. OF CALIF. I,TB*/n?Y. IAS ANGELES M. E. W. SHEKWOOD A TRANSPLANTED ROSE By M. E. W. Sherwood NEW YORK AND LONDON HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 1900 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1882, by HARPER & BROTHERS, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. All rifhtt ratrted. A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. "Mr dear," said Mrs. Trevylyan to Mrs. Mortimer, one fine morning in November, " who do you think arrived last night ?" "I don't know; the Empress Eugenie, perhaps." " No ; worse than that. My niece from the West not from any of the polished centres, like St. Louis, or Chicago, or Milwaukee, but from six hundred miles from anywhere ; and ray brother, her father, wishes me to introduce her into society." " Is she pretty ?" asked Mrs. Mortimer. " Well, rather ; she has bright eyes and good teeth ; but she is absolutely a savage. She has no ideas of style, or etiquette, or of manners, but she is ambitious of social suc- cess, and there is something so very masterful about her that I believe she will succeed. Now I am out of the world, you know ill-health, and mourning, and all that ; I can only give her a background and good maxims. Will you see to the practical workings? Now do oblige me, Sophia." " You are asking a great deal, Laura," said Mrs. Morti- mer, tapping a very pretty foot with her parasol. " I know I am, Sophia ; but you declared last winter 2132720 2 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. that you wanted an emotion ; that society bored you ; that you wished you had something to make it worth your while to go to the Patriarchs, and the F. C. D. C. ; and that you were relapsing into the after-dinner somnolency of old age. Now I offer you a piquant sensation. You can be- come the modern Pygmalion, and evoke a woman from this statue, and oblige me." Mrs. Trevylyan looked anx- ious. Mrs. Mortimer is a worldling, a fashionable woman, and a snob, afraid of the powers who rule fashion ; but she has one tender, womanly, vulnerable spot. She does love her old friend Laura Trevylyan, and she is, as are many women of her creed, externally good-natured. " Well, Laura, I'll undertake it for your sake, reserving to myself the privilege of dropping the cake at any moment, if I find it too hot. You know I have never yet endorsed a failure, and if your niece is a hopeless case, why, I must retire after giving her a chance. You know what New York society is, demanding beauty or great wealth, an ad- mirable social position, or some powerful pusher from be- hind, to make a girl a success. You know Fashion does not pretend to a heart, therefore we must have no hope of any help from its kindness. We must storm it as one does a fort." " I know it all, and therefore I retired from it ; but my niece has all the courage of inexperience, and desires it." " Neither pretty nor rich, and probably obstinate ?" said Mrs. Mortimer, musingly. " I think you may credit her with a little beauty and some money," said Mrs. Trevylyan, smiling, " but do not parade her as an heiress. If we can get over her own con- ceit that she knows what is proper in dress and manners, we may do something with her." A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 3 At this moment a rather light footstep was heard on the stair, and the ladies stopped talking. " Here she comes," whispered Mrs. Trevylyan. " My niece, Miss Rose Chadwick, Mrs. Mortimer." Mrs. Mortimer saw a very self-possessed young girl of eighteen, with beautiful dark hair, a fine brunette com- plexion, and a slender figure, tall and not ungraceful. " How do you do, marm ?" said Miss Chadwick, extend- ing a hand to Mrs. Mortimer. " I expect you are my aunt's friend, ain't you ?" " Yes, for many years," said Mrs. Mortimer, trembling all over as she heard a nasal pronunciation, and the belligerent attack upon the letter r which garnished Miss Chadwick's discourse. " I hope yon are not fatigued with your long journey ?" said Mrs. Mortimer. " Well, yes, 'm, I am some fatigued. Nobody could travel six days and nights steady without being some tired. I had Emerson to read, though, and that was a comfort. I'm awful bookish, and father says, ' Give Rose a book, and that's the last of her.' But I want to see something of the world, so I came on to Aunt Laura's to go into New York society. I should like to be fashionable, and dance, and sing, and improve myself. I have not had any chances at Chadwick's Falls, but father says if I am a good girl I shall go to Europe next year." (She pronounced it year-r-r.) Mrs. Mortimer had taken a photograph of the speaker as she talked, and found a charming expression in the frank eyes, and a pretty smile playing round the fresh red lips. Miss Chadwick's voice was agreeable too, although unculti- vated. Her hands, those outposts of female beauty, were small and well formed, though brown as a berry, and Mra. 4 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. Mortimer discerned a pair of pretty feet and trig ankles under the short travelling dress. " It is a dreadful risk, but I declare I will try it," said Mrs. Mortimer to herself. Mrs. Trevylyan started at this moment to go across the room for her work. She was lame, and moved with diffi- culty. Rose Chadwick jumped up a foot from her seat and threw her arms around her aunt, nearly frightening her to death. " Sit down, Aunt Laura, and let me get the work ; you shall not stir while I'm here ;" and she kissed her aunt, and danced across the room like a gazelle. " A wild vine, but luxuriant ; it will bear grapes yet," thought Mrs. Mortimer. "As soon as you have had time to get some dresses made, I shall be happy to see you at my Thursday even- ings," said Mrs. Mortimer, admiring the girl's figure. "Oh, I have got dresses enough," said the young girl, " and made of the best of stuff. I've got a brocade, and a velvet, and a satin, all made up at Chadwick's Falls, and lots of real lace that poor ma had, and I expect I sha'n't want anything more here. I'll come. Let's see to-mor- row's Thursday, ain't it?" Mrs. Mortimer's heart sank, and Mrs. Trevylyan turned pale. Here was a dilemma. It was impossible to tell this frank daughter of nature that those dresses which she loved must be burned, or otherwise gotten rid of. To insinuate that brocade and old lace were not proper for a young girl, but that white muslin, gauze, tulle, and the least possible bit of satin and velvet to garnish the dress were alone proper for a debutante who should tell Rose Chadwick this? A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 5 " Oh, I shall so like to come to your Thursdays," said Rose, skipping over and kissing Mrs. Mortimer. A breath of wild roses, something that reminded the worn woman of the world of her vanished spring, came over Mrs. Mortimer, as the girl's young lips touched her powdery cheek. " You shall come to-morrow evening, then. Wear your plainest, simplest dress, my dear," said Mrs. Mortimer, look- ing despairingly at Mrs. Trevylyan, " for my Thursdays are very informal. Good-by good-by, Laura ;" and Mrs. Mor- timer made a precipitate retreat, not daring even to look at Mrs. Trevylyan. This latter lady had a long talk with her niece after Mrs. Mortimer left her, and found her apparently intelligent and bright, sweet-tempered and overwhelmingly obliging, but of a very determined spirit. " I do not wish you to walk out alone in New York un- til you know the streets, dear," said she to her niece. " Oh, aunt, I have a map of New York, and I know just how to reach the Park, and I ain't afraid. Why, I shot a grizzly out at Chadwick's, and I must walk seven miles a day, and unless I have some pleasant young man to walk with, I'd rather walk alone any time." "Oh, Rose, I couldn't let you walk with a young man alone. That would not be proper." " Oh yes, it would. I have several gentlemen friends. There's Jack Townley. He was out shooting buffaloes last year at our place, and he's real nice. He said if 1 came to New York, he would walk with me every day. Father let me go hunting with him." " Yes, my dear, but it would not be thought proper in New York" 6 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. " Oh, I don't care, so I know that I am doing right, what people think." " Then, Rose, I am afraid you will never succeed in New York." " Then I can go back to Chadwick's. I'm only going to try New York to see if it pleases me. I don't care whether I please it or not." " Rose, when you went hunting ' grizzlies,' as you call them, you had a particular kind of rifle, and a sort of dog not afraid of bears, did you not ?" "Oh yes," said Rose; "you have to be very particular when you go after a grizzly." " Well, Rose, when you are to bring down society, you have to be careful of your ammunition. Your dress and manners are the powder and shot. You want to succeed in society you want to bring down your bear don't you ?" Rose looked sideways at her aunt a moment, then gave a little laugh. "You are pretty smart, ain't you, aunt?" said the girl. " You mean that I've got to tame down some ?" " I mean that you had better take a little advice from an experienced hunter, Rose, before you go out for a new kind of game." Rose looked down at her brown hands and at her swift feet that had never known any restraint before. " I am afraid I cannot be very tame," said she, " but I will try to do what you tell me to." Mrs. Trevylyan, like a sagacious woman, determined to let Rose alone, and left her wise words to take root in her mind. She amused her by driving about the city until dinner, and after that meal allowed her to go alone to her room to dress for Mrs. Mortimer's evening reception. A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 7 "Now if you need help, Rose, let Martha, my maid, come in, won't you ?" said her aunt. " What, that stiff old thing ! No. I couldn't have her round," said Rose. " All my dresses button up in front, and I can do my own hair, I hope. I wish you would come in and see how I look. I guess I'll wear my brocade." " Oh no ; something simpler," suggested Mrs. Trevylyan. " Well, there's my green silk," said Rose. When Mrs. Trevylyan went in at nine o'clock to see to her niece's toilet she found her standing before the glass, with The Enameller's Assistant open before her, painting her cheeks in great daubs of red, and putting powder and chalk on in heavy patches. " Oh, Rose ! Rose ! Rose ! what are you doing ? Spoiling your fine clear skin by putting on all those cosmetics? Rub them off at once. I shall be peremptory here ; I will not allow you to make a wild Indian of yourself." "But I have read that New York ladies always paint when they go to parties," said Rose, dropping her brushes in dismay. " The decent ones do not," said Mrs. Trevylyan. " Wash your face instantly, and never put any false colors upon it. In the first place, it is a vulgar thing to do, even if you needed it ; and, secondly, you do not need it." Rose looked longingly at the carefully prepared rouge saucer which she had supposed was the veriest grammar of a fashionable toilet. Her own color came out so vividly, however, after the cold water douche, and the bit of anger and mortification, that she could not but be pleased. " There is a damask rose," said Mrs. Trevylyan, tapping the cheek ; and carefully taking all the paints and powders, 8 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. she threw them into the wood fire which blazed upon the hearth. " Now which dress ?" Lying on the bed was a blazing brocade, which would have done for Lady Teazle, but which was terribly inap- propriate to a young girl, and a bright green silk, which was trimmed with vivid red roses. " Haven't you a plain black silk ?" asked Mrs. Trevylyan, in despair. " This is a small party, and these dresses look like private theatricals." "Yes," said Rose, disappointed; "but that makes me look so old." " Well, try it, and come down to me. I am sure you will be very pretty in it." When Rose came down, she had been crying, and it was evident that she was not quite ready for the black silk. She was in the blazing brocade, and looked like Millais's Vanessa. Its bright colors threw out her brunette com- plexion magnificently, and her aunt exclaimed, imprudently : "Well, you are a handsome creature, and don't cry, dear. We will get you some simpler dresses later. Let me see your feet. White satin slippers ! Oh, darling Rose, do put on a pair of Well, no matter; black satin boots can be bought to-morrow." The brocade was miserably cut, and made in a fashion which had prevailed several seasons ago. It did its best to conceal and disfigure the pretty, slender, agile figure of the Western girl. It was loaded down with real lace fit for a duchess, and across the bosom blazed an imitation jewel of green and red glass. Mrs. Trevylyan removed this ornament, and put a rose in its place. A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 9 \ " You must wear your own flower, dear," said she. Martha stepped in with a warm fur cloak for the young lady, and in her own bonnet and shawl, ready to accom- pany her. "Why, you ain't going to the party, are you?" said Rose, looking at Martha. "She goes to take care of you, my dear to wait on you, and to come home with you. She will sit in the dressing-room, and await your pleasure," said Mrs. Tre- vvlyan. " Well, I should think that would be cold comfort," said the shooter of grizzlies. Mrs. Trevylyan was spared the last blow. Just before stepping into Mrs. Mortimer's beautiful parlor, filled with the very creme de la creme of New York society, Rose drew on a pair of one-button green gloves which had been worn before. II. ROSE CHADWICK was not sorry that she bad taken Mar- tha with her to Mrs. Mortimer's, as the door opened, and a flood of light fell upon her like the waves which tumble over Niagara, The atmosphere of the most pronounced luxury enveloped her for the first time. Servants in livery lined the great hall, and flowers in almost overwhelming profusion hung from every coign of vantage. Music, low and delicious, seemed to come from behind a group of tropical plants which stood partly under the stairway. Seven or eight splendid rooms opened out of the great hall, and gentlemen and ladies, who looked to Rose as if 10 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. they were figures in a dream, were walking up and down. It overcame the Western girl, and she felt a little dizzy as she essayed the grand staircase. Martha, an accomplished lady's-maid, who had taken many young ladies through a first party, was watching her narrowly ; she took off her fur cloak immediately, saying, softly, " I'm afraid the rooms is too hot for you, miss," and, putting a kindly arm around her, led her up the stairs. It was what Rose Chadwick had been sighing for in her Western wilds, but, when it came, it was so much more than she had expected that it made her almost faint. She was in a new atmosphere, and something like the overwhelming feeling of being at sea caused her to lose for a moment the cool little head which was her birthright. When she reached the dressing-room, which seemed miles away, Martha placed her in a dressing-room chair, whipped out a smelling-bottle from one of her capacious pockets, and gave Rose an unexpected whiff. Martha was an old soldier, and never travelled without her ammunition. Rose, when she began to see clearly, was conscious of a group of exquisite white, diaphanously clad girls, who stood chatting by the open wood fire. The tallest of these, a slender creature with beautiful golden hair, struck Rose as being the most perfect thing she had ever seen, and her woman's instinct teaching her to observe dress and its de- tails, she was again surprised by the absence of any orna- ment, and yet elegant appearance of the young girl. As she looked at this group, she glanced down at the brocade (made at Chadwick's Falls), and her heart sank within her. She seemed to be all of a piece with the gor- geous Japanese spread which lay over the great bed near her. For a moment she wished herself under the bed, A TRANSPLANTED HOSE. 11 dead, back at Chadwick's Falls, anywhere. She saw that she was badly dressed. By this time the gay group had observed her, and she noticed, although the faithful Martha tried to interpose her portly person between them and the young girl, that they were laughing at her; she even heard a very obtrusive, rather stout, short, dark girl loudly whisper : " Fanny, I say, what a guy ! How did she get here ?" " For shame, Sidonie," said the tall girl. " Whoever Mrs. Mortimer invites is sure to be nice ; and look ! she is ill, I fear." The girl called Fanny, the tall one in white, who seemed a leader as indeed she was moved away from her friends, and approaching Rose, said, kindly, " I am afraid you are faint; you look pale. Here, Fifine, open one of these windows; the house is too warm. Can I do any- thing for you ?" And she extended a small hand, gloved in a tawny Swedish covering, whose loose folds stretched up her arm. Never to her dying day will Rose forget that face, that smile, and that voice. It seemed as if an angel bent over her. She put out one of her green hands affectionately and spasmodically, but became suddenly conscious of that dreadful glove, and drew it back hastily. She heard again Sidonie's scornful laugh. This gave her courage ; this touched the right nerve. The shooter of the grizzly did not lack an independent soul; all the absurd little mortifications of dress fell from her as un- worthy thoughts leave the spirit when it is aroused. She started to her feet with an impulsiveness which had grace and gratitude in it. She said : " Thank you. I was very faint, I believe, for the first time in my life. I think it 12 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. was the perfume of some flower, but this fresh air has re- vived me. You are very good." Although these words fell freighted with the peculiar pronunciation which made Rose's best friends tremble, they had the true ring in them, and Fanny felt drawn towards her at once. It was an aristocratic sense, too, that of smell, and all the girls thought better of Rose for being made faint by a flower. They little knew how sensitive those fine nostrils were as sensitive as those of a deer which had only breathed the pure air of the mountain or the prairie. " Somebody, evidently," whispered Sidonie ; " some Western Governor's daughter, I suppose; but what a guy!" " Shall we go down ?" said Fanny. "I see you are a stranger here. Perhaps you will join our group " Rose eagerly accepted this kind offer, and Mrs. Mortimer was relieved and pleased to see the young Western girl entering her beautiful reception - room with Fanny Grey, the most admired belle of the winter, although Fanny's quiet elegance made the toilet of poor Rose look even more alarmingly dreadful than it had looked before. Mrs. Mortimer had that invariable accompaniment of thorough breeding, the air always of a hospitable hostess. She was not one of those half-bred and vulgar women, of whom New York can occasionally show a specimen, who make their own houses the fortress from which they sally forth to wound and to disable. Some women really invite people to their houses to make themselves of consequence, and to try thus to humiliate their guests. But Mrs. Mor- timer was too well-born and well-bred for that. Noblesse oblige was her private motto, and although she was capable A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 13 of very much worldliness, and although if Rose proved not to be a social success she would have dropped her later with no particular compunction, she was altogether too much mistress of the art of politeness to show coldness now. She was shocked at her appearance, she abhorred the brocade, she dreaded ridicule, and thought Mrs. Trevyl- yan ought to have suppressed the green gloves there is no doubt of that. However, her very handsome face beamed with smiles as Rose approached her, and extending both her hands, she said, audibly, " Ah, rny dear little Western friend, Miss Chadwick, how glad I am that you were sufficiently rested to come, after your long, long journey ! So you have met Miss Grey ?" " No," said Fanny, stopping a moment ; " pray present me : it is only an acquaintance of the dressing-room." Mrs. -Mortimer introduced all the group to Rose even the scornful, dark Sidonie, who could not have brought her nose down, because Nature had turned it up, and who looked at Rose with a mutilated bow. Mrs. Mortimer's speech had been intended for the by- standers, all of whom were looking at Rose with that queer, half-impertinent, and half-curious look with which a group of fashionable New-Yorkers who know each other are apt to greet a new-comer. Fanny Grey was soon borne up to the dancing-room by a small but ferocious admirer, who looked perfectly invin- cible from behind a red mustache, the group of girls faded away as if by magic, and new girls took their places. Guests came pouring in, and Mrs. Mortimer was soon en- grossed in the duty of receiving. For half an hour Rose felt as she had never felt before 2 14 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. that she was out of place. It seemed as if every new arrival was but another stab, as women, old and young, entered and looked with a half-smile at her, and whispering to one another walked on. Young men stared at her, nudged one another, and leisurely turned an eyeglass upon her. Nothing could have supported her had not once Fanny Grey passed her, on the arm of a black admirer, who had succeeded to the red one, as rouge et noir, noir et rouge, turns up on the green table ; as she did so, she gave Rose a little smile and bow. " She is the only good one here," thought poor Rose. " I'll go back to Chadwick's Falls to-morrow." Mrs. Mortimer had not forgotten her, however. She was only waiting for Arthur Amberley, a well-bred bache- lor of forty, who was so sure of his position that he could talk to anybody, however badly dressed, and who was so devoted a friend of Mrs. Mortimer's that he always obeyed her. As soon as he arrived, Mrs. Mortimer whispered to him, " Do let me introduce you to Mrs. Trevylyan's niece, a Western heiress, perfectly crude, you know ; but you must take her through the rooms, and see, for me, if we can pol- ish her into shape." " What ! the brunette with the fine eyes, standing alone in the corner?" asked Arthur Amberley, without seeming to look. " Yes, in the dreadful yellow gown and green gloves. I want that creature Jack Long to be impressed with the fact that she is somebody, and I want the poor thing to have a little talk with you." "I am your slave," said Arthur Amberley, smiling; "but on what subject shall we converse?" A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 15 " Oh, she has shot a grizzly bear, I believe. You are one of the hunting and buffalo kind, are you not ? Haven't you been out on the prairies, cattle-stealing or something ?" " Mrs. Mortimer," said Arthur Amberley, gravely, " you see before you a man who owns ten thousand cattle and a Western ranch. I am astonished at your ignorance of the favorite pursuit of one of your oldest friends." " Oh, nonsense ! I know that you love the shady side of Pall Mall, and the Union Club window, better than any other sport ; but come." Rose saw Mrs. Mortimer coming towards her with a thin, dry, rather plain man, but whose air and manner of perfect simplicity rather reminded her in its way of Fanny Grey. " Miss Chadwick, allow me to introduce to you Mr. Am- berley, a mighty hunter, I assure you. You and he may find something in common." " I find nothing common about Miss Chadwick," said Arthur Amberley, shaking hands with her kindly, and pay- ing her a little compliment with his eyes. " Let me lead you to a seat, or shall we take a walk ?" offering his arm. " I should like to go look at the dancing," said Rose, reassured by his manner. " So should I," said Arthur Amberley. " How exactly you interpreted my emotions, Miss Chadwick! But you must not expect me to dance, for I am old and stiff. How- ever, if you get tired of me, I will introduce some of Eiy grandnephews to you, who will be but too happy to whirl you in the waltz. This is a pretty house, isn't it ?" " I think it the most splendid mansion that I ever saw. It must be handsomer than the White House, or the Queen's palace," said Rose, rolling her r's fearfully. Arthur Amberley winced, but was too well-bred to show it 16 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. " The White House is very ugly," said he ; " the Queen's palaces, particularly Buckingham, are also very ugly. Our best American houses are more cheerful, and altogether better to live in. This house is more like some of the modern English houses in London, and very like a French house. The Parisian salons are very beautiful." " I expect you have travelled a great deal," said Rose, looking at him admiringly. " Wandered the best part of an ill-spent life, Miss Chad wick. But here are the dancers." Rose saw before her a beautiful large room, in white and gold, and heard the strains of Lander's Band playing " La Siren," and her little feet went tapping on the floor. "Can you dance?" said Arthur Amberley. " Oh yes. I learned of a Frenchman at San Francisco, where pa and I spent a winter," said Rose. " Then you shall, a little later," said Mr. Amberley, who was touched and pleased by her simplicity and her rising color and her youth. " Really a handsome savage a real Pocahontas," said Amberley to himself. He talked to her so kindly, told her who people were, explained so many matters that seemed strange to her, that Rose began to like him very much, and not to regret the lost dance. But Amberley was planning his future course, and led her off to the supper-room. " What will you have ?" he asked. " A dish of the ice-cream," said Rose, with her harshest emphasis on the r. " Oh that she could only say, ' I'll take an ice' !" thought Amberley. However, he got her the ice, and afterwards talked to little Dicky Smallwood, who was horribly impecunious, and A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 17 who also danced divinely two things very apt to go to- gether. "Dicky, do you want to know a Western heiress, and to dance with her? She dances beautifully." "What, that horridly dressed girl? No, I couldn't be seen with her on the floor. I am sorry to disoblige you, Amberley, but I have my position to look to, and I am en- gaged to Sidonie Devine really I am." "Very well, I'll give her to Jack Long, then," said Amberley. " Long, come and be introduced to Mrs. Tre- vylyau's niece, a great Western heiress, and a very pretty girl." " Certainly, in a minute, Amberley," said Jack Long, who had reasons of his own for courting and obliging the all-powerful club-man Amberley. Dicky Smallwood saw that he had made a mistake. He was jnst mounting the ladder of fashion ; his hold on the rungs was very slippery ; he had no background ; the sneer of one leader of fashion would throw him back into the darkest obscurity ; but if Jack Long could dance with the girl, certainly he could ; so he retired and looked at his card. Sidonie Devine's dance was several waltzes off, and she always snubbed him so that he dreaded the annual sac- rifice which he made to fashion in compelling himself, for the honor of being seen with her, to endure for a half-hour the most contemptuous treatment. He looked at Rose, who was bowing to and smiling at Jack Long, and saw that she was very, very pretty. " I think, Amberley," said the poor little snob, slowly approaching the table, where two or three gentlemen were discussing Mrs. Mortimer's delicious terrapin and old Ma- deira " I think I have a dance left. Would you recon* 18 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. sider, and introduce me to Miss Chadwick I believe you called her?" " Not now, Dicky. She is off with Jack Long. She is a great catch, you know, and he will not be apt to resign her. Perhaps later on you mighj; get a dance." So while Rose went off to dance, Dicky spread the re- port that she was a well-born heiress, and the niece of Mrs. Trevylyan. Arthur Arnberley laughed in his sleeve as the lit- tle man rushed in after the waltz to get her name on his card. For one thing was a success, and that was the dancing of Miss Chadwick. The Frenchman had done his duty, and the graceful, youthful figure, disguised in the yellow brocade, and lighted up by the green gloves, went round in Jack Long's firm embrace with the most perfect and quiet elegance. She was a natural dancer; she delighted her partners, as one after the other solicited the honor. Arthur Amberley sauntered back to his hostess to get his reward of a chat with her, for he privately adored Mrs. Mortimer. " Your debutante will do," said he, " for she can dance well." III. THE next morning, as Mrs. Trevylyan was taking her late breakfast in her sunny little sitting-room, which was fitted up for her invalid needs, she sent Martha for Miss Chadwick, anticipating an account of the party at Mrs. Mortimer's with some curiosity. "She sleeps late, poor girl," said Mrs. Trevylyan, think- ing over the mortifications she had probably endured. A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 19 Martha came down in a few moments, pale and trem- bling. " She's gone, ma'am !" said the careful and prudent Martha. "Gone! Where?" A conversation with Rourke, the waiter, revealed the dreadful fact that the front-door had been found unbarred when he descended to open it, and, as Miss Chadwick's street dress and bonnet were gone, it was but too probable that she had departed for the seven-mile tramp of which she had spoken. " She's a wild one, mum," said Martha. " I'm thinking you'll have trouble, mum." " Lost in New York by this time !" said Mrs. Trevylyan, wringing her pale hands. " Tell me all about last evening, Martha. And here send a note to Mrs. Mortimer." She wrote a few hurried words to Mrs. Mortimer, and while debating as to whether she should send for the po- lice and put them on the track of Rose, she listened to Martha's story of the evening before. " She cried in the carriage as we was a-coming home, mum, and I guess she saw she didn't look just like Miss Fanny Grey and them other young ladies, mum," wound up Martha. " Oh, I wish she was back at Chadwick's Falls !" sighed Mrs. Trevylyan. Mrs. Mortimer came in an hour, and recommended peace and patience. "She was dreadful, Laura, absolutely dreadful, in that brocade and those green gloves ; you ought to have -sup- pressed those, Laura. But she has produced an impression. Do you know she dances beautifully? And Jack Long 20 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. and Dicky Smallwood are telling everybody about her ; but you should have heard Sidonie Devine go on about her clothes and her pronunciation ! I believe she drew a cari- cature of her on her dancing card. Fanny Grey, that dear thing, was very good to her ; but then, you know, she is good to everybody, and we must not count on many such girls as Fanny Grey. Sidonie Devine will persecute her nearly to death. However, Amberley says she has sense and charm, if we can only get at them. She must be put with a class of girls at Professor Paton's immediately to correct her speech." " But where is she now ? I ain afraid oh ! I don't know where to look for her she has wandered off !" Mrs. Mortimer laughed. " Why did not your brother send you a ' grizzly ' at once ?" " Oh, Sophia ! I don't think I can stand it ! I shall send her back to-morrow." " She will come back all right, do not fear, Laura ; that girl could take care of herself in Paris. I was struck with a certain native dignity and poise about her as she stood in my parlor and was snubbed last evening ; her lip curled and her eye flashed, and I saw that there was character and courage and force in her. One thing is certain, the girl has got to see for herself that she is in the wrong, and then we can perhaps teach her something." Poor Mrs. Trevylyan ordered her coupe, and started for the Park as one would look for a needle in a haymow. But in all the groups there was no Rose, and after a drive of two hours Mrs. Trevylyan returned in despair. Rourke was not allowed to open the door for his mis- tress, but Rose threw it open, and ran down the steps to help her aunt herself. A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 21 " Oh, I am so sorry !" said she. " But you see I felt very low down in ray mind, and I got up early to take a long walk, and thought I would go and see the Brooklyn Bridge. We have heard of that out at Chadwick's Falls, and I've been over it. First they said I couldn't, but I told them I would, so they laughed and let me, and then I walked round Brooklyn (oh, a real nice place ! all trees and flowers and gardens I like it better than New York), and then I came home, and I'm sorry you were uneasy." "But were you not frightened, and did you not lose your way ?" " Oh, not a bit of it. Father always has told me to re- member that I had an English tongue in my head, and that I could ask my way of a policeman when I was in San Fran- cisco or St. Louis. Out on the prairie you have to find your way without a policeman. Then I had some money in my pocket, and, if I had lost my way, I could have hired a car- riage to bring me home." " But, Rose, there are other considerations. You know what I told you about going out alone. You are too young, and too pretty." " Nobody seemed to think so, Aunt Laura. Nobody looked at me, and nobody spoke to me. I reckon I ain't so handsome as you think." And Rose continued : "You see you're so good yourself that you think everybody else is just like you ;" and the irrepressible Rose threw her arms about her aunt's neck. What to do with such a creature ? how to put suspicion into this pure mind ? how to make her self-conscious, pru- dent, and conventional ? it almost dazed Mrs. Trevylyan. " Well, Rose," said her aunt, " I throw myself on your generosity. You see I am an invalid, consequently ner- 22 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. TOUS; you see I am easily frightened. Promise me here- after that you will not go out without speaking to me first. Won't you promise me that, dear ?" " Well, aunt, I'll try ; but I can't promise, for I never asked anybody's permission to go out in my life. I might break my word, you know, and forget sometimes ; and that is worse than going out alone, isn't it ?" " Yes ; but remember, 7 expect it of you. Now tell me about last evening. Did you enjoy it?" " Well, yes ; it's the most elegant place I ever saw in all my life real handsome and Mrs. Mortimer is a splendid lady. I had an extra fine dance too. There's a Mr. Long, who is coming to see me to-day." " Oh, you asked him to call, did you ?" " No ; he asked me if he might come ; he said his moth- er knew you." " That was all right, Rose." " And I asked him if he knew Jack Townley, and he said he did ; and I asked him to ask Jack Townley to come and see me, and I wrote him a letter myself this morning, telling him to come and see me." " That was very wrong, Rose. You should have asked me to write that letter and send the invitation to Mr. Townley." " Well, I don't know why, for I know him, and you don't, Aunt Laura." " Because, as I told you, young ladies do not ask young gentlemen to come and see them; their mothers or their chaperons do it for them." "Well, I never had a mother since I can remember," said poor Rose. "I will make it 'all right; I will ask your friends to A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 23 come and dine with you here a little later," said Mrs. Trevylyan. " Now tell me about the young ladies you met last evening." " There was one girl who was real good to me ; the others seemed to be proud," said Rose. " You mean that they were not polite ?" "I suppose I do. Proud and haughty, and not at all sociable," said Rose, who would have been tortured like an Indian at the stake before she would have confessed that she felt herself badly dressed, and that she had been mor- tified before these ill-mannered people. " I liked a girl named Grey," she continued. " Yes, one of the most admired girls in New York," said Mrs. Trevylyan " very good manners. But let me correct your phraseology, dear Rose. ' Proud ' does not mean ' ill-mannered.' Proud people behave well. Pride is a noble quality." "Yes, but there are several kinds of pride," said Rose, her cheeks flushing as she remembered Sidonie Devine's sneer. " There was a nice old gentleman named Mr. Ain- berley ; he wasn't a bit proud." Mrs. Trevylyan laughed. " Arthur Amberley is not old, Rose, and he is the proudest man in New York. He has reason to be. He is of an honorable old family ; he is a gentleman of the best breeding ; his position is of the high- est. You were fortunate, in your first evening out, to meet him, Rose, for you will not meet a better-bred man." "He made me feel very comfortable, and he gave me some supper, and he told me who people were, and he in- troduced some paitners to me," added Rose, gratefully this last good deed had filled her cup, evidently " but I do think he is old." 24 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. " Well, do not say so, then," said Mrs. Trevylyan. " He said he would introduce his grandsons or his grand- nephews to me." " That was his badinage. Arthur Amberley is just the age for a successful and a courted man of society," said Mrs. Trevylyan. Rose looked as if this subject was getting tedious. " By-the-way, Rose, I want to give you a pretty white dress and some gloves and boots. Suppose we go out after a while and order them ?" So, without opening the mounds of Chadwick's Falls millinery again, the question of toilet began to be satis- factorily answered ; and when Martha went up to attend to Miss Chadwick's wants for the evening, she found that the brocade and the green gloves had been folded away in the depths of a trunk. Fanny Grey called in a few days, and asked Rose to join a sewing class, to luncheon, and to come to the Roller- skating Rink. There are in society, as in the greater, wider world of tragedy, and poetry, and human experience, two forces al- ways at work the dark and the light, the good and the bad Michael, the archangel, and Lucifer, prince of the powers of darkness. It is perhaps somewhat absurd to compare the petty jealousies of the salon with these mighty powers, whom the poets Goethe and Milton describe as dividing the world between them. But they fight out the same great battle in every parlor, in every ballroom. Our little girl, Rose Chad wick, is fated to be torn by these con- tending forces. Good and evil, malice and kindness, will pull her this way and that. The drama of to-day is ex- actly like that of a thousand years ago, and if the agents A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 25 seem less dignified than Goethe's Mephistopheles or Mil- ton's angels, their power over the happiness and the misery of a human being is the same. Sidonie Devine also called, and so did Jack Long and Dicky Smallwood. Rose was not at her ease with any of these people. She had as yet no experiences in common with them ; a chat in the drawing-room revealed to her more than ever how far away she was from their world, how much they must look down upon her. She began even to listen to her own voice, and to find it flat and dis- cordant. She longed for the arrival of Jack Townley he who had been so agreeable out on the plains, he who had lived so long at her father's generous table, he who had been 'so pleasant, and who had promised her that he would come and see her when she came to New York, and would take her for drives and for horseback. Where was he? There was one subject on which she could talk with these new friends of hers, and that was a horse. Rose knew all about that noble animal, and was a fearless cross-country rider. She was overjoyed when Jack Long suggested that she should join the Galaxy Hunt, and she sighed to think that her own beautiful blooded horse, Fountain, was at Chadwick's Falls. She knew that there was nothing like him in all New York. Her idea of a riding-dress was, however, to put a long skirt over her usual dress, to tie an old hat over her ears with a handkerchief ; and in that guise she came down to take her first ride with the fastidious Jack Long. He declared himself suddenly taken ill, and had to give up the ride that day. It was a bitter disappointment to Rose. Jack Long wrote a note to Mrs. Mortimer that eveu- insf. 26 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. In a week Rose found herself, she scarcely knew how, in a London cloth habit, with very short skirt ; a little pair of boots showed beneath the skirt ; and, if truth must be told, a very well fitting pair of cloth pantaloons and a man's shirt were under the habit ; a low-crowned Derby, fitting her small head to perfection, crowned this garb, and Jack Long, with his groom, and a horse for Rose, were waiting outside. IV. ROSE made a success at the Galaxy Hunt, and cleared fences to admiration. The discovery of her passion for riding, and her grace in the field, gave her ten or twelve counts more in her favor. Her figure in that well-fitting habit was discovered to be very neat, and her complexion was brilliant when other people became blowzy. Sidonie Devine was furious. This thing could not go on forever; there must be a block interposed. Jack Long was evidently becoming somewhat interested in this Poca- hontas, and there were still three weeks left of the hunting season. Fanny Grey's lunch afforded Sidonie an opportunity. Rose had the drawback common even to courageous natures she always appeared at her worst when she was conscious of being watched. At her aunt's quiet table, served as it was by the accomplished Rourke, who would have been burned at the stake before he would have noticed that any guest of his mistress committed a solecism, she had passed muster well enough as to her table manners, particularly as Mrs. Trevylyan was extremely short-sighted, and was so A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 27 little on the lookout for faults of which she had no con- ception herself that Rose did not draw attention to her sins of omission and commission. Finding at Fanny Grey's luncheon eleven girls besides herself, Sidonie being one of them, a certain unpleasant feeling in the air struck her as she entered. Not all Fanny's cordiality could remove it from her. They were evidently talking of her, she thought, as she entered. The first thing which struck her as she sat down at table was the beauty and profusion of the flowers, and the luxury of everything. She supposed that she was going round to eat a chop or a beefsteak with her friend, and she found her- self at a superb banquet. In front of her was what she supposed to be a plate of oysters, but on tasting one which she put into her mouth with her knife (a silver knife, and the only implement she discovered near her, not noticing a small silver fork which was partly hidden under her plate) this proved to be not an oyster, but a clam, which was decidedly disagreeable to her, and she returned it to her plate. She then had what she supposed was a cup of tea before her, and, tasting it rather hastily, it proved to be a cup of hot bouillon, the shock of which caused her to choke, and she grew red and mortified over that. Sidonie was watching her like a lynx, and at every faux pas of poor Rose the sneer grew more apparent. She was nudging her next neighbor, a little pink-eyed girl, who was in fits of laughter over some transparently foolish story, but who really was responding to Sidonie's scarcely con- cealed ridicule of Rose. Fanny Grey was busy at her end of the table with some strangers, and did not notice the discomfiture of poor Rose 28 A TRANSPLANTED ROSB. until the second or third course. When she looked at her she saw that she was about to burst into tears. " Miss Chadwick, you are eating nothing," said she, kindly ; " let me recommend this filet," and she sent the waiter to her. Presently poor Rose, as if inspired by the genius of blundering, and not knowing that one does not ask the hostess for anything, called out, " Miss Grey, I will thank you for some of the gravy." Poor Fanny ! with all her good-breeding, she was almost unnerved by this sudden attack; and as for gravy, it was not near her, nor did she know if there was such a thing with the filet. She had still composure enough to sum- mon the tittering waiter, and to tell him to hand the dish again to Miss Chadwick, when poor Rose, seeing Sidonic stuff her handkerchief into her mouth, scraped up a few undesirable peas, and took a very small spoonful of gravy. She, however, ate it with the sublime composure of a mar- tyr, and tried to talk to her next neighbor a very quiet little girl, who seemed to be of no particular party, either for her or against her. When the salads came, Rose had sunk into obscurity ; the talk was loud and fast over some coming private theatricals, and even Sidonie had ceased to observe her, when she made another faux pas. On tasting her salad, it seemed very flat and oily, and she thought how good it would be if she only had some vinegar. So she called out to a passing waiter, in a clear, high note, " I'll thank you for some vinegar." If she had asked for blood, the man could not have looked more astonished. He retreated to the closet, and a pause fell upon the conversation; there was much hurry- ing and scurrying backward and forward, and at last the A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 29 servant approached her, and whispered, " I am sorry, miss, but the cook has used up all the vinegar." By this time her cup was full, and she ate and drank blindly, without taste or sense. When her finger-bowl was put before her, she observed some geranium leaves and violets floating in the water, and, instead of rubbing them through her fingers to give them a fragrance, she took them out and made a small bouquet to put in her dress, not noticing the beautiful bunch of flowers which was awaiting her acceptance for that purpose. She dis- covered her mistake just too late, and then concluded that, whatever her impulses had been, they had all been wrong. Conventional table manners were still a long way off. Sidonie had noted every one of her mistakes, and made a story out of them, which is still a part of her stock in trade. She had blushed until her face was hot and feverish. She had suffered that keen sense of shame which had be- gun at Mrs. Mortimer's when she first saw herself in the cheval-glass from head to foot, contrasted with other girls of her age, and which had once or twice since overcome her. The thought of Chadwick's Falls, of her dear, indulgent father ; of Fountain, brave and fleet ; of that life of open air and freedom came to her as she rose from the table, and she threw out her hand as if to catch the bridle-rein of her favorite horse to gallop away into boundless space. As she did so she knocked over a beautiful ruby glass de- canter, breaking a hole in its side, from which the red claret flowed over the white damask. That was the last straw, and she sank into her chair in a flood of tears, saying, " Oh, I am so sorry !" 3 30 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. Fanny Grey was by her side at once, having driven all her other guests into the parlor, excepting the quiet girl who had sat next to Rose. " Indeed, Miss Chadwick, it is of not the slightest con- sequence. Only think, I upset my claret at the beginning of a dinner the other evening, and had to look at the blood-red stain throughout the whole dinner. Now you have only done the same thing at the end." " Oh, it isn't that alone !" sighed poor Rose. " But I'll pay for it. I'll buy you another one ; I'll get you another decanter." " Oh, never mind," said Fanny Grey, who could hardly i-epress a smile. "Leave her with me," said the quiet girl to Fanny, as Rose burst into a fresh flood of tears. It seemed to Rose as if that desired privilege of weeping bitterly, with this quiet girl looking at her, carried off half her mortification. " You think too much of your mistakes," said the girl, after a few minutes. " Oh, I have been so awkward !" said poor Rose. " No matter ; there are worse things," said the girl. " I can pay for the glass," said Rose. "No; you must not offer to do that," said her friend. " That is not permitted in society." " Another mistake ?" " Yes ; this is the worst one," said the quiet girl. " You can send Fanny a basket of flowers, or a fan, or something, but never offer to pay for what you break." " I once read a novel, Who Breaks, Pays," said poor Rose. "That is true morally, but not in the matter of a glass knocked over at a dinner." A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 31 " What is your name ?" said Rose, looking her neighbor fall in the face. " Harriet Araberley," said the girl. "I wonder if you know Mr. Arthur Amberley?" said Rose, brightening all over. " My brother." " You are kind, just like him," said Rose. " I don't know ; I hope I have decent manners," said Harriet Amberley, looking at the vacant seat of Sidonie. " I saw that those girls were trying to ridicule you, and that it confused you. My brother spoke to me of you. He met you at Mrs. Mortimer's, and he admired you ; he said you were fresh, like the prairies ;" and a charming smile illuminated Harriet Amberley's plain face. " He was very good to me," said Rose. " I think he had his reward," said Harriet, pleasantly. "Now shall we go up to Fanny's dressing - room ? The servants are waiting to clear the table." "How shall I learn all the etiquette of the table?" asked Rose of Harriet, after she had washed her eyes and smoothed her hair. " By observation, and ask me any questions ; I shall be glad to tell you. In the first place, never put your knife in your mouth. Secondly, find out what you have before you, and do not be in a hurry ; take your spoon, and quietly test the heat of your bouillon. Then, with your fork in your right hand, try whatever you have on your plate. Never ask your hostess for anything ; ask the waiter." " Why was there such a fuss about the vinegar ?" " Because it is a condiment little used, and the salads are supposed to be dressed. It was the waiter's fault, however, that there was none in the caster." 