIVERMOUTH ROMANCE. 
 
 ence of mania a potu ; but it was difficult 
 to conceive of a man committing 1 violinicide ! 
 If the fellow went to drown himself, why 
 did he take his fiddle with him ? He might 
 as well have taken an umbrella or a German 
 student-lamp. This question troubled Mr. 
 Bilkins a good deal first and last. But one 
 thing was indisputable : the man was gone 
 and had evidently gone by water. 
 
 It was now that Margaret invested her 
 husband wih charms of mind and person 
 not calculated to make him recognizable by 
 any one who had ever had the privilege of 
 knowing him in the faulty flesh. She elim 
 inated all his bad qualities, and projected 
 from her imagination a Mr. O Rourke as he 
 ought to have been a species of seraphic 
 being mixed up in some way with a violin ; 
 and to this ideal she erected a costly head 
 stone in the suburban cemetery. " It would 
 be a proud day for Larry," observed Marga 
 ret contemplatively, " if he could rest his oi 
 on the illegant monumint I ve put up to 
 him." If Mr. O Rourke could have read 
 the inscription on it, he would never have 
 suspected his own complicity in the matter. 
 
 But there the marble stood, sacred to his 
 memory ; and soon the snow came down
 
 A RIVERMOUTU ROMANCE. 257 
 
 from the gray sky and covered it, and the 
 invisible snow of weeks and months drifted 
 down on Margaret s heart, and filled up its 
 fissures, and smoothed off the sharp angles 
 of its grief ; and there was peace upon it. 
 
 Not but she sorrowed for Larry at times. 
 Yet life had a relish to it again ; she was 
 free, though she did not look at it in that 
 light ; she was happier in a quiet fashion 
 than she had ever been, though she would 
 not have acknowledged it to herself. She 
 wondered that she had the heart to laugh 
 when the ice-man made love to her. Per 
 haps she was conscious of something comi 
 cally incongruous in the warmth of a gentle 
 man who spent all winter in cutting ice, and 
 all summer in dealing it out to his customers. 
 She had not the same excuse for laughing at 
 the baker ; yet she laughed still more mer 
 rily at him when he pressed her hand over 
 the steaming loaf of brown-bread, delivered 
 every Saturday morning at the scullery door. 
 Both these gentlemen had known Margaret 
 many years, yet neither of them had valued 
 her very highly until another man came 
 along and married her. A widow, it would 
 appear, is esteemed in some sort as a war 
 ranted article, being stamped with the mar 
 ker s name.
 
 258 A RIVEllMOUTH ROMANCE. 
 
 There was even a third lover in prospect; 
 for according to the gossip of the town, Mr. 
 Donnehugh was frequently to be seen of a 
 Sunday afternoon standing in the cemetery 
 and regarding Mr. O Rourke s headstone 
 with unrestrained satisfaction. 
 
 A year had passed away, and certain bits 
 of color blossoming among Margaret s weeds 
 indicated that the winter of her mourn 
 ing was over. The ice-man and the baker 
 were hating each other cordially, and Mrs. 
 Bilkins was daily expecting it would be dis 
 covered before night that Margaret had 
 married one or both of them. But to do 
 Margaret justice, she was faithful in thought 
 and deed to the memory of O Rourke not 
 the O Rourke who disappeared so strangely, 
 but the O Rourke who never existed. 
 
 " D ye think, mum," she said one day to 
 Mrs. Bilkins, as that lady was adroitly sound 
 ing heron the ice question "d ye think 
 I d condescind to take up wid the likes o 
 him, or the baker either, afther sich a man 
 as Larry ? " 
 
 The rectified and clarified O Rourke was 
 a permanent wonder to Mr. Bilkins, who 
 bore up under the bereavement with notice 
 able resignation.
 
 A RIVERMOUTH ROMANCE. 259 
 
 " Peggy is right," said the old gentleman, 
 who was superintending the burning out of 
 the kitchen flue. " She won t find another 
 man like Larry O Rourke in a hurry." 
 
 " Thrue for ye, Mr. Bilkins," answered 
 Margaret. " Maybe there ? s as good fish in 
 the say as iver was caught, but I don t be? 
 lave it, all the same." 
 
 As good fish in the sea ! The words re 
 called to Margaret the nature of her loss, 
 and she went on with her work in silence. 
 
 " What what is it, Ezra ? " cried Mrs. 
 Bilkins, changing color, and rising hastily 
 from the breakfast table. Her first thought 
 was of apoplexy. 
 
 There sat Mr. Bilkins, with his wig pushed 
 back from his forehead, and his eyes fixed 
 vacantly on The Weekly Chronicle, which 
 he held out at arm s length before him. 
 
