OF CALIF. LIBRARY, LOS MGELE: POPULAR NOVELS. BY MAY AGNES FLEMING. 1. GUY EARLSCOURT'S WIFE. 2. A WONDERFUL WOMAN. 8. A TERRIBLE SECRET. 4. NORINE'S REVENGE. 6. A MAD MAttRIAGE. 6. ONE NIGHT'S MYSTERY. 7. KATE DANTON. & SILENT AND TRUE. 9. HEIR OF CHARLTON. 10. CARRIED BY STORM. 11. LOST FOR A WOMAN. 18. A WIFE'S TRAGEDY. 13.-A CHANGED HEART. 14. PRIDE AND PASSION. 15. SHARING HER CRIME. 16. A WRONGED WIFE. 1.-. MAUDS PERCY'S SECRET (New). "Mrs. Fleming's stories are growing more and more popular every day. Their delineations of character, life-like conversations, flashes of wit, con- stantly varying scenes, and deeply inter- esting plots, combine to place their author in the very first rank of Modern Novelists." All published uniform with this volnme. Price, $1.50 each, and sent/rw by mail on receipt of price. BY 6. W. CARLETON & CO., Publishers, New York. LOST FOR A WOMAN. 2V NoucL BY MAY AGNES FLEMING, AUTHOR OP SILENT AND TRUE," "A MAD MARRIAGE," "A TERRIBLE SECRET, "GUY EARLSCOURT'S WIFE," "A WONDERFUL WOMAN," " ONE NIGHT'S MYSTERY," ETC., ETC. " That I might all forget the human race, And, hating no one, love but only her !" Byron Childe Harold. NEW YORK: Copyright, 1880, by G. W. Carle f on & Co., Publishers, LONDON : S. LOW & CO. MUCCCLXXXIV. Itf* a \ Stereotyped by SAMUEL STODDER, TROW ELKCTROTTPEB & STEREOTYFEB, PIUNTING AND BooK-BraDina Oo. 90 ANN STBKBT, N. Y, N. Y. CONTENTS. PART L CHAPTER PAO L Which Presents Jemima Ann 7 IE. In Which We Meet Two Professional Ladies. . . . 16 HI. In Which We Go to the Circus 24 IV. Which Records the Dark Doings of Mile. Mimi. . 35 V. In Which We Visit Madame Valentine 48 VI. Which Introduces Mr. Vane Valentine 53 VH. Which Treats of Love's Young Dream 61 Vm. Lost For a Woman 72 IX. Which Records a Tragedy 86 X. In Which Snowball is Disposed of 110 PART II. XI. Isle Perdrix 120 XII. Chapeau Dieu 138 XIII. Four Days 155 XIV. Monsieur Paul 165 XV. Snowball's Hero 179 XVI. Villa des Anges. 191 XVH. La Vivandiere 199 XVIII. A Flying Visit 212 XIX. " La Reine Blanche " 224 XX. " Adieu ! O plaisant pays de France I" 238 VI CONTENTS. PART III. CHAPTER PAGB XXI. " Not as a Child Shall We Again Behold Her . . 254 XXH. " There Came a Laddie Here to Woo " 263 "Kin IT " To Love or Hate to Win or Lose " 271 XXIV. "Nothing Comes Amiss, So Money Comes Withal" 280 XXV. " Whatever's Lost, it First was Won 291 XXVI. " Fire that is Closest Kept, Burns Most of All ". 299 XXVH. "Fortune Brings in Some Boats that are not Steered " 309 XXV IH. "In His Dreams He Shall See Thee and Ache ". . 320 PART IV. XXIX. My Lady Valentine 328 XXX. " Full Cold My Greeting Was, and Dry " 335 XXXT. " For All is Dark Where Thou Art Not " 347 XXXTJL " Oh , Serpent Heart Hid With a Flowering Face 1" 362 XXXITL " Tired Out We Are, My Heart and I " 375 XXXIV. " Not Thus in Other Days We Met " 384 XXXV. " It was the Hour When Woods are Cold " 393 XXXVI. " Adrift, as a Leaf in the Storm " 404 XXXVH. "After Long Grief and Pain " 414 XXXVHL "For Sad Times, and Glad Times, and all Times Pass Over " 426 XXXTX. " For Time at Last Makes All Things Even " 437 XL, " Ere I Cease to Love Her, My Queen 1". 448 LOST FOR A WOMAN. PART I. In mine eyes she is the sweetest lady that I ever looked on." Much Ado About Nothing. CHAPTER I. WHICH PRESENTS JEMIMA ANN. T is a dreary prospect. All day long it has rained ; as the short afternoon wears apace, it pours. Mrs. Hopkins' niece, laying down the novel, over which for the past hour she has been absorbed, regards the weather through the grated kitchen window with a gentle melancholy upon her, begotten of its gloom, and returns despondently to her novel. A soft step stealing down the back stairs, a soft, deprecating voice, breaks in upon the narrative and her solitude. " If you please, Miss Jim ?" "Oh!" says Jemima Ann, "is that you? Come in, Mr. Doolittle. Dreadful nasty evening, now, ain't it ?" " Well, it ain't nice," says Mr. Doolittle, apologeti- cally ; " and I guess I won't muss your clean floor by coming in. What I've looked in for, Miss Jim, is a pair o % rubbers. Mrs. Hopkins she don't like gum shoes left [7] 8 WHICH PRESENTS JEMIMA ANN clutterin' about the bedrooms, so she says, and totes 'em all down here. Number nines, Miss Jerrrima, and with a hole in one of the heels. Thanky ; them's them." Jemima Ann produces the rubbers, and Mr. Doolittle meekly departs. He is a soft-spoken little man, with weak eyes, a bald spot, a henpecked and depressed manner. Jemima Ann wishes all the boarders were like him thankful for small mercies, and never finding fault with the victuals, or swearing at her down the back stairs. The boarders do swear at Jemima Ann sometimes, curses both loud and deep, and hurl boots, and brushes, and maledictions down the area, when, absorbed in the aesthetic woes of her heroine, she forgets the gross material needs of these sinful young men. But long habit, seven years of boarding-house drudgery, has inured her to all this ; and inrprecations and bootjacks alike rain unheeded on her frowzy head. A sensible head, too, in the main, and with an ugly, good-humored face looking out of it, and at boarding-house life in general, through two round, bright black eyes. It is a rainy evening in early October, the dismal twilight of a wet and dismal day. Mrs. Hopkins' base- ment kitchen is lit by four greenish panes of mud- bespattered glass, six inches higher than the pavement. Through these six inches of green crystal Jemima Ann sees all she ever sees of the outdoor world on its winding way. Hundreds of ankles, male and female, thick and thin, clean and dirty, according to the state of the atmos- phere, pass these four squares of dull light every day, and all day long, far into the night, too ; for Mrs. Hop- kins' boarding-house is in a popular street, handy for the workingmen - artisans in iron, mostly, who frequent it. A great foundry is near, where stoves and ranges, and heaters and grates are manufactured, with noise and grime, and clanking of great hammers, and clouds of blackest coal-smoke, until that way madness lies ; and the "hands" emerge in scores, black as demons, and go WHICH PRESENTS JEMIMA ANN. 9 home to wash and dine at Mrs. Hopkins' boarding- house. Limitless is the demand for water, great and mighty the cry for yellow soap, of these horny-handed Vulcans, who, like lobsters, go into these steaming cal- drons very black and come out very red. For seven long years Jemima Ann has waited on these children of the forge, and been anathematized in the strongest vernacular for slowness and " muddle-headedness," and got dinners and teas, and washed dishes, and swept bed- rooms, and made beds, and went errands, and read novels and story-papers, and watched the never-ending stream of boot-heels passing and repassing the dingy panes of glass, and waxed, from a country lass of seven- teen, to a strong-armed, sallow-faced young woman of twenty-four ; and all the romance of life that ever came near her, to brighten the dull drab of every day, was contained in the " awful " nice stories devoured in every spare moment, left her in the busy caravansera of her aunt Samantha Hopkins. The rain patters against the glass; the twilight deep- ens. Jemima Ann has to strain her eyes to catch the last entrancing sentences of chapter five. The ankles that scurry past are muddy, the skirts bedraggled. Jemima Ann wishes they were fewer; they come between her and the last bleuk rays of light. A melancholy au- tumnal wind rises, and blows some whirling dead leaves down the area ; the gutter just outside swells to a minia- ture torrent, and has quite the romantic roar of a small river. Jemima Ann pensively thinks. Even she can read no more. She lays down her tattered book with a deep sigh of regret, props her elbows on her knees, sinks her chin in her palms, and gazes sentimentally upward at the greenish casement. It is nearly time to go and light the gas in the front hall and dining-room, she opines. The men will be here directly, all shouting out together for warm water and more soap, and another towel, and be dashed to you ! Then there is cold corned-beef to be i* io WHICH PRESENTS JEMIMA ANN. cut up for supper, and bread cut in great slices from four huge home-made loaves, and the stewed apples to be got out, and the tea put to draw, and after that to be poured, and after that, and far into the weary watches of the night, dishes to be washed, and the table reset for to-morrow's breakfast. Jemima Ann sighs again, and this time it is not for the patrician sorrows of the lovely Duchess Isoline. In a general way she has not much time for melancholy musings. The life of Mrs. Hopkins' "help" does not hold many gaps for reflection. It is a breathless, dizzying round and rush one long "demnition grind," from week's end to week's end. And perhaps it is best it should be so, else even Jemima Ann, patient, plodding, strong of arm, stout of heart, sweet of temper, willing of mind, might go slowly melancholy mad. "It would be awful pleasant to be like they are in stories," muses Jemima Ann, still blinking upward at the gray squares of blurred light, " and have azure eyes, and golden tresses, and wear white Swiss and sweeping silks all the year round, and have lovely guardsmen and dukes and things, to gaze at a person passionately, and lift a person's hand to their lips." Jemima Ann lifts one of her own, a red right hand, at this point, and sur- veys it. It is not particularly clean ; it has no nails to speak of ; it is nearly as large, and altogether as hard, as that of any of the foundry " hands ;" and she sighs a third sigh, deepest and dolefullest of all. There are hands and hands ; the impossibility of any mortal man, in his senses, ever wanting to lift this hand to his lips, comes well home to her in this hour. The favorite " gulf " of her novels lies between her and such airy, fairy beings as the Duchess Isoline. And yet Jemima Ann fairly revels in the British aristocracy. Nothing less than a baronet can content her. No heroine under the rank of " my lady " can greatly interest her. Pict- ures of ordinary every-day life, of ordinary every-day WHICH PRESENTS JEMIMA ANN. n people, pall upon the highly-seasoned palate of Jemima Ann. Her own life is so utterly unlovely, so grinding in its sordid ugliness, that she will have no reflection of it in her favorite literature. Dickens fails to interest her. His men and women talk and act, and are but as shadowy reflections of those she meets every day. "Nothing Dickens ever wrote," says Jemima Ann, with conviction, " is to be named in the same day with the ' Doom of the Duchess," or ' The Belle of Belgravia.' " The darkness deepens, the rain falls, the wind of the autumn night sighs outside. Through the gusty gloam- ing a shrieking whistle suddenly pierces, and Jemima Ann springs to her feet, as if shot. The six o'clock whistle ! The moments for dreaming are at an end. Life, at its ugliest, grimiest, most practical, is here. The men will be home for supper in five minutes. " Jim ! " cries a breathless voice. It is a woman's voice, sharp, thin, eager. There is a swish of woman's petticoats down the dark stairs, a bounce into the kitchen, then an angry exclamation : "You Jim ! are you here? What are you foolin' at tiow, and it blind man's holiday all over the house ! " " I'm a lightin' up, Aunt Samanthy," responds Jemima Ann, placidly; "you know you don't like the gas a flarin' a minute before it's wanted, and the whistle's only just blowed." " I'm blowed myself," says Aunt Samantha not mean- ing to be funny, merely stating a fact ; "and clean out o' breath. I've run every step of the way here from Jemimy Ann, what d'ye think ? They want me to take in a woman !" " Do they ? " says Jemima Ann. The gas is lit by this time, and flares out over the untidy kitchen and the two women. "I wouldn't, if I was you. Who is she?" " Rogers has her," says Mrs. Hopkins, vaguely. " She's with the rest at the hotel ; but there ain't no room for her there. Rogers is full himself, and he wants me 12 WHICH PRESENTS JEMIMA ANN. to take her ; says she ain't no bother ; says she ain't that sort ; says she's a lady. That's what he says ; but don't tell me ! Drat sich ladies ! She's one of that circus lot." " Oh !" says Jemima Ann, in a tone of suppressed rap- ture ; "a circus actress ! Lor! you don't say so !" "And she's got a little girl," goes on Mrs. Hopkins, in an irritated tone, as if that were the last straw, and rubbing her nose in a vexed way, "she's a Miss Mimi Something, and she's got a little girl ! Think o' that ! Rogers says it's all right. Rogers says all them sort does that way ; marries and raises families, you know, and stays miss right aloiig. This one's a widow, he says. And he wants me to take her in ; says he knows I've got a spare room, and would like to oblige a charming young lady and a bear little child not to speak of an old neigh- bor like h)tn. Yar ! I'll see 'em all furder first the whole bilin !" " Oh, Aunt Samanthy, do let her come ! " says Jemima Ann. " I should love to know a circus lady. Next to a duchess, an actress or a nun is the most romantic people in any story." "No, I sha'n't," Mrs. Hopkins snappishly responds ; " not if I know myself and my own sex when I see 'em. When first I started in the boardin' line I took in females ladies they called themselves, too, and table boarded 'era dressmakers, workin' girls, and that and I know all about it. One woman was more trouble in a day than six foundry hands in a week. Always a hot iron wanted please, and a little bilin' water to rinse out a handkerchief or a pair of stockings in a basin, and cups o' tea promiscuous, and finding fault continual with the . strength of the butter and the weakness of the coffee. So I soon sent that lot packing, and made up my mind to sink or swim with the foundry hands. Give a man a latch-key, lots of soap and water, put his boots and hair oil where he can lay his hand on 'em, let him have beef- steak and onions, and plenty of "em, for his breakfast, WHICH PRESENTS JEMIMA ANN. 13 and though he may grumble about the victuals, he don't go mussin' with his linen at all sorts of improper hours. I won't have the circus woman, and that's all about it. "Did you tell Mr. Rogers so ?" asks Jemima Ann, rather disappointed. " Mr. Rogers is a yidyit ; he wouldn't take no for an answer. Til step round this evenin',' said the grinning old fool, 'and bring the lady with me, Mrs. Hopkins. You won't be able do say no to her no one ever is. I know the supper and six-and-twenty foundry hands is lyin' heavy on your mind at the present moment,' says he, ' and your nat'rel sweekness of disposition,' he says, ' is a trifle cruddled by 'em.' Yas ! I never see sich an old rattle-tongue. But he'll see ! Let him fetch his Lord's sake, Jemima Ann ! there's them men, and not so much as a drop of tea put to dror ! Run like mad, and light the gas !" Jemima Ann literally obeys. She flies up stairs like a whirlwind, sets a match to the hall gas, and has it blaz- ing as the front door is flung wide, and the foundry hands, black, hungry, noisy, muddy, troop in, and up stairs, or out back to the general " wash'us." There is no more time for talking, for thinking, hardly for breathing such a multiplicity of things are to be done, and all, it seems, to be done at once. Hot water, soap, towels the tocsin of war rings loudly up stairs and down, and in their various chambers. Gas is lit, the long table set, knives rubbed, bread cut, meat sliced, chairs placed all is confusion, Babel condensed. Jemima Ann waits. Coarse jokes rain about her, a dozen voices call on her at once, demanding a dozen dif- erent things, and she is somethinged at intervals, for lacking as many hands as Briareus. But mostly it all falls harmless and half-unheard. She is regretting vaguely that lost circus lady. Since she may never be a duchess, nor even, in all human probability, a " my lady," it strikes Mrs. Hopkins' niece the next best thing- 14 WHICH PRESENTS JEMIMA ANN. would be to turn circus rider, or become a gipsy and tell fortunes. To wear a scarlet cloak, to wander about the " merry green wood," to tell fortunes at fairs, to sleep under a cart or a hedge, in " the hotel of the beautiful stars" this would be bliss. Not that scarlet is in the least becoming to her, and to sleep under a hedge say, on a night like this would not be quite unadulterated bliss might even be conducive to premature rheumat- ism. But to go jumping along one's life path through paper hoops, on flying Arab steeds, in gauze and span- gles oh! that would be a little ahead of perpetual tea- pouring, bread-cutting, bed-making for six-and-twenty loud-voiced, rough-looking foundry men. She has been to a circus just once, she remembers, and saw some lovely creatures, in very short petticoats, galloping round a sawdust ring in dizzying circles, on the bare backs of five Arab steeds at once, leaping over banners and through fiery hoops, and kissing finger-tips, and throwing radiant smiles to the audience. Jemima Ann feels she could never reach such a pitch of perfection as that. Her legs (if these members may be thus lightly spoken of) are not of that sylph-like sort a sculptor would pine to immortalize in marble. She wears a wide number seven, and her instep has not the Andalusian arch, under which water may flow. In point of fact, Jemima is flat-footed. In no way does the sym- metry of her body correspond with that of her mind. Still, it would have been something to have had this lady rider come. If not the rose herself, she would at least for a little have lived near that peerless flower ; but the gods have spoken or Aunt Samantha has, which is much the same and it may never be. Supper is over, the men hurry out, on pleasure and pipes bent, not to return until ten o'clock brings back the first straggler with virtuous thoughts of bed. Mrs. Hopkins and her niece sit wearily down amid the ruins of the feast, and brew themselves a fresh jorum WHICH PRESENTS JEMIMA ANN. 15 of lea. A plate of hot, buttered toast is made, some ham is cooked, "which," says Mrs. Hopkins, " a bit of br'iled ham is a tasty thing for tea, and, next to a pickled eyester, a relish I'm uncommon partial to, I do assure you." And both draw a long breath of great relief as they take their first sip of the cup that cheers. " I'm that dead beat, Jim," observes the lady of the house, " that I don't know whether I'm a sittin' on my head or my heels, as true as you're born !" As Mrs. Hopkins in a general way sits on neither, this observation is difficult to answer lucidly, so Jemima Ann takes a thoughtful bite out of her toast, with her head plaintively on one side, and answers nothing. Mrs. Hopkins is a tall, thin, worried-looking woman ; with more of her bony construction visible than is con- sistent with personal beauty, and with more knowledge of her internal mechanism than is in any way comfort- able, either for herself or Jemima Ann. Mrs. Hopkins is on terms of ghastly familiarity with her own liver, and lungs, and spine, and stomach, and takes dismal views of these organs, and inflicts the dreadful diagnosis on her long-suffering niece. "Aunt Hopkins," says Jemima Ann, " I'm most awful sorry you didn't take in that lady from Mr. Rogers'. I should love to a knowed her." " Ah ! I dare say, so's you could spend your time gad- din' up to her room, and losin' your morals, and ruinin* your shoes. No, you don't. She'd worrit my very life out, not to speak of my legs and temper, in two days. And a child, too a play-actin' child ! What would we do with a child in this house, I want to know, among twenty-six foundry hands, and not time in it to say 'Jack Robinson ' no, nor room either?" Jemima Ann opens her lips to admit the point of her knife, laden with crumb and gravy, and to remark that 16 PROFESSIONAL LADIES. she doesn't want to say "Jack Robinson," when the door-bell sharply and loudly rings. " There !" cries Mrs. Hopkins, exasperated. " I knowed it ! It's her and him ! Doose take the man, he sticks like a burr ! Show 'em to the front room, Jim," says her aunt, wrathfully, adjusting her back hair, " and tell 'em I'll be there. But I ain't agoin' to stir neither," adds Mrs. Hopkins to herself, resuming her toast, " until I've staid my stomach." Jemima Ann springs up breathless and radiant, and hastens to the door. And so, like one of her cherished heroines, hastens, without knowing it, to her " fate." For with the open- ing of the street door on this eventful evening of her most uneventful life, there opens for poor, hard-worked Jemima Ann the one romance of her existence, never quite to close again till that life's end. CHAPTER II. IN WHICH WE MEET TWO PROFESSIONAL LADIES. GUST of October wind, a dash of October rain, a black, October sky, the smiling face of a stout little man, waiting on the threshold these greet Jemima Ann as she opens the door. A carriage stands just outside, its twin lamps beaming redly in the blackness. "Ah, Miss Jemima, good evening," says this smiling apparition, "although it is anything but a good evening. A most uncommon bad evening, I should say, instead. How are you, and how is Aunt Hopkins, now that the supper and the six-and-twenty are off her mind ? And PROFESSIONAL LADIES. 