32 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. " Why did they laugh when I fished out the flowers from that bowl?" "Because that was put before you to wash your fingers in, and the flowers were simply to perfume the water." " I thank you very much," said Rose. " I don't think I should mind asking you questions." " And I shall like to answer them," said Harriet. They went down stairs, to find the party augmented by the presence of Mr. Amberley, Mr. Long, Mr. Smallwood, and several other gentlemen. Private theatricals were on the tapis, and Fanny Grey had given her luncheon as a preparatory step to the choosing of characters and the gen- eral beginning of the rehearsals. Mr. Amberley was unanimously chosen stage-manager, and the usual contest began as to what plays would be at once easy, becoming, interesting, and remunerative to the charity to which they were to be devoted. " You might as well boil it all down, and say, ' What will be possible? ' " said Arthur Amberley. " Private theat- ricals are always poor ; amateurs play very badly, and you must get a play which will play itself. Depend upon your costumes, and the gay and often changing incidents of the play ; but do not depend upon your own powers as actors." " Well, really, Mr. Amberley, you are very encouraging," said Sidonie. " I am not ambitious of my office, Miss Devine. You may have it," said Amberley. " No, thanks. I intend to have all the fun, and none of the trouble," said Sidonie. " Cast Miss Devine for a saucy chamber-maid," said Ar- thur Amberley, making a note on the margin of a play- book. A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 33 There was much gay talk, which amused Rose beyond measure. Fanny Grey and Jack Long were to be the hero and heroine, and Dick Smallwood and Miss Devine were to be a pair of ill-matched young married people; Harriet Amberley was to be a maiden aunt, and Mr. Amberley pre- sented her, Rose, with the character of a governess. " Oh, I don't know how to play," said Rose. " But neither do any of these people, Miss Chadwick," said Arthur Amberley. " You are in the fashionable ma- jority. I have got six weeks of unhappiness before me, and I shall hire a professional to coach you all. You may be an undeveloped Siddons who knows? Take the part, I entreat you." There was something inexpressibly kind and agreeable behind his voice as he said these words. His dry wit and sarcastic manner hid a good heart. Of this Rose was cer- tain. " Take the part," whispered Harriet V. THIS business of the private theatricals made it easy for Mrs. Trevylyan to propose to Rose the propriety of study- ing elocution. She could see no other way in which to attack those vices of pronunciation which were so in the way of any success, either social or intellectual. For al- though no city and no state is without its local rusticity in the way of accent although Boston people have their twang, and although New-Yorkers say " byerd " for bird, and "pote" for poet, and "Fifthavnu" for Fifth Avenue, 34 A TRANSPLANTED ROBE. and the Philadelphians talk about "cyanes" and "cyars," and call their respected progenitors " payh " and " mayh," yet there is a worse fault than all these, and that is the adding of an "r" to every word ending in "a," and also giving "r" an unnecessary agency in "scorn," such as say- ing " scourne." All this, which we indefinitely and per- haps improperly call Western pronunciation, Rose had to a terrible degree. She also used the word " real" quite too often, as "real pleasant," "real nice," "real elegant," all of which made Mrs. Trevylyan feel as if rusty scissors were being pushed into her ears. The lesser elegancies of course escaped her. These could only come with time and practice. So Mrs. Trevylyan sent for Professor Paton, an English- man, whose neat and finished speech made her perfectly happy, and begged of him to obliterate the ruggedness of this provincial speech. " I call it continental speech," said the professor. " It is all over your great country, madam." " How do you hope to change it ?" said Mrs. Trevylyan. " By the reading of the best authors in class after me, by the study of music, and particularly by the study of the Italian language, that liberates the throat." " Oh dear ! poor Rose ! She cannot do all that this win- ter," said Mrs. Trevylyan. "If she is quick, she will soon begin to talk like me," said the professor, laughing. " I catch the girls imitating me very often." " I could wish for nothing better," said Mrs. Trevylyan ; but she felt very hopeless. She had underestimated the vigor of her niece. Rose was soon at work at Italian and music, and never missed a A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 35 I day at Professor Paton's class, nor her beloved horseback rides, nor her attendance at Fanny Grey's sewing-circle, nor her ready and affectionate devotion to her aunt. She was full of the ichor of youth, and New York was exactly the full cup of which she loved to drink. She found that blissful excitement which makes work easy in a highly charged atmosphere, where every one is at work and in mo- tion, as in the great city, whose pulses beat quickly and deeply. She had not yet learned, poor girl, how tremen- dous a strain it was to be upon her nerves, or how she might yet pay for this overwork in after-days in head- ache, in sleepless nights, and in weary years of nervous prostration. All was bright before her, excepting one lin- gering regret, almost a pain. Where was Jack Townley? her only friend in New York, of whom she had thought as she had looked forward to her first winter. Where was the man with the delicate face, the strong arm, the unerring aim, the splendid seat across country ? Where was her hero ? He had been kind to her on the prairie; he had looked love, if he had not spoken it ; he had called her a " prairie flower," and other nice names. He had told her many a time and oft that when she came to New York he should be the first one to greet her. She knew that he was in town, for she heard his name every day,, But he had not answered her note, and he had not called. Amid all her work, amid all her new emotions and excitements, this thought would come back, and it poisoned her pleasures. She was glad that he had not seen her at Mrs. Mortimer's, for she was now conscious that she looked badly then. She was glad he had not seen her mistakes at the lunch that dreadful lunch where those girls had grinned like 36 A THAHSFir.AKTKD ROSE. fiends. But she looked better now. She had wondered why he was not at the hunt, why she had not met him on the Avenue, or at Mrs. Mortimer's subsequent evenings. Why? Her first ball, however, was approaching, for Mrs. Mor- timer, who never put her hand to the plough but she ad- vanced it through the furrow, had seen to it that Rose was aste-d to the Patriarchs, and to the F. C. D. C., and to all the best of the private balls. She was also down for one of Arthur Amberley's little dinners, and Mrs. Mortimer was to chaperon her. When she was dressed for her first ball in one of Connelly's best and simplest ingenu dresses, with her rounded arms covered with long tan -colored gloves nearly to the shoulder, with her superb hair braided in a knot at the back of her head, she looked like anything but the girl from Chadvvick's Falls. She was conscious her- self that a graceful beauty stood before the cheval-glass, and four bouquets claimed her attention. Alas ! not one had the card she wanted to see ; not one said " Mr. John Townley." But when Mrs. Trevylyan put a pretty fan at her side, with her initials painted on it un- der the guise of a daisy chain, added a delicate handker- chief to put in her almost inaccessible pocket, and, kissing her cheek, said, "You are very becomingly dressed, dear Rose," the pleasant feelings overcame the disagreeable ones. Mrs. Mortimer called in her carriage at eleven o'clock to take Rose to her first ball at Delmonico's. By this time Rose had become a sensation. Her min- gled beauty and mistakes, her failures and her successes, Sidonie's attacks and Fanny Grey's partisanship, besides the quiet endorsement of Mr. and Miss Amberley, and the care- fully prepared report partly Arthur Amberley's mischief A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 37 that she was a great heiress, had given the name of Rose Chadwick a certain prominence at the clubs and in social circles. The wildest rumors were afloat. Some people said that she owned a silver mine, and that, next to the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, she was the richest woman in the world. Others said that she had saved the lives of three hunters who were attacked by grizzly bears. Others said that she was an utter nobody, whom Mr. Chadwick had picked up in the streets of San Francisco ; that he had no money, but was an adventurer, a gambler, and a sot ; that Mrs. Trevylyan was a wonderfully credulous woman to take her at all, etc., etc. (Of the prospective fortune there were grave doubts ; and, as the reader has a right to look be- hind the scenes, it must be acknowledged that Mr. Chad- wick's fortune was, like many another American fortune, very apt to swing like a pendulum from bad to good, and from good to very bad.) But here was a very pretty girl, now well dressed, an ex- cellent dancer, and under the most fashionable chaperon- age, on the threshold of her first ball ; and, as Lander's de- licious strains filled the room, two or three partners dashed forward to claim her hand. Whatever might be the future of Rose, that first hour was full of delirious delight, and she was not aware until she had completed her third dance that Jack Townley was in the ballroom. Everything faded before her eyes, and home came back. Those long and delightful rides across the prairie; her fa- ther, and Fountain, and her dear dogs ; and Jack, whom they had taken care of when he was ill Jack, who had been so kind and so familiar a presence ! She darted from her seat, and almost ran to where Jack 38 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. i Townley ?tood with a group of young men, and, holding out her hand, said : " Oh, Mr. Townley, have you forgotten me t How glad I am to see you !" Jack Townley turned pale. He saw in a moment how this story would be told, and how he should be laughed at at the Union Club ; but he responded, of course, politely, and, offering his arm, started for a promenade round the room. Mrs. Mortimer was talking with the lady next to her when Rose made this sudden departure, and did not notice the frightful faux pas until it was almost too late to rem- edy it. But she was a great society general. She therefore quickly did the best she could. Reading the scorn and laughter in her neighbor's eyes, she immediately left her seat, and walking towards Rose and Mr. Townley, she said, " Oh, Mr. Townley, I am so glad Rose caught you ! I wanted to insure your presence at the dinner I am to give her on Wednesday week and you are always in such request. Now you will be sure and come? It was so thoughtful of Rose " with this she gave poor Rose a pinch which meant " Keep your mouth shut," and went on, " After you and Rose have finished your walk, bring her to me, for she cannot half keep her engagements." And thus talking, and walking half round the room with the pair, Mrs. Mortimer covered Rose's mistake with the large mantle of her own imperial social position, and re- tired to her seat, with her heart beating, and with the de- termination to give Rose a good scolding for her impulsive action. A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 39 Jack Townley belonged to the large class of deliberate snobs who are only to be reached by the sense of what is useful to themselves. He had liked Rose very well on the prairie, but he did not particularly care to meet her at Del- monico's. He was engaged, too, in a very engrossing flir- tation with Mrs. Morella, a married belle, whose smiles were only given to the favorites of fashion. He was, however, a gentleman, and a man with many attractive qualities. His fine, delicate face, and tall, slender figure, his quiet, ele- gant manners, all covered physical courage and manly qual- ities which had made him respected on the prairies. Rose was to be forgiven if he had touched her young heart. There were few women who did not find him fascinating, the more so that his own want of heart left him always in possession of his intellect. He saw through the ruse of Mrs. Mortimer, and thanked and respected her for her brave rescue of her young charge, and for the possibility which she gave to him of refuting the sarcastic statements which Dicky Smallwood might make at the club of the impulsive rush of the young lady. There was therefore nothing before Jack Townley but to walk and dance with Rose, although he did not answer her beseeching eyes as she pointed out two or three vacant places on her card. Pleading his own engagements, he left her with Mrs. Mortimer, and returned to the quiet corner where Mrs. Morella sat already with a black cloud on her brow, for his interrupted allegiance had infuriated her a nd noticed poor Rose no more. Rose passed the rest of the evening in a dream. Dicky Smallwood took her out, and told her all about Jack Townley's flirtation with Mrs. Morella a story which shocked her, 40 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. " But isn't she married ?" said Rose, catching at a straw. " Oh yes ; that's her husband flirting with Sidonie. He's as great a flirt as she is, but Jack Townley is unusually de- voted to Mrs. Morella ; some people think he is really in love with her." Then Dicky swung her off in a galop. When Arthur Amberley came to talk with Rose, he found her so distraite that he could hardly get an answer to his questions about the play, the hunt, the coming din- ner, or her feeling about her first ball. He watched her dark eyes, and saw that they were glued to the spot where Jack Townley leaned over Mrs. Morella's ear, and he read the story in a moment. " So here is some of Jack the Lady- Killer's work, is it ?" thought he. " Poor little girl ! Well, let us try the effect of an antidote." " So you dance the German with Jack Long, do you ?" he asked. " Yes," said Rose, gravely and absently. It seemed so utterly unimportant with whom she danced now. " Well, I'll tell you a secret. Jack Long saved a life to- day, and has done a fine heroic act, and I think he did it for you. Now show your woman's tact, and find out what it was." VL ARTHUR AMBERLEY had read the secret of Rose in her eyes, and the adroit plan of throwing in a new emotion that of curiosity was an admirable one. Jack Long had saved a life for her. Whose life ? what life ? He teased her too apparent desire to find out his secret A TRANSPLANTED KOSE. 41 after the most approved fashion, and her cheeks grew red and her eyes brilliant as she questioned him. While they sat together thus talking, they had the ap- pearance of the very best possible approach to a fashion- able flirtation in the eyes of the gazers. Mrs. Mortimer was delighted. She welcomed Arthur Amberley with one of those smiles which he so much ap- preciated, and with the remark: "Your tact is perfect. How did you get her eyes off Jack Townley ?" Amberley sank into the seat next the most agreeable woman in New York society with an air of virtue rewarded. " Why, you see, Mrs. Trevylyan made Jack Long and myself the partners in a little plot. She sent for the horse Fountain to Chadwick's Falls, and we were to receive his equine majesty at the depot. Of course I gave Jack the job, as he is younger and more firm-footed than I am. So our modern Alexander, in the reception of Bucephalus, very unwisely sent his groom up with a saddle, and told him to ride Fountain down to Dickel's. Then just re- membering in time that a strange Western horse would be frightened at the elevated road and at civilization generally, he hurried up himself to the Grand Central, to find Ferris struggling with Fountain, who was mad with terror. In- deed, he was backing into an engine, when Alexander caught him, faced him towards his enemy, and saved his life and legs. Don't you see ?" " Rather mixed up, I must admit. Oh, I remember : Alexander turned the horse Bucephalus towards the sun. Well, Jack turned the horse Fountain towards an engine." " Yes ; and Fountain a superb, blue - grass Kentucky thorough-bred is now awaiting Miss Rose, and I imagine from her cheek and lip that she is hearing all about him." 42 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. "Very good; but she is dreadfully green. Did you see her rush at Jack Townley?" " Impulsive, very, but ' altogether very charming so much youth !" said Amberley, in an absent way. It was an unlucky speech, and Mrs. Mortimer winced. She had every charm but youth. " You must be brave, and tell her of her mistakes," said Arthur Amberley, whose delicate perception felt the mis- take he had made, and who repaired it as well as he could. " Who so well as you can give her that necessary savoir- faire without which her own natural advantages are use- less?" Jack Townley, in spite of Mrs. Morella, felt agitated, remorseful, and profoundly curious about Rose. He told his rather disgusted listener of Mr. Chadwick's hospitality, of his having met Rose in the West, of their hunting ex- peditions. "You men don't like to be confronted with your rus- tic lovers at Delmonico's," said Mrs. Morella, scornfully. " Now do you ?" " She was not that, I assure you. I never saw a more dignified girl," said Jack Townley, beginning to be aware that Mrs. Morella had too much perfume on her hand- kerchief. "I do not understand the amount of talk which that girl starts up," said Mrs. Morella "a great awkward, un- formed, badly dressed savage, who puts her knife into her mouth, drinks out of her finger-bowl, talks about ' some of the terrapin, if you please,' and who rushes at young men as if she would knock them down." " She dances well," said Jack Townley, as Rose floated by them in the masculine girdle of Dicky Smallwood's A TRANSPLANTED ROSE 43 arm. Absorbed as he bad apparently been, he had watched out of the corner of his lady-killer eyes the great change which had come over the complexion and the expression of the poor little girl, whose pleasure at seeing him had been so cruelly damped. He did not like to see her so easily consoled, very awk- ward as had been her attack on him, dreadfully as T>e dreaded ridicule. Snob that he was, there had been a great genuine heart-throb beneath his well-appointed -^raisi- coat, as he recognized the difference between the genuine- ness of her admiration of him and the utter selfishness of Mrs. Morella's back-handed and meretricious admiration. The wild prairie flower smelled very sweet beside the arti- ficial bouquet which Mrs. Morella offered. To be sure, he lived in a world to which artificiality was necessary, but he was a man, and a young man. But Rose did not look at him again, and when he came to ask her hand for the galop, she said, with a perfect truth which no coquette could have feigned, " I declare, Mr. Townley, I had forgotten all about you." " Mr. Long has made himself very agreeable, I imagine." "He has he has indeed," said Rose, thinking only of poor Fountain, her dear Fountain, in New York, frightened, out of place, and an exile like herself. Capricious, girlish, changeful, not yet mistress of her emotions, angry in her heart at Townley, Rose happened in her conduct towards him to behave exactly in the manner most certain to rouse the curiosity and the languid worldly heart of the lady-killer. He was piqued, and it did him good. Jack Long re- turned to claim his partner. When, after a most blissful dance, Mrs. Mortimer called Rose to tell her that it was 44 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. time to go home, that young lady looked back at the ball- room with a sort of thrill. Something told her that she should remember the even- ing as long as she should live. The first ball whoever forgets it? Arthur Amberley gave her his arm as she descended cloaked to the carriage. " I congratulate you," said he, pressing her arm ever so slightly to his side. " I have seen many debutantes, and I have rarely heard so many compliments for any one of them." Rose blushed deeply when Mr. Amberley praised ; old fellow that he was, she felt that his words sank deeply. But Mrs. Mortimer gave her a most terrible scolding when she got into the carriage, anent her sudden rush at Jack Townley. It was so improper, so rude, so unladylike ! Poor Rose ! There was an acrimonious tone in the lady's voice that struck unfavorably on the young ear, and, humbled and grieved as Rose was, she could not but feel that Mrs. Mor- timer had some other grievance besides the dreadful one of her misconduct. Mrs. Mortimer's eludings sounded so differently from the soft and lovely apologetic tones of Mrs. Trevylyan, or the strong, clear, honest voice of Miss Amberley. Rose had yet to learn the complexity of character which goes to make up a worldling, even a worldling so thorough- bred and so truly amiable externally as Mrs. Mortimer. Rose had not heard that fatal phrase from the lips of Arthur Amberley, "She has so much youth." She was too truly humbled at hearing of her dreadful misdemeanor in the matter of going to speak to a gentleman in a ball- A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 45 room, instead of quietly waiting and allowing him to speak to her, to be a very severe critic of Mrs. Mortimer's manner. She simply sat and wept into one of the many faded bouquets which, when they arrived, had brought only per- fume and joy. " I do not know if I shall ever learn. He reminded me of home and of father," said poor Rose. " And what do you suppose he thinks of your modesty, Rose ? He should have called on you, and he should have been the first to remember, not you. To be sure, he is a worldling and a snob, and I hate him. He is engaged in a most outrageous flirtation with a married woman, but still he ought to have remembered your hospitality. I can- not forgive him for that bit of ill-breeding." " And yet you asked him to dinner," said Rose. Mrs. Mortimer disliked being accused of want of con- sistency, and she answered, somewhat sharply : " We do not invite men to dinner because of their moral qualities, Rose, but for their agreeability, and for their fashion. Besides, I hastily improvised that dinner invitation to save you. Had I not done that, the whole club would be laugh- ing at you at this moment." "I will go back to Chadvvick's Falls to-inorrow," said Rose, now thoroughly insulted. " I am sure I wish you would," said Mrs. Mortimer, whose right boot pinched her dreadfully ; her temper pinched also. She was nervous, tired, worn out, and she forgot herself for a moment. The carriage stopped at Mrs. Trevylyan's door, and Rose alighted, sobbing bitterly. " I am very much obliged for what you have done for me," said Rose, " but I will not come to your dinner, and I never wish to go to another ball." 46 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. This was said on the steps, and after the footman had rung the bell. Mrs. Mortimer had a great horror of scenes, and a strong desire that her servants should hear only the most formal side of every subject. She was alarmed at the mountain torrent which her own petulance had unloosed, and she hastily called Rose back to the carriage. " You must control yourself, Rose. Do not show every feeling, particularly before servants ; they are such danger- ous spies. I am sorry I spoke as I did. Forgive me, dear. We are both tired and cross. I must say, how- ever, you have looked very pretty, and behaved very well for your first ball. Now go in and go to bed, and I will write you a note to-morrow." Rose found the faithful Martha awaiting her with a cup of hot chocolate. Martha had too much tact and ex- perience to notice the hot face and the red eyes, but un- dressed and soothed the debutante silently. The sweet sleep that never mocks us by running away while we are young and fresh, but reserves its capricious- ness for those hours when we are old and nervous, blessed the soft lids of Rose as soon as she touched her pillow. It was twelve o'clock the next day when Martha roused her and laid a note on her pillow. It was from Mrs. Mortimer. Rose knew her elegant English handwriting, and the stiff, smooth, thick paper, without monogram or cipher, which betokened the perfect taste of the accomplished letter-writer, as well as the sharply marked seal of red wax. "Mr DEAR ROSE, In my desire to serve you, and my anxiety lest you had caused evil and envious tongues to speak ill of you, I perhaps used stronger language than I should have done. I feel A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 47" that I unintentionally hurt your feelings, and I apologize. I trust that you will forget my hasty expressions, and let nothing come between us in our relations of chaperon and protegee. "You must not go to Chadwick's Falls, nor must you shun my dinner. It is given to establish thoroughly your position in New York ; and, as you wish with me to save your dear aunt any pain, suppose we do not let her know of the contretemps which made us almost come to blows in the carriage ? " I will call at four to take you to Sidonie Devine's tea. "Ever your friend, "SOPHIA MORTIMER." VII. ROSE hastened to dress to go to her aunt's room to thank her for the inestimable gift of Fountain. How had she remembered to be so kind? She asked her all about it. "You have a very indulgent father, Hose," said Mrs. Trevylyan. " Poor pa," said Rose ; " how lonely he must be with- out me !" " He writes me that he is," said Mrs. Trevylyan. " But he is glad that his little girl is happy. Now tell me about the ball. Was it a success ?" Rose, with a pardonable reticence, gave her aunt all the good without any of the sorrow of the ball, but came back again to Fountain and papa. "Do you remember mamma?" she asked. " Ah, indeed I do," said Mrs. Trevylyan. " When my brother Pascal went to Harvard College," she continued, after a moment, " he was considered one of the best schol- ars in his class. We little thought of any career for him 48 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. but that of a clergyman or a lawyer; but he has turned out a Western speculator. Well, everything goes differ- ently from what we thought. Your mother, too, such a student ! Why, when they were to be married, I remember she asked us to give her nothing but books, instead of the point-lace veil that we had intended for her. Her trous- seau was a very simple one, but your father took a large library for her out to his first Western home." " I have it yet," s-id Rose. " Pa says I may read every book in it as much as I please." Just at this moment a loud ring was heard at the door, and presently Rourke came up with a card. " For Miss Chadwick," said he, respectfully. " The Honorable Hathorne Mack," said Rose, blushing very deeply. " Who is he, pray ?" said Mrs. Trevylyan. " Ob, a friend of papa's a very important man. He is our Congressman ; but I hate him." " Why do you hate him, dear ?" " Well, he chews tobacco, and he does not dress nicely, and he sort of compliments me." " Well, cannot you excuse yourself ?" " Oh no ; papa says I must be very polite to him. He is a great man a very great man, I believe," said Rose. " What a very strange man my brother Pascal is !" said Mrs. Trevylyan to herself, as she helped Rose to entertain Mr. Hathorne Mack. He was a large, coarse, beetle-browed man, with heavy red lips, and teeth which were very much the worse for to- bacco. He wore a black necktie close above his shirt col- lar if, indeed, such an institution existed so that no linen appeared to relieve his swarthy complexion. He A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 49 talked loud and defiantly, paid Rose some broad and rather distressing compliments, called her father " Pascal," and told Mrs. Trevylyan that she looked pretty well for a lady of her age. " I'm going to be in New York some time," said he, en- couragingly. " I'm working up an important business that we're going to get through Congress your father and I and I expect to come and see you quite often. I'll take you and your aunt out to ride after my fast team, and also to the theatre, if you like. Pascal told me to see to his little girl. Ha! ha! guess I didn't need any jogs from him to help my memory, Miss Rose." Mrs. Trevylyan saw him depart with pleasure and with apprehension, and determined to write to her brother to ask why he had let loose this dreadful incubus upon them. However, he was followed by a caller of a different com- plexion none other than the elegant Jack Townley, who came in with the air of having been there every day for a week. This polished corner-stone of society made no apology for not having called before, and took, as he did everywhere, the position of being calmly right and per- fectly serene. Rose was crushed by this manner, and for- got to ask him why he had not been to see her sooner, and why he had not answered her letter. He told Mrs. Trevyl- yan in an easy, gossiping way of the belle that her niece had been the evening before, and made himself so agree- able that the call seemed a short one, although, when he left, the eyes of Rose sought the clock, and saw that he had been an hour in the room. " A very well bred, agreeable young man," said Mrs. Trevylyan after he had left ; " and it is a blessing to see such a man after the Honorable Hathorne Mack." 50 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. " Aunt Laura, I think I understand New York less and less the more I see of it," said Rose, musingly. " No doubt, my dear," said Mrs. Trevylyan, reading her niece's thoughts, by the clairvoyance of experience and sympathy. "Society is a hard thing for a neophyte to understand. It is a place for smiles and pleasant words, for social greeting, but not for the indulgence or display of deep feeling. It asks no explanations, and makes none. We are all its subjects and slaves, and must submit to its arbitrary laws if we keep in it; and also, if we keep in it, we must swallow a bitter pill now and then. But the true rule is the juste milieu. Not too much demand, not too much contempt, not too much belief, not too much expec- tation: take just what amuses you." Rose said not a word, but she put her rounded chin into her hand, and thought deeply. The great dinner was the next thing in order. Mrs. Mortimer had been to see Rose several times, and was most affectionate and considerate. Not a word of what had passed between them in the carriage. " Society makes no explanations, and expects none." Mrs. Mortimer's dinners were famous, and as Rose en- tered on Jack Townley's arm, she thought she had never seen so beautiful a picture. It reminded her of an oil-paint- ing which she had been taken to see, of Louis XIV. entertaining Moliere. She admired the coloring, all white and scarlet, fire and snow ; the table-cloth, alternate squares of lace and linen, through which a scarlet glimpse made itself manifest; and a long, silver-edged waiter with mir- ror, on which floated swans, that held up a silver e'pergne, in which were masses of scarlet carnations. These flow- ers were the only ones on the table, and filled the room A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 51 with their spicy fragrance. There was much gold plate on the table, and dark red flagons stood in gold standards everywhere white, red, and gold. The crystal of the glasses, the shaded red candles, the mirrors, the swans, the flowers, all seemed to increase the tropical warmth of that vision of luxury. There was nothing to be seen of any food excepting a few bonbons in the beautiful high glass dishes, which were held aloft by figures of nymphs carved in silver ; but, after the company had been seated, plates of raw oysters, soup, fish, entrees, pieces de resistance, salads, dessert, ices, fruits, seemed to follow each other with the most perfect rhythm, as if they danced in to the music which was playing outside. It was somewhere in the fifth or sixth course that her left-hand neighbor, a young man whom she had met but once before, said to Rose, drawlingly, " These grand dinners are very tiresome : don't you think so, Miss Chad wick?" " Tiresome ! No," said Rose. " Oh, I go to so many, and nothing new at any one of them ! Just the same story all the time !" returned her neighbor. " I never went to one before," said Rose, simply, " and I think it is the prettiest sight I ever saw." " Oh, delightful freshness !" said Mr. Walters. " What would I not give to be as fresh as you are !" " Why do you go to them, if you do not like them ?" asked Rose, opening her eyes wide at him. " Oh, the claims of society ! One cannot refuse without giving offence, you know. I am a well-known diner-out, and I must go or die I must die in the harness, and keep going, you know." 5S X TRANSPLANTED ROSE. Rose looked at his exceedingly commonplace face and healthy color, and she had noticed his good appetite be- fore, so she could not see any immediate signs of his dying in harness. Jack Townley had heard this talk, and was exceedingly amused. As soon as Mr. Walters was engrossed with his other neighbor, Mr. Townley told Rose that this effete child of luxury was the son of a shoemaker, who had by dint of his inherited money from the man of lasts, and by indomitable effort, gained a foothold in society ; that this was the second winter that he had ever been seen in New York society, and his first dinner at Mrs. Mortimer's. "Then I should think he would not be so tired," said Rose. " Tired ! he is in the seventh heaven ; he never was so proud and happy as to-day." " How queer society is !" said Rose. "And now tell me about my friend Mr. Chad wick," said false Jack Townley, swinging round to the past as easily as if he had never veered. " I declare, when I remember all his hospitality, I am ashamed that all I could do for him here would be to put him down at the Union Club. That is the trouble as between town and country you cannot return the kindnesses here which you receive there." And Jack Townley sighed deeply. Rose looked at him for a moment, and began to feel that she had wronged him. " Papa has sent me Fountain," said she. " Has he ?" said Townley, looking up with his most beaming smile. " That superb creature ! I wonder if he will be safe for you to ride in New York ? he may be frightened here." A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 53 Rose had taken up her dinner card, and was looking at it attentively ; Jack Townley's eyes were renewing that inner agitation which she had determined to put down. Suddenly she saw, on the side of the card which she had not turned, a picture of a noble black horse, and un- derneath it a quotation : " Thou Fountain of all joys." " That is exactly like Mrs. Mortimer," said Jack Town- ley. " She has made an appropriate dinner card for everybody. I dare say she sent an artist to the stable to sketch your horse." " It was very kind of her," said Rose, looking gratefully towards Mrs. Mortimer, who sat, superbly dressed and glit- tering with diamonds, at the head of the table. Just at this moment the servant advanced to take the bouquets out of the epergne to carry them about to the fair recip- ients. He seemed to find it difficult to reach the flowers, and Rose, with a spirit of helpfulness, and also perhaps be- cause Jack Townley's eyes had fastened themselves upon her face, with a trembling hand essayed to help him. She pulled the flowers out of the little socket where they stood, and in so doing she miscalculated the distance and resistance, and over went the whole elaborate structure on its side, striking on its way one of the ruby glass flag- ons which stood near it full of claret, breaking it, and flooding the beautiful lace and linen cloth with the worst stain that housewives have to contend with. This crash overcame even Mrs. Mortimer, who lost her smile for a moment. It silenced everybody, and it petri- fied Mr. Walters. Jack Townley alone, who seemed to have recovered his good-breeding as if by magic, exclaimed : "That was my work, Mrs. Mortimer. I would take a flower from no hand but Miss Ch.dwick's." 54 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. " Well, let us go into the drawing-room," said Mrs. Mortimer. Rose had hidden her confusion behind the friendly shoulder of Fanny Grey. Sidonie Devine was tittering ana talking with Sir Lytton Leycester, a young baronet just arrived in New York from a Western hunt, and very much of a swell, whose honorable arm had taken her in to dinner. Sir Lytton Leycester, it appeared, did not smoke or drink, or else he chose to appear unlike other people, for he had followed the ladies into the room. Coffee was served, and Fanny Grey began talking very kindly of the private theatricals, which had been under- going a rehearsal. " Mr. Amberley said you were doing so very well," said Fanny to Rose. "Professor Paton is trying to teach me to read," said Rose, modestly. Sidonie meanwhile was being excruciat- ingly funny to Sir Lytton, describing the past mistakes of poor Rose. " What did you say her name is ?" asked the baronet. " Rose Chadwick." " I wonder if that can be a daughter of Pascal Chad- wick ?" said the young man. VIIL PASCAL CHADWICK was one of those men who had been always moving towards the setting sun. He had carried his young New England wife to the then farthest West, when he was first married, and there, with her books and A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 55 her neat-handed thrift, she had fought fever-and-ague and the difficulties of frontier life with silent courage, until one day she lay down and died, as did hundreds like her. Eose was four years old when this calamity overtook her, and Pascal Chadwick was in despair. He could not bear the sight of the child : she reminded him of his loss. Like many a bereaved person, he had to struggle against an unnatural abhorrence of the duty left. He would place her from time to time in the family of some good married pair, where the little thing grew up as she could a sort of weed but he scarcely saw her, excepting once a year. Meantime his fortunes went up and down ; he mounted and descended the scale of opulence like an anchored bal- loon, except that he did not always come down where he went up. He changed his spots continually. He was en- gaged in every railroad, every mining adventure, every speculation, from the Colorado to the Rio Grande, for years. Finally, when Rose was thirteen, he had reached what he supposed to be a certain fortune. He had made a good thing of it at Chadwick's Falls ; and when Rose joined him there to live with him, she found a commo- dious ranch, horses and herds, vineyards and wheat-fields. Her father was living like a Tartar prince. Chadwick's Falls is one of the throats of travel. Every one must go through it who wishes to reach the buffalo fields to the north, the cattle ranges, and the gold and sil- ver mines. There Pascal Chadwick, after twenty years of struggle and adventure, settled down. He was an exceedingly handsome man, tall and straight and looked well in his careless Western garb ; a hat which would have made the fortune of Buffalo Bill, a flannel 56 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. shirt, and a loose coat belted in, became the fine athletic figure. He had a natural address which was suave, plausi- ble, and cordial. No man met him that was not fascinat- ed. His early education gave him advantages of speech which he never lost, although he paid little attention to books, excepting the few that Rose called a library. His wife had been his inspiration and his balance-wheel, and he never recovered from the loss. Wherever he lived, in hut or palace, her picture hung where he could look at it, and her little " library " stood on hastily improvised shelves : that much of nobility and the past clung to him. But the rough life had blurred the outlines of his moral character. He was not too fastidious as to the men he knew ; he was sometimes called tricky in business matters. Men who made money by him called him a " rare good fellow ;" those who lost money by him called him a smooth-tongued, plausible visionary. No man called him scoundrel ; but his character, like his fortunes, stood, it is to be feared, on somewhat doubtful trestlework. As to hospitality, generosity, personal unselfishness, and natural charm, Pascal Chadwick was at the very highest notch. All men liked him. The English noblemen who went through to their hunting fields often stopped a fort- night with him, and left, perhaps, a few hundred pounds in his last speculation. All the scientific men on their travels paid him a visit, and found the old Harvard culture peeping out in his conversation. He stood at the golden gates of travel a sort of universal host, and made every- thing easy for everybody. Rose had grown up in this Western caravansary with a father whose gentleness and indulgence knew no bounds. He began to love the child when she had been with him A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 57 rbr a while, and had made some feeble attempts at educat- ing her. Two English governesses and one French one had been carefully imported, but as all these ladies tried to marry him, and as he had Mr. Moddle's objection to being " taken alive," they were summarily dismissed, so that he merely pointed to her mother's books and told her to read them it was all he could do for her. Now this sort of browsing for education is very good for the making of great men, but it does not make a con- ventional lady. Rose adored her father, and liked, of all things, to be with him. But he was a busy man, freighted down with anxious work, and he had little time for her. She did not like all of his friends, the Hon. Hathorne Mack least of all ; and there were other men of very much the same stamp, all connected with him in business, that were equally distasteful to her, poor little girl. She used to retreat to her own room, where good Mrs. Macpherson, wife of her father's Scotch shepherd, would bring her her meals and attend to her. When the table got too full of men, her absence was never commented upon. She was not missed. It was Jack Townley's visit which had opened the eyes of Pascal Chadwick to the fact that she was a woman, and a beautiful one this little girl whom he had so forgotten. Then he thought of his sister, Mrs. Trevylyan, with whose husband he had had a lifelong quarrel. But Mr. Trevylyan was dead. Would not Laura forget and for- give, and take the girl ? The rest we know. After her departure, Pascal Chad- wick felt lonely and disturbed. His daughter had grown to be more to him than he had expected, and he was not sorry when a young English baronet, Sir Lytton Leycester, 58 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. claimed his hospitality on his way East from the hunting grounds. Of all the men whom Pascal Chadwick ever fascinated, this young Englishman became the most conspicuous example. He had money to invest, and Chadwick's silver mines and railroads were temptingly displayed. He liked the life, and he liked the climate, and he liked Chadwick. "I declare," said he, "if I had not five houses in Eng- land, I would come here to live." And when they parted, Chadwick gave Sir Lytton Leyces- ter a letter to his sister and to his daughter. After the dinner was over, and Rose had reached her own room, she gave way to a long and bitter fit of weep- ing. Her luck had indeed been very bad. It has occurred to most of us sometimes to upset a glass of claret on a snowy cloth, and we have been very much mortified but it has seldom happened to us to break two decanters. Rose reasoned with herself as to what evil star reigned over her. The next morning she determined to see Har- riet Amberley and to have a long talk with her. " Your trouble is, Rose," said Harriet, kindl}-, " that you are too impulsive. Now last night you committed the error of trying to help the servants. That is quite absurd. They have their work all marked out ; you but embarrass them. Now a woman can be helpful in a sick-room, can be helpful at a fire, on a burning steamer, in her own sphere anywhere, but at a fashionable dinner she must be absolutely passive. She need only ask that her glass be filled with water and her piece of bread be renewed ; all the rest is done for her." A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 59 " But I always see a dozen little things I do not under- stand," said Rose. " Quietly observe them," said Harriet, " and they will soon come to you." " Now one lady put her gloves in her champagne glass. What did that mean ?" said Rose. " Simply it was her rather eccentric way of showing the waiter that she did not want any champagne," said Har- riet, smiling. "There are thousands of girls like me who do not know about table manners," said Rose, wiping away a few big tears. " I suppose so," said Harriet ; " but very few as willing to learn as you are. Now tell me how you used to live at Chadwick's'Falls." " We seldom had any table-cloth, to begin with, and no napkins, until lately we had Chinese paper ones, and all the food we had was put on at once a great saddle of venison, a soup if Mrs. Macpherson made one, and then some kind of pudding, and then a basket of peaches and grapes, better than any here. Father used to have his whiskey in a black bottle, and his wine from his own vineyards in pitchers. I did see some nice tables in San Francisco, but no one ever told me anything about table manners." " Never mind, dear Rose ; you will learn soon. Do you know Sir Lytton Leycester wants to know you very much ? I heard him telling Sidonie Devine so last night, and she would not introduce him." " Oh, Harriet, how good you are ! You always make me feel more comfortable. I imagine Sir Lytton Leycester is one of papa's friends. I wish I were back at Chad- wick's Falls." 60 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. " And Fountain in New York ?" said Harriet. " Yes, dear Fountain. But he is so frightened by the elevated railroad that Mr. Long says I must not ride him for some time." " Oh, nonsense !" said Harriet, who was a fearless horse- woman. " Go out with me this afternoon to the Park. I do not believe in horses being frightened." So Fountain was brought round, and knew Rose at once, ate sugar out of her hand, and she and Harriet had a delightful ride, with their grooms behind them ; and before that invigorating gallop was over Rose had for- gotten her mistakes and misfortunes. Not so Mrs. Mortimer, who came with clouded brow to see Laura Trevylyan and to pour out her woes. "She is hopeless, Laura. I give her up. To see my epergne pulled over, and my flowers scattered, and my beautiful South Kensington drawn-work table-cloth ruined by the claret, is too much. This is the second claret bot- tle she has broken. Why, the men at the club already call her the bottle-smasher, and say she will raise the price of claret. I cannot assume the care of such a savage ; you must excuse me. And then, do you know, she is a flirt a regular flirt. She attempts to flirt with Arthur Amber- ley, of course hopelessly. I wish you would call her at- tention to her faults in that particular." Mrs. Trevylyan, who had sat pale and troubled through this diatribe, now laughed. " Why, Sophia, she thinks Arthur Amberley a grand- father ; she calls him ' old gentleman,' and ' old Mr. Amberley.' " "That is her art to deceive you. She is a bold, bad girl." " Stop, Sophia," said Mrs. Trevylyan ; " I will not hear A TRANSPLANTED B08E. 61 that. Rose is awkward and unfinished, as I told you, but her nature is as sweet and pure as her name. I will not ask you to chaperon her further, of course. I regret your mortification of last evening, and your table-cloth." " Sir Lytton Leycester, to see Mrs. Trevylyan and Miss Chadwick," said Rourke, in a loud voice, handing in a couple of letters. Mrs. Trevylyan read her brother's letter. " He wants to see Rose !" said Mrs. Mortimer, scornfully. " Come down with me, won't you, and help me enter- tain him ?" said Mrs. Trevylyan, pleasantly. Mrs. Mortimer went down to hear the titled guest, in whom she had taken much pride (for Sir Lytton was a great swel'l), praise the beauty and freshness of Rose, speak of his obligations to her father, and in every way make himself most agreeable to Mrs. Trevylyan. " By-the-way, I have just seen Miss Chadwick on a very good horse in the Park," said Sir Lytton, "looking un- commonly nice, do you know." " Oh yes, Fountain, I suppose," said Mrs. Trevylyan ; " just arrived from Chadwick's Falls." " Oh ! one of my friend's famous thorough-breds ?" asked Sir Lytton. " I suppose so. My brother lives for his flocks and herds, I believe, does he not ?" " Your brother is simply the most fascinating person I have ever met : so simple, so frank, so invigorating in every way ! I dare say you have not seen him lately ?" " Not for twenty years," said Mrs. Trevylyan. " Fancy ! twenty years ! Well, I hope it will not be twenty years before / see him again, nor twenty hours before I see his daughter." 