34438	----	Transcriber's Note - Illustration captions in {brackets} have been added by the transcriber for reader convenience. * * * * * [Illustration: THE TROUBLES OF BIDDY {Girl playing with ducklings.}] No. 25 [Illustration: The Troubles of Biddy {Chicken, duckling, and duck.}] A Pretty Little Story by Isabel Byrum DRAWINGS BY MARGARET EVANS PRICE [Illustration: {Logo.}] COPYRIGHT 1917 BY STECHER LITHO. CO., ROCHESTER, N. Y. "MADE IN USA" The Troubles of Biddy "Oh dear," sighed old Biddy, just under her breath, "I really am troubled and worried to death! For months I have thought of a family, dear, To gladden my heart, and to live with me here. "But daily I find that my plans are upset, And all I can do is to sit here and fret-- I haven't a sign of an egg in my nest, Though some I have laid are as good as the best. "I scolded last night when my mistress came near, But though she was bitten, she seemed not to fear; She only said, 'Biddy, what are you about?' And then through the doorway she simply passed out. [Illustration: {Girl gathering eggs.}] "I don't understand it; I cannot see why; For surely to be a good mother I'd try; Although I would see that they did as I said!" And Biddy, in sorrow and grief hung her head. [Illustration: {Girl with eggs next to nest.}] [Illustration: {Girl placing eggs in nest.}] So deep was the longing of poor Biddy's heart, She felt that with life she was ready to part; But glancing about in her trouble and pain She saw that her mistress was coming again; And noting the basket she held in her hand Old Biddy thought quickly "she can't understand," And "what is she doing?" exclaimed in surprise; For out of the nest Biddy felt herself rise. As Biddy stood resting her poor weary legs, She saw that the basket contained shining eggs; And mistress with care placed them all in the nest For Biddy to snuggle beneath her warm breast. Now Biddy was happy; her burden was gone, Her troubles had vanished, she felt she had none: And, planning away in her little straw bed, No thoughts of complaining came into her head. [Illustration: {Girl feeding hen in nest.}] [Illustration: {Shed.}] She looked from the window each morning at dawn, And pictures of rapture were constantly drawn, For, out on the lawn near a little old shed, Were dishes and troughs where the chickens were fed. And Biddy thought wisely, "These things I shall use; The largest and neatest are what I shall choose." But never a thought did this wise mother take Of danger, or trouble, in St. Mary's lake. How happy she was when the first sounds were heard, And the bright downy heads her soft feathers stirred! "But what is the matter with each little nose?" She said in amazement, "And what ails their toes?" "They are not like chickens at all, I am sure! I wonder whatever such strange things will cure?" And Biddy once more was in trouble most deep; For none of her children could really say peep. [Illustration: {Girl picks up duckling from nest.}] [Illustration: {Girl pumps water into pond for ducklings.}] "I think that my babes for a walk ought to go;" One morning said Biddy, "I'll lead them just so; I'll watch every minute lest danger arise: For they'll not be safe when from under my eyes." At the word every downy ball hustled about, And ere Biddy knew it, they all had jumped out Of the nest, and were darting about in the sun, For bugs, and for grass blades, and simply for fun. Biddy watched for a time and then softly said, "I ought to be dusting my feathers and head;" So off to the roadside she hastily went, And there in the soft sand, a few moments spent. [Illustration: {Girl kisses duckling.}] [Illustration: {Girl feeds ducklings.}] What was it made Biddy's heart quiver and leap? It wasn't the sound of a young chicken's peep-- But the splashing of water and flutt'ring of wings-- And leaving the road side she screamed, "Of all things!" Her babies were all in the watering trough, Regardless of sickness, disease, and of cough. "Oh dear," cried poor Biddy, "What now shall I do? My children will drown and before my eyes too!" And mistress cried, "Biddy, now please don't you fear, They simply _love_ water, and oh! aren't they dear? I'll keep them all safe, so Biddy go 'way! And let your poor children have freedom to play." [Illustration: {Girl closely holds duckling.}] [Illustration: {Girl plays with ducklings.}] Each day in the trough and the puddles they played And off where the grass was the deepest they stayed While Biddy would search for them, clucking for hours Over the barnyard and in 'mong the flowers. The little log barn was a refuge at night Where often poor Biddy for courage would fight; And there, with her feathers above her young brood, She tried to instruct them in ways to be good. [Illustration: {Hen and ducklings scratch for food.}] [Illustration: {Hen and ducklings walk in a row.}] Where apples were juicy and mellow, one day, These ten naughty children were gathered to play, When suddenly one of them, leading the band, Said, "Come, let us travel," and there a trip planned. So off they all went toward the shed and the pump, Turning out now and then for a log or a stump, And down the steep hill where the clover bloomed bright The little band wandered in perfect delight. The moment that Biddy discovered the plot She rushed in confusion and soon reached the spot; "Oh children, be careful!" she screamed in alarm; "In the lake I'm sure you will meet with some harm!" But to cry, and protest, and urge them to come Seemed all of no use, for they would not go home. And Biddy exclaimed to herself in disgust, "To stand this I cannot, and leave them I must!" The evening shades gathered that night in the sky; The wind sung most softly a sweet lula-by; But Biddy had left her dear children alone: She found they were ducklings, and such could not own. The End [Illustration: The Troubles of Biddy {Four hens sitting together.}] [Illustration: STECHER QUALITY MADE IN U.S.A. 261 {Logo.}] [Illustration: THE TROUBLES OF BIDDY {Girl playing with ducklings.}] 
45168	----	FRONTISPIECE. to "Rhymes for Harry and his Nurse-Maid". [Illustration: Nursery Furniture. _pa 21._] [Illustration: A simple tale will oft prevail, When sober prose is spurn'd; The charm of rhyme beguiles the time, And still a lesson's learn'd. ] RHYMES FOR _HARRY_ AND HIS NURSE-MAID. A simple tale will oft prevail, When sober prose is spurn'd; The charm of rhyme beguiles the time, And still a lesson's learn'd. Thus lines for youth, in simple truth, We never will despise; For maxims old, tho' frequent told, May still assist the wise. LONDON: WILLIAM DARTON AND SON, HOLBORN HILL. PREFACE. It is with feelings of great humility, from a sense of her own deficiency in the important duties of a mother, that the writer of the following rhymes submits them to the public. Her wish is to convey a few useful hints to nurse-maids, as well as to those mothers who have had but little experience in the care of children. Many young mothers, more especially in the middle circles of life, have scarcely leisure to make education a study; while others, perhaps, do not reflect on the very great importance of early habits; to such persons, the few practical observations contained in the notes, may not be unacceptable. The subjection of the will, in the first place, by _mild_ yet firm and persevering conduct, will generally ensure success to the parent, and will save the child _hours_ and even _days_ of fretfulness and sorrow. The employment of a nurse-maid is a responsible one; those who really perform their duty from pure and conscientious motives, will not lose their reward; and though such may feel _themselves_ to be placed in a very humble situation, they are, in reality, laying the foundation for future happiness or misery. In the first three years of childhood, that basis is often formed upon which the conduct of future life is built. If self-will, and a spirit of contradiction, be allowed to take deep root in the infant mind, Divine Grace _only_ can counteract their evils. But, on the other hand, if good feelings be cherished, and the evil passions (which _all_ have more or less, by nature,) be gradually subjected, early blossoms of virtue will appear; and, by the blessing of Providence, those beautiful fruits will be matured, by which the tree may be known to be good; and by which, from the cradle to the grave, the designs of the benevolent Creator will be accomplished. [Illustration: Nurse's first thoughts about her baby. _pa 7._] [Illustration: Finding a Pin which had pricked baby. _pa 8._] The writer only wishes to say, that these rhymes were undertaken at the particular request of a valued friend of hers, who has bestowed much of his time, with truly benevolent intentions, in adding to the instruction and amusement of the rising generation; and she cannot but acknowledge the obligation she feels for the kind assistance he has lent her in several of the subjects which occupy the following pages. The design of the writer is, that _each piece_ shall convey some hint which may tend to the physical or moral advantage of the child, in those duties which immediately devolve upon a mother, and her nurse-maid; so that, while they are amusing their little ones with the recital of a simple narrative, adapted to the most humble capacity, they may sometimes be pleasantly reminded of their own obligations. M. A. RHYMES, &c. NURSE'S FIRST THOUGHTS ABOUT HER BABY. Little Baby, just new born, Naked, trembling, and forlorn, My hand the willing help supplies, To ease thy pain, and soothe thy cries; Nor can I tell thee little dear, How much we're pleased to see thee here. O, it will be my sweet delight To serve thee with this milk so white! But tho' my babe so nicely feeds, I'll only give just what it needs; If I the spoon too often fill, 'Twould make my baby sick and ill. Mamma too will be able soon To feed her babe without a spoon, And _that_ we know is better far Than milk and barley-water are. FINDING A PIN WHICH HAD PRICKED BABY. Hark! I hear my baby weeping, Tho' it seemed so nicely sleeping; Sure its wrapping is not right! I fear there is some string too tight. Ah! now I find the reason why,-- My precious baby well might cry. Upon its bosom, close within The barrow-coat, I've found a pin; But I can tell thee o'er and o'er, No pin shall ever prick thee more; Some buttons shall be snugly set Upon the flannels of my pet. Ah, baby dear, so feeble, fair! Thou call'st forth many an anxious care! Thou canst not speak thy pain or wo, Or tell me whence thy pleasures flow; Then o'er my babe a watch I'll keep, And guard it when 'tis fast asleep. [Illustration: The crust.--Teething. _pa 15._] [Illustration: Babes are fretful when suddenly aroused from sleep. _pa 16._ ] BABY ASLEEP AGAIN IN THE COT. Should any cause of inward pain Make baby cry or start again, I'll warm its feet before the fire, Or see what else it may require; Over my shoulder gently throw And rock my baby to and fro. And now, asleep within the cot, It must be neither cold nor hot. If cold, I know it shortly will Awake, and feel itself quite ill; And if 'tis wrapp'd too tight and warm, Tho' babe may feel no present harm, 'Twill be relax'd, and feeble grow, And shortly lose its healthy glow. But with a blanket _warm_, yet _light_, And pillow not too great a height, With nothing else to tease or cumber, Baby will most sweetly slumber. WASHING. My baby must be clean and neat, With cap and pinafore complete; I'll daily sponge its little head, And wash its skin, so soft and red. My seat must not be over high, Lest babe roll off my lap, and cry: Upon my knee, I'll safely hold, And do it quick for fear of cold. Hush, hush, my dear! I'll not be long; Washing will make thee stout and strong: Thy little nerves 'twill help to brace, 'Twill make thee have a rosy face. Some helpless babes scarce ever get A wholesome washing, like my pet; Then weak, and weaker still, they grow, No sprightliness or pleasure show; Whereas, by constant daily care, With skin so fresh, and clean brush'd hair, They might have stouter grown, and stronger, And liv'd in cheerful health much longer. RESTLESS NIGHTS. When a babe is uneasy and restless in bed, "Child's cordial" will soothe it to sleep, it is said; And ignorant people, who know not its harm, Think this dangerous stuff has a powerful charm. But _one drop_ of such poison I never will give, Because I would rather my darling should live; And I know very well, if this cordial I try, That baby will want more and more, till it die. Tho' made with such art as to lull and give ease, It lays the foundation for lasting disease; No mother deserves a sweet babe for her prize, Who would poison her infant, to silence its cries. And a nurse who loves baby, or values her place, Will ne'er use this drug; 'tis a sin and disgrace; Well then, I will try with much patience and care, To soothe my dear babe, or some food to prepare; And the true satisfaction of doing my best Will repay all my labour and sweeten my rest. A WALK IN THE COUNTRY. Must we take a nice walk?-- Where are spencer and hat? Why, my Harry looks pleas'd, When I tell him of that! We must trip rather briskly, Not saunter and stay; Then we catch the fresh breeze As it hastens away. And now for the gate,-- Let us open it, dear; We have got to the field, And the daisies appear. The cowslips and buttercups[1] Make it look yellow; Must I pluck one, to give To my sweet little fellow? Come, look at this flower-- Ah! now he has caught it; Well really, my Harry, I scarce could have thought it! And now, to his mouth, He is bearing the prize, Ah! I see very well That I have not been wise. Some insect may lurk On the stalk or the leaves; I must take it away, Though my darling it grieves. [1] The writer has been told that one species of the buttercup is poisonous: and there are many flowers which it would be hurtful for children to suck. NOTE.--Children are sent out into the country for the benefit of fresh air and exercise; but it is impossible to say what evils arise through the thoughtlessness of some nurse-maids, who will even let their helpless babes sit upon the cold grass, in order that _they_ may loiter with their associates. [Illustration: Baby asleep again in the cot. _pa 9._] [Illustration: Washing. _pa 10._] A WALK IN THE TOWN. How cheerful is the live-long day, When babe and I together stray! Among the fields and daisy-flowers, We love to spend the happy hours; But when Mamma shall send us down To make her markets in the town, Much we shall see to please the boy And make him almost jump for joy: Horses and carts will please him well, And twenty things we need not tell. But then we must not stop too long, Mamma would say that we did wrong. We must not saunter in the street, Or chatter with the folks we meet, But hasten homeward with our store, Until we reach the well-known door: With dirty feet we'll not be seen, For Mary's steps are neat and clean. If Harry for my basket begs, I must not let him break my eggs, Or lose my curds, or spill, or waste; But find some toy to suit his taste: Then Harry, nurse, and basket-store, Will safely land at home once more. TEETHING. Babies, when cutting teeth, oft cry, And bite their little thumbs; Aught they can seize, they'll often try To carry to their gums. Some people give them coral bright With bells all hung together; And some will give them glass to bite, Or ivory, or leather.[2] But things that are so hard as glass Mamma approves of never; They grieve and hurt poor babes, alas! And make them worse than ever. A nurse should _then_ be very kind In finding what will please, A crust of bread, if they're inclined, Will nourish and not tease. Their diet should be thought of too, With care about their dress: Lancing, when teeth are nearly thro,' Makes babies suffer less. [2] The writer was recommended to try a piece of leather, and has found it to produce less irritation than any of the hard substances so often used. Some mothers prefer Indian-rubber. BABIES ARE FRETFUL WHEN SUDDENLY AROUSED FROM SLEEP. Come, come, my sweet deary Has slept rather long, But now that he's waking I'll sing him a song. But softly awhile-- I must not be forgetful, That suddenly rousing Makes Harry quite fretful. I must not with haste Toss my baby about, If I make too much noise I shall grieve him, I doubt. Then be-boo, my darling, My bosom shall hide thee; I'll pat thee, and kiss thee, No fear shall betide thee. Ah! how sweetly he smiles, Now I've gained all my ends; For my baby and I Can soon make-up good friends. [Illustration: Learning to walk. _pa 17._] [Illustration: In-doors play. _pa 18._] LEARNING TO WALK. My baby trips with steps complete, And loves to stand upon his feet; But then 'tis only when I hold His finger, that he feels so bold; Until his limbs are firmer grown I must not let him stand alone; I'll notice every new desire, That, while I _teach_, I may not _tire_; His little wants with care supply, And guard against each danger nigh. We'll sometimes walk, and sometimes rest, Just as my darling likes the best: For ah! his legs are young and slender, His tripping toes are soft and tender; Much at once he cannot bear, Needing patience, thought, and care. Yet frequent walking, not _too long_, Will make his little limbs grow strong. IN-DOORS PLAY. Look out, my dear, how fast it rains, Pelting upon the window panes! We'll shut them till the storm is o'er, Lest it should rain upon the floor. When all above seems clear and dry, Again we'll throw the windows high; The shower makes all look green and fair, And wholesome is the freshen'd air. Come, Harry, get his ball the while-- (Harry loves play, it makes him smile.) We'll roll it on the floor, and then Quickly we'll fetch it back again. And, if I think his looks betray Some anxious wish for change of play, We'll try a hundred little tricks, We'll fetch his horse, his cart, his bricks; And, when he seems well pleas'd, we'll strive To keep good-temper all alive: With kindness and obliging aim I'll join in every childish game, Nor interrupt with thoughtless air, Aught that has claim'd my Harry's care. [Illustration: See how my Harry hangs his head. _pa 19._] [Illustration: Bed-time. Now, on the little cap we'll put. _pa 20._] [Illustration: Never grieve one to please another. _pa 22._] [Illustration: Warm Feet. _pa 24._] HARRY HAS A SISTER. When little sister Jane arriv'd, Harry was two years old; His dimpled cheeks and lively air A cheerful temper told. Well pleas'd, he sat by nurse's side, As she the babe would dress. And, though he kiss'd or patted her, _Too_ hard he did not press. He learn'd to wait upon himself, His pinafore to loose, Now on he'd nicely put his socks, And clasp his little shoes. He nimbly went up stairs or down, At nurse or mother's call; But then, he took _fast hold_ the while, Lest he should get a fall. BED-TIME. See how my Harry hangs his head, And rubs his little peepy; 'Tis time to trot up stairs to bed When babies are so sleepy. Then let us put his playthings by, Jane's rattle, and her dolly; We must not leave all things awry, To make more work for Molly. Come trip up stairs with nimble feet, --A kiss for dear Mamma; Hark, hark, she says "farewell my sweet," And Harry says, "ta, ta." (He does not say--"Mamma, do let Me stop a little longer?" Indulgence soon would spoil her pet, And make his will grow stronger.) Now, we must all the windows shut, And let the curtains down; Now, on the little cap we'll put, And now the sleeping gown. My Harry must lie still, and keep The bed-clothes nice and even; "Ta, ta,"--he'll soon be fast asleep, For, hark! the clock strikes seven. [Illustration: Harry has a Sister. _pa 19._] [Illustration: And, though he kiss'd or patted her, _Too_ hard he did not press. _pa 19._] NURSERY FURNITURE. Harry can skip, or jump, or play, Just at his own desire; But once he was a careless boy, And went too near the fire. And had not nurse, with watchful eye, Beheld, and quickly turn'd His pinafore had caught the flame, His hair had all been burn'd. Papa had seen a guard so nice, That fitted round a fire; He order'd one for Harry's room, With closely platted wire. See now he plays with nimble step, And fearless of all harm; And yet he can, on Winter days, His little fingers warm. A lamp, two yards above the floor, Is fasten'd to the wall; For candles, on a table put, Might quickly get a fall. A basin and a jug, and soap, With water from the well, Plac'd on a little frame of wood, Suit nurse and Harry well. And nicely furnish'd is our room, With things that will not spoil; Mamma too kind and thoughtful is To make much care or toil. She likes her darling babes to play At liberty and ease, And still, in having useful things, Takes care they do not tease. NEVER GRIEVE ONE TO PLEASE ANOTHER. Poor Jane! what is it grieves her so? Why sobs her little heart? She cries, because she wants to have Her brother's nice new cart. But Harry now is so intent Unloading all his store, She must, my darling, wait awhile, Until his game is o'er. To please and gratify, we must Not rob and grieve another; Justice should always be our guide, And feeling for the other. And tho' 'tis pleasant, when a child Will _freely_ give or lend; If we _oblige them to be kind_, We soon defeat our end. We'll pacify with kindest art, And other thoughts excite; We'll try, with tender care, to lead, The infant wish aright. We _must_ a good beginning make For every useful lesson; We _must_ enforce from earliest years The practice of submission. N. B.--A little publication, entitled "Hints for the Improvement of Early Education," the writer recommends to the increased attention of every conscientious mother.--These rhymes make but very humble pretensions, and are likewise much limited, from various considerations; so that many of the more important subjects of education could not be touched upon. WARM FEET. Harry looks so sick and ill, Harry is so cold and chill, Nurse does almost think, and fear, Something's the matter with her dear. Let me feel his little feet, If they're nicely warm, my sweet! Ah! they are both damp and cold; And that should never be, I'm told. Let us fetch the little tub, And water warm, his feet to rub; We'll bathe them well; then by and by We'll wash them clean, and wipe them dry. If feet are cold, Mamma can tell Her children will not long be well; And often have I heard her say, "That case admits of no delay." HARRY AT DINNER. My Harry is not quite so good At dinner as I wish; He sometimes is a dainty boy, Unless he likes the dish. He, sometimes says he does not like His pudding and his meat, If, on the sideboard he can see A pie or custard sweet. But mother does not choose her boy Should follow ways like these; And if his plate he does not clean, He has no pie nor cheese. Mamma knows that, whate'er she gives Her boy, is always good; And she is never pleas'd to hear Remarks about his food. How many a half-starv'd little boy Has nought whereon to feed! While happy Henry, day by day, Has all that he can need. NOTE. What a privilege those children enjoy who are allowed to take their meals with their parents! Many children are really brought up in habits of daintiness and gluttony, through the mistaken kindness of nurses, who are not aware that they are laying the foundation for future misery. And who is more miserable than the epicure? surrounded by the blessings of a bountiful Giver,--and yet dissatisfied with _all_! Surely poverty, with thankfulness, is not half so wretched a condition! [Illustration: Nurse telling Harry a tale, about catching flies. _pa 27._] [Illustration: The girl who hurt herself with the table. _pa 30._] TAKING MEDICINE. What have I got in this blue cup? 'Tis senna-tea: come, drink it up. Now come, my little Harry, haste; What! say he does not like the taste? These raisins, with a crust of bread, Will make a pleasant taste instead, There! now 'tis gone,--both taste and smell; My little boy has managed well; Mamma shall know her darling can Drink senna-tea, just like a man: For, tho' it is not nice to take, Med'cine oft cures both pain and ache. Some naughty children will not try To drink their senna-tea, but cry; Then worse and worse they grow, instead, And often lie for weeks in bed, When early care, without delay, Might send their poorliness away. When nurses have a sickly charge, Their stock of patience should be large; Their kindness and obliging care, Should teach them peevishness to _bear_; But _then_, in what is _needful_,--_right_, Their hold should be both _firm_ and _tight_; Then love and confidence would still Meet in obedience to their will, And children would not dare to be Unruly with their senna-tea. NOTE. The practice of giving children sweet things, such as comfits and lozenges, cannot be too much reprobated. They fill children with ill-humors, by impairing digestion; they disorder the bowels, by producing an unnatural fermentation; they prevent the relish and enjoyment of plain food, and create in the little sufferer a continual craving for indulgencies. A little dried fruit, on proper occasions, is not unwholesome. NURSE TELLING HARRY A TALE, ABOUT CATCHING FLIES. Now, Harry, I've a tale to tell, So sit upon this chair; It is of what one day befell A little maid so fair. She had a trick of catching flies, And as I understand, Regardless of their shape or size, Would clasp them in her hand. A sly young bee that knew the way Some window-plants to gain, Yet choosing an unwise delay Was creeping on the pane: The thoughtless child, on mischief bent, Soon caught him by the wing; But she, on cruelty intent, Was punished with a sting. Nurse heard a cry of pain and grief, And tho' it seems quite funny, The little girl soon found relief From poultice made of honey.[3] Now since that time, I do expect, She'll hurt poor flies no more; The little maid will oft reflect On all she's done before. O, Harry, it is sad, indeed, To hurt a living thing! And those who do it, _really need_, A _rod_, if not a _sting_. [3] Spirits of hartshorn, if immediately applied, will likewise effectually remove the pain of a sting. Spirits of turpentine, in case of a burn or scald, is a valuable acquisition to a nurse-maid's closet. Its constant application till the fire is extracted, prevents those bad consequences which sometimes arise from neglect, or inefficient means. [Illustration: A little Boy who was afraid in the dark. _pa 32._] [Illustration: Nurse's reflections on the advantages of truth and sincerity. _pa 34._] ANOTHER TALE. A little girl, I also knew, With cheeks of red, and eyes of blue; And though she was at learning quick, She had full many an awkward trick. She ate so fast,--so often spoke,-- Mamma was much afraid she'd choke; Her spice she ate, too, with such haste, She would not let her brother taste. And habits such as these 'twas thought, She learn'd from what her nurse had taught.[4] This little girl would often climb, And so it happen'd that, one time, Attempting more than she was able, She fell against a dining table. Loud did she cry "I've hurt my head! O, naughty table!" then she said, And sobbing loud, and crying more, Began to beat the table sore. Mamma was sadly griev'd to find Her darling to such tricks inclin'd, But watchful care, with language mild, Soon check'd this temper in the child. "Such foolish ways, my Harry! shock! _He_ knows a table feels no knock: And, if it did, he would not _like_, He would not even _dare_, to strike. He knows the maxim of the good-- 'Do as you wish that others should.' Revenge makes naughty passions grow, It plants the root of endless wo; A boy that follows long this plan, Will fight when he is grown a man." [4] In order to induce children to take their food, some persons are apt to say, "Come, my dear, make haste, or brother (or sister) shall have it! no, no, brother! you shall not have it!" Now every expression of this kind will infallibly create selfishness and greediness. A mode of conduct directly opposite should be enforced; that children may be taught to find their chief happiness in promoting the pleasure of their brothers and sisters, even by the sacrifice of their own. NURSE'S THIRD TALE, ABOUT A LITTLE BOY WHO WAS AFRAID IN THE DARK. Young Andrew Fearful was a child Most pleasing to behold, His temper was so sweet and mild, And he was four years old. But one sad failing Andrew had, Tho' gay as any lark, With scarce one habit that was bad, He did not like the dark. As soon as candlelight appear'd On evening fireside table, To walk about he scarcely dared, Though he was strong and able. And shadows flitting on the wall, Made Andrew jump and stare; He thought some mischief would befall With such great monsters there. Mamma, in many a pleasant way, Contriv'd the help he needed; And glad I am that I can say, Her care at last succeeded. She took him to a room quite dark, And led him by the hand To some known object, as a mark, And then they both would stand. The room shut in, without a light, He did not much enjoy, And Andrew fear'd to step aright; So foolish was this boy. But growing bolder, he would try The furniture to handle; And Andrew, _fearless_ by and by, Scarce wish'd to have a candle, Mamma, a paper nicely tied. Would place behind the curtain, With figs, or Pomfret cakes, supplied, And then the joy was certain. The shadows which he used to fear, Became his great delight; With joy mamma beheld her dear So pleas'd with candlelight. Thus many a pleasant hour beguil'd, Young Andrew's courage grew; Mamma was happier in her child, And he was happier too. NOTE. Nurses are not sufficiently aware of the importance of guarding against early impressions of fear. In this respect, as in many others, it is much easier to prevent a bad habit, than to cure one. Too much care and tenderness of feeling cannot be used towards those children who have unfortunately imbibed a fear of the dark; yet, on the other hand, judicious care should be exercised, that the habit may not be fostered by over-indulgence. [Illustration: Harry at dinner. _pa 24._] [Illustration: Taking medicine. _pa 26._] NURSE'S REFLECTIONS ON THE ADVANTAGES OF TRUTH & SINCERITY. If children are taught the whole lesson of truth, "'Twill bud in their childhood, and blossom in youth." This maxim I learnt from the pen of a sage, Whose vigor of mind was still green in old age: And much do I wish that my charge may be found On that ladder of learning where Truth is the ground; The foundation so broad makes the ladder stand even; And Truth's certain steps lead with safety to Heaven. Then, first, I'll be careful what language I use, That simple chaste words may express all my views: I'll watch o'er my actions with studious aim, That I may not, in future, deserve any blame; That bad habits may not from my errors proceed, Or my fair little plants be o'ergrown with a weed, My word and my promise shall always abide. And Truth and Sincerity sit side by side. Should I promise a thing which I do not perform, I lay the foundation for much future harm: If children learn falsehood from nurses or mothers, When grown up they will practise deceit upon others. Then nought but the truth to my child shall be spoken: If I once make a promise, it _shall not be broken_.[5] As the best thing of all, I will constantly try To watch over _myself_ with a vigilant eye; My passions and faults so to mend or remove, That all may be lost in obedience and love; That, in practice, I never may knowingly swerve, From the wishes of those whom I honour and serve: But with eye _singly fix'd_, to my duty inclin'd, Let me show forth a meek and a teachable mind; On reproof or instruction not daring to trample, May I always remember the _force of example_! [5] Nurses should also be very cautious how they use threats to children. If they threaten to tell Mamma any thing, or to withhold any indulgence in case of naughtiness, let it be strictly attended to. If it be _not_ attended to, children are great observers, and will soon find that but little regard is paid to truth; and thus incalculable evils may be the result. Some nurses, and even mothers, are apt to bribe their children in this way: "If my dear will do this, I'll give him a sugar-plum;" or, "Will he do so or so, if I give him a sugar-plum?" thus bringing down the standard of parental authority to the petulance or caprice of the child.--Can obedience ever be expected from one whose self-will is thus nurtured? Surely it must be from want of reflection, that mothers entail so much trouble upon themselves and their children! FINIS. J. May, Printer, &c. Dover. [Illustration: A walk in the country. _pa 12._] [Illustration: A walk in the town. _pa 14._] ONE SHILLING BOOKS, With Copper-plates. Bird Fancier, (The British) _plates_. Book of Trades, 12 mo. _cold._ British Sovereigns, from William the Conqueror to William the Fourth, 12mo. _cold._ Crocus (The) containing Original Poems for Young Persons, by I. E. M. 12mo. _plts. col._ Early Seeds, to produce Spring Flowers, by Mary Elliot, 12mo. _cold._ Industry and Idleness. Ladder to the Alphabet, 12mo. _cold._ Little Scenes, 12mo. _cold._ Little Truths better than great Fables, 2 parts. Pet Lamb; (The) to which is added the Ladder to Learning, &c. 12mo. _cold._ Plain Things for Little Folks, by Mary Elliot. Present for a Little Boy, 12mo. ---- ---- Little Girl, ditto. Rational Exhibition, 12mo. Rose, (The) containing Original Poems, by Mary Elliot, 12mo. _cold._ Rural Amusements, 12mo. _cold._ Simple Studies. Natural History. Quadrupeds, 12mo. _cold._ Ditto, ditto, Birds, ditto. Simple Scenes in Rural Life, 12mo. _cold._ Wild Garland, (The) 12mo. _cold. plates_. Yellow Shoe Strings, or the Good Effects of Obedience to Parents, 18mo. TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: Obvious printer errors have been corrected. Otherwise, the author's original spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been left intact. 
41831	----	BETTY LEICESTER'S CHRISTMAS BY SARAH ORNE JEWETT BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1899 COPYRIGHT, 1894 AND 1899, BY SARAH ORNE JEWETT ALL RIGHTS RESERVED To M. E. G. [Illustration: IN SOLEMN MAJESTY] LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE IN SOLEMN MAJESTY (page 62) _Frontispiece_ "I WAS SO GLAD TO COME" 20 A TALL BOY HAD JOINED THEM 42 BETTY, EDITH, AND WARFORD 50 BETTY LEICESTER'S CHRISTMAS I There was once a story-book girl named Betty Leicester, who lived in a small square book bound in scarlet and white. I, who know her better than any one else does, and who know my way about Tideshead, the story-book town, as well as she did, and who have not only made many a visit to her Aunt Barbara and Aunt Mary in their charming old country-house, but have even seen the house in London where she spent the winter: I, who confess to loving Betty a good deal, wish to write a little more about her in this Christmas story. The truth is, that ever since I wrote the first story I have been seeing girls who reminded me of Betty Leicester of Tideshead. Either they were about the same age or the same height, or they skipped gayly by me in a little gown like hers, or I saw a pleased look or a puzzled look in their eyes which seemed to bring Betty, my own story-book girl, right before me. * * * * * Now, if anybody has read the book, this preface will be much more interesting than if anybody has not. Yet, if I say to all new acquaintances that Betty was just in the middle of her sixteenth year, and quite in the middle of girlhood; that she hated some things as much as she could, and liked other things with all her heart, and did not feel pleased when older people kept saying _don't!_ perhaps these new acquaintances will take the risk of being friends. Certain things had become easy just as Betty was leaving Tideshead in New England, where she had been spending the summer with her old aunts, so that, having got used to all the Tideshead liberties and restrictions, she thought she was leaving the easiest place in the world; but when she got back to London with her father, somehow or other life was very difficult indeed. She used to wish for London and for her cronies, the Duncans, when she was first in Tideshead; but when she was in England again she found that, being a little nearer to the awful responsibilities of a grown person, she was not only a new Betty, but London--great, busy, roaring, delightful London--was a new London altogether. To say that she felt lonely, and cried one night because she wished to go back to Tideshead and be a village person again, and was homesick for her four-posted bed with the mandarins parading on the curtains, is only to tell the honest truth. In Tideshead that summer Betty Leicester learned two things which she could not understand quite well enough to believe at first, but which always seem more and more sensible to one as time goes on. The first is that you must be careful what you wish for, because if you wish hard enough you are pretty sure to get it; and the second is, that no two persons can be placed anywhere where one will not be host and the other guest. One will be in a position to give and to help and to show; the other must be the one who depends and receives. Now, this subject may not seem any clearer to you at first than it did to Betty; but life suddenly became a great deal more interesting, and she felt herself a great deal more important to the rest of the world when she got a little light from these rules. For everybody knows that two of the hardest things in the world are to know what to do and how to behave; to know what one's own duty is in the world and how to get on with other people. What to be and how to behave--these are the questions that every girl has to face; and if somebody answers, "Be good and be polite," it is such a general kind of answer that one throws it away and feels uncomfortable. I do not remember that I happened to say anywhere in the story that there was a pretty fashion in Tideshead, as summer went on, of calling our friend "Sister Betty." Whether it came from her lamenting that she had no sister, and being kindly adopted by certain friends, or whether there was something in her friendly, affectionate way of treating people, one cannot tell. II Betty Leicester, in a new winter gown which had just been sent home from Liberty's, with all desirable qualities of color, and a fine expanse of smocking at the yoke, and some sprigs of embroidery for ornament in proper places, was yet an unhappy Betty. In spite of being not only fine, but snug and warm as one always feels when cold weather first comes and one gets into a winter dress, everything seemed disappointing. The weather was shivery and dark, the street into which she was looking was narrow and gloomy, and there was a moment when Betty thought wistfully of Tideshead as if there were no December there, and only the high, clear September sky that she had left. Somehow, all out-of-door life appeared to have come to an end, and she felt as if she were shut into a dark and wintry prison. Not long before this she had come from Whitby, the charming red-roofed Yorkshire fishing-town that forever climbs the hill to its gray abbey. There were flocks of young people at Whitby that autumn, and Betty had lived out of doors in pleasant company to her heart's content, and tramped about the moors and along the cliffs with gay parties, and played golf and cricket, and helped to plan some great excitement or lively excursion for almost every day. There is a funny, dancing-step sort of walk, set to the tune of "Humpty-Dumpty," which seems to belong with the Whitby walking-sticks which everybody carries; you lock arms in lines across the road, and keep step to the gay chant of the dismal nursery lines, and the faster you go, especially when you are tired, the more it seems to rest you (or that's what some people think) in the long walks home. Whitby was almost as good as Tideshead, to which lovely town Betty now compared every other, even London itself. Betty and her father had not yet gone to housekeeping by themselves (which made them very happy later on), but they were living in some familiar old Clarges Street lodgings convenient to the Green Park, where Betty could go for a consoling scamper with a new dog called "Toby" because he looked so exactly like the beloved Toby on the cover of "Punch." Betty had spent a whole morning's work upon a proper belled ruff for Toby, who gravely sat up and wore it as if he were conscious of literary responsibilities. Papa had gone to the British Museum that rainy morning, and was not likely to reappear before the close of day. For a wonder, he was going to dine at home that night. Something very interesting to the scientific world had happened to him during his summer visit to Alaska, and it seemed as if every one of his scientific friends had also made some discovery, or something had happened to each one, which made many talks and dinners and club meetings delightfully important. But most of the London people were in the country; for in England they stay in the hot town until July or August, while all Americans scatter among green fields or seashore places; and then spend the gloomy months of the year in their country houses, when we fly back to the shelter and music and pictures and companionship of town life. This all depends upon the meeting of parliament and other great reasons; but even Betty Leicester felt quite left out and lonely in town that dark day. Her best friends, the Duncans, were at their great house in Warwickshire. She was going to stay with them for a month, but not just yet; while her father was soon going to pay a short visit to a very great lady indeed at Danesly Castle, just this side the Border. This "very great lady indeed" was perfectly charming to our friend; a smile or a bow from her was just then more than anything else to Betty. We all know how perfectly delightful it is to love some one so much that we keep dreaming of her a little all the time, and what happiness it gives when the least thing one has to do with her is a perfectly golden joy. Betty loved Mrs. Duncan fondly and constantly, and she loved Aunt Barbara with a spark of true enchantment and eager desire to please; but for this new friend, for Lady Mary Danesly (who was Mrs. Duncan's cousin), there was something quite different in her heart. As she stood by the window in Clarges Street she was thinking of this lovely friend, and wishing for once that she herself was older, so that perhaps she might have been asked to come with papa for a week's visit at Christmas. But Lady Mary would be busy enough with her great house-party of distinguished people. Once she had been so delightful as to say that Betty must some day come to Danesly with her father, but of course this could not be the time. Miss Day, Betty's old governess, who now lived with her mother in one of the suburbs of London, was always ready to come to spend a week or two if Betty were to be left alone, and it was pleasanter every year to try to make Miss Day have a good time as well as to have one one's self; but, somehow, a feeling of having outgrown Miss Day was hard to bear. They had not much to talk about except the past, and what they used to do; and when friendship comes to this alone, it may be dear, but is never the best sort. The fog was blowing out of the street, and the window against which Betty leaned was suddenly flecked with raindrops. A telegraph boy came round the corner as if the gust of wind had brought him, and ran toward the steps; presently the maid brought in a telegram to Betty, who hastened to open it, as she was always commissioned to do in her father's absence. To her surprise it was meant for herself. She looked at the envelope to make sure. It was from Lady Mary. _Can you come to me with your father next week, dear? I wish for you very much._ "There's no answer--at least there's no answer now," said Betty, quite trembling with excitement and pleasure; "I must see papa first, but I can't think that he will say no. He meant to come home for Christmas day with me, and now we can both stay on." She hopped about, dancing and skipping, after the door was shut. What a thing it is to have one's wishes come true before one's eyes! And then she asked to have a hansom cab called and for the company of Pagot, who was her maid now; a very nice woman whom Mrs. Duncan had recommended, in as much as Betty was older and had thoughts of going to housekeeping. Pagot's sister also was engaged as housemaid, and, strange as it may appear, our Tideshead Betty was to become the mistress of a cook and butler. Pagot herself looked sedate and responsible, but she dearly liked a little change and was finding the day dull. So they started off together toward the British Museum in all the rain, with the shutter of the cab put down and the horse trotting along the shining streets as if he liked it. III Mr. Leicester was in the Department of North American Prehistoric Remains, and had a jar of earth before him which he was examining with closest interest. "Here's a bit of charred bone," he was saying eagerly to a wise-looking old gentleman, "and here's a funeral bead--just as I expected. This proves my theory of the sacrificial--Why, Betty, what's the matter?" and he looked startled for a moment. "A telegram?" "It was so very important, you see, papa," said Betty. "I thought it was bad news from Tideshead," said Mr. Leicester, looking up at her with a smile after he had read it. "Well, my dear, that's very nice, and very important too," he added, with a fine twinkle in his eyes. "I shall be going out for a bit of luncheon presently, and I'll send the answer with great pleasure." Betty's cheeks were brighter than ever, as if a rosy cloud of joy were shining through. "Now that I'm here, I'll look at the arrowheads; mayn't I, papa?" she asked, with great self-possession. "I should like to see if I can find one like mine--I mean my best white one that I found on the river-bank last summer." Papa nodded, and turned to his jar again. "You may let Pagot go home at one o'clock," he said, "and come back to find me here, and we'll go and have luncheon together. I was thinking of coming home early to get you. We've a house to look at, and it's dull weather for what I wish to do here at the museum. Clear sunshine is the only possible light for this sort of work," he added, turning to the old gentleman, who nodded; and Betty nodded sagely, and skipped away with Pagot, to search among the arrowheads. She found many white quartz arrowpoints and spearheads like her own treasure. Pagot thought them very dull, and was made rather uncomfortable by the Indian medicine-masks and war-bonnets and evil-looking war-clubs, and openly called it a waste of time for any one to have taken trouble to get all that heathen rubbish together. Such savages and their horrid ways were best forgotten by decent folks, if Pagot might be so bold as to say so. But presently it was luncheon time; and the good soul cheerfully departed, while Betty joined her father, and waited for him as still as a mouse for half an hour, while he and the scientific old gentleman reluctantly said their last words and separated. She had listened to a good deal of their talk about altar fires, and the ceremonies that could be certainly traced in a handful of earth from the site of a temple in the mounds of a buried city; but all her thoughts were of Lady Mary and the pleasures of the next week. She looked again at the telegram, which was much nicer than most telegrams. It was so nice of Lady Mary to have said _dear_ in it--just as if she were talking; people did not often say _dear_ in a message. "Perhaps some of her guests can't come; but then, everybody likes to be asked to Danesly," Betty thought. "And I wonder if I shall dine at table with the guests; I never have. At any rate, I shall see Lady Mary often and be with papa. It is perfectly lovely! I can give her the Indian basket I brought her, now, before the sweet grass is all dry." It was a great delight to be asked to the holiday party; many a grown person would be thankful to take Betty's place. For was not Lady Mary a very great lady indeed, and one of the most charming women in England?--a famous hostess and assembler of really delightful people? "I am going to Danesly on the seventeenth," said Betty to herself, with satisfaction. IV Betty and her father had taken a long journey from London. They had been nearly all day in the train, after a breakfast by candle-light; and it was quite dark, except for the light of the full moon in a misty sky, as they drove up the long avenue at Danesly. Pagot was in great spirits; she was to go everywhere with Betty now, being used to the care of young ladies, and more being expected of this young lady than in the past. Pagot had been at Danesly before with the Duncans, and had many friends in the household. Mr. Leicester was walking across the fields by a path he well knew from the little station, with a friend and fellow guest whom they had met at Durham. This path was much shorter than the road, so that papa was sure of reaching the house first; but Betty felt a little lonely, being tired, and shy of meeting a great bright houseful of people quite by herself, in case papa should loiter. But suddenly the carriage stopped, and the footman jumped down and opened the door. "My lady is walking down to meet you, miss," he said; "she's just ahead of us, coming down the avenue." And Betty flew like a pigeon to meet her dear friend. The carriage drove on and left them together under the great trees, walking along together over the beautiful tracery of shadows. Suddenly Lady Mary felt the warmth of Betty's love for her and her speechless happiness as she had not felt it before, and she stopped, looking so tall and charming, and put her two arms round Betty, and hugged her to her heart. "My dear little girl!" she said for the second time; and then they walked on, and still Betty could not say anything for sheer joy. "Now I'm going to tell you something quite in confidence," said the hostess of the great house, which showed its dim towers and scattered lights beyond the leafless trees. "I had been wishing to have you come to me, but I should not have thought this the best time for a visit; later on, when the days will be longer, I shall be able to have much more time to myself. But an American friend of mine, Mr. Banfield, who is a friend of your papa's, I believe, wrote to ask if he might bring his young daughter, whom he had taken from school in New York for a holiday. It seemed a difficult problem for the first moment," and Lady Mary gave a funny little laugh. "I did not know quite what to do with her just now, as I should with a grown person. And then I remembered that I might ask you to help me, Betty dear. You know that the Duncans always go for a Christmas visit to their grandmother in Devon." "I was so glad to come," said Betty warmly; "it was nicer than anything else." [Illustration: "I WAS SO GLAD TO COME"] "I am a little afraid of young American girls, you understand," said Lady Mary gayly; and then, taking a solemn tone: "Yes, you needn't laugh, Miss Betty! But you know all about what they like, don't you? and so I am sure we can make a bit of pleasure together, and we'll be fellow hostesses, won't we? We must find some time every day for a little talking over of things quite by ourselves. I've put you next your father's rooms, and to-morrow Miss Banfield will be near by, and you're to dine in my little morning-room to-night. I'm so glad good old Pagot is with you; she knows the house perfectly well. I hope you will soon feel at home. Why, this is almost like having a girl of my very own," said Lady Mary wistfully, as they began to go up the great steps and into the hall, where the butler and other splendid personages of the household stood waiting. Lady Mary was a tall, slender figure in black, with a beautiful head; and she carried herself with great spirit and grace. She had wrapped some black lace about her head and shoulders, and held it gathered with one hand at her throat. "I must fly to the drawing-room now, and then go to dress for dinner; so good-night, darling," said this dear lady, whom Betty had always longed to be nearer to and to know better. "To-morrow you must tell me all about your summer in New England," she said, looking over her shoulder as she went one way and Betty another, with Pagot and a footman who carried the small luggage from the carriage. How good and kind she had been to come to meet a young stranger who might feel lonely, and as if there were no place for her in the great strange house in the first minute of her arrival. And Betty Leicester quite longed to see Miss Banfield and to help her to a thousand pleasures at once for Lady Mary's sake. V Somebody has said that there are only a very few kinds of people in the world, but that they are put into all sorts of places and conditions. The minute Betty Leicester looked at Edith Banfield next day she saw that she was a little like Mary Beck, her own friend and Tideshead neighbor. The first thought was one of pleasure, and the second was a fear that the new "Becky" would not have a good time at Danesly. It was the morning after Betty's own arrival. That first evening she had her dinner alone, and afterward was reading and resting after her journey in Lady Mary's own little sitting-room, which was next her own room. When Pagot came up from her own hasty supper and "crack" with her friends to look after Betty, and to unpack, she had great tales to tell of the large and noble company assembled at Danesly House. "They're dining in the great banquet hall itself," she said with pride. "Lady Mary looks a queen at the head of the table, with the French prince beside her and the great Earl of Seacliff at the other side," said Pagot proudly. "I took a look from the old musicians' gallery, miss, as I came along, and it was a fine sight, indeed. Lady Mary's own maid, as I have known well these many years, was telling me the names of the strangers." Pagot was very proud of her own knowledge of fine people. Betty asked if it was far to the gallery; and, finding that it was quite near the part of the house where they were, she went out with Pagot along the corridors with their long rows of doors, and into the musicians' gallery, where they found themselves at a delightful point of view. Danesly Castle had been built at different times; the banquet-hall itself was very old and stately, with a high, carved roof. There were beautiful old hangings and banners where the walls and roof met, and lower down were spread great tapestries. There was a huge fire blazing in the deep fireplace at the end, and screens before it; the long table twinkled with candle-light, and the gay company sat about it. Betty looked first for papa, and saw him sitting beside Lady Dimdale, who was a great friend of his; then she looked for Lady Mary, who was at the head between the two gentlemen of whom Pagot had spoken. She was still dressed in black lace, but with many diamonds sparkling at her throat, and she looked as sweet and quiet and self-possessed as if there were no great entertainment at all. The men-servants in their handsome livery moved quickly to and fro, as if they were actors in a play. The people at the table were talking and laughing, and the whole scene was so pleasant, so gay and friendly, that Betty wished, for almost the first time, that she were grown up and dining late, to hear all the delightful talk. She and Pagot were like swallows high under the eaves of the great room. Papa looked really boyish, so many of the men were older than he. There were twenty at table; and Pagot said, as Betty counted them, that many others were expected the next day. You could imagine the great festivals of an older time as you looked down from the gallery. In the gallery itself there were quaint little heavy wooden stools for the musicians: the harpers and fiddlers and pipers who had played for so many generations of gay dancers, for whom the same lights had flickered, and over whose heads the old hangings had waved. You felt as if you were looking down at the past. Betty and Pagot closed the narrow door of the gallery softly behind them, and our friend went back to her own bedroom, where there was a nice fire, and nearly fell asleep before it, while Pagot was getting the last things unpacked and ready for the night. VI The next day at about nine o'clock Lady Mary came through her morning-room and tapped at the door. Betty was just ready and very glad to say good-morning. The sun was shining, and she had been leaning out upon the great stone window-sill looking down the long slopes of the country into the wintry mists. Lady Mary looked out too, and took a long breath of the fresh, keen air. "It's a good day for hunting," she said, "and for walking. I'm going down to breakfast, because I have planned for an idle day. I thought we might go down together if you were ready." Betty's heart was filled with gratitude; it was so very kind of her hostess to remember that it would be difficult for the only girl in the house party to come alone to breakfast for the first time. They went along the corridor and down the great staircase, past the portraits and the marble busts and figures on the landings. There were two or three ladies in the great hall at the foot, with an air of being very early, and some gentlemen who were going fox hunting; and after Betty had spoken with Lady Dimdale, whom she knew, they sauntered into the breakfast-room, where they found some other people; and papa and Betty had a word together and then sat down side by side to their muffins and their eggs and toast and marmalade. It was not a bit like a Tideshead company breakfast. Everybody jumped up if he wished for a plate, or for more jam, or some cold game, which was on the sideboard with many other things. The company of servants had disappeared, and it was all as unceremonious as if the breakfasters were lunching out of doors. There was not a long tableful like that of the night before; many of the guests were taking their tea and coffee in their own rooms. By the time breakfast was done, Betty had begun to forget herself as if she were quite at home. She stole an affectionate glance now and then at Lady Mary, and had fine bits of talk with her father, who had spent a charming evening and now told Betty something about it, and how glad he was to have her see their fellow guests. When he went hurrying away to join the hunt, Betty was sure that she knew exactly what to do with herself. It would take her a long time to see the huge old house and the picture gallery, where there were some very famous paintings, and the library, about which papa was always so enthusiastic. Lady Mary was to her more interesting than anybody else, and she wished especially to do something for Lady Mary. Aunt Barbara had helped her niece very much one day in Tideshead when she talked about her own experience in making visits and going much into company. "The best thing you can do," she said, "is to do everything you can to help your hostess. Don't wait to see what is going to be done for you, but try to help entertain your fellow guests and to make the moment pleasant, and you will be sure to enjoy yourself and to find your hostess wishing you to come again. Always do the things that will help your hostess." Our friend thought of this sage advice now, but it was at a moment when every one else was busy talking, and they were all going on to the great library except two or three late breakfasters who were still at the table. Aunt Barbara had also said that when there was nothing else to do, your plain duty was to entertain yourself; and, having a natural gift for this, Betty wandered off into a corner and found a new "Punch" and some of the American magazines on a little table close by the window-seat. After a while she happened to hear some one ask: "What time is Mr. Banfield coming?" "By the eleven o'clock train," said Lady Mary. "I am just watching for the carriage that is to fetch him. Look; you can see it first between the two oaks there to the left. It is an awkward time to get to a strange house, poor man; but they were in the South and took a night train that is very slow. Mr. Banfield's daughter is with him, and my dear friend Betty, who knows what American girls like best, is kindly going to help me entertain her." "Oh, really!" said one of the ladies, looking up and smiling as if she had been wondering just what Betty was for, all alone in the grown-up house party. "Really, that's very nice. But I might have seen that you are Mr. Leicester's daughter. It was very stupid of me, my dear; you're quite like him--oh, quite!" "I have seen you with the Duncans, have I not?" asked some one else, with great interest. "Why, fancy!" said this friendly person, who was named the Honorable Miss Northumberland, a small, eager little lady in spite of her solemn great name,--"fancy! you must be an American too. I should have thought you quite an English girl." "Oh, no, indeed," said Betty. "Indeed, I'm quite American, except for living in England a very great deal." She was ready to go on and say much more, but she had been taught to say as little about herself as she possibly could, since general society cares little for knowledge that is given it too easily, especially about strangers and one's self! "There's the carriage now," said Lady Mary, as she went away to welcome the guests. "Poor souls! they will like to get to their rooms as soon as possible," she said hospitably; but although the elder ladies did not stir, Betty deeply considered the situation, and then, with a happy impulse, hurried after her hostess. It was a long way about, through two or three rooms and the great hall to the entrance; but Betty overtook Lady Mary just as she reached the great door, going forward in the most hospitable, charming way to meet the new-comers. She did not seem to have seen Betty at all. The famous lawyer, Mr. Banfield, came quickly up the steps, and after him, more slowly, came his daughter, whom he seemed quite to forget. A footman was trying to take her wraps and traveling-bag, but she clung fast to them, and looked up apprehensively toward Lady Mary. Betty was very sympathetic, and was sure that it was a trying moment, and she ran down to meet Miss Banfield, and happened to be so fortunate as to catch her just as she was tripping over her dress upon the high stone step. Mr. Banfield himself was well known in London, and was a great favorite in society; but at first sight his daughter's self-conscious manners struck one as being less interesting. She was a pretty girl, but she wore a pretentious look, which was further borne out by very noticeable clothes--not at all the right things to travel in at that hour; but, as has long ago been said, Betty saw at once the likeness to her Tideshead friend and comrade, Mary Beck, and opened her heart to take the stranger in. It was impossible not to be reminded of the day when Mary Beck came to call in Tideshead, with her best hat and bird-of-paradise feather, and they both felt so awkward and miserable. "Did you have a very tiresome journey?" Betty was asking as they reached the top of the steps at last; but Edith Banfield's reply was indistinct, and the next moment Lady Mary turned to greet her young guest cordially. Betty felt that she was a little dismayed, and was all the more eager to have the young compatriot's way made easy. "Did you have a tiresome journey?" asked Lady Mary, in her turn; but the reply was quite audible now. "Oh, yes," said Edith. "It was awfully cold--oh, awfully!--and so smoky and horrid and dirty! I thought we never should get here, with changing cars in horrid stations, and everything," she said, telling all about it. "Oh, that was too bad," said Betty, rushing to the rescue, while Lady Mary walked on with Mr. Banfield. Edith Banfield talked on in an excited, persistent way to Betty, after having finally yielded up her bag to the footman, and looking after him somewhat anxiously. "It's a splendid big house, isn't it?" she whispered; "but awfully solemn looking. I suppose there's another part where they live, isn't there? Have you been here before? Are you English?" "I'm Betty Leicester," said Betty, in an undertone. "No, I haven't been here before; but I have known Lady Mary for a long time in London. I'm an American, too." "You aren't, really!" exclaimed Edith. "Why, you must have been over here a good many times, or something"--She cast a glance at Betty's plain woolen gear, and recognized the general comfortable appearance of the English schoolgirl. Edith herself was very fine in silk attire, with much fur trimming and a very expensive hat. "Well, I'm awfully glad you're here," she said, with a satisfied sigh; "you know all about it better than I do, and can tell me what to put on." "Oh, yes, indeed," said Betty cheerfully; "and there are lots of nice things to do. We can see the people, and then there are all the pictures and the great conservatories, and the stables and dogs and everything. I've been waiting to see them with you; and we can ride every day, if you like; and papa says it's a perfectly delightful country for walking." "I hate to walk," said Edith frankly. "Oh, what a pity," lamented Betty, a good deal dashed. She was striving against a very present disappointment, but still the fact could not be overlooked that Edith Banfield looked like Mary Beck. Now, Mary also was apt to distrust all strangers and to take suspicious views of life, and she had little enthusiasm; but Betty knew and loved her loyalty and really good heart. She felt sometimes as if she tried to walk in tight shoes when "Becky's" opinions had to be considered; but Becky's world had grown wider month by month, and she loved her very much. Edith Banfield was very pretty; that was a comfort, and though Betty might never like her as she did Mary Beck, she meant more than ever to help her to have a good visit. Lady Mary appeared again, having given Mr. Banfield into the young footman's charge. She looked at Sister Betty for an instant with an affectionate, amused little smile, and kept one hand on her shoulder as she talked for a minute pleasantly with the new guest. A maid appeared to take Edith to her room, and Lady Mary patted Betty's shoulder as they parted. They did not happen to have time for a word together again all day. By luncheon time the two girls were very good friends, and Betty knew all about the new-comer; and in spite of a succession of minor disappointments, the acquaintance promised to be very pleasant. Poor Edith Banfield, like poor Betty, had no mother, but Edith had spent several years already at a large boarding-school. She was taking this journey by way of vacation, and was going back after the Christmas holidays. She was a New-Yorker, and she hated the country, and loved to stay in foreign hotels. This was the first time she had ever paid a visit in England, except to some American friends who had a villa on the Thames, which Edith had found quite dull. She had not been taught either to admire or to enjoy very much, which seemed to make her schooling count for but little so far; but she adored her father and his brilliant wit in a most lovely way, and with this affection and pride Betty could warmly sympathize. Edith longed to please her father in every possible fashion, and secretly confessed that she did not always succeed, in a way that touched Betty's heart. It was hard to know exactly how to please the busy man; he was apt to show only a mild interest in the new clothes which at present were her chief joy; perhaps she was always making the mistake of not so much trying to please him as to make him pleased with herself, which is quite a different thing. VII There was an anxious moment on Betty's part when Edith Banfield summoned her to decide upon what dress should be worn for the evening. Pagot, whom Betty had asked to go and help her new friend, was wearing a disapproving look, and two or three fine French dresses were spread out for inspection. "Why, aren't you going to dress?" asked Edith. "I was afraid you were all ready to go down, but I couldn't think what to put on." "I'm all dressed," said Betty, with surprise. "Oh, what lovely gowns! But we"--she suddenly foresaw a great disappointment--"we needn't go down yet, you know, Edith; we are not out, and dinner isn't like luncheon here in England. We can go down afterward, if we like, and hear the songs, but we girls never go to dinner when it's a great dinner like this. I think it is much better fun to stay away; at least, I always have thought so until last night, and then it did really look very pleasant," she frankly added. "Why, I'm not sixteen, and you're only a little past, you know." But there lay a grown-up young lady's evening gowns as if to confute all Betty's arguments. "How awfully stupid!" said Edith, with great scorn. "Nursery tea for anybody like us!" and she turned to look at Betty's dress, which was charming enough in its way, and made in very pretty girlish fashion. "I should think they'd make you wear a white pinafore," said Edith ungraciously; but Betty, who had been getting a little angry, thought this so funny that she laughed and felt much better. "I wear muslins for very best," she said serenely. "Why, of course we'll go down after dinner and stay a while before we say good-night; they'll be out before half-past nine,--I mean the ladies,--and we'll be there in the drawing-room. Oh, isn't that blue gown a beauty! I wish I had put on my best muslin, Pagot." "You look very suitable, Miss Betty," said Pagot stiffly. Pagot was very old-fashioned, and Edith made a funny little face at Betty behind her back. The two girls had a delightful dinner together in the morning-room next Betty's own, and Edith's good humor was quite restored. She had had a good day, on the whole, and the picture galleries and conservatories had not failed to please by their splendors and delights. After they had finished their dessert, Betty, as a great surprise, offered the hospitalities of the musicians' gallery, and they sped along the corridors and up the stairs in great spirits, Betty leading the way. "Now, don't upset the little benches," she whispered, as she opened the narrow door out of the dark passage, and presently their two heads were over the edge of the gallery. They leaned boldly out, for nobody would think of looking up. The great hall was even gayer and brighter than it had looked the night before. The lights and colors shone, there were new people at table, and much talk was going on. The butler and his men were more military than ever; it was altogether a famous, much-diamonded dinner company, and Lady Mary looked quite magnificent at the head. "It looks pretty," whispered Edith; "but how dull it sounds! I don't believe that they are having a bit of a good time. At home, you know, there's such a noise at a party. What a splendid big room!" "People never talk loud when they get together in England," said Betty. "They never make that awful chatter that we do at home. Just four or five people who come to tea in Tideshead can make one another's ears ache. I couldn't get used to it last summer; Aunt Barbara was almost the only tea-party person in Tideshead who didn't get screaming." "Oh, I do think it's splendid!" said Edith wistfully. "I wish we were down there. I wish there was a little gallery lower down. There's Lord Dunwater, who sat next me at luncheon. Who's that next your father?" There was a little noise behind the eager girls, and they turned quickly. A tall boy had joined them, who seemed much disturbed at finding any one in the gallery, which seldom had a visitor. Edith stood up, and seemed an alarmingly tall and elegant young lady in the dim light. Betty, who was as tall, was nothing like so imposing to behold at that moment; but the new-comer turned to make his escape. [Illustration: A TALL BOY HAD JOINED THEM] "Don't go away," Betty begged, seeing his alarm, and wondering who he could be. "There's plenty of room to look. Don't go." And thereupon the stranger came forward. He was a handsome fellow, dressed in Eton clothes. He was much confused, and said nothing; and, after a look at the company below, during which the situation became more embarrassing to all three, he turned to go away. "Are you staying in the house, too?" asked Betty timidly; it was so very awkward. "I just came," said the boy, who now appeared to be a very nice fellow indeed. They had left the musicians' gallery,--nobody knew why,--and now stood outside in the corridor. "I just came," he repeated. "I walked over from the station across the fields. I'm Lady Mary's nephew, you know. She's not expecting me. I had my supper in the housekeeper's room. I was going on a week's tramp in France with my old tutor, just to get rid of Christmas parties and things; but he strained a knee at football, and we had to give it up, and so I came here for the holidays. There was nothing else to do," he explained ruefully. "What a lot of people my aunt's got this year!" "It's very nice," said Betty cordially. "It's beastly slow, _I_ think," said the boy. "I like it much better when my aunt and I have the place to ourselves. Oh, no; that's not what I mean!" he said, blushing crimson as both the girls laughed. "Only we have jolly good times by ourselves, you know; no end of walks and rides; and we fish if the water's right. You ought to see my aunt cast a fly." "She's perfectly lovely, isn't she?" said Betty, in a tone which made them firm friends at once. "We're going down to the drawing-room soon; wouldn't you like to come?" "Yes," said the boy slowly. "It'll be fun to surprise her. And I saw Lady Dimdale at dinner. I like Lady Dimdale awfully." "So does papa," said Betty; "oh, so very much!--next to Lady Mary and Mrs. Duncan." "You're Betty Leicester, aren't you? Oh, I know you now," said the boy, turning toward her with real friendliness. "I danced with you at the Duncans', at a party, just before I first went to Eton,--oh, ever so long ago!--you won't remember it; and I've seen you once besides, at their place in Warwickshire, you know. I'm Warford, you know." "Why, of course," said Betty, with great pleasure. "It puzzled me; I couldn't think at first, but you've quite grown up since then. How we used to dance when we were little things! Do you like it now?" "No, I hate it," said Warford coldly, and they all three laughed. Edith was walking alongside, feeling much left out of the conversation, though Warford had been stealing glances at her. "Oh, I am so sorry--I didn't think," Betty exclaimed in her politest manner. "Miss Banfield, this is Lord Warford. I didn't mean to be rude, but you were a great surprise, weren't you?" and they all laughed again, as young people will. Just then they reached the door of Lady Mary's morning-room; the girls' dessert was still on the table, and, being properly invited, Warford began to eat the rest of the fruit. "One never gets quite enough grapes," said Warford, who was evidently suffering the constant hunger of a rapidly growing person. Edith Banfield certainly looked very pretty, both her companions thought so; but they felt much more at home with each other. It seemed as if she were a great deal older than they, in her fine evening gown. Warford was very admiring and very polite, but Betty and he were already plunged into the deep intimacy of true fellowship. Edith got impatient before they were ready to go downstairs, but at last they all started down the great staircase, and had just settled themselves in the drawing-room when the ladies began to come in. "Why, Warford, my dear!" said Lady Mary, with great delight, as he met her and kissed her twice, as if they were quite by themselves; then he turned and spoke to Lady Dimdale, who was just behind, still keeping Lady Mary's left hand in his own. Warford looked taller and more manly than ever in the bright light, and he was recognized warmly by nearly all the ladies, being not only a fine fellow, but the heir of Danesly and great possessions besides, so that he stood for much that was interesting, even if he had not been interesting himself. Betty and Edith looked on with pleasure, and presently Lady Mary came toward them. "I am so glad that you came down," she said; "and how nice of you to bring Warford! He usually objects so much that I believe you have found some new way to make it easy. I suppose it is dull when he is by himself. Mr. Frame is here, and has promised to sing by and by. He and Lady Dimdale have practiced some duets--their voices are charming together. I hope that you will not go up until afterward, no matter how late." Betty, who had been sitting when Lady Mary came toward her, had risen at once to meet her, without thinking about it; but Edith Banfield still sat in her low chair, feeling stiff and uncomfortable, while Lady Mary did not find it easy to talk down at her or to think of anything to say. All at once it came to Edith's mind to follow Betty's example, and they all three stood together talking cheerfully until Lady Mary had to go to her other guests. "Isn't she lovely!" said Edith, with all the ardor that Betty could wish. "I don't feel a bit afraid of her, as I thought I should." "She takes such dear trouble," said Betty, warmly. "She never forgets anybody. Some grown persons behave as if you ought to be ashamed of not being older, and as if you were going to bore them if they didn't look out." At this moment Warford came back most loyally from the other side of the room, and presently some gentlemen made their appearance, and the delightful singing began. Betty, who loved music, sat and listened like a quiet young robin in her red dress, and her father, who looked at her happy, dreaming face, was sure that there never had been a dearer girl in the world. Lady Mary looked at her too, and was really full of wonder, because in some way Betty had managed with simple friendliness to make her shy nephew quite forget himself, and to give some feeling of belongingness to Edith Banfield, who would have felt astray by herself in a strange English house. VIII The days flew by until Christmas, and the weather kept clear and bright, without a bit of rain or gloom, which was quite delightful and wonderful in that northern country. The older guests hunted or drove or went walking. There were excursions of every sort for those who liked them, and sometimes the young people joined in what was going on, and sometimes Betty and Edith and Warford made fine plans of their own. It proved that Edith had spent much time with the family of her uncle, who was an army officer; and at the Western army posts she had learned to ride with her cousins, who were excellent riders and insisted upon her joining them. So Edith could share many pleasures of this sort at Danesly, and she was so pretty and gay that people liked her a good deal; and presently some of the house party had gone, and some new guests came, and the two girls and Warford were unexpected helpers in their entertainment. Sometimes they dined downstairs now, when no one was asked from outside; and every day it seemed pleasanter and more homelike to stay at Danesly. There were one or two other great houses in the neighborhood where there were also house parties in the gay holiday season, and so Betty and Edith saw a great deal of the world in one way and another; and Lady Mary remembered that girls were sometimes lonely, as they grew up, and was very good to them, teaching them, in quiet ways, many a thing belonging to manners and getting on with other people, that they would be glad to know all their life long. [Illustration: BETTY, EDITH AND WARFORD] "Don't talk about yourself," she said once, "and you won't half so often think of yourself, and then you are sure to be happy." And again: "My old friend, Mrs. Procter, used to say, '_Never explain, my dear. People don't care a bit._'" Warford was more at home in the hunting field than in the house; but the young people saw much of each other. He took a great deal of trouble, considering his usual fashion, to be nice to the two girls; and so one day, when Betty went to find him, he looked up eagerly to see what she wanted. Warford was busy in the gun room, with the parts of a gun which he had taken to pieces. There was nobody else there at that moment, and the winter sun was shining in along the floor. "Warford," Betty began, with an air of great confidence, "what can we do for a bit of fun at Christmas?" Warford looked up at her over his shoulder, a little bewildered. He was just this side of sixteen, like Betty herself; sometimes he seemed manly, and sometimes very boyish, as happened that day. "I'm in for anything you like," he said, after a moment's reflection. "What's on?" "If we give up dining with the rest, I can think of a great plan," said Betty, shining with enthusiasm. "There's the old gallery, you know. Couldn't we have some music there, as they used in old times?" "My aunt would like it awfully," exclaimed Warford, letting his gunstock drop with a thump. "I'd rather do anything than sit all through the dinner. Somebody'd be sure to make a row about me, and I should feel like getting into a burrow. I'll play the fiddle: what did you mean?--singing, or what? If we had it Christmas Eve, we might have the Christmas waits, you know." "_Fancy!_" said Betty, in true English fashion; and then they both laughed. "The waits are pretty silly," said Warford. "They were better than usual last year, though. Mr. Macalister, the schoolmaster, is a good musician, and he trained them well. He plays the flute and the cornet. Why not see what we can do ourselves first, and perhaps let them sing last? They'd be disappointed not to come at midnight under the windows, you know," said Warford considerately. "We'll go down and ask the schoolmaster after hours, and we'll think what we can do ourselves. One of the grooms has a lovely tenor voice. I heard him singing 'The Bonny Ivy Tree' like a flute only yesterday, so he must know more of those other old things that Aunt Mary likes." "We needn't have much music," said Betty. "The people at dinner will not listen long,--they'll want to talk. But if we sing a Christmas song all together, and have the flute and fiddle, you know, Warford, it would be very pretty--like an old-fashioned choir, such as there used to be in Tideshead. We'll sing things that everybody knows, because everybody likes old songs best. I wish Mary Beck was here; but Edith sings--she told me so; and don't you know how we sang some nice things together, the other day upon the moor, when we were coming home from the hermit's-cell ruins?" Warford nodded, and picked up his gunstock. "I'm your man," he said soberly. "Let's dress up whoever sings, with wigs and ruffles and things. And then there are queer trumpets and viols in that collection of musical instruments in the music-room. Some of us can make believe play them." "A procession! a procession!" exclaimed Betty. "What do you say to a company with masks to come right into the great hall, and walk round the table three times, singing and playing? Lady Dimdale knows everything about music; I mean to ask her. I'll go and find her now." "I'll come, too," said Warford, with delightful sympathy. "I saw her a while ago writing in the little book-room off the library." IX It was Christmas at last; and all the three young people had been missing since before luncheon in a most mysterious manner. But Betty Leicester, who came in late and flushed, managed to sit next her father; and he saw at once, being well acquainted with Betty, that some great affair was going on. She was much excited, and her eyes were very bright, and there was such a great secret that Mr. Leicester could do no less than ask to be let in, and be gayly refused and hushed, lest somebody else should know there was a secret, too. Warford, who appeared a little later, looked preternaturally solemn, and Edith alone behaved as if nothing were going to happen. She was as grown-up as possible, and chattered away about the delights of New York with an old London barrister who was Lady Mary's uncle, and Warford's guardian, and chief adviser to the great Danesly estates. Edith was so pretty and talked so brightly that the old gentleman looked as amused and happy as possible. "He may be thinking that she's coming down to dinner, but he'll look for her in vain," said Betty, who grew gayer herself. "Not coming to dinner?" asked papa, with surprise; at which Betty gave him so stern a glance that he was more careful to avoid even the appearance of secrets from that time on; and they talked together softly about dear old Tideshead, and Aunt Barbara, and all the household, and wondered if the great Christmas box from London had arrived safely and gone up the river by the packet, just as Betty herself had done six or seven months before. It made her a little homesick, even there in the breakfast-room at Danesly,--even with papa at her side, and Lady Mary smiling back if she looked up,--to think of the dear old house, and of Serena and Letty, and how they would all be thinking of her at Christmas time. The great hall was gay with holly and Christmas greens. It was snowing outside for the first time that year, and the huge fireplace was full of logs blazing and snapping in a splendidly cheerful way. Dinner was to be earlier than usual. A great festivity was going on in the servants' hall; and when Warford went out with Lady Mary to cut the great Christmas cake and have his health drunk, Betty and Edith went too; and everybody stood up and cheered, and cried, "Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! and God bless you!" in the most hearty fashion. It seemed as if all the holly in the Danesly woods had been brought in--as if Christmas had never been so warm and friendly and generous in a great house before. Christmas eve had begun, and cast its lovely charm and enchantment over everybody's heart. Old dislikes were forgotten between the guests; at Christmas time it is easy to say kind words that are hard to say all the rest of the year; at Christmas time one loves his neighbor and thinks better of him; Christmas love and good-will come and fill the heart whether one beckons them or no. Betty had spent some lonely Christmases in her short life, as all the rest of us have done; and perhaps for this reason the keeping of the great day at Danesly in such happy company, in such splendor and warm-heartedness of the old English fashion, seemed a kind of royal Christmas to her young heart. Everybody was so kind and charming. Lady Dimdale, who had entered with great enthusiasm into the Christmas plans, caught her after luncheon and kissed her, and held her hand like an elder sister as they walked away. It would have been very hard to keep things from Lady Mary herself; but that dear lady had many ways to turn her eyes and her thoughts, and so many secret plots of her own to keep in hand at this season, that she did not suspect what was going on in a distant room of the old south wing (where Warford still preserved some of his boyish collections of birds' eggs and other plunder), of which he kept the only key. There was a steep staircase that led down to a door in the courtyard; and by this Mr. Macalister, the schoolmaster, had come and gone, and the young groom of the tenor voice, and five or six others, men and girls, who could either sing or play. It was the opposite side of the house from Lady Mary's own rooms, and nobody else would think anything strange of such comings and goings. Pagot and some friendly maids helped with the costumes. They had practiced their songs twice in the schoolmaster's own house at nightfall, down at the edge of the village by the church; and so everything was ready, with the help of Lady Dimdale and of Mrs. Drum, the housekeeper, who would always do everything that Warford asked her, and be heartily pleased besides. So Lady Mary did not know what was meant until after her Christmas guests were seated, and the old vicar had said grace, and all the great candelabra were lit, high on the walls between the banners and flags, and among the staghorns and armor lower down, and there were lights even in the old musicians' gallery, which she could see as she sat with her back to the painted leather screen that hid the fireplace. Suddenly there was a sound of violins and a bass-viol and a flute from the gallery, and a sound of voices singing--the fresh young voices of Warford and Betty and Edith and their helpers, who sang a beautiful old Christmas song, so unexpected, so lovely, that the butler stopped halfway from the sideboard with the wine, and the footmen stood listening where they were, with whatever they had in hand. The guests at dinner looked up in surprise, and Lady Dimdale nodded across at Mr. Leicester because they both knew it was Betty's plan coming true in this delightful way. And fresh as the voices were, the look of the singers was even better, for you could see from below that all the musicians were in quaint costume. The old schoolmaster stood in the middle as leader, with a splendid powdered wig and gold-laced coat, and all the rest wore coats and gowns of velvet and brocade from the old house's store of treasures. They made a charming picture against the wall with its dark tapestry, and Lady Dimdale felt proud of her own part in the work. There was a cry of delight from below as the first song ended. Betty in the far corner of the gallery could see Lady Mary looking up so pleased and happy and holding her dear white hands high as she applauded with the rest. Nobody knew better than Lady Mary that dinners are sometimes dull, and that even a Christmas dinner is none the worse for a little brightening. So Betty had helped her in great as well as in little things, and she blessed the child from her heart. Then the dinner went on, and so did the music; it was a pretty programme, and before anybody had dreamed of being tired of it the sound ceased and the gallery was empty. After a while, when dessert was soon coming in, and the Christmas pudding with its flaming fire might be expected at any moment, there was a pause and a longer delay than usual in the serving. People were talking busily about the long table, and hardly noticed this until with loud knocking and sound of music, old Bond, the butler, made his appearance, with an assistant on either hand, bearing the plum pudding aloft in solemn majesty, the flames rising merrily from the huge platter. Behind him came a splendid retinue of the musicians, singing and playing; every one carried some picturesque horn or trumpet or stringed instrument from Lady Mary's collection, and those who sang also made believe to play in the interludes. Behind these were all the men in livery, two and two; and so they went round and round the table until at last Warford slipped into his seat, and the pudding was put before him with great state, while the procession waited. The tall shy boy forgot himself and his shyness, and was full of the gayety of his pleasure. The costumes were all somewhat fine for Christmas choristers, and the young heir wore a magnificent combination of garments that had belonged to noble peers his ancestors, and was pretty nearly too splendid to be well seen without smoked glass. For the first time in his life he felt a brave happiness in belonging to Danesly, and in the thought that Danesly would really belong to him; he looked down the long room at Lady Mary, and loved her as he never had before, and understood things all in a flash, and made a vow to be a good fellow and to stand by her so that she should never, never feel alone or overburdened again. Betty and Edith and the good schoolmaster (who was splendid in his white wig, and a great addition to the already brilliant company) took their own places, which were quickly made, and dessert went on; the rest of the musicians had been summoned away by Mrs. Drum, the housekeeper,--all these things having been planned beforehand. And then it was soon time for the ladies to go to the drawing-room, and Betty, feeling a little tired and out of breath with so much excitement, slipped away by herself and to her own thoughts; of Lady Mary, who would be busy with her guests, but still more of papa, who must be waited for until he came to join the ladies, when she could have a talk with him before they said good-night. It was perfectly delightful that everything had gone off so well. Lady Dimdale had known just what to do about everything, and Edith, who had grown nicer every day, had sung as well as Mary Beck (she had Becky's voice as well as her look, and had told Betty it was the best time she ever had in her life); and Warford had been so nice and had looked so handsome, and Lady Mary was so pleased because he was not shy and had not tried to hide or be grumpy, as he usually did. Betty liked Warford better than any boy she had ever seen, except Harry Foster in Tideshead. They would be sure to like each other, and perhaps they might meet some day. Harry's life of care and difficulty made him seem older than Warford, upon whom everybody had always showered all the good things he could be persuaded to take. X Betty was all by herself, walking up and down in the long picture gallery. There were lights here and there in the huge, shadowy room, but the snow had ceased falling out of doors, and the moon was out and shone brightly in at the big windows with their leaded panes. She felt very happy. It was so pleasant to see how everybody cared about papa, and thought him so delightful. She had never seen him in his place with such a company of people, or known so many of his friends together before. It was so good of Lady Mary to have let her come with papa. They would have so many things to talk over together when they got back to town. The old pictures on the wall were watching Miss Betty Leicester of Tideshead as she walked past them through the squares of moonlight, and into the dim candle-light and out to the moonlight again. It was cooler in the gallery than in the great hall, but not too cold, and it was quiet and still. She was dressed in an ancient pink brocade, with fine old lace, that had come out of a camphor-wood chest in one of the storerooms, and she still held a little old-fashioned lute carefully under her arm. Suddenly one of the doors opened, and Lady Mary came in and crossed the moonlight square toward her. "So here you are, darling," she said. "I missed you, and every one is wondering where you are. I asked Lady Dimdale, and she remembered that she saw you come this way." Lady Mary was holding Betty, lace and lute and all, in her arms, and then she kissed her in a way that meant a great deal. "Let us come over here and look out at the snow," she said at last, and they stood together in the deep window recess and looked out. The new snow was sparkling under the moon; the park stretched away, dark woodland and open country, as far as one could see; off on the horizon were the twinkling lights of a large town. Lady Mary did not say anything more, but her arm was round Betty still, and presently Betty's head found its way to Lady Mary's shoulder as if it belonged there. The top of her young head was warm under Lady Mary's cheek. "Everybody is lonely sometimes, darling," said Lady Mary at last; "and as for me, I am very lonely indeed, even with all my friends, and all my cares and pleasures. The only thing that really helps any of us is being loved, and doing things for love's sake; it isn't the things themselves, but the love that is in them. That's what makes Christmas so much to all the world, dear child. But everybody misses somebody at Christmas time; and there's nothing like finding a gift of new love and unlooked-for pleasure." "Lady Dimdale helped us splendidly. It wouldn't have been half so nice if it hadn't been for her," said Betty softly,--for her Christmas project had come to so much more than she had dreamed at first. There was a stir in the drawing-room, and a louder sound of voices. The gentlemen were coming in. Lady Mary must go back; but when she kissed Betty again, there was a tear on her cheek, and so they stood waiting a minute longer, and loving to be together, and suddenly the sweet old bells in Danesly church, down the hill, rang out the Christmas chimes. * * * * * ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND CO. THE RIVERSIDE PRESS CAMBRIDGE, MASS., U. S. A. * * * * * Books by Sarah Orne Jewett. DEEPHAVEN. PLAY-DAYS. Stories for Children. OLD FRIENDS AND NEW. COUNTRY BY-WAYS. THE MATE OF THE DAYLIGHT, AND FRIENDS ASHORE. A COUNTRY DOCTOR. A Novel. A MARSH ISLAND. A Novel. A WHITE HERON, AND OTHER STORIES. THE KING OF FOLLY ISLAND, AND OTHER PEOPLE. BETTY LEICESTER. A Story for Girls. TALES OF NEW ENGLAND. STRANGERS AND WAYFARERS. A NATIVE OF WINBY, AND OTHER TALES. THE LIFE OF NANCY. THE COUNTRY OF THE POINTED FIRS. HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY, BOSTON AND NEW YORK. 
60653	----	car pool By ROSEL GEORGE BROWN _Certainly alien children ought to be fed ... but to human kids?_ [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, July 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] "Happy birthday to _you_," we all sang, except Gail, of course, who was still screaming, though not as loud. "Well, now," I said jovially, glancing nervously about at the other air traffic, "what else can we all sing?" The singing seemed to be working nicely. They had stopped swatting each other with their lunch boxes and my experienced ear told me Gail was by this time forcing herself to scream. This should be the prelude to giving up and enjoying herself. "_Boing_ down in Texas in eighteen-ninety," Billy began, "Davy, _Davy_ Eisenhower...." "A-B-_C-D_-E--" sang Jacob. "Dere was a little 'elicopter red and blue," Meli chirped, "flew along de air-ways--" The rest came through unidentifiably. "Ba-ba-ba," said a faint voice. Gail had given up. I longed for ears in the back of my head because victory was mine and all I needed to do was reinforce it with a little friendly conversation. "Yes, dear?" I asked her encouragingly. "Ba-ba-ba," was all I could make out. "Yes, indeed. That Gail _likes_ to go to Playplace." "Ba-ba-ba!" A little irritable. She was trying to say something important. "_Ba-ba-ba!_" I signaled for an emergency hover, turned around and presented my ear. "Me eat de crus' of de toas'," Gail said. She beamed. I beamed. * * * * * We managed to reach Playplace without incident, except for a man who called me an obscenity. The children and I, however, called him a great, big alligator head and on the whole, I think, we won. After all, how can a man possibly be right when faced with a woman and eight tiny children? I herded the children through the Germ Detection Booth and Gail was returned to me with an incipient streptococcus infection. "Couldn't you give her the shot here?" I asked. "I've _just_ got her in a good mood, and if I have to turn around and take her back home ... and besides, her mother works. There won't be anyone there." "Verne, dear, we can't risk giving the shot until the child is perfectly adjusted to Playplace. You see, she'd connect the pain of the shot with coming to school and then she might never adjust." Mrs. Baden managed to give me her entire attention and hold a two-and-a-half-year-old child on one shoulder and greet each entering child and break up a fight between two ill-matched four-year-olds, all at the same time. "Me stay at school," Gail said resolutely. There was a scream from the other side of the booth. That was Billy's best friend. I waited for the other scream. That was Billy. "Normal aggression," Mrs. Baden said with a smile. I picked up Gail. Act first, talk later. "Oh, _there_ she is," Mrs. Baden said, taking my elbow with what could only be a third hand. Having heard we'd have a Hiserean child in Billy's group, I managed not to look surprised. "Mrs. His-tara, this is Verne Barrat. Her Billy will be in Hi-nin's group." I was immediately frozen with indecision. Should I shake hands? Merely smile? Nod? Her hands looked wavery and boneless. I might injure them inadvertently. I settled on a really good smile, all the way back to my bridge. "I am so delighted to meet you," I said. I felt as though the good will of the entire World Conference rested on my shoulders. Her face lighted up with the most sincere look of pleasure I've ever seen. "I am glad to furnish you this delight," she said, with a good deal of lisping over the dentals, because Hisereans have fore-shortened teeth. She embraced me wholeheartedly and gave me a scaly kiss on the cheek. My first thought was that I was a success and my second thought was, Oh, God, what'll happen when Billy gets hold of little Hi-nin? Hisereans, as I understood it, simply didn't have this "normal aggression." Indeed, I sometimes have trouble believing it's really normal. "I was thinking," Mrs. Baden said, putting down the two-and-a-half-year-old and plucking a venturesome little girl in Human Fly Shoes from the side of the building, "that you all might enjoy having Hi-nin in your car pool." "Oh, we'd love to," I said eagerly. "We've got five mamas and eight children already, of course, but I'm sure everyone--" "It would trouble you!" Mrs. His-tara exclaimed. Her eye stalks retracted and tears poured down her cheeks. "I do not want to be of difficulty," she said. * * * * * Since she had no apparent handkerchief and wore some sort of permanent-looking native dress, I tore a square out of my paper morning dress for her. "You are too good!" she sobbed, fresh tears pouring out. "No, no. I already tore out two for the children. I always get my skirts longer in cold weather because children are so careless about carrying--" "Then we'll consider the car pool settled?" Mrs. Baden asked, coming in tactfully. "Naturally," I said, mentally shredding my previous sentence. "We would feel so honored to have Hi-nin--" "Do not _think_ of putting yourself out. We do not have a helicopter, of course, but Hi-nin and I can so easily walk." I was rapidly becoming unable to think of anything at all because Gail was trying to use me for a merry-go-round and I kept switching her from hand to hand and I could hear her beginning to build up the ba-bas. "My car pool," I said, "would be terribly sad to think of Hi-nin walking." "You would?" "_Terribly._" "In such a case--if it will give you pleasure for me to accept?" "It would," I said fervently, holding Gail under one arm as she was beginning to kick. And on the way home all the second thoughts began. _I_ would be glad to have Hi-nin in the car pool. Four of the other mamas were like me, amazed that anyone was willing to put up with her child all the way to and from Playplace. I could count on them to cooperate. But Gail's mama.... I'd gone to Western State Preparation for Living with Regina Raymond Crowley. I landed on the Crowley home and tooted for five minutes before I remembered that Regina was at work. "_Ma_-ma!" Gail began. "Wouldn't you like to come to Verne's house," I asked, "and we can call up your mama?" "No." Well, I asked, didn't I? I was carrying Gail down the steps from my roof when I bumped unexpectedly into Clay. "What is that!" he exclaimed, and Gail became again flying blonde hair and kicking feet. "Regina's child," I said. "What are you doing home?" "Accountant sent me back. Twenty-five and a half hours is the maximum this week. Good thing, too. I've got a headache." He eyed Gail meaningfully. She was obviously not the sort of thing the doctor orders for a headache. "I can't help it, honey," I said, sitting down on a step to tear another handkerchief square from my skirt. "I'm going to call Regina at work now." "Don't you have a chairman to take care of things like that?" "I am the chairman," I said proudly. "Why in heaven's name did you let yourself get roped into something like that?" "I was _selected_ by Mrs. Baden!" "Obscenity," said Clay. It is his privilege, of course, to use this word. * * * * * The arty little store where Regina works has a telephane as well as a telephone, and in color, at that. So I could see Regina in full color, taking her own good time about switching on the sound. She switched on as a sort of afterthought and tilted her nose at me. I don't suppose she can really tilt her nose up and down, but she always gives that impression. "Gail has an incipient streptococcus infection," I said. "They sent her home." "_Ma_-ma!" Gail cried. "Why didn't they give her a shot there? That's what they did with my niece last year." I explained why not. Regina sighed resignedly. "Verne, people can talk you into anything. There are times when you have to be firm. I work, girl. That's why I put Gail in Playplace. I can't leave here until twelve o'clock." "But what'll I do with Gail?" "Take her back. Or you keep her until I get home. Sorry, Verne, but you got yourself into this." I switched off, furious. Then I remembered Hi-nin. I couldn't be furious. I was going to have to get Regina's cooperation. I picked up Gail and went into the bedroom. "I do not dislike Regina Crowley," I wrote with black crayola on a piece of note paper. I stuck it into a crevice of my mirror and gave Gail my bare-shoulder decorations to play with while I concentrated on thinking up reasons why I should not dislike Regina Crowley. "I do," Clay said, sneaking up so quietly I jumped two feet. "So do I," I said, gazing wearily at my note. "But I have to have her in a good mood. You see, there's this Hiserean child and since I'm chairman of the car pool, I have to--" "_Don't_ tell me about it," Clay said. "My advice to you is get elephantiasis of your steering foot and give the whole thing up now." He glanced meaningfully at Gail, who couldn't possibly be bothering him. She was playing quietly on the floor, pulling the suction disks off my jewelry and sticking them on her legs. When I finally got Gail home, she sped into her mother's arms and I couldn't help being a little irritated because I had been practically swinging from the ceiling dust controls to ingratiate myself, and her mama just said, "Oh, hi," and Gail was satisfied. "By the way," I said, watching Regina hang up her dark blue hand-woven jacket, "you wouldn't mind picking up an extra child tomorrow, would you?" "Mind! Certainly I mind. I've got as much as I can do with my job and Gail and eight children in the heli already." "It's a Hiserean child," I said. "The mother is so lovely, Regina. She didn't want us to go to any trouble." "That's fine. Because I'm not going to go to any trouble." I put my fists behind my back. "Of course I understand, Regina. I think it's remarkable that you manage to do so much. And keep up with your art things as you do. But don't you think it would be an interesting experience to have a Hiserean child in the pool?" * * * * * Regina pulled off her hand-woven wrap-skirt and I was shocked to see she wore a real boudoir slip to work. "Everybody to their own interesting experiences," she said, laughing at me. This was obviously one of her triple-level remarks. "De gustibus," I said, to show I know a few arty things myself, "non disputandum est." "You have such moments, Verne! Have you ever seen a Hiserean child?" "I saw one today." "Well." "Well?" "De gustibus, as you said. You know the other children will eat it alive, don't you? _Your_ child will. Now Gail...." It's true that Gail never kicks anyone small enough to kick back. It's also true that Billy bites. I unclenched my fists and stretched up with a deep breath so as to relax my stomach and improve my posture. "Hiserean children," I pointed out, "are going to have to be adjusted to our society. As I understand it, they're here to stay. Their sun blew up behind them and personally I think we're lucky they happened to drift here." "I don't see why it's so lucky. I wish we'd gotten one of the ships full of scientific information. Or their top scientists. Or artists, for that matter. All _we_ got were plain people. If you like to call them people." "They're at least educated people with good sense. And we've got their ship to take apart and learn things from. And their books and, after all, some music and their gestural art. I should think you artists would find that real avant garde." "Just hearing you say it like that is enough to kill Hiserean art." "Regina, I know you think I'm a prig, but that isn't the point. And if it matters to you, I'm _not_ a prig." "Do you wear boudoir slips?" Regina was biting a real smile. "No, I don't. But I'd like to." "Then why don't you?" "Because I put one on once and I thought I looked absolutely devastating and you know what my husband said?" "I won't try to guess Clay's bon mot." "He said, 'What did you put that on for?'" * * * * * Regina laughed until she popped a snap on her paper house dress. "But seriously," she said finally, "if he didn't know, why didn't you tell him?" "That's not the point. The point is I am not the boudoir-slip type. My unmentionables are unmentionable for esthetic reasons only." Regina laughed again. "Really, Verne, you're not half bad when you try." "If you honestly think I'm not half bad, could you do it just as a favor to me? Pick up Hi-nin when you have the car pool?" "The Hiserean child? No." "Please, Regina. I'd do it _for_ you except that the children would notice and it would get back to Mrs. His-tara. If there's anything I could do for you in return--" "What could you possibly do?" "I don't know. But I _can't_ go back and tell that dear creature our car pool doesn't want her." "_Stop_ looking so intense. That's what keeps you from being the boudoir-slip type. You always look as though you're going out to break up a saloon or campaign for better Public Child Protection. The boudoir slip requires a languorous expression." "Phooey to looking languorous. And phooey to boudoir slips. I'd wear diapers to nursery school if you'd change your mind about taking along Hi-nin." "Would you wear a boudoir slip?" "I--hell, yes." "And nothing else?" "Only my various means of support. And my respectability." Regina laughed her tiger-on-the-third-Christian laugh. "What I want to find out," she said, "is how you manage the respectability bit." It dawned on me while I was grinding the pepper for Clay's salad that Regina had explained herself. All of a sudden I saw straight through her and I wondered why I hadn't seen it before. Regina _envied_ me. Now on the face of it, that seemed unlikely. But it occurred to me that Regina's parents had been the poor but honest and uneducated sort that simply are never asked to chaperone school parties. And the fact is that they were not what Regina thought of as respectable, though it never occurred to anyone but her that it mattered. And since all her culture was acquired after the age of thirteen, she felt it didn't fit properly and that's why she went out of her way to be arty-arty. Whereas I took for granted all the things Regina had learned so painstakingly, and this in turn was what made me so irritatingly respectable. As Regina had suggested, perhaps it _is_ the expression on one's face that makes the difference. * * * * * "Hey!" a cop yelled, pulling up as close to us as his rotors would allow. "What the hell?" "I beg your pardon," I said frigidly. It is very frigid in November if you are out in a helicopter dressed only in a boudoir slip. "Look de bleesemans!" Gail cried. "He might shoot everybody!" Billy warned. Meli began to cry loudly. "He might _choot_! _Ma_-ma!" "Pardon me, madam," the cop said, and beat a hasty retreat. When we landed on Hi-nin's roof, Mrs. His-tara came up with him. She looked at me sympathetically. "You are perhaps molting, beloved friend?" Her large eyes retracted and filled with tears. "Such a season!" "No--no, dear. Just--getting a little fresh air." I put Hi-nin on the front seat with me. He gave me a big-eyed, toothless smile and sat down in perfect quiet, except for the soft, almost sea sound of his breathing. It was during one of those brief and infrequent silences we have that I noticed something was amiss. No sea sound. I looked around to find Billy's hands around Hi-nin's throat. "Billy!" I screamed. "Aw!" he said, and let go. Hi-nin began to breathe again in a violent, choked way. "Billy," I said, wondering if I could keep myself from simply throwing my son out of the helicopter, "Billy...." "It is nothing, nice mama," Hi-nin said, still choking. "Billy." I didn't trust myself to speak any further. I reached around and spanked him until my hand was sore. "If you _ever_ do that again--" "_Waa!_" Billy bawled. I'm sure he could be heard quite plainly by the men building the new astronomical station on the Moon. * * * * * I put Hi-nin on my lap and kept him there. "That's just Billy's way of making friends," I whispered to him. Under Billy's leadership, several other children began to cry, and all in all it was not a well-integrated, love-sharing group that I lifted down from the heli at Playplace. "The children always sense it, don't they," Mrs. Baden said with her gentle smile, "when we don't feel comfortable about a situation?" "_Comfortable!_" I cried. It seemed to me the day had become blazing hot and I didn't remember what I was dressed in until I tried to take off my jacket. "My son is an inhuman monster. He tried to--to--" I could feel a big sob coming on. "Bite?" Mrs. Baden supplied helpfully. "Strangle," I managed to blurt out. "We'll be especially considerate of Billy today," Mrs. Baden said. "He'll be feeling guilty and he senses your discomfort about his aggression." "_Senses_ it! I all but tore him limb from limb! That dear little Hiserean child--" "I do not want to be of difficulty," Hi-nin said, tears pouring out of those great, big eyes. * * * * * Tears were pouring out of my small blue eyes by this time and Mr. Grantham, who brings a set of grandchildren, came by and patted my shoulder. "Chin up!" he said. "Eyes front!" Then he looked at his hand and my recently patted shoulder. "Oh, excuse me," he said. "Would you like to borrow my jacket?" I shook my head, acutely aware, suddenly, that Mr. Grantham is not a doddering old grandfather but a young and handsome man. And all he thought about my bare shoulder was that it ought to be covered. "You just run along," Mrs. Baden said. "We'll let Billy strangle the pneumatic dog and everything will be just fine. Oh, and dear--I don't know whether you've noticed it--you don't have on a dress." I went home and sat in front of the mirror feeling miserable in several different directions. If Regina Raymond Crowley appeared in public dressed only in a boudoir slip, people would think all sorts of wicked things. When I appeared in public in a boudoir slip, everybody thought I was just a little absentminded. This, I thought, is a hell of a thing to worry about. And then I thought, Oh, phooey. If even I think I'm respectable, what can I expect other people to think? I took down the note on the mirror about Regina. No wonder I didn't like her! I turned the paper over and wrote "Phooey to me!" with my eyebrow pencil. I was still regarding the note and trying to argue myself into a better mood when Clay came tramping down from work at three o'clock. "Why are you sitting around in a boudoir slip?" he asked. "You're a double-dyed louse and a great, big alligator head," I told him. "Don't mention it," he said. "Where's Billy?" "Taking his nap. Tell me the truth, Clay. The absolute truth." Clay looked at me suspiciously. "I'd planned on a little golf this afternoon." "This won't take a minute. I don't ask you things like this all the time, now do I?" "I still don't know what you're talking about." I took a deep breath. "Clay, is there anything about me, anything at all, that is not respectable?" "There is _not_," he said. "Well--I guess that's all there is to it," I sighed. I pulled off my boudoir slip and got a neat paper one out of the slot. "Anyway," I said bravely, "boudoir slips have to be laundered." Clay looked at me curiously for a moment and then said, "This looks like a good afternoon to go play golf." "Do you think there's anything not respectable about Regina Crowley?" "There is _everything_ not respectable about Regina Crowley," Clay said vehemently. "You see?" "Frankly, no." "Well, do you think her husband uses that tone of voice when he says, 'There is _everything_ respectable about Verne Barrat?'" "I don't know why he should say that at all." "She might ask him." "Darling, you're mad as a hatter," Clay said, kissing me good-by. "Do you really think so?" "Of course not," Clay roared as he tramped up the steps to the heli. * * * * * About nine o'clock the next morning I heard a heli landing on the roof and I thought, Now who? There was much tooting, and when I went up, Regina practically threw Hi-nin at me. "I told you so," she snapped at me. Her face was burning red and she wasn't bothering to tilt her nose. "What happened? Why did you bring him back to _me_?" "His hand," she said, and took off. Hand? He was holding one hand over the other. No! I grabbed his hands to see what it was. One hand had obviously been bitten off at the wrist. He was holding the wound with the tentacles of his other little boneless hand. There was very little blood. "It is as nothing," he said, but when I cradled him in my arms, I could feel him shaking all over. "It will grow back," he said. Would it? I took him in the heli and held him while I drove. I could feel him trying to stop himself from shaking, but he couldn't. "Does it hurt very much?" I asked. "The pain is small," he said. "It is the fear. The fear is terrible. I am unable to swallow it." I was unable to swallow it, too. "The hand," said Mrs. His-tara without concern, "will grow back. But the things within my son...." She, too, began to tremble involuntarily. "Billy," I began, feeling the blood come through my lower lip, "Billy and I are...." It was too inadequate to say it. "It was not Billy," Hi-nin said without rancor. "It was Gail." "Gail! Gail doesn't bite!" But she had, and I broke down and plain cried. "Do not trouble yourself," said Mrs. His-tara. "My son receives from this a wound that does not heal. On Hiserea he would be forever sick, you understand. On your world, where everyone is born with this open wound, it will be his protection. So Mrs. Baden warned me and I think she is wise." As soon as I got home, I called up Regina. She looked pale and lifeless against the gaudy, irresponsible objects in the art shop. "It wasn't my fault," she said quickly. "I can't drive and watch the children at the same time. I told you the children would eat...." She stopped, and for the first time I saw Regina really horrified with herself. "Nobody said it was your fault. But don't you think you could have taken Hi-nin home yourself? To show Mrs. His-tara that--I don't know what it would show." It reminded me, somehow, of the time Regina stepped on a lizard and left it in great pain, pulling itself along by its tiny front paws, and I had said, "Regina, you can't leave that poor thing suffering," and she had said, "Well, I didn't step on it on purpose," and I had said, "Somebody's got to kill it now," and she had said, "I've got a class." I could still feel the crunch of it under my foot as its tiny life went out. "Sorry, Verne," she said, "you got yourself into this," and hung up. * * * * * That night Regina called me. "Can you give blood?" she asked. "Yes," I said. "If I stuff myself, I can get the scales up to a hundred and ten pounds." "What type?" "B. Rh positive." "Thought you told me that once. Gail is in the hospital. They have to replace every drop of blood in her body. She may die anyhow." I thought of the little fluff and squeak that was Gail. I eat de crus' of de toas'. "What's the matter with her?" I asked fearfully. "That damn Hiserean child is _poison_. Gail had a little cut inside her mouth from where she fell off the slide at school." "I'll be at the hospital in ten minutes," I said, and hung up shakily. "Dinner is set for seven-thirty," I told Clay and Billy, and rushed out. The first person I saw at the hospital was not Regina. It was Mrs. His-tara. "How did you know?" I asked. Her integument was dull now and there were patches of scales rubbed off. Her eyes were almost not visible. "Mrs. Crowley called me," she said. "In any case I would have been here. There is in Hi-nin also of poison. There remains for him only the Return Home. We must rejoice for him." The smile she brought forth was more than I could bear. "Gail's germs were poison to him?" "Oh, no. He poisons himself. It is an ancient hormone, from the early days of our race when we had what your Mrs. Baden so wisely calls aggression. It is dormant in us since before the accounting of our history. An adult Hiserean, perhaps, could fight his emotions and cure himself. Hi-nin has no weapons--so your physicians have explained it to me, from our scientific books. How can I doubt that they are right?" How could I doubt it, either? It would be, I thought, rather like a massive overdose of adrenalin. Psychogenic, of course, but what help was it to know that? Would there be some organ in Hi-nin a surgeon could remove? Like the adrenals in humans, perhaps? Of course not. If they could have, they would have. * * * * * I hurried on to find the room where Gail was. She was not pale, as I had expected, but pink-cheeked and bright-eyed. They were probably putting in more blood than they were taking out. There were two of the other mamas from our car pool, waiting their turns. Regina was sitting by the bed, her face ugly and swollen from crying. "She looks just fine!" I exclaimed. "Only in the last fifteen minutes," she said. "When I called you, she was like ice. Her eyes didn't move." "We're lucky with Gail. Did you know about Hi-nin?" "The little animal!" she said. "He's the one that did it." "He didn't do anything, Regina, and you know it." "He shouldn't have been in the car pool. He shouldn't be with human children at all." "He's going to die," I said quickly, before she had time to say things she'd have nightmares about later on. "Sorry," Regina said, because we were all looking at her and because her child was pink and beautiful and healthy while Hi-nin.... "Regina," I said, "what did you do after it happened?" "_Do!_ It scared the hell out of me--that creature shaking all over and Gail screaming. At first I didn't know what had happened. Then I saw that _thing_ flopping around on the front seat and I screamed and threw it out of the window. And then I noticed Hi-nin's wrist, or whatever you call it. I said, 'Oh, God, I _knew_ you'd get us in trouble!' But the creature didn't say anything. He just sat there. And I let the other children off and brought Hi-nin to you because I didn't want to get involved with that Mrs. Baden." "And Gail?" "She seemed all right. She just climbed in the back with the other children and pretty soon they were all laughing." "And all that time little Hi-nin.... Regina, didn't you even pat him or hold him or kiss it for him or anything?" "_Kiss_ it!" At that moment Mrs. His-tara came in, with Mrs. Baden and a doctor behind her. I should have known. Mrs. Baden didn't leave people to fight battles alone. Mrs. His-tara looked at Mrs. Baden, but Mrs. Baden only nodded and smiled encouragingly at her. * * * * * The doctor was gently pulling the needle out of Gail's vein. The room was silent. Even Gail sat large-eyed and solemn. "Mrs. Crowley," Mrs. His-tara began, obviously dragging each word up with great effort, "would it be accurate to tell my son that Gail has received no hurt from him? We must, you see, prepare him for the Return Home." Regina looked around at us and at Gail. She hadn't dared let herself look at Mrs. His-tara yet. "Doctor!" Regina called suddenly. "Look at Gail's mouth!" Even from where I was, I could see it. A scaly growth along both lips. "That's a temporary effect of the serum," the doctor said. "We tried an antitoxin before we decided to change the blood. It is nothing to worry about." "Oh." "Mrs. Crowley," Mrs. His-tara began again, "it is much to ask, but at such a moment, much is required. If you could come yourself, and if Gail could endure to be carried...." But Gail did, indeed, look queer, and she stretched out her arms not to her mother but to Mrs. His-tara. "The tides," Mrs. His-tara said, "have cast us up a miracle." She gathered Gail into the boneless cradle of her curved arms. Regina took her sunglasses out of her purse and hid her eyes. "Mind your own damned business," she told Mrs. Baden and me. "It _is_ our damned business," I whispered to Mrs. Baden, and she held my arm as we followed Regina down the hall. Mrs. His-tara threaded her way through a cordon of other Hisereans who must have been flown in for the occasion. I couldn't see the children, but I could hear them. "Him cold!" said Gail. "Him scared!" "He's scared of you," Regina said. "We're sorry, Gail. Tell him we're sorry. We didn't understand." Gail laughed. A loud and healthy laugh. "Gail sorry," she said. "Me thought you was to eat." There was a small sound. I thought it was from Hi-nin and I held Mrs. Baden's hand as though it were my only link to a sane world. "Dat a joke," Gail said. "Hi-nin 'posed to laugh!" Then there was a silence and Regina started to say something but Mrs. His-tara whispered, "Please! It is a thought between the children." Then there was a small, quiet laugh from Hi-nin. "In truth," he said with that oh, so familiar lisp, "it is funny." "Me don't do it again," Gail said, solemn now. * * * * * When I got home it was so late that the stars were sliding down the sky and I just knew Clay wouldn't have thought to turn the parking lights on. But he had. Furthermore, he was still up. "Were you worried?" I asked delightedly. "No. Regina called a couple of hours ago." "_Regina?_" "She said she was concerned about the expression on your face." Clay handed me a present, all wrapped in gold stickum with an electronic butterfly bouncing airily around on it. I peeled the paper off carefully, to save it for Billy, and set the butterfly on the sticky side. Inside the box was a gorgeous blue fluffy affair of no apparent utility. "Oh, _Clay_!" I gasped. "I can't wear anything like _this_!" I slipped out of my paper clothes and the gown slithered around me. Hastily, I pulled the pins out of my hair, brushed it back and smeared on some lipstick. "I look silly," I said. "I'm all the wrong type." My little crayola note was still stuck in the mirror. Phooey to me. "You're laughing at me." "I'm not. You don't really look respectable at all, Verne." I ran into the dining area. "Regina told you about the boudoir slip!" I heard Clay stumble over a chair in the dark. "Obscenity!" he said. "All right, she did. So what? I think you look like a call girl." I ran into the living room and hid behind the sofa. "Do you really, truly think so?" "Absolutely!" Another chair clattered and Clay toed the living room lights. "Ah!" he said. "I've got you cornered. You look like a chorus girl. You look like an easy pickup. You look like a dirty little--" "Stop," I cried, "while you're still winning!" 
35725	----	produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive.) [Illustration: Walt Whitman From a Photograph by Gardner, Washington THE HELIOTYPE PRINTING CO. BOSTON] THE WOUND DRESSER A Series of Letters Written from the Hospitals in Washington During the War of the Rebellion By WALT WHITMAN Edited by RICHARD MAURICE BUCKE, M.D. One of Whitman's Literary Executors Boston SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 1898 _Copyright, 1897, by Small, Maynard & Company_ _But in silence, in dreams' projections, While the world of gain and appearance and mirth goes on, So soon what is over forgotten, and waves wash the imprints off the sand, With hinged knees returning I enter the doors, (while for you up there, Whoever you are, follow without noise and be of strong heart.)_ _I onward go, I stop, With hinged knees and steady hand to dress wounds, I am firm with each, the pangs are sharp yet unavoidable, One turns to me his appealing eyes--poor boy! I never knew you, Yet I think I could not refuse this moment to die for you, if that would save you._ _I am faithful, I do not give out, The fractur'd thigh, the knee, the wound in the abdomen, These and more I dress with impassive hand, (yet deep in my breast a fire, a burning flame.)_ _Thus in silence, in dreams' projections, Returning, resuming, I thread my way through the hospitals, The hurt and wounded I pacify with soothing hand, I sit by the restless all the dark night, some are so young, Some suffer so much, I recall the experience sweet and sad, (Many a soldier's loving arms about this neck have cross'd and rested, Many a soldier's kiss dwells on these bearded lips.)_ _The Wound Dresser._ PREFACE As introduction to these letters from Walt Whitman to his mother, I have availed myself of three of Whitman's communications to the press covering the time during which the material which composes this volume was being written. These communications (parts of which, but in no case the whole, were used by Whitman in his "Memoranda of the Secession War") seem to me to form, in spite of certain duplications, which to my mind have the force, not the weakness, of repetition, quite an ideal background to the letters to Mrs. Whitman, since they give a full and free description of the circumstances and surroundings in the midst of which those were composed. Readers who desire a still more extended account of the man himself, his work and environment at that time, may consult with profit the Editor's "Walt Whitman" (pp. 34-44), O'Connor's "Good Gray Poet" (included in that volume, pp. 99-130), "Specimen Days" (pp. 26-63, included in Walt Whitman's "Complete Prose Works"), and above all the section of "Leaves of Grass" called "Drum-Taps." I do not believe that it is in the power of any man now living to make an important addition to the vivid picture of those days and nights in the hospitals drawn by Whitman himself and to be found in his published prose and verse, and, above all, in the living words of the present letters to his mother. These last were written on the spot, as the scenes and incidents, in all their living and sombre colors, passed before his eyes, while his mind and heart were full of the sights and sounds, the episodes and agonies, of those terrible hours. How could any one writing in cold blood, to-day, hope to add words of any value to those he wrote then? Perhaps, in conclusion, it may be as well to repeat what was said in the introduction to a former volume,--that these letters make no pretensions as literature. They are, as indeed is all that Whitman has written (as he himself has over and over again said), something quite different from that--something much less to the average cultured and learned man, something much more to the man or woman who comes within range of their attraction. But doubtless the critics will still insist that, if they are not literature, they ought to be, or otherwise should not be printed, failing (as is their wont) to comprehend that there are other qualities and characteristics than the literary, some of them as important and as valuable, which may be more or less adequately conveyed by print. R. M. B. CONTENTS Page THE GREAT ARMY OF THE WOUNDED 1 LIFE AMONG FIFTY THOUSAND SOLDIERS 11 HOSPITAL VISITS 21 LETTERS OF 1862-3 47 LETTERS OF 1864 143 THE GREAT ARMY OF THE WOUNDED The military hospitals, convalescent camps, etc., in Washington and its neighborhood, sometimes contain over fifty thousand sick and wounded men. Every form of wound (the mere sight of some of them having been known to make a tolerably hardy visitor faint away), every kind of malady, like a long procession, with typhoid fever and diarrhoea at the head as leaders, are here in steady motion. The soldier's hospital! how many sleepless nights, how many women's tears, how many long and waking hours and days of suspense, from every one of the Middle, Eastern, and Western States, have concentrated here! Our own New York, in the form of hundreds and thousands of her young men, may consider herself here--Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and all the West and Northwest the same--and all the New England States the same. Upon a few of these hospitals I have been almost daily calling as a missionary, on my own account, for the sustenance and consolation of some of the most needy cases of sick and dying men, for the last two months. One has much to learn to do good in these places. Great tact is required. These are not like other hospitals. By far the greatest proportion (I should say five sixths) of the patients are American young men, intelligent, of independent spirit, tender feelings, used to a hardy and healthy life; largely the farmers are represented by their sons--largely the mechanics and workingmen of the cities. Then they are soldiers. All these points must be borne in mind. People through our Northern cities have little or no idea of the great and prominent feature which these military hospitals and convalescent camps make in and around Washington. There are not merely two or three or a dozen, but some fifty of them, of different degrees of capacity. Some have a thousand and more patients. The newspapers here find it necessary to print every day a directory of the hospitals--a long list, something like what a directory of the churches would be in New York, Philadelphia, or Boston. The Government (which really tries, I think, to do the best and quickest it can for these sad necessities) is gradually settling down to adopt the plan of placing the hospitals in clusters of one-story wooden barracks, with their accompanying tents and sheds for cooking and all needed purposes. Taking all things into consideration, no doubt these are best adapted to the purpose; better than using churches and large public buildings like the Patent office. These sheds now adopted are long, one-story edifices, sometimes ranged along in a row, with their heads to the street, and numbered either alphabetically, Wards A or B, C, D, and so on; or Wards 1, 2, 3, etc. The middle one will be marked by a flagstaff, and is the office of the establishment, with rooms for the ward surgeons, etc. One of these sheds, or wards, will contain sixty cots; sometimes, on an emergency, they move them close together, and crowd in more. Some of the barracks are larger, with, of course, more inmates. Frequently there are tents, more comfortable here than one might think, whatever they may be down in the army. Each ward has a ward-master, and generally a nurse for every ten or twelve men. A ward surgeon has, generally, two wards--although this varies. Some of the wards have a woman nurse; the Armory-square wards have some very good ones. The one in Ward E is one of the best. A few weeks ago the vast area of the second story of that noblest of Washington buildings, the Patent office, was crowded close with rows of sick, badly wounded, and dying soldiers. They were placed in three very large apartments. I went there several times. It was a strange, solemn, and, with all its features of suffering and death, a sort of fascinating sight. I went sometimes at night to soothe and relieve particular cases; some, I found, needed a little cheering up and friendly consolation at that time, for they went to sleep better afterwards. Two of the immense apartments are filled with high and ponderous glass cases crowded with models in miniature of every kind of utensil, machine, or invention it ever entered into the mind of man to conceive, and with curiosities and foreign presents. Between these cases were lateral openings, perhaps eight feet wide, and quite deep, and in these were placed many of the sick; besides a great long double row of them up and down through the middle of the hall. Many of them were very bad cases, wounds and amputations. Then there was a gallery running above the hall, in which there were beds also. It was, indeed, a curious scene at night when lit up. The glass cases, the beds, the sick, the gallery above and the marble pavement under foot; the suffering, and the fortitude to bear it in the various degrees; occasionally, from some, the groan that could not be repressed; sometimes a poor fellow dying, with emaciated face and glassy eyes, the nurse by his side, the doctor also there, but no friend, no relative--such were the sights but lately in the Patent office. The wounded have since been removed from there, and it is now vacant again. Of course there are among these thousands of prostrated soldiers in hospital here all sorts of individual cases. On recurring to my note-book, I am puzzled which cases to select to illustrate the average of these young men and their experiences. I may here say, too, in general terms, that I could not wish for more candor and manliness, among all their sufferings, than I find among them. Take this case in Ward 6, Campbell hospital: a young man from Plymouth county, Massachusetts; a farmer's son, aged about twenty or twenty-one; a soldierly, American young fellow, but with sensitive and tender feelings. Most of December and January last he lay very low, and for quite a while I never expected he would recover. He had become prostrated with an obstinate diarrhoea: his stomach would hardly keep the least thing down; he was vomiting half the time. But that was hardly the worst of it. Let me tell his story--it is but one of thousands. He had been some time sick with his regiment in the field, in front, but did his duty as long as he could; was in the battle of Fredericksburg; soon after was put in the regimental hospital. He kept getting worse--could not eat anything they had there; the doctor told him nothing could be done for him there. The poor fellow had fever also; received (perhaps it could not be helped) little or no attention; lay on the ground, getting worse. Toward the latter part of December, very much enfeebled, he was sent up from the front, from Falmouth station, in an open platform car (such as hogs are transported upon North), and dumped with a crowd of others on the boat at Aquia creek, falling down like a rag where they deposited him, too weak and sick to sit up or help himself at all. No one spoke to him or assisted him; he had nothing to eat or drink; was used (amid the great crowds of sick) either with perfect indifference, or, as in two or three instances, with heartless brutality. On the boat, when night came and when the air grew chilly, he tried a long time to undo the blankets he had in his knapsack, but was too feeble. He asked one of the employees, who was moving around deck, for a moment's assistance to get the blankets. The man asked him back if he could not get them himself. He answered, no, he had been trying for more than half an hour, and found himself too weak. The man rejoined, he might then go without them, and walked off. So H. lay chilled and damp on deck all night, without anything under or over him, while two good blankets were within reach. It caused him a great injury--nearly cost him his life. Arrived at Washington, he was brought ashore and again left on the wharf, or above it, amid the great crowds, as before, without any nourishment--not a drink for his parched mouth; no kind hand had offered to cover his face from the forenoon sun. Conveyed at last some two miles by the ambulance to the hospital, and assigned a bed (Bed 49, Ward 6, Campbell hospital, January and February, 1863), he fell down exhausted upon the bed. But the ward-master (he has since been changed) came to him with a growling order to get up: the rules, he said, permitted no man to lie down in that way with his own clothes on; he must sit up--must first go to the bath-room, be washed, and have his clothes completely changed. (A very good rule, properly applied.) He was taken to the bath-room and scrubbed well with cold water. The attendants, callous for a while, were soon alarmed, for suddenly the half-frozen and lifeless body fell limpsy in their hands, and they hurried it back to the cot, plainly insensible, perhaps dying. Poor boy! the long train of exhaustion, deprivation, rudeness, no food, no friendly word or deed, but all kinds of upstart airs and impudent, unfeeling speeches and deeds, from all kinds of small officials (and some big ones), cutting like razors into that sensitive heart, had at last done the job. He now lay, at times out of his head but quite silent, asking nothing of any one, for some days, with death getting a closer and a surer grip upon him; he cared not, or rather he welcomed death. His heart was broken. He felt the struggle to keep up any longer to be useless. God, the world, humanity--all had abandoned him. It would feel so good to shut his eyes forever on the cruel things around him and toward him. As luck would have it, at this time I found him. I was passing down Ward No. 6 one day about dusk (4th January, I think), and noticed his glassy eyes, with a look of despair and hopelessness, sunk low in his thin, pallid-brown young face. One learns to divine quickly in the hospital, and as I stopped by him and spoke some commonplace remark (to which he made no reply), I saw as I looked that it was a case for ministering to the affection first, and other nourishment and medicines afterward. I sat down by him without any fuss; talked a little; soon saw that it did him good; led him to talk a little himself; got him somewhat interested; wrote a letter for him to his folks in Massachusetts (to L. H. Campbell, Plymouth county); soothed him down as I saw he was getting a little too much agitated, and tears in his eyes; gave him some small gifts, and told him I should come again soon. (He has told me since that this little visit, at that hour, just saved him; a day more, and it would have been perhaps too late.) Of course I did not forget him, for he was a young fellow to interest any one. He remained very sick--vomiting much every day, frequent diarrhoea, and also something like bronchitis, the doctor said. For a while I visited him almost every day, cheered him up, took him some little gifts, and gave him small sums of money (he relished a drink of new milk, when it was brought through the ward for sale). For a couple of weeks his condition was uncertain--sometimes I thought there was no chance for him at all; but of late he is doing better--is up and dressed, and goes around more and more (February 21) every day. He will not die, but will recover. The other evening, passing through the ward, he called me--he wanted to say a few words, particular. I sat down by his side on the cot in the dimness of the long ward, with the wounded soldiers there in their beds, ranging up and down. H. told me I had saved his life. He was in the deepest earnest about it. It was one of those things that repay a soldiers' hospital missionary a thousandfold--one of the hours he never forgets. A benevolent person, with the right qualities and tact, cannot, perhaps, make a better investment of himself, at present, anywhere upon the varied surface of the whole of this big world, than in these military hospitals, among such thousands of most interesting young men. The army is very young--and so much more American than I supposed. Reader, how can I describe to you the mute appealing look that rolls and moves from many a manly eye, from many a sick cot, following you as you walk slowly down one of these wards? To see these, and to be incapable of responding to them, except in a few cases (so very few compared to the whole of the suffering men), is enough to make one's heart crack. I go through in some cases, cheering up the men, distributing now and then little sums of money--and, regularly, letter-paper and envelopes, oranges, tobacco, jellies, etc., etc. Many things invite comment, and some of them sharp criticism, in these hospitals. The Government, as I said, is anxious and liberal in its practice toward its sick; but the work has to be left, in its personal application to the men, to hundreds of officials of one grade or another about the hospitals, who are sometimes entirely lacking in the right qualities. There are tyrants and shysters in all positions, and especially those dressed in subordinate authority. Some of the ward doctors are careless, rude, capricious, needlessly strict. One I found who prohibited the men from all enlivening amusements; I found him sending men to the guard-house for the most trifling offence. In general, perhaps, the officials--especially the new ones, with their straps or badges--put on too many airs. Of all places in the world, the hospitals of American young men and soldiers, wounded in the volunteer service of their country, ought to be exempt from mere conventional military airs and etiquette of shoulder-straps. But they are not exempt. W. W. _From the New York_ Times, _February 26, 1863_. LIFE AMONG FIFTY THOUSAND SOLDIERS Our Brooklyn people, not only from having so many hundreds of their own kith and kin, and almost everybody some friend or acquaintance, here in the clustering military hospitals of Washington, would doubtless be glad to get some account of these establishments, but also to satisfy that compound of benevolence and generosity which marks Brooklyn, I have sometimes thought, more than any other city in the world. A military hospital here in Washington is a little city by itself, and contains a larger population than most of the well-known country towns down in the Queens and Suffolk county portions of Long Island. I say one of the Government hospitals here is a little city in itself, and there are some fifty of these hospitals in the District of Columbia alone. In them are collected the tens of thousands of sick and wounded soldiers, the legacies of many a bloody battle and of the exposure of two years of camp life. I find these places full of significance. They have taken up my principal time and labor for some months past. Imagine a long, one-story wooden shed, like a short, wide ropewalk, well whitewashed; then cluster ten or a dozen of these together, with several smaller sheds and tents, and you have the soldiers' hospital as generally adopted here. It will contain perhaps six or seven hundred men, or perhaps a thousand, and occasionally more still. There is a regular staff and a sub-staff of big and little officials. Military etiquette is observed, and it is getting to become very stiff. I shall take occasion, before long, to show up some of this ill-fitting nonsense. The harvest is large, the gleaners few. Beginning at first with casual visits to these establishments to see some of the Brooklyn men, wounded or sick, here, I became by degrees more and more drawn in, until I have now been for many weeks quite a devotee to the business--a regular self-appointed missionary to these thousands and tens of thousands of wounded and sick young men here, left upon Government hands, many of them languishing, many of them dying. I am not connected with any society, but go on my own individual account, and to the work that appears to be called for. Almost every day, and frequently in the evenings, I visit, in this informal way, one after another of the wards of a hospital, and always find cases enough where I can be of service. Cases enough, do I say? Alas! there is, perhaps, not one ward or tent, out of the seven or eight hundred now hereabout filled with sick, in which I am sure I might not profitably devote every hour of my life to the abstract work of consolation and sustenance for its suffering inmates. And indeed, beyond that, a person feels that in some one of these crowded wards he would like to pick out two or three cases and devote himself wholly to them. Meanwhile, however, to do the best that is permitted, I go around, distributing myself and the contents of my pockets and haversack in infinitesimal quantities, with faith that nearly all of it will, somehow or other, fall on good ground. In many cases, where I find a soldier "dead broke" and pretty sick, I give half a tumbler of good jelly. I carry a good-sized jar to a ward, have it opened, get a spoon, and taking the head nurse in tow, I go around and distribute it to the most appropriate cases. To others I give an orange or an apple; to others some spiced fruits; to others a small quantity of pickles. Many want tobacco: I do not encourage any of the boys in its use, but where I find they crave it I supply them. I always carry some, cut up in small plugs, in my pocket. Then I have commissions: some New York or Connecticut, or other soldier, will be going home on sick leave, or perhaps discharged, and I must fit him out with good new undershirt, drawers, stockings, etc. But perhaps the greatest welcome is for writing paper, envelopes, etc. I find these always a rare reliance. When I go into a new ward, I always carry two or three quires of paper and a good lot of envelopes, and walk up and down and circulate them around to those who desire them. Then some will want pens, pencils, etc. In some hospitals there is quite a plenty of reading matter; but others, where it is needed, I supply. By these and like means one comes to be better acquainted with individual cases, and so learns every day peculiar and interesting character, and gets on intimate and soon affectionate terms with noble American young men; and now is where the real good begins to be done, after all. Here, I will egotistically confess, I like to flourish. Even in a medical point of view it is one of the greatest things; and in a surgical point of view, the same. I can testify that friendship has literally cured a fever, and the medicine of daily affection, a bad wound. In these sayings are the final secret of carrying out well the rôle of a hospital missionary for our soldiers, which I tell for those who will understand them. As I write, I have lying before me a little discarded note-book, filled with memoranda of things wanted by the sick--special cases. I use up one of these little books in a week. See from this sample, for instance, after walking through a ward or two: Bed 53 wants some liquorice; Bed 6--erysipelas--bring some raspberry vinegar to make a cooling drink, with water; Bed 18 wants a good book--a romance; Bed 25--a manly, friendly young fellow, H. D. B., of the Twenty-seventh Connecticut, an independent young soul--refuses money and eatables, so I will bring him a pipe and tobacco, for I see he much enjoys a smoke; Bed 45--sore throat and cough--wants horehound candy; Bed 11, when I come again, don't forget to write a letter for him; etc. The wants are a long and varied list: some need to be humored and forgotten, others need to be especially remembered and obeyed. One poor German, dying--in the last stage of consumption--wished me to find him, in Washington, a German Lutheran clergyman, and send him to him; I did so. One patient will want nothing but a toothpick, another a comb, and so on. All whims are represented, and all the States. There are many New York State soldiers here; also Pennsylvanians. I find, of course, many from Massachusetts, Connecticut, and all the New England States, and from the Western and Northwestern States. Five sixths of the soldiers are young men. Among other cases of young men from our own city of Brooklyn I have encountered and have had much to do with in hospital here, is John Lowery, wounded, and arm amputated, at Fredericksburg. I saw this young fellow down there last December, immediately after the battle, lying on a blanket on the ground, the stump of his arm bandaged, but he not a bit disheartened. He was soon afterward sent up from the front by way of Aquia creek, and has for the past three months been in the Campbell hospital here, in Ward 6, on the gain slowly but steadily. He thinks a great deal of his physician here, Dr. Frank Hinkle, and as some fifty other soldiers in the ward do the same, and bear testimony in their hearty gratitude, and medical and surgical imprisonment, to the quality of Dr. H., I think he deserves honorable mention in this letter to the people of our city--especially as another Brooklyn soldier in Ward 6, Amos H. Vliet, expresses the same feeling of obligation to the doctor for his faithfulness and kindness. Vliet and Lowery both belong to that old war regiment whose flag has flaunted through more than a score of hot-contested battles, the Fifty-first New York, Colonel Potter; and it is to be remembered that no small portion of the fame of this old veteran regiment may be claimed near home, for many of her officers and men are from Brooklyn. The friends of these two young soldiers will have a chance to talk to them soon in Brooklyn. I have seen a good deal of Jack Lowery, and I find him, and heard of him on the field, as a brave, soldierly fellow. Amos Vliet, too, made a first-rate soldier. He has had frozen feet pretty bad, but now better. Occasionally I meet some of the Brooklyn Fourteenth. In Ward E of Armory hospital I found a member of Company C of that regiment, Isaac Snyder; he is now acting as nurse there, and makes a very good one. Charles Dean, of Co. H of the same regiment, is in Ward A of Armory, acting as ward-master. I also got very well acquainted with a young man of the Brooklyn Fourteenth who lay sick some time in Ward F; he has lately got his discharge and gone home. I have met with others in the H-street and Patent-office hospitals. Colonel Fowler, of the Fourteenth, is in charge, I believe, of the convalescent camp at Alexandria. Lieutenant-Colonel Debevoise is in Brooklyn, in poor health, I am sorry to say. Thus the Brooklyn invalids are scattered around. Off in the mud, a mile east of the Capitol, I found the other day, in Emory hospital there, in Ward C, three Brooklyn soldiers--Allen V. King, Michael Lally, and Patrick Hennessy; none of them, however, are very sick. At a rough guess, I should say I have met from one hundred and fifty to two hundred young and middle-aged men whom I specifically found to be Brooklyn persons. Many of them I recognized as having seen their faces before, and very many of them knew me. Some said they had known me from boyhood. Some would call to me as I passed down a ward, and tell me they had seen me in Brooklyn. I have had this happen at night, and have been entreated to stop and sit down and take the hand of a sick and restless boy, and talk to him and comfort him awhile, for old Brooklyn's sake. Some pompous and every way improper persons, of course, get in power in hospitals, and have full swing over the helpless soldiers. There is great state kept at Judiciary-square hospital, for instance. An individual who probably has been waiter somewhere for years past has got into the high and mighty position of sergeant-of-arms at this hospital; he is called "Red Stripe" (from his artillery trimmings) by the patients, of whom he is at the same time the tyrant and the laughing-stock. Going in to call on some sick New York soldiers here the other afternoon, I was stopped and treated to a specimen of the airs of this powerful officer. Surely the Government would do better to send such able-bodied loafers down into service in front, where they could earn their rations, than keep them here in the idle and shallow sinecures of military guard over a collection of sick soldiers to give insolence to their visitors and friends. I found a shallow old person also here named Dr. Hall, who told me he had been eighteen years in the service. I must give this Judiciary establishment the credit, from my visits to it, of saying that while in all the other hospitals I met with general cordiality and deference among the doctors, ward officers, nurses, etc., I have found more impudence and more dandy doctorism and more needless airs at this Judiciary, than in all the twoscore other establishments in and around Washington. But the corps of management at the Judiciary has a bad name anyhow, and I only specify it here to put on record the general opinion, and in hopes it may help in calling the attention of the Government to a remedy. For this hospital is half filled with New York soldiers, many noble fellows, and many sad and interesting cases. Of course there are exceptions of good officials here, and some of the women nurses are excellent, but the Empire State has no reason to be over-satisfied with this hospital. But I should say, in conclusion, that the earnest and continued desire of the Government, and much devoted labor, are given to make the military hospitals here as good as they can be, considering all things. I find no expense spared, and great anxiety manifested in the highest quarters, to do well by the national sick. I meet with first-class surgeons in charge of many of the hospitals, and often the ward surgeons, medical cadets, and head nurses, are fully faithful and competent. Dr. Bliss, head of Armory-square, and Dr. Baxter, head of Campbell, seem to me to try to do their best, and to be excellent in their posts. Dr. Bowen, one of the ward surgeons of Armory, I have known to fight as hard for many a poor fellow's life under his charge as a lioness would fight for her young. I mention such cases because I think they deserve it, on public grounds. I thought I would include in my letter a few cases of soldiers, especially interesting, out of my note-book, but I find that my story has already been spun out to sufficient length. I shall continue here in Washington for the present, and may-be for the summer, to work as a missionary, after my own style, among these hospitals, for I find it in some respects curiously fascinating, with all its sadness. Nor do I find it ended by my doing some good to the sick and dying soldiers. They do me good in return, more than I do them. W. W. _From the Brooklyn_ Eagle, _March 19, 1863_. HOSPITAL VISITS As this tremendous war goes on, the public interest becomes more general and gathers more and more closely about the wounded, the sick, and the Government hospitals, the surgeons, and all appertaining to the medical department of the army. Up to the date of this writing (December 9, 1864) there have been, as I estimate, near four hundred thousand cases under treatment, and there are to-day, probably, taking the whole service of the United States, two hundred thousand, or an approximation to that number, on the doctors' list. Half of these are comparatively slight ailments or hurts. Every family has directly or indirectly some representative among this vast army of the wounded and sick. The following sketch is made to gratify the general interest in this field of the war, and also for a few special persons through whose means alone I have aided the men. It extends over a period of two years, coming down to the present hour, and exhibits the army hospitals at Washington, the camp hospitals in the field, etc. A very few cases are given as specimens of thousands. The account may be relied upon as faithful, though rapidly thrown together. It will put the reader in as direct contact as may be with scenes, sights, and cases of these immense hospitals. As will be seen, it begins back two years since, at a very gloomy period of the contest. Began my visits (December 21, 1862) among the camp hospitals in the Army of the Potomac, under General Burnside. Spent a good part of the day in a large brick mansion on the banks of the Rappahannock, immediately opposite Fredericksburg. It is used as a hospital since the battle, and seems to have received only the worst cases. Outdoors, at the foot of a tree, within ten yards of the front of the house, I notice a heap of amputated feet, legs, arms, hands, etc.--about a load for a one-horse cart. Several dead bodies lie near, each covered with its brown woollen blanket. In the dooryard, toward the river, are fresh graves, mostly of officers, their names on pieces of barrel staves or broken board, stuck in the dirt. (Most of these bodies were subsequently taken up and transported North to their friends.) The house is quite crowded, everything impromptu, no system, all bad enough, but I have no doubt the best that can be done; all the wounds pretty bad, some frightful, the men in their old clothes, unclean and bloody. Some of the wounded are rebel officers, prisoners. One, a Mississippian--a captain--hit badly in the leg, I talked with some time; he asked me for papers, which I gave him. (I saw him three months afterward in Washington, with leg amputated, doing well.) I went through the rooms, down stairs and up. Some of the men were dying. I had nothing to give at that visit, but wrote a few letters to folks home, mothers, etc. Also talked to three or four who seemed most susceptible to it, and needing it. December 22 to 31.--Am among the regimental brigade and division hospitals somewhat. Few at home realize that these are merely tents, and sometimes very poor ones, the wounded lying on the ground, lucky if their blanket is spread on a layer of pine or hemlock twigs, or some leaves. No cots; seldom even a mattress on the ground. It is pretty cold. I go around from one case to another. I do not see that I can do any good, but I cannot leave them. Once in a while some youngster holds on to me convulsively, and I do what I can for him; at any rate stop with him, and sit near him for hours, if he wishes it. Besides the hospitals, I also go occasionally on long tours through the camps, talking with the men, etc.; sometimes at night among the groups around the fires, in their shebang enclosures of bushes. I soon get acquainted anywhere in camp with officers or men, and am always well used. Sometimes I go down on picket with the regiments I know best. As to rations, the army here at present seems to be tolerably well supplied, and the men have enough, such as it is. Most of the regiments lodge in the flimsy little shelter tents. A few have built themselves huts of logs and mud, with fireplaces. I might give a long list of special cases, interesting items of the wounded men here, but have not space. Left Falmouth, January, 1863, by Aquia creek railroad, and so on Government steamer up the Potomac. Many wounded were with us on cars and boat. The cars were just common platform ones. The railroad journey of ten or twelve miles was made mostly before sunrise. The soldiers guarding the road came out from their tents or shebangs of bushes with rumpled hair and half-awake look. Those on duty were walking their posts, some on banks over us, others down far below the level of the track. I saw large cavalry camps off the road. At Aquia Creek Landing were numbers of wounded going North. While I waited some three hours, I went around among them. Several wanted word sent home to parents, brothers, wives, etc., which I did for them (by mail the next day from Washington). On the boat I had my hands full. One poor fellow died going up. Am now (January, February, etc., 1863) in and around Washington, daily visiting the hospitals. Am much in Campbell, Patent-office, Eighth-street, H-street, Armory-square, and others. Am now able to do a little good, having money (as almoner of others home), and getting experience. I would like to give lists of cases, for there is no end to the interesting ones; but it is impossible without making a large volume, or rather several volumes. I must, therefore, let one or two days' visits at this time suffice as specimens of scores and hundreds of subsequent ones, through the ensuing spring, summer, and fall, and, indeed, down to the present week. Sunday, January 25.--Afternoon and till 9 in the evening, visited Campbell hospital. Attended specially to one case in Ward I, very sick with pleurisy and typhoid fever, young man, farmer's son--D. F. Russell, Company E, Sixtieth New York--down-hearted and feeble; a long time before he would take any interest; soothed and cheered him gently; wrote a letter home to his mother, in Malone, Franklin county, N. Y., at his request; gave him some fruit and one or two other gifts; enveloped and directed his letter, etc. Then went thoroughly through Ward 6; observed every case in the ward (without, I think, missing one); found some cases I thought needed little sums of money; supplied them (sums of perhaps thirty, twenty-five, twenty, or fifteen cents); distributed a pretty bountiful supply of cheerful reading matter, and gave perhaps some twenty to thirty persons, each one some little gift, such as oranges, apples, sweet crackers, figs, etc., etc., etc. Thursday, January 29.--Devoted the main part of the day, from 11 to 3.30 o'clock, to Armory-square hospital; went pretty thoroughly through Wards F, G, H, and I--some fifty cases in each ward. In Ward H supplied the men throughout with writing paper and a stamped envelope each, also some cheerful reading matter; distributed in small portions, about half of it in this ward, to proper subjects, a large jar of first-rate preserved berries; also other small gifts. In Wards G, H, and I, found several cases I thought good subjects for small sums of money, which I furnished in each case. The poor wounded men often come up "dead broke," and it helps their spirits to have even the small sum I give them. My paper and envelopes all gone, but distributed a good lot of amusing reading matter; also, as I thought judicious, tobacco, oranges, apples, etc. Some very interesting cases in Ward I: Charles Miller, Bed No. 19, Company D, Fifty-third Pennsylvania, is only sixteen years of age, very bright, courageous boy, left leg amputated below the knee; next bed below him, young lad very sick--gave the two each appropriate gifts; in the bed above also amputation of the left leg--gave him a part of a jar of raspberries; Bed No. 1, this ward, gave a small sum also; also to a soldier on crutches, sitting on his bed near. Evening, same day.--Went to see D. F. R., Campbell hospital, before alluded to; found him remarkably changed for the better--up and dressed (quite a triumph; he afterwards got well and went back to his regiment). Distributed in the wards a quantity of note-paper and forty or fifty, mostly paid, envelopes, of which the men were much in need; also a four-pound bag of gingersnaps I bought at a baker's in Seventh street. Here is a case of a soldier I found among the crowded cots in the Patent hospital--(they have removed most of the men of late and broken up that hospital). He likes to have some one to talk to, and we will listen to him. He got badly wounded in the leg and side at Fredericksburg that eventful Saturday, 13th December. He lay the succeeding two days and nights helpless on the field, between the city and those grim batteries, for his company and his regiment had been compelled to leave him to his fate. To make matters worse, he lay with his head slightly down hill, and could not help himself. At the end of some fifty hours he was brought off, with other wounded, under a flag of truce. We ask him how the Rebels treated him during those two days and nights within reach of them--whether they came to him--whether they abused him? He answers that several of the Rebels, soldiers and others, came to him, at one time and another. A couple of them, who were together, spoke roughly and sarcastically, but did no act. One middle-aged man, however, who seemed to be moving around the field among the dead and wounded for benevolent purposes, came to him in a way he will never forget. This man treated our soldier kindly, bound up his wounds, cheered him, gave him a couple of biscuits gave him a drink of whiskey and water, asked him if he could eat some beef. This good Secesh, however, did not change our soldier's position, for it might have caused the blood to burst from the wounds where they were clotted and stagnated. Our soldier is from Pennsylvania; has had a pretty severe time; the wounds proved to be bad ones. But he retains a good heart, and is at present on the gain. It is not uncommon for the men to remain on the field this way, one, two, or even four or five days. I continue among the hospitals during March, April, etc., without intermission. My custom is to go through a ward, or a collection of wards, endeavoring to give some trifle to each, without missing any. Even a sweet biscuit, a sheet of paper, or a passing word of friendliness, or but a look or nod, if no more. In this way I go through large numbers without delaying, yet do not hurry. I find out the general mood of the ward at the time; sometimes see that there is a heavy weight of listlessness prevailing, and the whole ward wants cheering up. I perhaps read to the men, to break the spell, calling them around me, careful to sit away from the cot of any one who is very bad with sickness or wounds. Also I find out, by going through in this way, the cases that need special attention, and can then devote proper time to them. Of course I am very cautious, among the patients, in giving them food. I always confer with the doctor, or find out from the nurse or ward-master about a new case. But I soon get sufficiently familiar with what is to be avoided, and learn also to judge almost intuitively what is best. I do a good deal of writing letters by the bedside, of course--writing all kinds, including love letters. Many sick and wounded soldiers have not written home to parents, brothers, sisters, and even wives, for one reason or another, for a long, long time. Some are poor writers; some cannot get paper and envelopes; many have an aversion to writing, because they dread to worry the folks at home--the facts about them are so sad to tell. I always encourage the men to write, and promptly write for them. As I write this, in May, 1863, the wounded have begun to arrive from Hooker's command, from bloody Chancellorsville. I was down among the first arrivals. The men in charge of them told me the bad cases were yet to come. If that is so, I pity them, for these are bad enough. You ought to see the scene of the wounded arriving at the landing here, foot of Sixth street, at night. Two boat-loads came about half-past seven last night. A little after eight it rained, a long and violent shower. The poor, pale, helpless soldiers had been debarked, and lay around on the wharf and neighborhood, anywhere. The rain was, probably, grateful to them; at any rate they were exposed to it. The few torches light up the spectacle. All around on the wharf, on the ground, out on side places, etc., the men are lying on blankets, old quilts, etc., with the bloody rags bound around their heads, arms, legs, etc. The attendants are few, and at night few outsiders also--only a few hard-worked transportation men and drivers. (The wounded are getting to be common, and people grow callous.) The men, whatever their condition, lie there and patiently wait till their turn comes to be taken up. Near by the ambulances are now arriving in clusters, and one after another is called to back up and take its load. Extreme cases are sent off on stretchers. The men generally make little or no ado, whatever their sufferings--a few groans that cannot be repressed, and occasionally a scream of pain as they lift a man into the ambulance. To-day, as I write, hundreds more are expected; and to-morrow and the next day more, and so on for many days. The soldiers are nearly all young men, and far more Americans than is generally supposed--I should say nine tenths are native born. Among the arrivals from Chancellorsville I find a large proportion of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois men. As usual there are all sorts of wounds. Some of the men are fearfully burnt from the explosion of artillery caissons. One ward has a long row of officers, some with ugly hurts. Yesterday was perhaps worse than usual: amputations are going on; the attendants are dressing wounds. As you pass by you must be on your guard where you look. I saw, the other day, a gentleman, a visitor, apparently from curiosity, in one of the wards, stop and turn a moment to look at an awful wound they were probing, etc.; he turned pale, and in a moment more he had fainted away and fallen on the floor. I buy, during the hot weather, boxes of oranges from time to time, and distribute them among the men; also preserved peaches and other fruits; also lemons and sugar for lemonade. Tobacco is also much in demand. Large numbers of the men come up, as usual, without a cent of money. Through the assistance of friends in Brooklyn and Boston, I am again able to help many of those that fall in my way. It is only a small sum in each case, but it is much to them. As before, I go around daily and talk with the men, to cheer them up. My note-books are full of memoranda of the cases of this summer, and the wounded from Chancellorsville, but space forbids my transcribing them. As I sit writing this paragraph (sundown, Thursday, June 25) I see a train of about thirty huge four-horse wagons, used as ambulances, filled with wounded, passing up Fourteenth street, on their way, probably, to Columbian, Carver, and Mount Pleasant hospitals. This is the way the men come in now, seldom in small numbers, but almost always in these long, sad processions. Through the past winter, while our army lay opposite Fredericksburg, the like strings of ambulances were of frequent occurrence along Seventh street, passing slowly up from the steam-boat wharf, from Aquia creek. This afternoon, July 22, 1863, I spent a long time with a young man I have been with considerable, named Oscar F. Wilber, Company G, One Hundred Fifty-fourth New York, low with chronic diarrhoea and a bad wound also. He asked me to read him a chapter in the New Testament. I complied and asked him what I should read. He said, "Make your own choice." I opened at the close of one of the first books of the Evangelists, and read the chapters describing the latter hours of Christ and the scenes at the crucifixion. The poor wasted young man asked me to read the following chapter also, how Christ rose again. I read very slowly, for Oscar was feeble. It pleased him very much, yet the tears were in his eyes. He asked me if I enjoyed religion. I said, "Perhaps not, my dear, in the way you mean, and yet may-be it is the same thing." He said, "It is my chief reliance." He talked of death, and said he did not fear it. I said, "Why, Oscar, don't you think you will get well?" He said, "I may, but it is not probable." He spoke calmly of his condition. The wound was very bad; it discharged much. Then the diarrhoea had prostrated him, and I felt that he was even then the same as dying. He behaved very manly and affectionate. The kiss I gave him as I was about leaving, he returned fourfold. He gave me his mother's address, Mrs. Sally D. Wilber, Alleghany post-office, Cattaraugus county, N. Y. I had several such interviews with him. He died a few days after the one just described. August, September, October, etc.--I continue among the hospitals in the same manner, getting still more experience, and daily and nightly meeting with most interesting cases. Through the winter of 1863-4, the same. The work of the army hospital visitor is indeed a trade, an art, requiring both experience and natural gifts, and the greatest judgment. A large number of the visitors to the hospitals do no good at all, while many do harm. The surgeons have great trouble from them. Some visitors go from curiosity--as to a show of animals. Others give the men improper things. Then there are always some poor fellows, in the crises of sickness or wounds, that imperatively need perfect quiet--not to be talked to by strangers. Few realize that it is not the mere giving of gifts that does good; it is the proper adaption. Nothing is of any avail among the soldiers except conscientious personal investigation of cases, each for itself; with sharp, critical faculties, but in the fullest spirit of human sympathy and boundless love. The men feel such love more than anything else. I have met very few persons who realize the importance of humoring the yearnings for love and friendship of these American young men, prostrated by sickness and wounds. February, 1864.--I am down at Culpepper and Brandy station, among the camp of First, Second, and Third Corps, and going through the division hospitals. The condition of the camps here this winter is immensely improved from last winter near Falmouth. All the army is now in huts of logs and mud, with fireplaces; and the food is plentiful and tolerably good. In the camp hospitals I find diarrhoea more and more prevalent, and in chronic form. It is at present the great disease of the army. I think the doctors generally give too much medicine, oftener making things worse. Then they hold on to the cases in camp too long. When the disease is almost fixed beyond remedy, they send it up to Washington. Alas! how many such wrecks have I seen landed from boat and railroad and deposited in the Washington hospitals, mostly but to linger awhile and die, after being kept at the front too long. The hospitals in front, this winter, are also much improved. The men have cots, and often wooden floors, and the tents are well warmed. March and April, 1864.--Back again in Washington. They are breaking up the camp hospitals in Meade's army, preparing for a move. As I write this, in March, there are all the signs. Yesterday and last night the sick were arriving here in long trains, all day and night. I was among the new-comers most of the night. One train of a thousand came into the depot, and others followed. The ambulances were going all night, distributing them to the various hospitals here. When they come in, some literally in a dying condition, you may well imagine it is a lamentable sight. I hardly know which is worse, to see the wounded after a battle, or these wasted wrecks. I remain in capital health and strength, and go every day, as before, among the men, in my own way, enjoying my life and occupation more than I can tell. Of the army hospitals now in and around Washington, there are thirty or forty. I am in the habit of going to all, and to Fairfax seminary, Alexandria, and over Long Bridge to the convalescent camp, etc. As a specimen of almost any one of these hospitals, fancy to yourself a space of three to twenty acres of ground, on which are grouped ten or twelve very large wooden barracks, with, perhaps, a dozen or twenty, and sometimes more than that number, of small buildings, capable all together of accommodating from five hundred to a thousand or fifteen hundred persons. Sometimes these large wooden barracks, or wards, each of them, perhaps, from a hundred to a hundred and fifty feet long, are arranged in a straight row, evenly fronting the street; others are planned so as to form an immense V; and others again arranged around a hollow square. They make all together a huge cluster, with the additional tents, extra wards for contagious diseases, guard-houses, sutler's stores, chaplain's house, etc. In the middle will probably be an edifice devoted to the offices of the surgeon in charge and the ward surgeons, principal attachés, clerks, etc. Then around this centre radiate or are gathered the wards for the wounded and sick. These wards are either lettered alphabetically, Ward G, Ward K, or else numerically, 1, 2, 3, etc. Each has its ward surgeon and corps of nurses. Of course there is, in the aggregate, quite a muster of employees, and over all the surgeon in charge. Any one of these hospitals is a little city in itself. Take, for instance, the Carver hospital, out a couple of miles, on a hill, northern part of Fourteenth street. It has more inmates than an ordinary country town. The same with the Lincoln hospital, east of the Capitol, or the Finley hospital, on high grounds northeast of the city; both large establishments. Armory-square hospital, under Dr. Bliss, in Seventh street (one of the best anywhere), is also temporarily enlarged this summer, with additional tents, sheds, etc. It must have nearly a hundred tents, wards, sheds, and structures of one kind and another. The worst cases are always to be found here. A wanderer like me about Washington pauses on some high land which commands the sweep of the city (one never tires of the noble and ample views presented here, in the generally fine, soft, peculiar air and light), and has his eyes attracted by these white clusters of barracks in almost every direction. They make a great show in the landscape, and I often use them as landmarks. Some of these clusters are very full of inmates. Counting the whole, with the convalescent camps (whose inmates are often worse off than the sick in the hospitals), they have numbered, in this quarter and just down the Potomac, as high as fifty thousand invalid, disabled, or sick and dying men. My sketch has already filled up so much room that I shall have to omit any detailed account of the wounded of May and June, 1864, from the battles of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, etc. That would be a long history in itself. The arrivals, the numbers, and the severity of the wounds, out-viewed anything that we have seen before. For days and weeks a melancholy tide set in upon us. The weather was very hot. The wounded had been delayed in coming, and much neglected. Very many of the wounds had worms in them. An unusual proportion mortified. It was among these that, for the first time in my life, I began to be prostrated with real sickness, and was, before the close of the summer, imperatively ordered North by the physician to recuperate and have an entire change of air. What I know of first Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Wilderness, etc., makes clear to me that there has been, and is yet, a total lack of science in elastic adaptation to the needs of the wounded after a battle. The hospitals are long afterward filled with proofs of this. I have seen many battles, their results, but never one where there was not, during the first few days, an unaccountable and almost total deficiency of everything for the wounded--appropriate sustenance, nursing, cleaning, medicines, stores, etc. (I do not say surgical attendance, because the surgeons cannot do more than human endurance permits.) Whatever pleasant accounts there may be in the papers of the North, this is the actual fact. No thorough previous preparation, no system, no foresight, no genius. Always plenty of stores, no doubt, but always miles away; never where they are needed, and never the proper application. Of all harrowing experiences, none is greater than that of the days following a heavy battle. Scores, hundreds, of the noblest young men on earth, uncomplaining, lie helpless, mangled, faint, alone, and so bleed to death, or die from exhaustion, either actually untouched at all, or with merely the laying of them down and leaving them, when there ought to be means provided to save them. The reader has doubtless inferred the fact that my visits among the wounded and sick have been as an independent missionary, in my own style, and not as an agent of any commission. Several noble women and men of Brooklyn, Boston, Salem, and Providence, have voluntarily supplied funds at times. I only wish they could see a tithe of the actual work performed by their generous and benevolent assistance among the suffering men. He who goes among the soldiers with gifts, etc., must beware how he proceeds. It is much more of an art than one would imagine. They are not charity-patients, but American young men, of pride and independence. The spirit in which you treat them, and bestow your donations, is just as important as the gifts themselves; sometimes more so. Then there is continual discrimination necessary. Each case requires some peculiar adaptation to itself. It is very important to slight nobody--not a single case. Some hospital visitors, especially the women, pick out the handsomest looking soldiers, or have a few for their pets. Of course some will attract you more than others, and some will need more attention than others; but be careful not to ignore any patient. A word, a friendly turn of the eye or touch of the hand in passing, if nothing more. One hot day toward the middle of June I gave the inmates of Carver hospital a general ice-cream treat, purchasing a large quantity, and going around personally through the wards to see to its distribution. Here is a characteristic scene in a ward: It is Sunday afternoon (middle of summer, 1864), hot and oppressive, and very silent through the ward. I am taking care of a critical case, now lying in a half lethargy. Near where I sit is a suffering Rebel from the Eighth Louisiana; his name is Irving. He has been here a long time, badly wounded, and lately had his leg amputated. It is not doing very well. Right opposite me is a sick soldier boy laid down with his clothes on, sleeping, looking much wasted, his pallid face on his arm. I see by the yellow trimming on his jacket that he is a cavalry boy. He looks so handsome as he sleeps, one must needs go nearer to him. I step softly over, and find by his card that he is named William Cone, of the First Maine Cavalry, and his folks live in Skowhegan. Well, poor John Mahay is dead. He died yesterday. His was a painful and lingering case. I have been with him at times for the past fifteen months. He belonged to Company A, One Hundred and First New York, and was shot through the lower region of the abdomen at second Bull Run, August, 1862. One scene at his bedside will suffice for the agonies of nearly two years. The bladder had been perforated by a bullet going entirely through him. Not long since I sat a good part of the morning by his bedside, Ward E, Armory-square; the water ran out of his eyes from the intense pain, and the muscles of his face were distorted, but he utters nothing except a low groan now and then. Hot moist cloths were applied, and relieved him somewhat. Poor Mahay, a mere boy in age, but old in misfortune, he never knew the love of parents, was placed in his infancy in one of the New York charitable institutions, and subsequently bound out to a tyrannical master in Sullivan county (the scars of whose cowhide and club remained yet on his back). His wound here was a most disagreeable one, for he was a gentle, cleanly, and affectionate boy. He found friends in his hospital life, and, indeed, was a universal favorite. He had quite a funeral ceremony. Through Fourteenth street to the river, and then over the long bridge and some three miles beyond, is the huge collection called the convalescent camp. It is a respectable sized army in itself, for these hospitals, tents, sheds, etc., at times contain from five to ten thousand men. Of course there are continual changes. Large squads are sent off to their regiments or elsewhere, and new men received. Sometimes I found large numbers of paroled returned prisoners here. During October, November, and December, 1864, I have visited the military hospitals about New York City, but have not room in this article to describe these visits. I have lately been (November 25) in the Central-park hospital, near One Hundred and Fourth street; it seems to be a well-managed institution. During September, and previously, went many times to the Brooklyn city hospital, in Raymond street, where I found (taken in by contract) a number of wounded and sick from the army. Most of the men were badly off, and without a cent of money, many wanting tobacco. I supplied them, and a few special cases with delicacies; also repeatedly with letter-paper, stamps, envelopes, etc., writing the addresses myself plainly--(a pleased crowd gathering around me as I directed for each one in turn.) This Brooklyn hospital is a bad place for soldiers, or anybody else. Cleanliness, proper nursing, watching, etc., are more deficient than in any hospital I know. For dinner on Sundays I invariably found nothing but rice and molasses. The men all speak well of Drs. Yale and Kissam for kindness, patience, etc., and I think, from what I saw, there are also young medical men. In its management otherwise, this is the poorest hospital I have been in, out of many hundreds. Among places, apart from soldiers', visited lately (December 7) I must specially mention the great Brooklyn general hospital and other public institutions at Flatbush, including the extensive lunatic asylum, under charge of Drs. Chapin and Reynolds. Of the latter (and I presume I might include these county establishments generally) I have deliberately to put on record about the profoundest satisfaction with professional capacity, completeness of house arrangements to ends required, and the right vital spirit animating all, that I have yet found in any public curative institution among civilians. In Washington, in camp and everywhere, I was in the habit of reading to the men. They were very fond of it, and liked declamatory, poetical pieces. Miles O'Reilly's pieces were also great favorites. I have had many happy evenings with the men. We would gather in a large group by ourselves, after supper, and spend the time in such readings, or in talking, and occasionally by an amusing game called the game of Twenty Questions. For nurses, middle-aged women and mothers of families are best. I am compelled to say young ladies, however refined, educated, and benevolent, do not succeed as army nurses, though their motives are noble; neither do the Catholic nuns, among these home-born American young men. Mothers full of motherly feeling, and however illiterate, but bringing reminiscences of home, and with the magnetic touch of hands, are the true women nurses. Many of the wounded are between fifteen and twenty years of age. I should say that the Government, from my observation, is always full of anxiety and liberality toward the sick and wounded. The system in operation in the permanent hospitals is good, and the money flows without stint. But the details have to be left to hundreds and thousands of subordinates and officials. Among these, laziness, heartlessness, gouging, and incompetency are more or less prevalent. Still, I consider the permanent hospitals, generally, well conducted. A very large proportion of the wounded come up from the front without a cent of money in their pockets. I soon discovered that it was about the best thing I could do to raise their spirits and show them that somebody cared for them, and practically felt a fatherly or brotherly interest in them, to give them small sums, in such cases, using tact and discretion about it. A large majority of the wounds are in the arms and legs. But there is every kind of wound in every part of the body. I should say of the sick, from my experience in the hospitals, that the prevailing maladies are typhoid fever and the camp fevers generally, diarrhoea, catarrhal affections and bronchitis, rheumatism and pneumonia. These forms of sickness lead, all the rest follow. There are twice as many sick as there are wounded. The deaths range from six to ten per cent of those under treatment. I must bear my most emphatic testimony to the zeal, manliness, and professional spirit and capacity generally prevailing among the surgeons, many of them young men, in the hospitals and the army. I will not say much about the exceptions, for they are few (but I have met some of those few, and very foolish and airish they were). I never ceased to find the best young men, and the hardest and most disinterested workers, among these surgeons, in the hospitals. They are full of genius, too. I have seen many hundreds of them, and this is my testimony. During my two years in the hospitals and upon the field, I have made over six hundred visits, and have been, as I estimate, among from eighty thousand to one hundred thousand of the wounded and sick, as sustainer of spirit and body in some slight degree, in their time of need. These visits varied from an hour or two, to all day or night; for with dear or critical cases I watched all night. Sometimes I took up my quarters in the hospital, and slept or watched there several nights in succession. I may add that I am now just resuming my occupation in the hospitals and camps for the winter of 1864-5, and probably to continue the seasons ensuing. To many of the wounded and sick, especially the youngsters, there is something in personal love, caresses, and the magnetic flood of sympathy and friendship, that does, in its way, more good than all the medicine in the world. I have spoken of my regular gifts of delicacies, money, tobacco, special articles of food, knick-knacks, etc., etc. But I steadily found more and more that I could help, and turn the balance in favor of cure, by the means here alluded to, in a curiously large proportion of cases. The American soldier is full of affection and the yearning for affection. And it comes wonderfully grateful to him to have this yearning gratified when he is laid up with painful wounds or illness, far away from home, among strangers. Many will think this merely sentimentalism, but I know it is the most solid of facts. I believe that even the moving around among the men, or through the ward, of a hearty, healthy, clean, strong, generous-souled person, man or woman, full of humanity and love, sending out invisible, constant currents thereof, does immense good to the sick and wounded. To those who might be interested in knowing it, I must add, in conclusion, that I have tried to do justice to all the suffering that fell in my way. While I have been with wounded and sick in thousands of cases from the New England States, and from New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and from Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois, and the Western States, I have been with more or less from all the States North and South, without exception. I have been with many from the border States, especially from Maryland and Virginia, and found far more Union Southerners than is supposed. I have been with many Rebel officers and men among our wounded, and given them always what I had, and tried to cheer them the same as any. I have been among the army teamsters considerably, and indeed always find myself drawn to them. Among the black soldiers, wounded or sick, and in the contraband camps, I also took my way whenever in their neighborhood, and I did what I could for them. W. W. _From the New York_ Times, _December 11, 1864_. [Illustration: LOUISA (VAN VELSOR) WHITMAN From a Daguerreotype taken about 1855 THE HELIOTYPE PRINTING CO. BOSTON] LETTERS OF 1862-3 I _Washington, Monday forenoon, Dec. 29, 1862._ DEAR, DEAR MOTHER--Friday the 19th inst. I succeeded in reaching the camp of the 51st New York, and found George[1] alive and well. In order to make sure that you would get the good news, I sent back by messenger to Washington a telegraphic dispatch (I dare say you did not get it for some time) as well as a letter--and the same to Hannah[2] at Burlington. I have staid in camp with George ever since, till yesterday, when I came back to Washington, about the 24th. George got Jeff's[3] letter of the 20th. Mother, how much you must have suffered, all that week, till George's letter came--and all the rest must too. As to me, I know I put in about three days of the greatest suffering I ever experienced in my life. I wrote to Jeff how I had my pocket picked in a jam and hurry, changing cars, at Philadelphia--so that I landed here without a dime. The next two days I spent hunting through the hospitals, walking day and night, unable to ride, trying to get information--trying to get access to big people, etc.--I could not get the least clue to anything. Odell would not see me at all. But Thursday afternoon, I lit on a way to get down on the Government boat that runs to Aquia creek, and so by railroad to the neighborhood of Falmouth, opposite Fredericksburg--so by degrees I worked my way to Ferrero's[4] brigade, which I found Friday afternoon without much trouble after I got in camp. When I found dear brother George, and found that he was alive and well, O you may imagine how trifling all my little cares and difficulties seemed--they vanished into nothing. And now that I have lived for eight or nine days amid such scenes as the camps furnish, and had a practical part in it all, and realize the way that hundreds of thousands of good men are now living, and have had to live for a year or more, not only without any of the comforts, but with death and sickness and hard marching and hard fighting (and no success at that) for their continual experience--really nothing we call trouble seems worth talking about. One of the first things that met my eyes in camp was a heap of feet, arms, legs, etc., under a tree in front of a hospital, the Lacy house. George is very well in health, has a good appetite--I think he is at times more wearied out and homesick than he shows, but stands it upon the whole very well. Every one of the soldiers, to a man, wants to get home. I suppose Jeff got quite a long letter I wrote, from camp, about a week ago. I told you that George had been promoted to captain--his commission arrived while I was there. When you write, address, Capt. George W. Whitman, Co. K., 51st New York Volunteers, Ferrero's brigade, near Falmouth, Va. Jeff must write oftener, and put in a few lines from mother, even if it is only two lines--then in the next letter a few lines from Mat, and so on. You have no idea how letters from home cheer one up in camp, and dissipate homesickness. While I was there George still lived in Capt. Francis's tent--there were five of us altogether, to eat, sleep, write, etc., in a space twelve feet square, but we got along very well--the weather all along was very fine--and would have got along to perfection, but Capt. Francis is not a man I could like much--I had very little to say to him. George is about building a place, half hut and half tent, for himself, (he is probably about it this very day,) and then he will be better off, I think. Every captain has a tent, in which he lives, transacts company business, etc., has a cook, (or a man of all work,) and in the same tent mess and sleep his lieutenants, and perhaps the first sergeant. They have a kind of fire-place--and the cook's fire is outside on the open ground. George had very good times while Francis was away--the cook, a young disabled soldier, Tom, is an excellent fellow and a first-rate cook, and the second lieutenant, Pooley, is a tip-top young Pennsylvanian. Tom thinks all the world of George; when he heard he was wounded, on the day of the battle, he left everything, got across the river, and went hunting for George through the field, through thick and thin. I wrote to Jeff that George was wounded by a shell, a gash in the cheek--you could stick a splint through into the mouth, but it has healed up without difficulty already. Everything is uncertain about the army, whether it moves or stays where it is. There are no furloughs granted at present. I will stay here for the present, at any rate long enough to see if I can get any employment at anything, and shall write what luck I have. Of course I am unsettled at present. Dear mother; my love. WALT. If Jeff or any writes, address me, care of Major Hapgood, paymaster, U. S. A. Army, Washington, D. C. I send my love to dear sister Mat,[5] and little Sis[6]--and to Andrew[7] and all my brothers. O Mat, how lucky it was you did not come--together, we could never have got down to see George. II _Washington, Friday morning, Jan. 2, 1863._ DEAR SISTER[8]--You have heard of my fortunes and misfortunes of course, (through my letters to mother and Jeff,) since I left home that Tuesday afternoon. But I thought I would write a few lines to you, as it is a comfort to write home, even if I have nothing particular to say. Well, dear sister, I hope you are well and hearty, and that little Sis[9] keeps as well as she always had, when I left home so far. Dear little plague, how I would like to have her with me, for one day; I can fancy I see her, and hear her talk. Jeff must have got a note from me about a letter I have written to the _Eagle_--you may be sure you will get letters enough from me, for I have little else to do at present. Since I laid my eyes on dear brother George, and saw him alive and well--and since I have spent a week in camp, down there opposite Fredericksburg, and seen what well men, and sick men, and mangled men endure--it seems to me I can be satisfied and happy henceforward if I can get one meal a day, and know that mother and all are in good health, and especially be with you again, and have some little steady paying occupation in N. Y. or Brooklyn. I am writing this in the office of Major Hapgood, way up in the top of a big high house, corner of 15th and F street; there is a splendid view, away down south of the Potomac river, and across to the Georgetown side, and the grounds and houses of Washington spread out beneath my high point of view. The weather is perfect--I have had that in my favor ever since leaving home--yesterday and to-day it is bright, and plenty warm enough. The poor soldiers are continually coming in from the hospitals, etc., to get their pay--some of them waiting for it to go home. They climb up here, quite exhausted, and then find it is no good, for there is no money to pay them; there are two or three paymasters' desks in this room, and the scenes of disappointment are quite affecting. Here they wait in Washington, perhaps week after week, wretched and heart-sick--this is the greatest place of delays and puttings off, and no finding the clue to anything. This building is the paymaster-general's quarters, and the crowds on the walk and corner of poor, sick, pale, tattered soldiers are awful--many of them day after day disappointed and tired out. Well, Mat, I will suspend my letter for the present, and go through the city--I have a couple of poor fellows in the hospital to visit also. WALT. _Saturday evening, Jan. 3_ [1863.] I write this in the place where I have my lodging-room, 394 L street, 4th door above 14th street. A friend of mine, William D. O'Connor,[10] has two apartments on the 3rd floor, very ordinarily furnished, for which he pays the _extra_ordinary price of $25 a month. I have a werry little bedroom on the 2nd floor. Mr. and Mrs. O'Connor and their little girl have all gone out "down town" for an hour or two, to make some Saturday evening purchases, and I am left in possession of the premises--so I sit by the fire, and scribble more of my letter. I have not heard anything from dear brother George since I left the camp last Sunday morning, 28th Dec. I wrote to him on Tuesday last. I wish to get to him the two blue woolen shirts Jeff sent, as they would come very acceptable to him--and will try to do it yet. I think of sending them by mail, if the postage is not more than $1. Yesterday I went out to the Campbell hospital to see a couple of Brooklyn boys, of the 51st. They knew I was in Washington, and sent me a note, to come and see them. O my dear sister, how your heart would ache to go through the rows of wounded young men, as I did--and stopt to speak a comforting word to them. There were about 100 in one long room, just a long shed neatly whitewashed inside. One young man was very much prostrated, and groaning with pain. I stopt and tried to comfort him. He was very sick. I found he had not had any medical attention since he was brought there; among so many he had been overlooked; so I sent for the doctor, and he made an examination of him. The doctor behaved very well--seemed to be anxious to do right--said that the young man would recover; he had been brought pretty low with diarrhoea, and now had bronchitis, but not so serious as to be dangerous. I talked to him some time--he seemed to have entirely given up, and lost heart--he had not a cent of money--not a friend or acquaintance. I wrote a letter from him to his sister--his name is John A. Holmes, Campello, Plymouth county, Mass. I gave him a little change I had--he said he would like to buy a drink of milk when the woman came through with milk. Trifling as this was, he was overcome and began to cry. Then there were many, many others. I mention the one, as a specimen. My Brooklyn boys were John Lowery, shot at Fredericksburg, and lost his left forearm, and Amos H. Vliet--Jeff knows the latter--he has his feet frozen, and is doing well. The 100 are in a ward, (6), and there are, I should think, eight or ten or twelve such wards in the Campbell hospital--indeed a real village. Then there are 38 more hospitals here in Washington, some of them much larger. _Sunday forenoon, Jan. 4, 1863._ Mat, I hope and trust dear mother and all are well, and everything goes on good home. The envelope I send, Jeff or any of you can keep for direction, or use it when wanted to write to me. As near as I can tell, the army at Falmouth remains the same. Dear sister, good-bye. WALT. I send my love to Andrew and Jesse and Eddy and all. What distressing news this is of the loss of the Monitor.[11] III _Washington, Friday noon, February 6, 1863._ DEAREST MOTHER--Jeff must have got a letter from me yesterday, containing George's last letter. The news of your sickness and the strange silence of Han made me feel somewhat gloomy. I wrote to George yesterday, conveying the news--and to-day I have sent him another letter, with much more comforting news, for I was so glad to hear from Han (her letter enclosed in Jeff's received this morning) that I wrote him right away, and sent Han's letter. Mother, I am quite in hopes George will get a furlough--may-be my expectations are unfounded, but I almost count on it. I am so glad this morning to hear you are no worse, but changed for the better--and dear sister Mat too, and Sissy, I am so glad to think they are recovering. Jeff's enclosure of $10 through Mr. Lane, from the young engineers for the soldiers in hospitals, the most needy cases, came safe of course--I shall acknowledge it to Mr. Lane to-morrow. Mother, I have written so much about hospitals that I will not write any in this letter. We have had bad weather enough here lately to most make up for the delightful weather we had for five weeks after I came from home. Mother, I do hope you will be careful, and not get any relapse--and hope you will go on improving. Do you then think of getting new apartments, after the 1st of May? I suppose Jeff has settled about the lot--it seems to me first rate as an investment--the kind of house to build is quite a consideration (if any house). I should build a _regular Irish shanty_ myself--two rooms, and an end shed. I think that's luxury enough, since I have been down in the army. Well, mother, I believe I will not fill out the sheet this time, as I want to go down without delay to the P. O. and send George's letter and this one. Good-bye, dear mother. WALT. IV _Washington, Monday morning, Feb. 9, 1863._ DEAREST MOTHER--I write to enclose you a letter I have just received from George. His corps (Ninth Army) and perhaps one other are to move either to Fort Monroe, or somewhere down there--some say Suffolk. I am in hopes that when they get there, George will still have a sight for a furlough. I have written him I should think four letters since the 27th Jan. (and have sent him Han's letter to you in one). I hope he has got most of them before this. I am afraid the $3 change I sent him is gone. He will write to you as soon as he gets settled wherever they go to. I don't know as it makes any difference in respect to danger, or fighting, from this move. One reason they have to move from the Rappahannock, up there, is that wood is all gone for miles, forage is scarce to get, and I don't know as there is any need of their staying there, for any purpose. In some haste, dearest mother, as I am off to visit for an hour or so, one of my hospitals. Your affectionate son, WALT. V _Office Major Hapgood, cor. 15th & F sts, Washington, Feb. 13, 1863._ DEAR BROTHER[12]--Nothing new; still I thought I would write you a line this morning. The $4, namely $2 from Theo A. Drake and $2 from John D. Martin, enclosed in your letter of the 10th, came safe. They too will please accept the grateful thanks of several poor fellows, in hospital here. The letter of introduction to Mr. Webster, chief clerk, State department, will be very acceptable. If convenient, I should like Mr. Lane to send it on immediately. I do not so much look for an appointment from Mr. Seward as his backing me from the State of New York. I have seen Preston King this morning for the second time (it is very amusing to hunt for an office--so the thing seems to me just now, even if one don't get it). I have seen Charles Sumner three times--he says ev'ry thing here moves as part of a great machine, and that I must consign myself to the fate of the rest--still [in] an interview I had with him yesterday he talked and acted as though he had life in him, and would exert himself to any reasonable extent for me to get something. Meantime I make about enough to pay my expenses by hacking on the press here, and copying in the paymasters' offices, a couple of hours a day. One thing is favorable here, namely, pay for whatever one does is at a high rate. I have not yet presented my letters to either Seward or Chase--I thought I would get my forces all in a body, and make one concentrated dash, if possible with the personal introduction and presence of some big bug. I like fat old Preston King very much--he is fat as a hogshead, with great hanging chops. The first thing he said to me the other day in the parlor chambers of the Senate, when I sent in for him and he came out, was, "Why, how can I do this thing, or any thing for you--how do I know but you are a Secessionist? You look for all the world like an old Southern planter--a regular Carolina or Virginia planter." I treated him with just as much hauteur as he did me with bluntness--this was the first time--it afterward proved that Charles Sumner had not prepared the way for me, as I supposed, or rather not so strongly as I supposed, and Mr. King had even forgotten it--so I was an entire stranger. But the same day C. S. talked further with Mr. King in the Senate, and the second interview I had with the latter (this forenoon) he has given me a sort of general letter, endorsing me from New York--one envelope is addressed to Secretary Chase, and another to Gen. Meigs, head Quartermaster's dept. Meantime, I am getting better and better acquainted with office-hunting wisdom and Washington peculiarities generally. I spent several hours in the Capitol the other day. The incredible gorgeousness of some of the rooms, (interior decorations, etc.)--rooms used perhaps but for merely three or four committee meetings in the course of the whole year--is beyond one's flightiest dreams. Costly frescoes of the style of Taylor's saloon in Broadway, only really the best and choicest of their sort, done by imported French and Italian artists, are the prevailing sorts. (Imagine the work you see on the fine china vases in Tiffany's, the paintings of Cupids and goddesses, etc., spread recklessly over the arched ceiling and broad panels of a big room--the whole floor underneath paved with tesselated pavement, which is a sort of cross between marble and china, with little figures, drab, blue, cream color, etc.) These things, with heavy elaborately wrought balustrades, columns, and steps--all of the most beautiful marbles I ever saw, some white as milk, other of all colors, green, spotted, lined, or of our old chocolate color--all these marbles used as freely as if they were common blue flags--with rich door-frames and window-casings of bronze and gold--heavy chandeliers and mantles, and clocks in every room--and indeed by far the richest and gayest, and most un-American and inappropriate ornamenting and finest interior workmanship I ever conceived possible, spread in profusion through scores, hundreds, (and almost thousands) of rooms--such are what I find, or rather would find to interest me, if I devoted time to it. But a few of the rooms are enough for me--the style is without grandeur, and without simplicity. These days, the state our country is in, and especially filled as I am from top to toe of late with scenes and thoughts of the hospitals, (America seems to me now, though only in her youth, but brought already here, feeble, bandaged, and bloody in hospital)--these days I say, Jeff, all the poppy-show goddesses, and all the pretty blue and gold in which the interior Capitol is got up, seem to me out of place beyond anything I could tell--and I get away from it as quick as I can when that kind of thought comes over me. I suppose it is to be described throughout--those interiors--as all of them got up in the French style--well, enough for a New York. VI _Washington, March 31, 1863._ DEAREST MOTHER--I have not heard from George, except a note he wrote me a couple of days after he got back from his furlough. I think it likely the regiment has gone with its corps to the West, the Kentucky or Tennessee region--Burnside at last accounts was in Cincinnati. Well, it will be a change for George, if he is out there. I sent a long letter to Han last Saturday--enclosed George's note to me. Mother, when you or Jeff writes again, tell me if my papers and MSS. are all right; I should be very sorry indeed if they got scattered, or used up or anything--especially the copy of "Leaves of Grass" covered in blue paper,[13] and the little MS. book "Drum-Taps," and the MS. tied up in the square, spotted (stone-paper) loose covers--I want them all carefully kept. Mother, it is quite a snow-storm here this morning--the ground is an inch and a half deep with snow--and it is snowing and drizzling--but I feel very independent in my stout army-boots; I go anywhere. I _have_ felt quite well of my deafness and cold in my head for four days or so, but it is back again bad as ever this morning. Dear mother, I wrote the above in my room--I have now come down to Major Hapgood's office. I do not find anything from home, and no particular news in the paper this morning--no news about the Ninth Army Corps, or where they are. I find a good letter from one of my New York boys, (Fifth avenue) a young fellow named Hugo Fritsch, son of the Austrian Consul-General--he writes me a long, first-rate letter this morning. He too speaks about the Opera--like Jeff he goes there a good deal--says that Medori, the soprano, as Norma made the greatest success ever seen--says that the whole company there now, the singers, are very fine. All this I write for Jeff and Mat--I hope they will go once in a while when it is convenient. It is a most disagreeable day here, mother, walking poshy and a rain and drizzle. There is nothing new with me, no particular sight for an office that I can count on. But I can make enough with the papers, for the present necessities. I hear that the paymaster, Major Yard, that pays the 51st, has gone on West, I suppose to Cincinnati, or wherever the brigade has gone--of course to pay up--he pays up to 1st of March--all the Army is going to be paid up to 1st March everywhere. Mother, I hope you are well and hearty as usual. I am so glad you are none of you going to move. I would like to have the pleasure of Miss Mannahatta Whitman's company, the first fine forenoon, if it were possible; I think we might have first-rate times, for one day at any rate. I hope she will not forget her Uncle Walt. I received a note from Probasco, requesting me not to put his name in my next letter. I appreciate his motive, and wish to please him always--but in this matter I shall do what I think appropriate. Mother, I see some very interesting persons here--a young master's mate, who was on the Hatteras, when surprised and broadsided by the Alabama, Capt Semmes--he gave me a very good acc't of it all--then Capt. Mullen, U. S. Army, (engineer) who has been six years out in the Rocky mts. making a Gov't road 650 miles from Ft. Benton to Walla Walla--very, very interesting to know such men intimately, and talk freely with them. Dearest mother, I shall have great yarns to spin, when I come home. I am not a bit homesick, yet I should like to see you and Mat very, very much--one thinks of the women when he is away. WALT. Shall send the shirts in a day or two. VII _Washington, Wednesday forenoon, April 15, 1863._ DEAREST MOTHER--Jeff's letter of the 11th, acknowledging the books, also the one about five days previous, containing the $10 from Van Anden, came safe. Jeff's letters are always first rate and welcome--the good long one with so much about home, and containing Han's and George's, was especially so. It is a great pleasure, though sometimes a melancholy one, to hear from Han, under her own hand. I have writ to George--I wrote last Friday. I directed the letter to "Lexington or elsewhere, Kentucky"--as I saw in a letter in a Cincinnati paper that Gen. Ferrero was appointed provost marshal at Lexington. The 51st is down there somewhere, and I guess it is about as well off there as anywhere. There is much said about their closing up the regimental companies--that is, where there are ten companies of 40 men each, closing them up to five companies, of 80 men each. It is said the Government purposes something of this kind. It will throw a good many captains and lieutenants out. I suppose you know that Le Gendre is now colonel of the 51st--it's a pity if we haven't Americans enough to put over our old war regiments. (I think less and less of foreigners, in this war. What I see, especially in the hospitals, convinces me that there is no other stock, for emergencies, but native American--no other name by which we can be saved.) Mother, I feel quite bad about Andrew--I am so in hopes to hear that he has recovered--I think about him every day. He must not get fretting and disheartened--that is really the worst feature of any sickness. Diseases of the throat and bronchia are the result always of bad state of the stomach, blood, etc. (they never come from the throat itself). The throat and the bronchia are lined, like the stomach and other interior organs, with a fine lining like silk or crape, and when all this gets ulcerated or inflamed or what-not (it is Dr. Sammis's _mucous membrane_, you know) it is bad, and most distressing. Medicine is really of no great account, except just to pacify a person. This lining I speak of is full of little blood vessels, and the way to make a _real cure_ is by gentle and steady means to recuperate the whole system; this will tell upon the blood, upon the blood vessels, and so finally and effectually upon all this coating I speak of that lines the throat, etc. But as it is a long time before this vital lining membrane (_very important_) is injured, so it is a long time before it can be made all healthy and right again; but Andrew is young and strong enough and [has a] good constitution for basis--and of course by regular diet, care, (and nary whiskey under any circumstances) I am sure he would not only get over that trouble, but be as well and strong as he ever was in his life. Mother, you tell him I sent him my love, and Nancy[14] the same, and the dear little boys the same--the next time you or Mat goes down there you take this and show him. Mat, I am quite glad to hear that you are not hurried and fretted with work from New York this spring--I am sure I should think Sis and housekeeping, etc., would be enough to attend to. I was real amused with Sis's remarks, and all that was in the letter about her. You must none of you notice her smartness, nor criticisms, before her, nor encourage her to spread herself nor be critical, as it is not good to encourage a child to be too sharp--and I hope Sissy is going to be a splendid specimen of good animal health. For the few years to come I should think more of that than anything--that is the foundation of all (righteousness included); as to her mental vivacity and growth, they are plenty enough of themselves, and will get along quite fast enough of themselves, plenty fast enough--don't stimulate them at all. Dear little creature, how I should like to see her this minute. Jeff must not make his lessons to her in music anyways strong or frequent on any account--two lessons a week, of ten minutes each, is enough--but then I dare say Jeff will think of all these things, just the same as I am saying. Jeff writes he wonders if I am as well and hearty, and I suppose he means as much of a beauty as ever, whether I look the same. Well, not only as much but more so--I believe I weigh about 200, and as to my face, (so scarlet,) and my beard and neck, they are terrible to behold. I fancy the reason I am able to do some good in the hospitals among the poor languishing and wounded boys, is, that I am so large and well--indeed like a great wild buffalo, with much hair. Many of the soldiers are from the West, and far North, and they take to a man that has not the bleached shiny and shaved cut of the cities and the East. I spent three to four hours yesterday in Armory hospital. One of my particular boys there was dying--pneumonia--he wanted me to stop with him awhile; he could not articulate--but the look of his eyes, and the holding on of his hand was deeply affecting. His case is a relapse--eight days ago he had recovered, was up, was perhaps a little careless--at any rate took cold, was taken down again and has sank rapidly. He has no friends or relatives here. Yesterday he labored and panted so for breath, it was terrible. He is a young man from New England, from the country. I expected to see his cot vacated this afternoon or evening, as I shall go down then. Mother, if you or Mat was here a couple of days, you would cry your eyes out. I find I have to restrain myself and keep my composure--I succeed pretty well. Good-bye, dearest mother. WALT. Jeff, Capt. Muller remains here yet for some time. He is bringing out his report. I shall try to send you a copy. Give my best respects to Dr. Ruggles. Mother, my last letter home was a week ago to-day--we are having a dark rainy day here--it is now half-past 3. I have been in my room all day so far--shall have dinner in half an hour, and then down to Armory. VIII _Washington, April 28, 1863._ DEAREST MOTHER--A letter from Jeff came this morning. Mother, I was sorry to hear you had a return of your rheumatism--I do hope you will favor yourself more, it depends so much on that--and rheumatism is so obstinate, when it gets hold of one. Mother, you received a letter from me sent last Wednesday, 22nd, of course, with a small quantity of shinplasters. Next time you or Jeff writes, I wish you would tell me whether the letters come pretty regularly, the next morning after I write them--this now ought to reach you Wednesday forenoon, April 29th. Mother, did a Mr. Howell call on you? He was here last week to see about his boy, died a long while ago in hospital in Yorktown. He works in the Navy Yard--knows Andrew. You will see about him (the boy) in a letter I sent yesterday to the _Eagle_--it ought to appear to-day or to-morrow. Jeff, I wish you would take 10¢ I send in this letter and get me ten copies of the _Eagle_ with it in--put in five more of my pictures (the big ones in last edition "Leaves"), and a couple of the photographs carte visites (the smaller ones), and send me to the same direction as before; it came very well. I will send an _Eagle_ to Han and George. The stamps and 10¢ are for Jeff for the papers and postage. I have written to Han, and sent her George's last two letters from Kentucky; one I got last week from Mount Sterling. I write to George and send him papers. Sam Beatty is here in Washington again. I saw him, and he said he would write to George. Mother, I have not got any new clothes yet, but shall very soon I hope. People are more rough and free and easy drest than your way. Then it is dusty or muddy most of the time here. Mother dear, I hope you have comfortable times--at least as comfortable as the law allows. I am so glad you are not going to have the trouble of moving this 1st of May. How are the Browns? Tell Will I should like to see him first rate--if he was here attached to the suite of some big officer, or something of that kind, he would have a good time and do well. I see lots of young fellows not half as capable and trustworthy as he, coming and going in Washington, in such positions. The big generals and head men all through the armies, and provosts etc., like to have a squad of such smart, nimble young men around them. Give my respects to Mr. and Mrs. Brown. Tell Jeff I am going to write to Mr. Lane either to-day or to-morrow. Jeff asks me if I go to hospitals as much as ever. If my letters home don't show it, you don't get 'em. I feel sorry sometimes after I have sent them, I have said so much about hospitals, and so mournful. O mother, the young man in Armory-square, Dennis Barrett, in the 169th N. Y., I mentioned before, is probably going to get up after all; he is like one saved from the grave. Saturday last I saw him and talked with him and gave him something to eat, and he was much better--it is the most unexpected recovery I have yet seen. Mother, I see Jeff says in the letter you don't hear from me very often--I will write oftener, especially to Jeff. Dear brother, I hope you are getting along good, and in good spirits; you must not mind the failure of the sewer bills, etc. It don't seem to me it makes so much difference about worldly successes (beyond just enough to eat and drink and shelter, in the moderatest limits) any more, since the last four months of my life especially, and that merely to live, and have one fair meal a day, is enough--but then you have a family, and that makes a difference. Matty, I send you my best love, dear sister--how I wish I could be with you one or two good days. Mat, do you remember the good time we had that awful stormy night we went to the Opera, New York, and had the front seat, and heard the handsome-mouthed Guerrabella? and had the good oyster supper at Fulton market--("pewter them ales.") O Mat, I hope and trust we shall have such times again. Tell Andrew he must remember what I wrote about the throat, etc. I am sure he will get all right before long, and recover his voice. Give him my love--and tell Mannahatta her Uncle Walt is living now among the sick soldiers. Jeff, look out for the _Eagles_, and send the portraits. Dearest mother, I must bid you and all for the present good-bye. WALT. IX _Washington, Tuesday, May 5, 1863._ DEAREST MOTHER--Your letter came safe, and was very welcome, and always will be. Mother, I am sorry about your rheumatism--if it still continues I think it would be well for me to write a line to Mrs. Piercy, and get Jeff to stop with it, so that you could take the baths again, as I am sure they are very beneficial. Dear mother, you write me, or Jeff must in the next letter, how you are getting along, whether it is any better or worse--I want to know. Mother, about George's fund in the bank; I hope by all means you can scratch along so as to leave $250 there--I am so anxious that our family should have a little ranch, even if it is the meanest kind, off somewhere that you can call your own, and that would do for Ed etc.--it might be a real dependence, and comfort--and may-be for George as much as any one. I mean to come home one of these days, and get the acre or half acre somewhere out in some by-place on Long Island, and build it--you see if I don't. About Hannah, dear mother, I hardly know what advice to give you--from what I know at present I can't tell what course to pursue. I want Han to come home, from the bottom of my heart. Then there are other thoughts and considerations that come up. Dear mother, I cannot advise, but shall acquiesce in anything that is settled upon, and try to help. The condition of things here in the hospitals is getting pretty bad--the wounded from the battles around Fredericksburg are coming up in large numbers. It is very sad to see them. I have written to Mr. Lane, asking him to get his friends to forward me what they think proper--but somehow I feel delicate about sending such requests, after all. I have almost made up my mind to do what I can personally, and not seek assistance from others. Dear mother, I have not received any letter from George. I write to him and send papers to Winchester. Mother, while I have been writing this a very large number of Southern prisoners, I should think 1,000 at least, has past up Pennsylvania avenue, under a strong guard. I went out in the street, close to them. Poor fellows, many of them mere lads--it brought the tears; they seemed our flesh and blood too, some wounded, all miserable in clothing, all in dirt and tatters--many of them fine young men. Mother, I cannot tell you how I feel to see those prisoners marched. X _Washington, Wednesday forenoon, May 13, 1863._ DEAREST MOTHER--I am late with my letter this week--my poor, poor boys occupy my time very much--I go every day, and sometimes nights. I believe I mentioned a young man in Ward F, Armory-square, with a bad wound in the leg, very agonizing--had to have it propt up, and an attendant all the while dripping water on night and day. I was in hopes at one time he would get through with it, but a few days ago he took a sudden bad turn and died about 3 o'clock the same afternoon--it was horrible. He was of good family--handsome, intelligent man, about 26, married; his name was John Elliot, of Cumberland Valley, Bedford co., Penn.--belonged to 2nd Pennsylvania Cavalry. I felt very bad about it. I have wrote to his father--have not received any answer yet; no friend nor any of his folks was here, and have not been here nor sent--probably don't know of it at all. The surgeons put off amputating the leg, he was so exhausted, but at last it was imperatively necessary to amputate. Mother, I am shocked to tell you that he never came alive off the amputating table--he died under the operation--it was what I had dreaded and anticipated. Poor young man, he suffered much, very, _very_ much, for many days, and bore it so patiently--so that it was a release to him. Mother, such things are awful--not a soul here he knew or cared about, except me--yet the surgeons and nurses were good to him. I think all was done for him that could be--there was no help but take off the leg; he was under chloroform--they tried their best to bring him to--three long hours were spent, a strong smelling bottle held under his nostrils, with other means, three hours. Mother, how contemptible all the usual little worldly prides and vanities, and striving after appearances, seems in the midst of such scenes as these--such tragedies of soul and body. To see such things and not be able to help them is awful--I feel almost ashamed of being so well and whole. Dear mother, I have not heard from George himself; but I got a letter from Fred McReady, a young Brooklyn man in 51st--he is intimate with George, said he was well and hearty. I got the letter about five days ago. I wrote to George four days since, directed to Winchester, Kentucky. I got a letter from a friend in Nashville, Tenn., yesterday--he told me the 9th Army Corps was ordered to move to Murfreesboro, Tenn. I don't know whether this is so or not. I send papers to George almost every day. So far I think it was fortunate the 51st was moved West, and I hope it will continue so. Mother, it is all a lottery, this war; no one knows what will come up next. Mother, I received Jeff's letter of May 9th--it was welcome, as all Jeff's letters are, and all others from home. Jeff says you do not hear from me at home but seldom. Mother, I write once a week to you regular; but I will write soon to Jeff a good long letter--I have wanted to for some time, but have been much occupied. Dear brother, I wish you to say to Probasco and all the other young men on the Works, I send them my love and best thanks--never anything came more acceptable than the little fund they forwarded me the last week through Mr. Lane. Our wounded from Hooker's battles are worse wounded and more of them than any battle of the war, and indeed any, I may say, of modern times--besides, the weather has been very hot here, very bad for new wounds. Yet as Jeff writes so downhearted I must tell him the Rebellion has lost worse and more than we have. The more I find out about it, the more I think they, the Confederates, have received an irreparable harm and loss in Virginia--I should not be surprised to see them (either voluntarily or by force) leaving Virginia before many weeks; I don't see how on earth they can stay there. I think Hooker is already reaching after them again--I myself do not give up Hooker yet. Dear mother, I should like to hear from Han, poor Han. I send my best love to sister Mat and all. Good-bye, dearest mother. WALT. XI _Washington, Tuesday forenoon, May 19, 1863._ DEAREST MOTHER--... I sent George a letter yesterday--have not got any letter myself from Georgy, but have sent him quite a good many and papers. Mother, what a tramp the 51st has had--they only need now to go to California, and they will finish the job complete. O mother, how welcome the shirts were--I was putting off and putting off, to get some new ones. I could not find any one to do them as I want them, and it would have cost such a price--and so my old ones had got to be. When they came back from the wash I had to laugh; they were a lot of rags, held together with starch. I have a very nice old black aunty for a washwoman, but she bears down pretty hard, I guess, when she irons them, and they showed something like the poor old city of Fredericksburg does, since Burnside bombarded it. Well, mother, when the bundle came, I was so glad--and the coats too, worn as they are, they come in very handy--and the cake, dear mother, I am almost like the boy that put it under his pillow and woke up in the night and eat some. I carried a good chunk to a young man wounded I think a good deal of, and it did him so much good--it is dry, but all the better, as he eat it with tea and it relished. I eat a piece with him, and drinked some tea out of his cup, as I sat by the side of his cot. Mother, I have neglected, I think, what I ought to have told you two or three weeks ago, that is that I have discarded my old clothes--somewhat because they were too thick, and more still because they were worse gone in than any I have ever yet wore, I think, in my life, especially the trowsers. Wearing my big boots had caused the inside of the legs just above the knee to wear two beautiful round holes right through cloth and partly through the lining, producing a novel effect, which was not necessary, as I produce a sufficient sensation without--then they were desperately faded. I have a nice plain suit of a dark wine color; looks very well, and feels good--single breasted sack coat with breast pockets, etc., and vest and pants same as what I always wear (pants pretty full), so upon the whole all looks unusually good for me. My hat is very good yet, boots ditto; have a new necktie, nice shirts--you can imagine I cut quite a swell. I have not trimmed my beard since I left home, but it is not grown much longer, only perhaps a little bushier. I keep about as stout as ever, and the past five or six days I have felt wonderful well, indeed never did I feel better. About ten or twelve days ago, we had a short spell of very warm weather here, but for about six days now it has been delightful, just warm enough. I generally go to the hospitals from 12 to 4--and then again from 6 to 9; some days I only go in the middle of the day or evening, not both--and then when I feel somewhat opprest, I skip over a day, or make perhaps a light call only, as I have several cautions from the doctors, who tell me that one must beware of continuing too steady and long in the air and influences of the hospitals. I find the caution a wise one. Mother, you or Jeff must write me what Andrew does about going to North Carolina. I should think it might have a beneficial effect upon his throat. I wrote Jeff quite a long letter Sunday. Jeff must write to me whenever he can, I like dearly to have them--and whenever you feel like it you too, dear mother. Tell Sis her uncle Walt will come back one of these days from the sick soldiers and take her out on Fort Greene again. Mother, I received a letter yesterday from John Elliot's father, in Bedford co., Pennsylvania (the young man I told you about, who died under the operation). It was very sad; it was the first he knew about it. I don't know whether I told you of Dennis Barrett, pneumonia three weeks since, had got well enough to be sent home. Dearest Mother, I hope you will take things as easy as possible and try to keep a good heart. Matty, my dear sister, I have to inform you that I was treated to a splendid dish of ice-cream Sunday night; I wished you was with me to have another. I send you my love, dear sister. Mother, I hope by all means it will be possible to keep the money whole to get some ranch next spring, if not before; I mean to come home and build it. Good-bye for the present, dear mother. WALT. XII _Washington, Tuesday forenoon, May 26, 1863._ DEAREST MOTHER--I got a long letter from George, dated near Lancaster, Kentucky, May 15th; he seems to be well and in good spirits--says he gets some letters from me and papers too. At the time he wrote the 51st was doing provost duty at Lancaster, but would not probably remain so very long--seem to be moving towards southeast Kentucky--had a good camp, and good times generally. Le Gendre is colonel--Gen. Ferrero has left the service--Col. Potter (now brig.-gen.) is in Cincinnati--Capt. Sims, etc., are all well. George describes Kentucky as a very fine country--says the people are about half and half, Secesh and Union. This is the longest letter I have yet received from George. Did he write you one about the same time? Mother, I have not rec'd any word from home in over a week--the last letter I had from Mr. Lane was about twelve days ago, sending me $10 for the soldiers (five from Mr. Kirkwood and five from Mr. Conklin Brush). Mother dear, I should like to hear from Martha; I wish Jeff would write me about it. Has Andrew gone? and how is your wrist and arm, mother? We had some very hot weather here--I don't know what I should have done without the thin grey coat you sent--you don't know how good it does, and looks too; I wore it three days, and carried a fan and an umbrella (quite a Japanee)--most everybody here carries an umbrella, on account of the sun. Yesterday and to-day however have been quite cool, east wind. Mother, the shirts were a real godsend, they do first rate; I like the fancy marseilles collar and wrist-bands. Mother, how are you getting along--I suppose just the same as ever. I suppose Jess and Ed are just the same as ever. When you write, you tell me all about everything, and the Browns, and the neighborhood generally. Mother, is George's trunk home and of no use there? I wish I had it here, as I must have a trunk--but do not wish you to send until I send you word. I suppose my letter never appeared in the _Eagle_; well, I shall send them no more, as I think likely they hate to put in anything which may celebrate me a little, even though it is just the thing they want for their paper and readers. They altered the other letter on that account, very meanly. I shall probably have letters in the N. Y. _Times_ and perhaps other papers in about a week. Mother, I have been pretty active in hospitals for the past two weeks, somewhere every day or night. I have written you so much about cases, etc., I will not write you any more on that subject this time. O the sad, sad things I see--the noble young men with legs and arms taken off--the deaths--the sick weakness, sicker than death, that some endure, after amputations (there is a great difference, some make little of it, others lie after it for days, just flickering alive, and O so deathly weak and sick). I go this afternoon to Campbell hospital, out a couple of miles. Mother, I should like to have Jeff send me 20 of the large-sized portraits and as many of the standing figure; do them up flat. I think every day about Martha. Mother, have you heard any further about Han? Good-bye for the present, dearest mother. WALT. XIII _Washington, Tuesday morning, June 9, 1863._ DEAREST MOTHER--Jeff's letter came yesterday and was very welcome, as I wanted to hear about you all. I wrote to George yesterday and sent Jeff's letter enclosed. It looks from some accounts as though the 9th Army Corps might be going down into East Tennessee (Cumberland Gap, or perhaps bound for Knoxville). It is an important region, and has many Southern Unionists. The staunchest Union man I have ever met is a young Southerner in the 2nd Tennessee (Union reg't)--he was ten months in Southern prisons; came up from Richmond paroled about ten weeks ago, and has been in hospital here sick until lately. He suffered everything but death--he is [the] one they hung up by the heels, head downwards--and indeed worse than death, but stuck to his convictions like a hero--John Barker, a real manly fellow; I saw much of him and heard much of that country that can be relied on. He is now gone home to his reg't. Mother, I am feeling very well these days--my head that was stopt up so and hard of hearing seems to be all right; I only hope you have had similar good fortune with your rheumatism, and that it will continue so. I wish I could come in for a couple of days and see you; if I should succeed in getting a transportation ticket that would take me to New York and back I should be tempted to come home for two or three days, as I want some MSS. and books, and the trunk, etc.--but I will see. Mother, your letter week before last was very good--whenever you feel like it you write me, dear mother, and tell me everything about the neighborhood and all the items of our family. And sister Mat, how is she getting along--I believe I will have to write a letter especially to her and Sis one of these times. It is awful dry weather here, no rain of any consequence for five or six weeks. We have strawberries good and plenty, 15 cents a quart, with the hulls on--I go down to market sometimes of a morning and buy two or three quarts, for the folks I take my meals with. Mother, do you know I have not paid, as you may say, a cent of board since I have been in Washington, that is for meals--four or five times I have made a rush to leave the folks and find a moderate-priced boarding-house, but every time they have made such a time about it that I have kept on. It is Mr. and Mrs. O'Connor (he is the author of "Harrington"); he has a $1600 office in the Treasury, and she is a first-rate woman, a Massachusetts girl. They keep house in a moderate way; they have one little girl (lost a fine boy about a year ago); they have two rooms in the same house where I hire my rooms, and I take breakfast (half-past 8) and dinner (half-past 4) with them, as they will have it so. That's the way it has gone on now over five months, and as I say, they won't listen to my leaving--but I shall do so, I think. I can never forget the kindness and real friendship, and it appears as though they would continue just the same, if it were for all our lives. But I have insisted on going to market (it is pleasant in the cool of the morning) and getting the things at my own expense, two or three times a week lately. I pay for the room I occupy now $7 a month--the landlord is a mixture of booby, miser, and hog; his name is G----; the landlady is a good woman, Washington raised--they are quite rich; he is Irish of the worst kind--has had a good office for ten years until Lincoln came in. They have bought another house, smaller, to live in, and are going to move (were to have moved 1st of June). They had an auction of the house we live in yesterday, but nobody came to buy, so it was ridiculous--we had a red flag out, and a nigger walked up and down ringing a big bell, which is the fashion here for auctions. Well, mother, the war still goes on, and everything as much in a fog as ever--and the battles as bloody, and the wounded and sick getting worse and plentier all the time. I see a letter in the _Tribune_ from Lexington, Ky., June 5th, headed "The 9th Army Corps departing for Vicksburg"--but I cannot exactly make it out on reading the letter carefully--I don't see anything in the letter about the 9th Corps moving from Vicksburg; at any rate I think the 2nd division is more likely to be needed in Kentucky (or as I said, in Eastern Tennessee), as the Secesh are expected to make trouble there. But one can hardly tell--the only thing is to resign oneself to events as they occur; it is a sad and dreary time, for so many thousands of parents and relatives, not knowing what will occur next. Mother, I told you, I think last week, that I had wrote to Han, and enclosed George's last letter to me--I wrote a week ago last Sunday--I wonder if she got the letter. About the pictures, I should like Jeff to send them, as soon as convenient--might send 20 of the big head, 10 or 12 of the standing figure, and 3 of the carte visite. I am writing this in Major Hapgood's office--it is bright and pleasant, only the dust here in Washington is a great nuisance. Mother, your shirts do first rate--I am wearing them; the one I have on to-day suits me better than any I have ever yet had. I have not worn the thin coat the last week or so, as it has not been very hot lately. Mother, I think something of commencing a series of lectures and reading, etc., through different cities of the North, to supply myself with funds for my hospital and soldiers' visits, as I do not like to be beholden to the medium of others. I need a pretty large supply of money, etc., to do the good I would like to, and the work grows upon me, and fascinates me--it is the most affecting thing you ever see, the lots of poor sick and wounded young men that depend so much, in one word or another, upon my petting or soothing or feeding, sitting by them and feeding them their dinner or supper--some are quite helpless, some wounded in both arms--or giving some trifle (for a novelty or a change, it isn't for the value of it), or stopping a little while with them. Nobody will do but me--so, mother, I feel as though I would like to inaugurate a plan by which I could raise means on my own hook, and perhaps quite plenty too. Best love to you, dearest mother, and to sister Mat, and Jeff. WALT. XIV _Washington, Monday morning, June 22, 1863._ DEAR MOTHER--Jeff's letter came informing me of the birth of the little girl,[15] and that Matty was feeling pretty well, so far. I hope it will continue. Dear sister, I should much like to come home and see you and the little one; I am sure from Jeff's description it is a noble babe--and as to its being a girl, it is all the better. (I am not sure but the Whitman breed gives better women than men.) Well, mother, we are generally anticipating a lively time here, or in the neighborhood, as it is probable Lee is feeling about to strike a blow on Washington, or perhaps right into it--and as Lee is no fool, it is perhaps possible he may give us a good shake. He is not very far off--yesterday was a fight to the southwest of here all day; we heard the cannons nearly all day. The wounded are arriving in small squads every day, mostly cavalry, a great many Ohio men; they send off to-day from the Washington hospitals a great many to New York, Philadelphia, etc., all who are able, to make room, which looks ominous--indeed, it is pretty certain that there is to be some severe fighting, may-be a great battle again, the pending week. I am getting so callous that it hardly arouses me at all. I fancy I should take it very quietly if I found myself in the midst of a desperate conflict here in Washington. Mother, I have nothing particular to write about--I see and hear nothing but new and old cases of my poor suffering boys in hospitals, and I dare say you have had enough of such things. I have not missed a day at hospital, I think, for more than three weeks--I get more and more wound round. Poor young men--there are some cases that would literally sink and give up if I did not pass a portion of the time with them. I have quite made up my mind about the lecturing, etc., project--I have no doubt it will succeed well enough the way I shall put it in operation. You know, mother, it is to raise funds to enable me to continue my hospital ministrations, on a more free-handed scale. As to the Sanitary commissions and the like, I am sick of them all, and would not accept any of their berths. You ought to see the way the men, as they lay helpless in bed, turn away their faces from the sight of those agents, chaplains, etc. (hirelings, as Elias Hicks would call them--they seem to me always a set of foxes and wolves). They get well paid, and are always incompetent and disagreeable; as I told you before, the only good fellows I have met are the Christian commissioners--they go everywhere and receive no pay. Dear, dear mother, I want much to see you, and dear Matty too; I send you both my best love, and Jeff too. The pictures came--I have not heard from George nor Han. I write a day earlier than usual. WALT. We here think Vicksburg is ours. The probability is that it has capitulated--and there has been no general assault--can't tell yet whether the 51st went there. We are having very fine weather here to-day--rained last night. XV _Washington, June 30th, 1863._ DEAREST MOTHER--Your letter, with Han's, I have sent to George, though whether it will find him or not I cannot tell, as I think the 51st must be away down at Vicksburg. I have not had a word from George yet. Mother, I have had quite an attack of sore throat and distress in my head for some days past, up to last night, but to-day I feel nearly all right again. I have been about the city same as usual nearly--to the hospitals, etc., I mean. I am told that I hover too much over the beds of the hospitals, with fever and putrid wounds, etc. One soldier brought here about fifteen days ago, very low with typhoid fever, Livingston Brooks, Co. B., 17th Penn. Cavalry, I have particularly stuck to, as I found him to be in what appeared to be a dying condition, from negligence and a horrible journey of about forty miles, bad roads and fast driving; and then after he got here, as he is a simple country boy, very shy and silent, and made no complaint, they neglected him. I found him something like I found John Holmes last winter. I called the doctor's attention to him, shook up the nurses, had him bathed in spirits, gave him lumps of ice, and ice to his head; he had a fearful bursting pain in his head, and his body was like fire. He was very quiet, a very sensible boy, old fashioned; he did not want to die, and I had to lie to him without stint, for he thought I knew everything, and I always put in of course that what I told him was exactly the truth, and that if he got really dangerous I would tell him and not conceal it. The rule is to remove bad fever patients out from the main wards to a tent by themselves, and the doctor told me he would have to be removed. I broke it gently to him, but the poor boy got it immediately in his head that he was marked with death, and was to be removed on that account. It had a great effect upon him, and although I told the truth this time it did not have as good a result as my former fibs. I persuaded the doctor to let him remain. For three days he lay just about an even chance, go or stay, with a little leaning toward the first. But, mother, to make a long story short, he is now out of any immediate danger. He has been perfectly rational throughout--begins to taste a little food (for a week he ate nothing; I had to compel him to take a quarter of an orange now and then), and I will say, whether anyone calls it pride or not, that if he _does_ get up and around again it's me that saved his life. Mother, as I have said in former letters, you can have no idea how these sick and dying youngsters cling to a fellow, and how fascinating it is, with all its hospital surroundings of sadness and scenes of repulsion and death. In this same hospital, Armory-square, where this cavalry boy is, I have about fifteen or twenty particular cases I see much to--some of them as much as him. There are two from East Brooklyn; George Monk, Co. A, 78th N. Y., and Stephen Redgate (his mother is a widow in East Brooklyn--I have written to her). Both are pretty badly wounded--both are youngsters under 19. O mother, it seems to me as I go through these rows of cots as if it was too bad to accept these _children_, to subject them to such premature experiences. I devote myself much to Armory-square hospital because it contains by far the worst cases, most repulsive wounds, has the most suffering and most need of consolation. I go every day without fail, and often at night--sometimes stay very late. No one interferes with me, guards, nurses, doctors, nor anyone. I am let to take my own course. Well, mother, I suppose you folks think we are in a somewhat dubious position here in Washington, with Lee in strong force almost between us and you Northerners. Well, it does look ticklish; if the Rebs cut the connection then there will be fun. The Reb cavalry come quite near us, dash in and steal wagon trains, etc.; it would be funny if they should come some night to the President's country house (Soldiers' home), where he goes out to sleep every night; it is in the same direction as their saucy raid last Sunday. Mr. Lincoln passes here (14th st.) every evening on his way out. I noticed him last evening about half-past 6--he was in his barouche, two horses, guarded by about thirty cavalry. The barouche comes first under a slow trot, driven by one man in the box, no servant or footman beside; the cavalry all follow closely after with a lieutenant at their head. I had a good view of the President last evening. He looks more careworn even than usual, his face with deep cut lines, seams, and his _complexion gray_ through very dark skin--a curious looking man, very sad. I said to a lady who was looking with me, "Who can see that man without losing all wish to be sharp upon him personally?" The lady assented, although she is almost vindictive on the course of the administration (thinks it wants nerve, etc.--the usual complaint). The equipage is rather shabby, horses indeed almost what my friends the Broadway drivers would call _old plugs_. The President dresses in plain black clothes, cylinder hat--he was alone yesterday. As he came up, he first drove over to the house of the Sec. of War, on K st., about 300 feet from here; sat in his carriage while Stanton came out and had a 15 minutes interview with him (I can see from my window), and then wheeled around the corner and up Fourteenth st., the cavalry after him. I really think it would be safer for him just now to stop at the White House, but I expect he is too proud to abandon the former custom. Then about an hour after we had a large cavalry regiment pass, with blankets, arms, etc., on the war march over the same track. The regt. was very full, over a thousand--indeed thirteen or fourteen hundred. It was an old regt., veterans, _old fighters_, young as they were. They were preceded by a fine mounted band of sixteen (about ten bugles, the rest cymbals and drums). I tell you, mother, it made everything ring--made my heart leap. They played with a will. Then the accompaniment: the sabers rattled on a thousand men's sides--they had pistols, their heels were spurred--handsome American young men (I make no acc't of any other); rude uniforms, well worn, but good cattle, prancing--all good riders, full of the devil; nobody shaved, very sunburnt. The regimental officers (splendidly mounted, but just as roughly dressed as the men) came immediately after the band, then company after company, with each its officers at its head--the tramps of so many horses (there is a good hard turnpike)--then a long train of men with led horses, mounted negroes, and a long, long string of baggage wagons, each with four horses, and then a strong rear guard. I tell you it had the look of _real war_--noble looking fellows; a man feels so proud on a good horse, and armed. They are off toward the region of Lee's (supposed) rendezvous, toward Susquehannah, for the great anticipated battle. Alas! how many of these healthy, handsome, rollicking young men will lie cold in death before the apples ripen in the orchard. Mother, it is curious and stirring here in some respects. Smaller or larger bodies of troops are moving continually--many just-well men are turned out of the hospitals. I am where I see a good deal of them. There are getting to be _many black troops_. There is one very good regt. here black as tar; they go around, have the regular uniform--they submit to no nonsense. Others are constantly forming. It is getting to be a common sight. [_The rest of the letter is lost._--ED.] XVI _Washington, July 10, 1863._ DEAR MOTHER--I suppose you rec'd a letter from me last Wednesday, as I sent you one Tuesday (7th). Dear mother, I was glad enough to hear from George, by that letter from Snyder's Bluffs, June 28th. I had felt a little fear on acc't of some of those storming parties Grant sent against Vicksburg the middle of June and up to the 20th--but this letter dispels all anxiety. I have written to George many times, but it seems he has not got them. Mother, I shall write immediately to him again. I think he will get the letter I sent last Sunday, as I directed it to Vicksburg--I told him all the news from home. Mother, I shall write to Han and enclose George's letter. I am real glad to hear from Mat and the little one, all so favorable. We are having pleasant weather here still. I go to Campbell hospital this afternoon--I still keep going, mother. The wounded are doing rather badly; I am sorry to say there are frequent deaths--the weather, I suppose, which has been peculiarly bad for wounds, so wet and warm (though not disagreeable outdoors). Mother, you must write as often as you can, and Jeff too--you must not get worried about the ups and downs of the war; I don't know any course but to resign oneself to events--if one can only bring one's mind to it. Good-bye once more, for the present, dearest mother, Mat, and the dear little ones. WALT. Mother, do you ever hear from Mary?[16] XVII _Washington, Wednesday forenoon, July 15, 1863._ DEAR MOTHER--So the mob has risen at last in New York--I have been expecting it, but as the day for the draft had arrived and everything was so quiet, I supposed all might go on smoothly; but it seems the passions of the people were only sleeping, and have burst forth with terrible fury, and they have destroyed life and property, the enrolment buildings, etc., as we hear. The accounts we get are a good deal in a muddle, but it seems bad enough. The feeling here is savage and hot as fire against New York (the mob--"Copperhead mob" the papers here call it), and I hear nothing in all directions but threats of ordering up the gunboats, cannonading the city, shooting down the mob, hanging them in a body, etc., etc. Meantime I remain silent, partly amused, partly scornful, or occasionally put a dry remark, which only adds fuel to the flame. I do not feel it in my heart to abuse the poor people, or call for a rope or bullets for them, but, that is all the talk here, even in the hospitals. The acc'ts from N. Y. this morning are that the Gov't has ordered the draft to be suspended there--I hope it is true, for I find that the deeper they go in with the draft, the more trouble it is likely to make. I have changed my opinion and feelings on the subject--we are in the midst of strange and terrible times--one is pulled a dozen different ways in his mind, and hardly knows what to think or do. Mother, I have not much fear that the troubles in New York will affect any of our family, still I feel somewhat uneasy about Jeff, if any one, as he is more around. I have had it much on my mind what could be done, if it should so happen that Jeff should be drafted--of course he could not go without its being the downfall almost of our whole family, as you may say, Mat and his young ones, and sad blow to you too, mother, and to all. I didn't see any other way than to try to raise the $300, mostly by borrowing if possible of Mr. Lane. Mother, I have no doubt I shall make a few hundred dollars by the lectures I shall certainly commence soon (for my hospital missionary purposes and my own, for that purpose), and I could lend that am't to Jeff to pay it back. May-be the draft will not come off after all; I should say it was very doubtful if they can carry it out in N. Y. and Brooklyn--and besides, it is only one chance out of several, to be drawn if it does. I don't wonder dear brother Jeff feels the effect it would have on domestic affairs; I think it is right to feel so, full as strongly as a man can. I do hope all will go well and without such an additional trouble falling upon us, but as it can be met with money, I hope Jeff and Mat and all of you, dear mother, will not worry any more about it. I wrote to Jeff a few lines last Sunday, I suppose he got. Mother, I don't know whether you have had a kind of gloomy week the past week, but somehow I feel as if you all had; but I hope it has passed over. How is dear sister Mat, and how is Miss Mannahatta, and little Black Head? I sometimes feel as if I _must_ come home and see you all--I want to very much. My hospital life still continues the same--I was in Armory all day yesterday--and day and night before. They have the men wounded in the railroad accident at Laurel station (bet. here and Baltimore), about 30 soldiers, some of them horribly injured at 3 o'clock A. M. last Saturday by collision--poor, poor, poor men. I go again this afternoon and night--I see so much of butcher sights, so much sickness and suffering, I must get away a while, I believe, for self-preservation. I have felt quite well though the past week--we have had rain continually. Mother, I have not heard from George since, have you? I shall write Han to-day and send George's letter--if you or Jeff has not written this week, I hope Jeff will write on receiving this. Good-bye for present, dearest mother, and Jeff, and Mat. WALT. Mother, the army is to be paid off two months more, right away. Of course George will get two months more pay. Dear Mother, I hope you will keep untouched and put in bank every cent you can. I want us to have a ranch somewhere by or before next spring. XVIII _Washington, Aug. 11, 1863._ DEAR MOTHER--I sent Jeff a letter on Sunday--I suppose he got it at the office. I feel so anxious to hear from George; one cannot help feeling uneasy, although these days sometimes it cannot help being long intervals without one's hearing from friends in the army. O I do hope we shall hear soon, and that it is all right with him. It seems as if the 9th Corps had returned to Vicksburg, and some acc'ts say that part of the Corps had started to come up the river again--toward Kentucky, I suppose. I have sent George two letters within a week past, hoping they might have the luck to get to him, but hardly expect it either. Mother, I feel very sorry to hear Andrew is so troubled in his throat yet. I know it must make you feel very unhappy. Jeff wrote me a good deal about it, and seems to feel very bad about Andrew's being unwell; but I hope it will go over, and that a little time will make him recover--I think about it every day. Mother, it has been the hottest weather here that I ever experienced, and still continues so. Yesterday and last night was the hottest. Still, I slept sound, have good ventilation through my room, little as it is (I still hire the same room in L street). I was quite wet with sweat this morning when I woke up, a thing I never remember to have happened to me before, for I was not disturbed in my sleep and did not wake up once all night. Mother, I believe I did not tell you that on the 1st of June (or a while before) the O'Connors, the friends I took my meals with so long, moved to other apartments for more room and pleasanter--not far off though, I am there every day almost, a little--so for nearly two months and a half I have been in the habit of getting my own breakfast in my room and my dinner at a restaurant. I have a little spirit lamp, and always have a capital cup of tea, and some bread, and perhaps some preserved fruit; for dinner I get a good plate of meat and plenty of potatoes, good and plenty for 25 or 30 cents. I hardly ever take any thing more than these two meals, both of them are pretty hearty--eat dinner about 3--my appetite is plenty good enough, and I am about as fleshy as I was in Brooklyn. Mother, I feel better the last ten days, and at present, than I did the preceding six or eight weeks. There was nothing particular the matter with me, but I suppose a different climate and being so continually in the hospitals--but as I say, I feel better, more strength, and better in my head, etc. About the wound in my hand and the inflammation, etc., it has thoroughly healed, and I have not worn anything on my hand, nor had any dressing for the last five days. Mother, I hope you get along with the heat, for I see it is as bad or worse in New York and Brooklyn--I am afraid you suffer from it; it must be distressing to you. Dear mother, do let things go, and just sit still and fan yourself. I think about you these hot days. I fancy I see you down there in the basement. I suppose you have your coffee for breakfast; I have not had three cups of coffee in six months--tea altogether (I must come home and have some coffee for breakfast with you). Mother, I wrote to you about Erastus Haskell, Co. K, 141st, N. Y.--his father, poor old man, come on here to see him and found him dead three days. He had the body embalmed and took home. They are poor folks but very respectable. I was at the hospital yesterday as usual--I never miss a day. I go by my feelings--if I should feel that it would be better for me to lay by for a while, I should do so, but not while I feel so well as I do the past week, for all the hot weather; and while the chance lasts I would improve it, for by and by the night cometh when no man can work (ain't I getting pious!). I got a letter from Probasco yesterday; he sent $4 for my sick and wounded--I wish Jeff to tell him that it came right, and give him the men's thanks and my love. Mother, have you heard anything from Han? And about Mary's Fanny--I hope you will write me soon and tell me everything, tell me exactly as things are, but I know you will--I want to hear family affairs before anything else. I am so glad to hear Mat is good and hearty--you must write me about Hat and little Black Head too. Mother, how is Eddy getting along? and Jess, is he about the same? I suppose Will Brown is home all right; tell him I spoke about him, and the Browns too. Dearest Mother, I send you my love, and to Jeff too--must write when you can. WALT. XIX _Washington, Aug. 18, 1863._ DEAR MOTHER--I was mighty glad to get George's letter, I can tell you--you have not heard since, I suppose. They must be now back again in Kentucky, or that way, as I see [by] a letter from Cairo (up the Mississippi river) that boats had stopt there with the 9th Corps on from Vicksburg, going up towards Cincinnati--I think the letter was dated Aug. 10. I have no doubt they are back again up that way somewhere. I wrote to George four or five days ago--I directed it Ohio, Mississippi, or elsewhere. Mother, I was very glad indeed to get your letter--I am so sorry Andrew does not get any better; it is very distressing about losing the voice; he must not be so much alarmed, as that continues some times years and the health otherwise good. .......... Mother, I wrote to Han about five days ago; told her we had heard from George, and all the news--I must write to Mary too, without fail--I should like to hear from them all, and from Fanny. There has been a young man here in hospital, from Farmingdale; he was wounded; his name is Hendrickson; he has gone home on a furlough; he knows the Van Nostrands very well--I told him to go and see Aunt Fanny. I was glad you gave Emma Price my direction here; I should [like] to hear from Mrs. Price and her girls first rate, I think a great deal about them--and mother, I wish you to tell any of them so; they always used me first rate, and always stuck up for me--if I knew their street and number I should write. It has been awful hot here now for twenty-one days; ain't that a spell of weather? The first two weeks I got along better than I would have thought, but the last week I have felt it more, have felt it in my head a little--I no more stir without my umbrella, in the day time, than I would without my boots. I am afraid of the sun affecting my head and move pretty cautious. Mother, I think every day, I wonder if the hot weather is affecting mother much; I suppose it must a good deal, but I hope it cannot last much longer. Mother, I had a letter in the N. Y. _Times_ of last Sunday--did you see it? I wonder if George can't get a furlough and come home for a while; that furlough he had was only a flea-bite. If he could it would be no more than right, for no man in the country has done his duty more faithful, and without complaining of anything or asking for anything, than George. I suppose they will fill up the 51st with conscripts, as that seems the order of the day--a good many are arriving here, from the North, and passing through to join Meade's army. We are expecting to hear of more rows in New York about the draft; it commences there right away I see--this time it will be no such doings as a month or five weeks ago; the Gov't here is forwarding a large force of regulars to New York to be ready for anything that may happen--there will be no blank cartridges this time. Well, I thought when I first heard of the riot in N. Y. I had some feeling for them, but soon as I found what it really was, I felt it was the devil's own work all through. I guess the strong arm will be exhibited this time up to the shoulder. Mother, I want to see you and all very much. As I wish to be here at the opening of Congress, and during the winter, I have an idea I will try to come home for a month, but I don't know when--I want to see the young ones and Mat and Jeff and everybody. Well, mother, I should like to know all the domestic affairs at home; don't you have the usual things eating, etc.? Why, mother, I should think you would eat nearly all your meals with Mat--I know you must when they have anything good (and I know Mat will have good things if she has got a cent left). Mother, don't you miss _Walt_ loafing around, and carting himself off to New York toward the latter part of every afternoon? How do you and the Browns get along?--that hell hole over the way, what a nuisance it must be nights, and I generally have a very good sleep. Mother, I suppose you sleep in the back room yet--I suppose the new houses next door are occupied. How I should like to take a walk on old Fort Greene--tell Mannahatta her Uncle Walt will be home yet, from the sick soldiers, and have a good walk all around, if she behaves to her grandmother and don't cut up. Mother, I am scribbling this hastily in Major Hapgood's office; it is not so hot to-day, quite endurable. I send you my love, dear mother, and to all, and wish Jeff and you to write as often as you can. WALT. XX _Washington, Aug. 25, 1863._ DEAR MOTHER--The letter from George, and your lines, and a few from Jeff came yesterday, and I was glad indeed to be certain that George had got back to Kentucky safe and well--while so many fall that we know, or, what is about as bad, get sick or hurt in the fight, and lay in hospital, it seems almost a miracle that George should have gone through so much, South and North and East and West, and been in so many hard-fought battles, and thousands of miles of weary and exhausting marches, and yet have stood it so, and be yet alive and in good health and spirits. O mother, what would we [have] done if it had been otherwise--if he had met the fate of so many we know--if he had been killed or badly hurt in some of those battles? I get thinking about it sometimes, and it works upon me so I have to stop and turn my mind on something else. Mother, I feel bad enough about Andrew, and I know it must be so with you too--one don't know what to do; if we had money he would be welcome to it, if it would do any good. If George's money comes from Kentucky this last time, and you think some of it would do Andrew any real good, I advise you to take some and give him--I think it would be proper and George would approve of it. I believe there is not much but trouble in this world, and if one hasn't any for himself he has it made up by having it brought close to him through others, and that is sometimes worse than to have it touch one's self. Mother, you must not let Andrew's case and the poor condition of his household comforts, etc., work upon you, for I fear you will--but, mother, it's no use to worry about such things. I have seen so much horrors that befall men (so bad and such suffering and mutilations, etc., that the poor men can defy their fate to do anything more or any harder misfortune or worse a-going) that I sometimes think I have grown callous--but no, I don't think it is that, but nothing of ordinary misfortune seems as it used to, and death itself has lost all its terrors--I have seen so many cases in which it was so welcome and such a relief. Mother, you must just resign yourself to things that occur--but I hardly think it is necessary to give you any charge about it, for I think you have done so for many years, and stood it all with good courage. We have a second attack of hot weather--Sunday was the most burning day I ever yet saw. It is very dry and dusty here, but to-day we are having a middling good breeze--I feel pretty well, and whenever the weather for a day or so is passably cool I feel really first rate, so I anticipate the cooler season with pleasure. Mother, I believe I wrote to you I had a letter in N. Y. _Times_, Sunday, 16th--I shall try to write others and more frequently. The three _Eagles_ came safe; I was glad to get them--I sent them and another paper to George. Mother, none of you ever mention whether you get my letters, but I suppose they come safe--it is not impossible I may miss some week, but I have not missed a single one for months past. I wish I could send you something worth while, and I wish I could send something for Andrew--mother, write me exactly how it is with him.... Mother, I have some idea Han is getting some better; it is only my idea somehow--I hope it is so from the bottom of my heart. Did you hear from Mary's Fanny since? And how are Mat's girls? So, Mannahatta, you tear Uncle George's letters, do you? You mustn't do so, little girl, nor Uncle Walt's either; but when you get to be a big girl you must have them all nice, and read them, for Grandmother will perhaps leave them to you in her will, if you behave like a lady. Matty, my dear sister, how are you getting along? I really want to see you bad, and the baby too--well, may-be we shall all come together and have some good times yet. Jeff, I hope by next week this time we shall be in possession of Charleston--some papers say Burnside is moving for Knoxville, but it is doubtful--I think the 9th Corps might take a rest awhile, anyhow. Good-bye, mother. WALT. XXI _Washington, Sept. 1, 1863._ DEAR MOTHER--I have been thinking to-day and all yesterday about the draft in Brooklyn, and whether Jeff would be drafted; you must some of you write me just as soon as you get this--I want to know; I feel anxious enough I can tell you--and besides, it seems a good while since I have received any letters from home. Of course it is impossible for Jeff to go, in case it should turn out he was drafted--the way our family is all situated now, it would be madness. If the Common Council raise the money to exempt men with families dependent on them, I think Jeff ought to have no scruples in taking advantage of it, as I think he is in duty bound--but we will see what course to take, when we know the result, etc.; write about it right away. The _Eagles_ came; this is the second time; I am glad to get them--Jeff, wait till you get four or five, and then send them with a two-cent stamp. I have not had any letter from George. Mother, have you heard anything? did the money come? Dear mother, how are you nowadays? I do hope you feel well and in good spirits--I think about you every day of my life out here. Sometimes I see women in the hospitals, mothers come to see their sons, and occasionally one that makes me think of my dear mother--one did very much, a lady about 60, from Pennsylvania, come to see her son, a captain, very badly wounded and his wound gangrened, and they after a while removed him to a tent by himself. Another son of hers, a young man, came with her to see his brother. She was a pretty full-sized lady, with spectacles; she dressed in black--looked real Velsory.[17] I got very well acquainted with her; she had a real Long Island old-fashioned way--but I had to avoid the poor captain, as it was that time that my hand was cut in the artery, and I was liable to gangrene myself--but she and the two sons have gone home now, but I doubt whether the wounded one is alive, as he was very low. Mother, I want to hear about Andrew too, whether he went to Rockland lake. You have no idea how many soldiers there are who have lost their voices, and have to speak in whispers--there are a great many, I meet some almost every day; as far as that alone is concerned, Andrew must not be discouraged, as the general health may be good as common irrespective of that. I do hope Andrew will get along better than he thinks for--it is bad enough for a poor man to be out of health even partially, but he must try to look on the bright side. Mother, have you heard anything from Han since, or from Mary's folks? I got a letter from Mrs. Price last week; if you see Emma tell her I was pleased to get it, and shall answer it very soon. Mother, I have sent another letter to the N. Y. _Times_--it may appear, if not to-day, within a few days. I am feeling excellent well these days, it is so moderate and pleasant weather now; I was getting real exhausted with the heat. I thought of you too, how it must have exhausted you those hot days. I still occupy the same 3rd story room, 394 L st., and get my breakfast in my room in the morning myself, and dinner at a restaurant about 3 o'clock--I get along very well and very economical (which is a forced put, but just as well). But I must get another room or a boarding-house soon, as the folks are all going to move this month. My good and real friends the O'Connors live in the same block; I am in there every day. Dear mother, tell Mat and Miss Mannahatta I send them my love--I want to see them both. O how I want to see Jeff and you, mother; I sometimes feel as if I should just get in the cars and come home--and the baby too, you must always write about her. Dear mother, good-bye for present. WALT. XXII _Washington, Sept. 8, 1863, Tuesday morning._ DEAREST MOTHER--I wrote to Jeff Sunday last that his letter sent Sept. 3rd, containing your letter and $5 from Mr. Lane, had miscarried--this morning when I came down to Major Hapgood's office I found it on my table, so it is all right--singular where it has been all this while, as I see the postmark on it is Brooklyn, Sept. 3, as Jeff said. Mother, what to do about Andrew I hardly know--as it is I feel about as much pity for you as I do for my poor brother Andrew, for I know you will worry yourself about him all the time. I was in hopes it was only the trouble about the voice, etc., but I see I was mistaken, and it is probably worse. I know you and Jeff and Mat will do all you can--and will have patience with all (it is not only the sick who are poorly off, but their friends; but it is best to have the greatest forbearance, and do and give, etc., whatever one can--but you know that, and practice it too, dear mother). Mother, if I had the means, O how cheerfully I would give them, whether they availed anything for Andrew or not--yet I have long made up my mind that money does not amount to so much, at least not so very much, in serious cases of sickness; it is judgment both in the person himself, and in those he has to do with--and good heart in everything. (Mother, you remember Theodore Gould, how he stuck it out, though sickness and death has had hold of him, as you may say, for fifteen years.) But anyhow, I hope we will all do what we can for Andrew. Mother, I think I must try to come home for a month--I have not given up my project of lecturing I spoke about before, but shall put it in practice yet; I feel clear it will succeed enough. (I wish I had some of the money already; it would be satisfaction to me to contribute something to Andrew's necessities, for he must have bread.) I will write to you, of course, before I come. Mother, I hope you will live better--Jeff tells me you and Jess and Ed live on poor stuff, you are so economical. Mother, you mustn't do so as long as you have a cent--I hope you will, at least four or five times a week, have a steak of beef or mutton, or something substantial for dinner. I have one good meal of that kind every day, or at least five or six days out of the seven--but for breakfast I have nothing but a cup of tea and some bread or crackers (first-rate tea though, with milk and good white sugar). Well, I find it is hearty enough--more than half the time I never eat anything after dinner, and when I do it is only a cracker and cup of tea. Mother, I hope you will not stint yourselves--as to using George's money for your and Jess's and Ed's needful living expenses, I know George would be mad and hurt in his feelings if he thought you was afraid to. Mother, you have a comfortable time as much as you can, and get a steak occasionally, won't you? I suppose Mat got her letter last Saturday; I sent it Friday. O I was so pleased that Jeff was not drawn, and I know how Mat must have felt too; I have no idea the Government will try to draft again, whatever happens--they have carried their point, but have not made much out of it. O how the conscripts and substitutes are deserting down in front and on their way there--you don't hear anything about it, but it is incredible--they don't allow it to get in the papers. Mother, I was so glad to get your letter; you must write again--can't you write to-morrow, so I can get it Friday or Saturday?--you know though you wrote more than a week ago I did not get it till this morning. I wish Jeff to write too, as often as he can. Mother, I was gratified to hear you went up among the soldiers--they are rude in appearance, but they know what is decent, and it pleases them much to have folks, even old women, take an interest and come among them. Mother, you must go again, and take Mat. Well, dear mother, I must close. I am first rate in health, so much better than a month and two months ago--my hand has entirely healed. I go to hospital every day or night--I believe no men ever loved each other as I and some of these poor wounded sick and dying men love each other. Good-bye, dearest mother, for present. WALT. _Tuesday afternoon._ Mother, it seems to be certain that Meade has gained the day, and that the battles there in Pennsylvania have been about as terrible as any in the war--I think the killed and wounded there on both sides were as many as eighteen or twenty thousand--in one place, four or five acres, there were a thousand dead at daybreak on Saturday morning. Mother, one's heart grows sick of war, after all, when you see what it really is; every once in a while I feel so horrified and disgusted--it seems to me like a great slaughter-house and the men mutually butchering each other--then I feel how impossible it appears, again, to retire from this contest, until we have carried our points (it is cruel to be so tossed from pillar to post in one's judgment). Washington is a pleasant place in some respects--it has the finest trees, and plenty of them everywhere, on the streets and grounds. The Capitol grounds, though small, have the finest cultivated trees I ever see--there is a great variety, and not one but is in perfect condition. After I finish this letter I am going out there for an hour's recreation. The great sights of Washington are the public buildings, the wide streets, the public grounds, the trees, the Smithsonian institute and grounds. I go to the latter occasionally--the institute is an old fogy concern, but the grounds are fine. Sometimes I go up to Georgetown, about two and a half miles up the Potomac, an old town--just opposite it in the river is an island, where the niggers have their first Washington reg't encamped. They make a good show, are often seen in the streets of Washington in squads. Since they have begun to carry arms, the Secesh here and in Georgetown (about three fifths) are not insulting to them as formerly. One of the things here always on the go is long trains of army wagons--sometimes they will stream along all day; it almost seems as if there was nothing else but army wagons and ambulances. They have great camps here in every direction, of army wagons, teamsters, ambulance camps, etc.; some of them are permanent, and have small hospitals. I go to them (as no one else goes; ladies would not venture). I sometimes have the luck to give some of the drivers a great deal of comfort and help. Indeed, mother, there are camps here of everything--I went once or twice to the contraband camp, to the hospital, etc., but I could not bring myself to go again--when I meet black men or boys among my own hospitals, I use them kindly, give them something, etc.