17 is she in ? But of course she's in," says Mr. Rogers, wait- ing for no answers. " Who would be out that could be in such a night? Just tell her I'm here, Jemima Ann come by appointment, you know ; and there's a lady in the hack at the door, and a little girl. You go and tell Mrs. Hopkins, Jim, my dear, and I'll fetch the lady along to the parlor. One pair front, isn't it? Thanks! Don't mind me ; I know the way." Evidently he does, and stands not on the order of his going. "Run along, Jemimy," he says, pleasantly, "and call the aunty. I'll fetch the lady up stairs. Now, then, mademoiselle," he onlls, going to the door of the car- riage ; "and if you'll be kind enough to step in out of the rain, I'll carry Petite here. Up stairs, please. Wait a minute. Now, then, this way." All this time Jemima Ann stands, eyes and mouth ajar, looking, listening with breathless interest. Mr. Rogers, gentlemanly proprietor of the Stars and Stripes Hotel, further down the street, assists a lady out of the chariot at the door, says "Come along, little 'un," lifts a child in his arms, and leads the way jauntily up to the "one pair front." " This is the place, Mademoiselle Mimi," he says, somewhat suddenly, "Mrs. Hopkins' select boarding- house for single gentlemen." " Faugh ! " says Mademoiselle Mimi, curling dis- gustedly an extremely pretty nose ; " it smells of corned beef and cabbage, and all the three hundred and sixty- five nasty dinners cooked in it the past year." And indeed a most ancient and cabbage-like odor does pervade the halls and passages of the Hotel Hop- kins. It is one of those unhappy houses in which smells (like prayers) ascend, and the lodgers in the attic can always tell to a tittle what is going on in the kitchen. '/ Mrs. Hopkins can get up a nice little dinner, for all that," says Mr. Rogers. "She's done it for me before 1 8 PROFESSIONAL LADIES. now, when the cook has left me in the lurch. She'll do it for you, Mam'selle Mimi. You won't be served with boiled beef and cabbage while you're here, let me tell you. And she's as clean as silver. This is the parlor ; take a chair. And this is Jemima Ann, Mrs. Hopkins' niece, and the idol of six-and-twenty stalwart young men. Jemimy, my love, let me present you Mademoiselle Mimi Trillon, the famous bare-back rider and trapeze performer, of whom all the world has heard, and La Petite Mademoiselle Trillon, the younger." Mr. Rogers waves his hand with the grace of a court chamberlain and the smile of an angel, and Mademoiselle Mimi Trillon laughs and bows. It is a musical, merry little laugh, and the lady, Jemima Ann thinks, in a bewildered way, is the most brilliant and beautiful her eyes have ever looked on. The Duchess Isoline herself was less fair ! She feels quite dazzled and dizzy for a moment, anything beautiful or bright is so far outside her pathetically ugly life. She is conscious of a face, small, rather pale just now, looking out of a coquettish little bonnet ; of profuse rippling hair of flaxen fairness waving low on a low forehead ; of a dress of dark ^ilk, that emits perfume as she moves ; of a seal jacket ; of two large blue-bell eyes, laughing out of the loveliness of that "flower face." " Oh ! " she says, under her breath, and stands and stares. Mile. Mimi laughs again. Her teeth are as nearly like "pearls" as it is in the nature of little white teeth to be. She can afford to laugh, and knows it. " Now, then, Jemimy ! " cries the brisk voice of Mr. Rogers. " I know you are lost in a trance of admiration. We all are, bless you, when we first meet Mam'selle Mimi. Nevertheless, my dear girl, business before pleasure, and business has brought us here to-night. Call your aunt, and let us get it over." "Here is Aunt Samanthy " responds Jemima: and PROFESSIONAL LADIES. 19 .at that moment enters unto them Mrs. Hopkins, her " stomach staid," and considerably humanized by the mellowing influence of sundry cups of tea, and quanti- ties of hot toast and broiled ham. Mr. Rogers rises, receives her with effusion, presents to her the Mesdemoiselles Trillon, mother and daughter, and Mam'selle Mimi holds out one gray-gloved hand, with a charming smile, and says some charming words of first greeting. Jemima Ann watches in an agony of suspense. She hopes oh ! she hopes Aunt Samantha will not steel her heart, and bolt her front door against this radiant vision of golden hair, and silk, and seal. But Aunt Samantha is not impressionable. Long years of foundry hands, of struggles with her liver and other organs, of much taxes and many butcher bills, have turned to bitterness her natural milk of human kindness, and she casts a cold and disapproving glance on the blonde Mimi, and bobs a stiff little courtesy, and sits down severely on the extreme edge of a chair. "So sorry to intrude," says the sweet voice of Mile. Mimi, in coaxing accents, "dear Mrs. Hopkins, at this abnormal hour. It is really quite too dreadful of me, I admit. But what was I to do ? Mr. Rogers' hotel is quite full, and even if it were not, there are reasons" a pause, a sigh, the blue-bell eyes cast a pathetic glance, first at her child, then appealingly at Mr. Rogers, then more appealingly at frigid Mrs. Hopkins " there is a person at the hotel with whom I cannot possibly asso- ciate. I am a mother, my dear Mrs. Hopkins ; that dear child is my only treasure. In my absence there would be no one at the hotel to look after her. I can not leave her to the tender mercies of the ladies of our company. So I am here. You will take compassion upon us, I am sure " clasping the gray-gloved hands "and afford us hospitality during our brief stay in this town. Snow- so PROFESSIONAL LADIES. ball, come here. Go directly to this nice lady, and say, ' How do you do ?' " " Won't !" says Mile. Trillon, the younger she is a young person of some three or four years in the promptest way ; " her's not a nice lady. Her's a narsy, narsy lady !" The child is almost prettier than the mother, if pret- tier were possible. She is a duplicate in little rose and lily skin, flaxen curls, blue-bell eyes, sweet little mouth, that to look at is to long to kiss. A wild impulse is on Jemima Ann to snatch her up and smother her with kisses, but something in the blue- bell eyes warned her such liberties would not be safe. "For shame, you bad Snowball!" says Mile. Mimi, shocked, while Mr. Rogers chuckles in appreciation of the joke, and Jemima Ann holds out a timid hand of conciliation, and smiles her most winning smile. The turquois eyes turn slowly, and scan her with the slow, steadfast, terrible look of childhood, from head to foot. Evidently the result is unsatisfactory. She, too, is a " narsy lady." The disdainful sprite turns away with a little moue of disdain, and stands slim and silent at Mr. Rogers' knee. For Jemima Ann, she had fallen in love at first sight, and from that hour until the last of her life is Mile. Snowball's abject slave. " Now, don't you think you can manage it, Mrs. Hop- kins," says, suavely, Mr. Rogers; "there's such a lot of them at my place, and it may be only for a week ; and, as Mile. Mimi says, it is for the child's sake. It won't do to have her running about wild, while mamma is away at the circus, you know eh, little Snowball ? And here's our Jemima can keep an eye to her just as well as not, while the other's on the dinner. Not a mite of trouble, are you, Snowball? Quite a grown-up young lady in everything but feet and inches. Come, Mrs. Hopkins, say Yes." "And I will not stay in the same house with Madame PROFESSIONAL LADIES. 21 Olympe ! " exclaims, suddenly, Mile. Mitni, her blue eyes emitting one quick, sharp, lurid flash. And here, at last, as it dawns on Mrs. Hopkins, is the "cat out of the bag ; " the true reason of this late visit and petition. In the circus company are two leading ladies Madame Olympe and Mile. Mimi and war to the knife has naturally, from first to last, been their motto. They are rivals in everything ; they disagree in everything. They hate each other with a heartiness and vim that borders, at times, on frenzy ! All that there is of the most blonde and sprightly is Mile. Mimi ; a brunette of brunettes, dashing, dark, and dangerous, is Madame Olympe. Mimi professes to be French, and was "raised" in the back slums of New York. Olympe is French a soi-disant grisette of Mabille. Paris is written on her face. And two tomcats on the tiles, at dead of night, never fought for mastery with tongue and claws as do the lovely Mimi, the superb Olympe. "Ladies! ladies!" the long suffering manager is wont to remonstrate, on the verge of bursting into tears, "how can you, you know ? Your little hands were never made to tear each other's eyes ! Upon my soul I wonder at you French and everything as you are. And I've always heard the French beat the d 1 for politeness. But it ain't polite to call each other liars and hussies, and heave hairbrushes at each other. Now, I'm blest if it is ! " All this time Mrs. Hopkins sits, upright, grim, rigid, virtuous, on the slippery edge of her horse-hair chair ; "No," written in capital letters in her eye of stone, on her brow of adamant, when suddenly, and most unex- pectedly, the child with the odd name comes to the re .cue. Snowball fixes her azure eyes on the frozen visage ; some fascination is for her there surely, for out ripples all at once the sweet tinkle of a child's merry laugh ; she toddles over to her side, and slips her rose- leaf hand into the hard old palm. 22 PROFESSIONAL LADIES. "Not a narsy lady. 'Noball likes you. 'Nobal seepy. Her wants to go to bed." " Bless your pretty little heart !" exclaims Mrs. Hop- kins, involuntarily. Even Achilles, it will be remem- bered, had a vulnerable spot in his heel. Whether Aunt Samantha's is in her heels or in her heart, Snowball has found it. But then to find people's hearts and keep them is a trick of Snowball's all her life-long. " Seepy, seepy," reiterates Snowball with pretty im- periousness. " Put 'Noball to bed. Mamma, make her put 'Noball to bed." " You must put us up, you see," says mamma. " Come, my dear madam, it will be inhuman to refuse." It will. Mrs. Hopkins feels she cannot say "No;" and Mrs. Hopkins also feels she will repent in wrath and bitterness, saying " Yes." She casts one scathing glance at serene Mr. Rogers, and says, " Well, yes, then," with the very worst grace in the world. " Oh, I'm awful glad !" cries out Jemima Ann in the fullness of her heart. " Oh, you little darling, come to me, and let me get you ready for bed !" " Go to the nice, nice girl, Snowball," says Mile. Mimi, "and tell her you will have some bread and milk and your hair brushed before you go to sleep. Ever so many thanks, Mrs. Hopkins, though that yes had rather an un- cordial tone. Rogers " she uses no prefix " the trunks are coming by express ; you will find a valise and satchel in the cab. Send them up. I won't trouble you for sup- per to-night, Mrs. Hopkins ; we had a snack at the hotel. But get my room ready as soon as you can. There's a good soul. We've been on the go all day, and I am dead tired." A swift and subtle change has come over Mile. Mimi. Her pleading lady-like manner drops from her as a gar- ment : her present tone has an easy ring of command, a touch of vulgarity, that Mrs. Hopkins is quick to feel and resent, but cannot define. PROFESSIONAL LADIES. ; 3 " Make up a bed for Snowball on a sofa or lounge near mine," she says to Jemima Ann, " and don't let her have too much milk. She is a perfect little pig for coun- try milk, and I don't want her to get fat. I hate flat by children. And I'll lie on this couch while you're getting my room ready, I really and truly am fit to drop. Good- night, Rogers ; tell Olympe, with my compliments, I hope she means to go to bed sober this first night." Her musical laugh follows Mr. Rogers down-stairs. Then she glides out of her seal-skin like a beautiful little serpent slipping its skin, throws off the coquettish bon- net, stretches herself on the sofa, and before her hostess or niece are fairly out of the room, is fast asleep. " Well, I never !" says Mrs. Hopkins, drawing a long breath. " Upon my word and honor, Jemima Ann, I do assure you I never.'" "'Noball seepy, 'Noball hundry, want her bed and milk, want go to bed," pipes plaintively the child. Jemima gathers her up in her arms, and ventures to kiss the satin smooth cheek. " You dear little pet," she says, " you shall have your bread and milk, and go to bed in two minutes. Oh, you pretty little love ! I never saw anything half so lovely as you in my life !" " Land's sake, Jemimy Ann, don't spile the young one !" says, irritably, her aunt. " Handsome is as hand- some does, is a true motto the world over, and if her or her mar does handsome, I'm a Dutchman. 'Good- night, Rogers, and tell Alimp to go to bed sober this Jirst night ;' pretty sort o' talk that for a temperance boardin'-house. There ! get that sleepy baby somethin' and put her to bed. I'll go and fix Miss Flyaway's room, before the men come in, and find her sleepin' here and make fools of themselves." And so, still wrathful and grumbling, but in for it now, Mrs. Hopkins goes to put her best bedroom in or- der. Jemima carries Snowball down to the dining- 24 WE GO TO THE CIRCUS. % room. The flaxen head lies against her shoulder, tha drowsy lids sway over the sweet blue eyes, the very lips are apart and dewy. Oh ! how lovely she is, how lovely, how lovely, thinks Jemima Ann, in a sort of rapture. Oh ! if she could but keep this beautiful baby with her forever and ever ! At sight of the bread and milk, Snowball wakes up enough to partake of that refreshment. But she sleepily declines conversation, and the pretty head sways as the long light curls are being braided, and her clothes taken off, and she is sound again, when Jemima bears her ten- derly up to the little extempore bed Aunt Samantha has prepared. She stands and gazes at her in a rapture as she sleeps. "She looks like a duchess's daughter! She looks like an angel, Aunt Samanthy !" she says, under her breath. " Yas !" cries Aunt Samantha, in bitter scorn. " I never see an angel no more did you. And if you did, I don't believe they'd a rid at a circus. Now go down and shake up t'other angel in the parlor, and tell her she can tumble into bed as soon as she likes. And mark my words, Jemima Ann," concludes Mrs. Hopkins, solemnly prophetic, "that woman will give us trouble, such as we ain't had in many a long day, afore we're rid of her !" CHAPTER III. IN WHICH WE GO TO THE CIRCUS. T is the evening of another day ; crisp, clear, cool. The town-hall has tolled seven, and all the town, in its Sunday best, is trooping gayly to the great common on the outskirts, where the huge circus tent is erected, where flags fly, WE GO TO THE CIRCUS. 