5 62 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE- " Will you dine with me to-morrow ?" asked Mrs. Tra- vylyan. " Most assuredly, with the greatest pleasure." "You had better consult your diary, Sir Lytton," said Mrs. Mortimer, sweetly. " You know you told me you had no end of engagements." " I shall break all of them to meet Miss Chadwick again," said Sir Lytton. " Good-morning." After he was gone, Mrs. Mortimer said, blandly : " You must remember, Laura, that he is famous for good manners when he chooses, but he is an intolerable eccentric. Be prepared for any exhibition of bad manners from him to- morrow." " ' Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,' " said Mrs. Trevylyan. " I thought him charming this morning." " Oh yes ; when he is in his flattering mood, no one better. But hear him talk of breaking an engagement! Just like his English insolence !" " I hope he will not do that," said Mrs. Trevylyan. " By-the-way, Laura, I was hasty in what I said about Rose. I will not be as cruel as my words. Of course the upsetting of my epergne upset my temper. Let her come to me as she has done, and I will take her to the Suffields' ball. Forget and -forgive, won't you, Laura?" And Mrs. Mortimer smiled fascinatingly. Mrs. Trevylyan had not summered and wintered her friend Sophia without knowing pretty well what were the springs of conduct, and she said "Yes" without smiling, although after Mrs. Mortimer had left she did smile behind her handkerchief, and went up-stairs to write a note or two for her own little dinner of the morrow. She asked Arthur Amberley and his sister, and a very A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 63 agreeable woman who talked well Mrs. Carver to meet Sir Lytton Leycester, and then, telling Rourke to be ready for a little dinner of six people, went out for her afternoon drive. IX. NOTHING could be more calm, quiet, proper, conven- tional, and easy than was the demeanor of Rose at her aunt's little dinner. Sir Lytton had come early, had told her about her father, had brought all sorts of messages from him and from Mrs. Macpherson, knew the names of all her dogs, and was so gentle and fascinating that Rose felt at once at her ease. A little dewy moisture would gather round her eyes as he talked of her pug Mars, a very great darling ; but she had never looked so like the moss- rose which she wore in the corsage of her white dress as she did when Arthur Amberley and his sister entered. It was a charming little dinner, and everything seemed to go off of itself. Mrs. Carver talked so well that Rose kept thinking she should like to write down all .that she said ; and her own dear aunt Laura came out as a hostess of the rarest. Sir Lytton was in great spirits, and talked of his adventures in the West, making always a hero of her papa. Both Arthur Amberley and his sister were so agreeable that Rose felt wrapped in a soft cloud of happi- ness. She did not think of herself from the beginning to the end of dinner the best fact in her favor, for both the men looked at her with eyes which plainly told of their admiration. " What a beauty your niece is !" said Mrs. Carver, as tha 64 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. two elderly ladies were left alone, Harriet and Rose having gone up to indulge in a little chat in the boudoir. " Not a beauty very pretty, I think," said Mrs. Trevyl- yan ; " but with much to learn yet. You have heard of her mistakes ?" " Well, Sidonie Devine has talked of nothing else," said Mrs. Carver, " and I watched to see if she swallowed the pepper-caster. Oh, she will do very well." " She is going to Professor Paton's reading classes, and we hope to improve her pronunciation," said Mrs. Tre- vylyan. Arthur Amberley and Sir Lytton entered just as the two girls descended the stairs, and Rose had in her hand a little book. " I have learned my part !" said she, gayly. " What a very disagreeable girl she is, that governess why did you give her to me ?" " It is a very important part in the play, and I do not think her disagreeable," said Arthur Amberley. " She is in a disagreeable position," said Rose. " Of course ; that is the germ of the play. A coarse, handsome, rich, flirtatious, vulgar woman, anxious to be ad- mired herself, hires a poor gentleman's daughter, takes her to a watering-place, and there discovers that the people will admire the refined governess rather than the unrefined mis- tress. The mingled dignity and anxiety to please, the dis- tress of the poor governess at the false position in which she is placed, the sweetness with which she takes the out- rageous, insulting revenge of the angry lady (if I may so misuse the beautiful word), are all admirably fitted for the display of talent, which I know you have, Miss Chadwick." " Oh," said Rose, blushing scarlet at the compliment, A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 65 " you throw a new light on the character. I am so stupid! I did not see all these lights and shades then. I wonder if you would read the part to me ?" " I wonder if I wouldn't, Miss Chadwick. Mrs. Trevyl- yan, when can I have this beautiful Eastlake dado -fur- nished portiere parlor of yours, for a private coaching of Miss Chadwick? You are so aesthetic that you have no light here. I shall require a blaze of morning sunlight for the occasion, as my eyes are failing me. Miss Chad- wick's complexion and mine can, however, stand a clear morning light." " I ask to be admitted as critic of the morning papers," said Sir Lytton. "And I must come as maiden aunt," said Harriet Am- berley. " I insist on my rights as the general public," said Mrs. Carver. " I will have none of you," said Arthur Amberley. " I am to coach my actors alone. Mrs. Trevylyan may sit in yonder window with her embroidery, if she promises not to speak." "You muzzle me in my own parlor?" said Mrs. Tre- vylyan. " Well, I will submit. Come to-morrow, Arthur, for I think Rose ought to have a great deal of training." " Professor Paton is training me too," said poor Rose, rather mournfully. " Oh, he is such a pet, such a favorite, such an oracle, with all of you women, that I do not think he will be se- vere enough," said Arthur Amberley. " He is very severe," said Rose. " He says I must drop my R's, and that I shall need three months' training on my Shakespeare lesson." 66 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. " Well, if you get his delightful accent, Miss Chadwick, you will be fortunate. We have all of us need of a little of that delicate, unexaggerated, and perfect English accent which makes his reading so refreshing. Well, when shall the rehearsal commence ?" " To-morrow morning," said Mrs. Trevylyan, " at eleven o'clock." "I will be here as promptly as the baker's man," said Amberley. " So good-night ;" and he and his sister took their leave. " I wonder what makes him take such an interest in Rose ?" asked Mrs. Trevylyan in a whisper of Mrs. Carver. "My dear, don't you see it? He is in love with her." " Oh, Mrs. Carver, how absurd ! Arthur Araberley, who has known every fascinating woman for the last twenty years, who is the perfection of worldly culture, who would die of a rose in aromatic pain he in love with an unculti- vated Western girl who has no savoir-faire ! Never !" " My dear, have you forgotten your primer ? Do you not know that freshness is what such men adore ? Now I find your Rose singularly attractive something new to the palate, like Catawba wine, or Isabella grapes, or prairie-chicken. 'She is truly, purely American a great compliment. See our English friend hanging over the piano." And Mrs. Trevylyan peeped through the portieres into a music-room where Rose sat, her fingers slowly wandering over the keys as she struck a few simple chords, and Sir Lytton was bending over and talking to her with a rapt expression. Mrs. Trevylyau laugted. "She has a queer knowledge of music, and can play and sing a little. I think the Eng- A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 67 lisli governess who was sent away for wishing to marry my brother must have been rather a genius in the way of teach- ing. Come, we will follow them. I do not wish our Eng- lish friend to think that we have no idea of chaperonage in this country. He and Rose have been together long enough. They always misinterpret us here, for they see too many on the other side, too many careless mammas, and too many emancipated daughters." So the two ladies walked into the music-room, dropping the portiere behind them. " You said something about this being an Eastlake house, Mrs. Trevylyan," said Sir Lytton. " Now we do not allow that term in England. We consider that too great a com- pliment to Eastlake. This is a lovely Queen Anne house, in the highest style of decorative art." " It was my guest, Mr. Amberley, who called this an Eastlake house," said Mrs. Trevylyan. " I am too thorough a student of Burne-Jones, William Morris, and the other sage greens to make that mistake," she added, with her quiet smile. "You have waked up a sleeping lion of the Decorative Art Society," said Mrs. Carver. Sir Lytton knew all about South Kensington designs for stained glass, picture-frames, and ceilings, wall-papers and wall -decoration, brasses and mahogany furniture, spindle- legs and old clocks. He saw at a glance that Mrs. Tre- vylyan's house was full of gems, and his few well-spoken compliments went to the heart of the lady collector. " Such old blue ! such Capo di Monte !" said he, admir- ingly, looking at the shelves over the fireplace. " I wondered why Aunt Laura hung up so many plates on the wall," said Rose, beginning to show her ignorance 68 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. of the modern principles of decorative art. "I should keep my plates in the closet." " Not such plaques as these," said Sir Lytton. " These are painted by a native genius," said Mrs. Tre- vylyan, " a young New York girl, who has found in herself the genius of an Angelica Kauffman. Rosina Emmet." "And those Cincinnati artists," said Sir Lytton, "how clever they are !" " Yes, here is a plate of Miss McLaughlin's," said Mrs. Trevylyan, " hung, you see, between two of the best mod- ern English." " How very ugly those old yellow and green things are !" said Rose, yawning perceptibly. " My dear, these are priceless majolica," said Mrs. Carver. Rose was very weary of all this : she had not been tu- tored in the modern art talk. It was all beyond her ken as yet. Ceramics, ecclesiastical embroidery, lace-work, crew- els and cat-tails, wood-carving and modern tapestry, were as yet anything but talismanic words to this child of nat- ure. The open-sesame had not yet been spoken. Mrs. Trevylyan, who had been charmed with Rose up to this period, began to be a little disgusted at her evident weariness, her undisguised yawns, her attitude of inatten- tion. Perhaps, if Mrs. Trevylyan had a weakness, it was her aesthetic taste, and she looked sternly at Rose. Mrs. Carver, with ready tact, saw the situation, and covered it with her woman's wit. " Your aunt says that you play and sing a little," said she. " Would you oblige me with an English ballad ? I am so tired of Italian bravuras badly sung. Now what do you know ? Oh ! here is one of my delights, ' Douglas, Douglas, tender and true.' Will you sing that ?" A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 69 "I am afraid I do not sing well enough. I know I don't," said Rose, very decidedly. " Oh yes, Rose, sing that, dear ; we are a forgiving trio," said Mrs. Trevylyan, sure that Rose would appear better anywhere than on decorative art. " Sing it as well as you can." "Let me play your accompaniment," said Sir Lytton, and he took the music and struck a few chords. Something in the way he played that touching and love- ly melody, which sets the gem of Miss Mulock's poetry so well, gave Rose confidence and breath. She lost sight of herself, and thought only of the words. Beginning with a little tremor, she went on improving with every line. Her voice was that excellent thing in woman, a contralto, and of pure quality. Of course, to the three listeners, all good judges of music, she was full of faults, but she had the great elements of simplicity, strength, good voice, and dramatic feeling. " Delightful song that," said Sir Lytton. " You have been taught by some one who knew how to take breath." "Yes, my English governess, Miss Marjoribanks," said Rose. " What, old Marchbanks who used to teach my sisters ! I wonder !" said Sir Lytton. " Now, how too too funny ! I knew she came over here. Now, her name wasn't Re- becca Ethel don't tell me that it was !" " It was Rebecca Ethel," said Rose. " Did you know her?" " The bane of my childhood !" said Sir Lytton, " but a good teacher. Did she put you through Hangnail's Ques- tions?' u I know every one by heart," said Rose. 70 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. "Good-night, Mrs. Trevylyan. Good-night, Miss Chad- wick. I trust you will soon come and spend a morning with me won't you?" said the good talker to Rose. " I should be so glad !" said Rose, who wanted to hear those delicious accents, those lips drop pearls and dia- monds, again. " And I too, Mrs. Trevylyan. Forgive me ; I have stayed forever," said Sir Lytton. " ' Forgive the crime.' " " I will, if you will come again soon," said Mrs. Trevyl- yan. After they were gone, Mrs. Trevylyan gave Rose a little scolding about her yawning in company. Rose was in a delicious dream, and hardly heard her aunt. "The principle the first principle of good manners is self-control, my dear child," said Mrs. Trevylyan. " You appeared so well at dinner, were so delightfully uncon- scious, that I did not like to see a relapse into carelessness ; I did not want you to yawn in Mrs. Carver's face." " Aunt," said Rose, " I think this was society ; I think this little dinner was what I have been dreaming of. I won't yawn again. I am so sleepy." X. ARTHUR AMBERLEY came, as he said he would, as punctually as the muffins. Rose was perfectly astonished at the gravity and the business manner which had succeeded to the gay society badinage of the night before. A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 71 " I consider that anything worth doing at all is worth doing well, dear Miss Rose," said he ; " and when I assumed the leadership of these private theatricals, I intended to do the thing in a business-like manner. No giggling and no carelessness at my rehearsals. I respect and believe in the noble art of the drama too much to tamper with it. It is the business of many gifted men and women to work at and perfect themselves in the art of acting, and we see, alas ! even then, how a lifetime fails often of making a good actor; and yet we must accord to all the profession- als a certain finish and grace which no amateur can easily rival. On the other hand, we know that certain people are gifted with a mimetic power ; even in our own little circle we shall find a different order of merit in the very first reading. Jack Long is an excellent amateur actor, Jack Townley is a very poor one, while Dicky Smallweed, for a certain order of character, is better than either of them. " I think my sister Harriet a very bright woman, but she, again, is a very poor actress, and so I have given her a very small part. Miss Devine, on the contrary, is a very good actress in certain parts, if we can trust her temper; but if she is disposed to be ill-natured, she will spoil her part just to spite the rest. You, I think, have got some important qualifications for the part I have given you, and all I have to fear from you is stage-fright. Now I want you to know your part so well that you cannot forget a word; then I want you to submit to my tiresome and re- peated corrections ; then I want you to think of the part. I want you to make it a part of yourself. Sit down with it, put yourself in the place of the governess, dream of it, take it out to walk with you, and remember that if you qan once enter into the life and spirit of your heroine's 72 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. feelings, you have taken the first step towards being a great actress. " In the remote contingency of your failure, which I do not wish you to think of, still remember that a part thus earnestly studied will be of great use to you in the future study of another part. No work is ever thrown away. And the work over private theatricals has this advantage : we learn by it a great deal of human nature always a useful and an entertaining study not always of its best side, but a great deal that may be of service." Rose was a singularly obedient pupil to her kind, intelli- gent, if rather exigeant instructor. She had the great ad- vantage of knowing nothing. She had no cherished opinions (presumably wrong ones) on the subject of act- ing. She had seen a few plays, mostly very blood-and- thunder ones, when she visited large cities with her dear father. She had seen Shakespeare played generally with great disappointment, for she had been in her small way a loving reader of the greatest of dramatists, and her mother's copy was Knighfs Pictorial, richly annotated. One of Pascal Chadwick's few literary accomplishments, retained from the days of his college life, had been occasionally to read to his daughter the gloomy speculations of Hamlet and the glowing hopes of Henry V. Together they had wept over Juliet and laughed with saucy Rosalind. Then Rose, lying flat on her back, would hold the book up to the light and read the notes, and look at the delightful illustrations, during her many lonely hours. Professor Paton was delighted, when he came to read with her, to see how much she knew of the thought of Shakespeare, al- though she had little or no skill as yet in reading aloud his eloquent and profoundly suggestive lines. A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 73 Arthur Amberley was so conscientious a trainer that one might have said he loved his work, and there was a per- ceptible cloud on his brow when one morning's seance was broken in upon by the entrance of Mrs. Mortimer. We must pause here to mention an episode. A strange gentleman had appeared once or twice in the parlors as Rose had called lately at Mrs. Mortimer's, and she had, on going out, asked the butler who he was. Her astonishment knew no bounds when she was told that it was Mr. Mortimer. " Oh, a brother-in-law ?" she asked. " My master, Mr. Mortimer, Mrs. Mortimer's husband," said the man, hardly able to keep his respectful counte- nance. Rose had walked home in a maze to ask Mrs. Trevylyan what this phenomenon meant. " I always thought she was a widow," said Rose, un- willing to believe in the wraith of Mortimer. " Oh no. Mr. Mortimer takes long journeys, goes a great deal to the South and to Europe ; but it is he who makes all the money, he who builds and furnishes their splendid house. He is a very important man, Mr. Morti- mer," said Mrs. Trevylyan. " Does his wife love him ?" asked Rose, who had not found Mr. Mortimer attractive. ' Oh, I don't know that," said Mrs. Trevylyan. " That is not a question you must ask, Rose. We never ask such questions. They are a very proper married pair, and if there is no love, there is a well-bred indifference between Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer, which never offends les convenances." " What does that mean ?" " Oh, Rose, do not be so literal. It means, in New York, 74 A TRANSPLANTED ROSB. where a man must be down at the Stock Exchange, and the woman must be going into society up town, that if they both do their business well, and do not quarrel, there is little reason why they should not both go their own way rejoicing, and like each other or not, as the case may be." " That is not my idea of marriage," said Rose. " It was not mine at your age, dear," said Mrs. Trevylyan. It was, perhaps, the memory of this incident that prompted Rose to remark to Mrs. Mortimer, when the conversation fell flat at her morning call which found them at rehearsal (for somehow the conversation would fall flat, and Mrs. Mortimer would look at Amberley with angry glances, Rose could not imagine why) : " I saw Mr. Mortimer at your house the other day. I did not know that you had a husband, Mrs. Mortimer," blurted out poor Rose. Mrs. Mortimer actually blushed. " Indeed, Rose, I fear there are many important facts you do not know yet Mr. Mortimer has been South." The angry flush on her cheek did not die away, and the slight curl in Arthur Araberley's lip perhaps deepened it. Mrs. Trevylyan hastened to the rescue by asking if Mr. Mortimer's health was better. " No ; he still has his dyspepsia ; cannot eat anything. I tell him that he is too devoted to money -making; he ought to leave business. He says if he does he shall die ; that he is not aware of anything that interests him but the price of stocks, and what he calls combinations." " His absence put down the price of ' Blank-paper Tun- nel ' and ' Red Riff Consolidated,' " said Amberley. "How does your play progress?" asked Mrs. Mortimer, rather stiffly, not noticing this last remark. A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 76 " If all did as well as Miss Chadwick, it would go ad- mirably. Dicky Small weed and Miss Devine cannot, will not, learn their parts, however," said Amberley. " Miss Devine is to have the dressy married-woman part, I hear," said Mrs. Mortimer. " Yes, she is to do the splendor for us regular pieces des robes splendor. She is the married watering-place would-be-admired woman, who is to oppress Miss Chad- wick here," said Amberley. Mrs. Mortimer now had a chance to smile, as she remem- bered Sidonie Devine's capabilities that way. " When is the first public rehearsal that is, one that I can see ?" said Mrs. Mortimer., " We shall be happy to greet you at the Union League on Wednesday week, at three in the afternoon," said Am- berley ; " and then my troubles begin, for with all the call- boys in the world I shall never be able to get my troupe together." " Let me help you drum up recruits," said Mrs. Morti- mer, becoming suddenly amiable. " Oh, if you put your shoulder to the wheel, all will go well," said Amberley, with great animation. " If you will frighten Dicky Smallweed out of his boots, and let him know that he will lose the part if he does not appear promptly, we shall be in your everlasting debt." " I think I can manage Dicky," said Mrs. Mortimer. " Of course you can manage everybody," said Arthur. "How are Jack Long and Fanny Grey doing?" " Conventionally well, I think. I have not had them all together yet." " Oh," said Mrs. Mortimer, looking very much relieved, " you take your pupils singly, and not in class ?" 76 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. " The more important characters, yes. Where there is a subtle part to be played, like this of Miss Chadwick's, I give attention to it," said innocent Amberley. " And I am such a little fool, too, you know, Mrs. Morti- mer, and as ignorant as a prairie-dog," said Rose, who felt humble just then. " Ignorant with a vengeance, Mrs. Mortimer. Why, I happened to say ' Old Tabby/ and she had no idea what I meant." Just then the bell rang again, and Rourke, who appeared to have forgotten his instructions, ushered the Honorable Hathorne Mack into the sacred rehearsal room. He was very oily, very cordial, very dreadful ; his mouth bore the sad insignia of the American habit ; his clothes appeared to have been thrown at him several seasons ago. The sloughing-off time, which in animals occurs periodi- cally, did not seem to pertain to Mack. His clothes were not perennial or deciduous. " Well, Miss Rose, you and I have got to take a ride to- gether, I expect. Here's a letter from your father, saying, ' Have you been good to my little gal, Mack ? You must call often and see her.' I should have been here a great deal oftener, except for the Blank-paper Tunnel business. I have got to get some of your New York Congressmen to vote for it, and I ain't prepared yet to pay quite as much as they want." "Let me present you to Mrs. Mortimer," said Mrs. Trevylyan. '" How de do, marm ? Wife of the King of Wall Street, marm ? I tell you Blank-paper Tunnel knows him. Sam Mortimer, I presume? Yes? First-rate speculator, your husband, marm. Proud to know you." A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 77 " Mr. Amberley, Mr. Mack," said Mrs. Trevylyan, who really did not know what to do with her guest. " How de do, sir ? In politics or WaH Street, sir ? I'm considerable mixed up in both." " Neither, sir. I have no ambition in either direction," said Amberley. "Hain't you now? Well, I'm sorry for you, sir. American born ?" " Yes, I was born here," said Amberley. " Then I feel more than sorry, sir, more than sorry ; for an American who has no interest in politics nor railroads or, I may say, railroads as connected with politics misses what I call the first duty of a citizen." XL MR. MACK'S call prolonged itself until Mrs. Mortimer and Amberley took their leave. Poor Rose was crimson with mortification. She saw disgust in the face of Amber- ley, and triumph in the eyes of Mrs. Mortimer. It seemed to her that she was never raised to the height where she would be, but that some untoward event caused her to be thrown therefrom, and to fall again into sad dis- grace. She was not casuist enough to know why she felt such a pang when this man mentioned her father's name. She did not recognize, as Mrs. Trevylyan did, the utter want of moral dignity which pervaded her father's otherwise lovable character. He had lost the sense of distinction between a coarse man and a refined one in his rough- 78 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. and-tumble life. Perhaps he never had it. Some men are born without the sense of selection. Mrs. Trevylyan remembered enough of her brother's character to see this in all its fulness, but what could she do? The Honorable Hathorne Mack stayed an hour, growing more disgusting every minute, yet Mrs. Trevylyan could not deny him the possession of very strong sense, immense knowledge of mankind, and a tremendous belief in him- self. She was not the woman to underrate these powers. But she saved Rose by her tact from half the pain by talking to him herself and leading his coarse eyes away from the blushing girl. She finally looked at her watch, and sent Rose off to her Italian lesson. Mr. Mack seemed a little annoyed at this, but took oc- casion, with an eye to his watch also, to utilize the oppor- tunity, as to a little business of his own. " Now, Mrs. Trevylyan," said he, " I find you are a re- markable clever woman, and I want you on my side. I'm rather fond of that young lady that has just left the room. To tell you the truth, I don't mind making her Mrs. Mack. My friend Pascal and I are considerable mixed up in these stocks and mines, and I hold the controlling influence. If I marry Rose, it will be a good thing for Pascal, and he knows it. He has never said so in words, but we under- stand each other. I've been a widower seven years, Mrs. Trevylyan, and no two people ever lived happier than Mrs. Mack and I did. I am pretty well off, you may be- lieve. Can give Rose all the diamonds and horses and Worth gowns that she wants ; and she may live here, or Washington, or St. Louis, just as she wants to. Now will you pave the way for me here? You are a good-looking A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 79 woman yourself, and I should think you might be looking round for another husband ; likely too ;" and he smiled at his own delicate badinage. " Certainly not, sir," said Mrs. Trevylyan, pale with sup- pressed rage. " Certainly not your friend, if yon propose to marry Rose ! The difference of age is quite enough to deter me from any such arrangement." " I ain't so old. I ain't so old as you are by five years," said the Hon. Hathorne Mack, offended deeply. "Perhaps not," said Mrs. Trevylyan, stiffly; "but my brother has intrusted his daughter to me with every argu- ment in favor of her studying and improving her mind. She is very young and very immature. She is not at all ready to be married to anybody." " Oh, that's my look-out, Mrs. Trevylyan. I don't want a learned wife. I want a good-looking, healthy one. I ain't particular about her being any better educated than Rose is. You needn't trouble about that." " But I was not thinking of you. I was thinking of my niece," said Mrs. Trevylyan, now furious. " I do not think she loves you or would be happy with you, and I certainly shall not make the slightest effort to present the subject to her mind." " Then, marm, I'll do it myself. I ain't a man to be thwarted. I'll send a telegram to-day to Chadwick's Falls, and it will go hard if I don't see your niece with her father's blessing. And so good-by, ma'am. Perhaps you'll regret offending Hathorne Mack." He went off, breathing fire and brimstone. His round bullet-head seemed to grow a set of bristling bayonets, in- stead of hair. He was purple with anger. He descended the steps, saying, with certain expletives which we will 80 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. omit, " If Pascal don't sustain me in this, I'll smash him, blank if I don't !" The Honorable Hathorne did not, however, get time to telegraph about love matters that day, for Blank-paper Tunnel was in a bad way when he reached Wall Street. Cupid gave way to cupidity, and the Honorable Hathorne had to attend to his pocket rather than his heart. Mrs. Trevylyan had, however, no such preoccupation. She was beforehand with her telegram a fact which exercised an important influence upon the future of her niece. Meantime Arthur Amberley and Mrs. Mortimer had a long talk. There is no such tyranny as that which a married woman holds over a man who has once been her admirer, if she sees in him the slightest wavering in the matter of a rival. Mrs. Mortimer was altogether too great a tactician to reproach Amberley. She saw that he was an- noyed, and, if the word could be applied to so polished a cynic, cross. Her business was to soothe him, and to make herself agreeable. "Isn't it dreadful what Mrs. Trevylyan has under- taken ?" said she " not only this pretty unformed girl, but the shocking acquaintance that her presence entails. If this Honorable Hathorne Mack is to be dragged about, it will be insupportable." " Quite so ; but what has he to do with it all ?" asked Amberley. " Oh, he is a sort of predestined husband, I believe, for Rose. Jack Townley tells me that he is the capitalist be- hind Mr. Chadwick, and holds that gentleman's fortunes in his hand. They have something going on in Congress about their railroads. Jack Townley knows all the ins and outs ; he will tell you." A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 81 " Heavens ! what a horrible sacrifice !" u I do not believe Rose would mind it. She has been brought up with such people, and she has no abhorrence of his manners. In fact, I think she would be at home with such a man, if we can judge by her behavior at my house ; and you saw her at the ball rush across the room to speak to Jack Townley ! There can be no native refine- ment in such a girl. There is talent and beauty, of course, but we cannot enamel manners on a Sappho if she has not native refinement. But you look tired. Suppose we take a turn around the Park?" " With all my heart," said Amberley, who was more disturbed than he usually allowed his well-regulated nature to become. Mrs. Mortimer had never looked prettier, nor had she ever been more calmly and gayly agreeable. She was mis- tress of the situation again ; and to the polished man of the world, who had been perhaps led away for a moment by a pair of flashing eyes, a bright color, a sweet breath, and a youthful grace, there came back the conviction that, after all, the consummate grace of a woman of the world, who could never offend one's taste, was the safest condi- ment in the great mixture, the piece de resistance of life's feast. So when they came to the rehearsal, at the old Union League Theatre that scene of so many charming plays, that delightful little temple of the drama where New York belles have often essayed the portrayal of the passion?, and have imitated the elegant subterfuges which are so well enacted in daily life Rose found Amberley, her best friend, her instructor, cold and unsympathetic. He was never rude that was not in his nature. But Rose, who 82 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. was what the Italians so well call simpatica, missed a tone in his voice, and a cordiality in his manner. It was to be a hard day for poor Rose. Sidonie Devine scarcely bowed to her, and she heard that destroyer of her peace say, with ill-disguised voice, " What, the decanter-breaker has ar- rived ? Well, let us look out for everything of a fragile nature." Fanny Grey had taken her place in the drawing-room scene, and was rehearsing somewhat stiffly the flirtatious dialogue with Jack Long, so that poor Rose had no one to appeal to. Harriet Amberley was also engrossed with her part, and Rose felt all her assumed confidence fall from her. When her turn came, she stepped upon the stage and began her part. "Slower, Miss Chadwick, slower," said Arthur Amber- ley, waving his baton, from the prompter's chair ; " you are too fast." Rose began again, and, knowing her lines, went on a lit- tle better. The scene proceeded between herself and Sidonie Devine. It cannot be denied that Sidonie Devine did vastly bet- ter than Rose. No palpitations disturbed that cold heart and that calculating brain. She saw and enjoyed the con- fusion, distress, and fear of poor Rose. She was mistress of the stage business, but Rose was awkward, and tipped over a table as she left the room. The rehearsal went on. Harriet Amberley went through her part badly, and not at all to the liking of her brother. But Dicky Stnallweed was admirable; as glib and as audacious, as dissipated and as rowdy, as insolent a young yachting, racing, betting man, as could be. He had a part to his liking, and he did it well. A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 83 In the second scene, Rose, inspired by her part, did bet- ter for the first few lines, and even brought a round of ap- plause from the few spectators. She was going on very well, when unluckily she espied, in the front row of seats, her old abhorrence, the Honorable Hathorne Mack, looking at her with his greedy red eyes. From that moment all her composure left her. She stuttered, stammered, and broke down. There was almost reason for Sidonie Devine to say, audibly, " Why are we all made to suffer by this woman's out- rageous blundering ?" Rose left the stage, her part was over, and, as she emerged from the dark staircase which led down into one of the greenrooms, she met the Honorable Hathorne Mack, who held out his hands to her. Hysterical, no doubt, from the excitement and the dis- grace of having failed, she gave a little scream, and fled from him. No gallery of Florence, no old palace of Venice, ever had a more dark, mysterious, and dramatic congerie of black staircases, and of passages which led no one knew whither, or veiled doors, or opportune closets in which a woman could hide, than had the old Union League Theatre. Indeed, it was said of it that every year skeletons were found there of those unfortunates who had strayed away the year before, trying to find their way out. Rose dashed down a flight of stairs, shutting a door behind her, and found herself in a cold and lonely vestibule. The outside door opened as she reached the foot of the stairs, and Jack Townley entered. " Oh, save me from that man !" said she, in a tone which would have made the fortune of an actress. " Who what, Miss Rose ?" said Jack Townley. 84 A TRANSPLANTED ROBE. " The Honorable Hathorne Mack." "What has he to do with this play?" said Jack, who was going up to rehearse his short and unimportant part. " I do not know. I saw him in the audience, and he came into the greenroom after me," said Rose, simply. "Yes, I am afraid he is ' after you,' Miss Rose. Now I remember, I saw him with Mrs. Mortimer in her carriage this morning. I wondered why. She must have brought him to the rehearsal. Well, stocks do make strange bed- fellows," said Jack, thinking of Mr. Mortimer and Blank- paper Tunnel. " I'll go and see if the coast is clear," said Townley, kindly. " You'll catch your death here, Miss Rose." He came back in a moment. The report was favorable, and Rose crept up to the now deserted greenroom, where she sat shivering and weeping until she was called, this time by Arthur Amberley himself, for the last act. " What is the trouble, Miss Rose ?" he asked, kindly, as he entered the greenroom. " I was frightened and shocked at seeing that dreadful man, who persecutes me," said Rose, " and I feel so alone ! so alone !" said she, weeping afresh. "Do you really wish to get rid of the Honorable Ha- thorne Mack ?" said Amberley. " Oh, Mr. Amberley, if you would rid me of that man ! I can never play if he is in the house. I can stand the ridicule of Miss Devine and the contempt of all these other fashionable people, while I have a few friends ! I dare say I deserve it all. I have no polish. I see every day how utterly deficient I am in proper manners the manners of society. But I cannot live if that dreadful man follows me with his coarse admiration. Save me from him, Mr. Amberley !" A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 85 Alas, Mrs. Mortimer ! your well-laid schemes were cob- webs, they were swept away by one touch of nature, one fresh and truthful outburst of the heart. The best-formed device of falsehood and of cunning fraud, built up patient- ly and well with infinite trouble, was washed out by a few tears which fell on a damask cheek out of a pair of dark eyes, and trembled on the lashes thereof. XII. " THE stage waits." This call had been uttered two or three times before Amberley reappeared with Miss Chad- wick. Indeed, Harriet Amberley had gone down to see what was the matter. " Miss Chadwick lost her way in descending to the green- room, and I found her m the vestibule," said Jack Town- ley, in an explanatory voice, as the others spoke of her not being ready. Rose took up her part with a trembling voice, but with one not unmusical. As the play went on, and she had to respond to the coarse attacks of her mistress and enemy, her voice grew clearer ; she seemed, indeed, to become the indignant and the insulted girl of the play. Still, she did not yet play well. Agitation of any sort is "bad for the amateur actor. The most perfect coolness and self-posses- sion are needed, and one must do what seems the most im- probable and remote thing, if one would fit in to the false perspective of the stage. But the players all noticed one great phenomenon. Ar- thur Amberley had become gay, good-natured, and interest- 86 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. ed. The audience had mostly gone ; there was a vacancy where Mrs. Mortimer and the Honorable Hathorne Mack had been sitting ; and only one gentleman in a paletot was visible in the back seats. When the rehearsal was over, this gentleman came for- ward and took Rose by the hand. "May I walk home with you?" he asked. It was her excellent friend Professor Paton, who always gave her strength and composure. " You all did very badly to-day," said he. " I am sure / did," said Rose. "No worse than the rest. You have not learned tenue en scene" said he, " any of you. You ought to rehearse every day for six weeks." " Oh dear," said Rose ; " I do not call it playing ; I call it work." "Yes, the very hardest work, I think," said Professor Paton. "I wonder people amuse themselves with doing badly what so many people work years just to learn how to do well. Come to me to-morrow and rehearse, Miss Chadwick." " Oh yes," said Rose. Arthur Amberley had become the most amiable of men suddenly, and it was thus commented upon : " What has happened to old Amberley ?" said Jack Long to Jack Townley, as they walked up after one of the re- hearsals. " I don't know. Perhaps he has made money. I saw him walking with the Honorable Hathorne Mack." "No doubt. Well, that is a thing to make any man cheerful. By-the-way, how well the little Chadwick did to-night !" A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 87 " Yes, she gave it back to Sidonie very aptly. No more chaff about claret-spillers on the part of Sidonie. She has met her match." The great business of society went on, although " the play was the thing." Balls, dinners, rides, teas, matinees, and wedding receptions were in order, and Rose attended them all. Sir Lytton Leycester was as amiable and agreeable as possible, showing Rose great attention. " I wonder," said one old tabby at a ball to another, " what is the secret power attached to that dreadful girl." "I agree with you what is it?" said another tabby. "If the days of love - philters had not passed, I should think she possessed one. Why, you know all about her, don't you ? Her mother was an actress in San Francisco." " Ho !" said tabby No. 1 ; " that is the reason why she acts so well, then, isn't it ?" "Oh yes. Pascal Chadwick is a Western rogue, who makes a great deal of money. Mr. Mortimer says he is worth ten millions." " Then I should think he would dress his daughter bet- ter. Why, that muslin never cost fifty cents a yard. Now I pay Connelly two hundred and fifty dollars for every dress Delia wears." " And I pay Josephine Egan two and three hundred for every dress my girls have." " Then she does such ht>rrid things ! Why, I heard that at Mrs. Mortimer's dinner she got up and walked up and down the room brandishing a tomahawk, and broke all the Sevres vases." "And she has broken another idol of Mrs. Mortimer's 88 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. t oo don't you know ? She has swept Arthur Amberley right off his feet." " Good gracious me ! you don't say so ! Well, when an old fellow falls in love, it is a desperate fall indeed. Now can you see anything in the girl ?" "She has a goodish complexion but so have other people. People say she paints all Western women do. Do you remember Sallie Stark ? How she did put on the red and white ! Now see there ! Sir Lytton Leyccster is flirting most dreadfully with her." "And have you seen how she manages the two Jacks Townley and Long ? Somebody said she had ' two Jacks and the game.' Well, I do not think much of Miss Chad- wick, or of Mrs. Trevylyan for introducing a Western ad- venturess of doubtful birth here." " Nor I much of Mrs. Mortimer for bringing her to these exclusive balls. However, New York society is getting very mixed very, very mixed." The last speaker, who represented the latest, lowest, and most reprehensible muddy particle of mixture, drew herself up, very, very indignant. " Well, there now !" said the first tabby ; " Mrs. Morton Burnie has got hold of her. That means that Miss Chad- wick is a lion." "And I am sure all her sins will be expiated if Mrs. Morton Burnie has found her out. She wishes her to come to one of her dreadful parties." " Oh yes ; she wants Sir Lytton Leycester, I suppose, and Miss Chadwick is the bait." " And Sir Lytton Leycester is looking after the ten mill- ions. Englishmen are so mercenary ; they only demand that you should have money, no matter how you get it." A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 89 And so the two Mrs. Candours picked their bones, and picked them clean. Arthur Amberley gave the famous dinner which had been so much talked of (he did not often entertain at his own house) to the members of his dramatic company. Only Mrs. Trevylyan and Mrs. Mortimer were asked, they undertaking to chaperon the young ladies and to receive for him, Harriet being rather frightened at the idea of so large a dinner. Rose thought she had never seen a more enchanting hostess than her plain friend, so cordial, so easy, so unob- trusive; but then she was partial to Harriet. The house was a double one, broad, old-fashioned, in an unfashionable street, but with an air of bien etre about it which charmed Rose. Wood fires burned in all the old fireplaces, and a broad, handsome staircase went up grandly through the large hall. It was of mahogany, almost as black as ebony. Nothing but a few rich portieres had been added (to shut off the draught at the wide dark shining doors) since the days of the old Amberleys, who had been great people in their day. There was a wealth of brass about the fire- places, and the doors and furniture were quite enough to break the heart of Sypher, or any other collector. There were fine old clocks, and a real "eight day" in the hall which told the tides at Amsterdam. There was a spinet, a harp, and a six-legged piano, which had belonged to some . musical ancestress, and pictures everywhere. China col- lected a hundred years ago, cabinets from Florence, Venice, Rome, brought by the Amberleys themselves, all, all told of the wealth, education, and taste of two or three genera- tions. " No nouveaux riches here, Miss Rose," whispered Jack 90 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. Townley, as he spoke to her, after she had bowed to Mr. and Miss Amberley. " Oh, how comfortable it all is !" said Rose, as she sank into a great arm-chair. , Arthur took Mrs. Trevylyan in to dinner, Jack Townley followed with Mrs. Mortimer, and Harriet Amberley took in Sir Lytton Leycester, as the most distinguished of the guests. Rose felt a little disappointed, as Dicky Small- weed only was left for her, but she was rewarded by find- ing herself on Mr. Amberley's left hand. At her plate lay the most beautiful bouquet of great pink roses. Indeed, there were no other flowers on the table but the " Gloire de Paris," the most delightful of roses. They were everywhere. "Arthur, your room is fragrant as ' Bendemeer's stream,' " said Mrs. Trevylyan. "Rose, Rose," said Arthur. "This is a dinner to a Rose," said he, in a low voice. " You will spoil her, Arthur," said Mrs. Trevylyan. " She cannot be spoiled," said he. Well, Dicky Smallweed was not so disagreeable either. He was quick to see which way the wind blew, and he knew that in this house it was his role to be polite to Miss Chadwick. He told her all the mots from the club, all the good stories, all the new engagements, what Tupperton Tons had said at the Union League, what Chaffs had said at the Union. He gave her a description of the Lotus Club, where the wits meet, and the Art League, where the young geniuses quarrel. Indeed, as a man about town, Dicky Smallweed, behind a blonde mustache of ferocious dimen- sions, seemed to loom up suddenly into great importance. A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 91 Meantime Fanny Grey was near Rose, giving her kindly glances and smiles, and Sidonie Devine and the pink-eyed girl were very far off; so she enjoyed her dinner. Then what china ! Real old blue, the hest of Lowestoft, Worcester, and real Dresden, not bought yesterday either ; fine Queen Anne silver, superb in weight and finish, and beautiful rich damask which had a look as of satin. And what a dinner ! All the men were silent the early part of the dinner, for Arthur Amberley's plats could not be lightly passed over. And his wines ! Each wine was a rarity, good, sound, and, if proper, ancient. " What is thine age ?" might have been asked of the Madeira, as it was of Juliet, and the answer would have been quite as satisfactory, though numbering rather more years. Strawberries in midwinter, peaches, artichokes from Al- giers, grapes and pears from California ; and one little bas- ket was set before Rose which brought the color high up into her cheek. " Grapes from Chadwick's Falls," was the legend on the handle. " And did you send for these ?" asked Rose. " I did," said Mr. Amberley. " I telegraphed to your father two weeks ago, and he has sent me grapes enough to last me a lifetime ; besides that, a pipe or two of excel- lent wine. Really, Rose, you Western people are great magnificos." " And some of you Eastern people are very kind," said Rose, blushing. This little story ran down the table through the leaky lips of Dicky Smallweed. " He has sent to Chadwick's Falls for some of her own 92 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. grapes," said Jack Townley, in a loud voice. "Really, Arthur, you outdo Heliogabalus." The grapes were passed around, and pronounced excel- lent. Everybody liked them but Mrs. Mortimer. She broke off a little bunch, but left them scarcely tasted on her plate. "I never can eat these Western grapes," said she to Jack Townley. "They are crude, like the people." " Sour grapes," thought Townley. " Perhaps so, Mrs. Mortimer." But he did not say all that he thought. Sly Jack. XUI. PROFESSOR PATON worked hard over his pupil. He saw in her the result of that neglect which has damped the success of many a transplanted Rose. He had found, even fifteen miles from the City Hall, a family of intelligent girls, who had asked him for a book of etiquette while he was teaching them Shakespeare. Etiquette, that conven- tional way of doing things, is a subject of curiosity to all the untaught. Professor Paton knew that to many of his pupils out- side the pale of society the doings of society were the most interesting subjects upon which he could chat, and, although he was no gossip, he often amused these intelligent girls by describing the dinners to which he occasionally went the elegancies of that world to them so far off, but so amusing. He had travelled all over the great country which we call America or the United States indiscriminate^, and he A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 93 knew that the sort of ignorance which Rose displayed was far more general than society people suppose. Table eti- quette, table manners, although a few people may not think so who happen to know all about them, are not sub- jects of universal inspiration. (A learned professor, not a hundred years ago, asked a lady out of which glass he should drink his sherry, and out of which his champagne. Preferring the sherry, he had poured it into the large glass intended for the champagne.) Rose was betrayed by her impulsiveness, a native peculiarity, as Professor Paton knew, which was against her in a society which demands a quiet, impassive smoothness of demeanor. But the learned Professor Paton had not studied alone Shakespeare's heroines. He had studied many a Rosalind and Portia in private life, and he believed that he knew genuineness. He saw in Rose a sweet and genuine charac- ter. Behind the flashing eyes and burning cheeks of this young girl who could not keep the eloquent blood from speaking