--I believe I told you that I do the same to the wounded Rebels, too--but as there is a limit to one's sinews and endurance and sympathies, etc., I have got in the way, after going lightly, as it were, all through the wards of a hospital, and trying to give a word of cheer, if nothing else, to every one, then confining my special attentions to the few where the investment seems to tell best, and who want it most. Mother, I have real pride in telling you that I have the consciousness of saving quite a number of lives by saving them from giving up--and being a good deal with them; the men say it is so, and the doctors say it is so--and I will candidly confess I can see it is true, though I say it of myself. I know you will like to hear it, mother, so I tell you. I am finishing this in Major Hapgood's office, about 1 o'clock--it is pretty warm, but has not cleared off yet. The trees look so well from where I am, and the Potomac--it is a noble river; I see it several miles, and the Arlington heights. Mother, I see some of the 47th Brooklyn every day or two; the reg't is on the heights back of Arlington house, a fine camp ground. O Matty, I have just thought of you--dear sister, how are you getting along? Jeff, I will write you truly. Good-bye for the present, dearest mother, and all. WALT. XXIII _Washington, Sept. 15, 1863._ DEAR MOTHER--Your letters were very acceptable--one came just as I was putting my last in the post office--I guess they all come right. I have written to Han and George and sent George papers. Mother, have you heard anything whether the 51st went on with Burnside, or did they remain as a reserve in Kentucky? Burnside has managed splendidly so far, his taking Knoxville and all together--it is a first-class success. I have known Tennessee Union men here in hospital, and I understand it, therefore--the region where Knoxville is is mainly Union, but the Southerners could not exist without it, as it is in their midst, so they determined to pound and kill and crush out the Unionists--all the savage and monstrous things printed in the papers about their treatment are true, at least that kind of thing is, as bad as the Irish in the mob treated the poor niggers in New York. We North don't understand some things about Southerners; it is very strange, the contrast--if I should pick out the most genuine Union men and real patriots I have ever met in all my experience, I should pick out two or three Tennessee and Virginia Unionists I have met in the hospitals, wounded or sick. One young man I guess I have mentioned to you in my letters, John Barker, 2nd Tennessee Vol. (Union), was a long while a prisoner in Secesh prisons in Georgia, and in Richmond--three times the devils hung him up by the heels to make him promise to give up his Unionism; once he was cut down for dead. He is a young married man with one child. His little property destroyed, his wife and child turned out--he hunted and tormented--and any moment he could have had anything if he would join the Confederacy--but he was firm as a rock; he would not even take an oath to not fight for either side. They held him about eight months--then he was very sick, scurvy, and they exchanged him and he came up from Richmond here to hospital; here I got acquainted with him. He is a large, slow, good-natured man, somehow made me often think of father; shrewd, very little to say--wouldn't talk to anybody but me. His whole thought was to get back and fight; he was not fit to go, but he has gone back to Tennessee. He spent two days with his wife and young one there, and then to his regiment--he writes to me frequently and I to him; he is not fit to soldier, for the Rebels have destroyed his health and strength (though he is only 23 or 4), but nothing will keep him from his regiment, and fighting--he is uneducated, but as sensible a young man as I ever met, and understands the whole question. Well, mother, Jack Barker is the most genuine Union man I have ever yet met. I asked him once very gravely why he didn't take the Southern oath and get his liberty--if he didn't think he was foolish to be so stiff, etc. I never saw such a look as he gave me, he thought I was in earnest--the old devil himself couldn't have had put a worse look in his eyes. Mother, I have no doubt there are quite a good many just such men. He is down there with his regiment (one of his brothers was killed)--when he fails in strength he gets the colonel to detach him to do teamster's duty for a few days, on a march till he recruits his strength--but he always carries his gun with him--in a battle he is always in the ranks--then he is so sensible, such decent manly ways, nothing shallow or mean (he must have been a giant in health, but now he is weaker, has a cough too). Mother, can you wonder at my getting so attached to such men, with such love, especially when they show it to me--some of them on their dying beds, and in the very hour of death, or just the same when they recover, or partially recover? I never knew what American young men were till I have been in the hospitals. Well, mother, I have got writing on--there is nothing new with me, just the same old thing, as I suppose it is with you there. Mother, how is Andrew? I wish to hear all about him--I do hope he is better, and that it will not prove anything so bad. I will write to him soon myself, but in the meantime you must tell him to not put so much faith in medicine--drugs, I mean--as in the true curative things; namely, diet and careful habits, breathing good air, etc. You know I wrote in a former letter what is the cause and foundation of the diseases of the throat and what must be the remedy that goes to the bottom of the thing--sudden attacks are to be treated with applications and medicines, but diseases of a seated character are not to be cured by them, only perhaps a little relieved (and often aggravated, made firmer). Dearest mother, I hope you yourself are well, and getting along good. About the letter in the _Times_, I see ever since I sent they have been very crowded with news that must be printed--I think they will give it yet. I hear there is a new paper in Brooklyn, or to be one--I wish Jeff would send me some of the first numbers without fail, and a stray _Eagle_ in same parcel to make up the 4 ounces. I am glad to hear Mat was going to write me a good long letter--every letter from home is so good, when one is away (I often see the men crying in the hospital when they get a letter). Jeff too, I want him to write whenever he can, and not forget the new paper. We are having pleasant weather here; it is such a relief from that awful heat (I can't think of another such siege without feeling sick at the thought). Mother, I believe I told you I had written to Mrs. Price--do you see Emma? Are the soldiers still on Fort Greene? Well, mother, I have writ quite a letter--it is between 2 and 3 o'clock--I am in Major Hapgood's all alone--from my window I see all the Potomac, and all around Washington--Major and all gone down to the army to pay troops, and I keep house. I am invited to dinner to-day at 4 o'clock at a Mr. Boyle's--I am going (hope we shall have something good). Dear mother, I send you my love, and some to Jeff and Mat and all, not forgetting Mannahatta (who I hope is a help and comfort to her grandmother). Well, I must scratch off in a hurry, for it is nearly an hour [later] than I thought. Good-bye for the present, dear mother. WALT. XXIV _Washington, Sept. 29, 1863._ DEAR MOTHER--Well, here I sit this forenoon in a corner by the window in Major Hapgood's office, all the Potomac, and Maryland, and Virginia hills in sight, writing my Tuesday letter to you, dearest mother. Major has gone home to Boston on sick leave, and only the clerk and me occupy the office, and he not much of the time. At the present moment there are two wounded officers come in to get their pay--one has crutches; the other is drest in the light-blue uniform of the invalid corps. Way up here on the 5th floor it is pretty hard scratching for cripples and very weak men to journey up here--often they come up here very weary and faint, and then find out they can't get their money, some red-tape hitch, and the poor soldiers look so disappointed--it always makes me feel bad. Mother, we are having perfect weather here nowadays, both night and day. The nights are wonderful; for the last three nights as I have walked home from the hospital pretty late, it has seemed to me like a dream, the moon and sky ahead of anything I ever see before. Mother, do you hear anything from George? I wrote to him yesterday and sent him your last letter, and Jeff's enclosed--I shall send him some papers to-day--I send him papers quite often. (Why hasn't Jeff sent me the _Union_ with my letter in? I want much to see it, and whether they have misprinted it.) Mother, I don't think the 51st has been in any of the fighting we know of down there yet--what is to come of course nobody can tell. As to Burnside, I suppose you know he is among his _friends_, and I think this quite important, for such the main body of East Tennesseans are, and are far truer Americans anyhow than the Copperheads of the North. The Tennesseans will fight for us too. Mother, you have no idea how the soldiers, sick, etc. (I mean the American ones, to a man) all feel about the Copperheads; they never speak of them without a curse, and I hear them say, with an air that shows they mean it, they would shoot them sooner than they would a Rebel. Mother, the troops from Meade's army are passing through here night and day, going West and so down to reinforce Rosecrans I suppose--the papers are not permitted to mention it, but it is so. Two Army Corps, I should think, have mostly passed--they go through night and day--I hear the whistle of the locomotive screaming away any time at night when I wake up, and the rumbling of the trains. Mother dear, you must write to me soon, and so must Jeff. I thought Mat was going to send me a great long letter--I am always looking for it; I hope it will be full of everything about family matters and doings, and how everybody really is. I go to Major's box three or four times a day. I want to hear also about Andrew, and indeed about every one of you and everything--nothing is too trifling, nothing uninteresting. O mother, who do you think I got a letter from, two or three days ago? Aunt Fanny, Ansel's mother--she sent it by a young man, a wounded soldier who has been home to Farmingdale on furlough, and lately returned. She writes a first-rate letter, Quaker all over--I shall answer it. She says Mary and Ansel and all are well. I have received another letter from Mrs. Price--she has not good health. I am sorry for her from my heart; she is a good, noble woman, no better kind. Mother, I am in the hospitals as usual--I stand it better the last three weeks than ever before--I go among the worst fevers and wounds with impunity. I go among the smallpox, etc., just the same--I feel to go without apprehension, and so I go. Nobody else goes; and as the darkey said there at Charleston when the boat run on a flat and the Reb sharpshooters were peppering them, "somebody must jump in de water and shove de boat off." WALT. XXV _Washington, Oct. 6, 1863._ DEAREST MOTHER--Your letter and George's came safe--dear brother George, one don't more than get a letter from him before you want to hear again, especially as things are looking pretty stormy that way--but mother, I rather lean to the opinion that the 51st is still in Kentucky, at or near where George last wrote; but of course that is only my guess. I send George papers and occasionally letters. Mother, I sent him enclosed your letter before the last, though you said in it not to tell him how much money he had home, as you wanted to surprise him; but I sent it. Mother, I think Rosecrans and Burnside will be too much for the Rebels down there yet. I myself make a great acc't of Burnside being in the midst of _friends_, and such friends too--they will fight and fight up to the handle, and kill somebody (it seems as if it was coming to that pass where we will either have to destroy or be destroyed). Mother, I wish you would write soon after you get this, or Jeff or Mat must, and tell me about Andrew, if there is anything different with him--I think about him every day and night. I believe I must come home, even if it is only for a week--I want to see you all very much. Mother, I know you must have a great deal to harass and trouble you; I don't mean about Andrew personally, for I know you would feel to give your life to save his, and do anything to nourish him, but about the children and Nancy--but, mother, you must not let anything chafe you, and you must not be squeamish about saying firmly at times not to have little Georgy too much to trouble you (poor little fellow, I have no doubt he will be a pleasanter child when he grows older); and while you are pleasant with Nancy you must be sufficiently plain with her--only, mother, I know you will, and Jeff and Mat will too, be invariably good to Andrew, and not mind his being irritable at times; it is his disease, and then his temper is naturally fretful, but it is such a misfortune to have such sickness--and always do anything for him that you can in reason. Mat, my dear sister, I know you will, for I know your nature is to come out a first-class girl in times of trouble and sickness, and do anything. Mother, you don't know how pleased I was to read what you wrote about little Sis. I want to see her so bad I don't know what to do; I know she must be just the best young one on Long Island--but I hope it will not be understood as meaning any slight or disrespect to Miss Hat, nor to put her nose out of joint, because Uncle Walt, I hope, has heart and gizzard big enough for both his little nieces and as many more as the Lord may send. Mother, I am writing this in Major Hapgood's office, as usual. I am all alone to-day--Major is still absent, unwell, and the clerk is away somewhere. O how pleasant it is here--the weather I mean--and other things too, for that matter. I still occupy my little room, 394 L st.; get my own breakfast there; had good tea this morning, and some nice biscuit (yesterday morning and day before had peaches cut up). My friends the O'Connors that I wrote about recommenced cooking the 1st of this month (they have been, as usual in summer, taking their meals at a family hotel near by). Saturday they sent for me to breakfast, and Sunday I eat dinner with them--very good dinner, roast beef, lima beans, good potatoes, etc. They are truly friends to me. I still get my dinner at a restaurant usually. I have a very good plain dinner, which is the only meal of any account I make during the day; but it is just as well, for I would be in danger of getting fat on the least encouragement, and I have no ambition that way. Mother, it is lucky I like Washington in many respects, and that things are upon the whole pleasant personally, for every day of my life I see enough to make one's heart ache with sympathy and anguish here in the hospitals, and I do not know as I could stand it if it was not counterbalanced outside. It is curious, when I am present at the most appalling things--deaths, operations, sickening wounds (perhaps full of maggots)--I do not fail, although my sympathies are very much excited, but keep singularly cool; but often hours afterward, perhaps when I am home or out walking alone, I feel sick and actually tremble when I recall the thing and have it in my mind again before me. Mother, did you see my letter in the N. Y. _Times_ of Sunday, Oct. 4? That was the long-delayed letter. Mother, I am very sorry Jeff did not send me the _Union_ with my letter in--I wish very much he could do so yet; and always when I have a letter in a paper I would like to have one sent. If you take the _Union_, send me some once in a while. Mother, was it Will Brown sent me those? Tell him if so I was much obliged; and if he or Mr. and Mrs. Brown take any interest in hearing my scribblings, mother, you let them read the letters, of course. O, I must not close without telling you the highly important intelligence that I have cut my hair and beard--since the event Rosecrans, Charleston, etc., etc., have among my acquaintances been hardly mentioned, being insignificant themes in comparison. Jeff, my dearest brother, I have been going to write you a good gossipy letter for two or three weeks past; will try to yet, so it will reach you for Sunday reading--so good-bye, Jeff, and good-bye for present, mother dear, and all, and tell Andrew he must not be discouraged yet. WALT. XXVI _Washington, Oct. 11, 1863._ DEAR FRIEND[18]--Your letters were both received, and were indeed welcome. Don't mind my not answering them promptly, for you know what a wretch I am about such things. But you must write just as often as you conveniently can. Tell me all about your folks, especially the girls, and about Mr. A. Of course you won't forget Arthur,[19] and always when you write to him send my love. Tell me about Mrs. U. and the dear little rogues. Tell Mrs. B. she ought to be here, hospital matron, only it is a harder pull than folks anticipate. You wrote about Emma;[20] she thinks she might and ought to come as nurse for the soldiers. Dear girl, I know it would be a blessed thing for the men to have her loving spirit and hand, and whoever of the poor fellows had them would indeed think it so. But, my darling, it is a dreadful thing--you don't know these wounds, sickness, etc., the sad condition in which many of the men are brought here, and remain for days; sometimes the wounds full of crawling corruption, etc. Down in the field-hospitals in front they have no proper care (can't have), and after a battle go for many days unattended to. Abby, I think often about you and the pleasant days, the visits I used to pay you, and how good it was always to be made so welcome. O, I wish I could come in this afternoon and have a good tea with you, and have three or four hours of mutual comfort, and rest and talk, and be all of us together again. Is Helen home and well? and what is she doing now? And you, my dear friend, how sorry I am to hear that your health is not rugged--but, dear Abby, you must not dwell on anticipations of the worst (but I know that is not your nature, or did not use to be). I hope this will find you quite well and in good spirits. I feel so well myself--I will have to come and see you, I think--I am so fat, out considerable in the open air, and all red and tanned worse than ever. You see, therefore, that my life amid these sad and death-stricken hospitals has not told upon me, for I am this fall so running over with health, and I feel as if I ought to go on, on that account, working among all the sick and deficient; and O how gladly I would bestow upon you a liberal share of my health, dear Abby, if such a thing were possible. I am continually moving around among the hospitals. One I go to oftenest the last three months is "Armory-square," as it is large, generally full of the worst wounds and sickness, and is among the least visited. To this or some other I never miss a day or evening. I am enabled to give the men something, and perhaps some trifle to their supper all around. Then there are always special cases calling for something special. Above all the poor boys welcome magnetic friendship, personality (some are so fervent, so hungering for this)--poor fellows, how young they are, lying there with their pale faces, and that mute look in their eyes. O, how one gets to love them--often, particular cases, so suffering, so good, so manly and affectionate! Abby, you would all smile to see me among them--many of them like children. Ceremony is mostly discarded--they suffer and get exhausted and so weary--not a few are on their dying beds--lots of them have grown to expect, as I leave at night, that we should kiss each other, sometimes quite a number; I have to go round, poor boys. There is little petting in a soldier's life in the field, but, Abby, I know what is in their hearts, always waiting, though they may be unconscious of it themselves. I have a place where I buy very nice homemade biscuits, sweet crackers, etc. Among others, one of my ways is to get a good lot of these, and, for supper, go through a couple of wards and give a portion to each man--next day two wards more, and so on. Then each marked case needs something to itself. I spend my evenings altogether at the hospitals--my days often. I give little gifts of money in small sums, which I am enabled to do--all sorts of things indeed, food, clothing, letter-stamps (I write lots of letters), now and then a good pair of crutches, etc., etc. Then I read to the boys. The whole ward that can walk gathers around me and listens. All this I tell you, my dear, because I know it will interest you. I like Washington very well. (Did you see my last letter in the New York _Times_ of October 4th, Sunday?) I have three or four hours' work every day copying, and in writing letters for the press, etc.; make enough to pay my way--live in an inexpensive manner anyhow. I like the mission I am on here, and as it deeply holds me I shall continue. _October 15._ Well, Abby, I guess I send you letter enough. I ought to have finished and sent off the letter last Sunday, when it was written. I have been pretty busy. We are having new arrivals of wounded and sick now all the time--some very bad cases. Abby, should you come across any one who feels to help contribute to the men through me, write me. (I may then send word some purchases I should find acceptable for the men). But this only if it happens to come in that you know or meet any one, perfectly convenient. Abby, I have found some good friends here, a few, but true as steel--W. D. O'Connor and wife above all. He is a clerk in the Treasury--she is a Yankee girl. Then C. W. Eldridge[21] in Paymaster's Department. He is a Boston boy, too--their friendship has been unswerving. In the hospitals, among these American young men, I could not describe to you what mutual attachments, and how passing deep and tender these boys. Some have died, but the love for them lives as long as I draw breath. These soldiers know how to love too, when once they have the right person and the right love offered them. It is wonderful. You see I am running off into the clouds, but this is my element. Abby, I am writing this note this afternoon in Major H's office--he is away sick--I am here a good deal of the time alone. It is a dark rainy afternoon--we don't know what is going on down in front, whether Meade is getting the worst of it or not--(but the result of the big elections cheers us). I believe fully in Lincoln--few know the rocks and quicksands he has to steer through. I enclose you a note Mrs. O'C. handed me to send you--written, I suppose, upon impulse. She is a noble Massachusetts woman, is not very rugged in health--I am there very much--her husband and I are great friends too. Well, I will close--the rain is pouring, the sky leaden, it is between 2 and 3. I am going to get some dinner, and then to the hospital. Good-bye, dear friends, and I send my love to all. WALT. XXVII _Washington, Oct. 13, 1863._ DEAREST MOTHER--Nothing particular new with me. I am well and hearty--think a good deal about home. Mother, I so much want to see you, even if only for a couple of weeks, for I feel I must return here and continue my hospital operations. They are so much needed, although one can do only such a little in comparison, amid these thousands. Then I desire much to see Andrew. I wonder if I could cheer him up any. Does he get any good from that treatment with the baths, etc.? Mother, I suppose you have your hands full with Nancy's poor little children, and one worry and another (when one gets old little things bother a great deal). Mother, I go down every day looking for a letter from you or Jeff--I had two from Jeff latter part of the week. I want to see Jeff much. I wonder why he didn't send me the _Union_ with my letter in; I am disappointed at not getting it. I sent Han a N. Y. _Times_ with my last letter, and one to George too. Have you heard anything from George or Han? There is a new lot of wounded now again. They have been arriving sick and wounded for three days--first long strings of ambulances with the sick, but yesterday many with bad and bloody wounds, poor fellows. I thought I was cooler and more used to it, but the sight of some of them brought tears into my eyes. Mother, I had the good luck yesterday to do quite a great deal of good. I had provided a lot of nourishing things for the men, but for another quarter--but I had them where I could use them immediately for these new wounded as they came in faint and hungry, and fagged out with a long rough journey, all dirty and torn, and many pale as ashes and all bloody. I distributed all my stores, gave partly to the nurses I knew that were just taking charge of them--and as many as I could I fed myself. Then besides I found a lot of oyster soup handy, and I procured it all at once. Mother, it is the most pitiful sight, I think, when first the men are brought in. I have to bustle round, to keep from crying--they are such rugged young men--all these just arrived are cavalry men. Our troops got the worst of it, but fought like devils. Our men engaged were Kilpatrick's Cavalry. They were in the rear as part of Meade's retreat, and the Reb cavalry cut in between and cut them off and attacked them and shelled them terribly. But Kilpatrick brought them out mostly--this was last Sunday. Mother, I will try to come home before long, if only for six or eight days. I wish to see you, and Andrew--I wish to see the young ones; and Mat, you must write. I am about moving. I have been hunting for a room to-day--I shall [write] next [time] how I succeed. Good-bye for present, dear mother. WALT. XXVIII _Washington, Oct. 20, 1863._ DEAREST MOTHER--I got your last letter Sunday morning, though it was dated Thursday night. Mother, I suppose you got a letter from me Saturday last, as I sent one the day before, as I was concerned about Andrew. If I thought it would be any benefit to Andrew I should certainly leave everything else and come back to Brooklyn. Mother, do you recollect what I wrote last summer about throat diseases, when Andrew was first pretty bad? Well, that's the whole groundwork of the business; any true physician would confirm it. There is no great charm about such things; as to any costly and mysterious baths, there are no better baths than warm water, or vapor (and perhaps sulphur vapor). There is nothing costly or difficult about them; one can have a very good sweating bath, at a pinch, by having a pan of warm water under a chair with a couple of blankets around him to enclose the vapor, and heating a couple of bricks or stones or anything to put in one after another, and sitting on the chair--it is a very wholesome sweat, too, and not to be sneezed at if one wishes to do what is salutary, and thinks of the sense of a thing, and not what others do. Andrew mustn't be discouraged; those diseases are painful and tedious, but he can recover, and will yet. Dear mother, I sent your last letter to George, with a short one I wrote myself. I sent it yesterday. I sent a letter last Wednesday (14th) to him also, hoping that if one don't reach him another will. Hasn't Jeff seen Capt. Sims or Lieut. McReady yet, and don't they hear whether the 51st is near Nicholasville, Kentucky, yet? I send George papers now and then. Mother, one of your letters contains part of my letter to the _Union_ (I wish I could have got the whole of it). It seems to me mostly as I intended it, barring a few slight misprints. Was my last name signed at the bottom of it? Tell me when you write next. Dear mother, I am real sorry, and mad too, that the water works people have cut Jeff's wages down to $50; this is a pretty time to cut a man's wages down, the mean old punkin heads. Mother, I can't understand it at all; tell me more of the particulars. Jeff, I often wish you was on here; you would be better appreciated--there are big salaries paid here sometimes to civil engineers. Jeff, I know a fellow, E. C. Stedman; has been here till lately; is now in Wall street. He is poor, but he is in with the big bankers, Hallett & Co., who are in with Fremont in his line of Pacific railroad. I can get his (Stedman's) address, and should you wish it any time I will give you a letter to him. I shouldn't wonder if the big men, with Fremont at head, were going to push their route works, road, etc., etc., in earnest, and if a fellow could get a good managing place in it, why it might be worth while. I think after Jeff has been with the Brooklyn w[ater] w[orks] from the beginning, and so faithful and so really valuable, to put down to $50--the mean, low-lived old shoats! I have felt as indignant about it, the meanness of the thing, and mighty inconvenient, too--$40 a month makes a big difference. Mother, I hope Jeff won't get and keep himself in a perpetual fever, with all these things and others and botherations, both family and business ones. If he does, he will just wear himself down before his time comes. I do hope, Jeff, you will take things equally all round, and not brood or think too deeply. So I go on giving you all good advice. O mother, I must tell you how I get along in my new quarters. I have moved to a new room, 456 Sixth street, not far from Pennsylvania avenue (the big street here), and not far from the Capitol. It is in the 3d story, an addition back; seems to be going to prove a very good winter room, as it is right under the roof and looks south; has low windows, is plenty big enough; I have gas. I think the lady will prove a good woman. She is old and feeble. (There is a little girl of 4 or 5; I hear her sometimes calling _Grandma, Grandma_, just exactly like Hat; it made me think of you and Hat right away.) One thing is I am quite by myself; there is no passage up there except to my room, and right off against my side of the house is a great old yard with grass and some trees back, and the sun shines in all day, etc., and it smells sweet, and good air--good big bed; I sleep first rate. There is a young wench of 12 or 13, Lucy (the niggers here are the best and most amusing creatures you ever see)--she comes and goes, gets water, etc. She is pretty much the only one I see. Then I believe the front door is not locked at all at night. (In the other place the old thief, the landlord, had two front doors, with four locks and bolts on one and three on the other--and a big bulldog in the back yard. We were well fortified, I tell you. Sometimes I had an awful time at night getting in.) I pay $10 a month; this includes gas, but not fuel. Jeff, you can come on and see me easy now. Mother, to give you an idea of prices here, while I was looking for rooms, about like our two in Wheeler's houses (2nd story), nothing extra about them, either in location or anything, and the rent was $60 a month. Yet, quite curious, vacant houses here are not so very dear; very much the same as in Brooklyn. Dear mother, Jeff wrote in his letter latter part of last week, you was real unwell with a very bad cold (and that you didn't have enough good meals). Mother, I hope this will find you well and in good spirits. I think about you every day and night. Jeff thinks you show your age more, and failing like. O my dear mother, you must not think of failing yet. I hope we shall have some comfortable years yet. Mother, don't allow things, troubles, to take hold of you; write a few lines whenever you can; tell me exactly how things are. Mother, I am first rate and well--only a little of that deafness again. Good-bye for present. WALT. XXIX _Washington, Oct. 27, 1863._ DEAREST MOTHER,--Yours and George's letter came, and a letter from Jeff too--all good. I had received a letter a day or so before from George too. I am very glad he is at Camp Nelson, Kentucky, and I hope and pray the reg't will be kept there--for God knows they have tramped enough for the last two years, and fought battles and been through enough. I have sent George papers to Camp Nelson, and will write to-morrow. I send him the _Unions_ and the late New York papers. Mother, you or Jeff write and tell me how Andrew is; I hope he will prove to be better. Such complaints are sometimes very alarming for awhile, and then take such a turn for the better. Common means and steadily pursuing them, about diet especially, are so much more reliable than any course of medicine whatever. Mother, I have written to Han; I sent her George's letter to me, and wrote her a short letter myself. I sent it four or five days ago. Mother, I am real pleased to hear Jeff's explanation how it is that his wages is cut down, and that it was not as I fancied from the meanness of the old coons in the board. I felt so indignant about it, as I took it into my head, (though I don't know why) that it was done out of meanness, and was a sort of insult. I was quite glad Jeff wrote a few lines about it--and glad they appreciate Jeff, too. Mother, if any of my soldier boys should ever call upon you (as they are often anxious to have my address in Brooklyn) you just use them as you know how to without ceremony, and if you happen to have pot luck and feel to ask them to take a bite, don't be afraid to do so. There is one very good boy, Thos. Neat, 2nd N. Y. Cavalry, wounded in leg. He is now home on furlough--his folks live, I think, in Jamaica. He is a noble boy. He may call upon you. (I gave him here $1 toward buying his crutches, etc.) I like him very much. Then possibly a Mr. Haskell, or some of his folks from Western New York, may call--he had a son died here, a very fine boy. I was with him a good deal, and the old man and his wife have written me, and asked me my address in Brooklyn. He said he had children in N. Y. city and was occasionally down there. Mother, when I come home I will show you some of the letters I get from mothers, sisters, fathers, etc.--they will make you cry. There is nothing new with my hospital doings--I was there yesterday afternoon and evening, and shall be there again to-day. Mother, I should like to hear how you are yourself--has your cold left you, and do you feel better? Do you feel quite well again? I suppose you have your good stove all fired up these days--we have had some real cool weather here. I must rake up a little cheap second-hand stove for my room, for it was in the bargain that I should get that myself. Mother, I like my place quite well, better on nearly every account than my old room, but I see it will only do for a winter room. They keep it clean, and the house smells clean, and the room too. My old room, they just let everything lay where it was, and you can fancy what a litter of dirt there was--still it was a splendid room for air, for summer, as good as there is in Washington. I got a letter from Mrs. Price this morning--does Emmy ever come to see you? Matty, my dear sister, and Miss Mannahatta, and the little one (whose name I don't know, and perhaps hasn't got any name yet), I hope you are all well and having good times. I often, often think about you all. Mat, do you go any to the Opera now? They say the new singers are so good--when I come home we'll try to go. Mother, I am very well--have some cold in my head and my ears stopt up yet, making me sometimes quite hard of hearing. I am writing this in Major Hapgood's office. Last Sunday I took dinner at my friends the O'Connors--had two roast chickens, stewed tomatoes, potatoes, etc. I took dinner there previous Sunday also. Well, dear mother, how the time passes away--to think it will soon be a year I have been away! It has passed away very swiftly, somehow, to me. O what things I have witnessed during that time--I shall never forget them. And the war is not settled yet, and one does not see anything at all certain about the settlement yet; but I have finally got for good, I think, into the feeling that our triumph is assured, whether it be sooner or whether it be later, or whatever roundabout way we are led there, and I find I don't change that conviction from any reverses we meet, or any delays or Government blunders. There are blunders enough, heaven knows, but I am thankful things have gone on as well for us as they have--thankful the ship rides safe and sound at all. Then I have finally made up my mind that Mr. Lincoln has done as good as a human man could do. I still think him a pretty big President. I realize here in Washington that it has been a big thing to have just kept the United States from being thrown down and having its throat cut; and now I have no doubt it will throw down Secession and cut its throat--and I have not had any doubt since Gettysburg. Well, dear, dear mother, I will draw to a close. Andrew and Jeff and all, I send you my love. Good-bye, dear mother and dear Matty and all hands. WALT. XXX _Washington, Dec. 15, 1863._ DEAREST MOTHER--The last word I got from home was your letter written the night before Andrew was buried--Friday night, nearly a fortnight ago. I have not heard anything since from you or Jeff. Mother, Major Hapgood has moved from his office, cor. 15th street, and I am not with him any more. He has moved his office to his private room. I am writing this in my room, 456 Sixth street, but my letters still come to Major's care; they are to be addrest same as ever, as I can easily go and get them out of his box (only nothing need be sent me any time to the old office, as I am not there, nor Major either). Anything like a telegraphic dispatch or express box or the like should be addrest 456 Sixth street, 3rd story, back room. Dear mother, I hope you are well and in good spirits. I wish you would try to write to me everything about home and the particulars of Andrew's funeral, and how you all are getting along. I have not received the _Eagle_ with the little piece in. I was in hopes Jeff would have sent it. I wish he would yet, or some of you would; I want to see it. I think it must have been put in by a young man named Howard; he is now editor of the _Eagle_, and is very friendly to me. Mother, I am quite well. I have been out this morning early, went down through the market; it is quite a curiosity--I bought some butter, tea, etc. I have had my breakfast here in my room, good tea, bread and butter, etc. Mother, I think about you all more than ever--and poor Andrew, I often think about him. Mother, write to me how Nancy and the little boys are getting along. I got thinking last night about little California.[22] O how I wished I had her here for an hour to take care of--dear little girl. I don't think I ever saw a young one I took to so much--but I mustn't slight Hattie; I like her too. Mother, I am still going among the hospitals; there is plenty of need, just the same as ever. I go every day or evening. I have not heard from George--I have no doubt the 51st is still at Crab Orchard. Mother, I hope you will try to write. I send you my love, and to Jeff and Mat and all--so good-bye, dear mother. WALT. LETTERS OF 1864 I _Washington, Friday afternoon, Jan. 29. '64._ DEAR MOTHER--Your letter of Tuesday night came this forenoon--the one of Sunday night I received yesterday. Mother, you don't say in either of them whether George has re-enlisted or not--or is that not yet decided positively one way or the other? O mother, how I should like to be home (I don't want more than two or three days). I want to see George (I have his photograph on the wall, right over my table all the time), and I want to see California--you must always write in your letters how she is. I shall write to Han this afternoon or to-morrow morning and tell her probably George will come out and see her, and that if he does you will send her word beforehand. Jeff, my dear brother, if there should be the change made in the works, and things all overturned, you mustn't mind--I dare say you will pitch into something better. I believe a real overturn in the dead old beaten track of a man's life, especially a young man's, is always likely to turn out best, though it worries one at first dreadfully. Mat, I want to see you most sincerely--they haven't put in anything in the last two or three letters about you, but I suppose you are well, my dear sister. Mother, the young man that I took care of, Lewis Brown, is pretty well, but very restless--he is doing well now, but there is a long road before him yet; it is torture for him to be tied so to his cot, this weather; he is a very noble young man and has suffered very much. He is a Maryland boy and (like the Southerners when they _are_ Union) I think he is as strong and resolute a Union boy as there is in the United States. He went out in a Maryland reg't, but transferred to a N. Y. battery. But I find so many noble men in the ranks I have ceased to wonder at it. I think the soldiers from the New England States and the Western States are splendid, and the country parts of N. Y. and Pennsylvania too. I think less of the great cities than I used to. I know there are black sheep enough even in the ranks, but the general rule is the soldiers are noble, very. Mother, I wonder if George thinks as I do about the best way to enjoy a visit home, after all. When I come home again, I shall not go off gallivanting with my companions half as much nor a quarter as much as I used to, but shall spend the time quietly home with you while I do stay; it is a great humbug spreeing around, and a few choice friends for a man, the real right kind in a quiet way, are enough. Mother, I hope you take things easy, don't you? Mother, you know I was always advising you to let things go and sit down and take what comfort you can while you do live. It is very warm here; this afternoon it is warm enough for July--the sun burns where it shines on your face; it is pretty dusty in the principal streets. Congress is in session; I see Odell, Kalbfleisch, etc., often. I have got acquainted with Mr. Garfield, an M. C. from Ohio, and like him very much indeed (he has been a soldier West, and I believe a good brave one--was a major general). I don't go much to the debates this session yet. Congress will probably keep in session till well into the summer. As to what course things will take, political or military, there's no telling. I think, though, the Secesh military power is getting more and more shaky. How they can make any headway against our new, large, and fresh armies next season passes my wit to see. Mother, I was talking with a pretty high officer here, who is behind the scenes--I was mentioning that I had a great desire to be present at a first-class battle; he told me if I would only stay around here three or four weeks longer my wish would probably be gratified. I asked him what he meant, what he alluded to specifically, but he would not say anything further--so I remain as much in the dark as before--only there seemed to be some meaning in his remark, and it was made to me only as there was no one else in hearing at the moment (he is quite an admirer of my poetry). The re-enlistment of the veterans is the greatest thing yet; it pleases everybody but the Rebels--and surprises everybody too. Mother, I am well and fat (I must weigh about 206), so Washington must agree with me. I work three or four hours a day copying. Dear mother, I send you and Hattie my love, as you say she is a dear little girl. Mother, try to write every week, even if only a few lines. Love to George and Jeff and Mat. WALT. II _Washington, Feb. 2, 1864._ DEAREST MOTHER--I am writing this by the side of the young man you asked about, Lewis Brown in Armory-square hospital. He is getting along very well indeed--the amputation is healing up good, and he does not suffer anything like as much as he did. I see him every day. We have had real hot weather here, and for the last three days wet and rainy; it is more like June than February. Mother, I wrote to Han last Saturday--she must have got it yesterday. I have not heard anything from home since a week ago (your last letter). I suppose you got a letter from me Saturday last. I am well as usual. There has been several hundred sick soldiers brought in here yesterday. I have been around among them to-day all day--it is enough to make me heart-sick, the old times over again; they are many of them mere wrecks, though young men (sickness is worse in some respects than wounds). One boy about 16, from Portland, Maine, only came from home a month ago, a recruit; he is here now very sick and down-hearted, poor child. He is a real country boy; I think has consumption. He was only a week with his reg't. I sat with him a long time; I saw [it] did him great good. I have been feeding some their dinners. It makes me feel quite proud, I find so frequently I can do with the men what no one else at all can, getting them to eat (some that will not touch their food otherwise, nor for anybody else)--it is sometimes quite affecting, I can tell you. I found such a case to-day, a soldier with throat disease, very bad. I fed him quite a dinner; the men, his comrades around, just stared in wonder, and one of them told me afterwards that he (the sick man) had not eat so much at a meal in three months. Mother, I shall have my hands pretty full now for a while--write all about things home. WALT. Lewis Brown says I must give you his love--he says he knows he would like you if he should see you. III _Washington, Friday afternoon, Feb. 5, 1864._ DEAREST MOTHER--I am going down in front, in the midst of the army, to-morrow morning, to be gone for about a week--so I thought I would write you a few lines now, to let you know. Mother, I suppose you got my letter written last Tuesday--I have not got any from home now for a number of days. I am well and hearty. The young man Lewis Brown is able to be up a little on crutches. There is quite a number of sick young men I have taken in hand, from the late arrivals, that I am sorry to leave. Sick and down-hearted and lonesome, they think so much of a friend, and I get so attached to them too--but I want to go down in camp once more very much; and I think I shall be back in a week. I shall spend most of my time among the sick and wounded in the camp hospitals. If I had means I should stop with them, poor boys, or go among them periodically, dispensing what I had, as long as the war lasts, down among the worst of it (although what are collected here in hospital seem to me about as severe and needy cases as any, after all). Mother, I want to hear about you all, and about George and how he is spending his time home. Mother, I do hope you are well and in good spirits, and Jeff and Mat and all, and dear little California and Hattie--I send them all my love. Mother, I may write to you from down in front--so good-bye, dear mother, for present. WALT. I hope I shall find several letters waiting for me when I get back here. IV _Culpepper, Virginia, Friday night, Feb. 12, 1864._ DEAREST MOTHER--I am still stopping down in this region. I am a good deal of the time down within half a mile of our picket lines, so that you see I can indeed call myself in the front. I stopped yesterday with an artillery camp in the 1st Corps at the invitation of Capt. Crawford, who said that he knew me in Brooklyn. It is close to the lines--I asked him if he did not think it dangerous. He said, No, he could have a large force of infantry to help him there, in very short metre, if there was any sudden emergency. The troops here are scattered all around, much more apart than they seemed to me to be opposite Fredericksburg last winter. They mostly have good huts and fireplaces, etc. I have been to a great many of the camps, and I must say I am astonished [how] good the houses are almost everywhere. I have not seen one regiment, nor any part of one, in the poor uncomfortable little shelter tents that I saw so common last winter after Fredericksburg--but all the men have built huts of logs and mud. A good many of them would be comfortable enough to live in under any circumstances. I have been in the division hospitals around here. There are not many men sick here, and no wounded--they now send them on to Washington. I shall return there in a few days, as I am very clear that the real need of one's services is there after all--there the worst cases concentrate, and probably will, while the war lasts. I suppose you know that what we call hospital here in the field is nothing but a collection of tents on the bare ground for a floor--rather hard accommodation for a sick man. They heat them there by digging a long trough in the ground under them, covering it over with old railroad iron and earth, and then building a fire at one end and letting it draw through and go out at the other, as both ends are open. This heats the ground through the middle of the hospital quite hot. I find some poor creatures crawling about pretty weak with diarrhoea; there is a great deal of that; they keep them until they get very bad indeed, and then send them to Washington. This aggravates the complaint, and they come into Washington in a terrible condition. O mother, how often and how many I have seen come into Washington from this awful complaint after such an experience as I have described--with the look of death on their poor young faces; they keep them so long in the field hospitals with poor accommodations the disease gets too deeply seated. To-day I have been out among some of the camps of the 2nd division of the 1st Corps. I have been wandering around all day, and have had a very good time, over woods, hills, and gullies--indeed, a real soldier's march. The weather is good and the travelling quite tolerable. I have been in the camps of some Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York regiments. I have friends in them, and went out to see them, and see soldiering generally, as I can never cease to crave more and more knowledge of actual soldiers' life, and to be among them as much as possible. This evening I have also been in a large wagoners' camp. They had good fires and were very cheerful. I went to see a friend there, too, but did not find him in. It is curious how many I find that I know and that know me. Mother, I have no difficulty at all in making myself at home among the soldiers, teamsters, or any--I most always find they like to have me very much; it seems to do them good. No doubt they soon feel that my heart and sympathies are truly with them, and it is both a novelty and pleases them and touches their feelings, and so doubtless does them good--and I am sure it does that to me. There is more fun around here than you would think for. I told you about the theatre the 14th Brooklyn has got up--they have songs and burlesques, etc.; some of the performers real good. As I write this I have heard in one direction or another two or three good bands playing--and hear one tooting away some gay tunes now, though it is quite late at night. Mother, I don't know whether I mentioned in my last letter that I took dinner with Col. Fowler one day early part of the week. His wife is stopping here. I was down at the 14th as I came along this evening, too--one of the officers told me about a presentation to George of a sword, etc.--he said he see it in the papers. The 14th invited me to come and be their guest while I staid here, but I have not been able to accept. Col. Fowler uses me tip-top--he is provost marshal of this region; makes a good officer. Mother, I could get no pen and ink to-night. Well, dear mother, I send you my love, and to George and Jeff and Mat and little girls and all. WALT. Direct to care of Major Hapgood as before, and write soon. Mother, I suppose you got a letter I wrote from down here last Monday. V _Washington, March 2, 1864._ DEAR MOTHER--You or Jeff must try to write as soon as you receive this and let me know how little Sis is. Tell me if she got entirely over the croup and how she is--also about George's trunks. I do hope he received them; it was such a misfortune; I want to hear the end of it; I am in hopes I shall hear that he has got them. I have not seen in the papers whether the 51st has left New York yet. Mother, I want to hear all about home and all the occurrences, especially the two things I have just mentioned, and how you are, for somehow I was thinking from your letters lately whether you was as well as usual or not. Write how my dear sister Mat is too, and whether you are still going to stay there in Portland avenue the coming year. Well, dear mother, I am just the same here--nothing new. I am well and hearty, and constantly moving around among the wounded and sick. There are a great many of the latter coming up--the hospitals here are quite full--lately they have [been] picking out in the hospitals all that had pretty well recovered, and sending them back to their regiments. They seem to be determined to strengthen the army this spring to the utmost. They are sending down many to their reg'ts that are not fit to go in my opinion--then there are squads and companies, and reg'ts, too, passing through here in one steady stream, going down to the front, returning from furlough home; but then there are quite a number leaving the army on furlough, re-enlisting, and going North for a while. They pass through here quite largely. Mother, Lewis Brown is getting quite well; he will soon be able to have a wooden leg put on. He is very restless and active, and wants to go round all the time. Sam Beatty is here in Washington. We have had quite a snow storm, but [it] is clear and sunny to-day here, but sloshy. I am wearing my army boots--anything but the dust. Dear Mother, I want to see you and Sis and Mat and all very much. If I can get a chance I think I shall come home for a while. I want to try to bring out a book of poems, a new one, to be called "Drum-Taps," and I want to come to New York for that purpose, too. Mother, I haven't given up the project of lecturing, either, but whatever I do, I shall for the main thing devote myself for years to come to these wounded and sick, what little I can. Well, good-bye, dear mother, for present--write soon. WALT. VI _Washington, March 15, 1861._ DEAREST MOTHER--I got a letter from Jeff last Sunday--he says you have a very bad cold indeed. Dear Mother, I feel very much concerned about it; I do hope it has passed over before this. Jeff wrote me about the house. I hope it will be so you can both remain in the same house; it would be much more satisfaction.... The poor boy very sick of brain fever I was with, is dead; he was only 19 and a noble boy, so good though out of his senses some eight days, though still having a kind of idea of things. No relative or friend was with him. It was very sad. I was with him considerable, only just sitting by him soothing him. He was wandering all the time. His talk was so affecting it kept the tears in my eyes much of the time. The last twenty-four hours he sank very rapidly. He had been sick some months ago and was put in the 6th Invalid Corps--they ought to have sent him home instead. The next morning after his death his brother came, a very fine man, postmaster at Lyne Ridge, Pa.--he was much affected, and well he might be. Mother, I think it worse than ever here in the hospitals. We are getting the dregs as it were of the sickness and awful hardships of the past three years. There is the most horrible cases of diarrhoea you ever conceived of and by the hundreds and thousands; I suppose from such diet as they have in the army. Well, dear mother, I will not write any more on the sick, and yet I know you wish to hear about them. Every one is so unfeeling; it has got to be an old story. There is no good nursing. O I wish you were--or rather women of such qualities as you and Mat--were here in plenty, to be stationed as matrons among the poor sick and wounded men. Just to be present would be enough--O what good it would do them. Mother, I feel so sick when I see what kind of people there are among them, with charge over them--so cold and ceremonious, afraid to touch them. Well, mother, I fear I have written you a flighty kind of a letter--I write in haste. WALT. The papers came right, mother--love to Jeff, Mat, and all. VII _Washington, March 22, 1861._ DEAREST MOTHER--I feel quite bad to hear that you are not well--have a pain in your side, and a very bad cold. Dear Mother, I hope it is better. I wish you would write to me, or Jeff would, right away, as I shall not feel easy until I hear. I rec'd George's letter. Jeff wrote with it, about your feeling pretty sick, and the pain. Mother, I also rec'd your letter a few days before. You say the Browns acted very mean, and I should say they did indeed, but as it is going to remain the same about the house, I should let it all pass. I am very glad Mat and Jeff are going to remain; I should not have felt satisfied if they and you had been separated. I have written a letter to Han, with others enclosed, a good long letter (took two postage stamps). I have written to George too, directed it to Knoxville. Mother, everything is the same with me; I am feeling very well indeed, the old trouble of my head stopt and my ears affected, has not troubled me any since I came back here from Brooklyn. I am writing this in Major Hapgood's old office, cor. 15th and F streets, where I have my old table and window. It is dusty and chilly to-day, anything but agreeable. Gen. Grant is expected every moment now in the Army of the Potomac to take active command. I have just this moment heard from the front--there is nothing yet of a movement, but each side is continually on the alert, expecting something to happen. O mother, to think that we are to have here soon what I have seen so many times, the awful loads and trains and boat loads of poor bloody and pale and wounded young men again--for that is what we certainly will, and before very long. I see all the little signs, geting ready in the hospitals, etc.; it is dreadful when one thinks about it. I sometimes think over the sights I have myself seen, the arrival of the wounded after a battle, and the scenes on the field too, and I can hardly believe my own recollections. What an awful thing war is! Mother, it seems not men but a lot of devils and butchers butchering each other. Dear mother, I think twenty times a day about your sickness. O, I hope it is not so bad as Jeff wrote. He said you was worse than you had ever been before, and he would write me again. Well, he must, even if only a few lines. What have you heard from Mary and her family, anything? Well, dear mother, I hope this will find you quite well of the pain, and of the cold--write about the little girls and Mat and all. WALT. VIII _Washington, March 29, 1864._ DEAREST MOTHER--I have written to George again to Knoxville. Things seem to be quiet down there so far. We think here that our forces are going to be made strongest here in Virginia this spring, and every thing bent to take Richmond. Grant is here; he is now down at headquarters in the field, Brandy station. We expect fighting before long; there are many indications. I believe I told you they had sent up all the sick from front. [_The letter is here mutilated so as to be illegible; from the few remaining words, however, it is possible to gather that the writer is describing the arrival of a_ train of wounded, over 600, _in Washington during_ a terribly rainy afternoon. _The letter continues_:] I could not keep the tears out of my eyes. Many of the poor young men had to be moved on stretchers, with blankets over them, which soon soaked as wet as water in the rain. Most were sick cases, but some badly wounded. I came up to the nearest hospital and helped. Mother, it was a dreadful night (last Friday night)--pretty dark, the wind gusty, and the rain fell in torrents. One poor boy--this is a sample of one case out of the 600--he seemed to be quite young, he was quite small (I looked at his body afterwards), he groaned some as the stretcher bearers were carrying him along, and again as they carried him through the hospital gate. They set down the stretcher and examined him, and the poor boy was dead. They took him into the ward, and the doctor came immediately, but it was all of no use. The worst of it is, too, that he is entirely unknown--there was nothing on his clothes, or any one with him to identity him, and he is altogether unknown. Mother, it is enough to rack one's heart--such things. Very likely his folks will never know in the world what has become of him. Poor, poor child, for he appeared as though he could be but 18. I feel lately as though I must have some intermission. I feel well and hearty enough, and was never better, but my feelings are kept in a painful condition a great part of the time. Things get worse and worse, as to the amount and sufferings of the sick, and as I have said before, those who have to do with them are getting more and more callous and indifferent. Mother, when I see the common soldiers, what they go through, and how everybody seems to try to pick upon them, and what humbug there is over them every how, even the dying soldier's money stolen from his body by some scoundrel attendant, or from [the] sick one, even from under his head, which is a common thing, and then the agony I see every day, I get almost frightened at the world. Mother, I will try to write more cheerfully next time--but I see so much. Well, good-bye for present, dear mother. WALT. IX _Washington, Thursday afternoon, March 31, 1864._ DEAREST MOTHER--I have just this moment received your letter dated last Monday evening. Dear mother, I have not seen anything in any paper where the 51st is, nor heard anything, but I do not feel any ways uneasy about them. I presume they are at Knoxville, Tennessee. Mother, they are now paying off many of the regiments in this army--but about George, I suppose there will be delays in sending money, etc. Dear mother, I wish I had some money to send you, but I am living very close by the wind. Mother, I will try somehow to send you something worth while, and I do hope you will not worry and feel unhappy about money matters; I know things are very high. Mother, I suppose you got my letter written Tuesday last, 29th March, did you not? I have been going to write to Jeff for more than a month--I laid out to write a good long letter, but something has prevented me, one thing and another; but I will try to write to-morrow sure. Mother, I have been in the midst of suffering and death for two months worse than ever--the only comfort is that I have been the cause of some beams of sunshine upon their suffering and gloomy souls, and bodies too. Many of the dying I have been with, too. Well, mother, you must not worry about the grocery bill, etc., though I suppose you will say that it is easier said than followed (as to me, I believe I worry about worldly things less than ever, if that is possible). Tell Jeff and Mat I send them my love. Gen. Grant has just come in town from front. The country here is all mad again. I am going to a spiritualist medium this evening--I expect it will be a humbug, of course. I will tell you next letter. Dear mother, keep a good heart. WALT. How is California? Tell Hat her Uncle Walt will come home one of these days, and take her to New York to walk in Broadway. Poor little Jim, I should like to see him. There is a rich young friend of mine wants me to go to Idaho with him to make money. X _Washington, Tuesday afternoon, April 5, 1864._ DEAREST MOTHER--I got a letter from Jeff yesterday--he says you often work too hard, exposing yourself; I suppose, scrubbing, etc., and the worst of it is I am afraid it is true. Mother, I would take things easy, and let up on the scrubbing and such things; they may be needed perhaps, but they ain't half as much needed as that you should be as well as possible, and free from rheumatism and cold. Jeff says that ---- has had the chicken pox. Has she got all over it? I want to hear. So Nance has had another child, poor little one; there don't seem to be much show for it, poor little young one, these times. We are having awful rainy weather here. It is raining to-day steady and spiteful enough. The soldiers in camp are having the benefit of it, and the sick, many of them. There is a great deal of rheumatism and also throat disease, and they are affected by the weather. I have writ to George again, directed to Knoxville. Mother, I got a letter this morning from Lewis Brown, the young man that had his leg amputated two months or so ago (the one that I slept in the hospital by several nights for fear of hemorrhage from the amputation). He is home at Elkton, Maryland, on furlough. He wants me to come out there, but I believe I shall not go--he is doing very well. There are many very bad now in hospital, so many of the soldiers are getting broke down after two years, or two and a half, exposure and bad diet, pork, hard biscuit, bad water or none at all, etc., etc.--so we have them brought up here. Oh, it is terrible, and getting worse, worse, worse. I thought it was bad; to see these I sometimes think is more pitiful still. Well, mother, I went to see the great spirit medium, Foster. There were some little things some might call curious, perhaps, but it is a shallow thing and a humbug. A gentleman who was with me was somewhat impressed, but I could not see anything in it worth calling supernatural. I wouldn't turn on my heel to go again and see such things, or twice as much. We had table rappings and lots of nonsense. I will give you particulars when I come home one of these days. Jeff, I believe there is a fate on your long letter; I thought I would write it to-day, but as it happens I will hardly get this in the mail, I fear, in time for to-day. O how I want to see you all, and Sis and Hat. Well, I have scratched out a great letter just as fast as I could write. _Wednesday forenoon._ Mother, I didn't get the letter in the mail yesterday. I have just had my breakfast, some good tea and good toast and butter. I write this in my room, 456 Sixth st. The storm seems to be over. Dear mother, I hope you are well and in good spirits--write to me often as you can, and Jeff too. Any news from Han? WALT. XI _Washington, April 10, 1864._ DEAREST MOTHER--I rec'd your letter and sent the one you sent for George immediately--he must have got it the next day. I had got one from him before yours arrived. I mean to go to Annapolis and see him. Mother, we expect a commencement of the fighting below very soon; there is every indication of it. We have had about as severe rain storms here lately as I ever see. It is middling pleasant now. There are exciting times in Congress--the Copperheads are getting furious and want to recognize the Southern Confederacy. This is a pretty time to talk of recognizing such villains after what they have done, and after what has transpired the last three years. After first Fredericksburg I felt discouraged myself, and doubted whether our rulers could carry on the war--but that has passed away. The war must be carried on, and I could willingly go myself in the ranks if I thought it would profit more than at present, and I don't know sometimes but I shall as it is. Mother, you don't know what a feeling a man gets after being in the active sights and influences of the camp, the army, the wounded, etc. He gets to have a deep feeling he never experienced before--the flag, the tune of Yankee Doodle and similar things, produce an effect on a fellow never such before. I have seen some bring tears on the men's cheeks, and others turn pale, under such circumstances. I have a little flag; it belonged to one of our cavalry reg'ts; presented to me by one of the wounded. It was taken by the Secesh in a cavalry fight, and rescued by our men in a bloody little skirmish. It cost three men's lives, just to get one little flag, four by three. Our men rescued it, and tore it from the breast of a dead Rebel--all that just for the name of getting their little banner back again. The man that got it was very badly wounded, and they let him keep it. I was with him a good deal; he wanted to give me something, he said, he didn't expect to live, so he gave me the little banner as a keepsake. I mention this, mother, to show you a specimen of the feeling. There isn't a reg't, cavalry or infantry, that wouldn't do the same on occasion. _Tuesday morning, April 12._ Mother, I will finish my letter this morning. It is a beautiful day to-day. I was up in Congress very late last night. The house had a very excited night session about expelling the men that want to recognize the Southern Confederacy. You ought to hear the soldiers talk. They are excited to madness. We shall probably have hot times here, not in the army alone. The soldiers are true as the North Star. I send you a couple of envelopes, and one to George. Write how you are, dear mother, and all the rest. I want to see you all. Jeff, my dear brother, I wish you was here, and Mat too. Write how Sis is. I am well, as usual; indeed first rate every way. I want to come on in a month and try to print my "Drum-Taps." I think it may be a success pecuniarily, too. Dearest mother, I hope this will find you entirely well, and dear sister Mat and all. WALT. XII _Washington, Tuesday noon, April 19, 1864._ DEAREST MOTHER--I haven't heard any news from home now in more than a week. I hope you are well, dear mother, and all the rest too. There is nothing new with me. I can only write the same old story about going to the hospitals, etc., etc. I have not heard anything since from George--have you heard anything further? I have written to him to Annapolis. We are having it pretty warm here to-day, after a long spell of rain storms, but the last two or three days very fine. Mother, I suppose you got my letter of last Tuesday, 12th. I went down to the Capitol the nights of the debate on the expulsion of Mr. Long last week. They had night sessions, very late. I like to go to the House of Representatives at night; it is the most magnificent hall, so rich and large, and lighter at night than it is days, and still not a light visible--it comes through the glass roof--but the speaking and the ability of the members is nearly always on a low scale. It is very curious and melancholy to see such a rate of talent there, such tremendous times as these--I should say about the same range of genius as our old friend Dr. Swaim, just about. You may think I am joking, but I am not, mother--I am speaking in perfect earnest. The Capitol grows upon one in time, especially as they have got the great figure on top of it now, and you can see it very well. It is a great bronze figure, the Genius of Liberty I suppose. It looks wonderful towards sundown. I love to go and look at it. The sun when it is nearly down shines on the headpiece and it dazzles and glistens like a big star; it looks quite curious. Well, mother, we have commenced on another summer, and what it will bring forth who can tell? The campaign of this summer is expected here to be more active and severe than any yet. As I told you in a former letter, Grant is determined to bend everything to take Richmond and break up the banditti of scoundrels that have stuck themselves up there as a "government." He is in earnest about it; his whole soul and all his thoughts night and day are upon it. He is probably the most in earnest of any man in command or in the Government either--that's something, ain't it, mother?--and they are bending everything to fight for their last chance--calling in their forces from Southwest, etc. Dear mother, give my love to dear brother Jeff and Mat and all. I write this in my room, 6th st. WALT. XIII _Washington, April 26, 1864._ DEAREST MOTHER--Burnside's army passed through here yesterday. I saw George and walked with him in the regiment for some distance and had quite a talk. He is very well; he is very much tanned and looks hardy. I told him all the latest news from home. George stands it very well, and looks and behaves the same noble and good fellow he always was and always will be. It was on 14th st. I watched three hours before the 51st came along. I joined him just before they came to where the President and Gen. Burnside were standing with others on a balcony, and the interest of seeing me, etc., made George forget to notice the President and salute him. He was a little annoyed at forgetting it. I called his attention to it, but we had passed a little too far on, and George wouldn't turn round even ever so little. However, there was a great many more than half the army passed without noticing Mr. Lincoln and the others, for there was a great crowd all through the streets, especially here, and the place where the President stood was not conspicuous from the rest. The 9th Corps made a very fine show indeed. There were, I should think, five very full regiments of new black troops, under Gen. Ferrero. They looked and marched very well. It looked funny to see the President standing with his hat off to them just the same as the rest as they passed by. Then there [were the] Michigan regiments; one of them was a regiment of sharpshooters, partly composed of Indians. Then there was a pretty strong force of artillery and a middling force of cavalry--many New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, R. I., etc., reg'ts. All except the blacks were veterans [that had] seen plenty of fighting. Mother, it is very different to see a real army of fighting men, from one of those shows in Brooklyn, or New York, or on Fort Greene. Mother, it was a curious sight to see these ranks after rank of our own dearest blood of men, mostly young, march by, worn and sunburnt and sweaty, with well-worn clothes and thin bundles, and knapsacks, tin cups, and some with frying pans strapt over their backs, all dirty and sweaty, nothing real neat about them except their muskets; but they were all as clean and bright as silver. They were four or five hours passing along, marching with wide ranks pretty quickly, too. It is a great sight to see an army 25 or 30,000 on the march. They are all so gay, too. Poor fellows, nothing dampens their spirits. They all got soaked with rain the night before. I saw Fred McReady and Capt. Sims, and Col. Le Gendre, etc. I don't know exactly where Burnside's army is going. Among other rumors it is said they [are] to go [with] the Army of the Potomac to act as a reserve force, etc. Another is that they are to make a flank march, to go round and get Lee on the side, etc. I haven't been out this morning and don't know what news--we know nothing, only that there is without doubt to be a terrible campaign here in Virginia this summer, and that all who know deepest about it are very serious about it. Mother, it is serious times. I do not feel to fret or whimper, but in my heart and soul about our country, the forthcoming campaign with all its vicissitudes and the wounded and slain--I dare say, mother, I feel the reality more than some because I am in the midst of its saddest results so much. Others may say what they like, I believe in Grant and in Lincoln, too. I think Grant deserves to be trusted. He is working continually. No one knows his plans; we will only know them when he puts them in operation. Our army is very large here in Virginia this spring, and they are still pouring in from east and west. You don't see about it in the papers, but we have a very large army here. Mother, I am first rate in health, thank God; I never was better. Dear mother, have you got over all that distress and sickness in your head? You must write particular about it. Dear brother Jeff, how are you, and how is Matty, and how the dear little girls? Jeff, I believe the devil is in it about my writing you; I have laid out so many weeks to write you a good long letter, and something has shoved it off each time. Never mind, mother's letters keep you posted. You must write, and don't forget to tell me all about Sis. Is she as good and interesting as she was six months ago? Mother, have you heard anything from Han? Mother, I have just had my breakfast. I had it in my room--some hard biscuit warmed on the stove, and a bowl of strong tea with good milk and sugar. I have given a Michigan soldier his breakfast with me. He relished it, too; he has just gone. Mother, I have just heard again that Burnside's troops are to be a reserve to protect Washington, so there may be something in it. WALT. It is very fine weather here yesterday and to-day. The hospitals are very full; they are putting up hundreds of hospital tents. XIV _Washington, April 28, 1864._ DEAREST MOTHER--I thought I would write you just a line, though I have nothing of importance--only the talk of the street here seems more and more to assert that Burnside's army is to remain near here to protect Washington and act as a reserve, so that Grant can move the Army of the Potomac upon Richmond, without being compelled to turn and be anxious about the Capital; also that Burnside can attend to Lee if the latter should send any force up west of here (what they call the valley of the Shenandoah), or invade Pennsylvania again. I thought you would like to hear this; it looks plausible, but there are lots of rumors of all kinds. I cannot hear where Burnside's army is, as they don't allow the papers to print army movements, but I fancy they are very near Washington, the other side of Arlington heights, this moment. Mother, I wrote yesterday to Han, and sent one of George's letters from Annapolis. Mother, I suppose you got my letter of Tuesday, 26th. I have not heard anything from you in quite a little while. I am still well. The weather is fine; quite hot yesterday. Mother, I am now going down to see a poor soldier who is very low with a long diarrhoea--he cannot recover. When I was with him last night, he asked me before I went away to ask God's blessing on him. He says, I am no scholar and you are--poor dying man, I told him I hoped from the bottom of my heart God would bless him, and bring him up yet. I soothed him as well as I could; it was affecting, I can tell you. Jeff, I wrote to Mr. Kirkwood yesterday to 44 Pierrepont st. He sent me some money last Monday. Is Probasco still in the store in N. Y.? Dear sister Mat, I quite want to see you and California, not forgetting my little Hattie, too. WALT. _2 o'clock, 28th April._ DEAREST MOTHER--Just as I was going to mail this I received authentic information [that] Burnside's army is now about 16 or 18 miles south of here, at a place called Fairfax Court House. They had last night no orders to move at present, and I rather think they will remain there, or near there. What I have written before as a rumor about their being to be held as a reserve, to act whenever occasion may need them, is now quite decided on. You may hear a rumor in New York that they have been shipped in transports from Alexandria--there is no truth in it at all. Grant's Army of the Potomac is probably to do the heavy work. His army is strong and full of fight. Mother, I think it is to-day the noblest army of soldiers that ever marched--nobody can know the men as well as I do, I sometimes think. Mother, I am writing this in Willard's hotel, on my way down to hospital after I leave this at post office. I shall come out to dinner at 4 o'clock and then go back to hospital again in evening. Good bye, dear mother and all. WALT. XV _Washington, May 3, 1864._ DEAREST MOTHER--I received your letter dated last Friday afternoon, with one from Mr. Heyde. It seems by that Han is better, but, as you say, it would be much more satisfactory if Han would write to us herself. Mother, I believe I told you I sent a letter to Han last week, enclosing one of George's from Annapolis. I was glad to get Heyde's letter, though, as it was. Mother, I am sorry you still have returns of your cold. Does it affect your head like it did? Dear mother, I hope you will not expose yourself, nor work too much, but take things easier. I have nothing different to write about the war, or movements here. What I wrote last Thursday, about Burnside's Corps being probably used as a reserve, is still talked of here, and seems to be probable. A large force is necessary to guard the railroad between here and Culpepper, and also to keep from any emergency that might happen, and I shouldn't wonder if the 9th would be used for such purpose, at least for the present. I think the 51st must be down not very far from Fairfax Court House yet, but I haven't heard certain. Mother, I have seen a person up from front this morning. There is no movement yet and no fighting started. The men are in their camps yet. Gen. Grant is at Culpepper. You need not pay the slightest attention to such things as you mention in the _Eagle_, about the 9th Corps--the writer of it, and very many of the writers on war matters in those papers, don't know one bit more on what they are writing about than Ed does. Mother, you say in your letter you got my letter the previous afternoon. Why, mother, you ought to [have] got it Wednesday forenoon, or afternoon at furthest. This letter now will get in New York Wednesday morning, by daylight--you ought to get it before noon. The postmaster in Brooklyn must have a pretty set of carriers, to take twice as long to take a letter from New York to you as it does to go from Washington to N. Y. Mother, I suppose you got a letter from me Friday, also, as I wrote a second letter on Thursday last, telling you the 9th Corps was camped then about sixteen miles from here. About George's pictures, perhaps you better wait till I hear from him, before sending them. I remain well as usual. The poor fellow I mentioned in one of my letters last week, with diarrhoea, that wanted me to ask God's blessing on him, was still living yesterday afternoon, but just living. He is only partially conscious, is all wasted away to nothing, and lies most of the time in half stupor, as they give him brandy copiously. Yesterday I was there by him a few minutes. He is very much averse to taking brandy, and there was some trouble in getting him to take it. He is almost totally deaf the last five or six days. There is no chance for him at all. Quite a particular friend of mine, Oscar Cunningham, an Ohio boy, had his leg amputated yesterday close up by the thigh. It was a pretty tough operation. He was badly wounded just a year ago to-day at Chancellorsville and has suffered a great deal; lately got erysipelas in his leg and foot. I forget whether I have mentioned him before or not. He was a very large, noble-looking young man when I first see him. The doctor thinks he will live and get up, but I consider [it] by no means so certain. He is very much prostrated. Well, dear mother, you must write and Jeff too--I do want to see you all very much. How does Mat get along, and how little Sis and all? I send my love to you and Jeff and all. We are having a very pleasant, coolish day here. I am going down to post office to leave this, and then up to my old friends the O'Connors to dinner, and then down to hospital. Well, good-bye, dear mother, for present. WALT. _Tuesday afternoon, 3 o'clock._ Mother, just as I was going to seal my letter, Major Hapgood has come in from the P. O. and brings me a few lines from George, which I enclose--you will see they were written four days ago. XVI _Washington, May 6, 1864._ DEAREST MOTHER--I write you a few lines, as I know you feel anxious these times. I suppose the New York papers must have it in this morning that the Army of the Potomac has made a move, and has crossed the Rapidan river. At any rate that is the case. As near as I can learn about Burnside's army, that lies in the rear of the Army of the Potomac (from Warrenton, Virginia and so to Rappahannock river and up toward Manassas). It still appears to be kept as a reserve and for emergencies, etc. I have not heard anything from the 51st. Mother, of course you got my letter of Tuesday, 3rd, with the letter from George dated Bristoe station. I have writ to George since, and addressed the letter Warrenton, Va., or elsewhere, thinking he might get it. Mother, the idea is entertained quite largely here that the Rebel army will retreat to Richmond, as it is well known that Grant is very strong (most folks say too strong for Lee). I suppose you know we menace them almost as much from up Fortress Monroe as we do from the Rapidan. Butler and W. F. Smith are down there with at least fifty or sixty thousand men, and will move up simultaneously with Grant. The occasion is very serious, and anxious, but somehow I am full of hope, and feel that we shall take Richmond--(I hope to go there yet before the hot weather is past). Dear mother, I hope you are well, and little California--love to Jeff and Mat and all. WALT. Mother, you ought to get this letter Saturday forenoon, as it will be in N. Y. by sunrise Saturday, 7th. Mother, the poor soldier with diarrhoea is still living, but, O, what a looking object; death would be a boon to him; he cannot last many hours. Cunningham, the Ohio boy with leg amputated at thigh, has picked up beyond expectation now!--looks altogether like getting well. The hospitals are very full. I am very well indeed--pretty warm here to-day. XVII _Washington, Monday, 2 o'clock--May 9, '64._ DEAREST MOTHER--There is nothing from the army more than you know in the N. Y. papers. The fighting has been hard enough, but the papers make lots of additional items, and a good deal that they just entirely make up. There are from 600 to 1000 wounded coming up here--not 6 to 8000 as the papers have it. I cannot hear what part the 9th Corps took in the fight of Friday and afterwards, nor whether they really took any at all--(they, the papers, are determined to make up just anything). Mother, I received your letter and Han's--and was glad indeed to get both. Mother, you must not be under such apprehension, as I think it is not warranted. So far as we get news here, we are gaining the day, so far _decidedly_. If the news we hear is true that Lee has been repulsed and driven back by Grant, and that we are masters of the field, and pursuing them--then I think Lee will retreat south, and Richmond will be abandoned by the Rebs. But of course time only can develope what will happen. Mother, I will write again Wednesday, or before, if I hear anything to write. Love to Jeff and Mat and all. WALT. XVIII _Washington, May 10, '64_ (_1/2 past 2 p.m._) DEAREST MOTHER--There is nothing perhaps more than you see in the N. Y. papers. The fighting down in the field on the 6th I think ended in our favor, though with pretty severe losses to some of our divisions. The fighting is about 70 miles from here, and 50 from Richmond--on the 7th and 8th followed up by the Rebel army hauling off, they say retreating, and Meade pursuing. It is quite mixed yet, but I guess we have the best of it. If we really have, Richmond is a goner, for they cannot do any better than they have done. The 9th Corps was in the fight, and where I cannot tell yet, but from the wounded I have seen I don't think that Corps was deeply in. I have seen 300 wounded. They came in last night. I asked for men of 9th Corps, but could not find any at all. These 300 men were not badly wounded, mostly in arms, hands, trunk of body, etc. They could all walk, though some had an awful time of it. They had to fight their way with the worst in the middle out of the region of Fredericksburg, and so on where they could get across the Rappahannock and get where they found transportation to Washington. The Gov't has decided, (or rather Gen. Meade has) to occupy Fredericksburg for depot and hospital--(I think that is a first rate decision)--so the wounded men will receive quick attention and surgery, instead of being racked through the long journey up here. Still, many come in here. Mother, my impression is that we have no great reason for alarm or sadness about George so far. Of course I _know_ nothing. Well, good-bye, dearest mother. WALT. Mother, I wrote you yesterday, too. Tell dear brother Jeff to write me. Love to Mat. The poor diarrhoea man died, and it was a boon. Oscar Cunningham, 82nd Ohio, has had a relapse. I fear it is going bad with him. Lung diseases are quite plenty--night before last I staid in hospital all night tending a poor fellow. It has been awful hot here--milder to-day. XIX [_Washington_] _May 12, 1/2 past 5 p.m._ DEAREST MOTHER--George is all right, unhurt, up to Tuesday morning, 10th inst. The 51st was in a bad battle last Friday; lost 20 killed, between 40 and 50 wounded. I have just seen some of the 51st wounded just arrived, one of them Fred Saunders, Corporal Co. K, George's company. He said when he left the 51st was in rear on guard duty. He left Tuesday morning last. The papers have it that Burnside's Corps was in a fight Tuesday, but I think it most probable the 51st was not in it. Fred McReady is wounded badly, but not seriously. Sims is safe. You see Le Gendre is wounded--he was shot through the bridge of nose. Mother, you ought to get this Friday forenoon, 13th. I will write again soon. Wrote once before to-day. WALT. XX _Washington, May 13, 1864, 2 o'clock p. m._ DEAREST MOTHER--I wrote you a hurried letter late yesterday afternoon but left it myself at the P. O. in time for the mail. You ought to have got it this forenoon, or afternoon at furthest. I sent you two letters yesterday. I hope the carrier brings you your letters the same day. I wrote to the Brooklyn postmaster about it. I have heard from George up to Tuesday morning last, 10th, till which time he was safe. The battle of Friday, 6th, was very severe. George's Co. K lost one acting sergeant, Sturgis, killed, 2 men killed, 4 wounded. As I wrote yesterday, I have seen here Corp. Fred Saunders of Co. K, who was wounded in side, nothing serious, in Friday's fight, and came up here. I also talked with Serg. Brown, Co. F, 51st, rather badly wounded in right shoulder. Saunders said, when he left Tuesday morning he heard (or saw them there, I forget which) the 51st and its whole division were on guard duty toward the rear. The 9th Corps, however, has had hard fighting since, but whether the division or brigade the 51st is in was in the fights of Tuesday, 10th, (a pretty severe one) or Wednesday, I cannot tell, and it is useless to make calculations--and the only way is to wait and hope for the best. As I wrote yesterday, there were some 30 of 51st reg't killed and 50 wounded in Friday's battle, 6th inst. I have seen Col. Le Gendre. He is here in Washington not far from where I am, 485 12th st. is his address. Poor man, I felt sorry indeed for him. He is badly wounded and disfigured. He is shot through the bridge of the nose, and left eye probably lost. I spent a little time with him this forenoon. He is suffering very much, spoke of George very kindly; said "Your brother is well." His orderly told me he saw him, George, Sunday night last, well. Fred McReady is wounded in hip, I believe bone fractured--bad enough, but not deeply serious. I cannot hear of his arrival here. If he comes I shall find him immediately and take care of him myself. He is probably yet at Fredericksburg, but will come up, I think. Yesterday and to-day the badly wounded are coming in. The long lists of _previous arrivals_, (I suppose they are all reprinted at great length in N. Y. papers) are of men three-fourths of them quite slightly wounded, and the rest hurt pretty bad. I was thinking, mother, if one could see the men who arrived in the first squads, of two or three hundred at a time, one wouldn't be alarmed at those terrible long lists. Still there is a sufficient sprinkling of deeply distressing cases. I find my hands full all the time, with new and old cases--poor suffering young men, I think of them, and do try, mother, to do what I can for them, (and not think of the vexatious skedaddlers and merely scratched ones, of whom there are too many lately come here). Dearest mother, hope you and all are well--you must keep a good heart. Still, the fighting is very mixed, but it _seems steadily turning into real successes_ for Grant. The news to-day here is very good--you will see it [in the] N. Y. papers. I steadily believe Grant is going to succeed, and that we shall have Richmond--but O what a price to pay for it. We have had a good rain here and it is pleasanter and cooler. I shall write very soon again. WALT. XXI _Washington, May 18, 1864._ DEAREST MOTHER--I will only write you a hasty note this time, as I am pretty tired, and my head feels disagreeable from being in too much. I was up yesterday to Carver hospital and again saw the man of the 51st, Thos. McCowell, who told me of George, up to latter part of Thursday, 12th inst. I questioned him, and his story was very clear, so I felt perfectly satisfied. He is wounded in hand; will be transferred soon to New York and may call on you. He is a young Irishman, and seems to be a very good fellow indeed. I have written to George, day before yesterday. Did you send my last letter to Han? If not, send it yet. Mother, I see such awful things. I expect one of these days, if I live, I shall have awful thoughts and dreams--but it is such a great thing to be able to do some real good; assuage these horrible pains and wounds, and save life even--that's the only thing that keeps a fellow up. Well, dear mother, I make such reckoning of yet coming on and seeing you. How I want to see Jeff, too--O, it is too bad I have not written to him so long--and Mat, too, and little California and all. I am going out now a little while. I remain first rate, as well as ever. WALT. XXII _Washington, Monday forenoon, May 23, '64._ DEAR BROTHER JEFF--I received your letter yesterday. I too had got a few lines from George, dated on the field, 16th. He said he had also just written to mother. I cannot make out there has been any fighting since in which the 9th Corps has been engaged. I do hope mother will not get despondent and so unhappy. I suppose it is idle to say I think George's chances are very good for coming out of this campaign safe, yet at present it seems to me so--but it is indeed idle to say so, for no one can tell what a day may bring forth. Sometimes I think that should it come, when it _must_ be, to fall in battle, one's anguish over a son or brother killed would be tempered with much to take the edge off. I can honestly say it has no terrors for me, if I had to be hit in battle, as far as I myself am concerned. It would be a noble and manly death and in the best cause. Then one finds, as I have the past year, that our feelings and imaginations make a thousand times too much of the whole matter. Of the many I have seen die, or known of, the past year, I have not seen or heard of _one_ who met death with any terror. Yesterday afternoon I spent a good part of the afternoon with a young man of 17, named Charles Cutter, of Lawrence city, Mass., 1st Mass. heavy artillery, battery M. He was brought in to one of the hospitals mortally wounded in abdomen. Well, I thought to myself as I sat looking at him, it ought to be a relief to his folks after all, if they could see how little he suffered. He lay very placid in a half lethargy with his eyes closed. It was very warm, and I sat a long while fanning him and wiping the sweat. At length he opened his eyes quite wide and clear and looked inquiringly around. I said, "What is it, my dear? do you want anything?" He said quietly, with a good natured smile, "O nothing; I was only looking around to see who was with me." His mind was somewhat wandering, yet he lay so peaceful, in his dying condition. He seemed to be a real New England country boy, so good natured, with a pleasant homely way, and quite a fine looking boy. Without any doubt he died in course of night. There don't seem to be any war news of importance very late. We have been fearfully disappointed with Sigel not making his junction from the lower part of the valley, and perhaps harassing Lee's left or left rear, which the junction or equivalent to it was an indispensable part of Grant's plan, we think. This is one great reason why things have lagged so with the Army. Some here are furious with Sigel. You will see he has been superseded. His losses [in] his repulse are not so important, though annoying enough, but it was of the greatest consequence that he should have hastened through the gaps ten or twelve days ago at all hazards and come in from the west, keeping near enough to our right to have assistance if he needed it. Jeff, I suppose you know that there has been quite a large army lying idle, mostly of artillery reg'ts, manning the numerous forts around here. They have been the fattest and heartiest reg'ts anywhere to be seen, and full in numbers, some of them numbering 2000 men. Well, they have all, every one, been shoved down to the front. Lately we have had the militia reg'ts pouring in here, mostly from Ohio. They look first rate. I saw two or three come in yesterday, splendid American young men, from farms mostly. We are to have them for a hundred days and probably they will not refuse to stay another hundred. Jeff, tell mother I shall write Wednesday certain (or if I hear anything I will write to-morrow). I still think we shall get Richmond. WALT. Jeff, you must take this up to mother as soon as you go home. Jeff, I have changed my quarters. I moved Saturday last. I am now at 502 Pennsylvania av., near 3rd st. I still go a little almost daily to Major Hapgood's, cor. 15th and F sts., 5th floor. Am apt to be there about 12 or 1. See Fred McReady and others of 51st. George's letter to me of 16th I sent to Han. Should like to see Mr. Worther if he comes here--give my best remembrance to Mr. Lane. I may very likely go down for a few days to Ball Plain and Fredericksburg, but one is wanted here permanently more than any other place. I have written to George several times in hopes one at least may reach him. Matty, my dear sister, how are you getting along? O how I should like to see you this very day. XXIII _Washington, May 25, 1864._ DEAREST MOTHER--I have not heard anything of George or the reg't or Corps more than I have already written. I got Jeff's letter on Sunday and wrote to him next day, which you have seen, mother, of course. I have written to Han and sent her George's letter to me dated 16th. I have heard that the 9th Corps has been moved to the extreme left of the army. I should think by accounts this morning that the army must be nearly half way from Fredericksburg to Richmond. The advance can't be more than 30 to 35 miles from there. I see Fred McReady about every other day. I have to go down to Alexandria, about 6 miles from here. He is doing quite well, but very tired of the confinement. I still go around daily and nightly among wounded. Mother, it is just the same old story; poor suffering young men, great swarms of them, come up here now every day all battered and bloody--there have 4000 arrived here this morning, and 1500 yesterday. They appear to be bringing them all up here from Fredericksburg. The journey from the field till they get aboard the boats at Ball plain is horrible. I believe I wrote several times about Oscar Cunningham, 82nd Ohio, amputation of right leg, wounded over a year ago, a friend of mine here. He is rapidly sinking; said to me yesterday, O, if he could only die. The young lad Cutter, of 1st Massachusetts heavy artillery, I was with Sunday afternoon, (I wrote about in Jeff's letter) still holds out. Poor boy, there is no chance for him at all. But mother, I shall make you gloomy enough if I go on with these kind of particulars--only I know you like to hear about the poor young men, after I have once begun to mention them. Mother, I have changed my quarters--am at 502 Pennsylvania av., near 3d street, only a little way from the Capitol. Where I was, the house was sold and the old lady I hired the room from had to move out and give the owner possession. I like my new quarters pretty well--I have a room to myself, 3d story hall bedroom. I have my meals in the house. Mother, it must be sad enough about Nance and the young ones. Is the little baby still hearty? I believe you wrote a few weeks after it was born that it was quite a fine child. I see you had a draft in the 3d Congressional district. I was glad enough to see Jeff's name was not drawn. We have had it awful hot here, but there was a sharp storm of thunder and lightning last night, and to-day it is fine. Mother, do any of the soldiers I see here from Brooklyn or New York ever call upon you? They sometimes say they will here. Tell Jeff I got a letter yesterday from W. E. Worthen, in which he sent me some money for the men. I have acknowledged it to Mr. W. by letter. Well, dear mother, I must close. O, how I want to see you all--I will surely have to come home as soon as this Richmond campaign is decided--then I want to print my new book. Love to Mat--write to a fellow often as you can. WALT. XXIV _Washington, May 30, 1864._ DEAREST MOTHER--I have no news at all to write this time. I have not heard anything of the 51st since I last wrote you, and about the general war news only what you see in the papers. Grant is gradually getting nearer and nearer to Richmond. Many here anticipate that should Grant go into Richmond, Lee will make a side movement and march up west into the North, either to attempt to strike Washington, or to go again into Pennsylvania. I only say if that should happen, I for one shall not be dissatisfied so very much. Well, mother, how are you getting along home?--how do you feel in health these days, dear mother? I hope you are well and in good heart yet. I remain pretty well: my head begins to trouble me a little with a sort of fullness, as it often does in the hot weather. Singular to relate, the 1st Mass. artillery boy, Charles Cutter, is still living, and may get well. I saw him this morning. I am still around among wounded same, but will not make you feel blue by filling my letter with sad particulars. I am writing this in Willard's hotel, hurrying to catch this afternoon's mail. Mother, do you get your letters now next morning, as you ought? I got a letter from the postmaster of Brooklyn about it--said if the letters were neglected again, to send him word. I have not heard from home now in some days. I am going to put up a lot of my old things in a box and send them home by express. I will write when I send them. Have you heard anything from Mary or Han lately? I should like to hear. Tell Jeff he must write, and you must, too, mother. I have been in one of the worst hospitals all the forenoon, it containing about 1600. I have given the men pipes and tobacco. (I am the only one that gives them tobacco.) O how much good it does some of them--the chaplains and most of the doctors are down upon it--but I give them and let them smoke. To others I have given oranges, fed them, etc. Well, dear mother, good-bye--love to Matty and Sis. WALT. Fred McReady is coming home very soon on furlough--have any of the soldiers called on you? XXV _Washington, June 3, 1864._ DEAREST MOTHER--Your letter came yesterday. I have not heard the least thing from the 51st since--no doubt they are down there with the army near Richmond. I have not written to George lately. I think the news from the Army is very good. Mother, you know of course that it is now very near Richmond indeed, from five to ten miles. Mother, if this campaign was not in progress I should not stop here, as it is now beginning to tell a little upon me, so many bad wounds, many putrefied, and all kinds of dreadful ones, I have been rather too much with--but as it is, I certainly remain here while the thing remains undecided. It is impossible for me to abstain from going to see and minister to certain cases, and that draws me into others, and so on. I have just left Oscar Cunningham, the Ohio boy--he is in a dying condition--there is no hope for him--it would draw tears from the hardest heart to look at him--he is all wasted away to a skeleton, and looks like some one fifty years old. You remember I told you a year ago, when he was first brought in, I thought him the noblest specimen of a young Western man I had seen, a real giant in size, and always with a smile on his face. O what a change. He has long been very irritable to every one but me, and his frame is all wasted away. The young Massachusetts 1st artillery boy, Cutter, I wrote about is dead. He is the one that was brought in a week ago last Sunday badly wounded in breast. The deaths in the principal hospital I visit, Armory-square, average one an hour. I saw Capt. Baldwin of the 14th this morning; he has lost his left arm--is going home soon. Mr. Kalbfleisch and Anson Herrick, (M. C. from New York), came in one of the wards where I was sitting writing a letter this morning, in the midst of the wounded. Kalbfleisch was so much affected by the sight that he burst into tears. O, I must tell you, I [gave] in Carver hospital a great treat of ice cream, a couple of days ago--went round myself through about 15 large wards--(I bought some ten gallons, very nice). You would have cried and been amused too. Many of the men had to be fed; several of them I saw cannot probably live, yet they quite enjoyed it. I gave everybody some--quite a number [of] Western country boys had never tasted ice cream before. They relish such things [as] oranges, lemons, etc. Mother, I feel a little blue this morning, as two young men I knew very well have just died. One died last night, and the other about half an hour before I went to the hospital. I did not anticipate the death of either of them. Each was a very, very sad case, so young. Well mother, I see I have written you another gloomy sort of letter. I do not feel as first rate as usual. WALT. You don't know how I want to come home and see you all; you, dear mother, and Jeff and Mat and all. I believe I am homesick--something new for me--then I have seen all the horrors of soldiers' life and not been kept up by its excitement. It is awful to see so much, and not be able to relieve it. XXVI _Washington, June 7, 1864._ DEAREST MOTHER--I cannot write you anything about the 51st, as I have not heard a word. I felt very much disturbed yesterday afternoon, as Major Hapgood came up from the paymaster general's office, and said that news had arrived that Burnside was killed, and that the 9th Corps had had a terrible slaughter. He said it was believed at the paymaster general's office. Well, I went out to see what reliance there was on it. The rumor soon spread over town, and was believed by many--but as near as I can make it out, it proves to be one of those unaccountable stories that get started these times. Saturday night we heard that Grant was routed completely, etc. etc.--so that's the way stories fly. I suppose you hear the same big lies there in Brooklyn. Well, the truth is sad enough, without adding anything to it--but Grant is not destroyed yet, but I think is going into Richmond yet, but the cost is terrible. Mother, I have not felt well at all the last week. I had spells of deathly faintness and bad trouble in my head too, and sore throat (quite a little budget, ain't they?) My head was the worst, though I don't know, the faint spells were not very pleasant--but I feel so much better this forenoon I believe it has passed over. There is a very horrible collection in Armory building, (in Armory-square hospital)--about 200 of the worst cases you ever see, and I had been probably too much with them. It is enough to melt the heart of a stone; over one third of them are amputation cases. Well, mother, poor Oscar Cunningham is gone at last. He is the 82d Ohio boy (wounded May 3d, '63). I have written so much of him I suppose you feel as if you almost knew him. I was with him Saturday forenoon and also evening. He was more composed than usual, could not articulate very well. He died about 2 o'clock Sunday morning--very easy they told me. I was not there. It was a blessed relief; his life has been misery for months. The cause of death at last was the system absorbing the pus, the bad matter, instead of discharging it from [the] wound. I believe I told you I was quite blue from the deaths of several of the poor young men I knew well, especially two I had strong hopes of their getting up. Things are going pretty badly with the wounded. They are crowded here in Washington in immense numbers, and all those that come up from the Wilderness and that region, arrived here so neglected, and in such plight, it was awful--(those that were at Fredericksburg and also from Ball Plain). The papers are full of puffs, etc., but the truth is, the largest proportion of worst cases got little or no attention. We receive them here with their wounds full of worms--some all swelled and inflamed. Many of the amputations have to be done over again. One new feature is that many of the poor afflicted young men are crazy. Every ward has some in it that are wandering. They have suffered too much, and it is perhaps a privilege that they are out of their senses. Mother, it is most too much for a fellow, and I sometimes wish I was out of it--but I suppose it is because I have not felt first rate myself. I am going to write to George to-day, as I see there is a daily mail to White House. O, I must tell you that we get the wounded from our present field near Richmond much better than we did from the Wilderness and Fredericksburg. We get them now from White House. They are put on boats there, and come all the way here, about 160 or 170 miles. White House is only twelve or fifteen miles from the field, and is our present depot and base of supplies. It is very pleasant here to-day, a little cooler than it has been--a good rain shower last evening. The Western reg'ts continue to pour in here, the 100 days men;--may go down to front to guard posts, trains, etc. Well, mother, how do things go on with you all? It seems to me if I could only be home two or three days, and have some good teas with you and Mat, and set in the old basement a while, and have a good time and talk with Jeff, and see the little girls, etc., I should be willing to keep on afterward among these sad scenes for the rest of the summer--but I shall remain here until this Richmond campaign is settled, anyhow, unless I get sick, and I don't anticipate that. Mother dear, I hope you are well and in fair spirits--you must try to. Have you heard from sister Han? WALT. You know I am living at 502 Pennsylvania av. (near 3d st.)--it is not a very good place. I don't like it so well as I did cooking my own grub--and the air is not good. Jeff, you must write. XXVII _Washington, June 10, 1864._ DEAREST MOTHER--I got your letter dated last Wednesday. I do not always depend on ----'s accounts. I think he is apt to make things full as bad as they are, if not worse. Mother, I was so glad to get a letter from Jeff this morning, enclosing one from George dated June 1st. It was so good to see his handwriting once more. I have not heard anything of the reg't--there are all sorts of rumors here, among others that Burnside does not give satisfaction to Grant and Meade, and that it is expected some one else will be placed in command of 9th Corps. Another rumor more likely is that our base of the army is to be changed to Harrison's Landing on James river instead of White House on Pamunkey. Mother, I have not felt well again the last two days as I was Tuesday, but I feel a good deal better this morning. I go round, but most of the time feel very little like it. The doctor tells me I have continued too long in the hospitals, especially in a bad place, Armory building, where the worst wounds were, and have absorbed too much of the virus in my system--but I know it is nothing but what a little relief and sustenance of [the] right sort will set right. I am writing this in Major Hapgood's office. He is very busy paying off some men whose time is out; they are going home to New York. I wrote to George yesterday. We are having very pleasant weather here just now. Mother, you didn't mention whether Mary had come, so I suppose she has not. I should like to see her and Ansel too. The wounded still come here in large numbers--day and night trains of ambulances. Tell Jeff the $10 from Mr. Lane for the soldiers came safe. I shall write to Jeff right away. I send my love to Mat and all. Mother, you must try to keep good heart. WALT. XXVIII _Washington, June 14, 1864._ DEAREST MOTHER. I am not feeling very well these days--the doctors have told me not to come inside the hospitals for the present. I send there by a friend every day; I send things and aid to some cases I know, and hear from there also, but I do not go myself at present. It is probable that the hospital poison has affected my system, and I find it worse than I calculated. I have spells of faintness and very bad feeling in my head, fullness and pain--and besides sore throat. My boarding place, 502 Pennsylvania av., is a miserable place, very bad air. But I shall feel better soon, I know--the doctors say it will pass over--they have long told me I was going in too strong. Some days I think it has all gone and I feel well again, but in a few hours I have a spell again. Mother, I have not heard anything of the 51st. I sent George's letter to Han. I have written to George since. I shall write again to him in a day or two. If Mary comes home, tell her I sent her my love. If I don't feel better before the end of this week or beginning of next, I may come home for a week or fortnight for a change. The rumor is very strong here that Grant is over the James river on south side--but it is not in the papers. We are having quite cool weather here. Mother, I want to see you and Jeff so much. I have been working a little at copying, but have stopt it lately. WALT. XXIX _Washington, June 17, 1864._ DEAREST MOTHER. I got your letter this morning. This place and the hospitals seem to have got the better of me. I do not feel so badly this forenoon--but I have bad nights and bad days too. Some of the spells are pretty bad--still I am up some and around every day. The doctors have told me for a fortnight I must leave; that I need an entire change of air, etc. I think I shall come home for a short time, and pretty soon. (I will try it two or three days yet though, and if I find my illness goes over I will stay here yet awhile. All I think about is to be here if any thing should happen to George). We don't hear anything more of the army than you do there in the papers. WALT. Mother, if I should come I will write a day or so before. _The letter of June 17, 1864, is the last of Whitman's, written from Washington at or about this time, that has been preserved and come down to us. Many, probably many more than have been kept, have been lost; indeed, it is a wonder that so many were saved, for they were sent about from one member of the family to another, and when once read seem to have been little valued. The reader will have noticed a certain change of tone in the later letters, showing that Whitman was beginning to feel the inroads which the fatigues, the unhealthy surroundings of the hospitals, and especially the mental anxiety and distress inseparable from his work there, were making upon even his superb health. Down to the time of his hospital work he had never known a day's sickness, but thereafter he never again knew, except at intervals which grew shorter and less frequent as time went on, the buoyant vigor and vitality of his first forty-four years. From 1864 to the end of 1872 the attacks described in his "Calamus" letters became from year to year more frequent and more severe, until, in January, 1873, they culminated in an attack of paralysis which never left him and from the indirect effects of which he died in 1892._ _But for years, though often warned and sent away by the doctors, during his better intervals and until his splendid health was quite broken by hospital malaria and the poison absorbed from gangrenous wounds, he continued his ministrations to the sick and the maimed of the war. Those who joined the ranks and fought the battles of the Republic did well; but when the world knows, as it is beginning to know, how this man, without any encouragement from without, under no compulsion, simply, without beat of drum or any cheers of approval, went down into those immense lazar houses and devoted his days and nights, his heart and soul, and at last his health and life, to America's sick and wounded sons, it will say that he did even better._ _R. M. B._ _As at thy portals also death, Entering thy sovereign, dim, illimitable grounds, To memories of my mother, to the divine blending, maternity, To her, buried and gone, yet buried not, gone not from me, (I see again the calm benignant face fresh and beautiful still, I sit by the form in the coffin, I kiss and kiss convulsively again the sweet old lips, the cheeks, the closed eyes in the coffin;) To her, the ideal woman, practical, spiritual, of all of earth, life, love, to me the best, I grave a monumental line, before I go, amid these songs, And set a tombstone here._ _Printed by John Wilson and Son, at the University Press, Cambridge, U.S.A., in December, 1897._ Footnotes: [1] His brother, Capt. (afterwards Col.) George W. Whitman, born 1829, now (1897) residing in Burlington, N. J. [2] His favorite sister, Hannah Louisa Whitman (Mrs. C. L. Heyde), born 1823, now (1897) residing in Burlington, Vt. [3] His brother, Thomas Jefferson Whitman, born 1833, died 1890. [4] Brig.-Gen. Edward Ferrero, commanding Second Brigade, Second Division, Army of the Potomac, under whose command the 51st Brooklyn Regiment fought at Fredericksburg. George Whitman was a captain in this regiment. [5] Martha, wife of "Jeff." She died in 1873. "1873.--This year lost, by death, my dear dear mother--and just before, my sister Martha--the two best and sweetest women I have ever seen or known, or ever expect to see" (WALT WHITMAN, "Some Personal and Old Age Jottings"). [6] "Jeff's" little daughter, Mannahatta. She died in 1888. [7] His brother, Andrew Jackson Whitman, born 1827, died 1863. His other brothers at this time, besides those previously mentioned, were Jesse Whitman, born 1818, died 1870, and Edward Whitman, born 1835, died 1892. [8] Martha. [9] Mannahatta. [10] William Douglas O'Connor, born Jan. 2, 1832. He was a journalist in Boston in early life, went to Washington about 1861, first as clerk in the Light House Bureau, and later became Assistant Superintendent of the United States Life-Saving Service; died in Washington, May 9, 1889. He was one of Whitman's warmest friends, and the author of "The Good Gray Poet." [11] The Monitor foundered off Cape Hatteras in a gale December 29, 1862. [12] "Jeff." [13] A copy of the 1860 (first Boston) edition of "Leaves of Grass," which Whitman used for preparing the next (1867) edition. From various evidence this is the same copy, with his MS. alterations, which Secretary Harlan found in Whitman's desk at the Interior Department in 1865, and which he read surreptitiously before discharging the poet from his position. It is now in the possession of Mr. Horace L. Traubel, of Camden, N. J. The reference to "Drum-Taps," published in 1865, shows that it had already taken shape in MS. [14] Andrew Whitman's wife. [15] Jessie Louisa Whitman. [16] His sister, Mary Elizabeth Whitman (Mrs. Van Nostrand) born 1821 now (1897) residing in Sag Harbor, L. I. [17] Mrs. Whitman's maiden name was Louisa Van Velsor. [18] Mrs. Abby Price, an intimate friend of Whitman, and a friend and neighbor of his mother. [19] Mrs. Price's son, a naval officer. [20] Mrs. Price's daughter, and sister of the Helen mentioned later. [21] Formerly of Thayer & Eldridge, the first Boston publishers of "Leaves of Grass" (1860 Edition). [22] Jeff's daughter Jessie was originally called California. 
3635	----	MOTHER A STORY BY KATHLEEN NORRIS TO J. E. T. AND J. A. T. As years ago we carried to your knees The tales and treasures of eventful days, Knowing no deed too humble for your praise, Nor any gift too trivial to please, So still we bring, with older smiles and tears, What gifts we may, to claim the old, dear right; Your faith, beyond the silence and the night, Your love still close and watching through the years. JTABLE 4 7 1 MOTHER CHAPTER I "Well, we couldn't have much worse weather than this for the last week of school, could we?" Margaret Paget said in discouragement. She stood at one of the school windows, her hands thrust deep in her coat pockets for warmth, her eyes following the whirling course of the storm that howled outside. The day had commenced with snow, but now, at twelve o'clock, the rain was falling in sheets, and the barren schoolhouse yard, and the play-shed roof, ran muddy streams of water. Margaret had taught in this schoolroom for nearly four years now, ever since her seventeenth birthday, and she knew every feature of the big bare room by heart, and every detail of the length of village street that the high, uncurtained windows commanded. She had stood at this window in all weathers: when locust and lilac made even ugly little Weston enchanting, and all the windows were open to floods of sweet spring air; when tie dry heat of autumn burned over the world; when the common little houses and barns, and the bare trees, lay dazzling and transfigured under the first snowfall, and the wood crackled in the schoolroom stove; and when, as to-day, midwinter rains swept drearily past the windows, and the children must have the lights lighted for their writing lesson. She was tired of it all, with an utter and hopeless weariness. Tired of the bells, and the whispering, and the shuffling feet, of the books that smelled of pencil-dust and ink and little dusty fingers; tired of the blackboards, cleaned in great irregular scallops by small and zealous arms; of the clear-ticking big clock; of little girls who sulked, and little girls who cried after hours in the hall because they had lost their lunch baskets or their overshoes, and little girls who had colds in their heads, and no handkerchiefs. Looking out into the gray day and the rain, Margaret said to herself that she was sick of it all! There were no little girls in the schoolroom now. They were for the most part downstairs in the big playroom, discussing cold lunches, and planning, presumably, the joys of the closely approaching holidays. One or two windows had been partially opened to air the room in their absence, and Margaret's only companion was another teacher, Emily Porter, a cheerful little widow, whose plain rosy face was in marked contrast to the younger woman's unusual beauty. Mrs. Porter loved Margaret and admired her very much, but she herself loved teaching. She had had a hard fight to secure this position a few years ago; it meant comfort to her and her children, and it still seemed to her a miracle of God's working, after her years of struggle and worry. She could not understand why Margaret wanted anything better; what better thing indeed could life hold! Sometimes, looking admiringly at her associate's crown of tawny braids, at the dark eyes and the exquisite lines of mouth and forehead, Mrs. Porter would find herself sympathetic with the girl's vague discontent and longings, to the extent of wishing that some larger social circle than that of Weston might have a chance to appreciate Margaret Paget's beauty, that "some of those painters who go crazy over girls not half as pretty" might see her. But after all, sensible little Mrs. Porter would say to herself, Weston was a "nice" town, only four hours from New York, absolutely up-to-date; and Weston's best people were all "nice," and the Paget girls were very popular, and "went everywhere,"--young people were just discontented and exacting, that was all! She came to Margaret's side now, buttoned snugly into her own storm coat, and they looked out at the rain together. Nothing alive was in sight. The bare trees tossed in the wind, and a garden gate halfway down the row of little shabby cottages banged and banged. "Shame--this is the worst yet!" Mrs. Porter said. "You aren't going home to lunch in all this, Margaret?" "Oh, I don't know," Margaret said despondently. "I'm so dead that I'd make a cup of tea here if I didn't think Mother would worry and send Julie over with lunch." "I brought some bread and butter--but not much. I hoped it would hold up. I hate to leave Tom and Sister alone all day," Mrs. Porter said dubiously. "There's tea and some of those bouillon cubes and some crackers left. But you're so tired, I don't know but what you ought to have a hearty lunch." "Oh, I'm not hungry." Margaret dropped into a desk, put her elbows on it, pushed her hair off her forehead. The other woman saw a tear slip by the lowered, long lashes. "You're exhausted, aren't you, Margaret?" she said suddenly. The little tenderness was too much. Margaret's lip shook. "Dead!" she said unsteadily. Presently she added, with an effort at cheerfulness, "I'm just cross, I guess, Emily; don't mind me! I'm tired out with examinations and--" her eyes filled again--"and I'm sick of wet cold weather and rain and snow," she added childishly. "Our house is full of muddy rubbers and wet clothes! Other people go places and do pleasant things," said Margaret, her breast rising and falling stormily; "but nothing ever happens to us except broken arms, and bills, and boilers bursting, and chicken-pox! It's drudge, drudge, drudge, from morning until night!" With a sudden little gesture of abandonment she found a handkerchief in her belt, and pressed it, still folded, against her eyes. Mrs. Porter watched her solicitously, but silently. Outside the schoolroom windows the wind battered furiously, and rain slapped steadily against the panes. "Well!" the girl said resolutely and suddenly. And after a moment she added frankly, "I think the real trouble to-day, Emily, is that we just heard of Betty Forsythe's engagement--she was my brother's girl, you know; he's admired her ever since she got into High School, and of course Bruce is going to feel awfully bad." "Betty engaged? Who to?" Mrs. Porter was interested. "To that man--boy, rather, he's only twenty-one--who's been visiting the Redmans," Margaret said. "She's only known him two weeks." "Gracious! And she's only eighteen--" "Not quite eighteen. She and my sister, Julie, were in my first class four years ago; they're the same age," Margaret said. "She came fluttering over to tell us last night, wearing a diamond the size of a marble! Of course,"--Margaret was loyal,--"I don't think there's a jealous bone in Julie's body; still, it's pretty hard! Here's Julie plugging away to get through the Normal School, so that she can teach all the rest of her life, and Betty's been to California, and been to Europe, and now is going to marry a rich New York man! Betty's the only child, you know, so, of course, she has everything. It seems so unfair, for Mr. Forsythe's salary is exactly what Dad's is; yet they can travel, and keep two maids, and entertain all the time! And as for family, why, Mother's family is one of the finest in the country, and Dad's had two uncles who were judges--and what were the Forsythes! However,"--Margaret dried her eyes and put away her handkerchief,--"however, it's for Bruce I mind most!" "Bruce is only three years older than you are, twenty-three or four," Mrs. Porter smiled. "Yes, but he's not the kind that forgets!" Margaret's flush was a little resentful. "Oh, of course, you can laugh, Emily. I know that there are plenty of people who don't mind dragging along day after day, working and eating and sleeping--but I'm not that kind!" she went on moodily. "I used to hope that things would be different; it makes me sick to think how brave I was; but now here's Ju coming along, and Ted growing up, and Bruce's girl throwing him over--it's all so unfair! I look at the Cutter girls, nearly fifty, and running the post-office for thirty years, and Mary Page in the Library, and the Norberrys painting pillows,--and I could scream!" "Things will take a turn for the better some day, Margaret," said the other woman, soothingly; "and as time goes on you'll find yourself getting more and more pleasure out of your work, as I do. Why, I've never been so securely happy in my life as I am now. You'll feel differently some day." "Maybe," Margaret assented unenthusiastically. There was a pause. Perhaps the girl was thinking that to teach school, live in a plain little cottage on the unfashionable Bridge Road, take two roomers, and cook and sew and plan for Tom and little Emily, as Mrs. Porter did, was not quite an ideal existence. "You're an angel, anyway, Emily," said she, affectionately, a little shamefacedly. "Don't mind my growling. I don't do it very often. But I look about at other people, and then realize how my mother's slaved for twenty years and how my father's been tied down, and I've come to the conclusion that while there may have been a time when a woman could keep a house, tend a garden, sew and spin and raise twelve children, things are different now; life is more complicated. You owe your husband something, you owe yourself something. I want to get on, to study and travel, to be a companion to my husband. I don't want to be a mere upper servant!" "No, of course not," assented Mrs. Porter, vaguely, soothingly. "Well, if we are going to stay here, I'll light the stove," Margaret said after a pause. "B-r-r-r! this room gets cold with the windows open! I wonder why Kelly doesn't bring us more wood?" "I guess--I'll stay!" Mrs. Porter said uncertainly, following her to the big book closet off the schoolroom, where a little gas stove and a small china closet occupied one wide shelf. The water for the tea and bouillon was put over the flame in a tiny enamelled saucepan; they set forth on a fringed napkin crackers and sugar and spoons. At this point, a small girl of eleven with a brilliant, tawny head, and a wide and toothless smile, opened the door cautiously, and said, blinking rapidly with excitement,-- "Mark, Mother theth pleath may thee come in?" This was Rebecca, one of Margaret's five younger brothers and sisters, and a pupil of the school herself. Margaret smiled at the eager little face. "Hello, darling! Is Mother here? Certainly she can! I believe,"--she said, turning, suddenly radiant, to Mrs. Porter,--"I'll just bet you she's brought us some lunch!" "Thee brought uth our luncheth--eggth and thpith caketh and everything!" exulted Rebecca, vanishing, and a moment later Mrs. Paget appeared. She was a tall woman, slender but large of build, and showing, under a shabby raincoat and well pinned-up skirt, the gracious generous lines of shoulders and hips, the deep-bosomed erect figure that is rarely seen except in old daguerreotypes, or the ideal of some artist two generations ago. The storm to-day had blown an unusual color into her thin cheeks, her bright, deep eyes were like Margaret's, but the hair that once had shown an equally golden lustre was dull and smooth now, and touched with gray. She came in smiling, and a little breathless. "Mother, you didn't come out in all this rain just to bring us our lunches!" Margaret protested, kissing the cold, fresh face. "Well, look at the lunch you silly girls were going to eat!" Mrs. Paget protested in turn, in a voice rich with amusement. "I love to walk in the rain, Mark; I used to love it when I was a girl. Tom and Sister are at our house, Mrs. Potter, playing with Duncan and Baby. I'll keep them until after school, then I'll send them over to walk home with you." "Oh, you are an angel!" said the younger mother, gratefully. And "You are an angel, Mother!" Margaret echoed, as Mrs. Paget opened a shabby suitcase, and took from it a large jar of hot rich soup, a little blue bowl of stuffed eggs, half a fragrant whole-wheat loaf in a white napkin, a little glass full of sweet butter, and some of the spice cakes to which Rebecca had already enthusiastically alluded. "There!" said she, pleased with their delight, "now take your time, you've got three-quarters of an hour. Julie devilled the eggs, and the sweet-butter man happened to come just as I was starting." "Delicious!--You've saved our lives," Margaret said, busy with cups and spoons. "You'll stay, Mother?" she broke off suddenly, as Mrs. Paget closed the suitcase. "I can't, dear! I must go back to the children," her mother said cheerfully. No coaxing proving of any avail, Margaret went with her to the top of the hall stairs. "What's my girl worrying about?" Mrs. Paget asked, with a keen glance at Margaret's face. "Oh, nothing!" Margaret used both hands to button the top button of her mother's coat. "I was hungry and cold, and I didn't want to walk home in the rain!" she confessed, raising her eyes to the eyes so near her own. "Well, go back to your lunch," Mrs. Paget urged, after a brief pause, not quite satisfied with the explanation. Margaret kissed her again, watched her descend the stairs, and leaning over the banister called down to her softly: "Don't worry about me, Mother!" "No--no--no!" her mother called back brightly. Indeed, Margaret reflected, going back to the much-cheered Emily, it was not in her nature to worry. No, Mother never worried, or if she did, nobody ever knew it. Care, fatigue, responsibility, hard long years of busy days and broken nights had left their mark on her face; the old beauty that had been hers was chiselled to a mere pure outline now; but there was a contagious serenity in Mrs. Paget's smile, a clear steadiness in her calm eyes, and her forehead, beneath an unfashionably plain sweep of hair, was untroubled and smooth. The children's mother was a simple woman; so absorbed in the hourly problems attendant upon the housing and feeding of her husband and family that her own personal ambitions, if she had any, were quite lost sight of, and the actual outlines of her character were forgotten by every one, herself included. If her busy day marched successfully to nightfall; if darkness found her husband reading in his big chair, the younger children sprawled safe and asleep in the shabby nursery, the older ones contented with books or games, the clothes sprinkled, the bread set, the kitchen dark and clean; Mrs. Paget asked no more of life. She would sit, her overflowing work-basket beside her, looking from one absorbed face to another, thinking perhaps of Julie's new school dress, of Ted's impending siege with the dentist, or of the old bureau up attic that might be mended for Bruce's room. "Thank God we have all warm beds," she would say, when they all went upstairs, yawning and chilly. She had married, at twenty, the man she loved, and had found him better than her dreams in many ways, and perhaps disappointing in some few others, but "the best man in the world" for all that. That for more than twenty years he had been satisfied to stand for nine hours daily behind one dingy desk, and to carry home to her his unopened salary envelope twice a month, she found only admirable. Daddy was "steady," he was "so gentle with the children," he was "the easiest man in the world to cook for." "Bless his heart, no woman ever had less to worry over in her husband!" she would say, looking from her kitchen window to the garden where he trained the pea-vines, with the children's yellow heads bobbing about him. She never analyzed his character, much less criticised him. Good and bad, he was taken for granted; she was much more lenient to him than to any of the children. She welcomed the fast-coming babies as gifts from God, marvelled over their tiny perfectness, dreamed over the soft relaxed little forms with a heart almost too full for prayer. She was, in a word, old-fashioned, hopelessly out of the modern current of thoughts and events. She secretly regarded her children as marvellous, even while she laughed down their youthful conceit and punished their naughtiness. Thinking a little of all these things, as a girl with her own wifehood and motherhood all before her does think, Margaret went back to her hot luncheon. One o'clock found her at her desk, refreshed in spirit by her little outburst, and much fortified in body. The room was well aired, and a reinforced fire roared in the little stove. One of the children had brought her a spray of pine, and the spicy fragrance of it reminded her that Christmas and the Christmas vacation were near; her mind was pleasantly busy with anticipation of the play that the Pagets always wrote and performed some time during the holidays, and with the New Year's costume dance at the Hall, and a dozen lesser festivities. Suddenly, in the midst of a droning spelling lesson, there was a jarring interruption. From the world outside came a child's shrill screaming, which was instantly drowned in a chorus of frightened voices, and in the schoolroom below her own Margaret heard a thundering rush of feet, and answering screams. With a suffocating terror at her heart she ran to the window, followed by every child in the room. The rain had stopped now, and the sky showed a pale, cold, yellow light low in the west. At the schoolhouse gate an immense limousine car had come to a stop. The driver, his face alone visible between a great leather coat and visored leather cap, was talking unheard above the din. A tall woman, completely enveloped in sealskins, had evidently jumped from the limousine, and now held in her arms what made Margaret's heart turn sick and cold, the limp figure of a small girl. About these central figures there surged the terrified crying small children of the just-dismissed primer class, and in the half moment that Margaret watched, Mrs. Porter, white and shaking, and another teacher, Ethel Elliot, an always excitable girl, who was now sobbing and chattering hysterically, ran out from the school, each followed by her own class of crowding and excited boys and girls. With one horrified exclamation, Margaret ran downstairs, and out to the gate. Mrs. Porter caught at her arm as she passed her in the path. "Oh, my God, Margaret! It's poor little Dorothy Scott!" she said. "They've killed her. The car went completely over her!" "Oh, Margaret, don't go near, oh, how can you!" screamed Miss Elliot. "Oh, and she's all they have! Who'll tell her mother!" With astonishing ease, for the children gladly recognized authority, Margaret pushed through the group to the motor-car. "Stop screaming--stop that shouting at once--keep still, every one of you!" she said angrily, shaking various shoulders as she went with such good effect that the voice of the woman in sealskins could be heard by the time Margaret reached her. "I don't think she's badly hurt!" said this woman, nervously and eagerly. She was evidently badly shaken, and was very white. "Do quiet them, can't you?" she said, with a sort of apprehensive impatience. "Can't we take her somewhere, and get a doctor? Can't we get out of this?" Margaret took the child in her own arms. Little Dorothy roared afresh, but to Margaret's unspeakable relief she twisted about and locked her arms tightly about the loved teacher's neck. The other woman watched them anxiously. "That blood on her frock's just nosebleed," she said; "but I think the car went over her! I assure you we were running very slowly. How it happened--! But I don't think she was struck." "Nosebleed!" Margaret echoed, with a great breath. "No," she said quietly, over the agitated little head; "I don't think she's much hurt. We'll take her in. Now, look here, children," she added loudly to the assembled pupils of the Weston Grammar School, whom mere curiosity had somewhat quieted, "I want every one of you children to go back to your schoolrooms; do you understand? Dorothy's had a bad scare, but she's got no bones broken, and we're going to have a doctor see that she's all right. I want you to see how quiet you can be. Mrs. Porter, may my class go into your room a little while?" "Certainly," said Mrs. Porter, eager to cooperate, and much relieved to have her share of the episode take this form. "Form lines, children," she added calmly. "Ted," said Margaret to her own small brother, who was one of Mrs. Porter's pupils, and who had edged closer to her than any boy unprivileged by relationship dared, "will you go down the street, and ask old Doctor Potts to come here? And then go tell Dorothy's mother that Dorothy has had a little bump, and that Miss Paget says she's all right, but that she'd like her mother to come for her." "Sure I will, Mark!" Theodore responded enthusiastically, departing on a run. "Mama!" sobbed the little sufferer at this point, hearing a familiar word. "Yes, darling, you want Mama, don't you?" Margaret said soothingly, as she started with her burden up the schoolhouse steps. "What were you doing, Dorothy," she went on pleasantly, "to get under that big car?" "I dropped my ball!" wailed the small girl, her tears beginning afresh, "and it rolled and rolled. And I didn't see the automobile, and I didn't see it! And I fell down and b-b-bumped my nose!" "Well, I should think you did!" Margaret said, laughing. "Mother won't know you at all with such a muddy face and such a muddy apron!" Dorothy laughed shakily at this, and several other little girls, passing in orderly file, laughed heartily. Margaret crossed the lines of children to the room where they played and ate their lunches on wet days. She shut herself in with the child and the fur-clad lady. "Now you're all right!" said Margaret, gayly. And, Dorothy was presently comfortable in a big chair, wrapped in a rug from the motor-car, with her face washed, and her head dropped languidly back against her chair, as became an interesting invalid. The Irish janitor was facetious as he replenished the fire, and made her laugh again. Margaret gave her a numerical chart to play with, and saw with satisfaction that the little head was bent interestedly over it. Quiet fell upon the school; the muffled sound of lessons recited in concert presently reached them. Theodore returned, reporting that the doctor would come as soon as he could and that Dorothy's mother was away at a card-party, but that Dorothy's "girl" would come for her as soon as the bread was out of the oven. There was nothing to do but wait. "It seems a miracle," said the strange lady, in a low tone, when she and Margaret were alone again with the child. "But I don't believe she was scratched!" "I don't think so," Margaret agreed. "Mother says no child who can cry is very badly hurt." "They made such a horrible noise," said the other, sighing wearily. She passed a white hand, with one or two blazing great stones upon it, across her forehead. Margaret had leisure now to notice that by all signs this was a very great lady indeed. The quality of her furs, the glimpse of her gown that the loosened coat showed, her rings, and most of all the tones of her voice, the authority of her manner, the well-groomed hair and skin and hands, all marked the thoroughbred. "Do you know that you managed that situation very cleverly just now?" said the lady, with a keen glance that made Margaret color. "One has such a dread of the crowd, just public sentiment, you know. Some odious bystander calls the police, they crowd against your driver, perhaps a brick gets thrown. We had an experience in England once--" She paused, then interrupted herself. "But I don't know your name?" she said brightly. Margaret supplied it, was led to talk a little of her own people. "Seven of you, eh? Seven's too many," said the visitor, with the assurance that Margaret was to learn characterized her. "I've two myself, two girls," she went on. "I wanted a boy, but they're nice girls. And you've six brothers and sisters? Are they all as handsome as you and this Teddy of yours? And why do you like teaching?" "Why do I like it?" Margaret said, enjoying these confidences and the unusual experience of sitting idle in mid-afternoon. "I don't, I hate it." "I see. But then why don't you come down to New York, and do something else?" the other woman asked. "I'm needed at home, and I don't know any one there," Margaret said simply. "I see," the lady said again thoughtfully. There was a pause. Then the same speaker said reminiscently, "I taught school once for three months when I was a girl, to show my father I could support myself." "I've taught for four years," Margaret said. "Well, if you ever want to try something else,--there are such lots of fascinating things a girl can do now!--be sure you come and see me about it," the stranger said. "I am Mrs. Carr-Boldt, of New York." Margaret's amazed eyes flashed to Mrs. Carr-Boldt's face; her cheeks crimsoned. "Mrs. Carr-Boldt!" she echoed blankly. "Why not?" smiled the lady, not at all displeased. "Why," stammered Margaret, laughing and rosy, "why, nothing--only I never dreamed who you were!" she finished, a little confused. And indeed it never afterward seemed to her anything short of a miracle that brought the New York society woman--famed on two continents and from ocean to ocean for her jewels, her entertainments, her gowns, her establishments--into a Weston schoolroom, and into Margaret Paget's life. "I was on my way to New York now," said Mrs. Carr-Boldt. "I don't see why you should be delayed," Margaret said, glad to be able to speak normally, with such a fast-beating and pleasantly excited heart. "I'm sure Dorothy's all right." "Oh, I'd rather wait. I like my company," said the other. And Margaret decided in that instant that there never was a more deservedly admired and copied and quoted woman. Presently their chat was interrupted by the tramp of the departing school children; the other teachers peeped in, were reassured, and went their ways. Then came the doctor, to pronounce the entirely cheerful Dorothy unhurt, and to bestow upon her some hoarhound drops. Mrs. Carr-Boldt settled at once with the doctor, and when Margaret saw the size of the bill that was pressed into his hand, she realized that she had done her old friend a good turn. "Use it up on your poor people," said Mrs. Carr-Boldt, to his protestations; and when he had gone, and Dorothy's "girl" appeared, she tipped that worthy and amazed Teuton, and after promising Dorothy a big doll from a New York shop, sent the child and maid home in the motor-car. "I hope this hasn't upset your plans," Margaret said, as they stood waiting in the doorway. It was nearly five o'clock, the school was empty and silent. "No, not exactly. I had hoped to get home for dinner. But I think I'll get Woolcock to take me back to Dayton; I've some very dear friends there who'll give me a cup of tea. Then I'll come back this way and get home, by ten, I should think, for a late supper." Then, as the limousine appeared, Mrs. Carr-Boldt took both Margaret's hands in hers, and said, "And now good-bye, my dear girl. I've got your address, and I'm going to send you something pretty to remember me by. You saved me from I don't know what annoyance and publicity. And don't forget that when you come to New York I'm going to help you meet the people you want to, and give you a start if I can. You're far too clever and good-looking to waste your life down here. Good-bye!" "Good-bye!" Margaret said, her cheeks brilliant, her head awhirl. She stood unmindful of the chilly evening air, watching the great motor-car wheel and slip into the gloom. The rain was over; a dying wind moaned mysteriously through the dusk. Margaret went slowly upstairs, pinned on her hat, buttoned her long coat snugly about her. She locked the schoolroom door, and, turning the corner, plunged her hands into her pockets, and faced the wind bravely. Deepening darkness and coldness were about her, but she felt surrounded by the warmth and brightness of her dreams. She saw the brilliant streets of a big city, the carriages and motor-cars coming and going, the idle, lovely women in their sumptuous gowns and hats. These things were real, near--almost attainable--to-night. "Mrs. Carr-Boldt!" Margaret said, "the darling! I wonder if I'll ever see her again!" CHAPTER II Life in the shabby, commonplace house that sheltered the Paget family sometimes really did seem to proceed, as Margaret had suggested, in a long chain of violent shocks, narrow escapes, and closely averted catastrophes. No sooner was Duncan's rash pronounced not to be scarlet fever than Robert swallowed a penny, or Beck set fire to the dining-room waste-basket, or Dad foresaw the immediate failure of the Weston Home Savings Bank, and the inevitable loss of his position there. Sometimes there was a paternal explosion because Bruce liked to murmur vaguely of "dandy chances in Manila," or because Julie, pretty, excitable, and sixteen, had an occasional dose of stage fever, and would stammer desperately between convulsive sobs that she wasn't half as much afraid of "the terrible temptations of the life" as she was afraid of dying a poky old maid in Weston. In short, the home was crowded, the Pagets were poor, and every one of the seven possessed a spirited and distinct entity. All the mother's effort could not keep them always contented. Growing ambitions made the Weston horizon seem narrow and mean, and the young eyes that could not see beyond to-morrow were often wet with rebellious tears. Through it all they loved each other; sometimes whole weeks went by in utter harmony; the children contented over "Parches" on the hearthrug in the winter evenings, Julie singing in the morning sunlight, as she filled the vases from the shabby marguerite bushes on the lawn. But there were other times when to the dreamy, studious Margaret the home circle seemed all discord, all ugly dinginess and thread-bareness; the struggle for ease and beauty and refinement seemed hopeless and overwhelming. In these times she would find herself staring thoughtfully at her mother's face, bent over the mending basket, or her eyes would leave the chessboard that held her father's attention so closely, and move from his bald spot, with its encircling crown of fluffy gray, to his rosy face, with its kind, intent blue eyes and the little lines about his mouth that his moustache didn't hide,--with a half-formed question in her heart. What hadn't they done, these dearest people, to be always struggling, always tired, always "behind the game"? Why should they be eternally harassed by plumbers' bills, and dentists' bills, and shoes that would wear out, and school-books that must be bought? Why weren't they holding their place in Weston society, the place to which they were entitled by right of the Quincy grandfather, and the uncles who were judges? And in answer Margaret came despondently to the decision, "If you have children, you never have anything else!" How could Mother keep up with her friends, when for some fifteen years she had been far too busy to put on a dainty gown in the afternoon, and serve a hospitable cup of tea on the east porch? Mother was buttering bread for supper, then; opening little beds and laying out little nightgowns, starting Ted off for the milk, washing small hands and faces, soothing bumps and binding cuts, admonishing, praising, directing. Mother was only too glad to sink wearily into her rocker after dinner, and, after a few spirited visits to the rampant nursery upstairs, express the hope that nobody would come in to-night. Gradually the friends dropped away, and the social life of Weston flowed smoothly on without the Pagets. But when Margaret began to grow up, she grasped the situation with all the keenness of a restless and ambitious nature. Weston, detested Weston, it must apparently be. Very well, she would make the best of Weston. Margaret called on her mother's old friends; she was tireless in charming little attentions. Her own first dances had not been successful; she and Bruce were not good dancers, Margaret had not been satisfied with her gowns, they both felt out of place. When Julie's dancing days came along, Margaret saw to it that everything was made much easier. She planned social evenings at home, and exhausted herself preparing for them, that Julie might know the "right people." To her mother all people were alike, if they were kind and not vulgar; Margaret felt very differently. It was a matter of the greatest satisfaction to her when Julie blossomed into a fluffy-haired butterfly, tremendously in demand, in spite of much-cleaned slippers and often-pressed frocks. Margaret arranged Christmas theatricals, May picnics, Fourth of July gatherings. She never failed Bruce when this dearest brother wanted her company; she was, as Mrs. Paget told her over and over, "the sweetest daughter any woman ever had." But deep in her heart she knew moods of bitter distaste and restlessness. The struggle did not seem worth the making; the odds against her seemed too great. Still dreaming in the winter dark, she went through the home gate, and up the porch steps of a roomy, cheap house that had been built in the era of scalloped and pointed shingles, of colored glass embellishments around the window-panes, of perforated scroll work and wooden railings in Grecian designs. A mass of wet over-shoes lay on the porch, and two or three of the weather-stained porch rockers swayed under the weight of spread wet raincoats. Two opened umbrellas wheeled in the current of air that came around the house; the porch ran water. While Margaret was adding her own rainy-day equipment to the others, a golden brown setter, one ecstatic wriggle from nose to tail, flashed into view, and came fawning to her feet. "Hello, Bran!" Margaret said, propping herself against the house with one hand, while she pulled at a tight overshoe. "Hello, old fellow! Well, did they lock him out?" She let herself and a freezing gust of air into the dark hall, groping to the hat-rack for matches. While she was lighting the gas, a very pretty girl of sixteen, with crimson cheeks and tumbled soft dark hair, came to the dining-room door. This was her sister Julie, Margaret's roommate and warmest admirer, and for the last year or two her inseparable companion. Julie had her finger in a book, but now she closed it, and said affectionately between her yawns: "Come in here, darling! You must be dead." "Don't let Bran in," cried some one from upstairs. "He is in, Mother!" Margaret called back, and Rebecca and the three small boys--Theodore, the four-year-old baby, Robert, and Duncan, a grave little lad of seven--all rushed out of the dining-room together, shouting, as they fell on the delighted dog:-- "Aw, leave him in! Aw, leave the poor little feller in! Come on, Bran, come on, old feller! Leave him in, Mark, can't we?" Kissing and hugging the dog, and stumbling over each other and over him, they went back to the dining-room, which was warm and stuffy. A coal fire was burning low in the grate, the window-panes were beaded, and the little boys had marked their initials in the steam. They had also pushed the fringed table-cover almost off, and scattered the contents of a box of "Lotto" over the scarred walnut top. The room was shabby, ugly, comfortable. Julie and Margaret had established a tea table in the bay window, had embroidered a cover for the wide couch, had burned the big wooden bowl that was supposedly always full of nuts or grapes or red apples. But these touches were lost in the mass of less pleasing detail. The "body Brussels" carpet was worn, the wall paper depressing, the woodwork was painted dark brown, with an imitation burl smeared in by the painter's thumb. The chairs were of several different woods and patterns, the old black walnut sideboard clumsy and battered. About the fire stood some comfortable worn chairs. Margaret dropped wearily into one of these, and the dark-eyed Julie hung over her with little affectionate attentions. The children returned to their game. "Well, what a time you had with little Dolly Scott!" said Julie, sympathetically. "Ted's been getting it all mixed up! Tell us about it. Poor old Mark, you're all in, aren't you? Mark, would you like a cup of tea?" "Love it!" Margaret said, a little surprised, for this luxury was not common. "And toast--we'll toast it!" said Theodore, enthusiastically. "No, no--no tea!" said Mrs. Paget, coming in at this point with some sewing in her hands. "Don't spoil your dinner, now, Mark dear; tea doesn't do you any good. And I think Blanche is saving the cream for an apple tapioca. Theodore, Mother wants you to go right downstairs for some coal, dear. And, Julie, you'd better start your table; it's close to six. Put up the game, Rebecca!" There was general protest. Duncan, it seemed, needed only "two more" to win. Little Robert, who was benevolently allowed by the other children to play the game exactly as he pleased, screamed delightedly that he needed only one more, and showed a card upon which even the blank spaces were lavishly covered with glass. He was generously conceded the victory, and kissed by Rebecca and Julie as he made his way to his mother's lap. "Why, this can't be Robert Paget!" said Mrs. Paget, putting aside her sewing to gather him in her arms. "Not this great, big boy!" "Yes, I am!" the little fellow asserted joyously, dodging her kisses. "Good to get home!" Margaret said luxuriously. "You must sleep late in the morning," her mother commanded affectionately. "Yes, because you have to be fresh for the party Monday!" exulted Julie. She had flung a white cloth over the long table, and was putting the ringed napkins down with rapid bangs. "And New Year's Eve's the dance!" she went on buoyantly. "I just love Christmas, anyway!" "Rebecca, ask Blanche if she needs me,"--that was Mother. "You'd go perfectly crazy about her, Ju, she's the most fascinating, and the most unaffected woman!" Margaret was full of the day's real event. "And Mother theth that Ted and Dunc and I can have our friendth in on the day after Chrithmath to thee the Chrithmath tree!" That was Rebecca, who added, "Blanche theth no, Mother, unleth you want to make thom cream gravy for the chopth!" "And, Mark, Eleanor asked if Bruce and you and I weren't going as Pierrot and Pierettes; she's simply crazy to find out!" This was Julie again; and then Margaret, coaxingly, "Do make cream gravy for Bruce, Mother. Give Baby to me!" and little Robert's elated "I know three things Becky's going to get for Christmas, Mark!" "Well, I think I will, there's milk," Mrs. Paget conceded, rising. "Put Bran out, Teddy; or put him in the laundry if you want to, while we have dinner." Margaret presently followed her mother into the kitchen, stopping in a crowded passageway to tie an apron over her school gown. "Bruce come in yet?" she said in a low voice. Her mother flashed her a sympathetic look. "I don't believe he's coming, Mark." "Isn't! Oh, Mother! Oh, Mother, does he feel so badly about Betty?" "I suppose so!" Mrs. Paget went on with her bread cutting. "But, Mother, surely he didn't expect to marry Betty Forsythe?" "I don't know why not, Mark. She's a sweet little thing." "But, Mother--" Margaret was a little at a loss. "We don't seem old enough to really be getting married!" she said, a little lamely. "Brucie came in about half-past five, and said he was going over to Richie's," Mrs. Paget said, with a sigh. "In all this rain--that long walk!" Margaret ejaculated, as she filled a long wicker basket with sliced bread. "I think an evening of work with Richie will do him a world of good," said his mother. There was a pause. "There's Dad. I'll go in," she said, suddenly ending it, as the front door slammed. Margaret went in, too, to kiss her father; a tired-looking, gray haired man close to fifty, who had taken her chair by the fire. Mrs. Paget was anxious to be assured that his shoulders and shoes were not damp. "But your hands are icy, Daddy," said she, as she sat down behind a smoking tureen at the head of the table. "Come, have your nice hot soup, dear. Pass that to Dad, Becky, and light the other gas. What sort of a day?" "A hard day," said Mr. Paget, heavily. "Here, one of you girls put Baby into his chair. Let go, Bob,--I'm too tired to-night for monkey shines!" He sat down stiffly. "Where's Bruce? Can't that boy remember what time we have dinner?" "Bruce is going to have supper with Richie Williams, Dad," said Mrs. Paget, serenely. "They'll get out their blue prints afterwards and have a good evening's work. Fill the glasses before you sit down, Ju. Come, Ted--put that back on the mantel.--Come, Becky! Tell Daddy about what happened to-day, Mark--" They all drew up their chairs. Robert, recently graduated from a high chair, was propped upon "The Officers of the Civil War," and "The Household Book of Verse." Julie tied on his bib, and kissed the back of his fat little neck, before she slipped into her own seat. The mother sat between Ted and Duncan, for reasons that immediately became obvious. Margaret sat by her father, and attended to his needs, telling him all about the day, and laying her pretty slim hand over his as it rested beside his plate. The chops and cream gravy, as well as a mountain of baked potatoes, and various vegetables, were under discussion, when every one stopped short in surprise at hearing the doorbell ring. "Who--?" said Margaret, turning puzzled brows to her mother, and "I'm sure I--" her mother answered, shaking her head. Ted was heard to mutter uneasily that, gee, maybe it was old Pembroke, mad because the fellers had soaked his old skate with snowballs; Julie dimpled and said, "Maybe it's flowers!" Robert shouted, "Bakeryman!" more because he had recently acquired the word than because of any conviction on the subject. In the end Julie went to the door, with the four children in her wake. When she came back, she looked bewildered, and the children a little alarmed. "It's--it's Mrs. Carr-Boldt, Mother," said Julie. "Well, don't leave her standing there in the cold, dear!" Mrs. Paget said, rising quickly, to go into the hall. Margaret, her heart thumping with an unanalyzed premonition of something pleasant, and nervous, too, for the hospitality of the Pagets, followed her. So they were all presently crowded into the hall, Mrs. Paget all hospitality, Margaret full of a fear she would have denied that her mother would not be equal to the occasion, the children curious, Julie a little embarrassed. The visitor, fur-clad, rain-spattered,--for it was raining again,--and beaming, stretched a hand to Mrs. Paget. "You're Mrs. Paget, of course,--this is an awful hour to interrupt you," she said in her big, easy way, "and there's my Miss Paget,--how do you do? But you see I must get up to town to-night--in this door? I can see perfectly, thank you!--and I did want a little talk with you first. Now, what a shame!"--for the gas, lighted by Theodore at this point, revealed Duncan's bib, and the napkins some of the others were still carrying. "I've interrupted your dinner! Won't you let me wait here until--" "Perhaps--if you haven't had your supper--you will have some with us," said Mrs. Paget, a little uncertainly. Margaret inwardly shuddered, but Mrs. Carr-Boldt was gracious. "Mrs. Paget, that's charming of you," she said. "But I had tea at Dayton, and mustn't lose another moment. I shan't dine until I get home. I'm the busiest woman in the world, you know. Now, it won't take me two minutes--" She was seated now, her hands still deep in her muff, for the parlor was freezing cold. Mrs. Paget, with a rather bewildered look, sat down, too. "You can run back to your dinners," said she to the children. "Take them, Julie. Mark, dear, will you help the pudding?" They all filed dutifully out of the room, and Margaret, excited and curious, continued a meal that might have been of sawdust and sand for all she knew. The strain did not last long; in about ten minutes Mrs. Paget looked into the room, with a rather worried expression, and said, a little breathlessly:-- "Daddy, can you come here a moment?--You're all right, dear," she added, as Mr. Paget indicated with an embarrassed gesture his well worn house-coat. They went out together. The young people sat almost without speaking, listening to the indistinguishable murmur from the adjoining room, and smiling mysteriously at each other. Then Margaret was called, and went as far as the dining-room door, and came back to put her napkin uncertainly down at her place, hesitated, arranged her gown carefully, and finally went out again. They heard her voice with the others in the parlor... questioning... laughing. Presently the low murmur broke into audible farewells; chairs were pushed back, feet scraped in the hall. "Good-night, then!" said Mrs. Carr-Boldt's clear tones, "and so sorry to have--Good-night, Mr. Paget!--Oh, thank you--but I'm well wrapped. Thank you! Good-night, dear! I'll see you again soon--I'll write." And then came the honking of the motor-car, and a great swish where it grazed a wet bush near the house. Somebody lowered the gas in the hall, and Mrs. Paget's voice said regretfully, "I wish we had had a fire in the parlor--just one of the times!--but there's no help for it." They all came in, Margaret flushed, starry-eyed; her father and mother a little serious. The three blinked at the brighter light, and fell upon the cooling chops as if eating were the important business of the moment. "We waited the pudding," said Julie. "What is it?" "Why--" Mrs. Paget began, hesitatingly. Mr. Paget briskly took the matter out of her hands. "This lady," he said, with an air of making any further talk unnecessary, "needs a secretary, and she has offered your sister Margaret the position. That's the whole affair in a nutshell. I'm not at all sure that your mother and I think it a wise offer for Margaret to accept, and I want to say here and now that I don't want any child of mine to speak of this matter, or make it a matter of general gossip in the neighborhood. Mother, I'd like very much to have Blanche make me a fresh cup of tea." "Wants Margaret!" gasped Julie, unaffected--so astonishing was the news--by her father's unusual sternness. "Oh, Mother! Oh, Mark! Oh, you lucky thing! When is she coming down here?" "She isn't coming down here--she wants Mark to go to her--that's it," said her mother. "Mark--in New York!" shrilled Theodore. Julie got up to rush around the table and kiss her sister; the younger children laughed and shouted. "There is no occasion for all this," said Mr. Paget, but mildly, for the fresh tea had arrived. "Just quiet them down, will you, Mother? I see nothing very extraordinary in the matter. This Mrs.--Mrs. Carr Boldt--is it?--needs a secretary and companion; and she offers the position to Mark." "But--but she never even saw Mark until to-day!" marvelled Julie. "I hardly see how that affects it, my dear!" her father observed unenthusiastically. "Why, I think it makes it simply extraordinary!" exulted the generous little sister. "Oh, Mark, isn't this just the sort of thing you would have wished to happen! Secretary work,--just what you love to do! And you, with your beautiful handwriting, you'll just be invaluable to her! And your German--and I'll bet you'll just have them all adoring you--!" "Oh, Ju, if I only can do it!" burst from Margaret, with a little childish gasp. She was sitting back from the table, twisted about so that she sat sideways, her hands clasped about the top bar of her chair-back. Her tawny soft hair was loosened about her face, her dark eyes aflame. "Lenox, she said," Margaret went on dazedly; "and Europe, and travelling everywhere! And a hundred dollars a month, and nothing to spend it on, so I can still help out here! Why, it--I can't believe it!"--she looked from one smiling, interested face to another, and suddenly her radiance underwent a quick eclipse. Her lip trembled, and she tried to laugh as she pushed her chair back, and ran to the arms her mother opened. "Oh, Mother!" sobbed Margaret, clinging there, "do you want me to go--shall I go? I've always been so happy here, and I feel so ashamed of being discontented,--and I don't deserve a thing like this to happen to me!" "Why, God bless her heart!" said Mrs. Paget, tenderly, "of course you'll go!" "Oh, you silly! I'll never speak to you again if you don't!" laughed Julie, through sympathetic tears. Theodore and Duncan immediately burst into a radiant reminiscence of their one brief visit to New York; Rebecca was heard to murmur that she would "vithet Mark thome day"; and the baby, tugging at his mother's elbow, asked sympathetically if Mark was naughty, and was caught between his sister's and his mother's arms and kissed by them both. Mr. Paget, picking his paper from the floor beside his chair, took an arm-chair by the fire, stirred the coals noisily, and while cleaning his glasses, observed rather huskily that the little girl always knew, she could come back again if anything went wrong. "But suppose I don't suit?" suggested Margaret, sitting back on her heels, refreshed by tears, and with her arms laid across her mother's lap. "Oh, you'll suit," said Julie, confidently; and Mrs. Paget smoothed the girl's hair back and said affectionately, "I don't think she'll find many girls like you for the asking, Mark!" "Reading English with the two little girls," said Margaret, dreamily, "and answering notes and invitations. And keeping books--" "You can do that anyway," said her father, over his paper. "And dinner lists, you know, Mother--doesn't it sound like an English story!" Margaret stopped in the middle of an ecstatic wriggle. "Mother, will you pray I succeed?" she said solemnly. "Just be your own dear simple self, Mark," her mother advised. "January!" she added, with a great sigh. "It's the first break, isn't it, Dad? Think of trying to get along without our Mark!" "January!" Julie was instantly alert. "Why, but you'll need all sorts of clothes!" "Oh, she says there's a sewing woman always in the house," Margaret said, almost embarrassed by the still-unfolding advantages of the proposition. "I can have her do whatever's left over." Her father lowered his paper to give her a shrewd glance. "I suppose somebody knows something about this Mrs. Carr-Boldt, Mother?" asked he. "She's all right, I suppose?" "Oh, Dad, her name's always in the papers," Julie burst out; and the mother smiled as she said, "We'll be pretty sure of everything before we let our Mark go!" Later, when the children had been dismissed, and he himself was going, rather stiffly, toward the stairs, Mr. Paget again voiced a mild doubt. "There was a perfectly good reason for her hurry, I suppose? Old secretary deserted--got married--? She had good reason for wanting Mark in all this hurry?" Mrs. Paget and her daughters had settled about the fire for an hour's delicious discussion, but she interrupted it to say soothingly, "It was her cousin, Dad, who's going to be married, and she's been trying to get hold of just the right person--she says she's fearfully behindhand--" "Well, you know best," said Mr. Paget, departing a little discontentedly. Left to the dying fire, the others talked, yawned, made a pretence of breaking up: talked and yawned again. The room grew chilly. Bruce,--oldest of the children,--dark, undemonstrative, weary,--presently came in, and was given the news, and marvelled in his turn. Bruce and Margaret had talked of their ambitions a hundred times: of the day when he might enter college and when she might find the leisure and beauty in life for which her soul hungered. Now, as he sat with his arm about her, and her head on his shoulder, he said with generous satisfaction over and over:-- "It was coming to you, Mark; you've earned it!" At midnight, loitering upstairs, cold and yawning, Margaret kissed her mother and brother quietly, with whispered brief good-nights. But Julie, lying warm and snug in bed half-an-hour later, had a last word. "You know, Mark, I think I'm as happy as you are--no, I'm not generous at all! It's just that it makes me feel that things do come your way finally, if you wait long enough, and that we aren't the only family in town that never has anything decent happen to it!... I'll miss you awfully, Mark, darling!... Mark, do you suppose Mother'd let me take this bed out, and just have a big couch in here? It would make the room seem so much bigger. And then I could have the girls come up here, don't you know--when they came over.... Think of you--you--going abroad! I'd simply die! I can't wait to tell Betty!... I hope to goodness Mother won't put Beck in here!... We've had this room a long time together, haven't we? Ever since Grandma died. Do you remember her canary, that Teddy hit with a plate?... I'm going to miss you terribly, Mark. But we'll write...." CHAPTER III On the days that followed, the miracle came to be accepted by all Weston, which was much excited for a day or two over this honor done a favorite daughter, and by all the Pagets,--except Margaret. Margaret went through the hours in her old, quiet manner, a little more tender and gentle perhaps than she had been; but her heart never beat normally, and she lay awake late at night, and early in the morning, thinking, thinking, thinking. She tried to realize that it was in her honor that a farewell tea was planned at the club, it was for her that her fellow-teachers were planning a good-bye luncheon; it was really she--Margaret Paget--whose voice said at the telephone a dozen times a day, "On the fourteenth.--Oh, do I? I don't feel calm! Can't you try to come in--I do want to see you before I go!" She dutifully repeated Bruce's careful directions; she was to give her check to an expressman, and her suitcase to a red-cap; the expressman would probably charge fifty cents, the red-cap was to have no more than fifteen. And she was to tell the latter to put her into a taxicab. "I'll remember," Margaret assured him gratefully, but with a sense of unreality pressing almost painfully upon her.--One of a million ordinary school teachers, in a million little towns--and this marvel had befallen her! The night of the Pagets' Christmas play came, a night full of laughter and triumph; and marked for Margaret by the little parting gifts that were slipped into her hands, and by the warm good wishes that were murmured, not always steadily, by this old friend and that. When the time came to distribute plates and paper napkins, and great saucers of ice cream and sliced cake, Margaret was toasted in cold sweet lemonade; and drawing close together to "harmonize" more perfectly, the circle about her touched their glasses while they sang, "For she's a jolly good fellow." Later, when the little supper was almost over, Ethel Elliot, leaning over to lay her hand on Margaret's, began in her rich contralto:-- "When other lips and other hearts..." and as they all went seriously through the two verses, they stood up, one by one, and linked arms; the little circle, affectionate and admiring, that had bounded Margaret's friendships until now. Then Christmas came, with a dark, freezing walk to the pine-spiced and candle-lighted early service in the little church, and a quicker walk home, chilled and happy and hungry, to a riotous Christmas breakfast, and a littered breakfast table. The new year came, with a dance and revel, and the Pagets took one of their long tramps through the snowy afternoon, and came back hungry for a big dinner. Then there was dressmaking,--Mrs. Schmidt in command, Mrs. Paget tireless at the machine, Julie all eager interest. Margaret, patiently standing to be fitted, conscious of the icy, wet touch of Mrs. Schmidt's red fingers on her bare arms, dreamily acquiescent as to buttons or hooks, was totally absent in spirit. A trunk came, Mr. Paget very anxious that the keys should not be "fooled with" by the children. Margaret's mother packed this trunk scientifically. "No, now the shoes, Mark--now that heavy skirt," she would say. "Run get mother some more tissue paper, Beck. You'll have to leave the big cape, dear, and you can send for it if you need it. Now the blue dress, Ju. I think that dyed so prettily, just the thing for mornings. And here's your prayer book in the tray, dear; if you go Saturday you'll want it the first thing in the morning. See, I'll put a fresh handkerchief in it--" Margaret, relaxed and idle, in a rocker, with Duncan in her lap busily working at her locket, would say over and over:-- "You're all such angels,--I'll never forget it!" and wish that, knowing how sincerely she meant it, she could feel it a little more. Conversation languished in these days; mother and daughters feeling that time was too precious to waste speech of little things, and that their hearts were too full to touch upon the great change impending. A night came when the Pagets went early upstairs, saying that, after all, it was not like people marrying and going to Russia; it was not like a real parting; it wasn't as if Mark couldn't come home again in four hours if anything went wrong at either end of the line. Margaret's heart was beating high and quick now; she tried to show some of the love and sorrow she knew she should have felt, she knew that she did feel under the hurry of her blood that made speech impossible. She went to her mother's door, slender and girlish in her white nightgown, to kiss her good-night again. Mrs. Paget's big arms went about her daughter. Margaret laid her head childishly on her mother's shoulder. Nothing of significance was said. Margaret whispered, "Mother, I love you!" Her mother said, "You were such a little thing, Mark, when I kissed you one day, without hugging you, and you said, 'Please don't love me just with your face, Mother, love me with your heart!'" Then she added, "Did you and Julie get that extra blanket down to-day, dear?--it's going to be very cold." Margaret nodded. "Good-night, little girl--" "Goodnight, Mother--" That was the real farewell, for the next morning was all confusion. They dressed hurriedly, by chilly gas-light; clocks were compared, Rebecca's back buttoned; Duncan's overcoat jerked on; coffee drunk scalding hot as they stood about the kitchen table; bread barely tasted. They walked to the railway station on wet sidewalks, under a broken sky, Bruce, with Margaret's suit-case, in the lead. Weston was asleep in the gray morning, after the storm. Far and near belated cocks were crowing. A score of old friends met Margaret at the train; there were gifts, promises, good wishes. There came a moment when it was generally felt that the Pagets should be left alone, now--the far whistle of the train beyond the bridge--the beginning of good-byes--a sudden filling of the mother's eyes that was belied by her smile.--"Good-bye, sweetest--don't knock my hat off, baby dear! Beck, darling--Oh, Ju, do! don't just say it--start me a letter to-night! ALL write to me! Good-bye, Dad, darling,--all right, Bruce, I'll get right in!--another for Dad. Good-bye, Mother darling,--goodbye! Good-bye!" Then for the Pagets there was a walk back to the empty disorder of the house: Julie very talkative, at her father's side; Bruce walking far behind the others with his mother,--and the day's familiar routine to be somehow gone through without Margaret. But for Margaret, settling herself comfortably in the grateful warmth of the train, and watching the uncertain early sunshine brighten unfamiliar fields and farmhouses, every brilliant possibility in life seemed to be waiting. She tried to read, to think, to pray, to stare steadily out of the window; she could do nothing for more than a moment at a time. Her thoughts went backward and forward like a weaving shuttle: "How good they've all been to me! How grateful I am! Now if only, only, I can make good!" "Look out for the servants!" Julie, from the depth of her sixteen years-old wisdom had warned her sister. "The governess will hate you because she'll be afraid you'll cut her out, and Mrs. Carr-Boldt's maid will be a cat! They always are, in books." Margaret had laughed at this advice, but in her heart she rather believed it. Her new work seemed so enchanting to her that it was not easy to believe that she did not stand in somebody's light. She was glad that by a last-moment arrangement she was to arrive at the Grand Central Station at almost the same moment as Mrs. Carr-Boldt herself, who was coming home from a three-weeks' visit in the middle west. Margaret gave only half her attention to the flying country that was beginning to shape itself into streets and rows of houses; all the last half hour of the trip was clouded by the nervous fear that she would somehow fail to find Mrs. Carr-Boldt in the confusion at the railroad terminal. But happily enough the lady was found without trouble, or rather Margaret was found, felt an authoritative tap on her shoulder, caught a breath of fresh violets, and a glimpse of her patron's clear skinned, resolute face. They whirled through wet deserted streets; Mrs. Carr-Boldt gracious and talkative, Margaret nervously interested and amused. Their wheels presently grated against a curb, a man in livery opened the limousine door. Margaret saw an immense stone mansion facing the park, climbed a dazzling flight of wide steps, and was in a great hall that faced an interior court, where there were Florentine marble benches, and the great lifted leaves of palms. She was a little dazed by crowded impressions; impressions of height and spaciousness and richness, and opening vistas; a great marble stairway, and a landing where there was an immense designed window in clear leaded glass; rugs, tapestries, mirrors, polished wood and great chairs with brocaded seats and carved dark backs. Two little girls, heavy, well groomed little girls,--one spectacled and good-natured looking, the other rather pretty, with a mass of fair hair,--were coming down the stairs with an eager little German woman. They kissed their mother, much diverted by the mad rushes and leaps of the two white poodles who accompanied them. "These are my babies, Miss Paget," said Mrs. Carr-Boldt. "This is Victoria, who's eleven, and Harriet, who's six. And these are Monsieur--" "Monsieur Patou and Monsieur Mouche," said Victoria, introducing the dogs with entire ease of manner. The German woman said something forcibly, and Margaret understood the child's reply in that tongue: "Mamma won't blame you, Fraulein; Harriet and I wished them to come down!" Presently they all went up in a luxuriously fitted little lift, Margaret being carried to the fourth floor to her own rooms, to which a little maid escorted her. When the maid had gone Margaret walked to the door and tried it, for no reason whatever; it was shut. Her heart was beating violently. She walked into the middle of the room and looked at herself in the mirror, and laughed a little breathless laugh. Then she took off her hat carefully and went into the bedroom that was beyond her sitting room, and hung her hat in a fragrant white closet that was entirely and delightfully empty, and put her coat on a hanger, and her gloves and bag in the empty big top drawer of a great mahogany bureau. Then she went back to the mirror and looked hard at her own beauty reflected in it; and laughed her little laugh again. "It's too good--it's too much!" she whispered. She investigated her domain, after quelling a wild desire to sit down at the beautiful desk and try the new pens, the crystal ink-well, and the heavy paper, with its severely engraved address, in a long letter to Mother. There was a tiny upright piano in the sitting-room, and at the fireplace a deep thick rug, and an immense leather arm-chair. A clock in crystal and gold flanked by two crystal candlesticks had the centre of the mantelpiece. On the little round mahogany centre table was a lamp with a wonderful mosaic shade; a little book-case was filled with books and magazines. Margaret went to one of the three windows, and looked down upon the bare trees and the snow in the park, and upon the rumbling green omnibuses, all bathed in bright chilly sunlight. A mahogany door with a crystal knob opened into the bedroom, where there was a polished floor, and more rugs, and a gay rosy wall paper, and a great bed with a lace cover. Beyond was a bathroom, all enamel, marble, glass, and nickel-plate, with heavy monogrammed towels on the rack, three new little wash-cloths sealed in glazed paper, three new tooth-brushes in paper cases, and a cake of famous English soap just out of its wrapper. Over the whole little suite there brooded an exquisite order. Not a particle of dust broke the shining surfaces of the mahogany, not a fallen leaf lay under the great bowl of roses on the desk. Now and then the radiator clanked in the stress; it was hard to believe in that warmth and silence that a cold winter wind was blowing outside, and that snow still lay on the ground. Margaret, resting luxuriously in the big chair, became thoughtful; presently she went into the bedroom, and knelt down beside the bed. "O Lord, let me stay here," she prayed, her face in her hands. "I want so to stay--make me a success!" Never was a prayer more generously answered. Miss Paget was an instant success. In something less than two months she became indispensable to Mrs. Carr-Boldt, and was a favorite with every one, from the rather stolid, silent head of the house down to the least of the maids. She was so busy, so unaffected, so sympathetic, that her sudden rise in favor was resented by no one. The butler told her his troubles, the French maid darkly declared that but for Miss Paget she would not for one second r-r-remain! The children went cheerfully even to the dentist with their adored Miss Peggy; they soon preferred her escort to matinee or zoo to that of any other person. Margaret also escorted Mrs. Carr-Boldt's mother, a magnificent old lady, on shopping expeditions, and attended the meetings of charity boards for Mrs. Carr-Boldt. With notes and invitations, account books and cheque books, dinner lists, and interviews with caterers, decorators, and florists, Margaret's time was full, but she loved every moment of her work, and gloried in her increasing usefulness. At first there were some dark days; notably the dreadful one upon which Margaret somehow--somewhere--dropped the box containing the new hat she was bringing home for Harriet, and kept the little girl out in the cold afternoon air while the motor made a fruitless trip back to the milliner's. Harriet contracted a cold, and Harriet's mother for the first time spoke severely to Margaret. There was another bad day when Margaret artlessly admitted to Mrs. Pierre Polk at the telephone that Mrs. Carr-Boldt was not engaged for dinner that evening, thus obliging her employer to snub the lady, or accept a distasteful invitation to dine. And there was a most uncomfortable occasion when Mr. Carr-Boldt, not at all at his best, stumbled in upon his wife with some angry observations meant for her ear alone; and Margaret, busy with accounts in a window recess, was, unknown to them both, a distressed witness. "Another time, Miss Paget," said Mrs. Carr-Boldt, coldly, upon Margaret's appearing scarlet-cheeked between the curtains, "don't oblige me to ascertain that you are not within hearing before feeling sure of privacy. Will you finish those bills upstairs, if you please?" Margaret went upstairs with a burning heart, cast her bills haphazard on her own desk, and flung herself, dry-eyed and furious, on the bed. She was far too angry to think, but lay there for perhaps twenty minutes with her brain whirling. Finally rising, she brushed up her hair, straightened her collar, and, full of tremendous resolves, stepped into her little sitting room, to find Mrs. Carr-Boldt in the big chair, serenely eyeing her. "I'm so sorry I spoke so, Peggy," said her employer, generously. "But the truth is, I am not myself when--when Mr. Carr-Boldt--" The little hesitating appeal in her voice completely disarmed Margaret. In the end the little episode cemented the rapidly growing friendship between the two women, Mrs. Carr-Boldt seeming to enjoy the relief of speaking rather freely of what was the one real trial in her life. "My husband has always had too much money," she said, in her positive way. "At one time we were afraid that he would absolutely ruin his health by this--habit of his. His physician and I took him around the world,--I left Victoria, just a baby, with mother,--and for too years he was never out of my sight. It has never been so bad since. You know yourself how reliable he usually is," she finished cheerfully, "unless some of the other men get hold of him!" As the months went on Margaret came to admire her employer more and more. There was not an indolent impulse in Mrs. Carr-Boldt's entire composition. Smooth-haired, fresh-skinned, in spotless linen, she began the day at eight o'clock, full of energy and interest. She had daily sessions with butler and house-keeper, shopped with Margaret and the children, walked about her greenhouse or her country garden with her skirts pinned up, and had tulips potted and stone work continued. She was prominent in several clubs, a famous dinner-giver, she took a personal interest in all her servants, loved to settle their quarrels and have three or four of them up on the carpet at once, tearful and explanatory. Margaret kept for her a list of some two hundred friends, whose birthdays were to be marked with carefully selected gifts. She pleased Mrs. Carr-Boldt by her open amazement at the latter's vitality. The girl observed that her employer could not visit any institution without making a few vigorous suggestions as she went about, she accompanied her cheques to the organized charities--and her charity flowed only through absolutely reliable channels--with little friendly, advisory letters. She liked the democratic attitude for herself,--even while promptly snubbing any such tendency in children or friends;--and told Margaret that she only used her coat of arms on house linen, stationery, and livery, because her husband and mother liked it. "It's of course rather nice to realize that one comes from one of the oldest of the Colonial families," she would say. "The Carterets of Maryland, you know.--But it's all such bosh!" And she urged Margaret to claim her own right to family honors: "You're a Quincy, my dear! Don't let that woman intimidate you,--she didn't remember that her grandfather was a captain until her husband made his money. And where the family portraits came from I don't know, but I think there's a man on Fourth Avenue who does 'em!" she would say, or, "I know all about Lilly Reynolds, Peggy. Her father was as rich as she says, and I daresay the crest is theirs. But ask her what her maternal grandmother did for a living, if you want to shut her up!" Other people she would condemn with a mere whispered "Coal!" or "Patent bath-tubs!" behind her fan, and it pleased her to tell people that her treasure of a secretary had the finest blood in the world in her veins. Margaret was much admired, and Margaret was her discovery, and she liked to emphasize her find. Mrs. Carr-Boldt's mother, a tremulous, pompous old lady, unwittingly aided the impression by taking an immense fancy to Margaret, and by telling her few intimates and the older women among her daughter's friends that the girl was a perfect little thoroughbred. When the Carr-Boldts filled their house with the reckless and noisy company they occasionally affected, Mrs. Carteret would say majestically to Margaret:-- "You and I have nothing in common with this riff-raff, my dear!" Summer came, and Margaret headed a happy letter "Bar Harbor." Two months later all Weston knew that Margaret Paget was going abroad for a year with those rich people, and had written her mother from the Lusitania. Letters from London, from Germany, from Holland, from Russia, followed. "We are going to put the girls at school in Switzerland, and (ahem!) winter on the Riviera, and then Rome for Holy Week!" she wrote. She was presently home again, chattering French and German to amuse her father, teaching Becky a little Italian song to match her little Italian costume. "It's wonderful to me how you get along with all these rich people, Mark," said her mother, admiringly, during Margaret's home visit. Mrs. Paget was watering the dejected-looking side garden with a straggling length of hose; Margaret and Julie shelling peas on the side steps. Margaret laughed, coloring a little. "Why, we're just as good as they are, Mother!" Mrs. Paget drenched a dried little dump of carnations. "We're as good," she admitted; "but we're not as rich, or as travelled,--we haven't the same ideas; we belong to a different class." "Oh, no, we don't, Mother," Margaret said quickly. "Who are the Carr Boldts, except for their money? Why, Mrs. Carteret,--for all her family!--isn't half the aristocrat Grandma was! And you--you could be a Daughter of The Officers of the Revolution, Mother!" "Why, Mark, I never heard that!" her mother protested, cleaning the sprinkler with a hairpin. "Mother!" Julie said eagerly. "Great-grandfather Quincy!" "Oh, Grandpa," said Mrs. Paget. "Yes, Grandpa was a paymaster. He was on Governor Hancock's staff. They used to call him 'Major.' But Mark--" she turned off the water, holding her skirts away from the combination of mud and dust underfoot, "that's a very silly way to talk, dear! Money does make a difference; it does no good to go back into the past and say that this one was a judge and that one a major; we must live our lives where we are!" Margaret had not lost a wholesome respect for her mother's opinion in the two years she had been away, but she had lived in a very different world, and was full of new ideas. "Mother, do you mean to tell me that if you and Dad hadn't had a perfect pack of children, and moved so much, and if Dad--say--had been in that oil deal that he said he wished he had the money for, and we still lived in the brick house, that you wouldn't be in every way the equal of Mrs. Carr-Boldt?" "If you mean as far as money goes, Mark,--no. We might have been well to-do as country people go, I suppose--" "Exactly!" said Margaret; "and you would have been as well off as dozens of the people who are going about in society this minute! It's the merest chance that we aren't rich. Just for instance: father's father had twelve children, didn't he?--and left them--how much was it?--about three thousand dollars apiece--" "And a Godsend it was, too," said her mother, reflectively. "But suppose Dad had been the only child, Mother," Margaret persisted, "he would have had--" "He would have had the whole thirty-six thousand dollars, I suppose, Mark." "Or more," said Margaret, "for Grandfather Paget was presumably spending money on them all the time." "Well, but, Mark--" said Mrs. Paget, laughing as at the vagaries of a small child, "Father Paget did have twelve children--and Daddy and I eight--" she sighed, as always, at the thought of the little son who was gone,--"and there you are! You can't get away from that, dear." Margaret did not answer. But she thought to herself that very few people held Mother's views of this subject. Mrs. Carr-Boldt's friends, for example, did not accept increasing cares in this resigned fashion; their lives were ideally pleasant and harmonious without the complicated responsibilities of large families. They drifted from season to season without care, always free, always gay, always irreproachably gowned. In winter there were daily meetings, for shopping, for luncheon, bridge or tea; summer was filled with a score of country visits. There were motor-trips for week-ends, dinners, theatre, and the opera to fill the evenings, German or singing lessons, manicure, masseuse, and dressmaker to crowd the morning hours all the year round. Margaret learned from these exquisite, fragrant creatures the art of being perpetually fresh and charming, learned their methods of caring for their own beauty, learned to love rare toilet waters and powders, fine embroidered linen and silk stockings. There was no particular strain upon her wardrobe now, nor upon her purse; she could be as dainty as she liked. She listened to the conversations that went on about her,--sometimes critical or unconvinced; more often admiring; and as she listened she found slowly but certainly her own viewpoint. She was not mercenary. She would not marry a man just for his money, she decided, but just as certainly she would not marry a man who could not give her a comfortable establishment, a position in society. The man seemed in no hurry to appear; as a matter of fact, the men whom Margaret met were openly anxious to evade marriage, even with the wealthy girls of their own set. Margaret was not concerned; she was too happy to miss the love-making element; the men she saw were not of a type to inspire a sensible busy, happy, girl with any very deep feeling. And it was with generous and perfect satisfaction that she presently had news of Julie's happy engagement. Julie was to marry a young and popular doctor, the only child of one of Weston's most prominent families. The little sister's letter bubbled joyously with news. "Harry's father is going to build us a little house on the big place, the darling," wrote Julie; "and we will stay with them until it is done. But in five years Harry says we will have a real honeymoon, in Europe! Think of going to Europe as a married woman! Mark, I wish you could see my ring; it is a beauty, but don't tell Mother I was silly enough to write about it!" Margaret delightedly selected a little collection of things for Julie's trousseau. A pair of silk stockings, a scarf she never had worn, a lace petticoat, pink silk for a waist. Mrs. Carr-Boldt, coming in in the midst of these preparations, insisted upon adding so many other things, from trunks and closets, that Margaret was speechless with delight. Scarves, cobwebby silks in uncut lengths, embroidered lingerie still in the tissue paper of Paris shops, parasols, gloves, and lengths of lace,--she piled all of them into Margaret's arms. Julie's trousseau was consequently quite the most beautiful Weston had ever seen; and the little sister's cloudless joy made the fortnight Margaret spent at home at the time of the wedding a very happy one. It was a time of rush and flurry, laughter and tears, of roses, and girls in white gowns. But some ten days before the wedding, Julie and Margaret happened to be alone for a peaceful hour over their sewing, and fell to talking seriously. "You see, our house will be small," said Julie; "but I don't care--we don't intend to stay in Weston all our lives. Don't breathe this to any one, Mark, but if Harry does as well as he's doing now for two years, we'll rent the little house, and we're going to Baltimore for a year for a special course. Then--you know he's devoted to Dr. McKim, he always calls him 'the chief,'--then he thinks maybe McKim will work him into his practice,--he's getting old, you know, and that means New York!" "Oh, Ju,--really!" "I don't see why not," Julie said, dimpling. "Harry's crazy to do it. He says he doesn't propose to live and die in Weston. McKim could throw any amount of hospital practice his way, to begin with. And you know Harry'll have something,--and the house will rent. I'm crazy," said Julie, enthusiastically, "to take one of those lovely old apartments on Washington Square, and meet a few nice people, you know, and really make something of my life!" "Mrs. Carr-Boldt and I will spin down for you every few days," Margaret said, falling readily in with the plan. "I'm glad you're not going to simply get into a rut the way some of the other girls have,--cooking and babies and nothing else!" she said. "I think that's an awful mistake," Julie said placidly. "Starting in right is so important. I don't want to be a mere drudge like Ethel or Louise--they may like it. I don't! Of course, this isn't a matter to talk of," she went on, coloring a little. "I'd never breathe this to Mother! But it's perfectly absurd to pretend that girls don't discuss these things. I've talked to Betty and Louise--we all talk about it, you know. And Louise says they haven't had one free second since Buddy came. She can't keep one maid, and she says the idea of two maids eating their three meals a day, whether she's home or not, makes her perfectly sick! Some one's got to be with him every single second, even now, when he's four,--to see that he doesn't fall off something, or put things in his mouth. And as Louise says--it means no more week end trips; you can't go visiting over night, you can't even go for a day's drive or a day on the beach, without extra clothes for the baby, a mosquito-net and an umbrella for the baby--milk packed in ice for the baby--somebody trying to get the baby to take his nap--it's awful! It would end our Baltimore plan, and that means New York, and New York means everything to Harry and me!" finished Julie, contentedly, flattening a finished bit of embroidery on her knee, and regarding it complacently. "Well, I think you're right," Margaret approved. "Things are different now from what they were in Mother's day." "And look at Mother," Julie said. "One long slavery! Life's too short to wear yourself out that way!" Mrs. Paget's sunny cheerfulness was sadly shaken when the actual moment of parting with the exquisite, rose-hatted, gray-frocked Julie came; her face worked pitifully in its effort to smile; her tall figure, awkward in an ill-made unbecoming new silk, seemed to droop tenderly over the little clinging wife. Margaret, stirred by the sight of tears on her mother's face, stood with an arm about her, when the bride and groom drove away in the afternoon sunshine. "I'm going to stay with you until she gets back!" she reminded her mother. "And you know you've always said you wanted the girls to marry, Mother," urged Mr. Paget. Rebecca felt this a felicitous moment to ask if she and the boys could have the rest of the ice-cream. "Divide it evenly," said Mrs. Paget, wiping her eyes and smiling. "Yes, I know, Daddy dear, I'm an ungrateful woman! I suppose your turn will come next, Mark, and then I don't know what I will do!" CHAPTER IV But Margaret's turn did not come for nearly a year. Then--in Germany again, and lingering at a great Berlin hotel because the spring was so beautiful, and the city so sweet with linden bloom, and especially because there were two Americans at the hotel whose game of bridge it pleased Mr. and Mrs. Carr-Boldt daily to hope they could match,--then Margaret was transformed within a few hours from a merely pretty, very dignified, perfectly contented secretary, entirely satisfied with what she wore as long as it was suitable and fresh, into a living woman, whose cheeks paled and flushed at nothing but her thoughts, who laughed at herself in her mirror, loitered over her toilet trying one gown after another, and walked half-smiling through a succession of rosy dreams. It all came about very simply. One of the aforementioned bridge players wondered if Mrs. Carr-Bolt and her niece--oh, wasn't it?--her secretary then,--would like to hear a very interesting young American professor lecture this morning?--wondered, when they were fanning themselves in the airy lecture-room, if they would care to meet Professor Tension? Margaret looked into a pair of keen, humorous eyes, answered with her own smile Professor Tension's sudden charming one, lost her small hand in his big firm one. Then she listened to him talk, as he strode about the platform, boyishly shaking back the hair that fell across his forehead. After that he walked to the hotel with them, through dazzling seas of perfume, and of flowers, under the enchanted shifting green of great trees,--or so Margaret thought. There was a plunge from the hot street into the awning cool gloom of the hotel, and then a luncheon, when the happy steady murmur from their own table seemed echoed by the murmurs clink and stir and laughter all about them, and accented by the not-too-close music from the band. Doctor Tension was everything charming, Margaret thought, instantly drawn by the unaffected, friendly manner, and watching the interested gleam of his blue eyes and the white flash of his teeth He was a gentleman, to begin with; distinguished at thirty-two in his chosen work; big and well-built, without suggesting the athlete, of an old and honored American family, and the only son of a rich--and eccentric--old doctor whom Mrs. Carr-Bolt chanced to know. He was frankly delighted at the chance that had brought him in contact with these charming people; and as Mrs. Carr-Bolt took an instant fancy to him, and as he was staying at their own hotel, they saw him after that every day, and several times a day. Margaret would come down the great sun-bathed stairway in the morning to find him patiently waiting in a porch chair. Her heart would give a great leap--half joy, half new strange pain, as she recognized him. There would be time for a chat over their fruit and eggs before Mr. Carr-Bolt came down, all ready for a motor-trip, or Mrs. Carr-Bolt, swathed in cream-colored coat and flying veils, joined them with an approving "Good-morning." Margaret would remember these breakfasts all her life; the sun splashed little table in a corner of the great dining-room, the rosy fatherly waiter who was so much delighted with her German, the busy picturesque traffic in the street just below the wide-open window. She would always remember a certain filmy silk striped gown, a wide hat loaded with daisies; always love the odor of linden trees in the spring. Sometimes the professor went with them on their morning drive, to be dropped at the lecture-hall with Margaret and Mrs. Carr-Bolt. The latter was pleased to take the course of lectures very seriously, and carried a handsome Russian leather note-book, and a gold pencil. Sometimes after luncheon they all went on an expedition together, and now and then Margaret and Doctor Tension went off alone on foot, to explore the city. They would end the afternoon with coffee and little cakes in some tea-room, and come home tired and merry in the long shadows of the spring sunset, with wilted flowers from the street markets in their hands. There was one glorious tramp in the rain, when the professor's great laugh rang out like a boy's for sheer high spirits, and when Margaret was an enchanting vision in her long coat, with her cheeks glowing through the blown wet tendrils of her hair. That day they had tea in the deserted charming little parlor of a tiny inn, and drank it toasting their feet over a glowing fire. "Is Mrs. Carr-Bolt your mother's or your father's sister?" John Tension asked, watching his companion with approval. "Oh, good gracious!" said Margaret, laughing over her teacup. "Haven't I told you yet that I'm only her secretary? I never saw Mrs. Carr Bolt until five years ago." "Perhaps you did tell me. But I got it into my head, that first day, that you were aunt and niece--" "People do, I think," Margaret said thoughtfully, "because we're both fair." She did not say that but for Mrs. Carr-Bolt's invaluable maid the likeness would have been less marked, on this score at least. "I taught school," she went on simply, "and Mrs. Carr-Bolt happened to come to my school, and she asked me to come to her." "You're all alone in the world, Miss Page?" He was eyeing her amusingly; the direct question came quite naturally. "Oh, dear me, no! My father and mother are living"; and feeling, as she always did, a little claim on her loyalty, she added: "We are, or were, rather, Southern people,--but my father settled in a very small New York town--" "Mrs. Carr-Bolt told me that--I'd forgotten--" said Professor Tenison, and he carried the matter entirely out of Margaret's hands,--much, much further indeed than she would have carried it, by continuing, "She tells me that Quincyport was named for your mother's grandfather, and that Judge Paget was your father's father." "Father's uncle," Margaret corrected, although as a matter of fact Judge Paget had been no nearer than her father's second cousin. "But father always called him uncle," Margaret assured herself inwardly. To the Quincy-port claim she said nothing. Quincyport was in the county that Mother's people had come from; Quincy was a very unusual name, and the original Quincy had been a Charles, which certainly was one of Mother's family names. Margaret and Julie, browsing about among the colonial histories and genealogies of the Weston Public Library years before, had come to a jubilant certainty that mother's grandfather must have been the same man. But she did not feel quite so positive now. "Your people aren't still in the South, you said?" "Oh, no!" Margaret cleared her throat. "They're in Weston--Weston, New York." "Weston! Not near Dayton?" "Why, yes! Do you know Dayton?" "Do I know Dayton?" He was like an eager child. "Why, my Aunt Pamela lives there; the only mother I ever knew! I knew Weston, too, a little. Lovely homes there, some of them,--old colonial houses. And your mother lives there? Is she fond of flowers?" "She loves them," Margaret said, vaguely uncomfortable. "Well, she must know Aunt Pamela," said John Tenison, enthusiastically. "I expect they'd be great friends. And you must know Aunt Pam. She's like a dainty old piece of china, or a--I don't know, a tea rose! She's never married, and she lives in the most charming brick house, with brick walls and hollyhocks all about it, and such an atmosphere inside! She has an old maid and an old gardener, and--don't you know--she's the sort of woman who likes to sit down under a portrait of your great-grandfather, in a dim parlor full of mahogany and rose jars, with her black silk skirts spreading about her, and an Old Blue cup in her hand, and talk family,--how cousin this married a man whose people aren't anybody, and cousin that is outraging precedent by naming her child for her husband's side of the house. She's a funny, dear old lady! You know, Miss Paget," the professor went on, with his eager, impersonal air, "when I met you, I thought you didn't quite seem like a New Yorker and a Bar Harborer--if that's the word! Aunt Pam--you know she's my only mother, I got all my early knowledge from her!--Aunt Pam detests the usual New York girl, and the minute I met you I knew she'd like you. You'd sort of fit into the Dayton picture, with your braids, and those ruffly things you wear!" Margaret said simply, "I would love to meet her," and began slowly to draw on her gloves. It surely was not requisite that she should add, "But you must not confuse my home with any such exquisitely ordered existence as that. We are poor people, our house is crowded, our days a severe and endless struggle with the ugly things of life. We have good blood in our veins, but not more than hundreds of thousands of other American families. My mother would not understand one tenth of your aunt's conversation; your aunt would find very uninteresting the things that are vital to my mother." No, she couldn't say that. She picked up her dashing little hat, and pinned it over her loosened soft mass of yellow hair, and buttoned up her storm coat, and plunged her hands deep in her pockets. No, the professor would call on her at Bar Harbor, take a yachting trip with the Carr-Boldts perhaps, and then--and then, when they were really good friends, some day she would ask. Mother to have a simple little luncheon, and Mrs. Carr-Boldt would let her bring Dr. Tenison down in the motor from New York. And meantime--no need to be too explicit. For just two happy weeks Margaret lived in Wonderland. The fourteen days were a revelation to her. Life seemed to grow warmer, more rosy colored. Little things became significant; every moment carried its freight of joy. Her beauty, always notable, became almost startling; there was a new glow in her cheeks and lips, new fire in the dark lashed eyes that were so charming a contrast to her bright hair. Like a pair of joyous and irresponsible children she and John Tenison walked through the days, too happy ever to pause and ask themselves whither they were going. Then abruptly it ended. Victoria, brought down from school in Switzerland with various indications of something wrong, was in a flash a sick child; a child who must be hurried home to the only surgeon in whom Mrs. Carr-Boldt placed the least trust. There was hurried packing, telephoning, wiring; it was only a few hours after the great German physician's diagnosis that they were all at the railway station, breathless, nervous, eager to get started. Doctor Tenison accompanied them to the station, and in the five minutes' wait before their train left, a little incident occurred, the memory of which clouded Margaret's dreams for many a day to come. Arriving, as they were departing, were the St. George Allens, noisy, rich, arrogant New Yorkers, for whom Margaret had a special dislike. The Allens fell joyously upon the Carr-Boldt party, with a confusion of greetings. "And Jack Tenison!" shouted Lily Allen, delightedly. "Well, what fun! What are you doing here?" "I'm feeling a little lonely," said the professor, smiling at Mrs. Carr-Boldt. "Nothing like that; unsay them woyds," said Maude Allen, cheerfully. "Mamma, make him dine with us! Say you will." "I assure you I was dreading the lonely evening," John Tenison said gratefully. Margaret's last glimpse of his face was between Lily's pink and cherry hat, and Maude's astonishing headgear of yellow straw, gold braid, spangled quills, and calla lilies. She carried a secret heartache through the worried fortnight of Victoria's illness, and the busy days that followed; for Mrs. Carr-Boldt had one of many nervous break-downs, and took her turn at the hospital when Victoria came home. For the first time in five happy years, Margaret drooped, and for the first time a longing for money and power of her own gnawed at the girl's heart. If she had but her share of these things, she could hold her own against a hundred Maude and Lily Allens. As it was, she told herself a little bitterly, she was only a secretary, one of the hundred paid dependents of a rich woman. She was only, after all, a little middle-class country school teacher. CHAPTER V "So you're going home to your own people for the week end, Peggy?--And how many of you are there,--I always forget?" said young Mrs. George Crawford, negligently. She tipped back in her chair, half shut her novel, half shut her eyes, and looked critically at her finger-nails. Outside the big country house summer sunshine flooded the smooth lawns, sparkled on the falling diamonds and still pool of the fountain, glowed over acres of matchless wood and garden. But deep awnings made a clear cool shade indoors, and the wide rooms were delightfully breezy. Margaret, busy with a ledger and cheque-book, smiled absently, finished a long column, made an orderly entry, and wiped her pen. "Seven," said she, smiling. "Seven!" echoed Mrs. Potter, lazily. "My heaven--seven children! How early Victorian!" "Isn't it?" said a third woman, a very beautiful woman, Mrs. Watts Watson, who was also idling and reading in the white-and-gray morning room. "Well," she added, dropping her magazine, and locking her hands about her head, "my grandmother had ten. Fancy trying to raise ten children!" "Oh, everything's different now," the first speaker said indifferently. "Everything's more expensive, life is more complicated. People used to have roomier houses, aunts and cousins and grandmothers living with them; there was always some one at home with the children. Nowadays we don't do that." "And thank the saints we don't!" said Mrs. Watson, piously. "If there's one thing I can't stand, it's a houseful of things-in-law!" "Of course; but I mean it made the family problem simpler," Mrs. Crawford pursued. "Oh--and I don't know! Everything was so simple. All this business of sterilizing, and fumigating, and pasteurizing, and vaccinating, and boiling in boracic acid wasn't done in those days," she finished vaguely. "Now there you are--now there you are!" said Mrs. Carr-Boldt, entering into the conversation with sudden force. Entirely recovered after her nervous collapse, as brisk as ever in her crisp linen gown, she was signing the cheques that Margaret handed her, frowningly busy and absorbed with her accounts. Now she leaned back in her chair, glanced at the watch at her wrist, and relaxed the cramped muscles of her body. "That's exactly it, Rose," said she to Mrs. Crawford. "Life is more complicated. People--the very people who ought to have children--simply cannot afford it! And who's to blame? Can you blame a woman whose life is packed full of other things she simply cannot avoid, if she declines to complicate things any further? Our grandmothers didn't have telephones, or motor-cars, or week-end affairs, or even--for that matter--manicures and hair-dressers! A good heavy silk was full dress all the year 'round. They washed their own hair. The 'up-stairs girl' answered the doorbell,--why, they didn't even have talcum powder and nursery refrigerators, and sanitary rugs that have to be washed every day! Do you suppose my grandmother ever took a baby's temperature, or had its eyes and nose examined, or its adenoids cut? They had more children, and they lost more children,--without any reason or logic whatever. Poor things, they never thought of doing anything else, I suppose! A fat old darky nurse brought up the whole crowd--it makes one shudder to think of it! Why, I had always a trained nurse, and the regular nurse used to take two baths a day. I insisted on that, and both nurseries were washed out every day with chloride of potash solution, and the iron beds washed every week! And even then Vic had this mastoid trouble, and Harriet got everything, almost." "Exactly," said Mrs. Watson. "That's you, Hattie, with all the money in the world. Now do you wonder that some of the rest of us, who have to think of money--in short," she finished decidedly, "do you wonder that people are not having children? At first, naturally, one doesn't want them,--for three or four years, I'm sure, the thought doesn't come into one's head. But then, afterwards,--you see, I've been married fifteen years now!--afterwards, I think it would be awfully nice to have one or two little kiddies, if it was a possible thing. But it isn't." "No, it isn't," Mrs. Crawford agreed. "You don't want to have them unless you're able to do everything in the world for them. If I were Hat here, I'd have a dozen." "Oh, no, you wouldn't," Mrs. Carr-Boldt assured her promptly. "No, you wouldn't! You can't leave everything to servants--there are clothes to think of, and dentists, and special teachers, and it's frightfully hard to get a nursery governess. And then you've got to see that they know the right people--don't you know?--and give them parties--I tell you it's a strain." "Well, I don't believe my mother with her seven ever worked any harder than you do!" said Margaret, with the admiration in her eyes that was so sweet to the older woman. "Look at this morning--did you sit down before you came in here twenty minutes ago?" "I? Indeed I didn't!" Mrs. Carr-Boldt said. "I had my breakfast and letters at seven, bath at eight, straightened out that squabble between Swann and the cook,--I think Paul is still simmering, but that's neither here nor there!--then I went down with the vet to see the mare. Joe'll never forgive me if I've really broken the creature's knees!--then I telephoned mother, and saw Harriet's violin man, and talked to that Italian Joe sent up to clean the oils,--he's in the gallery now, and--let's see--" "Italian lesson," Margaret prompted. "Italian lesson," the other echoed, "and then came in here to sign my cheques." "You're so executive, Harriet!" said Mrs. Crawford, languidly. "Apropos of Swann," Margaret said, "he confided to me that he has seven children--on a little farm down on Long Island." "The butler--oh, I dare say!" Mrs. Watson agreed. "They can, because they've no standard to maintain--seven, or seventeen--the only difference in expense is the actual amount of bread and butter consumed." "It's too bad," said Mrs. Crawford. "But you've got to handle the question sanely and reasonably, like any other. Now, I love children," she went on. "I'm perfectly crazy about my sister's little girl. She's eleven now, and the cutest thing alive. But when I think of all Mabel's been through, since she was born,--I realize that it's a little too much to expect of any woman. Now, look at us,--there are thousands of people fixed as we are. We're in an apartment hotel, with one maid. There's no room for a second maid, no porch and no back yard. Well, the baby comes,--one loses, before and after the event, just about six months of everything, and of course the expense is frightful, but no matter!--the baby comes. We take a house. That means three indoor maids, George's chauffeur, a man for lawn and furnace--that's five--" "Doubling expenses," said Mrs. Carr-Boldt, thoughtfully. "Doubling--! Trebling, or more. But that's not all. Baby must be out from eleven to three every day. So you've got to go sit by the carriage in the park while nurse goes home for her lunch. Or, if you're out for luncheon, or giving a luncheon, she brings baby home, bumps the carriage into the basement, carries the baby upstairs, eats her lunch in snatches--the maids don't like it, and I don't blame them! I know how it was with Mabel; she had to give up that wonderful old apartment of theirs on Gramercy Park. Sid had his studio on the top floor, and she had such a lovely flat on the next floor, but there was no lift, and no laundry, and the kitchen was small--a baby takes so much fussing! And then she lost that splendid cook of hers, Germaine. She wouldn't stand it. Up to that time she'd been cooking and waiting, too, but the baby ended that. Mabel took a house, and Sid paid studio rent beside, and they had two maids, and then three maids,--and what with their fighting, and their days off, and eternally changing, Mabel was a wreck. I've seen her trying to play a bridge hand with Dorothy bobbing about on her arm--poor girl! Finally they went to a hotel, and of course the child got older, and was less trouble. But to this day Mabel doesn't dare leave her alone for one second. And when they go out to dinner, and leave her alone in the hotel, of course the child cries--!" "That's the worst of a kiddie," Mrs. Watson said. "You can't ever turn 'em off, as it were, or make it spades! They're always right on the job. I'll never forget Elsie Clay. She was the best friend I had,--my bridesmaid, too. She married, and after a while they took a house in Jersey because of the baby. I went out there to lunch one day. There she was in a house perfectly buried in trees, with the rain sopping down outside, and smoke blowing out of the fireplace, and the drawing-room as dark as pitch at two o'clock. Elsie said she used to nearly die of loneliness, sitting there all afternoon long listening to the trains whistling, and the maid thumping irons in the kitchen, and picking up the baby's blocks. And they quarrelled, you know, she and her husband--that was the beginning of the trouble. Finally the boy went to his grandmother, and now believe Elsie's married again, and living in California somewhere." Margaret, hanging over the back of her chair, was an attentive listener. "But people--people in town have children!" she said. "The Blankenships have one, and haven't the de Normandys?" "The Blankenship boy is in college," said Mrs. Carr-Boldt; "and the little de Normandys lived with their grandmother until they were old enough for boarding school." "Well, the Deanes have three!" Margaret said triumphantly. "Ah, well, my dear! Harry Deane's a rich man, and she was a Pell of Philadelphia," Mrs. Crawford supplied promptly. "Now the Eastmans have three, too, with a trained nurse apiece." "I see," Margaret admitted slowly. "Far wiser to have none at all," said Mrs. Carr-Boldt, in her decisive way, "than to handicap them from the start by letting them see other children enjoying pleasures and advantages they can't afford. And now, girls, let's stop wasting time. It's half-past eleven. Why can't we have a game of auction right here and now?" Margaret returned to her cheque-book with speed. The other two, glad to be aroused, heartily approved the idea. "Well, what does this very businesslike aspect imply?" Mrs. Carr-Boldt asked her secretary. "It means that I can't play cards, and you oughtn't," Margaret said, laughing. "Oh--? Why not?" "Because you've lots of things to do, and I've got to finish these notes, and I have to sit with Harriet while she does her German--" "Where's Fraulein?" "Fraulein's going to drive Vic over to the Partridges' for luncheon, and I promised Swann I'd talk to him about favors and things for tomorrow night." "Well--busy Lizzie! And what have I to do?" Margaret reached for a well-filled date-book. "You were to decide about those alterations, the porch and dining room, you know," said she. "There are some architect's sketches around here; the man's going to be here early in the morning. You said you'd drive to the yacht club, to see about the stage for the children's play; you were to stop on the way back and see old Mrs. McNab a moment. You wanted to write Mrs. Polk a note to catch the 'Kaiserin Augusta', and luncheon's early because of the Kellogg bridge." She shut the book. "And call Mr. Carr-Boldt at the club at one," she added. "All that, now fancy!" said her employer, admiringly. She had swept some scattered magazines from a small table, and was now seated there, negligently shuffling a pack of cards in her fine white hands. "Ring, will you, Peggy?" said she. "And the boat races are to-day, and you dine at Oaks-in-the-Field," Margaret supplemented inflexibly. "Yes? Well, come and beat the seven of clubs," said Mrs. Carr-Boldt, spreading the deck for the draw. "Fraulein," she said sweetly, a moment later, when a maid had summoned that worthy and earnest governess, "tell Miss Harriet that Mother doesn't want her to do her German to-day, it's too warm. Tell her that she's to go with you and Miss Victoria for a drive. Thank you. And, Fraulein, will you telephone old Mrs. McNab, and say that Mrs. Carr Boldt is lying down with a severe headache, and she won't be able to come in this morning? Thank you. And, Fraulein, telephone the yacht club, will you? And tell Mr. Mathews that Mrs. Carr-Boldt is indisposed and he'll have to come back this afternoon. I'll talk to him before the children's races. And--one thing more! Will you tell Swann Miss Paget will see him about to-morrow's dinner when she comes back from the yacht club to-day? And tell him to send us something cool to drink now. Thank you so much. No, shut it. Thank you. Have a nice drive!" They all drew up their chairs to the table. "You and I, Rose," said Mrs. Watson. "I'm so glad you suggested this, Hattie. I am dying to play." "It really rests me more than anything else," said Mrs. Carr-Boldt. "Two spades." CHAPTER VI Archerton, a blur of flying trees and houses, bright in the late sunlight, Pottsville, with children wading and shouting, under the bridge, Hunt's Crossing, then the next would be Weston--and home. Margaret, beginning to gather wraps and small possessions together, sighed. She sighed partly because her head ached, partly because the hot trip had mussed her usual fresh trimness, largely because she was going home. This was August; her last trip home had been between Christmas and the New Year. She had sent a box from Germany at Easter, ties for the boys, silk scarves for Rebecca, books for Dad; and she had written Mother for her birthday in June, and enclosed an exquisite bit of lace in the letter; but although Victoria's illness had brought her to America nearly three months ago, it had somehow been impossible, she wrote them, to come home until now. Margaret had paid a great deal for the lace, as a sort of salve for her conscience,--not that Mother would ever wear it! Here was Weston. Weston looking its very ugliest in the level pitiless rays of the afternoon sun. The town, like most of its inhabitants, was wilted and grimed after the burden and heat of the long summer day. Margaret carried her heavy suit-case slowly up Main Street. Shop windows were spotted and dusty, and shopkeepers, standing idle in their doorways, looked spotted and dusty too. A cloud of flies fought and surged about the closely guarded door of the butcher shop; a delivery cart was at the curb, the discouraged horse switching an ineffectual tail. As Margaret passed this cart, a tall boy of fourteen came out of the shop with a bang of the wire-netting door, and slid a basket into the back of the cart. "Teddy!" said Margaret, irritation evident in her voice, in spite of herself. "Hello, Mark!" said her brother, delightedly. "Say, great to see you! Get in on the four-ten?" "Ted," said Margaret, kissing him, as the Pagets always quite simply kissed each other when they met, "what are you driving Costello's cart for?" "Like to," said Theodore, simply. "Mother doesn't care. Say, you look swell, Mark!" "What makes you want to drive this horrid cart, Ted?" protested Margaret. "What does Costello pay you?" "Pay me?" scowled her brother, gathering up the reins. "Oh, come out of it, Marg'ret! He doesn't pay me anything. Don't you make Mother stop me, either, will you?" he ended anxiously. "Of course I won't!" Margaret said impatiently. "Giddap, Ruth!" said Theodore; but departing, he pulled up to add cheerfully, "Say, Dad didn't get his raise." "Did?" said Margaret, brightening. "Didn't!" He grinned affectionately upon her as with a dislocating jerk the cart started a ricochetting career down the street, with that abandon known only to butchers' carts. Margaret, changing her heavy suit-case to the rested arm, was still vexedly watching it, when two girls, laughing in the open doorway of the express company's office across the street, caught sight of her. One of them, a little vision of pink hat and ruffles, and dark eyes and hair, came running to join her. Rebecca was now sixteen, and of all the handsome Pagets the best to look upon. She was dressed according to her youthful lights; every separate article of her apparel to-day, from her rowdyish little hat to her openwork hose, represented a battle with Mrs. Paget's preconceived ideas as to propriety in dress, with the honors largely for Rebecca. Rebecca had grown up, in eight months, her sister thought, confusedly; she was no longer the adorable, un-self-conscious tomboy who fought and skated and toboganned with the boys. "Hello, darling dear!" said Rebecca. "Too bad no one met you! We all thought you were coming on the six. Crazy about your suit! Here's Maudie Pratt. You know Maudie, don't you, Mark?" Margaret knew Maudie. Rebecca's infatuation for plain, heavy-featured, complacent Miss Pratt was a standing mystery in the Paget family. Margaret smiled, bowed. "I think we stumbled upon a pretty little secret of yours to-day, Miss Margaret," said Maudie, with her best company manner, as they walked along. Margaret raised her eyebrows. "Rebel and I," Maudie went on,--Rebecca was at the age that seeks a piquant substitute for an unpoetical family name,--"Rebel and I are wondering if we may ask you who Mr. John Tenison is?" John Tenison! Margaret's heart stood still with a shock almost sickening, then beat furiously. What--how--who on earth had told them anything of John Tenison? Coloring high, she looked sharply at Rebecca. "Cheer up, angel," said Rebecca, "he's not dead. He sent a telegram to-day, and Mother opened it--" "Naturally," said Margaret, concealing an agony of impatience, as Rebecca paused apologetically. "He's with his aunt, at Dayton, up the road here," continued Rebecca; "and wants you to wire him if he may come down and spend tomorrow here." Margaret drew a relieved breath. There was time to turn around, at least. "Who is he, sis?" asked Rebecca. "Why, he's an awfully clever professor, honey," Margaret answered serenely. "We heard him lecture in Germany this spring, and met him afterwards. I liked him very much. He's tremendously interesting." She tried to keep out of her voice the thrill that shook her at the mere thought of him. Confused pain and pleasure stirred her to the very heart.--He wanted to come to see her, he must have telephoned Mrs. Carr-Boldt and asked to call, or he would not have known that she was at home this week end,--surely that was significant, surely that meant something! The thought was all pleasure, so great a joy and pride indeed that Margaret was conscious of wanting to lay it aside, to think of, dream of, ponder over, when she was alone. But, on the other hand, there was instantly the miserable conviction that he mustn't be allowed to come to Weston, no--no--she couldn't have him see her home and her people on a crowded hot summer Sunday, when the town looked its ugliest, and the children were home from school, and when the scramble to get to church and to safely accomplish the one o'clock dinner exhausted the women of the family. And how could she keep him from coming, what excuse could she give? "Don't you want him to come--is he old and fussy?" asked Rebecca, interestedly. "I'll see," Margaret answered vaguely. "No, he's only thirty-two or four." "And charming!" said Maudie archly. Margaret eyed her with a coolness worthy of Mrs. Carr-Boldt herself, and then turned rather pointedly to Rebecca. "How's Mother, Becky?" "Oh, she's fine!" Rebecca said, absently in her turn. When Maudie left them at the next corner, she said quickly:-- "Mark, did you see where we were when I saw you?" "At the express office--? Yes," Margaret said, surprised. "Well, listen," said Rebecca, reddening. "Don't say anything to Mother about it, will you? She thinks those boys are fresh in there--She don't like me to go in!" "Oh, Beck--then you oughtn't!" Margaret protested. "Well, I wasn't!" Rebecca said uncomfortably. "We went to see if Maudie's racket had come. You won't--will you, Mark?" "Tell Mother--no, I won't," Margaret said, with a long sigh. She looked sideways at Rebecca,--the dainty, fast-forming little figure, the even ripple and curl of her plaited hair, the assured pose of the pretty head. Victoria Carr-Boldt, just Rebecca's age, as a big schoolgirl still, self-conscious and inarticulate, her well-groomed hair in an unbecoming "club," her well-hung skirts unbecomingly short. Margaret had half expected to find Rebecca at the same stage of development. Rebecca was cheerful now, the promise exacted, and cheerfully observed:-- "Dad didn't get his raise--isn't that the limit?" Margaret sighed again, shrugged wearily. They were in their own quiet side street now, a street lined with ugly, shabby houses and beautified by magnificent old elms and maples. The Pagets' own particular gate was weather-peeled, the lawn trampled and bare. A bulging wire netting door gave on the shabby old hall Margaret knew so well; she went on into the familiar rooms, acutely conscious, as she always was for the first hour or two at home, of the bareness and ugliness everywhere--the old sofa that sagged in the seat, the scratched rockers, the bookcases overflowing with coverless magazines, and the old square piano half-buried under loose sheets of music. Duncan sat on the piano bench--gloomily sawing at a violoncello. Robert,--nine now, with all his pretty baby roundness gone, a lean little burned, peeling face, and big teeth missing when he smiled, stood in the bay window, twisting the already limp net curtains into a tight rope. Each boy gave Margaret a kiss that seemed curiously to taste of dust, sunburn, and freckles, before she followed a noise of hissing and voices to the kitchen to find Mother. The kitchen, at five o'clock on Saturday afternoon, was in wild confusion, and insufferably hot. Margaret had a distinct impression that not a movable article therein was in place, and not an available inch of tables or chairs unused, before her eyes reached the tall figure of the woman in a gown of chocolate percale, who was frying cutlets at the big littered range. Her face was dark with heat, and streaked with perspiration. She turned as Margaret entered, and gave a delighted cry. "Well, there's my girl! Bless her heart! Look out for this spoon, lovey," she added immediately, giving the girl a guarded embrace. Tears of joy stood frankly in her fine eyes. "I meant to have all of this out of the way, dear," apologized Mrs. Paget, with a gesture that included cakes in the process of frosting, salad vegetables in the process of cooling, soup in the process of getting strained, great loaves of bread that sent a delicious fragrance over all the other odors. "But we didn't look for you until six." "Oh, no matter!" Margaret said bravely. "Rebecca tell you Dad didn't get his raise?" called Mrs. Paget, in a voice that rose above the various noises of the kitchen. "Blanche!" she protested, "can't that wait?" for the old negress had begun to crack ice with deafening smashes. But Blanche did not hear, so Mrs. Paget continued loudly: "Dad saw Redman himself; he'll tell you about it! Don't stay in the kitchen in that pretty dress, dear! I'm coming right upstairs." It was very hot upstairs; the bedrooms smelled faintly of matting, the soap in the bathroom was shrivelled in its saucer. In Margaret's old room the week's washing had been piled high on the bed. She took off her hat and linen coat, brushed her hair back from her face, flinging her head back and shutting her eyes the better to fight tears, as she did so, and began to assort the collars and shirts and put them away. For Dad's bureau--for Bruce's bureau--for the boys' bureau, table cloths to go downstairs, towels for the shelves in the bathroom. Two little shirtwaists for Rebecca with little holes torn through them where collar and belt pins belonged. Her last journey took her to the big, third-story room where the three younger boys slept. The three narrow beds were still unmade, and the western sunlight poured over tumbled blankets and the scattered small possessions that seem to ooze from the pores of little boys, Margaret set her lips distastefully as she brought order out of chaos. It was all wrong, somehow, she thought, gathering handkerchiefs and matches and "Nick Carters" and the oiled paper that had wrapped caramels from under the pillows that would in a few hours harbor a fresh supply. She went out on the porch in time to put her arms about her father's shabby shoulders when he came in. Mr. Paget was tired, and he told his wife and daughters that he thought he was a very sick man. Margaret's mother met this statement with an anxious solicitude that was very soothing to the sufferer. She made Mark get Daddy his slippers and loose coat, and suggested that Rebecca shake up the dining-room couch before she established him there, in a rampart of pillows. No outsider would have dreamed that Mrs. Paget had dealt with this exact emergency some hundreds of times in the past twenty years. Mr. Paget, reclining, shut his eyes, remarked that he had had an "awful, awful day," and wondered faintly if it would be too much trouble to have "somebody" make him just a little milk toast for his dinner. He smiled at Margaret when she sat down beside him; all the children were dear, but the oldest daughter knew she came first with her father. "Getting to be an old, old man!" he said wearily, and Margaret hated herself because she had to quell an impatient impulse to tell him he was merely tired and cross and hungry, before she could say, in the proper soothing tone, "Don't talk that way, Dad darling!" She had to listen to a long account of the "raise," wincing every time her father emphasized the difference between her own position and that of her employer. Dad was at least the equal of any one in Weston! Why, a man Dad's age oughtn't to be humbly asking a raise, he ought to be dictating now. It was just Dad's way of looking at things, and it was all wrong. "Well, I'll tell you one thing!" said Rebecca, who had come in with a brimming soup plate of milk toast, "Joe Redman gave a picnic last month, and he came here with his mother, in the car, to ask me. And I was the scornfullest thing you ever saw, wasn't I, Ted? Not much!" "Oh, Beck, you oughtn't to mix social and business things that way!" Margaret said helplessly. "Dinner!" screamed the nine-year-old Robert, breaking into the room at this point, and "Dinner!" said Mrs. Paget, wearily, cheerfully, from the chair into which she had dropped at the head of the table. Mr. Paget, revived by sympathy, milk toast, and Rebecca's attentions, took his place at the foot, and Bruce the chair between Margaret and his mother. Like the younger boys, whose almost confluent freckles had been brought into unusual prominence by violently applied soap and water, and whose hair dripped on their collars, he had brushed up for dinner, but his negligee shirt and corduroy trousers were stained and spotted from machine oil. Margaret, comparing him secretly to the men she knew, as daintily groomed as women, in their spotless white, felt a little resentment that Bruce's tired face was so contented, and said to herself again that it was all wrong. Dinner was the same old haphazard meal with which she was so familiar; Blanche supplying an occasional reproof to the boys, Ted ignoring his vegetables, and ready in an incredibly short time for a second cutlet, and Robert begging for corn syrup, immediately after the soup, and spilling it from his bread. Mrs. Paget was flushed, her disappearances kitchenward frequent. She wanted Margaret to tell her all about Mr. Tenison. Margaret laughed, and said there was nothing to tell. "You might get a horse and buggy from Peterson's," suggested Mrs. Paget, interestedly, "and drive about after dinner." "Oh, Mother, I don't think I had better let him come!" Margaret said. "There's so many of us, and such confusion, on Sunday! Ju and Harry are almost sure to come over." "Yes, I guess they will," Mrs. Paget said, with her sudden radiant smile. "Ju is so dear in her little house, and Harry's so sweet with her," she went on with vivacity. "Daddy and I had dinner with them Tuesday. Bruce said Rebecca was lovely with the boys,--we're going to Julie's again sometime. I declare it's so long since we've been anywhere without the children that we both felt funny. It was a lovely evening." "You're too much tied, Mother," Margaret said affectionately. "Not now!" her mother protested radiantly. "With all my babies turning into men and women so fast. And I'll have you all together to-morrow--and your friend I hope, too, Mark," she added hospitably. "You had better let him come, dear. There's a big dinner, and I always freeze more cream than we need, anyway, because Daddy likes a plate of it about four o'clock, if there's any left." "Well--but there's nothing to do," Margaret protested. "No, but dinner takes quite a while," Mrs. Paget suggested a little doubtfully; "and we could have a nice talk on the porch, and then you could go driving or walking. I wish there was something cool and pleasant to do, Mark," she finished a little wistfully. "You do just as you think best about asking him to come." "I think I'll wire him that another time would be better," said Margaret, slowly. "Sometime we'll regularly arrange for it." "Well, perhaps that would be best," her mother agreed. "Some other time we'll send the boys off before dinner, and have things all nice and quiet. In October, say, when the trees are so pretty. I don't know but what that's my favorite time of all the year!" Margaret looked at her as if she found something new in the tired, bright face. She could not understand why her mother--still too heated to commence eating her dinner--should radiate so definite an atmosphere of content, as she sat back a little breathless, after the flurry of serving. She herself felt injured and sore, not at the mere disappointment it caused her to put off John Tendon's visit, but because she felt more acutely than ever to-night the difference between his position and her own. "Something nice has happened, Mother?" she hazarded, entering with an effort into the older woman's mood. "Nothing special." Her mother's happy eyes ranged about the circle of young faces. "But it's so lovely to have you here, and to have Ju coming to-morrow," she said. "I just wish Daddy could build a house for each one of you, as you marry and settle down, right around our house in a circle, as they say people do sometimes in the Old World. I think then I'd have nothing in life to wish for!" "Oh, Mother--in Weston!" Margaret said hopelessly, but her mother did not catch it. "Not, Mark," she went on hastily and earnestly, "that I'm not more than grateful to God for all His goodness, as it is! I look at other women, and I wonder, I wonder--what I have done to be so blessed! Mark--" her face suddenly glowed, she leaned a little toward her daughter, "dearie, I must tell you," she said; "it's about Ju--" Their eyes met in the pause. "Mother--really?" Margaret said slowly. "She told me on Tuesday,." Mrs. Paget said, with glistening eyes. "Now, not a word to any one, Mark,--but she'll want you to know!" "And is she glad?" Margaret said, unable to rejoice. "Glad?" Mrs. Paget echoed, her face gladness itself. "Well, Ju's so young,--just twenty-one," Margaret submitted a little uncertainly; "and she's been so free,--and they're just in the new house! And I thought they were going to Europe!" "Oh, Europe!" Mrs. Paget dismissed it cheerfully. "Why, it's the happiest time in a woman's life, Mark! Or I don't know, though," she went on thoughtfully,--"I don't know but what I was happiest when you were all tiny, tumbling about me, and climbing into my lap.... Why, you love children, dear," she finished, with a shade of reproach in her voice, as Margaret still looked sober. "Yes, I know, Mother," Margaret said. "But Julie's only got the one maid, and I don't suppose they can have another. I hope to goodness Ju won't get herself all run down!" Her mother laughed. "You remind me of Grandma Paget," said she, cheerfully; "she lived ten miles away when we were married, but she came in when Bruce was born. She was rather a proud, cold woman herself, but she was very sweet to me. Well, then little Charlie came, fourteen months later, and she took that very seriously. Mother was dead, you know, and she stayed with me again, and worried me half sick telling me that it wasn't fair to Bruce and it wasn't fair to Charlie to divide my time between them that way. Well, then when my third baby was coming, I didn't dare tell her. Dad kept telling me to, and I couldn't, because I knew what a calamity a third would seem to her! Finally she went to visit Aunt Rebecca out West, and it was the very day she got back that the baby came. She came upstairs--she'd come right up from the train, and not seen any one but Dad; and he wasn't very intelligible, I guess--and she sat down and took the baby in her arms, and says she, looking at me sort of patiently, yet as if she was exasperated too: 'Well, this is a nice way to do, the minute my back's turned! What are you going to call him, Julia?' And I said, 'I'm going to call her Margaret, for my dear husband's mother, and she's going to be beautiful and good, and grow up to marry the President!'" Mrs. Paget's merry laugh rang out. "I never shall forget your grandmother's face." "Just the same," Mrs. Paget added, with a sudden deep sigh, "when little Charlie left us, the next year, and Brucie and Dad were both so ill, she and I agreed that you--you were just talking and trying to walk--were the only comfort we had! I could wish my girls no greater happiness than my children have been to me," finished Mother, contentedly. "I know," Margaret began, half angrily; "but what about the children?" she was going to add. But somehow the arguments she had used so plausibly did not utter themselves easily to Mother, whose children would carry into their own middle age a wholesome dread of her anger. Margaret faltered, and merely scowled. "I don't like to see that expression on your face, dearie," her mother said, as she might have said it to an eight-year-old child. "Be my sweet girl! Why, marriage isn't marriage without children, Mark. I've been thinking all week of having a baby in my arms again,--it's so long since Rob was a baby." Margaret devoted herself, with a rather sullen face, to her dessert. Mother would never feel as she did about these things, and what was the use of arguing? In the silence she heard her father speak loudly and suddenly. "I am not in a position to have my children squander money on concerts and candy," he said. Margaret forgot her own grievance, and looked up. The boys looked resentful and gloomy; Rebecca was flushed, her eyes dropped, her lips trembling with disappointment. "I had promised to take them to the Elks Concert and dance," Mrs. Paget interpreted hastily. "But now Dad says the Bakers are coming over to play whist." "Is it going to be a good show, Ted?" Margaret asked. "Oh," Rebecca flashed into instant glowing response. "It's going to be a dandy! Every one's going to be there! Ford Patterson is going to do a monologue,--he's as good as a professional!--and George is going to send up a bunch of carrots and parsnips! And the Weston Male Quartette, Mark, and a playlet by the Hunt's Crossing Amateur Theatrical Society!" "Oh--oh!"--Margaret mimicked the eager rush of words. "Let me take them, Dad," she pleaded, "if it's going to be as fine as all that! I'll stand treat for the crowd." "Oh, Mark, you darling!" burst from the rapturous Rebecca. "Say, gee, we've got to get there early!" Theodore warned them, finishing his pudding with one mammoth spoonful. "If you take them, my dear," Mr. Paget said graciously, "of course Mother and I are quite satisfied." "I'll hold Robert by one ear and Rebecca by another," Margaret promised; "and if she so much as dares to look at George or Ted or Jimmy Barr or Paul, I'll--" "Oh, Jimmy belongs to Louise, now," said Rebecca, radiantly. There was a joyous shout of laughter from the light-hearted juniors, and Rebecca, seeing her artless admission too late, turned scarlet while she laughed. Dinner broke up in confusion, as dinner at home always did, and everybody straggled upstairs to dress. Margaret, changing her dress in a room that was insufferably hot, because the shades must be down, and the gas-lights as high as possible, reflected that another forty-eight hours would see her speeding back to the world of cool, awninged interiors, uniformed maids, the clink of iced glasses, the flash of white sails on blue water. She could surely afford for that time to be patient and sweet. She lifted Rebecca's starched petticoat from the bed to give Mother a seat, when Mother came rather wearily in to watch them. "Sweet girl to take them, Mark," said Mother, appreciatively. "I was going to ask Brucie. But he's gone to bed, poor fellow; he's worn out to-night." "He had a letter from Ned Gunther this morning," said Rebecca, cheerfully,--powdering the tip of her pretty nose, her eyes almost crossed with concentration,--"and I think it made him blue all day." "Ned Gunther?" said Margaret. "Chum at college," Rebecca elucidated; "a lot of them are going to Honolulu, just for this month, and of course they wanted Bruce. Mark, does that show?" Margaret's heart ached for the beloved brother's disappointment. There it was again, all wrong! Before she left the house with the rioting youngsters, she ran upstairs to his room. Bruce, surrounded by scientific magazines, a drop-light with a vivid green shade over his shoulder, looked up with a welcoming smile. "Sit down and talk, Mark," said he. Margaret explained her hurry. "Bruce,--this isn't much fun!" she said, looking about the room with its shabby dresser and worn carpet. "Why aren't you going to the concert?" "Is there a concert?" he asked, surprised. "Why, didn't you hear us talking at dinner? The Elks, you know." "Well--sure! I meant to go to that. I forgot it was to-night," he said, with his lazy smile. "I came home all in, forgot everything." "Oh, come!" Margaret urged, as eagerly as Rebecca ever did. "It's early, Bruce, come on! You don't have to shave! We'll hold a seat,--come on!" "Sure, I will!" he said, suddenly roused. The magazines rapped on the floor, and Margaret had barely shut the door behind her when she heard his bare feet follow them. It was like old times to sit next to him through the hot merry evening, while Rebecca glowed like a little rose among her friends, and the smaller boys tickled her ear with their whispered comments. Margaret had sent a telegram to Professor Tenison, and felt relieved that at least that strain was spared her. She even danced with Bruce after the concert, and with one or two old friends. Afterwards, they strolled back slowly through the inky summer dark, finding the house hot and close when they came in. Margaret went upstairs, hearing her mother's apologetic, "Oh, Dad, why didn't I give you back your club?" as she passed the dining-room door. She knew Mother hated whist, and wondered rather irritably why she played it. The Paget family was slow to settle down. Robert became tearful and whining before he was finally bumped protesting into bed. Theodore and Duncan prolonged their ablutions until the noise of shouting, splashing, and thumping in the bathroom brought Mother to the foot of the stairs. Rebecca was conversational. She lay with her slender arms locked behind her head on the pillow, and talked, as Julie had talked on that memorable night five years ago. Margaret, restless in the hot darkness, wondering whether the maddening little shaft of light from the hall gas was annoying enough to warrant the effort of getting up and extinguishing it, listened and listened. Rebecca wanted to join the Stage Club, but Mother wouldn't let her unless Bruce did. Rebecca belonged to the Progressive Diners. Did Mark suppose Mother'd think she was crazy if she asked the family not to be in evidence when the crowd came to the house for the salad course? And Rebecca wanted to write to Bruce's chum, not regularly, you know, Mark, but just now and then, he was so nice! And Mother didn't like the idea. Margaret was obviously supposed to lend a hand with these interesting tangles. "...and I said, 'Certainly not! I won't unmask at all, if it comes to that!'... And imagine that elegant fellow carrying my old books and my skates! So I wrote, and Maudie and I decided... And Mark, if it wasn't a perfectly gorgeous box of roses!... That old, old dimity, but Mother pressed and freshened it up.... Not that I want to marry him, or any one..." Margaret wakened from uneasy drowsing with a start. The hall was dark now, the room cooler. Rebecca was asleep. Hands, hands she knew well, were drawing a light covering over her shoulders. She opened her eyes to see her mother. "I've been wondering if you're disappointed about your friend not coming to-morrow, Mark?" said the tender voice. "Oh, no-o!" said Margaret, hardily. "Mother--why are you up so late?" "Just going to bed," said the other, soothingly. "Blanche forgot to put the oatmeal into the cooker, and I went downstairs again. I'll say my prayers in here." Margaret went off to sleep again, as she had so many hundred times before, with her mother kneeling beside her. CHAPTER VII It seemed but a few moments before the blazing Sunday was precipitated upon them, and everybody was late for everything. The kitchen was filled with the smoke from hot griddles blue in the sunshine, when Margaret went downstairs; and in the dining-room the same merciless light fell upon the sticky syrup pitcher, and upon the stains on the tablecloth. Cream had been brought in in the bottle, the bread tray was heaped with orange skins, and the rolls piled on the tablecloth. Bruce, who had already been to church with Mother, and was off for a day's sail, was dividing his attention between Robert and his watch. Rebecca, daintily busy with the special cup and plate that were one of her little affectations, was all ready for the day, except as to dress, wearing a thin little kimono over her blue ribbons and starched embroideries. Mother was putting up a little lunch for Bruce. Confusion reigned. The younger boys were urged to hurry, if they wanted to make the "nine." Rebecca was going to wait for the "half past ten," because the "kids sang at nine, and it was fierce." Mr. Paget and his sons departed together, and the girls went upstairs for a hot, tiring tussle with beds and dusting before starting for church. They left their mother busy with the cream freezer in the kitchen. It was very hot even then. But it was still hotter, walking home in the burning midday stillness. A group of young people waited lazily for letters, under the trees outside the post-office door. Otherwise the main street was deserted. A languid little breeze brought the far echoes of pianos and phonographs from this direction and that. "Who's that on the porch?" said Rebecca, suddenly, as they neared home, instantly finding the stranger among her father and the boys. Margaret, glancing up sharply, saw, almost with a sensation of sickness, the big, ungainly figure, the beaming smile, and the shock of dark hair that belonged to nobody else in the world but John Tenison, A stony chill settled about her heart as she went up the steps and gave him her hand. Oh, if he only couldn't stay to dinner, she prayed. Oh, if only he could spare them time for no more than a flying visit! With a sinking heart she smiled her greetings. "Doctor Tenison,--this is very nice of you!" Margaret said. "Have you met my father--my small brothers?" "We have been having a great talk," said John Tenison, genially, "and this young man--" he indicated Robert, "has been showing me the colored supplement of the paper. I didn't have any word from you, Miss Paget," he went on, "so I took the chance of finding you. And your mother has assured me that I will not put her out by staying to have luncheon with you." "Oh, that's nice!" Margaret said mechanically, trying to dislodge Robert from the most comfortable chair by a significant touch of her fingers on his small shoulder. Robert perfectly understood that she wanted the chair, but continued in absorbed study of the comic supplement, merely wriggling resentfully at Margaret's touch. Margaret, at the moment, would have been glad to use violence on the stubborn, serene little figure. When he was finally dislodged, she sat down, still flushed from her walk and the nervousness Doctor Tenison's arrival caused her, and tried to bring the conversation into a normal channel. But an interruption occurred in the arrival of Harry and Julie in the runabout; the little boys swarmed down to examine it. Julie, very pretty, with a perceptible little new air of dignity, went upstairs to freshen hair and gown, and Harry, pushing his straw hat back the better to mop his forehead, immediately engaged Doctor Tenison's attention with the details of what sounded to Margaret like a particularly uninteresting operation, which he had witnessed the day before. Utterly discouraged, and acutely wretched, Margaret presently slipped away, and went into the kitchen, to lend a hand with the dinner reparations if help was needed. The room presented a scene if possible a little more confused than that of the day before, and was certainly hotter. Her mother, flushed and hurried, in a fresh but rather unbecoming gingham, was putting up a cold supper for the younger boys, who, having duly attended to their religious duties, were to take a long afternoon tramp, with a possible interval of fishing. She buttered each slice of the great loaf before she cut it, and lifted it carefully on the knife before beginning the next slice. An opened pot of jam stood at her elbow. A tin cup and the boys' fishing-gear lay on a chair. Theodore and Duncan themselves hung over these preparations; never apparently helping themselves to food, yet never with empty mouths. Blanche, moaning "The Palms" with the insistence of one who wishes to show her entire familiarity with a melody, was at the range. Roast veal, instead of the smothered chickens her mother had so often, and cooked so deliciously, a mountain of mashed potato--corn on the cob, and an enormous heavy salad mantled with mayonnaise--Margaret could have wept over the hopelessly plebeian dinner! "Mother, mayn't I get down the finger-bowls," she asked; "and mayn't we have black coffee in the silver pot, afterwards?" Mrs. Paget looked absently at her for a dubious second. "I don't like to ask Blanche to wash all that extra glass," she said, in an undertone, adding briskly to Theodore, "No, no, Ted! You can't have all that cake. Half that!" and to Blanche herself, "Don't leave the door open when you go in, Blanche; I just drove all the flies out of the dining-room." Then she returned to Margaret with a cordial: "Why, certainly, dear! Any one who wants coffee, after tea, can have it! Dad always wants his cup of tea." "Nobody but us ever serves tea with dinner!" Margaret muttered; but her mother did not hear it. She buckled the strap of the lunch-box, straightened her back with an air of relief, and pushed down her rolled-up sleeves. "Don't lose that napkin, Ted," said she, and receiving the boy's grateful kiss haphazard between her hair and forehead, she added affectionately: "You're more than welcome, dear! We're all ready, Mark,--go and tell them, dear! All right, Blanche." Ruffled and angry, Margaret went to summon the others to dinner. Maudie had joined them on the porch now, and had been urged to stay, and was already trying her youthful wiles on the professor. "Well, he'll have to leave on the five o'clock!" Margaret reflected, steeled to bitter endurance until that time. For everything went wrong, and dinner was one long nightmare for her. Professor Tenison's napkin turned out to be a traycloth. Blanche, asked for another, disappeared for several minutes, and returned without it, to whisper in Mrs. Paget's ear. Mrs. Paget immediately sent her own fresh napkin to the guest. The incident, or something in their murmured conversation, gave Rebecca and Maudie "the giggles." There seemed an exhausting amount of passing and repassing of plates. The room was hot, the supply of ice insufficient. Mr. Paget dwelt on his favorite grievance--"the old man isn't needed, these days. They're getting all young fellows into the bank. They put young college fellows in there who are getting pretty near the money I am--after twenty-five years!" In any pause, Mrs. Paget could be heard, patiently dissuading little Robert from his fixed intention of accompanying the older boys on their walk, whether invited or uninvited. John Tenison behaved charmingly, eating his dinner with enjoyment, looking interestedly from one face to the other, sympathetic, alert, and amused. But Margaret writhed in spirit at what he must be thinking. Finally the ice cream, in a melting condition, and the chocolate cake, very sticky, made their appearance; and although these were regular Sunday treats, the boys felt called upon to cheer. Julie asked her mother in an audible undertone if she "ought" to eat cake. Doctor Tenison produced an enormous box of chocolates, and Margaret was disgusted with the frantic scramble her brothers made to secure them. "If you're going for a walk, dear," her mother said, when the meal was over, "you'd better go. It's almost three now." "I don't know whether we will, it's so hot," Margaret said, in an indifferent tone, but she could easily have broken into disheartened tears. "Oh, go," Julie urged, "it's much cooler out." They were up in Margaret's old room, Mrs. Paget tying a big apron about Julie's ruffled frock, preparatory to an attack upon the demoralized kitchen. "We think he's lovely," the little matron went on approvingly. "Don't fall in love with him, Mark." "Why not?" Margaret said carelessly, pinning on her hat. "Well, I don't imagine he's a marrying man," said the young authority, wisely. Margaret flushed, and was angry at herself for flushing. But when Mrs. Paget had gone downstairs, Julie came very simply and charmingly over to her sister, and standing close beside her with embarrassed eyes on her own hand,--very youthful in its plain ring,--as she played with the bureau furnishing, she said: "Mother tell you?" Margaret looked down at the flushed face. "Are you sorry, Ju?" "Sorry!" The conscious eyes flashed into view. "Sorry!" Julie echoed in astonishment. "Why, Mark," she said dreamily,--there was no affectation of maturity in her manner now, and it was all the more impressive for that. "Why, Mark," said she, "it's--it's the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me! I think and think,"--her voice dropped very low,--"of holding it in my arms,--mine and Harry's, you know--and of its little face!" Margaret, stirred, kissed the wet lashes. "Ju, but you're so young--you're such a baby yourself!" she said. "And, Mark," Julie said, unheeding, "you know what Harry and I are going to call her, if it's a girl? Not for Mother, for it's so confusing to have two Julias, but for you! Because," her arms went about her sister, "you've always been such a darling to me, Mark!" Margaret went downstairs very thoughtfully, and out into the silent Sunday streets. Where they walked, or what they talked of, she did not know. She knew that her head ached, and that the village looked very commonplace, and that the day was very hot. She found it more painful than sweet to be strolling along beside the big, loose-jointed figure, and to send an occasional side glance to John Tenison's earnest face, which wore its pleasantest expression now. Ah, well, it would be all over at five o'clock, she said wearily to herself, and she could go home and lie down with her aching head in a darkened room, and try not to think what to-day might have been. Try not to think of the dainty little luncheon Annie would have given them at Mrs. Carr-Boldt's, of the luxurious choice of amusements afterward: motoring over the lovely country roads, rowing on the wide still water, watching the tennis courts, or simply resting in deep chairs on the sweep of velvet lawn above the river. She came out of a reverie to find Doctor Tenison glancing calmly up from his watch. "The train was five o'clock, was it?" he said. "I've missed it!" "Missed it!" Margaret echoed blankly. Then, as the horrible possibility dawned upon her, "Oh, no!" "Oh, yes,--as bad as that!" he said, laughing at her. Poor Margaret, fighting despair, struggled to recover herself. "Well, I thought it might have been important to you!" she said, laughing quite naturally. "There's a seven-six, but it stops everywhere, and a ten-thirty. The ten-thirty is best, because supper's apt to be a little late." "The ten-thirty," Doctor Tenison echoed contentedly. Margaret's heart sank,--five more hours of the struggle! "But perhaps that's an imposition," he said. "Isn't there a tea-room--isn't there an inn here where we could have a bite?" "We aren't in Berlin," Margaret reminded him cheerfully. "There's a hotel,--but Mother would never forgive me for leading any one there! No, we'll take that little walk I told you of, and Mother will give us something to eat later.--Perhaps if we're late enough," she added to herself, "we can have just tea and bread and jam alone, after the others." Suddenly, unreasonably, she felt philosophical and gay. The little episode of missing the train had given her the old dear feeling of adventure and comradeship again. Things couldn't be any worse than they had been at noon, anyway. The experience had been thoroughly disenchanting. What did a few hours, more or less, matter! Let him be disgusted if he wanted to, she couldn't help it! It was cooler now, the level late shadows were making even Weston pretty. They went up a steep shady lane to the old graveyard, and wandered, peacefully, contentedly, among the old graves. Margaret gathered her thin gown from contact with the tangled, uncut grass; they had to disturb a flock of nibbling sheep to cross to the crumbling wall. Leaning on the uneven stones that formed it, they looked down at the roofs of the village, half lost in tree-tops; and listened to the barking of dogs, and the shrill voices of children. The sun sank lower, lower. There was a feeling of dew in the air as they went slowly home. When, at seven o'clock, they opened the gate, they found on the side porch only Rebecca, enchanting in something pink and dotted, Mother, and Dad. "Lucky we waited!" said Rebecca, rising, and signaling some wordless message to Margaret that required dimples, widened eyes, compressed lips, and an expression of utter secrecy. "Supper's all ready," she added casually. "Where are the others'" Margaret said, experiencing the most pleasant sensation she had had in twenty-four hours. "Ju and Harry went home, Rob's at George's, boys walking," said Rebecca, briefly, still dimpling mysteriously with additional information. She gave Margaret an eloquent side glance as she led the way into the dining-room. At the doorway Margaret stopped, astounded. The room was hardly recognizable now. It was cool and delightful, with the diminished table daintily set for five, The old silver candlesticks and silver teapot presided over blue bowls of berries, and the choicest of Mother's preserved fruits. Some one had found time to put fresh parsley about the Canton platter of cold meats, some one had made a special trip to Mrs. O'Brien's for the cream that filled the Wedgwood pitcher. Margaret felt tears press suddenly against her eyes. "Oh, Beck!" she could only stammer, when the sisters went into the kitchen for hot water and tea biscuit. "Mother did it," said Rebecca, returning her hug with fervor. "She gave us all an awful talking to, after you left! She said here was dear old Mark, who always worked herself to death for us, trying to make a nice impression, and to have things go smoothly, and we were all acting like Indians, and everything so confused at dinner, and hot and noisy! So, later, when Paul and I and the others were walking, we saw you and Doctor Tenison going up toward the graveyard, and I tore home and told Mother he'd missed the five and would be back; it was after five then, and we just flew!" It was all like a pleasant awakening after a troubled dream. As Margaret took her place at the little feast, she felt an exquisite sensation of peace and content sink into her heart. Mother was so gracious and charming, behind the urn; Rebecca irresistible in her admiration of the famous professor. Her father was his sweetest self, delightfully reminiscent of his boyhood, and his visit to the White House in Lincoln's day, with "my uncle, the judge." But it was to her mother's face that Margaret's eyes returned most often, she wanted--she was vaguely conscious that she wanted--to get away from the voices and laughter, and think about Mother. How sweet she was, just sweet, and after all, how few people were that in this world! They were clever, and witty, and rich,--plenty of them, but how little sweetness there was! How few faces, like her mother's, did not show a line that was not all tenderness and goodness. They laughed over their teacups like old friends; the professor and Rebecca shouting joyously together, Mr. Paget one broad twinkle, Mrs. Paget radiantly reflecting, as she always did react, the others' mood. It was a memorably happy hour. And after tea they sat on the porch, and the stars came out, and presently the moon sent silver shafts through the dark foliage of the trees. Little Rob came home, and climbed silently, contentedly, into his father's lap. "Sing something, Mark," said Dad, then; and Margaret, sitting on the steps with her head against her mother's knee, found it very simple to begin in the darkness one of the old songs he loved:-- "Don't you cry, ma honey, Don't you weep no more." Rebecca, sitting on the rail, one slender arm flung above her head about the pillar, joined her own young voice to Margaret's sweet and steady one. The others hummed a little. John Tenison, sitting watching them, his locked hands hanging between his knees, saw in the moonlight a sudden glitter on the mother's cheek. Presently Bruce, tired and happy and sunburned, came through the splashed silver-and-black of the street to sit by Margaret, and put his arm about her; and the younger boys, returning full of the day's great deeds, spread themselves comfortably over the lower steps. Before long all their happy voices rose together, on "Believe me," and "Working on the Railroad," and "Seeing Nellie Home," and a dozen more of the old songs that young people have sung for half a century in the summer moonlight. And then it was time to say good-night to Professor Tenison. "Come again, sir!" said Mr. Paget, heartily; the boys slid their hands, still faintly suggestive of fish, cordially into his; Rebecca promised to mail him a certain discussed variety of fern the very next day; Bruce's voice sounded all hearty good-will as he hoped that he wouldn't miss Doctor Tenison's next visit. Mrs. Paget, her hand in his, raised keen, almost anxious eyes to his face. "But surely you'll be down our way again?" said she, unsmilingly. "Oh, surely." The professor was unable to keep his eyes from moving toward Margaret, and the mother saw it. "Good-bye for the present, then," she said, still very gravely. "Good-bye, Mrs. Paget," said Doctor Tenison. "It's been an inestimable privilege to meet you all. I haven't ever had a happier day." Margaret, used to the extravagant speeches of another world, thought this merely very charming politeness. But her heart sang, as they walked away together. He liked them--he had had a nice time! "Now I know what makes you so different from other women," said John Tenison, when he and Margaret were alone. "It's having that wonderful mother! She--she--well, she's one woman in a million; I don't have to tell you that! It's something to thank God for, a mother like that; it's a privilege to know her. I've been watching her all day, and I've been wondering what she gets out of it,--that was what puzzled me; but now, just now, I've found out! This morning, thinking what her life is, I couldn't see what repaid her, do you see? What made up to her for the unending, unending effort, and sacrifice, the pouring out of love and sympathy and help--year after year after year...." He hesitated, but Margaret did not speak. "You know," he went on musingly, "in these days, when women just serenely ignore the question of children, or at most, as a special concession, bring up one or two,--just the one or two whose expenses can be comfortably met!--there's something magnificent in a woman like your mother, who begins eight destinies instead of one! She doesn't strain and chafe to express herself through the medium of poetry or music or the stage, but she puts her whole splendid philosophy into her nursery--launches sound little bodies and minds that have their first growth cleanly and purely about her knees. Responsibility,--that's what these other women say they are afraid of! But it seems to me there's no responsibility like that of decreeing that young lives simply shall not be. Why, what good is learning, or elegance of manner, or painfully acquired fineness of speech, and taste and point of view, if you are not going to distil it into the growing plants, the only real hope we have in the world! You know, Miss Paget," his smile was very sweet, in the half darkness, "there's a higher tribunal than the social tribunal of this world, after all; and it seems to me that a woman who stands there, as your mother will, with a forest of new lives about her, and a record like hers, will--will find she has a Friend at court!" he finished whimsically. They were at a lonely corner, and a garden fence offering Margaret a convenient support, she laid her arms suddenly upon the rosevine that covered it, and her face upon her arms, and cried as if her heart was broken. "Why, why--my dear girl!" the professor said, aghast. He laid his hand on the shaking shoulders, but Margaret shook it off. "I'm not what you think I am!" she sobbed out, incoherently. "I'm not different from other women; I'm just as selfish and bad and mean as the worst of them! And I'm not worthy to t-tie my m-mother's shoes!" "Margaret!" John Tenison said unsteadily. And in a flash her drooping bright head was close to his lips, and both his big arms were about her. "You know I love you, don't you Margaret?" he said hoarsely, over and over, with a sort of fierce intensity. "You know that, don't you? Don't you, Margaret?" Margaret could not speak. Emotion swept her like a rising tide from all her familiar moorings; her heart thundered, there was a roaring in her ears. She was conscious of a wild desire to answer him, to say one hundredth part of all she felt; but she could only rest, breathless, against him, her frightened eyes held by the eyes so near, his arms about her. "You do, don't you, Margaret?" he said more gently. "You love me, don't you? Don't you?" And after a long time, or what seemed a long time, while they stood motionless in the summer night, with the great branches of the trees moving a little overhead, and garden scents creeping out on the damp air, Margaret said, with a sort of breathless catch in her voice:-- "You know I do!" And with the words the fright left her eyes, and happy tears filled them, and she raised her face to his. Coming back from the train half an hour later, she walked between a new heaven and a new earth! The friendly stars seemed just overhead; a thousand delicious odors came from garden beds and recently watered lawns. She moved through the confusion that always attended the settling down of the Pagets for the night, like one in a dream, and was glad to find herself at last lying in the darkness beside the sleeping Rebecca again. Now, now, she could think! But it was all too wonderful for reasonable thought. Margaret clasped both her hands against her rising heart. He loved her. She could think of the very words he had used in telling her, over and over again. She need no longer wonder and dream and despair: he had said it. He loved her, had loved her from the very first. His old aunt suspected it, and his chum suspected it, and he had thought Margaret knew it. And beside him in that brilliant career that she had followed so wistfully in her dreams, Margaret saw herself, his wife. Young and clever and good to look upon,--yes, she was free to-night to admit herself all these good things for his sake!--and his wife, mounting as he mounted beside the one man in the world she had elected to admire and love. "Doctor and Mrs. John Tenison "--so it would be written. "Doctor Tenison's wife"--"This is Mrs. Tenison"--she seemed already to hear the magical sound of it! Love--what a wonderful thing it was! How good God was to send this best of all gifts to her! She thought how it belittled the other good things of the world. She asked no more of life, now; she was loved by a good man, and a great man, and she was to be his wife. Ah, the happy years together that would date from to-night,--Margaret was thrilling already to their delights. "For better or worse," the old words came to her with a new meaning. There would be no worse, she said to herself with sudden conviction,--how could there be? Poverty, privation, sickness might come,--but to bear them with John,--to comfort and sustain him, to be shut away with him from all the world but the world of their own four walls,--why, that would be the greatest happiness of all! What hardship could be hard that knitted their two hearts closer together; what road too steep if they essayed it hand in hand? And that--her confused thoughts ran on--that was what had changed all life for Julie. She had forgotten Europe, forgotten all the idle ambitions of her girlhood, because she loved her husband; and now the new miracle was to come to her,--the miracle of a child, the little perfect promise of the days to come. How marvellous--how marvellous it was! The little imperative, helpless third person, bringing to radiant youth and irresponsibility the terrors of danger and anguish, and the great final joy, to share together. That was life. Julie was living; and although Margaret's own heart was not yet a wife's, and she could not yet find room for the love beyond that, still she was strangely, deeply stirred now by a longing for all the experiences that life held. How she loved everything and everybody to-night,--how she loved just being alive--just being Margaret Paget, lying here in the dark dreaming and thinking. There was no one in the world with whom she would change places to-night! Margaret found herself thinking of one woman of her acquaintance after another,--and her own future, opening all color of rose before her, seemed to her the one enviable path through the world. In just one day, she realized with vague wonder, her slowly formed theories had been set at naught, her whole philosophy turned upside down. Had these years of protest and rebellion done no more than lead her in a wide circle, past empty gain, and joyless mirth, and the dead sea fruit of riches and idleness, back to her mother's knees again? She had met brilliant women, rich women, courted women--but where among them was one whose face had ever shone as her mother's shone to-day? The overdressed, idle dowagers; the matrons, with their too-gay frocks, their too-full days, their too-rich food; the girls, all crudeness, artifice, all scheming openly for their own advantage,--where among them all was happiness? Where among them was one whom Margaret had heard say--as she had heard her mother say so many, many times,--"Children, this is a happy day,"--"Thank God for another lovely Sunday all together,"--"Isn't it lovely to get up and find the sun shining?"--"Isn't it good to come home hungry to such a nice dinner!" And what a share of happiness her mother had given the world! How she had planned and worked for them all,--Margaret let her arm fall across the sudden ache in her eyes as she thought of the Christmas mornings, and the stuffed stockings at the fireplace that proved every childish wish remembered, every little hidden hope guessed! Darling Mother--she hadn't had much money for those Christmas stockings, they must have been carefully planned, down to the last candy cane. And how her face would beam, as she sat at the breakfast-table, enjoying her belated coffee, after the cold walk to church, and responding warmly to the onslaught of kisses and bugs that added fresh color to her cold, rosy cheeks! What a mother she was,--Margaret remembered her making them all help her clear up the Christmas disorder of tissue paper and ribbons; then came the inevitable bed making, then tippets and overshoes, for a long walk with Dad. They would come back to find the dining-room warm, the long table set, the house deliciously fragrant from the immense turkey that their mother, a fresh apron over her holiday gown, was basting at the oven. Then came the feast, and then games until twilight, and more table-setting; and the baby, whoever he was, was tucked away upstairs before tea, and the evening ended with singing, gathered about Mother at the piano. "How happy we all were!" Margaret said; "and how she worked for us!" And suddenly theories and speculation ended, and she knew. She knew that faithful, self-forgetting service, and the love that spends itself over and over, only to be renewed again and again, are the secret of happiness. For another world, perhaps, leisure and beauty and luxury--but in this one, "Who loses his life shall gain it." Margaret knew now that her mother was not only the truest, the finest, the most generous woman she had ever known, but the happiest as well. She thought of other women like her mother; she suddenly saw what made their lives beautiful. She could understand now why Emily Porter, her old brave little associate of school-teaching days, was always bright, why Mary Page, plodding home from the long day at the library desk to her little cottage and crippled sister, at night, always made one feel the better and happier for meeting her. Mrs. Carr-Boldt's days were crowded to the last instant, it was true; but what a farce it was, after all, Margaret said to herself in all honesty, to humor her in her little favorite belief that she was a busy woman! Milliner, manicure, butler, chef, club, card-table, tea table,--these and a thousand things like them filled her day, and they might all be swept away in an hour, and leave no one the worse. Suppose her own summons came; there would be a little flurry throughout the great establishment, legal matters to settle, notes of thanks to be written for flowers. Margaret could imagine Victoria and Harriet, awed but otherwise unaffected, home from school in midweek, and to be sent back before the next Monday. Their lives would go on unchanged, their mother had never buttered bread for them, never schemed for their boots and hats, never watched their work and play, and called them to her knees for praise and blame. Mr. Carr-Boldt would have his club, his business, his yacht, his motor-cars,--he was well accustomed to living in cheerful independence of family claims. But life without Mother--! In a sick moment of revelation, Margaret saw it. She saw them gathering in the horrible emptiness and silence of the house Mother had kept so warm and bright, she saw her father's stooped shoulders and trembling hands, she saw Julie and Beck, red eyed, white-cheeked, in fresh black,--she seemed to hear the low-toned voices that would break over and over again so cruelly into sobs. What could they do--who could take up the work she laid down,--who would watch and plan and work for them all, now? Margaret thought of the empty place at the table, of the room that, after all these years, was no longer "Mother's room--" Oh, no--no--no!--She began to cry bitterly in the dark. No, please God, they would hold her safe with them for many years. Mother should live to see some of the fruits of the long labor of love. She should know that with every fresh step in life, with every deepening experience, her children grew to love her better, turned to her more and more! There would be Christmases as sweet as the old ones, if not so gay; there would come a day--Margaret's whole being thrilled to the thought--when little forms would run ahead of John and herself up the worn path, and when their children would be gathered in Mother's experienced arms! Did life hold a more exquisite moment, she wondered, than that in which she would hear her mother praise them! All her old castles in the air seemed cheap and tinselled to-night, beside these tender dreams that had their roots in the real truths of life. Travel and position, gowns and motor-cars, yachts and country houses, these things were to be bought in all their perfection by the highest bidder, and always would be. But love and character and service, home and the wonderful charge of little lives,--the "pure religion breathing household laws" that guided and perfected the whole,--these were not to be bought, they were only to be prayed for, worked for, bravely won. "God has been very good to me," Margaret said to herself very seriously; and in her old childish fashion she made some new resolves. From now on, she thought, with a fervor that made it seem half accomplished, she would be a very different woman. If joy came, she would share it as far as she could; if sorrow, she would show her mother that her daughter was not all unworthy of her. To-morrow, she thought, she would go and see Julie. Dear old Ju, whose heart was so full of the little Margaret! Margaret had a sudden tender memory of the days when Theodore and Duncan and Rob were all babies in turn. Her mother would gather the little daily supply of fresh clothes from bureau and chest every morning, and carry the little bath-tub into the sunny nursery window, and sit there with only a bobbing downy head and waving pink angers visible from the great warm bundle of bath apron.... Ju would be doing that now. And she had sometimes wished, or half formed the wish, that she and Bruce bad been the only ones--! Yes, came the sudden thought, but it wouldn't have been Bruce and Margaret, after all, it would have been Bruce and Charlie. Good God! That was what women did, then, when they denied the right of life to the distant, unwanted, possible little person! Calmly, constantly, in all placid philosophy and self-justification, they kept from the world--not only the troublesome new baby, with his tears and his illnesses, his merciless exactions, his endless claim on mind and body and spirit--but perhaps the glowing beauty of a Rebecca, the buoyant indomitable spirit of a Ted, the sturdy charm of a small Robert, whose grip on life, whose energy and ambition were as strong as Margaret's own! Margaret stirred uneasily, frowned in the dark. It seemed perfectly incredible, it seemed perfectly impossible that if Mother had had only the two--and how many thousands of women didn't have that!--she, Margaret, a pronounced and separate entity, travelled, ambitious, and to be the wife of one of the world's great men, might not have been lying here in the summer night, rich in love and youth and beauty and her dreams! It was all puzzling, all too big for her to understand. But she could do what Mother did, just take the nearest duty and fulfil it, and sleep well, and rise joyfully to fresh effort. Margaret felt as if she would never sleep again. The summer night was cool, she was cramped and chilly; but still her thoughts raced on, and she could not shut her eyes. She turned and pressed her face resolutely into the pillow, and with a great sigh renounced the joys and sorrows, the lessons and the awakening that the long day had held. A second later there was a gentle rustle at the door. "Mark--" a voice whispered. "Can't you sleep?" Margaret locked her arms tight about her mother, as the older woman knelt beside her. "Why, how cold you are, sweetheart!" her mother protested, tucking covers about her. "I thought I heard you sigh! I got up to lock the stairway door; Baby's gotten a trick of walking in his sleep when he's overtired. It's nearly one o'clock, Mark! What have you been doing?" "Thinking." Margaret put her lips close to her mother's ear. "Mother-" she stammered and stopped. Mrs. Paget kissed her. "Daddy and I thought so," she said simply; and further announcement was not needed. "My darling little girl!" she added tenderly; and then, after a silence, "He is very fine, Mark, so unaffected, so gentle and nice with the boys. I--I think I'm glad, Mark. I lose my girl but there's no happiness like a happy marriage, dear." "No, you won't lose me, Mother," Margaret said, clinging very close. "We hadn't much time to talk, but this much we did decide. You see, John--John goes to Germany for a year, next July. So we thought--in June or July, Mother, just as Julie's was! Just a little wedding like Ju's. You see, that's better than interrupting the term, or trying to settle down, when we'd have to move in July. And, Mother, I'm going to write Mrs. Carr-Boldt,--she can get a thousand girls to take my place, her niece is dying to do it!--and I'm going to take my old school here for the term. Mr. Forbes spoke to me about it after church this morning; they want me back. I want this year at home; I want to see more of Bruce and Ju, and sort of stand by darling little Beck! But it's for you, most of all, Mother," said Margaret, with difficulty. "I've always loved you, Mother, but you don't know how wonderful I think you are--" She broke off pitifully, "Ah, Mother!" For her mother's arms had tightened convulsively about her, and the face against her own was wet. "Are you talking?" said Rebecca, rearing herself up suddenly, with a web of bright hair falling over her shoulder. "You said your prayers on Mark last night--" said she, reproachfully, "come over and say them on me to-night, Mother." 
