55. 
 
TRES 
 
 55. 
 
 By N. L. sS 
 
'''>- * SIGHTS &&&&. 
 
Bancroft Library 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 *' Je m* amuse pour vous am user" 
 
 N. L. S. 
 
 VILLA ZORAYDA 
 
 ST. AUGUSTINE, FLA. 
 
"IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN." 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ( ( A S the tiny mote floating in the sunbeam, does its part 
 
 1\ toward maintaining the balance of the Universe, so the 
 influence of our lives, despite their individual insignificance, 
 can not be wholly lost." 
 
 Cyril Winthrop had but to close her eyes on the luxurious 
 disorder of her room, with its countless knicknacks and costly 
 appointments, to imagine herself again listening to those words 
 in the dimly lit Cathedral. She saw the drooping, pathetic 
 face of the Christ on the high altar ; the twinkling lights 
 below, indistinct and blurred by the clouds of incense floating 
 in wreaths about the chancel ; the absorbed attention of the 
 congregation, white and black, and the impassioned face of 
 the preacher. The remembrance of that face disturbed her 
 its terrible earnestness had shaken her habitual complacency. 
 
 "The influence of our lives is never lost." Was it true? 
 Was her selfish life to mar other lives after she had passed 
 away? "He, at least, believes it," she thought. "It is all real 
 to him our eternal damnation or everlasting bliss and he 
 cares !" 
 
 The previous evening she had been sitting in the rotunda of 
 
10 St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 the hotel, among a number of other frost-bitten Northerners who 
 had fled to St. Augustine for a thaw under the orange blos 
 soms. The season's gaieties had somewhat palled upon her, 
 and her usually radiant spirits were rather depressed. John 
 Nesbitt coming in from his after dinner cigar, had suggested 
 that they should hear the midnight mass at the Cathedral. It 
 was Good Friday, and the services were to be especially im 
 pressive. 
 
 1 'Father Gaston is to preach," he said, "and he is really 
 unusual. He is just over from Rome, and has taken this as 
 his first pastorate. They say he is as handsome as Antinous, 
 as eloquent as Demosthenes, and as spiritually exalted as 
 Savonarola. Could you ask more?" 
 
 She went, much as she would to the play, with the result 
 that she, the cynic of twenty-two, lay here tossing to and fro 
 on her comfortable bed, with the closing sentence of the ser 
 mon ringing in her ears. 
 
 "If I could but know whether he is right and all my old 
 ideas wrong! Was his mind simply trained to accept it all, 
 or is his faith a natural attribute?" 
 
 She was conscious of a curious mental uneasiness. She rose 
 and went to the window. The soft, moist air swayed the 
 curtains inward, and stirred her hair as she stood there. The 
 light from the low-hanging moon of the Southern skies rippled 
 through the lace draperies, and swept over her into the room, 
 
It Might Have Been. 11 
 
 glinting here and there on the polished surface of the silver 
 knicknacks of her dressing-table, revealing distinctly the luxu 
 rious furnishings of the room. 
 
 Cyril Winthrop had been compared by a friend from Boston 
 to the Egyptian obelisk in Central Park with its coating of 
 parafine. "Like it, you are apparently impervious to both the 
 burnings and frosts of life, with this effective though intangi 
 ble mask," he had said. 
 
 She recalled this dubious compliment as she leaned against 
 the window. "Am I really feeling this, or am I simply relish 
 ing the artistic side of circumstances? How I wish I could 
 look over and beyond myself! He might help me to do it : in 
 fact, he did make me forget myself while he spoke. I should 
 like to meet the man. He is original, clever, and has the 
 novelty of never having known women. I wonder what he 
 thinks of us !" With a sudden thought, she stood erect and 
 motionless. 
 
 "I have it," she said, half audibly. "I will make this inter 
 esting priest's acquaintance." 
 
 She searched about in the dimness, and found her pen, ink 
 and paper. These she brought to the window, and kneeling 
 down placed them on the window sill. 
 
 "Heavens!" she thought: "if Mamma should awaken and 
 come in, to find me writing to an unknown man, and he a 
 priest ! Yet there can be no real harm in it. 7 
 
12 St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 With one hand gathering back her loosened hair, she held 
 the pen poised over the crested sheet. 
 
 FATHER GASTON : 
 
 "Pardon the liberty taken by a stranger sojourning here for the 
 Winter months. Chancing to hear your sermon last evening I was 
 impressed bv some of the points. If you could find time to call, it 
 would be agreeable, and no doubt profitable to talk further with you 
 upon the subject of your sermon. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 Hotel Ponce de Leon. CYRIL WINTHROP. 
 
 "There ! it is done. But it is certainly somewhat audacious. 
 Yet he won't know whether it is from a man or woman till he 
 comes, for the name tells nothing, and John says my hand 
 writing is masculine enough for a Wall Street broker." 
 
 The note, folded and sealed, was placed conspicuously upon 
 her pin-cushion with a complacent smile. Then with a yawn, 
 the girl sought her pillow, and was soon oblivious of theology 
 and all else. 
 
 She had left New York reluctantly, for she loved her bril 
 liant existence there, much as the gamin loves the blaze of the 
 street procession with its prancing and feathers, and all the 
 other excitements of his irresponsible existence. Her delicate 
 beauty concealed the strength and force which was the under 
 current of her character. Her sensitive, mobile face appeared 
 the mirror of every thought, but alas ! for those unlucky wights 
 
It Mi g Jit Have Been. 13 
 
 who so regarded her. Superficially, she was candor itself. 
 Few detected the shrewd and analytical spirit that lay ambushed 
 behind that "thoroughbred" frankness. 
 
 It was an oft-repeated joke of her mother's, that when a 
 child she was first taught that a-b spelled ab she asked, "How 
 do you know that it does?" "Because it does I was told so 
 when I was your age," her governess replied, rather staggered. 
 "But how did your teacher know and her teacher know?" she 
 asked again, and again, and refused to accept the proposition. 
 She required proof beyond question as to all people and all 
 things without it she gave neither her confidence nor belief. 
 Some people thought her hard, and it was sometimes now a 
 question with herself. She certainly lacked sensitiveness, yet 
 there were times when sympathy of the most tender sort 
 proved a heart far from indifferent. Once, while driving in 
 the Park, she noticed a poor woman with young children try 
 ing to cross the crowded road, while the policeman stood bv, 
 wholly blind to her frightened efforts. With a bound Cyril 
 was out of the carriage, and with eyes aflame guided the 
 woman across, and then gave the startled guardian of pedes 
 trians a lecture which left him half indignant but wholly re 
 pentant. 
 
 Her mother, a nervous woman of amiable but rather feeble 
 proclivities, regarded her daughter much as a brilliant bird of 
 another species than her own. Her pride in Cyril's beauty. 
 
14 St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 artistic gowns and social success, was the mainspring of her 
 existence. She was emotionally religious, and extremely high 
 church in her views, and spent her leisure hours in embroider 
 ing elaborated stoles and altar cloths. Cyril allowed her to 
 do as she liked, but when, during a Lent of special devotion, 
 her mother with several other ladies of high degree, relieved 
 their over-burdened consciences by scrubbing the floor of their 
 church, Cyril thought things had gone far enough. Perhaps 
 it was the effect of such affectations, combined with the girl's 
 natural type of mind, that left her with so limited a religious 
 belief. For the clergy, as a class, she professed but little ad 
 miration. When on Sunday she joined other respectable 
 members of society in their luxurious church on Fifth Avenue, 
 and the sleek, well kept rector rose to dilate on the responsi 
 bility of saving human souls, the girl queried "Does he really 
 mean all that? Can he believe that one single soul in this 
 vast congregation is in danger of Hell fire, and after his elo 
 quent peroration go out smiling and contented to his comfort 
 able dinner? Either he does not believe what he preaches, or 
 else he is without a spark of love for his fellowmen." 
 
 And was not the whole system one of selfishness? If she 
 was good, she was told she would receive as a reward the 
 sugarplum. If she was not good, then punishment was to 
 follow. And yet she was so made as to find all wrong things 
 attractive, and all good things irksome. In fact she generally 
 found it more pleasant to serve Mammon, and she did so. 
 
// Might PTave Been. 15 
 
 John Nesbitt, whom she was to marry the coming June, 
 represented in great part, the Mammon which she served. 
 The son of wealthy parents, he had not joined the great army 
 of money-seekers, but spent several years in Europe, where he 
 picked up several languages, a slightly foreign manner, and 
 some very good bric-a-brac. A big, kind-hearted fellow, 
 essentially a Club man, he troubled himself very little about 
 things beyond his own horizon. He adored Cyril as a being 
 far above him mentally, and since their engagement he had 
 given up any hopes of understanding what he called her 
 "vagaries." 
 
 She dominated him in every particular and had convinced 
 herself she loved him. He had an attractive background of 
 yachts, fine horses and houses in New York and London, and 
 this prospective brilliancy surrounded him as a golden halo. 
 All this was to be Cyril's some day, but occasionally, in spite 
 of the envy of her friends, she felt a certain contempt for the 
 sort of woman that circumstances were to make her. 
 
 "At forty, I shall be a cool-headed, hard woman of the 
 world," she often thought. "My better impulses will die a 
 natural death, and I shall not even regret their loss. I shall be 
 a giver of fine dinners and the owner of a bad digestion shall 
 have contempt for the world I live in, yet be a slave to its 
 opinion, and shall die a joyless old woman." 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 CATHER GASTON stood at the door of the post-office on 
 St. George St., with his unopehed letters in his hand, hesi 
 tating. All through the long, hot day, he had been going from 
 one end of the town to the other, visiting his flock, nearly all 
 strangers to him. He had adapted himself to so many differ 
 ent individualities, and interested himself in so many divergent 
 channels of the lives about him, that he felt a little dazed and 
 tired. 
 
 His great batch of letters, some from his colleagues far away 
 in Rome, tempted him to a quiet hour before the Vesper ser 
 vice ; but he crossed to his house on the corner of the Plaza 
 and gave them to a lad in a long, black soutane, who was 
 watering the flowers. Then, with his long, swinging 
 stride the priest went rapidly up King Street to the Ponce 
 de Leon, for he had the day before received a note from some 
 one who might be leaving. 
 
 Under the entrance he paused, and drew from his wallet a 
 square envelope, addressed in a bold masculine hand. He 
 glanced at the signature, then passed on through the court, 
 with its group of men and women scattered among the palms, 
 through the rotunda, to the desk. More than one head turned 
 as he passed, and a bell-boy nudging his companion, asked 
 
// Might Have Been. 17 
 
 "Who's dat stunner any how? He's like de bery king 
 hisself?" 
 
 The smiling clerk forgot to twirl his moustache as he looked 
 into the grave, beautiful face of the priest. 
 
 'Will you kindly send my card to Mr. Cyril Winthrop ?" 
 
 The clerk turned several leaves of the register before him. 
 
 "There is no Mr. Winthrop ^stopping here," he replied, 
 "but a Miss Cyril Winthrop of New York, is here." 
 
 Father Gaston looked puzzled and opened the note again. 
 
 "Well, she may, perhaps, be the person." Then after a 
 little pause. "You may send up the card." 
 
 The clerk touched a bell. "Room 248, and the gentleman 
 is waiting." 
 
 The boy returned in a moment. "Dis way, sar, if you 
 please, sar, one flight up." 
 
 With an impish grin thrown to his companions, he led the 
 way up the marble steps, and along the thickly carpeted hall, 
 pausing before a white-paneled door. He knocked. Through 
 the open transom came only a murmur of voices and tinkling 
 as of glass. A louder knock brought a clear "Come in !" 
 The door opened. A confused crowd of youthful faces met 
 Father Gaston's eyes. From the corner of the room a tall, 
 girlish figure advanced with outstretched hand. 
 
 "Father Gaston, is it not?" she asked. "I am the writer of 
 the note, and thank you so much for coming." 
 
 3 
 
18 St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 She led him to a divan before which stood the samovar and, 
 drawing aside the delicate draperies, motioned him to the va 
 cant seat beside her. The ripple of voices and laughter about 
 them dropped sensibly to a lower key. John Nesbitt crossed to 
 Mrs. Winthrop, who with lorgnette raised was coolly survey 
 ing the stranger. 
 
 "Who is he?" she asked, with suppressed curiosity. "Isn't 
 he superb?" 
 
 John smiled and leaned toward her. 
 
 "He is Father Gaston of whom everyone is talking, but only 
 Heaven knows how Cyril got him to five o'clock tea. The 
 man is just out of a Roman College, and presumably knows 
 no more of social life than a monk of the middle ages. But 
 Cyril has captured the lion in some mysterious way. Just like 
 her but odd she didn't mention it." 
 
 Meanwhile Father Gaston, having placed his broad-brimmed 
 hat on the floor beside him, was endeavoring to adapt himself 
 to circumstances as best he could. 
 
 "One or two lumps?" asked Cyril with utmost ease, sugar 
 tongs poised over his cup, and a glance at his grave face, which 
 she was glad showed no sign of embarrassment or regret. "No 
 doubt he is inwardly praying that his eyes may be turned away 
 from beholding vanity," she thought. 
 
 "It was very kind of you to come," she said, "for I under 
 stand you have recently settled here, and must necessarily have 
 much to occupy your time." 
 
It Might Have Been. 19 
 
 "It gives me great pleasure," he replied, with a bright smile, 
 "and still more to find that my sermons can reach beyond my 
 parish. I really did not know it was a lady who asked me to 
 call. But," he added, "I have sisters and I know the value of 
 woman's work in the world, and shall be most happy to be 
 of any assistance to Miss Winthrop." 
 
 Cyril found herself coloring at being taken for a "worker." 
 
 "Oh ! I beg you to understand that I am not a Roman 
 Catholic : indeed I am not a very good Protestant. I was sim 
 ply impressed strongly by your views of life, and I very impul 
 sively resolved to ask you to help me to accomplish some little 
 good while here this Winter. We have come here to rest from 
 our gaieties in New York, but what with the out-door life all 
 day, and dancing every night, one is more tired than before. 
 It was your sermon of Good-Friday which made me feel still 
 more tired of it all. She paused and glanced at Father Gas- 
 ton's strong face. 
 
 "I am only too glad Miss Winthrop, if any words of mine 
 helped you to realize the importance of earnest living. Believe 
 me, it is that which makes noble men and women. There 
 are many things to be done here in St. Augustine, which I 
 feel sure you could do ably, and which would benefit you as 
 well as others." 
 
 Cyril, thinking no more of the incongruous surroundings, 
 leaned forward, her eyes brilliant and eager. "Only tell me 
 
20 St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 what," she said, "and I'll try. You don't know how glad I 
 should be. So far, my life hasn't been much to boast of: the 
 world would get on quite as well without me." 
 
 "If you are really in want of something to do," Father Gas- 
 ton said with candid interest, "I can tell you now of a young 
 girl, no older than yourself but poor, terribly poor, who is lying 
 ill in such poverty as you doubtless never dreamed of. She is 
 one of a family of poor whites "Crackers," they are called 
 here, who live in a shanty by the San Sebastian river. The 
 girl, Hannah Neal, is suffering for the bare necessities, and if 
 you could see and aid her, I should be very grateful." 
 
 Cyril assented eagerly and while getting explicit directions, 
 her mother approached. Cyril presented Father Gaston and 
 left them together in animated conversation. He observed the 
 girl as she moved about the room. She is as full of force as a 
 race-horse," he thought. Her frankness and her course in seek 
 ing his help puzzled him. Women he knew were full of 
 impulses and difficult to understand, but this girl's face was 
 noble beneath her apparent flippancy ; surely her nature must 
 be so too. Her strong individuality impressed him, and Pascal's 
 trite saying came into his mind " Si le nez de Cleopafre eut plus 
 ete, ou plus court, pcut&tre toute la surface de la terre aurait 
 changee. " Women were certainly a power in the world. 
 
 She came back to him. 
 
 "I want to present my friend Mr. Nesbitt," she said gaily, 
 
// Might Have Been. 21 
 
 and while they talked, stood silently by, taking mental 
 measurement of the two men. When the priest took leave, 
 with the savoir faire of an accomplished man of the world, 
 she listened to John Nesbitt's good-natured opinion, "Father 
 Gaston w r as an all round jolly chap," with an expression that 
 mystified him. At dinner also, he found his usually gay fian- 
 ce somewhat reflective and subdued. Afterward, while saun 
 tering through the loggias he rallied her on her mood. She 
 roused herself, obviously with an effort. 
 
 "You are satisfied with me just as I am as I am, are you 
 not?" she asked. 
 
 "Of course, my Cyril," he replied. "I would not have you 
 different in any way. You are just the prettiest, best dressed 
 girl going and " 
 
 "But," she interrupted, "for all that I'm going to try to be 
 different. I don't like being merely pretty and well dressed." 
 
 "Now don't frighten me, my dear girl," he said laughingly. 
 "I shall be afraid of seeing a halo shine around your head if 
 you are going to be more perfect." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 A ONE story, white-washed shanty, built on four posts, on 
 the muddy shore of the San Sebastian. The waters flowed 
 at full tide almost to the door, and at every ebb left cypress shav 
 ings and other refuse from the mills farther up the river. 
 Planks were laid from the road to the entrance, over which 
 Cyril Winthrop and her maid found their way with some diffi 
 culty. The air was redolent of noxious odors from the gas 
 works near by and insect life was evident, in all the activity of 
 a Southern latitude. After knocking without answer, they 
 took advantage of the half opened door, and entered. There 
 was no one to be seen in this room, half chamber and half 
 kitchen. The floor, through the cracks of which the moist 
 ground below was visible, had apparently never known a 
 broom, and upon a small stove a kettle sent up a thin curl of 
 steam. Cyril passed on to a door at the farther end of the 
 room and upon opening it, an exclamation of astonishment and 
 pity escaped her. On a cot, covered with a wretched, patched 
 quilt, lay a girl, her pallid face turned to the wall. Tangled 
 curls lay in matted rings about her forehead, and one hand 
 held a small brown, wooden crucifix. The sun plaved through 
 the window, from the sill of which a chicken took flight at 
 
// Might Have Been. 23 
 
 their entrance. Cyril crossed to the motionless girl and softly 
 touched her claw-like hand. A pair of sunken brown eyes 
 opened and stared as though at a vision. 
 
 "Father Gaston has sent me to you," she said, U I am to try 
 and make you more comfortable. Don't talk now wait till I 
 arrange things a little." And at the mention of the priest's 
 name came an expression of satisfaction into the wan face. 
 "Dobbs," turning to her maid, standing horrified in the door 
 way, "bring the basket. Now go and see if you can find some 
 clean, warm water." 
 
 A fever of energy possessed her. Out of the basket she 
 brought a bottle of wine, some biscuits and a change of linen. 
 Dobbs returned with water, and together they worked over the 
 girl who submitted to them with dull, passive eyes, and smiled 
 faintly, when clean and refreshed she was laid back on her pil 
 low. Then Dobbs was sent to the nearest shop for dark cam 
 bric and tacks. Cyril drew a chair to the bed and sat down. 
 The sick girl looked with silent wonder at the beautiful, pitying 
 face bent over her. 
 
 "Now tell me something about yourself, if you are able," 
 she said. "Why are you here alone?" 
 
 Cyril had to bend lower to catch the whispered answer. 
 
 "Father has to go off to work every day. The colored wo 
 man next door comes in now and then, but she has her own 
 family to look after." 
 
24 vS 1 /. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 "How long have you been ill, Hannah?" 
 
 "Two months Miss. It's slow fever. I wouldn't mind so 
 much if I could sleep more." 
 
