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Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent §tre filmds d des taux de reduction diffdrents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul clichd, il est filmd d partir de Tangle supdrieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images ndcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mdthode. rrata o selure, id H 32X 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 POPULAR NOVELS. By May Agnes Fleming. l.-GUY EARLSCOIJRT'S WIFE. 2.— A WONDERFUL WOMAN. 3.— A TERRIBLE SECRET. 4.— NORINE'S REVENGE. 5.— A MAD MARRIAGE. 6.— ONE NIGHT'S I.IYSTERY. 7.— KATE DANTON. 8.— SILENT AND TRUE. 9.— HEIR OF CHARLTON. (New.) ' Mrs. Fleming's stories are growing more and more popu- lar every clay. Their delineations of character life-like conversations, flushes of wit, con- stantly varying scenes, and deeply in- teresting plots, combine to place their author in the very first rank of Modern Novelists." All published uniform with this volume. Price $1.50 each, and Bent/?'ee by mail on receipt of price. BV G. W. CARIiETON & CO., Publishers, New York, 9- t: 'r THE ■*»■ ■' Heir of Charlton. ^ i«wi. BY MAY AGNES FLEMING, AUTHOR OF •GUV EARLSCOURT'S W,FB," " A WONDERFUL WOMAN," "a TERR,B« SECRET... ..„OR,.E'S RRVK.O.,.. : , „,, >;aRR.AGe .^ ONE NIGHT'S MYSTERY," ETC. <^ NEW YORK: Copyright, 1878, by G. /^ Carleton & Co., Publishers. LONDON: S. LOW & CO. MDCCCLXXIX. I ■ ■ ! -1 / ,-■• ■! -/L/ ! ) 1 7 Trow's Printing and I^ooKDiNniNc Co. 205-213 F.ast \7.tk .St., NEW YOKK. \ CONTENTS. t i PART FIRST. CHAPTER I.— Shaddeck Light.. '''''"''' II- — Charlton Place III— A Fairy Tale ' * '^ IV.— A Man's Letter... ^^ v.— Before Breakfast VL— After Breakfast .'.*'" ^^ Vll.-In the Cool of the Evening.' ^^ V^HL-By the Light of the Moon .'.*.'".'.'.'."*" 66 IX.— How the Game was Made ,]] X.— The End of the Fairy Tale .'.'.'*.*.'.""" g XI — Shaddeck Light ^ XIL— An Evening at Shaddeck Light. 1°^ XIIL-A Night at Shaddeck Light. ....'*.' ^^ XIV.-A Morning at Shaddeck Light.' ....,[ ['^ XV.— Captain Dick's Wooing ^^' XVL-IIow Dora Does It '^^ XVII.-A Girl's Letter '^^ XVIII.-The Days Before...." .'.'.' .'.'.'**.*;; ]^^ XIX.— Captain Dick's Wedding. . . * * * .''''' 'g ^ ^X.— Post-Nuptial.. . . ' ^ XXr.-.. The Girl I Left'beh'ind M^ " "'' XXII.-.. When Day is Done" '°' 217 VI CONTENTS. PART SECOND. CHAPTER T -.T PAGE 1. — Vera 224 II.— A Look Behind •^o4 III.—'' Love Took up the Glass of Time." 242 IV.— At Dawn of Day 258 V. — A Summer Afternoon 270 VI. — A Sununer Night 2S2 VII.—" We Fell Out, My Wife and L" 295 VIII.-- O, We Fell Out, I Know not Why." ./.''. 305 IX.— Charlton Place ^jj X. — Husband and Wife -gc XL— A Cry in the Night XII.— In the Dead Hand 3^0 XIIL— In the Dark Hour 5^ XIV.— Tracked , 374 XV.— Trapped ^g^ XVI. — Shaddeck Light I THE HEIR OF CHARLTON, 21 Storij or Sl)rtlri)ccli Cijjijt. PART I. w.,e u„hand.om.."-M„c„ A.„ A."; Nil";. ""' "" """ """"•' '»■ "" CHAPTER I. SHADDECK LIGHT. where, except now a,ul .hen, a .hirdng seagull ° A hi, fel; ous, the sea ' '"* '°"'-''^' '""'"' '^^^-^''^f- "She won't like it, that is a certainty to be,™ with • " so nmhismusn^s " An,1 if u u , /"=!>'" "''n . so raise the dev I c;,, '^ ''"^"^ ™"*" ^"''-^ 't °"'. sl'e will jesy and ra In ^ '.^ " •\"^^^»'"' ««"!< The rose light of the sunset has faded out into opal and gray, the cool of evening has fallen upon the world, at white heat all day, when Richard Ffrench turns into the ponderous iron gateway, between its couchant lions, and goes up the long, leafy, tree-shaded drive. The old elms and hemlocks meet overhead, and make green gloom even at noonday. It is deepest twilight beneath their arching vault now. He emerges in front of the house, a large, quaint, red brick struc- 20 CHARLTON PLACE. 'i!|i ture, set in a great slope of velvety turf and lawn, with wide halls, and bay-windows, and open doors. Pjiilliant beds of gladioli, geraninni, verbena, heliotro[)e, and pansy crop up everywhere, and olV }'onder among a vt'ry thicket of roses, he catches the sound of ladies' voices, the tlntter of ladies' skirts. " Humph ! " says Captain Dick, and sto[)s in his whist- ling ; "so they have come. I thought they would. I hope the governor — dear old woman-lover that he is — is happy at last." An amused look is in the young man's gray eyes, as he stands and reconnoitres. I'he trio examine the lloral beau- ties, unconscious of the mischievous gaze upon them. "As if 1 didn't see through the transparent ruse — bless his innocent old soul — and as if they won't see through it too, before they are an hour in the house ; I only hope the young lady has some sense of humor. And three of them, by George ! I should think the Sultan of all the Turkeys must feel something as I will, when the last lot arrives." Ca[)tain Dick throws back his head and laughs all by him- self; a mellow, ringing, thoroughly joyous laugh. Then he turns to escape into the house, for it will not do, he thinks, to shock these delicate creatures with a rough jacket and a slouch hat, when Fate wil^-. it otherwise. The trio turn suddenly, advance, see him, and retreat is cut off. He accepts defeat with calmness, and stands and waits. And as he waits his eyes widen, dilate, with surprise, for the face of the younger lady is the face in colored chalks over the man- tel at Shaddeck Light. A, FAIRY TALE. 21 CHAPTER III. A I'AIRY TALE. ly him- lien he hinks, and a turn He nd as ce of man- NCE upon a time there was a king who lived in a lovely castle, and had two daughters. The oldest was ever "t pretty, and her name was the I'rincess Snowllake. The youngest wasn't pretty at all, and her name was the Princess Jkownskin." The narrator pauses for breath. She is ari extremely }()ung lady, certainly not more than sixteen. The captious critic might perchance hnd fault with her grannnar, i)articu- larly as she is a precei)tress of youth ; but there are no caj)- tious critics present — only a very small boy and a smaller girl. Twilight, the witching hour for fairy tales, fills the room. Rainy twilight, too, for the (lr()[)s patter against the plate glass, driven by the sweep of sunmier wind. " Well, after a long time this great, beautiful king died," there is a little touch of sadness in the fresh, clear voice ; " and the two poor little princesses were thrown all alone on the world. They went away from the lovely castle into the big, noisy, nasty, ugly, horrid city Flossy ! let l)ussy's tail alone. Lex ! I am watching you. You are falling asleep, sir, just as fast as you can fall." "I ain't!" says Lex, indignantly; "I hear every \vord. Was the horrid city New York, Vera ? " " Oh, you stupid little boy ! as if there ever were any princesses in New York. No, this was in Fairyland. Well, and then these two princesses had to go to work as if they had never been princesses at all. Tlie ugly little Princess Brownskin didn't mind it so much, because she only had to teach two little children, and that isn't hard, you know, but the poor pretty Princess Snowflake " 22 A FAIRY TALE. 1 1 " Vera," says Flossy, opening her baby eyes, *• was the iidly pwincess j'(^// / " " Tliere never was," says the young lady despairingly, " such a ridiculous small girl as you, l''lossy ! Of course not. Whoever said I was a princess. Well — where was 1 ? Oil ! at the Princess Snowllake. Lex, you are pulling pussy's tail now. 1 declare I won't tell another word. I'll get rigiit up and light the gas." Jiut at this dismal threat both children set up a cry of misery that caused their stern monitress to relent. " Vera, child," says an anxious voice. A door suddenly opens, and there is a rustle of silk. ** Are you here ? Oh, you are. 1 want you to go to Madame Lebrun's for me. What are you doing ? " "Telling Floss and Lex a fairy tale," answers the ex- tremely young lady, laughing and rising from the hearth-rug, upon which she has been coiled. "Shall 1 light the gas, Mrs. Trafton?" " Yes, please, and ring for Filomena — it is time those children were in the nursery. Lex, if you cry, sir, you shall be whi[)ped." " I want to hear about the pretty Princess Snowflake," pipes little Lex. " Want hear about pwetty Pwincess Nofake," echoes little Flossy. " Here, Filomena," says the lady, calmly, twitching her silk skirts from Lex's clinging fingers, " take those children upstairs directly. Vera, my dear, let nurse light the gas, you will strain your arms if you stretch up like that. Yes, 1 want you to go to madame's directly ; she promised to send my dress home at five, and here it is after six, and not a sign of it yet. But it is exactly like her. You must go and try it on, please ; our figures are so much alike she will be able to tell. 1 am sorry it rains," walking to the window and looking drearily out. " 1 would send the carriage, only ^/ F.t/A'V TAl.i:. 23 those shall ake," jchoes ig her lUlren Yes, ed to id not St go will indow only Mr. Trafton is so lirosonie about taking out the liorses in the wet. liut you can take a stage " "Oh, I don't mind the rain," says Vera brightly; "I rather like it, in fact, with water[)roof and rubbers, and I shall be glad to see Dot. I am to try on, and wait for alter- ations, if any are needed, 1 suppose, Mrs. Trafton?" *' Yes, my dear ; and if you have to wait very long, make madame send some one back with you. Tiresome old thing ! she never does finish anything when she promises." The gas is lit now, and Lex and Mossy, wailing loudly for their lost princesses, are borne off by the ]''rench nurse. 'i"he pretty room, "curtained, and close, and warm," is known as the school-room, but in it there is more of (Irimm's •joblins than of granmiar, Kans Andersen than horn-books. Mi-s. Tiafton, a pale, faded, young woman, stanils looking Out al the fast falling rain, ami in the middle of the room, directly under the chandelier, is Miss Vera. She is a girl of sixteen, and hardly looks that, with a soft cut, childish, inno- cent sort of face, a profusion of short, black hair, a pair of dark eyes that laugh frankly on all the world, and small, wliite teeth that Hash forth merrily for very little provoca- tion. She is thin and dark, too unformed and angular for > CD good looks, but a bright brown fairy, and n(»t in the slightest like any one's ideal of a governess. She Icjoks as if she iiiighi very well go into the school-room herself foi three or four years, and be the better for it. She encases herself in a waterproof, crushes a little straw hat down on all her soft curls, and trips away as gayly as though it were a sunlit noonday. It is raining quite heavily, but she catches an onmibus at the corner, and goes rattling down town to the great dressmaking emi>orium on Four- teenth Street. The city lamps are lit, and shine througli the wet drift of the rain. I'he pavements are greased with that slimy black mud, dear from long association, to the heart of the New Yorker. People hurry by with gloomy ;•[ 24 // FAIKY TAI.E. faces under their umbrclhis. Vera gets out at the corner of Fourteenth Street, unfurls her parachute, tiptoes with nuich distaste through the sticky mud, and up die steps of Madame liCbrun's estabhshment. A colored man in livery opens the door, and Miss Vera smiles a friendly smile of accpiaintance- ship. " De do, Jackson? Dreadful sort of evening, isn't it? Is my sister in ? " "1 presume so, Miss Vera. This way, Miss Vera, if you please ; the reception-rooms are engaged. Step in here one moment, and 1 will inform Miss Lightvvood." The gentlemanly Jackson ushers her into a small room, and leaves her. She has to wait for some time, and is grow- ing impatient, when the door quickly oi)ens and her sister enters. " Vera ! " she exclaims, *' Jackson told me Oh ! here you are, 1 did not see you for a moment. Mrs. Traflon has sent for her ball-dress, I suppose ? Well, she might have spared you the trouble, for it went five minutes before you came. IJut it is just as well, for if you had not come, I must have gone to see you. Vera, 1 have such news ! " She steps and clasps her hands, and looks at her sister with shining eyes. She is small, slight, and excessively pretty ; a young woman, not a girl, with a pale, delicate face, a profusion of light hair elaborately " done," and set off by a knot of crimson silk. Her eyes are as blue as for- get-me-nots, her complexion as milky white as a baby's. A beautiful little woman, but somehow looking every day of her six-and-twenty years. Vera opens wide her black eyes. " News, Dot ? Where from ? Who from ? What about? " " Look here ! " Dot draws from her pocket a letter, and unfolds it triumi)hantly. " Do you see this letter ? It came this morning, and tliat is why I meant to go and see you to- night. Vera, you never iv;//A/ guess whom it is from ?" A FMKY TALE. 25 orncr of .h nuich )cns the inlance- isn't it ? I, if you icrc one ill room, is grow- er sislcr 3h ! here Trafton iiiht have fore you I must ler sister ;cssively delicate and set le as for- )y's. A day of xbout?" Iter, and lit came you to- 1?" 1 " Never," says Vera, with an air of conviction ; " I never guessed a riddle of nn\ kind in my Mfc. Who ?" "Front Mr. Charlton — the Honorable Robert ('harlton, of Charlton I'lace, Si. .\nn's," says Dot with unction, "anil it is an invitation to both of us to go there and sjjcnd the sununcr. ]>oth of us. Vera. lie says expressly — wlure is the place — bring your half-sister, Miss Veronica, with )()U ; I am sure the \)oor little thing must need a glimpse of green fields and blue water after her prolonged course of stony city streets. Come as soon as you can, and enclosed please fmd check for travelling expenses. Vera, how nuu:h do you sui)pose the check is for ? Three — hundred — dol- lars ! " Vera snatches up her hat and waves it above her head. " Hooray ! Your Mr. Charlton is a i)rince — long life to him ! Three hundred dollars, green fields and blue " " lie (luiet, Vera. Do, for pity's sake, get rid of your roin[)ing propensities before we go. Mr. Charlton evitlently looks ui)on you as a little girl, and I am sure you act like one, and a hoidenish one at that. A young lady of sixteen past " " Oh, never mind that, Dot — don't scold. Read me some more of the letter — he does express himself so beauti- fully I ' Inclosed please find check for travelling exp'inses.' Could anything be more exquisite than that V^ " 'J'here is nothing else in particular," says Dot, folding it up and replacing it in her pocket. "He mentions that Mrs. Charlton and her daughter from New Orleans are also com- ing. He speaks casually, I believe, of his step-son Richard I'Trench, who has lately returned from somewhere — Lapland, or Greenland, or the North Pole." " Lapland, Greenland, or the North Pole," sighs Vera, fanning herself with her hat, " how nice and cool they sound. I wonder Richard Ffrench didn't stay there. Mr. 26 A FAIRY TALE. m i I 'ig 1 i Charlton's stepson — uni — is he his o)ily son, his heir, Dot?" " I presume so," Dot answers, and a demure smile dim- ples her pretty face. " It is a very lucky thing," says Vera, regarding her sister gravely, "that you are pretty. It would be a shame for two ugly girls to inflict themselves on one house, and a rich young man there too. It is not to be supposed that Richard Ffrench has left his heart's best affections ith a l^aplander, or a Greenlander, or a North Poler. W) And that dress is awfully becoming to you. Dot. Navy- - Dot, when are we blue, and dark red in the hair going ?" " There is no need of delay. I told madame at once, and though she regrets, and so on, she has to consent. I shall use the money of course, and 1 see no reason why we should not start next week. Now, if you are going home, you had better go ; it is getting late, and raining hard. Tell Mrs. 'I'rafton — or, no. 1 will call to-morrow, and tell her myself, and then we can go down to Stewart's together for our things." "To Stewart's together for our things," repeats Vera, in a sort of dreamy ecstasy ; " it is lovely, it is heavenly, it is one of my fairy tales come true. Tiie Princess SnowHake shall go lo St. Ann's, and Prince Richard Cc&ur de Lio?i shall have the prettiest wife in all the world. Shall you wear white silk, or a travelling suit when you are married, Dot, and may I stay among the green fields and blue sea forever and ever ? Yes, it is a fairy tale, with castle, and prince, and everytliirg just as it ought to be. Shopping to morrow at Stewail's ! No, I cannot realize it. Good- night, Dot." " Good-night, goose," laughs Dot, and sees her to the door. This little dark girl is the one thing in all the world that Theodora Lightwood loves. A MAN'S LETTER. 27 his heir, nile dim- her sister haiiie for )use, and supposed affections th Poler. t. Navy- n are we Vera goes home through the wet, wind-beaten, mud- splashed city streets, and the world is all rose-color, the pavements of crystal and jas[)er, the raylcss night sky ashine with the light of hope. She is living a fairy tale ; the en- chanted palace awaits, the dashing I'rince Charming is there, a long golden summer lies before '* And the Princess SnowHake married Prince Richard, the Laplander," cries Vera, gleefully, gi'ing wakeful Lex a rapturous hug, 'and they lived happy forever after." e at once, )nsent. I )n why we inof home, lard. Tell I tell her wether for Vera, in nly, it is nowtlake de Lion 5hall you married, blue sea stle, and Shopping Good- kr to the the world CHAPTER IV. A man's letter. Frfl?n Captain Richard Ffrcnch to Dr. Einil Englchart. XD so, after a year in Baffin's Bay, a winter in St. Petersburg, after rinking with London belles, and after waltzing with Viennese beauties, without risk to wind or limb, you slip on an innoxious orange-peel in New York streets, and manage to sprain your ankle. Great is Allah, and wonderful are the ways of F.mil Englehart ! All the same, old boy, it must be no end of a bore to be tied up by the leg, just at this time when there is so nuich to be done about the expedition which nobody but you can do. As it is of no use crying over spilled milk, however, you may as well dry your eyes, cease your howls, put your snapped ankle under the nearest water-spout, and improve your mind during the next fortnight by reading hard at Spanish. I am getting on myself; I have a den out here in the ' vasty deep,' a little house about the size to hang from your watch-chain, perched on a rock, and in it I spend my days. My nights, when the moon is at the full, I devote to the toilers of the 28 /I MAN'S LETTER. .1 I \. sea. Such has been my life for the past six weeks ) peace- ful, virtuous, studious, monotonous ; but, alas ! *' * Notliing can be as it has been before. Belter so call it, only not the same.' " A change is coming, has come ; woman has entered my Eden, and the bliss of unintcrrui)ted days of reading and drawing, of smoking peaceful calumets in the best parlor of the Mancr House, o' evenings of dining in a pea-jacket, is at an end. If I threw the house out of the window, it would be good and admirable in the eyes of the dear old governor, but the delicate female mind, the sensitive female olfactories must be shocked by no deed of mine. Henceforward free- dom is gone, and I return to the trammels of civilization and tail-coats. " I have never told you about the governor, have I, nor how I come to have a home hereabouts ? No, I don't think J have. We always found enough to do, and say, and think, without going into autobiography. But now the chained tiger is to be soothed, the sick surgeon to be charmed out of his loneliness. I am ordered, under penalty of bastinado and bow-string, to write long letters, amusing letters, and my lord, the Sultan, shall be obeyed. Long they shall be, amusing they may be, if you find yourself weakened intellectually, as well as i)h}'sically, by your sprained ankle. " P'ourteen years ago, then, I went home one vacation from school, to find my mother transferred from her cottage to a handsome home, and to be introduced to a tall, spare, elderly gentleman, ' frosty but kindly,' as my new papa. I was about thirteen at the time, with very pronounced ideas on the subject of step-fathers, and, for the matter of that, on most other subjects. *' ' You must be sure to call Mr. Charlton papa, Dick,' my mother said to me, confidentially. * You don't know how good he is, and how fond he is prepared to be of you. When A MAN'S LETTER. 29 5 ; peace* itered my ading and parlor of L-jacket, is ,', it would governor, olfactories •ward free- nation and lave I, nor don't think and think, le chained lied out of tinado and d my lord, , amusing jctually, as vacation |er cottage ill, spare, papa. I Iced ideas )f that, on )a, Dick,' aiow how 11. When you are going to bed, to-night, you will go up to him very nicely and say, " Good-night, papa." " I listened, committed myself to nothing, and revolved the matter all day. Bedtime came, 1 kissed my mother, who looked anxious, and went up to my new father, who sat beaming benignly upon me through his double-barrelled eye- glass. "'Mr. Charlton,' I began, * mother says you are my father, and I am to call you so. Now, that cannot be. No fellow can have two fathers, and I would rather not.' " Dick ! " my mother exclaimed, in dismay. " * Never mind, Dick,' Mr. Charlton said, laughing ; * I like his honesty and his logic. So I am not to be adopted as father, Dick — what then is it to be ? " *' ' Thank you, sir. You were governor of a Western State some years ago, mother says, and if you wouldn't mind, I should like to call you governor. Lots of fellows 1 know, call their fathers that, regular out-and-out fathers, you know. May T, sir?' " ' Certainly, Dick. Governor let it be, by all means,' re- sponded Mr. Charlton, still laughing, and so we shook hanils, and that delicate matter was settled once and for all. " I need not tell yu.i what sort of father I found ; no man could have loved his own son better. My poor mother died, and from that hour his affection seemed to redouble. All that I have, or am, I owe him. Men don't much talk or even think of this sort of thing, but the tie between us is one strong and deep. All the same, I am the plague of his life ; my Arab propensity for folding my tent and silently stealing away, my Bohemian instincts when at home, are alike the botlier of his existence. It came very near being a serious matter, last year, when I went with you all to the Polar Sea. The Honduras Expedition he will not even hear of, and that is why, principally, I have fitted up this Robinson Crusoe castle out in Shaddeck Bay, to keep my reading and sketch- 30 A MAN'S LETTER. i I I ; ,1 i!' il'i ing out of his sight The place was formerly a sort of bea- con for fishers and whalers, but long ago was deserved, and is as isolated as heart can wish. He wants nie to take to one of the learned profession^, his own for instance — law — and stay respectably at home. A man ought to settle, he says, at seven-and-twenty ; and so he ought, I sup[)ose, but there must be vagabond blood in me, for settling is the last thing I want to think of 1 tried it once for six months, and grew restless and cross-grained as the devil. Since he came into the great Charlton fortune, his monomania for keeping me at home has grown to giant proi)ortions. He has be- come rabid — a man of one idea, and that is why he has sent for but I have not come to thai; yet. " It ought to be flattering, this rampant affection, and is, and I love the dear old fellow ; still I cannot reconcile my- self to the idea of ranging in this dull-as-death little country town, and settling down to turnips and prize pumi)kins, short horns, steam plows, and top dressing, militia drill, and cider drinking. Ungrateful, I know, but as Dr. Watts re- marks, * it is my nature to.' " Have you ever visited St. Ann's? It is about ninety miles from New York, and if ever the doctors send you to grass, turn you out to vegetate, not live, by all means come here. It is a finished town. Thirty years ago it stoi)ped growing, and has never advanced an inch since. And for that very reason it is a charming place, with old homesteads embowered in trees, spreading orchards, golden and ruddy with fruit, old-fashioned gardens, where all sweet-smelling things run riot, yellow fields of waving grain, long, white, lonely roads, sleepy, Sunday stillness in perpetuity ; and at its feet the everlasting sea, wash, wash, washing. And among its other products. Vestal virgins abound ; the num- ber of old maids is something pathetic. They muster strong on Sunday afternoons, up to the white meeting-house on the hill — one ceases to view polygamy as an evil, when one nVi A MAN'S 'LETTER. 31 t of bea- :yQ.(\^ and take to J — law — ettle, he [)ose, but 5 the last ittis, and he came keeping I has be- has sent 1, and is, icile my- coiintry umi)kins, (Irill, and Vatts re- ninety you to IS come stopped And for nesteads d ruddy imelling J, white, ty ; and And e nmn- • strong on the ;n one watches them on their winding way, as faded and out of date as the bonnets they wear, with patient hands folded over unai)propriated hearts. "Once St. Ann's was a place of bustle and business, and sent out its lleet of whalers yearly, and in those days John Charlton made his fortune, built a house, died, and left all to Ins younger brolh er, ^Vh en my day comes, 1 am t(?l(l, I am to have it all, if, meantime, 1 behave myself, settle to law and monotony, marry a wife, and stay at home. '* Marry a wife I A[y dear Englehart, do you remember — • I think you do — that girl who gave lessons at your sister's in New Orleans ? A tall. Madonna-like maiden, a sort of human cplla lily, with serene eyes, passionless and pure ? Your little nieces called her mademoiselle, nothing but mademoi.ielle, just as they dubbed me 'Uncle Uick' — you remember ? Well, she is here. Her name is Eleanor Charlton, and she is what a girl with such eyes should be. Her father was Mr. Charlton's cousin, once removed, and he has sent for her to come and spend the summer. Her mother is with her, a majestic matron ; bland as sweet oil, but with an eye of stone, and a l)air of cruelly tight lips. I see her daughter wince, some- times, under that stony glance. They came three days ago, and I met them one evening in the grounds. There were mutual exclamations — ' Mademoiselle ! ' ' Uncle Dick ! ' then a bur^t of laughter, a charming blush on the lady's part, explanations on the gentleman's, and an adjournment to diuner. After dinner there was music ; she plays l>ach, Beethoven, Afozart, this poor Miss Eleanor, who is a music- teacher by profession, I don't affect the piano-forte as a rule, but I hke such playing as this. The violin came down after a little, and the governor beamed through his lenses, shone, scintillated, was radiant, Mrs. Charlton knows how to keep her dig)iitied face in order, hut I caught more than once, a 'Bless you my, children ' look, out of the hard, austere eyes. As for mademoiselle — 1 like her, Englehart, 32 A MAN'S LETTER. li |l i " I I always knew I should like her if I got a chance, and — I caught myself revolving, last night, the practicability of life on land, of tax-paying, land-draiin'ng, stock-breeding, horse- breaking, cradle rocking, and all the rest of it. If any one could make it worth while, it would be this young woman. I know, and she knows, and we all know, what she is here for. liless the governor! 'Take her, you dog, and be hapi^y ! ' shines forth in every wrinkle of liis dear, kindly, handsome old fiice. TUit she holds herself very far off, and I like her all the better for it. And I don't know. And don't you fill my place in the scientific cori)S yet awhile — id He He it !|c 4: ¥ " I left off last night rather abru[)tly, and to-day the i)lot has thickened. I laugh by myself as 1 write. Two more have come this afternoon. 1 have not been presented yet, but look for that ceremony to-morrow. Young ladies of course, cousins again, but this time so very far removed that the cousinship will hardly do to swear by. Once upon a time, a Catherine Charlton — so runneth the legend — married a Southern planter, and the ' consekins of that manoovre,' to quote Sam Weller, was a daughter. This is the elder of the two. The Southern planter died, and in the fulness of time the widow wedded again, a Cuban, with a yaiH long pedigree and quantities of blue blood, and another daughter saw the light. These half-sisters are our new arrivals. Father and mother dead, wealth lost in civil war, earning their living in New York in the old weary ways, sewing and teaching. Oh ! these poor little women who work I It is breaking buttertlies, putting hunmiing-birds in harness. My soul stirs with an infinite compassion for them all. "Yesterday afternoon I went out with my henchman, Daddy, and diifted about on the high seas, lazy and hapi)y, my mind a blank, my conscience at ease, my digestion at its best, until the red sun set, and the white moon rose. Daddy — not christened Daddy by his godfathers and god- ii ;,:• 1 A Af.LV'S LETTER. 33 :e, and — I ility of life ng, horse- [f any one g woman, he is here J, and be ar, kindly, off, and 1 ovv. And .while — ly the [)]ot fwo niore lented yet, ladies of lOved that ;e npon a — married oovre,' to der uf the s of time pedigree r saw the ther and living in [teaching. breaking soul stirs Inch man, |l happy, jtion at )n rose. lid god- mothers in baptism, bnt yclept * Daddy-long legs,' by sundry small boys, for obvious reasons — Daddy took the oars in the gray of the evenmg and rowed me home. The house was all alight, the windows all open, music and woman's laughter floated out into the pleasant summer night. I stood under some trees and saw them all — a pretty picture. Dinner was over, the governor and Mrs. Charlton ;^at comfortably in a corner at cards. Miss Charlton was at a litfle table making something — point lace I think she calls it. She almost always wears black, which becomes her, and very few orna- ments. She needs none, and knows it i)erhaps ; the * flower face,' the 'stilly tranquil manner,' the coils of silky chestnut hair — they are enough. She looked a household si)rite, a fireside fairy, an angel of hearth and home, sitting there. I declare to you, the old strong instinct, older than original sin — 'it is not good for man to be alone ' — awoke wilhin me for the first time. And then a shining vision came between me and her, something in white and blue, a stage fairy, wiUi loose golden hair, and a waist like the stem of a wineglass. I looked for the other and saw a little girl, a bright brosvnie, with black eyes, and a real girl's bewitching laugh. Strange to say, 1 felt no desire to intrude my rough masculine pres- ence among all that fair femininity. 