32394	----	THE TORCH BEARER BY REINA MELCHER MARQUIS NEW YORK AND LONDON D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1914 COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY Printed in the United States of America TO MY HUSBAND FOR WITHOUT HIS HEARTENING FAITH IN MY WORK, HIS GENEROUS SYMPATHY WITH IT, AND HIS DISCERNING CRITICISM OF IT, THIS BOOK WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN WRITTEN. THE TORCH BEARER CHAPTER I Peter Burnett stood on the top-most of the broad white steps leading to the "Shadyville Seminary for Young Ladies." He had just closed the door of that sacred institution behind him, and with a sigh of relief which was incompatible with the honors of his professorship. But Peter had never duly valued his position of instructor to Shadyville's feminine youth, though his reverence for scholarship was deep and sincere. It was Friday afternoon, and freed from the chrysalis of his bread-winning duties, he was about to spread his wings for the flight of his inclination. He looked out on the April greenery of the town with the fastidious gaze of one who has the world to choose from; for though he was a poor young school-master, clad in a shirt that had been darned too often, he was also a Burnett of Kentucky and born to a manner of leisure and arrogance. Slowly, and with this manner at its best, he began to descend the steps. His whole lax figure assumed an air of indolence that, for all his lack of imposing proportions, subtly invested him with distinction, and he set a dallying, aristocratic foot upon the quiet street. In that descent he triumphed over the mended shirt--and forgot it. From Friday afternoon until Monday morning--the brief interval when little girls are reprieved from lessons--he had indeed the world to choose from; or, to be accurate, the social world of Shadyville, of Kentucky, and of the larger south. Within that radius he might take his amusements where he would and it was a matter of some amazement to those less privileged than he that he made such unspectacular use of his opportunities. Why, thought they, should Peter Burnett waste his holidays over a country walk or a copy of Theocritus when he might be fashionably golfing, dancing a cotillion or flirting at a house party? Not that Peter neglected these pursuits--being a more astute young man than his reserved face and tranquil gray eye would indicate--but that he paused occasionally in the round of them for what his admirers considered less worthy diversions. And he was pausing now, as he loitered along the wide, silent street with its trees in pale, sweet leafage and its old-fashioned houses showing a prim gayety in the bloom of their garden closes. He loved this street which stretched the length of the town; beginning in homes of a humble sort; breaking, a little farther on, into a feverish importance as it ran along before the doors of the shops; gathering dignity unto itself as it gained the site of the Shadyville Seminary; and finally advancing, in the evolution of a social consciousness, through the select upper end of town, where it spread itself ingratiatingly beneath the feet of the "prominent citizens" and clung smugly to well-trimmed hedges instead of skirting shop doors, and dingy fences. Peter called its course its "rise in life"--so obvious was its snobbery, its persistent climbing; but his ridicule was the tolerant ridicule of affection. He knew the street like the nature of an old friend; he saw it like the face of one; and if he laughed now and then at its weaknesses, he was none the less certain to enjoy its company. To walk along _with_ a street--not merely upon it--was one of his favorite pastimes, and this afternoon he pursued it in great contentment, with no thought of what its end should be, nor any definite desire. For it was his theory that to walk with a street, divining its moods and discovering its little dramas, was in itself an adventure, and need not lead to one. But though he was content to stroll with the street, particularly in this pleasant neighborhood of its upper end, he soon halted, perforce, at the greeting: "Peter, you _won't_ pass me by?" It was a blithe voice that addressed him, pretty and clear, but it was not the voice of youth; and Peter, glancing toward the veranda whence it came, saw sitting there an old lady who was like the voice, pretty and blithe and brave, though with no affectation of a youth long gone. His face lighted at sight of her, and he hastened up her garden path. "Dear Mrs. Caldwell!" he cried, both hands extended. And then, with pleased alacrity, he settled himself upon the step at her feet. "It's worth while taking a walk up this way," he remarked appreciatively. "Now confess," laughed the old lady, "confess that _I_ am not the adventure you are seeking this afternoon!" "I wasn't seeking one at all," disclaimed Peter, "but I couldn't refuse a divine accident." And as she shook a chiding head at his flattery, he went on firmly: "It's the wayside adventures like this which have long since decided me to start out with none in view. The gods presiding over a wayfarer's destiny always offer him something better than he could have provided for himself!" "Oh, Peter! Peter!" protested the old lady, "what a book of pretty speeches you are!" But the two smiled at each other with the happy understanding of friends to whom disparity of years was no barrier. "And how does your garden grow, Mistress Mary?" Peter presently inquired. Mrs. Caldwell looked out upon her trim flower beds where bloomed tulip and crocus in April festival. "My silver bells and cockle shells grow very well," she answered, in the spirit of the rhyme, "but"--and her delicate old face quivered into an anxious quickening of life--"but, Oh, Peter! I fear my pretty maid grows too fast for her own good." "Sheila? Then you've seen?" And Peter sat up eagerly, shedding the garment of his indolence. "Then you've seen!" returned Mrs. Caldwell. "But what have you seen, Peter? What do you think of her?" "I think," said he slowly, "that she has the most delightful mind I've ever encountered." Pride leapt into Mrs. Caldwell's eyes, but, as if to make quite certain of him, she demurred: "She's only a little girl, Peter--only a little twelve-year-old girl." "Yes," he assented. "That's why I'm so sure of her quality. At her age--to be what she is! Why, Mrs. Caldwell, her mind is like light! And it isn't just a wonderfully acute intelligence either. She has the feeling, the intuition, too. It's as if she thinks with her heart sometimes!" And his face glowed as it never did save for something precious and rare. "Have you considered her future?" he added. Mrs. Caldwell smiled: "What do you suppose I'm living for?" "To make her like you, I hope," answered Peter gallantly. His grandfather had loved Mrs. Caldwell, and his appreciation of her was inherited. "To make her so much wiser!" "Wiser?" And Peter looked fondly up at the lovely old face above him. For it was lovely, lovely with living, with the very years that might have withered and spoiled it. To him the wisdom of such living was beyond compare. But she insisted: "Yes, so much wiser. Peter, in my youth it wasn't ladylike to be too wise. I had a few womanly accomplishments. I sewed. I sang. I read Jane Austen and Miss Edgeworth and Charlotte Brontë. And I gardened a little--with gloves on and a shade hat to protect my complexion. And sometimes I made a dessert. Peter dear, I was a very nice girl, but--!" And she flung up her hands with a gesture that mocked at her futility. "Sheila can never be nicer!" he persisted loyally. "Oh, yes, she can--if some one wiser than I teaches her!" "I," said Peter importantly, "I teach her rhetoric at the Shadyville Seminary. '"I," quoth the sparrow, "with my little bow and arrow!"'" Mrs. Caldwell leaned forward and touched his shoulder. "I'm very serious," she said. "Here's my little orphaned Sheila--my dead boy's child--with no near kin in the world but me. And I'm not fit for the task of helping her to grow up. Oh, Peter, will _you_ help?" "You know I will! At least, I'll try." She smiled at him through her earnestness. "Your rhetoric isn't enough," she warned him. "All you know isn't enough. You'll have to keep on learning too, Peter, if you're really going to help her." "I will," he promised again. "I'm twenty-eight, and a lazy beggar--but I can still learn." Mrs. Caldwell drew a quick breath of relief: "Thank you, Peter. To tell you the truth, I've been really a little frightened lately." "About Sheila? But she's so sweet!" "And so strange! She isn't like a child. And it's not because she's outgrowing her childhood, for she's not like a young girl either. Peter"--and Mrs. Caldwell's voice sank to a whisper now, as if she communicated a dangerous thing--"Peter, she's like--_a poet_!" Peter laughed outright at her timid pronouncement of the word. "But is that so terrible?" he teased. "All poets are not mad, after all." "Oh, you may laugh. I dare say my terror of a thing like genius is funny. But it's genuine terror, Peter. What should I do with a poet on my hands? I tell you, I'm not wise enough to--to trim the wick of a star!" "Well," he suggested comfortably, "she may not be a poet. What makes you think she's likely to be?" "You know how she reads--quite beyond the ordinary little girl's appreciation?" "Yes--but she may have an extraordinary mind without being a genius of any sort. And I'm responsible for her reading. It isn't so precocious after all. I've just given her simple, beautiful things instead of simple, silly ones." "But, Peter, I've another reason besides her reading. She goes off by herself and sits brooding--dreaming--for hours at a time. I've come on her unexpectedly once or twice and she didn't even realize that I was there--she was so rapt. She looked as if she were seeing visions!" "Perhaps she was," said Peter softly. "I've seen visions in my time, and I'm no poet. Haven't you--when you were as young as Sheila? Confess now--haven't you?" But Mrs. Caldwell resolutely shook her head: "Not like Sheila does. And neither have you, Peter. Sheila is different from you and me. You know her mother was Irish--full of whimsical fancy and quaint superstitions." "Ah, I had forgotten about her mother." "Of course. You were only a boy when she died." And her eyes filled with slow, remembering tears as she went on, "She always believed in fairies--even when she was face to face with a reality like death. And Sheila believes in them, too, though her mother didn't live long enough to tell her about them. She never says anything about it, but I know that she has a whole world which I can't share--the dream-world her mother bequeathed to her." "But that's beautiful!" cried Peter. "Yes," she admitted, "it's beautiful. But, Peter, it's sad for me because--because I can't follow her there." She fell silent for a moment, her eyes wistful and anxious; and suddenly he saw the pathos of age in her face as well as its finely tempered beauty, the pathos of all the closed doors that would open no more--among them the door of fairyland. "It's true," she said bravely, as if they had looked at those closed doors together and she were answering his thought. "I'm an old woman and I've lost the way to fairyland. So I want you to go with Sheila in my place. I want you to guard her dream--and keep _her_ safe, too. I'm afraid for her, Peter--I'm afraid!" "Dear Mrs. Caldwell, how can I walk where your foot is too heavy?" And Peter's voice was very gentle. "Ask your poets that. I was never one for the poets. I can sew a fine seam and make my garden grow--nothing more. But you have the store of poetry--and you have youth." "There," said Peter, pointing to a lad of fourteen or thereabout who was coming toward them, "there is what Sheila calls youth." "And there," retorted Mrs. Caldwell, "is what _I_ call the heavy foot. But Theodore Kent is a good boy. He's just not good enough for Sheila. I can't understand the child's liking him!" Theodore came up to them briskly, his cap off, his yellow-brown hair shining in the sunlight with a vigorous glory, his face ruddy and smiling. His body and his features were alike, strong and somewhat bluntly fashioned, the body and the features of the very sturdy, closely akin to the earth's health and kindliness. "Where's Sheila, Mrs. Caldwell?" he asked, happily unconscious of a critical atmosphere. "In the back garden. What do you want, Ted?" He lifted a battered volume. "She promised to help me with this rhetoric stuff," he announced, quite unabashed at the admission of Sheila's superior cleverness. "Well, run along and find her." And Mrs. Caldwell glanced at Peter as if to add, "Didn't I tell you he wasn't good enough for Sheila?" "But what, after all, does an understanding of rhetoric amount to? What has it done for _me_?" murmured Peter, answering the glance. And then, as the boy still lingered before them, "I'll go with you, Ted. I must make my bow to Sheila before I leave." The back garden belied its humble name. The kitchen windows opened upon it, it is true, but they did not discourage its prideful aspect. Indeed, it might just as well have been a front garden, for it had never been the shelter of the useful cabbage and its homely relations. The young grass was close-cropped with the same care that had been bestowed upon the front lawn, and simple, gay flowers flourished in bright beds and along the smooth walk. Toward the end of the garden, and as if for a charming climax, several cherry trees shook blossoming branches to the spring wind. And beneath those trees lay Sheila, her eyes lifted to their bloom, a still, enraptured little figure, quite unconscious that intruders were drawing near. At sight of her, Peter halted and laid a staying hand on Ted's arm. "Don't speak to her!" he whispered. And so the two stood and looked at her, and yet she did not stir nor grow aware of their presence. She was a slender little shape, lying there on the fresh grass--a thin child, with a pale face and black hair braided away from it; a child who was not actually pretty, nor, to the eyes of the casual observer, in any other way remarkable. But to Peter she seemed touched, for the moment, with the glamour of enchantment, this small dreamer communing with her fays. "Don't speak to her!" he said again, as Ted moved restively. "She's as far away as if she were in a different world," he added softly, and only to himself. But Ted, overhearing, nodded comprehendingly. "Sheila does make you feel like that sometimes, even if she _is_ standing right by you all the time. She's queer--Sheila is. But," and he spoke boastfully, though still in the cautious undertone Peter had used, "but I always call her back!" Peter looked down at him, at the frank, wholesome, unimaginative face, fatuous now with the vanity of power. "_I_ always call her back!" the boy repeated proudly. "Yes," said Peter slowly, "you--and people like you--will always call her back. But not this time, Ted--not this time. I'll help you with your rhetoric myself. Sheila has better things to think of just now." And putting his hands on the boy's shoulders, he turned him about for retreat. It occurred to Peter then that he was fulfilling Mrs. Caldwell's trust, but he shook his head dubiously, nevertheless. He had saved one dream, but--the future was long and the people like Ted were many and intrepid. Suddenly he saw what life might do to a being like Sheila and something of the fear and tenderness that Mrs. Caldwell had felt smote upon his heart. CHAPTER II It was on a Saturday of late October that it happened--the adventure which, in after years, Sheila was to see as so significant. Sheila and Ted had gone to the woods with a nutting-party--a party too merry to do much but frolic, and eat as they gathered. By afternoon their baskets were not nearly full, and Ted surveyed his own with chagrin. He liked to accomplish what he set out to do, not because he was particularly industrious, but because a sense of power within him, partly sheer physical vigor and partly a naturally dominant will, demanded deeds for its satisfaction. If he could stay an hour longer, if he could go a little deeper into the woods, he could fill his basket, he reflected; whereas now--and he looked with contempt and a genuine distress at his meagre store of hazel nuts. In his discontent he had already lagged behind his companions. The other children had set their faces homeward; Sheila walked just ahead of him, her arm around the waist of Charlotte Davis, a girl of her own age whom she had taken, with solemn vows, for her dearest friend. He might call the two girls, he thought, and together they could soon have a fine harvest, but his inclination rejected Charlotte almost as quickly as the idea occurred to him. For Charlotte, with her pert little freckled nose and her shrewd blue eyes, was not a comrade to Ted's taste. She had never shown him a proper reverence, and he was at the stage when a boy desires feminine tribute even while he affects to scorn it. Charlotte had never understood him. Or was it what he did not suspect--that she had always understood him too well? At any rate she had a disconcerting way of gazing at him, her head cocked impudently on one side, her eyes half speculative, half amused. And her sharp, teasing tongue was even more disconcerting than her naughty, quizzical stare. He could imagine, from past experience at her hands, what would happen now if he included her in his plan. "What do you want of more nuts?" she would ask, with the inquiring innocence that he had learned to distrust. "Haven't you got all you can eat?" "Yes, but--" he would begin to explain. And she would interrupt him in the middle of his sentence with: "Oh, I see! You just want to do more than anybody else, don't you? Theodore Kent always does more than anybody else! Don't he, Sheila?" And this with a great show of admiration. Yet even to Sheila, whose loyal mind conceived with difficulty of any disrespect to him, the mockery of the apparent admiration would be obvious. Yes, that was what would happen if he invited Charlotte to stay, and he felt himself flush at the fancied conversation. But he would ask Sheila. She really admired him! She appreciated him! If she was sometimes queer, she was a nice little thing in spite of that. "Sheila!" he called. She paused and looked back at him. "Come here a minute," he urged. "I want to tell you something." And when she would have drawn Charlotte with her, he added: "It's a secret." At which transparent hint, Charlotte flung off Sheila's arm and marched on, singing maliciously: "Ted has got a secret--secret--secret! Like a little gir-rul--gir-rul--gir-rul!" And hearing himself thus effeminized, Ted winced and wondered if he had not better have asked her after all. Sheila came up to him with a troubled face. The feud between him and Charlotte always hurt and bewildered her. "You've made Charlotte feel bad," she chided reproachfully. But with Charlotte's taunt still ringing in his ears, Ted was ruthless: "Fiddlesticks! If she feels bad about that, she's silly. And I can't tell secrets to silly girls." Sheila was sorry for Charlotte, but she began to feel vaguely flattered on her own account: "What's the secret?" "I know a place--just a little way back yonder--that's _fat_ with nuts!" Sheila looked disappointed. It seemed, at this hour, rather a poor secret. But Ted, still with the air of honoring her above all others of her sex, went on: "I'm going back and get some. And"--this impressively--"I'm going to let you come with me!" Sheila brightened at the magnanimous offer, but a moment later grew uneasy: "Grandmother would be scared if I didn't come home with the others." "How'd she find it out? Your house is farthest. She won't see the rest of 'em." "But--but when I tell her--" said Sheila uneasily. "You _needn't_ tell her! Don't you understand? She'll never know you _didn't_ come home with the others!" Ted had a scrupulous personal honor, a pride, as it were, in his integrity. He told the truth about his own transgressions and paid the piper without complaint. But for others his truth was sometimes equivocal, his morality comfortably lax. And these lapses from grace on his part always filled Sheila with a shocked dismay. "Oh," she protested, "I couldn't do that! Why, it would be _lying_!" "Fiddlesticks! Where's the lie? You wouldn't _tell_ one!" "It _would_ be a lie," persisted Sheila. "It would be a lie if I let her think what wasn't so." "Fiddlesticks!" he pronounced again. But he looked at her approvingly, nevertheless. Sheila was always "square," and he liked her the better for it. "Well, you go along with Charlotte, then," he added regretfully. But he had tempted her more successfully than he knew, and her mind was busily working toward some compromise with her conscience. She cast an eye in the direction Charlotte had taken, and that glance decided her. "Charlotte's out of sight," she said. "I--I believe I'll stay, Ted--_but I'll tell when I get home_!" It was late afternoon when they did at last start homeward--with baskets as full as Ted had predicted. Going through the bright-hued woods, where the scarlet and burnished yellow of long-lived leaves still flaunted ribbons of flame and the dead and dun-colored broke crisply beneath their feet, they fell amicably silent, trudging briskly along with the impetus of health and hunger. Ted's silence was the content of a body drenched all day in sunshine and clean, cold air, and now deliciously placid; but Sheila's quiet was of a different quality. For her the woods were full of mysteries and miracles; she was sure that little people, as quick and elusive as shadows, darted hither and thither at her very feet, and that enchantment was spread there like a fine-spun web. As she walked onward, brooding over things unseen and yet so surely true for her, there recurred to her a dream of the night before, and so vivid was her remembrance of it that she seemed to be dreaming a second time. In the dream, oddly enough, she had been walking through these same woods. Here and there she had seen a bright leaf blowing; she had heard her own footsteps on the brittle leaves beneath; a slender shaft of sunlight--the last of the day--had stolen downward and touched her like a long finger. Then, suddenly, the golden finger had withdrawn and the dusk had fallen, not gradually, but in swift, downward billows of mist that flooded upon her and blinded her. She had closed her eyes against them for a moment, and when she opened them again, the mist had disappeared, leaving her in a space of clear gray light. Through this light some one had come toward her, a shape at first vague and ethereal, as if it were a lingering spirit of the mist, but gathering substance and definite outline as it advanced until it became the figure of a woman with arms that reached toward her for embrace. Involuntarily Sheila's own arms had reached forth in answer; she had taken a stumbling step forward; through the pale light there had glimmered on her, for an instant of revelation, the shadow's face. _And she had wakened with the cry: "Mother!"_ A strange dream, especially for a little girl whose mother had died soon after her birth. But that dead mother had always been a dear familiar of Sheila's thoughts; her picture had been like a living companion. And though the sleeping vision of her had driven the child, startled to the very soul, to her grandmother's bed, now, as she trod the woods that had been the scene of the dream-miracle, she remembered it without fear. "What if, after all, dreams sometimes came true?" The thought quickened her breath, but not her feet. In the night she had fled from a dream too poignant, but now she felt no impulse for flight. Rather, she delayed her steps, thrilling as she recognized about her the dream's landmarks. For now there arose before Sheila's dazed eyes that rare and marvellous phenomenon of a dream reproduced, at least in its physical aspects, by reality. And in such an experience, given perhaps to one in a thousand, it is the reality that seems to tremble--threatened by some older and stronger truth--beneath one's feet. So it trembled now for Sheila as she saw again those features in the face of the woods that had impressed her sleep. Here were the few rich leaves, fluttering lightly in the evening wind as they had fluttered in her dreaming vision of them! And now her heart fluttered with them, so much stranger than the dream itself was its incredible repetition. There--just ahead--yes, surely! there was the same long finger of pale sunlight striking downward through the stripped trees! Presently she would pass beneath its touch, feeling it faintly warm upon her cheek--as she had felt it in her dream! Afterwards would be the dusk. And then--_what if dreams came true_? She was not afraid, but instinctively she drew nearer the boy beside her. "Ted," she breathed, in an awed whisper. "Huh?" he asked, roused from his own silent well-being. But she did not answer, and he strode cheerfully on without troubling himself to question her again. "What if dreams come true?" she was saying within herself, but she could not, after all, put the thought into words for Ted to scoff at. And then, before she reached it, the finger of sunlight vanished and the dusk was upon her, not swiftly billowing, but slipping softly downward like a silken veil. She was not afraid, she told herself, but the dusk chilled her and she shivered. After the dusk--if dreams came true!--would be-- And then her heart seemed to stop its beating. For dim in the distance, but coming toward her through the trees, there walked a shadow. And even while she watched, it gathered shape and substance unto itself; it ceased to be a floating fragment of mist and became a woman! But now Sheila's heart began to beat again--riotously. Her hesitations, her unacknowledged fears, were succeeded by a sense of exquisite exultation. The miracle was at hand--and she rushed upon it. "Ted!" It was not a whisper this time, but a cry, and the boy turned sharply. But Sheila had already started forward, calling wildly: "_Mother! Mother! Mother!_" And though the woman was still but a distant figure, she heard that piercing call and answered it with one as clear and passionate: "_My little girl! I'm coming! I'm coming!_" For an instant Ted stood motionless, struck to the earth by that simple horror of the unusual, the abnormal, which the very sane and unimaginative always feel. Then, with a single bound, he overtook Sheila and laid a detaining hand on her shoulder: "Sheila, _stop_! It's Crazy Lisbeth! I know her voice!" He was right. The advancing figure was not the beautiful mother-spirit of Sheila's dream, but a flesh and blood mother who, years before, had lost her husband and only child, and become crazed by her grief. Ever since then her heart had been wandering on a piteous quest for her dead, and her wits with it. And because she was very poor and quite harmless, suffering only the illusion that she would sooner or later find her husband and little daughter, the town was kind to her; set her to work when she would; fed her when she would not work; and left her free for her sad and futile search. Sheila and Ted knew her well and no fear of her had ever touched them before, but now, as she came onward with her insanity strong upon her, both terror and repugnance seized on Ted. "She thinks you're her child," he said angrily. "And no wonder! What made you do such a thing?" Sheila turned to him with her explanation on her lips--the whole confession of her dream and her momentary belief that it had come true--but at sight of him looking at her so protectingly and yet so severely, her impetuous words faltered and grew cold. "I--I was thinking of my mother," she stammered shyly. The unexpected reply embarrassed him. He wanted to scold her, but at this mention of her dead mother he could not. So he only dug his foot into the ground and gazed toward Lisbeth, who was now almost upon them, stumbling in her happy haste. "We can't run away from her," said Sheila. "She thinks you're her child!" he protested again, but less harshly. "Yes," admitted Sheila gently, "like I thought she--" And then, at some sudden counsel of her heart, she exclaimed: "You stay here. I'll know what to do!" It seemed to Ted an unbelievable thing that he saw happen before him then. For Sheila stepped quickly forward to meet the hurrying, pitiful creature who sought her; stepped forward and straight into the woman's arms. As he stared, a shudder of disgust shook Ted from head to foot. "It's horrible!" he muttered to himself. "It's horrible for Sheila to let Crazy Lisbeth hug her!" But he could not go and draw Sheila away. His repulsion would not permit him to approach the spectacle that excited it. And meanwhile the little girl was murmuring, still in the fold of Lisbeth's arm, words that he could not understand, but that drifted to him with the soft sounds of pleadings and promises. "Sheila!" he called peremptorily. She did not reply, but talked on to Lisbeth, interrupted now and then by the latter, but evidently not discouraged in her purpose of persuasion. "Sheila!" Ted called again, and this time uneasily. And now she answered, over her shoulder, and with a motion that held him back: "We're going home!" At that he understood what she was bent upon. She had been coaxing Lisbeth to go home. But why should she concern herself about one who was used to roam the whole countryside at any hour of the day or night, walking unmolested in the desolate safety of her affliction? Why, above all, should Sheila go home _with_ her? For that, apparently, was what Sheila meant to do. She had already started onward with her self-appointed charge, and though the woods had grown more shadowy, Ted could see the two figures plainly, walking close together and linked by the woman's arm. That arm about Sheila's shoulder--Crazy Lisbeth's arm!--set him shuddering again as violently as the first embrace had done. It was an affront to every fiber of his thoroughly normal being. But still he could not go nearer to remove it; by the law of his own nature he had to stay outside the circle of Lisbeth's madness and Sheila's folly. And his sense of responsibility had, perforce, to appease itself with his following them at a discreet range--a distant and sulking protector. It seemed to him, as he strode on behind them with irate steps, that they would never get out of the woods. Little woodland sounds, a snapping bough, a breaking leaf, a scurrying squirrel, sounds that he would not ordinarily have noticed, now startled him into fright. The gradual failing of the light oppressed him almost to panic; and when the early twilight settled somberly over the woods, such weird, moving shadows rose up all around him that he would fain have taken to his heels had he not feared what lay before him more. Crazy Lisbeth scrubbing his mother's kitchen floor was only a harmless "innocent," the pensioner of his condescending pity; but Crazy Lisbeth in the woods at nightfall--Ah, then she became a different and a dreadful creature, one to shake the heart and alarm the nerves of the bravest. Sheila appeared to think otherwise and to find Lisbeth docile enough, for despite Ted's conviction that the homeward way was interminable, these two went steadily onward and at a fair pace. And after no long interval their attendant knight had the satisfaction of following them from the covert of the woods into the open spaces of the town. Here Ted's alarms left him, abruptly and completely. He could have laughed aloud at the bogies he had escaped. His self-respect came swaggering back, and with it the determination to assert a belated mastery of Sheila. She was not a block ahead, and now he hailed her. But as she had done in the woods, she merely called to him over her shoulder: "We're going home!" Crazy Lisbeth lived on the other side of the town, in a mean little cottage that more fortunate householders had deserted. It was a long walk there and the hour was already late, seven at the least. A vision of Mrs. Caldwell watching for Sheila flashed across Ted's mind and strengthened his resistance against this further perversity. "You must go with me right away!" he exclaimed, hastening after Sheila. "Your grandmother'll be scared to death!" "Oh," cried Sheila, stopping now, but with her hand still resolutely gripping Lisbeth's, "Oh, I know it, Ted! But I can't help it!" And though her tone was sharp with distress, she turned obstinately on. There was nothing for him but to follow her to the end of her adventure. Ted knew it from experience. Sheila in one of her moods, obsessed by some "queer notion," was immovable, though sweetly reasonable at all other times. So with a bad grace he went on in her wake, beset now, not by fear, but by keen resentment of the whole absurd situation. Thus they came at last, the ill-assorted trio, to Lisbeth's cottage, sitting lonely and unlit by lamp or fire upon a bare hillside. Sheila and Lisbeth paused, and Ted stopped, too, still a few yards from them, but expectant of some further freak and ready to spring forward with a rebuke that would end the mad episode on the spot. But just then the moon swung slowly out from some prisoning cloud, flooding the hillside with light, and as Ted saw Lisbeth's face, he forgot his intention of remonstrance and could but stand and gaze. For a moment he thought that the woman before him could not be Crazy Lisbeth at all, and then he thought that the moonlight tricked him. But of one thing he was sure; be the cause what it might, he saw a Lisbeth magically and beautifully changed. Foolish and pathetic and middle-aged she had been only yesterday, but to-night love and joy had had their way with her for a little while and had transformed her almost into youth and comeliness again. Unconscious of Ted's watchful and hostile presence, as she had been from the first, she turned to Sheila with a simple and moving tenderness: "Come," she said, opening her gate. But Sheila stood motionless, her face soft with a pity that could no longer protect. "Come," urged Lisbeth, "come, darling precious! This is home!" But Sheila did not stir. "I--I can't," she answered gently. "You can't? _You can't_? Oh, it's been a dream!--a dream!--a dream! You're not real--you're never real! I see you--and see you--and see you! _But when I reach you, you're not real--not real_! I believed it was different this time--but it's always the same! _You're not real_!" And with that despairing cry, the Lisbeth whom Ted knew so well stood there before him again, old and foolish and piteous, whimpering softly and plucking at her ragged dress. Sheila put her hand on the bent shoulder--bent to its long burden. "I _am_ real," said the child in a clear, steadfast voice that somehow, penetrated Lisbeth's sad whimsies, "I _am_ real!--and I'll come back!" "You'll come back?" And Lisbeth ceased her whimpering and laid pleading hold on her. "You'll come back? I don't believe you're real now--I _can't_ believe it any more! But I don't mind that if you'll come back anyway. You will? You promise?" "I promise," answered Sheila. "If you are good--if you go straight into the house--I'll come back." Lisbeth looked at her for an instant with an odd shrewdness in her poor foolish face. Then she nodded, evidently satisfied with what she saw. "I'll be good," she agreed. "I'll go in. Oh, my pretty darling! My dearest precious! Lisbeth will be good!" And after a quick clasping of Sheila, she went obediently into the mean little house and, without even a backward glance, closed the door behind her. Sheila stepped toward Ted. "I'll go home now," she said wearily. Then she added, as if she were stretching out a wistful hand to his sympathy: "Oh, Ted, she thought--until the last--that I was her little girl!" "Yes," he said, all his resentment returning, "and you let her! You _let_ her, Sheila! How could you do such a thing?" "But it comforted her. It comforted her to think so, Ted." "She wasn't comforted when she thought you weren't real!" "Yes, she was--even then. She was when I promised to come back." "You can't keep your promise." "Why can't I?" "Your grandmother won't let you. You know that as well as I do. 'Tisn't your place to comfort Crazy Lisbeth, and Mrs. Caldwell will tell you so. Her troubles aren't any of your business." "They are!" cried Sheila, with an anger now that matched his own, "they are--because I understand how she feels! I haven't any mother--and Lisbeth hasn't any child. Don't you see that it's just the same for both of us? And _her_ little girl may be comforting _my_ mother up in heaven right now!" "And she may _not_!" he retorted, "I believe it!" she proclaimed, carried away by the imaginary scene she had evoked. "Well," said Ted, with his most exasperating tone of superior intelligence, "_I_ don't!" She glanced up at him as he trudged beside her, his face firm with his substantial beliefs, his feet sturdily treading a very solid earth. And though she was only a little girl, unlearned in the finger-posts of character, Sheila felt what she could not name nor analyze. She remembered that she had almost told him her dream, and she shivered at the thought. "No," she remarked ruefully, "you don't believe anything that you can't _see_, do you, Ted?" "I don't believe lies!" he replied crisply, "not even when I tell 'em myself." "_Lies_?" she repeated in astonishment. He stopped and faced her. "Look here! You said you couldn't let your grandmother think you came home with the rest of 'em when you didn't because that would be lying." "Yes," agreed Sheila with conviction. "But you let Lisbeth think what wasn't so!" The words flashed their accusation at her with unmistakable clarity. "Yes," she assented once more, slowly, "I did." And then, with pained surprise, "Why, that _was_ a lie, wasn't it?" "And now," finished Ted ruthlessly, "you're making up lies about heaven for yourself! What's the matter with you, Sheila?" They had reached Mrs. Caldwell's gate, and for a moment they stood staring at each other, the question hanging in the air between them. Then there came to Sheila a swift, inward vision of the contradictions of her own temperament, a vision untempered by the merciful knowledge that, in the final analysis, all human nature is very much alike. "Oh," she cried, "what _is_ the matter with me?" And with a sob, she fled up the path to the house, leaving Ted frightened, ashamed, and more bewildered than ever. CHAPTER III The moment when Sheila had that terrifying inward vision of her own inconsistencies marked the beginning of her self-consciousness. For a while this was acute and painful. She was always afraid of finding herself, quite unintentionally, involved in a labyrinth of untruth, and her conscience, which passionately rejected any dishonesty that it perceived, was continually occupied in analyzing her emotions and impulses, her most guileless thoughts and her simplest actions. "I am naturally a liar," she told herself solemnly. "I must watch myself all the time--because I am naturally a liar!" But she said nothing of her self-revelation and ensuing struggles to Mrs. Caldwell. It was a thing to be overcome in shame and silence, and alone, this innate wickedness of hers. Her shame was indeed so genuine that she met Ted, for the first time after he had shown her failing to her, with deep reluctance. He must have been thinking of her awful tendency ever since they had parted--as she had been. And he could not possibly respect her! But to her amazement, he greeted her with his usual manner of untroubled good fellowship. Clearly, she had not sunk in his estimation. She was astounded, and shocked at him as well as at herself, until it occurred to her that he might have forgotten the matter altogether. This was incredible, but more honorably incredible than that he should remember and not care. And if it were the case, she must not take advantage of his forgetfulness; she must not unfairly keep his esteem. "Ted," she said, with an effort worthy of a more saintly confessor, "Ted, I reckon I ought to remind you about the way I acted with Lisbeth." "What about it? Did your grandmother scold you much?" "Why, no. Don't you understand what I mean?" It was too painful to put her sin into words. "Has Lisbeth been after you again?" But the question was obviously not one of sympathy, for Ted's voice was sharp now. At the mention of Lisbeth he had recalled his grievance. "No," repeated Sheila. "I meant I ought to remind you about--_me_." And as Ted stared at her with no gleam of comprehension in his eyes, she was forced to become explicit: "I mean--the way I let Lisbeth believe what wasn't so." Ted looked at her speculatively for a moment, wondering if he had better rebuke her again for her folly, so that she should not commit it a second time. She would be capable of doing the whole thing over, under the impression that she was benefiting Lisbeth. She was so queer! "You were very silly," he said finally. "I was wicked!" she exclaimed in a fervor of repentance. Ted continued to regard her with that speculative gaze. "Well, you _are_ a queer one!" he ejaculated slowly. Sheila flushed. She had abased herself in penitence, and he only thought her queer. He _always_ thought her queer! She turned on him with a flare of temper that burned up her humility so far as he was concerned: "How _dare_ you call me queer? How _dare_ you call me silly? I hate you, Theodore Kent! I never want to see you again as long as I live! You're--_you're an abomination in the eyes of the Lord_!" And with this scriptural anathema, plagiarized from the Presbyterian minister's latest sermon, she flung away from him in a fit of wrath that did much to restore her normal self-respect. However, though she felt no further uneasiness in the presence of Ted--whom she forgave the next day with the readiness that is the virtue of a quick temper--she continued her vigil over herself until time softened her impression of her iniquity. And even then, when her self-criticism had relaxed, her consciousness of her individual temperament remained. She had discovered herself, and this self, like her shadow which she had discovered with wild excitement in her babyhood, would be her life companion. After she ceased to fear it, as a possible moral monster, she began to take a profound interest in it and its behavior. "What will you be doing next?" she would inquire of it quaintly, "what _will_ you be doing next, Other-Sheila?" She did in fact credit this newly realized self of hers with a very distinct and separate personality. All her caprices, her unexpected and unexplainable impulses, her mystic imaginings, she laid at its door, and in her fantastic name for it--"Other-Sheila"--she probably found the true name for something that the psychologists define far more clumsily. But stung into sensitiveness by Ted's taunt about her queerness, she kept her discovery of Other-Sheila to herself. Not even to Mrs. Caldwell, who was a friend as well as a grandmother; not even to Peter, who was all the while feeding her eager young mind with food both wholesome and stimulating, and becoming, in his task, a comrade who rivalled Ted in her affections, did she confide the existence of this other self. With self-consciousness came the instinct of reserve--not a lack of frankness, but a kind of modesty of the soul. She had passed her fifteenth birthday before Other-Sheila roused her to unrest. Until that time, the shadowy self dwelling deep within her, and every now and then flashing forth elusively just long enough to manifest its reality, had been a secret and delightful companion, one with whom she held animated conversations when alone, and from whose acquiescence to all her wishes and opinions she extracted considerable comfort. "Other-Sheila," she would say to herself, "is the only person who always agrees with me." And then she would add, with a glint of whimsical humor in her gray eyes, "I reckon that's what an Other-Sheila is _for_!" But after a while Other-Sheila became less acquiescent and more assertive. And for the first time in her life, Sheila felt within her the troubling spirit of discontent. She wanted something, wanted it desperately as the very young always do, but she did not know what that something was. It was a tantalizing experience, and she saw no end to it. "If I could only find out _what_ I want, I might get it," she mused. And then, "Don't you know what it is, Other-Sheila?" But Other-Sheila was provokingly unresponsive, though it was probably her desire that fretted the objective Sheila's mind. Mrs. Caldwell saw the unrest in the young girl's face and recognized it for what it was--the unrest of growth. It was a look of unborn things stirring beneath the surface, stirring and quivering as flowers must stir and tremble beneath the ground before they break their way through to the sun. But though she watched eagerly from day to day, ready to do her part when the hour for it should come, Mrs. Caldwell was too wise a gardener to hasten bloom. "Peter," said she one day, when he had paused in an indolent stroll to chat with her over her garden hedge, "Peter, it's a terrible thing to be young!" "Is it?" he laughed. "Why?" "So many things have to happen to you!" And out of the security of her placid years Mrs. Caldwell spoke with an earnest pity. Peter laughed again. "Well, I'm young--at least, I suppose I would be so considered. And _nothing_ ever happens to me!" Mrs. Caldwell surveyed him with mischievous eyes. "No, Peter," she contradicted, "you're not young--yet. You're not even alive yet. You're too lazy to really live! But you'll have to come to it some day. We all have to be born finally." He chuckled at her comprehension of him. Then a disturbed look fluttered across his face: "Do you actually mean that there's no escape?" "None! It's better to yield gracefully--and have it over. And if you don't hurry a bit, Sheila will be through her growing pains while yours are still before you!" "Little Sheila? The master's star pupil?" "Yes," she insisted, "little Sheila. You'll be taking her to parties in a long frock before you know it. She graduates from the Seminary next year." But Peter was nearer to meeting Sheila in a long frock than either he or Mrs. Caldwell dreamed. For at that moment Sheila was planning to wear one before she was a week older. She and Charlotte Davis were in the latter's dainty room, and spread on the bed before them was Charlotte's new party frock. Charlotte's father was the wealthiest man in Shadyville, and both she and her frock did his wealth justice. She was now at home, for the Easter vacation, from a fashionable boarding-school in Baltimore, the Shadyville Seminary not satisfying Mr. Davis's requirements for his youngest and favorite daughter. Her absence from the little town during the greater part of the past two years had enabled her to erase its traces. She had become a typical city-bred girl and she appeared pert, smartly dressed and, for her sixteen years, amazingly mature. She had always been prettier than Sheila, though no one had ever realized it and probably no one ever would. For her prettiness was so informed with sharp intelligence that her face had a challenging and almost aggressive quality. Boys had never admired her, and men were not likely to do so either, so lacking was she in the softer and more appealing charms of her sex. Even at sixteen her bright blue eyes were a trifle hard, not because of what they had seen--for she was, in experience, still the nice little ingénue--but of what they had seen _through_. The veil of credulity never dimmed her clear, bold glance. But for Sheila she was always gentle, so strong in this shrewd, fastidious young creature was her one deep and uncritical affection. As the two girls examined the frock on the bed--a rose chiffon over silk that fairly shrieked of expense--Sheila sighed. "Will you wear it Friday night?" she inquired wistfully. For on Friday night Charlotte was to give a party--a real evening party to which the debutantes and even the older set were coming, as well as the school-girls and boys. It would be Sheila's first grown-up party--and she had only a white muslin and a blue sash to make herself fine with. Thus Mrs. Caldwell had dressed for parties until her marriage, and it had never occurred to her to provide any other costume for Sheila, who was not yet quite sixteen. Besides, in Mrs. Caldwell's opinion--and even in the exquisite Peter's--there was no sweeter sight than a young girl in white muslin and blue ribbons. But to Sheila, in comparison with Charlotte's splendor, the white muslin seemed unspeakably dowdy. And so, when she asked Charlotte about her toilette for the great occasion, it was with a heart of unfestive heaviness. "Of course I'll wear this. That's what I got it for. Oh, Sheila, aren't the little sleeves cunning? Just half way to the elbow--it's lucky my arms aren't thin!" But Sheila only sighed again in response to Charlotte's enthusiasm, and now Charlotte heard the sigh and glanced at her with sudden attentiveness. "What will you wear?" she demanded. "I'll have to wear my white muslin. I haven't anything else." "Oh, Sheila, that's too bad!" "I wouldn't mind so _very_ much except for--" And Sheila's eyes, wandering sadly toward Charlotte's chiffon, finished the sentence. But Charlotte's dismay had already vanished. "You won't have to wear your white muslin either," she announced in her positive, capable way. "You can wear one of my frocks, Sheila. You must! Why"--this in a burst of generosity--"why, you can wear this one!" "Oh, no, I couldn't do that. Not your new frock, Charlotte! But you're a dear to offer it!" And Sheila gave her friend a grateful hug, though Charlotte never encouraged caresses. "Well, then, perhaps not this one," agreed Charlotte, to whom, used though she was to her pretty clothes, it would have been something of a hardship to surrender the first wearing of them to anyone else, "perhaps not this one--rose is more my color than yours. But another--a blue silk mull that will be lovely with your blue-gray eyes and black hair. I've worn it only two or three times, and never in Shadyville." "No, I couldn't," said Sheila again. "Grandmother wouldn't let me. I'm sure she wouldn't." "I don't see why." "She wouldn't," persisted Sheila regretfully. "Now look here, Sheila. She wouldn't _know_. You're going to spend the night with me and dress after you get here. And _she's_ not coming to the party." It was the same form of temptation which Ted had offered Sheila in the woods three years before, but now it was tenfold stronger. Then a mere good time was at stake; now the gratification of her young vanity, of her first girlish desire to make herself charming, was to be gained. And as she had hesitated that day in the woods, for the sake of the fun, she hesitated now for the sake of this new, clamoring instinct. "I'd have to tell her," she temporized. "Then tell her," assented Charlotte impatiently, "but don't tell her until afterwards." It was Sheila's own method of that earlier time--a middle path between conscience and desire, and lightly skirting both. "I might do that," she remarked thoughtfully. "If I told her--even afterwards--it wouldn't be quite so wicked. And I _want_ to wear the frock dreadfully!" "Just tell her as if it's nothing at all," advised Charlotte cleverly, "as if we never even thought of it until after you got here that evening. Then she won't mind it a bit. You'll see she won't!" "Yes, she will. She won't like my wearing your clothes. She won't think it's _nice_. And when I tell, I'll tell the whole thing--the way it really happened. But"--and Sheila's full-lipped, generous mouth straightened into a thin line of resolution--"I'm going to do it anyway, Charlotte!" Three days intervened before the party, and they were not happy days for Sheila. Her sense of guilt depressed every moment of the time, especially when she was in Mrs. Caldwell's trusting presence. For Sheila was not equipped by nature to sin comfortably. But when the eventful night arrived, and she beheld herself at last in Charlotte's blue silk mull, with its short sleeves and little round neck frothy with lace, and its soft skirt falling to her very feet, she forgot every scruple that had been sacrificed to that enchanting end. Charlotte, gay as a bright-hued bird with her blue eyes and yellow hair and rose-colored gown, and her mother and young Mrs. Bailey, her married sister, all stood around Sheila in an admiring circle, every now and then breaking out anew into delighted exclamations over their transformed Cinderella. "Isn't she too sweet?" "And look at her eyes--as blue as Charlotte's, aren't they?" "And what a young lady she seems! Isn't that long skirt becoming to her?" cried Charlotte. Charlotte had worn her party frocks long for the last year, and she approved emphatically of the dignity thus attained for a few hours. It gave her a delicious foretaste of the real young ladyhood to come, when she meant to be very dignified and very brilliant indeed. But to all their pleased outcry, Sheila said nothing at all. She merely stood, radiant and silent, before them until they had to leave her for a last survey of the rooms downstairs, the flowers and the supper. Then, sure that she was quite alone, Cinderella stole to the mirror. For a long time she gazed at the girl in the glass; a straight, slim girl in a delicate little gown that somehow brought out fully, for the first time, the charming delicacy of her face--not the delicacy of small features, of frail health, nor of a timid temper, but of an exceeding and subtle fineness, partly of the flesh, partly of the spirit, like the fineness of rare and gossamer fabrics. Sheila, of course, did not perceive this, which was always to be her one real claim to beauty, but she saw the frock itself, and white young shoulders rising from it, and above it a pair of shining eyes. And suddenly an ache came sharply into her throat and the shining eyes filled with tears. "Oh," she whispered, leaning to the figure in the mirror, "Oh, _this_ is what I wanted! _I wanted to be beautiful_!" CHAPTER IV The evening was half over when Sheila, still up-borne on the tide of her feminine exultation, glanced across the room to find that Peter stood there quietly regarding her. Straightway she forsook the youth who was administering awkward flattery to her new-born vanity, and hastened to the side of her old friend. "Oh, Peter, don't I look nice?" she demanded eagerly. But Peter ignored the frank appeal for a compliment. "I think you'd better call me Mr. Burnett," said he. And his tone was so serious that she failed to catch the banter of his eyes. "Why, I've always called you Peter, just like grandmother does--always!" "Yes," admitted Peter, "and it's been very jolly and friendly. But, Sheila, I must have _something_ to remind me that you're still a little girl and my pupil. There's nothing in your appearance to suggest it, but perhaps--if you will address me with a great deal of respect----" At that, Sheila laughed and patted her frock: "Oh, I understand you now! Do I really seem so grown-up?" "So grown-up that I can't understand how Mrs. Caldwell came to let you do it." "Oh, Peter! _Oh, Peter_!" "Why, what's the matter?" he asked, surprised at the poignant exclamation. But she turned abruptly away from him, and presently he saw her blue gown flutter through a distant doorway. "Now I wonder," he pondered, "what in the world I've done. Offended her by appearing to criticize Mrs. Caldwell, I suppose." But Peter had done a much graver thing than that. Unconsciously, he had summoned Sheila's conscience to its deserted duty; and already, like any well-intentioned conscience that has taken a vacation, it was making up for lost time. With that comment of Peter's--"I can't understand how Mrs. Caldwell came to let you do it"--Sheila's little house of pleasure suddenly tumbled to the ground. She had not meant to be sorry about the deception of the frock until _after_ the party, and until her encounter with Peter she had been successful enough in holding penitence at bay. That vision of herself in the mirror, seeming to answer some longing of her very soul, had indeed kept her forgetful of everything but a sense of fulfillment and triumph. But now, reminded of her grandmother, she began to be sorry at once--impatiently, violently sorry. "I must go home," she murmured to herself distressfully, as she slipped unobserved through the crowded rooms. "I must go home. I can't wait until morning! I must tell grandmother _now_!" And so it happened that Mrs. Caldwell, looking out from her sitting-room window into the early spring night, saw a slim figure speed up her garden path as if urged by some importunate need; and the next moment Sheila was kneeling before her, with her face hidden upon her shoulder. "Why, Sheila!--dear child!" "Oh, grandmother, will you forgive me?" "What should I forgive you? I'm sure you've done nothing wrong this time!" And Mrs. Caldwell, who was accustomed to the rigors of Sheila's conscience, smiled above the face on her breast with tender amusement. But Sheila sprang to her feet and stepped back a pace or two. "Don't you _see_?" she cried tragically. And then Mrs. Caldwell discovered the transformation of her Cinderella. No demure little maiden this, in the white muslin and blue ribbons of an ingenuous spirit, but a fashionably clad "young lady," who appeared to have grown suddenly tall and rather stately with the clothing of her slim body in the long, soft gown. "Sheila!" exclaimed Mrs. Caldwell involuntarily. And then, with her hands outstretched to the impressive young culprit, "Tell me all about it, dear." And sitting on the floor at her grandmother's feet, regardless of Charlotte's crushed flounces, Sheila poured out her impetuous confession, from the first moment of temptation and yielding to the final one of Peter's awakening words. "And when he spoke of you, grandmother, I just couldn't _bear_ it! I wondered how I could have been happy at all--I wondered how I could have forgotten you for a minute! I hated the frock! I hated the party! And I hated myself most of all! I had to come home and ask you to forgive me right away!" And down went her head into Mrs. Caldwell's lap. "Do you---think--you can forgive me?" came the muffled plea. For answer Mrs. Caldwell bent and kissed the prostrate head, and it burrowed more comfortably against her knee. But Mrs. Caldwell did not speak. She was waiting for something, and when Sheila continued to burrow, in the contented silence of a penitence achieved, she inquired quietly: "Well, dear?" Sheila lifted her head at that, and looked straight into the wise, sweet eyes above her: "I wanted something! I wanted something dreadfully! And I didn't know what it was. And then, when I saw myself in Charlotte's frock--and so changed--I thought I'd found what I wanted. I thought--I thought I'd wanted to be beautiful!" "Yes," said Mrs. Caldwell gently, "I used to think that, too." "Oh, grandmother, did you? Then you understand how I felt! But--but, you see, it didn't last. I wanted to be good _more_. That's what made me come home. Grandmother, do you suppose _that's_ what I've wanted all the time, without knowing it--to be good?" At the question, Mrs. Caldwell, wise gardener that she was, realized that one of the flowers which she had divined, stirring in the depths of Sheila's being, was pushing its way upward to the light, and that the moment had come for her to help it. She slipped her arms around the girl kneeling before her, as if seeking in love's touch inspiration for love's words. "I think you will always want to be good," she said, "and I think you will always want to be beautiful. Women do, Sheila dear--even the women who are least beautiful and least--good. It's part of being a woman--just like loving things that are little and helpless. "But, Sheila, being beautiful isn't enough! Even being good isn't enough, though of course it ought to be. It's essential, but it isn't enough. Every woman must have something else besides to make her happy--something that is hers, _her own_! She must have that to be beautiful _for_, and to be good for--she must have that to live for! "And that is what you want, dear--the thing that is your own. You have been born for that--you cannot be complete or content without it." Mrs. Caldwell's voice rose, grave and rich with the harmonies of life, through the peaceful room, and Sheila quivered responsively in the circle of her arms. To the young girl, womanhood, that only yesterday had been so far away, now seemed to be drawing thrillingly near with all its attendant mysteries. And in her next question she took a step to meet it: "Grandmother, what is it?--the thing that will be mine?" "Dear, how can I tell? It isn't the same for us all. For one woman it is love; for another it is work; for some it is, blessedly, both work and love. For me--now--it is _you_! How can I tell what it will be for my little girl?" "I want it!" whispered Sheila. "I want it!" "You must wait for it, dear. You must wait for it to come to you. You can't hurry life." "But can't I do _anything_?" "You can be good, and you can be beautiful, so that you'll be ready for it when it comes. But"--and now Mrs. Caldwell smiled, and with her smile the stress of the moment passed--"but not in Charlotte's frock! It wouldn't be fair to make yourself beautiful with borrowed plumage, would it, little bird of paradise? You'd only get a borrowed happiness out of that--one that you hadn't a right to, and couldn't keep." Sheila rose from her knees, smiling, too. "I'll go right upstairs and take it off," she declared. "I want to play fair from the start--I only _want_ what's really mine!" And so, coming back, under Mrs. Caldwell's tactful guidance, from the deep waters to the pleasant, shallow wavelets that lap the shores of commonplace life, she began to busy herself with the small duties of the night, closing the windows and putting out the lamps. Then, with bed-time candles after the fashion of Mrs. Caldwell's own girlhood, the two started up the stairs, Sheila leading and lighting the way--as youth always will, despite the riper wisdom of age. Once she smiled over her shoulder; and before they had gained the top of the flight, she paused and reached back her hand to help her grandmother up the last few steps. There was something gracious and strong in the gesture--something that had not been in the nature of the Sheila who had bent her head to Mrs. Caldwell's knee an hour before. It was as if the womanhood of which Mrs. Caldwell had spoken had already awakened in her and with it, not only the longing for something of her own, but that kindred tenderness for things little and helpless--or helpless and old. "Take my hand," she said sweetly, and there was in her voice the lovely gentleness that young mothers use toward their children. The next day, when Charlotte came to inquire why her guest had flown, without warning and apparently without cause, she found a Sheila who, though garbed once more in her own short frock, seemed in some mysterious way more grown-up than she had in the trailing splendor of the night before. "What's happened to you?" demanded Charlotte shrewdly, when the two girls were shut into the privacy of Sheila's little white bedroom, a room that resembled the despised white muslin and blue sash which had been discarded for Charlotte's furbelows. "I know _something's_ happened to you. You're--different. Did somebody make love to you?" "Goodness, no!" denied Sheila in a horrified tone, and the alarmed young blood rose in a slow, rich tide over her neck and face and temples. "Oh, you needn't be so shocked. Somebody will some day!" And Charlotte laughed lightly out of her own precocious experience. Of the two girls, Sheila was the one to be loved, but Charlotte was the one to be made love to--if the love-making were only the pastime of the hour. Charlotte was clever and daring and cold, and could take care of herself. She knew, even at sixteen, all the rules of the game: when to advance, when to retreat, and, most important of all, when to laugh. But Sheila would never be able to laugh at love or love's counterpart. "Somebody _will_ make love to you some day!" repeated Charlotte teasingly. "Well, nobody has yet!" Sheila assured her crossly. "And what's more, I hope nobody will! _That_ isn't what I want!" "What do you want?" asked Charlotte curiously, detecting the underlying earnestness of the words. But she received no response, and so, bent upon an interesting topic, she harked back to Sheila's flight from the party: "If nobody made love to you, why did you run away? Did your conscience hurt you, Sheila?" "Yes," admitted Sheila, "that was what made me come home. But I stayed home because of something else." "What?" Sheila groped for the language of Mrs. Caldwell's lesson: "Because I--I didn't want to be pretty in somebody else's clothes. I was happy for a little while, but it didn't last. You see, I'd borrowed that--the happiness--along with the frock. And of course I couldn't keep it. I just want what belongs to me after this, Charlotte. It isn't fair to take anything else--and it isn't any use either." Charlotte stared at her with puzzled eyes. "You _are_ queer," she remarked reflectively. "You _are_ queer, Sheila. Theodore Kent always said so, and he was right. I wonder what he'll think of you when he gets back from college." But Sheila, who had blushed painfully at the suggestion of a lover who did not exist, heard Ted's name without a flush or a tremor; and in despair of any conversation about dress or beaux, the guest presently took her departure. A few days later Charlotte went back to her city school for further "finishing," though she had already been sharpened and polished to a bewildering edge and brilliancy. And left to herself, Sheila resumed her unsophisticated, girlish life. "We aren't going to have any young ladies at our house after all, Peter," Mrs. Caldwell announced triumphantly over her teacup one afternoon. And Peter, lounging on the leafy veranda and appreciatively sipping Mrs. Caldwell's fragrant amber brew, lifted a languidly interested face: "How are you going to stop time for Sheila? Of course you've done it for yourself, but not even you, fairy godmother, can do that for other people." "I don't intend to try. I don't want to try. Because--when my little girl goes--it's time that will bring me some one better." "The young lady, dear Mrs. Caldwell. The young lady--inevitably." "No, Peter--the woman!" And Mrs. Caldwell's voice rang with pride and confidence. "There's the making of one in Sheila, Peter--of a real woman!" "What's become of the poet you used to see in her?" he inquired. "Oh, you've shut that safely into a cage of books. I'm not afraid of it any more." "It can still sing behind the bars, you know," he warned her. "No," she said, growing serious again, "it wouldn't--in Sheila's case. At least it wouldn't unless it got into just the right cage, hung in the sunshine and the south wind. That's what I'm afraid of, Peter--that Sheila herself will be snared into the wrong cage!" But even while Mrs. Caldwell spoke, Sheila was standing at the open door of the right cage, gazing in with illumined eyes. The spring was at its height, as warm and ripely blooming as early summer, and Sheila had slipped away to her favorite haunt of the back garden. She had taken a book with her, one of Peter's recommendation, and as she lay on the soft, fresh grass, she idly turned the pages, not from any desire to read, but for the pleasure of touching the leaves and knowing that, if she liked, she had only to look within for words that would create a fairyland as easily as the fingers of the spring had done. But presently, sated with mere earth-sweetness, she lifted herself on her elbow and opened the book widely where her hand had finally rested. It was the choice of chance, that page; but, as happens every now and then, chance and the Shaping Power were at that moment one. For shining on the white leaf, as if written in silver, were the lines that have stirred every potential poet to rapture and self-knowledge: --magic casements opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. Sheila read them with no fore-warning of their moving music. They flashed, winged, into her tranquil world--and shook it to its foundations. For the first time the full sense of beauty rushed upon her, and she caught her breath with the keen, aching ecstasy of it: --magic casements opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. She read the lines again, and now aloud, softly, with a beauty-broken breath. She had wanted something, and all the while this--_this_--had been waiting for her. Compared to the joy of it, what was the joy of looking into a mirror and finding oneself fair? What was any other beauty beside this beauty of words, of subtle harmony and exquisite imagery? And then there came to her the thought that some one--some one just human like herself--yes, human and young--had written these lines, had drawn them from the treasure house of himself. "Oh," she whispered, "how happy he must have been! How happy! To have written this! If I had done it----" She paused and sat up straight and still, the book falling unheeded from her hand. Slowly her eyes widened, filled first with light and then with tears. "If I had written this! If I could write _anything_!" And suddenly, for that moment and for life, she knew! "_That_ is what I want--to _write_!--to _make_ something beautiful!" And then her guardian angel should have pushed her into the cage and fastened its door. For the sun was shining and the south wind was blowing--and it was the right cage! CHAPTER V One September afternoon, Peter lingered in his class-room after his duties were done and his pupils had departed. He usually lost no time in shaking the dust of academic toil from his feet--and from his mind--but to-day an unwonted longing for some steadying purpose, some _raison d'être_, made him remain to dally with the tools of his occupation, perhaps in a wistful hope that he might discover a hitherto unsuspected charm in the teaching of rhetoric to reluctant young girls. "If they only cared," he thought, "if they only cared a little for the English language, it wouldn't be such a deadly grind to teach I them. But _they'll_ never 'contend for the shade of a world.' It's just a dull necessity to them--this business of learning how to use their mother tongue--except, of course, to Sheila. And next year she won't be here to help me endure it. Oh, how I wish I could get away--to something better, something bigger!" But with the wish, there came to him also the certainty of its futility. He wouldn't get away; the next year, and the year following, and the year after that would find him still at his uninspiring post in the Shadyville Seminary, teaching bored pupils the properties of speech, and inwardly cursing himself for doing it. For Peter knew that he would always be the victim of his own laziness; that every impulse toward a broader life and its achievements would be checked and overcome by what he termed his "vast inertia." In spite of his mental capacity, his social gifts, his assets of birth and excellent appearance, he would go through all his years without attaining either honors or profits--merely because, in his unconquerable languor, he would not exert himself to the extent of reaching out his hand for them. He taught in the seminary because he must; because, otherwise, his bread would go unbuttered, or rather, there would be no bread to butter. For he was the last of a family whose fortune had been their "blood" and their brains, and not their material possessions. Nothing had been left to him but the prestige of his birth and his inherited intellect, and the connections which they opened to him. And these connections were rosebuds for him to wear in his buttonhole rather than beefsteak to swell his waistcoat. They entitled him to lead a cotillion, but not to direct a bank. His natural parts, as he fully realized, would at any time have secured a career to him, if he had had the industry to use them assiduously. A little enterprise, a little initiative would long since have despatched him to the opportunities and successes of a city. But, always defeated by the "inertia" which he regarded as a fatal malady of his temperament--and also, perhaps, by a native distaste for the vulgar scramble and unsavory methods of the modern business world--his fine intelligence wasted itself in small tasks and his ambitions dissolved like dream-stuff in the somnolent atmosphere of Shadyville. The only success available to him under such conditions was an advantageous marriage. This he could more than once have accomplished, for it cost him no effort to practice the abilities of the lover, and he had, indeed, a reputation for gallantry that invested him with a dangerous glamour as a suitor. But here he was thwarted each time by a quality that dominated him as ruthlessly to his undoing as did his laziness--and this quality was fastidiousness. For him only the exquisite was good enough. He wanted a woman with a face like an angel or a flower, and a soul to match it. And this the eligible girl had never had. So, although he had several times reached the verge of a leap into matrimonial prosperity, he had always drawn back before the crucial moment. A laugh--just a note too broad and loud--had once restrained him from the easy capture of half a million. He could not live with a woman who laughed like that, he told himself! And on the other hand, though marriage appealed to him, he could not accept the exquisite in poverty. A few years before, he had spent a summer in courting a girl whose profile had enchanted him. In imagination he saw it always against a background of dull gold--the pure, slender throat; the sweet, round chin; the delicate, proud lip and nostril; the dreaming eye. But in fact, there was no background of gold, dull or otherwise; and when Peter reflected on the size of his salary and the shifts to which poverty must needs resort--the shabby clothes, the domestic sordidness, the devastating finger-marks of weariness and anxiety upon even the fairest face--his courage failed him, and he surrendered the profile to one who could give her a Kentucky stock farm, a town house in New York and a box at the opera there. After that episode, he resigned his hope of romance. Fate was perverse and offered him impossible combinations, and he had not the energy to seek and seize for himself. So love, like the other big prizes of life, eluded him, and at thirty-three he was a confirmed bachelor as well as a professional idler. He still pursued the graceful, aimless flirtations that are the small change of intercourse at dances and dinners--just as he still read Theocritus--but neither his heart nor his mind engaged in any more serious endeavor. And yet, every now and then, he felt a faint desire for something more, for something that should not be a pastime, nor a mere bread-and-butter chore--something that would demand and exhaust the best of him and give him in return the pride of work worth the doing and doing well. This afternoon the desire was more than usually persistent, and it had held him at his desk long after school hours were over, fingering his pen and ink bottle, glancing through the weekly essays which had that day been handed in for criticism, and turning the leaves of a history of English literature with which he had vainly striven to awake enthusiasm in the minds of his class. The school-room was a pleasant place, as school-rooms go. There were potted plants on the window sills and a few good engravings on the walls, and the afternoon sunshine was streaming gaily in. But to Peter the room was the disillusioning scene of unwilling labors--both on the part of his pupils and himself--and its chalky atmosphere was heavy and depressing. "What's the use of pretending that _this_ is a 'life-work'--a 'noble profession'?" he muttered, after his casual examination of a particularly discouraging essay. "They don't _want_ to learn. They only want to get through and away. After Sheila graduates, I'll he without a single responsive pupil. For I won't get another like her--not in years, and probably never. Why don't I chuck it all? Why _don't_ I go away? There's nothing to _stay_ for! But my confounded antipathy to a tussle in the hurly-burly of my fellow-men----" At that moment a tap sounded upon the door panel. "Come in," called Peter carelessly, supposing that a pupil had returned for some forgotten possession. And he did not even look around until an amused voice inquired: "So absorbed, Professor Peter?" Then he turned to see Mrs. Caldwell, an old-fashioned picture in silvery gray, smiling at him from the doorway. "I've come for a serious talk," said she, when he had seated her beside the sunniest window and established himself close by. "Well," he answered ruefully, "you've come to the right place and the right person. I was just considering--in these scholarly surroundings--how I am wasting my life!" "Really?" And she beamed on him hopefully. "Because that's the beginning of better things. You _could_ amount to so much, Peter!" But he shook his head: "Not here. And I'm too lazy to leave Shadyville." "Why not here? I don't want you to leave Shadyville. I can't do without you! But I want you to do something splendid here. Peter, why don't you write a book?" He laughed: "Dear Mrs. Caldwell, to write a book requires more than the determination or the wish to write one." "Genius?" "Not necessarily. But at least a special kind of ability. The divine fire has never burned on my hearth--not even a tiny spark of it!" "Then you think it's rather a great thing to be able to write?" "I do indeed!" And the reverence of the book-lover thrilled through his tone. "I'm glad you feel that way about writers, Peter," she remarked archly, "because--we have one up at our house." And she extended a note-book to him, a thin, paper-backed book such as his class used for compositions. "You mean--Sheila?" For he had expected this. "Yes. It's happened!--as I told you it would." And her voice was very grave now. He opened the book--and discovered that Sheila's efforts were poems. "I'll read them to-night," he said cautiously. But Mrs. Caldwell would not let him escape so easily: "No, Peter, please. If you have the time, read them now. There are only a few, and I can't go home without a message from you about them. Sheila's waiting up there--and she's simply tense!" "Then she knows you've brought them to me?" "Of course. Do you think I'd have done it without her permission? Peter, don't neglect your manners with your grandchildren." "I deserve the rebuke, Mrs. Caldwell. But if Sheila wants me to see her poems, why hasn't she brought them to me herself?" "Too shy! Peter, poets are _very_ sensitive. It's an awful thing to have one in your family!" "Oh, you won't find it so bad." "Yes, I shall. I always told you it would happen. And I always told you, too, that I couldn't cope with such a--calamity." "Well, there's still hope that this may be a case of 'sweet sixteen' instead of genius. I'll take a peep and give you a verdict." "She's a _poet_," insisted Mrs. Caldwell, obstinately convinced of the worst. And she fixed her eyes on Peter's face, as he read, with an eagerness that, save for her lamentations, might have seemed anxiety to have her opinion confirmed. Presently Peter chuckled. "What are you laughing at, Peter?" "Have you read the 'Ode to the Evening Star'?" "Yes, I've read them all." "Well, then----" "Well, then--_what_?" "You know why I'm laughing." "You think it's _funny_?" And there was an unmistakable note of indignation in the question. "Of course I think it's funny! Don't you?" There was no reply, and Peter looked up from the note-book. "_Don't_ you think it's funny?" he repeated. And then he stared at her. Her cheeks were pink with excitement, her eyes were glittering with angry tears. "Why, I thought--" he began. But she interrupted him: "I certainly don't think it's funny. I think it's a _lovely_ poem! I think they're _all_ lovely poems! I expected you to appreciate them, but as you don't--" And she put out a peremptory hand for the book. But as Peter continued to stare at her, she perceived his amusement, and her resentment gave way to mirth. "Oh, Peter, do forgive me for being cross to you, but you see----" "I see that you're proud of these poems!" he exclaimed, his own eyes twinkling merrily. "Yes," she admitted, "I am proud of them. I really do think they're the loveliest poems ever written!" And she met his laughing gaze quite shamelessly. "And you're glad--yes, _glad_--that she's turned out a poet!" he accused. "Yes," confessed Mrs. Caldwell again, "I'm glad!" And she leaned earnestly toward him: "_Oh, Peter, isn't she wonderful_?" But Peter regarded her severely. "Ah, the deceit of woman! And I believed you when you claimed to be distressed! I sympathized with you!" But Mrs. Caldwell was not to be abashed: "I've been a shocking hypocrite, haven't I? But you're so clever, Peter, that I expected you to see through me." "I trusted you!" he mourned. "Oh, Peter! Peter! That's the way a man always seeks to excuse his stupidity when a woman gets the best of him! But you can trust my sincerity now. And you can sympathize with me if Sheila's _not_ a poet. You seem to doubt her being one!" "She isn't a poet--yet. She may become one. I can't tell about that. What I am sure of is that she has a remarkable mind--as I told you long ago. She has things to express, and evidently the time has come when she wants to express them. That's the hopeful point." "Then she is promising--for all your laughter?" "Indeed she is! These poems are funny--but every now and then there's a flash of light through them. Mrs. Caldwell, I believe in the _light_. I don't know what Sheila will do with it, but it's there--and it's wonderful!" The tears were in Mrs. Caldwell's eyes again, not the bright tears of anger, but the soft mist that rises from a heart profoundly moved. As Peter spoke, the drops overflowed and rolled slowly down her cheeks, but she was unconscious of them. "You don't know what this means to me!" she said. "I didn't know you would feel like this about it. You deceived me so thoroughly! But now I wonder why I didn't realize, in spite of all your protestations, that you'd care just this deeply. I should have understood what things of the mind are to you--you were my grandfather's friend!" "Yes, I was your grandfather's friend. And he was a marvellous man, Peter. It's the proudest thing I can say of myself--that I was his friend." Then, quickly, as if she had closed a treasure box, she turned from the subject of her old friendship--which Peter knew might have been more--to that of Sheila. "What shall I do with my poet, Peter? I'm as much afraid of her as I said I should be--and as unfit to help her." "Let me help her! Will you let me train her?" "Oh, my dear, I hoped you'd ask to do it!" "Then it's a bargain--not only for the present, but for the future--after she graduates--as long as she needs me?" Mrs. Caldwell flashed a keen glance at him: "As long as you will, Peter! I'll trust her to you gratefully." But if there was any deeper significance in her words than her acceptance of the present compact, Peter failed to catch it. As he stood in the seminary doorway a few moments later, watching Mrs. Caldwell's retreating figure up the shady street, there came to him, however, a sense of having something to work for at last. "What was it Mrs. Caldwell once said?" he murmured to himself. "That she wasn't wise enough to 'trim the wick of a star'? Yes, that was it. Well," he added whimsically, "I don't suppose I'm fit for the job either, but I'm going to undertake it. It'll be worth while staying here--it'll be worth while living--if I can trim the wick of a star and help it to shine!" CHAPTER VI There was nothing spectacular or startlingly precocious about Sheila's development during the next few years. On her seventeenth birthday, her frocks were lowered to her slender ankles; on her eighteenth, she permanently assumed the dignity of full length skirts; on her nineteenth, she lifted her hair from its soft, girlish knot on her neck to a womanly coronet upon the top of her head. But despite her regal coiffure, she remained very much of a child. Mrs. Caldwell had achieved the apparently impossible; she had eliminated the rôle of the "young lady" from Sheila's _repertoire_. At nineteen the girl was ready, at the touch of fate, to merge the child in the woman; but there was nothing of the conventional young lady about her, though she led the same life as other girls in Shadyville, a life that abounded in parties---in town through the winter and at the country houses in the summer--and little sex vanities and love affairs. Sheila herself had never had a love affair. She was a charming young person--not quite pretty, but more alluring in her shy, wistful fashion, than handsomer girls--so it followed that susceptible youths sued for her favor. But they sued in vain. She smiled upon them until they said some word of love, and then she was on the wing like a wild bird. Whatever ardor there was in her she had expended thus far upon her ambition to write. Under Peter's restraining tutelage, she had long since foresworn odes to the evening star for prose fantasies, and these were in turn being superseded by what promised to become a clean-cut, brilliant gift for narrative. She had a rich imagination, an unusual facility for characterization, a certain quaint, whimsical humor--that she never displayed in her speech; all of which raised her work, crude though it still was, distinctly above the level of the commonplace. She had recently sold a little sketch, in her later and better manner, to an eastern magazine with a keen eye for young talent, and the event had been to her as truly the pinnacle of romance as a betrothal would have been to another girl. It had shed a veritable glory over life for her, and all her dreams were now of further triumphs, of approving editors and an applauding public. She would be a famous woman, she told herself, with the naïve assurance of youth. That was her destiny! So it was small wonder, after all, that Shadyville lads had not induced her to regard them seriously. She would marry some time, of course. Everyone married--at least in Shadyville, where the elemental simplicities of existence prevailed for very lack of its complexities. There was really nothing to do in Shadyville except to participate, in one capacity or another, in birth, marriage and death. Sheila therefore considered marriage an inescapable end, but she thought very little about it along the way thither. And yet, when the hour of sex romance finally struck for Sheila, when, for the first time, she realized love's moving power and beauty, her surrender to it was tenfold quicker and more unquestioning than would have been that of a girl who had dallied with sentiment from the days of her short frocks. Her very years of indifference were her undoing. Owing to them, love came to her with the shock of an instant and supreme revelation; she who had been blind suddenly beheld a whole undreamed of world, as it were, and the vastness of the vision inevitably dazed her to a degree that made clear perception of it impossible. Perhaps Sheila would have been less ingenuously innocent, and more effectually prepared for this crisis, had Charlotte Davis been at hand during the formative period of her girlhood. But Charlotte had been traveling in Europe for a couple of years, and her letters--clever, witty, worldly-wise--were too infrequent to equip Sheila for the defense of her heart. So she went forward--profoundly unconscious, pitifully unready--to capture. She was nineteen years old, and the season was summer, and the moon was shining--when it began. And summer is an opulent thing in Kentucky; a blue and golden thing by day; a thing of white witchery by night; and whether in the burnished glamour of the sun, or the pallid glamour of the moon, too sweet, too full-blooded, too poignant with the forces and the purposes of nature to leave the pulse unstirred. Sheila, restless with this earth-magic, was standing at the garden gate one evening, when a young man came up and paused, smiling, before her. At first glance, and in the uncertain moonlight, she thought him a stranger, but a second look revealed his sturdy identity. "Why, _Ted_!" And Ted he was; a Ted grown to a fine, vigorous manliness--the manliness of a thoroughly healthy body and a cheerful, literal mind. It was obvious at once that there was not a subtlety in him; that, in his early maturity, he was of the same substantial quality that he had been as a child. Sheila had not seen him for a long time--as time is measured at nineteen--for during his first year at college, his family had removed to Lexington, and neither they nor he had ever returned. But it seemed as natural to her to have him there as if they had parted only yesterday, as natural to have him, and as natural to admire him. She had admired him devoutly when she was a little girl, though she had sometimes had disconcerting glimpses of his limitations. And she admired him now. Instantly she felt that splendid, radiant materialism of his as a charm. She walked up the path to the house at his side, in a flutter of girlish delight--all sex, all softness, the weaker, the submissive creature. So he had dominated her in the past--except in her rare, "queer" moments when the wings of her quick fancy had lifted her on some flight beyond his reach. Her wings did not lift her now, however; they were folded so meekly against her shoulders that they might as well not have been there at all. They sat down on the veranda together, and a climbing rose shook down a shower of night fragrance upon them, and the moonlight streamed over their faces as if with the intent to glorify each to the other. Mrs. Caldwell was playing whist at the house next door, so Sheila and Ted were there alone, save for the cook's tuneful presence in the kitchen. Her song floated out to them in her warm, caressing negro voice--"Weep no mo', my lady! Oh, weep no mo' to-day!" And suddenly Sheila felt that she would never weep again--life was such a joyous thing! Ted sat on a step at her feet, and he leaned his head back against a pillar of the veranda as he talked. She noticed how crisp and strong his fair hair was, and the sense of his vitality weighed upon her like a compelling hand. He was telling her what had brought him back. The editorship of the _Shadyville Star_, the town's semi-weekly paper--the editorship and part ownership in fact--was open to him, and, alert as ever, he was seizing the opportunity. "It's a chance--a good chance--to go into the newspaper game as my own boss, or as part proprietor anyhow," he explained. "Mr. Orcutt is making the _Star_ into a daily, and he wants a live man--a young man--to take charge of it. Father's let me have a couple of thousand dollars, and I've borrowed three thousand more, and I'm going in with Mr. Orcutt as a partner. It's a big thing for me if I can pull it through. And I _will_ pull it through. I was editor of our college magazine, and I've worked on one or another of the Louisville papers every summer, so I know a little about the game--and I like it tremendously. Oh, I'll succeed all right!" "Of course you will!" she agreed heartily. At the mere sound of his bright, confident voice she believed in his ability to succeed in anything whatever. "Yes, of course I will. And it's nice to have _you_ say so. The only question about it," he pursued, "is whether it's a big _enough_ opportunity for me. But I'll _make_ it big enough. I'll make the paper grow--and the paper will make the town grow. See? All Shadyville needs is enterprise--enterprise and advertising." "Yes," she agreed again. An hour earlier she would have been ready to protect Shadyville's sacred precincts from the vandals of "enterprise" and "advertising" with her own slim fist, but here she was handing over the keys of the town to modern commercialism without a qualm of hesitation. "_You're_ just what Shadyville needs, Ted," she added earnestly. "I thought you'd feel that way about it!" And his voice was exultant. "You always were a good pal, Sheila!" And at the tribute Sheila had a swift conception of woman's mission as the perfect comrade. Oh, that was a mission to thrill and inspire one, to move one to high and selfless endeavor! And she dedicated herself, in the secrecy of her own mind, to the cause of Ted and the _Shadyville Star_. Throughout the next few weeks she was, indeed, the perfect comrade. She who had never before been interested in the spectacle of actual, contemporary life, flung herself now, with a fervor which not even her personal ambitions had excited, into the business of life's presentment through the daily press, and in particular through the medium of the _Shadyville Star_. She read newspapers avidly; she suggested subjects for editorials to Ted; she came down to the office of the _Shadyville Daily Star_--under Mrs. Caldwell's reluctant chaperonage--to see the linotype machine which had been installed in honor of Ted's reign. She even read proof on the tumultuous day which preceded the transformed _Star's_ first appearance. Peter watched her in amazement. "But I thought newspapers bored you!" he exclaimed one afternoon when, coming to read his beloved Theocritus with her, he found Sheila immersed in a whirlwind of New York papers, from which she was industriously clipping items for reprint in the _Star_. "Oh," she cried, in the rapturous voice of the devotee, "I didn't understand how wonderful newspaper work could be! Why, Peter--I've got my finger on the pulse of the world!" At which Peter put his Theocritus back into the safety of his pocket lest even its tranquil spirit be corrupted by the fever of journalism. To Ted Sheila's magnificent energy in his behalf, her unflagging comprehension and sympathy, were steps by which he mounted blithely to his goal. How _could_ he fail with Sheila to stimulate him, to assist him, to believe in him? And indeed, the _Star_ did reward the efforts of both its new editor and his silent partner. It made a triumphant debut, and it continued daily to fulfill the expectations which that debut had aroused. Toward the end of the summer, Ted at last drew a breath of complete security. He was on Mrs. Caldwell's veranda at the time, and he and Sheila were alone together. It was just such a night as the first one of his return to Shadyville; the moonlight poured prodigally downward upon them, showing to each the other's face, silver-clear; the scent of the climbing roses stole to them on the light wind; from kitchenward came the soft notes of black Mandy's song as she finished her evening tasks--"Weep no mo', my lady!" Everything was as it had been on that first night two months before--and yet everything was different. Within those two months Ted had proved himself as a man--a man who could do his chosen work. And Sheila--Ah, what had she not taught him--what had she not taught herself--of the woman's part in a man's work--a man's life? The same? No, everything was different! Ted was sitting at Sheila's feet, in what had become his accustomed place. He glanced up at her, sweet and serene in the moonlight, and something rose within him as resistlessly as a mighty tide. "I'm winning!" he said triumphantly, "I'm winning! But I couldn't have done it without you. Oh, Sheila, you've been the making of me! What a girl you are!--what a woman! _You'd_ always back a man up in his undertakings--if you loved him--wouldn't you?" "Oh--if I loved him!--" And she looked past him with dreamy eyes. She had never looked like that before, though love had been named to her by others and in more persuasive language. To back up a man in his undertakings--because she loved him-- Why, that would be _life_! Ted had never had the superfine discernment of natures more delicately wrought than his, but he had the discernment of sex--as all young and healthy creatures have. He saw her dreaming look, and he knew something of the kindred thought. "Sheila"--and his voice was less sure and bold--"Sheila, have you ever been in love? Is there--anybody else?" "No," she answered simply. And she drew her gaze down from the stars to his upturned face. That which was in her eyes made him catch his breath and close his own for an instant; but she was unaware of the shining thing he had seen--the soul, not only of one woman, just awakening, but of all womanhood, at once innocent and passionate, brave and piteous. He had not needed any subtlety to perceive that--so frank and beautiful was its betrayal. "Sheila"--and he fixed his eyes upon her now--"Sheila, maybe the town does need me--as you said when I first came back. I'll do my best to make it need me. Because--because I want to earn the right to a home. I want to be able to--marry!" "To--_marry_?" she whispered. He leaned forward and laid his hands upon her wrists--importunate hands that sent the blood swirling through her veins. "Oh, Sheila--don't you understand? _I_ need _you_!" For a moment the world swayed around her. Her heart was beating, not in her bosom, but in her throat--up, up to her dry and quivering lips. To back up a man in his undertakings--because she loved him!--that was what Ted was asking her to do for him--to do for him always. Yes--and that was life! Then, slowly, the world grew still once more; the night wind blew down the fragrance of climbing roses; again she heard the familiar refrain--"Weep no mo', my lady! Oh, weep no mo' to-day!"--and now it seemed tender with the tenderness of insistent and protective love. And all the while Ted's hands were on her wrists, silently imploring. This was life! Oh, she would never weep again--never again in her joy! "Sheila?" She bent toward him--as irresistibly as the rose above her head was drawn to the wind--and smiled. "Oh, Sheila!--_when you look at me like that_!" And then Ted's face was against her breast, his arms around her. She would never weep again--for _this_ was _life_! CHAPTER VII Sheila had been married several months before she ceased to expect a miracle. She had believed that moment of high rapture when, with Ted's face hidden against her breast, she had seemed to grasp life itself in her ardent young hands, to be but the forerunner of greater moments--of raptures and fulfillments compared to which the first awakening would appear no more than a pale shadow of joy. Marriage, in some way mysterious and beautiful, would surely alter the world for her; nay, more, would transmute her own nature into something stronger, richer, happier, a wedded nature, wedded in its lightest moods, its deepest fastnesses. She would wear Ted's ring upon her very soul, and her soul would thereby be changed and glorified. Other wives--all wives, indeed, who marry at the dictates of their hearts--expect as much. It is the way of women to dream and hope above the earth's level, and now and then, in a rarely perfect mating or in motherhood, their dreams come true. But oftenest they wait as Sheila waited--unrewarded. And after awhile they return contentedly to the lowland of everyday reality--where many paths are pleasant and their fellow travelers, though not knights errant, are usually faithful and kind. This, after a few months, Sheila did, too. By that time she had begun to regard the first moment of acknowledged love as unique, one from which she had no right to ask more than itself. It was enough to have had it. It _had_ been life--of that she was still convinced--but life at its high tide. And the very existence of every day--of tranquil affection and homely duty--was none the less life, too, and good after its own fashion. So, missing the miracle, she set to work to discover a miracle in what she had; to find exquisite meanings in the fire upon her wedded hearth while her wedded soul remained cold and virginal. And she had the better chance to warm herself beside that fire because it never occurred to her that Ted might be in the least responsible for its limitations. About her choice of a husband--or rather, her acceptance of the husband whom fate had chosen for her--she had no misgivings. "Oh, Sheila, are you sure?" Mrs. Caldwell had inquired again and again in that heart-searching hour which had preceded her sanction of the engagement. "Are you _sure_?" And Sheila had been sure, triumphantly sure. Even then, with the girl's rhapsodies ringing in her ears, Mrs. Caldwell had insisted upon an engagement of six months--"To give the child an opportunity to break it," she had confided to Peter. But the delay had proved unnecessary. At the end of the period imposed Sheila had been as sure as ever, and she was sure still. Ted loved her. Ted needed her. Of course he was the right man for her! If she had thought to receive more than marriage had given her, the fault was hers, she loyally decided. She had always anticipated miracles. She had always seen life as an enchanting fairy tale, with a marvellous climax hidden somewhere in the chapters yet unread. But life wasn't a fairy tale; it was merely a bit of cheerful realism, with a happy, commonplace climax in accord with realistic standards. It hadn't been fair to demand princes and palaces and winged delights of a bit of realism! She knew now that her expectations had been childish and absurd; that she had asked for more than life had to give; that the joys of this world were simple, home-abiding things, without the wings for heavenly flights. Not even love itself was winged, and it was better so--for thus she need not fear lest it fly away as winged things are wont to do. She had prayed for ecstasy--which, at best, is fleeting. Instead she had been granted a safe and quiet happiness. Was not destiny wiser than she? But though she reconciled herself to the realities of life and of marriage, she could not reconcile herself to her own unchanged spirit. She had looked to find Sheila Kent a new being, serene, complete--and Sheila Kent was neither. "I'm just myself!" she admitted at last, when neither faith nor desire had availed to transform the fiber of her soul. "I'm just myself still. Ted used to think me a queer little girl--and I'm the same queer self now. Other married girls are satisfied with their husbands and their houses and--their babies--and I believed I would be, too. But I'm not. Marriage hasn't made me over--and it isn't enough for me. I want something wonderful--I want to _do_ something wonderful. I want--why, I want to _write_!" It seemed a solution of her perplexity--the conclusion that she still wanted to write--and she seized upon it with reviving fervor. Her gift, singling her out from other girls, was the explanation of those unconquered spaces in her soul, spaces never destined for the foot of any man, however dear. Genius, she had heard, was always celibate, and her genius, or talent, lived on in her inviolate, a thing yet to be reckoned with, yet to be appeased. She had not written during her engagement, nor since her marriage. Not that she had deliberately renounced her ambitions, but that her days had been crowded with other things, with things that, for the time, she thought more vital. Peter had remonstrated with her once or twice, but to no avail, and when she went from the flurry of trousseau and wedding to the more serious business of keeping house in the traditional vine-clad cottage--Mrs. Caldwell having persisted in the wisdom of separate establishments--he no longer protested at all. An industrious young housekeeper and a blooming wife was obviously not to be condoled with over thwarted aspirations. So certain unfinished manuscripts lay forgotten in the bottom of Sheila's bridal trunk--forgotten, or at least ignored--until the day when she fixed on them as the reason of her vague discontent. Then she brought them forth with an eagerness that was, perhaps, the best answer to her self-analysis. Of course she had wanted to write; without knowing it, she must have wanted, for months, to write! Oh, life _wasn't_ a bit of dull realism! It was a fairy tale after all--a fairy tale of poems and novels, of gracious publishers and an appreciative public! She had never talked to Ted about her writing. Somehow she had always been absorbed in his work, his ambitions. He had all the initiative and enterprise that Shadyville, prior to his arrival, had lacked, and his labors and successes had consumed not only his own time and thoughts, but Sheila's as well. She admired his energy; she was dazzled by the juggleries of his mediocre cleverness; she was proud to help him. Like a strong, fresh wind he filled her world--and, incidentally, he was a wind that blew away all the delicate cobwebs, the gossamer filaments of her finer gift. But now, for the first time since Ted's return to Shadyville, Sheila's individuality rose up within her and claimed something for itself. She had wanted to write--and she _would_ write. There was no reason why she should not. Women, nowadays, were wives and artists also. Married women had "careers" as often as the unmarried. In short, fame was still hers to conquer! She set about conquering it at once--that was Sheila's way--and when, in the middle of a busy morning, some one tapped imperiously on her closed door, she went to answer the summons with an inky finger and dream-laden eyes. But she opened the door to a vision that dispelled dreams by its more charming substance--a young woman whose smart, slender figure was clothed in a mode that had not yet reached Shadyville, and whose alert and smiling face seemed as unrelated as her garments to the sleepy little provincial town. "Charlotte!" "Yes," said the vision gaily, "yes--_Mrs. Theodore Kent_!" And then the two girls were in each other's arms, laughing and chattering, and weeping a little, too, after the manner of girls--especially when there has been marriage and giving in marriage since their last meeting. They had not seen each other for more than three years, for although Charlotte had been in America several times during that period, she had merely joined her family in New York for brief reunions, and had then hastened back to Paris where she was studying singing. They looked at each other curiously after that first embrace, and, when they were seated in Sheila's sunny sitting-room, they fell at once into confidences covering those three separated years. It was Charlotte, of course, who had food for conversation, but Sheila, as the bride, was the heroine of the occasion, even to Charlotte's broader mind. Marriage may not fulfill the ideals of high romance, but it can always cast a halo. "Well," said Charlotte at last, when she had heard the tale of Ted's perfections and achievements, "well, I'll wait and see what you two make of it before I give up my liberty." "You wouldn't be giving up your liberty if you married the man you loved," protested Sheila staunchly. "Oh, I don't know about that! Suppose I married a man who resented my music?" "But he wouldn't--if he loved you!" "Oh! Then Ted doesn't mind your writing?" "Of course not!" Sheila assured her. "Why, I was writing when you came!" And she held up the inky finger. Charlotte surveyed the finger with evident respect: "That's right! I'm glad you aren't going to be submerged by marriage. I was afraid you might be. And really, Sheila, you have talent. The 'F---- Monthly' would never have taken that story of yours if it hadn't been exceptionally good. I know Mr. Bennett, the associate editor, and his standards----" "You _know_ Mr. Bennett?" interrupted Sheila. And her tone was reverent. "Yes," said Charlotte carelessly. "I know a lot of writing folks in New York. In fact I've brought one of them home with me--Alice North, the novelist. Maybe you've read something of hers?" "_Something_? Why, I've read everything of hers I could lay my hands on! Oh, Charlotte, I _adore_ her!" "So do I," laughed Charlotte, "not her books, but her. She writes very well, but she's more interesting than her stories. Now, Sheila, I'll tell you what you must do--you must let me have some of your things to show her! She could be such a help to you if she found you worth the trouble. Let me have a story or two now, and come up to-morrow afternoon to tea--and to hear what she thinks of them." Sheila caught her breath. "Oh, it's too presumptuous," she demurred, shyly. "For _me_ to bother _Alice North_!" Her eyes were shining, nevertheless, as if at sight of a long-promised land, and Charlotte presently departed with a couple of manuscripts for the touchstone of Mrs. North's criticism. When Ted came home that evening, he found a Sheila tremulous with excitement, her eyes shining still, her cheeks, which were usually pale, flushed to a vivid rose. "Oh, Ted," she exclaimed at once, "Charlotte is back!" "Yes," he assented good-naturedly, "I heard about it this morning and gave her a write-up with a picture." For Ted invariably looked upon events in the terms of their newspaper value. "Did you know that she brought Alice North home with her?" "Alice North?" Apparently he had not the slightest idea who Alice North might be. "Yes--Alice North--the novelist, Ted!" "Is she anybody special--anything of a celebrity?" "Is she? Oh, Ted, you must read something besides newspapers! Mrs. North hasn't been made a celebrity by the papers--somehow she's managed to keep clear of cheap notoriety--but there's scarcely a woman writing to-day whose work is better than hers. She is really--_really_--distinguished!" Instantly he was "on the job," as he would have expressed it, at that revelation: "Well, she won't keep out of the 'Star'! I'll have a story about her to-morrow. Confound it! I wish I'd known to-day! But the Davises never let me know anything. I found out by accident that Charlotte was home. And such a time as I had getting her photograph. I don't believe that family care about their own town's paper!" Sheila smiled. She had a pretty accurate conception of the place that Shadyville must occupy on Charlotte's horizon--and on Alice North's. But she only remarked soothingly, "I can tell you all about Alice North. I've read nearly everything she's written, and a number of magazine articles about her, too. I'll get you up a good story about her--the sort of story she won't object to either." Then her enthusiasm swept her from the subject of newspaper values to the true value of Mrs. North: "Oh, Ted, isn't it splendid for a woman to have a talent like that--a talent that's made her famous at thirty!" But there was no responsive enthusiasm in Ted's face, no leap of light in the eyes that met the fire of hers. "I suppose so," he conceded grudgingly, "yes, I suppose it is. But I don't care for that sort of woman myself--at least for that sort of married woman." "But why, Ted? Why? Her work doesn't interfere with her loving her husband!" "It interferes with her making a home for him. And _that's_ a woman's work--making a home." "But, Ted, maybe he doesn't want a home--or maybe they have a housekeeper." Ted shrugged: "Oh, if it suits him to live in a hotel, or at the mercy of a hired housekeeper, it's all right. But in that case, he's missing the best thing a man ever gets--I mean the kind of home a woman's _love_ makes!" At those words Sheila would have surrendered the argument--so easily was she swayed by a touch upon her heart. But Ted was not through with the subject. His masculine self-respect was aroused against this woman who was succeeding outside the sphere of strictly feminine occupation, and he was determined to show her, in her worst light, to Sheila. "Has she any children?" he demanded belligerently. "No--at least, I think not." "Now you see that I'm right!" he exulted. But the moment for yielding had passed with Sheila. "I see nothing of the sort," she replied with a flare of temper. "Her having children--or not having them--has no bearing whatever on the matter." "Oh, yes, it has! You mark my words--she hasn't had any children because she's wanted to spend all her time advancing herself--building up a tawdry little fame for herself! I tell you, Sheila, talent's a bad thing for a woman--a bad thing!" "But, Ted--_I_ write." He stared at her in naïve surprise. Then his face softened into indulgent laughter. "Why, kitty, so you do! I'd forgotten that you scribble. But you don't take it seriously. I don't mind your playing at it, so long as you don't get the notion that it's the biggest thing in life." And he laughed again and pinched her cheek--reassuringly. She didn't laugh in answer, however. She only gazed at him with an odd intentness, as if she were seeing him for the first time. Then, gravely, she inquired: "What would you think the biggest thing in life, Ted--if you were a woman--a woman like Alice North?" He drew her down to his knee and whispered into her ear. She was very still for an instant, her whole body subdued, spellbound, by that whispered word. Then, with a movement singularly untender, she withdrew from his arms and stood erect--free--before him. The rich scarlet still flooded her cheek--now like a flag of reluctant womanhood--but he searched her eyes in vain for the glow that should have matched it. "Well--you'll think so some day!" he insisted gently. CHAPTER VIII Sheila was not naturally secretive, and it was a measure of the antagonism which Ted had aroused in her that she said nothing to him of her projected visit to Alice North. She had intended to tell him at once of Charlotte's kindly plan to interest Mrs. North in her work; she had been impatient to tell him, and her announcement of Charlotte's return, and Mrs. North's arrival with her, had been meant only as the preface to the confidence. She had been so sure of his sympathy, of his ambition for her and his pleasure in this opportunity to test her power. His real attitude toward the achievements of women she had never suspected. He had so gladly and gratefully accepted her help in his own work, he had so generously acknowledged her ability, that she had never conceived of any sex distinction in his views. She had been his comrade--now he would be hers. And oh, she would make him proud of her! She would see his eyes light for her as, sometimes, she had seen them light over the story of men's successes. For Ted loved success. If she looked forward to triumphs, he was always at the heart of them. Whatever she could do would be done more for his honor than for her own. Whatever was rare and fine in her she had come to value first because she was his wife--and afterward for her own profit. She imagined herself, crowned by Mrs. North's praise, returning to Ted to cry: "It is the real, the true thing--my gift! I will do beautiful work. Oh, dearest, I have more to bring you than I dared to believe!" So her impetuous mind had run onward to meet happy possibilities when Ted arrested it with the comment, "I don't care for that sort of woman myself--at least for that sort of married woman!" And at the words, Sheila's dreams had fallen, like broken-winged birds, to the ground. For a moment--nay, through all the conversation that followed, a conversation that revealed to her with cruel clarity a phase of her husband's mind that she had not hitherto encountered--she was wondering if those dreams would ever rise again. Rude and stupid blows from the hand she loved best had struck them down. How could they recover themselves? How could they sing and soar--those fragile, shattered things? But even as she glimpsed them thus, broken, defeated, there surged up within her the strength of resistance. Sweetly compliant in all the common affairs of her and Ted's joint life, she had, for this issue so vital to her, an amazing obstinacy. Defeated? She and her dreams? _No_! Her dreams were her own, born of her as surely as the children of her body would be. They were hers to save--hers to realize. And she was strong enough to do it! That had been her thought when she withdrew herself from Ted's knee. His whisper--"The greatest thing that can happen to a woman is motherhood!"--had inspired no tenderness in her. For at that moment there was astir within her, violent and dominant, the impulse that is mightier than motherhood itself--the impulse of _creation_. And it was none the less imperative because it demanded to mould with written words rather than living flesh. Ted's last gentle speech, his hurt expression when she turned coldly from him, moved her not at all. For the time, he was not Ted, her beloved, but Man, her enemy. True, she had not regarded man as an enemy before. Peter, for instance, had been an ally without whom she could not even have fared thus far. But Peter was not a husband; his masculinity had not been appealed to--nor threatened. She saw now that men would always fight for the mastery of their own women, would always seek to impose sex upon them as a yoke. Ah, that black, bitter gulf of sex! Sheila, looking into it for the first time, shuddered with revolt and rage. So _this_ was life; this the end of such moments as her exquisite awakening to love. To _this_ the high and heavenly raptures lured one at last! A bird in the wrong cage, impotently beating its breast against the bars--Sheila was like enough to such an one in that furious, unconsciously helpless hour. By the next day, however, the fierce whirlwind of her astounded resentment had passed. She began to see that Ted might be the victim of his sex as she was the victim of hers; that the real tyranny was not that of Ted over her, but of Nature over them both; of Nature who would use them each with equal ruthlessness for her own purposes. But this perception did not daunt her. Unhesitatingly, she arrayed herself against Nature now; she would save her dreams even from that! And as Ted was a part of Nature's plan, she said nothing to him of her determination to fulfill herself in spite of it. In the afternoon she set out resolutely for Charlotte's. It was summer, and Shadyville was at its fairest. As Sheila trod the wide, tree-canopied streets, with their old-fashioned houses in fragrant garden closes on either side, a hundred tiny voices whispered to her messages of peace; of life that goes on from summer to summer; of growth, in the dark and choking earth, that springs at last upward to the sun. But she did not hear. For her there was neither comfort nor peace nor any joy in the processes and victories of mere life. When she reached the Davis house, Charlotte and Mrs. North were on the veranda, clad brightly in a summer frivolity, and their air of leisure and gayety was oddly unlike the tense and passionate mood of Sheila herself. In fact the whole scene--the porch with its fluttering awnings and festive flowers, the dainty tea-table that already awaited the guest, the two charming women presiding there--seemed far removed from the grave resolve and stormy emotions that Sheila had brought thither. For an instant, as she paused at the gate, she felt herself absurd. She had come to have afternoon tea with two women who were obviously of the big, conventional world--and she had brought her naked soul to them! Acutely self-conscious, painfully humiliated, she would have retreated if she could, but Charlotte was already hailing her. And then--her hand was clasped in Alice North's, her eyes were meeting eyes at once so probing and so luminous that they opened every door of her nature and flooded it with light. Sheila had never had a case of hero-worship, but as she put her hand in Mrs. North's, she fell, figuratively, upon her knees. The very buoyancy and assurance of the latter's manner, which had, for an instant, chilled and rebuffed her, now appeared to her the outward manifestation of a brilliant and conquering spirit. Like a devotee, she watched Mrs. North's quick, graceful movements, her vivid, changeful face; like a devotee she listened to her sparkling, inconsequent chatter. This woman, handicapped by her womanhood, had done big things. Any word from her lips, any gesture of her hand was something to admire and remember. It never even entered Sheila's head that, although she had done great things, Alice North might not be a great woman. It never occurred to her to ask _how_ she had triumphed--at whose or at what cost. She never even dreamed that one's life--just a noble submission to Nature, a willing and patient compliance with laws and purposes above one's own--might be the final and fullest expression of genius. Alice North had written books--and Sheila was at her feet. After awhile Charlotte tactfully left her alone with her idol--in whose footsteps she meant to walk henceforth--to _climb_! "I've read your stories," said Mrs. North softly then. It was the first mention of Sheila's work, and the girl quivered from head to foot. She gazed mutely at the oracle--waiting for life, for death. Suddenly Mrs. North leaned forward and caught Sheila's hands in hers. Alice North had never failed to be sensitive to drama; to play her part in it with sympathy and effect. "My dear," she exclaimed, and her voice was clear and thrilling, "my dear, you have it--the divine gift!" And as they looked at each other, the eyes of each filled with tears. Alice North was indeed sensitive to drama--so sensitive that her counterfeit emotions sometimes deceived even her--and Sheila was shaken to the heart, to the soul. "You mean--you mean--that I--" began the girl brokenly. "I mean," answered Mrs. North, "that you are already doing remarkable work--that you will go far--unless----" "Unless what?" breathed Sheila. "Will you let me advise you?" "Oh, if you only will! What shall I do?" And Sheila bent trusting, obedient eyes upon her. "Do? Dear child, I can tell you in a word. You must renounce!" "Renounce?" repeated Sheila vaguely. "Yes, renounce!" And Alice North turned a face of pale sacrifice upon her--with that inevitable instinct for the dramatic. Few women had renounced less than she--less, at least, of what pleased them--but at that moment, in the intensity of her artistic fervor, she believed herself an ascetic for her work's sake. "The common lot of womanhood is not for you," she declared. "You must live for your art!" And her voice trembled with the touching earnestness that she had so easily assumed--and would as easily cast off. To Sheila, however, there never came a doubt of Mrs. North's deep sincerity. She had listened, as if to a priestess, while the novelist proclaimed her sublime creed of renunciation, and she now offered the obstacle to it in her own situation with a sense of having fallen from grace in being thus human: "But I'm married, you know." "And so am I. But I am consecrated, nevertheless, to my art. And so, my dear, must you be. You must give yourself utterly,--_utterly_--to your art! Art won't take less. _Your_ husband must live for _you_--instead of your living for him after the fashion of most wives. And you'll be worth his living for--I'm sure of that." "I--I don't understand," faltered Sheila. "I don't understand what it is I mustn't do for Ted." Alice North held her hands more closely and fixed her luminous eyes upon her--eyes which, to many before Sheila, had seemed to shine with the light of a beautiful soul: "You mustn't do for him the one thing that you and he will want most--you mustn't have children for him! My dear, _you_ must be a mother with your _brain_--not with your body. You can't do both--at least, worthily--and you must give yourself to creation with your mind. There are women enough already to become mothers of the other sort!" Sheila did not reply. Slowly the glow faded from her face, from her eyes. Slowly and listlessly she withdrew her hands from Mrs. North's fervid clasp and leaned back in her chair. Clearly the supreme moment had passed; the flame of her ardor had flickered out. Mrs. North glanced curiously at her. An instant before, the girl had been radiant, tremulous with aspiration and with hope. Now she was apathetic and cold, her spirit no more than a handful of ashes. The silence lengthened--grew heavy with meaning. Alice North put out her hand again: "I trust I haven't intruded--offended?" "Oh, no," said Sheila stiffly, "you have been very kind, and--I am sure--very wise." But her frank gaze had grown guarded; her whole manner had become that of defensive reserve. Yes, clearly, the great moment was over; the drama was ended. "What a queer girl," remarked Mrs. North! to Charlotte, when Sheila had gone. "I predicted a phenomenal future for her--I had her tingling to her finger tips. Then--quite suddenly--the light, the fire was quenched. And do what I would, I couldn't kindle it again. It was very strange--unless----" "Unless----?" "Unless she's going to have a child. I told her that she mustn't have children." "You mean," cried Charlotte incredulously, "that you advised her to shirk the greatest experience possible to a woman? You advised her to forego _that_?" But Alice North lifted her pretty brows and shrugged her histrionic shoulders with an air of fine distaste. "Really, Charlotte," she drawled, "I hadn't suspected you of being so primitive." Walking homeward through the sweet summer dusk, Sheila was far from the listless, extinguished creature whom Alice North had described, however. Never in her life had such a tempest of emotion swept through her being. For she was face to face, at last, with life. The first night of Ted's courtship returned to her now; she smelt the fragrance of climbing roses; she felt his head again upon her breast--the indescribable first touch of love that is unlike all others!--she heard a voice deep within her exulting: "_This_ is _life_!" Ah, how ignorant she had been--how pitifully innocent! To have thought _that_ life! For life was a thing that laid brutal, compelling hands upon you; that destroyed you and created you again; that rent you with unspeakable pangs, with unimaginable terrors, with frantic and powerless rebellions. It was not joy; it was not peace; it was not fulfillment. It was a _force_. Merciless, implacable, irresistible, it seized upon you and _used_ you. For that you were put into the world; for that you dreamed and hoped and struggled--for that moment out of an eternity, that moment of _use_! As she hurried onward, stumbling now and then with a clumsiness alien to her, the sense of lying helpless in the grasp of this force almost drove her to cry out. More than once she lifted her hands to her mouth, and even then little shuddering murmurs broke from her. Helpless? Oh, yes! yes! For that had come to her from which there was no escape. She was trapped. She, too, was to be put to use. Her own work must make way for Nature's. She saw that now. Her own work must make way. For Alice North herself had said that one could not serve art and Nature, too--and Nature had exacted service of her. She had been strong enough to defy Ted's tyranny; but, after all, she could not defeat Nature's. Her work must make way. She let herself noiselessly into the house. From the kitchen floated the sounds of the cook's evening activities, but otherwise the place was silent, and Ted's hat was not on its accustomed hook in the little hall. She could be alone a while. She stole up the stairs to her bedroom, meaning to lie down in the quiet darkness, but once there, a panic assailed her, a senseless fear of the dim corners, the distorted shadows. Besides, she wanted to see herself; she wanted to see if Ted, promising her beautiful things from motherhood the night before, if Mrs. North, warning her against it to-day, had known that she--that she was going to have a child. She turned on the lights and stood in their full glare before her mirror. Searchingly she inspected herself--the slender figure that was as yet only delicately rounded, the cheek that showed just a softer curve and bloom, the eyes---- And then she caught her breath in a sharp sob and leaned nearer to her reflection. What was it--who was it--that she saw in her eyes? For something--some one--looked back at her that had not looked back at her before; something--some one--ineffably yearning, poignantly tender--looked back at her with the gaze of a mystery--of a miracle. It was as if, within herself, she beheld another self; and this other self was reconciled to life, was in harmony with its divine purpose. Strangely enough, at that moment, her childhood's fancy of another self recurred to her. "Other-Sheila," she whispered, "Other-Sheila, is it _you_?" While she leaned thus, waiting, perhaps, for the answer of that reflected self, she saw that Ted had opened the door behind her. For an instant their eyes met in the mirror, and with that gaze Sheila's heart suddenly fled home to him. He was the father of her child! "Oh," she cried, turning to him with outstretched, shaking hands and quivering face, "Oh, tell it to me again! I _want_ to believe it! _Tell me again that motherhood is the greatest thing!_" CHAPTER IX In that hour when Sheila, flinging herself into his arms, cried out to Ted, "Tell me again that motherhood is the greatest thing. I want to believe it!" she struck a high note that, during the succeeding days and weeks and months, she could not always sustain. And yet, from the moment when she attempted to reconcile her will to Nature's, she did begin to perceive that her sacrifice would have its recompense. Perhaps she perceived it the more clearly because it was given to her to see what motherhood meant to other women. For she was enough like the rest of humanity to value what others held precious. On the day after her interview with Mrs. North, Sheila went to confide her expectation of maternity to her grandmother. She found Mrs. Caldwell in her sitting-room, a peaceful, lonely figure, lifted, at last, above the stress and surge of life--and above all its sweet hazards, its young delight. She turned a pleased face to Sheila: "Dear! Ah, what would I do without my child?" At the words, Sheila's news rushed to her lips: "Grandmother--grandmother--_I_ am going to have a child!" And then she was on her knees, and her face was hidden against Mrs. Caldwell's breast. There was an instant of silence. Then: "How happy you and Ted must be!" murmured Mrs. Caldwell, "how happy!" And something in her tone touched Sheila more nearly than even her close-clinging arms, something that was at once joy for Sheila's joy and a measureless regret for herself. Suddenly the girl, trembling in the fold of those gentle old arms, realized how far behind her grandmother lay all youth's dear hopes and adventures. And she realized, too, that she herself held treasures in her hands--the treasures of youth and youth's warm love. After all, even if she must lay her work aside, she was happy. Youth and love were hers--youth and love! Nor was it only from her grandmother that she received confirmation of her fortunate estate. A few days later came Charlotte, to congratulate her upon Mrs. North's belief in her gift. "Alice North says that you have a wonderful future before you," she told Sheila glowingly. "I'm so glad for you!--so proud of you!" "Mrs. North said I had a future before me _if I did not have children_," corrected Sheila. "She thinks I can't be a writer and a mother, too." "Ah," remarked Charlotte reflectively, "then that _was_ why--" She paused a moment, leaving the significant sentence unfinished, and then went on more earnestly, "Sheila, she was wrong! Don't be persuaded to her views. She judged you by herself. Probably she couldn't be both writer and mother--she isn't really strong, you know. But that is not true for all women. Why, there have always been women who have done great things intellectually and had children, too! Don't be discouraged; don't let yourself believe that you need lose your art if you should have a child. You'd be all the finer artist for it. And--you are going to have a child, aren't you, Sheila?" Sheila had been passionately shy about her expectancy of motherhood, but the grave directness of Charlotte's inquiry disarmed her, and she answered as frankly and simply: "Yes, I am going to have a child." Charlotte looked at her with an expression new to the shrewd blue eyes that were habitually so cool and smiling. Then, with an impetuous and lovely gesture, she drew Sheila to her: "I'm so glad for you, dear!--so glad!" A little while before she had been glad for the promise in Sheila's work. Now she used the same word, but how differently! For her mind had spoken before, and now speech leaped from her very heart. "I have never loved a man," she said presently, in her outspoken way, "I have never loved a man, but I hope that I may some day--and that I may have a little child for him." So Mrs. Caldwell was not alone in her attitude toward love's consummation! The desire for motherhood possessed not only the women of yesterday, of old-fashioned standards and ideals, but Charlotte, too; Charlotte, the "modern" woman incarnate, who had always appeared so self-sufficient, so bright and serene and cold, even so hard. It seemed incredible that she should have confessed to the dreams of softer women, of women less mentally preoccupied and competent. Sheila stared at her: "_You_ feel that way? You--with your music, your chances to study, to make a career for yourself?" "Of course I feel that way! Every real woman does. I want my music and motherhood, too, but--if I ever have to choose between them--do you doubt that I'll take motherhood?" There was indignation in her tone; evidently she was wounded that Sheila had misjudged her--so strong was the mother-instinct, the sense of maternity's supreme worth, within her. Realizing this, it appeared to Sheila that no one but herself--no woman in all the world--was reluctant for maternity. After all, Ted had only asked of her that she should share the universal hope and joy of wifehood. It was she who had demanded the exceptional lot; not he who had imposed a unique obligation upon her. With this conviction, the last flicker of her resentment toward him was extinguished, leaving her gratefully at peace with him, not only in the high moments, but even in those occasionally recurrent ones of rebellion and fear. In the latter, indeed, she turned to Ted now for courage and strength, and in the fullness and tenderness of his response she felt herself more his than she had ever been. But her resolve not to tell him about her talk with Alice North persisted. It had been, at first, the resolution of a determined opposition to his views, but it endured through motives more generous. Ted should have his happiness in approaching parenthood unspoiled. He should not be hurt by knowing that she had ever looked forward to it with a divided heart. She could at least conceal that she was unlike other women, and perhaps, in time, a miracle might be wrought upon her and she be made wholly like her sisters. Perhaps, too, in the fullness of time, her work and her motherhood might be adjusted to each other in her life. As Charlotte had said, there were women--many of them--who were both artists and mothers. She herself might be such a woman--some day. She might convert Ted to this, and go forward to a destiny of complete fulfillment. But just now, with a sudden and intense accession of conscience, she yielded herself entirely to the new life that had sprung up within her. The sum of her strength belonged to it, she told herself, and she could give herself as completely as other women, whatever the difference between her mental attitude and theirs. All the while, too, she prayed for her miracle; prayed that she might become altogether like other women, altogether like those glad mothers of the race. She did not pray in vain. There came a day when, with her little son upon her arms, she whispered, "Oh, I _am_ glad! I am _glad_--glad!" Glad? Ah, that was a poor, colorless word for the rapture that descended upon her. Never was the ecstasy of motherhood granted a woman more utterly. It was like an angel's finger on her lips, answering her questionings, satisfying her longings, silencing her discontents. _This_ was life, and it was not cruel and tyrannous, as she had thought, but infinitely gracious and benevolent. It had used her, but it had used her for her own happiness. For upon her arm lay her son! That she ever could have wanted to escape motherhood, that she ever could have resented it, now seemed to her unbelievable. She admitted it to be worth any renunciation, and she gave not one regret to the renunciation that she had made for it--the temporary renunciation of her work. It absorbed her fully and gloriously; it flowed through her with her blood; it was a part of her body and the very fiber of her soul. And it shone through her like a light: it was in the softer touch of her hand, the deeper note of her voice, the more brooding sweetness of her eyes. She _was_ motherhood, indeed; a young madonna whose halo was visible even to unimaginative Ted. Had the question occurred to him then, Ted would have said that no artist could surrender herself thus to maternity. Peter Burnett, reverently watching, did say, "No one but a poet could be a mother like that!" Sheila had been very ill at the time of the child's birth, and a year passed before she regained her natural vigor. It was, perhaps, the happiest year of her life. Every now and then in the course of a lifetime, there come seasons of pure, untroubled joy, when all the practical concerns of ordinary existence pause for a little while, and the petty cares and worries make way, and even the commonplace pleasures stand aside, abashed. Such a season of joy was Sheila's then. She could never recollect it afterward without a quickening and lifting of her heart, and she knew at the time--Oh, very surely--that she had drawn down heaven to herself. Of course it did not last. As her strength increased and the every day business of living became more and more her affair, she dropped to the level of a normal contentment, and thus to the interests that had occupied her before the miracle was accomplished. Eric, her little son, was well into his second year, however, before she felt the urging restlessness of her gift, and even then she denied the creative impulses stirring within her; she put them from her--while she longed to yield herself to them instead. "Go away!" she said to them fiercely. "Oh, go away before you spoil my beautiful peace!" But for every time that she drove them forth, they returned the stronger, as if they would proclaim: "You can't be rid of us! You may narcotize us with the sedative of your content. You may banish us altogether. But we'll always waken! We'll always come back! For we're a part of _you_--just as much a part of you as your son is!" It was true. They were, indeed, a part of her. She would always be different from other women after all--because of them. She would always have to reckon with them; to appease them, or to deny them at her own bitter cost. And now there came the question: "Why deny them any longer?" Eric had been a very healthy baby from the first; he had, also, an excellent nurse, a young mulatto girl who shared her race's enthusiasm for children. In the kitchen ruled an old cook who brooked no interference from "Li'l Miss." Obviously, neither her child nor her house demanded all of Sheila's time. So in the quiet afternoons, when Eric had been taken outdoors, she began to write for an hour or two. Surely, she argued, she now had a right to those two hours out of each twenty-four, especially since she did not take them from her husband, her son, or her home. It was her own leisure, her own opportunity for rest, that she sacrificed, if sacrifice there was. But though she justified herself, she somehow said nothing about the matter to Ted. She agreed with him now--Oh, warmly enough!--that motherhood was the greatest thing in life for a woman; but she did not, she never would, believe with him that it must be the only thing. Nor should he believe it always, she told herself. She would prove to him that a woman could be both mother and artist. She would prove it to him, as she had dreamed of doing--but not just yet. They loved each other so dearly, they were so happy together, that she shrank from disturbing their harmony by any discussion or dissension. And discussion and dissension there would be before Ted could be converted. Amiable as he was in his healthy, hearty fashion, he would be intolerant and irritable about this. So she worked on in secret; and for a couple of months nothing and no one was the worse for it. Then, when Eric was two years old, he was taken ill; suddenly, swiftly, terribly, as a little child can be smitten from rosy vigor to death's very brink. The disease was scarlet fever. "How can he have gotten it?" Sheila and Ted asked each other, bewildered and agonized. But soon--only too soon--they knew. Lila, the nurse, disappeared directly after the verdict was pronounced. "Afraid!" cried Sheila scornfully, "afraid--though she said she loved him!" "Yes'm," agreed old Lucindy, who had come from her kitchen to help nurse the boy with a loyalty that was in itself a scathing comment on Lila's defection, "yes'm, she's feared all right--but not ob gittin' fever." There was something savage in her tone at sound of which Sheila and Ted straightened from their little son's crib and looked to her for explanation. "She's feared," continued Lucindy, "'cause she knows _she_ done gib dat chile fever takin' him to dem low-down nigger shanties she's allus visitin' at. Dat's what Lila's feared ob." "She took the _baby_ to--?" It was Ted who tried to question Lucindy. Sheila could not, though she had opened her dry lips for indignant speech. "Yassah, she sho did--jes befo' he was took sick. She taken him to 'er no 'count yaller sister's--an' 'er sister's chillun's got scarlet fever. I heared it dis mornin'." "Are you sure, Lucindy? Are you _sure_?" It was still Ted who pursued the inquiry. "Deed I'se sho, Marse Ted. She tole me herse'f whar she'd been when she come back wid de baby, an' 'bout how cute an' sweet dey all say he is. Course she didn't know 'bout de fever--it hadn' showed up on dem chillun yit--but she knowed mighty well Miss Sheila wouldn' want our baby in nigger houses _no-how_. She knowed she was doin' wrong takin' him. I sho did go fo' dat yaller gal, too! She wouldn' never do it no mo'--not while Lucindy's a-livin'!" Ted turned to Sheila, and the expression of her white face startled him. Much as he loved her, his heart hardened to her as he looked--hardened with a sudden, instinctive suspicion--and when he spoke, his voice was stern: "Did you know where Lila was taking the baby when she had him out?" he asked. "Sheila, did you know?" CHAPTER X "Sheila, did you know?" repeated Ted. Sheila shook her head. Lila had had orders never to take Eric out of the yard without permission. She had risked the disobedience, only too sure of her mistress's absorption. For Lila knew the secret of those afternoons; she had not been a confidante, but she had been a witness. Sheila realized all this now, as she faced Ted across the crib of their little stricken son. She realized that she had not known where Eric was because she had been engrossed in her work--and that not to have known, as things had come to pass, was criminal. "Oh, how could it have happened?" cried Ted. And looking into Sheila's tortured face, sternness vanished from his eyes for an instant, and love and grief yearned toward her from them instead. In that instant speech came to Sheila and the truth rushed out of her. "It happened because--because I was up in my room and didn't overlook Lila. It happened because I was up in my room, _writing a story_!" It was as if she had bared her breast to a sword--and he could not plunge it in. In his turn he was silent; but his silence was scarcely easier to bear than the harshest upbraiding. He stood there, gazing at her, and she knew all that was in his mind, in his heart. And then, after a moment, he went out of the room, still without a word. When he came back, several hours later, he was very gentle to her, but Sheila knew, nevertheless, that his father's heart condemned her, condemned her as she condemned herself. Together they nursed their son, with Mrs. Caldwell and old Lucindy to help them. And as Sheila watched her baby fight for the tiny flame of his life, her own heart, so much more burdened than Ted's, broke not once, but a thousand times! He was so small, so weak, so helpless, that little son of hers, and he suffered. That was what she felt she could not bear--that he should suffer. Even his death she could endure if she must, she who deserved to lose him. But his _pain_----! As she went back and forth upon the ceaseless tasks of nursing, apparently so concentrated upon them, she was in reality living over days long past, the days before Eric's birth. Clear and practical as was her grasp of the present and all its necessities, she was yet obsessed by her memories of that time before her child's coming; by her memories of it and her penitence for it. In the beginning, she had not been glad. It was upon that, quite as much as upon her later carelessness in trusting Lila, that her agonized conscience fixed. How could she ever have hoped to keep her child--she who had not been glad of his coming? It all sprang from that. For if she had been glad enough in the beginning, the idea of writing would not have persisted with her; would not finally have led her to that negligence for which Eric might pay with his life. She had not been glad in the beginning! Over and over that sentence shrieked through her brain: She had not been glad in the beginning! She had not been glad! She never spared herself by reflecting that she had not been reluctant for motherhood until Ted had shown his antagonism to the work that was already the child of her brain, and Mrs. North had, from her different viewpoint, justified his attitude. She never conceded in her behalf that it had not even occurred to her, until then, to regard motherhood and art as conflicting elements, and that it was the shock of seeing them thus in her own life that had made her temporarily resentful of maternity. She never excused or exonerated herself by that ultimate joy of motherhood which had possessed her so utterly. She had not been glad in the beginning; later, she had not been glad enough to give him--her little, helpless son--all her life. How, indeed, could she hope to keep him now? Over and over this she went; and all the while she kept on about her tasks, deft, skillful, terribly calm. Mrs. Caldwell observed her with an alarm hardly less than she felt for the child. "It will kill Sheila if Eric dies," she said to Ted. "Yes," he groaned, "I think it will." "What is it, Ted?--the thing that's eating into her heart? There's more here than even a mother's grief." "She was writing a story when--when Lila exposed the boy to the fever. Of course, if she hadn't been--! Oh, poor Sheila!--poor Sheila!" he ended brokenly. For all blame had gone out of Ted; his gentleness to Sheila was no longer that of forbearance, but of an immense and inarticulate pity. It racked him that he could not stand between her and her contrition, her pitiful sorrow; it hurt him intolerably that he could not hold them from her with his very hands. Almost he lost the sense of his own sick pain in watching hers. Once he tried to take her in his arms and comfort her. "Don't suffer so!" he pleaded. "Don't suffer so!" But she pulled away from him, denying herself the solace of his sympathy. "I can't suffer _enough_!" she cried. "I can _never_ suffer enough to atone for what I've done!" There came a night when they put Sheila out of the room--Mrs. Caldwell and Ted; literally put her out, with hands so tender and so firm. "I have a right to be with him when he dies!" she cried. "Sheila--he will need you to-morrow. You _must_ rest--for his sake." So they sought to deceive and compel her. "No," she insisted, "he will not need me to-morrow. But he needs me now--to die with." "He may not die." "He 'may' not die. You don't say he _will_ not die! Oh, he will die!--and he's too little to die without his mother!" And then they put her out. Ted led her away to the room where she was to "rest" and shut her within it, and she lay down on the couch as he had bidden her to do. It was easy enough to be obedient in this, since she was barred out from the one place where she yearned to be. Since she could not be there, it did not matter where she was or what she did. It was easiest just to do what she was told. She knew only too well that she had spoken truly when she had said that her little son might die that night. She knew only too surely why she had been shut out. And almost she submitted--the blow seemed so certain, so close. The despair that resembles resignation in its apathy almost conquered her, as she waited for the hand of death to strike. But while she waited, lying in the quiet darkness, there suddenly came to her the idea that she might still save Eric. Morbid from grief and fatigue, she had not a doubt that his death was a "judgment" on herself; a punishment. Because she had neglected him for her own selfish ends; nay, more, because she had not been glad of his coming in the beginning, God was about to take him from her. She was mercilessly sure of this--sure with the awakened blood, the inherited traditions of many Calvinistic ancestors, the stern forefathers of her father. Her own more liberal faith, her personal conception of a God benignant and very tender, went down before that grim heritage of more rigorous consciences. But with the self-conviction springing from that heritage, there came, too, the suggestion that she might make her peace with God; that with sufficient proof of her penitence, she might prevail upon Him to spare Eric. Again and again the suggestion reached her, in the "still, small voice" which may have been the voice of her own inner self, or of the surviving, guiding souls of her ancestors, or of God Himself. Again and again it spoke to her--whatever it was, from whatever source it rose; again and again, until it was still and small no longer, but strong and purposeful, and its message unmistakable. She could but heed it--thankfully. And so she began to cast about in her mind for the proof of her contrition. It could be no light thing, no trivial surrender of self. It must be a sacrifice--a sacrifice such as the ancient tribes of Israel would have offered an incensed God. It must be--she saw it in a flash!--it must be her work. "If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. "And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell." This, then, must she do. She must pluck out that thing which had offended her, which had betrayed her into a sin against her own motherhood, and cast it from her. She must pluck out her gift and offer it up in expiation. And so she knelt there in the darkness and tendered her sacrifice; so she thrust from her the thing which had been so dear to her; so she entered into her compact with God. "Oh, God, grant me my child's life, and I will never write again. I have sinned in selfishness and vanity, but I am repentant and will sin no more. I have plucked out my right eye. I have cut off my right hand. I have cast my gifts from me forever. Grant me my son's life, and I will never write again!" Hour after hour she entreated God to make terms with her. The night crept by, slow-footed and silent, but she was not aware of the passing of time, or of the deepening of the stillness within the house, or of the quivering of the sword above her head. She no longer listened for sounds from that distant room. She no longer strove to pierce the intervening walls with her mother's sixth sense. She heard nothing but the voice which had counselled her; she strove for nothing but to obey that voice. Her whole being concentrated itself into a prayer. She was conscious only of herself and God, and of her passionate effort to reach Him. "Oh, God, _hear_ me! I have sinned, but I will sin no more. My heart is broken with remorse. I will never write again!" So she pleaded with God throughout the long night. And pitiful and insolent as was her bargaining, God must have found in it something to weigh. For with the first light of the morning, Ted opened the door--and there was light in his worn face, too. "Sheila--_Sheila_!----" And then they fell into each other's arms, sobbing--sobbing as they could not have done if their little son had died. CHAPTER XI With tragic sincerity Sheila had entered into the compact for her son's life, and she kept it to the letter. She saw no reason why she should have a poorer sense of honor toward God than she had toward men and women; her child had been spared to her, and henceforth it was for her to fulfill her part, to keep her given word. She had never understood, indeed, why people made--and broke--promises to God so lightly. She had found them ready enough to complain if they considered God unjust to them, but they never seemed to think that it mattered whether they were "square" with God or not. To them He was a sort of divine creditor who need not be paid. They even made it a proof of reverence--a comfortable proof!--to place Him far above the consideration they had to show their fellow men. This viewpoint was impossible to Sheila. Morbid, hysterical, as her offered price for Eric's life had been, she felt herself bound, and she paid punctiliously. It was easy enough thus to pay as she watched her child growing strong and rosy again. His little life--Ah, what was it not worth? A dozen times a day the memory of that night when she had believed that he would die sent her shuddering to her knees with fresh prayers and promises. And always the recollection of that loss escaped roused in her a very passion of thanksgiving. She had her son!--that was her answer to all the dreams which, unrealized, sometimes stole back to tempt her with their wistful faces. When Eric was well enough for her now and then to leave him--at first she could not leave him lest, with her sheltering hands removed, his life should flicker out--she gave burial to the little brain children that, for the child of her body, she had sacrificed. Every bit of verse, every little sketch, and the unfinished story which was, in her sight, most guilty, and most dear of all, she laid away; not with ribbon and lavender and rites of sentiment and tears, but sternly, barely, ruthlessly, as one puts away things discarded by the heart itself. She might have burned them less harshly, and that she did not was only because she conceived it a finer deed to keep them and resist them. So she put her honor to the uttermost test. It was thus, and with her own hands, she poured her life into the mould Ted had desired for it; it was thus she thrust from her all that did not pertain to her husband and her child and her home. Yet between Ted and herself not a word about it passed. He never reproached her for what her writing had so nearly cost them; he never asked her to give it up; he never even inquired as to whether she were still pursuing it. He simply stood aloof from that element in her, with what queer mixture of disapproval and pride and magnanimity she could but guess. They continued to be happy together, the happier as the months passed and Ted saw her more and more his and Eric's. In the beginning he had probably thought that, after the shock of Eric's peril receded, Sheila would try to write again; that fear must have lurked behind his non-committal silence; but time gave him his security about it. Sheila never told him of the compact of that anguished night, but gradually he became as sure that she had given up her talent forever as if he had heard her pledge. "Little wife!" he often called her, "Little mother!" And always it was as if he said to her, "What other name could be half so sweet?" And she told herself that he was right. Never had there been a better husband. And to be loved by a man like that, a man clean and fine and kind; to be the mother of such a man's child, she was very certain was worth more to a woman than any other honors or fulfillments which life could bring her. She had known that always, even when she first discovered--so bitterly!--that Ted was not in sympathy with her gift and her ambitions; and she knew it more surely as time went on. There were moments when she wished ardently that the sympathy between them had been more absolute; when she thought that, happy as she was, she would have been happier if their tastes had gone hand-in-hand like their hearts. But there was never a time when she would have exchanged Ted for any other man, or when she felt it possible to have done without him. There are women who, married, feed their discontents with visions of what life could have been in freedom or with some other man than they have chosen. Sheila was not of this sort. Having crossed the threshold of marriage, she did not look behind her at the alluring--and elusive--road of might-have-been. She hoped, now, for other children. With this utter surrender of herself to the woman's life, there came to her the longing for many children, for all her arms could hold. The sum of that creative force which, under different circumstances, would have flowed into her work, all its denied passion and vitality, was transmuted into the instinct of motherhood. Because of her creative gift, there was literally more life within her, more life to bestow, and so, the channel of artistic expression being closed to her, she yearned to spend it all upon maternity; to have, indeed, as many children as her arms could hold. Had these desired children come to her, peace might have been hers finally and entirely. But the desire was not granted. Eric grew out of his babyhood to a fine, sturdy boyhood, and was still the only child. And now Sheila, a woman of thirty and ten years married, began to feel again, and more strongly than ever in her life, the urge of her gift, the unrest of dreams stifled, thwarted, but never destroyed. She had made a compact with God, and she continued to keep it; but more and more hunger stared out of her eyes and a nervous restlessness betrayed itself in her manner. She was happy, but she was not satisfied. Something clamored in her unappeased. If she had lived in a large city, there would at least have been food, if not activity, for that clamoring, aching thing within her. There would have been pictures and music and plays to lift her, at times, into the world of poetic beauty for which she longed. But Shadyville could offer nothing to one of her mental quality; as a girl she had found diversion in its social gaiety, but as a matron, the mother of a nine-year-old son, even the social life of the town was restricted for her to card-parties and the doubtful amusement of chaperonage. For in Shadyville, the young married people early abdicated in favor of those still younger, those still seeking mates. Society was, in fact, merely a means of finding one's mate, so primitive had the little town remained; companionship between men and women, save as an opportunity for the eternal quest, was unknown. Wives and mothers sat placidly, or wearily, against the walls at dances, watching the game of man and maid, and slaked their thirst for entertainment, for stimulating comradeship, at the afternoon teas and bridge parties of their own sex. Now and then a reading club or a study class was organized, a naïve effort toward an understanding of things which Shadyville vaguely perceived to be of importance beyond its boundaries; and always the class or club died of insufficient nourishment. Within thirty miles of a large town, the life of Shadyville remained uncorrupted--and unimproved; a healthy, simple, joyous affair of the love-quest in youth; a healthy, simple, and usually contented, matter of home-making and child-rearing later. Sheila, having stepped over into the second stage with her marriage, was not supposed to feel any longings which her domestic existence could not satisfy; and feeling them, in defiance of Shadyville's standards and traditions, she could but suppress and starve them. "Let me go down to the office every day and help you," she suggested to Ted finally, "I used to help you--before we were married." But Ted, whose limited ambitions had realized themselves and whose work had now settled into a comfortable routine for which he was more than capable, evinced no enthusiasm for the project. She had helped him; he had never forgotten nor disparaged that. But he did not need or want her at the Star office now, and he did need and want her in his home. "You have enough to do as it is--with Eric and the house," he said. "But, Ted, I _haven't_ enough to do," she insisted. "There's nothing for me really to do in the house. I overlook everything, but that doesn't occupy all my time. And with Eric at school--don't you see, my dear, that it's something to do I need? Don't you see how--how restless I am?" "We ought to have more children!" he exclaimed wistfully. "Yes," she agreed, "yes, we ought to have more children. But if they do not come--?" And she stared before her, her hands lying empty and listless in her lap. "If they do not come--?" she repeated presently. And now she turned her brooding eyes to his face and a purpose gathered and concentrated in them. "I wonder if you could understand--" she began. But he cut into the sentence: "I must hurry back to the office. I take too much time for lunch. Don't get discontented, little girl. I'll take you down to Louisville for the horse show next week. We'll have a bully spree. That's what you need." And he went off whistling blithely, sure that he had solved the problem of Sheila's "moods"--as he always called any symptom of depression in her. Sheila watched him go, smiling. "Of course he wouldn't have understood," she said to herself. "And how I would have bothered him if I'd tried to analyze myself for him--poor dear!" But the reflection, amused, yet wholly tender, did not end her unrest, her perplexity. After a futile attempt to interest herself in duties about the house, she set out for a walk, hoping to capture something of the outdoor peace. It was October, always an exhilarating month in Kentucky, with its crisp air and its flaming banners of red and gold, and soon her blood was stirred and her heart lightened, and she was swinging along at a brisk pace. She had started in the direction of her grandmother's house, but suddenly she wheeled about and took to another street. Never since Eric's illness had her grandmother spoken to her of her writing, and she had been glad of the silence. It seemed to her that if they talked at all, they who had been so close, so much would have to be said; she could not conceive of a reserve in anything which she undertook to discuss with Mrs. Caldwell at all. Ted's views on the duty of a wife and mother would therefore have to be told with the rest, and she did not want to tell them. Her grandmother would have little patience with them, she was sure. As a devoted husband, most of all as the father of Sheila's child, Ted seemed to have won a secure place in Mrs. Caldwell's affection at last, and Sheila, who had clearly seen Mrs. Caldwell's original reluctance to the marriage, had no intention of jeopardizing that place now. Understanding, sympathy, advice would have meant much to her, but she could not take them at Ted's expense. So she walked on, away from her grandmother's house; onward until she left the town behind her and found herself upon the road leading to Louisville. Just ahead of her, she saw, then, a familiar figure trudging along in leisurely fashion, the figure of Peter Burnett. "Peter!" she hailed joyously. And as he hastened back to her, her heart lifted buoyantly; her somber mood departed. She did not say to herself, "_Here_ is understanding," but she felt it. A sudden warmth possessed her, and that other self of hers, so long banished--the Other-Sheila of dreams and visions--suddenly looked out of her eyes. "A constitutional?" inquired Peter. And then, to her nod, "May I go with you?" "Oh, yes, Peter, do! Let's have a good old-time talk! Let's play I'm young again!" Peter grimaced: "You? You're still a child! But _I_--! It's a sensitive subject with me nowadays--that of youth." "It needn't be," laughed Sheila. "You've discovered the fountain of eternal youth." And indeed, Peter at forty-six had changed curiously little from the Peter of twenty-eight. Still slender and of an indolent grace, his aspect of youth had wonderfully persisted. And having passed his life far more in contemplation than in struggle, his face matched his figure with a freshness rare to middle years. He was, it must be admitted, a convincing argument in favor of laziness--except for the expression of his eyes; they had something of the look of Sheila's; their gaze seemed turned inward upon a tragedy of unfulfillment. And unfulfilled, in very truth, was all the promise of Peter's attainments; of his exceptional parts. He was still teaching rhetoric to little girls at the Shadyville Seminary, and, because he had not married, he was still leading cotillions. He read his Theocritus as of old; he called often upon Mrs. Caldwell; sometimes he had an accidental meeting with Sheila, such as this. So his years had passed; too smoothly to age him; too barrenly to content or enrich him in any sense. No one appeared to see his pathos, but pathos was there. He fell into step with Sheila and they tramped onward together in the cool, bright air, talking with the happy fluency which they always had for each other. And though Sheila said nothing of her problem, her restlessness, she felt all the while the comfort of her companion's understanding sympathy--for anything that she might choose to tell him. The road rose before them, a gradual, steady ascent; they reached its crest just as the sun grew low and vivid. A glow was upon the autumn fields on either hand; tranquility and silence seemed to be everywhere; tranquility and silence except for a weird crooning that now floated to them, a crooning indescribably mournful. And then they espied, crouching down at the roadside and almost at their elbows, a creature as weird and mournful as the sound. "Crazy Lisbeth," whispered Sheila. Lisbeth it was, Lisbeth grown old and more pitiful than ever; a ragged, unkempt being--yet strangely lifted above the sordidness of her rags and her beggar's life by her insanity. Long ago she had ceased to work at all, her poor brain having become incapable of any continuous effort, however simple. But she had resisted the obvious havens of asylum and almshouse, and contrived to live on in liberty by aid of the precarious charity of those who had once employed her. She made her home in any deserted hovel that she could seize upon, going from one to another in a sad progress of destitution. And whenever the days were fine, she still roamed the countryside, a desire upon her that would not let her rest, though her memory of her dead husband and child was now so vague and blurred that she no longer consciously sought them. To-day the desire that so tormented her was allayed. For she held something in her arms, something that she rocked gently as she crooned. Sheila went a step nearer, but Lisbeth did not look up or appear aware of her presence. She was not aware of anything in the world but the treasure within her arms. Watching, Sheila's eyes filled with quick tears and her throat ached with a pity almost unbearable. For the thing in Lisbeth's arms was a battered doll, and the crooning was a lullaby. Very softly Sheila turned to Peter. "Let us go back," she said. "She hasn't seen us--she mustn't see us. We must not wake her from her dream. It's a doll she's rocking, and she's dreaming--she's dreaming it's a child." They started back without speaking, hushed and saddened by what they had seen of another's tragedy; and as they went, Sheila was thinking of the occasion in her childhood when she had pretended to be Lisbeth's little daughter. It had happened so long ago, but in all the years since then Lisbeth had been intent on the one dream, the one hope--that of motherhood. All definite remembrance of the child she had borne and lost was gone from her clouded brain, but the instinct and desire of motherhood had remained; it had been life to her. Her mind, flickering like a will-o'-the-wisp from one uncompleted thought to another, had been steadfast enough in that; her heart, detached from every human tie, had never faltered in its impulse of maternity. The tears filled Sheila's eyes again, filled and overflowed so that Peter gave an exclamation of concern and dismay. "Poor Lisbeth!" she murmured. "Poor thing! And I who have my child am discontented. What is the matter with me?" It was the question she had put to Ted long ago--after that other episode of Lisbeth--and he had been as bewildered as she. But there was no bewilderment in the glance that met hers now. Nevertheless, Peter did not answer her directly. But after awhile he said musingly: "A bird's wings may be clipped, but its heart can't be changed. Always--always--it is mad to fly!" CHAPTER XII Mrs. Caldwell had grown very fragile that autumn; not as if she were ill, but rather as if she were gradually and gently relaxing her hold on life. As yet no one but Peter had realized the change in her, but to him it was sadly evident, and he visited her oftener than ever, taking all he could of a friendship that would soon be his no longer. He had stopped to see her on his way home from the seminary, the day after his walk with Sheila, and it was upon Sheila that their talk finally turned. "I had a stroll with her yesterday afternoon," Peter remarked. "It's rare luck for me to get any of her time nowadays. Marriage swallows women terribly, doesn't it?" "Sheila's marriage has certainly swallowed her," admitted Mrs. Caldwell. "I'm fond of Ted--really very fond of him, in fact--but I've always expected marriage to swallow his wife. He's that sort of man." "You think he demands so much of her then? I'd felt that it was the boy who stood between Sheila and all her old life--her old self." "Ah, but isn't that just the way Ted has her so utterly--through the boy?" Peter shook his head: "There's something I don't understand. I understand _her_--to the soul! But there's something in her life I don't understand. I'm sure Ted's good to her. I'm sure they love each other. But she's not satisfied, Mrs. Caldwell. The trouble is that she wants to write--and she doesn't. I can't understand why she doesn't. When Eric was a baby, it was natural enough that she should give up everything for him; but now it's unreasonable, it's absurd, that she doesn't take up her work again. And I can't tell her so--well as I know the value of the gift she's wasting. She isn't frank with me. I can only talk to her about the matter in metaphors." "She isn't frank with me either, Peter. But I'm a little more informed about the situation than you are. Sheila was writing a story when Eric's nurse, taking advantage of not being overlooked, exposed him to scarlet fever. That, I'm confident, is somehow responsible for Sheila's giving up her work." Peter's face flushed darkly: "Do you think Ted reproached her for that? Do you think he blamed her?" "No--I'm sure he didn't. He was terribly, terribly sorry for her. Ted is capable of generosity at times, Peter--I'm not fond of him for nothing!--and he was generous then. But of course Sheila reproached herself. I can imagine what she suffered, and how bitterly she censured herself. I can imagine, too, that she's been atoning ever since. It would be so like her to atone with her whole life for a mistake, an accident. If she had married another man--it wouldn't have happened." "The mistake, the accident, wouldn't have happened?" "Ah, that might have happened in any case. I meant the atonement." "But," objected Peter, "you said Ted did not blame her. How, then, could he be responsible?" "He could let the atonement go on! He isn't a subtle person, but I believe he's divined that, and let it continue. I knew, before Sheila married him, that he would not care for her art. I knew that he would resent any vital interest she might have outside of her marriage. And knowing this, I've concluded that when her conscience worked along the line of his own wishes, it was too much for him; he simply couldn't help taking the advantage circumstances had offered him." "Yet you say he is capable of generosity!" "Capable of generosity _at times_, Peter. And so he is. Most of us have our generosities and our meannesses. Ted's like the rest of us in both respects. The real trouble is that he's the wrong man for Sheila. If she had married you, the same accident might have happened, but the atonement wouldn't. For _you_ would have _wanted_ her to write; you would have made her feel it wrong _not_ to write. It's not that you're a better man than Ted, either; it's that you're a better man for Sheila. You ought to have married her, my dear. I meant you to marry her!" Peter rose hastily from his chair and walked to the window, standing there with his back to Mrs. Caldwell. Very rigidly he stood, his hands at his side, tightly closed. When he finally turned again into the room, his face was white. "Why do you tell me that now--now that it's too late?" he asked. And his voice shook with the question. At something in that white face of his, at something in his unsteady voice, Mrs. Caldwell grew very gentle: "Because I'm a blundering old woman, Peter dear. But, since I have blundered, let us talk frankly. I did intend you to marry Sheila. I plotted and planned for it from the time she was a little girl in your rhetoric class. I believed that in a marriage with you lay her chance to be both a happy and a wonderful woman. And then--Ted married her instead! But there's still something you can do for her. You can watch over her when I'm gone, Peter. You can put out a saving hand now and then, if you see she needs it. When I'm dead--and that will be soon, my dear--you'll be the only person in the world who understands her. If I can feel that you'll always be there ready to help her, I can die in peace. Bottled up genius is a dangerous thing. Sometimes I am afraid for Sheila! But if you'll promise to watch over her for me, I can die with my heart at rest." "There is nothing I would not do for you or for her!" he said. "I know that, Peter. What wonder that I had my dreams about you?" "They were dreams, just dreams," he responded, and now he was speaking more easily. "I wasn't the right man for Sheila after all. If I had been, she would have realized it; she wouldn't have married some one else." "How could she realize it--at twenty? And she was barely twenty when she married. Peter, there's a moment in a girl's life when, consciously or not, her whole being, soul and body, cries out for love. And if a man is at hand then--any presentable man--to answer, '_I_ am love,' she believes him. That moment came to Sheila--and Ted was there!" "Oh," cried Peter, "Oh, surely there was more to it than that! Surely there was real love!" And when she did not answer, he repeated earnestly, "Surely there was real love!" "You plead for Ted?" asked Mrs. Caldwell with a touch of irony. "I plead for her. Ted doesn't matter, and I don't matter. But _Sheila_--Oh, I can't bear that she should have only a second-rate thing, an imitation. I can't bear that." "She thinks it's real love she feels for Ted. And as long as she thinks so, Peter, she'll be happy. What we have to do for her--what you have to do for her when I'm gone--is to keep her thinking that. It isn't her baffled gift I worry about; it's the discontent her gift may rouse in her; the awful _vision_ it may bring her. I see so clearly how she was married--and she must _never_ see! If ever you find her beginning to see, you must blindfold her somehow. I've often thought that women should be born blind--or that their eyes should be bandaged at birth." "Horrible!" exclaimed Peter. "No--_kind_! All the creatures of our love would be beautiful then; all the circumstances of our little destinies noble and splendid. We'd create them so in our own minds, and disillusionment could never touch us." "It's the truth we need, men and women," insisted Peter. "There's nothing so tragic as the truth--when it comes too late," said Mrs. Caldwell sadly. "Your grandfather and I found out that. He was already married, and I was on the eve of my wedding when--it happened. We might have run away together; ours was a real passion, Peter. But people didn't do that sort of thing so readily in our young days. They thought less of their individual rights then, and more of honor. It seemed to us that it was sin enough ever to have realized what we felt; ever to have acknowledged it. So we went on with our obligations, your grandfather and I. He was a good husband, and I was a good wife. Our lives were cast in pleasant lines, with dear, kindly companions, and we would have been happy if--if I hadn't, in a fatal hour, seen his heart and reflected it for him in my own eyes. We would have been happy if I had been blindfolded! As it was, we'd seen the truth, and to accept less was tragedy for us." "You were both free at last," said Peter. "Why didn't you--Oh, why _didn't_ you--take what was left to you?" "My dear, we were already old. Romance was still in our hearts, but we hadn't the courage to take it, publicly, into our lives. We had felt a great love, and been brave enough to deny it. But when we could have satisfied it honorably--we were afraid of the change in our lives; we were afraid of our children, of your father and Sheila's; we were even afraid of what the town would say! In the beginning we had striven not to dare. In the end we could not dare. It is sad that we should be like that, isn't it, Peter? It's sad that as the strength of our youth goes from us, the valor of our love should go too. But it is so, it is so for all of us, my dear. The day before your grandfather died, something flamed up in us again. The courage of new life came to him, and he made me promise to marry him the next day. But the next day he was--dead!" She fell silent, her eyes fixed broodingly upon the fire, eyes that looked strangely young. Peter, silent too, was remembering that day before his grandfather's death; remembering Mrs. Caldwell's presence in the house, and the indescribable sense of some other presence also. He had felt it so strongly, that other presence, that the whole house had seemed to him to be pervaded and thrilled by it. His father was living then, and they two had spent the afternoon in the library, while Mrs. Caldwell had sat with his grandfather in the room above. He had said to his father--he recalled it quite clearly--"I feel something--_something_--in the very air." And his father had appeared startled and had replied, "Perhaps death is in the air." But Peter knew now that it had not been death he had felt; that it had not been death that had filled the air as if with rushing wings and shooting stars and invisible, ineffable glories. It had not been death; it had been love. And glancing at Mrs. Caldwell's musing eyes, something like envy came into his own. He went to her, knelt, and kissed her thin old hand. "After all, you _had_ love," he murmured. And then, "I wish you had been my grandmother. I _wish_ you had." "Oh, Peter!" she cried. "Oh, Peter! Peter!" And suddenly her arms were around his neck. As she clung to him, her tears on his face and her heart's secret in his hands, he almost told her; he almost said what he had resolved never to say. And yet he did not. "He's never loved her," concluded Mrs. Caldwell when he had gone. "There was a moment when he looked as if--but he's never loved Sheila. If he'd loved her--ever--he would have told me." CHAPTER XIII Had Mrs. Caldwell seen Peter pacing the floor of his little hotel room that night, she would have been less certain that he did not love Sheila. She had said to him, "There's nothing so tragic as the truth--when it comes too late!" And it was this tragedy with which Peter grappled now. He had not known that he loved Sheila until Mrs. Caldwell told him that he should have married her; but those words had been for him a revelation; an illumination of the last ten years and more. Suddenly he saw, as if a searchlight had been flung upon them, the innermost, secret depths of his own heart--saw them filled with the image of another man's wife. So swiftly, so entirely without warning had self-knowledge dawned upon him that the cry had been wrung from him, "Why do you tell me this now--when it is too late?" But after the one betraying exclamation, he had put all his strength into the attempt to conceal his discovery. Mrs. Caldwell had spoken of the honor of her generation as of a thing that had not survived, in its purity, to a later one. Yet Peter's sense of honor was too scrupulous to permit him the confession to anyone that he loved another's wife. To the single end of concealment he had set himself through the rest of that interview. He had gone through it as through some nerve-racking nightmare, struggling for self-control as one struggles for safety in dreams of horrid peril. He must not admit that he loved Sheila! He must not admit that he loved her! That was what he had told himself over and over, fighting all the while for the mastery of his face, his voice, lest they proclaim what his lips did not utter. Yet in spite of the struggle, in spite of the sense of awful calamity, of absolute wreckage, that had descended upon him, he had been keenly, piteously conscious of every word that Mrs. Caldwell had said; and he had realized fully the impossibility and the irony of the task she had imposed upon him. Having failed to marry Sheila himself, he must now undertake to keep her in love with the man who had married her! This was all which was required of him; this was _all_! His devotion to Mrs. Caldwell had not faltered; but now, facing his tragedy alone and in the freedom to suffer, he felt a great bitterness toward his old friend for her request. It seemed to him incredibly stupid that she should think for an instant that he, an unmarried man, could assume the post of guardian over a wife's love for her husband. It implied, in the first place, an intimacy which Sheila was far too fine-grained to permit; for however confidential she might become on the subject of her work, she would never be confidential with him in regard to Ted. Whatever he might perceive, she would never give him the opportunity to say to her, "I think that your affection for your husband is waning. Let us put fresh fuel on the fire." It implied, too, that request of Mrs. Caldwell's, a sharing of Sheila's life which Shadyville would never tolerate; which his own awakened heart could not tolerate. He could not be much with Sheila henceforth. For once, Shadyville's narrow restrictions would be right. So, he told himself, Mrs. Caldwell had been stupid. And--unconsciously, of course--she had been cruel. And yet--she was leaving Sheila, leaving her to an essentially alien companion. What wonder that, in her passionate solicitude, she had reached out to the one person whose understanding sympathy she could count upon? What wonder that, however unpractically, she had made an appeal to one whose heart she had divined better than she knew? What wonder, even, that he had made her a sort of promise? "There is nothing I would not do for you or Sheila!" he had said to her; and that was true. There was nothing he would not do for them--if he could. Only--Ted himself must keep what was his own! He had been man enough to win Sheila; now he must keep her! Ted had been man enough to win her; and he, Peter, had not been! That was what he realized now--with measureless self-scorn. _He_ had not even been man enough to know that he loved her; much less man enough to make her his. And now, because he could not make her his, his life was charred to ashes--but his soul was an anguished, unquenchable flame. He had long thought that he knew the worst of himself; his discreditable indolence; his reluctance for effort and conquest; his insufficient courage to follow his emotions into poverty; and that negligible fineness of his which had held him back from advantages that he could not repay with genuine emotion. He had known all that of himself, calling it his worst, and feeling a certain pride in it, too, as in a failure that was of more delicate fiber than the successes of others. But he had never really known the worst of himself until now. For the worst of him was that he had not recognized the true love of his life when it came to him. Those early fancies of his for girls whom he deemed too poor to marry--what had they been but fancies indeed? He had despised himself once or twice for not committing himself, but what was the offense of failing a mere fancy compared to the offense of not recognizing the one true love when it was in his life? He would have had courage enough to follow it to the world's end, in sharpest poverty and hardship, but he had so sheltered himself from any mischance in love that he had not known love when it came. Blind fool that he was, he had not known it when it came! Even now he could not tell just when it had come. Looking back along the years, it seemed to him to have been there always, for every memory of Sheila, since her little girlhood, took him by the throat. He saw her as he--and Ted!--had seen her one April day when she was but twelve years old; a slender, black-haired, dreaming-eyed child, lying upon the pale, spring grass and looking up into the flowering cherry-tree branches above her head; a child who was herself an embodied poem, so akin she was to all of April's magic, to the spring's lovely miracles. He saw her, too, in his class-room, eager, earnest, exquisitely responsive to every perception, every thought of his own; a little girl while he was already a man, and yet his comrade, his comrade in every phase of life had he but discerned and willed it! He saw her as a young girl, with her pure eyes and her generous mouth and her sweet, slender throat; a being still untouched by life, but beautifully ready, touchingly desirous for life's shaping hands. And he saw her as she had been yesterday, walking by his side, the woman at last--yet strangely immature, incomplete. He had thought her immature and incomplete because she had not developed her gift. Now there came to him another thought--bred of all those flashing pictures of her in which she seemed so much his own--the thought that she was incomplete because she had not really loved. It was impossible that she should really love Ted; Ted who could give neither comprehension nor response to the greater part of her nature. It was impossible! He had felt that at the time of her marriage; he remembered now how resentfully! He had felt it when Mrs. Caldwell had shown him--only too convincingly--how that marriage had occurred. He had cried out to Mrs. Caldwell that Sheila must have loved Ted, but he had realized, then, that she had not. And he realized it now. It had been love's hour with her, but it had not been love. It had not been love because he himself, who could have given her such a love as she needed, who could have compelled such a love from her, had failed her. Back and forth he paced in his little room; a creature caged, not by mere walls, but by an irreparable mistake; a creature agonized and helpless. For it was too late for this vision of utter truth now. His life was spoiled--and hers! Yes, he had spoiled her life! For a little while, he forgot his own disaster in contemplating hers. He had said that he was not the right man for her; but with all his soul and all his brain and all his blood, he knew that he was the right man for her. Throughout her whole life she had turned to him with that simple trust which is bred of love, or at least of potential love, alone. She had said to him once--long ago--with an innocent and tender wonder, "There is nothing I cannot tell you, Peter--nothing!" And that had been true--until Ted had lured her into bondage. While she had been free, there had not been a door in her heart or her spirit that would not have opened at his touch. She had been his--his for the taking! And he had not taken her. He had left her to Ted; to Ted for whom so many doors of her nature must be closed forever. He had left her to that most terrible loneliness of all--loneliness in a shared life. The thoughts that she could not speak to Ted--how they must beat about in the prison of her mind; how they must cry for release, for answer! He seemed to feel them against his own temples, those unuttered thoughts that were Sheila's very self; he seemed to feel their ache, their hunger. Nothing would be born of those thoughts now; that gift of expression which had been a part of Sheila's soul would go barren to the grave. This was one of the wrongs he had done her--but it was not the worst. For the worst that had befallen her through him, he told himself, was not that her gift had missed expression, but that she herself had missed the blinding glory of true love. She was immature, she was undeveloped, because he had not made her his. And he wanted to make her his. Oh, my God, he wanted to make her his! His life was charred to ashes, but his soul was the quivering, torturing flame of his passion. It would not be quenched; it would not, in the least, be stilled; it drove him about the shabby little room as if it were literally a flame from which he must try to escape--though he knew he could not. He had broken his heart over the disaster to Sheila's life, but as the night advanced and his passion flared the fiercer in hours securely dark and secret, self rose up within him and shrieked and cursed over his own disaster. He wanted her! He was forty-six years old; not too old to love, but far, far too old to love calmly. The desires of half a lifetime were in him, desires that had lain low and fed upon his years until, in their accumulated strength, they were terrible--wild beasts that tore him, fires that burned him to the bone. And they were strangely compounded of instincts evil and lawless--when felt for another man's wife--and longings wholly innocent and sweet. For the first time he longed for a home. He looked about his tiny, dingy room with a feeling of desolation, seeing in his mind so different a place--a home with her. He longed for simple, innocent things--her face across the table from him at his meals; her little possessions scattered about with his; the sound of her step in the rooms around him. And he longed to reach out in the night and touch her; he longed to reach out in the night and take her into his arms. He wanted--and now soul and flesh merged in one flame--he wanted her to bear him a child. Back and forth he paced, his nails digging into his palms, his teeth cutting his lips, driven by the flame that could never be extinguished, never be satisfied. And all the while, he pictured her in his arms; he pictured her with his child at her breast. Then, suddenly--and quite as plainly as if he were in the room--he saw _Ted's_ child, and he staggered toward a chair and fell, sobbing, into it. How long those horrible sobs shook him he did not know. He felt himself baffled, beaten, inconceivably tortured. He watched the gray morning steal into the room as one who has kept a death vigil beside his best-loved watches it. A new day had come, but there was no hope in it for him. There was no hope for him--though his days should be ever so many. He fell asleep at last, sitting there in his uncomfortable chair, with the cold light of the dawn creeping over his haggard face, and he dreamed that Ted came into the room and said, "Sheila needs you. She needs you to keep alive her love for me." And in the dream, he answered, as he had really answered Mrs. Caldwell the day before, "There is nothing I would not do for her." So vivid was all this that when he opened his eyes and found Ted actually in the room, he was not in the least surprised. "You left your door unlocked," Ted explained apologetically, "and I came on in. Mrs. Caldwell died in the night--and Sheila's gone to pieces. She's been asking for you. Would you mind going to her for a bit?" "There's nothing I would not do for her!" replied Peter, in the words of his dream. And for an instant he thought he still dreamed. "That's awfully good of you. You look done up, Burnett. But if you're equal to it, I'll be grateful to you." As he gazed at Peter, whose face was gray still, though the morning light was now golden, Ted added to himself, "Poor chap! He's growing old." To him it would have been incredible that Peter's scars had been won in youth's own great battle--the battle with love. A certain complacency stole warmly through him then, ruddy and robust as he knew himself to be, a complacency that led him to lay a kindly, solicitous hand on the older man's shoulder; and so intent he was upon his self-satisfied kindliness that he did not see Peter wince at the touch. "You do look done up, Burnett. Maybe I ought not to ask you----" But Peter cut him short. "I'd do anything for Sheila," he repeated. After all, this was left to him, Peter reflected; it was left to him to do things for Sheila. And perhaps he would find nothing she needed of him impossible. The love that had been so dark with the dark and secret hours could have its white vision, too. CHAPTER XIV Peter had felt that he could not be much with Sheila henceforth; that neither his own heart nor conventional Shadyville's standards would permit it. But Sheila herself ordained otherwise, and under the circumstances of her bereavement, Peter could but obey her. Never had Sheila been so lonely as in the weeks immediately following Mrs. Caldwell's death. Whatever reserves of speech had existed between the two in these latter years, there had been no reserve of feeling, of comprehension. Close friends they had always been; and if Sheila was alone in a shared life, so far as her marriage was concerned, she had had a satisfying refuge in her grandmother's sympathetic companionship. Now, with that companionship lost to her, she began to feel, as she had never done before, the limitations of her marriage. Her nervous restlessness increased and sharpened to a positive hunger which Ted's affection and compassion were powerless to alleviate. In her loss and sorrow he could do nothing for her, earnestly as he tried. It was as if he could not reach her, and she realized it with amazement. If he had not compelled from her the greatest passion of which she was capable, he had certainly won love of a kind from her, love warm and sincere, and their life together had bound her to him with such ties of loyalty and habit and common experience, with such dear memories of young tenderness and joy, that she had never doubted the completeness of their union. That he could not reach her now, that he could bring no peace to her in her trouble, seemed to her unexplainable--until she recalled the fact that he and Mrs. Caldwell, though fond of each other, had not been really near each other in spirit. Theirs had been a pleasant, light affection, an amiable, surface relation, bred of the accident of their connection rather than of any genuine attraction between them. Remembering this, Sheila assured herself of its being the reason that Ted could not comfort her for Mrs. Caldwell's death. There was so much in her grandmother that he had never seen, so much of which he could not speak at all. Peter, on the other hand, had been almost as dear to her grandmother as she herself had been--almost as dear and quite as near. He had a thousand sweet and intimate memories of Mrs. Caldwell, and he suffered, in the loss of her, a grief akin to Sheila's own. So to Peter she turned. With the perfect unconsciousness of self that a child might have shown, she made her demands upon him, upon his pity, upon his time; and if he did not come often to see her, she sent for him. She was really strangely unworldly, and in this renewed comradeship with her old friend, she saw nothing for anyone to criticize. Neither did she recognize in it any danger for Peter or herself. Peter had always been there in her life, an accepted and unexciting fact. She did not allow for change in him or herself in the ten years of her marriage, years during which they had met hut seldom and casually. She had simply resumed the way of her girlhood, her childhood, with him, never considering that it might now be surcharged with peril for them; never for an instant fearing that she might some day find herself unable to do without him. She needed him; he was at hand; and she demanded fulfillment of her need. He brought her the consolation that Ted could not bring her; he gave her aching heart peace. Repeatedly he displayed a disposition to efface himself, after the first days of her mourning were over, but she would not have it so. In her innocence she still insisted on his frequent presence, and was sometimes puzzled and hurt that he evinced so little gladness in being with her. That he had the look of one harassed almost beyond endurance, she did finally perceive, but she understood it not at all, and at last dismissed it from her mind as something outside her province. Men had worries, worries about money and trivial things like that, she reflected. Peter was probably bothered about something of the sort, something that did not greatly matter after all. A real trouble he would have brought to her; of that she was sure. So the winter passed in a close companionship between them, and it was to Peter's honor that she knew neither her own heart nor his at the end of it. Ted it was, and not Peter, who made the situation impossible of continuance. Ted it was who plucked from it, at least for Sheila, its concealing innocence. He had been cordial to Peter; at first he had even been grateful to him, seeing Sheila comforted by him. But after a time he grew tired of Peter's face at his dinner table two or three times a week; he wearied of finding Peter in his little sitting-room whenever he came home particularly early; he sickened, with a sudden and profound distaste, of having Peter drawn into all the intimate concerns and happenings of his own and Sheila's life. Not for a moment did he suspect Sheila of any sentimental inclinations toward Peter, for he fully appreciated and trusted her fidelity. But he thought her behavior foolish and imprudent, and in spite of his trust in her, he _was_ jealous of this friendship which so absorbed and satisfied her. Why should she require a man's friendship at all? Why should she require anyone but himself and Eric? And having once questioned thus, his patience speedily gave way, and a climax ensued. "Sheila," he said to her one day, a day when he had come home to discover Peter reading Maeterlinck to her, "Sheila, why on earth do you have Burnett here so much?" "Because he's my friend--my dear old friend," answered Sheila, her eyes clear with the surprise of a clean conscience. "Wouldn't a woman friend do as well?" Ted was trying to hold himself in check, but something in his words or his tone made Sheila stare, and he repeated, with a touch of asperity, "Wouldn't a woman friend do as well?" "The only woman friend I have whom I really care for is Charlotte--and she won't be here until April." "Then you'd better wait for her. You'd better wait for her--and see less of Burnett." "What do you mean?" she asked. And now her puzzled eyes grew steel-cold with intuitive resentment. "I mean that you'll get yourself talked about if you go on as you're doing at present. A married woman can't be so much with a man not her husband _without_ being talked about." "That is absurd!" she retorted, and her voice was as cold as her eyes; it put miles between them. "Peter has always been my friend. He's been like one of my family to me all my life. He's more than ever like a relative to me now that all my own people are dead. It's absurd to suggest that our friendship could be so misinterpreted. It's _low_ to think of such a thing!" "Low or not, it's _wise_ to think of such things. You'll get yourself talked about if I let you. But I'm your natural protector, and I _won't_ let you. I forbid you to have Burnett here as you've been doing. _I forbid you_!" "I am to tell him that?" she inquired scornfully. "You're to tell him nothing. He'll soon stop coming if he's not asked. The fact is, I don't believe he's wanted to come so often. You're the one to blame, Sheila. You've invited him--you've sent for him when he hasn't come of his own accord." And then, as they faced each other in their unaccustomed hostility, Ted added, with a final flare of wrath, "_You've run after him--that's what you've done_!" As if he had struck her, Sheila's face went livid, then scarlet. She opened her lips to answer, but no sound came. So, for an instant, they looked at each other, silent, motionless, transfixed by this horror that had risen between them, this horror of anger--almost of hate. Then Ted took a step toward her; already he was contrite: "I didn't mean that. I lost my temper and went too far. Forgive me, Sheila!" But she did not say that she forgave him. She only said: "Never speak to me of this again--never in all our lives!" And then she turned from him and walked out of the room, leaving him to feel himself far more at fault than he had ever believed her to be. But though her pride, her insulted innocence, had carried her unbroken through the interview, she was in reality cruelly humiliated. That final sentence of Ted's anger--"You've run after him--that's what you've done!"--rang in her ears for days afterward, shaming her as only the very proud can be shamed. It was not true of her, she told herself; it was not true--but it was hideous that it could have been said of her nevertheless. That Peter had never thought it of her, she was confident. It was impossible that Peter should misunderstand her in anything. But she dreaded seeing him with the accusation in her mind. She could not meet him now without an acute and painful self-consciousness. Her happy friendship with him was changed, was forever spoiled. At last she wrote to him, telling him not to come to see her for awhile--not to come until she should bid him. After she had sent the note, however, she suffered more than before, feeling that she had brought constraint between them, that she had suggested to Peter, by her request that he stay away from her, the same unworthy thoughts about them that Ted had flung at her. Far, far worse than meeting him was the growing certainty that she had made him self-conscious about their friendship, too; that she had shown it to him as possible of degrading misconstruction. For he would read from her note, carefully though she had refrained from reasons or explanations, just what had happened. Peter would never comfortably miss a thing like that; sensitive and subtle to a degree, he could never be spared by mere omissions, by lack of plain and definite statement. It was unbearable that such a situation should have come about. Not for a moment did she forgive Ted for creating it. But she lived on with him in cool outward harmony, realizing that in marriage one may have to endure hurt and disappointment, and being much too high-bred a woman to take her revenge in petty breaches of courtesy. That she was disappointed in Ted, as well as hurt by him, she now admitted to herself for the first time. It is curious how some final and serious issue between two people living together will cast a light on all the past; will disclose anew, and more flagrantly, lapses and shortcomings and injuries that had once seemed trifles and been ignored or condoned or forgotten. Thus Sheila now looked backward along the years of her marriage and saw how Ted had failed her in understanding, in generosity, in any selfless consideration and love. Small instances of his selfishness recurred to her and promptly became as signposts directing her to greater ones. His care for his creature comfort, his innocent vanities, his rather smug pleasure in his success--things which she had smiled over with a tender lenience--served now to remind her that he had never taken any account of her preferences, of her independent possibilities, of her talent; that he had not, at any time, made the least effort to comprehend or share her interests. He had used her in his own work, and he had dismissed hers with a wave of his hand, as he might have pushed away a child's toy. Whatever he had discerned of her mental quality and power, he had regarded only in its relation to himself; if she had been wonderful for him, she had been wonderful as his helpmate, not as the individual. He had wanted her to be wife and mother only, and he had accomplished that. With anything else in her nature, in her life, he had had neither tolerance nor patience nor sympathy. Of course she went too far in her arraignment of him. She forgot, in her sudden bitterness, the warmth and kindness of his heart, the staunchness and integrity of his character, his desire and attempt to shield her from all things harsh and hard--even though he shielded her in his own particular way!--and the very real sincerity of his love for her. She forgot that, by his own standards, his own conception of a husband's duty, he had honestly and steadfastly done his best for her. She saw her whole life fed to his selfishness as to an insatiable monster; and most terrible of all, she knew that she saw too late. Their marriage was made. As a husband Ted was formed and could not be changed. If, in the beginning, she had had a clearer conception of his nature; if she had had a stronger sense of her own rights as an individual and the courage to assert those rights, everything would have been different. She would never have been subdued to mere wifehood and motherhood if that had been. She would never--she saw it now!--she would never have made that compact of renunciation with God! It was to the matter of that compact she came at last--inevitably. And she said to herself, over and over now, that she would never have made it if she had known herself and Ted better in the beginning. She would never have made it because she would not have seen her work as a guilty thing. Nor had her work been a guilty thing! No woman watched her child every moment; at least no woman did so who could have the relief of a nurse. She might as readily have been paying an afternoon call or playing bridge when Eric was exposed to scarlet fever. It was just an accident that she had been writing then instead of doing any one of a dozen other things of which Ted would have approved. Yes, it was an accident that she had been writing then, she repeated to herself. But back of that accident had been her morbid conscience and Ted's narrow-mindedness; and together they had translated it into a crime. Thus she had been driven into the compact with God for Eric's life--the compact that had ruined her own life. Her morbid conscience and Ted's selfish narrow-mindedness had wrought together for the frustration of her gift, of her happiness. And it was upon Ted that she put far the greater share of the blame. Oddly enough, though she saw her husband so plainly now; though she censured his faults so unsparingly and regretted so passionately her own mistakes with him--mistakes of weakness, of cowardly submission, she told herself--she did not, even now, take the final step of considering what might have been if she had not married him; of what might have been if she had married some one altogether more congenial and unselfish. It was Charlotte who thought of that for her. CHAPTER XV It was toward the end of April that Charlotte arrived in Shadyville. She had never lived in Shadyville since her first flight from it to boarding-school. After school had come New York and Paris, where she had studied singing; and for the last five years she had been on the concert stage, filling engagements all over the continent--much to the distress of her family who, though inordinately proud of her, could not understand why any woman with plenty of money at her disposal should work. Charlotte had always decided things for herself, however, and once convinced that her happiness lay in the active pursuit of her art, no one could dissuade her from it. Certainly no penniless woman could have worked harder or with more zest than she. Musician to her finger-tips, and with a remarkably beautiful, silver-clear soprano voice, she had also the modern woman's desire to earn her living; to justify her existence by doing something well. An independent and a busy life was necessary to her, and it was impossible to see her without realizing that she had chosen wisely for herself. To Shadyville she had always seemed a brilliant figure; now, as a successful professional singer, she was a dazzling one. Even Sheila was a little awed by her, although the two had kept up their childhood's friendship during all these years of separation and of such diverse interests. Every now and then Charlotte descended on Shadyville for a brief visit to her parents, and then she invariably took up with Sheila their dropped threads and wove a new flower into the pattern of their affection. On this occasion she came to Sheila with more than her usual warmth, divining what a grief Mrs. Caldwell's death must have been to her, and she watched her friend, as the days passed, with an increasing solicitude. To all appearances everything was well with the Kent household. Sheila and Ted seemed to be on the best of terms; Eric had grown into a fine, healthy, handsome little lad, particularly fond of his proud mother; prosperity, as Shadyville measured it, fairly shone from the charming and well-ordered little house. Certainly all appeared to be well with Sheila, yet Charlotte was not satisfied about her. Six months had passed since Mrs. Caldwell's death, and though Charlotte allowed for the sincerity and depth of Sheila's mourning, she rejected a sorrow already somewhat softened by time as sufficient cause for the change she found in Sheila. There was something else, something of an altogether different nature, that was responsible for the hunger of Sheila's eyes, the restlessness of her manner. Charlotte remembered, with a rush of indignation, Sheila's unfulfilled ambitions, her wasted gift. That was the trouble; of course that baffled gift of Sheila's was the trouble. And something must be done about it. She was with Sheila when she came to this conclusion, and immediately she acted on it, impulsive, decisive creature that she was. "What of your writing, Sheila dear? I can't recall your speaking of it to me for a long, long while." "Oh--_that's_ over!" replied Sheila, with unhappy emphasis. "But why?" It was a warm May afternoon and they were sitting on Sheila's veranda. Out on the lawn Eric and another boy of his own age frolicked about like a couple of animated puppies. Sheila pointed to them: "You remember what Mrs. North said--that a woman couldn't be both mother and artist?" "I told you that wasn't true!" "It has been true for me, Charlotte." "It needn't be now. While Eric was a baby, it may have been true for you, but there's no reason in the world why it should be now." "Well, it _is_ true for me now--it will be true for me always. And yet----" And then, because disillusion and bitterness were strong upon Sheila, Charlotte got the whole story out of her, from the first revelation of Ted's attitude toward a married woman's art to the final climax of Eric's illness, her self-blame and her renunciation of her work. Even while she told it, she knew that she would reproach herself afterward for disloyalty to Ted, but the sheer relief of confiding it to a sympathetic listener was too much for her scruples. "I never heard of anything so outrageous in my life!" exclaimed Charlotte, when the story was ended. "It's barbarous--_barbarous_!" Not a word of her final clear vision of her husband, her belated disappointment in him, had Sheila uttered. For that at least she had been too loyal. But already she repented having betrayed his views in regard to the married woman-artist. So well she knew what Charlotte must think of them, indeed, that she now felt impelled to a defense: "Of course it hasn't been Ted's fault--you mustn't feel that he's to blame." "Mustn't I?" asked Charlotte drily. And then, "My dear girl, he _has_ been to blame--absolutely, unforgivably to blame. It makes me wild to think of his narrow-minded, pig-headed selfishness. And that you should have given in to it--! Oh, Sheila, Sheila, where is your independence, your sense of your rights as an individual, a human being? Are you a cave woman--that you should be just your husband's docile chattel?" And Charlotte sprang from her chair and began to pace the veranda, urged by the fierce energy of her anger. "I said it had been Ted's fault--this spoiling of your life," she went on presently, "but it's been your fault, too, Sheila. It's been your fault for giving in to him." "But," pleaded Sheila, "I didn't give in to _Ted_. I gave in to circumstances. Seeing that Eric was ill--that he might die--because I'd neglected him in order to write was what conquered me. That was what drove me to the vow to renounce my work--if Eric was spared." Charlotte came and stood before her then: "Sheila, you know as well as I do that you'd never have made that vow if the sense of Ted's disapproval, his condemnation, hadn't been working on you. You know that it was merely an accident that you were writing when Eric was exposed to scarlet fever. You know that if you _hadn't_ been writing, you would have been reading or sleeping or paying calls, and that if you'd been doing any of those things, you wouldn't have thought yourself guilty because you'd taken an hour off from the hardest job a woman has--the mother-job--even though Eric did suffer by it. You know you'd have recognized that there are just so many cruel mischances in life, and that Eric's illness was one of them. You know that it was _Ted_, back of circumstances, that influenced you to make your vow of renunciation!" It was what Sheila had so recently told herself, and she could not refute it now. Looking into her downcast, acquiescent face, Charlotte continued: "As for the vow--that's nonsense! It's mere morbid, hysterical nonsense. God never exacted it of you. He's never held you to it, you may be sure. If He's wanted anything of you, He's wanted you to use the talent He's given you. If you've been at all at fault, it's for wasting your talent. You _have_ wasted it--you've wasted it to please Ted. You've wasted it because you've allowed yourself to be intimidated and bullied by Ted. That's the whole trouble!" "Oh, Charlotte--," began Sheila. "I've spoken the truth," insisted Charlotte firmly. "You can't deny a word I've said." And then, flinging out her hands with a gesture of despair, "The worst of it is that it's too late to help matters now. You'll go on in the same way--letting Ted bully you--to the end of your days. There's never been any chance for you with him. Your chance was with Peter Burnett. It's Peter you should have married!" "You must not say that," objected Sheila quickly--and a little unsteadily. "You must not say that, Charlotte. It's ridiculous. And it's dreadful, too. Ted and I love each other--we _do_ love each other!" But Charlotte was no longer inclined for argument. She answered Sheila's protest with a smile--no more. Suddenly she seemed to be through with the subject of Sheila's life, and perching upon the railing of the veranda, she looked off into green distances with a gaze singularly vague and pensive for her. Sheila watched her admiringly, noting her erect slenderness, her spirited, keenly intelligent face, the clear blue of her eyes, the warm gold of her hair in the sunshine. "It's you Peter should marry," said Sheila lightly, when the silence between them had lengthened uncomfortably. "You'd be just the wife for him, Charlotte!" Charlotte turned toward her, and there was no mistaking her earnestness and her sincerity. "I'd marry him to-morrow!" she cried. "Oh, Charlotte, I never _dreamed--my dear_!----" "Don't be sorry for me," Charlotte interrupted warningly. "Don't be sorry for me. I may marry him yet!" And a moment later, she was swinging down the street, as serene and independent as if she had never known--much less, confessed--the pain of unrequited love. As Sheila looked after her, she noticed again the gold of her hair, the beautiful, free carriage of her shoulders--and now she felt no pleasure in them. Rather was she conscious of a sharp little pang of envy, and with it, sounded the echo of Charlotte's last words--"I may marry him yet!" Charlotte was a splendid, gallant creature; she _might_ marry Peter. And then Sheila, feeling that envious pang again and still more sharply, demanded of herself in swift terror: "Am I jealous?--_am I jealous of Charlotte because Peter may come to love her_?" Oh, it couldn't be that!--it couldn't! It was impossible that she should be jealous about any man but her husband. For she and Ted loved each other--they _did_ love each other, whatever had been their mistakes with each other. She called Eric to her, and he left his playmate on the lawn and came, smiling. She caught him to her, with a sort of frightened passion: "Kiss mother, darling!" He looked back over his shoulder at the boy who was waiting for him. "With him there?" he inquired reluctantly, already shy of caresses before his own sex. But Sheila, usually the most considerate and tactful of mothers, amazed him now by ignoring his hint. Still with that terrified passion, she kissed him not once, but many times--her son and Ted's! Her son and Ted's! Then, leaving him standing there in his astonished embarrassment, she went into the house and up to her own room, there to sit and stare before her at things unseen, but all too visible to her. So Ted had been right after all; right in objecting to her being so much with Peter. It _had_ been unwise; moreover, it had been wrong, all that companionship of the past winter. For it had brought her to this; it had brought her so to depend upon Peter that she could not be happy unless he was often with her; it had brought her so to care for him that she could not think of him in relation to another woman without jealousy. It had brought her to this--and she was a wife and mother! She had been ashamed when Ted had told her that she would get herself talked about in connection with Peter, and still more ashamed when he had accused her of "running after" Peter. But that had been an endurable shame, for at the heart of it had been self-respect, the indestructible pride of perfect innocence. But the shame that surged over her now was the agonizing shame of guilt, the shame of utter self-scorn, self-loathing. She--a wife, a mother!--cared for a man not her husband; cared for him in a way that made it torment to her to think of his marrying another woman. Hideous and unbelievable though it was, she cared for him so much. She had cared for him even while she was declaring to Charlotte--and later, to herself--that she loved her husband. She cared for Peter--even now, facing the truth and admitting it, she would not use the word, love--she cared for Peter, and she was Ted's wife, the mother of Ted's son. Not even the touch of that little son had been powerful to blind her. She cared!--she _cared_! For a moment her face went down into her hands, and the hopeless grief of unfortunate love mastered her, tore her throat with its sobs, burned her eyes with its bitter tears. But presently her head was up again, and with shaking fingers she was bathing her eyes, concealing as best she could the ravages of that instant's surrender. She had no rights in this thing; she had not even the right to suffer. Ted or Eric might come in at any moment, and they must not see that she had wept; she was theirs. She had no right to suffer. There could be only one right course in this; to fight, to crush out of herself what she was not free to feel, to put between herself and Peter some barrier that could not be destroyed. There was Ted, there was Eric--they should have been barriers enough. But they had not been barriers enough, and there must be another. There must be something--some one--more, to keep her safe, to hold her heart, her thoughts, from this forbidden haven. There must be something--some one--else--. And then her mind leaped to Charlotte. Charlotte loved Peter; she had practically admitted that. Well, she should marry him--as she'd said that she might do. Though it broke her own heart, Charlotte should marry Peter. She herself would arrange it. She did not pause to consider that Peter might not want to marry Charlotte, that he might not be happy in doing so. She did not pause, yet, to question--she did not dare to question, indeed--whether Peter turned her own love. She was intent upon but one end: to protect herself from what she felt for him, from what she would continue to feel for him as long as he was free. With this haste and need and fear upon her, she wrote to him, asking him to come to her the next afternoon. It would be their first meeting since Ted's ban upon their friendship, and she realized, with fresh humiliation, that in spite of everything, she was glad of this chance to be with Peter. She realized that she could scarcely wait until the morrow should bring him to her. Because she was thus glad, she almost decided not to send her note after all, and then--lest she would not!--she hurried out and mailed it herself. Somehow she got through dinner and the evening. She heard Eric's lessons and tucked him away for the night with a bedtime story and the kisses that, when no one was looking on, he was eager enough to receive. She listened to Ted's anecdotes of the day and responded with a mechanical vivacity. Then, at last, she was hidden by the night, freed by the night--though she lay by Ted's side. She had no right to suffer, but she did suffer now. As Peter had done months before, she suffered through the darkness. But with her there was no yielding to dear visions of a forbidden love, as there had been with him; there was no picturing of life as it might have been with him; no thrilling to the imaginary caresses and delights of a passion which, in her married self, was wholly unworthy. Rather was the night a long battle with the love that it so shamed her to find within herself. Thus, in this distress of her soul, she was at least spared the physical torture which Peter had endured. Not for an instant was her love for Peter translated, in her mind, into physical terms; she neither imagined nor desired its touch; in her guilt there was a strange innocence--an innocence characteristic of her. She would go through life unaware of the grosser aspects of things; under any circumstances, however equivocal, she would be curiously pure. In one thing only did she fall now to the level of less idealistic beings; in spite of her struggle to the contrary, she wondered, at last, if Peter loved her. She dared and stooped, in the privacy of the night, to wonder that. When Peter came to her the next afternoon, he found her haggard, but very quiet, very calm. Beneath her calmness, however, he divined the stir of troubled depths, and he carefully kept to the surface; ignored his long banishment; took up one impersonal topic after another for her entertainment; and was altogether so much the safe, unromantic, delightful old friend of the family that, but for the hammering of her pulses, he would have persuaded Sheila that the distress of the past night was a mere, ugly dream. But because she could not look at him without a catch of her breath; because she could not speak to him without first pausing to steady her voice; because all her tranquility was but desperate and painful effort, she knew the night was no dream, but even more of a reality than she had thought. "Peter," she said at last, with attempted lightness, "Peter, I'm going to meddle with your destiny." "What do you mean?" he asked, smiling at her. That smile of his almost cost her her self-control, so dear it was to her. But she went on bravely enough: "I'm going to secure you a wife." He threw up his hands in dismay. "Don't try," he pleaded. "You could never find a wife to suit me!" "But I _have_ found one who's sure to suit you." "You've actually selected her?--you have her waiting for me?" She nodded, trying to smile back at him now with a deceiving gayety. "May I know who the fair lady is?" "Of course. She's--Charlotte! She is just the woman for you, Peter." "Never," he said promptly. "She is charming and clever and handsome and kind, _but_--she's not the woman for me." "Peter"--and Sheila dropped her pretense of playfulness--"Peter, she's all that you need. She'd make a great man of you." "At this late date?" he inquired a little ruefully. "She'd make a great man of me at forty-six?" "Yes, she would. Charlotte's very--strong. She could accomplish anything she wished. She'd do much for a man--with a man--if she loved him." "I have no reason to believe that she loves me," said Peter. "Perhaps I shouldn't tell you, but _I_ have reason to believe that--she loves you." He leaned forward and searchingly studied her face: "I'm sure you are mistaken. But--granting that Charlotte may love me--is it for her sake that you want me to marry her?" "For hers--and for yours. I want to see you in a home of your own, Peter--with a wife to love you, with children. I want--I want you to be happy!" "I would not be happy if I married Charlotte." "Why, Peter?" "Because I do not love her." "You would come to love her." "No, Sheila--I am not free to do that." "Do you--do you love some one else?" And her voice shook now in spite of her attempt to keep it firm. "Yes," he answered quietly, "I love some one else." "Some one you can--marry?" She could not look at him, but question him she must. "No--not some one I can marry." The room was very still for a moment; but she seemed to hear the sorrow of his voice echoing and re-echoing through it. "You will get over that in time," she whispered. "I will never get over it," he answered. And now she looked at him. She had wondered if he loved her; looking into his sad eyes, she knew. A sob swelled her throat and broke from her lips. And then they sprang up and faced each other. So they stood, gazing at each other. And though they neither spoke nor touched each other, the heart of each was clear to the other--more clear, indeed, than speech or touch could have made them. So they stood, looking into each other's eyes, and unbearable pain and unbelievable ecstasy were mingled in those few, silent moments. Then the ecstasy died; the pain became cruelly intense. And more than pain shone dark in Sheila's eyes; fear crouched there, and Peter saw it. She loved him--and she was afraid of him. More intolerably than anything else, that hurt him--that she should have to be afraid of him. "Peter," she said--and her voice trembled so that he could scarcely understand her words, "Peter, I want you to marry Charlotte for--_for my sake_." And her fear stared at him out of her eyes, stared at him and implored him. She was asking him to put Charlotte between them. He realized that now. She was telling him that Ted and Eric were not enough to keep them apart. "I will do it--or something which will answer as well," he assured her gently. "You may trust me for that, Sheila." And then, still without touching her, without even looking at her again, he was gone. He was gone and everything was ended for them--for them who had not known even the beginnings. CHAPTER XVI Peter had engaged to dine with Charlotte that night, but after his talk with Sheila, his first impulse was to excuse himself. It seemed to him impossible to get back, at once, to the safe level of everyday life, of commonplace affairs. It seemed impossible, too, to meet Charlotte without betraying embarrassment. But after an hour's solitude, he had sufficient command of himself to fill the appointment, and he appeared at the Davis house with all his usual placidity of manner. After all, he had to go on as if nothing had happened, and it was as well, he told himself, to begin immediately. That was, perhaps, the worst of secret disasters like his and Sheila's--that one had to go on as if nothing had happened; that one had to wear, from the first, a bright mask of concealment. But it was, in a way, the best, too--this necessity for taking up tangible, practical matters, for continuing duties, obligations, enterprises that, perforce, diverted at least a part of one's mind from the contemplation of an inner tragedy. There was effort in having to talk, to listen intelligently, to laugh, but there was relief, too, and the sense of safety that, when adrift on chaotic seas, one feels at the touch of something solid. So he talked and listened and laughed with conscientious care. And watching Charlotte across the dinner table, he considered Sheila's plea. As he had said to Sheila, he thought Charlotte clever and handsome and kind. Whole-heartedly he liked and admired her; he enjoyed her; he was stimulated by her. He was even prepared to admit that, if she would marry him, she might actually make something of him, middle-aged though he was. His attainments, his really brilliant qualities of mind, were there to build with--and she was, by nature, a builder. He could see her taking hold of his life and creating out of its hitherto negative stuff a thing worth while. He could see her thus active for him and with him, and feel a certain pleasure in the picture. To think of himself as dear to a woman like Charlotte could not but touch a man pleasantly and warmly. And yet, thus touched, thus drawn, he knew still that his whole-hearted admiration and liking would never be followed by whole-hearted love. His passion for Sheila had gone too deep to be effaced. Unhappily for himself, he was not one of those whose heart can be enlisted sincerely more than once. He looked across the table at Charlotte and noted the strong, rich gold of her hair, the dark, definite blue of her eyes, the gracious lines of her shoulders; he heard her clear, positive, courageous voice, her blithe laughter; he looked and listened and thought of her as his--and his heart clung to its dream of a woman far less compellingly vital and lovely. Against Charlotte's vivid reality, he set a little ghost with a pale face and wistful gray eyes and a plaintive voice, a little ghost too sensitive to be quite strong, too shy to be self-confident and self-sufficient, too tender to be altogether brave; and with this very sensitiveness, this shyness, this uncourageous tenderness, the little ghost held him. She held him because her eyes were wistfully gray instead of triumphantly blue, because her voice was hauntingly plaintive instead of firmly buoyant; she held him because in her soul there was a strain of weakness, of timidity, of childlike helplessness and innocence that to him was at once piteous and exquisite. She held him by all those qualities--and shortcomings--most unlike Charlotte. He saw that Charlotte was, as Sheila had asserted, just the woman for a man of his indolent, dallying temperament; he saw that he needed such a woman. But he saw, too, that Sheila needed him, that she had always needed him, that she would always need him; and from that consciousness of her need he could not wrench himself free. He would never be free of his little, pale ghost. If he married Charlotte, it would be for Sheila's sake. _If_ he married Charlotte----! Well, he might marry Charlotte. Sheila had said that he could, and perhaps she had been right. In these later years, since Charlotte had been a woman, a cordial friendship had sprung up between them. Whenever she had been in Shadyville, he had been much with her, and in her absences there had been letters. For several years, whether in Shadyville or away, she had been a presence in his life; they had many tastes and interests in common; she was kind to him--encouragingly kind. It seemed probable that he could marry her; at least there was ground for trying to do so. Yet how could he offer less than his best to a creature so fine, so honest, so loyal as he knew Charlotte to be? That something weighed on his mind, that he was observing her with unwonted gravity, Charlotte perceived before the dinner was over. Afterward she took him with her into the garden and they sat down there in the mild spring night, surrounded by flowers, regarded by innumerable stars. The night, the flowers, the stars, all appeared to be conspiring for Charlotte. They created an atmosphere of poetry for her; they threw over her a glamour that, with her obvious type of beauty, her downright and positive nature, she had missed. It was as if the night, with its stars and flowers, were striving to invest her with that subtler allurement which, in Sheila, was so poignant and enchanting to Peter. And instinctively Charlotte took up the night's cue; sat a little in shadow; spoke with unusual softness. "What have you been thinking of so seriously all evening?" she asked. "I've been wondering," said Peter, "whether a man whose heart is committed, in spite of himself, to a hopeless love, has any right to marry." Charlotte did not answer at once; she stirred, moved deeper into protecting shadow. "That depends, I believe, on whether he's sure that the love his heart is committed to is really hopeless--will be hopeless always," she replied finally. "In the case I was considering--the man is sure of that." "Then he would get over his unfortunate love in time--wouldn't he? Ill-fated love does not often last forever. Life--life is more merciful than that, isn't it?" It was his chance with her; he realized that she was giving it to him--giving it to him understandingly and deliberately. He had only to agree that an "ill-fated" love--that his ill-fated love--would die at last. But he could not take his chance like that. He could not be less than honest with her. "He would never get over it altogether," he said. "The woman he could not marry would always be--dearest to him. And, granting that, would it be fair for him to ask another woman to take what was left of--of his affection? Would it be fair to ask her to take--a spoiled life?" "She might feel that what was left of his life was well worth having--the woman he _could_ marry. She might feel that--even if he had suffered much, missed what he supremely wanted--his life need not be spoiled after all. She might feel that she could prevent its being spoiled. If he were frank with her, and she felt like that about it, I think it would be fair for him to marry her--perfectly honorable and fair." "It could not be happiness for her," argued Peter. "Perhaps not. Perhaps she could do without happiness." "That would require a great love of her," said Peter gravely, "a great love for a man who could not give a great love in return." "Yes," she agreed, her voice very low now, but as clear and steady as ever, "yes, it would require a great love from her. But it is not impossible to find a woman who can feel a great love without hope of a full return." She was still in her sheltering shadow, but upon Peter's end of the garden seat the moonlight, unchecked by the trees, streamed white and strong. She looked into his face, fully revealed to her now, and she realized, before he spoke, that he was going to refuse her sacrifice; she realized it because she saw in his face a deeper emotion for her than he had ever shown before. He loved her not enough--and yet too much!--to marry her. She saw that and was prepared for his next words. "To such a woman the man I have in mind could not give less than his best," he said. And there was no longer any question, any hesitancy in his tone. "To one so generous no man could be ungenerous--I should have known that! Perhaps," he went on, with a note of distress and apology, "perhaps such things should not be talked about. Perhaps it is--humiliating----" "To me the truth could never be humiliating," she answered, with quick reassurance. "Then it is best to speak it?" he pleaded, as if for self-justification. "Then it is best to speak it, after all? For it does make things--plain; it does show one the right, the decent course." "It's best to speak it," she assented kindly; and she held out her hand to him. He lifted her hand and kissed it. And when he spoke again, his voice faltered: "When a man knows a woman like you, Charlotte, he sees that happiness--or unhappiness--doesn't matter so much as he's thought. There are other things--better things--to live for. You've found them--and now I'm going to find them, too, my dear." So, for the second time that day, Peter went from a woman who loved him. The night and the stars and the flowers had done their best to quicken his pulses; to blur his vision of the truth; to blunt his sense of absolute, unswerving honor. But in the end Charlotte herself had defeated what the night was fain to do for her with its witchery; she had defeated the night's intents with her measureless honesty and generosity--to which Peter's own generosity and honesty could but respond. To use a woman like Charlotte as a barrier between himself and another woman was impossible to him. Neither for Sheila's safety, nor for any benefit to himself, could he do a thing so base. He recognized now that marriage with Charlotte--even without that utter love he had given to Sheila--might be a gracious, even a happy destiny for him. But having found her so ready to sacrifice herself, he could not sacrifice her. He could not rob her of the chance of being loved as she could love. Such a love might come to her some day; he could but leave her free for it. As he walked homeward along the silent, wide street, other gardens than Charlotte's flung their fragrance to him; the night still whispered to him of the sweetness of being loved, of all those compensations from which he had turned away. But he was not allured; he was not vanquished. His course stretched before him--through the befogging, unmanning sweetness--to daylight and self-respect and an uncompromising sincerity of life. It stretched before him farther than he could descry--as far as the great fighting, suffering, achieving world. Mrs. Caldwell had once told him that he had never grown up, and that some day he would have to grow up; that there could be no escape for him. She had been right about it. Until now he had not grown up. Not even in his love for Sheila and the pain of it, had he grown up. He had been like a child playing in a garden, and though the sweetest rose there had torn him with its thorns, he had stayed on in the garden. But now he was a child no longer; there had been no escape from growing up. He had put it off a long time--more than half his lifetime perhaps--but he had not been able to put it off forever. And now, yielding at last, he was willing to leave his garden; he was willing to go out into the world of men. As he neared the hotel where he lived, he met Ted Kent, quitting his office--going home to Sheila. At once Ted stopped and put out his hand. For in his mind no hostility against Peter had lingered. Indeed, on the occasion when he had upbraided Sheila about Peter, he had felt very little animosity toward Peter himself, and several months having passed in a strict compliance to his wishes on Sheila's part, the whole matter had almost vanished from his memory. His was not a nature to cherish resentment, to brood over fancied wrongs; he liked to be at peace with all his fellow-men and upon genial terms with them. He was animated by a distinct cordiality toward Peter now, as he extended his hand to him. "Been calling on the girls, Burnett?" he inquired jovially. "On one of them," admitted Peter. "Well, it's been a long while since I did anything like that--a long while. And I'm not sorry either. There's nothing like your slippers and your pipe and your paper at home! When I have to work late, as I did to-night, it's a real hardship. Have a drink with me before I go on?" "Thanks," said Peter pleasantly, "but I'm in a bit of a hurry. I've got to pack up. I'm leaving town in the morning." "Leaving town? For a vacation?" "No, for work. I've had a job offered me in New York. Brentwood, of the Brentwood Publishing Company, has been asking me to come to them for years, and I've finally decided to go." "High-brows, aren't they--the Brentwood Company?" Ted questioned, somewhat impressed. "Perhaps you'd call them so. They publish real literature--a good many translations; that's what they want me for." "Well, well," pursued Ted, still detaining him, "and so you're going to leave little old Shadyville for good! And after spending all your days here, too--after making so many friends. I believe you'll miss us, Burnett!" "I'm sure I shall," agreed Peter, with patient courtesy. "Then why go? It may be a good change for you in ways, but I'm convinced there's more to be said against it than for it. For the life of me, I can't see why you're doing it." "No," said Peter, a little drily, "you wouldn't see, Kent. But I'm sure it's the only thing to do. Tell Sheila I think so, please, and that I send her my good-byes." "You aren't going to tell her good-bye yourself?" "I'm afraid I can't." And as Peter spoke, he was acutely conscious of all that Ted did not see, of all that he would never understand. "I'm afraid I can't--I start early in the morning." "All right! You know what's best for yourself, no doubt. Sorry you can't say good-bye to Sheila, though--she cares a lot for you, as much as if you were one of the family. I'll give her your message, but she'll be disappointed that you didn't deliver it yourself. Good luck to you, old man, and don't forget us!" And shaking hands again, Ted went cheerfully on his homeward way, serenely unaware of the sorrow--and of the irony!--that had confronted him from Peter's quiet eyes. Up in his little room, Peter began to carry out his sudden plan for leaving Shadyville. It was true that he had had an offer, more than once, from Brentwood. Brentwood had been a chum of his at college, a friend who had never ceased to remember and appreciate him. The offer was still open, and it solved Peter's problem. He had told Sheila that he would marry Charlotte or do something else that would answer as well. He found that something else in going away. He had not many possessions; shabby clothes--with an air to them; shabby books--that shone with their inner grace. The books took longest, and when he had finished packing them, it was dawn. He went to his window and watched the slow coming of the light, and in that silent, gray hour, he felt himself more alone than he had ever been. Everything seemed to have been stripped from him; this town where he had been born, and where generations of his family had been born before him; his friends; the little room, so dismantled now, that for years had been his home-place; all these--and his hope of happy love. He remembered how, in his early, romantic boyhood, he had hoped for that--for happy love; and now that hope was gone and everything was gone with it. Everything was gone because of Sheila; he had given up everything that she might be safe, that she might have peace--the peace, at least, of being unafraid. He thought of her now with a calm tenderness--as if, having given so much for her peace, he had somehow gained peace for himself, too. And then he thought of Charlotte, and it was for Charlotte, not for Sheila, that tears--a man's slow, difficult tears--forced themselves into his eyes. But Charlotte was strong. It was her strength that had roused strength in him; strength to leave the garden, to escape the insinuating, ensnaring sweetness of the night and go forth into the daylight world of men. And just then the first ray of sunlight touched his window sill, touched it and stole within the room. The day had come; and though he was forty-six years old and not born for fighting, a sudden elation seized upon Peter's sad heart--as if the finger of the sunlight had touched it, too. CHAPTER XVII Sheila had thought herself acquainted with loneliness in the days immediately following her grandmother's death--days when she had had the consolation and companionship of Peter's frequent visits; but after Peter left Shadyville, she knew loneliness indeed. Charlotte had taken flight to Paris soon after Peter's departure, and there remained in Sheila's small world not one to comprehend the depths of her, the real needs and desires and aspirations of her mind and spirit. To all outward seeming, her life flowed on in its usual channels; she occupied herself with her housewifely duties, with her care for her husband's and child's well-being; she exchanged visits with her neighbors and went to afternoon tea-parties. Certainly her life appeared to flow on smoothly enough, but in fact it did not flow at all--that which was really the life current; it was checked, stemmed, thrown back upon itself in a tempestuous flood. Heart, mind, spirit, all had come up against an obstacle which there was no surmounting, no eluding--the indestructible obstacle of a mistaken marriage. Those were the bitterest days of Sheila's existence--the days when all the vital, matured forces of her throbbed and surged and clamored, prisoned things that beat in vain against the walls of circumstances. Worn out at last by this inner rebellion and conflict, she began to question whether she might not write once more. What she felt for Peter must forever be suppressed; must, if possible, be crushed out altogether; for her heart, importunate though it was with her woman's maturity, there could be no satisfying outlet. And in her conscientious recognition of this, in her resolution to abide by it, her very genuine affection for Ted--despite all the differences of temperament that divided them, despite even her realization and resentment of the wrong his selfishness had done her--was her greatest source of strength. But though she thus armed herself with her affection for her husband, though she so strove for utter loyalty to him, the suppression of her gift was no part of her conception of wifely duty now. And, thanks to Charlotte, she no longer regarded her compact with God for Eric's life as a thing sacred and binding. Even before Charlotte had expressed herself so vigorously on the subject, Sheila had, indeed, grown to see that her vow to renounce her gift had been unfairly wrung from her by a too effective combination of accident and Ted's opinions. And after Charlotte had cried out upon that vow as "morbid, hysterical nonsense," after she had exclaimed that Sheila's only fault had been in wasting her gift, it was but a step for Sheila to the conclusion that her vow could not--_should_ not!--bind her. At last she saw herself free for work, if not for love; she saw herself the more free for work because love must be denied. Her work should be her recompense; she had earned it now, as all things worth the having must be earned--by what one suffers for them. And she believed that her work would be the better for all that she had suffered, all that she had endured. It would be the better for that secret, unceasing ache of her heart for a love forbidden to her; and it would be the better for all the hours of pure suffering for itself alone. She had suffered for the loss of her work--Oh, very really! Even through years that had been altogether happy otherwise, the restlessness and hunger and depression of a talent unappeased had come upon her at times, come upon her almost unbearably. Though she had set her little son between it and her, it had reached her; it had harassed her unspeakably with demands that she had, perforce, refused to gratify. The sudden note of a violin, the sight of a flowering tree pearly against an April sky, a glimpse of tranquil stars through her window at night--such things as these had been enough to bring her gift's importuning and torment upon her. Earnestly and sincerely as she had tried to steel herself from such importunity and torment, they had come upon her again and again; they still came; they would come always--unless she flung off the shackles of that foolish, unnecessary vow. Fling off its shackles she did, with a sudden, blessed sense of liberty and strength. With neither confession to Ted, nor any attempt at concealment, she set herself to write. For the first time since her marriage--at least since her motherhood--she felt her life, in some measure, her own. That she made no announcement of her independence to Ted was significant of the complete independence she had begun to feel. Perhaps it was significant of it, also--of the extent to which she conveyed, without words, her emancipation--that Ted, discovering, in the ensuing days, what she was about, said nothing of it either. When she sat down, at last, to her writing-table, to her clean sheaf of paper, it was with the conviction of her individual rights spurringly upon her. But though she was finally so sure of her right to set free her gift, she felt within her no stir and flutter of a thing mad to fly and now released to do it. No winged words sprang upon her paper to leave bright traces of a heavenly flight. At the end of a long, uninterrupted morning, there was upon her paper no word at all. Not for lack of ideas did the paper remain thus bare. There were ideas enough and to spare in the treasure chamber of her brain, ideas long hoarded, but still fresh with the glamour of their first conception. There was one idea which had especially tantalized and allured her through years of resistance on her part, an idea for a story really insolently quiet and unpretentious--because its stuff was such pure gold. How that gold would shine through the cunningly chosen medium of her simple, unassuming phrases! She had seen it shining so through all the time that she had resisted it. But now--though she gave herself unreservedly to the cherished idea, though she turned over and over, with a passionate preoccupation, the little golden nugget of it--the simple, delicate phrases that were to reveal, to exploit it, did not appear. She had always written with a singular ease, and it seemed strange to sit before her tempting pages and write not a word. But on the first morning, she felt no alarm. After all, it was but natural that she should have to spend some time in coaxing it out to the light--that talent of hers so long confined. It was but natural that it should not have courage to soar and sing at once. But on the second day her paper was as empty as before; it lay upon her table like a useless snare for some wild and lovely bird that no longer had vitality enough to flutter within reach of it. And now, sitting at her writing-table in vain for several days, fear seized upon Sheila, fear that she would not name or analyze. Well, as one grew older, one often wrote differently, with more difficulty. She had heard that, she reflected eagerly. She had heard that deliberate, intellectual effort had often to succeed the flushed, panting rush of youthful inspiration. This was probably the case with her now; of course it was, indeed. She must undertake the effort; she must accept and master a new method. Then all would be right with her. And so she went about deliberately translating the gold of her idea into those dreamed-of words which were so fitly to interpret it. She went about it with an energy, a will to accomplish the feat, that should have been sufficient to achieve miracles. If there had been, hitherto, a strain of weakness in her, she was now all strength. And by that sheer strength--of purpose, of determination--she sought to realize her dream of perfection. Now the white sheets on her table were no longer barren. Slow, painful writing covered them. She wrote and discarded, and wrote again. Day after day, she sat there at her table, engaged, as she came at last to perceive, in her final, her ultimate tragedy. For when the thing that she had visioned as a little golden masterpiece was finished, she knew it for what it was. There was no felicity of phrase, no cunning art of construction, no conviction of truth, no throb of vitality within it. As surely as a still-born child had it been brought into the world dead. And it was incredibly ugly and deformed. There was not a gleam of gold upon it! She recognized all this with unsparing clearness. Not one illusion was left to her, not one merciful deception; with a single glance at her completed story, illusions and self-deceptions were swept from her--and hope was swept from her with them. Her gift was dead--or, at the least, it was forever ineffectual. There would be no more mad, glad flights; no more songs high in the sunlit heavens. The flights and songs and ecstasies were over for all time. Not for an instant did she cheat herself with sophistries of an eventual recovery. She knew that if it lived at all--this gift of hers which had once been more alive than she herself--it would but live within her as the pain of a thing balked and futile, restless still perhaps, but not restless with any power. Always--always now--the too exquisite note of a violin, the sight of blossoming trees at dawn, of silver, inscrutable stars at night would waken in her the hunger, the grief, of the unsatisfied. There would never be a time when she could look on poignant beauty with the peace of one who is herself a part of all beauty--having created something beautiful. For the ultimate calamity had befallen her; her gift had been killed, or hopelessly maimed. Under the tremendous impact of this blow she was curiously unresentful. She wondered a little how it had happened. She wondered if she had suffered too much, suffered to the point of numbness--a thing fatal to one whose work had been fine largely through her capacity for emotion; or if the habit, the superstition, of her vow, persisting within her after the vow itself had been cast aside, had thus finally broken the wings of her talent. She wondered if her marriage alone, or her motherhood, or her shamed and hopeless love for Peter had been most disastrous to her. She had been conscious of them all as she had sat there trying to write. Eric's face and Peter's had drifted between her and her pages. Ted's cold declaration that talent was a bad thing for a married woman, and her own impassioned promise to God to renounce her work for Eric's life had both drowned for her the voice of her gift. It was as if all these factors in her destiny had had too much of her; it was as if they had claimed her too entirely and tenaciously ever to release her. Even in silence and solitude and a belated sense of liberty and rights, she could not be free of them. She could not decide whether one or all of them had been responsible for this final frustration. She wondered--and then she ceased to wonder at all. She knew that the frustration had been accomplished--and that she was suddenly too weary even to cry out. It was at the moment when she realized all this fully, when she sat staring at the deformed and lifeless thing which she had brought forth, that a letter from Charlotte was handed to her. It came from New York--where was Peter. Sheila opened it with shaking fingers--and found what she desired: I have seen Peter [wrote Charlotte] and he seems to have fitted himself, very happily, into the right place. I say happily, but I do not use the word literally, for Peter is scarcely happy. But he is appreciated here, and he likes his work. I'm sure you'll be glad of that. As for happiness--I sometimes question whether those of us who catch a glimpse of a happiness perfect and transcendent ever experience the reality. I doubt, in fact, if any reality could stand, unimpaired, by that vision. It may be that we have to choose between the vision--beheld for an instant and forever remembered--and an earthy, faulty, commonplace little happiness. We may have to choose between a fairy tale that can never be anything but a wonderful fairy tale, and a grubby reality that will spoil fairy tales for us evermore. If that be true, Peter is not to be pitied. He is manifestly one of the chosen; he's had his matchless vision; he still believes in the fairy tale. I told you, once, that I might marry him--in spite of him, as it were! Now I know that I will never marry him. But you must not be sorry for me, my dear. I, too, have had my vision. I'll always believe in the fairy tale. Sheila laid the letter down--beside the stillborn child of her gift. And fleetingly she saw again the pure gold of her idea--saw it gleaming through the misshapen thing she had actually fashioned. After all, though she could never create masterpieces, she had had her vision of them; that, at least, had been vouchsafed to her. And she had had her vision of the perfect love; not even unspeakable sorrow and humiliation had dimmed it. She, also, was one of the chosen; she would always believe in the fairy tale. CHAPTER XVIII It is, perhaps, only after we have put many dreams and hopes behind us that we stumble upon life's real gift to us. And thus it happened for Sheila. It was as if, seeing that she held out her hands for gifts no longer, life capriciously resolved to thrust one upon her. But beneath the apparent caprice was a fine justice--for life was at last kind to Sheila through her son. As Eric grew older, there sprang up between them such a comradeship as, even in her gladdest moments of motherhood, Sheila had never foreseen. He was a manly boy, fond of other boys and of boyish sports, but for all that his companionship with his mother persisted, and as he matured somewhat, deepened into an intimate, understanding relation such as Sheila had not thought to know again. Their kinship was not of the flesh only; that was the thing that Sheila began presently to see. It was then that she began to dream once more; to visualize a future beyond her own unrealized future. But she didn't so much as stretch out a shaping hand; she didn't say an illuminating, a determining word. She remembered instances--many of them--of children's lives having been moulded by their parents, and with pitiful mischance. She had known men and women who, with entirely unconscious tyranny, had thrust ready-made destinies on their sons and daughters, saying in extenuation: "We want our children to do all the brave deeds we've failed to do. We want them to fulfill our defeated ambitions and to become what we have never become. We want to save them from our mistakes and our regrets. We haven't done much with our own lives--but we're going to live again, more wisely and effectually, in our children's lives." And so they had advised and coerced, and destroyed individuality and independence, and extinguished, only too often, the very joy of life itself by striving to transfer the flame to a vessel of their own choosing. This she must not do to Eric, Sheila told herself. From the despotic impulse of parenthood--queer mixture that it was of too zealous love and a thoroughly selfish desire for a second chance through the medium of the child--she must protect Eric. Therefore she restrained herself; she simply waited--as she might have waited for a seed to spring up from the secret sprouting place of some deep garden bed. It requires a sort of earthy, benign patience thus to hold back one's hand and passively wait--especially when one has, in spite of oneself, the dominating parent instinct!--but Sheila forced herself to it. And then, when Eric was fourteen years old, the seed sprang up through the soil and turned its face to the light. The boy came to Sheila one day, obviously bent upon a confidence. Shy, hesitant, shamefaced he was, but so eager. She wanted to kiss him as he stood there before her, awkward and winsome, a little too tall for his knickerbockers, child and adolescent contending in his face and the flush of some portentous thing upon his cheek. She wanted to kiss him--but she didn't. For she divined that the moment was for sterner stuff than kisses. "Mother, here's--here's a story I've written." That was all; but Sheila saw her own youth, her hopes, her dreams in his eyes. What there was in her eyes she did not know, but at something there Eric suddenly exclaimed and put his arms around her. And then Sheila knew that she was crying. It was not a marvellous story--that first effort of her young son's--but _something was there_; something that raised the crude, immature pages above immaturity and crudity and made the little tale better than itself. And sensing it--that evanescent, impalpable, but infinitely promising thing--she saw the future shining through the present. But it was not to Eric that she went first with her discovery. She longed to make the boy's path smooth for him before she sped him on it, and so she went first to Ted, story in hand. Ted had not desired talent in his wife. Would he desire it in his son? Would he cheer and encourage, would he even tolerate, a dreamer, a poet, a worker in mere beauty? Would he ever regard art as more than a shadow of life? Sheila sought him now to learn that--with Eric's story to plead for itself. Ted was in his den, a place sacred to those masculine pursuits and possessions which he did not share with her. Only for momentous affairs did she invade the shabby, comfortable, littered room, and now Ted glanced up at her from his pipe and papers with serious expectancy. "I'd like you to read this," she said, holding out the little manuscript. "Now? Is it important?" "Yes, now. It is very important. I must have a talk with you when you've read it." He took it from her, and she sat down to await his verdict. The story was short. Her suspense could have lasted but a little while. But Eric's fate was at stake, and the minutes seemed as laggard as years. She had given up her own talent; that it was now a crippled thing within her was because she had renounced it, long before, for Eric's life. But she would not easily sacrifice Eric's talent--if talent he really had. She was prepared to fight for it, if need be. Yet, as she watched Ted, reading with inscrutable face, her heart grew heavy within her for dread of dissension, of struggle between them. That hot, rebellious heart of hers had come at last to a sort of peace. The affection between herself and Ted, in the past few quiet years, had become for her, unconsciously, more and more of a haven. She had given up much to the end that she and Ted might live together in harmony, and she sickened now at the prospect of conflict. For at conflict, old wounds would open, regrets long firmly suppressed would rush upon her, a devastating flood. If she had to fight for Eric, she knew that she would fight with the strength of old bitterness, bitterness that she had striven to outlive. And she could not bear that this should happen. She could not bear that her affection for Ted should be thus jeopardized. She remembered, as she sat there, the anger she had felt toward him when he had condemned Alice North for her art--and, however innocently, through Alice North, herself. She remembered how indignant she had felt, how hurt and _divided_. And she remembered, too--thinking, against her will, of Peter--how divided from Ted she had felt in later years, in years not so long gone that she could recall them calmly. She remembered how she had come, finally, to see Ted, and his part in the destruction of her talent, all too clearly--and how her heart had turned from him then to one whom she had no right to love. She had driven her heart back to its appointed path; she had constrained it to its duty--in so far as the heart can be constrained. She had even achieved the supreme triumph of keeping alive for Ted, through disillusion and passionate resentment, that very real affection with which they had begun life together--but she trembled now at thought of any further pressure being brought to bear upon it. It was as if she held out her hands to her husband, crying: "Oh, let me love you! Do nothing that shall make it impossible for me to love you!" And yet--though conflict between them should destroy the love she had so endeavored, in spite of everything, to feel--if Ted opposed Eric's gift, there must be conflict. For she considered what her own unappeased gift had cost her--the hunger, the restlessness, the pain. She considered how, throughout all the years of her marriage, she had suffered her gift's insistence and its reproach. She thought of how she had never been able to look upon the miracle of the spring, the majesty of the stars, without an aching heart. All beauty had been transmuted for her into unassuageable sorrow--because she had been born to create beauty and had failed of her destiny. And it would be transmuted into sorrow for Eric, too--unless he were given the freedom she had foregone. He, too, would face the stars with an aching heart; all high and exquisite creation would be for him the material of suffering--unless he were allowed to create also. She had nerved herself to any effort, any struggle that might be necessary, when Ted at last laid down Eric's story and turned to his desk without a word. Was there as little hope as that? "Ted?" she cried. "Wait," he answered, rummaging in a drawer of his desk, with his back toward her. And his voice sounded queer--almost as if it were choked with tears. "Wait, Sheila." He rose, directly, and walked toward her, and his face was queer, too, unsteady with some rarely deep emotion. Thus he had looked when he first bent over her after Eric's birth. That flashed through Sheila's mind, touched her to sudden faith in his being, now, what she prayed to have him. Then she saw that in his hand he had, not Eric's story, but a bulky package of yellowed manuscripts, tied clumsily with a faded ribbon. In such fashion a romantic man might have tied love letters. But Ted was not romantic, and, never having been separated from him at any time since their marriage, she had written him no letters. Besides, these papers were large, business-like sheets. She stared at them curiously. What had they to do with Eric and Eric's future? But to Ted they had their significance. He carefully untied the dingy ribbon and spread the loosened pages on the table before her--and she noticed that his fingers were shaking. "Look," he said, in that queer, blurred voice. She picked up one of the discolored pages--and her own writing confronted her; for the page was from the unfinished story she had been working on when Eric was taken ill with scarlet fever--the story that, in obedience to her vow, she had put aside, still uncompleted. "Why, Ted--_Ted_--!" But even then she did not understand. "I found them," he explained, furtively stroking the shabby sheets, but attempting a bluff and off-hand tone, "I found them--Oh, years ago!--just stuck off in a cupboard _like trash that nobody wanted any more_. And so--because I _did_ want them--I brought them down here." "_You_ wanted them?" Sheila gasped. "But, Ted----" And then he had her in his arms, and his eyes--full of the tears he had tried to repress--were gazing down into hers! "Don't you suppose I realize what you might have done? Don't you suppose I've seen what you've given up for me--for me and Eric?" She could not speak. She could only gaze back at him, incredulous still of the comprehension that he had so long concealed from her. "I've been a selfish brute, Sheila," he went on. "I've craved all of you for myself and my child, and I've had all of you. It's been my man's way, I reckon, for I couldn't have helped it. If I had it to do over again, it would be just the same--though I'm ashamed of myself now. Of course I didn't ask you to give up your writing, but I'd quite as well have asked you. For I guessed that you'd done it--after Eric had scarlet fever--and I _let_ you, without a word. I've let you sacrifice your talent ever since, too--needlessly. Yes, I've _let_ you--for I've seen the whole thing." She had sometimes felt that the tragedy of her life had been in all that Ted had not seen. Now, finding that he had seen so much more than she had ever suspected--so much of what had been profound suffering to her--she might readily have blamed him more than she had ever done before. But generosity rushed out of her to meet his generosity--belated though his was. "No, no," she interrupted, "it isn't that you let me give up my work. The fault isn't yours. That awful night--when it seemed that Eric would die--I offered my work for his life--I offered it to _God_! That was why I didn't write afterward." Ted fixed pitying eyes upon her: "You poor little girl! Was it as bad as that with you? I knew I was taking advantage of your conscience, but I never dreamed you'd carried your remorse so far. Did you really believe you had to buy God's mercy? Oh, no, dear. It's only your husband that's seized the opportunity to extract a sacrifice from your Puritan conscience. But with all my selfishness, I haven't stopped you--I haven't been the end of your talent." She started to tell him of her late emancipation from that unnecessary vow of hers; to tell him that she had tried to write again--and discovered that she could not. But she did not tell him after all. For that could only hurt and shame him--in the hour of his penitence. So she was silent, and he continued with appealing eagerness. "I haven't been the end of your talent," he repeated. "Don't you realize, dear, that your talent isn't ended at all?" "You mean--Eric?" "Yes, I mean that you've handed on your gift to Eric. And he's going to have the chance I wasn't unselfish enough to let you have. Don't be afraid for him--he's going to have his chance, And he'll know what to do with it! I believe you'll be the mother of a great man--and that Eric will probably be the father of great men. I believe it will go on and on and on--what you are, what you might have done." "But, Ted--Eric is only a child. We cannot be sure yet-- "I believe!" he insisted. "I believe _this_ is to be your work--the work I haven't stopped." And as she listened, there came to her, too, a faith in Ted's prophecy. Her gift would have its fruition in Eric--and perhaps in Eric's sons and his sons' sons. She was granted a vision of a torch passed on from one trustworthy hand to another throughout the years; and beholding that vision, she was aware that nothing she had suffered mattered at all. She could face the stars now with a heart at peace. She could watch the earth's miracles, feeling herself a part of them. From the earth sprang flowers; from her flesh had sprung her son--her son who had been born to carry on the torch. She had created beauty indeed--beauty that would outlive her life in her son's art. Even Peter's image was blurred for her as she beheld her supreme vision. And then she recalled Charlotte's words: "I sometimes question if those of us who catch a glimpse of a happiness perfect and transcendent ever experience the reality. I doubt, in fact, if any reality could stand unimpaired by that vision." Charlotte was mistaken. There were visions which became realities; this final vision of hers would become a reality--and it would be none the less perfect and transcendent for that. Sheila laid her hands on her husband's shoulders. "I'm glad that I've lived!" she said. And again, with a little sob, "Oh, my dear, I'm glad that I've lived!" THE END 