 "Poor child !" said Cyril. "No wonder with this heat and 
 flies. We'll remedy all that." 
 
 Presently the girl asked timidly, "Did you say Father Gas- 
 ton sent you ?" 
 
 "Yes, Hannah." 
 
 The pallid face brightened. "He is good, Miss, he is. He 
 sends things to eat, and sends the doctor too, and has sat 
 where you are talking so beautiful. It rests me to look at him." 
 
 The girl's eyes closed. "So this is poverty," thought Cyril. 
 She looked about the bare, ugly little room, and thought of 
 her own, at home. Here was a glimpse of a world of which 
 she had never dreamed a world where ease and pleasure 
 were only names, and where want and suffering were terrible 
 facts. It seemed to her as though a great, gay bubble had 
 been pricked. Could she ever laugh and dance as gaily as be 
 fore, with this picture of misery to remember? And such scenes 
 were the daily portion of Father Gaston. That splendid 
 strength was spent in alleviating such woes. In this life of total 
 self-abnegation, without the ordinary ties of human affection, 
 he was to live till he died. There were, of course, Protestant 
 clergymen who were noble and self-sacrificing men tc ), but 
 she had met few like Father Gaston. What a pity he hr ppened 
 
// Might Have Been. 2o 
 
 to be a priest. He could be such a power among thousands 
 like herself. 
 
 Dobbs stood in the doorway. Cyril mounted on a nail keg, 
 tacked the green curtain over the window, and a net across the 
 bed, and the floor was swept. When all was done, Cyril 
 viewed her work with pride. With a warm feeling at her heart 
 she stroked back the girl's curls. 
 
 "I will come again soon, Hannah. Meanwhile let your 
 father get anything you need," and she tucked a crisp bank 
 note beneath the pillow. 
 
 When she was gone, the girl's eyes closed. "It must be 
 something like this to have a mother," she thought. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Seven o'clock in the morning. Cyril, awake and restless 
 resolved to go for a walk in the March air, now laden with the 
 odor of orange blossoms which whitened the groves in and 
 around St. Augustine. The streets were scarcely yet animated 
 by any signs of life as she strolled towards the water which 
 glimmered through the Plaza shrubbery. She mounted the 
 sea-wall, following it to the Fort. How beautiful was this 
 fresh awakening world ! Up on the ramparts she shaded her 
 eyes with her hand, and looked about. To the left, the gray 
 line of the beach divided the ocean's deep blue from the paler 
 blue of the Harbor. A faint haze hung over land and water, 
 foretelling heat for the coming day. Beyond, the low lines of 
 Anastatia Island the Southern Atlantic was beating upon the 
 bar with white fury. She threw up both arms in very gladness 
 of the scene before her, and was about scaling the ladder of the 
 old Spanish watch tower, when hearing steps behind her, she 
 turned to see Father Gaston coming toward her. He looked 
 up, smiling at her confusion. During the past fortnight they 
 had not only met beside the sick girl's bed, but he had availed 
 himself of Mrs. Winthrop's earnest invitation to repeat his 
 previous visit, and the formality of a new acquaintanceship had 
 sensibly lessened. 
 
It Might Have Been. 27 
 
 "I am as much astonished to find myself here as you are. It 
 was one of my impulses" said Cyril, laughing, as she perched 
 herself upon the wall, Father Gaston standing before her. 
 
 "I want to thank you for what you are accomplishing at the 
 Deals," he said. "The girl talks of you continually, and al 
 though she is not much better of her illness, the change in her 
 surroundings is like new life to her. She calls you 4 the 
 Angel Miss.' " 
 
 "I too, am helped," Cyril replied, looking off into the dis 
 tance with a softness in the gray depths of her eyes which 
 touched him. 
 
 "There is material here for making a noble woman," he 
 thought. "Who would not wish to help her ?" 
 
 The girl turned to him. "I cannot imagine how you ever 
 became a priest, you seem so much a man of the world in 
 many ways. Yet it must have been of your own free will. 
 Would you mind telling me about it sometime ?" 
 
 "I will tell you with great pleasure," he replied. "It was an 
 odd chance which turned my steps into the Church." 
 
 "I should like very much to know it," Cyril said, wistfully. 
 
 He paced up and down for a few moments in silence, th^n 
 seated himself beside her on the wall. 
 
 "Thirteen years ago I was studying in Heildelberg. Like 
 many of the students there, I led a gay life. My parents had 
 died in my childhood, and left me a considerable fortune, so I 
 
28 St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 had no restraint save my own self-respect. One Spring, several 
 friends and myself started off for a trip through Holland and 
 Belgium. We were a merry crowd, and in for all sorts of 
 pranks, though eager for the education which travel will bring. 
 Some of us were devoted to art and among other galleries we 
 visited the 'Wirtz' gallery, in Brussels. Have you been 
 there?" 
 
 "Oh ! yes," said Cyril. "I well remember those painted 
 nightmares." 
 
 u Yes, some of the pictures are nightmares, but many are 
 remarkable in other ways. Do you remember one called 'After 
 Death ?' A figure in gray, vaporous garments is floating up 
 through Space his body lying below him, and his face is a 
 wonderful portrayal of mysterious knowledge. He seems to 
 see into the beyond." 
 
 4 'Yes I remember that face, and how it haunted me." 
 
 "That night we returned late from the Opera. I lay for a 
 long time restless, thinking over the events of the day. That 
 picture fascinated me, and falling asleep, its mysterious power 
 followed me into the land of dreams. I dreamt that I was the 
 departing soul of that picture, and that it was my body stretched 
 below. A long life lay behind me, faint and far-away. The 
 strongest impression I then had of that life, was pain. I re 
 membered a home where my life was swayed by both good 
 and evil impulses ; where I had loved, and had lost those I 
 
// Might .Have Been. 29 
 
 loved, and where I had suffered, and was glad, much as other 
 men. Religious belief had not been an important factor in my 
 life, and above all, what seemed to me then intelligent research, 
 had served to stunt that upward growth, which is the divine 
 tendency of every human soul. 
 
 "Then in my retrospection, I saw myself an old man. My 
 blood flowed less swiftly, my steps grew uncertain, and I knew 
 that soon I should pass through the gates of Death, into the 
 untrodden realms beyond. At last I lay on a bed of pain. Old 
 interests fell away from me, and I partly regained the faith I 
 had as a child. As I laid there, I wondered what and where 
 I should awaken at the moment my soul should leave its home 
 of human flesh, and whether it would miss its old companion, 
 and feel its way like a child into Eternity, with uncertain steps 
 and groping intelligence. Would the Christ be there, and 
 would I know Him, or had He, too, been but an ideal of the 
 human mind ? 
 
 "The supreme moment came. There was weeping and 
 grieving about me a final agony, and I lived ! 
 
 "I was hurrying through trackless Space, the wide Universe 
 seemed all my own, and in that immensity and profundity, I 
 was alone with the responsibility of my soul. 
 
 The priest rose and stood before his listener, his head bared 
 to the rising sun, with features glowing as with an inspira 
 tion. Cyril sat with hands tightly clasped, and eyes fixed in 
 
30 St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 rapt attention lost to everything in the fascination of his elo 
 quence. 
 
 Still standing, he continued, "Soon from immeasurable 
 heights and depths a sound of unutterable sadness floated 
 around me, like the sighs of couutless souls. A murmuring 
 as of helpless woe burdened the air, which I now perceived 
 was thronged with other shades. They moved on witli anx 
 ious faces, their eyes fixed on a golden light beyond. This 
 light shone with great brilliancy, but fell not upon us. Some 
 rays of its vivid splendor stretched down to Earth in the form 
 of a cross. I drew near one of these shades. 
 
 '* 'Where ca"n I find Him ?' I asked. He looked on me with 
 inscrutable eyes. 
 
 " 'He is yonder in the light,' he replied. 
 
 " 'Can I not go to him?' I asked again. 
 
 " 'No, we cannot reach Him, till we lose all earthly taint.' 
 
 "I knew then that the sighing was the long and unavailing 
 regret for lost opportunities, and I, remembering my own lost 
 chances for gaining that Kingdom, sighed too. Alas! that 
 terrible remorse. It burned within me as I hurried on and on, 
 seeking some spot in those wide heavens, where I could for a 
 time forget. 
 
 "But hope did not quite desert me. That shining cross 
 stretched down to Earth was a bow of promise. Above the 
 thunders of the Universe, music, grand yet tender reached me 
 songs of triumphant thanksgiving and exaltation- These glori- 
 
// Might Have Been. 31 
 
 ous harmonies came from glistening beings who were coming 
 and going in the midst of that shining splendor. Their faces E 
 could not see for the brightness, but always that sound of echo 
 ing triumph. It fell on my saddened spirit with soothing 
 promise. I was cheered, uplifted. The divine spark within 
 me glowed with quickened resolution. 
 
 "Oh ! why had I not cherished that light? Why had I al 
 lowed trivial things of life to dull its shining? Those years on 
 earth were so short, and Eternity was so pitilessly long. For 
 how many cycles should I know this dreary waiting, before I 
 could fly to that Kingdom of Love. 
 
 'I awoke, my whole being seething with excitement. Those 
 sights and sounds still bade me live no longer for self; to re 
 member the inexorable law of retribution. I knew that as I 
 lived on earth, so would my other life be. As I had the essence 
 of God within me, I should try to live as a God. 
 
 "And it was thus I became a priest," he said, after a pause. 
 "Do you think me a visionary?" 
 
 "If you had been a visionary you would have regretted the 
 step long ago, but I'm sure you never have." 
 
 "No ! we never regret serving one we love." 
 
 "I wish I could realize something of your idea of God," she 
 said. "My idea of Him is different from yours." 
 
 "How different? How do you think of Him ?" he asked. 
 
 "He has always been to me a tremendous power, but not so 
 
32 St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 tender and loving as your dream would make Him. I think I 
 could express myself better with my pen than in words. I 
 always can." 
 
 "Do so then, Miss Winthrop." 
 
 "I will try," she answered, rising. 
 
 "Then I know you will," and for the first time he held out 
 his hand to her for "good-bye." 
 
 She left him to continue his walk around the old ramparts 
 and returned to the hotel. During the day she took out her 
 folio containing many half written things in which her natural 
 taste had found partial outlet, and determined to do her best 
 for a kind if able critic. After some thought she enclosed the 
 following lines to him without comment. 
 
 O star-emblazoned canopy of God, 
 
 Thou hids't from mortal eyes His majesty, 
 
 When in His power he walks high heaven 
 
 To view His universe. When Time was born 
 
 His finger touched our sphere to awful speed. 
 
 The clash and roar of nature's forces He 
 
 Has tuned to gentle, rhythmic harmony, 
 
 And from the heights of His omnipotence 
 
 Beheld and bounded with His reaching eye 
 
 Wide space ! seen whirling worlds burn out their flight 
 
 To lose themselves in void. Thus God is great. 
 
 At dinner, a note was handed her. She instinctively knew 
 
It Might Have Been. 33 
 
 from whom it came, and did not open it, but later she slipped 
 into the deserted reading-room, and broke the st;al. 
 
 "Dear Miss Winthrop," the note ran. "Your conception of 
 God's greatness is admirable. Powerful and omnipotent He 
 is, but above all, and over all, He is Love. This love is as 
 wide as the Universe, as deep as the sea. Perhaps these lines 
 will help to make my meaning clear, and serve, to complete 
 what you have so well begun. 
 
 O tiny insect, who with cunning care 
 Spread'st out thy frail and fairy threads to build 
 Thyself a home, who taught thee thy wise art? 
 'Twas the same God, who with most tender care 
 Creates and guards the humblest life of earth, 
 And in the depths of ocean's darkest cave 
 Upholds each fragile frond of tide-swept fern. 
 The essence of this life is but a tear; 
 But riot one falls unseen, unknown of Him. 
 The ever-circling mantle of His love 
 He wraps around us guides each faltering step. 
 The shadow of His wing casts cooling shade 
 On life's bare burning sands. Thus God is love. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 MAURICE GASTON," 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 "Ok! God, take my heart, for I cannot give it to Thee. Keep it for 
 I cannot keep it for Thee. Save me in spite of myself " 
 
 FENELON. 
 * ' D RING the white shawl, John. I'll wait here." 
 
 Cyril stood by the fountain in the centre of the court. 
 The twinkling lights which formed "Bien Venido" above the 
 entrance threw shafts of red and yellow color across the masses 
 of shrubbery. An occasional figure flitted along the loggias, 
 but the scented silence was only broken by the fountain's 
 splash and the rustle of palm leaves in the dusky recesses of 
 the garden. 
 
 Cyril leaned over the pool. Against a background of 
 blurred stars a radiant image smiled up at her gleaming 
 neck and arms, white, like pearl in the shimmering waters. 
 She was to lead a Cotillion at one of the cottages that evening, 
 her last in her well-beloved St. Augustine. 
 
 The breezes stirred her airy draperies as she stood there. 
 
 "Yes, you are drowned, Cyril Winthrop?" she whispered. 
 "All your egotisms and vanities are quite drowned. I shall 
 leave you here at the bottom of this pool alone with the stars. 
 Ah ! you need not smile and shake your head at me, foolish 
 girl. They call you fair, I know, but I have learned that one 
 
// Might Have Been. 35 
 
 must be good and wise as well as fair. I leave you here, my 
 old self, and go back to the world with higher ambitions." 
 
 With an impulsive gesture the girl plucked a rose from those 
 at her breast, and tossed its petals upon her reflection. 
 
 "See I scatter those leaves over you my old self They are 
 for" 
 
 She paused, and turned with a start, for mirrored beside her 
 own face under the floating rose-leaves was the face of the 
 priest. 
 
 "Ah !" she exclaimed, "I began to fear you were not coming 
 to say 'good-bye.' But what has happened?" she asked, as 
 she saw his pale, grave face. 
 
 "I see it is hardly the proper time to speak of such a subject, 
 but I wanted you to know that Hannah Deal died this after 
 noon. Your name was almost the last on her lips, and she 
 asked me to bring you this." 
 
 He handed Cyril the little brown crucifix. The girl took it 
 with quivering lips. 
 
 "You believe she is happy, Father Gaston, do you not?" 
 But he did not reply. His face was an enigma. Was it a feel 
 ing of repulsion at the girl's frivolous aspect in her ball gown, 
 or was his human heart stirred by this vision of beauty and 
 tenderness? Did he picture his life as it might have been, 
 strengthened and enriched by the sympathy of a noble woman ? 
 It was but a moment and he replied 
 
36 .5V. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 "Yes, I believe it. And you you are happy too, are you 
 not quite happy ?" 
 
 "Oh ! yes, of course 1 must be happy," she said, with an 
 effort at a smile. But without your guidance I fear I shall fall 
 from grace." 
 
 "God forbid," he replied earnestly. "Keep the cross, it will 
 remind you " 
 
 "Did you think I was never coming?" said John Nesbitt 
 gaily, as he joined them. "Good evening, Father Gaston I 
 am glad to see you before we leave. But you will walk as far 
 as the gate, won't you. Come Cyril let me put your shawl 
 on, we're late." 
 
 "Father Gaston asked me if I was happy, John," the girl 
 said, after leaving the priest. 
 
 "And what did you tell him dear?" 
 
 "I told him I was, of course," she answered. "How could I 
 be otherwise ?" 
 
 But that evening in the ball-room, as she floated about, laden 
 with flowers, smiling and radiant, a pain was on her heart, 
 where the cross lav. 
 
JULIE'S "SEA-SARPEN." 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ^T TOLE yer, I seed it wid mine own eyes, and heard it 
 1 a-snortin', an a-lashin' ob its tail t'rough de water like it 
 wus a cussin'. It war right offde ole Fort, an I a-sittin' on de 
 wall. Dat it war a sho' nuff sea-sarpen' I knows es well as dat 
 chile Wash'nton knows I's its fader." 
 
 The "chile" referred to stood a shining instance of filial cre 
 dulity, one hand as far in his mouth as possible, the other 
 holding up its scant apparel, disclosing a pair of knees in 
 sculptured ebony. But finding himself the subject of solemn 
 declamation before an awe-inspiring assembly, and probably 
 with the memory of recent and decided impressions that he 
 had indeed a father's authority liable to be shown again at any 
 moment, the dusky cherub forthwith uncorked his mouth and 
 with "eyes in fine frenzy rolling," emitted a howl of terror. 
 
 "Lor'sakes, Julib, don't scar' de chile," exclaimed Ophelia, 
 its mother, as the child buried its head, ostrich-like, among 
 her skirts, to avert the threatened danger. 
 
 Julib blinked defiance on his circle of auditors, a grotesque 
 group in the fire-lit cabin. A dozen men and wonen sat 
 round the blaze, their heads rolling from side to side as they 
 gave vent to admiring chuckles, their attention divided be- 
 
38 St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 tween Julib' s eloquence, and the odoriferous hoe-cakes upon 
 the hearth. 
 
 In a shadowy corner sat two old men, their heads close 
 together. They seemed to feel the suspicion of glances 
 thrown toward them and moved uneasily, their angular figures 
 casting ugly shadows on the wall behind them. 
 
 "'Yo' needn't be a noddin' ob yo' heads, yo' two," cried 
 Ophelia, with an ireful wag of her turbaned head. "Yo' all 
 knows Julib hab a tongue ob truth. Yo' jest wait till yo' heah 
 de whole ob de story, 'fore yo' turns inter doubtin' Thomasses.' ' 
 
 Silence fell on the circle. Washington with legs wide 
 apart stood before the narrator. 
 
 "Wai, my frens," said Julib, arranging his scarlet with a 
 preparatory flourish, "it happened disser way. Yo' all knows 
 ob' de important position I hab er de dish-washer in de hotel 
 an' dat I'se a man ob great desponsibilities, an' dat I ain't no 
 fule ob a chicken. Don' yo'?" 
 
 "Yes ! yes ! we all knows," came from several mouths. 
 
 "Wai, night 'fore las', I wus a sittin' on de slopin' wall ob 
 de ole Fort neah de water, a smokin' an' a cogitatin', when off" 
 ter de right I sees a line a movin' on de water. Dey warn't 
 no moon, so I couldn't see berry clar, but dat line got nearer 
 an' nearer, an' bigger an' bigger, an' soon I discubbered it war 
 a livin' movin' bein', wat hab a mind ob its own. At first, I 
 w.arn't particular interested, an' kep on a squashin' ob de gnats 
 
JuliVs "Sea-Sarpen\" 39 
 
 when all on a sudden I seed right afore me de great sarpen' 
 himself, wid coils an' an awful mouf, I tell yo'. Lawd ! It 
 would a made an Injine's hair ter gin ter curl tight ter seed dat 
 ere beast. 
 
 u Dere wus kind oh humps cum out ob de water, w'at was 
 de coils, an' de snortin's an' de roarin's wus like de furnace 
 blasts ob Hell. It was cummin' nearer 'n nearer, makin' dose 
 awful sounds, an' a tearin'. I could see its tail a lashin' ob de 
 water like de new fangled wash in* machine et my 'otel. 
 
 "I wus dat scared, dat all I could t'ink ob wus de Lawd's 
 Prayer, but dat didn't obstruct dat animal's onward course. It 
 was a commin' straight fur me nearer an' nearer, till till, I 
 could see its red mouf, and dat its body war a quarter ob a 
 mile long, sartin* sho'. 
 
 "I wus so stuck ter dat wall by fright you'd a thought I'd 
 tuck root dar. It could a gobbled me down its froat like an 
 oyster but I thought ob my dish- wash in', an' Phelia an' Wash- 
 in'ton, an' by a cummidigious effort I tore myself from dat 
 wall, and moved fur him. 
 