25 and drums beat, and brass instruments blare, and great doings will be done to-night. A great rope stretches from the center of the common to the top of the tent, quite a giddy height, and the cele- brated tight-rope dancer, Mile. Mimi, is to walk up this before the performance, giving a gratis taste of her qualities to an admiring world. Other outward and visible signs of the inward and to-be-paid-for graces going on within, are there as well. Every dead wall, every fence all over the town, is placarded with huge posters, announcing in lofty letters of gorgeous colors, the wonderful doings to be beheld for the small sum of fifty cents, children half price, clergymen free ! Pictures of all the animals whose ancestors came over in the Ark with Noah and family, together with portraits of the unparalleled Daughter of the Desert, Madame Olympe, on her fiery steed Whirlwind, of the daring and fearless trapezist and tight-rope dancer, Mile. Mimi, direct from Paris, of the little Fairy Queen, Snow- ball, who is to be borne aloft in one hand by the Bound- ing Brothers of Bohemia, in the thrilling one-act drama of the "Peruvian Princess." The portraits of the rival stars attract much admira- tion and comment in rather a coarse and highly-colored state of art, it must be admitted, but sweetly pretty and simpering all the same, displaying a great redundancy of salmon-colored bust and arms, and pronounced by those who have seen the fair originals, speaking like- nesses. And now all the town is to see them, the chariot races, the Bounding Brothers, the Fairy Queen, the Daughter of the Desert, the clown, and the rest of the menagerie. It is a crisp, cool, fresh, yellow twilight ; the world looks clean and well washed, after last night's rain. The sky is turquois blue, there is a comfortable little new 26 WE GO TO THE CIRCUS. moon smiling down, as if it, too, had come out expressly to go to the circus. Everybody is in fine spirits, there is much laughter and good-humored chaffing, there are troops and troops of children children of a larger growth, too, who affect to treat the whole affair with off-hand, good-natured contempt only come to look after the young ones, you know old boys and girls, who in their secret souls are as keen for the sport as any nine-year-old of them all. An immense throng is gathered on the common, watching with beating hearts and bated breath, for their first taste of rapture, the free sight of Mile. Mimi walk- ing up the rope. And amid this throng, in her Sunday " things " quite " of a tremble " with joyous expectancy stands Jemima Ann, waiting with the deepest interest of all for the first glimpse in her public capacity of the fair performer she has the honor of knowing in private life. The band stands at ease giving the public tantalizing little tastes of its quality, working up the suspense of small boys to an agonizing pitch, laughing and talking to another, as if this magical sort of thing were quite every-day life to them, when suddenly everybody is gal- vanized, every neck is strained, an indescribable mur- mur and rush goes through the crowd : " Oh, hush ! Here she is ! Oh, ma ! isn't she lovely ? Oh-h-h !" It is a long-drawn, rapturous breath. A vision has appeared a vision all gold and glitter, all gauze and spangles, all rosy floating skirts, a little flag in each hand, bare white arms, streaming yellow curls, twinkling pink feet, rosy, smiling face ! The band strikes up a spirited strain, and up, and up, and up floats the fairy in rose and spangles. Every throat stretches, every eye follows, every breath seems suspended, every mouth is agape. Profound still- ness reigns. And up, and up, and up still floats the rose-pink vision ; and now she stands on the dizzy top, a pink star against the blue sky, waving her flags, and WE GO TO THE CIRCUS. 27 kissing hands to the breathless crowd below ! Now, she descends slowly, slowly, and slowly plays the band, and the tension is painful to all these good, simple souls. A sort of involuntary gasp goes through them as with a light buoyant bound she is on terra firma, bowing right and left, and vanishing into the tent like the fairy she is. " Oh-h-h ! wasn't it lovely ! Oh, ma, she is just too sweet for anything ! Oh, pa ! do let us hurry in and get a good seat. Was it Olympe ? No, it wasn't, it was the other one, Mamzel Mimi. Oh ! I'm being scrooged to death ! Pa, do let us hurry in don't you see everybody is going ?" Jemima Ann goes with the rest. It is the rarest of rare things for her to be off duty, but Aunt Samantha has relented for once, and her niece is here, fairly palpi- tating with expectant rapture. All the boarders, washed and shining with good humor, much friction, and yellow soap, in brave array muster strong, and kindly little Mr. Doolittle has meekly presented "Miss Jim" with a ticket. So she is swept onward and inward, with the crowd into the great canvas arena, and presently finds herself perched on an ex- quisitely uncomfortable shelf, her knees on a level with her chin, gazing with awe at the vast sawdust ring and the red curtain beyond, whence it is whispered the per- formers will presently emerge. Then she glances about her yes, there are the board- ers, there is Mr. Rogers, there is the butcher and his family, there is the undertaker and his wife, there is the family grocer and his seven sons and daughters, there are quite numbers of ladies and gentlemen she knows. And all over the place there are swarms of children, children beyond any possibility of computation. A smell of sawdust and orange-peel, a pervading sense of hilarity and peanuts is in the atmosphere, the band plays as if it 28 WE GO TO THE CIRCUS. would burst itself with enthusiasm, and the evening per- formance triumphantly begins. Long after this festive night, Jemima Ann tries to recall, dispassionately, all she has seen in this her first glimpse of wonder-land, but it is all so splendid, so rapid, so bewildering, to a mind used only to underground kitchens, and the society of black beetles, and blacker foundry hands, that her dazzled brain fails to grasp it with any coherence. There are horses good gracious ! such horses as one could hardly imagine existed out of the Arabian Nights ; horses that dance polkas and jigs, that put the kettle on, that listen to the clown, and under- stood every word he said, horses that laughed, horses that made courtesies to the audience, horses that stood on their hind legs, that knelt down, that jumped through hoops, and over banners. Jemima Ann would not have been surprised to see a peg turned in their side, and behold them spread their wings and soar to the ceiling. Only they didn't. And then the clown, with his startling, curious, and white visage, his huge, grinning mouth, and amazing nose, his funny dress, and funnier retorts to the exasperated ring-master Jemima Ann nearly died of laughing at him. Only to hear his jovial " Here we are again !" was worth the whole fifty cents ; so said the good people about her, laughing till they cried, and so, with all her heart, said Jemima Ann. But this was only a little of it. When Mile. Mimi appeared, more gauzy, more spangly, more lovely even than outside, careening round and round, on four fiery bare-backed steeds, in that breathless manner that your head swam, and your respiration came in gasps, then the enthusiasm rose to fever heat, if you like ! They shouted, they stamped, they applauded the very knobs off their walking-sticks, and Jemima Ann, faint with bliss, shuts her eyes for a moment, and feels she is in the mad vor- tex of high life at last, feels that she is living a chapter out of one of her own weekly "dreadfuls." How beautiful WE GO TO THE CIRCUS. 29 Mimi looks, as she sweeps by, smiling, painted, radiant ! And now it is a moment never to be forgotten Mimi sees her, smiles at her yes, in full tilt pauses to smile at her and throw her a kiss from her finger tips ! All heads turn, all eyes fix wonderingly, enviously on the crimson visage of Jemima Ann. "Do you know her?" asks in a tone of awe those nearest, and Jemima Ann glows and responds : " Yes." It is a proud moment; it is a case of "greatness thrust." People scan her as she sits, and wonder if per- chance she too is not a professional lady taking her fifty cents' worth here for a change, among the common herd. Madame Olympe comes as the Daughter of the Des- ert, a big, handsome, bold brunette, with flashing eyes and raven locks. These same raven locks, together with the brief allowance of cloth of gold, and bullion fringe, and a pair of tinkling anklets, comprise nearly all she has about her in the way of costume. She is distinctly indecent ; the virtuous maids and matrons blush in their secret souls, and feel that this is worse, very much worse, than the pink gauze. And though the Daughter of the Desert seems to fly through the air, and does some won- derful things, she is coldly received, and the audience break into a laugh when a forward small boy suggests that before she does any more she'd better go in and put something on, else maybe she'll ketch a cold in her head ! It is felt as a relief when she does go, and the Bounding Brothers take her place. One, in the dress of an Indian chief, all feathers, beads, and scarlet cloth, makes a raid in the territory of another, the Prince of Peru, captures the child of lhat potentate, and rides a.\ break-neck speed with her held aloft in one hand in tri- umph. And Jemima Ann gasps painfully, for it is little Snowball, all in white, her long fair curls floating, her rosebud lips smiling, the tiny creature stands erect, and is whirled round and round by th Indian chief. She 30 WE GO TO THE CIRCUS. kisses her baby hand, she smiles her sweet baby smile, her dauntless blue eyes wander over the house. If she should fall ! Jemima Ann shuts her eyes, sick with the thought, and does not look again t until after a free fight, and a great deal of shooting with bows and arrows, the princess is recaptured, and the Bounding Brothers bound out of sight. Mile. Mimi on the trapeze winds up the performance. Her agility, her strength, her daring, here, are something to marvel at. Her springs from one swinging bar to another, look perilous in the extreme. It is wonderful where, in that slight, graceful frame, these delicate hands and wrists, all that steel-like strength of muscle can lie. This also Jemima feels to be more painful than pleasant it is a relief when it is over, and though it had been an evening of much bliss and great excitement, it is some- thing of a relief to rise and stretch one's cramped liir.bs, and breathe the cool fresh night air, and see the sparkling frosty stars. Too much pleasure palls, Jemima Ann's head swims with so much merry-go-round she will be glad to get back to the cool attic and flock mattress and think over at her leisure how happy she has been. "I wonder what time Mile. Mimi and that dear little Snowball will get home?" she muses; "the dear little love ought to be fit to drop with tiredness. No wonder her ma wanted some supper, I wish Aunt Samanthy hadn't been so cross." A vivid remembrance of the scene of that afternoon dashes through her mind, as she trudges home through the quiet streets. Mile. Mimi just back from rehearsal, she and Aunt Samantha busy in the kitchen, Snowball tripping about, asking pretty baby questions a swish of silk, a waft of strong perfume, and Mimi, bright in silk and velvet, lace and jewelry, presents herself. " How nice and hot it is here," she says, coming in, with a shiver ; " the rest of the house is as cold as a barn. Why don't you have a fire in your parlor this October WE GO TO THE CIRCUS. 31 weather, Mrs. Hopkins? And how good you smell!" sniffing the warm air, and seating herself in front of the glowing stove. " What are you cooking, Jemima Ann ?" "Johnny-cake and gingerbread for the men's teas," responds, modestly, Jemima Ann ; "a pan of each. The men like 'em." "Do they?" s::ys Mimi, laughing. "What nice, in- nocent sort of men yours must be, my dear, judging by their food ! /should not like gingerbread and the other thing. Apropos, though (no, Snowball, I don't want you ; run away), I should like a hot supper when I come back to-night. I am always tired, and hungry as a hunter. I always have a hot supper ; cold things make me dyspeptic. Will you see to it, Jemima Ann ?" Jemima Ann glances apprehensively at >*"int Saman- tha. Aunt Samantha draws up her mouth Le the mouth of a purse, and stands ominously silent. "What time would you like it?" timidly ventures Jemima Ann. ' Oh, about eleven ; I shall not be later than that. Nothing very elaborate, you know just a fowl, a chicken or duck, mashed potatoes, one sweet and one savory. Coffee, of course, as strong as you like, and cream if it is to be had for love or money. Something simple like that ! And I shall need some boiling water for pun well, I shall need it. I may bring a friend home to sup- per. I hate eating alone, so lay covers for two. Don't seive it in that big, dismal place you call the dining- room ; let us have it cozily in the parlor. And do light a fire ; your black grate is enough to send a chill to the marrow of one's bones. Snowball will not sit up, of course. You will put her to bed as soon as she comes home. You will not forget anything, will you, Jemima Ann ?" Jemima Ann is too paralyzed to answer ; Mrs. Hop- kins is literally petrified with indignation. Only for a moment, though ; then she faces the audacious Mimi, 32 WE GO TO THE CIRCUS. her eyes flashing, her face peony red, her hands on her hips, war and defiance in every snorting word. "So! this is all, 'm, is it? Jest somethin' simple and easy, like that ! And at eleven o'clock at night ! Wouldn't you like a soup, and fish, and oysters, ma'am, and a side-dish and Charley Roose, and ice-cream, and strawberries to top the lot ! Why, hang your impi- dence !" cries Mrs. Hopkins, waxing suddenly from the bitterly sardonic to the furiously wrathful "what do you think we are? You come here and fairly force yourself on a respectable house, and try to begin your scandalous goin's on before you're twenty-four hours in it ! But I'll see you furder first, 'm, and Rogers, too, I do assure you ! No friends is let in this house," says Mrs. Hopkins, with vindictive emphasis, "after ten o'clock at night no, not for Queen Victorious, if she begged it on her bended knees !" Mile. Mimi, toasting her little high-heeled French shoes before the fire, turns coolly, and listens, first in surprise, then in amusement, to this tirade. "My good soul," she says, calmly, "don't lose your temper. You'll have a fit of some kind, and go off like a shot, if you go on like that. And what do you mean by scandalous proceedings ? You really ought to be careful in your talk people get taken up sometimes for actionable language. It is not scandalous to eat a late supper, is it ? I am a very proper person, my dear Mrs. Hopkins, and never scandalize anybody. If I can't have supper here, I will have it elsewhere it is much the same to me. You will give me a latch-key, I suppose or do you allow such a demoralizing thing to your art- less black lambkins? Or would you prefer sitting up for me ? I like to be obliging, and I will be back by one." " Miss Mimi," begins Mrs. Hopkins, "if that's your name," Mimi laughs " this house ain't no place for the likes of you." Miss Mimi glances disdainfully WE GO TO THE CIRCUS. 33 about, and shrugs her shoulders. " It's a homely place, and we're homely people." Mimi laughs again, and glances amusedly from the hot and angry face of the aunt, to the flushed and distressed face of the niece a glance that says, " I agree with you." " Your ways ain't our ways" ("No, thank Heaven !" says Mimi, sottovoce) " and so the sooner we part, the better, I do assure you. You'll jest be good enough, ma'am, to take your- self, and your traps, and your little girl, out of this as soon as you like and the sooner the better, I do assure you." Mimi looks at her. There is a laugh still on her rose- red mouth ; there is a laughing light in her blue eyes ; but there is a laughing devil in them, too. "My good creature," she says, slowly, "you labor under a mistake. I will not go, and you shall not make me. You agreed to take me in the presence of witnesses. I have paid you a week's board in advance, and no power on earth will move me out of this hospitable man- sion until it suits me to go. And I will keep what hours I please. And I will invite what friends I like. I shall return at once, and you shall shut your doors on me at your peril. And I will see you no! don't cry out before you are hurt inconvenienced is the word I will use," she breaks off, laughing aloud in genuine amusement at the horror in the face of her hostess, and rises gracefully. "Now, Jemima Ann, the sooner you bring me up some tea the better, I do assure you" mimicking perfectly Mrs. Hopkins' nasal tones ; "and if your gingercake is very good, you may bring me some of that, too. Come, Snow- ball, and let me curl your hair." It is the first time in all her seven years' experience that Jemima Ann has seen her intrepid chieftaincss taken down. She is almost afraid to look at her ; but when she does, she finds her gazing after her enemy with a blank and stony stare, and rigid lips and eyeballs, alarm- ingly suggestive of fits ! No fit ensues, however. Theie 2* 34 WE GO TO THE CIRCUS. is a gasping breath, a stifled, " Well, this does cap the globe !" and then silence. Aunt Samantha has been routed with slaughter, and in her secret soul Jemima Ann rejoices. She goes home now, through the crisp, starlit night, and finds her stormy kinswoman waiting up with a tongue and temper soured and sharpened by long hours of solitude and stocking-darning. She is first, but the boarders follow close, noisy, hungry, and enthusiastic in then loud praises of the charming Mimi. Olympe is a fine woman, no doubt, and not stingy of herself, but Mimi s the girl for their money. And thus they have a proud feeling of proprietorship in Mimi. She is one of the family, so to speak. They feel that her beauty and success reflect glory on the house of Hopkins. Aunt Samantha listens to it all with grim scorn ; declines snappishly to be entertained with the brilliant doings of the night ; declines more snappishly to go to bed, and leave her, Jemima Ann, to wait up for Mile. Mimi. "I'll see it out, if I sit here till I take root," is her grim ultimatum. "I'll see that she brings no trollopin' characters into this house; so, hold your jaw, Jemima Ann Hopkins." The door-bell rings as she speaks. Is it Mimi, so soon ? No, it is a man from the circus with little Snow- ball, sleepy and tired. Jemima Ann takes her tenderly^ kisses and pets her, undresses and puts her to bed. It is midnight, and still Mimi is not here. Grimmer and grimmer grows the rigid face of Aunt Samantha, colder and colder grows the night, drearier and drearier looks the kitchen, quieter and more quiet seem the lonesome midnight streets. One. Half-past with her arms on the table, her face lying on them, sleep as a garment drops on Jemima, when, once more, sharp, loud, startling the door-bell rings. "It's her!" cries Jemima Ann, and springs up, "foi which, 'Oh! be joyful !"' MLLE. MIMI. 35 She runs up-stairs, Aunt Samantha follows. Outside there are voices, one the voice of a man, and loud laughter. The key is turned, the door is opened, Mimi stands before them. She comes in laughing aunt and niece fall back. What is the matter ? Her fair face is flushed, her blue eyes glassy, there is a smell, strong subtle, spirituous. In horror the truth dawns upon them she is (it is the phrase of Jemima Ann) she is tight ! They fall back. Even Aunt Samantha, prepared for the worst, is not prepared for this. She is absolutely dumb ! Mile. Mimi laughs in their faces a tipsy laugh. " Car' lamp up-stairs, 'Mirny Ann," she says, indis- tinctly, " sor' to keep you up, Miss Hopkins. Goo' night." In dead silence Mrs. Hopkins falls back, in dead silence Jemima Ann obeys words fail them both. She precedes Mimi to her room, where sweet little Snowball sleeps, pure and peaceful, sets the lamp in a place of safety, sees their boarder fling off hat and jacket, and throw herself, dressed as she is, on the bed, too far gone even to undress ! CHAPTER IV. WHICH RECORDS THE DARK DOINGS OF MLLE. MIMI. OLD chicking," says Jemima Ann "that's . one, buttered