 " Good heavens, Ezra ! what is the mat 
 ter?" 
 
 Mr. Bilkins turned his eyes upon her me 
 chanically, as if he were a great wax-doll, 
 and somebody had pulled his wire. 
 
 " Can t you speak, Ezra ? " 
 
 His lips opened, and moved inarticulately ; 
 then he pointed a rigid finger, in the man-
 
 260 A RIVERMOUTn ROMANCE, 
 
 ner of a guide-board, at a paragraph in the 
 paper, which he held up for Mrs. Bilkins to 
 read over his shoulder. When she had read 
 it she sunk back into her chair without a 
 word, and the two sat contemplating each 
 other as if they had never met before in 
 this world, and were not overpleased at 
 meeting. 
 
 The paragraph which produced this sin 
 gular effect on the aged couple occurred at 
 the end of a column of telegraph despatches 
 giving the details of an unimportant en 
 gagement that had just taken place between 
 one of the blockading squadron and a Con 
 federate cruiser. The engagement itself 
 does not concern -us, but this item from the 
 list of casualties on the Union side has a 
 direct bearing on our narrative : 
 
 "Larry O Rourke, seaman, splinter wound in the 
 leg. Not serious." 
 
 That splinter flew far. It glanced from 
 Mr. O Rourke s leg, went plumb through 
 the Bilkins mansion, and knocked over a 
 small marble slab in the Old South Bury 
 ing Ground. 
 
 If a ghost had dropped in familiarly to 
 breakfast, the constraint and consternation
 
 A RIVERMOUTn ROMANCE. 261 
 
 of the Bilkins family could not have been 
 greater. How was the astounding intelli 
 gence to be broken to Margaret? Pier ex 
 plosive Irish nature made the task one of 
 extreme delicacy. Mrs. Bilkins flatly de 
 clared herself incapable of undertaking it. 
 Mr. Bilkins, with many misgivings as to his 
 fitness, assumed the duty ; for it would never 
 do to have the news sprung suddenly upon 
 Margaret by people outside. 
 
 As Mrs. O Rourke was clearing away the 
 breakfast things, Mr. Bilkins, who had lin 
 gered near the window with the newspaper 
 in his hand, coughed once or twice in an un 
 natural way to show that he was not embar 
 rassed, and began to think that may be it 
 would be best to tell Margaret after dinner. 
 Mrs. Bilkins fathomed his thought with that 
 intuition which renders women terrible, and 
 sent across the room an eye-telegram to 
 this effect, " Now is your time." 
 
 " There s been another battle down South, 
 Margaret," said the old gentleman presently, 
 folding up the paper and putting it in his 
 pocket. " A sea-fight this time." 
 
 " Sure, an they re allus fightin down 
 there." 
 
 " But not always with so little damage.
 
 262 A RIVERMOUTH ROMANCE. 
 
 There was only one man wounded on our 
 side." 
 
 u Pore man ! It s sorry we oughter be 
 for his wife an childer, if he s got any." 
 
 " Not badly wounded, you will understand, 
 Margaret not at all seriously wounded ; 
 only a splinter in the leg." 
 
 " Faith, thin, a splinter in the leg is no 
 pleasant thing in itself." 
 
 " A mere scratch," said Mr. Bilkins 
 lightly, as if he were constantly in the habit 
 of going about with a splinter in his own 
 leg, and found it rather agreeable. " The 
 odd part of the matter is the man s first 
 name. His first name was Larry." 
 
 Margaret nodded, as one should say, 
 There s a many Larrys in the world. 
 
 " But the oddest part of it," continued 
 Mr. Bilkins, in a carelessly sepulchral voice, 
 " is the man s last name." 
 
 Something in the tone of his voice made 
 Margaret look at him, and something in the 
 expression of his face caused the blood to fly 
 from Margaret s cheek. 
 
 " The man s last name ! " she repeated, 
 wonderingly. 
 
 " Yes, his last name O Rourke." 
 
 " D ye mane it ? " shrieked Margaret
 
 A RIVERMOUTII ROMANCE. 263 
 
 " cT ye mane it ? Glory to God ! O worra ! 
 worm ! " 
 
 " Well, Ezra," said Mrs. Bilkins, in one 
 of those spasms of base ingratitude to which 
 even the most perfect women are liable, 
 " you ve made nice work of it. You might 
 as well have knocked her down with an 
 axe ! " 
 
 " But, my dear " - 
 
 " Oh, bother ! my smelling-bottle, quick ! 
 second bureau drawer left-hand side." 
 