1 stood, I gazed, I admired, for a while, and then I came up to my room. And here I am ; and you, most puissant, enjoy the benefits of my passing misogyny. It is pleasant to have these young women in the house, it brightens things, and there is always Shad- deck Light when the sweetness begins to cloy. It is part of my coarse-grained nature, I suppose, but even as a boy I never had a taste for loUypops ; and as a man, a litcle, a very little, of young ladies' society goes a great way. They so seldom have anything to say for themselves, and if they are pretty to look at, as they generally are, it is a pity to si)oil the illusion. Miss Charlton can talk, but mostly she doesn't ; I find her silent, and have a suspicion that she thinks, and 'Ill ' 34 BEFORE HREAKFAST. 111! irf" l!; '1! |-'l 1 i li M I ! rends Ruskin and Stuart Mill. As for the others — one is a fluffy haired i)eri, an:l the second a dark fairy, 'too low for a high praise, too brown for a fair praise, and too little for a great praise ! ' Further particulars in my next. " If there is anything 1 can do for you, old boy, counnand me. I can run up at any time, there is nothing to detain me. In spite of all the nonsense I have set down here, the Central American Expedition is very near this heart, and the sooner you get that dislocated limb in working order the better. I hope nothing will occur to postpone things ; Sep- tember will be a good month for the start. My owe regret is, the vexation my going will be to the governor ; but to stay here, idly pottering around, i)laying crocjuet, drinking after- noon tea, fiddling in time to the piano, driving about in basket carriages, and waiting for dead men's shoes — that way madness lies. Drop me a screed ; a man may write with one ankle, may he not ? And believe me, as ever, "Richard Caryl Ffrench." CHAPTER V. BEFORE BREAKFAST. r is lovely," says Vera, *' it is delicious, it is all my fancy painted it, it is the Castle of the Sleeping Beauty. And that reminds me. Dot, I wonder if the Sleeping Beauty is still asleep, or whether he came home at all last night!" *' Very uncivil of him in any case," responds Miss Light- wood, " not to put in an appearance even for one moment, knowing we were expected, too. Mrs. Charlton took care to impress upon me, with evident satisfaction, that it was his BEFORE BREAKFAST. 35 one IS a ow for a tie for a oiiimand o detain icre, the ,-art, and )rder the l^\ Sep- regret is, to stay ng after- about in )es — that lay write :ver, lNCH." all my leeping )nder if je home Light- moment, jk care Iwas his very first absence since their arrival, lint a little rudeness, more or less, what can it signify to two persons in our sta- tion in life ? " Miss Lightwood yawns sleepily as she says it, and turns over for another nap. She is in bed, and looks rather pret- tier there than out of it, certain fine lines of discontent that mar the expression of her waking hours, being effaced by slumber. Her cheeks flushed rose-pink, her fair hair all loose and damp, her blue eyes humid with drowsiness. She does not look as though last night's defection preyed upon her. Vera, always one of the earliest of early birds, stands at the window looking out over waving trees, rainbow pas- tures, velvet slopes of sward, as if she could never look her fill. *' After all, Dot, it must be a blessed thing to be rich, and have a home like this. Do be just as nice to Captain I'french when you meet him as you know how " But Dot is serenely asleep, and Vera takes her hat and makes her way down-stairs, and out of the house. It was almost dark last evening when tiiey arrived, and in the bus- tle of welcome and dinner, and the first shyness of meeting ])erfectly unknown peo|)le in a perfectly unknown house, she has seen very little. But this morning it has broken upon her, a very dream of beauty. Her Southern home has faded into a hazy memory ; for years the poor child has known nothing but tiie stony, unbeautiful city streets. And here are wildernesses of greenery, here are great stone urns ablaze with color, here are beds and beds of mignonette, of pansy, of geranium, here are thickets of roses, and trees of fuchsia, here are statues gleaming whitely, and gold and silver fish in mimic ponds. Over her head is rising the dazzling July sun, afar off she catches the flash of the sea, and smells its salt, strong sweetness — the sea that she has never looked ui)on but in pictures and dreams. "Oh! " sighs Vera, in a rapture of gladness, "it is too 3<3 BEFORE BREAKFAST. ill> ! I 1 'i ' I j I i I > II Mill iiiii much. I Tow will we ever go back to New York ? Heaven must be like this." She banishes the untimely thought of New York. She is sixteen, the siunnier is before her, Dot is pretty and Captain I'Trench is only mortal. Which is Captain Ffrench's window, she wonders, and is he sluggishly sleeping away this paradis- iacal morning ? It is joy enough to be alive on such a day. A thousand little birds are singing around her, the perfume of heliotrope and rose is everywhere, she breaks off sprays as she goes and makes a boucjuet, singing without knowing that she sings : '• ' Alas ! how easily things go wrong ; A sigh too nuicl), or a if the trees rnings, and or, has laid ;very super- both pres- els she has t is too hot \ a state of detta ; so, Vera is in her hair, a >se herself, cool ; she iunburned. listen to pg persoh [lines on a Captain irons form bt all-see- eyebrows [y niouser ne sound- arison is Dora's, who with pale, pretty face, slightly Hushed, with blue eves sliining, with rosy lips thiiipliiig, is, Mrs. C'h.irlton fei;ls, a foenian worthy of her steel. in the door-waj' the bone of contention, the stalwart }(Mmg heir presumptive, for whom all these fair women have tlonned plumes and war-paint, stands, his masculine vanity elate and tickled, innnensely amused at tiie situation, and wondering if Abdul Aziz feels anything like this in the midst of the harem. Miss Light- wood is certanily doing her best, and Dora's best is pretty nearly perfect. According to her light, this young lady is conscientiously determined to do her duty — the very utmost she can do for herself and her sister. For Dora Lightwood forms no plans in which that gipsy sister does not share. " I am a selfish little brute," Dora calmly admits, com- muning with her own heart. *' I am mercenary, I am unscru- l)ulous in a good many things, I have a horrid temi)er, I give my whole mind to my clothes, 1 hate people, as a general thing, but I love little Vera, I don't know why, I am sure. I never tried to, 1 never wanted to ; loving any one is a mistake ; all the same, I am awfully fond of Vera. And if a rich man proposed to me and made it a condition that I should part from Vera, why, I wouldn't marry him. I cannot say more than that." She cannot. To refuse wealth for the sake of any human being is, in her eyes, the higliest of all tests of love. As she lie-, liere, in the " golden bower " of her fair floating hair, in her pale blue wrapper with its delicate trimmings, she is busily building castles in Spain — substantial castles, with a French cook in the kitchen, a French maid in my lady's, chamber, three toilets per diem, a house ui)town, near Cen- tral Park, a pew in a fashionable church, horses, carriages, black drivers in livery, and Charlton Place always, for at least three weeks every August, after Newport and the mountains have been "done." Somewhere in the back- ground, faint and far off, is a tall young man of the muscular n , iii :W I !i I 'ii Mil iil 11 'I i i lii i 46 AFTIR BREAKFAST. Christianity order, ready to sign unlimited checks, and too much absorbed in scientific things, and explorations, and Hugh Miller's books, to i)ush himself unbecomingly forward in the way of his wife's amusements. And Vera shall go to school for a year or ;wo, to the most exclusive and exten- sive school whose portals greenbacks can unlock, and the child shall walk in silk attire, and currency have to spare. Then, when she is tlrished, they will make the grand tour — a winter in Paris, a Carnival and Easter in Rome, they will climb an Alp or two, and finish with a season in Lon- don '* My dear Miss T ightvvood," says the suave voice of Mrs. Charlton, " how many years is it — I really forget — since your father died ? Ah ! what a shock his death was to me. Jn youth we had been so intimate. Is it eighteen or twenty now ?" Dora awakes from her gorgeous dream. She looks across at her kinswoman, more cat-like than ever, with her con- tracted eyes and feline smile, and is ready for hostilities in half a second. " Odd that you should forget, is it not, since you were such bosom friends ? It is precisely nineteen years. Old Cat ! " Dora says inwardly, "as if I didn't see your drift. 1 have kept big Dick Ffrench too long, have 1, and your Eleanor is out in the cold." "Ah ! " Mrs. Charlton responds, her ample bust swelling with a fat sigh, "nineteen years. How time flies." " Very true. That is an aphorism I have several times heard before." "And you, dear child, you were — let me see — no, you could not have been twelve, because " The malicious eyes contract a trifle more as they transfix the audacious little flirt on the lounge. Captain Ffrench is out of his depth, but feels vaguely and alarmedly that this conversation is meant to be unpleasant. ; vS, and too •ations, and igly forward ira shall go ! and exten- ick, and the e to spare, and tour — a e, they will )n in Lon- 3ice of Mrs. )rget — since was to me. :n or twenty- looks across th her con- ostilities in e you were ears. Old ur drift. I , and your |st swelling »» reral times -no, you ;y transfix iFfrench is that this AFTER BREAKFAST. 47 ^m i*' "Because that would leave me at the present moment — I am the worst person at figures in the world — Cai)tain Ffrcnch, nineteen and twelve, how much is that ? " " One-and-twenty, I should say, in your case," responds, gravely, Cai)tain Ffrench. "My father died, my dear Mrs. Charlton," says Dora, with a ripi)ling smile, "nine — teen years ago. I was at the time seven years old, only seven, I assure you ; the family ]iible is still extant. Last birthday I was six-and-twenty. Six — and — twenty, fully two years older than Eleanor, I do believe. And then I lost my poor dear mamma so early. Things might have been so different if she had lived. It must be so nice to have a mamma to look out for one, to point out whom to be attentive to, and whom to avoid, in this deceitful world — to lay plans for one " " If one is not capable of laying plans for one's self — very true," says the other duellist, firing promptly. " A mother in many cases would be a superfluity. To be tossed about the world and learn one's own sharpness from hard experience 1 beg your pardon, Mr. Charlton, did you address me ? " " Would you not like to come out and visit the fernery ? " says Captain Ffrench, hastily, in horrible alarm lest this blood- less battle shall be renewed, " or — or is it too warm ? " "Not in the least too warm," smiles Dora; " warmth is my element. Vera, hand me my sun-hat, please. Nelly, dear, what are your favorite flowers — I shall fetch you 9- bouquet." She ties the broad tulle hat over the loose crinkling hair, the small, pretty face, and light blue eyes, gleaming with mirth and malice. '• It's a very fine thing to be mother-in-law To a very magnificent three-tailed Bashaw," she sings under her breath as she goes, but Mrs. Charlton hears her and flashes a wrathful glance after her enemy. She i I ! I ' II !.l ill >l 1^ nil ! ' I li >'' i;i 48 AFTER BREAKFAST. has been routed tb.is bout, but liostilities have only com- niiiiced ; she feels she is an old and able veteran, and they laugh best who laugh last. As she thinks it, Miss Light- wood's shrill peal conies back to her from out the bla/e of sunshine into which she goes witli Captain Dick. Dora's laugh is not her strong point, it is elfish and metallic, and does not harmonize at all with the rose-hued mouth and baby prettiness of face. "That horrid old woman !" she exclaims, " did you ever hear anything so spiteful, Captain Ffrench ? And all because you hai)pened to be civil to me. Don't put on that innocent face, sir, and pretend you don't know." " J')y (ieorge ! " says Ca]itain Dick, "how uncommonly flattering. I must endeavor to distribute my civility with more imi)artiality hereafter. You gave her as good as she brought, however, Miss Lightwood — that must be a soothing recollection." " It is," answers Dora, setting her teeth viciously ; " ever since I can remember I always hit hard." She doubles up her small fist instinctively, and Captain Ffrench eyes it with gravity. "Yes," he says, " I should think a blow of that battering- ram would settle almost any sort of combatant. But, perhaps, it is morally, not physically, that you pitch into people. Moral whacks are so much easier to bear." " Do you tliink so ?" laughs Dora. "Judging by your exceedingly uncomfortable expression a few moments ago, I would never think it. Honestly, it was in abominably bad taste this pugilistic encounter in your presence ; but what was I to do ? You heard yourself — it was she who began it." "And was defeated with great slaughter I It was a per- fectly fair fight. Miss Lightwood, and I rather enjoyed it. I bespeak the office of bottle-holder when the next match comes off". For I infer this contest for the " He pauses and looks down ; Dora looks up, and at the mutual I ill Hlli I m ■"% AFTER BREAKFAST. 49 e only com- an, and ihey Miss l.ight- the blaze of ick. Dora's netallic, and mouth and did you ever dall because that innocent uncommonly J civility with good as she be a soothing Dusly ; " ever e doubles up 1 eyes it with battering- put, perhaps, into people. Ing by your [nents ago, I |minably bad ; but what lio began it." was a per- I enjoyed it. Inext match — " He the mutual glance, so full of meaning, both explode into a frank laugh. •' Championship ! " says Miss Lightwood, " for what else could it be ? Oh ! Captain Ffrench, conceit is the vice of your sex — beware of it. Is this the fernery ? How cool and green it looks ; and a fountain — is not the plash of the falling waters delicious ? That reminds me — if I get up to-morrow, will you take me to your enchanted island, all unbeknown to Madame Charlton ? Early rising is not my prominent virtue, but Vera painted the delights of her water excursion in such glowing colors, that I think it is worth one's morning nap — for once." Captain Ffrench protests he will be only too blessed, too honored. In reality he is more or less bored. For the past half-hour he has been sighing inwardly for the sea-girt seclu- sion of Shaddeck Light, his books, and drawing-board. Not that he hasn't enjoyed the skirmish too, and the conversation of this piquant little woman of the world is spicy and novel. Eut enough is enough — of the first principles of flirtation he is absolutely ignorant ; he has not had his after-breakfast smoke, he has not had his every-day, rain-or-shine, constitutional walk. He wonders what Eleanor is doing. How different she is from this pert (poor Dot's ready audacity is pertness in his eyes), forward, sharp-voiced little person, who talks so much vapid inanity. He can see Eleanor with her slightly bent head ; her clear face, her large, sweet, serious eyes, thoughtful and a litile sad. For there is always a touch of sadness about Eleanor — why, he wonders? Her mother nags her, no doubt ; she is a hard old vixen, and can be deusedly unpleasant when she likes ; but somehow he thinks the trouble lies deeper than that. She has to work hard, but she has the earnest nature of womc \ who do not shirk work, who even find in work their greatest solace when life goes wrong. *• Poor girl," he thinks, and quite a new sensation stirs 3 I I ■1. Il ! t i' 'il 4 !llil 41 I HI'' 50 AFTER BREAKFAST. somewhere within Captain Dick's broad chest. He is not the sort of man to fall too easily a victim to the tender pas- sion, but if he were, and time, and propinquity, and a drowsy country-house given, a tall serene girl, with genile voice and ways, all womanly sweetnesses and graces And then the shrill treble of Miss J.ightwood breaks upon his drean), as her own was broken in upon a while ago, and claims him for the time as her own. In the hall, Mr. Charlton, blandest, suavest of old time gentlemen and courteous hosts, entertains Mrs. Charlton with gossip about the neighborhood, and details of the fme old families, the Huntings, the Deerings, the Hovvells, of the old Puritan breed, who came over from Connecticut in 1650 ; and whose fathers made fortunes in the halcyon days from 1828 to 1S45, when St. Ann's sent out her fleet of "blubber hunters," and dark-eyed foreign sailors reeled drunken about its quiet streets. Vera nestles near Eleanor's chair, and re- lates her adventure of the morning, at which Miss Charlton laughs. " Was it not a horrid shame ! " cries Vera, indignantly, " and I never suspected — no, not once — he kept such a vir- tuous and unconscious face. He knew that fellow ! he was a bashful fool, and he sneaked upstairs to bed. Yes, very bashful, I should think ; his modesty will prove fatal some day, if he doesn't take care ! " Eleanor laughs again. " It was unpardonable — it was, really. I hope you did not commit yourself to any very awful extent, Vera ? " " I asked him a great many questions about Captain Ffrench, I know," says Vera, still hot and resentful, and see- ing nothing to laugh at ; " and he had not a good word to say of hii iself. I dare say he was right, it is a subject on which he ought to be informed. Still," with a sudden in consequent change of tone, " I think he is nice — don't you?" AFTER BREAKFAST. 51 He is not I tender i)as- ind a drowsy ,le voice and • And then lis dream, as aims him for of old time Charlton with the fme old Is, of the old lit in 1650 ; >n days from of" blubber iinken about ;hair, and re- [iss Charlton indignantly, t such a vir- ow ! he was Yes, very I fatal some ,% 1 )e you did 9 ra?" •M^ It Captain '•'^ il, and see- )d word to subject on ■>i sudden in ►'1 ice — don't "Very nice." " And handsome ? " " Well — rather." "And awfully clever? Now don't say you don't know, because it is patent to the dullest observer. He talks like a book — when he likes." "Then he doesn't always like, for I have heard him when he talked more like Captain Dick Ffrench than Emerson or Carlyle." " Ah ! I don't know them. All the same, he is clever. He is a musician " "He plays the violin tolerably, as amateurs go." " And he draws beautifully. And you needn't be so criti- cal. He has your picture over the mantel at Shaddeck Light." "Nonsense!" Eleanor's cheek flushes suddenly, and Mamma Charlton, with one ear bent to her host, the other turned to her daughter, pricks up the near one to catch more. "It is there — nonsense or not — a crayon, as like you as two peas, flattered if anything. And there is a date. ' New Orleans, May, 1861.' So it seems, Miss Slyboots, you and Captain Dick are very old friends." " Oh ! no, no. 1 never spoke to him in my life until four days ago." Vera's large, dark eyes lift and look at her. They are eyes of crystal clearness, the one be>2.uty at present of her face, down through which you seem to see into the absolute white truth of a child's soul. " I am telling you the truth. Vera," she says, her cheeks still hot, " though you look as if you doubted it. Some years ago I met Captain Ffrench at a house in New Orleans, where I gave music lessons. He came with an uncle of the children, and they adopted him as an uncle also. The mother was a French lady. To the children I was simply Mademoi- I! il I! i| 'il'l :] I' ■! |:.r 1 h T ii ll'ill w 52 AFTER BREAKFAST. selle — he was Uncle Dick. IJiit I never knew his name, never spoke to him till I met him here." Vera drops back on the marble. There is a .shade of annoyance on Kleanor's face, as if half provoked at having this confession extorted. Her mother is listening, unctuous, and well pleased. " You evidently made a silent impression then," says Vera. " 1 said this morning, ' 'I'hat is Miss Charlton's picture;' and he said, 'Then Miss Charlton is a very pretty girl.' Here comes Dot, alone ; I wonder what she has done with him ? Dot ! Where have you left Ca[)tain '.Trench? " "Am I my brother's keeper?" replies Dora, sauntering in, a great nosegay in her hand. " Here is your bouciuet, Nelly. Captain Ffrench cut the flowers, and I arranged them. I am a milliner, you know, by profession, and have artistic tastes." *' Ever so many thanks — your taste is exquisite." " But where is Captain Ffrench ? " persists Vera, rising on her elbow, "you are responsible for him — he was last seen alive in your comi)any. There is no old well out in the gar- den, is there, that you could drop him into, a la Lady Audley ? And besides, he isn't a husband in the way " **Vera, dear," says Dora, sweetly, "you are horrifying Mrs. Charlton, with your wild talk of husbands. My sister — she is only sixteen — talks dreadful nonsense sometimes. Indeed, it is a family failing — not on the Charlton side, of course." " But, Captain Dick — Captain Dick ! what has become of Captain Dick ? " reiterates Vera. " He has gone to St. Ann's for letters," says Dora, resum- ing her place on the lounge. " As it stands about one hun- dred and fifty out in the sun, you may iniagine how fascina- ting he finds your society, when he prefers to it a blazing three-mile walk. Now don't talk to me, please, 1 am going to take a nap." '$ AFTER BREAKFAST. 53 US name, shade of at having unctuous, iays Vera, picture;* etty girl.' lone with 1?" launtering bouciuet, arranged and have risnig on last seen n the gar- Audley ? horrifying JMy sister imetiines. side, of tcome of |i, resum- )ne hun- fascina- blazing ini going I Which she does almost at once, her niitc of a hand under her rose-leaf cheek, sleeping as a baby sleeps, with softly parted lips. " How pretty your sister is," E'c .nor says, gently. " Yes, is she not? " Vera answers, proudly, " and .so much admired wherever she goes. People turr in the streets to look after her, and Madame Le Brun says she never had a forewoman half so popular before." " Vou are not in the least like her." ** Oh ! no, not in the least. I am the Ugly Duckling, you know. There is generally one in every hatching." **And, like the Ugly Duckling, will turn by and by into a stately swan," says Eleanor, smiling down on the dark, thin face, with its great Murillo eyes. " No," Vera says, shaking her head with a sigh, " such transformations are only in fairy tales and pantomimes. 1 aui the Ugly Duckling md I shall never be the swan. lUit I don't mind. 1 would rather have Dot pretty than be pretty myself." Here Mrs. Charlton rises, excuses herself, and sails away. Mr. Ciiarlton departs to write letters in his study, Eleanor resumes her magazine, and Vera lapses into a day-dream, still coiled on the floor. The day-dream changes gradually into a real dream, in which she is floating over sunlit seas with Captain Dick, past fairy isles all dotted with small gray houses, until they finally, and rather unexpectedly, come to anchor somewhere in the npper part of Fifth Avenue, before Mrs. Trafton's front door. Captain Dick moors his craft to the brown-stone steps, and is going up to ring the bell, when ■ "Three for the governor," says the pleasant voice of Captain Dick, in the flesh, " one for you, Miss Ciiarlton, and half a dozen for myself. None for you, Miss Lightwood, none for you. Miss Vera, although I suppose it is rather soon for your five hundred to begin." i'i: i ft ' ' 'il i '■iv I i ; !! ■I I !i i m I'i ii >.fi -^''' 54 AFTER BREAKFAST. Vera rubs her eyes, and sits up. He hands Eleanor her letter, and Dora, who is also awake, sees with one quick, keen glance, that the writing is a man's. "1 did not expect " Eleanor begins in surprise. Then her voice falters, fails, she looks at the envelope, and grows pale. She lifts her eyes, and casts an anxious glance at Captain Dick, but his countenance is impassive. Her letter is postmarked St. Ann's, the chirography unmistakably mas- culine, but there is no curiosity in his face. " I must deliver the governor's," he says, and goes. Miss Charlton rises slowly, and goes upstairs. Dora's eyes fol- low her. The surprise, the falter, the pallor, the postmark — Dora has seen all. Dora has eyes that see everything. " Now I wonder what you are about ? " muses Miss Lightwood, *' aiid who our unwelcome correspondent is? Are you a fiery Southern lover come to guard your own, or are you a little bill ?" Little bills are the bane of Dora's life, but this is no dun. It is short and affectionate enough to establish the accuracy of Miss Lightwood's first guess. And it closes " I know you will resent my disobeying orders, but resent or not, I must see you. Do not be too hard on a poor devil, Nelly — it is eight months since we met. See you I simply miist. I will be on the other side of the boundary wall (where Mr. Charlton's peach-trees flourish) about seven this evening. I will wait until nine, as I don't know the Charlton dinner hou*-. Do not fail. I expect a scolding, but a scold- ing from you, my darling, will be sweeter than words of honey from another. E. D." IN THE COOL OF THE EVENING. 55 anor her e quick, I. Then d grows ;lance at [er letter ibly nias- :s. Miss eyes fol- )ostinark :hing. ses Miss dent is? own, or ; no dun. accuracy it or not, -it is eight tlie other flourish) I know the a scold- mey from E. D." CHAPTER VII. IN THE COOL OF THE EVENING. L'JV^JS^AY has passed, evening has begun. It is six o'clock, and the white quivering heat is s]:)ent, a breeze rises fresh froni the Atlantic, flutters every lace curtain, ard blows through every open window and door of the fine old Charlton Mansion. Over in St. Ann's the noises of the day are done ; down in the warm-flushed west the sun • — who has nobly done his duty all day, and baked the earth to powder — is sinking out of sight. The flowers lift their hanging heads, there is a rustle and a flutter through all the leafy trees, the birds chirp as they go to roost, and, revived by siesta and bath, the ladies of the household in the dusky seclusion of their chambers are robing for the great event of the day — of all our days — dinner. " Dot," says Vera, tiptoing around, and straining her neck to get a view of the small of her back, where she wishes to plant a bow, " I am afraid it is of no use. I am afraid it is to be Eleanor." " What is of no use ? " asks Dora, for this remark has been made (like the generality of Vera's remarks) apropos of nothing. But she smiles too, as if she understood. Their rooms adjom, the door of communication is open, and both are before their resi)ective mirrors. "About Captain Ffrench. Bother this sash! 1 can't get it to come straight. I think he must be falling in love with her. Dot. He has her picture, as I told you, over there in that funny little light-house, and he has a way of looking at her What are you laughing at ? " '"At your perspicuity, dear, at your profound knowledge of the ways and manners of Richard Ffrench. This big, M J 56 IN THE COOL OF THE EVENIMG. x^ - ;! ' .91 'd! ■' : 11 solemn Dick who thinks we are all dying for him. So you are convinced I have no chance ? " " Well," says Vera reluctantly, " you see everything was in her favor. You did not have a fair start, Dot. Eleanor was here three days ahead, and a good deal can be done in three days " Vera breaks off, for Dora is laughing immoder- ately. The simplicity, the earnestness of little Vera are too comical. *' Vera, child, you will be the death of me ! Do you really think I have come down here to marry Dick Ffrench — if I can. What a humiliating idea. Not but that it would be worth while " She glances wistfully out over lawn and garden, green glade, and dense shrubbery. '* Yes, it would be worth while, and what I can — I will do." " Worth while ? " repeats Vera, " I should think so. It is like the Garden of Eden. Old Mr. Charlton must be awfully rich. Dot." " A millionnaire, my child." " Ah ! " sighs Vera — a long-drawn sigh, " a millionnaire ! What a rich, respectable, beautiful sound that has. And to be the step-daughter-in-law of a millionnaire, or even the half- sister of the step-daughter-in-law. What bliss ! " " Are you not getting things a little mixed ? " Dora in- quires, but Vera pays no attention. The bow is tied now, geometrically, on her spinal column, and she is leaning with folded arms on the sill, half out of the window. A great wis- teria trails with its purple plumes all about the casement, and makes a setting for the black curly head and brown mignon face. " There he is now ! " she exclaims, involuntarily. Cap- tain Dick perhaps hears, for he looks up. He takes off hig hat, tikes out his cigar, and puts on a penitent, an agonized expression. "Am I forgiven?" he asks, imploringly. "If you only knew the day of misery I have passed, with a sin repented ^• IN THE COOL OF THE EVENING. 57 So you ig was in anor was in three mmoder- 1 are too Do you Ffrench t that it out over " Yes, M : so. It must be onnaire ! And to the half- 'ora in- ed now, ling with Ireat wis- :nt, and mignon Cap- off hig jonized )U only [pented of, but unpardoned, on my conscience 1 And the tocsin of the soul is about to sound — be merciful while there is yet time. How am I to consume lamb and mint sauce, wither- ing under your displeasure ? " Dora does not catch Vera's shrilly indignant rejoinder — she is too far out of the window. The conscience-stricken one down below wears an aspect of desolation, and tries a second appeal, this time with more success. Vera is relent- ing, to judge from the softened tone of her voice — the remorse of the culprit is not without its effect. Then — " I wish you would come down," says Captain Dick, still mildly plaintive. " I haven't a soul to speak to, and I am never more alone than when alone. Come." *' Come into the garden, Maud," sings Vera ; "it is more than you deserve, still " There is a swish of silk, a waft of wood violet — Vera takes the last three stone steps with a iump, and is at Captain Ffrench's side. Dora watches them with a vfcll satisfied smile until they disappear. "Yes," she thinks again. "It would be worth while. And then the satisfaction of out-manoeuvring that old double- chinned witch of Endor. My age, indeed ! The imperti- nence of trying to make me out thirty-one, in Dick Ffrench's presence. Eleanor is to be princess consort, and she is to reign monarch of all she surveys at Charlton. Ah, well ! " Miss Lightwood nods to her own pretty face in the glass; " this is to be a drawn battle, and all I ask is a fair field and no favor. I will back myself to win against Elea- nor Charlton any day, in spite of the picture in the light- house, and her three days' start in the race." Miss Lightwood, looking very charming in one of the cos- tumes purchased with the three hundred dollars, goes down- stairs and finds her host and Mrs and Miss Charlton already there. Vera and Captain Dick are still absent, but somewhere near, for Vera's joyous laugh com*^ ^very now 1 ■'* V III 'ill 58 IN- THE COOL OF THE EVENING. i (i'1 !