short-cake that's two, cran- berry sass that's three, and frizzled beef that's four. Yes, four. I've got 'em all. And tea that's five. There ain't nothin' the matter with her appetite, whatever there may be with her morals." The antecedent of this personal pronoun is, of course, Mile. Mimi, and Jemima Ann is busily engaged arrang- 36 MLLE. MIMI. ing her supper on a tray. Up in the parlor, in a pale- blue negligee^ and looking more or less like an angel, with her floating, untidy, fair hair, Mimi is yawning over a fashion-magazine, and listening to the prattle of her small daughter. "Enter, Jemima Ann !" she cries, gayly, springing up, " laden with the fruits of the earth. Snowball and I were beginning to think you had forgotten us. And where is the precious auntie, my Jemima, and is she still as far gone as ever, in blackest sulks?" It is the afternoon succeeding that night, and no thundercloud ever gloomed more darkly than does the countenance of Mrs. Hopkins whenever it turns upon her audacious boarder. " She is feeling dreadful bad, Miss Mimi," responds Mrs. Hopkins' niece, gravely, " and no wonder. You really hadn't ought to done it." Mimi laughs, with genuine, unaffected amusement, and pinches Jemima Ann's hard, red cheek, in passing. " I really hadn't ought to done it ! Dew tell ! Here, Snowball, come on here's a lovely bit of chicken for you. Well, now, Jemima Ann, I admit I did imbibe a little too freely last night ; but what will you ? I was dead beat, I was warm and aching with fatigue, and Lacy's Clicquot was the very best, and iced to perfec- tion. Did you ever drink iced champagne, my poor Je- mima ? Ah ! the wine of life is not for such as you. If I had to exchange places with you, and grub down in that abominable kitchen among pots and pans, and wait on dirty, oily foundrymen, and be girded at by that vi- rago, your aunt ; I would simply cut my .throat in a week, and of two evils think it the least." " Aunt ain't a bad sort. Please don't abuse her," re- turned Jemima, still gravely, " her bark is worse than her bite. Who is Lacy, Miss Mimi ?" The first shyness of new acquaintance is over. Mimi is a free-and-easy, touch-and-go sort of person, easy to MLLE. MI MI. 37 grow familiar with, and Miss Hopkins has her full share of feminine curiosity. " Is he that aristocratic-looking gent, with the raven black mustache and diamond studs, a stoppin' at the Washington House?" asks Jemima, in considerable awe, as she assists Snowball to milk and short-cake. "Dyed, Jemima dyed, my dear," laughs Mimi ; "that mustache gets mangy sometimes and purple. But the studs are real, and he is rich enough to wear a whole diamond shirt front, if he chose. Yes, my Jemima, 'tis he ! the gent at the Washington ; and a very swell young man he is ! And he is dead in love with me ; but this is a se- cret, mind," and Mimi laughs again at the simple, puz- zled face of Miss Hopkins. "He is down here from New York, wasting his sweetness on Clangville air, for me and for me alone. I might be Mrs. Lacy to-morrow, my Jemima, if I chose." " And you don't choose ?" "No, I don't. I have had enough of men and matri- mony. They're a mistake, Jemima. The game isn't worth the candle. No !" her face sets and darkens sud- denly, "at the very best, it's not worth it." " Are are you a widow ?" Jemima Ann ventures, timidly. There is no reply ; Mimi is carving her chicken with a certain vicious energy, and all the laughing light has vanished from her insouciant face. "A widow," she says, impatiently. "Oh, yes, of course I'm a widow Rogers told you that, didn't he ? Snowball, don't choke yourself with that chicken wing, you little gourmand. Take her away from the table, Jemima Ann ; she's had enough." " Wasn't had 'nuff," cries out Snowball, lustily, cling- ing to her plate with both hands ; " s'ant go. 'Noball wants more sort-cake, 'Mirny Ann." " Oh, let her have some more," says Jemima. " The dear little pet is hungry." 3 8 MLLE. MIML " The dear little pet will be &s fat as a dear little pig, direccly, under your injudicious indulgence, Miss Hop- kins. No, Snowball, not another morsel, and no more milk. Leave the table this moment ; you ought to know by new that what mamma says she means." She rises and bears Snowball bodily from the vic- tuals. And straightway Snowball opens her mouth, and there rises to heaven such a shriek, as it is to be hoped few children have the lungs and temper to emit. "There !" says Mimi, composedly, "that is the sort of angelic disposition your dear little pet is blessed with, Jemima. Please open the window if she doesn't stop this instant, and throw her out !" Jemima Ann declines to act on this summary hint. She soothes the enraged child, instead, and surrepti- tiously conveys to her a contraband wedge of short-cake. " What an odd name you have given her," she re- marks, clearing away the things ; " she never was christ- ened Snowball, was she? That's not a Christian name." " She never was christened anything, my good Jemi- ma," responds her mother, with a shrug. " What is the use of christening? She was a little white, roly-poly baby ; white hair, white skin, white clothes so her father used to toss her up and call her his snowbird, his snow- flake, his snowball, and all sorts of silly, snowy names. As she had to be called something, Snowball it finally came to be, and Snowball I suppose it always will be now. It suits the little white monkey as well as any- thing else. Pearl or Lily would be more sentimental, but I don't profess to be a sentimental person myself. I leave that for you, O romance-reading Jemima Snow ! " The door opens as she speaks. "Samantha," says a pleasant voice, "are you here?" The pleasant voice belongs to a pleasant face, and both are the property of a pretty matron all in drab, like a Quaker, who opens the door, and stands gazing inquir- ingly around. MLLE. MIMI. 39 "Why, Mrs. Tinker!" exclaims Jemima Ann, "is it you ? When did you come ? Aunt Samanthy's jest gone out marketin'. Do come in and wait. I know she's been wantin* to see .you, and a talkin' of going to the cottage all week." " How do you do, Jemima Ann?" is the smiling re- sponse of the drab matron. " Well, perhaps I had bet- ter- " She stops suddenly. Her eyes have fallen on Snow- ball, then on Mimi, and the words die on her lips. A startled look comes into her eyes, a startled pallor falls on her face, her lips part breathlessly, she stands and stares like one who has received a shock. " Oh !" says Jemima Ann, remembering her manners, "this is Mrs. Tinker, Miss Mimi. Mrs. Tinker, this is Mamzel Mimi, a lady that boards here, and her little girl." Mimi smiles easily, shows her small white teeth, and nods. Mrs. Tinker tries to bow, but some sudden, and strange, and great dread and surprise have fallen upon her she retreats backward in a sort of panic, without a word. Mimi lifts her eyebrows and laughs. " Upon my word !" she exclaims, " is that nice moth- erly old party cracked, Jemima Ann ?" Jemima Ann hurries out without reply. The elderly lady stands in the passage, still pale as whitewash, her hands pressed over her heart. "Goodness me, Mrs. Tinker!" she cries. "Whatever is it?" " Oh, my dear," says Mrs. Tinker. " I've had a turn, I've had a turn, my dear. Who is that lady in the parlor ?" " Mamzel Mimi, Mrs. Tinker. Surely you don't know her?" "Oh, my dear, I'm afeared I do I'm sore afeared I do. What is she, Jemima Ann ? An actress ?" 40 MLLE. MIMI. "A tight-rope dancer a circus performer, l.or ! Mrs. Tinker, you ain't a-going to faint ?" For Mrs. Tinker, breathing in gasps, lays sudden and violent hold of Jemima, as if an immediate swoon were indeed her intention. And Mrs. Tinker weighs ten stone, and Jemima Ann feels that with the best wishes in the world, she is not equal to bearing her to the nearest cold-water tap. Mrs. Tinker thinks better of it, how- ever, and does not swoon "No," she says, weakly. "No, Jemima, my dear, I shall not faint. Oh, me ! oh, me ! to think it should come at last. I've always feared it, my dear, always feared it. Sooner or later, I said, she will find us, and she will come. Oh, me, my dear mistress ! How will she bear this ?" "Do you mean Madam Valentine?" says Jemima Ann, looking sympathetic, and deeply puzzled. " Does she know Mamzel Mi mi ? Good gracious me, Mrs. Tinker, you can never mean that?" "Don't ask me any questions, Jemima Ann; you will hear it all soon enough. Come down-stairs, I feel fit to drop, and answer me a few questions. Tell me when this this person came, and all about her." They descend to Mrs. Hopkins' own particular sit- ting-room, and Mrs. Tinker, still in a weak and collapsed state, is provided with a fan and a glass of water, which stimulants bring her slowly round to calmness and co- herence. Jemima Ann unfolds all she knows of Mile. Mimi, which is not very much, but which is listened to with profound and painful intensity of interest. " It's the same, it's the same," says Mrs. Tinker, mournfully. " I know it's the same, I never heard the name afore, but I knew the face at once. It is many and many a weary day ago, but she hasn't changed. Oh, me ! oh, me ! to think of her coming at this late day, and all the harm she's done ! It's wicked, my dear, hut I MLLE. MIMI. 41 hoped she was dead I did, indeed. And the child, coo. Oh ! what will Madam Valentine say?" " Mrs. Tinker," begins Jemima, literally devoured by curiosity but Mrs. Tinker rises, a distressed look on her face, and motions for silence with her hand. " No, my dear/' she says, in the same mournful tone, " I can't tell you. I can't tell any one. I can't stay and see Samantha. I don't feel fit to talk or anything. I've had a blow, Jemima Ann, a blow. I'll go home, my dear, and read a chapter in my Bible, and try to compose my mind." Jemima Ann escorts her to the door, more mystified than she has ever been before in her life, and watches her out of sight, walking slowly and heavily as if bur- dened with painful thoughts. Then she returns up- stairs and into the parlor, where Mimi lies indolently on the sofa, her little feet crossed in an attitude more sug- gestive of laziness and ease than lady-like grace. " Well, Jemima, has that flustered old person de- parted? And what was the matter with her? Is she generally knocked over in that uncomfortable manner by the sight of a stranger ? And is she on her way back to the highly respectable lunatic asylum whence she es- caped ?" " Miss Mimi, are you sure ? Do you mean to say you never saw her before ?" " Never, to the best of my belief. Why ? Does she seem to say that she knows me?" Jemima Ann is silent. There is a mystery here, and she feels that discretion may be judicious. " Who is the venerable party anyhow ? She is a nice kindly-looking body, too, the sort of motherly soul one would like for a nurse or that." "She is Mrs. Tinker Mrs. Susan Tinker." "Susan Tinker. Euphonious cognomen!" laughs Mimi. "What else is she, oh, reticent Jemima Ann ?" " Well, she is housekeeper for Madam Valentine. 42 MLLE. MJMI. She has been her housekeeper for more than twenty years." Jemima is just about lifting the tray to go, but Mile Mimi springs erect so suddenly, utters an exclamation sc sharply that she drops her load. " Land above !" she exclaims, in terror, " what is the matter with you ? " "Who did you say?" Mimi cries out, breathlessly;, *' housekeeper for whom ?" '* Madam Valentine old Madam Valentine of the Cottage. So then you do know something of the secret after all ? " Mile. Mimi is standing up. A flush sweeps over the pearly fairness of her face then it fades and leaves her very pale. She turns abruptly away, walks to a window, and stands with her back to curious Jemima Ann. She stands for fully five minutes staring out ; but she sees nothing of the dull, darkening street, the leaden October sky, the few passers-by, the ugly shops over the way. The blue eyes gleam with a light not good to see. " Don't go," she says at last, turning round as she sees Jemima Ann gathering up the tray, " I want to ask you a question. Who is Madam Valentine ?" " Who is she ? Why, she is Madam Valentine, though why madam any more than other folks I don't know, except that she is very rich immensely rich and aristo- cratic. Oh, my goodness !" says Jemima Ann, despair ing of conveying any idea of the pinnacle of patrician loftiness and wealth, which Madam Valentine has at- tained. " Rich and aristocratic ! What in the world, then," asks Mimi, with a gesture of infinite contempt out of the window, " does she do here ?" " It ain't such a bad place, Clangville ain't," retorts Jemima, rather hurt ; " but she don't live here. She don't live nowhere, Mrs^ Tinker says, for good ; she just goes about. She has houses and places everywhere, in MLLE. MIMI. 43 cities and in the country. She came here three or four years ago, and took a fancy to a place out of town, and thought the air agreed with her. So she bought the cot- tage, and comes for a month or two every fall since. And her nephew likes it for the shooting pa'tridges, and that. She is going away next week, and won't come again till next September." " Her nephew ?" Mimi repeats quickly. " Who is her nephew ?" " Mr. Vane Valentine, a young English gentleman, and her heir. You oughter see him a ridin' through the town, mounted on a big black horse, as tall and straight as anything, and looking as if everybody he met was dirt under his feet !" cries Jemima Ann, in a burst of en- thusiastic admiration. "Indeed ! Mr. Vane Valentine puts on airs, does he? So he is the heir ! I knew there was a British cousin, and an heir to the title. Do you know that high-stepping young gentleman will be a baronet one day, Jemima Ann ?" "Yes," says Jemima Ann; "Mrs. Tinker told me. But how do you come to know ? You ain't acquainted with him, are you ?" " I have not that pleasure at present. I may have, possibly, before long. No don't ask questions; all you have to do is to answer them. There are only the old lady and this patrician nephew ?" " That's all. Mr. Valentine is dead." " Yes. But used there not be some one else a son ?" Jemima Ann looks at her with ever-growing curiosity. But her back is to the waning light, and there is nothing to be seen. "It's odd," she says, "that you should know about that ; not many people do. Even Mrs. Tinker hates to talk of it. But, yes there was a son." " What became of him ?" " Well, he went wild, and ran away, and made a low 44 MLLE. MIMI. marriage, and was cut off, and drowned. I don't know nothin' more I don't, indeed. I only found that out by chance. And now I must go," says, nervously, Jemima Ann, "for its nearly six, and aunt will be back, and the hands' supper is to get." Mimi makes no effort to detain her ; but when she is alone she stands for a very long time quite still, the dark look deepening and ever deepening in her face. She hears the house door open, and the shrill, vinegar voice of Mrs. Hopkins hears the sweet, shrill singing of her baby daughter, chanting with much spirit and "go," the ballad of the " Ten Little Injun Boys " hears the ear- splitting workmen's whistle and still stands rapt and motionless, though the night has long since fallen, and all the room and all the street is dark. But Mile. Mimi belongs to the public, and a couple of hours later, flashes before it in all the wonted bravery of tinsel and glitter, and even eclipses herself in the matter of hazardous flying leaps on the trapeze, and daring doings on the dizzy slack-wire. All trace of that darkly-brooding cloud of thought has vanished from her riante face, and at the after-circus supper she outsparkles her sparkling self, and returns home after one, flushed and excited, as usual, with the amber vintages of France, as furnished by the Hotel Washington, and paid for by Mr. Lacy. For Mrs. Hopkins, keeper of the most respectable temperance boarding-house in the good New England town of Clangville, it is the bitterest trial of her life. And she is powerless to help herself ; the sting lies there. Mrs. Hopkins is total abstinence or she is nothing, the most daring foundry hand never returns muddled more than once. "There is the door," says Mrs. Hopkins, with flashing eyes, "and here is you. You git !" There is something in this Spartan brevity that takes down the biggest and blackest hand of them all. But Mile. Mimi absolutely laughs in her face. " My good soul," she says. MLLE. MIMI. 45 "don't put yourself in a passion. I intend to go when my week is up, not an hour sooner, I require stimulants, prescribed by my medical attendant, I assure you. The life I lead is frightfully exhausting. I am not going to change my habits and injure my health to accommodate your old-fashioned prejudices, my very dear Madam Hopkins." There is nothing for it but to suffer and be strong. Aunt Samantha knocks under to the inevitable, and counts every hour until the blessed one of her happy release. " Land o' hope !" cries out, despairingly, Mrs. Hop- kins. "Jemima Ann, will you look at this ! Of all the shameful creeters," a hollow groan finishes the sentence words are weak to express her sense of reprobation. Jemima Ann looks. She is not so easily scandalized as Aunt Samantha, and in her heart of hearts, rather envies Mimi her "right good time," but even she is startled at what she beholds. An open, double-seated carriage, bright with varnish, is flashing past ; and perched high on the driver's seat, beside the renowned Mr. Lacy, holding the reins, and " hi-ing" to four spirited horses, is Mile. Mimi. An expert whip she evidently is, and remarkably jaunty and audacious she looks, a pretty hat set coquettishly on the gilded hair, a cigarette between her rosy lips, she smokes with gusto while she drives. Behind sits one of the Bounding Brothers and his young woman, also with cigarettes alight, and loud laughter ringing forth, and as they fly past, the whole deeply shocked town of Clangville seems to rush to their doors and windows, to catch a glimpse of the demoralizing vision. " I knew she smoked," Jemima Ann remarks, in a subdued voice ; "she does in her own room sometimes! of an afternoon.' 