appreciation of the sorrows of Lear, or the weird visions of Macbeth he thought he saw the divine fire. He had always delighted in her obedience and her efforts to learn. Already her Western burr had begun to dis- appear. She now rolled her " r " in the middle of a word, as French people do, giving her pronunciation distinctness, but she did not put the unnecessary letter on the end of her words. She was full of her part in the private theatricals, too, and that gave her a still greater interest in the study of elocution. The great evening of the play came, and the Union League Theatre was full of the expectant public. Seats had been sold at five dollars a ticket, and it was whispered 7 94 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. that Sir Lytton Leycester had bought the two front rows. These social affairs always command a tremendous audience in New York. Perhaps they do everywhere, as each one is anxious to hear how Sally and Margaret and Jane " do their part," and even those who are not successful give the town something to talk about as well as those who are. The very pretty toilets of an amateur actress who does not care how much she spends on the dresses, which would swallow up the earnings of a stock actress for a year or two, are also attractive, and therefore private theatricals, however stupid and however bad, are always well attended. But Arthur Amberley's theatricals were not bad ; he had taken extraordinary pains. Sidonie had thought very little of the play or its general effect. She only knew that she was to dress well and abase Miss Chadwick, and these were two passions of her soul. She had only generally observed Rose as an awk- ward and verdant personage, whose faults would, she was sure, obscure the faint glimmering of sympathy which the governess was to invoke. The play, she thought, rested with Fanny Grey, whose love episode was very pretty, and whose social position and fine gowns made her success (for success it was sure to be) palatable to Sidonie. So that " her set " won, Sidonie could forgive success. But after the somewhat lukewarm applause to the gen- teel mediocrity with which every one played had subsided, Sidonie entered upon her great scene with Rose. A burst of applause greeted Rose as she entered, in a plain merino which fitted her slender figure marvellously, and whose gray tone threw out her bright color most becomingly. She stood quite still as Sidonie, in her character as the A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 95 vulgar belle of the watering-place, admonished her govern- ess not to try to attract the admiring glances of the gentle- men, but to stay away from the piazza. When Rose answered, it was in a sweet, clear, full voice that had no ungraceful inflections ; it was another speech from that which she had brought from Chadwick's Falls. Suddenly it dawned upon the audience that the gray figure was the figure of the play. All the rest were but the " trappings and the suits of " fashion. Pretty situa- tions of joy, light gossip, and love, all had trooped across the mimic stage in proper conventional array ; the heart was silent; no angel had yet come to trouble the waters. But when the young girl, abused, misunderstood, and sorrowful, stood alone before them to be browbeaten, then the heart beat loudly, then the voice of nature spoke. And in the last scene, when the brutal woman referred to the poor girl's lost father, then did the answer come, swift and terrible. Rose became a great actress, all unknown to herself. "You speak of my father, madam; you refer to his calamities " the play went on " you say that I may have inherited his misfortunes. Yes, I have ; but, alas ! not his virtues nor his forbearance. Fate was cruel to the man of genius and to the man of honor, and he bore her assaults with true courage. He did not turn upon his detractors ; he spoke ill of no one. But his daughter has not inherited his patience. Madam, I renounce your service, and retire from it. None but a vulgar woman could have so insulted an unprotected girl ; none but a heartless fiend could have unearthed her dead father. The children of such mothers as you are should grow up murderers. I will have nothing to do with their education. Sorry am I for them in their 96 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. hour of innocence. If their mother can speak as you have done to a motherless girl, what sympathy will she have with them in their hour of need ? Take back your patron- age, your false and cruel assumption of assistance. The world is wide ; there will be found a home wherein I can earn my bread. I do not need you." And the amateur actress sank down, with real tears rain- ing over her cheeks, on a low footstool, in an attitude so unconscious and so graceful that Rachel might have envied it, to hear that wild, that tumultuous applause which has a music in it like the sound of a whirlwind over the trees of a forest. " Wonderful ! Clara Morris could not have done better. Splendid ! And how disgusted Sidonie looks !" " Well, her mother was an actress, you know," whispered the lady of the ballroom. " Her mother happened to be my sister, and was not an actress," said a venerable gentleman in white necktie and spectacles, looking at his voluble neighbor. " Who is that?" whispered the lady. " Oh dear ! it is President Williams, of Charpentier Col- lege," said the other. " You never know whom you are sitting next," said the first lady. When Rose reached the greenroom she was almost in hysterics. Fanny Grey put her soft arms about her and kissed her. " You are a great actress, dear," said she. We are all pup- pets beside you. See, I have cried until my stage rouge is all in streaks. Oh, Rose, it is a great privilege to have genius ! You have got it. It comes to you this power ; you do not have to seek it ; it is yours already ;" and this A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 97 generous, lovely daughter of luxury and conventionality, this girl whom fashion had not injured, calmed and soothed the poor excited child. When Harriet Amberley got through her scene, she too came to kiss and congratulate Rose, and wisely endeavored to calm her down for her last scene. " I wonder if Mr. Amberley is pleased ?" said Rose. "My brother? He is in an ecstasy of delight," said Harriot. " Now, Rose, whatever happens, do not lose your self-possession. Remember you must play your part to the end." It was difficult for Rose to obey this injunction, par- ticularly as Sidonie forgot her part, thus putting Rose out. She, however, did her bitter enemy a great service by, in her character of governess, almost upper servant, going over and picking up her gloves, which Sidonie had dropped, throwing in a bit of stage-business which was not in the play, and thus giving Sidonie time to recover herself an act which went to the heart of every amateur player, for who does not remember the cold chills, the agony of sus- pense, which any interruption of the stage-business creates in the bosom of the inexperienced aspirant to dramatic success ? When the play was ended, the stage was covered with bouquets. All were remembered, but Rose had the pretti- est basket of orchids from Sir Lytton, and the finest bunch of roses from Mr. Amberley. She was loudly called for after the curtain fell. Sidonie had refused to accede to Mr. Amberley's request that they should all bow to the audience, and had sulkily gone home. The calls increased in intensity, and Fanny Grey took Rose by the hand, and led her on herself before the curtain. 98 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. There they stood, the wild flower and the cultivated one, two young and beautiful women, near in character, for both were sound and true, and no one could say which was the sweeter. With their graceful, grateful courtesies the play ended. "I shall immediately take Wallack's Theatre for a matinee, and bring out my company, especially my new star," said Arthur Amberley, as he welcomed them all at a supper. " I think it was a little too tragic for private theatricals," said Mrs. Mortimer, who, however, was in very high per- haps assumed spirits. "That you owe to Miss Chadwick's acting," said Mr. Amberley. " She is one of your successes. Do you re- member when you asked me to take her around your par- lors?" " Yes. How like a savage she looked that evening !" said Mrs. Mortimer. " I did not think so," said Arthur Amberley. " Simply unconventional in dress and manner not vulgar ; that is a very different thing." " I wonder how much of etiquette is indigenous ?" said Mrs. Mortimer. " It is all arbitrary," said Amberley. " But she is catch- ing it quickly." " If we were to write out the story of Rose, it would seem improbable," said Mrs. Mortimer, looking at her as she sat on a distant sofa, holding a glass of lemonade high in one hand, as Sir Lytton Leycester and Jack Townley were talking to her. " Yes, any truth seems glaringly improbable when it is A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 99 written out ; but you and I remember the beautiful daugh- ters of a stage-driver who became baronesses and countesses, and we saw somewhat of Rose's story in theirs. I also re- member a young girl, now Lady Somebody, whose faux pas surpassed those of your protegee. ' What is grace but culture entering the hands and feet ?' says Emerson. I can tell him it is the dancing-master, the dressmaker, the school- master, the contact with society, the early training of the mother, the atmosphere of a refined home. It is all this. And as every society has certain arbitrary distinctions and observances which are entirely conventional, a girl must be ' learned in her surroundings,' or she will commit mistakes. No native refinement prevents the commitment of a social sin, which had no reason for being a sin except that it was the whim of some queen, or some king per- haps, a hundred years ago." " She has captured Leycester," said Mrs. Mortimer, look- ing furtively out of the corner of one eye. Amberley looked across the room with a not too pleased expression. " Well, the fashion is not unknown, and is growing," said he. " Betty dearly loved a lord. They have a value historical and personal, these men with handles to their names. Americans are accused, rightfully or wrong- fully, of carrying matters to extremes. Perhaps it is des- tined that England shall reconquer us, and avenge Yorktown. It is a sort of Roman-Sabine way of doing things, however, this coming over and taking all our beauties. I am emi- nently conservative, as you know, and prefer that American girls should marry Americans. I like Henry James, Jr.'s bru- tality to all young Englishmen ; he makes them desperately in love with American girls, and the American girls give them the mitten with such admirable and improbable patriotism." 100 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. " Perhaps, as Thackeray says, the wicked lords have all the money, and don't care," said Mrs. Mortimer. " But I assure you Sir Lytton is in earnest." XIV. " Now, if you please, Miss Rose, isn't truth stranger than fiction ?" said Sir Lytton Leycester, one fine morning, as he stepped into Mrs. Trevylyan's pretty parlor. " Isn't truth stranger than fiction ?" he went on, fumbling in his pock- ets for a letter which he could not find. "Do you re- member, Miss Rose, that we were speaking the other day of Marjoribanks Rebecca Ethel our and your old gov- erness ?" " Oh, I am sure I do !" said Rose. " What of her ?" " Just read that note, will you, please, and then tell me that we do not live in the land of dreams, that there is nothing in the cards, that spiritualism isn't true." " Oh, how well I remember the fine English handwrit- ing !" said Rose, looking at the note. " Rebecca Ethel has seen my name in the public prints, she says (you observe, Miss Rose, this pleasant way your American papers have of mentioning where one dines and calls, and where he takes his bath), and she appeals to me for a character." " Poor thing !" said Rose. " Do give her one." " So you bear no malice because Rebecca Ethel aspired to become your mamma-in-law ? You forgive her for Mang- nalVs Questions ?" " I am sure I do. Who could have helped loving papa?" A TRANSPLANTED ROSS. 101 said innocent Rose, who had no very clear ideas of the pro- prieties as interpreted by fashion. "Well, I do not know anything against her, I am sure," said Sir Lytton. " I think my mother sent her off because we were all through Mangnall. She was a good-looking, red-haired, Mercy Merrick sort of personage, was she not ? She cannot be so very young now." " She told me she was twenty-six," said Rose, to whom that age seemed to have been, then, Methuselan. " Add ten years to that, dear Miss Rose." " I mean to go and see her poor Miss Marjoribanks !" said Rose. " That would be kind," said Sir Lytton. " However, let us wait awhile. I wonder if I may sit down to your aunt's table, and use her lovely silver inkstand and jolly paper and clean pens to write out poor Rebecca Ethel a character? Stay, how do I know what she has done since?" " Oh, she has done nothing wrong. She is a good teacher, I know ; and if she is a little sentimental, that hurts nobody," said Rose. "She certainly taught you to sing very charmingly," said Sir Lytton. So between them these philosophers of eighteen and twenty - three gave Rebecca Ethel Marjoribanks a good character, by which she got a New York situation, thus influencing their own destinies more than they could have thought. Had they been older, they would have paused ere they gave a recommendation. The ease we might almost say the want of conscience with which people give "char- acters " in America has led to no end of trouble. So, as it may be supposed, Sir Lytton's recommendation, written on Mrs. Trevylyan's paper, with that lady's cipher 102 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. on the sheet, was a very valuable document to Rebecca Ethel Marjoribanks. It must not be supposed that the Honorable Hathorne Mack was idle, or neglecting his own interests, all this time. It is we who have been neglecting him. On the other hand, to the infinite surprise of Mrs. Trevylyan and Rose, he be- came evidently very much the fashion. Mrs. Mortimer ex- plained her interest in him by the fact that Mr. Mortimer had large business interests with him, and that he had re- quested her to show him attention. " He is a rough dia- mond, you know," said this sapient lady, " and he is rather just a little unconventional ; but he has sterling traits, and he is an important factor in the development of the West." All of which meant that the Honorable Hathorne Mack had some stock, or was creating some, in a Western railroad, of which Mr. Mortimer wanted shares yes, the lion's share. And Sidonie Devine courted him, and was seen in deep conversation with him at a Patriarchs' ball. Even Fanny Grey, refined and lovely, invited him to a tea, because every- body did ; and the seven exclusive McBrides, who came over in the first voyage of the Mayflower, all smiled sweet- ly on the great Mack, because he was supposed to be the coming decillionaire. At the dinners and receptions the Honorable Hathorne committed a thousand faux pas where Rose had committed one, and all were forgiven him. If he ate with his knife, pushed his food thereon with his fingers, and defiled the marble floors with tobacco juice, people either looked the other way or forgave it, because he was a rough diamond, a great power in Wall Street, a " coming man." Had any power seated just above the social circle of our best society unroofed the houses, like a modern Asmodeus, A TRANSPLANTED ROSB. 103 and had this much-needed spirit taken the pains to com- pare the behavior of the fashionable set towards the inex- perienced but naturally refined girl, and their subsequent be- havior towards the naturally brutal, repulsive, and ignoble man, that same spirit might have readily observed, " How inconsistent is humanity !" But as that has been said before, perhaps he would not have deigned to mention it. He might, however, have given a Mephistophelian grin. It would, perhaps, have not troubled the spirit to know why men courted the Honorable Hathorne Mack. Pluto is a god whose powers of persuasion, ever since he induced Proserpine to marry him, have been enormous, and if Ha- thorne Mack or any one else can get good points in Wall Street for a New York man of fashion, the man of fashion will take him out in his dog-cart to the races. But that women, refined women, should have so soon adopted him, seemed at first impossible. Ah ! Asmodeus, in your process of unroofing houses you have seen that woman, lovely woman, is sometimes venal. She too spec- ulates in Wall Street. Mrs. Morella and Sidonie Devine had a great passion for Wall Street. Almost every day at afternoon tea Jack Long came in, and Dicky Smallweed, and several others, with the stock quotations, and some thousands changed hands under the old blue teacups. Mrs. Morella had a beautiful house, every sort of por- tiere, where modern elegance made luxury and taste a pal- pable atmosphere, and yet what a jargon was talked there ! Jack Townley, whose devotion to Mrs. Morella had been the talk of the town, seemed to have fallen into disgrace with that lady since he had in a measure returned to Rose, and his place was filled by the Honorable Hathorne Mack, 104 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. whose bouquets were the biggest, as his dinners at Delmon- ico's were the most expensive, that Mrs. Morella had ever received or enjoyed. There was, however, one point on which Mrs. Morella and Sidonie held high and most painful discourse. "He wants me to receive his sister, that horrid Mrs. Philippeau," said Mrs. Morella. " Yes, I know it," said Sidonie. " A regular second-rate. It is terrible. We cannot do it." " It would be so different if she were not known at all ; but she is such an exact caricature of nous autres, and so conspicuous, and so ambitious, that I cannot, I will not, have the creature here," said Mrs Morella. " I have a thousand in Brandy Gulch," said Sidonie, reflectively, " and my broker says that, if he will, Ha- thorne Mack can make it worth ten times what I paid for it." " Oh, I am much deeper in than that," said Mrs. Morella, " but I would rather lose it all than to see that woman Philippeau in my drawing-room." " I tell you, we must temporize," said Sidonie. " Or we might let her in, and make it so uncomfortable for her that she would immediately be glad to go out again." " Oh no, we could not ; the Honorable Hathorne Mack is too clever for that. He would put us under the harrow if we did not treat her well. No more dinners at Delmonico's; no more points. When he sells a thing, it must bring its mar- ket value ; and when he buys, he buys cheap, and sells dear. I know him. It is only by feminine wit and artifice that we can keep Philippeau out. Just see here ; she has had the impudence to write to me about a governess I dis- charged, a creature named Ethel Marjoribanks, and who I A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 105 thought stole my diamond ear-ring. Don't you remember? I afterwards found it in the coupe. Well, I never answered the note, and she has written me another, saying I need not take the trouble, as she has had a charming character of her from Sir Lytton Leycester. Now did you ever hear of such a brute?" " No ; horrid, vulgar, pushing creature ! Well, I tell you, Fanny Morella, we shall have to notice her." " No, Sidonie, not yet not yet ; let us hope for better things." " I hope for nothing since I see the success of Rose Chadwick," said Sidonie, looking gloomily in the fire. " I have found out the attraction that draws Jack Town- ley and Sir Lytton," said Mrs. Morella. "What is it?" "They are both deeply interested in her father's silver mine." " And what draws Arthur Amberley ?" " Tired to death of Mrs. Mortimer," said Mrs. Morella. " Yes, that has something to do with it. But how he can bear her manners !" And yet Sidonie could bear the manners of the Honor- able Hathorne Mack ! Mrs. Philippeau, to do Mrs. Morella justice, was a most ob- jectionable person to the eye of exclusive fashion. She had married a rich French silk-importer, who had no idea that society would ever open its portals to him, nor did he wish it to do so. He was very willing that his wife should have all the brocades and diamonds, fine horses and opera- boxes she wanted, if she would leave him in his counting- room. He was sorry she fretted herself so about that world which went on without her, and often talked to her, with his IOC A TKANSPLANTED ROSE. mingled French philosophy and wit, his homely wisdom, of her folly. " Ah, Marie, vy air you so triste, cherie ? You haves ze fine horses you like, and I gives you diamond necklace at Noel. Now share up, Marie share up." (Mr. Philippeau congratulated himself on his knowledge of American slang.) " You sail go ze pace, Marie, if you like have dinners, fetes, all ze grand tings. Ven I vas leetle boy, I starve. I no have good coat like him" and he stretched out a sealskin arm. " Now I am varm, veil fed, have pretty vife. Marie, share up !" " Oh, what do you know of a woman's feelings, Mr. Phil- ippeau ?" said the ungrateful Marie. " What good do my fine clothes do me ? I go nowhere ; I cannot wear them ; I am not in society. I have no use for my horses ; they can drive me nowhere but around that stupid Park, of which I am tired. I see all the ladies chatting at the opera, but no one comes to speak to me except my brother." " Veil, he knows ze grandes dames : vy does he not make ze acquaintance for you ? And if it is not nice here, ven I make two, tree millions, very soon, ve go to France la belle France vere it is shareful. I say, Marie, share up." And the little square-faced, homely, plebeian Frenchman tried to kiss his pretty, vulgar, discontented wife, who would not cheer up at all. "I wish I knew Mrs. Mortimer, and Mrs. Trevylyan, and Mrs. Morella, and that pretty Miss Chadwick, and Miss Grey," said Mrs. Philippeau, sighing. Her cheerful little husband sighed too. Here was a grief which he could not reach ; here was a sorrow for which his honestly earned money could buy no balm of Gilead, A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 10? If a woman wants " society," society can be as cruel as the grave. " Here, papa ! here, mamma ! here comes Pierre," sound- ed a pleasant little voice through the splendid salon of Mrs. Philippeau, and the prettiest little boy dashed in, to be caught to the heart of his loving father, who felt that fort- une, comfort, and this boy were quite enough to be grate- ful for. " Ah ! here is petite maman for a kiss," said the delight- ed father, leading him up to his mother. Mrs. Philippeau saluted him gravely : the bitterness of her social ostracism blighted even the bliss of maternity. " Where is Miss Marjori banks ?" asked his mother, see- ing the boy alone. " Oh, she has gone out to walk, and I am to drive out with papa," said Pierre, grasping the fat, pudgy fingers with rapture. " Sail not chere maman go with us too ?" asked Philip- peau, modestly, looking at his wife. " Oh no. How perfectly common we should look, you and I and the child, on the seat of your dog-cart ! I wonder at your vulgarity, Philippeau !" So she sat and consumed her heart with bitterness. XV. " COME here, Rose ; I want to introduce you to a new relative," said Mrs. Trevylyan, as she caught Rose on the stairs just going out for her horseback exercise. "Presi- dent Williams, your mother's brother." 108 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. Rose found herself opposite the gray-haired, whitc-cravat- ted, grave gentleman who had spoken in her behalf at the theatricals. " I am not often in New York," said he, smiling ; " but I happened to be visiting a friend, who took me to see Miss Chadwick act at the Union League Theatre the other evening. I was delighted indeed to recognize a niece. You did very well. I remember your mother had a very pretty talent for these amusements. Now I have come as a peace-maker. Your father and I had some difficulty before you were born, and we have never spoken since. We are not to be commended for that, my dear. Now let us be friends. I live in a very quiet university town, but you must come next summer and pay your aunt and cousins a visit. I will write to Pascal to-morrow. Why, my dear, how much you look like your father and your mother both ! You make me feel ashamed of my past twenty years, wasted in a quarrel. Well, Pascal has been generous to me. He lost some money for me once, but he has paid it all up again." The President was agreeable, chatty, and kind. It gave Rose a new sensation to hear him talk, and to feel that she had kindred and friends. Mrs. Trevylyan was delighted with the reconciliation, for she had passed her life striving to smooth over family feuds. After Rose left them for Fountain was pawing the ground outside Mrs. Trevylyan gave President Williams a little sketch of his niece, her trials and her mistakes, and of her singular success. To the man who spent his life in the educating of young men, these lesser trials of a pretty girl who made a few blunders in etiquette seemed at first very trivial ; but Mrs. Trevylyan was a woman of sense, A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 109 and she opened before him many hidden views down the corridors of society which had not been revealed to him before. " She has been so neglected," said Mrs. Trevylyan. He listened and thought. Yes, he had been one of the people to blame. He might have sent for this orphaned daughter of his sister, and have given her a quiet, scholarly, and most excellent home : he had neglected her. " But she seems refined. I particularly liked her elocu- tion," said the President. " That we owe to the perseverance of Professor Paton," said Mrs. Trevylyan. " Ah, yes, I know him well. He was one of my old pro- fessors. I was sorry when he left us ; but he seems to be doing vastly better." " Yes, he has found his pot of gold, and many friends." " By-the-way, I have met an agreeable woman, who spoke of you and Rose Mrs. Carver ; she was painting a watej- color of a very pretty woman, Mrs. Philippeau." "Oh yes, Mrs. Carver, a most fascinating talker poor, very poor, has to aid herself by painting photographs. This Mrs. Philippeau is rich and vulgar, and knows that it is a good thing to patronize her." The President wrinkled his heavy brows. He did not like this talk of society, this sort of revealing of base motives. He had seen two agreeable women together, the one painting, the other being painted; he saw nothing vulgar in either no patronage, and no loss of caste. Mrs. Trevylyan was too experienced in the art of con- versation not to see that she had jarred upon the feelings of the President. " I ought to tell you more," said she. " Mrs. Philippeau is a woman who makes herself ridiculous by trying to be 8 110 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. fashionable. She pushes, and pushes, and pushes. She has money, but she does not know the fashionable set the set she wishes to know so she subscribes to every fashion- able charity; she goes everywhere that she can go; she apes the follies of the leaders of fashion, and Fashion, like every other passion, if I may so call it, only sees how fool- ish it is when it is caricatured ; therefore the women whom she wants to know take a wonderful pleasure in keeping her out. Mrs. Philippeau has observed that, after a cer- tain position has been reached, a reputation for fastness is a great and triumphant emblazonment, so she tries a little flirting, and all that sort of thing, with men who are not yet the fashion, not having the wit to observe that what would be forgiven to Mrs. Morella is rank blasphemy in a nobody. This, you may say, shows " " An impoverished moral sense," said the President. Mrs. Trevylyan laughed. " My dear President, I am ashamed to talk to a man of your dignity of these fol- lies of a crowded social life; I cannot find the proper phraseology." "I understand you, I think. You would say that this pretty woman, this Mrs. Philippeau, is a very bad copy of a villanous original do I understand you ?" " Yes," said Mrs. Trevylyan ; " you state it strongly." " I know you have forsaken it all, Mrs. Trevylyan. Tell me, do you not dread this modern world, this day in which we have thrown away too much ? We had guards, tradi- tions of good-breeding, in our day ; now we have none. Do you wish my niece to be a purely fashionable woman ? Tell me, has religion no place in this education which you are giving her ?" " Come here, President," said Mrs. Trevylyan ; and she A TRANSPLANTED KOSE. Ill led him into her own little sanctuary, where stood her writing-table. Books and work lay in orderly confusion. She led him to another table, where Eose bad marked out her own day's work. There lay her books of devotion and her calendar for the week. So many hours for study, so many for the poor and suffering, so many for religious duty, so many for her Bible class. The President was satisfied. " I ask your pardon, Mrs. Trevylyan. So long as she seeks fashion and a knowledge of etiquette with these strong grappling chains to hold her to an honest and true womanhood, I shall not despair ; but it seems light and frivolous to me." "And yet it is a service, this of the world, for which people strive and work hard," said Mrs. Trevylyan. " I suppose she is to inherit a large fortune I" asked the President. " I hear that Pascal is now rich, and with a certain fort- une," said Mrs. Trevylyan. " I hope so," said the President. " I am, however, thinking what would become of his daughter if he should die poor." "I believe Rose would have courage for any fate.' It is my business just now to prepare her for that life in the world to which, should she marry well, she may be called. You remember Tennyson's poem of the Lord of Burleigh and of the poor girl who died "'With the burden of an honor Unto which she was not born.' " "Yes; but we Americans are born to all honor." " I am aware of that. But we are not born to good manners. Nobody is. That must be taught. Since I 112 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. have seen Rose suffer, I feel how necessary these little things are. We must condescend to think that etiquette is a minor classic, which should be added to our academic course." " Well, well, I do not know but you are right, dear Mrs. Trevylyan. Certainly I am not too old or too countrified to be charmed by an agreeable manner. Good-morning, and give my farewell and love to Rose." Meantime Rose was trotting along in the Park, with her groom behind her, Harriet Amberley and Jack Townley not far behind ; but by her side Sir Lytton was riding, and looking into her bright eyes whenever Fountain gave him a chance. This intimacy had grown, as all such intimacies do, un- consciously. Sir Lytton did not mean to fall in love in America. He knew that there were many reasons why he should not. He had, however, encountered a beautiful, young, original woman, unlike any other whom he had met, preoccupied, too, when he first saw her, and careless of pleasing him. Yet, as he had known her better, she had grown so winning, so confidential, so full of respect and re- gard for his opinion, that the young baronet was completely won, and fell head over ears in love. A thousand times he tried to tell her so, but the hour was not yet arrived for that. Love is a fruit which will ripen and open in its own good time ; no gardener can force it. Every day Rose gave Sir Lytton some reason to think that she loved him ; every day she drove him to despair by a certain frankness and confiding naturalness which was not love. Sir Lytton knew very little of women, but he knew enough for that. He knew that Rose could live without him. So, disliking to destroy the charm of an ac- A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 113 quaintance which was always baffling and always charming, he allowed the golden moments to float along, with his message yet unspoken. He was as delightful as he could be, this young English- man. There wr.s a " contagion of nobility " about him : not only his refined Norman face, his perfect manners, his manly soul, his good heart, but he had a generous desire to make himself agreeable. He had a sunny kindness in his soul. Dogs and horses loved him ; servants liked to wait upon him ; he was the most unconscious fascinator. Love was not with Rose a matter of " two quadrilles and three waltzes." If she had partly forgotten Jack Townley, if she half remembered how he had been the first image in the magic mirror, she was not much to be blamed. Life to her was still a dream. Some new and almost contradic- tory incident came up every day, and she had not only to learn the ways of society, but that deeper and more in- tricate country, her own heart. Meantime Jack Townley, as many a worldling has done before and since, had been too much disturbed as to his digestion, or the fit of his clothes, or the proper tempera- ture of his Burgundy. Things were going wrong with Jack Townley. He did not quite know what was the matr ter. The quiet, soothing, and unexciting conversation of Harriet Amberley always had a comforting effect upon him, and to-day she, respecting his far-off glances, which be- trayed where he wished to be, i. e., in Sir Lytton's saddle, with a woman's tact began on a subject which made them both laugh. "Mrs. Carver's picture of Mrs. Philippeau is to go to the exhibition, I hear," said Harriet. "Ah, she has got so far, has she, poor pretty little 114 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. woman ! I wonder if Sidonie and Mrs. Morella will go and throw penknives at it? If I had my way, Mrs. Philippeau should be admitted to the F. C. D. C." " Her brother is, and he is less pretty." " Yes, decidedly ; but then he sells us ' Brandy Gulch,' you know, Miss Amberley." " I am glad he has stopped persecuting Rose," said Har- riet Amberley. " He has his eye on her, I assure you, Miss Amberley. He is a strange and powerful man ; he holds Pascal Chad- wick between bis thumb and forefinger. If he wishes to marry Rose, and she will not have him, I believe he is capable of ruining her father." " What a wretch !" said Harriet. " Why do you asso- ciate with him?" " Miss Amberley, I have long since determined to ask myself no questions. I do not know why I associate with anybody. I am the creature of fate." Harriet Araberley laughed, as if anybody was less the creature of fate than this man. Polished, elegant, selfish, well-born, and well-bred, with that devotion to society which becomes a profession, Jack Townley looked and acted as if enveloped in an armor of proof. He seemed to walk protected by the harness of many generations of London tailo/s, and yet Jack Townley suddenly felt that he had been playing genteel comedy all his life. Was there something else, something better than all this, or had he suddenly gone wrong in health ? " I don't know what is the matter with me to-day," said he apologetically to Miss Amberley, after a long silence. " Do forgive me for my stupidity. I believe I must give up smoking cigarettes." A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 115 " They are very harmful, I believe," said Harriet. " They are rolled in that horrid paper which gives you cancer on the lip, and polypus in the nose." " Oh, Miss Amberley, don't. Not so bad as that." Here Sir Lytton and Rose stopped for them, and the two girls chatted for a moment. XVI. " I KNOW what is the matter with you, Mr. Jack Town- ley," said Harriet to herself, as they trotted home, "and I know what is the matter with my grave brother, and with Sir Lytton. You have all found a fascinating young girl, who is as yet quite uncertain on which of you she will bestow the prize of her fresh young heart." Jack Town- ley was quite correct in his supposition that the Honorable Hathorne Mack did not mean to leave Rose alone. He had merely been, with his usual canning, playing out his salmon. He watched her movements with the secrecy of a cat, and was not at all unaware of the various "flirta- tions," as he called them, which she was carrying on with different men. He was a man who had gained everything he wanted in life by a sort of brutal courage, persistency, and assumption. He did not doubt that he should still gain all he wanted by the same means. He had a strong, determined passion for the girl ; it was the almost ferocious love which comes to a man when he has passed his first youth, when life lies behind him a partly conquered province, whose green fields and waving vineyards he is yet to enjoy. 116 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. Hathorne Mack had won his fortune and his position by the hardest toil. He felt that it was time for him to be- gin to enjoy. It was for Rose that he flirted with Mrs. Morella and Miss Devine. It was for Rose that he allowed these so- ciety men to become his slaves or his dupes as he held forth his tempting shares. He gave dinners at Delmonico's that Rose might hear of them ; he sent flowers, played the magnifico, that Rose might be dazzled. He was not with- out a certain sense of gratified power that all these elegant people began to pay court to him, Hathorne Mack ; and he thought sometimes of the country tavern where he was reared, and the old mother who had sat and smoked her pipe as she hurled epithets at him, and of his own ragged, neglected self in those days, with a sort of satyr satisfac- tion. Then he remembered the only good deed of his life : how after the old people dfed he had taken his young sister, the child of their old age, and had supported her, ed- ucated her after a fashion, and brought her along until now she was the rich, handsome, discontented Mrs. Philippeau. He had more affection for this sister than for any one on earth. Until he had fallen in love it may be safe to say that his sister was the only human being he cared for at all. When she made an excellent marriage in a worldly sense, Hathorne Mack had ceased to take any particular care of her. But now that he had come to New York, she claimed of him his old love and kindness. She demanded that he should give her society, as he had given her clothes and schools and food and shelter in the past. But the two found that society was a good which money rould not always buy. A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 117 Mrs. Mortimer said, when he asked her to call on his sister : " Dear Mr. Mack, my visiting-list is so large that I never get round once in two years. I have solemnly prom- ised Mr. Mortimer that I will not know another person. Why, look at the cards left to-day ! Just imagine my em- barrassment ! My sister Louisa marriad into the Delavans, and they are legion. Now a Delavan has married a Mo- rella, and they are as the sands of the sea. They alone have sent me five new acquaintances, on whom I must call. Now, isn't that intolerable? Just wait awhile be- fore you ask me to call on anybody. Mrs. Morella ought to call ; she is a young woman, with no visiting-book at all. And Jack Townley and Dicky Smallweed must get your sister's name put down for the balls, and the skating- rink, etc." Mrs. Morella pleaded bad health, and all sorts of absurd things, until she saw the Honorable Hathorne Mack grow purple in the face. " What is the matter with my sister ?" he asked. " She is as good-looking and as well dressed as any of you, and has a great deal more money." " But, dear Mr. Mack, she has such a dreadfully vulgar husband," said Mrs. Morella, driven into a corner. The Honorable Hathorne Mack did not like his brother- in-law. Here he was content with an explanation. The little Frenchman knew how to take care of his money. He never went into any of the schemes. His dollars rolled up, and he put them safely away ; bought corner houses on Fifth Avenue, and things which he could see. Then he sent home to France, and perhaps did a neat thing on the Bourse, if he speculated anywhere. " I vill go down to ze bank of my good friend Moses 118 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. Tayleure, and put in ze rest for Marie," he would whisper to himself, as the good money rolled in. " But my brother- in-law, no. He has not ze clean hands. No !" So when Mrs. Morella declared that poor little Philip- peau stood in the way, and prevented the gates of fashion from flying open, the Honorable Hathorne Mack was in- clined to believe her. Mrs. Trevylyan and he had come to an almost open fight, so he could hardly ask her to call. In fact, he dread- ed those clear, courageous eyes of hers. He knew she would say no, and would tell him the reason why. But Fate, whose puppets we all are, threw Mrs. Philip- peau into society, and society at Mrs. Philippeau, in a strange way, by a dreadful misfortune to poor Rose, whose sky became suddenly overcast. Fountain had never been quite safe since his first fright. He had been startled once or twice by a passing vehicle, and had attempted to run. Rose was an admirable horse- woman, and thoroughly acquainted with his mouth ; her own seat was perfect. So, allowing him the rein judicious- ly, she had always succeeded in curbing him at last. But on one nearly fatal Friday, as she was coming out of the Park, Fountain took fright and ran ; and as he did so a victoria in front of him caught in the wheel of an- other vehicle, was overturned, and a general commotion caused a great crowd and confusion. Fountain became that dreadful thing, a crazy, frightened horse, and ran away down through Fifth Avenue, wholly unmindful of the firm little hand on the rein. Rose showed admirable coolness. Those who looked long remembered the closely shut lips, the bright wide-open eye, the high color, the firm seat. She put her hand on A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 119 his neck, spoke to him, held his head firmly ; but it was of no use. He was wildly insane, mad, and uncontrol- lable. All of a sudden she heard the clatter of a horse's hoofs behind her, and Fountain swayed to the left. A sharp, sudden, dreadful pain struck her leg. The shaft of a pass- ing vehicle had knocked violently against her. She felt deadly sick, and knew that in a moment she should fall into that terrible vortex of passing carriages, when an arm was reached out that clasped her waist, and she felt that she was being lifted from her horse. Then all grew black before her as she caught a glimpse over her shoulder of the hateful face of Hathorne Mack. Yes, he had saved her life. He knew how to ride, did the Honorable Hathorne. He had learned of the Mexicans, and had before this seized an adversary off a horse. He had been riding in the Park, watching Rose from afar off, and had intended to join her as she emerged into Fifth Avenue. Whether she had seen him or not, he could not tell; but he saw Fountain begin to run. Then to follow her, to catch her as she was about to fall, was a brave and manly thing. Perhaps not another man in New York could have done the deed of strength and daring which he did. Xor was it easy for him to support his fainting bur- den, or to control his own horse, with Rose in front of him, until he could turn into a side street. But, that done, all was easy. The crowd followed him. Rose was gently lifted down, and he alighted. A doctor came and felt her heart. A woman with red hair emerged from the crowd. " Rose Chadwick," said she, kneeling by her side. It was her old governess, Miss Marjoribanks ; and when 120 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. Rose opened her eyes, she gave a little groan, and recog- nized her. They tried to lift her to her feet, and she leaned on Miss Marjoribanks. " My leg is broken," said the poor girl, falling again, and faint with pain. " Take her to your sister's house ; it is just around the corner. She must not be carried farther," said Miss Mar- joribanks to the Honorable Hathorne Mack. Little Philippeau was just going up his steps as he saw the mournful procession coming thither. His governess ran on to explain. Never did an honest gentleman open his door more quickly ; never was a doctor brought more speedily; never did a more tender heart feel for the wounded and suffering. And then he ran to tell Marie, who would be nervous and frightened, he feared. Aias for the nobility of his own nature, he little knew of the selfish joy which filled the heart of Marie ! She saw it at a glance. Now she would get into society ; now was her chance ! Fate had opened the door. And she was not disappointed. Mrs. Trevylyan was by her niece's side in half an hour, overwhelmed with sorrow, anxiety, and gratitude. The doctor declared that Miss Chadwick must not be moved, and Mrs. Philippeau put her whole house at the disposal of doctors and nurses. She reminded Mrs. Trevylyan that she had accidentally engaged Miss Chadwick's old governess (with a recommen- dation from Sir Lytton Leycester), and that no one could be more devoted than she would be, etc., etc. Mrs. Trevylyan, a feeble invalid herself, was overcome by all this kindness. " What injustice I have been doing this woman !" said she. A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 121 Mis. Mortimer, Fanny Grey, Harriet Amberley all called the next day to inquire for Rose. Nothing could be more sweet, more gentle, more delightful, than Mrs. Philippeau. Every one went away charmed. Then came Jack Townley, Sir Lytton Leycester, Jack Long, Dicky Small weed ; and finally, since every one called, so did Mrs. Morella and Sidonie Devine. The rescue had been so romantic ! Honorable Hathorne Mack came near having a reception tendered to him at the City Hall. Then it was discovered that Mrs. Philippeau's house was full of pretty things such water-colors ! such miniatures ! such china ! such bric-a-brac ! Of course no one saw Rose. She, poor child, lay in a burning fever, scarcely conscious that old Martha and Miss Marjoribanks and Mrs. Trevylyan and a strange new nurse hovered around her bed. She had been injured more than they thought. The broken leg was not the only wound. And the fright, the terrible shock to the nervous system, came when she was wearied by a winter of extraordinary excitements, and after much work. Yes, much, too much, work. So society, shocked, stunned, grieved as it was for a day or two by so serious an accident to one who had held but lately so prominent a place in its circles, turned in its way to the later sensation, Mrs. Philippeau, who re- ceived all her callers with a grave dignity, and who re- ported Miss Chadwick's condition with the sincerest con- cern. " I declare she is all right, except that she wears her diamonds in the morning," said Mrs. Morella. " She has excellent teacups," said Sidonie. " And what 122 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. a good-looking red-haired woman that is who sits and turns out the tea !" " Oh ! that is the English governess," said Mrs. Morella. "Do you know, Sidonie, I should not wonder if she had given Mrs. Philippeau some hints ? She is not half so vul- gar as she was." " She is quiet enough," said Sidonie. The gentlemen were all in favor of Mrs. Philippeau. Her beauty began to assert itself under the favorable cir- cumstances of Worth peignoirs, shaded rooms, and a sad air. Ethel Marjoribanks sat and poured the tea, and enter- tained the Honorable Hathorne Mack, and observed the world which floated before her in a still, quiet way. Her pupil Pierre gave her but little trouble. He had two nurses to dress him and undress him ; he had his loving father to caress and drive him out ; and the English gov- erness, who had been the foot-ball of fortune for many a long year, thought that her lot had at last fallen in pleas- ant places. Many a hint did she contrive to give to Mrs. Philip- peau, who knew little or nothing of society. She wrote her notes ; she told her of the families she had lived with in England; she advised this calm, dignified self- abnegation. No vulgar young upstart ever had a better friend. Meantime Miss Marjoribanks was watching the situation. It grew more interesting and more complicated every day. She taught Pierre conscientiously. She nursed Rose, when her turn came, faithfully. Meantime she was speculating upon higher game. A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 123 XVII. "Is polite society polite?" What, after all, are the requisites for good society ? A high moral character, a polished education, a perfect command of temper, good- breeding, delicate feelings, good manners, good habits? Are wit, accomplishments, and talent advantages ? Is society the meeting on a footing of equality, and for the purposes of mutual entertainment, of men, of women, together, of good character, good education, and good- breeding, or is it a place where wealth commands the first place, and where a spotless reputation is of very little ac- count unless it has something else to offer to a selfish world ? Certainly the old ideas were all comprehended in the earlier codes, even the selfish code of Chesterfield. But in the modern world of society in England and in America, we learn to-day that these requisites do not al- ways enter into the demeanor of the fashionable. The first maxim of politeness was to be agreeable to everybody, even at the expense of one's own comfort. The fashion- able expert of to-day treats herself to a great license of rudeness, and the bad-mannered are most powerful. Every one fears them, every one pulls away a foot if it is to be trampled upon. We have seen how in the case of poor Rose the absence of a knowledge of a set of arbitrary rules which society has made for its own preservation caused her annoyance and distress. We have seen, also, how the cruelty of those 124 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. whose mission it was to be polite had hurt her feelings and confused her mind. We ought all to be thankful for these arbitrary rules, for they save much trouble, doubt, and un- certainty. With a knowledge