^i' and then, mingled with the boom of Dick's mellow bass. Presently they appear, a sort of laurel crown adorning the Cai)tain's hat, and Vera looking like a young Bacchante with clusters of trailing grape tendrils tangled in her dark, crisp hair. " Let us crown ourselves with roses before they fade," quotes Captain Dick. '* Miss Vera has given me brevet ^ rank — the laurel wreath which posterity holds in store for me has been anticipated. Peace is restored, we have buried the hatchet, we have smoked the pipe — two or three pipes — of peace " "Speak for yourself !" retorts Vera. "/don't smoke, although I am half a Cuban. We have not kept you wait- ing, have we ? It is all Captain Dick's fault." Mrs. Charlton frowns. Vera is not the rose, but she grows near that dangerous flower. And whatever the heir's sentiments towards the elder sister may be, his liking for the younger has been patent from the first. "How admirably Captain Ffrench and Vera get on," she says smilingly, as she goes into dinner with her host, and Mr. Charlton laughs in his genial way. " Oh, yes," he says, " Dick was always remarkably fond of children. And she is really a bright little sprite." " She is sixteen years old," says madam sharply, but the hint is lost. They are in the dining-room, and all other pro- jects merge themselves in dinner. It is a large apartment, cool and airy, with a carpet like greenest moss, pictures of fruit and flowers on the tinted walls, sea-green silk and frosted lace curtains. The appointments, the silver, the glass, the courses are excellent. The Charlton cook may not be a cordon bleu, but she understands her art, and the result is eminently satisfactory. It is years, Dora thinks, with a deep sigh of complacency, since she has dined before. She has eaten to live — no more. Something of an epicure, in addition to her other virtues, is Miss Lightwood. Her ;"»!'-, ■ ■ i ..i ii Ji^Ji.wi- | -!..jj;jyg IN THE COOL OF THE EVENING. 59 low bass, rning the Jacchante her dark, ey fade," e brevet store for we have ) or three t smoke, you wait- but she the heir's ig for the on," she lost, and 3ly fond 3ut the ler pro- artnient, )ictures ilk and /er, the ok may ind the thinks, before, epicure, Her artistic taste takes in with real pleasure the snowy nai)ery, the tall cpergne of choice flowers, the ruby and amber tints of the wines. Mr. Charlton is a very king of hosts, an ideal old time gentleman, genial and mellow as his own vintages, honoring all women with old time chivalry, and with an Arab's idea of the virtue of hospitality. Mrs. Charlton, in the place of honor, is paying unconscious compliments to the skill of his chef, and for the moment both eyes and attention are com- pletely absorbed. Oi)posite sits Eleanor, whom Dora re- gards with considerable curiosity. She is paler than usual, she eats little, a more than ordinary troubled expression saddens the gentle eyes. By Dora's side is Cai)tain Ffrench, and while he lends a careless ear to her gay sallies, she sees with inward rage, that his eyes wander perpetually to Elea- nor. He, too, observes the cloud, but it never occurs to him to connect it with the letter of a few hours before. It is her nagging old mother, he thinks, who is fretting the poor girl to death. He is character reader enough to guess pretty clearly what sort of a Tartar Mrs. Charlton can be, when she likes. A great compassion fills him. In the love of some men, the element of pity is an absolute essential ; the instinct of protection must be the kindler of the flame. Ricliard Ffrench is one of these. His passion is not very profound, perhaps, as yet, but if Eleanor Charlton were the most design- ing of coquettes, she could not advance her interests half so surely in any other way. As he sits here he would like to come between her and all life's troubles and toils, to shield her from work, and sorrow, and nagging, forevermore. And Dora's bright blue eyes read his face, and his thoughts, as he sits beside her, like a printed page. Indeed, less sharp orbs might, for the print is very large. " Stui)id idiot ! " she thinks, " these big fellows, all brawn and muscle, are sure to be besotted about pensive, die-away damsels, and their lackadaisical airs. As if any one could 6o IN THE COOL OF THE EVENING. ,f ' : iijir II 'lii hi:'ll:- not see it was all put on with her dinner dress. She has studied him well enough, it seems, to know that the secret sorrow sort of thing is safe to go down." Dessert is over, the ladies rise and go. There is British blood in the Charlton veins, and Mr. Charlton likes and honors the ancient custom of lingering over the walnuts and the wine, after his womankind depart. To-day iie has a word or two besides for his step-son's private ear. *' Well, Dick," he says, " and how do you like them ? " He pushes the claret towards the younger man, who is ab- stemious by instinct, and prefers, even after dinner, a clear head to a muddled one. Captain Ffrench, peeling a peach, lifts his straight eyebrows. " That goes without saying, does it not ? A man can have but one opinion concerning three charming girls." " Let us count out the dowager and the young one," says Mr. Charlton, good humoredly. " That little Light wood is pretty as a rosebud." "Prettier, I think," says Captain Dick. " But Miss Charlton — ah ! there is dignity, and beauty, and grace combined, if you like." Richard Ffrench laughs lazily. " The precise remark Mr. Vincent Crummies made when he first saw Mrs. Vincent Crummies standing on her head. I wonder who she takes it after ? — Miss Charlton, I mean, — not Mrs. Vincent Crummies. Her father must have been rather a fine fellow, I should judge. A man may be a good fellow in the main, and yet write himself down an ass matri- monially." Mr. Charlton chuckles. " Hard on the dowager, Dick. Well ! a great deal of her would be wearing, I dare say. But you must allow she is a remarkably well-preserved woman for her years." ' ' Both pickled and preserved, I should say, sir. You have no immediate intention then, I conclude, from your "i i uL.Bi.in waiB— — »a» IN THE COOL OF THE EVENING. 6i when head. imean, been good Imatri- )f her |e is a You your J dispassionate way of speaking, of inflicting upon me a step- mother? " "Hey!" *' Because I think her ideas run a little in that groove. Cliarlton is a fine place, and you are an uncommonly fine- looking elderly gentleman, governor." This is carrying the war into Africp with a vengeance. Has Dick foreseen and forestalled his communication { For a moment he is nonplussed- -then he laughs. " Rubbish, Dick ! Nothing so absurd could ever enter any head but one addled over ' OUendorfs Spanish.' But, speaking of matrimony — what do you suppose I have brought those girls down here for ? " " It is plain to the dullest intelligence. To select, at your leisure, a mistress for Charlton, and a " •' Wife for you. Exactly, Dick. Now which shall it be ? " " My dear governor ! " " Which ? Eleanor you have known a week — knew long ago, in fact. And Dora you have seen enough of to ascer- tain " " That she is an extremely charming girl, with whom I in- tend to have nothing to do ! Let me offer you this dish of apricots, sir; they are nearly perfect." '* Then it is to be Miss Charlton ? My dear boy ; it is precisely what I would have wished. She is all any man could desire — well-bred, well-looking, gentle, good, and the best of Charlton blood. Dick, you are a trump I Let me congratulate you." He stretches his hand across the table. His step-son places his in it, but under amused protest. " My dear governor ! really this is very embarrassing. What have I said to commit myself to this serious extent ? I have a sort of married man feeling already, and upon my life I don't wish to. Things can't rush on in this summary way — you mustn't, you know." C>2 IN THE COOL OF THE EVENING. ( , . ! I I' ^ti|!!il ti ih ijiijij lliil » " I)ick, listen to me — seriously, I beg. The one desire of my life is to see you settled." "Then your desire is gratified, sir. Nothing could be more flatly settled than I feel at this moment." '* To see you settled," goes on Mr. Charlton, with some emotion, " with an estimable wife. Nothing else will do it, Dick." "Are you sure that will, governor?" doubtfully. "Of nujitial bliss I know nothing, but 1 have known married men, and — well, to escape too much conjugal felicity, I have known them to rush ' anywhere, anywhere, out of the world.' My friend P^nglehart has a wife — I say no more." "Your friend P^nglehiirt has a pernicious influence," ex- claims Mr. Charlton, hotly ; " but for him you would never have thought of this wild goose chase to Central America. It was he that induced you to go with the Arctic Exploration party. Is the recollection of blubber and seal oil so savory that yoi! long to be at it again ? " " No," Dick answers, "as a steady diet, I don't pine for blubber or seal oil ; but in the Honduras affair " "Which you will never join, with my consent!" cries Mr. Charlton, growing red. " Now, my dear sir," expostulates Dick, " consider. I stand pledged to Dr. Englehart and the rest of the Scientific Cori)s. It is true they miglit replace me, but I know they would rather I went ; and even if I could bear to disappoint them, like Tony Lumpkin, I could not bear to disa])point myself. It is uncommonly kind of you, I know ; I appre- ciate fully the affection that makes you desire to retain me ; but you see, governor, I am an adventurer, a rolling stone, or nothing. If I stayed here I would turn into a veritable molly- coddle, I would spoil in too much sunshine and sweetness. I am a restless animal by nature. I must have a safety-valve of some kind, and what could be safer than Honduras and silver-mining? When I wished to join the Cailists " -^ IN THE COOL OF THE EVENING. 63 desire of ;oukl be ith some /ill do it, y. " Of married y, I have e world.' nee," ex- ild never America, cploration so savory : pine for cries Mr. sider. I IScientific now they isai)point |isa])point I ai)pre- |tain me ; stone, or lie molly- Itness. I ty-valve .iras and " You gave up that mad idea to please me.. Give up this other, my boy, marry Nelly, and stay at home." " Isn't that taking a great deal for granted, sir ? It is one thing for Miss Charlton to accept your invitation and spend a few weeks here, (juite another for her to accept wt'." Mr. Charlton snnles significantly. •' Is 'hat all ? Try and see. You are a tall and proper fellow, Dick, an eligible parti, as the ladies put it ; I wouldn't be too modest, if I were you. Come ! I'm fond of you, my lad, you know that ; to keep you with me is the one desire of my life. You are my heir — all I have is yours ; make the old man happy, and remain with him. When I fell into this property, it was not for my own sake, my dear boy, 1 rejoiced, but for yours. Of course, in my will, I shall not forget these good little girls, who have come here at my bidding — some of my blood is in their veins ; but you are the heir, you are my son. You are listening, Dick? And great wealth brings great responsibilities. 1 am growing too old for re- sponsibility — stay and lift the load from my shoulders. Write to this fellow Englehart, curb your roving i)ropen- sities, cease to be a rolling stone, marry Miss Charlton, or whomever you please — only stay with your old father, Dick." " My dear sir," Dick says, and can say no more. He is more moved than he cares to show, but touched as he is, the thought of giving up the Central America project gives him a keen i)ang. He rises and goes over to the window, impa- tient with himself. " I must be an unfeeling dog," he thinks. " Any one else would yield at half this pleading. And yet what an utterly good-for-nothing life I shall lead here." "Well, Dick !" Mr. Charlton says, following him with an anxious countenance. " I'll try, sir," Dick Ffrench says, turning round ; " don't press me too hard. I'll do what I can. Nature has made me a vagabond, and you can't transmute one of that frater- Iii 64 IN THE COOL OF THE EVENING. nity into a respectable family man at once. But for your sake " Mr. Charlton grasps his hand, tears in his old eyes. " (lod bless you, Dick — God bless you. I knew you would, you have too much of your mother in you to grieve wilfully any one who loves you. And Eleanor " " Ah I never mind that, governor. One thing at a time. And now 1 will leave you to join the ladies alone — I want a smoke and half an hour to think all this revolution over." He opens the window, and steps out. The lovely sum- mer gloaming yet lingers, although the moon is rising. Sweet scents greet him, utter stillness is around him. He turns into the entrance avenue, dark already under its arching trees, with a sense of loss and depression upon him, keen and strong. To give up a life of bright adventure, of cease- less change, of scientific research, the society of men bril- liant of intellect, good comrades, and indefatigable explor- ers, for an existence humdrum and monotonous to a degree, without excitement or object from year's end to year's end — it is no light thing Mr. Charlton has demanded of Richard Ffrench. As to Miss Charlton — but he is out on the high road now, and gives up the conundrum for the present. " It is Kismet, I suppose," he thinks, gloomily, " and nothing remains but to cover my face, and die with dignity. I shall be a round peg in a square hole, all the rest of my life. Well, I will have the majority for company at least — I wonder if that is the man who called upon me the other day at Shaddeck Light ? I ought to know that negligently graceful walk." The man disappears as he looks, and Captain Ffrench saunters on. It is past eight ; in the warm stillness of the summer evening, the ripple of the sea on the shore a quarter of a mile off, can be heard. Under the peach-trees by the southern wall the man takes his stand, and looks at his watch. IN THE COOL OF THE EVENING. 65 for your s. lew you grieve a time. 1 want a ver." ^ly sum- ;. Sweet ie turns arching im, keen of cease- nen bril- ; explor- i degree, jar's end Richard he high bnt. , "and dignity. st of my least — e other rligently Ffrench of the quarter by the at his *' A quarter after eiglit, by Jove ! " he says ; " but it is the deuce and all of a walk 1 If any one had told me a year ago that I would walk three miles on a hot July evening to see any young woman in the universe, and that young woman objecting in the strongest way — ah ! well," with a sigh, " Call no man wise until he is dead." In the drawing-room the gas is lit, and Vera at the piano is singing. At a table near sits Mrs. Charlton and her host, absorbed in chess. Eleanor, near an open window, holds a book, but does not read. She is restless and nervous, starting at ^\^xy sound, preoccupied and distrait. Dora sees it all. Dora, half buried in a big chair, with a strip of embroidery in her hand. A clock strikes eight. Ivliss Charlton rises, lays aside her book, and passes through the open window. No one notices except Dora, and Dora glides to the window and watches her out of sight. Where is she going ? Was the letter an assignation ? Miss Lightwood feels she must know or per- ish. She follows Miss Charlton deliberately, unseen, un- heard, and presently es])ies her at the other end of the grounds, where the ornamental garden ends and the orchard begins. A low stone wall and high hedge separate the Charl- ton grounds from the common land, and on the other side of the wall, leaning lightly upon it, Dora sees what she knows she will see, what she hopes she will see — a man. " Aha ! " cries Miss Lightwood, in triumph, " the pale, the pensive, the perfect Eleanor, makes and keeps assignations. The great Dick may be stupid and pig-headed, but I wonder what he will say to this ? " 66 BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON. 1 '' CIIMTKR VIII. rtY TfTK LIGHT OF THE MOON. ^11 Is moon of the siiinnier night has risen red and round, while yet in the west the opal briUiance of closing day lingers. lint even with this warm after-glow on her face, Dora sees that Isieanoris fixedly pale as she goes to the place of tryst. Tiie man's face she cannot see — a broad straw hat shades it, and he stands well within the shadow of the trees. She herself is hidden among some clustering evergreens — for fruit trees and forest trees seem to grow indiscriminately in the Charlton orchard. She stands here a moment irresolute — curiosity and malice com- bined, are tempting her terribly. Honorable in any way, Dora is not ; unprincipled in all small matters, she is, to an extraordinary degree. As a general thing, eavesdropping is not worth the trouble — to-night it is. If Eleanor really has a lover, and is out of tlie race, what remains for her but a (juiet " walk over." Still this may be some near and obnox- ious relative ; she has read of such things, and somehow Eleanor Charlton does not seem the sort of girl to have clandestine lovers. In Dora's eyes she is at once an artful coquette, and a prude of the first order. If she could but hear ! how earnestly they seem to converse — it is too pro- voking to stand here and lose all that. She will run the risk — her dress is dark, and soundless — she ;«//j-/hear. And now you know what manner of woman Theodora Lightwood is. She tiptoes close, her heart beating with ex- pectation, draws her drapery closely about her, leans her head well forward, and deliberately listens. Eor a moment she can hear nothing but a low nnirnun' — it is Eleanor who is speaking, and at all times Miss Charlton I 4 BV THE LTGirT OF THE MOON. ^7 I red ami liance of lis warm edly pale le cannot ell within )ng some COS seem d. She ice com- any way, >he is, to dropping or really her but a :l obnox- ;omehow to have m artful )iil(l but :oo pro- run the ir. leodora ,vith ex- ms her irnuir — Iharlton has a low voice. It is even more subdut.'d than usual now, but in its accents Dora knows there is distress. "'{'hat is all ([uite true," the man says coolly ; " what is the use of reminding me of it ? You may be a frost-maiden, Nelly, a marble Diana, with every waywatd Mnpulso well in hand, but you see I am only mortal — very UK'-.al, my dear, and 1 could not keep away. Come, forgive me. If I loved you less I might find obedience more easy." Eleanor speaks, and again Dora, straining every nerve, loses her reply. lUit the man breaks in impatiently. " Dishonorable ! clandestine ! as if 1 came sneaking here from choice — as if I would not go up to the front door, and ring the bell, and demand to see my betrothed wife, before the whole Charlton conclave, if you would but let me. But there is your mother, and I am detrimental, and Kfrench is the heir, and son of the house. You might as well yield first as last, Nelly, njy dear. I am a poor devil, gootl for nothing, with no prospects for years to come, and this fellow, Ffrench, is heir, they say, to two or three millions. It is only a question of time; you cannot hold out. VV , both know perfectly well why your mother has brought you here. It would be madness not to take the goods the gods provide, and Where are you going ? " "Back to the house," Eleanor answers, indignantly. "I shoidd never have come. Every word you utter is an In- sult. If you can think this of me, it is indeed time we should part." " Oh ! forgive me," he cries out, a real passion in his tone, " 1 am a brute. No, I do not doubt you ; you are true as steel, true as truth ; but when I think of the differ- ence Nelly, you must despise me — how can you help it, such a useless drone as I am, lounging through life without aim, or energy, or ambition ? 1 despise myself when 1 wake up enough to feel at all. If I had a spark of generosity, I would force you to accept your freedom — and this Ffrench 68 BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOO.V. \X >:lili ! 1 i . |:i| 1 ■ i' 1 i ! 1 .ill is a fine fellow too — biif I am not generous ; I love you as strongly as a stronger man might do, and I cannot. But I will give up this idle life, I swear it, Nelly. I will try and make myself worthy of you. Only give me time, dear, try and trust me, and — and don't listen to Richard Ffrench. He will ask you to marry him — how can he help it ? He is fond of you already ; he has your picture over there in that hut among the rocks. Keep him off, Nelly, don't let your mother influence you, don't marry him for his money. Wait, wait, wait, and the day will come " A branch on which Dora breathlessly leans, breaks. ^ '• the sharp crash Eleanor starts up hastily, and the culpri;, stilling her very heart-beats, crouches low. The darkness of the evergreens protects her, the moonlight flooding the open with pale glory, does not pierce here. Bu*: she loses what follows. When she is sufliciently reassured to listen, it is Eleanor who is speaking. " No," she says, resolutely, ** no, again and again. You must not write, you must not call, you must not come here. You must leave St. Ann's to-morrow. Oh ! if you cared for me would you compromise me in this way ? If you knew the shock, the pain, your letter gave me, the shame 1 feel at meeting you like this. But it must not be, it never shall be again. You will go and we will wait. You ask me to trust you ; I have — I do — I always will. If you failed me, Ernest, how could I live ? You know what my life is, dreary enough. Heaven knows, but I think of you and the years to come, and I wait and hope. But I will meet you no more, and you must go. You need fear no rival in Cap- tain Ffrench ; if he cared for me I should know it His heart is in his profession, his exploring mania is the grand passion of his life. I like him — he is a brave and gallant gentleman, but I belong to you. I can never belong to any one else." " My brave, loyal Nelly ! " £r THE LIGHT OF THE MOON. 69 >ve you as t. But I ill try and , dear, try jnch. He ? He is fre in that 't let your ;y. Wait, aks. ^ '■ le culpril, darkness >oding the ♦; she loses to listen, .in. You pme here. cared for you knew nie 1 feel ver shall I ask me ou failed ly life is, and the meet you 1 in Caji- it His Ihe grand [1 gallant ^g to any Dora, peeping through her leafy screen, sees him take both her hands. They are evidently about to part, and she has not seen him once. The thick drooping boughs that screen her do the same good office for him. Another moment and they have parted. Eleanor moves quickly towards the house, Dora shrinks noiselessly back in her green covert. The man lingers until she is out of sight, then turns and walks slowly away. For a few minutes Miss Lightwood remains in her retreat, triumph swelling her heart. She has no rival to fear then — she has only to play her cards cleverly, and the game is her own. How fair Charlton looks by moonlight, the tall urns gleaming like silver, the high black trees looking a primeval forest in the uncertain light. Such a lovely home for her and Vera, such freedom from toil, such exemption from care, such a luxurious life. 1 think if Dora could have prayed, she would have knelt down there, and prayed for success. But prayer is not much in her way — of the earth, earthy she is to the core. Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow you die, and death is at the end of all things, in Dora's creed. Marry rich, and spend his money — these are the two great duties of every woman's life. Captain Ffrench has not returned when Miss Charlton re- enters the drawing room. Vera is still amusing herself at the piano — she has a sweet voice, and plays cleverly. The chess-players are engrossed with queens and castles. Dora's absence she does not notice. " * I don't pretend to teach the age,' " sings Vera in a spirited voice *' ' It's mission, or its folly, A task like that requires a sage— My disposition's jolly.' " ;o BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON. 1 V •H i ililllHi \fA " Oh, Nelly ! " she cries, turning round, " Is that you ? Have you seen Dot? 1 thought you had both gone out to be sentimental together in the moonlight." " Is Dot not here ? " Plleanor asks. " No, I have not seen her — we have not been together." " Then perhaps she is with Captain Dick ; he has disap- peared as well. It is a heavenly night, and 1 would have gone out too, but I didn't want to play gooseberry. Are you going again ? " " 1 am going upstairs. Good-night, dear." "Good-night, Nelly," the girl responds. While Eleanor goes up the broad carpeted stairway, she can hear the fresh happy young voice : " * And what is, after all, success ? My life is fair and sunny. Let other's covet Fame's caress ; Pm satisfied with money.' " The old story, Eleanor thinks, even from this little girl's innocent lips. Is wealth, then, life's highest aim ? At ail events, the lack of it mars many a life. She goes to her room, but she does not light the lamp, or go to bed. It is only ten, as she can see by her poor little silver watch, and her recent interview has banished all desire for sleep. She wishes she had never come here, but her mother so insisted — it looks so horribly like a deliberate attempt to ensnare Richard Ffrench. Does he think she has come for ti^at ? Her cheeks burn at the thought. Were it not for this draw- back, a few weeks in this pleasant country liouse, with its gracious host, its rest from the weary tread-ijiill of her teacher's life, would be unspeakably invigoratuig. But if Captain Ffrench thinks that Her door opens, her mother enters. " In the dark, Eleanor ? " Even in her blandest w*oments, Mrs. Charlton's voice has a rasping quality. " V^Hiat a lovely , >. BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON. 71 I at you ? ic out to bave not as disap- uld have Arc you way, she ttle girl's At all to her It is Ltch, and erp. She insisted ensnare bi- tliat ? is draw- >vii,h its ^f lier a I if (oments, a lovely \ night. Where were you and Captain Ffrench wandering all evening?" *' I was not with Captain Ffrench," Eleanor answers, her heart lluttering guiltily. " 1 have not seen him since dinner." " No ? " sharply, " where then did you go — alone ? " " It is such a lovely night, mother. Will you not sit down ? " " Was Dora Lightvvood with you ? " "No." ^^ Not with you. Was she with Richard Ffrench ? " " I do not know. Very probably." There is silence — uncomfortable, ominous silence. Elea- nor feels through every tingling nerve, that a storm is brew- ing, and braces herself to meet it. " Eleanor," her mother begins, in a deep, repressed voice, "what does this mean? Are you deliberately resolved to thwart me ? Are you mad enough to fling away the one great chance of your life ? Are you going to give Richard Ffrench to Dora Lightwood ? Wait ! " as Eleanor is about to speak, " I do not want any evasions, any shuffling, any beating about the bush. It is in your power before you quit Charlton, to quit as the affianced wife of its heir, if you will. From Mr. Charlton's own lips, to-night, have I learned this." Her daughter looks at her. The issue has come, the truth njust be told. Mrs. Charlton has a fine furious temper, a bitter bad tongue ; who should know that better than her luckless daughter? And Eleanor shrinks quivering from the ordeal, but she never falters in her resolve. " From Mr. Charlton's own lips," repeats Mrs. Charlton, emphatically. "It seems he spoke to Dick at dinner, and Dick gave him to understand that — that ' Barkis was will- in', ' " with a grim attempt at facetiousness. " He admires yoti, it seems,, more than he ever admired any one before ; at the slightest encouragement he is ready to speak. He ■ii M i i 72 iffK T'HE LIGHT OF THE MOON. is an excellent young man, a little wild, as I said, about a roving life, but without a single vice. He has good manners, good looks, a fine education, and acknowledged talents. Now what can you — what can any one want more ? " Silence. " You will be one of the richest women going ; all your drudgery will be at an end. You will have a home where I can close my days in the peace and comfort I always was used to in other times. Alfred can go to Germany to study music " (Alfred is a juvenile son and brother, down in New Orleans), ** and Mr. Charlton says you will make the happi- ness of his life. Nothing could be more affectionate than his manner of speaking of you. My dear, it was a red-letter day in your life, in all our lives, the day we came here." Silence. "Eleanor," the rasping voice takes a rising inflection, *' do you hear ? " "Yes, mother, I hear." **And have you nothing to say? In wy youth girls an- swered their mothers." " What do you wish me to say ? " Mrs. Charlton is growing exasperated — always an easy thing for Mrs. Charlton. Eleanor's voice is full of repressed feeling, but it sounds cold in her mother's ears, her hands are tightly locked in her lap, but her mother does not see. She fixes her hard stare on Eleanor's shrinking face. " Will you — or will you not," she slowly says, " marry Richard Ffrench ? " "I will not I" " You will not ? " " I will not. Mother, I cannot. Do not be angry, do not scold — oh ! do not ! It is impossible." '« Why— if I may ask ? " The storm is very near, distant thunder is in every tone, sheet lightning in every glance. ids are , She marry fry, do tone, BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON. 73 " I do not care for him. I never can care for him, and I must love the man I marry." Mrs. Charlton lauglis — u horrid, rasping, little laugh, full of rage. " Love ! Care for him ! Oh ! you fool ! To think that any girl of three-and twenty, obliged to work like a galley- slave, should talk such rot. You mean then to tell me, deliberately and in cold blood to tell me, that when this young man asks you, you will say no ? " " I will say no." She is trembling from head to foot with repressed excite- ment, but she will not tlinch. There is blank silence for a moment — then the storm bursts. And such a storm ! Mrs. Charlton is a virago, a vulgar virago ; she has never curbed anger or rage in her life ; she has a tongue like a two-edged sword. Eleanor has seen her in her rages often, but never quite at white heat until to-night. She bows before the tempest, she quails, she hides her face in her hands, fear, shame, disgust, shaking her as a reed. "Oh! mother! mother!" she gasps once, "for the love of Heaven ! " but her mother pays no heed. The tornado must spend itself, and does. As eleven strikes, she strides out of the room, banging the door with a last wooden "damn," and the contest is ended for to-night. For to-night. Alas ! Eleanor knows too well, that to-morrow, and all the to-morrows, and until the end of her life, she will never hear the last of this. She lays her folded arms on the window, and her head upon them, as though she never cared to lift it again. As she lies, white and spent, she hears Vera singing, going along the passage outside : " ' Alas ! how easily things go wrong ; A sigh too much, or a kiss too long.' " I wonder if Nelly is asleep- the voice breaks off in 74 BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOOJ^. i soliloquy. " Here is a kiss through the keyhole, asleep or awake. " ' And there follows a mist and a sweeping rain, And life is never the same again,' " The voice, fresh and clear as a skylark's, ceases, a door shuts. Vera is in her room. Then stillness. Then down on the lawn below, voices — the shrill treble of Dora, and the deeper tones of Captain Ffrench. Coming home at his leisure, a little after eleven, Captain Ffrench finds Miss Lightwood lingering out of doors, enjoy- ing the midnight moonlight and coolness. A shadow still rests on the captain's brow; he has accepted his fate — none the less he finds it hard. " What ! " Dora cries, lifting her pale eyebrows, " alone I Where is Nelly ? " "Miss Charlton? I have not seen her." " Not seen her ? " Dora knits her brows. " Oh ! but that is nonsense, Captain Ffrench. I saw her with you not an hour ago." " I assure you, no. I have not seen Miss Charlton since dinner." " No ? " Dora repeats, and now the blue artless eyes open wide. *' Who then could it have been ? 