" When Miss Lee and Mr. Broioi regularly went down to the rocks." 
 
 [See page CO. 
 
THE 
 
 UNCLE OF AN ANGEL 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS A. JANVIER 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE" "COLOR STUDIES 
 44 STORIES OF OLD NEW SPAIN " ETC. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 
 1891 
 
Copyright, 1891, by HARPER & BROTHERS. 
 All rights reserved. 
 
TO 
 
 C. A. J. 
 
 953008 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE UNCLE OF AX ANGEL 3 
 
 A BORDER RUFFIAN. ." 71 
 
 OUR PIRATE HOARD 99 
 
 A TEMPORARY DEAD-LOCK 135 
 
 FOR THE HONOR OF FRANCE 165 
 
 A ROMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUARE 181 
 
 AN IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE . . 239 
 
ILLUSTEATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 " When Miss Lee and Mr. Brown regularly went down to the 
 
 rocks" Frontispiece 
 
 "And for so stout a gentleman Mr. Port u as an excellent 
 
 horseman" 7 
 
 " JVbzo suppose T kiss you right on your dear little bald spot 1 1 1 18 
 
 "And before Mr. Port could rally his forces they had entered 
 
 the carriage and had driven away" 33 
 
 " What a charming girl your niece is, Port / said Mr. Brown " 37 
 
 "The yacht rounded to off the Casino" 43 
 
 "The severe Mrs. Logan llittenhouse" 57 
 
 "One night, as he sat beside the oven smoking his second pipe, 
 
 lie found himself thinking" 187 
 
 " When the dough ivas packed in earthen pots, over which blad 
 ders were tied, the pots were set away in the coolest part 
 of the cellar" 191 
 
 "The young apprentice ivas almost smothered in the dough- 
 trough, and the young man who drove the bread-wagon had 
 his head broken with the peel" 197 
 
 "But it ivas not until Minna said, very faintly, yet with a 
 heavenly sweetness in her voice: l Thou rnayst come, HansP 
 that Hans actually came" 231 
 
 "The comfortable home with high-peaked roof , partly thatched 
 
 and partly shingled" 241 
 
 "And when he was come home with her, the birds broke forth 
 
 together into a chorus of sweetest song" ...... 251 
 
 "And of a Sunday the children went together to be instructed 
 
 by the Redemptorist Fathers" 261 
 
 " Perhaps it is with me also, dear father, as it is with the 
 
 birds " . .281 
 
THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 
 
-3S 
 
WHEN Mr. Hutelnnson Port, a single gentleman 
 who admitted that he was forty-seven years old and 
 who actually was rising sixty, of strongly fixed per 
 sonal habits, and with the most positive opinions 
 upon every conceivable subject, came to know that 
 by the death of his widowed sister he had been 
 placed in the position of guardian of that sister s 
 only daughter, Dorothy, his promptly formed and 
 tersely expressed conception of the situation was 
 that the agency by which it had been brought about 
 was distinctively diabolical. The fact may be add 
 ed that during the subsequent brief term of his 
 guardianship Mr. Port found no more reason for 
 
4 THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 
 
 reversing this hastily formed opinion than did the 
 late King David for reversing his hastily expressed 
 views in regard to the general tendency of mankind 
 towards untruthfulness. 
 
 Th^ two : redeeming features of Mr. Port s trying 
 situati.on were that his duties as a guardian did not 
 l>e,g?n ;at. All until his very unnecessary ward was 
 nearly nineteen years old ; and did not begin active 
 ly his ward having elected to remain in France 
 for a season, under the mild direction of the elderly 
 cousin who had been her mother s travelling com 
 panion until she was almost twenty. When she 
 was one-and-twenty, as Mr. Port reflected with much 
 satisfaction, he would be rid of her. 
 
 Neither by nature nor by education had Mr. 
 Hutchinson Port been fitted to discharge the duties 
 which thus were thrust upon him. His disposition 
 was introspective but less in a philosophical sense 
 than a physiological, for the central point of his in 
 trospection was his liver. That he made something 
 of a fetich of this organ will not appear surprising 
 when the fact is stated that Mr. Port was a Phila- 
 delphian. In that city of eminent good cheer livers 
 are developed to a degree that only Strasburg can 
 emulate. 
 
 Naturally, Mr. Port s views of life were bounded, 
 more or less, by what he could eat with impunity ; 
 yet beyond this somewhat contracted region his 
 thoughts strayed pleasantly afield into the far wider 
 region of the things which he could not eat with 
 impunity ; but which, with a truly Spartan epicure- 
 
THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 5 
 
 anism, he did eat and bravely accepted the bilious 
 consequences ! The slightly anxious, yet determined, 
 expression that would appear upon Mr. Port s clean 
 shaven, ruddy countenance as he settled himself to 
 the discussion of an especially good and especially 
 dangerous dinner betrayed heroic possibilities in his 
 nature which, being otherwise directed, would have 
 won for him glory upon the martial field. 
 
 In minor matters that is to say, in all relations 
 of life not pertaining to eating Mr. Port was very 
 much what was to be expected of him from his birth 
 and from his environment. Every Sunday, with an 
 exemplary piety, he sat solitary in the great square 
 pew in St. Peter s which had been occupied by suc 
 cessive generations of Ports ever since the year 1761, 
 when the existing church was completed. Every 
 other day of the week, from his late breakfast-time 
 for some hours onward, he sat at his own particular 
 window of the Philadelphia Club and contemplated 
 disparagingly the outside world over the top of his 
 magazine or newspaper. At four, precisely, for his 
 liver s sake, he rode in the Park ; and for so stout 
 a gentleman Mr. Port was an excellent horseman. 
 On rare occasions he dined at his club. Usually, 
 he dined out; for while generally regarded as a very 
 disagreeable person at dinners because of his habit 
 of finding fault with his food on the dual ground of 
 hygiene and quality he was in social demand be 
 cause his presence at a dinner was a sure indication 
 that the giver of it had a good culinary reputation ; 
 and in Philadelphia such a reputation is most high- 
 
6 THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 
 
 ly prized. An irrelevant New York person, after 
 meeting Mr. Port at several of the serious dinner 
 parties peculiar to Philadelphia, had described him 
 as the animated skeleton ; and had supplemented 
 this discourteous remark with the still more dis 
 courteous observation that as a feature of a feast 
 the Egyptian article was to be preferred because 
 it did not overeat itself, and did keep its mouth 
 shut. However, Mr. Port s obvious rotundity de 
 stroyed what little point was to be found in this 
 meagre witticism ; and, if it had not, the fact is well- 
 known in Philadelphia that New Yorkers, being de 
 scended not from an honorable Quaker ancestry but 
 from successful operations in Wall Street, are not to 
 be held accountable for their unfortunate but un 
 avoidable manifestations of a frivolity at once in 
 elegant and indecorous. 
 
 In regard to his summers, Mr. Port after a month 
 spent for the good of his liver in taking the waters 
 at the White Sulphur of course went to Narragan- 
 sett Pier. It may be accepted as an incontrover 
 tible truth that a Philadelphia!) of a certain class 
 who missed coming to the Pier for August would 
 refuse to believe, for that year at least, in the alter 
 nation of the four seasons; while an enforced absence 
 from that damply delightful watering-place for two 
 successive summers very probably would lead to a 
 rejection of the entire Copernican system. 
 

 And for so stout a gentleman Mr. Port was an excellent horseman." 
 
THE UNCLE OF AX ANGEL. 
 
 II. 
 
 Being well advanced in years, well settled in habits 
 of a very rigid sort, arid well provided with a high 
 ly choleric temperament, Mr. Hutchinson Port ob 
 viously \vas not the sort of person whom any intelli 
 gent ward would have selected for a guardian. And 
 equally true is it that Miss Dorothy Lee, thus thrust 
 by Fate into his by no means out-stretched arms, 
 was far from being the sort of young woman whom 
 even an uncle w r ith strongly developed guardianly 
 instincts would have selected to practise upon as a 
 ward. There was a certain squareness about Dor 
 othy s admirably dimpled chin that suggested for 
 cibly (at least to a person cool enough not to be af 
 fected by the dimples) a temperament strongly in 
 clining towards the positive ; and it was a matter 
 of record that when an argument arose as to the 
 propriety of gratifying some desire lying close to 
 Dorothy s heart, her singularly fine gray eyes, es 
 pecially if the argument seemed to be going against 
 her, w T ould be lighted up by a resolute glitter quite 
 startling to contemplate. In point of fact, argu 
 ments of this nature had not arisen often ; for the 
 late Mrs. Lee had been a peace-at-any-price sort of 
 person, and for several years preceding her depart 
 ure for another and a better world had suffered her 
 
10 THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 
 
 maternal prerogatives to remain entirely in abey 
 ance. 
 
 " Poor dear mamma and I did not have a harsh 
 word for years, Uncle Hutchinson," Miss Lee ex 
 plained, in the course of the somewhat animated 
 discussion that arose in consequence of Mr. Port s 
 declaration that a part of their summer would be 
 passed, in accordance with his usual custom, at the 
 White Sulphur, and of Dorothy s declaration that 
 she did not want to go there. This, her first sum 
 mer in America, was the third summer after Mrs. 
 Lee s translation ; and since Dorothy had come into 
 colors again she naturally wanted to make the most 
 of them. " No, not a single harsh word did we ever 
 have. We always agreed perfectly, you know ; or 
 if mamma thought differently at first she always 
 ended by seeing that my view of the matter was 
 the right one. The only serious difference that I 
 remember since I was quite a little girl was that last 
 autumn in Paris ; when I had everything so perfect 
 ly arranged for a delightful winter in St. Petersburg, 
 and when mamma was completely set in her own 
 mind that we must go to the south of France. Her 
 cough was getting very bad then, you know, and 
 she said that a winter in Russia certainly would kill 
 her. I don t think it would have killed her, at least 
 not especially ; but the doctor backed mamma up 
 and said some horrid things to me in his polite 
 French way and declared that St. Petersburg was 
 not even to be thought of. 
 
 "And so, when I found that they were both 
 
THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 11 
 
 against me that way, of course I sacrificed my own 
 feelings and told mamma that I would do just what 
 she wanted. And mamma cried and kissed me, and 
 said that I was an angel : wasn t it sweet of her? To 
 be sure, though, she was having her own way, and I 
 wasn t ; and I think that I was an angel myself, for 
 I did want to go to Russia dreadfully. After all, 
 as things turned out, we might almost as well have 
 gone ; for poor dear mamma, you know, died that 
 winter anyway. But I m glad I did what I could to 
 please her, and that she called me an angel for doing 
 it. Don t you think that I was one? And don t 
 you feel, sir, that it is something of an honor to be 
 an angel s uncle? 
 
 " Now suppose I kiss you right on your dear little 
 bald spot, and that we make up our minds not to go 
 to that horrid sulphur place at all. Everybody says 
 that it is old-fashioned and stupid ; and that is not 
 the kind of an American watering-place that I want 
 to see, you know. It would have been all very well 
 if we d gone there while I was in mourning, and had 
 to be proper and quiet and retired, and all that ; but 
 I m not in mourning any longer, Uncle Hutchinson 
 and you haven t said yet how you like this break 
 fast gown. Do you have to be told that white lace 
 over pale-blue silk is very becoming to your angel 
 niece, Uncle Hutchinson? And now you shall have 
 your kiss, and then the matter will be settled." 
 With which words Miss Lee a somewhat bewil 
 dering but unquestionably delightful effect in blond 
 and blue fluttered up to her elderly relative, em- 
 
12 THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 
 
 braced him with a graceful energy, and bestowed 
 upon his bald spot the promised kiss. 
 
 " But but indeed, my dear," responded Mr. Port, 
 when he had emerged from Miss Lee s enfolding 
 arms, "you know that going to the White Sulphur 
 is not a mere matter of pleasure with me ; it is one 
 of hygienic necessity. You forget, Dorothy " Mr. 
 Port spoke with a most earnest seriousness "you 
 forget my liver." 
 
 " ISTow, Uncle Hutchinson, what is the use of talk 
 ing about your liver that way? Haven t you told 
 me a great many times already that it is an hereditary 
 liver, and that nothing you can do to it ever will 
 make it go right? And if it is bound to go wrong 
 anyway, why can t you just try to forget all about 
 it and have as pleasant a time as possible? That s 
 the doctrine that I always preached to poor dear 
 mamma she had an hereditary liver too, you know 
 and it s a very good one. 
 
 " Anyhow, I ve heard mamma say countless times 
 that Saratoga was a wonderfully good place for 
 livers; now* why can t we go there? Mamma al 
 ways said that Saratoga was simply delightful 
 horse-racing going on all the time, and lovely drives, 
 and rowing on the lake, and dancing all night long, 
 and all sorts of lovely things. Let s go to Sarato 
 ga, Uncle Hutchinson ! Mamma said that the food 
 there was delicious and you know you always are 
 grumbling about the food those sulphur people give 
 you. 
 
 " But what really Avould be best of all for you, 
 
" Now suppose I kixs you riylit on i/our dear little bald .<.y/o^." 
 
THE UNCLE OF AX ANGEL. 15 
 
 Uncle Hutchinson," Miss Lee continued, with in 
 creasing animation,- "is Carlsbad. Yes, that s what 
 you really want and while you are drinking the 
 horrid waters I can be having a nice time, you know. 
 Then, when you have finished your course, we can 
 take a run into Switzerland ; and after that, in the 
 autumn, we might go over to Vienna you will be 
 delighted with the Vienna restaurants, and they do 
 have such good white wines there. And then, from 
 Vienna, we really can go on and have a winter in 
 Russia. Just think how perfectly delightful it will 
 be to drive about in sledges, all wrapped up in furs" 
 Mr. Port shuddered ; he detested cold weather 
 "and to go to the court balls, and even, perhaps, to 
 be present the next time they assassinate the Czar ! 
 Oh, what a good time we are going to have ! Do 
 write at once, this very day, Uncle Hutchinson, to 
 Carlsbad and engage our rooms." 
 
 To a person of Mr. Port s staid, deliberate tempera 
 ment this rapid outlining of a year of foreign travel, 
 and this prompt assumption that the outline was to 
 be immediately filled in and made a reality, was up 
 setting. His mental processes were of the Philadel 
 phia sort, and when Miss Lee had completed the 
 sketch of her European project he still was engaged 
 in consideration of her argument in favor of throw 
 ing over the White Sulphur for Saratoga. How 
 ever, he had comprehended enough of her larger 
 plan to perceive that by accepting Saratoga prompt 
 ly he might be spared the necessity of combating a 
 far more serious assault upon his peace of mind and 
 
16 THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 
 
 digestion. Travel of any sort was loathsome to 
 Mr. Port, for it involved much hasty and inconsider 
 ate eating. 
 
 " Very well," he said, but not cheerfully, for this 
 was the first time in a great many years that he had 
 not made and acted upon plans shaped wholly in his 
 own interest, "we will try Saratoga, since you so 
 especially desire it ; but if the waters affect my 
 liver unfavorably we shall go to the White Sulphur 
 at once." 
 
 " What ! We are not to go to Carlsbad, then ? 
 Oh, Uncle Hutchinson, I had set my heart upon it ! 
 Don t, now don t be in a hurry to say positively that 
 we won t go. Think how much good the waters 
 will dt> you, and think of what a lovely time you 
 can have when your course is over, and you can eat 
 just as much as you want of anything !" 
 
 But even by this blissful prospect Mr. Port was 
 not to be lured ; and Dorothy, who combined a good 
 deal of the wisdom of the serpent with her presum 
 able innocence of the dove, perceived that it was the 
 part of prudence not further to press for larger vic 
 tory. 
 
 "And from Saratoga, of course, we shall go to 
 the Pier," said Mr. Port, but with a certain aggress 
 iveness of tone that gave to his assertion the air of 
 a proposition in support of which argument might 
 be required. 
 
 "To Narragansett, you mean? Oh, certainly. 
 From what several people have told me about Nar 
 ragansett I think that it must be quite entertaining, 
 
THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 17 
 
 and I want to see it. And of course, Uncle Hutch- 
 inson, even if I didn t care about it at all, I should 
 go all the same ; for I want to fall in exactly with 
 your plans and put you to as little trouble as possi 
 ble, you know. For if your angel wasn t willing to 
 be self-sacrificing, she really wouldn t be an angel 
 at all." 
 
 Pleasing though this statement of Early Christian 
 sentiment was, it struck Mr. Port as he subsequent 
 ly revolved it slowly in his slowly-moving mind as 
 lacking a little on the side of practicality ; for Miss 
 Lee, so far, unquestionably had contrived to upset 
 with a fine equanimity every one of his plans that 
 was not absolutely identical with her own. 
 
 III. 
 
 On the whole, the Saratoga expedition was not a 
 success. Even on the journey, coming up by the 
 limited train, Miss Lee was not favorably impressed 
 by the appearance of her fellow-passengers. Nearly 
 all of the men in the car (most of whom immediate 
 ly betook themselves to the bar-room, euphoniously 
 styled a buffet, at the head of the train) were of a 
 type that would have suggested to one accustomed 
 to American life that variety of it which is found 
 seated in the high places of the government of the 
 city of New York ; and the aggressively dressed and 
 too abundantly jewelled female companions of these 
 
18 THE UNCLE OF AX ANGEL. 
 
 men, heavily built, heavy browed, with faces marked 
 in hard lines, and with aggressive eyes schooled to 
 look out upon the world with a necessarily emphatic 
 self-assertion, were of a type that, without special 
 knowledge of American ways, was entirely recog 
 nizable. Albeit Miss Lee, having spent much time 
 in the mixed society of various European watering- 
 places, was not by any means an unsophisticated 
 young person, and was not at all a squeamish one, 
 she was sensibly relieved by finding that the chair 
 next to hers was occupied by a silvery-haired old 
 lady of the most unquestionable respectability ; 
 and her composure was further restored, presently, 
 by the return to his chair, on the other side of her 
 of Mr. Port : who had betaken himself to what the 
 conductor had told him was the smoking-room, and 
 who, finding himself in a bar-room, surrounded by 
 a throng of hard-drinking, foul-mouthed men, had 
 sacrificed his much-loved cigar in order to free him 
 self from such distinctly offensive surroundings. 
 
 At their hotel, and elsewhere, Miss Lee and her 
 uncle encountered many of their fellow-passengers 
 by the limited train, together with others of a like 
 sort which previous trains had brought thither ; and 
 while, on the whole, these were about balanced by 
 a more desirable class of visitors, they were in such 
 force as to give to the life of the place a very posi 
 tive tone. 
 
 At the end of a week Dorothy avowed herself 
 disappointed. " I never did think much of poor 
 dear mamma s taste, you know, Uncle Hutchinson," 
 
THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 19 
 
 she said, with her customary frankness, " and what 
 she found to like in this place I m sure I can t imag 
 ine. It s tawdry and it s vulgar ; and as for its 
 morals, I think that it s worse than Monte Carlo. I 
 suppose that there is a nice side to it, for I do see 
 a few nice people ; but, somehow, they all seem to 
 stand off from each other as though they were afraid 
 here to take any chances at all with strangers. And 
 I don t blame them, Uncle Hutchinson, for I feel 
 just that way myself. What you ought to have 
 done was to have hired a cottage, and then people 
 would have taken the trouble to find out about us ; 
 and when they d found that we were not all sorts of 
 horrid things we should have got into the right set, 
 and no doubt, at least if we d stayed here through 
 August, we should have had a very nice time. 
 
 "But we re not having a nice time, here at this 
 noisy hotel, Uncle Hutchinson, where the band can t 
 keep quiet for half an hour at a time, and where the 
 only notion that people seem to have of amusement 
 is to overdress themselves and wear diamonds to 
 dinner and sit in crowds on the verandas and dance 
 at night with any stranger who can get another 
 stranger to introduce him and to drive over on fine 
 afternoons to that place by the lake and drink 
 mixed drinks until some of them actually get tipsy. 
 I really think that it all is positively horrid. And so 
 I m quite willing now to go to the White Sulphur. 
 It is stupid, I know, but I ve always heard that it is 
 intensely respectable. I will get my packing all 
 done this afternoon, and we will start to-morrow 
 
20 THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 
 
 morning ; and I think that you d better go and tele 
 graph for rooms right away." 
 
 But to Dorothy s surprise, and also to her chagrin, 
 Mr. Port refused to entertain her proposition. He 
 fully agreed with her in her derogatory estimate of 
 Saratoga life as found at Saratoga hotels ; and he 
 cherished also a private grief incident to his (mis 
 taken) belief that the cooking was not so good as 
 he remembered it, bright in the glamour of his sound 
 digestion in his youthful past. On the other hand, 
 however, the waters certainly were having a most 
 salutary effect upon his liver ; and the move to 
 Virginia would involve spending two days of hot 
 weather in toilsome travel, sustained only by such 
 food as railway restaurants afford. Therefore Mr. 
 Port declared decidedly that until the end of July 
 they would remain where they were and so gave 
 his niece the doubtful pleasure of an entirely new 
 experience by compelling her to do something that 
 she did not want to do at all. It was a comfort to 
 Mr. Port, in later years, to remember that he had 
 got ahead of Dorothy once, anyhow. 
 
 Being a very charming young person, Miss Lee 
 could not, of course, be grumpy ; yet grumpiness 
 certainly would have been the proper word with 
 which to describe her mood during her last fort 
 night at Saratoga had she not possessed such ex 
 traordinarily fine gray eyes and such an admirably 
 dimpled chin. The fact must be admitted that she 
 contrived to make her uncle s life so much of a bur 
 den to him that his staying powers were strained 
 
THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 21 
 
 to the utmost. Indeed, he admitted to himself that 
 he could not have held out against such tactics for 
 another week ; and he perceived that he had done 
 injustice to his departed sister in thinking as he 
 certainly had thought, and even had expressed on 
 more than one occasion in writing that in permit 
 ting her European movements to be shaped in ac 
 cordance with her daughter s fancies she had ex 
 hibited an inexcusable weakness. 
 
 It was a relief to Mr. Port s mind, and also to his 
 digestion for Dorothy s grumpiness produced an 
 effect distinctly bilious when the end of July ar 
 rived and his own and his charming ward s views 
 once more were brought into harmony by the move 
 to Narrangansett Pier. Fortunately, while somewhat 
 disposed to stand upon her own rights, Miss Lee 
 was not a person who bore malice ; a pleasing fact 
 that became manifest on the moment that she be 
 gan to pack her trunks. 
 
 "I am afraid, Uncle Hutchinson," she observed, 
 on the morning that this important step towards 
 departure was taken " I am afraid that daring the 
 past week or so your angel may not have been quite 
 as much of an angel as usual." 
 
 "No," replied Mr. Port, with a colloquial disre 
 gard of grammatical construction, and with perhaps 
 unnecessary emphasis, " I don t think she has." 
 
 "But from this moment onward," Dorothy con 
 tinued, courteously ignoring her uncle s not too 
 courteous interpolation, and airily relegating into 
 oblivion the recent past, "she expects to manifest 
 
22 THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 
 
 her angelic qualities to an extent that will make 
 her appear unfit for earth. Very possibly she may 
 even grow a pair of wings and fly quite away from 
 you, sir right up among the clouds, where the other 
 angels are ! And how would you like that, Uncle 
 Hutchinson?" 
 
 In the sincere seclusion of his inner consciousness 
 Mr. Port admitted the thought that if Dorothy had 
 resolved herself into an angelic vol-au-vent (a simile 
 that came naturally to his mind) at any time dur 
 ing the preceding fortnight he probably would have 
 accepted the situation with a commendable equa 
 nimity. But what he actually said was that her de 
 parture in this aerated fashion would make him pro 
 foundly miserable. Mr. Port was a little astonished 
 at himself when he was delivered of this gallant 
 speech ; for gallant speeches, as he very well knew, 
 were not at all in his line. 
 
 On the amicable basis thus established, Miss Lee 
 and her guardian resumed their travels ; and, ex 
 cepting only Mr. Port s personal misery incident to 
 the alimentary exigencies of railway transportation, 
 their journey from the central region of New York 
 to the seaboard of Rhode Island was accomplished 
 without misadventure. 
 
THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 23 
 
 IV. 
 
 Ill regard to Narragansett Pier, Miss Lee s opin 
 ions, the which she was neither slow in forming nor 
 unduly cautious in expressing, at first were unfavor 
 able. 
 
 "And so this is f the Pier, is it?" she observed in 
 a tone by no means expressive of approval as she 
 stood on the hotel veranda on the day of her arrival, 
 and contemplated the rather limited prospect that 
 was bounded at one end by the Casino and at the 
 other by the coal- elevator. "If- those smelly little 
 stones out there are the Rocks that people talk 
 about at such a rate I must confess that I am dis 
 appointed in them" Mr. Port hastened to assure 
 her that the Rocks were in quite a different direc 
 tion " and if that is the Casino, while it seems a 
 nice sort of a place, I really think that they might 
 have managed the arch so as not to have that hor 
 rid green house showing under it. And what little 
 poor affairs the hotels are ! Really, Uncle Hutchin- 
 son, I don t see what there is in this little place to 
 make such a fuss about." 
 
 "Dorothy," replied Mr. Port, with much solem 
 nity, " you evidently forget though I certainly have 
 mentioned the fact to you repeatedly- that the cli 
 mate of this portion of Rhode Island is the most 
 
24 THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 
 
 distinctively antibilious climate to be found upon 
 the whole coast of North America. For persons 
 possessing delicate livers " 
 
 " Oh, bother delicate livers at least, I beg your 
 pardon, Uncle Hutchinson," for an expression of 
 such positive pain had come into Mr. Port s face at 
 this irreverent reference to an organ that he regard 
 ed as sacred that even Dorothy was forced to make 
 some sort of an apology. " Of course I don t want 
 to bother your poor liver more than it is bothered 
 anyway ; but, you know, I haven t got a liver, and 
 I don t care for climates a bit. What I mean is : 
 what do people do here to have a good time?" 
 
 "In the morning," replied Mr. Port, "they bathe, 
 and in the afternoon they drive to the Point. This 
 morning we shall "bathe, Dorothy bathing is an 
 admirable liver tonic and this afternoon we shall 
 drive to the Point." 
 
 " Good heavens ! Is that all ?" exclaimed Miss 
 Lee. "Why, it s worse than Saratoga. Do you 
 mean to say, Uncle Hutchinson, that people don t 
 dance here, and don t go yachting, and don t have 
 lunch-parties, and don t play tennis, and don t even 
 have afternoon teas?" 
 
 "I believe that some of these things are done 
 here," replied Mr. Port, in a tone that implied that 
 such frivolities were quite beyond the lines of his 
 own personal interests. "Yes," he continued, " I am 
 sure that all of them are done here now for the 
 Pier is not what it used to be, Dorothy. The quiet 
 air of intense respectability that characterized Nar- 
 
THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 25 
 
 ragansett when it was the resort only of a few of 
 the best families of Philadelphia has departed from 
 it I fear forever ! But, thank Heaven, its climatic 
 characteristics remain intact. When you are older, 
 Dorothy, and your liver asserts itself, you will appre 
 ciate this incomparable climate at its proper value." 
 
 " Well, it hasn t asserted itself yet, you know ; and 
 I must say I m devoutly thankful that something 
 has happened to wake up the quiet and intense 
 ly respectable Philadelphians before I had to come 
 here. But I m very glad, dear Uncle Hutchinson," 
 Miss Lee continued, winningly, " that this climate 
 is so good for you, and I m sure I hope that you 
 won t have a single bilious attack all the time that 
 you are here. And you ll take your angel to the 
 dances, and to see the tennis, and you ll give her 
 lunch -parties, and you ll take her yachting, won t 
 you, you dear? But I know you will; and if this 
 were not such a very conspicuous place, and might 
 make a scandal, I d give you a very sweet kiss to pay 
 you in advance for all the trouble that you are go 
 ing to take to make your angel enjoy herself. You 
 needn t bother about the teas, Uncle Hutchinson 
 for the most part they re only women, and stupid." 
 
 Being still somewhat cast down by painful mem 
 ories of that trying final fortnight in Saratoga, dur 
 ing which he and his niece had pulled so strongly 
 in opposite directions, Mr. Port heard with a lively 
 alarm this declaration of a plan of campaign which, 
 if carried out, would wreck hopelessly his own com 
 fort of body and peace of mind. Obviously, this 
 
26 THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL, 
 
 was no time for faltering. If the catastrophe was 
 to be averted, he must speak out at once and with 
 a decisive energy. 
 
 " I need not tell you, Dorothy," he began, speak 
 ing in a most grave and earnest tone, " that it is my 
 desire to discharge in the amplest and kindest man 
 ner my duties towards you as a guardian " 
 
 " I m sure of it, and of course you needn t tell 
 me, you dearest dear and we might begin with 
 just a little lunch to-day. The breakfast was horrid, 
 and I didn t get half enough even of what there was." 
 
 " But I must say now," Mr. Port went on keen 
 ly regretting the unfortunate beginning that he had 
 given to his declaration of independence, but judi 
 ciously ignoring Dorothy s shrewd perversion of it 
 "that your several suggestions literally are impos 
 sibilities. I admit that dancing for a short period, 
 at about an hour after each meal, is an admirable 
 exercise that produces a most salutary effect upon 
 the digestive apparatus ; but persistent dancing until 
 an unduly late period of the night is a practice as 
 unhygienic as, in the mixed company of a watering- 
 place, it is socially objectionable. 
 
 " Tennis is an absurdity worthy of the vacuous 
 minds of those who engage in it. To suggest that 
 I shall sit in a cramped position in a draughty gal 
 lery for several hours at a stretch in order to watch 
 empty-headed young men playing a perverted form 
 of battledoor and shuttlecock across a net, is to im 
 ply that they and I are upon the same intellectual 
 level ; and this, I trust, is not the case. 
 
THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 27 
 
 a As you certainly should remember, Dorothy, all 
 persons of a bilious habit suffer severely from sea 
 sickness ; a fact that, of course, disposes effectually 
 of your yachting plans. For you are not desirous, 
 I am sure, of purchasing your own selfish enjoyment 
 if you possibly can have enjoyment on board a 
 yacht at the cost of my intense personal misery. 
 
 " But in regard to the lunches, my dear " Mr. 
 Port s tone softened perceptibly "there certainly 
 is something to be said. The food here at the hotel, 
 I admit, is atrocious, and at the Casino it is possible 
 occasionally to procure something eatable. Yes, I 
 shall have much pleasure in> giving a lunch this very 
 morning to my angel " (Mr. Port, warming in ad 
 vance under the genial influence of the croquette 
 and salad that he intended to order, became play 
 ful), "for what you said in regard to the breakfast, 
 Dorothy, was quite true it was abominable. If 
 you will excuse me, I will just step down to the 
 Casino now and give my order ; then things will be 
 all ready for us when w r e get back from the bath." 
 
 And such was Miss Lee s generalship that she 
 rested content with her success in one direction, and 
 deferred until a more convenient season her further 
 demands. She was a reasonable young woman, and 
 was quite satisfied with accomplishing one thing at 
 a time. 
 
28 THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 
 
 V. 
 
 Two or three days later Dorothy advanced her 
 second parallel. In the interval they had bathed 
 every morning and had driven to the Point every 
 afternoon, and they had held converse upon the 
 veranda of the hotel every evening until ten o clock 
 with certain eminently respectable people from Phil 
 adelphia, by whom Dorothy was bored, as she did 
 not hesitate to confess, almost to desperation. Fur 
 ther, Mr. Port had given a lunch -party to which 
 these same Philadelphians were invited; and his 
 niece had informed him, when the festivity was at 
 an end, that if he did anything like that again she 
 certainly would either run away or drown herself. 
 Any trials in this world or any dangers in the next, 
 she declared, were preferable to sitting opposite to 
 such a person as Mrs. Logan Rittenhouse, w T ho talk 
 ed nothing but uninteresting scandal and crochet, 
 and next to Mr. Pennington Brown, who talked only 
 about peoples great-grandfathers and great-aunts. 
 
 It was with a lively alarm that Mr. Port noted 
 these signs of discontent, together with returning 
 symptoms of the grumpiness which had disturbed 
 his comfort and digestion at Saratoga ; and it was 
 most selfishly in his own self-interest that he tried 
 to think of something that would afford his niece 
 
THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 29 
 
 amusement. Miss Lee, when she perceived that her 
 intelligently laid plans were working successfully, 
 was graciously pleased to assist him. 
 
 " It is a great pity, Uncle Hutchinson," she vouch 
 safed to remark on the fourth day of suppressed do 
 mestic sunshine, " that you don t like tennis. Don t 
 you think, for your angel s sake, that you could go 
 for just a little while this afternoon? There s going 
 to be a capital match this afternoon, and your angel 
 does so want to see it. You haven t been very 
 very agreeable the past two or three days, you dear, 
 and I fear that your liver must be a little out of 
 order. Really, you haven t given your angel a sin 
 gle chance to be affectionate and unless she can be 
 affectionate and s\veet and clinging, and things like 
 that, you know, your poor angel is not happy at all. 
 Suppose we try the tennis for just half an hour or 
 so? It won t be much of a sacrifice for you, and it 
 will make your angel so happy that she will make 
 herself dearer to you than ever, you precious thing." 
 
 This form of address was disconcerting to Mr. 
 Port, for during the period to which Miss Lee re 
 ferred he certainly had been trying not very clever 
 ly, perhaps, for such efforts were not at all in his 
 line, but still to the best of his ability to make 
 himself as agreeable as possible; and the effort on 
 the part of his niece to be angelic, of which she 
 spoke so confidently, he could not but think had 
 fallen rather more than a little short of absolute 
 success. The one ray of comfort that he extracted 
 from Dorothy s utterance was her reference to her- 
 
30 THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 
 
 self as his angel ; he had come to understand that 
 the use of this term was a sign of fair weather, and 
 he valued it accordingly. But even for the sake of 
 fair weather Mr. Port was not yet prepared to ex 
 pose his elderly joints to the draughty discomforts 
 of the galleries overhanging the tennis-court ; and 
 he said so, pretty decidedly. Almost anything else 
 he was willing to do, he added, but that particular 
 thing he would not do at all. 
 
 " As you please, Uncle Hutchinson," Dorothy an 
 swered, in a tone of gloomy resignation. "I am 
 used to hearing that. It is just what poor dear 
 mamma used to say. She always was willing, you 
 know, to do everything but the thing that I wanted 
 her to do. I remember, just to mention a single 
 instance, how mamma broke up a delightful water 
 party on Windermere that Sir Gordon Graham had 
 arranged expressly for us. The weather was rather 
 misty, as it is apt to be up there, you know, but 
 nothing worth minding when you are well wrapped 
 up. But mamma said that if she went out in such 
 a drizzle she knew her cough would be ever so much 
 worse and of course she couldn t really know that 
 it would be worse, for nobody truly knows what the 
 weather is going to do to them and so she wouldn t 
 go. And Sir Gordon was very much hurt about 
 it, and never came near us again. And unless I m 
 very much mistaken, Uncle Hutchinson, mamma s 
 selfishness that day lost me the chance of being 
 Lady Graham. So I m used to being treated in this 
 way, and you needn t at all mind refusing me every- 
 
THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 31 
 
 thing that I ask." And, being delivered of this dis 
 course, Miss Lee lapsed into a condition of funereal 
 gloom. 
 
 At the end of another twenty-four hours Mr. Port 
 knuckled under. " I have been thinking, Dorothy," 
 he said, " about what you were saying about tennis. 
 It s a beastly game, but since you insist upon seeing 
 it I ll take you for a little while this afternoon." 
 This was not the most gracious form of words in 
 which an invitation could be couched ; but Doro 
 thy, who was not a stickler for forms provided she 
 was successful in results, accepted it with alacrity. 
 Later in the day, as they returned from the Casino, 
 she declared : 
 
 "Your angel has had a lovely afternoon, Uncle 
 Hutchinson, and she is sure that you have had a 
 lovely afternoon too. And now that you ve found 
 what fun there is in looking at tennis, we ll go every 
 day, won t we, dear? Sometimes, you know, you 
 are just a little, just a very little prejudiced about 
 things ; but you are so good and sweet-tempered 
 that your prejudices never last long, and so your 
 angel cannot help loving you a great deal." 
 
 Mr. Port, who was not at all sweet-tempered at 
 that moment, was prepared to reply to the first half 
 of this speech in terms of some emphasis ; for he 
 was limping a little, and a shocking twinge took him 
 in his left shoulder when he attempted to raise his 
 arm. But Dorothy s sudden shifting to polite per 
 sonalities was of a nature to choke off his projected 
 indignant utterance. Yet not feeling by any means 
 
32 THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 
 
 prepared to meet in kind her pleasing manifestation 
 of affection, Mr. Port was a little put to it to find 
 any suitable form of response. After a moment s 
 reflection he abandoned the attempt to reply cohe 
 rently, and contented himself with grunting. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Encouraged by the success that was attending 
 her unselfish efforts to harmonize her own and her 
 uncle s conceptions of the temporal fitness of things, 
 Miss Lee began to find life at the Pier quite sup 
 portable. " There s not much to do here," she de 
 clared, with her customary candor, " and the hotels 
 all ugly and all in a row make it look like an 
 overgrown charitable institution ; and most of the 
 people, I must say, are such a dismal lot that they 
 might very well be the patients out for an airing. 
 But, on the whole, Pve been in several worse places, 
 Uncle Hutchinson ; and if only you d take me to a 
 hop now and then, instead of sitting every evening 
 on the pokey hotel veranda talking Philadelphia 
 twaddle with that stuffy old Mr. Pennington Brown, 
 I might have rather a good time here." 
 
 " You will oblige me, Dorothy," replied Mr. Port, 
 "by refraining from using such a word as * stuffy 
 in connection with a gentleman who belongs to one 
 of the oldest and best families in Philadelphia, and 
 who, moreover, is one of my most esteemed friends." 
 
" -4/M/ before Mr. Port could rally Ids forcts they had entered the car 
 riage and had driven away." 
 
THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 35 
 
 " But he is stuffy, Uncle Hutchinson. He never 
 talks about anything but who peoples grandfathers 
 and grandmothers were ; and Watson s Annals seems 
 to be the only book that he ever has heard of. In 
 deed, I do truly think that he is the very stuffiest 
 and stupidest old gentleman that I ever have known." 
 
 Mr. Port made no reply to this sally, for his feel 
 ings were such that he deemed it best not to give 
 expression to them in words ; but he was not unnat 
 urally surprised, after such a declaration of senti 
 ments on the part of his niece, when she begged to 
 be excused on the ensuing afternoon from her regu 
 lar drive to the Point, on the ground that she had 
 promised to make an expedition to the Rocks in 
 Mr. Brown s company. Had an opportunity been 
 given him Mr. Port would have asked for an expla 
 nation of this phenomenon ; but the carriage was in 
 waiting that was to convey his ward and her extraor 
 dinary companion to the end of the road at Indian 
 Rock a slight rheumatic tendency, that he declared 
 was hereditary, rendering it advisable for Mr. Brown 
 to reduce the use of his legs to a minimum and be 
 fore Mr. Port could rally his forces they had entered 
 it and had driven away. 
 
 In the evening Mr. Port found another surprise 
 awaiting hi m. Miss Lee presently retired from the ve 
 randa for the avowed purpose of searching for a miss 
 ing fan, thus leaving the two gentlemen together. 
 
 " What a charming girl your niece is, Port !" said 
 Mr. Brown, as the fluttering train of Dorothy s dress 
 disappeared through the door-way. 
 
36 THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 
 
 Mr. Port evidently considered that this possibly 
 debatable statement was sufficiently answered by a 
 grunt, for that was all the answer he gave it. 
 
 Not permitting his enthusiasm to be checked by 
 this chillingly dubious response, Mr. Brown con 
 tinued : 
 
 " She certainly is one of the most charming girls 
 I have met in a long time, Port. She is not a bit 
 like the average of young girls nowadays. I rarely 
 have known a young person of either sex to be 
 so genuinely interested in genealogy, especially in 
 Philadelphia genealogy ; and I must say that her 
 liking for antiquarian matters generally is very re 
 markable. I envy you, I really envy you, old boy, 
 the blessing of that sweet young creature s constant 
 companionship." 
 
 "Umpli do you?" was Mr. Port s concise and 
 rather discouraging reply. 
 
 " Indeed I do " Mr. Brown was too warm to no 
 tice the cynical tone of his friend s rejoinder " and 
 I have been thinking, Port, that we are a pair of 
 selfish old wretches to monopolize every evening in 
 the way that we have been doing this bright young 
 flower. It is a shame for us to keep her in our 
 stupid company though she tells me that she finds 
 our talk about old people and old times exceedingly 
 interesting instead of letting her have a little of 
 the young society and a little of the excitement and 
 pleasure of watering-place life. Now, how would it 
 do for us to take her down to the Casino to-night ? 
 There is to be a hop to-night, she says ; at least, that 
 
THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 39 
 
 is to say " Mr. Brown became somewhat confused 
 " I heard somewhere that there is to be a hop to 
 night, and while that sort of thing is pretty stupid 
 for you and me, it isn t a bit stupid for a young and 
 pretty girl like her. So suppose we take her, old 
 man ?" 
 
 As this amazing proposition was advanced by his 
 elderly friend, Mr. Port s anger and astonishment 
 were aroused together ; and his rude rejoinder to it 
 was : " Have you gone crazy, Brown, or has Dorothy 
 been making a fool of you ? Has she asked you to 
 ask me to take her to the Casino hop ? She knows 
 there is no use in talking to me about it any longer." 
 
 " No, certainly not at least that is to say well, 
 no, not exactly," replied Mr. Brown, beginning his 
 sentence with an asperity and positiveness that some 
 how did not hold out to its end. " She did say to 
 me, I confess, how fond she was of dancing, and how 
 she had refrained from saying much about it to you " 
 Mr. Port here interpolated a sceptical snort " be 
 cause she knew that taking her to the Casino would 
 only bore you. And I do think, Port, that keeping 
 her here with us all the time is grossly selfish; and 
 if you don t want to take her to the hop I hope you ll 
 let her go with me. But what w r e d better do, old 
 man, is to take her together then we can talk to 
 each other just as well, at least nearly as well, as we 
 can here, and we can have the comfort of knowing 
 that she is enjoying herself too. Come, Hutch ; 
 we re getting old and rusty, you and I, but let us try 
 at least to keep from degenerating into a pair of 
 
40 THE UNCLE OF AX ANGEL. 
 
 selfish old brutes with no care for anybody s com 
 fort but our own." 
 
 Mr. Hutchinson Port might have replied with a 
 fair amount of truth that so far as he himself was 
 concerned the degeneration that his friend referred 
 to as desirable to avoid already had taken place. But 
 all of us like most to be credited with the virtues of 
 which we have least, and he therefore accepted as 
 his due Mr. Brown s tribute of implied praise. And 
 the upshot of the matter was that Dorothy, when she 
 returned to the veranda again, was unaffectedly sur 
 prised (and considering how carefully she had planned 
 her small campaign she did it very creditably) by 
 discovering that her uncle s edict against the Casino 
 hops had been withdrawn. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Even Dorothy was disposed to believe that unless 
 some peculiarly favorable combination of circum 
 stances presented itself as a basis for her intelligent 
 manipulation her strong desire for a yacht voyage 
 must remain ungratified ; for, now that his liver was 
 decidedly the larger part of him, Mr. Port had a 
 fairly catlike dread of the sea. To be sure, Doro 
 thy s character was a resolute one, and her staying 
 powers were quite remarkable ; but in the matter of 
 venturing his bilious body upon the ocean she dis 
 covered that her uncle although now reduced to a 
 
THE UNCLE OF AX ANGEL. 41 
 
 fairly satisfactory state of submission in other re 
 spects had a large and powerful will of his own. 
 