 Joy never kills ; it is a celestial kind of 
 hydrogen of which it seems impossible to get 
 too much at one inhalation. In an hour 
 Margaret was able to converse with compar 
 ative calmness on the resuscitation of Larry 
 O Rourke, whom the firing of a cannon had 
 brought to the surface as if he had been in 
 reality a drowned body. 
 
 Now that the whole town was aware of 
 Mr. O Rourke s fate, his friend Mr. Donne- 
 huo-h came forward with a statement that 
 
 O 
 
 would have been of some interest at an ear 
 lier period, but was of no service as matters 
 stood, except so far as it assisted in remov 
 ing from Mr. Bilkins s mind a passing doubt 
 as to whether the Larry O Rourke of the 
 telegraphic reports was Margaret s scape-
 
 264 A RIVERMOUTH ROMANCE. 
 
 grace of a husband. Mr. Donnehugh had 
 
 known all along that O liourke had abscond 
 ed to Boston by a night train and enlisted 
 in the navy. It was the possession of this 
 knowledge that had made it impossible for 
 Mr. Donnehugh to look at Mr. O ltourke s 
 gravestone without grinning. 
 
 At Margaret s request, and in Margaret s 
 name, Mr. Bilkins wrote three or four let 
 ters to O Rourke, and finally succeeded in 
 extorting an epistle from that gentleman, in 
 which he told Margaret to cheer up, that 
 his fortune was as good as made, and that 
 the day would come when she should ride 
 through the town in her own coach, and no 
 thanks to old flint-head, who pretended to 
 be so fond of her. Mr. Bilkins tried to con 
 jecture who was meant by old flint-head, but 
 was obliged to give it up. Mr. O Rxmrke 
 furthermore informed Margaret that he had 
 threa hundred dollars prize-money coming to 
 him, and broadly intimated that when he 
 got home he intended to have one of the 
 most extensive blow-outs ever witnessed in 
 Ilivermouth. 
 
 " Och ! " laughed Margaret, " that s jist 
 Larry over agin. The pore lad was allus 
 full of his nonsense an spirits."
 
 A R1VERMOUTH ROMANCE. 265 
 
 " That he was," said Mr. Bilkins, dryly. 
 
 Content with the fact that her husband 
 was in the land of the living, Margaret gave 
 herself no trouble over the separation. 
 O Rourke had shipped for three years ; one 
 third of his term of service was past, and 
 two years more, God willing, would see him 
 home again. This was Margaret s view of it. 
 Mr. Bilkins s view of it was not so cheerful. 
 The prospect of Mr. O Rourke s ultimate 
 return was anything but enchanting. Mr. 
 Bilkins was by no means disposed to kill 
 the fatted calf. He would much rather 
 have killed the Prodigal Son. However, 
 there was always this chance : he might 
 never come back. 
 
 The tides rose and fell at the Rivermouth 
 wharves; the summer moonlight and the 
 winter snow, in turn, bleached its quiet 
 streets ; and the two years had nearly gone 
 by. In the mean time nothing had been 
 heard of O Rourke. If he ever received the 
 five or six letters sent to him, he did not 
 fatigue himself by answering them. 
 
 " Larry s all right," said hopeful Marga 
 ret. " If any harum had come to the gos 
 soon, we d have knowed it. It s the bad 
 news that travels fast."
 
 A RIVERMOUTH ROMANCE. 
 
 Mr. Bilkins was not so positive about 
 that. It had taken a whole year to find 
 out that O Rourke had not drowned him 
 self. 
 
 The period of Mr. O Rourke s enlistment 
 had come to an end. Two months slipped 
 by, and he had neglected to brighten River- 
 mouth with his presence. There were many 
 things that might have detained him, diffi 
 culties in getting his prize-papers or in draw 
 ing his pay ; but there was no reason why 
 he might not have written. The days were 
 beginning to grow long to Margaret, and 
 vague forebodings of misfortune possessed 
 her. 
 
 Perhaps we had better look up Mr. 
 O Rourke. 
 
 He had seen some rough times, during 
 those three years, and some harder work 
 than catching dinners at the foot of Anchor 
 Street, or setting out crocuses in Mr. Bil- 
 kins s back garden. He had seen battles 
 and shipwreck, and death in many guises ; 
 but they had taught him nothing, as the 
 sequel will show. "With his active career 
 in the navy we shall not trouble ourselves ; 
 we take him up at a date a little prior to 
 the close of his term of service.
 