1 made sure it was you." " I do not understand." " She has no gentlemen acquaintances in St. Ann's — she told me so ; and yet that letter this morning Captain Flrench, 1 believe you are jesting with me — it w/wj/have been you." " Miss Lightwood, I am still * far wide.' Awfully stupid of me, but upon my word, I don't understand a syllable you are saying. Something about Miss Charlton, is it not ? She has not been with me ; 1 have not seen her since we parted after dinner. Where ii? she ? Nothing has gone wrong, I trust ? " >'■ «,>v«' since eyes le sure ipid of oil are he has .1 after ust?" IN THE LIGHT OF THE MOON. 75 (< "Where is she?" repeats Dora, in a puzzled tone ; "in her room, perhaps. I do not know ; she has not been with us all the evening. Captain Ffrench, it is the oddest thing You know that cluster of peach-trees over there by the orchard wall ? " He nods. *' Well, an hour ago, I was roving through the grounds, tempted out by the beauty of the night. I chanced to pass near the peach-trees, and I saw Eleanor standing there, talking across the wall to a man. I was sure it was you, and " ]iut Captain Ffrench understands her now, and starts up. •'Not another word I " he says. " I beg your pardon — but I did not comprehend. Will you not take cold out here in the dew ? it is falling heavily. Have all the good people gone to bed ? " " I suppose so." Dora bites her lip angrily. Fool he is not, but he has made her feel like one, and she is beginning to hate him. "Then, I think I shall follow their example;" he strug- gles for a moment with a yawn. "At what hour to-morrow shall I expect you, Miss Lightwood ? I and the Nixie will be at your service from five o'clock." For a second she is tempted to decline, but discretion is the better part of valor. Dora has this advantage over Mrs. Charlton, she has her pride and her temper well in hand. " Oh, that is an unearthly hour," she says with her shrill laugh. "Say half-past six ; I never can be ready sooner." " Half-])ast six then. Good-night, Miss Lightwood," and without ceremony he goes. Dora's work is done ; the beauty of the night has ceased to tempt her. But she stands a moment, and it is no loving glance she casts after the tall captain. She follows slowly, ascends to her room, the sleepy housekeeper Histens doors and windows, and silence reigns within and without. isV''->% f i 76 HOW THE GAME WAS MADE. Vera lifts a dark head from her pillow, and opens two sleei)y dark eyes. " Is it you, Dot ? at last. What a time you have been. You were with Captain Dick, weren't you ? Isn't he sj)len- did ? Oh ! how sleepy I am ! " a great yawn. " And this is the end of our first day, such a long, delightful day ! Dot, I never want to leave Charlton as long as I live." She is asleep as she says it. Her sister stoops and kisses her. "And you shall not, little Vera ! " is her answer. 11 (»: ::1 1 lllf V CHAPTER IX. HOW THE GAME WAS MADE. FORTNIGHT has passed, fourteen long, sunny, summer days. One after another they dawn and darken ; morning after morning the sun rises in fiery splendor, baking the earth, and sky, and grass, and human beings, until the eye grows weary of the perpetual dazzle, and longs for gray shadows, and drifting clouds, and the refreshing patter of rain. No rain has fallen all the fourteen days, no clouds, except long white mare's tails, and billows of translucent white, have floated over the brilliant blue of the sky. But August is here, the sultriness is inde- scribable, and as before dawn it is darkest, so at its hottest, it must cool off. Changes in sky, and sea, and land, pro- claim that a mid-summer tempest is at hand, and that kindly showers will soon refresh the quivering earth. At Charlton Place, life goes on with little outward change or incident, but each in her way, and very quietly, all these good people, according to their light, are making their little game. "1 HO IV THE GAME WAS MADE. 77 lange Ihese little The heat prevents much going abroad, but in the early morning, and dcw}' evenings, Captain Dick devotes himself to his step-father's fair guests, like the gallant gentleman he is. There are long rows and sails, in the pink dawn, and the white night, long drives or rambles in the starry twilight, a picnic once out in the woods behind St. Ann's, visits to Shaddeck Light, where lengthy-limbed Daddy reigns alone. For Captain Ffrench has jjretty well thrown aside scientific books, and charts, and drawings — if he is to give up Hondu- ras, what are all these things but bitterness of spirit ? There has been a dinner party at which the nobility and gentry of St. Ann's have mustered strong — the Howells, the Deerings, the Sleights — all the landed proprietors have been bidden, and have come. There have been a few innoxious high teas, perpetual croquet, a good deal of piano-playing, and unlimited flirtation. For during August, young men come to St. Ann's and fish up in the hill-side tarns, drive fast horses, play polo and billiards, and recuperate generally, amid the daisies and dandelions, causing innumerable flutters among the unapprop'iated hearts spoken of in Captain Ffrench's letter, and adding insult to injury, when they say smiling good-byes under the August moon, and depart un- scathed. They love and they ride away, these brilliant golden youths, sons and nephews of the first families mentioned above, and reck little of the cracked vestal hearts, and sighing autumn winds they leave behind. Matters progress smoothly at Charlton. The master of the manor beams through his double eyeglass, and sees all things working together to accomplish the desire of his heart. Dick goes no more to Shaddeck Light. He makes a social martyr of himself and drinks iced tea and lemonade, loafs with his hands in his pockets, amid the croquet players, with no outward sign of the inward disgust that consumes him; takes Eleanor out for lengthy rambles in the gr:jiy of the July 78 no IV THE GAME WAS MADE. \\ Hi 'Hiiii 1 evenings, is charioteer of the (\\\w\.y phaeton , andbowls her over the long, (histy country roads, prevails upon her to get up mornings and go out with him upon the high seas in the Nixie. Sometimes Vera is of the party, oftener they are alone. Once or twice, Mr. Charlton has come upon him stretched at beauty's feet, in the long golden afternoons, reading aloud Tennyson, or Mrs. IJrowning, and a muscular young man must be pretty far gone when he comes to that. Eleanor's sweet serious face is a book the astute old gentle- man cannot read — if she suffers, she suffers in silence, and trains her countenance well. Of the storms, the scoldings, the reproaches, the coaxings, the tempests of tears, that ob- tain almost nightly, no one dreams. Perhaps Dora guesses — those pale, cold blue eyes of hers glitter with maliciously knowing light, sometimes, but certainly no one else does. She is forced upon Richard Ffrench, neither he nor she can avert it — '* who is stronger than his fate ? " — and she accepts her part almost apathetically. She cannot get away, and until he speaks she can say nothing. He is not very badly hurt, and she likes him for his honest, simple desire to please his father. She looks at him with kindly, half amused, halt vexed eyes, as he follows her about, moodily sometimes, and with his heart en route to Central America, but always bright- ening at her smile. Captain Dick has quite made up his mind to obey, has written to Dr. Knglehart to tell him so. Ah ! what a l)ang that letter cost him. No woman could ever lacerate the captain's heart as that letter did. Smce he is to obey, he will obey with a good grace — cheerily given, is twice given ; and with P^leanor for his wife, and croquet, and afternoon tea at an end forever, surely he will be an ungracious dog if he is not happy. At present, the slops, and the balls, and mallets are part of his duty as a wooer, and Dick Ffrench be- lieves in facing his duty without tlinching. Every day his admiration for Eleanor becomes more profound ; it is a lib- iL HOW THE GAME WAS MADE. 79 halt and dog eral education to converse with her. And then she is so good, so pure, so earnest, so true. " A man should go up a ladder to look for a friend, and down a ladder to look for a wife," says the cynical old axiom, but Richard Ffrench ha? not a grain of cynicism in him, and does not believe it. Mentally, he holds a man's wife ; hould be iiis ecjual, morally, his superior. Veneration is an essential element in his love ; Miss Charlton commands homage and esteem, wherever she goes. If a man cannot be happy as her husband 1-ying on his back, on the grass, his hands clasped under his head, his eyes on the sailing clouds, Dick breaks off here. What right has he to tliink she will ever accept him ? Is it likely that so charming a girl has reached three and-twenty with her heart untouched ? He does not like the idea of leasing for life a heart that has held former lodgers, and been swept and garni -.hed after, for him. Dora's sting has not rankled ; he is the most unsuspicious of human beings ; her little poisoned shaft has fallen harmless. And Mrs. Charlton has told the governor, who has told him, that it will be all right. Confound the old lady, Dick thinks — it is brushing the bloom otV his peach, it is desecrating what should be sacred to Eleanor and himself, this vulgar match-making. Is not the uncertainty, the doubt, the hope, the despair, half the delight of wooing ? No word, no look of hers, have ever held out the faintest hope ; ihe smile that welcomes his coming, speeds his part- ing ; she is as serenely unconscious of his transparent meaning, as that star up yonder, tremulouj in the blue. Well — it is best so — who cares for the plum ready to drop into his mouth the moment it is oi)ened ? No more than the others, can he see the pain, the shame, the martyrdom, the girl endures for his sake. In her room at night, the old battle rages, mutely on her part, furiously on her mother's. It is the great stake of Mrs. Charlton's l I ♦ If; I., im n I 80 I/Oiy THE GAME WAS AfAV.. life, all her hopes are in it As the mother of the rich Mrs. I'french her future is secured. Shall she for a whim, a noi- sensical, sentimental whim of Eleanor's, yield her point ? VVc none of us like to be beaten — Mrs. Charlton likes it less than the majority ; in point of fact, she seldom knows when she // beaten, and often wins in the end through sheer ob- stinacy and i)ig luMdednc-ss. So the nightly war goes on. The field is free to Kleanor, now, even Dora has accepted defeat gracefully, and retired. 'I'o-morrow or the next day, Richard FtVench will speak ; it is only for Kleanor to say a simple "yes," and open paradise to her whole family. Dora has retired from the contest. With perfect good humor Miss Lightwood has resigned the prize ; is "scratched," in sporting parlance, for the race ; has thrown up the sponge to Fate ; has lain down her cards before the game has fairly begun. A smiling change has come over her; she is the sunshine of the house ; she is gracious even to Mrs. Charlton. No one of them all is as much at home in Charlton as she. She inspects the dining-room and table, before each meal, adorns it with flowers, and tlits about like a sunbeam. In the even- ings, when Eleanor wanders through the grounds with Dick, or Vera plays in unison with the violin, Dora takes a hand at whist, with a dummy, and the dowager, and the master of the house. She does not know much about the obsolete game, but she is bright and quick, and learns rapidly. Some- times her eyes wander away from her trumps, to the pair at the piano, or to the cool, wide window, and a singular smile gleams in her eyes. Perhaps that conversation over the orchard wall has something to do with it ; both these people are transparent to her. When the lover speaks, the maiden will say no. And in his pain, his chagrin, to whom so likely, as to her soothing little self, is this big blundering captain likely to turn ? Hearts and rubber balls are best caught on the rebouhd. Dora is making haste slowly, and meantime is winning I/O IV THE G^iME WAS MADE. 8i ung goltlcn ojjinions from all sorts or people — from the kitchen- maids below stairs, to the Seigneur of Charlton, who calls her the sunbeam of the house. For Vera, the last of this family group, she is fairly puzzled. To give up anything on which she has once set her heart, is not like Dora, and yet Dora seems to be doing it here. She has resigned almost without a struggle. Presently Charlton will be but a beautiful dream of the past, and life will recom- mence amid the crash, and turmoil, and din, and dust of New York. Oh ! dear ! And Dot must go back to the show-rooms on Fourteenth Street ; poor Dot I who is never strong, who has a hacking cough in the winter, who has something the matter with her heart, and who was told long ago that a life free from care and anxiety was absolutely necessary to her. It is for Dot, Vera mourns. But, after all, if Captain Dick cares for Nelly, Nelly he must have. In all the world there is neither king nor kaiser to be named in the same breath with this splendid Captain Dick, who has been everywhere, and seen and done everything ; who has fought like a hero, who is gentle as a woman, who is strong, and brave, and good, and kind, and learned, and clever, and — in one word — i»erfection. It is simi)ly one of the fixed laws of nature, that Captain Dick shall have everything he wants, and if he wants Eleanor, Eleanor he must have, and the loss is poor Dot's — that is all. Nelly is the dearest, the sweetest of created beings ; she is almost good enough even for the peerless Richard, and Vera hopes in her warm little heart, they will be — oh, so happy. Sometimes, perhaps, in the summers to come, they may invite her and Dora down, and it is good and magnani- mous of Dora to give up so ea^dy, and devote herself to the house, and the card-playing, and refuse to go with then), even when she — Vera — makes a third, and laugh and stay at home, and write letters for Mr. Charlton, and superintend things generally, as if she were Dick's sister, and the little 1 1 m % 1 i m !, * '■I;;lli ^ 1 •5 r ! ifi 1 ti * i 1 ' 1 ./i 82 I/O IV THE GAME WAS MADE. daughter of the house. Vera is all in a glow of admiration for her sister, for Eleanor, for Dick. There never were such lovely people, she thinks, with enthusiasm, nor such a para- dise of a place before. ^^ "P t* T* T* ^F ^* But a change is at hand. For the last two days, the sun has gone down lurid and angry ; coj^per-colored clouds chase each other over the sky, the surf booms sullenly down on the sand, a coming storm is near. The moral atmos|)here is charged with electricity as well, a crisis is at hand. Elea- nor looks pale and frightened, Richard loses his appetite to an extent thac alarms Vera. He smokes a great deal more than is good for him ; he has been out for two successive nights on the Kay. Vera wonders if everybody has it as badly as this, and if so, how is it that married men and women look so dreadfully commonplace and prosy, all the rest of their lives. She wishes — for Dick's sake — it were well over, she wishes, for Divk's sake, that Eleanor would put him out of his misery., and let him have a Christian relish for his victuals, and a sensible night's sleep once more. One afternoon — it is drawing close upon dinner-time — she curls herself up among a pile oi cushions in the dusky draw- ing-room, and drops asleep. It has been oi)pressively sultry all day ; the weather is asphyxiating ; to double up some where and go to sleep, is a necessity of life. Vera sleeps rnd dreams. She dreams of the person who was last in her waking thoughts, Captain Dick. She is urging ui)on him a large slice of bread and butter, and he is gloomily declining. Can bread and butter, he darkly demands, minister to a mind diseased ? It is certainly Captain Dick's voice that is speak- ing, and the tone is more tense and troubled than that in which one generally declines the staff of life. It is a sup- pressed tone, too. ** It is reall-y no, then ? " he is saying, " there is no hope ? '* "It is no," another voice, a distressed voice, this time, pe?" time, « IlOiy THE GAME Pf^AS MADE. 83 answers. " Oh ! Captain Ffrenrh, do yon not think I would have prevented this if I could ? Hut what could I do ? You do not know — you do not know " '* I know that for all the world 1 would not di'^tress you," the deeper tone breaks in ; " that you gave me no reason to hope. I know that I hold you higher than all women, and that if you could care for me, it would make the ha|>i>iness of my life. I am not worthy of you — few men could be ; but as Heaven hears me, I would try. Eleanor ! think aj^in —must it be no ? " " It must be no." And then Vera starts up in wild aifright, and stares about her. They do not see her, but there they are, standing to- gether by the window, 'J'heir backs are turned — the door is near — she must escape. Oh ! how awful if they .. lould catch her here — a spy ! In a mortal panic she rises, sidles out of the room, and sits flat down on the hall floor — crushed ! Crushed ! It is all over, the great agony is at an end, he has put his fate to the touch and lost it all. Eleanor has re- fused him, refused Richard Ffrench, refused the heir of (Jharlton, refused the best, the bravest, the most beautiful of his sex, refused a hero, a demi-god, refused Captain Dick! Vera sits stunned. There are antitheses ths hmnan mind declines to take in — this is one. To refuse Captain Ffrench, for any woman to say no to such a man ! By and by Vera may get over this ; at present the blow has felled her. She sits i)erfectly notionless. Captain Dick has asked Eleanor to marry him, and Eleanor has said no. And then in Vera's breast a great indignation rises and burns. How dare she ! To think of her presuming to make him unhapi)y ; of her presuming to refuse him anything ! If she feels so crushed, so outraged, how nuist he feel ? It is as if the regicidal hand of the base-born lieggar Maid had lifted and stabbed King Coplietua to the heart, in the hour of his kingly condescension ! She will never like Eleanor im I \ t ^ i\wm. . i •!' 84 HOW THE GAME WAS MADE. any more, never. Nothing that can happen to her will ever be too bad. She deserves to have to teach music to the last day of her life, she deserves to have such a mother, she de- serves to be an old maid. Oh ! why has it not been Dot ? Dot would never have said no. Dot would not have made him miserable. What will Mr. Charlton say? nnd will Dick rush away in a frenzy to the other end of the world, to the torrid or the arctic zones, and become a gloomy misanthrope forever after ? A sounil — a '^'oor opens — it is Eleanor coming out. She nearly stumbles over Vera. Her face is pale, her eyes red, she has been crying. Good enough for her. Vera thinks, viciously ; she hopes she will cry her eyes and nose as red as they deserve to be. She tlashes a glance of anger and scorn upon her, but Miss Charlton does not seem to see it. She hurries away, and upstairs. And then through the open door-way Vera sees Captain Dick, his hat pulled well over his eyes, striding down tiie garden, and out of sight. Vera's first impulse is to go after him to comfort him, and Vara's rule of life is to act on impulse. She is on her feet in a moment, but before she can dart off, Dora comes rustling down-stairs, in a dinner dress, as blue as her eyes, and lays hold of her. *' Where are you going ? " she asks. " After him," answers Vera, " don't stop me, Dot. If you knew how unhap[)y he is " "Ah !" says Dora, and laughs, "you have overheard then — it has come ? She said no, of course ? " "She said no, and I hate her ! " cries Vera. " I thought it was coming — I have seen the signs and the tokens before," laughs Dora, still retaining her hold. " No, my dear, you nnist not go after Captain Dick ; it would not be proper ; he would not thank you, and he is past all com- forting of yours. But he will get over it, it is a way men have. How does my hair look done in this style, and do THE END OF THE FAIRY TALE. ^»> 85 not these jiink roses go exquisitely with this shade of blue ? I am afraid my charming toilet will be thrown away on poor Captain Dick." Dot's elfish laugh sounds more shrill than usual. " He snubbed me unmercifully one night, not long ago — it is my turn now." CHAPTER X. THE KND OF THE FAIRY TALE. 1 the No, not om- men do LOOM has fallen upon the Charlton household. It is so dark at half-past six, the dinner hour, that they are forced to light the gas. Miss Charlton has a headache, and do'^s not appear. Cai>tain Ffrench comes in late, and manfully does his best to seem as usual, but the effort is not the success it deserves to be. Vera's eyes, in their wishful brown beauty, rest on him, full of mingled ad- mirition and compassion. She thinks of the Spartan boy and his cloak, and the wolf gnawing at his vitals — or was it a fox ? The race of Spartans is not extinct, for here is Cap- tain Dick essaying cheerful commonplaces, and sipping veuve cliqiwt, as though he liked both, bearing himself as bravely as though his heart had not just been broken. Dora shines with abnormal brilliancy, her blue eyes flash, her delicate cheeks Hush, her shrill laugh rings out ; she rallies Captain Dicic until he burns to shy his dinner-plate at her. She is a social meteor, quite dazzling in fact, and Mr. Charlton, look- ing and listening admiringly, wonders what the house will be like when she is gone. After dinner Vera goes to the piano. She is fond of music, and the evening is the only time cool enough for so much exertion. Mechanically, Dick follows her, and leans with folded arms upon the instrument, staring in a blank sort of !^'^ 86 THE END OF THE FAIRY TALE. way at a picture on the wall above it. It is Cenci ; and the dusk i)r()])hetic face, with its haunting, wistful eyes, reminds him somehow of Vera herself. He is glad to get away from Dora; her covert innuendoes have been stabbing him like knives. "What a little devil's doll she is !" he thinks, with very unusual savagery. *' How does she come to know anything about it so h>)on ? " X'era's nmsic soothes him. A dreary sense of loss and pain ()p|)resses him. If he were only free to go with the ex- pedition — if the governor had not wrung that half promise from him. For the jiiesent he must go away somewhere, it would be horribly uncomfortable for Eleanor to have him in the house. How nobly she spok ;, how lovely she looked, with great tears in her eyes, and divine pity in her face. Ah ! he never deserved such a i)ri/e, great rough fellow that ne is, and yet if she could have cared for him " The moon's on the lake, and the mist's on the brae, Ami tlie clan has a name that is nameless by day^" Vera's sweet, strong voice rings out spiritedly the stirring Scotch ballad. It is opi)ressively close. Sheet lightning is blazing in con- tinual zig-zags all along the horizon — i)alingthe yellow gleam of the lamps. Now and then, a great drop plashes audibly outside ; from the sea comes at intervals, a low, weird moan- ing, as of a sentient thing in pain. The trees writhe and toss wildly in the darkness- all nature feels the coming convul- sion, and shrinks. " The storm is very near," says Mr. Charlton, lifting his white head. " AVe will have it to-night." They do not talk nuich, this evening, the oppression of the atmospheric change is upon them all. I>ut Dora keeps brilliant and sparkling to the last ; plays a game of chess with her host, and going to the piano afterwards, sings, at his THE END OF THE FAIRY TALE. 87 con- earn ibly loan- toss ivul- his of . his request, the old time love ditty of Barbara Allan. Captain Ffrench does not leave his post, and the malice in the spark- ling eyes of the singer gleams laughingly out as she looks up at him. " Then slowly, slowly, came she up, And slowly came she nigh him, And all she said, when there she came, * Young man, I Uiink you' re dying ! ' " "It is curious," she says, and laughs, "but Nelly always puts me in mind of cruel Barbara Allan. I can fancy lier walking up to the deathbed of some love-lorn swain, and calmly saying, Young man, I think you're dying ! ' Weith- er's Charlotte must have been of that type, pale, passionless — don't you thi.ik so ? You remember Thackeray's funny version of the tragedy — ' Charlotte, when she saw his body borne past her on a shutter, like a well-conducted person, went on cutting bread and butter.' Nelly would go on cut- ting bread and butter too. What do you think about it, Captain Ffrench ?" She is laughing immoderately at the young man's di. gusted face, and without waiting for reply, returns to the chess-table, and challenges Mr. Charlton to another game. With the streaming light of the chandelier full upon her, her gleaming prettiness looks uncanny. Mrs. Charlton watches her sourly for a while, then, complaining of the heat, gets up and goes. "Tell poor dear Nelly how much we have missed her," calls Dora, with her mocking smile ; " I do so hojie her headache is better. To-morrow, you know. Captain Ffrench and Mr. Fred Howell are to take us over to the Pine Barren. It would be such a pity if she could not go." A malevolent glance is the elder lady's answer. Not a spark of Dora's eldritch malice is lost upon her. AM even- ing she has been uncomfortable. Eleanor's absence, and headache — she is not subject to headache ; Dick PTrench's moody silence — these are alarming tokens. Can it be — (in 88 THE END OF THE FAIRY TALE, the sultriness of the airless night her bloorl chills at the thought) — can it be that Eleanor has carried out her reckless threat, and refused him ? Refused Charlton ! refused the finest fortune in the State. Her hands clench, her hard eyes flash. If she has * ^^ ^M ^M ^M ^0 4* *Mf ^t# *S* I* ^6 JJ* *(* *J* •!* T* The gloom deepens with the morning, both within and without. All night long the rain has poured in torrents, is pouring still, when Vera comes down-stairs. It hardly waits to pour, it drives in white blinding sheets of water, over land and sea, it drifts furiously against the glass, it beats down flowers and trees. A high wind is blowing outside. Where she stands Vera can hear the thunder of the surf on the shore ; it is no child's play down among the white caps, this August morning. How those white sea-horses must toss their foamy manes, and churn, and break, and roar about Shaddeck Light. She hopes Daddy is not nervous, alone there on that lonely rock, in this shrill whistling storm. How good of Captain Dick to have rescued that poor half-witted lad, the butt of the town, half-starved, wholly beaten, and given him a home in the little island house. .She wonders how Captain Dick feels this morning, If he slept last night. People crossed in love do not, as a rule, sleep over well. Vera has understood. Who would have thought Eleanor could be so cold-hearted, so cruel, so blind to hO much i)erfection. But, perhaps, she likes some one else ; it seems impossible though that any woman could be faithful to any man, after seeing this king aniong men. Surely infidelity in such a case would be a positive virtue. There mus^ be some reason. Mo sane human being could do so extraordinary a thing, without a powerful motive. Perhaps P^leanor has a clandestine husband already, down there in Louisiana — she has read of such things in novels. Vera's ideas are thrown, so to sjjeak, on their hind legs ; she is trying with all her might to account for Eleanor's folly. THE END OF THE FAIRY TALE, 89 he iile, Live ind one be nen. )\vn she )lly. She finds, upon consideration, that she cannot hate her, that she is more disposed this morning to look ui)on her in sorrow than in anger; but the reason that is strong enough to make her say no to Captain Dick, is beyond all surmise of hers. As she stands, Eleanor comes down. Her face is start- lingly pale, her eyes have a wild, hunted, frightened look, all the sweet and gracious calm, that makes her greatest charm, is gone. She looks as though she had not slept, her lips tremble, as she says good-morning. "You are sick!" Vera exclaims. "You look as if you had been sick a week. Were you awake all night ? Was it the storm ? " She makes a gesture of assent, and coming close to the window, lays her forehead against the glass, with a sort of low moan. Vera's eyes fill vvith a great com[)assion. Can it be that she loves Captain Dick after all, that some reason obliges her to refuse him, and that she is sutTering all tiiis anguish on his account ? She softens, the last renmant of her indignation fades away. Miss Charlton is not wholly har- dened then, after all. " Does your head ache still ? " she softly asks, coming close. *' Poor dear Nelly ! I am so sorry." Eleanor passes her arm around the girl's slender waist, but does not otherwise reply. In her eyes there is such hopeless trouble, such dark terror, that it frightens Vera. How is the child to know of the horrible scene enacted in Eleanor's room last night — of the bitter storm of reproaches, of vulgar vituperation, of fierce threats, under which she shrank and cowered ? She turns sick at heart now, as she recalls it. In all her mother's furious rages, she has never seen the fury of last night equalled. She has not slept at all ; her head aches, her body aches, her heart aches, she seems one sickening ache from head to foot. And it is to go on forever, day after day, month after month, the same miserable, ceaseless scold> scold, scold, to the bitter end. :| rlj^ ]• r ( '" -I 'l ^ ! 