 Fortune, however, favors the resolute even more 
 decidedly than she favors the brave. This fact Dor 
 othy comprehended thoroughly, and uniformly acted 
 upon. Each time that even a remote possibility of 
 a yacht cruise presented itself she instantly brought 
 her batteries to bear ; and, with a nice understanding 
 of her uncle s intellectual peculiarities, she each time 
 treated the matter as though it never before had 
 been discussed. 
 
 Therefore it was that when Miss Lee s eyes were 
 gladdened one day just as she and her uncle were 
 about to begin their lunch on the shady veranda of 
 the Casino by the sight of a trim schooner yacht 
 sliding down the wind from the direction of New 
 port, the subject of the cruise was revived with a sud 
 denness and point that Mr. Port found highly discon 
 certing. The yacht rounded to off the Casino, and 
 the sound of a plunge and a clanking chain floated 
 across the water as her anchor went overboard. 
 
 " Oh, isn t she a beauty !" exclaimed Dorothy, 
 with enthusiasm. "Now, Uncle Hutchinson, her 
 owner is coming ashore they have just brought the 
 gig round to the gangway and if you don t know 
 him you must get somebody to introduce you to 
 him; and then you must introduce him to me; and 
 then he will ask us to go on a cruise; and of course 
 we will go, and have just the loveliest time in the 
 world. I haven t been on board a yacht for nearly 
 five years (just look at the gig: don t the men pull 
 3 
 
42 THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 
 
 splendidly?) not since that nice little Lord Alder- 
 hone took poor dear mamma and me up to Norway. 
 We did have such a good time ! Poor dear mamma, 
 of course, was desperately sick she always was hor 
 ribly sea-sick, you know; but I m never sea-sick the 
 least bit, and it was perfectly delightful. Look, Un 
 cle Hutchinson, they ve made the dock, and now he s 
 coming right up here. What a handsome man he 
 is, and how well he looks in his club uniform ! It 
 seems to me I ve seen him somewhere. Do you 
 know him, Uncle Hutchinson ?" 
 
 A serious difficulty under which Mr. Port labored 
 in his dealings with his niece was his inability due 
 to his Philadelphia habit of mind to keep up with 
 the exceptionally rapid flow of her ideas. On the 
 present occasion, while he still was engaged in con 
 sideration of the irrational proposition that he should 
 court the desperate misery that attends a bilious man 
 at sea by as good as asking to be taken on a yacht 
 voyage, he suddenly found his ideas twisted off into 
 another direction by the reference to his sister s suf 
 ferings on a similar occasion in the past ; and be 
 fore he could frame in words the reproof that he was 
 disposed to administer to Dorothy for what he prob 
 ably would have styled her heartlessness, he found 
 his thoughts shunted to yet another track by a di 
 rect question. It is within the bounds of possibility 
 that Miss Lee had arrived at a just estimate of her 
 relative s intellectual peculiarities, and that she even 
 sometimes framed her discourses with a view to tak 
 ing advantage of them. 
 

THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 45 
 
 The direct question being the simplest section of 
 Dorothy s complex utterance, Mr. Port abandoned 
 his intended remonstrance and reproof and proceed 
 ed to answer it. " Yes," he said, "I know him. It s 
 Van Rensselaer Livingstone. His cousin, Van Ruy- 
 ter Livingstone, married your cousin Grace Grace 
 Winthrop, you know. He s a great scamp this one, 
 I mean ; gambles, and that sort of thing, I m told, 
 and drinks, and and various things. I shall have 
 to speak to him if he sees me, I suppose ; but of 
 course I shall not introduce him to you." 
 
 " Mr. Van Rensselaer Livingstone ! Why so it is ! 
 How perfectly delightful ! I know him very well, Un 
 cle Hutchinson. He was in Nice the last winter we 
 were there ; and he broke the bank at Monaco ; and he 
 played that perfectly absurd trick on little Prince Spo- 
 retti: cut off his little black mustache when Prince 
 Sporetti was was not exactly sober, you know, and 
 gummed on a great red mustache instead of it ; and 
 then, before the prince was quite himself again, took 
 him to Lady Ormsby s ball. All Nice was in a per 
 fect roar over it. And they had a duel afterwards, 
 and Mr. Livingstone lie is a wonderful shot in 
 stead of hurting the little prince, just shot away the 
 tip of his left ear as nicely as possible. Oh, he is a 
 delightful man and here he comes." And Dorothy, 
 half rising from her chair, and paying no more atten 
 tion to Mr. Port s kicks under the table than she did 
 to his smothered verbal remonstrances, extended her 
 well-shaped white hand in the most cordial manner, 
 and in the most cordial tone exclaimed : 
 
46 THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 
 
 "Won t you speak to me in English, Mr. Living 
 stone ? We talked French, I think it was, the last 
 time we met. And how is your friend Prince Spo- 
 retti ? Has his ear grown out again ? You know 
 my uncle, I think ? Mr. Hutchinson Port." 
 
 Livingstone took the proffered hand with even 
 more cordiality than it was given, and then extend 
 ed his own to Mr. Port who seemed much less in 
 clined to shake it than to bite it. 
 
 "I think that we are justified in regarding our 
 selves as relations now, Miss Lee, since our cousins 
 have married each other, you know. Quite a ro 
 mance, wasn t it ? And how very jolly it is to meet 
 you here when I thought that you certainly were 
 in Switzerland or Norway, or even over in that new 
 place that people are going to in Roumania ! I flat 
 ter myself that I always have rather a knack of fall 
 ing on my feet, but, by Jove, I m doing it more than 
 usual this morning !" 
 
 Miss Lee seemed to be entirely unaware of the 
 fact that her uncle was looking like an animated 
 thunder- cloud. "It is just like a bit out of a de 
 lightful novel," was her encouraging response. " A 
 long, low, black schooner suddenly coming in from 
 the seaward and anchoring close off shore, and the 
 hero landing in a little boat just in time to slay the 
 villain and rescue the beautiful bride. Of course 
 I m the beautiful bride, but my uncle is not a villain, 
 but the very best of guardians by-the-way, I don t 
 think that you know that poor dear mamma is dead, 
 Mr. Livingstone? Yes, she died only a week or two 
 
THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 47 
 
 after you left us. So you see you must be very nice to 
 the villain and you can begin your kind treatment 
 of him by having lunch with him and with me too. 
 Uncle Hutchinson was so pleased when he saw you 
 come ashore. He said that we certainly must capt 
 ure you, and he sent a man to bring some hot soup 
 for you at once here it is now." And so it was, 
 for Dorothy herself very thoughtfully had given 
 the order that she now modestly attributed to her 
 uncle. 
 
 And so in less than ten minutes from the moment 
 when Mr. Port had informed Dorothy that Van 
 Rensselaer Livingstone was a very objectional per 
 son whom he desired to avoid, and whose introduc 
 tion to her was not even to be thought of, they all 
 three were lunching together in what to the casual 
 observer seemed to be the most amicable manner 
 possible. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 "I ve run over to look up Mrs. Rattleton," said 
 Livingstone, as he discussed with evident relish the 
 filet that Mr. Port charitably hoped would choke him. 
 "Very likely you haven t met her, for she s only just 
 got here. But you ll like her, I know, for she s ever 
 so jolly. She s promised to play propriety for me in 
 a party that we want to make up aboard the yacht. 
 The squadron won t get down from New York for a 
 week yet, and I ve come up ahead of it so that we 
 
48 THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 
 
 can have a cruise to the Shoals and back before the 
 races. Of course, Miss Lee, you won t fly in the face 
 of Fate, after this providential meeting, by refusing 
 to join our party; at least if you do you will make 
 me wretche^. to the end of my days. And we will 
 try to make you comfortable on board, sir," he add 
 ed, politely, turning to Mr. Port. "I have a tolera 
 bly fair cook, and ice isn t the only thing in the ice- 
 chest, I assure you." 
 
 " How very kind you are, Mr. Livingstone," Doro 
 thy hastened to say, in order to head off her uncle s 
 inevitable refusal. " Of course we will go, with the 
 greatest possible pleasure. It is very odd how things 
 fall out sometimes. Now only this morning I was 
 begging Uncle Hutchinson to take me off yachting, 
 and he was saying how much he enjoyed being at 
 sea, and how he really thought that if it wasn t for 
 his age wasn t it absurd of him to talk about his 
 age? He is not old at all, the dear! he would have 
 a yacht of his own. And almost before the words 
 are fairly out of our mouths here you drop from the 
 clouds, or are cast up by the sea, it s all the same 
 thing, and give us both just what we have been long 
 ing for. At least, Uncle Hutchinson pretended to be 
 longing for it only in case he could be young enough 
 to enjoy it ; but if he doesn t think he s young now, 
 I d like to know what he ll call himself when he s 
 fifty!" And then, facing around sharply upon her 
 uncle, Dorothy concluded : " The idea of pretending 
 that you are too old to go yachting! Really, Uncle 
 Hutchinson,! am ashamed of you!" 
 
THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 49 
 
 As has been intimated, if there was any one sub 
 ject upon which Mr. Port was especially sensitive, it 
 was the subject of his age. As the parish register 
 of St. Peter s all too plainly proved, he never would 
 see sixty again ; but this awkward record was in an 
 out-of-the-way place, and the agreeable fiction that 
 he advanced in various indirect ways to the effect 
 that he was a trifle turned of forty - seven was not 
 likely to be officially contradicted. And it is not 
 impossible, so tenacious was he upon this point, that 
 had the official proof been produced, he would have 
 denied its authenticity. For it was Mr. Port s firm 
 determination still to figure before the world as a 
 youngish, middle-aged man. 
 
 To say that Miss Lee deliberately set herself to 
 playing upon this weakness of her guardian s, possi 
 bly, remotely possibly, would be doing her injustice. 
 But the fact is obvious that she succeeded by her 
 cleverly turned discourse in landing her esteemed 
 relative fairly between the horns of an exceedingly 
 awkward dilemma : either Mr. Port must accept the 
 invitation and be horribly ill, or he must reject it, 
 and so throw over his pretensions to elderly youth. 
 
 For a moment the unhappy gentleman hung in the 
 wind, and Dorothy regretted that she had not made 
 her statement of the case still stronger. Indeed, she 
 was about to supplement it by a remark to the effect 
 that people never thought of giving up yachting un 
 til they were turned of sixty, when, to her relief, her 
 uncle slowly filled away on the right tack. His ac 
 ceptance was expressed in highly ungracious terms; 
 
50 THE UNCLE OP AN ANGEL. 
 
 but, as has been said, Dorothy never troubled herself 
 about forms, provided she compassed results. The 
 moment that he had uttered the fatal words, Mr. 
 Port fell to cursing himself in his own mind for 
 being such a fool; but the same reason that had 
 impelled him to give his consent withheld him from 
 retracting it. He knew that he was going to be 
 desperately miserable; but, at least, nobody could 
 say that he was old. 
 
 " I m ever so much obliged to you, Miss Lee, and 
 to you too, Mr. Port," said Livingstone. "And now, 
 if you ll excuse me, I ll go and hunt up Mrs. Rattle- 
 ton, and tell her what a splendid raise I ve made, 
 and help her organize the rest of the party. We 
 shall have only two more. It s a bore to have more 
 than six people on board a yacht. I don t know 
 why it is, I m sure, but if you have more than six 
 they always get to fighting. Queer, isn t it?" 
 
 "I beg your pardon," said Mr. Port. "Mrs. Rat- 
 tleton ? May I ask if this is the Mrs. Rattleton 
 from New York who was here last season, the one 
 whose bathing costume was so so very eccentric, 
 and about whom there was so much very disagree 
 able talk?" 
 
 " Mrs. Rattleton is from New York, and she was 
 here last season," Livingstone answered. "But I 
 can t say that I remember anything eccentric in her 
 bathing costume, except that it was exceedingly be 
 coming ; and I certainly never heard any disagree 
 able talk about her. There may have been such talk 
 about her, but perhaps it was thought just as well 
 
THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 51 
 
 not to have it in my presence. Mrs. Rattleton is my 
 cousin, Mr. Port she was a Van Twiller, you know. 
 Do you happen to remember any of the things that 
 were said about her, and who said them ?" Living 
 stone spoke with extreme courtesy ; but there was 
 something in his tone that caused Mr. Port suddenly 
 to think of the tip of Prince Sporetti s left ear, and 
 that led him to reply hurriedly, and by no means 
 lucidly: 
 
 " Certainly no yes that is to say, I can t ex 
 actly remember anything in particular. I m sure I 
 was led to believe from what was said that she 
 was a very charming woman. No, I don t remem 
 ber at all." 
 
 "Ah, perhaps it is just as well," Livingstone re 
 plied, gravely. " But how lucky !" he added ; " there 
 she is now. Everybody is at the Casino about this 
 time of day, I fancy. May I bring her over and pre 
 sent her to you, Miss Lee ?" 
 
 " Of course you may, Mr. Livingstone. I shall be 
 delighted to meet her. And if she is to matronize 
 me, the sooner that I begin to get accustomed to her 
 severities the better." 
 
 And then Mr. Hutchinson Port suffered a fresh 
 pang of misery when the presentation was accom 
 plished and he was forced to say approximately 
 pleasant things to a lady whose decidedly ballet-like 
 attire in the surf or, to be precise, on the beach 
 above high-water-mark, where, for some occult rea 
 son, she usually saw fit to do the most of her bath 
 ing joined to the exceeding celerity of her con- 
 
I 
 52 THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 
 
 duct generally, had marked her during the preceding 
 season as the conspicuous centre of one phase of life 
 at the Pier. Nor was Mr. Port s lot made happier 
 as he listened to the brisk discussion that ensued in 
 regard to the organization of the yachting party, 
 and found that its two remaining members were to 
 be drawn, as was only natural, from the eminently 
 meteoric set to which Mrs. Rattleton belonged. 
 
 Had time been given Mr. Port for consideration 
 it is probable that he would have collected his men 
 tal forces sufficiently to have enabled him to lodge a 
 remonstrance ; he might even though this is doubt 
 ful, for Dorothy s voting power was vigorous have 
 accomplished a veto. But projects in which Mrs. 
 Rattleton was concerned never went slowly ; and in 
 the present case the necessity for getting back in 
 time for the races really compelled haste. And so 
 it came to pass that not until the Fleetwmgs was off 
 the Brenton s Reef light-ship, with her nose pointed 
 well up into the north-east, was there framed in Mr. 
 Port s slow-moving mind a suitable line of argu 
 ment upon which to base a peremptory refusal to 
 go upon the expedition and by that time he was 
 so excruciatingly ill in his own cabin that coherent 
 utterance and converse with his kind were alike im 
 possible. 
 
 So far as Mr. Port was concerned the ensuing six 
 days made up an epoch in his life that can only be 
 described as an agonized blank. And when as it 
 seemed to him many ages later the Fleetioings once 
 more cast anchor off Narragansett Pier, and he step- 
 
THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 53 
 
 ped shakily from the schooner s gig to the Casino 
 dock, the usual plumpness and ruddiness of his face 
 had given place to a yellow leanness, and his weight 
 had been reduced by very nearly twenty pounds. 
 The cruise had been a flying one, or he never would 
 have finished it. After the first six hours he would 
 have landed on a desert island cheerfully and it is 
 not impossible that a hint from Dorothy as to her 
 uncle s probable movements should a harbor be made 
 had induced Livingstone to give the land a wide 
 berth. 
 
 Dorothy came ashore blooming. "You don t know, 
 Uncle Hutchinson," she said, " what a perfectly love 
 ly time I ve had " and this cheerful assertion was 
 the literal truth, for Mr. Port had entered his cabin 
 before the yacht had crossed the line between Bea 
 ver Tail and Point Judith, and had not emerged 
 from it until the anchor went overboard. "And 
 you don t know," Miss Lee went on with effusion, 
 " how grateful your angel is to you for helping her 
 to have such a delightful cruise. I m sorry that 
 you haven t been very well, Uncle Hutchinson ; but 
 I know that you will be all the better for it. Poor 
 dear mamma, you know, was bilious too, and going 
 to sea always made her wretched ; but she used to 
 be wonderfully well always when she got on shore 
 again. And you ll be wonderfully well too, you 
 dear; and that will be your reward for helping your 
 angel to have such a perfectly delightful time." 
 
 Mr. Port made no reply to this address, for his 
 condition of collapse was too complete to permit 
 
54 THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 
 
 him to give form in words to the thoughts of rage 
 and resentment which were burning in the depths 
 of his injured soul. Without a word to one single 
 member of the party, he climbed heavily into a car 
 riage and was driven directly to his hotel while 
 Dorothy, still under the chaperonage of Mrs. Rat- 
 tleton, gayly joined the pleasant little lunch-party at 
 the Casino with which the yacht voyage came to an 
 end. 
 
 IX. 
 
 During the ensuing week, a considerable portion 
 of which Mr. Port passed in the privacy of his own 
 room, the relations between Miss Lee and her guar 
 dian were characterized by a chill formality that 
 was ominous of a coming storm. In point of fact, 
 Mr. Port was waiting only until he should fully re 
 gain his strength in order to try conclusions with 
 Dorothy once and for all and he was most highly 
 resolved that in the impending battle royal he should 
 not suffer defeat. So far, he had gone down in each 
 encounter with his spirited antagonist because the 
 tactics employed against him were of an unfamiliar 
 sort. But he was beginning to get the hang of these 
 tactics now ; and he also had got what in fighting 
 parlance would have been styled his second wind. 
 As he thought of the wrongs which had been heaped 
 upon him, rage filled his breast ; and the strong de 
 termination slowly shaped itself within him that to 
 
THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 55 
 
 the finesse of the enemy lie would oppose a solid 
 front of brute force. 
 
 Astuteness was not the least marked of Miss Lee s 
 many charming characteristics, and although her 
 guardian gave no outward sign of his belligerent 
 intentions, she felt an inward conviction that a de 
 cisive trial of strength between them was at hand. 
 Five or six years earlier she had engaged in a trial 
 of this nature with her mother, and had emerged 
 from it victorious. In that case, feminine weakness 
 had yielded to feminine strength. But now the 
 gloomy thought assailed her that her uncle, while 
 closely resembling her mother in the matter of his 
 liver, had in the depths of his torpid nature a 
 substratum of brutal masculine resolution against 
 which, should it fairly be set in array, she might 
 battle in vain. And the upshot of her meditations 
 was the conviction that her only chance of suc 
 cess lay in avoiding a battle by a radical change of 
 base. 
 
 An easy way, as she perceived, to effect such a 
 change of base was to marry Van Rensselaer Liv 
 ingstone. Indeed, his proposal, a couple of days 
 after the yacht voyage ended, came so opportunely 
 that she almost was surprised into accepting it out 
 of hand. But Dorothy was too well balanced a 
 young person to do anything hastily, even to get 
 herself out of a tight place ; and while she held Liv 
 ingstone s proposal under advisement as a line of 
 retreat kept open for use in case of urgent necessity 
 she welcomed it less for the possibilities of a safer 
 
56 THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 
 
 position that it offered than for those which it sug 
 gested to her fertile mind. 
 
 Marriage, she decided, was the only way by which 
 she could score a final victory over her uncle, and at 
 the same time spike his guns ; but it did not neces 
 sarily follow that her marriage must be with Living 
 stone. Indeed, as her coolly intelligent mind per 
 ceived, marrying an unmanageable young man in 
 order to be free of an unmanageable old one would 
 be simply walking out of the frying-pan into the 
 fire and that was not at all the resolution of her 
 difficulties that Dorothy sought. The plan that 
 now began to shape itself in her mind w r as one by 
 which both fire and frying-pan would be success 
 fully avoided ; and as the more that she examined 
 into it the more desirable it appeared to her, she lost 
 no time in carrying it into effect whereby, in less 
 than three days time, she sent Mr. Van Rensselaer 
 Livingstone away in such a rage that he put to sea 
 in the very face of a threatening north-easter, and in 
 a much shorter period she caused her uncle seriously 
 to doubt the evidence of his own senses. 
 
 At the end of his week of retirement, Mr. Port 
 found himself in the hale condition of a bilious 
 giant refreshed with blue-pills. He looked a little 
 thinner than when he had started upon his ill-starred 
 cruise, and his usual ruddiness was not as yet fully 
 restored ; but he was in capital condition, and a good 
 deal more than ready for Miss Lee to come on. He 
 could not very well, in the nature of the case, start 
 an offensive campaign ; but at the very first sug- 
 
" The severe Mrs. Logan Jiiltothoust," 
 
THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 59 
 
 gestion on Dorothy s part of the slightest desire to 
 engage again in any of the various forms of frivo 
 lous amusement by which she had made his life a 
 burden to him, he was all loaded and primed to go 
 off with a bang that he believed would settle her. 
 
 And, such is the perversity of human nature, Mr. 
 Port presently became not a little annoyed by Doro 
 thy s failure to supply the spark that was to touch 
 him off. In fact, her conduct was bewilderingly 
 strange. She drew away from the lively circle of 
 which Mrs. Rattleton was the animated centre and 
 voluntarily associated herself with the elderly and 
 very respectable Philadelphians whose acquaintance 
 she previously had so emphatically declined. Still 
 further to Mr. Port s astonishment, the lady and 
 gentleman especially singled out by Miss Lee as 
 most in accord with her newly-acquired tastes were 
 the severe Mrs. Logan Rittenhouse and that lady s 
 staid brother, Mr. Pennington Brown. At the feet 
 of the former, quite literally, she sat as a disciple in 
 crochet; and listened the while with every outward 
 sign of interest to the dull record of South Fourth 
 Street scandals of the past and West Walnut Street 
 scandals of the present which this estimable matron 
 poured into her ears by the hour at a time. And in 
 a quiet corner of the veranda (Mr. Brown s eyesight 
 having failed a little, so that he found reading rather 
 difficult) she read aloud to the latter from Watsorfs 
 Annals; and listened with a pleased satisfaction to 
 his comments upon her selections from this, the Phil 
 adelphia Bible, and to the numerous anecdotes of a 
 
GO THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 
 
 genealogical and antiquarian cast which thus were 
 recalled to his mind. Possibly the readings from 
 "Watson were continued in the afternoons when 
 Miss Lee and Mr. Brown regularly went down to 
 the Rocks. So extraordinary was all this that Mr. 
 Port admitted frankly to himself that he could 
 make neither head nor tail of it; but he had an in 
 born conviction that such an unnatural state of 
 affairs was not likely to last. There was good 
 Scriptural authority, he called to mind grimly, for 
 the assertion that the leopard did not change his 
 spots nor the Ethiopian his skin. 
 
 In accordance with the substantial customs of his 
 fellow-citizens, Mr. Port always returned to Phila 
 delphia sharp on the 1st of September calmly ig 
 noring the heat and the mosquitoes, which are the 
 dominant characteristics of Phildelphia during that 
 month, and resting secure in the knowledge that the 
 course which he pursued was that which his father 
 and his grandfather had pursued before him. It 
 was on the eve of his departure from Narragansett 
 that his doubts and perplexities occasioned by Doro 
 thy s surprising conduct were resolved. 
 
 Being seated in a snug corner of the veranda in 
 company with Mr. Pennington Brown, Mr. Port was 
 smoking a comforting cigar. Mr. Brown, who also 
 
THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. Cl 
 
 was smoking, did not seem to find his cigar comfort 
 ing. He smoked it in so fitful a fashion that it re 
 peatedly went out ; and his nervousness seemed to 
 be increased each time that he lighted it. Further, 
 his comment upon Mr. Port s discourse which was 
 a more than ordinarily thoughtful and accurate 
 weighing of the relative merits of thin and thick 
 soups obviously were delivered quite at random. 
 At first Mr. Port was disposed to resent this inat 
 tention to his soulful utterances ; but as the subject 
 was one in which, as he well knew, his friend was 
 profoundly interested, he presently became uneasy. 
 
 " What s the matter, Brown ?" he asked, in a tone 
 of kindly concern. "Is your rheumatism bothering 
 you ? I ve been afraid that your absurd sitting 
 around on rocks with my niece would bring it on 
 again. You re not as young as you once were, Pen, 
 and you ve got to take care of yourself." 
 
 " I am not aware, Port," Mr. Brown answered 
 rather stiffly, "that I am as yet conspicuously super 
 annuated. Indeed, I never felt younger in my life 
 than I have felt during the past fortnight. I have 
 a little touch of rheumatism to-night," he added, 
 frankly, and at the same time gave unintentional 
 emphasis to his admission by catching his breath 
 and almost groaning as he slightly moved his legs, 
 "but it has nothing to do with sitting on the rocks 
 with Dor with your charming niece. You forget 
 that my rheumatism is hereditary, Port. Why, I 
 had an attack of it when I was only five-and-twenty." 
 
 "All the same, you wouldn t have it now if you 
 4 
 
62 THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 
 
 had spent your afternoons sensibly with me here on 
 a dry veranda, or properly wrapped up in a dry car 
 riage, instead of on damp rocks, with that baggage. 
 What on earth has got into you I can t imagine. If 
 you were twenty years younger, Brown, I should 
 think, yes, positively, I should think that you were 
 iu love with her." 
 
 " Port," said Mr. Brown, with a tone of resent 
 ment in his voice, " I shall be very much obliged if 
 you will not use such language when you are speak 
 ing of Miss Lee. She is the best and kindest and 
 noblest woman I ever have met. You have most 
 cruelly misunderstood her. Had you given her half 
 a chance she would have been to you only a source 
 of constant joy." 
 
 Mr. Port replied to this emphatic assertion by 
 a low, but most pointedly incredulous, whistle. 
 
 "You have not the slightest conception, as such 
 a comment shows," Mr. Brown continued, with in 
 creasing asperity, "of the depths of sweetness and 
 tenderness which are in her nature ; of her perfect 
 unselfishness; of the gentleness and trustfulness of 
 her heart. She is all that a woman can be, and 
 more. She is she is an angel !" Mr. Brown s el 
 derly voice trembled as he made this avowal. 
 
 As for Mr. Port, his astonishment was almost too 
 deep for words. But he managed to say : " Yes, I 
 suppose she is at least she has said so often enough 
 herself." 
 
 For some seconds there was silence ; and then, 
 with a deprecating manner and in a voice from 
 
THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 63 
 
 which all trace of resentment had disappeared, Mr. 
 Brown resumed: "Hutch, old man, you and I have 
 been friends these many years together, and you 
 won t fail me in your friendship now, will you ? 
 You are right, I am in love with this sweet young 
 creature, and she think of it, Hutch ! she has ad 
 mitted that she is in love with me ; not romanti 
 cally in love, for that would be, not absurd, of 
 course, but a little unreasonable for while I m not 
 at all old, yet I know, of course, that I am not ex 
 actly what can be called young but in love sensi 
 bly and rationally. She wants to take care of me, 
 she says, the dear child!" (Mr. Port grunted.) 
 "And she has such clever notions in regard to my 
 health. When we are married how strange and 
 how delightful it sounds, Hutch ! she says that we 
 will go immediately to Carlsbad, where the waters 
 will do my rheumatism a world of good ; and from 
 there, when I am better, we will go on to Vienna, 
 where the dry climate and the w 7 hite wfties, she 
 thinks, still further will benefit me ; and from Vi 
 enna, in order to set me on my feet completely, we 
 are to go on to the North and spend a winter in 
 Russia for there is nothing that cures rheumatism 
 so quickly and so thoroughly, she says (though 1 
 never should have imagined it) as steady and long- 
 continued cold. Just think of her planning it all 
 out for me so well ! 
 
 "Yes, Hutch, I love her with all my heart; and 
 what has made me so nervous to-night is the great 
 happiness that has come to me it only came posi- 
 
64 THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 
 
 lively this afternoon and the dread that perhaps, 
 as her guardian, you know, you might not approve 
 of what we have decided to do. But you do ap 
 prove, don t you, Hutch ? Of course, in a few 
 months she will be her own mistress, and your con 
 sent to our marriage, as she very truly says, then 
 will be unnecessary. But even a month seems a 
 desperately long while to wait ; and that is the very 
 shortest time, she thinks, in which she could get 
 ready though the dear child has consented to wait 
 for most of the little things which she wants until 
 we get on the other side." Mr. Port smiled cyni 
 cally at the announcement of this concession. It 
 struck him that when Dorothy was turned loose 
 among the Paris shops, backed by the capacious 
 purse of a doting elderly husband, she would mow 
 a rather startlingly broad swath. "So you won t 
 oppose our marriage, will you, old man ? You will 
 consent to my having this dear young creature for 
 my wife ?" 
 
 Various emotions found place in Mr. Port s breast 
 as he listened to this extraordinary declaration and 
 appeal. At first he felt a lively anger at Dorothy 
 for having, as he coarsely phrased it in his own 
 mind, so successfully gammoned Mr. Pennington 
 Brown ; to this succeeded an involuntary admiration 
 of the clever way in which she had managed it ; and 
 then a feeling of profound satisfaction possessed him 
 as there came into his slow-moving mind a realizing 
 sense of his own deliverance. But Mr. Port was not 
 so utterly selfish but that, in the midst of the sunrise 
 
THE UXCLE OF AX ANGEL. 65 
 
 of happiness which dawned upon him with the open 
 ing of a way by which he decently could get rid of 
 Dorothy, he was assailed by certain qualms of con 
 science as to the unfairness of thus casting upon his 
 old friend the burden that he had found so hard to 
 bear. For the heaviness of Mr. Port s mental proc 
 esses prevented him from perceiving, as a shrewder 
 person would have perceived, that Dorothy was not 
 the sort of young woman to engage in an enterprise 
 of this nature without first fully counting the cost. 
 Had he been keener of penetration he would have 
 known that she could be trusted, when safely landed 
 in the high estate of matrimony, to play on skilfully 
 the game that she had so skilfully begun ; that in 
 her own interest she would manage matters in such 
 a way as never to arouse in the mind of her elderly 
 husband the awkward suspicion that the scheme of 
 life arranged by his angel apparently with a view 
 solely to his own comfort really was arranged only 
 for the comfort of her angelic self. 
 
 It was while Mr. Port wavered among his qualms 
 of conscience, hesitating between his great longing 
 to chuck Dorothy overboard, and so have done with 
 her, and his sense of duty to Mr. Pennington Brown, 
 that the subject of his perplexities herself appeared 
 upon the scene ; and her arrival at so critical a junct 
 ure seemed to suggest as a remote possibility that 
 she had been all the while snuffing this particular 
 battle from not very far off. 
 
 "Dear Uncle Hutchinson," said Miss Lee, with 
 affectionate fervor, " do you think that your angel 
 
66 THE UNCLE OF AX ANGEL. 
 
 is most cruel and horrid because she is willing to go 
 off in this way after her own selfish happiness and 
 leave you all alone? But she won t do it, dear, if 
 you would rather have her stay. Her only wish, you 
 know, has been to make you comfortable and happy ; 
 and you have been so good and so kind to her that 
 she is ready to sacrifice even her love for your sake. 
 Yes, if you would rather keep her to yourself she 
 will stay. Only if she does stay," and there was a 
 warning tone of deep meaning in Miss Lee s well- 
 modulated voice, "her heart, of course, will be 
 broken, and she will have to ask you to travel with 
 her for two or three years into out-of-the-way parts 
 of the world " (Mr. Port shuddered) " until her poor 
 broken heart gets well. Not that it ever will get 
 quite well again, you know ; but she will be brave, 
 and try to pretend for your sake that it has. So it 
 shall be just as you say, dear; only for Penning- 
 ton s sake, who loves me so much, Uncle Hutchin- 
 son, I hope that perhaps you may be willing to let 
 me go." 
 
 And having concluded this moving address, Miss 
 Lee extended one of her well-shaped hands to Mr. 
 Pennington Brown who grasped it warmly, for he 
 was deeply moved by so edifying an exhibition of 
 affectionate and dutiful unselfishness and with the 
 other applied her handkerchief delicately to her eyes. 
 
 Mr. Port w r as not in the least moved by Dorothy s 
 professions of self-sacrifice ; but he was most seri 
 ously alarmed by her threat that opened before 
 him a dismal vista of bilious misery to cart him 
 
THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 
 
 for several years about the world on the pretext of 
 a broken heart that required travel for its mending. 
 He believed, to be sure, that in a stand-up fight 
 he could conquer Dorothy ; but he had his doubts as 
 to how long she would stay conquered and between 
 
 constant fighting and constant travel there is not 
 much choice ; for Mr. Port knew from experience 
 how acute is that form of biliousness which results 
 from rage. After all, self-preservation is the first 
 law of nature ; and under the stress thus put upon 
 
68 THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL. 
 
 him, therefore, it is not surprising that Mr. Port s 
 qualms of conscience incident to his failure to do his 
 duty to his neighbor vanished to the winds. 
 
 Mr. Pennington Brown still held Dorothy s hand 
 in his own. "Will you make this great sacrifice, 
 Hutch, for your old friend ?" he asked. 
 
 Mr. Port hesitated a little, for he felt a good deal 
 like a criminal who is shifting his crime upon an in 
 nocent man ; and then he answered, rather weakly 
 both in tones and terms : "Why, of course." 
 
 " Dear Uncle Hutchinson, how good you are !" 
 exclaimed Miss Lee. "And you really think that 
 you can spare your angel, then?" 
 
 And both promptly and firmly Mr. Port answered : 
 "Yes, I really think that I can." 
 
A BOEDEE EUFFIAK. 
 
I. WEST. 
 
 The Incident of the Boston Young Lady, the Commercial 
 Traveller, and the Desperado. 
 
 I. 
 
 THKOUGHOUT the whole of the habitable globe 
 there nowhere is to be found more delightful or more 
 invigorating air than that which every traveller 
 through New Mexico, from Albuquerque, past Las 
 Vegas, to the Raton Mountains, is free to breathe. 
 
 Miss Grace Winthrop, of Boston, and also Miss 
 Winthrop, her paternal aunt, and also Mr. Hutchin- 
 son Port, of Philadelphia, her maternal uncle all 
 of whom were but forty hours removed from the 
 Alkali Desert west of the Continental Divide felt 
 in the very depths of their several beings how en 
 tirely good this air was ; and, as their several nat 
 ures moved them, they betrayed their lively appre 
 ciation of its excellence. 
 
 Miss Grace "Winthrop, having contrived for her 
 self, with the intelligent assistance of the porter, a 
 most comfortable nest of pillows, suffered her novel 
 to remain forgotten upon her knees ; and, as she 
 leaned her pretty blond head against the wood- 
 
72 A BOKDEK RUFFIAN. 
 
 work separating her section from that adjoining it, 
 looked out upon the brown mountains, and accorded 
 to those largely- grand objects of nature the rare 
 privilege of being reflected upon the retina of her 
 very blue eyes. Yet the mountains could not flat 
 ter themselves with the conviction that contempla 
 tion of them wholly filled her mind, for occasionally 
 she smiled a most delightful smile. 
 
 Miss Winthrop, retired from the gaze of the world 
 in the cell that the Pullman-car people euphemistical 
 ly style a state-room, ignored all such casual excres 
 cences upon the face of nature as mountains, and 
 seriously read her morning chapter of Emerson. 
 
 Mr. Hutchinson Port, lulled by the easy, jog-trot 
 motion of the car, and soothed by the air from Para 
 dise that, for his virtues, he was being permitted to 
 breathe, lapsed into calm and grateful slumber : and 
 dreamed (nor could a worthy Philadelphia!! desire a 
 better dream) of a certain meeting of the Saturday 
 Night Club, in December, 1875, whereat the terrapin 
 was remarkable, even for Philadelphia. 
 
 Miss Winthrop, absorbed in her Emersonian devo 
 tions, and Mr. Hutchinson Port, absorbed in slum 
 ber, did not perceive that the slow motion of the 
 train gradually became slower, and finally entirely 
 ceased ; and even Grace, lost in her pleasant day 
 dream, scarcely observed that the unsightly buildings 
 of a little way-station had thrust themselves into the 
 foreground of her landscape for this foreground she 
 ignored, keeping her blue eyes serenely fixed upon 
 the great brown mountains beyond. Nor was she 
 
A BOEDER EUFFIAN. 73 
 
 more than dimly conscious of the appearance upon 
 the station platform of a tall, broad-shouldered young 
 man clad in corduroy, wearing a wide -brimmed 
 felt -hat, and girded about with a belt, stuck full 
 of cartridges, from which depended a very big re 
 volver. In a vague way she was conscious of this 
 young man s existence, and of an undefined feeling 
 that, as the type of a dangerous and interesting 
 class, his appearance was opportune in a part of the 
 country which she had been led to believe was in 
 habited almost exclusively by cut-throats and out 
 laws. 
 
 In a minute or two the train went on again, and 
 as it started Grace was aroused and shocked by the 
 appearance at the forward end of the car of the ruf 
 fianly character whom she had but half seen from 
 the car window. For a moment she believed that 
 the train-robbery, that she had been confidently ex 
 pecting ever since her departure from San Francisco, 
 was about to take place. Her heart beat hard, and 
 her breath came quickly. But before these symp 
 toms had time to become alarming the desperado 
 had passed harmlessly to the rear end of the car, 
 and after him had come the porter carrying his 
 valise and a Winchester rifle. 
 
 " Goin to Otero? Yes, sah ! All right, sah ! Put 
 yo heah ; nice seat on shady side, sah ! Thank yo , 
 sah ! Have a pillow, sah ?" And, hearing this address 
 on the part of the porter, Grace knew that the des 
 perado, for the moment at least, was posing in the 
 character of a law-abiding citizen, and was availing 
 
74 A BOEDER KUFFIAN. 
 
 himself of his rights as such to ride in a Pullman-car. 
 Being thus relieved of cause for immediate alarm, 
 her breast presently began to swell with a fine indig 
 nation at the impudence of this abandoned person in 
 thus thrusting himself into a place reserved, if not 
 absolutely for aristocratic, certainly, at least, for re 
 spectable society. 
 
 II. 
 
 The slight stir incident to the entrance of this of 
 fensive stranger aroused Mr. Hutchinson Port from 
 his agreeable slumber. He yawned slightly, cast a 
 disparaging glance upon the mountains, and then, 
 drawing an especially good cigar from his case, be 
 took himself to the smoking-room. Grace did not 
 realize his intentions until they had become accom 
 plished deeds. 
 
 Mr. Hutchinson Port although a member (on the 
 retired list) of the First City Troop, and therefore, 
 presumably, inflamed with the martial spirit charac 
 teristic of that ancient and honorable organization 
 was not, perhaps, just the man that a person know 
 ing in such matters would have selected to pit 
 against a New Mexico desperado in a hand-to-hand 
 conflict. But Grace felt her heart sink a little as 
 she saw the round and rather pursy form of her 
 natural protector walk away into the depths of a 
 mirror at the forward end of the car, and so vanish. 
 And in this same mirror she beheld, seated only two 
 sections behind her, the scowling ruffian ! 
 
A BOEDER EUFFIAN. 75 
 
 The situation, as Grace regarded it, was an alarm 
 ing one ; and it was the more trying to her nerves 
 because it did not, reasonably, admit of action. She 
 was aware that the very presence of a ruffian in a 
 Pullman car was in the nature of a promise, on his 
 part, that for the time being it was not his intention 
 either to murder or to rob unless, indeed, he were 
 one of a robber band, and was^awaiting the appear 
 ance of his confederates. For her either to call her 
 uncle, or break in upon the Emersonian seclusion of 
 her aunt, she felt would not be well received, under 
 the circumstances, by either of these her relatives. 
 As to the porter, that sable functionary had van 
 ished ; there was no electric bell, and the car, one of 
 a Pullman train, had no conductor. 
 
 For protection, therefore, should need for protec 
 tion arise, Grace perceived that she must depend 
 upon the one other passenger. (They had lingered 
 so long amid the delights of a Santa Barbara spring 
 that they were journeying in that pleasant time of 
 year when spring travel eastward has ended, and 
 summer travel has not yet begun.) This one other 
 passenger was a little man of dapper build and dap 
 per dress, whose curiously-shaped articles of luggage 
 betokened his connection with commercial affairs. 
 Grace was forced to own, as she now for the first 
 time regarded him attentively, that he did not seem 
 to be wrought of the stern stuff out of which, as a 
 rule, champions are made. 
 
 As she thus looked upon him, she was startled to 
 find that he was looking very fixedly upon her ; and 
 
76 A BOEDER EUFFIAN. 
 
 she was further startled, as their eyes met, by the 
 appearance upon his face of a friendly smile. She 
 would have been vastly surprised had she been 
 aware that this little person labored under the belief 
 that he had already effected a favorable lodgement 
 in her good graces ; and she would have been both 
 surprised and horrified could she have known that 
 each of her own strictly confidential smiles during 
 her day-dream had been accepted by the commercial 
 traveller as intended for himself ; and had been met, 
 as they successively appeared, by his own smiles in 
 answer. Yet this was the actual state of the case ; 
 and the little man s soul was uplifted by the thought 
 that here was a fresh proof, and a very pleasant one, 
 of how irresistible were his personal appearance and 
 his personal charm of manner when arrayed in bat 
 tery against any one of the gentler sex. 
 
 Viewed from the stand -point of his experience, 
 this inquiring look and its attendant eye-encounter 
 indicated that the moment for more pronounced ac 
 tion now had arrived. With the assured air of one 
 who possibly may be repulsed, but who certainly 
 cannot be defeated, he arose from his seat, crossed 
 to Miss Grace Winthrop s section, and, with a pleas 
 ant remark to the effect that in travelling it always 
 was nice to be sociable, edged himself into the seat 
 beside her. 
 
 For a moment, the insolent audacity of this move 
 was so overwhelming that Grace was quite incapa 
 ble of coherent expression. The lovely pink of her 
 cheeks became a deep crimson that spread to the 
 
A BORDER RUFFIAN. 77 
 
 very tips of her ears ; her blue eyes flashed, and her 
 hands clinched instinctively. 
 
 "Looked like a perfect little blue -eyed devil," 
 the drummer subsequently declared, in narrating a 
 highly-embellished version of his adventure, " but 
 she didn t mean it, you know at least, only for a 
 minute or two. I soon combed her down nicely." 
 What he actually said, was : 
 
 "Been travellin far, miss?" 
 
 " What do you mean by this? Go away !" Grace 
 managed to say ; but she could not speak very clear 
 ly, for she was choking. 
 
 " Come, don t get mad, miss ! I know you re not 
 mad, really, anyway. When a woman s as hand 
 some as you are, she can t be bad-natured. Come 
 from California, I suppose ? Nice country over there, 
 ain t it?" 
 
 What with surprise and rage and fright, Grace 
 was very nearly frantic. For the moment she was 
 powerless her uncle in the smoking-room, her aunt 
 locked up with her Emersonian meditations, the por 
 ter in the lobby ; the only available person upon whom 
 she could call for aid a horrible drunken murderer 
 and robber, steeped in all the darkest crimes of the 
 frontier! She felt herself growing faint, but she 
 struggled to her feet. The drummer laid his hand 
 on her arm : "Don t go away, my dear! Just stay 
 and have a little talk. You see " 
 
 But the sentence was not finished. Grace felt her 
 head buzzing, and then, from somewhere a long 
 way off, it seemed she heard a voice saying: "I 
 
78 A BORDER RUFFIAN. 
 
 beg your pardon ; this thing seems to be annoying 
 you. Permit me to remove it." 
 