 A RIVERMOUTH ROMANCE. 267 
 
 Several months before, he had been trans 
 ferred from the blockading- squadron to a 
 gun-boat attached to the fleet operating 
 against the forts defending New Orleans. 
 The forts had fallen, the fleet had passed on 
 to the city, and Mr. O liourke s ship lay off 
 in the stream, binding up her wounds. In 
 three days he would receive his discharge, 
 and the papers entitling him to a handsome 
 amount of prize-money in addition to his 
 pay. With noble contempt for so much good 
 fortune, Mr. O Rourke dropped over the 
 bows of the gun-boat one evening and man 
 aged to reach the levee. In the city he fell 
 in with some soldiers, and, being of a con 
 vivial nature, caroused with them that night, 
 and next day enlisted in a cavalry regi 
 ment. 
 
 Desertion in the face of the enemy for, 
 though the city lay under Federal guns, it 
 was still hostile enough involved the heav 
 iest penalties. O Rourke was speedily ar 
 rested with other deserters, tried by court- 
 martial, and sentenced to death. 
 
 The intelligence burst like a shell upon 
 the quiet household in Anchor Street, listen 
 ing daily for the sound of Larry O Rourke s 
 footstep on the threshold. It was a heavy
 
 268 A RIVERMOUTII ROMANCE, 
 
 load for Margaret to bear, after all those 
 years of patient vigil. But the load was to 
 be lightened for her. In consideration of 
 O Rourke s long service, and in view of the 
 fact that his desertion so near the expiration 
 of his time was an absurdity, the Good Pres 
 ident commuted his sentence to imprison 
 ment for life, with loss of prize-money and 
 back pay. Mr. O ltourke was despatched 
 North, and placed in Moyamensing Prison. 
 
 If joy could kill, Margaret would have 
 been a dead woman the day these tidings 
 reached Hi vermouth ; and Mr. Bilkins him 
 self would have been in a critical condition, 
 for, though he did not want O llourke shot 
 or hanged, he was delighted to have him 
 permanently shelved. 
 
 After the excitement was over, and this is 
 always the trying time, Margaret accepted 
 the situation philosophically. 
 
 " The pore lad s out o harum s rache, 
 any way," she reflected. " lie can t be git- 
 tin into hot wather now, and that s a fact. 
 And maybe after awhiles they 11 let him go 
 agin. They let out murtherers and thaves 
 and sich like, and Larry s done no hurt to 
 nobody but hisself." 
 
 Margaret was inclined to be rather severe
 
 A R1VERMOUTH ROMANCE. 269 
 
 on President Lincoln for taking away Lar 
 ry s prize-money. The impression was strong 
 on her mind that the money went into Mr. 
 Lincoln s private exchequer. 
 
 " I would n t wonder if Misthress Lincoln 
 had a new silk gownd or two this fall," Mar 
 garet would remark, sarcastically. 
 
 The prison rules permitted Mr. O Rourke 
 to receive periodical communications from 
 his friends outside. Once every quarter 
 Mr. Bilkins wrote him a letter, and in the 
 interim Margaret kept him supplied with 
 those doleful popular ballads, printed on 
 broadsides, which one sees pinned up for 
 sale on the iron railings of city churchyards, 
 and seldom anywhere else. They seem the 
 natural exhalations of the mould and pathos 
 of such places, but we have a suspicion that 
 they are written by sentimental young un 
 dertakers. Though these songs must have 
 been a solace to Mr. O Rourke in his cap 
 tivity, he never so far forgot himself as to 
 acknowledge their receipt. It was only 
 through the kindly chaplain of the prison 
 that Margaret was now and then advised of 
 the well-being of her husband. 
 
 Towards the close of that year the great 
 O Rourke himself did condescend to write
 
 270 A RI VERMOUTH ROMANCE. 
 
 one letter. As this letter has never been 
 printed, and as it is the only specimen ex 
 tant of Mr. O Rourke s epistolary manner, 
 we lay it before the reader verbatim et liter 
 atim : 
 
 febuary. 1864 
 mi belovid wife 
 
 fur the luv of God sind mee pop gose 
 the wezel. yours till deth 
 
 larry O rourke. 
 
 " Pop goes the Weasel " was sent to him, 
 and Mr. Bilkins ingeniously slipped into the 
 same envelope " The Drunkard s Death " 
 and " Beware of the Bowl," two spirited 
 compositions well calculated to exert a salu 
 tary influence over a man imprisoned for 
 life. 
 
 There is nothing in this earthly existence 
 so uncertain as what seems to be a certainty. 
 To all appearances, the world outside of 
 Moy amen sing Prison was forever a closed 
 book to O Rourke. But the Southern Con 
 federacy collapsed, the General Amnesty 
 Proclamation was issued, cell doors were 
 thrown open ; and one afternoon Mr. Larry 
 O llourke, with his head neatly shaved, 
 walked into the Bilkins kitchen and fright 
 ened Margaret nearly out of her skin. 
 