90 T//E END OF THE FAIRY TALE. Mrs. Charlton docs not appear at breakfast. The truth is, she has raged herst-lf ill, and into a fit of blackest sulks. Kleanor is forbidden to enter her room, whether she lives or dies, to speak to her no more, until she comes to her senses. One of the luaids fetches her uj) tea and but- tered toast ; her daughter knows her too well to dare to disobey. Cai»iain Ffrench is absent also. Late last night, it seenis, after the faniil\' had retired, he went to St. Ann's, and now, of course, is storm-bound. Dora trips tlown, the sparkle of last night scarcely dinuned. Not all the sweeping tempest of wind and rain is able to blur one jot of her gay brightness. Mr. Charlton comes, but less debonair than usual. In point of fact his old enemy, rheumatic gout, has been shooting warning twinges for the past two or three days, and this morning he is barely able to hobble to breakfast. He knows what is in store for him, doubly trying now, with a houseful of fair guests, but it is one of the things no fine old gentleman of his years and habits can hope to escape, and he puts the best possible face on his affliction. Dora is full of sweetest commiseration, Eleanor has a far- away frightened look still in her eyes, and eats nothing at all. Vera feels that in common sympathy she, too, should eat nothing, with tiie whole family so to say /// extremis ; but her appetite remains a ])ainful and powerfid fact, and will not be said nay. She is ashamed of herself, and con- sumes mulfins and fresh eggs in a sneaky, apologetic fashion, and is relieved when the ordeal is over. And now the long day begins. Rain, rain, rain — oh ! how it pours — it looks as if it might come down for a week. Mr. Charlton is forced to return to his study, leaning on Dora's arm which she insists on his taking. They look so absurd — the tall, elderly involid, and the mite of a woman, hobbling away together, that Vera's gravity is nearly upsjt. Certainly she is an unfeeling little wretch, to be able to 'T \g at con- lion, T//E END OF THE FAIRY TALE. 91 laugh with everybody else so iniseiahle, so she sternly re- presses a small grin, and heaves a sigli instead. What shall she do with herself all this long wet day I Dora does not return, Eleanor goes upstairs ; she is all alone in the big, silent house. What a dismal change two days have made. Perhaps Captain Dick will come back no more. It is not the rain that detains him in St. Ann's — ah ! no, he is neither sugar nor salt to care for a drenching. He has been crossed in love, and is d\ing hard over there at the St. Ann's Hotel. Perhaps he will start {ox Central America, and never even come back to say good-by. Vera is absurd, but she is none the less unhappy ; she has unutterable sympathy for Captain Dick, she h is a mild regret for Eleanor. She gazes forlornly at the rain, life's troubles are so much easier to bear, when the weather is i)ropitious. And then there is sickness in the house, and it will seem unfeeling to sit down and practice. If one could only sleep all day I Jkit one cannot, so, with another vast sigh. Vera gets up, goes for a book, and prepares to devote the long hours to literature. Evening comes, and brings little change. It still rains, the sky looks sullen, the black surcharged clouds good for two days more of it. Mrs. Charlton descends to dinner, but Lot's wife, changed to a basaltic column, was never more frigid, more awful. Their host is unable to appear — he has been suffering martyrdom all day ; even Dora, ministering angel that she is, can do little to assuage his anguisli. The absent heir cometh not, but just before dinner. Daddy comes with a note. It is for Mr. Charlton, and is of the briefest " My Dkar Governor : — Englehart came to-day, and is at the St. Ann's, He means to stay a week or two, to recruit, liaving been laitl up lately. Knowing your prejudice, I will not, of course, bring him to Charlton, but shall remain with him here instead. Make my apologies to the ladies. "Ever yours, R. C. F." K- 92 TITE END OF THE FAIRY TALE. Mr. Charlton's face darkens heavily as ho reads this. Naturally he is choleric, he hates to be thwarted ; by tem- per he is iinperious, although as yet his step-son has seen litth.' of this. A man may be ^ood humored and hot-tempered easily enough at the same time. He has never very strongly opposed himself to Richard Ffrench as yet, he has been comparatively a i)oor man until of late, and never felt justi- fied in coming between the lad and his whims. \\w\. now it is different. \{ Dick prefers this wandering Dr. Englehart to him, why then Dick must take the conse(iuences. Dora has hinted something to him today, which he finds it diffi- cult to believe — that Kleanor Charlton has refused him. Is the girl mad? He hardly knows how, but Dora's talk has irritated him to a most unusual degree against Richard. Mis illness, too, has matle him nervous and excitable. The line must be drawn somewhere; he is prepared to take his stand here. Dick must pay some deference to his wishes ; all he has, he is willing, nay anxious to give the boy. It is a noble inheritance. He loves him as he loves nothing else on earth, he wants him with him, and he must have him. He is growing old ; it is only fair his son should stay with him, that there should be some return for so much lavish gener- osity and aftection. It is a selfish monologue, partly engen- dered by irritating pain, partly by wily words of Dora. That is a charming little girl, he thinks — on the whole he begins to prefer her to Eleanor. He does not fancy young people under a cloud — then Eleanor has a mother, and as a perma- nence Mrs. Charlton is not to be desired. Outside the rain pours steadily and monotonously — inside there are silent rooms and some gloomy faces. Dora's spirits never flag through the whole of it. She appoints her- self sick-nurse, she writes letters, she reads aloud, her touch is soft and soothing, she never wearies, she manufactures her own sunshine, and brings it with her into the dim cham- ber of torture. If any earthly thing or creature could alle- T .gins ople uui- iside ora's her- )uch ures lam- alle- THE END OF THE FAIRY TALE. 9S viate the agony of rheumatic gout — which they cannot — it would be Dora and her doings. Night, falls wet and starless — another morning dawns. Still tliL' rain cc;mes down persistently, doggedly, stiJl the sky is lowering, still the surf roars and breviks over sand and shingle. Another long day for Vera to yawn through, and stare blankly out of blurred window panes, to wander aim- lessly about the house. She visits Kleanor in her chamber, but her visi' is a dreary one. Dot is taken up with the sick seigneur, Mrs. Charlton is like a gorgon, these days, and the girl Hies at her a|iproach. Vera has heard of the evil eye, and ponders, whether Eleanor's awful mother has not got it — a pair of them indeed. And where is Captain Dick ? Oh ! where, in all this world of rain, ami wind, and mist, and mis- ery, and love-sickness, and gout, is Captain Dick? Another night, another day, and then her hero comes. He comes after breakfast, looking little the worse for wear. His heart may be broken, but he has neither lost vigor nor good looks. On the contrary, he is brighter than when he left, and he greets Vera with the old pleasant, half mischiev- ous smile. Vera is glad, but a trifle disappointed all the same ; it is better for him to take it in this way, but it is not the way the gentleman in Locksley Hall took it, or that other poetical ])arty in Lady Vere dt V^ere. They scowled and gloomed, and abused their youn5 women (in hexameters) for years after. If Dick is a hero it is his duty to behave as such. Captain Ffrench has come to see his step-father, and is ushered by Dora into that dusk temple of pain, of which she has elected herself priestess. Mr. Charlton lifts a face all drawn and haggard with two days of torment. " My dear governor," the young man says, leaning over the back of his sof^i, " this is too bad. You so seldom have an attack of this kind in summer either. How did you rest last night ? I trust the pain was not altogether unbearable." ;.':'l! «.i:!tii IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I 1.25 2.2 ! ^ 1.8 U IIIIII.6 % <^ /2 ^l ^ ^/J y Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4503 iV ■1>^ ^N P^ 'C^V<> '^9.^ ( 1^ #/^' L^*/ 1 1 I N 1 94 T//£ END OF THE FAIRY TALE. " Rheumatic gout is ahvays unbearable," answers Mr. Charlton, angrily. "You need not ask how I rested, I never rested at all. 1 have not slept for three nights. Why don't you come home ? what are you doing over there at St. Ann's? Is it not enough that 1 must be laid up by the legs, but you must desert our guests too ? " *' 1 explained all that, you know, governor, in my note. Englehart is there " " Englehart be hanged ! What have you to do with that wandering Ishmaelite ? Send him to the dogs, and return home to your duty." " That hardly sounds like you, sir — I don't think you quite mean it. He is partly on the invalid list, too, and only able to hobble with a stick. As to his being a wander- ing Ishmaelite, that is true enough, but, unfortui-cUely, /am of the Ishmaelitish tribe as well." " Have been, you mean. We have changed all that, if you remember." "Governor," says Dick, in his most conciliating voice " that is what I have come especially to speak to you about. I gave no promise, that evening, you know, I only said i woidd try. I have tried — and it cannot be done." Mr. Charlton half rises, and glances angrily at the young man. Pain and sleeplessness have almost changed his nature ; he is morbidly irritable, and Dora's hints are rank- ling i)oisonously in his mind. " What do you mean ? " he demands. "Don't be angry, governor. I am going with the Expe- dition." Mr. Charlton is staring at him — a glassy stare of amaze and anger. He cannot for a moment take this in. He has made so sure of Richard — that half promise extorted, seems to have made his stay a certainty. And now to come and tell him deliberately that he is going " Don't be angry," Dick deprecatingly repeats, ** I hate to THE END OF THE FAIRY TALE. 95 Offend you-on my honor I do, sir. You are so uncommonly good to me-alvvays have been-I cannot forget it, I never will forget It. J5ut all the sam(^ I want you to let me ^^o Say yes, this once, sir," he leans over him coaxingly. "ami It shall be the last time. I promise you that." "You will do precisely as you please," Mr. Charlton answers, suppressed passion in every tone. '* I withdraw all claim upon you from this hour. You are eight-and- twenty— you are your own master. Only do not" let us have any talk of goodness or gratitude ; protestations don't count for nmch, when every action of your life gives them the lie." Dick starts up, his face flushes dark red. He walks away, and begins j)acing up and down. -This is rather hard," lie says, after a moment, '' what am I to do .? I wrote to Englehart resigning my commission, and he and the rest of the scientific corps refuse to accept. 1 hat IS why he is here. He holds me to my pledge. What am I to do? I ask you, governor; in honor I stand bound. I have promised." There is no reply. Mr. Charlton is so intensely angry that he is afraid to allow himself to speak. " I cannot go from my word," Dick goes on, " they can- not fill my place at a moment's notice, and the Expedition cannot afford the inevitable delay. Come, sir ! " he stoi)s before him, and looks down, distressed pleading in his frank, honest eyes, " be reasonable. Consent to my going— it will be but for a year or two, at most, and then I bind myself to devote the whole remainder of my life to you." " You are exceedingly kind ; I am sixtv-four years of age, and can count so confidently on many future years of life! No, sir, I refuse my consent. You must choose between Ur Englehart and me, between Honduras and Charlton, and you must abide by your choice. Both you cannot have. Choose which you please, but remember your choice is for life." it'' :i 1 ( ^ it.«yii hi 96 THE El^D OF THE FAIRY TALE. The calm young eyes look steadily clown into the fiery old ones. " Docs that mean, sir, that when I say good-by it is for good and all ? That I am to return here no more ?" "Exactly!" Mr. Charlton answers, and the fiery glance never flinches. Dick draws a hard breath, turns, and resumes his walk. He is sincerely attached to his step-father, and feels this blow exceedingly. "If you go with Dr. Englehart," Mr. Charlton says, his voice harsh with pain, " it will be because you prefer him to me ; prefer your own roving fancy to my hai)i)iness or wishes. I make no claim u[)on you, you are free to go if you see fit. I have never thwarted you before — I am resolute now. If you go, in every way in which I can forget you, I will forget you — in every way in which I can blot your mem- ory out, it shall be blotted out. You understand me, sir — in every way." " You talk plainly, governor — I would be a blockhead in- deed, if I did not understand." " As to your promise to the scientific corps, that is rub- bish. There are men who can fill your place, not only sons whose duty calls them at home. It is not your promise, but your inclination, that is taking you, and you know it." Silence. Dick walks up and down, his hands in his pockets, with downcast and disturbed face. The elder man watches him keenly. " And there is Miss Charlton," he resumes, " it strikes me your honor — this extremely nice and touchy honor of yours, Dick — is at fault there. You have paid her very marked at- tention, you have led her and her mother to believe you meant to marry her. Is it in accord with your high code, to pay such attention, and then desert the lady at the last moment ? Or have you spoken and been rejected ? " Here is a quandary I What is he to say ? If the truth, he 1 THE END OF THE FAIRY TALE. ai comprcnises Eleanor irretrievably as far as his father's testa- ".entary uuenfons are cccerned, and she is so poor lo poor. He takes his l,a,uls o„. of his pockets, and run i,ks "P - ha,r, ,„ a perfeet fever of e„,barrass,nent and d s e s I. seetns a d.mcult ,,„estion to answer," savs Mr. C r ! on, sarcasttcally. " ^v■ell, don't perjnre yourself, „,y la; I kno. all about ,t. You asked and she refused-Ithe j de ■ " Who told you that ? " ■" ' foll7'rt'if"' ™'"-, ''' " •' '"°'' "'" '"-' W for her lolJy. But If you are leaving on her account " "Governor," says Dick, anxiously, "do not-do not I beg, let tins mHuence you against Nf iss Charlton. BVon, first to ast she never gave u,e the slightest enco.„agen,eut Do not hold her accountable for her n.other's rash pro,,, for wo,nan 1 have ever met, and-and you kno«. her life-one •den,nmon gr,nd' the year round. Do no. punish her for what she could not help. Be generous .ir \r. ,i lady I '• beuerous, s,r, to this young " Miss Charlton has made her choice," Mr. Charlton an- s vers, coldly ; " she ,00 shall abide by it. We will no, ,',1 o^ ,s poo, young la.iy, if yo„ p,ease-we will sett^ yo In";?. "'• '"'S'---''^" l'™PO^e leaving' St. " In a few days— ne.vt week at the furthest." "And you go with him ?" " I must. The Expedition starts on the twenty-fourth." You go with the Expedition ? " -i" '• " It is inevitable. Be merciful, sir ! I would rather cut pledged. My word has been given. I cannot retract." ,< c ""m, *i! , "°'' """='' '"""<=>' ''o ro" vvant ? " ^ hir ! Dick reddens through his brown skin. How much n,oney do you want ? I presu.ne the scien t.fic corps will not supply .// your wan!s. Hand me my" \\ .11 98 THE END OF THE FAIRY TALE. rlicck-book, if you please — I will give you a blank check which you can fill up at your leisure. And with it you will kindly consider our connection at an end. Any intentions 1 may have announced regarding the disposal of my prop- erty, so far as you are concerned, are from tiiis moment withdrawn." Tile flush fades from Dick's face, his lips set, his eyes flash, he stops in his walk, and regards the older man steadily. " That taunt was not necessary, sir. Whatever oi)inion you may have held of me in the past, I do not think you ever believe the consideration of your fortune influenced any action of mine. And it never will. Bestow it upon whom you please — no one in the world has less right to it than I. 1 have but one parting favor to ask — that you will permit me to return once more to Charlton, and say a friendly farewell Xo youy He takes his hat. He is very pale, and his eyes have a pleading look. He holds out his hand. "Come, governor," he says, " we cannot part like this. I am afraid I look like an ungrateful dog, but — but I know how I feel. A fellow can't put that sort of thing into words, but by Jove I am sorry " He breaks off, and draws nearer. But Mr. Charlton, quite ghastly, betw<;en bodily pain and mental emotion, waves him away. " Such a parting would be a farce. Come home to stay, and you know what sort of welcome awaits you. Go with your friend, and as my son I renounce you. There can be no half-way course." "Then good-by, since it must be so." He turns, opens the door, lingers yet one moment, in hope of some sign of relenting, but the invalid lies with closed eyes, spent and exhausted. And so Dick leaves him. Is it fancy, or does he hear the rustle of skirts away from the door ? He is too perturbed to tell, but a second after, w THE END OF THE FAIRY TALE. 99 Dora's smiling little face looks out at him through another half-open door. " CJoing again, Captain Ffrench ? Will you not stay to luncheon ? iVo ? How unkuid of you ! How long is your tiresome friend gcjing to keep you over in St. Ann's ? Send him back to New York, and come home. We all miss you so much." Dick smiles at the ])lainlive tone, and runs down-stairs. He distrusts this little woman — he knows she does not mean a word she is saying— he knows she dislikes him. " Where is Miss Vera ? " he asks. " Waiting for you, somewhere. The child has been mop- ing herself to death in your absence. In common humanity to her, you really ought to return. Do come back, Captain Ffrench ! " She waves her little white hand gayly, and trips away to the sick-room. The smile fades from Dick's face, he si-dis impatiently, as he strides down the hall, and takes a last look at everything. " It's uncommonly hard, by George ! " he thinks moodily. " I hate like the deuce to row with the governor, but what ani I to do ? Englehart claims me, and he claitns me, and whose claim is best ? It's a nniddle— ah ! my little Vera ! I was just going in search of you. I,et me look at you. Why, you are actually looking i)ale. What is the matter ? " •* Nothing," the girl says, all her great gladness in her shining eyes, " since you have come ! How lorjg you have been away, Captain Dick." He smiles down into the artless child's e>es, pleased and soothed. " Has it seemed long I It was the weather and not my absence, I'll wager a ducat. You would never have missed me if the sun had shone." " Ah ! you know better than that," Vera answers, heaving a sigh of vast content. How good, how pleasant, how com- 100 THE END OF THE FAIRY TALE. % ii fortahle it seems to have Captain Dick at home — to hear his deep tones, to see his lofty stature in this household of women. It gives the last touch to the perfection of her P-uadise. " \i the sun, and moon, and stars, all shone to- gether, I wouUl miss yon just the same." " Hy Jove ! " he says, and laughs, '' how flattering. I thought my vanity had received its death-blow the other day, b,it-l— " ^ " I know what you mean," Vera interrupts, hastily. " Oh, Captain Dick," clas[)ing her hands, "what will you think of me ! I was there, I overheard all ! At least I heard you — and Miss Charlton said — oh ! don't be vexed, please !" im- ploringly, " I was asleep on the sofa, and the room was so dark, and you both came in while 1 was lying there, and didn't see me, and when I awoke you were talking and " A light breaks upon Dick. His face grows grave. " And you told the gov — Mr. Charlton, Vera ? " *' Oh, no, no ! 1 told Dot — no, I didn't tell her — she found me sitting in the hall, and seemed to know all about it. I have wanted to tell you ever since. I never said a word to any one ; I would not do anything so mean." " Not even to Miss Charlton ? " "No. I think Eleanor is horrid — I can't bear her ever since. At least, I don't quite mean that, you know, I think she is just lovely, only " Captain Ffrench smiles again. The outspoken honesty and simplicity of this little girl have amused him from the first ; her unconcealed fondness and admiration for himself, flatter him as a matter of course. Captain Dick is emi- nently mortal, and in no interesting little weakness above his sex. " My dear little Vera I " you are the stanchest of friends, and the dearest little woman, without exception, in the world. 1 wonder now, if you will writ t to me, when I am down there among the silver mines. I am sure you write THE END OF THE FAIRY TALE. lOI charming letters — and tell me all about yourself and— yes— about Dot ! " Vera's eyes dilate— she stands still and looks u[) at him in blank, sudden terror. " Down among the silver mines ! What silver mines ? You are not going away, Cai)tain Ffrench ? " ** Ah ! but I am, and you will be a tall, fliscinatirj young lady long before I come back. lint you are not to forget me, mind. I shall look for those letters Why, Vera, my dear ! *' She has turned away from him, and covered her face with her hands. The blow is so sudden, so sharp. "Vera," he says, " my dear little Vera!" Hut she does not look up. " Why, my pet, are you so sorry as this ! I did not think— Vera 1 " He tries to take her hands away, but she struggles and resists. " Oh ! don't," she says, in a stilied voice, " let me be. It —it isn't that ! " struggling bravely, " I— I think I am ner- vous. It is the weather " " Of course it is the weather," he returns, promptly ; " be- ing shut up in the house so much, is enough to give any one the horrors. And it is a little— just a little— that you are sorry, too ? " " Oh ! I am sorry ! I am sorry ! I am sorry ! " she says, and breaks down. The last barrier gives way, and she sobs with all her heart. There is only one sort of consolation for trouble of this kind, that Captain Dick knows of, and that is to take her in his arms, and give her a kiss. Words are failures. He is pleased, he is touched, he is embarrassed, he feels inclined to laugh. She is such a child, such a simpleton— not that he thinks her a simpleton— not at all. Such a tall child, too, up to his shoulder, now that they stand in this delicate i)rox- imity. " Don't, Vera," he says, " please don't. If anybody came. 102 THE END OF THE FAIRY TALE. I ' t il M 1 i: ij i^ !l w There! let nie wipe them away;" he takes out his handker- chief, and i)erforMis this needful office. " Don't cry any more. And you'll promise to write to me when 1 am gone ? " " Oh ! yes, yes." " And you won't forget me ? " "Oh ! no, no." (A fresh Hood.) "And you will let Daddy take you out in the Nixie? It will do both you and the Nixie good." "No!" Vera cries, "no! 1 will never set foot in the Nixie again ! Oh ! what must you thhik of me for crying like this. Hut it is so horrid to have p — p — people you like go away to hateful places, and n — n — never come back ! " " lUit I am coming back, my dear, in two years." Two years ! why not two centuries — in the eyes of sixteen are they !-.ot the same ? Vera battles heroically, it does not become her to ci-y, though, to do her justice, the real concern she sees in Captain Dick's face is the more powerful motive. And yet that ([uestionable smile of his lingers in his eyes. " Well, now, Vera, it is all right again, isn't it ? I am going. No, it is not good-by ' for good ' this time — I shall be back. Oet up early to-morrow — the rain is over for the present, and I and the Nixie will be waiting in the old place. We shall have half a dozen matutinal sails yet, before we say adieu." Then he goes, and Vera is alone with her desolation. What will Charlton be without Ca[)tain Dick ? All its green beauty will be but a fleeting show, for her illusion given. The Nixie, the island, the piano, the basket-carriage — all are filled with poignant memories. Why — why must he go ? Why did this hateful man at the hotel ever come down ? \Vhy does not the earth open and swallow Honduras and all the silver mines in the world ? She goes slowly back to the house. The trail of the ser- pent is over everything; all — all recalls the lost one. In. the hall she meets Eleanor, who starts to see the pale, tear- Tfrr: end of t/ie fairy tale. 103 It bloltcd clijck^ and rcddcnctl eyes of the brii^hl little house fairy. *• Why, Vera," she says, and puis her arm about her, " my dear child what is the matter?" lUit Vera strikes down the caressing hand, in a very fury of sudden i)assion. " Do not touch me ! " slie cries, her black eyes blazing, " 1 hate you. He is going, and only for you he wouldn't have gone. I never want to speak to you again, as long as I live ! " She dashes away and up to her room, flings herself on her bed. and cries passionately. Her great hero is going— after that the deluge. She will never see him again. Years from now, he may return, but where will she be. He will have forgotten her, and she likes him — oh ! she h"kes him ! she likes him " I wouldn't cry, if I were you," says the placid voice of Dora. She has entered unheard, drawn by the sound of vehement sobbing ; " there is not a man on earth worth blearing one's eyes for, and not one of them all was won yet by crying. Ho will come back, my dear, and then if you really are so fond of " Vera starts up, goaded beyond endurance. ''What do you want here ? Get out of my room. Dot ! How do you know I am crying for— for him ? I'm not / Go, and leave me alone." And Dora, laughing to herself, goes. Vera is alone. And this is the end of her fairy tale. It keeps saying itself over and over in her mind— "And the prince went away to seek his fortune, and never, never, never came back." w 104 aiiADDECK ijunr. i I ill*' iiB'- IH'' K^ ' !ii- CI I APT KR Xr. SHAD DECK I-IC HT. HRKE (lays have gone by. 'I'o the casual observer they have brout^ht httle change, but changes there art'. I''irst and chief, Mr. Charlton's attack is going off; in a week he hopes to be about again. Next, the rain is over, and once niori' there is sunshine, and eaily rising on Vera's i)art, rows in the Nixie, and visits to Shaddeck. The agony of parting is inevitable, but it is yet two days o'f, and Vera never crosses her bridges until she conu.'S to thim. Cai)tain Dick is still to be seen, to be heard, to be admired — next Thursday will surely come, but this is only Monday, and there are yet forty-eight hours, two thousand and eight hundred and eighty minute.^ between her and desolation. It is the evening of Monday. P'.leanor Charlton sits in her room — she s[)en(ls most of her time there, of late, and looks out with dreary eyes over the fair sununer prospect. She is at odds, it seems, with all the household, her mother most of all. For three days Mrs, Charlton has not spoken to her — she is the sort of i)erson to live in the house with you, and not si)eak to you for a month. Not that, in a gen- eral way, this could be looked upon as a misfortune — rather the opposite — but it is sometimes an embarrassment. Dora is always pleasant ; it is Doa's role to smile, and smile, and be a little villain ; but from Dora, P'deanor has instinctively shrunk from the first. Dora's smiles are spurious currency, not sterling coin. Between her and Vera, a cloud hovers ; it is six feet high, and answers to the name of Captain Dick. Mr. Charlton, on the occasion of I^leanor's only visit, lias received her with such chilling politeness, that she never had the heart to go near his study ag:^in. He knows all, and re- \ srrADnr.cK' light. 105 f sents her refusal. Captain Ifrench is going away, ami she is responsible, it seems. Cliarllon is no longer a home, even a temporary home for her. She has thought the matter out, and made up her mind to go. She had Intended to stay until the end of the month, but that is impossible now. Oh ! if she could have but foreseen, and never come. Slie is pay- ing dearly for her fidelity to one whom, deep down in her heart, she knows to be unstable as water, yielding as shifting sand. The knowledge is there, but she will not listen. Loy- ally she forces herself to h()i)e, to trust, to believe in this man, to whom — how, she knows not— she has given her heart. She cannot recall the gift, because growing fear is upon her that he is unworthy, selfish, cowardly, .ielf-iuilul- gent, lazy. Circumstances are against him— it is not his will that is in fault— by nature he is indolent and without earnest- ness of pur[)ose, and nature is an obdurate foe to fmht. 1 ime, age, love for her, will work wonders ; so she forces herself to believe. She respects, admires, likes, esteems Richard Ffrench. He is in earnest : with all his mi^ht he does the thing which his hand finds to do. Life to him is no vapid, wearisome day, to be yawned through anyhow ; he has energy, resolution, force of character, strength, all that she prizes most. Jf Ernest were but like him ! And then, indignant with herself, she banishes the disloyal thought. Whatever Ernest is, he is hers. She has chosen, and she will be faithful to her choice. It is a sultry and overcast evening. It has been at its hottest and fieriest all day ; just now black clouds are risintr, and there is that oppression in the air which betokens a thunder-storm. There is not a breath of wind stirring, na- ture stands motionless, bracing itself for the coming shock. Presently Eleanor rises, and goes to her mother's room. It is the hour before dinner, and she knows she will find her there. She is paler than usual, she has lost flesh and strength in the past week, she feel^ very little like the ordeal before r l.l io6 SUA DDE CK LIGHT. her. But it must be met, and Eleaiwr Charlton is not the woman to shrink plain duty. Mrs. Charlton sits hem-stitching a fine pockethandker- chief ; she does not deign to glance up as her daughter en- ters ; her dumb familiar still holds possession of her. " Mother," Eleanor says, plunging into the worst at once, " I am going away." No reply ; Mrs. Charlton stitches away with the steadiness of a machine. "1 am unhappy here ; I have displeased Mr. Charlton, offended Captain Ffrench, and angered you. It is impossi- ble for me to stay. I am sorry I came — sorrier than sorry ; nothing remains for me but to leave at once." Silence. An angry red is rising over Mrs. Charlton's large fleshy face, but her lijjs only tighten into a tenser line. " I have money sufficient to pay my travelling expenses," Miss Charlton steadily goes on. She knows her mother, and this speechless form of sulks, too well to be surprised. "You need not necessarily shorten your stay before the beginning of September ; no one can blame you for my acts. I am very sorry, mother, sorry that I have pained our kind host, sorry to have disappointed you ; but I could not have acted otherwise. I will leave on Thursday morning, and will in- form Mr. Charlton of my resolution to-day. He will not object to my going, he will see that it is inevitable." Still mute. If Mrs. Charlton were deaf and dumb she could not give less sign that she hears. Words are useless ; has she not tried again, and again, and yet again, threats, scoldings, denunciations, commands, entreaties, tears. She has run up and down the whole gamut — in vain. Of what use is it to waste eloquence on such a heartless, undutiful daughter as this ? " If you would but forgive me, mother," Eleanor says, wistfully, and at the words, as flint strikes fire from steel, the spell is broken, and the infuriated woman bla/.es forth : SHADDECK LIGHT. 