 "Dey aint no need fer yo' ter tell me der aint no sea sarpen's, 
 fur dere's one a-roostin' in dis berry harbor, now and wedder 
 it 'el go browsin' roun' on de Ian' seekin' w'at it may devour, 
 only de good Lawd knows. It could crunch an' eat dis 'ere 
 cabin an' all yo' folks in it, if it tuk a likin' fur a meal." 
 
 Julib paused and glanced about the circle as an audible 
 
40 St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 shudder and chatter of teeth passed round. The two bent 
 figures in the corner crouched together, their whitened, wooly 
 heads nodding in unison like dusky mandarins. 
 
 A sudden cry of dismay from Washington was heard and it 
 was discovered that he had sat down in an unexpected fashion 
 on the hoe cake. As his mother jerked him off, low mutter- 
 ings were heard about k 'makin' him hotter yit." 
 
 This episode broke the silence. Deep breaths were drawn, 
 feet were shuffled and pipes re-lit to bring back a feeling of 
 security by familiar sensations. An old woman with a high 
 squeaking voice was the first to speak, between her whiffs of 
 bad tobacco. 
 
 44 'Pears like Julib hab seen de wonders of natur' sho' nuff. 
 P'r'aps it mought been de debbil in pusson. Wat yo' tink 
 Deacon ?" to Ophelia's father. 
 
 One of the figures in the corner came out into the circle of 
 fire-light, his wizened face wearing the cynical smile of a 
 Voltaire. 
 
 "Dat dere is a debbil," he began, "we all knows, fer we has 
 wrastled wid him. But es 'fur sea-sarpen's, dey aint a common 
 breed, least-wise roun' dere 'ere parts. I'se lived 'bout t'ree 
 times es long as dis son-in-law ob mine, an' aint seed no sich 
 roarin' beasts es he tells ob. If dey is a wanderin' roun' loose, 
 why aint I seed em ? though," with sarcastic emphasis, 44 I 
 warn't in de habit ob spendin' my nights a loafin' an' aslappin' 
 
JuliVs "Sea-Sarpen\" 41 
 
 ob gnats, wicl my wife and brats tcr hum. Dey is circumstan 
 ces, I 'low, when a man will see sarpen's an' pink clebbils an' 
 sich like in his head, w'at don't happen ter be outside ob it." 
 
 A murmur of dissent arose, and Julib sprang tg his feet. 
 From the dim corner came a derisive laugh, and another 
 shadow on the wall sprang suddenly up to the ceiling as Brother 
 Williams, the Deacon's friend and secret rival, rose, brandish 
 ing his stick. 
 
 "Fse 'fraid dat de Deacon es more onsart'in ob de spritunl 
 debbil den he be ob der sea-sarpen', fur I heah his religion hab 
 been getting a little cool ob late. He wus a shakin' wid feah 
 a minit ago; I felt him. If he don't hab no trust in sarpen's 
 why didn't he train his darter Phelia mo' ter his own notions? 
 Yo' b'lieve in 'em sho', don' yo' gal?" 
 
 He sank back into the shadows with a triumphant cackle, 
 glancing at his terror-stricken daughter-in-law. 
 
 With memories of past tilts with his rival in his mind, and 
 their attendant discomforts, the deacon hastened to pour oil 
 on the water his taunts had troubled. 
 
 "Wai, wat's de use ob discussin' dese matters. If it's de 
 Lawd's will fur us ter reach de Golden City by de straight and 
 narrer way ob dat sarpen's gullet, we'se got ter trabel dat way. 
 I'd rader be swallercd whole, dan be kicked inter Heaben by 
 a mule like our deah departed Brudder Shadd who we buried 
 las' week." 
 
42 6V. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 The old woman leaned forward with interest. 
 
 "Jes'so! Jes'so!" she said, and getting excited, "Gone ter 
 Heaben gone ter glory, with der churubins an' de paraffines. 
 Glory ! glory ! Take him, Lawd ! I'se a comin' comin', glory, 
 glory !" 
 
 Her voice was drowned by Brother Williams's, whose sonor 
 ous tones filled the cabin, for he disapproved the impression 
 the Deacon's eloquence was making. 
 
 "Hit's a pity dat after hundreds ob yeahs ob experience 'mong 
 pussons ob color, dat our deah departed brudder shouldn't 
 er known better dan ter approach dat animal from de rear. 
 Yes," he continued, his eyes twinkling, "and I wus at de 
 berryin' service. Somebody put a nickel in a hat ter start de 
 collection fur de po' wiclder, an' after goin all roun' it cum 
 back empty, He ! he !" 
 
 A general laugh shook the frail shanty, to the great disturb 
 ance of two drowsy chickens perched on a rafter above. But 
 this hilarity was brought to a sudden end by the Deacon's 
 stick rapping smartly on the Moor. 
 
 "My frens'," he drawled solemnly, "it don' befit yo' ter 
 laffat no sich wickednesses. Dere's a' sponsibility ob five cents 
 a-floatin' among dat congregation somewhar'. Look out dat it 
 aint 'mong us." 
 
 With a significant glance at the irreverent Brother Williams 
 he moved towards the door. 
 
JuliVs "Sea-Sarperi '." 43 
 
 "I's a goin' am yo' comin' rny way, Brudder Williams? 
 Yes? den it will be 'spectable for us to go togedder." 
 
 He patronisingly pulled the wool of the sleeping Washing 
 ton, and with a dignified "goodebenin' " to the others, clattered 
 out, followed by Brother Williams. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 '"JPHE narrow roadway bordered by cabins, was silent and 
 deserted. As they passed the white-washed "meetin' 
 house " they paused. The closing verse of a hymn sung 
 with all the fervor and passion of a negro "revival," drifted 
 through the open windows. 
 
 'We're a-rol//#' we're a-rolhV 
 We're a rollin' through dis 'sinful worl' 
 We're a rol//w' we're a rol/iW 
 We're a rollin' home ter God." 
 
 They stood arm in arm, the old Deacon beating time with 
 his long foot on the sand. Perhaps something in the stirring 
 melody subdued their egotism, for as they moved among the 
 pine shadows, each leaned on the other with more affectionate 
 and familiar ease. 
 
 Nothing was said for some time, until, on turning a corner, 
 a dog rushed out on them with sudden barking. Both started 
 to run, then paused trembling, looking at one another. 
 
 u Yo' don' b'lieve in dat trash ob Julib's 'bout de sea-sarpen', 
 doyo' Brudder?" asked the Deacon in a somewhat shaky voice, 
 as they continued their way. 
 
 "Course not!" was the scornful reply, given with a shrink- 
 
JuUVs "Sea-Sarpen\" 45 
 
 ing glance toward the lonely road ahead. "julib means well, 
 but he do tell sich tales. Bress yo' sole, Deacon, if I t'ought 
 dere wus sich a beast I'd go an' look fur him. If we'd look 
 long 'nufT, we'd see him, sho'." 
 
 "Is yo' gwine ter look?'' asked the Deacon, with sudden 
 suspicion for the sincerity of his companion's scepticism. 
 
 "Do yo' take me fur a fule?" exclaimed Brother Williams. 
 "Do yo' t'ink I'd sit a-roostin' all de night on dat sea-wall a 
 waitin' fur roarin' beasts w'at nebber did lib nohow ? Sho' ! 
 I'se too ole fur enny sich foolerin' es dat. Ere yo' gwine fur 
 ter look?" 
 
 "Me! exclaimed the Deacon. The derisive scorn of the 
 answer convinced Brother Williams that there was no such 
 possibility. 
 
 Each longed at the bottom of his heart to know if such a 
 creature did exist, and to see it if it did. What glory to tell 
 of it to the other ! The Deacon thrilled with the delightful 
 possibility. How much better than Julib he would describe 
 the grewsome details of that mysterious creature, if he could 
 but see it. For once he might enter a realm of knowledge 
 where Brother Williams could not follow, and confound his 
 rival with his own marvelous experience. Oh ! if he could 
 only have one glimpse of "dat sarpen'," for that it existed, 
 he began to have no doubt, Wild ideas and plans floated 
 his brain, 
 
46 St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 Meantime Brother Williams hobbling through the sand, was 
 also burning with awakening ambition. That Julib, his son, 
 had spoken the truth he had not for a moment doubted, but 
 fear of the Deacon's ridicule had made him denv any such 
 belief. With sly caution and an instinctive mistrust of his 
 friend's sincerity, he had a half-formed plan to see this monster 
 of the sea for himself. If he could but corroborate his son's 
 statement, and relate new horrors of his own experience ! 
 The blissful anticipation of being a conspicuous narrator 
 while the Deacon should sit neglected in a corner, gave him 
 exquisite pleasure. He could with difficulty refrain from exe 
 cuting a double-shuffle in the middle of the road. 
 
 Both men were so engrossed in their own thoughts, that 
 little more was said till they bade each other good-night at 
 the Deacon's "clearin' ." They parted with great magnanim 
 ity their hearts mellowed with the prospect of anticipated 
 triumph. 
 
 Brother Williams scurried home, shying at shadows and 
 rustling jasmine vines, to his cabin half a mile farther. 
 
 The Deacon entered his house and tied his door firmly with 
 a bit of twine. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 '"THE following night a heavy fog rolled in from the sea. 
 It crept along the narrow streets, through sleepy gardens, 
 and swathed itself about the motionless palms, till St. Augus 
 tine in its gray veiling looked like a city among the clouds. 
 
 Brother Williams, his legs stretched out to the imaginary 
 warmth of a pile of ashes in his fire-place, sat lost in thought, 
 his head sunk forward on his breast. All was still save the 
 occasional rustle of Pete, the dog, aroused from slumber to 
 attend to a dream-disturbing flea. Through the open window 
 the fog drifted, blurring the outlines of the tiny cabin, and 
 covering its bareness with a friendly veil. 
 
 Brother Williams at last rose with a profound sigh, and 
 moving to the door, peered cautiously out. His cabin stood 
 in its acre of "clearin'," the only sign of human life. A 
 group of tall pines with their scanty foliage away at their tops, 
 were like gawky boys grown "too big for their clothes." 
 Mysterious chirps and rustles came from the scrub palmettos, 
 whose sharp leaves seemed to point like derisive fingers at the 
 solitary watcher. 
 
 With a searching glance this way and that, Brother Wil 
 liams crept softly back into the house. The dog rose. 
 
48 St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 "Yo* jest be still Pete. Don' yo' be fur snuffin' yo' nose 
 into t'ings w'at ain't yo' perfession." 
 
 With slow caution he got into a great coat which fell in 
 ragged luxuriance to his heels. With many a nervous glance 
 and pause he went out, latching the gate softly behind him, 
 and passed down the road. 
 
 Entering the town, he avoided the more brilliantly lighted 
 streets, keeping in the shadow of garden walls as much as 
 possible, and dodging around the groups of colored men loiter 
 ing on the corners. He crossed the Pla/a, and reaching the 
 sea-wall, paused. He fancied he heard steps behind him on 
 the stone coping, but could see nothing for the mist. After 
 listening intently he went on. 
 
 u [t's doin' ob de secret t'ings dat makes us scart," he thought. 
 "Dere aint nobody a keepin' step wid me fur fun on sich a 
 night as dis' nohow." 
 
 Everything was still. The ripple of the water below him 
 was the only sound his anxious ears could now hear. He 
 went steadily on to the Fort, and around the sloping wall to 
 its farthest extremity. Wrapping his cloak well around him, 
 he sat down, with eyes fixed on the narrow strip of beach and 
 water discernible through the mist on the left of the Fort. 
 
 If the gulls had been awake, they would have seen a few 
 moments later, a second figure emerge from the fog witli 
 stealthy tread. Like i\ cut in search of prey, the Deacoi] 
 
JuliVs ' ' Sea-Sarpen\" 49 
 
 crept along the Fort wall, his old shoes making no sound on its 
 hard surface. Not a hundred feet from Brother Williams he 
 paused, and peered triumphantly about him. No sign of 
 human life about. He was alone to discover what? 
 
 He shivered slightly as he seated himself. Those gray, 
 mysterious depths of mist and sea might hide untold horrors. 
 He shrank back from the edge near the water, and got as far 
 up on the shelving wall, as its width permitted. 
 
 For a long time the two daring spirits sat there motionless, 
 the mist dripping from their battered hats, and running in 
 little streams down their cavernous wrinkles. Now and then 
 the young moon would peer for a moment upon them, to be 
 lost again in the moving vapor. 
 
 "1's a courageous man," said the Deacon to himself. 
 'Yo' wouldn't ketch dat white-livered Brudder Williams in 
 no sich purdigriment nohow. He's a stuffin' hisself no doubt 
 at dis berry minnit wid Phelia's hoe-cake, wid no mo' care fur 
 science than dat brat Washington." 
 
 Brother Williams at the other end of the wall, stirred un 
 easily, trying to find the soft side of its clam-shell surface. 
 
 "It wouldn't be no sich man as de Deacon," he thought, 
 "ter be out heah a sarchin' fur troof. Jes' won't I make dat 
 wool ob hissen stan' up wid s'prise, when I tells him w'at 
 I seen. He be allers soundin' de loud timbral fur his own 
 smartnesses, but he'd be naryjpijs, he would- I 4n' scar' a. 
 demnition bit, I 
 
50 ,5V. August ine Remnants. 
 
 A toad hopping along came in contact with his hand. He 
 barely stifled a scream. 
 
 "I 'low es clat did s'prise me a little," he muttered. ''It vvur 
 fur usin' a cussin' word, I specs." 
 
 The minutes dragged slowly by. They seemed hours to the 
 two men of science. They grew more damp and more cold 
 and were decidedly nervous. 
 
 "If I's fuled," said the Deacon to himself, "dat cowerlin 
 Brudder Williams '11 ne'bber know, an' if I isn't ! The delight 
 ful possibility of surpassing his rival, sent a glow through his 
 trembling frame. 
 
 All at once both men gave a start. Off to the right a sound 
 was heard: faint, but still a sound. A wheezing, gasping, 
 gurgle came across the water, accompanied by dull splashing. 
 The Deacon's breath stopped, he felt he was about to stifle. 
 
 "Hit's it! hit's it!" he gasped, with shaking limbs. 
 
 Brother Williams felt his blood congeal. 
 
 "Dat's de noise es Julib done told 'bout, but I ain't scart, no 
 I ain't." He rose with shaking knees and peered into the 
 mist. 
 
 The noise grew louder it seemed to fill the air, his ears, his 
 brain, with a confused horror of sound. It resembled the snorts 
 and breathings of some terrible monster. No such sound had 
 either of them ever heard before. No lights were visible, so it 
 could not be a vessel of any kind and what vessel ever made 
 such a noise ! 
 
JuliVs "Sca-Sarpeu " 51 
 
 The Deacon was now beside himself with terror. He longed 
 to cry out, to escape, but power of motion and spirit had left 
 him. 
 
 Brother Williams, torn between abject fear and curiosity, 
 knelt on the edge of the wall with a pair of trembling hands 
 raised to heaven. 
 
 "Oh ! Lawd, I'se a sinner, a po' weak sinner; but oh ! good, 
 kind Lawd, let me see it. Yo' let yo' John see de Reberlations. 
 Oh! keep me oh glory, glory, o-o-o-o-h h h h !" 
 
 The horrid noise was almost below him he saw the hideous 
 coils, the tossing head, through the mist. With one yell of 
 ungovernable terror, he turned and fled. Blind, and dizzy 
 with horror, he sped along' the wall to be sent tumbling pros 
 trate over the Deacon. With a mingled yell of dismay they 
 grappled and rolled over and over, each ignorant of what or 
 who was the other. At that moment the moon looked do\vn, 
 and they shook theniselves apart. 
 
 "Yo' Deacon" ! gasped Brother Williams, glaring at his foe. 
 
 "Yes! yes! it's me. Oh! w'at is it? oh! oh!" 
 
 He clung trembling to his companion, who now, with his 
 rival there before him, felt some small courage return. 
 
 The two old men clung to each other and crept slowly 
 toward the noise. The terrible monster had passed the Fort, 
 moving toward the beach at the left. They crept, step by step, 
 to the point in the wall, both beginning to feel partially secure, 
 
52 St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 when suddenly a snort of prodigious strength caused them to 
 jump as though shot. 
 
 A whirling of water, and another snort. They were both 
 about to cast science to the winds and fly ignominiously, when 
 the mist lifted, disclosing, not fifty feet away five horses 
 emerging in single file from the water, shaking their dripping 
 flanks, and then walking calmly across the beach. 
 
 The two men turned and faced each other with mingled 
 wrath and shame. 
 
 u Es fur yo', Brudder Williams, yo' mus' feel mighty like a 
 sheep ter be makin' sich a screechin' fuss 'bout a few po' horses 
 swimmin' home from de island. Here wus I," his voice rising 
 in virtuous indignation, "a sittin' quiet an' peaceable-like, a 
 composin' my experience speech fur ter-morrow's meetin', 
 when yo' comes a-gallopin' along like a boltin' lion, a-knock- 
 in' me ober, an' actin' like Balaam's ass. Yo' is a noodlin' 
 fule, I'se bressed if yo' aint." 
 
 "Yo' tell me, Deacon, dat yo' wus sittin' hear speechifying ! 
 Go 'long wid sich lyin'. Yo' roostin' in dis hear wet ! Tell dat 
 story ter de ole women-folks. I aint no chicken ter be filled 
 wid no sich stuffin'. So yo' t'ink I bin scart ! I done seed yo' 
 sittin' hear all de time, an' knowed yo's bin watchin' fur dat 
 sarpen'. Yes, I jess done dat screechin' ter scar' yo'. An' I done 
 gone and done it too, sartin'. He ! he ! ha ! ha !" 
 
 Brother Williaips broke into a feeble packje and turned 
 
JuliVs "Sea-Sarpen*:* 53 
 
 ward. He not only felt shaky about his knees, but feared his 
 imagination might fail if called upon to do more lying. 
 
 At the "experience rneetin' " the following evening, these two 
 brave men sat very far apart, and had no experience to relate. 
 It was noticed however that they prayed at each other with 
 unusual fervor. 
 
 [The Sea-serpent illusion, as described in the above story, was actu 
 ally experienced by Mr. W. H.P., a winter resident of St. Augustine, 
 when visiting the Fort on a cloudy evening.] 
 
THE END OF AN EARLDOM. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ""THE occasion of my first meeting Lady Gladys was in this 
 wise. I was stopping with my friend Maxwell Keith, an 
 Americanized Scotchman, upon a semi-tropical island off the 
 coast of Georgia, which he had purchased for a winter home 
 with a game-stocked Park, as much like the ideal English seat 
 as possible. He was a younger son whose sole patrimony had 
 been a vigorous physique and a splendid energy, and with these 
 he came to America, where ten years among iron manufac 
 tures had secured him a handsome fortune, and had also lessened 
 his veneration for the decaying and idle upper classes of Eng 
 land. 
 
 He spent his summers in Scotland, and his old friends there 
 raised their eyebrows at his generous American fashion of pre 
 senting various towns with Public Libraries, and were still 
 more open in their displeasure when he announced his views 
 upon the education of the lower classes. Meanwhile he enter 
 tained his friends lavishly on both sides of the water : carried 
 them about on four-in-hands and in steam yachts, and was, in 
 short, a delightful and forcible advertisement for the success of 
 American industries. 
 