46 MLLE. MIMI. Mrs. Hopkins sinks into a chair, faint with despair. What will this reckless creature do next ? " She'll give the house a bad name," she says, weakly, " and there don't seem nothin' I can do to prevent it. To sit up there, drivin' two team of rarin', prancin' horses, smokin' cigars, and likely 's not half tight. I'll go over to Rogers this very minute and give him a piece of my mind anyhow." The landau, with its four laughing, smoking occu- pants flashes out of town, leaving the coal smoke, the noise, and black grime of foundries and manufactories far behind, and whirls along a pleasant country road, trees on every hand, brilliant with the crimson and orange glories of bright October. " Does anybody happen to know a place called The Cottage?" asks Mimi, "the residence, I believe, of one Mrs. or Madam Valentine?" " I do," replies Mr. Lacy. " I've met young Valen- tine ; dused stiff young prig ; puts on airs of British no- bility 'aw, don't you know, my deah fellah ' that sort of thing. Felt like kicking him on the only occasion we met. Sour-looking, black-looking beggar ! But he lives right out here, with his grandmother, or fairy god- mother, or something." "His aunt, my friend ; be definite. There is a pain- ful lack of lucidity in your remarks, Lacy," says Mimi ;< Well, I want to stop at The Cottage. I am going to make a call. Don t ask questions ; it is my whim ; that is enough for you. Madam Valentine is a real grande dame, so they tell me, and I've never had the pleasure of meeting one of the breed. So I am going to call, and see for myself. I may never have another chance." " You have the audacity of the devil," says Mr. Lacy, with artless admiration. " By George ! I should like to see the old lady's face when you announce yourself. Judging from what I hear, and from the look of that black-visaged nephew, she is more like a venerable em- MLLE. MIMI. 47 press run to seed than an every- day, rich old woman. Shall we all call, or will you go it alone?" Mimi responds that she will go it alone. Her ciga- rette is smoked out. Mr. Lacy lights her another, as she pulls the four prancing bays up at the gates of The Cottage. Her pretty face is slightly paler than usual ; her lips are set in a tight line ; a somber light, that bodes no good to the lady she proposes to visit, is in her blue eyes. She sits a moment, and scans the house and grounds." " Not much of a place," remarks Mr. Lacy, slight- ingly ; " only a shootin'-box for the black boy I mean the nephew. Lots of space, though ; could be made a tip-top country-seat if they liked. Want to get down ?" Mimi waves his hand aside, and leaps lightly to the ground. " Wait for me here," she says, and out of her voice all the snap and timbre have gone " or no ; drive on, and come back in half an hour. I will be ready for you then." " Wish we had an old shoe to throw after you for luck, Mimi," calls out the Bounding Brother. "Don't let the Ogress of the Castle eat you alive if you can help it." "And don't fall in love with the high-toned nephew," says the young person by his side. "Or, what is the more likely, don't let the high-toned nephew fall in love with you," adds Mr. Lacy. " Sure to do it once he sets eyes on you. Ta, ta, Mimi ! Speak up prettily to the old lady. Don't be ashamed of your- self." She waves her cigarette, opens the iron gates, and enters. The carriage and four-in-hand whirl on vanish. With the yellow afternoon sun sifting down on her through the lofty maples and larches, Mimi, with head defiantly erect, and blue eyes dangerously alight, walks up to the front door of The Cottage. 48 MADAM VALENTINE. CHAPTER V. IN WHICH WE VISIT MADAM VALENTINE. T is an unpretentious building, as its name im- plies, a low, white frame structure, with a " stoop," or veranda, running the whole length of its front ; set in wide, wild grounds, and nothing anywhere to betoken that the lady, who is mis- tress there, is a lady of great wealth, and still greater dignity arid social distinction. There are great beds of gorgeous, flaunting dahlias, Mimi notices, and other beds of brilliant geraniums : no other flowers. Two great dogs start up at her approach, and bark loudly ; other- wise it is all still, in its afternoon hush, as the Castle of the Sleeping Beauty. But human life is there, too, and not asleep. A lady, slowly pacing up and down the long stoop in the warm sunshine, pauses, turns, stands, looks, and waits for the visitor to approach. It is Madam Valentine herself. Mimi knows it at a glance, though she has never seen her before. But she has seen her picture, and heard her described, ah ! many times. She is a tall, spare old lady, with silvery hair, combed high over a roll, a la Pompadour, silvery, severe face, made vivid by a pair of piercing dark eyes. She wears a dress of soundless, lusterless black silk, that sweeps the boards behind her. She looks like one born to rich, soundless silks, and priceless laces, and diamond rings. Many of these sparkle on the slender white hands, folded on the gold knob of her ebony cane, as she stands and waits. A lofty, stately figure, her trained robe trailing, her jewels gleaming ; but her majesty of bearing is altogether lost on her daring and dauntless visitor. With her fair head well up and back, her blue eyes alight smiling defiance in "very feature, and still MADAM VALENTINE. 49 smoking, straight up and on marches Mimi, until the two women stand face to face. The dogs, at a sign from their mistress, have ceased barking, and crouch, growling, near. The cottage rests in its afternoon hush, the long shadows of the western sun fall on and gild the two faces one so fair, so youth- ful, so bold, so reckless ; the other so stern, so old, so set, so proud. Madam Valentine breaks the silence first. " To whom have I the pleasure of speaking ?" she asks, her voice as hard as her face, deep and strong almost as a man's. " You don't know me," Mimi says, airily ; " well, that is your fault. / never was proud. Still, you might re- cognize me, I think. Look hard, Madam Valentine ; look again, and as long as you like. I am used to it ; it's in my line of business, you knoAV ; and tell me did you never see any one at all like me ?" She removes her cigarette, knocks off the ash daintily with her little finger-tip, and holds it poised, as she stands at ease, a smile on her face, and stares straight into Madam Valentine's eyes. " I do not know you," that lady answers in accents of chill disgust. " I have no wish to know you. If you have any business, state it, and go." "Hospitable!" Mimi laughs, "and polite. So, you do not know me, and have no desire to know me? Well, I can believe that. No, you do not know me. You never met me before, but I have every reason to believe you have heard a great deal of me. I think your elderly housekeeper knows who I am ; she looked as if she did yesterday afternoon." Madam Valentine takes a step back, a sudden change passes over her face a sudden wild fear comes into her eyes. And it has chanced to few people ever to see Madam Valentine look afraid. " My God !" she says, under her breath, " is it is it " 50 MADAM VALENTINE. " George's wife. Yes, my dear mother-in-law. You behold your daughter ! I am Mary Valentine known to the circus-going world as Mimi Trillon. For profes- sional reasons a French name has hitherto suited me best, but my reputation is made now as a dashing tra- pezist, and tight-rope dancer, and I am tired of sailing under false colors. I propose from this day forth assum- ing my own name. ' Mrs. George Valentine ' will look well on the bills, I think, and sounds solid and respect- able. Unless un/ess," she pauses, and the blue eyes flash out upon the black ones with a look of spite and hatred not good to see. " I owe you something these last eight years, Madam Valentine, and I have vowed a vow to pay my debt. But I am willing, after all, to forget and forgive on one condition. Do you know I have a child ?" There- is no reply. Abhorrence, hatred, disgust, look, at her out of Madam Valentine's dark, glowing eyes. " A little girl of three years and three months George's daughter your only grandchild, madam ; the heiress, if right is done, of every farthing you possess. I love my child ; provide for her, provide for me ; you count your wealth by millions ; I drudge like a galley slave. Buy me off ; I don't use fine phrases, you see, and I have my price. Buy me off from the circus. It is not half a bad life for me, but for my little girl's sake, and for the honor of the highly respectable family I have married into, I will quit it. But at a fair price a car- riage, servants, diamonds, a fixed and sufficient annuity all that. And you may take your granddaughter and place her at school ; I shall not object, mothers must sacrifice their own feelings for the good of their children. Do all this, and I promise to forget the past, and trouble you no more." She pauses. Madam Valentine still stands, but more erect, if possible, her hands resting one over the other on the top of her cane, her face as set as steel. MADAM VALENTINE. 51 "If you have finished," is her icy answer, "go !' A flush of rage crimsons Mimi's face. She plants her little feet, and comes a step closer to her foe. " I have not finished !" she cries, fiercely ; "this is one side of the medal let me show you the reverse. Refuse treat me with scorn and insult, as you have hitherto done, and by this light I swear I'll make you repent it ! 1 11 placard your name the name you are all so proud of on every dead wall, and every fence, in every news- paper, the length and breadth of the land ! I'll proclaim from the house-tops whose daughter-in-law I have the honor to be, whose wife I have been, whose widow I am ! For you know, I suppose, that your son is dead?" The haughty, inflexible old face changes for a mo- ment, there is a brief quiver of the thin, set lips then perfect repose again. "Yes, he is dead," goes on Mimi, "killed by your hardness and cruelty. He was your only son, but you killed him with your pride. It must be a consoling thought that, in your childless old age ! But you have your nephew I forgot he is to have poor George's birthright. He perished in misery and want, Madam Valentine, and his last thought was for you. It will comfort you on your own death bed, one of these days, to remember it. Now choose will you provide for my future and for my child's, or shall I proclaim to the world who I am, and what manner of woman are you ?" " Will you go ?" repeats Madam Valentine, in the same voice of icy contempt, " or must I set my dogs on you to drive you out ?" "If you dare !" cries Mimi, her face ablaze. " I defy you and your dogs ! I shall remain in Clangville until Saturday this is Thursday I give you until Saturday to decide. ' If I do not hear from you before I leave this place, look to the consequences ! The whole country shall know my story ; the world shall judge between us. My story shall be told in every way in which it is pos- 52 MADAM VALENTINE. sible to tell it, the story of the wronged wife, and the mother who murdered her only son ! You are warned ! I wish you good-day, and a very good % appetite for your dinner, Madam* Valentine !" She takes her skirts after the stately old fashion, and sweeps a profound and mocking courtesy. Then sing- ing as she goes a snatch of a drinking song, and walking with an exaggerated swagger, she marches back to re- join her friends, by this time waiting at the gate. Madam Valentine stands and looks after her, a lofty, lonely, dark-draped figure, in the yellow waning light. So still she stands, her hands folded on the top of her gold and black cane, that it is nearly half an hour before she wakes from her trance. The lengthy afternoon shadows are at their longest, the October wind sighs fitfully through the trees, the air grows sharp and frosty, but she feels no chill, sees no change. The dead seems to have arisen, her drowned son has come from his grave and spoken to her through this woman's lips this low-born, low-bred, violent crea- ture, this jumper of horizontal bars, this rough rider of horses ! This is the wife he has wedded, the daughter he has given her, the mother of the last daughter of the house of Valentine ! If vindictive little Mimi, laughing, jesting, smoking, driving four-in-hand, loudly and reck- lessly all the way back, could but read the heart she has left behind, even her vengeance would ask no more ! MR, VANE VALENTINE. 53 CHAPTER VI. WHICH INTRODUCES MR. VANE VALENTINE. HE rouses herself at last, and goes in, shiver- ing in the first consciousness she has yet felt of the rising wind. It is dusk already Ln the hall, but the sitting-room she enters is lit by a bright wood fire. The last pale primrose glitter of the western sky shows through the muslin curtains of the one bay-window a window with no womanly litter of bird-cages and flower-pots, or fancy-work. And yet it is a cozy room, and sufficiently home-like, with an abun- dance of books and magazines strewn everywhere, many pictures on the papered walls, and half a dozen chairs of the order pouf. She pulls the bell-rope in crossing to her own partic- ular seat, and sinks wearily into its downy depths, in front of the fire. She still rests upon her cane, and droops a little forward, but the stern old face keeps its hard frigidity of look, and shows little more trace of suffering than a face cut in gray stone. " Jane," she says, quietly, to the woman who appears, " send Mrs. Tinker to me." Jane says "Yes'm," and goes. The dark, resolute eyes turn to the fire and gaze into its ruddy depths, until the door reopens, and the housekeeper, fluttered and ner- vous, enters. She has caught a glimpse of the visitor, and stands almost like a culprit before her mistress. Madam Valentine eyes her for a moment as she stands smoothing down her black silk apron with two restless old hands. " Susan," she says, in the same quiet tone, " I have had a caller. You may have seen her you may even have heard her, she spoke loudly enough. She men 54 MR. VANE VALENTINE. tioned you incidentally in something she said spoke of your recognizing her, or something of the kind. Do you know who I mean ?" " Mistress, I am afeard I do." " You have seen this this person, then where ?" "She lodges with my cousin in the town, ma'am leastways she was poor, dear Tinker's cousin, afore he departed ; she keeps a boardin'-house, which her name it is Samantha Hopkins " Madam Valentine waves her hand impatiently a hand that flashes in the fire-light. Samantha Hopkins is something less than nothing to her. " She lodges in Clangville, and you have een ner. Have you spoken to her ?" " Oh, no, ma'am, no not for the world ! And and I didn't know she knew me" 11 How did you know her ?" " Mistress," in a low tone, " I used to see T often saw her picture with with Master " Again the white, ringed hand flashes in the fire-light, quickly angrily, this time. " Stop ! I want to hear no names. Do you know who she claims to be ?" " Mistress, yes," still very low. " Do you believe it ?" the voice this time sharp with angry pain. " Oh, my dear mistress, I am afeard I am afeard I do !" A pause. The fire leaps and sparkles, and gilds the pictures on the walls, and brings out in its vivid glow the faces of the two women, mistress and servant. The last gray light of the waning day lingers on these two gray old faces one so agitated, so tear-wet, so stricken with sorrow and shame one in its chill, pale pride, showing nothing of the agony within. "You recognized her at first sight," says Madarn Val- entine, mastering her voice with an effort // is hardly as MR. VANE VALENTINE. 55 well trained as her face " without a word from the photographs you used to see?" " 1 did, ma'am." " Then I suppose there can be no mistake. I would not have believed that that person's word. You know there is a child ?" " I saw her, madam. Oh, my dear mistress, I saw her ! Master George's own little child ! Oh ! my heart ! my heart !" She breaks down suddenly, and covering her old face with her old hands, sobs as if her heart would break. Madam Valentine's face changes, works, and turns quite ghastly as she listens and looks. "Oh, forgive me!" Mrs. Tinker sobs, "my own dear mistress. I have no right to cry and distress you in your sore trouble, but I loved him so ! And to see her that pretty, pretty little one, and to know that he was dead, my bright, bonny boy, and that she was his child oh ! my mistress, it goes near to break my heart. Don't 'ee be angry wi' me, I am only an old woman, and I held him in my arms many and many a time, and my own flesh and blood could never be dearer than my dearest Master George !" " You may go, Susan." She speaks with measured quiet, but not coldly nor impatiently. " And you are not angry wi' me ? Oh ! mistress, don't 'ee be angry don't 'ee, now ! Indeed, and in very deed, I " " I am not angry. You are a good soul, Tinker. I have a great respect for you. When Mr. Vane comes in send him to me at once." " He is here now, ma'am. I hear his steps in the 'all." A slow, rather heavy step, is indeed audible, and a man's voice calls through the utter dusk for somebody to show a light. 56 MR. VANE VALENTINE. "Yes," says madam, listening, "tell him to come in here, before he goes to his room to dress for dinner." " Shall I send in lamps, ma'am ?" " No not until I ring. The twilight is enough." Mrs. Tinker, wiping her eyes, departs, and her mis- tiess turns her brooding gaze once again upon the fire. A very somber gaze. All her life of fifty years and more, this woman has been trained to self-repression, and in this supreme hour she is true to her training and traditions. He would be a keen observer, who, at this moment, could read what she is enduring in her still face. And yet she has been a mother, a passionately loving mother, and all the martyrdom of maternity is rending her heart in this hour. But of all the men in the world, the man who enters now, is the very last to whom she will show it. He is Vane Valentine, a young Englishman, a nephew of her late husband, and the last male of the Valentine race, heir-at-law to a baronetcy, and heir presumptive of Catherine Valentine's millions, vice George Hamilton Vaientine, cashiered and deceased. He is a slim, dark young man, not much over twenty, with a sallow, thin face, a thin aquiline nose, a thin, rather womanish mouth, a thin, black mustache, and thin black hair, parted down the middle. Thinness and blackness, indeed, at the present stage of his existence, are the most salient points about him, if you except a certain expression of obstinacy about the whole face, and an air of hauteur, amounting almost to insolence in everything he says and does. The pride of these Valentines, for that matter, is quite out of proportion to their purse, if not to their pedigree, madam being the only member of the family out of the absolute reach of poverty but pride and poverty run in harness together often enough. He comes in quickly, surprised at Mrs. Tinker's mes MR. VANE VALENTINE. 