107 " I will never forgive you ! " see cries, '* never, so help me Heaven ! I will never forgive you in life or in death ! " ********* In her bedroom, Vera stands before the glass putting the last touch to her dinner dress, and eyeing herself with ex- treme disapproval. How thin and long her face is, to be sure, how unnecessarily like black saucers her eyes, how particularly unlike a rosebud her mouth, how excessively un- classical her nose, how idiotically low her forehead, how yel- low, and sallow, and ugly her complexion ! No, her skin Dot has a complexion, Vera a skin. What a black, kinky, untidy brush, her hair. Yes ! she is one of the tribe of Ugly Ducklings, and never, never, will she transmogrify into a swan. Ah ! no ; sallow skin, thin cheeks, crane neck, tar- black hair, owl eyes— that is to be the melancholy record to the bitter end ! With a great sigh she turns away from the mirror. Hitherto her looks have troubled her very little ; she has accepted the fact that she is a colored person, and not a good-looking colored person either, as one of the great incontrovertible facts of life, but of late this painful truth has been brought home to her, in an altogether new and depress- ing light. If she were only the least little bit pretty ! If she only had the least little flesh on her bones ! Vera is sadly conscious that she has an abnormal tendency to bones. If she only had red cheeks, a Grecian nose, anything, anything. But she has not an atom of prettiness about her. She is lank, she is bony, she outgrows her clothes, she is dark and colorless, she always will be, and— and what a homely little mortal Captain Dick must think her. " I think I look like Daddy," muses Vera, gazing mournfully at what she sees in the glass. " I really think I have a family resemblance to Daddy. Perhaps that is why Captain Dick takes pity on me, and makes much of me. He does the same with Daddy. Daddy's wrists and ankles protrude io8 SNA DDE CK LIGHT. \ l: : Ml unpleasantly from his clothes — so do mine. Daddy has a complexion like a tallow candle — so have I. Daddy runs frightfully to joints and knuckles — so do I. Yes, I am enough like Daddy to be a long-lost sister." She turns away disgusted, goes to the window, leans her folded arms on the sill, and gazes disconsolately out. And yet that Creole face, fran)ed in green leaves, a dark-red ribbon in the "tar mop," would hardly be pronounce! .ji ugly one by most observers. Those two velvet, black, soft, deep, lustrous eyes would redeem any countenance, and despite the sallowness, and the thinness of a rapidly growing girl, there are the serene lines of beauty of no common ordei. In spite of her own opinion, she is exactly the sort of Ugly Duckling that is certain to grow into a handsome swan. How hot it is ! That is the only idea she has been con- scious of all day. It has been a blank day, blank from its very beginning. For some reason Captam I3ick was not at the place of tryst, this morning, and Vera and the Nixie were left at their UKJorings lamenting. The house has been dull as death, the people gloomy, the day hot. vShe always comes back to that ; her mind goes round in a circle, and always returns to its starting-point — the heat. "Perhaps 1 am falling into my second childhood,'' thinks Vera, despondently; "I have hrard of such things. If the weather makes dogs go mad, why shouldn't it make people idiotic? And oh ! how hot and hateful the whole world uii! be after Thursday afternoon." She siglis impatiently, and stares with gloomy eyes over the prospect. How lovely she thought it three weeks ago ; what a blank, hollow, unsatisfactory sort of a thing it is to- day ! What is the use of a place being lovely, if people will not stay in it ? Why was Central America ever discovered ? It was some of Christopher Columbus' work, she supposes — these navigators and discoverers are certainly \cry offi- cious and much overrated people. Oh ! dear /loztj hot it is) I 0t SHAD DECK LIGHT, 109 and those black clouds up there ; of course it is going to hghten and thunder, nothing will do it but that. Vera is mortally afraid of lightning and tliunder, she always takes refuge in the cellar if there is one available, her eyes hermetically sealed, her ears corked with her index fm-ers. As if she were not unhappy enough without having to spend the evening in a cellar ! Oh ! how hot-then she stops. The httle basket phaeton, with its blue umbrella top, comes brisk- ly up the drive, with IJora inside. Dora has been to town on an errand for Afr. Chariton, and is now returning. How pretty she looks, Vera thinks, in that white chip hat, and ostrich tips, and blush roses, a tlimsy white vail strapped across her delicate morsel of a nose, her rose-lined parasol casting a warm tint over her too pale face. Ah ! where are Captain Dick's senses, that he has no relish for golden hair, pearly skin, azure eyes, and a f^iiry form. Then Dora looks up, I '^d sees her. _ ''Oh, Vera ! " she exclaims. There is unusual animation in Dora a look and tone, " have you heard ? " " I have heard nothing," says Vera, in a melancholy voice, " seen nothing, done nothing, and never expect to a^ain What is it ? " ° ' " Captain Ffrench " Vera starts up, all listlessness, all mild melancholy gone, at that magical name. " Cai)tain Ffrench has met with an accident— I heard it over at St. Ann's, and is very badly hurt." There is a cry ; a sharp, sudden cry, as if she had been struck. Then Vera is motionless, but in that instant every trace of life and color has faded from her face. "He was out driving," pursues Dora, airily, *' with that man. Dr. Englehart, you know, and it seems the horses took fright at a passing train, and started oif at a gallop. The carriage was overturned, in spite of all Captain Ffrench's efforts, and they were both thrown out. Dr. Englehart I no S II ADD EC K LIGHT. escaped scot-free, but the poor overgrown Dick has broken himself somewhere, his arm, or his shoulder, or his neck — I really am not sure which." There is no rei)ly. Vera kneels as she was, the same, yet different. Rigid now, her hands locked, her face blanched, her eyes all blind and black with great swift horror. She does not try to si)eak, she just kneels there, and stares blankly down at the speaker. " Vera ' VVh}', good Heaven ! You little idiot ! I be- lieve you are going to faint ! " She darts into the house, up the stairs, flies swiftly into Vera's room, and seizing her by the shoulders, shakes her with no gentle hand. " You little fool ! if you faint I will never forgive you. I tell you he is not dead — more's the pity — such great hulking fellows as that, in everybody's way, don't die so easily. He has put his shoulder out, that is all. Now come back to life, or 1 will shake all there is left out of you ! " She is quite white with anger and alarm. Vera lifts her eyes, into which the old look slowly returns. '' I thought he was killed," Fhe says, in a whisper. " Oh ! you thought, you thought ! " retorts Dora, crossly, " a nice fright you have given nie for nothing. My heart is beating like a trip-hammer. It serves me right for telling you anything about it. I might have known what a perfect simpleton you are." *' Oh ! Dot, don't. Where is he, please ? " " Where he ought to be — out of everybody's way, in his hut in the ocean." "Alone?" " He has that other lunatic with him — \\\.'ii protege^ Daddy Long Legs." ** Dot, tell me, is he badly hurt ? " *' How do I know ? What do I care ? I only hope it wo.i't prevent his going off on Thursday. Oh ! you may SHADDECfC LIGHT. i i j look at me as you please ; I detest your Captain Dick. Now Im going to tell IVfr. Charlton." She leaves the roon.. For a little Vera lingers, a wei,ht li^e lead on her heart. Captain Dick hurt, badly hurt, sutlenng pa,n, alone there in Shaddeck Light. What if it IS worse than Dora knows, what if he dies ! At that hough she starts to her feet and puts out both arms as if to ward off some direful blow. c\l\ ^w^' 'rr ''''' '"'•"' '' "°^ ^^^^^ •' Oh ! what shall I do? What shall 1 do ? " She stands twisting her fingers, bewildered by pain and tc ror. Ihe heat, the coming thunder-storm, his departure, all are forgotten, swallowed up in this new dread disaster. AV hat shall she do ? Go down when the bell rings and eat her dnmer? No, that is impossible. Alone there with only Daddy ! Oh, ,f he were but at home, if she could only do somethmg only tell him she was sorry. Captain D.ck helpless and suffering. How strange a thought, how in.pos- sible to take it in. He so strong, so nunly, so full of life and vigor; it seejus as if pain, or weakness, or helplessness could never come near him. What shall she do ? She takes up her hat mechanically, and goes out of the house. The closeness of the air seen's to stifle her ; the lurid sky is shutting down over the silent world, as the dungeon roof shut down upon the fated p.is- oner ,n the '' Iron Shroud." If she could but do something -anything ! To think of his being there alone, with no one to do anything for him but that stupid Daddy. The thought gives her a pang of absolute physical pain. She is out on the high road, now. All the world has come to a stand-still, the leaves on the trees, the flowers at ner feet, the birds in the branches, the sea afar off. Is nature waiting breathlessly for the first crash of the storm, or has it gone into mourning, like Vera's heart? Dark clouds are rapidly gathering, but she never heeds them~she who so r^ ; ^ : i ||; 112 SHADDECK LIGHT. fears storms — she goes on and on, faster, unheeding the heat, driven by " some spirit in her feet," without will of her own, and here at last, breathless, thished, panting, she stands on the shore, and looks across the mile or so of water, at Shaddeck Light. The tide is ebbing. In half an hour — in less — it will be possible to walk over, but Dr. Englehart is there, and even in her great trouble, she is shy of facing a strange man. It is a comfort, a poor one, but a comfort, to stand heie with longing wistful eyes fixed on that smallest of human habita- tions. Overhead the clouds are still blackening, the sea moans dully, now and then, as if sullenly conscious of what is in store for it. And still Vera stands. She will be drenched to the skin, she will be blinded by the lightning, she will be deafened by the thunder, she will be frightened out of her i^w remaining senses, if she lingers half an hour longer. And yet it is hard to turn and go. Her anxiety, her sympathy are so great that in some mesmeric way they ought to reach him from here. Ah ! here is Daddy ! long- limbed, blessed Daddy ! At last she will hear of our hero. Daddy comes shambling over the rocks, looking much as usual. He is attached to his master, with a dull, doggish sort of attachment, but he is also of a phlegmatic turn, and this upsetting of all things works no apparent outward change. If Vera's eyes were twice as piercing, they could read nothing in that blank page — his face. "How is he?" she cries, springing forward. "Oh, Daddy, how is Captain Ffrench ? " Daddy eyes her stolidly, and does not quicken his custom- ary drawl. " Waal, I guess thar ain't no change to speak on. He's kinder pooty much the same. Air you a goin' over? Dew; 'twill perk him up quite some." " Daddy," Vera demands with solenniity, *' Daddy, 1 ask you — will he, or will he not die ? " SriADDECK LIGHT. "3 Thus put upon oath, as it were, Daddy considers with profound seriousness. " Waal, 1 reckon not," is his conclusion. - I'm a goin' for some doctor's stuff over to the town, and kent stay." " Is Dr. Englehart with him, Daddy ? " Daddy shakes his head, and shuffles off, and again Vera is alone. Shall she go ? He is there and suffering ; she can retm-n before the tide rises. Yes, she will go. She knows her way over those slipi)ery, sea-weedv rocks, she has crossed the bar many a tin.e, but never so (juickly, so fleetly as >mw. Ir. a few mnu.tes she is in front of the cottage, the handle of the door m her hand. She turns it gently, and enters. The darkness of the nearing storn. is in the room ; its bareness. Its lonehness strikes the gul with a sense of pain altogether new. VV hat a desperate place to be ill in-iU and alone. Ca,,tan. PTrench is asleep. He lies on the lounge, his head pillowed on his right arn,, his left bandaged ancfhelp- fss. It IS his arm then that is broken. Ho\v pale he is ■ how deeply he sleeps. Vera shuts the door, tiptoes ovei' anxiously and stands gazing at him. He does not look as hough he were going to die, certainly-nobody dies of a broken arm, or a shoulder put out. And it may detain him • a person cannot go to Central America W^^^z^,\ in this way' A great throb of hope stirs within her; if the accident keeps hun will It not be a thing to rejoice at after all ^ Her steady gaze disturbs him ; he stirs impatiently, and mutters to himself. Vera leans down, smiling, to hear what he IS saying. As she does so, he opens his eyes, stares, shuts them, reopens them, and stares again. "By Jove!" he says, in amaze. " Yes it is me," says Vera, joyously, discarding grammar inhergluness, "I have just come. Oh! Captain Dick, how glad I am, how glad 1 am ! " " Glad ! " exclaims Captain J)ick, aghast. " Yes, glad that it is only your arm. I thought it was so BrrI ■TT f 1' '■ M 1 1 1 1 ' "IL' 11 ' f\ >il ' '!i:if f rl f! n I '; 114 SHAD DECK LIGHT. imicli worse. You don't know how fnglUonod 1 was " Vera stops with one inipassionate little gesture. Mere words will tell so little of all that is in the heart. "You dear little soul ! " says Captain Dick, sitting up and holding out his hand. "And you came here the moment you heard of it, I'll be bound." "Yes," replied Vera, "1 did not know— Dot did not know — Daddy did not seem to know what it was. And it seemed so dreadful for you to be alone and in pain here. Is it your arm, or your shoulder, and oh, does it hurt you very much ? " He does not answer for a moment. He smiles, and holds her hands, and sits looking at her with a look Vera does not understand. "You were frightened and sorry, and you ran here at once. Little Vera ! little Vera ! what a trump yoM are ! " " And it is not very, very bad ! " persists Vera, sticking to business, and ignoring compliments. "Not now; it hurt like the deuce at first, although the shoulder is only strained, not dislocated. Those horses pulled like a pair of devils. But it is all right now, or will be in a day or two, and it would be worth while having a whole arm amputated for such a proof of fidelity as this. Find a chair and sit down. Who told you about it in the first place ? " *' Dot. She was in town, and heard there." " Does the governor know ? " " Dot will tell him." " How did you come ? But you walked, of course." " Of course. The tide is out, and I must not stay, or it will be in." " Oh, there is no hurry ; it won't be in for hours. I was confoundedly lonely until 1 fell asleep. Knglehart has gone back to New York ; had to go — unexpected telegram — so your visit, a god-send at any time, is doubly a god-send at Merc ^JV EVENING A T SIIADDECIC UGIIT. , | 5 present. Take off your hat-yes, I insist- Da.Wy will b,. "1-Me, and he can row yoii ashore " Vera laughs and obeys. She lakes a chair, throws her hat on another, and the sin.,,e action is the turning-point ^l ,t CHAPTER XII. AN EVENING AT SHADDLCK LIGHT. UT why did you come here?" inquires Vera, "snch a^Ioneson>e, lonesonK- place to be sick in, Captain to Lj,'::,: Velf r '""■■■" C»'«-' ^ick, -and don't intend " Why did you not go to Charlton?" persists Vera "itk thit 's-i;!!" '° '°"' ™" ^'"S '° -™"' ^'«1 -ke you nice "Uon't,"says Captain Ffrencb, "don't Vera I h^„ r Z^VT\ '""■' ""^""™ '"« byreLlLg a ' IJ "St. Don , „,ake n,e feel any more like the peri outside of laradrse than you can help. You are con,i L ,0 ee n^e every day wh.le I an, here ; yes, and you will rea°d ,0 , c d sincet' s,r"'.'r"'; ™'"1 "■"^■'" "'""^^^^ D'^l^ -"" - very since, e s.gh , "I and the dear old governor have had a mi^. ii6 AN EVENING AT SHADDECK LIGHT. understanding, and — and, in short, I am not to go back. Still 1 think I shall venture once, to bid you all good-by." " You will really go then, in spite of all this ?" touching tlie wounded arm, her heart sinking suddenly. " In spite of all this. It would take a good deal more than a crippled arm to keep me from Honduras. 1 sluvU have tiuie and to spare, to recover, on the way. 1 shall lie on the deck, Vera, and smoke, and tiiink of you, and wonder what you are about in the sunny September days." "Ah ! " says Vera, "I can tell you what 1 will be about, very easily. 1 shall be back in New York, in the dull old schoolroom, teaching piano scales, and words of two s)lla- bles all day long. Mrs. Trafton — 'my missis,' you know — brings Moss and Lex home early in the month, and, of course, I must be there." She pushes all the soft dark rings of hair from Jicr forehead, with a restless sigh. How hopeless it all looks, that dreary school-room, up three pair, after the brightness and freedom of Charlton and Captain Dick. How monotonous the rou- tine of Second Readers, and " one, two, three, four," after the sails, the drives, the woodland walks ; how deadly dull the tiresome gabble of the children, after the brilliant conver- sational powers of " Oh ! " she cries out, in a voice full of impatient pain, " how horrid it all is ; the city, and the noise, and the ugli- ness, and the dreary old round of lessons over and over, for- ever and ever." He looks at her in pity. She is such a child ; it is like caging a poor little forlorn starling, this cooping her up with school-books and black-boards. " What a shame ! " he says, " I wish I could take you with me to Central America. You would like that, would you not, Vera?" Like it? Her eyes flash with cpiick de- light. She laughs, then sighs. "And Moss and Lex," he goes on, " who are they ! My lady's pair of pet i)oodles ?" |.^ iV AN EVENING AT SIIADDECK LIGHT. 117 pain, ugli- , for- like with you tould de- ■" he ?" *' Poodles ! " indiLjnantly ; '• they are Alexis and i-'lossilla 'I'lafton, nine and eight years old, and two of the nicest little things. I suppose it is wicked of me to be discontented ; Mrs. Trafton is ever so good to me, and the children love me ; but 1 do not like teaching ; I ought to be at school myself. I know nothing at all. You see it all happened when I was so young — only ten, Captain Dick," lifting two pathetic young eyes. "Yes, dear," he says, tenderly, "tell me about it. You lost your Hither, I know." " 1 was twelve when papa died. He was killed in the second year of the war. Dot was over twenty then — she is only my half-sister, you know." " V>y the by,'' says the captain, struck by a sudden thought, " what is your name. Vera? Not Lightwood, 1 know. Curi- ous, that in all this time 1 have never heard your name." " My father was a Cuban," Vera answers, " his name was Martinez — Manual Salvador Mardnez. I was christened after his mother, Veronica Mary." " Veronica Mary. Then I have the honor of addressing the Dofia Veronique Maria Martinez ? " Vera nods. *' 1 am Vera to everybody, and all who know Dot call me Vera Lightwood. My grandmother Martinez lives in Cuba yet, and they say is very rich. She was angry with pa[)a for marrying mamma, and never would speak to him, or write to him after. When he died, she wrote for the first time — such a cold, proud letter — offering to take me. Mamma had lost her fortune then, it was invested in South- ern bonds, or something, and our house was burned in Sher- man's march. Ah ! it was a dreadful, dreadful time. I was a child, but I remember it all so well. It killed i)oor mamma. And to think that j'^// were one of those Yankee soldiers I used to fear and iiate so much ! " " I was not in Sherman's army, and so never helped to Ii8 AN EVENING AT S IF AD DECK IJGIIT. \ I W^<^A i A burn your home, thank llcavcii ! Yos, it was a stirring, glo- rious, tcrrihlc tinic. And so )our mother woulil nut let y(JU go to (Irandinannna Martinez and the I'-ver-Faithful Isle ! " '• No, but I think if she had known she was to die so soon, she would. We were left so poor, so desolate, so utterly alone." "She died suddenly?" "In one moment. Captain Dick. When they told her papa was wounded, she went to hn)i, and stayed until he died. He died in a week — torn all to pieces," Vera says, in a whisper, her dark eyes dilating, •' by a shell. Then she came home. We did not see nnich difference, she was al- ways pale and delicate, like Dot, but she never laughed nor talked as she used, or took any notice of me, who used to be her pet ; antl one day as she was talking to Miss Scuddcr, she just laid her hand on her heart, gave one gasp, and fell back in her chair, dead ! " There is silence. Outside the darkness is ever deepen- ing, around them the sea is sullenly washing, fit background for Vera's tragic tale. " It was heart-disease," she goes on, after a moment, dur- ing which she has covered her face, with a sob, "and (Dot would not like me to tell this) she will not talk of it, nor think of it, but she has it too. It is hereditary in our mother's family, and some day 1 am afraid " She stops ; her large eyes look larger and blacker, Ffrench thinks, than he has ever thought them before. '* 1 would die, I think, if anything hap[)ened to Dot. I have nobody but her in the world. Captain Dick, you know so much, do you think — do you think Dot will ever go like that ? " "1 think not, I hope not, I am sure not," he answers, " my poor little Vera ! " He is so sorry for her, she is such a childish little soul to be thrown on the world, to fight its bitter battles, to know of ' AN EVENING AT S HAD DECK L/U//T. 119 Mich It. I mow like my lul to )\V of such grisly honors as these. He has never hvid a sister, never thoiiglit whether he wished for one befori-; but he wishes now that this little girl with the li.irk appealing eyes, and winsome, innocent ways, were his sister. " 'I'hen,'' goes on Vera, " we were all alone, and homeless, and poor. Only for Miss Scudder, an old maid cousin of manuna's, who ke|)t our house, I don't know what would have become of us. Hut the next two years passed somehow. The war was at an end, we were still without a home, and poor, poor, poor ! " She breaks off A great Hash of lii^luning bla/es out, fol- lowed by a dull roaring cannonade. The storm is upon them in its might. She shrieks, and covers her eyes, '* DcMi't be afraid," Dick says, reassuringly, "what! such a little heroine frightened by a thunder-storm ? Come, sit with your back to the window, and go on. You do not know how interested I am." The crash is over ; it is so dark tliey can hardly see each other's faces. Captain Ffrcnch takes her two hands in one of his, and holds them fast. " Now," he says, cheerily, " not all the powers of earth and air, not all the king's horses, nor all the king's men, shall harm you. What next ? What did you and Dot do then ? " " liefore the war," says Vera, creeping up close to her protector, " we had had a governess. When it tirst broke out i)ai)a sent her home North, but she had left us her address, and Dot wrote to her, asking her to help us. She wrote back at once, the kindest letter. She had married, during those four years, a very rich banker, a Mr. Trafton, and she invited us to her house, and inclosed money to pay our way. Now was that not kind ? " "Very kind. The world is not such a bad sort of place after all as the cynics try to make it out. Now, now, now ! never mind the lightning." . N»- 120 AN EVENING AT SHADDECK LIGHT. i i 1 ( i " But it is so awful. Captain Dick, what would we do if it struck this house and set it on fire ? " "It wont strike," he laughs, "I am a non-conductor. Well, you went to Mrs. Trafton's ? " " VV^e went to Mrs. Trafton's, and nobody could have been kinder. Mr. Trafton had been a widower, and Lex and Flossy were two little tots no bigger than that, but they took the greatest ^ancy to me at once — you can't think ! " " Can't 1 ? It has been exactly my own case. 1 stood on the bank, that morning, and looked down on the dearest little black-eyed fairy in the world, and fell in love with her on tlie spot." " Now you are laughing at me. If you are " " I am perfectly serious. My case and that of Lex and Flossy are precisely parallel." " Well, whether you are laughing or not they did, and Mrs. Trafton proposed that I should stay partly as playmate, partly as governess, at a small salary. Such a ridiculous governess, Captain Dick, only fourteen ! " " And there you are ever since ? " " Ever since, and likely to be, until the children are old enough for a governess who knows something. / know nothing, nothing," says Vera, with a melancholy little shake of the head. " What becomes of Dona Martinez, then ? " " Ah, what ? goodness knows. I have a talent for cook- ing ; I might go out as kitchen-maid. I suppose Mrs. Traf- ton will get something for me ; she is awfully good. But I do hate teaching." * ' You poor little soul ! " Captain Ff^ench is aware that he has several times already used this form of consolation, and that it would be well to vary it, but it seems to fit the case as well as anything else. "And Dot hates millinery; I mean she hates being a lav figure, and trying on, and showing things to vulgar rich peo- It AN E VENING A T SHADDECK LIGHT. 1 2 1 pie, who would be insolent if they could, only Dot never takes airs nor insolence from anybody, liut it is a stupid life all round, and in the long hot summer tnne, and the dull winter days Eut there ! what is the use of talking about it. Poor we are, and poor we will be till the end of the chapter. Sometimes I wish Mr. Charlton had not in- vited us here. It makes the gomg back so much woise." " 1 wish Mr. Charlton would keep you for good. It would be a capital arrangement on both sides. If things were as they used to be between us, I would ask him. Ah ! by Jove ! that 2uas a crash ! " A crash indeed. It shakes the light-house, the rocks un- der it, the mighty ocean itself. And then a blaze of blue suli^hurous light zig-zags through the room, and Vera screams and buries her face on his shoulder. He draws her close, and does his best to soothe her, but he can feel her quiver- ing with fear. "It will not hurt you, you are perfectly safe. Vera! why you poor child, how your heart is beating. How sorry I am you came." That rouses her a little. " I— I am not sorry," she gasps, " it would be just as bad over at the house. Oh, Captain Dick, I am always fright- ened to death in thunder-storms. Do you— ^^ you think it will soon be over } " " It will be ever in fifteen minutes," returns Captain Dick, in the positive tone of one who always has his informa- tion from headquarters, ''and, meantime, neither the thun- der, nor the lightning, nor twice the hurly-burly will harm us. Hark ! there is the rain. It is only a summer shower after all. Our cyclone will be over in a moment now." And in a very few minutes it is over. There is a torrent of rain, a few more vivid flashes, a i^ss more rumbling peals, and then the spirit of the storm draws off his forces, growling sullenly as he goes. There is but the fuiious pour of the 122 AN EVEN IN Cf AT SHADDECK LIGHT. iil rain, and as Vera does not fear thaf, she lifts her diminished head, and, rather ashamed of herself, looks in a somewhat crest-fallen fashion at her companion. " What a goose you must think me, Captain Dick. But I can't help it. 1 have always been like this. I wonder," suddenly, " what keeps Daddy ? " " The storm, 1 suppose. He doesn't like a wetting any more than his betters." " And the tide is turning ! " cries the girl going to the window, "it must be nine o'clock. Captain Dick, the tide is turning." ** Let it turn. What is the tide to you and me ? " " But how am I to get off? how am I to go home ? " " Daddy will fetch you. He will come off in a boat pres- ently, and then, after supper, can row you ashore. Come, don't grow anxious, it will be all right." "Well — if you think so — you are sure Daddy will come ? " "Quite certain." *' Because if he did not you know I could walk it. The bar is still clear " " And the rain is still pouring in bucketfuls. Yes, it is so likely I will let you walk. I'll tell you what you may do, little Vera : does my memory serve me, or did I dream you owned to a genius for cooking ? " " I own to it. It is my one talent." *' And you are not afraid of blacking your hands ? " " Not a bit. Nature has made them so black that art nor soot cannot spoil them." " Verv well then. Yonder is the kitchen. In the kitch- en is a stove, in the stove is a fire, left by forehanded Daddy. On sundry shelves are various articles of tin and crockery appertaining to the cuisine. In different canisters are coffee, tea, milk, etc. Now, suppose, while we wait, you get up our supper. I am consumedly hungry. And if A NIGHT AT SFIADDECK LIGHT. 