 Her head cleared a little, for there was a promise 
 of help not only in the words but in the tone. And 
 then she saw the desperado calmly settle a big hand 
 into the collar of the little man s coat, lift him out 
 of the seat and well up into the air, and so carry him 
 at armVlength kicking and struggling, and looking 
 for all the world like a jumping-jack out through 
 the passage-way at the forward end of the car. 
 
 As they disappeared, she precipitately sought ref 
 uge in the state-room where Miss Winthrop was 
 aroused from her serious contemplation of All-per 
 vading Thought by a sudden and most energetic de 
 mand upon her protection and her salts-bottle. And, 
 before she could be made in the least degree to com 
 prehend why Grace should require either the one or 
 the other, Grace had still further complicated and 
 mystified the matter by fainting dead away. 
 
 III. 
 
 .In the course of two or three hours aided by 
 Miss Winthrop s salts and Mr. Hutchinson Port s 
 travelling-flask of peculiar old Otard, which togeth 
 er contributed calmness and strength, and being re 
 freshed by a little slumber Grace was able to ex 
 plain in an intelligible manner the adventure that 
 had befallen her. 
 
 "And no matter what dreadful crimes that hor- 
 
A BORDER RUFFIAN. 79 
 
 rible man may have committed," she said, in con 
 clusion. " I shall be most grateful to him to my 
 dying day. And I want you, Uncle Hutchinson, no 
 matter how unpleasant it may be to you to do so, to 
 thank him from me for what he did. And, oh ! it 
 was so funny to see that detestable little impudent 
 man kicking about that way in the air !" Which 
 remembrance, at the same moment, of both the ter 
 rifying and the ludicrous side of her recent exper 
 ience, not unnaturally sent Grace off into hysterics. 
 
 Mr. Hutchinson Port was quite ready to carry the 
 message of thanks to the desperado, and to add to 
 it some very hearty thanks of his own. But his 
 good intentions could not be realized ; the desperado 
 no longer was on the train. 
 
 " Yes, sah ; I knows the gen l m yo means, sah," 
 responded the porter, in answer to inquiries. Pow tl 
 big gen l m yo means, as got on this mo nin to Ve 
 gas. Thet s th one, sah ! He d some kind er trib- 
 bilation with th little gen Pm th drummer genTm, 
 as got on las night to Lamy an he brought him 
 out, holdin him like he was a kitten, to the lobby, 
 an jus set him down an boxed his ears till he hol 
 lered ! Yes, sah, thet s th one. He got off to Otero. 
 An th little man he got off to Trinidad, an said he 
 was agoin up by the Denver to Pueblo. Yes, sah ; 
 they s both got off, sah! Thank yo , sah! Get yo 
 a pillow, sah ?" 
 
80 A BOEDER EUFFIAN. 
 
 IV. 
 
 And so it came to pass that Miss Grace Winthrop 
 returned to Boston cherishing towards desperadoes 
 in general, and towards the desperadoes of New 
 Mexico in particular, sentiments as generous as they 
 were unusual. 
 
 Miss Winthrop the elder, whose soul was accus 
 tomed to a purer ether than that in which despera 
 does ordinarily are found, presently forgot the vica 
 rious excitements of her journey eastward in the 
 calm joys of the Summer School of Philosophy. 
 
 And Mr. Hutchinson Port longed to be able to 
 forget the whole State of California: when he real 
 ized, as he did with a most bitter keenness, that the 
 superficial charms of that greatly overrated region 
 had detained him upon the Western coast until the 
 terrapin season was absolutely at an end ! 
 
 II. EAST. 
 
 The Incident of the Mysterious Stranger, and the Philadelphia 
 Dinner-party. 
 
 I. 
 
 Mrs. Rittenhouse Smith had achieved righteous 
 ness. That is to say, being a Philadelphian, she was 
 celebrated for giving successful dinners. The per- 
 
A BOEDER KUFFIAN. 81 
 
 son who achieves celebrity of this sort in Philadel 
 phia is not unlike the seraph who attains to eminence 
 in the heavenly choir. 
 
 It was conceded that Mr. Rittenhouse Smith (he 
 was one of the Smiths, of course not the others. 
 His mother was a Biddle) was an important factor 
 in his wife s success ; for, as became a well-brought- 
 up Philadelphian, he attended personally to the 
 marketing. But had these Smith dinners been com 
 mendable only because the food was good, they 
 would not have been at all remarkable. In Phila 
 delphia, so far as the eating is concerned, a bad din 
 ner seems to be an impossibility. 
 
 In truth, Mrs. Smith s dinners were famous be 
 cause they never were marred by even the slightest 
 suggestion of a contretemps; because they glided 
 along smoothly, and at precisely the proper rate of 
 speed, from oysters to coffee ; and, because and to 
 accomplish this in Philadelphia was to accomplish 
 something very little short of a miracle they never 
 were stupid. 
 
 Therefore it was that Mrs. Rittenhouse Smith 
 stood among the elect, with a comfortable sense of 
 security in her election ; and she smelled with a 
 satisfied nose the smell of the social incense burned 
 before her shrine ; and she heard with well-pleased 
 ears the social hosannas which constantly were sung 
 in her praise. 
 
82 A BOEDER EUFFIAN. 
 
 II. 
 
 Occupying a position at once so ornate and so en 
 viable, the feelings of Mrs. Rittenhouse Smith may 
 be imagined upon finding herself confronted with 
 the tragical probability that one of her most impor 
 tant dinner-parties would be a failure. 
 
 In preparing for this dinner-party she had thought 
 deeply in the still watches of the night, and she had 
 pondered upon it in the silence of noonday. For 
 Mrs. Smith, above all others, knew that only by such 
 soulful vigilance can a perfect dinner be secured. It 
 was her desire that it should be especially bright in 
 tellectually, for it was to be given to Miss Winthrop, 
 of Boston, and was to include Miss Winthrop s niece, 
 Miss Grace Winthrop, also of Boston. These ladies, 
 as she knew, belonged to clubs which, while modest 
 ly named after the days of the week, were devoted 
 wholly to the diffusion of the most exalted mental 
 culture. Moreover, they both were on terms of in 
 timacy with Mr. Henry James. On the other hand, 
 it was her desire that the dinner should be perfect 
 materially, because among her guests was to be Miss 
 Grace Winthrop s uncle, Mr. Hutchinson Port. It 
 was sorely against Mrs. Smith s will that Mr. Hutch 
 inson Port was included in her list, for he had the 
 reputation of being the most objectionable diner-out 
 in Philadelphia. His conversation at table invaria 
 bly consisted solely of disparaging remarks, deliv 
 ered in an undertone to his. immediate neighbors, 
 
A BOEDER RUFFIAN. 83 
 
 upon the character and quality of the food. How 
 ever, in the present case, as Miss Grace Winthrop s 
 uncle, he was inevitable. 
 
 And, such was Mrs. Smith s genius, she believed 
 that she had mastered the situation. Her list ex 
 cepting, of course, Mr. Hutchinson Port, and he could 
 not reasonably be objected to by his own relatives 
 was all that she could desire. The nine other 
 guests, she was satisfied, were such as could be ex 
 hibited creditably even to ladies belonging to Bos 
 ton clubs and personally acquainted with Mr. Henry 
 James. As to the dinner itself, Mr. Rittenhouse 
 Smith, who never spoke inconsiderately in matters 
 of this grave nature, had agreed with her that bar 
 ring, of course, some Providentially interposed ca 
 lamity such as scorching the ducks or getting too 
 much salt in the terrapin even Mr. Hutchinson 
 Port would be unable to find a flaw in it. 
 
 And now, at the last moment, at twelve o clock of 
 the day on which the dinner was to take place, came 
 a note from the man upon whom she had most 
 strongly counted to make the affair a success the 
 brightest man on her list, and the one who was to 
 take out Miss Grace Winthrop saying that he was 
 laid up with a frightful cold and face-ache! He 
 tried to make a joke of it, poor fellow, by adding a 
 sketch he sketched quite nicely of his swelled 
 cheek swathed in a handkerchief. But Mrs. Ritten 
 house Smith was in no humor for joking ; she was 
 furious ! 
 
 When a woman misses fire in this way, it usually 
 
84 A BOEDER RUFFIAN. 
 
 is possible to fill her place with a convenient young 
 sister, or even with an elderly aunt. But when a 
 man is wanted, and, especially, as in the case in point, 
 a clever man, the matter very readily may become 
 desperate. Mrs. Rittenhouse Smith certainly was 
 dismayed, yet was she not utterly cast down. She 
 had faith in her own quick wits, which had rescued 
 her in times past from other social calamities, though 
 never from one darker than this, of having, at a sin 
 gle fatal blow, her best man cut off from one of her 
 most important dinner-parties, and the dinner-party 
 itself reduced to thirteen ; an ominous and dismal 
 number that surely would be discovered, and that 
 would cast over her feast a superstitious gloom. 
 
 In this trying emergency Mrs. Smith acted with 
 characteristic decision and wisdom. She perceived 
 that to send invitations simultaneously to all the pos 
 sible men of her acquaintance might involve her in 
 still more awkward complications, while to send in 
 vitations successively might result in a fatal loss of 
 time. Obviously, the only practicable course was a 
 series of prompt, personal appeals from one to an 
 other, until assurance was received that the vacant 
 place certainly would be filled. Therefore she de 
 spatched a note to Mr. Rittenhouse Smith, at his 
 down-town office, acquainting him with the impend 
 ing catastrophe and bidding him drop all other con 
 cerns until he had averted it by securing a satisfac 
 tory man. 
 
A BORDER RUFFIAN. 85 
 
 III. 
 
 Now, under ordinary circumstances, Mr. Ritten- 
 house Smith would have obeyed his wife s orders 
 cheerfully and promptly ; but on this particular day 
 there was a flurry in the stock-market (Mr. Smith 
 was a stock-broker), and every minute that he was 
 away from his office exposed him to serious business 
 danger. At what he considered to be the safest 
 moments, he made no less than five sallies after as 
 many different men ; and three of these had engage 
 ments for the evening, and two of them were out of 
 town. What with the condition of the stock-mar 
 ket and the gloomy outlook for the dinner-party, 
 Mr. Smith, albeit he was ordinarily a calm, sedate 
 man, was almost distraught. 
 
 Three o clock brought a prospect of relief, but 
 after a day of such active dealing his books could 
 not be settled hurriedly. In point of fact, when at 
 last he was able to leave his Third Street office the 
 State House clock was striking five ; and the din 
 ner, in accordance with Philadelphia custom, was to 
 be at seven ! He knew that his wife had discharged 
 into his hands the matter of procuring the needed 
 man ; and he knew that this line of action on her 
 part had been both right and wise ; but he groaned 
 in spirit, as he thought how dreadful a responsibility 
 was his ! 
 
 Mr. Smith was a methodical man, and in the calm 
 ness partly bred of his naturally orderly habits, and 
 
86 A BOEDER KUFFIAN. 
 
 partly bred of his despair, he seated himself at his 
 desk, in company with a comforting cigar, to think 
 of any possible men whom he might beat up at their 
 homes as he went westward. While he thus medi 
 tated and while blackness settled down upon his 
 soul, for of none could he think available for his 
 purpose he looked idly at the list of hotel arrivals 
 in the morning paper that chanced to lie beside him ; 
 and suddenly he arose with a great shout of joy, for 
 in this list he beheld the name, "Van R. Living 
 stone." 
 
 Here, indeed, was good - fortune at last ! Van 
 Rensselaer Livingstone was in college with him, in 
 his own class, at Harvard. They had been capital 
 friends while their college life lasted ; and although 
 Livingstone had spent the last ten or twelve years 
 in Europe, they had not wholly lost track of each 
 other. Clever, handsome, well-born, and well-bred, 
 he was everything that the present occasion required. 
 He seemed to have been sent from heaven direct. In 
 twenty minutes Mr. Smith was asking for him at his 
 hotel. 
 
 " Mr. Livingstone ? Mr. Livingstone is out." 
 
 "Did he leave any word as to when he would 
 come in ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir. He said that a gentleman might call, 
 and to say that he certainly would be back at six, 
 and would not go out again to-night." 
 
 Mr. Smith looked at his watch it was 5 : 30. Had 
 there been any uncertainty as to Livingstone s re 
 turn, he would have waited. But it was clear that 
 
A BOEDER KUFFIAN. 87 
 
 he was coming back to dine at his hotel, and to spend 
 the evening there. A note, therefore, could be trust 
 ed to do the business, and by writing, instead of 
 waiting, Mr. Smith would save half an hour ; more 
 over, if he waited, he would not have time to make 
 the mayonnaise. 
 
 Probably it is only in Philadelphia that it ever oc 
 curs nowadays to the master of a feast to dress the 
 salad ; which, doubtless, is the reason why a better 
 salad is served at certain dinner-tables in Philadel 
 phia than at any other dinner-tables in the whole 
 world. 
 
 The thought of the mayonnaise settled the mat 
 ter. Mr. Smith hastily wrote an account of the try 
 ing situation, and concluded his note with a solemn 
 demand upon "dear old Van" to fill the vacant 
 place, "in the holy name of the class of 68, and for 
 love of your old classmate, R. Smith." 
 
 IV. 
 
 Presently the person thus adjured returned to his 
 hotel, and with a somewhat puzzled expression read 
 the adjuration. " R. Smith," he murmured, reflect 
 ively. " I think I do remember a Dicky Smith, from 
 Philadelphia, at Columbia. But he wasn t in my 
 class, and my class wasn t 68, but 76, and I don t 
 remember ever saying a dozen words to him. He s 
 got a good deal of cheek, whoever he is and he, 
 and his dinner, and his missing man may all go to 
 
88 A BOEDER KUFFIAN. 
 
 the devil together ! His invitation is absurd !" And 
 with this ultimatum Mr. Livingstone laid the letter 
 and envelope neatly together, preparatory to tearing 
 them into fragments. 
 
 But before this purpose was accomplished, an 
 other view of the situation came into his mind. " I 
 don t see why I shouldn t go," he thought. "I ve 
 been muddling all day with this wretched wool man 
 Avhich is a bore, even if I have made a pretty good 
 bargain with him for next season s clip ; and Ned 
 hasn t come to time, which is another bore, for now 
 I ll have to eat my dinner alone. And this Dicky 
 Smith writes like a gentleman, even if he is cheeky ; 
 and he certainly seems to be in a peck of troubles 
 about his missing man, and his thirteen at table, and 
 the rest of it. Why, it s a regular adventure ! And 
 to think of having an adventure in Philadelphia, of 
 all places in the world ! By Jove, I ll go !" 
 
 Y. 
 
 " How very, very good of you, Mr. Livingstone, 
 to come to our rescue !" It was Mrs. Rittenhouse 
 Smith who spoke, and she spoke in a guarded tone ; 
 for Livingstone was among the last to arrive, and 
 she had no desire to publish among her guests the 
 catastrophe that so nearly had overtaken her. 
 
 "And I know," she continued : " that you will un 
 derstand how sorry I am that this first visit of Mr. 
 Smith s old friend to our house should be under such 
 
A BOEDER KUFFIAN. 89 
 
 peculiar circumstances. But you will have your re 
 ward, for you are to take out the very prettiest and 
 the very brightest girl here. Come and be reward 
 ed !" And Mrs. Smith slipped her hand upon her 
 benefactor s arm, and piloted him across the room. 
 
 "Miss Winthrop, permit me to present Mr. Liv 
 ingstone. Miss Winthrop is half Boston and half 
 European, Mr. Livingstone ; and as you, after these 
 ten years abroad, must be wholly European, you can 
 cheer each other as fellow foreigners in the midst 
 of Philadelphia barbarism" with which pleasant 
 speech the hostess turned quickly to receive the last 
 arrival (a man, of course ; only a man would dare 
 to be even near to late at one of Mrs. Rittenhouse 
 Smith s dinners), and then, standing beside the door 
 way, with Mr. Hutchinson Port, marshalled her com 
 pany in to dinner. It was a comfort to her to know 
 that for once in his fault-finding life Mr. Port would 
 be compelled, since he was to be seated beside his 
 hostess, to eat his food without abusing it. 
 
 Just at this time two things struck Mrs. Smith as 
 odd. One was that as she presented her handsome 
 guest to Miss Grace Winthrop she certainly had felt 
 him start, while his arm had trembled curiously be 
 neath her hand. The other was that as Mr. Ritten 
 house Smith left the drawing-room, passing close 
 beside her with Miss Winthrop upon his arm, he 
 made a face at her. The first of these phenomena 
 struck her as curious. The second struck her as 
 ominous. Had it been possible she would have in 
 vestigated the cause of Mr. Smith s facial demon- 
 
90 A BOEDER 
 
 stration. But it was not possible. She only could 
 breathe a silent prayer that all would go well and 
 the while sniff anxiously to discover if perchance 
 there were a smell of scorching duck. 
 
 Mrs. Smith would have been still more mystified 
 could she have been cognizant at this juncture of 
 her husband s and of Miss Grace Winthrop s and of 
 Mr. Livingstone s thoughts. 
 
 The first of these was thinking : " It isn t Van 
 Rensselaer Livingstone, any more than I am; though 
 he certainly looks like him. And I m sure that he 
 knows that he don t know me. And I think that 
 we ve managed to get into a blank idiotic mess !" 
 
 And the second of these was thinking : " If he s 
 been in Europe for the past ten years, there s not 
 one chance in fifty that I ever have laid eyes on 
 him. But I know I have !" 
 
 And the third of these was thinking : " There 
 isn t a man in the room who looks enough like 
 Dicky Smith to be his tenth cousin. But if ever the 
 goodness of heaven was shown in the affairs of men 
 it is shown here to me to-night !" 
 
 VI 
 
 Even as the sun triumphs over the darkness of 
 night and the gloom of the tempest, so did Mrs. 
 Rittenhouse Smith s dinner-party emerge radiantly 
 from the sombre perils which had beset it. It was 
 a brilliant, unqualified success. 
 
A BORDER RUFFIAN. 91 
 
 Miss Winthrop was good enough to say, when the 
 evening was ended saying it in that assured, un 
 conscious way that gives to the utterances of Boston 
 people so peculiar a charm " Really, Mrs. Smith, 
 you have given me not only a delightful dinner, but 
 a delightful surprise ; I would not have believed, 
 had I not seen it myself, that outside of Boston so 
 many clever people could be brought together !" 
 
 And Mr. Hutchinson Port, upsetting all his tradi 
 tions, had kept up a running fire of laudatory com 
 ment upon the dinner that had filled Mrs. Smith s 
 soul with joy. She had expected him, being cut off 
 by her presence from engaging in his accustomed 
 grumbling, to maintain a moody silence. She had 
 not expected praise : and she valued his praise the 
 more because she knew that he spoke out of the ful 
 ness of his wisdom ; and because in a matter of such 
 vital moment as eating she knew that she could trust 
 him to be sincere. His only approach to invidious 
 comment was in regard to the terrapin. 
 
 With the grave solemnity that marks the serving 
 of this delicacy in Philadelphia ; in the midst of a 
 holy calm befitting a sacred rite, the silver vessels 
 were carried around the board, and in hushed rapt 
 ure (a little puzzling to the Bostonians) the precious 
 mixture was ladled out upon the fourteen plates ; 
 and Mr. Hutchinson Port, as the result of many 
 years of soulful practice, was able to secure to him 
 self at one dexterous scoop more eggs than fell to 
 the lot of any other two men. 
 
 It was while rapturously eating these eggs that 
 
92 A BOEDER RUFFIAN. 
 
 he spake : " My dear Mrs. Smith, will you forgive 
 me if I venture to suggest, even to you for what I 
 have seen this night has convinced me that you are 
 one of the very few people who know what a dinner 
 ought to be that the Madeira used in dressing ter 
 rapin cannot possibly be too old ?" 
 
 VII. 
 
 Proceeding in accordance with the cue that Mrs. 
 Smith had given her, Miss Grace Winthrop engaged 
 Mr. Livingstone in conversation upon European top 
 ics ; and was somewhat astonished to find, in view 
 of his past ten years in Europe, that they evidently 
 had very little interest for him. And all the while 
 that she talked with him she was haunted by the 
 conviction that she had seen him somewhere ; and 
 all the while she was aware of something in his 
 manner, she could not tell what, that seemed to im 
 ply that she ought to know who he was. 
 
 What Miss Grace Winthrop did feel entirely cer 
 tain about, however, was that this was one of the 
 cleverest and one of the manliest men she had ever 
 come across. His well -shaped hands were big and 
 brown, and his face was brown, and the set of his head 
 and the range of his broad shoulders gave him an 
 alert look and a certain air of command. There 
 was that about him which suggested a vigorous life 
 in the open air. There was nothing to suggest 
 ten years in Europe, unless it were the charm of 
 
A BORDER RUFFIAN. 93 
 
 his manner, and his neat way of saying bright 
 things. 
 
 As for Livingstone, he was as one who at the 
 same time is both entranced and inspired. He knew 
 that he never had been happier in his life ; he knew 
 that he never had said so many clever things in so 
 short a time. Therefore it was that these young peo 
 ple always thereafter were most harmoniously agreed 
 that this was the very happiest dinner that they had 
 eaten in all their lives. 
 
 It came to an end much too soon for either of 
 them. The ladies left the room, and cigars were in 
 voked to fill their place. This was the moment that 
 Livingstone had looked forward to as affording the 
 first practicable opportunity for taking his host apart 
 and explaining that his, Livingstone s, presence at 
 that particular feast certainly must be owing to some 
 mistake. And this was the moment that Mr. Smith, 
 also, had looked forward to as available for clearing 
 up the mystery of which his wife still was blissfully 
 ignorant as to who their stranger guest really was. 
 But the moment now being come, Livingstone weak 
 ly but deliberately evaded it by engaging in an ani 
 mated conversation with Mr. Hutch in son Port in re 
 gard to the precise number of minutes and seconds 
 that a duck ought to remain before the fire ; and Mr. 
 Smith having partaken of his own excellent wines 
 and meats until his whole being was aglow with a be 
 nevolent friendliness contented himself with think 
 ing that, no matter who his guest was, he certainly 
 was a capital fellow ; and that to cross-question him 
 
94 A BOEDEK KUFFIAX. 
 
 as to his name, at least until the evening was at an 
 end, would be a gross outrage upon the laws of hos 
 pitality. 
 
 Livingstone, however, had the grace to feel a good 
 deal ashamed of himself as they returned to the 
 drawing-room. In all that had gone before, he had 
 been a victim of circumstances. He had an uncom 
 fortable conviction that his position now was not 
 wholly unlike that of an impostor. But as he pushed 
 aside the portiere he beheld a pair of blue eyes which, 
 he flattered himself, betrayed an expression of pleased 
 expectancy and his compunctions vanished. 
 
 There was only a little time left to them, for the 
 evening was almost at an end. Their talk came back 
 to travel. Did she like travelling in America? he 
 asked. Yes, she liked it very much indeed, " only " 
 as a sudden memory of a past experience flashed 
 into her mind "one does sometimes meet such 
 dreadfully horrid people !" 
 
 They were sitting, as they talked, in a narrow 
 space between a table and the Avail, made narrower 
 by the presence of an unused chair. Just as this 
 memory was aroused, some one tried to push by 
 them, and Livingstone, rising, lifted the obstructing 
 chair away. To find a clear space in which to put 
 it down, he lifted it across the table ; and for a mo 
 ment he stood erect, holding the chair out before him 
 at arm s-length. 
 
 When he seated himself and turned again to speak 
 to Grace, he was startled to find that her face and 
 shoulders, and even her arms her arms and shoul- 
 
A BORDER RUFFIAN. 95 
 
 tiers were delectable were crimson ; and in her eyes 
 be found at last the look of recognition that he had 
 hoped for earlier in the evening, but that now he had 
 ceased to expect. Recognition of this emphatic sort 
 he certainly had not expected at all. 
 
 "You you see," she said, "I al always have 
 thought that you were a robber and a murderer, and 
 shocking things like that. And I didn t really see 
 you that day, except as you walked away, holding 
 up that horrid little man, kicking just as you held 
 up the chair. Can you ever, ever forgive me for 
 thinking such wicked things about you, and for be 
 ing so ungrateful as not to know you at the very 
 first?" 
 
 And Livingstone, then and later, succeeded in con 
 vincing her that he could. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 By an emphatic whisper Miss Grace Winthrop 
 succeeded in impressing upon her aunt the necessity 
 at no matter what sacrifice of the social conven 
 tions of being the last to go. In the matter of 
 keeping Livingstone, she experienced no difficulty at 
 all. And when the unnecessary eight had departed, 
 she presented to her aunt and uncle her deliverer, 
 and in a delightfully hesitating way told to Mr. 
 and Mrs. Smith the story of her deliverance. 
 
 It was when this matter had been explained that 
 Livingstone, who felt that his position now was ab- 
 
96 A BORDER RUFFIAN. 
 
 soltitely secure, brought up the delicate question of 
 his own identity. 
 
 "You can understand, lam sure, Mrs. Smith," he 
 said, "how very grateful I am to you for this even 
 ing ; but, indeed, I don t think that I am the person 
 you meant to ask. And it has occurred to me, from 
 something that you said about my having been in 
 Europe for a good while, that Mr. Smith might have 
 meant his invitation for Van Rensselaer Livingstone. 
 He s my cousin, you know ; and he has spent the 
 last ten years in Europe, and is there yet, I fancy. 
 But I am Van Ruyter Livingstone, and if I can be 
 said to have a home anywhere except the old home 
 in New York, of course it is on my sheep range in 
 New Mexico. 
 
 "But you won t be cruel enough, Mrs. Smith, after 
 letting me into Paradise even if I did get in by 
 mistake to turn me out again ; will you?" 
 
 And Mrs. Rittenhouse Smith, who was a clever 
 woman, as well as a remarkably clear-sighted one, 
 replied that even if she wanted to turn Mr. Van 
 Ruyter Livingstone out of Paradise she believed 
 that it was now too late. 
 
OUR PIEATE HOARD. 
 
I 
 
 MY great-great-great-uncle was one of the many 
 sturdy, honest, high-spirited men to whom the early 
 years of the last century gave birth. He was a brave 
 man and a ready fighter, yet was he ever controlled 
 in his actions by so nice a regard for the feelings of 
 others, and through the strong fibre of his hardy 
 nature ran a strain of such almost womanly gentle 
 ness and tenderness, that throughout the rather ex 
 ceptionally wide circle of his acquaintance he was 
 very generally beloved. 
 
 By profession he was a pirate, and although it is 
 not becoming in me, perhaps, to speak boastingly of 
 a blood-relation, I would be doing his memory in 
 justice did I not add that he was one of the ablest 
 and most successful pirates of his time. His usual 
 cruising-ground was between the capes of the Ches 
 apeake and the lower end of Long Island ; yet now 
 and then, as opportunity offered, he would take a 
 run to the New England coast, and in winter he 
 frequently would drop down to the s uthard and do 
 a good stroke of business off the Spanish Main. His 
 home station, however, was the Delaware coast, and 
 his family lived in Lewes, being quite the upper crust 
 
100 OUR PIRATE HOARD. 
 
 of Lewes society as it then was constituted. When 
 his schooner, the Martha Ann, was off duty, she 
 usually was harbored in Rehoboth Bay. That was 
 a pretty good harbor for pirate schooners in those 
 days. 
 
 My great-great-great-uncle threw himself into his 
 profession in the hearty fashion that was to be ex 
 pected from a man of his sincere, earnest character. 
 He toiled early and late at sea, and on shore he reg 
 ulated the affairs of his family so that his expenses 
 should be well within his large though somewhat 
 fluctuating income ; and the result of his prudence in 
 affairs was that he saved the greater portion of what 
 he earned. The people of Lewes respected him 
 greatly, and the boys of the town were bidden to 
 emulate his steady business ways and habit of thrift. 
 He was, too, a man of public spirit. At his own cost 
 and charge he renewed the town pump; and he pre 
 sented the church he was a very regular church 
 goer when on shore with a large bell of singularly 
 sweet tone that had come into his possession after a 
 casual encounter with a Cuban-bound galleon off the 
 Bahama Banks. 
 
 And yet when at last my great-great-great-uncle, 
 in the fulness of his years and virtues, was gathered 
 to his fathers, and the sweet-toned Spanish bell tolled 
 his requiem, everybody was very much surprised to 
 find that of the fine fortune accumulated during his 
 successful business career nothing worth speaking of 
 could be found. The house that he owned in Lewes, 
 the handsome furniture that it contained, and a sea- 
 
OUE PIEATE HOAKD. \ , 101- 
 
 chest in which were some odds a^nd ends of .silver 
 ware (of a Spanish make) arid somoVfe-w pieceS Of\ 
 eight and doubloons, constituted the whole of his 
 visible wealth. 
 
 For my great-great-great-aunt, with a family of 
 five sons and seven daughters (including three sets 
 of twins) all under eleven years of age, the outlook 
 was a sorry one. She was puzzled, too, to think what 
 had gone with the great fortune which certainly had 
 existed, and so was everybody else. The explana 
 tion that finally was adopted was that my great- 
 great-great-uncle, in accordance with well establish 
 ed pirate usage, had buried his treasure somewhere, 
 and had taken the secret of its burial-place with him 
 to another and a better world. Probability was giv 
 en to this conjecture by the fact that he had died in 
 something of a hurry. He had been brought ashore 
 by his men after an unexpected (and by him unin 
 vited) encounter with a King s ship off the capes of 
 the Delaware. One of his legs w r as shot off, and his 
 head was pretty well laid open by a desperate cutlass 
 slash. He already was in a raging fever, and al 
 though the best medical advice in Lewes was pro 
 cured, he died that very night. As he lay dying his 
 talk was wild and incoherent ; but at the very last, 
 as my great-great-great-aunt well remembered, lie 
 suddenly grew calm, straightened himself in the 
 bed, and said, with great earnestness: "Sheer up the 
 plank midway " 
 
 That was all. He did not live to finish the sen 
 tence. At the moment, my great-great-great-aunt 
 
,102 OUR PIRATE HOARD. 
 
 believed the words to be nothing more than a delir- 
 IGUS vise^of a professional phrase; and this belief re 
 ceived color from the fact that a little before, in his 
 feverish fancy, he had been capturing a Spanish gal 
 leon, and had got about to the part of the affair 
 where the sheering up of a plank midway between 
 the main and mizzen masts, for the accommodation 
 of the Spaniards in leaving their vessel, would be ap 
 propriate. Thinking the matter over calmly after 
 wards, and in the light of subsequent events, she 
 came to the conclusion that he was trying to tell her 
 how and where his treasure was hid. Acting upon 
 this belief, she sheered up all the planks about the 
 house that seemed at all promising. She even had 
 the cellar dug up and the well dragged. But not a 
 scrap of the treasure did she ever find. 
 
 And the worst part of it was, that from that time 
 onward our family had no luck at all. Excepting 
 my elderly cousin, Gregory Wilkinson who inher 
 ited a snug little fortune from his mother, and ex 
 panded it into a very considerable fortune by build 
 ing up a large manufacture of carpet-slippers for the 
 export trade the rule in my family has been a re 
 spectable poverty that has just bordered upon actual 
 want. But all the generations since my great-great- 
 great-uncle s time have been cheered, as poverty- 
 stricken people naturally would be cheered, by the 
 knowledge that the pirate hoard was in existence ; 
 and by the hope that some day it would be found, 
 and would make them all enormously rich at a jump. 
 From the moment when I first heard of the treas- 
 
OUR PIRATE HOARD. 103 
 
 ure, as a little boy, I believed in it thoroughly; and 
 I also believed that I was the member of the family 
 destined to discover it. 
 
 II. 
 
 I was glad to find, when I married Susan, that 
 she believed in my destiny too. After talking the 
 matter over quite seriously, we decided that the best 
 thing for us to do was to go and live either in or 
 near Lewes, so that my opportunities for investiga 
 tion might be ample. I think, too, that Susan was 
 pleased with the prospect of having a nice little 
 house of our own, with a cow and peach-trees and 
 chickens, where we could be very happy together. 
 Moreover, she had notions about house-keeping, es 
 pecially about house -keeping in the country, which 
 she wanted to put into practice. 
 
 We found a confirmation of my destiny in the 
 ease with which the preliminaries of my search were 
 accomplished. The house that we wanted seemed 
 to be there just waiting for us a little bit of a 
 house, well out in the country, with a couple of acres 
 of land around it, the peach-trees really growing, and 
 a shed that the man said would hold a cow nicely. 
 What I think pleased Susan most of all was a swal 
 low s nest under the eaves, with the mother swal 
 low sitting upon a brood of dear little swallows, 
 and the father swallow flying around chippering 
 like anything. 
 
104 OUR PIKATE HOARD. 
 
 "Just think of it!" said the dear child; "it is 
 like living in a feudal castle, and having kestrels 
 building their nests on the battlements." 
 
 I did not check her sweet enthusiasm by asking 
 her to name some particular feudal castle with a 
 frieze of kestrels nests. I kissed her, and said that 
 it was very like indeed. 
 
 Then we examined the cow-stable we thought it 
 better to call it a cow -stable than a shed and I 
 pulled out my foot-rule and measured it inside. It 
 was a very little cow-stable, but, as Susan suggested, 
 if we could not get a small grown-up cow to fit it, 
 "we might begin with a young cow, and teach her, 
 as she grew larger, to accommodate herself to her 
 quarters by standing cat-a- cornered, like the man who 
 used to carry oxen up a mountain." Susan s allu 
 sions are not always very clearly stated, though her 
 meaning, no doubt, always is quite clear in her own 
 mind. I may mention here that eventually we were 
 so fortunate as to obtain a middle-sized cow that 
 got along in the stable very well. We had a tidy 
 colored girl who did the cooking and the rough part 
 of the house-work, and who could milk like a steam- 
 engine. 
 
 As soon as we got fairly settled in our little home 
 I began to look for my great -great -great -uncle s 
 buried treasure, but I cannot say that at first I made 
 much progress. I could not even find a trace of my 
 great -great -great -uncle s house in Lewes, and no 
 body seemed ever to have heard of him. One day, 
 though, I was so fortunate as to encounter a very 
 
OUR PIRATE HOARD. 105 
 
 old man known generally about Lewes as Old Ja 
 cob who did remember " the old pirate," as he ir 
 reverently called him, and who showed me where his 
 house had been. The house had burned down when 
 he was a bo}^ seventy years back, he thought it was 
 and across where it once had stood a street had 
 been opened. This put a stop to my search in that 
 direction. As Susan very justly observed, I could 
 not reasonably expect the Lew r es people to let me 
 dig up their streets like a gas -piper just on the 
 chance of finding my family fortune. 
 
 I was not very much depressed by this turn of 
 events, for I was pretty certain in my own mind that 
 my great-great-great-uncle had not buried his treas 
 ure on his own premises. The basis of this belief 
 was the difficulty that must have been even greater 
 in his time of transporting such heavy substances 
 as gold and silver across the sandy region between 
 Lewes and where the Martha Ann used to lie at 
 anchor in Rehoboth Bay. I reasoned that, the bur 
 ial being but temporary, my relative would have 
 been much more likely to have interred his valu 
 ables at some point on the land only a short dis 
 tance from the Martha Ann s anchorage. When I 
 mentioned this theory to Susan she seemed to be 
 very much impressed by the common -sense of it, 
 and as I have a great respect for Susan s judgment, 
 her acquiescence in my views strengthened my own 
 faith in them. 
 
 To pursue my search in the neighborhood of Re 
 hoboth Bay it was necessary that I should have the 
 
106 OUR PIRATE HOARD. 
 
 assistance of some person thoroughly familiar with 
 the coast thereabouts. After thinking the matter 
 over I decided that I could not do better than take 
 Old Jacob into my confidence. So I got the old 
 man out to the Swallow s Nest that was the name 
 that Susan had given our country place : only by the 
 time that she had settled upon it the little swallows 
 had grown up and the whole swallow family had 
 gone away under pretence of seeing if the cow 
 was all right (Old Jacob was a first-rate hand at 
 cow doctoring), and while he was looking at the cow 
 I told him all about the buried treasure, and how I 
 wanted him to help me find it. When I put it in 
 his head this way he remembered perfectly the story 
 that used to be told about the old pirate s mysteri 
 ously lost fortune, and he entered with a good deal 
 of spirit into my project for getting it again. Of 
 course I told him that if we did find it he should 
 have a good slice of it for helping me. I told Susan 
 that I had made this promise, and she said that I had 
 done exactly right. So, after we had given him a 
 good supper, Old Jacob went back to Lewes, prom 
 ising that early the next week, after he had got 
 through a job of boat-painting which he had on hand, 
 he would go over with me, and we would begin op 
 erations on the bay. He seemed to think the case 
 very promising. He said that when he was only a 
 tot of a boy his father had pointed out to him the 
 Martha Ann s anchorage, and that he thought he 
 could tell to within a cable s length of where the 
 schooner used to lie. I did not know how long a 
 
OUR PIRATE HOARD. 107 
 
 cable was, but from the tone in which Old Jacob 
 spoke of it I judged that it must be short. I felt 
 very well pleased with the progress that I was mak 
 ing, and when I told Susan all that Old Jacob had 
 told me, she said that she looked upon the whole mat 
 ter as being as good as settled. Indeed, she kept me 
 awake quite a while that night w^hile she sketched the 
 outlines of the journey in Europe that we would take 
 as soon as I could get my great-great-great-uncle s 
 treasure dug up, and its non-interest-bearing doub 
 loons converted into interest-bearing bonds. 
 
 III. 
 
 The day after I had this talk with Old Jacob I 
 was rather surprised by getting a telegram from my 
 cousin Gregory Wilkinson, telling me that he was 
 coming down to pay us a visit, and would be there 
 that afternoon. I was not as much astonished as I 
 would have been if the telegram had come from any 
 body else, because Gregory Wilkinson had a way of 
 telegraphing that he Avas going to do things which 
 nobody expected him to do, and I was used to it. 
 Moreover, I had every reason for desiring to main 
 tain very friendly relations with him. He had told 
 me several times that he had made a will by which 
 his large fortune was to be divided between me and 
 a certain Asylum for the Relief and Education of 
 Destitute Red Indian Children that he was very much 
 
108 OUK PIEATE HOAKD. 
 
 interested in ; and be had more than hinted that the 
 asylum was not the legatee that was the more to be 
 envied. This made me feel quite comfortable about 
 the remote future, but it did not simplify the prob 
 lem of living comfortably in the immediate present. 
 My cousin was a very tough, wiry little man, bare 
 ly turned of fifty. There was any quantity of life 
 left in him his father, who had been just such an 
 other, had lived till he was eighty-nine. There was 
 not much of a chance, therefore, that either the asy 
 lum or I would receive anything from his estate for 
 ever so long and I may add I was very glad, for 
 my part, that things were that way. Gregory Wil 
 kinson was a first-rate fellow, for all his queerness 
 and sudden ways, and I should have been sorry 
 enough to have been his chief heir. One reason why 
 I liked him so much was because he was so fond of 
 Susan. When we were married although he had 
 not seen her then he sent her forks, and he had 
 lived up to those forks ever since. 
 
 Susan was rather flustered when I showed her the 
 telegram ; but she went to work with a will, and got 
 the little spare room in order, and stewed some 
 peaches and made some biscuits for supper. Susan s 
 biscuits were something extraordinary. Gregory 
 Wilkinson came all right, and after supper he said 
 that it was the nicest supper he had eaten in a long 
 while sne did the honors of the Swallow s Nest in 
 the pretty way that is her especial peculiarity. She 
 showed him the cow-stable, with the cow in it, and 
 the colored girl milking away in her usual vigorous 
 
OUR PIRATE HOARD. 109 
 
 fashion, the chickens, the garden, the peach - trees, 
 and the nest under the eaves where the swallows 
 had lived when we first came there. Then, as it 
 grew dark, we sat on the little veranda while we 
 smoked our cigars that is, Gregory Wilkinson and 
 I smoked : all that Susan did was to try to poke 
 her finger through the rings which I blew towards 
 her and I told why we had come down there, arid 
 what a good start we had made towards finding my 
 great-great-great-uncle s buried money. And when 
 I had got through, Susan told how, as soon as I had 
 found it, we were going to Europe. 
 
 We neither of us thought that Gregory Wilkin 
 son manifested as much enthusiasm in the matter as 
 the circumstances of the case demanded ; but then, 
 as Susan pointed out to me, in her usual clear-head 
 ed way, it was not reasonable to expect a man with 
 a fortune to be as eager to get one as a man without 
 one would be. 
 
 "Very likely he ll give us his share for finding 
 it," said Susan ; " he don t want it himself, and it 
 would be dreadful to turn the heads of all those 
 destitute red Indian children by leaving it to them." 
 
 I should have mentioned earlier that, so far as we 
 knew, my cousin and I were my great-great-great- 
 uncle s only surviving heirs. The family luck had 
 not held out any especially strong temptations in 
 the way of pleasant things to live for, and so the 
 family gradually had died off. Whatever my search 
 should bring to light, therefore, would be divided 
 between us two. 
 
110 OUR PIRATE HOARD. 
 
 By the time that Old Jacob got through with his 
 boat-painting, Gregory Wilkinson had gathered a 
 sufficient interest in our money-digging to volunteer 
 to go along with us to the bay. We had a two- 
 seated wagon, and I took with me several things 
 which I thought might be useful in an expedition of 
 this nature two spades, a pickaxe, a crow-bar, a 
 measuring tape that belonged to Susan, an axe, and 
 a lantern (for, as Susan very truly said, we might 
 have to do some of our digging after dark). I took 
 also a pulley and a coil of rope, in case the box of 
 treasure should prove so heavy that we could not 
 otherwise pull it out from the hole. Old Jacob 
 knew all about rigging tackle, and said that we 
 could cut a pair of sheer-poles in the woods. We 
 were very much encouraged by the confident way 
 in which Old Jacob talked about cutting sheer- 
 poles; it sounded wonderfully business-like. Susan, 
 of course, was very desirous of going along, and I 
 very much wanted to take her. But as we intended 
 to stay all night, in case we did not find the treasure 
 during our first day s search, and as the only place 
 where we could sleep was an oysterman s shanty 
 that Old Jacob knew about, she saw herself that it 
 would not do. So she made the best of staying at 
 home, in her usual cheery fashion, and promised, as 
 we drove off, to have a famous supper ready for us 
 the next night when we would come home with 
 our wagon-load of silver and gold. 
 
 It was a long, hot, dusty drive, and the mosquitoes 
 were pretty bad as we drew near the coast. But we 
 
OUR PIRATE HOAED. Ill 
 
 were cheered by the thought of the fortune that was 
 so nearly ours, and we smoked our pipes at the mos 
 quitoes in a way that astonished them. After we 
 had taken out the horses and had eaten our dinner 
 (Susan had put us up a great basket of provisions, 
 with two of her own delicious peach pies on top) we 
 walked down to the bay-side, with Old Jacob lead 
 ing, to look for the place where the Martha Ann 
 used to anchor. I took the tape-measure along, both 
 because it might be useful, and because it made me 
 think of Susan. 
 