The End of an Earldom. 55 
 
 His luxurious island home was a charming mingling of Eng 
 lish form and American convenience, and here for the time 
 being he dreamed himself a country squire of good old English 
 style but without the climatic discomforts of "the tight little 
 isle." This winter he had a dozen friends to bear him com 
 pany among them Mr. Kenby, a prominent politician, Mr. 
 Ruddrow, a newly arisen novelist who said sharp things, and 
 the usual professional beauty. There was also an amateur 
 actor of classic profile, to relieve the tedium of possible dull 
 weather. 
 
 After a fortnight of shooting and exploration of the beautiful 
 island, our energetic host suggested that a cruise on the steam- 
 yacht lying idly in the little harbor, would be a pleasant diver 
 sion. The idea was hailed with delight. The women were 
 quickly prepared, while the men provided themselves liberally 
 with fishing tackle, not forgetting a generous supply of cigars 
 and champagne, and we sailed merrily away for the sunny 
 waters of Florida. 
 
 Our objective point was St. Augustine, but we lingered along 
 the shore with its flat stretches of wind-swept marshes, and 
 backgrounds of grim pines. We ran twenty or thirty miles 
 up the St. John's river, fishing in its placid waters, or, an 
 chored at pleasure in the numerous inlets, we idled away the 
 hours, watching the pink and gray cranes, standing in one- 
 legged stateliness under the vine tangled palmettos. 
 
*)0 St. A.ugustfHC Remnants. 
 
 The women of our party, having heard of the social gaieties 
 at St. Augustine, presently had enough of this idyllic life, so 
 bowing to their decree, we wound up our reels and were soon 
 steaming under the frowning ramparts of Fort San Marco. 
 
 The sky line of the quaint little city, with its towers and 
 Cathedral campanile, w r as losing itself in the yellow glow of a 
 setting sun. Sounds of martial music floated across the water 
 from the evening Parade at the Garrison. Sailboats of all sizes 
 laden with parties of young people were being poled in by 
 their skippers, with sails hanging limp about the masts. 
 
 On the morrow began a different life for our party. There 
 was rennis, riding and bathing by day, and dancing every 
 evening, with occasional dinners among the cottagers. The 
 contrasts of the place were curious - a mixture of old Spain 
 and nineteenth-century smartness. If Philip II could but 
 traverse these narrow streets, once his own ; see the electric 
 lights swung from corner to corner, or look in upon a "hop" 
 at the Alcazar, how astounded that astute monarch would be 
 at such innovations. And all with never a "by your leave, 
 most grave and reverend Sefior." 
 
 One afternoon our "beauty" suggested a crab race. Most of 
 us were unacquainted with this amusement, but under her di 
 rections we rowed to the beach, provided with a basket of 
 lively crustaceans. On landing, each selected a crab, and 
 stuck in some small joint a tiny flag. A line being drawn 
 
T'/ic 12 nd of an 
 
 about fifty feet from the water, we all knelt along the line, 
 holding our animated captives in position as well as we could. 
 After some shrieks from the women, who were novices in 
 the art, our fair umpire called "-one! two ! three ! go !'* and 
 the crabs sidled off to find refuge in the water as fast as 
 fright and their awkwardness could carry them. Such yells of 
 excitement ! 
 
 "I bet five dollars on the red flag !" shouted he of the classic 
 profile, dancing with excitement. Our "beauty," regardless 
 of her elaborate gown, followed her beast on her knees, only 
 to see his claws hopelessly entangled in those of a rival racer. 
 But one after another, they all reached the goal, amid the 
 cheers of their backers, and the lively bobbing of the flags 
 above the water indicated a general scrimmage of congratula 
 tion at their final escape from the jaws of death. 
 
 After two or three races I was satisfied with my winnings in 
 the noble sport, and presently slipping away unobserved, took 
 my boat for a row and quiet pipe. 
 
 I left the gay little town behind me, and rowed by the Fort 
 toward a stretch of lonely marshes which looked invitingly 
 quiet. For a while I could find no water-way to their midst, 
 but after some hard pulling a narrow creek came into view. 
 This I followed with no special purpose except a whim to get 
 as far away as possible from everything and everyone. Gray 
 sand dunes, blown by the wind into fantastic shapes, stretched 
 
 5 
 
58 St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 away on every side, broken by spaces of brown grass over 
 which gulls wheeled with plaintive cries. Far away to the 
 right, I could hear the surf booming on the North beach, but 
 here not a ripple stirred the waters, save when insect wings 
 touched its placid surface, or a crane started up from the tufts 
 of salt grass. 
 
 I rowed on and on, taking no thought of time, with only a 
 happy sense of lien tre, until I was aroused from my som- 
 nambulent mood by an obstacle ahead. 
 
 A causeway stretched across the entire breadth of my vision 
 from the forest on the extreme left, to what appeared a thickly 
 wooded island or else a promontory of the main land, on my 
 right. No sign of human life disturbed the perfect quiet. I 
 left the boat, and climbed to the top of the causeway. Beyond, 
 the marshes stretched away in flat monotony. No tracks of 
 wheels or footsteps were visible upon the causeway, but the 
 center was worn in a narrow track by horses' feet. My curi 
 osity was now fully awakened. I pulled the boat high out of 
 water and started for the island. 
 
 It was the forest primeval into which the track led me. 
 Grass grew breast high, with no reminder of the scythe. To 
 the left the old paths were almost obliterated by tangled un 
 der growth. It was a wilderness beautiful in Nature's own 
 prodigality. I pushed my way through vine and bracken 
 with curious expectancy, as though a haunted castle and sleep 
 ing princess lay hid in this mazy woodland. 
 
The Itnd of an Earldom. 59 
 
 Suddenly I heard a childish voice close to me crooning a 
 lullaby. I pushed aside some brushwood, and there in a little 
 opening among the ferns sat a child rocking a doll to and fro 
 in her arms. She was sitting at the foot of a giant beech, 
 whose roots protruding from their earth-covering stretched in 
 all directions. Between these roots the child had placed toy 
 tables and chairs made from bits of bark and sticks. Flowers 
 were stuck here and there as decoration for her idyllic house. 
 Suddenly she gave her doll a shake. 
 
 "You tiresome child !" she said, "Why won't you go to 
 sleep? You must be very happy to be so forever smiling. 
 Grandpa says only the dead are happy. Perhaps you're dead." 
 
 She became conscious of a strange presence, and turned 
 toward me one of the loveliest child faces I have ever seen. It 
 was oval in shape and very small, made more so by the great 
 violet eyes which looked straight into mine with innocent as 
 tonishment. A mass of curls framed the face. She was clad 
 in a frock of rough gray serge, much too short for her, fastened 
 by white bone buttons. But this small person was in no way 
 disconcerted by her unexpected visitor. She clasped her doll 
 closer. 
 
 "Do you want to find your way to the house?" she asked. 
 "It is straight on, but you know grandpa doesn't receive visi 
 tors." 
 
 I replied that I was not in search of the house or her grand- 
 
60 6V. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 father, in fact supposed I was the only person about. Her 
 mouth broke into a laugh ; then, as though fearing I might feel 
 the awkwardness of my position, the child grew politely 
 grave. 
 
 "I am Lady Gladys Cope," she said, "and my grandfather 
 is Lord Carnsforth and lives here. I take care of him." To 
 say I was astonished but mildly expresses my feelings, as I 
 gazed at the tattered little princess before me. I had met here 
 and there in my western trips some titles among the numerous 
 younger sons of English aristocracy who had been driven there 
 by necessity, and even in southern Florida I had run against a 
 self-exiled Duke, but had heard nothing of this Lord and was 
 sure that St. Augustine was unconscious of its high-born neigh 
 bor. I apologized to the best of my ability for having tres 
 passed, but she interrupted me. 
 
 "I am very glad to see you, and think you are a very nice 
 person. But you must be tired ; won't you sit down?" 
 
 With regal air she motioned me to a mossy stone, and re 
 suming her position, smoothed down her doll's scanty petti 
 coats. 
 
 I was warm and tired, and very willing to rest for a while 
 with so unique a companion. She was voluble, and \\ <. 
 chatted on, much to our mutual gratification. We soon became 
 good friends. She explained to me the mysteries of her 
 housekeeping, and how the caterpillars were at times very 
 
The End of an Earldom. 61 
 
 troublesome in upsetting her furniture. She said this was her 
 country house, her town house was in a distant field in a hay 
 rick. I inquired politely for her children's health and showed 
 her how to make rabbits out of my pocket handkerchief. The 
 sun was sinking and the woods growing chill, so I suggested 
 that I should escort her home, and we pushed our way through 
 the sun reddened leaves. She chatted freely of her home 
 and home life, as freely as only a child could who had never 
 known what strangers were. 
 
 "Grandpa is very old," she said; "he and I live here quite 
 alone with Allan and Tabby. They are the servants. You see 
 Grandpa is very poor now, but he didn't use to be. We, that 
 is, Mamma and Grandpa, came over here from England be 
 cause our old home went to someone else. He bought this 
 orange grove, but Mamma died, and all the trees died, so it 
 left only me to take care of Grandpa. Tabby says if I had been 
 a boy I would have been an Earl like he is, but I'm glad I 
 wasn't, for I don't think Earls are happy people. Grandpa 
 doesn't seem so." 
 
 By this time we had come in sight of the house, and I shall 
 never forget the beautiful desolation of the scene. The house, 
 a long rambling structure of brick, with a sky line much 
 broken by quaint chimneys, rose against the sky. It had evi 
 dently been the home of some wealthy Southern planter before 
 the war, and in its day, luxurious to an unusual degree. Ivy 
 
62 St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 clambered over doors and windows, some of which evidently 
 hud been closed for years, and wild vines ran riot to the very 
 edge of the gabled roof. A wide piazza stretched along the 
 front of the house, its decayed wooden steps leading to a gar 
 den choked with weeds. A wilderness of roses filled the air 
 with their scent. The only sound of life was the sleepy splash 
 of a dilapidated fountain, and the twittering of birds as they 
 settled themselves to rest. As my small guide led me up the 
 broken steps, I felt like some ghost come out of the dead past 
 to revisit the scene of brilliant life and gaiety as dead and for 
 gotten as myself. By the great central door at which we 
 paused a rabbit nibbled the vines which covered the lintel and 
 seemed in nowise disturbed when Lady Gladys raised the 
 knocker in both hands and woke the silence to resonant clamor. 
 At last a step was heard and the door swung open, disclosing 
 a wizened little man in rusty, black knickerbockers and 
 buckled shoes. 
 
 u Ah ! it is your ladyship." Then catching sight of my 
 stalwart figure looked quickly from her to me. 
 
 u Allan, this is a gentleman I met in the woods," she ex 
 plained. Then turning to me, "Please come in; I want to 
 take you to grandpa." 
 
 But I hastened to excuse myself. "You forget that I have 
 not the pleasure of knowing Lord Carnsforth," I said, "juul 
 doubtless he is not prepared to receive visitors." 
 
The End of an Earldim. 63 
 
 "Oh, he will surely be glad to see you," she urged. 
 
 I took out my card. "Take this to him first," I said, "and 
 then if he is willing, I should be delighted to meet him." 
 
 Like a flash she was gone, Allan shambling after her, leav 
 ing me in a great hall. I made out in the dim light a carved 
 staircase of great beauty, and that everything was pervaded 
 by an atmosphere of dreary disuse. Lady Gladys emerged 
 from a dusky corner, flushed and breathless, and, following her 
 beckoning finger, our footsteps on the hard and polished floor 
 awakening uncanny echoes in the silence, she paused at an open 
 door with finger on lip. From the light of a glass-stained win 
 dow at the farther end I discerned a room of noble proportions. 
 Midway between floor and ceiling a gallery ran round the room, 
 the walls of which were lined with books. A smoldering fire 
 gleamed from a cavern-like fireplace, and before this sat an old 
 man in a wheel chair. A hound lay stretched at his feet. 
 
 "Saint Pere," she cried, "I've brought the gentleman." 
 
 "It gives me great pleasure to meet any acquaintance of yours 
 my darling," Lord Carnsforth said, as he courteously tried 
 to rise, but sinking back with a sigh of pain, motioned me to 
 a seat. Lady Gladys perched herself on the arm of his chair 
 and explained our meeting. 
 
 "I seldom meet anyone from the outside world," he re 
 marked, and it is many years since I trod its highways myself, 
 though I feel a strong admiration for this wonderful country 
 of yours and its progressive people." 
 
64 St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 I expressed my admiration for what I had seen of English 
 life. "It shows nothing of that striving for effect that is the 
 bane of our new world. Perhaps it is because you live so 
 much in the country and are content with the world as your 
 fathers left it. We are forever trying to better ourselves and 
 circumstances, and I almost begin to think it a mistake." 
 
 Lord Carnsforth leaned forward. "My dear sir, you are 
 wrong there. It is that constant effort for what is better which 
 has made you what you are the greatest empire the world has 
 ever seen. It is difficult for English gentlemen of the present 
 generation to better their condition. I wish it were not so. 
 The old idea of trade being ignoble has died its natural death 
 and many would like to enter healthful business careers, but 
 lack the knowledge to do so. I envy some of my old friends 
 who have been able to face the loss of rents and strike out for 
 themselves. My friend the Duke of Eastminster has made a 
 great success of his London hansoms. You doubtless have 
 heard of my straitened circumstances. For this little one's 
 sake I wish I were younger. It is hard to sit in my chimney 
 corner idle when heart and brain would so gladly make them 
 selves useful." 
 
 "Lady Gladys told me something of her past life," I re 
 plied frankly. "But you have much left in so loving and 
 charming a companion." 
 
 My heart ached for the pathetic pair of comrades. He, 
 
The End of an Earldom. 65 
 
 worn and spent from his, unsuccessful battle with life and she 
 so frail to commence the warfare. 
 
 "You see she is such a wild little bairn," he continued, 
 "that I can do nothing better for her. She runs about in the 
 sunshine much as the rabbits do, but she is an ever present 
 comfort and solace to me. I regret the uselessness of a life like 
 mine." 
 
 "Why, Saint Pere," the child broke in, "it is not true that 
 you are useless. Have you not written all those splendid 
 books the papers praise, and how could I live without you 
 when I love you so ?" 
 
 The eager voice seemed to break the sadness which had set 
 tled on us all. The old servant entered with lamps, and 
 realizing the lateness of the hour I rose to leave. I expressed 
 my pleasure at the chance which had brought me there. 
 
 Lord Carnsforth held out his hand in farewell, begging me 
 to come again soon. "It has been like a breeze from your 
 'Rockies' to see you," he said. 
 
 Lady Gladys showed me to the door. And so I left her at 
 the top of the steps, a gray little ghost in the evening mist. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ON my return to the yacht, I joined my host who was hav 
 ing a smoke at the bow. 
 
 "Keith," I said, throwing myself on the rug by his side, 
 'did you ever hear in your country of Lord Carnsforth ? I 
 have recently heard of him as having a peculiar history." 
 
 "Carnsforth," he replied, "of course I have. His place, 
 Carnsforth Heyes, is in the adjoining county to my summer 
 home, and we frequently drive over the estate, as indeed every 
 one does, to see the remains of one of the finest seats in the 
 Kingdom." 
 
 "What was the cause of his misfortunes?" I asked. 
 
 "A scapegrace son," said he. The greatest gambler who 
 ever disgraced his country at Monaco. He lost heavily at 
 home on the turf and then his passion led him to Monte Carlo, 
 where he sunk more than the entire value of the family estate. 
 He then shot himself at the door of the Casino." 
 
 "Married, wasn't he?" 
 
 "Yes ! He had married into the Cadogan family in the face 
 of their bitter opposition owing to his well-known character ; 
 in fact they never forgave the wife, and she has been com 
 pelled to share the Carnsforth misfortunes." 
 
 "What became of Carnsforth Heyes?" 
 
The End of an Earldom . 67 
 
 "Creditors took possession, but out of respect to the Earl's 
 age and troubles, they allowed him the use of three or four 
 rooms during his life, and a pony chaise for driving about the 
 Park. Frequently, while driving four-in-hand through his 
 place, we have met, and I recalled the old saw about the 
 'whirligig of time.' The avenues of trees planted by his an 
 cestors centuries ago, are one of the wonders of the country. 
 Every ancient seat has its special feature, but those avenues of 
 mammoth trees with their noble vistas are unequalled even in 
 the Park at Windsor. 
 
 ''But the old Earl's pride could not brook such a position 
 long in his ancestral halls. His heart was broken, and in a 
 few years he disappeared with his daughter-in-law and her 
 child it was said, to live in some retired village in France." 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 AFTER this conversation some days were spent in the usual 
 round of mild dissipations at St. Augustine, but my mind 
 wandered continually to my enchanted island. I had said noth 
 ing of my interesting episode, knowing that the idle folk would 
 straightway wish to gratify their curiosity. One day a rain storm 
 (for it is not all sunshine in Florida) was sending the clouds scur 
 rying across a sullen sky, and I decided to see my little princess 
 again. I wanted to escape unquestioned and unnoticed. Most of 
 the party were congregated in the cabin of the yacht, playing 
 Tiddledy Winks for nickels. Feeling I should not be missed, 
 I donned a mackintosh and rowed off in the storm. 
 
 Nature was a study in brown and gray sky, sand dunes 
 and water, all were in one tone of colorless bleakness. I 
 climbed the causeway, and after a rapid walk, reached the 
 house. It looked more desolate than ever. The rain splashed 
 on the mouldy walks, whirled against the walk in spasmodic 
 fury, and fell in streams from the mossy eaves upon the weeds 
 below. Rose leaves, whipped off by the wind, lay in red and 
 pink drifts on every side. 
 
 I knocked vigorously, to be sent tumbling in by the wind 
 over Lady Gladys, who had opened the door. She danced 
 
The End of an Earldom. 69 
 
 about with delight as I doffed my dripping garments, her golden 
 head a veritable sunbeam in the grim hall. 
 
 "Oh! I knew you would come," she cried. "I was just 
 longing to see you and have watched for you all day." Then 
 her face grew grave ; she pulled my face down to hers. 
 
 "I wanted to see you," she whispered, "for grandpa has been 
 acting so strangely. I'm sure something troubles him. Last 
 night he moaned when he thought me asleep, and when I ran 
 to him he said, 'Nothing, child, only a bad dream.'" 
 
 We reached the room where Lord Carnsforth was sitting. 
 A fire burned on the hearth, sending a rosy warmth about the 
 room. By its light I -saw he had aged since I last saw him. 
 When we had exchanged greetings he left the conversation to 
 Lady Gladys. I drew a chair up to the hearth, the child lean 
 ing against me. He noticed this, and called her to him, and 
 clasped her closely, looking gloomily at me over her sunny 
 head. I tried different topics of conversation but in vain ; the 
 courteous host of my previous visit remained silent, looking 
 moodily into the fire. At last Lady Gladys relieved my em 
 barrassment by saying; "Saint Pere, I'm going to show him 
 the house" ; so we left the room he vouchsafing no reply. 
 
 When the door closed behind us she looked at me with trem 
 bling lips. "You see there is something," she said. "He has 
 been that way for two days. Sometimes he seems quite to for 
 get me, and just sits there and thinks, thinks. Then, again, he 
 
70 vSV. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 won't let me leave him even for an instant, and kisses me so 
 hard it hurts." 
 
 She burst into a flood of tears. I sat down and drew the trem 
 bling little figure into my arms. That something had occurred 
 I did not doubt. 
 
 "He is probably not well, Gladys," I said. "You know 
 when one is old, one is apt to have moods like that. Doubtless 
 it will pass away like those clouds out there, and we'll soon 
 have the sun shining as brightly as ever." 
 