of these ordinances of society, the least skilled person can in a short time take her place comfortably at a court, if called upon to do so. But for the cruelty and bad-breeding of those who stand at the portals of good society, like bad angels with flaming swords to smite rather than to give the accolade, we have no explanation, and can find no forgiveness. Despots of fashion, like all despots, change their minds more frequently than other people, nor do they ask any- body to excuse them for so doing. So no one received an apology from Mrs. Mortimer, Mrs. Morella, or Miss Devine that they began in a patronizing way to speak of Mrs. Philippeau as if she were " one of us," that some grudging invitations were given to her, and that on the Avenue she received a few mutilated bows. Her own manners and dress were undergoing a change, and an improvement, but Mrs. Philippeau did not grow refined half as fast as her enemies grew forgiving, for motives of their own. These were great days for Brandy Gulch. Sidonie Devine made a large sum of money ; Mrs. Morella came out with a new diamond necklace; and the Honorable Hathorne Mack was in the highest of spirits. But Mrs. Trevylyau was breaking down with a new anxiety. Her telegrams and letters to her brother re- mained unanswered. The Scotch farmer wrote that Mr. Chadwick had departed for Alaska, without telling them when he should come back, and that they were expecting to hear from him every day. A TRANSPLANTED ROSB. 125 The Scotchwoman, who entered his deserted parlor to lay one letter after another on that now dusty pile which had been accumulating for weeks, thought sadly of the brilliant child who had once brightened the room, and anxiously of her master. He was often gone a long time, but they heard from him ; he sent for his letters, and made them some communication. Now he had relapsed into unusual silence. Mrs. Trevylyan was unable to go and see Rose now, for her old malady came back, as it always does when the mind is troubled, and she was laid up with rheumatism ; but she wrote to Hathorne Mack to ask him what could have become of Pascal Pascal, who should know of his daughter's accident. The Honorable Hathorne Mack did not trouble himself to answer hurriedly. When he deigned to explain, he wrote that his friend Chadwick had probably sailed for the Sandwich Islands, where they had some joint in- terests. "Ah, madam," said he to himself, snapping his pudgy fingers, "you dared and defied Hathorne Mack, did you? Well, I should like to see which of us is ahead just now !" Rose was indeed in the hands of her enemies. She had been delivered over to them, bound hand and foot. For many weeks she was too ill to care much, and pain absorbed all her attention. As for physical comforts, she had enough and to spare, and she was as well cared for as ever patient with broken leg could be. That horrible plaster jacket would have been equally intolerable anywhere, but every taste was con- sulted, every alleviation procured. She and Miss Marjori- banks had never been enemies ; they became almost warm friends in these bitter days, and her other friends were 9 126 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. very kind. Flowers and fruits, and cards and notes, all poured in upon her. And she was very much entertained by Pierre, and got / J to like the kind-hearted little Frenchman, her host. He was so sincerely sorry for her, and so kind and amusing ! He invented a thousand little surprises for " ze poor mademoiselle," and was always bringing her a bird in the cage, a marmot, a squirrel, a little dog ; a parrot even oc- curred to him as likely to rouse her spirits in her cap- tivity. She had been told carefully of her father's probable de- parture for the Sandwich Islands and of her aunt's illness; so, as Martha came every day with cheerful face, she ac- cepted these two desagrements with patience. She was accustomed to her father's absence. Her hostess she liked least of all, although Marie was very kind. No sort of conversation amused Mrs. Philip- peau excepting the tittle-tattle of society, and her questions seemed to Rose to be those of an inquisitor. She was asked how she liked Mrs. Mortimer ; how many balls and dinners she gave ; how many Mrs. Morella gave ; whether Mrs. Morella " stood as high " as Mrs. Mortimer, and which was called the better dressed ; what gentlemen were " atten- tive;" and who was the greater belle, Fanny Grey or Sidonie Devine ? Poor Rose did not feel at all qualified to answer these questions, nor were they at all important to her, even if she could have answered them. " I wonder why you want to know ?" she one day imprudently remarked. Marie looked at the girl curiously. " Why, haven't you enjoyed society ?" said she. " No, not always," said Rose. " Have you ?" A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 127 " N n no, not always," said Mrs. Philippeau ; " but I should if I were like you, a great belle." " I was not one," said Rose. " I made so many mis- takes, people laughed at me." " But you were invited everywhere." "That was for my aunt's sake, not mine," said simple Rose. " Were you ever cut cut dead ?" said poor Mrs. Phil- ippeau. "What!" " Were you ever cut ? Did anybody you had once known ever pass you and not bow to you?" asked Marie. " No, I suppose not ; I never noticed it. Why should they ?" " I think that is a part of society," said Mrs. Phil- ippeau. " I knew some New York people very well at Saratoga, and when they came back here they used to look me in the face and not bow to me." " They must have been near-sighted," said Rose. " No ; they cut me, cut me dead, because I was not in society." She said this with a sort of groan of pain, a voice in which anguish struggled with anger. The parrot heard it, and with a sort of fiendish mockery repeated, " Cut, cut dead !" " Perhaps they thought you cut them ?" said Rose, who was learning of a new pain one which perhaps was more hard to bear than even a broken leg. Then when Rose was able to move to a sofa and the window, Marie would sit by her side, and ask who people were, and bring her cards up-stairs, and wonder which were 128 A TRANSPLANTED KOSE. left for Rose and which for herself, and show such an in- terest in society that Rose began to ponder anew upon the vexed subject, and wonder, after all, what society really was, whether an instrument of torture or beneficent inven- tion, whether Mrs. Philippeau would be so anxious for it if she knew more of it. Rose had never heard that wise saw, " Great minds are content with very little society ; it is the weakest class that can never do without it." But convalescence brought a less agreeable person than Mrs. Philippeau to the little boudoir where Rose lay for many weeks after recovery set in. This was the Honorable Hathorne Mack, whose flowers and grapes had been sent up most liberally. His sister brought him in to pay his respects, and of course poor Rose could say nothing to prevent the visit. She owed him her life ; he was her father's friend ; she was in his sister's house. All, all were arguments in his favor ; but she loathed him as he took her hand and held it to his greasy waistcoat. " Well, Miss Rose, getting pretty perky ? I hope we shall have you down soon. You never will ride that beast again, I can tell you." " Why not ?" asked poor Rose. " Oh, he broke his leg, and a policeman shot him, down by Twenty-third Street," said Hathorne. " Fountain shot ! Fountain dead !" said Rose. And she turned her face on her pillow and wept aloud. " Now don't take on so. I'll give you another horse better than that devil. Why, I'd never have let you ride him again, Rose never. He'd never haf e been safe, you know." But the Honorable Hathorne Mack did not speed in his A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 129 wooing that day. His assumption of ownership, his fa- miliar address oh ! how it began to fold itself around Rose like the slimy coil of the anaconda ! And then the tidings he brought poor Fountain dead ! There was no help for it, however. She was glad to see other people, and as they were allowed to come and see her, the Honorable Hathorne Mack was permitted to come, of course. At last she made_ a treaty with Marjori- banks, which was this, that the governess and Pierre would always be in the room, and that they should divert and distract Mr. Mack from his love-making. This good deed Miss Marjoribanks undertook with great alacrity. She had known the Honorable Hathorne in her life in the West, and she showed great tact in talking to him. She led him off on the subject of his enterprises. She made him brag and boast, and fight his battles over again. She saved Rose many a dreadful hour. Sir Lytton Leycester and Jack Townley, Mr. Amberley and Jack Long, were admitted together one day ; for Mrs. Philippeau gave a tea, and invited the people who had called. Rose had never looked more lovely than as she lay there in a curtained bow-window, looking out on the sunset with the refined convalescent air on her pale face, and the new light in her eyes which suffering always brings. Harriet Amberley was sitting with her, and Fanny Grey knelt by her sofa, playing with some flowers. " Now no one need tell me that this picture is not a composition," said Arthur Amberley. " It is all gotten up for the ruin of our peace of mind. My dear Miss Rose, how can I tell you how I have been torn with anxiety lest you should never dance so well again ?" 130 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. "The doctor says I shall dance better," said Rose, glad of his scoffing humor. " Impossible ! He is a quack. I shall await the spring balls with anxiety." Jack Townley was all that good-breeding and correct taste could suggest. He gave her a little package, to open when she was alone, he said. " What can it be ? It is too large for an engagement ring," said Amberley. Sir Lytton sat down and looked at her while the others were talking. He too had his gift, and he held her hand a moment longer than the rest. " I haven't brought you anything but myself, dear Miss Rose," said Arthur Amberley, laughing, and taking leave. Jack Townley's gift was a riding-whip coiled up, with " Good Luck " on a miniature horse-shoe. But Sir Lytton's was the real thing one of Fountain's small hoofs, set in silver, and on it was engraved, " Foun- tain, the playfellow." XVIIL THE prolonged absence of Pascal Chadwick began to alarm his business friends, and to be talked about in New York. But Rose, although always grieved not to hear from her father, remembered he had never been a good letter-writer; therefore she thought it not so strange as the others did that she had no news of him. She was very well now, but not well enough to leave her room yet, the doctor said, so that her visit to Mrs. Philippeau became a long one. She was greatly amused, A TRANSPLANTED KOBE. 131 and also much bored, by that lady's questions upon the subject of etiquette, none of which she felt qualified to answer ; but perhaps she learned much by thus being made a teacher. Mrs. Philippeau brought her half a dozen manuals on the subject of etiquette, all of which conflicted, and all of which seemed to Rose to be full of mistakes. She could only tell Mrs. Philippeau what her aunt did and what Mrs. Mortimer did ; but that was in its way invaluable assistance to Marie. Miss Marjoribanks was of great service too. Well trained in an aristocratic English house, Miss Marjoribanks knew the formal English etiquette, which, although it differs from ours somewhat, was yet a good guide. She had the best of all possible styles of note-writing, however, and that was a part of education which in the case of Mrs. Philippeau had been neglected. " Now, how soon should I return my cards ?" asked Mrs. Philippeau. "I believe Mrs. Mortimer said within a week or ten days ; and if a person only leaves a card, you must only leave a card ; if she calls, you must call," said Rose. " Now I am going to a house where three or four people live. Must I leave a card for each, or must I write their names on the cards I leave ?" " Oh no ; don't write their names. That, Aunt Laura says, looks like an Irish boarding-house. Leave a card for each." " Must I send in my card before I go in myself ?" " Oh no ; not if the lady is at home." " What must I do with Mr. Philippeau's card ?" (Poor Jean Pierre !) " Leave it on the hall table," said Miss Marjoribanks. 182 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. Another point which embarrassed Mrs. Philippeau was the matter of introductions. One book told her one thing, and another book told her another thing. Rose told her that Mrs. Mortimer considered it the most improper thing possible to introduce two people who lived in the same city to each other, but that her aunt always did it, considering it kinder, as American ladies never will chat with each other as English ladies do if in the same drawing-room, the latter considering the " roof " a sufficient introduction, and also arguing that the two ladies could go down the steps and never know each other again if they so chose. " Now ought I to rise when people come to call 2" she asked. Miss Marjoribanks answered by reading from an excellent work she held in her hand. " ' If a second visitor arrives ten or fifteen minutes after the first visitor, the first visitor should take her leave as soon as she gracefully can ; the hostess would rise, meet 'and shake hands with the second visitor, if a lady, and then reseat herself. If a gentleman, she would not rise. The second visitor would at once seat himself, or herself, near the hostess. She would not, of course, formally introduce the visitors to each other, unless she had some especial reason for so doing; she would, how- ever, in the course of conversation casually mention the name of each visitor, so that each might become aware of the name of the other. Formal introductions on these oc- casions are rarely made. But if the hostess possesses tact and a facility and readiness of speech, she would skilfully draw both visitors into a conversation. 1 " Poor Marie Philippeau ! this she knew she could never do; and she knew that her set who would come to her A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 133 " days " must never be presented to the fashionable ac- quaintances whom a lucky chance had thrown in her way. She was not quite so hardened as a certain family in New York, who, marrying their daughter to the black sheep of a fashionable family, whose alliance brought them the right to send cards to Mrs. Mortimer's set, then and there deliberately dropped all their old acquaintances, even the grandfather and brothers and cousins, and have been laughed at ever since, but are counted in in the set ! No, Marie Philippeau had not the courage of her opin- ions. She did not quite dare to do this; so she wonder- ed how she should amalgamate set No. 1 with sets Nos. 2 and 3. "Ought I to accompany my departing guests to the door?" said Mrs. Philippeau. "Ask Miss Marjoribanks," said Rose. "I never saw Mrs. Mortimer do so." " If the lady is of sufficient rank, you should do so," said the Englishwoman. " But we have no rank here," said Mrs. Philippeau. " Haven't you ?" said Miss Marjoribanks. " Then why do you talk of sets?" " I notice that some people seem to be of greater impor- tance than some other people," said Rose. " I never could see why." Rose and Miss Marjoribanks had hit upon the difficulty, and the reason why all American etiquette is so undefined. They could neither of them tell why Mrs. Mortimer wag better than Mrs. Simpkins, who was a conspicuous horroi of set No. 3. " Must I introduce a lady to a gentleman ?" asked Mrs, Philippeau. 184 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. " No ; a gentleman must always be presented to a lady," said Miss Marjoribanks. " Now next week, at my dinner, must I introduce the people?" said poor Marie, remembering that the persons her guests would know least would be her husband and herself. "You must, I think, ma'am," said Miss Marjoribanks, " present them all to Mr. Philippcau " (poor Jean Pierre !), " and then only the gentleman to the lady whom he takes in to dinner. However, in England, Lady Leycester said that at dinners, both large and small, the hostess should use her own discretion as to the introductions she thinks proper to make. It is not the custom in England to in- troduce people at a dinner party ; they talk without being introduced." " They never do that here," said Rose ; " it is very stiff." Little Jean Pierre Philippeau gare his guests an excel- lent dinner, and it was admirably served. There the little Frenchman was at home. He never could make his wife speak French ; but the ladies on either side of him had the tact to talk to him in his own tongue, and he was neither vulgar nor inelegant. His wife, who had expected to be ashamed of him, was not at all so. Indeed, it oc- curred to her that perhaps after all Jean Pierre was not so common as he looked. His wines were excellent, and that won the men. Of course they all went away and abused him and his pretty and violently vulgar wife, and said that he must have been a cook when at home in France, to give them such plats, and " perhaps he had come over here and married a cham- ber-maid who knows ?" Such are the rewards showered A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 135 upon new people who show a desire to penetrate the inner circle of the best society. When they are fairly in, they turn and ask the same questions. Well may Mrs. Julia Ward Howe ask, " Is polite society polite ?" Mrs. Philippeau was a little fussy, and was pronounced by the ladies as being without repose, without dignity, and without savoir-vivre. She showed too much interest in her guests, tried to amuse them, asked them to be helped twice, which was a terrible social sin, and overdid her cordiality. These were her faults at a dinner. But she appeared very well at afternoon tea, where she sat behind her own pretty table equipage and poured out a cup of tea as her guests talked to her. Rebecca Ethel had trained her teas on the English fashion, where afternoon tea is understood. The little business of the tea gave her an outlet for her nervous- ness, and she learned not to ask any questions, but to serve everybody silently and naturally while she chatted of the events of the day. Jack Townley came often to see Mrs. Philippeau. He found her very pretty. Not a pin did he care for her early unconventionalities ; he knew they would all wear them- selves off in a short time. They were not appalling, like those of Rose, which came the nearer to him that he had been even then a little in love with Rose. Here was new game for Jack Townley a very pretty and very rich young married woman, married to a square-faced little Frenchman of decidedly plebeian appearance. He saw many good din- ners and many afternoon teas before him in that elegant and even sumptuous house. He was not averse, either, to pleasing the Honorable Hathorne Mack, nor to the chance of seeing Rose, who was occasionally visible. It was to him that Mrs. Philippeau carried some of hei 180 A TRANSPLANTED RO8B. society distresses, and, as she was very pretty, he did not laugh at her, but helped her. " Don't be too polite to people," said he. " Not too polite !" said Marie, opening her eyes. " No ; be a little insolent. Your new friends will like you a great deal better. Now you must forgive me, dear Mrs. Philippeau, if I am a little prosy. We have made a new departure in America. On the Continent, any man, whether you know him or not, who crosses your threshold with friendly intent, is your guest, and you are bound to treat him with the truest respect. Here, half your ac- quaintances will respect and like you better if you treat them very badly." " Why ?" asked Marie, opening her pretty eyes. " Because they will think you think so well of yourself that you think very ill of them." "I cannot Imagine such a state of things," said Marie. "Wait, then, till you see certain hostesses, and the way they treat the persons they invite to their houses," said Jack Townley, anxious to prepare Mrs. Philippeau for her own sorrows. " I thought," said Mrs. Philippeau, remembering one of the few adages that she had learned at the boarding-school to which Hathorne Mack had sent her, " that a lady was always bound to be polite in her own house." "An exploded idea of our grandmothers," said Mr. Townley. "Now, again, on the Continent, your host's friends are your friends. When I enter a room in Paris, I have a right to speak to everybody present. The friend- ship of your host is enough. But here I should no more speak to a man whom I met at Mrs. Mortimer's, without an A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 187 introduction, than I should slap him on the back. And imagine two ladies speaking in your parlor !" Poor Mrs. Philippeau went to her first ball after this, and endured all the snubs, cold shoulders, and almost cuts which are served out so liberally to the new-comers, while Jean Pierre cooled his heels outside looking in at the dancers. Ah, if it had been under the walnuts of sunny Provence, how he would have liked to waltz with his own Marie ! He thought she looked prettier than anybody there, and the diamond necklace was becoming. But she sat alone, and there was a frown on her brow. She had told him not to come near her ; so he did not dare to go and com- fort her, to take her some champagne, and to dance with her. And none of the ladies who had dined with him seemed to know him, or to remember his existence at all. Presently Jack Townley approached the lonely woman, and asked her to dance. Ah, how glad was poor Jean Pierre to have his little wife " taken out," and to see her brow clear! And he rejoiced to look at her as she danced. " That is a nice Mr. Jaques Townley," said he ; " ze best of zem all, to be kind to my Marie." He spoke out loud in his pleasure, and as he did so a quiet-looking gentleman stopped and extended his hand. " Mr. Philippeau Mr. Amberley. I have been at your house several times. Allow me to introduce myself. A very pretty ball? Yes. Mrs. Philippeau is, I see, enjoy- ing herself. Suppose we step in to supper ?" " I declare, Marie," said Jean Pierre, as they drove home, " one man did speak to me." 138 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. ROSE was made the confidante of all Mrs. Philippeau's distresses. They seemed to be a sort of caricature of her own sufferings, and to make the whole business of " suc- cess in society " a foolish and absurd ambition, a poor thing. We are very apt to judge of ourselves and our motives *as artists do of their pictures, by holding them up to a mirror. The reflection shows us wherein lies the bad drawing. Mrs. Philippeau was a rather distorted mirror, to be sure; what we call "an unbecoming looking-glass," of which every lady has seen at least one specimen. To see her late ambitions, which were honest enough in her own simple way of thinking, reflected back to her from the vulgar, uneducated, and selfish soul of Mrs. Phil- ippeau, gave Rose (who was rather morbid and nervous from her long and suffering imprisonment in a plaster jacket, which the surgeons had deemed necessary to the broken leg) a great sense of shame. It seemed so indelicate to hear Mrs. Philippeau complain because people did not invite her. Rose felt as if she ought not to listen to her when she said, " Well, I suppose she didn't think I was good enough for her," or, "He wouldn't have treated Mrs. Mortimer so," or, " Why don't the Amberleys ask me to dinner?" etc. remarks which Mrs. Philippeau continually made. She was a self-tormentor, this pretty little woman, wear* ing her soul out to enter that society which was carelessly and selfishly indifferent to her. Even the extraordinary A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 188 luck which had partly pried open the closely shut doors of fashion was to her but an aggravation, for she heard of thousands of things to which she was not invited, and she saw that her presence at a ball or party was looked upon rather as an intrusion. She was not yet " one of us" a phrase which she often heard her guests use. She was like the traveller in Mexico who, in order to climb a mountain, must pull himself up by the prickly cactus, and through a jungle of cruel spines, all of which wound and tear the flesh. The dear little Pierre, who had grown very intimate with Rose during her illness, used to jump into his mother's lap, and seeing her brow knit and lips contracted, would, with a child's instinctive sympathy, try to smooth away the irritation. " Come, pretty mamma," he would say, " throw away these naughty letters that make you so unhappy " as the smooth white cards came in, and on being opened proved to be not the ones Mrs. Philippeau desired " throw them all away, and come play with Rose and me." " Oh, Pierre, go away ! go away ! What do you know of society ? Why shouldn't Miss Fanny Grey invite me ?" Then she would call her little dog Pink, and tucking him under her arm with far more tenderness than she had shown Pierre, the poor foolish Marie would go down stairs to see Jack Townley, who now came in every afternoon to drink tea with the pretty woman, to look out the window with her to see the world go by, and to tell her who were the occupants of the various victorias arid broughams, car- riages, T-carts, tilburys, and four-in-hands which swept up the broad and varied panorama of Fifth Avenue. "There goes Louisa Wallace," said Marie, bitterly. 140 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. " She is an old friend of mine ; but when she married into the Rigton family she cut me." " Well, she knew how to do that, she had been so often cut herself," said Jack Townley, laughing. " She was married for her money by that dreadful dead-beat Pony Rigton, as we call him. Of course his family were pre- cious glad to have Pony taken care of ; so they went the entire figure, and invited all the Wallaces. Old Wallace has paid down a hundred thousand dollars for every invi- tation he and his wife have received, I dare say, for Pony would not sell his connection cheap. But never mind Mrs. Rigton. If you want her back, Mrs. Philippeau, I will see that she calls." " Will you ?" said Marie, most exultantly. " I wish you would." " So you still like her, do you ?" asked Jack. " No, I do not. I hate her. But I want to see her humbled. I want her to be obliged to call here." "Oh, my dear Mrs. Philippeau!" said Jack, coloring a little at this naive expose, "I should call it anything else but a humbling process, her being allowed to call on you." "I suppose she thinks I am not in society," said poor Marie. " Next year she will know that you are, my dear Mrs. Philippeau. What would society be if it had not always the opportunity of attaching to itself new and delightful acquisitions ? I should be in despair if society were to re- main an old and formal institution that could not grow." " I do not think Louisa's mother is much of an acquisi- tion to it," said Marie. " No ; those are the necessary evils ; what you call, on oyster shells, accretions. You see, Rigton wanted the A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 141 pearl in the oyster, that is, he wanted money ; so he took with it the oyster, that is, your friend Louisa, and with her those not too ornamental shells her parents don't you see ?" " Oh, Mr. Townley, how fanny you are !" said Marie, who relished this sort of wit extremely. "You may be assured, Mrs. Philippeau, that next year Mrs. Rigton will ask you to be on two charities, and on one ball-ticket as lady patroness, and then she will ask you to buy several tickets, and also to subscribe to the ' Help- ing Hand to One-armed Plasterers ;' and, if I were you, I would subscribe largely to one of her charities, and be very disagreeable about the other three, and say that you think they are too mixed." " Why should I say that ?" said Marie, opening her eyes very, very wide. " I don't know ; I notice they always do it," said Jack, remembering the haughty sneers of several ladies who, on their first admission to parties of a more exclusive character than any which they had before attended, declared that they were " very mixed." "How you must enjoy being in society!" said Marie, looking at him as a neophyte of the old Egyptian worship might have looked at the high-priest, he who knew all the mysteries and the secrets of that dreadful inner sanctuary, he who had gazed upon the holy of holies. " I don't know," said Jack. " It is very heartless. Sometimes I hate it, and run off to the plains and shoot buffaloes. They at least are sincere." " That is where you met Rose ?" asked Marie, fur- tively. " Yes," said Jack, forgetting himself a moment " a 10 142 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. beautiful vision in a hammock swinging under a great tree, and afterwards we scampered about on horseback. The lamented Fountain was a fine horse ; and oh, how she rode him ! He might better have stayed out there ; and per- haps so had she." " Why do you say that ? She wanted to see society." " Oh yes," said Jack, awaking from his self-indulgent reverie, and feeling that he was not playing his part very well ; " of course, so she did-. Yes, and she has had a wonderful success perfectly wonderful. No one has stirred up society like Rose Chadwick for a long time." " I wonder why ?" said Marie. " Well, she was a novelty, and well introduced," said Jack. " There were all sorts of rumors about her. Her father is one day a millionaire, and the next day nothing. And then your brother, the Hon. Hathorne Mack, is known to be in love with her ; that gives her a certain prestige. And now Sir Lytton Leycester is following suit. Then she made a great success in the private theatricals, after having made several social blunders : you heard about the epergne, etc., etc. If any one can be talked about for any singularity, it is sometimes a great help in this tremen- dously crowded and monotonous world. And then she is so very, very pretty." Marie rose suddenly, and rang the bell violently. " Lud- ley !" said she. A servant came instantly, dressed to perfection in a neat brown livery, and shod with silence. " Tell Miss Marjoribanks I want Mr. Pierre to go out for his walk," said Mrs. Philippeau. "I must compliment you on your service," said Jack Townley. " That man is perfection ; he seems to be in A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 143 the atmosphere, he comes so quickly " as indeed he did, having been listening just outside. Meantime the room above held a happy pair Rose and Pierre ; the latter, listening to the most delightful fairy story that ever was written, as Rose, holding one of his dear little chubby, sympathetic hands, comforted the 'boy for the absence of the mamma whom he loved (but who cared much less for him than she did for an invitation to the Mortimers') by reading aloud to him. Pink, the dog, accompanied the footman up-stairs, as the unwelcome message came to poor Pierre that he was to go out and walk with Miss Marjoribanks, whom he hated. Rose told Ludley to go in search of Miss Marjoribanks while she finished the few remaining words of the story. " Rose," said Pierre, sadly, looking at Pink, " what is society ? Is it a dog ?" He remembered that his mamma always dropped him and caught up the little shock-headed Scotch terrier when she talked of society. " I am afraid it is, Pierre," said Rose, laughing, " a very snarling, bad-tempered, and treacherous little dog some- times. But no, not always; it is an amusing dog too, and a generous one occasionally. In fact, Pierre, there are many varieties of both society and dogs." Miss Marjoribanks could not be found, and Fifine, the French maid, was summoned, who sulkily dressed poor Pierre, and took him off for a gloomy walk. His lovely afternoon was spoiled. No sooner had he left her than Rose heard the hateful voice of Hathorne Mack on the stairs. He was coming he was coming to Mrs. Philippeau's boudoir, and she was alone ! 144 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. She had stipulated with Marie that this should never happen. Indeed, she had enlisted her old governess on her side, and had requested that one or both should be with her when any gentleman called. They had enough womanhood in them to accede to this request, and she had hitherto been spared a tete-a-tete. Now it was inevitable. Even Pierre, her little guardian, was gone, and she was helpless. She could not even rise to ring a bell. A quick knock at the door, and the Honorable Hathorne Mack entered. He drew a chair up to the side of her sofa, and began talking at once in a thick, husky voice. He was agitated and nervous. She could see that im- mediately. " Now, my dear Rose, how are we getting on? I want to know all about it, you know ; tell me, what do the doctors say ? You know I saved your life, and I have a right to know all about you." " Oh, very well," said Rose. " I am going back to Aunt Laura next week." " Well, I don't know about that I don't know ; I don't like that stiff old aunt of yours. She didn't treat Pascal well I don't know why Pascal ever let you come and stay with her." " I shall go next week," said Rose, trembling all over. " Now, Rose," said he, slowly, " we have got to come to an understanding. I intend to make you my wife.. Your father wants it and it wouldn't make any difference if he didn't. I know how to handle Pascal Chadwick. I don't ask you to love me; I don't care whether you do or not. You will, fast enough, when you see the diamonds I have bought you. There ain't a girl in New York would refuse those diamonds. And I am going to settle half a million A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 145 on you, and give you the best house in New York. You may go to Paris every year, and have all the dresses you want, and all the horses. But I am going to be master. Nobody ever resisted Hathorne Mack yet, nor ever will, by Jove !" Rose recoiled as far as the couch would allow hev to do so. "I will never marry you, Mr. Mack never !" said she, resolutely. " Oh yes, you will," said he, with a coarse laugh. " I have seen coy girls before. Why, here is our engagement ring." And be took a box out of his pocket, and showed her an immense diamond, which he playfully tried to put on her finger. Rose resisted violently, and taking box and ring forcibly in her own rather vigorous right hand, she threw both over the Honorable Hathorne Mack's head. A loud crack resounded through the room. The lover suddenly looked behind him, and both he and Rose were appalled to see that the diamond had struck a large mirror, and had broken it into a dozen pieces. " Bad luck, Miss Rose, to this house, where you have been so well treated," said he. " Bad manners too, I am sorry to say," said Rose ; " but I hope that you know that I will never marry you." " I know that you will," said he. " Rose, I hold the fortunes, the future, even the life, of your father in my hands. I can ruin yon both. I am more powerful than you think. Now you shall marry me !" " I can refuse at the altar, if you drag me there," said Rose. " It is cowardly for you to come here, where I am lying helpless and alone, to urge a marriage which I ab- hor. But we do not live in an age when girls can be com- pelled to marry men, Mr. Mack. I defy you !" 146 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. The man, brutal as he was, shrank before those brilliant, courageous eyes. " Come now, Rose, forgive me ; I was too ardent and too fierce. Come, let us kiss and be friends." And he bent over her couch and tried to take her hand. Up to this time Rose had kept back her last best weap- on, a woman's weapon, which never deserts her. She screamed loud and long a scream which would have been efficacious in case of fire. It was answered in a way which neither of the high contending parties had anticipated. A number of portieres hung before the various doors, which opened into the prettiest little boudoir in New York, and at this crisis one of them was swung back on its rings with a loud clatter. From behind it, as pale as death, with a singular fire in her eyes, stepped Miss Marjoribanks. She did not speak, but she looked at the Honorable Hathorne Mack. For the first time in her acquaintance with him Rose saw the powerful financier, the great railroadist, the poli- tician, quake. This red-haired English girl looked at him silently, but with eyes which burned like coals. "So you've been eavesdropping, have you?" said he; and snatching up his hat, he suddenly left the room. " Thank you, Rebecca," said Rose, as her old governess leaned over her. "Aha! my dear Mees Rose, but I am sorry you did break ze looking-glass," said Jean Pierre, when he came home. " 'Tis ze very bad luck, my dear Mees Rose." A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 147 XX. THIS episode of an unexpected and undesired offer brought on a feverish condition which threw Rose back into a miserable state for several days, and determined her to leave Mrs. Philippeau's house as soon as the doctor would possibly permit. Her dear Aunt Laura was still very ill : the world was apparently forgetting her. A long illness is a very trying thing. No matter how much we may love the secluded denizen of the sick-room, outside life has for us all its peremptory duties and its en- grossing cares. We cannot go to see the invalid as much as we would like. And while to us the time seems short, how long it must appear to her ! how sad the indiffer- ence, how cold the hearts, that can so forget ! Two faithful friends, however, remembered Rose. They were Arthur Amberley and Sir Lytton Leycester. Little notes of inquiry, little presents of fruit, a new book, a basket of flowers, a bunch of violets something came every day from one of these two. They were of the faith- ful kind : they are not so common. Rose had been obliged to explain the accident of the broken looking-glass to Mr. and Mrs. Philippeau. The latter received it with a certain sullen forgiveness, saying that her brother was an old fool anyway, and that there was no fool like an old fool. It is doubtful if sisters are ever very sympathetic with their brothers' unfortunate love affairs. They are not in 148 A TRANSPLANTED RO8B. love with these gentlemen, and they do not quite expect the rest of the world to be. But poor Jean Philippeau was very superstitious ; he could not get over the idea that Rose had brought bad luck upon herself or upon him by this unfortunate break- age. He was always kind to her, very kind, and he liked her simplicity and love for little Pierre. Not a word es- caped him that could be construed into blame ; he only regretted in his naif way that the lesser deities had been evoked for bad luck. But he was delighted, although he did not dare show it, at the rejection of his brother-in-law. Hathorne Mack was his bete noir. He hated him, as he loved his sister, with true Provencal warmth, and he felt enough interest in the young girl who had been thrown upon his protection to wish for her a better fate. As soon as Rose could receive visitors again, Sir Lytton Leycester was admitted for a long and intimate talk. At the request of Rose, Miss Marjoribanks remained in the room with her, and wrought at her tapestry in the win- dow, far enough away not to hear the low-voiced con- versation, but near enough to be seen. The friendship between Sir Lytton and Rose had grown into a very warm one, and trembled on the border-land of a deeper feeling. He knew how to woo. Youth and re- fined feeling, and the sympathy of twenty-three and nine- teen, helped him along. He made none of Hathorne Mack's mistakes. Although their conversation was by no means highly intellectual, it was very pleasant to both. " It was a brilliant ball last night at Delmonico's, was it not?" Rose asked. " Yes but you were not there." " Waa I not ? I thought I was, when your Jacqueminot A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 149 roses came in so good of you to send them !" said Rose, with becoming blushes. "So you liked them, did you? I danced a spiritual waltz with you. I had really one of Theophile Gautier's experiences when I was flying round with Miss Grey. I thought it was you. I really had that sort of superstition." "Oh dear! I am frightened. If you mistake Fanny Grey for me, how do I know but " " But what ? that I shall like her as well as I do you ? Never ! She is, though, next to you, the nicest girl in America. But, Rose you said I might call you Rose when, when are you to get out?" "Next week, Sir Lytton, the doctor says." "Drop the Sir, and drop the doctor. You will drive with me the first pleasant day, of course ?" " Oh yes, and spring is coming spring, with all the wild flowers. Do you remember the violets and the anemones at Chadwick's Falls?" " No ; I was picking up gold nuggets with your father instead of violets. To be sure, they are rather apt to be iron pyrites in my case. No, Rose, the flower of Chad- wick's Falls I found in New York. Do you know what they call you here ?" "An awkward savage, I believe," said Rose, who could now afford to laugh at her past. " No a transplanted Rose ! Not a bad name, if the Rose will only bear one more transplanting." Sir Lytton looked dangerously lover-like as he said this, and Rose picked up a novel she was reading, and put him off in true maiden fashion. "Let me read you this pretty passage about spring," said she. 150 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. " ' We could see the fields casting their covering of snow, and withered trees bursting into bloom ; brooks swollen with warm rain; birds busy with nest-making; clumps of primroses with velvet leaves, and the subtle scent of violets ; youths and maidens with love in their eyes ; hedges white with hawthorn, woodland slopes with sheets of hyacinths, as if heaven's blue had been spilled upon earth's grass.' " " Yes, very pretty, especially one line ; let me see, what was it ? ' Youths and maidens,' etc. Primroses ah, Rose, you should see the primroses about Tellisor House, where I was born. Some day you will." " You are going to England soon ?" Rose asked, evasively. A cloud came over the fresh, honest, handsome face of the young baronet. "Yes; I am recalled. My uncle is not in good health. I am called so hastily that I can scarcely wait for your father's expected letter. You know he and I have some business relations, and, as he has gone to the Sandwich Islands, our correspondence has been in- terrupted. When have you heard from him ?" Rose turned pale. "Oh, Sir Lytton, not for so very long ! I am anxious, cruelly anxious, about him." And the tears ran down her face. Now, if there is one thing which a lover cannot stand, it is the dew-drop on the rose. To see a woman weep has unnerved many a stronger man than was Sir Lytton. "Dear Rose," said he, taking her hand in both of his, " do not be anxious. You know your father's peculiarity of not writing. You know how he flies off to the end of the earth. He is too important a man to be lost. No one could hide him but himself. In these days of telegraphs A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 151 and of steam he could not but be found. He is only drifting down in the sunny, soft Pacific, trying to get rid of his bronchitis. Now do not be troubled." Rose wiped her eyes, and looked out of the window silently. " See, what a cold, pitiless rain ! See, what a dark gray wintry sky again !" said she. " I think the Honorable Hathorne Mack has heard from your father," said the baronet, kindly. " Has he ?" said Rose. " How cruel of him not to have told me !" And she looked up, and saw the broken mirror. Per- haps he had that letter in his pocket, behind the engage- ment ring, and her wild temper, her impulsive anger, had prevented his giving it to her. Her deep blush, as all this passed through her mind, did not pass unnoticed. " He has been troubling you, Rose ?" Sir Lytton asked. Rose did not answer, and they were silent so long that Miss Marjoribanks looked up from her tapestry. " Tell me about England ; tell me about your five castles, is it?" said Rose. " Not quite so many as that, yet too many for the rent- roll. Rose, I am a poor man. Too many acres, too short an account at my banker's, too many old annuities and jointures to pay off. But never mind ; we shall make some money, let us hope. I have a few shares in a rail- way which looks very bad, and another which the Hon- orable Hathorne Mack says looks very well, and I have a dozen irons in the fire. But let us talk of the chestnuts and the lime-trees about Tellisor House. Why, Rose, in May they will be in full bloom, and the nightingales sing then, oh ! so richly. The pheasants troop through the tall grass, and the red poppies bloom everywhere. There is a 152 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. chapel belonging to the house a beautiful old thing, eight hundred years old. All the Leycesters are married there, Rose, if the brides will only come. There is a couplet which promises us good luck if we can be blessed at that altar as we speak our nuptial vows. Rose, as I tell you all this, I feel so happy. I feel that I have no cause for care or grief. I wonder why I feel so I" " I do not know, Sir Lytton. To me the air seems full of mysteries and uncertainties; they cling to me like a shadowy garment. I feel as if I were under some stifling influence, and that I were no longer a free and happy girl. The Rose of Chadwick's Falls has suffered from trans- plantation ; it cannot flourish and grow strong." " Oh, that is all nervousness. You are a little ' seedy,' as we say in England. You need the fresh air, and the enlivening influences of a drive with me. Don't you see you do ? And you must get well for the fancy ball. Now, Rose, one confidential word in your ear;" and he looked at the distant Marjoribanks. He whispered some- thing which no one heard but Rose. To her it sounded the very concentration of sweetness and poetry, and there was on her face a radiance and a joy which made even the bleak outside sky light up, as if a stray sun ray had stolen across it. Sir Lytton Leycester always had a word or two with Miss Marjoribanks before he left. She had been, as we all remember, the governess at Tellisor House. To him she owed her present position. Rose used to watch, with a somewhat amused smile, the deferential and awed manner in which the Englishwoman received these little good- natured courtesies of the young baronet. Rose had no awe or respect for rank. She did not know what it meant; A TRANSPLANTED KOBE. 153 but Miss Marjoribanks was steeped in the deepest and most profound regard for it. To her the young boy whom she had put through Mangnalfs Questions was a superior piece of human clay, and to. be courtesied to, now that he had come into his title ! It offended her to see him making love to the savage of Chadwick's Falls ; but she had too much self-control to show it. It seemed to Miss Marjori- banks that the young English nobleman was throwing pearls before swine. " How are you to-day, Marchbanks ?" Sir Lytton said, joyously. "Take good care of Miss Chadwick. I am going back very soon ; any messages for Lady Leycester and the young ladies ?" " Marchbanks " threw into perfect English a few dutiful and humble words of adoration and respectful remem- brance, and then relapsed into silence. Sir Lytton Leycester took his leave, and, as he did so, the Honorable Hathorne Mack was announced. " Mr. Mack wishes me to say that he has news of your father," said the footman, respectfully. " Ask him to come up," said Rose, her voice trembling. " Miss Marjoribanks Rebecca sit here. I fear I was very rude to Mr. Mack last week, was I not ?" " A trifle childish, perhaps, Miss Rose. You know I always found you impulsive." Mr. Mack was exceedingly dignified and pompous, and took a chair by a table, spreading one of his large fat hands out on a deep crimson cloth, where it looked exceedingly inharmonious. " Miss Rose, I hope you are better now ?" he re- marked. " Yes, much better, Mr. Mack ; and I wish to apologize 154 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. for my rude conduct to you the other day. It was, as Miss Marjoribanks says, childish." The Honorable Hathorne Mack cast a dark look at Miss Marjoribanks, who was watching steadily. "Perhaps you will regret some day your treatment of your father's best friend," said he, slowly. " I do regret it ; I do regret it a thousand times, Mr. Mack. I would do anything for you anything but marry you." " Well, Miss Rose, as that is the only thing which I hap- pen to wish you to do for me, I don't see as your pro- fessions amount to much. But I should have told you something that you might like to hear if you had been a little more patient the other day. I have heard from your father." " Oh, do tell me ! Is he well ? Is he happy ? Why does he not write to me ?" " He is well ; he is in the South Pacific ; he has written to you. One letter being lost explains the whole thing. And he writes me that he hopes his little girl may become my wife." Never did good news come so interlarded with bad ; never did postscript so undo the body of the letter ; never did codicil so revoke will. She did not believe one word of it. Rose buried her face in her hands. A thought struck her. She determined upon a course of conduct. " Mr. Mack," said she, slowly, " when I see my father, if he says to me that I must marry you, why, then I will." " I will bide my time, Miss Rose," said Mack ; and, as he left the room, he made a sign to Miss Marjoribanks to follow him. A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 155 XXI. HAPPY was the day when the long-banished girl, slowly and carefully, with a doctor on each side of her, remounted the steps of her dear aunt Laura's pretty Queen Anne house. She was less effusive now than when she had first bounded up those steps. A uniform quietness and gentle- ness seemed enamelled on that impulsive nature. It sad- dened Aunt Laura to