57 sage, for madam, in a general way, is not over fond of him, does not greatly affect his society, and never sends for him. " You are not ill, aunt ?" he inquires. He speaks with something of a drawl, but not an af- fected one. He never has much to say for himself, so perhaps is wise to make the most of the little he has. "111? No," she answers, contemptuously. "I am never ill. You should know that. I have sent for you to discuss a very serious matter. I consider you have a right to know, and perhaps to decide. You may be my heir ; the honor of the Valentine name is in your keep- ing, and she threatens Vane !" abruptly, "you know the story of my son ?" " Unfortunately, yes. A very sad and shocking story," he answers, gravely. He is standing by the mantel, leaning his elbow on it, facing her. She, too, steadfastly regards him. " You were told as a matter of course when you first came. Not many people know it it is a disgrace that has been well hidden. But it is a disgrace that all the world may soon know. That woman is here." " Aunt !" he cries. "You do not mean to say not the woman he " "Married. Yes. Once his wife, now his widow. And her little girl his child." " Good Heaven !" exclaims Vane Valentine. Then there is silence. They look at one another across the red light of the fire, two proud, dark faces, con- fronting, with the same fear and pain in both. " She is a circus performer bare-back rider trap- ezist so she tells me. She dances on a tight-rope. She is everything that is brazen and bad, and vulgar and horrible. And she is extremely pretty. She is here with the circus in the town. She called at this house not more than two hours ago. And she threatens to pro- claim to the whole country in posters, in papers, in 3* 5 8 MR. VANE VALENTINE. every way, that she is has been George Valentine's wife." " Good Heaven !" says Mr. Vane Valentine. It seems the only thing left him to say. He stands absolutely stunned by the tremendousness of the catas- trophe. He stares at his aunt with dilating eyes, from which a very real horror looks. "She calls herself Mimi Trillon at present. She lodges with Mrs. Tinker's cousin, in Clangville, and will remain until Saturday. After Saturday the whole world is to know who she is." "Good Heaven !" repeats, blankly, Mr. Vane Valen- tine. It has been said his command of language is not great. ' Can can nothing be done, you know ?" he asks in blankest accents. " I I wouldn't for anything, by Jove !" " She offers one alternative. I mentioned the child a little girl. She may be bought off. Her price is the adoption, education, care of the child, and an annuity a tolerably large one, I fancy, for herself. She is tired of her present life so she says ; she will leave it, give up the little girl, retain her incognito, and live on the annuity if it is provided. Otherwise, she will proclaim her wrongs and her identity to all who choose to listen. That is her offer." " By Jove !" says, still more blankly, Mr. Vane Valen- tine, " she is a cool hand. Mile. Mimi Trillon yes, I saw her name blazing all over the town, and her picture, too, by Jove ! All bare neck and arms, like a grisette of Mabille. And that is George's widow? Good Hea- ven f" "You have made that remark a number of times already," says, disdainfully, his aunt. " There is no use in standing there and saying, ' Good Heaven !' I fancy Heaven has very little to do with Mile. Mimi Trillon. But she is the person she claims to be ; there is no doubt of that. Tinker recognized her in a moment from the MR. VANE VALENTINE. 59 photograph she used to see. She has been good enough to give me until Saturday to come to a decision. I waive my right to decide, and place the matter in your hands. You have your full share of the Valentine pride, and you are the last of the name. You will bear it with honor. I trust when I am dead. Decide do we agree or refuse?" Mr. Vane Valentine is not a fool ; very far from it where a point of family honor is concerned. He decides with a promptitude his somewhat weak-looking mouth would not seem to promise. " We agree, of course. We must agree. Good Heaven ! there is no other course. If she is the person she pro- fesses to be, and has a right to the name good God ! only to think of that a circus rider ! She must be bought off at any price. Think of the publicity ! think of your feelings! think of mine! of my sister's of Camilla's of of everybody's of Sir Rupert's ! Good Heaven ! it's awful, don't you know. She must be bought off at any price, and at once at once !" i- Very well," responds the chilly voice of the lady. " Do not excite yourself ; there is no haste. We have until Saturday, remember two days. Do nothing to- night ; sleep upon it. At the same time, I may say, I think with you. Money is nothing in a case like this. She must be bought off ; and at her own price." " Of course," says, promptly, Vane Valentine ; " but I will make the best terms I can. The best will be bad, no doubt. She must be a dused sharper all through ! It is well she will give up the child. A little girl, you say? Aw, that is best, certainly," says Mr. Valentine, stroking his thin, black mustache, and reflecting it might have been " dused unpleasant and that " if George's child had been a son. Inconceivable ass, George Valen- tine doing the all for love and the world well lost busi- ness in the nineteenth century, when passions and emo- tions, and aw that sort of thing, are extinct." 60 MR. VANE VALENTINE. But the ill-wind has blown him (Vane) into a prospec- tive fortune and title, so he is not disposed to quarrel with the shade of his late idiotic cousin, nor even with his rascally relict, if he can buy that lady off at a fair price. " I'll go to the circus this evening," he says, after that ruminative pause, "and take a look at her. Pretty, is she, you say ? But of course ; that was the reason con- found her! that she fooled your him! Yes, it is well she will resign the child. She, of course, is not a proper person to bring up a little girl, and, aw, a relative of ours. Good Heaven ! to think of it ! I will see her, and settle this, aw, dused unpleasant business, you know, for good and all." "Very well," madam says, wearily; "and I think, if you will excuse me, I will not dine this evening. I will have a cup of tea here, and retire early. I over-fatigued myself this afternoon, I fancy." It is a tired and aching heart that weighs down Madam Valentine, not her afternoon constitutional in the sun- shine, up and down the stoop. Perhaps Vane Valentine guesses he has more penetration than he looks to have. He murmurs a few appropriate words of regret, and, a little later, goes to the dining-room, and eats his dinner in solitary state, somewhat gloomy and preoccupied, but with a very good appetite. Then, as the starry October nightfalls mistily over the world, puts on his light over- coat, and sets out at a brisk walk for the town, the circus, and his first sight ot Mile. Mimi Trillon. LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM. 61 CHAPTER VII. WHICH TREATS OF LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM. HE moon is shining brightly as he quits the cottage, a frosty moon, and the sky is all alight with stars. Mr. Vane Valentine glances approvingly upward as he lights a cigar, and opines he will have a pleasant night for his return walk. His step rings like steel on the hard ground, and reaches the ear of madam, sitting alone and lonely before the fire. She glances after him a tall, slender figure and in that look, for one^instant, there flashes out something strangely akin to aversion. For he stands in the stead of her son, her only son, her bright, brave, handsome, joyous George, the latchet of. whose shoes, at his worst, this stiff young prig is unworthy to loose. Yet the aver- sion is unjust ; it is no fault of Vane Valentine's that he is here, he has neither sought for, nor forced himself into the position, rather his kinship has been thrust upon him, and Katherine Valentine knows it well. But her spirit is sore to-night, she is a very desolate woman, with all her pride, and pedigree, and wealth, an old, a lonely, a widowed, a childless woman. The cruel words of that other George's wife George's wife ! how strange the thought nay, George's widow the woman he has loved, has married, the mother of his child, ring in her ears, and will not be exorcised. " You murdered him ! You left him to perish in want ! You killed him with your pride !" Oh ! God, is it true ? George in want suffering dying ! A low, moaning cry, strange, and dreary, and terrible to hear, breaks from her lips, she covers her face with her hands there as she sits alone. Here, with no eye to see, no ear to hear, her pride may drop from her for a little, and 62 LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM. love and memory awake. Firelight and moonlight meet and mingle in the room, a fitting spectral light for ghosts to rise out of their graves and keep her company. The house is very still, the servants, with Mrs. Tinker, are at supper. Vane Valentine is on his way to the circus, ex- cited and stimulated by the thought of beholding the adventuress who erstwhile fooled his infatuated Cousin George. Here, alone, she is free to break her heart in silence, after the fashion of some strong women. To- morrow she will be cold and hard, no trace of weakness or tears will betray her to-night she is at liberty, and tears as bitter, as burning as ever childish mother shed, wet the pale cheeks as she sits and thinks. It is not such a long story, this tragedy, to think over the tragedies of life are mostly b4efly told. To Kath- erine Valentine it is but as yesterday since she last kissed her son in reality it is eight years since he gave up father, mother, home, friends, name, a fortune all that men hold best worth the keeping, for sake of the pink and white face, the bold, blue eyes, and flaxen hair she saw a few hours ago. Let me tell you the story she thinks out, sitting here, a bowed and forsaken figure, that Vane Valentine rumi- nates over, with contemptuous wonder on his way to the circus the old story of a "young man married, a young man married." Some forty years before this starry October night, another Valentine Austin Mordred Valentine said good-by to old England, to Valentine Manor, to his elder brother, Sir Rupert, and sailed for the new world to seek his fortune. Literally to seek his fortune, and lully resolved to find it. He was twenty years old, good- looking, well educated, fairly clever, possessed of plenty of British pluck and "go," and backbone ; not afraid of plodding, of waiting, of hard work, absolutely deter- mined to succeed. That sort of man does succeed. Austin Valentine LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM. 63 succeeded beyond even his most sanguine expectations, and like all men of ability believed implicitly in himself. He took to trade, the first of the name of Valentine who had ever so demeaned himself. They had been free- booters, raiders, hard fighters, hard hunters, hard spend- thrifts ; had been soldiers, sailors, rectors, lived hard, died hard, distinguished themselves in many ways, but tradesmen none of them had been, until young Austin threw off the traditions and shackles of centuries, eman- cipated himself, took this new departure, demeaned him- self, and made his fortune. It was time, too, for the Valentine guineas had come to a very low ebb. Riotous living is apt to empty al- ready depleted coffers. Sir Rupert, with every inch of land mortgaged, the manor rented, wandering about the Continent, striving drearily to make the most of nothing, was perhaps a greater object of compassion than Austin in the shipping business and fur trade, with wealth roll- ing in like a golden river, a millionaire already at thirty years. But Sir Rupert did not think so. From the heights of his untarnished position, as one of the oldest baronets of the baronetage, he looked in honor from the first, on his only brother's decadence, spoke of him always as " poor Austin," and to do him justice declined to avail himself in any way of such ill- gotten gain. Astin laughed ; he was philosophical as well as shrewd, went on the even tenor of his wealthy way, and finally at three-and-thirty looked about him for a wife. He found one there in Toronto ready to his hand, a rara arif, possessing in herself every quality he most desired in a wife beauty, family, high-breeding, an ancient name. Her father was Colonel Hamilton, she was the eldest of a family of daughters, scantily provided for. Like the Valentines, the Hamiltons were uncomfortably poor and proud. The young lady had many suitors, was a belle and a 64 LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM. "toast" in the rather exclusive circle in which she moved, but from the first Austin Valentine stood to win. Nothing succeeds like success. His name, his family, his good looks, his riches, all were in his favor. Colonel Hamilton moved with the world, and had no patrician's scruples in regard to the shipping interest and vast fur trade with Indians and trappers, whatever the stately Karherine may have had. But she was a prudent young lady, too ; not so very young either, seven-and-twenty perhaps, and there were all the younger ones, and life was rather a dingy affair in the crowded household, and, besides, she was not sen- timental at all ; but she really well had a very sincere regard and and esteem (it is difficult to find the correct word) for Mr. Austin Valentine. She said yes when he proposed, and looked quite re- gal in her white satin and point laces and pearls, every one said, on her wedding-day. They went abroad for a year, met Sir Rupert still drearily economi2ing on the Continent, and the bride- groom received his forgiveness and blessing and two lean fingers to shake. He even promised to come over and visit them " some time," an indefinite period that never arrived. They visited Manor Valentine, which fine ancestral old place Mrs. Austin resented seeing in the possession of aliens, much more than either of the brothers. "I'll pay off these confounded mortages, and come and live here one day," said Mr. Austin, coolly. " And I shall be Lady Valentine," thought his bride. For all the world knew Sir Rupert never meant to , marry did not care for that sort of thing was a con- firmed invalid, hypochondriac rather, absorbed in himself and his many ailments. But "creaking doors hang long" confirmed invalids are mostly tenacious of life, and Mrs. Austin never be- came my Lady Valentine LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM. 65 On this October night Austin Valentine has lain for years under the turf, while the hypochondriacal elder brother is still on it, and likely indefinitely there to remain. They returned to Toronto and set up house-keeping or. a princely scale. Katherine Valentine amply renumerated herself for the dingy years of her maiden life. She spent money lavishly, extravagantly, on every whim and caprice, until even generous Austin winced. But he signed the big checks and laughed. Let it go she did honor to him, to his name, to their position as leaders of society her tastes were aesthetic, and aesthetic tastes are mostly expensive. Everything turned to gold in his hands, he was a modern Midas without the ass' ears. Let her spend as she might the coffers would still be full. And then after ten years a son was born. When a prince of the blood is born, cannons boom, bells ring, and the woiM throws up its hat and hoorays. None of these things were done when Katherine Valen- tine's son came into the world, but it was an event for all that. Toronto talked, there was feasting below stairs, there were congratulations from very august quarters, a gov- ernor-general and an earl's daughter were his sponsors, the cnristening presents were something exquisite. Sir Rupert wrote a very correct letter from Spa a weak little pean of rejoicing, but very warmly welcomed. He looked on the boy as his successor, hoped he would grow up to be an honor to the name of Valentine had no doubt of it with such a mother, trusted he inherited some of her beauty, must be excused from sending anything more substantial than good wishes, the distance, etc. They named the baby George, after his paternal grand- father George Hamilton Valentine it stood on the record, and the happiness of Austin and Katherine Val- 66 LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM. cntine was complete. Surely if ever a child came into the world with the traditional silver spoon in its mouth, it was this one. He did inherit his mother's statuesque beauty he was an uncommonly handsome child, healthy, merry a boy to gladden any mother's heart. Years passed there was no other child. It can be imagined, perhaps, the life this "golden youth" led, it can hardly be described. And yet he was not spoiled. Idolizing his mother might be, but judicious she was also, and very firm firmness was a salient point of her character. But she loved him, he was the one creature on earth she ever had absolutely loved she loved him with all her heart and strength, and mind and soul, as saints ove God, as He above should be loved. No hu- man heart can make a human idol, and not pay the pen- alty even here below, in heart-break and despair. And Madam Valentine was no exception. She would not have him sent abroad to school. His uncle, Sir Rupert, wished him to go to Eton and Oxford, as an English lad, and a future baronet, should, but neither father nor mother could bear their darling out of their sight. The boy himself wished it ; he was a bold, bright, fearless little fellow at ten, with big, black, laughing eyes, a curly crop of black brown hair, the whitest teeth, the most genial laugh in the world. Even if he had not been a prince by right divine of his birth and heirship, he would still have been charming with that frank bonny face, and winsome smile and glance. He was born a prince by right of that kingly brow, and handsome face he won all hearts even as a beggar he would still have been born a conqueror. As heir to fabulous wealth, to a title, it is again more easy to imagine than describe what he was in the provincial city of Toronto. He grew and prospered ; he had masters for every language, every science, every ology under the sun. He had his horse and his dogs, and he drove, and he rode, and he studied, or let it alone, and made glad the hearts LOWS YOUNG DREAM. 