 Gradually the sobs censed, and the storm of grief subsided as 
 quickly as it had come. So hand in hand we passed through 
 several rooms whose web-covered windows let enough light 
 through to show their bareness, and came to a once gaily dec 
 orated ball-room. 
 
 The stately drawing-room was quite empty of furniture ex 
 cept a few old-fashioned pieces mute remnants of a once bril 
 liant home. As Gladys was about taking me farther Allan 
 appeared and announced tea, and I for one was glad to get 
 back to the warmth and cheer of the fire. 
 
 Lord Carnsforth turned to the child. "My darling, you are 
 not dressed ; run and ask Tabby to give you a better frock in 
 honor of our guest." The child seemed surprised, but did as 
 she was bidden. When her light footfall died away he roused 
 himself and said: 
 
 "You may be surprised that I should speak to you on a mat- 
 
The End of an Earldom. 71 
 
 ter of so personal a nature, but I have a question to decide 
 which involves the life and happiness of that child, and much 
 suffering for her as well as for myself. I cannot refrain from 
 soliciting the sound judgment and sympathy which I feel sure 
 you will give me." His voice sank almost to a whisper. He 
 shaded his eyes from the fire and continued : 
 
 "You may have already learned of my unfortunate circum 
 stances. I have reached my threescore years and ten, and my 
 little Gladys will soon be left without a home. She loves me, 
 and I had hoped to have that love spared me to the end, but I 
 fear it is to be otherwise. Two days since I received a letter 
 from a distant relative by marriage, the Hon. Mrs. Stretfield, 
 a woman of position and wealth, offering to take Gladys, edu 
 cate and provide for her on the condition" the old man 
 paused, as though to gather strength "that I give her to her 
 keeping immediately. She is now about seven, and these years 
 have been comparatively wasted as far as conventional education 
 is concerned. That she must leave me I begin to realize, but 
 my love prevents me clearly appreciating the importance and 
 advantage of the offer." 
 
 He leaned forward and gazed for a moment into a vacancy 
 from which he returned with a suppressed shudder. 
 
 "I have not told Gladys yet. It is the want of a little human 
 sympathy which has made me tell you this. The prospect of 
 loneliness is terrible, and I pray God it may not be long. Sir, 
 can you comprehend what it means for me ? From her infancy 
 
72 St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 she has been my all. Her laugh is my lost youth ; her faintest 
 sigh a keen pain to me. She may learn to forget, she is so 
 young. It would be but natural, but the thought of it seems 
 almost more than I can bear. The long days here alone, and 
 still alone till the end." The quivering voice paused. 
 
 4 'Dear Lord Carnsforth," I said, "I am inexpressibly grieved 
 by what you have told me, but it is the inexorable law that the 
 old must surrender to the young. Were you to be taken from 
 her, the shelter and care which are now offered would in all 
 probability prove an immeasurable blessing. Besides she could 
 sometimes come to you here, and you would constantly be in 
 formed of her growth and education." 
 
 He interrupted me with a feeble gesture. "You mistake 
 there," he said, "I shall probably never see her. The family 
 of the child's mother never approved of the marriage, and Mrs. 
 Stretfield is on her side of the house. She takes Gladys for 
 her mother's sake, not mine. But the child is coming say 
 nothing." 
 
 He relapsed into silence as Lady Gladys bounded into the 
 room in her fresh white gown. She noticed neither Lord 
 Carnsforth's silence nor my abstraction, but clambered into a 
 high chair to pour tea. The firelight played on the little hands 
 as they hovered over the shining silver and fragile old cups, 
 and danced in fantastic shadows over the silent figure in the 
 chair." The hound rose and pushed his nose into the nerveless 
 hand, but got no answering caress. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 '''All things are transient. 
 They being born have lived, 
 And having lived are dead, 
 And being dead are glad 
 To be at rest." 
 
 Inscription on an ancient Hindoo bell. 
 
 A FEW days after, when starting for my morning swim, a 
 note was handed me. It ran thus: "Lady Gladys 
 leaves in a few hours, and would bid her friend good-bye. 
 Cams forth" 
 
 I found Lord Carnsforth sitting under a giant oak near the 
 house, but very shrunken and enfeebled. Gladys was not there. 
 Near him sat a handsome woman of about five-and-thirty. 
 With an indescribable air of thorough breeding she turned her 
 w r ell poised head to acknowledge the introduction, and raised 
 a lorgnette to her cool, gray eyes. 
 
 "I am very pleased to meet you," she said, with a slight 
 drawl.. "Lady Gladys has spoken of you." 
 
 I told her of our unexpected meeting and her fine mouth 
 parted in a low rippling laugh. 
 
 'She has not been so fortunate in meeting as many of your 
 countrymen as I have," she replied. 
 
74 -S^- Augustine Remnants. 
 
 " Just before leaving London I went out to dinner with quite 
 an interesting American, a Mr. Bill Mr. Buffalo Bill I be 
 lieve. He was from Arizona. Do you know him ? He was, 
 ah ! somewhat unusual." 
 
 With a suppressed smile I expressed my regret at not having 
 that pleasure, that, in fact, I knew but few people in Arizona. 
 Whether the woman was chaffing me or not I could not tell. 
 Her thin mouth was smileless, and her drawl quite even. 
 Just then a small figure coming down the terrace steps sent 
 all thoughts of "Mr. Bill" out of my mind. 
 
 Such a pathetic vision as came toward us across the lawn. 
 The face was as white as a drenched lily. Dark circles lay 
 under the violet eyes, which looked from one to the other of us 
 with dull uncertainty. The mouth was folded into straight, 
 sad lines. All bloom and youth seemed suddenly to have been 
 crushed out of her. She went to Lord Carnsforth and leaned 
 against him. For a moment no one spoke. Those two silent 
 figures seemed to destroy even Mrs. Stretfield's well bred com 
 posure. At last I said : 
 
 "Dear little Gladys, won't you come and speak to me?" She 
 listlessly turned her head and gave me a limp hand. I lifted 
 the wan little face till the lustreless eyes looked into mine. 
 
 "And so you are to leave us for the great world you once so 
 longed to see. You will find many new friends there, but I 
 feel that you will not forget the old ones, Perhaps we may 
 
The End of an Earldom. 75 
 
 meet some day when you will have grown to be a fine lady. 
 I shall remind you of our first meeting under the beech tree 
 and ask you if you remember how to make rabbits out of my 
 pocket handkerchief." 
 
 She did not even smile in response, but looked into my eyes 
 as though no word had reached her. Lord Carnsforth stirred 
 in his chair and she ran to him. 
 
 "My little bairn will, I hope, become a noble woman," he 
 said in a faint voice. "I am sorry that I shall not be here to 
 .see her then." For answer the child clasped his hand convul 
 sively to her breast. Mrs. Stretfield leaned forward and said 
 sweetly : 
 
 "Gladys dear, it seems very hard to leave your home. I 
 know, but your new life will be so full of other interests you 
 will soon forget." 
 
 The child turned on her with despairing fury. "Forget!" 
 she cried ; "I wish I had never seen you, that you should take 
 me away. I feel that I shall hate you. You are cold, as cold 
 as stone. You will never love me. No, not even as much 
 as Allan and Tabby. And how can grandpa live without 
 me? Who is to take care of him when I am gone? Oh! 
 Grandpa, grandpa, don't send me away." 
 
 She burst into a storm of tears. Mrs. Stretfield looked at 
 her jewelled watch. I took the hint and rose to go. Raising 
 the trembling little figure in my arms I kissed her. "Good-by. 
 
76 St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 little one," I whispered. "Be brave arid true, and God keep 
 you." 
 
 I set her down and turned to Mrs. Stretfield, standing calm 
 and tall in her sweeping draperies. 
 
 "We both know that it is for her good that she should go," 
 I said. "But she is a child and has never known anything but 
 love. I feel sure you will be gentle with her." 
 
 She swept me with a charming, supercilious glance. "Do 
 not imagine she goes to a prison, and that I am the cruel 
 jailer," she said. "I am already much attached to my little 
 kinswoman." 
 
 With a bow over her extended hand, and a last glance at the 
 child sobbing in Lord Carnsforth's arms, I left them. All 
 through the merry lunch, and later, as our merry party steamed 
 up the North River, I was haunted by the scene of that morn 
 ing. There was laughter and chatter around me, and mando 
 lins tinkled to the singing of the young people. A pretty girl, 
 who sat next to me, turned to her neighbor. 
 
 u He is so spasmodic," I heard her say, "he either talks too 
 much, or not at all." 
 
 When we once more dropped anchor, I found it still lacked 
 over an hour to dinner and I started for the island. I could 
 bear no longer the thought of Lord Carnsforth, companionless 
 and without sympathy. 
 
 To my surprise I found him sitting on the piazza, the houm] 
 
The End of a?i Earldom. 77 
 
 at his feet. I softly climbed the mouldy steps and approached 
 him. He was asleep. Roses clambered over the broken 
 balustrade, and swallows darted and twittered about him, now 
 skimming low, then flashing above to the mossy eaves. 
 
 The air moved the thin locks above his forehead ; a look as 
 of youth had settled about the mouth. The deep lines and 
 furrows seemed to have been smoothed away by some gentle 
 hand, leaving an expression of perfect rest and peace. 
 
 Suddenly the hound rose and stood motionless looking into 
 
 
 
 his master's face, and stooping, licked the hand which hung 
 over the chair's arm. Then raising his head he broke into a 
 long, dismal howl. 
 
 I bent forward. No breath stirred the chest. The hound's 
 mournful cry was the dirge of an earldom. 
 
PRINCE CHARMING OF NEW YORK. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 If all the birds sang out of tune 
 
 When winds their plumage tossed, 
 If flowers imprisoned their perfume 
 
 When they their sun-god losf, 
 If brooks refused to dance and play 
 When pobls ivere dark -with shadoivs gray, 
 Sad -would Dame Nattire be ! 
 
 If all the pain on ivorn hearts lain 
 
 No surface smiles concealed. 
 Had all the tears in all past years 
 
 Been from their depths revealed: 
 If Love could not Grief's course restrain, 
 Choke back the tears, crush doivn the pain, 
 Fruitless tvould be Love's plea. 
 
 ST. AUGUSTINE seemed as dead as its patron saint that 
 hot, breathless afternoon. The sun beat down into the 
 narrow streets and on the closed blinds of the quaint, white 
 washed houses, whose overhanging balconies made the only 
 shade in the general glare. In the sleepy old gardens not a 
 leaf or bird stirred. Blisters rose on the new paint of the Plaza 
 railing, and even the negroes lying on the benches were com 
 pelled to move their sun-loving bodies into the shade. The 
 
Prince Charming of New York. 79 
 
 sea wall was deserted. On the narrow strip of sand left by 
 the receding tide, "fiddlers" sidled to and fro, and the delicate 
 sea moss clinging to the coquina turned to brown nothingness 
 in the intense heat. To the west, beyond the pines, gray 
 shadows were gathering, which meant a storm, later on. 
 
 Old Lopo Sanchez, perched on his springless wooden cart, 
 noticed the western shadows and urged his ambling steed to a 
 trot, which jolted his stiff joints and caused the horse's ears to 
 flap in unison with its rattling harness. Lopo presented a 
 curious appearance, owing to a large piece of burlap tied to 
 the top of his green umbrella, which, falling down and around 
 him, looked not unlike a nun's veil. From under its ragged 
 edge peered his elongated visage, with thin locks falling over 
 the bent shoulders. The brown skin and browner eyes told of 
 Spanish blood, but there was little of Spanish pride or spirit in 
 the livid old face. Twenty years before he had fallen in love 
 with a young Northern girl who taught the rising generation 
 in the yellow school house on Hospital Street. He wooed and 
 won her in true Southern fashion, though the town wondered 
 that the ''school missus" should take good-for-nothing Lopo 
 Sanchez for her husband. He had adored her as a weak nature 
 will sometimes adore a stronger one. Her thrift and mental 
 briskness he admired, though but dimly understood, and when 
 she died after the birth of their baby daughter, he felt that some 
 thing in him had snapped the mainspring of his life was 
 broken. 
 
80 St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 He sold out his curiosity shop and moved out of town a 
 couple of miles beyond the City gates to a deserted plantation 
 on the shore. There, surrounded by relics of the home to 
 which he had brought his girl-wife, he gradually separated him 
 self from his old interests, and was soon forgotten, or only re 
 membered as that queer old man who lived with the crabs on 
 the edge of the sand dunes. Round his daughter he twined 
 the broken tendrils of his lost love, and as she grew to <rirlhood, 
 
 O O 
 
 wreathed her with the same adoring affection he had felt for 
 her dead mother. 
 
 But somehow he was not as happy as he told himself he- 
 should be. Was not Ria a girl to be proud of? Had she not 
 a face like a flower, and ways the most gentle and bewitching? 
 But he felt that she had never given him an affection as ardent 
 and unselfish as his own. He thought he must be growing 
 old and selfish, and when his heart felt particularly empty, 
 would tend his potato patch with renewed vigor, or try by 
 some little attention to make up for her lack of thoughtfulness 
 for him. 
 
 The two led simple lives ; solitary, save for the woman who 
 helped Ria in her household matters, and their weekly visit to 
 town to sell their oranges or flowers. For eight years Ria had 
 studied at the convent, and read somewhat promiscuously from 
 the public library, but she loved far better to lie for hours like 
 a lizard in the sun, or take "headers" from the end of their 
 
Prince Charming of New York. ft I 
 
 dugout. Her father she loved in a gentle fashion. She would 
 cling and purr around him in her pretty way, though much in 
 the same way that her kitten would rub itself against a tree- 
 trunk. It pleased her mental epidermis. 
 
 As the cart jolted on over the sandy road, Lopo thought 
 vaguely of these things, but only vaguely, for something had 
 occurred lately which occupied all his spare moments. 
 
 A fortnight before, on coming from the beach, he found Ria 
 under the orange trees with her lace work, and kneeling before 
 her, a tall young fellow, whose blue eyes were watching with 
 interest her little brown hands, casting the shuttle to and fro. 
 
 She was smiling and dimpling, and he seemed all uncon 
 scious of the brown earth his white flannel knees were pressing. 
 When Lopo joined them the young fellow had risen with un 
 embarrassed grace, and explained that having walked from the 
 town and feeling very tired and thirsty, he had ventured to ask 
 for some water. Lopo replied civilly, though wondering what 
 iace work had to do with thirst, and why Ria's face should be 
 so aglow. 
 
 To the girl the stranger was the Prince Charming, of whom 
 she had so often dreamed. To be sure he had no flowing 
 curls or silken doublet, but, after all, were not close-cropped 
 hair and well-fitting flannels as comely? She looked from' 
 him to her father standing awkwardly in the sun how rough 
 and ugly he looked. Dick Barclay was not looking at Lopo, 
 
82 St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 but at the daughter with her dusky eyes and soft, full mouth. 
 Indeed he had continued that occupation every day ever since. 
 Day by day the girl seemed to blossom into greater beauty a 
 thousand little coquetries showed themselves to Lopo's obser 
 vant eyes. The young man seemed to mean well enough, aad 
 it might mean great good fortune for his little girl. 
 
 He turned "Fly Catcher" into the grove surrounding the 
 house, and, feeling in his pocket for the ribbon he had bought 
 her, he stroked it with his fingers. He drove around to the 
 shed, fed the horse, then went slowly up the path bordered by 
 tall oleanders, to the house. He felt faint and tired. At the 
 open door he paused and looked in. 
 
 Hither and thither spun a slender white figure, her skirts 
 held in old-time fashion, while her feet kept time to the wait/ 
 she was singing. She spun round and round, here and there, 
 like a bit of thistle-down, her head thrown back in very aban 
 donment of joyous animation. The walls and ceiling of the 
 room were covered with ivy, which grew on bamboo trellises, 
 nailed to the coquina ; against this dark background the airy 
 figure of the girl stood out in spirited distinctness. Dick Bar 
 clay sat perched on the window-sill, his blue eyes following 
 every movement with evident admiration. 
 
 "Brava! Brava !" he cried, as she passed in her whirling- 
 flight. i( You are a fairy, a wind sprite." 
 
 She laughed, and stood in pretty confusion, pulling at the 
 
Prince Charming of Neiv York. 83 
 
 roses in her belt. "You see," she said, "father will never let 
 me go to the hotel hops, so sometimes I have a ball all to my 
 self. I imagine the room," with a free sweep of her arm, u a 
 great hall lit by hundreds of glittering lights shining down on 
 stately men and beautiful women. There are perfumes and 
 laughter, rustle of silks and brilliant glances, and all the 
 bright and beautiful things I read about. Oh ! I can see it 
 quite distinctly, and can hear the music, till I have to dance, 
 dance." 
 
 She paused, seeing Lopo in the doorway, ran to him. 
 
 "Oh! father your supper. I quite forgot and it must be 
 cold. We made some cakes, Mr. Barclay and I. You should 
 have seen him in Melvyna's old apron." She turned to her 
 companion with a laugh. Lopo passed through to the kitchen, 
 cut himself some bread, after tasting the cakes now cold and 
 heavy. He had not given Ria the ribbon. With her head 
 full of such splendid fancies it would have seemed a poor gift. 
 Through the closed door he could hear a murmur of words 
 from Dick, then a ripple of laughter from her. He suddenly 
 felt old and tired. He looked at the sun, a red ball sinking 
 behind the bank of dark shadows. He felt a strange longing 
 to be far away, alone, where nothing could jar or hurt him any 
 more, where the hungry feeling at his heart could be forgotten. 
 Rising he crossed to where a bit of mirror hung on the wall. 
 Putting his face close to it he examined it carefully. He saw 
 
84 S/. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 a pair of dull eyes, a pained look in their depths; a thin, worn 
 face, sensitive chin and mouth, with weak lines at the cor- 
 
 * 
 
 ners. He glanced down at his rough hands and coarse wrists, 
 then brushing his coat sleeve across his eyes, went quietly 
 out. 
 
CHAPTER IT. 
 
 A WEEK of sea-breezes followed the storm of that night. 
 Lopo spent most of the time fishing or gathering the 
 oranges, which hung in golden plenty behind the house. Ria 
 sang about the house or lay for hours on the sand, her head on 
 her arms, looking up to the blue vault above, where hawks 
 sailed lazily on motionless wings. Dick Barclay continued 
 his daily visits, each one being a little longer than the last. 
 Lopo noticed their talk was less unconstrained when he was 
 near, so kept away as much as possible. The young fellow 
 entertained her by the hour with stories of his travels, or his 
 home in far-away New York. He explained to her the myster 
 ies of base ball, and would send oranges whirling through the 
 air shouting to her, "Run ! run! first base !" But she liked 
 best to hear of the Patriarch balls, or coasting at Tuxedo. It 
 seemed very wonderful and grand. One evening she nestled 
 herself in her father's arms and told him all about it. "Oh ! 
 why can't I go where he lives?" she sighed. 
 
 One scented moonlit evening Lopo had spent making out 
 his accounts in his slow, cramped fashion by the light of a 
 kerosene lamp. Mosquitoes came buzzing through the window 
 and beetles bumped about the ceiling. At last he put out the 
 
86 St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 lamp and went out. Through the jasmine vines covering the 
 piazza the moon cast flickering shadows ; a mocking bird was 
 singing in the almond tree. Lopo was conscious in his 
 sensitive fashion of the peaceful scene. He heard the murmur 
 of the young people and went toward them. Suddenly he 
 paused, a dazed look growing on his face. In a shadowy 
 corner stood Dick, his arm around the girl, her face hidden on 
 his breast. 
 