40659	----	http://www.girlebooks.com & Marc D'Hooghe at http://www.freeliterature.org (Images graciously made available by the Internet Archive.) MATERFAMILIAS BY ADA CAMBRIDGE AUTHOR OF THE THREE MISS KINGS, A MARRIAGE CEREMONY, MY GUARDIAN, NOT ALL IN VAIN, FIDELIS, A LITTLE MINX, ETC. NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1898 CONTENTS. I.--THE BEGINNING OF IT ALL II.--IN THE EARLY DAYS III.--A PAGE OF LIFE IV.--THE BROKEN CIRCLE V.--A LITTLE MISUNDERSTANDING VI.--DEPOSED VII.--A BITTER DISAPPOINTMENT VIII.--THE SILVER WEDDING IX.--GRANDMAMMA X.--VINDICATED CHAPTER I. THE BEGINNING OF IT ALL. My father in England married a second time when I was about eighteen. She was my governess. Mother herself had engaged her, and I believe had asked, when dying, that she would remain to take care of us; and I don't say that she was not a good woman. She had been nearly five years in the house, and we had the habit of looking to her for advice in all family concerns; and certainly she took great pains with my education. But of course I was not going to stand seeing her put in mother's place. I told father so. I said to him, kindly, but firmly: "Father, you will have to choose between us. There will not be room under this roof for both." He chose her. Consequently I left my home, though they both tried hard to prevent it, and to reconcile me to their new arrangements. I will say that for them. In fact, my father, pleading legal rights, forbade me to go, except for some temporary visiting. I went on the understanding that I was to return in a couple of months or so. But I was resolved not to return, and I never did. While staying with my uncle, a medical man, I privately married his assistant--one (if I may say so) of a miscellaneous assortment of admirers. I am afraid I encouraged him to propose an elopement; I certainly hastened its accomplishment. Then after all our plottings and stratagems, when at last I had the ring on my finger, I wrote to inform father of what he and Miss Coleman had driven me to. Poor old father! It was a tremendous blow to him. But I don't know why he should have made such a fuss about it, seeing that he had done the same--practically the same--himself. It was a greater disaster to me than to him, or to anybody--even to my husband, who almost from the first regarded me as a millstone about his neck; for _he_ could go away and enjoy himself when he liked, forgetting that I existed. Indeed, it was a horrible catastrophe. When my own children are so anxious to get married while they are still but children, and think it so cruel of me to thwart them, I wish I could tell them what I went through at their age! But I don't mention it. I promised Tom I never would. At twenty I was teaching for a living--I, who had been so petted and coddled, hardly allowed to do a hand's turn for myself! My husband was travelling about the world as a ship's doctor. Father wanted me to come home, but I was too proud for that. Besides, I would not go where I had to hear Edward insulted. After all, he was my husband, and our matrimonial troubles were entirely our own concern. Not from him, either, would I accept anything after I was able to earn for myself. I taught at a school for thirty pounds a year, and managed to make that do. It was a wretched life. I was barely of age when the news came that Edward had caught fever somewhere and been left in a Melbourne hospital by his ship, which was returning without him. At once I made up my mind that it was my duty as a wife to go to him. He had no friends in Australia, and not much money; it was pathetic to think of him alone and helpless amongst utter strangers; and I thought that if I did this for him he would remember it afterwards, and be kind to me, and help me to make our married life a little more like other people's. In those days there was no cable across the world, and mails but once a month; so that when I started I was altogether in the dark as to what I was going to. The first news of his illness--with no particulars, except that it was fever--was all I ever had. I would not ask my father for money. Indeed, he would have frustrated my purpose altogether had he known of it in time. I went to my old godmother, Aunt Kate, who was very rich and fond of me, and begged the loan of fifty pounds, not telling her what I wanted it for. She gave the money outright, with another fifty added to it; so that I had plenty to cover the cost of a comfortable voyage. I determined, however, to save on the voyage all I could, that I might have something in my pocket on landing, when funds would be sorely needed. To which end I engaged my berth in the humblest passenger-boat available--Tom's little Racer, of ever-beloved memory. They told me at the office that she was better than her name--faster than many that were twice her size. I was young and silly enough to believe them, and also to forget that by the time I reached Australia Edward's illness would have long been a thing of the past, and he perhaps back in England or well on his way thither. If the Racer was one of the smallest ships in the Australian trade, her master, Thomas Braye, must have been one of the youngest captains. At that time he was under thirty, though he did not look it, being a big man, quiet and grave in manner, deeply sensible of his professional responsibilities. I remember thinking him rather rough and decidedly plain when I saw him first; but he was gentleness and gentlemanliness incarnate, and I never afterwards thought of his appearance except to note the physical inadequacy of other men beside him. He has told me since that _his_ first feeling on seeing _me_ was one of strong annoyance. Though a married woman and going out to my husband, I was but a young girl in fact--far too young and far too pretty (though I say it) to be travelling as I was, without an escort. It unfortunately happened that I was the only lady in the saloon, and that the ship was too small to have a stewardess. Three wives of artisans herded with their husbands and children in the black hole they called the steerage, and one of them was summoned aft as soon as we were in the river to keep me company. But as the others were disagreeable about it, and she was a coarse and dirty creature, I myself begged Captain Braye to send her back again. Poor Tom! By the way, I did not call him Tom then, of course; I did not even know his Christian name. He says he never undertook a job so unwillingly as he did that job of taking care of me. How absurd it seems--now! We sailed in late autumn, in the twilight of the afternoon. I remember the look of the Thames as we were towed down--the low, cold sky, the slate-coloured mist, with mere shadows of shores and ships just looming through it. Nothing could have been more dreary. And yet I enjoyed it. The feeling that I was free of that horrible schoolroom, and that still more horrible lodging-house, where I cooked meals over an etna on a painted washstand, and ate them as I sat on a straw-stuffed bed--the prospect of long rest from the squalid scramble that life had become, from all-day work that had tired me to death--oh, no one can understand what luxury that was! Besides, I had hopes of the future, based on Edward's convalescence and reform, to buoy me up. And then I loved the sea. People are born to love it, or not to love it; it is a thing innate, like genius, never to be acquired, and never to be lost, under any circumstances. When the Channel opened out, and the long swell began to lift and roll, I knew that I was in my native element, though a dweller inland from birth up to this moment. The feel of the buoyant deck and of the pure salt wind was like wings to soul and body. But I had to pay my footing first. It came upon me suddenly, in the midst of my raptures, and I staggered below, and cast myself, dressed as I was, upon my bunk. Never, never had I felt so utterly forsaken! When ill before, with my little, trivial complaints, Miss Coleman had waited on me hand and foot--everybody had coddled me; now I was overwhelmed in unspeakable agonies, and nobody cared. It is true that--though I would not have her--the steerage woman came in the middle of the night; and once I roused from a merciful snatch of sleep to find my bracket lamp alight where all had been darkness. These things indicated that some one was concerned about me--Tom, of course--but I did not realize it then. I was alone in my misery, alone in the wide world, of no consequence even to my own husband; and I wished I was dead. Early in the morning--it was a rough morning, and we were in a heavy, wintry sea--the captain tapped at my door. I was too deadly ill even to answer him; so he turned the handle and looked in. Seeing that I was dressed, he advanced with a firm step, and, standing over me, said, in the same voice with which he ordered the sailors to do things-- "Mrs. Filmer, you must come up on deck." I merely shook my head. I was powerless to lift a finger. "Oh, yes, you must. You will feel ever so much better in the air." "I can't," I wailed, and closed my eyes. I believe the tears were running down my face. He stood for a minute in silence. I felt him looking at me. Then he said, with a kindness in his voice that made me shake with sobs-- "I'll go and rig up a chair or something for you. Be ready for me when I come back in ten minutes. If you can't walk, we will carry you." He departed, and the steerage woman arrived, very sulky. I was obliged to accept her help this time. Captain Braye, I felt, did not mean to be defied, and it was a physical impossibility for me to make a toilet for myself. When he returned he brought the steward with him, and, before I knew it, he had whisked a big rug round and round me, and taken me up in his arms. I weighed about seven stone, and he is the strongest man I know. The steward carried my feet, but it was a mere pretense of carrying; he was only there as a sort of chaperon, because Tom was so absurdly particular. Up on the poop, with the ship violently rolling and pitching, the man could not keep his own feet, and let mine go, and we did not miss him. Tom bore me safely and easily, like a Blondin with his pole, to where he had fixed a folding-chair for me--it was his own chair, for I had not been able to afford one--and there he set me down, in the midst of pillows and an opossum rug, with that sort of powerful gentleness which is the manliest thing I know. All at once he made me feel that I was in shelter and at rest. As long as I remained on that ship I could cease fighting with the difficulties of my lot. He would take care of me. There are women who don't want men to take care of them--I am not one of those; I have no vocation for independence. I found I could not sit in that chair, luxurious as it was. I think all my worries and hard work and bad meals must have undermined me. Even though Tom made me drink brandy and water, I could not hold myself up. "Oh," I sighed wretchedly, "I feel so faint and swimmy, I _must_ lie down!" "So you shall," he answered, like a kind father, and he shouted to the steward to bring up a mattress and pillows. In five minutes there was a bed on the deck floor, and I was in it, swathed in fur and blankets, like a chrysalis in its cocoon, more absolutely comfortable than I had ever been in my life. I still felt ill and exhausted, and could not bear the thought of food; but I breathed the sweet, cold, reviving air, and yet was as warm as a toast, and no spray or rain could touch me. When he had tucked me up to his satisfaction, placing his oilskins over all, he took some rope and lashed me to the bars of the hen-coops behind me. And there I lay all day, resting and dozing. No matter how the ship rolled, it could not roll me out of my nest; being so secure, I felt the motion to be soothing rather than the reverse. When not asleep, I gazed at the pure sky and the gleaming tiers of sails, listened to the voices of the wind and of the sea, and watched the stalwart figure of my dear commander. At short intervals he would come over to ask if I was all right; and at least once an hour he brought something with him--brandy and water or strong broth--and fed me with it out of a spoon. Oh, Tom! Tom! And I had almost forgotten what it was like to be tended and cared for in that way. In a day or two I was well enough to walk about the ship and occupy myself, and he was more reserved with me again. But still I always knew that he was keeping guard over my comings and goings, and I felt as safe as possible. His officers and my fellow saloon-passengers--none of them gentlemen like him--were too much interested in my movements after I began to move, and his eye seemed always upon them. Now and then I was embarrassed and annoyed, and at such moments he quietly stepped in to relieve me, never making a fuss, but promptly putting people back into their proper places. At the first hint of trouble of this sort he had a spare cabin turned into a little sitting-room for me--my boudoir, he called it--where I might always retire when I wanted privacy. I found it a comfort at times, but still my sleeping-berth would have done almost as well; for I never wanted any visitor but him, and he never asked to come. When it was weather for it, I lived on the poop in his folding-chair--always lashed ready for me--and that's where I preferred to be. Even when not weather for it, I often begged to stay, for the support of his company; and sometimes, but not always, he would allow me to do so, making me fast with ropes, and surrounding me with a screen of tarpaulin. For hours I would lie, like a cradled baby, and watch his gallant figure and his alert eyes, and listen to his steady tramp, as he went up and down. I had no fear of anything while he was there, and he seemed always there. I learned afterwards how terribly he deprived himself of rest and sleep because of his responsibility for the safety of us all. For the Racer was an ancient vessel of the tramp description, little fitted to do battle with such storms as we encountered. Her old timbers creaked and groaned, as if in their last agony, when buffeted by the heavy seas; and the way she took in water at the pores, without actually springing leaks, was dreadful. The clacking of the pumps and the gushing of the inexhaustible stream seemed always in one's ears, and when waves broke over her and drained down through a stove-in skylight, of course it was far worse--even dangerous. She simply wallowed about like a log, too heavy and lumbering to get out of the way of anything. I could not bear to see Tom's stern and haggard face, to know the strain he was enduring, and that I could do nothing to lighten it; but as for _danger_--I never thought of such a thing! Not that I am at all a courageous person, as a rule. I believe we were somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Cape when the most noteworthy of our experiences befell us. We were struggling with the chronic "dirty" weather--absurd adjective for a thing so majestic and inspiring!--and I was on deck, firmly tied to my chair, and my chair to the mast, dry under oilskins, and only my face exposed to wind and spray, which threatened to take the skin off. I could hardly see the length of the ship through the spindrift of the gale, and the way it shrieked in the rigging was like fiends let loose. Bee--a--utiful! And Tom wanted to spoil all my pleasure by shutting me down in a nasty, stuffy, smelly, pitch-dark cabin, where I couldn't breathe and shouldn't know anything that went on, nor have a soul to speak to. However, I was getting used to him by this time, and so, when he staggered up and announced that he had come to take me below, because it was no longer fit for me to be on deck, I told him flatly that I would not go. "You must go," said he. "I won't go," said I. "The captain's commands must be obeyed, Mrs. Filmer." "Not in this case, Captain." "In every case, Madam." "Not a bit of it," I persisted, laughing in his face, which was rather grim, but yet not quite inflexible. "I am not one of your sailors, to be ordered about. I shall do what I like. And this is exactly what I like." He condescended to argue, and then of course I would not give in. He said he must use force and carry me, but that was an obviously impossible thing to do without my assistance, considering the angle of the decks. When I saw him looking really worried, I condescended to plead myself, and I suppose he could not resist that. He has told me since that he never felt the same man after this act of weakness, but I'm sure I cannot see where the weakness came in. With great difficulty, and meanwhile flashing anxious glances hither and thither, he got more rope and made fresh windings and tyings about me. "You are a spoilt child," was all he said. He did not look happy, but I was very pleased with the issue of our encounter. I felt that it had strengthened my position somehow--taken away all my awe and fear of him--and I would not have missed my subsequent experiences on deck that day for anything. They were really tremendous. No sooner had I been trussed up like an Indian baby in preparation for contingencies--no sooner had Tom left me to give his undivided attention to the ship--than the chronic gale produced a spasmodic and special one which I am sure was a cyclone of the first magnitude, though he would not give it that name in the book. What he called nor'-nor'-east had been the direction of the storm we had grown used to, but just before he asked me to go below it had shifted to "nor'," and now it jumped all at once to "sou'-west," with effects upon the sea and the poor ship that were truly startling. Those wall-sided mountains of water, that were bad enough to get over when we knew which way they were going, began a furious dance together, all jumbled up anyhow; and the first treacherous monster created by the change of wind crashed bodily inboard quite close to where I sat--"pooped" us, as Tom expressed it--and, washing over me, simply swept all before it, including the wheel and the two poor men steering, who were driven upon rail and rigging with such force as to injure both of them. How my lashings held as they did I cannot understand--or, rather, I can, of course--when strong wood was being torn from iron fastenings; and how I issued alive from that tremendous shower-bath is much more wonderful. It must have been the packing round me that saved my bones from being smashed like the boats and hen-coops. I heard Tom's shout of warning just before I was overwhelmed, and when I emerged, and could expand my breathless lungs, I answered him, with a strange and joyful lifting of the heart, "All right! I'm safe! Don't mind me, Captain!" If he had minded me at that moment we should have been lost together, ship and all. She began to broach to, as they call it, and the supplementary wheel had to be used at once to stop it, and just then our lives hung upon a hair. The decks were filled to the brim, and I could hear the deluge thudding down through the shattered skylight upon the table set for dinner. And she rolled all but bottom upwards, the broken rail going under and I dangling in air above it, and--and, in short, if any one but Tom had been her captain she would never have been heard of from that day. I am quite convinced of that. No man born could have accomplished what he did--he says, "Nonsense," but I know what I am talking about--although I was just as sure that _he_ would accomplish it as I was that the sun would rise next morning. I calmly held on to my supports, and waited and watched. Sometimes I clenched my teeth and shut my eyes, while I prayed for his preservation in the perils he did not seem to see. He called to me at short intervals, "Are you all right?" and I called back, "All right!" And when the worst was over for the moment, he scrambled to where I was, and fixed me up afresh. Never shall I forget the look on his face and the ring in his voice when he spoke to me. "Brave girl! Brave girl!" I think it was the happiest moment of my life. "But I don't understand it," he said to me, later, when there was time to breathe and talk. "Why are you not frightened? When you were first on board, crying because you were seasick----" "I did _not_ cry because I was seasick," I indignantly interposed, "but because I was lonely and miserable. You would have cried if you had been in my place." "I thought," he continued, heedless of the interruption, "that you were a poor little baby creature, without an ounce of pluck in you. But you've got the courage of a grenadier. How is it?" "It is because I am with you," I answered promptly. I don't know what feeling I allowed to get into my voice, but something struck him. Motionless where he stood, he stared at the great waves silently, for what seemed a long time; then abruptly walked forward to give an order, and did not come back. We were mostly silent when we were together after that. How hard I tried to think of a common topic to discuss, and could not! So did he. But while I had nothing to do but to think, he was terribly preoccupied with the condition of the ship. She had recovered to a certain extent, and was able to stagger on again, but she was a living wreck, all splintered and patched, and the difficulty of keeping the water down was greater than before. The pumps were always clanking, and the carpenter hammering, and the sailmaker putting canvas plasters over weak places. The whole ship's company were glum and weary, and the passengers--wet, ill-fed, and wretched--complained loudly all the time, indifferent as to how much they added to the poor captain's cares. He, though firm with everybody, never lost his temper, or seemed to give way to the depression that must at times have weighed him down. He was worthy to command who could so command himself--worthy to be a sailor, which is the noblest calling in the world. As for me--well, it was no credit to me that I, of all on board, was satisfied to be there, and consequently happy. I kept a serene and smiling face to cheer him. It was the least that I could do. And it did cheer him. To my unspeakable comfort I was assured of that, though he did not say so. I could see it in his face, and hear it in his voice, when now and then he came to sit beside me, evidently for rest and peace. "And so," he said, on one of these occasions, speaking in an absent-minded way--"and so you are not nervous with me? Well, I hope I shall be able to justify your trust." "You will," I said calmly. "You could not help it." "Heaven knows!" he ejaculated. "The glass is falling again, fast." "Never mind the glass. It is always falling." "I wouldn't, if I had any sort of proper ship under me. But this----she isn't fit for women to sail in." "If she is good enough for you," I remarked cheerfully, "she is good enough for me." "But she isn't. I don't ask for much--at my age--but I do want a ship of some sort, not a sieve. Oh, dear! oh, dear!"--looking round him with a restless sigh--"we shall be months getting to Melbourne at this rate." "I don't care," I said, "if we are years." He made no comment on this statement, which I blushed to perceive was a mistake; and I hastened to remind him that Edward's illness must have been over long ago. Then he began, in an abrupt manner, to ask me how I thought the passengers were bearing the trial of short rations which he had been compelled to lay upon them. One day we were at great peace, because the weather was beautiful and the water in the well diminished. A hammock of sailcloth had been made for me, and slung in a nice place, and I lay there almost the whole day through, swinging softly with the ship as she soared and dived over mile-long billows or swayed in the deep beam swells with the airy motion of a bird upon the wing. The Racer could feel like that at times, even yet; and I was too happy for speech or thought--that is, in a sad and pensive fashion. So, I know, was Tom, although he too had no words and hardly a look for me as he paced to and fro. It was just the consciousness that I was there--that he was there--permitted to rest together for an interval from our battle with fate. Even the sight of his substantial figure, never out of my mind's eye, while my other eyes saw only the lifting and sinking of the gunwale against the gleaming, silky sea--even the roar of his strong voice, occasionally using "language" in a professional way--could not take away the sense as of an enchanted world enveloping us, as if we were disembodied spirits in some heavenly sphere. But I can't describe it. Perhaps the reader understands. The night was lovelier than the day--there was a moon shining--and one literally _ached_ with the sweetness of it. Each of us was on the way to bed, and somehow we could not resist the temptation to linger by the rail a little. The ship was under command of the chief officer, and all was well for the time. We were alone where we stood. Speaking of the change of weather and his late responsibilities, he said: "If I am ever so unfortunate as to lose the lives committed to me, I shall just stand still and go down with the ship--when I have done what I can do." "If that should come," I returned, "please don't put me into a boat and send me off without you. Let me stand still and go down too." "Not if there's a chance for the boat," he said. We had spoken in a light way, but deep thoughts welled up in us. "Oh," I broke out--for I had not his self-control--"oh, it would be better than anything that could happen to me now!" All he said to that was "Hush--sh--sh!" but I could not check myself immediately. "I would rather die that way than live--as I must live when I no longer have you to take care of me!" I wailed, reckless. "Oh, I wish I could! I wish I could!" And indeed I meant it. Even as we went down, I thought, he would keep the sea monsters from terrifying and devouring me; he would take care of me, regardless of himself--that was inevitable--until we were both dead. The fear of death was nothing to the fear of life as it would present itself at my journey's end. I had _no_ fear of death--with him. He laid his broad, brown hand on mine that clutched the rail--a solemn gesture--and he said, in a shaking voice, "My dear, it's well you remind me that it's my business to take care of you. We have got our duty to do, both of us. Come, it's getting late; it's bed time. We mustn't stay here in the moonlight and let ourselves get foolish." Still holding my hand, he led me downstairs. At the door of my cabin he gave it a great strong squeeze, and then let it go without another word. He did not kiss me. Oh, true heart! Death to him would have been infinitely easier than the ordeal I made him suffer through those long weeks. But he never allowed himself to be overcome. It was not long after this that the dreaded moment came when land was reported. Words cannot describe my terror of the impending change. It was my only safe haven--my home--from which I was, as I thought, to be cast out, and I simply dared not imagine what sort of life awaited me. The crippled Racer anchored in Hobson's Bay at nightfall. Most of the passengers went off in boats, and those who rowed to the ship returned with them. Dressed in walking clothes, I sat in the little cabin that had been my sitting-room, listening and shivering, trying (with the example I had before me) to brace myself to meet things as a brave woman should; but no one came for me. Only Tom. Rather late in the evening, when all had gone except the steerage woman and her children, with whose husband and father he had made some business arrangement, the captain entered my private apartment alone for the first time. There was an indescribable expression on his face, which had looked so fagged of late. His eyes did not meet mine. His whole frame trembled like a girl's. "Oh, has he come?" I cried--I believe I almost shrieked. "No," said he; "he hasn't come. You'd better go to bed now--go and sleep if you can--and I'll tell you about it to-morrow." "What is it?" I implored. "What has happened? What have you heard? Oh, tell me now, for pity's sake!" He sat down on the little bunk beside me, and took my hand between his two hands; he did it as a father might do it, to support my weakness under the shock coming. "The fact is, Mrs. Filmer--the fact is, dear--I sent ashore for news. I thought I'd better make some inquiries first. And--and--and----" "I know--I know! He has left the country, and abandoned me again!" "No, poor fellow! He died of that illness--six months ago." At first I did not understand the meaning of the words. It was an event that had never entered into my calculations, strange to say. But the moment I realised the position--it is a dreadful, dreadful thing to confess, but God knows I never meant any harm--my arms instinctively went up to Tom's stooping shoulders and, hiding my face in his breast, I nearly swooned with joy. CHAPTER II. IN THE EARLY DAYS. I was not a girl, but a woman, when I married Tom. He, a man incapable of grossness in any shape or form, was still a man, healthily natural, of ripe experience in the ways of men. Whatever our faults in the past--if they were faults--the result was to teach us what we could never otherwise have learned, the meaning of wedlock in its last perfection. Don't let any one run down second marriages to me! The way to them must necessarily be painful and troubled, and one always desires passionately to keep one's children out of it; but the end of the journey, bringing together, open-eyed to all the conditions, educated to discriminate and understand, two born mates like Tom and me--ah, well! One mustn't say all one thinks about these matters--except, of course, to him. Talking of being open-eyed, I was so blind at one time as actually to fancy that he was in no hurry to have me. When I gave him to understand--hardly knowing what I did--that I should die or something without him to take care of me, he said he asked nothing better than to take care of me, God knew, but that how to do it for the best was what bothered him. It did not bother me in the slightest degree. I depended on him--only on him of all the world--and I told him so; and yet he wanted, after _that_, to send me back to my father with some old woman whom I had never seen, in another ship, while he took the Racer home--which never would have got home, nor he either. And I a married woman, independent in my own right, and over twenty-one! However, I flatly refused to go, except with him, as I had come. He said he would not trust my life to that rotten tub again, and I said--I forget what I said; but I hurt his feelings by it; and then I cried bitterly, and said I would go out and be a housemaid. The deadlock was suddenly ended by the Racer being condemned by the authorities of the port as unfit for sea again. When that happened we both decided to stay in the new country, and, having him near me, I was quite content to postpone matrimony until things became a little settled. It was soon plain enough that he was not anxious to postpone for the mere sake of doing so; he only wanted a clear understanding with father first, as well as with his owners, and to give me time for second thoughts, and for considering the advice of my family. It took long for letters to come and go, and I began to be haunted in my walks by a strange man, who--I suppose--admired me. Tom found this out on the same day that he accepted an appointment as chief officer with a Melbourne shipping company. I could not imagine what had happened when he came to see me at my poor lodging with such a resolute face. "Mary," he said, "who's that fellow hanging round outside? I've seen him several times." "Tom," I protested sincerely, "I don't know any more than you do. But he is a rude man; he stares at me and follows me, and I can't get rid of him. Of course, he sees that I am----" I was going to say "unprotected," and hastily substituted "alone," which was not much better. "Well, now, look here--I've got a ship, Mary"--he did not pain me with further explanations on that head; later I wept to think of his subservient position in that ship--"and this means an income, dear. Not much, but perhaps enough----" "Does it mean that you are going away?" I cried, terrified. "Not far. Only for a few days at a time. I start on Friday. This is Monday." He took my hands; he looked into my eyes; I knew him so well that I knew just what he was going to say. The colour poured into my face, but I made no mock-modest pretence of being shy or shocked. As a preliminary, he questioned me as if I were on trial for my life. "Answer me _quite_ truthfully, Mary"--he called me Mary before we were married, but always Polly afterwards--"tell me, on your solemn word of honour, do you love me--beyond all possible doubt--beyond all chance of changing or tiring, after it's too late?" I told him that I loved him beyond doubt, beyond words, beyond everything, and should do so, I was absolutely convinced, to my life's end. I further declared that he knew it as well as I did, and was simply wasting breath. "And you really and truly do wish to marry me, Mary?" I attempted to laugh at his tragic gravity and his awkward choice of words. I said I didn't unless he did, that I wouldn't inconvenience him or force his inclination for the world. I asked him, plainly, whether he thought that quite the way to put it. "Yes," he said. "For I want to make sure that I--that circumstances--are not taking advantage of you while you are young and helpless. And yet how can I be sure?" He took my face between his hands and gazed at it, as if he would look down through my eyes to the bottom of my soul. I shut them after a moment, and tears began to ooze between the lids at the thought that he could doubt me. One trickled out and splashed upon his knee, and my heart began to heave with the impulse to cry in earnest. Then he drew my face--drew me into his arms, and we sat a little without speaking, hearing our hearts thump. "We'll chance it, shall we?" he whispered between short breaths. "Sooner or later it must come to that, and better as soon as possible if I have to leave you in Melbourne alone. You won't be so much alone if you belong to me, even when I am away--will you, sweetheart?" I merely sighed--that kind of long, full, vibrating sigh which means that your feelings are too deep for words. "I think I shall be able to answer to your father--I hope so," he continued, rallying his constant self-control. "I think I am justified, Mary. If not----" But I would not let him go upon that tack. Justification was absolute, in my view of the case. I know what the ill-natured reader will say--she will say that I threw myself at his head, that I forced myself upon him, that I did not give him a chance to get out of marrying me if he had wanted to; but that is only because she knows nothing whatever about it. I cannot explain. I simply state the fact that we had one mind between us on the matter, and if she doesn't believe me I can't help it. "This is Monday," Tom repeated, "and I sail on Friday. If we are going to do it, Mary, I'd like it done before I leave. There's nothing to wait for, if we don't wait for the letters, is there?" I told him nothing--that I was in his hands; and he proposed that we should walk out then and there to find some one to "splice" us, as he appropriately termed it, because it would be so much easier to attend to all the other business after we were man and wife than before. Sailors have a terse way of acting as well as of speaking, and the change that made life such a different thing for both of us actually took place that very day as ever was. When the unknown admirer would have followed young Mrs. Filmer in her evening walk--it was too hot to go out earlier--there was no such person. Mrs. Braye was dining delicately at a pleasant seaside hostelry, in the company of her lawful protector, whose name alone was like a charm to keep his proud wife in safety. We gave ourselves until Wednesday morning. Then we worked all Wednesday and Thursday, like two navvies, to settle ourselves in the small lodging that we selected for our first home. We were as poor as poor could be and had to proceed accordingly, but little I cared for that, or for anything now that I had him. On Friday afternoon he sailed--a subordinate on that trumpery intercolonial boat, after being captain and lord of an English ship--and I cried all night, and counted the hours all day till he returned, when I went quite daft with joy. Not that much joy was allowed us, even now, seeing that the greater part of his short sojourn in port had to be spent on board. But it was wonderful what value we could cram into the precious minutes when we did get them. Again we had the agony of parting, the weary interval of separation, the renewed bliss of the return, continually intensified; and then the letters came--the letters we had tried, so unsuccessfully, to wait for. Father desired me to come home for a time--a foregone conclusion--and Miss Coleman did the same in more impassioned sentences. I daresay it was heartless, but I laughed and danced with delight to know that it was all too late for advice of that sort. And, to counteract any possible feeling of remorse, Aunt Kate wrote in the sweetest way, all fun and jokes, practically approving and encouraging me in the course I had taken. To a young woman so situated, she said, fathers were quite useless and superfluous, and she advised me to please myself, as I had always done--that was how she put it. Best of all, she sent me a draft for £500, either to come home with or for a wedding present, as the case might be. And this precious windfall enabled us to take a little private house that we could make a proper home of. * * * * * The worst of being on these small lines is the uncertainty about the movements of your ship. In winter Tom would run one trip for months, or suddenly stop in the middle for docking and repairs--a mere excuse for laying up, I used to say, because trade was not paying expenses--in which case he would have a holiday without salary, and the pleasure of his companionship would be marred by anxieties about money. In summer there were occasional special excursions, "round tours," that kept him away for a month or six weeks at a time; and these were what I dreaded most. We had not yet had this long separation, but I knew--knew, but would not admit--there was danger of it when we had been married a little less than a year. It was our second Australian summer, and the time of all times when I could not endure to part from him. I had now grown accustomed to having him at home for a day and a couple of nights weekly--happily he had a command again, such as it was, and could do as he liked in port--and that was far, far too little, under the circumstances. He was sleeping late, and I, having prepared his breakfast, sat down by an open window to read the morning paper until he should appear. As a matter of course, I _always_ saw the name of our ship before I saw anything else, even the Births, Marriages, and Deaths; she had her place in a list of the company's vessels, with her sailing dates, in smallish print, answering to her comparatively modest rank in life; my eye fell on the exact spot by instinct in the moment of the page becoming visible. I suppose it was the same instinct which to-day drew my first glance to quite another column, where s.s. Bendigo stood in larger type. My heart jumped and seemed to stop--"Christmas Holiday Excursion to West Coast of New Zealand, if sufficient inducement offers." There it was! And I felt I had all along expected it. I got up to run to Tom with the news. On second thoughts I decided to let him have his sleep out before dealing him a blow that would spoil his rest for many a night to come, and tramped round and round the breakfast-table, moaning and wringing my hands, asking cruel Fate why Christmas should be chosen--_this_ Christmas of all times--and how I was to get through without my husband to take care of me. My husband looked most concerned when he saw what I was doing. "Hullo, Polly, what's up?" was his greeting, as he faced me from the doorway; and his bright home-look vanished like a lamp blown out. I could not speak for the rush of tears. I held out the newspaper, pointing to the fatal spot, and, when he took it, abandoned myself upon his shoulder. "Oh, Tom--Christmas! _Christmas_, Tom!" He read in silence, with an arm round my waist. For a whole minute and more we heard the clock ticking. Then he cleared his throat, and said soothingly: "After all, it mayn't come to anything--at any rate, not till afterwards. People don't care to be away from their homes at Christmas. It's only an approximate date." He was wrong. The postponements that invariably take place at other times did not occur this time--as if on purpose. The hot weather set in early, and it seemed that many people did desire to escape, not from it only, but from the social responsibilities of the so-called festive season. The Bendigo was a good boat, as everybody knew, and her captain a great favourite with the travelling public. I don't wonder at it! So that the passenger list filled rapidly, and every day brought us less hope of a reprieve. Tom seemed a year older each time that he returned from the regular voyage, bringing this information, and I know I nearly drove him mad with my pale face and tear-sodden eyes. One day he told me so. "_What_ am I to do?" he groaned, staring strangely. "How can I leave you like this? I can't, I can't! and yet, if I don't go, Polly--it is all our living, my dear----" Nothing ever frightened me so much. For _him_ to have that look of agitation--my strong rock of protection and defence--he who had never wondered what he was to do, but always knew and did it, while others wondered--it was too shocking. I pulled myself together immediately. "After all," I said, with a gulp and a smile, "the other poor seamen's wives have to take their chance of this sort of thing, so why not I?" "You," he replied, in his fond, stupid way, "are not like the others, my pretty one." He meant that I was far more choice and precious. "Being pretty," I rejoined, "is no disadvantage that I know of, having regard to the present circumstances. Now if I was delicate, then you _might_ be anxious. Tommy, dear, I can't have you look like that! And there's no reason in the world why I should not do as well as possible--as well as everybody else does; indeed, I'm sure I shall. Of course I shall miss you awfully--awfully"--my cheerful voice quavered in spite of myself--"but there will be the proper people to look after me, and--and--_think_ what it will be when you come back again!" He had me in his arms now, with my face under his left ear. "My brave girl!" he murmured. "My own brave girl!" Just as when he called me that before, my heart rose elated. I determined to deserve the title. "Of course you must go," I said firmly; "it is our living, as you say. No use having a family, and nothing to keep it on, is it? I suppose it won't be _more_ than a month? A month is soon over. I can send you telegrams. Don't you worry about me. I'm a wicked idiot to fret and grumble; it is because you have spoiled me, love! I have got so used to having you to take care of me----" I choked, and burst into fresh tears. However, I did manage to keep up very well until he went. Of course he _had_ to go; we agreed about that. Not much of Aunt Kate's wedding present was left by this time. We had our little home, all comfortable and paid for, but his small salary comprised the whole of our current income. It would never have done to jeopardise that. But oh, it was cruel! It _was_ cruel! He says I shall never understand the agony of his soul when he bade me good-bye, and I tell him he can't possibly have suffered the thousandth part of what I suffered. We clasped and kissed as if we never expected to see each other again. I really don't think we did expect it. And yet I was quite well and strong, and every possible thing had been done to safeguard me in his absence. Poor as we were, he made the nurse, who charged three guineas a week, come into the house before he left it, and engage to stay there till his return; and he also installed a nice old lady, whose son he had befriended, and who he thought would be a mother to me when the time of trial came. So she was; but not even an own mother could have made up for the want of him. "God keep you safe for me," he prayed, as he held me to him, heart to heart. "And you'll take care of yourself, my Polly. You won't fret, and make yourself sick and weak--promise that you won't--for my sake!" "I won't," I answered him, trying to comfort him; "I will be as good as possible. We'll _both_ be well and strong--well and happy--to meet you when you come home again. Tom! Tom! _do_ you realise what the next home-coming will be? Let us look forward to that." So I kept up to the last, to hearten him. The very last was the seeing the ship go by at nightfall, on her way to sea. I lived where I lived on purpose to have this view of her as she passed in and out. I watched for her for an hour, and when she came it was too dark for me to see my darling on the bridge through the strong glasses he had given me on purpose that I might see him, and the flutter of his cabin towel against the black funnel. Nor could he see me in the blue dusk of the shore, with the evening afterglow behind it. But he sent a farewell toot across the water, and I pulled the blind to the top of my window, and lit up my room with every lamp and candle I could find. I knew he was looking, and that he knew I knew it. We always signalled good-night in this way when he passed out late. So I kept up to the very last. But when I saw his mast-head light go round the pier, like a bright star in the evening sky, and glide towards the sea that was to keep him from me so long when I wanted him so desperately, then I collapsed like a spent bubble, and all my courage went out of me. I think I fainted there by the window, all of a heap upon the floor. At any rate, his back was hardly turned--he could scarcely have cleared the Heads, we reckoned--when the catastrophe befell. I have often tried to imagine what his feelings were when, at his first port of call, the intelligence was conveyed to him that he had a son, and that mother and child were doing well. He attempted to express them by letter, but he is not literary. And he can't gush. All the same, I know--I know! Did I say that the happiest moment of my life was when he called me a brave girl? I was wrong. The happiest moment of my life--even though Tom was away from me--was the moment when I heard the first cry of my own child. Words cannot describe the effect on me of that little voice so suddenly audible, as great an astonishment as if one had never expected it; but every mother in the world will understand. Oh, I am getting maudlin with these reminiscences! I can't help it. He was a beautiful boy--my Harry--worthy to be his father's son. We called him Harry because Henry was Tom's second name, and also that of my own father, whom I wished to please; for, after all, he was a good father to me, and I used to think that perhaps I had not been as good a daughter to him as I might have been. This thought occurred to me when I had a baby of my own, and wondered how I should feel if, when he was grown up, he were to take his own wilful way as I had done. It does make such a difference in one's point of view, with regard to all sorts of things--having a baby of one's own. For instance, I knew that Miss Coleman--Mrs. Marsh, I ought to say--had two, and when Aunt Kate told me I was actually angry about it; it seemed to me that it was just another impertinence on her part, and that the children were interlopers in my old home. I could not bear to picture them sitting on father's knee, and being carried in his arms, filling my place and consoling him for the loss of me. But now I was quite glad that he had them, and I sympathised with Miss Coleman. I wished she could come and nurse me now, as she used to do; how much better we should understand each other! I resolved to have baby's likeness taken as soon as possible to send home to her, and to ask her to send me the photos of her little ones in return. I was convinced, of course, that there would be no comparison between them. Doubtless hers were nice children enough--father was a particularly handsome man, in the prime of life--but my baby was really a marvel; _everybody_ said so. His proportions were perfect, his skin as fine and pure as could possibly be, his little face too lovely for words, and his intelligence simply wonderful. Before he was a week old he knew me and smiled at me. He had Tom's fair hair and straightforward blue eyes---- However, I suppose all this is silly. At any rate, the silly fashion is to call it so. It was dreadfully hot upstairs in that venetian-shuttered room, but still I rallied quickly, and everything went well. The old lady was indeed a mother to me, the nurse inflexibly conscientious, and my own little maid like a faithful dog upon the doormat, constantly asking to look at the baby and to be allowed to hold him. And yet--I know it was ungrateful to them, but I could not help it--I never felt that I was properly taken care of, because Tom was not behind them. I pined for him--oh, _how_ I did pine for him!--happy as I was in every other respect. While I was still weak, and inclined to be a little feverish, I fell asleep and dreamed that the Bendigo had been wrecked, and that he would never come home to see his child. I cannot describe how that dream frightened me and haunted me--that, and the memory of our last parting, when we seemed to have had so many forebodings. "If I could only go to him!" was my constant thought, knowing that weary weeks had still to pass before he could return to me, even if his voyage prospered; and once I put it into words, "If we could only go to him, Mrs. Parkinson, _what_ wouldn't I give!" The old lady patted my shoulder soothingly, and assured me he would be home in no time, if I would have but a grain of patience; while I had to reflect that it was impossible to go a-travelling without money. I would have "given anything" indeed, but I had nothing to give, though Tom had amply provided for all my wants at home. Moreover, I could only have left the house, while she was in it, over the dead body of my nurse. I could manage the old lady, but not her; she was a rock of resolution where her duty was concerned. Suddenly a series of things happened. The old lady had a telegram summoning her to the sick-bed of her son--the very son that Tom had been so good to--and flew to him, distracted. Poor old lady! My mother's heart bled for her. And next day my little maid upset a kettle of boiling water over the nurse (providentially, when the baby was not in her arms), and the poor thing had to go to a hospital to have the scalds dressed. She sent a substitute at once, because it was found that she was for a few days incapacitated for her work; but I was able to manage without the substitute. I told her I was now perfectly well--as in truth I was--and therefore did not require her services. And the day after that, by the English mail, I had a letter from _dear_ Aunt Kate, which, when I opened it, shed a bank draft upon the floor. She had heard that I was going to have a baby, and sent fifty pounds to pay expenses. A box of baby-clothes, she said, had been despatched by the same ship; for she didn't suppose I had any money to buy them, or that, if I had, I could get anything in "that outlandish country" fit for a poor child to wear. I went straight into town and cashed that draft, taking my son with me--proud to carry him myself, though he nearly dragged my arms off. At the same time I ascertained at the company's office that the Bendigo was hourly expected to report herself from Sydney. "We will go to Sydney," said I to my little companion, as we travelled home again, rich and free. "We'll get Martha's mother to come and keep house until we all return together--with _father_ to take care of us." That same night I had a wire from him. He was safe at Sydney, all well; and would I telegraph immediately to inform him how it was with me? Would I also write fully and at once, so that he might get the letter before he left? "We will telegraph immediately, to set his dear mind at rest," I said to the son, who smiled and guggled as if he perfectly understood--and I am sure he did; "but we won't write fully and at once. We can get to him as quickly as a letter, and he would rather have us than a million letters. Oh, what a simply overwhelming surprise we shall give him!" I was so full of this blissful prospect that I never thought how I might be embarrassing him in his professional capacity. There were no intercolonial railways then, and we could not have stood the wear and tear of overland travel if there had been. Nor was there any choice in the matter of sea transport. I was obliged to take the mail steamer that brought me Aunt Kate's money, for it was the only vessel going to Sydney that could get me there in time. I had to be very smart to catch her, and just managed it, leaving my home at the mercy of a plausible red-nosed charwoman who was all but a perfect stranger to me. Of course I was an idiot--I know that; but, as Tom says, you can't put old heads on young shoulders, and don't want to; and there is no occasion to remember things of that sort now. _He_ never blamed me for a moment, and I am sure I cannot regret what I did, when I weigh the pleasures of that expedition against what in the end we had to pay for them. They were richly worth it. The voyage, even without the nursemaid whom I did not feel justified in adding to my other extravagances, not only did me no harm, but really invigorated me. A new-made mother, I had been informed, was never sea-sick, and my experience seemed to prove the fact; while as for baby, in spite of his catching a little cold, which he might have caught at home, the exquisite sea air must have been better for him than the gutter smells of Melbourne. He was as good as gold, and the stewardess was an angel, and we slept like tops all through our two nights on board. It was afternoon when we entered Sydney Harbour--that beautiful harbour which I had never seen before, but had no eyes for now. All I cared to look at was my beloved Bendigo, and there she was at her berth, and the blue-peter was up! When I saw that, I felt quite faint. I ran round the deck asking everybody when she was expected to leave, and all but those who did not know said at five o'clock. It was now three. So that, with other weather, I might have missed her! And Tom would have gone home to find----Great heavens! But with the misadventures that we did have, there is no need to count those we didn't. As it chanced, I was in plenty of time. It was nearly four before I could get off the mail boat, and it was considerably past that hour when I hurried up the gangway of the Bendigo, panting, and bathed in perspiration--for Sydney is a hot place in January--looking everywhere for Tom. The second officer, who knew me, uttered an exclamation as he ran to take my bag from the cabman; and the way he looked at baby--then asleep, fortunately--was very funny. "Oh, Mr. Jones," I cried, "is the captain on board?" "No, Mrs. Braye; he's on shore," was the reply, accompanied with violent blushes. "You must have missed him somehow. Are you--are you going back with us?" "Of course I am," I said, as calmly as I could. "But he does not know it yet. I had some business in Sydney, and I thought I would give him a surprise. Don't tell him, please; I will go up to his cabin on the bridge and wait for him." "He may be here any moment," said the young man. And, looking to right and left in an embarrassed way, he asked if he should call the stewardess. "Not yet," I returned affably. "I will ring when I want her. He will sleep for a long time. He's such a good baby--not the least little bit of trouble." And then I turned back the lace handkerchief from the placid face, and asked Mr. Jones what he thought of that for a month-old child. He said he was no judge, and behaved stupidly. So I left him, and went up to the bridge, where Tom had a room composed of a bunk and a bay window, entirely sacred to himself. I don't suppose a baby had ever been in it, but the pillows and things I found there made a perfect cradle. As I laid my little one down on his father's bed, I was afraid the thumping of my heart would jog him awake, but it did not. He sank into his nest without sound or movement, leaving me free to watch at the window for Tom's coming. It was past five o'clock before he came, and I knew when I saw him why he was so late. He had been looking for his expected letter up to the last moment, and had now abandoned hope. I also knew that somebody on deck had betrayed my secret when I heard the change in his step as he ran upstairs. Ah--ah! Before I could arrange any plan for my reception of him I was in his arms. Before either of us could ask questions, we had to overcome the first effects of an emotion which arrested breath as well as speech. Never when we were lovers had we kissed each other as we did now. "But what--how--why--where?" the dear fellow stuttered, when we began to collect our wits; and in the same bold and incoherent style I simultaneously gave my explanation. Half a minute sufficed to dispose of these necessary preliminaries. Then I led him into his own cabin, the doorway of which I had been blocking up. * * * * * "But what are we going to do with him?" Tom asked--a singular question, I considered, but he was full of the business of the ship--I wondered how he _could_ think about the ship at such a moment. "Hadn't you better make a nursery of my cabin on deck? It's empty, and the stewardess'll rig you up whatever you want." "I will make a nursery of it," I replied, "when I want to bath and dress him for the night. And, by the way, perhaps I had better do that now, before we start." For our son had been wakened out of his sleep, in order that his father should see how blue his eyes were. "Yes, yes, do it now," urged Tom, in a coaxing way. It was sweet of him not to cloud my perfect happiness by hinting at the scandalous breach of etiquette it would be to let a baby appear on the bridge while he was taking the ship out. For my part, I never thought of it. He took me down to the deck, now crowded with people, who stared rudely at us, and into the one cabin there, which was his own; and he called the stewardess--a delightful woman, charmed to have the captain's baby on board--and left us together, while he rushed off to speak with the superintendent of the Sydney office, I suppose about my passage. Soon afterwards we started, and until we were away at sea I was fully occupied with Harry's toilet. Then came dinner, and Tom made me go in with him, while the stewardess stayed with the child; and the short evening was taken up with preparations for the night. It was arranged that I should spend it in the nursery, of course, and I was strongly advised to retire early. But the cabin was hot, and the outside air was cool, and I simply could not rest so far from Tom. The moonlight was lovely at about ten o'clock, so bright that, stepping out on the now deserted deck to look for him, I could plainly see his figure moving back and forth at the end of the bridge, outlined against the sky. And I could not bear it. Slipping back into my room to pick up my child and roll him in a shawl, I prepared to storm the position with entreaties that I felt sure my husband was not the husband to withstand. He came plunging down the stairs just as I was about to ascend. I stopped, and called to him. "Tom, _do_ let me be with you!" "I was on my way to you, Polly, to see if you were awake, and would like to come up for a little talk. It's quiet now." He put his arm round my waist, and turned to hoist me upward. "Hullo!" he exclaimed, "Is that----" "Of course it is. You wouldn't have me leave him behind, all alone by himself?" "But won't he catch his death of cold?" "How can he, on a night like this? It will do him good. And I won't let him cry, Tom." "Give him to me. I'll carry him up." "_Can_ you?" He laughed, and took the little creature from me in a delightfully paternal fashion, and without bungling at all. I had been half afraid that he was going to turn out like so many men--like Mr. Jones, for instance--but had no misgivings after that. Even when we encountered Mr. Jones on duty, he was not ashamed to let his officer see him with an infant in his arms. Certainly he was born to be a father, if anybody ever was. It was very stuffy in his little house, which had the funnel behind it; so he put a chair for me outside, under the shelter of the screen, and I sat there for some time. It was simply the _sweetest_ night! The sea is never still, of course, however calm it may be, but its movements were just as if it were breathing in its sleep. And the soft, wide shining of the moon in that free and airy space--what a dream it was! At intervals Tom came and dropped on the floor, so that he could lean against my knee and get a hand down over his shoulder. The man at the wheel could see us, but carefully avoided looking--as only a dear sailor would do. The binnacle light was in his face, and I watched him, and saw that he never turned his eyes our way. As for Prince Hal, he slept as if the sea were his natural cradle. So it was. Presently Tom went off the bridge, and when he returned a steward accompanied him, carrying a mattress, blankets, and pillows, which he made up into a comfortable bed beside me. "How will that do?" my husband inquired, rubbing the back of a finger against my cheek. "It isn't the first time I've made you a bed on deck--eh, old girl?" I was wearing a dressing-gown, and lay down in it, perfectly at ease. He lowered the child into my arms, punched the pillows for our heads, tucked us up, and kissed us. "This is on condition that you sleep," he said. "It is a waste of happiness to sleep," I sighed ecstatically. "I want to lie awake to revel in it." "If I see you lying awake an hour hence," he rejoined, pretending to be stern, while his voice was so full of tenderness that he could scarcely control it, "I shall send you back to your cabin, Polly." So I did not let him see it. But for several hours, when he was not looking, I watched his dear figure moving to and fro, and the sea, and the stars, with the smoke from the funnel trailing over them, and revelled in full consciousness of my utter bliss. Even now--after all these years--I get a sort of lump in my throat when I think of it. CHAPTER III. A PAGE OF LIFE. Does love fly out of the window when poverty walks in at the door? No, no--of course not! Only when love is an imitation love, selfish and cowardly, as true love can never be. I am sure ours stayed with us always, no matter how cramped and starved. We never felt a regret for having married each other, even when the practical consequences were most unpleasant--never, never, not for a single instant. And yet--and yet--well, it is all over now. One need not make one's self gratuitously uncomfortable by reviving memories of hardships long gone by, and never likely to be repeated. Another thing. _Is_ it fair that a sea-captain should have such miserable wage for such magnificent work? He has no play-hours, like other working men, no nights' rest, no evenings at home, no Saturday holidays--no Sundays even--and no comfort of his wife and family. He is exposed to weather that you would not turn a dog into, and to fatigue only measured by the extent of human endurance; and accepts both without a thought of protest. He has the most awful responsibilities continually on his mind, as to which he is more inflexibly conscientious than any landsman living; and he is broken and ruined if an accident happens that he is but technically to blame for and did his utmost to prevent. Yet all he gets in return is a paltry twenty pounds a month! At least, that is what Tom got--with an English certificate and a record without a flaw. It is because sailors are not money-grubbers, as landsmen are, that the money-grubbers take advantage of them. Tom used to bring his money home and give it all to me, and he almost apologised for having to ask for a little now and then, to provide himself with clothes and tobacco. Moreover, he never pried into my spendings, though anxious that I should be strict and careful, and pleased to be asked to advise me and to audit my small accounts. In this he was the most gentlemanly husband I ever heard of. And of course I strained every nerve to manage for the best, and prove myself worthy of the confidence reposed in me. But I was not much of a housekeeper in those days. At home Miss Coleman had attended to everything, even to the buying of my frocks; for my father had never made me an allowance--which I do think is so wrong of fathers! If you are not taught the value of money when you are a girl, how are you to help muddling and blundering when you are a married woman?--especially if you marry a poor man. I thought at first that twenty pounds a month was riches. But even at the first, and though we used enough of Aunt Kate's wedding present to cover the cost of setting up a house, there seemed nothing left over at the month's end, try as I would to be economical. When the second draft came I had doctor's and nurse's fees like lead upon my mind; we did not invest that hundred at all, and it melted like smoke. And then--before Harry was fairly out of arms--Phyllis was born, and I was delicate for a long time; without a second servant my nursery cares would have killed me. I thought Aunt Kate would have sent me help again, but she did not--perhaps because I had neglected to write to her, being always so taken up with household cares. And I got into arrears with the tradesmen, and into the way of paying them "something on account," as I could spare the money and not as it was due; and this wrecked the precise system that Tom had made such a point of, so that I kept things from him rather than have him worried when he wanted rest. And it was miserable to be struggling by myself, weighed down with sordid anxieties, tossing awake at night to think and think what I could do, never any nearer to a solution of the everlasting difficulty, but rather further and further off. And I know I was very cross and fretful--how could I help it?--and that my poor boy must often have found the home that should have cheered him a depressing place. He seemed not to like to sleep while I was muddling about, and used to look after the children, or clean the knives and boots, when he should have been recruiting in his bed for the next voyage. For I was again obliged to do as I could with one poor maid-of-all-work, and I am afraid--I really am a little afraid sometimes--that I have a tendency to be inconsiderate when I have much to think of. By the time that Bobby was born--we had then been five years married--all the romance of youth seemed to have departed from us, dear as we were to one another. Our talk when we met was of butchers and bakers, rents and rates, the wants of the house and how they could be met or otherwise; and we had to shout sometimes to make ourselves heard above the noise of crying babies and the clack of the sewing-machine. It was exactly like the everyday, commonplace, perfunctory, prosaic married life that we saw all around us, and to the level of which we had thought it impossible that _we_ should ever sink. Tom says, no. On second thoughts I do too. The everyday marriage was not dignified with those great moments of welcome and farewell, those tragic hours of the night when the husband was fighting the wind and sea and the wife listening to the rattle of the windows with her heart in her mouth--such as, for the time being, uplifted us above all things tame and petty. And what parents, jogging along in the groove of easy custom, can realize the effect of trials such as some of those that our peculiar circumstances imposed on us, in keeping the wine of life from growing flat and stale. The same thing happened at Bobby's birth as at Harry's, Tom was perforce away, and I might have died alone without his knowing it. Three months later the little one took convulsions and was given up by the doctor; and the father again was out of reach, and might have come home to find his baby underground. Never shall I forget those times of anguish and rapture--and many besides, which proved that nothing in the world was of any consequence to speak of compared with our value to one another. But we forget so soon! And the little things have such power to swamp the big ones. They are like the dust and sand of the desert, which cover everything if not continually dredged away. And all those little debts and privations and schemings and strugglings to make ends meet that would not meet, were enough to choke one. Especially as Bobby cut his teeth with more trouble than any baby I ever had, and as I, what with one thing and another, grew quite disheartened and out of health, so that I never knew what it was not to feel tired. The ignoble sorrows of this period--which I hate to think of--seemed to culminate on the morning of the day that I am going to tell of--at the end of which they were so joyfully dispelled. Bobby had cried incessantly through the night, so that I had only slept in snatches, just enough to make me feel more heavy and yawny than if I had not slept at all. I dragged myself dispiritedly out of bed, dying for the cup of tea which did not appear till an hour after its time, and was then brought to me rank and cold from standing, with no milk in it. "I forgot to put the can out last night," was Maria's cheerful explanation, "and I waited in hopes that the milkman would come back, but he didn't. And, please'm, what shall I do about the children's breakfast?" "You mean to say you never left a drop over from yesterday, in case of accidents?" I demanded, tears rushing into my eyes. "Oh, Ma-_ria!_" It sounds a poor thing to cry about, but I appeal to mothers to say if I was a fool. Bobby was a bottle baby, and we had all our milk from one cow on his account; and he was ill, and the dairy at least a mile away. Rarely had I trusted Maria to remember to put the can out for the morning supply, delivered before she was up; I used to hang it on the nail myself. But last night, having my hands so full, I had contented myself with telling her twice over not to forget it. With this result! At any moment the poor child might awake and cry for food, and a spoonful of stale dregs was all I had for him. There and then, with clenched teeth and a lump in my throat, and boots on my feet that had mere rags of soles to them, I set off with the milk-can to that distant dairy. It was a thick morning, and presently rained in torrents. When I arrived, drenched to the skin, I was told that all the milk was with the cart, and I had to wait half an hour until the proprietress could be persuaded to give me a little. She was unsympathetic and disobliging--I suppose because I had not paid her husband for three months. On my return home Bobby, in Maria's arms, was shrieking himself into another fit of convulsions; and the other children, catching their deaths of cold in their nightgowns, were paddling about on flagstones and oilcloth, fighting and squalling, and trying to light the dining-room fire. They imagined they were helping, but had spilled coals all over the carpet and used the crumb-brush to spread the black dust afterwards; and the wonder is that they didn't burn the house down. It was not quite just perhaps--poor little things, they _were_ trying their best--but the first thing I did was to box the ears of both of them and send them back to bed. I don't think I ever saw them, as babies, take so small a punishment so greatly to heart. They snuffled and sulked for hours--wouldn't even show an interest in the apricot jam and boiled rice that I gave them for their breakfast and imagined would be a treat to them--and were more vexatious and tiresome than words can say. "I wish father was home," Harry kept muttering, in that moody way of his; it is the thing he always said when he wanted to be particularly aggravating. "Phyllis, I wish father was here, don't you?" "Oh," I cried, "you don't wish it more than I do! If father were here, he'd pretty soon make you behave yourselves. _He_ wouldn't let you drive your mother distracted when she's already got so much to worry her, with poor little brother sick and all." Tears were in my eyes, as they must have seen, but the heartless little brats were not in the least affected. And father's absence was an extra anxiety, for he was hours and hours behind his time. The papers reported fogs along the coast, and I thought of shipwrecks as the day wore on, and began to feel that it would be quite consistent with the drift of things if I were to get news presently that the Bendigo had gone down. I knew how he dreaded fogs, which made a good navigator as helpless as a bad one, and wondered if it implied an instinctive presentiment that a fog was to be his ruin! I remembered his telling me that if ever he was so unfortunate as to lose his ship, he should cast himself away along with her; and the appalling idea filled me not with anguish only, but with a sort of indignation against him. "And he with a young family depending on him!" I cried in my heart--as if he had already done it--"and a wife who would die if he went from her!" I was in that state of mind and health that when, early in the afternoon, I heard him come stumbling in, my solicitude for him suddenly passed, and only the bitter sense of grievance remained. The grocer had been calling in person, insolent about his account, which indeed had been growing to awful dimensions; and I was fairly sick of the whole thing. It was not my poor old fellow's fault, for he gave me his money as fast as he got it, but somehow I felt as if it was. And when he dumped down on the sofa beside me to look at Bobby, I began at once--without even kissing him--to pour out all my woes. I was reckless with misery and headache, and did not care what I said. I told him things I had been scrupulously keeping from him for months--things which I imagined would harrow him frightfully, much to my sorrow when it would be too late. And he--even _he_--seemed callous! He mumbled a soothing word or two, and fell silent. I asked him for advice and sympathy, and he never answered me. Looking at him, I saw that his eyes were shut, his head dropped, his great frame reeling as he sat, trying to prop himself with his broad hands on his broad, outspread knees. "Tom," I cried in despair, "you're not listening to a word I'm saying!" He jerked himself up. "I beg your pardon, Polly. The fact is, I'm dead-beat, my dear. It has been foggy, you know, and I haven't dared to turn in these two nights." It seemed as if _everything_ was determined to go wrong. I could see that his eyelids were swollen and gummy, and that he was half stupefied with fatigue. "What a shame it is!" I passionately complained. "What wretches those owners are--sitting at home in their armchairs, wallowing in luxury, while they make you slave like this--and give you next to nothing for it!" "It's no fault of theirs," said he. "They can't help the weather. And when I've had a few hours' sleep I shall be as right as ninepence. Then we'll talk things over, pet, and I'll see what can be done." I rose, with my sick child in my arms, and he stumbled after me into our bedroom. For the first time it was not ready for him. I had been so distracted with my numerous worries that I had forgotten to make the bed and put away the litter left from all our morning toilets; the place was a perfect pigsty for him to go into. And he coming so tired from the sea--looking to his home for what little comfort his hard life afforded him! When I saw the state of things, I burst into tears. With an extremely grubby handkerchief he wiped them away, and kissed me and comforted me. "What the deuce does it matter?" quoth he. "Why, bless your heart, I could sleep on the top of a gatepost. Just toss the things on anyhow--here, don't you bother--I'll do it." He was contented with anything, but I felt shamed and heart-broken to have failed him in a matter of this kind--the more so because he _was_ so unselfish and unexacting, so unlike ordinary husbands who think wives are made for no other purpose than to keep them always comfortable. In ten minutes he was snoring deeply, and I was trying not to drop tears into the little stew I was cooking for his tea. "At least he shall have a nice tea," I determined, "though goodness knows how I am going to pay for it." Poor baby was easier, and asleep in his cradle; the two others had gone to play with a neighbour's children. So the house was at peace for a time, and that was a relief. It was also an opportunity for thinking--for all one's cares to obtrude themselves upon the mind--and the smallest molehills looked mountains under the shadow of my physical weariness. Having arranged the tea-table and made up the fire, I sat down for a moment, with idle hands in my lap; and I was just coming to the sad conclusion that life wasn't worth living--wicked woman that I was!--when I heard the evening postman. Expecting nothing, except miserable little bills with "account rendered" on them, I trailed dejectedly to the street door. Opening it, a long-leaved book was thrust under my nose, and I was requested to sign for a registered letter. "Ah-h-h!" I breathed deeply, while flying for a pen. "It is that ever-blessed Aunt Kate--I know it is! She seems to divine the exact moment by instinct." I scribbled my name, received the letter, saw my father's handwriting, and turned into the house, much sobered. For father, who was a bad correspondent--like me--had intimated more than once that he was finding it as much as he could do to make ends meet, with his rapidly increasing family. I sat down by the fire, opened the much-sealed envelope, and looked for the more or less precious enclosure. I expected a present of five pounds or so, and I found a draft for a hundred. The colour poured into my face, strength and vigour into my body, joy and gladness into my soul, as I held the document to the light and stared at it, to make sure my eyes had not deceived me. Oh, what a pathetic thing it is that the goodness of life should so depend upon a little money! Even while I thought that hundred pounds was all, I was intoxicated with the prospect before me--bills paid, children able to have change of air, Tom and I relieved from a thousand heartaches and anxieties which, though they could not sour him, yet spoiled the comfort of our home because they sapped my strength and temper. I ran to wake him and tell him how all was changed in the twinkling of an eye; but when I saw him so heavily asleep, my duty as a sailor's wife restrained me. Nothing short of the house burning over his head would have justified me in disturbing him. I went back to my rocking-chair to read my father's letter. Well, here was another shock--two or three shocks, each sharper than the last. My beloved aunt was dead. She had had an uncertain heart for several years, and it had failed her suddenly, as is the way of such. She went to church on a Sunday night, returned in good spirits and apparently good health, ate a hearty supper, retired to her room as usual, and was found dead in her bed next morning when her maid took in her tea. This sad news sufficed me for some minutes. Seen through a curtain of thick tears, the words ran into each other, and I could not read further. Dear, dear Aunt Kate! She was an odd, quick-tempered old lady, cantankerous at times; but how warm-hearted, how just and generous, how good to me, even when I did not care to please her! When one is a wife, and especially when one is a mother, all other relationships lose their binding power; but still I could not help crying for a little while over the loss of Aunt Kate. And I can honestly say that I did not think of her money until after I had wiped my eyes and resumed reading. When I turned over a leaf and saw the word, I remembered the importance of her will to all her relatives. I said to myself, "After all, the hundred pounds does come from her. It is her legacy to me." And I was sordid enough to feel a pang of disappointment because--being her last bequest--it was so small. "We buried her yesterday," wrote father, "and the will was read after the funeral, and has proved a great and painful surprise to us. She has left the bulk of her money to a man I never even heard of, an engineer in India. Uncle John says his father was an admirer of hers when she was a girl, but she never mentioned the name--Keating--to me, and I can't understand the thing at all. She was always eccentric, and some of us think we might contest the will with a fair chance of success. However, my lawyer advises to the contrary, and my wife also; so I, for one, shall let it go. "She has not altogether forgotten her own family. There are a number of small legacies, including £2,000 for myself, which will come in very usefully just now, though not a tithe of what I expected. I have also some plate and furniture. You, my dear girl, are the best off of us all. Besides jewellery and odds and ends, she has left you the interest of £10,000 (in Government securities) for life, your children after you. This will give you an income of £300 a year--small, but absolutely safe--and relieve my mind of many anxieties on your behalf." He went on to tell me about powers of attorney and other legal matters that I did not understand and thought unworthy of notice at such a moment. He also explained that lawyers were a dilatory race, and that he was advancing £100 to tide me over the interval that must elapse before affairs were settled. Again I went into my room and looked at Tom. How _could_ he sleep in a house so charged with wild excitement! I regret to say it was that, and not grief, which made my heart throb so that I wonder he did not feel the bedstead shaking, and the very floor and walls. I ached with suppressed exclamations; I tingled with an intolerable restlessness, as if bitten by a thousand fleas. And still he lay like a log, drawing his breath deeply and slowly, with soft, comfortable grunts; and still, in an agony of self-control, I refrained from touching him. Baby woke up, moist and smiling. His tooth was through; he seemed to know that it was his business to get well at once. It is not only misfortunes that never come singly; good luck is a thing that seldom rains but it pours. Harry and Phyllis came home, took their tea peaceably, and went to bed like lambs. I sent Maria, with half a sovereign, to a savoury cook-shop where they sold fowls and hams and all sorts of nice things ready for table, and she brought back a supper fit for a prince. "It is all right, Maria," I assured her, in my short-breathed, vibrating voice, seeing her wonder at my extravagance. "I am rich now. I can afford the captain something better than a twice-cooked stew. Spend it all, Maria, on the best things you can get. And you shall have your wages to-morrow, and a present of a new frock." When all was ready--the glazed chicken, the juicy slices of pink ham, the wedge of rich Stilton, the bottle of English ale--I returned again to my unconscious spouse. It was ten o'clock, and he had been sleeping with all his might for seven hours. Surely that was enough! Especially as he still had the whole night before him. I stroked his hair--I kissed his forehead--I kissed his shut eyes. He can resist everything but that; when I kiss his eyes he is obliged to stir and murmur and want kisses for his lips. He stirred now, and turned up his dear old face. "Pol----" "Yes, darling, it's me. Are you awake?" He sighed luxuriously. "Tommy, _are_ you awake?" "Wha's th' time?" "It's _awfully_ late. Come, you won't sleep to-night if you don't get up now." "Oh, sha'n't I? I could sleep for a week if I had the chance. Ah-hi-ow!" He yawned like a drowsy lion. "I'd sooner have twenty gales than one fog, Polly." "I know you would. But never mind about gales and fogs and trivial things of that kind. I've something far, far more important to talk to you about--something that will make your very hair stand on end with astonishment. Only I want to be quite sure first that you are awake enough to take it in." He called his faculties together in a moment as if I had been the look-out man reporting breakers, and was all alive and alert to deal summarily with the situation, whatever it might be. And I rushed upon my story, showed him the letter and the draft, and poured out a jumbled catalogue of all the things we could now do that wanted doing--beginning with a leaking kettle and ending with his professional appointment, which I had decided must be resigned forthwith. "And we will live together always and always, like other husbands and wives, only that we shall be a thousand times happier," I concluded, as I led him in to his supper, hanging on his arm. "No more fogs and gales, to wear you out and perhaps drown you in the end, but your bed every night, and your armchair by the fire, your home and family, and me--_me_----" "Little woman! But you mustn't forget, pet, that I'm not thirty-eight till next birthday. A man can't give up work and sink into armchairs at that age." "Of course he can't. We can find some nice post ashore. There are plenty of things, if you look for them." "Not for sailor men, who know nothing but their trade." "Oh, heaps--any amount of heaps! And you can take your time, of course. No need to hurry for a year or two. You want a long holiday. You have never had one yet. And _I_ want _you_. What's the use of money, if we can't enjoy it together? We have not had so much as one whole month to ourselves since we were married." "Well, a sailor's wife must accept the conditions, you know." "Yes, when necessary. But it is not necessary now that we are people of independent means." "Three hundred a year isn't three thousand. And we've got to educate the kids, and put by for them." "No need to put by for them when they are to have my money after I am dead." "For myself, then. You wouldn't like to die and leave me to sell matches in the streets?" "Oh, Tom, don't talk about dying--now that it's so sweet to be alive!" "My dear, you began it. I vote we don't talk any more at all, but eat our supper and go to bed. Here, sit down by me, and let us gorge. I have had nothing since morning, and this table excites me to frenzy." We cut off the breast of the chicken for the children and a leg for Maria, and demolished the rest. We drank the beer between us, out of one tumbler; we devoured half of a crusty loaf, and cheese sufficient for a dozen nightmares; and I never felt so well in my life as I did after it. Tom said the same. But sleep was far away--even from him. We had to arrange our programme for the morning--the fetching of Nurse Barber to take care of baby, the business at the bank, the settlings of pressing accounts, the beginnings of our innumerable shoppings; and whenever a silence fell that I knew I should not break, something forced me to turn over in bed with a violent fling and make loud ejaculations. "Oh, dear, kind, sweet Aunt Kate! To think that I am so pleased at having her money that I cannot cry because she is dead! Oh, Tom, Tom! To think that we never need owe a penny again--never, never, as long as we live!" This was merely the effect of shock. We sobered down next day. And it was wonderful how soon we grew accustomed to having an independent income, and to feeling that it would not go half as far as it should. Long and long had we spent the hundred pounds before the first instalment of the annuity was paid over; we thought it was never coming, and when it came it melted like snow in sunshine. One has no idea what it costs to furnish even a small house comfortably until one begins to do it, and a few doctor's bills play havoc with all one's calculations. And my husband could not stay at home with me--rather, he would not. I am sure there were dozens of situations that he might have had for the asking--a man so universally beloved and respected--but he would not ask. He was fit for the sea, he said, but would be a useless lubber ashore--a fish out of water, a stranded hulk, and things of that sort. The fact was he _preferred_ the sea--in which he differed from most sailors--and hated streets and clubs and landsmen's pursuits. He said he should choke if he were shut up in them, and I said, with tears, that he cared more for the sea than he did for his wife and children. Of course he declared it was not so, and his feelings were hurt; but he admitted the strong affection. I was his mate as he described it, his nearest and dearest--I and the children; but the sea was his comrade, to whom he had grown accustomed--his foster mother, who had nursed him so long that she had made him feel like a part of her. A foster mother is not much of a rival to a wife so loved as I am, but, oh, how jealous of her I was! However, I don't believe that his affection for the sea had anything to do with it. I doubt very much whether that affection was as genuine as it appeared. My conviction is that he was in terror of the possible indignity of having to live upon my money. Such utter nonsense!--when wife and husband are absolutely one, as we were. CHAPTER IV. THE BROKEN CIRCLE. I had my heart's desire at last--with the usual calamitous result. Of course it came when I least expected it, and in the paltriest kind of way--merely because a workman, whom I had engaged to put a new stove into the children's play-room, chose to leave his job unfinished until over Sunday, instead of clearing it off on Saturday morning, as he easily might have done. There was no school on Saturday, and it was a wet, cold day, when even the boys had to be kept indoors; so there was nothing for it but to turn them and Phyllis into the dining-room--my nice dining-room, which had lately had a new carpet--while I took the drawing-room for myself and Lily, to keep her out of harm's way. She was not very well--nor was I; and I confess that I was in a cross mood. I had all my four children with me then, safe under my wing, and did not know how well off I was! During the morning they were fairly good, preparing their lessons most of the time; but after dinner they were at a loss for amusement, tired of the house, restless and mischievous--very wearing to a mother whose nerves were out of tune. Even Lily became fractious. I gave her a doll and some picture-books and my work-basket to play with, but she fiddled with them, and fidgeted, and would not settle to anything. She kept listening to the noises from the dining-room--the boys paid no heed to my repeated calls to them to be quiet--and uttering monotonous whinings to be allowed to go there. "Mother, do let me go and play with the others." "No, Lily; little girls must not romp about with rough boys." "Phyllis is a little girl, and she's romping with them." "Phyllis hasn't a bad cold, as you have." "My cold is quite better now, mother." "No, it isn't. It is only a little better. And we mustn't let it get worse again by running into draughts." "There are no draughts in the dining-room, mother. It's all shut up. I can put the flannel round my neck, mother." Oh, I could have smacked her! But of course I didn't, poor little ailing mite--barely three years old; besides, my attention was constantly distracted by the boys, who, when not rushing into and out of the hall, yelling and slamming doors as if they wanted to bring the house down, were scuffling and thumping within the dining-room in a way to make me tremble for my good furniture. I went to them once or twice to read the riot act, and each time they left off what they were doing the moment they heard me, sat mumchance while I scolded them, almost laughing in my face, and went on worse than ever directly my back was turned. Boys will be boys, Tom used to tell me, in his easy-going way, but I don't believe in letting boys defy their mother with impunity. And when presently I heard the yapping of a dog in addition to their own shouts and cries, I was at the end of my patience with them, determined to assert myself effectually once for all. Rushing into the dining-room, before they had time to hear me coming, this is what I saw. The window open--cakes of mud all over the new carpet--Bobby's dog, streaming with rain, on the nice tablecloth, barking at Phyllis's cat planted on a silk sofa cushion, which she was tearing and ravelling in her frantic claws--the children standing round, Phyllis holding her cat, Bobby his dog, and Harry inciting the impotent animals to fly at one another, all three consumed with laughter, as if it were the greatest fun in the world. The first thing I did was to dash at Waif, knocking him out of Bobby's hands and off the table--and I shall never forgive myself for that as long as I live. It was a shabby mongrel terrier which Bobby had picked up in the street one day on his way from school, and been allowed to cure of starvation and a lame leg and keep for his own particular pet; and the mutual devotion of the pair was a joke of the family. Waif was now fat and strong, though as ugly as before, but when he scrambled up from the fall I had given him he limped a little on the leg that had been broken; and Bobby snatched him into his arms again, and turned upon me with blazing eyes--Bobby, who had never given me impudence in the whole course of his life. "Hit me, mother," said he, "if you like, but don't hit him--for nothing at all." "You call that nothing?" I cried, and pointed to the pretty terra-cotta cloth--one mass of smears and muddy footmarks. Ah, my precious boy! What would a thousand terra-cotta tablecloths matter now? He seemed quite surprised to discover that a dog brought in from the rain and a garden that was a perfect swamp could be wet and dirty, and stared open-mouthed at the damage done. I marched him to the window and made him drop Waif out, tossed the scratching kitten after him, shut down the sash and locked it, and then turned to Harry. For Harry was the eldest, the ringleader, the one who ought to have known better and who set the example for the rest. "You do this on purpose to vex me," I cried vehemently, "and because you know I am ill to-day, and that father is away!" I did not quite mean that, but one cannot help saying rather more than one means in such moments of acute exasperation. "Do what?" returned Harry, looking as surprised as Bobby had done. "I'm not doing anything. And you never told us you were ill." "I have a raging headache," I said--and so I had as the result of the long day's worry. "And I have been telling you the whole afternoon to be quiet, and the more I tell you, the more you disobey me. Look at that beautiful new carpet--ruined for ever! Look at that lovely cushion--simply scratched to pieces! And a great, big boy like you, who ought to be a comfort to his mother----" But there is no need to repeat all I said to him; indeed, I cannot remember it; but my blood was up, and I know I scolded him severely. And he answered me back, as he alone of all the children dared to do, which of course made things worse; for if there is one thing I cannot stand it is impertinence. He was just telling me that, if I chose to regard him as a ruffian and a cad, he could not help it, when we heard a distant door open--the way a door opens to the hand of the master of the house. "There!" I exclaimed passionately. "There's your father! We'll see what _he_ says to the way you treat me when his back is turned." Tom came in, with that bright look he always wears when he sees us after an absence. How could I have had the heart to extinguish it, and to make his children quake at sight of his dear face, instead of flying to welcome him, as was the rule on his return! But a mother's authority _must_ be upheld. I said so to Tom, and he said I was perfectly right, and that it was his business to see it done. He bade me explain what was the matter, and I did so, softening things a little--more and more as I went on--since, after all, it was nothing so very dreadful. Perhaps I had been a little hasty and hard; I thought so when I saw how Tom was taking it. He had that inexorable look of the commander confronted with mutiny--as if really I were accusing the poor boys of murder at the least. And when I saw how they stood before him--Bob downcast and tearful, and Harry with his head up, teeth and hands clenched, too proud to quail--oh, I would have given anything to save them! But it was too late. "I am sure they didn't mean it," I protested, laying my hand on Harry's shoulder, which felt as rigid as iron under it. "We can overlook it this time, father, dear." "The one thing I will never overlook," he replied, "is misconduct towards you when I leave you unprotected. If they don't know the first rudiments of manliness--at their age--I must try to teach them." "But _that_ is not the way to teach them!" I cried--almost shrieked--as he signed to them to pass out of the room before him. "Oh, Tom, don't! don't! It is all my fault!" Harry turned and looked at me with an ice-cold smile, as if his face were galvanised, and said calmly, "It is all right, mother. It is _quite_ right." And then the three of them left me, Tom himself sternly keeping me back when I tried to follow; and presently, with my head buried in the torn pillow and my hands over my ears, I heard an agonised wail from poor little Bob. Not from Harry, of course; he would be cut to pieces before he would deign to cry out. Oh, what _brutes_ men are! I hated Tom--though he was Tom--with a hatred that was perfectly murderous while it lasted. We had our tea together alone--a thing that had never happened before, on his first evening, since we had had a child old enough to sit up at table. I had sent the little girls to bed--Phyllis for punishment, Lily for her throat, and because I felt I could not stand her chatter--and he had sent the boys. There were the usual first-night delicacies--sweetbreads, wild ducks, honey in the combs--and for once they were uneaten and unnoticed. All my preparations for his home-coming were thrown away. He was glum and silent, evidently as upset as I was, with no appetite for anything. As for me, I felt as if a crumb of bread would choke me. And I would not speak to him--I could not--with that shriek of Bobby's in my ears. "I suppose," he said, in a heavy voice--"I suppose I'd better resign my billet and come home, Polly. They're getting pretty old now for you to struggle with them single-handed. It's not fair to you, my dear." I treated this remark as if I had not heard it, and he soon rose from his seat and left the room. He went into his little smoking den, shut the door behind him, and locked it. When I thought him safely out of the way I stole off to see and comfort my poor boys. They shared the same room, their beds standing side by side, with a chair between them. When I crept in they were talking in a low voice together; as soon as they heard me they fell silent and pretended to be asleep. A smell of moist dog and an otherwise unaccountable protuberance implied the presence of a third culprit--and a flat contravention of one of the strict rules of the house--but I took no notice, although terrified lest Bobby's shirt and sheets should be dampened, and sickened by the thought of the fleas that would infest him. Oh, how thankful I am now that I took no notice, and did not snatch his bit of comfort from his arms! I sat down on the chair and leaned over Harry, smoothed his hair from his brow, and kissed him. I might as well have kissed the bed-post. He is a peculiar boy--a little hard-natured and perverse--and he can never bear anybody to pity him. I was not surprised that he repulsed me, though I felt dreadfully hurt. My beloved Bobby--my angel, whom I never rightly appreciated until I had lost him--he was quite different. He kissed me back again, and whimpered when I talked to him, and told me he had never meant to be as naughty as father thought. Bless him! I knew he never did. I told him so. But even then he was just a little reserved with me, as if he could not quite forgive me for what I had brought upon him--which was bitter enough at the time, but an agony to think of afterwards, as it is to this day. So I went away to my room and cried in the dark, utterly miserable. And I thought to myself, "If this is how they feel towards me, how will they regard their father, who has treated them so brutally? Why, they will never have an atom of affection for him again!" But when I went back to them, hoping for a warmer welcome, and anxious about their poor empty stomachs, there was Tom, sitting on the chair between their beds, chatting to them, and they to him, as if nothing had occurred--aye, although Waif had been deposed and banished. Another chair had been dragged up, and a tray stood on it--a tray piled with food, duck and sweetbread, cold beef and tongue, all mixed together--which he was serving out in lavish helpings, with plenty of bread-and-butter. Harry, leaning on his elbow, rested his head on his father's arm; Bob, crouched at his knees on the floor, looked up at him with his dear merry eyes, that bore no malice--not even a reproach. They did not see me at the door, where I stood a minute to watch them, suffocated by the sense of being shut out. I did not think it was quite right of Tom. But I did not say so. When he called to me to come in and be apologised to--the boys did it handsomely, but still rather perfunctorily, I fancied--I was glad to let bygones be bygones, and to feel we were a united family once more. And I thought the incident ended there. Nothing more was said about it while Tom remained at home, and he went away as usual, giving me--even me--not the faintest indication of what was in his mind. So that I was completely dumfoundered when, on his next return, he said, in a tremulous tone of voice and with quite a tragic air generally: "Well, Polly, I've done it." "_What?_" I cried, guessing his meaning in an instant, for I remembered his remark at tea that night when we were all so unhappy. "You _don't_ mean to say you have thrown up your command--thrown away everything--just _now_, when we want so badly to increase our income and not to lessen it--without a word of warning?" "No warning?" quoth he. "Why, haven't you been at me every day for the last dozen years to do it? And quite right too. It's bad for boys to grow up without a father to look after them, and their welfare is of more importance than anything else." "You say that, and at the same time take away all chance of their having a decent education and a fair start in the world! How am I to keep them at the Grammar School, and have a governess for the girls, and support the house and all, on my poor three hundred a year?" I should not have said it, and could have cut my tongue out before the words were half uttered, but somehow the first news of the shock that we were to lose half our income, on which we already found it no easy matter to make ends meet, was overwhelming. And we were so accustomed to speak freely whatever was in our minds that I never anticipated he would take a chance remark so ill. I suppose his interview with the owners had agitated him; as I heard afterwards, the whole office had expressed regrets at his leaving the service, and said all kinds of nice and flattering things about him; otherwise I am sure he would not have given way as he did. He just turned from me, put his arms on the mantelpiece, and, dropping his head down, gave a sob under his breath. My own good husband! That ever I should have been the cause--however innocently--of bringing a tear to his dear eyes, a moment's pang to his faithful heart! Of course he forgave me at once--he always does; and in a few minutes we were talking things over in peace and comfort, while I sat on his knee--for the children were in school, happily. "As for income, Polly, you don't suppose I am going to live on you?" he said--and a very unkind thing it was to say, as I told him. "You don't imagine I intend to sit at home and twiddle my thumbs, while you take the whole burden on your little shoulders--do you?" "I don't see why you shouldn't," I replied. "At any rate for a long while to come. I'm sure if any one ever earned the right to a thorough rest, you have. And, oh, Tom, no burden can be a burden with you here to help me!" "Thanks, old girl. That's good hearing." "As if you wanted to be told that! And by and by, when you have had a nice long spell, there are sure to be posts offered to you about the ports----" "No, Polly; don't delude yourself with that idea. There are no posts for a sailor who leaves sea--that is, one or two, perhaps, and a hundred fellows wanting them. I should be no good at office work, among the smart hands, and the life would kill me. No, I've a better notion than that--it's been in my mind a long time, and I've been talking it over with experts, men who thoroughly understand the matter----" "And not with me!" I interposed reproachfully. "Well, I didn't see the use of disturbing your mind until one could do something. But now the time has come." He was quite bright and excited. "Look here, Polly--listen, dear, till I have explained fully--my idea is to take a little farm place on the outskirts of Melbourne----" "A farm!" I broke in. "Are _you_ one of those who think that farming comes by instinct and doesn't have to be learned like other trades?" "I don't mean that kind of farm, but just a few acres of good land--more on the edge of the country than in it, you understand--near enough for the boys to get to the Grammar School by train or on ponies--and breed pigs----" "Oh, pigs!" I echoed, sniffing. "Well, if you objected to pigs, there's poultry. With a few incubators we could rear fowls enough to supply all Melbourne. Or bees. There's a great trade to be done in honey if you know how to set about it. Bees feed themselves, and flowers cost nothing--I particularly want us to live among plenty of flowers--and I could make the boxes myself. But pigs are the thing, Polly. I've gone into the question thoroughly, and there's no doubt about it. You see, we should be able to keep cows--think how splendid to give the children fresh milk from our own dairy, as much as they can drink!--and we could send the rest to a factory and get the buttermilk back for the pigs. And vegetables--of course we'd have a big garden--and they'd eat all the surplus that would otherwise go to waste, and the fallen fruit, and the refuse from the kitchen; so that really the cost of feed would be next to nothing. The pork would be first-class on such a diet, given the right breed to begin with, and what Melbourne markets couldn't absorb we might ship frozen to England." And so on. Well, it was a fascinating picture, and his enthusiasm was contagious. I, too, thought it would be lovely to live amongst cows and flowers, and at the same time be making a fortune out of our Arcadian surroundings. So I went in for the little farm, and all the three classes of profitable stock--pigs, fowls, bees--in short, everything. What would have happened to us if Tom had not made a few unexpected thousands by the purest accident, I don't know. He did a little deal in mining shares, under the direction of a strangely disinterested friend who was expert at that business, and so saved us all from ruin. I may add that it was his sole exploit of the kind. I would not let him gamble any more--beyond putting an annual pound or two in Tattersall's Sweeps--because, although he thought he had been very smart, he was as ignorant as a confiding infant of the ways of money dealers, and never could have experienced such another stroke of luck. He was easily persuaded to let well alone, as always to defer to and see the reasonableness of any wish of mine. It was before we had fairly plunged into our messes and muddles--in the very beginning, when the _couleur de rose_ was over all--when the dilapidations of our country cottage were all repaired, and everything in the most beautiful order--when the fields were rich with spring grass and the scent of wattle-blossom, and the sleek cows had calved, and the hens were clucking about with thriving families of chicks--when the bee boxes were still a-making, and the two first pigs only in their smart new sty--when the children, released from the schoolroom, were scampering everywhere with their father, who was more of a child than any of them, and growing fat and rosy on the sweet air and the pure milk--when we were telling one another all day that we never were so happy and so well off--it was then that the calamity of our lives befell us. A small creek touched the borders of the two paddocks that we called our farm, and, like all creeks, was fringed with wild vegetation, bushes and trees that interposed a romantic screen between its little bed and the world of prosaic agriculture. It so happened that the children--like many thousands of native Australians, far older than they--had never seen the bush. When they had wanted change of air Tom had taken them to sea; and as he had never had holidays himself, and I had never cared to go away from home without him, we were nearly in the same case. That strip of scrub was true bush, as far as it went, and we were delighted in it. We were too busy just then to go thither in daytime, and would not allow the children to ramble there alone, for fear of snakes--although it was much too early and too cool for them; besides which, there were none--but we would take the fascinating walk about sundown in a family party, and sometimes have our tea there, returning after dark with strange treasures of leaf and insect, clear pebbles that we made sure were topazes in the rough, and stones with mica specks in them that we thought were gold. And once we went there in moonlight--the full moon of our first October--when it was mild and balmy, and we could easily imagine ourselves in forests primeval untrodden by a human foot except our own! How well I remember it--as if it were yesterday!--the enormous look of the trees in that beautiful, deceptive light, and how we stood in an ecstatic group under one of them to look up at an oppossum sitting in the fork of a dead branch. Many people think that oppossums, like snakes and laughing jackasses, are common objects of the country in all its parts; but that is not the case nowadays with any of the three, and none of our family had beheld the dear little furry animal, except dead in a museum or torpid in the Zoölogical Gardens, while it had been one of the great ambitions of our lives to do so. And here he was, alive, alert, and unmistakable, his ears sticking up and his bushy tail hanging down, sitting against the moon, as I had seen roosting pheasants in the woods at home, looking down at us with the intense interest that an oppossum is able to take in things at that hour. The excitement was tremendous. The boys literally danced round and round the tree, and Waif was beside himself; he made frantic leaps upward, turning somersaults in the rebound, wildly tore at the bark of the tree and the earth at its roots, and filled the quiet night with his impassioned yaps and squeaks. He also, to the best of our belief, had never seen an oppossum before; yet he was as keen as a foxhound after a fox to get at and destroy it. The little animal did not seem to mind. It sat still and gazed at us, as is the way of an oppossum, even when you have no camp-fire or lantern to mesmerise and paralyse it; we could almost fancy that we saw its fixed eyes, large and liquid, in the light of the moon. And suddenly Bobby ejaculated, from the depths of his heart, "Oh--_oh_--if _only_ I'd got my gun!" We took no notice--never heeded the warning given us--but only laughed to hear the little chap talking of his gun as if he were an old sportsman. It was a small single barrel, presented to him on his going to the country by his godfather, Captain Briggs (much to my dismay at the time, and the natural chagrin of the elder brother, who should have been the first to possess one), and Tom had given the child but two lessons in the use of it--shooting bottles from the top of the paddock fence. Being without a gun, the boys flung aloft such missiles as came to hand, and, when a stick of wood touched the branch it sat on, the 'possum ran along it to a place where it was lost in leaves. Then we bethought ourselves of the late hour, called off Waif, and went home to bed--to bed, and to sleep as tranquil and unforeboding as the sleep of other nights. The next day was exceptionally full of business. Recreation was not thought of. It was nine o'clock when we left off work--Tom and I. Lily was long in bed, but the other children had no proper hour for retiring at this unsettled time. I went to the sitting-room to look for them, and found only Phyllis there. The lamp was not lit, nor the blinds drawn. I noticed that the moon was up, and by its light saw her crouched at one of the windows, pressing her face against the glass. I asked her what she was doing there, and she did not hear me; on my repeating the question, she sprang up with such a start of fright that I at once divined mischief somewhere. "Where is Harry?" I cried sharply. Somehow it was always Harry, my handsome first-born, that I expected things to happen to. Phyllis stammered and shuffled, and then said that Harry had gone to look for Bobby. "And where is Bobby?" She seemed still more reluctant to reply, but suddenly exclaimed, with an air of joyful relief, "Oh, there he is! There he is! There's Waif--he can't be far off!" She followed me to the verandah, whither I went to meet and reproach my poor little fellow for having strayed without leave, and there was no boy visible--only the dear, ugly, faithful dog for whose sake all dogs are beloved and sacred for ever and ever. Waif ran to my feet, pawed them and my skirts, squirmed and jumped, yelped and whined, all the time looking up at me with eyes that were full of desire and supplication--trying to tell me something that at first I could not understand. I took a few steps into the garden, and he scampered down a pathway to the gate; seeing I did not follow so far, he ran back, seized a bit of my frock in his teeth, and tried to drag me with him. "What does he want?" I called to Tom, as he sauntered towards me, pipe in mouth. "Tom, Tom, _what_ does it mean?" "Where's Bob?" was his instant question. "Harry has gone after him--Harry is with him--Harry will bring him home," piped Phyllis, trembling like a leaf. Then she burst into tears. "Oh, mother--oh, father--I heard the gun such a long, long time ago!" The gun! Who would have dreamed of _that?_--locked up in a wardrobe, as we supposed, and forbidden to be so much as looked at except under parental supervision. At the word our hearts jumped, and seemed to stop beating. "He wanted to shoot the oppossum and cure the skin for a present to you on your birthday, mother. And he wanted it to be a secret--for a surprise to you." Waif whined and ran, and we ran after him--Tom in silence, I wailing under my breath, already in despair and heart broken. I can see the devoted creature now, pattering steadily over the moonlit paddocks towards the creek and the trees, stopping every now and then to make sure that we were coming; and see him tracking through the scrub with his nose to the ground, and hear his little uneasy whimper when for a moment he could not perceive us. Once we stopped at the sound of a distant whistle, and I shrieked with joy. "No," said Tom gently. "That's Harry calling him." And we came to the place where we had seen the oppossum the night before. The moonbeams trickled through the branches from which it had looked down upon our happy, united family, and just where we had stood together there was a dark something on the ground. Waif ran up to it and licked it---- * * * * * I can't write any more. CHAPTER V. A LITTLE MISUNDERSTANDING. It was years, literally, before I got over it. Indeed, I have never got over it--never shall, while I have any power to remember things. Death--we all know, more or less, what it means to the living whom it has robbed. To lose a child--the mothers know, at any rate! It is no use talking about it. Besides, there are no words to talk with that can possibly explain. I often hear the remark that my husband has the most patient temper in the world, and I realise its truth when I think of that dreadful time--how I must have wearied and discouraged him, and how he never once reproached me for it, even by a glum look. He knew I could not help it. For one thing, I was ill--physically ill, with the doctor coming to see me. He ordered me tonics, stimulants, a complete change of scene, and so on, but no doctor's prescriptions were any good for my complaint. Winding a watch with a broken mainspring won't make it go. Tonics gave me headaches--tonics accompanied by constant tears and sleeplessness--and, hideous as the house was, with an empty place staring at me from every point to which I could turn my eyes, I knew it would be worse elsewhere. I clung to my own bed, my own privacy, my home where I could do as I liked and shut out the foolish would-be sympathisers and their futile condolences; and I could not bear to leave the other children. Once you have lost a child, you never again feel any confidence that the rest are safe; you seem to _know_ they are going to die if they but catch a cold or scratch a finger, and that they will have no chance at all if you let them out of your sight. Besides, there were things to see to--the poultry, for instance, which was under my charge--if only I could have seen to them! I tried, but sorrow made me stupid; and when the incubator was found stone-cold, and again overheated, and on one occasion burnt to ashes with dozens of poor chicks inside, and when dozens more were drowned in a storm for want of timely shelter--all fine, thriving birds, when, you couldn't get a decent turkey in Melbourne for under a pound--I suppose it was my fault. But Tom always said, "Never mind--don't you worry yourself, Polly," and his first thought was to get me a glass of wine. He was like an old nurse in the way he cosseted and coddled me. When I was more ill than usual, he thought nothing of sitting up all night by my bedside, and making little messes for me in the kitchen with his own hands. He never even said, as I have heard men say at the first starting of tears--not after they have been flowing, like mine, for weeks and weeks--"Why don't you make an effort to control yourself? You know perfectly well that crying only makes you worse and does nobody any good"--as if a poor mother cried from choice and perversity and the pleasure of doing it, when her heart was broken! He knew my heart was broken. He understood. No one else understood. They all thought I could control myself if I liked. Some of them said so, and told one another, I am sure, though I did not hear them, that it was the calm and composed ones who felt the most. That is the theory of books and cold-hearted people; I don't believe in it for a moment. Whenever I see a woman bearing up, as they call it, without showing ravages in some way or other, I know what supports her--not more courage, but a harder nature than mine. A man is different. Tom mourned for our little son with all his heart, though he did not show it; and he did not show it because he is so unselfish. He thought of me before himself, and would not add a straw to my burden. Never was a tenderer husband in this world! I believe those women thought him foolish and weak-minded to indulge me as he did, but that was envy, naturally; they did not know, poor things, what it was to have such a staff to lean on. However, one day, when I was showing him how thin I had grown, taking up handfuls of "slack" in a bodice that had been once tight for me, he began to look--not impatient or aggrieved, but determined--as he used to look on board ship when the law was in his own hands. "Polly," he said, "this has gone on long enough. I'm not going to stand by and see you die by inches before my eyes. Something must be done. I shall take you to sea." "To sea!" I exclaimed. "We can't leave the children. We can't leave the farm. We can't afford----" "I don't care," he broke in. "I'm not going to lose you, if I can help it, for anybody or anything. You're just ready to fall into a rapid decline, or to catch some fatal epidemic or other, and I can't have it, Polly; it must be put a stop to before it is too late. The sea's the thing. The sea's what you want. Come to that, it's what I want myself; I've got quite flabby from being away from it so long. It would brace us up, both of us, and nothing else will. You pack a few clothes, pet, and I'll go into Melbourne and look up a nice boat. Don't you bother your head about the farm or the children or anything--I'll see that they're left all safe." He was so firm about it that I had to give in. The sea, of course, was not like any other change of air and change of scene--it did seem to promise refreshment and renovation, peace even greater than that of my home, where I still suffered from the mistaken kindness of neighbours coming to expostulate with and to cheer me. Besides, when Tom said he had got flabby for want of it, I noticed that he was not looking well. There could be no doubt about the proposed trip being beneficial to him--I must have urged him to take it for his own health's sake--and I could not be left without him. So I mustered a little energy to begin preparations while he went to town; for though I had begged for time to think the matter over, he would not hear of delay. I never knew him so resolute, even with a crew. At night he brought back a brighter face than had been seen in our house for many a long day. I was sitting up for him, and even I had stirrings in my heavy heart of a reviving interest in life. All day I had been thinking of our old voyage in the Racer--remembering the beautiful parts of it, forgetting all the rest. "Well, Polly," said he; "did you wonder what was keeping me so late? The old man"--he meant the head of his old firm--"insisted on my dining with him, and I couldn't well refuse. Talked about everything as frank and free as if I'd been his brother--all the business of the old shop--and said they'd give a hundred pounds to have me back again. By Jove, if it wasn't for you and the children--no, no, I don't mean that; we're happiest as we are--or will be when you are well and heartened up a bit. What do you think, Polly? I'm to take the old Bendigo her next trip. Watson hasn't had a spell for years, and there's a new baby at his place; I saw Watson first--he put me up to it--but the old man was ready to do anything I liked to ask him. 'Certainly,' says he; 'by all means, and whenever you choose. And bring the missus, of course--only too proud to have her company on any ship she fancies.' You know he always thought a deal of you, Polly; I declare he was quite affectionate in his inquiries after you--never thought he could be so kind and jolly. I could have got free passages for both of us easy enough, but it's pleasanter to work for them; and I don't think, somehow, that I could feel at home in the old Bendigo anywhere but on the bridge." "And I should not like to see you anywhere else," I said; "not if we paid full fares twice over. And how nice not to have to pay, when the farm is keeping us so short! How nice an arrangement altogether! I can be upstairs with you--the old man would wish me to do whatever I liked--and have more liberty than would be possible if another was in command, and so can you. It's a charming plan! And the Bendigo, too--our own old Bendigo! Oh, Tom, do you remember _that night!_" It was some years since he had left the boat on board of which he had been introduced to his eldest son; but whenever we recalled the time that he was captain of her our first thoughts pictured the moonlit bridge and the baby; at any rate mine did. And in my terribly deepened sense of the significance of motherhood nothing could have suited me better than to go back to the dear place where my mother-life began, for it did not properly begin until Tom shared it with me. I would sooner have chosen the Bendigo to have a trip in--if I had the choice--than the finest yacht or liner going. So we went to bed almost happy. And two days later, having been quite brisk in the interval, safeguarding our home and children as completely as it could be done, we walked down the familiar wharf, amongst the bales and cases, to where the steamer lay, feeling exhilarated by the thought of our coming holiday, as if old times were back again. It was on the verge of winter now and an exquisite afternoon. Even the filthy Yarra looked silky and shimmering in the mild sunlight, tinted rose and mauve by the city smoke; and the vile smells were kept down by the clean sharpness of the air, so that I did not notice them. We were to sail at five, but went on board early so that Tom could gather the reins into his hand and have all shipshape before passengers arrived. How pleasant it was to see the way they welcomed him! Mr. Jones was first officer now (and had babies of his own), and some of the old faces were amongst the crew. The head steward was the same, and the head engineer, and the black cook who made pastry so well; and they all smiled from ear to ear at the sight of their old master, making it quite evident to me that they had found poor Watson, as they would have found any one else, an indifferent substitute for him. Above all, there was the "old man," as he was irreverently styled--the important chief owner--in person, down on purpose to receive me, with a bouquet for me in his hand. Dear, kind old man! He was something like Captain Saunders in his extreme admiration and respect for "pretty Mrs. Braye," as I was told they called me, and nothing could have been friendlier than his few words of sympathy for my trouble and his real anxiety to make me comfortable on board. One might have imagined I was an owner myself by the fuss they all made over me. It always gratified me--on Tom's account--that I was never put on a level with the other captains' wives. I had the deck cabin again, and we went there for afternoon tea. The steward brought cakes and tarts and all sorts of unusual things, to do honour to the special occasion; and I put my flowers in water, wearing a few of them, and it was all very nice and cheerful. I felt better already, although we had not stirred from the wharf, and although a New Zealand boat close by us was turning in the stream, stirring up the dead cats and things with her propeller, and making a stench so powerful that it was like pepper to the nose. Then, as five o'clock drew near, the "old man" went to look after business about the ship, and Tom to put on his uniform. How splendid he looked in it! Almost the only regret I had for his leaving the sea was that he could no longer wear the clothes which so well became him. Talk about the fascination of a red coat! I never could see anything in it. But a sailor in his peaked cap and brass buttons is the finest figure in the world. I was just going to meet him and tell him how nice he looked, when one of the lady passengers who had been coming on board, and whom I had been manoeuvring to avoid, cut across my bows, so to speak, and rushed at him like a whirlwind. I really thought the woman was going to throw her arms round his neck. "Oh, Captain Braye!" she exclaimed loudly, "how too, too charming to see you here again. Have you come back to the Bendigo for good? Oh, how I hope you have! Do you know, I was going to Sydney by the mail, and was actually on my way to the P.&O. office, when somebody told me you were taking Captain Watson's place. I said at once, 'Then no mail steamers for me, thank you. No other captain for me if I can get Captain Braye.' And so here I am. I managed to get packed up in a day and a half." I could see that Tom looked quite confused. We had both hoped so much that the people would all be strangers who would leave us alone, and he guessed the annoyance I should feel at the threatened curtailment of our independence by this forward person. But there was no need for him to inveigle her out of earshot, and there stand and talk to her for ever so long, as if there were secrets between them not for me to overhear. I know what she wanted--I heard her ask for it--whether she could have the deck cabin as before! A very few seconds should have sufficed to answer _that_ question. She was a stylish person in her way, and her clothes were good, and the servants paid court to her; I asked one of them who she was, and he said the "lady" of a merchant of some standing in Melbourne--just the class of passenger we were most anxious to be without. When their confabulation was at an end Tom brought her to the bench where I was sitting and introduced her to me. "My wife, Mrs. Harris--Mrs. Harris, dear--who has sailed with me before." "Often," said Mrs. Harris, extending a bejewelled hand. "We are very old friends, the captain and I." "Indeed?" I said, bowing. He had never mentioned her name to me. But, as he explained when I told him so, he couldn't be expected to remember the names of the thousands of strangers he carried in the course of the year. I reminded him that she considered herself not a stranger, but a friend; and he said, with a laugh, "Oh, they all do that." I confess I did not take to Mrs. Harris. I should not have liked any one coming in our way as she did, when we wanted to be free and peaceful, but she was particularly repugnant to me. She gushed too much; she talked too familiarly of Tom--to me also, not discriminating between one captain's wife and another; and she accosted the servants and officers as they passed quite as if the ship belonged to her. However, I stood it as long as she chose to sit there, making herself pleasant, as she doubtless supposed. As soon as it occurred to her to go and look at her cabin I seized my hood and cloak, and went to seek sanctuary on the bridge with Tom. It was nearly six o'clock, and he was just casting off. "Oh, Polly," he said, turning to me with a slightly worried air, "you wouldn't mind staying on deck till we get down the river a bit, would you, pet? It don't look professional, you know, for ladies to show up here. And Mrs. Harris might----" I interrupted him in what he was going to say, because anything to do with Mrs. Harris had nothing whatever to do with the case. "Passengers," said I, "are one thing--the captain's wife is another--_quite_ another--and especially when the old man has asked me, as a sort of favour to himself, to make myself at home, as he calls it. Is he on the wharf, by the way? I should like to wave a hand to him. It would please him awfully. Thank Heaven, we are not subject to Mrs. Harris, nor to anybody else, on board this, ship. That's the beauty of it." "I feel in a sense subject to Watson," said Tom, "and he's a punctilious sort of chap. I don't care to seem to make too free with his command--for it's his, not mine. And there are heaps of people about besides the old man. You really would oblige me very much, Polly----" "Oh, of course, dear!" I saw his point of view, and at once effaced myself. I went into the little bridge house, just behind the wheel--he was satisfied with that--where I could see him close to me through the bow window, and speak to him when I chose. He lit the candle lamp at the head of the bunk, so that I could lie there and read; but I did not want to read. I preferred to stand by the window, which held all there was of table--the top of drawers and lockers--on which I spread my arms, propping my face in hollowed palms, and to look out upon the river with the sunset upon it, and the fading daylight, and the starry lights ashore. To call that city-skirting stream romantic is to provoke the derision of those who know it best, but it _was_ romantic that night--to me. Anything can be romantic under certain circumstances, in certain states of atmosphere and mind. We were alone together. The dinner-bell rang downstairs, but Tom never left the bridge till he was out of the river, and I did not need to ask him to let me share his meal. The steward brought us up a tray, and we stood in the warm little cabin--the table was not made to sit at--and ate roast chicken and apple pie, like travellers at a railway buffet, Tom stepping out and back between hasty mouthfuls to see that all was right. He was intensely business-like, and as happy as a boy at his old work. We both had the young feeling that comes to holiday-makers who don't have a holiday very often. I could not help it. Then--when we steamed out between the river lights into the bay--how we sniffed the first breath of the salt sea! And what memories it brought to us!--to me, at least, who had been so long away from it. The passengers were at dinner still, and it was falling dark, and there were no spectators save the man at the wheel, who was nothing but a voice, an echo of the quiet word of command, most pleasant to hear; I was free to roam the bridge from end to end, hanging to my husband's supporting arm--to bathe myself in air that was literally new life to both of us. Cold and clean and briny to the lips--oh, what is there to equal it in the way of medicine for soul and body? What sort of insensate creatures can they be who do not love the sea? Hobson's Bay was ruffled with a south wind--belted round with twinkling lights that grew thicker and brighter every moment, a gleaming ring of stars set in the otherwise invisible shores, in a dusk as soft as velvet. Somewhere amongst them, doubtless, was the lighted window that had once been mine, where I used to stand half a dozen lamps and candles in a bunch, to show Tom that I was watching for him when he used to pass out after nightfall. Our eyes turned in that direction simultaneously. "When we are old folks, Polly," said he, with an arm round my shoulder, "when the kids are all grown up and out in the world, and you and I settle down alone again, as we did at the beginning, I should like us to have a little place somewhere where we could see blue water and the ships going by." "Yes," I said at once, feeling exactly as he did--that though the farm and our country home were well enough under present circumstances, they would not be our choice when we had only ourselves to think of--that the sea was the sea, in short, and had reclaimed our allegiance--"yes, that is what we will do. We will end our married life where we began it--with this beautiful sound in our ears!" We had turned the breakwater at Williamstown, and were meeting the wind and tide of the outer bay, which was a little ocean this fresh night. The sharp bows of the Bendigo, and her threshing screw astern, made that noise of racing waves and running foam which was thrilling me like music and champagne together, so that I had no words to describe the sensation. My hair was blown hard back from my forehead and out of the control of hairpins; my face felt as if smacked by an open hand, and I had to screw up my eyes and pinch my lips together to stand the blow; I felt the keen blast pierce to my skin through all the invalid wrappings that I was swathed in--and it was lovely! Tom thought I should catch cold, but I knew better, though I was glad to be tied into his 'possum rug, with an oilskin overall to take the flying spray; and I insisted on staying out with him till nearly midnight--till we had passed the furious Rip and were battling with the real swell of the real ocean, which tossed the steamer like a cork without making me seasick. It was squally and galey and dark as a wolf's mouth--neither moon nor stars--only the lighthouse lights which were all we needed, and the white streaks in the black sea which were the long rollers coming to meet us. And I felt as safe as--there is nothing that can give a notion of how safe I felt. My husband took care of me as he used to do on the Racer, only fifty thousand times more carefully, because he was my husband. Ah, how sweet it was! With all our sorrows, how happy we were! And might have remained so if we had not been interfered with. But that wretched woman spoiled it all. I had forgotten her altogether during the evening, when dinner and darkness and the rough weather kept her from us; I forgot her in the night, which I spent in my deck cabin so as to leave Tom his bunk on the bridge for such snatches of sleep as he had a mind for; the deck as well as the cabin was my own--his and mine, for he still came down at intervals to look at me through the open door and assure himself that I was all right--and the common herd were under it. But when I emerged in the morning, just as the breakfast-bell was ringing, the first thing I saw was Mrs. Harris coming down the stairs which had "no admittance" plainly affixed to them, and Tom in attendance on her as if she were the Queen. She descended backwards, feeling each step with her glittering pointed shoe, slower than any tortoise, and he guided her with one hand and held her skirts down with the other, out of the wind. It was a windy morning, but sunshiny and beautiful, and I had intended to enjoy my first meal in the air and in privacy with my husband, as I had done the last. I suppose I looked my surprise, for they both seemed to colour up when they perceived me standing and watching them. In one breath they bade me a loud good morning, and made unnecessary announcements about the weather. "You have been on the bridge?" I questioned, with my eyes fixed on the brass plate which proclaimed the bridge sacred. "Oh, yes," said Mrs. Harris gaily. "It's the nicest place I know to be on, especially at this time of day. Many an early visit have I paid the captain up there, haven't I, Captain?" I lifted eyebrows at Tom, but he would not look. "Got an appetite for breakfast, Polly?" he shouted, taking my arm. "Come along, and let's see if you don't do your doctor credit." "I am not going to the saloon," I returned quietly, disengaging myself; "I am going to have my breakfast on the bridge with you." "But I'm not going to breakfast there. I'm off duty, and we may as well be comfortable when we can." Then he congratulated us both on being such good sailors as to be able to go to breakfast the first morning, and, not to make a fuss, I let him take me down into the saloon, and seat me at the public table by his side, _vis-à-vis_ with Mrs. Harris. He spoke to other passengers, shaking hands with some, and introducing me to one or two. A rather nice man talked to me throughout the meal, while Mrs. Harris monopolised Tom entirely. This was not what I had come to sea for, and so, as soon as I had finished, I slipped away, ran up to the bridge, got out a little chair, and prepared for a quiet morning with my husband, where no one had the right to disturb us. In fact, I was fully resolved to defend that bridge, if need were, against unauthorized intruders. Mrs. Harris might have done what she liked with it and him in those old times that she was for ever flinging in my face. She would not do it now. Scarcely had I opened my workbag and threaded my needle when up she came as bold as brass, with a yellow-back under her arm. It was too much. I felt that, if I were to make any stand at all, it must be now or never, or I should be altogether trodden under foot. So I looked at her with an air of calm inquiry, and said, "Oh! Mrs. Harris--do you want anything?" "No, thanks," she replied in an off-hand tone. "The steward is bringing up my chair." "Bringing it _up?--here?_" "Certainly. Why not?" "Only that--perhaps you don't know--nobody is allowed on the bridge. The notice is stuck up against the stairs." "Then why are you here?" she retorted, bristling. "I am the captain's wife." "I presume the captain's wife is as much a passenger as the rest of us," she argued, with an offensive laugh. "I presume the captain can do what he likes with his own bridge, at any rate. If _he_ gives one the freedom of the city, one certainly has it, beyond question; and I have always been accustomed to sit here when travelling with him. Thank you, steward--in this corner, please." She took possession of her chair. "If one person has the freedom of the city," I said, trying to keep my voice from shaking, "all should have it. He has no business to make distinctions where all are equal." "All are not equal," she cried, reddening. And I remembered that she was a considerable person in her own eyes. But I said firmly, "Pardon me. All who pay the same fares are on the same footing--or should be. And there is not room here for everybody." "The captain," said she, "can entertain his friends as he chooses, and I am one of his oldest friends, besides being related to his owners. And as for his having no business to do this or that--oh, my dear Mrs. Braye, do allow the poor man to know his own business best--I assure you he knows it perfectly, nobody better--and let him be master, at any rate, on his ship, whatever he may be in his home." She laughed again, as she settled herself and opened her book. I was simply speechless with indignation. But, even had I been able to speak, I was not one to bandy words with that sort of person. I just rolled up my work, quietly rose, and went downstairs to my cabin on deck. "Why do you go away?" she asked, as I passed her. "Isn't the bridge big enough for us both?" "No," I replied. And that was my last word to her. Going down the stairs, I met Tom coming up. He said, "Hullo, Polly, where are you off to?" I looked at him steadily--that's all. And his face clouded over. He passed on, leaving me alone. But they were not long together. Five minutes later I heard her voice suddenly through the open port of my cabin--that horrible deck cabin, where I was surrounded and pressed upon by talking, boot-clumping passengers, who just could not spy in upon me because I had door shut and window curtain down. Doubtless she did it on purpose. She must have known where I was, seeing that I was not on the bridge or sitting out on deck. She was speaking to some man of her acquaintance. "It is always a mistake," she said, "for captains to have their wives on board. I wonder the owners allow it. It spoils the comfort of the other passengers--who, after all, are the chief persons to be considered--and demoralises the poor fellows to such an extent that they are not like the same men. Look at Captain Braye, whom I've known for ages--the dearest old boy you can imagine when he's let alone--it's pitiful to see him henpecked and cowed, and afraid to call his soul his own, shaking in his very shoes before that vixen of a woman!" Her companion said something that I could not hear--I believe it was my pleasant neighbour at breakfast whom she was trying to set against me--and then she put on the crowning touch. "It is always the fate of those exceptionally nice men," said she, "to marry women who don't know how to appreciate them." I wondered for a moment if I could have heard aright. It was hard to believe in such consummate insolence--such a wild, malignant, perversion of facts. To talk of _Tom_ as a henpecked husband! To dub _me_, of all people in the world, a vixen!! To say that I--_I_--did not appreciate him!!! The thing was too utterly ludicrous to be taken seriously, and yet it made me so angry that I could hardly contain myself. It made me feel that it would have been a pleasure to rush out upon her and tear her hair from her head, just like the real vixens do. I felt that my husband, who was also the commander of the ship, ought to have spared me this gross indignity, which could not have occurred if he had respected his position, and kept himself to himself. Knowing that she was not with him now, I went back to the bridge. But alas and alas! The bridge, that had been a little paradise, was a place despoiled. Though the serpent had gone out of it, she had been there and poisoned everything. Tom was not the same to me. All the pleasure of our trip was at an end. I had a wretched day, and at night a gale came on, and I was seasick for the first time. He did not know it, and I would not send for him. Oh, it was horrible! It was tragical! It was heart-breaking! I can't talk about it any more. * * * * * People came to meet her at Sydney, but she could not leave without a ceremonious good-bye to her dear captain. She was calling for him everywhere while he was busy making fast, and when she got him she shook hands two or three times over, standing apart with him as at first, regardless of me. Goodness knows I did not want to intrude, yet it was impossible to help noticing the fuss she made. I heard her say--I am quite _sure_ I heard her--that she was coming back with us; meaning, of course, with him. She explained that she had but a day's business to do in Sydney, and would then be able to return by the "dear old Bendigo"--I distinctly caught those three words, in her high-pitched voice. And I thought to myself that this would really be more than I could stand--more than I could in reason be expected to stand. In fact, I was so enraged that I was strongly tempted to put it to my husband that he must make his choice between her and me. However, on second thoughts, I perceived that it would be more dignified to say nothing, but to let my acts speak for me. We had never been accustomed to bicker between ourselves, he and I, and to a certain extent he was not responsible for the situation. Any one not suffering from madness or an infectious disease had the right to travel in the ship; he could not help it. But if he could not turn the otherwise objectionable person off, he could keep him or her in the passengers' proper place. My grievance with him was that he did not keep that woman in her place. Being quite determined not to have another voyage with her, and not wishing to say nasty things to him about it, I was glad when an old acquaintance, paying us a call on board, asked me to stay awhile with her, for the further benefit of my health, representing that the time covered by the sea trip was all too short to recruit in. "Thank you very much," I answered, on the spur of the moment. "I really think I will. I was never in Sydney but once, and then I had no chance to see the beauties of the place, of which I have heard so much; and I daresay it would do me good to have a longer change." I was aware of Tom's utter, silent astonishment, but I would not look at him; I left him to read the riddle for himself. When he spoke it was to quietly fall in with the proposal, adding suggestions that would have made it difficult for me to draw back if I had wanted to do so. He was so ready to leave me, indeed, that I fancied he _wanted_ to get rid of me--of course he did not, but any one would have thought so--and naturally that made me bitter. I spoke but little to him afterwards, and he was certainly cold to me---he seemed to divine my suspicions and to resent them--and I did not go to see him off; I could not. In short, our holiday was entirely and irreparably ruined. I believe I cried nearly the whole time that I was in Sydney. It did seem hard, in my state of health and under the sad circumstances, to be stranded amongst strangers, who did not understand my sorrows, nor my habits of life, and gave me none of the little pettings and coddlings that I needed and was accustomed to; and the thought of that woman going home with Tom, having the deck cabin, sitting on the bridge with him of nights, making free with the whole ship, usurping my place and privileges, drove me simply frantic--until one day I met her in the street, and found she had not gone with him after all. Shaken all to pieces with the awful overland journey, more dead than alive, I reached home a day or two after him, and discovered him calmly digging the garden, as if he had forgotten my very existence. When he saw me he smiled in an odd, constrained way, and said, as though it didn't matter one way or the other: "Well, Polly? Had about enough of it?" Angry as I was with him, I could not maintain any dignity at all--I was too spent and weary. I broke down completely, and he took me into the tool-shed to comfort me--took me into his arms, where I had simply ached to be ever since I had left them, driven out by that detestable little scheming, mischief-making snake-in-the-grass. "Oh," I sobbed, when I could find words and strength to utter them, "how _could_ you leave me behind? How _could_ you abandon me like that, when I was so ill and unhappy?" "Because," said he, "you wanted to be left. You distinctly asked and were determined to be left. As for abandoning--it's I that was abandoned, it seems to me." "You _knew_ I did not want to be left," I urged--for of course he knew. "You must have seen that I only did it because I was vexed." "And what were you vexed about?" he inquired. "I must be too dense and stupid for anything, but I'll be shot if I can understand you this time, Polly." I told him that he was dense and stupid indeed, or he would not need to ask the question. But when I told him, further, what it was that had vexed me, he said that in some ways, when it came to denseness and stupidity, he was not a patch on me. Of course it was not his fault in the very least. It was all hers. * * * * * P.S.--I have forgiven her now. Poor thing, it was only a manner with her; she meant no harm. I did not see it then--no one could have seen it, and I do not blame myself for being imposed on by appearances that would have deceived a very angel, which I confess I am not, though the least suspicious and uncharitable of women--but I became convinced of it afterwards. It was when my Harry was made _dux_ of his school, a year later than he would have been but for the favouritism of a master, who deliberately miscalculated examination marks. Harry, by the way, will not allow that this was the case, but that is his modesty and his feeling for the honour of the school; he does not know as much about it as I do. I was told on the best authority that he ought to have had the position, being far and away (as I well knew) the cleverest boy, and that a certain master had a "set" or "down" on him because he had caricatured the wretch on the blackboard. It was another sixth-form fellow who said he felt sure the figures must be wrong when he heard the result. However, there was no mistake about it this time. I, at any rate, was sure of it, when I dressed for the Speech Day function, although the names in the prize list were supposed to be unknown beforehand. Besides, I had only to look at his face, calmly elated, the eyes twinkling with suppressed excitement, to see that he had the secret--to be assured that his merits were to meet their just reward at last. But there were some mothers who allowed their mother's partiality to run away with them. I heard of two who, up to the last moment, fully expected _their_ sons to come out top. And Mrs. Harris was one of these. There was some justification for hope on her part, because young Harris was really a very industrious, plodding fellow, and had always given a good account of himself. He had not half Harry's brains, of course, but he had great application and perseverance, and the moral of the hare and tortoise fable is often exemplified in these cases. Especially when the hare is such an all-round genius as my boy, a prize-taker for goal-kicking, the mile handicap and the long jump, as well as for work in class. Several times I had heard Harry say, with quite a serious air, that the only one he was afraid of was Harris, and they stuck very close together through the examinations, as far as the figures were known. So when she crushed into the seat in front of me, gorgeously dressed and beaming, nodding to right and left, I saw how it was. She was prepared for any amount of envious notice and congratulation, quite thinking she was going to outshine me. I smiled--I could not help it. But I was glad afterwards that she had not seen me smile. I was also glad that Tom had not been able to accompany us this time, though grieved for the cause--an accident to his foot while tree-chopping. Our proximity to the maker of so much trouble in the past, as to which we were still sore and reticent, might have rendered the situation uncomfortable and altered its development altogether. Harry had escorted me and his eldest sister--she a perfect dream, though I say it, in pink cambric and a white muslin hat--and had now left us to go and sit with his comrades at the back of the hall, whence a deafening noise arose continuously, most exhilarating to hear. Dear lads! I screwed my head round to look and laugh at their delightful antics, and the figure of my fine boy leading all the revelry, until Phyllis's face showed her sense of the indecorum of the proceeding. Children are so dreadfully proper where their parents are concerned, and I am always forgetting that I have to sit up and look dignified if I would have their approval and respect. When the hall was crowded so that not another creature could squeeze into it, a fresh demonstration heralded the entrance of the headmaster, hooded and gowned, escorting the distinguished visitors, chief of whom was the Exalted Personage who had consented to distribute the prizes. They packed the daïs, round the book-piled table; the boys yelled and thumped the floor with their boot-heels, sung a Latin hymn with all their might, subsided with difficulty, and allowed the formal proceedings to begin. I sat in a perfect simmer of joyous excitement and expectation, fully equal to theirs, and I noticed that Mrs. Harris's face was flushed and that she kept smiling to herself in a vague way, restless and fidgety. Poor thing! Her boy was an only son, like mine, and she was one of those many love-blind mothers who mistake their geese for swans. I saw quite plainly that she had no suspicion of the truth, and was sorry for her. Some one ought to have given her a hint. The headmaster read his annual report--every paragraph punctuated with vociferous cheers from the back benches--and the Exalted Personage made a speech, unnecessarily diffuse. Then there was a shuffling and whispering and readjustment of the blocks of books on the table, the E.P. advanced to the front of the daïs, the H.M. lined up beside him with his list, and after a few little preliminaries (the awarding of a couple of scholarships) the great moment arrived. Although I had known so certainly what would happen, when it did happen I literally jumped from my seat. "_Dux_ of School--_Henry Thomas Beauchamp Braye._" My heart seemed to leap into my throat, I clasped my hands, I suppose I made some exclamation unconsciously, for Phyllis plucked at my sleeve and whispered "Hush-sh!" quite fiercely. The child was not grown-up then, but still thought herself competent to teach me how to behave in public. She sat herself like any stock or stone, an image of propriety, as if it was a matter of no concern to her at all that her brother was set on the highest pinnacle of honour that a schoolboy could reach. He came striding up the hall like a young prince, with none of that shy awkwardness which made the other boys look so clumsy, and his mates cheered him to the echo as he mounted the platform to receive his load of prize-books and the congratulations of all the great folks. I never saw anything prettier than his quiet bows, his modest and yet dignified bearing, and his kind way with the fellows who crowded up to shake hands with him when he came down amongst them again, helping him to carry his trophies and making a regular royal progress of his return to his seat. I noticed young Harris amongst the first of these, and thought to myself that a defeated rival who could behave so nicely to the successful one must have the essential spirit of a gentleman in him. And I found it was so when I came to know him. A little later, when the lesser prizes were being disposed of, and the interest of the proceedings was not so all-absorbing--as I just sat in placid ecstasy, thinking of nothing but my own happiness--a movement in front of me brought his poor mother to my mind. She had ceased to fidget, and I had forgotten to notice her. Now she rose slowly, in a fumbling sort of way, remarking to a lady near her that the heat of the hall was insufferable and was making her faint. It was very hot, and she looked faint, with all the colour gone from her cheeks and her lips twitching and trembling; but, oh, _I_ knew what the trouble was! Poor, stricken soul! She felt just as I should have felt had I been in her place--just as I had felt a year ago when told that that pig-faced Middleton boy had ousted Harry--and my heart bled for her. Of course she pretended not to see me as she passed out--I should have done the same had our positions been reversed--and must have almost wanted to murder me, indeed; but--well, mothers have a fellow-feeling at these times, under all the feelings common to humanity at large. I could not resist the impulse that came to me. She had no sooner disappeared through the nearest door, seeking the fresh air for her faintness, than I, defiant of my daughter's dumb protests, got up and went out after her. She was leaning against the grey wall, holding her handkerchief to her eyes. When she heard me she turned and glared, like a strange cat that you have penned into a corner. The next moment we were in each other's arms, and she was sobbing on my neck with the abandonment of a child. And we have been the greatest friends ever since. CHAPTER VI. DEPOSED. The little sound that is as common as silence--a familiar step, a murmured word, an opening door--one hears it a thousand times with contented indifference, as one hears the singing of the tea-kettle. But one day it falls on the heart as well as on the ear, like the stroke of a swift sword. It seems exactly the same, but one knows at once that it is not the same. In the twentieth part of a second one recognises the voice of a dire calamity--especially if one is a mother, and has heard it before. Tom came into the house by way of the kitchen, and I heard him say to Jane, in quite a quiet tone, "Where's Mrs. Braye?" That was all. I sprang from my chair, wild with terror, dropping my needlework to the floor. For I knew--I knew--I didn't want to be told--that something had happened to Harry. My boy! my boy! I had been scolding him, only an hour ago, for making love to Lily's governess--a minx, whom I had just requested to find another situation--and he had slammed the door almost in my face on leaving me. I had been longing for Tom to come in, that I might tell him all about it, and have a little cry on his shoulder, and my dignity and authority in the house supported; but now that he was here my tongue was paralysed. And I had no grievance, but an immeasurable remorse. "Don't be frightened," said my husband, trembling, in a would-be off-hand voice, "it's nothing very serious--just a bad shaking--I told him that new mare of his wasn't to be trusted, and there was a nasty stone just where she threw him. He's stunned a bit, that's all--no bones broken. I have sent for the doctor. Now look here, Polly----" He opened his arms across the doorway, but I broke through them furiously. Did he remember the night when little Bobby shot himself, trying to get an opossum skin for his mother's birthday? I was not kept back then. We ran together, hand in hand, to meet our common woe, and I was first at the spot, and it was on my breast that he lay to breathe his last. Why not now, when a worse thing had befallen me? No, I don't mean that; nothing could be worse--except that every year your child is with you adds innumerable fresh strands to the rope of woven heart-strings already binding you to him, and thus makes more to bleed and ache when the wrench comes. And Harry was twenty-three--twenty-three, and over six feet, and the handsomest young fellow in the whole country! I flew full speed to find him, and see what they were doing to him. It was my mother's right, which a dozen fathers should not deprive me of. At the garden gate I met the procession coming in. They carried him carefully on a mattress, over saplings roped together. A little rabble of people followed, one of them leading the fiend that had done the mischief, a vicious, half-broken, buck-jumping brute that had worried us for a long time, although Harry always trusted his own fine horsemanship to get the better of her tantrums. And rightly, too. If he had not been in a bad temper, poor darling, and doubtless running risks for the perverse satisfaction of doing so, because of the mood he was in, nothing in the shape of a horse could have thrown him. He was notoriously the best rider of the day--at any rate, of our neighbourhood. I slammed the gate to shut out everybody, and the bearers lowered his litter, and I bent over him. He did not know me. When I leaned down to listen if he breathed, I saw a little bubble of blood oozing from his mouth; then I knew that he was more than stunned--that it was worse even than broken bones. I left off crying, and became quite calm. I had to. We were sliding him from the mattress to his bed when Dr. Juke arrived, and he made us stop and let him do it; for, though my poor lad seemed unconscious, he panted and grunted in a way that showed we were hurting him, with all our care. The doctor felt and lifted his limbs, and said they were all right, and then undressed him as he lay; I got my large cutting-out scissors, and we hacked his good clothes to pieces--but that didn't matter--until we left him only his shirt and woollen singlet, and even those we cut. And just as we were finishing making him comfortable, as we hoped, he came to and looked at us. My precious boy! His breathing was short and fluttery, and he seemed too full of pain to speak, except in gasps. "Oh, my side! my side!" He wailed like a child--a sound to drive a mother mad. Dr. Juke said, "Ah, I thought so." And, having made a little examination, he reported a fracture of the ribs, with some injury to the lung. He whispered something to Tom, and then told me I had better send for a trained nurse, and said it would be as well to get a good surgeon from town also, so as to be on the safe side. I was willing enough to send for a dozen surgeons--though I had perfect faith in Juke, who was a clever young man, newly out from home and up to date, an enthusiast in his profession--but I could not bear the thought of a professional nurse. I knew those women--how they take possession of your nearest and dearest, and treat even an old mother as if she were a mere outsider and an utter ignoramus. I protested that I could do all that was necessary--that no one could possibly take the care of him that I should. Was it likely? "But he will probably want nursing all day and all night for weeks," said Dr. Juke. "You could not do that unaided. You would break down, and then where would he be?" "I will telegraph for my daughter," I rejoined. Phyllis was away at the time, visiting. "Miss Braye is too young and inexperienced," he objected, with the airs of a grandfather. "It would not be fair to her. She is better where she is, out of all the trouble. However, there is no need to decide immediately. We'll see the night through first. All we can do for the present is to make him as easy as possible and watch symptoms. The _most_ important thing is not to meddle with him." This seemed a hard saying, and at first I could not credit it. It was terrible to see nothing done, when he evidently suffered so--more and more as the first shock passed and the dreadful fever rose and rose; but while the lung was letting blood and air into the cavity of the chest, which could not be reached to stop the leak, handling of any sort only aggravated the mischief. The doctor explained this to me when I was impatient, and I had to own that he was probably right. He asked me to see about drinks and nourishment, and when I left the room to do so I had a mind to seize the opportunity for a few frantic tears in private, impelled by the pent-up anguish I could not otherwise relieve. But outside the door--Harry's door--I came upon Miss Blount. The little fool was crying herself--as if it were any concern of hers!--and looked a perfect sight with her swelled nose and sodden cheeks. Somehow I couldn't stand it, on the top of all the rest--I just took her by the arm and marched her back to the schoolroom. I hope I was not rough or unkind--I really don't think I was--but to see her you would have thought she was a ridiculous little martyr being led to the stake. I said to her--quite quietly, without making any fuss--"My dear, while you remain in this house--until the notice I have been compelled by our contract to give you has expired--oblige me by keeping in your proper place and confining your attention to your proper business." Just as if I had not spoken--and I am sure she never heard a word--she turned on me at the schoolroom door and clutched at my dress. With both hands she held on to me, so that I really could not get away from her. "Oh, tell me, tell me," she cried, with a lackadaisical whine, as if we were playing melodrama at a cheap theatre, "_What_ does the doctor say? Is he, oh, _is_ he going to die?" I replied--cuttingly, I am afraid--that the doctor seemed perfectly well. There was no sign of dying, that I could see, about him. Then she said "Harry!" Yes, to my very face! As if she had a right to call my son by his christian name. I was greatly exasperated; any mother would have been--especially after what had happened. I answered, "_Mr_. Harry _is_ going to die--_thanks to you_, Miss Blount." I truly believed that he was, and I honestly thought that it was her doing; because if she had not misconducted herself, and tempted him to do so, I should not have had to scold him, and he would not have gone out in a rage, to ride a young horse recklessly. Still, it has occurred to me since that perhaps I was not quite just to her, poor thing. Oh, what a night that was! Temperature 103 degrees, and a short, agonising cough catching the hurt side, which he was obliged to lie on, because the other lung had to do the work of both. We padded him with the softest pillows in the house, and tried ice, and sedatives--everything we could think of; but we could not soothe the struggling chest, which was the only way to stop the inward bleeding. And he kept up a sort of grinding moan, like a long "u" in French--worse than shrieks. It was too, too cruel! I wonder my hair did not turn white. Next day we got the surgeon from town; the day after, the nurse. But I came to an understanding with her before she set foot in Harry's room. I bade her remember that he was my son, and that a mother could not consent to be superseded. She asked if she were to be allowed to carry out the doctor's orders, and when I said "Yes, of course," she seemed satisfied. She was a good creature. After all, I don't know what we should have done without her. There is a limit to one's strength, and though Phyllis was a great help outside the sick-room, we did not think it right--Dr. Juke did not think it right--to let her be much in it. She came home as soon as she heard what had happened, in spite of his advice. I went downstairs one day, and found her sitting in the deserted drawing-room, with her hat on, talking to him; I thought he had gone an hour ago, but he had seen her arriving, and stayed to break things to her and give her all the particulars, before she met the rest of us. He was somewhat inclined to be officious, though he meant well. I exclaimed in astonishment at the sight of her. "It was no good, mother; I had to come," said she, rising quickly and taking out her hat-pins. "And I did not warn you, for fear you should prevent me. Don't scold me--Dr. Juke doesn't. I want to help, and he says I can be a lot of use." "Invaluable," said Juke, in a young man's gushing manner. "It was only for your own sake, Miss Phyllis, that I wished you out of it." She is not Miss Phyllis, by the way, but Miss Braye. "I mean to be everybody's right hand," she continued, trying to cheer me. "We are not going to let you kill yourself any more, mother dear. And we are not going to let Harry die, either--are we, Dr. Juke?" "No, no," replied the doctor, with an exaggerated air of reassuring me, as if pacifying a timid child. "We'll pull him through amongst us. The sight of your face"--it was not my face he meant--"will be the best medicine he can have. Only, remember, you must not talk to him." "I know--I know. You will find that I shall be discretion itself." She was quite gay. I could see that she did not yet realise the situation, poor child, whatever Juke had told her about it. But when I took her upstairs, and showed her the changed face in the sick-room, she was shocked enough. She and her brother were devoted to each other. They used to go to their little parties and entertainments together, and everybody used to remark upon their looks and say what a handsome pair they made. He thought--that is, he used to think, before other girls spoiled him--that there was no one like his sister Phyllis, and she thought the same of him. Nevertheless, when I told her of his conduct with Miss Blount, she was quite indignant. She said she would never have believed it of him. At the same time she was firmly convinced, as I was, that Miss Blount had done the love-making and led him on. What a comfort it was to have my dear girl to talk to and confide in! She was not only a lovely young creature--though I say it--but had the sense of an old woman. Lily was quite different. But then Lily was a child--barely seventeen--and she had an absurd infatuation for her governess, such as you often see in a raw schoolgirl. It was a stupid mistake on my part to engage a person of twenty-two to teach her--I saw it now; and I think it a still greater mistake to confer University degrees on such young women. You seem to expect them to be above the imbecilities of ordinary girls, and they are not a bit. Well, we shut them up together in a separate part of the house, giving them their meals in the schoolroom. We did not want Lily to be losing the education we were paying so much for, and Tom and I just took our food as we could get it. We had no heart to sit down to table. Sometimes he slept for a little, and sometimes I, but one or the other of us was always on guard; while Phyllis prepared the iced milk and soda, and waited on the nurse and doctor. Certainly the doctor was most devoted; he could not have done more for his patient if he had been his own brother. I am sure it was the opinion of his medical colleague that Harry could never pull through. He said, in so many words, that the case was as grave as possible, owing chiefly, as I understood, to the accumulation of fluid in the chest, which could not be mechanically dealt with. Nevertheless, the dear boy rallied a little, and then a little more--the fever keeping down in the daytime, and not running quite so high at night--until it really seemed that we might begin to hope. He was such a splendid young fellow, and had such a magnificent constitution! But for that I am convinced he could not have survived an hour. One afternoon he was sleeping so comfortably that they all insisted on my going out for some fresh air. Tom took me for a walk round the garden, and we planned what we would do for our beloved one when he got well--how we would go for a little travel to amuse and cheer him, to recruit his strength and distract his mind from nonsense. When I returned, I found that he had awakened from his sleep, calm and refreshed; that he had asked to see his sister Lily, and--that that fool of a nurse had allowed it! Oh, I could have shaken her! As it was, I gave her a talking to that she sulked over for a week. Lily, she said, had only remained with him ten minutes--as if one minute wouldn't have been enough to undo all our work! _Idiot!_ And to call herself a trained nurse, too! As soon as I approached his bed I saw the difference. Not only had he been doing so well, he had been so nice to me, so loving and gentle, as if feeling that all was right between us. Now he was flushed--I knew his temperature had gone up again--and he looked at me as if I were his enemy instead of his mother. "Is it true," he said, "that you have given Miss Blount notice?" I did not know what to say. Seeing the absolute necessity for keeping him quiet, I tried to put the question aside. But he would have an answer. "Dearest," I pleaded, "I am doing for the best. And you will be the first to acknowledge it when you are yourself again. It is for her sake," I added, though I'm sure I don't know why I said that. He continued to look at me as if I were a graven image, insensible to the tears that filled my eyes. And he looked _so_ handsome--even in this wreck of health--a fit husband for a queen. "Mother," he said, in a stern way, "if you do a thing so unjust as that I will never forgive you." Ah, Harry! Harry! And after all I had done for him--slaving night and day! After all the love and care, the heart's blood, that I had lavished on him for nearly twenty-four years! "Unjust!" I repeated, cut to the quick. "My boy, I may have my faults--I daresay I have--nobody is perfect in this world; but my worst enemy cannot lay it to my charge that I have ever committed an injustice." He smiled, but it was a hard smile. And the nurse came up, as bold as you please, to tell me I must be silent, as I was exciting him. _I_ exciting him! It was then I gave her that talking to. Well, he had been getting on as satisfactorily as possible up to this point. But now, of course, he went back. His temperature was 104 degrees in the night, and he complained of pains and uneasiness, and turned against his nourishment, light and liquid as it was. When he did get a snatch of sleep, his breathing was as restless as possible. Sometimes it went fast, and sometimes it seemed to stop, and then he would suddenly give a deep snore, and a jump that hurt his side and roused him. After which he would lie still a little while, staring at the wall. His eyes were full of fever, and presently he began to talk, and we could not make out what he was saying, except that little huzzy's name--Emily. He kept saying "Emily"--no, "Emmie"--as if he thought she was in the same room. Once I fancied he called me, and when I went to him he put up his poor hands--already so thin and bleached!--and I thought he wanted to be forgiven and be friends with his mother again. But, just as I was dropping on my knees beside him to take him into my arms, he said, "Kiss me, Emmie." And, oh, in such a voice! It made me feel--but I can't describe how it made me feel. And next day he had a shivering fit, and the day after another, with more fever than ever when they had passed off--a thirst like fire, and pain in breathing, and delirium, and everything that was bad and hopeless. Dr. Juke said it meant blood-poisoning, and that he had expected it from the first; but I did not believe it. For was he not doing beautifully up to the moment when Lily was allowed to see him and upset him with her tales? This time we sent for two doctors from Melbourne, and they and Juke were closeted together for an hour after making their examination; and, when they came out at last, they said they were agreed that our boy was in so desperate a state that nothing short of a miracle could save him. I called the girls into my room to break it to them, and we sat on the sofa at the foot of my bed and had our cry together. I was completely broken down. So was poor Lily. She sobbed so violently that I was afraid Harry would hear her. Phyllis was more composed--she always was--and refused to despair as long as life was in him. She professed contempt for the great doctors, and pinned her faith to Juke. Juke had told her that miracles, in his profession, were constantly happening, and that for his part he did not mean to give up the fight until all was over. "I believe, mother," said my brave girl, "that he will succeed, after all, in spite of those old fogies. He knows a lot more than they do, and he says there's no calculating the power of youth and a sound constitution in these cases. He says----" But I was too wretched to listen to her. They were not old fogies to me--those two experienced men--and a young doctor is but a young doctor, however clever; I found it impossible to hope at this juncture. Lily was kneeling by me with her arms round my waist, quite hysterical with grief; and for the moment I felt that she was more in sympathy with me than her sister. I realised my mistake when the child suddenly sprang to her feet, hitting my chin with her head as she did so, and declared that she must go to "poor Miss Blount." "Lily," I cried, as she was flinging out of the room in her impetuous fashion, "what are strangers at such a time as this?" "Nothing," said Lily, in a brazen way--she would never have spoken to her mother in that tone if she had not been encouraged; "but Miss Blount is not a stranger. She loves Harry, and Harry loves her, and she's broken-hearted, and she's ill, and she's nearly out of her mind, and nobody ever says a kind word to her! Even now that he's dying, and they can't have each other, you treat her as if she were dirt. Poor, poor Emily! Let me go to her! Now that Harry's dying, she's got nobody--not a soul in this house--but me!" Well, indeed! Who'd be a mother, if she could foresee what would come of it? To have this blow, on the top of all the rest, and at _such_ a moment! I felt quite stunned. At first I could only stare at her--I could not speak; then I said, "Go, go!" and pointed to the door. For I could bear no more. As soon as she was gone, I turned to my faithful Phyllis, put my head on her shoulder, and sobbed like a baby. "Oh, Phyllis," I cried, "never you get married, my dear! Never you have children, to suffer through them as I suffer!" She was wiser than I, however. She said she didn't think it was altogether the children's fault. I admitted it at once. "You are quite right," I said, "and I was wrong. It is not the children's fault. It's the fault of that hateful creature, who has set them both against me. First Harry, then Lily--the very one she was hired to teach her duty to! Fancy a governess, calling herself a governess, and a B.A. to boot, corrupting an innocent young girl, a mere child, with all the details of a clandestine love intrigue! What infamy! What treachery!" I was beside myself when I thought of it. Any mother would have been. But Phyllis was not a mother, and she was but lukewarm in this matter upon which I felt so strongly. Indeed, I was half inclined to fear that she, too, had become infected by the evil influence amongst us, until I found that it was Dr. Juke who had been putting ideas into her head. Dr. Juke was undoubtedly very clever, and we were enormously indebted to him; still, I have always felt that he was too fond of giving his opinion upon things that were altogether outside his province. It appeared he had been telling Phyllis that it was very bad for Harry to have any trouble on his mind, and that it was absolutely necessary, if we would give him his full chances of recovery, to remove any that we knew of which could be removed. "After all," said Phyllis, in a tone that showed how he had talked her over, "she's a ladylike person enough, and certainly a clever one." "Clever, indeed," I retorted, "to have caught a man like him! And looking all the while as demure and innocent as a nun--as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth! Oh, Phyllis, it would blight his career for ever." "Perhaps not," she rejoined tolerantly--for she was too young to know; "but even so, I would rather have him blight his career than die." "You speak," I cried--"you actually speak as if _I_ wanted him to die!" Here Tom came in, and when she saw her father she got up to leave us together. I was glad indeed to have him to myself for a few minutes. We, at any rate, understood each other. He has his faults, dear fellow, and I often get impatient with him; but he loves me--he thinks the world of me--he doesn't question my judgment and criticise my conduct, as the children do. I was going to tell him about Lily, and about what Juke had said to Phyllis; but when he took me into his great, strong, kind arms, I was too overcome to utter a word. I could do nothing but weep. Nor could he. We thought how we had toiled and slaved to make our precious boy the man he was--how we had nursed him through his baby illnesses, and pinched ourselves to send him to public school and University, and been so proud of his beauty and his talents and his achievements, and looked forward with such joy to the name he would make in the world; and how we were to lose him after all, just as we were looking for the reward of our love and labours--and in this truly awful way! Tom said it was quite certain now that he would die. Blood-poisoning had set in; there were swellings in some muscles of his body to prove it--a fatal symptom, as every one knew. It only needed to spread to an internal organ, and the machine would stop at once. "And the sooner it's over, the better," groaned Tom, "and the poor chap's sufferings at an end. Ah, Polly, old girl, little we thought of this when he was born, and we were as vain as two peacocks over him! Do you remember how you brought him up to Sydney, because you couldn't wait till I got home--and we had him on the bridge at night when the passengers were a-bed below----" "Oh, don't!" I wailed in agony. Remember it! Did I not remember it? And a hundred thousand heart-breaking things. But we had to compose ourselves as best we could, and go back to our dreadful duties; he to see that the doctors had a proper lunch before they left, I to renew my watch in the sick-room--to see the last, as I supposed, of my dying boy. On my way I came upon Jane hurrying along the passage with a basin of hot broth. Harry was not allowed animal food, so I stopped her to ask what she was doing with it. "Taking it to Miss Blount," she replied; and I fancied she did not speak quite so respectfully as usual. "That poor young lady hardly touches her meals, and it do go to my heart to see her look so ill. I thought perhaps a drop of good soup'd tempt her." Now I did not want to get the character--which I am the last person to deserve--of being a hard woman. I am not one of those low creatures that one reads of in novels who don't know how to treat a governess properly. To me Miss Blount was as much a lady as I was myself, and I had always made a point of considering her in anything. Besides, it was not the time for animosities. All was changed in view of Harry's approaching death. She could not injure him any more. So I took the little tray from Jane, and said to her, "Go back to your kitchen, and attend to the doctors' lunch. I will take the broth to Miss Blount, and find out what is the matter with her." The girl was in her bedroom. When she saw me she jumped up, as scared as if I had been an ogress come to eat her; but when I first opened the door she was kneeling against her bed, as if saying her prayers. Certainly, she did look ill. She had had a very nice complexion--no doubt poor Harry had noticed it--and her eyes were good; but now her skin was like tallow, and her eyes all dark and washed out, and they had a curious empty expression in them that I did not like at all. I put the tray on the drawers and went up to her, and laid my hand on her shoulder. "My dear," I said, as kindly as I could speak, "I have brought you a little nourishing broth, that I think will do you good. And you must take it at once, while it is hot, to please me." She did not so much as say thank you, but just stood and stared in a dazed, fixed way, like a deaf mute. So, naturally, I did not feel inclined to bother myself further about her, and I turned to go. As soon as I did that, however, she spoke to me, calling my name. Her voice had a sort of lost sound in it, as if she were talking in her sleep. "Mrs. Braye," she said, "there's something I have been wanting to say to you." "What is it?" I inquired. "If Mr. Harry gets well, I will not marry him--to blight his career. I never would have injured him, and I never will. I would die sooner." Well, it seemed rather late to think of that. Still, it showed a nice spirit, and I liked the way she spoke of him. She really was a lady, in her way, and--poor thing!--she did look the picture of misery. I am a tender-hearted woman, and I could not but feel a pang of pity for her. "Ah, my dear," I said, "there's no question of marrying or not now! He is going fast, and nothing matters any more." Then I kissed her--I kissed her affectionately--and bade her lie down, and not trouble about Lily's lessons; and I told her that whenever there was a change in Harry's condition I would let her know. The change came a few days later--not suddenly, but creeping inch by inch; and it was not the change we had all anticipated. My splendid boy! Just as he had struggled and triumphed at football and cricket, so his magnificent strength fought with and overcame the poison in his blood before it could deposit itself in vital organs. It was marvellous. The very doctors, accustomed to miracles, could not believe their senses when they counted his pulse and looked at the little thermometer, and felt the places where the sore lumps had been. For weeks, I may say, we seemed to hold our breath in the maddening suspense, tantalised and intoxicated with a hope we dared not call a certainty; but at last we knew that life had conquered death, and that I was not called upon to undergo _this_ agony of motherhood a second time. Of course he was weaker than a new-born baby--a mere shadow of himself; but he was saved. When they told me, I fell on my knees, just where I stood, and cried in my wild rapture and thankfulness, "Oh, God! God! What can I do--what uttermost service or sacrifice can I offer--for all Thy goodness to me?" They looked at me in an odd way. They all looked at me, even my boy with his hollow eyes. And Tom said, "Come here, Polly, I want to speak to you;" and took me into our room, and laid his hand on my shoulders. He stood six feet in his socks, and weighed sixteen stone, but he trembled like a child. "Old girl," he said, "you'll have to let him have her." "Oh," I replied, "if he wants the moon, give it to him! I don't care." It was a figurative way of expressing my mood of joy--my longing to compensate him utterly for what he had gone through; and I don't think I ought to have been taken so literally. But, before the words were well out of my mouth, Tom made off to Harry's room, and there and then informed him that "mother had given her consent." And he did not tell me he was going to catch me up in this way. When next I went to my boy's bedside, and he murmured, "Good old mummy!" and remarked, with that deep thrill in his voice, that it was worth while getting well, I thought he meant that it was worth while getting well to see us all so happy. "Ay," I said, from my heart, "if you hadn't got well, it's little that would have been worth while to _me_ any more." "Poor old mummy!" he ejaculated. And then, turning serious eyes upon my face, "You will never regret it. I can answer for that." "You need not waste breath to tell me what I know better than I know anything," I responded, smiling. "I mean," he said, still seriously, "about _her._" Then I understood why he had said it was worth while to get well. She was of more consequence to him than all his own people put together. "Her?" I queried, smoothing his hair--not letting him guess the pang I felt. "Miss Blount. Father says you have been so good to us--that you have given us leave--that it's all right now. Look here, mother, if you only knew her----" I stopped him, for he was getting agitated. "If your heart is set on it, darling--by and by, I mean, when you are quite well, and have thoroughly considered the matter--don't imagine _I_ shall be the one to disappoint you and make you unhappy. I never have been a cruel mother, have I? And as for knowing Miss Blount, if I don't know her, having her constantly in the house with me, who should? Don't worry yourself about Miss Blounts or anything else till you are stronger, dearest. Put everything out of your head--think of nothing whatever--except getting well. And when you are quite well--then we'll see." "I can't put her out of my head. I want to see her, mother." "So you shall, dear--as soon as you are fit to see people. I will ask the doctor about it." "Juke wouldn't object; he'd be glad. Oh, mother----!" The nurse came up, and said she thought he had talked enough. I thought so too. His thin cheek was flushed, and his lip trembled; he was inclined to excite himself, and had not strength to spare for that just yet. I gave him his nourishment, turned his pillow, and whispered to him that, if he would sleep for a few hours, then he should have his wish. "Honour bright?" he whispered back. "Don't insult me," I retorted. "When did you ever know me to break a promise?" "To-day, mother?" "To-day--if Dr. Juke approves. Of course we must have doctor's express permission." "All right. Give me a squirt of morphia, nurse." "No, Master Harry. No more morphia, my dear--except maybe a time or two at night, when you _can't_ do without it." "I can't do without it now," he said. "I've got to sleep before I can see her, and I can't sleep, of myself, until I do see her." "There," I exclaimed, flinging out a hand. "What did I say? I _knew_ what the effect would be." The woman--who, I found, was actually privy to the whole affair--Tom's doing, no doubt--began to give her opinion, as is the way of those nurses. "If you'll take my advice," said she, "you'll let him see her now, and sleep afterwards. It'll tire him less than fretting for her." "And if you will be so good as to mind your own business," I replied, quietly but firmly, "I shall be infinitely obliged to you." I had not been out of the room five minutes before Tom came to seek me, looking quite hoity-toity, as if he thought himself aboard ship again, with sailors. "Now then, Polly," he said, "I'm not going to have any more nonsense about this. The boy is too weak to be worried. I am going to fetch Emily." "Since when," I asked, "has it been your habit to call her Emily?" He stared, and looked confused. "I suppose," he said, "I've caught it from Harry." "Talking with him so much about her, when it was so necessary to keep him calm? And to that nurse woman, behind my back--as if the private concerns of our family were any concern of servants! Tom, I didn't think _you_ would ever be disloyal to me." "I don't think I ever have been, Polly. What's more, I don't think you would ever imagine such a thing in cool blood. Come, you are not going to spoil this happy day for us all, are you? The boy has been given back to us by a miracle----" That was enough. I flung myself into his arms. "Forgive me! Forgive me!" I cried. "I know it is wicked of me. But you don't _know_ how I feel it, Tom!" "Yes, I do, pet; I know exactly." "No one but a mother _can_ know. I used to be everything to him once, and now he is only glad to get well because of her!" "Well, it's natural. We----" "No, we didn't. We had no mothers. But never mind--I won't be selfish. I will go and fetch her at once." "Would you rather I went?" "_Certainly_ not! Do you suppose I want them to go on thinking that you are their only friend, and I their implacable enemy? _I_ want to make him happy as much as ever you can do." "That's right, old girl. If you're going to do a kind thing, do it the kindest way you know. They'll be just fit to worship you, both of 'em." I did not ask to be worshipped, but I did want my boy to love his mother a little. I ran to him, brushing the nurse aside. "Dearest," I whispered, "I am going to bring Emily. She shall sit with you as long and as often as you like. She shall be your wife, if you want her. I will make a daughter of her--for your sake." I took the kiss I had so richly earned, and hurried to the schoolroom. There sat Miss Blount, still faded and tearful, but beaming with the joy that filled the house, like the sun through rain. She and Lily had been crying and rejoicing together, congratulating one another. I waved the child aside, and, taking her governess by the hand, with a "Come, dear," which I could see explained everything in a moment, led her into Harry's room. After all, she was a lady, and a B.A. He might have done worse. But when I saw the look he turned to her when she ran like a deer to his arms--poor sticks of arms!--and how he held her, and crooned over her--oh, it was like a dagger in my breast! Tom took me away, and tried to comfort me. He reminded me that we did the same ourselves when we were young, and that we still had each other. "You've still got me, Polly. _I_ sha'n't desert you." Yes, yes; of course I still had him. But---- Well, a _man_ can't understand. CHAPTER VII. A BITTER DISAPPOINTMENT. A boy who is not yet twenty-four, and who has nothing beyond his salary as a clerk in a shipping office, and whose young lady is a pauper, can get engaged if he likes; but he cannot get married. I pointed this out to Harry as soon as he was well enough to be reasoned with. I said to him, "You know, my dearest, that there's nothing in the world I would not do to make you happy, but it would not be making you happy to let you think for a moment of such madness." It appeared, from Tom's account, that the child had been thinking of it--doubtless at Emily's instigation. "I might as well encourage you to cut your throat. Far better, indeed." "Better?" he echoed, lifting his eyebrows, and smiling in that queer way of his. "Better!" I insisted firmly. "You little know what it means--that rushing into irrevocable matrimony without counting the cost--without knowing what it entails--without experience or means----" "Mother," he interrupted, still smiling--a little impudently, though I don't think he meant to be rude--"you were not any more experienced than we are, and not any older or richer, were you?" I replied with dignity that my case was nowise in point. He wanted to know why it was not. I said, because I--unlike him--had been practically homeless at the time. And he cried, "_Were_ you? I never heard of that!" and stared at me in such a way that I blushed hotly, though old enough to know better. He was an obstinate fellow, and he corresponded with his grandfather and young uncles and aunts in England, and had a heap of their autographed photos in his room. I thought I had better turn him over to his father. Tom was walking in the garden with Emily, who had managed to get around him in that innocent-seeming way of hers--well, I must not be uncharitable; I daresay it _was_ innocent, and I could almost have fancied that they did not care about being interrupted. Only, of course, that's nonsense. "My dear," I said, in a sprightly voice, "your young man seems to find his mother a bore these days, and it's only natural. I have been trying to cheer him, and he responds by yawning in my face. Pray do go and exercise your spells, which are so much more potent, and leave me my old man, who is still my own." Was there any harm in a little light chaff of this kind? One would surely think not. But Tom, standing and looking after her as she slipped away, blushing in her ready, _ingénue_ fashion--so unlike a B.A.--said, quite gravely---- "That's a dear little soul, Polly! And I wouldn't speak to her in just that sort of a way, if I were you. It hurts her." "It hurts _me_," I returned, "when _you_ speak in that sort of a way. It is most unjust. Can't you take a joke? You know perfectly well that I treat her with the utmost kindness and consideration--that I have accepted her unreservedly, for my boy's sake." "Well, well," said he, "I know you don't mean it. Your bark's worse than your bite, old girl. Come and look at the new pigs." He drew my hand under his arm and patted it. We had had so many little tiffs lately--things we never dreamt of till Miss Blount came!--that I was determined not to quarrel now. It should never be said that _I_ was to blame for making a happy home unhappy. I swallowed my vexation and went to see the pigs--thirteen little black Berkshires, all as lively as they could be, on which he gloated whole-heartedly for the moment, as if they were more than wife or children. In his expansive ardour he offered me one of them to make a festive dish of for Sunday. "Let us have a little feast, Polly, for the young folks. Harry is able to sit up to table now, and we have done nothing to celebrate the engagement yet. Sucking-pig and one of the fat turkeys, and ask Juke to join us. Eh?" "My dear," I replied, "I am perfectly willing to celebrate the engagement in any way you like--yes, we'll have a nice dinner, and ask Dr. Juke--I am sure we owe him every attention that we can possibly pay him; but what I want to warn you against is letting them suppose that there is to be any celebration of the marriage--with our consent." Tom stared as if he did not understand. "You mean, not immediately?" he questioned. "Of course not." "I mean, not for _years_," I solemnly urged. "Tom, you must back me up in this. The boy is but a boy, with his way to make in the world. Before we allow him to saddle himself with a wife who will probably be quite useless--those University women always are--and the responsibilities of a family, he _must_ be in a position to afford it." "Yes," said Tom, in a tepid way. "But you and I, Polly----" "Oh, never mind about you and me," I broke in; "that is altogether different"--for of course it was. "You were a man of twice his age." "Which would make him about fourteen," said my husband, trying to be funny. As for me, I saw nothing to laugh at. I cannot imagine a more serious position as between parent and child. "At his time of life," I said, "four years are equal to ten at any other stage. Let him have those four years--let him begin where his father did--and I shall be quite satisfied." "Well, you see, my dear, it hardly rests with us, does it?" Tom stirred up the mother sow with his walking-stick, and sniggered in a most feeble-minded fashion. "How? Why not?" I demanded. "Do you mean to say you have not the power to influence him? Do you think that Harry, if properly advised, would persist in taking his own way in spite of us? I refuse to believe that any son of _mine_ could do such a thing." Again Tom laughed, looking at me as if he saw some great joke somewhere. I asked him what it was, and he said, "Oh, never mind--nothing." But I knew. He was thinking of my own elopement, to which I was driven by my father's second marriage--an incident that had no bearing whatever upon the present case. It exasperated me to see him so flippant about a matter of really grave importance, but I determined not to let him draw me into a dispute. "Four years," I said mildly, "would give them time to know each other and their own minds. It would be a test, to prove them. If at the end of four years they were still faithful, I should feel assured that all was well. But of course they would get tired of each other long before that, and so he would be spared a terrible fate, and all the trouble would be at an end." We had left the pigsty and were pacing the paths of the kitchen garden, surveying the depredations of the irrepressible slug. "The rain seems to wash the soot away as fast as I put it on," sighed Tom. "I'll get a bag of lime, and try what that'll do. Well, Polly, for my part, I should be very sorry to think them likely to get tired of each other. And I don't believe it, either. I don't think she's that sort of a girl somehow." "How like a man!" I ejaculated. "Just because she's got a pretty face!" "No, not because she's got a pretty face--though it is a pretty face--but because she's good as well as pretty. She's a right down good girl, my dear, believe me--just the sort of daughter-in-law I'd have chosen for myself, if I had had the choosing. I told Harry so. You should have seen how pleased he was!" "No doubt. But I don't see how you can know whether she's good or not. _You_ are not always with her, as we are." "Oh, I see her at times. We have little talks occasionally. A man can soon tell." He put his arm round my waist as we paced along. "I haven't been married to you for all these years without knowing a good woman from a bad one, Polly." It was intended for a compliment, but somehow I could not smile at it. In fact, I shed a tear instead. And when he saw it, and stooped to kiss it away, my feelings overcame me. I threw my arms round his neck and begged him not to let fascinating daughters-in-law draw away his heart from his old wife. I daresay it was silly, but I could not help it. Of course he chuckled as if I had said something very funny. And his only reply was "_Baby!_"--in italics. So like a man, who never can see a meaning that is not right on the top of a word. However, I promised to be nice to Emily--nicer, rather, for, as I told him, I had always been nice to her--and he said he would take an early opportunity to have a serious talk with Harry. "But let the poor chap alone till he gets his strength again," he pleaded--as if I were a perfect tyrant, bent on making the boy miserable; "let the poor children enjoy their love-making for the little while that Emily remains here. She has been telling me that she's got a fine appointment in a school--joint principal--and that she's going to work in a fortnight--to work and save for their little home, till Harry is ready for her." "_What?_" I exclaimed. "She never told me that." "She will, of course, when you give her the chance," said Tom, with an air of apology. "She ought to have told me, she ought to have confided in me, first of all," I urged, much hurt, as I had every right to be; "I can't understand why she did not. You seem," I concluded passionately--"you all seem to be having secrets behind my back, and shutting me out of everything, as if I were everybody's enemy. It is always so!" "It is never so," replied Tom, laying his arm round my shoulder. "You are never outside, old girl, except when you won't come in." That was what they always said when they wanted to defend themselves. But here we dropped the painful subject, and discussed the details of our proposed festival. "Only Juke?" I inquired, counting on my fingers. "That makes seven in all--an awkward number." "No matter for a family party," said Tom. "We are not going in for style this time. The boy in his armchair and pillows will take the room of two." "Still, we may as well make it an even eight," I urged. "Otherwise the table will look lopsided, and one or other of the girls will have nobody to talk to." "They will be quite satisfied to have their brother to look at. No, no, Polly, don't let us make a company affair of it, for goodness' sake. Harry wouldn't like it, or be fit for it either." "And isn't Juke company?" "By Heavens, no! We owe it to that young fellow that our only son isn't in his grave--yes, Polly, I am convinced of it--and my house is his, and all that's in it. Besides, he'll be here professionally--to see that Harry doesn't overeat himself. Oh, Juke is quite another pair of shoes." I certainly did not see it. He had served us well, no doubt, and we had paid him well; each side had done its part in a generous and conscientious spirit. I considered he had no more claim on us now than the thousands of passengers Tom had carried when he was a sea captain had on him. I am sure no doctor in the world can match a ship's commander of the most common type for self-denying devotion to the cause of duty. But, seeing Tom so inclined to be cross and unreasonable, I thought it better to say no more. We returned to the sty to select the piglet that was to be killed, and in my own mind I selected the guest who should make the table symmetrical. I knew that Harry would only rejoice to see another friend, and it was due to Phyllis to provide her as well as the others with a companion. It was also an opportunity which I did not feel it right to miss for serving her interests in other ways. I am not one of those vulgar match-makers who are the laughing-stock of the young men, and properly so--quite the contrary, indeed: no one can accuse _me_ of scheming to get my daughters married. Still, they must be married some day--or should be, in the order of nature--and surely to goodness a mother is permitted to safeguard, to some extent, a thoughtless and ignorant girl against the greatest of all the perils that her inexperience of life can expose her to. Not for the world would I force her inclination in any way, but there is a difference between doing that and letting her make a fool of herself with the first casual puppy in coat and trousers that crosses her path. The duty of parents is to protect their adolescent children from themselves, as it were, in this incalculably important matter; that is to say, to keep their path clear of acquaintanceships from which undesirable complications might result, while encouraging innocent friendships that may develop with impunity. Otherwise, what's the use of being parents at all? Your children might as well be orphans, and better. I neglected this duty, certainly, when I allowed Harry and Emily Blount to have access to each other; but then a son is not like a daughter--you can't be always overlooking him--and that affair was a lesson to me. I determined to be more vigilant in Phyllis's case. Phyllis is not like other girls. I think I may say, without a particle of vanity, that she is the very prettiest in Australia, at the least. There may be greater beauties at home--I don't know, it is so long since I was there; but if there be, I should like to see them. Her features are not classical, of course, and that dear little piquant suggestion of a cast in the left eye is a peculiarity, though it is not a defect, any more than are the freckles she gets in summer: these trifles of detail merely go to make the _tout-ensemble_ what it is--so charming that she has but to enter a room to eclipse every other woman in it. This being so, I was naturally anxious that she should marry, when she did marry, into her proper sphere, and not be thrown away upon a man unworthy of her. And I only took the most simple and necessary precaution for her safety when I limited my invitations to young fellows whom I could trust--like Spencer Gale. Tom says I never had a good word for Spencer Gale until he made his fortune in Broken Hills. It amuses Tom to make these reckless statements, and it doesn't hurt me in the least. I _always_ liked the boy, but any fair-minded person must have acknowledged that his change of circumstances had improved him--brushed him up, and brightened him in every way. It was not his wealth that induced me to throw him into my daughter's company, but his sterling personal qualities. A better son never walked, excepting my own dear Harry--that alone was enough for me; a good son never fails to make a good husband, as everybody knows. His sister was a friend and neighbour of mine, and I knew that he was staying with her. At one time all the family had lived here, Mr. Gale having Tom's fancy for amateur farming and market-gardening in his leisure hours. Spencer and Harry, both being clerks in Melbourne offices, used to go into town together of a morning; that was how we came to know them. But when Spencer had some shares given him which went to a ridiculous price directly afterwards, and when his money, by all sorts of lucky chances, bred money at such a rate that he was worth (they said) a quarter of a million in a twelvemonth, then they all left this out-of-the-way suburb for a big place in Toorak--all except Mary Gale, who married a poor clergyman before the boom. Mary's husband, Mr. Welshman, was the incumbent of our parish, and her good brother was not at all too grand to pay her visits at intervals, besides helping her to educate the children. Which proved conclusively that prosperity had not spoiled him. I walked to the parsonage on Friday afternoon, hoping to find him there; but he was out, and I only saw Mrs. Welshman. I used to like Mary Welshman in the old days, but she has become quite spoiled since people began to make a fuss of her family on Spencer's account. It is always the case--I have noticed it repeatedly; when sudden wealth comes to those who have not been accustomed to it, it is the girls whose heads are turned. I asked for Spencer, and mentioned that we wished him to dine with us, and you would have thought I was seeking an audience with a king from his lord chamberlain. "Oh, I don't know, I'm sure," she said, with her absurd airs of importance. "He is so much in request everywhere. He is certain to have a dozen engagements. I don't think you have the remotest chance of getting him, Mrs. Braye, on such short notice." The fact was that she did not want me to get him. She had the fixed delusion--all the Gales had--that there wasn't a mother or daughter in the country who was not plotting to catch him for matrimonial purposes; and she let me see very plainly her suspicion of my motives and her fear of Phyllis's power. "To-night," she exclaimed, in a tone of triumph--"to-night he is dining at the Melbourne Club, to meet the Governor." Poor thing! It was amusing to see how proud she was of it--evidently bursting to proclaim the news to all and sundry. "Very well," I said, smiling, "I will just drop a note to him at the club." And then I turned the conversation upon parish matters, as the best way of taking the conceit out of her. For I don't believe in clergymen's wives setting themselves up to patronise their lady parishioners, on whose favour and subscriptions (to put it coarsely) their husbands' livelihood depends. On my way home I was fortunate enough to encounter Spencer Gale himself. He was looking very well and handsome, riding a magnificent horse, which curveted and pranced all over the road when he checked its gallop in obedience to my uplifted hand. I felt a thrill of maternal pride as I gazed at him--of maternal anxiety also. "My boy," I cried, "do pray be careful! Remember what happened to poor Harry from this sort of rashness, and what a valuable life it is that you are risking!" "Oh, it's all right, Mrs. Braye," he responded, in his nice, cheerful way. "It is only oats and high spirits. How's Harry? Getting along like a house afire, Mary tells me. I'm awfully glad." Dear fellow! His kindness touched me to the heart. I suppose he was afraid to dismount from that obstreperous beast, lest he should lose control of it, and I am sure he could not help the way it tried to trample on me with its hind legs when I came near enough to talk. I told him how beautifully Harry was doing, and how he was to have his first dinner with us on Sunday, and how delighted he would be to see an old friend on such an occasion--and so on. Spencer seemed not to understand me for a moment, owing to the clatter of the horse, for he said he could not come because he was going to dine with the Governor at the Melbourne Club. "But that is to-night," I called. "And we want you for the day after to-morrow--Sunday. Just a simple family meal at half-past one--pot-luck, you know." He did not answer for some minutes--thinking over his engagements, doubtless; then he asked whether _all_ of us were at home. Aha! I knew what that meant, though of course I pretended I didn't. I said that no member of the family would be so heartless as to absent herself from such a festival as Harry's first dinner; that, on the contrary, his sister was more devoted to him, and far more indispensable both to him and to the house than a dozen hospital nurses. I described in a few words what Phyllis had been to us during our time of trouble, and he smiled with pleasure. And of course he consented to accept the casual invitation for her sake, pretending reluctance just to save appearances. It was arranged that he would be at his sister's on Sunday, and walk back with us after morning service. I told Tom in the evening, when he was sitting in the garden with his pipe, in a good temper. You would have supposed I was announcing some dreadful domestic calamity. "Whatever for?" he grumbled, with a most injured air. "I thought we were to be a comfortable family party, just ourselves, and no fuss at all." "There will be no fuss," I said, "unless you make it. He is just coming in a friendly, informal manner, to fill the vacant place. If you will have Dr. Juke, there must be another man to balance the table." "But why that man? You know Harry can't bear him since he's got so uppish about his money and his swell friends. Why not have somebody of our own class?--though I think it perfectly unnecessary to have anybody under the circumstances." "Our own class!" I indignantly exclaimed. "I hope you don't insult your children, not to speak of me, by implying that they are not good enough for Gales to associate with?" "They are," said Tom; "they are--and a lot too good for one Gale to associate with. But he don't think so, Polly." "If he did not, would he do it?" was my unanswerable retort. But it is useless trying to argue with a prejudiced man who is determined not to see reason. And I felt it wise to leave him before he could draw me into a dispute. Harry, however, was equally exasperating. He said, "Oh, then I shall make it Monday, if you don't mind. Better a dinner of herbs on washing-day in peace and comfort than a stalled ox on Sunday with Spencer Gale to spoil one's appetite and digestion for it." But Emily rebuked him on my behalf. She had but to look at him to make him do what she wished, and I suppose she thought it good policy to propitiate the future mother-in-law. Phyllis, whom I had expected to please--for whose sake I had gone to all this trouble--was simply insolent. Alas! it is the tendency of girls in these days. Respect for parents, trust in their judgment and deference to their wishes, all the modest, dutiful ways that were the rule when I was young, seem quite to have gone out of fashion. You would have thought that she was the mother and I the daughter if you had heard how she spoke to me, and seen the superior air with which she stood over me to signify her royal displeasure. "Oh, well, you have just gone and spoilt the whole thing--that's all." I could have cried with mortification. But then, what's the use? It is only what wives and mothers must expect when they try to do their best for their families. I had another struggle with her on Sunday morning. She refused to accompany us to church. She said she was not going to offer herself to Spencer Gale as a companion for a half-hour's walk--that he was quite conceited enough without that; if other girls chose to run after him and spoil him, she didn't. As if _I_ would ask her to run after any man! And as if Emily or I could not have walked home with our guest! But I learned a little later what all this prudishness amounted to. When we came back from church--Emily, Lily, Spencer, and I--we found an empty drawing-room, Harry and Tom in armchairs on the verandah, and Phyllis away in the kitchen garden gathering strawberries for dessert with Dr. Juke! And I discovered that that young man had interpreted an invitation to lunch at half-past one as meaning that he should arrive punctually at twelve. Tom pretended that he had called professionally at that hour, and been persuaded to put his buggy up in our stables and remain. "And I suppose you persuaded him?" I said, trying--because Spencer was standing by me--to keep what I felt out of my voice. "Well, my dear," replied the fatuous man, "the truth is, he didn't want much pressing." There are times when I feel that I could shake Tom, he is so wooden-headed and silly--though so dear. However, Phyllis, when I called her in, greeted Spencer Gale with proper cordiality; and the whole family behaved better than I had expected they would. They seemed to lay themselves out to be pleasant all round, and to make Harry's first day downstairs a happy one. It was a delightful early-summer day--he could not have had a better--and our pretty home was looking its prettiest, for we had had nice rains that year. Phyllis had decorated the table beautifully with roses, and Jane had surpassed herself in cooking the dinner. The pig was done to a turn--I never tasted anything so delicious--and the turkey was a picture. We had our own green peas and asparagus and young potatoes, and our own cream whipped in the meringues and coffee jelly--in short, it was as good a dinner as any millionaire could wish for, and in the end everything seemed to go as I had intended it should. Harry was no trouble at all. I purposely put him at his father's end of the table, with Emily between him and Juke, to pacify him; and, with his young lady at his side and Spencer as far off as possible, the dear boy was as gay and good-tempered as could be, quite the life of the party. Spencer sat between me and Phyllis, and she really seemed to devote herself to him. I was surprised to see how little fear she evidently had of appearing to throw herself at his head, like the other girls; she chattered and joked to him--the prettiest colour and animation in her face--and hardly glanced at Juke opposite, who, for his part, confined his attentions to his neighbours, Miss Blount and me, and was particularly unobtrusive and quiet. As for Spencer Gale, he was most interesting in his descriptions of what he had seen and done during his recent European travels; it was quite an education to listen to him. I was particularly pleased that he was so ready to talk on this subject, because I hate to have the children grow up narrow-minded and provincial, ignorant of the world outside their colony. It has been the dream of my life to take them home and give them advantages, and I have never been able to realise it. I could not help thinking, as that young man discoursed of Paris and Venice and all the rest of it, what a delightful honeymoon his bride might have! And so she did, as it turned out, no great while afterwards. Harry yawned and fidgeted, for sitting long in one position tired him; so Tom and Juke carried him to a cane lounge on the verandah before the rest of us had had dessert. I was annoyed with Phyllis for running out to get pillows, which were already there, and for not returning when she had made her brother comfortable. Emily had the grace to remain at table, and of course Lily stayed also. She is a most intelligent child, voracious for information of all sorts; and she plied our guest with so many questions, and amused him so much by her interest in his adventures, that she made him forget the strawberries on his plate and how time was going--forgetting herself that the poor servants were wanting to clear away so that they might get out for their Sunday walk. At last he finished, and I led the way to the verandah, where I expected to find the others. But only Harry and his father were there, the boy looking rather fagged and inclined to doze, and Tom--who has no manners--placidly sucking at his pipe. "Why, where is Phyllis?" I inquired. "Kitchen," said Harry promptly, opening his eyes. "And the doctor?" "Gone off to a patient." "Then," said I, "come and let me show you my roses, Mr. Gale;" and I took his arm. I thought it a good opportunity to have a little quiet talk with him on my own account. Afterwards I remembered that my husband and son watched us rather anxiously as we sauntered off into the garden, but I did not notice it at the time. It never crossed my mind that they could deliberately conspire to deceive me. I had had the garden tidied, and, in the first flush of the summer bloom, it looked really beautiful--although I say it. I would not have been ashamed to show it to the Queen herself. And our rustic cottage, that we had continually been adding to and improving ever since it came, a mere shanty, into our hands, was a study for a painter, with the yellow banksia in perfection, quite hiding the framework of the verandah. I halted my companion on the front lawn, at the prettiest point of view. "A humble little place," I remarked; "but I think I may say for it, without undue vanity, that it looks like the home of gentlefolks." He followed my gaze, and fixed his eyes upon the particular window which I informed him belonged to Phyllis's room. "What's she doing?" he inquired bluntly. He could not conceal his impatience for her return. I told him that, in the case of so variously useful a person, it was impossible to say. I had no doubt she was attending to housekeeping matters, which she never neglected for her own amusement. Then I threw out a feeler or two, to test him--to learn, if possible, something of his tastes and character; it was necessary, for her sake, to do so. And I was delighted to find that he shared my opinion of the colonial girl as a type, and agreed with me that the term "unprotected female" should in these days be altered to "unprotected male," seeing that it was the women who did all the courting, and the men who were exposed to masked batteries, as it were, at every turn. "A fellow's never safe till he's married," said the poor boy, doubtless speaking from painful experience. "And not then." "That depends," said I. "There are people--I know plenty--who, having married dolls like those we have been speaking of, find themselves far indeed from being safe; but choose a good, modest, clever, loving girl, who has been well brought up--one devoted to her home and unspoiled by a vulgar society--and it is quite another pair of shoes, as my husband would say. By the way, ask _him_ what he thinks of marriage for young men." "I don't know that I want to ask anybody anything," he returned, a little irritably--for Phyllis was still invisible--"except to leave me alone to do as I like. I don't believe in having wives selected for me, Mrs. Braye; I'm always telling my mother and sisters that, and they won't pay the least attention. I think a fellow might be allowed to please himself, especially a fellow in my position." "Certainly," I said, with all the emphasis I could command. "_Most_ certainly. That is my own view exactly. I have always said that, in respect of my own children, I would never force or thwart them in any way. I chose the one I loved, regardless of wealth or poverty, and they shall do the same. More than that," I added gaily, "I am going to be the most charming mother-in-law that ever was! I shall quite redeem the character. I will never attempt to interfere with my children's households--never be _de trop_--never--oh! Why, there she is!" We were turning into a quiet path between tall shrubs--the fatal place where, as I was told, Harry had been entrapped--and I suddenly saw the gleam of a white dress in a little bower at the end of it. At the same moment I saw--so did Spencer Gale--a thing that petrified us both. I was struck speechless, but his emotion forced him to hysteric laughter. "I'm afraid," said he, recovering himself, "that we are _de trop_ this time, at any rate." "Not at all," I retorted, also rallying my self-command. "Not at all. We don't have anything of that sort in this family." But the facts were too palpable; it was useless pretending to ignore them. Phyllis jumped out of the arbour, like an alarmed bird out of its nest, and came strolling towards us, affecting a nonchalant air, but with a face the colour of beetroot with confusion; and that unspeakable doctor, who had caused her so to forget herself, strutted at her side, twirling the tip of his moustache and endeavouring to appear as if he had not been kissing her, but looking all the time the very image of detected guilt. It is not necessary to state that Spencer Gale left immediately, and never darkened our doors again. When, a little later, I had it out with Phyllis, she declared, with a toss of the head, that she wouldn't have taken him if there had been no other marriageable man living--that there was only one husband for her, whom she intended to have whether we liked it or not, even if she were forced to wait for him till she was an old woman. I have often regretted that I did not control myself better, but she, who had no excuse for violence, behaved like a perfect lunatic. She went so far as to say she would never forgive me for the insults I had heaped upon one--meaning Edmund Juke--who had no equal in the universe, and who had saved her brother's life. Of course she did not mean it--and I did not mean it--and we forgave each other long ago; but I never hear the name of Spencer Gale without the memory of that interview coming back to me, like a bitter taste in the mouth. He married about the same time as she did--a significant circumstance! They say that he lost his boom money when the boom burst, and that he drinks rather badly, and makes domestic scandals of various kinds. If he does, it is no more than one might have expected, considering the provocation. It is all very well for my family to repeat these tales to his discredit, and then point to Edmund Juke in Collins Street gradually climbing to the top of his profession; they think this is sufficient to prove that they were always Solomons of wisdom, and I a fool of the first magnitude. It does not occur to them that if some things had been different, all things would have been different. The one man would never have fallen into low habits if he had had Phyllis for his wife, and the other would never have risen so high if he had not had her. That is how I look at it. And as for material prosperity, no one could have foreseen how things were going to turn out, and luck is like the rain that falls on the just and on the unjust--it comes to the people who don't deserve it quite as often as to those who do. For my part, I pay no heed to malicious gossip. There are always envious persons ready and anxious to pull down those who are placed above them; if they cannot find a legitimate pretext, they invent one. I see for myself that he still lives in his beautiful Kew house, that his wife still leads the fashion at every important social function and drives the finest turn-out in Melbourne; that does not look as if they were so very poor. And if one _could_ forgive infidelities in a married man, it would be in the case of one tied to a painted creature who evidently cares for nothing but display and admiration--to have her photograph flaunted in the public streets, and herself surrounded by a crowd of so-called smart people, flattering her vanity for the sake of her husband's position. He may have a handsome establishment, but he cannot have a _home._ So who can wonder if he seeks comfort elsewhere, and flies to the bottle to drown his grief? It would have been very, very different if my beautiful Phyllis had been at the head of affairs. However, if she is satisfied, it is not for me to say a word. CHAPTER VIII. THE SILVER WEDDING. Emily went to her school in Melbourne, and I had to get another governess for Lily. She was a horrid woman. I stood her for one quarter, and then packed her off; and we had to pay her for six months, because she threatened to sue us for breach of contract. The next that I procured was a clever person enough, and not wanting in good manners, but she ordered the servants about as if the house belonged to her, and of course they resented it. So did I. Emily's gentle unobtrusiveness had spoiled us for ways of that sort. Moreover, Miss Scott was terribly severe upon Lily; the child was always in tears over lessons that were too hard for her. I did not believe in overstraining a growing girl, and ventured to remonstrate now and then on her behalf; but Miss Scott was quite above taking advice from her elders and betters--as good as asked me to mind my own business, or, at any rate, to allow her to know hers. So I thought it best to make a change. And then I was deceived by false representations into engaging a widow lady, who had seen better days. She was recommended to me as an experienced teacher, having held situations in high families before her marriage; and I naturally supposed that one who had been a mother herself would be a safer guide for a young girl than one who had not. But words cannot describe what a wretch that woman was. There is something about widows--I don't know what it is--something that seems almost improper--especially those that are by way of being young and pretty, like Mrs. Underwood, though she was all forty, if she was a day, in spite of her baby airs and graces and her butter-yellow hair. She had the audacity to try and flirt with Tom, under cover of her pathetic stories of her lost husband and children, and those better days that were a pure invention; and he was too idiotically stupid--that is, too innocent and simple-minded--to see what was so glaringly transparent to everybody else. He used to think her an ill-used woman and pity her, and think me hard and unfeeling because I didn't. Oh, never will I have a widow about my house again! She entirely destroyed our domestic peace. Things came to such a pass, indeed, that Tom even threatened--seriously, and not in a joke--to get out his captain's certificate and return to sea, because his home, that had always been so happy, had become unbearable. She went at last, and then I felt that I had had enough of governesses. Determined that I would never undergo such misery again, and at the same time strongly objecting to boarding-schools for girls, there was nothing for it but to superintend Lily's general studies myself, and take her into town for special lessons. I did not like the job, and found her very tiresome and disheartening; she seemed to mope, all alone, and would not interest herself in anything. A girl in these days is never satisfied with her mother for a companion, and after a time, when the Jukes were settled in their Melbourne house, I was glad to let her go on long visits to her sister. There she found plenty to occupy and amuse her, while I sat solitary at home, working for them both. For I had no children left when she was away. The difficulty of the governess was not the only trouble that resulted from Emily's desertion of me. Harry also forsook the nest. He said it was inconvenient to live so far from his office, though he had never thought of that while she was with us, and that it would be better for business reasons to have a lodging in town. I did not attempt to thwart him. And so, as soon as he was strong enough to return to regular work--so valued was he by the shipping firm which employed him that they had kept his situation open during his illness--he took himself and a new bicycle to a stuffy Melbourne suburb, where he would be in the way of meeting his beloved frequently at the houses of her friends. I wanted to settle in Melbourne too, to be near them all. But our little place was our own--a valuable property, yet unsaleable in these bad times--and Tom said we could not afford it. Besides, I knew he would be miserable cooped up in streets, and lost without his pigs and vegetable garden. Thus we felt ourselves stranded on the shore while our young ones put to sea--deserted in our old age--which, after all, is the common fate. Only we were not in our old age, either of us. I have not a grey hair in my head, even now, and have more than once been taken for Phyllis's elder sister. On the day that she was married, when I wore pale heliotrope relieved with white, I overheard old Captain Saunders--and a man of eighty ought to be a judge--say to Mr. Welshman, "She's a pretty girl, but her mother can beat her." And I should like to see the man of forty who is the equal of what my husband was at fifty-five--or is at his "present-day" age, which comes to little more. Tom is stout certainly, but only in a dignified and commanding fashion; he can out-do Harry in feats of strength, and his fine, bronzed face, with those keen blue eyes in it, has a power of manliness that kings might envy. For the matter of that, kings are not nearly so much of kings as he was accustomed to being on board his ships. I know the lady passengers made themselves ridiculous by the way they scrambled for his notice and a seat beside him at the saloon table. To people like Mrs. Underwood, though she was really my contemporary, I may seem very _passée_--no doubt I do--and a perfect granny to the children, who regard youth and beauty as solely the prerogatives of bread-and-butter misses in their teens; but--as Captain Saunders's remark indicated--I am not too old to charm where I want to charm. No, indeed; nor ever shall be--to one person, at all events. When Tom and I woke up on our silver wedding morning and kissed each other, did we not know what love meant as much and more than we had ever done, without needing Juke and Phyllis, and Harry and his Emily to teach us? I should think so, indeed! It seems to me that it _requires_ the fulness of many years, fatherhood and motherhood in all stages and phases, innumerable steps of painful experience climbed together, to bring us to the perfect comprehension of love--the best love--that love in the lore of which those children, who think themselves so knowing, are mere beginners, with the alphabet to learn. And this, by the way--it has just this moment occurred to me--is the kernel of the woman question, which seems so vastly complicated. Why, it is as simple as it can possibly be. The whole thing is in a nutshell. Those advocates and defenders of this and that, arguing so passionately and inconclusively at such interminable length--how silly they are! You have one set of people raving for female suffrage and equal rights and liberties with tyrant man; you have another set of people storming at them for thus ignoring the intentions of Nature, the interests of the house and family. The intentions of Nature, indeed! The house and family! When millions of poor women are old maids who haven't chosen to be so!--who, of course, _could_ not choose to be so, unless physiologically defective in some way or another. Poor, poor things! They don't want equal rights with man, but equal rights with the lower animals. As they don't know what they miss, they may be forgiven for the way they speak of it in their books and speeches; but if they had it--if all had it who by nature are entitled to it--there would be no more woman question. I am quite convinced of that. Nature's intentions would then really be fulfilled, and the other troubles of the case, all secondary and contingent, would vanish. Of course they would. Man is not a tyrant, bless him! The child is the only tyrant--the legitimate power that keeps woman in her place. But, oh, how much that child does cost us! We give all freely, and would give a thousand times more if we had it to give, for it is the most precious of human privileges--the thing we really live for, though it is inconvenient to admit it; but we pay with heart's blood, from the beginning to the end. We pay so much and so constantly that it often seems to me that the poor childless ones, undeveloped and inexperienced, who cannot know the great joys of life, are also exempt from all sorrow that is worthy of the name. Baby-rearing, absorbingly interesting though it be, is really a terrible business; and the fewer the babies the worse it is. You hardly know what it means to have a night's rest for dread of the ever-recurring epidemics that so fatally ravage the nurseries of this country. Day and night you have the shadow of the clinical thermometer, your sword of Damocles, hanging over you, and are afraid to breathe lest you should bring it down. Then, when this hair-whitening strain begins to slacken a little and you think you are going to have an easy time, the children that are now able to take care of themselves utterly refuse to do so. Your girl goes wet-footed with a light heart, and you never see a telegraph messenger coming to the house without expecting to hear that your boy at school has broken his arm at football or his neck bird's-nesting. They follow their mischievous devices, and you can't help it; you can only cluck and fuss like a futile hen running round the pond in which her brood of ducklings is splashing. That's worse than baby-rearing, because you can at least do what you like with a baby. And then, when you pride yourself on having successfully got through the long struggle, and you tell yourself that now they are going to be a help and a comfort to you at last, off they go to the first stranger who beckons to them, and think no more about you than of an old nurse who has served her purpose--probably turning round to point out the errors you have committed, and to show you how much better you would have done if you had taken their advice. And that is worst of all. No trouble that I had had with mine, while they were with me, equalled the trouble of being without them, especially on the silver wedding morning, when I had, as it were, the field of my married life before me; when I felt that a golden harvest was my due, and beheld a ravaged garden with all its flowers plucked. It was my own fault that no letters of congratulation came by the first post; I had purposely refrained from reminding the children of the approaching anniversary, just to see if they would remember it, and they had been too full of their own concerns to give it a thought. Afterwards they scolded me for not telling them, and were very repentant. I had no present either--that is, not on the day. Tom had given me a silver _entrée_ dish, and I had given him a silver-mounted claret-jug; but we had made our purchases a week too soon, and had been unable to keep the matter secret from each other. It was a wet morning, and I, being the first downstairs, was greeted with the smell of burnt porridge in the kitchen. I thought it too bad of Jane to let such a thing happen on such an occasion, and a hardship that rain should be running like tears down the breakfast-room window panes when I so particularly wanted to be cheered. It was April, the month of broken weather, and leaves were falling thickly on the beds and paths outside. I surveyed the dripping prospect, and noted how impossible it was to keep the weeds down, with the summer-warmed earth so moist; and I turned back into the room to see a late-lit fire fading on the hearth, and the children's empty chairs against the wall. Well, I sat down behind the two lonely tea-cups and bowed my head on the table, on the point of tears--feeling that I too was a denuded autumn tree, an outworn woman who had had her day. And then, before I could get out my handkerchief, Tom came in. He kicked two logs together, and the dying fire sprang to life; he opened a window, and the freshest and sweetest morning air poured in, sprinkled with a gentle shower and hinting at coming sunshine. "What a lovely day we've got, eh, Polly? What a beautiful rain! This'll bring the grass on, and make the land splendid for ploughing, hey? What's the matter, old girl? Missing the children? Oh, well, they're happy; we've nothing to fret about on their account--nor on our own either--and that's more than most people can say on their silver wedding morning. Porridge spoilt? Oh, that's no matter--we have something better than porridge. Here, Jane! Jane! Bring in the you know what, if you've got 'em ready." Jane came in, smiling, with the new _entrée_ dish in her hands. Tom watched it with gleeful eyes, and assisted to place it on the table. It was his little surprise for me--mushrooms, to which I am extravagantly partial--the first of the season. He had gone to Melbourne the day before to buy them, and it was her absorption in the task of cooking them delicately which had caused Jane to neglect the porridge--Tom's first course at every breakfast. "There" said he, as he lifted the shining lid. He was as pleased as a boy with his plot and its _dénouement._ "Oh, you _precious!_" I responded; and the gratitude he expected brought tears to my eyes. "No one _ever_ had such a husband as mine!" He beamed complacently, and sat down beside me, inconveniently close. With his arm round my waist, he helped me to pour out the coffee, and spilled it on the cloth; he fed me with the best of the mushrooms and morsels of beef steak, and wiped gravy from my lips with his own napkin. He seemed to feel that I needed some extra comfort to make up for the children's absence, though he said repeatedly that it was only fitting we should have our wedding-day, whether gold, silver, or pewter, to ourselves. "As for you," he said, "I declare you don't look a day older than when I married you, Polly. Oh, well, a little fuller in the figure, perhaps; but that's an improvement. Old Saunders is quite right--you can beat the young girls still." I told him he could beat the young men in the making of pretty speeches, and I pretended not to believe his flatteries; but I knew that he meant every word he said, being the sincerest of men. And my spirits rose by leaps and bounds, until I felt even younger than I looked, and like a real bride once more, just as if those strenuous intermediate years had dropped out of the calendar. The barometer was rising too. Before we had finished our mushrooms the rain had all passed off, and the sun was shining on a clean and fragrant earth. Everything outside glittered and shimmered. It was a thoroughly bridal morning, after all. "And now, what shall we do?" my husband inquired, having lit his pipe and taken a rapid glance over the newspaper. "We must do something to celebrate the day. What shall it be?" "It doesn't much matter what, so long as we do it together," was my reply. "But I think I should like to go out somewhere, shouldn't you? It is going to be the perfection of weather." "Oh, we'll go out, of course. We'll have a day's sight-seeing, and our lunch in town. Let's see"--we studied the "Amusements" column, as we had so often seen the children do--"there's the Cyclorama; we have never seen the Cyclorama yet, and I'm told it's splendid." "And it is years since we were at the Picture Gallery," I remarked. "There must be dozens of pictures there that we have never seen." "We might go to the Zoölogical Gardens. If there was one thing more than another that I was fond of as a boy it was a wild beast show. They feed them at four o'clock." "Yes, and the seals at the Aquarium too. I remember seeing the seals fed at Exhibition time. It was most interesting." "And they've got Deeming at the Waxworks, Harry says----" "Oh, Tom--waxworks! However, I don't see why we shouldn't go to waxworks if we feel inclined. We are free agents. There is nobody to criticise us now." I began to feel that it was really almost a relief to be without the children, just for once in a way. Children are so dreadfully severe and proper in their views of what fathers and mothers ought to do. "Well, go and get your things on," said my husband, "while I have a look round outside." He dashed off to see that pigs and fowls were fed, and the boy started on his day's work; and I ran into the kitchen to tell Jane not to cook anything, and upstairs to change my dress and put on my best bonnet. In our haste to make the most of our holiday, we frisked about like young dogs let off the chain. It did not matter how undignified it looked, since there was nobody to laugh at us. Before ten o'clock we were off, and before eleven we were in Melbourne, sliding up Collins Street on a tram dummy, on our way to the Cyclorama. The Picture Gallery had been set down as a first item of the programme--it opened at ten, and one had the place to one's self during the forenoon--but afterwards we put it at the bottom of the list, and finally struck it out altogether. Our feeling was that we could do pictures at any time--pictures were things young people would thoroughly approve of as an amusement for parents--but that we could not always do exactly as we liked. So we went to the Cyclorama first, and were so intensely interested that we stayed there nearly an hour. We had read of the battle of Waterloo in our school books, but never realised it in the least; now we were like eye-witnesses of the fight, and the whole thing was clear to us. A soldier amongst the spectators pointed out a number of mistakes in the arrangements of troops and guns, but we did not understand them, and did not want to; indeed, we would not listen to him. We moved round and round in our dark watch-tower to the quiet places, and gazed over the far-stretching fields with more delight than our first peep-show at an English fair had given us. The illusion of distance was so complete that it corrected all crudities of detail, and we simply lost ourselves in the romance of the past and our own imaginations. "Never saw anything so wonderful in my life," said Tom, as at last we tore ourselves away. "I seem to smell that chateau burning, and to hear those poor chaps groaning with their wounds. I'm glad we went, aren't you, Polly?" I truthfully replied that I was very glad indeed, and we emerged into the street, and he hailed a passing tram. Again we took our places on the dummy, that we might see and feel as much of the bright day as possible. Melbourne was still gay and busy, in spite of gloomy commercial forecasts, and the weather was all that a perfect autumn morning could make it. The sun shone now with an evident intention to continue doing so till bed-time, and we basked in it on the dummy seat like two cats. "What shall we do next?" asked Tom, consulting his watch. "It is not near lunch-time yet. We must get an appetite for the sort of meal I mean to have to-day." Before we could make up our minds what to do next, the tram had carried us into Burke Street, and lo! there was the temple of the waxworks staring us in the face. Tom signalled the conductor, and we jumped off, hand in hand, and without a word made our way to the door of the show which we had heard even young children speak of as beneath contempt--only fit for bloodthirsty schoolboys of the lower orders and louts from the country who knew no better. Well, we were from the country; and, whatever the artistic shortcomings of this exhibition, it had the charm of novelty at any rate. Neither of us had been to waxworks since we were taken as infants to Madame Tussaud's. This was a far cry from Madame Tussaud's, but I must confess that it amused us very well for half an hour. The effigies were full of humour, and the instruments of torture in the chamber of horrors very real and creepy. Also there were some relics of old colonial days that were decidedly interesting. In short, we did not feel that we had wasted time and two shillings when we had gone through the place, though we pretended to have done so, laughing at each other, saying, "How silly we are!" "Well, let's be silly," said Tom, at last. "There's no law against that, that I know of." "None whatever," I gaily responded. "There's nobody to----" "Hush!" he exclaimed, interrupting what I was going to say with a sharp snatch at my arm. We were just leaving the waxworks, and he pulled me back within the door. "What's the matter?" I cried, bewildered by his sudden action and tone of alarm. "Come back--come back!" he whispered excitedly. "For Heaven's sake, don't let her see us!" "Who? who?" He pointed to the street, and I had a momentary glimpse of our daughter Phyllis going by in her husband's buggy. Edmund, in his tall town hat, which glittered in the sun, was driving her himself; she sat beside him under her parasol, calm, matronly, dignified, a model of all propriety. How would she have looked if she had seen her mother coming out of the waxworks? It was quite a shock to think of it. "She has been shopping," said Tom casually, "and Ted's been out after patients, and has picked her up, sending the groom home. It isn't every Collins Street doctor who'd let his wife be seen with him in the professional vehicle. Ted's a good fellow and a first-rate husband. We have a lot to be thankful for, Polly." "We have," I assented, drawing a long breath of relief. For the moment I was most thankful that my dear girl, whom I had so yearned for, was out of sight. The coast was clear, and we sallied forth once more in pursuit of our own devices. Being still not quite as hungry as Tom desired, we strolled around the block and looked in at the shop windows--the florists, the milliners, the photographers. "Do you remember," said Tom, as we gazed upon a galaxy of Melbourne beauties smiling down upon the street, "how we had our likenesses taken in our wedding clothes?" "And, oh, such clothes!" I interjected. "A flounced skirt over a crinoline, a spoon bonnet----" "It was the image of you, my dear, and I wouldn't part with that picture for the world. I say, let's go and be done now. I'd like a memento of this day, to look at when the golden wedding comes. Just as you are, in that nice tailor tweed--in your prime, Polly." I told him it was nonsense, but he would have it. The people said they would be ready for us at 2.30, and when we had had an immense lunch, and were both looking red and puffy after it, we were photographed together, like any pair of cheap trippers--I sitting in an attitude, with my head screwed round, he standing over me, with a hand on my shoulder. The result may now be seen in a handsome frame on his smoking-room mantelpiece; He thinks it beautiful. After the operation we had a cup of tea in the nearest restaurant, and by that time it was too late to think of the Zoölogical Gardens, which closed at five, and required a whole day to reveal all their treasures. But we thought we might be in time to see the seals fed, and so took tram again for the Exhibition building. As we entered the Aquarium through the green gloom of the Fernery, we heard the creatures barking, and saw the keeper walking towards the tanks with his basket of fish. We were in good time, and there was no great crowd to-day, so that we could stand close to the iron bars and see all the tricks of the man and the beasts, which were unspeakably funny. I don't know when I have laughed so much as I laughed that afternoon. And Tom was just as much amused as I was. But when the last fish had been thrown and caught, and we sat down on a bench to rest for a minute, he fell suddenly silent, and I thought he appeared a little tired. "I know what it is," I said, looking at him. "You are just dying for a pipe." "No," he answered; "at least, not particularly. But I'll tell you what I do seem to long for, Polly, and that's a sight of blue water. Looking at those creatures diving and splashing somehow reminds me of it. I haven't seen the sea for months." "Oh, you poor boy!" I exclaimed, jumping up. "Why didn't you say so at first--at the beginning of the day? I never once thought of it. Of course we ought to have been beside the sea on our silver wedding-day--the sea that married us in the beginning--or else on it. Let us get down to Swanston Street at once, and take a St. Kilda tram. There is time to reach the pier before the sun goes down, and we can stay there till dark, and dine at the Esplanade. It will be a nice long ride, and you can have your pipe on the dummy as we go." "All right," he said, with renewed alacrity. "Mind you, Polly, I couldn't have enjoyed the day more than I have done, so far as it has gone; but a sniff of brine to top up with will just make it perfect." So we had our sniff of brine. It took three-quarters of an hour to get it, but the drive was delightful in the fresh evening air; the rain had laid the dust of that dustiest of Melbourne roads, and C-spring barouches are not easier to travel in than the cable tramcars on it. Tom had the comfort of his pipe, allowable on the dummy; and the scent of his good tobacco, which the breeze carried from me, was a scent I loved for its associations' sake. When we got to St. Kilda the sun was low; no effect of atmosphere and sea water could have been more lovely. It was only bay water, to be sure, but it was salt, and it sufficed. We called in at the hotel to order our dinner, and walked down and out to the end of the pier, and sat there silently until the ruddy full moon rose. At night, when all was white and shining, we returned there and sat for an hour more, hand in hand. "What it must be," said Tom, soliloquising, "outside!" "Ah-h!" I sighed deeply. The same thought had been in both our minds all through the silence which he had broken with his remark. If he had not made it, I should have done so. In imagination we were "outside" together, as in our youth; the scent of sea in the brisk air had acted on us like the familiar touch of a mesmerist on a subject long surrendered to his power; the nostalgia of the seafarer, the sea-lover--which is a thing no other person can understand--had taken hold of us; it was as if some long silent mother-voice called to us across the bay, "Come home, come home!" Near us, sheltered in the angle of the pier, a bunch of sail boats tugged gently at their ropes; the flopping, squelching sound made by the run of the tide between and under them was sweet in our ears, like an old song. A little way off some yachts of the local club lay each at its own moorings, a hull and a bare pole, ink-black on the shining water. Tom was no yachtsman, of course; he even had a contempt for the modern egg-shell craft, all sail and spar, in which the young men out of the shops and offices raced for cups on summer Saturdays; they were as children's toys in his estimation. But a boat is a boat, and, feeling as I did, and thinking of the remark he had made in the Aquarium, and how I had unaccountably forgotten what we ought to have done on our silver wedding-day, I said-- "Why shouldn't we have a silver honeymoon, and spend it at sea?" Though he did not answer at once, and though his face was turned from me towards an incoming steamer, a distant streak of shadow sprinkled with lights, that he was trying to identify, I knew that he jumped straight at the suggestion with all his heart. "Hm-m," he mused; "ha-hm-m. That's not a bad idea of yours, Polly. I daresay it might be done, if you think you'd like it. We have no children to tie us at home--Harry would keep an eye on the pigs and things--it would do us all the good in the world--by Jove, yes!" He sat erect and alert. "Why, the very thought of it makes me feel twenty years younger. I don't see why we shouldn't have a silver honeymoon while we are about it. But what sort of a trip do you fancy? Portland and Warrnambool? Tasmania? New Zealand? I'm afraid Europe is a bit too large an order." "Nothing of that sort at all," I urged; "but something that we can do all by ourselves, without being interfered with." I pointed to the boats near us. "A yachting cruise to some of the places I have never seen, if you could find a strong, homely sort of yacht, with bulwarks and a cabin in it. Perhaps a hired man or two--yes, that would even give us greater freedom--if there was a place for them to sleep in away from us." I enlarged upon my idea, while he listened and nodded, proposing amendments here and there; then he jumped up in his resolute way, lifting me with him. "Let us get home and to bed," said he, "and I'll be up first thing in the morning to see about it. We must save this weather and the moon--the honeymoon, Polly." We bustled back to town. And whom should we meet in the tram but an old brother salt, who knew exactly what we wanted and where it was to be had--a stout, yawl-rigged craft with something beside lead keel under water, not too smart to look at, but able to travel, and warranted safe "outside" as no ordinary pleasure yacht could be. One day sufficed to stock this vessel with our requirements, and on the morning of the next we set sail, with one quiet man for crew, and a minute dinghy behind us, bound for no port in particular, and to no programme--determined to be free for once, if we never were again. The children thought us quite silly, naturally. I believe Harry felt it something of a hardship to have to give up Emily's society occasionally for the sake of the pigs, and I am sure, though I did not hear them, that Phyllis and Lily made remarks on their poor dear mother's erratic fancies, and the way poor father gave in to them. Phyllis took the opportunity of my absence to "settle up the house," as she called it--meaning my house, and that matters there had fallen into a sad state since she had ceased to superintend them. But we were emancipated now. We were out of school. I was able to wear--what they had considered inappropriate for years--a hat to keep off the hot sea sunshine, which burns old faces as badly as young ones; and I could fish, and paddle barefoot, and sing, and talk nonsense to Tom to my heart's content, with no sense of appearing ridiculous or undignified to anybody. The crew was an old Bendigo hand, about the age of my father, devoted to us both; and Tom was like a boy again, with the tiller in his hand. What ages it was since he had steered a sailing boat, of any sort or size! Yet even I could tell the difference in a moment, as soon as he took the helm. Not only did he make the yawl do exactly what he wanted, but he seemed to know exactly what _she_ wanted as well. It was the same sort of sympathy as that between a perfect rider and a horse that thoroughly understands and trusts him. Some people--good seamen in everything else--can never steer like that, although they may have been a lifetime at it. It is an instinct, like good riding, inherited and not acquired. Tom's people had been sailors since the Battle of the Nile. How he _did_ love it, to be sure! And _what_ a holiday that was! We had our little discomforts of various kinds, and I was seasick for a night and seedy all the day afterwards; but these trifles were of no account in the sum of our vast enjoyment, and cannot even be remembered now. Looking back on that cruise--that last cruise--perhaps the very last in life--it is one idyllic dream, simply. I find it hard to believe that it could have happened in such a prosaic world. I daresay that much of the fairyland feeling was due to weather. There is no weather on earth like Australian weather for making holiday in--that is, when it is good. What fell to us on this memorable occasion was as good as good could be--fine and fresh by day, calm and beautiful by night, with various effects of moonlight, each sweeter than the rest. The beginnings of the days were the best of them, perhaps. We went to bed betimes--in that not too spacious chamber of ours between the big and the little masts--and so were ready to see the sunrise, to bathe ourselves in the clean, sharp, early morning air, to set about clearing up the cabin, airing the mattresses on deck, frying the eggs and bacon or newly caught fish, and cooking the coffee over the spirit stove, before the land people were astir, every vein in our bodies thrilling to the salt breeze, tingling with health, and our appetites keen as razors. Later, we would visit the shore for provisions, for newspapers, for a hotel meal, to send inquiring telegrams to our family and await replies, to amuse ourselves with a ramble in the bush or through the bay watering-places whose summer season had ebbed away from them. Later still, I lay prone on deck, snoozing over a novel, while Tom and the crew sailed the boat, and smoked, and talked shop in contented growls, a couple of sentences at a time. Then tea, and washing up, and the fishing lines got out; and the sweet twilight that, when it became darkness, was too cold to sit in; and the lamp lit in the little cabin--yawns--bed--the stirless sleep of nerves at peace and digestion in perfect order. It was almost the same "outside" as in--not a cat's-paw squall molested us. There was sea enough for good sea-sailing, but not enough to wet me or my little house below--not till we got to Warrnambool, where, being weather-bound for a day or two, we had the joy of seeing great breakers again. They thundered on the rocky shore like cannons going off; they flung foam over the breakwater; they would not let the Flinders come in. We sat on a brown boulder a whole morning and a whole afternoon to look at and listen to them, as one would listen to some archangel of a Paderewski. Ah me, how happy we were! The second honeymoon, like the second wedding-day, was miles better than the first. We married for love, if two people ever did, not having fifty pounds between us, but my old bridegroom was a truer lover than my young one. He said the same of his old bride. We were like travellers that have climbed to a noble mountain-top and sit down to rest and survey the arduous road by which they came--all rosy in the bloom of sunset--and the poor things still struggling up, not seeing what they head for. I never had such a rest in my life before, and we had never, in all our twenty-five years of dear companionship, been at such perfect peace together. There was only one little cloud, and that passed in a moment. Tom said--it was a mere thoughtless jest, for he did not mean to be unkind--that our divine tranquillity was due to there being no person near for me to be jealous of. I ought to have laughed at such an obviously absurd remark, but I am dreadfully sensitive to anything like injustice, and was foolish enough to feel hurt that he could say such a thing, even in fun. _I_ jealous! I may have my faults--nobody is perfect in this world--but at least I cannot be justly accused of condescending to petty ones of that sort. CHAPTER IX. GRANDMAMMA. "Good-morning, Grandmamma!" I was in my kitchen after breakfast, seeing about the dinner--calmly slicing French beans, because it was Monday morning and Jane was helping the washwoman--when I was suddenly accosted in this extraordinary way. With a jump that might have caused me to cut my fingers, I turned my head, and there in the doorway stood my son-in-law, Edmund Juke, panting from his bicycle, and grinning idiotically, as if he had said something very funny. By what he had said, and by the expression of his face, and by seeing him miles away from his consulting-room at that hour of the day, I knew, of course, what had happened. My heart was in my mouth. "What--what--you don't say--not really?" I gasped, scattering the beans, cut and uncut, together about the floor as I sprang to meet him. "Why, it isn't nearly time yet!" "Oh yes, it is," said he. "Everything is all right. The finest boy you ever saw, and she doing as well as possible. I would not let any one but myself bring you the good news, Mater dear"--and here he kissed me, more affectionately than usual--"ill as I could spare the time. I knew you'd be easier in your mind, too----" "But I am _not_ easy in my mind," I broke in, excessively concerned about my child, and beginning to see that I had not been fairly treated in the matter. "I am quite sure it is premature, whatever you may say. Phyllis distinctly gave me to understand that it was a month off, at least. Otherwise should I be here?" "It is an easy thing to make mistakes about, as you know. I can assure you there is nothing wrong in any way. You must allow a medical man--two medical men, for Errington attended her--to be the judge of that," said he, with the airs a young doctor gives himself when he has begun to make a name. I was indeed thankful to hear him say so, but still I could not quite understand it. I wondered if it were possible--but no, it could not be! The cruel suspicion having entered my mind, however, I felt obliged to speak of it. "I am not to suppose, am I, that Phyllis _wished_ to deceive her own mother--and on such a point?" Edmund at once replied, stormily, that I was certainly not to suppose any such preposterous thing; but he protested over much, I thought, and grew red in the face as he did so. I thought it not improbable that _he_ had suggested my being put off the scent--he, who seemed to have known just when the baby was to be expected; afterwards I was sure of it. My own dear girl would have been incapable of such an idea. I asked Edmund the hour at which the event had taken place. He said at a little before three that morning. It was now between nine and ten--as I pointed out. He said they had all been glad of a little sleep after their excitement, and that he had come as soon as he could get away. He had also ridden at racing pace, averaging I don't know how many miles an hour. No, the buggy would not have been quicker, even with a pair, and he had wanted his wheel for refreshment and exercise. Of course he could not take me back on it, but there was no hurry about that. He had left Phyllis sleeping as soundly as a top, and the longer she was undisturbed the better. "Certainly," I said, with rigid face and shaking heart. "And it is right that I should be there to see that she is undisturbed. I ought to have been there _hours_ ago, Edmund, and I can't _think_ why you did not send for me--her own mother--the very _first_ person who should have been informed." He began to make all sorts of lame excuses. "You see, Mater dear, the telegraph offices are not open on Sundays." "Was it Sunday? So long ago as yesterday? And where were the buggy and the bicycle--not to speak of the trains?" "The buggy and the bicycle were there, but I had to send the groom hunting for Errington, and of course I could not leave her myself. There was not a soul to take a message to you, Mater dear. Besides, there was no earthly use in giving you an upset for nothing. We soon saw that everything was going on beautifully--otherwise, of _course_, you would have been fetched at once--and so we thought you might as well be spared all the worry--you would have worried frightfully, you know--and that we would give you a pleasant surprise when it was all over. And now you don't seem half grateful to us for being so thoughtful about you." He laughed at this poor joke. I could not laugh. My heart was too full. "Poor, poor, _poor_ girl!" I passionately exclaimed. "To face that trial for the first time--terrified to death, naturally----" "Oh dear, no," he interposed, in his flippant way. "I am proud to inform you that Phyllis conducted herself like a perfect lady. She was as calm as possible." "How can you tell how calm she was?" I thundered at him. "You know nothing about it, though you are a doctor. _I_ know--I know what she had to go through! And no one near her to help her with a word of comfort, except a hired person--one of your precious hospital nurses that are mere iron-nerved machines--women who might as well be men for all the feelings they've got!" "But she had--she had," cried Edmund, hastily. "She had my mother near her--one of the kindest old souls that ever breathed." "_What?_" I stared at him, petrified with astonishment and indignation. _His_ mother assisting at the confinement of _my_ daughter! And _I_ shut out! I could not believe it for the moment--that they would deliberately put such an insult upon me. Edmund said it was not done deliberately, but was a pure accident. "It just happened," he said, "that she chanced to be in the house yesterday. She came in after morning church, as she often does, and seeing that something was up----" "What--as early as yesterday morning!" I burst out, thoroughly and justifiably angry now, and not caring to hide it. "You mean to say Phyllis was taken ill in the _morning_, Edmund, and you did not let me know? Oh, this is too much!" Of course he hastened to excuse himself--with what I feel sure, though I am sorry to say it, was a barefaced lie. He declared she was not taken ill in the morning--not until quite late in the day--but that she was a little restless and nervous, and his mother had stayed to cheer her. "Mother is such a bright, calm-minded, capable old body," he said--as if I were a dull, hysterical fool--"and she has had such swarms upon swarms of children, and such oceans of sick-nursing, and Phyllis is so fond of her, and as you were not get-at-able, Mater dear----" Oh, it was sickening! I hadn't patience to listen to him, with his "Mater dears" and his hypocritical pretences. I saw clearly that it had been what Harry would call a put-up thing; he had preferred old Mrs. Juke--a woman of no education, with a figure like a sack of flour tied round the middle--to me. I suppose his friends had been twitting him about the tyrannical mother-in-law, in the vulgar conventional way; or he had been afraid that I would dispute his authority and orders in the sick-room; or perhaps, to do him justice--he had thought nothing of an affair which was in his daily experience, although it was his own wife concerned. In any case, I was sure that Phyllis had not been to blame. However fond she might be of Mrs. Juke--and probably she feigned affection to some extent, for her husband's sake --it was her own mother she would long for at such a time. And her mother she should have, or I'd know the reason why. "It is not my fault that I was un-get-at-able yesterday," I said to Edmund, quietly but firmly. "At any rate I am get-at-able now. I see you are in a fidget to be after your patients--go, my dear, and tell her I will be with her in an hour or two. Oh, I daresay there _is_ no hurry--from your point of view; I am of a different opinion. I am a woman--_and_ a mother; I understand these things. You don't--and never could--not if you were fifty times a doctor." "All right," he returned cheerfully, or with assumed cheerfulness. "I am sure she will be delighted to see you. Only we shall have to keep her very quiet for the next few days--not let her talk and argue and excite herself, you know----" I laughed--I could not help it--and waved him off. I told him to get himself some beer, or whatever he fancied, and not to suppose that he could teach me mother's duties at my time of life. And in a few minutes he went flying back to town, and I sought my dear husband, where he was busy digging in the vegetable garden, and flung myself weeping into his grubby arms. Tom, too, was quite overcome. Not nearly so surprised as I expected him to be, but tremulous in his agitation, and almost speechless at first. For a tough old sailor as he is, he has the softest heart I know. "My little girl!" he murmured huskily, and cleared his throat again and again. "And it was only the other day that she was a baby herself. Makes us feel very ancient, don't it?" "_No_," I returned emphatically. "I don't feel ancient in the _very_ least. And you, my dear, are in your prime. It is simply an absurdity that we should be grandparents." "Well, it does seem rather ridiculous in your case," he rejoined--my sweet old fellow!--"with your brown hair and bright eyes and figure straight as a dart. But I----" "But you," I insisted, "are just as handsome as ever you were--worth a dozen priggish little whipper-snappers like Edmund Juke." "Oh! What has Edmund Juke been doing?" "He let her be ill yesterday--_all_ yesterday--and never sent for me to be with her!" I sobbed, feeling sure of sympathy here, if nowhere else. "Did you ever know of a mother being treated so before?" But Tom--even Tom--was unsympathetic and disappointing. He did not exclaim and protest on my behalf--did not seem to see how unnatural it was, and what a slight had been put upon me--but just patted my shoulder and stroked my hair, as if I were a mere fretful child. "If you ask me," he said, when I pressed him to speak his mind, "I must say that I think they showed their sense, Polly. And it's a great relief to me, my dear, on your account. You are so highly strung, pet, that you can't stand things like other people. You'd have been worse than Phyllis. Whereas a placid old Gamp like Mother Juke----" "_Tom!_" I broke in sharply. "_Who_ told you that Mother Juke was there?" "Nobody," said he, with a disconcerted look. "I only thought it likely that she might be. Was she not?" "She was. But I want to know why you concluded that she was, when I had not mentioned the fact?" "I didn't conclude it. I only knew that she was keeping an eye on the child, being so experienced, and living so handy." "How did you know?" "Ted told me--in a casual way--a good bit ago--I forget exactly when----" "Tom----" But Tom pulled out his watch hastily, plainly anxious to avoid the corner he felt himself being pushed into. "Look here, Polly, if you want to catch that train, and have to pack your bag before you start, there's not a minute to lose. Now that she knows you know, she'll be looking out for you--wanting to show her baby to her mother, bless her little heart! And a fine boy too. I'm glad the first is a boy--though I'm sure I don't know why I should be, for the girls are far and away the best, to my thinking--girls that grow up to be good and pretty women, treasures to the lucky men who get them--like you." Silly fellow! But he means it all. There are no empty pretences about Tom. To him there is one perfect being in the world, and that's his wife. It comforted me to feel that I was appreciated in one quarter, whatever I might be in others, and the mention of the baby made me forget everything but my longing to have him in my arms. "I will go at once," I said, "and you must come too, dearest. You must support me against the Juke faction. You must see that your child's mother has her rights." "Oh, rights be blowed!" he replied, rather rudely. "There's nobody will dream of disputing them. You don't know what a humble-minded, unselfish, dear old soul that mother of Ted's is; she wouldn't deny the rights of a sucking-pig--let alone an important person like you." "Your mind is always running on pigs," I laughed. "And I am sure that old creature is just like a great sow fattened up for the Agricultural Show. She grunts as she walks--if you can call it walking--and you almost want bullocks to get her out of an armchair when she has once sunk into it." "Well, that isn't her fault," Tom commented, grave as a judge. "Of course it isn't," I acquiesced. "She is getting into years now." "So are we all." "Yes. But she is fifteen years older than I am, if she's a day." "Fifteen years'll fly over _us_ before we know it, Polly. And then _you_ won't like to be crowed over, I'll bet." "Who's crowing? I merely state a fact. She is." "Then all the more reason why you should be grateful to her." "Grateful to her for usurping my rights----" "Nonsense!" He had one of his short moods on him, when it is better not to argue with him. Besides, there was no time for argument. He led the way to the house, pulling down his shirt-sleeves. He said he would have a wash and put on his coat and take me to Phyllis's house, and see the baby if allowed to do so; but he would not promise to stay more than a few minutes. He did not want, he said, to put them about, when already they had so much to attend to. Talk of humble-mindedness! His humble-mindedness makes me want to shake him sometimes. Off the sea he seemed to forget that he was a commander--a character that Nature intended him to maintain, wherever he was. One had but to look at him to see that. I had to make so many preparations for his comfort and for the proper safeguarding of Lily in my absence, which I supposed likely to run into a week or two, that it was noon before I could be ready to set forth. So I yielded to Tom's suggestion that we should have our usual one o'clock dinner before starting, and drive ourselves to town in the afternoon. He wanted to take in the buggy for stores. He could see me "comfortably settled," he said, and do his necessary business at the same time. Alas! How little we anticipated the circumstances of the return journey! No one could have been happier than I, as I sat beside him behind our fast-trotting Parson--we called him Parson because of his peculiar rusty-black colour and a white mark on his chest--talking of the grandchild we were going to see, and all the family affairs involved in his arrival. It never crossed our minds for a moment that he was bringing, not peace, but a sword. In our excess of considerateness we drove to livery stables, and there put up our trap; then we walked quietly to Phyllis's house, and Tom slunk away somewhere, like a rat into a hole, as soon as we were admitted. His anxiety to be "out of the road" was really undignified. Of course I made straight for my daughter's room. The large dining-room was full of waiting patients; I counted three women and a child as I passed up the hall. Whatever Edmund's faults, he is one of the cleverest and most sought after doctors in Melbourne. I have heard Mary Welshman and others boasting about Fitzherbert, and Groom, and Sewell, and the rest, but not one of them is to be named in the same day with my son-in-law. Phyllis was obliged to use a little room on the first floor for meals, on account of the lower part of the house being so overrun; and the poor parlourmaid spent her entire time in answering the door. Creeping upstairs, with my noiseless, sick-room step, I met old Mother Juke, as Tom calls her, lumping down, with the gait of a rheumatic elephant. She seemed to shake the very street. How my poor child could stand such a woman about her, at such a time, I could not imagine; it would have driven me into a fever. Of course she is kind and well-meaning enough--she can't help her age and her physical infirmities--I know that. And it is quite true that she has been a great nurse in her day. But her day is past. "Good-morning, Mrs. Juke," I said pleasantly, as we met and paused on a little landing at the turn of the stairs, "you are here early." Scarcely had I opened my mouth when the mountain fell on me, as it were; the old thing put her huge arms about my neck and kissed me. I have always objected to being slobbered over by comparative strangers, and I did not return the kiss; nevertheless I treated her with the courtesy that I felt due to my son-in-law's mother. "And so," I said, smiling, "you have all been conspiring together to steal a march on me! You have been jumping my claim, as the miners say--defrauding a poor woman of her natural rights." "Nothing of the sort, my dear," she replied, in her fat voice--and if there is one thing that I dislike more than another is to be "my-deared" in this promiscuous fashion. "You were best out of it, with your feeling heart. It would only have upset you, my dear, and that would have upset her; and then Ted would have been in a way, and Captain Braye would have blamed us. I am sure _he_ is grateful, if nobody else is." "He is nothing of the sort," I cried, flaming. "My husband is perfectly astounded at the way I have been shut out. He never heard of such a thing as a mother being set aside at such a time." She was at a loss for an answer to this, so fell back upon praises of the baby and of Phyllis's satisfactory condition. There was nothing, she said, that could give me the faintest cause for uneasiness, nor had been from the first--nor would be, provided she were kept quiet and free from all excitement. And we ought to be humbly thankful that this was so--to feel nothing but joy that she had done so excellently, and that the child was so strong and beautiful. "That is all very well," I remarked. "But that is not the point. What I want to know is--and I intend to have an answer--whose doing it was that I was not sent for yesterday morning?--that I was kept in utter ignorance of the most important event that has ever occurred in my family--when, for all you people did to prevent it, my daughter might have died without my seeing her again!" We were now in the little first-floor sitting-room, just off the stairs. It was between three and four, and the luncheon things were not cleared away. Indeed the house seemed completely disorganised, having no one to look after it. Old Mrs. Juke, who did not seem to notice this, stood just within the door, puffing like a porpoise, and trying to look dignified, which was quite impossible. "I am very sorry you take it in this way," she said, in a hoity-toity tone. "We may have made a mistake, but, if we did, we made it with the best intentions. All we thought of was to save you useless pain. We knew your nervous, anxious temperament, and how keenly you feel anything affecting your children; and so we decided----" "It was not a matter for you to decide," I broke in, with natural asperity. "I am neither a baby nor an idiot. I have at least as much sense as any one in this house--I should be sorry for myself, indeed, if I had not--and I prefer to attend to my own business, if it's all the same to you. Whether I should be here, or whether I should not, was for _me_ to say--for me and for my daughter. She, I am very certain, had no part in shutting me out; and she ought to have been considered, if I was not." "It was she," said Mrs. Juke, "who wished it most. Her one desire was to spare you." "I don't believe it." "I am sorry if you don't believe it." The old thing shook like blancmange in hot weather. "I can only say that it is perfectly true." "I will ask her if it is true--that she wished to have strangers with her in place of her own mother." I started to cross the landing to Phyllis's room, and my teeth were set, and my heart was thumping with an emotion that I could scarcely control--but I need not say I did control it. Mrs. Juke hung on to me to stop me, pleading that Phyllis and the baby were fast asleep together, and must not be disturbed; and I asked her how she, who had been a mother fifteen times, could insult a mother by supposing that she would be less careful of a sick child than anybody else. If I had gone in alone I am sure she would not have heard me--Tom says that I walk about the house as if shod with feathers--but Mrs. Juke would come too, and there was no hushing that solid tread. I saw my darling start up from the pillow, frightened out of her sleep by the noise, and the flush come into her cheeks. And Mrs. Juke cried "There!" reproachfully, as if it had been my fault. At the same moment another stranger came out of Edmund's dressing-room, and turned upon me like a perfect fury. "I must ask you, madam, to be so good as to be quiet," she said. "The doctor's orders are----" But I did not wait to be told by her what the doctor's orders were; I simply took her by the shoulders, ran her back into the dressing-room, and locked the door upon her. If Edmund's mother liked to be rude to me, she could, but I was not going to take impudence from a hospital nurse. I cannot understand the passion young doctors have for those conceited, overbearing women. This creature was not even married. What, I wonder, would _my_ mother have thought of a single woman attending a lady in her confinement? I call it scandalous. When I had got rid of her, I requested Mrs. Juke to retire also, which she did. I apologised to her if I had said anything that seemed discourteous in the heat of the moment, for there was a watery look about her eyes as if she were feeling rather hurt; and I said to her in a gentle way, that, if she would only for one instant imagine herself in my place, she could not help admitting that I was more than justified. I suggested that it would be a kindness to us if she would see what the servants were about, judging from appearances, they were entirely neglecting their duties. I mentioned the state of the lunch-table, and Phyllis broke in to explain that Ted had begun work so late that he had not yet found time to come up for anything to eat. "Never you mind," I said to her, soothing her. "_You_ are not to trouble your little head about these matters. I am here, darling, and you can rest from all housekeeping worries now." And so at last I had my treasure to myself. She was very fluttery, and cried a little--which I did not wonder at--but soon composed herself, and proudly displayed the little one cuddled to her dear breast under the bedclothes. He was a lovely baby (and at this time of writing is the most beautiful boy you ever saw--the image of me, Tom says); and I felt, when I took him into my arms, as if my own happy young mother-days had come over again. "Now, Phyllis dear," I said to her, as I laid him back into his nest, "I don't want to bother or disturb you in the slightest degree, but I _do_ want to know whether it was your wish, as Mrs. Juke declares it was----" However, before I could get the question out, or she could answer, the door opened; and there stood the nurse, looking at me with her nasty, hard eyes, as if I were some venomous reptile; and Errington was behind her. She had actually been to fetch him--he lived almost next door--in her rage with me for having had the firmness to keep her in her place. He was one of these modern young doctors who swear by the new ways, and of course he believed her tales and took her part against me. "Mrs. Braye," he began, trying to be very professional and superior, "I must beg of you to leave my patient's room. The nurse has my orders not to allow her to talk or to be agitated in any way. I do not wish her to see people at present." "I will take care," I answered, with dignity, "that she does not see people." "Excuse me--she is seeing people now." "I suppose you are not aware," I said, very quietly, "that I am your patient's mother? It seems to be taken for granted in this house that such a person does not exist." "I am aware of it," he was good enough to admit; "I recognise the fact, Mrs. Braye, and sympathise with your feelings, believe me. But, if you will allow me to say so, you are so excitable--you have such a quick, nervous temperament----" "And who has dared to discuss my temperament with you?" I demanded furiously--for this was the last straw--an utter stranger, a boy young enough to have been my son! "Where is Dr. Juke? I will ask _him_ to explain. Mrs. Juke"--she was lurking in the passage outside--"will you be kind enough to send Edmund to me? After all, he is the medical authority here." Edmund came hurrying up, and I never saw a man look so much like a whipped dog. He had not the courage of a mouse in the presence of his colleague. He spread out his hands with a helpless air--said we were all under Errington's orders, and that he no longer had a say in anything--in short, left me undefended to be a laughing-stock to those people. I flew downstairs to find Tom, whom I had left in a little office behind the consulting-room, waiting until I summoned him to see the baby. I knew what he would think of the way I was being treated, and how he would vindicate and uphold me. But here I was again frustrated. The aroma of his strong tobacco was in the air; the ashes from his pipe were still hot in the tray; but he had vanished. Rushing back into the hall, I collided with that pert little parlourmaid who answers the door. She had come to tell me, she said, with an ill-disguised smirk, that Captain Braye had gone to do some business in the town and would return in the course of an hour or two. She must have seen that something was the matter, but she was just as callous as the rest of them. I said "Very well," as cheerfully as I could, and sought the only refuge I knew of--the drawing-room on the first floor. It was dark with drawn blinds and the tree ferns on the balcony, but not so dark that I could not see the thick dust on everything; and there were flowers in the vases that literally stank with decay and the bad water their stalks were rotting in. Feeling sure that I was safe in this deserted and neglected place, I closed the door behind me, sank upon a sofa, took out my pocket-handkerchief, and had a good cry. Any mother, hurt to the heart as I had been, would have done the same. And while I was in the middle of it I heard a gentle creak, and the rustle of a soft gown, and a step like velvet on the carpet--Edmund would have a Brussels carpet, instead of the polished boards and rugs that I advised. Looking up, alarmed and ashamed, whom should I see but dear little Emily Blount, with her kind, sweet face, full of the love and sympathy that I was so much in need of. I had always known that she was one in a thousand, but never had I felt so thankful that my Harry had made so wise a choice. She had stolen away from her school to hear how Phyllis was, and, instead of pushing in where she was not wanted, had crept like a mouse to the empty drawing-room, to wait there until she could intercept somebody going up or down the stairs. What an example of good feeling, of good manners, of good breeding and good taste! I held out my arms to her, and she ran to them, and kissed and hugged me, crying out to know what was the matter, in the utmost concern. Well, I told her what was the matter--I told her everything; I had to relieve my overcharged feelings in some way, and, Tom being absent, I could not have found a truer sympathiser. Words cannot express the comfort it was to me to know that she would be my real daughter some day. "Emmie," I said to her, as she sat beside me with her arm round my waist, "promise me that, when _you_ have a baby, you will send for me to be with you--and send for me _in time._" She blushed perfectly scarlet--which was silly of her, being a B.A., and of course not like the ordinary ignorant bread-and-butter miss--but she laid her little face into my neck in the most tender, confiding way. "It is what I should wish," she whispered, "if only my own dear mother would not think----" "Your own mother," I broke in, "has only had you, and I have had four children. I know much more of those matters than she does, and _you_ know from experience, having been in the house all through Harry's illness, what a good nurse I am." I had seen Mrs. Blount once or twice--a sharp little fidgety woman, who would get dreadfully on the nerves of an invalid who was at all sensitive. "Besides," I added, "own mothers as a rule are a mistake on these occasions. They are over-anxious, and the personal interest is too strong." "Oh, I think so--I do think so," she said, agreeing with me at once. "It is too hard upon them both, unless they are cold-hearted creatures. And I would much, much rather have you, dearest Mrs. Braye, if I am ever so happy--so fortunate----" "As you will be," I broke in, warmly embracing her. "I am going to talk to Harry about that little house which he has fallen in love with. I don't believe in young people wasting the best years of their lives in waiting for each other." We had a nice talk, and I told her how well Phyllis was doing--wonderful as it was, when one considered the mismanagement that prevailed--and described the beauty of the baby. Emily said she was satisfied, having such a report on my authority, and stole away as she had come, with no noise or fuss. I wanted her to stay with me until Tom returned, but she pleaded her duties, and I am not the one to dissuade in such a case. When she was gone I sat alone for a few minutes, calmed and braced, thinking what I should do; then I heard a step, and Edmund came in. "Oh, _here_ you are!" he exclaimed, with forced hilarity. "I've been hunting for you everywhere. Look here, Mater dear, I'm so awfully sorry----" But I was prepared for these counterfeit apologies, which had no sorrow in them. I cut him short by inquiring mildly whether Captain Braye was in the house. "Not yet--he's not back yet--he will be soon. But look here, Mrs. Braye, honestly, I wouldn't have had it happen for a thousand pounds." "Then may I ask you, Edmund, kindly to have my portmanteau sent to the stables? I will join my husband there." "No, no," he urged, in a great fluster. "You are not going to leave us. We sha'n't let you. Your portmanteau is gone to the spare room. You will stay with Phyllis and the baby, and my mother will go. She is putting her things on now." "Then go and stop her _instantly_," I cried. "What! Do you suppose I want her to be slighted and humiliated because I am? Do you want to set it about everywhere that I turned your mother out of her own son's house? I have no place here, Edmund--I had forgotten it for the moment, but I shall not forget it again; she has. Go at once and tell her that, if she doesn't stay, Phyllis will have no one." "And why can't you both stay?" he demanded foolishly. "My dear boy," I laughed, "if you think that possible, after what I have just experienced, you must have a very queer opinion of me. I am not proud, nor prone to take offence, but one must draw the line somewhere. Two perfect strangers have turned me out of my daughter's room and insulted me before my daughter's face, apparently with your approval. I wonder what the captain will think when he hears of it? It will rather astonish him, I fancy. Even if I consented to expose myself to further treatment of the kind, I am quite sure he would not. But I am not the person to force myself where I am not wanted, Edmund; you ought to know that by this time." And yet I pined to stay. And when he pleaded that they had all done for the best, according to their lights, and tried to persuade me that the entire household, including Phyllis, was overwhelmed with grief because I was offended, I wondered whether I could, with any justice to myself and Tom, pocket the indignities that I had received. I said to my son-in-law-- "Let us understand each other. When you ask me to remain, do you contemplate keeping on that nurse who was so insolent to me?" "Oh," said he, "I don't think she meant to be insolent. She's a first-class nurse. Very strict ideas about duty, but that's a fault on the right side, isn't it? Errington got her for us, and as he's attending Phyllis----" "He would still go on attending Phyllis, I suppose?" "Oh, I suppose so. Why not?" "No reason why not, of course, if you wish it. Only you can hardly blame me if I prefer not to meet either of them again. Good-bye, Edmund. I have a little shopping to do. And I hope," I burst out, breaking from him and running down the stairs, "I hope that when your children grow up, they won't cast you off in your old age as mine have done." CHAPTER X. VINDICATED. Naturally, I did not see much of the Juke household after the affair of the baby's birth. There is nothing so sad, and so disgraceful to the parties concerned, as discord in families; but this was no vulgar quarrel, although several officious busybodies regarded it as such. I merely took the very broad hint that my son-in-law and his mother had given me, to the effect that Phyllis by her marriage had passed into their possession and no more belonged to me. Moreover, one must have _some_ self-respect, as I represented to Tom, who either could not or would not recognise the facts of the case, remaining stupidly impervious to arguments that would have convinced a child; and a proper sense of dignity is an element of good breeding which I have inherited with my blood--fortunately or otherwise, as the case may be. But I was just as anxious, and even more so, to be assured that all was well. _My_ feelings towards my own kith and kin can know no change. Therefore I sent Tom to Melbourne every morning to make inquiries. Perhaps he would have gone in any case, for his own satisfaction, but he was not the messenger I should have chosen had there been a choice. Unfortunately, he was the only one available. Without, I am sure, meaning to be disloyal to me, he would stay there half the day, smoke with Edmund, lunch with Mrs. Juke, pay Phyllis visits in her room, and generally allow himself to be cajoled into forgetting the actual state of things--making me cheap as well as himself, and putting me into a most false and ignominious position. And then he would come back laden with "best loves" and "when was I coming to see them again?" and "Baby was wondering what he had done to be deserted by his dear grandmamma," and rubbish of that sort, which any one but he must have seen was simply insulting under the circumstances, and which sometimes drove me wild. His weak amiability, in season and out of season, and his habit of taking everybody to be as goodnatured as himself, made him incapable of perceiving that a gross outrage had been committed, for which formal apologies were due. I argued the matter with him for hours at a time, and had my labour for my pains; he would never positively admit that I was right, simply because he could not understand the point of view. The silence that gives consent was the most I got, and I was not satisfied with that--from him. And so we fell out rather frequently--we, who had never had a disagreement in our lives--and I was very unhappy. Nevertheless, I was not going to set foot in Edmund Juke's house until proper reparation had been made. It was not for a woman of my years and standing to bow down to a boy and girl and an ignorant old person, who, I believe, began life in a baker's shop, or some such place. An apology I intended to have before I would receive them back to favour. And they did not apologise. It seems to me a petty sort of thing not to frankly own it when one is in the wrong, but very few people are large-minded enough to apprehend the difference between false pride and true. As a rule, they think it derogatory to dignity--a "come-down" so to speak--to confess to being human and therefore liable to error; whereas you cannot have a better proof of moral superiority. Edmund and Phyllis were no exceptions to this rule. They would do anything short of the one thing they should have done. When the time came for the baby to be baptized, they wrote a joint letter, couched in extravagantly affectionate terms, asking me to be his godmother. It was the dearest wish of their hearts, they would have me believe; and yet--not a word of regret for what they had made me suffer! I saw through it at once. They were merely throwing a sop to Cerberus, as it were, expecting that the little compliment would pacify me--treating me as a cross child to be appeased with lollipops. Tom was angry when I expressed my views; he said--what I am sure he was very sorry for afterwards--that I was "the most perverse woman that ever walked;" and it really seemed at one time as if this miserable affair was destined to wreck the happiness of a marriage which for more than a quarter of a century had been the most perfect in the world. I had never imagined it possible that _my_ husband could be morose and rude--and to me, of all people! I answered the letter the same day. I said I was much obliged to Edmund and Phyllis for their kind invitation, but I considered I was too old to stand sponsor to the baby, who should have some one likely to be of use to him through life. I did not suggest Mrs. Juke as a substitute; I did not even mention her, nor refer to my grievances; I wrote temperately and courteously, though not gushingly, and I fully expected that my note would bring forth another, urging me to reconsider the matter, and assuring me that I was not too old for anything--as of course I am not. Instead of this, they affected to be huffy, made no rejoinder, and took no further notice of me. So my feelings can be imagined when Lily calmly informed me that _she_ was to be the baby's godmother. I was keeping the child closely at home, engaged with her studies; I had put a stop to the Melbourne visits, because I do not believe in town life for a girl so young, and it was just as easy and very little more expensive to have her masters come out to give her lessons; therefore I could not imagine how she had been, as Harry would have said, "got at." "Oh, are you?" I ejaculated, dissembling my surprise, "and, pray, who says so?" "Father," she replied. "Ted spoke to father, and he said I might. And they want father to be godfather--Mr. Stephen Juke and either father or Harry--and Harry says his conscience is against something or other in the baptismal service--and so is Emily's--and that's why they chose me. And oh, mother, I must! I MUST!" She said it as if it were "I will," and with that mulish look which I knew of old, and which meant that she would fight to the death to get her own way, no matter whose feelings might be trampled on. I did not stay to argue with her, but flew down the garden to find Tom. He was pitchforking clean straw into the pigsties, and when he saw me, stood and leaned on the fork handle with an exaggerated air of resignation. "Well, and what's the matter now?" was expressed in his face and attitude, though he did not speak. "Tom," I demanded, as I paused before him--I will not deny that I was boiling over "Tom, are you going to be godfather to the Jukes' baby?" "I don't know, Polly," he said evasively. "Nothing is settled yet." "If you do," I declared with passion, "I will never speak to you again." Of _course_ I did not mean that, but he took it as if I had said something horrible. Never did I expect to see my husband look at me as he looked then, or to hear him speak to me in a tone so cold and cruel, or call me names as if he were a common costermonger instead of the gentleman I had always found him. "Polly," he said, "because you are behaving like a maniac, am I to do so too?--to turn against my daughter for nothing at all--my dear, good child, who never grieved me in her life--and at this time of all times, when her little heart is full----" I could bear no more. I burst into tears. I believe the boy was digging potatoes not twenty yards away, but I did not care; in the middle of Collins Street I must have done the same. To be misunderstood by the whole world was a trifle indeed, but to be misunderstood by _him_ an insupportable calamity. It was but for a moment, after all. No sooner did he see my tears than he flung away his fork, hurried me behind a shed, and took me into his arms to comfort me, as he had always done. All piggy as he was, I threw mine around his neck, forgiving him everything for the sake of his constant love. "There, there," he crooned, "don't cry, pet. What a baby it is, after all! You know as well as I do that you are just cutting off your nose to spite your face--now don't you, sweetheart?" "Oh, Tom," I wailed, "if you would _only_ understand!" "Well, I do," he assured me, ruffling my hair with his grubby paw. "I know all about it, little woman. And I'm ready to do anything in the world to please you. I always am." "Then you won't stand godfather to that child--without me?" "Suppose we both stand together? We've done everything together so far." "I can't. I have refused." "Then write and say you have changed your mind." "It's too late. And they don't want me to change it, Tom--they don't indeed; they only asked me out of politeness; they did not press me the least little bit. I am sure they were delighted when I declined. They had calculated upon it." "Pooh! That's your imagination." "It is _not_. What, are you going to accuse me of not speaking the truth?" "No, no, my dear; but sometimes--well, never mind; we are all liable to make mistakes. And when I think of the letter they wrote, asking you--and I'm sure they meant it----" "They could not have meant it, because when I only half declined--I left it open to them to ask again--they would not take the hint. Oh, they don't want me for anything now, and I would die sooner than ever force myself on them again!" Tom inquired, in a grave tone, what I had said in my letter--what reason I had given for declining, or half-declining, in the first instance; and I told him. "And, dear," I urged, "if I am too old--and they accepted that as a valid excuse--what are you?" "Hm-m," he mused. "I never thought of that. Harry's the man--not me--if there's anything in being godfather beyond the name. Only Harry jibs at saying 'I will' and 'all this I steadfastly believe'--as if it were for a young donkey like him to criticise the Prayer Book that's been good enough for generations of us. That boy's head is full of maggots. So's Emily's." "I beg," said I, "that you will not say a word against Emily, nor Harry either. They are perfectly right. I think their loyalty beautiful." "To whom?" asked Tom. "To me," I said. "Was it likely they would stand sponsors to the baby over my head? No, they love me too well to countenance anything that would humiliate me. And Tom, my dear, I think it downright tyranny to keep those two dear children hanging on as they are doing, wasting their best years. You forget that I was barely twenty when you married me." "Barely twenty-two," he corrected. "And Emily is twenty-three. You might remember what it was to _us_ to get each other and our little home--how _we_ should have felt if cruel fathers had kept us out of it!" "Well, I never thought to hear myself called a cruel father," laughed Tom, taking everything literally, as usual. "And as for Hal and Emily--why, you yourself----" "I did nothing of the sort," I broke in--for I knew what he was going to say--"and I have always advocated early marriages, because our own was so successful. Now, Tom, when we have settled the affair of the christening--but we must do that first----" "And how's it to be done?" he sighed, heavily. "Good God! I've been true-blue Church and State all my life, but I'm hanged if I don't wish there were no such things as christenings!" I am sure I heartily agreed with him. And after all he had his wish, as far as our baby was concerned. That christening was postponed indefinitely. I heard that Edmund had said, with a man's obtuseness to the logic of the case, that it was better the child should remain a technical sinner than that all its relations should become real ones. I was greatly surprised at the decision, but if they chose to make the poor infant suffer for their faults, it was no concern of mine. Mary Welshman and her husband wanted to make out that it was--this, however, was merely a bit of revenge for some strictures I had passed upon that disreputable brother of hers--and they took upon themselves to such an extent that I resigned my sitting in the church and stopped all my subscriptions. Welshman said that if baby died unbaptized and unregenerate, his eternal damnation would lie at my door--or something to that effect. I was not going to sit under a clergyman who presumed to behave to me in that way. And so, thanks to all this meddling and muddling, the miserable affair ended in a complete estrangement between my daughter and me. She never came out to see us, as she had been used to do, and of course I did not go to see her without being asked. I would not let Lily go either, to have her taught to be disrespectful to her mother; and the child--too young to know what was for her good--tried me sorely with her rebellious spirit. She was worse than rebellious--she was disobedient and deceitful; I found that she met her sister secretly when my back was turned, and that she knew when little Eddie cut his first tooth, and when he was short-coated, though I did not. Tom was mopey and grumpy, almost sulky sometimes--so changed that I hardly knew him for my sunny-tempered mate; he seemed all at once to be turning into an old man. And I, though I tried to fight against it, had a perpetual ache in my heart, and was tempted sometimes to wish that I was dead, so that I might be loved once more. What I should have done without Emily I don't know. Tom gave me permission to make certain arrangements which would enable her and Harry to marry and settle, and the excitement and occupation which this entailed just kept me, I think, from going out of my mind with melancholy. As it was near the midwinter vacation, I insisted on the dear girl giving up her school at the end of term; and we fixed a day in August for the wedding, so as to have the cream of springtime for the honeymoon. Emily's father--a perfect gentleman---was a cripple, earning but a small income by law-writing at home, and their house in Richmond was cramped and close; for health's sake I made her spend part of the holidays with me, and really it was like the happy old times over again to see her sweet, bright face about the house. Her companionship was most beneficial to Lily, too; the child recovered all her amiability, and was as good as gold. Tom quite brightened up, laughing and joking, like his old self; and we had Harry rushing out upon his bicycle directly his office closed, and staying to sleep night after night, so as to get long evenings with his betrothed. I never saw a pair of lovers behave with better taste. Instead of hiding themselves in an empty room for hours, they would play a rubber of whist with the old folks, and Emily would sing our favourite songs to us, and duets with Lily; and Harry was like a big boy again with his "Mummie" and his "Mater" and his many pranks. It was delicious to wake in the night and think of him back in the family nest--to picture him as he had looked when I went in to tuck him up, turning his handsome head to kiss his mother. It was a good time altogether--except for the one thing; _that_ spoiled all--for me, at any rate, if not for the others. Every day, and nearly all day long, Emily and I busied ourselves preparing the new house. The dears had wished to live in our neighbourhood, like the devoted children that they were, and had fallen in love with a sweet little villa of half a dozen rooms, in a neat, small garden, which was the ideal home for a bride and bridegroom of large refinement and small means. It was a Boom property going cheap, and Tom and I stretched a point to buy it outright and make them a present of it; so that I could look forward to having my dear daughter-in-law near me for many years to come. Such proximity might have been inconvenient in the case of another person, but I had no fear of the old prejudice against mothers-in-law operating here. The drawing-room, furnished entirely to my own design, was a picture. We had the floor stained and rugs spread about; as Emily said, that was one of the charms of living out of streets, which, however well-watered, continually covered your things with dust, as if the house had pores to take it in by. In town, if you want polished surfaces, you must simply live with a duster in your hand. Then we papered the walls yellow and painted the woodwork cream; and we made delightful chintz curtains and covers for inexpensive furniture, and got a handy carpenter to carry out our ideas for overmantel and bookcases, and used I don't know how many tins of Aspinall. Without going into further particulars, I may say that it was the prettiest little home that can be imagined when all was done. Emily was only too pleased to leave everything to my taste and judgment, and I cannot remember ever having a job that I enjoyed more thoroughly. Then she had to go back to her mother to get her clothes ready. And, because I could not do without her altogether, I often joined her in town and had an hour's shopping or sewing with her. I accompanied her, of course, when she went to choose the wedding-gown--a walking costume of cloth and silk that would be useful to her afterwards--and on the following day I kept an appointment we had made to interview a dressmaker. For the first time, she was not waiting for me. Her mother met me instead--a nice, superior sort of woman, quite different from Mrs. Juke--but a little inclined to be offhand, even with me. I also detected in her manner a trace of that jealous spirit which above all things I abhor, especially in mothers, whose natural instinct it is to sacrifice and efface themselves for their children's good. "Emily is out," she said. "You can't have her. You'll have to do as I mostly have to do--attend to your business alone." "But it is her business I am going to attend to--not my own," I said; "and I cannot possibly do it without her. It is entirely for her pleasure and convenience that I have come in to-day, Mrs. Blount, and she faithfully promised to be ready for me at three." "Well, you see, sickness is not like anything else--it's got to come first. It's not an hour since she was sent for, and there was no way of getting a message to you. She told me to give you her love, and say how sorry she was." "Will she be long, do you think?" "I couldn't say; but she took her nightgown with her." "Oh! Then I may as well go home at once. And when she wants me again, she can send me word." I was inclined to be annoyed with Emily for running me about for nothing, but--providentially--it occurred to me to inquire what her errand was. "It's the child," said Mrs. Blount, "that's not very well." "What child?" "The little Juke baby. He has only a cold, his mother thinks, but, as the doctor is away just now, she's nervous about him. So she sent for Emily." "For _Emily!_" My heart swelled. I cannot describe the feeling that came over me. Mrs. Blount stared at me in an odd way, and I have no doubt had cause to do so; I must have stared at her like a daft creature. Neither of us spoke another word. I just turned and ran out of the house, ran all the way to the tram road, ran after a tram that had already passed the end of the street, and in a quarter of an hour was jumping from the dummy of another opposite my darling daughter's door. No doubt my fellow travellers smiled to see a matron of my years conducting herself in that manner, but I cast dignity to the winds. A new maid who did not know me answered my sharp pull at the house bell, and told me Mrs. Juke was not at home to visitors. "How is the baby?" I gasped out, trembling in every limb. "We have just sent for Dr. Errington," she replied. And then I rushed past her and upstairs to Phyllis's room. As soon as I opened the door, and heard the sound in the air, I recognised croup. It reminded me of times, in years gone by, when I had wakened in the night and wondered for a moment what the extraordinary noise was that pulsed through the house like the snoring of a wild animal, and then leaped from my bed in agony as if a sword had gone through me. I could see my own child's face, swollen and dark with threatened suffocation, looking to her mother for help with those beseeching eyes: just in the same way they looked at me now, only now the mother-anguish was wringing _her_ poor heart. She was walking up and down the floor distractedly, with the baby in her arms--he had grown a huge fellow, and weighed her down; and Emily was wildly turning the leaves of a great medical book of Edmund's, blind with tears. Dear, loving, futile creatures! It was more than I could bear to see them, and to hear my Phyllis cry, "Mother! Mother! Oh, mother, tell us what to do!" In one moment my cloak was on the floor and the babe was in my arms. He struggled to cry, but could not get the sound out--only the brazen crow, and harsh, strangled breath, which, I was informed, were symptoms of a crisis which had only just appeared, attacking him in his sleep--and Phyllis, when she had given him to me, clasped and unclasped her hands, wrung them, and moaned as if some one were killing her. "Ipecacuanha wine!" I shouted. "Run Emily! Run over to the chemist's and get it fresh--it must be fresh--and don't lose an instant! Hot water, Phyllis, and a sponge! And tell them to get a bath ready!" They scurried away, and Emily, hatless and panting, was back from the chemist's on the other side of the street before I had finished loosening the infant's clothes; and he nearly choked himself with the first spoonful of the stuff, which nevertheless I was obliged to make him swallow. "He can't! He can't!" Phyllis moaned, tears that she forgot to wipe away running down her poor face like rain down a window-pane. "Oh, he's choking! He's going into convulsions! He's dying! Oh, Ted, Ted! Oh, my precious angel! Oh, what shall I do!" I calmly gave him another spoonful of the ipecacuanha wine, for I knew what I knew--that in ten minutes all this grief would subside with the sufferings of the poor child--and almost immediately the expected results occurred. It was an agitating moment for her, still imagining convulsions and the throes of dissolution, and an anxious one for me, because this was a much younger victim to croup than any I had had to deal with; but when the paroxysm passed it was evident to everybody--and the servants also were standing round--that his distress was already soothed and the tension of the attack relieved. I put him gently into the warm bath, heating it gradually till he might almost have been scalded without knowing it, fomenting the little throat with a soft sponge; and when I took him out and rolled him in a warm blanket, he sank at once to sleep in my arms, and the crisis and the danger were over. Then in dashed Dr. Errington, desperately alarmed because he was so late, and full of suspicious questions. Phyllis took him aside and explained everything, and, although it was hard to convince him that the right thing had been done, eventually he was convinced, and owned it. "I congratulate you, Mrs. Braye, on your presence of mind," he said handsomely. "It it not at all unlikely, from what Mrs. Juke tells me, that the prompt measures you took averted a serious attack." "Thank you, doctor," I replied with a modest smile. "I am glad to prove to you that I am of some use in a sick-room." He looked a little embarrassed--as well he might--and Emily flushed up. It was her habit to blush at anything and nothing, like a half-grown school girl. But Phyllis spoke out bravely. "Mother has just saved his life, Dr. Errington--that's all. If she had not come at the moment she did, he must have choked to death. None of us knew what to do to relieve him, but she knew at once." Then, as she kneeled beside me where I sat on the nursing chair by the fire, she dropped her poor, pretty, tired head upon my shoulder, and said, in the most natural way in the world: "Father is right--there's no nurse in the world like her." I have had many happy moments in my life, first and last, but I do think that was one of the happiest. We sat by the fire until dusk--we three and the sleeping child. He had gone off in my arms, and I would not permit him to be moved or touched. As long as the light lasted I watched his sweet face, and the blessed dew of perspiration on his still open lips and where the matted curls stuck to his nobly-shaped brow; never had I seen such a splendid boy of his age--except my own. I made Phyllis put up her feet on a lounge opposite, and every now and then I met her wistful eyes looking at me as if she were a child herself again. Yet I saw a great change in her--the great change that motherhood makes in every woman--enhancing her charm in every way. Emily sat on the stool between us. Once or twice she attempted to go--and I wished she would--but Phyllis would not let her. However, though not one of us yet, she would be soon, and in our murmured talk together I instructed them both in some of the things of which, in spite of a doctor being the husband of one of them, they were alike ignorant. "Remember," I said, "never to be without a four-ounce bottle of ipecacuanha wine, hermetically sealed when fresh, and kept where you can readily lay your hand upon it. And when you find your child breathing in that loud, hoarse way, or beginning that barking cough, give a teaspoonful at once--at _once_--and another every five minutes until relieved. Now don't forget that, either of you. You thought it only a bad cold, Phyllis dear, but I could have told you differently if you had sent for me. When he gets another attack----" "Oh, do you think he will have another?" she gasped, springing up on her sofa with that unnecessary, uncontrollable agitation which I understood so well. I told her I expected it, but that there was no need to be alarmed, since she now knew how to recognise and deal with the complaint, which, even if constitutional with him, he would grow out of in a few years. I suggested causes to be guarded against--stomach troubles, the notorious insalubrity of Melbourne streets, and so on--and reassured her as much as I could. "Pray Heaven," she sighed, with tears in her eyes, "that I may never see him like this again! Oh, I can't bear to think of it!" She shuddered visibly. "He would have been dead now--now, at this very moment--and Ted would have come home to find we were childless--if it had not been for you, mother." "I think it very likely," I said, looking at the darling as I gently swayed him to and fro on the low rocking-chair. "But he won't die now." "And he wasn't christened!" she ejaculated. "_That_ didn't matter," Emily put in, with her inevitable blush. "You don't believe in that old fetish of baptismal regeneration, surely, Phyllis? You don't think the poor little soul would have been plunged into fire and brimstone because a man did not make incantations over it?" I rebuked Emily. As I had before remarked to Tom, she had all sorts of maggots in her head. It was the B.A., the advanced woman, coming out in her, and I did not like to see it, my own family having been brought up so differently. I observed with relief, that Phyllis took no notice of her flippant questions. She looked at me--knowing that I should understand--and said she felt as if it would be a comfort to her somehow to have him baptized. I suggested that it would be nice to have it done in the cathedral as soon as he was well enough; and just after that he awoke, we gave him his medicine, and Emily went home. When I had dressed the child for his cot and made him comfortable I took up my own cloak and bonnet. But Phyllis looked so aghast at the proceeding, and implored me with such evident sincerity not to leave her, and particularly not to leave the baby, that I consented to stay at any rate until Edmund returned--although, as I represented to her, her father would be thinking I had been run over in the street. When she heard her husband's step in the hall she made an excuse to run down to speak to him about the boy, and they came back together, and straightway embraced me with all their four arms at once. Edmund, who has always had the manners of a prince, spoke in the nicest way about my goodness to them. "And now you won't leave us any more, Mater dear--now you see how badly we manage things without you to help us? I have sent a message to the captain--I've asked him to come by the next train--and your room is getting ready. You _will_ stay--for our sakes--won't you?" I wept on Edmund's shoulder, like a complete idiot. And of course I stayed. * * * * * Shall I ever forget that springtime! The garden was a garden of Eden with flowers and birds--the bulbs in bloom, bushes of carmine japonica, great clouds of white almond and pink peach blossom overhead, and the scent of daphne and violets at every turn. As for the house, it was a little paradise on earth, which a house can never be, to my thinking, without a baby in it. To see that dear child crawling all over it, with Phyllis flying after him--to hear him chirping to his grandfather, who seemed to forget there were such things as pigs and fowls to see to--oh, it was too blissful for words! I easily persuaded Edmund that Collins Street was a place for women and children to live in when they must and get out of when they could, and he knew when he confided his treasures to me that they could not be in safer hands. He told me so, and I am happy to say the event justified his faith. Every time that he came over--which was almost daily, though often he had not half an hour to stay--he found them rosier and plumper, turning the scale at a trifle more. As I kept them for the summer--in the middle of which we all went to Lorne for a month--they were with me at the time of Harry's marriage in the spring. Edmund came down that morning to fetch his wife and Lily to the wedding, bringing a carriage for them and Tom. Of course they wanted me to go--everybody wanted it--Tom almost flatly declined to stir a step without me; but I said, no, I would keep house and take care of the precious grandson. After the way I had been deprived of him in the past, it was beautiful to think of having him for a whole day to myself. And, as I said to Tom, it was all an old woman was fit for. "Oh, I like that!" he laughed, throwing an arm round my waist. "You know very well you've only got to put your smart gown on and walk away from the lot of 'em--bride and bridesmaids and all." Old goose! But I am sure when he was dressed, and the lilies of the valley stuck in his buttonhole, he could walk away from any young bridegroom in the matter of looks--aye, even his own handsome son. They all kissed me fondly before leaving the house--my pretty girls, and Edmund, who was as dear as they--and I stood at the gate to see them go with the pleasant knowledge that I should be more conspicuous by my absence than any one by their presence at the wedding party, except the bride herself. In the afternoon, when Eddie was asleep and I was beginning to feel rather tired of my own company, I had a visit from kind old Mrs. Juke. She too had married her sons and daughters, so she could sympathise with me. We had a comfortable tea together, and lots of talk, comparing notes, as mothers love to do; and then we amused ourselves with our grandchild, like two infants with a doll. She was of Tom's opinion that he was the image of me, and she was in raptures at the improvement in him since I had "saved his life"--as she persisted in calling the mere giving of a simple emetic. Strange to say, with all the children she had had, she could not remember a case of croup amongst them, and she did not know the sovereign virtue of fresh ipecacuanha wine. Later in the afternoon we walked to the new house, wheeling the perambulator in turn; and I showed her everything, and she thought all perfect--as it was. She was wonderfully agile for a rather stout woman, making nothing of the long tramp; and her intelligent appreciation of artistic things surprised me. I had long discovered the fact that she was excellently educated. Her father had had large flour mills and been wealthy in his day, and his daughters had all had advantages--far more than I had had myself, in fact. Poor Mrs. Blount, on the contrary, had never mixed with cultured people, as her accent indicated. "Well," said Ted's mother, in Ted's own nice way, when our inspection of the little house was ended, "Emily Blount ought to be a happy girl." "And she is," I replied. "About as happy as a young bride ever was in this world--except myself." "And me," said Mrs. Juke. "And you." I was glad and proud to believe that it was so. But since then I have wondered sometimes whether Emily appreciates her extraordinary luck as she ought to do. Now and then it comes across me that she takes it a little too much as a matter of course. It is very nice--very nice indeed--to have her living so near me, but I must say she is not quite so docile as she was before her marriage. Being a University woman, she naturally knows nothing in the world about housekeeping, and it was only in kindness to her and out of consideration for Harry's purse that I advised her now and then on domestic matters. I thought to be sure she would be grateful for hints from one of such large experience, but it was evidently otherwise, since as a rule she did not take them. I told her that three pounds of butter a week for three people was preposterous, and that light crust made of clarified beef dripping was infinitely nicer as well as more wholesome than the rich puff paste they put to everything; but she went on taking the three pounds just the same. Though I gave her a sausage machine and endless recipes for doing up cold scraps, I used to see good pieces of meat thrown away continually; and a girl they had, who lit the morning fire with kerosene, and who told my Jane that she "couldn't stand the old lady at no price," broke crockery every time she touched it, and yet they persisted in keeping her. As I said to Harry, if they got into these extravagant ways when there were but two of them, how would it be presently when there was a family to support? But your son is never the same son after he has taken a wife, and Harry did not like to be appealed to. The other day he said, "Please don't interfere with her"--quite as if he were speaking to some meddlesome outsider. _I_ interfere! The notion was too absurd. I reminded him how I had held aloof from the Jukes when they were young beginners, as proving as I was not the sort of person to force myself where I was not wanted, even upon my own children. But he and Emily are not like my beloved Edmund and Phyllis, who think there is no one in the world like "Mater dear." THE END. 