 Mr. O Rourke s summing up of his case
 
 A Rl VERMOUTH ROMANCE. 271 
 
 was characteristic : " I ve been kilt in bat 
 tle, hanged by the court-martial, put into the 
 lock-up for life, and here I am, bedad, not 
 a ha p orth the worse for it." 
 
 None the worse for it, certainly, and none 
 the better. By no stretch of magical fiction 
 can we make an angel of him. He is not at 
 all the material for an apotheosis. It was 
 not for him to reform and settle down, and 
 become a respectable, oppressed tax-payer. 
 His conduct in Rivermouth, after his return, 
 was a repetition of his old ways. Margaret 
 all but broke down under the tests to which 
 he put her affections, and came at last to 
 wish that Larry had never got out of Moy- 
 amensing Prison. 
 
 If any change had taken place in Mr. 
 O Rourke, it showed itself in occasional fits 
 of sullenness towards Margaret. It was in 
 one of these moods that he slouched his hat 
 over his brows, and told her she need not 
 wait dinner for him. 
 
 It will be a cold dinner, if Margaret has 
 kept it waiting ; for two years have gone by 
 since that day, and O Rourke has not come 
 home. 
 
 Possibly he is off on a whaling voyage ; 
 possibly the swift maelstrom has dragged
 
 272 A RIVERMOUTH ROMANCE. 
 
 him down ; perhaps he is lifting his hand to 
 knock at the door of the Bilkins mansion as 
 we pen these words. But Margaret does not 
 watch for him impatiently any more. There 
 are strands of gray in her black hair. She 
 has had her romance.
 
 THE LITTLE VIOLINIST. 
 
 Weep with me, all you that read 
 
 This little story ; 
 And know, for whom a tear you shed, 
 
 Death s self is sorry. 
 
 BEN JONSON. 
 
 Tins story is no invention of mine. I 
 could not invent anything half so lovely and 
 pathetic as seems to me the incident which 
 has come ready-made to my hand. 
 
 Some of you, doubtless, have heard of 
 James Speaight, the infant violinist, or 
 Young Americus, as he was called. He was 
 born in London, I believe, and was only 
 four years old when his father brought him 
 to this country, less than three years ago. 
 Since that time he has appeared in concerts 
 and various entertainments in many of our 
 principal cities, attracting unusual attention 
 by his musical skill. I confess, however, 
 that I had not heard of him until last month, 
 though it seems he had previously given two 
 or three public performances in the city 
 where I live. I had not heard of him, I
 
 274 THE LITTLE VIOLINIST. 
 
 say, until last month ; but since then I do 
 not think a day has passed when this child s 
 face has not risen up in my memory the 
 little half-sad face, as I saw it once, with its 
 large, serious eyes and infantile mouth. 
 
 I have, I trust, great tenderness for all 
 children ; but I know that I have a special 
 place in my heart for those poor little crea 
 tures who figure in circuses and shows, or 
 elsewhere, as " infant prodigies." Heaven 
 help such little folk ! It was an unkind fate 
 that did not make them commonplace, stupid, 
 happy girls and boys like our own Fannys 
 and Charleys and Harrys. Poor little waifs, 
 that never know any babyhood or childhood 
 sad human midges, that flutter for a mo 
 ment in the glare of the gaslights, and are 
 gone. Pitiful little children, whose tender 
 limbs and minds are so torn and strained 
 by thoughtless task-masters, that it seems 
 scarcely a regrettable thing when the circus 
 caravan halts awhile on its route to make a 
 small grave by the wayside. 
 
 I never witness a performance of child- 
 acrobats, or the exhibition of any forced tal 
 ent, physical or mental, on the part of chil 
 dren, without protesting, at least in my own 
 mind, against the blindness and cruelty of
 
 THE LITTLE VIOLINIST. 275 
 
 their parents or guardians, or whoever has 
 care of them. 
 
 I saw at the theatre, the other night, two 
 tiny girls mere babies they were doing 
 such feats upon a bar of wood suspended 
 from the ceiling as made my blood run cold. 
 They were twin sisters, these mites, with that 
 old young look on their faces which all such 
 unfortunates have. I hardly dared glance 
 at them, up there in the air, hanging by 
 their feet from the swinging bar, twisting 
 their fragile spines and distorting their poor 
 little bodies, when they ought to have been 
 nestled in soft blankets in a cosey chamber, 
 with the angels that guard the sleep of little 
 children hovering above them. I hope that 
 the father of those two babies will read and 
 ponder this page, on which I record not 
 alone my individual protest, but the protest 
 of hundreds of men and women who took 
 no pleasure in that performance, but wit 
 nessed it with a pang of pity. 
 