 "Oh! Ria, little one," he was saying, "you don't know 
 what love is. It means longing by day and dreaming by night ; 
 it means this this." He raised her face and kissed her mouth, 
 hair and slender throat. Lopo stirred ; Dick, startled, looked 
 up, then sprang down, ran to his horse and away. Ria, with 
 a little cry, fled past him into the house. 
 
 He stood bewildered for a moment, looking out on the sea, 
 listening to the receding sound of the horse's hoofs. u So he 
 loves her," he murmured, then turned and went into the house 
 and up to his room. The moonlight showed the bare furnish 
 ings distinctly : the narrow bed, the Madonna and crucifix on 
 the wall, a few daguerrotypes on the high bureau. The vines 
 outside cast shadows like moving water on the painted floor 
 and bit of rag carpet. 
 
 He sat quietly for some time, his lips moving and eyes fixed 
 on vacancy, then rose and crossed to an old-fashioned chest of 
 drawers with brass handles, which stood in a dim corner under 
 
Prince Charming of New York. 87 
 
 the eaves. He knelt stiffly down and opened the lowest 
 drawer. Out of this he drew a long-tailed blue coat, a snuff- 
 colored waistcoat, and ruffled shirt, his wedding clothes. 
 Slowly, with trembling ringers he put these on, fastened the 
 high stock round his throat and drew on a pair of mould-spotted 
 white gloves. Then taking from the drawer a beaver hat, he 
 went down, and out of the house. 
 
 It was midnight. He left the gate open behind him, and 
 followed the road through the woods to the shore. The tide 
 was at its ebb. His heavy boots crushed with a faint sound 
 the bits of shell on the sand. No living thing seemed alive 
 but himself and a crane, disturbed from its sleep among the 
 reeds. Tiny waves ran up to the shore and back again, and 
 some crabs scuttled swiftly to their holes as though frightened 
 by the strange, lonely figure. Across the harbor, Anastasia 
 Light glowed fitfully, paled by the white moon. Lopo plodded 
 on with bent head for a mile, then turned into a lane which 
 led to the old Spanish grave-yard. No tree or shrub grew 
 there, only the brown moss, dotted with graves, stretched 
 down to the shore. The ruins of a chapel stood bare and 
 gaunt in the pale light, with vines growing over its shattered 
 altar. 
 
 Lopo looked neither to the right nor left but passed on to a 
 low mound near the water's edge. On a wooden cross at its 
 head, painted in black letters were the words : 
 
88 St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 RACIIAEL, 
 
 BELOVED WIFE OF LOPO SANCHEZ, 
 BORN 1847, DIED l866. 
 
 At the foot of the cross I lived, and noiv repose. 
 
 He laid down his hat, and lovingly stroked the brown turf. 
 The shadow ofthe cross fell on his bent head. He felt he was 
 near one who had loved him and who would understand. Was 
 not the only living thing he cared for about to leave him, and 
 give her wealth of love, which never had been his, to a stranger? 
 That she loved, he was convinced ; for the instant her 
 face had been lifted to Dick's rain of kisses there was a look 
 there he had never seen before in all the years of her love- 
 tendered life. She had always shrunk from his caresses per 
 haps he had loved her too well he had heard women were 
 sometimes so. Dick would come on the morrow and ask 
 him for his all. his little girl, and carry her North, many 
 weary miles away. How he would miss the click of her little 
 feet about the house ; the warmth of her young arms about his 
 neck. His heart shrank before the vista of loneliness. She 
 should not go poorly to her husband ; he would give her the 
 two thousand dollars he had saved. She had always liked 
 things fine and gay; well, she should have them. Perhaps 
 she might miss the old peaceful life now and then, and come 
 
Prince Charming of New Tork. 89 
 
 back to him for a while, but he thought not. Her little brown 
 hands would grow soft and white, there would be no more 
 cakes to make or chickens to feed. She would have many 
 fine horses instead of old Fly Catcher, and ride in a splendid 
 carnage instead of the wooden cart. Yes, he would tell this 
 fine lover on the morrow to take her, and no sign should escape 
 him of any selfish pain. 
 
 The shadow of the cross had passed from him and the moon 
 bathed the old blue coat with kindly light. He was still sitting 
 there when the stars paled before the gold and rose of the 
 coming day. 
 
 It was nearly ten o'clock. Lopo put the house in order and 
 ate his breakfast alone. He had stolen several times to Ria's 
 door on tiptoe, but no sound reached him. He supposed she 
 had slept but little during the night and felt tired. Had he not 
 wandered about the pine barrens all night in sleepless ecstasy 
 when Rachael first said she loved him ? At last he went down 
 to the beach, pushed oft' the skiff, and, rod in hand, waited 
 for her to appear. He would notice nothing ; lovers were 
 always strange and shy at first. 
 
 At last she appeared in the doorway. He saw she had on 
 her white Sunday gown. She did not see him, but stood 
 motionless, looking up, then throwing out both arms with a 
 glad little movement ran down and out to the garden. An 
 
 7 
 
90 St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 hour later, when Lopo entered the house, she was arranging 
 great masses of palm branches about the house. Every avail 
 able cup and vase were filled with roses. Her cheeks glowed 
 like pomegranate blossoms, her whole being radiated youth 
 and hope. During the day nothing was said on either side of 
 what both were feeling so intensely. After their noon dinner, 
 which was the time Mr. Barclay usually came, Lopo put on a 
 stiff white collar and his polished boots, and settled himself in 
 elegant leisure. He had aged during the night, but Ria did 
 not observe it. A rose blossomed in the girl's hair and she had 
 carelessly pinned another in his black coat. She wandered 
 restlessly about the house, starting at every little sound. Tea- 
 time arrived. The girl had spread the table herself, studying 
 the placing of each old silver spoon and flower. The sun 
 slowly sank in the glowing west and twilight crept up from 
 the sea, but Dick had not come. They finally sat down to the 
 gay little table. Both made feeble efforts at conversation, and 
 once at a sudden noise outside, the girl half rose from the table 
 flushing, then paling. 
 
 "The Fly Catcher seems uneasy tonight," the old man care 
 lessly remarked, a dull pain at his heart as he saw the chill 
 gray look settle on the girl's face. 
 
 The stars came out one by one in the deep vault above 
 the beauty and peace of the evening before were still there, 
 but neither knew it. Both were listening for the sound of a 
 
Prince Charming of New Tork. 91 
 
 horse which did not come. Ria had grown strangely quiet. 
 Lopo could see her white face through the dusk as she sat on 
 the topmost step of the piazza, looking intently into the dark 
 shadows of the trees. Ten, eleven o'clock. Ria had crept into 
 her father's arms, her face hidden in his neck. The little rose 
 was quite faded, and the muslin gown was starchless and rum 
 pled. They sat quietly, saying nothing, his hand stroking the 
 tossed curls on his shoulder. It was difficult to tell which 
 suffered more. Slow tears rose to Lopo's old eyes and ran 
 down the natural gullies of his furrowed cheeks, to the slim 
 arm which wound itself about his throat. They gradually 
 made a little damp spot on the thin sleeve. She stirred and 
 passed her hand over his face. 
 
 "Will he never come?" she sobbed at last. 
 
 "I'm afraid he never will, daughter," was the answer. And 
 he never did. 
 
THE ROMANCE OF A PAIR OF SHOES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 MY troubles and 013* happiness began in St. Augustine, 
 March 17, at precisely half after three in the afternoon. 
 
 The day had been fearfully warm, and tired of the chatter 
 and buzz of the hotel piazzas, I tucked a volume of Emerson 
 in my pocket and fled down to the water for a quiet pipe. 
 Taking a row boat I paddled out, but the sun proved too 
 ardent even there. I was about to give it up, when I spied the 
 long pier which juts out over the water two or three hundred 
 feet. It would certainly be cool under there I thought ; and 
 was soon in its shadow. I tied the boat to the barnacled posts, 
 shipped oars, and stretched myself full length in the bottom of 
 the boat. The light filtered dimly through the cracks of the 
 boards above, and the tide gently swayed the boat as it gurgled 
 and swirled round the great palmettoes which formed the 
 piles. 
 
 Emerson held my interest for awhile, but the green, waver 
 ing light blurred the page. Gradually mv eves closed, and I 
 was fast asleep. In the midst of a most interesting dream, 
 where I was reciting poems to a row of crabs perched on their 
 hind legs on the edge of the boat, I was awakened by the sound 
 
The Romance of a Pair of Shoes. 93 
 
 of voices. The faint tones surged around me; but whether 
 they came from the mermaids below, or the above mentioned 
 crabs, I could not for a moment tell. 
 
 Suddenly I discovered, dangling almost over my head, a small 
 pair of feet. They were encased in a remarkably well made 
 pair of patent leather shoes, evidently new, as the number, 
 "2 a" was distinctly marked in the curve of the heel. The 
 little toes were pointed, and from them rose a beautifully 
 curved instep, clad in dark blue stockings, embroidered with 
 tiny white polka dots, though these were almost lost in a foamy 
 mass of lace-edged draperies. 
 
 This bewitching pair of feet dangled not three yards from 
 my astonished visage, but in vain I stretched and twisted for a 
 glimpse of their owner. She was sitting on the edge of the 
 pier and with her a man, whose voice only betrayed his 
 presence. 
 
 The gurgling of the water dulled their conversation, but 
 words floated down to me. Suddenly my now thoroughly 
 awakened ears heard the deeper voice say : 
 
 "But you must have known I loved you all this time, dear?" 
 And the girl's voice in ardent protest ; 
 
 "Why of course 1 knew you loved me, as I did you, Jack; 
 but after all these years of boy and girl affection, I never 
 dreamed of this. I thought men never fell in love with their 
 sisters." 
 
94 St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 Great heavens, here was a state of things ! What should I 
 do? If I moved they would know it if I stayed, to what 
 depths of perfidy might I not be the innocent victim? Im 
 pulse prompted me to row out from under them at once, but I 
 hated to cause the owner of those pretty patent leathers such 
 embarrassment. Besides I didn't know them, and probably 
 never would : so in a whirl of mortification I lay down in the 
 bottom of the boat again, with my fingers in my ears. 
 
 The words became inaudible, but those little dangling feet 
 seemed to have a language all their own. They twitched and 
 beat the air in paroxisms of either grief or wrath as "Jack's" 
 tones grew louder, and hung limply down, as his pleadings 
 waxed pathetic. I felt sure she was pretty as well as clever. 
 
 For quite half an hour I laid there scarcely daring to breathe, 
 and studied every line of the arched instep, slender heel, and 
 even counted the polka dots. It was with difficulty that I re 
 frained from tying the strings which her nervousness had un 
 done. I found myself growing anxious. Was she going to 
 accept him? I began to hate "Jack." Bother the fellow 
 why couldn't he take "no" and quit? 
 
 Who could she be ? I searched my memory for all the shoes 
 of the women I had met, but no such patent leathers crossed 
 my mental vision. The voice only seemed a bit familiar, but 
 the splash of the water made that too indistinct to place. And 
 "Jack," who was he? 
 
The Romance of a Pair of Shoes. 95 
 
 Gradually *my curiosity and interest grew to a resolve to 
 know the owner of those feet. St. Augustine was compara 
 tively a small place. Surely I could trace her by those very 
 shoes and polka dots ; or else listen for the name of "Jack" on 
 piazzas, and haunt hotel registers till I found him, and then her. 
 
 As this resolved itself in my cerebrum, the feet suddenly 
 disappeared, first one, then the other, leaving empty air and a 
 lonely feeling somewhere within me. A rustle of readjusted 
 skirts and the tramp of heavy feet on the boards above me. I 
 grasped the oars and flew out from underneath, to see this so 
 far bodiless girl. But alas ! they had vanished. A pile of 
 lumber obstructed all view, and they quickly reached, and 
 were lost in the crowd on the Plaza. 
 
 It was nearly twilight when I reached my hotel. 
 The tiny, colored lights which served as illumination for the 
 great central court, gleamed faintly among the palms and 
 creepers. The moon above gleamed adown one side of the 
 building, showing bits of carving, and leaving the depths of 
 the loggias in profound shadow. 
 
 Entering the deserted rotunda I instinctively looked about 
 for any feminine figures, but only one "was visible she of 
 mammoth proportions, and evidently not a wearer of "num 
 ber 2 s." While dressing, and all through dinner, I was 
 haunted by those polka dots, and that half heard caressing 
 voice. 
 
96 St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 My seat for several weeks had been at Mrs. Cabot's table. 
 She was from Boston, and was acting as chaperone to her 
 niece, Miss Randolph, a charming New York girl. Mrs. 
 Cabot was as true a type of the former place as her niece was 
 of her native city. SlTe was thin, pale and highly finished. 
 Her native east wind seemed to blow all frivolity from her 
 proximity, leaving an atmosphere of rather depressed refine 
 ment. One felt it always vulgar to be anything but resigned to 
 the incongruities of life in her presence. 
 
 Not so her niece however. She had the half flirtatious, 
 but wholly fetching air of the average New York girl. Her 
 tall and slender figure was always draped and tailored artisti 
 cally. She affected large hats, which admirably set off' her 
 golden-brown hair, and rose-leaf complexion. Her open and 
 childlike glance was a constant foil for her fashionable tricks of 
 speech and gesture. She was both worldly and innocent, but 
 with a fund of common sense which prevented an exaggeration 
 of either. 
 
 They left the table before me, and while cooling my coffee, 
 I considered the advisability of calling her womanly shrewd 
 ness to my aid. But on the other hand, I dreaded that direct 
 gaze of astonishment when she should learn of my idiocy. 
 That I should find the owner of those patent-leathers I was de 
 termined, but how to do it? Suddenly a brilliant idea struck 
 me. 
 
The Romance of a Pair of Shoes. 97 
 
 Shoes were always blackened, varnished or oiled, and for 
 that purpose were placed outside the doors at night. Eu 
 reka ! I would search the midnight corridors above till I found 
 them ; get number of room, inquire at office nothing easier. 
 "All is fair in love and war." And then "Jack" ! with skill I 
 could learn the names of the numberless young men one con 
 stantly met in this free and easy life. If, however, all my 
 plans should fail, I would take Miss Randolph into my confi 
 dence. There would be no risk in this, as I had been with 
 her constantly, and had never seen her pretty feet in anything 
 but tennis shoes or button boots. 
 
 My coffee and cogitations finished, I sauntered out from the 
 brilliant dining-room to the rotunda. Men and women in 
 evening dress sat or strolled about. Little groups were con 
 stantly forming and breaking, like bits of color in a kaleidoscope- 
 Here and there among the columns, pretty women sat, 
 around whom clustered an ever changing number of black 
 coats. 
 
 In one of these groups was Miss Randolph, her delicate face 
 slightly flushed by the heat, and the effort of being heard in the 
 noise and confusion. I instinctively went toward her, but 
 thought "business before pleasure." So I sauntered here and 
 there, my eyes glued to the floor, snatching side-long glances 
 at the slippers, shoes and boots peeping from under draperies. 
 But to no purpose. 
 
98 St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 Then I went to the hotel register. With outward calm but 
 inward trepidation, I turned the pages and eagerly searched for 
 anything beginning with J. Several Jacobs, Johnstons and 
 Jones, were there, but no " Jacks." 
 
 "Of course," I concluded, "he wouldn't register himself so 
 how stupid of me!" I decided to give up my quest for the 
 present, and wait till the feminine portion of the guests had re 
 tired. Then would I carry out my clever scheme in the silent 
 halls above. I decided to wait till midnight. Everyone would 
 surely be abed by that time, and besides, I might be mistaken 
 for a midnight marauder if seen prowling far from my own 
 quarters. So I smoked and dreamed of those polka-dots till 
 everyone had retired, save some sleepy hall-boys, and a sleepier 
 clerk at the desk. 
 
 I got oft' the lift at my own floor to avoid suspicion. The 
 electric lights were mostly out. In the dimness a vista of 
 door-mats and occasional boots and shoes stretched away on 
 either hand. The big affairs I steered clear of, but darted 
 hither and thither among smaller shoes. Such shapes and 
 sizes of leather foot gear may I never meet again ! Surely the 
 average American foot is not the fairy-like thing we so fondly 
 imagine. Up and down the halls I wandered, getting more 
 and more nervous, but to no purpose. Once, as I stooped to 
 examine a possible pair, the door suddenly opened and a curl- 
 papered face glared at me and then vanished with a slam of 
 
The Romance of a Pair of Shoes. 99 
 
 the door. She evidently thought me a lunatic or a thief. Then 
 again I darted across the hall and dropped to my knees on a 
 door-mat, as a bell-boy flew round the corner, a pitcher of ice- 
 water borne on high. 
 
 "Is enything happened to yo' sah?" he asked, with an evi 
 dent suspicion of intoxication. 
 
 "No," I exclaimed, energetically, ;i only stumbled a little." 
 But I know the little darkie thought he knew better. 
 
 Having explored every door to the very attic, I concluded I 
 had been a fool long enough for that night, and would wait 
 till morning for a continuation of that character. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE next morning found me still on patent leathers intent 
 though while dressing I could not help laughing at the 
 spectacle I must have presented the night before. However, I 
 was still resolved to do the same thing at every respectable 
 hotel in the place till I had exhausted the supply. 
 
 All that day my gaze refused to wander heavenward. Out 
 sailing that morning and at tennis that afternoon, I searched 
 the "little mice peeping in and out" of my feminine compan 
 ions in vain. My subtle scheme to learn the masculine Chris 
 tian names did me credit. 
 
 That night I circumnavigated the halls of two hotels in 
 vain, and so it went on for several days. At last one day 
 while watching the swimmers in the great pool, I heard a 
 girl's voice say (not the voice) from the other side of a col 
 umn : 
 
 "I wish Jack Townsend would go in; he is a famous 
 swimmer." I started. I gasped for breath ! Rushing round 
 the column, I eyed the girl in such a way that she looked 
 frightened. But I did not know her, and felt certain I had 
 never seen her with any one I did know. "Jack Jack 
 Townsend," he was the man. I felt it ; I knew it. Yet how 
 to find him. He might be one of the group then entering; 
 but still he was as far from me as the North Pole. 
 
The Romance of a Pair of Shoes. 101 
 
 All that day I asked every one I met if they knew Jack 
 Townsend, but always to be disappointed. I again searched 
 hotel registers, and at last found his autograph at the Can- 
 ova in a firm finished hand, and "New York" after the 
 name. I gave the clerk my most effective smile. 
 
 "Can you tell me what Mr. Townsend is like?" I asked. 
 "I am anxious to know if he is the same person I met some 
 time since." 
 
 "No," he replied, with lofty indifference, and a supercilious 
 stare at my disappointed countenance: "I can't remember all 
 the transient guests of this house." 
 
 With a sigh I turned away. Almost had I reached him, 
 but a miss was as bad as a mile. 
 
 That afternoon, while riding in the pine woods, I passed a 
 merry party also a cheval. As they cantered by me, a girl's 
 voice cried: "This way, Mr. Morris, you know we agreed to 
 meet Mr. Townsend out here." 
 
 My heart gave a bound ; and whipping up my horse, I 
 trotted after to join the party, several of whom 1 knew. "At 
 last," I murmured, "the enemy is mine ! " 
 
 Half a mile on I joined them, just as a tall, thin man on a 
 short, fat horse met them. Could this gray-haired, solemn 
 visaged person be the "Jack" whose manly young voice had 
 said "I love you" with such feeling? They were all chatter 
 ing around me, and I roused myself when one of the women 
 
102 St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 introduced him to me as "Mr. Townsend." "He is my 
 Uncle Jack," she added. 
 