 I was sorry to find that the clearer the lay of the 
 land and water became, the more indistinct grew 
 Old Jacob s remembrance of where his father had 
 told him that the schooner used to lie. 
 
 "It mought hev ben about here," he said, point 
 ing across to a little bay some way off on our left ; 
 "an agin it mought hev ben about thar," with a 
 wave of his hand towards a low point of land nearly 
 half a mile off on our right; "an agin it mought 
 hev ben sorter atwixt an atween em. Here or here 
 abouts, thct s w at I say ; here or hereabouts, sure." 
 
 Now this was perplexing. My plan, based upon 
 Old Jacob s assurance that he could locate the an 
 chorage precisely, was to hunt near the shore for 
 likely-looking places and dig them up, one after an 
 other, until we found the treasure. But to dig up 
 all the places where treasure might be buried along 
 a whole mile of coast was not to be thought of. We 
 implored Old Jacob to brush up his memory, to look 
 attentively at the shape of the coast, and to try to 
 
112 OUR PIRATE HOARD. 
 
 fix definitely the spot off which the schooner had 
 lain. But the more that he tried, the more confus 
 ing did his statements become. Just as he would 
 settle positively after much thinking and much 
 looking at the sun and the coast line on a particu 
 lar spot, doubts would arise in his mind as to the 
 correctness of his location ; and these doubts pres 
 ently would resolve themselves into the certainty 
 that he was all wrong. Then the process of think 
 ing and looking would begin all over again, only 
 again to come to the same disheartening end. The 
 short and long of the matter was that we spent all 
 that day and a good part of the next in wandering 
 along the bay -side in Old Jacob s wake, while he 
 made and unmade his locations at the rate of about 
 three an hour. At last I looked at Gregory Wilkin 
 son and Gregory Wilkinson looked at me, and we 
 both nodded. Then we told Old Jacob that we 
 guessed we d better hitch up the horses and drive 
 home. It made us pretty dismal, after all our hopes, 
 to hitch up the horses and drive home that way. 
 
 My heart ached when I saw Susan leaning over 
 the front gate watching for us as we drove up the 
 road. The wind was setting down towards us, and 
 I could smell the coffee that she had put on the fire 
 to boil as soon as she caught sight of us Susan 
 made coffee splendidly and I knew that she had 
 kept her promise, and had ready the feast that was 
 to celebrate our success ; and that made it all the 
 dismaller that we hadn t any success to celebrate. 
 
 When I told her how badly the expedition had 
 
OUR PIRATE HOARD. 113 
 
 turned out she came very near crying ; but she gave 
 a sort of gulp, and then laughed instead, and did 
 what she could to make things pleasant for us. We 
 had our feast, but notwithstanding Susan s effort to 
 be cheerful, it was about as dreary a feast as I ever 
 had anything to do with. We brought Old Jacob 
 in and let him feast with us ; and he, to do him. 
 justice, was not dreary at all. He seemed to enjoy 
 it thoroughly. Indeed, the most trying part of that 
 sorrowful supper-party was the way in which Old 
 Jacob recovered his spirits and declared at short in 
 tervals that his memory now was all right again. 
 He even went so far as to say that with his eyes 
 blindfolded and in the dark he could lead us to the 
 precise spot off which the schooner used to lie. 
 
 Susan was disposed to regard these assertions 
 hopefully ; but we, who had been fumbling about 
 with him for two days, well understood their base 
 lessness. It was not Old Jacob s fault, of course, 
 but his defective memory certainly was dreadfully 
 provoking. Here was an enormous fortune slipping 
 through our fingers just because this old man could 
 not remember a little matter about where a schooner 
 had been anchored. 
 
 After he had eaten all the supper that he could 
 hold which was a good deal and had gone home, 
 we told Susan the whole dismal story of how our 
 expedition had proved to be a total failure. It was 
 best, we thought, not to mince matters with her ; and 
 we stated minutely how time after time the anch 
 orage of the schooner had been precisely located, 
 
114 OUR TIE ATE HOARD. 
 
 and then in a little while had been unlocated again. 
 She saw, as we did, that as a clew Old Jacob was 
 not much of a success, and also that he was about 
 the only thing in the least like a clew that we pos 
 sessed. Realizing this latter fact, and knowing that 
 his great age made his death probable at any mo 
 ment, Susan strongly advised me, in her clear-sight 
 ed way, to have him photographed. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Gregory Wilkinson seemed to find himself quite 
 comfortable in our little home, and settled down 
 there into a sort of permanency. We were glad to 
 have him stay with us, for he was a first-rate fellow, 
 and always good company in his pleasant, quiet way, 
 and he told us two or three times that he was enjoy 
 ing himself. He told me a great many more than 
 two or three times that he considered Susan to be a 
 wonderfully fine woman ; indeed, he told me this at 
 least once every day, and sometimes oftener. He 
 was greatly struck just as everybody is who lives 
 for any length of time in the same house with Susan 
 by her capable ways, and by her unfailing equa 
 nimity and sweetness of temper. Even when the 
 colored girl fell down the well, carrying the rope 
 and the bucket along with her, Susan was not a bit 
 flustered. She told me just where I would find the 
 clothes-line and a big meat-hook ; and when, with 
 
OUR PIRATE HOARD. 115 
 
 this hastily-improvised apparatus, we had fished the 
 colored girl up and got her safely on dry land again, 
 she knew exactly what to do to make her all right 
 and comfortable. As Gregory Wilkinson observed 
 to me, after it was all over, from the way that Susan 
 behaved, any one might have thought that hooking 
 colored girls up out of wells was her regular busi 
 ness. 
 
 As to making Susan angry, that simply was im 
 possible. When things went desperately wrong with 
 her in any way she would just come right to me and 
 cry a little on my shoulder. Then, when I had com 
 forted her, she would chipper up and be all right 
 again in no time. Gregory Wilkinson happened to 
 come in one day while a performance of this sort 
 was going on, and for fear that he should think it 
 odd Susan explained to him that it was a habit of 
 hers when things very much worried her and she felt 
 like being ugly to people. (The trouble that day 
 was that the colored girl, who had a wonderful fac 
 ulty for stirring up tribulation, had broken an India 
 china teacup that had belonged to Susan s grand 
 mother, and that Susan had thought the world of.) 
 That evening, while we were sitting on the veranda 
 smoking, and before Susan, who was helping clear 
 the supper-table, had joined us, Gregory Wilkinson 
 said to me, with even more emphasis than usual, 
 that Susan was the finest woman he had ever known ; 
 and he added that he was very sorry that when he 
 was my age he had not met and married just such 
 another. 
 
116 OUR PIRATE HOARD. 
 
 He and I talked a crood deal at odd times about 
 
 O 
 
 the money that our great-great-great-uncle the pi 
 rate had buried, and that through all these years 
 had stayed buried so persistently. He did not take 
 much interest in the matter personally, but for rny 
 sake, and still more for Susan s sake, he was begin 
 ning to be quite anxious that the money should be 
 found. He even suggested that we should take Old 
 Jacob over to the bay-side and let him try again to 
 find the Martha Ami s anchorage ; but a little talk 
 convinced us that this would be useless. The old 
 man had been given every opportunity, during the 
 two days that we had cruised about with him, to re 
 fresh his memory; and we both had been the pained 
 witnesses of the curious psychological fact that the 
 more he refreshed it, the more utterly unmanageable 
 it had become. The prospect, we agreed, was a dis 
 heartening one, for it was quite evident that for our 
 purposes Old Jacob was, as it were, but an elderly, 
 broken reed. 
 
 About this time I noticed that Gregory Wilkinson 
 was unusually silent, and seemed to be thinking a 
 great deal about something. At first we were afraid 
 that he was not quite well, and Susan offered him 
 both her prepared mustard plasters and her headache 
 powders. But he said that he was all right, though 
 he was very much obliged to her. Still, he kept on 
 thinking, and he was so silent and preoccupied that 
 Susan and I were very uncomfortable. To have him 
 around that way, and to be always wondering what 
 he could possibly be thinking about, Susan said, made 
 
OUR PIRATE HOARD. 117 
 
 her feel as though she were trying to eavesdrop when 
 nobody was talking. 
 
 One afternoon while we were sitting on the veran 
 da Susan and I trying to keep up some sort of a 
 conversation, and Gregory Wilkinson thinking away 
 as hard as ever he could think a thin man in a 
 buggy drove down the road and stopped at our hitch- 
 ing-post. When he had hitched his horse he took 
 out from the after-part of the buggy a large tin ves 
 sel standing on light iron legs, and came up to the 
 house with it. He made us all a sort of comprehen 
 sive bow, but stopped in front of Susan, set the tin 
 vessel upon its legs, and said : 
 
 " Madam, you behold before you the most econom 
 ical device and the greatest labor-saving invention of 
 this extraordinarily devicious and richly inventive 
 age. This article, madam" and he placed his hand 
 upon the tin vessel affectionately " is Stowe s pat 
 ent combination interchangeable churn and wash- 
 boiler." 
 
 Susan did not say anything; she simply shud 
 dered. 
 
 "As at present arranged, madam," the man went 
 on, "it is a churn. Standing thus upon these light 
 yet firm legs" (the thing wobbled outrageously), 
 " with this serviceable handle projecting from the 
 top, and communicating with an exceptionally ef 
 fective churning apparatus within, it is beyond all 
 doubt the very best churn, as well as the cheapest, 
 now offered on the American market. But observe, 
 madam, that as a wash-boiler it is not less excellent. 
 
118 OUR PIRATE HOARD. 
 
 By the simple process of removing the handle, tak 
 ing out the dasher, and unshipping the legs the 
 work, as you perceive, of but a moment^-the process 
 of transformation is complete. As to the trifling ori 
 fice that the removal of the handle leaves in the lid, 
 it becomes, when the wash-boiler side of this Pro 
 tean vessel is uppermost, a positive benefit. It is an 
 effective safety-valve. Without it, I am not pre 
 pared to say that the boiler would not burst, scat 
 tering around it the scalded, mangled remains of 
 your washer- woman and utterly ruining your week s 
 wash. 
 
 "And mark, madam, mark most of all, the econo 
 my of this invention. I need not say to you, a house 
 keeper of knowledge and experience, that churning- 
 day and wash-day stand separate and distinct upon 
 your household calendar. Under no circumstances 
 is it conceivable that the churn and the wash-boiler 
 shall be required for use upon the same day. Clear 
 ly the use of the one presupposes and compels the 
 neglect of the other. Then why cumber your house 
 with these two articles, equally large and equally 
 unwieldly, when, by means of the beautiful invention 
 that I have the honor of presenting to your notice, 
 the two in one can be united, and money and house- 
 room alike can be saved ? I trust, madam, I believe, 
 that I have said enough to convince you that my ar 
 ticle is all that fancy can paint or bright hope in 
 spire ; that in every household made glad by its 
 presence it will be regarded always and forever as a 
 heaven-given boon!" Suddenly dropping his rhe- 
 
OUR PIRATE HOARD. 119 
 
 torical tone and coming down to the tone of busi 
 ness, the man went on : "You ll buy one, won t you? 
 The price" 
 
 The change of tone seemed to arouse Susan from 
 the spellbound condition in which she had remained 
 during this extraordinary harangue. 
 
 " O-o-o-oh !" she said, shudderingly, "do take the 
 horrid, horrid thing right away !" Then she fled 
 into the house. 
 
 I was very angry at the man for disturbing Susan 
 in this way, and I told him so pretty plainly ; and I 
 also told him to get out. At this juncture, to my 
 astonishment, Gregory Wilkinson interposed by ask 
 ing what the thing was worth ; and when the man 
 said five dollars, he said that he would buy it. The 
 man had manifested a disposition to be ugly while 
 I was giving him his talking to, but when he found 
 that he had made a sale, after all, he grew civil again. 
 As he went off he expressed the hope that the lady 
 would be all right presently, and the conviction that 
 she would find the combination churn and wash-boil 
 er a household blessing that probably would add ten 
 years to her life. 
 
 "What on earth did you buy that for?" I asked, 
 when the man had gone. 
 
 " Oh, I don t know. It seems to be a pretty good 
 wash - boiler, anyway. I heard your wife say the 
 other day that she wanted a wash - boiler. She 
 needn t use it as a churn if she don t want to, you 
 know." 
 
 " But my wife never will tolerate that disgusting 
 
120 CUE PIRATE HOARD. 
 
 thing, with its horrid suggestiveness of worse than 
 Irish uncleanliness, about the house," I went on, 
 rather hotly. "I really must beg of you to send it 
 away." 
 
 " All right," he answered. " I ll take it away. 
 I m going to New York to-morrow, and I ll take it 
 along." 
 
 "And what ever will you do with it in New 
 York ? I asked. 
 
 " Well, I can t say positively yet, but I guess I ll 
 send it out to the asylum. They d be glad to get it 
 there, I don t doubt not as a churn, you know, but 
 for wash-boiling." 
 
 Then he went on to tell me that one of the things 
 that he especially wanted done at the asylum with 
 his legacy was the construction of a steam-laundry, 
 with a thing in the middle that went round and 
 round, and dried the clothes by centrifugal pressure. 
 lie explained that the asylum was only just starting 
 as an asylum, and was provided not only with very 
 few destitute red Indian children, but also with very 
 few of the appliances which an institution of that 
 sort requires, and that was the reason why he had 
 selected it, in preference to many other very deserv 
 ing charities, to leave his money to. 
 
 I must say that I was glad to hear him talking in 
 this strain, for his sudden announcement of his in 
 tended departure for New York, just after I had 
 spoken so warmly to him, made me fear that I had 
 offended him. But it was clear that I hadn t, and 
 that his going off in this unexpected fashion did not 
 
OUR PIRATE HOARD. 121 
 
 mean anything. He always did have a fancy for 
 doing things suddenly. 
 
 Susan was worried about it, in just the same way, 
 when I told her ; but she ended by agreeing with me 
 that he was not in the least offended at anything. In 
 deed, that evening we both were very much pleased 
 to notice what good spirits he was in. His preoccu 
 pied manner was entirely gone, and, for him, he was 
 positively lively. Evidently, whatever the thing was 
 that he had been thinking about so hard, he had 
 settled it in a way that satisfied him. 
 
 Just as we were going to bed he told me, in what 
 struck me at the time as rather an odd tone, that he 
 was under the impression that he had somewhere a 
 chest full of old family papers, and that possibly 
 among these papers there might be something that 
 would tell me how to find the fortune that Susan 
 and I certainly deserved to have. As he said this 
 he laughed in a queer sort of way, and then he 
 looked at Susan very affectionately, and then he 
 took each of us by the hand. 
 
 " Oh !" said Susan, rapturously (when Susan is ex 
 cited she always begins what she has to say with an 
 " Oh !" I like it). " To think of finding a piece of 
 old yellow parchment with a quite undecipherable 
 cryptogram written on it in invisible ink telling us 
 just where we ought to dig ! How perfectly lovely ! 
 Why didn t you think of it sooner ?" 
 
 " Because I have been neither more nor less than 
 a blind old fool. And and I have to thank you, 
 my dear," he continued, still speaking in the queer 
 
122 OUR PIEATE HOAKD. 
 
 tone, " for having effectually opened my eyes." As 
 he made this self -derogatory and quite incompre 
 hensible statement he turned to Susan, kissed her in 
 a great hurry, shook our hands warmly, said good 
 night, and trotted off up-stairs to his room. His con 
 duct was very extraordinary. But then, as I have 
 already mentioned, Gregory Wilkinson had a way of 
 always doing just the things which nobody expected 
 him to do. 
 
 He had settled back into his ordinary manner by 
 morning ; at least he was not much queerer than 
 usual, and bade us good-bye cheerily at the Lewes 
 railway station. I had hired a light wagon and 
 had driven him over in time for the early train, 
 bringing Susan along, so that she might see the last 
 of him. What with all three of us, his trunk and 
 valise, and the churn-wash-boiler, we had a wagon- 
 load. 
 
 Susan was horrified at the thought of his giving 
 the churn-wash-boiler to the asylum. " Even if they 
 only are allowed to use it as a wash-boiler," she ar 
 gued, earnestly, " think what dreadful ideas of un 
 tidiness it will put into those destitute red Indian 
 children s heads ! ideas," she went on, " which will 
 only tend to make them disgrace instead of doing 
 credit to the position of easy affluence to which your 
 legacy will lift them when they return to their bar 
 baric wilds. If you must give it to them, at least 
 conceal from them I beg of you, conceal from 
 them the fatal fact that it ever was meant to be a 
 churn too." 
 
OUK PIEATE HOARD. 123 
 
 Gregory Wilkinson promised Susan that he would 
 conceal this fact from the destitute red Indian chil 
 dren ; and then the train started, and he and the 
 churn- wash-boiler were whisked away. We really 
 were very sorry to part with him. 
 
 V. 
 
 Two or three days later I happened to meet Old 
 Jacob as I was coming away from the post-office in 
 Lewes, and I was both pained and surprised to per 
 ceive that the old man was partially intoxicated. 
 When he caught sight of me he came at me with 
 such a lurch that had I not caught him by the arm 
 he certainly would have fallen to the ground. At 
 first he resented this friendly act on my part, but 
 in a moment he forgot his anger and insisted upon 
 shaking hands with me with most energetic warmth. 
 Then he swayed his lips up to my ear, and asked in 
 a hoarse whisper if that old cousin chap of mine had 
 got home safely the night before ; and wanted to 
 know, with a most mysterious wink, if things was 
 all right now. 
 
 I was grieved at finding Old Jacob in this un 
 seemly condition, and I also was ruffled by his very 
 rude reference to my cousin. I endeavored to dis 
 engage my hand from his, and replied with some 
 dignity that Mr. Wilkinson at present was in New 
 York, whither he had returned several days previ- 
 
124 OUK PIKATE HOARD. 
 
 ously. But Old Jacob declined to relinquish my 
 hand, and, with more mysterious winks, declared in 
 a muzzy voice that I might trust him, and that I 
 needn t say that my cousin was in New York, when 
 he and him had been a-ridin around together to the 
 bay and back ag in only the day before. And then 
 he went off into a rambling account of this expedi 
 tion, which in its main features resembled the ex 
 pedition that we all three had taken together, but 
 which displayed certain curious details as it ad 
 vanced that I could not at all account for. By all 
 odds the most curious of these details was that they 
 had taken along with them a large tin vessel, Old 
 Jacob s description of which tallied strangely close 
 ly with that of the churn-wash-boiler, and that they 
 had left it behind them when they returned. But 
 as he mixed this up with a lot of stuff about having 
 shown my cousin the course of an old creek that a 
 storm had filled with sand fifty years and more be 
 fore, I could not make head nor tail of it. 
 
 Yet somehow there really did seem to be more 
 than mere drunken fancy in what he was telling 
 me ; for in spite of his muzzy way of telling it, his 
 story had about it a curious air of truth ; and yet it 
 all was so utterly preposterous that belief in it was 
 quite out of the question. To make matters worse, 
 when I begged the old man to try to remember very 
 carefully whether or not he really had made a second 
 trip to the bay, or only was telling me about the 
 trip that the three of us had made together, he sud 
 denly got very angry, and said that he supposed I 
 
OUR PIRATE HOARD. 125 
 
 thought he was drunk, and if anybody was drunk I 
 was, and he d fight me for five cents any time. And 
 then he began to shake his old fists at me, and to go 
 on in such a boisterous way that, in order to avoid a 
 very unpleasant scene upon the public streets, I had 
 to leave him and come home. 
 
 When I told Susan the queer story that Old Jacob 
 had told me she was as much perplexed and dis 
 turbed by it as I was. To think of Gregory Wil 
 kinson driving around the lower part of the State of 
 Delaware in this secret sort of way, in company 
 with Old Jacob and the churn-wash-boiler, as she 
 very truly said, was like a horrible dream ; and she 
 asked me to pinch her to make sure that it wasn t. 
 
 "But even pinching me don t prove anything," 
 she said, w r hen I had performed that office for her. 
 " For don t you see ? I might dream that I was 
 dreaming, and asked you to pinch me, and that you 
 did it ; and I suppose," she went on, meditatively, 
 " that I might even dream that I woke up when you 
 pinched me, and yet that I might be sound asleep 
 all the while. It really is dreadfully confusing, 
 when you come to think of it, this way in which 
 you can have dreams inside of each other, like lit 
 tle Chinese boxes, and never truly know whether 
 you re asleep or awake. I don t like it at all." 
 
 Without meaning to, Susan frequently talks quite 
 in the manner of a German metaphysician. 
 
 The next day we recived a letter from Gregory 
 Wilkinson that we hoped, as we opened it, would 
 clear up the mystery. But before we had finished 
 
126 OUR PIRATE HOARD. 
 
 it we were in such a state of excitement that we 
 quite forgot that there was any mystery to clear 
 up. My cousin wrote from his home in Kew York, 
 and made no allusion whatever to a second visit 
 to Lewes, still less to a second expedition with Old 
 Jacob to Rehoboth Bay. After speaking very nicely 
 of the pleasant time that he had passed with us, he 
 continued : 
 
 " I enclose a memorandum that seems to have a 
 bearing upon the whereabouts of the hidden family 
 fortune. I am sorry, for Susan s sake, that it is 
 neither invisible nor undecipherable ; but I think 
 that for practical purposes visible ink and readable 
 English are more useful. I advise you to attend to 
 the matter at once. It may rain." 
 
 The enclosure was a scrap of paper, so brown with 
 age that it looked as though it had been dipped in 
 coffee, on which was written, in astonishingly black 
 ink, this brief but clear direction : 
 
 Sheer uppe ye plaiike midwai atween ye oake and 
 ye hiccorie saplyngs 7 fathom JEst of Pequinky crik 
 on ye baye. Ytte is all there. 
 
 There was no date, no signature, to this paper, but 
 neither Susan nor I doubted for a moment that it 
 was the clew to my great-great-great-uncle s missing 
 fortune. With a heart almost too full for utterance, 
 Susan went straight across the room to the big dic 
 tionary (Gregory Wilkinson had given it to us at 
 Christmas, with a handy iron stand to keep in on), 
 and in a trembling voice the dear child told me in 
 one single breath that a fathom was a measure of 
 
OUR PIRATE HOARD. 127 
 
 length containing six feet or two yards, generally 
 used in ascertaining the depth of the sea. Then, 
 without waiting to close the dictionary, she threw 
 herself into ray arms and asked me to kiss her hard ! 
 
 Susan wanted to start right off that afternoon 
 she was determined to go with me this time, and I 
 had not the heart to refuse her ; but I represented 
 to her that night would be upon us before we could 
 get across to the bay, and that we had better wait 
 till morning. But I at once went over and hired 
 the light wagon for the next day, and then we got 
 together the things which we deemed necessary for 
 the expedition. The tape-measure, of course, was a 
 most essential part of the outfit. Susan declared 
 that she would take exclusive charge of that her 
 self ; it made her feel that she was of importance, 
 she said. During all the evening she was quite quiv 
 ering with excitement and so was I, for that mat 
 ter and I don t believe that we slept forty winks 
 apiece all night long. 
 
 We were up bright and early, and got off before 
 seven o clock after Susan had given the colored 
 girl a great many directions as to what she should 
 and should not do while we were gone. This was 
 the first time that we ever had left the colored girl 
 alone in the house for a whole day, and Susan could 
 not help feeling rather anxious about her. It would 
 be dreadful, she said, to come home at night and 
 find her bobbing up and down dead at the bottom 
 of the well. 
 
 As we drew near the bay I asked several people 
 
128 OUK PIRATE HOARD. 
 
 whom we happened to meet along the road if they 
 knew where Pequinky Creek was, and I was rather 
 surprised to find that they all said they didn t. At 
 last, however, we were so fortunate as to meet with 
 quite an old man who was able to direct us. He 
 seemed to be a good deal astonished when I put the 
 question to him, but he answered, readily : 
 
 "Yes, yes, o course I knows where tis tain t 
 nowhere. Why, young man, there hain t ben any 
 Pequinky Crik fur tli better part o sixty year 
 not sence thet gret May storm druv th bay shore 
 right up on eend an dammed th crik short off, an 
 turned all th medders thereabouts inter a gret nasty 
 ma sh, an med a new outlet five mile an more away 
 t th west ard. Not a sign o Pequinky Crik will 
 you find at this day an w at I should like ter know 
 is w ere on yeth a young feller like you ever s much 
 as heerd tell about it." 
 
 This was something that I had not counted on, 
 and I could see that Susan was feeling very low in 
 her mind. But by questioning the old man closely 
 I gradually got a pretty clear notion of where the 
 mouth of the creek used to be ; and I concluded 
 that, unless the oak and hickory had been cut down 
 or washed away, I stood a pretty good chance of 
 finding the spot that I was in search of. Susan did 
 not take this hopeful view of the situation. She 
 was very melancholy. 
 
 Following the old man s directions, I drove down 
 to the point on the road that was nearest to where 
 the Pequinky in former times had emptied into the 
 
OUR PIRATE HOARD. 129 
 
 bay ; then I hitched the horse to a tree, and with 
 Susan and the tape-measure began my explorations. 
 They lasted scarcely five minutes. With no trouble 
 at all I found the oak and the hickory grown to 
 be great trees, as I had expected and with the 
 tape-measure we fixed the point midway between 
 them in no time. Then I went back to the wagon 
 for the spade and the other things, Susan going 
 along and dancing around and around me in sheer 
 delight. It is a fortunate trait of Susan s character 
 that while her spirits sometimes do fall a very long 
 distance in a very short time, they rise to propor 
 tionate heights with proportionate rapidity. 
 
 The point that we had fixed between the trees 
 was covered thickly with leaves, and when I had 
 cleared these away and had begun to dig, I was sur 
 prised to find that the soil came up freely, and was 
 not matted together with roots as wood soil ought 
 to be. I should have paid more attention to this 
 curious fact, no doubt, had I not been so profoundly 
 stirred by the excitement incident to the strange 
 work in which I was engaged. As for Susan, the 
 dear creature said that she had creeps all over her, 
 for she knew that the old pirate s ghost must be 
 hovering near, and she begged me to notify her 
 when I came to the skeleton, so that she might look 
 away. I told her that I did not expect to find a 
 skeleton, but she replied that this only showed how 
 ignorant I was of pirate ceremonial ; that it was 
 the rule with all pirates when burying treasure to 
 sacrifice a human life, and to bury the dead body 
 
130 OUR PIRATE HOARD. 
 
 over the hidden gold. She admitted, however 
 upon my drawing her attention to the fact that the 
 treasure which we were in the act of digging up 
 had been placed here by my relative only for tem 
 porary security that in this particular instance the 
 human sacrifice part of the pirate programme might 
 have been omitted. 
 
 Just as we had reached this conclusion which dis 
 appointed Susan a little, I think my spade struck 
 with a heavy thud against a piece of wood. Clear 
 ing the earth away, I disclosed some fragments of 
 rotten plank, and beneath these I saw something 
 that glittered! Susan, standing beside me on the 
 edge of the hole, saw T the glitter too. She did not 
 say one word ; she simply put both her arms around 
 my neck and kissed me. 
 
 I rapidly removed the loose earth, and then with 
 the pickaxe I heaved the plank up bodily. But 
 what we saw when the plank came away was not a 
 chest full of doubloons, pieces-of-eight, moidores, and 
 other such ancient coins, mingled with golden orna 
 ments thickly studded with precious stones ; no, we 
 saw the very bright lid of a tin box, a circular box, 
 rather more than two feet in diameter. There was 
 a small round hole in the centre of the lid, into which 
 a little roll of newspaper was stuffed presumably 
 to keep the sand out and beside this hole I noticed, 
 soldered fast to the lid, a small brass plate on which 
 my eye caught the word " Patented." It was strange 
 enough to find the tin box in such perfect preserva 
 tion while the stout oak plank above it had rotted 
 
OUR PIE ATE HOARD. 131 
 
 into fragments ; but the wisp of newspaper, and the 
 brass plate with its utterly out-of-place inscription, 
 were absolutely bewildering. My head seemed to 
 be going around on my shoulders, while something 
 inside of it was buzzing dreadfully. Suddenly Susan 
 exclaimed, in a tone of disgust and consternation : 
 "It s it s that perfectly horrid churn-wash-boiler!" 
 
 As she spoke these doomful words I recalled Old 
 Jacob s drunken story, which I now perceived must 
 have been true, and the dreadful thought flashed 
 into my mind that Gregory Wilkinson must have 
 gone crazy, and that this dreary practical joke was 
 the first result of his madness. Susan meanwhile had 
 sunk down by the side of the hole and was weeping 
 silently. 
 
 As a vent to my outraged feelings I gave the 
 wretched tin vessel a tremendous poke with the 
 spade, that caved in one side of it and knocked the 
 lid off. I then perceived that within it was an ob 
 long package carefully tied up in oiled silk, and on 
 bending down to examine the package more closely 
 I perceived that it was directed to Susan. With a 
 dogged resolve to follow out Gregory Wilkinson s 
 hideous pleasantry to the bitter end, I lifted the 
 package out of the box it was pretty heavy and 
 began to open it. Inside the first roll of the cover 
 was a letter that also was directed to Susan. She had 
 got up by this time, and read it over my shoulder. 
 
 "MY DEAR SUSAN, I have decided not to wait 
 until I die to do what little good I can do in the 
 
132 OUR PIRATE HOARD. 
 
 world. You will be glad, I am sure, to learn that I 
 have made arrangements for the immediate erection 
 of the steam-laundry at the asylum, as well as for 
 the material improvement in several other ways of 
 that excellent institution. 
 
 "At the same time I desire that you and your 
 husband shall have the benefit immediately of the 
 larger portion of the legacy that I always have in 
 tended should be yours at my death. It is here (in 
 govt. 4 s), and I hope with all my heart that your 
 trip to Europe will be a pleasant one. I am very 
 affectionately yours, GREGORY WILKINSON." 
 
 " And to think," said Susan as we drove home 
 through the twilight, bearing our sheaves with us 
 and feeling very happy over them "and to think 
 that it should turn out to be your cousin Gregory 
 Wilkinson who was the family pirate and had a 
 hoard, and not your great -great -great -uncle, after 
 all!" 
 
A TEMPORARY DEAD-LOCK. 
 
I. 
 
 ME. JOHN AMESBURY, Senior Warden of St. Jude s 
 Church, Minneapolis, to the Rev. Clement Mark- 
 ham : 
 
 VESTRY OP ST. JCDE S, April 4th. 
 
 DEAE MR. MAEKHAM, At a special meeting of 
 the wardens and vestry of St. Jade s Church held 
 this day, it was unanimously decided to grant your 
 request for leave of absence from your duties as rec 
 tor of this parish from June 1st till September 13th, 
 inclusive, proximo, with permission to go abroad. I 
 am instructed further to state that the wardens and 
 vestry of St. Jude s have much pleasure in granting 
 your request, as they feel that your zealous and very 
 successful administration of the affairs of the parish 
 lias abundantly entitled you to a period of relaxa 
 tion and rest. Your salary for the term of your ab 
 sence will be paid to you in advance. 
 
 In my personal capacity, my dear Markham, per 
 mit me to add that I am delighted that you are to 
 have this holiday. You richly deserve it. By-the- 
 way, a good deal of amusement was caused by the 
 rather characteristic error in the date of your formal 
 application for leave. Were you to receive precisely 
 
136 A TEMPORARY DEAD-LOCK. 
 
 the holiday that you asked for, you would have to 
 turn back the wheels of time, for your letter was 
 dated last year ! 
 
 II. 
 
 Mrs. Clement Markham to Mrs. Winthrop Tremont, 
 
 Boston : 
 
 ST. JUDK S RECTORY, MINNEAPOLIS, May loth. 
 
 DEAR AUNT LUCY, We are getting on famously 
 with our preparations for the summer. Dear Clem 
 ent is full of his visit to England, and I am sure 
 that he will have a delightful time. The bishop has 
 given him a letter of introduction to the Bishop 
 of London, and another to Dean Rumford, of Can 
 terbury, so a very desirable introduction to the best 
 clerical society is assured to him. He expects to sail 
 from New York on the City of Paris June 5th, and 
 to sail from London on the same vessel on Septem 
 ber 4th. This will bring him back to New York in 
 plenty of time to get home to preach on the next 
 Sunday, the 14th. He expects to write his sermon 
 on the voyage. It would be delightful to go with 
 him, but this is impossible on account of the chil 
 dren. I have engaged board for the summer at a 
 small but very good hotel in the White Mountains 
 the Outlook House, Littleton, New Hampshire 
 and I expect to be very comfortable there. I made 
 a funny mistake in writing for my rooms. I directed 
 my first letter to Littleton, Neio York. Wasn t it 
 absurd ? 
 
A TEMPORARY DEAD-LOCK. 137 
 
 Dear Clement expects to get some vestments in 
 London, where they make them so well, you know, 
 and he has promised to bring me from Paris where 
 he will spend a fortnight two dozen pairs of gloves 
 and six pairs of black silk stockings. Fancy my 
 having six pairs of black silk stockings at once ! I 
 shall feel like a queen. The children are very well. 
 
 III. 
 
 The Rev. Clement Markham to Mrs. Clement Mark- 
 ham, Littleton, New Hampshire : 
 
 ON BOARD " CITY OF PARIS," June 5th 3:30 P.M. 
 ... I stayed with my brother Ronald last night, 
 and he and Van Cortlandt came down to see me off. 
 I barely caught the steamer, for I forgot my watch 
 left it on the mantel-piece in Ronald s chambers 
 and did not remember it until we were half-way 
 down town. Ronald said, in his chaffing way, that 
 I left my head somewhere when I was a boy, and 
 that I have been going around without it ever since. 
 I wish that he and Van Cortlandt hadn t such silly 
 notions about my incapacity in the ordinary affairs 
 of life not that I really mind their nonsense, for 
 you know how well I love them both. I am very 
 glad that you consented to go directly to the mount 
 ains instead of coming to New York to see me off. 
 There was a great crowd on the dock, and I much 
 prefer to think of our tender parting. . . . Be sure to 
 
138 A TEMPORARY DEAD-LOCK. 
 
 cable me on the 15th the day that I get to London. 
 The address, you know, is simply, " Clement, Lon 
 don," and I am to arrange with my bankers to have 
 the despatch sent to me. Good-bye, my Here is 
 the pilot. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Rev. Clement Markham to Mrs. Clement Mark- 
 ham, Littleton, New Hampshire : 
 
 [Cable Desimtch.] 
 
 LONDON, June 16th. 
 Why have you not cabled? 
 
 V. 
 
 The Rev. Clement Markham to Mrs. Clement Mark- 
 ham, Littleton, New Hampshire : 
 
 CHARING CROSS HOTEL, LONDON, June 16th. 
 . . . After I cabled you this morning I remembered 
 that I hadn t arranged with the bankers about my 
 cable despatches. When I had rectified this error 
 of omission I received your despatch of yesterday. 
 It was a very great relief to my mind to have direct 
 news from you, and to know of the safety and health 
 of my loved ones, who are dearer to me ... 
 
A TEMPORARY DEAD-LOCK. 139 
 
 VI. 
 
 The Rev. Clement Markham to Mrs. Clement Mark- 
 ham, Littleton, New Hampshire : 
 
 CHARING CROSS HOTEL, LONDON, August 20tli. 
 
 ... I had a delightful fortnight in Paris. ... I 
 bought the gloves and the stockings it was droll, 
 and not quite proper, about buying the stockings. I 
 will tell you all about it when I get home. And I 
 also bought you Something Else that I am sure will 
 be a pleasant surprise to you when you see it. ... 
 His lordship, Dr. - , has been kindness itself to 
 me. I dined again at Lambeth Palace yesterday 
 a farewell dinner. I was a little late, I am sorry to 
 say, for I got into the wrong boat at Westminster 
 Bridge, but his lordship very cordially accepted my 
 excuses. At dinner I was seated next to a very in 
 teresting man who has charge of a large parish in 
 the east end of London. Such poverty as there is in 
 that wretched region, and such moral depravity, are 
 sickening to contemplate. Thank Heaven, there is 
 nothing like it in Minneapolis. . . . 
 
 I shall sail (D. V.) on the City of Paris two 
 weeks from to-morrow. I think that the best ar 
 rangement will be for you to come down to your 
 aunt Lucy s on the llth, and on the 12th (D. V.) I 
 will join you at her house in Boston, whence we will 
 start for home that evening via the Boston and Al- 
 
140 A TEMPORARY DEAD-LOCK. 
 
 bany. I must be in New York for a few hours to 
 see Ronald and to make the final arrangements about 
 the new stained-glass windows. If you prefer to 
 meet me in New York, arrange matters with Ronald, 
 who will meet you at the station and take you to a 
 hotel. As I shall go directly to his office on landing, 
 I will find out at once what you have decided to 
 do. . . . On referring to your letter of the 10th I 
 perceive that you are afraid that I may have made 
 some mistake about the sizes of the stockings and 
 gloves. Of course I got the right sizes ; I had it 
 written doAvn : " No. 6 J-, long fingers," and " No. 8 J, 
 narrow ankles." Don t fall into Ronald s way of 
 fancying that I always get things wrong. It was 
 about the narrow ankles that But I had better 
 wait and tell it to you when I get home. It certain 
 ly was very droll. I have bought a most satisfac 
 tory chasuble, very elegant in material and beauti 
 fully made. I should have hesitated to buy so costly 
 a garment for myself ; but this is for the Service of 
 the Sanctuary. It will make something of a stir 
 among the congregation, I think, the first time that 
 I wear it in dear St. Jude s. ... If, as is probable, I 
 go down into Wales next week, this will be my last 
 letter. My heart is full of joyful thankfulness to 
 think that so very soon I shall see again (D. Y.) my 
 own dear Margaret, who. . . . 
 
A TEMPORARY DEAD-LOCK. 141 
 
 VII. 
 
 Mrs. Clement Markham to Mrs. Winthrop Tremont, 
 Boston : 
 
 LITTLETON, August 89th. 
 
 DEAR AUNT LUCY, I have just received a long 
 and delightful letter from dear Clement. He had a 
 lovely time in Paris, and he has bought me the gloves 
 and the silk stockings, and also Something Else ; but 
 he won t tell me what this other thin 2 is for he 
 
 O " 
 
 means it to be a surprise. Do you think it could 
 possibly be the silk for a dress? He knows how 
 much I want a new black silk. But I shall not think 
 about it, for I don t want to be disappointed. He 
 has had such delightful dinners with his lordship the 
 Bishop of London at Lambeth Palace. His lordship 
 was "kindness itself," Clement writes. Clement 
 must have made a very favorable impression, of 
 course. And Clement writes that he has bought 
 such a love of a chasuble. It will stir up the whole 
 congregation the first time that he wears it, I am 
 sure. 
 
 If it is quite convenient to you, dear Aunt Lucy, I 
 shall come down to you, with the nurse and the chil 
 dren, on the llth. That is the day that Clement will 
 arrive in New York, and he writes that he will come 
 to Boston the next day after seeing Ronald, and at 
 tending to the final arrangements about our beauti 
 ful new chancel windows and join me at your house. 
 
142 A TEMPORARY DEAD-LOCK. 
 
 But if this arrangement is the least bit inconvenient 
 to you, please tell me so frankly, for I can perfectly 
 well meet him in New York, where Ronald will take 
 care of me till he comes a plan that he also has 
 arranged in case I do not go to you. Dear Clem 
 ent always is so thoughtful and careful, you know. 
 Please answer soon, so that I may know what to 
 do. The weather is quite chilly here now. The 
 children are brown as little berries and very well. 
 Baby has cut another tooth. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Mrs. "Winthrop Treinont to Mrs. Clement Markham, 
 Littleton, New Hampshire : 
 
 No. 19 MOUNT VERNON PLACE, August 30th. 
 MY DEAR MARGARET, I write at once because, I 
 am very sorry to say, it will be impossible for me to 
 have you here on the date that you name. I have 
 just completed my arrangements for having the en 
 tire house papered and painted. All the furniture is 
 locked up in the dining-room (that was done up, you 
 remember, last summer), and I set out this afternoon 
 on a round of visits that will fill up the time until 
 September 12th, when I am promised that the work 
 will be done. The servants are to have holidays 
 and the painters and paper-hangers are to be in 
 complete possession of the premises. Could I be 
 sure that they would keep their promises and get 
 
A TEMPORARY DEAD-LOCK. 143 
 
 through by the 12th, I should urge your coming on 
 that day, which still would be in time to meet Clem 
 ent, instead of on the llth. But you know how un 
 certain people of this sort are. Much as I would 
 love to have you and Clement with me, I think that 
 you had better follow out your second plan, and go 
 to Ronald s care in New York. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Mrs. Clement Markham to Mr. Ronald Markham, 
 
 New York : 
 
 LITTLETON, August 31st. 
 
 DEAR RONALD, Clement had arranged, in case 
 we could stay at Aunt Lucy s, to meet me in Boston 
 on his return. But I have just received a letter from 
 Aunt Lucy in which she says that her house is torn 
 up, and that we cannot possibly come to her before 
 the 12th. Therefore I must adopt the other plan 
 that dear Clement, with his usual thoughtf ulness, has 
 suggested, which is to meet him in New York. He 
 tells me to ask you to engage rooms for me in some 
 quiet hotel, and also to ask you to meet me on my 
 arrival with the children and nurse. I shall leave 
 here on the morning of the 10th by the White Mount 
 ain Express (that gets in at Jersey City, I think) ; 
 and if you will care for me in the way that Clement 
 suggests, I shall be very grateful. 
 
 Clement has had a lovely time during his holiday. 
 He has been especially favored by seeing a great 
 
144 A TEMPORARY DEAD-LOCK. 
 
 deal of the higher clergy. He has dined repeatedly 
 with the Lord Archbishop of London at Lambeth 
 Palace, and I am sure that he must have created a 
 very favorable impression among them, and given 
 them a highly satisfactory idea of the clergymen 
 of the American branch of the Anglican Church. 
 Please answer soon, so that I may know what to do. 
 I forgot to say that Clement expects to arrive on the 
 llth. He is to sail on the 4th. 
 
 X. 
 
 The Rev. Clement Markham to Mrs. Clement Mark- 
 ham, Littleton, New Hampshire : 
 
 [Cable Despatch.] 
 
 LIVERPOOL, September 3d. 
 Sail to-day. 
 
 XL 
 
 Mr. Ronald Markham to Mrs. Clement Markham, 
 Littleton, New Hampshire : 
 
 [Telegram.~\ 
 
 SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS, September 5th. 
 
 Here for a week on railroad business. Van Cort- 
 landt will secure you rooms and meet you. Write 
 him at No. 120 Broadway. 
 
A TEMPORARY DEAD-LOCK. 145 
 
 XII. 
 
 Mrs. Clement Markham to Mr. Hubert Van Cort- 
 
 landt, New York : 
 
 LITTLETON, September 5th. 
 
 DEAR MR. VAN CORTLANDT, By a telegram that 
 I have just received from Ronald, I find that he is 
 in Texas. I had written to him to ask him to se 
 cure rooms for me at some quiet hotel$ and to meet 
 me at Jersey City on the evening of the 10th, on the 
 arrival of the White Mountain Express. Of course 
 he cannot do this now, and he telegraphs me to ask 
 you to do it all in his place. I feel that I am taking 
 a great liberty in asking so much of you, but I really 
 cannot help myself. I had expected to meet Clem 
 ent in Boston at my aunt s, but my aunt is out of 
 town ; and now Ronald is away from New York. 
 It is very provoking. So, you see, I can only throw 
 myself on your mercy. But I do this with the less 
 hesitation because I know how strong your friend 
 ship is for my dear Clement, who will be, as I will 
 be also, very grateful to you. 
 