see the pale cheek, the subdued lips, and a certain weariness of life which was written on that young brow. Martha could hardly keep the tears out of her old eyes as she marked the change. And Rose, as she watched her aunt, was shocked to see how wasted and aged she was by her six weeks' illness ; she seemed to have some anxiety and distress within her eyes. But they both were sincerely glad to be together, and soon got into their old friendly, pleasant relations. " Well, now tell me about Mrs. Philippeau, and all your curious experiences, Rose," said Mrs. Trevylyan. "How can we ever repay those people for their kindness ?" " I think," said Rose, after a long conversation, " we can best repay Mrs. Philippeau by getting her as many invita- tions as we can to all the teas, and dinners, and balls, and theatre parties, and receptions that are going on." Mrs. Trevylyan laughed. " The old story," said she. " Social ambition is the most powerful passion. But is she not invited a good dpal ? I have heard of her at Mrs. Morella's, and at the Patriarchs." " Oh yes, but she has not been asked to Mrs. Mortimer's 156 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. musical party, or to the fancy ball, and she is making her- self perfectly miserable about it." " That is easily managed," said Mrs. Trevylyan. " She shall be asked at once ; and, to show in part my gratitude to her for her care of you, I shall enclose my card, to show her that I have asked for her." " I am afraid she will come to you for more, Aunt Laura," said Rose, laughing. " Oh no ; she could not have such a lack of delicacy," said Mrs. Trevylyan. " I don't know," said Rose. " I think poor little Mr. Philippeau has more much more refinement than she has. He is a dear soul, so kind and so good, and so fond of her ! And Pierre oh, Aunt Laura, I must have Pierre here some day such a little wandering angel as is that boy ! so pretty and bright and truthful ! But as for poor Marie well, Aunt Laura, refinement of thought and mo- tive was left out of that blood." There never was a happier woman than Marie when the two distingue invitations arrived, accompanied by the card of Mrs. Trevylyan. Little Jean Pierre was glad too ; for he now saw that the inner door, the most respectable door, of that society which his wife craved was slowly swinging open. His French blood had risen in revolt against the Morellas and the Devines. He saw in them the covert in- solence of women who were heartless coquettes, and whose power had not an honest background. He could not have put his feelings into words, but he was as sure of the right article, as distinguished from the false, as he was of a good piece of Lyons silk when he rubbed it through his fingers, as against a bit of pretentious stuff loaded with cotton or jute. Jean Pierre knew " good goods " when he saw them. A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 15*7 " A nice, grateful demoiselle, ze petite Rose, and her aunt, very grande dame," said he as Marie unfolded the precious documents. " I only wish she had not throw ze ring of your brother at ze cheval mirror." Rose was soon able to drive with Sir Lytton in the Park ; but his servant, a staid Englishman, was too re- served to tell us what they talked about. And then Sir Lytton went off to England, saying to everybody, and especially to Rose, that he should soon be back. Just at this crisis, Miss Marjoribanks had a violent quarrel with Mrs. Philippeau, and came complaining to Rose. "Mrs. Philippeau was so vulgar and so ignorant, and so unaccustomed to such a governess as she, and, above all, Pierre was too young to profit by her instruc- tions." " If I could but come back to you, dear Miss Rose !" said she. Now there was no doubt but that Rebecca Ethel Mar- joribanks was a good teacher, a thoroughly well-instructed woman ; and she had beeu kind to Rose while in the house of the flighty and foolishly ambitious little Marie. They had read together, and begun their musical lessons over again. As it looked now to Rose, there could be no more agreeable arrangement than this, nothing which could so much remind her of Sir Lytton during his absence, as to have Miss Marjoribanks come to her as a sort of com- panion, teacher, and friend. On speaking to Mrs. Trevylyan, she acquiesced immedi- ately, as in her invalid state it would be most convenient to have so proper and so ladylike a person to act as chap- eron to Rose, now that Pascal Chadwick was not here to be wooed, and that Rose seemed to like her. 11 158 A TRANSPLANTED ROSB. " I wish I liked her expression better," said Mrs. Trevyl- yan. " Oh, Aunt Laura, I always told you there was nothing wrong about poor Ethel. Only a little too sentimental, perhaps, and that evil, poor thing, has been corrected, I suspect, by her hard, hard life." So Miss Marjoribanks came again into the life of our heroine. Rose took a seat by her new friends Mr. and Mrs. Phil- ippeau at Mrs. Mortimer's musicale, and Mr. Amberley sat near them. It was a charming concert. Mrs. Mortimer's great ballroom was filled with Germans, and they gave Beethoven's Fourth Symphony, so redolent of spring. The hymn-like first movement ; the second, a song of uni- versal love and joy and thanksgiving ; all the breadth and brightness of color and movement seemed to fill the room with the breath of violets; and then came the strong melodious modulations, Beethoven's great hand imitating the hand of Nature as she unlocks the ice-bound streams, unfetters the leaves from the hard bark of the tree, and the flowers from the damp mould. " How miserably inadequate words are to express the delight which such music gives one !" whispered Dicky Small weed, leaning over to Rose. " I never attempt to express it," said Rose, who had been dreaming of Tellisor House and Sir Lytton, lime-trees in full bloom, nightingales, and moonlight views of an old chapel. Dicky Stnallweed thought Miss Chadwick had grown very " snubby," as he expressed it ; and, as he did not choose to be snubbed, he began a light rattling talk with Mrs. Philippeau, who had no deep reminiscences to keep A TRANSPLANTED EOSB. 159 her from responding to all that Dicky Smallweed wished to say. Arthur Amberley, who had been delighting the heart of poor little Jean Pierre by talking excellent French to him, now moved around by Rose, and thoroughly renewed all her esteem and respect, as he always did, by his original ideas, his strong idiomatic language, and his curt, witty sentences. She felt towards him as she would have done to a strong, kind, thoughtful elder brother, and some of her old vivacity and brilliancy came back as she talked to him. There was always an undertone of kindness for her in his unemotional words. She felt certain that he was her friend, and that thought comforted and strengthened her. For Rose had passed through a great and trying experi- ence since she had gone into that sick-room. Indeed, since she had last seen Arthur Amberley all the foolish and fluttering girlish impressions had given way before one great passion. She had found her master, and she liked the mastery. It was rest and peace, and yet he had gone without that last word, that last promise, that last acknowledgment, which would have bound them as affi- anced lovers. He had said : " Give me that greatest joy that woman can give to man tell me that you love me. Accept from me everything I have. I am yours forever and ever." And yet he had told her that he must gain the right to ask her from her father, and the certainty that he could marry with prudence, before either could speak of the engagement to their friends. Arthur Amberley looked at her, as was his wont when she was not looking, and he saw " with eyes kissed into 160 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. sight by love" half her story one which she would not have told. Looking upon her with his deeper knowledge of life's mysteries, he saw that the 3 7 oung girl had begun the martyrdom of woman, to wait and hope. He found a grace unutterable in the turn of her head as she slowly moved it towards him, as if she recalled her thoughts back from unseen spheres, and all the chivalry of his nature chivalry which he hid behind a mask of cynicism started to ally itself to her cause, as he read in her clear eyes, as in a glass, how pure and perfect was her trust in himself. He, Arthur Amberley, he her sworn knight! But he would have died before these unfashionable thoughts should have found utterance. " Who is that jolly old party ?" said he, as a stout prima donna came forward to sing a cavatina. "Oh, that is the Marquise de Vinier," said Dicky Small- weed, " forced on the stage by political reasons, family misfortunes, etc., etc. You heard how her jewels were all stolen the other evening at the St. Casimir Hotel, didn't you? ten thousand dollars' worth of diamonds from the Emperor of Russia, and an opal from the Cham of Tartary." " That is the reason why she wears paste to-night, I sup- pose," said Arthur. " I used to hear some one who looked like her at a cafe chantant in Paris, several summers ago, who was not a marquise," said Arthur in a whisper to Rose. A tremendous roulade and a sliout of victory from the marquise pleaded loudly for aristocracy in distress at this moment. " Well, she is pretty good at it," said Amberley. " Vin- ier yes ; I think the veneering is too apparent. What nationality did you say, Dicky ?" A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 161 " Polish, I think ; married a French marquis very noble." " They all are Polish, Roumanian, Servian, and they^ all marry a marquis of the Faubourg/' said Amberley. " If that isn't Cecile Bellinger, of the cafe chantant, and if she wasn't born in Paris, I am a Servian myself. How do you like her, Miss Rose ?" " I think she is horrid," said Rose. " So do I. Her voice has seen better, days ; but she must make a poor little penny if she can. Let us give her a recall poor old Cecile !" They had it all over again, and then a ballad about M Zome, zweet Zome." "Zere is no place like zome," remarked the Marquise de Vinier, swinging gracefully off the amateur stage, which creaked with her weight. " Delightful !" " So sweet !" " So charming !" " How re- fined!" "Such a perfect lady!" resounded through the rooms. " Hum ! hum ! hum !" said Arthur Amberley. " Home, sweet home ; she never had one, poor thing ! Whom have we here, I wonder?" he asked of Rose, who held a beauti- ful programme in her hand, all printed in gold. This was a fat-faced young man, who had banished all expression from his eyes, and whose limp black hair fell to his coat-collar. " ' Herr Siegfried von Rheingold,' " said Rose, reading from her card. " He gives us selections from the Walpur- gis Nacht of Mendelssohn." " Oh, how dreadful !" said Mr. Amberley, as Herr Sieg. fried von Rheingold began to bang on the pianoforte. 162 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. Then came an unexpected joy. A woman with a pleasant face came on and sang Schumann's beautiful little wreath of seven songs, " Woman's Life and Love," in a delightful style. As Rose listened, the sadness seemed all lifted from her heart. Sir Lytton seemed to be sitting silently beside her ', she remembered that he had once had a " spiritual " waltz with her. She did not raise her eyes from her bouquet, but indulged in a dreamy reverie, which was so full of joy that the tears almost filled her eyes. She would have covered her eyes with her hands, and have indulged in these thoughts of exquisite delight, had not her fan fallen to the floor, making a slight noise, so far gone was she in sympathy with the song. As Arthur Amberley picked it up and handed it to her, he whispered, " Delightful sing- ing, is it not? Do look at our dear Jean Pierre. Is he asleep, or shall we call it reflecting? If any one says that he is asleep, let us laugh the insidious whisper to scorn." There was poor little tired Philippeau, who hated Ger- mans and German music as he did the well, all compari- sons fail, because a Frenchman can hate nothing as he does the Germans indulging in a sound sleep and a coming snore. Rose, now all dimpling smiles, and thoroughly aroused from her dreams, leaned over and touched him gently with her fan, before Marie saw him a fact for which, in his slow gathering consciousness, he deeply thanked her. And Arthur chased from the face he had grown to love the strange, subdued, absent look. She was the cheerful, gay, laughing girl again, as people stopped to chat and eat an ice after the music. A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 163 He did not want the world to see what he saw, and he knew that she was not yet strong. " I fear you are very tired," said he. " I shall be so glad to get you out of here, into the hall, where there is more air, if you say so." "Yes," said she, " and where poor Ethel Marjoribanks is waiting for me." , " Good-night," said he, " and ' Schlaf wohl,' as Schu- mann would say." XXII. THE fancy ball came late in the season, but as Lent had intervened, and the gay world was refreshed like a giant from sleep, there was no lack of enthusiasm in the getting up of the dresses. Monks, Nuns, Chief - justices and Penitents, Cavaliers and Neapolitan Peasants, Queen Eliza- beth and Matilda, Agnes Sorel and Savonarola, Marie An- toinette and Prince Metternich, Hannah More and D'Arta- gnan, Roman Contadini and Early Saxon Kings, William the Conqueror and William Penn, Osceola and Madame De Sevigne, King Francis the First and Lindley Murray, Marie de' Medici and Carmen tripped lightly over the cen- turies and all probability and met on the floor of a theatrical ballroom, where private boxes offered convenient and animated retreats for the weary or the disgusted. To this entirely new and fascinating entertainment Rose lent herself with peculiar pleasure. It seemed to her fresh mind that all poetry, all of the drama, would come to- gether to this sort of a ball. She was sure that most men looked better in costume than in black broadcloth, and the 164 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. stories of early Italian romance had made a domino a very interesting thing. The first plan of the ball was a good one. Every one was to go in full costume, but with loose black domino and mask, the latter to be thrown off at twelve, when the motley crew were to disport themselves gayly. As the black dominos were gloomy, a dispensation was obtained, and every one was finally allowed to appear in the domino best suited to his taste. Mrs. Trevylyan did not quite like the idea of a masked ball. "It will be very stupid, gloomily respectable," said Arthur Amberley. " Americans cannot intriguer ; we are not up to it ; we have not the genius for it. That im- mense border-land wherein innocent fun abides, that is not one of ' these United States.' French and Spanish people can be wildly, poetically gay, and yet not vulgar or im- proper. In Italy, the Carnival fun, the mystery of the mask, the entirely feminine pleasure of piquing curiosity all are so well carried out at a masked ball. Here we are nothing if not ourselves. We demand a recognition." "But the men are not to be allowed to enter masked?" " Oh no. Our ugly faces are to be shown to a severe guardian angel at the door, as it we were the mischief- makers." " Will you and Harriet look after Rose ?" " We will, we will. We will add to the general disillu- sion which will cripple that young person's belief in masked balls for evermore. She thinks now (poor thing !) that every mask will scatter over her the glittering dust of wit ; that every Shepherd who pursues Phyllis through rose-em- bowered arcades is a hero in disguise. She thinks that a A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 165 masquerade and fancy ball will realize all her dreams of fine attitudes, brilliant coloring, and perfect archaeology. Hideous disappointment !" " Why, Arthur, I do not agree with you. I remember a fancy ball at Delmonico's which brought you men out in great and unexpected beauty." " That was a peculiar occasion, carefully limited and ex- ceptionally successful. This ball attempts too much." " Well, I do not know that I regret that we have not the talent for the masquerade. That needed the ' pict- uresque and gloomy wrong ' of the Council of Three, the subtlety of the Borgias, ' the faded freshness and fatigued king ' of Versailles, the dissolute Empire, the grace, the deceit, the finesse, of another race." " I should not regret it either, only that I have to go to an attempted masquerade in mercantile New York," said Arthur. " Where there is no finesse and no deceit ?" asked Mrs. Trevylyan, laughing. " None at a masquerade. This saturnalia of expected gayety will turn out a failure." " Do not tell Rose so," said Mrs. Trevylyan, unexpectedly comfortable at the thought of a staid, slow, and dismal masquerade. " I was about to suggest that Miss Rose and my sister and myself should alone know the secret of one another's dominos, and we could thus come to the rescue if she got frightened, which is extremely improbable. She will go to sleep in our deep proscenium box, I suspect, before the time for unmasking comes." Mrs. Mortimer, always ready to add to the brilliancy of a fete, had arranged that a select party should meet at het 166 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. house from eight to eleven, where the dresses could be seen, inspected, and admired, and the partners arranged for the subsequent masquerading hour or two at the public ball. Admirably did Rose look in the dress of the French Princess in Henry V. a white satin petticoat stiff with gold embroidery, a long green velvet mantle, with the golden fleurs-de-lis of France fastened on the shoulders with golden clasps. In her fine black hair a golden wreath of delicate fleurs-de-lis, designed by Miss Marjoribanks, who proved a most efficient aid to the costumer, added a queenly charm. Arthur Amberley had sent round his domino, a very peculiar one, which had been made in Paris, and which Rose and Harriet had copied. It was of black satin, with a pale purple lining, and on one arm was embroidered a small silver arrow. There was much gayety at Mrs. Mortimer's. Jack Long and Fanny Grey had suddenly appeared to belong to each other exclusively, and the interesting rumor, " They are engaged," or the more interesting question, " Are they en- gaged ?" became current. Fanny was very lovely as a copy of Queen Clotilde, and Jack had adopted the white uniform of one of the Queen's Guards. Sidonie Devine was striking as a Jacqueminot Rose ; Mrs. Mortimer gorgeous as Marie de' Medici her pearls and diamonds would have gladdened the heart of that avide princess. And when they were all masked, what fun ! As Rose entered, her breathing very much impeded by her mask, and her domino thick, warm, and heavy, she was still very much elated. That shabby theatre had never looked so well as now, hung with wreaths of evergreen, and camellias, and colored lights. On the stage a model of the Rialto A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 167 spanning a blue and rippling river, while colored lamps and an imperial veiled loge suggested the arrival of some anonymous princess, and the music of the Ballo in Mas- chera invited the throbbing heart to a dear expectant ro- mance. All this to the untried senses of a young girl ! No wonder that for a few minutes Rose was gay. There was a picturesque moment as female masks came in two and two, and tripped across the bridge, like Lucre- zia Borgias bent on mischief. Then the scene did look Venetian. Then all seemed to relapse into dulness, and everybody retreated to the boxes, and some began dancing. Rose became separated from Mr. Amberley, and was ap- proached by another mask, who asked her to waltz. She recognized the voice and manner of Dicky Smallweed, who was perfectly inane under his disguise. Others could in- triguer, but Dicky could not. Then she danced and talked with a brilliant mask, who amused her and whom she did not find out ; and then, feeling too warm and too tired, she retreated to the proscenium box of which she had the key. She expected to find Miss Marjoribanks there, for that faithful creature had come (in a black cambric domino) to take care of her, and had been early deposited in the box. But neither she nor Harriet Amberley were there. However, Rose, dismissing her cavalier, sat down, and in the dark interior of the box took off her hot mask and domino, and fanned herself. She supposed that Miss Mar- joribanks, tired of waiting, was taking a stroll through the galleries. She soon got attracted towards the scene going on be- neath her, and, drawing a curtain, peeped from behind it on the motley crowd moving hither and yon. With very 168 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. little difficulty she recognized Harriet Amberley, Mrs. Mor timer, Sidonie Devine, Fanny Grey, and other friends, through their dominos. " Why," said she, " was I so badly disguised ?" Rose had not learned that the proper wearing of a domino demands other and more potent dis- guises than a mere loose wrap around the figure. A noise made her turn about, and she saw two masked dominos in her box. One left immediately, taking with him her own domino and mask ; the other locked the door, and motioned her towards him. She saw, to her great relief, that this was Mr. Amberley, for he wore the black satin domino lined with pale purple, and on his arm was the silver arrow. " This is a Venetian adventure," said she. " At first I was frightened. Mr. Amberley, why did Harriet take out my domino ?" The man put out his hand, and drawing Rose to a seat, where he partly held her down, began, in a totally strange voice, to say : " Miss Chadwick, I am giving you a slight uneasiness, a temporary fright, to save you from a great shock. I come to tell you of your father. He is hiding from a great shame and disgrace. He has cheated all his friends ; he is neither faithful nor honest ; he has injured Sir Lytton Leycester irreparably ; he has ruined Hathorne Mack ; Amberley, Townley, and myself all lose by him. He wishes you to communicate with him. Here is the address." Rose, pale, silenced, terrified, shrank from the strong hand, which still held her down. " That is false," said she. " I know my father. He is true and honorable fantastically, foolishly, and ruinously honorable, to his honor be it spoken. If any one is ruined, it is himself, not others." A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 169 "A daughter should plead for her father. You are a true, good girl. Take this address, communicate with him, and learn for yourself. But, if you breathe a word of this, you will precipitate his utter failure his death. Take care!" And, pressing the paper into her hand, the man in Arthur Amberley's domino left the box. Rose felt her head swimming, and her senses going. The music sounded far off, everything was dark about her ; she would have fainted, but suddenly a noisy commotion, and Arthur Am- berley, his sister, Mrs. Mortimer, and two or three others came trooping into the box. It was time to go to supper, and to unmask. "Rose, we have been looking for you everywhere; and I declare I saw your domino just now going down the op- posite stairs," said Harriet. Miss Marjoribanks stepped in, her black cambric domino thrown back from her very red face. "Why, where have you come from, and where is your domino ?" said the governess. " I came to help you off with it. I have been looking for you everywhere, Miss Rose." "You are tired and pale," said Arthur Amberley. " Have you been frightened ?" His voice always gave her an opportunity to think. " I believe I have been the victim of a masquerading trick," said she ; " two masks came in, and one carried off my domino." " Oh, thieves possibly," said Arthur, anxiously, " or per- haps merely a malicious joke. Some one has appeared in your domino, I am quite sure, for we saw the lady running down the opposite stairs." 170 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. " It was a man !" said Rose, remembering the strong terrible hand. "Yet there were two of them." Arthur looked around ; all the other people in the box were thinking of themselves, not of Rose. "Do not tremble so. Compose yourself, and let Miss Marjoribanks rearrange your hair a little," said Mr. Amber- ley. " You must come down and walk about with me, and go in to supper. If it was a mere joke, that will be your best revenge. If it was something worse, we will de- feat the perpetrator." In a few moments, having hidden the paper in her glove, and after being rearranged by Miss Marjoribanks, Rose descended to the now truly glittering and gay fancy-dress ball, where the gayety which the masks had banished came back. As Arthur Amberley passed a quiet gentleman in plain clothes, who was really a detective, he said, " I fear that some thieves have gotten in ; you had better arouse your force." At that moment a stout lady came up with a great grievance. " I have lost a jewelled fan and a camel's-hair cloak from my box, although it was locked. Police! police !" " That is it," said Arthur Amberley, as the lynx-eyed detective moved off. " Thieves. I feared as much ; but you have lost nothing ?" The detective caught the thief who had stolen the fan and the camel's-hair cloak, but he failed to catch the un- known robber who had stolen the peace of mind, the inno- cent slumber, the hope, from the heart of Rose. That paper which she had in her glove what should she do with it, where put it, that it vrould not burn ? The supper was pronounced excellent, but even that A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 171 moment, so dear to the heart of the weary dancer, had no charms for Rose. The carte bore the picture of a lofty snow ridge of mountains ; why, Rose could not imagine. She pressed it in a weak way in her burning hand, think- ing perhaps that it might cool it; but it did not. It re- minded her of that great mountain barrier which shut her off from her father. " You have not enjoyed the ball, I see," said Amberley to Rose. " Perhaps not," said she, absently. " It is an exotic in a strange land ; it cannot live under an unsympathetic sky. There are few here who under- stand its culture. But you will dance after supper ?" " No ; I think I will go home." XXIII. MRS. PHILIPPEAU had been very happy at the masquer- ade. It had suited her, as the English say, " down to the ground." She was beautifully gotten up as Agnes Sorel. The dress became her, and when she reluctantly put on her domino, which was pink, she quite believed that several gentlemen were aware what its color would be. One mask approached her, and gave her his arm. " Forgive this intrusion," said he. "But I have no other means to ap- proach you, to breathe a passion which you must have seen and have anticipated. I am driven mad, reckless, by the coldness of your manner, the obstacles in my way." 172 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. " Ah," sighed poor Marie, wondering if this were a joke or earnest, " where have I seen you ?" " Say, rather, where did I see you ? Everywhere in your box at the opera, at the theatre, at your own house. The chords of a certain beautiful instrument are dumb un- der the hands of a man who knows not how to sweep them. You are not happy there." " You talk like a novel," said Marie. " Have I seen you in society ?" The mask gurgled deeply behind his shelter, and paused. " Yes," said he, " often in society." That charmed word fully aroused Marie's interest. " Well, that is very odd," said she. " I wonder where it was." " I know it was one evening when I felt very lonely and dull and uncared for, and I went to Mrs But I must not tell you where, and I saw you you for the first time, coming down the stairs. So lovely ! you wore pink." "Then it was Mrs. Mortimer's," said Marie, exultant, and caring much more for the place than for the avowal. " And I felt for a moment oh, such a moment ! ' Now somebody that I shall love beyond anything else in this world is coming down those stairs, and I shall be so per- fectly happy, and I shall forget all about everything and everybody but her.' " " Oh ! I must not listen to that sort of talk, you know I'm married." "I know that, and I must conquer my feelings and go away ; I must not stay here where I shall see you and suffer, and suffer, and suffer." He stopped, choked with emotion, and the last words seemed to have escaped him involuntarily. A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 173 " I would not go quite yet," said Marie ; " we may yet meet in society." " I have heard before of two people falling in love at first sight," said the impassioned mask, " before either knew whether the other were married or single; their souls, created for each other, in the self-same instant, their eyes meeting, their souls have rushed together, the stray halves made into one perfect whole, the life-long ache satisfied, the restless, yearning hearts finding rest at last. I have heard of this : have you, Mrs " " Yes. You are a great novel-reader, and terribly roman- tic, I can see. But tell me, do you belong to the Union Club ?" The mask had another choking fit, and evidently did not like so material a question. " Yes," said he, " I do belong to that rather crowded and impersonal organization. It is to a sensitive soul like stop- ping at the Windsor Hotel : there is no sympathy there." " Do they play very high there ? I want to know if you ever meet Jack Townley there ?" " Jack Townley ? Gentleman Jack, the lady-killer ? Oh yes. But what of him ?" Just then a mask arrayed like Mephistopheles came up, and gave Mrs. Philippeau his arm. " Good - evening, Mrs. Morella," said the impassioned mask, moving off. "Not Mrs. Morella at all," said Marie, in a disappointed tone. " Why, you don't know me !" " Nor you me," thought the mask, as he disappeared. " Am I such an ugly devil that I frighten you ?" asked Mask No. 2. " You seem distraite. Ah, I know who you are. I recognize the turn of your beautiful shoulders." 12 174 A TRANSPJMNTED ROSE. "Do you?" said Marie. ".Well, who was that just talk- ing to me ?" "The deuce if I know or -care. Who asks at a mas- querade who is who ? That is the fun of the thing. But there is one thing I do want to know : do you know what it is to love ? to long for some one all and every day, to think of nothing else upon earth, to weary for some one, to feel that until you win* that person life is worth nothing, absolutely nothing ?" "No; I married very young," said Marie, beginning to regret her lost opportunities. "Ah, then love is tp come," said Mephisto. " I did not know tlfat tfi'ey talked so much love at a mas- querade," said Marie. " I thought they spoke mere gossip." "Ah, no," said Mephistopheles. "You cannot, perhaps, understand that admiration at first sight. Now I have seen you, and have learned your manner and face by heart, when you were not thinking of me, and suddenly it dawned \ipon me that life would not be worth living without you ; that I must I must I must know you better." " Perhaps you think I am Mrs. Morella," said Marie. " No ; I know you are Mrs. Philippeau. Now tell me," said the gentleman in scarlet, pressing her arm, " did you never feel irresistibly drawn towards me, when I took you down to supper don't you remember where ?" (" Now," thought Marie, " this is genuine. Where and who did take me down to supper ? This cannot be Mr. Smallweed ? No.") " Well, really," said Marie, feeling herself called on to say something, " I am so much in society that I cannot really now tell what I ought to do or say scarcely. I cannot remember all the gentlemen who take me down to supper." A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 175 "But," said Mephisto, "I want you to listen, and to un- derstand me. You remember that bunch of primroses? And if you do not love me now (it is improbable that you should, for although I have watched and followed you so long, you do not yet know me), I have been to you no more than any one of the idle dancing young men who have stared at you at church, and at balls, and at the theatre ; yet you will like me a little ? Say ' Yes.' " " I am stared at a great deal, and Mr. Philippeau does not like it," said Marie. " What a bitter, bitter fate is yours !" said the mask. " I don't know that," said Marie. " I am very I l, ! ke society very much." " Ah ! and no deeper feeling? No regrets for an uncon- genial marriage ? No thoughts of a brighter life ? No de- sire for a congenial soul ?" " My husband is very kind to me," said poor Marie, fall- ing into the trap. "But is he capable of comprehending you now, as I could?" " Your voice is very pleasant," said Marie. "Should you know it again?" asked the mask. His mouth was full of chestnuts, and Marie laughed a little as she thought of its music. " A woman has a superior li- cense to laugh at a man's follies, and when one is laughed at, it is sure he is playing a losing game ; for do we not know that woman will pardon a crime where sfte would be merciless to a foible ?" " Now I know that is from a novel, and you are laugh- ing at me," said Marie, her naturally rather shrewd com- mon-sense getting the better of her ignorance and her folly for a moment. 176 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. "No; I am in earnest. Now, as a proof of it, I will give you my photograph, if you will not look at it until to- morrow ;" and he handed her a sealed envelope. " Ah ! this is indeed serious," said Marie, as she put it in her pocket. " Well, I will own that you are very agree- able," said she ; " but I cannot remember the primroses, or the place where you took me down to supper. But then I go out so much. Was it Mrs. Morella's ?" " No," said the mask, shifting the chestnuts. " But now" (and there was a wild and reckless defiance in his tone) " I must leave you ; our long talk is being observed. Do not be afraid. To you I shall ever be faithful and true, and neither grief nor sorrow shall ever come between us." As Mephistopheles left her, another mask took his place, and talked more nonsense to the silly woman ; nor did she suspect that three scoffing men of the clubs had been amus- ing themselves at her expense. The fourth mask was Jack Townley, and the two had the great pleasure to feel that they had outwitted fate, and had done a very ingenious thing because one had a black ribbon in her domino, while the other had a pink one in his. " Well, are you pleased or disappointed ?" said Jack. " Oh, I think it is lovely," said Marie, for a great deal of the complimentary love-talk had adhered. " It is a consummate failure and swindle," said Jack, who was in a very bad humor. She looked up at him with surprise, his excitement ap- peared to her so unnatural. " I beg your pardon," said he ; "I have not on my mas- querade manner ; I have just heard some bad news. How- ever, I'll not spoil your pleasure. Who was that fellow in red who was talking to you ?" A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 177 " I do not know," said Marie, in an injured tone ; " but he was much more agreeable than you are." " I do not doubt that, for I have found it dreadfully dull here. Remember," said Jack, recollecting his role, " I have not met you before." " I stood for ten minutes under that gas-light, as you told me to in your note." " That was very sweet of you ; but I meant on the other side. That is the way I missed you." " You might have looked," said Marie. " What a foolish little coquette !" thought Jack. " Well, it was my fault. Shall we go up to the box ?" "Thank you, no. I am very comfortable down here. Why should we go up to that lonely box?" " You are angry with me ; I see it," said Jack. " You are disappointed." " I am more than disappointed I am bored," said poor Marie, tired of Jack for the first time. " Well, I am disagreeable to-night; however, it is almost time to be unmasked." Marie came out from under her mask very rosy and bright. She looked so exquisitely pretty that little Jean Philippeau went to all parts of the house to look at her. He had been amusing himself too under his mask. He had enjoyed the privilege of walking and talking with several belles who would not have spoken to him with his mask off. He was charmed at his own success. He had talked French, which was the favorite device of those who could speak it to mask the natural voice ; and he was riot without a native Gascon wit and compliment which went well. Indeed, the poor little snubbed mercantile French- man knew how to intriguer better than most of the gay 178 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. butterflies of fashion. But when he unmasked his fun was ended, excepting so far as Marie's triumphs pleased him. Supper was to her another famous success, for four gentlemen followed her, sat near her, complimented her, and were deeply interested in her adventures, or, we might put it in plainer English, they were deeply moved in the matter of making a fool of her. It is not a noble trait in the character of fashionable men, but it is unfortunately a not uncommon one, this union of strength against weak- ness. The old story of Mephistopheles is told over and over again, and, for an hour's laugh at the club, four men had agreed to work upon the vanity of one silly and inex- perienced woman. Of course Marie plumed, flaunted, boasted, and tried to talk "society;" of course she was deluded, pleased, and trapped. But was the game worth the candle? Was it at all worth the one honest word with which Jean Pierre came to see if she were ready to go home? Was it at all worth one good-night kiss of that golden-haired child who had admired "pretty mamma" in her fancy dress? And yet, as Marie wrapped her cloak about her after she got into the carriage, she hated the little man by her side, felt for the photograph in her pocket to assure herself of its safety, and had forgotten that Pierre existed. " It has amused thee ?" said her husband, kindly. "Amused me! Oh, I wish I could go to a ball like that every night of my life !" said Marie. A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 179 XXIV. THE morning after the ball was to Rose a sort of crisis of destiny. How to act ? what to do ? that was the ques- tion. Before her lay the appalling piece of paper thrust into her hands by the mysterious mask. It bore the words, " Herzog, No. East Broadway ; three in the after- noon." That, then, was the address of the man who was to tell her of her father's hiding-place. Could it be that he was there himself the bold and fearless Pascal Chadwick hiding in New York? thought poor Rose. It was impossible. Should she speak to her aunt that poor lady, so feeble, trembling now under the pangs of heart-disease, her life a matter of mere chance ? Rose felt sure that she should kill her if she mentioned this dreadful rumor. Miss Marjoribanks ? that was more possible ; yet her heart revolted from the very idea of telling her former governess anything which should compromise her father. Perhaps, after all, it was a mere masquerading joke ; a cruel one, no doubt. And yet who would know about these other things? No, it could be no joke. That missive was written by some one who knew Pascal Chadwick well. This, then, was the reason why Sir Lytton Leycester had not written to her. This, then, was coming in between them her father. Should she write to Arthur Amberley; he, so kind, so sensible, so much her friend. But no ; he too was one of the injured. She walked her room in agony, turning over as she did so some cards which lay on 180 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. her table. One seemed to detach itself from the rest. On it was written, "President Williams, Charpentier College." He was in the city ; he had called the day before. He was at a neighboring hotel, with her young cousin, a girl of her own age, whom she had never seen. She determined immediately on her course of action. Miss Marjoribanks was ill in bed with a sore throat. Her aunt had left her room, but Rose proceeded to ask her for the coupe, and told her she must go and see her uncle and cousin. " Of course," said Mrs. Trevylyan. " I meant to tell you that they called yesterday." When Rose reached the Park Avenue Hotel, she found her uncle alone, reading his paper in his quiet parlor. His ladies, he said, had gone out shopping. " You look pale and worn, my dear," said he. " I fear your New York winter has been too much for you." Rose sat down by him and looked at him earnestly. "Uncle, you promised to be my friend. Now I have come to claim your promise." She gave him in a clear, succinct way the story of Hathorne Mack's persecution, the threats he had always coupled with her father's name, the facts of her father's silence, his having communicated with no one but Hathorne Mack for many weeks, and she told him the story of the masked ball and the mysterious communication. "Why, Rose," said the president, "you are writing a three-volume novel for my reading. Let me see your paper." There it was. "Herzog, No. East Broadway; three in the afternoon." " Hum !" said the president. " I will call on the person A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 181 herein named not you, my dear. If it is a joke, a trap, or a device of your poor father to see you, I shall be able to reach all three. I wonder if Pascal would know me? How does he look now ?" Rose pulled a little gold locket out of her bosom, and, opening it, showed her father's face in photograph. " No," said the president. " Changed changed more than I have. However, I could soon know him now. I should know Pascal." " But if it should be some agent he has sent, some of our people we had a herdsman named Herzog if it should be some one who would distrust you, and not tell you the news my father has sent. Oh, uncle, let me go with you," said Rose. The president thought a moment. " Rose," said he, " it occurs to me that there is more of a plot behind this mys- terious mask than meets the eye. Now I have had to do with a private detective here by the name of Decker, in the case of a runaway student. He is a sort of creature who has eyes all over him, knows everybody's secrets, knows your history and mine better than we know it our- selves, and who is, I think, Asmodeus in person. If you do not mind, I will consult him." The president looked at his watch, and saw that it was only twelve o'clock. " Shall I send for Decker ?" said he. " I dislike so much it might imperil papa," said Rose. " No ; I will make you easy on that point. Decker will not betray me or my friends; he may help us find your papa, and release him from the toils of a villain." It seemed hours before Decker arrived, yet the clocks were striking one as he entered the room. Rose recognized the man to whom Amberley had spoken the night before. 182 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. He listened attentively to the story, smiled blandly, mentioned one or two circumstances which Rose had forgotten, and asked her a few questions about the stolen domino. " There is a woman in this case," said he, nodding to the president. " That always complicates matters. By the way, miss, did you ever see this before?" and he took out of his pocket a little silver arrow. " Why, certainly ; it looks as if it were cut out of the sleeve of my domino." " I thought so, miss. Please give it back to me. This is a very involved case, but interesting. Now our next move is to pay a visit to ' Herzog, No. East Broadway ; three o'clock.' Would you, sir, mind changing your white choker for a black one, and putting on a rather shabby tile?" The detective looked suggestively at the smooth clerical hat which lay on the table near the president. "What is your plan, Decker?" asked the president. "We are working in the dark." " You and I, sir, must be in that house when this young lady enters, and she must go, apparently alone, and ask for Herzog. You must be courageous, Miss Chadwick, and seem to fall into the trap ; for trap I believe it to be. You need not fear, for there will be a friend to you behind every door. If you do meet your father, we shall be dumb and blind ; if you meet somebody else, we shall have our senses." " What do you think this means, Decker ?" said the pres- ident. " I have three theories, sir. One is that it is a woman's revenge, and that Miss Chadwick is to be made a subject of blackmail; another is that perhaps her father is in trouble, and wishes to see her ; the third is that a bold and A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 183 desperate game is being played to compromise her, in which case, sir, you and I will be on hand." " It is not like my father," said Rose. " No, ma'am, it is not at all like Pascal Chadwick. I know him well enough for that," said Decker. " Courage, Rose," said the president, as he emerged from his dressing-room in black cravat and disordered travelling costume, his clerical respectability decidedly disguised ; " we shall be there before you." When Rose, dismissing her aunt's coachman, had en- gaged a hired cab, and reached No. East Broadway, she saw a large, rather shabby, but apparently well-filled house, which seemed to her to have seen better days. It had been a handsome house, and one day had harbored a wealthy, aristocratic " old family," but it had gone down, down, down, like the people who had owned it. Rose alighted, and rang the bell tremulously. " Is Mr. Herzog in ?" she asked. " Yes, 'm," said the girl, grinning ; " he's in the third pair back." "Ask him to come down to see Miss Chadwick," said poor Rose, feeling her voice desert her. " He can't, he's lame," said the girl. " He said you was to come up." At this moment two or three roughs came out of a lower room, and pushed against the girl, talking loudly, and smell- ing horribly of beer and tobacco. One came out after the others, and whispered to Rose, as the servant's attention was thus distracted. She recognized the voice of Decker. " Go up ; you are protected," he said. She ascended those crazy and dirty stairs; she followed 'blindly the directions to the " third pair back;" she reached 184 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. the landing. Oh, was she about to meet her father her father? was he there in hiding, in disgrace? " Come in," said a voice as she knocked. She entered, and met Hathorne Mack. Her first impulse was to scream ; her second one was better ; it was to stand still, to summon all her self-posses- sion, and to let him do the talking. " You are a wise girl to have come, Miss Rose. You have come to see your best friend." " What news have you of my father ?" said she. " Well, nothing except that he expects to hear from his son-in-law and congratulates the young couple ;" and here Hathorne Mack gave a hideous leer. " You've been playing a losing game, Rose, a very losing game. You expected to marry that English sprout ; now you see he was simply fool- ing you, while Hathorne Mack is in earnest. Sir Lytton Leycester is engaged to a young heiress at Manchester. He needs money to take care of his estates ; he can't marry you, now that Pascal has busted. Nobody for you but me, Rose. Pascal is a dead-beat, and hiding out of sight down in the Sandwich Islands. If you marry me, Rose, we'll have him out, and we'll put him on his legs again ; that is, if he ain't dead." " So this is a part of your plot against me, is it ?" said Rose. "You have decoyed me here to frighten me into marrying you ?" " Well, all's fair in love and war, you know, Rosie dear. Take a chair, and let's talk all friendly. Now you see we're as good as engaged, since you've visited me in my bachelor apartments." And Hathorne Mack gave a triumphant laugh. " I will never marry you !" said Rose, retreating towards the door. A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 185 Hathorne Mack stepped forward and locked the door. " Now, Miss Rose, you will marry me, and here too. I have got a parson all ready and a witness ; just you look. There has been a witness to this visit of yours. I didn't intend to be dishonest to you, but I guess you can't go back into society and be the great belle you was, unless you are Mrs. Hathorne Mack ; so just you take my hand, and we'll get spliced. No screaming ; no no nonsense ; it's all that's left to you now. Here there's another door to this room ; this apartment communicates " " I will appeal to the clergyman ; I will not marry you," said poor Rose, now nearly at the end of her strength. "It won't do you much good to appeal to my clergy- man," said the brute. " Come out, Bacon." The door opened, and President Williams entered with Decker. " So you are trying the bluff game on this young lady, are you, Mr. Mack," said Decker, blandly. " Blown, by Jove !" said Hathorne Mack, turning purple. " Rose, you have ruined your father," said he, turning to the poor girl, who was sinking to the ground. " I do not know that," said another voice that of the president of Charpentier College. "Rose, dear, let Mr. Decker take you to your carriage. I will remain and hear what Mr. Mack has to say. You are in no danger. Go back to your aunt." For once in his life, Hathorne Mack met a man who was not afraid of him, and who could not be bribed. President Williams had plenty of pluck behind his clerical waistcoat, and he had no desire for railroad stock or for speculative shares in any mining enterprise. Yet Hathorne Mack still had one advantage. He was 186 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. the only man (apparently) who knew anything about the whereabouts or the fortunes of Pascal Chadwick. He could still injure Rose. But he had been deceived, thwart- ed, and exposed. He had been sold by one of his choicest men. Decker had been "too many" for him. "All's fair in love and war," said he, boastfully, to the president. "And you were saved by us from the commission of a crime," said the president, thoughtfully. " Had it not been that I wish to save my niece from scandal, I should have preferred to allow you to hang yourself." "The rope ain't woven yet that is to hang Hathorne Mack." " I don't know that, Mr. Mack," said Decker, just enter- ing. " Did you ever see that ?" and he held out a little silver arrow. Hathorne Mack looked confused. " Has she turned too ? Have you got hold of her ?" said he. " Yes," said the detective, " we have got hold of her." " Well, do your worst, then ; others will suffer more than I shall." " Whom did he mean by ' her ' ?" asked the president as they descended to their carriage. " I haven't the least idea yet," said the detective, laugh- ing ; " but I shall know. There are a great many ' hers ' in the world. I know a good many of them." "We ought to keep track of this man," said the president. " Track of him !" said Decker, laughing scornfully. " Track of him ! I should think so. From this day, this hour, he will be shadowed. Yes, he will neither lie down, get up, go out, speak to man or woman, without my know- ing it." A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 187 The president almost shuddered. " You make one feel uncomfortable, Mr. Decker. Have you such power ?" " A good deal of power. Mr. President, by the way, I shall want to call on Miss Chadwick. Can 1 2" " Of course you can," said the president. XXV. THE good president had forgotten nothing. Acting on a judicious after-thought, he had sent Rose back to his hotel to await his coming, and had written to Mrs. Trevyl- yan that he should keep his niece to dine with her aunt and cousin. Rose kept up " with a brave white face," and found in the serene, self-possessed manner of her new relatives a sort of strength and peace. There was a wholesome quiet- ness in the manner of Mrs. Williams a woman who had suffered terribly from the loss of a son, as Rose afterwards discovered, but who had made her personal sorrow " turn the wheel of an unselfish activity " for the good of others. Mrs. Williams was accustomed to young people ; she lived as the wife of a president of a college should live, in close maternal relation to the poor young fellows who had to meet illness and disappointment as well as the gayety and success of their rough-and-tumble life. Perhaps Mrs. Williams was, in her way, quite as necessary to Charpen- tier College as was the president. Then her cousin, a plain, intelligent girl, who seemed to take Rose immediately to her heart with a sense of ownership all, all was calming and delightful. 