46375	----	[Illustration: Jannet sat on the edge and let herself down without trouble.] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE PHANTOM TREASURE By HARRIET PYNE GROVE [Illustration] THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY Akron, Ohio New York Printed in U. S. A. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Copyright, MCMXXVIII The Saalfield Publishing Company ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE PHANTOM TREASURE CHAPTER I JANET LEARNS HER NAME "There's a package for you, Janet." A smiling face was thrust within the partly open door. "April fool," replied Janet, not looking up from her book for a moment. Then with a twinkle in her blue eyes, she raised her hand impressively and began to recite in sonorous tones the lines that she was learning. "Exactly like Miss Sanders! Do it that way in class, Janet! I dare you!" "I would, but it might hurt her feelings to do it in earnest as she does. No, I want to read poetry like Miss Hilliard,--but I can't say that I like to commit it. I want to pick out my own kind, Allie May." Allie May came inside the door and leaned against it. "Well, Janet," she said, "I think that you might believe me when I tell you that there is a package for you down in the office. Honest. No April fool. Miss Hilliard said for me to tell you to come down. I don't know why she didn't give it to me to bring up. Perhaps she wants to see you anyhow. This is what she said: 'Janet has a box. Please tell her to come down to the office.'" "H'm. Lina and I had our light on after hours last night. But it was not long, and we had a grand excuse. Lina lost a page of her short story that she had to hand in this morning. Honestly, Allie May, is there a package for me? I never had a box in my life except things sent from the store." Janet had put her book down now and was on her feet starting toward the door and her schoolmate. "You haven't! Poor you! I hope that it's a grand cake with lots of good things. Maybe the box was so big that Miss Hilliard knew I couldn't bring it up!" Allie May made big eyes as she linked her arm in Janet's and walked with her to the top of the stairs. "If it is, you shall have the first and the best out of it. But it isn't. It's probably something brought here by mistake. Thanks, Allie May." Janet was half way down the long, dark staircase that led to the lower hall when she finished her remarks. Allie May saw her friend's fluffy, golden locks fly out in the wind created by the rapid descent. Smiling, she went to her room, next to Janet's, somewhat struck with the fact that Janet had never received a "box," that delight of a school-girl's heart. The lower hall was dark on this rainy first of April. None of the doors were open, and Janet Eldon, slight, active girl of fourteen years, stood poised on the lower step for a few moments, looking out through the mullioned panes of the tall, wide door at the entrance. Eaves were dripping and she heard the beat of the drops upon the tin roof of a porch outside. Eyes the color of brighter skies considered thoughtfully the prospect till the sound of an opening door made them turn in another direction. Quickly Janet stepped to the floor, rounding the newel by catching hold of it and swinging herself around it. At the second door, down the hall to her right, she presented herself. It was Miss Hilliard, principal of this small school for girls to whom Janet curtsied prettily. "Allie May said that you wanted to see me. Miss Hilliard," she said. "Yes, Janet. There is a package here in the office that must be meant for you, yet the address is peculiar, to say the least. It is about the size of the usual box that comes for the girls,--come in to see it for yourself." Miss Hilliard drew back from the door, admitting Janet, who went to the table by the big desk. There a box of medium size reposed, a square package, wrapped in heavy paper and well tied with cord. "You will notice that the return address is with initials only, from some hotel in Albany, New York," Miss Hilliard continued. Janet stood close to the table, looking with interest at the package, saying first, as she had said to Allie May, that there was "probably some mistake". But she caught her breath as she looked at the address. "Why--" she began. "Why, how _queer_!" "Yes, isn't it? Rather pretty, though. Could that be your name, Janet? There is no one else here,--there has _never_ been any one here by the name of Eldon; and you will observe that the name of the school is given, the correct address." "I see." Janet looked again in the upper left hand corner. The initials were P.V.M. But it was the address which filled her with surprise. The package was addressed to Miss Jannetje Jan Van Meter Eldon! The longer she looked at it, the stranger it seemed. "Why, Miss Hilliard, I don't understand it at all. Could it be some joke? Oh, I just imagine that there is some mistake in addresses. Shall we open it?" "Yes, Janet. But I shall be very busy for a while and have no time for this. I will have it taken to your room and you may do the investigating. I need not tell you to preserve the treasure intact if it should be full of diamonds." Janet looked up at the tall, slender woman beside her and laughed at the suggestion. She was not afraid of Miss Hilliard, though many of the girls were. Had not Janet been in this school since her sixth year? The older woman's arm now drew her close and her cheek was laid for a moment against Janet's hair. "Now run along, child. Get back to your lessons and I will have this sent upstairs by Oliver. There he is now, in the hall. Report to my own room after dinner, Janet, and I shall be able to see you in your room if necessary." Through the partly open door they could see the janitor passing. Summoned by Miss Hilliard, he came after the box immediately and started up the stairs with it. Janet, holding Miss Hilliard's hand looked up into the kind eyes and asked soberly, "Do you suppose that really is my name, Miss Hilliard?" "It is not impossible, Janet. You have always thought that the Janet came from your grandmother's Scotch ancestry, haven't you?" "Yes, Miss Hilliard. You know I have everything about her family and pictures of my father from the time he was a baby." "I hope that there will be something very interesting inside that box, Janet,--but there is the bell now. I must go to the parlors in a moment. I am expecting a call from one of our patrons this afternoon." Miss Hilliard was now the gracious head of the school in her manner, which had the dignity that usually accompanies such management. Janet, too, made her departure with the formal curtsey which was the custom of the school. Never in the presence of Miss Hilliard did the girls forget their "manners". If so, they were instantly reminded of them. Mechanically Janet ascended the stairs; her thoughts elsewhere. A caress from Miss Hilliard, rare, but expressing a real affection, was always something to be remembered. Janet "adored" Miss Hilliard as she occasionally said to Allie May Loring or Lina Marcy. Then, here was this box. In her heart Janet felt that it was for her. "That quaint old Dutch name!" she thought. "Can it be that my mother--", but Janet grew confused. There was no use in conjecture. She must open the box. How she hoped that it _was_ for her. The suggestion of diamonds amused her. She had not lifted it and did not know its weight. Probably it was heavy, because Oliver had been asked to carry it up. No, Miss Hilliard usually had him do that. On entering her room, Janet saw the box on the floor. No wonder. Her table was full of books and papers. Her desk looked worse. Lina's coat and hat were on one of the straight chairs, the dictionary reposed on the other. If Miss Hilliard were coming up after dinner the room must be made perfect. One thing, there were no odds and ends of clothing or ornaments around. They were trained to keep such things in their places. But Lina had had an errand and rushed off to class, not hanging up her wraps as usual. Janet gave a glance at her little alarm clock which occupied a prominent place on the desk. It was very disappointing. She had exactly two minutes before the next recitation. Did she know that poem, or didn't she? Saying over and over again the new lines, Janet again ran downstairs, the back stairs this time, to the recitation room. CHAPTER II HER MOTHER'S BOOKS At the door of the recitation room, Janet met her room-mate Lina Marcy, but as neither had a moment to spare, Janet did not mention her latest source of thrills. The teacher already had her roll book open and was marking it. She looked impatiently at the girls as they entered and took their regular seats, not together, for the class was seated alphabetically. Lina and Janet exchanged a glance which meant "beware". This particular teacher was temperamental. Lina was opening her book to refresh herself on the lines which they were to commit. What a poky day it was, to be sure, she was thinking. Even the April fool jokes were stupid. Janet could scarcely collect her thoughts, so busy was she in thinking about the address on the box. "'Jannetje'!--how quaint!" By the "irony of fate", as Lina told her later, she must, of course be called on first for the verses. Called back in her thoughts to the work at hand, Janet hesitated, started correctly on the first few lines, but soon stumbled and forgot the last half altogether. The teacher looked surprised, an unintentional tribute to Janet's usual form. But hands were waving and some one else gave the lines wanted. Lina gave Janet a sympathetic look, which Janet did not even see. Something even bigger than making a perfect recitation was looming in Janet's foreground. When at last the recitation was over, she ran upstairs to the box. Of course the "je" was a sort of affectionate addition, a diminutive they called it, she believed. Was it really her name? _Was_ she a Van Meter? Who was P.V.M.? P. Van Meter, of course. Suppose she had a grandfather,--or even a grandmother that she did not know! It took only a few moments to open the box, for she cut the heavy cord to facilitate the matter. White tissue paper met her eye, and a little note lay on top, that is, something enclosed in a small white envelope. Janet opened it and read-- My dear Miss Jannetje: I am asked to write a few lines to explain this box. Your uncle, Mr. Pieter Van Meter, is in communication with your attorney and you may have heard before this how he has discovered you and wants to see you. As he asked me to prepare such a box as school girls like, I have prepared the contents accordingly and I hope that you will like it. I am wrapping, also, two books that were among your mother's things, because I feel sure that you will be interested in seeing something of hers right away that was in the old home place. In one of them I have tucked a note evidently written by your father about you to your grandfather. Of course you know that you were named for your mother, but you will be glad to read about it in your father's handwriting. May it not be long before we see you in this odd but beautiful old place that was your grandfather's. Sincerely yours, Diana Holt. Janet devoured this note rapidly. "Now, who can Diana Holt be?" she thought. She could scarcely wait to see the books, but they were not on top. Instead, Janet uncovered a smaller box which contained a cake carefully packed. Packages in oiled paper or light pasteboard containers obviously held a variety of good things, from fried chicken to pickles and fruit. Ordinarily Janet would have exclaimed over the array, which she carefully deposited together upon her table, after first removing certain books and papers and spreading the first thing that she could think of over it. This chanced to be a clean towel. At last she came to the books, wrapped well in paper and pasteboard. Truly Miss or Mrs. Diana Holt was a good packer. The prettier or newer book Janet opened first. It was a handsome copy of Tennyson's poems, bound in green and gilt. At once she turned to the leaf on which the inscription was written, "To my Jannetje, from Douglas". There, too, was the note, addressed to "Dear Father." It was brief. "You received my telegram. I am sure. Jannet sends her dear love. We have named the baby for her, because I begged for the name. I will have more time to write to-morrow. Jannet wants me to write every day, but you will be quite as pleased, I think, with less frequent reports. There will be the three of us to come home next summer." Janet noted her father's more or less familiar signature. She had seen more than one of his letters to her grandmother. "And I suppose that I never got there at all. How did they lose me, I wonder? Why didn't Grandmother Eldon leave me some word about my mother?" Such were Janet's thoughts. But there was nobody to tell her how it had happened. In some way her mother's people had lost all track of her. The wonder was that her uncle had found trace of her after so long. Her uncle Pieter! How interesting to have kept the old Dutch spelling. She would sign all her papers and letters now with two n's in Jannet! The other book was more plain, also a book of poems, a copy of Whittier's verse; and the inscription upon the fly-leaf interested Janet even more than the other. It was to "my dear Mother, Adelaide Van Meter, from her loving daughter, Jannetje Jan Van Meter Eldon." It was true, then. Here was the evidence. What a pretty, clear hand her mother had. A little pang went through Janet's heart that she could not have known her parents, but she resisted any sad thought, saying to herself that she ought to be thankful to know at last who her mother was. The last doubt in Janet's heart was satisfied. Knowing one or two sad stories in the lives of a few girls at the school, she had wondered if, possibly, there had been any separation, some unhappy ending to the marriage of her father and mother. This she had never expressed, but it had haunted her a little. At the date of her birth it had been all right, then, and she knew that she was only five or six months old when her father had brought her to his mother. She would find her mother's grave, perhaps. There was much to be explained yet, to be sure, if it could be, but Janet was very happy as she now gave her attention to the discarded feast packing its units back into the box with some satisfaction. Janet Eldon had had feasts before, but the materials had all been purchased at some shop. After dinner she would get permission from Miss Hilliard, when she showed her the books and notes. Now there was laughter in the hall. She heard Lina's voice and hastened to unlock her door. Could it be possible that she had spent all Lina's lesson period in looking at the books, reading the letters and thinking? "'Lo, Janet," said Allie May Loring, walking in ahead of Lina Marcy. "Get your box?" "Yes, Allie May, a scrumptious box like anybody's. My mother's people have discovered my existence at last. Really, Lina. Somebody at the OLD HOME PLACE fixed up the box for me, and they sent me two books of my mother's. Just think, girls, I was named for her and everything. I'd rather you would not speak about it to the other girls, though. It always embarrassed me a little, you know, that I did not know anything about my mother, but you see, Grandmother Eldon died before I was old enough to ask very much about it. I called her Mamma at first; then she was so very sick and for so _long_." Janet paused a moment. "Really, girls, this has been about the only home that I have known, this and your house, Lina." The other two girls had sat down to listen quietly. Allie May was the first to speak. "I never would have thought anything about your not knowing about your mother. You always seemed perfectly natural about everything, Janet." "Did I? I'm glad." "You are a little more--what does Miss Hilliard call it?--reserved, with all the girls, than some of us," said Lina. "She tells us not to tell all we know, and you don't!" Allie May and Janet laughed at this. "Miss Hilliard's brought me up, you know," smiled Janet. "I can remember yet crying for 'Gramma' and having her comfort me. Then came your auntie to teach here, Lina,--and I was fixed!" "I can remember how crazy I was to see you, Janet," said Lina. "I wasn't allowed to come here until I was twelve, Allie May; and Auntie told me all about the 'darling child with the golden hair' that took piano lessons of her and practiced away so hard with fat little fingers. She said she wanted to hug you every other minute, but had to teach you piano instead. Your fingers aren't fat now, Janet." "When did you first see Janet?" asked Allie May, interested. "The first time that Aunt Adeline brought her home with her. Miss Hilliard used to look after her the first two or three vacations. You weren't with her all the time, though, were you, Janet?" "Just part of the time. She had my old nurse that took care of me while Grandmother was sick, and we'd go to the seashore, or somewhere in the mountains. But Miss Hilliard kept an eye on me. I never can pay her back, or your Aunt Adeline either." "You'll never need to. Just having you in the family is enough. But won't it be wonderful to have some kin folks? Tell us about it, Janet." Janet then handed the girls the books and read them the letters, pledging them again to secrecy, for she did not want to have the fifty girls talking over her private affairs. Like Janet, her friends were more interested in the surprising facts which she had to tell than in the good things in the box, though when she showed them the cake with its white frosting and unwrapped the pieces of chicken from the oiled paper, offering them their choice, there were some exclamations of pleasure. "That is a family worth having!" said Allie May. "No, Janet, I'd rather eat a good dinner and then when I am starved as usual after studying come to your feast." "Whom are you going to invite, Janet?" "I want to take something to your aunt, Lina, and to Miss Hilliard, and do you think it would be very piggy just to have this by ourselves? Some way, I don't want anybody much right now, and I just had a party of our crowd last Saturday, you know." "Suits me," laughed Allie May. "It wouldn't be 'piggy' at all, Janet," asserted Lina. "I know how you must feel,--sort of dazed, aren't you?" Janet nodded assent. "I'll let you know when, after I talk to Miss Hilliard. I am to see her after dinner." But when Janet asked Miss Hilliard she was asked in turn if she had ever attended a late feast in the school. To this question Janet gave an honest reply. "Why, yes, Miss Hilliard." "Then you were either invited without my knowledge by one of the older girls or attended a feast held without permission, though I should scarcely think that you knew it, Janet, and I shall not ask you now. No, to-morrow is Saturday, fortunately. It is cool and your box came right through. You may put the chicken in the refrigerator if you like. Have your party at any time on Saturday you like before evening." There was so much of greater importance waiting to be discussed that Janet did not feel much disappointment. She did have one thought, though, expressed to Lina later. "Won't it be fine to go to a home where you do about as you please, the way it is at your house?" But Lina reminded Janet that even there, late refreshments were not encouraged. Miss Hilliard did not disappoint Janet in any other way. She was pleased that the note of explanation was so cordial. "I should say that a woman of some intelligence wrote that kind note," she said. "It must be a satisfaction to you, too, Janet, that you are named for your mother. Perhaps there will be some pictures of her in the Van Meter home. I know how you have wished to see some." "Oh, there will be!" Janet exclaimed. "I had not thought of that!" "We shall be expecting news direct from your uncle, then. When your grandmother first wrote to me, urging me to take you at a time when the only small girls were day scholars, she said that your mother was of a fine family in the east and that your father, her son, was ill when he brought you to her. Does this depress you, Janet?" Miss Hilliard had noticed that Janet seemed touched when she first showed her the books and names. "Oh, no, Miss Hilliard. My father and mother are like beautiful dreams to me. This makes them a little more real,--that is all, and I felt a little 'teary' when I read my father's letter." "I will try to find that old correspondence. I must have kept it, I think, though when you first came, we were expecting nothing like your grandmother's sudden death. I understood that she was an invalid, but with some ailment that could be cured in time." "And I have forgotten so much, except the fact that I did not know my own mother's name!" "You should have told me, if that troubled you, Janet. I will ask Miss Marcy, who wrote about you to your grandmother, I think, what she knows about those early circumstances. Have you been happy here, Janet?" "Oh, you know, Miss Hilliard, don't you, how I have been so glad for you and Miss Marcy and all my friends?" "Yes, Janet. You have always been more than appreciative." On the next day, Janet, Lina and Allie May made a lunch out of their party, by Miss Hilliard's suggestion, and it was almost as much fun as a late feast. As it happened, it was well that they had their fun early in the afternoon, for about three o'clock Janet was sent for. There was a gentleman waiting for her, the maid said. CHAPTER III THE UPSETTING PLANS OF UNCLE PIETER Although so without family, Janet Eldon did not possess a lonely heart. She had the faculty of making friends, in spite of a little natural reserve and a manner more or less formal which she had unconsciously acquired by long residence in a school that fostered it. But that dropped away when she was with her intimate friends, for jolly school girls with a sense of humor can have many a merry time. If Janet was a little more mature in manner than some of the other girls of her age, it was to her advantage. Yet her background there had its limitations and it was a good thing for her that the Marcy family was so fond of her. The family circle there was large. With Lina, Janet entered into all the vacation plans, athletic or domestic, as they might be. They lived in town, but the younger fry learned to ride, to row, to swim, to camp out a little or to motor together. Janet had some idea back in the recesses of her brain that the Marcys might take her to her uncle's home after school was out. But that plan was not to be carried out. She was to see the Marcys again, but Janet was leaving this school sooner than she had thought. Some of the girls she never saw again, the inevitable separation taking place sooner than any of them anticipated. The day was bright after the April showers of the preceding one. Janet went down to the double parlors of the building not knowing whom she would see, but she was rather relieved to see the lawyer by whose hands the modest fortune left her by her grandmother Eldon was administered. He was a man of medium height, with a somewhat serious but pleasant face, hair partly gray, keen eyes on the hazel order, and a manner of some dignity. Rising, he held out his hand to Janet. "Miss Hilliard is not yet at liberty," he said, "but we can have a little conversation before she comes in. I have what I hope will prove to be pleasant news to you, certain communications from the representative of your mother's family, her oldest brother, your uncle Pieter Van Meter." Janet smiled, as she sat down and the lawyer resumed his seat. "I am glad to see you, Mr. Conley. I have just had some word of the sort myself, a fine box from the home place and a letter from some lady there. She sent me two books of my mother's and I found out that I had an uncle." "Well, well,--I am disappointed not to surprise you more. I thought that I should find some enthusiasm." "Oh, there is! I am terribly thrilled over it!" "'Terribly thrilled', are you? Did the lady tell you that your uncle wants you to go as soon as possible to the Van Meter place in New York and make your home there?" "No, Mr. Conley. Oh, how can I do that? I'll have to go to school some more, won't I?" "I think that your uncle has some idea of having you taught privately." "I wouldn't like that at all. I don't think that I will go,--yes, I will, too, for I must find out about my mother." Mr. Conley smiled at Janet's independent speech and Janet realized as soon as she had spoken that she must do what her guardian said. Thank fortune her guardian was Miss Hilliard! "Perhaps the lady who has written you is the one who will instruct you. But we shall see what Miss Hilliard has to say. Here she comes now," and Mr. Conley rose to meet Miss Hilliard, who came across the wide room from the door into the hall. "I suppose, John, you have come to tell us about Pieter Van Meter," said Miss Hilliard, after she had shaken hands with the lawyer and he had placed a chair for her. "Yes, Anna, that rather poetical name is the subject of my discourse." Janet could scarcely suppress a mild giggle at that. Pieter and Meter did make a sort of rhyme. Most of the conversation was now between Miss Hilliard and her old friend. Janet remembered what the older girls said, that Mr. Conley had wanted to marry Miss Hilliard and was waiting for her yet. It was very interesting. Sakes, they must be at least forty years old! The letter from Pieter Van Meter was submitted to Miss Hilliard and passed on to Janet. It was brief, but clear, stating that the writer had recently traced the whereabouts of his niece, though he did not say how. He wanted to see her and to offer her a home where her mother, his sister, had lived. It was also hinted that he was Janet's natural guardian and that legal steps to that end could be taken in due time. Janet was reading the letter and did not see the look that was exchanged between the lawyer and Miss Hilliard when Mr. Conley began to speak of that last point. But Miss Hilliard said firmly that nothing of the kind would be undertaken until Janet had been to the Van Meter place and made report about it and her uncle. "First we must see, John," said she in a low tone, glancing at Janet who was reading the letter and apparently absorbed in it, "whether Pieter Van Meter is a fit guardian for Janet. If he is, and will care for her little property and keep it together for her, very well. But I shall not hand over the responsibility just to be relieved of it. Everything is safe for Janet as long as you are in charge. Mr. Van Meter might be perfectly good and yet without judgment to take care of Janet. Janet, dear, you may be excused now, while I talk over business matters with Mr. Conley and arrange about your going, for I think that I shall let you drop the school work to go, as your uncle desires." "Just a moment, Anna. Janet, I have made out a full report for you of your property and income, with the same items of interest and rent that I am giving, as usual, to your guardian. You are old enough now to know about these matters." "Please, Mr. Conley," begged Janet. "I don't want to know anything about it. Will I have the same allowance as usual?" "Yes," smiled the lawyer, in some amusement, "perhaps a little more, if you go to your uncle's and need some more frocks." "Goody!" Janet looked at Miss Hilliard mischievously, then made her adieux as a properly trained pupil of the Hilliard school ought to do. Miss Hilliard looked after her thoughtfully and Mr. Conley looked at Miss Hilliard. "Anna, you have had great success with that child," he said. "Who can tell what the future will bring my girls?" she asked. "One can only try to implant high ideals and the Christian principles that will carry them on in any path. Janet is spirited and inclined to be independent, but she has fine ideas of justice and the rights of others, with considerable courage, too. I am hoping that she will find a loving home in this new place. Mr. Van Meter says nothing about the family. How would it do for you to call personally in a little while, after we hear Janet's reports about her people?" "That is a good idea, Anna. There is always the excuse of business, in addition to showing an interest in Janet's welfare. Meanwhile, I shall quietly inquire about Mr. Van Meter. It is probably one of the old Dutch families with considerable standing, but we do not want to take too much for granted." "Will it interrupt your affairs too much, John?" "No. I often run up to New York and Albany. This letter is mailed at some small village, near the country place of the Van Meters, I suppose. How would you like to have me take Janet there, or to Albany, rather, where Van Meter says she will be met?" "Thank you,--I shall go with Janet myself. It is not much of a trip and the assistant principal can have a chance to exercise her skill with the girls. I want to stop a day or two in New York." The next two weeks were full of excitement for Janet, who went to classes as usual, but with much distraction of mind. They had written to her uncle. The date was set. Clothes were being put in order, and a new frock or two purchased, a task easy enough in the Philadelphia department stores. Janet's wardrobe was always sufficient, but she rather imagined that Miss Hilliard felt as she did, that Uncle Pieter should see her well provided for up to date. "Won't it be lovely in the country, Janet, through May and June!" Allie May Loring exclaimed. "I just _envy_ you. We'll be shut up to old lessons as usual, only for a few trips around and our picnics! Do write to us at least." "Indeed I will. If only it isn't too lonesome there! Maybe I'll be just _perishing_ to come back, after I find out all about my mother, you know. But I am crazy to see the place where she lived when she was a girl like me. If Uncle Pieter is nice, it will be all right. He did not say a word about his wife or anybody, so I have it all to find out. Perhaps I have some cousins, too. Won't it be fun if I have?" "I hope that you will, if you want 'em," said Allie May, who sometimes thought that she had too many. But then, Janet never had had anybody. "When I get married," said Janet, "if I ever do, I'm going to marry some one with a _large_ family of brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and cousins and all the relations that you can have!" "Great idea," laughed Lina Marcy. At last the fateful day arrived. Janet, neat from top to toe and clad in the "darling spring suit," said goodbyes that turned out to be rather tearful in the end, to a host of girls assembled in the parlors and halls of the Hilliard school. "Sure you come back next fall, Janet!" "Come down for Commencement if your uncle will let you!" "We'll miss you awfully in the spring fête, Janet!" "That blue suit with the gray tones is too utterly sweet on you for anything, Janet." "'Bye, Jannetje Van Meter Eldon. Give the Dutchman my best regards." All this, to be sure, was before Miss Hilliard appeared from her room to take Janet to the taxi which was waiting outside. And funniest of all, several of the girls, who knew more about where Janet was going than the rest, took hands and sang softly around Janet: "O Uncle Pieter, Pieter Van Meter Ain't no one sweeter, Be sure to meet her, Pieter Van Meter!" Lips parted in merry smiles; girls were waving last goodbyes and kisses, as Janet was whirled away in the taxi beside Miss Hilliard. One tear, of which Janet had been scarcely aware, was now carefully wiped away to keep it from splashing upon the new suit. "Weren't the girls lovely, Miss Hilliard?" she asked. "I never was so surprised as when my little club gave me this sweet silk scarf that just goes with the suit, and the pair of hose that I have on." "'Sweet'?" inquired Miss Hilliard. "Well, it _is_ fragrant, for I put a drop of violet on it before I started." Last pictures of the merry girls floated in Janet's mind, with the appearance of the fine old brick building, almost flush with the street, its vines, over the large windows, just budding with spring green. But the future was more interesting than the past. The very fact that Janet knew so little about what it might hold for her made it all the more fascinating to contemplate. CHAPTER IV HER MOTHER'S HOME At Albany, when Miss Hilliard and Janet descended from the train which brought them from New York they started into the station but were met at once by an obsequious colored man in livery, who inquired if they were not the Van Meter guests and took their light bags. Inside, a fine-looking woman, in a roomy coat of gray and a close hat, seemed to have been watching for them, and came forward to meet them. "I am Mrs. Holt, Miss Hilliard. This is our cousin Janet, I suppose. I am glad to see you both. Allow me to present Mr. Andrew Van Meter, Miss Hilliard,--Cousin Janet. Now we are hoping that you will come to the farm with us, Miss Hilliard. My cousin Pieter begs pardon for not having urged it, but until your last note came, he did not feel like asking you to leave your girls." "He would scarcely think that I could bring Janet myself, I know; but I occasionally run away for a few days. However, I have business in New York, and it is impossible for me to accept your kind invitation. It is just as well for you to have Janet to yourselves, also. Perhaps Mr. Van Meter and I may meet some time to talk over matters relating to this little girl. She is anticipating this visit with much pleasure." Miss Hilliard emphasized "visit" a little. All this was said before and after shaking hands with Mr. Andrew Van Meter and while he was exchanging a few words with Janet. Janet found him interesting. She had noticed that he rose with some difficulty from a seat near Mrs. Holt, when they first approached, and leaned a little upon a light cane in his left hand, while he extended his right. He was tall, thin, with a pale face and large, dark eyes. His nose was a little long for beauty, but he had a pleasant mouth, which smiled a little as he told Janet that he was her "Cousin Andy" and her Uncle Pieter's son. "I am so glad to have some family," she informed him. "Did you ever see my mother?" she continued. "Yes. You look like her." But it was time to bid Miss Hilliard goodbye. She said that she had an errand in Albany, but would take the next train back to New York. Janet wondered what that errand was, but would not, of course, ask Miss Hilliard. Then, too, she was anxious to reach the end of her journey, and that anticipation, with the pleasant impression made by Mrs. Holt and her cousin, helped very much to keep Janet from any regrets at saying another goodbye. "Write to me very soon, Janet," said Miss Hilliard, and Janet promised. The car to which Janet was shown was a good one, but not new. It also bore evidences of April weather, though the day was a bright one. "There were some mud-holes, Janet, as you can see," said Mrs. Holt. "We could have directed you to come farther by train, somewhat nearer the Van Meter place, you know. But it seemed troublesome for Miss Hilliard to arrange the change, and we wanted you to see the country. A motor trip is much better for that. Our light truck is getting your baggage." The three of them stepped within the car and waited for the colored chauffeur, who was attending to the matter of Janet's trunk and a suit-case with the driver of the light truck referred to. This waited not far away. "Now you are wondering, I know, who I am and how we are all related," said Mrs. Holt. "I could not tell everything in that little note that I dashed off to put in the box. It is better to have your uncle Pieter explain, perhaps,--" "If he will," inserted Mr. Andrew Van Meter. "Yes, if he will," laughed Mrs. Holt. "You will not find your uncle very communicative, Janet, but he is very glad to have you here and it is due to him that you are 'discovered.' As I was about to say, I am a distant cousin and I am supposed to be the housekeeper at the place. Really, old P'lina runs the house and I officiate at the show part of it, though we have very little company just now. Uncle Pieter is expecting me to coach you a little in your studies, and what I don't know Andrew here can tell you." "Oh, I'm glad that it is to be the family that teaches me," said Janet with content. These were lovely people. But she did wonder what was the matter with Cousin Andy. Oh, of course,--he would have been in the war! He must have been injured,--poor Cousin Andy! She would not take any notice, of course. Some one would tell her. Little more was said about personal affairs. Mrs. Holt was kept busy pointing out interesting spots, hills, places along the roads which they took. It was a much longer ride than Janet had supposed. The New York country was beautiful, she thought. She had been among the Pennsylvania hills and mountains, but never in New York except in the great city on her way to the seashore. Cousin Andy said little. There was a delicious little lunch which they ate on the way, and in reply to questions from Mrs. Holt--older people could ask questions, but never girls,--Janet chatted about her life at the school, her dearest friends and the funny farewell that she had had at the last. She did not, however, repeat the "crazy" verse sung about "Uncle Pieter." Janet did not forget to speak with enthusiasm of the box and its contents. "I had never had one sent me in my life. Whoever baked that cake certainly can cook! The girls thought it just wonderful." Mrs. Holt laughed. "That was old P'lina herself, I think. You will find her a bit difficult, perhaps, Janet, but you must remember that her 'bark' is considerably worse than her 'bite,' as they say." What a funny name that was, P'lina. Janet wondered how they spelled it. Was it a Dutch name, too? In silence they drove into the drive of the Van Meter place. A grove of trees in early spring beginnings of foliage had impeded the view of it until they were almost at the entrance. Janet sat forward eagerly to look. It was not different from much of the country which she had already seen, with its sweep of undulating valley and background of hills. It was really a farm, then; but the land immediately surrounding the house was laid out formally for beauty. The house stood behind some great oak and elm trees upon an elevation which was terraced. Behind it were hills. Janet wondered if the Catskill mountains could be seen from the house. She had forgotten those, which she had seen from the train. She was not far from Rip Van Winkle country anyhow. "This is all different from when your mother was here," Cousin Andy volunteered. "Father has made all this improvement in and about the house, and the whole front of it is new. The old Dutch house still stands, though." "Yes," said Mrs. Holt, "and if you like, you may have the room that was your mother's." "Oh, I should like that above all things!" "I wouldn't give her that one, Diana," said Andrew. "It may not turn out as well as she thinks." "We shall see," returned Mrs. Holt, and Janet wondered why Cousin Andy had said that. "Has the 'old Dutch house' stood since 'way back in 'Knickerbocker' times?" asked Janet, looking curiously at the more modern front, made in "Dutch Colonial" style, with its porch and two high-backed benches one on each side. The house, in front of which the car now stopped, was of red brick, its woodwork, in entrance and windows, painted white. Janet had a slight feeling of disappointment to know that the place had been so modernized, but common sense told her that it would be in all probability much more comfortable. How big it was! Andrew Van Meter answered Janet's question, as he slowly left the car and stood leaning on his cane and stretching one hand to assist Mrs. Holt and Janet. "The original house was burned by the Indians," he said. "All this land was given by grant from the English government, back in about sixteen hundred and seventy, to one of our ancestors, not a Van Meter, however, if I remember correctly. It will please Father if you care to ask him all about it. He will show you what we have on the early history of New York and of our particular family." "I will ask him," said Janet, whose study of American history was recent. Next, there she was inside of the big room, where a fire burned brightly and a tall, stooped man rose from an armchair to meet her. It was Uncle Pieter. Why, he must have been ever so much older than her mother! His hair was quite white, though his face did not look so old. Mr. Van Meter senior, took Janet's hand and shook it limply a little. "I am glad that you are here," he said. "I expect it to be your home from now on. While your mother had her share of the estate, her daughter has some rights in the home of her ancestors." Janet's uncle was looking at her rather tensely, while he spoke in a deliberate way, as if he had thought beforehand what he intended to say. "You look like your mother," he added, dropping her hand. "What room has been made ready for her, Diana?" "She may have either a room in the new part of the house, or her mother's room in the old part," returned Mrs. Holt. "I should prefer my mother's room," timidly Janet offered. "Show her both of them," said Pieter Van Meter. "You will be more comfortable in this part, I should say." With this comment, Uncle Pieter resumed his seat, picking up the paper which he had been reading, and apparently dismissing the matter, Janet as well. But Mrs. Holt beckoned Janet to follow her. Janet Eldon's feelings were indescribable, as Diana Holt conducted her over the house of her forefathers. She kept thinking, "This place is where my mother lived when she was a girl like me!" The new part was large and beautiful, the whole arrangement a little unusual. In order to preserve the front and appearance of the old house, the new building was attached to it in such a way that it faced a sort of court, which it helped to form. Widely the new "Dutch Colonial" stretched across, facing the main road, but at a great distance from it. There were large rooms here, parlors, library and hall downstairs, and suites of smaller rooms upstairs for Mr. Van Meter and his son. At the left, an extension, which contained a large dining-room and kitchen downstairs, and bedrooms upstairs, ran back for some distance, to connect at its right by corridors only with the old house, which thus formed the third side of the court and in width equalled the new front; for even in its time the old Van Meter home had been more or less imposing, the connecting corridors now supplying the difference in extent. By this arrangement the old house received almost as much light in all its rooms as of yore. Beautiful trees and a pergola with a concrete floor, rustic seats and a swing were at the right of the court and the house walls, which made the court more or less retired. Wings that had been built upon the old house with the growth of the family had been removed and stood as small buildings for stores, some distance back from the now fairly symmetrical home. "John says that the only reason your uncle Pieter did not take down the old house was that he did not want to disturb the 'ha'nts,'" said Mrs. Holt, with a slight laugh of amusement. "But that can not be true, for Pieter took great pains to fix the old kitchen in the most accurate representation of an old colonial kitchen, and he has left some old paintings, which would grace the new parlors very well, for the old ones, just because they always hung there. He made quite a show place of it at first, P'lina tells me." "It's a real 'haunted house,' then?" Janet inquired, as they stepped from a rear door of the new part to the green spaces of the court. With interest she looked at the well preserved front of the aged dwelling, approached by a walk of flat stones sunk in the turf. It was all very quaint and beautiful, Janet thought. "Yes, it has the reputation of being haunted, Janet, but of course that is all nonsense. However, if you are timid, you'd better stay in the new part." "I'd love to have it haunted by my mother," smiled Janet. "She would make a lovely ghost, I'm sure." "She would," said Mrs. Holt, unlocking the front door. "I thought that it would interest you more to enter here, Janet. Step over the threshold, now, where all your ancestors before you have trod! No,--the first house was burned by Indians. But this has stood for many a long year." Thoughtfully Janet entered the door and stood looking about the central hall. There they had placed the old spinning wheel. The antlers of a large deer's head stretched from the wall above her. As they went from room to room, Janet was almost confused. There were the big fireplaces. Some of them, Mrs. Holt explained, had been boarded up and stoves used, but these Mr. Van Meter had restored to their original appearance, with old andirons, found in the attic, and other ancient appurtenances, like the queer old leather bellows, used to create a blaze, and the long-handled brass warming-pan that stood, or hung, in a corner of the kitchen. Old dishes, the cranes, and old iron kettles, even an old gun, hung above the plain mantel, were a revelation of the antique to Janet. She could scarcely have lived in Philadelphia without knowing something about such things, but she had never had any personal interest before. Although she said little, Mrs. Holt saw that her young companion was interested. "Friends from New York, Albany and Troy often visit us, Janet, and are brought here to admire. We sometimes have a house full in the summer." "Who is John, Cousin Diana?" asked Janet suddenly, "John that spoke of the 'ha'nts'?" "Oh, yes. I haven't told you about my son, Janet. He will be here in a few days, for his spring vacation begins, late this year, on account of a contagious disease that some of them had, and the boys were not allowed to leave. He was christened Jan, but prefers to be called John." "I wouldn't," said Janet. "From now on, I'm going to spell my name with two n's." "You think so now," said Mrs. Holt with an indulgent smile. From room to room they went, Mrs. Holt pointing out the old highboys, claw-footed mahogany tables and desks, and telling Janet whose were the faces in the pictures upon the walls. At last they went up the beautiful old staircase, through bedrooms made comfortable with modern springs upon the old four posters, and Mrs. Holt stopped before one of the doors, drawing a key from her pocket. "This, Janet, is your mother's room. Your uncle gave direction to have it kept locked and to permit no one to enter on any tour of inspection. So you may be sure that it has not been looked at with curious eyes. Only P'lina and I are ever supposed to enter it, though I think that your uncle has a key, and it is possible that he comes in occasionally. "You see how this corridor runs over to the new part, where my bedroom opens directly upon the hall there. Old P'lina sleeps near you, if you decide to take this room. You will see a picture of your mother that will give you great pleasure, I think, and I'm leaving you alone now, child,--to go in by yourself. You will find me in my bedroom for a while, but if you want to stay here, I will see that you are called for supper. It will be late, I think. We have supper, not dinner, at night, except when we have guests. May you be happy, my dear, to find your mother's room at last." CHAPTER V THE "HAUNTED CHAMBER" Janet entered the room once occupied by her mother and closed the door. Soberly she stood still and looked about. Facing her, upon the wall, there hung a face so like the one which she daily saw in her mirror that she had no difficulty in recognizing it as her mother. Yet she realized now that in certain features she did resemble her father, as "Gramma" Eldon had insisted. That was one thing that Janet remembered out of the confused memories of her early childhood. The attractive mouth smiled down upon Janet. Fair hair like her daughter's crowned the sensitive face. The dress was white, lacy about bare neck and arms. A necklace of pearls furnished adornment. "Why, how young you look, Mother," said Janet aloud. She was surprised. Mothers were old. Glancing down at a graceful little table which stood under the picture, Janet saw a sheet of note paper. Some one, probably Cousin Diana, had written a message upon it. "This is Jannet at nineteen, shortly before she was married. The gown is one that she wore at a recital where she 'sang like an angel', according to your father. Your mother lived in New York, studying voice, for a year. Your grandfather took an apartment there and your grandmother died there. Then they came back here, your uncle's family moved in, and your mother was married from here. She met your father in New York." Some girls might have taken an immediate inventory of everything. Not so Janet. A little feeling of reverence and hesitation held her. She sat down in a chair near the table to think and to grow familiar with her mother's face. Then she noted a small silver vase of spring violets on top of a dark, old-fashioned highboy. She jumped up and put the violets beneath her mother's picture on the table. "I think that I shall keep some flowers there for you, Mother," she said. Presently other things in the room challenged her attention. The dark highboy was a handsome piece of furniture. She slowly pulled out one of its curved drawers,--empty. Her own clothes could be put here, where that other Jannet's clothing was. One by one, Janet opened the drawers. In the bottom one a few unmounted photographs lay loosely. Eagerly Janet picked them up. Good! They were pictures of the place, the old house as it was,--and oh, this must be her mother and father! Why, did they have snap-shots _then_? Of course they had snap-shots fifteen years or so ago! She must be crazy to think that her mother and father belonged to the antiques! What a bright, laughing face it was! They were hand in hand, the two young people, her mother in her wedding veil, her father so handsome in his wedding attire. Some one had snapped them outdoors, and her mother was in the act of curtseying, her arm stretched to her young husband, who held his wife's hand and bowed also, looking at his bride instead of at the camera. Janet could imagine the scene, with a crowd of merry guests looking on. She looked from the wall picture to the photograph, and to the picture again. It must be a good painting, then, true to life. But she would mount that little picture of her father and mother and have it in sight. She laid it carefully upon the table and went to examine a beautiful desk that stood at no great distance from the fireplace. How wonderful to have such a fireplace in her own room! And suppose that this was one of the desks with secret drawers! Why, she would not miss staying here for any comfort that the newer building might offer. That dear little rocking chair might have been used for years by her mother. After a tour of the room and a look out of its two windows, one of which opened upon a balcony that stretched away the length of the house, Janet again sat down near the table and looked up at the picture above, when the sudden opening of her door startled her. A straight, angular woman, with dark hair gathered into a little knot on top of her head, stalked into the room with a large comforter in her arms. She wore spectacles, but as they were drooping upon her nose Janet thought that they were not of much use. A woolen dress under an enveloping gingham apron and shoes whose tops were hidden by the dress which came to her ankles, completed the picture. She did not see Janet until she was well into the room, and started back a little. "Miss Jannet!" she exclaimed under her breath. Then she recovered herself and stalked to the bed to lay the comforter and a blanket, which it had concealed from view, across the foot. "You're here, then," she continued. "You look like your ma. You will need some extra covers to-night. It's turning colder now. I'll have a fire made in the fireplace. Your ma liked this room because she could have one. But I wouldn't sleep here for anything." "Why?" Janet asked. "The room is ha'nted," replied the woman, leaving the room in the same stiff way, without another word. Janet's rather sober face relaxed into a broad smile. This must be "Old P'lina!" Later Janet was to find out that the name was Paulina, Paulina Stout. But "ha'nted," or not "ha'nted," the room was fascinating. It was hers. No other room in the house could seem like that. What had Uncle Pieter said about her "having some rights in the home of her ancestors?" This should be one of them, then, to occupy her mother's room. Supper was served in due time. The dining-room seemed large for the size of the present family, but Janet understood from what Mrs. Holt had told her that there was often considerable entertainment of guests. She wondered, for she could not imagine Uncle Pieter in the role of affable host. He appeared to be preoccupied and joined little in the conversation, which was largely between Cousin Diana and Cousin Andy. Once he asked Mrs. Holt when her mother would be back, and inquired about John's coming. So Cousin Di had a mother who made her home there, too. Janet was wondering about many things, but she remembered Miss Hilliard's caution, not to be in too much of a hurry to find out everything. "It will take you a little while to become adjusted to the new place and the new people, Janet," she had said. "One learns about people slowly sometimes. Be patient." Janet knew that it was not her nature to be patient. Perhaps no one is patient by nature. Patience is a grace to be cultivated. Janet's consideration for others, nevertheless, kept her from blundering into questions or comments that were not proper. A sense of propriety was almost inherent with her and served her well in this experience among strangers. Uncle Pieter disappeared soon after the meal. Andrew, Diana and Janet visited for a little while, then Mrs. Holt accompanied Janet, by way of the corridors this time, to the door of her room. She peeped in at the glowing fire that burned behind a modern wire screen, put there for safety. "Better let the fire die down, after you toast your toes a little, Janet. Shall I look in a little later? Are you lonesome?" "Oh, no. I'll go to bed pretty soon. I love that old four-poster!" "You would not like it if it had the old ropes that sagged. But there are some good modern springs and a fine mattress. Where your uncle has gotten all the money that he has spent on this place is a mystery to me. But I was delighted to be asked here. I had not seen the place since I visited your mother when we were girls. You will find some paper in your desk. That is the famous desk with the secret drawers, Janet." "Really? I did not know if I might open it or not, though the key is there." "Everything here is for you to use. Your uncle gave me directions to that effect. He said that you are to have your mother's furniture." "How good of him." "Perhaps not. Why should you not have it?" Janet looked a little wonderingly at her cousin. Perhaps that was so. Unless Uncle Pieter had bought it or arranged to have it when the estate was divided, it would be hers. How good it was to sit quietly in the room, writing a few of the chief events to Miss Hilliard, while the fire began to die down and everything grew quiet. She did not mind a few April frogs that performed for her benefit somewhere in the neighborhood. The country was nice, and she was so sleepy. She could not quite finish the letter, but hurried to undress before the fire should go out, and climbed into the comfortable, soft bed, first spreading on the extra blanket. On finding it very chilly when she opened the window, she also spread wide the dainty blue and white comforter, letting the bottom edge of it hang over the foot of the bed instead of tucking it in. Even then it came up under her chin. In sweet contentment Janet said her prayers in her mother's room and fell asleep. Later a thunderstorm, or series of storms came up. Janet roused enough to put down her windows, sufficiently to prevent the rain's beating in. Then she went to sleep again. Suddenly Janet wakened. She could hear the rain pouring again. But there was a movement. Slowly the comforter began to slide from her. How strange! The cold chills began to play up and down Janet's spine. Could there be a burglar? She lay still, her face in the pillow. Now more swiftly the cover was drawn off. It was gone. A flash of lightning, dimly lighting the room from under the shades and curtains of the window, disclosed a moving form at the foot of the bed. Janet, who had lifted her head to see, again pressed her face into the pillow. She listened for the opening of the door, but there was no sound from that direction. A faint noise somewhere, like the little click of a latch, perhaps,--and Janet lay still for a long time, hearing nothing but the rain and the boom of distant thunder. Janet remembered that she had slid fast a small, curious brass bolt at the door when she went to bed. How could any one enter there? Possibly there was some other entrance, but she had not noticed any. It was some time before Janet dared to sit up in bed and finally to slip from under the covers and run to where the electric button was. Flash! On came the light and Janet was at the door, ready to run if there were any menacing presence in the room. _The bolt was still_ in position, as she had left it when locking up! On the chair by the bed was her bath robe; beneath lay her slippers. These all she donned and went to the windows. They were still only a trifle raised, and now Janet threw them up as high as they would go. No one had entered there, though the curious little balcony, with vines beginning to leaf out, shone wet with the rain and the light from Janet's room. There were two doors besides the one which led into the hall. Of these two, one opened into a closet, the other into a bathroom. Janet did not know whether that had been there in the old days or not but she fancied that it might have dated back to her mother's time. After her uncle's brief talk at supper about the old Dutch homes and habits and the early days of New York history, Janet was beginning to feel as if she were a part of a long line, indeed, and her curiosity was aroused about all these little details. She opened the closet door. There hung her dresses. Her hats were upon the shelf. She reached back to the wall. No door there. The bathroom, blue and white and prettily tiled, offered no solution to the mysterious visitor who had carried off the comforter. "No ghost," said Janet to herself, "could carry off a thick blue comforter!" But it _was_ funny,--queer. Had the comforter been anywhere in the room, she might have thought it a dream. Yet she certainly did not dream those cold chills, or that odd feeling when slowly the cover was drawn off. But at least the intruder, ghost or not, had not harmed her in any way. Little birds began to sing outside and a gray dawn was breaking. Janet crept back into bed, refreshed by the air from the wide open windows. At once she fell asleep, not to waken till Paulina rapped loudly on her door to waken her in time for breakfast. CHAPTER VI A NEW COUSIN The April morning was fresh and clear. Janet found her Cousin Andrew waiting for the rest and reading quietly in the large living room. "Good morning, Janet," said he. "Did you sleep well in your new quarters?" "I haven't quite grown accustomed to them yet," replied Janet, who had decided not to mention her fright of the night before, "but I thought that I would never waken this morning. Some one had to call me twice." "The storm was disturbing," replied Andrew. "You can see what a wreck I am, Janet. It is a good thing that Jan is coming to brighten life here for you. He wrote to me and asked me to 'beg off on school' for him, to my father." Janet looked into her cousin's amused eyes, but she was thinking of what he said about his being a 'wreck'. "You were in the war, weren't you, Cousin Andy?" "Yes,--shell-shocked, shot up in a few places that seem to do as much damage as possible. But at that I'm better off than thousands of the boys, forgotten in the hospitals now." Andrew's voice was a little bitter. "Don't ask me to tell you about it, child. It's better for me to do the forgetting. I'm thirty years old, and I'm older than my father." "You don't look it," smiled Janet engagingly. "I think that you are very nice." The little remark pleased Andrew. "Well, you are a nice little pal, then. We'll be friends." "Yes indeed. Did you know my mother?" "Yes, Janet, but not very well." Andrew looked sober. "She was a beautiful and charming girl, but she did not care for my father. He was so much older, for one thing, and I fancy that she thought him dictatorial. We did not live here when she grew up. My father married and lived in Albany, where my brothers and sisters and I were born." This again was news to Janet, who asked about these cousins. But only a sister with one daughter was living. They were abroad, but might come to the farm for the summer. "Where are the Van Meters buried?" asked Janet. "Why do you want to know that?" asked Andrew in his turn. "You want only bright things here." "I just thought that I might take some flowers to my mother's grave," she replied. "That was all,--just once, perhaps, to show that I am glad to know about her." "Why, little cousin, we knew nothing about it and supposed that she is buried by your father. Father took over the place to relieve grandfather. Your mother's things were all here, but she did not send for them and was coming to visit that summer after you were born. Then we heard that you all had been wiped out in an epidemic of some sort, like the 'flu' that we had during the war. It was past before we knew." Janet, surprised, was about to tell her cousin about her father and the brief story that she knew, but Uncle Pieter had silently entered and was standing beside her, saying, "Come, no sad memories. Let us have some of Paulina's griddle cakes." Janet followed her uncle in silence, wondering at his jovial tone, for it was not in harmony with his usual style. He was just a little queer. No wonder that her mother did not like him very well. But he was being good to her. She must remember that. Griddle cakes, bacon and the sweet maple syrup were very good indeed. Janet noticed that as they all left the table Paulina handed Mrs. Holt a note, a folded scrap of paper, which she read with a frown. Paulina had gone back to the kitchen without a smile to relieve her rather dour, defensive expression. "Excuse me, Janet," said Mrs. Holt. "Amuse yourself in any way you like for I have to see P'lina about something." "I have plenty of fun ahead of me, Cousin Di. I'm going through that old desk of Mother's to see if I can find a secret drawer or two." "You will," Mrs. Holt asserted. But that morning Janet found nothing particularly exciting. The "secret" drawers were too easily found, she thought. There were some papers, however, though none of any importance. A package of letters from her father to her mother she hesitated to read and saved it as possible at a future time. She read a little in some of her mother's books and then started outdoors in her hiking costume, for she wanted to see the farm. All that day she amused herself with investigations on a small scale, within and without. The library was a pleasant place, and when she was sure that Uncle Pieter and Cousin Andrew were not there, she curled up to read Uncle Pieter's books. There were copies of _Little Men_ and _Little Women_ which she took down to read for the third or fourth time in her short life. Perhaps they had belonged to Uncle Pieter's daughter. She replaced them till the next day, when just before supper she heard sounds of greetings in the hall. "H'lo, Mom! It's great to get home again!" Janet heard as she started toward the living room, where they were all supposed to meet before going to meals. "How's the bum back, Uncle Andy?" continued the boyish voice. "How do you do, Uncle Pieter?" Jan, like Janet, called Mr. Van Meter by that familiar expression. The murmur of voices grew to distinct speech as Janet drew nearer and she saw a friendly looking boy considerably taller than herself standing in the doorway to talk to the rest of the family who had apparently just entered. "Here's another," he cried, glancing around and seeing Janet. He drew back and ushered her inside as, presumably, he had ushered the rest. "I know that this must be my cousin Janet, so let's shake hands." At another time Janet would not have found her cousin Jan so occupying the center of the picture and doing so much talking. But he seemed to be a little excited over his arrival and reception. Paulina passed through, having brought something to the table in the room. Janet saw her looking at Jan with a glance and expression as enigmatic as the Mona Lisa smile. "What is the matter with P'lina?" asked shrewd Cousin Andy, but no one replied. During the meal Janet gained a good deal of information about Jan and his doings from the conversation. Mr. Pieter Van Meter questioned the lad about his school, but not as one who had any responsibility about the matter. Obviously, Cousin Diana and her son were in the family circle because of her services and the atmosphere of home which her pleasant personality created. She was a charming hostess, as Janet found later when company came to the old place. "I did not see a car drive in when you came," said Janet to Jan when they settled down for a visit together in the library. "No, I came over from another place where a friend of mine lives. I came on one of their horses, and I dressed first before I appeared to the family." "Is it so that you have a workshop and everything, back where I room?" "Are you rooming in the old part, then? Why, yes, I have a room there, too, and they let me use part of the attic sometimes, a sort of den there. I do radio stuff and I like everything about electricity. Uncle Pieter did not think much of it at first; but when I fixed the electric bells and got things all right when fuses burned out, and a few other things, he changed his mind about it. I'm really scarcely related at all. Isn't he a queer old--fellow? I was going to use some slang, but I'd better keep that for school." Janet favored Jan with an understanding glance. "It's very 'expressive,' I've heard Miss Hilliard say, but she corrects us when we use it. Do you want me to call you John or Jan?" The boy hesitated. "I used to despise that old Dutch name," he said, "but if you are Jannet, I'll be Jan while I'm here. I'm trying to get permission to stay on instead of going back to school. Uncle Pieter doesn't interfere, only about that, but if I can help about the place a little it will be more fun, and you and I could ride everywhere. Wouldn't you like that?" "I should think I would!" "Well, all I ask is that you get Uncle Pieter to liking you a whole lot. I believe he does." "He couldn't. He only knows me a very little, you see." "Do you think that a person would have to know you a long while first? I always know whom I'm going to like. They are short of help, the farmer at the tenant house told me, so I'm going to risk it, and ask Uncle Pieter if I can't turn farmer. There are a lot of things to be done, about the trees in the orchard and the stock, for instance, that a boy can do." "You like farming as well as electricity, then." "Some of it." Jan was not fair like Jannet, for he had the dark hair and gray eyes of his mother in a face more "square," as Jannet thought of it. They were to be Jan and Jannet, then. That would be fun. Jannet next asked if there were other boys and girls in the neighborhood and was told of Jan's friends on the neighboring farm, a girl and two boys. "How old are you, Jannet?" Jan asked frankly. "Fourteen." "Well, that is how old Nell Clyde is. I'm fifteen and Chick is almost sixteen. He's my friend. Then there's Tom. He's pretty nearly seventeen, I guess. He's a year older than Chick anyway." This was fine. Jannet, who knew almost no boys at all, was laughing at the very ordinary nickname. How funny boys were. "What is Chick's right name?" she asked. "John. That is one reason why it doesn't do at all for us to go by our right names. I'm sometimes one thing and sometimes another at school. Chick calls me 'Hunks,' for 'hunks of cheese'." "That _is_ funny," said Jannet. "But tell me, Jan, old P'lina says that my room is haunted, and your mother said that you said so, too, though I imagined that you said it in fun." Jan looked at Jannet with a great assumption of seriousness. "Old P'lina is always right, Jannet. This is a 'haunted house,' as the natives say. We even have a sort of Dutch Banshee that howls around sometimes." "Tell me some more. Do the ghosts walk at night, especially when there is a storm?" Jan looked curiously at Jannet. "That sounds as if you heard something," said he. "Yes, somebody comes down some invisible stairs; you can hear slow footsteps, you know. Maybe something drops, but there is _nobody there_!" Jan made big eyes at Jannet, who grinned delightedly. "Or you hear low singing, or distant violin music." "That would be your radio." "Old P'lina says not. She's been here ages and sometimes I think that she is a little queer in the upper story, but she is good to me at that." "I don't think that she likes me," said Jannet. "But what else does the ghost do, and who is the ghost anyway?" "Ask P'lina. You'd better say 'ghosts.' For all I know, there are more than one." "Sakes! And I've got the haunted room, too!" "Are you easily scared?" "No. But I'm going to have a flashlight after this." "After what?" "Oh, nothing, just because of the ghosts. If I flashed my light on real quick, I might see one." "Well, call me if you do. I'd love to see one. I'll broadcast him." Jannet thought that so funny, that Uncle Pieter himself looked in to see what the fun was about. "Jan wants to broadcast a ghost," she explained, but Uncle Pieter did not smile. "Remember that ghosts are supposed to be spirits of the dead," he said, going on his way through the hall. Jan made a face, turning to Jannet with lifted shoulders. "Excuse me for livin'," he remarked. "I'd like to tell Uncle Pieter that ghosts are often troubled by remorse." "Not any of ours," quickly said Jannet. "Don't go to getting me scared really and truly, Jan!" But afterwards, when Jannet thought of Jan's remarks, she wondered why he wanted to mention "remorse" to Uncle Pieter. Why hadn't she asked Jan? She would at the first opportunity, if she didn't forget it. CHAPTER VII TWO NEW MYSTERIES There was some secret between Jan and Old P'lina, Jannet could see, but it was scarcely polite to intercept their glances. Jannet told herself that she must mind her own affairs strictly. Yet it was hard to do it in this environment. Jannet felt that Jan was joking considerably when he talked of the ghosts of the old house, but Paulina wasn't she was sure. For some strange reason, nevertheless, Jannet grew more and more fond of her pretty, quaint room. Perhaps the face upon the wall accounted for that. In that sweet presence nothing would harm Jannet, yet Jannet was enough of a little girl not to be entirely unshaken by the stories, especially when remembering the blue comforter. It had never appeared again. Paulina did not inquire about it and Jannet did not mention it to Paulina. The April days were warm, though in this climate they are often very cool indeed. It could not last, Jan said, but they would make the most of it. Forsaking Chick and his other friends, Jan devoted himself to taking Jannet riding over the farm and all about the country. One would have thought that he owned it all, so anxious was he to impress Jannet favorably. The Clydes came over to meet Jannet, who now always used the two n's in her name. She was "as Dutch as kraut," Jan told her, and on the land of her ancestors. With this she was quite content. She liked Nell Clyde and felt a little shy with the two boys, but no more so than they felt with the girl from the Philadelphia school. A cruel fate was taking Chick back to school after the short Spring vacation, but Jan, though with no grounds that Jannet could see, still hoped to escape. He introduced Jannet as his twin, Jannetje Jan, and they all had several rides together on the roads near home. As Nell was being tutored at home, Jannet expected to have her companionship after the boys had gone back to school. Tom, a little older, was not always with the rest, but all the boys were often in Jan's shop, not far enough from Jannet's room to prevent her hearing the sounds of their conversation and laughter. No one as yet suggested that it was time for Jannet to go on with her lessons, and Jannet was enjoying her rest far too much to make any inquiry concerning them. At odd times she browsed among her uncle's books and it was when she opened one of them that she made a discovery. A little torn strip of paper fell out of the book from where it might have been used as a book-mark by some one. Idly Jannet looked at the bit of paper which she held in her hand still, though turning the pages of the book to see whether it looked interesting or not. But seeing the name "Jannet" in full, she laid aside the book and examined the paper more closely. It was part of a letter, or note, she decided. Perhaps some one had picked the scrap from a waste paper basket at hand and used it as a marker without looking at it. Surely,--well, how odd! "Please, _please_, Pieter, help me find them," it said. "I have"--here the paper was torn, but below in the irregular places were the words "money" and "gone." Then below, where one could see through the edge, torn to a gauzy film, the signature, "Jannet," was plain. "It is part of a letter from my mother to Uncle Pieter," thought Jannet. "What does it mean?" Jannet did not feel like reading now. Taking the scrap of paper with her, she walked from the library to the hall, down the hall to the outer door, across a tiny path between tulip beds to the old door with its queer knocker. Soon she was in her room and at the desk. It was scarcely worth while to compare the writing with that of her mother, so sure was she that this was a message from her mother, but she went through the form. It was raining again. Her search of the desk had been so casual and hurried before that this would be a good time to devote to it, with greater interest, too, because less distracted by the newness of everything as at first. Jannet admired the rich beauty of the desk, although she did not know that it was of the Chippendale design, with considerable carving, and that it had been made for an earlier ancestor than her mother. For several hours Jannet opened and closed "secret" drawers which she had found previously, and read carefully whatever of writing she found in them. Quickly she learned to recognize her mother's hand. She was scarcely old enough to appreciate the sentiment attaching to old programs and faded flowers, but she collected them thoughtfully and put all such mementos together. The bundle of letters she untied, to look at the addresses. These were the love letters, of course; but between the letters she found a few pages of a diary, quickly recognized by the date at the head and the accounts that followed. In a moment she was bending over it with deep interest. One day's account recorded what had been said of her mother's singing at a private recital, and expressed the hope of a future as a singer. Another, kept by way of contrast, perhaps, told, with some reserve even to a personal diary, of her engagement and her lover. Under a date not long before her marriage, Jannet Van Meter had written very fully and regretfully of a loss. "I have searched everywhere. I can not think that any one could have taken my pearls, yet where _are_ they? I put them in my desk, in the most secret of its drawers. I have not worn them since, and they are gone! It is a great loss in money as well. Father made some sacrifices to raise the sum necessary for my pearls,--but he _would_ do it. I was to have them, and Pieter did not like it, of course. He just smiled when I told him that I had lost them and would not show the least interest in discussing what might have become of them, nor would he help me hunt. 'If they're gone, they're gone,' said he, shrugging his shoulders. Sometimes I've almost thought,--but no, I'll not even write such an unworthy suspicion. "I had thought that it would be safe for us to have the pearls, because if we ever need money very much after we are married,--you and I really are going to be married, Douglas boy,--we could sell a pearl or two, or the whole necklace. Perhaps I shall find them yet. I'll never give it up, not, at least, till I am too far away to hunt. I shall give a thorough going over to every place to-morrow. "It is too bad that 'Mother' Eldon can't come on for the wedding. And we have to go right through to the far West without stopping off because Douglas must get to his work. But someway, I imagine from her letter that she is not real happy about her boy's getting married at all. Perhaps it is just as well for her to get used to the idea before we meet, though Douglas is just silly enough to say that she will love me when she sees me and that she couldn't help it. Well, if he loves me, that is enough for me." The last page contained a brief account of wedding preparations. No mention was made of the pearls. "There is no use in trying to write it all down," Jannetje Van Meter had written at the close. "And to write of my thoughts and feelings about this change in my life, or about us, I simply couldn't. I believe that I will tear up my diary, anyhow! This is _Finis_." Jannet Eldon was smiling as she finished. Her mother was just a real girl, after all. She hadn't lived to be very old. How Jannet wished that she had not burned the diary. Where had she gotten the impression that her mother would be buried among the Van Meters? Why, of course, it would be natural, if she had died before her husband. But if she had been carried off in an epidemic, that would be the reason why her grave would be out West. Then "Gramma" would want her son buried in the Eldon lot. That was it. Jannet had once visited that spot, in company with Miss Hilliard. There was no mystery there; besides, her father and mother were together now, wherever, apart, the worn-out bodies were. One of the lovely things about Miss Hilliard was that she had made the other world so real to Jannet. Suddenly Jannet rose and went to one of the drawers of the highboy in which her own treasures now reposed. Rummaging through things not yet well sorted, Jannet found a note book and drew out several sheets of writing paper pinned together. True to her promise, Miss Hilliard had looked up past correspondence, which recalled facts that she had forgotten. But she and Jannet had not had time to go over it very thoroughly. Jannet recalled dimly having labored over a few lines to her grandmother, because she "ought to," One of the teachers helped her. Here was the reply, or part of it: "I was pleased that you wrote me yourself. Be a good child. I hope to be better soon and to have you at home for your next vacation. So some of the girls have mothers and you want to know about yours? I will tell you all that I know when I feel stronger. The nurse is writing for me. I never saw your mother and the only letters I have had from her were destroyed by mistake. They were to stop on their way to New York the summer after you were born. Your father took all your mother's photographs with him and what became of them I do not know. He came East so suddenly, half delirious, saying that your mother had died. "It was very fortunate that I found you both. I had moved, writing and telegraphing, but from what he said in his delirium he must have moved too. He was on his way to the old home, when providentially I took the same train from a business trip to a town near by. I took you both from the train and to a hospital in the nearest place, a hospital of which I happened to know. Both of you were ill for weeks and after it was all over and I could think of sending for any of your father's things, it was too late. No one seemed to know anything. He was young, just starting in business, and I was too worn out to care. They were, or had been living in a furnished apartment. Your father after I found him never had been himself, only to say, 'She is dead.' "I wrote to your mother's people several times, but never received a reply. If they had so little interest, I was only too glad to have my boy's little girl to myself. 'Gramma' loves you dearly, and when I get well, we shall have some good times." This letter was probably read to Jannet at the time, but she could scarcely recall it. Even there, her grandmother had not mentioned names, and Miss Hilliard said that the Eldon family Bible sent to Jannet had no record entered of her father's marriage. The letters, with the pages of the diary between them, Jannet put back in their drawer and laid this letter, with the scrap from the book, with them. That scrap must refer to the loss of the pearls, yet why should her mother _write_ to her uncle about it? It was puzzling. Now to find that "most secret drawer." Jannet had all sorts of fancies about how to find secret drawers. There was one worn spot, with a narrow piece of yielding wood, in a groove by a little ridge of the mahogany. Jannet rubbed the worn place, thinking of Aladdin's lamp, but nothing happened. Then she noticed a tiny glint of brass by the ridge and pressed it with the point of her knife. There! a drawer, sticking a little, began to move out. Jannet inserted her fingers and pulled gently, afraid of breaking the delicate wood. "Oh, how beautiful!" she exclaimed as the drawer came out to its full length. There, upon the soft purple velvet of its case, coiled a shining rope of pearls! With delicate fingers that shook a little, Jannet lifted the case from the drawer and laid it on the desk before her. As in a dream she took hold of the glistening strand and drew it up, letting the loops of pearls unfold from their long curling. What wonderful pearls they were! Jannet knew little about pearls, but she could appreciate beauty. This must be very valuable,--her mother's--hers! Suddenly she lifted them against her cheek while quick tears came to her eyes. Oh, these had been on her mother's neck the last time that they were worn. Jannet ran to the picture. Yes, she had worn these when that photograph was taken. Why had Jannet not thought of that when she read the diary just now? She looked at the shimmering little pile that she was holding in two hands. Then she put them around her own neck. Twice they went around, coming just a little above the round neck of the dress that Jannet was wearing. There was no one to see the pretty picture that was made by the blue-eyed girl with her golden hair, as she stood looking up at the other older girl so like her. How Jannet loved to feel the pearls on her neck. She would like to wear them all the time, she thought, but she sighed as she thought of their value. How many things might have happened to them in these years, and why had not her mother been able to find them? There they were, right in the drawer, as her mother must have put them away,--unless someone had taken them for a joke, or spite, and put them back later. That thought troubled Jannet, but she was not right. A more peculiar circumstance than she could then imagine had hidden the pearls. Should she tell her uncle about them? Jannet considered that for some time, while she carefully looped the pearls again and replaced them. No, she did not believe that she would. She would know her uncle a little better first before she made a confidant of him. And if she did tell him about the pearls, or the scrap of paper, for that matter, she would have somebody else present, too. What if Uncle Pieter should claim the necklace! Oh, he couldn't have the _heart_ to take anything of her mother's away from her--but she "guessed she wouldn't tell him just yet." Jannet knew that she would not forget where the spring was, but after she closed the drawer again, she gave the surroundings a rub with her handkerchief, for want of a duster, and then closed the desk just in time, for there was a great rapping upon her door. It was Jan, drumming again on the panels and calling her. "Jannetje Jan," came the call, with the Dutch Y sound for J. "Yes, Yan," she answered, running to open the door, for she had slipped the bolt as well, when she started in on the desk. "Get ready to ride, won't you? Nell and Chick are out here," said Jan, adding, when the door was opened, "and worse luck, I've got to go back with Chick and finish up school! We only have a day or two more of fun!" "I'll be out in a minute, Jan. I'm aching for a ride. Will you get my horse ready while I dress?" "Yep,--intended to. Make it snappy." With this, Jan went away, while Jannet, elated with her discovery, the mystery of it all, and the prospect of fun with her young friends, hurried into her riding clothes. CHAPTER VIII JANNET'S "FORTUNE" It did not take Jannet long to get ready for the expedition. Just before starting out of her room, she paused, her hand on the knob, for this room had more protection than the old-fashioned latches. Should she leave the pearls in the desk? They had disappeared from it before. But where could she put them if she took them from the desk? Naturally she could not wear them. Windows and doors were open. She could hear the sounds of laughter from where her young friends were. She must hurry. She ran back to her windows, put them down and locked them firmly. Then she took her key from the lock, locked the door from the outside and pinned the key inside her sweater pocket. "I'm the 'foxy Jannet' now," she said to herself, thinking of one of Jan's expressions. "_Now_ if any one gets in,--I'll know it's some one with a key!" Walking rapidly, past the door of Paulina's room, down the back stairs, out of the back door, Jannet hastened to join her friends. Jan, mounted on a curveting black horse, was leading the animal intended for Jannet and cantered toward her, stopping at a high block. He started to dismount to help Jannet, but she waved him back. "Don't get off, Jan. Pity if I can not get on myself. Is this the stump of the old black walnut that nearly killed you when it fell?" "Who told you? Yes; if Chick hadn't yelled in time, I'd have been under the trunk instead of being scratched up a little by some of the branches. You remember that wind storm, Nell?" "Indeed I do. We didn't know where you boys were and Mother was almost crazy till you came in after it was all over. I was sure that you were over here, but the telephone wires were down." "Why do I have Lucy, Jan? I thought that Uncle Pieter wanted me to ride Ben?" "That is what took me so long, Jannet. I saddled Ben first and found that he went a little lame. Lucy is all right, only a little more skittish. She never runs away, but look out for her shying a little." "All right. I like Lucy better anyhow." Jannet was happy with the reins in her hand, for riding was her favorite sport. This pursuit of real country roads, away from hampering conditions of the city was what she called to Nell "real riding," instead of "riding lessons." Nell and John Clyde, or "Chick", drew alongside as Jannet settled herself for the trip and patted her pretty steed. "Did you know that you are going to have supper with us at home to-night, after our picnic dinner in the hills?" asked Nell. "No, I didn't. What fun! But Jan, shan't we take something for the picnic?" "Of course," Jan answered, with a grin. "Say, I forgot all about that. Good thing that you spoke of it." Jan turned his horse toward the house. "I told P'lina, though. There she comes now." From the back door Paulina this moment made her appearance with a package in her hands. As she approached, her sharp nose looked sharper than ever. Her solemn eyes surveyed the riders with no display of interest and her stolid face was without a smile. A small shawl decorated her shoulders, pinned across her breast, but the tight knot of black hair was without a covering and the spring breeze blew a wiry wisp over her forehead. "I think that it is going to rain," said she shortly, as she gave the neat package to Jan, with something for tying it to his saddle. She had given a curt nod in the direction of the Clydes. "Oh, now, Paulina," said Jan, grinning down at her, "don't be a calamity howler. We'll get under a rock somewhere if it does. Any other woes that you can think of?" Jannet was quite shocked at Jan's frankness and expected to see "Old P'lina" show some offense. Far from this, the stony features almost relaxed into a smile, so Jannet thought. "Be careful," Paulina said. "An owl hooted all last night and the ghost walked over my head." With this cheerful announcement, Paulina turned away. "What did Paulina mean, 'over her head'?" asked Nell Clyde. "Rats in the attic, Nell. I heard 'em, too." So Jan explained. But Paulina had overheard and looked back over her shoulder. "We have no rats," said she, "and rats don't tiptoe down imaginary stairs. It was _her_ again." Jan looked cross, but he said nothing further as Paulina rapidly walked toward the house. Jannet fancied that Jan did not like to have Paulina's superstitions aired before the Clydes. There was enough talk in the neighborhood, in all probability. Chick urged his horse on, passing Jannet and Nell, but Jan, as he followed, leaned over to Jannet. "Paulina is an old goose," said he in a low tone. "Her imagination works all night. Don't pay any attention to what she says." This was funny, for Jan had seemed to enjoy joking Jannet about it before now. Boys must be odd creatures,--but Jan and Chick were pretty good at that! "I wish that we had a family ghost," laughed Nell, as she drew her horse beside Lucy. "Have you seen yours, yet, Jannet?" "I am not sure that I would know it if I saw it," replied Jannet, after a moment's hesitation. "Let me come to stay all night with you some time, Jannet, and perhaps the ghost will walk for us." "If the ghost _should_ walk, I'd be glad to have company, I can tell you, and I'll love to have you any time. I suppose I'll have to ask Cousin Di or Uncle Pieter first, though." "Of course you will, and I'd better not be inviting myself over!" "Don't think of that, Nell. I'm sure that it can be arranged and I'm glad that you thought of it. You haven't had a peep at my dear room yet." "No, I haven't, and I have never even been inside of that old part of the Van Meter place, though Chick is there so much when Jan is home. Do you suppose that we could see the attic, too?" "That might depend on Paulina. I haven't asked to go there yet. I've felt a little timid, you know, just coming. The only place where I feel that I have a real right is in my mother's room. But Jan goes all over and has a den in the attic, and he isn't nearly so much related as I am." "I heard a neighbor say once, Jannet, that your uncle Pieter had treated your mother shamefully and had beaten her out of a lot of property that she ought to have had. I don't suppose that I ought to tell you this and perhaps it isn't true, but if it is, you ought to know it." "Yes. But I do not believe it. People gossip. Why should he send for me?" This from Jannet, in spite of her most recent suspicions! "Remorse," laughed Nell. "Uncle Pieter was a lot older than my mother and perhaps he wanted to have his own way about things, but I'll not believe yet that he is dishonest. I'm going to stand up for my people, Nell, now that I have found them. Mother must have died before my grandfather, so how could Uncle Pieter cut her out of her rights?" "I don't know." "Exactly. I'm surely grateful to Uncle Pieter for finding me," said Jannet, to close the subject. Jannet was a thoughtful girl, and she had determined not to lose sight of what Uncle Pieter had done for her in sending for her. She had her own doubts, particularly since finding her mother's diary notes and the slip of paper in the library book, but none of the neighbors should suspect them. Jannet did not know whether she liked her uncle or not. She was attracted sometimes, then again his coldness and reserve repelled her. He had not offered to have any explanatory talk with her so far, though she realized that the spring work on the large place was engaging his attention. He was out of the house most of the time either upon his horse about the farm, or on business errands away from the neighborhood. Jannet had not inquired what his interests were, for she was not informed about such matters. Her cousin Andrew Jannet loved already. Jan was a jolly companion, and Mrs. Holt was everything that a girl could ask for in a kind chaperon. She was not demonstrative, but then, Jannet was not used to demonstrative affection. Paulina was the "funniest." She was silent, matter-of-fact, and stiff, but Jannet knew that "Old P'lina" missed nothing of what was going on at the Van Meter home. Nell Clyde was a plump, sturdy little thing, but active for all her plumpness, sitting her horse well as the girls now pushed their mounts forward a little to catch up with the boys. Nell had been seized with a great admiration for the graceful, golden-haired Jannet and had already confided her dreams to her as she had not done to any of the other girls whom she knew. Jannet, more accustomed to many girl friends, had been more reserved so far about her own affairs, though she was delighted to find so congenital a girl so near. No unhappy thoughts were Jannet's to-day. The pleasure of riding, the fresh air, the morning sunshine, and the quiet memory of the lovely thing hid at home in her desk brought her spirits to a high pitch. P'lina must certainly be mistaken, for there was scarcely a cloud. Lucy behaved with great decorum after a long gallop over a good stretch in the road, during which the horses worked off any excess of spirits that they may have possessed at the start. The Clyde place was on their way and Chick dashed in to get their share of the lunch, which was not ready when they had ridden over for Jannet and Jan. Jannet laughed as she watched Chick, for with a boy's nonsense, he spread out his elbows at a ridiculous angle, leaned forward in his saddle, letting himself be lifted up and jolted down in a comical exhibition of bad riding. Flapping the reins, he loudly chirruped to his long-suffering animal. "Ichabod Crane!" exclaimed the amused Jannet; and Nell, who was familiar also with Irving's _Legend of Sleepy Hollow_, remarked that Chick was almost lanky enough to fit the character. The boys were sure that the folks had not put up enough lunch, but Nell's more practiced eye measured the two packages. "Don't you worry," said she. "There's a whole fried chicken in each, or I miss my guess." Over devious ways, where Jannet knew that she would be lost, the little party of four went into the hills and among the pines. Here and there a little stream with its trickling waters helped to make the beauty of the way. Jannet kept thinking that it was her mother's home country. "I wonder if my mother used to ride," she said to Jan. "Sure she did. Andy said something yesterday about her having a horse called Juniper that threw her once and pretty nearly ended her life then and there. How queer that you have all this to find out!" "Yes, and that's the advantage of being here for a while. Things come out gradually, just the sort of little everyday things that you would like to know. What are we going to do up here besides the picnic lunch, Nell?" "Just see things, and find wild flowers, and see what birds are back. Chick has to take a list back to one of his teachers that wants to know when certain birds come here. We're going to hitch the horses here, or let them graze a little, if there's anything to graze on, while we climb higher to a grand place to see the valley and to spread our lunch." "Any snakes?" Jannet inquired. "We are not likely to see any here, and it is so open up on the rocks that it will not be damp. Mother warned me not to have the lunch where it was damp, but this sun will dry anything off." The boys ungallantly went off by themselves for some time, reporting early for lunch. Chick had seen a chickadee, a tufted titmouse, a song sparrow, a purple finch and a woodcock. The girls had a handful of flowers, which they had picked carefully not to destroy the roots. This was all very wholesome for Jannet, who had not taken much interest in nature study at Miss Hilliard's school and the Marcys did not have that except in a very general way in their summer curriculum of good times. Her mind was far away from ghosts and problems of all sorts while the picnic lasted. But Paulina was right in her prophecy. It did rain, though not until their good lunch was eaten and its crumbs scattered for the birds. First there were a few scattered drops, then a little shower, which made them all run for their raincoats. But then they noticed that it looked very black in one portion of the sky. "We'd better get out of here, girls," said Chick. "It may be a thunderstorm and we oughtn't to be among the trees." Down they scrambled from the heights, found their horses and made their way as quickly as possible from the hills to the level country. Distant thunder began to be heard, and clouds collected thickly. The girls said nothing, but they did not enjoy the prospect. Then it began to rain, moderately at first. Chick motioned to Jannet to ride up with him, while Jan fell back with Nell. Leaning over toward Jannet, while they were urging their horses forward, Chick told her that he and Jan thought it best to strike off from the main road about half a mile to where an "old settler" lived. "Do you mind?" Chick asked. "Why should I?" asked Jannet. "It's better than being soaked, or scared to death with the lightning." Chick laughed. "Are you afraid?" "Not very, but it isn't especially safe." Nothing more was said. In a moment they had reached the turn in the road and were making their way as fast as a very poor little side road would permit. Puddles and mud-holes had to be avoided. The birds were taking to cover as well as they. Chick pointed ahead to where a small farmhouse stood, not far away. It was not a very prepossessing place, even at a distance, but it promised shelter. The driveway was open, fortunately, for the rain was coming down in sheets, as they galloped into it and drew up their horses under an open shed. The bombardment had begun. One sharp flash succeeded another and the crashes of thunder were of terrific violence. "This is one April shower that I don't care for," Nell remarked, as she had difficulty in holding her frightened horse. But Chick dismounted and held both her horse and his own. "Get off your horse, Jannet," said he, "it is better. Jan, you'd better do the same." "Come, Lucy, it's all right," soothingly Jannet said to the pretty mare she rode, as she dismounted. Jan reached his hand to Lucy's bridle while Jannet and Nell withdrew a little from too close proximity to prancing horses and threatening heels. Rain beating in from the opposite side, drove the party to the side of the shed nearest the house, which was not far away. There, at a side door, as the electrical display lessened somewhat, a curious figure appeared. It was bent and old, a sharp chin and piercing black eyes the most noticeable features under an old-fashioned cap. A red and black shoulder shawl, something like that which Paulina often wore, was pinned about the rounding shoulders. A long, blue calico dress came almost to the floor. The aged woman peered out and over to the little company under the shed. Jan and Chick touched their caps and the girls bowed, but no explanation seemed necessary. The storm would account for their presence. "Who lives there?" Jannet asked of Nell, the noise of the rain making it unnecessary to lower her voice. "It's one of the old Dutch farms and that is the grandmother of the farmer's wife. They are odd people, and they say that this old lady is half Indian and half gypsy. She is past ninety years old. She tells fortunes, and buys her tobacco." "Tobacco!" "Sure, she smokes a pipe," laughed Chick, who had overheard. "The women now use cigarettes, don't they?" "Not any that I know, Chick," smiled Jannet. "Miss Hilliard says that she is training 'ladies,' not the 'sporting class.' A girl who tried out smoking in our school would get sent home too quickly to know whether she was coming or going. That's in the printed rules." "The whole of it?" laughingly asked Jan. "I don't mean the way I put it. You know that. I mean that the rule is against smoking. It does say, though, that young ladies who have the habit are requested to go elsewhere." "Look, Jannet, she's beckoning to us," Nell interrupted. Jannet noticed that Jan and Chick felt in their pockets. "I've got enough change, Chick," said Jan. "The poor old woman sees a chance to make a little money, and it's kind of nice of her to ask us in out of the rain." "Gracious!" Nell exclaimed. "It will smell of stale tobacco smoke and I don't know what else, in there,--but all right, if you boys want to. A fire would feel pretty good, as wet as we are, and I know that they will have one." Jannet did not know that she cared to try it, but she would not make any objection, she thought. She would do what the rest did, though she did not want her fortune told,--she could get out of that. The boys saw that the horses were firmly hitched to the posts of the shed and presently all of them dashed across the yielding, puddly grass and ground to the little stoop of the house. A plump woman of past middle age had come to the door by this time, while the old lady hobbled back to a chair by the fire. She was moving aside to make room for the guests when they entered. "Come right in," pleasantly said the younger woman. "You got caught in one of the worst storms we've had yet. I'll hang up your raincoats in the kitchen and you can dry out a little before the fire. That rain would go through anything!" "It's around the edges that we are wettest," said Nell, going on to explain about their picnic and inquiring about the health of the family and the grandmother in particular. The grand-daughter, in the kitchen door, noting that her grandmother's back was turned to her, shook her head and tapped it with her fingers, to indicate that the old lady's mind was not just what it should be, but answered cheerfully, "Oh, Grandma is coming on all right. She can hear as well as anybody, see well enough to read the paper, and she'll be ninety-three to-morrow." "If that's so, we'll have to send her something to-morrow," said kindly Nell, "and wish her many happy returns." Jannet, altogether inexperienced in country life, was getting a glimpse of the kindly, helpful feeling that exists in many such neighborhoods. She stood at one side, near the blaze, which the farmer's wife tried to make burn more briskly. "Who's the girl?" bluntly asked the old lady. "Oh, I forgot," hastily said Nell. "This is Jannet Eldon, who has come to live with her uncle Pieter. Jannet, this is Mrs. Meer,--and her grandmother." "Jannet Eldon, huh? Jannet. That was the name of the girl,--so you are Pieter's niece, then?" "Yes'm," said Jannet, smiling at the old lady and looking at her with interest. "Did you know my mother?" "I saw her often enough. You look like her. I told her fortune once, and I'll tell yours." Janet shrank back a little, scarcely conscious that she did so. "Thank you, I don't believe that I want to have you do that. I'd rather not know, even if you _can_ tell it." "You don't believe in fortune telling, then. I'll not hurt you. If I read anything bad in your hand, I'll not tell you that." The old woman's voice rose shrilly, and Mrs. Meer looked rather distressed. But Jannet's warm heart came to the rescue of the situation. It certainly could do no harm to satisfy the old woman. "Well, maybe it would be fun, then,--if you won't tell me of any 'bad luck'," and Jannet playfully shook her finger in warning. She could see that "Grandmother," whose name she had not been told, was pleased. Her toothless mouth widened into a smile. She laid aside her pipe, which, as Nell had said, had been filling the room with a disagreeable smoke. "Sit down," she said. Jannet drew up a small wooden stool and held out her hand. Jan, with noble promptness, laid a fifty cent piece upon the mantel, hoping, as he told Jannet afterward, that the fortune would not scare her to death. The aged woman saw it and the dark eyes gleamed. Wrinkled fingers took the young, delicate hand. "They thought that you were dead," she mumbled. Jannet did not know whether this were part of the fortune or not, but it was not particularly pleasant. The old crone went on with a few facts about Jannet's past life, facts that any one could guess at, Nell said afterward. Then she took up Jannet's character, cleverly setting forth some traits that Jannet recognized, though none that were not more or less flattering. "Gee, she's giving you a good line, Jannet," said Chick. "Sh-sh, you're interrupting her," warned Nell. It grew more interesting. "Some one has looked for you," said the old woman, "some one not your uncle. If you are found, it will bring you good luck. You have had a loss, but you will find what you look for. There will be something strange in your uncle's house, but do not be frightened. Nothing will harm you. "Many like you. Some you can not trust, but you will find them out. I see a long journey. You will live to marry, perhaps twice. That is not clear. I see a long life and much happiness. You will have good luck this year and something will happen that you do not expect. That is all." As if tired, the old lady dropped Jannet's hand. "I never told your fortune, Jan Holt. You have not lived here long." "Say, you know my name already," said Jan, as if that were a sign of great cleverness. "Now give me a good one." One by one the boys and girls had their fortunes told and left almost all the change which the boys possessed upon the mantel. Then they began to gather up their coats and other articles of wearing apparel, feeling pretty well dried out by the heat from the fireplace. The storm had ceased before the aged grandmother had finished. Rapidly the four covered the distance remaining between this place and that of the Clydes, where they were to have dinner together. Nell promised to let Jannet wear one of her frocks, if necessary, for Jannet had started in such a hurry that she had not realized how odd it might be to eat dinner in her riding clothes. "I'll certainly look funny in a dress of yours, Nell,--I'd better wear one of your mother's, or else ride on home. But if you don't mind I could wear these things; they are dry now." "We'll fix you up some way, Jannet. Don't worry." "Say, Jannet," soberly said Jan, "may I be your second husband?" "_Second husband!_" ejaculated Jannet, a grin beginning to spread her pretty mouth. "Yep. I wouldn't want to be the first, because he may die, according to the old gypsy. Of course, I'll probably marry, and then my wife may have objections to the arrangement." "You crazy boy! I believe that you'd make fun about anything! Yes, I'll 'consider your application,' as Miss Hilliard says. But I'm only going to marry somebody very wonderful, and he'll not dare leave me till I'm as old as Grandma Meer, or whatever her name is." "Some outlandish name," said Nell, "that I've heard and forgotten." "Chick, she says that she is only going to marry somebody _very wonderful_. That settles it. It isn't me. Honestly, Jannet, she read you a pretty good fortune; but some of it was queer. Of course, you know that the whole countryside knows about our ghost, so she could make up anything there." "I don't mind, and I'm going to forget it, Jan. Poor old soul! Are you really going to take her something to-morrow, Nell? I'd like to do something, too, even tobacco!" "Why, Jannet!" said Jan in falsetto tones, as if representing Jannet's school, shocked beyond words. Jannet gave Jan a solemn glance, drawing her mouth down at the corners and rolling her blue eyes. Then, grinning again, she said, "Grandma Meer is too old to reform, Jan. Besides, if it isn't wicked for Cousin Andy to smoke, it isn't wicked for Grandma Meer. And she doesn't have to be a lady." This conversation took place on the way from the Clyde barns to the house. The four sauntered along in the highest of spirits, though it was almost too near dinner time, or, more properly here, supper time, for them to linger. A skirt-and-tunic dress of Nell's was found possible to arrange for Jannet, and more fun was in prospect when by the telephone it was arranged for Jannet and Jan to stay all night. "And may we have Nell and Chick over to-morrow night, Cousin Di?" Jannet asked sweetly. "Of course you may. Jan often has Chick. I don't know how it has happened that we have not had him more this time. You and Nell ought to have great fun in the 'haunted' room. I'll have Paulina cook you something, too." "Thank you, Cousin Di." Turning, after hanging up the receiver, Jannet clasped her hands together in delight, as she communicated the results of her telephoning to the rest. "Oh, we can _stay_, and Cousin Di was _too cordial for words_ about your coming over to-morrow night, Nell and Chick. Paulina will cook up something and we'll have a little evening party of it, I guess." "Good," said Jan. "Let's hope that the ghost will walk." "Mercy, no, Jan,--not really," said Jannet. CHAPTER IX ANOTHER GHOSTLY VISITATION That evening, at the Clydes' country home, Nell called up some of her friends and asked them to drive over for an evening of good times. Perhaps half a dozen girls and boys came, initiating Jannet into the pleasures of country life. It was a new atmosphere to Jannet and she liked it. They were all a little stiff at first, pleasant, but waiting to see what the girl from the city school was like. Soon, however, when Nell and Chick started some games and they found Jannet throwing herself into everything with a real delight, the party waxed merry. The next morning Jannet and Jan rode home. Jannet heard Jan and Paulina in more than one mild argument as she tried to pack for him and he objected to her packing. "Of course I'm going to take that, P'lina. That is one of the most important things. If you can't get that in, I'll tumble the whole mess out and pack it all over myself. What's the idea? Do you think that you have to do it?" "Now, Jan, your ma--" but Jannet shut the door to hear no more. She supposed, as she smiled over what she had heard, that some treasure like a bat or a ball glove or mask had been omitted. She was beginning a diary, suggested to her by her mother's having kept one. But Jannet decided that she would never destroy hers, because it would be such a good history for her children, if she had any. Jannet spent a good part of the morning in this way, after a good visit with Mrs. Holt. Then Paulina came in to sweep and clean her room. There was another servant to help with this sort of thing, but Paulina, who almost felt that she had part ownership in the place, liked to take care of this old part of the home herself. Paulina was "queer," Jannet thought. She could not tell what Paulina thought of her, but she rather hoped that Paulina did not hate her, for "Old P'lina" was a family institution, it seemed. She grew older and older in Jannet's thought, for Paulina's face was much more lined than Uncle Pieter's, in spite of the dark hair. Nell said that P'lina must dye her hair, but Jannet knew that Nell was wrong. Nell and Chick Clyde did not arrive until long after supper and said that they had company at home, unexpected company for supper. But they enjoyed the evening together, Mrs. Holt keeping her promise of the "party," which meant something good to eat at the proper time. Jannet wondered if Uncle Pieter would have approved, for they had chicken and biscuits, with other accompaniments, for a first course, and Paulina's delicious angel food cake with a whipped cream "salad" over it or "by" it, as Jannet put it. Nuts, maraschino cherries and pineapple made this toothsome. But this was Jan's last evening at home. Sometime the next day he was leaving for school. "Yes, Nell," said he, "hard-hearted Uncle Pieter is responsible for my leaving; but after all Chick could scarcely get his lessons without me, and it will be fun to see the other boys." After the refreshment the boys were restless. It was not far from bedtime and Jan suggested that Chick go with him to the attic den to see his latest invention. "You might invite us, too, Jan," said Jannet, with a freedom which she was beginning to feel in this new environment. "Oh, girls wouldn't understand, and besides, it doesn't work yet. I want to get Chick's ideas about it. Then the attic is where the ghost usually begins, you know." "Honestly, Jan, did you ever hear or see anything strange?" Jan looked mysterious, then laughed. "'Honestly,' Jannet, I think most of the noises might be from some ordinary cause. But once I did--oh, well, there are lots of odd sounds and things in an old house. But no ghost has ever come into my attic den so far as I know." "I wouldn't go up there after dark for worlds!" Nell declared. "Silly!" So her brother commented. "Jan's den is a real room, at a gable, and used to be a bedroom, Paulina says. There's a rambling sort of hall, and a door, that Paulina keeps locked, into the rest of the attic, which isn't all floored, she says. Paulina says 'Keep Out,' in large letters, doesn't she, Jan?" "Yep," answered Jan, with a look at Chick which was intended to mystify the girls. "Maybe P'lina is the ghost, then," Nell suggested, and Jannet thought to herself that it was not impossible. "I'll tell P'lina that I want to see if any of my mother's boxes or trunks are up there, and perhaps she will give me the key!" "You wouldn't _dare_, Jannet!" "Yes I would, Nell!" "_Much_ you would," and Jan's disbelieving eyes laughed into Jannet's sparkling ones. "Wait till I come home again anyhow," he added. "Perhaps I will, Jan," his cousin conceded. The boys said goodnight, leaving the two girls in the quaint old kitchen, where they had made taffy in one of the old kettles, by the express permission of Mrs. Holt, and under her supervision, for Paulina had not wanted to have the "trouble and muss" of a fire here, among the cherished antiques of the kitchen. "Before the weather gets too hot," meditatively said Jannet, taking a last piece of the sticky but very delicious sweet from one of the pans, "I'd like to have an old-fashioned taffy pull and invite some of the girls and boys that I met at your house, Nell. I'm afraid that Uncle Pieter and Old P'lina might not like it, but perhaps Cousin Di could get permission for me." "Perhaps so," doubtfully answered Nell, "but remember that Chick and Jan leave to-morrow." "That's so. Well, perhaps I'll be here next winter. I've read about the good times in the country in the winter and I almost wish I needn't go to school." "Your uncle intends to keep you here, Jannet. I heard Mother say so." Jannet looked inquiringly at Nell, but made no comment. That might not be so nice after all, not to go back to the girls and Miss Hilliard. But Miss Hilliard was her guardian, and she would do the deciding. Mrs. Holt came hurrying in to say that she had almost forgotten them, and that by all means they must get to bed. With a kind goodnight she left them, and they heard her routing the boys from their attic den. The sound of their descent by the attic stairs could have been heard in Philadelphia, Nell said. The girls went upstairs by the front staircase, turning to the right with the dark, curving rail of the banisters. To Jannet's door there was only a step, and Nell looked on along the railing to the front of the upstairs hall. "That front room on this side," Jannet explained, "belonged to my grandfather and grandmother, and the big chimney, with gorgeous fireplaces, is between their room and what was my mother's, now mine. There are plenty of other fireplaces, though," she added, "only this seems to be the biggest chimney. See, my door almost faces the corridor that leads to the new part, where Cousin Di sleeps, and Paulina's room is right off the back hall, there. Jan's room is downstairs. He picked it out himself." "Chick says that he has a cot in the den upstairs, too." "Is that so? I shouldn't think that he would want to sleep there." "Why, Jannet! I thought that you didn't believe in ghosts!" "I don't but just the same,--" and Jannet stopped to laugh at herself. By this time they were in the room, Nell wondering a little at Jannet's having to unlock the door. But she did not ask her why she kept the door locked, and Jannet did not explain. One thing after another had interfered with her having had an opportunity to open the secret drawer in her desk for a glimpse of the pearls. First she had been expecting Paulina in to clean. Then, after some delay, the cleaning took place. A call, plans with Cousin Di and a long drive with her and Cousin Andy, partly for the sake of errands, completely filled the day till time for the Clydes to come. But now, as Jannet displayed her room to her guest, placing the little overnight bag, and quietly mentioning her pleasure in having her mother's room and her mother's picture, she was anxious to assure herself of her new possession in the desk and felt impatient with herself for not having locked the door against everybody long enough to see that the pearls were safe. Of course they were, though. What was Nell saying? Oh, yes, she was commenting on the size of the house, admiring it, but telling Jannet the gossip. Some said that her uncle intended to turn it into a summer hotel, and others said that he had expected his daughter's family to occupy it with him, as well as his son's. "Andrew was going to be married, if he hadn't gotten all banged up in the war." "Oh,--too bad!" exclaimed sympathetic Jannet. "Wouldn't his sweetheart marry him?" "More likely he would not let her." "Dear me, I'll never catch up with the why and wherefore of our family. Can you keep a secret, Nell?" "Try me. Even Chick says that I can." Nell had admired the desk before, but Jannet led her to it again. "I want to show you a secret drawer, Nell, and what I found in it, something wonderful,--my mother's pearls, the ones she has on in the picture!" Nell leaned over with the greatest interest, while Jannet seated herself in front of her desk, now open, and pressed the spring as she had done before. Out came the drawer, more easily than before,--but empty! Quickly Nell looked into her friend's face, which was blank with surprise. "Gone!" Jannet exclaimed. "Why, Nell, it's just as it happened before! Mother lost them, too, or they were stolen from her desk. Oh, _who_ could have done it! Why _did_ I leave them there!" Jannet dropped her hands in her lap and sat there looking at Nell, who drew up a chair and took one of Jannet's hands to pat it and try to comfort her. "I ought not to care so much, perhaps," said Jannet, almost ready to cry, "but I loved to think that Mother has worn them. I'd think it a dream, but Nell, I put them on my neck and loved to have them there,--don't tell me that I'm quite crazy!" Jannet, smiling, was herself now. "Of course you are not crazy. I believe that the pearls were there, and where could they have gone? They did not walk off by themselves certainly, and there isn't another thing in the drawer. Could there be a crack in the bottom?" Nell tapped the delicate wood with her finger. "Not big enough to lose a big case full of pearls, Nell. Well, it can't be helped. I'll examine the desk to-morrow and see if they _could_ have been put in another drawer,--or something." As she spoke, Jannet began to open the little drawers which she knew, while Nell exclaimed over the tiny springs and the skill with which the drawers had been hidden. But Jannet did not want to make Nell have an unhappy time over her lost pearls. In a few moments she was her philosophical self again. "It can't be helped, Nell, and as I never did have them before, I can get along without them now. Let's get to bed. I'm glad that you think the room is pretty and the things nice. I'm wealthy enough in my mother's things without the pearls. It seems now as if I have been waiting all my life to come to this room!" It was as they settled down in bed, after putting the windows at the proper height and turning off the light, that Nell happened to think of something. "Jannet, you'll find your pearls! Didn't your fortune say that you would lose something and find it again?" "'You will find what you look for,'" replied Jannet, in such a good imitation of the old fortune-teller's cracked tones that Nell laughed and Jannet apologized, saying that she ought not to have made fun of Grandma Meer. "Poor old soul," said Nell, drowsily. For a wonder the girls did not lie awake to talk. It had been a full day and soon they were asleep; for Nell was an easy-going girl, not nervous about fancied ghosts in a room as bright and pleasant as this, while Jannet, accustomed to share her room and often her bed with Lina Marcy or some other school-girl, felt it quite natural to have company. What time it was when Jannet was suddenly wide awake, she did not know. A confused dream, the result, she well knew, of taffy and other good things to eat, was floating away from her. Nell was not stirring the least bit and she could not even hear her breathe. That was odd. Cautiously she turned, sighed, and reached over to touch her friend lightly, when suddenly Nell clutched Jannet's hand and reached Jannet's lips with her other hand to insure silence. Jannet squeezed Nell's hand to indicate understanding, but she was a little frightened. What was it? The same old ghost, a burglar, or was Nell only startled at some little sound? Jannet had bolted her door, but it would be possible for some one to climb up on the trellis and climb into the window which opened upon the little balcony, she remembered. That one she had not raised very high and the screen was in. It was pitch dark. There were no glimmerings of lights outside as in a city. The night was cloudy, without star or moon visible. Quite a breeze was stirring. Perhaps there would be another storm, though there were no flashes of electricity. "Tap, tap, tap, tap," she heard. Well, that might be the broken branch that she had noticed hanging against the pergola outside. Then a weird sound began. Perhaps that was what had wakened Nell. That must be the "Dutch Banshee" that Jan had mentioned. It was indescribable, something like the whistling of the wind, then a little like the hooting of an owl. Was that what Paulina meant, then? That _was_ a queer, rustling sound. Yes, it _did_ sound like someone lightly coming down a stairway; why, it sounded right in the wall, Jannet thought! Step, step, step, step, slowly. Paulina would be saying "That's '_Her!_'" Could it be true that there was something sinister and evil, or something unhappy, that could not rest, that came back to its old home? In the daytime Jannet would not have had these fearful thoughts, but it was eerie, indeed, to lie in a dark room and listen to sounds that she did not understand. A faint moaning sound began and suddenly stopped with a little choke or gasp. "Is Chick a ventriloquist?" whispered Jannet. "No," replied Nell, "and neither is Jan." For a few moments there was no sound at all. Then the "Dutch Banshee" began again. Jannet whispered, "Static,--Jan's radio!" "No," whispered Nell. "Keep still!" Jannet listened. Yes, it did sound more like a voice now. How scarey it did make a body feel! Anyhow it wasn't in the room. Jannet sat up in bed, determined not to be frightened as she had been before. If there were anything going on, she was going to see it, come what might! She wished again for the flashlight that she had forgotten and left at school. Nell gained courage and sat up, too. Now there was an odd light from somewhere. Why,--there was a dim veiled light on the wall, as if shining through! What in the world! There, it was gone. But some one was moaning,--no, sobbing! Next the sound, tap, tap, tap. Jannet again thought of Paulina's expression: "I suppose that's 'Her' coming down some stairs somewhere," she whispered to Nell, who still clutched her hand. "Let's put on the light and run to Paulina's room," Nell whispered, trying to pierce the darkness, and looking in the direction of the wall where the light had appeared. There it was for a moment again! Now it faded; then it came more strongly and went out again. "It looks as if somebody were passing back and forth behind a screen, Nell," whispered Jannet. "Come on." But just then there came that clicking sound that Jannet had heard on that other night. "Wait, Nell," she whispered. "I'll get to the door, and if nothing gets me, come, too." "No," again said Nell, holding Jannet as if to keep her in bed. There was somebody,--something,--in the room! A cover of the bed began to be drawn off, as before. Gently it moved. Jannet, ready for an experiment to find out if this were a person or a ghost that entered her room so mysteriously, reached for the slowly moving cover and gave it a jerk back toward her. She met with no resistance at all, and pulled the cover in a little heap around her by the force of her own effort. This was too much! Jannet leaped out of bed, seized Nell by the arm, and ran in the direction of the electric button and the door. As she pushed the button, she was sure that she heard a similar sound behind her, but she only glanced behind to see that no one was after them, as she pulled out the little bolt and pushed Nell into the hall ahead of her. Barefooted and breathless, the girls stood in the hall a moment, listening. Nothing followed them. They peeped back into the room after a few minutes. It was not cold, but both girls were shivering. "Do you suppose that the boys could fool us in some way?" asked Nell, who remembered her brother's tricks. "Perhaps one of them hid somewhere," said Jannet. "But how did he get out? This business of pulling a cover off happened once before, Nell. Perhaps there is a way of getting into the room. The windows were 'way up to-night, too." "Let's run down and see if the boys are in their room," suggested Nell. "All right, but the other time was before Jan got home." Back the girls went, somewhat timorously, to be sure, to put on slippers and kimonos. Thus clad, they slipped quietly down the back stairs, and Nell stepped close to the door to listen. A heavy pin, with which she had fastened her kimono, fell out at this juncture and in the stillness of the hall it made quite a little noise. "What's that?" they heard Chick say, and presently a low grunt answered him. The bed creaked and the girls flew upstairs as fast as they could, Nell retrieving her pin first. "Well," said Jannet, as they entered the room again, "shall we wake up Paulina and get things stirred up? You will be afraid to go to sleep again, won't you?" "I g-guess not," shivered Nell. "Put down the windows and leave the light on." "We'd smother, child," said Jannet. "Look under the bed, then. I refuse to get into it unless that is done." Nell tried to be jolly with poor success. "Perhaps that is where--It--was. Say, that was a funny feeling, Nell, to jerk that coverlid and find it come just too easy!" As before, Jannet went all over to see what she could see. There was no sign of any one's having been in the closets or in the bath room. The vines on the porch looked undisturbed. Jannet put the windows down to a point where they would have to be raised to admit anyone. Again she went over the paneled wall to see if there were a hidden door between her room and the next one. "But that light was too near the big chimney," she said. "Perhaps there might be an opening of some sort there." The girls looked up into the chimney with its bricks discolored by many a fire. "What's on the other side of the chimney?" Nell asked. "That other room just like this,--are you afraid to go in there?" "No," answered Nell, beginning to get over her scare. But they found the door of the other room locked and looked at each other as much as to say, "Perhaps the mystery lies here." "Nothing hurt us anyhow, Nell, as I thought before. We'll leave the side lights on and put that little screen I have up on a chair to keep the light out of our eyes. I haven't heard another sound, have you?" "No, I guess the ghosts have gotten through. What time is it, Jannet?" Jannet looked at her wrist watch but it had stopped. "The ghosts were too much for my timepiece, Nell, but it must be 'most morning. It is about the same time, I think, that the comforter went off my bed and never did come back. I've always wanted to ask Paulina about it, but someway, she is so sure about ghosts that I hated to stir her up, or draw any questions. I declare, Nell, I'm different here. _It's_ so different!" "I should say it is,--and yet you like this room." "Yes, Nell, I do, and I'm going to find out what or who does this. Maybe it's Paulina." "For half a cent I'd like to see if she is in her room. Don't you suppose she heard that moaning?" "I don't see how she could help it, and with our putting on and off lights all around, too." Jannet had scarcely stopped speaking when there was the sound of an opening door. The light went on in the hall again. "Girls," said Paulina, "did you hear it?" Jannet almost laughed out, for Paulina in her long muslin gown looked so funny. She had thrust her feet into immense woolen slippers, wore the little shoulder shawl, and--of all things--a night-cap,--over her hair! "Yes, Paulina, and we almost lost the coverlid, as I lost the blue comforter one night." "What?" asked Paulina, "that blue comforter that I put on your bed?" "Yes. I've never seen it since." "It's in the closet. I thought that you put it there." Jannet and Paulina eyed each other. Nell laughed. "It was us in the hall, with the lights on, Paulina." "I thought so. It was _Her_ in your room, then, I suppose." "Who is she, Paulina?" asked Jannet. "Not Mother, of course." "No. Ask your Uncle Pieter who cries and sobs and goes through walls. Go to bed. There'll be nothing more to-night. I'll not call you early." "Thank you, Paulina. I'm going to leave on one little light." Paulina made no reply to this remark, but went off in the sudden fashion she had, and the girls heard her door open and close. The human contact, and the assurance of "Old P'lina" that there would be no further disturbance, relieved the situation for the girls. Nell, with a sigh of relief, crawled between the sheets. "Ghost or no ghost, I'm going to sleep, Jannet." "So am I. But the next time, I'm going to '_yell_' for Paulina, and not try to see it through myself. Who do you suppose she meant when she told me to ask Uncle Pieter?" "His wife, I suppose. But there is a lots older ghost than she is, and I 'spect P'lina's mad at your Uncle Pieter about something. She's terribly queer herself, you know." "I'm going to get acquainted with Paulina and find out all about the family history. I've been afraid to ask her so far. I'm so sorry, Nell, for all this. I hope that you will sleep now." "I will. Don't worry. Some day I'll tell of this to my grandchildren and you will see their little eyes bulge out if you are around." Jannet laughed, as she arranged the screen and shook off her slippers to hop into bed. "Perhaps in time I'll get so used to our ghost," she said, "that I'll miss her if she does not perform every so often." "Sh-sh, Jannet! You might get her mad at you!" Jannet thought this so funny that she laughed till the bed shook, and Nell giggled with her. But both girls within were really rather serious over the affair, wondering and thinking for some time, Jannet's mind dwelling on the pearls as well. "Nell," she said, sleepily, after a little, "perhaps the ghost has my pearls. I've thought up a name for them,--Phantom Treasure. Now it's there, and now it isn't, but the ghost that has it had better beware!" CHAPTER X JANNET GATHERS HER IMPRESSIONS I am so ashamed, Lina, not to have written you a long letter before this. You are good to have sent me a letter in reply to those few cards. I had to write to Miss Hilliard, you know, and some way, I haven't felt like writing about some things that I have really wanted to tell you, like how I felt to be in my mother's room and all. I'll wait until I see you, I think. I am going to ask Uncle Pieter, when I know him better, if I can not have a little company this summer. I feel pretty sure that he will let me ask you for a visit, so please keep it in mind before you fill up the summer with other things. Then I can show you everything and tell you all about the mysteries here, for there are some that I do not understand. I meant to have a long talk with my uncle right away, yet I have been here for several weeks and I have not talked to him alone. I've been too timid to ask, for one thing; then he is busy about the place, and then I don't feel that I can go to him as I can to Miss Hilliard. He lets Cousin Di, or Mrs. Holt, look after my wants. Please, by the way, keep what I tell you to yourself, except what anybody might know. You will "use judgment" what to report to the girls that know you have had a letter from me. Your namesake is here, for one, in our family,--"Old P'lina," they call her and she is so odd. You will have to see her to appreciate her. She is the real housekeeper and just about owns the place. But while you are Adeline, she is Paulina, the i long. Mrs. Holt is a rather distant cousin who knows Uncle Pieter very well and was a much younger friend of his wife, who is dead. Her mother, Mrs. Perry, will be here pretty soon, they say. She went on a little visit and keeps staying. Cousin Di worries about it, though I'm sure I don't know why. Two of her friends from Albany have been here this week and they have had a fine time. Uncle Pieter likes to have company, Cousin Andy says, though he doesn't pay much attention to anybody, I must say. I suppose he just likes to have the big place full of people, not to be lonesome. Cousin Di is kind and easy-going. My lessons are a myth, for which I am not sorry. I don't see how I could have studied so far. Uncle Pieter looked at me one time, at dinner, and said, "You need not hurry about lessons, Diana. Jannet looks as if she has had about enough of school. I suppose, Jannet, that you have been trained to think that school hours are the only thing in the world worth keeping?" "Yes, sir," I said. "Aren't they? Most of the girls I know that amount to anything get their lessons." For once Uncle Pieter laughed out. "Yes, yes," he said, "I suppose that is so. Whatever you have to do, keep at it, if you want to put it through. But we shall change matters a little, with the permission of your guardian, of course." I did not like the way he said that, but then he does not know how fine Miss Hilliard is. I looked straight at him, but not saucily, and then I said, "Miss Hilliard is the one who has taken good care of me for all these years." I did not mean it for a "dig" at him, since of course he did not know that I existed. But I'm sure that he took it that way. He froze right up, and I wished that I had not said anything. "I must see Miss Hilliard very soon," he answered, "and relieve her of her charge." That scared me so that I sat right down at my lovely desk with the _secret drawers_, as soon as I reached my room, and wrote the conversation to Miss Hilliard. And I've wished ever since that I hadn't. I'm always doing something that I wish afterwards I hadn't,--but you know me, Lina! So you see that I don't know whether I like my uncle very much or not, though I am grateful to him for hunting me up and that _ought_ to make up for everything else. I think that Cousin Andy knows that his father is a little queer, for he makes it up to me by being extra nice. He is Andrew Van Meter and is somewhere around thirty years old, perhaps older, and was in the war. He was shell-shocked and wounded, but won't talk about it. He has some trouble with his back and there are days when he does not come to meals. I wanted to do something for him, read to him, or anything, but Cousin Di said not to, that Andrew wanted to be by himself at those times. But other times he is just as friendly as can be. He said that his father "is a very scholarly man," and Uncle Pieter does read in his library till all hours of the night, Cousin Di says. She told me that it was my great-grandfather who made all the first money in the family. My grandfather was a sort of "gentleman farmer" and had "investments;" and Uncle Pieter got through college early and lived in Albany with his family until his father wanted him to come out and run this place,--and, oh, Lina, it is a beautiful place! There is a big orchard and a wonderful woods. I don't know anything about what kind of land it is, but there is money enough somewhere to fix the house up and have everything the way Uncle Pieter wants it. I think that I mentioned Cousin Di's son in one of my cards. We are "Jannet and Jan," though Jan is called John at school. He is jolly and a little careless sometimes and carries his fun too far, Miss Hilliard would say, but I like him and his friend, "Chick" Clyde. I am getting well acquainted with Nell Clyde, who lives nearest of any of the young folks around here. Oh, it's so _different_, Lina, and I haven't begun to tell you the half! We have a family ghost, two or three of them, perhaps, and whatever it is, I've already had a queer experience or two that I'm not very keen on thinking about. My room seems to be the "haunted room," but I can't help but feel that somebody is responsible for these odd happenings and I'm going to find out about it just as soon as I can. You would think that I'd have loads of time, wouldn't you? There are no lessons and no recitation hours. But for some reason, I don't get half as much done. Perhaps I was a little tired, and then it has been so exciting to find my family and learn so many different things. Commencement will be here pretty soon. There is no chance of my going to Philadelphia for it, and really, Lina, I could not bring myself to leave right now. Don't say that to Miss Hilliard, though. She might think that I have lost interest, and I haven't a bit. Now you are saying that I might tell you more about the mysteries, but this letter is too long now. You can tell the girls that I'm in one of the fine old Dutch houses, with a ghost and everything, and that I've been having a great time, riding all over the place, and the country, and getting acquainted with people. I'll write you again after you are home. Do write again, though, and tell me all the news about the seniors and the play and how everything goes off. Give dear Miss Marcy a big hug for me. Aren't you lucky to have an aunt on the faculty! * * * * * So Jannet wrote to her chum and room-mate. Meanwhile Miss Hilliard and her friend Jannet's lawyer, had been making further inquiries about Pieter Van Meter, without discovering anything particularly to his credit. Miss Hilliard, busy with the last days of school, was relieved to find that there was no need to worry about the environment of her young protegée. Matters could rest where they were for the present. She had received no further suggestion from Mr. Van Meter in regard to a change in guardianship. This she did not intend to relinquish without being very sure that it was to Jannet's advantage. Of Jannet's first impressions, she thought little. Miss Hilliard's errand in Albany, upon that day when she put Jannet in charge of Mrs. Holt and Andrew Van Meter, was to the office of a lawyer in Albany, a gentleman of whom she had been told, prominent in the place and of a wide acquaintance. Briefly she related the object of her visit, when, fortunately for her limited time, she was able to have an immediate interview. "I want to make some inquiry about Mr. Pieter Van Meter and his family," she said, "and I was told that you would be a sincere source of information. I am the head of a school in Philadelphia, as you note by my card, and a young ward of mine, who knew nothing of this family, has just been discovered to be Mr. Van Meter's niece. There is some suggestion of a change of guardianship, to which I will not agree unless it is for the good of my ward. I rather think that the family must be of some standing, but the personality of Mr. Van Meter is unknown to me." Miss Hilliard paused, and looked inquiringly at the lawyer, a serious gentleman, who was listening to what she said with sober attention. "You are right in regard to the standing of the family. I should say that Mr. Van Meter's wealth would clear him from any suspicion of being concerned financially in a desire to become the guardian of his niece. I know him, but not intimately. He is regarded as peculiar, is close at a bargain, looking out for himself, but that can be said of many businessmen. I have never heard of anything dishonorable in connection with his transactions. To tell the truth, he seems to me like a disappointed and unhappy man. What there is back of that I do not know, unless it is the health of his son who is one of the war victims. Yet Andy, as we know him, is one of the finest lads, and his father may be glad to have him back at all. I understand, too, that there was serious difficulty between Mr. Van Meter and his second wife. At any rate she is not there any more. Indeed, she may not be living." "I know nothing about Mr. Van Meter's family, and only just met his son and the cousin who is practically in charge of Jannet, Mrs. Holt." "She is a very fine woman and consented to come with her mother, I understand, to make a home for Andy and give a cheerful atmosphere, needed particularly because his marriage was given up after the war. You need have no uneasiness about your ward so far as she is concerned. My family knows Mrs. Holt very well indeed." "Well, thank you, this little conference has been very helpful. I must make my train now, but I felt that I wanted some assurance in regard to the family with whom I am leaving Jannet, before I could go back to my work with a clear conscience." With this information, Miss Hilliard felt that a load had been rolled off, as she took the train back to New York, and later went on to Philadelphia with cheerful news for Miss Marcy and the other teachers who were especially interested in Jannet. "Yes, Jannet's people seem to be all that we could desire," she reported. Yet she was none the less interested in hearing what Jannet had to say about the household, and wondered over a vein of reserve in Jannet's letters, coming to the conclusion that Jannet was not relating everything, or was reserving her conclusions about her family till she was better acquainted. This Miss Hilliard quite approved. Jannet, to be sure, was quite ignorant of Miss Hilliard's conference in Albany and might have been very much interested in it, especially in one bit of information which she did not possess at this time, that relating to the fact of a second wife. CHAPTER XI JANNET BEGINS HER SEARCH It must not be supposed that "Jannetje Jan Van Meter Eldon" was frightened into leaving her room and fleeing into the newer part of the great house. She felt decidedly uncomfortable after the visitation, or the ghostly phenomena, to which she and Nell Clyde had been subjected. Had Jannet been brought up in the midst of superstition, she might not have been so sure that there was a human cause back of the manifestations, but she was more determined than ever to find out how these things had happened. She was inclined to suspect Jan, though the fact that he had not arrived at the time the blue comforter had disappeared was an objection there. "If the boys _did_ do it," said Nell, that next morning, "it was mean of them, and I don't see how I ever could forgive Chick for frightening me so." "It was possible for one of them to get into the window, I suppose," answered Jannet, "and you remember that there was a short time before we got to their door. Jan could have let himself down from the balcony and gotten into his own window in a jiffy. Perhaps he could have thrown the light on the wall in some way, and he certainly could have made those noises, only I scarcely see how they could have come from the direction they seemed to come from unless Jan knows how to throw his voice." "I'm sure that he doesn't," said Nell. "_I_ think that it was Paulina!" "_That_ could be," said Jannet. "She looked awfully queer, and she had heard it all, and she wanted us to think that it was 'Her.' But I can't imagine why she would do it. She is so mortally sensible and matter-of-fact about everything else." "That's the very kind," insisted Nell. "I don't think that Paulina is so very smart; besides, Jan and Chick say that she is 'queer in the bean'." Jannet laughed at this expression. "That sounds like Jan. He has all sorts of slang for every occasion. But I'm not so sure. Paulina may have been scared by things like this long before any of us came here, and you know how stories grow. I'm going to talk to Paulina myself. I'm not going to let this go and not try to find out about it. I may talk to Uncle Pieter, too, but not yet." "Your courage is not quite up to that yet?" laughed Nell. "Not quite, Nell." The girls did not have a chance to see how the boys looked and acted that morning, for Paulina called them so late that they missed the boys altogether. Chick had gone home, to meet Jan at the train later, and Mrs. Holt had driven off with Jan, intending to do some errands for him before he started back to school. The maid who helped Paulina gave Nell and Jannet a good breakfast, after which Nell rode home, warning Jannet in farewell not to "do anything rash." Jannet, bare-headed, stood in the rear of the house, waving goodbye to Nell. Then she slowly sauntered up the path which led to the pergola, under her own windows and those of the room in front. "I'm going in there first," she said to herself. Accordingly, she decided to get permission from headquarters, and as she had seen her uncle go into the house a short time before, she crossed the court to the rear of the new building and entered it. Her uncle was just coming out of his library when she met him. "Uncle Pieter," she began, and he stopped in front of her with the air of being in a hurry. "Excuse me, sir,--but I have just one little question." Mr. Van Meter smiled a little. "Well, Jannet, you need not be afraid to ask it. I'll not bite." This made Jannet feel more at home with him and she laughed. "Uncle Pieter, do you care if I go around the old house and find out all about it? I'd like to go into some of the rooms and into the attic, too, perhaps." "You are not afraid of Paulina's ghosts, then?" "Not so very." "Go anywhere you please, my child. Get the keys from Diana, or from Paulina. I'm rather pleased that you should take the interest." "Oh, _are_ you, Uncle Pieter? Thank you _so_ much. I'll not hurt anything." "From what I have noticed about you, I feel sure that you will not. And Jannet, I have been wanting to talk to you about the plans for our summer and other things. Come into the library after supper. No, there will be some people here. I will see you to-morrow morning about ten o'clock." "Yes, sir," Jannet replied, and Mr. Van Meter hurried on his way down the hall, into the back entry and outdoors again. Her uncle had confidence in her then, and he had noticed her, and she could go anywhere,--hurrah! Jannet felt like performing a jig then and there, but somebody might see and be shocked. It would be better to reserve such performances for her own room, whither Jannet sped immediately to think out the campaign. First, where were the pearls? Who had taken them? Second, who had played the part of ghost? Why? Or was there such a thing as an unhappy ancestral spirit that wandered around at times? This was not the first time Jannet had asked herself these questions, and now once more she examined her desk, going over every inch of it to make sure that she had not omitted any secret drawer, had not missed any little spring. Again she opened the drawer where the lovely case and pearls had lain. Regret was almost a pain when she saw it so empty. It certainly _could_ not have been her uncle, though it was possible. How about Paulina? Cousin Andy,--impossible! Cousin Di, likewise impossible. Yet the pearls were gone. Could her uncle have taken them out by a sudden thought of surprising her with them some time? He might think that she could not have found that most secret of drawers. Jannet exhausted in thought the whole range of possibility. Perhaps some one had seen her open the drawer,--from the balcony! But her back was toward the balcony,--no, she had put on the necklace and gone to her mother's picture and around the room. But who would climb the balcony, other than Jan or Chick or some other boy? Perhaps a burglar,--yet nothing else was missed, to her knowledge. It certainly was a mystery. Perhaps she would tell her uncle the next morning. Jannet rather dreaded that interview. For she was used to ladies, her teachers, and knew scarcely any gentlemen except the lawyer in Philadelphia, Lina's father, and now these relatives. After her musings and searchings at the desk, Jannet went all over her room again, looking closely at the paneled walls, and examining the chimney and mantel. She even ran her hands down the boards, to see if there were a spring, and again peered among the sooty bricks inside the great chimney. There was a small closet at one side of the chimney, where tongs and shovel or any necessary paraphernalia might be kept. This was clean and bare and gave no evidence of an opening. Thinking it likely that Mrs. Holt might be back by this time, Jannet went by the long corridor to where Mrs. Holt slept, but there was no answer to her knock. Then she wandered downstairs again; but Cousin Diana was doing errands and did not get home until after dinner. She was in fine spirits, telling laughingly things that the boys had said before their departure and displaying to Jannet some of the pretty articles which she had bought. Jannet went with her to her room to help her with her packages. "Did the boys tell you to ask Nell and me if the ghost walked last night?" queried Jannet on an impulse. "Why?" quickly returned Mrs. Holt. "Were they playing tricks on you and Nell?" "We think that perhaps they were." "I heard what Jan calls the 'Dutch Banshee,'" said Jan's mother, "but I imagine that it is only the wind, whistling in the chimney, or in some odd corner. You don't worry about ghosts, do you Jannet?" "No, Cousin Diana. And that makes me think of what I wanted to ask you this morning. I want to poke around a little and see everything, and I asked Uncle Pieter if he cared. He said he didn't and that you or Paulina would give me keys. I'd like to see again the front room on my hall, and the attic, too, and anything else that is interesting." "I used to like to poke around in attics, too," said Mrs. Holt, "but I outgrew that long before I came here. Perhaps there are boxes of your mother's in the attic, and there may be chests of bygone ancestors,--who knows? But you wouldn't want _me_ to go there with you, would you? I'm not fond of cobwebs and low ceilings to bump my head." How nice Cousin Di was! She knew what girls liked to do. "Oh, no," said Jannet, "I'll go by myself. I would love it if there were old chests and trunks that I could look into. But they would be locked, too, wouldn't they?" "I suppose that they will be." Cousin Diana went to her desk and soon handed to Jannet a jingling bunch of keys marked "Attic Keys." "There are more of them than I recalled. Keep them as long as you want them, but lock everything up when you leave the attic, please, and elsewhere, too." "I will," promised Jannet, receiving more keys. "Not many of the help are in the house at night, but any of them might take a notion to rummage around there by day; and while there can not be anything of any great value there, we do not want to lose what has been thought worthy to keep. I feel a sense of responsibility, now that I am temporarily in charge." "Has Paulina keys?" "Yes, I believe so. I have never directed her to clean the attic." "If Paulina wanted to, I don't believe that she would need to be directed." Cousin Diana answered Jannet's mischievous look with a smile. "I see that you already appreciate Paulina," she remarked. After leaving her cousin, Jannet went straight to the front room whose great fireplace was a duplicate of hers. Unlocking the door, she stepped inside, finding herself in a large, shadowy room, whose shades were down and whose furniture was draped in coverings. From these swathed chairs, perhaps, came that smell of moth balls. A large mirror between two windows revealed dimly her own figure. Jannet put up the shades and opened a window. She intended to look thoroughly for any evidences of the "ghost." Here was a possibility. Perhaps from this side there could be found some opening. There had been funny noises in that wall, at any rate. But never did walls look more innocent. She scanned them closely. There was a little closet which corresponded to the one in her room. Another, high and deep, corresponded to her clothes closet. They certainly were large closets, the depth of the big chimney, she supposed. Jannet examined the walls of the closets and of the room. She even looked at the ceiling for a possible trap door, though how the ghost could have flown so quickly out of her own room she could not imagine. This was a fine old room, but it offered no solution of her problems, so far as she could see. One thing, however, confirmed her in her idea of some secret passage,--the space between the rooms, the size of that great chimney. CHAPTER XII THE OLD ATTIC Jingling her keys happily, Jannet went up the attic stairs, which led from the second floor back hall by a door not far from Paulina's room. More than once she had heard Jan and Chick clattering down the two flights, first the attic stairs, banging the door shut, then the back stairs from the second floor to the first. If _they_ were not afraid to be up there, why should _she_ be afraid of the attic? She did wish for Nell, though on second thought she came to the conclusion that it was just as well for her to investigate alone first. There might be things that some one outside the family could not appreciate. Family was a big thing to Jannet just now. Had she not just acquired one? Inserting her key in the lock of the door opposite Jan's den, she found that it did not turn anything in the right direction to unlock it. She immediately tried the door and found that it was already unlocked. "H'lo, P'lina," she said, for there was Paulina, bending over a small trunk, her own, without doubt. "Do you keep some things up here, too? Aren't you afraid of the ghost?" Jannet was laughing as she spoke, but Paulina straightened up and favored Jannet with a stony stare. Then without a word she bent again and locked her trunk. Jannet stood quietly, looking around at boxes and trunks neatly placed in this part of the attic, and at dim shapes further along, where boards had been laid over the rafters and lath. "You ought not to be up here," hoarsely said Paulina at last. "I'm going now; come. I want to lock the attic door." "I asked Uncle Pieter for permission," Jannet returned, "and Cousin Diana gave me these keys. I did not expect to find any one at all here." Jannet dangled her keys before Paulina's eyes. "_Why_ don't you think I ought to be here, Paulina? If there is anything wrong with the place, Uncle Pieter ought to be told." "Your uncle knows all that he wants to know," replied Paulina. She frowned and was obviously displeased at Jannet's being there. Jannet wondered what she would have thought if Nell had come, too. But Paulina could just get over thinking that she could run everything. At Miss Hilliard's school, Jannet was in the habit of obedience to her elders. Here, too, she respected the authority of her uncle and her cousins, but beyond them, Jannet's Dutch independence asserted itself. "I'm sorry, Paulina," Jannet said courteously, "that you don't want me to be in the attic, but I have every right to be here and I shall stay. You need not be worried about anything of yours. I shall not touch your trunk, and if you will tell me what else is yours, I will certainly keep away from it." But Paulina made no reply. She stalked out with her usual stiffness, leaving the door open. "Of all the impolite people, you are the worst I ever saw," thought Jannet, but she did not say it aloud. Perhaps, after all, Paulina's silence was better than harsh words. The field was Jannet's. What should she do first? She did not quite like to explore the dim recesses, beyond the wider, well floored part, when she was by herself. Perhaps she would reserve that till Nell could be with her. There was a window in this part, shut and fastened with a nail, loosely pushed in. Jannet pulled out the nail, raising the old, small-paned window and finding that it would not stay up. But she saw a piece of wood that must have been used for the purpose and with this she propped the window, letting the fresh air in and also increasing the amount of light, for there was a calico curtain over the window panes, tacked to the frame. It was quite neat here, not newly mopped or fresh as the other parts of the house were, but the floor had been swept back as far as the rows of trunks and chests extended. Jannet's eye was caught by an old single bed, whose length extended along one wall, away from the window. On this were bundles, of odd sizes, she guessed, from the different bulges in the old cover over the whole, a piece of yellowed, gay-figured percale, or muslin of a sort. A rickety rocking-chair, of modern make, and a tall, gray-painted cupboard were the only pieces of furniture that Jannet could see. It was quite evident that her uncle had had all the valuable furniture of an older day put into use, keeping no useless articles to fill the attic. Even the old, old cradle stood in the old kitchen, not far from the old, old settle, with its rockers, too. Jannet's eye, which had become practiced by this time among the so-called antiques, recognized something good in the narrow bed against the wall. That was an old-timer, too; but there was, perhaps, no place for it, or it was not quite ancient enough. Jannet lifted the gay cover to peer beneath. One bundle, newly tied in newspapers not quite covering the contents, showed comforters, put away now for the warmer season. Bundles of longer standing showed dingy in muslin covers. These, surely, were not interesting. A long, painted chest whose lock was broken, disclosed piles of extra sheets, pillow cases and other stores of the same kind, when Jannet lifted its worn lid. But the trunks were more attractive in possibilities, and Jannet tried to read the names or letters on their sides. Here was one that must have been her grandmother's and this big one had her mother's initials upon it. She would open that pretty soon. And oh, what odd little things those were in the corner, two square, black trunks, if you could call them that. They were more like boxes in size, but they had all the straps of a trunk. And if there wasn't a little old hair trunk under the two of them! It was a wonder that Uncle Pieter had not taken it down into the kitchen! Jannet decided to open her mother's trunk and looked through her keys, trying several before she found one which would fit the lock. Her mother might have put away the contents just before her marriage, thinking that she would soon be home again to look them over. Jannet pulled the trunk out from the rest, opened the top and drew up the rickety rocking-chair, which she tried carefully before trusting herself to it. Comfortably seated, with a few rays of the afternoon sunlight coming over her shoulder to the trunk, Jannet commenced her survey. There were all sorts of "cubbies" in this trunk. One in the very top of the trunk opened down, when one loosened a leather strap from a button. But in this there were only a handful of flowers ripped from some hat, some pink roses, still very pretty, and a wreath of yellow buttercups and green leaves. Jannet decided to get a big sun hat and wear that wreath this summer. In the top tray, two hats, perfectly good, but of a style impossible to wear now, occupied the compartment for hats, with several veils and more French flowers. Some letters were loosely packed in along the sides, with some foreign postcards, much scribbled. In the compartment next, there were a pile of old music, some note books, photographs, more letters, and over all a sheer white organdy dress, washed but not ironed, and pressed in irregularly to fill the compartment. Jannet lifted out this tray to find another beneath it. Ah, _here_ were pretty things! Neatly folded, a light blue silk lay on top, covered with a linen towel. A lace and net dress was beneath this. Jannet did not disturb the folds. These could be examined when she had more of the day before her. In the lower part of the trunk, Jannet found more pretty clothes and a box containing her mother's wedding veil. This, indeed, she drew out, handling it with a certain reverence. Yes, it was the veil in the picture, delicate, with rose point lace and the pretty crown still as it had been worn except for the orange blossoms. These Jannet found lying in another box among the dresses. Dry and ready to fall to pieces at a touch, they were easily recognized, nevertheless. Touched and silent, Jannet sat still for a few moments, the veil half out of the box in her hands, the little box with the orange blossoms open beside her. It was sad, but it was worth everything to have these things that made her mother so real, her pretty mother! For a little while Jannet sat and read a few of the letters. It could do no harm. They were from girl friends, some of them to accompany wedding presents or to announce their impending arrival. "May you have a long and happy life together," said one. "Douglas is a dear. I had an eye on him myself, but it was of no use, with you singing the heart out of him!" Girls then were much as they were now, Jannet thought. From her short span of years it did seem so long ago. Pulling out her mother's trunk had disclosed a small box behind it, a pretty box of dark wood, stained and rubbed like the nice furniture of the house. The lock was of gilt, a little discolored, but the whole looked like something valuable, or at least interesting. Jannet tried all her keys without success and then, without thinking more of the box, she went back to the trunk, becoming deeply engaged in the contents of a little pasteboard box which was full of funny notes and the treasures of her mother's younger days. There was even a tiny doll, dressed in a wee silken dress with a train. And in the bottom of the box there was a brass key,--the very one which might fit the little dark box. Replacing the pasteboard box, Jannet with some curiosity tried the key and found that it opened the other box. A piece of old muslin covered the contents. This Jannet raised to find an old doll with a cloth body, some doll clothes, stained and faded and under these some doll dishes, carefully packed. These could not have been her mother's. They were too old, too odd. Suddenly it seemed lonesome. Jannet began to feel nervous and depressed. She blamed herself for being a little goose, not in the least realizing that a sensitive girl of her sympathies could not help having her feelings worn upon a little by all this. Jumping up from locking the little box again, Jannet closed the trunk which was proving to be such a treasure chest. She had scarcely disturbed part of it, and there were other delightful possibilities in prospect before her. She must have Nell over soon, for while she could go on by herself, and in a way she preferred to find her mother's things by herself, still,--Nell was sensible, smart and good company. She would take an interest, too, in discovering any source of ghostly revels. If Nell were afraid, this part of the attic, at least, offered no signs of anything but ordinary storage. Now, if she could only conciliate Paulina in some way and hear all that "old P'lina" thought about it. That was a good plan! She would try it! CHAPTER XIII UNCLE PIETER AS AN ALLY Promptly at ten o'clock the next morning, Jannet was waiting in the library for her uncle. She had timidly said at breakfast, "I will be in the library at ten, Uncle Pieter," and he had replied, "Very well, Jannet." She had brought with her the little slip of paper which she had found in the book. If she had opportunity, she was going to sound him about it, or show it to him, provided she could screw her courage to the point. Just why she should be afraid of her Uncle Pieter, Jannet did not know, but he did not invite confidences. She was sure that he had not the least sentiment about him. But she was not ready to accept any gossip about him. She would find out for herself what sort of a man her uncle was. As she sat there, thinking, in the midst of the books that lined the walls or stood out in their cases, she remembered what Miss Hilliard had once said in warning the girls: "Most of us are talked about from the cradle to the grave. Some of what 'they' say is true and a good part of it is not." It was a quarter past ten when her uncle hurried into the library and hung his hat on a small rack. He was in riding costume and looked very nice, Jannet thought, a little like Andy. "I'm late, Jannet. Do not follow my example. I was detained, on an errand to the next farm. Now, let me see, what were we going to talk about?" "I have ever so many things to talk to you about," soberly said Jannet, "but you had something, you said, about plans and things." "Then we'll talk about 'plans and things' first," said her uncle smiling a little. He sat down by his desk, leaning back comfortably in a large chair there and motioning Jannet to a seat near him. For a moment he drummed on the desk with the fingers of his right hand, looking down thoughtfully. "You may have wondered why I have not talked to you before," he said at last, "but it takes some time to gather up the history of fifteen years or so, and I have hoped that you might find out some things gradually and form the rest. I am not much of a talker. "The particular thing that I want to ask you is whether you like it here enough to make it your home, whether you will consent to give up your school to be tutored, with some travel, and a few advantages that I think I can give you, or whether you would prefer to go back to the other mode of life. It may be too soon to ask you this. If so, we can put it off." Jannet was surprised, and more at her own feeling. "No, Uncle Pieter, it is not too soon. I felt as soon as I reached my mother's room that here was home. But you would not mean to cut me off from the people that have been so good to me, would you?" "No, but I'd like to get you away from the eternal atmosphere of a school. I feel a responsibility, now that I know you are on earth." "Why, do you?" Jannet's face lit up. Perhaps Uncle Pieter really liked her a little, too. "That is nice, but I had vacations, you know,--only I have never really belonged anywhere." Her uncle nodded. "I thought as much," he said. "Understand that I find no fault with a school. But when I found that you had practically lived in one all your life, I thought it was time for something else." Mr. Van Meter frowned and rubbed his hands together in a nervous way which he sometimes had. "How you came to be lost to us I can not understand at all. Why your grandmother did not notify us of your father's death is another strange thing. Surely her undoubted jealousy of your poor mother would not go that far." "Oh, it didn't, Uncle Pieter! I have a little note that says she had written." "And there was the matter of your grandfather's legacy. Have you had that?" "No, sir. I have Grandmother Eldon's little fortune, enough to keep me in school. Then I thought perhaps I'd be a missionary." Mr. Van Meter's frown changed into a smile. "I've no doubt you'd make a good one, Jannet, but suppose you try your missionary efforts here for a while." Jannet met her uncle's eye. Actually there was a twinkle in it! "At least it would be as well to stay with us until you are grown, Jannet, and we have a chance to clear everything up. Now your grandfather died before your mother did. That much is sure. We have a letter, or did have it, written by your mother the day we telegraphed about your grandfather's passing. Then we received sad telegrams and orders for flowers, for she could not come, though we told her that it might be possible to wait for the funeral till she arrived. Your father wrote, also. Then there was silence, Jannet, a silence so long that we did not know what to make of it. "It was not so strange that Jannet would not write often to me, for I was so much older and your mother, too, thought that I was interfering and dictatorial and I admit that I thought her impulsive and foolish. She thought that I did Andy a great injustice by my second marriage and matters were on an uneasy footing between us when she was married." This was the first mention of the second marriage that Jannet had heard, but she kept herself from showing any surprise. "But that there should be no communication," continued Mr. Van Meter, "was strange, particularly as I had written her that when she came home in the summer, we could arrange about anything she wanted and her own furniture. Father did an unusual thing, you see. He knew that he could not live a great while and while we had no inkling of that, for he was as active as ever, he divided the property, giving me the home place, giving Jannet another farm and certain bonds and securities which were sent her and which she received. Indeed, I sold the farm for her, with Father's permission, after he finally overcame all our objections and said that he preferred to see how we would 'carry on.' Yet both of us reserved certain funds for Father. Such was the arrangement, and a very poor one from a parent's standpoint, though Father was safe enough in trusting us. "I had made a quick trip to Europe on business. My wife reported no letters from your mother on my return. I wrote, and received word that they had moved. I found the new address after considerable trouble. No one was there. A new family had moved in. The word was that all had died of the 'flu' or something of the sort. I heard several conflicting stories. The one nearest the truth, according to what I found out about you, was that your father, half ill, started East with you and that your mother died at the hospital, either before or after that time." "He told Grandmother that my mother had died," Jannet supplied. "I see. There is only one thing, Jannet, that has made me feel strange about it all, and that is a telegram that I found after a long time. Date and address were torn off. Some one in the household had made a mistake. It blew at my feet from some pile of rubbish back where it is burned." Mr. Van Meter pulled out a drawer in his desk and took from it a piece of yellow paper, such as is used in telegrams. He handed it to Jannet. "If you feel so I can never again set foot in your house." This was the message that the surprised Jannet read. She looked up into her uncle's face in inquiry. "Why, that reminds me of a slip of paper that I found in a book. Perhaps just your not replying to something may have made her send the telegram." "I did not think of that. I was away,--what was the slip of paper?" Jannet handed to her uncle the slip which she had found. He frowned over it, reading it more than once and looking off into space as if trying to recall something. "I never saw that before, Jannet," said he, handing it back to her. "This looks pretty serious, Jannet. It looks as if you owe to some unfriendly hand the fact that your mother was so separated from us and that you have been among strangers since your grandmother's death." "Do you think that my mother could possibly be alive somewhere?" "Of course I do not know the date of this telegram, but the word of her death seemed so clear that I never tried to trace the telegram after finding it. I would not cherish such a possibility, Jannet. Wherever she is, in that other world that she believed in, she will be glad that you are here, and I am glad to have an opportunity to make up to you what I seemed in her eyes to lack." Mr. Van Meter spoke kindly, but a little bitterly at the last. "Oh, I _believe_ you, Uncle Pieter!" cried Jannet, stretching out a slender hand to him. He took it, patted it and let her draw it back as gently as she had given it. Then Jannet drew her chair closer and said, "Now may I take time to tell you what has been happening?" "Yes, child. What is it?" One entering the library would have seen an interesting picture for the next half hour. The eager Jannet leaned on the desk with both elbows, and a bright face rested between her two hands as she related to her uncle every detail of her ghostly experiences and told him all about the pearls. She was utterly forgetful of herself and her fear of her uncle. Indeed, that had left her for all time. Mr. Van Meter, thoughtful, as always, listened, smiling a little from time to time, for Jannet told it all in her own vivid way, amused herself, at different times, especially when she told of how she and Nell listened at the boys' door and of how funny Paulina looked in her night-cap. At the close of the recital, Mr. Van Meter questioned her further about the pearls, as that seemed to be the most serious feature of the matter. "I feel sure that you will find Jan at the bottom of the ghost affair," he said. "Of course, you could scarcely offend Paulina more than to express your disbelief in the family ghost. But if you and Nell want to investigate, you have my full permission, so far as you keep within safe bounds. I gather that the ghost has not offered to harm you in any way?" "No, sir, even if it did want my comforters." "I fancy that there will not be any more ghostly visitations till the next time Jan is home, but let me know if there is one. I should like to enjoy it with you." Mr. Van Meter spoke so seriously that Jannet looked at him doubtfully. It was hard to tell what Uncle Pieter meant sometimes. But he wasn't such a riddle as "Old P'lina," anyhow. "Well, don't you think it possible, Uncle Pieter, that there is a secret passageway of some sort?" "It is entirely possible, Jannet. I had no work done by the carpenters about the old chimney, though it was pointed up and had bricks renewed at its top. I am too busy now to do anything, but later I may be of some assistance. By the way, Jannet, did you know that Andy mounted a horse and rode with me quite a little? All at once his back seems to be better. The doctors said it might be so. Do you like Andy?" "Oh, yes, Uncle Pieter! No one could help loving Cousin Andy." It was not until Jannet had left the library and her uncle that she recalled one thing which she had forgotten. She had not asked him how he had discovered her. But her doubts about her uncle were at rest. He was a peculiar man in some respects. Jannet felt that he was ashamed to show the least emotion, but she was sure that he had some feelings for all that. She might never love him as she could love her cousin Andy, but she respected him. More than ever Jannet felt herself a part of her mother's family. Hurrah for Jannet and Nell, the famous "deteckatives," she thought, and before dinner she telephoned Nell to see how soon she could come over. "I've got lots of things to tell you, Nell," she urged. "I'd love to come to-day, Jannet," Nell replied, "but we have company. I was just going to call you to see if you could ride over this afternoon. Can't you?" "Why, yes, I can, so far as I know now. I'll call you later." Thus it happened that attic investigations were postponed; but the detective-in-chief sought an interview with one of the main "suspects" as soon as she could. CHAPTER XIV JANNET AND "OLD P'LINA" Mr. Van Meter had advised silence on the matter of the pearls, but told Jannet to report to him if she suspected anyone in particular. "Your Cousin Di is above suspicion, and as for Andy and me, I can assure you that we have not acquired any pearls of late. As to Paulina, I could scarcely imagine such a thing. Drop into the kitchen and get acquainted with the cook, Jannet, and the maids, in a natural way." Jannet remembered this, but it was not natural for Jannet to drop into a kitchen, no matter how much she wanted to do it. Such things at school had been expressly forbidden, and at the Marcys' the members of the family were the cooks. However, she braced herself for the effort and pleased the black cook beyond expression by appearing at the outside door after a canter and saying, "Seems to me I smell something awfully good, Daphne. Don't tell me that you are baking a cake!" "Come in, come in, Miss Jannet. How come you ain't been here befo'?" The shining chocolate-colored face beamed and white teeth shone, as fat Daphne, so inappropriately named, hastened from the stove to pull up a chair for Jannet. "Jes' you wait, honey," and Daphne's fat figure shook as she hurried back to the oven door and opened it with the dish towel in her hand. "Yum, yum," said Jannet, as a big pan of ginger cookies, the big, soft kind, was drawn out and the savory odors were wafted her way. "Has Ah got cake foh suppuh? Sho Ah has! But sumpin' mus' atol' me to mek cookies." Deftly Daphne took the hot cookies from the pan with a pancake turner and set the brown crock, into which she put them, before Jannet on the table. This was fine. Jannet daintily took hold of one hot cooky and dropped it immediately, which amused Daphne very much. But that lady was pulling a second pan from the oven and hurrying to put other cookies, rolled and cut and laid in similar pans, into the hot oven. "Git a sauceh f'om the pantry, chile. Them cookies will be cool in a minute." The big kitchen of the new part was not very hot, though the day was warm. A pleasant breeze from a window near Jannet ruffled her fair hair and cooled her. She watched Daphne, as the last of the dough was rolled out upon the board and the cookies cut in different shapes with the cutters. There were plenty, and she would eat all she wanted in such a hospitable atmosphere. Daphne only wanted a listener and began to tell Jannet how she was descended from the slaves that the Dutch settlers had in the old days. "Yaas'm, Ah is practicably a membeh of de fambly. Ma fatheh, he done got lonesome, foh ain' many colohed folks around heah. So he went to Gawgia, whah a cousin lived, and he ma'ied ma motheh an' Ah lived in Gawgia. But Ah come back. Yaas," chuckled Daphne, "Ah wanted to see whah ma fatheh come f'om, an' yo uncle Pieteh, he put me right in de new kitchen." Daphne dropped her voice, looked around and rolled her eyes mysteriously. "His secon' wife, she was fussin' about havin' things the way she wanted 'em, an' Paulina, she ain' none so easy to git along with, but ma motheh, _she_ was cook in a _big place_ in Gawgia, so they seed Ah could _cook_, an' they lef' me _do_ it. Has you seen dat slick-headed gal Paulina takes around to help her clean?" "Oh, yes, of course, Daphne. There are only the two maids." "She went away when yo' uncle's second wife lef', but back she come in about a month an' Paulina got yo' uncle to take her in again. She's allays talkin'--don't like country, don' like country, but she stays, an' Hepsy says that Paulina lets her keep a box in the ghos's attic!" Again Daphne's eyes rolled and she made deprecatory gestures with her capable hands and the towel, as once more she bent to the oven. Jannet, her mouth full of delectable, warm cooky, thought that this was growing more interesting. "She helps clean Jan's den sometimes, doesn't she?" "Yaas'm, but Ah doesn't think Paulina likes huh. Sometimes Ah thinks she's got sumpin' on Paulina. Anyhow Ah hea'd yo' cousin Jan ask Paulina that once. Ah didn' know what he meant at fus'." "That's modern slang, Daphne," laughed Jannet. "Jan's a great boy. Where are the girls, anyway? I haven't seen them around." "Takin' they aftehnoon off." "I see. Well, I do thank you Daphne for letting me have the _grand_ cookies and not minding my bothering you. I'll run along now." "Yo' ain' no botheh no way. Come in any time. Oh, say, Ah'll be frostin' mah big cake in about an houah. Don' yo' want to tas' the frostin' out o' the pan?" "Yes, I do, Daphne. I'll be back to lick the pan all right!" Laughing, Jannet ran out of the back door again and around to the back of the old house. Already she had a point or two. The girl Vittoria, a harmless-looking, slim young woman, with small black eyes and a smooth black bob, revealed when her cap was off, was frequently about the halls of the old building, dusting, or doing some other legitimate work. She had been here, perhaps, that summer when the telegram,--no, she must be getting crazy. That was too long ago. Vittoria was too young,--but _was_ she so very young? How long ago did this separation between her uncle and his wife occur? Cousin Di could tell her. She would overcome her hesitation to ask these questions, since it was not curiosity that prompted her. But it was Daphne that told her, when she went back to the kitchen for the frosting, just in the "nick o' time," Daphne told her, handing her the pan with a generous leaving of the soft white mixture. Daphne had been thinking, too, and wanted to ask Miss Jannet about the ghost in the old house and if she had seen it. No, she had not seen it, exactly, Jannet told her, but she had heard what Paulina _said_ was a ghost. "Ah nebbah hea'd it but once," impressively said Daphne, raising her two black hands, "an' once wuz enough! Befo' they tuk the wings off'n the ol' house, Ah slep there one time; an' in the night,--whoo! sich a screechin' as Ah hea'd! Ah puts mah haid undeh mah kivehs--an' Ah stuffs mah fingehs in mah eahs, an' Ah _nevah knowed nuthin' mo' ontil mawnin'_. But Ah nevah let on Ah was skeered outside de fambly! A no-count hand oveh at Clyde's sez to me, 'Ah hea'd yo' wuz skeered by yo-alls' ghos' odder night, Daphne,'--an Ah sez to him, 'Huh,' Ah sez, 'ain' nuffin to skeeah a pusson 'bout _ouah fambly ghos'_,' and Ah puts mah haid high an' walks off!" "I'm glad that you are loyal to our family, Daphne," said Jannet. "How long is it since my uncle's second wife went away?" "'Bout two yeahs. Yo' uncle, he put up with it foh a long, long time. She'd have what Paulina called 'hysterics,' but I calls plain tempeh. They wuz maghty still about it and Paulina, she would git the camphire an' things an' go an' tek keeah o' Mis' Van Meteh. Sich goin's on! An' Vittoria sez that a ghos' sobs an' ca'ries on jis lak her now." "Why, is she dead, too?" "Yaas'm, Ah s'pose so. Yaas'm, she mus' a passed away." It was a sad subject, but it was all that Jannet could do to keep her face straight at Daphne's mournful shaking of the head that accompanied her last remark. "It's all too bad, Daphne. I feel sorry for Uncle Pieter." "Yo' uncle, he is a ve'y high-handed man, but ev'body in his house gits well paid." Here was one tribute to Uncle Pieter, at least. Jannet ran off to her room carrying a large piece of cake which Daphne had insisted on cutting for her, saying, too, that the cake would be cut before being served anyhow. The first adventure had been a pleasant one; but how would she fare with Paulina, whom she intended to "beard" in her room that evening? Unless she were shut out and the door locked upon her, she would have a talk with Paulina about the ghost and anything else that seemed important. Perhaps Paulina could recall that time when Uncle Pieter was away and the telegram came. There was no use in hesitating, or in waiting. She might be asking questions of the very "villainess" who would take advantage of her to conceal the truth, but one had to risk something. Out of the confusion in Jannet's mind, facts about the family were taking shape. For her uncle's sake she would like to find out who had prevented him from receiving the message from his sister, though she believed what he had told her. But nothing could make any difference now to her mother, and since Uncle Pieter had found her at last, she would try to make up to him for the old misunderstanding, as he had promised to make up to her for the years without a family. Then there was the very important matter of finding out who had taken the pearls, or, at least of recovering them, if possible. To stop the nonsense about a ghost and to prevent the repetition of such annoying disturbances made another of Jannet's purposes. She, too, suspected Jan, yet Paulina might have had a hand in it, and how about the maid, Vittoria? If she had a box in the old attic,--well, _that_ was to be considered. And all other things aside, how _thrilling_ it would be to discover some secret passage and perhaps find out why it had been made. Jannet could scarcely wait for Nell's company to go away. She made an occasional trip to the attic, but did nothing except peep into one or more of the trunks. Evening came. As Cousin Andy had once said, when the Van Meters had anything to do they did it, and in that spirit, Jannet brought herself to knock upon Paulina's door. Paulina opened it a crack and looked out with the expression of "who wants me now?" "May I come in, Paulina?" softly asked Jannet. "I just want to see you a minute." Paulina hesitated, but was taken by surprise and had no good excuse ready. "Well, come in, then," she said, rather ungraciously, opening the door widely enough for Jannet to enter. "I'll not stay but a few minutes, Paulina, if you are busy. I suspect that you are glad to get to yourself after a day of looking after other people." Jannet helped herself to a chair, a straight one as uncompromising as Paulina looked. But Jannet's introduction implied some appreciation of Paulina's work, and Paulina's face relaxed a little from its stoniness. Jannet kept right on, not looking around Paulina's bedroom, though she could see how clean and plain it was, just like Paulina. "I haven't had any chance to talk with you, Paulina, about things; and as I am going to make my home here, there are some things that are important, you know, like whether my dear room is safe or not and everything like that. You know that I didn't enjoy that last queer time a bit. There was some one in my room, Paulina. Ghosts don't pull comforters off from beds." "That is just what our ghost does." "Honest, Paulina?" "Your own mother told me that once, but I never knew of its being done to any one since I have been working for the family and that is many a long year. Your mother knew something about the history." Paulina was sitting back in her one rocking chair, her arms folded, her face almost expressing enjoyment. Good. Jannet felt that she had struck the right vein,--to come _asking_ about ghosts rather than announcing disbelief too decidedly. "What did mother tell you, Paulina?" "It is too long ago for me to remember, but she told me the old story about the Van Meter ghost that clanked a sword and pulled the comforter from a bed and scared the Tory soldiers in the days of the Revolution." "Why, I feel flattered to have the ghost come back to me after so long. Does Jan know the story?" "Yes. I told him." "H'm. But I can't understand about the _blue comforter_," meditated Jannet. Paulina did not follow her thought, naturally, and waited. "But you have talked about 'Her,' Paulina. Who was she?" "One, the one I mean, was mourning, after her husband was killed in the war, and pined away. The dog howled and the wind blew and there was queer music in the air the night he was killed and she got up from her bed and walked all over crying. The other I don't know, but it sounds the way your uncle's wife carried on. Somebody has told you about her, I suppose." "Yes," said Jannet, glad that Daphne had told her. "Did you see the light in the wall, Paulina, that night?" Paulina surprised Jannet by leaning forward with a startled look. "Was there a light in the wall, too? That was in your mother's story about the Revolutionary times." "I'm not sure just where the light was, Paulina, whether it was in the wall or on the wall, but part of the time it looked as if it shone through something. All I could think of was a secret passageway between my room and somewhere, but I can't find it. Say, Paulina, who goes into the attic besides you and me?" "I let Vittoria keep a box there. It is the one with a padlock. She is saving up her money and you must not say a word about it, because she is afraid it will be stolen." "Why doesn't she take it to a bank?" "She will some time. Now do you know everything you came to ask?" "Yes, Paulina, and I beg your pardon if you do not like it. But I had a talk with Uncle Pieter this morning and,--oh, yes, I forgot one thing. I found out that a letter and a telegram came for Uncle Pieter from my mother long ago, after he had gone to Europe, after my grandmother's death. Do you remember anything about it? He did not know about them, of course, at the time. Who was here, then?" "All the rest of us; Andy, though, was on a visit. He never stayed with his stepmother if he could help it. Vittoria was here. Mrs. Van Meter had her since she was fifteen or sixteen. Vittoria isn't as young as she looks." Paulina thought a moment, her stolid face looking more intelligent than usual. "I can't remember any letter, but I do remember answering a telegram for Mrs. Van Meter when she was beginning one of her conniption fits over nothing that I could see. Vittoria brought her the telegram and she read it. Her face got all red and she stamped her foot. 'The idea! The idea!' She said, 'what do we care? Oh, I'm going to faint, Vittoria. Help me to the davenport, Paulina!' "I told her that I guessed she could get there by herself, with Vittoria there, and I ran for the stuff we used when she went into hysterics. When I came back, Vittoria took it from me and told me to attend to the man that brought the telegram out from the village. Something was wrong with the telephone. He was impatient and pretty soon I went to the door to ask Vittoria if Mrs. Van Meter wanted to send a reply back. "But Mrs. Van Meter sat up, then, all wild, and still mad. Then she told me to write an answer. 'Say "No use," Paulina, "No use," and sign it "Van Meter"!' Then she went off into her hysterics again. I sent the answer, of course; and when the man asked where to, I told him I didn't know, but to fill it out to wherever the telegram came from, and he said he would. He told me how much it would be and I paid him." Paulina stopped and Jannet sat quite still for a moment. Then she rose. "Thank you, Paulina, so much, for all that you have told me. I have told Uncle Pieter that I will make my home with him and not go back to school next winter, so I hope that you will like me at least as much as you do Jan. I'll try to be as good as possible myself, but I have a lot to learn, I suppose. Did you like my mother, Paulina?" "Yes," bluntly replied Paulina, looking uncomfortable. Jannet was only too thankful to have escaped anything unpleasant. She did not mind Paulina's lack of sentiment, though she rather felt that she had shown a little too much. She really was _not_ silly, she told herself, as she walked away from Paulina's door. Paulina's surprise and interest could not have been feigned. She did not know about the lights, then. _She_ had not staged the performance. And now she had the answer that had been sent, she felt, to some telegram which had preceded the one which her uncle had found. But Jannet scarcely knew how she would tell him this story, about his wife. Perhaps she could write it to him,--no, that would not do at all! Perhaps he would ask Paulina, then, at her suggestion. That was it. A telephone call to Nell elicited the information that the company had gone and that Nell could spend the afternoon any time that Jannet wanted her. When Mrs. Holt was later consulted, she suggested that Jannet ask Nell to come to spend the day and night with her. "Your uncle, Andy and I are invited to a grown-up affair to-morrow night, Jannet, and we'll be home very late, it is likely. I don't want Andy to miss it, for it will do him good to get out as much as possible, instead of thinking too much. I am going to get his sweetheart here this summer, Jannet, and now that he is so much better perhaps he will be reasonable, especially when he finds that she still cares for him. "Paulina will get supper for you and Nell and herself and we'll let Daphne and the maids look after themselves. Daphne will be glad to get off." So it was arranged, very quickly, that Nell was to stay with Jannet again. CHAPTER XV LOCKED IN THE ATTIC The next morning was rainy. Nell came over to the Van Meter farm between showers, but late, and Jannet declared that it was a shame how much it rained in the country, where it ought always to be bright. Nell laughed at that and told Jannet that nothing would grow for them without the rain. "We have nothing but good showers, Jannet, mostly, at least. Besides, what fun it will be up in the attic, listening to the 'rain upon the roof.'" "That is so, Nell, and it will be cooler up there, too, if it rains." Jannet led the way to the attic as soon as Nell had laid aside her raincoat. Rather timidly Nell entered, when with a flourish Jannet threw open the attic door. "Behold the mysterious abode of ghosts, and our ancestral treasure house!" "Well, it _looks_ innocent enough, Jannet!" "It certainly does, but back in the shadows beyond our ghosts may have their lurking place!" "Don't, Jannet; you give me the creeps!" "All right, Nell, we want to have lots of fun to-day. I'm crazy to show you some of the things I've peeped at, and I hated to get out too much, too, without somebody after me. But we'll have no interruptions this afternoon, with everybody away that would bother us, though Cousin Di, Andy and Uncle Pieter won't leave the house till a short time before supper. Will you mind if I get supper for us? Daphne will have everything ready." "It will be fun, Jannet. I'll help you. You didn't know that I'm a very fine cook, did you? Honestly, Jannet, I'm learning to do _some_ things very well, Mother says." But while the merry tongues ran on, it was more interesting to get to business. Jannet pointed out some of the trunks and told what she had seen by peeping into them. Her grandmother's trunk was "sweet," she said; but she had felt almost as if she were opening a grave to disturb the things folded away so carefully after her grandmother's passing. It was different with her mother's, she felt, and a big trunk, old, but in good condition was full of old silk dresses and costumes that Jannet had only had time to discover, much less examine. "I'm a gregarious being, Nell, after being with such a lot of girls most of my life, and it wasn't enough fun to get these things out by myself." Jannet opened the window and propped it as before. Fresh, misty air came in to sweeten the close attic atmosphere. There was only a gentle patter of drops upon the roof so close to their heads and Nell said that it was an ideal day for old attics. Jannet disclosed her plan, which was to see everything first that looked interesting and then after dinner to dress up in old costumes and explore the rest of the attic, unless Nell would rather not do that. The big trunk came first in order. Jannet, with her big bunch of keys found the right one and opened it. She spread some papers, which she had brought with her, over the bulging top of the little bed and its bundles and upon the top of the large chest. Paulina's housekeeping was not to be criticised, but attics were very likely to gather dust. Then she began to take out the neatly folded garments, some to be looked at and laid aside on the papers, others to be exclaimed over. "O Jannet!" Nell exclaimed. "If your uncle gives these things to you, I'd fix some of them up and wear them, though it would be a pity to change them!" But Jannet shook her head. "Uncle has a daughter, though I suppose that I have as much right to these things as any one. I may have some of mother's dresses fixed for myself, because I'd love to wear them, but these ought to stay as they are. I wonder if we can't have a real costume party some day, Nell,--look here!" Jannet held up and shook out a gay silk costume, with skirt, blouse, sheer and thin, and a laced velvet bodice. That was not very old, the girls thought. Perhaps Jannet's mother had worn that some time. There was a funny clown's costume and a velvet colonial suit in gray and blue, with silk hose and buckled shoes and a three-cornered hat. Jannet said that it was almost the prettiest thing there. A gypsy outfit included a tambourine and when Jannet danced around over the attic floor with it, she stopped the performance to see Cousin Di standing in the attic door and laughing at her. The light clapping of Cousin Diana's hands was the only announcement of her presence. "O Cousin Di, come in!" called Jannet, running to that lady and drawing her within. "_Can_ we have a party and dress up some time?" "You can and you may," promptly answered Cousin Diana, interested. She remained long enough to see some of the main treasures, telling the girls that they had found some excellent relics of a day gone by. While some of the costumes had been made for special occasions, most of the trunk's contents were dresses of former days actually worn by the women of the family. Gayly figured lawns and chintzes, light or heavy silks with queer waists and sleeves and tight-fitting linings, trailed long lengths and voluminous skirts about the delighted girls. A square pasteboard box was found to contain a host of beads and other decorations used with the fancy costumes. As Cousin Di had suggested that they dress up in something for dinner, Jannet declared that they would change the original plan and surprise them all by doing it. Nell rather demurred at first. "Won't we feel silly, Jannet? And what will your uncle Pieter say to us?" "I'm not afraid of Uncle Pieter any more, and he'll just see that I am doing what he gave me permission to do. I just love that ducky little silk costume with the blue velvet laced bodice. I think that it is a shepherdess costume and I think that Mother must have worn it. Would you like that?" "No, indeed. That is just your color. I'll wear the gypsy suit." "Fine, you carry the tambourine and I'll take the shepherd's crook if there is any." But Jannet did not find one. Uncle Pieter was not at dinner, as it happened, which fact relieved Nell of the slight embarrassment she felt. Cousin Diana and Cousin Andy admired the result, though the costumes would have been considerably improved by pressing. Vittoria, who waited upon the table, looked curiously at the girls, so pretty in their new characters, and Jannet caught one look that was not very friendly. Perhaps poor Vittoria was a little jealous. It must be hard not _ever_ to be in things! But Jannet had too many pleasant things to think about to be disturbed by the opinion of Vittoria. Remembering what Paulina had said, Jannet asked Mrs. Holt after dinner how old she supposed Vittoria was. "Probably about thirty," said Mrs. Holt. "She is engaged to a young man who works in the village. I think that they are to be married as soon as he gets his house built. He is building it himself, as he has time, and hopes to finish it this summer." The rain had stopped by noon. Jannet and Nell walked around outside for a little while and went into the kitchen to show Daphne their finery. Paulina gave them a comprehensive glance, but made no comment. Perhaps Paulina remembered times when those costumes were worn before this. Lazily the girls rested in the swing for perhaps half an hour before they felt like returning to the attic. But by that time their pristine energy had returned. Jannet had a bright idea and collected cookies, then decided that fudge and lemonade would be good to take up with them, "so we'll not have to run downstairs every time we get thirsty, or hungry, Nell." That seemed sensible. They spent some time making fudge, a little in making lemonade, and went up the two flights about two o'clock, the ice clinking in the pitcher. Nell had been advised to bring her flashlight, in case they discovered the perhaps imaginary secret passage, and Jannet had one which was a recent purchase. But they had so much fun dressing in the various garments and were so hot, that they drank up all their lemonade and went down again about four o'clock to make more. Not a soul was around, but the house was locked, they found. They washed off their dingy hands, for handling the trunks had soiled them, though they had managed to keep the dresses from being harmed. After "splashing around" in Jannet's bathroom, they went to the kitchen, where they not only mixed fresh lemonade, but made sandwiches when they found that Daphne had left them some delicious ham in thin slices. "At this rate, Jannet, we'll not need any supper," said Nell, but Jannet thought that they would "after doing our real work of the day," Jannet said. And, indeed, the search was just to begin. Into the far corners, under the eaves, soon went the flashlight rays. What they disclosed was innocent enough, chiefly cobwebs and dust. Shrouded shapes of the few old things left around lay here and there. Most of the central part was floored. In a few places the girls were obliged to be careful where the boards seemed to be laid across loosely. Jannet said that the ghost had laid the track for itself, and Nell remarked that they could follow the trail, then. Jannet had expected to see some evidences of some one's walking through dust, but the boards had been swept since she was first in the attic, she thought. "I tell you what, Nell, I ought to have done this right at first, before the 'ghost' had a chance to cover up her--his--its--tracks." "Probably you ought, Jannet." They were obliged to look out for bumps upon their heads in places, but finally they reached what was Jannet's chief objective, the great chimney between her room and the front bedroom. There were the bricks, rough and red. But that whole end of the attic was boarded off with a rough partition. "I _thought_ so!" exclaimed Jannet. "Now for a door!" But there was no sign of a door in the boards. Certainly, if there had been a secret passage there, it could not have been concealed, the girls thought. "If Jan or somebody got in your room, Jannet, it must have been by the window," said Nell. "All the same," declared Jannet, "there is _something_ in my wall. It may not connect with the attic. I suppose now that it doesn't. But I believe that if _we_ can't find it out, Uncle Pieter will let a carpenter take away the panels on that side, to satisfy me, and himself, too. He looked awfully interested, Nell." "The queer thing," said Nell again, "is that it all seemed to begin in the attic and then come nearer. Could it _really_ be ghosts, that can go in or out of walls?" Nell half believed it, Jannet thought. "What ghost would carefully take a blue comforter through walls and finally deposit it neatly, well folded, in the closet where it belongs?" "Well," laughingly declared Nell, "Paulina told you that ghost _did_ take one once, you said." "Yes, she did," Jannet acknowledged. It took some time to go over the attic, although if there were some connection between the attic and Jannet's room, it could only be in a certain part, the girls thought, and there they spent some time. They looked dubiously at various piles of boards not far from the partition. Some old carpet close to it Jannet with great effort drew aside till she could see how the floor looked at the angle. The girls grew a little tired. What was the use of doing it all to-day? Jannet suspected the big cupboard that stood against the partition, but their combined strength could not move it, and there was no indication of a way through it and the partition. "Let's go down, have our supper, and give this up till to-morrow, Nell. We had too much fun dressing up first. Besides, we ought to have some one help us move the heavy stuff. I'll ask Uncle Pieter." Nell, who was quite ready for something different, assented. Gradually they made their way back to the trunks, though they did pause again to examine anything that seemed worth while to know about. If their hands had been soiled before, they were "filthy" with the "dust of ages," Nell declared,--"with all apologies to Paulina, Jannet." Again jingling her keys, Jannet went to the door, which she had closed before they began their search in the other part of the attic, though why Jannet scarcely knew. Surely there was no one to watch them. "Why!" Jannet exclaimed, "it doesn't open!" She looked at Nell, startled. "Try it for yourself!" Nell shook the door and they looked at each other in dismay. "Could Paulina have locked it by mistake?" asked Nell. "Some one very likely has locked this on purpose," declared Jannet presently. The two girls stood by the door, puzzled, slightly alarmed. "This _is_ a mess, Nell. It doesn't look as if I'd get you that good supper we were going to have." "Perhaps we can call to some one from the window." "Perhaps we can. But the tenant house is where all the evening activities are, unless some one has an errand here. Paulina said that she would be back about seven o'clock, unless she took a notion to go to prayer-meeting with her sister. They drive to the village church. Daphne doesn't sleep here. No telling how soon the girls will come back,--but _who_ locked us in, then?" "Never mind, Jannet. We have cookies, the fudge and something to drink. Your guardian angel must have told you to bring those up. Do you suppose we'll have to be up here after _dark_?" Jannet shook her head regretfully. "You be sister Ann, Nell, and watch the window for any one that might come. Paulina is the most likely one before dark, and it does not get dark early, fortunately. I'm going to see if I can't open the door. I will know enough to lock the door myself the next time I am up here, and leave my key in the lock on this side. That's what she has done, you see, and I can't get my key in. I left it on the ring with the rest, or--" "You say 'she,'--how do you know that it isn't 'he'?" "I don't know it, I just think it." Nell asked nothing more but sat on a box by the low window, to watch like the sister of Bluebeard's wife. Jannet tried to poke the key, which was on the outside, and force it out, but with no success. Then she shook the door and called. "The trouble is," said she, "if Paulina hears a racket in the attic, she will think it the ghost, and Hepsy and Vittoria sleep over in the new part. But there is no use in calling or going into hysterics over it. If the one who locked us in is here, very naturally she wants us to stay." Jannet thought of burglars, but did not mention that theory. It was bad enough for Nell as it was. She had heard the family car drive off some time before. Jannet worked at the key, trying to force it out. She found a bit of wire and she used the smaller keys; but when one became wedged in so tightly that she had difficulty in getting it out again, she gave it up. Nell did her best to be cheerful, but Jannet could see that it was an effort. She took Nell's place at the window and they ate what cookies and fudge were left and drank lemonade with less than their customary flow of conversation. It was, indeed, a gloomy prospect, that of spending the night in the attic. CHAPTER XVI A STRANGE NIGHT The girls had one sharp disappointment. They heard a few sounds below and called. Presently they saw a man walking from the back of the house and carrying two pails. Jannet called, and Nell, looking out over Jannet's shoulder, called also, almost in a panic for fear that they would not be heard. "It's the man bringing the milk for morning," Jannet explained. "I had forgotten him. O Mr. Hoppel! Whoo-hoo! Whoo-hoo!" Nell added to the pathos by shrieking "Help! Help!" She increased the fervor of her cries as the man kept right on, not even turning. Jannet learned afterwards that Mr. Hoppel was "as deaf as a post," but they did not know that at this time. Jannet had not yet brought herself to the point of crying "help," and felt that she was giving the enemy opportunity to rejoice over her by calling at all. But Nell thought that it was no time for pride. "Suppose there's a fire," Nell suggested. "Suppose there isn't," Jannet returned. "If there is, Nell, we'll take some of those sheets in the chest, knot them together, tie one end to the little bed, and let ourselves down through the window. I guess we could squeeze through, couldn't we?" Plump Nell looked dubiously at the window, but decided that she could. Then she suggested that they try it now, but Jannet thought that it would be a needless risk, and that it would be hard to get started safely over a projecting part of a roof. So far as they knew, no one else came within call. It began to grow dark. At one low growl of distant thunder Nell remarked that they were "in for it," a thunderstorm "in the attic." Jannet said, "Oh, no Nell, only outside," but Nell smiled only faintly at this. Jannet, however, decided that it was time for some action before it grew too dark. Hopping up, she drew the cover from the small bed and rapidly removed its bundles to the tops of various trunks. "What are you doing, Jannet?" Nell asked. "I'm going to fix a place for you to lie down if we can't raise anybody for a while." The bundles off, Jannet brushed and wiped with a newspaper, about the woodwork and the mattress which was covered tightly with muslin. Opening the big chest, she spread a sheet widely first, then laid on top a folded comforter. "There isn't the sign of a spring, Nell, but you can pretend that we're camping." Nell jumped up to help. Jannet spread on more sheets and a light comforter, though Nell protested that it would be too hot. The attic so far had not been too uncomfortably warm, for Jannet had found another opening at the other end, a round, glass window, which had given a circulation of air. But it _was_ clouding up. In a storm they might have to close both openings. Truly this was "the limit," they both concluded. In a storm, who would hear them? Paulina would come home late and go to bed. The "folks" expected to be out late anyway, and if the storm was too bad, who knew when they _would_ get home? "Well, we'll be missed at breakfast anyway," said Nell. Jannet said nothing. They might be supposed to be over-sleeping. However, she'd get _somebody_ awake in the morning! It grew darker. Jannet fixed a comforter in the rickety chair for herself and drew it near the bed, for which she had even found a pillow in the chest. With the chair tipped back and her feet on a box, she would be ready to "enjoy the evening," she informed Nell. Neither said a word about a ghost, but Nell sat close to Jannet on the little bed and watched the shadows grow darker and darker till they swallowed up the dim light in the attic. "Don't lose your flashlight, Nell," warned Jannet. "Never!" Both were startled a little later by a scurrying sound back under the eaves at a little distance. Jannet flashed her light in that direction, to find a bright-eyed gray squirrel sitting up as squirrels do, most surprised at the light. "Nell!" exclaimed Jannet, "that accounts for some of the noises in the attic, doesn't it? They are not rats, but squirrels." Jannet had scarcely said this when there was a curious sound again. Something dropped, "tap, tap tap, tap." "A nut falling down some steps! And where are the steps?" Jannet asked Nell if she had the nerve to go back in the attic with her again, but Nell said that she thought a squirrel had dropped the nut between the rafters or in the wall somewhere. "I heard a few scampering over the roof this afternoon," she added. There was a sighing sound in the trees outside. More squirrels seemed to gather in the attic's far corners; but they were not tame enough to come near the girls, who concluded that it would be well to eat their last cooky and drink up the lemonade before they had any small visitors. Jannet was more nervous about the squirrels than Nell, who was used to them. A cool air blew through the attic now, but when the drops of rain began to blow in at the window, Jannet bravely went back to close the other one. This they could watch. "It was pretty spooky, Nell, creeping back there to shut that window, but I saw where the squirrels get in, not far from just over my room. I saw one cute little chap on a rafter." The wind grew more violent and seemed to change direction, for no more rain came in at the window, though as yet there was little sound of rain on the roof. But with the veering of the wind there began that weird sound which they had heard once before, and Jannet, half laughing, half startled, exclaimed, "The 'Dutch Banshee'! Nell, we can locate it!" "Not I, thank you," said Nell, putting her head down into the pillow. But Jannet turned on her light and stood up, listening. Nell clung to her hand, but Jannet said, "I'm not forgetting, Nell, that I came to the attic to find out things. That sound is made somewhere here and the wind does it!" "All right; if you are going anywhere, I'm going too. I'm not going to sit alone in the dark." Following the sound, the girls carefully made their way back, flashing their lights into this corner and that, until they felt a little air blowing on them and saw a piece of brown sacking waving a little in a corner. "That is an awful place to get to," said Jannet, "but I'm going. Turn your flash, Nell, on the rafters,--please." "Wait," said Nell, interested now. "There are some boards. Let's put them across. You'll have to crawl there, it's so low, and you'll go through that unfloored place if you don't look out." Jannet accordingly waited, while the tiresome task of placing boards safely across was undertaken. Then she crawled, in the light of her own and Nell's flashlights, till she reached the cranny from which the loud sounds were coming. She pulled aside the piece of sacking and made signs to Nell of her success. Nell wondered what she was doing, for she saw Jannet take her handkerchief from the little pocket of her now most dilapidated and dusty sport frock. But the wild shrieking stopped almost instantly, and Jannet, with a broad grin, turned around in her sitting posture, to hitch herself back on the boards. "It's the funniest contraption you ever saw, Nell. It will pay you in the morning to crawl over there to see it. There is a bottle, and some wires are stretched across,--I left them as they were, but I stuffed my hanky in the bottle. It's that that whistled. So that is one thing that we needn't be afraid of, our 'Dutch Banshee'! Isn't that good! Hurrah for our 'ghos'es' that Daphne talked about." Even Nell grinned at the discovery. She was less afraid now. The "Dutch Banshee" was discovered. Rather wearily the girls went back to what Jannet called the "respectable" part of the attic. "I'm going to stretch out, Jannet," said Nell, "though I am ashamed to take the most comfortable place." "You needn't be. It's little enough I can do for my company,--starving her to death and entertaining her in the attic!" Nell did stretch out upon the little bed, with its dark spindles, head and foot, and Jannet rather carefully disposed herself in the armchair. It creaked even with her slight weight, but did not break. It was of no use to watch for Paulina's coming. The storm was upon them and Jannet only hoped that none of the chimneys would be struck by lightning. It wasn't much fun to be in the attic in a storm. But the electrical part of the storm was not severe, though the rain poured in sheets and beat upon the roof till they thought it must give way somewhere. Thanks to Mr. Van Meter's care of his property, there was not a leak. "I'm sorry for the poor folks," sleepily said Jannet after they had been listening to the rain without speaking for a while. But Nell was sound asleep and her hand limply fell from Jannet's clasp. It was a relief to Jannet to have Nell asleep, for she felt much responsibility. She dozed off herself, but was awake at every different sound. The situation, to say the least, was peculiar. Jannet speculated much about who had locked them in, in intervals of dozing. Suddenly there was a sound at the door. Jannet was wide awake in a moment, nor was she much surprised by what followed. "The third time is the charm," she said to herself. "Enter the Ghost, if I'm not mistaken." Slowly the key turned. Jannet fairly held her breath. The door was softly opened and closed. So much Jannet knew in spite of the rain, to whose drippings her ears were now accustomed. Next, a faint shaded light showed, "so she won't trip on the attic floor," Jannet decided, but it was not pleasant. A ghostly white figure, showing dimly in the tiny light, moved from the door to the center of the space where the girls were. A low moaning began. "Her," thought Jannet, setting her teeth. "It isn't Jan, then, not this time. She's got a sheet over her." But it was not a sheet, as Jannet soon saw, when filmy, scarf-like draperies floated out and the figure whirled past, moving back and forth, not far enough from the door for Jannet to risk darting between the Ghost and the exit, as she thought of doing, though it might seem to be deserting Nell to the enemy. But Jannet wanted freedom, and help to find out who was this ghost. "What are you, most noble ancestress?" suddenly queried Jannet, trying to keep the mocking note from her voice. At this the ghost retreated, for Jannet had descended from her chair, and Nell, startled awake, gave one cry and sprang up. "Come here, Nell," soothingly said Jannet, "it's only our family ghost, poor thing." Then she whispered, as Nell reached her, "get outside the door and keep it open for me; but if she is harmless, I may try to catch her." "For pity's sake, don't!" whispered Nell, half awake. But she obeyed Jannet, running for the door as if a dozen ghosts were after her. The ghost started to follow, but as Jannet's very palpable figure put itself in the way, the ghost changed its mind and retreated still farther into the attic. Jannet began to follow it, slowly, but steadily, not using her flashlight but grasping it firmly in her right hand for use either in its legitimate line or as a weapon, should the ghost make attack. The moaning increased and the occasional sobs, with writhings and bendings, as the ghost floated backward now. "Nice Ghostie,--does pretty dance for Jannet!" And suddenly Jannet flashed her light full on the figure, rapidly taking it in from head to foot. No shadow was this, to be seen through, and a very stout pair of low shoes were not well concealed under the filmy draperies. Obviously the ghost was not prepared for a flashlight. Immediately the figure whirled about, the light disappearing as it was held in front of her. Jannet could see the faint light ahead on the floor, but she lost no time in following it. It was difficult, though, to make time without being familiar with the place in the dark and to illumine both the floor at her feet and the flying figure of the ghost, who knew where she was going. All at once Jannet stumbled over a pile of carpet and fell, scraping her elbow and losing hold of her flashlight, which fell somewhere with a crash. "Nell," Jannet called, "lock the door on this side, and leave the key in it, and then come to me slowly, seeing that no one passes you. I've lost my flashlight." Nell had heard the crash and now most thoroughly awake, she took the key which had locked them in, though Jannet had pressed her bunch of keys into her hand before, locked the door on the inside as directed, and came waving her flashlight from side to side. "Isn't a soul that I can see, Jannet," she said, "What has become of the ghost?" "That is what I want to find out," said Jannet, rising from the pile of carpet, while the light played over it and beyond to a gaping hole. "Look!" A push by the ghost had been sufficient to remove the old carpet from a trapdoor, which the ghost had not had time to close. Somewhere in the depths she had disappeared. Jannet brushed the dust from her hands and asked Nell to hold the light for her while she found her own. "It flew down after the lady you see. I hope that it is still fit to use." "It probably isn't. Take mine." "No, you keep it and light me down. If anything happens to me, you can find your way back and out." "If anything is going to happen, you'd better not start." "Very wise remark, Nell; but don't you want to find out about it?" "Yes, I do. I'm so provoked at that ghost I could just--I don't know what! You _did_ speak of a trapdoor, but nearer the partition." It was some little distance to the first step, but Jannet sat on the edge and let herself down without trouble to that. Several more steps in this very narrow space brought her to a tiny platform. On this her flashlight lay, apparently unharmed, for its light went on as usual. "All right, Nell. There's a sort of well with a ladder down one way, and I see a bit of light through a partition here." But even as Jannet spoke the light went out and she heard a rustle inside. Hurriedly she moved her light up and down to find a way of getting within. Ah, a harmless looking nail protruded. "Come on, Nell, we can get in, I think." "But can we get out?" "That is so. I believe that you'd better go and waken Paulina. I'm going on, but I may get caught somewhere, so you can tear the house down looking for me." Nell hesitated. "Go on, Nell,--it is the only sensible thing to do." Jannet was not particularly sorry, it must be admitted, to have the adventure by herself. She was not afraid now, for the ghost did not want her identity known. Why hadn't she told Nell to have Paulina take up the hunt with her? Perhaps Nell would think of it. The sliding door here was easily found, though one not looking for it might not have thought of it, and might have concluded that the ladder was the way of a fugitive. Like part of a double door, a portion slid aside, for the apparent nail operated a spring. The opening was not large. Jannet stooped to enter where a musty smell met her, as well as a familiar scent of some sort of perfume. Here was an odd little cubby to be sure, but the ghost had gone on. Jannet received an impression of a box of a room with a long shelf or berth running its length and something like a table in front of it. On this lay a thin scarf and a filmy dress with yards of material lying in a mass. The ghost had left her costume, then. Oh, if she could only _catch_ her! Yet Jannet's purpose did not include touching her. Ahead was an opening, and Jannet had need to be careful of her steps, as she swung her light around the opening before her--to find stairs again! Oh, _here_ was where the ghost had come down, in the wall of her room by the big chimney! It was a circular stairway, built in an unbelievably small space. But Jannet was light and quick. In a moment she was at the bottom. Up and down before her again she swept the light. Good. There was a spring in plain sight. Now she knew how it was done, but she left the panel wide open behind her as she entered her own room, put on the electricity, and took the precaution to look hurriedly into her bathroom, into her closet and under her bed before she opened her door and dashed into the hall. Jannet felt that she was too late, but she flew across the corridor which led into the new part and down the hall there to the room at the end where Hepsy and Vittoria slept. No light showed under the door. All was quiet. Ordinarily Jannet was too considerate to waken any one in the middle of the night. But this time she thought that she had suffered inconvenience enough to be excused, even if she wakened the wrong people. Firmly she rapped upon the door. At first there was no response. Jannet rapped again, though much inclined to give it up, now that she had time to think. Perhaps neither of the girls did this. _Could_ it be Paulina after all? But while Jannet was wondering whether to knock again or not, the light went on and the door opened. There stood Hepsy in her long white gown, her short hair done up in curlers almost like those of a fashion long gone by. This was how Hepsy achieved that remarkable effect, then. Hepsy looked scared. "What's the matter, Miss Jannet?" "Oh, nothing. I'm just looking for a ghost." Hepsy looked more bewildered than ever. Jannet continued, "Where's Vittoria?" "She said she was not coming home to-night,--but, but I wasn't to tell. Her beau was taking her to the movie and she always stays with one of the girls, I mean, she has done it _once_ or _twice_." "Don't worry, Hepsy. I'm not concerned with whether Vittoria stays out or not. I just wanted to know if she were here. I'll tell you why to-morrow. Just go back to bed. I'm sorry I wakened you. By the way, what perfume does Vittoria use?" "Why, why that's funny, I guess she uses mine that my aunt gave me for my birthday. It's black narcissus." Hepsy spoke with much pride. "It's awful sweet. There it is on the dresser." "If you don't mind, I'll take a sniff"; and Jannet ran into the room, then out again in a jiffy. "Thanks, Hepsy. You have helped me very much." Quietly Jannet stole back, past Cousin Di's room, over into the old part once more. She found Paulina and Nell coming out of her room with anxious faces. For once Paulina did not look stolid. "Where have you been?" inquired Nell. "I had a time to waken Paulina, and then she had heard the ghost and wouldn't go near the attic, so we finally came to your room, to find the lights on, and you nowhere to be seen, and this panel open! Say, Jannet, I climbed up into that room, and Paulina after me!" "Did you find the ghost's costume there?" "No! What do you mean?" "It was there, and when we find the one who has that, we'll find the ghost. Did you meet anyone in the halls?" "Not a soul." "I am terribly disappointed, then, though I feel sure that I know who it is." "Who?" asked Paulina, silent until now. "Perhaps I ought not to say surely till I actually find her." Then Jannet asked what rooms were vacant and where some one could hide, and she found that they had made a tour of them all, looking for her. "But did you look in Jan's den?" she asked. Finding that they had not been on the attic floor at all, she asked them to follow her. Locking and bolting her door, she led the way to the attic by the new route of the secret stairs. It was true,--the filmy ghost dress was gone. Thoroughly they searched the attic, quietly, too, Nell standing at the attic door on guard. Then Paulina turned on the light in the upper hall by Jan's den and unlocked Jan's door. She understood dimly why Jannet had wanted to search the attic again, but she could not see why it was necessary to enter here. Another disappointment checked Jannet's search. She felt so sure that the ghost would be found here, spending the rest of the night. The room was empty, so far as human occupancy was concerned. Jannet stepped in and looked around at the evidences of Jan's mechanical turn of mind. But with a little exclamation she pointed to the bed. Some one had been sitting there, and there lay a tangled wisp of something on the floor, showing under the long cover which hung over the side of Jan's cot. "She was too much in a hurry," triumphantly said Jannet, kneeling down on the floor and reaching under the bed. Nell, thinking that the ghost was found, drew back with a little squeal. But Jannet drew out only the filmy mass of the ghost's dress. Paulina quickly took hold of it with interest. "One o' your ma's dresses that she was some sort of a furriner with. Somebody else has been into the trunks, then!" "I'm terribly disappointed, Paulina, for I thought that we would surely find her, after I knew that she had gone after her costume. Then I thought that she would stay in the house. I want to tell you, Paulina, that I went to the room where Hepsy and Vittoria sleep and that Hepsy is alone." Paulina, stiff and dour, gave Jannet a look of understanding and nodded her head. "It may be," she said. CHAPTER XVII THE SECRET ROOM Dawn was breaking when Paulina left the two girls, telling Jannet that she intended to watch for the return of Vittoria. Jannet persuaded Nell to lie down on her bed, but she was too highly keyed over the whole affair to feel sleepy. At a suitable time she would call Uncle Pieter and tell him about the discovery. Meanwhile she would go by herself to investigate that queer little box of a room. Nell went soundly to sleep in a few minutes, feeling perfectly safe from ghosts now in Jannet's room. Jannet sat quietly at her desk until she was quite assured that Nell was asleep. Then she rose, picked up her flashlight and the "darling" candlestick with its white candle which always stood upon her mantel, a few matches upon its base, and started for the attic stairway rather than going by the panel. It might waken Nell. The door of the attic stood open. Paulina, the neat, careful Paulina, had been too much excited to think of closing it! The trap door so near the partition also stood open. Jannet peered at a crack in the rough partition. Yes, there was the outline of where the top of the secret room stood above the attic floor on the other side of the partition. A pile of lumber, a few odds and ends of boards, rafters and even a few bricks were cleverly arranged to give the impression of waste material and nothing important, should anyone be curious enough to peep through. Now, where below was there room for the rest of the secret chamber? But Jannet recalled the long flight of stairs to the attic. Ceilings were high in the old house. She recalled, too, that the smooth ceilings of her closet and the one corresponding to it were quite low, perhaps to conceal any evidence of the circular stairs. The few steps down from the attic floor accounted for the secret room below such part of it as was raised above the attic floor, its outlines concealed. Jannet could see a glimmer of light from the outside, when she looked down into the dark well where the ladder led to the ground floor at the very wall of the house. She recalled little jogs and irregularities downstairs, but could not place this for a moment. Yet from some cracks somewhere the morning sunlight came dimly through. "The queer little tool house!" she suddenly thought. She had wondered why in the world that had been inserted in a brick wall. It was shallow and Jannet remembered a sort of rude table that stood against its back wall, "probably concealing the entrance to this secret way," with its queer ladder nailed to the wood of the enclosure. How thrilling it was! Cousin Diana, when she showed Jannet around had mentioned the tool house and let Jannet peep within when they came to it. "When the wings were built on, this was naturally sealed in," Cousin Diana had said, "but when Pieter took them away, he painted up the quaint entrance with its odd latch and open lattice." Perhaps the very ease of entering the tool house would make no one suspect a concealed ascent behind it. She turned to the right and opened the sliding door, finding it more easily opened now that she knew how. She was surprised to find light here, and looking above, she saw a round window, or ventilator at the top of the room on the side of the house wall. This, doubtless, matched the other one in the attic. But it supplied little light, and she looked around for a place to set her candlestick. She sat it down on the shelf, which had most probably been provided for a narrow bed, and saw that a board or leaf hung down from the wall on hinges. The hinges were rusty, but still good and Jannet succeeded in raising the board and propping it with the stick attached, which fitted into a place in the wall beneath. That was the table, then. It had held the ghost costume. Jannet's imagination was working in good order. With a smile she lit her candle. "Now I'm 'captive' or 'fugitive,' back in the old days, and there is a price on my head, perhaps, and I haven't anything to eat,"--but Jannet's heels struck against something of tin that made her look under the shelf to see what was there. The room was perfectly bare except at this place, and Jannet saw only an uninteresting pile of pans and dishes in one corner, all covered thick with dust. An old wooden box, a wooden pail falling to pieces, and a tin or metal kettle of an odd sort stood in a row. Jannet could scarcely see, through the dust, that the "tin" kettle was of pewter. But Jannet did not like pewter things anyhow. Cousin Di had laughed at her for this distaste. "He certainly kept everything under his bed," thought Jannet, in no hurry to touch the dusty things. But under the wooden box she saw the corner of something made of leather sticking out. With the tips of her fingers the stooping Jannet drew out a queer old portfolio. This promised to be of interest. Jannet decided to investigate it right on the spot, though she wished that she had brought a dust cloth. But she sacrificed her clean handkerchief to the cause and after blowing off some of the dust she wiped off most of the rest. Opening out the decaying leather, she found that one pocket had a few papers in it. There was a torn paper, conveying some property, that she thought would be interesting to Uncle Pieter, as she glanced at the old writing and the Dutch names. But what was this,--oh, how perfectly wonderful! For the next ten minutes there was perfect silence in the box of a room, while the candle fluttered a little and Jannet, wrapt in what she was reading, almost lost sight of where she was. Many and many a long year before, some one had read those little notes tucked away in the old portfolio with as much interest and more anxiety. "Dere Father," ran the first that Jannet pulled from the sticky leather at the side. "It is hard to get the food to the attic without being seen. The Captin watches us or some one is there while we are cooking. But they watch my mother more than they watch me. I put the food on the stair and tapped, but you were asleep, perhaps. I heard a noise and I hastened to go up and closed the trap. There was no one here. Now I will drop this down quickly. It is a good thing that I keep my dolls in the attick. They let me play here. I was eating some bread and having my table spread for my dolls when the Captin looked within the door to see what I was doing this morning. I put my old doll's head on the flagon of water and wrapped it in the plaid coat that Mistress Patience made for the doll that you brought from England." (And Jannet had found little dishes and dolls in the pretty box of dark wood, whose key had been discovered!) No name was signed to this. It had been folded tightly to be dropped at the entrance, Jannet thought, for it was greatly mussed and difficult to read. A small piece of paper with a large grease spot bore a short message. "I made these for you. Mother says that they are tasty." "Probably doughnuts," smiled Jannet, looking at the grease spot. But here was a longer letter and in another, older hand. It began without address, or was but a part of the entire message. "I can only pray that you may not be discovered. Your rash act in opening the panel and entering the room where the captain was sleeping to get the covering, was successful in a way that you may not have considered. The captain did make a to-do about it when he saw that it was not a dream. The men will not go into the room nor will they go into the attic since the wind has been making music there. The tale is that a gaunt ghost, with a clank of sword, appeared by the bed and snatched the quilt from upon the captain. The door was locked and the guard outside saw no one, yet the quilt was gone. For my sake, Pieter, do not be rash. I will continue to leave word of their movements. It will be safer to visit the attic now, I hope. Noises there are thought to be the ghost. Jannetje pretended to be frightened, but she can yet visit her dolls at times. No very good word comes from our troops. Our Tory neighbor doth rejoice in unseemly fashion for one who pretended to be our friend and he is oft at our door in converse with the captain. I am watched at all times, but I lock my door and write when I am thus alone, putting my messages inside the little waists of Jannetje, who was ten years of age but yesterday." The writing stopped at the bottom of the sheet. One more large piece of paper was written in the childish hand, but contained only a short message. The paper had been wrapped about something, Jannet thought. So Jannetje was another ancestress of the name. She spelled and composed well for a child of ten, Jannet decided. "Mother sends this," the message said. "Trupers leave to-day. She thinks that they were only searching for you or waiting for messages from spies. Wait, she says, till she can come to the attick after the Captin goes away." This was all. It had happened in Revolutionary times, of course. Jannet's imagination could supply the missing information, or some of it. Her ancestor had perhaps been visiting his family when the group of British soldiers came upon them too soon for him to escape. Or perhaps he was, indeed, in the work of a spy for General Washington's troops. Wouldn't her uncle and Andy be delighted to read these old messages, so yellowed with age! Carefully Jannet put them again inside of the portfolio, though that, too, was ready to fall apart. Thinking that there might be some further scrap of information somewhere, Jannet began to examine the dusty articles under the shelf or bed. Any bedding that had once been there had probably been removed as soon as the fugitive had found it no longer necessary to stay there. These other things were of no particular value. But Jannet had scarcely begun to move the round pewter pot from its long resting place when she heard a sound that startled her. She jumped to her feet with a moment's panic. Suppose Vittoria, for she was almost sure that the ghost was Vittoria, was hiding somewhere and--but a voice assured her, before she was fairly on her feet. There was Cousin Andy's dear head at the top of the secret stairs and peeping in. "What's all this?" he cheerily inquired. "Are you trying to burn up the house with a candle?" "Oh no; I'm ever so careful,--but do look out, Cousin Andy, for those are bad stairs!" "Would you care, then, if the old wreck got hurt again?" "'Old wreck', indeed! You're the best first cousin that I've got, and I'm proud of your scars, if you have any!" Andrew Van Meter entered and looked curiously around. "I see that there is a sliding door on this side, too, though Nell did not mention it. She had a telephone message from home, by the way, and left word for you that she was riding over later in the day if she could. She did not know where you were, she said, but when I heard the story I could pretty well guess." "I did not realize that you all would be up, I've stayed longer here than I intended to. Oh, Andy,--Cousin Andy--I've found the most interesting messages in this old portfolio!" "Take it with you, then, but I want to see first the way to the attic." Cousin Andy needed no help up the little steps, but looked down at the ladder and the dark descent. "You were wise not to attempt that, Jannet," said he. "Yes, that must be an opening to the old tool house. That was a pretty clever stunt of the old codger who built this, with three ways of exit, through the attic, the tool house, and your mother's room. But I would not have cared to occupy that little room for any length of time. A six footer would almost graze the ceiling. Yet he could sit comfortably, or stretch out on that shelf." "Do you suppose that Jan ever found this?" Jannet asked, while they made their way to the other end of the attic, after Andy had viewed the partition, and the old carpet, and other things kept over the trap door. "I do not think so. He would have told us. But it is a wonder that Paulina, with her tendency to clean up, has not found the trap door some time during all these years." "She was afraid of ghosts, Cousin Andy, but I should think that the workmen might have found it when they wired the house for lights." "It is strange, but they missed it somehow." Andrew viewed with some amusement the little bed made comfortable for the night and the rocking chair with its comforter and little pillow. The pitcher, which had held the lemonade, and the cooky plate still remained on the floor. "You missed some of your fudge," said Andy, picking up a piece and putting it in his mouth as he sat down on the bed and looked around. "It is some time since I have been in this attic. I never cared for attics; I was always for outdoor sports. Did you know that I can ride again, Jannet?" "Yes, and I'm so glad. Did _you_ know that I had a long talk with Uncle Pieter, and that I'm going to stay in the family and not go back to school?" "Good. Sensible girl. Dad and I need somebody like you around." "I shouldn't think that Uncle Pieter needed any more responsibility, and I heard Miss Hilliard say once that every young person was." "Dad doesn't regard you in that way, I guess. I think that you are an _opportunity_." "Why, aren't you nice! Oh, it is so _good_ to have a family! Shall you feel like going if Uncle takes me traveling a little bit?" "I shouldn't be surprised, if it will make me well. I had no hope of ever being well again until a few weeks ago, Jannet, but things look very different now." Jannet, looking at the more hopeful face, was delighted within herself, for did she not know of someone that was coming this summer, if Cousin Di could manage it? Dear Cousin Andy would be happy yet. But another surprise was at hand for Jannet, for as Andrew spoke they heard some one in the little hallway, and there in the door stood Cousin Diana and--of all things--Jan! "Hello, Jannetje," said Jan's none too gentle voice. "So you beat me to it! I'm provoked that I could not have discovered the secret room. How do you get there? I just got in and surprised Mother. Say, I was the fellow that took the blue comforter, but I got in a different way. I was home the night before you all knew I was there and I had no idea that there was any one in the room. It was always kept locked anyhow. So I just sneaked in and got a cover. The closet didn't seem to have any and my bed had only one blanket." "Why, Jan! And you never saw me or anything?" "Never even thought of your being there. I knew the way to the bed and I helped myself. If you will be good, I'll show you how I got in after I see all this." Jan was off to investigate on his own account, but Jannet detained Mrs. Holt long enough to ask her if Vittoria had come in yet. "No, she has not reported at all. You feel pretty sure that it was she?" "Yes, Cousin Di. I'll tell you all about it the first chance I have. But I suppose that Nell gave you a good description of our night up here." "She did, indeed. You poor children! I slept on peacefully after our late drive home, not knowing that you youngsters were having such a time. You should have called us." "No use in waking you up, I thought. Where is Uncle Pieter?" "He had to go out on the farm, but he talked with Paulina and he wants to see you as soon as he comes in. Here he comes now!" Stooping and brushing off dust, Mr. Van Meter came from the back, or more properly the front of the attic. He was smiling and remarked that he passed an excited boy on the way. "This is a new place for a family conference," he added. "We have come up in the world, I see." But Jannet, tired as she was after her experiences of the night, liked this close gathering with its entire loss of all formality. She jokingly offered him the rocking chair, but slipped a hand in his as she told him of the portfolio and its amazing notes. "Nobody _could_ have made them up and put them there, could they?" Uncle Pieter, surprised, put on his glasses and looked at the leather portfolio with its old pockets. "I think not, Jannet, but let us go down to the library and you shall tell me the whole story from the first. I can not get a very connected narrative from Paulina." Andy threw back his head and laughed at this remark. "Imagine any one's getting a connected narrative from P'lina about anything!" Jannet displayed the old dolls and dishes which the small box contained. "If they prove to be the ones referred to," said Uncle Pieter, "I may have a case made for them and the portfolio." CHAPTER XVIII UNRAVELING THE MYSTERIES Uncle Pieter and Cousin Andy were no less interested than Janet in the notes which she had found in the secret room, now no longer a secret from the family. But Mr. Van Meter had given direction that all entrances should be closed and that the affair should not be made the matter of gossip. Having before deciphered the often blurred writing on the old paper, Jannet was commissioned to read the messages to her uncle and cousin in the library. She did so, and they lost none of their point by being read by the still excited Jannet. She had often been told at school that she read with expression, but she did not see the approving, smiling glance with which her uncle looked at her cousin, as she read. When she had finished, her uncle said, "It all fits in nicely with the genealogy so far as we have it. This house, the old one, I mean, was finished about the time of the Revolution and this room may have been an afterthought, very convenient for the owner, as it happened. I know that it was often headquarters for our troops, and probably it harbored the necessary spies. I will commission you, Jannet, to look carefully through all the trunks for old letters or messages of any sort that may tell us more of the history than we already know. From some source your mother knew much about the old stories, but I can not think that she knew of this secret way." "She would have told you," said Jannet. "I am not so sure," said Mr. Van Meter, soberly. "She would have told my father, perhaps." A rap on the door interrupted the conversation at this point. It was Old P'lina who entered at Mr. Van Meter's invitation of "Come in." Paulina stood unbendingly just inside the door. "I saw the woman Hepsy sent me to and she says that Vittoria was not there last night. Then I went to see Herman at the shop and he acted as though it was none of my business where Vittoria was. That was all." Without waiting for comment or question, Paulina turned and went away. Andy, looking at Jannet, smiled at her. "You can scarcely get used to our gentle P'lina, can you, Jannet?' "She is certainly the most sudden person I ever saw!" Mr. Van Meter did not smile. He sat in thought for a moment, then arose. "I shall see the young man himself. I want to talk to Vittoria and I do not propose to wait until she may have gone away. If she is going to marry Herman, he certainly will have some news of her soon." With this explanation, Mr. Van Meter left the room. Jannet remained, talking to her cousin till she heard Jan's rapid footsteps in the hall. "He's looking for me, I suspect, Cousin Andy," she said, hurrying out. "Here I am, Jan, if you want to see me." "You are the very little Dutchwoman I'm looking for. Come on. I want to show you how I got into your room. I didn't go that round-about way through the attic, nor up a ladder through a tool house! Our ancestor had one more way of getting in and out." "But it was so funny, Jan, that you should have come to that particular room on that particular night!" "Not so very. I intended to stay all night with Chick and then changed my mind. But we fooled around, and I didn't want to wake anybody up. So I opened the back door with a key I have and went to bed. Then I was too cold and I got up to prowl around after a blanket or something. There wasn't a thing in the closet where Paulina keeps all the extra things, and I could get into your room, I knew, though it was always kept locked. I didn't even try the door, but went in, without a light, fumbled around and finally drew off a comforter that was over the foot. I knew, you see, that you were expected, but I didn't have the least idea that you were there. If I had happened to touch your face,--wow!" "Was the bed kept made up, that you knew you would find something?" "No, but I took a chance that it was made up for you. See?" "Why didn't you tell me all this before?" "I didn't know how you would take it till I got acquainted with you. Then, to tell the truth, I rather hated to do it." "You need not have hesitated. You needed that comforter and I had enough without it anyhow. But I surely did wonder about it, and with all the ghost stories and all, well, I haven't known what to make of everything." The next few minutes were most engaging, for Jan showed his cousin how one portion of a panel apparently dropped down into the floor and made a low opening large enough for one person to enter from the hall into the room. "Mercy, Jan, I'll never sleep in peace now, if there are two ways of getting in beside the door!" "Put bolts on 'em, Jannet. I'll fix it." "Ask Uncle Pieter first, Jan. Then I'll be glad to have you do it. But I want it kept possible to open in this way. It's so thrilling, you know." "Yes, isn't it? But it is hard to forgive you, Jannet, for finding this out about the secret room first." "I only followed the ghost, Jan. But you don't know how I wondered what the secret was that you had with Paulina, and oh, did you send a little message to your mother by Paulina that you were home?" "Yes, how did you know that?" "Oh, I just remember that your mother read something and looked as cross as she ever looks and she was a little embarrassed, I thought, when she excused herself. And then you came just as if you had just arrived, and told me a whopper about coming from Chick's!" "That was no whopper. I _had_ come. I rode over there early, but of course it wasn't the _first_ time I had come from there." The matter of his early appearance at this time had also to be explained, but Jan related how school was closing early and how he and Chick decided not to wait a minute after examinations if they could get permission to leave, from parents and school authorities. "Think of all that was going on at the farm and I missing it! Mother expected me this time, but I wrote her to let me surprise you." It occurred to Jannet that she had not had anything to eat, and she felt a little faint, to her own surprise. "What's the matter, Jannet?" asked Jan, suddenly noticing how she looked. "Why, I'm hungry, I believe. We had some cookies and fudge and lemonade last night but that isn't very staying." "Haven't you had any _breakfast_? Believe _me_, I never forget my meals. Come with me, child. If Daphne doesn't fill you up with griddle-cakes, then my name is Mike!" Laughing, but not so sorry for the stout young arm that led her along, Jannet willingly made the descent to the kitchen, where kind old Daphne fussed over her and stirred up a fresh supply of batter for her cakes. Jan, quite at home with the cook, made some cocoa, which might have been better had he followed Daphne's directions; but the result was hot and stimulating at least. "Now you go and lie down somewhere, honey, and git some sleep," said Daphne, who had heard what she was not supposed to hear from Hepsy, who at last understood the visit to her room in the "dead of night." Jannet needed no coaxing to take the advice thus offered. Well fortified and comfortable after her hot cakes, cocoa and real maple syrup, she was escorted to the library by Jan and tucked on the davenport there with a light cover suitable to the warm day. Jan thought that she would sleep better there than in her own room, all things considered, but Jannet knew that she could sleep anywhere. Jan drew the curtain with its fringes before the alcove in which the davenport stood. From little windows the soft breeze came in gently. Jannet never knew when Jan went away, so quickly did she sink into slumber. It must have been in the late afternoon when she wakened. She had not known when Cousin Di and Jan came and looked at her, and debated whether to waken her for dinner or not, nor when Uncle Pieter came and looked down upon her with a smile. "Poor little Jannetje Jan," he said, pulling the curtains together and going back to his desk to wait for some one. It was when conversation was going on between her uncle and some one else that she wakened. "You can wait outside, Herman," she heard her uncle say. "It will be better for Vittoria to talk to me alone, and I can assure you that she will receive every courtesy." Jannet felt very uncomfortable, though at first still drowsy. But after all, she was the one who made the first discovery. It was not eavesdropping, she hoped, and she could not help it, anyway. She almost drowsed off to sleep again in the first few minutes, while Vittoria was answering Mr. Van Meter's questions about where she had been. Vittoria was decidedly sulky and did not want to answer any questions. Finally Mr. Van Meter told her that perfect frankness was her only course. "So far as I know, you have done no real harm in playing the ghost, but we want to know why you did it, and of course we want no more of it. It was most dangerous for the girls to be locked in and frightened." "You don't intend to send me away, then, till I get married?" "Not as long as you make no trouble for us. And we want no gossip about this, either, for our own sakes and that of you and Herman." This seemed to relieve Vittoria, who began to talk. "I did it first to get even with Paulina who scared me once. I told her that I did not believe in the family ghosts. She did, but since nothing happened, she made something happen and I caught her at it, hiding in the attic where I had my box with my savings in it. She was more scared than I was, for she really believes in ghosts. "Then,--well, Mrs. Van Meter told me to make all the trouble I could for you, and she was the one that found that secret room and played ghost sometimes. She sent me back here." Vittoria paused, perhaps half afraid to go on, but her listener made no comment. "I did it once in a while, half for fun, too, to scare Hepsy and Paulina, but you never heard any of it, so why would your wife want me to do it? Then, when the girls were here, I didn't want them snooping around where I had my box, so I concluded that I'd give them a good scare. I did, too, but Jannet almost caught me last night. And when Hepsy told me that she asked about what perfume I used, I knew that she knew. I went to a show with Herman first and I had some of Hepsy's new perfume on my handkerchief and on my dress. I did not think of it when I slipped on the things I wore to scare them. "I whipped around, ahead of Jannet, and went around through the attic again to get my things; and then I was going to stay all night in Jan's room, but I heard them coming and went the other way, sticking the things under Jan's bed. They found them, Paulina said. I went to stay all night with a girl I knew, not where I usually stay. That was all." "Paulina said that you went into the trunks to get your costume." "Perhaps she thought so; but I never opened a trunk. These things I found in a box that was tied up in paper and in the back part of the attic." "Very well, Vittoria. Have your box taken out of the attic and do not go there again, please. I would put my savings in the bank, or if you care to give them to me, I will put them in my safe. Now I want to ask you if you remember some incidents connected with my sister, Jannet's mother." Jannet, behind the curtains, was thoroughly awake by this time and with half a mind to go out now, for perhaps she should not hear what was to follow. She sat up, but decided not to go out. Vittoria was in the mood to tell now. Her uncle's voice was not unkind and she knew that Vittoria must be relieved to think that she need not lose her place and the money which she wanted to make. "I have kept it in mind," her uncle continued, "that you served my former wife very faithfully, even if mistakenly at times. She had trained you and had given you some education. It was to be expected that you should have a regard for her." Then Jannet heard her uncle tell Vittoria the incident of the telegram and what Paulina had said. Vittoria remembered the occasion. "Yes, I'll tell you more, Mr. Van Meter," she said excitedly. "I did not care very much for your wife when she stood over me and threatened me with all sorts of things if I did not tear up a letter that had come to you. 'It is from his precious sister,' she said, 'and I shall say to my husband, if he asks, that I have not destroyed any of his mail.' And the telegram was from her, too, and she begged you to help her find her husband and baby." There was silence for a little. Jannet heard her uncle's slow tapping on his desk. Finally he said, "Do you remember anything else, Vittoria? Were there any other letters?" "One little letter that I had to tear up for her. There may have been other telegrams, but I did not know about them if there were. She was watching for the mail in those days, or had me do it." "I see. Well, Vittoria, this is very valuable information to me. I can not feel very happy over what you did, Vittoria, but it would do no good now to punish you in any way, even if I could. You had part in what was a very dreadful thing." "Oh, yes, sir!" To Jannet's surprise, she heard Vittoria sobbing a little. "I was only sixteen, but I knew better; but I thought since they all died, it did not make so much difference,--until she came." "It may have made the difference that we could have saved my sister, Vittoria, and that Jannet need not have been in a boarding school for years. But you are not so much to blame as the one who ordered you to do it. It must have been a shock to you when we discovered Jannet. Well, Vittoria, we can not help the past. We have all made mistakes. Try to be a good girl and a good wife to Herman. I will have some work for him when I build the new barn." "Oh, thank you, sir, I'll--," but Vittoria's voice was tearful, and Jannet heard her uncle open and close the door. Vittoria had gone, too upset to say another word. She had come in sullen and hard, and left all touched and softened by Mr. Van Meter's treatment of her. Jannet was proud of her uncle, and when he immediately crossed the room and parted the curtains to see if she were awake, she looked lovingly up into his rather troubled eyes to tell him so. "O uncle, you were so good to Vittoria! I was afraid that I ought not to be here, but I was more afraid to come out." "I knew that you were there, my child, but I'd like to be alone now for a little while." Jannet clung to his arm a minute, then ran out and to her room to get some more of the attic dust off in her tub and make herself quite fresh for supper. Her previous toilet had been made quite hastily and superficially, she knew. Hepsy waited upon them at supper, but Jannet knew that a chastened and more considerate Vittoria would be helping to-morrow. Cousin Diana and Jan had their turn at the portfolio and its messages after supper, when they all gathered for a while in the living room. Then a sober Uncle Pieter took them, to put them away in his desk, and they saw no more of him that evening. CHAPTER XIX RECOVERED TREASURE Jan's secret must be shared with his chum, but both he and Nell promised to keep it to themselves. For several days there were frequent reunions either at the Van Meter farm or that of the Clydes. The summer promised to be a happy one. Uncle Pieter said that he would have a new lock put on the attic door, but so far he had been too busy to attend to it. Vittoria had handed back the key which she had had from her mistress, the second Mrs. Van Meter. She had handed her savings to Mr. Van Meter, who took them to a bank for her. Paulina, Jannet knew, from various remarks by that worthy lady, still kept her savings at home, but no one knew just where, which was just as well. Then no one felt any responsibility. So Cousin Diana said. But it would be a shame if anything happened to that for which Paulina had worked so long, and Jannet meant to speak to her uncle about it,--some day. The ghost had been discovered, but what had become of the pearls was still a mystery to Jannet. She felt that she knew Hepsy and Vittoria, Daphne, too, and others about the place who seldom came to the house, but of no one could she suspect the theft. Her lovely pearls! She wondered that Uncle Pieter did not do something; but Uncle Pieter was very busy. Once when she was coming back from a ride, Uncle Pieter, also on his horse, rode up to her and asked, "Any sign of the pearls?" "No sir," she replied. "I will come to your room some day," said he, "and you shall show me where you found them." That was all, and Jannet would have been impatient had she had any time to become so, but there were too many pleasant plans afoot. She loved the place now and even without a horse to ride would have been perfectly content. Early apples were ripe in the orchard and the young lambs on the hills were the prettiest things Jannet had ever seen, she thought. May was hurrying by very fast, and Jannet was several pounds heavier, especially since she had joined Jan in his more or less frequent visits to the kitchen. Jan pointed to fat Daphne in warning, but Uncle Pieter pinched her cheek lightly once in a while and remarked that a farm was better than a school for growing lasses. The opening from the tool house to the ladder in the secret way had been made into a stout door, secured on the inside by a bolt; but as burglars were almost unknown in these parts, Jannet began to feel about it as the rest of them did and never bothered to bolt her door at night. She turned her key and looked to see that the panel was closed tightly and that was all. Bottle and wires had been taken from the attic and no sounds other than those made by an occasional squirrel disturbed the night. One evening Jannet wrote somewhat later than she had intended, for she was telling Miss Hilliard all about the mystery and the excitement. Could it be, Jannet thought, so short a time since she left the school and came to Uncle Pieter's? But so much had happened! And she had made herself such a part of the family, in these last days especially. Jannet felt very happy and told Miss Hilliard so, though she took care to say that not even her own family could ever take Miss Hilliard's place in her heart. "Perhaps I'll even find my pearls," she thought, as she slipped between her sheets and drew only a light blanket over her. She fell asleep thinking of school affairs, for Lina had just written that school closed a little later than usual and would not be over till the second week in June. Uncle Pieter had said that she might have Lina to visit her and she "would write to L"--, and her purpose drifted off into a dream. But a more gentle ghost was drifting toward Jannet, one as ignorant of Jannet as Jannet was of the ghost. It was about the hour for ghosts, midnight, when an automobile turned into the drive from the main road and rolled rapidly up and around the house and even into the back part not far from the barns. "I can't see a light anywhere," said the lady who sat with the driver and who was peering out with the greatest interest. "If it were not for the trees and certain landmarks, I would think that we had driven into the wrong place." "Perhaps we have," suggested the other lady who sat behind. "No, indeed. I am not mistaken, but I scarcely know what to do. If we had not been so delayed,--I just meant to call, since I was so near,--and I wanted to see--one or two things." "If this were _my_ old home, I certainly would see what I wanted to, even if I waked somebody up. You are hopeless sometimes, my dear!" The first lady laughed. "So I am. Well, I see that they have left the old house intact anyhow. Pieter said that he intended to do so. But you can scarcely understand how I want to see it and how I do _not_ want to see it. Come on, then, Francis, see me to the door, please, and Lydia, it is goodnight if I can get inside, though I may sit up until morning, thinking. I hope that you may be able to sleep in the village hotel. I appreciate your sacrifice. But call for me after breakfast, unless I telephone for you earlier." "Please spare me unless you are in danger," replied the lady addressed as Lydia. "Perhaps it will be just as well if you can not get in." No light appeared at any of the windows, though the visit of an automobile might well have aroused some one. The lady and gentleman walked through the pergola and into the court to the front door, and the lady drew a key from her purse. "Odd that you kept the keys all these years," said the gentleman. "Yes, isn't it?" the lady replied, trying the key. It turned, but there was a bolt of some sort within. "There is another door, Francis," she said, and they walked around to the rear door, where another key was inserted. "Honestly, my courage almost fails me, Francis." "Why don't you ring, then, instead of getting in this foolish way?" "I always was a little foolish, Francis, as you well know, and I am just a little afraid to meet my--why, this lets me in, Francis. Now I shall be safely inside till morning at least, and if I can reach my room without meeting old P'lina, I shall gain courage from the old background. Goodnight and thank you." The door closed and the man called Francis walked back to the car, entered it and drove away. But none of them had seen a dark figure which kept to the shadows and which stood behind a tree when the lady entered the house. Waiting a little, listening at the door, it, too, entered at the back of the old house. The lady, with a small flashlight, hurried rather breathlessly up the back stairs and stood smiling a little, hesitating between routes, and fingering a small bunch of keys. No one could see her smiles in the dark, to be sure, but by a sudden impulse she turned to the attic stairs, opened the door there and disappeared from the ken of the man listening at the foot of the first flight. Stealthily he followed, occasionally letting the light in his hand fall before him. But he was familiar with the place, it would have been evident to any one who had seen him. At the attic door, which stood ajar, he paused, looking within at the small light which proceeded a little slowly into the depths beyond. "Mercy,--I had forgotten how dusty attics are!" he heard her say, as she drew aside the carpet, which had been replaced, and opened the trap door. "Now, if only I don't break my neck!" But the neck did not seem to be broken, for there was no sound of any calamity as the light disappeared. The man then turned on his own light and softly walked across the attic. But he sat down a few moments later in the secret room, to wait, for he did not desire to be present when first she entered the room below. The panel opened without waking the quietly sleeping Jannet. The little flashlight searched the lower regions of the room first, for possible obstacles. It flashed on the rug, the desk, the little chair. Why, whose pretty slippers were those by the chair? For a moment only the light flashed on the bed, with some of its covers neatly thrown back across its foot and the outline of some small person lying beneath sheet and blanket. How foolish she had been to think that her room would not be occupied! Should she go back the way in which she had come? Once more she flashed her light upon the bed,--why this could almost have been herself in days gone by! Jannet's fair hair, her quiet, sweet young face, the slender hand under her cheek,--who _was_ this? Tossing aside the tight hat from her own fluffy golden crown of thick hair, the lady, startled, touched, found her way to the little electric lamp upon the desk and turned on the current. The room glowed a little from the rosy shade. She tiptoed to the bed, bending over with lips parted and amazed eyes. The light, perhaps, or the presence, woke Jannet, still half in a dream as she looked up into the face above her. Whose was it, so lovely with its surprised and tender smile? "Why, Mother," she softly said, "did you come,--at last?" "Dear heart!" exclaimed a low, musical voice. "It can't be true, can it? You are not my own little baby that I lost,--but you have a look of Douglas! Who _are_ you?" Jannet, her own amazement growing as she wakened more thoroughly, raised herself on her elbow, then sat up, and the lady reached for her hand. Jannet's other hand came to clasp more firmly the older one with its one flashing ring above a wedding ring. "I don't understand," she said. "I thought that you were my mother. See? You look just like her picture, and I suppose that you are too young, then." But the lady, whose breath came so quickly and who looked so eagerly into Jannet's eyes, did not follow them to the picture. "If the picture is that of your mother, dear child, then I am your mother, for that is my picture and this is the room that was mine. Oh, how cruel, my dear, that we have had to do without each other all these years!" Jannet's arms went around her mother's neck as her mother clasped her, gently, yet possessively, and the sweetest feeling of rest came to Jannet, though her throat choked some way, and she felt her mother catching her breath and trying to control herself. Then her mother sat down on the bed beside her, holding Jannet off a moment to look at her again. "I believe that this is heaven and we are both ghosts," said Jannet, half smiling and winking hard. "Not a bit of it," said the other Jannet. "We are both as real as can be, though we shall be real enough there some day, I hope. Your mouth has a look of your father,--O Jannet! The tragedy of it!" "Don't cry, Mother! I have so much to tell you,--" "And I so much to ask. Have you been here all these years?" "Oh, no,--just a few weeks. Uncle Pieter found me, and oh, we must tell Uncle Pieter right away, because he feels so terribly about things he has just found out, how you must have written and telegraphed to him and he never got the telegrams and letters!" Jannet's mother looked at her in surprise. Her face had sobered at the mention of her brother, but now she gave close attention to what Jannet went on to explain. "I should have come," she said, "instead of depending on messages. But I was so ill." A little knock drew their attention to the opening into the secret stairway, for Jannet senior had not touched the spring which would replace the panel. There stood Uncle Pieter, but everything was so surprising that this did not seem unnatural. "Pardon me, Jannet," he said, "for following you. I was sleepless, and as I was taking a turn about the gardens I saw strangers, to all appearances, entering the house. I came to see what it meant, but by the time you reached the attic I knew who it was. I sat in the secret chamber to wait for your surprise!" Uncle Pieter was hesitating at the opening, but with a few steps his sister had reached him and extended her hand. Tears were in her eyes as she said, "I am glad, Pieter, that what I have thought all these years is not true, and oh, how glad I am that you found this little girl for me! But I am in a daze just now. Can we have a talk? Where has the child been, and what can you both tell me about my husband?" "None of us can sleep, Jannet, till it is explained. I will call old P'lina. She will want to be in this, and can make us some coffee. Get dressed, Jannet Junior, and bring your mother to the library." How wonderful to have a pretty, young mother, that helped her into her clothes, kissed soundly the face that glowed from the application of rose soap and water, and selected a pair of shoes for her from the closet! But she was going to do things for her mother,--mostly. They heard Mr. Van Meter rapping at Paulina's door and heard his rapid stride as he left the house, leaving it all alight as he went through the corridors on the way to the library. Paulina, all astonished and more speechless than usual, came out of her room in time to meet Mrs. Eldon and Jannet as they started for the library. But Paulina held her mother's hand tightly, Jannet noticed, as they walked along the corridor together. "Where've you been all this time Miss Jannet?" Paulina finally asked. "In Europe, P'lina, studying, singing and giving some lessons myself. I'll tell you all about it very soon." Mr. Van Meter was pacing up and down the library, as they could hear when they approached the open door. "Why, Pieter, you have made a lovely place of this!" his sister exclaimed, taking the chair he drew up for her. "Do you think so? Wait till you see all the old treasures I have furbished up and put around in the old house. You will stay with us, I hope. But I know how overcome you must feel to find this child, and I will tell first all that we have to explain, with Jannet's help." Quietly they all sat in the comfortable library chairs, Jannet scarcely able to take her eyes from her mother, while her uncle told all that they knew, soberly saying that his wife could "scarcely have been herself" when she intercepted the messages. With a serious face, Mrs. Eldon listened to the account. One pleasant little interlude occurred when Mr. Van Meter said that Jannet had not yet heard how he found her. "You would never guess it, my child," he said, and reached into his desk for a booklet tied with gay ribbons. "Why, that's our annual 'Stars and Stripes,'" cried Jannet, recognizing it at once. "The same," said her uncle. "One of our guests left it here in my library and I idly picked it up one evening. Glancing through it, my eye fell on your picture first, then on your name, and I read your history at once." Mr. Van Meter smiled as he handed the open book to his sister. "Is this 'Who's Who,' my daughter?" lightly asked Jannet's mother, taking the book and looking at the account on the page of photographs reproduced with a short account of each pupil. "It is of our school, Mother, and those girls are all in my class." Wasn't it great that her mother had a sense of humor and was smiling over the booklet? But she began to read the account of her own child aloud: "'Janet Eldon is one of the fixed stars in the firmament of our Alma Mater, and her brilliancy is of the first magnitude. She is the daughter of Douglas Eldon and has her Scotch Janet from his mother's side of the house. Janet came originally from the Buckeye state, but claims Philadelphia as her real home. She sings and plays and enjoys our wild rides about Fairmount Park,--'" Here Mrs. Eldon stopped. "No wonder that you looked Jannet up when you read that. It was providential!" Mrs. Eldon's story supplied the rest of the explanation. She had returned from the hospital, after wondering why her husband did not continue his visits there, and realizing that he must be sick, to find some one else in their little apartment and her trunks packed and stored. The woman in charge was shocked and startled upon seeing her, having been told that she had not lived through her illness. "Douglas must have been delirious then," said Mrs. Eldon. "The poor boy was taking his baby to his mother, he told the woman, and when she asked if she should pack up the things he 'thanked her kindly' and paid her, she said. "Then I telegraphed and wrote, frantically. No word came from anyone. I see now that Mother Eldon was in a strange place, at the hospital, and probably had not yet arranged to have her mail forwarded, if she was only in the midst of her moving. She was seeing that my baby was pulled through, and very likely the final burial of my poor Douglas was postponed, for I even found the name of the minister of their old church and wrote to him about it. If he ever wrote to me, I was gone by that time. Meanwhile I had traced another young father who had been traveling about the same time with a sick baby that died. Kind people had buried the little one, and the father had wandered from the hospital in the night and found a grave in the river." Mrs. Eldon did not add to the sober look on Jannet's face by telling her that for years flowers had been placed at Easter upon a tiny grave in the far West. "I was ill again, and then friends that I had known in New York chanced upon me in Los Angeles. They urged an ocean voyage to strengthen me. It was Hawaii, then the East and then Europe and music and I have been in America only a few weeks, coming to arrange for engagements." "O Mother! I shall hear you sing!" "And you shall sing yourself, perhaps." "No, Jannet is going to be a missionary," smiled Uncle Pieter. "So she told me." But Mrs. Eldon only patted Jannet's hand and told her that it was a noble purpose. "We shall see about the future, my child, but I shall accept your invitation to stay here, Pieter, for the present. I am not real sure but all this is a dream." Coffee, sandwiches and some of Daphne's latest triumph in the line of white cake and frosting were brought in by old P'lina's capable hands, so glad to serve the older Jannet once more; and while they refreshed themselves Jannet told her mother many things about her school and her dearest friends, Miss Hilliard, Miss Marcy and Lina in particular. "We must invite them all to come here as soon as school is out," said Uncle Pieter. "Miss Hilliard is Jannet's guardian and there will be things to arrange. I tried to trace what had become of what would have been Jannet's little fortune, but without success, of course." "I had turned everything into available funds," said Mrs. Eldon, "but there is still enough for us both." There was a nap for them all after the little lunch. Then came the exciting morrow, with breakfast and the surprise of Cousin Andy, Cousin Di and Jan, and later the visit of Mr. and Mrs. Murray, Mrs. Eldon's friends. Jannet almost shivered to think how nearly she had missed seeing her mother, as the circumstances of the delay and of her hesitation were related. Mr. and Mrs. Murray, whom Jannet senior called Francis and Lydia, warned her against giving up her profession and told the glowing Jannet junior about her mother's beautiful voice. Jan telephoned the news to Nell and Chick and stopped Jannet in the hall one time to ask her, "How about the fortune that old Grandma Meer told you? I guess that you'll get the long trip to Europe with your mother, and how about the 'luck when you are found'?" Jannet beamed upon her cousin who was so kindly in his sympathy. "I still don't believe in 'fortunes,' and neither do you, Mister Jan, but it is funny how they hit it sometimes, isn't it?" It was after two blissful and thrilling days that Jannet thought of the pearls, when her mother opened the desk to write a letter. Jannet had been examining the knot hole in the panels where she had seen the light on one of those exciting nights of which she had been telling her mother; but she came to stand by her mother a moment and a vision of the pearls flashed before her. "We must share the desk now, Jannet," said the elder Jannet. "It is a shame to take it partly away from you. Your cousin has been telling me how delighted you were with the room and its furniture." "I'd much rather have a mother than a desk," lovingly said Jannet, "but I must tell you about finding the pearls,--and losing them again!" "What do you mean, child?" Mrs. Eldon laid down her pen and turned to her daughter. To her astonished mother Jannet related the story and opened the secret drawer by way of illustration. This time the drawer came out most easily, and both Jannets exclaimed in surprise. In their case, as beautiful as ever, the shining pearls lay before them! "Why Jannet!" "Mother! There must be something queer about that desk! Take them,--quick!" As if she were afraid that they would vanish before their eyes, Jannet gathered pearls and case and placed them in her mother's hands. "Oh, you shall wear them the next time you sing!" Jannet stood looking at her mother, who was turning over the pearls. Then she examined the drawer. "I have an idea, Mother," she said. "I think that somebody fixed this with a sort of false bottom. I did something before I opened the drawer that time I found them, and I think that I must have done it again when I closed it, or some time before the time, they were gone. "See this little worn place, with the wood that gives a little? There is a spring under that and it lets down things or brings them up again, perhaps." Mrs. Eldon looked doubtfully at Jannet, but Jannet dropped her own fountain pen into the drawer, closed it, and pressed the place to which she had referred. Then she pressed the spring which opened the drawer. No fountain pen was in sight. Again Jannet closed the drawer. Again she pressed the wood. Again she pressed the spring, and the drawer came out. There lay the fountain pen. "Quod erat demonstrandum!" smiled Jannet senior. "Isn't that strange? We must have Pieter up here to show us how that is managed." "I think now that a piece of wood just shoots in over whatever is there," said Jannet, "instead of letting them down." Jannet was examining the drawer again. "See, the drawer is much more shallow when what you put in isn't there!" Jannet senior laughed at Jannet junior's explanation. "You are like your father, Jannet, to want to find it all out yourself. To think of their having been there all these years!" "I called them 'Phantom Treasure,'" said Jannet, taking up a white and gleaming strand. "Like you, they were waiting for me. These are not the greatest treasure I have recovered, my darling child!" "Well, Mother, it took three 'ghosts,' and one _angel_ that descended by the secret stairs, to bring _my_ treasure to _me_. Let me give you another big hug, to make sure that you are real!" THE END 