 There is a Society for the Prevention of 
 Cruelty to Dumb Animals. There ought to 
 be a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty 
 to Little Children ; and a certain influential 
 gentleman, who does some things well and 
 other things very badly, ought to attend to
 
 276 THE LITTLE VIOLINIST. 
 
 it. The name of this gentleman is Public 
 Opinion. 1 
 
 But to my story. 
 
 One September morning, about five years 
 and a half ago, there wandered to my fire 
 side, hand in hand, two small personages 
 who requested in a foreign language, which 
 I understood at once, to be taken in and fed 
 and clothed and sent to school and loved and 
 tenderly cared for. Very modest of them 
 was it not ? in view of the fact that I 
 had never seen either of them before. To 
 all intents and purposes they were perfect 
 strangers to me. What was my surprise 
 when it turned out (just as if it were in a 
 fairy legend) that these were my own sons ! 
 When I say they came hand in hand, it is 
 to advise you that these two boys were 
 twins, like that pair of tiny girls I just men 
 tioned. 
 
 These young gentlemen are at present 
 known as Charley and Talbot, in the house 
 hold, and to a very limited circle of ac 
 quaintances outside ; but as Charley has 
 
 1 This sketch was written in 1874. The author claims for 
 it no other merit than that of having been among the earliest 
 appeals for the formation of such a Society as now exists 
 the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty t 
 Children.
 
 THE LITTLE VIOLINIST. 277 
 
 declared his intention to become a circus- 
 rider, and Talbot, who has not so soaring an 
 ambition, has resolved to be a policeman, it 
 is likely the world will hear of them be 
 fore long. In the mean time, and with a 
 view to the severe duties of the professions 
 selected, they are learning the alphabet, 
 Charley vaulting over the hard letters with 
 an agility which promises well for his career 
 as circus-rider, and Talbot collaring the slip 
 pery S s and pursuing the suspicious X Y 
 Z s with the promptness and boldness of a 
 night-watchman. 
 
 Now it is my pleasure not only to feed 
 and clothe Masters Charley and Talbot as if 
 they were young princes or dukes, but to 
 look to it that they do not wear out their 
 ingenious minds by too much study. So I 
 occasionally take them to a puppet-show or 
 a musical entertainment, and always in holi 
 day time to see a pantomime. This last is 
 their especial delight. It is a fine thing to 
 behold the business-like air with which they 
 climb into their seats in the parquet, and 
 the gravity with which they immediately 
 begin to read the play-bill upside down. 
 Then, between the acts, the solemnity with 
 which they extract the juice from an orange,
 
 278 THE LITTLE VIOLINIST. 
 
 through a hole made with a lead-pencil, is 
 also a noticeable thing. 
 
 Their knowledge of the mysteries of 
 Fairyland is at once varied and profound. 
 Everything delights, but nothing astonishes 
 them. That people covered with spangles 
 should dive headlong through the floor ; that 
 fairy queens should step out of the trunks 
 of trees ; that the poor wood-cutter s cottage 
 should change, in the twinkling of an eye, 
 into a glorious palace or a goblin grotto 
 under the sea, with crimson fountains and 
 golden staircases and silver foliage all 
 that is a matter of course. This is the kind 
 of world they live in at present. If these 
 things happened at home they would not be 
 astonished. 
 
 The other day, it was just before Christ 
 mas, I saw the boys attentively regarding 
 a large pumpkin which lay on the kitchen 
 floor, waiting to be made into pies. If that 
 pumpkin had suddenly opened, if wheels 
 had sprouted out on each side, and if the 
 two kittens playing with an onion-skin by 
 the range had turned into milk-white ponies 
 and harnessed themselves to this Cinderella 
 coach, neither Charley nor Talbot would 
 have considered it an unusual circumstance.
 
 THE LITTLE VIOLINIST. 279 
 
 The pantomime which is usually played at 
 the Boston Theatre during the holidays is to 
 them positive proof that the stories of Cin 
 derella and Jack of the Beanstalk and Jack 
 the Giant - Killer have historical solidity. 
 They like to be reassured on that point. So 
 one morning last January, when I informed 
 Charley and Talbot, at the breakfast-table, 
 that Prince Rupert and his court had come 
 
 to town, 
 
 " Some in jags, 
 Some in rags, 
 And some in velvet gown," 
 
 the news was received with great satisfac 
 tion ; for this meant that we were to go 
 to the play. 
 
 For the sake of the small folk, who could 
 not visit him at night, Prince Rupert was 
 gracious enough to appear every Saturday 
 afternoon during the month. We decided 
 to wait upon his Highness at one of his 
 matinees. 
 