123 you prove to have the culinary skill you claim, when I re- turn from Central America, with my fortune made, I may en- gage you as my cook." _ Vera needs no second bidding. She goes to the kitchen in high glee. The invalid proposes accompanying her, and supermtendmg, but this she will not hear of. A true artist permits no interference— an artist in cooking least of all He is to remain on his lounge and smoke, if he likes, and issue no orders, and prepare to be enchanted with the re- suit. The lightning has quite ceased ; the rain is ceasing. Great rifts in die clouds show gleams of yellow light. It is nine, but still not entirely dark, and by and by there will be a moon. Daddy can row her ashore by moonlight, and in si3ite of the storm this will be an evening to dream of, when Captain Dick— ah ! mournful thought— is far away. CHAPTER XIII. A NIGHT AT SHADDECK LIGHT. HE Dona Veronique Maria Martinez bustles about among the crockery and canisters mentioned by the master of the house, making coffee, frying ham cutting bread and making toast. Captain Richard Ffrench lies at ease, half smiling as he watches the busy little figure flitting about. And the August evening wears, and the August night comes trailing darkly, spangled with stars, over the world. A cool wind rises, the sea washes up, in steady deep pulses, the minutes fly, and Daddy comes not. He pulls out his watch at last. " Nine," he says, with a start. t' ' n I' 1 :: 124 A NIGHT AT SHADDECK LIGHT. H % " Daddy should be here. What can keep the fool ? What a pretty pickle if the Dona should have to stay all nigh*- — if Daddy does not come at all." But this catastrophe he does not greatly fear. Daddy always comes; he is badgered by the gamins of St. Ann's whenever he shows in the streets ; he will not fail in this crisis. The druggist and the tempest combined have detained him. And then /era appears in the door-way freighted with a large tray, the odors from which are as nectar and ambro- sia, and twice as substantial. This she places on a table, wheels it up to the invalid's couch, lights a lamp, and sets it in the middle. She arranges her edibles, and takes her seat to preside, issuing her orders with the pretty peremptoriness of an amateur matron. " No, you are not to stir. Captain Dick. I can do every- thing myself and prefer it. Just keep still, and do as you are told. Here is your coffee — does it not smell deli- ciously ? " " The perfume of Araby the Blest — and the taste — words fail. Consider yourself engaged from this moment as head- cook of my future establishment." '* Let me help you to ham, and try this toast. Is your coffee sweet enough ? How funny it seems, this gipsy supi)er out here in the middle of the sea, doesn't it ? " *' Ah ! very funny I " Then mentally : " What the dickens keeps Daddy ? " " If Dot only could see us — or Mrs. Charlton. Good gra- cious ! Mrs. Charlton would be shocked out of her seven senses." " Why? We are doing no harm." " That makes no difference. It isn't the things that are most harm that shock people most," says Vera, with uncon- scious knowledge of the world. " Another cup of coffee ? I knew you would like it." '' Never tasted its like at the Caf6 de Paris." Half-past ■ -^ 1 A NIGHT AT SHADDECK LIGHT. 125 nine — he piills out his watch surreptitiously. ''Good heav- ens ! will that half-witted clown never come !" "By the way," he says, "and apropos of nothing — Dot knows where you are, of course ?" " Yes— no— I don't believe she does. I didn't tell her. I didn't know I was coming. She told me about your acci- dent, and I forgot everything but that, and ran off. Have another piece of toast ? Is not Daddy very long about com- ing ? " " I should think so," replies Captain Dick, with an ill-re- pressed groan. He is growing seriously uneasy. More than once it has happened to Daddy to be belated and kept in St. Ann's all night — what if this be one of the nights ! The tide is making too rapidly now for her to think of crossing to the main land, and if Daddy does not bring a boat "Any more ham? No? Well, this is a promiscuous picnic ; I shall never forget it. Now, I will clean off the things, and then there will be nothing to do but sit down and wait for Daddy and the boat." "Nothing to do! Good Heavens!" Captain Ffrench says to himself again, in direst dismay. It is close upon ten now, and still only the wash of the surf on the rocks breaks the dread silence of night and ocean. The rising moon streams in and fills the little room, for his cook-elect has taken the lamp to the kitchen. He goes to the window and looks out. " Sister Anne, Sister Aftne, do you see anybody coming ? " cries Vera, gayly. Her work is done, and waiting is begun. " Water, water, everywhere, but no Daddy visible. Captain Dick, what if he doesn't come at all ? " " By Jove 1 " he says, and looks at her so blankly that she breaks into a laugh. " Would it not be awful ? And Mrs. Charlton's face when I go back ! No—it is too fearful to think of ! " She laughs again— Vera's sweet, joyous laugh, no thought of the real 126 A NIGHT AT SHADDECK LIGHT. awkwardness, the serious contretemps, breaking on her mind. " Captain Dick, you should have let me walk home." " Jiut I thougiit Daddy would come — 1 made sure Daddy would come ! " he murmurs, helplessly. He goes back to his couch, and pulls his long mustache in dire perplexity. "Confound Daddy! — yea, trebly hang and confound him! What can keep the great softy ? If the child has to stay all night " He looks at her sitting there with all a child's unconsciousness in her fLice. "Jt will be the deuce of a scrape ! And what will they say at Charlton ? What will Eleanor say ? — and her awful mother ? — and the governor ? and Dora ? " Vera is singing softly to herself. The stars are shining down on the sleeping sea ; the moon is pouring its white, lonesome light over everything ; nothing but the world of waters around them — Adam and Eve in Eden were never more alone. " The night has a thousand eyes," sings Vera, her head thrown back, her upraised eyes fixed on the glittering sky — **The day but one, Yet the light of the bright world dies With the dying sun. ** The mind has a thousand eyes, The heart but one ; Yet the light of a whole life dies When day is done." Half-past ten I With the moonlight full on her face, she sits in the old arm-chair, the sea-wmd lifting her short curls, drinking in the solemn loveliness of the night. There is si- lence. He lies gnawing his mustache, vexed, puzzled, pow- erless to help himself. Hovv anxious they will be at Charl- I A NIGHT AT SHADDECK LIGHT. 127 ton. How unconcerned she seems ; singing, too, by George ! He is half inclined to resent that ignorance of innocence. But, after all, what cannot be cured must be endured— care killed a cat— it is really no fault of his; she is only a little girl, and — eleven ! The night is so still; what wind there is, is blowing towards them, and the clock of St. Ann's Town Hall has a loud bass voice. Eleven ! Still silence. Vera's song has died out, Captain Ffrench has given up rhe forlorn hope at last. " ^He Cometh not,' she said," quotes Vera, in tones of subdued tragedy. " I— I'm afraid not. I'm awfully sorry, little Vera. What must you think of me ? It is all my fault— you could have walked. I never imagined it would end like this." The intense vexation of his tone is not to be concealed. She looks at him in surprise. Of what he is thinking— of the way the predicament may affect her— she never dreams. " But, after all, there is no great harm done. I am safe, and it is better for me to be here than that you should be left alone. Dot will guess where I am, and the rest will not care. I suppose the tide will go out again early in the morn- ing, and then I can walk ashore." There is no more to be said. He accepts the situation as It IS his custom to accept the inevitable, and throws off all care for the morrow. To-night his duty is to make his guest as comfortable as may be, to-morrow must take care of itself. Her sister will understand, and as Vera herself says, it is no one else's business. No one need ever know —she can cross about seven in the morning, and be home in tiine for breakfast. So Captain Dick cheers up, throws off worry, and becomes hospitably solicitous about her ni^-ht's rest. "^ '■You cannot sit there until morning, you know,"he says. " Daddy has a roost under the eaves. 1 will mount, and 128 A NIGHT AT SIIADDECIC LIGHT. l I you must try and make yourself as comfortable as may be down here. You need fear no burglars, and sea-pirates don't tish in Siiaddeck Hay. After all, it will not be half a bad adventure to look back on, in the monotony of the TraftcMi school -room. Don't get nervous ; don't let the sound of the sea frighten you. Remember there will be a sweet little cherub up aloft ready to fly down at the faintest call. And now, as it is high time you were sound, I will as- cend. Good-night and pleasant dreams, little Vera." Vera i)rotests — he will hurt his shoulder. She is very comfortable, thank you, in this chair. She will go up under the Mansard instead. In vain — on this point he is inflexi- ble, and goes while she is politely persisting. No need of shooting bolts or burglars, of locking doors, or barring case- ments at Shaddeck Light. He is gone, and Vera and the moonlight are alone. Alone ! How lonely it is — she has never realized fully what the word meant before. How awe-inspiring in its sol- emn, sighing mystery, that sleeping sea, how desolate the eternal wash of the slow breaking surf, how mournful the echo of the night wind 1 Now and then there is the disso- nant scream of a gull — nothing else of life to break upon the voices of the night. Moonlight and water, water and moon- light — their dot of an island, their speck of a house ! St. Ann's, a long, dark line of coast, with here and there a glim- mering light, and she alone in all the world, as it seems, alone as Peter Wilkins on his desert island, before the ad- vent of his wonderful flying wife. But there is that '* sweet little cherub " up aloft — the thought of him brings comfort and companionship. How very awful to be here quite alone, no Captain Dick upstairs. She can hear him mov- ing about, and there is protection and cheeriness in every creak of his boots. She feels no inclination for sleep, she is abnormally wide-awake — that mighty sweep of sea and sky, that golden, crystal globe up there, all these yellow clusters f A NIGHT AT SHADDECK LIGHT. 129 of stars, absorb her. It is such a night as she will never spend again, a night to be niaiked by a red stone in her life. She hopes Dot is not uneasy, but Dot will guess how it is. So she sits, and softly sings to herself, and the low, crooning lullaby steals up to the man overhead, and touches all that is chivalrous and tender in his heart. " Dear little soul ! " he thinks, " dear little, innocent, warm hearted Vera I How much younger she is than most girls of her age — how true and clear she sings ! What a noble, loving, generous woman she will make in five or six years. And how little is the fear of Mrs. Grundy before her eyes I What will Eleanor— what will Mrs. Charlton think and say of this escai)ade ? " Miss Charlton's refusal has not altogether, it will be per- ceived, broken the heart of Captain Ffrench. He feels considerably better, indeed, than before the ordeal — it is not certainty, but suspense that kills — Eleanor, conjugal bliss — ■ Charlton vs. Englehart and the rest of these bo7i canianuics — new discoveries, botanical and mineral, in Honduras — the die is cast between— it is to be the latter, and in his secret heart he rejoices. Twelve by the clock of St. Ann's. Vera is still by the window, but her croon has ceased, she is growing sleepy, and a trifle chilly. After all, a person might as well have a sleep— moonlight and sea effects will keep. So, yawning very much, she taker, her place on the lounge, and in five minutes is fast as a church. Morning ! She opens her eyes, as the first eastern beam shoots pink and golden into the little room. The window stands wide open and by it, smoking placidly, sits Captain Dick. " Is it to-morrow ? " she asks, rising on her elbow, " it does not seem half an hour since I lay down. Has Daddy come ? " " Good-morning, Doila Martinez. No, Daddy is still 130 A NIGHT AT SIIADDECK LIGHT. J \ II: among the missing. How late did you sit up last night ? Far into my beauty sleep, 1 heard a still small voice chant- ing, 'We won't go home till morning.' " " You heard nothing of the sort. How is the tide ? on the ebb or How ? Can 1 walk ashore ? " " Here is some one ! " cries Captain Ffrench. On the instant a boat sweei)s round the curve of the island and runs sharply up on the sand. *' Daddy at last," says Vera, with a yawn. " I shall not have to walk after all." " That is not Daddy's step," Daddy's master says, quickly. "There is more than one." The footsteps draw nearer, the door opens, and four per- sons enter the room. Dora l.ightwood, pale and breathless, Mrs. Charlton, austere and grim, Mr. Charlton, hobbling with a stick, a dark frown on his furrowed face, and the boatman last of all. " Vera ! " Dora cries, and rushes forward, and falls on her sister's neck, and lifts uj) her voice and weeps. The rest stand still — a dread trio. Captain Dick rises and removes his pipe, a crushing sense of iniquity upon him as he meets Mrs. Charlton's gorgon gaze. Then there is silence. And until the last day of his life that scene is before Dick Ffrench — his little den all jubilant with the morning sunshine. Dora's suppressed sobbing, Mrs. Charlton's stony glare, and the dark frown in his step-father's face. It never fades. But most of all, he sees little Vera, instinctively withdrawing from her sister, and with a brave, bright, loyal smile, taking her stand by his side. The image of Vera as she stood there will be with him his whole life-long. '%' f A MORNING AT SHAD DECK LIGHT, I31 on 1 CHAPTER XIV. A MORNING AT SHADDECK LIGHT. I'-RA is the first to speak. "It is not Captain Dick's fault," she exclaims, eagerly. «' Dora— and all of you ! it is not Cap- tain Ffrench's fliiilt. It is Daddy's. lie never came from St. Ann's all last night, and so I had to stay." A sort of smothered groan breaks from Mrs. Charlton. It says plainer than words, " Worse and worse ! Not even Daddy to act as cha[)eron." "And it stormed so, I was frightened nearly to death, and then when that was over the tide rose, and I couldn't walk —or swim. And there was no boat. And Captain Dick had his shoulder hurt, and couldn't manage one if there was. And I tell you Daddy never came. Dot, whv don't you say something?" cries Vera, stamping her football breathless and flushed in her defence. " What do you stand looking like that for? 1 didn't think you would be uneasy. I thought you were sure to know. What is the matter with you all? It was nobody's fault— nobody could help my staying here last night." No one speaks. The silence is beyond all telling, tremen- dous. Richard Ffrench has ridden down on the bayonets ot the enemy to red death many a time, has faced starvation more than once last year on the pale frozen deep, has stood face to face with mortal peril many a time and oft, but never —no never -has he felt such blank consternation as posses- ses him now! Conscience makes cowards of us all. He has been held a brave soldier, a reckless boatman, a fearless explorer, a daring hunter, but at this moment he is horribly 132 A MORNING AT SHAD DECK LIGHT, ^ [; 'B I ' afraid of Mrs. Charlton. And Mrs. Charlton's ••glittering eye " is upon him, and holds him as that other thcad optic held the trembhng wedding guest. Vera comes a hllle nearer, draws quite away from Dora, anil stands close by his side, her ilark face Hushing angrily. •'Captain Dick is not to blame," she repeats proudly; "he never sent for nie, he never wanted me to come. Hut I am glad I came — yes glad I " says Vera, Hinging back her head defiantly, •' for if I had not he would have been alone here witii his disabled arm. None o{ you cared! Not that he wanted anything, but if he had it would have been all the same. Daddy went to the druggist's, and never came back. And now, if you are ready," says Vera jiicking u[) her hat, and flashing defiance on the company, " / am. (Jood-by, Captain Dick." ** Not good-by just yet Vera, only good-morning," he answered, and with a smile takes the hand she offers in his strong clasp. His eyes praise and thank her, but his lips oidy smile. She knows nothing, except that they are all angry with her for staying from home last night, and want to throw the blame on him. She turns to the door, no one tries to stop her, on the contrary, Dora desires the greedily listening boatman to go as well. " Take her to the boat," she says, " and wait till we come." They depart and the house door closes behind them. Then Dora rises in her outraged sisterhood, and faces the enemy. To the frivolous mind it looks like a little barn- yard bantam ruffling its white feathers, and challenging to mortal combat a big Newfoundland. But there are no frivo- lous minds present, and Captain Dick feels hi? hour has come ! She is pale, and her cold blue eyes have a strange dry glitter, that really looks as much like triumph as anger. " And now, Captain Ffrench," she begins, *' what have you to say ? " I ! 1 A MORNIIVG AT SllADDECK LIGHT. 133 ily ■» 4 *' Nothing whatever," retorts that culprit, promptly. " Vera has told you all about it, I aiu very sorry if her absence causi;il you anxiety last night ; but I presume the storm extended as far as Charlton. As she says, it could not be helped." '* You have no more to say than this ? " " Not that I know of. 1 am very sorry. I am not aware that there is anytiiing more to be said." Miss Lightwood turns from him to the others, as if saying: " You hear ! He adds to the atrocity of his conduct cold- blooded indifference. And 1 am a poor little unprotected creature, unable to help myself." " You must be aware, sir," says Mr. Charlton, coming to the rescue, his voice harsh with irritating i)ain, '' that this is an abominable aftair — that people will talk — that — that it's an outrageous affair — that I wouldn't have had it happen for a thousand pounds — that — that there will be a devil of a scandal — that — that, in short, sir, you ought to be ashamed of yourself." He strikes his stick angrily on the ground, feeling that there is more stumbling in his elociuence than is needful, and thinking how little like the prisoner at the bar his boy looks, standing erect there, his head held well up, his dark face a little pale, his frank, honest, fearless eyes meeting theirs un- flinchingly. For 13ick, a very craven in his secret soul, be- fore his accusing angels, has a dogged instinct that he means to die game, outwardly at least. "Vera Martinez is blighted for life," says Mrs. Charlton, opening her sealed lips, and speaking in a deep, strong, slow, rasping, ominous monotone. " iMadam ! " says Dick Ffrench, savagely, swinging round, his face flushing red. •' Blighted for life!" repeats Mrs. Charlton, waving him contemptuously down — " irretrievably blighted ! She must live under a cloud all the rest of her days. It would have i -I' mvi: h -f ^; >. >■ i n m ifei ^ 134 A MORNING AT SHAD DECK LIGHT. been better for her if you had turned her out in the storm to perish, than have kept her here. Last night will be fatal for- ever to the reputation of this most unhappy young girl." She waves her hand again ; her tone is deep and Siddons- like ; it freezes the very marrow of this hapless young man's bones. Her gesture is tragic — indeed, she looks un- commonly like the tragic muse altogether, grown elderly and stout. Her stony stare is a blood-freezing thing to meet. Her words go through him one by one like bullets. Dora stands pallid, mournful, despairing — life evidently holds noth- ing more for her. Mr. Charlton is near her, gloomy, silent, frowning. He and Dot are the gentlemen of the jury, Mrs. Charlton is the ji'dge. The black cap is ready ; he has been tried by his peers and found guilty. If he has anything to say why the sen- tence of the law should not be pronounced, now is the time I It is the supreme hour of his life. And he stands, tall, square-shouldered, upright, looking from one to the other, the wretched prisoner in the dock, reading no hope of mercy in either Rhadamanthus face. " Look here ! " he bursts out at last, " this is all con- founded rubbish, you know. Blighted ! Under a cloud ! Sent adrift to perish ! By George ! You use forcible English, Mrs. Charlton I I tell you, governor, I tell you. Miss Lightwood, I tell you, madam, I am not to blame. It was simply an impossible thing for Vera to go home last night. As to sending her out to perishj that is all bosh, of course." *' I have no more to say," says Mrs. Charlton, folding her hands, and turning austerely away. " It is no business of mine. My daughter knows nothing of it, and shall not. It is a very delicate and disagreeable subject. I wash my hands of the whole matter. If the young person herself is satisfied," with a short, file-like laugh, '•'■we may be, I think." *' She is such a child — such a child," sobs Dora, covering "Ml i < 4 A MORNING AT SHADDECK LIGHT. 1 35 her face with her hands, - she does not know. Oh ! why did we ever, ever come ! " Dick puts his hands to his head, feeling that his senses are ree hng. What has he done-what is he to do ? Is it reallv such a tremendous affair as they are trying to make out, or- is all this a new version of Much Ado About Nothing ? He IS not versed in the nicer gradations, the subtler shades of feniuime propriety, as rigidly required by Mrs. Grundy-he only knows that he wishes an earthquake would split Shad- deck Light in two and swallow him bodily. It would be less ternhc than Dora's sobs, or Mrs. Charlton's death's-head stare. " What do you want me to do ? " he demands, turning at bay upon his tormentors at last. ^ " I ? " She laughs another short, rasping laugh. '* Noth- ing whatever. It is nothing to me. Vera Martinez's dis- grace does not touch " " Disgrace ! " cries Richard Ffrench, with sudden fierce- ness, facing her. " There is no other word for it that I know of-no other the world will call it by." "The world be " "No ! " says Mrs. Charlton, lifting her arm -that I will not endure. Sw'earing or passion never mended a shat- tered reputation yet. I permit no man to blaspheme in my presence." ^ " You mean to say . " "1 mean to say that I have no more to say. You are neither so Ignorant, nor so innocent as you pretend. You are a man of the world. Captain Ffrench, and do not need me to tell you what construction the world-when it knows it- will put upon Miss Vera's-ahem-eccentricity of last night It IS a -ery painful and embarrassing subject-I really must decline to discuss it now or at any other time." "But, by Heaven! xi shall be discussed," exclaims Cap. 136 A MORNING AT SHADDECK LIGHT. f\ ' i ■f ,:, tain Ffrench, fairly enraged. " You come here, and blacken that child's character, and then tell me you will not discuss the subject " "/ blacken her character! You forget yourself, Captain Ffrench ! Mr. Charlton, I nnist insist upon going. I never permit myself to be insulted twice." " I beg your pardon ! " Dick says, hastily, and with a sud- den total change of tone. " I have no right to lose my tem- per. If you and Miss liightwood, governor, will leave us for a few minutes I would like to — to " he is at a dead-lock, and the sentence is not finished. Dora's tears upset him beyond everything, and if there is any grain of truth in ail this rhodomontade he would like to get at it. Vera to suffer through him ! Why he would not have a hair of the dear little thing's head hurt for a universe. They obey — Dora indeed wipes her eyes, and dei)aits with alacrity. He places a chair for his marble guest, and takes another. *' Sit down," he says, briefly ; " let us get at the head and front of my offending, if we can. In all innocence — in all inability to help myself, it seems I have blundered. You tell me I did wrong in keei)ing the little one last night. To do otherwise was simply impossible, but we will let that go. Keep her I did. By so doing you say I have blighted her good name for life. Now there are but two sorts of evil I take it, the curable, and the incurable. To which does this belong ?" "To the curable, decidedly," replies Mrs. Charlton, promptly. She sees she iS" torturing her victim, and takes a malignant delight in his writhing. She feels as a cold blood- ed naturalist may who has a rare and precious beetle im- paled on a pin. "That is well. Now what am I to do? " "Does the 'what am I to do' not present itself unsug- gested, Captain Ffrench ? In my day when a young man ill A MORNING AT SHADDECK LIGHT. 1 3/ seriously compromised a young woman, there was but one honorable alternative — to marry her ! " She brings out the word with vicious relish. She has not the faintest, slightest, most shadowy tiiought that he will en- tertain the idea, or she would never utter it. Has he not been but just rejected by her daughter— does he not look upon Vera as a little girl, as in point of fact she is ? " Pure cussedness " has more to do with the spiteful suggestion than any thought of the possibility of its being acted upon. He sits quite still, looking ac her— his hands deep in his pockets, after his usual abstracted fashion, profound gravity on his face. " This is the one alternative ? " he asks. " The one alternative," she answers, " and in this case out of the question." " Why out of the question ? " " Why ! " in imitated surprise. "Why ? Because she is too young ; because she is a great grown up baby ; because you don't care a pin about her; because you are going away ; because— oh ! this is nonsense and a waste of time, and I really must go ! " He makes no attempt to detain her. He rises, opens the door politely, and escorts her to the boat. In it is seated Vera, her little straw hat tilted over her nose, half asleep in the sun. On the rocks are seated Mr. Charlton and Dora, in deep conversation— Dora still looking stricken and mournful, but resigned. Vera starts up at sight of him. They are making a great fuss about nothmg she thinks, and badgering Captain Dick for what is no fault of his, with his hurt shoulder and everything. " Governor," he says very quietly, " you will be at home for the rest of the day, I sui)pose ? Some time this after- noon I shall go ashore and have a talk with you. Ladies, good-morning." He t-kes off his hat ceremoniously to dame and demci 138 A MORNING AT SUA DD EC A' LIGHT. selle ; to Vera he gives a parting smile. That and the fact that he is coming hiter on, sends her home hapjjy. No one scolds her, no one asks her questions, the subject is tacitly dropped. The worst is over ; Cai)tain Dick has been hon- orably discharged on her evidence alone, and she lifts up her voice and sings, half in gladness, half in mischievous de- fiance of grim Mrs. Charlton : "A fair good morn to thee love, A fair good morn to thee, And pleasant be thy path love, Though it end not with me." Her high, sweet singing comes back on the morning wind to Richard Ffrench where he stands, and a smile breaks up the dark gravity of his thoughtful face. Id! h^\ V-.% ■• il i 5' »', i " No vows were ever plighted — We'd no farewell to say ; Gay were we when we met first, We parted just as gay. •' A fair good morn to thee love, A fair good morn awhile ; I have no parting signs to give, So take my parting smile ! " At all times it comes as naturally as unconsciously, almost as frequently to Vera to carol as to breathe. The last words float back to him, as the Nixie turns into her little cave and disappears. "A grown up baby ! " he repeats. " Yes, Mrs. Charlton, you are right, but baby or no baby my poor little Vera, it seems I am to ask vou to be mv wife." CAPTAIN DICK'S WOOmc. 139 CHAPTER XV. CAPTAIN dick's VVOOLMG. IFTEEN minutes later Daddy appears in a hang- dog and apologetic fashion, looking sober and sorry for it. He had been overtaken by the storm, It appeared, and lying down in a back kitchen he knew of, had fallen asleep. For Daddy to flill asleep was a much easier thing than to awake ; the gray dawn was break- mg when he opened his eyes again on this mortal life Captain Ffrench waves him away. He might have apos- trophized hun as erstwhile Sir Isaac Newton did his immor- tal dog, Diamond : " Oh, Daddy ! Daddy ! little thou know- est the mischief thou hast done ! " But the case is beyond all apostrophizing. " Go in and get your breakfast," he says, resi-nedly • " don't trouble yourself with excuses. You have imde the most distinguished blunder of your life, if the knowledei >v,ncc, and a„n l,.,t all over her bo.ly. ' , ,,a,u y„' ,0 -ry™>...er;.i»a,„,o.aU.^^^^ ...;,•,:;';::;; ;:;,:"'■"-'" ^'-- ^-^y^- ■^--t peu„a„.,y, a„d watch I l,ave but httle time to spare. This is a matter I cannot poss.hly discuss with Vera; cannot broach to a ail. I «ant n,y answer then from you " ^ ^^;^vill not spealc to her at all of- "I mean to say I will not s|>eak to her at all. Whatever IS to be sa,d to the poor child, you-her sister-sha sav it From first to last, the issue and its consequence: Irfes^ ant::iTei^;rmr,tr''-^'^^''''"- ^'""--^•' «r.in: ;;;":'oice! I'n _:, o::tf::;ri"::r""" "'''-•" nr. ,Mi r 1 "'^I'oiuiLbsiy I am sure — mean no- ^L'lch I """ '"' '-'" """'•■ '>-•"• S-™- -"«. Ca;S " So it seen,.,. Now, how an, I to set that wrong ri^ht P ■• "And that is .?" "To shield her ,mh yo. r „an,e-to „,ake her your wife '• He bows h,s head. Eleanor sits with her back t„ I f Playn,g very softly, so as not to disturb tl ': ve a ',? A trunge sort of angry, i.npatient pain fills bin, sTt i f ;o ..n,, n, son. tntangible way to 'the n.om^ s^rr^f 146 CAPTAIN DICK'S WOOING. ■H I ■> 1 1 u :■ < J i i ** Does she know ? " he asks at length. "She knows nothing." Dora interrupts quickly, "noth- ing! Do you think I would tell her, Captain Ffrench ? Vera is as innocent as an angel, as ignorant as a baby. No one has saiil one word to her." " That is well. And now the matter simplifies itself. I am going as I say — I will be down only once more. You will ask your sister for me, if she will do me the honor to become my wife. Her answer, you, or slie, or both can write. Here is my address. If that answer is yes ." " It will be yes," says Dora, very low. " You will arrange the marriage for the twenty-third. On the twenty-fourth 1 will sail with the expedition. My friend, Dr. Englehart, will come down with me ; and I — if it is all the same to you and her — 1 should wish the matter kept as private as may be. lean de[)end u[)on Englehart, and I think it is best the others should not know. It is a subject you see on which I should not relish chaff." She looks up at him. "You will really go then?" is on the tip of her tongue, but she bites it and bows silently. " It shall be as you say. If Vera is to be wooed and won by proxy, I might as well be the ambassadress, I suppose. Please give me your New York address." He gives it. And now a sense of the grim humor of the thing begins to dawn on Dora, She is a designing little witch, but she has this redeeming point, she knows a joke when she sees it and can laugh. A faint smile ripples about her lips now, as with the greatest gravity he pencils his hotel, and hands it to her. " You will say to Vera — for me — what you think best. On the twenty-third I will be here. You will make her understand that I do not give up the ♦expedition, and that I may be absent for years. Mr. Charlton will of course give her a home here, until my return — that I must exact if I marry. You will mention it to him." U.a *■■. IS on f i •i ^ CAP'JAIN DICK'S llOOING, 147 " Anytliing else, Captain Ffrench ?" " That is all, I think. I will not see Vera just novv-it is bettor 1 should not. Afake my adieux to her. (Jood-day Miss r.ightwood." •^' He bows and departs. LVra looks after hhn a moment, her bright eyes dancing with laughter. MVas there ever such a great, sunple-headed, ridiculous Dick, she thinks. " /am to ,\o his courting, am I ? What an artless pair he and Vera will make-about five years old, each of them I " She laughs softly, as she watches him say good-by to I'Jeanor. ^ ''And what will Nelly say-asking her one day, and mar- rying Vera the next ? And her mother ! Ah ! Mrs Charl- ton, you builded better than you knew, when vou took Cap- tain Dick to task-not for Vera's sake, but to gratify your own inborn ill-nature. And Charlton is to be the child's home after all ! ' She sees the young man leave the house, and go down the avenue with his long trooper's stride. Vera is nowhere about, and he is glad of it. He feels he cannot meet her just now. When he has quite gone, Dora rises briskly, and goes up to her sister's room. Vera lies, indulging in an afternoon siesta, induced by her sentimental vigil of last night, all unconscious that the hour is past, and her hero come and gone. 148 J/OfV DORA DOES IT. CHAPTER XVI. « i I' I .i!