 I am very much puzzled by a cable despatch from 
 Clement that came two days ago. It reads, "Sail 
 to-day," and is dated September third. Clement s 
 passage was engaged on the City of Paris, which 
 I know was advertised to sail on September fourth, 
 and that is the date that he all along has named for 
 his return. Can the date of sailing have been 
 
146 A TEMPORARY DEAD-LOCK. 
 
 changed ? Ought I to come to New York one day 
 earlier? Everything seems to be going wrong of 
 late, and I am both worried and perplexed. If you 
 can think of any comforting explanation that will 
 account for this change, I shall be very much obliged 
 to you. Please give my kindest regards to Mrs. Van 
 Cortlandt. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Mr. Hubert Van Cortlandt to Mrs. Clement Mark- 
 ham, Littleton, New Hampshire : 
 
 LAW OFFICES OF 
 
 VAN CORTLANDT, HOWARD, WARRINGTON & EDGECOMBE, EQUITABLE 
 BUILDING, 120 BROADWAY. 
 
 [Dictated.] NEW YORK, September 7th. 
 
 MY DEAR MRS. MARKIIAM, Your favor of the 5th 
 is received. I am very glad indeed that I shall have 
 this opportunity to serve you. You must not con 
 sider yourself under any obligation at all. Remem 
 ber how close Clement is to me, though our ways in 
 life have separated widely, and how true his friend 
 ship has been to me through all these years. I am 
 delighted that Ronald is out of town, and that I am 
 to be permitted to serve you in his place. 
 
 I regret exceedingly that Mrs. Van Cortlandt is 
 still in the Catskills, and that our house still remains 
 in its condition of summer dismantlement. Were 
 she at home, and the house in order, you would come 
 directly to us, of course. As this cannot be, I have 
 
A TEMPOEAEY DEAD-LOCK. 147 
 
 engaged an apartment for you with my old land 
 lady, Mrs. Warden, No. 68 Clinton Place. For a 
 number of years before I was married I occupied 
 rooms in this house, and I am coniident that you 
 will be far more comfortable there than you possibly 
 could be at any hotel. Mrs. Warden, who is a moth 
 erly old body, and who remembers Clement well, 
 will take the best of care of you, and I have ar 
 ranged that your meals shall be sent across to you 
 from the Brevoort. 
 
 In regard to Clement s cable despatch, I am as 
 much puzzled as you are. One of my young men 
 has just returned from the office of the Inman Line, 
 and reports that the City of Paris sailed on her 
 regular date, the 4th, and is due to arrive here on 
 Wednesday next, the llth. My young man was as- 
 .sured that no steamer belonging to any of the regu 
 lar lines left Liverpool for this port on the 3d. The 
 Canard steamer Samaria did leave Liverpool on the 
 3d, however, for Boston. It is possible, of course 
 since your original plan seems to have been that you 
 and Clement should meet in Boston that he has 
 sailed in the Samaria. But I do not think that this 
 is probable. The Samaria is a much slower boat 
 than the City of Paris, and I think that even Clem 
 ent would perceive that by sailing in her he would 
 lose time instead of gaining it. Frankly, my dear 
 Mrs. Markham, I think that Clement simply has 
 mixed things up in his despatch by writing "to 
 day "when he meant "to-morrow." Bless his dear 
 old heart ! he always did have a faculty for getting 
 
148 A TEMPORARY DEAD-LOCK. 
 
 things wrong, you know. I decidedly advise you, 
 therefore, to come down to New York on the 10th, 
 as you have already arranged. 
 
 I observe that you speak of the White Mountain 
 Express as coming in at Jersey City. This is a mis 
 take : it arrives at the Forty-second Street Station. 
 Bear this fact in mind, please ; and I advise you to 
 write on a card which you had better have easily 
 accessible in your pocket-book Mrs. Warden s ad 
 dress, No. 68 Clinton Place. Then, should I miss 
 you in the crowd at the station, or should any other 
 mischance occur in regard to our meeting, you will 
 know where to tell your driver to take you, and 
 where to send your trunks. Do not fear that any 
 such untoward accident will occur : it is only pro 
 fessional prudence that leads me to provide for 
 every contingency that may arise. As a further 
 precautionary measure (we lawyers are full of pre 
 cautionary measures, you know), please telegraph 
 me from Littleton on the morning that you leave. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Mrs. Clement Markham to Mr. Hubert Van Cort- 
 landt, New York : 
 
 LITTLETON, September Oth. 
 
 DEAR MR. VAN CORTLANDT, Your very kind 
 letter came last evening. I cannot tell you how 
 grateful I am to you for all your goodness and 
 thoughtfulness. With such explicit directions I 
 
A TEMPORARY DEAD-LOCK. 149 
 
 cannot possibly go wrong. You must be right, I 
 think, in regard to the cable despatch. Such a mis 
 take would be just what dear Clement would be al 
 most certain to make when in one of his absent, 
 minded moods. I will do all the prudent things 
 which you so thoughtfully advise, and I shall keep 
 your letter to show to dear Clement, so that he may 
 know how much trouble you have taken to make 
 everything about my arrival secure. Of course, the 
 train does not come in at Jersey City : I remember 
 about it now perfectly. I arn in the thick of pack 
 ing to-day, and expect to get off in the morning ; 
 but I will telegraph you before I start. I don t want 
 to bother you with this letter at your office, so I send 
 it to your house. I find the address in Clement s 
 address-book. Am I not considerate ? 
 
 XV. 
 
 Dr. Atwood Vance to Mr. Hubert Van Cortlandt, 
 
 New York : 
 
 [Telegram.] 
 
 TANNERSTILLE, NEW YORK, September 9th. 
 Mrs. Van Cortlandt taken dangerously ill in night, 
 and continues in critical condition. Come at once. 
 
150 A TEMPORARY DEAD-LOCK. 
 
 XVI 
 
 Mrs. Clement Markham to Mr. Hubert Van Cort- 
 landt, New York : 
 
 [Telegram. Endorsed : "Not delivered. Party out 
 of town."] 
 
 LITTLETON, NEW HAMPSHIRE, September 10th. 
 Will arrive on White Mountain Express this 
 evening. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 The Rev. Clement Markham to Mrs. Clement Mark- 
 ham, No. 19 Mount Vernon Place, Boston: 
 
 [Telegram. Endorsed: "Returned to sender. Un 
 known at this address."] 
 
 BREVOORT HOUSE, NEW YORK, September llili. 
 Arrived this morning. Will be with you (D. V.) 
 to-morrow. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 The Rev. Clement Markham to Mrs. Winthrop Tre- 
 mont, No. 19 Mount Vernon Place, Boston : 
 
 {Telegram. Endorsed: "Returned to sender. Ad 
 dressee absent from Boston"] 
 
 BREVOORT HOUSE, NEW YORK, September llth. 
 Is Margaret with you ? Please answer at once. 
 
A TEMPOKAEY DEAD-LOCK. 151 
 
 XIX. 
 
 The Rev. Clement Markham to Clerk, Outlook 
 House, Littleton, New Hampshire : 
 
 [ Telegram.] 
 
 BREYOORT HOUSE, NEW YORK, September llth. 
 Is Mrs. Markham still at Outlook House? An 
 swer prepaid. 
 
 XX. 
 
 Clerk, Outlook House, to the Rev. Clement Mark- 
 ham, New York : 
 
 [Telegram.] 
 
 LITTLETON, NEW HAMPSHIRE, September llth. 
 Mrs. Markham left on morning train yesterday 
 for New York. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 The Rev. Clement Markham to Mr. John Amesbury, 
 Minneapolis : 
 
 [Telegram.] 
 
 BREVOORT HOUSE, NEW YORK, September llih. 
 Has Mrs. Markham returned to Minneapolis? 
 Please answer immediately. 
 
152 A TEMPORARY DEAD-LOCK. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Mr. John Amesbury to the Rev. Clement Markham, 
 
 New York : 
 
 [Telegram.] 
 
 MINNEAPOLIS, September lltk. 
 
 Mrs. Markham has not returned. Glad you are 
 back safe. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 The Rev. Clement Markham to Mr. Ronald Mark- 
 ham, Menger House, San Antonio, Texas : 
 
 [Telegram] 
 
 BREVOORT HOUSE, NEW YORK, September llth. 
 [Delivered September 12th.] 
 
 Did Margaret communicate with you in regard to 
 her intended movements ? I cannot find her and 
 am much perturbed. Answer at once. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Mrs. Clement Markham to Mr. Hubert Van Cort- 
 landt, No. Broadway, New York : 
 
 No. 68 CLINTON PLACE, September llth. 
 DEAR MR. VAN CORTLANDT, I was so sorry that, 
 after all, we did miss each other in the crowd last 
 night. But I got along very well, thanks to your 
 forethought in telling me just what to do, though I 
 must confess that I had five very dreadful minutes 
 
A TEMPORARY DEAD-LOCK. 153 
 
 while I was looking for the card on which I had 
 written Mrs. Warden s address. And where do you 
 suppose I found it at last ? It was in my pocket- 
 book, just where you told me to put it ! Wasn t it 
 absurd ? So then we came down here very com 
 fortably, and found the delightful apartment that 
 you had secured for me. As for Mrs. Warden, she 
 is as good as gold. She even had warm milk ready 
 for Teddy, and a delicious cup of tea for me. I 
 never shall be able to thank you enough for all that 
 you have done. 
 
 AVhat arrangements have you made about bring 
 ing Clement to me ? If the dear boy hasn t gone on 
 that slow ship to Boston, and has come, as you think 
 he has, on the City of Paris, he ought to arrive to 
 day. I should love to go down to the dock and be 
 the very first to welcome him. But in such a crowd 
 as there will be I ought not to venture, ought I ? 
 Please let me know by bearer just what you have 
 done about our meeting, and when I am to expect 
 my dear boy. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Mr. Robert Warrington to Mrs. Clement Markham, 
 No. 68 Clinton Place, New York : 
 
 LAW OFFICES OF 
 
 VAN CORTLANDT, HOWARD, WARRINGTON & EDGKCOMBE, EQUITABLE 
 BUILDING, No. 120 BROADWAY. 
 
 XEAV YORK, September llth. 
 Miss (or Mrs.) Margaret Markham: 
 
 DEAR MADAM, Replying, in the absence of Mr. 
 
154 A TEMPORARY DEAD-LOCK. 
 
 Van Cortlandt, to yours of even date, I would say 
 that Mr. Van Cortlandt was called out of town sud 
 denly yesterday by the dangerous illness of his wife. 
 I have no knowledge of the matter concerning which 
 you inquire, and regret, therefore, my inability to 
 supply the information which you ask. I may say, 
 however, that the City of Paris, as I have ascer 
 tained by telephone, arrived at her dock about half 
 an hour ago. Should you desire to telegraph Mr. 
 Van Cortlandt, his address is the Bear and Fox Inn, 
 Tanners ville, Greene County, New York. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Mrs. Clement Markham to Mr. Hubert Van Cort 
 landt, Bear and Fox Inn, Tannersville, Greene 
 County, New York : 
 
 [Telegram.] 
 
 68 CLINTON PLACE, NEW YORK, September llth. 
 [Delivered September 12th.] 
 
 What arrangements did you make for letting 
 Clement know where to find me ? If he came on 
 the City of Paris he is here in New York now. I 
 am anxious. So sorry about Mrs. Van Cortlandt. 
 
A TEMPORARY DEAD-LOCK. 155 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 Mr. Ronald Markham to the Rev. Clement Mark- 
 ham, New York : 
 
 [Telegram.] 
 
 SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS, September 12ih. 
 Do not know Margaret s plans. Think she ar- 
 ran<red matters with Van Cortlandt. See him. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Mr. Hubert Van Cortlandt to Mrs. Clement Mark- 
 ham, New York : 
 
 [Telegram.] 
 
 TANNERSVILLE, September 12th. 
 
 Made no arrangements. Expected to meet Clement 
 at dock. Sorry if I have occasioned you annoyance. 
 You know cause of neglect. Mrs. Van Cortlandt 
 now out of danger. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 The Rev. Clement Markham to Mr. Ronald Mark- 
 ham, San Antonio, Texas : 
 
 [Telegram.] 
 
 BRETOORT HOUSE, NEW YORK, September 12ih. 
 Van Cortlandt in Catskills with sick wife. Saw 
 his partner, Edgecombe, who can tell me nothing. 
 
156 A TEMPORARY DEAD-LOCK. 
 
 I have ascertained that Margaret left Littleton day 
 before yesterday for this city. With her departure 
 from Littleton all trace of her is lost. She has not 
 returned to Minneapolis. I am wellnigh crazed with 
 grief and anxiety. Advise me at once what is 
 best to be done. Shall I advertise ? Will it be well 
 to employ the police ? For Heaven s sake, answer 
 promptly and fully ! 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Mrs. Clement Markham to Mrs. Winthrop Tremont, 
 
 Boston : 
 
 [ Telegram. ] 
 
 68 CLINTON PLACE, NEW YORK, September 12th. 
 City of Paris arrived. Mrs. Warden been to dock 
 and got passenger list. Clement s name in it, so he 
 certainly made mistake in his cable despatch. I state 
 facts fully and clearly, so that you may understand 
 why Mr. Van Cortlandt was called suddenly to see 
 sick wife in Catskills, and so, while Clement must be 
 here in New York, perhaps close by me, am unable 
 to find him, and he, of course, does not in the least 
 know where to find me. There are hundreds of hotels 
 here in New York, and he may be at all of them. I 
 don t know what to do, and am almost frantic with 
 anxiety. Telegraph me at once, dear Aunt Lucy, 
 and make telegram perfectly clear, like mine, and 
 long and full and explicit. This is no time to think 
 about what telegraphing costs. Perhaps Clement 
 lias gone on to you, or the other ship may have got 
 
A TEMPORARY DEAD-LOCK. 157 
 
 in sooner. If he is with you, implore him to return 
 to me at once. Would it be well for me to employ 
 the police ? That was my first thought, but I was 
 afraid that I might make his disappearance get into 
 the newspapers and be a scandal, and that would not 
 do for a clergyman. And he has not really disap 
 peared ; it is only that we neither of us know where 
 we each are. My head is one horrible buzz. Shall 
 I advertise ? Had I better offer a reward ? Give 
 me your best advice, dear Aunt Lucy, and please 
 answer immediately. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 Mr. Ronald Markham to Mrs. Winthrop Tremont, 
 
 Boston : 
 
 [Telegram.] 
 
 SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS, September 12th. 
 [Delivered 13th.] 
 
 Clement is at Brevoort House, New York. By 
 characteristic blunder has missed Margaret. If you 
 know her address, please telegraph him. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 Mrs. Winthrop Tremont to Mr. Ronald Markham, 
 New York (forwarded to San Antonio, Texas) : 
 
 [Telegram. ] 
 
 BOSTON, September 12th. 
 [Delivered 13th.] 
 
 Margaret is at No. 68 Clinton Place, in great 
 10 
 
158 A TEMPORARY DEAD-LOCK. 
 
 distress because Clement does not come to her. 
 What foolishness has overtaken these innocents 
 now ? Please set them right. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 Mrs. Winthrop Tremont to Mrs. Clement Markham, 
 No. 68 Clinton Place, New York : 
 
 [Telegram.] 
 
 BOSTON, September 13lh. 
 
 Clement is at the Brevoort House, quite close by 
 you. 
 
 XXXIY. 
 
 Mr. Ronald Markham to the Rev. Clement Mark- 
 ham, Brevoort House, New York : 
 
 [Telegram.] 
 
 SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS, September 13th. 
 
 You will find Margaret at No. 68 Clinton Place, 
 directly across the street from your hotel. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 Mrs. Clement Markham to Mrs. Winthrop Tremont, 
 
 Boston: 
 
 ST. JUDE S RECTORY, MINNEAPOLIS, September 23d. 
 
 DEAR AUNT LUCY, We left New York early last 
 Monday, and by Tuesday night we were once more 
 
A TEMPORARY DEAD-LOCK. 159 
 
 safe and together here in our own dear home. We 
 had no misadventures on our journey, except that 
 we nearly missed our connection at Syracuse (where 
 we left the parlor-car for the sleeper) by getting on 
 the wrong train. Fortunately dear Clement found 
 out his mistake just in time. 
 
 I had not the energy to do more than telegraph 
 you from New York that all our troubles were end 
 ed. I was too much upset by the agony that I had 
 been through to write. It was a very dreadful two 
 days, dear Aunt Lucy; the most dreadful especially 
 that second day and the last night that I have ever 
 known. And dear Clement suffered even more than 
 I did, for I knew at least that he was alive, and he 
 knew absolutely nothing about me at all. It all 
 seems now like a horrible dream, and when I shut 
 my eyes and think about it, I turn giddy and feel 
 sick and faint. You cannot possibly imagine, dear 
 Aunt Lucy, how utterly, utterly dreadful it all was! 
 
 If it had not been so very dreadful, it would have 
 been a little absurd, I think ; for, you know, all the 
 while that we were in such terrible distress about 
 being unable to find each other, we actually could 
 have opened our windows and talked to each other 
 just across the street! As I found out, when at last 
 dear Clement came to me, his room in the Brevoort 
 House was directly opposite my apartment at No. 68 
 Clinton Place. Was it not strange? And what was 
 still stranger, dear Aunt Lucy, was that the very 
 morning that our agony ended I happened to look 
 across the street, and there, hanging beside an open 
 
160 A TEMPOKAEY DEAD-LOCK. 
 
 window of the hotel, I saw a lovely chasuble that I 
 knew must belong to some clergyman, and it made 
 rne think of the chasuble that Clement had written 
 he had bought in London and it really was that 
 very chasuble, you know, for Clement had hung it 
 there to get the creases out of it and seeing it set 
 me into a perfect agony of grief, for I thought that 
 I never was to see my dear husband again, and that 
 my children were fatherless, and that I was a widow, 
 and that there was nothing left for me in the world 
 but the blackest despair. And it was while I was 
 crying my very heart out that there was a knock at 
 the door, and then, in a single instant, all my sorrow 
 was ended as I found myself once more in dear 
 Clement s arms. 
 
 Yesterday dear Clement preached a beautiful ser 
 mon about man s liability to error, and the mysteri 
 ous ways through which human error providentially 
 is set right. It was a very impressive sermon. In 
 the service he wore his new chasuble. It is exceed 
 ingly becoming. Everybody was very much moved 
 by the sermon ; and I was moved, of course, most of 
 all. I could not help crying. Dear Clement s voice 
 trembled once or twice, and I saw that there were 
 tears in his eyes. The gloves are perfect, and the 
 stockings really are too good to be true. They are 
 open-work over the ankles, and three of the six pairs 
 are ribbed. I wish that I could tell you what a 
 queer time dear Clement had when he was buying 
 them. He bought them in a French shop in Paris, 
 you know ; and when he asked for stockings with 
 
A TEMPOEARY DEAD-LOCK. 161 
 
 narrow ankles, the young woman who was waiting on 
 him But it will be better to wait until I can tell 
 it to you. It was very funny. And the very best of 
 all, dear Aunt Lucy, is that the surprise that Clem 
 ent would not write to me about is the silk for a new 
 black silk dress ! It is a lovely quality. I do wish 
 that you could have heard Clement s beautiful ser 
 mon yesterday, and that you could have seen how 
 handsome he looked in his new chasuble. The 
 weather to-day is very warm. The children are 
 wonderfully well. 
 
FOE THE HONOR OF FRANCE. 
 
" PARDON ! Madame does not know that this is 
 a smoking-carriage?" 
 
 "But yes. Monsieur is very good. It is that my 
 husband would smoke. He is an old soldier. He 
 smokes all the time. Ciel! They are like chim 
 neys, these old soldiers. This man of mine regrets 
 that he cannot smoke when he is asleep !" 
 
 While Madame delivered this address she contin 
 ued also to mount the steps, and as she finished it 
 she seated herself in the corner of the carriage op 
 posite to me. She was short and round and sixty 
 years old, and smiling like the sun on a fine day. 
 Her dress was the charming dress of Aries, but over 
 her kerchief she wore a silk mantle that glittered 
 with an embroidery of jet beads. This mantle was 
 precious to her. Her first act upon seating herself 
 was to take it off, fold it carefully in a large hand 
 kerchief, and lay it safely in the netting above her 
 head. She replaced it with a red knitted shawl, 
 partly as a shield against the dust, and partly as a 
 protection against the fresh wind that was blowing 
 briskly down the valley of the Rhone. 
 
 In a moment her husband followed her, bowing to 
 me as he entered the carriage. Seating himself be 
 side her, and giving her plump hand a little affec- 
 
166 FOR THE HONOR OF FRANCE. 
 
 tionate pat, he said : "It is all right, little one. Ma 
 rie will receive her jelly in good condition. I my 
 self saw that the basket was placed right side up in 
 the carriage. The jelly will not spill." Then, turn 
 ing to me, he added : "My wife makes a wonderful 
 jelly of apricots, Monsieur. We are taking some of 
 it to our married daughter, w r ho lives in Avignon." 
 
 He was a well set-up old boy, with a face most 
 pleasantly frank, close - cut gray hair, short gray 
 whiskers, and a bristling white mustache. Across 
 his forehead, cutting through his right eyebrow, was 
 a desperate scar, that I at once associated in my own 
 mind with the red ribbon of the Legion that he 
 wore in the button-hole of his black frock-coat. He 
 looked the officer in retreat, and the very gentleness 
 and sweetness of his manner made me sure that he 
 had done some gallant fighting in his time. 
 
 As the train pulled out from the station it was 
 at Tarascon that they had joined me he drew forth 
 from his pocket a black little wooden pipe and a to 
 bacco-bag. This was my opportunity. I also drew 
 forth a pipe and a tobacco-bag. Would Monsieur 
 accept some of my tobacco? I asked. I had brought 
 it, I added, from America ; it was tobacco of the 
 Havana. 
 
 "Monsieur then is an American. That is interest 
 ing. And his tobacco is from the Havana, that is 
 more interesting still. My cousin s son has been for 
 many years in America. His name is Marius Gui- 
 raud ; he lives in San Francisco ; possibly Monsieur 
 and he have met ?" 
 
FOR THE HONOR OF FRANCE. 167 
 
 Monsieur regretted that he had not had this pleas 
 ure, and explained that his home was in ISTew York 
 three times as far from San Francisco as Marseilles 
 was from Paris. 
 
 "Name of a name! Is it possible? How vast 
 this America must be ! And they tell me " Here 
 he struck a wax match and paused to light his pipe. 
 He drew a dozen whiffs in silence, while on his face 
 was the thoughtful look of one whose taste in tobac 
 co was critical and whose love for it was strong. 
 
 " Thunder of guns, but it is good!" he exclaimed, 
 as he took the pipe from his mouth and passed it 
 lightly back and forth beneath his nose. "Had we 
 smoked tobacco like this in the Crimea we should 
 have whipped those rascal Russians in a single week. 
 Ab, that we often were without tobacco was the 
 hardest part of all. I have smoked coffee grounds 
 and hay, Monsieur, and have been thankful to get 
 them I myself, who well know what is good and 
 what is not good in a pipe! This tobacco it is 
 divine !" 
 
 "Monsieur served in the Crimea?" 
 
 " This is the proof of it," he said, a little grimly, 
 touching the scar on his forehead. 
 
 "And this," his wife added, touching the bit of 
 red ribbon in his button-hole. " He was the bravest 
 man in all that war, Monsieur, this old husband of 
 mine. His cross was given him by " 
 
 " Tchut, little one! What does Monsieur care 
 how I got my cross? It was not much that I did. 
 Any man would have done the same." 
 
168 FOR THE HONOR OF FRANCE. 
 
 " But the others did not do the same. They ran 
 away and left thee to do it alone. Did not his Maj 
 esty tell thee " 
 
 "Ah, Monsieur hears what a bdbillarde it is. If 
 she were given her own way she would swear that 
 I commanded the allied armies, and that I blew up 
 the Redan and stormed the Malakoff and captured 
 Sebastopol all alone !" 
 
 "Tell Monsieur what thou didst do," said the lit 
 tle woman, warmly. " Tell him truly precisely what 
 thou didst do, and then let him judge for himself if 
 what I have said be one bit less than thy due." 
 
 "And so bring Monsieur to know that I am a 
 babbling old woman like thyself?" He pinched 
 her gently, and then settled himself back against the 
 cushion as though with the intention of giving him 
 self wholly to the enjoyment of his pipe: yet was 
 there a look in his eyes that showed how T strong was 
 the desire within him the desire that is natural to 
 every brave and simple-minded old soldier to tell 
 the story of his honorable scars. Even had I felt no 
 desire to hear this story, not to have pressed him to 
 tell it would have been cruel. But little pressing 
 was required. 
 
 " Since Monsieur is good enough to desire to hear 
 what little there is to tell," he said, " and to show 
 him how foolish is this old woman of mine, I will 
 tell him the whole affair. It is a stupid nothing ; 
 but Monsieur may be amused by the trick that was 
 put upon me by those great generals yes, that cer 
 tainly was droll. 
 
FOE THE HONOR OF FRANCE. 169 
 
 "Our regiment, Monsieur, was the Twenty-seventh 
 of the Line. It was drawn almost wholly from the 
 towns and villages in these parts : Aries and Taras- 
 con and Saint-Remy and Salon and Maillane and 
 Chateau Renard there is the old chateau, over on 
 the hill yonder, beside the Durance and Barben- 
 tane, that we shall see presently around the corner 
 of the hill. We all were Provenpaux together, and 
 the men of the other regiments of our division gave 
 us the name of the Provence cats ; though why they 
 gave us that foolish name I am sure they never knew 
 any more than we did ourselves. It was not because 
 we were cowards, that I will swear : our regiment 
 did some very pretty fighting in its time, as any one 
 may know by reading the gazettes which were pub 
 lished in those days. 
 
 " Our division held Mont Sapoune the French 
 right, you know facing the Little Redan across the 
 Carenage Ravine. It was early in the siege, and we 
 had only drawn our first parallel : close against the 
 Selinghinsk and Vallyrie redoubts, and partly cov 
 ering the ground where we dug our rifle-pits later 
 on. But we were going ahead with our work fast, 
 and already we had thrown up the little redoubts 
 known as No. 11 and No. 15, which covered the ad 
 vancing earthwork leading to where our second par 
 allel was to begin. Redoubt No. 11 was a good hun 
 dred yards, and Redoubt No. 15 was more than three 
 times that distance outside of our lines ; and every 
 body knew that these two advanced posts would be 
 in great danger until our second parallel was well 
 
170 FOR THE HONOR OF FRANCE. 
 
 under way. So very possible was it that they might 
 be surprised, and the guns turned on our own lines 
 in support of a general attack, that in each of them 
 spikes and hammers were kept in readiness against 
 the need for spiking the guns before they fell into 
 the enemy s hands. Our regiment lay just behind 
 these redoubts, in the rear of the artillerymen who 
 manned our trenches; and as the gunners had plen 
 ty to do all day long, and through the night too 
 sometimes, the work of keeping up the night pickets 
 fell to our share. 
 
 "It was while things were this way that I was on 
 picket early one morning on our extreme left, close 
 over the edge of the Carenage Ravine. I had come 
 on with the midnight relief, and by five o clock in 
 the morning, when day was just breaking, my teeth 
 were chattering and I was stiff with cold. Name 
 of a name, but it was cold those winter mornings ! 
 We have nothing like it, even when the worst mis 
 tral is blowing, in our winters here in Provence. 
 Down in the ravine there was a thick mist, into 
 which I could not see at all ; but every now and 
 then a whiff of wind would come in from the sea 
 ward and thin it a little, and then I would give a 
 good look below me, for it was along the ravine 
 that "any party sent out to surprise us almost cer 
 tainly would come. 
 
 "It was while the light still was faint that I 
 thought I heard, coming up through the mist, a lit 
 tle rattling sound, such as might be made by a man 
 stumbling and dropping his musket among the bro- 
 
FOR THE HOXOE OF FRAXCE. 171 
 
 ken rocks. Just tben the mist was too thick for me 
 to see twenty feet below me. I was sure that some 
 thing bad was going on down there, but I did not 
 Avant to make a fool of myself by giving a false 
 alarm. All that I could do was to cock my musket 
 and to hold it pointed towards where the sound 
 seemed to come from, all ready, should there be 
 need for it, to give the alarm and get in a shot at 
 the enemy at the same time. Truly, Monsieur, it 
 seemed to me that I stood that way, while my heart 
 went pounding against my ribs, for a whole year! 
 I was no longer cold : the blood was racing through 
 my veins, and I was everywhere in a glow. Sud 
 denly there came a puff of wind, and as the mist 
 thinned for a moment I saw that the whole ravine 
 was full of Russians. Their advance already was 
 half-way up the bank nearest to our works. In less 
 than ten minutes the whole of them would be dash 
 ing into our outlying redoubts. As I pulled the trig 
 ger of my musket I tried to shout, but my throat 
 was as dry as a furnace and I could only gasp. And 
 will you believe it? my musket missed fire! 
 Name of a name, what a state I was in ! There was 
 the enemy coming on under cover of the mist ; and 
 there was I, the only man who could save our army, 
 standing dumb like a useless fool ! 
 
 "What I must do came to me like a flash. If I 
 ran back inside of our lines to give the alarm, the 
 chances were a thousand to one that the enemy 
 would have the outlying redoubt, very likely would 
 have them both, and w T ould turn the guns before 
 
172 FOR THE HONOR OF FRANCE. 
 
 help could come. But I knew, at least I hoped, 
 that there was time for me to get to the more ex 
 posed redoubt ahead of them and give the word to 
 spike the guns. It was all in an instant, I say, that 
 I found this thought in my mind, and my musket 
 and cartridge-box thrown I don t know where, and 
 myself dashing off through the mist across the 
 broken ground like a deer. 
 
 "As I rushed into the redoubt our men thought 
 that I was the Russians ; and when they knew me 
 by my uniform for a Frenchman, and heard me cry 
 ing in a hoarse whisper, Spike the guns ! they 
 thought that I was mad. But the lieutenant in com 
 mand of the battery had at least a little sense, even 
 if lie did not have much courage, and he looked tow 
 ards where I pointed and then he saw the shakos, 
 as the mist lifted again, not a hundred feet away. 
 
 " Save yourselves, I will make the guns safe, he 
 cried to his men he was not all a coward, poor fellow 
 and as they ran for it he picked up the spikes and 
 the hammer. Tap ! tap ! tap ! one gun was spiked. 
 Tap ! tap ! tap ! another. Then we heard the Rus 
 sians beginning to scramble up outside. 
 
 "He swore a great oath as he dropped the ham 
 mer. It can t be done. Run, cat! he cried and 
 away he started after his men. The name that I 
 called him as he ran away, Monsieur, was a very foul 
 name ; God forgive me for what I said ! But I was 
 determined that it should be done. In a second I 
 had picked up the nails and the hammer, and tap ! 
 tap ! tap ! the third gun was safe. Run, cat ! I 
 
FOR THE HONOR OF FRANCE. 173 
 
 heard the lieutenant call again. But tap ! I had 
 the n ail started in the last gun, and then, right 
 above me, was a Russian major and with him a doz 
 en of his men. Tap! and I had the nail half-way 
 home as the major jumped down beside me, with his 
 sword raised. I knew that I could parry his blow 
 with the hammer and then, possibly, get away ; but 
 I wanted to make sure that that gun could not be 
 turned. And so it was quick thinking that I did 
 just then, Monsieur tap ! and. the gun was no bet 
 ter than old iron ! At that same instant it seemed 
 to me that the whole world burst into a tremendous 
 roar and ten thousand blazing stars but it only was 
 the sword of that confounded Russian major bang 
 ing against my skull !" 
 
 The little woman was almost sobbing. She took 
 her husband s hand in both of hers. 
 
 "But you see that I was not killed, little one," he 
 said ; and he raised her hands to his lips and kissed 
 them. 
 
 "It was not until the next day, Monsieur," he 
 went on, " that I knew anything. Then I was in the 
 hospital. 
 
 " How did it go? I asked of the hospital-stew 
 ard. 
 
 " < Shut up, said the steward. 
 
 " This made me angry. How did it go,polisson$" 
 I cried. Tell me, or I ll crush your bones. 
 
 " Then the man was more civil. The Russians 
 were driven back, he said, and a lot of them were 
 captured. You owe it to the same Russian major 
 11 
 
174 FOR THE HONOR OF FRANCE. 
 
 who almost killed you that your life was saved. As 
 soon as he was brought into camp he sent a message 
 to the general begging that you might be looked af 
 ter quickly. If there was any life left in you, it w r as 
 worth saving, he said, for you were a brave man 
 and he told how you had spiked those last two 
 guns. ParbleUy but for that message you would 
 have died ! When they brought you in here you 
 were nearly gone ! 
 
 " And the lieutenant who ran away? I asked. 
 
 " Oh, he was killed as he deserved. Now you 
 know all about it. Hold your tongue. 
 
 "I felt so foolishly weak, and there was such a 
 pain in my head as I began to remember it all once 
 more, that I could not ask any more questions. 
 Presently my head began to buzz and the pain in it 
 to get worse, and then for a week I had a fever that 
 came near to taking me off. But I pulled through " 
 he squeezed his wife s hand, that again had been 
 laid in his " and in three weeks I was back with the 
 regiment again. It was all due to my having such 
 a wonderfully thick skull, the doctors said, that the 
 major s sword had not broken it past all mending. 
 When I came into camp the boys all cheered me, 
 and I was as proud as a cock. And then, the first 
 thing I knew, up came a corporal and a file of men 
 and arrested me. 
 
 " What am I arrested for? I asked. 
 
 " For being absent without leave from your regi 
 ment during battle, said the corporal, and marched 
 me off to the guard-house. Then I was not proud 
 
FOR THE HONOR OF FRANCE. 175 
 
 at all. But I was very angry. That I should be ar 
 rested in this fashion did not seem to me fair. 
 
 " In half an hour back came the corporal and his 
 file of men. This time they took me to headquar 
 ters. In we went ; and the corporal stood beside 
 me, and his men behind me in a row. It seemed as 
 though half the officers of our army were there : my 
 colonel, the general of our brigade, the general of 
 our division, half a dozen other generals, three or 
 four English officers in their smart red coats ; pres 
 ently there was a stir and in came the Emperor! 
 What the deuce it all meant I could not .tell at all ! 
 
 " ( Private Labonne, said my colonel, he spoke in 
 a very harsh tone, yet it seemed to me that there 
 was an odd sort of twinkle in his eye you de 
 serted your post, and you were absent without leave 
 when your regiment went into action. 
 
 Yes, but 
 
 " Not a word of excuse, Private Labonne. You 
 know the penalty. I did know the penalty, of 
 course ; it was to be taken out and shot. I began 
 to think that this was worse than the Russians ! 
 
 " When shall I order the court-martial, your Maj 
 esty? asked my colonel. 
 
 " I will be the court-martial, said the Emperor. 
 This is a serious matter; this is a matter to be 
 dealt with in a hurry. The case is proved. There 
 is no need for a trial. I order Private Labonne to 
 be shot right away. 
 
 " I shivered all down my back. It was worse than 
 the Russians ; very much worse. 
 
176 FOK THE HONOIi OF FRANCE. 
 
 " Take him away, said my colonel. 
 
 " The corporal put his hand on my shoulder and 
 the guard closed in. March ! said the corporal. 
 
 " Stop! said the Emperor. Private Labonne, 
 before you are taken away and shot, tell me what 
 you were doing in that battery. 
 
 " Nothing, your Majesty. 
 
 " Nothing ? I thought that I heard something 
 about guns being spiked. Did not you spike a gun, 
 Private Labonne? 
 
 " Yes, your Majesty. 
 
 " Did not you spike two guns and both of them 
 after the gunners and the officer in command of the 
 battery had run away ? 
 
 " Yes, your Majesty. 
 
 " And why did you not run away, too, Private 
 Labonne ? 
 
 " Because I wanted to spike the guns, your Maj 
 esty. 
 
 " You did not think, then, that it was your duty 
 as one of my soldiers to save your life by running 
 with the others ? 
 
 " This question puzzled me, for I certainly never 
 had thought of the matter in that way at all. It 
 occurred to me that perhaps I really had not done 
 my duty. But what the Emperor said, for all that 
 he was the Emperor, did not seem reasonable, and I 
 made bold to answer him : If T had taken care of 
 my own life, your Majesty, a great many of your 
 soldiers would have died to pay for it. It would 
 have been a bad day s work if those two guns had 
 
FOR THE HONOR OF FRANCE. 177 
 
 not been spiked, for the Russians certainly would 
 have turned them on our lines. 
 
 " The Emperor turned to my colonel. ( There is 
 something in what Private Labonne says, eh, colonel? 
 I suppose there really would have been the very devil 
 to pay had the enemy turned those guns ? 
 
 " I suppose there would, said my colonel, a little 
 grimly. 
 
 " * Then the case is not quite so black against 
 Private Labonne as it at first appeared? 
 
 " Not quite so black, said rny colonel. 
 
 " Perhaps we need not have him shot, after all ? 
 
 " Perhaps not not this time, at least. 
 
 " We might even compliment him a little upon 
 his bravery. For it was rather brave eh, colonel ? 
 to stay in that battery and spike those guns, while 
 a hundred Russians were tumbling in upon him, and 
 his own comrades had run off and left him to do his 
 duty and to die for it there alone. 
 
 " My colonel s voice broke a little as he answered, 
 It was very brave, your Majesty. 
 
 " Eh, well, Private Labonne, said the Emperor, 
 turning again to me, * we won t shoot you. Your 
 colonel is right about your bravery; and to shoot a 
 brave man, except in battle, is a mistake. The Rus 
 sian officer who came so near to killing you was a 
 major, I am told; well, you may happen to meet him 
 again, and if you do it is only fair that your rank 
 should equal his. Here is your commission, Major 
 Labonne ; and here is a little thing it was his own 
 cross of the Legion that the Emperor gave me 
 
178 FOR THE HONOR OF FRANCE. 
 
 that I want you to wear in remembrance of that day 
 when you did as brave a piece of work as ever was 
 done by a French soldier for the honor of France ! 
 
 "And so you see. Monsieur, it was only a comedy 
 about my being shot, after all. Here is Avignon. 
 You must wait for me a moment, little one, while I 
 get the basket of jelly for Marie." 
 
A KOMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUAEE. 
 
WHETHER the honey shall be brought to the 
 boiling-point slowly or rapidly; whether it shall boil 
 a long time or a short time ; when and in what quan 
 tities the flour shall be added; how long the knead 
 ing shall last; in what size of earthen pot the dough 
 shall be stored, and what manner of cover upon 
 these pots best preserves the dough against the as 
 saults of damp and mould; whether the pots shall 
 be half -buried in the cool earth of the cellar or 
 ranged on shelves to be freely exposed to the cool 
 cellar air all these several matters are enshrouded 
 in a mystery that is penetrated only by the elect few 
 of Niirnberg bakers by whom perfect lebkuchen is 
 made. And the same is true of the Brunswick 
 bakers, who call this rare compound honigkuchen, 
 and of the makers of pferfferkuchen, as it is called 
 by the bakers of Saxony. 
 
 Nor does the mystery end here. This first stage 
 in the making of lebkuchen is but means to an end, 
 and for the compassing of that end the blending 
 and the baking of the finished and perfect honey- 
 cake each master-baker has his own especial recipe, 
 that has come down to him from some ancestral 
 baker of rare parts, or that by his own inborn gen 
 ius has been directly inspired. And so, whether 
 
182 A ROMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUARE. 
 
 the toothsome result be Nlirnberger lebkuchen, or 
 Brunsscheiger peppernotte, or Easier leckerly, the 
 making of it is a mystery from first to last. 
 
 It was because of this mystery that the life of 
 Gottlieb Brekel had been imbittered for nearly 
 twenty years ever since, in fact, his first essay in 
 the compounding of Niirnberger lebkuchen had been 
 made. He was but a young baker then : now he 
 was an old one, and notwithstanding the guarded 
 praise of friends and the partial approval of the pub 
 lic (notably of that portion of the public under the 
 age of ten years that attended St. Bridget s Paro 
 chial School) he full well knew that his efforts 
 through all these years to make, in New York, leb 
 kuchen such as he himself had eaten when he was a 
 boy, at home in Niirnberg, had been neither more 
 nor less than a long series of failures. 
 
 In the hopeful days of his apprenticeship all had 
 seemed so easy before him. Let him but have a lit 
 tle shop, and then a little capital wherewith to lay 
 in his supply of honey, and the thing would be 
 done! He had no recipe, it is true; for he was a 
 baker not by heredity, but by selection. Yet from 
 a wise old baker he had gleaned the knowledge of 
 honey- cake making, and he believed strongly that 
 from the pure fount of his own genius he could 
 draw a formula for the making of lebkuchen so ex 
 cellent that compared with it all other lebkuchen 
 would seem tasteless. But these were the bright 
 dreams of youth, which age had refused to realize. 
 
 In course of time the little shop became an accom- 
 
A ROMANCE OF TOMPKIXS SQUARE. 183 
 
 plished fact ; a very little shop it was in East Fourth 
 Street. Capital came more slowly, and three several 
 times, when a sum almost sufficient had been saved, 
 was it diverted from its destined purpose of buying 
 the honey without which Gottlieb could not make 
 even a beginning in his triumphal lebkuchen career. 
 
 His first accumulation was swept away through 
 the conquest of Ambition by Love. In this case 
 Love was personified in one Minna Schaus who 
 was not by any means a typical sturdy German lass, 
 with laughing looks arid stalwart ways, but a dainti 
 ly-finished, golden-haired maiden, with soft blue eyes 
 full of tenderness, and a gentleness of manner that 
 Gottlieb thought and with more reason than lovers 
 sometimes think things of this sort was very like 
 the manner of an angel. And for love of her Gott 
 lieb forgot for a while his high resolves in regard to 
 lebkuchen making; and on the altar of his affec 
 tions in part to pay for his modest wedding-feast, 
 in part to pay for the modest outfit for their house 
 keeping over the bakery the money laid aside for 
 the filling of his honey-pots very willingly was of 
 fered up. 
 
 A second time were his honey-pots sacrificed, that 
 the coming into the world of the little Minna might 
 be made smooth. This, also, was a willing sacrifice; 
 though in his heart of hearts Gottlieb felt a twinge 
 of regret that his first-born was not a son, to whom 
 the fame and fortune incident to the making of per 
 fect lebkuchen might descend. But he was a phi 
 losopher in his way, and did not suffer himself to be 
 
184 A EOMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUARE. 
 
 seriously disconcerted by an accident that by no 
 means was irreparable. As he smoked his long pipe 
 that night, while the bread was baking, he said to 
 himself, cheerily: "It is a girl. Yes, that is easy. 
 Girls sprout everywhere ; they are like grass. But 
 a boy, and a boy who is to grow up into such a 
 baker as my boy will be ah, that is another matter. 
 But patience, Gottlieb; all in good time." Then, 
 when his third pipe was finished which was his 
 measure of time for the baking he fetched out the 
 sweet-smelling hot bread from the oven with his 
 long peel, and set forth upon his round of delivery. 
 And he whistled a mellow old Niirnberg air as he 
 pushed his cart through the streets before him that 
 frosty morning, and in his heart he thanked the good 
 God who had sent him the blessings of a dear wife 
 and a sweet little daughter and a growing trade. 
 