55571	----	Google Books (University of Illinois Library) Transcriber's Notes: 1. Page scan source: Google Books, https://books.google.com/books/ about/whom_god_hath_joined.html?id=qaJBAQAAMAAJ. [University of Illinois Library] 2. Lower left corner of page 144 (start of Chapter XVIII.) is torn off, partially affecting three lines of text. Lacunae indicated by [* * *]. [Illustration: Front Cover] WHOM GOD HATH JOINED. A Question of Marriage. BY FERGUS HUME, AUTHOR OF "THE MYSTERY OF A HANSOM CAB," "THE MAN WITH A SECRET," "MONSIEUR JUDAS," ETC., ETC. The saying that no one can serve two masters has its exception in the case of a wife and mother, who is bound by her marriage vows and maternal instincts to love in equal measure her husband and children; but alas for the happiness of the family should she love one to the exclusion of the other, for from such exclusion arise many domestic heart burnings. _THIRD EDITION_. LONDON: F. V. WHITE & CO., 14, BEDFORD STREET, STRAND, W.C. 1894. PRINTED BY KELLY AND CO. LIMITED, 182, 183 AND 184, HIGH HOLBORN. W.C., AND KINGSTON-ON-THAMES. CONTENTS CHAP. I. Two Friends II. An Incomplete Madonna III. The Waning of the Honeymoon IV. The Art of Conversation V. An Australian Girl VI. A Day's Shopping VII. Lady Errington's Little Dinner VIII. Eustace Examines His Mind IX. "Oh, Wilt Thou be my Bride, Kathleen?" X. Auf Wiedersehn XI. A Maiden Lady XII. Aunt Jelly's Opinion XIII. Bringing Home The Bride XIV. An Undesirable Acquaintance XV. A Woman Scorned XVI. The Events of Eighteen Months XVII. Gossip XVIII. From Foreign Parts XIX. Aunt Jelly Discusses Family Affairs XX. The Old House by the Sea XXI. From The Husband's Point of View XXII. From the Wife's Point of View XXIII. Mrs. Veilsturm's "At Home" XXIV. "On Revient Tojours à ses Premières Amours" XXV. Fascination XXVI. Aunt Jelly Interferes XXVII. The Deity Called Fate XXVIII. Husband and Wife XXIX. The Question of Marriage XXX. Cleopatra Victrix XXXI. In the Coils of the Serpent XXXII. What Made the Ball sae Fine? XXXIII. Pallida Mors XXXIV. The Assaults of the Evil One XXXV. For my Child's Sake XXXVI. The Death of the First-born XXXVII. The Truth about Mrs. Veilsturm XXXVIII. The Last Temptation XXXIX. "And Kissed again with Tears" XL. A Letter from Home TO MY CRITICS, IN APPRECIATION OF THE KIND MANNER IN WHICH THEY HAVE REVIEWED MY FORMER BOOKS, I DEDICATE THIS WORK. If marriages are made above, They're oft unmade by man below, There should be trust, and joy, and love, If marriages are made above; But should Heav'n mate a hawk and dove, Such match unequal breeds but woe, If marriages are made above, They're oft unmade by man below. WHOM GOD HATH JOINED. CHAPTER I. TWO FRIENDS. "Like doth not always draw to like--in truth Old age is ever worshipful of youth, Seeing in boyish dreams with daring rife, A reflex of the spring time of its life, When sword in hand with Hope's brave flag unfurled, It sallied forth to fight the blust'ring world." It was about mid-day, and the train having emerged from the darkness of the St. Gothard tunnel, was now steaming rapidly on its winding line through the precipitous ravines of the Alps, under the hot glare of an August sun. On either side towered the mountains, their rugged sides of grey chaotic stone showing bare and bleak at intervals amid the dense masses of dark green foliage. Sometimes a red-roofed châlet would appear clinging swallow-like to the steep hill-side--then the sudden flash of a waterfall tumbling in sheets of shattered foam from craggy heights: high above, fantastic peaks swathed in wreaths of pale mist, and now and then the glimpse of a white Alpine summit, milky against the clear blue of the sky. On sped the engine with its long train of carriages, as though anxious to leave the inhospitable mountain land for the fertile plains of Italy--now crawling fly-like round the giant flank of a hill--anon plunging into the cool gloom of a tunnel--once more panting into the feverish heat--sweeping across slender viaducts hanging perilously over foaming torrents--gliding like a snake under towering masses of rock--and running dangerously along the verge of dizzy precipices, while white-walled, red-roofed, green-shuttered villages, shapeless rocks, delicately green forests, snow-clad peaks, and thread-like waterfalls flashed past the tired eyes of the passengers in the train with the rapidity of a kaleidoscope. And it was hot--the insufferable radiance of the southern sun, blazing down from a cloudless sky, beat pitilessly on the roofs of the railway carriages, until the occupants were quite worn out with the heat and glare from which they could not escape. In one of the first-class carriages two men were endeavouring to alleviate the discomfort in some measure, and had succeeded in obtaining a partial twilight by drawing down the dark blue curtains, but the attempt was hardly successful, as through every chink and cranny left uncovered, shot the blinding white arrows of the sun-god, telling of the intolerable brilliance without. One of the individuals in question was lying full length on the cushions, his head resting on a dressing-bag, and his eyes half closed, while the other was curled up in a corner on the opposite side, with his hands in his pockets, his head thrown back, and a discontented look on his boyish face, as he stared upward. Both gentlemen had their coats off, their waistcoats unbuttoned and their collars loose, trying to make themselves as comfortable as possible in the sweltering heat. On the seats and floor of the carriage a litter of books and papers showed how they had been striving to beguile the time, but human nature had given in at last, and they were now reduced to a state of exhaustion, to get through the next few hours as best they could until their arrival at Chiasso, where they intended to leave the train and drive over to their destination at Cernobbio, on Lake Como. "Oh Jove!" groaned the lad in the corner, settling himself into a more comfortable position, "what a devil of a day." "The first oath," murmured the recumbent man lazily, with his eyes still closed, "is apt, and smacks of classic culture suitable to the land of Italy, but the latter is English and barbaric." "Oh, bother," retorted his friend impatiently, "I can't do the subject justice in the way of swearing." "Then don't try; the tortures of Hades are bad enough without the language thereof." "You seem comfortable at all events, Gartney," said the boy crossly. "St. Lawrence," observed Mr. Gartney, opening his eyes, "had a bed of roses on his gridiron compared with this eider-down cushion on which I lie--the saint roasted, I simmer--I'll be quite done by the time we reach Chiasso." "I'm done now," groaned his companion. "Do shut up, Gartney, and I'll try and get some sleep." Gartney laughed softly at the resigned manner in which the other spoke, and once more closed his eyes while his friend, following his example, fell into an uneasy slumber interrupted by frequent sighs and groans. He was a pleasant enough looking boy, but not what would be called handsome, with his merry grey eyes, his rather wide mouth, his well-cut nose with sensitive nostrils, and his wavy auburn hair suiting his fair freckled skin; all these taken individually were by no means faultless, yet altogether they made up a countenance which most people liked. Then he had a tall, well-knit figure, and as he dressed well, rode well, was an adept in all kinds of athletic sports, with exuberant animal spirits and a title, Angus Macjean, Master of Otterburn, was a general favourite with his own sex, and a particular favourite with the other. What wit and humour the lad possessed came from his Irish mother, who died, poor soul, shortly after he was born, and was not sorry to leave the world either, seeing it was rendered so unpleasant by her stern Presbyterian husband. Why she married Lord Dunkeld when, as a Dublin belle, she could have done so much better, was a mystery to everyone, but at all events marry him she did with the aforesaid results, death for herself after a year of unhappy married life, and an heir to the Macjean title. Lord Dunkeld was sincerely sorry in his own cold way when she died, never dreaming, narrow-minded bigot as he was, that life in the gloomy Border castle was unsuited to the brilliant, impulsive Irishwoman, and after placing her remains in the family vault, he proceeded to apply to his son's life the same rules that finished Lady Dunkeld's existence. The boy, however, had Scotch grit in him as well as Celtic brilliance, and as he grew up under his father's eye, gave promise both intellectually and physically of future excellence, so that when he reached the age of nineteen, he was the pride of the old lord, and of the endless Macjean clan, who were very proud, very poor, and very numerous. But whatever pride Dunkeld felt in the perfections of his heir he took care never to show it to the lad on the principle that it would make him vain, and vanity, according to Mr. Mactab, the minister who looked after the spiritual welfare of the family, "was a snare o' the auld enemy wha gaes roaring up an' doon the warld." So Angus was never pandered to in that way, but led a studious, joyless existence, his only pleasures being shooting and fishing, while occasionally Dunkeld entertained a few of his friends who were of the same way of thinking as himself, and made merry in a decorous, dreary fashion. At the age of nineteen, however, the lad rebelled against the dismal life to which his father condemned him, for as the princess in the brazen castle, despite all precautions, found out about the prince coming to release her, so Angus Macjean, from various sources, learned facts about a pleasant life in the outside world, which made him long to leave the cheerless castle and rainy northern skies for a place more congenial to the Irish side of his character. With such ideas, it is scarcely to be wondered at that he became more unmanageable every day, until Lord Dunkeld with many misgivings sent him to Oxford to finish his education, but as a safeguard placed by his side as servant one Johnnie Armstrong, a middle-aged Scotchman of severe tendencies, who was supposed to be "strong in the spirit." So to this seat of learning, Otterburn went, as his progenitors had gone before him, and falling in by some trick of Fate with a somewhat fast set, indulged his Irish love for pleasure to the utmost. Not that he did anything wrong, or behaved worse than the general run of young men, but his 'Varsity life was hardly one which would have been approved of by his severe parent or the upright minister who had nurtured his young intellect on the psalms of David. Still Johnnie Armstrong! Alas, for the frailty of human nature, Johnnie Armstrong, the strong in spirit, the guardian of morality, the prop of a wavering faith, yielded to the temptations of the world, and held only too readily that tongue which should have warned Otterburn against the snares of Belial, for, truth to tell, Johnnie made as complaisant a guardian as the most dissipated rake could have desired. The world, the flesh, and the devil was too strong a trinity for Johnnie to stand against, so he surrendered himself to the temptations of this life in the most pusillanimous manner, aiding and abetting his young master with misdirected zeal. Behold then, Angus Macjean and his leal henchman both fallen away from grace and having a good time of it at Oxford, so much so, indeed, that Otterburn was quite sorry when his father, after two years' absence, summoned him to Dunkeld Castle to grace the ceremony of his coming of age. That coming of age was a severe trial to Angus, as the guests were mostly Free Kirk ministers and their spouses, the ministers in lengthy speeches, exhorting him to follow in the footsteps of his father, _i.e_., support the Free Kirk, make large donations to the funds thereof, and entertain ministers of that following on all possible occasions. Otterburn having learnt considerable craft at Oxford, made suitable replies, promising all kinds of things which he had not the slightest idea of fulfilling, and altogether produced a favourable impression both by such guile and by a display of those educational graces with which Alma Mater had endowed him. It is needless to say that, aided by the faithful Johnnie Angus did not tell either his father or Mactab of his gay life at the University, and the result of this reticence was that the old lord, bestowing on him a small income out of the somewhat straitened finances of the Macjeans, bade him enjoy himself in London for a year, and then return to marry. To marry! Poor Angus was horror-struck at such a prospect, the more so when his father introduced him to the lady selected to be his bride, a certain Miss Cranstoun who had a good income, but nothing else to recommend her to his fastidious taste. However, being a somewhat philosophical youth, he accepted the inevitable, for he knew it would be easier to move Ben Nevis than his father, and trusting to the intervention of a kind Providence to avert his matrimonial fate, he went up to London with Johnnie to enjoy himself, which he did, but hardly in the way anticipated by Lord Dunkeld. Thinking his marriage with the plain-looking Miss Cranstoun was unavoidable, he made up his mind to see as much of life as he could during his days of freedom, and proceeded to do so to his own detriment, morally, physically and pecuniarily, when he chanced to meet with Eustace Gartney. Eustace Gartney, whimsical in his fancies, took a liking to the lonely lad, left to his own devices in such a dangerous place as London, and persuaded him to come to Italy hoping to acquire an influence over the young man and keep him on the right path until his return to Dunkeld Castle. There was certainly a spice of selfishness in this arrangement, as Eustace was attracted by the exuberant animal spirits and Irish wit of the lad, which formed a contrast to the general run of young men of to-day, and to his own pessimistic views of life, so, much as he disliked putting himself out in any way, he determined to stand by the inexperienced youth, and save him from his impulsive good nature and love of pleasure. Lord Dunkeld, deeming it wise that Angus should see something of Continental life, and having full confidence in the straightforwardness of Johnnie Armstrong, agreed to the journey, much to his son's surprise, and this was how The Hon. Angus Macjean, in company with Eustace Gartney, was in a railway train midway between St. Gothard and Chiasso. And Eustace Gartney, poet, visionary, philosopher, pessimist--what of him? Well, it is rather difficult to say. His friends called him mad, but then one's friends always say that of anyone whose character they find it difficult to understand. He was eminently a child of the latter half of this curious century, the outcome of an over-refined civilization, the last expression of an artificial existence, and a riddle hard and unguessable to himself and everyone around him. For one thing, he always spoke the truth, and that in itself was sufficient to stamp him as an eccentric individual, who had no motive for existence in a society where the friendship of its members depends in a great measure on their dexterity in evading it. Again Gartney was iconoclastic in his tendencies, and loved to knock down, break up, and otherwise maltreat the idols which Society has set up in high places for the purposes of daily worship. The Goddess of Fashion, the Idol of Sport, the Deity of Conventionalism, all these and their kind were abominations to this disrespectful young man, who displayed a lack of reverence for such things which was truly appalling. It was not as though he had emerged from that unseen world of the lower classes, of which the upper ten know nothing, to denounce the follies and fashions of the hour; no, indeed, Eustace Gartney had been born in the purple, inherited plenty of money, been brought up in a conventional manner, and the astonishing ideas he possessed, so destructive to the well-being of Society, were certainly not derived from his parents. Both his father and mother had been of the most orthodox type, and would doubtless have looked upon their son's eccentricities with dismay had they lived, but as they both finished with the things of this life shortly after he was born, they were mercifully spared the misery of reflecting that they had produced such a firebrand. Indeed they might have checked his radical-iconoclastic-pessimistic follies at their birth had they lived, but Fate willed it otherwise, and in addition to robbing Eustace of his parents had given him careless guardians, who rarely troubled their heads about him, so that he grew up without discipline or guidance, and even at the age of thirty-eight years was still under the control of an extremely ill-regulated mind. Tall, heavily-built, loose-limbed, with a massive head, leonine masses of dark hair, roughly-cut features, and keen grey eyes, he gave the casual observer an idea that he possessed a fund of latent strength, both intellectual and physical, but he rarely indulged the former, and never by any chance displayed the latter. Clean-shaven, with a peculiarly sensitive mouth, his smile--when he did smile, which was seldom--was wonderfully fascinating, and completely changed the somewhat sombre character of his face. He usually dressed in a careless, shabby fashion, though particular about the spotlessness of his linen, rolled in his gait as if he had been all his life at sea, looked generally half asleep, and, despite the little trouble he took with his outward appearance, was a very noticeable figure. When he chose, he could talk admirably, played the piano in the most brilliant fashion, wrote charming verses and fantastic essays, and altogether was very much liked in London Society, when he chose to put in an appearance at the few houses whose inmates did not bore him. Without doubt a singularly loveable man; children adored him, animals fawned on him, and friends, ah--that was the rub, seeing that he denied the existence of such things, classing them in the category of rocs, sea-serpents, hippogriffs, and such-like strange beasts. Therefore dismissing the word friends, which only applies to uncreated beings, and substituting the word acquaintances, which is good enough to ticket one's fellow creatures with, the acquaintances of Mr. Gartney liked him--or said they liked him--very much. Absence in this case doubtless made their hearts grow fonder, as Eustace was rarely in England, preferring to travel in the most outlandish regions, his usual address being either Timbuctoo, the Mountains of the Moon, or the dominions of Prester John. He had explored most of this small planet of ours, and had written books in the Arabian Nights vein about things which people said never existed, and talked vaguely of yachting in the Polar seas, exploring the buried cities of Central America, or doing something equally original. At present, however, he had dismissed these whimsical projects for an indefinite period, as the marriage of his cousin Guy Errington and the friendship of Angus Macjean now occupied his attention. Then again his last book of paradoxical essays had been a great success, as everybody of his acquaintance, both friends and foes, abused it--and read it. The critics, who know everything, had denounced the book as blasphemous, horrible, coarse, drivelling, with the pleasing result that it had an exceptionally large sale; and although most people, guided by the big dailies, said they were shocked at the publication of such a book, yet they secretly liked the brilliant incisive writing, and wanted to lionise the author, but Eustace getting wind of the idea promptly betook himself to the Continent in order to escape such an infliction. It was impossible that such a peculiar personage could be happy, and Eustace certainly was not, as his fame, his money and his prosperity were all so much Dead Sea fruit to his discontented mind. And why? Simply because he was one of those exacting men who demand from the world more than the world, which is selfish in the extreme, is prepared to give, and because he could not obtain the moon sulked like a naughty child at his failure to attain the impossible. If he made a friend, he then and there demanded more than the most complaisant friend could give, so his friendship always ended in quarrels, and he would then inveigh against the heartlessness of human nature simply because he could not make his friend a slave to his whims and fancies. He had been in love, or thought so, many times, but without any definite result, as he had a disagreeable habit of analysing womankind too closely; and as they never by any chance came up to the impossible standard of perfection he desired, the result was invariably the same, irritation on his side, pique on the woman's, and ultimate partings in mutual disgust. Then he would retire from the world for a time, nurse his disappointment in solitude, and emerge at length with a series of bitter poems or a volume of cynical essays, in which he summarised his opinions regarding his last failure in love or friendship. A bitter man, a discontented man, absurdly exacting, intolerant of all things that were not to his liking, yet withal--strange contrast--a loveable character. Angus Macjean therefore was his latest friend, but it was not altogether a selfish feeling, as he was genuinely anxious to save the friendless lad from the dangerous tendencies of an impulsive nature; nevertheless, his liking was not entirely disinterested, seeing that he enjoyed the bright boyish nature of Otterburn, with his impossible longings, and his enthusiastic hero-worship of himself. So this spoilt child, pleased with his new toy, saw the world and his fellow men in a more kindly light than usual, and, provided the mood lasted, there was a chance that the happy disposition of Macjean might ameliorate to some extent the gloom of his own temperament. On his part, Angus was flattered by the friendship of such a clever man, and moreover secretly admired the cynicism of his companion, though, truth to tell, he did not always understand the vague utterances of his oracle, for Gartney was somewhat enigmatic at times. Still on the whole Angus liked him, and his enthusiastic nature led him to enuow his idol with many perfections which it certainly did not possess. Thus these two incongruous natures had come together, but how long such an amicable state of things would last was questionable. There was always the fatal rock of boredom ahead, upon which their friendship might be wrecked, and if Gartney grew weary of Otterburn or Otterburn of Gartney, the result would be--well the result was still to come. CHAPTER II. AN INCOMPLETE MADONNA. "She is a maid Who hath a look prophetic in her eyes, A longing for--she knows not what herself; Yet if by chance when kneeling rapt in prayer, She raised her eyes to Mother Mary's face, Within her breast a thought--till then unguessed, Amazing all her dreamings virginal, Would show her, by that vision motherly, The something needed to complete her life." "Then what is she?" "She is an Incomplete Madonna." They were near the end of their journey when Gartney made this reply, and having reduced the chaos of books and papers into something like order, they were both sitting up with their garments in a more presentable condition, smoking cigarettes, and talking about the Erringtons. This family, consisting of two people, male and female, bride and bridegroom, were staying at the Villa Tagni on Lake Como, and Sir Guy Errington, being a cousin of Gartney's, had asked his eccentric relative to pay them a visit while in the vicinity, which he had consented to do. This being the case, Otterburn, who, unacquainted with the happy pair, except as to their name and relationship to his friend, was cross-examining Eustace with a view to finding out as much as he could about them before being introduced. Sir Guy, according to his cynical cousin, was a handsome young fellow, with three ideas of primitive simplicity in his head, namely, shooting, hunting, and dining. Quite of the orthodox English type, according to the Gallic "it's-a-fine-day-let-us-go-and-kill-something" idea, so Otterburn, having met many such heroes of sporting instincts, asked no more questions regarding the gentleman, but being moved by the inevitable curiosity of man concerning woman, put the three orthodox questions which form a social trinity of perfection in masculine eyes. "Is she pretty?" Silence on the part of Mr. Eustace Gartney. "Is she young?" Still silence, but the ghost of a smile on the thin lips. "Is she rich?" Oracle again mute, whereupon the exasperated worshipper queries more comprehensively: "Then what is she?" Vague, enigmatic answer of the oracle: "She is an Incomplete Madonna." Otterburn stared in puzzled surprise at this epigrammatic response to his boyish cross-examination, and after a bewildered pause burst out laughing. "You're too deep for me, Gartney," he said at length, blowing a cloud of thin blue smoke. "I don't understand that intellectual extract of beef wherein the qualities of one's friends are boiled down into a single witty phrase." This reply pleased Eustace, especially as he was conscious of having said rather a neat thing, so glancing out into the brilliant world of sunshine to see how far they were from their destination, he lighted another cigarette and explained himself gravely: "I am very fond of ticketing my friends in that way, as it saves such a lot of trouble in answering questions; if you asked me what I should like in my tea, I should not answer 'the sweet juice of cane crystallized into white grains.' No! I should simply say 'sugar,' which includes all the foregoing; therefore when you ask me to describe Lady Errington, I say she is an incomplete Madonna, which is an admirable description of her in two words." "This," remarked Otterburn, somewhat annoyed, "is a lecture on the use and abuse of epigrams. I don't want to know about epigrams, but I do want to know about Lady Errington. Your two-word description is no doubt witty, but it doesn't answer any of my questions." "Pardon me, it answers the whole three." "I don't see it." "Listen then, oh groper in Cimmerian gloom. You ask if Lady Errington is young--of course, the Madonna is always painted young. Is she pretty? The Madonna, as you will see in Italian pictures, is absolutely lovely. Is she rich? My dear lad, we well know Mary was the wife of a carpenter, and therefore poor in worldly wealth. Ergo, I have answered all your questions by the use of the phrase incomplete Madonna." "A very whimsical explanation at best, besides, you have answered more than I asked by the use of the word incomplete--why is Lady Errington incomplete?" "Because she is not yet a mother." "Oh, confound your mystic utterances," cried the Master, comically, "do descend from your cloudy heights and tell me what you mean. I gather from your extremely hazy explanation that Lady Errington is young, pretty, and poor, also that she is not a mother. So far so good. Proceed, but for heaven's sake no more epigrams." "I'm afraid the beauty of an epigram is lost on you Macjean?" "Entirely! I am neither a poet nor a student, so don't waste your eloquence on me." "Well, I won't," answered Gartney, smiling. "I'll have pity on your limited understanding and tell you all about Alizon Errington's marriage in plain English." "Do, it will pass the time delightfully until we leave this infernal train.' "Lady Errington, my young friend," said Eustace leisurely, "is what you, with your sinful misuse of the Queen's English, would call 'a jolly pretty woman,' of the age of twenty-five, but I may as well say that she looks much older than that--this is no doubt the peculiar effect of the life she led before her marriage." "On the racket," interposed Otterburn, scenting a scandal. "Nothing of the sort," retorted Gartney, severely. "Lady Errington has led the life of a Saint Elizabeth." "Never heard of her. The worthy Mactab didn't approve of saints, as they savoured too much of the Scarlet Woman." "At present I will not enlighten your ignorance," said Eustace drily, "it would take too long and I might subvert the training of the excellent Mactab which has been such a signal success with you." Otterburn grinned at this fine piece of irony, but offered no further interruption, so Eustace went on with his story. "I knew Lady Errington first--by the way, in saying I know her, I don't mean personally. I have seen her, heard her speak and met her at the houses of friends, but I have never been introduced to her." "Why not?" "I don't know if I can give any particular explanation; she didn't attract me much as Alizon Mostyn, so I did not seek to know her, nor did she ever show any desire to make my acquaintance, so beyond knowing each other by sight we remained strangers, a trick of Fate, I suppose--that deity is fond of irony." "You're becoming epigrammatic again," said Otterburn, warningly, "proceed with the narrative." Eustace laughed, and took up the thread of his discourse without further preamble. "Lady Errington is the daughter of the late Gabriel Mostyn, who was without doubt one of the biggest scoundrels who ever infested the earth, that is saying a great deal considering what I know of my friends, but I don't think it is exaggerated. He was a man of good family, and being a younger son, was, in conformity with that ridiculous law of English primogeniture, sent out into the world with a younger son's portion to make his way, which he did, and a very black way it was. Why a man with a handsome exterior, a clever brain, and a consummate knowledge of human nature, should have devoted all those advantages to leading a bad life I don't know, but the wicked fairy who came to Gabriel Mostyn's cradle, had neutralised all the gifts of her sisters by the bestowal of an evil soul, for his career, from the time he left the family roof until the time he died under it, was one long infamy. "He was a diplomatist first, and was getting on capitally, being attaché at the Embassy at Constantinople, when he was caught selling State secrets to the Russian Government somewhere about the time of the Crimean War, and as the affair was too glaring to be hushed up, he was kicked out in disgrace. After this disagreeable episode he led a desultory sort of existence, wandering about the Continent. He was well known at the gambling hells, and his compatriots generally gave him a pretty wide berth when they chanced to meet him. In Germany he married a charming woman, a daughter of a Baron Von Something, and settled down for a time. However, to keep his hand in, he worried his poor wife into her grave, and she died three years after the marriage, leaving him two children--a son and the present Lady Errington. "Mrs. Mostyn had some property of her own, which she left to her son, and in the event of the son's death the husband was to inherit. It was a foolish will to make, knowing as she must have done her husband's disposition, and it was rather a heartless thing for the mother to leave her daughter out in the cold. No doubt, however, the astute Gabriel had something to do with it. At all events he did not trouble much about his children, but leaving them to the care of their German relatives, went off to Spain, where he was mixed up in the Carlist war, much to the delight of everyone, for they thought he might be killed. "The devil looks after his own, however, and Mostyn turned up at the conclusion of the war minus an arm, but as bad as ever. Then he went off to South America, taking his son with him." "There was nothing very bad in that, at all events," said Otterburn, who was listening with keen interest. "Shortly after he arrived at Lima the son disappeared." "The devil!" interrupted Angus, sitting up quickly; "he surely didn't kill the boy?" "That is the question," said Eustace grimly, "nobody knows what he did with him, but at all events the boy disappeared and was never heard of again. There was some of that eternal fighting going on between the South American Republics, and Mostyn said the lad had been shot, but if he was," pursued Gartney slowly, "I believe his father did it." "Surely not--he had no reason." "You forget," observed Eustace sardonically, "I told you the boy inherited his mother's money, that was, no doubt, the reason, for Mostyn came back to Europe alone, claimed the money, and after obtaining it with some difficulty, soon squandered it on his own vicious pleasures. Then, as a reward for such conduct, his elder brother died without issue, and Mr. Gabriel Mostyn, blackguard, Bohemian and suspected murderer, came in for the family estates." "The wicked flourish like a green bay tree," observed Angus, remembering the worthy Mactab's biblical readings in a hazy kind of way, and misquoting Scripture. "The wicked man didn't flourish in this case," retorted Eustace, promptly. "Nemesis was on his track although he little knew it. He took his daughter back with him to England, duly came into possession of the estate, and tried to white-wash his character with society. His reputation, however, was too unsavoury for anyone to have anything to do with him, so in a rage he returned to his old ways and outdid in infamy all his previous life. No one was cruel enough to enlighten his daughter, whom he had left in seclusion at the family seat, and she remained quite ignorant of her father's conduct, which was a good thing for her peace of mind. "For some years Mostyn, defying God and man, pursued his evil career, but at length Nature, generous in lending but cruel in exacting, demanded back all she had lent, and he was struck down in the full tide of his evil prosperity by a stroke of paralysis." "Served him jolly well right," observed Otterburn heartily. "So everybody thought. Well, he was taken down to his country house, and there for four terrible years Alizon Mostyn devoted herself to nursing him. What that poor girl suffered during those four years no one knows nor ever will know, for despite the blow which had fallen on him, Gabriel Mostyn was as wicked as ever, and I believe his curses and blasphemy against his punishment were something awful. No one ever came to see him but the doctors, although I was told a clergyman did attempt to make some enquiries after his soul, but retreated in dismay before the foul language used by the old reprobate. His daughter put up with all this, and in spite of the persuasions of her friends, who tried to take her away from that terrible bed-side, she attended him to the end with devoted affection. She saw him die, and from all accounts his death-bed was enough to have given her the horrors for the rest of her life, for only his lower extremities being paralysed, they said he tore the bedclothes to ribbons in his last paroxysm, cursing like a fiend the whole time." "And did she stay through it all?" "Yes! till the breath was out of his wicked old body. I believe his last breath was a curse, and just before he died it took two men to hold him down by main force in the bed." "Great heavens! how awful," ejaculated Otterburn in a shocked tone; "what a terrible scene for that poor girl to witness--and afterwards?" "Oh, afterwards she came up to London," replied Gartney, after a pause; "the old man had got rid of all the property, and even the Hall was so heavily mortgaged that it had to be sold. She stayed with some relatives, and there was some talk of her becoming a Sister of Mercy. I dare say she would have done so, her vocation evidently being in the Florence Nightingale line, had she not met with my cousin Errington, who fell in love with her, and three months ago married her." "Curious history," commented Angus idly. "I don't wonder she looks older than she is, after coming through all that misery, but I hope she doesn't make her past life a text upon which to prose about religion." "No, I don't think she does. I have been told she is somewhat serious, but a charming woman to talk to." "Not the sort of woman likely to be attracted by a sporting blade like Errington." Gartney held his peace at this remark and looked thoughtfully at his cigarette. "Does she love him?" asked the Master, noticing the silence of his companion. "Does she love him?" replied Gartney, meditatively. "I hardly know. Guy isn't a bad sort of fellow as men go, he's a straightforward, athletic, stupid young Englishman." "Married to a saint." "Oh, I assure you he admires and loves the saint immensely, judging from his enthusiastic letters to me about her perfections. She is fair to look on, she is a thoroughly pure, good woman, and will, without doubt, make an excellent mother. What more can a man desire? "I'm afraid you'd desire a good deal more." "Ah but then you see I'm not a man, but a combination of circumstances." "I don't understand." "No? It is rather difficult of comprehension, I admit. What I mean is, that the circumstances of my having been an orphan of my bringing up, my command of money, and above all the circumstances of the age I live in, have all made me the curious creature I am." "Oh I you admit then that you are curious." "So much so that I doubt if any woman in existence would satisfy me as a companion for more than a few days. A fast woman irritates me, a clever woman enrages me, and a good one bores me." "And Lady Errington?" "Is happier with her stupid adoring husband than she would be with a bundle of contradictions like myself." "Yet she does not love this stupid adoring husband." "I never said that," observed Eustace hastily. "Not in words, certainly, but you hinted---- "I hinted nothing, because I'm not sure--how can I be when I tell you I don't know Lady Errington?" "You appear to have studied her pretty closely at all events." "A mere whim on my part, I assure you; besides, Guy has written to me about his wife, and I--well I've gathered a lot of nonsensical ideas from his letters." "Then there is a possibility that she does not love him," persisted Otterburn, a trifle maliciously. "How annoying you are, Macjean," said Eustace in a vexed tone. "Of course there are always possibilities. In this case, however, I can only refer you to Heine, 'There is always one who loves and one who is loved." Otterburn saw that Eustace was rather annoyed at his persistency, so did not press the point, but contented himself with observing: "Well, I think I know Lady Errington's character pretty well by this time. She is a charming woman with a bad history, a serious face, and a wifely regard for an adoring husband. Am I right?" "Well, yes--to a certain extent." "Still, all this does not explain the whole of your incomplete Madonna phrase. Tell me exactly what you mean." Eustace thought for a moment, and then began to speak in his slow languid voice. "Last time I was in Italy," he said dreamily, "I one day strolled into a village church built on the side of a hill above the blue waters of a still lake. Outside it was a hot, brilliant day, something like this, but within all was coolness and dim twilight. "At a side altar tall candles glimmered before a shrine of the Virgin, and cast their pale glow on a large picture of the Madonna which was hanging upon the wall of the chapel. I don't know the name of the artist who painted the figure, but it made a great impression upon me. I'm afraid I was impressionable in those days. We all lose our finer feelings as the years go by. "Well, the painter had depicted the Mother standing alone, with sombre clouds beneath her white feet, her hands, long and pale, folded across her breast, and her face with a yearning expression lifted to a ray of light from the mystic dove of the Holy Ghost, which pierced the darkness of the sky. There was no infant Jesus in her arms, such as we generally see in altar-pieces, and I fancy the idea of the artist was to depict Mary as a pure solitary woman, before the announcement of the Conception. In her eyes, sad and deep, dwelt an expression of intense yearning, and on her beautiful face the look of a woman longing for the pleasures of maternity. "I never forgot the hopeless craving of that gaze, the hungry longing for the fondling arms and inarticulate cries of a child. Only once have I seen such a look on a human countenance, and that was on Lady Errington's before her marriage; she had the same hungry look in her eyes which can only be appeased by the birth of a child, and which will give her that special love and affection needed to complete her life. Therefore I call her an incomplete Madonna, for when she becomes a mother that yearning gaze will pass away for ever, and be succeeded by the serene beatitude that painters give the face of the Virgin when she clasps the child Jesus to her breast, encircled by the adoring hosts of heaven." "That is a very poetical interpretation of a picture," said Otterburn when Eustace had ended. "I doubt however if I should draw the same conclusions were I to see the picture." "You will not see the picture I refer to but you will meet Lady Errington, then you can give me your opinion." "I'm afraid it will not coincide with yours. But if all her love is thus centred on the coming of a child, when it is born she will love it passionately to the exclusion of her husband." "Perhaps!" replied Eustace calmly. "However we shall see. It is a curious study of a woman's character, and I am anxious to see if my idea is a correct one. Of this, however, I am certain, that the day a child is born to Alizon Errington will be a sad day for her husband if he worships her over much, for he will have to be satisfied with the crumbs of love that fall from the child's table." "Ah! that is one of those things yet to be proved," said Otterburn rising, as the train, approaching Chiasso, slowed gradually down. "But here we are at the end of our journey." "For which the Lord be thanked," replied Eustace, and jumped out on to the platform. CHAPTER III. THE WANING OF THE HONEYMOON. "Ah, love how quickly fades the rose, When after sunshine come the snows, So joys may change to cruel woes Thro' Cupid's treason. But roses will their bloom renew, And snows fall not from heavens blue, So hearts like ours will still be true, Through every season." It certainly would be difficult to find a more charming residence than the Villa Tagni. Standing on the extreme verge of a low rocky promontory, which ran out some distance into the tideless waters of Lake Como, it appeared like some fairy palace as it nestled amid the cool green of its surrounding trees and reflected its delicately ornate façade in the still mirror of the water. Like most Italian houses it had a somewhat theatrical appearance, with its bright pink-coloured walls and vividly green shutters, set in broad frames of snow-white stone. Then again, these walls being decorated with arabesque designs in various brilliant tints, the general effect at a distance was that of cunningly wrought mosaic, while above this bizarre combination of colours sloped the roof of dull-hued red tiles; the picturesque whole standing out in glowing relief from the emerald background of heavily-foliaged trees of ilex, tamarisk, chestnut and cypress. High above towered a great mountain, with its grey scarred peak showing suddenly through its green forests against the clear blue of an Italian sky. More than half-way down, the highway ran along the slope like a sinuous white serpent, and below nestled the villa by the water's edge. Bright, fanciful, jewel-like, it was the very realization of a poet's dream, the magic outcome of some Oriental phantasy, such as we read of in those strange Arabian tales where the genii rear visionary palaces under the powerful spells of Solomon ben Daoud. A broad stone terrace ran along the front of the villa, on to which admission was given from the house by wide French windows, generally masked by their venetian shutters, which excluded the glare of the sun from the inner apartments. A double flight of steps descended from this terrace sheer into the cool water upon which floated the graceful pleasure boat belonging to the villa, and on either side grew dense masses of sycamore, fir, oak and laurel sloping down to the verge of the lake, their uniform tints broken at intervals by the pale grey foliage of olive trees. Radiant in the sunlight glowed the rosy blossoms of the oleander, sudden amid the shadow flashed the golden trails of drooping laburnams--here, like the fabled fruit of Hesperides, hung golden oranges, there the pallid yellow ovals of scented lemons, and deep in the faint twilight of glossy leaves glimmered the warm white blossoms of the magnolia tree, ivory censers from whence breathed those voluptuous perfumes which confuse the brain like the fumes of opium smoke. And then the flowers! Surely this was the paradise of flowers, which here grew in a prodigal profusion unknown in the carefully-cultured gardens of chill northern lands where the fruitful footsteps of Flora pause but a moment. In this favoured clime, however, the goddess ever remains, and adorns her resting place with lavish bounty of her fast-fading treasures. Here deeply-flushed roses scattered their showers of fragrant leaves, yonder bloomed the pale amethystine heliotrope, fiercely amid the verdure burned the scarlet blossoms of the geranium, and, in secluded corners, slender virginal lilies hinted at the pale mysticism of the cloister, while red anemones, grey-green rosemary, blue violets, still bluer gentian, many-tinted azaleas, snowy asphodels, and yellow hawkweeds all grew together in a confused mass of brilliant colours, and every vagrant wind ruffling the still surface of the lake sent a rich breath of fragrance through the drowsy air. Over all, the deep azure of the cloudless sky, from whence shone the fierce sun on the lofty encircling mountains, the arid plains, the clustering villages huddled round the slender white _campanili_ of their churches, the glittering waters of the lake, the brightly coloured villas, and on the brilliant profusion of flowers which almost hid the teeming bosom of the green earth in this garden of the world. It was late in the afternoon, and the cool breeze of the coming night was already commencing to make its welcome presence felt, when Guy Errington and his wife, the present occupants of Villa Tagni, came out on to the terrace to enjoy this most delightful hour of the Italian day. The servants arranged some Turkish rugs on the tesselated pavement, placed thereon three or four comfortable lounging chairs of wicker work, and set forth a small round table, on the white cloth of which stood a tea service, with a small silver kettle hissing merrily over a spirit lamp, some plates of cake and fruit, a few tall thin-stemmed glasses, and a straw-covered flask of red Chianti wine. These arrangements being completed they retired, and Lady Errington making her appearance sat down in one of the chairs, while Sir Guy, looking cool and comfortable in his white flannels, perched himself perilously on the balustrade of the terrace with a cigarette between his lips. And surely nothing could be more charming than this peaceful scene, with the exquisite view of the lake, the fragrant coolness of the breeze, the romantic-looking terrace, the pleasant evidence of hospitality, and this young Adam and Eve to give life to the whole. Aged twenty-eight, with a sunburnt face, a fair moustache, merry blue eyes and a stalwart figure, Sir Guy was certainly a very handsome young man, the very type of a well-born, well-bred Englishman, and a greater contrast to his lusty physique could hardly have been found than that of his wife, with her fragile frame, her pale serious face, and smooth coils of lustrous golden hair. In her loose tea-gown of dead white Chinese silk unrelieved by any tint, she looked almost as wan and colourless as the perfumed knot of snowy lilies at her breast, and the great fan of white ostrich feathers she wielded in her slender hand was rivalled by the pallor of her face. The dreaming look in her calm, blue eyes, the slight droop of the thin red lips which gave a touch of sadness to her mobile mouth, and the exquisite transparency of her complexion, all added to the fragile look of this fair pale woman, whose spirituality was enhanced by the faint shadows which now began to fill the warm air. Guy Errington, sturdy and practical, did not as a rule indulge in any fanciful musings, but something in the peculiar delicacy of her expression seemed to strike him suddenly, and throwing away his cigarette he bent over his pale wife with an air of the utmost solicitude. "I hope you have not felt the heat too much, dear," he said, anxiously touching the faint rose tint of her cheek with a gentle finger, "you look as white as a ghost." Lady Errington smiled languidly and put her fan up to her lips with a low laugh. "I'm afraid I must be a very deceptive person," she replied lightly, "for I feel perfectly well. I am always pale, and I obtain a great deal of undeserved sympathy under false pretences." "Do you mind my smoking?" "Not in the least. Why did you throw away your cigarette?" "I thought it annoyed you." His wife looked at him with a slightly mocking smile on her lips. "I wonder if you will always be so ready to sacrifice your pleasures to my unexpressed desires." "Always! always!" replied Guy fervently, kneeling beside her chair. "Your slightest wish will always be my law, Alizon." "Till the honeymoon is over, I suppose," said Alizon a trifle sadly, as she passed her fingers through his hair. "I'm afraid the honeymoon is over--in the eyes of the world at least," responded Errington ruefully. "We've been three months married, you know, and to-day is our last one of solitude, for Eustace and his friend will soon be here--are you sorry?" "Oh, yes, very sorry," she replied, indifferently, suppressing a yawn; "these last three months have been charming." Errington looked slightly disappointed at her lack of fervour, and to make up for it commenced to vehemently declare that he did not want to see anyone, that he could live for the next century with her alone, she was all the world to him, the one thing he lived for, etc., etc. in fact gave glib utterance to all the fond rhapsodies which constantly pour from the mouths of adoring lovers and newly-married men. Kneeling beside her, his face glowing with passionate feeling and his blue eyes fixed adoringly on the face of his divinity, Guy Errington looked gallant, handsome and fervid enough to have satisfied the most exacting woman. Yet, strange to say, for some inexplicable reason, this wife of three months appeared slightly bored by his erotic enthusiasm. "You are the pearl of husbands, my dear Guy," she observed idly when he ceased his protestations, "but confess now, on your knees as you are, that you feel a trifle weary of this perfect bliss--this society of two--and long for your dogs, your horses, and your coverts." At this accurate divination of his real feelings, Errington looked somewhat disconcerted, for despite the ardour of his protestations he did feel slightly weary of this monotonous tranquillity, and in his secret heart longed for the things she mentioned. "Well, you know I'm not a bit romantic," he said apologetically, as if he were confessing to some crime, "and I am a little tired of churches and pictures. Besides, I am anxious for you to see the Hall, and there's such a lot of things to be looked after, and--and----" "And this is somewhere about the twelfth of August," said Lady Errington slily, cutting short his excuses, whereat he laughed in a somewhat embarrassed manner. "Ah, you've found me out," he observed with a smile. "Well, yes, dear, I confess it is true, I was thinking about the coverts--it ought to be a good year for the birds. Besides there are the stables, you know. I am going to get a new hunter for next season. Baffles tells me there's a good one to be picked up--belongs to some Major Griff or Groff--don't know the name--and I've got my eye--Good gracious, Alizon," he added, breaking off--"What is the matter?" "Nothing, nothing!" she replied, trying to smile although she looked singularly disturbed, "only that name you mentioned, Major Griff." "Yes, what about him?" "Nothing at all--only he was--I believe, a friend of my father's." "Oh! don't trouble your head about those things, dear, all that sort of thing is past and done with," said Guy fondly, who knew what she had suffered at the hands of her father, "your life will be all sunshine--if I can make it so." Alizon bent forward and kissed him tenderly on the forehead. "You're a good, dear fellow, Guy," she said softly, "and if I do sometimes remember the bitterness of the past, I always thank God for the sweetness of the present, and for the husband He has given me. We will go back to Errington Hall whenever you like. I am anxious to see our home." This last phrase sounded delightful to the ears of Guy, and in a sudden access of tenderness he bent his head and kissed the cool slim hand which lay so confidingly in his own. Alizon's momentary fit of emotion being past, she withdrew her hand with a slight laugh at his action. "How foolish you are, Guy," she said gaily, "you must have graduated at the court of Versailles, but do something more sensible and tell me all about the Hall, so that I may not be too ignorant on my arrival." He had done so hundreds of times before, but the recital never lost its charm for him, and he thereupon entered into a long and minute description of his ancestral home with the greatest zest. He described the quaint old building where so many generations of Erringtons had been born, lived and died, the well-timbered park with its mighty oaks, ferny glades and ancient beech-trees, the shooting, which was said to be the best in the county, the characteristics of the different people who lived around, to all of which Alizon listened with praiseworthy attention, although truth to tell her thoughts were far away and she was in her own mind contrasting this gallant, tender husband, with her selfish, vicious father. Gabriel Mostyn had been a thorough Bohemian in every way, regarding the world at large as his special property, and always at home wherever he chose to pitch his tent. Some unknown strain of gipsy blood which had been in abeyance for several generations, had suddenly developed in him with overpowering force, and impelled him to restless wanderings which he was quite unable to withstand. The semi-barbaric life of Russia had been as well-known to him as the refined civilization of London, and it was all the same to him whether he wintered at Rome, passed the summer in Norway, or explored the wild recesses of the Andes. Owing to this indulgence of his nomadic instincts he had developed within himself all the vices inseparable from such a primeval existence, and became a man accustomed to exist by the law of might against right, taking as his own whatever came to his hand, preying on the weaknesses of his fellow creatures, and binding himself by no law of honour or kindness so long as his own selfish desires were gratified. With such a father it was hardly to be wondered at that Alizon had small respect for the masculine sex, and, foolishly no doubt, judged everyone else by the only standard she had known. During those four terrible years when her father had been dying inch by inch, and disputing every inch with the inexorable Angel of Death, she had learned a great deal of his previous existence, and the knowledge of such a foul life had appalled her gentle soul. The idea of marriage with a man resembling her father even in the most distant manner was repellent to all her ideas, and she certainly would never have become the wife of Guy Errington, had not her position with her relatives been made so disagreeable in every way that with many misgivings she consented to marry a possible Caliban. To her surprise, however, she was agreeably disappointed in finding in her husband a straightforward, honourable man, with the truest instincts of a gentleman. He did not pass his life like a modern Cain in restless wanderings round the world, at war with society and shunned by all as an outcast, a pariah, a leper, beyond the pale of human love and companionship. No, he loved his birth-place, his position, his good name, and knew that he had duties to fulfil in life, both towards himself, his friends and his tenants. Remembering the vices of her father, Errington's every-day virtues seemed those of an angel, and although she did not love him when she became his wife, yet it was possible that love might be born of genuine admiration and respect, and subsequently develop into the stronger passion. At present, however, she had not got beyond her first stage of surprise, but simply admired, respected, and honoured Errington as a man possessed of a just, kind, straightforward nature, and who was anxious to make her happy by every means in his power. There have been worse marriages than this consisting of love on one side and admiration of good qualities on the other, therefore Guy had every prospect of being happy in such a union as he deserved to be by his inherent good qualities and his honourable desire to do right in every way. While Alizon was letting her thoughts run on in this fashion, Guy had become so excited in his narration concerning Errington Hall and their future life of happiness, that he had risen to his feet, and was now striding up and down the terrace giving full reins to his imagination. "We'll have an awfully jolly time of it," he said blithely, "and you'll soon forget all your past worries in looking after things; there's everything to make life happy at the Hall, only I do wish there was a little more money." "Money's the root of all evil," observed Alizon smiling. "And the want of it's the whole tree," retorted Guy, laughing at his own mild witticism. "You see, my father hadn't much idea about things, and muddled a good deal, so the consequence is that there is a mortgage on the estate which I must pay off, so we'll have to live quietly for some years." "I'm sure I don't mind." "But I do. I'm not going to have you waste your sweetness on the desert air," replied Errington vehemently, "but at present I don't see how it can be helped. I need a large sum of ready money, but won't get it, unless--unless Aunt Jelly dies." "I don't think that probable," said Alizon lightly, "Miss Corbin looks strong enough to outlive Methusaleh." "And I daresay she will, the tough old party, but if she does die I'm sure to come in for her money unless she leaves it to Eustace." "Well, why shouldn't she?" "Because in the first place she doesn't like him as much as she does me, and in the second he's got lots of money already, and no wife to support." "Lucky man," observed Lady Errington mischievously. "Lucky woman to have escaped him, you mean," retorted Guy sagely; "he's the most exacting man you ever met." "I've never met him to speak to, but I do know him by sight." "And that's quite enough. He's such a fastidious chap--an angel out of Heaven wouldn't satisfy him." "Probably not. I don't think angels are desirable wives as a rule." "Oh, yes they are, dear," said Errington fondly, pausing near her, "you are an angel." "A very prosaic angel, I'm afraid." "Good enough for me anyhow." "Isn't that rather a doubtful compliment?" "Do you think so? Well, now I come to think of it, perhaps it is a little doubtful. But I haven't got the gift of tongues like Eustace; you should hear him talk, Alizon." "If his talk is like his books I don't think I shall like it." "Eh!--why not? I haven't read them, but I hear they're deuced clever." "Too much so, cynical and bitter." "That's just like his own character. Eustace is the most pessimistic man I know." "I'm certain I shall not like him," asserted Lady Errington calmly. Her husband chuckled a little before replying. "Don't be too sure of that. Eustace is a very fascinating sort of man." "More so than you?" "Oh, I'm not fascinating." "You're very modest, at all events." "Do you think so? Wait till you hear me tell shooting stories about my prowess." "Is that your special weakness?" "By no means--you are." "Thank you for a very pretty compliment, but I'm afraid this conversation is becoming frivolous," said Alizon, with a faint pink colour creeping into the pallor of her cheeks, "however, it's ended now, for here come your friends." "Better late than never," remarked Guy, turning round to salute his cousin, who advanced along the terrace, followed by Otterburn. "How do you do, Eustace?" "Quite well, thank you Guy," replied Eustace, gravely shaking hands. "This is Mr. Macjean--my cousin, Sir Guy Errington." "Glad to see you, Mr. Macjean," said Errington bluffly, "and now let me introduce both you gentlemen to my wife, Lady Errington. Alizon, this is my cousin Eustace and Mr. Macjean." Lady Errington bowed with a charming smile, and the whole party, sitting down, proceeded to make themselves comfortable. CHAPTER IV. THE ART OF CONVERSATION. "It's difficult to hold a conversation With three or five, odd numbers are a bore, For some one's sure to be _sans_ occupation, So talk should always be 'twixt two or four. One can't gain any secret information, If there should be a single person more: But four's a pleasant number without doubt, Because there's not a chance to be the 'odd man out.'" It was certainly a very pleasant little party which was seated on the terrace of the Villa Tagni, talking social nonsense under the clear glow of the sunset sky. Behind the solemn hills the sun had disappeared, leaving the sky filled with soft rosy tints, against which the serrated outline of tall peaks stood clear and distinct. Slender clouds of liquid gold floated in the roseate western sky which resembled in its pale flushing the delicate tints of a rose-heart, softening off by degrees into a cold blue, which in its turn gave place towards the darkening east to faint shadows and throbbing stars glimmering in the aerial gloom of coming night. But the four people on the terrace took no notice of the wonderful gradations of colour, but chatted gaily over the cakes and tea provided by the hospitality of Villa Tagni. All the gentlemen, tired of the thin wines of Italy, had taken tea, and Otterburn was especially enthusiastic as he drained his cup with keen relish. "I'm a perfect old woman for tea here," he said, handing back his cup for a second supply. "A don't know why, as I never bothered much about it at home." "That's because you can't get a decent cup here," observed Eustace drily, "man always longs for the impossible." "I long for a decent dinner," retorted Otterburn with a hollow groan. "I'm not a particularly greedy sort of chap--don't laugh, please, Lady Errington, I assure you I'm not--but these Italians haven't the slightest idea how to cook." "Well you see their ideas of cooking differ from yours, Mr. Macjean," said Alizon, smilingly handing him back his cup. "Yes, that's true enough. I daresay they give a fellow the best they can, but look at their victuals; bread that's all full of holes, some yellow mess they call polenta, skinny chickens and sour wine, you can't make a square meal of such stuff." "Some people could," said Errington, who was listening to the boy's remarks with an amused smile, "but I agree with you about the roast beef of old England." "Or the wholesome parritch of Scotland," observed Eustace satirically. "As a North Briton you surely forget that, Master." "No, I don't," retorted Macjean. "I got too much of that when I was young." "Being so aged now." "Isn't that shabby?" said Otterburn good-humouredly, turning to Lady Errington. "He's always making fun of my age--as if youth were a crime." "It's a very charming crime at all events," replied Alizon pleasantly; "don't you mind Mr. Gartney, he is a poet, and poets are always praising--and envying--youth." That's true enough, said Eustace with a sigh, "all the poets from Mimnurmus downward have ever lamented the passing of youth. What a pity we can't always remain young." "And why not? I don't count age by years, but by experience," said Lady Errington quietly. "One may be old at twenty and young at fifty." Eustace, knowing what her experience had been, looked curiously at her fair placid face as she said this, and she must have guessed his thoughts, for a flush burned in her cheeks under his searching gaze. "That's what I say," cried Guy, referring to his wife's remark. "If a fellow's got health, wealth and a good temper, the world's a very jolly sort of place." "The best of all possible worlds, according to Voltaire," remarked Eustace, leaning back with a disbelieving smile, "but you've left out one ingredient which some people consider very necessary." "And that is----?" "Love!" "Ab, I've got that," said Guy turning a fond eye on his wife. "Lucky man, other people are not so fortunate." "No," observed Otterburn with a huge sigh, having finished a very decent meal, "it's so difficult to procure the genuine article." "Hark to the cynic of one-and-twenty," cried Gartney. "It's your example, Eustace," observed Guy, producing a cigarette case, "but don't for Heaven's sake start a philosophical discussion on happiness. Why should the children of the king go mourning when the soothing weed is within reach? Have a cigarette, Macjean." "Thank you--if Lady Errington----" "Oh, I do not mind. Guy has habituated me to smoke. Light your cigarettes by all means." Whereupon Otterburn accepted the small roll of paper and tobacco with much satisfaction, and was soon puffing away contentedly, Guy following his example. "These are jolly good cigarettes," he said emphatically. "You can't get decent tobacco in Italy, so I smuggled these past the Customs at Chiasso. I suppose it's no use offering you one, Eustace?" "Not in the least," responded Gartney smiling. "It's a pity to spoil this perfect fragrance with tobacco smoke." "Ah, that's so like you poets--always sacrificing the comforts of life for the sake of its illusions. Well, we won't spoil your esthetic feelings on the subject, Come, Macjean, let us leave these two to continue the conversation, and we'll walk up and down till we finish our smoke." Angus glanced enquiringly at Lady Errington, who smilingly gave the requisite permission, and was soon strolling up and down the terrace with Errington, talking sport, upon which subject both gentlemen were quite in accordance. Left alone with Lady Errington, Eustace lay back in his deep chair gazing dreamily at her as she sat silent and pensive, fanning herself slowly with an absent expression in her blue eyes. The charm of the scene, the influence of the hour, the presence of this pale, beautiful woman, and the delicate fragrance of the flowers which permeated the still air, all touched the poetical part of his nature, and he could not help wondering in his own mind how such a spiritual nature as that of Alizon Errington's could tolerate such a matter-of-fact man as her husband, who could leave her so calmly to talk sport with a shallow-minded boy. In this, however, Eustace Gartney was entirely wrong, as love is not to be measured by sentimental talk or silent adoration, and a man who loves a woman in an honest respectful fashion does not need to be constantly on his knees to prove the sincerity of his passion. But then Eustace, who believed in this exaggerated fashion of love-making, was a poet, and poets have whimsical ways of manifesting their sentiments. From these musings he was aroused by the voice of his hostess, who had suddenly awakened to the fact that Eustace was silent, and feared she had neglected her social duties. "You are singularly silent, Mr. Gartney!" Eustace started suddenly as her voice struck on his ear, and looked idly at her with a vague smile on his lips. "The influence of the hour and the scene, I suppose," he said idly; "one is always silent in Paradise." "I should think that depended upon the absence or presence of Eve," replied Alizon demurely. "Or of the serpent. Confess now, Lady Errington, the serpent was a charming conversationalist." "And a bad companion--for a woman." "No doubt Adam thought so--after the Fall." "What a pity there should have been a Fall," said Lady Errington after a short pause. "It would have been a charming world." "Humph! consisting of what the French call a _solitude à deux_." "Oh, but I was supposing the Garden of Eden became populated. It would have been a world without sin or temptation." "I beg 'your pardon. The trees of knowledge and life would still have been flourishing to tempt the primeval population nor do I suppose the wily serpent would have been wanting." "Satirical, but scarcely true." "Ah, but you see we're both talking the romance of what-might-have-been," said Gartney smiling, "so my view of the subject is no doubt as probable as your own. However this Italian Paradise with all its faults, consequent on our present-day civilization, has exquisite scenery, and if one were to live here for some years I daresay he would arrive at the nearest approach to primeval happiness possible in this world." "I'm afraid we shall not have an opportunity of testing the truth of your assertion. We leave here in a fortnight, for Guy is longing for England and the country." "A nostalgia of the coverts, I presume?" "Exactly! 'It's a fine day, let us go and kill something.'" Eustace laughed at this reply, as the neatness of it satisfied his somewhat cynical sense of humour. "Don't you feel nostalgia yourself, Mr. Gartney?" asked Lady Errington, arranging the lilies at her breast. He turned his expressive face towards her with a sad smile. "Not of this earth! I am like Heine, _un enfant perdu_, and have a home-sickness for an impossible world." "Created by your own fancy no doubt." "Yes! Though I dare say if my fancy world became a real one it wouldn't be so pleasant as this one. After all, Chance is the most admirable architect of the future. When men like Sir Thomas More, Plato, Bulwer Lytton and the rest of them, have indulged in paper dreams of ideal worlds, they have always committed the fatal mistake of making the inhabitants insufferable bores, who have attained perfection--and when perfection is attained happiness ceases." "How so?" "Because the greatest pleasure in life is work, and when perfection renders work unnecessary, life becomes a lotos-eating existence." "Well surely that is a very pleasant thing." "To the few Yes, to the many No! Some men need constant excitement to make them enjoy life. I can quite understand Xerxes offering a reward to the man who could invent a new pleasure, for if Xerxes had not attained the perfection of debauchery, he would not have found existence a bore." "You can hardly call such an ignoble height perfection," said Lady Errington quietly. "I should call it satiety." "No doubt you are right. But what does it matter what we call it? the thing is the same." "That sounds as if you spoke from experience, and at your age that can hardly be the case." "I remember," observed Eustace a trifle satirically, "that a short time ago you said you measured youth by experience not by age. It is the same with me, I am only thirty eight years of age, yet in that short time I have exhausted all that life has to give." "Surely not!" Eustace Gartney laughed in a dreary, hopeless manner that showed how truly he spoke. "I'm afraid it is," he remarked with a sigh. "I have been all over the world and seen what is to be seen. I have mixed with my fellow creatures and found the majority of them humbugs. I've been in love and been deceived. I've published books and been abused, in fact I've done everything possible to enjoy life, and the consequence is I'm sick of the whole thing." "Your own fault entirely," said Lady Errington warmly, "as you have denied yourself nothing you now reap the reward of such indulgence and enjoy nothing. Your present satiety is the logical sequence of your own acts. Why not therefore try and lead a nobler and better life? Go among the poor and give them the help they so much need. Look upon your fortune as money entrusted to you, not to squander on unsatisfying pleasures, but to use for the benefit of humanity. Do this, Mr. Gartney, and I assure you the result will be satisfactory, for you will find in such well-doing the new pleasure which Xerxes desired but never obtained." With a sceptical smile on his massive features Eustace listened to her earnest speech, and at its conclusion laughed softly in his own cynical manner. "A most delightful view of one's duties to the world at large," he said satirically, "but hardly satisfactory. That recipe for happiness has been given to me before, Lady Errington, and is, I think, more charming in theory than in practice. Suppose I did take this advice you give me in the goodness of your heart, and went out into the world to play the thankless part of a philanthropist, what would I gain--only a more intimate knowledge of human selfishness and human iniquity. If I assisted A, a most deserving person from his own point of view, I've no doubt A would become my bitterest enemy because I had not done enough for him. I might rescue B from the workhouse, and B would consider me shabby if I did not support him for the rest of his natural life. As for C, well, I need not go through the whole alphabet, in order to illustrate my views of the matter, but I assure you, Lady Errington, if I employed my money in alleviating the distresses of my fellow creatures, I would get very little praise and a great deal of blame during my life, and when I died no doubt a short paragraph in a newspaper as 'an earnest but misguided philanthropist!' No! believe me I have thought deeply about the whole thing, and the game is not worth the candle." "You look at things in a wrong light." "In the only possible light, I'm afraid. Rose-coloured spectacles are not obtainable now-a-days." "Still such a pessimistic view----" "Is forced upon us by circumstances. This is the nineteenth century, you know, and we have no illusions left--they went out with religion." "Well, I must try and convince you of the falsity of your views some other time," said Alizon closing her fan with a sigh, "but at present I see Guy and Mr. Macjean are coming to interrupt our conversation." She rose to her feet as she spoke, a tall, slim, white figure, that seemed to sway like a graceful lily at the breath of the evening breeze. Eustace, ever prone to poetical impressions, made this comparison in his own mind as he left his chair and advanced with her to meet Guy and Angus. "I say Alizon," cried Errington gaily as his wife came up, "just fancy! Aunt Jelly's ward, Miss Sheldon, is staying at the Villa Medici." "Miss Sheldon," said Lady Errington reflectively, "is that the pretty girl I met at Miss Corbin's?" "Yes! you remember. On the day we went to see Aunt Jelly and ask her blessing," replied Guy eagerly. "Who is she with?" asked Lady Errington; "surely Miss Corbin----" "Oh no," interrupted Eustace, mirthfully. "You might as well expect to meet the Monument abroad as Aunt Jelly. I asked Miss Sheldon all about it, and it appears that ever since her arrival from Australia she has been anxious to come to the Continent, so as a friend of Aunt Jelly's was making what she calls the 'grand tower' with her husband, this young lady was placed under their mutual protection." "I wish she was under mine," said Otterburn audibly, on whom the charms of the young lady in question had evidently made a deep impression, "she's so awfully pretty." "I'm afraid it would be a case of the blind leading the blind," remarked Eustace drily. "By the way," observed Guy, "who is Miss Sheldon? I asked Aunt Jelly, but she told me, sharply, to mind my own business." "Wasn't that rather severe?" said Alizon mildly. "Not for Aunt Jelly," retorted her husband. "Aunt Jelly's a huffy old party, but she's got a weakness for Eustace, who doesn't object to be sat upon, so perhaps he knows about this young lady." "I think I've got a hazy idea," assented Eustace leisurely, "she comes from the City of Melbourne, Australia, and her name is Victoria, called after our gracious Queen, or the Colony, I forget which. Sheldon _père_ was an admirer of our mutual aunt in the old days when she was flesh and blood instead of iron. He went out with a broken heart to the Colonies because Aunt Jelly wouldn't marry him--fancy any man breaking his heart for such a brazen image! Well, at all events, he made a large fortune out there, got married, became the father of one little girl, and then, his life's work being done, died, leaving his fortune to his daughter Victoria, and his daughter Victoria to dear Aunt Jelly, who cherishes her for the sake of the one romance of her youth." "How cruelly you tell the story," observed Lady Errington in a rather disapproving tone. "I've only seen Miss Corbin once, but I think she's got a kind heart." "Most people are said to have that, who possess nothing else," retorted Eustace grimly. "However, you now know who Victoria Sheldon is, and I won't deny she's pretty, very pretty." "Very pretty," echoed Otterburn, with a sigh. "You ought to marry her, Macjean," said Eustace, "she has plenty of money." "I wouldn't marry a girl for her money alone," remonstrated Angus indignantly. "Then take the American advice," said Sir Guy gaily, "never marry a girl for money, but if you do meet a nice girl with any, try and love her as hard as ever you can." "I think I'll call and see Miss Sheldon," observed Alizon, after a pause, "for, as she is a ward of your Aunt's, I shall very likely see a good deal of her. Are the people she is with pleasant?" "That," observed Eustace calmly, "depends greatly on individual taste. The Honourable Henry Trubbles is the most egotistical specimen of misshapen humanity I have ever met with, and his wife, whom he married for her money, is a modern edition of Mrs. Malaprop with a dash of Sary Gamp and a flavouring of the Sleeping Beauty." "What a mixed description," said Errington laughing. "How does she resemble the Sleeping Beauty?" "Only in sleeping." "You make me quite curious to see her," cried Alizon smiling. "And if--well, I won't promise anything about what I intended yet." "What did you intend?" asked her husband. "To have a small dinner party, and give Mr. Macjean a real English dinner, but I'll first see how I like this extraordinary couple, and then--well, we'll see." "It would be awfully jolly," said Otterburn, whose stock of adjectives was limited. "I know it's 'awfully' late," remarked Eustace, in a tone of rebuke, "and we have just time to get back to dinner." "To what they call a dinner." "It's better than nothing at all events--well, goodbye, Lady Errington; thank you for a pleasant afternoon." "Don't forget your way to the Villa Tagni," said Alizon as she shook hands, and the two gentlemen, having vowed warmly that they would not, made their adieux, leaving Sir Guy and his wife alone on the terrace. "Well, Alizon," said Errington, jocularly, "and what do you think of my cousin, Eustace?" "I think," replied Lady Errington slowly, "that he is the most unhappy man I ever met with in my life." CHAPTER V. AN AUSTRALIAN GIRL. "Charming, no doubt, her face is fair. As dark as night, her curling hair, Her eyes--two stars, her lips--a rose, Whoever saw a prettier nose? Charming indeed,--but Fate to vex, Has given her faults like all her sex, Believe me, she's not worth regret, She'll break your heart, the vain coquette." What a number of charming old romances begin at an inn. Did not M. Gil Blas commence his adventurous career by being swindled in one? and Don Quixote, blinded by fanatic chivalry, mistake the inns for mediæval castles? Tom Jones became involved in a network of intrigue at a hostelry; the heroes of Dumas invariably meet their enemies of King and Cardinal at the same place, while Boccaccio generally brings about the complications of gallant and donzella at some gay Florentine "osteria." Without doubt all the elements of romance are to be found at these resting places of man and beast; and the most incongruous characters, the most dissimilar ranks of society's adventurers, gallants, priests, bona robas and virtuous ladies all pass and repass, enter and exeunt, under the hospitable signs of inns. Birds of passage rest momentarily at inns before continuing their flight to the four quarters of the world, and during such rest meet other birds of passage with sometimes curious results. Mr. A, a gentleman of swallow-like tendencies, on his way to the warm south, may linger for a night at an hotel where Miss B, due in some northern latitude, is also resting, with the result that Mr. A will delay his flight for an indefinite period; nay more, the juxtaposition of the two may end in A and B both continuing their journey as man and wife, which is the termination of all romance. Strange that a chance meeting at a place of public resort should alter two lives, but then life is made up of strange events, and a good many people date their happiness or misery from an accidental meeting at an inn. Gartney was letting his thoughts run on in this somewhat whimsical vein, as he smoked an after dinner cigarette over his coffee on the terrace at Villa Medici. Before him, huge and indistinct, arose the grand façade of the hotel, glimmering whitely in the moonlight, with its innumerable windows, its broad arcade, and its myriad lamps shining brilliantly on groups of gaily-dressed people who strolled to and fro amongst the pink-blossomed oleanders, or sat chatting gaily round small marble-topped tables, where white-cravated waiters, lithe and active, attended to their wishes. Beyond lay the lake, dark and solemn, under the shadow of the sombre mountains, at whose base gleamed orange-coloured points of light, telling of the presence of distant villages, while high above in the cold, blue sky, glowed the yellow orb of the moon and the glimmering stars. Through the leaves of sycamore, tamarisk, and magnolia sighed the soft breath of the night-wind, filling the air with cool odours, and the sound of music, rendered thin and fairy-like by distance, floated across the still waters from some slow-moving boat. An historic place this Villa Medici, with its palatial halls, its innumerable chambers, and its stately flights of white-marble steps; for it was here that the great Emperor intended to rest for a time in his victorious career, an intention never carried out, although everything was prepared for his reception, and the hotel guests now dine in the small saloon hung round with yellow damask stamped with the imperial 'N' and kingly crown. Then again it was here that unhappy Caroline of Brunswick, who became Queen of England in name only, kept her state as Princess of Wales, and tried to find in the calm seclusion of Como that peace denied to her in the land of her adoption. Ah, yes, the Villa Medici is connected with the lives of some great personages, but now that they all have vanished from the world's stage, whereon they played some curious parts, the Villa is turned into an hotel, and strangers from far America, and still further Australia, reside in the many chambers, and wander with delight through the enchanting gardens which Nature, aided by art, has made a paradise of beauty. "Poor Caroline," murmured Gartney to himself, as he thought of all this, "no one has a good word to say for her, and yet, I daresay, she was a good deal better than the first gentleman in Europe. It was just as well she died, for George would never have given her any rights as queen-consort. No doubt she passed some of her happiest days here, although she always hankered after the forbidden glories of Windsor and Buckingham Palace." His meditations were interrupted at this point by a gay laugh, and on looking up he saw Victoria Sheldon coming towards him escorted by the Master of Otterburn, who was evidently telling her some funny story, judging from the amusement his conversation seemed to afford her. She was certainly a very pretty girl, one of those feminine beauties who strike the beholder at first sight with a sense of indescribable charm. A brilliantly tinted brunette, overflowing with exuberant vitality, she had all the intense colouring and freshness of a southern rose at that time when the cold rain draws its perfume strongly forth in the chill morning air. Her eyes, hair, eyebrows and long lashes were dark as night; red as coral the lips, which when parted showed two rows of pearly teeth; full and soft the round of the cheeks, and a peach-like skin with a rosy glow of delicate colour under the velvety surface. She was the modern realization of that vivacious Julia whom Herrick describes so charmingly in his dainty poems. And as a matter of fact the skin of this young girl had all the brilliant colouring of the south, no doubt assimilated by her system under the sultry glow of Australian skies. Having an excellent figure, dainty hands and feet, with a perfect taste in dress, and boundless vivacity, there was no doubt that Victoria Sheldon was a feminine personality eminently attractive to the stronger sex. As to her nature, it was quite in unison with her outward appearance--bright, sparkling, vivacious, albeit somewhat shallow, yet not without a certain veneer of surface knowledge. Eminently womanly, capricious in the extreme, witty, amusing, tireless, she had one of those attractive natures which charm everyone in a singularly magnetic fashion. Some men, eccentric in their likings, admire those semi-masculine women who have missions, support the rights of their sex on lecture platforms, emulate masculine peculiarities to the best of their abilities, and pass noisy lives in shrieking aimlessly against the tyranny of mankind. Those men who approved of such semi-masculine tendencies, certainly would not have admired the womanly characteristics of Victoria, but the connoisseur of feminine beauty, the judge of a brilliant personality, and the appreciator of a witty nature, would each see in her the realisation of an extremely difficult ideal. The Master, young and rash, was just at that delightful age when every woman appears a goddess to the uncultured fancy of youth; judge then the effect produced upon his impressionable nature by this riant vision of strongly vitalised beauty. He did not even make an attempt at resistance in any way, but prone as god Dagon on the threshold of his temple, he fell before the powerful divinity of this young girl, and she produced on him the same effect as Phryne did on her judges when she displayed the full splendour of her charms in the Areopagus under the clear blue of Athenian skies. Mactab, severe, ascetic and self-mortifying, opposed to every form of admiration of the flesh, would have blushed for the grovelling idolatory of his quondam pupil; but no doubt the sunny climate of Italy aided in a great measure this worship of Venus, and Angus Macjean, Master of Otterburn, prostrated himself in abject worship before this outward manifestation of carnal beauty. Eustace saw this, and was selfishly annoyed thereat, because he had taken a fancy to Otterburn, and thought that he (Otterburn) should agree with him (Eustace) in despising the sex feminine, which was foolish in the extreme on the part of such an acute observer of human nature; but then he was blinded by egotism, and that vice distorts every vision. Still he could not deny that physically she was wonderfully pretty, despite his feeling of animosity against her for coming between himself and his friend. Therefore he admired her greatly from an æsthetic point of view, while Victoria, with the keen instinct of a woman, scented an enemy and neither admired nor liked Eustace the cynic in the smallest degree. "My dear Mr. Macjean," she said in answer to the remonstrances of Angus who wanted everyone to like his friend as much as he did himself. "Your friend is a pessimist, and I don't like that class of people; they always take a delight in analysing one's motives, which is disagreeable--to the person concerned. A flower is charming, but those who pull it to pieces in order to find out how it is made--are not. I don't like analysts--they destroy one's illusions." This plain-spoken young lady's chaperone was enjoying an after-dinner nap; the Hon. Henry was talking Irish politics with an Irish M.P., who did not believe in Home Rule out of contradiction to the rest of his countrymen who did. So Victoria Sheldon, feeling in a most delightful humour, was chatting gaily with Otterburn, when they thus chanced on the melancholy Eustace, moralising on the mutability of human life. "A penny for your thoughts, Mr. Gartney," said Victoria, pausing before him with a gay smile on her lips. "They're not worth it," replied Eustace, looking approvingly at the charming girl before him, in her dainty white dinner dress, with a bunch of vividly scarlet geraniums at her breast. "I'll sell them as bankrupt stock." "Haw! haw! haw!" from the Master, who was in that pleasant frame of mind when everything seems to scintillate with wit--but then it was after dinner, and a pretty woman was at his elbow. Wine, wit, and feminine influence, really the worst-tempered man would feel pleasant with such a delightful trinity. "My dear Master," said Eustace reprovingly, "your mirth is complimentary, but rather noisy--will you not be seated, Miss Sheldon?" "Thank you," replied Victoria, sitting down in a chair under the shadow of a myrtle tree, the light from a distant lamp striking full on her piquant face. "I am rather tired." "Of walking, or the Master?" asked the cynic gruffly. She flashed a brilliant glance on him out of the dusky shadow, and spread her red feather fan with a grand wave of irresistible coquetry. "Mr. Macjean," she said lightly as he sank into a chair opposite to her, and leaned his arms on the cold marble of the table, "What do you think?" "Eh," observed the Master obtusely. "Oh, I think the same as you." "Then," remarked Eustace, re-lighting his cigarette, "you cannot object to that diplomatic reply. Do you mind my smoking?' "Not in the least. I hope Mr. Macjean will follow your example." Mr. Macjean was only too happy to so far indulge himself. So the gentlemen sat and smoked with great enjoyment, while the feminine element of the party smiled serenely and impartially on both; smiles quite wasted on the misogamistic Eustace, but then Victoria, with that unerring instinct of coquetry implanted in every woman's breast, took a delight in behaving thus, simply because she saw Otterburn admired her. He on his part naturally began to grow jealous, and being without the self-control habitual to those who live long in society, would doubtless have shown his irritation very plainly, only Eustace, taking in at a glance the whole situation, and being by no means agreeable to gratifying Victoria's love of conquest, arrested the storm at once by beginning to talk with judicious diplomacy of the first thing that came into his mind. "Tell me," he said, addressing himself to the volatile Victoria, "Do you not find our narrow English life somewhat irksome after the freedom of Australia?" "Not so much as you would think," replied Miss Sheldon promptly, "for after all there is a good deal of similarity between home and the colonies." "You still call England 'home,' I observe," said Eustace with a smile. "We do, because most of the generation who emigrated are still alive, but even now the term is dying out, and in another fifty years I don't suppose will be in use." "I should awfully like to go out to Australia," observed Otterburn languidly. "I'm sick of civilisation." "Oh don't imagine you leave civilisation behind when you come out to us," retorted Victoria sharply, with rising colour, "that is a mistake many English people make. They think Australia is like the backwoods of America, but it's nothing of the sort. Melbourne is just as cultured and wealthy in its own way as London, with the additional advantage of having a better climate and being smaller." "Do you think the latter quality an advantage then?" asked Gartney with ironical gravity. "I should just think so, rather," said Miss Sheldon nodding her head emphatically. "London is a delightful place, I grant, but it's a terrible nuisance visiting your friends and going out to amusements." "We have," observed the Master in an authoritative guidebook tone, "trains, tramways, carriages----" "So have we--but even with them it takes a long time to get about London. We can get from one end of Melbourne to the other in a reasonable time, but it's like an African exploring expedition to start round London." "London," remarked Eustace in a judicious manner, "is not one but several cities. There is the West End, which is devoted to wealth and pleasure, the East End, famous for work and poverty. The City of London proper, noted for its mercantile enterprise and its stock-broking fraternity, and finally the huge shipping town which forms the port of the Metropolis. Every person stays in the special city with which his business is connected, therefore there is no difficulty in getting about one's own particular local town, which is much smaller in the aggregate than Melbourne." "I understand all that perfectly," replied Victoria, who had listened attentively, "but suppose you chose to live on the outskirts of London, so as to get a breath of country air. In that case if you want to go to a theatre you have to travel for over an hour to get to one." "People who live as you say, are worshippers of Nature, and go to bed with the sun--they don't want the gas and glare of theatres." "Oh, anyone can argue that way," said Victoria disdainfully, "so I have nothing to say in reply. Let us talk of something else." "By all means--the weather." "And the crops. No! I am not an agriculturist." "Aunt Jelly," suggested Angus wickedly. Miss Sheldon turned towards him with a mirthful smile in her bright eyes. "What do you know of Aunt Jelly, Mr. Macjean?" she asked, putting her fan up to her lips to hide a laugh. "I know nothing; absolutely nothing," he replied, with mock humility, "beyond the fact that Gartney and Errington have both mentioned her as an eccentric character, so I wish to know more about her." If he did, his curiosity was not destined to be gratified at that moment, for, with the whimsical caprice of a woman, Victoria suddenly began to talk on quite a different subject, suggested by the casual mention of a name. "Do you like Lady Errington?" she demanded, looking from one to the other. "She is a very charming woman," said Eustace evasively. "She knows you, I believe." "Slightly! I met her at Aunt Jelly's, when she called one day." "And what is Aunt Jelly's opinion?" The girl laughed, and then, composing her features into a kind of stern severity, spoke in a harsh, measured voice: "Not what I approve of; limp! washed out, no backbone, but no doubt she'll make Guy a good wife. Not a hard thing for any woman to do seeing he's an idiot. So was his father before him, and he did not take after his mother, thank God." "The voice is the voice of Miss Sheldon," murmured Eustace, delicately manipulating a cigarette, "but the sentiments are those of my beloved aunt." "How mean you are," said Victoria, rewarding Otterburn with a bright look for having laughed at her mimicry. "I thought I did her voice to perfection.' "Nothing but a saw-mill could do that," retorted the irreverent Eustace. "So that is Aunt Jelly's opinion. It isn't flattering." "Neither is Aunt Jelly." "I'm dying to know Aunt Jelly," declared Angus mirthfully, "she must be as good as a play." "She is! tragedy." "No! No! Miss Sheldon, excuse me, comedy." "I should say burlesque, judging from your descriptions," said the Master, gaily. "How did you drop across her, Miss Sheldon?" "I didn't drop across her," said Miss Sheldon, candidly, "she dropped across me. My father left me to her guardianship, and I was duly delivered in due course like a bale of goods." "Why isn't Aunt Jelly fulfilling her guardianship by seeing you through the temptations of the Continent?" asked Eustace, severely. "Oh, she placed me under the wing of Mrs. Trubbles." "I'm glad she didn't place you under the eye of Mrs. Trubbles," observed Otterburn, with the brutal candour of youth, "because both her eyes are invariably closed." "What a shame--I wonder where she is?" "Asleep! don't disturb her," said Gartney, as Miss Sheldon arose to her feet. "Physicians all agree that sleep after dinner is most beneficial to people of the Trubbles calibre." Victoria laughed at this remark, and as she showed a desire to stroll about, the gentlemen left their chairs and escorted her through the grounds, one on each side, the lady being thus happily placed between the sex masculine. A good many of the promenaders had retired for the night, evidently worn out by the heat of the day; but some indefatigable pianist was still hard at work in the music saloon, and the steady rhythmic beat of the last new valse, "My heart is dead," sounded tenderly through the still night air, broken at intervals by the light laughter of young girls, the deeper tones of men's voices, and the melancholy sound of the waters washing against the stone masonry of the terrace. Beyond on the lake all was strange and mystical, filled with cold lights and shadows, vague and dreary under the gloom of the distant mountains; but here, by the garish lights of the hotel, the pulse of life was beating strongly, and the indescribable tone of idle frivolity seemed to clash with the silent solemnity of Nature. Perhaps Eustace felt this incongruity as his eyes strayed towards the steel-coloured waters, for after a time the shallow conversation of Victoria jarred so painfully on his ears that with a hurried excuse he left the young couple to their own companionship, and wandered away alone into the fragrant darkness of the night. "He's awfully fond of his own company," observed Victoria, indicating the departing Eustace. "Such a queer taste. I hate being left to myself." "So do I," asserted Otterburn eagerly. "I always like to be with someone----" "Of the opposite sex," finished Miss Sheldon, laughing. "Well, yes I women have always been my best friends." "You answer at random." "I dare say; one is incapable of concentrated thought on a perfect night." "You are also growing poetical, then indeed it is time for a prosaic individual like myself to retire." "No don't go yet, you can't sleep here if you go to bed early." "Oh, that is your experience," said Miss Sheldon, as a bell from a distant campanile, showing white and slender against the sky, sounded the hour of nine o'clock. "Well, I'll stay for a few minutes longer, though I'm afraid Mrs. Trubbles will be dreadfully shocked." They leaned over the iron balustrade of the terrace, and watched in charmed silence the dark waters rising and falling in the chill moonlight. The valse still sounded silvery in the distance, with its sad tone of regret and hopeless despair, and after a time Victoria began to hum the melancholy refrain in a low voice: "My heart is dead, And pleasure hath fled, But the rose you gave me blooms fresh and red." "What nonsense," she said contemptuously, breaking off suddenly. "I daresay the rose was quite withered, only his imagination saw it was blooming." "Like his love for the girl." "A bad shot, Mr. Macjean. How could it be so? His heart was dead, his pleasure fled, so under these discouraging circumstances the rose must certainly have been dead also." "You said Gartney was cynical," said Angus slowly, "what about yourself?" "What about myself," she repeated with a sigh, turning round and leaning lightly against the balustrade. "I'm sure I don't know. I've never thought about the subject. Very likely it's not worth thinking about." "Believe me," began the young man earnestly, "you are----" "Everything that's charming," interrupted Victoria, crossing her hands. "Do spare me any compliments, Mr. Macjean, I'm so tired of them. I wonder if you men think we women believe all the lies you tell us." "But they're not lies." "Not, perhaps, for the moment, but afterwards." "Don't trouble about afterwards, the present is good enough for us." He was getting on dangerous ground, for his voice was soft, and his young eyes flashed brightly on her face, so as Victoria had only known him twenty-four hours, even with her reckless daring of coquetry this was going too far, and with the utmost dexterity she changed the subject. "By the way," she said lightly, "do you know I'm a relation of yours?" "Impossible." "Well, perhaps it is. Still you can judge for yourself. My mother's maiden name was Macjean." "The dev--ahem! I mean good gracious. You must certainly belong to the family somehow or other. I dare say--yes--I am sure you must be my cousin." "Such a strained relationship. In what degree?" "Oh, never mind. Scotch clan relationships are so difficult to unravel. Besides, we're all brothers and sisters by the Adam and Eve theory, according to Gartney. But fancy you being a Macjean. It gives me a kind of claim on you." "As the head of the clan, I suppose. Never! I am a free-born Australian, so hurrah for the Southern Cross and the eight hours system of labour!" "I haven't the least idea of what you're talking about? "Very likely. Born amid the effete civilization of a worn-out land, you have no knowledge of our glorious institutions, which render Australia the Paradise of Demos." "Sounds like a Parliamentary speech." "It is a Parliamentary speech," asserted Victoria, demurely, "an effort of my father's when he was elected for the Wooloomooloo constituency." "I beg your pardon, would you mind spelling it?" "No you would be none the wiser if I did." "As to my obeying you," said Otterburn, reverting to the earlier part of the conversation, "I think the opposite is more likely to happen." Dangerous ground again. "Mr. Macjean," said Victoria in a solemn tone, "the night is getting on to morning, the tourists are getting off to bed. You are chattering in a most nonsensical manner and I'm going to retire, so good-night." He did not make any effort to retain her, although he felt very much inclined to do so, but then their friendship was still in its infancy and the proprieties must be observed. "Good-night, and happy dreams," he replied, shaking the hand she held out to him. "Thank you, but I leave that to poets--and lovers," she responded, and thereupon vanished like a fairy vision of eternal youth. And lovers. "Now I wonder--oh, nonsense! What rubbish! I've only known her one circle of the clock; Love isn't Jonah's gourd to spring up in a night. Still--well she's a most delightful girl and I--Confound the valse! I do wish they'd stop playing at this hour. It isn't respectable. Awfully pretty!--and she's a Macjean too--ah, if I--bother, it's gone out. I shan't smoke any more. I wonder where Gartney is. Mooning about by himself, I suppose. I'll go and look him up. She's got lovely eyes and such pretty feet. Eh! oh, here's Eustace--I say Gartney, I'm going to bed. Come and have a hock and seltzer before ta-ta." CHAPTER VI. A DAY'S SHOPPING. "'Tis an Italian town, Almost a city yet not metropolitan wholly. Houses red-roofed, white-walled, lofty in height with iron balconies, Narrow and twisted the streets, with rough irregular pavements: Below are the shops with their awnings o'er windows, filled with gaudy wares we see not in England, Amid which stand the shop-keepers, shrill-voiced, thievish, voluble and smiling. 'Questo è troopo? 'Non e molto'--question and answer and question once more, While in the burning sunshine, in nooks, in corners, in courts, in door-ways, Lie the dark shadows, fit for the hiding of lovers, of bravos, of damsels and men-at-arms ruffianly." Relations were rather strained between Eustace and his young friend, the reason being as usual to be found in the unconquerable selfishness of the former. With his habitual egotism, Gartney insisted that the lad whom he had chosen for a friend should attend solely to him, watch his every action with dog-like fidelity, and have nothing to do with the rest of the world. This Otterburn, high-spirited and wilful, naturally enough refused to do, though he had hitherto been obedient to Gartney's whims and fancies in every way. Not having heretofore had anything to attract his attention in any great degree, and being fascinated by the strange nature of his poet-friend, Angus had duly given him unlimited measure of the admiring adulation he so much desired. He had listened patiently to Gartney's brilliant though somewhat egotistical discourses, but now, with the irrepressible nature of youth, having fallen in love with Victoria Sheldon he began to grow tired of his friend's dour nature and pessimistic railings against the artfulness of womankind. They had now been nearly a week at the Italian lakes, and from being her boyish admirer, Otterburn had become the faithful slave of Victoria, and finding that he could not serve both master and mistress in a strictly impartial manner, he renounced his fidelity to Eustace. Of course he was still very friendly with him and liked to listen to his epigrammatic conversation--on occasions, but showed plainly that he much preferred Miss Sheldon's society, a discovery which vexed his quondam friend mightily, the more so as he saw in such preference a distinct triumph for Victoria. That young lady had early announced her dislike to Eustace, deeming him cold, vain, proud and an enemy to her sex; so, seeing Otterburn was to a certain extent indispensable to him, she tried her hardest to bring about a separation between these two close friends--and succeeded. Not that she cared over much for Angus. He was certainly a very nice boy, and wonderfully useful as a carry-and-fetch poodle--but the possibility of Otterburn taking jest for earnest never occurred to her, and, ignoring with the calm egotism of a woman the chance that he might break his heart for her sake, she gave him sweet looks, undeserved frowns, was hot and cold, kind and cruel, doleful and capricious, just as the humour took her, and by a dexterous use of the whole armament of female wiles successfully accomplished the task she had set herself. So Otterburn having surrendered at discretion, which was hardly to be wondered at against such a crafty enemy, was now devoted to his conqueror and saw comparatively little of Eustace, who though distinctly annoyed at his defeat cloaked his real feelings caused by Otterburn's desertion under the guise of careless indifference, and either mooned dismally about alone or sought solace in the society of the Erringtons, who were now making preparations for their departure to England. Before leaving, however, Lady Errington with characteristic good nature had thrown aside all formality and called upon Mrs. Trubbles and Miss Sheldon at the Villa Medici. She took a great fancy to Victoria, both on account of her beauty and her generous straightforward nature, while Mrs. Trubbles amused her mightily with the eccentricities of her character, so she asked them to a dinner at the Villa Tagni, thereby earning the eternal gratitude of Angus, who foresaw a chance of obtaining Victoria all to himself for one whole evening. Of course she also invited Eustace, whom she pitied for his evident unhappiness, thinking, with the natural fondness of a woman for romance, that it sprang from some unrequited love affair and not, as was actually the case, from satiety and cynicism. Eustace graciously accepted the invitation, and for once in his life looked forward to such entertainment with some pleasure, as the cold, irresponsive nature of Lady Errington roused his curiosity and made him anxious to learn more of her inner life. A few days before the Errington dinner-party, Mrs. Trubbles so far overcame her disposition to sleep as to propose a day's shopping in Como to which Victoria eagerly agreed, being anxious to see as much local Lombardian colour as possible. On the morning of their proposed outing, however, Eustace, not being able to endure with equanimity the prospect of a whole afternoon in the company of Mrs. Trubbles, craftily betook himself on a boating excursion to the Villa Pliniana, so Otterburn nothing loth formed the sole escort of the two ladies, and this party of three were now standing in the Piazza awaiting the arrival of the steamer. A large, fat, good-natured woman was Mrs. Trubbles, with a broad red face ever wearing a sleepy smile and a portly body arrayed in rainbow colours with plenty of jewellery. Everybody in town knew the birth, parentage, and bringing up of Mrs. Trubbles as her history had long ago passed the nine days' wonder of scandal, and was already somewhat stale and forgotten by all except her most intimate friends, who never forgot to remind the good-natured lady that she was noble only by the accident of marriage. The Honourable Henry Trubbles was a detestable little man with a bass voice and an overweening vanity concerning his political capabilities, though he had long ago failed in diplomatic circles. A perusal of Beaconsfield's novels in his youth had fired his ambition to emulate their hero, and like a very second-rate Numa Pompilius he went to seek an Egeria who would inspire him with great ideas. The Hon. Henry, however, was so singularly plain in person and disagreeable in manner that no lady in his own rank of life would agree to help him to attain to the Cabinet, so not being able to secure rank he married money in the person of Miss Matilda Barsip, whose papa had made a fortune in army-contracting during the Crimean War. The noble house of which Trubbles was a cadet offered no opposition to the match, being rather glad to get the budding diplomatist settled and done for, so Miss Barsip was duly married with great pomp to her withered little stick of a lover, and six months after the army contractor had the good taste to die, leaving them all his money. The Family, to whom Mrs. Trubbles always alluded in a tone of awe as to some unseen divinities, took the young couple up, and having floated them both into smooth social waters left them to carry on their lives in their own way, which they did. The Hon. Henry, now being in command of plenty of money, spent his life in hanging on to the outside fringe of politics and pretended to know all the secrets of the Cabinet, though as a matter of fact he was acquainted with nothing but what he learned through the medium of the papers. He tried to get into Parliament several times but was such a palpable idiot that no constituency would elect him, so Mr. Trubbles not being able to serve his country, which did not want him, fluttered round St. Stephen's, worried the ministers and bored the members so much that if they could have given him the Governorship of a nice yellow-fever island they certainly would have done so in order to get rid of him. All the Colonial Governors, however, were healthy at present, so the Honourable Henry stayed in town and exasperated everyone with his tea-cup statesmanship. Mrs. Henry on her side had no ambition whatsoever, but drifted leisurely through life, spending her money in a comfortable homely kind of fashion. She was presented at Court on her marriage by the Dowager Duchess of Margate, but did not appreciate the honour, so never went near St. James' again in spite of the orders of Henry, who thought the appearance of his rich wife might improve his diplomatic prospects. Notwithstanding the efforts of the Misses Wilkers, whose academy she had attended at Hampstead, English was not Mrs. Trubbles' strong point, and being a good-natured old soul, who never pretended to be anything else but what she was, the worthy Matilda was a great favourite with her social circle. Her dinners were always excellent, her dances pleasant and fashionable, and her portly person decked out in gay colours was to be seen at many places, though for the most part she preferred to rest in her own house whenever she got a chance. "I'm too stout to be skipping about," she said candidly; "that worriting husband of mine is always hopping round like a cat on hot bricks, but for my part I like peace and quietness." She was certainly a most popular lady, such as the men about Town called a "jolly good sort" and the ladies in Society approved of greatly, because she did not give herself airs above her position; so in spite of her defective English, her loud taste in dress, and the lowliness of her birth, the Hon. Mrs. Trubbles got on very well indeed, and had a good number of friends and no enemies, which says a good deal for her kindly disposition. The trip to Italy had been undertaken at the suggestion of the Honourable Henry, who wanted to study some political question concerning the Great Powers, of which he knew absolutely nothing; so Matilda had also come with him to have a look at foreign parts, and had taken Victoria with her, by permission of Aunt Jelly. "Where's Mr. Trubbles to-day?" asked Otterburn, digging his stick into the gravel. "Oh, Henry," said Mrs. Trubbles placidly, looking at the water in a somnolent manner, "he's gone to Bell-baggio, I think." "Bellaggio," corrected Victoria. "Something like that," replied Mrs. Trubbles complacently. "Dear! dear! how curious these foreigners do talk!--they call a steamer a vapour-bottle, which is a curious name. Dear me, Mr. Macjean, what are you laughing at?" Otterburn pulled himself up promptly, and had the grace to blush under the severe eye of Victoria. "It's _battello di vapore_," he said lightly, "but indeed, Mrs. Trubbles, I'm as much at sea as you are about Italian. I prefer our gude Scottish tongue." "Glesgay," suggested Victoria, whereat Angus made a gesture of horror. "No! no I mean the language of Jeannie Deans, of Highland Mary, and of those Jacobite songs that sprang from the leal hearts of the people." "I once saw _Rob Roy_," observed Mrs. Trubbles heavily; "they were all dressed in tartans. I don't think the dress is very respectable myself." "Then I'll never come before you in the garb of old Gaul," said Angus gaily. "I should think it would suit you splendidly," said Miss Sheldon approvingly, glancing at his stalwart figure; "if you go to a fancy dress ball you must wear it." Otterburn laughed, and promised to obey her commands, but at this moment the steamer drew in to the pier, and they were soon on board, steaming up to Como. It was a beautiful morning, and as yet not too warm, the heat of the sun being tempered by the cool breeze, which, blowing from the shore, brought with it the resinous odours of fir and pine. On either side precipitous mountains towered up into the intense blue of the summer sky, the innumerable villas made pleasant spots of colour here and there, while the bosom of the lake, placidly treacherous, was of changeful hues, like the varying colours of a peacock's neck. Plenty of tourists, in all sorts of extraordinary garbs, were on the deck of the steamer, chattering Italian, German, English, and French, according to their different nationalities, all laden with umbrellas, alpenstocks, Baedekers, luncheon-bags, marine glasses, and such-like evidences of travel. Mrs. Trubbles, having established herself in a comfortable corner, was trying to get a short sleep prior to facing the fatigues of Como, so Victoria and her attentive cavalier, being left to their own devices, began to talk about everyone and everything. "How these tourists do hold on to their guide-books," said Victoria disdainfully, "one would think they'd be quite lost without them." "Very likely they would," replied Otterburn, pulling his straw hat over his eyes with a yawn, "they have a prejudice against looking at any place without knowing all about it." "It's such a trouble reading up all about cathedrals and pictures--I like to ask questions." "Oh! guides!" "No! no I--they're worse than Baedeker. They never stop talking, and their information is so scrappy." "Extensive but not accurate," suggested Macjean with a laugh. "I'm not sure even about the extensive part," observed Victoria gaily; "when I was in England I went to a cathedral--I won't mention names--and the verger had a cut-and-dried story about the place. When he finished his little narrative I began to ask him questions. You've no idea how exasperated he became, because he knew absolutely nothing, and at last said, in despair, 'Why, Miss, you must be an American.' I told him I was an Australian, so he promptly replied, 'Well, Miss, that's quite as bad--for questions.'" As in duty bound, Angus laughed at this story, which was simple enough in itself, but the telling of it seemed to establish a more friendly feeling between them, of which this artful young man took full advantage, and began to point out the various objects of interest on the lake. "You see that villa over there," he said in an official tone, "it belongs to the Visconti lot. They used to be Dukes of Milan, you know." "Dear me! and why aren't they Dukes of Milan now?" "Haven't the least idea," replied Angus, whose historical knowledge was of the vaguest description. "Napoleon, you know, I think he upset the apple-cart--turned them out, I mean. You see, Miss Sheldon, I'm like your verger--I know a stereotyped story, but if you ask me anything beyond I'm up a tree." "You're a very honest guide, at all events," said Victoria with a smile. "What is that tower on the hill?" "Oh, the castle of Baradello." "And who was he?" "Some ancient Johnnie, I believe," returned the young man carelessly, "a duke or a pirate, or a picture gallery, I forget which." "Your information is most accurate," said Miss Sheldon gravely, putting up a large red sunshade, which cast a rosy reflection on her piquant face, "you must study Baedeker very closely." Macjean laughed. "How severe you are," he replied lightly, "but I've got such a beastly memory. It's like a sieve--but, I say, hadn't we better wake up Mrs. Trubbles? Here's Como--dirty place, isn't it?" "Rather dingy," assented Victoria, surveying the untidy-looking town with its picturesque red roofs, above which arose the great Duomo like a great bubble. "What do you think, Mrs. Trubbles?" "Eh? what, my dear?" said that lady, whom the stoppage of the steamer had aroused from a very comfortable slumber. "Very nice indeed. Like a picture I've got over the sideboard in the dining-room--but, dear me, how dirty the streets are! I'm afraid they haven't got a Board of Works. What does this man say?--Bill something--who is he talking to?" "Biglietti," explained Victoria, as they paused at the gangway. "Tickets--you've got them, Mr. Macjean." "Yes, here they are," said Angus, and, handing them to the officer in charge, they went ashore. "What little men," said Victoria, catching sight of some of the military, "they look like tin soldiers." "They don't seem very well fed," observed Mrs. Trubbles meditatively; "I don't think the food is good--very bad quality, I'm afraid. Dear me, there's a fountain." "It's more like a squirt," said Otterburn laughing. "Plenty of water about this place," pursued Mrs. Trubbles, putting up her eyeglass, "but I don't think these foreigners make enough use of it. Oh, dear! dear! what a dreadful smell, they really ought to look after the drains better. I'm so afraid of typhoid. Mr. Macjean, would you mind smoking?--it's safer." Mr. Macjean was only too delighted, and having lighted a cigarette, was soon blowing wreaths of smoke as they all walked up one of the narrow streets, on their way to the Duomo. "We must do the church, you know," remarked Angus with great gravity, "it's the big lion of Como--built by some one called Roderer or Rodari--I'm not certain about the name. Sounds like a champagne brand, doesn't it? It was built somewhere about the thirteenth or fourteenth century--I'm not sure which." "You don't seem very sure of anything beyond the fact that there is a church," said Miss Sheldon disparagingly, "and as it's straight before you, we can be certain it exists. They say it's all built of white marble." "It doesn't look like it then," remarked Mrs. Trubbles emphatically, "a good coat of paint wouldn't hurt it." "Oh, that would spoil it," chorused both the young people, whereupon Mrs. Trubbles shook her head, and held firmly to her original suggestion. Having admired the ornate front, with its delicate Renaissance carvings they went out of the burning sunshine into the cool twilight of the cathedral. Some service was going on as they entered, and in the dim distance they saw the high altar glittering with gold and silver ornaments, beneath gorgeous draperies of yellow damask depending from the ceiling, and innumerable tapers flared like beautiful glittering stars against the brilliant background. Numbers of worshippers, with bent heads, were kneeling on the chill marble pavement, telling their beads, or silently moving their lips in prayer, while a priest in splendid vestments, attended by a long train of white-robed acolytes, officiated at the altar, and at intervals the melodious thunder of the organ broke through the monotonous voices of the choir. Placid-looking images of saints, dusky pictures of the Virgin throned amid the hierarchy of heaven, before which burned the lambent flames of slender white candles, many-coloured tapestries representing biblical scenes, heavy gold brocaded hangings, elaborately-carved shrines and the sudden flash of precious metals and strangely-set jewels appeared in every nook and corner of the immense building, while from the silver censers of the acolytes arose the drowsy incense, in white clouds of sensuous perfume, towards the gilded splendour of the huge dome. Here, from the lofty roof, the rapt faces of Evangelists, saints, angels and virgins, looked gravely downward; there, slender shafts of sunlight, streaming in through the painted windows, tinted the white monuments of the dead with rainbow hues, and under all this subdued splendour of colour and beauty, softened by the dusky twilight, knelt a mixed congregation. Bare-footed _contadini_ from distant hill villages, devoutly told their beads next to some dark-visaged soldier in all the bravery of military trappings, and delicately beautiful ladies, arrayed in the latest Milanese fashion, knelt beside bare-breasted peasants with sinewy figures full of the lithe grace and suppressed fierceness of Italian manhood. "I wonder what Mactab would say to all this?" muttered Otterburn involuntarily, as he thought of the severe humility and bareness of the Kirk o' Tabbylugs. "Who is Mactab?" asked Victoria in a subdued whisper. Angus chuckled quietly. "Did I never tell you of Mactab?" he whispered--"oh! I must. He's a prominent minister of the Free Kirk, of the severest principles." "What are his principles?" "Eh! what? Oh, he hasn't got any principals! He's a Free Kirk, I tell you. All this heathenish worship would make him take a fit. He believes in nothing, not even an organ, so the Mactab congregation sing dreadfully out of tune, but they make up for this by strength of lungs. They could give that wheezy old 'kist o' whustles' fits in psalmody." At this moment Mrs. Trubbles, who had been gazing complacently about her with the same sort of interest as she would have taken in a theatre, intimated that she had seen enough, and led the way out into the hot sunshine. "I'm rather tired of churches," said the matron in her deep voice "we've seen such a lot of them in France." "Oh, France isn't in it with Italy in that line," observed Angus, in his slangy way. "There are more churches than public-houses here." "Well, that's a very good thing," replied Victoria. "I should think so, considering how thin the wines are," retorted Macjean, pausing before a variegated kind of arcade; "but look here--this is the market." "Oh, how pretty!" cried Victoria, noting the picturesque colouring of the different piles of fruit--"just like a scene out of Romeo and Juliet." "And there is Juliet said the Master wickedly, waving his stick in the direction of a ponderous female who was leaning from a projecting iron balcony chattering to a lady below with shrill volubility over some skinny-looking poultry. "Juliet in her old age buying Romeo's dinner," replied Victoria, serenely. "Don't, please, take the romance out of everything." "No; I leave that to Gartney." "Horrid man!" said the girl, viciously; "he would disillusionise an angel." "There are one or two things, my dear Victoria," observed Mrs. Trubbles at this moment--"there are one or two things I should like to take home with me as a kind of mementum of Italy. A fan or a shell-box--you know, dear; a box with 'A Present from Como' on it. Now, what is the Italian for 'A Present from Como'?" "I'm sure I don't know," said Miss Sheldon, suppressing a smile. "However, here's an old curiosity shop. Let us go in and spy out the land." "I can't talk the language myself," said Mrs. Trubbles, doubtfully, as her bulky figure filled up the door, "but Victoria----" "Is much worse," interrupted that young lady, quickly. "I know French, but not Italian, except parrot-like in singing. Now Mr. Macjean----" "I'm worst of all," explained Otterburn, in the most brazen manner. "'Questo e troppo' is all I know." "Translate, please." "It means 'That is too much." "A very good sentence to know," said the matron, decidedly. "I believe these foreign people are rarely honest. I shall learn it--'Question he troppus.' Is that right?" "Not quite; only three words wrong. 'Questo e troppo.'" "'Questo e troppo,'" repeated Mrs. Trubbles, carefully. "What a pity these foreigners don't learn English. It's so much better than their own gibberish." "I'm afraid we'll have to go in for the primitive language of signs," cried Victoria gaily, as they stood in front of the diminutive counter behind which a smiling Italian was gesticulating politely. It would take a long time to describe the difficulties of that shopping. How the shopkeeper, assisted by his tragic-looking wife, raved wildly in Italian, and his three customers endeavoured vainly to find out what they both meant. Sometimes one person would speak, then the other four would join in, the most powerful voice taking the lead. What with "Gran' Dio's" and "Per Bacco's" from the sellers, and "Basta, basta," "Questo e troppo," and "Si, si" from the buyers, the whole transaction was quite operatic in character. Mrs. Trubbles' system of shopping was very simple. When the shopkeeper said two lire, she replied one; if he requested five, she offered four, always keeping the price down, being convinced in her own mind that these foreigners were trying to swindle her, an idea abhorrent to her sturdy British spirit. "I've got a conversation book somewhere," she said at last, fishing in a capacious pocket; "it's got questions in three languages." "And the truth in none," observed Angus, _sotto voce_. "Oh, here it is!" exclaimed Mrs. Trubbles, producing a kind of pamphlet. "Here, Mister Signor," holding up an olive-wood paper-cutter, "Wie viel." A shrug of the shoulders and a gesture of dismay from the shopkeeper, who did not understand German. "Why, he doesn't know his own language!" said Mrs. Trubbles, with great contempt. "They need a School Board here." "I think," suggested Victoria, who was suffocating with laughter, "I think you are talking German." "Dear! dear! you don't say so?" said the lady meekly, somewhat after the fashion of M. Jourdain, who had talked prose for years and did not know it. "Yes, quite right. These books are so muddling. Where's the Italian? Oh, here; 'Quanto, quanto?'" shaking the paper-cutter frantically. "Quanto, signor?" "Tre lire." "Bother the man! I'm not talking about a tray!" cried Mrs. Trubbles, in an exasperated tone. "Here!--this! Use your eyes. Paper-cutter. 'Papero cuttero. Quanto?'" "Tre lire, signora." "He means three francs," explained Victoria. "Oh, does he. I'll give him two." "Questo e troppo," said Otterburn, bringing forward his only bit of Italian with great ostentation. "Two--due--lire, signor. Ah, che la morte." "No, no," from the shopkeeper, "non e molto." "Now what does that mean?" cried the matron, referring to her text-book. "Here it is: 'not much,'--si, si; far too much, too molto, due--due lire," producing them triumphantly from her purse. With many deprecating shrugs and asseverations in fluent Italian that such a sale would ruin him, the shopkeeper at last accepted the two lire, and Mrs. Trubbles with great satisfaction secured what she wanted. They then bought a few more things by pursuing the same system of beating down the prices, and all three ultimately left the shop with the firm conviction that they had secured bargains, which they decidedly had not. "These pigs of English," observed the astute shopkeeper to his wife, "always talk a lot, but they pay in the end." Then the three innocents abroad wandered aimlessly through the narrow streets, saw the statue of the great electrician, Volta, the ruined battlements, the church of St. Abbondio, and other objects of interest. Afterwards they had some refreshment at a café, the proprietors of which Mrs. Trubbles, who was a spendthrift in London but a miser abroad, denounced as robbers, and then were fortunate enough to catch a steamer just starting for Cernobbio. "Oh dear! dear!" moaned Mrs. Trubbles, with a weary sigh, as she sat down in a comfortable seat--"what with their language, their lies, and their nobby-stone streets, I'm quite worn out." "I think one visit is quite enough for Como," said Victoria, as the town receded into the far distance. "When do we leave this place, Mrs. Trubbles?" "In a week, dear," murmured the lady in a sleepy tone. "My husband will get all his politics settled by that time, I hope." "I hope so, too. I'm tired of the lakes." "Don't say that," said Otterburn, reproachfully; "I'll be sorry to leave the Villa Medici." "You needn't. We can go; you can stay." "I don't want to stay if you go." Clearly this obtuse young man was irrepressible, and as he was now getting on dangerous ground again, Victoria deftly turned the conversation. "I suppose we'll see you and Mr. Gartney at Rome?" "Oh, yes. Will you be glad to see us?" "Perhaps. I don't like Mr. Gartney; I've told you so a dozen times." "Then will you be glad to see me?" demanded Otterburn, boldly. Victoria looked at him mischievously, with a dangerous gleam in her dark eyes, then lowering her sunshade with a laugh, she turned abruptly away. "I shall be glad when we arrive at the Villa Medici," she said, lightly; "I'm so hungry." How on earth was a young man to make love to such a capricious girl? CHAPTER VII. LADY ERRINGTON'S LITTLE DINNER. "An alien race beneath an alien sky, Amid strange tongues, and faces strange alone, Stout English hearts who for the moment try To form a little England of their own." After the constant sight of dark Italian faces, and the everlasting clatter of restless Italian tongues, the guests at the Villa Tagni found it pleasant to form part of an English circle once more, to eat an English dinner, to discuss English subjects and compare everything British to the disadvantage of all things Continental. So great a delight did these six people take in meeting one another at a hospitable dinner-table that one would have thought they had been for years exiled in the centre of Africa, and far removed from all civilizing influences. Heaven only knows there is no lack of English tourists on the Continent, but then to a great extent they preserve their insular stiffness towards one another; consequently when people meet in foreign parts, who have a slight acquaintance at home, they rush into one another's arms with tender affection, though they would mutually consider one another insufferable bores during the London season. This, however, was not the case with Lady Errington's guests, who were all genuinely delighted with one another, and chatted gaily on different kinds of subjects as if they had been bosom friends all their lives. The Hon. Henry had been invited on account of his wife, who in her turn had been invited on account of Victoria, but having gone to Milan to see an Italian Count who had all the complications of European politics at his fingers' ends, he telegraphed the sad news that he would not be able to be present, at which Lady Errington was secretly very glad, as an extra man would have quite upset the balance of the party. As it was, Sir Guy took in the portly Mrs. Trubbles to dinner, his wife was escorted by Eustace, and the Master of Otterburn realised the wish of his heart by acting as cavalier to Miss Sheldon. So things being thus pleasantly arranged, they all sat round the well spread table as merry a party as it would be possible to find. In some mysterious manner Lady Errington had managed to provide a series of English dishes, to which all present did ample justice, not that anyone was particularly a gourmand, but Italian cookery is a trifle monotonous and a real English dinner in Italy is something to be appreciated. At all events, what with the food, the wine, and the continuous strain of light badinage, all the guests were in a state of the highest good humour, and even the pessimistic Gartney deigned to take a moderately charitable view of things. "This is jolly and no mistake," said Otterburn, as the servant filled his glass with champagne, "you need to go abroad to appreciate home comforts." "I think you would appreciate them anywhere," remarked Eustace the cynic. "And quite right too," chimed in Miss Sheldon, with a gay laugh, "everybody does, only they don't like to confess it." "Why not?" demanded Sir Guy. Victoria looked rather nonplussed for the moment, having made an idle statement without thinking she would be called upon to give her reasons. "Oh, I don't know," she replied, after some hesitation. "I suppose people like to be thought romantic, and thinking about what you eat and drink isn't romantic." "It's very sensible at all events," said Lady Errington; "do you not agree with me Mrs. Trubbles?" "I do," replied the matron ponderously, nodding her head, upon which was perched a cheerful-looking cap of black lace and glittering bugles, "people should always eat and drink well at meal times, but no nibblin's in between. It isn't nature to despise good food well-cooked. I've no patience with those gells who starve themselves and pinch their waists to look pretty. Wasps I call them." "Without the sting," suggested Sir Guy. "That depends on their tempers, and their tempers," continued Mrs. Trubbles impressively, "depend on their eating. Give them good meals and plenty of exercise, and there's the makin' of good wives about them. Let them starve themselves and lace tight, and it makes their noses red and their tempers cross." "The whole duty of woman then," murmured Eustace demurely, "is to appreciate her cook and disobey her dressmaker. They might do the first, but never the second." Mrs. Trubbles, not understanding irony, looked doubtfully at Eustace to see if he was smiling, but so grave was the expression of his face that she did not know whether he spoke in jest or earnest, so without making any reply, she continued her meal while the conversation became frivolous and general. "I think Italy a very over-rated place." "Really! In what respect--morals, scenery, manners?" "No, as regards music. It's a very barrel-organy country." "Not more so than the London streets. And after all, `Ah che la Morte,' is more musical than 'Tommy make room for your uncle." "Both out of date." "Well, say Gounod's 'Romeo and Juliet' and the 'Boulanger March." "Yes, it's much jollier than the Op. 42 _andante adagio con fuoco prestissimo_ sort of things they give you at the Richter Concerts." "Maclean," observed Eustace, gravely regarding his glass, "you are a Philistine, and classical music of the advanced school is thrown away on your uncultivated ear." "No doubt! I prefer 'Auld Lang Syne' to Beethoven." "Naturally, being a Scotchman. You're like the man who knew two tunes. One was 'God save the Queen,' the other--wasn't." "I remember," observed Mrs. Trubbles, whose ideas of music were primitive in the extreme, "that I went to a concert at St. James' Hall, where they played something called a fuggy." "A fugue," translated Victoria for the benefit of the company. "I know! One tune starts, a second catches it up. Then a third joins in, and just as it successfully muddles up the other two, a fourth and a fifth have their say in the matter." "Sounds dreadfully mixed." "Then it sounds exactly what it is," said Miss Sheldon promptly. "But what about this particular fugue, Mrs. Trubbles?" "The fugue, dear--yes, of course. There was a young man in front of me wriggled dreadfully. I thought he was uneasy about a pin, but he was only showing how pleased he was with the music, and kept calling out 'Oh this is food!'" "Wanted the bottle, I expect," said Eustace sweetly, "such musical babies shouldn't be allowed to go to classical concerts. It's too much for their nerves." "It's too much for mine," remarked Otterburn grimly. "After dinner," said Gartney, looking thoughtfully at him, "I shall play the 'Moonlight Sonata.'" "In that case, Lady Errington, may I stay out on the terrace? Such a suggestion is inhuman." Lady Errington laughed and gave the signal to the ladies, whereupon they all arose to their feet. "I'm afraid you're talking dreadful nonsense," she said, shaking her head. "It's a poor heart that never rejoiceth," replied Otterburn impudently, as he opened the door for the ladies to depart. Following the Continental fashion, Sir Guy and his guests did not linger long over their wine, but, after a few minutes, went into the drawing-room, whence they strolled on to the terrace for cigarettes and coffee. Mrs. Trubbles, feeling sleepy after her dinner, found a comfortable chair in a distant corner of the room, and went placidly to sleep, while the remaining guests established themselves on the terrace, the gentlemen with cigarettes and the ladies with coffee. Such a perfect night as it was. Away in the distance, dense and black against the cold, clear sky, frowned the sombre masses of mountains, above which hung in a cloudless firmament the silver shield of the moon. Here and there a liquid star throbbed in the deep heart of the heavens, and overhead shone the misty splendour of the Milky Way; not a breath of wind ruffled the still surface of the lake, which reflected the serene beauty of the sky, but at intervals across the star-smitten surface would move the dark, slim form of a boat, the oars breaking the water into thousands of flashing diamonds. Far beyond glimmered the orange-coloured lights of Blevio, and the sudden whiteness of some tall campanile shooting up in slender beauty from amid its dark mass of surrounding houses. A sense of perfect fragrance in the still air, a charmed silence all around, and a wondrous restful feeling under the cool magic of the night. Then, mellowed by distance, faint and far like aerial music, the silver tones of a peal of bells sounded at intervals through the clear atmosphere, until the whole night seemed full of sweet sounds. "This is the night when Diana kisses Endymion," said Eustace dreamily, "the antique deities which we all deny are still on earth in Italy. They are not visible, nor will they ever be so save to the eye of faith alone. Even then they are doubtful of revealing themselves to a generation who would put them under the microscope and on the dissecting table. But although we try hard to disbelieve in their existence, the spell of their beauty is sometimes too strong, and I never go anywhere among these hills without a secret hope of finding Pan asleep at noontide in the ilex shade, or of seeing the laughing face of a Dryad framed in tamarisk leaves." "And your hope is never realised," said Lady Errington sadly; "that is so true of our modern desires." "Because we always desire the impossible," replied Eustace, clasping his hands over his knees while the chill moonlight fell on his massive face, "and expect to find it in crowded cities under the glare of gaslight, instead of in these magic solitudes where the moon shines on haunted ground." "But is it possible to reconcile man and Nature?" "According to Matthew Arnold, yes." "What a romantic way you have of looking at things, Mr. Gartney," remarked Victoria with some impatience. "If everyone took your view of life, I'm afraid the world would not get on." "It's all humbug," cried Otterburn, who agreed in every way with Miss Sheldon, "that is, you know, not quite sensible." "I daresay it is not--in a worldly sense," said Eustace bitterly, "but then you see I don't look at everything from a purely utilitarian point of view." "I do" interposed Guy in his hearty British voice, "it's the only way to get one's comforts in life. And one's comforts suggest smoking." Otterburn assented with avidity, for they had been sitting with cigarettes for some time, but never lighted up, and even Eustace departed so much from his poetic dreamings as to accept the soothing weed. "You don't practise what you preach, Mr. Gurney," said Lady Errington, smiling. "How many of us do?" asked Gartney complacently. "I'm afraid we talk a lot and do nothing, now-a-days. It's the disease of the latter end of the nineteenth century." "Oh, everything's very jolly," said Otterburn, who resembled Mark Tapley in his disposition. "Who was it said that this was the best of all possible worlds?" "Voltaire! But by that it was not his intention to infer he didn't yearn after some better world." "Heaven!" "I don't think that was in M. Arouet's line." "I'm afraid it isn't in any of our lines." "What a rude remark," said Lady Errington severely. "This conversation is becoming so atheistical that I must ask Mr. Gartney to carry out his promise and play the Moonlight Sonata. It may inspire us with higher thoughts." "The Como Moonlight Sonata--it will be a local hit." "What nonsense you do talk, Macjean," said Eustace rising to his feet and throwing his cigarette into the water, "you're like that man in the Merchant of Venice." "What man in the Merchant of Venice?" "Oh, if you don't know your Shakespeare, I'm afraid I can't teach it to you," retorted Eustace, and stepping lightly across the terrace, he sat down at the piano, which was placed near the window of the drawing-room, and ran his fingers lightly over the ivory keys. Within the party on the terrace could see the gleam of the marble floor, the dull glitter of heavily embroidered curtains, the faint reflection of a mirror, and over all the rosy light of a red-shaded lamp the glare of which streamed out into the pale moonlight. Everyone sat silently in the wonderful mystic world created by the magic of the moon, and from the piano a stream of melody, sad and melancholy, in a minor key, broke forth on the still night. The spell of the shadows, the weirdness of the hour, and the presence of Lady Errington, to whom he felt strangely drawn, all had their influence on Gartney's wonderfully impressionable nature, and he began to improvise delicate melodies on a story suggested to him by the calm lake gleaming without. "In the crystal depths of the blue lake," he chanted in a dreamy monotone, while the subtle harmonies wove themselves under his long lithe fingers, "there dwells a beautiful fairy, in a wondrous palace. She is in love with the nightingale who sings so sweetly from the laurels that hang their green leaves over the still waters. The voice of the hidden singer has strange power and tells her of the cool green depths of the forest; of the rich perfumes shaken from the flowers by the gentle night-wind, and of the ruined shrines from whence the gods have fled. As the passionate notes well forth from amid the dusky shadows the eyes of the beautiful fairy fill with hot tears, for she knows that the bird sings of a long dead love, of a long dead sorrow. But she has no soul, the beautiful fairy, and cannot feel the rapture, the passion, the sadness of love. She rises to the glittering surface of the lake, and waves her slender white arms to the nightingale that sings so sweetly in the moonlight. But the dawn breaks rosy in the eastern skies, the rough wind of the morning whitens the lake, and the nightingale sings no more. Then the beautiful fairy, broken-hearted, sinks far down into the placid waters, to where there blooms strange flowers of wondrous hues, and weeps, and weeps, and weeps for the love which she can never feel without a soul." A chord, and the player let his hands fall from the keyboard. "That is a beautiful story, such as Heine might have told," said Lady Errington softly. "The inspiration is Heine," replied Eustace dreamily, and relapsed into silence. Victoria, eminently a woman of the world, grew weary of this poetical talk and made a sign to Otterburn, who, understanding her meaning, arose to his feet as she left her chair, and they strolled along the terrace laughing gaily. A sound from within showed that Mrs. Trubbles was once more awake, so Guy in his capacity of host went inside to attend to her, and Eustace, sitting at the piano, was left alone with Lady Errington. So frail, so pale, so ethereal she looked in the thin cold beams of the moon, lying back, still and listless, in her wicker chair, with her hands crossed idly on her white dress. The man at the piano was in the radiance of the rosy lamplight, but the woman, dreaming in the silence, looked a fitter inhabitant for this weird, white world of mystery and chilly splendour. Watching her closely, even in the distance, Eustace caught a glimpse of her eyes for the moment, and fancied, with the vivid imagination of a poet, that he saw in their depths that undefinable look of unfulfilled motherhood which had led him to call her an "incomplete Madonna." Filled with this idea, a sudden inspiration of ascertaining the truth seized him, and without changing his position, he replaced his fingers on the ivory keys and broke into the steady rhythmical swing of a cradle song. His voice was a small sweet tenor, not very loud, but wonderfully soft and sympathetic, so that he rendered the song he now sang with rare delicacy and tenderness. I. "Sleep, little baby! peacefully rest, Mother is clasping thee close to her breast; Angels watch over thee gentle and mild, Guard thee with heavenly love undefiled. Sleep little baby, safe in thy nest, Sleep little baby! mother's own child." II. "Sleep, little baby! fear not the storm, Tenderly mother is holding thy form. Mother's eyes watching thee ever above Shine like twin stars with fathomless love. Sleep, little baby! safely and warm, Sleep, little baby! mother's own dove." When he had ended the song with one soft, long-drawn note, he glanced furtively at Lady Errington, and saw that he had touched the one sympathetic chord of her nature, for those calm blue eyes were full of unshed tears hanging on the long lashes. Eustace delicately refrained from noticing her emotion, but rising from the piano strolled on to the terrace, leaned lightly over the balustrade and gazed absorbedly at the restless water, dark and sombre under the stone wall. "A perfect night," he murmured after a pause, during which Lady Errington found time to recover herself from the momentary fit of emotion. "Yes," answered Alizon mechanically, then after a pause, "thank you very much for the song." "I'm glad you liked it," responded Eustace equably, and again there was silence between them. The moonlight shone on both their faces, on his, massive and masterful with a poetic look in his wonderfully eloquent eyes, and on hers, delicate, distinct and fragile, as if it had been carved from ivory. Light laughter from the two young people at the end of the terrace, a deep murmur of conversation from within, where Sir Guy strove gallantly to entertain his drowsy guest, but this man and woman, oblivious of all else, remained absorbed in their own thoughts. Of what was she thinking? of her past sorrow, her present happiness, her doubtful future (for the future is doubtful with all humanity)--Who could tell? Eustace, delicately sympathetic as he was, stood outside the closed portals of her soul, into which no man, not even her husband, had penetrated. But men and women, however closely allied, how, ever passionately attached, however unreserved in their confidences, never know one another's souls. There is always a something behind all which is never revealed, which the soul feels intensely itself, yet shrinks from disclosing even to nearest and dearest, and it is this vague secret which all feel, yet none tell, that makes humanity live in loneliest isolation from each other. Perhaps Lady Errington was thinking of this hidden secret of her soul which none knew, nor ever would know, but Eustace, softened for the moment by the unexpected maternal emotion his song had evoked, was envying his cousin the possession of this cold, silent woman. Had he known her personally before her marriage he might not have cared much about her, save in a friendly way, but his eccentric imagination had endowed her with a vague charm, which no other woman possessed, and the knowledge that she belonged to another man made him bitterly regretful. It was ever thus with the whimsical character of Eustace Gartney. Place something within his reach, and he despised it, place it beyond his hope of attainment, and he would strain every nerve to possess it. He lived in the pursuit of the unattainable, which of all things had the greatest charm for him, and this unattainable vision of charming womanhood filled his soul with passionate anguish and desire. Suddenly, with a sigh, Lady Errington lifted up her eyes and saw Eustace looking at her, respectfully enough, yet with a certain meaning in his gaze which caused her vague embarrassment, she knew not why. "Your music has made me dream, Mr. Gartney," she said, nervously opening her fan. "You are of a sensitive nature, perhaps." She sighed again. "Yes, very sensitive. It is a most unhappy thing to be impressionable, one feels things other people count as nothing." "Other people are wise," said Eustace in an ironical tone, "they take Talleyrand's advice about a happy life, and--are happy." "What is your experience?" "The reverse; but then you see I have not taken Talleyrand's advice. It is excellent and infallible to many people, but not to me." "Why not?" "I refer you to one Hamlet, who said, 'The time is out of joint.'" "Hamlet was a morbid, self-analysing egotist," said Lady Errington, emphatically. "No--you are wrong. He was a man crushed down by melancholy." "Principally of his own making, though certainly he had plenty of excuse." "And don't you think I have any excuse for being unhappy?" Alizon looked at him critically. "You are young, healthy, rich, famous. No, I don't think you have any excuse. Do you remember my advice to you the other night?" "About philanthropy, yes. But we did not come to any agreement on the subject, because we were interrupted." "History repeats itself," said Lady Errington, rising, "for here come Mrs. Trubbles and Guy." "And Macjean and Miss Sheldon. Farewell, Minerva--Momus is King." "Wisdom gives place to Folly--well, is not that a very good thing," said Alizon laughing, "you would grow weary of a world without change." "I daresay. To no moment of my life could I have said with Faust, 'Stay, thou art so fair.'" "Alizon, Mrs. Trubbles is going," said Sir Guy's voice, as the ponderous matron rolled towards his wife like a war-chariot. "I'm so sorry," observed Lady Errington, taking the lady's hand. "So am I, dear," said Mrs. Trubbles in a sleepy voice, "but I always go to bed early here, the climate makes me so sleepy. I have enjoyed myself so much--so very much. Yes." "Next time you visit," whispered Otterburn to Victoria, "bring a chaperon who is wide-awake." "I will--you shall choose my chaperon, Mr. Macjean." "You mightn't like my choice," said Macjean wickedly. "I mean a lady, of course," replied Victoria demurely, "not an irreverent young man like--well, never mind." "Like me, I suppose?" "I never said so." "No, but you looked it." Victoria laughed, and departed with Mrs. Trubbles and her hostess to put her wraps on, while the three gentlemen had a short smoke and conversation, after which they all separated for the night. Eustace walked silently back in the moonlight with Mrs. Trubbles who did all the talking; and the young couple behind them talked Chinese metaphysics. CHAPTER VIII. EUSTACE EXAMINES HIS MIND. "I looked into my mind, And what did I find? The waifs of the life I had left behind. "The tears of a girl, A blossom--a curl, The heart of a woman who married an Earl. "Ambitions and fears, Gay laughter and tears, Dead sorrows, dead pleasures of long perished years. "Ah, folly to sigh For passions that die, Sir Poet, 'tis best to let sleeping dogs lie." "I suppose," said Eustace to his friend, "that as we are here we may as well see something of the place." "But we have seen a lot," objected Angus, removing his post-prandial cigarette. "Do you think so?" observed Gartney serenely; "it strikes me that your 'seeing a lot' has been principally confined to pottering about this place in company with Miss Sheldon." Otterburn looked a trifle sheepish at this very pointed remark, and resumed his cigarette with a nervous laugh. They were seated under a mulberry tree, looking at the lake flashing in the brilliant sunshine, listening to a noisy cicada that was singing to itself in an adjacent flower-bed, and watching the brown lizards chasing one another over the hot stones of the parapet. "Where do you want to go to?" asked the Master, after a pause. "I was thinking of driving to Cantari. It's a queer old village, dating from the time of Il Medeghino." "Who the deuce was he?" "A pirate of this ilk, who used to sweep the lake with a fleet of ships." "It wouldn't take a very big fleet to do that," said Otterburn, staring at the narrow limits of the lake. "I daresay one of our ironclads could have knocked the whole show to kingdom-come in no time." "Very probably," replied Eustace dryly, "but luckily for Il Medeghino there were no ironclads in those days, and a good thing too. Torpedoes, Gatling guns, and dynamite have taken all the romance out of war. But this is not the question. What about Cantari. Will you come?" "Well, I hardly know--I--do you think Miss Sheldon would care to come?" "She might, only I'm not going to ask her. There's not much amusement in watching her flirting with you in some old church. Besides she'd admire the altar-cloth because it would make such a lovely dress, and the jewels of the shrine because they would look so charming on her own neck. No. I am not going to have my enjoyment spoilt by the everlasting chatter of a woman's tongue." "You're horribly severe," said Angus wincing. "You don't like Miss Sheldon." "As a pretty woman, yes. As a companion, no. She's a coquette.' "Oh, I don't think so." "Don't you? Well, wait a week. Your disenchantment will soon commence." "She's a true woman," declared Macjean hotly. "And therefore capricious. My dear lad, the two things are inseparable. But once more--for the third time. What about Cantari?" The young man looked at the blue sky above, the blue lake below, the brilliantly-coloured flowers, and ultimately brought his eyes back to Eustace. "I'll come if you like," he said awkwardly. "Oh, don't trouble," replied Eustace curtly, springing to his feet, "I'll go alone," and he walked off in a huff, Otterburn making no attempt to stop him. "What a cross chap he is," muttered the Master to himself, "he always wants a fellow to be dodging about those old ruins. It isn't good enough when there's a pretty girl about--not much. Life's too short to waste one's chances." After which slightly egotistical soliloquy, Otterburn pitched his cigarette into a flower-bed and strolled off to the music-room, where he found Miss Sheldon strumming waltzes on a fearfully bad piano. "Oh, here you are," she cried, rising with alacrity, "I'm so glad. I want to go out for a stroll, and Mrs. Trubbles doesn't. That nuisance of a husband of hers is talking her to sleep with politics." "He is rather a trial," murmured Otterburn, as they went outside. "Trial!" echoed Miss Sheldon, with supreme contempt, unfurling her sunshade, "I should just think so. One might as well have married a Blue-Book. Why did she marry him?" "For the sake of contrast, probably." "It's not impossible. Where is the amiable Mr. Gartney?" "Gone geologizing, or ruin-hunting. Something of that sort!" "Alone?" "Entirely." "Then he's in very good company." "Oh, I say, you know," said Angus, making a weak stand for the character of his absent friend, "Gartney isn't a bad fellow." "I never said he was." "No--but you think----" "It's more than you do, or you wouldn't stand there talking such nonsense," said Victoria severely. "Come and buy me some peaches." So Otterburn held his tongue in the meekest manner, and bought her peaches, which they devoured comfortably by the lake, talking of everything, except Eustace Gartney. In the meanwhile that gentleman, considerably upset in his own mind by what he termed Macjean's selfishness (he was quite oblivious of his own), had gone round to some stables in the village, selected a carriage, and was now being driven along the dusty white road in the direction of Cantari. The driver, a swarthy young man with a somewhat dilapidated suit of clothes, a shining hard hat, and a good-natured smile, called the weak-kneed animal which drew the vehicle "Tista," and "Tista" was the nearest approach to a skeleton ever seen outside the walls of a museum. Peppino (the driver) encouraged Tista (the horse) by first shouting and then abusing him in voluble Italian. "Ah, pig of a horse why go so slow? Child of Satan, is not the corn of the illustrious Signor waiting for thee at Cantari?" It might have been, but Tista seemed to have his doubts about the truth of this statement, for he did not mend his pace, but ambled complacently on, stopping every now and then to whisk a fly from his hide. At last, in despair, Peppino got down from his perch and trudged up the hill beside Tista, who shook his bells bravely and made a great show of speed over the irregular road. "Hadn't you better carry him?" asked Eustace in Italian, observing this comedy in sarcastic silence. "I don't think he'll live as far as Cantari." Peppino touched his hat, grinned at the wit of the English milord, and without any reply went on abusing the stolid Tista with the brilliant vocabulary of a Texus mule driver. At last Tista with much difficulty managed to gain the top of the hill, whereupon Peppino mounted his perch once more, cracked his whip in grand style, and his attenuated horse proceeded to tumble down the incline. Tista neither galloped, cantered, nor walked, but simply tumbled down the hill, being considerably assisted in his descent by the weight of the carriage behind. Then came a stretch of comparatively level road, running along the side of the lake, where Tista resumed his ambling, and after a deliberate journey the three, horse, driver and passenger, reached Cantari. Here Eustace left his carriage at the Albergo Garibaldi, and, lighting a cigarette as a preventative against the evil odours of the village, strolled through the narrow streets with listless curiosity. Cantari is situated on the side of a steep mountain which slopes sheer into the lake, and in fact some of the dwellings are built on stone piles over the tideless waters. All the houses, grey and weather-worn are huddled together as if for warmth, and from the bright green forests high above there falls a great sheet of foaming water, which descends through the centre of the village by several stages until it plunges with a muffled roar into the lake. A perfect labyrinth of streets, narrow and gloomy, with tall grey houses on either side, cobbled stone pavements sloping from both sides to an open drain in the centre, and high above a glimpse of blue sky rendered all the more brilliant by the chill darkness of the place below. Then endless flights of rugged stairs, worn into hollows by the heavy feet of many generations, long sombre passages with humid walls, and slender stone bridges throwing a single arch across the tumbling white torrent raging below in dusky depths of cruel seeming. Heavily barred doors set in the massive walls, and higher up, rows of grated windows like those of some oriental seraglio, with open green shutters, just catching a fleeting glimpse of sunlight; still higher, iron railed balconies over which white linen hung out to dry, and highest of all, the vivid red of the tiled roofs, round which swooped and twittered the swift swallows. In these dreary streets and alleys a perpetual twilight ever reigns, adding to the uncanny feeling of the place. Now and then a gaudily-dressed _contadina_, all red skirt, gold earrings and barbaric colouring, clatters down in her wooden pattens; dark-browed, mobile-faced men lounge idly against the walls, laughing gaily, and at intervals sleek grey donkeys, laden with baskets piled with the vivid colours of vegetables and fruit, climb painfully up the steep ascent. "It's like the Middle Ages," mused Eustace, as he toiled upward. "All kinds of dark deeds could take place in these winding streets. I wouldn't be surprised to see a band of the Baglioni waiting for some foe of their house in these dark corners, or to meet Dante climbing these steep stairs dreaming of Hell and Beatrice. Stradella might sing in the moonlight under that high balcony, where doubtless at night a peasant Juliet chatters love in villainous patois to some dark-browed Romeo." A sudden turn of the stairs brought him into the brilliant sunshine and on to a little piazza hanging midway on the green mountain between the blue lake and the blue sky. Severally on three sides, an albergo, a café, a church, and on the fourth a wondrous view of sparkling waters, cloud-swathed hills, and distant pinnacles of Alpine snow. Thoroughly tired out by his climb, Eustace sat thankfully down in an iron chair, put his feet on another, and ordered some wine from a dreary little waiter who emerged from the café to attend to his wants. While waiting, Eustace tilted his straw hat over his eyes, weary with the vivid colours of the landscape, and fell fast asleep. The waiter brought the wine, saw that the English gentleman was asleep, so retired cautiously without waking him. In the pale blue sky the restless swallows flashed in rapid circles or twittered around the sloping eaves of the houses. On the hot stones of the little piazza slept the restless brown lizards, and in the centre a fountain of sparkling water splashed musically in its wide stone basin, all carved in Renaissance style with vines and masks and nude figures of frenzied Bacchanals. The sun dipped behind the arid peak of a great mountain, and threw its shadow on to the mountain village, while the mellow bells began to ring slowly in the slender campanile. Eustace awoke with a start, to find that he had been asleep for some considerable time, and after drinking his wine, and feeing the dreary little waiter, went across to have a look at the church before descending. It was exactly the same as any other Italian church, frescoes of angels, and saints, and wide-eyed cherubim, side altars, before which burned the low, steady flame of oil lamps, high altar glittering with jewels and flowers, painted windows, faint odour of incense and all such things. A woman was kneeling at the confessional, within which sat a severe-looking priest, and Eustace, catching a glimpse of this, took a seat in the shadow near the door lest he should disturb them. "If I could only believe like that," he thought to himself as he enviously watched the kneeling woman, "how much happier I should be; but it is impossible for me to shift my burden of sins on to the shoulders of another man. This is the age of disbelief, and I am of it, but I would give the whole world to be able to return to the primitive simple faith of these peasants, to believe in miracles, in the intercession of saints, in the canonization of pious people, and in all those beautiful fables which make their lives so bright." The still church, the faint fumes of incense, the sudden flash in the dusky shadows of cross and pictured face, all influenced his singularly impressionable nature. He felt lifted up from the things of this earth into a higher region of spirituality, and in the exaltation of the moment felt inclined to kneel down on the cold pavement and lift up his voice in prayer. But the mocking spirit of disbelief, the spirit which denies, damped this sudden impulse of strong faith, and he sat there in the cold twilight, pitying himself profoundedly with the self-commiseration of an egotist, for the weariness of his life, which came from the selfishness of his own actions. "How infinitely dreary is this life of ours, with its cant and humbug, its hollow aspirations and unsatisfying rewards. We try to make ourselves happy and only succeed in rendering ourselves cynical. If there were only some chance of compensation in the next world, but that is such a doubtful point. We are like wanderers on a lonely moor misled by false lights--false lights of our own creation. We know nothing, we can prove nothing, we believe nothing--not very gratifying after eighteen centuries of Christianity. After all, I daresay that old Greek philosopher was right, who said 'Eat, drink, for to-morrow we die.' Still, one grows weary of eating, and drinking, and other things--especially other things. Marriage, for instance--I ought to marry, and yet--it's such a hazardous experiment. I would tire of the best woman breathing, unless I chanced on the other half of myself, according to Plato's theory. That, I'm afraid, is impossible, though it certainly hasn't been for the want of trying. I've loved a good many women, but the passion has only lasted the life of a rose." At this moment of his reflections he chanced to raise his eyes, and saw in front of him a picture of the Madonna, with the calm look of maternity on her face, and this sight turned his thoughts in the direction of Lady Errington. "It is curious that I should be so attracted by that woman. I wonder what can be the reason. She is not particularly brilliant, nor clever, nor exquisitely beautiful, and yet she seems to satisfy that hunger of the soul I have felt all my life. One can think, but not describe a woman's character, even the most shallow woman's; there is always something that escapes one. Alizon Errington has that something, and it is that which attracts me so powerfully. That calm, reposeful, sympathetic nature which appeals so strongly to a worn-out soul. If I were ill, I would like her to sit beside me and lay her cool hand on my forehead--she is like moonlight, dreamy, restful and indescribable. "Perhaps she is the woman of my dreams, the impossible ideal which all men imagine and no man ever meets. If this should be the case, Fate has played me a cruel trick in making her my cousin's wife. She does not love him--No!--she loves nothing except a vague fancy, which will turn to a passionate reality when she becomes a mother. "Guy is living in a fool's paradise, for he takes her sympathetic nature for a loving one. Some day he will be undeceived and find that he loves a statue, a snow queen, who can never respond to his passion. When she becomes a mother she will find her soul, which will only awaken at the cry of a child; but at present she is an Undine--a faint, white ghost--the shadow of what a woman should be. "Do I love her?--I don't know. There is something too spiritual about this new passion of mine. It is as evanescent as the dew, as unreal as moonlight; there is no flesh and blood reality about such platonisms. I am no Pygmalion to worship a statue. Still, if the gods endowed this statue with life--What then? It is difficult to say. I would love her. I would adore her, and yet--she is the wife of my cousin and I--I am the fool of fortune." With a dreary laugh he rose from his seat, feeling cramped and chill in the grim shadows. He went outside, but the sunlight had died out of the sky and all the beautiful, brilliant world was dull and grey; the magic light had passed away from on land and water, leaving a sombre, weary earth, across which the wind blew cold and bleak. "Rose-coloured spectacles! Rose-coloured spectacles!" he muttered, plunging into the gloomy stairs of the street. "If I could only buy a pair." Peppino and Tista were waiting for him at the Albergo Garibaldi, and in a few minutes he was on his way back to the Villa Medici. The sun had disappeared behind the distant hills, and in a rose-coloured sky hung the faint shadow of a waning moon, looking thin and haggard amid the fast-fading splendour. "She is like the moon," he sighed sadly, "like the pale, cold moon. As fair--as calm--and as lifeless as that dead world." CHAPTER IX. "OH, WILT THOU BE MY BRIDE, KATHLEEN?" "Say 'Yes' or 'No' Before we part. Come joy or woe, Say 'Yes' or 'No.' I love thee so! Hope fills my heart. Say 'Yes' or 'No' Before we part." There was no doubt that Angus Macjean was very much in love with Miss Sheldon, which to wiseacres would appear rather foolish, seeing that he had only known her three weeks. But as, according to Kit Marlowe, "He never loved who loved not at first sight," Otterburn had fulfilled such practical advice to the letter, and however rapidly love had sprung up in his heart in that short space of three weeks, it had become sufficiently powerful to dominate all his other faculties. As to the wisdom of this sudden passion, he was somewhat doubtful, for two reasons, one being that he did not know whether Victoria would accept him, and the other that even if she did, his father might refuse to sanction the match, a very probable contingency, seeing that the old Lord had already settled the matrimonial future of his heir. Under these circumstances Otterburn, much as he was in love, felt rather embarrassed as to the manner in which he should proceed. He adored this bright-eyed, piquant beauty with all his soul, so, according to the neck-or-nothing traditions of Love, should have thrown all other considerations to the winds, but having inherited from his father a vein of Scotch caution he deemed it wise to proceed with due circumspection. Gartney might have advised this half-hearted lover, but Otterburn knew that neither his lady-love nor his friend liked one another, so thought it useless to ask for an opinion which would be diametrically opposed to his own desires. Seeing, therefore, that there was nothing satisfactory to be obtained from Eustace, Otterburn made up his mind to find out indirectly what Johnnie Armstrong thought of the matter. It may appear strange that he should condescend to speak of such a subject even indirectly to his servant, but then Johnnie was much more to him than a servant, being an old and faithful friend of the family, who had seen him grow up from childhood, and regarded himself in the light of a humble adviser to the young heir in the absence of Mactab, to whom Johnnie deferred as spiritual adviser. According to this view of the matter, which would have been quite incomprehensible to Eustace, who regarded his valet as a useful machine, Johnnie was no ordinary servant, and although Angus did not intend to ask him right out how he thought such a union would be received at Dunkeld Castle, yet he knew that once Johnnie's tongue was set going he would soon find out all he wanted to know. Johnnie, in himself, represented the home authorities, and feeling very doubtful in his own mind as to the views that might be taken of the affair, after much cogitation Angus determined to ascertain the sage Johnnie's opinion on the subject, and one morning, while he was dressing, broached the idea in a most artful way. He was standing before the mirror brushing his hair, and Johnnie was hunting for some special necktie he had been told to find, when the following dialogue took place. "Johnnie," asked Angus, without turning his head, "were you ever in love?" Johnnie paused for a moment and rubbed his bald brow with one lean red hand. "Weel, Maister," he said, with habitual Scotch caution, "I'll nae gang sae far as tae say I michtna hae been. There wis reed-heeded Mysie, ye ken a canty lass wi' a braw tocher. Ye'll mind her, sir, doon the burn near Kirsty Lachlan's but an' ben." "Can't say I recollect her," replied Angus carelessly. "All the girls are red-headed about Dunkeld. Well, did you love Mysie?" "Maybe I did," said Johnnie coolly, "an' maybe she would hae made me a decent gudewife if it hadna been for that blithering Sawney Macpherson--the gowk wi' the daft mither--whae yattered her saul oot wi' his skirlin' about her braw looks, an' sae she married him. It wasna a happy foregathering," concluded Mr. Armstrong spitefully, "for Sawney's ower fond o' whusky, an' the meenister had him warned fower times i' the Kirk o' Tabbylugs." "How do you like the Italian girls?" asked the Master, who had been listening with some impatience to Johnnie's long-winded story. "A puir lot, Maister, a puir lot. Feckless things whae warship the Scarlet Wuman wi' gew-gaws an' tinkling ornaments in high places. They're aye yelpin' fra morn till nicht wi' idolatrous processions an' graven images." As these religious views of the godly Johnnie did not interest Otterburn, he proceeded: "What do you think of Miss Sheldon, Johnnie?" "She's nae sae bad." "Oh, nonsense. She's an angel." "Weel, I've seen waur." Johnnie was evidently determined not to commit himself in any way, so Angus spoke straight out. "What would you say if I married her, Johnnie?" "Losh me," ejaculated Armstrong in dismay, "ye'll be clean daft to dae sic a thing. The auld Lord would never forgie ye, Maister. An' Mistress Cranstoun----" "Oh, hang it. I'm not going to marry her," retorted Angus, snatching a necktie from Johnnie's paralysed grasp. "I misdoubt me what the godly Mactab wull spier----" "D-- Mactab." "Hech! just listen tae him," cried Johnnie, with uplifted hands. "The meenister whae brocht him up in the psalms o' David an' led him by mony waters through the paraphrases." "Hold your tongue!" said the Master, stamping his foot. "I didn't ask you to make any remarks." "What's your wull then?" demanded Johnnie sourly. "Do you think there'll be a row if I married her?" "Aye I--that I do." "She's very pretty." "Ye mauna gang like th' Israelites after strange wumen." "She's got plenty of money." This artful remark appealed to Johnnie's strongest passion, and he considered the question. "Weel, I'll nae say but what that micht dae ye some gude," he said cautiously, "but, oh, Maister, it's nae the auld Lord I fear, it's the meenister o' Tabbylugs, as ye weel ken. If ye but get the richt side o' his lug, maybe ye can tac' this dochter o' Belial tae Kirk--if no, I fear me, Maister, there'll be the deil tae pay." Angus made no reply to this speech, as he knew what Johnnie said was perfectly true, so having thus ascertained exactly how his marriage to Victoria would be taken, he rapidly finished his dressing and ran downstairs, leaving his faithful henchman shaking his grizzled head in dour Scotch fashion over the probable anger of Mactab. "The daft bit laddie," commented Johnnie, folding up his master's clothes, "tae fly i' the face o' Providence aboot a lass. An' that auld Jeezebel whae dodders after her would like it fine, I'm thinking, tae see the lass Leddy Otterburn. I'll no tac' the responsibility on me. The laddie ma gang tae the auld Laird an' the meenister, an' they'll nay say aye, I misdoot me the Maister 'ull gang his ain gait for aw their skirling." Meanwhile Angus was standing at the front door of the hotel, thinking over the conversation he had just had, and having a considerable amount of common sense saw that Johnnie Armstrong was correct in his remarks about Mactab. Being a man of great shrewdness and genuine piety he had attained a strong influence over the somewhat stern nature of Lord Dunkeld, who knew that Mactab's advice if not always palatable was essentially sound. Lord Dunkeld had set his heart on the marriage of his only son with Miss Cranstoun, as that ill-favoured damsel was heiress to the estate adjoining that to which Angus was heir, and such a match would considerably increase the territorial possessions and influence of the Macjean family in the Border land. Nevertheless Angus, though not a fortune hunter, knew that Victoria Sheldon was very wealthy, and in this democratic age an excellent match in every way, so provided his father was satisfied regarding the birth of the young lady (and the fact that her mother was a Macjean was greatly in her favour), there was a chance of success, especially if Mactab approved, of which, however, Angus was doubtful, for the minister greatly admired Miss Cranstoun owing to her assiduous attendance at the Kirk. "Deuce take the whole lot of them," grumbled Otterburn, as he thought over all this. "I wish they'd let a fellow fix up his own life. One would think I had no feelings the way they order me about. That Cranstoun girl is as ugly as sin, and I don't see why I should marry her just because she's got the next estate to ours. Why doesn't my father marry her himself if he's so jolly anxious to get the property? As for Mactab, he ought to mind his own business instead of meddling with mine. Hang it, I won't stand it. I'm not engaged to that Cranstoun thing, so I can do as I like. Victoria goes away to-morrow, and Lord only knows when I'll see her again, so I'll take the bull by the horns and ask her to marry me. If she won't, there's no harm done, and if she will, the whole lot at Dunkeld can howl themselves hoarse for all I care." Having, therefore, made up his mind in this impulsive manner, Otterburn, in order to give himself no time to change it, walked off in search of Victoria, to offer her the heart which his father fondly trusted was in the keeping of Miss Cranstoun of that ilk. Miss Sheldon was seated in the Chinese room writing letters, and so absorbed was she in her occupation, that she did not hear Otterburn enter. It was a lofty, fantastical apartment, with an oval roof tinted a dull grey, on which were traced red lines of a symmetrical pattern to resemble bamboo framing, and the walls were hung with Chinese paper, forming a kind of tapestry on which the artist, ignorant of perspective, had traced strange trees, brilliant birds, impossible towers, bizarre bridges, and odd-looking figures. In the four corners of the room, on slender pedestals, sat almond-eyed, burly mandarins, cross-legged, with their long hands folded placidly on their protuberant stomachs, and pagoda-shaped hats, with jingling bells on their pig-tailed heads. Chinese matting on the floor, lounging chairs of bamboo work, oblong tables, on which stood barbaric vases of porcelain, all gave this room a strange Eastern look, suggesting thoughts of crowded Pekin, the odour of new-gathered tea, and a vision of queer towers rising from the rice plains, under burning skies. Otterburn was not thinking of the Flowery Land, however, as his mind was too full of Victoria, and he stood silently watching her graceful head bent over her writing, until, by that strange instinct which warns everyone that someone is near, she raised her eyes and saw him standing close to the door. "Oh, good morning," she cried gaily, as he advanced. "Sit down for a few moments, and don't interrupt me. I'm engaged in a most unpleasant task. Writing to Aunt Jelly." "Why! is it so disagreeable?" said the young man, sitting down in one of the light chairs, which creaked complainingly under his weight. "Very," replied Miss Sheldon, nodding her head and pursing up her lips. "Very, very disagreeable. Being my guardian, she always seems to think I'm in mischief, and I have to report myself once a week to her like a ticket-of-leave man, or rather woman." "Do you tell her everything?" asked Otterburn, rather aghast. "With certain reservations. Yes!" "I hope I'm included in the reservations?" "Well, yes. At least, I've not yet sent Aunt Jelly a portrait of you." "And shall I ever gain that enviable distinction?" Miss Sheldon shrugged her shoulders with a laugh. "Do you think it enviable to be dissected for the benefit of a carping old woman? I'm sure I don't. Besides, as you are a friend of Mr. Gartney's, you will meet his dreadful aunt on your return to England, and she can criticise you herself, instead of gaining an impression second-hand from me." "If I do meet her, I hope the criticism will be favourable." "Why so?" "Because you are her ward." "I don't see the connection," replied Victoria, with feminine duplicity, but her heightened colour showed that she understood his meaning, and Otterburn, being by no means deficient in understanding regarding the sex, immediately took advantage of the secret sympathy thus suddenly engendered between them. "I'm a very plain sort of fellow, Miss Sheldon," he said, with a certain boyish dignity, "and I can't talk so glibly about things as most men, but I think you can guess what I want to say to you." He paused for a moment, but as Victoria made no observation, he drew a long breath, and continued: "I love you, and I want you to marry me--if you'll have me." In spite of the brusqueness of this declaration, crude in the extreme, adorned with no fine flowers of speech or passionate protestations of eternal love, Victoria felt that he spoke from his heart, and that this manly declaration was more to be believed than any sickly, sentimental speech of honey and spice. Still, she made no sign to show how deeply his honest straightforwardness had touched her, but scribbled idly on the blotting-paper with her pen, whereupon Otterburn, emboldened by her silence, gently took the hand which was lying on her lap, and went on with increasing hopefulness of tone. "I trust you do not think me presumptuous in speaking so soon, but although I have only known you a few weeks, yet in that time I have learned to love you very dearly, and if you'll only become my wife, I'll do everything in my power to make you happy." She withdrew her hand from his grasp, and throwing down the pen on the table, turned her clear eyes gravely on his face, then, without any maidenly confusion or any mock modesty, she answered him calmly, although the tremulous quivering of her nether lip showed how deeply she was moved. "You are doing me a great honour, Mr. Macjean, and I assure you I appreciate the manner in which you have spoken, but--it cannot be." "Oh, surely----" "No," she replied, lifting her hand to stay his further speech. "I am only a girl, I know, but then I have been brought up in the Colonies, and in these matters I think Australian girls are more self-reliant than those in England." She might have been a schoolmistress delivering a lecture on manners, so coldly did she speak. "I like you! I respect you, but I do not love you, and I could marry no man without loving him. We have only known each other three weeks, so are in total ignorance of each other's character. No, Mr. Macjean, much as I thank you for the honour you have done me--the greatest honour a man can offer a woman--yet I must say no." "Can you give me no hope?" "I don't think it would be wise to do so. We part to-morrow, and may meet others we like better, so it would be foolish for either you or myself to bind ourselves in any way." Otterburn, seeing from her cool, composed speech that her mind was made up, arose to his feet with a look of despair on his bright, young face, upon which she also arose from her chair, and laid her hand gently on his shoulder. "Believe me, you will think as I do later on," she said in a friendly tone; "forget that this conversation has ever taken place, and let us be on the same footing as before. We part to-morrow, as I said before, but it is more than probable that we will meet in London--if so, let us meet as friends." The composure with which she spoke irritated Otterburn fearfully, the more so as it was so unexpected. This brilliant, piquant creature, who should have been all fire and passion, talked to him as if he were a schoolboy, and argued about love as if she was an elderly dry as-dust professor of science. Perhaps Victoria knew this, and, as she did not wish to marry Otterburn, thought that such a cold-blooded way of discussing his passion, from a worldly point of view, would have the effect of making him care less about her refusal to marry him. They stood looking at one another for a moment, the man angry at what he considered her unjustifiable treatment, the woman composed, but withal a trifle frightened at the tempest she had provoked. "Well, we part friends?" she said, holding out her hand with a quiet smile. Angus looked at her with a glance of anger in his eyes. "Coquette!" he growled out between his clenched teeth, and, taking no notice of her extended hand, left the room quickly. Left to herself, Victoria sat down and thought over the scene. The declaration of Angus had touched her by its manly honesty, but, as she had not thought of marrying him, her mode of refusal had certainly been the best possible in order to cool his passion. His anger, however, and the fast word he had uttered, opened her eyes to the situation, and she saw that her determination to spite Eustace, by taking his friend away, had been more serious than she imagined. This reflection made her angry with herself, and of course she vented her rage on Angus, simply because she had treated him badly. "Stupid boy," she said to herself, angrily, "he might have seen I was not in earnest. I never gave him to understand that I would marry him. These men are so conceited, they think they have only got to throw the handkerchief like the Sultan. The lesson will do him good. Yet he is a nice, honest boy, and I'm sorry we did not part friends. Never mind, I expect he'll come back shortly. I'm sure he ought to, and beg my pardon--if he's got any sense of decency--foolish boy." She tried to write but felt too angry with herself, Angus and the whole world, to do so, therefore she ran up to her own room, worried herself ill over the whole affair and ultimately ended up in having a good cry and a fit of self-commiseration. Meanwhile, Otterburn' in a towering passion, walked outside, and seeking a secluded seat under a spreading oak, sat down in a most doleful mood. "The heartless coquette," said this ill-used young man aloud, staring dismally at the lake. "I wonder what she thinks a man is made of to be preached at? I asked for love and she gave me a sermon. Good Lord! I thought she would have cried and made a fuss like other girls, but she didn't, confound her! Fancy talking about ignorance of character and all that stuff, when a fellow's dying of love, and as to being friends, that's not my style. I'm not going to run after her like a poodle dog, and be driven away every two minutes. I'll see Gartney, and we'll go away at once. I'll never see her again, never! never! never!" "That's emphatic, at all events," said a quiet voice at his elbow, and on turning round, he saw Eustace standing near him complacently smoking a cigarette. "Oh, it's you," said Otterburn, in an ill-tempered tone. "Yes! forgive me, but I couldn't help overhearing the last few words you spoke. I--I hope you've been successful in your wooing." "I don't know what you mean," retorted Angus sulkily, stretching his long legs out, and thrusting his hands into his trouser pockets. "I beg your pardon," replied Eustace, ceremoniously. "I have no wish to force your confidence." The Master made no reply, but glared savagely at his boots, while Eustace, taking in the situation at a glance, stood silently beside him, not without a secret gratification that Otterburn had been punished for his base desertion of friendship for love. This was so like Gartney, whose colossal egotism saw in the successes or failures of others nothing but what tended to his own self-glorification. "Gartney," said Otterburn, suddenly looking up, "I'm deadly sick of this place." "Everyone seems to be of your opinion," answered Eustace, complacently; "the Erringtons go to-day, and Mrs. Trubbles to-morrow--of course la Belle Victoria accompanies them--aren't you inconsolable?" This was cruel of Eustace, and he knew it. "No, I'm not," retorted Angus, doughtily, "she's not the only girl in the world. I wish to heaven you'd talk sense. Tell me when are we going to start?" "When you like." "For Vienna?" "I'm rather tired of Vienna," said Gartney, listlessly, "I've been there four times and it's always the same. If you don't mind, I'd rather we tried a fresh locality." "I don't care," said Otterburn, with a scowl. "I'll go anywhere--to the devil if you like." "That's looking too far ahead," replied Eustace ironically. "What do you say to Cyprus? I've been reading Mallock's book about it and it seems one place not in the grip of Cook's tourists and Baedeker's Guide Books. We can take the train to Venice, and go down the Adriatic." "Very well," said Macjean, rising, with a huge sigh. "If you don't mind, I'll go to Milan to-day. You can follow to-morrow." "All right," said Eustace quietly, judging it best to let his young friend go away for a time and get over his disappointment in solitude. "I will come with you to Como, and can see both you and the Erringtons off at the same time." "Then I'll go and tell Johnnie to get my traps together." "Certainly, but look here, old fellow, although you have not honoured me with your confidence I can guess your trouble, but don't worry about it." "Oh, it's all very well for you," said Otterburn, reddening, "you're not in love." "I'm not so sure of that," murmured Eustace in a dreary tone, whereupon Angus laughed scornfully. "It doesn't sound like it--by-the-way, you can say goodbye to Mrs. Trubbles for me." "And Miss Sheldon?" "Hang Miss Sheldon and you too!" retorted Otterburn, and thereupon bolted, so as to give Eustace no opportunity of making further remarks. "Love!" quoth Eustace the philosopher, "does not improve manners. Macjean is like a young bear with a sore head, and Miss Sheldon--well, she's got another scalp to hang in her wigwam." CHAPTER X. AUF WIEDERSEHN. "Goodbye! Goodbye!--our lives divide, We drift apart on Life's broad tide, Faint-hearted, sad and solemn-eyed, By Fate's decree. "Goodbye! Goodbye!--but not farewell, Tho' side by side we may not dwell. Some day we'll meet--But who can tell If this will be?" So the time of parting had come at last, as it must come to all, and these men and women who had met by chance at the Italian Lakes were about to separate. But who could tell what effect the intimacy of the last few weeks would have on their future lives? It seemed as though the love-romance of Victoria and Otterburn were over, killed by the woman, and even if they did meet again, it would be under such widely different circumstances that they would surely never be able to renew their earlier intimacy. True to his resolve Otterburn departed for Como without seeing Victoria again, and Eustace saw him safely off in the train with the faithful Johnnie in attendance. He then went to say goodbye to the Erringtons, who were going up by the St. Gothard line, intending to stay a few days in Paris prior to returning to England. "Goodbye, old fellow," said Guy, shaking hands with Eustace in the tumult of the station. "When you come back to Town don't forget to look us up." "No, I won't forget," replied Eustace gravely, though he privately determined to keep out of temptation's way as much as possible. "But I don't know when I'll be in England. I go to Cyprus first, and then may look in at Athens and go up the Dardanelles." "You should get married and settle down," said Guy gaily. "What do you say, Alizon?" "I'm afraid to give an opinion," replied Lady Errington discreetly. "When Mr. Gartney returns I may be able to say something." She looked at Eustace in a friendly manner, and as he saw the cold, pure look in her eyes, he knew at once that whatever passion for this woman he might feel, he had not succeeded in awakening any response in her impassive nature. "A statue! A statue," he said to himself. "Poor Guy." "Say goodbye to Mr. Macjean for me," said Lady Errington, giving him her hand. "And as to yourself I will not say goodbye, but _au revoir_." The whistle blew shrilly, the train moved slowly off, and Eustace, with bare head, holding his hat in his hand, stood silently amid the crowd with a vision before his mind's eye of the sweet face with the cold pure light in the blue eyes. "A statue! a statue," he said again, as he went back to Cemobbio. "It is a foolish passion I have for her, but I dare say a few months' travelling will make me forget that such chilly perfection exists." On his return to the Villa Medici, he told his valet to pack up everything and be ready to start by the early train next morning, in order to meet Otterburn and leave Milan by the afternoon train for Venice, as Victoria would be at Milan the next day, and Otterburn did not wish to meet her again. As for that young lady, although she did not care much about Otterburn, yet her self-love received rather a severe shock when she learned how promptly he had taken his dismissal. "Where is Mr. Macjean?" she asked Eustace that night, after dinner, as he sat smoking outside in the garden. "He has gone away," replied Eustace, who was anxious to prolong her curiosity as much as he could and let her drag the facts of the case piecemeal from his reluctant mouth. "Where to?" "Milan." Victoria flushed a little under his keen gaze and tapped her foot impatiently on the ground. "I thought he was going with you to-morrow." "So did I. But for some reason he preferred going by himself to-day." "Oh!" There was a vexed tone in the ejaculation, and Eustace smiled to himself as he thought of her anger. She knew the reason of this abrupt departure, so did Eustace, and each of them perfectly understood one another; therefore, when Victoria saw the smile curling the corners of Gartney's mouth, she felt inclined to strike him in her exasperation. "Why did he not say goodbye?" she demanded sharply. "I don't know. He did not honour me with his confidence." It was lucky for Eustace that Victoria did not at that moment possess regal power, for she would then and there have ordered him off to execution, but as she could not do this she did the next best thing to it, and retreated gracefully from the field of battle. "If I were you, Mr. Gartney, I would teach that friend of yours manners," she said superciliously. "However, we are not likely to meet again, so it does not matter. You go to-morrow morning, do you not?" "Yes." "And we go in the afternoon, so we won't have the pleasure of being fellow-travellers--goodbye." "Goodbye." They shook hands coldly, with mutual dislike, and then Victoria went away gaily, so as to afford Eustace no opportunity of seeing her mortification, but when she arrived in her own room she raged like a young lioness. "How dare he treat me in such a way!" she said wrathfully, referring to the absent Otterburn. "Because I do not choose to marry him, he need not slight me so openly before his friend. Ah! that wretched Mr. Gartney, how detestable he is. Always sneering and supercilious. I should like to kill him, and he knows it." There was no doubt that the triumph was now with Gartney, and all through her own fault. She had refused offers before, but the makers of them had always taken their defeat meekly and continued to haunt her steps. Otterburn, however, had treated her as no man had ever treated her before, and when she grew calmer, with the whimsical inconsequence of a woman, she actually began to admire his independence. "He's a man at all events," she said, drying her tears, "and I'm glad he's got a mind of his own. If I do meet him again I'll make him propose again, in spite of his temper, and then I'll pay him out for going off like this." It was truly a bad look-out for Otterburn if she remained in the same mind, but then the chances were that his promptitude of action, having secured her admiration, would end up by making her love him, and when they met again it was doubtful who would come off victor. Eustace, on his side was very much gratified by the conversation he had had with Victoria, and after bidding farewell to Mr. and Mrs. Trubbles, went to bed in quite a good temper. Next morning he left Cemobbio and started for Milan. On arriving he found Otterburn at the station, looking tired and haggard, but this was due to want of sleep and not to dissipation, as Eustace charitably surmised. The young man was in a fearfully bad temper, and although he was burning to question Eustace about Victoria, yet his own sense of dignity would not allow him. So during their journey to Venice, he sat in sulky silence, reading a book and inwardly raging at the fickleness, ingratitude and caprices of womankind. Since they had last occupied a railway carriage together, a change had certainly come over both of them, and instead of friendly talk, they sat in dour silence, each regarding the other as an insufferable nuisance. The cynical French proverb anent women was, without doubt, very applicable to them both in the present case, and it might have been some gratification to Victoria's wounded pride to know that she had effectually estranged these two quondam friends. The bond of sympathy formerly existing between them had entirely vanished, and though each was burning to make a confidant of the other, yet neither would make the first advance, so both sat grimly silent, each cursing his luck in having the other for a companion. Otterburn did not venture to speak to Eustace about his rejection by Victoria, as he was afraid of being laughed at by the cynic, and Eustace held his tongue concerning his passion for his cousin's wife, as he thought, and with good reason, that Otterburn would consider it dishonourable. It was the quick coupled with the dead, and they both felt it, so when they reached Venice, although they put up together at Danieli's, by tacit consent they saw as little of one another as possible. To his great delight Otterburn picked up an old Oxford chum one day, and finding that he was going on a shooting excursion to the Carpathian Mountains with another friend, agreed to join him. To this desertion, Eustace by no means objected, as he was heartily sick of Macjean's love-lorn sulkiness, so, at the end of the week, the young man, with his two friends, keen sportsmen and capital company, left Eustace in Venice, and departed in high spirits on his excursion. Eustace therefore was left entirely alone, and preferred his solitude, for had he so chosen he could have found plenty of pleasant companions willing to go to Cyprus if needful, but having a fancy for a solitary journey, and the idea of a new book of travels in his head, he held aloof from Anglo-Italian society and wandered about Venice with no other company than his own dreary thoughts. Fate, however, evidently had a spite against Mr. Gartney, for one day, while he was sitting at Florian's, smoking cigarettes and watching the white pigeons whirling aloft in the blue sky, someone touched him on the shoulder, and on turning he found himself facing Billy Dolser, a dapper little man-about-town, whom he particularly disliked. Mr. Dolser owned a spiteful society paper called "The Pepper Box," which was always getting into trouble for the lies it told, and Eustace himself had been pretty severely handled in its columns, as the proprietor hated him with all the malignant venom of a little soul. Everybody in society was afraid of Billy, who had an unpleasant knack of finding out things people did not want known, and publishing them in his paper, so everyone was civil to him, except one or two men who had the bad taste to horsewhip him, but Billy did not mind, as it made his paper sell, so there was positively no way of society ridding itself of this little wasp. "How do, Gartney?" said Mr. Dolser, offering two fingers to Eustace, which that gentleman refused to see. "Heard you were here--yes! Cut away from town I suppose because of your book? No! we thought you did. You're getting it hot--rather!" "I'm hanged if I care," retorted Eustace indolently, "it will only make the book sell. How's 'The Pepper Box' going?" "Oh capitally--yes!" said Billy, taking a seat. "Three actions of libel on--ha! ha!" "That sounds well--any horsewhippings?" Billy grinned, not being a bit offended at this allusion, as it all came under the head of business. "No, dear boy, no! I'm here with the Pellingers you know--yes! Showing them round. They're paying my ex's." "Of course. I knew you wouldn't pay them yourself." "Ah! but they like travelling with me--yes!" "I shouldn't care about a pet monkey myself," said Eustace rudely. "No! you're a Robinson Crusoe kind of chap, ain't you?" said Billy, quite unmoved by his epithet. "By the way, I saw your cousin and his wife in Paris--yes! Wife cut me. Beastly rude I think, when I knew her father so well--he was a great friend of mine--rather!" "Not a very creditable thing to boast of," replied Eustace, enraged at this reference to Lady Errington. "Oh, who cares? If Asmodeus unroofed the houses in town, you bet there'd be 'ructions. Just so!" "You do your best to play Asmodeus." "Yes--want to purify Society. By the way, Mrs. Veilsturm was asking after you." "Very kind of her!" "And Major Griff. I wonder Society tolerates those two, Eh?" "Oh, Society tolerates all kinds of noxious beasts now-a-days," said Eustace, with a significant glance at Billy. "Yes! horrid, isn't it? Those two have got hold of Dolly Thambits, you know--young fool that came in for a lot of money--rather. She's plucking him, and the Major is pocketing the feathers--yes!" "Can't you share the spoil?" asked Eustace drily. "No! wish I could, but Mrs. Veilsturm doesn't like me--not much! I say, look here, where do you go?" "That's my business," retorted Eustace, rising. "I'm not going to tell you my movements and have them recorded in that scurrilous paper of yours." "No," said Billy calmly, "that's a pity, because they're all curious about you in town--yes. Never mind, I'll say I met you at Venice." "You'll say I dropped you into the Grand Canal also, if you don't mind your own business," growled Gartney wrathfully, moving towards him. "Eh! I don't care. Anything for a paragraph." The impudence of the little man so tickled Eustace that he burst out laughing, and without carrying out his threat, walked away, while Mr. Dolser, pulling out his note-book, dotted down a few remarks. "I'll get two columns out of him," he said to himself in a gratified tone. "He's staying at Danieli's I know, so I'll look up his valet and find out where he's off to--yes." Which Mr. Dolser did, and the result appeared in an abusive article a fortnight afterwards in "The Pepper Box" headed "Gartney's Gaddings" which several of the poet's friends enjoyed very much. As for Eustace, after getting rid of Billy Dolser, he went off to his hotel, and arranged all about his departure for Cyprus, anxious to get away at once so as to avoid another meeting with the proprietor of "The Pepper Box." Consequently next day be found himself on board an Austrian-Lloyd steamer, slowly steaming down the Adriatic into the shadow of the coming night, and as he stood on the deck with the salt wind blowing in his face, he murmured: "Well, that chapter of my life is closed." He was wrong, for that chapter of his life had just opened. CHAPTER XI. A MAIDEN LADY. "Severe, sedate, and highly bred, Sad-tinted gown and cap on head. In high-backed chair she grimly sits, And frowns, and fumes, and talks, and knits, Her nephews, nieces, tremble still, Whene'er she talks about her will, And wonder oft in glad surmise What they will get at her demise. No King upon his throne in State Was ever such a potentate. Let others face her eye--I can't, I quail before my maiden aunt." Few people are acquainted with Delphson Square, no doubt from the fact that it lies on the extreme edge of the great vortex of London life, isolated in a great measure by its position and character. Those concerned with business or pleasure know not this severely respectable neighbourhood, but occasionally men and women, weary of the restless excitability of the metropolis, glance off from the huge central whirl, and drift helplessly into this haven of rest in order to spend the rest of their days in peace. Not a tempting place certainly, with its four sides of forbidding-looking houses painted a dull brown, with grim iron balconies attached to each window like prison gratings. No bright flowers in oblong boxes to lighten the austerity of these conventual retreats, flowers being regarded as frivolous by the utilitarian inhabitants of the square. Spotless white blinds, heavy dark-red curtains, occasionally a cage in some glaring window, containing a depressed-looking canary, irreproachable white steps, exasperatingly bright brass knockers on massive doors; these were the principal adornment of the four rows of dwellings. In the centre of the small quadrangle grew a quincunx of heavy-foliaged elms, encircled by a spiky iron fence of defiant appearance, and under one of the trees a weather-stained statue of some dead and gone warrior, with a suitable inscription in choice Latin, which no one could read. Over all this prim locality an air of Sabbath quiet. The doors of the houses always seemed to be closed. Rarely were any signs of life seen behind the half screens of the windows, the well-swept streets were empty both of traffic and pedestrians, and viewed under a dull, leaden-coloured London sky, with a humid feeling in the air, Delphson Square looked like some deserted city waiting to be re-peopled. As to the inhabitants, they mostly resembled their dwellings, being elderly, grim, and forbidding, dressed in the plainest puritanical fashion, yet one and all stamped with the impress of wealth. Sad tints but rich stuffs, serious faces with port-wine complexions, little jewellery, but what there was, massive in the extreme--no ostentation, but a quietly-prosperous air, telling of snug banking accounts. Respectable-looking carriages, with fat horses and still fatter coachmen, at the grim doors every morning to take them drives in the Park. A general air of subdued religion about the place--they were all Broad Church, and held strong opinions about the ritual. No newspaper admitted into the square except the _Times_, which was heavy and respectable, hansoms unknown, even the sweeper who swept the crossings was serious-minded and given to dreary hymns in wet weather. Everybody went to bed at nine o'clock and rose at the same time in the morning; the tradesmen were always punctual and deferential, and the clocks were never out of order. Miss Angelica Corbin lived in this delightful locality, and, as her residence there dated from the early part of the Victorian age, she was regarded as one of the oldest inhabitants. A maiden lady of uncertain age and certain income, her life was conducted in a methodical fashion, which enabled her in a great measure to defy Time. As Miss Corbin was ten years ago she was at present, and would in all human probability be at the end of another decade. Quite at variance with the new-fangled ways of the present generation, this old gentlewoman looked like some disdainful spectre of a sedate past, solitary amid a frivolous present. Her room, old-fashioned and changeless as herself, had about it the aroma of a former generation, when D'Orsay led the fashions, and people were still talking about Lord Byron, Waterloo, and the Reform Bill. Situated on the ground floor above the basement, it had three windows of small-paned glass looking out on to the dreary square, and was large and airy, having an oval roof painted with designs of flowers, fruit, birds, and butterflies. Under this cheerful ceiling a remarkably comfortable room, furnished in an antique style. Warm-coloured Turkish carpet, rather threadbare in places, woolly mats of different tints, heavy mahogany chairs and sofa, with slippery horsehair coverings; a solid-looking table of the same wood, draped with dark-green cloth; out-of-date piano, rigid against the wall, with faded drawn blue silk and tassels above its yellow ivory keys. An ancient fireplace with elaborate brass dogs' between which generally blazed a fire of logs (no coal for Miss Corbin, as she thought it detestable), and a massively-carved mantelpiece with quaint ornaments of Dresden china, in front of a gold-framed mirror swathed in green gauze. On the left-hand side of the fireplace a tall book-case, with glass doors, fitting into a shallow recess and surmounted by a plaster of Parts bust of Shakespeare, imprisoned first editions of books popular in their owner's youth, editions priceless to bibliomaniacs. These, though now worth their weight in gold, never saw the light of day. On the red-papered walls, smoky-looking oil pictures in tarnished frames, one or two yellow samplers, worked by dead and gone school-girls on the table wax flowers, Berlin wool mats, and velvet-bound Books of Beauty, from whose faded pages simpered large-eyed beauties of the Dudu type; on the floor treacherous footstools, always in the way, and a long bead-worked cushion, elevated on six square mahogany legs, in front of the brass fender. Here and there gaudy porcelain jars filled with withered rose-leaves and dried lavender, which gave forth a faint, dreamy odour, redolent of bygone days and vanished summers. Surrounded by all this faded splendour, in a straight-backed chair placed by the fire-side, her feet resting on a foot-stool, and constantly knitting, sat Miss Angelica Corbin, better known to her friends and relations as Aunt Jelly. Tall, stiff and commanding, with rigid features, cold grey eyes, iron-grey hair, always dressed in the same kind of silken slate-coloured gown, with a dainty lace apron, lace cap, China crape shawl on her shoulders, lisle thread mittens, and old-fashioned rings on her withered hands, she never changed in the smallest degree. Her father had been a very wealthy man, connected with the H.E.I.C.S., and on his death left his property equally divided between his three daughters, Jane, Angelica, and Marian, the first and the last of whom married respectively Sir Frederick Errington and Mr. Martin Gartney. Both sisters and their husbands had long since departed this life, leaving Guy Errington and Eustace Gartney, who thus stood in the relation of nephews to Miss Corbin. That lady had never married, which did not seem strange to those who knew her at present, but without doubt she must have been a handsome woman in her youth, and presumably had had her romance, like the rest of her sex. As a matter of fact, she had been engaged to marry Harry Sheldon, the father of her ward, but owing to some misunderstanding, an explanation of which was forbidden by the pride of both, they separated, and Sheldon went out to seek his fortune in Australia, where in due course he married Miss Macjean, and Miss Corbin, devoting herself to perpetual maidenhood, had removed to Delphson Square, where she had remained ever since. Having a handsome income well invested in the Funds, Miss Corbin lived in excellent albeit old-fashioned style, and, in spite of her apparent hardness and brusque manner, was not an ungenerous woman. When her old lover, dying in Australia, sent home his orphan child to her guardianship, she had promptly accepted the charge, and loved the girl for the sake of that dead and buried romance which was still fresh in her heart. To Victoria she was strict but kind, and the presence of this bright young girl made a pleasant variety in her dull, methodical life, although she never, by word or deed, betrayed such a weakness. Hard she undoubtedly was, and but little given to sentimental feelings, which was a great grief to her companion, Miss Minnie Pelch, who was tender-hearted in the extreme, and had oceans of tears on every possible occasion, from a wedding to a funeral. Miss Pelch was a weak, soulful creature, the daughter of a clergyman who had been curate at Denfield, a village near Errington Hall. The Rev. Pelch was a widower, and his sole offspring was the fair Minnie, but having only a small income, he saved nothing: so when he died she was left destitute, with a doubtful future before her. She had not enough brains for a governess, no talents except a pretty taste in poetry, which was not a marketable commodity, and no beauty to attract marriageable young men, so Minnie wept over the mistake of having been born, and Heaven only knows what would have become of her had not Miss Corbin, like a kind-hearted vulture, swooped down on the poor creature and taken her up to London as her companion. So Minnie was provided for by brusque Aunt Jelly, although no one ever knew what a trial she was to that sensible old lady, for Miss Pelch was one of those exasperatingly limp creatures who always pose as martyrs, and shed tears at the least thing. Aunt Jelly was not unkind by nature, but sometimes the tearful Minnie was too much for her endurance, and if she could have got rid of her she certainly would have had small hesitation in doing so. But there was no chance of this coming to pass, as Minnie was one of those meek creatures who rest where they are thrown, so Miss Corbin, regarding her as a necessary cross, did the best she could to put up with her tears, her milk-and-water conversation and her longings after fame. Fame! yes! this invertebrate creature, whose intellect was of the smallest, had actually written a book of poems after the style of L.E.L., in which she compared herself to "a withered leaf on the tree of life." She had several times inflicted these weak rhymes, in which mountain rhymed to fountain, and dove to love, on Miss Jelly, but that stout old dame snorted disdainfully at her companion's poetical fancies, whereupon Minnie retired with her manuscript, sat in the twilight, and wished herself dead. When Eustace visited his aunt, Minnie always attacked him about the publication of her poems, and Eustace, the cynical, the bitter, the scornful, actually read her poor little rhymes and promised to see what he could do with them, which proved that a good deal of his cynicism was only skin deep. Perhaps he was forced into this promise by Aunt Jelly, who thought if Minnie could only get her drivel published she would perhaps hold her tongue for the rest of her life, but this hope seemed too good to be realised. Miss Pelch had a thin drooping figure, a pensive face with pale skin, pale eyebrows, pale eyes, pale lips, in fact she was all pallid, and wore her thin brown hair in girlish curls, with two drooping over her ears after the style of those called "kiss-me-quicks." She generally wore an ancient black silk dress, with lace cuffs and lace collar fastened by a large brooch containing the portrait (done in oil by a village artist) of her late father. Seated at the window, in the dull light of an October day, Miss Fetch, having been worsted in an encounter with Aunt Jelly over the question of reading one of her effusions, was drooping like a withered flower over the manuscript, and could hardly read her own scratchy writing for tears. Aunt Jelly was is her usual place, sitting bolt upright, with her woolly-haired poodle, Coriolanus, at her feet, and no sound disturbed the quiet save an occasional patter of Minnie's tears, or the vicious clicking of Aunt Jelly's needles. On the table in the centre of the room were decanters of port and sherry and a plate of cake, for Miss Corbin was expecting her nephew, Guy, and his wife, to call on her that afternoon, the young couple having just arrived from the Continent, and always gave her visitors wine in preference to tea, which she characterised tersely as "wash." Miss Corbin opened her mouth once or twice to make a remark, but, casting an angry glance at the tearful Minnie, shut it again without uttering a sound, and knitted with redoubled fury. At last her stoicism could hold out no longer, and she called out in her strong, clear voice: "For Heaven's sake, Minnie, stop crying. There's plenty of rain outside, without you bringing it into the house." "Very well, Miss Jelly," said Minnie meekly, and drying her eyes, she slipped her poem into her pocket and sat with folded hands, looking as if she carried the weight of the world on her round shoulders. Aunt Jelly looked at her keenly for a moment, and then issued another command. "Come here, child." Minnie rose to her feet and drifted across the room, for her mode of getting about could hardly be called walking. "You mustn't cry because I don't listen to your poetry," said Aunt Jelly grimly. "I hate poetry--it's all rubbish, and I can't and won't stand it. But I daresay your poetry's all right--it sounds sing-songy enough. Wait till Mr. Gartney comes home, and then you can read it to him. I've no doubt it's as good as his own. Now take a glass of port, and stop your whimpering." "Oh, no, Miss Jelly," said Minnie' in a frightened tone. "Oh, yes, Miss Minnie," mimicked the old lady fiercely. "Do what I tell you--it will put some blood into you." "Tea!" began Miss Pelch nervously. "Tea! wash!" snorted Aunt Jelly disdainfully, "there's no strength in tea, girl. You might as well drink vinegar. Your blood's like water; I'm sure I don't know how your father reared you." "Father was a vegetarian," volunteered Minnie, in mild triumph. "And a pretty example you are of the system," retorted Miss Corbin. "If I didn't keep my eye on you I don't believe you'd eat meat." "It's so strong." "That's more than you are!" "Dr. Pargowker----" began Miss Pelch once more. "Prescribes iron, I know all about that," said Aunt Jelly wrathfully. "I don't hold with drugs, I never did. Meat and port wine is what you want and what you've got to take. Hold your tongue and do what I tell you." Thus adjured Minnie did not dare to disobey, and although she hated wine, dutifully swallowed a glass of old port, which was so strong that it made her cough. The revivifying effect was soon seen in the colour which came into her pale cheeks, proving that Aunt Jelly was right in her prescription, as a long girlhood of vegetarianism had weakened the Pelch system. Minnie now feeling better sat down and took up her work, which consisted in crocheting antimacassars, a mode of employing time of which Aunt Jelly approved. Indeed, the industrious Miss Pelch had manufactured enough antimacassars to stock a bazaar, and she was constantly at work on them except when she took a turn at talking, for Miss Corbin would not allow her to knit, that being her own special weakness. The two sat working in silence for a few minutes, Miss Jelly grim and repellent as the Sphinx and Minnie weakly gay, as the wine had slightly affected her brain. "Minnie," said Aunt Jelly suddenly, pointing to the table with one lean finger, "wipe your glass." "Very well, Miss Jelly," responded Miss Pelch with her invariable formula, and thereupon arose from her seat and having wiped the glass with a duster which she took from a drawer, replaced the glass on the tray, folded up and put away the duster, then returned to her chair and antimacassar in meek silence. Silence, however, did not suit Aunt Jelly, who liked to be amused, so she gave Minnie the last letter she had received from Victoria and made her read it, keeping up a running comment on the contents meanwhile. "Liked Rome did she!