 "It is warm riding, eh?" he asked, in a voice which made 
 me think of "Hark from the tombs a doleful sound." I 
 turned away in disgusted despair, and excusing myself, rode 
 homeward. I was as far as ever from those adorable patent 
 leathers. 
 
 A few days after Miss Randolph, having gone off vvitli 
 another man for the morning, had left me in a decidedly 
 sulky frame of mind. There was no use in my devoting my 
 self to another girl, as she was not there to see ; so I started 
 off for a solitary stroll. Having often heard of the picturesque 
 quaintness of "Africa," the so-called negro quarter, I turned 
 my steps toward that dark portion of the globe. 
 
 I passed the Casino with its stretches of lawn and shrub 
 bery, on through a narrow street, to find myself indeed in a 
 strange land. Everything was black which should have been 
 white, from the faces around me to the pickaninnies' pinafores, 
 which were the blackest of all. Tiny cabins edged the road, 
 their holes and gaps smothered in jasmine vines and creepers. 
 Shiny black children rolled in the dirt about the steps, while 
 their elders lolled over the broken-down fences smoking their 
 pipes, and as free from all signs of care as any of our "coupon- 
 cutters" of Wall Street. 
 
 My esthetic enjoyment was brought to a sudden end by a 
 sight which filled my very soul with rapture. My long-sought 
 
The Romance of a Pair of Shoes. 103 
 
 polka-dots were fluttering gaily in the breeze not ten feet 
 away ! There on a line they dangled, attenuated and damp, 
 but still my polka-dots. In a trice I was knocking on the 
 mossy lintel of the door. The fattest human creature mine 
 eyes had beheld since my boyhood days at Barnum's rolled 
 toward me, shaking the unsubstantial building to its founda 
 tions. Her round, good-natured face beamed a shrewd kind 
 liness on me as I said : 
 
 "Aunty, I notice a pair of stockings er, the blue ones. 
 They are just like those belonging to er my er" 
 
 "Yo' lady, sah?" she benevolently interrupted. "Why 
 bress yo' soul, de Lawcl hab sent yo' sho' 'nuff. Dem stock 
 ings hab gib me mo' trouble sah ! Dey done come here in de 
 wash, and when I send 'em back, they don't b'long to no 
 body. I done gone most clean crazy wid 'em, fur [ nebber 
 gits my close mixed, like dem washer-ladies in de town, 
 nohow. Yo' kin ask if Aunt Hetty is sich a po' chile es dat." 
 
 "Well, Aunt Hetty," I replied, with some embarrassment, 
 "I can't be quite sure that they do belong to my er lady, 
 though she has some like them which I should like to find." 
 
 Meanwhile a hundred thoughts whirled through my brain. 
 I could not take them, surely not. But why not take one of 
 these missing links? Aunt Hetty stood there stroking them 
 with her parboiled fingers, and I took one reverently in my 
 hand. 
 
104 St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 1 'After all," I said to her, "I don't believe they are quite 
 like my lady's. I tell you what we'll do. I'll take one and 
 inquire, and you keep the other in case the owner turns up. 
 If she should, mind now, here is my address. Send me her 
 name and address, and she shall receive it at once, see?" 
 
 "Bress yo' soul, honey, dat'll be all right," was her com 
 forting reply. "My ole man is a great han' fur writen, an' 
 I'll hab him do it. I's powerful weak when it comes to plan- 
 nin', but yo' am a sho' 'nun manager, he he he !" 
 
 So I left the smiling vision in the frame of the doorway and 
 turned homeward. I was in a mingled state of triumph and 
 dismay. One of the polka-dots was in my breast pocket, but 
 I refrained from looking at or touching it. But it was there, 
 its silken texture heaving with my every breath. Surely 
 Stanley had made no happier discoveries in darkest Africa 
 than had I. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THAT evening the annual festivities of the Yacht Club 
 were given, comprising fireworks, an illuminated yacht 
 race, and ball in the Club house. Miss Randolph was to 
 leave the following day for Atlanta, her aunt joining her later 
 in Washington. We had been asked with several others on 
 the yacht which was to lead the procession. Every vessel 
 large and small was illuminated from bow to stern. Japanese 
 lanterns outlined each mast and sail, and the Club house was 
 also a mass of twinkling brightness. As the first flight of 
 rockets burst against the sky, the yachts formed in proces 
 sion and moved about the harbor, a fleet of starry splendor. 
 
 Miss Randolph and I had strolled to the stern of our yacht, 
 and stood listening to the music admiring the novel sight. 
 She was in her ball-gown, and looked a fitting part of the 
 dreamy beauty. Suddenly she remembered her evening's 
 mail which I had kept in my pocket for her. As she read 
 her letters, I thought of my resolve to tell her the history of 
 those fateful shoes if my own efforts failed. I felt that her 
 woman's wit might solve the problem. 
 
 She looked up from the last sheet with a serious and pre 
 occupied face. If she had been a man I should have thought 
 
 3 
 
106 St. A iigustin e Rent nants. 
 
 "bills" ; but being an attractive girl I decided, a man. But 
 her face looking pale under the moon's rays, gradually re 
 gained its old archness, and I felt my way to the matter in hand. 
 
 "Miss Randolph," I said, "does a woman feel flattered at a 
 man's confidence?" 
 
 "In herself?" she asked. 
 
 "No, a confidence given her." 
 
 "Well," she said, "that depends on the nature of the con- 
 dence. If about himself, yes." 
 
 This was encouraging, but I thought she eyed me some 
 what mockingly. 
 
 "But I want to tell you something very much," I said. "It 
 is about myself in a way. I am in a dilemma, and feel sure 
 you can help me." 
 
 She looked politely interested, and I plunged into my story. 
 At the commencement she expressed no opinion of my eaves 
 dropping ; but as I described the tender avovval I had so un 
 wittingly heard, and the two little feet dangling so near me. 
 she said : 
 
 "Poor girl, I hope she'll never know. But he must have 
 been a stupid 'Jack' to propose in broad daylight, right after 
 lunch. He might have known he would get 'no.' ' 
 
 I dwelt lightly on my search for the shoes, trying to place 
 my midnight prowls in as dignified a light as possible. But 
 at this part of the story she laughed immoderately. 
 
Romance of a Pair of Shoes. 107 
 
 "If you ever do meet her," she said, "don't tell her that; 
 it robs the situation of all its romance." Then she sobered. 
 "Poor Jack; he is probably suffering now for love of his un 
 loving sweetheart." Her hand smoothed the letter she held : 
 she was probably pitying the writer as another "Jack." 
 
 The polka-dots I had kept in the background. I instinc 
 tively felt she would not approve the presence of that stolen 
 property at that moment reposing in my pocket. She listened 
 to all I had to say with interest, but not with the degree of 
 sympathy I had hoped for. When I finished she suddenly 
 rose. All laughter left her face. 
 
 "Well," she said, "it was kind of you to tell me this. I 
 fear I can do nothing to help you, as I leave to-morrow. 
 I hope you may find the girl after I am gone, and that she 
 will prove worthy of your labor. She is certainly fortunate 
 to have you so literally at her feet." 
 
 She gathered up her shawl and moved toward another 
 group. I somehow felt dismissed, disapproved of, and, yes, 
 a little snubbed. I bowed and left her, and strolled away 
 alone. And to-morrow she was to leave ! How I wished I 
 had not told her, for she evidently thought me idiotic. The 
 rest of the evening I cursed those patent leathers. 
 
 At breakfast the next morning, Miss Randolph chattered 
 gaily, and treated me with the same friendliness as of yore. 
 But there was, after all, a difference. I felt it in her cordial 
 
108 .SV. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 ' 'good-bye" and the smiling glance she threw me from the car 
 window as the train moved away. At all events she was not 
 offended. 
 
 The hotel seemed strangely silent on my return. I knocked 
 at Mrs. Cabot's door, hoping for a little pity or petting. 
 
 "Come in," she said; and I entered. She was sitting by 
 the window, a volume of Ibsen on her knee, and I drew my 
 chair near hers. 
 
 "Well, Mrs. Cabot, you miss Miss Randolph as we all do," 
 I began. 
 
 "More," she answered. "My niece is charming company 
 for me, as I do not enjoy hotel life. One cannot get into 
 sympathy with so many people." 
 
 While she was speaking her gaze wandered at intervals 
 beyond me in a conscious w r ay, and she spoke absently. I 
 turned, my eyes following her line of vision. Suppressing an 
 exclamation of surprise, I leaped from my chair at the extraor 
 dinary sight which met my eyes. 
 
 There in the centre of a huge sheet of paper nailed to the 
 wall, and bordered two inches deep with black, hung those fate 
 ful patent leathers ! I recognized them at a glance as they 
 hung from the nail, bunches of immortelles falling out of them. 
 Underneath, in big, black letters, I read the legend, 
 "To the memory of the dear departed." 
 
 I turned to Mrs. Cabot with some inarticulate words. 
 
Romance of a Pair of Shoes. 109 
 
 "Yes, they are my niece's shoes," she drawled, in her cool, 
 even voice. "I can't imagine why she left them there, but 
 she begged me to leave them for a day or two. Yesterday 
 afternoon her old Aunt Hetty, as she calls her, was here, and 
 they apparently had some joke together. It is a little strange, 
 but New York girls are always somewhat inexplicable to me." 
 
 The situation was now clearly before me in all its awful- 
 ness. Alas ! she knew everything, even the polka-dots. Suf 
 fice to say I too left the next day for Atlanta, and well, I can 
 now afford to patronize the memory of "Jack." 
 
PRISCILLA ALDEN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IT WAS a long perspective on which her faded eyes looked 
 down. To her it seemed as though her real self had died 
 a long time ago, in the past which ended when she said k 'good 
 bye" to her brief girlhood and to her well-ordered, thrifty life 
 in the New England town where she was born. 
 
 She remembered the neat, white house with its wide piazzas 
 and white, fluted columns, on which the elms threw flickering 
 shadows in Summer, and whose eaves were shrouded with 
 snow in \Vinter; the quiet of the wide, grass-grown streets: 
 the green-shuttered Meeting-house opposite, flanked by the 
 post-office, and the familiar farmers grouped upon the well- 
 worn granite steps. 
 
 The simple life had rilled every nook in her nature : of the 
 outside world she knew nothing, and cared nothing for. 
 Those sheltering New England hills had for twenty-five years 
 shut out all care and anxiety. Her mother, a neutral tinted 
 woman, had always been ah invalid, whose bodily infirmities 
 exacted only knitted shawls and inactivity of mind and body. 
 
 As Priscilla grew into girlhood, the administration of the 
 household fell naturally on her young shoulders. It was to 
 her that her father looked for advice as to the management of 
 
Priscitta Alden. Ill 
 
 the farm, and she was the umpire to whom he appealed, when 
 old Henny, their maid-of-all-work, would give him what she 
 called a "rootin'," for meddling with things which she con 
 sidered none of his business. 
 
 Priscilla had been well educated, first at the village school, 
 and finished off by her father, who had graduated from Har 
 vard as his grandfathers had done before him. It was he who 
 
 o 
 
 kept before her child-eyes the past glories of the house of 
 Alden, their important function in the first establishment of 
 civilization in this country ; and it was his ambition to live up 
 to the standard of his ancestry, as far as his limited field of ac 
 tion allowed. 
 
 Gideon Alden had been born with the ineffaceable impression 
 that he was not as other men are. He felt that he was a genius, 
 though in what direction his gifts tended, neither he nor his 
 friends had been able to decide. He had married at twenty, 
 and was still a comparatively young and prepossessing man. 
 His tall, slender figure was always fastidiously dressed ; he 
 wore his hair rather long, and affected loose, flying cravats. 
 Among his towns-people he was regarded as very decorative 
 and accomplished, though not of much practical benefit. They 
 looked upon him much as they did on the ornamental cornice 
 of the town-hall ; as a "trimmin'," but of no real use to the 
 community. At the public meetings he was always a con 
 spicuous figure, and his resonant voice and rounded periods 
 
112 St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 always commanded attention as an exponent of Harvard elo 
 quence. 
 
 At intervals he would appear in his most beruffled shirt and 
 highest stock, which were the visible signs of a commercial 
 mood ; and on these occasions he would go to Boston for days 
 at a time, to return with an elated bearing, sanguine and happy 
 over some wonderful scheme, by which his family would again 
 take the position to which he considered them entitled. For 
 tune was, to him, always hovering benignly in the near future, 
 and this assurance gave him a gentle acquiescence to his rather 
 cramped financial status. 
 
 As a child, Priscilla had regarded her father as the acme of 
 all that was great and noble. When in the long Winter even 
 ings they sat around the wood-fire, she would listen with wide 
 admiring eyes, as he described the mysterious world beyond 
 the hills, and their future career there when the money should 
 begin to come in. With graphic emphasis he would expatiate 
 on the wealth his shrewd investments were sure to bring. 
 
 The child, in her dim, fire-lit corner, would watch the shad 
 ows flicker on the portraits of her Puritan ancestors upon the 
 wall, until they seemed to wink and nod an assurance of the 
 bright life which awaited her. What a beautiful world it 
 would be; what untold happiness would she find in this golden 
 future which the genii were preparing for her, beyond those 
 snow-clad hills. 
 
Pr is cilia Aid en. 113 
 
 Time passed on, and the child became a woman with rea 
 soning powers, which gradually awakened her from fantastic 
 dreams. From regarding her father as an oracle of delightful 
 truths, she began to realize his shallowness and visionary pro 
 clivities. The gradual realization of his vanity and selfishness 
 at first hurt her keenly, and it was a slow and painful task to 
 reconstruct her impression of his character, to exchange her 
 confiding faith in him for a sort of protecting pity for the 
 smallness of his nature. Her newly awakened perception 
 quickly guaged the value of that fairy-land which his sanguine 
 hopes had depicted, and by degrees her doubts resolved into 
 conviction, that he was deceiving himself as well as them. 
 But at last he grew querulous when Henny reminded him of 
 unpaid bills, and had unusual moods of silence. 
 
 One day he returned from Boston and, running through the 
 house and up to his wife's room, fell on his knees beside her. 
 "It is lost all lost," he cried, burying his white face in her 
 lap. 
 
 Not long after, the house was sold. Her mother's health 
 gave way under the shock, and this, with the necessity of an 
 economy which they did not care to exhibit before their neigh 
 bors, made it easy for them to accept the doctor's advice to 
 seek a Southern climate. The letting down seemed more easy 
 in exchanging the bleak farm for Florida, and the early No 
 vember snows found them journeying Southward. To Pris- 
 
114 St. Augtistine Remnants. 
 
 cilia the journey was crowded with anxious thought, for every 
 turn of the iron wheels carried her on to a wide sea of new ex 
 periences. 
 
 In those days the locomotive did not deign to visit so obscure 
 and remote a place as St. Augustine. The only approach to 
 it was by a rude stage-coach, which three times a week 
 dragged its slow length for fifteen or twenty miles, bringing 
 the mail and occasional stranger. The girl from New Eng 
 land gazed about her with intelligent curiosity, as they drove 
 into the old Spanish town, beneath the row of water-oaks, 
 which were then young like herself, but have now grown into 
 veritable gray-beards, whispering sadly among themselves of 
 the changes which have sprung up about them. 
 
 In the starlight, strange, white-walled houses rose on every 
 side, their over-hanging balconies seeming almost to meet. 
 The tinkle of a guitar from a shadowy door-way, the quaint 
 Plaza with its moss-draped trees and ancient Cathedral, all 
 seemed to the girl like a bit of Spain, which had Moated across 
 the Atlantic to be lodged among the palmettos. 
 
 The next day found Priscilla, with the buoyancy of youth, 
 beginning to construct a new world for themselves. Tier 
 father seemed to think he had done his share of unappreciated 
 toil and left everything in her hands. They secured a modest 
 house on Charlotte Street, vine-clad and roomy, and here 
 Priscilla arranged the household gods which they had 
 
Priscilla Alden. 115 
 
 orought with them, as much like the old home as possible. 
 The Puritan forefathers looked down on them in be-wigged 
 wonder from the coquina walls, and the tall clock ticked from 
 the corner as of yore. In the corner of the parlor were the 
 collection of daguerrotypes ; the silver candle-sticks on the 
 mantel were flanked by a print of George Washington and 
 a sampler depicting a weeping-willow and family of thirteen 
 children kneeling round a tomb. But in spite of Priscilla's 
 efforts, it all seemed sadly strange. Her mother seemed to 
 feel it most keenly. At first, as she lay on the rose-scented bal 
 cony, inhaling the soft air, a little color crept into her cheeks, 
 but, as the months went by, Priscilla knew she was fading. 
 
 Her father adopted the new order of things more easily. 
 He evolved schemes for regenerating the South, and arranged 
 his neckties as artistically as of yore. His days were spent 
 chiefly sitting in the sun on the Plaza, or talking to the natives, 
 who were only too glad to find a new idler to amuse them. 
 
 Priscilla felt that she was a square peg in a round hole. 
 Her thrift and mental briskness were not understood by her 
 neighbors, and they resented these as a reproach to themselves. 
 The odd ways of ' fc dem Northerners" were reported by the as 
 tonished Chloe, whom Priscilla stood over until every nook 
 and cranny was made to yield up its store of hoarded spiders 
 and dust. Every piece of furniture was put through a course 
 of scrubbing and polishing, at which Chloe would continually 
 mutter to herself, "Well, I nebber." 
 
116 St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 Then the weed-choked garden was marked off in irreproach 
 able paths and beds, and seeds of hollihocks, ragged- robbins 
 and pansies from the old home were planted. The broken- 
 down fence had new life and new pickets put into it and was 
 painted a vivid white. 
 
 When order reigned everywhere within the pale of home, 
 Priscilla turned her cool, gray eyes upon her moral and social 
 surroundings. Her father's acquaintances of the Plaza had 
 become interested and sent their wives to call. Mr. and Mrs. 
 Vinci Lopez, her next door neighbors, declaimed their descent 
 from a Spanish grandee, during the first half hour of acquaint 
 anceship, and proved their cordiality by sending every day one 
 of their seven dark-eyed children to borrow a little tea or sugar 
 and other household commodities, all, however, in quantities 
 too small to be worth returning. They were all kind and anx 
 ious to make the new-comers as much at their ease as they 
 were themselves. 
 
 Priscilla soon found that there was to be no outlet for her 
 New England proclivities. There were no husking-bees, no 
 warm stockings or mittens to knit for the farm-hands ; and as 
 to the poor, they seemed to be the most happy and contented 
 of them all. She looked up the Protestant church of the place, 
 which she found to be Episcopal ; a newly organized and 
 struggling congregation, under the rectorship of Doctor Ran- 
 kin, a refined, well-educated, but dreamy old man, hardly 
 
Priscilla Alden. 117 
 
 equal to the exigencies of his position. Priscilla could not 
 feel at home there. The form and ritualism seemed strange to 
 her orthodox mind and smacked of "popery." She got quite 
 flustered Sunday mornings, hunting for the places in her new 
 prayer-book, and the new-fangled hymns she found it difficult 
 to follow. She then interested herself in the seven uncared-for 
 children next door ; at first winning their confidence by cookies, 
 then trying to instil under their tangled curls some rudiments 
 of learning and personal neatness, but in vain. As long as 
 cookies held out they were docile enough, but with their dis 
 appearance they returned to the sun outside and laughed and 
 rolled in the sand, regardless of all laws save those of sleep and 
 hunger. 
 