188 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. Not until the president started to walk home with his niece was a word spoken of the scene which they had gone through. " He will never trouble you again, Rose," said her uncle, speaking of Hathorne Mack. " He has made himself amenable to the law. He is afraid of Decker, also of me. It was amusing to hear the creature's disgust overflow. ' Bluffed, by Jove ! and by an old fool of a clergyman,' was his not too complimentary remark. I don't think I looked like a clergyman ; do you, Rose ?" " Now what do you think about papa ?" said Rose. " That we must wait and hope. Hathorne Mack evi- dently has suppressed and distorted what news he may have. Pascal was always queer ; he did not ever write regularly, did he, dear ?" " No," said Rose. " It is a longer time now than " "Well, dear, possess your soul in patience. I see you are no coward. Go and lead your every-day life. Keep your fears to yourself for Mrs. Trevylyan is a person of shattered nerves ; it will not do to frighten her and pro- vide yourself with ' those iron-clad joys which we call em- ployments.' I am glad to hear that you study daily with Miss What's her name ?" " Marjoribanks the English call her Marchbanks," said Rose ; " a former governess of mine." "And what did I hear you telling Cornelia of your teaching a little boy ?" "Oh, Pierre! You know I was taken to Mrs. Phil- ippeau's house when my leg was broken she is Mr. Mack's sister and I received great kindness there. She has a lovely child, Pierre, who was Miss Marjoribanks's charge before they well, they quarrelled. Now he is A n*/N8PL ANTED ROSE. 189 very fond of me, and I love him, so he comes every day to play at studying with me. It is really done, uncle, be- cause I crave his innocent, pretty affection, and he I fear that his mother well, I don't know. She does not care for him as I should think she would." " I should like you to shake off all these people, Rose, but I cannot advise it now. Be prudent. We must keep your name out of the newspapers ; and I can see no more healthy work for you than to study yourself, and also amuse yourself with this child. It shows a good heart, dear. I like women who like children. Perhaps Mr. Decker may call on you in a day or two. Be prepared to see him come in as a book peddler, sent to you by me, and talk to him about his books. You will know why later. I declare I am becoming a play-actor !" And the president readjusted his cravat and his glasses as he rang Mrs. Trevylyan's door -bell, and left Rose at home. The next morning's breakfast found Rose treating Pierre to orange marmalade and toast, while waiting for her own breakfast of a chop and a potato, for he was sent down early to enjoy a long, joyous morning with his dear Rose. Miss Marjoribanks, wrapped in a large shawl, still suffering from her cold, was making the tea. At Mrs. Trevylyan's Pierre found sympathy and liberty, the natural craving of childhood. He was a lovely, en- gaging child, a natural gentleman, a sweet, gentle, confiding creature, contradicting all the theories of hereditary traits, unless Jean Pierre had had a noble great-grandfather. He needed love, this child, as his lungs demanded fresh air, and Rose gave it to him in amplest measure. " How fond you are of that child !" said Miss Marjori- 13 190 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. banks, almost wistfully, as she watched Rose dance him up and down on her knee. "Who would not be?" said Rose. "Oh, Pierre, you shall go to Chadwick's Falls with me, and you shall have a garden, and five , dogs and a pony, and rabbits to feed, and a little mountain goat and a fawn !" " Can we go to-morrow ?" asked Pierre. " No, dear child ; but if you will study your spelling while I am getting my German lesson, I will take you up to see the little lions at the Park this afternoon." Pierre was all attention to his blocks, and Rose devoted to her German, with Miss Marjoribanks correcting an exer- cise, when the bell rang, and the butler hastened to the door. He came quickly back, followed by a gentleman, who presented his own card and that of President Will- iams. " The Rev. O. Tyler." Rose read it, and, trembling all over, realized that the detective was before her. It was almost impossible to see in this mild and sleek and meek clerical gentleman the man she had met before. Fortunate- ly for her self-possession, he offered his book to Miss Mar- joribanks for inspection. It was one which caught her eye immediately, being an improved method of teaching German. " Just what you need, Rose," said she. " Very well," said Rose. " I will buy it if you say so." " But let me look at your other books," said the gov- erness. The Rev. O. Tyler had the most excellent and rare set of educational helps under his arm which even the most en- terprising firm could turn out. His conversation about them was at once amusing, instructive, and at the same time pathetic and poverty-stricken. He continued to throw out side-lights upon his own need of selling all that. A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 191 he could dispose of, remotely hinted at a wife and six children, until Miss Marjoribanks decided upon a " Few Lights of History," "Easy Method to Algebra," and " Reading without Tears " for Pierre. " I have not ray purse here," said Rose. " Let me go and get it," said Miss Marjoribanks. When she was well out of hearing, the Rev. 0. Tyler took up the " Few Lights of History," and, as if reading, softly remarked : " If you ever walk out with that little boy, it would be well Park three o'clock. All is going as I could wish." When Miss Marjoribanks came back with the purse, and Rose counted out what seemed to the Rev. 0. Tyler to be a fortune apparently, Pierre, who had been enjoying these helps to education, which were embellished by wood-cuts, looked up slyly at the gentleman, and remarked, " You've got a wig on." The Rev. 0. Tyler smiled feebly, put on his hat, and departed hastily. Miss Marjoribanks, who had rather enjoyed this visit of the book peddler, was deeply shocked ; and, in her admo> nitions to Pierre reproving his childish frankness, failed to observe that the hand with which Rose was writing her German exercise trembled like a leaf. " Pierre, you must never remark on personal appear- ance ; that is very rude," said the governess. "Your hair is red," said Pierre, by way of showing his apprehension and obedience. " What very beautiful, fashionable hair you have, Ethel !" said Rose, who still relapsed into habits of early intimacy. Miss Marjoribanks smiled, not displeased. 192 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. "Another note, miss," said the butler, who had already brought in two or three. " An invitation from Fanny Grey to be her bridemaid in three weeks," said Rose. " How quietly she has managed all this ! My first friend in New York, my constant good friend, how well I remember her first greeting at Mrs. Mortimer's, when I entered in that dreadful yellow bro- cade !" " You will accept, of course ?" said Miss Marjoribanks. "I do not quite know yet. I must consult Aunt Laura." Not only Aunt Laura, but the president, approved of the bridemaid project. The emotions which had chased them- selves across her young heart of late had left Rose without volition. She almost shrank from the business of getting up a dress, and entering upon the gay and frivolous busi- ness of being bridemaid ; but the president told her that he wished it, and Aunt Laura almost commanded. The president and Aunt Laura had had their confiden- tial talk. "We must amuse her, keep her mind off her father, until we know more," said Mrs. Trevylyan. " Yes ; I am glad this wedding has come in, particularly as she has so much reason for anxiety," said the president, evasively. "Tell me I heard something about the at- tentions of a young English baronet do you think Rose was impressed ?" "All that happened while she was imprisoned at Mrs. Philippeau's, and while I was imprisoned here," said Mrs. Trevylyan. "He was certainly very fond of her, I thought, but Rose is singularly reticent; of her deeper feelings I know nothing. I only know that she is very A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 198 sweet, and the most improved person. She ' takes a polish ' easily. Do you not find her improved and well- mannered !" " Yes," said the president ; " she pleases me. Bnt has not the polish been applied rather too severely? I miss some little excrescences of manner which I admired, and I find her too pale and quiet. Are you not rubbing her down too smooth I" " Circumstances have been ' rubbing her down,' as you express it, rather severely. She is of the impulsive- tempered, and is born to suffer, also to recuperate, I hope; but the dearest, truest, sweetest, most guileless nature. You can hope for anything, everything, with such a char- acter," said Mrs. Trevylyan. " I long to get her to my quiet house in the country," said the president ; " I want to see her eyes look as they did when I first saw them. I want her cheek to come up, and be round again." " Rose has begun to live," said Mrs. Trevylyan. Each of these two good people had his and her own secret, each of them talked with half a confidence, and they separated without any especial understanding, except that Rose should be bridemaid. It was a beautiful wedding, that of Fanny Grey and Jack Long. All the world was there excepting the Hon- orable Hathorne Mack : he had gone to Washington. The bride had decreed that her attendants should come in pink a fact which was attributed to her well-known liking for Rose, to whom that color was becoming. Jack Long gave all the bridernaids diamond lockets with his own and Fanny's monograms interlaced, and Fanny's presents filled two rooms, and required a man from Tiffany's to 194 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. arrange them. She had ten lace fans, all alike, seventeen pepper-casters, and nineteen card-receivers; ten sets of oyster-knives, and twenty-two teapots. Fortunately, wed- ding presents are now allowed to be exchanged ; else what use for them ? Also, lamps by the dozen, and a number of salts. Then came silver dinner-sets, diamond bracelets, sets of choice porcelain, pictures, vases, mirrors, cam el' s- hair shawls, necklaces, ear-rings, and inkstands. The pop- ular and beloved belle had her share of the good things of this earth. And as the charming troop of bridemaids entered the church, who so lovely as Rose? She and Harriet Am- berley came first, and many an eye rested on her graceful figure and lovely face. Of whom did she think as she knelt at the altar railing ? Of whom, as she heard those solemn sounds ? Ah ! wedding bells, wedding bells, how loud you ring ! how far away your music sounds ! What is there in the dying cadence as the echo dies away that is sad sad? Why do we always weep at a wedding? And now to those who were gayest of the gay as they sur- rounded that fair bride, why did there come a presage of calamity ? XXVI. MEANTIME a dead man lay with his unseeing eyes open to the sky. While his name was on the lips of hundreds, while one anxious heart was beating aloud for news of him, Pascal Chadwick lay at the foot of a high bluff, dead. He had not been to the Sandwich Islands at all. He A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 195 had gone out to quell an insurrection in one of his mining camps, wandering on, as was his wont, to see to one or the other of his many interests, telling no one of his plans. The nomadic instinct includes secretiveness. A Western pioneer, like an Indian, tells no one where he is going, for the best of reasons he does not know him- self. The ocean dashed up not far distant, and the dreary cliffs looked out upon a desolate coast, as the dead man kept his solitary watch. The snow had come, and had covered up the dishonor of decay. The remote stars, keen, brilliant, and unsympathetic, had mirrored themselves in those glassy open eyes. The sun had risen, but not to warm him. There he lay. Was it murder? And now came a group of miners with swinging step around the corner of the bluff. It was a high scarp of rock, that seemed to end the mountain range ; and as the man who first turned its sharp edge advanced, he sang in a hoarse voice the refrain of a melancholy little Spanish song. He was wrapped in a bright-colored scrape, and was followed by a rough group of fellow-miners. " Hola !" said one ; "Jose has stumbled." " Yes, and over a dead man !" said the others. " Bad luck to our new lead, that," said another. " Bad luck ! bad luck !" A dead man was not such an unusual thing for these Mexican miners to find in their pathway, but the event had generally a fresh personal interest. A man whom they had not stabbed or killed was something remote or unpleasant to them. They did not like it that way. " He has been dead a long time," said Jose, rising from his knees with an expression of relief. 196 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. " Feel in his pockets," said another. There were found a watch, a silver cigar-box, a miniature case, a little money, and some blotted papers. It was grow- ing dark, and Jose was hungry. He was a good-hearted ruffian, but he was feeling more impatient for his supper just now than anything else. He was the leader of his troop, and desired a reputation for generosity ; so, to save time and to gain favor, he said : " Here, Pedro, here, Manuel, here, Sancho, Miguel, take these coins. I will keep the watch and the miniature case. This was an im- portant man ; he will be inquired for." (Jose had yet an eye to business.) And the Mexican disposed of the contents of the dead man's pockets with true Spanish splendor. " But, capitan," said Pedro, who was of a superstitious turn of mind, " we shall not have good luck if we do not bury him and put a cross over his grave." And Pedro clutched at the rosary which lay in his belt next to his Spanish knife, sharp on both edges. " No, not now ; wait until after supper," said the cap- itan. A fire was built, and the salt pork fried, even within a few rods of the body lying stiff and stark. They had turned their backs upon it, but Pedro looked nervously over his left shoulder. As the steam arose from the boil- ing pot of chocolate, Pedro watched its shape curiously and fearfully to see if it took on the form of a man or beast, and, as it separated into two distinct columns, he said the credo and trembled. " This was murder," said he. Suddenly there came from the chaparral behind them the wild cry of the coyote, always a fearful sound. A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 197 " Cararaba !" said the superstitious Pedro. All these men, fearless as wild wolves before a real dan- ger, ready to plunge their sharp knives into a living foe or friend, if that might be necessary were afraid of that poor piece of unburied clay. Death asserted its terrors. Pascal Chadwick had ever been an " ugly customer" to meet in the dark ; he was even more terrible now as he lay there unconscious, a mere silent, disorganized mass of mat- ter, soon to be absorbed again into great nature's labora- tory. These coarse miners, these courageous brutes, were superstitious. They were afraid of those disembodied spirits who, according to their inherited belief, followed and watched over the dead. Particularly were they afraid of that malevolent spirit who came up to care for those who had met with a violent death. They were on the eve of a new enterprise, and this incident foreboded failure. " But," said Manuel, " we can give him good Christian burial, and carve a cross on the rock, and I have an extra rosary, which I will hang up over the grave." " It is well," said the capitan, gravely. " After supper you shall cut two metal buttons from his clothes, and look at the back of his neck to see if the spine was severed. So strong and big a man as that, if murdered, was struck from behind. Then we will say some prayers over him ; that will avert the bad luck." As the moon rose over the dashing waves of the sea, and whitened the great mountain-side, the torches of the miners were seen to cast a red light on a new-made grave. The body had been carefully examined by the men, had been wrapped in a scrape for a shroud, and Pedro, with his sharp knife, severed a lock of hair from the scalp. The two metal buttons were detached from the rags of an 198 A TRANSPLANTED, ROSE. outer garment, and Manuel, who was a bit of a penman, scratched the date and a sort of description on a greasy parchment which he carried with him. " This man will be inquired for," said he. Jose, meantime, half sung, half chanted, his melancholy, sad refrain, and Pedro knelt and repeated aves and credos. Ignorant, superstitious, and brutal, the half-savage faces for a moment were lifted to heaven with that true spirit of humiliation and of prayer which comes to all men in the presence of Death. Who shall say that there is no God ? Who shall say that an appeal to Him is not the first in- stinct in joy, in sorrow, and in fear? As surely as does the child appeal to its mother, does the heart of man turn towards the unseen Father of all. Pascal Chadwick bad Christian burial, although no church, no cathedral, opened its doors to him. The low foreign speech, the half-articu- late chant, the burning torches, the solemn thud of the spade all, all reiterated " bell, book, and candle ;" and, call it superstition or call it piety, there were fervent prayers said over that poor bit of clay. And they piled a cairn of stones to protect that unknown grave from the coyote. Manuel hung his rosary on the rock, and carved a rude cross on its imperishable wall a mural tablet which should outlast the centuries. Then the miners took up their line of march. Two hours more by the light of the moon they tramped before they reached the camp to which Capitan Jose was leading them, which was over the high mountain, away from the sea, and down into the val- ley again, where, after crossing a dry gully, they expected to find gold. The camp-fire they had left behind them flickered awhile, as if it were the flame on an altar ; then, blown into a sudden flash by a passing zephyr, it rose in A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 199 successive flames. A ship out at sea sighted it, and won- dered at this light-house on an unknown shore; and the stars and the moon saw it, but gave no answering sign. The ocean sang on that ever-unceasing requiem, as the flame flickered and went out, " Ashes to ashes, dust to dust." Such was the burial service of one whose faults and whose virtues and whose record had now passed away from the judgment of men up to that judgment which, let us hope, is more just and more merciful than that of earth. " Sister," said Arthur Amberley to Harriet, as they sat by their pleasant wood fire one cool evening in the spring, " what did I hear you say about going to Europe ?" " Oh, Mrs. Mercer wants me to go over to her for the London season ; but I have concluded that I will not go. I cannot leave you, you know." " Well, Hatty, you had better go. I feel very much like trying a Western trip. I want to go out and shoot a little." " But is this the season ?" said Harriet. Arthur hemmed and hawed and hesitated. " No, dear, it is not. I will not try to deceive you. I am about to do a foolish thing I am going to try to find Pascal Chadwick." " Oh, Arthur, then this is a serious affair of yours. You love Rose." " Perhaps I do, Harriet perhaps I do ; but she does not love me, so don't be apprehensive of a wedding. I am not ashamed to tell you that I want to serve her, and yet not be known as serving her. Perhaps, too, I want to serve the cause of truth and justice and law and order. Jack Townley, who has known these people about Pascal Chad- 200 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. wick so well, had a visit from a herdsman named Herzog, who had some strange news for him. This man had fol- lowed Mr. Chad wick for some hundred miles, and then lost sight of him near a mining camp, since when nothing has been heard of him. The man has been here, and had seen Hathorne Mack, who had turned him off contemptuously. He then called on Jack, and told him of his fears and sus- picions. We both fear some foul play. If you go to Europe, I have determined to find out something about this matter. I shall go out to the mining grounds, and look around ; I have some money out there which I ought to be looking after, too." Harriet came over and put her two arms around her brother's neck. " Do you know you are a good old fel- low, Arthur ? You come nearer some of those ideal men, Tristram and Lancelot and Arthur great King Arthur, your godfather than any man I know. But will you not run some terrible risks out in that savage wilderness ?" "No, Harriet, I am not such a hero as you think ; I am already regretting my linen sheets, my morning tub, my good breakfasts ; I am already loathing the fried pork and the horrible bread of the wandering mountaineers. Nurse me through all the dyspepsias I shall acquire in the desert, my dear, and you will become Auslaga, Elaine, Elizabeth of Hungary, and all the noble women who waited on your mythical heroes." " You are always half suspicious of your own nobility, Arthur. How I wish that men who pretend to virtue had half your reality ! What can I do for Rose ?" " She must soon know of this dreadful probability," said Arthur. " I fear from her pale face that it has been whis- pered to her. Decker, a detective whom I have some A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 201 knowledge of, tells me that she has been the victim of some plot of a villain, from which he has tried to extricate her, and in his mousing way he has found out that Pascal Chadwick has probably been murdered. There are some mysterious complications, and Decker says that he detects a woman's malice in the affair of the masquerade ball. You know two strange men entered her box, one in my domino, or one like it, and her domino was stolen." " I saw her double, then," said Harriet. " You know we kept the dominos very close." "Yes, but Sidonie Devine saw mine," said Harriet. " You know how she dislikes Rose." Arthur Amberley paused a moment, and thought. " I hardly accuse Sidonie of this particular outrage," said he. " I think a more vulgar hand has been at work. I wonder if Mrs. Philippeau could have connived at such a monstrous piece of cruelty ?" " You know she is Hathorne Mack's sister," said Harriet. " Yes. I wish I could reach that man's throat !" said Arthur; "and yet he keeps out of harm's way, and is making himself so necessary to all the Wall Street men." " How detestable that such a man can be endured !" " Yes, and permitted to ruin a young life. Harriet, help me to help Rose, and our brother-and-sister love will have a new and sacred significance." " We are one in this, as in all things, Arthur," said Har- riet, calmly. " I may trust you fully to keep my secret ?" said Arthur. "Yes. I have kept several for you," said Harriet, laughing. "Do not let any one suppose I am Quixotic and generous. Do not allow any one to suppose that I am 202 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. going out to find Pascal Chad wick. I have no other ad- vice to give you," said Arthur. " I shall go to see Rose at once." " Do, and find out, as only a woman like you can, how much she knows, how much she fears, how much she suffers. Let her know, Harriet, that she has friends. You can say that whenever she will see me I am at her com- mand. Oh, Harriet, what cannot a good woman say and do, when she is free from the egotism, the selfishness, the corruption of this world ?" " Shall I prepare her for the worst ?" asked Harriet, ig- noring the compliment. "I think she ought to know that we all fear that her father has been killed. And, Harriet, something tells me that, after what I fear she has been told to suspect, the news of his death will not be the worst news." "Why, what do you mean?" " From what Decker told me, I suspect that she has been told that her father is in disgrace, and hiding away from justice." " Oh, what a dreadful world we live in !" said Harriet, shuddering, as she looked around her comfortable parlor. " Yes, dear ; it is not all shut in behind these crimson curtains, this world ; but perhaps we can get out and help save here and there a waif." A TRANSPLANTED KOBE. 203 XXVII. HATHORNE MACK had heretofore had his own way in things, as we have seen. He had now been thwarted in the dearest wish of his life "thwarted by a beggarly par- son." He knew that he had attempted a great crime, and that he was henceforth to be " shadowed," watched, and, as he expressed it, "bothered." But, whatever were his faults, cowardice was not one of them, when he came to other matters than love. He had helped to make the laws of his country, and he accordingly felt little or no respect for them. He knew that he should be " let alone " if he only left Rose her freedom, and her uncle his own way. He was not afraid of punishment. "They have more to lose than I have by exposure," reasoned the Honorable Hathorne Mack. Still he was miserably, dangerously angry angry as a bull-dog is angry, snarling, and desirous of wreaking his anger on somebody. Alone, he paced his room like a caged tiger, not knowing quite what to do next. Ill-mannered, ill- conditioned, and di.^'usted, the Honorable Hathorne Mack was not a pleasant object to look upon. " I wonder if that red-headed fool went back on me ?" said he to himself. "She's fond of me, and could not help being jealous. But I do not think she would dare. I know too much about her, and the plot she laid for Pascal. Yet I never trusted a woman before. I don't believe in them." If the Honorable Hathorne wanted an object on which to vent his wrath, it was forthcoming. A low tap at the door. 204 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. " Come in," said he, sulkily. Rebecca Marjoribanks, closely veiled, stood before him. " The game is up," said she, taking a chair, and quietly un- tying her bonnet-strings. " What do you mean ?" said he. " There has been a detective at the house, disguised as a book peddler," said she. " He thought I did not see his false beard and his wig. It was well enough done, but I have seen too many of them. What has happened here ?" It was a skilful piece of fencing for the next half-hour, but the woman's wit conquered. Hathorne Mack had to tell her everything. She grew pale as he went on, and clinched her hands. " You have botched this business, Rebecca," said the man, brutally. "And you have lied to me," said she, under her breath. "I told you I meant to marry the girl," said Mack. " But you said you would not use force ; you promised that you would respect her youth, and win her fairly," said the governess. " You are a pretty one to talk about fairness !" said the man. " Don't taunt me," said she, calmly. " I told you that, base, criminal, and low as my life has been, pursued by want, followed and deceived, the victim of treachery, as I have been, I have one soft spot in my heart my love for that girl. Do I not know how pure and good she is? Have I not heard her prayers and her innocent confessions ? Have I not seen the purity I early lost blossom in her clean soul? Have I not deliberately stolen her lover's letters and her heart's best hope away from her, to make her will- ing to be your wife, suffering as I did it all the pangs of A TRAXSPJ.AXTE1) ROSS. 205 my own early disappointment, all to serve you, and have I not seen her constant and patient to the end ? Hathorne, I have been true to you, true to my promise ; but I made a condition, which you have violated." " Where are the letters ?" asked the Honorable Hathorne Mack, interested. Miss Marjoribanks drew from her pocket a bundle of un- opened English-postmarked letters, and handed them to Mack. Strange to say, as he took them, and essayed to break a seal, something stopped him. What is there in that mysterious look of a seal which protects our written secrets ! How few, even the basest men, like to open a letter ad- dressed to another! " Well, you are sure you have not let her receive one of the fool's letters ?" he asked. " No. She thinks he has not written." 44 1 don't want to read his flummery, then," said Mack, as he threw the letters into a drawer. " Now, Rebecca," said he, as she fixed him with her steady yellow-brown eyes, " I suppose you want money. You want to be paid : un- successful agents always do. Now, how much ?" " Nothing, Hathorne. You must marry me. I have left Rose, Mrs. Trevylyan, respectability everything. The de- tective is on my track. I have to fly again, and now you must protect me. It was not my fault that I failed; it was the girl's irrepressible aversion. She hates you. I love you. Marry me." " Marry you !" said the brute. " Yes, marry me. I have served you faithfully. The scheme has failed. If you anger me, I have a dreadful revenge to take. I know the whole secret of Pascal Chad- vrick's journey to the Pacific coast. I know your share in 14 206 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. a certain midnight encounter. Your kennel hound has played you false." *' You cannot and shall not escape to tell it," said Ha- thorne Mack, reaching out his burly hand towards her throat. But the woman was cool. "I am not afraid of you, Hathorne," said she. " I posted a letter before I came here which told where I was coming. It was to a distant city, but it will come into the hands of the police in three days: you had better not murder me." " You are a deep one," said he, with a sullen look of admiration ; " you always were ;" and he gave her some- thing almost like a caress. It was one of the mysteries of this woman's character that she could not stand tenderness. She melted at once, and kissed the hand which had been raised to strike her. " Oh, Hathorne ! Hathorne ! marry me, and love me, and no slave shall serve you better. I am the only creature in the world who loves you like a dog, or a horse, or any other unreasonable creature. Nothing of regret, nothing of penitence, shall ever weaken me if I am your wife. Discard me, and I am a dangerous foe dangerous alike in my cruelty and in my weakness." And the poor creature knelt and clasped his knees, weeping bitter tears. It was true, she did love this coarse, strong, hard villain. He was very unlike the other men on whom she had prac- tised her arts. He was illiterate, ungraceful, and unrefined, and yet the accomplished, refined, wicked English governess loved him. It was a sincere feeling; therefore it was re- spectable, in its way. Hathorne Mack looked in the fire silently. Here was a coil about his feet for which he was not prepared. He looked down at the woman who still sobbed and knelt be- A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 207 fore him. She was haggard ; there were black lines about her eyes ; her magnificent red hair was loosened and fell about her figure that figure which he had condescended to admire, and it was supple and gracious. He thought of Rose, and a shudder stole over even his broad frame, and shook him. " She hates me, that girl," said he ; " she might stab me in the night but so, for that matter, might you." " You used to love me, Hathorne," said the governess. " I have always loved you, and I always shall. I have been true to my promise, even trying to win you another woman my own pet lamb, my child almost. I have borne the most terrible ill-usage from you, and I love you still. Is not that worth something ?" She felt as if she were rolling a stone up hill, but she was doing it well. An unexpected ally came to help her : it was the church clock striking three. She started to her feet. " We have no time to lose," said she. "Rose has walked to the Park, and I suspect to meet the detective. We must be away from here when they return." The woman's nature, thoroughly evil from the training it had received, yet not foully false at the core, dreaded of all things to meet Rose again ; whatever should happen, she meant to be far enough away from her. " They cannot do anything to us," said Mack, after a moment's thought. " They can arrest me," said she. She was too skilled in the arts of escape to risk anything. She was too coura- geous to be cowed by outward circumstances. " Marry me, and then I cannot testify against you," said she, using her last argument. 208 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. The Honorable Hathorne Mack looked at her with an expression in which anger, disgust, and admiration were strangely blended. He proceeded to his desk, took out money and papers, and threw into its deeps poor Sir Lytton Leycester's package of letters, locked it, and moved towards the door. "Have you a carriage at the door?" said he. " Yes, and my portmanteau," said she. " Pack mine for three days," said he. She did so, with a neat order and celerity which he even paused to admire. " Where is your parson ?" said he. " Out of the city five miles. You know Morton Cottage, where we once passed a few weeks ?" " You have arranged it all, have you ?" " No, Hathorne ; it arranges itself ; but I have baffled pursuit and inquiry for a few days, for I have left my papers in apparent confusion, and when the police examine them to-morrow they will believe I have gone to Europe. We shall gain time." Wrapping his warm fur-lined coat about him, and lock- ing his door, the Honorable Hathorne Mack stole down the stairs silently after his captor. When they entered the carriage they scarcely spoke. She knew too much to engage him in conversation at once ; he was not in the mood for it. It was quite dark when they reached Morton Cottage, in one of the loneliest suburbs of New York. A light burned in the little parlor of the clergyman's modest mansion, and he started up himself to answer the bell. It was a strange marriage, and the only witness was a half-blind negro whom the clergyman called in from the kitchen. And yet it was as solemn and as binding as any that is celebrated in church or in grand salon before admir- ing friends. The words were there, the great vow was taken A TRANSPLANTED ROBE. 209 which it is a mortal sin to break. A sullen, angry man, a dishevelled and trembling woman, two people bound by hate as well as love, took on their soiled lips those conse- crated words, and promised to love, obey, protect, and cherish so long as they both should live. And the clergy- man, accustomed, by the way, to "join together strange beasts," looked at them askance as he said, " Whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder." They drove away in the darkness, nobody cared where. " Lady's left her handkercher, sir," said the black man, picking up something white on the rectory floor. " Let me have it," said the clergyman ; and he locked it up in his desk. " That pair will be inquired for, if I am not mistaken," said he, as he wrote down the date of the marriage, and the feigned names which this precious pair had given him. It was late the next day before Mr. Decker wandered down to look at the rooms of the Honorable Hathorne Mack. A half-sleepy, half-drunken fellow slouched past the prim Mr. Decker. Even then and there Mr. Decker shunned the appearance of evil, and seemed to be repri- manding the man. " Left yesterday at half-past four with red-haired wom- an," said the tramp, slouching onward. Then Mr. Decker forgot his primness, and started on a run. Rebecca Marjoribanks had baffled him. It was not the first time, by the way. He was absolutely breathless as he reached Mrs. Trevylyan's door. The stately servant who answered the summons had never seen a more anxious face than that of Mr. Decker. " Is Miss what do you call 'em governess at home ?" said he. 210 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. " No, sir ; she left town for a few days yesterday after- noon to visit a relative in Princeton, sir. She have a very bad sore throat, sir, and was afeard of giving of it to the family, sir; so she took quite a sudding determination to leave, with a carpet-bag, for a few days, sir," said the man, glibly repeating the parting injunctions of the departed governess. " Foiled, by Jove !" said Mr. Decker. XXVIII. WHILE this little drama was being enacted on the one side of the house, Rose and Pierre, with the German nurse, had walked off to the Park. It was their greatest pleasure to have a long stroll together, and to visit the little lions was to Pierre rapture indescribable. Many of her fashionable friends saw Rose as she walked and chatted with Pierre, and thought her a very deep, deep girl. " How she does affect the quite too innocently natural, does she not?" said Sidonie Devine. "She is quite too too, isn't she ?" " Yes," said Mrs. Morella ; " all that is gotten up for Jack, you know. She is sure to meet him out at the Park. All the young men are going out just now for their afternoon ride, and she knows walking gives her a color." Rose walked on unconscious of criticism, full of deep and troubled thoughts, and only half answering Pierre's questions. A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 211 " What are you thinking of, Rose ?" said Pierre. " You are not so pleasant as you are sometimes." " I was thinking of myself, Pierre," said she, apologeti- cally, "and people are never pleasant when they are think- ing of themselves." "I wish you wouldn't think of yourself. I wish you would tell me a story," said Pierre. " Well, once there was a man," said Rose. And then she began to think with terror of the Honorable Hathorne Mack. "Well, what did he do?" said Pierre. " Well, he said he would meet us up by the animals," said Rose, her mind travelling off to the detective. And then she corrected herself, and said, " I cannot tell you a good story to-day out of my head, but I will repeat to you the ' Pied Piper of Hamelin.' " So, as they were in the midst of that delightful story of the rats, they reached the home of the larger quadrupeds, and forgot their small deer. Rose was in the midst of an eloquent description of the tiger, his habits and his bloodthirsty proclivities, when a man came sauntering along carelessly. "You dropped your handkerchief, miss," said he, re- spectfully, and he handed her a fine white handkerchief. She was about to refuse the gift, when a second look told her that Decker stood before her. " Look at the initials in the corner, and tell me whose they are. This handkerchief was found in the pocket of the domino." Rose looked and read " R. E. M." in embroidered capi- tals. Just as she had done so she looked up, and saw Jack Townley looking at her from another part of the room. 212 A TRANSPLANTED ROBE. "Thank you," said she, with ready composure, to the detective, who looked now like a quiet man of fashion. " I suppose I dropped it at the door." The detective melted into thin air, and disappeared. Jack Townley had seen Rose blush, and a curious sus- picion took hold of him. " Is she nothing but a universal coquette ?" said he. But Rose took the hand of Pierre, and walked on to the lions, nodding to Mr. Townley as she did so. " I saw you come in, and I took the liberty of following, although my horse does not like the odor of these gentle- men," said the young beau, as he tapped his riding-boot. "I did not expect to meet ajeunesse doree in here," said Rose, laughing. " Pierre and I have it all to ourselves generally," said she. " I feared a man was speaking to you who had no right to," said Jack, rather foolishly, " so I came over to offer my protection." "Only somebody picked up my handkerchief," said Rose. Now Jack Townley looked into the pure face of Rose, and knew instinctively that she was not telling him the whole truth. His wide experience of women had taught him that there are two kinds of innocence one that is absolutely ignorant of evil, and therefore always suspected ; another, with the clearest possible knowledge of its exist- ence, and yet with a horror and contempt of it. He had admired the freshness and ingenuous delicacy of this girl's mind. It always impressed him, but to-day he began to doubt it Was she a dissembler, as good an actress off the stage as she was on it ? He knew how dangerous to a young girl in New York was the innocent ignorance of the A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 213 first sort, and, although it was none of his business, Jack determined to say a word or two. " That man should have handed you the handkerchief without speaking to you," said he. Rose turned towards him, and read the thought in his eyes. " I am destined to do the wrong thing and to be mis- understood in New York," said she. " If any of our friends saw me in here with you, they would say I had come to meet you ; so let us walk out." There was so much dignity in her mood as she took the child's hand and led him away from the little lions, that Jack Townley bowed, and absolutely blushed. " I have a message for you, Miss Rose a message from Sir Lytton Leycester. May I give it to you here ?" Rose allowed Pierre to pull her back to the dear neighborhood of the little lions. " He asks why you have forgotten him," said Townley. Now came the deep torrent of blood up to her face. He had not written her a word he whose whispered words had been so sweet, he whose love had seemed so true and he had sent her this insulting message ! " Tell him that I have had every reason to forget him," said she, proudly drawing herself up. " That is my mes- sage to Sir Lytton." The skies looked gray and cold as she walked home with Pierre. Her laughter was forced and unnatural, and, dropping him at his own door, she walked home to have an hour of sad meditation before dinner. She was to go to a large dinner that evening, and Martha came in to dress her. " Your aunt would like to speak to you, miss," said she, 214 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. as Rose stood before her, all radiant in a white grenadine with violets. Rose went into her aunt's bedroom, and was shocked to see how ill Mrs. Trevylyan looked. " Are you worse, dear aunt?" said Rose. " I fear I am, dear not so well ; but don't be anxious. How perfectly that dress fits you ! Rose, did you know that Miss Marjoribanks had gone for a few days to Prince- ton ? She tells ine she fears that she has the diphtheria ; and she was very good to propose going." Something struck Rose as with an arrow. The handker- chief! the initials! She had forgotten the incident in the hurry and the agitation which followed. Kissing her aunt good-night, she ran up to her own room again, and took out the handkerchief from the pocket of her ulster, where she had thrust it. " R. E. M." There was no doubt of it. She well remembered seeing Miss Marjoribanks carry such fine handkerchiefs with beautiful French embroidery. She went to the dinner, as many a belle goes to a dinner, hiding a trouble in her heart. Was Marjoribanks a traitor ? Was she mixed up in this dreadful business ? It was hard to believe it, for she had always so protected her against Hathorne Mack. How strange it seemed to her at the dinner ! Every one was talking of Hathorne Mack. " Oh, he is very rich, as riches go. He has just bought a silver mine," said young Shepherd. " I see that he is in Washington to-day," said Browne. " Buying a senator, I suppose." " Oh, what are you thinking about ?" said another. " He has been on 'Change all day. See the Evening Rover. It is full of his operations." " A clever man, and an honest man, that," said Shepherd. A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 215 " An honest man !" said a voice down the table. " I take issue there. I have my doubts about that transfer of the silver mine." " Don't speak them, if you have," said Shepherd. " He is too rich to be criticised." " He is very charitable," said Mrs. Mortimer. " He has given me a thousand dollars for my ' Home for One-armed Plasterers.' " " Oh, that is very noble !" said Sidonie Devine. "Yes, so generous!" said Mrs. Morella. " And we like his dear little sister so very much pretty little Mrs. Phil- ippeau. Louisa Rigton was rather down on her at one time, and said she had known her at school, where she was not at all liked ; but now Louisa Rigton is hand and glove with her, and insists on her name being everywhere. I think she is to give her influence to the ball for the One- armed Plumbers, by the way, which is a much better charity, you know ; for plumbing is so very much less healthy than plastering, Mrs. Mortimer." " I think," said Jack Townley, " that you are getting the brother and sister pitted against each other, are you not ?" " It was so good of the Honorable Hathorne Mack to educate that sister. He is a model of the domestic virtues is he not, Miss Kose ?" asked Mr. Shepherd. As this talk floated around her, Rose thought of the scenes through which she had lately passed. She thought of the selfish wrotch who had traded on her fears and on her love for her father. She realized how wonderful a thing was the tragedy and comedy of society, and how truly the fight was behind masked batteries. And she sat and laughed and ate and talked, covering up the grief that consumed her. For now the conversation took up Sir 216 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. Lytton Leicester, and with its usual accuracy society dis- cussed him. " I hear that he is engaged to his cousin, a great heir- ess," said Shepherd. " Oh !" " Ah, indeed !" said everybody. " I knew that long ago," said Sidonie Devine. " He told me he thought he ought to marry her : their estates join." The exceeding bitterness that maketh the heart sick had now fully seized upon Rose, and she was glad to hear her hostess give the signal for rising. Yet she had made no sign, and not even the sensitive cheek spake the feelings which came crowding to her heart. Doubt and dread are the precursors of despair ; we can bear any certainty better than an uncertainty. Rose had entered the dreadful realm of suspense. "When she went home she slept little. All the story of Marjoribanks was beginning to unfold itself. This person, all propriety and gentleness, full of kindness, this teacher of youth, was, then, a traitor, a fiend in disguise, who had been using the most dastardly and barbarous of all dis- guises in order to do what ? That as yet Rose could not understand. There was no tangible motive, no possible solution, to her mind. The shadows began to creep over the young girl's mind, and sleep came to her relief. The next day brought Mr. Decker, and later a warrant came which enabled him to search the papers of Miss Marjoribanks. As we know, she had thrown him off the track, and although he sus- pected that she had had other and ulterior motives of gain and of plunder, it was enough to make him forever ashamed of himself that he had not caught her on the one count A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 217 of the surreptitious change of dominos, the visit to the ball, and of her various past misdemeanors. She had disappeared, and the world, although it might find the Honorable Hathorne Mack, would have some trouble in ever finding again Ethel Marjoribanks. XXIX. A TEAR had passed, June had come at Charpentier, and the students were enjoying the prospect of vacation. The great days of final examination were approaching ; the lord- ly Seniors, who felt sure of their own standing, were walk- ing along in groups under the elms, and lifting a respectful hat to the passing beauties. Charlie Alvord, whom all expected would be the first man, was strolling along with a friend from New York, Eastman Jones, who had come up to pay him a visit. Two young ladies passed them, one in deep mourning. Charlie Alvord raised his hat, and Eastman Jones, raising his, gave a curious glance at the maiden