--humph! nothing but pictures and priests no doubt. Cooking wasn't good. Of course not, all oil and garlic. Mr. Trubbles ill! pity that fool doesn't die--not much loss about him I should think. Wait a bit, Minnie, till I count the heel of this stocking. One, two, three, four--go on, I can listen--ten, eleven, twelve. My nephew gone to Cyprus--twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two--he's always going to some out-of-the-way place--forty-five, forty-six. He'll end up by being eaten by cannibals--fifty-three! Humph! I hope his new book will be more respectable than the last one. Eh! The Master of Otterburn. Who is he? Never heard of him. Coming back by Naples!--how can they come back by Naples. Oh! the steamer, yes! I hope Victoria won't flirt with all the young men on board. Perhaps she'll be sea-sick. That'll take all the nonsense out of her. Is that all?--dear me, these girls can't write a letter now-a-days. Here, give it to me back. You read so quietly, I can't hear half you say." This terrible old woman seized the letter and put it away, frowning on Minnie meanwhile, that damsel having meekly resumed her antimacassar. "Four o'clock," said Miss Corbin, as the clock struck the hour, "they should be here by now, but none of you young people are punctual now-a-days." "Perhaps they've been detained," expostulated Minnie timidly. "Nonsense," snapped Miss Jelly wrathfully. "Why should they be detained? They've been two days in town already. Gadding about I daresay. I don't think much of his wife, but whatever she is he's worse. I don't know however I came to have such a nephew. He hasn't got his mother's brains. That comes of having an idiot for a father." At this moment Aunt Jelly's courteous conversation was interrupted by a ring at the door, and Miss Pelch being sent to the window to reconnoitre returned with the information that it was Sir Guy and Lady Errington. Miss Corbin drew her shawl carefully round her angular shoulder, laid her knitting on her lap, and having dismissed Minnie to a distant corner of the room, where she sat in the shadow like an unhappy ghost, was prepared to receive company. Bickles, the fat, pompous butler of the establishment, threw open the door of the room and announced in a deep voice: "Sir Guy and Lady Errington." And the young couple entered into the presence of the old dragon. CHAPTER XII. AUNT JELLY'S OPINION. "All speech is silver, silence gold (I wish it were on some occasions), For though unpleasant to be told, You get the truth from your relations." Anyone hostile towards matrimony, seeing Sir Guy in the character of a newly-returned bridegroom, would certainly have said that marriage was not a failure in his case, for he looked wonderfully bright and happy as he presented his wife to Aunt Jelly. Lady Errington, on the other hand, still preserved her appearance of fragility and her air of calmness, forming with her reposeful manner a great contrast to her husband, who was bubbling over with excitement and looked like a happy schoolboy out on his holiday. "Here we are, Aunt Jelly," he said in his loud, hearty voice, kissing his elderly relation, "back from foreign parts and glad to be home once more. Don't you think Alizon is looking well?" "I don't know yet," replied Aunt Jelly sharply, with a keen look at the young couple. "Come here, my dear, and give me a kiss." Alizon had a horror of feminine embraces, and always skilfully avoided demonstrative friends, but from this direct command there was no possibility of escaping, so she submitted to the ordeal with the best grace she could and then took her seat near Miss Corbin, while Guy went to the end of the room to shake hands with Minnie Pelch. "Well, Miss Pelch, and how are you? Jolly, eh!--ah, that's right. Been writing any more poetry? By Jove, you're quite a literary person." Minnie smiled faintly at this compliment and glanced rather disapprovingly at Guy, who was far too healthy and English-looking to resemble her favourite heroes of the Manfred-Lara type, who all had pale faces, raven hair, and no morals. Guy, however, having done his duty towards his aunt's companion, wandered back to that redoubtable lady and sat down by his wife. Being thus placed before the judge, Aunt Jelly commenced to cross-examine them both in her own brusque way. "Well, Guy," she said, resuming her knitting, "now you've idled away so many months on the Continent, I hope you've come back to look after your property once more." "Of course I have, aunt. We would have been back long ago, but Alizon was in love with the Italian lakes. Weren't you, Alizon?" "Yes, I thought they were very beautiful," replied Alizon, who, being a comparative stranger to Aunt Jelly, hardly knew how to speak in a way congenial to that lady, "but I'm afraid it is a very lotos-eating place." "Humph!" remarked the old gentlewoman, with a sharp glance, "and you don't like lotos-eating." "No! I think life means something more than idleness." "For Heaven's sake, child, understand the value of being idle. Don't become a woman with a mission. It's a most detestable class--clatter, clatter, chatter, chatter! They do more harm than good, in my opinion, but then I'm an old woman and my ideas are much behind those of to-day." "I don't think there's much chance of my becoming a woman with a mission," replied Lady Errington, smiling, "it's not my nature, nor do I think Guy admires them." "By Jove! no," said Sir Guy, energetically; "those women who turn themselves into feminine men--I can't say I care for them at all. They worry a fellow's life out with their preachings. My ideal of a woman is--my wife." Lady Errington's eyes smiled a grateful recognition of this compliment, and even Aunt Jelly, who hated a display of any demonstrative affection, was not ill-pleased. "Well, well," she said grimly; "I'm glad to see a husband appreciate his wife, 'tis such a novelty now-a-days, they generally appreciate someone else's. By-the-way, child, you don't look very strong." "Don't you think so, aunt?" said Guy in alarm. "No! too pale--far too pale. Have you got any blood, child? Oh, of course, you say you have. Sick people always do. You must eat more and take port wine. Guy, pour your wife out a glass of port." Guy obediently did as he was told, but Alizon protested against being made to drink it. "I'm really very strong, Miss Corbin----" "Aunt Jelly," interrupted the old lady. "Well, Aunt Jelly, I look delicate, but I'm not--I am----" "Never mind what you are. Drink up the port. You're as bad as Minnie. Bless the child, do you think I don't know what's good for people? Teetotalism fudge? It all comes of adulterated drinks, though I daresay there's a good deal of truth in it. But a glass of good port is what you want and what you've got to take." Alizon, anxious to please the old lady on her first visit, did as she was told, and then, after making Guy drink some sherry, Aunt Jelly proceeded to talk about Victoria. "Yes, we met her abroad," said Lady Errington, sipping her wine, "a very charming girl." "Ah, her father was such a handsome man," answered Aunt Jelly, with a secret thought of her dead and done with romance. "I never saw her mother." "She was a Macjean, I believe," said Guy indolently, "at least Otterburn said something about his family being mixed up with hers." Aunt Jelly raised her head like an old war-horse at the sound of a trumpet. "Otterburn! Otterburn! Who is he?" she demanded sharply. "Someone Victoria has been flirting with, I suppose. I never heard of him, though she does mention him in her letters." "He's new to town," explained her nephew carelessly, "the eldest son of Lord Dunkeld. Angus Macjean, you know, his title is the Master of Otterburn. A very nice boy and awfully in love with Victoria." "Oh, is he? And I daresay Victoria encouraged him." "Rather!" "No, no!" interposed Lady Errington, seeing a rising storm in Aunt Jelly's frown, "I don't think she went as far as that, but you know, Aunt jelly, Victoria is very pretty and the boy could hardly help admiring her." "Oh, I daresay she wasn't blind to his admiration," said Miss Corbin viciously; "she's pretty, no doubt, but after all beauty is only skin deep." A weak giggle coming out of the dark corner showed that Minnie agreed with her, whereupon Aunt Jelly, who never permitted any familiarities, vented her anger on Miss Pelch at once. "What are you sniffling for, Minnie?" she called out. "Come here and show yourself. This is my niece, Lady Errington, and this is Miss Pelch, my dear. Her father was curate at Denfield." "How do you do?" said Alizon kindly, feeling sorry for the blushing Minnie. "I've heard about you from my husband. You write poetry, do you not?" An affirmative snort from Aunt Jelly. "Yes," replied Minnie, "I do write poetry sometimes." "So Mr. Gartney told me." "Oh, Eustace," cried Aunt Jelly significantly, "where is he now? Guy, don't go to sleep! Where is your cousin?" "I don't know," retorted Guy, who had closed his eyes for a moment. "Gone to Cyprus, or some out of-the-way place. Hasn't he written to you?" "Does he ever write letters?" demanded Aunt Jelly in an exasperated tone. "No! he keeps all his scribblings for the public." "Oh, he does write beautifully," said Minnie, clasping her hands. "Humph! that's a matter of opinion," responded Aunt Jelly doubtfully. "He's as blasphemous as Lord Byron, without any of his genius. He's more like that Lalla Rookh man that wrote such dreadful things under the name of Little. Don't be afraid, child, I'm not going to quote them." "Mr. Gartney is a very charming talker," said Alizon quietly. "Bless me, child, you've got a good word to say for everyone," remarked Aunt Jelly, with a benevolent scowl. "He certainly does talk well. It's almost a lost art now-a-days. Men and women don't talk, they drivel about their own virtues and their friends' faults. But Eustace!--well, yes, he's more amusing than you, Guy; you, my dear, have got all your goods in the shop window. Good appearance, but no brains." Guy, being used to Miss Corbin's plain speaking, roared with laughter at this flattering description, but Alizon felt indignant at her good-looking, kind-hearted husband being thus decried, and spoke out boldly. "I don't think so at all." "That's a very good thing--for Guy," said the old dame grimly. "Don't take up the cudgels on your husband's account, my dear, he's big enough to look after himself. After all, he has a better heart than Eustace, and he doesn't write poetry, which is a blessing. We must always be thankful for small mercies." Minnie felt rather indignant at this indirect shaft, but stood too much in awe of Miss Corbin to venture a remonstrance, so after a pause, during which Aunt Jelly eyed the trio like an elderly beldame of romance, Lady Errington continued the conversation. "Well, we must allow some latitude to genius." "Genius!" scoffed Aunt Jelly, picking up a stitch she had dropped. "My dear, in my young days every farthing rush-light did not call itself the sun. Eustace is clever in a nasty find-faulty way, I admit, but he's not a genius. He ought to give up writing abusive books, and marry, but there--if he did he'd worry the best woman that ever breathed into her grave." "He sings beautifully, at all events," said Lady Errington, feeling rather nonplussed as to how to satisfy this contradictory woman. "God bless my soul, child I don't go through a list of my nephew's virtues. I know them already, and from the best authority--himself. When he returns from this tree place--what do you call it?--Cyprus--yes, I knew it had something to do with a tree. Well, when he returns, I hope he'll be improved--there's room for it, great room. Guy, when do you go down to Denfield?" "To-morrow, aunt." "That's sensible. Errington Hall needs a master's eyes. I don't believe in absenteeism myself. If I had my way--which I'm not likely to have, because it's too sensible--I'd pack all landlords back to their estates in the country instead of letting them waste their money in London." "But what would London do without them?" asked Alizon, much amused at this new view of the subject. "Much better," retorted Aunt Jelly, sharply. "In my young days, before steam and electricity upset everything, people stayed in their own houses. But now everyone comes up to London. A cake's no good if the currants are all in one place. Scatter them, and it's an improvement." "There's a good deal of truth in what you say," remarked Alizon, quietly. "If literary men and musicians, for instance, made little centres of art and letters all over the three kingdoms, it would be more beneficial in every way than centralising everything in London." "Literature! Bah!" said Miss Corbin, with scorn; "milk-and-water novels about religion and society, bilious essays, and fault-finding critics--that's what you call literature now-a-days. As for music, I don't know much about it. 'The Maiden's Prayer' and the 'Battle of Prague' were thought good enough when I was young. But now it's all systems and theories, and what they call sixths and sevenths. A very good name, too," concluded the old lady, grimly, "for the whole lot of them do seem at sixes and sevens." "Ah! you see, everything is improving," said Guy, meekly, not having any idea about what he was talking, but only making a vain endeavour to stay Aunt Jelly's rancorous tongue. "It's more than manners are," replied the old lady, tartly. "Minnie, don't twiddle your fingers so. It annoys me. Humph! so you're going down to Errington to play the Lord of the Manor and your wife Lady Bountiful. Mind you take care of yourself, my dear; the mists down there are very bad for the throat." "I don't think they are bad, Aunt Jelly," expostulated Guy, indignant that she should try to prejudice Alizon against her future home. "Oh, you think about nothing!" said Aunt Jelly, coolly. "I tell you the place is unhealthy. Bless the man, don't I know what I'm talking about? Look at that girl," pointing to the shrinking Minnie, who was dreadfully upset at having public attention thus drawn to her--"she's lived all her life at Denfield, and what has she had? Measles, whooping-cough, neuralgia; she was a pale rickety mass of disease when she came to me. What built her up? Port wine. I tell you the place is unhealthy, and mind you take plenty of port wine and beef tea, Alizon, or you'll go out some day like the snuff of a candle. I've seen several of your sort go that way." "Aunt," cried Guy, rising to his feet in a rage, "how can you speak so! Hang it all! talk of something more cheerful. I didn't bring my wife here to be frightened out of her wits." "Pooh! nonsense! Don't you get angry," said the old lady, quite pleased at upsetting her good-tempered nephew, "What's the good of being an old woman if you can't say what you like? Well, go down home at once, and perhaps next year I'll pay you a visit." "I wonder you're not afraid of dying in such an unhealthy place," said Guy, scornfully. "Don't you be afraid. I shan't afford you that gratification for some time yet," answered Aunt Jelly malignantly. "I'm a creaking door. They hang long, you know." "Goodbye, Aunt Jelly," said Alizon, holding out her hand to Miss Corbin, for she felt she could not stand this terrible old woman any longer. "I'll come and see you when I'm next in town." "Humph! that means if you've got ten minutes to spare," growled the old lady, kissing Lady Errington's soft cheek. "Well! well! go on. The old are always neglected." "They wouldn't be if they were a little more pleasant," said Guy, still indignant, as he said goodbye. "Ah! you young folks expect to find life all honey, but there's a good deal of vinegar in it. I dare say you'll grow tired of one another." Guy, who was at the door with his wife, turned round at this, and called out in a rage: "No, we won't!" "I've heard better men than you say the same thing, but it always came to pass." "It won't in this case, so your kind heart will be disappointed for once." By this time Minnie Pelch had escorted Lady Errington to the hall door, and Sir Guy was about to follow after his parting shot, but the redoubtable Aunt Jelly was not one to give in without a struggle, and would have the last word. "Go away! go away!" she said, furiously--"go away and learn manners." "I certainly won't come to you for the teaching," retorted Guy, in great heat. "Goodbye, Aunt Jelly, and I hope you'll be in a more Christian spirit next time we come." He closed the door after him so as to give her no opportunity of replying, and Aunt Jelly thus being beaten, felt in an exceedingly bad temper. She fought with every one who came to the house, and crushed all except Eustace, whose cool sarcasm was too much for her, but this unexpected resistance of the dutiful Guy surprised her, and she was not ill-pleased. "I didn't think he had so much spirit," she chuckled, as she resumed her knitting. "It comes from his mother, I'll be bound. Jane always had a fine temper of her own and, was twice the man her milksop of a husband was. Well, well! I'm glad Guy can speak his mind. He hasn't much to speak, poor fool; still it's better than nothing." In fact, the old lady was so pleased with Guy's rebellion on behalf of his wife that she became quite good-tempered, and Minnie, on her return, found her patroness for once in her life an amiable companion. As for Guy and his wife, when they were both snugly ensconced in their carriage and driving back to the hotel, both of them laughed heartily over the visit. "Isn't she an old cat?" said Guy, wiping the tears from his eyes; "she fights like the devil! It's the first time I've had a row with her." "I'm sorry it was on my account, Guy," observed Alizon, anxiously. "Don't you bother your head, my dear," he replied coolly, patting her hand; "if it hadn't been you it would have been someone else. If Aunt Jelly hadn't a row every now and then she'd die. I wish to Heaven she would, and then I'd get her money!" "Oh, Guy, how can you speak so?" "Why not? We need the money badly enough, I'm sure. She only wastes it on churches and orphans' homes. I wish to Heaven I was an orphan; Aunt Jelly might take some interest in me." "Well, you are an orphan." "Yes, but that's not the genuine article. Aunt Jelly loves a snivelling, alone-in-the-world brat who needs reforming. A titled orphan like myself is no fun. I can't harrow her soul." "You did your best to do so just now," said Alizon, laughing. Sir Guy echoed her laughter, and when they arrived at their hotel both of them came to the conclusion that they had passed a very pleasant afternoon. CHAPTER XIII. BRINGING HOME THE BRIDE. "'Oh, mither! mither I've brocht hame A bonnie bride upon my steed, Sae lift her o'er the lintel stane, An'brake a bannock o'er her heid.' "'Oh, bairnie, syn the wand began Nane saw sic sicht o' muckle wae, Where gat ye, son, this witch wuman, Wi gowden hair an' skin o' snaw?' "'Oh, mither, she's a Chrisom lass Wha by the Kelpie's burn did stray, Wi buke an' bell an' holy mass I wedded her at break o' day.' "'Oh, bairnie, she's nae Chrisom child, Sae evil glowers her een tae see, She is a speerit fra the wild, An brings but dule tae you an' me.'" Sir Guy was humming this gruesome ballad as the train neared Denfield Station, where news of their arrival had already preceded them, and the Errington tenantry, in a state of high excitement, were waiting to welcome the young couple home. Blithe and happy, with a faint roseate tinge in her pale cheeks, arising from a natural feeling of anticipation, Alizon sat opposite to her husband, who was gazing fondly at her, and the glint of her golden hair and the whiteness of her skin set him thinking of that weird old ballad, sung to him in childish days by an old Scotch nurse full of the haunting superstitions of the North. "What on earth are you muttering about, Guy?" asked Alizon, in a puzzled tone, as she heard him crooning this melancholy strain. "Only an old song about a bride's home-coming," he replied gaily, and thereupon repeated to her all he remembered of the legend, the foreboding strain of which made his wife, sensitive in a great measure to supernatural hintings, shudder nervously. "Don't, Guy, don't tell me any more," she said apprehensively, putting her gloved hand over his mouth. "It's a bad omen." "What, are you so superstitious as that?" he replied, kissing her hand. "Do you think you are the witch-woman of the ballad, destined to bring woe to Errington?" "No! No! I hope not! I trust not!" cried Lady Errington, shrinking back with a vague dread in her eyes, "but I am a little superstitious. I think everyone is more or less, and my family has been so terribly unfortunate that I am afraid of bringing you bad luck." "Nonsense! I don't mind the bad luck a bit, as long as you come along with it," said her husband, soothingly. "I wish I hadn't put these ideas into your foolish little head. You must have nothing but bright thoughts to-day, my dearest, for this is your home-coming, and I hear we are to have a great reception." "Tell me all about it," asked Lady Errington, recovering herself with an effort. "Oh, that would take too long, besides I'm as ignorant as you are; but there are to be banners and flowers and music and all that sort of thing, you know, and I expect old Welstarler the Rector will read us an address. Then, of course, everyone will have a tuck-out at the Hall, and there is to be a dance in the evening down the village. All Denfield's going to have a high old time, so, for once in your life you'll be received like a royal personage." "Don't make me nervous." "Pooh! there's nothing to be nervous about. Just smile and look sweet, I'll do all the patter." "The what?" "Patter! talk you know. I'm afraid it is slangy, but very expressive all the same. By Jove, the train's slowing down, we'll soon be home now. There's the square tower of Denfield Church, and yonder, Alizon!--here, quick--on the right--that white wing of a house. That's our place." Sir Guy was quite excited, and chattered like a schoolboy home for his holidays, whilst Alizon, for once aroused from her coldness, stood near him, leaning her head on his shoulder, and looked out of the window at the various objects of interest, as the train steamed slowly onward. At last they arrived at Denfield. The little railway station was gaudy with bunting, much to the astonishment of the prosaic folks in the train, who could not understand the reason of such unusual decorative splendour, and as the train went on immediately Sir Guy and his wife alighted, they had no time to find out what the excitement was all about, therefore departed more in the dark than ever. The station-master, who had known Sir Guy from boyhood, was much flattered at being shaken hands with, and presented to Lady Errington, to whom some children offered a charming bouquet of wild flowers. Outside the station their carriage with four horses was waiting, and they got in amid the cheers of the villagers, who mustered here in strong force. Sturdy farmers, mounted in good style, labourers, looking forward to unlimited beer, women, in the brightest of dresses, talking shrilly among themselves of the beauty of the bride, school-children, jubilant at an unexpected holiday, all these were present, with banners, flags, and flowers unlimited. A proud man that day was the old coachman, as he guided the prancing horses through the long lane of happy faces, with his master and mistress sitting in the carriage behind, responding to the acclamations resounding on all sides, while from the grey, old church tower rang a peal of joy-bells. After all, let people pretend to despise it as they may, popularity is a very pleasant thing, and it made life appear very bright to this young couple, receiving such an uproarious welcome, instead of stealing homeward amid indifferent faces. Despite the howlings of Radicals, the spread of socialism, the groanings about agricultural depression, the bond between landlord and tenant is too kindly, and too deeply ingrained to yield readily to the mob-shriekings for equality and equal division of land. Sir Guy was a great favourite in the county, and the Erringtons had been gentry at the Hall for many centuries, so the sturdy British yeomen and kindly neighbours of the young pair determined to make their home-coming as pleasant as possible--and succeeded. Driving through the quaint, narrow street of the village, followed by a long train of horsemen, all the houses on either side were gay with flags and flowers and handkerchiefs waving from the narrow casements. Flowers strewed the dusty road under the feet of the horses, the village band, in bright uniforms, playing "Home, Sweet Home," on their brass instruments, with mighty strength of lungs, hearty cheers from hundreds of willing throats, loud clashings from the bells overhead, mad with joy, and at the entrance to the Park a triumphal arch of evergreens, with the word "Welcome" inscribed thereon. Under this arch waited a gallant company of horsemen in pink, for Sir Guy was a prominent member of the Hunt, and his brother Nimrods gave him a hearty greeting to his paternal acres. Then, when the crowd had cheered themselves hoarse, the old Rector, silver-haired and kindly-faced, read an address to the happy pair wishing them long life and happiness, to which Sir Guy responded in suitable terms, standing up in the carriage, his hat off, and his bright, young face flushed with excitement. Up the long avenue, still followed by the huntsmen, the farmers, and the villagers more flags overhead among the green boughs of the beech-trees, more flowers on the dusty road below, and at length the wide space before the house and the long façade of Errington Hall, with its tall gables, its innumerable diamond-paned windows, its slender turrets and weather-stained stacks of chimneys. Cheers from the servants, waiting in two long lines to welcome their new mistress, with whose sweet face they fell in love at once. Sir Guy then helped his wife to alight, and they both stood on the threshold of their new home, whilst a speech of welcome was made by the oldest inhabitant, prompted by the village schoolmaster, to which the young baronet responded with a few manly and straightforward words. The band then played a noisy quick step, which inspired the villagers to further cheering, and the gentry, having seen the Erringtons safely home, rode off to their different residences, while the tenantry and villagers all rejoiced and made merry on the lawn in front of the terrace. A blue sky above, a green earth below, happy faces all around, kindly voices sounding in her ears, and her husband by her side, it was no wonder that Alizon Errington, daughter of a social pariah, felt her heart swell with gratitude towards God, who had guided her safely to such a pleasant haven of joy and kindliness. But it all came to an end at last, and after the tenantry had eaten and drank as much as they possibly could at Sir Guy's expense, they all went down to the village to finish up the evening with dancing and fireworks. The Erringtons, quite tired out, were left alone standing on the terrace watching the crowd as it melted away in the coming shadows, and the husband, putting a kindly arm round his wife, felt that this was the brightest period of his life. Suddenly Alizon, who looked pale and worn out with excitement, burst into a passionate flood of tears, as she leaned against her husband's breast. "My dearest," cried Guy, in alarm, "what is the matter?" "Nothing," she sobbed, putting her arms round his neck, "only--only I am so happy." "You've got a curious way of showing it," said Guy, cheerfully, although his own eyes were now rather wet. "Come, come, Alizon, you must not give way like this. You are tired after your journey and all this excitement. If Aunt Jelly were here, I'm afraid she would prescribe her favourite port wine," he added jestingly. Alizon laughed at this, dried her eyes, and they both went inside to dress for dinner. A very pleasant little meal they had, in the old-fashioned dining-room, with the staid faces of the family portraits staring down at their frivolous descendants. Guy made his wife drink some famous champagne, which was the special pride of the Errington cellar. "I believe in fizz myself," he said sagely, holding his glass up to the light. "Aunt Jelly pins her faith to port, but this is quite as good and not so heavy. Look at all those ancestors of mine frowning down on us, Alizon. No doubt if they could speak they would denounce our conduct as frivolous." "I'm very glad they can't speak then," replied Lady Errington gaily. "Perhaps, however, they appear at midnight. Do they? This place looks like a haunted house." Guy shrugged his shoulders. "No! We haven't got a family ghost. It's a great pity, isn't it? Ghosts generally run in families who have been bad lots, but the Erringtons have always been a steady-going set, so we haven't got even a haunted room, or a gruesome Johnnie with a clanking chain." "I don't know if that's to be regretted," answered his wife, as she arose from the table; "besides, no one believes in ghosts now-a-days." "A good many people do not, but I firmly believe you do." Lady Errington laughed a little nervously. "No! I certainly believe in presentiments, but not in ghosts--there's a great difference between the two. Are you coming with me now?" "Yes! you surely do not want me to sit in solitary state over my wine?" "Certainly not, and as it is such a pleasant evening, let us go outside on the terrace." "You must wrap yourself up, Alizon," said Guy, anxiously, "the air is very keen here." He sent a servant for her shawl, and in a few minutes they were strolling up and down the terrace, arm in arm, not talking much, but enjoying each other's company and the reposeful silence of the hour. It was an exceptional night for November, in England, being still and restful with a moist, warm feeling in the air, and a gentle wind stirring the distant trees. No moon, no stars were visible, as the sky was hidden by heavy masses of clouds which seemed to press down on the weary earth, and a kind of luminous twilight was spread around, which made everything loom strange and spectral in its half-light. The warm, yellow light from the drawing-room poured out through the open windows on to the terrace, and away beyond the lawns, the flower beds, and the great masses of beech, elm, and oak lay swallowed up in the dusky shadows. The wind rustled the dry leaves from the trees, and made the great boughs shiver with complaining sighs, as though they dreaded the coming of winter, while there was a salt feeling in the air, coming from the distant sea, and, at intervals, the dull, muffled roar of the surf, beating on the lonely coast. "This is not like Italy," said Alizon to her husband, as they stood arm in arm, peering into the shadows, "and yet there is a kind of similarity. This is the terrace of Villa Tagni, beyond the trees are the distant mountains and that strip of luminous ground is the lake." "I'm afraid I haven't your imagination, my dear," he answered comically, "or, perhaps, I know the place too well, but I've got a strong feeling that I'm not in Italy, but in England, and, moreover, that I am at home." "It's a very pleasant feeling." "Yes! I think even the most inveterate Bohemian, Eustace, for instance, must experience a home-sickness sometimes." "Has your cousin any home?" "Oh, yes! At least, he owns a kind of tumble-down old ruin about four miles from here. It overlooks the sea, and is a most dismal place. Eustace visits it about once in a blue moon, but I don't think he likes it. It's a haunted place, if you like." "Haunted by what?" "Oh, I don't know. There's some sort of a ghost, who makes himself objectionable--by-the-way, I'm not sure that it isn't a lady ghost, with a rustling of silken skirts. But then ghosts have no sex." "You seem to be well up in the subject," said his wife, a little drily, as they re-entered the house. "Not at all. I only know folk lore in a desultory sort of manner. But when you get to know all the people round about here, you'll be told the most gruesome stories." "I suppose for the next few weeks we won't have a moment of peace." "It's very probable," replied Guy coolly, "and then we'll have to return all the visits. It's a deuce of a nuisance, but one must do it. We owe it to our position. "I never heard that last phrase till I married you," said Lady Errington, a little sadly. "Why did not your father----?" "My father! you forget, Guy. I am the daughter of a pariah." He took her in his strong, young arms, and kissed her fondly. "You are my wife, and the mistress of Errington Hall." CHAPTER XIV. AN UNDESIRABLE ACQUAINTANCE. "This ghost from the past I tremble to see Behind me I cast This ghost from the past, Life's pleasant at last, So let there not be This ghost from the past I tremble to see." Errington Hall, hidden in the green heart of its noble woods, was a building of very mixed architecture, displaying in its incongruities the various dispositions and tastes of the different owners who had lived therein. The original structure was evidently the large hall (from whence the building took its name) which had been erected by the first Errington after the Battle of Bosworth Field, when England was once more settling down to domesticity, after the tumult and strife of the Wars of the Roses. To this noble room, lofty, majestic, and sombre, the various masters of the Hall had added other and smaller rooms, long, winding corridors, and innumerable outhouses, as the fancy took them, or as their needs required them, so that the centre apartment was quite lost amid the huge wings and gables which surrounded it on all sides. The result was a bizarre combination which made the old mansion wonderfully attractive to architects and archeologists, while the lapse of centuries had mellowed the whole mass into one delicate tone of warm-hued loveliness. From the central hall, with its carven roof, its long narrow windows, and quaint oaken gallery, ran many crooked corridors, full of unexpected angles, queer corners, sudden depressions, and shallow flights of steps, leading to long ranges of bedrooms, to the kitchen and the servants' wing. This portion was Elizabethan and the outside presented the usual Tudoresque aspect of battlements, venerable walls of grey stone, covered with ivy, diamond-paned windows, and grotesque gargoyles. After the building of this, the Erringtons were evidently too busy with the Parliamentary Wars to attend to their home, for the next portion added to the original fabric was of Queen Anne date, of dark-hued red brick, wide casements and heavy doors. Again there was an architectural interval, as the Hanoverian Erringtons were engaged in making their peace with the new German sovereigns of England for suspected Jacobite practices, and the last notable addition took place in the reign of the third George, when the front wing was added to the house, a vast façade of dull white stone with innumerable windows, ranges of heavy balustrades, and confused decorations in the Renaissance style, of nude figures, fantastic flowers, birds, scrolls and such-like dainty devices. A balustrade ran along the front of the roof, hiding the leads, and in the centre an elaborate carving of the Errington coat-of-arms, supported by two greyhounds, with the motto, "Curro, Capio, Teneo." A broad terrace, with statues and urns thereon, stretched from end to end, and a double flight of marble steps led downward to the smooth, green lawn, from whence the great white pile standing on its hill presented a noble appearance. The Victorian Erringtons added but little to the house, for the simple reason, that the builder of the Renaissance wing had not only exhausted the family resources in doing so, but had encumbered the estate with heavy mortgages, which his descendants had not yet paid off. Sir Frederick Errington had a turn for amateur gardening, and added long lines of hot-houses to the side of the house, and also a kind of winter garden, while Sir Guy had done his share in the adornment of the place, by building a handsome range of stables. Altogether it was a wonderfully fine place, but far too expensive and costly for the Errington rent-roll, which was not particularly large. So there it stood, a monument of vanity and folly, which often made its present possessor curse his bad luck in owning such a white elephant. The interior was quite in keeping with the palatial exterior, for the state apartments, situated in the front wing, were of enormous size, splendidly furnished, but which looked lonely in the extreme unless full of company, a gaily-dressed crowd being needed to set them off to advantage. The Errington family were proud of these state-rooms, which were really wonderfully imposing, but, except on grand occasions, when they were thrown open to the county gentry, preferred to inhabit a smaller range of rooms on the western side, which were more comfortable, both as regards size and furniture, than the chilly splendours of the great apartments. One of these rooms had been especially fitted up for Alizon by her husband, a charming octagon-shaped apartment with windows looking on to a quaint garden set forth in the Dutch fashion, with trim symmetrical lines of box and sombre yew trees clipped into fantastic shapes, known by the name of "My Lady's Pleasaunce." "I think this is delightful, Guy," said Alizon, as she stood in the garden with her husband; "it is so shut out from the world." They were amusing themselves by exploring the great house, and Alizon was quite overwhelmed by the size and magnificence of everything. Range after range of splendidly furnished rooms shut up and left to the dust and spiders, lofty wide passages with figures in armour on either side, stained glass windows here and there in which blushed the Errington escutcheon. It was all angles, and turrets, and gables, and crooked windings, so that Alizon clung closely to Guy as they wandered through the lonely rooms, feeling quite afraid of the vastness of the building. "It puts me in mind of Mrs. Radcliffe's stories," she said with a shudder, "there's something quite awesome about the place." "Awesome? not a bit of it," replied Guy cheerfully, opening a shutter and letting a flood of sunlight into a room, "it requires living in, that's all. You see, dear, my parents died ages ago, and I've been living here very little, so the whole place has got a little musty. But now we're here we'll have more servants, and a lot of people to come and see us. That will wake the place up a bit." "But it's so large, Guy. Why was it built so large?" "I'm sure I don't know," said the young man somewhat ruefully, "it's a deuce of a barn, isn't it? The Erringtons always had a mania for building, and whenever they'd nothing else to do they added wings. More fools they, as it ran away with all the money and put these confounded mortgages on the property. This is a dear old place, and I'm very fond of it, but it's miles too big for us, and is a regular white elephant." "It must take a lot of money to keep it up." "It does! So much that there's none left for anything else. I wish to heaven I wasn't sentimental, or I'd pull down a lot of it." "Oh, Guy!" "Well, what is the use of all these empty rooms? It takes an army of servants to keep them clean, and for no purpose. We haven't got enough money to keep open house, or I could fill all these rooms with people I know, but what with this place, and the mortgages, and bad tenants, it's a deuce of a nuisance altogether. I wish someone would take the Hall off my hands as a museum, or an almshouse, after the style of Hampton Court." "You wouldn't sell it?" "No, I daresay I wouldn't. I can't do with it, and I can't do without it. It's a dead lock. But, if Aunt Jelly would only give up the ghost and leave us her tin, we could keep the whole shop going beautifully." "I'm afraid there's no chance of that." "No, there isn't. Aunt Jelly is one of those aggravating old women who'll see the end of the present century." "Well, that's not far off," said Alizon mischievously. "Too far off for us to get her money, my dear," replied Guy candidly. "I believe she's immortal." They left the room in which they were standing and resumed their walk through the house, stopping in the picture gallery which contained the Errington portraits, and also a number of celebrated pictures, all of which Guy contemplated ruefully. "Can't even sell these," he said with a groan. "Fancy, what humbug--they're all heirlooms, and I'd have to apply to Chancery to get permission, which I daresay they'd refuse. It takes me all my time to keep up this place and live decently, yet all this money is hanging on the wall in the shape of these pictures. It's awful bosh, just like making a child the present of a shilling on condition he doesn't spend it. Humbug!" "What! would you sell your ancestors, like Charles Surface?" "No, I wouldn't go so far as that. But these pictures are wasting their sweetness on the desert air in being shut up here, and, as I need money more than pictures, I would sell them if I could. I don't see much chance of doing so, however, for the Errington cousins--and I've got about a hundred--would come down on me as a lunatic if I did so. Hang them! I wish they'd this place to keep up on a small income, they wouldn't be so anxious to keep these miles of painted canvas. But never mind, while there's Aunt Jelly there's hope, so come along and look at the hall from the gallery. It's the best place to see it." So they went along a narrow passage into the older portion of the house, and soon found themselves in the wide gallery running round the hall at a height of about forty feet. A wonderfully impressive place it was, with its lance-shaped windows, filled with stained glass, through which the pale sunlight streamed, casting fantastic patterns on the oaken floor. Between every window, shields, spears and battle axes, with faded banners drooping above them, telling of ancient wars and the days of chivalry, when the deserted hall was filled with men-at-arms and bold knights in steel armour, before the invention of gunpowder relegated their iron panoply to the obscurity of country houses and museums. At the upper end of the room a raised dais, above which a royal canopy and the Errington arms flashing in gilt splendour from the dusky shadows, while high above arose the pointed roof with its great oaken rafters faintly seen in the gloom. It was certainly a fine specimen of the mediæval ages and doubtless many stirring tales could be told of the generations that had feasted under its lofty roof, or departed from thence to harry the lands of weaker neighbours, as was the kindly fashion in those misnamed good old days. "A wonderful old place, isn't it?" said Guy, as they stood looking from the height of the gallery at the immense space below, "and genuine too. None of the sham antiquity of Abbotsford here. All this is the real thing, and just as it was in the old days when the Erringtons wore those absurd suits of armour, and poked their neighbours' eyes out with those long spears." "You ought to be very proud of your race, Guy." "I don't see much to be proud of in them," he replied candidly, throwing his arm round his wife's waist, "they were a humdrum lot at best the Erringtons. Went to church, minded their own business, and left other people's wives alone. They always seemed to have been on the safe side in keeping their property, however, and if it hadn't been for their building craze, I'd be decently off. According to their ideas there was no place like home, however, and that is why they spent such a lot of money over it. I am proud of the dear old Hall, but I do wish it wasn't quite so large." "Do you use this place at all?" asked Alizon as they left the gallery. "Only for dances, and tenants' dinners," he answered carelessly; "it looks very pretty when it's full, but at present one would think it was haunted. Quite a mistake, as there isn't a single ghost in the whole place. A pity, isn't it, for this queer old house just looks a fit place for shadowy figures and gruesome legends." "I suppose there are plenty of stories about the Hall." "Oh yes! but very mild stories, I'm afraid, not even equal to the average shilling shocker. Errington Hall has no history which would delight novelists or antiquaries. Queen Elizabeth didn't stop here on a royal progress, Oliver Cromwell's Ironsides didn't besiege the place, and though I think the Hanoverian Erringtons were mixed up in Jacobite plots they hid neither Prince James nor Prince Charlie. We are a very prosaic lot, my dear, and although the whole house is romantic enough in appearance, there isn't a story about it that would frighten a five-year-old child." By this time they were on the terrace in the pale November sunlight, and could see below the smooth green lawn surrounding the house, girdled by the ancient trees of the park, which were now shedding their leaves for winter time. The carriage drive swept round the front of the terrace in a graceful curve, and then disappeared into the green wood, while beyond the tops of the trees appeared the grey square tower of Denfield Church, sombre against the dull sky. Some pigeons, white as milk, were whirling aloft in the moist air, and the sun, invisible behind the grey clouds, diffused a pale chilly radiance, which made Alizon long for the blue skies and burning heat of Italy. "Come inside, Alizon," said Sir Guy, seeing his wife shivering, "this is cold after the South, and you'd better lie down for a time after luncheon, as I daresay for the next week or two you'll have quite enough to do in receiving our neighbours." What Guy said was true enough, and for the next few weeks Alizon had as much as she could do in receiving the county magnates, all eager to see Lady Errington, of whom they had heard much, but of whose father they had heard still more. Despite Sir Guy's lack of ready money the Errington estates were very large, the Errington position a very high one in the county, and many a daughter of the Shires would have been pleased to have become the mistress of Errington Hall, particularly as its master, young, handsome and debonnaire, was favourite enough with the gentle sex independently of his rank and position. When, however, it came to be known that this eligible bachelor had married Alizon Mostyn, the county, at least the female part of it, felt vexed that an outsider should have carried off the matrimonial prize, and the provincial belles felt none too well disposed towards the young wife, although they masked their real feelings under many sweet smiles and smooth words. The "Pepper Box," with its customary good manners, had set forth in its columns the story of Gabriel Mostyn, and although there was nothing in it but what redounded to Alizon's credit, yet the fact that she had such a scamp for a father was not desirable in itself. Sir Guy managed to put an end to the "Pepper Box" chatter by threatening to thrash Billy Dolser, and as that gentleman was getting rather tired of being horsewhipped he held his tongue, so nothing more was revealed in that quarter, but Society having got a pretty good idea of the Mostyn history pursued the whole affair to the end, and found out all Gabriel's iniquities and Alizon's filial affection. When Lady Errington therefore received the county families, she knew perfectly well that all these smooth smiling people were well acquainted with her history, and although she had nothing personally to fear from their venomous tongues, yet the fact that the history of her iniquitous father was known to them down to the minutest detail, made her position anything but a pleasant one. The county, however, made a virtue of necessity, and seeing that Lady Errington was of good birth, and that there was nothing against her, whatever there might have been against her scamp of a father, made her welcome among them in the heartiest manner, although a few wiseacres shook their heads doubtfully over Sir Guy's wife. "What's bred in the bone will come out in the flesh," they whispered one to the other, "and it's curious if she does not inherit some of her father's bad qualities as well as her mother's good ones." Lady Errington guessed the somewhat unfriendly feeling they bore towards her because she had become mistress of Errington Hall, but spoke of it to no one, not even Guy, who never for a moment dreamt of such a thing, and was delighted to see how his neighbours seemed to like his wife. This calm, statuesque woman, with the impassive face, bore herself with stately grace towards the visitors that called at Errington Hall, and although they all respected her, yet her manner chilled them with its coldness, and no one professed any strong liking for her. The men admired her greatly, but thought her cold and haughty, while the ladies, finding she did not take an interest in their provincial frivolities, said disagreeable things behind her back, and smiled to her face, which did not for a moment deceive Alizon, as she knew what their friendship was worth. No one could deny, however, that she was a beautiful woman, and filled her position admirably in every way, yet curiously enough everyone arrived at the same conclusion as Eustace, and pitied Sir Guy as a warm-hearted young man married to a statue. Lady Errington was not therefore an unqualified success, but her husband never perceived this and took all the lip service of his friends for gospel truth, while Alizon, although she guessed pretty well the true state of things, did not undeceive him. She knew she was not disliked, as she had done her best to conciliate everyone, but on the other hand she knew perfectly well that a gulf lay between herself and these people which could not be bridged over in any way. They all wanted to take her to their bosom and gush over her, while she, cold, reserved and self-reliant, objected to the obvious hint of patronage in this desire; so although she received and made visits, went to all provincial gaities, and presided at her own dinner-table in returning hospitality, yet she felt she was an exile among these people, a stranger in a strange land, who could neither learn their ways nor make them understand her own. In fact, now that the glamour of the honeymoon had worn off, there were times when even Sir Guy felt the chill of her manner towards him, and although he tried to analyse the feeling, never succeeded in doing so. She was perfect in every way, almost too perfect, and at times he had his doubts as to whether it would not have been wiser on his part to have married a common-place provincial belle than this ethereal creature, whose nature he vaguely perceived was utterly at variance with his own. Such ideas as these, however, he rejected as heretical against the woman he loved, and he assured himself with unnecessary vehemence that he had gained a woman who would be perfect in every way both as mother and wife. Therefore the county and Sir Guy were both pleased with Alizon in this somewhat doubtful fashion, and she, knowing the real mistrust she had innocently provoked by her icy reserve, did not trouble herself about it, but went calmly on her way, fulfilling her position as mistress of Errington Hall, and one of the great ladies of the place. One event, however, took place which showed Guy that under her impassive demeanour there was a strong will and a considerable spice of temper, both of which came to light in the episode of Mrs. Veilsturm. Everyone far and near had called at the Hall. Stalwart county squires with their comfortable wives and frivolous daughters, loud-voiced, hearty young men whose ideas rarely extended beyond the hunting-field, occasionally an effete inhabitant of Belgravia, whose ancestral acres were but rarely visited, meek curates who wanted Alizon to become the Lady Bountiful of the parish, and gay country damsels who revelled in lawn-tennis and slily copied Lady Errington's dresses with feminine subtlety--all these had called at the Hall and been received by Alizon with friendly reserve, after which she returned their visits in company with Guy, feeling she had done her duty. Nothing out of the way happened till Mrs. Veilsturm left her card. They had been paying a visit to some county magnate, and on their return Alizon had gone inside, while Sir Guy remained without for a moment giving some directions to the grooms about the horses. Having done so he ran up the steps into the entrance-hall, to find his wife even paler than usual, standing by a small table looking at a card with a look of horror on her face. "Why, what's the matter, dear?" he asked, coming forward anxiously, "is anything wrong?" She handed him the card without a word, and having looked at the name, he glanced at her in puzzled surprise. "Well, what's wrong about Mrs. Veilsturm?" he said inquiringly. "She's a jolly sort of woman, isn't she?" "Do you know her?" asked his wife coldly. "No, I can't say I do personally. She came down while I was away and bought old Darton's place, about two miles from here. But what do you look so horrified at?" "Come in here, Guy, and I'll tell you," answered Alizon, with an effort, and walked into the drawing-room, followed by her husband in a state of wonder as to what could have occurred to upset his wife. Alizon sat down under the window, twisting her gloves in her hands with a look of anger on her face, while Guy stood near her with his tall hat on the back of his head, looking at her in a state of bewilderment. "I never saw you so upset before, Alizon," he said, with an uneasy laugh; "is there anything particularly wrong about Mrs. Veilsturm--is she a leper, or is her character no better than it should be?" "Have you heard anything against her character?" "Not a word," replied Guy, promptly. "She's a great favourite with everyone. Her husband was a captain in some regiment that was stationed out at the Bermudas or Jamaica, and I believe he married her out there. When he died he left her well off, and she's a lively sort of woman, but I never heard anything against her morals." "What about Major Griff?" "Major Griff!--oh, he was a friend of her husband's, I believe, and wants to marry her, only she won't accept him. I hear that he is her trustee, and looks after her property for her; but what on earth do you know about her, Alizon?" "I know too much to allow her to visit here." "The deuce you do," cried Sir Guy, taking a seat, "and who told you anything about her?" "My father," she replied quickly, turning her pale face towards him. Sir Guy whistled, and looked thoughtfully out of the window, knowing well enough that Gabriel Mostyn's name being mentioned did not bode any good to Mrs. Veilsturm. He said nothing, however, as he judged it best to let his wife tell the story her own way, and that this course was the right one was proved by what followed. "As you know, I attended my father during those four years when he was dying, and although I don't want to say a word against him, seeing that after all he was my father, yet, I heard sufficient from his own lips to convince me that his life had been a vile one. Not even the fact that I was his child prevented him boasting in my presence of his horrible actions, and although I invariably left the room when he began to talk like this, I could not help overhearing more than I cared to." "I wonder you did not leave him altogether," said Sir Guy indignantly. "He was my father after all," she replied simply. "No one would stay by him except me, and I could not let him die alone, like a dog." Sir Guy shifted uneasily in his seat, finding a difficulty in making an answer. "No, I suppose you couldn't," he answered reluctantly; "blood's thicker than water, but still--you are a good woman, Alizon." Lady Errington smiled faintly and shook her head. "Don't put me on a pedestal," she said, a trifle bitterly, "or you will find your goddess has feet of clay after all. Well, about Mrs. Veilsturm. I need not tell you all I heard about her, but only this. That my father knew her--intimately--and that her life before she set up for a woman of fashion in England, was not all that could be desired." "Where did he meet her?" demanded Sir Guy abruptly. "In South America. She is a Creole, you know, and when my father knew her she was not married to Captain Veilsturm. She may have lived decently since she became wife and widow, for all I know, but when she was in South America----" Lady Errington broke off abruptly, and rose quickly to her feet. "How dare she call on me--how dare she?" "I daresay she thinks you know nothing about her," said Sir Guy, rising also. "She knows I am Gabriel Mostyn's daughter, and that ought to be enough to make her keep away from me." "But of what do you accuse her?" "I accuse her of nothing, at present," said Alizon, looking steadily at him. "I only tell you that she is not a fit woman to cross the threshold of Errington Hall, and she will not do so while I am mistress here." "What are you going to do then?" "I'm going to return the card she had the audacity to leave here, and write her a note forbidding her to call again." Sir Guy thought for a moment, and then spoke out. "You are the best judge as to whom you make your friends, Alizon, but if you do this Mrs. Veilsturm will demand an explanation, and there will be a row." Lady Errington paused with her hand on the door and looked back. "Mrs. Veilsturm will not demand an explanation," she said coldly, "but if she wishes for one I can easily satisfy her on that point. But while I am mistress of Errington Hall if that infamous woman dares to come here I'll have her turned out by my servants." "But she----" "She!" echoed his wife decisively. "She will take the hint conveyed by the return of this card and keep a wide distance between Gabriel Mostyn's daughter and herself." The door closed after her, and Guy, after a pause of amazement at the change in his usually calm wife, turned towards the window with a half frown on his face. "She's got a temper after all," he said to himself, thrusting his hands into his pockets. "I might have guessed it. Sleeping volcanoes are always the worst when they do start." CHAPTER XV. A WOMAN SCORNED. "What! will she place her foot upon my neck, And hold me helpless, writhing in the dust? Nay, such a thing is folly at the best, 'Tis ill to tamper with the meanest worm, For, serpent-like, I'll wound her in the heel, And when she falls from her magnificence, I'll twist my coils around her dainty throat And sting!--and sting!--and sting!--until she dies." "Who is Mrs. Veilsturm?" A good many people asked this question, when a woman, black-browed, voluptuous, and imperious as Cleopatra, flashed like an unknown star into the brilliance of a London season four years ago. No one could answer this question, the quidnuncs for once were at fault, and although ladies in drawing-rooms and men in clubs set their wits to work to find out all about her, no one could give an opinion with certainty as to who she was, where she came from, and what was the source of her income. The society papers, who usually know everything, could not unravel this riddle, and it was reserved for the indefatigable Billy Dolser to lift in some measure the veil which hung over the past of this beautiful enigmatical woman. Under the heading of "A Cleopatra of To-day," an article appeared in the "Pepperbox," setting forth a very delightful story which satisfied everyone except a few suspicious grumblers, but whether it was fact or fiction, no one was quite sure. According to this veracious chronicle, Mrs. Veilsturm (or as the "Pepperbox," thinly veiling her identity, called her, Cleopatra) was a West Indian Creole, born in the island of Cuba, the daughter of a wealthy planter. Her parents died when she was young, and according to all reports, she lived a life of semi-barbaric magnificence in the somnolent Spanish island. Later, becoming tired of her secluded life, she went to Jamaica, and there met Captain Veilsturm, at that time reputed to be the handsomest man in the island. He married her, and for some time she reigned as Queen of the Regiment, but her husband dying suddenly of yellow fever, she left Jamaica, and came to England, intending with her great wealth to enter into London society. In this laudable ambition she was helped by Major Griff, a well-known man about town, who had been in Veilsturm's regiment, and who, if report spoke truly, would have been glad to have married his lovely widow. Mrs. Veilsturm, however, did not care to tempt matrimony a second time, and refused the Major, who, nevertheless, remained her closest friend, for her deceased husband had made him his executor. So the wily Major looked after all the entire property of the husband (consisting of a small house in the country), and the large property of the wife (consisting of West Indian estates), to the mutual satisfaction of both himself and the widow. Major Griff was invaluable to her in more senses than one, as he knew everyone and everything, and was enabled to float her successfully in London society through the influence of his friends. How it was done the "Pepperbox" scribe did not venture to say, although he hinted that the Major's influence in inducing his friends to take up the lovely widow, was not due so much to their friendship as to the Major's possession of certain disagreeable secrets. However, let the means used be what they might, Mrs. Veilsturm obtained a social success in a select circle, and became quite the rage of the season. The Major's tactics and her own craftiness, added to her undeniable beauty, enabled her to take up an excellent position, and although the next season some people showed a desire to drop her, Mrs. Veilsturm was too clever to let them do so, and managed to confirm her social prestige in the most dexterous manner. She had plenty of money, great beauty, a delightful house in Park Lane, and was an admirable hostess, so with this galaxy of virtue Society was fain to be content, and spoke well of her to her face, although behind her back they characterised her as an adventuress. It was dangerous to do this, however, as Major Griff was ubiquitous and, constituting himself her protector, dared any man or woman to speak evil of Cleopatra, whose character and life were above suspicion. With certain reservations this was the story the "Pepperbox" told, and whether people chose to believe or doubt, it did not matter to Mrs. Veilsturm, who went serenely on her way, protected by the faithful Major. Some houses, however, were closed against her, as the Major was not omnipotent, and in these some disagreeable stories were told about the beautiful Creole, but Mrs. Veilsturm's set, although undeniably fast, was also as undeniably "in the swim," so she was supremely indifferent to such scandal. As to the houses closed against her, she did not pose as an exiled Peri at the gates of a Paradise guarded by Mrs. Grundy, but set herself up in rebel authority over her own friends, and defied the ultra-exclusive people in every way. As they did not invite her to visit them in Paradise, she returned the compliment by not asking the pleasure of their company to--well, the other place, and as she gave most delightful entertainments, the dwellers in the Mrs. Grundy-guarded-Paradise could not help feeling rather annoyed. They looked down on Mrs. Veilsturm, they called her an adventuress, they wondered how any decent people could tolerate such a woman, and yet they regretted that the laws of social respectability forced them to ignore such an attractive woman. This being the position of affairs, rebellious Cleopatra would, without doubt, have gained her ambition, and obliged even these jealously-guarded doors to be opened to her, but for an unfortunate rumour which originated no one knew where, and, creeping through society like a snake, raised its head and hissed disagreeable things regarding gambling. Gambling! Yes! Rumour, in the guise of bewigged old ladies over tea, and would-be juvenile old men over something stronger, said that Mrs. Veilsturm had very charming Sunday evenings, very charming indeed, but a trifle expensive to those not greatly blessed with this world's goods. At these Sunday evening receptions, at a late hour of the night, certain green-covered tables made their appearance, and such production led to the playing of nap, of unlimited loo, baccarat, and such like games, over which a good deal of money changed hands. It was also observed that who ever lost, Major Griff did not, but that a good deal of the money on the tables managed to find its way into his pockets. This had nothing to do with Mrs. Veilsturm certainly, still it was curious that this wealthy woman should permit her house to be turned into a gambling saloon, for the sake of giving Major Griff a nice little income, so rumour once more set to work to solve the problem, and made several startling assertions. First, that Society had been imposed upon, as Mrs. Veilsturm was by no means wealthy, and that the West Indian estates were a myth, emanating from the fertile brain of Major Griff. Second, that the relationship between the beautiful Creole and the disinterested Major was by no means as artless as was supposed, and that the money gained by the Major went to keep up the house in Park Lane. Third, that Mrs. Veilsturm and the Major were in partnership together for the purpose of making money, and that the woman's beauty and the man's skill were the stock-in-trade of the said partnership. Then these disagreeable reports were whispered everywhere, and even Major Griff, astute and cunning as a fox, could not find anyone to whom he could give the lie; and despite his emphatic contradiction of such report; people began to fight shy of fascinating Mrs. Veilsturm, and the dainty little house in Park Lane. The second season of Cleopatra in London, however, was nearly over, so Major Griff, being an old campaigner, knew that out of sight is out of mind, and determined to withdraw himself and his partner from town for a time, until the next year, when he hoped to come back to Mayfair, and proceed with more caution. Accordingly, Mrs. Veilsturm announced to her dearest friends in confidence (so that it would sure to be repeated) that she was tired of town, and was going to her little place at Denfield, which she did shortly before the end of the season, and the fact was duly chronicled in the Society papers. The Major did not accompany her, as he did not want to give colour to the reports about his relationship with Mrs. Veilsturm, and moreover, wanted to hear the result of this dexterous move. The result was exactly as the astute Major calculated, for people began to say that Mrs. Veilsturm was greatly maligned, as the Major had not accompanied her into the country, and that had she been the adventuress she was asserted to be, she would not have left London, where she was reaping such a rich harvest, for a dull country house. The Major's diplomacy, therefore, was entirely successful, and Society was quite prepared to receive Mrs. Veilsturm when she chose to come back to Park Lane. So after the lapse of some weeks, Major Griff joined Mrs. Veilsturm at Denfield, to talk over the success of their clever move. He found her in clover, for as no disagreeable rumours had found their way to this out-of-the-world locality, and she was known to be a leading lady in society (videlicet the Society papers), all the provincial gentry called upon her, and she visited at their houses, fascinating everyone with her brilliancy and beauty. "Major Griff, a great friend of my poor husband," was duly introduced, and being an admirable sportsman, and a bold rider, soon succeeded in becoming as popular as Cleopatra, so he was perfectly satisfied with the attitude of things as he foresaw the return of the firm to London would be after the fashion of a triumphal entry. Provincial gentry were dull company, certainly, but a guarantee of respectability, and the fact that Mrs. Veilsturm was at all the great houses in the country would be duly chronicled in the papers, and being seen by the London folk, would shew that she was not an adventuress, but a lady of great wealth, moving in the best society. Then Mrs. Veilsturm made a mistake. Against the advice of the Major, who had known and detested Gabriel Mostyn, she called on Gabriel Mostyn's daughter and left her card, with the hope that the visit would be returned. On the evening of the day she had done this, she was waiting for dinner in the little drawing-room, and Major Griff, in evening dress, was lounging against the mantelpiece with a glass of sherry at his elbow, listening to her remarks. A handsome woman was Mrs. Veilsturm, as she leaned back in a deep arm-chair, fanning herself slowly with all the grace and languor of a Creole. A dusky skin, masses of coal-black hair, with a suspicion of frizziness, betraying the African blood, large black eyes, a sensual, full-lipped mouth, and the figure of a Juno, she was a wonderfully handsome woman in a full-blooded way. Her arms and neck were beautifully proportioned, and dressed as she was, with the negro's love for bright tints, in a lemon-coloured dress, with great masses of crimson flowers at her breast and in her hair, she looked a beautiful imperious creature, with a touch of the treacherous grace of the tiger in the indolent repose of her lithe limbs. A painter would have admired her voluptuous form, a poet would have raved on the dusky beauty of her face, with the sombre light in the sleepy eyes; but no man who had any instinct of self-preservation would have trusted this feline loveliness, so suggestive of treachery and craft. Some highly imaginative man averred that Mrs. Veilsturm put him in mind of a snake, and certainly there was more than a resemblance to a serpent in the sinuous grace of her evil beauty. As for Major Griff, he was a tall, dried-up man, like a stick; with a hard, handsome face, iron-grey hair and moustache, and keen eyes, which looked everyone straight in the face. A thorough scamp, it was true, yet with sufficient dexterity to hide his scampishness, and a military cut-and-dried brevity which disarmed suspicion. Some rogues fawn and supplicate to gain their ends, but not so the Major, who habitually grave, plain in his speech, and brusque in his manner, gave everyone the impression of being a blunt, straightforward soldier. He was stopping at a friend's house in the town of Starton, which was a short distance away, and had come over on a friendly visit to Mrs. Veilsturm, who lived mostly alone, as her house was not large enough to enable her to receive company. This did not matter, as she generally dined out every night, but on this special evening, the two had to consult about their plans, so Mrs. Veilsturm had refused an invitation with many thanks, but "you see I have to speak about business connected with my West Indian Estates with my trustee, Major Griff," and the givers of the invitation were quite impressed with an idea of her wealth. The West Indian Estates were a capital bait wherewith to gull people as, being at a distance, no one could deny their existence, and the very mention of them had a golden sound, suggestive of toiling slaves and untold riches. "So you did do what I told you not to, Maraquita?" growled the Major, who called Mrs. Veilsturm by her Christian name when alone. "If you mean in the way of calling upon Lady Errington, yes," she replied indolently, sweeping her sandal-wood fan to and fro and diffusing a subtle eastern perfume through the room. She had a beautiful voice, full, rich and mellow, yet with a certain roughness which grew more pronounced when she became excited. Anyone would have been fascinated by this voluptuous beauty lounging in the chair, while the dreamy fragrance of the sandal-wood seemed to add to her rich, eastern look, but custom had habituated Major Griff to this barbaric loveliness, and he spoke curtly, being annoyed and making no effort to conceal his annoyance. "You were wrong, quite wrong, I tell you," he observed, taking a sip of sherry. "Do you think I'm a fool?" asked Mrs. Veilsturm harshly, with a frown. "I do! What woman isn't--on occasions?" was the polite response. Mrs. Veilsturm laughed in a sneering fashion, in nowise offended, as the private conversations of this precious pair were apt to be rather disagreeable at times, but the Major, always cool and imperturbable, knew better than to provoke the Creole's wrath, which resembled, in its force and terror, the storms of her native land. "You are polite, I must say," said Maraquita, coolly, "but I'm used to your manners by this time, so we need not argue about them. Let us talk business, and tell me why you object to my leaving a card on Lady Errington, seeing that she is a great personage down here, and may be useful to us." "You ask me a question of which you know the answer well enough," returned the Major deliberately. "Lady Errington is the daughter of Gabriel Mostyn, and I don't suppose you want your relationship with him raked up." "I don't see there is much chance of that," she replied contemptuously. "Mostyn is dead, and his daughter knows nothing about me." "Don't you be too sure of that," said Griff significantly. "This girl attended to her father for four years when he was ill, and Mostyn with his monkeyish nature was just the man to torture a woman by telling her all kinds of things of which she would rather have remained ignorant." "Still, she was his daughter, and even Mostyn would hold his tongue about some things to her." "Humph! I'm not so sure of that." "Are you not?--I am." The Major frowned, pulled his moustache, and then finishing his sherry at one gulp, spoke sharply. "You appear to be sure of a good many things, Maraquita, but perhaps you will be kind enough to remember that union means strength, and that your well-being in the eyes of the world is of just as much importance to our schemes as my knowledge of human nature. If I hadn't made you leave London, things would have been said which would have closed every door against you." "And what about yourself?" asked the Creole her dark eyes flashing dangerously as she shut her fan with a sharp click. "The same thing precisely," retorted Griff; coolly. "People were beginning to think I knew too much about cards, so it was wise in me to have made an end of things as I did. Don't you make any mistake, Mrs. Veilsturm, I am no more blind to my own defects than I am to yours, and you have just as much right to pull me up if you catch me tripping as I have to keep an eye on your conduct. And let me tell you that your calling on Lady Errington is a mistake, as the good she can do to us is nothing to the harm she might do to you." "Nonsense! I tell you she knows nothing." "So you said before, and I hope she doesn't, but if she does there will be trouble." "What can she do?" demanded Mrs. Veilsturm with supreme contempt. "If she she knows anything, she can tell all her friends about that South American business." "If she comes to measuring swords with me in that way," said Maraquita with vicious slowness, "I can tell a few stories about her late father which won't be pleasant for her to hear." "Pish! what good will that do? You can't tell stories about Mostyn without inculpating yourself. It won't harm his memory, which is black enough. It will only harm you, and through you, me. No, no, Mrs. Veilsturm, I've too much at stake to risk the world finding out what we want kept quiet, and if Lady Errington does not return your call, put your cursed pride in your pocket and hold your tongue." "I've got my wits about me as well as you," said Cleopatra coolly, "so you needn't lecture me as if I were a school-girl. Besides, my position is too strong in Society to be hurt by Lady Errington or any other silly fool of a woman." "Your position, my dear," remarked Griff with cruel candour, "hangs by a thread, and that thread is Mr. William Dolser, of 'The Pepper Box.' He put in what I wanted, and made people shut their mouths, but if he turned nasty, he could find out quite enough to make them open them again." "If he tried to, you could promise him a thrashing." "That wouldn't do much good. He's used to the horsewhip." "Then you could have an action for libel against the paper." "And very nicely we'd come out of it. Whether we won or lost it would be the death-knell of our campaign in town. No! no, I'll keep The 'Pepper Box' in a good temper by judicious bribes, and you on the other hand, don't play with fire or you'll have the whole place in a blaze." The dexterous arguing of Major Griff evidently impressed Mrs. Veilsturm, for she made no reply, but looked down frowning at one dainty foot in a high-heeled slipper that was resting on the green velvet foot-stool. She knew her partner was right in all he said, but with feminine persistence was about to renew the argument and have the last word, when a servant entered the room and presenting a letter to his mistress, left it again, closing the door noiselessly after him. Mrs. Veilsturm, leaning back languidly in her chair, was about to open the letter, when Major Griff stopped her. "Wait a moment, Maraquita," he said deliberately, with a certain anxious look on his face. "You know I often have an instinct as to how things will go?" She bowed her head, but said nothing. "I had an instinct that your calling on Lady Errington was a mistake, and that letter is from Lady Errington to tell you so." Mrs. Veilsturm laughed scornfully as she tore open the envelope, but the Major, putting his hands behind his back, leaned against the mantelpiece, and looked steadily at her with a satisfied smile on his lips. The woman had wonderful self-command, for as she read Lady Errington's curt note, no sign of anger escaped from her lips, but her dark skin flushed an angry red and a venomous smile curled the corners of her full mouth. Still she gave no further sign of being moved, but having read the note through in the most deliberate manner, handed it to the Major with a low, fierce laugh. Major Griff adjusted his eyeglass carefully, smoothed out the sheet of cream-coloured paper, and read as follows in a subdued voice: "Lady Errington presents her compliments to Mrs. Veilsturm, and returns the enclosed card, which was evidently left to-day at the Hall by some mistake." "So I was right, you see," observed Griff, leisurely folding up this short epistle and letting his eyeglass drop down. "Mostyn did tell her about you after all--damn him!" The Major swore in a tranquil manner, without any sign of anger, but that he was greatly annoyed could be seen by the twitching of his thin lips under his grizzled moustache. As for Mrs. Veilsturm, her temper had got the better of her discretion, and having left her seat, she was sweeping up and down the little room like an angry panther in its cage. "Well Maraquita," said Griff quietly, after a pause, "you see Lady Errington has declared war, as I knew she would." "You knew no more than I did," hissed Maraquita viciously. Major Griff smiled at her in a pitying manner. "Instinct, my dear! Instinct! I told you what was in that letter before you opened it." "I should like to kill her," said Cleopatra, glaring at him in a kind of cold fury. "I've no doubt you would, but, as you can't, why waste time in useless threats?" "That she, a school-girl--a brainless fool--should dare to put such an insult on me," raged Mrs. Veilsturm, clenching her fan tightly. "How dare she? How dare she? Does she know what I am?" "She does," replied the Major drily, "her letter shows she does." Maraquita looked from left to right in wrathful despair, then throwing all prudence to the wind, snapped her fan in two, threw it on the ground, and stamped on the fragments. "I wish she was there! I wish she was there! What can I do to punish her? What can I do?" "You can do nothing," replied Griff, examining his nails. "To make war on Lady Errington would be like throwing feathers at a granite image in order to hurt it. She has an assured position in Society. You have not. She has a past that will bear looking into--you have not. She has everything in her favour--you have nothing, so be a philosopher, my dear Maraquita. Grin and bear it. Vulgar certainly, but sound advice, very sound advice." Mrs. Veilsturm turned on her dear friend in a fury, and stamped her foot on the broken fan, looking like a demon with her blazing eyes and clenched white teeth, which showed viciously through her drawn lips. "Hold your tongue," she shrieked wrathfully, "don't stand sneering there you fool. Tell me what I'm to do." The Major poured out another glass of sherry from the decanter on the table and advanced towards her. "Have a glass of sherry, and keep your temper," he said soothingly. Cleopatra glared at him in speechless anger, then struck the glass from his hand with such violence that it shattered to pieces on the carpet. Griff shrugged his shoulders, and walked back to the fireplace. "You're acting like a fool, Mrs. Veilsturm," he observed, tranquilly; "first you broke a fan, now you break a glass--silly, my dear, very silly! It doesn't hurt Lady Errington, but only yourself. By-the-way," glancing at his watch, "it's seven o'clock. I wonder when dinner will be ready, I'm dreadfully hungry." His partner, however, was not listening to him, but a sudden thought seemed to have struck her, for the fire died out of her eyes and her complexion resumed its usual rich hue of health. After a pause, a gratified smile broke over her face, and bending down she picked up the fan. "I'm sorry I broke this," she said, quietly, advancing towards the Major; "it was such a pretty fan. Dolly Thambits gave it to me. Never mind, I'll make him give me another." She spoke quite cheerfully, and the Major stared at her in silent surprise at this sudden change from intense anger to languid tranquillity. "Upon my word, you puzzle me, Maraquita," he said doubtfully. "A moment ago you were like a devil, now you are within reasonable distance of an angel. What is the meaning of this change?" The beautiful widow put one slender foot on the fender, looked in the glass, touched some ornaments in her hair, then replied, in a wonderfully calm manner: "Simply this, that I see my way to punishing Lady Errington." "The deuce you do." "Yes; she is newly married, and, no doubt, loves her husband--he's a fool, for I've seen him in London, so through her husband I'll punish her." "Oh, I see," said the Major, grimly; "you intend to make love to the husband." "What acute penetration, my dear Griff! That's exactly what I intend to do." "No good," answered the man, shaking his head. "Errington is newly married, and can see no beauty in any woman save his wife." "He's a fool I tell you," retorted Mrs. Veilsturm, coolly, "and I never met a man yet I couldn't twist round my finger. He may be difficult to manage in his character of a newly married man, but I'll gain my ends somehow." "And then?" queried Major Griff. "And then," echoed Cleopatra, viciously, "when I've estranged him from her and possibly led to a divorce, I'll have my revenge." "At the cost of your own position." "Don't you be afraid. I'll look after that! I'll keep my position and ruin her happiness at the same time." "You're playing with fire." "Fire that will burn them, not myself! Come, dinner is ready, give me your arm." "One moment! When do you intend to begin the business?" "That depends on Sir Guy Errington. As a newly married man, I dare say I can do nothing with him. Newly married men sometimes get tired of honey. When he does, then I will step in." "Suppose he does not get tired?" "But he will. I tell you he's a fool." CHAPTER XVI. THE EVENTS OF EIGHTEEN MONTHS. "Time flies onward with tireless wings. Divers gifts to us all he brings, Joy and sorrow On every morrow, A thousand pleasures, a thousand stings. "Love he hath brought to a maiden fair, Hate hath sundered a loving pair, Gauds that glitter, And memories bitter, Each of us born hath his fated share. "Life is evil, the wise man saith. Joy comes but at the last-drawn breath, Earth's false pleasures Yield no treasures, There is no gift like the gift of death." Perhaps it is due to the way we live now, or possibly to the inherent restlessness of the present generation, but Time certainly seems to pass more rapidly with us than it did with our grandfathers. They lived in a delightfully leisurely fashion, not without its charm, and either stayed complacently at home, or, if they did travel, went in a sober-sides mode by stage coach and sailing vessel. If they did make a journey through Europe, it was called a Grand Tour, and seemed to have been somewhat after the style of a royal progress, Judging from the stately manner in which it was conducted. Ah, there is, no doubt, our steady-going ancestors knew the value of being idle, an art which we have quite lost, and took life in a wonderfully sedate way, sauntering, as it were, in an idle fashion, from the cradle to the grave. We, alas, have changed this somnolent existence, and made the latter end of this nineteenth century somewhat trying to a man whose health is not of the best, or to him who desires to shine among his fellow creatures. The struggle for existence is keener, the survival of the fittest more certain than ever, and the art of enjoyment has resolved itself into a series of hurried glances at a multiplicity of things. If we want to travel, steam whirls us from one end of the world to the other, giving us no time to examine things; if we wish to read, hundreds of books, fresh from the press, call for attention; if we desire to enjoy ourselves, theatres, balls, picture galleries, all offer their attractions in such profusion, that it is difficult to know where to begin. We have gained many aids to enjoyment, yet it is questionable if those very aids have not lost us the faculty itself; for a breathless scamper after pleasure, with a hurried glance here, and a momentary pause there, can hardly be called true enjoyment. The world, and we who live therein, are so busy getting things in order for the beginning of the next century, that all hands are pressed into the service, and no one has a moment to be idle, or to admire the profusion of good things spread before him. Therefore, amid all this hurry and bustle, Time flies much more quickly than formerly; our ancestors yawned through twelve hours of leisurely work, we scarcely find twenty-four long enough for all we want to do. We eat, drink, marry, and give in marriage, welcome the newly born, and forget the newly dead, with the utmost despatch and rapidity, and no sooner is one year, with all its troubles and breathless enjoyment, at an end, than we have mapped out the cares of the next twelve months before they are fairly started. Eighteen months had, therefore, passed very rapidly since the Erringtons took possession of the Hall, and a good many important events, both to nations and individuals, had happened in the meantime. It was now the middle of the London season, and those who had parted months before at Como, were now about to meet again under widely different circumstances. Victoria Sheldon had duly returned home with Mrs. Trubbles, and taken up her abode once more with Aunt Jelly, who was privately very glad to see her, although she took good care that the girl should not know of such weakness on her part. She asked Victoria a good many questions concerning the people she had met abroad, and particularly about Otterburn, of whom Miss Sheldon gave an account quite at variance with the real state of affairs, carefully suppressing the fact that the young man had proposed and been refused. In fact, she passed over her acquaintance with him so very lightly, that she succeeded in deceiving lynx-eyed Miss Corbin as to her feelings towards him, and never, by word or deed, hinted that he had any interest for her in any way. But although she might deceive the world, she could not deceive herself, and in reality she thought a good deal about the man she had rejected, regretting, with the curious caprice of a woman, that she had done so. The manner in which he had received her refusal had greatly impressed her, for it differed greatly from the behaviour of her other suitors, and if Angus had only asked her again a few months after her arrival in England, he would doubtless have gained her consent to the marriage. Otterburn, however, had been deeply wounded at what he deemed her unjustifiable coquetry, and being intensely proud, resolved not to submit himself to a second slight, therefore kept out of her way. If some kind fairy had only brought these two foolish young people together, everything would doubtless have been arranged in a satisfactory manner between them, but as such aid was not forthcoming, seeing we live in times when Oberon has resigned his sceptre, they remained apart, each in ignorance of the other's feelings, and mutually blamed one another for the position of affairs. Absence, in this case, made Victoria's heart grow fonder, and she felt that she was really and truly in love with Angus, but as she neither saw nor heard of him, she had to lock up her secret in her own breast, which did not add to the pleasures of life. At the invitation of Lady Errington, she went down to the Hall at Christmas, and had a very pleasant time, despite her heart-ache, as her hostess made a great deal of her, and the young Nimrods of the county quite lost their heads over "Such a jolly girl who rode so straight to hounds, taking the fences like a bird, by Jove." She could have been married three or four times had she so chosen, but neither her suitors nor their possession of houses and lands tempted her, so she returned to town and Aunt Jelly still heart-whole, except as regarding the little affair of Angus Macjean. During the season she kept a keen look-out for him at all the places she went to under the wing of Mrs. Trubbles, but Otterburn did not make his appearance, and it was only by chance that she heard he had gone to America for some big game shooting in the Rockies. Evidently there was no chance of his proposing a second time, and Victoria should have put all thought of his doing so out of her heart, but she felt that she loved him too much to do so, and hugged her secret with all its pain closer to her breast, until she grew pale and thin, so that Aunt Jelly became alarmed about her lungs, thinking she was going into consumption. With this idea the old lady, who hated change, took a villa at San Remo and stayed there for some months with Victoria and Minnie Pelch. The change did both girls good, and when the trio returned to Town, Aunt Jelly took Victoria a round of visits to several country houses, which proved so successful that Miss Sheldon quite recovered her lost spirits and came back to London eager for the pleasures of her third season in the great city. While Victoria was thus paying the penalty of her prompt rejection of Otterburn's suit, that young gentleman was having by no means a pleasant time of it himself. The shooting expedition to the Carpathians had been a great success, and the excitement of sport had for the time quite put Victoria out of his head, notwithstanding the genuine love he had for the brilliant Australian beauty. Returned to England, however, he found his thoughts constantly running on her, and with her piquant face constantly in his mind he felt inclined to seek her and try his luck a second time, but his pride forbade him to do so, which was certainly a very foolish view to take of the subject. Angus, however, was remarkably obstinate in some things, and, as he was determined not to run the chance of a second refusal, put himself out of the way of temptation by going up to Scotland on a visit to his father, thinking that at Dunkeld Castle, at least, he would have peace of mind. He was mistaken in this supposition, for his father, being delighted to find him so improved, immediately urged on him the necessity of a speedy marriage with Miss Cranstoun. The Master, however, to his father's dismay, proved very obstinate on this point and flatly refused to marry the lady, which refusal brought down on him the wrath of both Lord Dunkeld and Mr. Mactab, who tried to bully the young reprobate into acquiescence. Plain-looking Miss Cranstoun, however, proved too much for Otterburn, seeing that the charming face of Victoria Sheldon was constantly haunting his fancy, and notwithstanding all the arts which were brought to bear on him, he held out against the match in the most stubborn manner. Lord Dunkeld raved, and Mactab quoted Scripture, all to no purpose, and at length, becoming weary of dour looks and continual lectures, Otterburn abruptly left his ancestral home in company with Johnnie, and, together with the chum whom he had met in Venice, started for America in order to have some sport in the Rocky Mountains. The wrath of the home authorities at this unexpected revolt of the hitherto obedient Angus can be better imagined than described, but as there seemed to be absolutely no way of bringing the young man to reason, they were forced to let him do as he pleased. For very shame Lord Dunkeld could not cut off the allowance of his only son, so he had to acquiesce in impotent anger in Otterburn's disobedience, hoping that a lengthened tour in America would bring the young prodigal to reason and induce him to return to Dunkeld Castle and matrimony. Submission such as this, however, was very far from Otterburn's thoughts, as he had made up his mind not to marry Miss Cranstoun, and moreover considered he was perfectly entitled to choose his own wife, seeing it was he who would have to live with her, so he went off to the States with a light heart. His adventures and that of his friends would take a long time to describe, as they had a splendid time of it in the Rockies after big game, and becoming quite enamoured of the uncivilized life drifted down Montana way, where they met with cow-boys and plenty of young Englishmen who were cattle ranching in the wilds. During this wild existence, which had such an ineffable charm for them, Otterburn told his chum, a merry young fellow called Laxton, of his admiration for Victoria, whereupon Laxton, being versed in affairs of the heart, lectured his friend and advised him to once more try his luck. "And I'll lay two dollars," said this sagacious young man, who had Americanised his speech, "that she won't say 'no' a second time." With this idea in his head, Otterburn became anxious to return home, and Laxton, being somewhat tired of primeval simplicity, consented to leave the wide rolling prairies for the delights of Pall Mall. Laxton wanted to return in a leisurely fashion by making for San Francisco and going home again by New Zealand and Australia, but then he was heart-whole and had not the vision of a charming face constantly in his mind's eye. This fact being urged by Otterburn as an argument in favour of taking the shortest route possible to London, Laxton, being really a good-natured young fellow, consented, and leaving their delightfully savage life behind they went to New York. After a few days' stay in that city they went across to Liverpool by one of the big Cunarders, and duly arrived after a pleasant passage. Laxton went off to see his people in Yorkshire, but Otterburn did not venture to trust himself within the grim walls of Dunkeld Castle, well knowing the stormy reception he would meet with, so journeyed straight to the Metropolis, where he engaged a comfortable set of chambers in the neighbourhood of Piccadilly, and started on his matrimonial campaign with a dogged determination to succeed in winning Victoria Sheldon for his wife, or, in case of failure, to depart for an uninhabited island and live a Robinson Crusoe misogamistic existence till he died. Many events had happened in the Errington household since the young couple had arrived at the Hall, the most important being the birth of a little boy, which had greatly rejoiced Guy's heart, as he now had an heir to succeed to the estates. Aunt Jelly also signified her approval in her own grim way, and actually stood godmother to the child, whom she insisted on christening Henry, after her old love, Sheldon, although no one knew or guessed her reason for doing so. Eustace Gartney had been right in his estimate of Alizon's character, for the birth of the child transformed her from a cold statue into a loving, breathing woman, rendered perfect by her motherhood. No one who saw her, with her delicate face flushed with joy bending over the cradle of the child, would have thought it was the same woman who had been so chill and impassive in her appearance and demeanour. The cold, white snow-drop had changed into the warm, red rose, and the passionate idolatry she had for the child seemed to fill out and complete her life, hitherto so void and empty for the want of something to love. Guy adored his little son, to whom, for some inexplicable reason, he gave the name of "Sammy," and laughingly averred that Alizon bestowed so much love on the son that she had none left for the father, which assertion his wife smilingly denied, though it was true in the main. Lady Errington gave up going out a great deal, devoting herself entirely to the child, so Guy was left to a great extent to himself, which he by no means relished; yet he made no complaint, as it would have seemed ridiculous to blame a mother for being over fond of her first born. Still, Guy felt a little sore on this point, and much as he had desired an heir and loved his son, he almost wished the child had never been born, so much did it seem to come between them. Had Alizon been a wise woman, she would have seen the folly of loving her child to the exclusion of her husband, but blinded by maternal love she neither saw nor felt anything that did not pertain to the tiny babe she clasped so ardently to her breast. Mrs. Veilsturm made no further attempt to force her friendship on Lady Errington, but shortly after the rebuff she had received--the knowledge of which she kept to herself--departed for a trip on the Continent, which, for her, meant Monte Carlo, where she was afterwards joined in the most casual way by Major Griff. The partners were too clever to travel together, as it might have attracted attention, but when one was at any special place the other was sure to turn up a few weeks later on business connected with the West Indian estates. So on her return to England for the season, Mrs. Veilsturm told her dear friends that she had sold one estate, although, as a matter of fact, the money she averred she had received therefor was due to luck at the green tables. Cleopatra and her friend were much more circumspect in their second season in London. They did not wish to run the risk of any more disagreeable reports, and as their winnings at Monte Carlo had been very large the firm was enabled to dispense, to some extent, with baccarat on Sunday evenings. Mrs. Veilsturm fully re-established her position in London, and the Major was more devoted than ever, so the charming widow departed for her health to Algiers with the good wishes of everyone. "Next year, Maraquita," said the Major in a satisfied tone, as they discussed their plans in a pleasant room looking out on to the blue waters of the Mediterranean, "we will go in for making money and then we can go off to America." "I don't like giving up London," objected Mrs. Veilsturm angrily. "You must, sooner or later," replied Major Griff shrewdly. "However, we will get together as much cash next season as we can, and if no one says anything so much the better, if they do--well, there is always America." At the end of this eighteen months Eustace Gartney returned to Town, having heralded his appearance by a book of travels entitled "Arabian Knights," in which he described all his wanderings in the native land of Mahomet. Judging from the brilliant descriptions given in this book with its bizarre title, he seemed to have made good use of his time, and the fascinating pages of the volume opened an enchanted land to Western readers. The mysterious deserts with their romantic inhabitants, the lonely cities far in the interior, whose very names were suggestive of the fantastic stories of the "Thousand and One Nights," the poetic descriptions of the melancholy wastes of sand, whose sadness seemed akin to his own sombre spirit, and the wayward fierceness of the Arab love-songs scattered like gems through the book all made up a charming volume, and even the critics, much as they disliked Eustace for the contempt and indifference with which he treated them, were fain to acknowledge that this "Arabian Knights," whose punning title they ridiculed, was a worthy addition to English literature. Eustace himself, in spite of the wide interval of time which had elapsed, was now returning to England in very much the same frame of mind as that in which he had set out. He had gone away to forget Alizon Errington, and he came back more in love than ever, not with the real woman exactly but with an ideal woman whom he had created out of her personality. He was in love with a phantom of delight, conjured up by his vivid imagination, and fancied that she dwelt on earth in the guise of his cousin's wife, but, having still some feelings of honour left, he determined to avoid the earthly representation of his ideal, as he hardly judged himself strong enough to withstand the temptation. With his usual egotistical complacency--a trait which all his travelling had failed to eradicate--he never for a moment thought of looking at the question from Lady Errington's point of view. He was Sultan, and if he threw the handkerchief she would follow, so he would be merciful both to this woman and to her husband, and put a curb on his desire to take her to himself. He came back to England it is true, but with the resolve only to stay a month, and then go to Egypt, as he had an idea of exploring the land of the Pharoahs in a new direction. He loved Alizon Errington, or rather the glorified Alizon Errington of his imagination, and determined neither to see nor speak to her while in England, because he did not wish to ruin Guy's happiness. He heard she was a mother, and wondered if the change he had prophesied at Como had come over her. If so he would like to see it for himself; still the flesh was weak, and he did not know but that he might be tempted to make love to her, which would be distinctly wrong. So Eustace Gartney, blinded by self-complacency, prosed on to himself as he travelled homeward in one of the Orient steamers, and the curious part of it was that he actually believed that he was talking sense. A few sharp words from a sensible man or woman might have dispelled his visions of being an irresistible lover and have shown him that Lady Errington was not likely to give up everything for the sake of a man she cared nothing about; but Eustace made a confidant of no one, and, absorbed in his ridiculous dreamings, deemed himself quite a hero for resisting a dishonourable impulse, which, had he given way to it, would certainly have resulted in a manner vastly different to that which he anticipated. So the puppets were all on the stage, and it only remained for Fate in the guise of a showman to move them hither and thither according to their several destinies. CHAPTER XVII. GOSSIP. "If friends are poor and you can't use 'em, 'Tis always pleasant to abuse 'em, Although in their turn it is true, They're sure to speak the worst of you. The pot may call the kettle black, But kettle pays the favour back, And useless is all indignation, For 'tis the law of compensation." Otterburn's chambers in a pleasant street off Piccadilly were furnished in a very comfortable fashion, having been the property of an extravagant young man who came to grief on the turf, and thereupon disposed of his rooms and their contents to Angus Macjean, who was looking for apartments. As the Master had not much idea of arranging furniture according to individual taste, beyond banishing some rather "rapid" pictures from the walls and replacing them by hunting trophies from his American trip, he left the rooms in their original state, which was by no means a bad one. Johnnie Armstrong indeed had been moved to wrath by seeing such a lot of money spent on costly trifles, for the charming little statuettes in bronze, the delicate ornaments in Dresden china, and the thousand and one nick-nacks suggestive of cultured taste were all so many objects of horror in the eyes of Mr. Armstrong, being evidence of sinful waste on the part of their purchaser. In spite of his love for the turf, the former proprietor of these rooms must have had a cultured mind, rare among the gilded youth of to-day, as Angus during the earlier days of his occupancy often came across some tiny water-colour, or some rare edition of a book which showed both good taste and critical judgment. "What a pity for such a clever fellow as Bamfield to go to the dogs through racing, when he could appreciate all this sort of thing," he said half aloud one day, on turning over a charming edition of Villon's poems. "It's an ill wind that blaws naebody ony guid," observed Johnnie, who overheard this remark, "an' ye got the hail thing cheap enow." This view of the situation was quite characteristic of Johnnie. He despised the costly furnishing of the room as sinful waste, but was quite content that all this splendour should be paid for by someone else, seeing that his master had got it cheap. Economy in Johnnie's eyes was the greatest of virtues, and he delighted to make bargains for things which he did not want for the mere sake of getting the better of the seller. This was not strictly speaking economy at all, seeing that the things bought were superfluous, but it pleased Johnnie and amused Angus, so the dour old man pottered on in his own narrow-minded way without interruption. The rooms, therefore, were furnished in a fashion calculated to please the most fastidious critic, and Angus was very comfortably settled in Town for the season. He had not yet seen Victoria, as he intended to woo his lady love in a somewhat cautious fashion, but had asked Dolly Thambits to breakfast with a view to finding out her movements in Society. Mr. Thambits was a good-natured young fool, with the comfortable income of thirty-thousand a year and not the slightest idea how to spend it. His father having been an inventor, had made a large fortune by genuine talent and dexterous advertising, and resolved to make his son a gentleman, in which laudable ambition he succeeded fairly well, for Adolphus Thambits was not a bad sort of fellow on the whole, although a monstrous fool in many ways. Not all the tuition of Harrow and Cambridge could put any sense into his silly head, and his father having died suddenly, he was left alone in the world with this large income and not the slightest idea how to guide his life. For the sake of his money he was asked everywhere, and as he always conducted himself well, and was very good-natured, people liked him after a fashion, although they despised and profited by his weakness of character. Cleopatra had taken him up, and, assisted by Major Griff, was teaching him experience of the world in a manner beneficial to herself and partner, but decidedly detrimental to the pocket of the unfortunate Dolly. As Angus heard that Thambits was rather smitten with Victoria, he foresaw in him a possible rival, so had invited him to breakfast to find out Victoria's movements, which Dolly would be sure to know, and also to ascertain if he had any intention of offering himself and his large fortune to the Australian beauty. So Dolly, who liked Otterburn in his own weak way, arrived at that young man's rooms, accompanied by Mr. Jiddy, a fat, little man, with a timid manner and a frightened eye in his head, who imposed upon Thambits' good nature by borrowing money from him. While the three were seated at breakfast, somewhere about eleven o'clock, Laxton made his appearance, having returned from Yorkshire, where he had been playing the part of the prodigal son. Being tired of the domestic veal, he had looked up Angus, to propose another hunting expedition to the wilds of Africa. Laxton, having had his breakfast, sat in a comfortable arm-chair and smoked, while Angus and his two guests proceeded with their meal under the vigilant eye of Johnnie Armstrong, who hovered around with an air of strong disapproval of breakfast at such a late hour of the day. "Well, Angus, old fellow," observed Laxton, when he had made himself at home with a pet meerschaum of his host's, "aren't you tired of civilization yet?" "Hardly?" replied Angus drily, "seeing that I've only had three weeks of it. What do you want to do now." "Try Africa--we'll get some elephant shooting." "Isn't that rather dangerous?" said Thambits mildly. "Dangerous!" echoed Laxton with contempt. "Pooh! nonsense--not a bit of it. Jolliest thing out. It's life, my boy--life!" "Yes, and on some occasions it's death, my boy--death," rejoined Angus with a laugh. "I have always heard," remarked Mr. Jiddy, who sat curled up on the edge of a chair like a white rabbit, "that there is no pleasure without an element of danger." "Who said there was," said Laxton, who hated Jiddy as a parasite and a milksop. "What do you know about danger?" "Nothing," replied Mr. Jiddy, who never took offence, being essentially milk and water in his nature, "but I've read a good deal about it." "Sunday-school books, I suppose?" said Laxton with a sneer. "'Little Henry and his Bearer' is about your style, I think." "I've read that book," observed Dolly with a gratified chuckle, "but it is rather a slow story isn't it?" "Not quite so rapid as Zola," said Otterburn, who was beginning to find both Thambits and his friend a trifle tiresome. "By-the-way, Laxton, have you read the 'Arabian Knights'?" "I have," said Dolly again, "in my schooldays!' "Oh, bosh!" returned Laxton with supreme contempt. "We're not talking of that." "Oh, no," chirruped Mr. Jiddy, delighted at knowing something, "it's the Arabian Knights with a 'K.'" "What on earth are the Arabian Nights with a K?" demanded Thambits blankly, whereupon both Angus and Laxton burst out laughing at the bewildered look on his face. "It's Gartney's book about Arabia," explained Angus, rising from the table and lighting a cigarette, his example being followed by his guests. "Oh, I've heard of it," said Thambits, complacently. "Billy Dolser tells me he does not think much of it." "Is Billy Dolser a judge?" asked Laxton, with great scorn. Thambits turned on him a look of mild reproach. "Of course! Why he's got a paper of his own." "Oh, that settles it!" returned Laxton, drily. "I thought myself it was a jolly good book, and written by a man who knew what he was talking about, but as that little blackguard Dolser hasn't been further East than Italy, he must be a capital judge of the book!" "Why do you call him a blackguard?" asked Jiddy, removing his cigarette. "Because he is one," growled Laxton, wrathfully--"a mean little sneak who vilifies people's character in that rag of a paper which ought to be burnt by the public hangman! Snakes and mosquitoes were created for some purpose, I suppose, but why such a little reptile as Dolser should be allowed to exist, I don't know." Mr. Jiddy contributed himself to the "Pepper Box" in an underhand way, by listening to things he was not meant to hear, so he took up the cudgels on behalf of Mr. Dolser in a weakly, ferocious manner. "Oh, I say, you know those words are actionable?" "Are they," said Laxton, who had risen to his feet and was looking down from his tall height at the scrap of limp humanity in the chair, "you can repeat them to Dolser if you like, and if he doesn't think they are actionable I'll be happy to add a thrashing, so that he can have me up for assault." Mr. Jiddy wriggled, not liking the turn the conversation had taken, and resumed his cigarette, while Otterburn, who agreed with every word Laxton said, but could hardly endorse it in his character of host, hastened to make an observation. "By the way, Gartney's in London." "Just come in time to hear Mr. Dolser's opinion about his book," said Laxton, grimly. "I don't think that would trouble Gartney much," replied Otterburn, smiling, "but after eighteen months' travel in the wilds, I'll suppose he'll stay at home for some time." "I'll lay you a level fiver he doesn't," said Mr. Laxton, removing his pipe, "he's got prairie fever." "What's prairie fever?" demanded Dolly. "Do you know what a prairie is?" said Laxton, answering one question by asking another. "A large field, isn't it?" said Mr. Jiddy, complacently. Angus roared. "Yes, a very large field," he replied, "much larger than any you'll get in England. I shot that buffalo on the prairie," he added, pointing to a huge shaggy head adorning the opposite wall. "It's a very large head," observed Mr. Jiddy, wisely. "A buffalo--a kind of cow, isn't it?" "Not exactly," returned Laxton, drily; "it's more like an enraged bull. But to return to prairie fever. It's the feeling a man gets when he once sees those undulating grass plains and which haunts him ever afterwards." "What haunts him ever afterwards?" asked the intelligent Dolly, lighting another cigarette. "Oh, damn!" retorted Laxton, politely, and turned on his heel, quite disgusted with the ignorance of the young man. Thambits was not in the least put out by Laxton's rudeness, but began to talk to Angus about Mrs. Veilsturm, while Jiddy tried to extract a paragraph out of Laxton by a series of mild little questions about buffaloes. "Mrs. Veilsturm's an awfully jolly woman, Macjean," said Thambits--"real good sort, you know! I think you'd like her immensely." "Would I?" replied Angus absently, wondering how he was to ask Dolly about Miss Sheldon. "Yes; she's got awfully jolly Sunday evenings, you know. Are you fond of baccarat?" "Not much. Are you?" asked Otterburn, fixing his keen grey eyes on the weak face of the young man. "Yes, rather. Only I always lose. I'm so unlucky." "Oh, you lose at Mrs. Veilsturm's?" "Yes. We play there on Sunday evenings. It's awfully jolly!" "It must be--for Mrs. Veilsturm!" retorted Otterburn, doubtfully, at once forming an unfavourable opinion of that lady; "but if you're so unlucky, you shouldn't play baccarat." "Oh, but I'll win when I get to be a better player." "Will you? I wish you all success. Do many people go to Mrs. Veilsturm's?" "Yes, lots. All the jolliest people in town. She's quite in the swim you know. You meet all sorts of pretty girls there." "Indeed! Not on Sunday evening, I presume?" "Oh, no; on week-days. I met that pretty Australian girl there last Thursday for the first time this season." "Eh? Miss Sheldon?" "Yes. Awfully jolly girl. Do you know her?" "Slightly," replied Angus, carelessly; "I met her once in Italy. She's quite the belle of London, I hear." "Yes, rather. And such a nice girl! No humbug about her. Lots of fellows want to marry her." "You among the number, I suppose?" said Otterburn, with an uneasy laugh. "Eh? Oh, no! There's not much chance for me. I've got no brains, and she doesn't care for fellows who can't talk, you know." "You're very modest, at all events," said Otterburn, feeling rather amused by this candid admission. "Oh, no, I'm not," replied Mr. Thambits wisely; "people think I'm a fool because I've got lots of money, you know. But I see further than they think. But about Mrs. Veilsturm--you'll call and see her with me, won't you?" "I don't know," said Angus, shortly; "perhaps." "She's going to have a fancy dress ball, soon," rambled on Mr. Thambits in a weakly fashion. "I'm going as a Crusader. How do you think I'll look as a Crusader?" "Oh, the usual thing, I suppose," replied Otterburn, good-naturedly suppressing a laugh at the idea of Dolly Thambits in chain armour. "I don't think any one at a fancy dress ball looks like what he pretends to be. I suppose Miss Sheldon will be there?" "Rather. Everyone in London is going." "Then I may as well follow the example of everyone in London," said Otterburn, quickly. "I'll call on Mrs. Veilsturm whenever you like." "Oh, that's jolly! But, I say, I've got to meet a fellow at the Carnation Club, you know. Jiddy, I'm going." "So am I," replied Mr. Jiddy, slipping off a chair where he had been seated like a whipped schoolboy under the severe eye of Mr. Laxton. "Thank you for telling me about your travels, Mr. Laxton; they're most entertaining." "It's more than you are!" growled Laxton, grimly. Dolly Thambits and his friend Jiddy took their departure, to the great relief of both Angus and Laxton, who were quite sick of their frivolous small talk and milk-and-water mannerisms. "Good heavens, Macjean!" said Laxton, when the door closed on the pair, "what the deuce do you have such fools here for?" "They are fools, aren't they?" replied Otterburn, selecting a pipe from his rack; "but the fact is, I asked Thambits to find out something, and Mr. Jiddy came uninvited." "Like his cheek! Why didn't you drop him out of the window?" "Because we're in London--not in America," replied Angus, mildly; "my dear Laxton, do remember that!" "I never get a chance of forgetting that," groaned Laxton, sitting down. "I'm sick of this narrow humdrum life. Most of the men I meet are idiots, and the women worse. Let's go off to Africa, old chap. I've found out all about the country, and we'll get another man to join us--Helstone, you know. He's got a jolly yacht, and we can take our own time." "It sounds tempting," said Angus, wistfully; "but you see, Laxton, I came here with a purpose, and until I carry out that purpose I can't leave England." "It's that girl, I suppose?" Angus nodded. "Yes. I haven't seen her yet, but intend to shortly. If she refuses me, I'll go out to Africa with you, but if she accepts me----" "Well?" demanded Laxton, grumpily. "I'll ask you to be best man at the wedding," replied Angus, laughing. His friend arose to his feet with a resigned expression of countenance, and held out his hand. "It's no good arguing with a man in love," he said, in a dismal tone; "but fancy giving up a jolly expedition for the sake of a woman! Let me know soon, as if you don't go I will, for I'm dying to get out of these clothes." He looked down with disgust at his well-fitting frock coat, grey trousers, and neat patent leather boots, all of which he was willing to change for a rough hunter's dress and a life of danger, such is the instinctive leaning of young Englishmen towards the barbaric delights of their woad-stained ancestors. "Well, you are a queer stick, old fellow!" said Angus, laughing; "you'll give up all the comforts of life for what?--jungle fever, Liebig's Extract, and a dangerous existence!" "Don't prose, my boy," retorted Laxton good-humouredly, taking up his hat, "you'd do the same if you weren't in love. Well, goodbye at present. I'll look you up again, and if you want to see me in the meantime, just drop a line to the Globe Trotters' Club.'" When he departed Angus stood for a moment in deep thought, filling his pipe, with a strange smile on his face. "I'm in love am I?" he said, striking a match. "Well, that's true enough, but whether it's a wise thing to be in love is quite another affair! Humph!" lighting his pipe, "it all depends on Victoria." He picked up the morning paper, and was about to settle himself down for a good read, when a knock came to the door. "Confound it!" grumbled Otterburn, folding up the paper, as he heard Johnnie Armstrong going to the door. "I wonder who that is?" His question was answered in another moment by himself, for suddenly a massive figure appeared at the door of the small sitting-room, and Otterburn sprang to his feet with a cry of pleasure: "Eustace Gartney." CHAPTER XVIII. FROM FOREIGN PARTS. "I have come from lands fantastic, Which the desert sands environ, Where the Koran's laws adrastic Bind the soul in chains of iron. "All the land is full of magic, Danger 'neath delight reposes, Love is fierce and dark and tragic. Cypress mingles with the roses." It was Eustace Gartney in the flesh, returned to quiet old England after his perilous wanderings in distant lands beyond the verge of civilization, and Otterburn felt most unaccountably glad to see him once more. Why this should be the case seems somewhat strange, seeing that they had tired of one another in their former intimacy, and parted with mutual satisfaction, yet in the heart of each there lurked a kindly feeling which cast a certain glamour round their old friendship, and made them mutually glad to meet again. Otterburn shook the hand of his former Mentor with [* * *] pleasure, thrust him into the most comfortable chair in the room, and prepared to ask a series of breathless [* * *] as to all that had taken place since their parting at [* * *] many months ago. Eustace, on his part, felt a [* * *] this enthusiastic reception, and was glad to think that at least one friend remembered him in a kindly manner. They had both changed in outward appearance since their last meeting, Gartney being much thinner than formerly, but his face, lean and brown, still retained its dreamy expression, which was, indeed, deepened by his habit of thoughtful self-communings in solitary deserts. For the rest, he was as badly dressed as ever, being now arrayed in a loose suit of grey home-spun, which would have startled the accurately dressed denizens of St. James' Street on the person of any one else but Eustace Gartney. But, then, he was a privileged person, and, as his poetic book of travels had rendered him more famous than ever, his former friends greeted him heartily, all of which greetings, although kindly meant, Eustace estimated in a cynical fashion at their proper value, until genuinely touched by the boyish and demonstrative affection of Otterburn. That young man, on his part, had wonderfully improved from the slender boy of eighteen months before, for, although the space of time seems short, Macjean was at that age when the change from adolescence to manhood is very sudden and very marked. The semi-uncivilized life he had led had also a great deal to do with the shaping of his physical characteristics, and he was more manly, more self-reliant, and more matured in every way than the unformed youth from whom Eustace had parted. A heavy moustache adorned his upper lip, he carried himself in a dashing, self-confident manner, and the tones of his voice were deeper and more mellow than formerly. Still he retained that boyish, impulsive manner that had so fascinated the cynical man of the world, and Eustace looked upon him approvingly, as he leaned forward in his chair, with eager eyes and parted lips, anxious to hear all about the elder man's adventures. "What a jolly time you've had, Gartney!" said Otterburn, gaily, "but, by Jove, what a queer fish you are. You started for a month's tour in Cyprus, and you end up by a year and a half's exploration of Arabia." "The seductive influence of travel drew me onward," replied Gartney, crossing his legs and folding his hands. "After all you might as well have come with me that time at Venice, instead of going off to Central Europe." "Oh, I've been to America since then." "Yes, so I heard. Same man you went that Carpathian trip with?" "Yes. Awfully good sort of fellow, but a mania for wild life. He was here a few minutes ago, wanting me to start off to Africa on another expedition." "And you, being very comfortably settled here, declined." "Rather! I like breathing time you know. Will you have a cigarette?" said Angus, holding out his open case. "No, thank you. I've contracted the vice of pipe-smoking," replied Eustace, producing a well-worn briar-root, and filling it leisurely. "You've got very pleasant rooms here." "Yes, are they not? I bought the whole box and dice just as they stand from Bamfield. Got them at a bargain, much to the delight of Johnnie." "Is Johnnie still with you?" "Of course! he's part and parcel of my life, and circumnavigated the globe with me, like a Scotch Sir Francis Drake. Do you want a light? Here you are." He struck a match, and handed it to Eustace, who lighted his pipe, and then leaned contentedly back in his chair, listening to the vivacious chatter of the young man. "Of course you know your book has been a great success," said Otterburn, pointing to a copy on the table, "there it is. I got it as soon as it was published. Some of the critics, however, have been giving it fits, especially the chapter called 'The Puritans of Islam.'" "Indeed! And what do the critics know about the Wahhabees?" asked Eustace, with calm surprise. "According to their own showing, everything." "Ah, we all know the omniscience of critics! They are truly wonderful men, before whose vast experience and knowledge I remain dumb. And the rapidity of their work, their marvellous grasp of every subject in literature, from a Child's Primer to a novel of George Meredith's. Nothing appalls them, nothing daunts them. Oh, what wonderful men they are! truly wonderful, so calm, so learned, so kind-hearted. Why do you know, Macjean, I met a critic once who thought nothing of Dickens as an author! Think of that! Think of the wonderful mind of that man who could afford to speak contemptuously about one of the master spirits of the age." "Did he write books himself?" asked Otterburn, shrewdly, at which Eustace looked at him in grave reproof. "Of course not," he replied quietly, "he was a most self-denying man. He did write one novel I believe, but it was so far in advance of our present age that the publisher was afraid to print it--fancy that, a publisher afraid! Well, it was so, and now this critic only reviews other people's books--what self-denial. And then his decisions. Why he makes up his mind about a book, that has taken months to write, in five minutes. I've known him analyse a book without cutting the leaves to read it. Of course it is marvellous, simply marvellous, but our age is prolific in such clever men. I've met many such, and always felt like a whipped schoolboy before their calm, clear gaze. If you boil down twenty of our best authors you may make one critic, but then it's quality not quantity." "I thought you did not like critics?" "Not like critics, my dear fellow?" said Eustace sweetly, "why they are my dearest friends, my best benefactors. They always read my books, and give half an hour to each, actually a whole half hour. What friendship! And then, you know, they are so kind, they point out all my mistakes, and if I copy any ideas of foreign authors, they always look them up to see if I have done so correctly, and mention it--really mention it--in their articles. If there is anything naughty in my chapters, they reprove me, oh, so kindly, and tell the public where to look for the worst bits. And then they are so modest; they never tell me they wrote these articles, when I meet them in society. I always put my name to my books, they never do to their articles, and yet my books are full of mistakes which they try to correct for me." "How kind of them?" "Yes, is it not? I wish I was a critic, Angus, instead of a poor author. I am always wrong, you know, and they are constantly right, but then I don't know so much as they do. When I write a book I've to see things for myself, but they can sit down and correct me without going outside the four walls of their study. What a pity Shakespeare had not critics in his day! They would have pointed out all the defects in Hamlet, and good-naturedly corrected Lear for him. I daresay they would have shown him how to improve his blank verse. It does need improving, you know, because I heard a poet say so the other day. A real poet, much better than Browning or Tennyson, only he wasn't known so well. Just twenty-two years of age, and yet could talk like that--wonderful. But don't speak any more about critics, because I'm so fond of them that I could praise them for hours. Let us talk of meaner things. Tell me all the news of the day, the scandals of the hour, the gossip of the drawing-rooms, and stories of clubs." "Faith, I don't know that I've much to tell you," said Otterburn candidly. "I've been on the war-path as well as yourself, so am just an ignorant of town as you are." Gartney smoked on quietly for a few moments, and then suddenly asked the question nearest his heart: "What about the Erringtons, Macjean?" "I haven't the least idea," replied Angus carelessly, "as I have not seen them since you did at Como. I believe they are still living at their place in the country, and that Lady Errington has presented her husband with a son and heir." "Yes, I heard that," said Gartney, with a slight smile. "I wonder if my prophecy has come true?" "Eh!--what prophecy?" "About the Incomplete Madonna." "Oh, yes, I remember now," responded Otterburn indolently, "you said she was unfinished, didn't you? Well, I suppose she's happy now, as she has gained her heart's desire and become a mother." "I've no doubt she's happy," said Eustace significantly; "but what about her husband?" "I'm sure I don't know! You seem to take a great interest in the Erringtons?" Eustace flushed a little under the bronze colour of his skin, and moved uneasily in his seat. "Do I? A mere whim, I assure you, to see if my prophecy about the incomplete Madonna turns out correct. But never mind, I'm going to call on Aunt Jelly this afternoon, and she'll give me more accurate information than you can. Have you met Aunt Jelly yet?" "No! You forget I told you I have been away from England also," answered Otterburn stiffly. "True! I forgot that, but you see my dear relations haven't written a word to me since I've been away, and I'm obliged to ask a stranger for information. Is Aunt Jelly's ward married yet?" "No; she is still Miss Sheldon." "You were rather fond of her, were you not?" "So fond of her that I asked her to be my wife at Como, and she refused me." "I guessed as much," replied Eustace calmly; "however, that was merely a boyish fancy." "I beg your pardon. No!" "Indeed! You don't mean to say you are in love with Victoria Sheldon still?" Otterburn arose to his feet with an angry laugh, and began to walk slowly to and fro with his hands in his pockets. "Is there anything so extraordinary in that? I loved Miss Sheldon and she refused to marry me, so I tried to forget her. Well, I haven't forgotten her, and I've come back to Town expressly to ask her to be my wife. I daresay I'm a fool, but you're not in love, and cannot understand the feeling." "Can I not!" answered Gartney serenely, thinking of Lady Errington, "well, I don't know so much about that. Have you met Miss Sheldon yet?" "No. "That doesn't sound like an eager lover." "I daresay it doesn't," retorted Angus coolly, "but you see I've learnt sense since my first rebuff, and now gang warily, as the Scotch say. I'm not going to let Miss Sheldon see I care two straws about her till I find out the state of her feelings towards me." "Astute diplomatist!--then I suppose you won't call with me on my respected aunt?" "And meet Miss Sheldon!--hardly! I'm going to wait till I see her at a fancy-dress ball Mrs. Veilsturm gives shortly." "Oh!" said Eustace, removing his pipe, "is that lady still in the flesh?" "Very much so, indeed According to Mr. Adolphus Thambits--of whom you've no doubt heard--her house is quite a fashionable centre." Gartney made a gesture of disgust, and arose to his feet. "Good Lord! what are we coming to? I thought people would have found out Mrs. Veilsturm and her scamp of a Major long ago. I met them last time I was in London. I suppose they still have the little Sunday evenings, and talk about the West Indian estates?" "Yes, I believe so." "Humph! I should not have thought Aunt Jelly would have let her ward visit Mrs. Veilsturm." "Why not? She is in the odour of sanctity--no one knows her little peccadilloes, or, if they do, don't talk about them. I suppose few people except the initiated know about the real business of those Sunday evenings. Mrs. Veilsturm is all white--on the surface--so not even her dearest friend can throw mud at her." "You are getting quite eloquent, Otterburn," observed Eustace smiling; "I suppose, when you're married and settled we'll hear of you in Parliament." "I'm not married and settled yet!--perhaps I never will be," replied Otterburn gloomily. "You don't seem very hopeful," remarked Eustace, with gentle sarcasm, "but as you won't come to Aunt Jelly's, suppose I play the part of Cupid's messenger, and find out how the land lies with Victoria Sheldon." "Oh, if you only would," cried Angus eagerly; "but no! I'm afraid there's not much chance for me. I daresay she has forgotten I ever existed." "Oh, if that is the case I'll soon improve her memory! Cheer up--while there's life there's hope." "Not always," responded Angus gloomily, "particularly in this case. I called her a coquette last time we parted." "No doubt she fully deserved the name, if I remember rightly," said Eustace drily, putting on his hat, "and she'll remember you for that out of spite." "Well, do what you like, Gartney," replied Otterburn, grasping his friend's hand, "I'm awfully glad to see you safe and sound once more. When will you look me up again?" "I'm not quite sure! I've got to see Aunt Jelly first--my lawyers second--about a dozen tradesmen, to make myself respectable, and then I am going to run down home for a few days." "I didn't know you had a home." "Oh, yes!--the cot where I was born, and all that kind of thing. A tumble-down old place, looking out on to the German Ocean." "Well, don't let me lose sight of you yet," said Macjean, accompanying his guest to the door. "No!--by-the-way, I'll come back and tell you my impressions of Miss Sheldon, and you can shape your course accordingly--in love with the same woman for eighteen months! Good Lord! what constancy! Ah, Johnnie and how are you?" "Brawly! Brawly! thank ye for speiring, sir," replied Mr. Armstrong, who stood holding the door open, "may I tac' the leeberty of obsairving, sir, that ye look a wee bit brown, it's the weather na doot." "Not a bit of it, Johnnie--the sun, my man, the sun." "Hech! Hech! Au thocht it was the dochter," replied Johnnie, laughing at his own wit. Eustace did not take offence, as Johnnie's dour ways rather amused him, so he laughed also and departed, while Angus went back to his dressing-room to get ready for paying a round of visits. CHAPTER XIX. AUNT JELLY DISCUSSES FAMILY AFFAIRS. "You know the marriage service where it says-- 'Whom God hath joined let no man put asunder,' That answers for an interfering third, Who sows dissension in a happy home; But wife and husband can do just the same, Unless there's give and take betwixt the pair, Black looks, neglect, hard words, and other ills, Will put asunder A and B new wed, As surely as if C had played the rogue." Aunt Jelly was a lady whom everyone judged best to leave alone, as she, being of a tart and aggressive nature, was disposed to be exceedingly disagreeable when meddled with. Old Father Time appeared to be of the same opinion, for he never seemed to come near her in any way, and though year after year went by, changing youth to age, dimming bright eyes, whitening heads brown and golden, and turning mellow voices to shrill trebles, Miss Corbin still preserved the same grim appearance, as if she was indeed the granite figure to which so many of her friends likened her. If Time did add another wrinkle in a stealthy way, or make her blood course more slowly through her withered frame, he did it in such a manner that no one, not even the closest observer, could notice it; and Aunt Jelly, straight and defiant as ever, sat grimly silent in her chair, knitting, knitting, knitting, as though she were some immortal hag weaving the destinies of short-lived humanity. The old lady had heard of Eustace's return from abroad, and was in a high state of indignation that he had not called to see her as soon as he arrived in Town, but having received a note from him saying he would pay her a visit that afternoon, she was now waiting with the firm determination to give him an unpleasant reception. Victoria had already gone out in the carriage to do some shopping for the old dame, and no one was with Miss Corbin except Minnie Pelch, who, more tearful than ever, was seated at the window, like Sister Anne, watching for the approach of Mr. Gartney. The room had the same old-fashioned look about it, save that here and there a bunch of flowers or some dainty feminine adornment showed that Victoria Sheldon had striven to make things somewhat more home-like. Aunt Jelly sat in her chair with woolly-haired Coriolanus at her feet, and knitted on in severe silence, only opening her mouth every now and then to speak to the tearful Miss Pelch. That young-old lady was in a state of suppressed excitement at the prospect of seeing Eustace again, as she contemplated making a final assault on him regarding the publication of her poems, but Aunt Jelly had so harassed and worried her, that she was reduced to a state of extreme limpness, and wept in a stealthy manner, making her eyes red, which by no means added to the beauty of her appearance. The port and sherry decanters were on the table with the usual plate of cake, for though Miss Corbin intended to give Eustace a disagreeable reception she did not think of neglecting the duties of hospitality; fulfilled in her eyes by the production of cake and wine. "Well," said Miss Corbin sharply, for the seventh time, "is he coming?" "Not yet," replied Minnie meekly, after the fashion of Sister Anne. Miss Corbin snorted like an old war-horse, tossed her head in an indignant manner, and resumed her work. "In my young days," she observed at length in her usual harsh fashion, "the juniors were always civil to the seniors. Civility cost nothing then--now it appears to be unpurchasable. Eh! what do you say, Minnie? Nothing!--it's your sniffling then! how often have I told you to correct that habit. Look again--is he coming?" "Not yet," answered Miss Pelch once more, "it's only three o'clock." "I didn't ask you the time," rejoined Aunt Jelly tartly. "I suppose you're going to worry him about that poetry of yours?" "I'm going to ask him to get it published," said Minnie with tearful dignity, "bound in blue and gold with my portrait at the beginning." "Poor child," said Aunt Jelly, pausing a moment, "how you do build castles in the air. Well, I hope my nephew will help you to do what you wish. Nobody will read the book except the critics, and they'll abuse you. If they do," continued Miss Corbin, shaking her finger, "don't come to me for sympathy, for I've warned you. Is he coming?" "Yes!" cried Minnie, in a state of excitement, seeing a hansom rattle round the corner and pull up before the door, "he's in a cab." "Oh, indeed, couldn't walk I suppose," grumbled Miss Corbin grimly, "better for his pocket and his liver if he did. Hand me that last volume of his rubbish, Minnie, I've got a few words to say about it." Minnie obediently did as she was told and Aunt Jelly took the heavy book on her knee, while the door was flung open by the butler, who announced in his usual pompous voice: "Mr. Eustace Gartney." "How do you do, Aunt Jelly?" said Eustace, walking across to the old lady as if he had only parted with her the day before, "you don't look a day older." "Humph! I'm sorry I can't return the compliment" replied Miss Corbin, presenting her withered cheek to be saluted. "Arabia hasn't done you much good, at all events." "You're as candid as ever, I see," said Gartney carelessly, turning to Minnie. "I hope you are well, Miss Pelch." "Oh quite, thank you, dear Mr. Gartney," answered Minnie, in a state of fluttering excitement. "I'm so delighted to see you back." "So kind of you," murmured Eustace, taking a seat in the chair Minnie pushed forward for him. "Well, Aunt Jelly, and how has the world been using you?" "The same as I've been using it," retorted Miss Jelly epigrammatically. "I keep the world at its distance." "Like oil paintings. They always look best at a distance, you know." "Don't talk books to me," said the old lady, "I've had quite enough of your smart sayings in this," touching the volume on her lap. "So I see! I told my publishers to send you a copy. I hope you like it." "I do very, very much," cried Minnie clasping her hands, "it's simply too lovely for anything." "The critics don't think so," said Aunt Jelly spitefully. "And I suppose you agree with the critics," replied Eustace. "Did you hear me say so?" demanded his aunt fiercely. "No but----" "Then don't cry out till you are hurt. Take a glass of wine--Minnie, the wine." Miss Pelch poured out the wine with trembling hand, so excited she was at the presence of the great author, and Eustace, knowing his aunt's determination on the subject of port, drank it meekly although it was a wine he hated. "The book," said Miss Corbin, after a pause, "is not at all bad. I daresay there are a good many lies in it, still they're decently told lies. You've improved this time, Eustace." "Thank you, my dear aunt, I'm glad to have your good opinion, but the critics----" "Critics," snorted Aunt Jelly scornfully, "do you mean those idiots that scribble for the papers and who would abuse their parents for two pence three farthings? Pooh! I don't call those critics. In the palmy days of the _Quarterly Review_ there were decent reviewers, but now--rubbish! they write nothing but drivel, though to be sure it's drivel they criticise. I'm not talking about your book, Eustace, my dear. It's good!--very good, and I wouldn't say so if I didn't think so." "No, I'm sure you wouldn't," replied Eustace meekly. "And how are things, aunt?" "What kind of things, child? Be more explicit." "Well, my cousin Errington, is he all right?" "Humph! right enough." "And his wife?" "She's a fool," remarked Aunt Jelly politely, at which Eustace felt quite indignant. "I don't think so." "What do you know about it?" retorted the old lady sharply. "I tell you she is a fool. Guy was up to see me the other day." "Well, you can hardly expect me to believe that Guy spoke like that to you about his wife. "Who said he did, you blind bat? Don't jump to conclusions, Eustace, for you're not clever enough to land at them." "Well, tell me why you speak of Lady Errington like this" "I take my own time and own way of telling things," replied Miss Jelly deliberately. "Minnie, my dear, go upstairs and look for your poetry, I daresay Mr. Gartney will glance at it before he goes." Minnie had her precious manuscript in her pocket, but knowing from Miss Corbin's hint that she wanted to discuss private affairs with her nephew, meekly retreated from the room, closing the door quietly after her. "I don't know what I've done that you should inflict Minnie's poetry on me," said Eustace in an injured tone. "Pooh, nonsense! don't be selfish. It gives the poor child pleasure to have her milk-and-water rubbish looked at by you. Do a kind action for once in your life, Eustace. I'm sure it's little enough you do for your fellow-creatures." "They aren't worth it." "I daresay, but no doubt they make the same remark about you." "Well, don't bother about my failings, Aunt Jelly," said Eustace impatiently, "tell me about the Erringtons." "It's just this," observed Miss Jelly, letting her knitting fall on her lap, "you know how fond Guy is of that wife of his, a piece of ice with no more feeling in her than that pair of tongs. Well, since this child was born, she has changed altogether, nothing but love and affection, and the Lord knows what!" "All the better for Guy, I should say," said Eustace, who knew what was coming. "All the worse you mean," retorted his aunt. "Bless my soul, I don't mind the woman melting, no one could go on loving such an icicle, but she's melted the wrong way, and every particle of affection she has is given to the child." "Well that's only natural." "It's nothing of the sort, sir," objected Aunt Jelly energetically. "Why should a woman love nothing but her child, and take no more notice of her husband than if he was a sign-post? Every woman ought to love her children, certainly, but they owe something to the father of the children as well." "No doubt! but perhaps Guy exaggerates his wife's neglect." Aunt Jelly shook her head in a doubtful manner. "I don't think so," she replied, deliberately, "Guy isn't the man to cry out, unless he's hurt. From what he says, it appears Alizon is always with the child, and the poor lad is left to wander about by himself. Sometimes, she won't even come to meals. Now, that can't possibly be right, can it?" "No, I suppose not," answered Eustace, after a pause, wondering to himself at finding his prophecy so literally fulfilled, "but, perhaps, the child is ill, and needs care." "The child is as well as you are," retorted Aunt jelly, snappishly, "though that is not saying much, for you look as if you were sickening for some disease, but in plain words Alizon is neglecting her husband in the most silly manner for the child. If this is the case, how will it end?" "I'm sure I don't know!" "You never know anything! Then I'll tell you, they'll learn to do without one another, and that's a bad thing. She'll be all right, because she's got the child, but Guy's got nothing, and he's not the man to put-up with such treatment. If she neglects him, he'll find consolation with some other woman." "Oh, aunt!" "I've shocked you, have I?" said the old lady grimly. "Get your nerves better under control, then. I call a spade a spade, and am telling you the truth. If Alizon Errington goes on like this, the first woman that comes along will snap up her husband, and the consequence will be of her own making." "Well, what's to be done?" demanded Eustace, blankly. "I'm sure I don't know," said Aunt Jelly, with an air of vexation, resuming her knitting. "I don't want to see the affair end in the Divorce Court, and that's the direction it's going in at present. Guy was up the other day, and told me some long rigmarole about his feelings, so the best thing you can do is to go down to the Hall, and see what you can do." "I!" cried Eustace, jumping to his feet in a state of agitation. "I can do nothing." "Take a glass of wine, my dear, take a glass of wine," said Aunt Jelly, sharply. "Your nerves are all crooked. That comes of gadding about the world." Eustace made no reply to this onslaught, but walked to and fro in silence. He was considerably puzzled how to act in this dilemma, as he had made up his mind not to see Lady Errington, thinking his feelings towards her were too strong for him to keep silence. Curiously enough it never seemed to strike him that as Alizon was neglecting her own husband for the child, it was unlikely she would respond to his passion in any way, seeing that she had neither eyes nor ears for anything save her first-born. Gartney's egotism blinded him on this occasion, as it did on many others, but he felt that he was being forced into a situation, towards the woman he loved, from whence there was no escape. Looking at it in his narrow-minded fashion, it seemed a struggle between love and honour, and he was undecided how to act. All his life, however, he had been accustomed to deny himself nothing, and in this case he carried out his ruling principle of selfishly gratifying himself, so there and then made up his mind to accept Aunt Jelly's mission and go down to Errington Hall. "Well, Eustace," said Aunt Jelly sharply, quite unaware of the struggle going on in her nephew's mind, "what do you say--will you do a kind action for once in your life?" Eustace having made up his mind, came slowly back to his elderly relation and resumed his chair. "I'm sorry you've got such a bad opinion of me, Aunt Jelly," he said coolly, "and I'll have much pleasure in proving you're wrong for once in your life, by going down to Ellington Hall, and having a talk with Guy." "That's right," replied Miss Corbin, much gratified. "And I suppose you'll have a look at your own place." "Of course!" "I thought so, you never did a thing in your life without a double motive," said Aunt Jelly, unjustly. "However, I don't care two straws what you go down for, so long as you try and put things right between those two idiots." "Kindly opinion you've got of human nature, Aunt." "No doubt, I have," retorted Miss Jelly, coolly, "but that's human nature's own fault, not mine." "Do you remember what wise La Rochefoucauld says?" observed Eustace, thoughtfully. "'Many people judge the world as if they were its judges, and not its denizens.' That is true, I think." "I don't like your cut and dried wisdom, Mr. Quoter-of-old-saws," replied Aunt Jelly, "there's sure to be a flaw in it somewhere." Eustace laughed and leaned back in his chair. "You've got an answer for everything, Aunt Jelly! Well, I'll go down to Errington, and do my best, but I'm doubtful of success. It's foolish work meddling between man and wife." Miss Corbin sniffed in a doubtful manner, and was about to make some bitter reply, when the door opened and Victoria, bright and piquant as ever, entered the room. "Here I am, Aunt Jelly," she cried gaily, "with not one of your orders forgotten--Mr. Gartney!" "How do you do, Miss Sheldon?" said that gentleman rising from his seat, "it's some time since we met." The memory of their ill-concealed enmity at Como, and of the circumstances under which, she had parted from Otterburn, all rushed suddenly into Victoria's mind, and she blushed deeply, but with her usual self-command she suppressed all other signs of emotion, as she held out her hand frankly to Eustace. "It's eighteen months since we last saw one another," she said, equably, "and since then, judging from your book, you have been leading a delightfully dangerous life." "More fool he!" muttered Aunt Jelly disdainfully. "And you, Miss Sheldon," said Eustace, taking no notice of the old lady's ill-nature, "what kind of a life have you been leading?" Victoria slipped into a chair, and took off her gloves carelessly, though, truth to tell, her heart was beating somewhat rapidly at this meeting. "Oh, the usual London life!" she replied nonchalantly. "Theatre, Park, Ball, Church--Church, Ball, Park, Theatre. The only change you can get is to reverse them." "You young girls don't know how to enjoy yourselves in a rational way," said Miss Corbin, politely; "you ought to marry and settle down." "That's your advice to everyone, Aunt Jelly," retorted Victoria, her cheeks growing hot; "but you have not practised what you now preach." "Circumstances alter cases, child," returned Aunt Jelly, composedly. "I had my reasons--you, no doubt, would call them ridiculous reasons--but they were good enough for me." Victoria did not know of the old love romance between her father and this faded beauty, or she would never have spoken as she did; but as Miss Corbin, with a softened look in her eyes, bent over her work, she felt vaguely that this sharp-tongued woman had suffered, and touched the withered hand with a pretty gesture of penitence. "I suppose you have quite forgotten Como, Miss Sheldon?" said Eustace, remembering his promise to Otterburn, and artfully trying to find out if she still remembered the boy. "Oh, no! I liked Como very much! The scenery was delightful." She spoke quietly enough, but Eustace was an acute observer of human nature, and his keen ear caught an inflection of a tremor in her voice which considerably guided him in framing his next remark. "Yes, the scenery was charming, was it not?" he remarked significantly; "and the friends we met there also. What a pleasant party we were. The Erringtons, Mrs. Trubbles, yourself and--Macjean." "And what has become of Mr. Macjean?" she asked in a low voice, taking up Aunt Jelly's ball of wool. "Oh, Otterburn is in London." "In London!" she echoed, starting violently. "Dear me, Victoria," said Aunt Jelly, snappishly, "how nervous you are, child! You've upset my wool all over the place." Victoria, glad of an excuse to hide her face, bent down to pick up the ball, and Aunt Jelly, having caught Otterburn's name, went on talking. "Otterburn, eh? I know that name. Wasn't that the young man you flirted with at Como, Victoria?" "I didn't flirt with him," cried Victoria, raising her head defiantly. "At least," she added, catching sight of Gartney's keen eye fixed on her, "at least, not much." "That's so like you, child," observed Aunt Jelly, disentangling her yarn, "you will play with fire--some day you'll burn your fingers." "Perhaps that catastrophe has happened already," said Eustace quickly. Miss Sheldon laughed in a somewhat artificial manner at this remark, and promptly denied it. "I'm sure it hasn't," she said, looking straight at Eustace with crimson cheeks. "I take too good care of myself for that. But talking about Mr. Macjean, how is it I have not seen him?" "I don't know I'm sure," replied Gartney carelessly; "he's only been a short time in Town, you know. I wanted him to come here to-day, but he was engaged." Victoria felt all her old hatred of Eustace revive as he spoke the last words, as she felt sure he was talking sarcastically, and would have liked to reply sharply, but she could hardly do so without betraying an unwonted interest in Otterburn, which might have placed lynx-eyed Aunt Jelly on the _qui vive_, so wisely held her tongue. Eustace himself, being satisfied that Victoria still felt an interest in his young friend, inwardly congratulated himself on the result of his diplomacy, and arose to go. "Goodbye, Aunt Jelly," he said, kissing his relative. "I'll go down home to-morrow and tell you what I've done on my return." "That's right, Eustace," said Aunt Jelly, much pleased; "have a glass of wine before you go?" "No, thank you," replied Gartney, walking to the door, "one glass is enough for me." "Weak head," muttered Aunt Jelly, "just like your father." "Better than a weak character," retorted Eustace, gaily. "_Au revoir_, Miss Sheldon. I'll tell Mr. Macjean I've seen you." "No, don't," said Victoria hastily, then, feeling that she had committed an error, strove to mend it. "I mean yes, of course I'll be very pleased to see Mr. Macjean again." "I've no doubt you will," muttered Eustace to himself, as he got into his cab; "she's still in love with him, so Otterburn has only to ask and to have." Mr. Gartney would hardly have been so confident had he seen Victoria at that moment, for she had ran hastily up to her room and was lying on her bed in a passion of tears. "He wouldn't come and see me, I suppose," she said viciously. "Oh, very well, I'll punish him for this. He's forgotten all about me, but I'll make him propose again if it's only for the pleasure of refusing him." CHAPTER XX. THE OLD HOUSE BY THE SEA. "Curs'd by Superstition eerie, Grim it stands a ruin dreary, Round it spread the marshes lonely, Haunted by dim shadows only, Shadows of an evil seeming, Such as rise in ghastly dreaming, Overhead the sky of crimson, Reddens slowly from the dim sun, Silently the sluggish waters Undermine the tower which totters, And the ocean's sullen boom, Prophesies the coming doom, When the house shall sudden sink, Shattered o'er destruction's brink, And the dark night's gloomy pall Evermore brood over all." Eustace, with his whimsical fancy for bestowing appropriate names on all things, had christened his ancestral residence Castle Grim, and he certainly could not have hit upon a happier title for such a dreary place. Standing on the verge of wide-spreading marshes, it faced towards the sea, which was only a little distance away, and the salt winds from the ocean roared day and night round the lonely house. For it was lonely, no habitation being within miles, owing to the malaria which arose from the marshes making the whole neighbourhood unhealthy to live in. Gartney had another residence, much more comfortable, situated in the midland shires, but, with his usual fantastic nature, preferred when staying in the country to inhabit this semi-ruinous mansion. Whoever built it must have been fond of solitude, and much given to self-communings of a dreary nature, for certainly no one with a healthy mind could have found pleasure in contemplating the melancholy stretches of the marshes and in hearkening to the sullen roar of the surges breaking on the sandy shore. Few of the Gartney family had stayed in it since its erection, and it was reserved for Eustace, in whom the melancholy nature of some far-off ancestor was revived, to make it a habitable residence. Perhaps the weirdness of the place had a fascination for his poet nature, or the dismal fenlands pleased his distorted imagination, but at all events, Eustace was rarely in England without paying a visit to Castle Grim, and staying there a few days, before his departure to distant lands. Other people not being so fond of this awesome place, Gartney could get no ordinary servants to stay in it, and consequently it was left to the care of an aged pair, man and wife, who did not mind where they lived so long as they had a roof to cover them, food to eat, and a chance of earning a decent income. They looked after the crazy old place thoroughly, and when their master paid it a visit contrived to make him pretty comfortable considering all things. But as a rule, they lived a Robinson Crusoe-like life, seeing no one from week's end to week's end, save when they went into Denfield for provisions. Mr. and Mrs. Javelrack, the guardians of this unpleasant mansion, had received a telegram from its owner, telling them that he was coming, and consequently the male Javelrack had driven to the Denfield Station for his master, while the female Javelrack set the rooms in order and prepared a meal for Mr. Gartney. Eustace had not brought his valet to Castle Grim, as that worthy would immediately have given notice had he been asked to stay in such a nerve-shaking place. So he drove away from the station slowly in the dog-cart with his quaint old retainer beside him, and his portmanteau behind. It was a very decent dog-cart taking it all round, and the horse in the shafts was not by any means a bad specimen of his kind, as Gartney allowed the Javelracks a decent sum yearly to keep up the place, and they made amends for their lonely life by surrounding themselves with all the luxuries they were able. Report said they were misers, and perhaps there was some truth in the rumour, but whenever Eustace came down, he always found things in order, so he never troubled his head to ascertain what proportion of the income he allowed they had spent on the place, or what portion they stowed away in odd corners. Indeed, if he had found that these two old servants were spending as little as they could without being found out, and putting the rest by for a rainy day, he would not have been particularly annoyed, for they were only within their rights in having some pleasure in Castle Grim. Eustace wrapped himself well up in his ulster, for the winds blew very keenly across the marshes, and as the horse was restive, they soon left the village behind and were moving rapidly across the straight road which stretched a narrow white thread until it vanished on the verge of the horizon. The gables of Errington Hall showed whitely above the sombre woods around it, but after a rapid glance at the roof which covered the woman he loved, Gartney shook the reins impatiently to make the horse go faster, and stared resolutely at the red glare of the sky lowering over the wild waste landscape. "I'll see her to-morrow," he thought, as the hoofs of the horse beat steadily on the hard white road, "and then I can see for myself how things stand between her and Guy." Some long sombre clouds lowered heavily over the crimson of the horizon as if Night, like some dark-winged bird, was waiting to settle down on the chill earth, and a keen cold wind, blowing sharply from the distant ocean, brought the salt odours of the sea to their nostrils. Javelrack, his huge form bowed by age and rheumatism caught from the marsh mists, sat grimly silent beside his master with his large, hairy, brown hands clasped on his lap, and his mahogany-coloured face with its wiry black beard, so screwed up with facing the cutting wind, that under his weather-stained brown hat he looked like a fantastic Chinese idol. Eustace, wrapped up in his own thoughts, paid no attention to his silent companion, but, bowing his head against the blast, indulged in visions of Alizon Errington. A dreary country, with the wide spreading marshes stretching on either side for miles, and the long straight road running through the heart of the swamp. Sluggish, slimy pools of oily stillness, fringes of stately reeds swaying to and fro in the blast, smooth patches of green grass, pleasing to the eye but treacherous to the unwary foot. Here and there a broken-down fence, deeply implanted in weeds of luxuriant growth, bordering deep ditches of black earth filled with stagnant water, on which floated green slime, rows of depressed-looking willows, and on occasions the gaunt stump of a tree sticking up as if to mark the site of a submerged forest. Then suddenly against the dull red of the sky a misshapen pile of gables and chimneys on the verge of a slight rise, girdled by a gaunt ring of leafless trees. Beyond, heaps of wind-blown sand covered with sparse vegetation standing as a barrier between the marshes and the ocean, which tossed in waves of blood under the evil red sky as it moaned in a querulous voice on the starved-looking strip of sandy beach. And this was Castle Grim. Eustace stopped the tired horse at the door of the house (or rather the horse stopped of its own accord), and giving the reins to Javelrack, jumped down. At the door he was met by Mrs. Javelrack, large and gaunt as her husband, with the same embrowned face and the same distorted features, suggestive of Chinese deities. Indeed, as the male Javelrack took the portmanteau into the house and stood by his wife, they looked like two ogres inhabiting Castle Grim, who were prepared to make a meal of Eustace as soon as he was safely within the walls. The male ogre, however, took his master's portmanteau into his bedroom, and then coming out again, took the dog-cart round to the stables, while Mrs. Javelrack, her face twisted into a hideous grin meant for a smile, brought hot water for the weary traveller. "Don't be long with the dinner, Mrs. Javelrack," called Eustace as she closed the door. "No sir," croaked Mrs. Javelrack in a hoarse voice, as if she had been a frog out of the marsh, "it 'ull be ready as soon as you, sir." Mr. Gartney washed himself in the warm water, which took away the smarting feeling in his face caused by the keen salt wind, and having changed his clothes sauntered into the one habitable room of the place, which did for dining-room, drawing-room, and music-room, for Eustace had sent down a very good piano, which stood in one corner. "Humph! rather spoilt by the damp," he said to himself; as he ran his lithe fingers over the keys, "or perhaps the amiable Mrs. Javelrack has been trying to cultivate music." The ogress brought in the dinner and waited on Eustace in a ponderous manner, giving him all the news of the neighbourhood, which was remarkably scant, and talked all through the meal in a subdued roar. When Eustace had finished, she removed the dishes, brought in some coffee, and, after making up the fire, retired to the kitchen and the company of Mr. Javelrack. Gartney heard them chatting even through the thick walls, for the dampness of the marshes had made them both somewhat deaf, and consequently they shouted so loudly at one another, that it was difficult at times to tell whether it was the ocean roaring or the ogres conversing. It was a very comfortable room, having been furnished by Eustace according to his own ideas, and the walls, instead of being papered, were hung with dull red cloth after the fashion of tapestry, which waved at intervals as the searching winds crept in shrilly through crack and cranny. A wide fireplace in which blazed a large coal fire between the grotesque brass dogs, several comfortable arm-chairs, and on one side, a small book-case containing a selection of Gartney's favourite authors. At the distant end of the room a grand piano, with the music piled neatly beside it, a cumbersome, old-fashioned sofa, and a deep, square window with diamond panes, and a quaint oaken seat set in its depths. Eustace drew an arm-chair close to the fire and near to the small table upon which Mrs. Javelrack had placed his coffee, produced his pipe, and was soon puffing away in a most comfortable manner. He picked up a slim volume of poems entitled "Rose dreamings," and turned over the pages listlessly as he sipped his coffee, feeling a drowsy sensation steal over him. A verse in the poem called "Temptation," however, roused him from this lethargic state, and throwing down the book, he paced restlessly up and down the room repeating the four lines quietly to himself: "This love so hard the winning. For ever will endure, If all the world be sinning, Why should we two be pure?" "I'm afraid she won't take the same view as that," he muttered to himself discontentedly, thinking of Lady Errington. "And yet, if she doesn't love her husband, she may have a kindly feeling for me. As to the child, surely no woman--not even this Madonna--can devote herself exclusively to it. Still, the child is the obstacle between herself and her husband, so perhaps it will be the obstacle between herself and me. Oh! I could love her! I could love her if she would only let me! She will let me! I'm certain of it! Guy has no brains, and she is starving for the want of intellectual food. The child is the excuse, but that is the real reason of the coldness between them." One of the most extraordinary parts of Gartney's delusion concerning his chance of success with Lady Errington lay in the fact that his present reasoning was diametrically opposed to the views he held when first meeting Lady Errington. He then asserted that she would never care for her husband, but when she became a mother would lavish all her love on the child. This view of Alizon's character was a correct one, as Eustace in his innermost heart well knew, but he wilfully deceived himself in thinking that now she had obtained her heart's desire she would give it up for the sake of a man whom she had hardly seen. Eustace, however, had been so uniformly triumphant with the female sex, that the idea of failing with Alizon never entered his mind, and he thought that if he laid siege to Lady Errington, in a dexterous fashion, she would give up everything--husband, child, name, and home--in order to gratify his selfish desire. When he came to England after his many months' absence in Arabia, Gartney had determined not to see Lady Errington, feeling that he loved her, or rather her idolized memory, so much, that he would not be able to suppress his passion, and thus behave dishonourably towards his cousin Guy by running away with his wife. Aunt Jelly, however, by telling him of the estrangement between the pair had banished this honourable hesitation from his heart, as he felt himself forced by Fate to see the woman he loved face to face. It was a very convenient excuse with which to quiet his conscience for this wrong-doing, and having settled in his own selfish mind that Fate was too strong for him, he determined to estrange husband and wife still further, so that he would have less trouble in overcoming Lady Errington's scruples to his dishonourable proposals. This idea which he held had been singularly strengthened by the remark of Aunt Jelly, when she said that Guy in his present state would be the prey of the first clever woman that came along. Eustace therefore determined to introduce Guy to some clever woman who would entangle him in her net, and the woman he had fixed upon in his own mind for this vile purpose was--Mrs. Veilsturm. It was curious that he should have fixed on this special woman to do this, seeing that he was ignorant of Mrs. Veilsturm's grudge against Lady Errington, and did not know how eagerly she would seize this opportunity of revenging herself on the woman who had slighted her so scathingly. He merely chose Mrs. Veilsturm because she was beautiful, clever, and unscrupulous, so a hint to her would be quite sufficient to induce her to fascinate Guy by all the means in her power. Eustace Gartney was by no means a thoroughly bad man. Indeed, he had very good qualities, although they were, to a great extent, neutralized by his indomitable selfishness, and therefore he suffered several qualms of conscience over the dishonourable scheme he had in hand. His intense egotism and love of gratifying self, however, came to his aid, and he argued himself into a satisfactory frame of mind by Heaven only knows what sophistry. "She doesn't care a bit about her husband," he reflected, pacing the room with measured strides, "she never did care about him, and it's a pity to see a clever woman like that tied to an unsympathetic log. With me, her life will be much happier than with him, and after he gets a divorce I will marry her, and we will live abroad, where there will be no narrow-minded bigots to scoff at what they will call her false step. I'll do it, at whatever cost! My life will be a blank without her, and she will be unhappy with Guy, so it will be far the best for both of us to come together, even at the cost of a public scandal. I'm sorry for Guy, but the one must suffer for the many, and I daresay in after years he will thank me for taking from him a wife from whom, even now, after less than two years of married life, he is estranged." So Eustace, sophist as he was, argued in favour of his dishonourable passion, and would have even succeeded in persuading himself that he was a much-injured person by having to undergo such trouble, but for a certain uneasy feeling that he ruthlessly crushed down. Having settled his plans to his own satisfaction, Eustace had another smoke, then going to the window, drew aside the curtains and looked forth into the black night. The wind was rising and whistled shrilly round the house, lashing the dark waves into lines of seething white foam which glimmered ghost-like through the gloom, while overhead the thin filmy clouds raced across the sky over the face of the haggard-looking moon. He could hear the thunder of the surge on the distant beach, the wind muttering drearily among the trees, and casting his eyes overhead he saw the pallid moonlight streaming in ghastly radiance through the ragged clouds. Dropping the curtain with a sigh, he sauntered across to the piano, and began to improvise a weird fantasy in keeping with the feelings aroused by the wild scene without. The roll of the sea, the wuthering of the wind, and the rustle of the reeds were all transmuted into strange harmonies under the touch of his skilful fingers, and stealing out at intervals from amid the tempest of sound, stole a strange, sobbing strain, fitful and wayward as the breeze, as if some malicious demon were piping heart-stealing love-songs to the sky, and the night, and the lonely marsh. He remained some time at the piano, following his changeful fancies, but when the clock struck nine he closed the instrument, and had one final pipe before going to bed. As he sat in front of the fire, looking into the heart of the burning coals, he went over again in his own mind the details of the scheme by which he hoped to secure his cousin's wife to himself. "Yes," he said aloud in the silence of the room, "it is all right! There is no flaw!" There was a flaw, however, and one which, in his blind egotism and complacent selfishness, he entirely overlooked, and that was the love of the mother for her child. CHAPTER XXI. FROM THE HUSBAND'S POINT OF VIEW. "A statue cut in marble white To me gives but a cold delight, Although 'tis fair I do not care, For joy begins and ends with sight. "A woman pure as virgin snows, Within whose veins the life-blood flows, Whose smile reveals The love she feels, Ah, such a one is Love's true rose." The next morning Eustace made up his mind to go to Errington Hall in the afternoon, and meanwhile amused himself in leisurely strolling along the beach watching the waves rolling landward. Behind him the sand hills rose in low mounds with their scanty vegetation, shutting out the marshes beyond, then came the narrow strip of sandy beach on which his footsteps left deeply imprinted marks, and before him, sombre under the leaden coloured sky, stretched the heaving ocean, with thin lines of white-crested waves breaking to cold foam at his feet. The sky, filled with rain-charged clouds, lowered heavily on the chill earth, and midway flew a wide-winged sea-gull, uttering discordant cries. It was a dreary scene, and Eustace, with his hands clasped behind him, stared at the dismal prospect, which was quite in keeping with his own disturbed feelings. He was meditating a dishonourable action, and he knew it, so in spite of his determination to carry it through to the bitter end, he felt oppressed by a vague feeling of dread that all his villainy would be of no avail. In the course of his selfish life he had done many foolish things, at which the world had looked askance, but hitherto his pride had preserved him from dishonour, but now he stood on the edge of an abyss into which he was about to plunge of his own free will, and, in spite of his egotistical philosophy, he trembled at the prospect before him. Supposing he did induce Lady Errington to return his passion and leave England with him, what benefit would it bring to him or to her? To her a ruined home, the memory of a deserted child, the prospect of exile from all social circles, and an endless regret for her fall; to him, delighted companionship for a time, and then a sense of weary disgust, of futile sorrow for a past that could not be undone, and constant discord between himself and the partner of his shame. Was it worth the risk he was running, for a chimera, a fanciful creation of his own brain, a desire for a vision that might never be realised? And all this time with characteristic selfishness, not a thought for the deserted husband, for the motherless child. "Hallo, Eustace! Where are you?" Gartney arose to his feet with an ejaculation, the red blood rushing to his face. "Guy!" It was Guy, his cousin, the man whose wife he loved, the man whose home he intended to destroy, and, even wrapped as he was in his triple armour of pride, egotism, and self-complacency, he felt the sting of remorse. It was too late, however, to think of such things, he having fully made up his mind to act; so he crushed down the feeling which might have made him a better man, and went forward to meet his cousin, who was walking smartly along the beach. Eighteen months had not made much change in Errington, save that he was a little stouter, but he looked as handsome as ever, only there was a discontented look on his face, as if he were thoroughly dissatisfied with his life, as indeed he was. He had evidently ridden over, as he was in a riding dress, and he advanced towards Eustace with one hand in his pocket, the other holding his hunting crop with which he carelessly switched his boots. "Well, dear old fellow, I am glad to see you again," he said, coming to his cousin and holding out his hand. "You are very kind, Guy," faltered Eustace, quietly shaking hands, with the feeling of remorse again dominant in his breast. "I was going over to see you this afternoon." "Were you?" said Errington, listlessly. "Oh, yes!--of course, but I heard at the village you had come to Castle Grim, so, as I was mounted, I thought I'd come on here. I've left my horse with that old Caliban of yours and came down to look you up." "I'm very glad to see you," returned Eustace, turning away his head. "Shall we go back to the house?" "No, not yet," responded Errington, throwing himself down on the dry sand. "Let us talk here. I want to speak to you privately, Eustace, and this is the best place." Gartney knew in his own mind that Errington wanted to speak about his wife, so sat down near the recumbent form of his cousin, and waited for him to begin the conversation. Nothing was said, however, until, after a moment's silence, Guy looked up at Gartney's face with a frown. "Good Lord, man, have you left your tongue behind in Arabia?" he said roughly, leaning his cheek on his hand. Eustace laughed a little bitterly. "Perhaps it would have been as well if I had done so," he said deliberately, "it might save my soul the burden of many lies." "As whimsical as ever!" "Do you think so? No doubt! Solitude is rather apt to confirm a man in his eccentric habits. By-the-way, you have not told me how your wife is?" "Quite well," replied Errington shortly. "And the son and heir, on whose birth I must congratulate you?" "Oh, he's all right." Guy spoke this last sentence in such a bitter tone that Eustace could not help turning round and looking at him. He was gazing moodily at the sand, but glanced upward, as he felt rather than saw that Gartney had turned round, and smiled ironically. "You seem surprised?" he said at length. "I am surprised," answered Eustace deliberately. "When I saw you in Italy, you spoke very differently--very differently indeed." "Ah, but you see that was in my character of a newly-married man," sneered Guy, picking up a handful of sand and letting it stream through his fingers. "All that sort of thing is over." "And why is it over?" asked Eustace, coldly. "Eighteen months can scarcely make so much difference----" "It makes every difference--in my case." "Why?" Guy sat up suddenly, clasped his hands round his knees, and staring at the ocean, answered in a dreary voice utterly devoid of any feeling: "I daresay it will sound ridiculous to a man like yourself, Eustace, and no doubt you and the world will laugh at me when you know my reason. But I cannot help it. I've fought against the feeling, as much as ever I could. I've made all sorts of excuses for my wife, but it's all of no use." "I'm quite in the dark as to what you are talking about." "I'm talking about my wife," said Guy deliberately. "You know how much in love I was with her when we married?" "And are you not in love with her now?" "Yes, I am!" "Then what have you to complain of?" "Complain of!" echoed Errington with a bitter laugh. "I have nothing to complain of, according to the views of the world. Alizon is a perfect wife, a perfect mother, a perfect woman in every way. In fact, that is what I do complain of! She's too perfect." "Good Heavens, man!" cried Eustace, now thoroughly exasperated. "I don't understand a word you are saying. If Alizon is perfect, both as wife and mother, what more do you want?" "I want love," returned Guy, in a low, deep voice, the blood rushing to his face. "I want love and affection. I'm starving for one kind word and I cannot obtain it. It sounds ridiculous, does it not, for a man of my years to whimper about love like a silly schoolboy? But I cannot help it. I married Alizon in order to have a true and loving wife, and I find I am tied to a statue." "But I cannot understand----" "Of course, you can't," cried Errington vehemently, leaping to his feet, "how could you? a cold-blooded man, who can do without love and affection, who doesn't care two straws about any human being, and only adores the phantom creations of his own brain. Great Heaven!" said the unfortunate young man, staring wildly up at the leaden-coloured sky, "if I were only a man like that how happy I should be. But I'm not, I'm only a fellow who wants to be loved by his wife, but even that is denied me. I married Alizon for love. I loved her then, I love her now, and she cares no more for me than she does for yonder ocean." "But surely the child is a bond of union between you?" "The child!" repeated Errington fiercely, "no! the child, which should have drawn us closer together, has put us farther asunder than ever. I longed for a child to succeed me in the estates, and, now I have obtained my desire, I wish it had never been born. I hate the child! It seems horrible, Eustace, but I do. I hate it." "Don't talk like that, Guy," cried Eustace, springing to his feet, and laying his hand on his cousin's arm, "it's terrible--your own child!" "My own child! my own child," repeated Guy with senseless reiteration. "Yes! my own child." He thrust his hands into his pockets, and abruptly turning away, walked a short distance in order to conceal his emotion, while Eustace stood silently in the same place, wondering at his cousin's grief over what appeared to him to be such a trivial matter. It might seem so to him, but it certainly was not to Guy, whose whole nature was smarting under a sense of neglect and injury. After a few moments Errington returned, with a hard look on his face, and a cynical laugh on his lips. "I beg your pardon, Eustace," he said ceremoniously, "for troubling you about these affairs, but if I hadn't someone to talk to about it, I believe I should go mad. I went up to Aunt Jelly the other day, and told her what I am now telling you, but she didn't seem to think much of it." "You make a mistake there," said Gartney, quickly. "Aunt Jelly thought a great deal about it. In fact, it is because she urged me to see what I could do, that I am down here." "You can't do anything," replied Errington listlessly, "no one can do anything. Alizon and myself are an ill-wedded pair. The quick coupled with the dead. She is a perfect wife, a perfect mother, and I, in the eyes of the world possessing a treasure in the matrimonial way, am the most miserable devil alive." Eustace felt a sudden pang of compunction at the idea of the misery he proposed to add to the unhappy young man's life, and after a short struggle between the generous and selfish instincts of his nature, the former triumphed, and he determined to do his best to reconcile husband and wife. With this new resolve in his mind, he approached Guy, and taking him by the arm, walked slowly across the beach with him towards Castle Grim. "Come to the house, old fellow," he said kindly. "You are working yourself into a perfect state over nothing. Have luncheon with me, and then we'll drive over together, and I'll do my best to put things right." "Impossible," said Guy, gloomily, "quite impossible." "How so?" "It's easy enough explained! When I married my wife, I thought her coldness would wear off, but it did not. To all my love and tenderness, she was as cold as ice. Kind enough in a cold-blooded sort of way, but as far as any answering tenderness or feeling of sympathy, she might as well have been a statue. That was hard enough to bear, as you may imagine, but when the child was born it was much worse. She isn't a statue now, by any means, but her whole soul is wrapped up in the child. She's never away from him, she never stops talking about him, she lives in the nursery, and never comes near me. If I offer to caress her, she frowns and resents any display of affection. All her love, all her heart, is given to the child, and I've got to be content with cold looks, and about five minutes' conversation a day. I hardly ever see her, sometimes she doesn't even come to meals, and when I remonstrated with her, she turned on me in a cold fury, and asked me if I wanted her to neglect the child. What am I to do, Eustace? I can't force her to love me against her will. I can't keep her from the child. There seems nothing for me to do, but to be satisfied with the life I am leading now, and it's Hell, Eustace, Hell. It's a big word to describe a little thing, isn't it? The world would laugh at me if they heard me talk, but no one can understand it, unless they undergo it." He spoke with great emotion, and although Eustace failed in a great measure to understand his deep feelings on the subject, he could not but see that his cousin had great cause to speak. A young man of ardent nature, to whom love is a necessity, finding himself tied to a woman who chilled every demonstration of affection, and lavished all her adoration on the child of which he was the father--it was truly a pitiable situation, and yet one at which the world would laugh, because the tragic elements therein were so simple. Gartney listened in silence to the long speech, and saying nothing in reply, made his cousin have some luncheon, while he thought over the whole affair. "I won't speak to Mrs. Veilsturm," he thought to himself, pouring out Guy a glass of wine, "if I can I'll bring them together again and then leave England for ever." During the luncheon, he talked gaily enough to Errington, cheering him up by every means in his power, making up his mind in the meantime as to what was the best course to pursue. When the meal was finished, he ordered Javelrack to bring round a horse, and, with Sir Guy, was soon trotting along the road on the way to Errington Hall. "Now, listen to me, Guy," he said, when they were some distance on their journey. "I think you exaggerate a good deal of this thing. It's not half so bad as you make out. Alizon is a young mother, and you know they always adore their first-born to the exclusion of everything else. I don't think she is naturally of a cold nature, and when her first outburst of joy on the child is exhausted, she will, doubtless, give you that love which is your due, and which you so much need. But, in the meantime, it is foolish of you to remain at the Hall, as you will only work yourself up into a frenzy over nothing. Solitude is the worst thing in the world for a man in your condition, so the best thing you can do is to come up to town with me for a week or so." "But I cannot leave Alizon alone," objected Errington in perplexity. "Why not? She won't be lonely, as she has the child, and besides, if she neglects you as you say, it is because you are always near her. A few weeks' absence would make a wonderful change in her demeanour, I can tell you." "Do you really think so?" asked poor Guy, his face lighting up. "I'm certain of it. In spite of your years, my dear boy, I'm afraid you don't know much about feminine nature. Learn then, that to make a woman value a thing truly, it is necessary to put it out of her reach. Immediately it is in that position, then she'll strain every nerve to get it back again. Therefore, if you leave your wife, and neglect her for a time, she will begin to grow jealous, and see how wrongly she has treated you. When you come back again, she will alter her conduct, and things will be all right." "I don't believe in that prescription," retorted Guy, sharply. "Don't you? It does sound rather difficult of belief, but it's true for all that. And I can tell you of a case in question, that of Victoria Sheldon and Macjean." "I don't understand----" "No! then I'll explain. If you will carry your memory back to the time we were in Italy, you will remember that Otterburn was very much in love with Victoria Sheldon." "To tell you the truth, I've almost forgotten Otterburn himself. Was he not your companion then?" "Yes!--we parted at Venice, and I saw him again for the first time last week. Well, Otterburn was so much in love with Victoria that he proposed. She refused him, so Otterburn, having a spirit of his own, departed, and has never seen her since. Finding, therefore, that he stood on his dignity, she fell in love with him, and I feel certain, that if Otterburn chooses to ask her again, she will say yes." "But will he choose?" "He will! They love one another devotedly, and each is ignorant of the other's feelings, but when they meet everything will be arranged satisfactorily. So you see, my dear Guy, the value of absence, for if Otterburn hadn't gone away, he certainly would not have won the heart of Victoria Sheldon." "And you advise me to do the same?" "I do, decidedly! Leave your wife for a few weeks, and if she has any love for you--which she must have, or else she would not have married you--she will miss you hourly, and when you come back--well the game will be in your own hands." Guy did not reply for a few minutes, but urged his horse into a canter, and the two rode along for some distance in silence. When nearing Denfield, however, Errington suddenly drew his horse up, and turned his head towards Eustace. "I will take your advice," he said abruptly, "it can do no harm, and it may do good." CHAPTER XXII. FROM THE WIFE'S POINT OF VIEW. "What is the purest love on earth? A maiden's love for summer mirth? A lover's worship of his idol When bells ring out his happy bridal? A patriot's when on foreign strand He suffers for his native land? A poet's or musician's love For thoughts inspired from above? Ah, no, the love most undefiled Is that the mother gives the child." Lady Errington was as usual in the nursery, sitting in a low chair near the window, watching "Sammy" playing on the floor. "Sammy," otherwise Henry Gerald Guy Errington, was now a year old, and looked what he was, a remarkably fine child, of which any mother might be proud. "Proud," however, is too weak a word to use in connection with Alizon's love for her child, seeing that this small scrap of humanity rolling about at her feet was worshipped by her with an affection absolutely idolatrous. All her ideas, her thoughts, her affections, were bound up in Sammy, and had it been a question of death for mother or child, there is no doubt that Alizon would have cheerfully yielded up her own life to save that of her baby. Nor was Sammy undeserving of worship, for he was really a beautiful boy, with the frank expression of his father's handsome face, and a healthy, sturdy little frame, which seemed to defy disease. During his twelve months of existence he had been very healthy, and even in the delicate matter of cutting his teeth had been more successful than the generality of infants. With his rosy little face, his big, blue eyes and soft yellow curls of hair, he looked as an obsequious nurse expressed it, "a perfect picter." That worthy lady, Mrs. Tasker by name, and fat, plethoric and red-faced by nature, was at the end of the nursery attending to some articles of the young gentleman's toilet, and Alizon had her child all to herself, for which privilege she was profoundly grateful, as Mrs. Tasker was a terrible autocrat. A wonderful change had come over her since she had become a mother, for the statue had become a woman, the iceberg had melted, and in all her life she never looked so womanly as she did at this moment. Her face, flushed a delicate rose-colour, was sparkling with animation, her lips were parted in a merry laugh, and her eyes, soft and tender, absolutely seemed to devour the child as she bent forward to play with him. Sammy was sitting like an infant Marius among the ruins of a Carthage of toys, for around him on all sides lay the evidences of his destructive capabilities. A woolly quadruped, something between a dog and a cow, dignified with the name of "Ba-lamb," lay on its back, piteously extending one mangled leg, the other three having been bitten off, and an indecent india-rubber doll, with no clothes and a squeak, was being dragged about by a string. There were several other things, such as a drum (broken), a toy soldier (head missing), a wooden Noah (paint sucked off), and last, but not least, a hunting crop of his father's, which was Sammy's special delight, because it wasn't supposed to be proper for him to have it. Sammy at present was hammering "Eliza" (the doll aforesaid) with the whip, when suddenly discovering that one shoe had come off in his exertions, he rendered things equal by pulling off the other shoe, and then chuckled with delight at his success. "Naughty Sammy," reproved his mother, bending down to pick up the shoes. "Mustn't do that--ah, bad child!" The bad child, attracted by the fact that both shoes were out of his reach, made a snatch at them, with the result that he over-balanced himself, and came down heavily on his head. He was undecided whether to howl or not, when his mother settled the question by picking him up with a cry of pity, whereat, knowing the right thing to do, he howled vigorously. "Mother's own precious! mother's own darling!" lamented Alizon, rocking him to and fro on her breast; upon which Sammy, finding the rocking pleasant, roared louder than ever, whereupon Mrs. Tasker hurried forward to give her opinion. "Why, whatever's the matter, my lady?" she asked anxiously. "He hasn't swallowed anything has he?" This was Mrs. Tasker's constant nightmare, for Sammy had an ostrich-like capacity for swallowing anything that came handy, and disposed of all sorts of things in this manner, to the great detriment of his stomach. "He's hurt his head, Nurse," explained Lady Errington, anxiously, while Sammy, satisfied at being the centre of attraction, stopped roaring. "His poor head. He fell over on the floor." "He's allay's doin' that," said Nurse in despair. "I nivir did see sich a topply child. Feathers is lead to his upsettings." The comparison was not a particularly happy one, but it served Mrs. Tasker, who thereupon wanted to take Sammy from his mother, a proceeding to which Lady Errington strongly objected. "No, don't Nurse please! let me hold him a little time! See he's quite good now." And indeed, Sammy was now behaving like an angel, for being attracted by a small gold brooch his mother wore, he was standing up on his sturdy legs, plucking at it with chubby fingers, and gurgling to himself in a most satisfied manner. "I nivir did see such a dear child," remarked Mrs. Tasker admiringly. "'Is 'owls is hoff as soon as on. Why the last as I nussed, my lady, were that givin' to hollerin' as you might 'ave thought I'd put 'im to bed with a pin-cushing. But as for Master Sammy, well----" and casting up her little eyes to the ceiling, Mrs. Tasker expressed in pantomime, with a pair of dumpy red hands, that words failed her. "He's an angel! an angel!" murmured Alizon fondly, covering the rosy little face with kisses. "Oh, nurse, isn't he perfect?" Nurse expressed her firm conviction that there never was nor never would be such a perfectly angelic child, and then the two women indulged in a lavish display of grovelling affection, with many inarticulated words, tender fondlings and indistinct kisses, all of which Sammy accepted with the greatest calmness as his just due. At this moment a servant entered the nursery to inform Lady Errington that Sir Guy and Mr. Eustace Gartney were waiting for her in the Dutch room, at which Alizon was in despair, for it was now the time when Sammy took his airing, and therefore one of the most interesting events of the day. However, much as she disliked leaving the child, she could hardly refuse to see Eustace without appearing pointedly rude, so sent the servant away with the information that she would be down immediately. "I won't be longer than I can help, Nurse," she said dolefully, delivering Sammy into the extended arms of Mrs. Tasker. "Be sure you take the greatest care in dressing him." "Well, my lady," said Mrs. Tasker, with scathing irony, "I 'opes as I've dressed a child afore." "Yes! Yes! of course," replied Lady Errington hastily, for she had a wholesome fear of the autocrat's temper, "but you know how anxious I am! and his bottle, Nurse! take care it's warm, and Nurse! please don't go out until I send up a message." "Will it be long?" demanded Mrs. Tasker determinedly, "because there ain't much sun, and this blessed child must git as much as he can. It makes 'im grow." "No! only a few minutes," said Alizon quickly. "You see, Nurse, I'll want to show him to Mr. Gartney. Take the greatest care--the very greatest care--goodbye, mother's angel--kiss mother, dearest." Sammy opened his button of a mouth and bestowed a damp caress on his mother, which was his idea of kissing, and then Lady Errington, yielding to stern necessity, withdrew slowly, with her eyes fixed on the child to the last, and even when she closed the nursery door, she strained her ears to hear him crowing. Both gentlemen were waiting in the Dutch room, which received its name from the fact that it looked out on to the prim garden, with the rows of box-wood, the beds of gaudy tulips and the fantastically clipped yew trees. Guy was in a much more cheerful mood than usual, as he thought that the panacea prescribed by Eustace would make an end of all his troubles, and Gartney himself experienced a wonderful feeling of exhilaration at the near prospect of seeing his visionary lady of Como once more. The soft sweep of a robe, the turning of the handle of the door, and in another moment she stood before him, a fair, gracious woman, who advanced slowly with outstretched hand and a kindly smile. "How do you do, Mr. Gartney, after all this time?" she said sweetly, clasping his extended hand. "I thought we were never going to see you again." Was this the pale, cold Undine he had last seen at Como, more ethereal than the visioned spirits of romance? Was this the perfect, bloodless statue of whom Guy complained? This lovely breathing woman, aflush with all the tender grace of motherhood, with delicately pink cheeks, eyes brilliant with animation, and a voice rich and mellow as the sound of a silver bell. Yes! his prophecy had come true; the haunting, hungry look had departed from her eyes, for in the full satisfaction of the strong maternal instinct the thin, unsubstantial ghost of maidenhood had disappeared; and in this beautiful woman, aglow with exuberant vitality, he recognized the reality of the visionary creation of his dreaming brain. "Did you think I was lost in Arabian solitudes?" he said, recovering from his momentary fit of abstraction. "I'm afraid I'm not the sort of man to be lost. I always come back again, like a modern Prodigal Son." Alizon laughed when he spoke thus, but months afterwards she recollected those careless words. At present, however, she sat down near him, and began to talk, while Guy, who had uttered no word since she entered the room, stood silently at the window, staring out at the quaint Dutch garden. "Now I suppose you are going to stay at home, and tell your tales from your own chimney corner?" said Lady Errington, clasping her hands loosely on her knees. Eustace shook his head. "I thought so the other day, but now--I'm going on an exploring expedition up the Nile." "You must have the blood of the Wandering Jew in your veins." "Or Cain!--he was rather fond of travelling, wasn't he?" "Don't be profane, Mr. Gartney," said Alizon, trying to look serious. "But really you ought to settle down and marry." "Yes, shouldn't he?" observed Guy caustically, turning round. "Go in for the delights of the family circle." "That all depends whether he would appreciate them or not," replied Lady Errington coldly, flashing an indignant look at her husband, upon which Eustace to avoid unpleasantness made a hasty observation. "By the way, talking of the family circle, I have to congratulate you, Lady Errington, on the birth of a son." Alizon's eyes, which had hardened while looking at Guy, grew wondrous soft and tender. "Yes!--he is the dearest child in the world--everyone loves him except his father." "What nonsense Alizon!" said Guy, hastily turning towards his wife. "I'm very fond of him indeed, but one gets tired of babies." "I daresay, but not of their own children," answered Lady Errington indignantly. "You must see him, Mr. Gartney, and I'm sure you'll say you never saw such a lovely child." She arose from her seat and left the room quickly, while Eustace looked reproachfully at Guy. "You shouldn't talk like that," he said quietly, "I don't wonder you find things disagreeable if you sneer at the child." "I don't sneer at the child," retorted Guy sullenly, "but I'm tired of hearing nothing but baby chatter all day long." "Perhaps, if you were as attentive to the baby as your wife, it would be advisable." "Nonsense! I can't be on my knees before a cradle all day, and besides Alizon won't let me come near it. One would think I was going to murder the child the way she looks at me when I lay a finger on it." "Mr. Gartney," said Lady Errington's voice at the door. "Come upstairs with me to the nursery." "Can't I come to Paradise also?" observed Guy wistfully as his cousin was leaving the room. "Certainly, come if you care to," replied Alizon coldly. "No, thank you," replied Errington abruptly, his brow growing black with rage at the coldness of the invitation. "I'll stay here till you return." Lady Errington went upstairs slowly with Eustace, with a look of anger on her face. "You see," she said bitterly, pausing at the nursery door, "he does not care a bit about his child." "Oh, I think he does," answered Eustace discreetly, "but he thought you did not want him to come." "I am always glad for him to come," remarked Alizon coldly, "but when he does he only makes disagreeable remarks about the boy, so his visits are never very pleasant." Things were decidedly wrong between this young couple, and they so thoroughly misunderstood one another that Eustace was at a loss how to set them right. He was saved the trouble of further thought, however, by Lady Errington opening the door and preceding him into the nursery. "There he is, Mr. Gartney," said the young mother, "look at my precious." "My precious," in all the glory of white hat, white cape and woolly gloves and shoes, was seated in his perambulator ready to go out for his airing, and Mrs. Tasker, with the under-nurse, were both attached to the wheels of his chariot. At the sight of Gartney's bronzed face, he set up a howl, and was only pacified by being taken out of his carriage into the protecting arms of his mother. "The complete Madonna now," thought Eustace, as he looked at the flushed face of the young mother bending over the rosy one of the child. "Did he cry then! sweetest! What do you think of him, Mr. Gartney?" "There can be but one opinion," replied that gentleman solemnly, "he's a very beautiful child, and you may well be proud of him, Lady Errington." "Did you ever see a finer child?" demanded Alizon, insatiable for praise. "No, never," answered Eustace, which was true enough, as he hated babies and never looked at them unless forced to. "Hi, baby, chuck! chuck!" "Goo! goo! goo!" gurgled Master Errington, and stretched out his chubby arms to Gartney, intimating thereby a desire to improve his acquaintance with that gentleman. "Oh, he's quite taken to you," said Lady Errington gaily. "Just feel what a weight he is." So Eustace was forced to take the child in his arms, and looked as awkward as a man usually does when burdened with a baby. Ultimately Sammy was returned to his mother's arms, and she took him down the stairs, while the footman and Mrs. Tasker between them carried down the light wickerwork perambulator. "Wheel him up and down the terrace for a time, Nurse," said Alizon, when the child was once more replaced in his little carriage. "I'll be out soon." They were standing at the door, and Lady Errington waited there until Mrs. Tasker vanished with the baby round the corner on to the wide terrace, when she turned to Eustace with a sigh. "Does that mean that you are anxious to get to the baby?" asked Eustace, raising his eyebrows, as they walked back to the Dutch room. "Oh no, really," replied Lady Errington, with polite mendacity, "do you think I am never happy away from Sammy?" "Are you?" he asked, eyeing her keenly. Alizon flushed a bright crimson, laughed in an uneasy manner and fidgeted nervously. "What a shame to push me into a corner!" she said at length, raising her clear eyes to his face. "No!--I am never happy away from my child. I am so afraid of any accident happening! Dear me, what has become of Guy?" They had entered the Dutch room by this time and found it empty, but on the table afternoon tea was laid out, so Alizon sat down to pour out Eustace a cup. Gartney looked at her furtively as she did this, and thought he had never seen her look so charming. "Lucky Guy," he said at length, taking the cup she handed to him. "Because of Sammy?" she asked, looking at him with a bright smile. "No! because of you!" replied Eustace boldly, whereat she shook her blonde head gaily, though her lips wore a somewhat scornful look. "I'm afraid Guy doesn't think so!" Eustace judged this a good opening from which to lead up to his attempt at reconciliation, so spoke out at once. "Lady Errington, don't you think you are rather hard upon Guy?" She turned her face towards him sharply. "Why do you ask that?" she demanded coldly. "I am afraid it is a liberty," answered Eustace slowly, "but you see I am Guy's cousin, so the near relationship must excuse my apparent rudeness. But the fact is you don't seem perfectly happy." "I am happy, perfectly happy I have everything in the world I desire--health, wealth and my darling child." "I see you don't count your husband among your blessings," said Eustace. "Oh, yes! I'm very fond of Guy. He is the father of my child!" "Is that the only reason you are fond of him?" "Really, Mr. Gartney, I do not see by what right you speak like this to me," she said with great hauteur. "I beg your pardon," said Eustace, with cold politeness. "I was wrong to do so." Lady Errington began to twist her marriage ring round and round, as if she wanted to pull it off, and a frown passed across her mobile face. Eustace, versed in the ways of her sex, knew that those signs betokened further remarks on her part, so he wisely said nothing, but waited for the outburst, which came exactly as he expected. "I am very fond of Guy," she asserted defiantly. "I would not have married him if I had not been fond of him. What makes you think I'm not? I suppose Aunt Jelly has been saying something?" "My dear Lady Errington," responded Gartney replacing, his cup on the table, "I had no right to speak as I did. I beg your pardon." "Please answer my question, Mr. Gartney," she said angrily, a red spot of colour burning on either cheek. "Has Aunt Jelly been saying anything?" Gartney was not the man to remain in any difficulty where a lie could help him out of it, so he replied to her question with the greatest deliberation. "Aunt Jelly has been saying nothing. The only reason that makes me speak is that you seem to me to be fonder of the baby than of your own husband." The murder was out, and he was prepared for a storm, but it did not come, as Alizon had quite as much self-control as himself. "Well, and what is wrong in that?" she said coldly. "I do love my child more than my husband, any mother would." "Isn't that rather hard on the husband?" "No! I do not see it! Of course, I love Guy very much--much more than he loves his child," she finished with a burst of passion. "I think Guy is very fond of the child," said Eustace quietly. "He is not," she replied angrily, rising to her feet; "he grudges every hour I spend with the boy. He would have me neglect the child in order to be always with him. But there, what is the use of talking?--neither you nor Guy can understand the feelings of a mother." This remark closed the discussion so far as Eustace was concerned, for he deemed it useless to argue with a woman who was so blind to everything except her maternal feelings, so he hastened to turn the conversation. "You are right there, Lady Errington," he said good-humouredly, "I am a bachelor, so know absolutely nothing about these things. But Guy looks a little knocked up, so I want to take him to town with me." "Oh, certainly," replied Alizon indifferently. "A run up to town will do him good. I want Guy to enjoy himself in every way. But now, Mr. Gartney, excuse me for a time, as I must go and see how the baby is getting on. Will you stay to dinner?" "No, thank you," said Eustace, rising and holding out his hand. "I have some letters to write this evening, but I will come over to-morrow and see you before I go back to town." "That's right," answered Lady Errington, smiling as she pressed his hand. "Goodbye at present. Come to-morrow, and I will show you the baby again." She went to the door, when it suddenly opened, and Guy entered. "Oh, here you are, Guy," she said sweetly, as he stood holding the door open for her to pass through, "I was just going to send for you. Mr. Gartney is going away." "And where are you going?" asked Guy, with a half-smile on his stern face. "Can you ask?" she said archly. "To the baby, of course." And with a laugh she vanished through the doorway, while Guy, with a scowl, pushed the door roughly to, and strode across the room to Eustace. "Well?" he demanded curtly. "Well," answered Eustace coolly, "I did what I could--but of course, my dear fellow, it's a very delicate matter, and really I had no right to interfere in any way." "What did she say?" demanded Guy roughly, turning as white as a sheet. "She said you had better go to Town with me," answered Gartney reluctantly. Guy burst out with a harsh laugh, and turned towards the window with a gesture of despair. "Good God! and I'm breaking my heart for that statue." CHAPTER XXIII. MRS. VEILSTURM'S "AT HOME." "I hate 'At Homes,' they're simply Inquisitions To torture human beings into fits; A mixture of plebeians and patricians, On whom in judgment Mrs. Grundy sits; Sonatas played by second-rate musicians, And milk-and-water jokes by would-be wits; Such squallings, scandals, crush of men and ladies-- It's like a family party down in Hades." As this was the first victory he had ever obtained over his egotistical nature, Eustace felt most unjustifiably proud, and viewed his actions with great self-complacency, therefore the good results of such victory merely became egotism in another form. His attitude towards Lady Errington had certainly altered, but not for the better, as the fantastic adoration he had formerly felt towards a vision of his own creation had changed to an earthly love for the real woman, in which there was mingled more of sensuality than platonism. Eustace was certainly not a coarse man in any sense of the word, but he had regarded the visionary Lady Errington so long as his own special property, withheld from him by the accident of her marriage with Guy, that when he saw the flesh-and-blood woman _riant_ in all her newly-found vitality, he viewed her as a Sultan might view a fresh odalisque added to his _serail_. The pale lily had changed into the rich red rose, and the spiritual being of his fevered imagination had taken the form of a beautiful woman, full of temptation to an ardent lover. Any sensible man would have seen from the short conversation he had had with Lady Errington that love for the child filled her heart to the exclusion of all else, but Eustace, with supreme egotism, deemed that she loved the child simply because her husband was not worthy of her affection and when he deigned to worship her she would certainly forget the pale passion of maternal love under the fierce ardour of his devotion. With this idea in his mind it was no wonder he felt that he was exercising great self-denial in trying to bring husband and wife together, and in renouncing his desire to gain possession of a woman for whom he felt an unreasoning admiration. However, being determined to carry out this new mood of asceticism to the end, he took Guy up to Town with him, and tried to amuse that moody young man to the best of his power, which was a somewhat unsatisfactory task. Seeing that he had abandoned his scheme to gain Alizon's love, he did not intend to speak to Mrs. Veilsturm, as he had now no desire to entangle Guy with another woman, but as he was going to an "At Home" given by Cleopatra, he did not hesitate to take his cousin with him in the ordinary course of things. Eustace knew more about Mrs. Veilsturm than she cared he should know, as he had met her at Lima, in South America, when she was--well, not Mrs. Veilsturm--and he judged a woman of her harpy-like nature would not strive to annex anyone but a rich man. Guy was not rich, so Eustace thought she would leave him alone--a most fatal mistake, as he had unconsciously placed Cleopatra's revenge within her grasp. Mrs. Veilsturm had neither forgiven nor forgotten the deadly insult offered to her by Lady Errington, but hitherto, owing to Guy's devotion to his wife, had been unable to entangle him in any way. Now, however, Fate was playing into her hands, and when she received a note from Eustace, asking if he might bring his cousin to the house in Park Lane she felt a savage delight at such a stroke of unforeseen luck, but, being too clever a woman to compromise her scheme in any way, wrote a cold reply to Mr. Gartney, telling him he could bring Sir Guy Errington--if he liked. Of course Eustace did like, and as Guy, who had quite forgotten all about the episode between Mrs. Veilsturm and his wife, listlessly acquiesced, they both arrived at Cleopatra's "At Home" somewhere about five o'clock. "I seem to remember the name," said Guy, as they struggled up the crowded stairs. "You certainly ought to," responded Eustace, "seeing that she is about the best-known person in Town." "Ah, but you see I'm a country cousin now," said Guy with a faint smile. "Hang it! what a crush there is here." "That's the art of giving an 'At Home,'" answered Eustace drily, "you put fifty people who hate one another in a room built to hold twenty, and when they're thoroughly uncomfortable you give them bad music, weak tea, and thin bread-and-butter. After an hour of these delights they go away in a rollicking humour to another Sardine Party. Oh, it's most amusing, I assure you, and--well, here we are, and here is Mrs. Veilsturm." Cleopatra had certainly not lost any of her charms, and looked as imperious and majestic as ever, standing in the centre of her guests, arrayed in a startling costume of black and yellow, which gave her a strange, barbaric appearance. There was no doubt that she wore too many diamonds, but this was due to her African love for ornaments, and with every movement of her body the gems flashed out sparkles of light in the mellow twilight of the room. A foreign musician, with long hair and pale face, was playing some weird Eastern dance on the piano as Eustace entered and bowed before her, and it suddenly flashed across his mind that this sensuously beautiful woman was quite out of place amid these cold English blondes and undecided brunettes. She ought to be tossing her slender arms in a tropical forest, to the shrill music of pipes and muffled throbbing of serpent-skin drums, whirling in the mystic gyrations of some sacred dance before the shrine of a veiled goddess. The sickly odour of pastilles, which she was fond of burning in her drawing-room, assisted this fancy, and he was only roused from this strange vision by the mellow voice of his hostess bidding him welcome, as she touched his hand with her slender fingers. "I am glad to see you, Mr. Gartney," she said, with a slow smile; "it is indeed kind of you to call so soon after your return. And your friend, whom you were to bring?" "Is here," replied Eustace, presenting his cousin, "Sir Guy Errington." Guy bowed, feeling somewhat bewildered at her rich loveliness, and, with a swift glance from under her heavy eye-lashes, she shook hands with him. "Mr. Gartney's friends are mine also--but you are welcome on your own account, Sir Guy." "You are very kind," answered Errington mechanically, "I think the obligation is on my side, however." "He's a fool," decided Mrs. Veilsturm in her own mind, as she looked at his fresh, simple face; "I can twist him round my finger, and I will, if it's only to spite his wife." At this moment Eustace was seized upon by Mr. Dolser, who was on the look-out for copy, and, much against his will, was dragged to the other end of the room by the pertinacious little man, leaving his cousin in conversation with Mrs. Veilsturm. The room was quite full of all sorts and conditions of men and women. Cleopatra knew everybody in the literary, artistic, and musical world, and they all came to her receptions, so that it was quite a treat to find somebody there who had done nothing. This happened on occasions when someone who had not done anything was brought to worship someone who had. There were plenty of lady novelists in all shades, from blonde to brunette, picking up ideas for their next three-volume publication; pale young poets, with long hair and undecided legs, who wrote rondels, triolets, and ballads, hinting, in wonderful rhyme, at things fantastical; dramatists, young and old, full of three-act plays and hatred of managers and critics. A haggard young man of the impressionist school drooped in a corner, discoursing of Art, in the newest jargon of the studios, to the last fashionable manageress, who did not understand a word he was saying, but pretended to do so, as she wanted him to paint her picture. Everyone present had an eye to business, and each was pursuing his or her aim with vicious pertinacity. "Mixed lot, ain't they?--yes!" said Mr. Dolser superciliously, when he had got the unhappy Eustace pinned up in a corner; "don't they cackle about themselves too--rather See that stout old party in the corner, in the damaged millinery--new novelist, you know--disease school--Baudelaire without his genius--wrote 'The Body Snatcher' --yes!--read it?" "No," responded Eustace, shortly, "and I don't intend to." "It is rather a corker for weak nerves," said "The Pepper Box" proprietor, affably; "there's Gibbles--perfect genius as critic; always slashes a book without reading it. He's destroyed more reputations than any one I know. Yes! Ah! fancy Maniswarkoffi being here--pianist, you know. English, only they wouldn't have him under his real name of Grubs, so he went abroad and dug up his present jawbreaker. Draws money now, and smashes two pianos a week--beautiful!" In this way Mr. Dolser artlessly prattled along, destroying a reputation every time he opened his mouth, much to the disgust of Gartney, who wanted to get away. "Excuse me," he said, in despair, "but I see a friend over there." "Ah! do you really?" replied Dolser, putting up his eyeglass. "Oh, Macjean, isn't it? Yes. Just come back from America. Had a row with pa because he wanted him to marry some Scotch lassie. Yes." "You seem to know all about it?" "Yes, yes; oh, yes. Business, you know--and by Jove! talking about that, I want an interview with you about your book." "Then you won't get one." "That's all you know," retorted Mr. Dolser. "What? You won't tell me anything? Never mind, I'll make up a few fairy tales. If they ain't true that's your look-out. Ta, ta! Look in 'The Pepper Box' next week. Jove! there's Quibbles. 'Cuse me, I want to ask about Bundy's divorce," and he disappeared into the crowd. It was no use being angry with the little man, as he was so very good-natured with all his impudence, so Eustace merely smiled, and moving across the room to Otterburn, touched him on the shoulder. "You here?" he said, in a tone of glad surprise. "I _am_ glad! I was just going away." "Not enjoying yourself?" observed Eustace, leaning against the wall. "Can any one enjoy himself here?" retorted Otterburn in disgust. "I'm tired of hearing people talk about themselves; and if they talk about anyone else----" "They abuse them thoroughly. My dear boy, it's the way of the world. By the way, you got my note about Victoria?" Otterburn coloured. "Yes; I'm very much obliged to you," he replied, in his boyish fashion. "If it is only true what you think, that she does care for me----" "Of course she cares for you." "It seems too good to be true." "Do you think so?" said Gartney, drily. "Oh, I beg your pardon. I forgot you are in love!" "Cold-blooded cynic," laughed Otterburn, "go thou and do likewise." "With your awful example before me--hardly," replied Mr. Gartney, with a kindly look in his eyes. "Did I tell you Errington is here to-day?" "No. Is he really?--and Lady Errington?" "Oh, she's in the country. But Errington seemed as if he wanted waking up, so I brought him to town with me." "By the way, how is Lady Errington?" "Very much changed--and for the better. My prophecy concerning the incomplete Madonna has come to pass. She is a mother now, and adores her child." "Indeed! And is she going to adore her child for the rest of her life?" asked Otterburn, flippantly. Eustace shrugged his shoulders. "I suppose so. She certainly can't adore her husband. Guy is a real good fellow, as I've always maintained, but no woman in the world would put him on a pedestal." "Poor Errington! Is he as fond of his wife as ever?" "Fonder, if possible." "Then I pity him!" said Macjean, emphatically--"I pity any man who gives his heart to a woman to play with." "Yet that is really what you propose to do with yours." "Not at all. I am going to ask Miss Sheldon to be my wife once more. If she accepts me, well and good, as I've no doubt we'll make an exemplary married couple. But if she refuses--well, I'm not going to wear my heart on my sleeve by any means. There is always Laxton, Africa, and good shooting." "All of which will console you for the loss of the woman you profess to adore. What a prosaic idea!" "A very sensible one, at all events," retorted Macjean, with a grim smile. "I've no fancy to play shuttlecock to any woman's battledore. Oh! there is Errington talking to our fair hostess." "Or rather, our fair hostess is talking to Errington." "Precisely. You shouldn't have led this unfortunate fly into the spider's parlour, Gartney." "Why not?" replied Eustace, superciliously. "I assure you the fly is all right. It is not rich enough for Mrs. Spider Veilsturm to seize on. She only cares for opulent flies." "I'm afraid I can't take your view of the situation, seeing what I now see." Gartney, moved by a sudden curiosity, looked sharply at Cleopatra, who was certainly putting forth all her fascinations towards Guy, and that gentleman, who had apparently forgotten his wife for the moment, was talking rapidly to her with a flushed face and considerable earnestness. Eustace was puzzled at this, and frowned amiably at the pair. "Now what the deuce is that for?" he muttered to himself. "I certainly did not ask her to fascinate him, and she has no reason to do so. Humph! Perhaps Fate is once more interfering. If so----Well, Otterburn?" But Otterburn had disappeared, and Eustace found that his place was taken by Dolly Thambits, attended by Mr. Jiddy, both gentlemen watching Mrs. Veilsturm over Gartney's shoulder. "Ah! how do you do, Thambits?" said Gartney, taking no notice of the Jiddy parasite. "I'm quite well," replied Dolly, whose mild face wore anything but a pleasant expression. "I say, who is he--the chap talking to Mrs. Veilsturm? He came with you, didn't he?" "Yes; that is Sir Guy Errington, my cousin and very good friend." "Oh!" returned Mr. Thambits, after a pause. "I thought he was married?" "Of course--married Miss Mostyn," murmured Jiddy, meekly. "Well, marriage isn't a crime," said Eustace, raising his eyebrows. "What is the meaning of the remark?" "Eh?" answered Dolly, vacantly, with another scowl at Cleopatra. "Oh, nothing only--oh, bother! they've gone into the next room. Come, Jiddy!" and the young man vanished into the crowd, accompanied by his umbra, leaving Eustace in a state of considerable bewilderment. "Is the boy mad," said that gentleman to himself, "or only jealous? The latter, I think. He sees it too. Confound it! What does it mean? She's surely not going to fight an enemy unworthy of her spear? Yet, I don't know. Women are strange creatures. She must have some reason. I'll go and see what Major Griff says about it." That redoubtable warrior, looking stiffer, airier, and more military than ever, was talking in his sharp voice to a ponderous gentleman somewhat after the Dr. Johnson type, who was listening attentively. "Yes, sir," the Major was saying, "I am growing tired of town. I think I'll take a run across to New York." "And Mrs. Veilsturm?" "I am not aware what Mrs. Veilsturm's plans may be," said Griff, in a frigid tone, "as she does not honour me with her confidence so far." The ponderous gentleman smiled meaningly, as he, in common with the rest of society, was beginning to doubt the platonic relationship said to exist between the Major and Cleopatra. Major Griff saw the smile, and, ever on the alert to defend Mrs. Veilsturm from the slightest breath of scandal, would have made some sharp remark, but at that moment Eustace touched him on the shoulder. "Excuse me, Major," he said courteously, "but could I speak to you for a few moments?" "Certainly, certainly," answered Griff, with great readiness. "Mr. Waldon, we will resume our conversation on some other occasion." He was always willing to oblige Eustace from motives of diplomacy, as he was well aware Mr. Gartney was to a certain extent behind the scenes, and judged himself and Cleopatra from a very different standpoint to that of the world. Eustace indeed knew that both Major Griff and his fair friend were neither more nor less than a couple of clever adventurers, but with indolent good nature he never imparted this opinion to any one, as he saw no reason to topple down the house of cards they had so laboriously built up. Besides, he hated the trouble which the exposing of the pair would entail, and, in his innermost heart deeming them not much worse than the rest of London society, he permitted them to continue their predatory career unchecked. The Major knew that Eustace would leave himself and partner alone, but was always scrupulously polite to him, so that nothing disagreeable should arise to mar the perfect understanding between them. "I'm glad to see you back again, Mr. Gartney," said the Major, mendaciously, when they were established in a comfortable corner out of earshot. "It's very kind of you to say so," responded Gartney, who quite appreciated and understood the sincerity of the remark, "I thought you would have been glad to have heard of my death in Arabia." "And why?" demanded Griff, warmly--"why, Mr. Gartney?" "Oh, if you don't know I'm sure I can't tell you," retorted Eustace, maliciously; "but don't trouble yourself to pay fictitious compliments, Major. I think we understand one another." "Of course," assented the Major, with great dignity; "between gentlemen there is always a sympathetic feeling." Gartney would have liked to have argued this point, but having no time to do so, he merely shrugged his shoulders, and resumed the conversation. "I brought my cousin, Sir Guy Errington, here to-day." "The devil you did!" ejaculated Griff, considerably astonished. Struck by the Major's tone, Eustace fixed his eyes keenly on him. "If you doubt me," he said coolly, "you will be convinced by going to the refreshment room, where, at present, he is in conversation with Mrs. Veilsturm." "Egad! she's got him at last," muttered Griff, pulling his grey moustache with an air of vexation. "What do you say?" asked Gartney sharply. Major Griff did not answer, being apparently in deep thought, but when Gartney addressed him the second time he had evidently made up his mind what course to pursue, and spoke accordingly. "It doesn't suit me," said the Major deliberately, "and I'm sure it won't suit you, nor your cousin, nor your cousin's wife." "It is as I thought," observed Eustace coolly; "there is something at the bottom of all this, therefore, if you will be less enigmatic, Major, I shall understand your meaning all the sooner." "I don't like to show my hand," remarked Griff, taking an illustration from his favourite pursuit, "but in this case I'll treat you as a partner and do so. I know why you want to speak to me." "Do you?" said Eustace imperturbably. "Yes! She"--referring to Mrs. Veilsturm--"is no doubt making the running with Sir Guy Errington to an extent which surprises you, and you want to know the reason." "Seeing that my cousin is not rich enough to tempt either Mrs. V. or yourself, I do," returned Eustace with brutal candour. Whereupon, the Major, like the daring old campaigner he was, told Gartney the whole story of the card episode, to which he listened attentively, and saw clearly the pit into which he had innocently led his cousin. "Well, Mr. Gartney," said Griff, when the story was finished and Eustace made no remark, "what do you say?" Eustace took out his watch and glanced at the time before replying. Then he replaced it in his pocket and answered the Major. "At present, I say nothing; later on, I may." "Oh, ho!" quoth Griff sharply, "then you have some idea----" "I have no idea whatever," replied Gartney sharply. "Your story was quite new to me. I brought my cousin here innocently enough, and if Mrs. Veilsturm thinks him sufficiently handsome to captivate, that's her business, not mine." He turned on his heel and went off, leaving Griff staring after him in the most astonished manner. "What does it mean?" pondered the old campaigner. "Oh! he doesn't seem to mind Maraquita playing the devil with his cousin, as she intends to. Now I shouldn't wonder," said the Major grimly, "I shouldn't wonder a bit if there was another lady mixed up in this affair." CHAPTER XXIV. "ON REVIENT TOUJOURS À SES PREMIÈRES AMOURS." "You have returned, I thought you would, Tho' you I spurned, You have returned; The lesson learned Will do you good. You have returned, I thought you would." When Otterburn disappeared so suddenly from the sight of his friend, he had gone straight across the room to where a slender girl dressed in a dark-green walking costume was standing near the door. "Can you remember an old friend, Miss Sheldon?" he said in a low voice. She turned round with a cry of surprise, flushing violently as she recognised him, and held out her hand with the greatest self-possession. "Of course Mr. Macjean! My memory is not quite so short as you think." They were both overcome by this unexpected meeting, but as the eyes of the world were on them they were perforce obliged to hide their emotions under a polite mask of indifference. No one, looking at this charming girl and this handsome young man, would have thought there was anything between them but the merest feelings of acquaintanceship. And yet they were both profoundly moved, and each, in some instinctive way, guessed the feelings of the other, although their greeting was so cold and studied. "I did not expect to meet you here," said Victoria in a friendly tone. "I suppose not," replied Otterburn politely, "as I only returned to Town about three weeks ago.' "You have been away?" "All over the world. Africa is the only place left for me to explore." "And I daresay you are thinking of going there next?" Otterburn laughed. "Perhaps! It all depends." "Upon what?" "Truth to tell, I hardly know," answered Macjean coolly. "Whims, fancies and desires of sport, I think." "He doesn't care a bit about me or he would not talk so coldly about going away," thought Victoria, with a sad feeling at her heart, but, being too proud to show her real feelings, merely laughed as she answered his remark. "There's nothing like enthusiasm! Well, Mr. Macjean, I'm glad to see you again." "Do you really mean that?" he said anxiously, "or is it only the conventional society phrase?" "Why should you think so?" replied Miss Sheldon in a displeased tone. "You know I always spoke my mind regardless of social observances." "I have not forgotten that," observed Otterburn quietly. "Candour is such a wonderful thing to meet with now-a-days, that anyone with such a virtue is sure to be remembered." "For nine days, I suppose? she said jestingly. "Yes! or eighteen months," he responded meaningly. Otterburn was evidently as audacious as ever in trespassing upon dangerous ground, so Victoria, although her heart beat rapidly at his last remark, deftly turned the conversation as she used to do in the old days. "You have an excellent memory, Mr. Macjean," she said gaily, "but you have forgotten that I have been standing for the last ten minutes, that you have not asked me to have a cup of tea, and that I'm both tired and thirsty." "A thousand pardons," said Otterburn, penitently offering his arm. "I plead guilty! As you are strong, be merciful." "To your failings, certainly! I've got too many of my own to refuse absolution. Oh, there's Miss Lossins going to sing. I can't bear these drawing-room songs, so let us go at once." She took his arm, and as they moved downstairs he felt a thrill run through his body at the light pressure of her hand. He felt inclined to speak boldly then and there, but a vague fear of the result withheld him, and in the presence of the woman he loved, Angus Macjean, man of the world as he was, felt like an awkward schoolboy. On her part, Victoria felt that she still had an influence on his life, and derived from this instinctive feeling a wonderful amount of pleasure, which could only have been engendered in her breast by a sentiment of reciprocity. Owing to some ridiculous feeling of pride, neither of them referred to Como during the whole of their conversation, as their parting at that place had been so painful, and although they were both thinking about it yet they talked of everything in the world except what was uppermost in their minds. They had thought of, dreamt of, loved, and desired one another all through these weary eighteen months, and now when they were together and a word would have removed all misunderstandings, neither the man nor the woman had the courage to utter it. At present, however, they were downstairs indulging in the slight dissipation of afternoon tea, and Victoria, knowing that Otterburn was still her admirer, was quite at her ease, talking gaily about everything and everyone. "This is awfully nice tea," she said, nodding her head to the Master. "Why don't you try some?" "I will, on your recommendation," he replied, taking a cup the maid was holding out, "but won't you have some cake?" "If there's some very curranty cake, I will," said Miss Sheldon gluttonously. "I'll have the brown outside piece." "Why should that be more desirable than any other piece?" said Macjean as she took it. "More currants in it! I'm fond of currants." "So it seems." "Now don't be severe. Let's talk about something else. Mr. Gartney, for instance." "Oh, he's here to-day." "Is he really? I thought it would be too frivolous for him. The Arabian desert is more in his style." "Well, judging from his book, the Arabian Desert is not entirely devoid of feminine interest." "Don't be horrid! It's a very charming book." "Nobody said it wasn't. But I'm astonished to hear you defend Gartney like this. You used to hate him." "No, no! I didn't exactly hate him, but I must say I didn't like him." "Isn't that splitting straws?" "Not at all," retorted Miss Sheldon gaily, "the two things are widely different. But to return to Mr. Gartney. He's really very nice." "I'm so glad you think so," said Otterburn gravely. "I'll tell him so." "No, don't," exclaimed Victoria, with genuine alarm. "I wouldn't have him know it for the world." "Why hide the Sheldon light under the Gartney bushel?" "You're talking nonsense, but you always did talk nonsense. But, good gracious, look at the time--six o'clock." "Oh, that clock's wrong." "So am I--in listening to you. Mr. Macjean, I must go. My chaperon will be waiting for me." "Who is your chaperon?" asked Otterburn, as they ascended the stairs. "Mrs. Trubbles?" "No! she's in the country. Now I am under the care of Mrs. Dills. Do you know her?" "Only as the wife of Mr. Dills." "She's a most amiable woman, but not pretty." "Curious thing, amiable women never are." "How cruel--to me." "Pardon! you are the exception----" "To prove your extremely severe rule! Thank you!" Talking in this light and airy manner, which was really assumed to hide their real feelings, Miss Sheldon and her lover arrived at the drawing-room, found Mrs. Dills, small, spiteful and vivacious, to whom Victoria introduced the Master, and then went off to say goodbye to Mrs. Veilsturm. When she returned, and Otterburn was escorting her downstairs in the train of Mrs. Dills he noticed a puzzled look on her face, and promptly asked the reason of it. She did not answer at first, but as they stood on the step, waiting for the carriage, suddenly asked him a question. "Who introduced Sir Guy Errington to Mrs. Veilsturm?" "Gartney did--to-day." "To-day," she repeated, in astonishment. "Why from their manner to one another I thought they were old friends." "Mrs. Veilsturm has such a sympathetic manner you see." "Yes, very sympathetic," replied Victoria, sarcastically. "But here is the carriage Goodbye, Mr. Macjean. Come and call on Aunt Jelly." "Certainly! I am anxious to make the acquaintance of Aunt Jelly." "So anxious that you delayed the pleasure by three months," replied Miss Sheldon laughing, as the carriage drove away, leaving Otterburn on the steps in a very jubilant frame of mind. When he had somewhat recovered his presence of mind, he went off to find Eustace, being so overburdened with his secret happiness that he felt it a necessity to speak to some one on the subject. Eustace knew all about his passion, Eustace had been a good friend in finding out Victoria's sentiments towards him, so Eustace was undoubtedly the proper person to speak to in this emergency. After a hunt of some moments' duration, he found Mr. Gartney in company with Errington, talking to Mrs. Veilsturm, and while the latter seemed flushed and excited, the face of the former wore an enigmatic smile. Mrs. Veilsturm herself had been aroused from her habitual languor, and was chatting gaily, while Major Griff, ostensibly talking to Dolly Thambits, was in reality looking at Errington with a frown. It was quite a little comedy, and Eustace alone possessed the requisite understanding to enjoy it, although from the studied expression of his face it was impossible to tell his real feelings. Otterburn touched Eustace on the shoulder, and drew him away from the group. "I say, I believe it's all right," he said, in a eager whisper. "What is all right?" asked Eustace, in a puzzled voice. "Oh, you know," replied Otterburn, with some disgust at his friend's density. "I met Miss Sheldon here, and--and I spoke to her." "Oh, that's it, is it?" observed Gartney, with a kindly smile. "I suppose I must congratulate you?" "Not yet. But I think it's all right," said Otterburn, repeating his first remark. "The way she talked, you know, and I talked also, and--and----" "And you're counting your chickens before they're hatched," said Gartney impatiently. "Don't be angry, Macjean," he added, seeing Angus looked annoyed, "it's only my fun! I think it will be all right--that is if she's forgiven you for the Como business." "Eh?" said Otterburn, obtusely. "I think it's she who requires to be forgiven." "I'm afraid you won't find her take that view of the question," replied Gartney cruelly. "In love, the woman is always right and the man everlastingly wrong." "What a dog-in-the-manger you are, Gartney," said Otterburn angrily, the brightness dying out of his face, "you won't love anyone yourself, or let anyone else do it. I tell you Miss Sheldon and myself understand one another. She asked me to call and see Aunt Jelly." "How delightful--for Aunt Jelly," remarked Eustace sarcastically. "I hope the pair of you won't indulge in sentiment before the old lady--she doesn't believe in it." "I'll take my chance of that," observed Angus cheerfully. "But I've got such a lot to tell you about Victoria. Come along with me to the Club." "Very well," replied Gartney, in a resigned manner. "It seems my fate to hear love confidences. I'll come as soon as I can persuade Guy to leave Mrs. Veilsturm, or rather as soon as I can persuade Mrs. Veilsturm to let Guy go." "It seems to me six of one and half a dozen of the other, as far as that goes," said Otterburn shrewdly. Eustace did not reply, but walked up to his cousin and the lady. "I'm afraid we must go, Mrs. Veilsturm," he said, smiling at Cleopatra. "Oh, it's early yet," remarked Cleopatra languidly. "Must you go, Sir Guy?" "I suppose so," answered Errington, looking at his watch. "Time, tide and dinner wait for no man. It's past six." "So like a man," laughed Cleopatra, "thinking of his dinner before everything else." "No, really," responded Errington, colouring at this rude remark, "but I've got an engagement, and I always like to be punctual." "In that case don't forget my 'At Home' next week," said the lady, with a bewitching glance. "Oh, no, I won't forget that," replied Errington coolly, much more coolly than Cleopatra liked, but she suppressed her anger at his nonchalance, and turned to Eustace. "Goodbye, Mr. Gartney, so good of you to have come to-day. Mr. Maclean, I've no doubt I'll see you to-night at Lady Kerstoke's dance. Sir Guy, I hope you will find your way here again. Goodbye, all of you," and then her attention was claimed by another batch of departing guests, while the three gentlemen went downstairs. "Well," said Eustace, with a sigh of relief, as they walked down Park Lane, "I must candidly confess I hate 'At Homes." "Oh, no," replied Otterburn, with his mind full of Victoria, "they're very jolly." "Oh, for the freshness of youth!" sighed Gartney, looking at the bright face of his companion. "Guy, what is your opinion?" "What about?" asked Errington, rousing himself from a fit of abstraction. "Mrs. Veilsturm?" "We were talking about 'At Homes,'" said Eustace, equably, "but as you've mentioned Mrs. Veilsturm, what is your opinion on that lady?" "She's very pleasant, but rather overpowering," was Errington's verdict. "And that's her reward for devoting the whole afternoon to you--'Oh, the ingratitude of man!'" "She's not a woman I would fall in love with," said Otterburn, with an air of having settled the question. "Nor I," echoed Sir Guy, so very resolutely that Eustace knew at once he was doubtful of his own strength of will. "Self righteous Pharisees, both," he said scoffingly, "you talk bravely, but if Cleopatra put forth her strength she could twist you both round her finger." CHAPTER XXV. FASCINATION. "Snake! snake! your treacherous eyes, Grow and deepen to marvellous skies, Stars shine out in the rosy space, Every star is a woman's face, Flushed and wreathed with amorous smiles, Drawing my soul with magical wiles, Vision! while I am rapt in thee, Death is coming unknown to me. Snake hath caught me fast in his toils, Round me winding his shining coils, Ah, from dreams with a start I wake, Thou host stung me, oh cruel snake." Most men of strongly imaginative natures are superstitious, and Gartney was no exception to the rule, his instinctive leanings in this direction having been strengthened to a considerable extent by his contact with the fatalistic dreamers of the East. He had travelled over a goodly portion of the world without having been infected by the habits or thoughts of the so-called civilized races but the many months he had dwelt among the descendants of Ishmael, had inoculated him imperceptibly with their strong belief in predestination. In fact, his adaptability to the ways and customs of the East, seemed, to himself, so marvellous, that he almost inclined to the theory of transmigration, and believed he had lived before amid these lonely deserts. At all events, his last sojourn among them had developed his instinctive vein of superstition in the strongest fashion, and he came back to England fully convinced that all things were preordained by the deity we call Fate. It was a very convenient doctrine, as it enabled him to blame a supernatural power for his own shortcomings, and when anything happened out of the ordinary course of events, he said "Kismet," like the veriest follower of Mahomet. With this belief, it was little to be wondered at that he believed he saw the finger of Fate intervening in the matter of his love for Lady Errington, and argued the question in this style: On his return to England, he had determined to abstain from seeing Alizon so as to keep out of the way of temptation, but Fate, in the person of Aunt Jelly, had forced him to meet her against his will in order to see if he could bring about an understanding between the young couple. Yielding to his passion, he had made up his mind to gratify it, but moved by the spectacle of Guy's misery, had gained a victory over himself, and strove to reconcile husband and wife. With this aim, he had taken Guy up to Town, thinking a short absence might be beneficial, but Fate for the second time interfered, and in the most innocent fashion in the world he (Fate's instrument) had delivered the young man into the power of his bitterest enemy, by introducing him to Mrs. Veilsturm. She hated Lady Errington, and would certainly do her best to estrange husband and wife still further, thus the field was left open to Eustace to declare his dishonourable passion. Twice, therefore, had he striven to conquer his feeling, and twice Fate had intervened, so that he now felt inclined to fight no longer. Had he given way to his present desires, he would have left Guy to the tender mercies of Cleopatra, and gone down to stay at Castle Grim from whence he would have been able to go over to Errington Hall daily and pay his court to Alizon. All feelings of honour, however, were not absolutely dead in his breast, so he determined to await the course of events and see if Mrs. Veilsturm would manage to subjugate Guy, in which case he determined to interfere. He knew quite enough about Mrs. Veilsturm, for his opinion to carry considerable weight with that lady, and although it was not a pleasant thing to step between a panther and its prey, yet he made up his mind to do so should occasion arise. But if Fate intervened for the third time, and rendered his trouble useless, Eustace felt in his own heart that further struggling against Destiny would be beyond his strength. At present, however, he had rather over-estimated the situation, as Guy was by no means the abject slave of Mrs. Veilsturm he deemed him to be. Love for Alizon, although but ill-requited, still had possession of Guy's whole being, and formed a safeguard against the dangerous assaults of Cleopatra. Errington was constantly in attendance on her, and she put forth all her arts to enmesh him in her toils, but although three weeks had now passed, she saw that she had not made much headway. Guy liked her for her kindly manner towards him, admired her for her beauty, felt flattered by her preference, but in reality was as heart-whole as when he first saw her, and had his wife lifted her little finger, he would have flown to her side without a moment's hesitation. Cleopatra was much too clever a woman not to see this, and felt rather nettled that any man should dare to withstand her charms. Moreover, being bent on separating Errington from his wife, she had a very powerful reason to do her best in reducing him to a state of bondage; therefore spared neither time nor trouble in attempting to do so. Errington's love for his wife, however, stood him in good stead, and despite the temptations to which he was subjected, he did not succumb in any way. Major Griff was by no means pleased with this new fancy of his friend and partner. As a rule, by dexterous management, he could make her do what he liked, but on some occasions she broke away from leading-strings, and did what she pleased. This present desire to captivate Errington was due, not to a feeling of love, but to the more powerful one of revenge, and Griff, being an astute reader of character, saw that in her present frame of mind he could do nothing with her. It was a terrible trouble to the Major that things should be like this, as during this season Rumour had once more been busy with Cleopatra's name, and to such a good purpose, that many doors hitherto open were now closed against her. Society began to talk of the number of men who had lost large sums of money at Mrs. Veilsturm's, hinted that the West Indian estates were a myth, and that Cleopatra was no better than an adventuress. Society suddenly discovered that it had been deceived, that a base woman had passed herself off as the purest of her sex, that it had nourished a viper in its bosom; so now Society, in righteous wrath, was prepared to denounce Mrs. Veilsturm and Major Griff with the bitterest vindictiveness from the house-tops. The storm had not broken yet, but could be heard muttering in the distance, and now this foolish passion of Cleopatra so openly displayed would accelerate the period of its bursting. The Major, having his eyes and ears open on every possible occasion, saw all this, and took measures to secure a safe retreat in case of an unexpected collapse of the London campaign. America was to be the next field of the firm's operations, and both the Major and his fair friend had determined to signalize their departure by a grand fancy dress ball, to which friends and foes alike were to be invited, after which they could depart with flying colours to New York. This little scheme had been very nicely arranged, but unluckily this Errington affair threatened to upset the whole business. Knowing she had very little time at her disposal, and being determined to ruin Guy's life if she possibly could, Cleopatra went beyond all the bounds of prudence, and blazoned her preference for Errington so very openly that everyone was scandalized. In vain the Major implored Cleopatra to be cautious and not ruin everything by her mad folly; but, carried away by a fierce feeling of revenge against Lady Errington, she merely laughed at his entreaties and prosecuted her scheme of entangling Guy with redoubled ardour. Major Griff spoke to Eustace, thinking he could stop the affair by taking his cousin away, but Gartney, being determined to leave the matter in the hands of Fate, simply shrugged his shoulders and said he could do nothing. Being therefore unable to do anything, the Major could only look on in a cold fury at Cleopatra striving to ruin herself, Errington, and himself in a fit of mad anger. Mrs. Veilsturm's intimate friends were also very indignant about what they pleased to call her infatuation, little dreaming of the real reason of this sudden passion. It was only the Major's influence over Mr. Dolser that kept the affair out of the scurrilous pages of "The Pepper Box," but although it had not appeared in print, the whole affair was an open secret. Dolly Thambits, who was in love with Cleopatra, was furious at the way in which he was neglected, but this kind of treatment only made him all the more in love with his disdainful mistress, much to the relief of Griff, who was afraid that the boy would escape from his toils. In the midst of this whirl of rage, envy, and revenge, Guy, seeing no special favour in Cleopatra's condescension, was quite cool and composed, being the most unconcerned person of the whole lot. Of course, no one dared to speak to him about the real facts of the case, and of the enmity he had provoked, so he remained in complete ignorance, anxiously awaiting for a letter from his wife asking him to return. That letter never came, however, for Alizon was perfectly happy with her baby, and missed Errington no more than if he had been a stock or stone. She knew nothing of the perils to which her husband was exposed, and, curiously enough, none of her London friends wrote and told her, else she might have been for once startled from the serene pleasures of motherhood. According to his promise, Otterburn called upon Aunt Jelly, and was graciously received by that strong-minded lady, who took a great fancy to him. As yet, he had not spoken outright to Victoria, but still the young couple understood one another, and such understanding was approved of by Miss Corbin, who saw in Otterburn the very husband she would have chosen for her ward. So Otterburn called on the old lady pretty often, and brought her all the news of the town, while Victoria, feeling completely at rest concerning her lover, listened quietly. All her ideas of making Otterburn propose, and then refusing him out of revenge, had quite vanished, as she was now passionately in love with him, and according to the position now strangely altered since those old days at Como, it was for her to crave and for him to grant. Otterburn, however, knew nothing of this, but wooed in all honour and timidity, while Aunt Jelly, like a good but grim cherub, looked on in silent approval. It was during one of Otterburn's visits, that by chance he let fall something of what was going on between Mrs. Veilsturm and Guy, whereupon the old lady, having an eye like a hawk, immediately saw that something was going on of which she knew nothing. With this idea she waited till Maclean departed, and then put Victoria through her facings, with the result that she found out all about it and was terribly wroth against her nephew. Eustace called to see her, and she spoke to him about it, but Eustace point-blank refused to interfere again, saying he had done his best, but could now do no more. Aunt Jelly, therefore, being alarmed, not only for the happiness but for the respectability of the Errington household, wrote a note to Guy, asking him to call. Having despatched this, she worked herself up into such a fury over the whole affair that she took a fit, and for some time was in danger of dying, but her indomitable spirit asserted itself, and with iron determination she arose from her bed of sickness to see her nephew. It was a fight between Cleopatra and Aunt Jelly for possession of Guy, but all this time Guy had no more idea of playing his wife false, than he had of returning Mrs. Veilsturm's openly-displayed passion. CHAPTER XXVI. AUNT JELLY INTERFERES. "What vows you made at the marriage altar, For better and worse, to take your wife; Yet at the moment of need you falter, Quail at rumours of coming strife. Nay, it were wiser to cling and cherish, Altho' things evil be said and done; If in the future you both should perish, Husband and wife should be lost as one." Aunt Jelly was looking very pale and ill on the day she elected to see Guy in order to expostulate with him on the wild way in which he was behaving. She was suffering from a very serious disease connected with the heart, and Dr. Pargowker warned her against any undue excitement, as it might prove fatal. He was seated with her now, a fat, oily man of the Chadband species, and talked about her ill-health in his usual unctuous manner. In her accustomed chair sat Miss Corbin, looking worn with illness, but as grim and defiant as ever, while the doctor standing near her felt her pulse with one hand, and held his watch with the other. Minnie, ever watchful of her patroness's comfort, hovered round like an unquiet spirit, bringing all sorts of unnecessary things, which made Aunt Jelly very irritable and led her to say unpleasant things to Miss Pelch which reduced the poetess to tears. "Well?" said Miss Corbin sharply, when Dr. Pargowker had finished with her pulse, "what do you say? Is this illness serious?" The doctor lifted one fat white hand in gentle protest, and resumed his seat with a comfortable sigh. "No, dearest lady, no," he said in his heavy, soft voice, "do not I beg of you think you are so bad as all that. You remind me, if I may be permitted to make the comparison, of a dear friend of mine who departed----" "Bother your dear friend!" snapped Aunt Jelly in her grimmest manner. "I didn't ask you here to tell me other people's histories. I want to know about my own state of health." Dr. Pargowker folded his chubby hands complacently on his rotund stomach and meekly ventured a protest against this language. "Do not, oh dearest lady," he said unctuously, "do not excite yourself like this. It is bad for you, dearest lady, very bad." "Very bad, dear Miss Corbin," echoed Minnie tearfully. "And might lead to complications," pursued the doctor, shaking his head. "Complications," echoed Miss Pelch, putting her handkerchief to her eyes. "Minnie," said Aunt Jelly politely, "you're getting a bigger fool every day. Have the goodness to hold your tongue and not talk of things you know nothing about. Dr. Pargowker, if you will kindly leave off nodding your head like a Chinese mandarin, and tell me straight out what you mean, I should feel obliged." "Dearest lady," growled the doctor, "it is useless to conceal from you the painful fact that you are very ill." "I know that sir," retorted Aunt Jelly coolly, "go on." "You must avoid all undue excitement, such as dances, theatres, and seeing friends." "I haven't been to a dance for the last twenty years," said Miss Corbin wrathfully, "and as for a theatre, I've got no time to waste on that rubbish. What do you mean by talking such nonsense to me?" "Easily upset, I see," murmured Pargowker, apparently to himself, "very easily upset." "Wouldn't you like a little pillow for your head, dear Miss Jelly?" said Minnie, holding one over Miss Corbin as though she were going to play Othello to the old lady's Desdemona. "I'd like a little common sense," retorted Miss Corbin, pushing away the pillow, "but it seems I'm not likely to get it." "Be calm, dear lady, be calm," observed Dr. Pargowker, nodding his head. "If you will permit me, I will write out a prescription." "Pen, ink, and paper, Minnie!" ordered Aunt jelly, glaring at the doctor. The obliging Minnie flew to obtain these necessaries, and having done so, placed them on a little table near the physician, who wheeled his chair round and began to write. Aunt Jelly and Dr. Pargowker were old friends, and never parted without a fight, which, however, was principally conducted by Miss Corbin, as the doctor resolutely kept his temper, and always left the room as bland, cool, and unruffled as when he entered it. In spite of his round-about way of putting things, Pargowker was really very clever at his profession, and Aunt Jelly reposed the utmost confidence in his power, although she never could resist using her sharp tongue on him when occasion offered, and as it did so now, Aunt Jelly began to talk, showing thereby that she was not so ill as she seemed. "Lord knows how you get patients," she said, folding her bony hands, "it's all chat with you and nothing else." "Dear, dear," murmured Pargowker, going on placidly with his writing, "this is bad, very, very bad." "Are you talking about your prescription, or yourself?" snapped Miss Corbin, dauntlessly. "I daresay they're much of a muchness. If one doesn't kill me, I've no doubt the other will." "Pardon me, dearest lady," said the doctor, smiling blandly, "you are in error. This prescription will do you a great deal of good. Oh, we will pull you round, yes--yes. I think I may venture to say we will pull you round." "Pull me round or square, it's easily seen I'm not long for this world," replied Miss Corbin. "Oh, do not speak like that, Miss Jelly," whimpered Minnie, "you will get quite well, I'm sure of it." "Aye! aye!" remarked Pargowker, folding up his prescription. "While there's life, there's hope." "Don't quote your proverbs to me," said Aunt Jelly, determined not to be pleased by anything, "they're nothing but traditional lies; but seriously speaking, doctor, if you can speak seriously, which I'm very much inclined to doubt, I want to see my nephew, Sir Guy Errington, to-day." "No! dearest lady, no!" said Pargowker, rising from his seat, and raising one hand in protest, "pardon me, no!