67 of a doting man and woman. But mostly he studied, he was fairly industrious, he had his own notions of noblesse oblige, and what it became a prince to know ere he came into his kingdom. He had a resident tutor, besides these masters, he had a pretty taste for music, played the piano and sang, until his mother thought him a modern Mo- zart, did himself credit on the violin, painted a little, sketched a great deal, wrote Latin verses with fluency, spoke French and German. With it all he grew and grew ; shot up like Jack's beanstalk, indeed, and at eighteen stood five-feet-eleven, in his very much em- broidered velvet slippers. As a matter of course he broke hearts, though eigh- teen is full young for a gentleman to go energetically into that business. But the truth is, he could not help it. He looked and played the mischief ! Those darlf bright eyes that laughed so frankly on all the world, wrought sad havoc with sixteen-year-old hearts indeed, with hearts old enough to know better. He waltzed ' ohl like an angel !" cried out a chorus of young soprano voices. He sang deliriously. He was past master of the art of croquet, of flirtation, of bil- liards, boating, archery, base-ball ; what was there he did not do to perfection? At eighteen and a half, his mother was not the only lady in the Canadian universe who thought the sun arose with his rising, and bet when his bewildering presence disappeared. And just here, when Eden was at its fairest, sunniest, sweetest, the serpent came, and after him the deluge ! " Mother," said George Hamilton Valentine, one day at breakfast, " I think I shall take a run over the border, and spend a week or two in New York. Parker can come, too, if you think the wicked Gothamites will gob- ble your only one up alive. Too prolonged a course of Toronto is apt to pall on a frivolous mind." Of course, she said Yes. lie did pretty much as he pleased in everything by this time. Even her gen:!e. 68 LOVES YOUNG DREAM. silken chain was felt as a fetter, and rebelled against. He took the discreet resident tutor, Mr. Parker, and a drawing-room car for New York. But he did not return in a week, nor in two, nor in three ; and at the end of five, Mr. Parker wrote a letter, that fell like a bursting bomb into the palatial, mansion at home, and caused a message to flash over the wires with electric swiftness, summoning the wanderers back. They came back. Nothing was said. A glance of intelligence passed between madam and the tutor ; then she looked furtively, anxiously at her son. He was pre- cisely the same as ever, in high health, fine spirits, and full of his recent flying trip. The mother drew a deep breath of relief. There was no change that she could see. Only Mrs. Tinker, who had washed Master Georgie's face at five years old, and combed his hair, and kissed him to the point of extinction, saw a change. She did more ; she saw her photograph. A confidant George must have ; and after a hundred extorted vows of secrecy, reducing Mrs. Tinker almost to the verge of tears with protestations of eternal silence he forced from her, he showed her the photographs. And Mrs. Tinker looked at them, and shrieked a shriek, and covered her shocked old eyes with her virtuous old hands. For the hussy had no clothes on, or next to none, or what Mrs. Tinker considered none never having seen the Black Crook, or a ballet, or anything enlightened or Parisian, in her stupid old life. "Oh! Master George, my dear, how can you ! The wicked, improper young young person !" cried Mrs. T nker, in strong reprobation ; " take them away, Master Georgie, my dear do'ee, now. I wonder at you for showing me such things ! I do, indeed !" " Oh, come, I say !" cries George, but being only a boy, and nearly as innocent as Mrs. Tinker herself, he blushes a fire red too. " Look here, you dear old goose ! Don't you see she is in tights? How could she perform on the LOV&S YOUNG DREAM. 69 trapeze with petticoats flapping about her heels ? Here is one. Now, look at this ; she has a dress on her well, a costume ; they're all in costume. Bother your modesty ! You're old enough to know better! Look here, I say; did you ever in all your life see any one half so lovely?" " I never saw any one half so indecent ! Do you call that a dress that thing ! Why, it don't cover her nasty knees ! Oh, my dear, my dear, take "em away, and put 'em in the fire ! She must be a little trollop to be took in that that scandalous costoom, if that's its name. What would your blessed mamma say, Master George, if she saw them sinful pictures ?" " I say, look here," says Master George, rather alarmed, "don't you go and say anything to the mater about this. You're as good as sworn, you know. And I'll thank you not to call names, Mrs. Tinker. She's no more a trollop than ' than you are,' " is on the point of George's tongue, but having a general respect for old age, and a very particular respect for Mrs. Tinker, he suppresses it, and stands looking rather sulky. " Bless the dear boy !" cries Mrs. Tinker, mollified at sight of her darling in dudgeon ; " I won't, then, only, if she's a friend of yours, Master Georgie, do beg of her to put on her clothes next time ! Do 'ee now, like a lovey !" George laughs ; it is not in his sunny, boyish nature to be irate for more than a minute at a time. "I'll tell her," he says, gleefully; "she'll enjoy the joke. Tinker, she's just the jolliest, prettiest, sweetest little soul the sun shines on to-day ! And she's the dearest friend I have in the world." "Ah !" says Tinker, with a deep groan. "What's her name, Master George?" "Mimi ; isn't it a pretty name? It seems to suit her somehow. Mimi Trillon." He pauses a dreamy rapturous look comes into his 70 LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM. eyes; a flush passes over his face. "Mirai! Mimi !" he repeats, softly, to himself. Mrs Tinker knows the symptoms. At an early pe- riod ol her career the fatal disease attacked herself. Tinker was the object, and she attained Tinker. He is dead and gone now, and it is thirty years ago, but Mrs. Tinker remembers, and a vague, and sudden, and great dread for her boy stirs within her. " What is she, Master George ?" she asks next. " Well, she's she's a professional lady," answers George. The reply does not come fluently. He looks tenderly down at the picture he holds, as if he would like to kiss it while he speaks. " She is not rich, she she works for her living. She's a sort of actress. But she's the dearest, prettiest little love in all the world." "She looks like a jumping Jack!" cries out Mrs. Tinker, in the bitterness of her feeling, "and a misbe- haved jumping Jack, at that !" With which she goes, and George goes, too, laughing. She feels that duty bids her tell all this to Madam Valen- tine, but loyalty to Master George forbids ; she cannot bring herself to tell tales cf her boy. So she says noth- ing, but fears much, and trusts to time to set crooked things straight, and to absence to make this youthful swain forget. But he does not forget ; neither does the professional lady he met in New York, doing the flying trapeze. For, ,one day, some two months later, in pulling out his hand- kerchief, he pulls a letter out of his pocket, and quits the room without noticing it. It is his mother who chances to pick it up. The peaky, school-girlish looking scrawl surprises her. "Dear old Georgie," it begins, and the signature is " Your ever-loving little 'Jumping Jack.' " Madam Valentine, inexpressibly horrified, reads it LOVERS YOUNG DREAM. 71 through, her face flashing with haughty amaze and disgust. Then another feeling fear comes, and turns her white to the very lips. Illy spelt, illy written, vul- gar in every word, it is yet a love-letter a love-letter in which a promised marriage is spoken of. The signature puzzles her. George has told his beloved Mrs. Tinker's fancy name for her, and it has tickled the erratic humor of the vivacious Mimi. She has adopted it. " Some horrible pet name, no doubt," the lady thinks. " Gracious Heaven ! what a strange infatuation for George !" Nothing is said. Mr. Valentine is consulted, is shocked, is enraged, is panic-stricken, but his wife is convinced it is not yet too late. She will take him away, and at once at once ! They will go to Europe ; he shall make the tour of the world, if necessary, with Sir Rupert ; he shall never return to Toronto. What a mercy what a direct interposition of Providence that this letter fell into her hands when it did ! George is told the wish of his heart shall be gratified. He shall throw up study, and travel for the next three years. Uncle Rupert wishes it so much ! She will go with him to Spa, where Sir Rupert at present is, will spend the winter in Italy, and return home in the spring. Is not George delighted ? George does not look delighted. Six months ago he would have done so, but we change in six months. He looks reflective, and a good deal put out, and goes up to his room and writes rather a long letter, and takes it to the post himself. Then he waits. Preparations begin, go on rapidly; in a week they will be ready to start. But just two days before the week ends the terrible blow falls. Fie goes up to his room one night and is seen no more ! He makes a moonlight flitting, with a knapsack and a well-filled pocket-book. He is "o'er the border and awa' wi " 72 LOST FOR A WOMAN. Mimi Trillon, the trapezlst, the tight-rope dancer, the "fair girl graduate with golden hair" from the back slums of New York ! CHAPTER VIII. LOST FOR A WOMAN. E is gone ! They do not hear from him for two weeks, and long days before that the marriage is an accomplished fact. He sends a copy of the Herald containing the marriage notice heavily inked, and a lengthy letter petitioning forgiveness a long pean of praise of his beauteous bride. He calls her an actress he wants to let them down gently, and come to the circus and the trapeze by degrees. It matters not were she a queen of tragedy as stainless as some queens of tragedy have been, it would still matter not. Utter ruin he's befallen, disgrace so deep that no condoning can be possible. He might have died in these gallant and golden days of his youth, and their hearts might have broken, but still broken proudly, and his memory been cherished as the one beautiful and perfect thing of earth too perfect to last. That radiant memory would have consoled. Now there can be no- thing of this. Blank ruin, utter misery, deepest shame, covers them as a garment it is in their hearts to curse him in the first fre.izy of woe. He is worse than dead, a thousand times worse. They burn his portrait, they erase his name from the family Bible, they hang from sight and existence everything that ever belonged to him, they tear his letters to atoms they would cover their heads with ashes, and wear sackcloth if it could help them to forget. Their hearts go in sackcloth and LOST FOR A WOMAN. 73 ashes, all the rest of their lives. The world of Toronto is stirred to its deepest depths ; it is more than a nine- days' wonder it is whispered with bated breath, and awe-stricken faces, in very patrician families indeed, for many and many a day. And so George Valentine gives the world for love, and his place knows him no more. His father and mother live, and bear their misery and shame, and after the first blow, show a brave front to the world. It is in their nature. They hold themselves more defiantly erect if possible, but he would be a brave man who would venture to name their son to either of them. And years go by, and richer and still richer Austin Valentine grows, and Sir Rupert writes from Nice in a despondent strain, that he is breaking fast, and that the actress stands a chance of writing herself Lady Valentine all too soon. Lady Valentine she may be curse her ! Austin Valentine mutters, for he, too, is a broken man, but never heir to his millions. He bethinks him all at once of a youthful cousin, also a Valentine, half forgotten until now, very poor, and living in a re- mote part of Cornwall, and sends for him at once, with the assurance that if he pleases him he shall be his heir. Vane Valentine comes, wondering, and hardly able to realize his fairy future. He has been brought up in poverty and obscurity has never expected anything else. Three lives stand between him and the baronetcy, Sir Rupert, Austin, George what chance has he ? Take away these three lives and give him the title what is there for him to keep it up on ? No, Vane Valentine has hoped for nothing, and Fate thrusts fortune in a mo- ment into his hands. He comes a slim, dark youth of twenty, with good manners, and not much to say for himself. A little stiff and formal, his uncle (so he is told to term Mr. Austin Valentine) finds him a contrast in all ways to the heir who is lost. All the better for that, perhaps ; no chance 74 LOST FOR A WOMAN. trick of resemblance will ever make their hearts bleed. It is a young man this, who will never do a foolish or a. generous, or a reckless, or an unselfish thing; who will weigh well the name and status of the lady he marries ; whose heart will never run away with his head. " The heart of a cucumber fried in snow," quotes, contemptuously, Madam Valentine. " We need ^iot be afraid of him. What a pompous young prig the little fool is !" But Vane Valentine never dreams of the estimate these rich relations of his hold him in. He thinks ex- ceedingly well of himself, and infers, with the complacent simplicity of extreme conceit, that all the world does the same. The Valentine blue blood runs in his calm veins, his manners and morals are of the best, his temper well under control, his taste in dress verging on perfection, his health good without being vulgarly robust, his edu- cation leaves nothing to be desired what more will you ? He accepts with complacent ease the golden showers Fortune rains upon him, does not oppress his benefac- tress with words of gratitude, feels that Destiny has come to a sense of her duty, and that the " king has got his own again." He writes long letters to Cornwall to his sister Dorothea, who has trained him since the death of his parents in early boyhood, and to a certain Cousin Camilla, of whom he is very fond, and whose picture he wears in a locket. And Austin and Katherine Valentine accept him for what he is, and make the most of him ; and all the time the aching void is there in their hearts, and aches and aches wearily the long year round. Mr. Valentine visibly droops, breaks, retires from business, and begins that other business in whose per- formance we must all one day engage the business of dying. The name of the lost idol is never spoken between LOST FOR A WOMAN. 75 this father and mother. If the waters of Lethe were no fable, they would drink of it greedily, and so forget. But they remember only the more, perhaps, for this un- broken silence. Six months after the arrival of Vane Valentine his twentieth birthday occurs, and for the first time since the thunderbolt had riven their hearts, a party is given at Valentine House, in honor of the occasion. It is a dinner party, to which, in addition to the young people invited to meet the heir, many very great personages are bidden and come. It is a dinner party that Mrs. Tinker, for one, never forgets. Something occurs that night that is marked with a white stone forever after in her life. No one has mourned the lost heir more deeply, more despairingly than she. Hers is gentler grief than that of the parents, it is unmixed with anger or bitterness her tears flow at first in ceaseless streams. She has loved her boy almost as dearly as his own mother, only with a love that has in it no pride, no baser alloy with its pure metal. She has loved and she has lost. She is a stout, unromantic-looking old woman, but to love and lose is as bitter to her faithful heart, it may be, as though she were a slim, sentimental maid of sixteen. Her handsome Master George, her bonny boy, the apple of her eye and the pride of her life what was the world without him ! And on this night of the birthday fete some bitter drops rain from the royal old eyes at the thought of the days and the heir forever gone. She has resented the coming of this young usurper from the first, but she has resented in silence, of course she has never liked him, she would feel it as treason to her lost darling to like him even if he were likeable. But he is not, he is black-a-vised, he is 'aughty, he 76 LOST FOR A WOMAN. % has a nasty, stiff way with servants, he is stingy, he loves money. Yes he loves money Mrs. Tinker decides with dis- gust, he has been brought up to count every penny he spends, and he counts them yet. He will not let himself lack for anything, but he never gives away, he never throws a beggar a penny, nor a servant a tip. He is profuse in his " Aw thanks," but this politeness is the only thing about him he is lavish of. So on this night of the dinner party, when Mr. Vane is twenty, and all the city is called upon to feast and re- joice, Mrs. Tinker sits in her own comfortable little room, and wipes her eyes and her glasses, and looks at the fire, and shakes her head, and is dismally retrospec- tive. It is a March night, and the wildest of its kind. It is late in the month, and March is going out like a lion, roaring like Bottom, the weaver, "so that it would do any man's heart good to hear him." It might, if the man were seated like Susan Tinker at a cheery coal fire, a cup of tea and a plate of buttered toast at her elbow, but if he were breasting the elemental war, as was the man who slowly made his way to a side entrance of the great house itafco might not. A tall man, in a rough great-coat, and fur cap, strid- ing along in the teeth of the wind and sleet, over the slippery city pavements, and who rang the bell of the side door, and shrunk back into the shadow as it was an- swered. One of the men-servants opened it, and peered out into the wild blackness of the night. "Well, my man," he said, espying the tall, dark shadow, "and what may you want, you know?" " I want to see Mrs. Tinker. She lives here, doesn't she?" the shadow replied. "Well she do," the footman admits, leisurely ; "but LOST FOR A WOMAN. 77 whether she'll want to see you what's your business my good foliar?" "My business is with Mrs. Tinker. Just go and tell her I have a message for her I think she will be glad to hear -my good fellar !" in excellent imitation of the pompous tone of Plush. " And look sharp, will you ? It is not exactly a balmy evening in June." " Well, it's not" says Plush, reflecting as if that fact strikes him now for the first time. " I'll tell her," and goes. The shadow leans wearily against the door and waits. Dinner is over above stairs, and music, and coffee, and conversation are on. Some lines he has read, some- where, long before, and forgotten until this moment, start up in his mind, as he stands and looks with tired, haggard eyes, up at these gleaming and lace-draped win- dows. "I note the flow of the weary years Like the flow of this flowing river, But dead in my heart are its hopes and fears Forever and forever ! For never a light in the distance gleams, No eye looks out for the rover, Oh ! sweet be your sleep, love, sweet be your dreams, Under the blossoming clover, The sweet-scented, bee-haunted clover !" A strange, sudden pang rends his heart. " Oh, God !" he cries out, " am I indeed forgotten ! They feast and make merry, and I well, I have earned it all. Even my mother but mothers forget too, when their hearts are wrung and broken, and she had always more pride than love. And through both her love and pride, T stabbed her. Forgotten ! what other fate have I deserved than to be forgotten !" " You wanted me, my friend?" says a gentle voice, a dear old voice he remembers well, and a sob rises in his throat as he hears it again after long years. He looks from under the visor of his fur cap, and sees Mrs. Tinker. 