 And yet once more were his honey-pots sacrificed, 
 and this time the sacrifice was sad indeed. From 
 the day that the little Minna came into the world his 
 own Minna, as in a little while was but too plain to 
 him, began to make ready to leave it. As the weeks 
 went by, the little strength that at first had come to 
 her was lost again ; the faint color faded from her 
 cheeks, and left them so wan that through the fair 
 skin the blue veins showed in most delicate tracery; 
 and as her dear eyes ever grew gentler and more 
 loving, the light slowly went out from them. So 
 within the year the end came. In that great sorrow 
 Gottlieb forgot his ambition, and cared not, when 
 the bills were paid, that his honey-pots still remained 
 
A ROMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUARE. 185 
 
 unfilled. For the care of his home and of little Minna 
 his good sister Iledwig came to him. Very drearily, 
 for a long while, the work of the bakery went on. 
 
 But a strong man, stirred by a strong purpose, 
 does not relinquish that purpose lightty; and the one 
 redeeming feature of the life of many sorrows 
 which in this world we all are condemned to live is 
 that even the bitterest sorrow is softened by time. 
 But for this partial relief our race no doubt would 
 have been extinguished ages ago in a madness 
 wrought of grief and rage. 
 
 Gottlieb s strong purpose was to make the best 
 lebkuchen that baker ever baked. After a fashion 
 his sorrow healed, as the flesh heals about a bullet 
 that has gone too deep to be extracted by the sur 
 geon s craft, and while it was with him always, and 
 not seldom sent through all his being thrills of pain, 
 he bore it hidden from the world, and went about 
 his work again. Working comforted him. The 
 baking of bread is an employment that is at once 
 soothing and sustaining. As a man kneads the 
 spongy dough he has good exercise and wholesome 
 time for thought. While the baking goes on he may 
 smoke and meditate. The smell of the newly-baked 
 bread is a pleasant smell, and brings with it pleasant 
 thoughts of many people well nourished in the eat 
 ing of it. Moreover, there is no time in the whole 
 twenty-four hours when a city is so innocent, so like 
 the quiet honest country-side, as that time in the 
 crisp morning when a baker goes his rounds. 
 
 As Gottlieb found himself refreshed and strength- 
 
186 A ROMANCE OF TOMPKIXS SQUARE. 
 
 ened by these manifold good influences of his gentle 
 trade, his burden of sorrow was softened to him and 
 made easier to bear. Comforting thoughts of the lit 
 tle Minna growing to be a fine little lass now stole 
 in upon him, and within him the hope arose that she 
 would grow to be like the dear mother whom she 
 never had known. So the little fine roots of a new 
 love struck down into his sad heart; and presently 
 the sweet plant of love began to grow for him 
 again, casting its delicate tendrils strongly about the 
 child, who truly was a part of the being about which 
 his earlier and stronger love had clung. Yet the 
 love that thus was re-established in Gottlieb s breast 
 was far from filling it, and so for ambition there was 
 ample room. 
 
 Somewhat to his surprise, one night, as he sat be 
 side the oven smoking his second pipe, he found 
 himself thinking once more about his project for 
 making such lebkuchen as never yet had been known 
 outside of Niirnberg lebkuchen that would make 
 him at once the admiration and the despair of every 
 German baker in New York. Nor was there, as he 
 perceived as he turned the matter over in his mind, 
 any reason now why he should not set about mak 
 ing this project a reality ; for he had money enough, 
 and more than enough, in store to buy the honey 
 that he had so long desired. His eyes sparkled; he 
 forgot to smoke ; and when he turned again, half un 
 consciously, to his pipe, it had gone out. This roused 
 him. The brightness faded from his eyes; he drew 
 a long sigh. Then he lighted his pipe again, and 
 
-p= -_S=F- . - - : - ~~^ r - : _^~ . _--^ ^ ^^- ^ __^-~ 
 
A ROMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUARE. 189 
 
 until the baking was ended his thoughts no longer 
 were busied with ambitious schemes for the making 
 of lebkuchen, but went back with a sad tenderness 
 to the happy time that had come so quickly to so 
 cruel an end. 
 
 But the spark was kindled, and presently the fire 
 burned. When he told the good Hedwig that he 
 had bought the honey at last, that excellent woman 
 albeit not much given to display of the tender 
 emotions shed tears of joy. She was a sturdy, 
 thick-waisted, stout-ankled person, this Aunt Hed 
 wig, with a cheery red face, and prodigiously fine 
 white teeth, and very bright black eyes; and her 
 taste in dress was such that when of a Sunday she 
 went to the Church of the Redemptorist Fathers, in 
 Third Street, she was more brilliant than ever King 
 Solomon was in all his glory, in her startling array 
 of vivid reds and greens and blues. But beneath 
 her violent exterior of energetic color she had a 
 warm and faithful heart, as little Minna knew al 
 ready, and as her brother Gottlieb had known for 
 many a long good year. Therefore was Gottlieb 
 now gladdened by her hearty show of sympathy; 
 and lie returned with a good will the sounding 
 smack that she gave him with her red lips, and the 
 strong hug that she gave him with her stout arms. 
 
 It was at sight of this pleasing manifestation of 
 affection that Herr Sohnstein, the notary who was 
 present in the little room back of the shop where it 
 occurred at once declared that he meant to buy 
 some honey too. And Aunt Hedwig, smiling so 
 
190 A ROMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUARE. 
 
 generously as to show every one of her fine white 
 teeth, promptly told him that he had better be off 
 and buy it, because perhaps he could buy at the 
 same place some hugs and kisses too : at which 
 sally and quick repartee they all laughed. Ilerr 
 Sohnstein long had been the declared lover of Aunt 
 Hedwig s, and long had been held at arm s-length 
 (quite literally occasionally) by that vigorous per 
 son; who believed, because of her good heart, that 
 her present duty was not to consult her own happi 
 ness by becoming Frau Sohnstein, but to remain the 
 Friiulein Brekel, and care for her lonely brother and 
 her brother s child. 
 
 Being thus encouraged, Gottlieb bought the honey 
 forthwith ; and with Aunt Hedwig s zealous assist 
 ance set about boiling it and straining it and knead 
 ing it into a sticky dough, all in accordance with the 
 wise old baker s directions which he so long had treas 
 ured in his mind. And when the dough was packed 
 in earthen pots, over which bladders were tied, all 
 the pots were set away in the coolest part of the 
 cellar, as far from the great oven as possible, that 
 the precious honey-cake might undergo that subtle 
 change which only comes with time. 
 
 For at least a year must pass before the honey- 
 cake really can be said to be good at all ; and the 
 longer that it remains in the pots, even until five- 
 and-twenty years, the better does it become. There 
 fore it is that all makers of lebkuchen who aspire to 
 become famous professors of the craft add each 
 year to their stock of honey-cake, yet draw always 
 
w 
 
 "C 
 
 When the dough was packed in earthen pots, over which bladders 
 were tied, the pots were set away in the coolest part of the cellar. 11 
 
A ROMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUARE. 193 
 
 from the oldest pots a time-soaked dough that ever 
 grows more precious in its sweet excellence of age. 
 Thus large sums more hundreds of dollars than a 
 young baker, just starting upon his farinaceous ca 
 reer, would dare to dream of may be invested ; 
 and the old rich bakers who can dower their daugh 
 ters with many honey-pots know that in the matter 
 of sons-in-law they have but to pick and choose. 
 
 It was about Christmas-time which is the proper 
 time for this office that Gottlieb made his first 
 honey-cake ; and it was a little before the Christ 
 mas following that his first lebkuchen was baked. 
 For a whole week before this portentous event oc 
 curred he \vas in a nervous tremor ; by day he 
 scarcely slept ; as he sat beside the oven at night 
 his pipe so frequently went out that twice, having 
 thus lost track of time, his baking of bread came 
 near to being toast. And when at last the fateful 
 night arrived that saw his first batch of lebkuchen 
 in the oven, he actually forgot to smoke at all ! 
 
 Gottlieb had but a sorry Christmas that year. 
 The best that even Aunt Hedwig could say of his 
 lebkuchen was that it w r as not bad. Herr Sohnstein, 
 to be sure, brazenly declared that it was delicious ; 
 but Gottlieb remembered that Herr Sohnstein, who 
 conducted a flourishing practice in the criminal 
 courts, was trained in the art of romantic devia 
 tions from the truth whenever it was necessary to 
 put a good face on a bad cause ; and he observed 
 sadly that the notary s teeth were at variance with 
 his tongue, for the piece of lebkuchen that Herr 
 12 
 
194 A ROMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUARE. 
 
 Sohnstein ate was infinitessimally small. As for 
 the regular German customers of the bakery, they 
 simply bit one single bite and then refused to buy. 
 Indeed, but for the children from St. Bridget s 
 School who, being for the most part boys, and 
 Irish boys at that, presumably could eat anything 
 it is not impossible that that first baking of leb- 
 kuchen might have remained uneaten even until this 
 present day. And it w r as due mainly to the stout 
 stomachs of successive generations of these enter 
 prising boys that the series of experiments which 
 Gottlieb then began in the making of lebkuchen 
 was brought, in the course of years, to something 
 like a satisfactory conclusion. But even at its best, 
 never was this lebkuchen at all like that of which in 
 his hopeful youth he had dreamed. 
 
 Ilerr Sohnstein, to be sure, spoke highly of it, and 
 even managed to eat of it quite considerable quanti 
 ties. Gottlieb did not imagine that Ilerr Sohnstein 
 could have in this matter any ulterior motives ; but 
 Aunt Hedwig much more than half suspected that 
 in order to please her by pleasing her brother he was 
 making a sacrifice of his stomach to his heart. If 
 this theory had any foundation in fact, it is certain 
 that Ilerr Sohnstein did not appreciably profit by 
 his gallant risk of indigestion ; for while Aunt Hed- 
 w r ig by no means seemed disposed to shatter all his 
 hopes by a sharp refusal, she gave no indication 
 whatever of any intention to permit her ripe red 
 lips to utter the longed-for word of assent. Aunt 
 Hedwig, unquestionably, was needlessly cruel in her 
 
A ROMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUARE. 195 
 
 treatment of Ilerr Sohnstein, and lie frequently told 
 her so. Sometimes he would ask her, with a fine 
 irony, if she meant to keep him waiting for his 
 answer until her brother had made lebkuchen as 
 good as the lebkuchen of Niirnberg ? To which 
 invariably she would reply that, in the first place, 
 she did not know of any question that he ever had 
 asked her that required an answer ; and, in the 
 second place, that she did mean to keep him wait 
 ing just precisely that long. And then she would 
 add, with a delicate drollery that was all her own, 
 that whenever he got tired of waiting he might hire 
 a whole horse -car all to himself and ride right 
 away. Ah, this Aunt Hedwig had a funny way with 
 her ! 
 
 And so the years slipped by ; and little Minna, who 
 laughed at the passing years as merrily as Aunt Hed 
 wig laughed at Herr Sohnstein, grew up into a blithe, 
 trig, round maiden, and ceased to be little Minna at 
 all. She was her mother over again, Gottlieb said ; 
 but this was not by any means true. She did have 
 her mother s goodness and sweetness, but her sturdy 
 body bespoke her father s stronger strain. Aunt 
 Hedwig, of this same strain, undisguisedly was 
 stocky. Minna was only comfortably stout, with 
 good broad shoulders, and an honest round waist 
 that anybody with half an eye for waists could see 
 would be a satisfactory armful. And she had also 
 Aunt Hedwig s constant cheeriness. All day long 
 her laugh sounded happily through the house, or her 
 voice went blithely in happy talk, or, failing anybody 
 
196 A ROMANCE OF TOMPKIXS SQUAKE. 
 
 lo talk to, trilled out some scrap of a sweet old Ger 
 man song. The two apprentices and the young man 
 who drove the bread-wagon of course were wildly 
 and desperately in love with her a tender passion 
 that they dared not disclose to its object, but that 
 they frequently and boastingly aired to each other. 
 Naturally these interchanges of confidence were apt 
 to be somewhat tempestuous. As the result of one 
 of them, when the elder apprentice had declared that 
 Minna s beautiful brown hair was finer than any wig 
 in the window of the hair-dresser on the west side 
 of the square, and that she had given him a lock of 
 it; and when the young man who drove the bread- 
 wagon (he was a profane young man) had declared 
 that it was a verdamrnter sight finer than any wig, 
 and that she hadn t the elder apprentice got a 
 dreadful black eye, and the younger apprentice was 
 almost smothered in the dough-trough, and the young 
 man who drove the bread-wagon had his head bro 
 ken with the peel that was broken over it. Aunt 
 Hedwig did not need to be told, nor did Minna, the 
 little jade, the cause of this direful combat ; and 
 both of these amiable women thought Gottlieb very 
 hard-hearted because he charged the broken peel 
 it was a new one and the considerable amount of 
 dough that was wasted by sticking to the younger 
 apprentice s person, against the wages of the three 
 combatants. 
 
 This reference to the apprentices and to the wag 
 on shows that Gottlieb s bakery no longer was a 
 small bakery, but a large one. In the making of 
 
r! 
 
 e- 2 
 
 o 2" 
 
A ROMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUARE. 199 
 
 lebkuchen, it is true, lie had not prospered ; but in 
 all other ways he had prospered amazingly. From 
 Avenue A over to the East River, and from far be 
 low Tompkins Square clear away to the upper re 
 gions of Lexington Avenue, the young man who 
 drove the bread-wagon rattled along every morning 
 as hard as ever he could go, and he vowed and de 
 clared, this young man did, that nothing but his love 
 for Minna kept him in a place where all the year 
 round he was compelled in every single day to do 
 the work of two. Meanwhile the little shop on East 
 Fourth Street had been abandoned for a bigger shop, 
 and this, in turn, for one still biggerquite a pal 
 ace of a shop, with plate-glass windows on Ave 
 nue B. It was here, beginning in a modest way 
 with a couple of tables whereat chance-hungry peo 
 ple might sit while they ate zwieback or a thick slice 
 of hearty pumpernickel and drank a glass of milk, 
 that a restaurant was established as a tender to the 
 bakery. It did not set out to be a large restaurant, 
 and, in fact, never became one. In the back part of 
 the shop were a dozen tables, covered with oil-cloth 
 and decorated with red napkins, and at these tables, 
 under the especial direction of Aunt Hedwig, who 
 was a culinary genius, was served a limited, but from 
 a German stand-point most toothsome, bill of fare. 
 There was Hasenpfeffer mit Spatzle, and Sauerbraten 
 mit Kartoffelklusse, and Rindfleisch mit Meerrettig, 
 and Bratwurst mit Rothkraut ; and Aunt Hedwig 
 made delicious coffee, and the bakery of course 
 provided all manner of sweet cakes. In the sum- 
 
200 A EOMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUARE. 
 
 mer-time they did a famous business in ice 
 cream. 
 
 On the plate-glass windows beneath the sweeping 
 curve of white letters in which the name of the own 
 er of the bakery was set forth was added in smaller 
 letters the words " Cafe Niirnberger." Gottlieb and 
 Aunt lied wig and the man who made the sign (this 
 last, however, for the venal reason that more letters 
 would be required) had stood out stoutly for the 
 honest German "Kaffehaus;" but Minna, whose 
 tastes were refined, had insisted upon the use of 
 the French word : there was more style about it, 
 she said. And this was a case in which style was 
 wedded to substantial excellence. What with the 
 good things which Gottlieb baked and the good 
 things which Aunt Hedwig cooked, the Cafe Niirn 
 berger presently acquired a somewhat enviable rep 
 utation. It became even a resort of the aristocracy, 
 in this case represented by the dwellers in the hand 
 some houses on the eastern and northern sides of 
 Tompkins Square. Of winter evenings, when bright 
 gas-light and a big glowing stove made the restau 
 rant a very cozy place indeed, large parties of these 
 aristocrats would drop in on their way home from 
 the Thalia Theatre, and would stuff themselves with 
 Hasenpfeffer and Sauerbraten and Kartoffelklosse, 
 and would swig Aunt Hed wig s strong coffee (out of 
 cups big enough and thick enough to have served as 
 shells and been fired from a mortar), until it would 
 seem as though they must certainly crack their aris 
 tocratic skins. 
 
A ROMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUARE. 201 
 
 Altogether, Gottlieb was in a flourishing line of 
 business ; and but for the deep sorrow that time 
 never wholly could heal, and but for the continued 
 failure of his attempts to make a really excellent leb- 
 kuchen, he would have been a very happy man. By 
 this time he had come to be a baker of ease. The 
 hard part of the work was done by the apprentices, 
 and the morning delivery of bread was attended to 
 by the young man who drove the bread-wagon. In 
 the summer-time he would take Minna and Aunt Iled- 
 wig, always accompanied by her faithful Herr Solm- 
 stein, upon beer-drinking expeditions to Guttenberg 
 and other fashionable suburban resorts ; and through 
 
 O 
 
 the cozy winter evenings he smoked his long pipe 
 comfortably in the little room at the back of the 
 shop, where Minna and Aunt Hedwig sat with him, 
 and where Herr Sohnstein, also smoking a long pipe, 
 usually sat with him too. Sometimes Minna would 
 sing sweet German songs to them, accompanying 
 herself very creditably upon a cabinet organ for 
 Minna had received not only the substantial educa 
 tion that enabled her to keep the bakery accounts, 
 but also had been instructed in the polite accom 
 plishments of music and the dance. In summer, 
 when expeditions were not on foot, these smoking 
 parties usually were held upon the roof ; where Gott 
 lieb had made a garden and grew roses in pots, and 
 even had raised some rare and delicious cauliflowers. 
 It was a pleasant place, that roof, of a warm sum 
 mer evening, especially when the rising full -moon 
 sent a shimmering path of glory across the rippling 
 
202 A EOMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUAEE. 
 
 waters of the East River, and cast over the bad- 
 smelling region of Hunter s Point a glamour of 
 golden haze that made it seem, oil tanks and all, a 
 bit of fairy-land. At such times, as they sat among 
 the rose-bushes and cauliflowers, Herr Sohnstein not 
 infrequently would stop smoking his long pipe while 
 he slyly squeezed Aunt Hedwig s plump hand. Arid 
 Gottlieb also would stop smoking, as his thoughts 
 wandered away along that glittering path across the 
 waters, and so up to heaven where his Minna was. 
 And then his thoughts would return to earth, to his 
 little Minna for to him she still was but a child 
 and he would find his sorrow lessened in thankful 
 ness that, while his greatest treasure was lost to 
 him, this good daughter and so many other good 
 things still were his. 
 
 But the lebkuchen dream of Gottlieb s youth re 
 mained unrealized ; still unattained was the goal 
 that twenty years before had seemed so near. How 
 ever, being a stout-hearted baker of the solid Niirn- 
 berg strain, he did not at all surrender hope. Each 
 year he added to his stock of honey-cake ; and he 
 knew that when fortune favored him at last, as he 
 still believed that fortune would favor him, he would 
 have in store such honey-cake as would enable him 
 to make lebkuchen fit to be eaten by the Kaiser 
 himself ! 
 
 After the affair of the broken peel there was a 
 coolness between Gottlieb and the elder apprentice, 
 which, increasing, led to a positive coldness, and 
 then to a separation. And then it was that Fate put 
 
A KOMANCE OF TOMPKIXS SQUARE. 203 
 
 a large spoke in all the wheels which ran in the Cafe 
 Niirnberg by bringing into Gottlieb s employment 
 a ruddy young Niirnberger, lately come out of that 
 ancient city to America, named Hans Kuhn. 
 
 It was not chance that led Hans to earn his living 
 in a bakery when he came to New York. He was a 
 born baker : a baker by choice, by force of natural 
 genius, by hereditary right. Back in the dusk of 
 the Middle Ages, as far as ever the traditions of his 
 family and the records of the Guild of Bakers of 
 Nurnberg ran, all the men of his race had been 
 bakers, and famous ones at that. A cumulative 
 destiny to bake was upon him, and he loved baking 
 with all his heart. It was no desire to abandon his 
 craft that had led him to leave Nurnberg and cross 
 the ocean ; rather was he moved by a noble ambi 
 tion to build up on a broad and sure foundation the 
 noble art of baking in the New World. And it had 
 chanced, moreover, that in the conscription he had 
 drawn an unlucky number. 
 
 When this young man entered the Cafe Nurnberg 
 being drawn thither by its display of the name of 
 his own native city and asked for a job, his air was 
 so frank, his talk about baking so intelligent, that 
 Gottlieb took kindly to him at once ; and Minna, 
 sitting demurely at her accounts in the little wire 
 cage over which was a fine tin sign inscribed in 
 golden letters with the word " Cashier," was mightily 
 well pleased, in a demure and proper way, at sight 
 of his ruddy cheeks and bushy shock of light-brown 
 hair and little yellow mustache and honest blue 
 
204 A ROMANCE OF TOMPKIXS SQUAKE. 
 
 eyes. When he told, in answer to Gottlieb s ques 
 tions, that he was the grandson of the very baker in 
 Niirnberg whose delicious lebkuchen Gottlieb had 
 eaten when he was a boy, and that a part of his 
 bakerly equipment w r as the lebkuchen recipe that 
 had come down in his family from the baker genius, 
 his remote ancestor, who had invented it well, 
 when he had told this much about himself, it is not 
 surprising that Gottlieb fairly jumped for joy, and 
 engaged him, not as his apprentice, but as his as 
 sistant, on the spot. 
 
 It was rather dashing to Gottlieb s enthusiasm, 
 however, that his assistant thereby manifesting a 
 shrewd worldly wisdom declined immediately to 
 impart his secret. He would make all the lebkuchen 
 that was required, he said, but for the present he 
 need not tell how it was made possibly the Ilerr 
 Brekel might not be satisfied with it, after all. But 
 the Herr Brekel was satisfied with it, and so was all 
 the neighborhood when the first batch of lebkuchen 
 was baked and placed on sale. Indeed, as the fame 
 of this delicious lebkuchen went abroad, the coming 
 of the new baker was accepted by all Germans with 
 discriminating palates as one of the most important 
 events that ever had occurred on the East Side. 
 The work of the young man who drove the bread- 
 wagon was so greatly increased that he organized a 
 strike, uniting in his own person the several func 
 tions of strikers, walking delegates, district assem 
 bly, and executive committee. And when the strike 
 collapsed that is to say, when the young man was 
 
A ROMANCE OP TOMPKIISTS SQUARE. 205 
 
 discharged summarily Gottlieb really did find it 
 necessary to hire two new young men, and to buy 
 an extra horse and wagon. Morally speaking, there 
 fore (although the original young man, who remain 
 ed out of employment for several weeks, and had a 
 pretty hard time of it, did not think so), the strike 
 was a complete success. 
 
 As a matter of course no well-set-up, right-think 
 ing young fellow of three-and-twenty could go on 
 baking lebkuchen in the same bakery with Minna 
 Brekel for any length of time without falling in 
 love with her. Nor was it reasonable to suppose 
 that even Minna, who had treated casual apprentices 
 and wagon-driving young men with a seemly scorn, 
 would continue to sit in the seat of the scornful 
 when siege in form was laid to her heart by a prop 
 erly ruddy-cheeked and blue-eyed assistant baker, 
 whose skill was such that he could make lebkuchen 
 fit to be eaten by the German portion of the saints 
 in Paradise. At the end of three months the feel 
 ings of these young people towards each other were 
 quite clearly defined in their own minds ; at the end 
 of six months, as they were sitting together one af 
 ternoon in the little back room at a time when the 
 shop happened to be empty, things came to the pleas 
 ing crisis that they both for a considerable period 
 had foreseen. 
 
 But then, unfortunately, came a storm that nei 
 ther of them had foreseen at all that shook the 
 Cafe Niirnberg to its very foundations ! 
 
 Gottlieb was the storm, and he moved over a wide 
 
206 A ROMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUAKE. 
 
 area with great rapidity and violence. He was cen 
 tral, naturally, over Hans and Minna : the first of 
 whom, after being denounced with great energy as 
 a viper who had been warmed to the biting point, 
 was ordered to take himself off without a single in 
 stant s delay, and never to darken the doors of the 
 Cafe Nurnberg again ; and the second of whom was 
 declared to be a baby fool, who must be kept locked 
 up in her own third -story back room, and fed on 
 nothing more appetizing than pumpernickel and wa 
 ter until she came to her senses. In the outer edges 
 of the storm the apprentices and the young men 
 who drove the wagons found themselves most hotly 
 involved ; and a very violent gust swept down upon 
 Aunt Hedwig and Herr Sohnstein, who surely were 
 as innocent in the premises as any two people quite 
 satisfactorily engaged in earnest but somewhat dila 
 tory love-making of their own very well could be. 
 Indeed, this storm was an ill wind that blew a fa 
 mous blast of luck to Herr Sohnstein : for Aunt Hed 
 wig, being dreadfully upset by her brother s out 
 break, went of her own accord to Herr Sohnstein 
 for sympathy and consolation and found both in 
 such liberal quantities, and with them such tender 
 pleadings to enter a matrimonial haven where storms 
 should be unknown, that presently, smiling through 
 her tears, she uttered the words of consent for which 
 the excellent notary had waited loyally through 
 more than a dozen weary years. It was Herr Sohn- 
 stein s turn to be upset then. He couldn t believe, 
 until he had soothed himself with a phenomenal 
 
A ROMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUARE. 207 
 
 number of pipes, that happiness so perfect could be 
 real. 
 
 Possibly one reason why Gottlieb s storm was so 
 violent was that he could not give any good reason 
 for it. Hans really was a most estimable young 
 man ; he came of a good family ; as a baker he w T as 
 nothing short of a genius. All this Gottlieb knew, 
 and all this he frequently had said to Aunt Hedwig 
 and to He IT Sohnstein, and, worst of all, to Minna. 
 As each of these persons now pointed out to him, 
 in order to be consistent in his new position he must 
 eat a great many of his own words ; and he would 
 have essayed this indigestible banquet willingly had 
 he been convinced that thus he really could have 
 proved that Hans was a viper and all the other un 
 pleasant things which he had called him in his wrath. 
 In truth, Gottlieb was, and in the depths of his heart 
 he knew that he was, neither more nor less than a 
 dog in the manger. His feeling simply was that 
 Minna was his Minna, and that neither Hans nor 
 anybody else had any right to her. This was not a 
 position that admitted of logical defence ; but it was 
 one that he could be ugly and stick to : which was 
 precisely what he did. 
 
 Minna did not remain long a prisoner in her own 
 room, feeding upon pumpernickel and water and bit 
 ter thoughts. Aunt Hedwig and Ilerr Sohnstein 
 succeeded in putting a stop to that cruelty. And 
 these elderly lovers, whose fresh love had made them 
 of a sudden as young as Minna herself, and had fill 
 ed them with a warm sympathy for her, laid their 
 
208 A ROMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUARE. 
 
 heads together and sought earnestly to circumvent 
 in her interest her father s stern decree. It was a 
 joy to see this picture, in the little room back of the 
 shop, of middle-aged love-making ; and it was a lit 
 tle startling to find how the new youth that their 
 love had given them had filled them with a quite 
 extravagantly youthful recklessness. Herr Sohn- 
 stein, who was well known as a grave, sedate, and un 
 usually cautious notary, seriously suggested (though 
 he did not explain exactly how this would do it) 
 that they should make an effort to bring Gottlieb 
 to terms by burning down the bakery. And Aunt 
 lied wig, whose prudent temperament was sufficient 
 ly disclosed in the fact that she had hesitated in the 
 matter of her own love affair for upward of a dozen 
 years, not less seriously advanced the proposition 
 that they all should elope from the Cafe Niirnberg 
 and set up a rival establishment ! Herr Sohnstein 
 did not make any audible comment upon this violent 
 proposal of Aunt lied wig s, but it evidently put an 
 idea into his head. 
 
 As Gottlieb happened to be walking along the 
 south side of Tompkins Square, a fortnight or so 
 after the tempest, he found his steps arrested by a 
 great sign that lay face downward on trestles across 
 the sidewalk, in readiness for hoisting in place upon 
 the front of a smart new shop. Inside the shop he 
 saw painters and paper-hangers at work ; and on the 
 large plate-glass window a man was gluing white 
 letters with a dexterous celerity. The letters already 
 in place read "Nurnberger Lebku " And as to this 
 
A ROMANCE OF TOMPKIXS SQUARE. 209 
 
 legend he saw " chen " added, he rolled out a stout 
 South German oath and stamped upon the ground. 
 But far stronger was the oath that he uttered as the 
 big sign was swung upward, and he read upon it, in 
 golden German letters : 
 
 flans futljtt. 
 
 That the Recording Angel blotted out with his 
 tears the fines which he was compelled on this occa 
 sion to record against Gottlieb Brekel in Heaven s 
 high chancery is highly improbable. In the only 
 known case of such lachrymic erasure the provoca 
 tion to profanity was a commendable moral motive 
 that was eminently unselfish. But when Gottlieb 
 Brekel swore roundly in his native German all the 
 way from the south-west corner of Tompkiris Square 
 to the corner of Third Street and the Bowery ; and 
 from that point, when he had transacted his busi 
 ness there, all the way back to the Cafe Niirnberg 
 in Avenue B, his motives could not in any wise be 
 regarded as moral, and selfishness lay at their very 
 root. 
 
 Gottlieb already found himself involved in serious 
 difficulties with the many customers who bought his 
 lebkuchen ; for with the departure of Hans he had 
 been compelled to fall back upon his own resources, 
 and with the most lamentable results. Great quan 
 tities of his first baking were returned to him, with 
 comments in both High German and Low German 
 
210 A ROMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUARE. 
 
 of a very uncomplimentary sort. His second baking 
 saving the relatively inconsiderable quantities con 
 sumed by the omnivorous children of St. Bridget s 
 School simply remained upon his hands unsold. 
 And now, to make his humiliation the more com 
 plete, here was his discharged assistant setting up 
 as his rival; and with every probability that the at 
 tempted rivalry would be crowned with success. 
 Really there was something, perhaps, to be said in 
 palliation of Gottlieb s profanity after all. 
 
 When he told at home that evening of Hans 
 Kulm s upstart pretensions, his statements were re 
 ceived with an ominous silence. Aunt Hedwig only 
 coughed slightly, and continued her knitting with 
 more than usual energy. Herr Sohnstein only moved 
 a little in his chair and puffed a little harder than 
 usual at his pipe. Minna, who was in her wire cage 
 in the shop settling her cash, only bent more in 
 tently over her books. But when Gottlieb went a 
 step further and said, looking very keenly at Herr 
 Sohnstein as he said it, that some great rascal must 
 have lent Hans the money to make his fine start, 
 Aunt Hedwig at once bristled up and said with 
 emphasis that rascals, neither great nor small, were 
 in the habit of lending their money to deserving 
 young men ; and Herr Sohnstein, a little sheepishly 
 perhaps, and mumbling a little in his gray mustache, 
 ventured the statement that this was a free country 
 already, and people living in it were at liberty to 
 lend their money to whom they pleased ; and Minna, 
 looking up from her books Gottlieb s back was 
 
A ROMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUARE. 211 
 
 turned towards her blew a most unfilial kiss from 
 the tips of her chubby fingers to Herr Sohnstein 
 right over her father s shoulder. All of which goes 
 to show that something very like open war had bro 
 ken out in the Cafe Niirnberg, and that the once 
 united family dwelling therein was fairly divided 
 into rival camps. 
 
 Gottlieb s dreary case was made a little less dreary 
 when he found that the lebkuchen which Hans pro 
 duced in his fine new bakery was distinctly an in 
 ferior article ; not much better, in fact, than Gott 
 lieb s own. To any intelligent baker the reason for 
 this was obvious : Hans was making his lebkuchen 
 with new honey-cake. Thus made, even by the best 
 of recipes, it could not be anything but a failure. 
 Gottlieb gave a long sigh of relief as he realized 
 this comforting fact, arid at the same time thought 
 of his own great store of honey-pots there were 
 hundreds of them now all ready and waiting to his 
 hand. But his feeling of satisfaction passed quickly 
 to one of impotent rage as he recognized his own 
 powerlessness, for all his wealth of honey-pots, to 
 make lebkuchen which would be eaten by anybody 
 but the tough-palated children from St. Bridget s 
 School. He was alone, smoking, in the little room 
 back of the shop as this bitter thought came* to him ; 
 in his rage he struck the table beside him a blow so 
 sounding that the family cat, peacefully slumbering 
 behind the stove, sprang up with a yell of terror and 
 made but two jumps to the open door. Coming on 
 top of all his other trials the revolt of his own 
 13 
 
212 A ROMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUARE. 
 
 little Minna, the defection of Aunt Hedwig, and 
 the almost open enmity of Ilerr Solmstein this 
 compulsory surrender of all his hope of honest fame 
 was indeed a deadly blow. 
 
 Gottlieb smoked on in sullen anger; his heart torn 
 and tortured, and his mind filled with a confusion of 
 bitter evil thoughts. And presently for the devil 
 is at every man s elbow, ready to take advantage of 
 any sudden weakness, or turn to his own purposes 
 any too great strength these thoughts grew more 
 evil and more clear : until they fairly resolved them 
 selves into the determination to steal from Hans the 
 recipe for making lebkuchen, and so to crush com 
 pletely his rival and at the same time to make certain 
 his own fortune and fame. 
 
 Of course the devil did not plant the notion of 
 theft in Gottlieb s mind in this bald fashion ; for 
 the devil is a most considerate person, and ever 
 shows a courteous disposition to spare the feelings 
 of those whom he would lead into sin. No : the 
 temptation that he suggested was the subtle and 
 ingenious one that Gottlieb should proceed to re 
 cover his own stolen property ! His logic was ad 
 mirable : Hans had been Gottlieb s assistant ; and 
 as such Gottlieb had owned him and his recipe as 
 well. When Hans went away and took the recipe 
 with him, he took that which still belonged to his 
 master. Therefore, triumphantly argued the devil, 
 Gottlieb had a perfect right to regain the recipe 
 either by fair means or by foul. And finally, as a 
 bit of supplementary devil-logic, the thought was 
 
A ROMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUARE. 213 
 
 suggested that inasmuch as Hans certainly must 
 know the recipe by heart, the mere loss of the paper 
 on which it was written would not be any real loss 
 to him at all! It is only fair to Gottlieb s good 
 angel to state that during this able presentment of 
 the wrong side of the case he did venture to hint 
 once or twice in the feeble, perfunctory sort of 
 way that unfortunately seems to be characteristic 
 of good angels when their services really are most 
 urgently required that the whole matter might be 
 compromised satisfactorily to all the parties in inter 
 est by permitting Hans to marry Minna, and by then 
 taking him into partnership in the bakery. And it 
 is only just to Gottlieb to state that to these faint 
 hearted suggestions of his good angel he did not 
 give one moment s heed. 
 
 Now the devil is a thorough-going sort of a per 
 son, and having planted the evil wish in Gottlieb s 
 soul he lost no time in opening to him an evil way 
 to its accomplishment. When Hans, a stranger in 
 New York, had come to work at the Cafe Niirn- 
 berg, Gottlieb had commended him to the good 
 graces of a friend of his, a highly respectable little 
 round Brunswicker widow who let lodgings, and 
 in the comfortable quarters thus provided for him 
 Hans ever since had remained. In this same house 
 lodged also one of Gottlieb s apprentices a loose 
 young fellow, for whose proper regulation the widow 
 more than once had been compelled to seek his 
 master s counsel and aid. In this combination of 
 circumstances, to which the devil now directed his 
 
214 A EOMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUARE. 
 
 attention, Gottlieb saw his opportunity. It was easy 
 to make the widow believe that the loose young 
 apprentice had taken the short step from looseness 
 to crime, and that a suspicion of theft rested upon 
 him so heavily as to justify the searching of his 
 room ; it was easy to make the widow keep guard 
 below while Gottlieb searched ; and it was very easy 
 then to search, not for imaginary stolen goods in 
 the chest of the apprentice, but for that which he 
 himself wanted to steal from the chest of Hans 
 Kuhn. As to opening the chest there was no diffi 
 culty at all. Gottlieb had half a dozen Ntirnberg 
 locks in his house, and he had counted, as the event 
 proved correctly, upon making the key of one of 
 these locks serve his turn. And in the chest, with 
 out any trouble at all, he found a leather wallet, and 
 in the wallet the precious recipe written on parch 
 ment in old High German that he found very difficult 
 to read, and dated in Nurnberg in the year 1603. 
 Gottlieb was pale as death as he went down-stairs 
 to the widow ; and his teeth fairly chattered as he 
 told her that he had made a mistake. He tried to 
 say that the apprentice was not a thief but the word 
 dieb somehow stuck in his throat. Keen chills pen 
 etrated him as he almost ran through the streets to 
 his home. For the devil, who heretofore had been 
 in front of him and had only beckoned, now was be 
 hind him and was driving him with a right good 
 will. 
 
 When he entered the room at the back of the shop, 
 where Minna was sewing, and where Herr Sohnstein, 
 
A ROMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUARE. 215 
 
 with his arm comfortably around Aunt Hedwig s 
 waist, was smoking his long pipe, he created a stir 
 of genuine alarm. As Aunt Hedwig very truly 
 said, he looked as though he had seen a ghost. Herr 
 Sohnstein, of a more practical turn of mind, asked 
 him if he had been knocked down and robbed ; and 
 the word beraubt grated most harshly upon Gott 
 lieb s ears. But what cut him most of all was the 
 way in which Minna forgetting all his late unkind- 
 ness at sight of his pale, frightened face sprang to 
 him with open arms, and with all the old love in her 
 voice asked him to tell her what had gone wrong. 
 Under these favoring conditions, Gottlieb s good 
 angel bestirred himself somewhat more vigorously, 
 and for a moment it seemed not impossible that 
 right might triumph over wrong. But the devil 
 bustled promptly upon the scene, and of course had 
 things all his own way again in a moment. It cer 
 tainly is most unfortunate that good angels, as a 
 rule, are so weak in their angelic knees ! 
 
 Gottlieb pushed Minna aw^ay from him roughly ; 
 addressed to Aunt Hedwig the impolite remark that 
 ghosts only were seen by women and fools; in a surly 
 tone informed Herr Sohnstein that policemen still 
 were plentiful in the vicinity of Tompkins Square ; 
 and then, having planted these barbed arrows in the 
 breasts of his daughter, his sister, and his friend, 
 sought the retirement of his own upper room. As he 
 left them, Minna buried her face in Aunt Hedwig s 
 capacious bosom and cried bitterly, and Aunt Hed 
 wig also cried ; and Herr Sohnstein, laying aside 
 
216 A ROMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUARE. 
 
 for the moment his pipe, put his arms protectingly 
 around them both. They all were very miserable. 
 
 In the upper room, where the air seemed so sti 
 fling that he had to open the window wide in order 
 to breathe, Gottlieb was very miserable too. He 
 was fleeing into Tarshish, this temporarily wicked- 
 baker; and just as fell out in the case of that other 
 one who fled to Tarshish, his flight was a failure : 
 for this little world of ours is far too small to give 
 any one a chance to run away from committed sin. 
 
 Gottlieb tried to divert his thoughts from his 
 crime, and at the same time tried to reap its reward 
 by studying the stolen recipe ; but his attempt was 
 not successful. The cramped letters, brown with 
 age, on the brown parchment, danced before his 
 eyes ; and the quaint, intricate High German phra 
 seology became more and more involved. He could 
 make nothing of it at all. And the thought oc 
 curred to him that perhaps he never would be able 
 to make anything of it that, without losing any 
 part of the penalty justly attendant upon his crime, 
 the crime itself might prove to be, so far as the 
 practical benefit that he sought was concerned, ab 
 solutely futile. As this dreadful possibility arose 
 before his mind a faintness and giddiness came over 
 him. The room seemed to be whirling around him ; 
 life seemed to be slipping awaj r from him ; there was 
 a strange, horrible ringing in his ears. He leaned 
 forward over the table at which he was sitting and 
 buried his face in his hands. 
 
 Then, possibly, Gottlieb fell asleep, though of this 
 
A KOMANCE OP TOMPKIXS SQUARE. 217 
 
 he never felt really sure. What is quite certain 
 is that he saw, as clearly as he ever saw her in life, 
 his dear dead Minna ; but with a face so sad, so re 
 proachful, so full of piteous entreaty, that his blood 
 seemed to stand still, while a consuming coldness 
 settled upon his heart. He struggled to speak with 
 her, to assure her that he would repair the evil that 
 he had done, to plead for forgiveness ; but, for all 
 his striving, no other words would come to his lips 
 save those which a little while before he had spoken 
 so roughly to poor Aunt Hedwig: "The only peo 
 ple who see ghosts are women and fools !" 
 
 And then, of a sudden, he found himself still 
 seated at the table, the brown parchment still spread 
 out before him, and the faint light of early morning 
 breaking into the room. The window was wide 
 open, as he had left it, and he was chilled to the 
 marrow ; he had a shocking cold in the head ; there 
 were rheumatic twinges in all his joints as he arose. 
 What with the physical misery arising from these 
 causes, and the moral misery arising from his sense 
 of committed sin, he was in about as desperately bad 
 a humor with himself as a man could be. He was 
 in no mood to make another effort to read the diffi 
 cult German of the recipe, the cause of all his troubles. 
 The sight of it pained him, and he thrust it hurried 
 ly into an old desk in which were stored (and these 
 also were a source of pain to him) several generations 
 of uncollected bills practical proofs that the adage 
 in regard to the impossibility of simultaneously pos 
 sessing cakes and pennies does not always hold good. 
 
218 A ROMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUARE. 
 
 He locked the desk and put the key in his pocket; 
 and then returned the key to the lock and left it 
 there, as the thought occurred to him that the lock 
 ing of this desk, that never in all the years that he 
 had owned it had been locked before, might arouse 
 
 O 
 
 suspicion. It seemed most natural to Gottlieb that 
 his actions should be regarded with suspicion ; he 
 had a feeling that already his crime must be known 
 to half the world. 
 
 And before night it certainly is true that the one 
 person most deeply interested in the discovery and 
 punishment of Gottlieb s crime that is to say, Hans 
 Kuhn did know all about it ; which fact would 
 seem surprising, considering how skilfully Gottlieb 
 had gone about his work, were it not remembered 
 that his unwitting accessory had been the little 
 round Brun s wicker widow, and were it not known 
 that little round widows Brunswick born or born 
 elsewhere as a class are incapable of keeping a 
 secret. 
 
 This excellent woman, to do her justice, had fol 
 lowed Gottlieb s orders to the letter. He had warned 
 her not to tell the loose apprentice that his chest had 
 been searched ; and, so far as that apprentice was con 
 cerned, wild horses might have been employed to 
 drag that little round widow to pieces at least she 
 might have permitted the wild horses to be hitched 
 up to her before ever an indiscreet word would 
 have passed her lips. But when Hans Kuhn, for 
 whom she entertained a high respect, and for whom 
 she had also that warmly friendly feeling which trig 
 
A ROMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUARE. 219 
 
 middle -aged widows not seldom manifest towards 
 good-looking young men, came to her in a fine state 
 of wrath, and told her that his chest had been ran 
 sacked (he did not tell her of his loss, for he had not 
 himself observed it), she did riot consider that she 
 violated any confidence in telling him everything 
 that had occurred. It was all a mistake, she said ; 
 the Herr Brekel had gone into the wrong room ; she 
 must set the matter right at once ; that bad young 
 man might be a thief, after all. Hans felt a cold 
 thrill run through him at the widow s words. But 
 he controlled himself so well that she did not sus 
 pect his inward perturbation ; and she accepted in as 
 good faith his offer to inform the Herr Brekel of his 
 error as she did, a day later, his assurance that the 
 matter had been satisfactorily adjusted, and that the 
 innocence of the apprentice had been proved. 
 