 You would never have dreamed that the 
 sun was shining brightly outside, if you had 
 been with us in the theatre that afternoon. 
 All the window-shutters were closed, and 
 the great glass chandelier hanging from the 
 gayly painted dome was one blaze of light.
 
 280 THE LITTLE VIOLINIST. 
 
 But brighter even than the jets of gas were 
 the ruddy, eager faces of countless boys and 
 girls, fringing the balconies and crowded 
 into the seats below, longing for the play 
 to begin. And nowhere were there two 
 merrier or more eager faces than those of 
 Charley and Talbot, pecking now and then 
 at a brown paper cone filled with white 
 grapes, which I held, and waiting for the 
 solemn green curtain to roll up, and disclose 
 the coral realm of the Naiad Queen. 
 
 I shall touch very lightly on the literary 
 aspects of the play. Its plot, like that of 
 the modern novel, was of so subtile a nature 
 as not to be visible to the naked eye. I 
 doubt if the dramatist himself could have 
 explained it, even if he had been so conde 
 scending as to attempt to do so. There 
 was a bold young prince Prince Rupert, 
 of course who went into Wonderland in 
 search of adventures. He reached Wonder 
 land by leaping from the castle of Drach- 
 enfels into the Rhine. Then there was 
 one Snaps, the prince s valet, who did not- 
 in the least want to go, but went, and got 
 terribly frightened by the Green Demons 
 of the Chrysolite Cavern, which made us 
 all laugh it being such a pleasant thing
 
 THE LITTLE VIOLINIST. 281 
 
 to see somebody else scared nearly to death. 
 Then there were knights in brave tin ar 
 mor, and armies of fair pre-Raphaelite ama- 
 zons in all the colors of the rainbow, and 
 troops of unhappy slave-girls, who did noth 
 ing but smile and wear beautiful dresses, 
 and dance continually to the most delight 
 ful music. Now you were in an enchanted 
 castle on the banks of the Rhine, and now 
 you were in a cave of amethysts and dia 
 monds at the bottom of the river scene 
 following scene with such bewildering rapid 
 ity that finally you did not quite know where 
 you were. 
 
 But what interested me most, and what 
 pleased Charley and Talbot even beyond 
 the Naiad Queen herself, was the little vio 
 linist who came to the German Court, and 
 played before Prince Rupert and his bride. 
 
 It was such a little fellow ! He was not 
 more than a year older than my own boys, 
 and not much taller. He had a very sweet, 
 sensitive face, with large gray eyes, in which 
 there was a deep-settled expression that I do 
 not like to see in a child. Looking at his 
 eyes alone, you would have said he was six 
 teen or seventeen, and he was merely a 
 baby !
 
 282 THE LITTLE VIOLINIST. 
 
 I do not know enough of music to assert 
 that he had wonderful genius, or any genius 
 at all; but it seemed to me he played charm 
 ingly, and with the touch of a natural mu 
 sician. 
 
 At the end of his piece, he was lifted 
 over the foot-lights of the stage into the 
 orchestra, where, with the conductor s bdton 
 in his hand, he directed the band in playing 
 one or two difficult compositions. In this 
 he evinced a carefully trained ear and a 
 perfect understanding of the music. 
 
 I wanted to hear the little violin again ; 
 but as he made his bow to the audience and 
 ran off, it was with a half-wearied air, and I 
 did not join with my neighbors in calling 
 him back. " There s another performance 
 to-night," I reflected, " and the little fellow 
 is n t very strong." He came out, however, 
 and bowed, but did not play again. 
 
 All the way home from the theatre my 
 children were full of the little violinist, and 
 as they went along, chattering and frolick 
 ing in front of me, and getting under my 
 feet like a couple of young spaniels (they 
 did not look unlike two small brown span- 
 iels, with their fur-trimmed overcoats and 
 sealskin caps and ear-lappets), I could not
 
 THE LITTLE VIOLINIST. 283 
 
 help thinking how different the poor little 
 musician s lot was from theirs. 
 
 He was only six years and a half old, and 
 had been before the public nearly three 
 years. What hours of toil and weariness 
 he must have been passing through at the 
 very time when my little ones were being 
 rocked and petted and shielded from every 
 ungentle wind that blows ! And what an 
 existence was his now travelling from city 
 to city, practising at every spare moment, 
 and performing night after night in some 
 close theatre or concert-room when he should 
 be drinking in that deep, refreshing slumber 
 which childhood needs ! However much he 
 was loved by those who had charge of him, 
 and they must have treated him kindly, it 
 was a hard life for the child. 
 