 The very poor also did not seem to need her. Some oysters 
 from the harbor to eat, the sun to warm them and a calico 
 gown made their sum of happiness, and any overtures from 
 the "Yankee woman" were resented as interference. Occa 
 sionally a party of Northerners would linger in the quaint, old 
 city for a while, but \vith the first hot days of early Spring 
 they would disappear. These people she rarely met, so her 
 life narrowed down to but little beyond her own garden. 
 
 Much of her time was given to her mother, who soon found 
 it impossible to make her daily journey to the jasmine-covered 
 balcony. A year, two years passed, in which Priscilla knew 
 little beyond the needs of the mother who had been her dear- 
 
118 ,S'/. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 est treasure. At last one day she fell asleep. They buried 
 her in the little graveyard, in the shadow of the white pyra 
 mids under which the murdered Huguenots sleep, and in her 
 grave were left Priscilla's last hopes. Her youth was over. 
 She grew silent and was much alone. Threads of gray were 
 seen among the brown hair, which she wore plainly off her 
 forehead. Lines appeared in her cheeks, from which the roses 
 of youth had fled. She knew it, and would smile grimly to 
 herself in her little mirror under the eaves. Who was to care? 
 Her father seemed to have the facility of throwing unpleasant 
 truths away, as a boy would toss away a pebble. He slept, 
 ate and smiled as of yore. One of his Spanish friends had 
 taught him the guitar, and he would sit in the twilight singing 
 their weird love-songs, his fine profile turned to Priscilla's 
 tired eyes. He had acquired the habit of sitting by the hour 
 on the end of the wharf, w r atching the sailboats and gulls 
 floating about the harbor. Pris'cilla of late had seen but little 
 of him. He sometimes stayed away all day, to return at night 
 gay and debonnair and chide her for her quiet life. 
 
 41 Why don't you stir up a bit?" he would ask. "'and make 
 friends as I do? There are a number of people quite worth 
 talking to." 
 
 Time glided monotonously by. She only marked the sea 
 sons by the falling of the oak leaves from the great trees on the 
 Plaza and the increased stagnation of the town in the Summer 
 months. 
 
CHAPTER IT. 
 
 ONE soft evening in March, Priscilla was sitting in the 
 shadows of the vine on the lower piazza. From across 
 the way the tinkle of a guitar and occasional laughter floated to 
 her inattentive ears. She was wondering if her life was always 
 to follow its present monotonous channel. The past few years 
 had been very desolate. She longed for the scents and sounds 
 of her old home. In a few weeks the apple-boughs would be 
 laden, with their pink blossoms ; how sweet were those North 
 ern Springs ! But those apple-blossoms were a thousand miles 
 away .and there was no money to carry her back to them. She 
 saw her life as it might have been. 
 
 "Perhaps," she thought, "I might have had a lover like 
 other women. Some one to love and care for me ; a home of 
 my own, and children. I wonder whether it is myself or cir 
 cumstances which is at fault? All women, I thought, had 
 some one whose whole affections were theirs. But I have 
 never had any one." 
 
 She was luxuriating in a vague pity for herself, when she 
 brought herself up with a turn. 
 
 "Priscilla Alden," she said half audibly, "are you losing 
 your head? Hciven't you more sense than to sit here mooning, 
 and wondering what the use of living is, when you know 
 
120 St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 you've a father who doesn't know enough to come in when it 
 rains? How would he get along without you, I wonder; who 
 is there to care for him ? " The thought comforted her. 
 
 As the words died on her lips, she heard a sound at the gate 
 and, looking up, saw two persons coming up the path. One 
 she recognized as her father, and by his side was a girlish 
 figure apparently hanging back as though loth to follow. She 
 heard her father's voice in gentle protest, as he urged her for 
 ward. They reached the steps. Priscilla, with a cold thrill 
 of premonition, stepped out of the shadow and stood, a tall, 
 severe figure, in the full light of the moon. 
 
 "Who is this, father?" she asked. 
 
 "Now don't excite yourself, Priscilla, you will welcome 
 my wife cordially." Then, turning to the girl, "This is 
 my daughter, and I feel sure you will soon be good friends." 
 
 For a moment all was blurred to Priscilla's vision. The 
 mockingbird's roulades from a neighboring tree seemed faint 
 and far away. Then she took a deep breath and looked at the 
 girl. A face was upturned to hers in which beauty and bloom 
 were combined with the weakness of a child. A pair of dark 
 eyes searching hers with some timidity. Priscilla held out 
 her hand. "This is of course a surprise to me." With rather 
 ironic smile she turned to her father. "I w r ill try to be a 
 good mother to your wife," then turned and fled up the 
 creaking stairs to her room. 
 
Priscilla Aldev . 121 
 
 For several days they all three were self-conscious, but they 
 soon, at least outwardly, adapted themselves to circumstances. 
 Carmona soon forgot any awkwardness of her position and 
 flitted about the once quiet house like a bird of brilliant plum 
 age. She was the daughter of the light-house keeper and had a 
 little patrimony of her own. A piano was bought, and soon 
 waltzes and negro melodies echoed through the rooms, which 
 before had only resounded to the stately tunes of "China," 
 "Duke Street" and "Hamburg," which Priscilla had sung as a 
 child in the white and green meeting-house under the elms. 
 
 These two women could not understand each other. One 
 grave, methodical, with a conscience keenly alive to all devia 
 tions from the strictest propriety : the other gay, inconsequent, 
 oblivious of everything save the amusing side of life. But Pris 
 cilla came gradually to like the girl, from the very necessity of 
 caring for her. The gay little gowns were to be mended and 
 the rooms tidied up after her twenty times a day. Carmona 
 would lie about like a kitten, watching Priscilla, and asking 
 curious questions. Of course she was a Romanist, but hardly 
 an orthodox one. She had somewhat audacious ideas of her 
 own in regard to right and wrong, and an accommodating con 
 science, which was apt to stretch to suit the exigences of the 
 hour. Priscilla's unswerving code of religion and life she felt 
 to be unreasonable, and did not hesitate to say so. Priscilla 
 felt in a way responsible for these heresies, but when she en- 
 
 9 
 
122 St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 deavored to enlighten her young step-mother, she was met by 
 a light raillery which baffled her. 
 
 One night Priscilla had knelt down in her room for her 
 nightly prayer. She heard the door open and Carmona's soft 
 steps enter and pause in the center of the room. She kept on 
 to the audible "amen," and rose. The girl was standing in the 
 center of the room, with disheveled curls, and with a sharp, 
 bird-like expression on her face. 
 
 "Aunt," she said, as she always called her, "if God thinks a 
 thing good for you, He will give it won't He ? " 
 
 "Certainly Carmona," Priscilla answered. 
 
 "And if He thinks a thing bad for you, He won't give it, 
 will He?" 
 
 "Certainly not." 
 
 "Then what is the use of asking Him at all, if He always 
 does as He likes ? Is'nt it rather interfering with His business ? " 
 
 The curious eyes searched hers with innocent inquiry, but, as 
 often before, Priscilla could not know how much was jest or 
 how much was earnestness. She endeavored to inculcate 
 some idea of the reality and importance of life into the girl's 
 empty mind, but in vain. She preferred chattering to her girl 
 friends, who now habitually loitered away their days in Pris- 
 cilla's well-ordered premises. 
 
 A year passed, and a son was born ; named by Priscilla, Ben 
 jamin Alden. She dreaded the child having a foreign name 
 
Pr is cilia Aid en. 123 
 
 and was rejoiced that his mother made no objection. Carmona 
 regarded the child as a new plaything, and as he grew older 
 they would roll and tumble about together in the sun like 
 two kittens. The care of the baby fell naturally on Priscilla's 
 shoulders, and she poured out upon him all the affection of 
 her famished heart. She carried him about in her long, lean 
 arms, crooning baby songs in a voice which grew musical only 
 in his service. The child slept in her arms at night, and the 
 happiest hour of her day was when he waked her in the morn 
 ing, cooing and gurgling with laughter clutching with baby 
 fingers at her gray wisps of hair. 
 
 When the child was a year old, its father, too, went to sleep 
 in the shadow of the Huguenot pyramids, and the long, gray 
 moss swayed alike over them all, strangers, in a strange land. 
 It was then that Priscilla might have given up, had not baby 
 fingers held her to life with powerful persuasion. Carmona 
 crept about the house with awe for a while, and the guitar 
 and piano grew tuneless and silent. But the girl's nature re 
 belled against continued gravity, and in a few months her 
 shallowness asserted itself, and she was as light-hearted as 
 ever. 
 
 All Priscilla's thoughts now centered in the boy. She 
 worked and economized, that he might be educated and 
 trained as befitted an Aldeii. The austere eyes of her Puritan 
 ancestors, she felt, followed her in dumb warning as to the re- 
 
124 St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 sponsibility in bringing up this boy, the last of a long line of 
 upright gentlemen. How she watched the child's nature as it 
 unfolded. What the boy's life should be she had not yet de 
 termined, but slowly a resolution formed in her mind to send 
 him at the proper time North, to Harvard, where he should 
 be fitted for some profession. That he should be a loyal 
 American she was determined. No belief in slavery or South 
 ern shiftlessness would she allow to grow in his nature not a 
 germ of it. She would do what she could to engraft Northern 
 ideas and principles. 
 
 The boy was dimly aware of the wealth of affection this 
 quiet woman gave him, and, after a fashion, returned it. He 
 rebelled at times against the strict habits she enforced ; the reg 
 ular hours of study, and the watchful care as to his compan 
 ions. Sometimes when he was called from some boyish game, 
 they chaffed him. Once Priscilla heard a boy shout after 
 him : "Goodie, goodie, go home to the Yankee." 
 
 He whirled about and with eyes aflame rushed at the 
 taunter. "You speak properly of my Aunt," he cried, glar 
 ing over his prostrate foe, "and you apologize, too, before you 
 get up, you puppy !" 
 
 His anger was so quick to act and his fist was so hard, that 
 they soon learned to suppress their sentiments toward the 
 "queer Yankee woman." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 OF course Carmona would marry again : the fact made it 
 self evident after two months of widowhood. Among 
 the number of young fellows who now haunted the house, "a- 
 courtin' " the pretty widow, a tall, lithe fellow named Leon 
 Medici was most persistent. He had much the same style of 
 picturesque beauty as Carmona, but marred it by flaring col 
 lars, gaudy waistcoats, and a general air of cheap splendor. 
 His tight trousers, which flared over his little, high-heeled 
 boots, were Priscilla's abhorrence, but the good-natured fellow, 
 with his flashing smile and seraph's voice, seemed to find spe 
 cial favor in Carmona's eyes. He kept the principal cigar 
 store of the place and was fairly prosperous. Young Medici 
 spent most of his time under the orange-trees in the garden, 
 singing like an angel to Carmona's newly strung guitar, and 
 showered pop-guns and whistles in generous profusion on 
 young Benjamin. He took the girl buggy-driving and did 
 his best to ruin her digestion by copious treats of soda-water 
 and bad ice cream. Priscilla saw how things were going, but 
 Carmona would only laugh and toss her head in good-natured 
 derision of any such possibility. 
 
 One morning the girl came down late to breakfast, a look of 
 brilliant happiness in her eyes. She caught Priscilla nearly 
 
126 St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 off her feet in a wild embrace, and then held up her left hand, 
 on which sparkled a new amethyst ring. 
 
 "Leon Medici?" Priscilla asked. "Of course," was the 
 ecstatic rejoinder. 
 
 In the busy weeks which followed, the house was gay with 
 echoing voices and stuffs of every hue. In all the bustle and 
 confusion, one thought haunted Priscilla. "Was the boy to 
 be taken away?" She could not bring herself to ask Carmona 
 the question, but at night, staring into the darkness, she won 
 dered with dull pain if she was to lose him. All day long, 
 while busy in a thousand ways, the thought was a leaden 
 weight on her heart. She hoped Carmona would speak of it, 
 but the evening before the wedding came, and the question 
 had not been asked. She waited till Carmona came in from 
 the garden, and stood trembling as they lit their candles. 
 Something in her look attracted Carmona's attention. 
 
 "What is it, Aunt? you look as though you had seen a 
 spook." 
 
 She could only answer with a pallid smile, as together they 
 mounted the stairs. Priscilla kissed the girl at her door. 
 
 "I hope you will be very happy," she said; then turned 
 brusquely and passed into her own room. 
 
 She could not sleep or even undress ; but sat at the window 
 watching, with unseeing eyes, the moon-flowers opening their 
 petals to the moist, night air. 
 
Priscilla Alden. 127 
 
 At last she rose stiffly, and crossing the hall to Carmona's 
 door softly opened it. The Madonna above the bed stretched 
 protecting arms in the dim light. Priscilla's heart seemed to 
 stop its beating as she stood there. All her happiness lay in 
 this childish creature's will. She fell on her knees with a loud 
 sob. Carmona woke with a start. 
 
 "What is it?" she cried. 
 
 "Oh, Carmona, you won't take my boy away? You will 
 leave him with me, won't you? He loves me and I'll give him 
 all I have : all my care, all my love only leave him." 
 
 Carmona sat up and stared at her half frightened and not 
 wholly awake. 
 
 "Take him from you, of course not. I shouldn't know how 
 to care for him. I can see him when I like, I suppose. 
 Is that what is troubling you ? " 
 
 With careless tenderness she soothed Priscilla's sobbing, for 
 now the tears flowed freely, carrying a load of pain from her 
 over-burdened heart. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 AFTER the merry wedding, the house settled back into 
 something of its old quiet. Priscilla now gave herself to 
 the one absorbing purpose of her life ; the care and education 
 of the boy- There was no school save the parish school and 
 the convent, and she was puzzled as to the groundwork for his 
 college education, when she bethought herself of Dr. Rankin. 
 She went to see him in the new parsonage under the palms, to 
 ask if he would teach her boy. The old man beamed at her 
 over his spectacles, delighted with the idea, and so it was ar 
 ranged, greatly to her satisfaction. 
 
 And now began her struggle to get together the money to 
 pay for his coming college expenses. It was a long succession 
 of secret self-denial. She made all her own and his clothes, 
 and learned to weave palmetto leaves into baskets. Her too 
 luxurious tea was given up; also her "Boston Evening Trans 
 cript," which had been the one connecting link with the out 
 side world. To save buying vegetables she planted a plot in 
 her garden, and her tall figure was a familiar sight, bending 
 over rake or hoe. It was a wearisome waiting: as the cents 
 
 O 
 
 grew into dollars, which every Saturday night she carried to. 
 the bank. 
 
Priscilla Alden. 129 
 
 She kept the boy as much with her as possible, taking long 
 walks with him and telling him of the far-away world in the 
 North, and how men lived earnestly and with purpose among 
 those granite hills where his grandfather was born. She kept 
 before his eyes the honor and heroic independence of those up 
 right Puritans, and drew graphic pictures of what his life 
 should be, when he, their worthy descendant, should, in his 
 turn, take an active part in the stirring life of the North. 
 
 And the lad's cheeks would glow and his eyes kindle as he 
 listened. How impatiently he longed for his emancipation, 
 and to what glorious heights would he attain. There was no 
 limit to his ambition ; his fervent nature only dreaded inaction. 
 
 It was at this time that the first distant rnutterings of the 
 coming political storm were heard. The anti-slavery questions 
 held the minds of the country. Thrice a week when the mail 
 came, papers were received full of bitter editorials. Priscilla 
 knew but little of it, it hardly reached her. She saw men 
 talking in excited knots on the Plaza and knew that in the 
 Town Hall meetings were held at night, where violent 
 harangues were delivered. Benjamin now spent many of his 
 evenings there and would come in late, his eyes shining, but 
 told her little of what he heard and saw. She would smooth 
 his tossed curls with gentle touch and say : 
 
 "I have longed all these years, dear, for this deliverance from 
 evil." 
 
130 St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 But Benjamin evidently did not take to politics and cared 
 but little to talk on that subject. 
 
 At last the storm broke, and war was declared. When 
 Priscilla heard of the first shot at her country's flag on Fort 
 Sumpter, a thrill of indignation shook her loyal soul. Troops 
 were forming all over the country: men were leaving their 
 homes and business to fight for their individual ideas of right 
 and wrong. Gray coats formed and drilled on the Plaza of 
 St. Augustine, and Confederate flags floated from every roof. 
 
 In the midst of all this clamor and warlike confusion, a 
 stinging doubt knocked at the door of the woman's conscience. 
 Ought not Benjamin, too, fight for those Northern principles 
 which she had brought him to revere ? 
 
 She paced the narrow garden paths, anxious and undone. 
 At last she decided that the honor of self-sacrifice should be 
 his alone and put the vexed question away. The following 
 Autumn he would leave her for his college life. The money 
 was almost ready and she was almost glad, for the young 
 fellow seemed sadly in need of change and a wider field of 
 study. Beside, he was not as robust and merry as usual, he 
 was silent and moody. She sometimes thought she saw a 
 strange regret in his eyes. 
 
 One night he stayed out later than usual, and, becoming 
 anxious, she went to the Plaza where the towns-people con 
 gregated. At the end of the square opposite a crowd was 
 
Priscitta Alden. 131 
 
 listening to the Mayor and applauding as he made some viru 
 lent remark about the North. Priscilla saw Carmona, her 
 husband and Benjamin on the edge of the crowd, and she 
 watched them with a feeling of uneasiness. Leon was talking 
 excitedly and Benjamin seemed to listen with interest. Pris 
 cilla turned away and hurried home. She went to her room 
 but did not undress and sat in the darkness, listening for Ben 
 jamin's steps. 
 
 He always came in for her good -night kiss and "God keep 
 you" before going to his own room. An hour went by, and 
 she heard the gate latch and the door-key turn in its lock. 
 Then his slow steps up the stairs. But on the landing they 
 ceased. She heard him hesitate, take a few steps toward her 
 door, and then pass on to his room. She wondered at this, 
 but concluded he thought her asleep and wished not to 
 disturb her. 
 
 The next morning she cautioned him against listening to 
 such speeches as she had heard the evening before, but he 
 showed the same lack of interest in the subject, and, embracing 
 her with more than his usual ardor, took his books and started 
 for Dr. Rankin's. 
 
 He did not return at noon, and twilight deepened, but no 
 light step came up the path. All night she sat waiting for 
 him, with a fear which grew and stifled her, but dawn crept into 
 the sky and he had not come. That terror crept higher and 
 
132 .St. Augustine Remnants. 
 
 higher in her heart, dulling every other sense. At last as the 
 sun rose, a disk of red in the East, she went out. She had 
 tasted no food since the previous day and suddenly felt old 
 and feeble and tottered slightly as she walked. By the Cathe 
 dral a group of people she knew were talking. They saw her 
 coming and looked with curious pity at her quaint figure as 
 she approached. She could hear the fountain's drowsy splash 
 and the muffled notes of the organ through the church's open 
 windows. 
 
 "I am anxious about my Benjamin," she said tremulously. 
 "He did not come home last night." 
 
 They looked at one another. "Holy Mary!" a woman 
 whispered, "she doesn't know." 
 
 Then a stout, black-whiskered man, whom she remembered 
 as the violent speaker at the meeting on the Plaza, broke into 
 a coarse laugh. 
 
 "Miss Alden, your boy joined the Confederate army and 
 marched away this morning." 
 
 A shrill cry drowned the notes of the organ. She clutched 
 at the church door and fell. 
 
 They carried her home, but mind, as well as heart, was 
 broken. She still lives, an old, old woman. I saw her last 
 Winter, a shrunken, old-fashioned figure, sitting under the 
 
Priscilta Alden. 133 
 
 Soldier's Monument on the Plaza, with the good-natured 
 Carmona, who humors her by talking of Benjamin. She still 
 guards the money for him, whom she expects to return in the 
 old, shambling coach of other days.