 And then Hans returned to his violated chest, and 
 found that the dread which had assailed his soul was 
 founded in substantial truth the recipe was gone ! 
 In itself the loss of the recipe was no very great 
 matter, for he knew it by heart ; but that Gottlieb 
 who had also a cellar full of rich old honey -cake 
 should have gained possession of it was a desperate 
 matter indeed. Here instantly was an end to the 
 hope of successful rivalry that Hans had cherished; 
 and with the wreck of his luck in trade, as it seemed 
 to him in the first shock of his misfortune, away in 
 fragments to the four winds of heaven was scattered 
 every vestige of probability that he would have luck 
 in love. Being so suddenly confronted with a com- 
 
220 A KOMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUARE. 
 
 pound catastrophe so overwhelming, even a bolder 
 baker than Hans Kuhn very well might have been 
 for a time aghast. 
 
 But as his wits slowly came together again Hans 
 perceived that the game was not by any means lost, 
 after all ; on the contrary, it looked very much as 
 though he had it pretty well in his own hands. 
 Gottlieb was a thief, and all that was needed to com 
 plete the chain of evidence against him was his first 
 baking of lebkuchen ; for that as clearly would prove 
 him to be in possession of the stolen recipe as what 
 the widow could tell would prove that he had created 
 for himself an opportunity to steal it. The most 
 agreeable way of winning a father-in-law is not by 
 force of threatening to hale him to a police court, 
 but it is better to win him that way than not to win 
 him at all, Hans thought ; and he thought also that 
 this was one of the occasions when it was quite jus 
 tifiable to fight the devil with fire. So his spirits 
 rose, and now he longed for, as eagerly as in the first 
 moments of his loss he had dreaded, the production 
 of such lebkuchen at the Cafe Niirnberg as would 
 prove the proprietor of that highly respectable estab 
 lishment to be neither more nor less than a robber. 
 
 Hans was both annoyed and surprised as time 
 passed on and the "cakes succulent but damnatory" 
 were not forthcoming from Gottlieb s oven. He 
 himself went on making unsatisfactory lebkuchen of 
 bad materials by a good formula, and Gottlieb con 
 tinued to make unsatisfactory lebkuchen by a bad 
 formula of the best materials. Orthodox German 
 
A ROMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUAKE. 221 
 
 palates found nothing to commend and much to rep 
 robate in both results. This was the situation for 
 several weeks. Hans could not understand it at all. 
 The subject w r as a delicate one to broach to Minna 
 during their short but blissful interviews about dusk 
 in the central fastnesses of Tompkins Square, at 
 which interviews Aunt Hedwig winked and Herr 
 Sohnstein openly connived by keeping watch for 
 them against Gottlieb s possible appearance ; for 
 Hans had determined that until he had positive 
 proof to go upon he would keep secret, and most of 
 all from Minna, the dreadful fact of her father s 
 crime. Therefore did he remain in a state of very 
 harrowing uncertainty, with his plan of campaign 
 completely brought to a stand. 
 
 During this period a heavy cloud hung over the 
 Cafe Ntirnberg. Gottlieb came fitfully to his meals ; 
 and when he did come, he ate almost nothing. Each 
 day he grew more and more morose ; each night, 
 when poor Aunt Hedwig was not kept awake by her 
 own sorrowful thoughts, her slumbers were broken 
 by hearing her brother pacing heavily the floor of 
 the adjoining room. In some sort he made up for 
 his loss of sleep at night by sleeping of an evening 
 in the little room back of the shop, falling into rest 
 less naps (when he should have been restfully smok 
 ing his long pipe), from which he would wake with 
 a start and sometimes with a cry of alarm, and would 
 dart furtive horrified glances at Aunt Hedwig and 
 Herr Sohnstein : who were doing nothing of a horri 
 fying nature, only sitting cozily close together, more 
 
222 A ROMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUARE. 
 
 or less enfolded in each other s arms. It was a lit 
 tle inconsiderate on the part of the lovers, and very 
 hard on Minna, this extremely open love - making ; 
 for Minna s love-making necessarily was by fitful 
 snatches amid the bleak desolations of Tompkins 
 Square. They would try to comfort each other, she 
 and Hans, as they stood cheerlessly under the chill 
 lee of the music stand; but their outlook was a dreary 
 one, and their efforts in this direction were not 
 crowned with any great success. Sometimes as 
 Minna came home again along the west side of the 
 square, and saw in Spengler s window the wreaths of 
 highly-artificial immortelles with the word " Ruhe " 
 upon them in vivid purple letters, she fairly would 
 fall to crying over the thought that until she should 
 become a fit subject for such a wreath there was 
 small chance that any real rest would be hers. 
 
 However, all this is aside from Gottlieb s horrified 
 looks as lie waked from his troubled slumbers looks 
 which would disappear as he became thoroughly 
 aroused, but only to return again after his next un 
 easy nap. One day he startled Aunt Hedwig by 
 asking her if she believed in ghosts. Remember 
 ing his severe words in condemnation of her casual 
 reference to these supernatural beings, it was with 
 some hesitation that she replied that she did. Still 
 more to her surprise, Gottlieb turned away from her 
 hurriedly, yet not so hurriedly but that she saw a 
 strange, scared look upon his face, and in a low and 
 trembling voice replied : " And so do I !" 
 
 And now the fact may as well be admitted frankly 
 
A ROMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUAEE. 223 
 
 that a ghost was the disturbing element that was mak 
 ing Gottlieb s life go wrong ; that, as there seemed 
 to be every reason to believe, was hurrying him to 
 wards the grave : for a middle - aged German who 
 refuses to eat, whose regular sleep forsakes him, and 
 who actually gives up smoking, naturally cannot be 
 expected to remain long in this world. 
 
 It was the ghost of his dead wife. At first she 
 appeared to him only in his dreams, standing beside 
 the desk in which he had placed the stolen recipe for 
 making lebkuchen, and holding down the lid of that 
 desk with a firm but diaphanous white hand. Pres 
 ently she appeared to him quite as clearly in his 
 waking hours. Her face still wore an expression at 
 once tender and reproachful ; but every day the look 
 of tenderness diminished, while the look of reproach 
 grew stronger and more stern. Each time that he 
 sought to open the desk that he might take thence the 
 recipe and make his crime a practical business success, 
 the figure assumed an air so terribly menacing that 
 his heart failed him, and he gave over the attempt. 
 
 This, then, was the all-sufficient reason why the 
 good lebkuchen that would have proved Gottlieb a 
 thief was not for sale at the Cafe Nurnberg ; and this 
 was the reason why Gottlieb himself, broken down 
 by loss of food and sleep and by the nervous wear 
 and tear incident to forced companionship with an 
 angry ghost, was drawing each day nearer and nearer 
 to that dark portal through which bakers and all 
 other people pass hence into the shadowy region 
 whence there is no return. 
 
224 A ROMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUARE. 
 
 Gottlieb Brekel never had been an especially pious 
 man. As became a reputable German citizen, he had 
 paid regularly the rent of a pew in the Church of the 
 Redemptorist Fathers in Third Street ; but, except 
 ing on such high feasts as Christmas and Easter, he 
 usually had been content to occupy it and to discharge 
 his religious duties at large vicariously. Aunt Hed- 
 wig s bonnet invariably was the most brilliantly con 
 spicuous feature of the entire congregation, just as 
 the prettiest face in the entire congregation invaria 
 bly was Minna s. But now that Gottlieb was con 
 fronted with a spiritual difficulty, it occurred to him 
 that he might advantageously resort in his extremity 
 to spiritual aid. He had no very clear notion how 
 the aid would be given ; he was not even clear as to 
 how he ought to set about asking for it ; and he was 
 troubled by the conviction that in order to obtain it 
 he must not only repent of his sin, but must make 
 atonement by restitution a possibility (for the devil 
 still had a good grip upon him) that made him hesi 
 tate a long while before he set about purchasing ease 
 for his conscience at so heavy a material cost. How 
 ever, his good angel at last managed to pluck up 
 some courage it was high time and, strengthened 
 by this tardily given assistance, he betook himself in 
 search of consolation within church walls. 
 
 The Church of the Redemptorist Fathers is a very 
 beautiful church, and at all times save through the 
 watches of the night and through one mid-day hour 
 its doors stand hospitably open, silently inviting 
 poor sinners, weary and heavy laden with their sins, 
 
A EOMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUARE. 225 
 
 to enter into the calm of its quiet holiness and there 
 find rest. Tall, slender pillars uphold its vaulted 
 roof) in the groinings of which lurk mysterious shad 
 ows. Below, a warm, rich light comes through the 
 stained -glass windows: whereon are pictured the 
 blessed St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, founder of 
 the Redemptorist Congregation, blessedly instruct 
 ing the chubby-faced choristers; and the Venerable 
 Clement Hofbauer, "primus in Germania" of the 
 Redemptorists, all in his black gown, kneeling, pray 
 ing no doubt for the outcast German souls for the 
 saving of which he worked so hard and so well; and 
 (a picture that Minna dearly loved) St. Joseph and 
 the sweet Virgin and the little Christ-child fleeing 
 together through the desert from the wrath of the 
 
 O O 
 
 Judean king. And ranged around the walls on perches 
 high aloft are statues of various minor saints and of 
 the Twelve Apostles ; of which Minna s favorite was 
 the Apostle Matthias, because this saint, with his 
 high forehead tending towards baldness, and his long 
 gray beard and gray hair, and his kindly face, and 
 even the axe in his hand (that was not unlike a ba 
 ker s peel), made her think always of her dear father. 
 The pew that Gottlieb paid for so regularly, and so 
 irregularly occupied, was just beneath the statue of 
 this saint; which, however, gave Minna less pleasure 
 than would have been hers had not the next saint in 
 the row been the Apostle Simon with his dreadful 
 saw. It must have hurt so horribly to be sawed in 
 two, she thought. In the dusky depths of the great 
 chancel gleamed the white marble of the beautiful 
 
226 A ROMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUARE. 
 
 altar, guarded by St. Peter with his keys and St. 
 Paul with his naked two-edged sword ; and above 
 the altar was the dead Christ on Calvary, with His 
 desolate mother and the despairing Magdalene and 
 St. John the divine. 
 
 Into this beautiful church it was that Gottlieb, led 
 thither by his good angel, entered; and the devil- 
 raging in the terrible but impotent fashion that is 
 habitual with devils when they see slipping away 
 from their snares the souls which they thought to 
 win to wickedness of course was forced to remain 
 outside. But what feelings of keen repentance filled 
 this poor sinning baker s heart within that holy place, 
 what good resolves came to him, what light and re 
 freshment irradiated and cheered his darkened, har 
 ried soul all these are things which better may be 
 suggested here than written out in full. For these 
 things are so real, so sacred, and so beautiful with a 
 heavenly beauty, that they may not lightly be used 
 for decorative purposes in mere romance. 
 
 Let it suffice, then, to tell for so is our poor 
 human stuff put together that trivial commonplace 
 facts often exhibit most searchingly the changes for 
 good or for evil which have come to pass in our in 
 most souls that Gottlieb, on returning to the Cafe 
 Niirnberg, ate a prodigious dinner ; and after his 
 dinner, for the first time in a fortnight, smoked a 
 thoroughly refreshing pipe. 
 
 Over his dinner and his pipe he was silent, mani 
 festing, however, a sort of sheepishness and constraint 
 that were not less strange in the eyes of Aunt Hed- 
 
A ROMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUAKE. 227 
 
 wig and Minna than was the sudden revival of his 
 interest in tobacco and food. As he smoked, a pleas 
 ant thought came to him. When he had knocked 
 the ashes from his pipe he ordered Minna, surlily, to 
 bring him his hat and coat ; he must pay a visit to 
 that rascal Sohnstein, he said; and so went out. He 
 left the two women lost in wonder; and Aunt Hed- 
 wig, because of his characterization of her dear 
 Sohnstein as a rascal, disposed to weep. And yet, 
 somehow, they both felt that the storm was breaking, 
 and that clear weather was at hand. There was no 
 body in the shop just then; and the two, standing 
 behind the rampart of freshly-baked cakes that was 
 high heaped up upon the counter, embraced each 
 other and mingled tears, which they knew by rea 
 son of the womanly instinct that was in them were 
 tears of joy. 
 
 And that very evening the prophecy of happiness 
 that was in their joyful sorrow was happily fulfilled. 
 
 C4ottlieb did not return to the Cafe Niirnberg until 
 after nine o clock. With him came Herr Sohnstein. 
 They both were very grave and silent, yet both ex 
 hibited a most curious twinklesorneness in their eyes. 
 Neither Aunt Hedwig nor Minna could make any 
 thing of their strange mood; and Aunt Iledwig was 
 put to her trumps completely when she was sure that 
 she saw her brother who was whispering to Herr 
 Sohnstein behind the pie-counter poke the notary 
 in the ribs. As to the joint chuckle at that moment 
 of those two mysterious men there could be no doubt; 
 she heard it distinctly ! 
 
 14 
 
228 A ROMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUAEE. 
 
 Still further to Aunt lied wig s surprise, for the 
 Cafe Niirnberg never was closed before ten o clock, 
 and usually remained open much later, Gottlieb him 
 self began to put up the shutters ; and when this 
 work was finished he came back into the shop and 
 locked behind him the double front door. Almost 
 as he turned the key there was a knock outside, as 
 though somebody actually had been waiting in the 
 street for the signal that the closing of the shutters 
 gave. 
 
 "Another rascal would come in already, Solm- 
 stein," said Gottlieb, gruffly. " Open for him, but 
 lock the door again. I must go up-stairs." 
 
 Gottlieb, with a queer smile upon his face, left the 
 little back room; and a moment later Minna uttered 
 a cry of surprise, as Herr Sohnstein unlocked the 
 door and her own Hans entered the shop. What, 
 she thought, could all these wonders mean ? As for 
 Aunt Hedwig, she had sunk down into her big arm 
 chair and her bright black eyes seemed to be fairly 
 starting from her head. 
 
 Herr Sohnstein locked the door again, as he had 
 been ordered to do, and then brought Hans through 
 the shop and into the little back room. Hans evi 
 dently was not a party to the mystery, whatever the 
 mystery might be. He looked at Minna as wonder- 
 ingly as she looked at him, and he was distressingly 
 ill at ease. But there was no time for either of them 
 to ask questions, for as Hans entered the room from 
 the shop, Gottlieb returned to it. In his hand Gott 
 lieb held the brown old parchment on which the leb- 
 
A KOHANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUARE. 229 
 
 kuchen recipe was written ; the smile had left his 
 face; he was very pale. For a moment there was an 
 awkward pause. Then Gottlieb, trembling a little 
 as he walked, crossed the room to where Hans stood 
 and placed the parchment in his hands. And it was 
 in a trembling, broken voice that Gottlieb said : 
 
 " Hans, a most wicked man have I been. But my 
 dead Minna has helped me, and here I give again to 
 thee what I stole from thy chest I who was a rob 
 ber." Then Gottlieb covered his face with his hands, 
 and presently each of his bony knuckles sparkled 
 with a pendant tear. 
 
 " My own dear father !" said Minna; and her arms 
 were around him, and her head was pressed close 
 upon his breast. 
 
 "My own good brother, thou couldst not be a 
 thief !" said Aunt Hedwig ; and, so saying, clasped 
 her stout arms around them both. 
 
 " My good old friend ! all now is right again," 
 said Herr Sohnstein ; who then affected to put his 
 arms around the three, but really embraced only 
 Aunt Hedwig. However, there was quite enough of 
 Aunt Hedwig to fill even Herr Sohnstein s long arms; 
 and he made the average of his one-third of an em 
 brace all right by bestowing it with a threefold 
 energy. 
 
 The position of Hans as he regarded this affection 
 ately writhing group (that was not unsuggestive of 
 the Laocoon : with a new motive, a fourth figure, a 
 commendable addition of draperies, and a conspicu 
 ous lack of serpents) would have been awkward 
 
230 A KOMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUAEE. 
 
 under any circumstances ; and as the circumstances 
 were sufficiently awkward to begin with, he was 
 very much embarrassed indeed. To Aunt Hed- 
 wig s credit be it said that she was the first (after 
 Minna, of course ; and Minna could not properly 
 act in the premises) to perceive his forsaken con 
 dition. 
 
 "Come, Hans," said the good Hedwig, her voice 
 shaken by emotion and the tightness of Herr Sohn- 
 stein s grip about her waist. 
 
 " Thou hadst better come, Hans," added Herr 
 Sohnstein, jollily. 
 
 " Wilt thou come, Hans and forgive me ?" Gott 
 lieb asked. 
 
 But it was not until Minna said, very faintly, yet 
 with a heavenly sweetness in her voice: " Thou mayst 
 come, Hans!" that Hans actually came. 
 
 And then for a while there was such hearty em 
 bracing of as much of the other four as each of them 
 could grasp that the like of it all for good-will and 
 lovingness never had been seen in a bakery before. 
 And Gottlieb s good angel exulted greatly; and the 
 devil, who had lingered about the premises in the 
 hope that even at the eleventh hour the powers of 
 evil might get the better of the powers of good, ac 
 knowledged his defeat with a howl of baffled rage : 
 and then fled away in ,a blue flame and a flash of 
 lio-htnincr that made the waters of the East River 
 
 O O 
 
 (which stream he was compelled to wade, thanks to 
 General Newton, who took away his stepping-stones) 
 fairly hiss and bubble. And never did he dare to 
 
A ROMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUARE. 233 
 
 show so much as the end of his wicked nose in the 
 Cafe Niirnberg again ! 
 
 "But thou wilt not take from me this little one, 
 my daughter, Hans?" Gottlieb asked, when they 
 had somewhat disentangled themselves. "Thou 
 wilt come and live with us, and be my partner, and 
 together we will make the good lebkuchen once 
 more. Is it not so ?" . 
 
 Hans found this a trying question. He looked 
 at Herr Sohnstein, doubtfully. "Ah," said Herr 
 Sohnstein, " thou meanest that a very hard-hearted, 
 money-lending man has hired a shop for thee and 
 has made it the most splendid bakery and the finest 
 restaurant on all the East Side, eh ? And thou art 
 afraid that this man, this old miser man, will keep 
 thee to thy bargainings, already ?" 
 
 Hans gave a deprecating nod of assent. 
 
 " Well, my boy Hans," Herr Sohnstein continued, 
 with great good -humor, and sliding his arm well 
 around Aunt Hedwig s generous waist again as he 
 spoke " well, my boy Hans, let me tell thee that 
 that bad old miser man is not one-half so bad as thou 
 wouldst think. Dost thou remember that when he 
 had a garden made upon the roof of that fine bakery, 
 and thou toldst to him that to make a garden there 
 was to waste his money, what he said ? Did he not 
 say that if he made the garden God would send the 
 flowers? And when that fine sign was made with 
 Niirnberger Bakerei upon it, and thou toldst to him 
 that to take that name of JSTiirnberg was not fair 
 to his old friend, did he not tell thee that with his 
 
234 A ROMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUARE. 
 
 old friend he would settle that matter so that there 
 should be no broken bones ? For did he not know 
 already that for these five years past it has been the 
 wish of Gottlieb s heart to leave this old bakery 
 where his lease ends this very coming May and to 
 have just such a new fine bakery upon the Square as 
 now you two together will have ? Ah, this bad old 
 miser man is not afraid but that his miser money 
 will come back to him again ; and he is not such a 
 fool but that he had faith in his good friend Gott 
 lieb, and knew that all would end well. And now, 
 truly, all will be happiness : for Gottlieb, who has 
 gained a good son, can spare to me this dear Hed- 
 wig, his sister, and he will come to church with us 
 and see us all married in one bright day." 
 
 Aunt Iledwig looked up into Hen* Sohnstein s face 
 as he ended this long speech not so fine, perhaps, 
 as some of the speeches which he had delivered in 
 the criminal courts, but much more moving and a 
 great deal more geniune than the very best of them 
 and, with her eyes filling with happy tears, said 
 to him : " And it is to thee that we owe it, this 
 happiness !" 
 
 But Ilerr Sohnstein s face grew grave and his 
 voice grew reverent as he answered : " It is not so, 
 my Hedwig. We owe our happiness to the good 
 God who has taken away the evil that was in our 
 dear Gottlieb s heart." They all were very quiet for 
 a little space, and upon the silence broke the sweet 
 sound of the clock bell in the near-by church -tower. 
 
 When the last stroke had sounded Herr Sohnstein 
 
A ROMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUARE. 235 
 
 spoke again, and in his customary jolly tone : "As 
 for these young ones here, we will unlock the door 
 and let them walk out and look for a little at the 
 music-stand that they love so well in the Square. 
 And lied wig shall sit beside me while we smoke our 
 pipes, Gottlieb, eh ? It is a long time already, old 
 friend, since thou and I have sat together and smoked 
 our pipes." 
 
AN IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 
 
IN the matter of raising canary - birds at once 
 strong of body and of note, tamed to associate with 
 humanity on rarely friendly terms, and taught to 
 sing with a sweetness nothing short of heavenly 
 Andreas Stoffel was second to none. And this was 
 not by any means surprising, for he had been born 
 (and for its saintly patron had been christened) close 
 by the small old town of Andreasberg : which stands 
 barely within the verge of the Black Forest, on the 
 southern declivity of the Harz and which, while fa 
 mous for its mines, is renowned above all other cities 
 for the excellence of the bird songsters which there 
 and thereabouts are raised. 
 
 Canary-birds had been the close companions of 
 this good Andreas through all the fifty years of his 
 lifetime. They had sung their sweet song of rejoic 
 ing at his birth when the storks had brought him 
 one day, while his father was far underground at 
 work in the mines, and was vastly well pleased, when 
 he came home all grimy at night, to find what a 
 ^brave boy God had sent him by these winged mes 
 sengers. They had sung over his cradle as his 
 mother, knitting, rocked it in the midst of the long 
 patch of sunlight that came through the low, wide 
 window of the bauernhaus the comfortable home 
 
240 AN IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 
 
 with high -peaked roof, partly thatched and partly 
 shingled, and with great drooping eaves, that was 
 nooked snugly on the warm southern slope of the 
 Andreasberg beside a little stream. They had sung 
 him awake many and many a bright summer morn 
 ing ; and one of his tenderest memories of the time 
 when he was a very little boy and was put to bed, 
 as little boys should be, at sundown was of their 
 faint, irregular, sleepy-headed chirpings and twitter 
 ings as they settled themselves to slumber on their 
 perches for the night. 
 
 And when the time came that Andreas, grown to 
 man s estate, being one -and -twenty years old, but 
 not to man s strength, for he was small of stature 
 and frail, was left lonely in the world the good 
 father killed by a rock-fall in the mines, and the dear 
 mother thereafter pining away from earth, and so to 
 the heaven that gave her husband back to her it 
 was his house-mates the birds who did their best to 
 cheer him with their songs. And presently, as it 
 seemed to him, these songs began to tell of new hap 
 piness in a new home far away across the mountains 
 and beyond the sea in that distant America where 
 already his father s brother dwelt, and whereof he 
 had heard wonderful stories of splendors and of rich 
 es incalculable all his life long. Indeed, the advent 
 urous uncle had prospered amazingly in the twenty 
 years of his American exile : rising, in due course, 
 from the position of a young man of most promis 
 cuous all work in a delicatessen shop in New York 
 to the position of owner of the business, shop and all. 
 
AN IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 243 
 
 To go to a land where such things as this were pos 
 sible seemed to Andreas most wise ; and to be near 
 his uncle, and the aunt and cousins whom he had 
 never seen, his sole remaining kin, held out to him a 
 pleasant promise of cheer and comfort in his loneli 
 ness. 
 
 But, in very truth, the sweet burden of the song 
 of his birds was not born of thoughts of mere com 
 monplace family affection and commonplace worldly 
 wealth. Far more precious than these was the mo 
 tive of the music that Andreas listened to and un 
 derstood, and yet scarcely would acknowledge, even 
 to himself ; for in America it was that Christine now 
 had her home and that which set his heartstrings 
 a -thrilling, as he listened to the song of his birds, 
 was the deep, pure melody of love. 
 
 They had been children together, he and Christine, 
 their homes side by side on the flanks of the An- 
 dreasberg ; and when, three years before, she had 
 gone with her father and her mother on the long 
 journey westward, the heart of Andreas Stoffel had 
 gone with her, and only his body was left behind 
 among the mountains of the Ilarz. And Christine 
 had dulled to him a little the keen edge of the sor 
 row of their parting by admitting that she left her 
 own heart in the place of the heart that she bore 
 away. 
 
 More than once had the rich uncle, owner of the 
 delicatessen shop in New York, written to urge that 
 his nephew whose frailty of body made him unfit 
 to enter upon the hard life of a worker in the mines 
 
244 AN IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 
 
 should come to America ; and with his large knowl 
 edge of affairs the uncle had explained that the best 
 bill of exchange in which money could be carried 
 from Andreasberg to New York was canary- birds, 
 that could be bought for comparatively little in the 
 German town, and that would be worth in the Amer 
 ican city a very great sum. And now on this shrewd 
 advice Andreas acted. The dear old bauernhaus was 
 sold, and its furnishing with it; and all the money 
 thus gained, together with the- greater sum that, lit 
 tle by little, his father had added to the store in the 
 old leather bag (saving only what the journey would 
 cost) was spent in buying the finest canary-birds 
 which money could buy; so that for a long while 
 after that time Andreasberg was desolate, for all of 
 its sweetest singers were gone. 
 
 Thus it fell out that even in the time of his long 
 journey his birds still sang to him ; and his fellow- 
 travellers by land and sea regarded curiously this 
 slim, pale youth, who shyly kept apart from human 
 converse and communed with his companions the 
 birds. And so lovingly well did Andreas care for 
 his little feathered friends that not one died through 
 out the whole long passage ; and as the ship came 
 up the beautiful bay of New York on a sunny May 
 morning, while Andreas stood on the deck with his 
 cages about him, very blithely and sweetly did the 
 birds sing their hopeful song of greeting to the 
 New World. 
 
 But it was a false song of hope, after all. Hearts 
 were fickle thirty years ago, even as hearts are fickle 
 
AN IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 245 
 
 to-day ; and the first news that Andreas heard when 
 he was come to his uncle s home (a very fine home, 
 over a very fine shop, indeed) was that Christine had 
 been a twelvemonth married in very complete for- 
 getfulness of all her fine words about the heart left 
 behind her, and of all her fine promises that she 
 would be true ! 
 
 That there be such things as broken hearts is an 
 open question. Yet when this news came suddenly 
 to Andreas a keen agony of pain went through his 
 heart as though it were really breaking and w T ith 
 his hands pressed tightly against his breast, and with 
 a face as pale as death itself, he fell to the floor. 
 He would have died then very willingly ; and it w r as 
 very unwilling!} the fierce pain leaving him as sud 
 denly as it had come that he returned to life. 
 Whatever may be said for or against the probabil 
 ity of broken hearts, there can be no question as 
 to the verity of broken lives. That day, assuredly, 
 the life of Andreas Stoffel was broken, and it never 
 wholly mended again. For a while even the song 
 of his birds lost all its sweetness, and seemed to him 
 but a discordant sound. 
 
 Yet even a broken life, until it be snuffed out en 
 tirely, must battle in the world for standing - room. 
 Luckily for Andreas, there was no need for him to 
 question how his own particular battle should be 
 made. The shape in which his little store of world 
 ly wealth was cast obviously determined the lines 
 on which he should seek maintenance. It was plain 
 that by the rearing and the selling of canary-birds he 
 
246 AX IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 
 
 must gain support until the time should come (and 
 he hoped that it would come soon) when he might 
 find release from this earth, where love so soon grows 
 false and cold. 
 
 The rich uncle, who was a kind-hearted man, gave 
 his help in the matter of finding a shop wherein the 
 canary-bird business might be advantageously car 
 ried on, and gave also the benefit of his commercial 
 wisdom and knowledge of American ways. And so, 
 with no great difficulty, Andreas was soon estab 
 lished in a snug little place of his own on the East 
 Side ; where the friendly German speech sounded 
 almost constantly in his ears, and where the friend 
 ly German customs obtained almost as completely as 
 in his own dear German home. But, after all, the 
 change was a dismal one. As his unaccustomed nose 
 was assailed by the rank oil-vapors blown across 
 from Hunter s Point he longed regretfully for the 
 fresh, aromatic air that the south winds swept up 
 and over his old home from the pines of the Schwarz- 
 wald; and the contrast was a sorry one between a 
 home on the slopes of the Harz Mountains and a 
 home in Avenue B. 
 
 Yet had these been his only sorrows, and had he 
 borne them as he had hoped to bear them with 
 Christine, his lot would have been anything but hard. 
 It was the deep heart -wound that he had suffered 
 that made his life for many a year a very dreary 
 one ; too dreary for him to find much pleasure even 
 in the singing of his birds. Now and again he met 
 Christine. At their first meeting in his uncle s fine 
 
AN IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 247 
 
 parlor over the fine delicatessen shop, one Sunday 
 afternoon she was, as she well might be, confused 
 in her speech and very shamefaced in her ways. 
 Her husband was with her, quite a prosperous per 
 son, so Andreas was told, who had built up a great 
 business in the pork and sausage line. He was a 
 loud-voiced, merry man ; and he aired his wit freely, 
 though evidently with no intent to be unkind, upon 
 the lover out of whose lucklessness his own luck 
 had come. Even as pretty a girl as Christine could 
 not have more than one husband at a time, said this 
 big Conrad, with great good -humor; and so, since 
 they could not both marry her, Andreas would do 
 well to stop crying over spilled milk. They all would 
 be very good friends, he added, and Andreas would 
 be godfather to the first child. He put out his big 
 hand as he made this proffer of friendship ; and al 
 though Andreas could not refuse to clasp it, there 
 was not, in truth, any great store of friendliness for 
 Christine s loud-voiced husband in his heart. So soon 
 as this was possible, he was glad to get away from 
 the merry Sunday afternoon gathering in his uncle s 
 fine parlor to the more sympathetic society of his 
 birds. Yet there did not seem to him much music 
 in the singing of his birds that day. 
 
 Christine was vastly proud of her big, rosy-faced, 
 noisy husband, whose sausage -making greatly pros 
 pered, and to whom the American dollars rolled in 
 bravely. But even in these days of her good- luck 
 she sometimes found herself thinking when Con 
 rad s rough love-making was still further rough- 
 is 
 
248 AN IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 
 
 ened, and his noisiness greatly increased, by too free 
 draughts of heady German beer of the gentler 
 ways and constant tenderness of her earlier lover, 
 whose love, with her own promise to be true to it, 
 she had so lightly cast aside. Thoughts of this sort, 
 it is true, did not often trouble her, but now and 
 then they gave her a little heart-pang ; and the pang 
 would be intensified, sometimes, as the thought also 
 would come to her that perhaps it was because she 
 had broken her plighted troth that her many pray 
 ers to become a mother remained unanswered. 
 
 As time went on, Christine s sorrows came to be 
 of a more instant sort. Her too jolly husband s fond 
 ness for heady beer grew upon him, and with its in 
 crease came a decrease in the success that until then 
 had been attendent upon his sausage -making. His 
 business fell away from him by degrees into soberer 
 and steadier hands, which had the effect of making 
 him take to stronger drinks than beer in order that 
 he might the more effectually forget his troubles. 
 He lost his merriness, and somewhat of his loudness, 
 and became sullen ; and the wolf always was shrewd 
 ly near the door. Thus, in a very bad way indeed, 
 things went on for half a dozen years ; then the big 
 Conrad, what with drink and worry, fell ill so ill, 
 that for a long while he lay close to the open jaws 
 of Death. 
 
 No one ever knew though several people quite 
 accurately guessed why the wolf did not fairly get 
 into the house during that dismal time. It is cer 
 tain that when Conrad arose from his bed at last, a 
 
AN IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 249 
 
 thin remnant of his former bigness, there were few 
 high-priced birds left in Andreas Stoffel s little shop, 
 where there had been a score or more when his sick 
 ness began. And, possibly, it was something more 
 than a mere coincidence that nearly all of the few 
 which remained were sold about the time that Con 
 rad started again, in a very humble way, his busi 
 ness of sausage-making. 
 
 But if Andreas did thus sacrifice his birds for 
 Christine s good, he did not grudge the sacrifice ; for 
 upon the big Conrad poverty and sickness had exer 
 cised a chastening and most wholesome influence. 
 He got up out of his bed a changed man ; and the 
 change, morally at least, was greatly for the better. 
 Physically the result was less salutary ; indeed, he 
 never quite recovered from his sharp attack ; and 
 three or four years later, just as his business was 
 getting into good shape again, he sickened suddenly, 
 and then promptly paid to nature the debt that all 
 men owe, and that his partial return to health had 
 but a little time delayed. 
 
 But Christine was not left desolate in the world, 
 for in the last year of her husband s life the strong 
 yearning that so possessed her had been satisfied, 
 and she was the mother of a baby girl. Andreas, 
 claiming the fulfilment of the promise made so long 
 before, had stood godfather to the little Rosa for 
 so, because of her fresh rosiness, was she named; and 
 there was a strange, sorrowful longing in his heart 
 when, the rite being ended, he came again to his 
 lonely home and sat him down to be comforted by 
 
250 AN IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 
 
 the singing of his birds : for while the children of 
 Alice call Bartram father, there must be ever a 
 weary weight of sadness in the world. 
 
 Life had not given so much of happiness to Chris 
 tine though, possibly, her happiness was equal to 
 her deserts that her hold upon life was a very firm 
 one ; arid although she tried, for the little Roschen s 
 sake, to put fresh strength into her grasp, the press 
 ure of poverty and care and sorrow all combined to 
 make her loosen it. Gently, a little at a time, her 
 hold gave w r ay. She knew what was coming, and so 
 did Andreas. Once or twice they spoke about it; 
 and spoke also of the old days on the Andreasberg, 
 when began the love that in one of their hearts at 
 least never had grown cold. And for this old love s 
 sake Andreas promised that w r hen she was gone the 
 little Roschen should find a home with him and with 
 his birds. It was not a great while after this prom 
 ise was made that the end came. 
 
 Some of the women laughed a little, and cried a 
 little too, when, after the funeral, old Andreas for 
 so already had they begun to call him, because of 
 his silent habit and quaint, old - fashioned ways 
 asked to be shown how a baby should be carried ; 
 and, being in this matter properly instructed, bore 
 away with careful tenderness in his arms the little 
 Roschen to her new home. And when he was 
 come home with her, the birds, as though in wel 
 come which seemed the more real because cer 
 tain of the tamer ones among them came forth 
 from their open cages and perched upon his arm 
 
"And when he -was come home with her, (he Link broke forth to 
 gether into a chorus of xweetest soy." 
 
AX IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 253 
 
 broke forth together into a chorus of sweetest 
 song. 
 
 The good-wives living thereabouts were someAvhat 
 shocked at the thought of risking a baby s life in 
 the care of a man who was qualified only to minister 
 intelligently to the needs of baby canary-birds ; yet 
 were they not a little touched when they came in 
 unnecessary numbers, as Andreas thought to give 
 him the benefit of their superior wisdom in the prem 
 ises by finding how well, in a queer, awkward way, 
 he was discharging the duties of his office ; and such 
 gentleness in a man they all vowed that they had 
 never seen. Yet it was not surprising that his quaint 
 effort was crowned with so signal a success ; as the 
 birds could have explained, had their song -notes 
 been rendered into human speech, Andreas had 
 served an apprenticeship in caring for them which 
 well fitted him to care with a mother s tenderness 
 for this little girl, who, such was his love for her, 
 seemed to him in all verity to be his own proper 
 child. Benefiting by the advice which so lavishly 
 was bestowed upon him, he presently became as 
 even the most critical of the women were forced to 
 admit a much better mother to the little Roschen 
 than many a real mother might have been. It 
 was, indeed, a sight worth travelling far to see, 
 this of Andreas washing and dressing the baby 
 in the sunny room at the back of the shop where 
 hung the cages in which were the choicest of his 
 birds. Roschen s first conscious memory was of 
 laughing and splashing in her little tub in the 
 
254 AN IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 
 
 sunshine, while all around her was a carolling of 
 song. 
 
 In the course of the years which had drifted by 
 since Andreas came with his birds to New York 
 that May morning he had not made for himself 
 many friends. To be a friend of birds a man must 
 have a quiet habit of bod} 7 , and great gentleness of 
 nature, and a true tenderness of heart ; which qual 
 ities tend also to solitariness, being for the most part 
 harmed rather than fostered by association with 
 mankind. As suited him well, his business w r as not 
 one that called him much abroad, nor that brought 
 him greatly into contact with his fellows. In his 
 good care the famous stock of songsters which he 
 had brought with him from the fatherland had in 
 creased prodigiously; and even the sale of nearly all 
 his best old birds, about the time that Conrad was 
 ill, had worked, in the long run, to his benefit ; for 
 he had taken these birds to one and another of the 
 great dealers, who thus came to know that in the lit 
 tle shop on Avenue B were to be found canaries the 
 like of which for tameness and for rare beauty of 
 note could not be bought elsewhere in all New York. 
 Thereafter, as his young birds grew up, learning from 
 Andreas himself the lesson of gentleness, and from 
 his teaching-birds the lesson of sweetness of note, he 
 had no lack of high-paying customers ; so that from 
 his business he derived an income far in excess of 
 his modest needs. What went with the overplus 
 was known only to certain of his country-folk, whose 
 ill venture after greater fortune in America had 
 
AN IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 255 
 
 proved to be but a fiercer struggle with still greater 
 poverty than they had struggled with at home ; and 
 no doubt the angels also kept track of his modest 
 benefactions, for such is reputed to be their way. 
 
 Many a wounded life was healed by these hidden 
 ministrations on the part of Andreas ; and, as right 
 ly followed, great love there was for him in many a 
 humble heart. But love of this sort is not friend 
 ship, for friendship requires some one plane at least 
 of equality, and also association and converse, which 
 conditions were lacking in the case of Andreas and 
 those to whom he gave his aid ; for the shyness of 
 his nature led him to keep himself apart save when 
 the demand upon his charity was for that comfort 
 and sympathy which can only be given in person 
 from those whose burdens he lightened ; so that, 
 for the most part, while the needed help was given 
 the hand that gave it remained concealed. 
 
 Yet with a few of his country-folk in New York 
 Andreas had established, in course of time, relations 
 of warm friendliness. Of his kin only two cousins 
 were left ; for the rich, good uncle, from overmuch 
 eating of his own delicatessen, had come to a bilious 
 ending ; and his uncle s widow, wise in her genera 
 tion, had returned to her native town in Saxony, 
 where she was enabled, by reason of the fortune 
 that the delicatessen - shop had brought to her, to 
 outshine the local baroness, and presently to attain 
 the summit of her highest hopes and happiness by 
 wedding an impoverished local baron, and so be 
 coming a baroness herself. Her two sons were well 
 
256 AN IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 
 
 pleased with this marriage. They were carrying on 
 a great business in hog products, and had purchased 
 for themselves fine estates in the country and fine 
 houses in town. To be able to speak of their moth 
 er as " the baroness " suited them very well. An 
 dreas saw but little of these gilded relatives who 
 yet were good -hearted men, and very kindly dis 
 posed towards him for their magnificent surround 
 ings were appalling to his simple mind. His few 
 friends were more nearly in his own walk in life, 
 and his friendship with them had been built up, as 
 substantial friendship should be, by slow degrees. 
 
 At the Cafe Niirnberger, near by his own little 
 shop a bakery celebrated for the excellence of its 
 bread, and for the great variety of its toothsome 
 German cakes it was his custom to make daily pur 
 chases. With the plump, rosy Aunt Iledwig, who 
 presided over the bakery, he passed the good word 
 of the day shyly ; he responded shyly to the friend 
 ly nod of the baker, Gottlieb Brekel, when that wor 
 thy chanced to be in the shop ; and he shyly greeted 
 a certain jolly Herr Sohnstein, a German lawyer of 
 distinction, who was about the bakery a great deal 
 and who popularly was believed to be a suitor for 
 the plump Hedwig s plump hand. And these shy 
 greetings might have gone on day after day for all 
 eternity or at least for so much of it as these sev 
 eral persons were entitled to live out on earth with 
 out increasing one particle in cordiality, had there 
 not been one other dweller in the bakery to act as a 
 solvent upon the bird-dealer s reserve. This was 
 
AN IDYL OP THE EAST SIDE. 257 
 
 the baker s daughter Minna, a child a year or two 
 older than Roschen and cast in a sturdier mould. 
 
 There was that about Andreas which drew all 
 children to him, even as his birds were drawn to him; 
 and a part of the spell certainly was the love for 
 children that always was in his heart. The small 
 Minna was disposed not a little to caprice for she 
 was a motherless child, and Aunt Iledwig humored 
 her waywardness a trifle more than was good for 
 her and she manifested, usually, a certain haughti 
 ness towards those who sought to make friends with 
 her. Yet of her own accord one day, when Andreas 
 had ceased to be a stranger to her, she went up to 
 him and offered him a kiss. Aunt Hedwig volubly 
 explained to Andreas the honor that had been done 
 him, and from that moment was disposed herself to 
 be most friendly with him as was also the baker, 
 and as was also Herr Sohnstein, when the story of 
 this extraordinary performance duly was related to 
 them. And thus there began a real friendship be 
 tween Andreas and these kindly souls that ever grew 
 riper as the years went on. Sometimes of an even 
 ing, when his birds were all asleep and he was left 
 lonely, Andreas would step around to the bakery ; 
 and would sit for an hour or so in the little room 
 back of the shop, listening pleasantly to the talk of 
 Gottlieb and Herr Sohnstein, as they smoked their 
 long pipes, and even laughing in a quiet way at the 
 merry sallies thrown into the conversation by Aunt 
 Iledwig as she sat knitting beside the fire. Andreas 
 himself rarely spoke it was not his way ; but there 
 
258 AX IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 
 
 was such a sympathetic quality in his silence that 
 his lack of words passed almost unobserved. Much 
 more attention was attracted by the fact that he did 
 not smoke a fact that was looked upon as most ex 
 traordinary. But this also went unheeded after a 
 while, as it well might in a small room wherein 
 Gottlieb and Herr Sohnstein were smoking with 
 such vigor that the air was a deep, heavy blue. It 
 was because his birds did not like smoke that he 
 had given up his pipe, he explained, simply ; and 
 only to Minna did it occur to say, after she had 
 turned the matter over in her small mind for a 
 while, that the Herr Stoffel must be a very kind- 
 hearted man to go without smoking because the 
 smell of tobacco-smoke wasn t nice for his birds. 
 