^..: HOW DORA DOES IT. ORA stands a moment and looks at her sister, a half smile on her face. Vera has coiled herself up like a kitten, in her white cover — sleep and warmth have flushed her checks — all her. black, short tresses curl up damp and silky around her forehead. She looks like the child she is, although tall and well-grown for her sixteen years, and sh' comes ne; ler being pretty, just now, than Dora has ever seen her. " Can it be possible she is going to grow into a handsome woman ? " Miss Lightwood thinks ; " her father was, I think, the handsomest man I ever saw, and Vera resembles him. If she does, Richard Ffrench will not have done so very badly after all. He is fond of her, too, but not in that way — yet. Men of his stamp never fall in love with girls in the transi- tion stage — in the short frock — and bread and-butter epoch — they require full-grown women. Well ! Vera will be that before he returns from his silver mining, and then he can woo his wife at his leisure." She takes a seat by the window, through which a cool breeze is blowing up from Shaddeck Bay. She does not awaken her sister ; there is no hurry. It has been said already that this girl is the one creature on earth Dora Lightwood loves. To her mind this thing she is about to do is a proof of that love. Vera is fond, very fond of Richard Ffrench ; she admires him beyond everything — he is her Sir William Wallace, her Sir Folko Montfau9on, her Sir Launcelot all in one, and a little superior to any of them. 1'. I HO IV DORA DOES IT. 149 * I •'1 What can conduce more to her future happiness than to be made his wife ? Vera has never thought of this, never once, and Dora knows it— her fondness and admiration are in the abstract. She would be perfectly satisfied to see him married to Eleanor or herself— all the same she would like to remain near him, to be with him always. The girlish fancy which makes him her ideal hero of romance now, will make him the man she loves by and by. Vera is of the type whose destinies are ruled much more by their heart than head— her love will make or mar her life. Then— taking a more practi- cal curn— Captain Ffrench is likely, eventually, to be not only a very rich, but also a very distinguished man. He has talent of no common order, he has unflinching determination, a dogged resoluteness to succeed. He is not afraid of hard work or waiting. Men of that kind are bound, sooner or later, to go up to the head of the class. Afarried to him, Vera's toiling days will be over ; Charlton, which she loves so much, will be her home ; she will have nothing to do, but grow up gracefully, study the accomplishments, transform herself into a pretty woman, and win her husband's heart on his return. On the whole, it is just as well he is going. Vera is too young ; she needs at least four years of har'd study then a winter in " the world ;" at the end of that time she will be fit to be any man's wife. For herself but here Dora breaks off, and her musing, half smile deepens. She has hei own dreams, and into them the show-rooms on Fourteenth Street enter not. She may sweep through madame's handsome suite occasionally, but it will not be Is forewoman. The waving trees of Charlton Place cast invit- mg shadows as she siis and looks. These are pleasant pastures— why go out from them to crop the scanty herba-e that grows about the streets of New York ? ^ All in a moment Vera awakes, looks blinkingly about her, rubs her knuckles into her eyes, and sits up with a gape. " You, Dot ? Is it morning ? " o ISO HOW DORA DOES IT. Mt \l Ij: ) ! ViV. i! ■■ I i " It is five in the afternoon," answers Miss Lightwood. " I hope you have had a long enough nap." Five in the afternoon ! Memory comes back to Vera with a bounce. She jumps out of bed, and stands the picture of consternation. '^ Five ! and Captain Dick said he would be here at three. Has he rot come, then ? " ** Captain Dick is the soul of punctuality, my dear, and every other virtue. He has been and gone." " Gone ! " " Gone — gone to New York. He bade me say good-by for him to you. He has been gone precisely half an hour." Vera sits down on the side of the bed, dismay in every feature. Tears fill her eyes, tears of anger, and reproach, and keenest disappointment. Her lips quiver. " Gone ! and you never called me. Oh, Dot !" *' Did you want to see him so badly, then ? Why, child, it is not possible you are crying ? Oh, this will never do ! you are as ignorant as a Hottentot of all sense of feminine decorum." " I don't care for decorum," says Vera, swallowing a gulp, "and I do " " For Dick Ffrench. That is patent to the universe. My dear, do you know what your Captain Dick would have a right to think if he saw you now ! " " That I was awfully sorry he went away without saying good-by." "Worse than that — that you were awfully in love with him." If Dora expects to galvanize Vera into a sense of her in- decorum by this abrupt announcement, she is mistaken. Vera only chews the end of her handkerchief, and looks a tritle sulky " I don't care ! He wouldn't think anything of the kind. As if a person couldn't like a person without bej»g in love HOW DORA DOES IT. iSi )> with him. I think it wa^ hateful of you, Dot, not to call me, when you knew I wanted to see him so much." "You always do want to see him so much, don't you? And it is such a tremendous time since you saw him last ! I should think," says Dora, a smile dawning about her pretty mouth, "you and he could have talked yourselves completely out of every earthly subject last night." "We didn't sit up talking all night, and you know it. And now he has gone to New York, and perhaps will not come down again at all." The tears are welling very near the surface again, and tremble in the voice that speaks. *' Oh, yes, he will— he said so ; he told me to tell you so. He is coming down for a particular purpose, indeed. Vera, come here — sit down. I have a message for you from Captain Ffrench." Vera looks eagerly. "Yes, Dot? But you might have called me, I think. What is it ? " " You are very fond of Captain Dick, are you not ? " " Of course ! " says Vera, promptly, and a little indig- nantly, at being questioned on such a self-evident fact. '' I don't see how any one could help it." Again Dora smiles, laughs outright indeed. It is impossi- ble to help it — the child is so overpoweringly verdant. "Well— but it won't do to say so to everybody you know. You are sixteen. Vera, and tall enough to be twenty. You are a young lady — not a child." " Am I ? " doubtfully. " I wish you wouldn't keep my dresses up to my ankles then, and I should love to have a crinoline. But the message ! the message ! Captain Dick didn't tell you to tell me I was grown up?" "Something like it. Vera, your simplicity, your green- ness exceeds all belief. Look here ! do you happen to know what being married means ? " 152 nO^V DORA DOES IT, ■*i "Certainly I do ! " retorts Vera, indignantly ; "it means everything dowdy and stii[)id that ever was ! It means scold- ing the \\iA\>, and slapping the children, and having a horrid time getting money from your husband " " Yes, I see you know," says Dora, laughing. " You are thinking of Mrs. Trafton. But everybody does not of neces- sity marry a rich old miser. " Some girls," says Dora, smiling into her sister's large, unconscious eyes, "marry tall, good- looking young gentlemen — ex-captains of cavalry, let us say — of whom they are very, very, very fond, and they live in places they think beautiful beyond telling, and are hai)py as the day is long. Vera ! Vera ! what a goose you are ! don't you understand ? Would you not like to be married ? Would you not like to be married to Richard Ffrench ? " Vera sits quite still, her eyes so imwinkingly fixed upon her sister, that she makes tliat eminently self-possessed young woman wince. Her color rises slowly, and deepens and deepens, but she looks neither startled nor shy. *' I don't know what you mean," she says. " Oh, yes you do ! You are fond of Captain Dick. When a young lady is fond of a young gentleman she naturally wishes to marry him." " Does she ? " says Vera, dubiously. " I suppose so. It always ends that way in stories. But I am not fond of Cap- tain Ffrench like — like thaty " No ? In what way then ? " "I never thought about marrying," says Vera, the red ris- ing to the roots of her hair, " and you know it." " But he has," says Dora, with emphasis : " he is not quite such a babe in the wood as you, my dear Vera. He has thought about marrying, not only thought about it, but spoken about it." " About — marrying — 7?ie? " "About — marrying — you ! '^ " But that is all nonsense ! " cries Vera, amazed and in- ;l i now DORA DOES IT. IS3 in- dignant. " He must have been in fun, you know. Why, it IS absurd ! Only a week or so ago he asked Eleanor. ' I wish you wouldn't say such ridiculous things, Dot." " Now, Vera, listen here. It isn't ridiculous. Captain Ffrench certainly asked Eleanor to marry him, but it was to please his step-father, not himself; he likes you best. Do you think he took Miss Charlton's refusal very much to heart ? Why, any one could see he was glad of it. He likes you best, and he wants you to marry him, Vera." " Wants me to marry — jiim ! " The words drop from her slowly, in vast amaze. She is trying to take in the idea. It is so entirely new that it re- fuses to be taken in all in a moment. But a great, slow light of gladness is coming into her eyes, too. " Wants you to many him," repeats Dora, watching her closely. ° The dark eyes flash out a quick, sudden joy. " Dot, would he stay at home ? Would he stay here al- ways ? Would he not go to Honduras ? " ^ " Oh, well, I am not so sure about that. He has prom- ised, you know, and men like to keep their word. But he would come back all the sooner, and when he came back you need never be se])arated from him more." Never be separated from him more !-never be separated from Captain Dick ! There is rapture in the thought It dawns upon her slowly. Always with him, rowing, driving smgmg-seeing him, hearing him, becoming acquainted with his numberless perfections day after day. Why the very thought is elysian. "Dora," she says, in solemn ecstasy, "I should love to marry Captain Dick ! " l^he look that accompanies this is too much for Dora She leans back in her chair and laughs until the tears stand in her eyes. " Oh, Vera, child, you will be the death of me yet ! Oh, 154 HO IV DORA DOES IT. IM r I i you simpleton ! You must never say such a thing as that!" " Why not, if it is true?" " liecausc — because the truth, the whole truth, is not to be told at all times. It is too rare and precious to be used in common in that way. Why, it would turn this crazy old world topsy-turvy in no time. You must never, never say you would love to marry any man. It is simply awful ! " " Not even Captain Dick ?" " Not even Captain Dick — least of all Captain Dick. You must never let a man know you are so fond of him as all that. It would be ruinous." *' Would it ? " says Vera, looking dreadfully puzzled. " I am afraid I don't understand." " I am afraid you don't. But you understand this — that Captain Dick wants to marry you ? " *• What does he want to marry me for ? " There is something so irresistible in Vera's gravity as she asks these killing questions, that Dora nearly goes off again. But she restrains herself. " Because he is very fond of you, of course. The fondness is mutual, you see. Why does any gentleman ask a lady to marry him ? " " To please his step father sometimes, it seems. But that cannot be the reason now. Mr. Charlton does not want him to marry me. Dora, I believe this is all some joke you have made up to tease me." *' On my honor ! The last thing Captain Dick said to me, not an hour ago, was to ask you to be his wife before he started for Central America." " Then he was playing a practical joke, and I must say " " Vera, don't be an idiot ! I tell you no ! He likes you, and wants to marry you, and Mr. Charlton is very much pleased. Why don't you believe me? " HO IV DORA DOES IT. 155 he " Because the idea of anyone wanting to marry me me ! Oh, it is ridiculous ! And if he does, why didn't you wake me up, and let him ask me himself? " says Vera, still incredulous and suspicious. " Why ? Oh ! well, you see he was rejected by one lady such a very short time ago, that really the poor fellow has not the hardihood to risk a second refusal. He spoke to Mr. Charlton about it first this afternoon, and then to me. You were so young, he sc;id, and he feared to startle you, and all that, and would I just r.sk you for him. So I said yes, and that is why he did not wait to see you. He was in a hurry, too, to catch the five o'clock express. Here is his New York address, and you are to write to him and tell him your decision." Slowly conviction is breaking upon Vera. But it is the strangest thing— the hardest to comprehend. Captain Ffrench want to marry her I She knows he likes her, but— she is fairly puzzled, troubled, afraid to believe, yet longing to do so. To be always with Captain Dick— always with him at Charlton. What a heavenly idea ! "If you don't beheve me, come to Mr. Charlton," says Dora, calmly ; '' he is not in the habit of playing practical jokes." But Vera rejects this idea with consternation. Not for all the world. Is Dora sure he is really pleased? " Charmed," Dora asseverates. "■ And Eleanor, and Mrs. Charlton " " They do not know — shall not know for the present. The wedding is to be strictly private. That is Captain Dick's wish." The wedding ! Vera gives a gasp. "Then — when- " " Iw about a fortnight," responds Dora with composure ; " It IS sudden, but it is also his wish. He leaves on the twenty-fourth, he wishes the wedding to be on the twenty, third. Those are his words." 156 I/O IV DORA DOES IT. (Mil Vera sits silent. Her unusual color Is gone, and the dusk face and great dark eyes look wistful. " It is so strange — so strange," she sighs. *' I don't know what to say " *• You don't know what to say ! " exclaims Dora, aghast with suri)rise, "why you inexplicable child, I thought you would be delighted." " Yes, yes, so I am. I like oh ! I do like Captain Dick ! It is not that. There is nothing in the world 1 would not do for him. ]>ut it is so new, so strange — it frightens me somehow. To ask me so suddenly, to want to marry me, and then to go away just the same. When people marry people they stay at home with them, don't they ? " inquires Vera, vaguely. " Mostly," answers Dora, unable to repress a smile, " but this is an exceptional case. Captain Dick would naturally prefer to remain at home, but having promised he is bound to perform. You would not have him break his word, would you ? " " I would not have him do anything but what is noble and right," says Vera i)roudly, '* he could not. If he wants me to marry him, I will mary him. If he wants me to go with him, I will go. If he wants me to stay here and wait for him, I will stay. I will do anything — everything — he wishes." **Amost delightful state of wifely subjection and duty. Well, my dear-, it was a hard task, but I have beaten it into your stupid little noddle at last. Captain Ffrench wants to marry you on the twenty-tliird of August, and the marriage is to be as much on the quiet as possible, because imme- diately after he is obliged to leave you. I was to tell you this, and you are to send him your answer under your own hand and seal. That is the case. And now, I will leave you to digest it at your leisure, for you still look half dazed." "And llie letter?" ' » t A GIRL'S LETTER. 157 "The letter will keep. To-morrow will do." And then she goes, and Vera is alone. Alone, with a whole new world breaking upon her, a world of new thoughts, liopes, plans, possibilities, bliss. Captain Dick wants to marry her — wants to marry her — this king of men — she, little Vera Martinez, with the thin face, and long arms, and cropi)ed hair, and brown skin ! Why, it is wonderful ! The [)rince married Cinderella, to be sure, but then the fairy godmother i.ad been to the fore first, and transformed the grimy little cinder-sifter into a lovely lady. Ah ! why were the days of fairy godmothers extinct ? Why can she not ilash upon the dazzled vision of her hero, on the 23d inst. with a complex- ion of milk and roses, floating tresses of golden sheen (the lady on the bottles of Mrs. Allan's Hair Restorer, is before Vera's mind's eye, as she thinks this), not a single project- ing bone or knuckle visible. And he will come back for her in a little while — has not Dot said so — and the iairy tale will end as a fairy tale ought, after all. "And they lived happy forever after." CHAPTER XVII. A girl's letter. R. CHARLTON comes down to dinner to-day for the first time since his illness, and looks keenly across the table at his step-daughter-in-law elect. A glow of gladness is on the child's face, shining out as a light througli a transparency. Her great new happiness is there for all the world to read. She blushes as she catches the old gentleman's eye— then laughs frankly, and Mr. Charlton smiles in sympathy with that gay little peal. " She is too young— too young, but it will be all right by 158 A GIRL'S LETTER. \m and by. If the lad will but stay," he thinks, and looks with a sigh at the empty place. After dinner, in the drawing-room, he goes up to Vera and takes her hand. " And this is my little daughter ? " he says. She looks at him, and some womanly instinct awakes, and fills her eyes with tears. She stoops and kisses the wrinkled hand. " Jf you will let me be, sir." " And Dick's answer is yes ? " "It is yes, a thousand times over." " Good ! I like that. Have you told him so yet ? " " You know I did not see him, sir. 1 am to write to- morrow, Dora says." "Ah ! Dora says," he smiles, "it will soon cease to be as Dora says. You are very fond of Dick, are you not, little Vera ? " " Very fond, sir," Vera says, fearlessly and frankly, and without a blush. " Well, my dear, God bless you. You must grow up a good, and clever, and accomplished woman, so he may be proud of you. For you are very young, my little girlie, to be married." "I know it, sir. Very young, very ignorant, very un- worthy to be Captain Dick's wife." " I don't say that. And time works wonders. A girl with a head shaped like this, ought to have a brain. Beauty is very well — indispensable almost ; but brains are well, too — the combination is excellent in a woman. I am sure you will have the beauty, I think you will have the brains. And listen to me, little Vera — keep Dick at home when you get him." " I mean to try, sir," Vera answers, half laughing, half crying, "but, oh ! it seems so presumptuous to think of his ever giving up anything to stay with me." 1/ i l^-« I .1 A G/Rr:S LETTER. 159 J " I don't know about that. Don't be too modest. A man should stay with his wife. You must make yourself so fasci- nating, so accomjilished, so charming, that he will be unable to leave you. You must study hard and grow up such a lady as we will all be proud of." " I will try — oh, indeed I will try I '' Vera exclaims, clasp- ing her hands. r'vmbition is stirring within her. Afr. Charlton's praises h;' ve elated her. Study, become accomplished, learned, clover — ah ! will she not ? That evening passes like a dream — in Vera's after life its memory is misty as a dream. The restlessness that usually keejis her Hitting about the room is gone ; she sits quite still, her hands clasped behind her head, a dreamy smile on her face, her little high-heeled shoes crossed one over the otlier on a hassock. Dora is playing chess with Mr. Charl- ton, as customary ; Mrs. Charlton sits making tatting ; Elea- nor is reading. Vera lifts her happy eyes and looks at her. Poor Nelly ! she thinks, a great compassion filling her, how much she has lost. Does she realize it ? Surely not, or she never could sit there with that quiet face, reading so steadily. To refuse — deliberately and in cold blood to refuse Ca[)tain Dick ! As long as she lives. Vera feels, she will never be able to understand that ununderstandable wonder. The steadiness of her gaze magnetizes Miss Charlton. She looks up from her book, smiles, and comes towards her. " How quietly you sit ; how happy you look," she says. " You are not like yourself to-night. What is it, my Vera ? " "I am happy," Vera answers, "happy, happy, happy! So happy that 1 do not think anything can ever give me a moment's trouble again. I am the very happiest girl in all the world." " Indeed ? " Eleanor laughs. ** Permit me to congratu- late you. Is it indiscreet to ask the cause ? " I tii it: .1 i(3o A GIRL'S LETTER. " Ah ! T cannot tell you ; it is a secret — yet — but you will know soon." " It must be very soon, then, for I am goinr^ away on Monday." Vera o[)ens iier eyes. •* On Monday ? Going away from Charlton for good ? " " For good. I hn[)e you are just a little sorry." *' Oh, Nelly, sorry ! indeed, indeed, yes ! But so soon. Next Monilay? Oh, you must not! Mr. Charlton will never consent." Kleanor smiles a little sadly. " That is your mistake, my dear ; Mr. Charlton has con- sented." ** But this is dreadfully sudden. Why, we were all to stay until September. Wliat are you going so long before the time for ? Are you tired of Charlton ? " "Tired !" l"21eanor answers, and looks out at the moon- light, lying in broad, pale sheets in the grass. *' No, little V<,'ra, it is not that. I am going because 1 must go. So I am not to know this wonderful secret it seems. And Cap- tain Dick gone, too ! " smiling down into the eyes that droop suddenly, " and you and he such devoted friends ! Did you see him this afternoon ? " " No, I did not see him," Vera answers, confusedly. What would Eleanor say if she knew ? How can she sit and speak of him in that composed way when she has wil- fully lost him f(M-ever ? Does she guess it was only to [)lease his step-father he asked her, and was she too proud to accept a reluctant lover ? Will she not be pained, mortified, hu- miliated, when she knows the truth? Perhaps it is just as well for Eleanor's own sake she is going on Monday. It would be dreadful for her to be here, and see him married to somebody else. For she ;;///j-/ regret him. It is out of the order of things for her to help it, and this seeming serenity is but the fair outside that covers a blighted heart. Something A GIRL'S LETTER. l6l like this goes through Vora's sentimental little head in the paiue that ensues. Yes, on the whole, althou^jh she will miss and regret Nelly, it is as well. " I hce I am to pine in ignorance," says Afiss Charlton. " Well, I shall take away a picture of a radiant face at least, aiul, two blissful black eyes. Mow beautiful Charlton looks tonight. 1 wonder if I shall ever see i igain?" "Indeed you shall I '' cries Vera, with emphasis; "often and often ! I mean," as Eleanor looks at her in surprise, " that l\lr. Charlton will invite you again next summer, and " "Mr. Charlton will not invite me next summer, my dear, and I have a tolerably strong conviction that I am looking my last on its green beauty. Well ! it is the inevitable, and at least I am the better for having been here. Come and sing for me ; I like that fresh skylark voice of yours. I will play. Do you know, Vera, you have a very fine voice — so fine, that, projjcrly cultivated, you might leave off teaching, and distinguish yourself on the lyric stage." " I don't want to distinguish myself — in that way," Vera answers, thinking how differently the bolls of ''fe are break- ing for her ; "but, all the same, it shall be cultivated, and I am glad, very glad, it is fine." Again Eleanor looks at her in surprise. She does not un- derstand the girl this evening. What is this new happiness that has come to her? Has Mr. Charlton offered to adopt, educate, and keep her with him here always? And is Dora to stay, too, as prime minister of the household ? It looks like it, and seems reasonable. He likes brightness, and gayety, and youth, and pretty looks, and he is wealthy enough to indulge in more unreasonable whims. Of the dark doings cf last night she knows nothing. Her mother is still in a state of the blackest, silentest sulks ; no one else is likely to inform her. So she settles it in her own mind that this is the solution, as she strikes the first chord of her accompaniment. I I! l62 A GIRL'S LETTER. I! :! ill :ii For a long time that night Vera lies awake, thinking of her new felicity and of her letter. What is she to say to Cajitain Dick ? She knows nothing of the forms that obtain in love-letters, and her reading, copious, light, and romantic as it has been, gives her very little data to go ui)on. Sir r'olko is a married man when the admiring reader is first in- trochiced to him, consequently has no need to indite tender epistles. Ivanhoe never corresponded with either P.ebecca or Rowena, so far as Vera can remember — very probably did not know how to write indeed ; and the Corsair, in all his piratical meanderings, never so much as sent a single postal- card to the drooping Medora ! An it chances. Vera has written but two letters in her life, and these of the briefest', to the Miss Scudder of her story. She has a melancholy consciousness that she does not shine on paper, that neither her orthography, chirography, nor syntax, is above ''eproach. But then there is Dora — there is always Dora — Dora will know what to say, and bow to spell the words of three syllables, if she has to tackle any of these staggerers ; and with this blissful sense of refuge she drops at last to sleep. But, to her surprise and indignation, Dora flatly refuses next day. " Write your own love-letters, my dear," she says, coolly ; " it is a good rule never to interfere between man and wife — even if they are only man and wife elect. One never gets thanks in the end. Here is a nice sheet of thick white paper, a pen I can recommend, and a bottle of ink as black as your eyes. And here is a dictionary — I know that is in- dispensable, you poor little ignoramus. Now begin. Only I shall expect to see this famous production when done In the annals of sentimental literature 1 am quite sure it will stand alone." Dora is obdurate, deaf to all pleading, to the great disgust of the letter-writer. Thrown thus upon her own resources, A GIRDS LETTER. 163 Vera, after sitting for a while disconsolate, plucks up heart of grace, dips her pen in the ink, and begins : " Charlton Place, Aug ii, 18 " Dear Captain Dick : " That much glides off smoothly enough. After all people make a great deal more fuss about letter-writing than it is ft'orth. Vera feels she would not accept help now if it was offered — she will do it alone or perish — with an occasional peep into the big dictionary. So knitting her brows into a reflective scowl, she goes on, murmuring her sentences half aloud as she writes : to I •'Dear Captain Dick: Dorca has asked me to marry you. I like you very mucli, I think it would be splendid to be your wife, I am very much obliged to you for wanting me " *' It sounds jerky, somehoW;" says Vera, pausing discon- tentedly, " and it has too many I's. I never let Lex put three of his I's so close together as that. Dot ! you are laughing ! " Dora is holding a book up before her face, and is shaking behmd it. At this accusing cry she looks over the top to protest she never was more serious in her life, but in the effort explodes into a perfect shout. Vera lays down her pen in deepest dudgeon. " If you can do better, why don't you come and do it ? When a person refuses to help another person, and then can find nothing better to do than sit and laugh " " It— it is lovely ! " gasps Dora, with tears in her eyes. " Did I not say it would be unique ? To interfere with that letter would be to paint the lily. Oh ! go on — go on ! 'I am much obliged to you for asking me ! ' Oh, my side ! I shall die if I laugh any more." "Isn't that right?" inquires Vera, suspiciously. "I am much obliged to him, and why shouldn't I say so ? " I I ■ ll • if (fil 164 A GIRVS LETTER. *' VVhy, indeed ? Oh, proceed — I promise not to interrupt more." Vera compresses her lips. She feels that this is hard to bear, and wcnild scratch out the much obliged, if siie knew what to [)ut in its place. But she does not. "You miyht liave knocked me down with a /rt////i?;- when Dot told me. The idea of bcuig married to you, or anybody. Why, I never tlioutjht of such a tliuif^. And you must see so many ladies older and talli'r, and ever so \\\\\<:\\ prettier than 7ne ! I cannot for the lile of me see what you want me for. ]]ut I would rather wx^xxy you than anybody in the world. And I tiiink Ffrench ^ beautiful n'xxwQ. Veronica Mary Martinez Ffrench ! Does it not sound kind of rich and imposinj;? 15ut Airs. Captain Kichard Ffrench — that is better still. And always to live liere (Dot says I shall), why it will be just like heaven. At least, I suppose, that is irreverent, but it will be a sort of paradise on earth — oidy I wish you were not gomg away — it seems such a j/mwt' just to get married, and then start off on a tour with Dr. Iuigleha':t, and leave me behind. Couldn't / go to Honduras, too? But thcie ! I knoio I would be in the way. and I want to stay at home besides, and study etier so liard, so that you may not be ashavied of me when I grow up ? The idea of a gentleman's w//V growing up. Is it not funny ? " Vera stops, making insnne plunges at the inkstand, her eyes on the sheet, all in a glow of inky inspiration. Dora, indeed ! She would like to catch herself asking I>ora to help her with her letters after this. Why, it is as easy as talking. " You must tell me when you come down about the things you WHild like me to study hardest when you are awjkv. I hope you will not l,*e rivjP'^iticular .about botany and algebra— i (fer/'t* arithmetic, ami I know I ne\er can master nine times. Oh ! f nearly lorgot ! I was dread- fully sorry you went away without speaking to me. but f vnn- asleep up- stairs, and Dot never woke me. And now I shall only see you oncf before you go, and then we will be in such a fuss get tin f^ married t]>at we won't have time to say a single thing. What a lively (Asat we Itarf at Shaddeck Light night before last, hadn't we? I shall ai