7 8 LOST FOR A WOMAN. She is alone, the tall, plush young man has beer sum moned to upper spheres. No one is near. He takes a step forward. " Hush !" he says ; " do not be alarmed do not sci cam. Look at me have you, too, forgotten me, Mrs. Tinker ?" He lifts his fur cap ; the gas-flare falls upon his face. Forgotten him ! Oh ! never, never, never ! She clasps her hands, there is a wordless, sobbing sound, not scream. She stands with dilated eyes, and joy joy un- utterable, making the old face beautiful. " Dear old friend, yes, I see you remember. It is your scapegrace your runaway ' Master Georgie ' come back." " Oh, my dear, my dear, my dear !" is all Mrs. Tinker can say. And now down the wrinkled cheeks tears roll tears of joy beyond all words. " Oh ! my own boy ! my own boy my own dear, dear, dearest Master George !" He takes the old hand, wrinkled, toil-worn, and kisses it. " Always my friend my true, good, loyal old friend ! Thank God ! some one remembers me. It is more than I deserve though more than I ever expected." "Oh, my own love! my own dear, brave, bright beautiful boy ! don't'ee talk like that ! Don't'ee, now it do nigh break my heart. Oh, Master George ! Master George! I'm fit to die wi' joy. I know'd you'd come back to see the mother some day I always said so. Thanks and praise be ! But come in, come in. It's your own house, and I'm keepin' you here." " My own house, Mrs. Tinker !" he says, with a dreary laugh. " My good soul, I have not a garret in the world I can call my own." But he lets her lead him in, and shivers as he passes out of the bleak, sleety night. " Oh, my dear, how wet you are ! and how pale, and thin, and fagged like, now that I see you in the light ! LOST FOR A WOMAN. 79 My dear, my dear, my own Master George ! how changed, you arc !" " Changed !" he says. " Good Heavens, yes ! If you knew the life I have led But we cannot stand talk- ing here some of the servants will be passing, and I must not be seen. Take me somewhere where we can talk undisturbed, and where I may get warm ; I am chilled to the bone." Her eyes are running over again. The change in him ! Oh, the change in him ! so worn, so jaded, so hollow-eyed, so poorly-clad, so utterly fallen from his high estate ! She leads the way to her little sitting-room, and he sinks wearily into the easy-chair she places for him be- fore the fire, and places his hand over his eyes, as if the leaping, cheery light dazzled and blinded him. " Sit thee there, Master George, and don't'ee talk for a bit. ' Rest and get warm, and I'll go and fetch summat to eat." He is well disposed to obey ; he is worn out in body and mind. He has been recently ill, he has eaten scarcely anything all day, he has hardly a penny in his pocket, and " Uie world is all before him, where to choose." He sits, and half sleeps, so utterly weary is he, so sweet to him are the rest, and the warmth of the fire. But he wakes up as Mrs. Tinker returns laden with hot coffee, chicken, meats, bread and wine. His eyes light with the gladness of hard, grinding hunger. "Thanks, my dear old woman ! you have not forgot- ten my tastes. By Jove ! I am glad you brought me something, for I am uncommonly sharp-set." She watches him eating and drinking, with the keen delight women feel in ministering to the bodily wants of men they love. He pushes the things away at last, and laughs at her rapt look. "I wonder if Ne'er-do-well ever had such a loving old heart to cling to him before," he says : "the world is 8o LOST FOR A WOMAN. a better place, Mrs. Tinker, for having such women as you in it. I wonder if I might smoke in this matronly bower without desecration now ?" It is an anti-climax, but it does Mrs. Tinker's heart good. Smoke ! Yes, from now until sunrise if he likes. " Well, not quite so long as that. By sunrise I ex- pect that I and the Belle O'Brien will be well on our way to , but never mind where if you don't know you can't tell. I've a berth as foremast hand, being a friend after a fashion of the captain's, and am going to work my passage out to never mind where again, Mrs. Tinker. If I live and prosper, and redeem the past out there, I'll come back and see you one day, and make a clean breast of it. If not and it is more than likely not I will have seen you to-night at least. But I'm off in an hour or two, and that is why I am here to take away with me a last look of your good, plump, motherly old face bless it ! Because, you see, in the words of the song, ' it may be for years, and it may be forever.' And very likely it will be forever, for I'm an unlucky beggar, and like Mrs. Guminidge, 'thinks go contrary with me !' " He laughs ; it is almost like the mellow laugh of old, but it makes faithful Susan Tinker's heart ache. " Oh, my clear ! my dear ! You a sailor ? You in want of anything, and him that there young hupstart " " Ah ! I know about that," George says, quickly, " I heard down yonder in the town. It is his birthday, and there are highjinks in consequence up-stairs. What's he like this successor of mine?" "He's black and stiff, and that high-stomached, and proud of himself that I can't abide the sight of him ! He's not fit to black your shoes, that he ain't, Master George. Oh ! my dear, it's not too late to come back and do well. Let me go up and tell my mistress " But he stops her with a motion of his hand. "No, Tinker, you shall tell no one. I have not re- LOST FOR A WOMAN. 81 turned to whine and beg. Not that I would not go down on my knees, mind you, to crave their pardon for the heart-break I have caused them if that were all. But it would not be all it would be misunderstood. I might be repulsed, and and I know myself that might awake the devil within me. I would be thought to have re- turned for the money a comfortable home I could not stand that. I wrote again and again that first year to ask their forgiveness I never asked, nor meant to ask for anything besides, and they never answered me. A man can't go on doing that sort of thing forever. Some day months from this you will tell them if you like, and if you think they would care to hear. Tell my mother I ask her pardon with all my soul ; tell her I love her with all my heart. Tell her I would give my life ay, twice over, to undo the past. But tell her nothing to-night. I was homesick, Mrs. Tinker; I wanted to see you I really think I wanted to see you most of all. Think of that a fellow being in love with you, and you fifty-five, isn't it?" He laughs again, but the dark bright eyes that look at the fire see it dimly, as if through water. In the pause comes the sound of singing from up-stairs a man's voice a tenor, tolerably strong and tuneful, but Mrs. Tinker listens with a look of much distaste, and makes a face, as though she were tasting something very nasty indeed. "It's him !" she says, in explanation, and George smiles ; he knows she means Vane Valentine. "'Le roi est mart vive le roi,' is evidently not your motto, you foolish old person," he remarks ; "don't you know a live dog is better than a dead lion ? Be wise in your advancing years, my dear old nurse, and cultivate Mr. Vane Valentine. He is to be a baronet, and a mil- lionaire, and a very great personage one day, let me tell you." He rises, puts his pipe in his pocket, and stretches 82 LOST FOR A WOMAN. out his hand for his hat. She rises, too, with a sort of cry. "Not going! Not like this! Oh, Master George, dear Master George, not like this !" " Like this, my friend. See ! I am weak as water al- ready don't unman me altogether don't make it harder for me than you can help. It must be. I have seen you, and I am satisfied. Tell them by and by " He stops, for she is crying as if her very heart would break. " Ah, me ! ah, me !" she sobs, how shall I bear it ? How can I ever let him go ? Master George, Master George ! Oh, my boy, that I have rocked in these arras many and many a time that has gone to sleep on my breast, that I love like my own flesh and blood ! Oh, my heart, how will I let him go ?" She cries so dreadfully that he puts down his hat and takes her in his arms, and tries to soothe her. His own eyes are wet She cries as if indeed her old heart were breaking. " I must go," he says, at last, almost wildly. " My dear, dear nurse, have a little mercy ! Stop crying, for Heaven's sake ! I can't stand this." There is such desperate trouble in his tone, in his face, that it pierces through all her sorrow, and checks its flow for a moment. In that moment he snatches up his hat. "Good-by, good-by !" he exclaims. " God bless you, faithful, loving old friend. I'll come back to see you if I never come to see any one else." And then he is gone. There comes floating down the rtairs the last melodious words of Vane Valentine's hunting song, as the door opens. " For the fences run strong in the Leicestershire vale, And there's bellows to mend, and a lengthening tail, With a ' Forward ! Away !' in the morning." But there mingles with it a quick step running down LOST FOR A WOMAN. 83 the stairs, and the opening' and shutting of a street door. And then she is alone, and outside the sleet is beating against the glass, and the wind is shrieking through the black streets, and up-stairs there is the sound of faint ap- plause, and a soft murmur of pleasant voices. And George Valentine has been, and is gone. The dinner party goes off well, and so does the new heir. People admire his repose of manner and modest good breeding, and consider him a credit to his sister's training. Mrs. Tinker is indisposed next day, and keeps her bed. Her eyes are very red, her face very pale and troubled, her mistress observes, when she visits her. Being questioned as to these symptoms, Mrs. Tinker turns her face to the wall, and her tears silently flow again. If she only knew ! The storm continues all night, all next day ; there are many disasters and wrecks along the coast chronicled in the papers for days after. And among them there is nar- rated the total wreck of the bark Belle O'Brien^ and the loss of every soul on board. This item of shipping news is read aloud below stairs by the butler, and that magnate is electrified by a shriek from one of the women, who drops in a dead faint. It is Mrs. Tinker, to the surprise of every one ; and Mrs. Tinker is laid on the floor, and sprinkled with water, and slapped on the palms, and brought to with infinite diffi- culty. And when she is brought to, she "goes on " like a mad woman, beating the air with her hands, screaming hysterical screams, calling out for her mistress, and mis- conducting herself generally in a way perfectly frenzied. Her mistress comes ; every one else is turned out of the room, and then Susan Tinker never knows how the terrible truth is told. George Valentine is one of the " hands " who has gone down to his death in the ill- fated Bell." O'Brien. Blood tells, pride tells, training tells. Madam listens, 84 LOST FOR A WOMAN. with blanched cheeks and wide, horror-stricken eyes, but she neither faints nor screams. She is deadly still, deadly cold ; but almost the calmness of death, too, is in her face. She makes no comment whatever ; she listens to the end to the narrative of the visit and all that passed and rises and seeks out her husband. He comes in horror to the old servant's bedside, his hands trembling, his mouth twitching, far more agitated, in seeming, than his wife, and listens to the story sobbed out again between ever-flowing tears. " You you did not ask him anything about about her /" the father says, tremulously. " No ; I forgot. There wasn't time to ask him any- thing. And I was so took up with him," Mrs. Tinker sobs. She understands Mr. Valentine refers to the wife. " Oh, my dear master, you are not angry with me, are you ?" " You should have spoken sooner that night," he says, still tremulously ; "all all might have been well." Then he breaks down for a moment, and lays his head on the table, and Susan Tinker is silent before a grief greater and more sacred than her own. " But I am not angry," he adds, rising slowly. "You did as he told you. I am not angry with you, Mrs. Tinker," he says, with strange pathos and gentleness for that stern, proud man. " George loved you !" It is the first time that name has passed his lips for years. As he speaks it he turns and hurries out of the room. He goes to the little sea-coast village where the bones of the luckless bark rest, and the crew such of them as have been Vashed ashore, lie buried. One or two of the bodies have been identified and claimed ; others were cast up by the sea with every trace of humanity beaten out by the ruthless waves. The clothes and other relics are preserved. Among them is a jacket, and on the lin- LOST FOR A WOMAN. 85 ing, which is black, there is marked in small, distinct red letters, a name, " G. H. Valentine." The body on which this garment, tightly buttoned, was found, was that of a tall young man with dark hair and a mustache ; a fine- looking, muscular young fellow, so far as could be dis- coveied, after some days in the water. He is buried yonder. The father goes and kneels by the little mound of snow-covered sod, and what passes in his heart is known only to Heaven and himself. Five months after that, Austin Valentine, the merchant prince, dies. He has never held up his head again ; the sight of his heir becomes insupportable to him. That young gentleman is sent on his travels, and the funeral is over before he returns. For Madam Valentine well, she goes on with the burden of life somehow. It is an old story. " The heart may break, yet brokenly live on." The world does not see much difference. Only the Toronto home is broken up forever ; life there all at once grows hateful, and she becomes a wanderer. She will have no fixed place of abode, a singular restlessness possesses her she resides here, there, everywhere, as the fancy seizes her. Vane Valentine waits dutifully on every whim. " What com- fort he must be to you ; such a good young man," every- body says, and she agrees, and tries to think it is so but he is a comfort to her. She has a cold sort of liking for him, a respect for his judgment and good sense, but love Ah ! well, she has loved once, and once suffices. And so existence goes on for still three years more. Mrs. Tinker accompanies her always ; she clings to this old servant, she is a link that binds her to the past the only one. She comes with Vane Valentine to the cottage in the suburbs of this dull little New England town of Clangville, because it is a pleasant place for a few autumn weeks, and one place is much the same as another. Life goes on almost stagnant in its quiet ; she grows 86 WHICH RECORDS A TRAGEDY. old gracefully ; she is a woman of fine presence and commanding mien still, her health is unbroken, only she has almost forgotten to smile. Her face is set like a flint to all the world ; she is chill and hard, self-repressed and self-centered, a wc.man sufficient unto herself. And here where peace and a sort of forgetfulness seem to have found her, the widow of her dead son ap- pears, the miserable, low-born cause of her life's woe and loss, and destroys it all. Comes with her fair mocking face, her fresh, insolent young beauty, her bold, evil blue eyes, her coarse, defiant taunts, and threatens to tear bare her half-healed heart, and show it bleeding to all the gaping world. And this is the danger Vane Valentine has gone to- night to avert, this is the wretched story of passion and pain, and loss, and death, and shame, she thinks out, as she sits with clasped hands gazing at the cold, white October moonlight all wrought by this one woman's hand! CHAPTER IX. WHICH RECORDS A TRAGEDY. EMIMA ANN!" says Mile. Mimi. Sheislying in her customary afternoon lounging atti- tude upon the parlor sofa, occupied in her usual afternoon fashion in smoking ciga- rettes, and teaching her little girl a new ballet step, "Jemima Ann, are you happy ?" " Lor !" says Jemima Ann. " Yes, I know that is your favorite expletive. You say it when you step on and scrunch a black beetle ; you would say it if the whole six-and-twenty were blown up WHICH RECORDS A TRAGEDY. 87 in their boiler shop, foundry-shop whatever it is, to- morrow. I swear myself sometiues when things go wrong, but not in such mild fashion. ' Lor ' is no answer, Jemima Ann, are you happy!" "Well railly " begins Miss Hopkins, modestly, but Mimi waves her white hand, and cuts her short. " Oh, if it requires reflection, say no more, you're not. Neither am I, Jemima I never was. No, never," says Mimi, biting her cigarette through with her little sharp, white teeth, " not even when I was first married, and I suppose most girls who marry for love are happy then for a month or so, at least ! Did I marry for love, I wonder did I ever care for him, or any one else, really really, in my whole life ?" Mimi is evidently retrospective. She rolls a fresh cigarette between her deft fingers, and looks with somber blue eyes at the graceful capers of Mademoiselle Snow- ball. " I like Petite, there she amuses me ; but so would the gambols of a little white kitten. She is pretty, and I like to dress her prettily, but I would tie ribbons round the kitten's neck, and trick her out, just the same. Is that love ? If she died I would be sorry I expect her to be a comfort and companion to me by and by. I quarrel with most people I have no friends, and I am lonely sometimes, Jemima Ann. But is that love ? And her father " The darkest, most vindictive look Jemima Ann has ever seen there, sweeps like a cloud over the blonde face. " I hated her father," she says between her teeth. " I hale him still.'' "Do tell !" exclaims shocked Jemima Ann. Mimi laughs her transitions are like lightning, her volatile nature flashes to and fro, as a comet. Miss Hopkins' round-eyed simplicity amuses her always. "Listen here, Jim," she says, "your aunt calls you ' Jim ' sometimes, doesn't she ? What would you say of 88 WHICH RECORDS A TRAGEDY. a poor girl, a grisette of New York, born in poverty, bred in poverty, in vice, in ignorance, with only her face for her fortune, what would you say of such a one when a gentleman, young, handsome as one of the heroes of your novels tall, dark-eyed, finely educated, and the heir of millions, falls in love with her ; runs away from home and friends for her ; marries her. What would you say ?" "That she was the very luckiest and happiest creeter on airth," responds, promptly, Jemima Ann. " But was the love all on his side? Didn't she love him too?" " Ah !" says Mimi,