--the very worst person you could see!" "If you knew him as well as I do, you might well say that," replied Miss Corbin, malignantly, "but I must see him. It's imperative." "If you will not excite yourself----" "I'm not going to excite myself," retorted Aunt Jelly, "but I'm going to excite him." Dr. Pargowker took up his hat and buttoned his coat with the air of a man who washed his hands of the whole affair. "If you attend to my orders," he said, speaking more sharply than was usual with him, "you will see no one. But I know you of old, Miss Corbin. You expect to be cured, but won't do what you're told." "Good Heavens!" ejaculated Aunt Jelly, with feeble merriment. "Have you taken to poetry also? The idea is good, doctor, but the poetry is worse than Minnie's." "Oh, Miss Jelly!" murmured Minnie, in tearful protest. "Well, well," said Pargowker, good-humouredly, shaking hands with Miss Corbin, "poetry or not, dear lady, do what I tell you. Keep yourself calm, see no one, take this prescription, and I think, yes, I think you will be quite safe." "I've no doubt about it," cried Aunt Jelly, as he paused at the door, "safe for the nearest cemetery. Go along with you, doctor. I tell you I've made up my mind to see my nephew. It's a case of life and death." "Certainly with you, dear lady--certainly with you," said Dr. Pargowker emphatically. "Miss Pelch, will you honour me by seeing me to the door?" "You want to talk about me behind my back," said Miss Corbin, suspiciously. "It's no use. I'll make Minnie tell me everything." She darted a threatening look at that young lady, which made her shake, and then Minnie disappeared through the door, while the doctor prepared to follow, first giving a parting word to his refractory patient. "It's no use, dear lady," he said, with playful ponderousness, "calling in the doctor if you don't intend to obey him." "I never obeyed anyone in my life," said Aunt Jelly, stiffening her back, "and I'm certainly not going to begin with you." "Dearest Miss Corbin, I am in earnest." "So am I," retorted the old lady, frowning. "There! there! go away, I'll do everything you tell me, but I must see my nephew to-day." Dr. Pargowker sighed, yielded to stern necessity, and spoke. "Well, you can do so, my dear, old friend, but only for five minutes--only for five minutes." "Quite enough for all I've got to say." The doctor looked waggishly at Miss Corbin, in order to keep up her spirits, but his face grew very grave as he spoke to Minnie at the door. "She must not see anyone," he said emphatically, "mind that, Miss Pelch. I was obliged to say she could speak to Sir Guy Errington for five minutes, as she grows so excited over being contradicted. If he does come, let her see him for that time, but don't let her grow excited. I'll call in again to-night, to see how she is." "Is she very ill?" asked Minnie in dismay. "So ill," said Pargowker, putting on his hat, "that if she's not kept absolutely quiet, she won't recover." "Oh!" said Miss Pelch in an alarmed tone, and would have asked more questions, only Dr. Pargowker was already in his brougham, on his way to another patient. Minnie returned to the drawing-room, with a cheerful face, so as not to let Miss Corbin see her feelings, but that indomitable lady was determined to have the truth, and tackled her at once. "Well, what did he say?" she demanded, sharply. "Only that you were to keep yourself quiet, dear Miss Jelly," replied Minnie, taking up her work, a green parrot being embroidered on a red tree, against a yellow ground and a purple sky. "What else?" "Nothing!" "Minnie, you are deceiving me," said Aunt Jelly solemnly. "I can see it in your face. Do you think it's right to deceive a dying person?" "You're not dying," whimpered Minnie, beginning to cry. "I'm not far off it, at all events," retorted Miss Corbin, with a sigh. "I know my own constitution quite as well as that fool of a doctor, and I'm pretty sure I won't get well this time." "Oh, but you will--you will," cried Minnie, weeping. "Pooh! nonsense, child," said Miss Corbin, kindly, "don't waste your tears over an old woman like me. I've had a long life, but by no means a happy one. Quantity not quality, I suppose. If I can only see Victoria engaged to that nice Macjean boy, and persuade my nephew out of his folly, I'll not be sorry to go." "Dr. Pargowker said you were not to see Sir Guy longer than five minutes, Miss Jelly." "Quite long enough." "And were not to excite yourself." "There, there, Minnie!" said Miss Jelly, impatiently. "I'll take good care of myself, you may be sure. What time did Sir Guy say he would be here?" "Four o'clock, dear Miss Corbin." "It's nearly that now," observed Aunt Jelly, looking at the clock. "I hope he won't keep me waiting. Young men are so careless now-a-days. Miss Sheldon has gone out?" "Yes! to the Academy with Mrs. Trubbles and Mr. Macjean." "Neither of whom know anything about pictures. It means flirting, not art, I've no doubt. Well! well, we must not be too hard on the young. Let me leave the world in peace, that's all I ask." Minnie put down her work, and came close to Miss Corbin, whose thin cold hand she took in her own. "Dear Miss jelly, don't talk like that," she said, softly, "indeed you will get well, I'm sure you will." "No, child, no!" "Oh, but, yes," persisted her companion, fondly. "Why, whatever would I do, if you did not live to read my little volume?" "Oh, it's coming out, then?" said Aunt Jelly, grimly, with a flash of her old spirit. "Yes, Mr. Gartney has arranged it all. I was going to keep it a secret, but when you talk about dying, I can't," and poor Minnie fairly broke down, which touched Aunt Jelly more than she liked to acknowledge. "There! there!" she said, touching Minnie's face, with unaccustomed tenderness, "you're a good child, Minnie. Tell me all about this poetry book." "It's going to be called 'Heart Throbs and Sad Sobs, by Minnie Pelch,'" said the poetess, radiantly, "'dedicated to Miss Angelica Corbin, by her sincere friend, the Authoress.'" Aunt Jelly was silent for a few minutes, feeling, rather a choking in her throat. She had laughed at poor Minnie's simple rhymes on many occasions, and now the poetess had returned good for evil, paying her the high compliment of inscribing her name on the front of the book. Minnie mistook her silence for indignation at not having asked permission, and tried to pacify the old lady. "I hope you're not angry," she said, timidly smoothing Aunt Jelly's hand, "but I wanted to surprise you by the dedication. There's a poem about you too, Miss Jelly, and I think it's the best in the book--really the best." The old lady was so touched by Minnie's poor little attempt to propitiate her, that she could not trust herself to speak, and when she did there were tears rolling down her hard old face, as she bent down and kissed her. "It's very good of you, child," she said, in a tremulous voice, "and I feel very much honoured, indeed. Perhaps I've not been so kind to you as I ought to have been. "Oh, but you have!--you have!" cried Minnie, throwing herself on her knees, with tears in her eyes. "If it had not been for you, I would have starved, dear Miss Jelly. Indeed, I would. It is so hard to get paid for poetry. And you have been such a kind, good friend--such a kind good friend!" "If I have spoken harshly to you, dear, on occasions," said Aunt Jelly, brokenly, "it was from no want of feeling. Age, my dear Minnie, age, and an embittered nature. But the heart was there, my dear, all the time the heart was there." "I know it was!--I know it was!" wept Minnie, patting the withered hand of her old friend. "I have never doubted that." "Yes! yes!" muttered the old dame dreamily, "the heart was there." And there was silence for a few minutes, only broken by the sobs of Minnie, then Aunt Jelly recovered her usual manner with an effort, and ordered wine and cake to be placed on the table. Miss Pelch had barely time to do this, when there came a ring at the front door, and shortly afterwards Sir Guy Errington entered the room. Aunt Jelly, now quite her own grim self, received her nephew coldly, and then sent Minnie out of the room, as she wanted to talk to Sir Guy in private. Miss Pelch, however, mindful of the doctor's order, did not go far, but waited in the hall, so as to be ready to enter when the five minutes had expired. Guy looked rather haggard about the face, as he sat down near his elderly relation, which Aunt Jelly put down to fast living, although, in reality, it was due to worrying about his wife. This idea did not make her feel very tenderly towards Errington, and she prepared herself to do battle. "So you've come at last?" she said, straightening her back, and folding her hands on her knees. "I came as soon as you sent for me," answered Guy, quietly. "You should have come without an invitation," said Aunt Jelly, with a frown, "but young men of the present day seem to take a delight in neglecting those nearest and dearest to them." This was said pointedly, with a view to drawing forth some remark about Alizon, but Guy did not take it in that sense. "I don't want to neglect you, aunt," he said moodily, "but our conversations are not so pleasant that I should look forward to them." "I only speak for your good." "People always do that when they make disagreeable remarks," replied Errington sarcastically. "You're not looking well to-day, Aunt Jelly." "I don't feel well either," responded his aunt shortly. "I'm dying." "Oh, no, don't say that," said Guy, heartily shocked at her remark. "But I will say it," retorted Miss Corbin, nodding her head vigorously, "and I'll say something else too that you won't like." "I've no doubt you will," answered Guy crossly, rising to his feet. "Look here, Aunt Jelly, you're not well to-day, and if you brought me here to quarrel, I'm not fit for it." "You're fit for nothing in my opinion except the Divorce Court," said Aunt Jelly viciously. "Sit down." "I don't know what you mean by talking about the Divorce Court," answered Errington calmly, obeying her command. "Think and see." "What's the good of my doing that?" cried Errington angrily, "I don't know what you mean." "Don't shriek," said Miss Corbin coolly, "it goes through my head." "I beg your pardon aunt," replied Guy politely, "but if you would tell me what you're driving at I would feel obliged." Aunt Jelly sat in silence for a moment, rapping the fingers of one hand on the knuckles of the other, then spoke out sharply. "What's all this talk about you and Mrs. Veilsturm?" Guy sat bolt upright in his chair and stared at her in amazement. "Oh, is that it?" he said with a short laugh. "Don't worry your head about Mrs. Veilsturm, aunt. All the world can know the relations that exist between us." "All the world does know." Errington arose from his seat with a smothered ejaculation, and thrusting his hands into his pockets, began to walk backwards and forwards. "You needn't use bad language, my dear Guy," said Aunt Jelly, with aggravating placidity. "All I want to know is what you mean by leaving your wife and running after Mrs. Veilsturm?" "I'm not running after Mrs. Veilsturm," said her nephew angrily, "and I've not left my wife. I'm simply up in Town for a spell, and have called once or twice to see a very pleasant woman." "A very pleasant woman, indeed," sneered Aunt Jelly scornfully. "If you think so badly of her, I wonder you let your ward go near her." "I don't know anything against the woman's character," replied Miss Corbin, "so there's no reason I should keep Victoria away. I daresay she's as bad as the rest of them, and conceals it better. But that's nothing to do with my question. It has come to my ears that you are paying marked attentions to Mrs. Veilsturm, and I want to know if it is true." "No, it is not true?" answered Errington slowly. "I have been a great deal with Mrs. Veilsturm since I came up to Town, but that was simply because she asked me to visit her, and without being absolutely rude, I could not refuse." "A very nice explanation," said his aunt disbelievingly, "but do you think it is one your wife will accept?" "My wife knows nothing about my visits to Mrs. Veilsturm." "Indeed she does," replied Aunt Jelly coolly. "I wrote and told her all about them." Guy's face grew as pale as that of a corpse, and he stared at Miss Corbin as if he had been turned into stone. At length, with an effort, he arose to his feet and repeated her answer in a harsh, strained voice. "You wrote and told her all about them?" "Yes! I did not think your conduct was right, so, as your wife has most influence with you, I wrote and told her to call you back to Ellington." All the blood in his body seemed to surge up into his head with the violent effort he made to suppress his anger. Had it been any one else but this feeble old woman, he would have simply let his passion master him, but in this case, with such an adversary he could do nothing. "God forgive you, Aunt Jelly," he said at length, "you've done a cruel thing," and he turned and walked slowly to the door. "I have done what was right," said Miss Corbin bravely. "You were deceiving your wife, and I was determined she should know of your deception." Sir Guy turned towards her as he paused at the door, and when she finished speaking, answered her slowly and deliberately. "You are quite wrong. I was not deceiving my wife, as I can prove to you. As you know, my wife has treated me very cruelly during the last year, and neglected me in every way, giving all her love to the child. Eustace came down the other day, and advised me to leave my wife for a few weeks, thinking she would not be so indifferent on my return. I took his advice and came up to Town. Eustace took me to Mrs. Veilsturm, and finding her a very pleasant woman, I simply went there in order to amuse myself. But as for caring about her, I love and respect my wife and my name too much to degrade myself so far. Unluckily, until the other day, I did not remember that Alizon disliked Mrs. Veilsturm, because she was mixed up with her father in some way, and forbade her to visit at the Hall. Had I remembered this, I would not have gone there, but it's too late now to think of it. By believing all these malicious stories, which I give you my word of honour have no foundation, and writing to her, she will believe that I went to see this woman on purpose, and she will never forgive me. I am going down to the Hall by to-night's train, and will try and explain everything to her, but I'm afraid she will not believe me. No doubt you acted for the best, Aunt Jelly, but in doing so you have simply ruined my life." "Guy! Guy!" moaned the old woman, who had listened to all this with a sense of stunned amazement. "Forgive me! I did it for the best, but I will write again and tell her how wrong I have been." "It is too late," he replied sadly, "too late." "No, it's not too late, Guy. But forgive me! forgive me!" Errington looked at her coldly. "If my wife forgives me I will forgive you," he answered, and left the room. Aunt Jelly stared at the closed door, and strove to call him back, but her voice died in her throat, a mist came before her eyes, and overwhelmed by the fatal discovery she had made, and the excitement she had undergone, she fell back in a dead faint. CHAPTER XXVII. THE DEITY CALLED FATE. "Believe me, sir, the deity called Fate, Is stronger than the strongest of us all, Fate! Fortune! Destiny! what name you will! We are the sport of some malignant power, Who twists and turns the actions of our lives, In such strange fashion that our best intents --Not evil in themselves--breed evil things, And wreck our fairest ventures, tho' we strive To bring them holily to some quiet port." On leaving Miss Corbin's house Errington's first impulse was to drive straight to the railway station, catch the six-thirty train, and go down to the Hall at once, in order to explain matters to his wife. A moment's reflection, however, convinced him that this would be a foolish thing to do, as he could not possibly reach home before eight o'clock, and his late arrival at such an hour without being expected would be sure to cause comment among the servants. They already guessed more of the strained relations between himself and his wife than he liked, so in order to avoid the slightest chance of any further remark being made, he determined to go down to Denfield next day in the ordinary course of things. He therefore drove back to his hotel, and while dressing for dinner pondered deeply as to the best course to pursue with Alizon. On this night he was engaged to dine with Macjean at the Soudan Hotel, and recollected that his cousin was to be of the party. Eustace was a man in whom he had a profound belief, and frequently deferred to his cousin's judgment in delicate matters, so on this present occasion he made up his mind to speak to Gartney, whose clear head would doubtless be able to solve the problem. It was true that Mrs. Veilsturm expected him to call for her at the Marlowe Theatre, where she had a box. But the idea of being in her company again after what had transpired was too much for him, so he hastily scribbled a note excusing himself on the plea of sudden indisposition, and sent it off to Park Lane by a special messenger. "Macjean and Laxton can go to the theatre as arranged," he thought, as he went slowly down the stairs, "and I'll make Eustace take me to his rooms, where we can talk over things at our ease." With this determination he jumped into a hansom and drove off to the Soudan Hotel in Piccadilly, where he found Otterburn waiting for him in company with Laxton. "Where's Gartney?" asked the Master after greeting his friend, "he promised to be early." "Eustace's promises are like pie crust," replied Errington, giving his cloak and hat to the waiter, "made to be broken." "You look very broken yourself," remarked Macjean meditatively, as the gaslight fell on Guy's face. "What is the matter? Have you had bad news? Will you have a glass of sherry?" "Nothing is the matter," replied the baronet categorically. "I have not had bad news, and I will take a glass of sherry." He really felt very worried over the position in which he now found himself regarding his wife, but it was better he should dine in company than alone, as a solitary meal would only make matters appear much worse than they really were. Besides he was going to consult Eustace, who, he felt certain, would advise him for the best, so he put the best face he could on the matter, and chatted gaily over his sherry to the two young men while waiting for his cousin. Presently Eustace, cool, calm and unconcerned, arrived, with a large appetite and an apology for being late. "I've got a man who is in the habit of mislaying things," he explained as they all sat down to dinner, "he mislaid his brains when he was born, and hasn't found them yet, so I suffer in consequence. No sherry for me, thank you! Water, please!" "Ugh, London water," groaned Laxton, holding up his sherry to the light. "Water," remarked Mr. Gartney sententiously, "is the purest of all elements." "Not in town," retorted Macjean with a grimace. "I don't believe in Adam's wine." "No Scotchman ever did as far as I know," said Eustace drily. "Presbyterian wine is what you all prefer north of the Tweed." "And a very good idea too," observed Guy, contributing his quota to the conversation, "especially on wet days." "That's why such a lot of whisky is consumed in the Land o' Cakes," explained Eustace gravely, "it's always wet up there. Scotch mist and Scotch whisky invariably go together." "This," remarked Laxton, alluding to the conversation, "is not a teetotol meeting." "No one could possibly accuse it of being that," retorted Gartney, with a significant glance at the full glasses, "but if you three gentlemen don't mind talking, I'll eat in the meantime. The Soudan cook is a good one, the Gartney appetite is a large one, so thank God for all His mercies and leave me to pay attention to the good things of this life." His three friends laughed at his humorous way of putting things, and devoted themselves to the fish. The conversation went on in a more or less frivolous fashion, the last scandal, the blunders of the Cabinet, the new novel of the realistic school, the prospects of a war in the East--all these were discussed in their turn by the quartette, and then Laxton began to argue with Otterburn about the African expedition, so seizing the opportunity Guy bent forward to speak to Eustace. "I want to talk to you after dinner," he said in a low voice. "Certainly," replied Gartney carelessly, "but will you have time? What about the theatre?" "I've changed my mind," said Guy quickly, "so I sent an excuse to Mrs. Veilsturm. Have you anything particular to do? If not we can go to your rooms. I won't detain you long." Eustace flashed a keen look on his cousin, and paused a moment before replying: "I was going to look in at one or two drawing-rooms to-night," he said at length, "but as my engagements really aren't very particular, I'll not trouble about them, so I will be at your disposal." "Thank you," answered Guy, drawing a long breath. "Nothing wrong, I hope?" "Well that is as it turns out. I saw Aunt Jelly to-day." "Ah!" said Eustace in a significant tone, knowing that an interview with Aunt Jelly always meant trouble of some sort. "I think I can understand. However, let us go on with our meal. Pleasure and appetite first, business and Aunt Jelly afterwards. What are those two boys fighting about?" The two boys were still engaged in the African argument, and had arrived at a dead lock, each being firmly convinced in his own mind that his view of the subject was the right one. "You're all wrong, I tell you," said Otterburn hotly, "you're talking just like you did at Montana. Africa isn't America." "Nobody said it was," returned Laxton ungracefully, "but I daresay the sport is very much the same in both places. Africa is not a new planet." "You might as well say that potting walrus in the Arctic regions is the same as jungle shooting in India." "It's merely a matter of temperature," declared Laxton decidedly. "Oh, if you pin your faith to the thermometer, I've nothing more to say," replied Otterburn, throwing himself back in his chair with the air of a man who has crushed his opponent. "I haven't the least idea what you are talking about," observed Eustace leisurely, "and judging from what I've overheard you both seem to be in the same predicament." "We'll discuss it later on," said Otterburn gaily. "What a pity I can't come out with you to Africa, Laxton, and settle the argument that way." "Well, why don't you come?" demanded Laxton quickly. Otterburn reddened and laughed in an embarrassed fashion, while Eustace threw a roguish glance at him, and made answer for the bashful lover. "Don't you bother your head, Laxton There are more important things than shooting expeditions in this world--at least, Otterburn thinks so." Laxton was quite in the dark regarding the meaning of these mystic utterances, when it suddenly dawned on him that the lady whom Otterburn had spoken about in America might have something to do with the turn the conversation had taken, and lifted his glass with a smile as he looked towards Macjean. "To the health of the something more important than shooting expeditions," he said gravely, and finished the wine. "Thank you," responded Otterburn laughing. "May I some day drink the same health to you?" "Never!" "Never's a long time." "And talking about time," remarked Guy, glancing at his watch, "if you two boys have any idea of the theatre to-night you'll have to be off." "Aren't you coming too?" chorussed Otterburn and his comrade. "No! I received an important piece of news to-night, about which I wish to speak to my cousin." "What will Mrs. V. say?" asked Laxton gaily. "Who can foretell a woman's remarks?" said Eustace quizzically, seeing that Guy was disinclined to speak. "Depends upon how much you know of the woman," responded Otterburn smartly. "Woman," retorted the cynic, "is an unknown quantity." "What about quality?" "This conversation," said Eustace, looking at his glass of water, "is getting problematic. After dinner is a bad time to solve puzzles, therefore--coffee." It seemed a good suggestion, so they all adjourned to the smoking-room, and indulged in further conversation while they enjoyed their coffee and cigarettes. Shortly afterwards Otterburn and his friend departed for the Marlowe Theatre, while Eustace in company with Guy went off to his rooms in Half Moon Street, Piccadilly. Used as he was to hardships in foreign lands, Eustace always took care to make up for his deprivations by making himself very comfortable at home, consequently his rooms left nothing to be desired in the way of luxury. His valet was well accustomed to his master coming in at all kinds of unexpected times, consequently when they arrived the room was well lighted, the chairs disposed in tempting corners, and a spirit-stand with glasses and soda-water stood ready for any thirsty soul. Eustace placed his cousin in a well-cushioned chair, gave him an excellent cigar, then, lighting one himself, took his seat opposite to Guy and prepared to play the part of father confessor. It was a hot night and the windows were standing slightly open, letting in the pleasant, confused noise of the street, with its rattling of cabs, voices of people, and footfalls of innumerable pedestrians. The faint sound of a barrel organ playing the last new tune, "Oh, she's left me for another," came softly to their ears, and they sat smoking silently for a few moments until Errington spoke. "I told you I saw Aunt Jelly to-day." "Yes and what did she say?" "A good many disagreeable things," replied Guy bitterly; "according to her showing, I must be a singularly wicked man." "Aunt Jelly," observed Eustace philosophically, "knows very little about the actual world, and having lived apart from her fellow creatures for many years, has formed in her own mind an ideal life to which she expects all her friends and relations to conform. Unfortunately, the majority of nineteenth century people are neither Lucreces nor Bayards, consequently Aunt Jelly, in Pharisee fashion, rails at the world and says, 'Thank God, I'm not as other women are.'" "She is as other women are in the matter of listening to gossip," said Guy emphatically, "for she tells me it is common talk that I have left my wife for the superior attractions of Mrs. Veilsturm." Eustace looked up suddenly in dismay. "My dear fellow, you must be making a mistake." "I'm making no mistake," returned Guy doggedly. "Aunt Jelly says it is common talk. Have you heard anything about it?" "You know I never pay attention to gossip," said Gartney evasively, "I don't even listen to it, but you may be certain that anyone who poses as the _cher ami_ of Mrs. Veilsturm won't escape calumny." "I don't pose as the _cher ami_ of Mrs. Veilsturm," said Errington fiercely. "I don't care two straws about her." "Actions speak louder than words. You certainly have acted as if you did." "Good Heavens, Eustace, you surely don't believe all these lies?" retorted Guy wrathfully, rising from his chair. "I never said I did," answered his cousin coolly, "but I'm looking at it now from the world's point of view. Mrs. Veilsturm has certainly made a dead set at you, and you, thinking it was natural amiability, have played into her hands. You, no doubt, call it friendship, but the world doesn't." "It is friendship. Indeed, hardly that as far as I am concerned, as I don't care if I never saw Mrs. Veilsturm again. She has taken an unaccountable fancy to me, and I'm no Joseph where a pretty woman is concerned, but as for leaving my dear wife for a meretricious woman like that--Good God!" "Well, let the world talk as it likes, so long as it isn't speaking the truth," said Eustace impatiently. "Who cares? If you expect justice from your fellow creatures, you won't get it. As to Aunt Jelly, old women are privileged gossips. It don't matter to you." "But it does matter to me, I tell you," cried Guy violently, walking to and fro, "she has written all about these lies to my wife." The barrel organ outside was still grinding out the popular tune, being now assisted by the shrill voice of a girl singing the words of the song. "Oh, she's left me for another, Mary Anne! Mary Anne! And she said he was her brother, Mary Anne. It may be true, for all I know, But would she kiss her brother so, And would she leave me for him? No! Mary Anne, Mary Anne!" The regular beat of the melody seemed to repeat itself everlastingly in Gartney's ears as he sat there in silence wondering over the statement Errington had made. If Alizon knew all, she would never forgive her husband and then--was it Fate that so persistently smoothed the road for his evil doing? He felt dull and stupid at the unexpected announcement he had heard, and, after a pause, lifted his heavy eyes to Guy. "Well," he said drearily, "and what do you intend to do?" Errington sat down heavily in his chair and stretched out his hands with a weary gesture. "I don't know what to do," he answered in a dull voice. "I suppose the best thing will be for me to go down and explain matters to Alizon." "But will she accept your explanation?" "No!" "Then why make it?" "A drowning man will grasp at a straw. I must do something! I can't let my wife think I have wilfully wronged her. Good heavens! surely she must know I love her dearly." "I should think it is very probable she does," answered Eustace slowly, "besides, I think Lady Errington is too sensible a woman to give ear to lying reports. Tell her all you have told me, and I'm certain you will have no difficulty in making your peace with her." "Do you think so?" asked Guy, his sad face brightening, "but no, I'm afraid not. You remember the story I told you about Mrs. Veilsturm's card being returned." Eustace nodded. "That is the difficulty. If it had been any other woman than Mrs. Veilsturm--but as it is, she'll think I did it wilfully." "Surely not." "My dear fellow, you've never loved a statue," said Errington bitterly, rising to his feet and putting on his cloak, "but it's no use talking any more. Aunt Jelly has done more harm than she knows of. I'll go down to the Hall to-morrow, and tell Alizon everything. If she believes my explanation, well and good, if she does not----" "Well?" asked Eustace, seeing his cousin hesitated. "Well!" repeated the other harshly, "I shall come back to London and Mrs. Veilsturm." He was gone before Eustace could offer a word of remonstrance on the folly of such a determination, and then Gartney returned to his seat with an air of utter lassitude. "Kismet," he said to himself, after a long pause. "It is Destiny." Was it indeed Destiny that had interfered for the third time? Was it fixed by Fate that he should be Lady Errington's lover, and lose his honourable name for her sake? It seemed like it, seeing that all barriers he had set up against this illicit love, were swept away by the actions of other people, and the field left open to him. Still, Alison had not yet had her interview with Guy, and, as she must know how much he loved her, surely she would accept his explanation of the lying reports concerning his infatuation for Mrs. Veilsturm. If she did so, all would be well with them both, but if she refused to believe his story, and dismissed him coldly, then---- Eustace arose to his feet, and walking over to the window, looked out into the hot night. Below, the glare and glitter of gas-lamps--above, the luminous light of the stars--and far in the east, rising over the sombre masses of clouds, burned an evil planet, which was dreaded of old by the Chaldeans. The man looking at it with troubled eyes felt the twin powers of good and evil strive in his heart. And the star gleamed steadily in the thunderous sky. CHAPTER XXVIII. HUSBAND AND WIFE. "You have broken your oath And broken my heart, Oh, sorrow for both, You have broken your oath; Although I am loth In anger to part, You have broken your oath And broken my heart." Alizon Errington was seated in the Dutch room with Aunt Jelly's letter clenched in her hand, and Sammy playing on the carpet beside her. The child, rolling among his toys was babbling inarticulate words of endearment to them, but the mother's eyes were fixed on the gaudy bed of tulips blazing in the sunshine as she thought over the words she had just read. So this was her husband! This man who had gone straight from his home, from his wife, from his child, to the arms of this infamous woman. He knew more than the world did about the character of Mrs. Veilsturm, for she had told him herself. He knew that she, his wife, had refused to receive this adventuress and had returned her card! He knew that Mrs. Veilsturm, Cleopatra, whatever she liked to call herself, had been connected with disreputable Gabriel Mostyn, and yet, in spite of all this, he had dared to enter her house, to clasp hands with her as a friend, to sacrifice his honour and that of his wife to this vile woman. Was there any faith or honesty in man? Her father had been bad and vicious all his life; he had destroyed his daughter's belief in the male sex by the terrible revelations of his death-bed, but her husband--oh!--she had thought him better than this: she had respected and admired him, she had been a good wife, holding her head high and keeping her honour spotless. She was a good mother to his child, and she had done her best in all ways to fulfil the vows made at the marriage altar. This was her reward! She was deserted for another woman, for a woman who was the vilest of her sex. Her wifely honour had been dragged in the mud, her wifely name had been placed with jeers in the mouths of men and women, and the marriage tie, so sacred in her eyes, had been violated by her husband, by the very man who should have respected its sanctity. Her first born was playing at her feet in the happy innocence of childhood, a pure soul fresh from the hand of God, who had given her this treasure to nurse and cherish. Yet even now, in its artless babyhood, the shadow of a dark shame was hovering over its golden head, the name it bore was already smirched in the eyes of the world, and its father, who was responsible to God for its well-being, had already degraded it by his own shameful passion. Ah! all men were the same. Her father was only the type of many others. They loved a woman, or said they loved her, and stayed beside her for a time, yet as soon as they grew weary of her, they flew to the arms of some newer fancy, and not even the sanctity of the marriage tie could restrain their brutal natures. Guy, whom she thought so good and kind, had turned out the same as his fellow men. He had been a good husband for a time, but now, grown weary of his quiet home, satiated with domestic love, weary of his prattling child, he had deliberately flung himself into the arms of this light-o'-love. Well, he would have his reward. The wages of sin is death! and he would be dragged down to destruction by those arms that encircled him so fondly. But what about herself? What could she do in order to free herself from the companionship of this man who prized her less than he did his dissolute companions? Divorce! Yes, that was the way to break the chain which bound her to the husband she despised. But it was impossible that she could take advantage of the law, for it would reflect on the child in the future, and for the child's sake she would have to remain in the bondage of marriage. Tearless, cold, and pale as a lily, she sat there with her hands clasping the hateful letter which told her of her husband's treachery and destroyed the happiness of her life. The child, weary of its toys, crawled across the carpet to her feet, and clutching her dress raised itself to its feet with a plaintive cry. She looked downward in dry-eyed misery, saw the wax-like tiny hands clasping her dress, and heard the thin little voice utter its inarticulate prayer to lie on her breast. The full horror of her position broke on her dulled brain like a flash of light, and with a burst of tears she took up the child and strained him convulsively to her bosom. Ah, how those tears fell--hot, scalding tears that blistered her cheeks, that burned into her very soul, and that fell on the frightened face of the baby like rain, bitter and salt as the waves of the sea. The child was afraid at this passionate outburst of sorrow and began to cry, but she held him close to her breast and, restraining her tears, hushed him to slumber with a low lullaby rocking to and fro, her heart heavy as lead. "Alizon!" With a cry she arose to her feet, the sleeping child in her arms, and saw her husband, travel-stained, worn, and haggard, standing at the door with a look of imploring agony on his face. She drew herself up to her full height and shrank against the wall, with one arm stretched out to keep him off, the other holding the tiny form of the child, and at her feet the crumpled letter that had been the cause of all this undoing. Guy made a step forward and stretched out his arms. "Alizon!" "Don't--don't come near me!" she said in a low, hoarse voice, with a look of horror on her pale face. "I come to explain----" "Nothing can explain that," she answered, pointing to the letter on the floor, "nothing can explain that." "I can explain it, if you will only listen," he said vehemently. The marks of tears were still on her cheeks, but no other traces of emotion remained to show how she had suffered. As her husband spoke, a cold, scornful smile crept over her face, and she signed to him to go on, still shrinking against the wall with her arms folded round the child as if she would keep it from being contaminated by its father. "I saw Aunt Jelly," said Sir Guy hurriedly, "and she told me what she had done. Written to you about--about Mrs. Veilsturm." He brought out the hated name with a great effort, but his wife, neither shrinking nor wincing, stared straight at him with that terrible frozen smile on her face. "She writes under a mistake," pursued Errington, clasping the back of a chair in his strong fingers as though he would crush it to dust. "It is not true what she says. I told her all about it and she believed me. I am going to tell you now, and you will believe me, will you not, Alizon?" "I cannot tell." The words dropped slowly from her mouth, and he flung out his arms towards her with a cry of anguish. "You must believe me--you must, I tell you," he said breathlessly. "It is not true about that woman. I went up to Town with Eustace, and called at her house----" A flush of angry red passed over her face, and she turned on him like a tigress. "You called on her! You called on that woman!" she said in a clear, vibrating voice, tremulous with anger. "The woman about whom I told you--whom I would not receive, and you--you--my husband, dared to put this insult upon me." "Alizon----" "Don't speak further! I have heard enough. That letter is true, and you cannot deny it." "I do deny it," he cried fiercely. "I tell you it is all a mistake. I forgot all about your refusal to receive Mrs. Veilsturm. Had I remembered I would not have gone." "Ah!" she said with ineffable scorn, "if you had remembered. What excuse is that to make? Do my words weigh so lightly with you that you could forget them so easily? It was not for anything that Mrs. Veilsturm had done to me that I declined to receive her. But I heard my father, on his death-bed, speak of her--speak of her as men such as he was speak of such a woman as she is. I told you this, and yet you forget my words and visit her." "As God is my judge, I did forget," he said desperately. "I did not think about it until it was too late." "Ah, you did remember at last." "Yes! only it was too late. I had been to her house and she----" "And she," echoed his wife bitterly. "Oh, I well know what you are going to say. She did her best to captivate you with her vile arts, tried her hardest to win your heart from me----" "But she did not succeed--she did not succeed," he said earnestly. "Do you think I care if she did or if she did not?" replied Lady Errington scornfully. "Do you think I would place myself in rivalry with that woman? No! you have chosen her in preference to me, your lawful wife. Go to her as soon as you like, but don't dare to come near me." "I will come near you," said Guy desperately. "You have no right to judge me like this." "I have the right of a wronged woman." "No, no! I swear you have not. On my soul; on my honour----" "On your honour," she interrupted with a sneer, "the honour of a man who could act as you have done!" "Whose fault is it if I have acted badly?" he cried, rendered desperate by her jeers. "Do you mean to infer it's mine?" said his wife quietly. He gnawed his moustache viciously and did not respond, whereupon she was about to ask the question again, when a knock came to the door and startled them both. "It is the child's nurse," said Lady Errington, going to the door. "Wait a moment." Guy turned towards the window so that the servant should not see how upset he was, and Lady Errington, opening the door, kept her face bent over the sleeping child as she placed it in Mrs. Tasker's arms. "He's sound asleep, Nurse," she said quietly, as the old woman took him. "Take him up to the nursery, and I'll come to him in a short time." Her voice was perfectly under control, and Mrs. Tasker never for a moment suspected anything was wrong between her master and mistress as she toiled slowly up the stairs carrying the child tenderly in her stout arms. Lady Errington drew a long breath as Mrs. Tasker disappeared, and then, closing the door quietly, turned once more to her husband, who still stood looking out at the bright sunshine, which seemed to mock his misery by its glare and cheerful brilliancy. "I am waiting for your answer," said his wife's steady voice behind him, whereupon he turned swiftly round, and crossing to where she stood, stern and silent by the table, caught one of her hands before she could prevent him. "Alizon," he said earnestly, "for your own sake, for the sake of our child, listen to me quietly, and I will try and explain things to your satisfaction. I did go to Mrs. Veilsturm's, but I swear by all that is sacred, that I did not remember anything about her. Not even her name. Think for a moment, the whole affair passed in five minutes--your explanation was a hurried one, and you never referred to it again. It is eighteen months ago, and since then her name has never been mentioned between us, so you can hardly wonder that I quite forgot about the woman. Had I remembered, I would not have gone--give me at least that credit. I went innocently enough with Eustace, and Mrs. Veilsturm, I suppose out of revenge for the slight she received from you, was very attentive to me. I did not respond to her advances in any way, and saw as little of her as I could. I was not responsible for the coupling of our names together. You know how the world talks and magnifies the most innocent things into evidences of guilt. The scandal reached the ears of my aunt, and she, innocently enough, wrote that letter to you--a letter which she now bitterly regrets having sent to you. When she told me about it, I explained all, and she asked my pardon for having written the letter. I came down here at once to tell you everything, and I have now done so. On my honour, Alizon, that is the whole affair. I acted wrongly in forgetting about Mrs. Veilsturm's past, and I ask your pardon. Let this misunderstanding cease between us. I love you dearly. I have always loved you, never so much as now. Do not let our lives be blighted like this. I have acted wrongly, and I ask your pardon. You in your turn grant it to me, and let us forget this terrible mistake." All the time he was pleading, she listened to him without any sign of emotion, her face looking impassable as a marble mask, but at the conclusion of his speech, she withdrew her hand from his with a cold smile of disbelief, which showed how little his tenderness affected her. "Your explanation would satisfy the world," she said with chilly dignity, "but it does not satisfy me. I cannot believe that you forgot about my refusal to receive Mrs. Veilsturm. Even if you did forget, that only makes your conduct worse, for you still went to visit her after you recollected the affair, as you acknowledge yourself. I have been a good wife to you, I have been a good mother to your child, and in return you have not even given me the common fidelity of a husband, which every woman has a right to expect." "I see it is no use pleading to a cold piece of perfection like you," said Guy, drawing himself up with dignity. "I have stooped to explain this affair, and you decline to believe me. I can do no more. You are convinced, without the shadow of a reason, that I am vile, and it is impossible for me to undeceive you further than I have done. Under these circumstances it is impossible for us to live together as man and wife. You doubt me, and I resent your doing so, therefore it will be best for us to at once make some arrangement about our future lives." He spoke calmly enough, but his heart was hot with indignation, that he should receive such treatment from the woman he loved best on earth. He was innocent, and he knew himself to be innocent, therefore all his nature rose in revolt against the unjust attitude taken up by his wife. She, on her side, was also indignant, deeming that his explanation was false from beginning to end, so she refused to forgive him, or to believe the skilful tissue of falsehoods he had put forward as a plea for her mercy. It was a case of misunderstanding on both sides, and as the stubborn pride of each refused to bend, nothing was now left but separation. "For the sake of the child," she said coldly, "I am unwilling there should be any scandal, so it will be best for me to stay down here to look after the boy, and you can take up your abode in London, or wherever else it pleases you. Regarding money matters, I presume you will allow me sufficient to live on in a style befitting the mistress of this place. My life will be devoted to bringing up the child, yours--well, I have nothing to do with that, and you are free to act as you desire. These are the only terms upon which I will consent to pass over the matter, and I think there is nothing more to be said." Slowly and deliberately she uttered these cruel words, which fell like ice on his heart, and showed him how utterly futile it was to hope for any reconcilement with this pure woman, so pure that she could neither understand nor forgive the infidelity of which she accused him. All his manhood arose in rebellion against such treatment, and, mad with anger, he stepped to her side as she turned to leave the room. "There is more to be said," he cried furiously. "I have told you the truth, which you decline to believe. But if I had conducted myself as you say--if I had voluntarily gone to this woman whom you hate, who is to blame, you or I? Have I not been a good husband to you since our marriage? Have I not striven by every means in my power to win your heart? and what have I received in return?--cold words and frigid smiles. Do you think that I did not feel all this? Yes, I did feel it, but you, wrapped up in your icy nature, cannot understand my feelings." "I have treated you with all respect----" "Respect! Respect!" he reiterated bitterly. "I ask for love, you give me respect. I ask for bread, you offer me a stone. All the feelings of my heart have been crushed down by your cold superiority, by your chilly self-respect, which forbade you giving to me those attentions that other men receive from their wives." "You dare to talk to me like this," she said angrily, "you, who have had no respect either for me or for your child!" "Ah, the child," he retorted with a sneering laugh, "it was the child that came between us. You have lavished upon it all the love and affection which is due to me. Am I not the child's father? Why should you treat me as if I were a block of marble? In my own house I have been lonely. In my own house I have been neglected, while you, leaving me to starve, gave all your love to the child." "Is it a crime for a mother to love her child?" "No, it is no crime. I did not say it was. But it is a crime--worse than a crime--to cherish and love the child to the exclusion of the husband and father. The husband has the first claim on the wife's heart, the child the second." "You are wrong." "No, I am right," he replied vehemently, "and if driven forth by neglect, and hungry for love, I left my home to go to another woman, you reproach me for what is your own work! But I have not done so. I have been as true to you as you have been to me. Alizon, let things be as they were before this miserable misunderstanding, and let there be love and affection between us. I will forgive you all the neglect I have suffered these eighteen months, if you will overlook my forgetfulness about Mrs. Veilsturm, and act towards me as a wife should act." "You forgive me," she said contemptuously, "you forgive me? No. It is I who have the right to do that. I do not forgive you. I never shall." "Are those your last words?" "My last words." Errington looked at her in silence for a moment, and then, without a word, walked towards the door of the room, at which he paused. "I have implored and entreated you to be merciful," he said, with terrible calmness, "you have refused to grant what I ask. Now I go back to London, to Mrs. Veilsturm, the woman you despise so much. You have driven me to this, and the result of it rests on your own head. You do not love me, you never have loved me, so I leave you alone in your immaculate purity, to forget the man whom you have despised and wronged." He was gone before she could utter a word, and she was left alone in the room, alone in the world, with nothing but her child to comfort her in the hour of need. CHAPTER XXIX. THE QUESTION OF MARRIAGE. "The sea is cruel, its white waves hide me, Lo I am weary and scant of breath, Thou to a haven of safety guide me, Stretch out thy hand, lest I swoon to death. "Thou art my God in this hour of peril, Yet in thy sight, I am lost and vile, All thy love, as the sea is sterile, I sink, I perish, beneath thy smile." There are always two sides to a question, especially to the question of marriage. One side is invariably taken by the husband, the other by the wife. Both claim their side to be right, and, as this is an impossibility, one side must be wrong. Which? It is a difficult question to settle, more difficult than the judgment of Solomon, more difficult than the judgment of Paris, and though the world, represented by the Law, generally plays the part of arbitrator in conjugal disputes, in this case it was referred to neither by the husband nor the wife. Under these circumstances it will be as well to argue both sides fairly, and pronounce a verdict in favour of the strongest. A case for the opinion of Society, unrepresented by any legal tribunal, the parties concerned conducting their own cases personally. On the part of the wife-- "When I married Guy Errington, I had no belief whatsoever in the masculine sex, such scepticism being due to my knowledge of the character of my father, Gabriel Mostyn. Before his illness I lived in almost conventual seclusion, and from the reading of books formed an ideal world, which I have since found to be as unreal as the fantastic visions of Oriental dreamers. "My world was based upon a delusive belief in the chivalry of men and the purity of women, and resembled in its visionary loveliness the Garden of Eden, before Eve tempted Adam with the fatal fruit. In this unreal world men were always young, handsome and true-hearted, while the women were beautiful in their forms and faces, pure in their lives. I dreamed that some day I, an inhabitant of this beautiful universe, would meet with a lover who would dedicate his life to mine, and we would go through life side by side in love and purity, until we exchanged this heaven upon earth for one even fairer. "Alas! these were but the virginal dreams of a girl, unsullied by contact with the world, and my ideal life was shattered by the vile cynicism of my father, who took a delight in destroying all my illusions, and in dragging me down from the light of fancy to the darkness of reality. "So evil had been his life, that no one would stay by him in his hour of need, and I, a young girl, unsophisticated and innocent, was forced to remain beside his bed. To him I dedicated my youth, my innocence, my womanly feeling, my filial tenderness, and received as a reward a brutal unveiling of the most horrible things on earth. When I went to his bedside at the beginning of those four bitter years I was an innocent girl, when I turned away, leaving him stiff and stark in his coffin, I was, in knowledge, an accomplished woman of the world. I believed in no one. I doubted the motives of all. I looked upon my fellow-creatures as birds of prey who would turn and rend me were I not dexterous enough to foil them with their own weapons. Is it then to be wondered at that I dreaded marriage with a man who would doubtless be as evil in his thoughts and deeds as was my father? "Had I been in receipt of a sufficient income to keep me from starving, had I been able to earn my own living, I would never have married; but under the grudging hospitality of my relatives, and the iron grip of poverty, the strongest resolution must give way. I was no heroine to battle with the merciless world as represented to me by my father, so, in despair, I married Guy Errington. "To my surprise and delight, I found him to resemble the ideal inhabitants of my fanciful world, and honoured and respected him for those qualities which I had never seen in my father. He was good, kind, loving and tender, all of which qualities to me, in a man, were like a revelation from God. Still, the teachings of my father could not be easily eradicated, and I dreaded lest some chance should rend the veil which hid his real nature and show me the innate brutality which my father assured me existed in all mankind. "Meanwhile, I was thankful for his kindness, and strove to show by every means in my power how I reciprocated his love. If he accuses me of coldness, I can offer no defence. I am not a demonstrative woman, as all my timid outbursts of affection were ruthlessly crushed by my father, and self-restraint has become a habit with me. Besides, dreading lest my married happiness should not last, I wore my coldness as an armour against a possible disappointment. "I loved my husband, but the invincible mistrust which my father had inculcated in my breast isolated me during the earlier portion of our married life, and I was afraid to let my husband see how much I loved him, lest he took advantage of such confidence. Still, I wanted something to love, something that I could worship, could cling to, something that I could trust in fully and that would not deceive me. "It came at last, a pure, little, white soul from the hand of God; and to my child I gave the whole of the love, the adoration, the passion, which had been pent up in my breast for so many years for want of some one on whom I could bestow them without fear of the consequence. "My husband hated to see me so fond of the child, for his jealous nature would be content with nothing but undivided love, and in spite of my desire to make him happy, I could not leave my child unloved in order to pander to his selfish passion. He resented my reproval of his folly and withdrew himself from my society, so that I had no one to love but my child, and, although we lived in the same house, the poles were not further asunder than we were. "Then she came between us--that vile woman whom my father knew in South America--and my husband, weary of his home, of his wife, of his child, left all to go to her. What wife could put up with such an insult? Had it been any other woman, it would have been bad enough, but this special woman whom he knew I despised, whom he knew from my lips to be an infamous creature, this was the woman for whom he forsook me. "How can I believe his explanations? They are all false, glibly as they are uttered. No! I am deceived no longer, he is the same as my father, and seeks only the selfish gratification of his own appetites. The end has come, as I knew it would--the mask is torn off, and I see my husband, whom I loved and trusted during the early days of our marriage, as he really is. My father was right; there is no faith, honour, honesty, nor truth, in men; and I have only acted rightly in refusing to live with a man who could behave so to his wife and child. "Even now he is with that woman, on the feeble plea that my coldness drove him away. Does that excuse his vice? No! He should have waited until perfect love, perfect understanding, was established between us, but now we are parted for ever. He has gone back to the life most congenial to him, and I--I, like many other women, can do nothing but pray that my son may not grow up to follow in the evil footsteps of his father." On the part of the husband-- "Saints do not live among men, except in the canonization of the Church, and before my marriage I was neither better nor worse than any other young man. But without being either a Saint Anthony or a Saint Francis, I did my best to lead a decent life in every way, and if I had a few vices--or what ascetics term vices--they were so small that they were invisible except to the microscope of certain Pharisees who pass their lives in finding out their neighbours' faults, and thanking God they are not as other men are. "I loved my wife from the first moment I saw her, being in the first place attracted by the beauty of her person, and in the second by the difference in her nature to that of other women. I do not put myself forward either as a deep thinker or as a student of humanity, but must confess I grew weary of the ordinary Society woman, married or unmarried. They talked in a frivolous fashion of the most trivial things, but Alizon Mostyn attracted me by the charm of her conversation, not that she was very learned, or particularly brilliant, but she talked of ordinary matters in an original way, which was wonderfully fascinating. I loved her dearly, and saw in this pale, quiet girl, one who would be a companion to me, who would make me a better man, and aid me to lead my life on a higher plane to that which I had hitherto done. "It was for this reason I married her, and though she was cold in her manner towards me, this very coldness had a certain charm about it which I could not resist. I knew that she had been badly treated by her father, so strove in every way by tenderness and love to make amends for the misery of her early life. "After marriage I was perfectly satisfied with my wife, and although at times her persistent coldness wounded me, yet I thought by unfailing love and attention to make her open her heart to me. No doubt I would have achieved this object if it had not been for the birth of the child, which has, in a great measure, been the cause of all the trouble of our later married life. "I was glad to welcome the child, as I thought it would form a new link between us, and by thawing her frigid disposition draw us closer together. But, instead of doing this, the boy was the cause of our estrangement, as she lavished upon him all the love of which her nature was capable, and I was persistently neglected. "No doubt the world would think I had little to complain of--my wife was perfect, both in her conjugal and maternal capacity--the only trouble being the cherishing of the child to the neglect of the father. "But, look at the matter from my point of view. I had married my wife for companionship, for the sake of satisfying the craving of human nature to be loved, and instead of my ideas being realized, I found myself shut out of Paradise, while my wife, with her child, rested happily within. She was never away from the boy, and day after day I was forced to live a lonely life, neglected and uncared for by a woman I adored. All her ideas, conversation, and desires, were bound up in the child, so that she had neither the time nor inclination to take an interest in my pursuits, or in my life. We dwelt together as man and wife, to all appearances we were a happy and attached couple, yet the child stood between us, like an evil shadow, which isolated us the one from the other. Often I tried to break down this barrier, by praising the child, but the mother seemed jealous even of the father; she wanted the child all to herself, and, secure in such possession, was contented to treat her husband as an ordinary friend. "I resented this state of things, I revolted at being condemned to occupy such an isolated position, but I could do nothing. My wife was perfect in every other way, and to have complained would have been ridiculous, so I was forced to suffer in silence. God alone knows how I did suffer in the solitude to which I was condemned, at seeing the love and caresses bestowed on the child, love and caresses in which I had no share. All her life was in the child, and she possessed him. My life was in her--and I was a stranger to her in every way. "Under the circumstances I thought it best to go away for a few weeks, thinking that she would miss me in some little measure, and would be more affectionate and tender when I returned. Whether such an idea was right or wrong I do not know, I never shall know, for between our parting and our meeting occurred the episode of Mrs. Veilsturm. "On my honour, I went innocently enough into the presence of this woman. I had forgotten all about my wife's refusal to receive her, for had I remembered I certainly would not have gone. But, as I said before, I had forgotten. I had never seen the woman; I did not even know her name. How then was I to recollect the episode of eighteen months before?--an episode the memory of which had not lasted longer than a few days. "I went to Mrs. Veilsturm's 'At home.' I found her a charming woman, and, at her express invitation, I went often to her house. She was different from the ordinary run of women, and I took pleasure in her society, but there was no warmer feeling between us, at least, not on my part. With the scandal of the world I have nothing to do, sin and purity are treated the same way, and the mere fact of my being once or twice seen with Mrs. Veilsturm was sufficient to set afloat the lying story which came to my wife's ears through the medium of Aunt Jelly. "To my wife I told the whole story, but she refused to believe me. I confessed that I had remembered about Mrs. Veilsturm when it was too late, but she accused me of knowing the truth from the first, and of having wilfully acted as I had done. Nothing I could say could shake her belief in this matter, and she swore she would never forgive me for the insult I had placed upon her. "What could I do? Nothing! except retire from the scene. In vain I assured her of my complete innocence. She refused to believe my statement, and drove me from her presence--from my home--with cruel words. This woman, wrapped up in an armour of purity--of selfish purity--could not credit my innocence in any way. She judged me from the 'I-would-not-have-acted-thus' standpoint, and insisted that I had betrayed her basely, although she had no further proof than the gossip of the world. "I left her. I came back to London to see Mrs. Veilsturm again. It is wrong--I know it is wrong--but what am I to do? Live an isolated existence, pass days and nights of abject misery, only to pander to her self-righteous ideas? For eighteen months, in spite of all my tenderness and love, she has wilfully neglected me, she has refused to acknowledge that I have been a good husband, she has rendered my life miserable, and now she has driven me forth from my own home on account of a sin--if it can be called so--of which I am guiltless. "What am I to do? Live the life of a hermit in order to right myself in her eyes and be called back and pardoned, as if I were indeed guilty? No! I will not do so. It is her fault, not mine, that I am placed in such a miserable position. Unable to win her by tenderness, by love, I will henceforth live my own life and see what neglect will do. For every pang she has inflicted upon me I will inflict a pang upon her, for her months of neglect I will repay her in full, for her coldness I will give coldness in my turn, and to any remonstrances she may offer I will say then what I say now--'It is your work.'" So far the cases of husband and wife, each arguing from their own point of view. Now which of them is right, the man or the woman? The husband who strove to win his wife's love, or the wife who refused to give the husband that love which was his due. Errington was now acting wrongly, as he himself knew; he was voluntarily flinging himself into the arms of a woman whom he knew to be worthless, but who can say he had no provocation? He had done his best to win his wife's love, he had suffered in silence during the period of his married life, and in return she had shamefully neglected him, and had finally, with hardly any proof, accused him of voluntarily making a friend of a worthless woman. Outraged by this treatment, the husband left her presence, and she had driven him into the very jaws of destruction. Doubtless he should have stood firm, and by years of patient self-sacrifice showed her that she was wrong. But how many of us are capable of such asceticism? How many of us would stand for long years in the outer darkness, knowing himself to be guiltless of the crime laid to his charge? This woman--pure wife, affectionate mother, as she was--had acted as if she were above the weaknesses of human nature. She had arrogated to herself the functions of the Deity in judging and condemning a poor human soul, who, weary with beseeching for what it never received, fell away in despair into the gulf of sin and misery. Who was wrong--the man who sought evil in despair, or the woman whose coldness and purity had denied him the mercy which would have saved him? CHAPTER XXX. CLEOPATRA VICTRIX. "To my chariot wheels have I bound him, To bear him in triumph away; As master and king have I crowned him, To reign but the length of a day. I woo but to kiss and betray him, We meet but a moment to part; In the hour of his joy will I slay him, My wheels will go over his heart." Mrs. Veilsturm's drawing-room was not by any means an artistic apartment, being full of violent contrasts in the way of decoration and furniture, yet not without a certain picturesqueness of its own. It was bizarre, gaudy, fantastic, strange, and a faithful reflection of the curious mind of its mistress. The European side of her nature inspired her with a certain amount of artistic taste, while the African blood in her veins made her delight in brilliant colouring and barbaric ornamentation. The eyes ached as they rested on the confused mass of tints, variegated as a flower-garden, and yet there was a certain design and harmony throughout, something like the tangled patterns of those Oriental carpets, those Indian shawls, which represent the cloudy splendours haunting an Eastern mind. The paper on the walls of this room, oblong and lofty, was of a dark-red tint, stamped with golden sunflowers rising from their velvety-green leaves. Delicate lace curtains of milky white, interwoven with threads of silver, fell before the three long windows, from under massive gilt cornices. The carpet was of black and yellow stripes in undulating lines, like the skin of a tiger, and here and there a rug of silky-white hair contrasted curiously with the fantastic ground upon which it rested. The furniture was of dark walnut, upholstered with bright yellow satin, smooth and shining as the inside of a buttercup. In the corners of the room stood slender palms with heavily-drooping leaves, vividly-green ferns with feathery fronds, prickly, fleshy cactus and spiky, fan-shaped plants, suggestive of tropical skies--some rising from the porous red jars of Egypt, others springing from misshapen vases of porcelain, on which, in crimson and green, sprawled the sacred Chinese dragon, and a few growing in shallow basins of pale-yellow pottery. At the end of the room, behind the veil of Indian bead curtains, was a cool-looking conservatory, skilfully lighted by electric lamps in globes of pale green, which diffused a kind of fictitious moonlight. In the drawing-room the mass of colour, strange and incongruous, was softened, blended, and confused by the tremulous red light that streamed from the tall brass lamps with their umbrella-like shades of crimson silk. Add to this fantasy of light and colour, the sickly odours of the pastilles constantly burning, and it can be imagined how curiously appropriate this strange room was to the rich Eastern beauty and oddly barbaric costume of Cleopatra. On this night, having been down at Hurlingham, she was too tired to go out, so preferred to remain at home and receive a few friends. At present, she was lying negligently back in a low chair, arrayed in her favourite costume of amber and black, but, despite the attentions of Dolly Thambits, who was talking to her, she seemed to be out of temper. Mr. Jiddy, seated on the extreme edge of a chair like a white cat, was listening to the conversation of Major Griff, who, stiff and grim, was leaning against the mantelpiece. No other people were present, nor did Mrs. Veilsturm seem very much inclined to receive company, for she yawned once or twice, and looked at the Major significantly, as if to hint that he might take away Mr. Thambits and friend as soon as he liked. The Major, however, wanted to speak to Mrs. Veilsturm himself, so he did not take the hint, but resolutely waited on, in the hope that the two young men would shortly depart and leave him alone with the charming widow. Meanwhile he chatted about pigeon-shooting to Mr. Jiddy, who knew nothing about it, and Thambits bored Mrs. Veilsturm to death by his dreary small talk. "I say, you know," drawled Dolly, after a pause, during which Mrs. Veilsturm had been wondering how she could get rid of him, "what about your fancy-dress ball?" "Oh, I've put it off," replied Mrs. Veilsturm idly, "a week or two does not make much difference, and my costume was not ready." "What are you going to appear as?" "Ah! that is the question," said Cleopatra smiling. "I'm not going to tell you. I'm not going to tell anyone. I will appear at my own ball in the most unexpected fashion." "Like a surprise packet?" "Yes! as you elegantly put it--like a surprise packet." "Oh, that's jolly," observed Mr. Thambits brilliantly, then relapsed into silence. "I say, Mrs. Veilsturm!" he said at last. "Yes." "Errington's gone to the country again." Mrs. Veilsturm could not suppress an angry start at this information. She had missed Guy for the last three or four days, and, having heard nothing from him since she received his note excusing himself from coming to the Marlowe Theatre, was considerably enraged at this neglect. She was too clever, however, to betray herself to Dolly Thambits, who was jealously vigilant, so she asked quietly: "Indeed! who told you so?" "Gartney! He went about four days ago. Got tired of Town, I suppose." "No doubt! Town does get wearisome at times." "I don't think so while you are here," said Mr. Thambits tenderly. "What a charming compliment," answered Mrs. Veilsturm with a forced laugh, shutting her fan savagely, for when Dolly was amorous he was simply detestable. "Not to you," he murmured softly. "More compliments," she said coolly. "You must pass your days making them up. By-the-way, would you mind telling me the time?" "Certainly. It is now a few minutes past nine." "Oh, I say, is it?" cried Mr. Jiddy, jumping up from his chair. "I say, Dolly, we've got to go to Lady Kalsmith's you know." "I thought you were coming also, Mrs. Veilsturm?" said Dolly, rising reluctantly. "I! No," she answered, lifting her eyebrows. "Would I be dressed like this if I were going?" "Mrs. Veilsturm," explained Major Griff, graciously, "is too tired to go out to-night, and thinks a rest will do her good." "I'm afraid we've tired you," said Thambits, looking at his divinity. "Oh dear, not at all," responded Mrs. Veilsturm, lying with the utmost dexterity. "So glad to see you. _Au revoir_ at present." "I'll call and see if you are better to-morrow," said Dolly, making his adieux with manifest reluctance. "Delighted! goodbye, Mr. Jiddy! Major?" Grill took the hint, and ushered Dolly and his friend out of the room before they had time to change their minds, and having seen them safely bestowed in a hansom, returned to Mrs. Veilsturm, whom he found sitting in her old place, frowning savagely at the fireplace. The Major resumed his lounging attitude on the hearthrug, and lighted a cigarette. "Don't smoke," said Mrs. Veilsturm sharply. "I don't want my drawing-room to smell like a bar." "There's not much chance of that," retorted the Major coolly, throwing the match into the fireplace, and blowing a cloud of smoke. "No one will come to-night, and those abominable pastilles you are so fond of burning will dissipate the smoke by to-morrow." Mrs. Veilsturm offered no further remonstrance, but tapped her fan thoughtfully in the palm of her hand. Major Griff watched her in silence for a moment, and then made a polite remark. "You're a fool, Maraquita." "And why?" "Because you're thinking about that young Errington. He's no good to us." "Us! Us!" she reiterated savagely, "always us! Do you think I've nothing else to do but to think of you?" "At present, No," replied Griff coolly. "Now don't get in a rage, my dear. It doesn't improve your looks, and certainly does not carry any weight with me. I tell you again you're a fool for thinking about Errington. He's gone back to his wife in spite of your cleverness. Didn't you hear that idiot say so?" "Yes!" "Well?" "Well!" she echoed scornfully, raising her eyes to his face, "what of that? Do you think I'm going to let him go so easily?" "I don't see you've much option in the matter," said Griff grimly. "You see nothing except what suits your own ends." "Very likely. That's the way to succeed in the world." "You don't seem to have made much headway yet," replied Cleopatra with a sneer. "Oh, pretty well--pretty well," said the Major airily. "I think this room--this house--your dress--your diamonds--your position--are all evidences of success. And we'll do better if you only keep your head clear, and not sacrifice everything for this Errington." "I don't intend to sacrifice anything for Sir Guy Errington," she replied viciously, "but I intend he shall sacrifice all for me; his wife! his home! his honour! all he holds dearest in the world." "And then?" "And then he can go his own way. I have done with him," said Mrs. Veilsturm calmly. "I wouldn't talk in such a melodramatic fashion if I were you," observed Griff leisurely, "revenge is all very well on the stage, but it's silly in real life. You stand to gain nothing, and lose a good deal." "Do you think I can forget the insult his wife put upon me?" "Well then punish the wife." "I intend to--through the husband." "Now look here, Maraquita," said her partner earnestly, emphasizing his remarks with his finger. "You take care what you're about. We've had a good time in London, but the game is pretty well played out. It's always advisable to leave a place with flying colours, so that one can come back again. People are talking about you already, don't let them talk any more, or you'll find all your lady friends give you the cold shoulder, and if they do, you may rest assured they won't be satisfied till they induce their husbands, fathers, and brothers to follow their example. I don't see the fun of such a scandal, especially as there's nothing to be got out of Errington. He's as poor as a church mouse. So leave him alone, and after the ball, we can go for America in good odour with everyone, and after a year or two in the States, we can come back here when a new generation arises that don't know Joseph. My advice is sound, Maraquita, and you know it." Mrs. Veilsturm sat perfectly still during this speech, with her eyes cast down on the closed fan lying on her lap, but when the Major ended, she looked up suddenly with a sombre frown on her face. "I've made up my mind what to do, and neither you nor anyone else will turn me from my purpose." Major Griff shrugged his shoulders and walked slowly to the other end of the room. He was a man who never wasted words, and seeing from the set expression of Mrs. Veilsturm's face that she was determined to carry out her purpose, he judged it useless to argue about the matter. Yet, although he kept his temper well under control, he could not help saying something disagreeable to this woman who was sacrificing everything for the sake of revenge. "In spite of your cleverness, my dear Maraquita, I shrewdly suspect that Sir Guy sees through your little game, he has placed himself beyond the reach of temptation." "He will come back," she said curtly. "I doubt it. The moth does not come back to the flame that has once singed its wings. The fly doesn't trust itself in the spider's web a second time." "He will come back." The Major returned to the fireplace, produced his pocketbook in the most leisurely manner, and took a gold pencil case hanging at the end of his chain in his fingers. "I'll bet you the worth of that diamond star in your hair he does not." "Don't be rash, the star cost two hundred pounds." "So. I'll lay you two hundred pounds to the promise that you'll behave decently, that Errington does not come back." Mrs. Veilsturm opened her fan with a grand wave, and looked at him serenely. "Book it," she said curtly. Major Griff did so, and restored the book to his pocket. "Well, I must be off," he said, stretching himself. "I want to see Dolser about putting a paragraph in his paper concerning the ball. Can I do anything for you?" "Nothing, thank you. Good-night." "Good-night." He went towards the door, and without vouchsafing a glance at her, left the room. If Mrs. Veilsturm was tired, she did not make any attempt to go to bed, but remained seated in her chair pondering over the position of affairs. She was not by any means as confident over Errington's return as she pretended to be, for she was far too clever a woman to misjudge the impression she had made. Guy had gone away from Town without a word of farewell; therefore she was easily satisfied that he was still heart-whole. As he had acted thus, she could do absolutely nothing, for he certainly would not come back to a woman about whom he did not care. And yet she had done everything in her power to entangle him in her nets. The fool, to leave a woman like her for a pale, sickly wife. Were her charms fading, that he had treated her so scornfully? Was the prize not worth the winning? Was there really a man in the world who could turn coldly away from her beauty when she smiled invitation? As these thoughts passed through her mind, she arose from her chair rapidly, and leaning her arms on the white marble mantelpiece, examined her face carefully in the glass. The rich, dusky skin, through which flushed redly the hot blood, the delicately drawn eyebrows, arched over the liquid eyes, the shining coils of hair above the low forehead, the full, red lips, the shell-like ears, tinged with pink, the slender neck; she examined them all in a severely critical fashion, and saw that there was no flaw anywhere. A slow smile of triumph curved the corners of her mouth as she looked at her beautiful face in the mirror, and she turned away exulting in her physical perfection. "Can he resist me?" she whispered to her heart, and her heart answered, "No." At this moment a servant entered the room with a magnificent bouquet of white lilies, which he presented to his mistress, and then retired. She held them in her hands, inhaling their faint perfume, and admiring the stainless purity of their deep cups; then, catching sight of a card thrust into the centre of the flowers, she took it out to read the name. "Sir Guy Errington." With a low laugh of triumph she tossed the flowers on the table, and, with the card still in her hand, swept across the room to a desk of rosewood near the window. Sitting down she wrote a note to Major Griff: "DEAR MAJOR, "Kindly bring with you to-morrow your cheque for £200. He has come back. "MARAQUITA VEILSTURM." Placing this in an envelope, she directed it to Major Griff, at the Globetrotters' Club, then ringing the bell, gave it to the servant, with instructions that it was to be delivered at once. When she was once more alone, she picked up Sir Guy's card, and smiled cruelly as she looked at the name. "You fool," she whispered softly. "Oh, you fool." CHAPTER XXXI. IN THE COILS OF THE SERPENT. "By the magic of thine eyes Thou hast drawn me to the brake, As thy victim slowly dies, Hiss in triumph, cruel snake. Strangled now I gasp for breath, Thus ensnared within thy toils, I can only wait for death, Helpless in thy shining coils." Mrs. Veilsturm was a lady who once having learnt a lesson from experience, never needed to go to that unpleasant school a second time. She saw plainly that her first tactics with regard to Errington had been entirely wrong, as it was a mistake to treat such a non-appreciative person with kindness. Therefore, when he returned to her for a second time, she behaved towards him with cold disdain, which had the effect of making him simply furious, as it resembled the way in which he had been treated by his wife. Instead of taking offence, however, and leaving his capricious divinity in disgust, he followed her everywhere, resolved with dogged perseverance to force her to revert to her earlier demeanour. Wherever Cleopatra went, Errington was to be seen in attendance, and at balls, theatres, garden-parties, the Park, Hurlingham, his haggard-looking face appeared ever beside her. All the world of London, seeing Mrs. Veilsturm's change of front, thought that she was tired of her last fancy, and began to pity her for the persistent manner in which she was followed by her discarded lover. When questioned on the subject, she simply laughed, and talked pathetically about being a lonely widow, so that everyone said that she had been badly treated in being suspected of favouring Errington in any way. "A charming woman, my dear," whispered the world, behind its fan, "always behaved with the greatest delicacy in every way. But that young Errington! Oh! good gracious! a young libertine--persecutes her with attentions and she can't possibly get rid of him. A bad young man, my dear, a very bad young man." So the world, in its usual capricious manner, changed round altogether, and whitewashed Mrs. Veilsturm as a saint, while it blackened poor Guy's character as that of an irredeemable scamp. He had a wife, whom he treated very badly, kept her shut up in a gloomy place in the country. Spent all his income in leading a fast life. Terribly in debt, and mixed up with the Hebrews. Mrs. Veilsturm had implored him, with tears in her eyes, to go back to his wife, but he resolutely declined. She was really behaving very well, but as for young Errington--well, what could be expected now-a-days? As for Saint Cleopatra, she was placed on a pedestal from whence she smiled kindly on her crowd of worshippers, and, possibly, laughed in her sleeve at the way in which she was gulling them. She had completely recovered her position in the eyes of society, and the Major chuckled complacently over the clever tactics of his friend and partner. The ball at which she was to make her last appearance in Town, was near at hand, and it seemed as though the firm were about to depart for the States in a blaze of triumph. A great change had come over Guy since his return to the feet of Mrs. Veilsturm. Formerly so hearty and cheery, he was now gloomy and morose, with a frown on his good-looking face and a pain in his heart. His wife's cruelty had wounded him deeply, and though he did not care in the least for Mrs. Veilsturm, yet he was determined, out of bravado, to persevere in his pursuit. After a time, however, he became fascinated by her beauty and persistent neglect, which feeling Cleopatra saw, and determined to profit by it when she judged fit. At present, however, in the eyes of the world she was simply a virtuous woman exposed to the addresses of a libertine, and gained a great deal of undeserved pity thereby. Eustace was still in Town, and was considerably puzzled over the whole affair, especially by the way in which Mrs. Veilsturm was behaving. He knew that she wanted to fascinate Guy for her own wicked ends, and wondered that she treated him in a way that was calculated to lose her the very prize which she strove to win. From constant observation, however, he gained a clear idea of the means she was adopting both to attract Errington and silence scandal, and could not refrain from admiring the dexterous fashion with which she played this very difficult game. With regard to his cousin, he, of course, guessed that he had quarrelled with Alizon, but was unable to ascertain clearly what had occurred, as on asking Guy he was savagely told to mind his own business. Eustace would have taken offence at such treatment from anyone else, but he pitied his cousin for his obvious unhappiness, therefore took no notice of his rudeness. He saw plainly, however, that husband and wife had parted in anger, so the way was made clear for him to carry out his intentions with regard to Lady Errington. But curiously enough, now that the very thing he desired was made so easy for him, he could not make up his mind to go down to Castle Grim, near the home of the woman he loved. Eustace was as selfish and egotistical as ever, still in spite of his strong inclination for Alizon, in spite of the three interpositions of Destiny, which had such an effect on his fatalistic nature! he hesitated about carrying out his project, and lingered in Town in a vacillating frame of mind eminently unsatisfactory to himself. Once or twice, with an idea that he was doing his duty, he ventured to speak to his cousin about the way he was haunting the footsteps of Mrs. Veilsturm, but such well-meant intentions were received by Guy with such bad grace that he judged it best to remain neutral. Aunt Jelly heard of Guy's behaviour, and also of the position taken up by Mrs. Veilsturm, by whose conduct she, in common with the rest of the world, was completely blinded. She sent for Guy in order to remonstrate with him, but he curtly refused to see her at all, and in despair she asked Eustace to speak to his cousin. Eustace told her he had done so without any result, and declined to interfere in the matter again. Miss Corbin would have liked to have written to Alizon, but her last attempt to mend matters had resulted in such a fiasco that she was afraid to do anything. So the poor old lady, already very ill, worried and fretted herself to a shadow over the helpless position in which she found herself. Seriously angry with Guy, she had altered her will in favour of Eustace, and then took to her bed, resolving to meddle no more in mundane affairs. Victoria and Minnie attended her with great devotion, as she was clearly destined never to recover, but her indomitable spirit held out to the end, and she forbade any of her relations to be summoned. One thing displeased her seriously, that Otterburn had not yet spoken to Victoria, and one day she asked him plainly if he intended to do so, upon which the boy told her the whole state of the case. "So you see, Miss Corbin," he said, when he finished, "that I'm afraid to try my luck a second time, in case the answer will be no." "You have no fear of that," replied Aunt Jelly, patting his hand. "No one regrets her refusal more than Victoria. You ask her again, and I'll warrant the answer will be what you desire." So Otterburn, having received this encouragement, made up his mind to speak to Victoria at Mrs. Veilsturm's ball. Aunt Jelly had not intended to let Miss Sheldon go to this festivity at first, thinking that Mrs. Veilsturm had designedly attracted Guy, but when she heard the way in which she was behaving, she withdrew her prohibition and insisted upon Victoria going. Not only that, but she herself selected a costume for her ward, and considerably astonished that young damsel when she told her what she wanted her to appear as. "Why Flora Macdonald?" asked Victoria, in surprise. "I'm not a bit Scotch." "Are you not?" said Aunt Jelly drily. "I thought your mother was?" "Oh, yes, but----" "Don't make nonsensical objections, child," replied Miss Corbin sharply, with a flash of her old spirit. "I want you to go as Flora Macdonald, and I've no doubt you'll find out the reason before the ball is ended." Whereat Victoria, being less innocent of the reason than she pretended to be, laughed gaily, and went off with Minnie Pelch on a shopping excursion. "Minnie," she said to her companion, when they left Miss Corbin, "do you know anything about Flora Macdonald?" "Oh, yes," said Minnie, delighted at displaying her historical knowledge. "She was in love with Bonnie Prince Charlie, and saved his life, you know." "Bonnie Prince Charlie," repeated Victoria thoughtfully, "perhaps I'll meet him at the ball." "I shouldn't wonder," replied Miss Pelch significantly, for being a true woman, and dearly loving a romance, she had seen long ago how matters stood between Otterburn and Miss Sheldon. So they went shopping all that bright afternoon, hunting up tartans, talking learnedly about Cairngorm brooches, and white cockades, and Jacobite songs, and the Lord knows what else. Ah me, how strangely does Fate deal with our lives. Here was Guy drifting away from his wife day by day, and Angus being drawn nearer and nearer to Victoria. What Sir Guy Errington and Alizon Mostyn were two years before, they were about to become now--would their future be the same? Who could tell? Fortune, blind and capricious, whirls her wheel round and round, raising and abasing men and women daily, hourly, momentarily, unaware herself, by reason of her bandage, of the good and evil she allots to one and another. CHAPTER XXXII. WHAT MADE THE BALL SAE FINE? "Sure this wild fantastic band Must have come from Fairy-land. Those who live in History's page, Step once more upon Life's stage. All the poet's dreamings bright, In the flesh appear to-night, Columbine and Harlequin, Knight, Crusader, Saracen, Cleopatra and her Roman, Herod, Borgia loved of no man, Antoinette and Louis Seize, Faust with Mephistopheles, All beneath the gas-lamps' gleam, Dance as in some magic dream. Surely at the break of day, Will the vision fade away, And these spirits bright and fair, Vanish into viewless air." Mrs. Veilsturm had certainly no reason to complain of lack of popularity, as she looked at her salons thronged with all fashionable London. Her diplomatic behaviour towards Errington for the last few weeks had borne good fruit, having converted foes into friends, and friends into red-hot partizans, therefore everyone came to her fancy dress ball, and this entertainment which signalised her exit from London Society was proving a wonderful success. Never had she looked so perfectly lovely as she did on this night, when, robed as Cleopatra, she stood near the door receiving her guests. Swathed in diaphanous tissues, broidered with strange figures in gold and silver, with jewels flashing star-like from every portion of her dress, the double crown of Egypt on her lustrous coils of hair, and a trailing mantle of imperial purple silk drooping from her shoulders, she looked like the embodiment of some splendid civilization long since perished from the earth. Truly this woman, with her majestic bearing, her voluptuous form, her rich Eastern beauty, and slow sensuous movements, looked like that antique coquette of the slow-flowing Nile, whose face, fair and deathless, still smiles at us across the long centuries from out the darkness of old Egypt. The huge room resembled a garden of flowers blown by the wind, as the restless dancers in their brilliant costumes swayed hither and thither to the music of the band. Dainty Watteau shepherdesses, serene Greek maidens, mediæval pages, steel-clad knights, Cavaliers, Louis Quatorze musketeers, and divers other picturesque figures, mingled together in gay confusion, laughing, talking, jesting, smiling, flirting and whispering, without pause or rest. And above the murmur of voices, the sound of feet gliding over the polished floor, and the indistinct frou-frou of dresses, sounded the rhythmical swing of the valse "Caprice d'une femme," played by an unseen orchestra. The gas-lamps in their many-coloured shades gleamed softly over the noisy crowd, the faint perfume of myriad flowers, drooping in the heat on the decorated walls, floated dreamily on the heavy air, and round and round with laughter and jesting swept the dancers, while the fitful music arose and fell with its recurrent burden of passionate tenderness. "Dear, dear!" observed a ponderous Britannia, fanning her red face with her shield, "how hot it is to be sure! I wonder if there's such a thing as an ice to be had?" "Or champagne?" said a faded-looking Dawn sitting near her. "I'm positively dying for champagne." "Young men are so selfish," sighed Britannia, looking in vain for a friendly face; "they come to my dances, but never think of looking after me when I'm not in my own house. One might starve for all they care, and an ice----" "Would, no doubt, save you from such a fate," said a languid voice, as a tall, heavily-built man, in a monkish dress, paused near the representative of the British Empire. "Come then, Mrs. Trubbles, and I'll get you one." "Dear me, Mr. Gartney," observed Mrs. Trubbles, shifting her trident to her left hand in order to welcome Eustace. "Well, I am astonished." "At seeing me here, or at my dress? Both things rather extraordinary, I must confess. I'm rather fond of fancy dress balls, all the same. It's so pleasant to see one's friends making fools of themselves." "How unamiable, Mr. Gartney," said Dawn, screwing her wrinkled face into what was meant for a fascinating smile. "But how true, Mrs. Dills," responded Gartney, with a bow, "but I see both you ladies are longing for supper, so perhaps I can make myself useful." "Indeed you can," said both eagerly, rising and taking an arm each. "I feel like the royal arms, between the lion and the unicorn," remarked Eustace, jestingly. "No, indeed," said Mrs. Dills, who set up for being a wit, "we've got the lion between us. But what might you be, Mr. Gartney?" "Rabelais." "What's Rabelais? cried Britannia, with a faint idea it might be something to eat. "Rabelais," explained Eustace, gravely, "was the creator of Pantagruel and Gargantua." "I never heard of him," said Mrs. Dills crossly, being in want of her supper. "Oh, fame! fame!" "Bother fame," observed Mrs. Trubbles, as the two ladies sat down at the table. "I would give the fame of Nebuchadnezzar for a good meal." "You shall have it and without such a sacrifice," said Eustace, assisting Dawn and Britannia plenteously; "by-the-way, isn't Miss Sheldon with you, to-night?" "Yes Flora Macdonald, whoever she was," said Mrs. Trubbles, heavily, "she's with that young Macjean. Do you remember him at Como, Mr. Gartney? He's in a Scotch dress to-night." "Bonnie Prince Charlie, I suppose?" "Or a tobacconist's sign," said Mrs. Dills who was an adept at saying nasty things. "By-the-way, Mr. Gartney, isn't the company rather mixed?" Mrs. Dills' papa had been an opulent linen-draper, and Mr. Dills had made his money by a speciality in sheets, so she thought herself quite justified in criticising aristocratic society. Eustace knew all about Mrs. Dills, and was so amused by the little woman's insolence, that he did not reply half so severely as he had intended to do. "Ah, you see I've not had your opportunities for judging," he replied drily, "but as far as I can judge, there's nobody here that isn't somebody." "But their characters," hinted Mrs. Dills, with a seraphic look. "Ah, bah! I'm no Asmodeus to unroof people's houses." "What a lucky thing--for the people." "And what a disappointment--for their friends," said Eustace, significantly. He hated Mrs. Dills, who was an adept at damning with faint praise, and took away people's characters with the look of a four-year-old child and the tongue of a serpent. Mrs. Dills saw Gartney's meaning, and resenting it with all the viciousness of a small mind, began to be nasty. "I see Sir Guy Errington is here," she said, smiling blandly, "as Edgar of Ravenswood. He looks like a thundercloud in black velvet. I'm so sorry for him." "That's really very kind of you," retorted Eustace, sarcastically. "Not at all," murmured Dawn, sympathetically; "it's such a pity to see his infatuation." "For what?" demanded Gartney, obtusely. "Oh, really! You know! of course you do! Poor Lady Errington! And then the 'Other' doesn't care for him." "Little viper," thought Eustace, looking smilingly at her, but saying nothing, which encouraged Mrs. Dills to proceed. "It's a dreadful scandal, but not 'Her' fault--oh, dear no! but he ought to go back to his wife, especially as the 'Other' doesn't care for him." "You talk like a sphinx," said Eustace, coldly. "Whom do you mean by the 'Other'?" Mrs. Dills smiled sweetly, and having finished her supper arose to take his arm. "When one is in Rome, one must not speak evil of the Pope," she replied cleverly. "Are you quite ready, Mrs. Trubbles?" "Quite, my dear," said that matron, who had made an excellent supper. "We'll go back now, Mr. Gartney. Dear me, there's Mr. Thambits. How do you do? What is your character, Mr. Thambits?" "I'm Richard C[oe]ur de Lion," answered Dolly, who looked very ill at ease in his armour, "and Jiddy is Blondel." "Is he really?" said Britannia, poking Jiddy in the back with her trident to make him turn round. "Very nice. I saw Blondin on the tight-rope once." "Not Blondin, but Blondel," explained Jiddy, meekly, "he was a harper, you know, and sang songs." "I hope you don't carry your impersonation so far as that," said Mrs. Dills, spitefully. "I've had singing lessons," began Blondel, indignantly, "and I sing----" "You do, I've heard you," said Eustace, significantly, and then hurried his two ladies quickly back to their seats, being somewhat tired of Mrs. Dills' spiteful tongue and Britannia's ponderous conversation. Having thus performed his duty, he went away to look for Otterburn, being anxious to know how that young man had sped in his wooing. Near the door, however, a man brushed roughly past him with a muttered apology, and Eustace, turning to see whom this ill-bred person could be, found himself face to face with Guy Errington. He was dressed as the Master of Ravenswood, and, in his sombre dress of dark velvet, his high riding boots of black Spanish leather, and his broad sombrero with its drooping white plume of feathers, looked remarkably handsome, though, as Mrs. Dills had remarked, "like a thundercloud in black velvet," such was the gloom of his face. "How are you, Guy?" said his cousin, laying a detaining hand upon the young man's shoulder. "I've been looking for you everywhere." "I've only been here half-an-hour," replied Errington listlessly. "Anything wrong?" "Oh, no I only you've avoided me for the last week or so, and I want to know the reason." "There's no reason that I know of, and I haven't avoided you." As he spoke, his eyes were looking over the heads of the crowd, and in following their gaze. Eustace saw they rested on Cleopatra, who was talking to Major Griff. "Oh, I see the reason," said Eustace coolly, "and a very handsome reason it is." Errington laughed in a sneering manner and made no reply. "I say Guy," remarked Eustace complacently, "isn't it about time you stopped making a fool of yourself?" "I don't understand you." "No? you wish me to speak plainer?" "I do not wish you to speak at all," retorted Errington fiercely, his eyes full of sombre fire. "Our relationship has its privileges, Gartney, but don't take too much advantage of them." He shook off his cousin's hand impatiently, and without another word disappeared in the crowd, leaving Eustace considerably perturbed. "I've done all I can," he muttered disconsolately. "He's bent on going to the devil via Mrs. Veilsturm, so I can't stop him. If I only dared to console his wife, but she's got the boy--that's consolation enough for a piece of ice like her." Meanwhile, Errington, pushing his way through the dancers, made his way to Cleopatra, who, having finished with Griff, was chatting to a young F.O. man. On seeing Errington, she turned towards him with a slight bow, and began to talk, upon which the F.O. went off to find some one else. "Are you not dancing, Sir Guy?" she asked, looking at him brightly. "No, I don't care about it, unless you dance with me." "And what about my duties as hostess?" "I think you've done enough penance for one evening." "Meaning that my reward is to dance with you," she said mischievously. "Thank you, Monsieur." She was more amiable to him this evening than she had been of late. And Guy, feeling the change, thawed wonderfully under the sunshine of her eyes. "Well, am I to have my dance?" he asked, with a smile. Cleopatra took up her programme and ran her eyes over the series of scratches which did duty for names opposite the dances. "I don't know if you deserve one," she whispered coquetishly. "Don't say that. As you are strong, be merciful." She handed him the card with a laugh. "You can have that valse," she said, indicating one far down, "by that time I will be released from durance vile." Errington scribbled his name, and giving her back the card, was about to renew the conversation, when she dismissed him imperiously. "Now you have got what you wanted, go away. I have a number of people to talk to." "A lot of fools," he muttered peevishly. "Possibly--we can't all be Ravenswoods, you know." "Maraquita!" "Hold your tongue," she said, in a fierce whisper, "do you want to compromise me before all these people? Go away, and don't come near me till our valse." "And afterwards?" "Entirely depends upon the humour I am in." He took his dismissal in a sufficiently sulky manner, which made Mrs. Veilsturm smile blandly, on seeing which he turned away with a stifled curse. It was extraordinary, the change in this man, who, from being a good-natured-enough fellow, had suddenly changed, through his wife's cruelty and his temptress's caprices, into a morose, disagreeable individual, whom nobody cared to speak with. "Is that Sir Guy Errington?" asked a soft voice behind him. "See if it is, Mr. Macjean." "There is no need," responded Errington with forced civility, turning round to Otterburn and Miss Shelton. "You have very sharp eyes." "Ah, you see I knew what your costume was going to be," said Victoria, who looked wonderfully pretty as Flora Macdonald. "Aunt Jelly told me." "By the way, how is Aunt Jelly?" "She's not at all well," replied Victoria, reproachfully, "and you have not been near her for some weeks." "More pleasantly employed, eh?" said Otterburn, laughing, for which he was rewarded by a fierce glance from Errington. "I've been busy," he said briefly. "I'll call shortly. Hope you'll enjoy this foolery, Miss Sheldon." Jerking out these polite sentences he went off, leaving the young couple looking after him in undisguised astonishment. "I don't know what's come over Sir Guy," said Macjean, as they pursued their way towards the conservatory, "he used to be such a good-tempered fellow." "Oh, _cherchez la femme_." "Wouldn't have to seek far I'm afraid," replied Angus, glancing at the distant form of Mrs. Veilsturm. "She's a horrid woman," said Victoria, viciously, as they entered the conservatory, and found a comfortable nook. "I quite agree with you." "You shouldn't talk of your hostess in that way," observed Miss Sheldon reprovingly. "But I say, you know," replied Otterburn, rather bewildered at this sudden change of front, "you say----" "I say lots of things I do not mean." "I wish I could be sure of that." "Indeed why?" "Because--oh! you understand?" "I'm sure I don't," replied Miss Sheldon, demurely, then looking up, she caught his eye, and they both laughed gaily. The conservatory was certainly a very pleasant place, with its wealth of palms, of cactuses, of ferns and such-like tropical vegetation. A pale, emerald radiance from green-shaded lamps bathed the whole place, and at one end a slender jet of water shot up like a silver rod from the stillness of a wide pool, in which floated great white water-lilies. The band in the distant ball-room were playing a _pot pourri_ of airs from the latest opera, and Otterburn sat under the drooping fronds of a palm-tree beside Victoria, with the fatal words which would bind him for life trembling on his lips. So handsome he looked in his picturesque Scotch dress, with the waving tartans and gleam of Cairngorm brooches, and his bright young face bent towards her, full of tender meaning. Victoria knew quite well that he intended to propose again, and her heart beat rapidly as her eyes fell before the fiery light which burned in his own. "I suppose you have quite forgotten Como?" said Otterburn, in what he meant to be a matter-of-fact tone. Miss Sheldon began to draw designs on the floor with the toe of her dainty boot, and laughed nervously. "Oh no! it was the first time I was in Italy, you know, and first impressions----" "Are always excellent." "Yes, I suppose so." "I hope you don't think the same about first refusals." "Refusals of what?" she replied, wilfully misunderstanding his meaning, at which Otterburn felt somewhat disappointed. "Ah, your memory is treacherous." "I think not! I can remember most things--when I choose." "Then do you remember how we talked about Scotch costumes, and I said I'd put mine on the first Fancy Dress Ball we went to." "Yes! I remember that." "This is the first Fancy Dress Ball." "And you are in your tartans," she answered, with a sudden glance. "How curiously it all comes about. I thought you had forgotten." "I never forget anything you say," he replied eagerly. "I wish I could." "Now that's very unkind of you! Why?" "Because I wish to forget how cruel you were to me at the Villa Medici." "Was I cruel?" she asked, with sudden compunction. "You know you were," he answered reproachfully, "so I think you ought to make up for it." He took her hand that was lying on her lap, and drew her towards him. She made no resistance, but still kept her eyes cast down. "How can I make up for it?" she asked, in a low voice. "By saying Yes, instead of No," he replied ardently. "Certainly. Yes, instead of No." "How cruel you are still," he said impatiently. "You understand what I mean quite well. You sent me away to wander all over the face of the earth because you were----" "A coquette," she interrupted. "I never said so," he answered, rather taken aback. "You did--then." "I? Well I do not now. I'll say you are the dearest, sweetest girl in the world if you'll only say----" "Yes." "Ah, you've said it," he said joyfully, slipping his arm round her waist. "You have said, 'yes.'" "Ah! perhaps I did not mean it," she answered coquettishly. "I don't care," he retorted recklessly, "you have said it, and I hold you----" "Yes you do," she murmured with a smile. "To your word," he finished gaily. "Victoria, say you love me a little." "No, I can't say that." His face whitened, and a pained look came into his eyes, but she laid her head on his shoulder, and looking up, whispered softly: "Because I love you a great deal." "My darling." He bent down and kissed her fondly, and then--then--ah, who can repeat truly the conversation of lovers, who can write down coldly all the fond, foolish words, the tender endearments, that go to make up the happy time that succeeds the little word "yes?" The music in the distance ceased, there was the noise of approaching feet, and Victoria sprang to her feet quickly. "We must go back to the ball-room, Mr. Macjean." "Mr. Macjean!" "Well, then, 'Angus.'" "Ah, that's much better," he said gaily, giving her his arm. "You are no doubt engaged for the next dance, but I cannot give you up so soon. Now I've got you I'll keep you for ever." "Ever's a long time," laughed Victoria, whose face was beaming with smiles, as she looked at her handsome young lover walking so proudly beside her. "It won't be long enough for me," he said fondly, and they passed into the brilliant ball-room at peace with themselves and the world. On the way they met Eustace, who glanced keenly at both of them, and then held out his hands with a laugh. "I congratulate you both," he said, smiling; "you will both be happy--till you get tired of one another." "That horrid man," said Victoria with a shiver as he passed onward. "We will never get tired, Mr.--I mean Angus?" "Never," he whispered fervently. There's nothing half so sweet in life as love's young dream, but what a pity there should be any awakening. CHAPTER XXXIII. PALLIDA MORS. "He comes unsought To young and old, Can ne'er be bought By tears or gold, He buries us all in the churchyard's mould. "Oh, man, why weep? His gifts are blest, He brings us sleep, He gives us rest. And the world's care ceases upon his breast. "Receive, if wise, Affliction's rod, The body lies Beneath the sod, But the soul we love is at home with God." It was now nearly the end of the season, and Society was preparing to amuse itself in another fashion. Brighton, and Trouville, and Dieppe, and Scarborough were thronged with languid men and women, slowly regaining from the fresh salt breeze of the sea the strength they had wasted during the feverish existence of the season. After her brilliant entertainment, Mrs. Veilsturm had taken a villa at San Remo for a month or so, prior to departing for the States, and managed to amuse herself very comfortably by the blue Mediterranean, with an occasional run over to Monte Carlo and Nice. The Major was in Paris, looking after some business connected with the inevitable West Indian estate, though what Paris had to do with the West Indies nobody could find out. However, his business being duly finished, he went South, at the kind invitation of Mrs. Veilsturm, and found Anthony at the feet of Cleopatra, in other words, Sir Guy Errington in attendance. Yes! Guy, in spite of the calls of honour and respectability, had followed his charmer to the Continent, and being released from the microscopic vision of Mrs. Grundy, Cleopatra had been very kind to him, fully recouping him for the cavalier fashion in which she had treated him in Town. He had never written to his wife since leaving her, except a curt note telling her he was leaving England for an indefinite period, and to this he had received no answer. Angered at her silence, he abandoned any scruples he might have had and went off to dishonour and Mrs. Veilsturm, who was delighted at the easy victory she had secured over her hated rival. She flattered and caressed Errington with all the infinite charm of which she was mistress, was kind and cruel by turns, but never permitted him to go beyond a certain limit, which cautious conduct perplexed him exceedingly. He had thrown up everything for her, and expected a like sacrifice in return, but Mrs. Veilsturm was not by any means prepared to give up her hardly-won position even for revenge. All she wanted was to destroy the married life of Lady Errington, and she was quite willing to accomplish this by keeping Guy near her under the shadow of suspicion, without giving that suspicion any real grounds. Therefore, she kept him in a fool's paradise of meaningless caresses, which meant nothing, and had he been a wise man he would have seen that he had given up the substance for the shadow. He was not a wise man, however, and dangled after Mrs. Veilsturm in a manner that would have won his own contempt had he thought. But he never thought, or if he did, it was more of the wife he had left behind than this capricious woman, whose slave he was supposed to be. He did not love her, but was content to surrender himself to the spell of her evil beauty, and acted as he did more from a sense of revolt against his wife's scorn, than any innate desire to do wrong. It was an unsatisfactory position, and he felt it to be so, but Mrs. Veilsturm was too clever to let him go until her revenge was quite complete, and every day wound her chains closer round him. Major Griff was not pleased to find Errington in this position, as he thought it would compromise Cleopatra's reputation too much, but when he saw the way in which she was conducting the campaign he was perfectly satisfied, and smiled grimly at the dexterous manner in which she was revenging herself for the insult she had received. Dolly Thambits, in company with the faithful Jiddy, was staying at Monte Carlo, and losing his money with wonderful skill at the tables. This, however, seemed a waste of God's best gifts to the Major, and, aided by the seductions of Cleopatra, he inveigled Dolly to San Remo and kept him under his own eye. He won a lot of money from him, which came in useful, and occasionally went out with him to Monaco, so as to make such pigeon-plucking look less glaring. Dolly was anxious to marry Mrs. Veilsturm, who simply laughed at his frequent proposals, as she was by no means tired of being a free lance, but she decided in her own mind, that when she was she would marry Mr. Thambits and give the cold shoulder to Major Griff. At present, however, she coquetted with Guy so as to retain him in her toils, and made poor Dolly deadly jealous of the good-looking baronet, which was useful in keeping him by her side out of contrariness. She was a clever woman, Maraquita Veilsturm, and kept everyone well in hand, so that not even the astute Major suspected her designs. While Guy was thus abandoning himself to the spell of Circe, Eustace had gone down to Castle Grim, and was seeing a good deal of the deserted wife. He did not make much progress, however, in his wooing, as Alizon was not a woman to wear her heart on her sleeve, and never spoke of her husband in any way. She simply said that her husband was abroad, made no reference to the reason of their separation, and for the rest, passed her days with her child, and treated Eustace in a kindly fashion when he came over on a visit. Astute man of the world as he was, Gartney was quite at a loss how to proceed, and might have retired from the unequal contest in despair, much as he loved her, had not an event happened which gave him the opening he desired. Aunt Jelly died. She had been ailing for a long time, poor soul, and was glad when the time came to leave this world, in which she had found such small pleasure. Her imperious spirit held out to the last, but she was strangely gentle at times, especially to Minnie Pelch, whom she knew would be left quite alone in the world when she died. Otterburn's engagement to Victoria gave her the greatest delight, and she insisted that they should get married at once, so that she could leave the world satisfied that the child of her old lover was under the safe protection of a husband. Otterburn was quite willing that the marriage should take place without delay, and wrote a letter to Lord Dunkeld announcing his determination. By the advice of Johnnie (who was greatly pleased with his new mistress, pronouncing her a "canty lass," which was complimentary if not intelligible), he wrote a crafty letter to Mactab, enlisting his good offices to gain the consent of the old lord. Mactab thought a good deal over the letter, but when he discovered that the proposed bride was handsome, good, and had a large income, he came to the conclusion that "the laddie micht hae din waur," and went to interview Lord Dunkeld. The fiery old gentleman was in a great rage, averring that neither money nor good looks could make up for want of birth, but the discovery that Victoria's mother was a Macjean, and therefore connected with the family, calmed his anger and after some hesitation he consented to the match. Not only that, but he came up to London to the marriage and brought the redoubtable Mactab to tie the nuptial knot, so everything was really very pleasant. They were married in a quiet fashion at Aunt jelly's house, and Lord Dunkeld was very much pleased with his new daughter, both as regards fortune and looks. The young couple went off to Ventnor for their honeymoon, and after a fortnight in Town, round which they were shewn by Eustace, Lord Dunkeld and his spiritual adviser returned to the North, satisfied that the future head of the clan had obtained a "guid doonsettin'." Before the end of the honeymoon, however, Mrs. Macjean was summoned home to the bedside of Aunt Jelly, but alas, before she arrived, Aunt Jelly had already passed away attended to the last by Minnie Pelch. Both Otterburn and his young wife were sorry for the death of the stern old woman, who had been so kind to them both; and their sorrow was shared by Eustace, who came up from Castle Grim for the funeral. Guy was telegraphed to, but as his relations with his aunt had not been of the best during the latter part of his life, and he blamed her for making trouble between himself and his wife, he refused to come over. "Aunt jelly hated me," he wrote to Eustace, "and although I would liked to have made it up with her before she died, yet I cannot forget the letter she wrote to my wife, which has been the cause of all my trouble. She will no doubt leave you all her money, as I know she had every intention of altering the will she made in my favour, and I am sorry for my son's sake, if not for my own." There was much more in the letter which Eustace pondered over, as he understood perfectly that Guy was not happy, but as he did not see how he could alter things, he left them alone. On the will being read, it turned out exactly as Guy had anticipated, for Aunt Jelly left all her real and personal estate to Eustace, with the exception of two hundred a year to Minnie Pelch, and some legacies to her servants, Victoria and Doctor Pargowker. To Guy she did not leave a single thing, his name not even being mentioned in the will. Eustace wrote to his cousin and offered him half the fortune, but Guy refused, so Gartney found himself an enormously rich man, and more miserable than ever. He sincerely loved Alizon Errington, but did not know how to make his love known to her, and as he could not see how to remedy the terrible misunderstanding between husband and wife, he was forced to take up a neutral position. Mr. and Mrs. Macjean, after the funeral, took their departure to Dunkeld Castle, on a visit to the old lord, and after installing Minnie Pelch as mistress of the house in Delphson Square, Eustace went down to Castle Grim, in order to tell Lady Errington about the will. It was a terribly bitter situation altogether. Husband parted from wife by a miserable misunderstanding, and this man, wealthy and clever, wavering between honour and dishonour, between respect for Guy and love for Alizon. CHAPTER XXXIV. THE ASSAULTS OF THE EVIL ONE. "I sit beside the gate of the heart That bars the soul of this woman from me; The little white soul, that dwelleth apart, Safe from temptation and evil dart, Nor one chink in the gate can I see. "Would I could open this gate of the heart, Enter within, as a conqueror wild; Nay, but I see a sentinel start, To guard its treasure from earthly smart, Evil shrinks from this little white child." It was summer down at Denfield, and the noble woods around Errington Hall were waving their heavily foliaged branches over the flower-pranked earth. The wayside hedges were gay with blossoms, the swallows wheeled aloft in the bright blue sky, the farmer looking over the green fields was calculating the promise of harvest, and there was sunshine throughout the land. Sunshine from dawn till eve over the teeming earth: sunshine in the hearts of village maidens, thinking of plighted troths; sunshine in the stolid faces of farming lads, tramping beside their sleek horses; sunshine among the cronies, seated outside the alehouse, in the warm summer air, but, in the heart of Alizon Errington--ah, there was no sunshine there! She was walking slowly up and down the terrace of the Hall, dividing her attention between her own sad thoughts, and the gambols of Sammy, who was rolling amid his toys on an outspread bearskin. Straight and slender as an arrow, in her clinging white dress, with a red cluster of summer roses at her throat, but in her face a stern look, which melted into an adoring smile when she looked upon the child. Since her husband's departure, Lady Errington had not been happy. Perhaps she had been too hasty in judging him, perhaps she might have won him back from his evil ways by kindly words, but there, it was no use regretting the past, he was an exile on the Continent, and she was alone in her beautiful home. Not quite alone, however, for the child was there; her darling child, who was the joy of her life, the light of her eyes, and the comfort of her heart! Still, she missed her husband, in spite of her self-congratulations that she had acted as she had done; she missed his kindly ways, his affectionate smile, his thousand little acts of tenderness, which had passed unnoticed when done, but now seemed to start out of the past like a reproach for her severity. Had she been too severe after all? He had sinned, it was true! She felt sure that his character, like that of all men, resembled that of her father, and yet--he had indignantly denied his fault; he had pleaded for one kind look, one parting word, and she had refused his prayer. If his heart was evil, would it not have been better for her to have striven to draw it closer to her by that one strand of affection than sever the strand altogether, and let it sink back into the gulf of iniquity from which it strove to emerge. Alizon Errington was a good woman, who tried to do her best according to her lights, to whom the very thought of vice was utterly abhorrent, yet sometimes, as at this moment, unpleasant accusations of Pharisaism and self-righteousness were in her mind. All the tenderness and dog-like fidelity of her husband had failed to touch her heart, but now that he had (as she verily believed) slighted her wilfully, and voluntarily left a life of purity for one of guilt, she felt that he was more to her than anyone else in the world, save his child. If his heart, if his instincts, were as evil as she believed, all the more credit to him for the way in which he strove to act honestly, but if on the other hand she had misjudged him and driven a good man into evil by cruel words and harsh looks, then indeed she was to blame. Either way she looked at things now it seemed to her that she was in the wrong, and yet she could not, would not, acknowledge that she had not acted justly. "If he had only waited for a time," she told herself restlessly. "If he he had only shown by his actions that he desired to do right, I would have believed him in time. But to go back to that vile woman after what I said--no!--he is like all the rest--he makes evil his God, and would break my heart, and ruin his child's future, sooner than deny himself the gratification of his brutal instincts." Strong words certainly, but then she felt strongly. She was not a broad-minded woman, for the horror with which her father had inspired her, had narrowed down her views of life to Puritanical exactness. She demanded from the world purity--absolute purity--which was an impossibility. What man could come to a woman and say, "I am as pure in my life as you are"? Not one. Why then did she demand it from her husband? but this was quite another view of the question. Her thoughts had gone from one thing to another, until they had become involved and complex. With a weary sigh she shook her head, as though to drive away all those ideas, and sat down in a low chair, in order to play with the boy. "Sammy! Sammy! You musn't put pitty things in mouse mouse." "Mum! mum!" from Sammy, who was making a bold attempt to swallow his coral necklace. Finding this a failure he crawled quickly across the bearskin, drew himself up to his mother's knees, and stood grinning, in a self-congratulatory manner, on his unsteady little legs. "Come, then," said Alizon, holding out her arms. Frantic attempts on the part of Sammy to crawl up on her lap, ending with a fall, and then a quick catching up into the desired place under a shower of kisses. They made a pretty picture, mother and son; the pale, sad-looking woman, with the fresh, rosy boy, and Eustace paused a moment, at the end of the terrace, to admire it. The boy had caught the tortoise-shell pin in his mother's hair with one chubby hand, and, before she could laughingly prevent him, had pulled it out, so that the fair ringlets came falling over her breast in a golden shower. "Oh, naughty Sammy," she said, gaily tossing him in the air with her two hands. "Look at poor mother's hair--bad child!" Sammy, however, appeared to have a different opinion, and chuckled indistinctly to himself, until he caught sight of Eustace, of whom he was very fond, and stretched out his arms with a merry crow. "Mr. Gartney,' said Lady Errington, flushing a rosy red at the disorder of her hair, just see what this scamp has done." "Young Turk!" said Eustace, taking the boy with a smile, while Alizon hastily twisted up her hair into a loose knot. "How are you, to-day, Lady Errington?" "Quite well, thank you," she replied quietly, as he sat down near her, with Sammy still on his knee. "I thought you were up in town?" "So I was. Came down last night," answered Gartney, while the baby made futile grabs at his watch chain. "Well, my prince, and how are you?" "He's never ill," said the young mother, with great pride. "I never saw such a healthy child. Not an illness since his birth." "Lucky Sammy! if his future life is only as pleasant as the first year of it, what a delightful time he will have." Lady Errington's face had grown very grave during this speech, as she had caught sight of the crape on his arm, and suddenly remembered why he had gone up to town. "You went to the funeral?" she asked, the colour flushing in her face. "Yes!" he replied, smoothing the child's fair curls with gentle hand. "I went to the funeral. Poor Aunt Jelly! I don't think she was sorry to die." Alizon made no reply, but sat perfectly still, looking steadily at him with a questioning look on her face. He knew what she so much desired to know, and broke the bad news to her as gently as he was able. "I heard the will read," he said awkwardly, reddening a little through the bronze of his complexion, "and she has left all her property to me." "To you?" "Believe me, I neither expected nor desired it," he cried hastily. "I have got plenty of money, without wishing more, and I thought she was going to leave it to Guy. I really thought she intended to do so." "My poor child!" That was all she said--not a thought, not a word of pity for her absent husband. All her sorrow was for the unconscious child playing on Gartney's knee. "I assure you," began Eustace, feeling like a robber, "that I----" "That you could not help it," she answered quietly. "I know that perfectly well. Who can be accountable for such things? But I am thinking of the future of my son. This property is deeply mortgaged, and most of the income goes to pay the interest. If Guy lived with me here we might save during the boy's minority, but he is far away spending the money that is to be his son's. I thought Aunt Jelly would have left the boy something, if she did not the father, and now he will be a pauper when he comes of age. This place will have to be sold, and my poor lad will never be Errington of the Hall--Oh, poor soul!--poor soul!" Her voice ended in a tragic wail, and it was with difficulty that she restrained her tears. Eustace never felt so awkward in his life, as he did not know what to say in excuse for having unwittingly thwarted her hopes. Sammy had clambered down off his knee, and was now contentedly covering his toys with his mother's handkerchief, while she, poor woman, was sitting looking at him silently, with an expression of mute misery on her face. "Lady Errington," said Eustace earnestly after a pause, "believe me, I am as sorry as you are, but I do not know how to act. I wrote to Guy, offering him half the property by deed of gift, and he refused to take it." "He could do no less," she answered dully. "What right have we to rob you?" "It's not robbery," he replied vehemently. "I have more money than I want. Whenever Guy likes to accept, he shall have half the property." Without answering his question, she looked down at the baby playing at her feet, and then glanced at him keenly. "Where is my husband?" she asked quickly. "On the Continent--at San Remo." "With!--with that woman?" "I!--I don't know," replied Eustace in a low voice, turning his face away. "Mr. Gartney?" "Yes, Lady Errington." "Look me in the face." He did so unwillingly, and found her eyes fastened on his with a determined expression. "Is my husband with that woman?" "No! I don't think so, but I certainly heard she was at San Remo," he answered evasively. "Ah!" she drew a long breath, and a look of anger swept across her pale face. "He is with her then. I thought so." "You must not be too hard on Guy," said Eustace, very feebly it must be confessed. "Hard on Guy," she repeated scornfully. "Hard on a man who leaves his wife and child for a vile woman like that. You, of course, take his side." "Why should I?" demanded Eustace hotly, "because I am his cousin?" "No, because you are a man. Men always stand up for one another. It's a kind of _esprit du corps_ with them I suppose. It is no wrong to betray a woman in their eyes." "I don't know why you expect me to stand up for my sex, I'm sure," said Eustace cynically. "I think very little of them I assure you, and am quite incompetent to undertake the Herculean task of defending their failings. I've got too many of my own to account for." "I've no doubt," replied Lady Errington bitterly. "You men are all the same." "I sincerely hope not," retorted Eustace imperturbably. "I've no desire to resemble certain fools of my acquaintance. My character is no better nor no worse than my fellow-creatures', and had some good woman like yourself taken charge of my life I might have improved." "You ought to get married." "Do you think so--from your own experience?" She flushed crimson, and in order to hide her confusion stooped down to pick up the child. "Marriages are made in heaven," she said, trying to pass the thing off lightly. "I understand there's a tradition to that effect," responded Eustace, indolently. "If that is the case, it is a pity Heaven gives a woman to one man who doesn't care about her, instead of bestowing her on another who cannot be happy without her." "Is that your case?" "Yes." There was a pause, during which she looked at him curiously. He met her gaze calmly, and not an idea of his meaning crossed her mind. "So you love a married woman?" "I do, and therefore no doubt am an object of horror in your eyes?" The child had fallen asleep on her breast, and rising to her feet she walked slowly to and fro, rocking him in her arms. "I have no right to judge you," she said evasively, "but you can hardly expect me--a wife and a mother--to say that I approve of such a dishonourable passion." Eustace winced at the scorn of the last words. "No, I cannot," he answered slowly, "but let me put the case before you in another way. Suppose a woman is married to a man who cares absolutely nothing about her, neglects her in every way, insults her by his passion for another woman----" "Oh!" she cried, shrinking as if he had struck her a blow. "I am putting a supposititious case, remember," he said hastily. "Well, this woman has a lover who adores her, but who has never ventured to express this passion, which the world calls dishonourable. The woman returns that passion and has only to say one word to the lover in order to be released from the curse of a loveless marriage, a neglectful husband, an unhappy home. What should that woman do in such a case?" "Remain true to her marriage vows," she said grandly. "But if the husband is not true." "Is she to sink to the level of the husband? No, Mr. Gartney. Let the wife shame the husband by her fidelity to the vows which he has broken." "And the lover?" "Is not a true lover, or he would not wish to drag the woman he professes to love through the mud of the world." "So you would condemn two lives to perpetual misery for the sake of one man, who does not appreciate the sacrifice?" "Not for the sake of the one man, but for the sake of virtue, of honour, of uprightness." Eustace was silent under the cold purity of her look. This woman was no dreamer as he had thought, but had a soul like that Roman Lucrece, who preferred death to dishonour. "Your creed is severe," he said at last, with a frown on his strongly marked features. "My creed is right," she replied simply. "Yes! according to the world." "No! according to God." As a rule, Gartney was not to be daunted by any woman, but there was something about Alizon Errington that made him afraid to talk in his usual cynical vein. Standing a short distance away, with the child in her arms and the golden glory of the sunshine behind her, this young mother looked like the realisation of the Madonna. So pure, so calm, so lovely, with the look of motherhood in her eyes that he involuntarily turned away his head, as though he was not worthy to profane such purity even by a glance. "You talk above my head," he said at length, rising to his feet, "it is the language of an ideal world, not to be realized in this matter-of-fact century. But if you will forgive me, Lady Errington----" "Why not call me Alizon?" she said cordially. "We are cousins, you know, and titles are so formal--Eustace." "It's very kind of you to grant me such permission," replied Gartney frankly, taking the hand she held out to him. "Goodbye--Alizon." "Not goodbye, but _au revoir_." "May I come over again?" he asked eagerly. "Of course. I am always glad to see you, besides Sammy loves his kind friend who plays with him." "And you?" Their eyes met, a wave of crimson passed over her face, and with an air of displeasure, she turned away coldly, without answering his question. "Goodbye, Mr. Gartney." Seeing that his freedom had offended her, he was too wise to make any further remark, but bowing slightly walked slowly away. At the end of the terrace he looked back, and saw she was bending over the sleeping child, crooning some cradle-song to soothe his slumbers. "The castle is well defended," he said bitterly, as he resumed his walk. "I will never succeed in entering that heart, for the child stands ever as sentinel." He mounted his horse and rode slowly down the avenue into the green arcade of trees, through the boughs of which came golden shafts of sunlight. "A saint! a saint!" he cried, touching his horse with the spur. "And yet the saint drove her husband to evil." CHAPTER XXXV. FOR MY CHILD'S SAKE. "I'll look my dear boy in the face In after years, Without the shadow of disgrace Or shameful tears. "Oh, folly did I sin with you, And cause him pain, If hands are clean, and hearts are true, His is the gain. "Through future days of toil and fret, Come dull or fair, Dear God, ah, let him ne'er forget His mother's care!" It was very dull down at Castle Grim, for even the bright sunshine of summer could not lift the shadow which seemed to lower over the place. Eustace amused himself as well as he could, strolling on the lonely beach, reading his books, playing his piano, and occasionally visiting at Errington Hall, which he did about three times a week. Alizon was genuinely glad to see him, as in spite of her desire not to do so she missed her husband more than she cared to say, and Gartney's bright, cheerful talk was a great pleasure to her. Besides, the child was fond of him, and that counted for a great deal in the eyes of the young mother, who was never tired of telling her complaisant visitor about the pretty ways and infantile tricks of her treasure. As a rule, he rode over in the afternoon and stayed to dinner, after which, he returned to Castle Grim in the shadows of the summer twilight. What long conversations they used to have on the terrace in the gloaming, talks about books, and the burning questions of the day, and travels in far distant lands. Eustace found his companion singularly charming from an intellectual point of view, as, during her lonely girlhood, she had read a great deal, and moreover, remembered what she had read. They never touched on the subject of their first conversation, however, as Alizon entrenched herself within her reserve, and refused to be drawn into further argument in the matter. Under these circumstances, Eustace was unable to tell whether he had made any impression upon her, and was forced to play the part of an ordinary friend, a _rôle_ not at all to his liking. After all, it was very questionable whether this platonism would change to a warmer feeling, as the cold demeanour of Alizon entirely forbade, in a tacit manner, any over-stepping of the limit of friendship. Eustace, owing to his inherent cynicism, and peculiar mode of life, had not much belief in woman, but this time he was obliged to confess to himself that he had not entirely mastered the feminine sex. He loved her devotedly--the actual woman this time--for the pale, virginal vision which had haunted his brain during his travels in Arabia had entirely vanished, and in place of this unsatisfying dream, he adored the living, breathing woman herself. Doubtless he invested the reality with many of the attributes of the ideal, but, at the same time, he found in Alizon Errington the first companion of the other sex, who satisfied his artistic eye and his intellectual desires. Could he have married her, he would have been perfectly happy, and forgotten the old, empty, aimless existence of the past, but, as it was impossible, seeing she was the wife of another man, he could only stand outside the gates of the Paradise he could never hope to enter, and envy the impossible. All idea that his passion was dishonourable had now vanished, and his dearest hope was that she should divorce her present husband, in order to become his wife. Although he did not understand the actual circumstances of the case, he was well aware that Alizon considered herself outraged by her husband's companionship with Mrs. Veilsturm. He knew that Guy had shown a marked preference for the society of Cleopatra, and, as he had followed his charmer over to the Continent, Eustace began to actually believe that Errington was in love with the beautiful Creole. "Small blame to him," thought Eustace to himself as he drove over to the Hall one evening. "She set her mind upon making a conquest of him, and when a woman does that, a man may as well give in to the inevitable with a good grace. At all events it's not my fault. I never spoke to Mrs. Veilsturm in any way. I never told his wife about the affair, it's Fate and nothing else, and seeing that he has forgotten all a husband's duties, they will never come together again, so I don't see why I should not profit by the occasion." In this way did Eustace pacify his conscience to his own satisfaction, although at times he had an uneasy feeling that a good deal of hard, bitter truth underlay all this sophistry. A good many weeks had gone by, and Lady Errington had come to look upon him as a firm friend. Still, not being satisfied with this, and suffering all the tortures of a restless mind, he determined, as soon as possible, to find out if she was prepared to divorce her husband for his infidelity, and, if so, thought he would plead his own cause. "If there's a chance for me, I'll stay in England and try my hardest," he said to himself as he alighted from the dog-cart at the Hall. "If not, I'll go out to Africa with Laxton." Javelrack drove the dog-cart off in the direction of the stables, and Eustace, after one look at the opaline evening sky, in which glimmered a pale star over the treetops, went inside, where Lady Errington was expecting him to dinner. She was in the little Dutch room, which was her favourite, and when Eustace was announced by the servant, was standing by the table tossing Sammy in the air, while Tasker, well pleased, waited to bear off the young gentleman to bed. "See my treasure?" she cried, as Gartney approached her, "he has come to say good-night. Excuse me shaking hands, Eustace." "Certainly, I yield to stronger claims," said Gartney, looking at the laughing child, and at the happy young mother, in her long, white, dinner-dress. "You ought to be in your nursery, you young scamp." "So he ought," laughed Lady Errington, devouring the baby face with kisses, "but he cried for me so much that Nurse had to bring him down." "He hollered, sir," confirmed Mrs. Tasker, placidly. "I never did see sich a child for his mother." "The sweetest, dearest treasure in the world!" said Alizon taking Sammy across to his nurse, "here, Nurse, take him--oh! he's got my flowers, naughty boy." And indeed, Master Errington, crowing with delight, carried off a mangled geranium in triumph to his nursery, kicking vigorously in Mrs. Tasker's strong arms. "How you idolize that child, Alizon," said Eustace enviously. "He is all I have in the world," she replied with a sigh. "I don't know what I should do without him." "Don't inspire the angels with envy," murmured Gartney, a little cruelly, "it might be dangerous for him." "Oh!" She laid her hand on her heart with a cry, and a pallor over-spread her face. "It is cruel to talk like that," she said hurriedly; "you don't think he looks ill, do you? He's such a strong child. There's no chance of his dying. Oh, Eustace, you don't think that, do you?" "No! no! of course I don't," he replied, soothingly. "Don't get these foolish fancies into your head. Sammy will live to be a great trouble to you I've no doubt." "He'll never be that," answered Lady Errington, recovering herself. "Ah! there's the gong." "Dinner is served, my lady," announced a servant at the door, and taking Gartney's arm, she went with him into the dining-room. It was "Alizon" and "Eustace" with them now, for after all, they were cousins, if only by marriage, and it was so disagreeable to constantly use the formality of titles. Still, there was always that indefinable barrier between them, which kept Eustace within the limits of kindly friendship, and on her part, Alizon never forgot her dignity as a married woman. "It's very kind of you, Alizon, to take pity on a poor hermit," said Gartney, towards the end of the meal, "but I don't know what the county will say at this _tête-à-tête_ dinner." "The county can hardly complain, seeing we are cousins." "By marriage." "Yes, by marriage," she assented, changing the conversation from such a distasteful subject, which reminded her of Guy. "By the way, Eustace, I want you to sing to me this evening." "I think I do that pretty nearly every time I come over," replied Eustace, smiling. "Is there anything special you want?" "I remember your improvisation at Como about the fairy and the nightingale. It was very charming." "Ah! you remember that?" he cried, his face lighting up. "It was too delightful to forget." Eustace laughed a trifle disbelievingly. "Is that genuine, or a society romance?" "I always say what I mean," she answered, with cold dignity. "I'm glad everybody else does not," retorted Gartney fervently. "What a disagreeable world it would be, if that was the case." "A very honest world, at all events." "And therefore disagreeable--the two are inseparable." "Why should they be?" "Ah! why shouldn't they?" said Eustace meaningly. "If the truth was pleasant, nobody would mind hearing it, but then the truth is not always pleasant." "That is the fault of the person spoken of." "I daresay, but he doesn't look at it in that philosophical light." "You are as cynical as ever," she said with a sigh, as she arose to leave the table. "The fault of the world, as I said before," he responded, opening the door. "I would like to believe in my fellow-creatures, only they won't let me." When she had vanished, he returned to his wine, and began to ponder over her words. He saw plainly enough that she did not care about him at all, but with ingrained vanity and egotism would not admit the coldness to himself. "I'll try what a song can do," he thought, as he followed her to the drawing-room. "I can say in a song what I dare not say in plain words." Of course, Lady Errington had run up to the nursery to take a look at the baby, but shortly afterwards came down with an apology, to find Eustace seated at the piano. Outside was the luminous twilight of July, with a pale, starlit sky, arched over the prim Dutch garden. The windows were open, and a warm breath of summer, heavy with the perfume of flowers, floated into the room. The sombre trees stood black and dense against the clear sky, the garden was filled with wavering shadows, and a nightingale was singing deliciously in the heart of the still leaves as the bats glided like ghosts through the air. Lady Errington established herself in a comfortable chair near the open window, with a white wrap as a protection against the falling dews, and Eustace, sitting at the Erard, in the bright light of the lamp, ran his fingers delicately over the keys. "What can I do against that immortal music?" he said absently, alluding to the nightingale. "Hark how the bursts come crowding through the trees. What passion, and what pain." "You don't know Matthew Arnold's poems, I suppose, Lady Errington?" "Ah! you are wrong there," she replied quietly. "I am very fond of his melancholy verse." "Very melancholy," he answered musingly. "I agree with you there. I wonder, if in the whole range of English literature, there is a more bitterly true line than that famous one: "'We mortal millions live alone.'" "That is not my favourite," said Alizon dreamily, "I like that couplet: "'And bade betwixt their shores to be The unplumb'd salt estranging sea.'" "It means very much the same thing," observed Eustace after a pause, "and it's in the same poem, I think. But how true it is! Lovers, friends, married or single, we all live alone, isolated by the 'estranging sea.' No one really knows the heart of a fellow-creature." "But surely if a perfect harmony exists----" "There is always a something," said Gartney decisively, "like the perfume of a flower, the sigh of a wind, the throb of joy in the voice of a bird, that escapes us utterly. It is felt, but cannot be communicated." "A sad idea." "Very sad, but alas, very true." There was a silence between them for a few minutes, only broken by the song of the hidden bird and the ripple of notes from the piano, and then Eustace, with a deep sigh, shook off his sombre thoughts and spoke cheerfully. "I must sing you something, Lady Errington," he said lightly, "all this conversation will make you melancholy." "I like to feel melancholy. It's suitable to the hour." "Then I must make my song the same," he observed gaily, and thereupon played a soft dreamy prelude, at the end of which his sweet, sympathetic voice arose tenderly on the still air: I. "I love a star that shines above When day is blending with the night, Alas, what pain this foolish love, Such worship brings but cold delight. I cannot scale the twilight sky, My love to tell in accents sweet; It comes not down altho' I sigh, And So my star I ne'er can meet. II. "Oh foolish heart! oh cruel star! Your love I dare not hope to gain; Yet still you shine each night afar, To mock my anguish and my pain And yet thou art so sweet, so pure, I may not--dare not thee forsake; For tho' this pain for aye endure I'll love thee--but my heart will break." "The story of an impossible love," said Lady Errington when he ended. "Yes! It is called 'My Star in Heaven.'" "As if any man loved so hopelessly and purely--absurd!" "There are more varieties of the human race than you know of, Alizon." "No doubt. But I'm not particularly impressed with those I have met with." "You are talking of me." "I am talking of my husband." Eustace left the piano and stepped outside into the beautiful still night. The moon was looking over the fantastic gables of the hall, and filled the garden with trembling shadows. It was exquisitely beautiful, but human beings bring the prose of life into all the poetry of Nature. Eustace did so now. "May I smoke a cigarette, Alizon?" "Certainly!" He lighted a cigarette and leaned against the wall of the house, watching the ghostly curls of smoke melting in the moonshine. Both were silent for a few minutes, occupied with their own thoughts, and then Eustace spoke. "Why don't you divorce your husband?" Lady Errington started violently, for, strange to say, she was thinking of the same thing. She felt inclined to resent Gartney's plain speaking, but the light from the lamp was striking full on his grave face, and, seeing how much in earnest he was, she changed her mind. "I shall never do that," she replied quietly, with a slight shiver. It might have been the night air or the idea of divorce, but she shivered as she spoke. "Why not?" "Can you ask? Think of the disgrace it would be to the child." It was all over. Eustace had an intuitive feeling that the last word had been said on the subject. She would never divorce her husband, she would never listen to his offers of affection, for the child was at once her safeguard and her idol. Had he been wise he would have said nothing more. Not being wise, however, he did. "You have been very kind to me, Alizon," he said slowly, "very--very kind, and I shall treasure your kindness in my heart when I leave you." "Where are you going?" she asked in a startled tone. "I am going to Africa." "Have you any reason?" "The best of all possible reasons. I love you too well for my own peace of mind." Lady Errington arose, with a slight cry, from her chair, and stood looking at him with wild eyes. "Are you mad?" "I have been," he answered sadly, "but I am mad no longer." She put out her hand to grasp the back of the chair and steady herself, still looking at him in amazement. She was not indignant--she was not angered--she was simply bewildered. "I don't understand you," she said at length, in a dull tone. "What are you saying to me? What do you mean?" "I mean that I love you too well for my own peace of mind," he said steadily. "Love me?--the wife of another man!" "Will you sit down, Lady Errington?" observed Eustace, in a measured tone; "I will tell you all." "I cannot listen. Such words from you are an insult." "You will not say so when you hear what I have to tell." Alizon sat down again in her chair, clasped her slender hands together, then, looking steadily at his face, made a sign for him to go on, but otherwise gave no token of emotion. "When I met you at Como," said Eustace, his usually slow enunciation quickened by a powerful emotion, "I fell in love with you. Ah, you need not make that gesture of indignation--the passion was none of my seeking. The most virtuous woman could take no exception to such unrequited homage. I always was a strange man in my likes and dislikes, as you have no doubt heard. Never before had I met a woman I cared about. They tired me with their falseness and follies, but in you I saw for the first time an ideal which had been in my mind for many years. I dared not speak, as you were the wife of my cousin, and it would have been dishonourable, therefore I went away, and for many months strove to forget. Nature, however, was stronger than I was, and when I came back and saw you again, I found that I was more in love than ever. Still I said nothing, and kept out of your presence as much as I was able. Through the difference between yourself and Guy, I was unavoidably forced to see you often. What could I do? A man's passions are not always under his control. All women are not as pure and cold as you. I was afraid of myself, I was afraid of you, and in order to solve the difficulty I did my best to bring you and Guy together. I spoke to you--I spoke to Guy--but all was useless. He has gone back to Mrs. Veilsturm, and forgets with her all his duties to you. I do not say he is right, but I say he is much to be pitied. Still, whatever my feelings may be towards him, the actual facts remain the same. He is with another woman, and you are left alone in the world. I foolishly dreamed that it might be my fate to release you from this unhappy position. I thought you might divorce the husband who has wronged you, but you refuse to do so, for the sake of the child. Ah, that is the god of your idolatry--you care for nothing in the world save your child. It is the selfish passion of motherhood--pure, good, elevating --but still selfish. It is the child that came between you and your husband--it is the child who comes now between you and me. My love remains unaltered--it will always be the same--and had you been free I might have spoken to you without dishonour. You refuse to loosen the bonds of your loveless marriage, and as I cannot be your lover or your husband, I dare not be your friend. Your husband is parted from you--he will never return. I am going away on a perilous journey--I will never return. Therefore you will be alone with what you love best in the world--your child." With her clear eyes fixed steadily on his face she heard him to the end of this long speech without a quiver of the eyelids--without the trembling of her lip--and when he finished: "So I am the married woman you said you loved?" she asked coldly. "Yes! and you say----" "I say now what I said then," she answered sternly, "no man can be a true lover if he would wish to drag the woman he loves through the mud of the world." Eustace flushed deeply. "You misunderstand me," he said hurriedly; "I do not want to drag you down. I would not have spoken, only I thought a divorce----" "A divorce!" she echoed, rising to her feet, "and what is that but dishonour to me and to the child?" "Always the child," he said sullenly. "And why not? The only pure thing in the world I have to love. My husband has deceived me. You have changed from a friend to a lover. I cannot listen to you without dishonour. What you said was perfectly true--my love for the child is the selfish passion of motherhood. I pardon the words which you have spoken to me to-night, but we must never meet again." "We will not," he muttered hoarsely, "I leave England for ever." "Then we understand each other, and nothing now remains but to say goodbye." "Have you no word of pity?" "I am sorry for your foolish passion," she said gently, "but can I say more without lowering myself in your eyes? "No--you are right. It is best for me to go. The star will never come down from Heaven for me, but it will always shine there." He caught her hand and touched it with his hot lips. "Goodbye, Alizon. God--God bless you, my dearest!" Was it a fancy that a burning tear had fallen on her chill hand? She looked, and lo! her hand was wet. The door had closed--she was alone in the room, deserted both by husband and lover. "Poor Eustace," she said softly, "I am sorry for his madness; but if he is unhappy I also am miserable. My husband and friend have both left me, but I have always my child." CHAPTER XXXVI. THE DEATH OF THE FIRST-BORN. "Dead! Deed! His soul hath sped, The turf lies over his golden head. "Cold! Cold! In churchyard mould, And just one stroke hath the death-bell tolled. "Child! Child! The angels smiled, Then carried thee heavenward undefiled." After the departure of Eustace, life went on in the same old fashion at the Hall. Alizon passed her days and nights with Sammy, received the few visitors that called, and was as happy as she could be under the circumstances. She deeply regretted the kind friend who had been such a comfort to her in her loneliness, but looking back on what she had done, could not wish things otherwise. True, he had spoken most delicately, and in such a way as could offend no woman, still she was glad that he had gone, as his presence would have been a perpetual reminder to her of his unhappy passion. "If I had married him," she thought sometimes, "perhaps he would have made me a better husband than Guy. But no! his love was a mere passion of envy, wishing for what he could not obtain. Had I been single, very probably he would not have spoken to me as he did. The fact that I am the wife of another man is the true reason of his desire that I should love him. Ah! these men, they are all the same. Eustace is a poet, and his pleading was more delicate than another man's would have been, but his instincts resemble those of the rest of his sex." Thus she talked to herself, trying to harden her heart against the misery of the man who loved her so devotedly and hopelessly. He was going away from England, to exile, perhaps to death, and all for her sake; even the least vain of woman could not but feel a thrill of responsive feeling to such unutterable worship. But whenever she found herself thinking in this dangerous fashion, she tried to change the current of her thoughts. She was the wife of Guy Errington, and, little as he deserved it, he had a right to expect entire purity of thought and deed in his wife, yet, in spite of her Puritanical nature, she dreamed at times of the unhappy exile whose love she had rejected. Guy never wrote to his wife, nor gave any sign of existence, and she, on her part, acted in the same way, so it seemed as if their lives were parted for ever. Yet she frequently thought about him and began to believe that she had been too harsh in her judgment. If such was the case, let him come back and ask her forgiveness. If he did so--well she might pardon him, and then--but no, there could never be any trust or affection between them. The phantom of the past would always come between them; so far as she could see, nothing remained to make her life happy but the child. Sammy was the idol of her heart. She forgot everything when she had him in her arms, and she felt that the whole world might go to ruin as long as this blue-eyed darling was left untouched, safe on the tender bosom of his mother. In her daily life she adapted all things to suit the living of her child, and never knew a happy moment when she was away from his side. The first thing in the morning the child was brought down to her bedroom, and sprawled on the coverlet, while she lay looking at him with happy eyes, babbling fond nonsense suited to his baby understanding. When he slept in the morning she sat beside his crib watching the flushed little face, the tangled golden curls, and the tiny dimpled hands. She went out with him for his daily drive, accompanied by Mrs. Tasker, and would hardly let that worthy woman touch him, so jealous she was of his liking for anyone save herself. He played at her feet for hours, and she sat beside him in a low chair singing tender little songs, playing baby games, amusing him with his toys, and when he grew fretful with wakefulness, lulled him to sleep on her breast. Every hour of the day she found some new perfection in him, she was never tired of talking about his clever ways, his infantile wisdom, his loving disposition, and when he was laid to rest at night, she hung over him like an enamoured lover breathing blessings on his unconscious head. The world will doubtless laugh at such tender devotion, at such intense absorption in an unformed infant, but no one but a woman, no one but a mother, can understand the wondrous power of maternal love that dominates every other feeling in the feminine heart. All the passion of lovers, the ecstacies of poets, the blind adoration of men for those they love, pale before this strongest of all feelings implanted in the human breast. Perhaps some will say that self-preservation is stronger, but this is not so, as a mother in an extreme case will sacrifice her life for that of her child, thereby proving the superiority of the maternal feeling. In this worship of the child she forgot earth, she forgot heaven, she forgot God. And God punished her. Sammy was cutting his teeth, and was feverish and fretful for some days, but although every care was lavished upon him neither Alizon nor Mrs. Tasker deemed the illness to be anything worse than a slight infantile malady. But one evening, Alizon bending over his sleeping form, saw his face grow black, his little limbs begin to twitch, and in a moment the poor child was in strong convulsions. Pale with terror, she shrieked for Mrs. Tasker and sent off a groom at once for the village doctor who had attended to Sammy since his birth. Mrs. Tasker, terribly anxious, yet restraining herself so as not to affright the agonised mother, did what she could under the circumstances and placed the child in a hot bath. The doctor arrived as quickly as possible, but he was too late--the child was dead. Dead! When the doctor told her, she could not believe it, and throwing herself on her knees beside the tiny corpse, tried in vain to see some sign of life. Alas it was all in vain, and after an hour of agonising dread she was obliged to accept the inevitable. She did not lament, she did not weep, but only sat in dumb tearless silence by the side of her dead child. One thing only she muttered, with ashen lips, and restless hands plucking at her dress. "It is the judgment of God, because I loved His creature better than Himself." There is no grief so terrible as that silent, self-concentrated agony which gives no sign. All through the lonely hours of the night she sat beside the crib, where all that she held dearest and best was lying stiff and cold, the tiny hands crossed on the breast, a smile on the placid little face. They tried in vain to persuade her to go to bed, to take some refreshment, to leave the room where the dead child lay, but all in vain, for rejecting all offers of consolation and kindness, she sat frozen with grief in the darkened room. The morning came, the time that she had been accustomed to hear the merry little voice and see the happy face, but the voice was silent now for evermore, and the face--could that still, white mask be the face she had seen smiling in her own, the face that she had covered so often with kisses? She could not cry, although tears would have been a relief, she could not talk, although it would have eased her pain, she could only sit in a trance of speechless, thoughtless horror beside her dead. Mrs. Tasker, wise old woman that she was, knew that unless something was done, and that speedily, to rouse her mistress from this apathetic state, there would be danger of the mind becoming unhinged, so finding out Mr. Gartney's address in London, which she obtained by sending over to Castle Grim, sent a telegram and afterwards a letter to him urging him to bring the husband, the father, to the stricken mother. Eustace was leading an aimless life in Town, when he received the news, and was terribly grieved about it. Without delay, he wired to Errington at San Remo, and then wrote to Victoria at Dunkeld Castle, asking her to come at once to the unhappy woman. Mrs. Macjean, much moved by the intelligence, came south without delay, in company with her husband, and went down to the Hall. The sight of the young bride's kind face did more good to Lady Errington than anything else, and after all the apathy and horror of those dark days succeeding the death, the blessed tears came to relieve her overburdened heart. The two women wept in one another's arms, and hand in hand stood by the little coffin wherein lay the tiny body of the child. Otterburn kept out of their way as much as he could, feeling that his rough masculine nature was but ill-suited to this house of mourning, but attended to all the details of the funeral pending the arrival of Errington. And Guy? Surely he would come over now that his child was dead, come over to bury his first-born and console the afflicted mother! Eustace waited hopefully for a telegram saying that he was on his way, but at length received a wire asking him to come over to San Remo and see his cousin there. He crushed the telegram up in his hand with an oath. "Good God!" he said to himself in dismay, "surely that woman cannot have besotted him so far that he cannot come to the funeral of his own child." He did not hesitate a moment, but wrote a letter to Otterburn at the Hall, telling him he was going over to San Remo to bring back Errington, and then, hastily packing a few things, started from Victoria Station for the Continent. During the last few weeks since his departure from Castle Grim, he had arranged all his affairs prior to his departure for Africa. Laxton was still in Town as, Otterburn being married, he had not been able to find anyone to go with him as a companion, so when Eustace offered himself, he was greatly delighted. It had been Laxton's intention to go down to Cape Town, but Gartney persuaded him to alter his destination to the Nile, and, go far up into Nubia, in order to follow in the footsteps of Speke and Bruce. This arrangement was satisfactory, and Eustace and his friend began to arrange everything for their trip, which now began to assume more the appearance of an exploring expedition than a mere shooting excursion. When he had to go to San Remo in order to bring back Guy, all the preparations were left in Laxton's hands, which did not, by any means, prove irksome to that young man, as he was going in heart and soul for the business. Eustace, as he stood on the deck of a Channel steamer in the dark night, drinking in the sea breezes, thought all the time of the woman he loved kneeling beside the open coffin. "She has nothing to care for now," he said to himself. "God has taken away her idol, so if I bring back Guy with me, she will forgive and love him for coming to her in her sorrow." The fact was, that for the first time in his life Gartney was sacrificing self for the benefit of other people. Hitherto he had gratified without scruple all his egotistical desires, but the hopeless love he cherished for Alizon Ellington had brought to light the nobler traits of his nature, and probably he was never a better man than now, when he was striving to bring wife and husband together for their mutual happiness before leaving his native country for an everlasting exile, and perchance death in a savage land. CHAPTER XXXVII. THE TRUTH ABOUT MRS. VEILSTURM. "We all have skeletons, everyone, We hide away from the cheerful sun, Tearful and sad, or merry and gay, We all have skeletons hidden away." Eustace duly arrived at San Remo, tired out by his long journey, and, as he had written to Guy before leaving London, was rather surprised not to find his cousin waiting for him at the railway station. However, he took the matter philosophically enough, after his usual fashion, although he was seriously annoyed at what seemed like wilful negligence, and drove to the Hotel de la Mer, where Errington was staying. There he found Guy's valet awaiting his arrival in the hall, and speedily received an explanation, from which it appeared that Errington was seriously ill, and confined to his bed. "I would have come myself, sir," concluded the man, "but Sir Guy wouldn't let me leave him, and I've just slipped down stairs for a moment to explain things. I'm very glad you've come, sir." "So am I," thought Eustace, as he followed the servant upstairs, "I hadn't any idea he was ill. No wonder he could not come to England." When he entered the bedroom he found his cousin was really seriously ill, being in a highly excited state. He asked Eustace all kinds of questions about Alizon, about the death of the child, and talked incoherently about Mrs. Veilsturm, mixing everything up in a most nonsensical fashion, being evidently quite light-headed. Gartney answered his questions, and soothed him as well as he was able, but was very much perturbed over the matter, although he did not show his real feelings. At last he got Guy to lie down quietly, and then, leaving the room, sent for the doctor who was attending the young man. In a few minutes Dr. Storge arrived, a tall, spare man, with a keen, clever face, and a sharp manner, who talked straight and to the point, without any loss of time. "Yes, Mr. Gartney," he replied briskly to Eustace's enquiry. "Sir Guy is very ill, indeed. In a highly excited state brought on by worry and fretting. I saw that he was in a bad way about a week ago, when he first consulted me, but something he will not tell me about has occurred since then, and the result--well you see it upstairs." "But surely--when--Errington consulted you, he explained----" "He explained nothing, my dear sir, and now he is so ill that I dare not ask him, as it makes him excited, and that is what I wish to avoid. Perhaps you can give me some idea of what is wrong." "Yes, I can. Is it necessary you should know?" "What's the good of calling in a medical man if you don't intend to confide in him?" said Storge coolly. "You know what Balzac says, that a man reveals nothing to the priest, what suits him to the lawyer, and everything to the physician. I want to find out the cause of Sir Guy's excitement, and then I may do some good. As it is--well, you see for yourself, I am working in the dark." This reasoning appeared to be very just, so Gartney, making a virtue of necessity, drew his chair close to that of the doctor, and told him everything. "The fact is," said Eustace after a pause, during which he collected his thoughts, "my cousin and his wife have had a quarrel about a woman." "Ah! I thought as much--Mrs. Veilsturm." "What! You know----" "Nothing, absolutely nothing," replied the doctor sharply. "I've only put two and two together, and any fool knows that makes four--more or less." "Well, Sir Guy loves his wife very dearly, but she believes that he has compromised himself with--but I don't know if I ought to tell you this." Dr. Storge made a gesture of despair. "I thought you were a man of the world, Mr. Gartney," he said quickly, "but although I appreciate your delicacy with regard to--well, say our mutual friend, though I only know her by sight--I must insist upon you telling me all. 'Go on, my dear sir, go on. Your confession is as safe with me as it would be with one of those dingy priests in the town." Being satisfied with this explanation, Gartney smothered his scruples, and went on talking. "I see it's no use beating about the bush, doctor. My cousin has quarrelled with his wife on account of Mrs. Veilsturm, whom he loves----" "Pardon me, No," interrupted Storge smartly, "you mean she loves him--a vastly different thing." "Nonsense! She doesn't care two straws about him," said Eustace bluntly. "If you don't explain, Mr. Gartney," cried the doctor angrily, "you will have me as bad as your friend upstairs." "Then listen, my dear sir, and pray don't interrupt me," said Eustace tartly. "Mrs. Veilsturm, who is a lady holding a good position in London Society, thought herself slighted by Lady Errington--in what way it does not matter. She determined to revenge herself by taking Lady Errington's husband away from her, and she has succeeded. My cousin does not really care for Mrs. Veilsturm, but, owing to an unfortunate misunderstanding with his wife, he has drifted into a false position. This woman has entangled him in her net and won't let him go until she can bring about a divorce, which will certainly be the end. Errington, I've no doubt, has worried himself into a fever over things, thinking he is between the devil and the deep sea, and the other day his only child died, so I expect the news of the death put the finishing stroke to the whole business." "I understand," said Storge, who had been listening attentively, "I can quite appreciate the position, and need hardly tell you Mr. Gartney, that your cousin is dangerously ill. He is an honourable man, who finds himself in a dishonourable position, through no fault of his own, and the knowledge has worked him up into a state of frenzy. I am afraid of brain fever." "Good Heavens I hope not." "I'm afraid so," returned the doctor sagaciously, "he's quite off the balance, with all this business. However, now you are here, things may turn out better, for he must be kept quiet--perfect rest is what is needed." "And what am I to do?" "Keep Mrs. Veilsturm away." "But she surely doesn't visit him," said Eustace in an astonished tone, "because, in the first place, she doesn't care for him, and in the second, she's too cautious to jeopardise her position in Society." "She does not exactly visit him," replied Storge, rising, "but she sends messages, flowers, fruit, three-cornered notes, and all that rubbish. Of course it keeps Errington perpetually thinking about her--then he thinks about his wife, and between the two I'm afraid of the result." "Well, I'll go and see Mrs. Veilsturm," said Eustace grimly. "I've no doubt I'll be able to persuade her to leave my cousin alone." "I don't envy you the interview," observed Storge, who was a sharp observer, "nor her either. Still she's a fine woman." "A fine devil," retorted Gartney, with less than his usual caution. "She looks like it," said the doctor coolly, going to the door. "A Creole, isn't she?--ah! I thought so. Got a considerable touch of the tiger in her I should say. I wouldn't like to be under her claws--too risky. Well I'll go up and see our patient." "And I'll go and see Mrs. Veilsturm." "You'd better have your lunch first," said Storge "you'll need all your strength." "Very good advice, Doctor, I'll adopt it; at the same time don't be afraid of me--I'm a match for her." Storge laughed and looked keenly at Gartney's powerful face. "Yes, I think you are," he said carelessly, "I've read your looks--goodbye at present." When the Doctor had vanished, Eustace sat down to consider the situation, which was certainly rather problematic at present, especially with regard to the Errington-Veilsturm episode. When a strikingly handsome and decidedly unscrupulous woman sets her heart upon turning the head of a disconsolate man, with a somewhat weak character, she generally succeeds in her task. Guy had been certainly rather weak with regard to the sex feminine in his bachelor days, but since marriage, his love for his wife had been a safeguard against the dangerous raids of daring free-lances. Owing to his unfortunate quarrel with Alizon, however, he had lost his shield, and of this Mrs. Veilsturm had taken instant advantage, securing thereby an indisputable victory. In England, Gartney had felt some doubts regarding the entanglement of his cousin with Cleopatra, but now he saw plainly that Guy was still true to his wife, and that it required the utmost dexterity of his charmer to keep her captive in chains. If he could only be brought face to face with his wife, Eustace was convinced that everything could be arranged, and the influence of Mrs. Veilsturm over this weak soul destroyed. He would like to have written to Alizon, and asked her to come over in order to nurse him, and be reconciled to her husband, but he was afraid she would not do so. The only thing to be done, therefore, was to try and get Errington cured as soon as possible, and take him away from the dangerous neighbourhood of Cleopatra. In order to do this, according to the doctor, it was necessary to force Mrs. Veilsturm to leave her victim alone, as she brought herself constantly to his mind, and exercised a malignant influence upon his whole nature highly detrimental to recovery. Eustace, therefore, agreed with the doctor, that the first thing to be done was to deal with Mrs. Veilsturm, and this he made up his mind to do without delay. As Guy could not be removed from the neighbourhood of Mrs. Veilsturm, the next best thing was to remove Mrs. Veilsturm from the neighbourhood of Guy, or, in plain words, to make her leave San Remo at once. It was a difficult task, and involved a disagreeable interview; still, desperate diseases require desperate remedies, so Eustace wasted no time in hesitation, but determined to call upon Mrs. Veilsturm that afternoon. As Mr. Gartney was nothing if not methodical, he proceeded very deliberately with his preparations, and, truth to tell, felt rather jubilant at the prospect of a tussle with Cleopatra, who was a foeman, or rather foewoman, worthy of anyone's steel. After a cold bath, which invigorated him considerably after his tiresome journey, he changed his travelling suit for one more in conformity with an afternoon visit, and then made an early luncheon, followed by a soothing cigar. His physical wants thus having been attended to, he ascertained from the "Liste d'Étrangers," that Mrs. Veilsturm was staying at the Villa Garcia, and departed on his errand of mercy. Cleopatra had certainly an aptitude for making herself comfortable, for the Villa Garcia was a charming little house, with white walls, vivid green shutters, and dusky, red-tiled roof. Embosomed among the grey olive trees and slender palms, it stood some distance back from the Corso Imperatrice, and from its broad terrace there could be seen the tideless blue of the Mediterranean Sea, the church of the Madonna della Guardia on Capo Verde, and sometimes a glimpse of far-off Corsica floating in a golden mist, or lying amid the rose-red clouds of dawn, like Brünnhilde within the magic circle of Wotan's fire. Happily for Eustace the lady he sought was at home, so on sending in his card, he was conducted to an artificially darkened drawing-room, where Mrs. Veilsturm was seated in a comfortable-looking chair, occupied with a French novel and a fan. No one was with her, as Major Griff had gone off with Thambits and Mr. Jiddy for a day's pleasure at Monte Carlo and, Errington not being obtainable, Mrs. Veilsturm was delighted to see Eustace, who was much more amusing than her own thoughts. She was arrayed in a loose dress of white Chinese silk, with great masses of scarlet geranium at her throat and waist, which suited her so well that Eustace, with a view to making everything pleasant, could not help congratulating her on her appearance. "I know I'm looking well," said Cleopatra indolently, as Gartney settled himself in a low chair near her. "The South always agrees with me so much better than that smoky London. That comes of being a daughter of the Tropics I suppose." "You look in your proper place under a burning sky," observed Eustace poetically. "There is more of the gorgeous cactus about you than the English rose." "Am I to take that as a compliment?" "Most women would." "I daresay, but then you see I'm unlike most women," replied Cleopatra, fanning herself slowly. "It's rather a good thing I think myself. What a horrible idea to be a replica of half a dozen of one's dearest enemies." "Have you any enemies?" asked Eustace, looking keenly at her. "Plenty! principally of my own sex I think. It doesn't trouble me, however, as I think it is rather a distinction than otherwise. A person without enemies must be without character. By-the-way, Mr. Gartney, I haven't asked you what you are doing in San Remo." "What do you think?" "It's too hot to answer riddles," replied Mrs. Veilsturm languidly. "I'm sure I can't tell. Restoring your health, writing a book, hiding from your friends. There, I've given you a choice of three answers." "None of which are right. I've come over to attend to my cousin Errington." "How devoted of you," said the lady ironically. "I was not aware you were so fond of your cousin as all that." "Were you not?" answered Eustace nonchalantly. "Rather an oversight on your part, seeing that Errington and myself have been close friends all our lives." An angry colour glowed in Cleopatra's swarthy face as she detected a covert insolence in this reply, but, having a sharp tongue of her own, she lost no time in answering. "Ah! I see, like does not always draw to like." "Certainly not in this case, but the reverse is true. I am not a bit like Errington in any way. For example, I can always take care of myself." "And Sir Guy cannot, I suppose?" "Not when there's a woman in the case, as there is now." Mrs. Veilsturm had never liked Eustace, as he knew more about her former life than she cared he should, but being an eminently diplomatic woman she had always treated him as a friend. Now, however, she saw that his attitude was distinctly hostile, and prepared to give battle. They were now matching their wits against one another, and each knew it would take wonderful skill and cautious dealing in order to come off victor in such a remarkably equal contest. "I don't understand you," said Mrs. Veilsturm, after a pause. "Try," responded Eustace curtly. "Why should I?" "Because you understand well enough, only you won't admit it." "Do you know, Mr. Gartney, you are very rude?" said the Creole quietly. "Pshaw!" cried Eustace angrily, "it's no use our fencing with buttons on the foils. I've come here for a certain purpose, and you know what it is." "I'm sure I don't," said Mrs. Veilsturm doggedly. "None so blind as those who won't see." "Pithy," retorted Cleopatra sneeringly, "very pithy, but irrelevant." "Not at all, as I will soon show you. Look here, Mrs. Veilsturm, I'm going to be plain, brutally plain." "To do you justice you generally are." "It is necessary in some cases, especially in this one," said Gartney quietly, "but I'm not here to discuss my personal character, but to save my cousin." "From me, I presume." "Exactly! I did not think you would have admitted that." She had made a false move in doing so, and saw that Eustace had taken advantage of her rashness, so, throwing down her book, she sat straight up in her chair, and spoke with firm deliberation. "You're talking nonsense, my dear Mr. Gartney, which is a thing I don't care about. You say you have come here for a certain purpose, perhaps you'll be kind enough to tell me the meaning of that remark." "Certainly," replied Gartney promptly. "I know all about the way you consider yourself to have been slighted by Lady Errington. I know that you have tried your best to inveigle Errington into your net in order to be revenged, and I've come here to ask you to leave my cousin alone, and leave San Remo." "A very cool request, upon my word," cried the Creole viciously, with an evil smile on her angry face, "but one I don't intend to comply with." "I think it will be as well for you to do so." She sprang to her feet in a fury, and stood looking at him, with clenched hands and face convulsed with rage. "You threaten me, do you?" she shrieked savagely. "How dare you--how dare you? I shall tell Major Griff--I shall tell----" "You'll tell no one," said Gartney calmly, "that is, you won't if you are wise." Cleopatra stood silent for a moment, struggling with her temper, then, stamping her foot, walked rapidly up and down the room, Eustace watching her meanwhile, with a sardonic smile on his lips. He, also, had risen to his feet, as, knowing Maraquita's temper of old, he thought it wise to be prepared for possibilities. At last the lady collected herself sufficiently to talk quietly, and stopping opposite her antagonist, spoke in a low, suppressed voice, which was far more deadly in its meaning than the first outburst of wrath. "As you say, we may as well take the buttons off the foils. Consider them removed." "So far, so good," assented Eustace, not taking his eyes off her. "Go on." "Carambo!" "You still remember your Spanish, I see," he said mockingly, "but we're not in South America now." "I wish we were," she hissed savagely, bringing her beautiful, distorted face so close to his own that he felt her hot breath on his cheek. "Oh, I wish we were." "I don't," he replied, without blenching. "You might treat me as you did Manuel----" "No! No!" she cried, a terrified expression flitting across her face. "Not that name!--not that name here!" "Then let us keep to the subject in hand," said Eustace politely. If a look could have killed Gartney, he would have there and then fallen dead at the feet of the Creole, but suddenly changing her tactics, she flung herself on the sofa in a storm of tears. "How cruel you are, oh, how cruel," she wailed, hiding her face in the cushions. "I am only a woman, you coward--only a woman." "You're a remarkably good actress, my dear Mrs. Veilsturm;" replied Eustace coolly, in no wise moved by her sorrow, "but tears are very weak. Try something else more original." After this scoffing remark he resumed his seat, and waited till her passion should have exhausted itself, which happened very soon, for Mrs. Veilsturm was too sensible a woman to waste her weapons when she found they were useless. Drying her eyes carefully, she sat up again quite cool and composed, which warned Eustace that he must be more on his guard than ever. "Your cousin's a fool," she said viciously. "Do you think it was any pleasure for me to have him running after me? No! I hate and detest him, the persistent bore that he is." "Don't you think you'd better drop these flowers of speech?" replied Eustace leisurely. "They're neither pretty nor necessary. Go on with the main subject." "I'll come to that quick enough," retorted Mrs. Veilsturm sullenly. "You are right about Lady Errington--she did slight me, and in a way no woman can forgive nor forget. I'd hate her if it were only for the fact that she is Gabriel Mostyn's daughter--the traitor--but I hate her twice as much on my own account. I vowed I'd punish her for the insult--and I will too." "By causing a divorce?" "Either that or separating them altogether. And I think I've managed that now." "You can think what you please," said Eustace coolly, "but at all events you've done your worst." "Not yet--not yet." "Oh, yes, you have. Now you are going to write my cousin a letter, saying you don't care about him, or--well, say what you like, but give him to understand you won't see him again." "And then?" she demanded, with a sneer. "And then you'll leave San Remo as soon as you conveniently can." She burst out into a peal of ironical laughter. "Do you actually expect me to do that?" "I do, and I'm certain you'll do it." "I will not." "No?" "No." They looked at one another in silence, she tapping her foot on the ground with a scornful smile, he eyeing her with calm deliberation. "If you don't go to that desk and write what I ask you," he said at length, in a low, clear voice, "I'll tell the world all I know about Lola Trujillo." Her face grew very pale, but she answered defiantly: "Do so! No one can connect her with me." "Ah, so you think, but I have enough proofs to do so." "Do what you like. I defy you." "I don t think it will be wise of you to do so," said Eustace in a low voice of concentrated fury. "You know me, Lola, and I know you, and all the world of South America knows you also." He jumped up, and crossing over to the sofa, bent down and whispered in her ear: "I can tell about your connection with Gabriel Mostyn, in regard to that boy, his son--who disappeared." "I had nothing to do with it," she muttered, shrinking from him. "And Manuel Lopez." "Be silent!" "And that little gambling saloon at Lima." "Hush! for God's sake. You will ruin me." "I intend to," said Eustace relentlessly, "unless----" and he pointed to the desk. Without saying a word, she arose to her feet, and dragging herself slowly across the room sat down at the desk and began to write. Eustace said nothing, but remained standing by the sofa with a smile of satisfaction on his massive features. Nothing was heard in the room but the steady ticking of the clock, and the scratching of Mrs. Veilsturm's pen as it moved rapidly over the paper. In a few minutes she came back to him holding out a sheet of paper, which he read carefully without taking it out of her hand. "That will do," he said quietly. "Will you be so kind as to put it into an envelope and direct it?" Darting a look of hatred at him, which showed how hard it was for her to control her temper, she returned to the desk and did what he asked. Then, leaving it on the blotting-paper, she went to her seat by the window, while Eustace, picking up the letter, glanced at the address and slipped it into his inner pocket. "And about leaving San Remo?" he asked, turning towards Mrs. Veilsturm. "I will leave in three days," she replied harshly. "Will that suit you? "Yes! I won't see you again. _Bon voyage_." He turned to go, but Mrs. Veilsturm's voice arrested him. "Of course you will say nothing about South America?" she said quietly. "No! You have done your part, and I will do mine." "I wouldn't go to Lima again if I were you," said Mrs. Veilsturm, with deadly hatred, "it might be dangerous." "I've no doubt of that," replied Eustace carelessly. "If you want to turn the tables you had better send your emissaries to Africa." He left the room without another word, and Cleopatra, sitting at the window, saw him walking down the garden path. She was holding her handkerchief in her hands, and with a sudden anger tore it in two. "If it had only been in South America," she said in a low, fierce voice. "Oh, if it had only been in South America!" CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE LAST TEMPTATION. "Death ever rends asunder marriage bonds, So should he die, this husband undesired, She would be free to woo and wed again And I might haply gain her hand, her heart. Yet there is folly in this argument, For such a course would breed but sterile love, Seeing the first link in the chain of circumstance Is ominous indeed--a dead man's grave." Having thus routed the enemy, Eustace returned to his hotel very well satisfied with his victory, which he hoped would be productive of good in removing the obstacle to the reconciliation of husband and wife. For his own part, he felt considerable astonishment at the self-abnegation of his conduct, seeing that he was doing his best to place the woman he loved so devotedly beyond any possible chance of being anything to him. But since his last interview with Lady Errington, the astute man of the world had been quick to read her true feelings, and had therefore given up all hope of winning her love. Besides, he had arranged with Laxton to go to Africa, and had it not been for the accident of Guy's illness would have started almost immediately for that mysterious continent, but since things had turned out otherwise, he resolved to do his duty by his cousin even against his desire of gratifying self. It was true he had done all in his power to conquer this dominant faculty of egotism, he had parted with Alizon for ever, he had saved Errington from the machinations of Mrs. Veilsturm but the great temptation was yet to come, and in a guise least anticipated by the tempted. Of course, he told Dr. Storge about his success in the delicate matter of Mrs. Veilsturm, at which success the physician expressed himself highly delighted, as he undoubtedly thought that the removal of this disturbing influence on Errington's life would have a beneficial result on his health. Doctors are not infallible, however, and the result of this attempt to quiet the patient's mind only succeeded in exciting it still more, which state of the case considerably dismayed both Storge and Gartney. Guy, being under the impression that his wife had cast him off for ever, had been touched by the interest displayed towards him by Mrs. Veilsturm, and clung to the idea of her disinterested affection as a drowning man clings to a straw. An old simile, certainly, but one that holds good in this case. He thought that his wife did not love him, that she had never loved him, and that Cleopatra was the only woman who had any tender feelings towards him in her heart. It was true that the world, a notoriously ungenerous critic, said that she was capricious, cruel, fickle as the wind--still, so cleverly had she feigned a love she did not feel, that Errington really believed he had inspired a genuine feeling in her hard heart. Every day, when tender messages arrived for him with presents of fruit and flowers, he mentally thanked Heaven that one woman, at least, truly loved and remembered him in his hour of trouble. When, however, the messages with their accompanying gifts of fruit and flowers ceased to arrive, he wondered at the omission and became querulously suspicious. Why had she forgotten him? What was the reason of this sudden change? Could she be false to him, seeing that she had made such protestations of love? No, it could not be, and yet--there must be some reason. These were the questions he kept continually asking himself, and thereby working himself into such mad frenzies, that it seemed as though nothing could avert the threatened attack of brain fever. True to her promise, which would cost her too much to break, Mrs. Veilsturm had departed from San Remo and taken up her abode at Nice, together with the Major, Dolly Thambits and Mr. Jiddy, alleging that she found the Italian watering-place dull and preferred the lively Gauls to the more sedate Latins. Errington, however, knew nothing of this sudden exodus, and his excited brain suggested a thousand reasons for the sudden silence of his quondam charmer. She was ill! She was afraid of exciting him. She had been called to England on business! What could be the reason of this sudden change from attention to neglect, from warmth to coldness? And day and night, and night and day, the weary brain puzzled over these perplexing questions, suggesting and discarding a thousand answers with every tick of the clock. Eustace did his best to allay his cousin's excitement without telling him the truth, but all to no purpose, so, in despair, he spoke seriously to Storge as to what was best to be done under the circumstances. "Things can't go on like this much longer," he said decisively, "if my cousin was ill when I arrived, he seems to me to be much worse now." "It's a very difficult case," remarked Storge musingly. "So difficult, that I hardly know what step to take. I've made him keep to his room, see no one, given him sedatives, and yet he is no better. In fact, I think we're only at the beginning of the trouble." "Well, I've got that woman out of the way," said Eustace bluntly, "so that is something gained." "I'm not so sure of that," replied the doctor, biting his nails, a habit he had when irritated; "of course I advised it, and it was done for the best, still, upon my soul Mr. Gartney you must think me a fool. Here am I, a duly accredited M.D., yet I don't know what steps to take in order to cure my patient." "It is perplexing," sighed Eustace, drumming with his fingers on the table. "Errington has got it into his head that this woman is his good angel--faugh! to what lengths will love carry a man." "But you said he was not in love with her." "Neither is he! This is one of those rare cases which are veritable enigmas. Most unaccountable. As far as I can see, the whole thing is simply this. My cousin thinks his wife hates him, and, as Mrs. Veilsturm has played her game so cleverly, believes she loves him. He doesn't love her, but he is intensely grateful for what he thinks is her disinterested kindness. Now she has withdrawn the light of her countenance, he imagines that he is forsaken for the second time, and his feeling is one of absolute despair." "'Thou cans't not minister to a mind diseased," quoted Storge, musingly. "A very true remark of Shakespeare's. It seems to me, judging from your theory, with which I must say I agree, that I'm in very much the same dilemma. My drugs are no use while his mind is in such a turmoil. You cure his mind, Gartney, and I'll cure his body." "It's all very well saying that," replied Eustace pettishly. "You give me the hardest task." "Suppose you send for his wife?" "She won't come." "But surely when she knows----" "I tell you she won't come," repeated Eustace sternly, "she thinks he has behaved shamefully, and I'm afraid she is rather unforgiving." Storge ran his hands through his hair in a most perplexed fashion, but made no reply, as he was quite at his wits' end what to suggest. It was as he suggested more a mental than a physical case, and though he felt himself competent to deal with nerves, brain, or tissues, he was quite helpless in this emergency, which required the aid of external circumstances. Those external circumstances were best known to Eustace Gartney, so that gentleman was the only man who could have any influence in the matter. "I tell you what," said Gartney, after a pause, during which he had been thinking deeply, "Errington imagines Mrs. Veilsturm an angel of light, and is worrying himself because he thinks a good woman has forgotten him. Suppose I show her to him in her true colours, and then----" "And then," finished the doctor caustically, "you'll fix him up nicely for a very bad attack of brain fever." "That is one presumption!" "The only one." "I don't agree with you! I'll undeceive him about Mrs. Veilsturm, and then he'll see the snare he has escaped." "Oh, and do you think that will quiet him?" asked Dr. Storge sarcastically. "I think it will turn his thoughts back to his wife. If so, I'll write to her to come over----" "What about the forgiveness?" "I'll tell her it's a case of life and death. That will surely soften her." "You whirl about like a weather-cock, my friend," said Storge grimly, "you tell me decisively that the wife is unforgiving, and won't come, then you say she might soften--which view is the right one?" "Both." "Impossible!" "Nothing is impossible with regard to a woman. But what do you say to my plan?" "I don't know what to say." "Then I'll try it," said Eustace determinedly. "I don't approve of it," remarked Storge in desperation, "still, as it's a case of brain fever if things go on like this, the chance of accelerating the disease doesn't make much difference, so you'd better begin your disillusionising at once." "Very well," replied Gartney with a sigh of relief, and this closed the conversation. It was a disagreeable task to undertake, but not more so than that connected with Mrs. Veilsturm, and Eustace made up his mind to speak to Errington at once. "The sooner things are brought to a crisis the better," he thought, as he went up to his cousin's room. "As they stand now, it's quite impossible to move either way." Guy was lying with his arms outside the counterpane, when Mr. Gartney entered, and turned his eyes, unnaturally bright, in the direction of the door when he heard his cousin's footstep. "Anything from Mrs. Veilsturm?" he asked eagerly. "Nothing," responded Eustace, and took a seat beside the bed. "What can be the matter with her?" said Guy, feverishly. "Eustace, why don't you find out? It's cruel of you to keep me in suspense." "I won't keep you in suspense any longer." "What?" Guy sat up in his bed with a cry, but Eustace forced him to lie down again. "Keep quiet, or I won't tell you," he said sternly. "By-the-way, if you don't want Albert, he had better go downstairs. I want to speak to you privately." "Yes! yes! you can go, Albert. Mr. Gartney will stay with me." The well-trained valet bowed his head in answer, arranged a few things on the little table beside the bed, and then noiselessly withdrew, leaving the cousins together. "Well, Eustace, well?" said Guy, plucking restlessly at the bedclothes. "What is the matter? Nothing wrong with Mrs. Veilsturm." "Not that I'm aware of," responded Gartney drily. "She is a lady who can take remarkably good care of herself." "Don't talk like that about her," said Guy, with weak anger, "she is my friend." "Your friend!" repeated Eustace scornfully. "Yes, the same kind of friend as she is to every man!" "Eustace!" He sat up again with a fierce look on his face, but the calm gaze of his cousin disconcerted him, and he sank back on the pillows with an impatient sigh. "I don't understand you," he said fretfully. "I don't understand--my head is aching--aching terribly." "Guy, old fellow," said Eustace, in his low, soft voice, which had such an indescribable charm in its tones, "I want to speak to you about your wife." "My wife?" "Yes! I have a confession to make to you. I love your wife." Guy looked at his cousin vacantly, and as if he did not understand. "You love my wife?" he repeated mechanically. "You love my wife?" "Yes," said Eustace, steadily, going through his self-imposed ordeal with stern determination, although his face was grey with anguish and his heart ached with pain and self-humiliation. "It's a terrible thing to confess to you--to her husband--but true nevertheless. When I first saw her at Como, I worshipped her for that calm, spiritual loveliness which made her so beautiful in my eyes. But I said nothing, and went into exile for her sake, trusting to come back and find her a happy wife and mother. I went away to forget, and I came back to remember. Oh, Guy, if you only knew how I have despised myself for thus thinking about your wife; but believe me, it was not in the sensual fashion of the world that I loved her. I worshipped her as one might worship a star which is higher and purer than he who kneels to its splendour. My love was pure, still I strove to crush it out of my heart, but all in vain. I came back to England and saw her once more, a happy mother indeed, but not a happy wife. It was not your fault, my poor boy, for I know you did your best to win her heart, but her child blinded her better nature, and she could not see that the father yearned for love, and required it as much as the son. Then came the episode of Mrs. Veilsturm, which was one of those cruel decrees of Fate which no man can guard against. It parted you, as I thought, for ever, and you obeyed the instincts of your lower nature, while she remained sternly unforgiving in her purity--a purity which could not understand the temptations of a weaker soul. I tried my best to make her look more kindly on your mistake--as I am a living man, Guy, I did my best to bring you together again, but it was all useless. Then I lost my head, the devil whispered in my ear, and I spoke to her of love, and the result was what you might have expected from your wife. She told me that she loved her child, and would not stoop to dishonour for his sake. But she said more--not in words indeed, but in looks, in manner, in irrepressible tears--that she loved you, Guy, that she was sorry for her cruel justice, that she longed for the father of her child, for the husband of her vows, to clasp her in his arms once more. I was punished for my daring to lift my eyes to her--I saw that I could be nothing to such spotless purity of soul, and I left--I went away into the outer darkness, intending to exile myself for ever from her sight. Then the child died--the child whom she worshipped--the child who was your strongest rival in her affections, and now she sits alone and in solitude--robbed of her nearest and dearest--waiting for the sound of her husband's voice, for the clasp of his arms, for the touch of his lips." In his fervour, he had slipped from his chair, and was now kneeling beside the bed, holding his cousin's hot hand in his own. The sick man had listened dully to the long speech, but at the end he flung up his disengaged hand with a bitter cry. "No! no! It is too late, it is too late." "It is not too late," said Eustace, earnestly. "I have told you the truth. I have humiliated myself in your eyes because I am anxious to repair my fault, to bring you together again. Let me send for your wife, Guy, and believe me, she will come, only too gladly, to your sick bed with words of forgiveness and regret." But the sick man rolled his head from side to side on the pillow with dreary despair. "No; no! it cannot be. My wife can never be mine again--Maraquita----" "Maraquita Veilsturm!" interrupted Eustace, sternly. "Don't mention her name in connection with that of your wife." "She was kind to me when Alizon was so cruel." "Kind, yes, for her own ends. Listen to me, Guy. Mrs. Veilsturm has been using you as a means of revenge against your wife." All the listless despair disappeared from Errington's face, and he wrenched his hand angrily away from Eustace. "What do you mean?" "Exactly what I say," said Eustace hurriedly, seeing that his cousin was getting excited, and determined to have the whole thing over and done with it at once. "Do you think Mrs. Veilsturm ever forgave or forgot the slight she received from your wife? Not she! I know Mrs. Veilsturm, none better. However, I'm going to say nothing about her except this, that she pretended to love you in order to cause trouble between yourself and your wife. And now that she has succeeded, she has gone off and left you, ill as you are, to do the best you can without her." "No! it's not true! It can't be true," raved Guy, fiercely. "You malign her, she is a true good woman, she loves me--she loves me." "I tell you she does not," said Eustace, rising to his feet, so as to be ready for any emergency, for Guy looked so wild that he was afraid he would spring upon him. "Liar! You cannot prove it!" "I can, and by her own handwriting." Guy snatched the letter Eustace held out to him, tore open the envelope, glanced over the few cruel words of dismissal, and then, dropping the paper, covered his face with his hands, moaning pitifully. "You see now, my dear Guy, what this woman really is," said Gartney tranquilly, picking up the letter; "a vindictive vixen, who simply used you for her own ends." The baronet uncovered his face, and looked at Eustace in a vacant manner, his eyes large and bright, his lips twitching with nervous agitation, and a feverish flush on his hot, dry skin. "I must go to her," he said in a shrill voice, trying to rise from his bed. "I must see her." "No! no! it's impossible," cried Eustace in alarm, holding him back; "be reasonable, Guy, be reasonable. Stay where you are, Guy!" But Guy was now past all understanding, and struggled vehemently with Eustace, uttering short cries of rage and terror like a caged animal. His cousin's heart bled for the frenzied agony of the unhappy man, but he saw that Guy was rapidly getting worse, and shouted for assistance. No one answered, however, so having forced Guy to lie down with a great effort, Eustace ran to the electric bell, and in a moment its shrill summons rang through the house. In that moment, however, Guy was out of bed, making for the window, swaying, staggering, raving, with outstretched hands, and Eustace had just time to throw himself on the madman--for he was nothing else at present--and prevent him breaking the glass. Albert entered, and, seeing the state of affairs, shouted for aid, and came forward to help Gartney, whose valet also came up stairs in answer to their cries, and between them the three men managed to get Guy back to bed, where they held him down, raving, crying, shrieking, and entirely insane. Leaving the two servants in charge, Eustace went down stairs and sent for the doctor, who arrived speedily on the scene and prescribed such remedies as were necessary, although, truth to tell, he could do but little. "Just what I expected," he said grimly, when things were going smoother, "and now, Mr. Gartney, as you've carried out your first intention, perhaps you'll carry out the second, and send for his wife." "I suppose I must." "It's a case of life and death," said Storge, and walked out of the room. In two minutes Eustace was on his way to the telegraph office. As he walked rapidly down the street, the temptation came, the terrible temptation that whispered to him not to send for Alizon. "If you do not," whispered the devil on his left, "Guy will die, and you will be able to gain her for your wife." "No," said the good angel on his right. "She can never love you, you could buy nothing, not even happiness, at the price of your cousin's death." So Eustace walked along with these two angels, the bad and the good, whispering in his ears, now inclining to one, now to the other, fighting desperately against the temptations of the devil, and again yielding to the insidious whisper of future joy to be won by a simple act of neglect. In that short walk a whole life-time of agony passed, but no one looking at this stalwart, calm-faced man striding along the Street, could have guessed the hell that raged within. The powers of good and evil fought desperately for the possession of this weak, wavering soul, that was in such sore straits, but in the end the good angel prevailed, and Eustace sat down to write his telegram. He wrote one to Alizon, as strongly worded as he was able, and a second to Otterburn, telling him he must bring Lady Errington over at once. In both he wrote the words, "It is a case of life and death," those words that had been ringing in his ears ever since the doctor had said them. Then, as he handed the telegram to the clerk, the temptation again assailed him. It was not too late, let him withdraw the messages, tear them up, and there would be a chance of his winning the woman he loved instead of going into voluntarily exile. But at the price of a man's life? No! that was too big a price to pay, and yet--he put down the money demanded by the clerk and walked out of the post office. Outside in the sunshine he stood with drops of sweat on his forehead, and the soul that had been saved from the commission of a great crime, put up a prayer of thanks to God that this last temptation had passed, and that the powers of evil had not prevailed in the hour of weakness. CHAPTER XXXIX. "AND KISSED AGAIN WITH TEARS." "You have returned with your face so fair, Your sweet blue eyes and your golden hair, Again to cherish--again to share This life of mine with its joy and care. "Alas, my dearest, the days were long, When memories came in a countless throng, To sing to my heart such a haunting song, Of things once right that had changed to wrong. "You have returned just to heal the smart That Sorrow made with her cruel dart, Never again will we sigh and part. You once more are my leal sweetheart." The Hon. Angus Macjean's experiences of early married life could hardly be called pleasant, seeing the demands made upon himself and his bride by their mutual friends. Shortly after their marriage, Aunt Jelly had died, thereby causing them to return to London before the end of the honeymoon, then, during their visit to Lord Dunkeld, Mrs. Macjean had been summoned south in order to console Lady Errington for the loss of her child, and now as Eustace had telegraphed Alizon to come over to her sick husband at San Remo, it was necessary that Otterburn should escort her, for it was impossible, in her present state of grief, that she could travel alone. The young couple, therefore, did not get so much of each other's company as they desired, and it said a great deal for the good nature of both, that they were so ready to comfort the mourner, at the sacrifice of their own desires, and the upsetting of all their plans. Life at Errington Hall was very dreary after the death of the heir, as Victoria was constantly with the unhappy mother and Otterburn was left to wander about with nothing but his own thoughts, which were not particularly cheerful in the present aspect of affairs. Then came the funeral, which Macjean had to look after entirely by himself, as Eustace and Errington were both absent. The young man had received a letter from Gartney, stating that Guy was too ill to travel, and Victoria had shown it to Alizon, but, wrapped up in the selfishness of grief for her great loss, she had made hardly any remark about this new blow. Then came the peremptory telegrams summoning the wife to the bedside of her sick husband, and Otterburn, through his wife, delicately offered to accompany Lady Errington to San Remo as soon as she was ready to start. Alizon was a long time making up her mind about going, as she considered that her husband had grossly insulted her by his openly-displayed passion for Mrs. Veilsturm. Still, on calm reflection, she saw that she was to a great extent blameable for his folly, and as the death of Sammy had considerably softened her heart towards his wrong-doing, she determined to fulfil her duty as a wife and go across to the Riviera at once. The child's death had left a blank in her heart, and she felt that she must have someone to love and console her, or she would go mad in the loneliness of her grief; so with these thoughts in her heart she sent a telegram to Eustace, announcing her departure, and prepared for the journey. She accepted Otterburn's escort as far as San Remo, but promised that as soon as she was established by Guy's sick bed, Angus should return to his wife, who was to be left behind at Errington Hall. Angus agreed to this, and in company with the young man and her maid, she left Victoria Station _en route_ for the Italian Riviera. The whole journey seemed to her like a dream; the bright English landscape, which she knew so well; the breezy passage across the Channel, with the tossing waves and blue sky; Calais, with its bustling crowd of natives and tourists; the long journey through the pleasant Norman country, and then Paris, gay and glittering, where they stayed all night. Next morning again in the train rushing southward, past quaint, mediæval towns, with their high-peaked houses, over slow-flowing rivers, through ancient forests already bearing the touch of Autumn's finger--still onward, onward, till they reached Marseilles, sitting by the blue waters of the Mediterranean. Afterwards they continued their journey through smiling Provence, along the sunny Riviera--Cannes, Mentone, Nice, all passed in their turn; a glimpse of Monte Carlo, where the Goddess of Play sits enthroned on high--palm-crowned Bordighera--deserted Ospedaletti, with its lonely Casino--and at last San Remo, amid her grey olive-groves, at the foot of the blue hills. Eustace was waiting for them at the railway-station, looking very grave, and bowed silently to Lady Errington, as she stepped out of the carriage. "Is he better?" she asked, looking haggardly at him, a tall slender figure in her sweeping black robes. "I'm afraid not--still we hope for the best." She made no reply, so after greeting Otterburn, Eustace conducted them to a carriage, and they drove to the Hotel de la Mer. Alizon lost no time, but asked to be taken at once to her husband's room. Eustace tried to prepare her mind, so that the shock of seeing him should not be too much, but she disregarded all his entreaties, and went up to the darkened apartment where her husband was lying. One question only she asked Gartney before she entered: "Is that woman here?" "Do you think I would have sent for you had she been?" he replied, deeply hurt. "No I She has left San Remo, and will trouble you no more." "Your doing?" "Yes." She gave him her slender, black-gloved hand for a moment, and then passed to her husband's bedside, where her place was henceforth to be. The next morning Otterburn, having discharged his duty, returned to his wife, and Lady Errington was left alone with Eustace to nurse the man whom she never thought to meet with kindly feeling again. Guy was terribly ill for a long time, but as out of evil good sometimes comes, there was no doubt that this illness was beneficial, inasmuch as it showed Alizon the true state of her husband's heart. In those long, dreary hours, as she sat beside the bed listening to his incoherent ravings, she heard sufficient to convince her that Guy had always tenderly loved her--that his apparent infidelity was the result of despair, and that a word of forgiveness from her would have saved him from the misery he had suffered. No explanation on the part of Eustace Gartney--no explanation from her husband, had he been in good health--would have convinced her of the truth, and there would always have lurked in her heart a terrible suspicion that she had been sinned against, which would have embittered her whole life. She would have perhaps forgiven her husband, but she nevertheless would have believed him guilty, and his presence would have been a constant regret and reproach to the purity of her soul. But these wild mutterings, these agonised ravings, revealed the true state of things--revealed at once his weakness and his strength; so little by little the scales fell from her eyes, and she saw how noble was this nature, how weak was the soul, and how needful to its well-being was love and tenderness. Again, since the death of her child a terrible sense of utter loneliness had fallen upon her, and now that she saw her mistaken judgment of Guy's character all her being yearned for his love, and this woman, who had only respected and admired him when he was well and strong, now that he was prostrate and weak, passionately loved him with all the intensity of her nature. The coldness of her nature had departed, the frozen heart had melted, and often, overcome with terror and dread, she flung herself on her knees beside the bed, praying to God to spare her the husband she had never understood nor loved till now. She never spoke to Eustace about Mrs. Veilsturm--all she knew or cared to know was that this obstacle that had stood between herself and her husband had been removed, and that the true feelings of that husband had been revealed to her by the hand of God. During all this time Eustace acted the part of a brother, and never by word or deed betrayed the true state of his feelings. Heaven alone knew how he suffered in maintaining a cold, patient demeanour towards the woman he loved, and his life, from the time of her arrival till the hour he left San Remo, was one long martyrdom. Often she wondered at his stoical calmness and apparent forgetfulness of the words he had spoken to her at Errington Hall, but neither of them made any reference to the past, and she thought that he was now cured of his passion. Cured! Eustace laughed aloud to himself as he divined her thoughts and contentment that it should be so, and he counted the hours feverishly until such time as he could leave her with a convalescent husband and depart from her presence, where he had to hide his real feelings under a mask of cynical indifference. Owing to the unintermitting care of Dr. Storge, the careful nursing of his wife, and the watchful tenderness of Gartney, the man who had been sick unto death slowly recovered. The long nights of agony and delirium were succeeded by hours of peaceful slumber, the disordered brain righted itself slowly, and the vacant stare of the eyes and babble of the tongue were succeeded by the light of sanity and the words of sense. He was weak, it is true--very weak--but the first moment of joy she had known since the death of her child came to Alizon when one morning, while kneeling beside his bed, he called her faintly by her name. "Alizon." "Yes, dear!--your wife." His wife!--was this his cold, stately wife who knelt so fondly beside him? Were those eyes--shining with love, wet with tears--the cold blue eyes that had so often frozen all demonstrations of affection? Was that face, full of joyful relief and emotion, the marble countenance that had never smiled lovingly on him since he had first beheld it? No!--it could not be Alizon--it was some deceptive vision of the brain, painting what might have been and yet---- She saw his state of bewilderment, and, bending over, kissed him tenderly. "It is I--your wife!--wife not in name only, but in love and trust." A smile of joy flitted across his worn face, and he strove to put out one weak hand. "Forgive," he said faintly, "forgive." "It is I who should ask forgiveness," she replied in a broken voice; "I was harsh and cold, my dearest, and I do ask your forgiveness. Hush do not say a word--you are very weak, and must not talk. Let me nurse you back to health again, and then I will strive to be a better wife to you than I have hitherto been." He said nothing, but lay on his pillows, with eyes shining with love, a contented smile on his lips, and fell asleep, still holding his wife's hand in his own. After this he mended quickly, for with the return of Alizon's affection the desire of life had come back, and each day he grew stronger because the vexed brain was now at rest, and the love of his wife was a better medicine than any drugs of the doctor. "You see," said Storge to Eustace on leaving the chamber one day when Guy had been pronounced convalescent, "what has cured him is not my medicines, but his wife's affection. Ah, Shakespeare was a wise man when he said, 'Thou canst not minister unto a mind diseased.' Love is the only cure there." "Lucky mind to have such a cure," replied Gartney with a sigh; "some minds have to bear their diseases till the end of life with no chance of being mended." Storge said nothing, but he looked at him curiously, for he half guessed the real state of the case, and sincerely pitied Eustace for his unhappy passion. "Poor fellow," he thought as he departed, "he has wealth, health, fame and popularity, yet he would give all these for what he will never obtain--the heart of that woman." Guy's complete recovery was now only a question of a few weeks, so Eustace, feeling that he could not keep up the pretence of indifference much longer, made up his mind to depart. With this idea he produced a letter from Laxton one evening when he was seated with Alizon by the bed of the convalescent. "I've just got a letter from my friend," he said cheerfully, "and he wants me to come back to England at once." "What for?" asked Guy quickly. "Oh, our African expedition, you know," replied Eustace, smoothing out the letter. "I put it off because of your illness, but now you are on the way to recovery I can leave you with safety in the hands of Alizon." "I never saw such a fellow," said Guy, fretfully. "Why on earth can't you stay at home, instead of scampering all round the world?" Eustace laughed, yet his mirth was rather forced. "I'm afraid I've got a strain of gipsy blood in me somewhere," he said, jokingly, "and I can't rest; besides, I really and truly prefer savages to civilized idiots of the London type. They're every bit as decent, and much more amusing." All this time, Lady Errington had remained silent in deep thought, but at the conclusion of Gartney's speech, she looked up with a grave face. "When do you start?" she asked quietly. "To-morrow morning." "So soon?" she said, with a start. "Hang it, Eustace, you might have given us longer notice," remarked Guy, in a displeased tone of voice. "_Cui bono?_" said Gartney, listlessly. "Long leave-takings are a mistake, I think--the opposite of 'linked sweetness long drawn out.' I always like to come and go quickly, so I'll say goodbye to-night, and be off the first thing in the morning." Neither Guy nor his wife made any further remark, as they both felt dimly that it would be happier for Eustace to go away as soon as possible. It was not ingratitude, it was not a desire to lose his company, but what he had said to the wife, and what he had said to the husband, recurred to both their memories, and they silently acquiesced in his decision. "Before I go," said Eustace, after a pause, "there is one thing I wish to say. Can I speak to you both without offence?" "Certainly," replied Guy, wondering what was coming. "We both owe you more than we can ever repay." "You can repay it easily," said Gartney, quickly, "by accepting the proposition I am about to make." "Let us hear what it is first," observed Alizon, looking up for a moment with a faint smile on her lips. "It will not take long to explain," answered Gartney, in a matter-of-fact tone. "You know I am rich enough to indulge all my whims and fancies, so this new access of wealth from Aunt Jelly, is absolutely useless to me. It ought to have been left to Guy, and had I spoken to Aunt Jelly before she died, no doubt I would have made her see this. As it is, however, it has been left to me, and I do not want it. Guy, however, does so. I wish to make him a free gift of all the property before leaving for Africa." "No," said Guy resolutely, "I will not take a penny." "Why not?" "Because it was left to you. I do not want to rob you." "It's not a question of robbery," said Eustace, coolly, "if the money was of any use to me, I'd keep it. But it is not. I do not even know that I would touch it, so it's far better to be employed by you than lying idle in my bank. What do you say, Alizon?" She flushed painfully. "What can I say?" "That you will persuade this obstinate husband of yours to take the money." "But suppose he won't accept?" "Which is his firm intention," said Guy, quickly. "In that case," remarked Eustace grimly, "I shall simply hand it over to the most convenient charity, say 'The Society for the Suppression of Critics,' or 'The Fund for Converted Publishers'--but keep it, I will not." "You're talking nonsense," cried Guy, impatiently. "The sober truth, I assure you." There was silence for a few moments, and at last the silence was broken by Guy. "If I thought you were in earnest----" he began slowly. "Dead earnest," said Eustace. "Then I suppose it will be best to accept your Quixotic offer." "I'm glad you look at it in such a sensible light," retorted Gartney, with an air of great relief. "You agree with Guy, Alizon?" She raised her eyes slowly to his face, and looked steadily at him before making her reply. "Yes, I agree with Guy," she answered frankly. "Then it's settled," said Eustace with a huge sigh. "I can't tell you how glad I am to escape being buried under this weight of wealth, like Tarpeia under the shields of the Sabines. An old illustration, is it not, but remarkably apt. You will be able to clear the mortgages off the Hall, Guy, and live there in a manner befitting the place. I will see my lawyers as soon as I return to England, so you will have no further trouble over the matter." "And what about yourself?" asked Alizon, impulsively. "Myself?" he echoed, rising slowly from his chair. "Oh, I am going away to foreign parts. The land of Khem--the blameless Ethiopians--the secret sources of the Nile, and all that kind of thing." "But when you come back?" said Errington, raising himself on his elbow. "When I come back," said Eustace sadly, a presentiment of coming doom heavy on his soul, "then I'll see you both happy and honoured. Perhaps you'll find a domestic seat for me by the domestic hearth, and I'll tell stories of mysterious lands to future generations of Erringtons." Again silence, a painful, oppressive silence, which seemed to last an eternity. "Goodbye, dear old fellow," said Eustace at last, with a mighty effort. Guy clasped his hand without a word, his heart being too full to speak. "And you also, Alizon." She gave him her hand also, and there they stood, husband and wife, with their hands clasped in those of the man whom they both knew had fought a good fight--and conquered. "Goodbye, Eustace," whispered the woman at last, with a look of infinite gratitude and pity in her deep eyes. "May God keep you--brother." And under the spell of that gentle benediction, he passed away from their sight for ever. CHAPTER XL. A LETTER FROM HOME. "I thought that our old life was over and done with, And ever apart we would wander alone, That Clotho had broken the distaff she spun with, Weaving the weird web that made my life one with Your own. "Yea, but this letter unbidden appeareth, A sorrowful ghost of the sweetness of yore. Bringing dear thoughts which the lonely heart cheereth, Recalling the words which the heavy soul heareth No more. "Ah, but love's blossom can ne'er bloom again, love, Withered and brown it lies dead in my heart, There let it faded and broken remain, love, We must live ever while years wax and wane, love, Apart." At the entrance to a tent a man sat silent, watching the setting sun. A wild scene, truly, far beyond the bounds of civilization, where the foot of the white man had never trodden before, where the savage tribes had lived since the first of Time in primeval simplicity, where Nature, with lavish hand, spread her uncultured luxuriance in forest, in mountain, and in plain, under a burning, tropical sky. It was a scene far in the interior of Africa, that mysterious continent, which has yet to yield up her secrets to the dogged curiosity of European races. The man was reading a letter, a letter that had come through swamp, through jungle, over mountains, across plains, by the hands of savage carriers, the last letter he would receive before plunging still deeper into the unknown lands beyond, the last link that bound him to civilization--a letter from home. Inside the tent, another man was also reading letters, from friends and club companions, which gave him all the latest gossip of that London, now so far away, but he read them lightly, and tossed them aside with a careless hand. The man outside, however, had only one letter, and, as he read it, his eyes grew moist, blinding him so much that he could not see the writing, and looking up, gazed at the scene before him through a blurred mist of tears. Undulating grass plains, a wide river winding through the country like a silver serpent, clumps of tropical trees, and a distant vision of fantastic peaks, all flushed with splendid colours under the fierce light of the sunset. And the sky, like a delicate shell of pale pink, fading off in the east to cold blue and sombre shadows, in the west deepening into vivid billowy masses of golden clouds, which tried unsuccessfully to veil the intolerable splendour of the sinking sun. A breath of odorous wind under the burning sky, the chattering of monkeys, the shrieking of brilliant-coloured parrots, and the low, guttural song of a naked negro cleaning his weapons in the near camp. The man looked at all this with vague, unseeing eyes, for his thoughts were far away, then, dashing away the tears, he once more began to read the letter he held in his hand. "MY DEAR EUSTACE, "I can hardly believe that it is nine months since you left us. I wonder in what part of Africa you will read this letter, that is, if it ever reaches you, of which I have considerable doubt. The papers, of course, informed us of your many months of delay at Zanzibar before you could go forward, so perhaps this letter may reach you before you get beyond the confines of civilization. I was very much astonished to hear you were at Zanzibar, as I thought you left England with the intention of going up the Nile, and getting into the inland country that way. However, I suppose you had good reason for changing your plans, and are now pushing forward into unknown lands. "I have a great deal to tell you about ourselves and friends, which I am sure you will be pleased to hear. In the first place, both my wife and myself are completely happy--all the clouds of our earlier life have vanished, and I think that no married pair can have such perfect confidence and love for one another. I ascribe this happy state of things to you, dear old fellow, for had you not made Mrs. Veilsturm leave San Remo, and brought my wife to my sick bed, we could never have come together again. I know, good friend that you are, you will be pleased to hear we are so perfectly happy, and that every year--every day--every hour, my wife grows dearer to me. As I write these words her dear face is bending over my shoulder to read what I have set down, and she cordially endorses what I have said. "Thanks to your kind gift of Aunt Jelly's money, all things pecuniarily are well with me. I have paid off the mortgages on the Hall, and invested the rest of the money, so what with the income arising from such investments, and my rents, now regularly coming to me instead of to the lawyers, I am quite a rich man, and the Erringtons can once wore hold up their head in the county as a representative family. "By-the-way, I have some news to give you about our mutual friend, Mrs. Veilsturm, with whom I was so infatuated. She went on to New York, followed by Dolly Thambits, and has now married him. He is a young idiot to be sure, but then he has an excellent income, and that is all she cares about. Won't she spend his thousands for him? Well, I think you and I agree on that subject. Regarding Major Griff, she evidently found him less useful after than before she became Mrs. Thambits, so she has pensioned him off with a few thousands, and I hear the Major has gone to Central America, with a view to entering the service of one of the republics of those regions. His future fate is not hard to prophesy, as he will either become President or be shot, but in either event I don't think he'll trouble our fair friend again who has retired so peacefully into married life. Next year, I believe, she is coming to town, and is going to cut a great dash, so no doubt Mrs. Thambits will be even more popular than Mrs. Veilsturm--although, I dare say, there will not be any Sunday evenings of the Monte Carlo style. "You will perhaps wonder at my writing so coolly about this lady, but the fact is, I now see only too clearly the danger I escaped. She would have ruined my life, and certainly made a good attempt to do so, only you fortunately intervened in time. What magic you used to force her to leave me alone I do not know, but I certainly have to thank you for extricating me from a very perilous position. "Another item of news. Mrs. Macjean has presented the delighted Otterburn with a son and heir. By-the-way, I should not call him Otterburn, as, by the death of his father four months ago, he is now Lord Dunkeld. But old habits are hard to get rid of, and I always talk of them as Mrs. Macjean and Otterburn. They are very happy, as they deserve to be, for Dunkeld is a real good fellow, and Lady Dunkeld--well, she is all that is charming. "Do you remember Miss Minnie Pelch, poor Aunt Jelly's companion? She is now down at Errington with us, as she was so lonely in town that Alizon took pity on her, and she is installed as companion at the Hall. Her volume of verse came out in due splendour, and was entirely overlooked by the press, at which I am not sorry, as if the poems had been noticed--well, you know the poems of old. Minnie, however, thinks this silence is jealousy, and quite looks upon herself as a shining light of the Victorian age, so neither Alizon nor I undeceive her, for she is a good little woman, though somewhat of a bore with her infernal--I mean eternal--poetry. "I really don't think there is any more news to tell you, except that good old Mrs. Trubbles is dead--apoplexy--and her dear Harry is now on the look-out for another spouse with political influence--I wish it was 'poetical influence,' and we might manage to marry him to Miss Pelch. "Mr. Dolser and 'The Pepper Box' have both gone under, never to rise again I hope. Some dreadful libel on a high personage appeared, at which the H.P. took umbrage, and the editor is now expiating his offence in prison. I can't say I'm very sorry, as when he is released Mr. Dolser will no doubt leave other people's affairs alone. Such men as he are the curse of the present age, and should all be sunk in the Atlantic for at least half an hour--after that I think we'd have no more trouble with them. "And now, my dear cousin, I must close this long letter, but first, in confidence, let me hint to you that my wife is expecting an interesting event to take place shortly, which will once more render the nursery a necessity. Poor Alizon has borne up bravely since the death of Sammy, but I know she longs for a child of her own to fill the vacant place in her heart. I am no longer afraid of having a rival in my child, as my wife loves and trusts me now, and my lot is as perfectly happy a one as any mortal can hope for. "So now goodbye, my dear Eustace. I hope we will soon see you back again at the Hall, where there is always a place for you. My wife sends her kindest regards to you, and so do I, thus closing this letter, and remaining "Your affectionate Cousin, "GUY ERRINGTON." When Eustace finished reading the letter he let it fall on the ground, and laughed bitterly. "Kindest regards," he said sadly, "and I gave her love." The sun was sinking swiftly behind the dark hills, and Gartney, with his hand supporting his chin, sat watching it, thinking of the days that were no more. So sad, so melancholy he felt, as he thought of the past, of the woman he loved so fondly, whom he had restored to the arms of her husband at the cost of his own happiness. Surely, if he had been selfish, vain and egotistical all his life, he had expiated these sins by his voluntary sacrifice of self--a sacrifice that had banished all delight from his heart. And he sat there a lonely exile, with sorrow behind him, and danger before him, while the sun sank in the burning west, and the sable wings of night spread over the earth like a sombre pall. There was darkness on the world, there was darkness in his heart, and from the midst of the shadows still sounded the melancholy chaunt of the slave. * * * * * * EXTRACT FROM "THE MORNING PLANET." "By a telegram from Zanzibar there now seems no doubt that the two young Englishmen, who went into the interior of Africa some months ago, have been massacred. Only one survivor of the expedition escaped and managed to get safely to the coast. According to his story, Mr. Laxton was speared first by hostile natives from an ambush. Afterwards Mr. Gartney met with the same fate, although he defended himself for some time with his revolver. "Much regret will be felt in England at this sad news, as the two deceased gentlemen were both very popular, Mr. Gartney especially being widely known as a charming poet and essayist. He, was very wealthy, and we hear that all his property, by a will executed before he left England, has been left to Lady Errington, of Errington Hall, Dreamshire." * * * * * * So that was the end of Eustace Gartney. FINIS