 When Andreas took the little Koschen to his home, 
 that sad day after the funeral, the good Hedwig was 
 among the first of the womenkind to go to him with 
 tenders of instruction and advice; for while Hedwig 
 was only, as it were, a matron by brevet, she was 
 deeply impressed by the extent of her own knowl 
 edge in the matter of how motherless children should 
 be raised ; and it is but just to add that this self- 
 confidence was fully warranted by the good results 
 that had attended upon her care of her brother s 
 child. Something of the story of Andreas and Chris 
 tine, and something of what he had done for her 
 and for her husband, was known in the bakery; and 
 enough more was guessed to make these friends of 
 his feel towards him, because of it all, a still strong 
 er and more earnest friendship. Herr Sohnstein, 
 
AN IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 259 
 
 who, being a lawyer with an extensive practice in 
 the criminal courts, was not by any means in the 
 habit of praising his fellow -men indiscriminately, 
 even went so far as to say that Andreas was " better 
 than any of the saints already." And when Aunt 
 Hedwig, somewhat shocked at this comparison to 
 the disfavor at a single thrust of the whole body of 
 saints put together, reproved Herr Sohn stein for his 
 irreverence, he stoutly declared that while his knowl 
 edge of saints was comparatively limited since they 
 did not come within the jurisdiction of the courts 
 he certainly never had read of one who had shown a 
 finer quality of charity, both in forgiveness and in 
 self-sacrifice, than that which Andreas had displayed. 
 
 " Don t you make believe, Hedwig," Herr Sohn- 
 stein continued, " that if you go off after promising 
 yourself to me and marry another fellow, that I ll 
 take care of him when he s sick, and set him up in 
 business when he gets well, and wind up by giving 
 him a first-class funeral ; and don t you get it into 
 your head that I m going to adopt any of your chil 
 dren that are not mine too for I m not a saint al 
 ready, even if Andreas is." 
 
 To which general declaration Aunt Hedwig re 
 plied, with much spirit, that in the first place Herr 
 Sohnstein had better wait until she promised to 
 marry him or to marry anybody, for that matter 
 before he took to preaching to her; that in the sec 
 ond place it was unnecessary for him to declare that 
 he was not a saint, since only a deaf blind man would 
 be likely to take him for one ; and that in the third 
 
260 AN IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 
 
 place he would do well to save his breath to cool his 
 broth : at which lively sally they all laughed to 
 gether very comfortably. 
 
 With these good friends Andreas consulted in all 
 important matters relating to Roschen s well-being. 
 Aunt Hedwig s practical advice in regard to cloth 
 ing and food and general care-taking was of high 
 value in the early years ; and it was Gottlieb s sug 
 gestion, when the time came for beginning the sowing 
 of seeds of wisdom in her small mind, that Roschen 
 should go with his own Minna to the school where 
 the Sisters taught ; and of a Sunday the children 
 went also together to be instructed by the Redemp- 
 torist Fathers in the way of godliness. So these lit 
 tle ones grew in years and in knowledge and in grace 
 together, and towards each other they felt a sisterly 
 love. 
 
 Insensibly, too, as Roschen grew out of childhood 
 into girlhood, her attitude towards her adoptive fa 
 ther changed. In the great matters of her life he 
 still cared for her, planning always for her good, 
 and withholding from her nothing suited to her sta 
 tion in life that money could buy. In the matter of 
 her music, Aunt Hedwig declared that he was posi 
 tively extravagant ; yet accepted in good part his 
 excuse that a voice so beautiful deserved to be well 
 trained. It was her mother s voice alive again, he 
 said ; and as he spoke, Aunt Hedwig saw that there 
 were tears in his eyes. But while Andreas still con 
 tinued the larger of his parental duties, in the small 
 er matters of every-day life his adopted daughter 
 
AN IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 263 
 
 now cared for him ; so beginning to pay the debt 
 (though to neither of them, such was their love for 
 each other, did any thought of debt or of payment 
 ever occur) that she owed him for all his goodness 
 to her and to her dead father and mother in the past. 
 
 In truth, it was a pretty sight to see Roschen first 
 beginning to play at keeping house for her father 
 for so she always called him and then, in a little 
 while, keeping house for him most excellently in real 
 earnest. Here, again, the good qualities of Aunt 
 Hedwig came to the front, for to her intelligent di 
 rection was due the rather surprising success that 
 attended Roschen s ambitious attempt to become so 
 early a hausfrau. Time and again was a great cu 
 linary disaster averted by a rapid dash on Roschen s 
 part from her imperilled home to the bakery, where 
 Aunt Hedwig s advice was quickly obtained and then 
 was promptly acted upon. And if sometimes the ad 
 vice came too late to avert the catastrophe as on 
 that memorable and dreadful day when Roschen 
 boiled her sausage-dumplings without tying them in 
 a bag the lessons taught by calamitous experience 
 caused only passing trouble, and tended, in the long- 
 run, to good. 
 
 Indeed, by the time that Roschen was sixteen years 
 old, and had so far passed through her apprentice 
 ship that she no longer was compelled to make sud 
 den and frantic appeals to Aunt Hedwig for aid, the 
 little household over which she presided so blithely 
 was very admirably managed ; and it certainly was 
 as quaint and as pretty an establishment as could be 
 
264 AN IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 
 
 found anywhere upon the whole round globe. Who 
 ever entered the little shop was greeted with such a 
 thrilling and warbling of sweet notes that all the air 
 seemed quivering with music, and the leader of the 
 bird choir was a certain wonderful songster that An 
 dreas had named the Kronprinz, and for which he 
 repeatedly had refused quite fabulous sums. An 
 dreas himself had bred the Kronprinz, and had given 
 him the education that now made him such a won 
 der among birds, and that made him also of such 
 great value as an instructor of the young birds whose 
 musical education was still to be gained. After his 
 adopted daughter, Andreas held this bird, and just 
 ly, to be the most precious thing that he owned. 
 
 But far sweeter than the singing of the prized 
 Kronprinz at least, to any but a bird-fancier s ears 
 was the singing that usually was to be heard above 
 the trilling of the canaries, and that came from the 
 room at the back of the shop where Roschen was 
 engaged in her housewifely duties. It was such mu 
 sic as the angels made, Andreas declared, yet think 
 ing most of all of one angel voice, the memory of 
 which while still on earth was very dear to him ; 
 and even in the case of those wlio were moved by 
 no tender association of the sweet tones of the living 
 and the dead this estimate of Roschen s singing did 
 not seem unduly high. Gustav Strauss, the son of 
 the great bird -dealer over in the rich part of the 
 town, vowed that Andreas was entirely right in his 
 angelic comparison ; and Ludwig Bauer, the young 
 shoemaker, who lived next door but one, went even 
 
AN IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 265 
 
 farther, and said that Roschen s voice was as much 
 sweeter than any mere angel s voice as Roschen her 
 self was sweeter and better than all the angels in 
 Paradise combined. There was nothing halting nor 
 half-way in Ludwig Bauer s opinion in this matter, 
 it will be observed. 
 
 The little room wherein Roschen sang so sweetly 
 while at her work was their kitchen and dining-room 
 and parlor all in one. As noon-time drew near there 
 would come out into the shop from this room, through 
 the open door- way, such succulent and enticing odors 
 of roasting pork and stewing onions and boiling cab 
 bages, that even Bielfrak as the Spitz dog, who was 
 chained as a guard close beneath the cage of the 
 Kronprinz, appropriately was named would fall to 
 licking his chops as he hungrily sniffed these smells 
 delectable ; and Andreas suddenly would discover 
 how hungry he was, and would make occasion to go 
 to the door-way that he might see if the setting of 
 the table was begun. 
 
 " Patience, father ! Presently ! You are as bad as 
 Bielfrak himself !" Roschen would say ; and as this 
 attribution of gluttony to her father was a time-hon 
 ored joke between them, they always would laugh 
 over it pleasantly. And then Andreas would stand 
 and watch his little hausfrau with a far-away look in 
 his gentle blue eyes as she bustled about her work 
 in the sunny room, her pretty dimpled arms bared 
 to above the elbow, her lovely cheeks (because of 
 much stooping over the fire) brighter even than the 
 roses after which she had been named, her golden 
 
266 AN IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 
 
 hair done up in a trig, tight knot (as Aunt Hedwig 
 had taught her was the proper way for hair to be ar 
 ranged while cooking was going on), and over her 
 tidy print gown a great white apron, fashioned in an 
 ancient German shape, as guard against the splash- 
 ings and spillings which even the most careful of 
 cooks cannot always control. In the sunny win 
 dows, opening to the south, flowers were growing ; 
 the Dutch clock, with pendulous weights made in 
 the similitude of pine-cones, ticked against the wall 
 merrily; Miidchen, the cat who, being most prolific 
 of kittens, notoriously belied her name sat bunched 
 up in exceeding comfort on a space expressly left 
 for her upon the sunny window - ledge among the 
 plants ; steam arose in light clouds from the various 
 pots upon the stove, and in the middle of the little 
 room the table stood ready for the dinner to be 
 served. 
 
 It was a very cheerful, home - like picture this ; 
 and yet many a time, as Andreas stood in the door 
 way and contemplated it, there would be tears in his 
 eyes, and a strange feeling, half of glad thankful 
 ness, half of very sorrowful longing, in his heart. 
 She was so like her dead mother! In look, in speech, 
 in motions of the body, in turns of the head, and in 
 gestures of the hands she was Christine over again. 
 Sometimes Andreas would forget his fifty years and 
 all the sorrows of hope destroyed and irrevocable 
 death-parting which his fifty years had brought him, 
 and would fancy for a moment that he was young 
 again, and that the dearest wish of his life was here 
 
AN IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 267 
 
 fulfilled. And then she would call him "Father!" 
 and his moment s dream of happiness would die cold 
 ly in his heart. Yet would there come to him always 
 an after- glow of solacing warmth, as comforting 
 thoughts would steal in upon him of the happiness 
 not a dream different from that which he had hoped 
 for in his youth, but most sweet and real that God s 
 goodness had given him in these his later years. 
 
 Andreas truly was old Andreas now. As men s 
 lives go, his age was not great ; but sorrow had made 
 him, as it had made many another man, far older 
 than the mere number of years which he had lived. 
 No great store of strength had been his at the begin 
 ning, and the heart-break that he had suffered that 
 day of his landing in the New World, when faith 
 and love and hope all died together at a single blow, 
 was less a sentimental figure than a physical reality. 
 A like pang, yet not so keen, had wrenched him 
 when he first came to know of Christine s sharp trial 
 of poverty, and another seized him in the night-time 
 following that sad day when she passed away from 
 earth. And now of late, without any cause at all, 
 these pangs had come again. Andreas was glad that 
 they had come always when he was alone ; for the 
 pain was too searching to be wholly hidden, and his 
 strong desire was that Roschen should be spared all 
 knowledge of his suffering. In his own mind he per 
 ceived quite clearly what before long must come to 
 pass. And it was a good happening, he thought, 
 that in Gottlieb Brekel and Aunt Hedwig, and the 
 excellent Herr Sohnstein, who, being a lawyer, could 
 
 16 
 
268 AN IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 
 
 care well for the little store in the bank and for the 
 little house that Andreas now owned, Roschen had 
 such stanch and worthy friends. The only signs of 
 these thoughts which Roschen perceived was that 
 her father grew much keener in the matter of selling 
 his birds at high prices ; and that she was some 
 what seriously reproved when, in her housekeeping 
 or in her occasional expeditions to the fine shops in 
 Grand Street, she ventured upon any small extrav 
 agance. But Roschen would laugh when thus re 
 proved, and would declare that her father, who long 
 had been a glutton, was become a miser already in 
 his old age ; whereat Andreas also would laugh, yet 
 not quite so heartily as Roschen liked to hear him 
 laugh when she cracked her little jokes upon him, 
 and would say that sometimes a miser was not 
 thought by his heirs so bad a fellow when they 
 found what a snug little fortune he had left behind 
 him all safe in the bank. 
 
 It was because of these thoughts, which he kept 
 hidden from her, that Andreas began to take a much 
 more active interest in what Roschen had to say 
 from time to time about certain young men of her ac 
 quaintance. The young man of whom she spoke most 
 frequently, and with a frank friendliness, was the 
 handsome young assistant baker at the Cafe Niirn- 
 berger ; a very capable young fellow, Hans Kuhn 
 by name, who of late had brought that excellent 
 bakery into great vogue because of the almost mirac 
 ulously good lebkuchen which he baked there. But 
 Andreas was not at all alarmed by this open friend- 
 
AN IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 269 
 
 ship ; for Hans and the stout Minna Brekel were to 
 be married presently, and Roschen s feeling obvious 
 ly was no more than hearty good-will towards the 
 lover of her dear sister-friend. Fine chatterings she 
 and Minna had, as Andreas inferred from her oc 
 casional brief reports of them, about the prodigious 
 matrimonial event that was so near at hand. As 
 Andreas also inferred, these chatterings put vari 
 ous notions of an exciting and somewhat disturbing 
 sort into Roschen s little head. If one young girl 
 might get married, so might another, no doubt she 
 thought ; and it is conceivable that from this men 
 tal statement of a rational abstract possibility her 
 thoughts may have passed on to consideration of the 
 concrete possibilities involved in her own relations 
 with the good-looking Gustav Strauss, son of the 
 rich bird-dealer, or with the good - looking young 
 shoemaker, Ludwig Bauer, who lived next door but 
 one. 
 
 It is certain that when Roschen had arrived at 
 the dignity of eighteen years, and her hitherto slim 
 figure had taken on quite a plump, pleasing woman 
 ly roundness, the business visits of the young Herr 
 Strauss to the little bird shop on the East Side be 
 came, as it struck Andreas, rather curiously frequent. 
 And about this time, also, their neighbor Ludwig de 
 veloped a very extraordinary interest in the business 
 of raising canary-birds. It was a business that he 
 long had thought of engaging in, he explained ; and 
 he truly did exhibit an aptitude in comprehending 
 and in practising its mysteries that greatly exalted 
 
270 AN IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 
 
 him in the little bird-dealer s esteem. The birds all 
 seemed to recognize a friend in him ; and even those 
 which were but partially tamed, and were gentle 
 only with Andreas himself, would perch willingly 
 upon his hand. With Andreas it long had been a 
 maxim that canary-birds were rare judges of human 
 character, and the testimonial thus given to Lud- 
 wig s worth counted with him for a great deal as 
 did also the quite converse opinion of the birds in 
 regard to the young Herr Strauss: from whom, not 
 withstanding his training in the care of their kind, 
 they always flew away, and whose mere presence in 
 the shop sufficed to make every bird ruffle himself 
 and to chirp angrily in his cage. Yet Herr Strauss 
 was most agreeable in his manners, and was a very 
 personable young man. As for his riches, they 
 spoke for themselves in his fine attire and in his fine 
 gold watch and chain ; and he also spoke for them, 
 making frequent allusions to his comfortable present 
 position in the world as his father s partner, and to 
 his still more comfortable prospective position as his 
 father s sole heir. 
 
 Ludwig, on the other hand, could not boast of 
 any great amount of gilding upon, as Andreas be 
 lieved it to be, the sterling metal of which he was 
 made. But he was by no means what would be con 
 sidered by the dwellers on the East Side a poor man. 
 He was a steady and a good master-workman, with 
 three or four apprentices under him ; and all day 
 long there was to be heard in his shop the cheerful, 
 business-like sound of the thumping of short ham- 
 
AN IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 271 
 
 mers on lap-stones, together with the loud clicking 
 of the sewing-machine on which the delicate stitch 
 ing of uppers was done. In the window, screened 
 with a green curtain of growing vines as is the 
 pretty custom with most of the German shoemakers 
 on the East Side there always might be seen a pair 
 or two of well-made stout shoes drying in the sun 
 shine on their lasts ; and with these a half-dozen 
 or more pairs of shoes newly soled and heeled in a 
 substantial, workmanlike fashion that would have 
 done credit to Hans Sachs himself. Making and 
 mending together, it was a very good business that 
 Ludwig was doing ; each year a better balance was 
 lodged to his credit in the savings-bank, and the 
 great golden boot that hung above his door-way told 
 no more than the truth of the good work that was 
 don-e and of the good money that was well earned 
 within. From the stand-point of public opinion on 
 the East Side, this thriving young shoemaker al 
 ready was a man of substance, whose still more sub 
 stantial future was assured. 
 
 There was in the nature of Ludwig much the same 
 simplicity and gentleness that characterized Andreas 
 which common qualities, no doubt, had much to 
 do with the strong friendship that there was be 
 tween them; and all his neighbors, remembering 
 how good a son he had been, and knowing also how 
 deeply he still sorrowed for the dear mother lost to 
 him in death, were more than ready to vouch for the 
 goodness of his heart. Indeed, it was while trying 
 to comfort him a little after this great sorrow fell 
 
272 AN IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 
 
 upon him that Roschen first felt towards him some 
 thing more than the passing interest that every 
 maiden reasonably feels in every seemly young man. 
 Her disposition towards him, to be sure, even when 
 thus stimulated by a sympathetic melancholy, was 
 only that of friendliness ; but it evidently was a 
 friendliness so cordial and so sincere that it made 
 quite a tolerable foundation upon which Ludwig 
 freely built fine air-castles of hope. For his disposi 
 tion towards Roschen was altogether that of a lover 
 as anybody might have known after hearing that 
 decided expression of his opinion to the effect that 
 all the angels singing together could not make music 
 so sweet as the music of her voice. 
 
 In due time, in accordance with the decorous Ger 
 man custom, both of these young men made formal 
 application to Andreas for permission to be ranked 
 formally as Roschen s suitors ; and, as it chanced, 
 they both preferred their requests upon the same 
 day. The young Herr Strauss undeniably had some 
 strong points to make in his own favor ; and he made 
 them, to do him justice, without any hesitation or 
 false modesty. As he truly said speaking with an 
 easy assurance, and airily fingering his gold watch- 
 chain as he spoke in marrying him Roschen would 
 make an excellent match. In rather marked contrast 
 with this justifiable yet not wholly pleasing assump 
 tion of self-importance, was the modest tone in which 
 Ludwig 1 urged his suit ; yet was Andreas not un 
 favorably impressed by the fact that he dwelt less 
 upon his deserts than upon his desire to be deserv- 
 
AN IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 273 
 
 ing ; and that in connection with the creditable pre 
 sentment that he made of the condition of his world 
 ly affairs he did not insist, as the Herr Strauss had 
 insisted, upon a minute examination of Roschen s 
 dowry. As bearing indirectly yet forcibly upon a 
 general consideration of the cases of these young 
 men, the statement may be added that one of them 
 had made for his proposed father-in-law several ex 
 cellent pairs of shoes, while the other had made for 
 or, rather, against him only a series of uncom 
 monly sharp bargains. 
 
 To neither of the lovers did Andreas give an im 
 mediate answer. He must think a little, he said. 
 The self-esteem of the Herr Strauss was a trifle ruf 
 fled by the suggestion that in such a case waiting of 
 any sort was necessary ; it seemed to him that an of 
 fer so desirable as that which he had made was en 
 titled to instant acceptance. But Ludwig noted a 
 certain trembling in the voice that bade him wait, 
 and was not so completely engrossed with his own 
 hopes of happiness but that he could perceive its 
 cause and could feel sorrow for it. All these years 
 had Andreas cared for this sweet Roschen, and had 
 cherished her as his dearest treasure ; and now, when 
 the best time of her life had come, he was asked to 
 give her up to a love that rested its claim for recog 
 nition upon nothing more substantial than promises 
 of care- taking which the future might or might 
 not make good. That Andreas, under such circum 
 stances, even should consider his request, touched 
 Ludwig s good heart with gratitude ; and the love 
 
274 AN IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 
 
 that he had for a long while felt towards the old 
 man led him now to put an arm around his shoulder, 
 as a son might have done, and to tell him that the 
 home which he had ready for Roschen was ready 
 for Roschen s father too. And Ludwig s voice also 
 trembled a little. Andreas did not speak, but he 
 put his thin hand into the big brown hand much 
 stained with the dark wax which shoemakers use and 
 with long handling of leather that Ludwig held 
 out to him ; and when they had stood together thus 
 affectionately for a little time they parted, silently. 
 
 In truth, Andreas was more deeply moved than 
 even Ludwig, for all his affectionate sympathy, had 
 divined. His love for Roschen was a double love. 
 With the love of a father he had watched over her 
 these many years ; yet even stronger had come to 
 be his love for her as her mother born again. Some 
 times, for whole days together, confusing the past 
 with the present, he would call her Christine ; and 
 in his heart he ever gave greater room to the fancy 
 that the life which he had hoped for was realized, 
 and that the life which he was living was a dream. 
 No wonder, then, that he asked for a little time in 
 which to school himself to meet the fate that at a 
 single blow brought destruction to his dear home on 
 earth and to his dearer castle in the air. 
 
 Roschen was abroad that afternoon, and as An 
 dreas, alone with his birds, turned over in his mind 
 the answers which he must give to these young men 
 who sought to take to themselves, for the greater 
 pleasure of their young lives, the single happiness 
 
AN IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 275 
 
 which his old life had left to it a great bitterness 
 possessed his soul. When they had so much and he 
 so little, it was cruel of them to seek to rob him 
 thus, he thought. And their love, after all, was but 
 the growth of a day, while his love had been grow 
 ing steadily for forty years. Roschen was to him 
 at once the sweetheart of his youth and the dear 
 daughter of his age. How could these young fel 
 lows have the effrontery to place their own light 
 love fancies in rivalry with this profound love of 
 his that was rooted in all the years of a lifetime? 
 His thoughts went back to those long -past days 
 when he and Christine first had known each other 
 as little children on the sunny slopes of the Andreas- 
 berg, and when began the love that still was a living 
 reality. And then he followed downward through 
 the years his own love-story from this its beginning 
 the promise made in the twilight, while the south 
 wind, laden with the sweet smell of the pine-trees of 
 the Sch warzwald, played about them; the hard part 
 ing ; his joyous journey with his birds westward 
 across the sea ; the black day when that journey 
 ended ; the years of sorrow which closed in still 
 keener sorrow when his Christine was lost to him 
 utterly in death ; and then through the later years, 
 which ever grew brighter and happier as his love 
 for Christine was born anew and lived its strange, 
 half-real life in his love for Christine s child, who 
 also was the daughter given him by Heaven to cheer 
 and comfort him in his old age. And now at the 
 end of it all he was asked to give to another this 
 
276 AN IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 
 
 sweet flower of love that for his happiness, almost 
 by a miracle, as it seemed, a second time had bloom, 
 ed. Was not this asking more of him, he thought, 
 than rightly should be asked? 
 
 So heavy was the load of bitterness that oppress 
 ed him that even the singing of the Kronprinz, who 
 was moved to break forth into song just then, failed 
 for a time to arouse him. Yet presently the sweet 
 sound penetrated the thick substance of his sor 
 row, and slowly turned the current of his sombre 
 thoughts. Andreas loved all music; but because of 
 the long train of associations which it invoked, and 
 because of his skilled knowledge of its quality, there 
 was no music so sweet to him as the singing of a 
 bird. And when the singer was the Kronprinz, who 
 sang with a mellow sweetness rare and wonderful, 
 the music never failed to move his tender nature to 
 its very depths. And so, as he listened to the sing 
 ing of his bird, gentler and better thoughts pos 
 sessed him ; and then he reproached himself for the 
 selfishness that had so filled his heart. He had no 
 right, he thought, to stand in the way of Roschen s 
 happiness to compel her to take the old love that 
 he had to give in place of the fresh young love that 
 was offered to her. It was only a foolish fancy, this 
 that he had cherished, that she was his sweetheart 
 of long ago ; it was the rational truth that he had to 
 deal with that she was his daughter, who had given 
 him in full measure a daughter s love and duty, and 
 for whom now, as was a father s duty, he must 
 secure a good husband, who would care for her 
 
AN IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 277 
 
 well and loyally when death had taken her father 
 from her. This was the right conclusion, but all 
 the strength of his will was required to bring him 
 to it ; and when at last he said to himself that what 
 so plainly was right should be firmly done, the color 
 suddenly left his face, and there went through his 
 heart the sharp pang that he had learned to dread 
 because of the agony of it. So wrenching was the 
 pain that he could not repress a cry; but it was not 
 a loud cry, and the sound of it was lost in the glad 
 carolling of the Kronprinz s song. 
 
 When Roschen came home, a little later, she was 
 frightened by finding her father looking so pale and 
 worn ; but the sight of her dear face, and her loving 
 looks and words, revived him quickly, and her fear 
 passed by. And she forgot her fear the sooner be 
 cause of the momentous question which he then op 
 ened to her ; for this last sharp seizure, keener than 
 any that had preceded it, had warned Andreas that 
 the duty which he had to do should not be delayed. 
 
 Very tenderly and lovingly did he speak of this 
 heart matter to his little rose, his Roschen, as she 
 sat beside him on a low stool, after the childish 
 habit that she never had relinquished, while her 
 head was nestled against his breast, and while he 
 stroked her fair hair gently with his thin, delicate 
 hand. And as he made clear to her all that she 
 was to know, and explained to her that the decision 
 between these rival lovers, or the rejection of them 
 both, must be made by herself, the rosiness of this 
 pretty Roschen became a deep crimson, and her 
 
278 AX IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 
 
 head sank down upon her father s breast so that her 
 face was hid from him ; and as his arms clasped her 
 closely to this loving haven she fell to crying gently 
 there, as in such cases is a proper maiden s rather 
 unreasonable way. 
 
 " Does the thought of lovers make thee sad, my 
 little one?" Andreas asked; and he could not quite 
 stifle, though he tried hard to stifle, the hope that 
 perhaps Roschen might settle this present matter so 
 that for a little time longer she still would be wholly 
 his own. 
 
 " It is not the thought of lovers, dear father," 
 Roschen answered, and her voice was low and bro 
 ken, "but the thought that anything should take 
 me away from thee." 
 
 The hope grew larger in the heart of Andreas, 
 but he said : " The young Ilerr Strauss will make 
 thee a fine husband, my daughter. He is a rich 
 young man already, and " 
 
 But Roschen promptly cut short this eulogy by 
 raising her head abruptly and saying, with great 
 decision : " He is a horrid young man, and nothing 
 is good about him at all. He tries to cheat thee 
 whenever he comes here to buy our birds ; and 
 and he has said things to me ; and he and he tried 
 to kiss me. Ugh ! I will have nothing to do with 
 the Herr Strauss nothing at all !" 
 
 As she spoke, Roschen held up her head firmly 
 and looked Andreas straight in the eyes. Her own 
 eyes quite sparkled with anger, for all the tears that 
 were in them ; and the tone in which she pronounced 
 
AX IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 279 
 
 the name of the Herr Strauss suggested pointedly 
 that he was one of the various unpleasant creatures 
 which humanity disposes of with tongs. All this 
 was so emphatic that Andreas suffered his hope to 
 grow yet stronger ; for now, certainly, one of these 
 lovers was put safely out of his way. 
 
 "And Ludwig, my little one?" 
 
 Roschen did not speak, but the angry sparkle 
 that was in her eyes gave place to a softer and 
 much pleasanter brightness, and a still deeper crim 
 son showed in the pretty face that she hid again 
 suddenly upon her father s breast. 
 
 "And Ludwig?" Andreas repeated. 
 
 But still Roschen did not speak. She put her 
 arms around her father s neck, and nestled her head 
 beneath his chin in a lovingly coaxing way that she 
 had devised when she was a little child; and then 
 she fell again to sobbing gently. 
 
 " Hast thou, then, nothing to say of this friend of 
 ours, my daughter?" Andreas spoke eagerly, his 
 hope being very strong within him now ; for he was 
 not versed in the ways of maidens, and the silence 
 that would have been so eloquent to another woman 
 or to a wiser man conveyed a very false notion to 
 his mind. 
 
 "Thou hast told me, dear father, that Ludwig 
 makes very good shoes," Roschen said at last, speak 
 ing hesitatingly, and in a voice so low that it was 
 little more than a whisper. 
 
 "Yes," Andreas answered, somewhat taken aback 
 by the irrelevant and very matter-of-fact nat- 
 
280 AX IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 
 
 ure of this remark; "yes, Ludwig makes good 
 shoes." 
 
 "And thou likest those which he has made for 
 thee?" 
 
 " Truly. They are good shoes. They have cured 
 my corns." Andreas spoke with feeling. He was 
 sincerely grateful to Ludwig for having cured his 
 corns. "But it is not of Lud wig s shoes that we 
 are talking now, my Roschen," he went on. " It is 
 of Ludwig himself. Hast thou nothing to say in 
 answer to what he asks ?" 
 
 Through her tears Roschen laughed a little, and 
 she pressed her head still more closely beneath her 
 father s chin. "Thou dear foolish one," she said, 
 " canst thou not understand ?" And then, after a 
 moment of silence, she went on: "Hast thou not 
 seen, dear father, how all the birds love Ludwig, 
 and of their own accord go to him?" 
 
 Then a little light broke in upon Andreas, and the 
 hope that he had cherished began to pale ; but he 
 answered stoutly: "Yes, the birds love him, for he 
 is a good young man. And thou, my daughter?" 
 
 And Roschen answered in a voice so low and 
 tremulous that Andreas divined rather than heard 
 the words she spoke : " Perhaps it is with me also, 
 dear father, as it is with the birds !" 
 
 For a little time there was silence for Andreas did 
 not trust himself to speak while his hope was dying 
 in his heart then he raised the pretty head from 
 its resting-place upon his breast, and as he kissed 
 the forehead that was so like the dead Christine s, 
 
Perhaps it is with me also, dear father, as it is witJi the birdx. 
 
AN IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. / 283 
 
 he said, reverently and tenderly : " For thy good and 
 happiness, my dear one, may God s will be done." 
 And as he clasped her again to him closely, the 
 Kronprinz once more lifted up his voice in sweetest 
 song. 
 
 When at last Roschen raised her rosy, happy face 
 from her father s breast, she was so full of the won 
 der that had come to pass that she did not perceive 
 his weary look, nor how pale he was ; yet less pale 
 now than a little time before when his face was un 
 seen by her. 
 
 And presently the rosiness of this sweet Roschen 
 grew still deeper as the shop door opened, with a 
 great tinkling of its little bell, and Ludwig entered. 
 Andreas arose from his chair slowly but neither of 
 them noticed how feeble and labored were his mo 
 tions, like those of a weak old man and clasped in 
 both of his own Ludwig s great brown hand, while 
 with a look of love he said: "It is as thou wouldst 
 have it, my son. This dear rose of my growing 
 will bloom in thy garden now " and he led Lud 
 wig to where Roschen, who indeed was a true 
 rose just then, was standing and put her hand in 
 his. 
 
 And then, with a wistful eagerness, he went on : 
 "And thou wilt care for her very tenderly and well, 
 in my place ? Thou canst not understand what my 
 love has been ; part of it, I know, has been foolish 
 ness and that which thou wilt give her, if it be 
 strong and steadfast, will be far better than ever 
 was mine. For it is the way of life " and here the 
 
284 AN IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 
 
 voice of Andreas trembled and fell a little "that 
 for young hearts love also must be young." 
 
 " With God s help, dear father, I will be true and 
 good to her," Ludwig answered, speaking with a 
 stout heartiness that gave the ring of truth to his 
 words ; " and I will care well for her and for thee 
 too." 
 
 "For me it will not be long," Andreas answered; 
 "but give the care which thou wouldst have given 
 to me to these my birds." 
 
 " Do not make us sad to-day, dear father, by such 
 gloomy words," said Roschen, as she put her arms 
 around his neck. " To-day a beautiful time of hap 
 piness has begun for us." 
 
 "Truly a beautiful time of happiness has begun," 
 Andreas answered; "and I thank God that I have 
 seen its beginning for when grief comes to thee, 
 and grief must come to us all, my daughter, thou 
 hast now a strong young heart to stay and comfort 
 thee. Yes, this is truly the beginning of a happy 
 time." It was with a very tender smile that An 
 dreas spoke these cheery words ; and he added, 
 cheerily: "Now go out into the Square, my chil 
 dren, and say to each other the words which I know 
 are in your hearts. I will be glad in your happiness 
 as I sit here among my birds." 
 
 And so Andreas, for the second time in his life, 
 was left alone with his birds. 
 
 As he sat there, desolate, he buried his face in 
 his hands, and between his thin fingers there was a 
 glistening of tears. It was so hard to bear ! They 
 
AN IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 287 
 
 strain that seemed to tell of restful triumph and 
 eternal joy. And on the gentle, kindly face of An 
 dreas, as he sat there so very quietly while all the 
 air around him with these sweet sounds was vibrant, 
 there was a most tender smile that told of perfect 
 peace. 
 
 THE END. 
 
AX IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 285 
 
 might have waited just a little while, he thought ; 
 it would not have been very long. For he forgot, 
 and perhaps it would be unfair to blame him for 
 forgetting, his own desire that before that little 
 time should pass his Roschen should have assured 
 to her the good care-taker whom she surely would 
 need when the season of sorrow came. A little thrill 
 of pain, a premonition of which he knew the meaning, 
 ran through him. 
 
 Then it was that the Kronprinz began to sing. 
 The notes at first were low and liquid, and they fell 
 soothingly upon the ears, and so into the heart of 
 this poor Andreas ; and as they rose higher and full 
 er and clearer, light began to show for him where 
 only darkness had been. The other birds, fired to 
 emulation by these mellow warblings, joined in a 
 sweet chorus, above which the strong rich notes of 
 the Kronprinz rose in triumphant waves of harmony. 
 And gladness came then into the heart of Andreas, 
 and great thankfulness ; for as the music of the 
 birds exalted him he seemed to see with a strange 
 clearness into the depths of the future, and all that 
 he saw there promised well for those whom he loved. 
 Such wonderful music was this that the very air 
 about him seemed to be growing goldenly radiant ; 
 and with a certain awe creeping into his heart he 
 seemed to hear low echoes of a music even more 
 ravishingly beautiful that came faintly yet with a 
 bell-like clearness from very far away. 
 
 Truly there was something strange about this mu 
 sic, for even Bielfrak, who was grown to be a deaf, 
 17 
 
286 
 
 AN IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE. 
 
 rheumatic old dog now, heard it and was greatly 
 moved by it. From his comfortable rug in the cor 
 ner he raised himself painfully upon his haunches, 
 and, pointing his noise upward, uttered a long mel 
 ancholy howl. Then he came by slow effort across 
 the room to where his master sat and laid his head 
 upon his master s knee. And there was a puzzled 
 look upon Bielfrak s face, for never before had he 
 thus manifested the love that was in his honest heart 
 without finding a quick response to it in the gentle 
 touch of his master s hand. Yet now that hand re 
 mained most strangely still, and it was strangely 
 white, and Bielfrak drew back suddenly from touch 
 ing it finding it most strangely cold. 
 
 The birds had been frightened into silence by 
 Bielfrak s howl, but now they all burst forth again 
 into the song of strange and wonderful sweetness 
 that of a sudden they had learned to sing. In waves 
 of harmony the chorus rose and fell, and above all 
 sounded the notes of the Kronprinz, rich, full, clear, 
 so delicately perfect as to seem a blending of sun 
 light and of sound. And in this song there was a 
 
BY CONSTANCE F. WOOLSOK 
 
 EAST ANGELS, pp. 592. 16mo, Cloth, $1 25. 
 ANNE. Illustrated, pp. 540. 16ino, Cloth, $1 25. 
 FOR THE MAJOR, pp. 208. 16mo, Cloth, $1 00. 
 
 CASTLE NOWHERE, pp. 386. 16mo, Cloth, $1 00. 
 (A New Edition.) 
 
 RODMAN THE KEEPER. Southern Sketches, pp. 
 340. 16mo, Cloth, $1 00. (A New Edition.) 
 
 There is a certain bright cheerfulness in Miss Woolson s writing 
 which invests all her characters with lovable qualities. Jewish Advo 
 cate, N. Y. 
 
 Miss \Yoolson is among onr few successful writers of interesting 
 magazine stories, and her skill and power are perceptible in the de 
 lineation of her heroines no less than in the suggestive pictures of 
 local \\fe.-Jewish Messenger, N. Y. 
 
 Constance Fenimore Woolsou may easily become the novelist 
 laureate. Boston Globe. 
 
 Miss Woolson has a graceful fancy, a ready wit, a polished style, and 
 conspicuous dramatic power ; while her skill in the development of a 
 story is very remarkable. London Life. 
 
 Miss Woolsou never once follows the beaten track of the orthodox 
 novelist, but strikes a new and richly loaded vein, which so far is all 
 her own ; and thus we feel, on reading one of her works, a fresh sen 
 sation, and we put down the book with a sigh to think our pleasant 
 task of reading it is finished. The author s lines must have fallen to 
 her in very pleasant places; or she has, perhaps, within herself the 
 wealth of womanly love and tenderness she pours so freely into all 
 ehe writes. Such books as hers do much to elevate the moral tone of 
 the day a quality sadly wanting in novels of the time. Whitehall 
 Review, London. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. 
 
 The above works sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the 
 United States or Canada, on receipt of the price. 
 
BEN-HUE: A TALE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 By LEW. WALLACE. New Edition from New Electrotype 
 Plates, pp. 560. 16mo, Cloth, $1 50; Half Calf, $3 00. 
 
 Anything so startling, new, and distinctive as the leading feature of 
 this romance does not often appear in works of fiction. . . . Some of 
 Mr. Wallace s writing is remarkable for its pathetic eloquence. The 
 scenes described in the New Testament are re-written with the power 
 and skill of an accomplished master of style. .V. Y. Times. 
 
 Its real basis is a description of the life of the Jews and Romans at 
 the beginning of the Christian era, and this is both forcible and brill 
 iant. . . . We are carried through a surprising variety of scenes; we 
 witness a sea-fight, a chariot-race, the internal economy of a Roman 
 galley, domestic interiors at Autioch, at Jerusalem, and among the 
 tribes of the desert; palaces, prisons, the haunts of dissipated Roman 
 youth, the houses of pious families of Israel. There is plenty of ex 
 citing incident; everything is animated, vivid, and glowing. A". I". 
 Tribune. 
 
 From the opening of the volume to the very close the reader s in 
 terest will be kept at the highest pitch, and the novel will be pro 
 nounced by all one of the greatest novels of the day. Boston Post. 
 
 It is full of poetic beauty, as though born of an Eastern sage, and 
 there is sufficient of Oriental customs, geography, nomenclature, etc., 
 to greatly strengthen the semblance. .Boston Commonwealth. 
 
 " Ben-Hur " is interesting, and its characterization is fine and strong. 
 Meanwhile it evinces careful study of the period in which the scene is 
 laid, and will help those who read it with reasonable attention to real- 
 ize the nature and conditions of Hebrew life in Jerusalem and Ro 
 man life at Autioch at the time of our Saviour s advent. Examiner, 
 
 N.Y. 
 
 It is really Scripture history of Christ s time, clothed gracefully and 
 delicately in the flowing and loose drapery of modern fiction. . . . Few 
 late works of fiction excel it in genuine ability and interest. N. Y. 
 Graphic. 
 
 One of the most remarkable and delightful books. It is as real and 
 warm as life itself, and as attractive as the grandest and most heroic 
 chapters of history. Indianapolis Journal. 
 
 The book is one of unquestionable power, and will be read with un 
 wonted interest by many readers who are weary of the conventional 
 novel and romance. Boston Journal. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. 
 
 JE^" The above work sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the. 
 United States or Canada, on receipt of the price. 
 
BY MARY E. WILKINS. 
 
 A NEW ENGLAND NUN, and Other Stories. 16mo, 
 Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25. 
 
 A HUMBLE ROMANCE, and Other Stories. 16mo, 
 Cloth, Extra, $1 25. 
 
 Only an artistic hand could have written these stories, and they will 
 make delightful reading. Evangelist, N. Y. 
 
 The simplicity, purity, and quaintness of these stories set them apart 
 in a niche of distinction where they have no rivals. Literary World, 
 Boston. 
 
 The reader who buys this book and reads it will find treble his money s 
 worth in every one of the delightful stories. Chicago Journal. 
 
 Miss Wilkins is a writer who has a gift for the rare art of creating the 
 short story which shall be a character study and a bit of graphic picturing 
 in one ; and all who enjoy the bright and fascinating short story will wel 
 come this volume. Boston Traveller, 
 
 The author has the unusual gift of writing a short story which is com 
 plete in itself, having a real beginning, a middle, and an end. The volume 
 is an excellent one. Observer, N. Y. 
 
 A gallery of striking studies in the humblest quarters of American 
 country life. No one has dealt with this kind of life better than Miss 
 Wilkins. Nowhere are there to be found such faithful, delicately drawn, 
 sympathetic, tenderly humorous pictures. N. Y. Tribune. 
 
 The charm of Miss Wilkins s stories is in her intimate acquaintance 
 and comprehension of humble life, and the sweet human interest she 
 feels and makes her readers partake of, in the simple, common, homely 
 people she draws. Springfield Republican. 
 
 There is no attempt at fine writing or structural effect, but the tender 
 treatment of the sympathies, emotions, and passions of no very extraor 
 dinary people gives to these little stories a pathos and human feeling quite 
 their own. N. Y. Commercial Advertiser. 
 
 The author has given us studies from real life which must be the result 
 of a lifetime of patient, sympathetic observation. ... No one has done 
 the same kind of work so lovingly and so well. Christian Register, 
 Boston. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. 
 
 e above works sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the 
 United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price. 
 
BY AMELIE EIYES. 
 
 A BROTHER TO DRAGONS, AND OTHER OLD-TIME 
 TALES. Post 8vo, Cloth, Extra, $1 00. 
 
 VIRGINIA OF VIRGINIA. A Story. Illustrated. 
 Post 8vo, Cloth, Extra, $1 00. 
 
 One is permitted to discover qualities of mind and a proficiency and 
 capacity in art from which something new and distinctively the work 
 of genius may be anticipated in American literature. Boston Globe. 
 
 Miss Rives has imagination, breadth, and a daring and courage 
 ofcenest spoken of as masculine. Moreover, she is exquisitely poet 
 ical, and her ideals, with all the mishaps of her delineations, are of an 
 exalted order. .V. Y. Star. 
 
 It was little more than two years ago that Miss Rives made her first 
 literary conquest, a conquest so complete and astonishing as at once 
 to give her fame. How well she has sustained and added to the repu 
 tation she so suddenly won, we all know, and the permanency of that 
 reputation demonstrates conclusively that her success did not depend 
 upon the lucky striking of a popular fancy, but that it rests upon en 
 during qualities that are developing more and more richly year by 
 year. Richmond State. 
 
 It is evident that the author has imagination in an unusual degree, 
 much strength of expression, and skill in delineating character. Eos- 
 ton Journal. 
 
 There are few young writers who begin a promising career with so 
 much spontaneity and charm of expression as is displayed by Miss 
 Rives. Literary World, Boston. 
 
 The trait which the author seems to take the most pleasure in de 
 picting is the passionate loyalty of a girl to her lover or of a young 
 wile to her husband, and her portrayal of this trait has feeling, and is 
 set off by an unconventional style and brisk movement. The Book 
 Buyer, N. Y. 
 
 There is such a wealth of imagination, such an exuberance of strik 
 ing language in the productions of this author, as to attract and hold 
 the vender. Toledo Blade. 
 
 Miss Rives is essentially a teller of love stories, and relates them 
 with such simple, straightforward grace that she at once captures the 
 sympathy and interest of the reader. . . . There is a freshness of feeling 
 and a mingling of pathos and humor which are simply delicious. Xew 
 London Telegraph. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. 
 
 ARPKR & BROTHERS will send either of the above works by mail, 
 postage prepaid, to any part of the United States or Canada, on 
 receipt of the price. 
 
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