 He ought to have been turned out into 
 the sunshine ; that pretty violin one can 
 easily understand that he was fond of it 
 himself ought to have been taken away 
 from him, and a kite-string placed in his 
 hand instead. If God had set the germ of 
 a great musician or a great composer in that 
 slight body, surely it would have been wise 
 to let the precious gift ripen and flower in 
 its own good season.
 
 284: THE LITTLE VIOLINIST. 
 
 This is what I thought, walking home in 
 the amber glow of the wintry sunset ; but 
 my boys saw only the bright side of the 
 tapestry, and would have liked nothing bet 
 ter than to change places with little James 
 Speaight. To stand in the midst of Fairy 
 land, and play beautiful tunes on a toy 
 fiddle, while all the people clapped their 
 hands what could quite equal that? Char 
 ley began to think it was no such grand 
 thing to be a circus-rider, and the dazzling 
 career of policeman had lost something of 
 its glamour in the eyes of Talbot. 
 
 It is my custom every night, after the 
 children are snug in their nests and the gas 
 is turned down, to sit on the side of the bed 
 and chat with them five or ten minutes. If 
 anything has gone wrong through the day, it 
 is never alluded to at this time. None but 
 the most agreeable topics are discussed. I 
 make it a point that the boys shall go to 
 sleep with untroubled hearts. When our 
 chat is ended, they say their prayers. Now, 
 among the pleas which they offer up for the 
 several members of the family, they fre 
 quently intrude the claims of rather curious 
 objects for Divine compassion. Sometimes 
 it is the rocking-horse that has broken a leg.
 
 THE LITTLE VIOLINIST. 285 
 
 sometimes it is Shem or Japbet, who has 
 lost an arm in disembarking from Noah s 
 ark ; Pinky and Inky, the kittens, and Rob, 
 the dog, are never forgotten. 
 
 So it did not surprise me at all this Sat 
 urday night when both boys prayed God to 
 watch over and bless the little violinist. 
 
 The next morning at the breakfast-table, 
 when I unfolded the newspaper, the first 
 paragraph my eyes fell upon was this : 
 
 " James Speaight, the infant violinist, died in 
 this city late on Saturday night. At the matinee 
 of the Naiad Queen, on the afternoon of that 
 day, when little James Speaight came off the 
 stage, after giving his usual violin performance, 
 Mr. Shewell 1 noticed that he appeared fatigued, 
 and asked if he felt ill. He replied that he had 
 a pain in his heart, and then Mr. Shewell sug 
 gested that he remain away from the evening 
 performance. He retired quite early, and about 
 midnight his father heard him say, Gracious 
 God, maJce room for another little child in 
 Heaven. No sound was heard after this, and 
 his father spoke to him soon afterwards ; he re 
 ceived no answer, but found his child dead." 
 
 The printed letters grew dim and melted 
 into each other, as I tried to re-read them. 
 
 1 The stage-manager.
 
 286 THE LITTLE VIOLINIST. 
 
 I glanced across the table at Charley and 
 
 Talbot eating their breakfast, with the 
 slanted sunlight from the window turning 
 their curls into real gold, and I had not 
 the heart to tell them what had happened. 
 
 Of all the prayers that floated up to 
 heaven, that Saturday night, from the bed 
 sides of sorrowful men and women, or from 
 the cots of innocent children, what accents 
 could have fallen more piteously and ten 
 derly upon the ear of a listening angel than 
 the prayer of little James Speaight ! lie 
 knew he was dying. The faith he had 
 learned, perhaps while running at his moth 
 er s side, in some green English lane, came 
 to him then. lie remembered it was Christ 
 who said, " Suffer the little children to come 
 unto me ; " and the beautiful prayer rose to 
 his lips, " Gracious God, make room for an 
 other Mttle child in Heaven." 
 
 I folded up the newspaper silently, and 
 throughout the day I did not speak before 
 the boys of the little violinist s death ; but 
 when the time came for our customary chat 
 in the nursery, I told the story to Charley 
 and Talbot. I do not think that they un 
 derstood it very well, and still less did they 
 understand why I lingered so much longer
 
 THE LITTLE VIOLINIST. 287 
 
 than usual by their bedside that Sunday 
 night. 
 
 As I sat there in the dimly lighted room, 
 it seemed to me that I could hear, in the 
 pauses of the winter wind, faintly and 
 doubtfully somewhere in the distance, the 
 sound of the little violin. 
 
 Ah, that little violin ! a cherished relic 
 now. Perhaps it plays soft, plaintive airs 
 all by itself, in the place where it is kept, 
 missing the touch of the baby fingers which 
 used to waken it into life !
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 PRINTED IN U.S.A.