in black. " That is as sweet an apparition as I have seen in Char- pentier," said he "the one in the little cloak and black hat. Who is she ?" " That is Miss Rose Cbadwick," said Charlie Alvord, " the president's niece, and the despair of undergraduates. Isn't she a beauty ? She came here last summer. It seems she has had a great deal of trouble. Her father was mur- dered out West, and the news was suddenly broken to her aunt, his sister, and she died. This young lady was alone with her at the time, and suffered a great shock. Then 218 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. she has been disappointed in love, I believe. Miss Will- iams told me she had had a great deal of trouble. But they are very kind to her, and she is a perfect angel, we think." " Oh, I remember ! My sisters knew her in New York society. She came from the West a perfect greenhorn, and dressed queerly. I know my sisters said that she was making a sensation, and that she had such a number of admirers. Among them, a Lord Somebody and an old fat Californian, the Honorable Hathorne Mack." " He has got all her father's money, they say, and I think President Williams is trying to get some of it away from him for her." " What a history ! and what a sweet, sad, troubled face ! Charlie, would it be in bad taste for us to walk back and see it again ?" said Jones. " Oh no. I have the honor to know both ladies. Per- haps we will join them, and I will introduce you," said Alvord. They walked up, crossed a rustic bridge, met the beaux and belles of Charpentier walking in the warm twilight, retraced their steps, and met Rose and her cousin. Charlie Alvord joined them, was well received, and introduced his friend. " Miss Williams, may I present my friend Mr. Eastman Jones? a law pill from Harvard, a man sighing for his. first cause ' thou great first cause, least understood,' you know. Miss Chadwick, good-evening. Allow me." So, with truest generosity, Charlie took Miss Williams, who was only a quiet, modest, and sufficiently agreeable girl, leaving the beauty to his friend. Rose was strangely changed by her year of sorrow. Her A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 219 face had been one of expectancy, of hope. " Beauty with a future " had been written on it. Now it was beauty with a past. There was a depth, a lovely tenderness of expression, a drawn-down corner to the mouth, which did not hurt its rosy fulness. The tall, slender figure had filled out a little, for youth and health must improve its conditions, no matter what the mind suffers. She was gentler than of yore, and the voice and pronunciation had reached even what Professor Paton called perfection. "I think I have heard my sisters speak of you," said Mr. Jones. " They used to meet you at Mrs. Mortimer's." " Oh yes," said Rose, a little color rising in her cheek, above the black frills of her collarette. " How are they now ? I have scarcely heard of New York for a year." " And you have passed it in this village, the last year ?" asked the young man. " Yes, in this blessed village. Is it not a lovely spot ?" said Rose, sadly. " It is enchanting ; this broad street, these trees, and such superb forests in the neighborhood, and these rapid, tumultuous streams bursting out everywhere. You like the country, Miss Chadwick ?" Rose turned upon him a pair of eyes which went to the heart of the "law pill," as his friend irreverently called him. " I love it ; it has brought me peace," said she. From that moment Eastman Jones was her slave. As he looked into that sad face he felt an irresistible longing to serve her. He had found his " great first cause." He loved her at first sight; he loved her unconscious sweet- ness, her sacred sorrow, her wounded youth, and her womanhood. He did not say all this to himself, he only felt a certain bewilderment, out of which soil this flower of 220 A TRANSPLANTED ROSB. devotion was to grow ; and when Miss Williams turned, and invited them home to tea, he felt that he walked on the air. It had been a year of consolation, of quiet study, of a learning of homely duties, of contact with the plain, sim- ple, elevated thought of a quiet student household, in the best strata of American life, to Rose. After her aunt died, all the beautiful house, all Mrs. Trevylyan's money, went back to Mr. Trevylyan's family, and Rose was left without a home, and penniless. Pascal Chadwick's affairs were in the utmost confusion. Hathorne Mack owned everything. He had appeared in Wall Street, at his showy lodgings in Fifth Avenue, as if nothing had happened; no one whispered of the episode of Rebecca Maijoribanks. If any one knew of it, it was Decker, and he was not apt to spread reports until he was ready. All that Rose knew was that she had nothing, and he had all ; that her uncle and aunt put their good arms about her, and took her to their quiet, frugal country home. President Williams had known how to treat the wounded creature. He and his wife left her to nature and time, and they threw in " those iron-clad joys which we call employ- ments." She had been allowed to weep her fill, then to go off for long walks in that pure balsamic air under the pines, to where the partridge- berries gleamed in the green moss, and where the pine cones lay in fragrant heaps, where the ferns sprang in graceful profusion ; to the top of hills from which she looked upward into illimitable blue, or down on the peaceful industry of a well-ordered, quiet community, where the farmers led a life of comfortable industry, proud of their nearness to Charpentier College, ambitious to send their sons to its fountain of learning, and hoping that they A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 221 might there learn to be let us say it reverently the Lin- coins and the Garfields of the future. It was the greatest contrast, this life, to the wandering, homeless, and nomadic life of her youth. It was again a contrast to her New York life. Never in all her troubled and changeful existence had the girl known this life of " plain living and high thinking." She watched her aunt's economies in housekeeping, the neat, tasteful, frugal, well- ordered table, with surprise. The village ethics of polite- ness and etiquette amused her in spite of herself. She saw the questions of precedence, of calls, and invitations, re- duced to microscopic smallness, but still in their way a parody of the larger city life, and. fashion, a word which she hoped that she had heard for the last time, was as often on the lips of those ladies who came in to her aunt's tea parties as it had been in New York on the lips of poor Mrs. Philippeau. But her uncle, as soon as the sudden storms of weeping were over, as soon as the wild grief which tore her young heart could be assuaged, put her at her books. In her black gown, in which she looked like a young nun under- going a novitiate, she spent many a quiet, strong hour of the severe winter studying Greek, Latin, and mathematics, giving her uncle every day new food for his favorite hobby, " the higher education of women." " Why, she beats the boys all to pieces," said he to his wife, in the privacy of the conjugal bedroom ; " she could take the first honors." " Oh, now, Mr. Williams, don't make her work too hard, and ruin her health and beauty," said his wife, who was not an advanced person. " I want her to go back into the world and marry well." U 222 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. " My dear," said the professor, glancing at a basket of his own stockings, which were most beautifully darned, " every woman is not born to be a perfect wife, as you were." " Well, they should be trained to the profession of being a wife," said Mrs. Williams. " That is true ; but if we leave Rose, who is a person of remarkable gifts, to brood over her troubles, she would go mad," said the president. " I know, dear; I know you are very wise ; and I have wished sometimes, as you know, that / could have cared for study. It might have helped me more " A few bright tears fell on the president's stockings, and the presidential hand wiped them away from the dear old familiar eyes. "We must not strike those solemn, tender chords, Elizabeth," said he, firmly, thinking of his dead boy the boy of promise, the student, the thinker, the young man of overwrought brain, the victim perhaps of a too great ambition. " I shall not force her, dear, to study ; and do yon make her like yourself, a lovely practical woman. I see every day an improvement in her. She is so coherent, and to the purpose. She is far more developed than I had supposed. I believe that Rose is the better for this year of hard study. Remember what she has suffered ; and re- member, too, how fragmentary her education had been. Then if I can save nothing from the wreck of Pascal's fortunes, she must support herself. She would make a first- rate teacher." " Oh, Mr. Williams ! that lovely girl a teacher! I want her to be an elegant woman of the world," said the wife. The president sat down, and laughed at his wife. " My A TRANSPLANTED ROSS. 223 dear," said he, " permit me to say that you women are all alike. You are just like that excellent Mrs. Trevylyan, who was so superior to fashion, and yet she wanted Rose to be a ' woman of the world.' " Mrs. Williams had her own mother-wit to help her, and she liked, as any good wife would, to get the better of the president in an argument. " Do you think Charlie Alvord will be a country parson ?" said she. " No, no ; he is born to be a statesman and a politician. Charlie is a natural leader, an orator " " Do you think Edward Mackintosh would make a good schoolmaster?" "Why, no. Elizabeth, what are you talking about? Edward is to be a man of affairs ; his mind is comprehen- sive. He will govern great enterprises, and be the head and front of railroads, banks, insurance companies, etc." "Do you think Peter Champlin would make a good soldier ?" " No, no. Peter was born to be a schoolmaster, and he will make an admirable one." " Well, my dear," said his wife, " women are born with the same diversity of intellect. I was born to be a domes- tic, home-loving wife and mother; our daughter was born to be a teacher ; our Rose was born to be a leader of society and a woman of the world," said Mrs. Williams. The president looked at his wife with an expression of dismay. " Elizabeth," said he, " have you been studying casuistry?" " No, dear ; I don't know what that means. But I have common-sense, I hope." " Elizabeth, you are a great woman," said the president. " But poor Rose is to try to be a governess. She wants 224 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. to begin immediately. See, I have this funny letter from a little Frenchman in New York. Do read it." " President Williams : " SARE, I have the honor to wish serve Miss Rose Chadwick, whom my rascal brother in the law Hathorne Mack do cheat. She have write to me she like teach my leetle boy, who love her mooch. My wife say she love Miss Rose, and make her welcome to Saratoga the July prochain. I give Miss Rose what she want of monies, and all the honor and respect which I for her feel is too mooch for my words. Excuse the english of my hand. 1 can spik your nobie language, but when I write him the idiotisms troubles me. The time for the mails begins to come, so I sends my respects to Miss Rose, and Pierre her sends one thousand kisses. " I am, noble sare, your very humble servent, " JEAN PIERRE PHILIPPEAD." In talking with Rose, Mrs. Williams found that the girl was determined to take this position. " I know these people well, dear aunt," said she. " Marie is silly, but she is neither cruel nor vicious. Her husband is the best-hearted little man in the world ; Pierre is the dearest child. If I must work for my living, could I go where I would be happier than with them ? Of course I must meet sorrow, mortification; a different position will bring with it, of course, many a rub; but I feel sure that nothing can shock or harm me further. My year with you has given me such different ideas of what life is that I can bear anything. Let me at least go and try." " You shall, my dear, if you will promise me that, if the shoe hurts, you will cast it from you, and come back to me." " Dear, dear woman, I will," said Rose. A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 225 XXX. IT was summer summer at Saratoga, that full and hap- py and gay watering-place and the most serene, satisfied, and fashionable young married belle was Mrs. Philippeau. She had brought up horses and carriages and servants, a superb toilet from Worth, and also Ludley, the silent, superior, and mysterious waiter whom Jack Townley had called " perfection " as he answered the bell. Marie had written to Rose an affectionate and, for her, very admirable letter, explaining that she had quarrelled with her brother, had found out things she did not like in his conduct, and assuring Rose that while with her she would never be troubled by his presence ; and she had so sincerely seemed to desire the companionship of the young girl, not in any patronizing spirit, but as a favor to her- self, that Rose felt that her privilege of rejoining the child she loved would be unaccompanied by any disagreeable loss of dignity or self-respect. And, to do Marie justice, there was no bad feeling in her heart towards Rose. She had the very uncommon vir- tue of being good-natured towards another pretty woman. So that her own vanity was gratified, and her social appe- tite appeased, Marie was gentle and good to all about her. From her employers, therefore, Rose received nothing but kindness. From little Jean Philippeau she received the courtesy of a gentleman and the protection of a father. He seemed always to be trying to put himself under her 226 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. feet, and she finally said to him, "Dear Mr. Philippeau, do not be so kind to me ; you break my heart." And the good little man, seeing the tears in her eyes, said in his innermost soul that women were strange beings. Mrs. Morton Birnie, the lion-hunter, and the universal friend to everybody, was at Saratoga. So was Mr. Wal- ters, who had been so effete in his languor. So was Mrs. Mortimer, Sidonie Devine, and Mrs. Morella; Jack Long and his pretty wife ; and Eastman Jones, who had passed several days with his friend at Charpentier, using every moment to the best advantage so far as seeing Rose was concerned, and also putting himself in possession of all the facts concerning Hathorne Mack and the mysterious death of Pascal Chadwick which the president had chosen to tell him he too was at Saratoga, and very agreeable he made himself. This young Harvard man was a new sensation to Rose. He happened to be unknown to fashion a fact which did not seem to trouble him, while it left him very free to walk with Rose and Pierre, to sit with her at the farther end of the piazza, where occasionally she was to be seen, in her black dress, quietly reading. Mrs. Morella and Sidonie had looked in her face blank- ly, and had passed her by as if she were an utter stranger. She understood now what Mrs. Philippeau had meant by being " cut." Mrs. Mortimer was very kind, but cool and patronizing, and moved her off immeasurably far by a manner which was as icy as ice, and as hard as a diamond. Jack Long and his wife (Fanny Grey) treated her with the same cordiality and friendship as of yore. Mr. Walters, however, also " cut her dead," and said to Sidonie Devine that he had always thought her vulgar. " The trouble with Rose," said Mrs. Mortimer to a group A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 227 of friends, " has always been vulgarity. She has a vulgar soul. Poor Laura Trevylyan tried to believe that she was a refined person, but she never was a certain vulgar pret- tiness, a certain vulgar coquetry, a certain paysanne fresh- ness, et voila tout. Oh, what I suffered from that girl 1 I really believe that she is happier now than she ever was, and if she could go to the second table with the maids and valets, I dare say she would be better pleased. She cannot take a polish." ("Sweet creatures, women !" whispered Dicky Small- weed to Jack Townley, as they overheard this speech, made by Mrs. Mortimer with matronly sweetness and vir- tuous enunciation.) Rose found herself deserted by women, but the young men came to talk to her even more than she wished. It was one of the desagrements of her position, and she begged of Marie to excuse her from coming to the great table and public piazza. But Marie wanted her help : she wanted her to tell her who people were, and how to be- have in an emergency in the very unsettled condition of American watering-place etiquette. " And then you look so well in black !" said Marie. Poor Rose ! She seemed to herself to have become a thousand years old, to have always lived, to have passed her career, and now to be philosophizing upon it. She felt that all the machinery of society had been laid bare, that she saw behind the veil. All the world seemed to have dropped a mask that she might look on and see how hideously insincere the whole thing could be. Her year at Charpentier, following the fierce and sud- den grief of losing both her father and aunt, had given her time for thought She had ripened like a tropical 228 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. fruit which feels the sudden stimulus of heat, thunder- storm, tornado, and then quiet. What had been confused became clear. She had learned to philosophize. She was no doubt somewhat morbid and bitter; but who could blame her? And, unknown to herself, she was still grow- ing better and stronger every day. One thing troubled her. She saw that Marie was flirt- ing dangerously with Jack Townley. She longed to speak to her about the evil appearance the thing had in that public atmosphere, but she did not dare. It was not her place to lecture her employer. One thought bitterly oppressed her the fear that her father had wronged Sir Lytton Leycester in their business relations, and that he had dropped her in consequence. There came back to her his confession of poverty, and his other and better confession of his admiration and respect for Pascal Chadwick. Oh, had he trusted him too far ? She had gone down to the lake one fine morning with Pierre to give him and herself the pleasure of a ramble, perhaps a fishing expedition, when to her surprise she saw Eastman Jones paddling towards the shore in his wherry. He immediately landed, and asked her if he could be of service. " I did not know you were a boating man," said she, laughing. " Miss Chadwick, such is fame ! Here stands before you the stroke-oar of the finest crew Well, I beg of you to be overcome with confusion when I tell you that Yale stands in awe of my oar, Princeton blushes, and Colum- bia envies. Now allow me to hire a convenient boat and to take you and Master Pierre and attendant maiden out for a fish." A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 2^9 Rose accepted, and they had a charming voyage around the wooded shores of Saratoga Lake. She liked this young man, and he had something to tell her. " Miss Chadwick," said he, as they landed for a little stroll on the wooded shore, " I have had a letter from a friend of yours." Her heart sank. Could it be from Sir Lytton ? " Who a friend of mine ? Alas ! I have so few." "A warm one in Mr. Arthur Amberley. Here is his letter." Poor Arthur ! He, like most devoted friends, had been forgotten. " So you have been writing to him, have you ?" said Rose, after reading the letter. " Yes. Your uncle, the president, put me in communi- cation with him, and you see that he accepts my proffered services. You know I am a young lawyer without busi- ness. I long for a whetstone on which to sharpen my un- tried wits. It seems to me that this coil in which you are enveloped, the almost apparent villany of Hathorne Mack, the mysterious circumstances attending your father's death Dear Miss Chadwick, if you will accept my ser- vices without fee or reward, if I have your permission to join Mr. Amberley in his search for facts in this case, I shall be your eternal debtor." " I cannot imagine why you wish to, Mr. Jones. My only hope has been that all might lapse into oblivion." " There you are wrong, Miss Chadwick," said the em- bryo Erskine. "Your father's character will be cleared by inquiry." Something in Rose's face told him that he had trodden on forbidden ground. He was sorry, but it was too late. 230 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. And yet the nerve, although wounded, responded correctly. It might hurt, but it must be done. " If I thought that men would think better of my dear father " said Rose. " And yet he was never careful that men should think well of him. Mr. McPberson said that he was his own only enemy." " I believe it, Miss Chadwick. I shall, then, go imme- diately to New York, and see Decker, who has some very important evidence. I shall write to Mr. Amberley ; and perhaps you will allow me to write to you ?" " Oh, how can I thank you ? What an ungrateful girl I have been to distrust human friendship !" " Come, Rose ! I have caught a perch !" shouted Pierre. " We must go home, then, and have him broiled," said Rose. As the little party approached " Myers's," with Eastman Jones shouldering his oars, and Pierre proudly dangling his fish, while the German Gretchen followed with shawl and cloak, Rose, tired, flushed, and exhilarated by a new hope, they met Mrs. Morella, Sidonie, Mrs. Mortimer, Wal- ters, and Dicky Smallweed, with a newly arrived French attache from Washington, who had come down to eat an early dinner. Mrs. Mortimer looked politely shocked; the others sneered. Only the French attache said, " Who is the handsome woman with the fine color?" Strangely enough, none of them could recollect her name. That evening, on the hotel piazza, Mrs. Mortimer sweet- ly whispered in the ear of Mrs. Philippeau : " My dear, you must try to teach your governess propriety. Really, we met her to-day under the most compromising circum- stances." A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 231 " Oh, why should she not flirt with that Harvard man ?" said Marie. " He might make her a good husband." The next morning, as Rose sat reading in her quiet par- lor, Pierre having gone with his papa to drive, a knock at the door roused her from her study. It was Ludley, the waiter, who brought a package in his hand. " Well, what is it, Ludley ?" said Miss Chadwick. " A hawf ul secret, miss ! Hair we halone ?" Rose started up, thinking he had been drinking ; but he had not. "Go on, Ludley," said she. "What have you to say?" " Miss Chadwick, miss, T was the friend I may say han 'umble hadmirer of a woman who 'as done you han haw- ful wrong. I refer to Hethel Marchbanks, mum. She hand I comes from the same place in Hingland, miss, hand halthough she is my superior in heddication, she hain't in birth. I knows hall about 'ef, miss, hand hoften carried letters from 'er to the 'On. 'Aythorn Mack, whom I think she's married. Well, miss, hafter she heloped from Mrs. Trevylyan's, I got a letter from 'er, hand she sent me to a desk in the hapartments of the 'On. 'Aythorn Mack. There I found a bundle of letters, miss, directed to you, hand sealed with the hemblazonment of a noble family has I well knows. Hinstead of sending them to Hethel, I 'ave saved 'em for you, miss ; hand my conscience, miss, won't let me save them no longer. A-seeing of you in your black gown, looking so sorrowful, 'ave touched my 'eart, miss. 'Ere is the letters." And Ludley gave her the suppressed letters of Sir Lytton Leycester. There they were, fond and true, fond and true. He had never been faithless; he had loved her, and had told her so. The woman whom in their innocent folly they had 282 A TRAtfSPL ANTED BO8K. recommended to Mrs. Philippeau as a governess had stolen them at the bidding of Hathorne Mack, and partly, no doubt, from a feeling that Sir Lytton was making a fool- ish entanglement for himself in wooing this American girl. No matter what her base motives, she had done it. As she read them, one wild and uncontrollable impulse possessed Rose. She must telegraph to London at once ; she must let Sir Lytton know of this dreadful crime. She must tell him that she at least had loved, sorrowed, doubt- ed, wept, and had been thus cruelly wronged. She reflect- ed a moment. Jack Townley knew of Sir Lytton's ad- dress ; she would ask him where he could be most speedily reached. Jack Townley was reading the morning paper and smok- ing a cigar, as the little note, hastily penned, reached him. He walked around the splendid Versailles - like interior square of the United States Hotel until he reached Mrs. Philippeau's cottage. Rose put the question hurriedly, " Tell me how I can most easily reach Sir Lytton Leycester ; I must telegraph him immediately." Jack Townley looked at her in surprise. " What a curi- ous coincidence !" said he. " I have just received a letter from him. He says, 'Off to-morrow for Zululand with the Prince Imperial, to fight, and perhaps to die, for Eng- land.' " " Has he married his cousin yet ?" asked Rose. " No, I imagine not, from this," said Jack. A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 233 XXXI. ARTHUR AMBERLEY had learned much by his Western journey much of the utmost importance as bearing upon the future of Rose. He had become entirely assured of the villany of Hathorne Mack, but could not as yet quite reach the legal evidence necessary either to arrest or hang that gentleman, although he felt sure that he deserved the latter treatment. A powerful politician, a mover in Wall Street, a man who held the fortunes of thousands in his hands, Hathorne Mack was a hard man to handle. At most, Arthur Amberley only expected to accumulate enough evidence to make him dis- gorge some of the money which he knew belonged to Rose. It was with surprise and pleasure that he received the letters and visits of Eastman Jones a young lawyer burning for fame, full of youth, energy, leisure, and with plenty of mon- ey for his immediate uses. Such a man was a very rare combination. " He has been galvanized by Rose," thought Arthur Am- berley, after talking to him. Indeed he had galvanized indeed. It was decided between them that Eastman Jones should go West, find, if possible, some Spanish miners who had seen or heard of Pascal Chadwick, and who had some relics of him, and in that way try to complete the chain of evi- dence which Decker was forging in New York. Also, a shepherd or herdsman who had been in the employment of Pascal Chadwick, and who had appeared in New York about 234 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. the time of the masquerade ball, must be found. So must the governess, if possible. Meantime Rose went on teachiug little Pierre and nurs- ing her new sorrow. The thought that Sir Lytton might never know that she had been deprived of his letters was a tantalizing pang. Fortunately for her, Mrs. Carver was in Saratoga, in a quiet cottage in the village, painting away at her photo graphs. Mrs. Carver understood Tart de tenir salon, and often of an afternoon the gay people of the hotel gathered to enjoy a cup of tea on her bumble piazza. Of a morning she received no one but her sitters, and Rose, who had be- come a great favorite of hers. To her Rose went with her story of the letters to her alone and asked her advice. "You must write to him at once, my dear," said Mrs. Carver. " Write to London. The letter will reach him some time. Zululand seems far off, but people get their letters. Wait and hope. But write to him, and keep on writing." When she had a little leisure Rose went to Mrs. Carver to learn painting, and Mrs. Carver sketched her pretty figure and head as she leaned over her work. These were her happiest hours. Mrs. Carver had suffered ; she had known great reverses ; she was glad to comfort and to strengthen the young heart, called on as it was to endure so much. Meantime Marie Philippeau was making a sensation. She had decidedly risen, before leaving New York, by her patronage of the balls and entertainments in behalf of the " one-armed plasterers," and had had a complete social success. The flirtation with Jack Townley now became marked, and was getting decidedly complicated with an- other between herself and the French attache. A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 235 M. De la Marche was a model young Frenchman, with an "air noble" and a waxed mustache. He bad come to America quite fired with a desire to see those pretty and silly young American married women of the doubtful world, which still was the fashionable world, of whom he had seen many specimens in Paris, and whom, with their prettiness and extravagance, want of dignity, and utter vulgarity of mind and heart, he found " great fun." One morning Marie had come down in the most airy of white foulard negligees, all fluffy with lace, to find her Frenchman waiting to breakfast with her. Jack Townley was also walking up and down the piazza, in full expecta- tion of doing the same. " Madame est servie," said Ludley, coming out of the dining-room, and bowing low. " Allow me !" said M. De la Marche, offering an arm. Jack Townley lounged along slowly behind the pair, and entered the dining-room, pulling his mustache. So it bad come to this, had it ? The foolish little coquette whom he had raised from the dust was playing off the Frenchman against him ! Ah ! Jack Townley, did you not know that if you help to raise an obscure lover of fashion up to the point where she would be, she always turns and rends you ? Mrs. Philippeau was conducted to her own particular table by the two men, the lofty head-waiter bowing before her. Her own servant, Ludley, stood behind her chair. To hear these two attempt to speak French put De la Marche into a fit of the toothache. " Apportez ma vine, Ludley ; ma propre vine il reste au boug demi dans la bouteille," said Marie.' " Oui, madame, certangmong," responded Ludley. They never indulged in French before poor Jean Pierre ; 236 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. but then be was not often present. Marie was the envy of the wbole roomful of people, the observed of everybody, as she blushed and flirted with M. De la Marche, particularly as Jack Townley sat and glowered. "He is jealous absolutely jealous lady-killing Jack," said Mrs. Morella. " I am so glad ! Jack is growing old. His hair is very thin on the top of his head. He ought to stop flirting. I told him last year he was getting too old for it." " How perfectly absurd she is, trying to be fast !" said Sidonie Devine, looking at Marie. " You will sing to us after breakfast will you not ?" asked Marie of the Frenchman. "Oh yes, if you wish it. Where? in your parlor?" " I have asked Mrs. Carver to come over and hear your lovely tenor voice, and also two or three ladies to come in," said Mrs. Philippeau, as she rose from the breakfast, refus- ing Jack's arm as she passed him, and walking out of the crowded dining-room on the arm of the other admirer. There were those who thought that the little married flirt was doing it pretty well. Rose was summoned from the nursery to play M. De la Marche's accompaniments, and Mrs. Carver had walked over in her cool lilac muslin and broad Leghorn hat. She was fond of music, and her French did not discourage M. De la Marche. They soon began chatting. The gay and indolent ladies crowded into Marie's pretty parlor. Pierre was allowed to come in, and placed picturesquely near his little mamma's chair. Marie's star was at its perihe- lion. Rose, after talking over the music with M. De la Marche, struck the notes of a little French song ; and he sang: A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 287 " Certain ement j'aimais Clairette ; Mais dois-je mourir de chagrin Quand peut-etre une autre conquete Peut me venger de son hymen!" Then Jack Townley sang the most delicate little love-song in English ; and both men had passionately gazed at Marie as they sang, though, indeed, they were bound to do this. " What a success she is having this summer !" whispered Mrs. Mortimer to Mrs. Morella. " I give her just six months no, nine ; then she will go down go out. She has no staying power." Then they urged Rose to sing, but she declined, and motioned to Pierre to come away for his lessons. " Go, Pierre, bong gar$ong" said his mamma, rising and kissing him gracefully* Just then Dicky Smallweed entered with the papers in his hands. " Bad news of a friend of ours," said he. " Sir Lytton Leycester badly wounded in the last engagement." " Oh, how dreadful !" said everybody ; and they crowded around to hear all the details of that dreadful Zulu en- gagement, where so many of England's bravest and best fell at the bloody hands of savages. Mrs. Carver alone looked at the door out of which Rose was going. She saw by her sickening pallor that she had heard the dreadful news, and she followed her. Rose sank on the nearest sofa, leaning her head back on Mrs. Carver's shoulder. " Be strong and brave ; hope for the best. It is dread- ful, but fight bravely," said Mrs. Carver, opening her dress at the throat. 16 233 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. "I cannot; I am not as brave as you are," said poor Rose, feebly. Physical weakness overcame her, and she passed into the temporary oblivion of a fainting-fit, perhaps only too short. Poor little Pierre was frightened, and ran back into the parlor to tell his mother that his dear Rose was dying. So, in spite of all Mrs. Carver's care, the gay and heartless crowd came in to look at the unconscious girl as she lay on the sofa. They were all kind enough; one gave her smelling-salts, another threw water in her face, another fanned her. " It is the heat," said Mrs. Carver. " She heard about Sir Lytton, and she fainted," said Mrs. Morella. " Yes, she always had a foolish fancy that he meant to marry her," said Mrs. Mortimer. "Poor girl!" " She could not have been such a fool, could she !" said Sidonie. These words seemed to pierce "the dull cold ear of death," and to produce an instantaneous and powerful effect. Rose opened her eyes, and started to her feet. For some minutes she stood perfectly motionless, abso- lutely incapable of either speech or movement ; then, des- perately arousing herself, she gazed before her. Some internal tremor seemed to shake her frame as she looked around the room. Then, extending her hand to Mrs. Carver, she said, " I am quite recovered, except that I cannot see very well. Will you lead me to my room?" Marie was quite provoked at Rose for thus having run off with all the glory of her morning by fainting so inap- propriately. She determined to tell Jean Pierre when he A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 239 came up on Saturday night that she must dismiss Rose, for she took too many airs, and also that she had flirted early in the season with a young Harvard man, to Mrs. Mortimer's great disgust. Meantime the French flirtation went on fast and furious, and in the off moments Jack Townley sulked and swore or objurgated Marie. Occasionally they made up, and were friends. M. De la Marche had a mastery of the fine art of flirta- tion in all its branches. He knew very well that Marie was only cultivating him to add to her own fashion ; that she really liked Jack Townley much better ; that she watched the latter in all his moods. Still the Frenchman enjoyed her good breakfasts, her pleasant parlor, and her fine horses. She did not economize on half-bottles of wine with him. No; the choicest vintages that he chose to call for were brought to him, and put down on poor Jean Pierre's bill. He was of a frugal mind, M. De la Marche, and paid for his wines and cigars by compliments and suave words and great expression of eye coin alone in which he was rich. Meantime Rose kept her room for a few days, Mrs. Carver insisting that she must. The tears of the young do not blister the eyes, as do the tears of those to whom misery is an established fact. They to whom sorrow is a new thing weep and recover ; and Rose was not to die yet. These bitter tears began to take the form of a luxury as she lay in her quiet bed in the least noisy part of the great hotel. The springs of emotion were being sounded and touched merely that the garden of her heart should be the better prepared for the flowers of joy and happiness. A timorous little step came in to throw back the shutters, and to let in the sunlight, and to put a soft little hand on 240 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. her hot brow. And as Pierre bathed her forehead, and prattled to her in his fresh childish voice, her eyes grew as clear as crystal, and her smile came back, feebly at first, but later on it grew more like itself. " O you slender little figure ! O you clustering curls ! O you dear boy !" said Rose, kissing the child. " If you only knew what you are to me, Pierre !" Pierre heaved a sigh of deep delight. " Do I make your headache better? I wish we could go far away from here into one of those countries where the fairies live. They never had headaches there did they, Rose ?" " No, Pierre. There is a land where there are no head- aches and no heartaches. If we are good, we shall go there." " And will you sing to me, and shall I sing to you ? And will you love me?" " Yes, Pierre, always." In their passionate, childlike faith in each other, the young girl and the child passed away from the sorrows of the present and the mysteries and annoyances which even began to cloud the spirit of the neglected child passed away into cloud-land, story-land, the land of legend, of fable, where all the men are brave and all the women hon- orable. It was far away from Saratoga, that land. A simple old-world creed did not prevail at that fashionable watering-place. It seemed to Rose, as she told Pierre the stories, that four gray walls opened, and that she saw a beautiful lime- tree walk, roses and lilies, a stately English house and a beautiful Gothic chapel, and that a noble, familiar, and be- loved face looked at her with a bridegroom's joy ; and, wild as the vision was, it gave her comfort. A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 241 XXXII. WHEN Jean Pierre came up from New York, he walked in all his railroad dust and disarrangement directly to the dining-room. There sat Marie at her little table with M. De la Marche alone, flirting to her heart's delight. He ap- proached the table and looked at her with angry eyes. " Come here to me at once," said he, in a tone which she had never heard before. " I have ze sometings to say." And as he spoke he knocked his knuckles on the table. " Why, Jean !" said Marie, shocked and frightened. " Do not speak to me in such a manner." " I shall spiks as I like. Come to me." Marie rose, trembling, bowing to M. De la Marche, who found time to whisper to her, " This is some treachery of your governess." When the married pair reached their parlor, Marie turned to look at her angry spouse. " So you have made ze fools of yourself," said he ; and he produced a paper from his pocket in which the whole story of her life her flirtations, and her airs and graces, her attitude towards the Frenchman was carefully written out. "This is not my fault," said she, feebly. "This is some work of Rose Chadwick. Now I insist on her leaving. I have not liked her recently." "Leaving!" shouted Jean Pierre. "Yes, she is leaving. What news do I bring? She is a great heiress. Mr. Am- berley has got her ze silver mine, and your brother, he von d cheat and villain, Marie." 242 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. In addition to the article in the paper, some one had written to the little Frenchman an anonymous letter about Marie's flirtations; and the poor little man, who considered a French diplomat as being of all men the gayest, most dangerous, and most fascinating of tempters, the man most certain to betray domestic peace, had grown jealous. Ashamed as she was of his ill-breeding, Marie could not but observe that this arrival of a jealous husband added to the picturesqueness of the scene, and that it made her as much or more of a heroine than was Rose, whose great good- fortune had been noised through the house immediately. " It is a pity that it could not have come before Sir Lytton Leycester was shot all to pieces," said Mrs. Morti- mer, kindly. " Perhaps he might have been induced to marry her." " Well, I think it would be handsome to ignore all we know against her, and go and congratulate her don't you?" said Mrs. Morella, who always took the bull by the horns. Fanny Long had not waited for either good or bad fort- une to befriend Rose. It was not her fault that the claims upon her time and attention had in a measure separated them. Never did she or that pleasant fellow her husband ignore or neglect Rose, and now, when they heard of her good-fortune, they were the only people whom she would see. " What are your plans, Rose f ' asked Mrs. Long, who was shocked to see how changed and haggard Rose looked. " Mrs. Carver has promised to become my friend and chaperon," said she. " I must go immediately to New York to thank Mr. Amberley, and to attend to my business. There is much that needs my personal superintendence. Then I shall go back to Chadwick's Falls, nor leave there A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 243 until every shadow is cleared from my dear father's name and memory. Oh, the saddest of my sorrows is this I sometimes have doubted him myself !" Now let us go for a moment to Zululand. The hospital was full of wounded men, some of them dying, some better, but full of pain ; some of them well enough to sit up and play at cards, and one or two out walking in the soft warm air under the catalpas. One, with a military air, shading his eyes with his hand, went limping up and down; and as he reached the iron gate at the end of the long walk, and looked out upon the gravel, flower-pots, and dog-kennels which filled the open space beyond, uttered a sigh, al- most a groan, as he saw the postman depart, having left him nothing. He turned to take his place at one of the little round tables, at which sat Colonel Bouvier, the most impressive of old soldiers. With his piercing gray eye, white mustache, and clean-shaved chin, Colonel Bouvier always seemed to be ready for parade. His oaths were many, his subjects of conversation varied, his courage enormous, and his voice like that trumpet which it is said will wake the dead. But as he welcomed the handsome young officer who dragged his feeble limbs towards him, and as they prepared for the dejeuner which they usually ate together, Colonel Bouvier had only kind words. " Well, Sir Lytton, pray come in. The sun is so hot that it will do you no good. Not a letter yet ! I think the orderly who comes to us from headquarters forgets some of them." " I do not know why I expect one so wildly," said Sir Lytton. " I dare say they think me dead in England, and 244 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. I have no right to expect one from anybody. Bat lately I have had no hour of quiet ; every morning I begin to think I shall receive a letter, and I never get one. Is it a part of hospital suffering ?" " Well, yes, I think it is, Sir Lytton. It was so when I was young, particularly if there was a lady in the case, and at your age there always is a lady in the case." "I admit freely, colonel, that there was a lady in the case, else I should not be here. But if you want to hear more, we must wait until we are alone." " I do want to hear more," said the old colonel, in a sympathetic voice, and his words were siugularly energetic and expressive. " I believe in presentiments," said he, as he went on with his breakfast. An excellent listener did the old colonel prove. Inter- ruptions never put him out. He spent all his snatches of leisure with Sir Lytton, and heard all that he had to say about Pascal Chadwick, Rose, the unanswered letters, the fell shadow of Hathorne Mack, which came across the nar- rative in such a way that the old colonel read the story between the lines. " You are the victim of a plot, my dear boy. Why did you not go over to America and see all about it ?" " Well, I had not the courage," said Sir Lytton. " That sounds well from the leader of our forlorn hope at Rourke's Drift," said the colonel. " I was afraid I should find out that her father had deliberately cheated me," said Sir Lytton. " Well, that is not a pleasant sort of a father-in-law. Come here, Tristan." And the colonel greeted with favor a long-tailed, fluffy, superb cat, which jumped up into his lap. A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 245 " I am always listening for a distant sound, and strain- ing for a coming hope," said poor Sir Lytton. " I suppose this wound in my head makes me nervous." " Try this novel ; it is very good. Cherbuliez, that clever Frenchman " " I cannot read. My head is constantly aching so that I can scarcely see." " Play with the cat, then." " Oh, dark days cruel times of sorrow and suspense ! would I had died of my wound !" said the poor fellow. Sir Lytton had not been left for dead on the field, as re- ported. Wherever he appeared he had always inspired courage, and when he fell his faithful soldiers could fight no more. They carried him off to a place of safety, where he had revived, been put in hospital, and was now slowly recovering. A bullet had been taken out of his thigh ; a sabre-thrust in the arm was curing itself; a blow on the head would get well in time. But what of this wound in the heart ? " A letter will be his only salvation," said Colonel Bou- vier, as he watched his flushed face as the orderly came and went empty-handed. Sir Lytton took the advice of Colonel Bouvier, and played with the cat. One morning, as he was sitting on one of the long rows of wooden-backed chairs in front of the iron gate, he heard the grounding and presenting of arms, and the sharp ring of a horse's hoof. Suddenly all the hot sand and the arid landscape changed. He saw his own green England; he saw the lime-tree avenue, and heard the song of the meadow-lark ; he saw his own stately house, and the pretty, old gray chapel where all the Leycesters were married; 246 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. and a face, a beautiful beloved face, with dark eyes and a heightened color, seemed to be looking into his. A moment more, and the orderly bringing letters came into the court, and there was one for Sir Lytton. The revulsion of feeling threw him into a fever. Hope deferred had never been more cruelly changed into hope passionate, yet utterly without power of movement. He had been aroused from a stupor by hearing the colonel's voice, which sounded like thunder; every word made an echo. " Ah ! he was a noble, intrepid fellow, a good rider, a fine military seat, and the courage of the devil !" said the colonel. " I never saw anything like the impetus of that attack. Ah, such force, skill, certainty ! His word of command was like a volley of musketry. And yet I thought him but a holiday soldier ! God forgive me ! And now a letter from a girl has killed him !" " No, sir," said the surgeon, " he is not dead." "No, colonel," said Sir Lytton, faintly, " I am not dead," and he handed him feebly a little sketch of a young girl in black leaning over a table, and apparently engaged in painting. It was Mrs. Carver's sketch. She had put it in the letter which Rose had left her to post. " Aha !" said the colonel. " A good back, a neat waist, a perfect profile, good hair yes, my dear fellow, I would live for her. Is this the fair American ?" " Yes, colonel." "Well, Sir Lytton, I should sleep to-night, if I were you." There were hours of concentrated thought and of silent prayer ; there were groans of anguish ; there was many a long physical struggle. But the day came when in a trans- A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 247 port for England, with other officers and men, a sad and debilitated handful, stood Sir Lytton, looking over the dreary waste of waters, as he thought of one young girl who might welcome him home. Meantime this long delay left Rose without news of her letter or its reception for many months. She was using these months partly in a visit to her old home at Chad- wick's Falls, where the faithful McPhersons kept watch and ward. Eastman Jones had preceded her, and had arranged all the papers of the murdered man. There she found a number of her own unopened letters, and a num- ber of others in the well-known hand of Sir Lytton. The letters of Hathorne Mack had stopped at a certain date a circumstance which the young lawyer considered of im- portance. Mrs. Carver, who accompanied her, could not but be struck with surroundings which were so unfamiliar and so grand. The magnificent scenery, the wildness, and the barbaric magnificence which had marked the past life of the dead Pascal Chadwick, the vineyards, the herds, the flocks, the illimitable acres, all of which now were indis- putably hers, made Rose seem a sort of Tartar princess. But she was too sad amid her conflicting memories to stay long, and as soon as she had possessed herself of certain facts she left Chadwick's Falls to take up her residence in New York. As a young heiress, living in her own house, with Mrs. Carver for guide, philosopher, and friend, with every ad- vantage that two years of mingled contact with the world, study, suffering, and experience could give her, Rose en- tered upon a life which was so different from that which had bewildered her at first that she could scarcely believe 243 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. that it was the same city which she had once entered upon with her inexperience and tremors. Artists, men of letters, thoughtful men and women, people who had lived and were living useful lives, began to group around her. She found that one needed only to pass a magnet over New York to draw out all that was best and most dignified in every society. She was a personage now. The culture which the old president had insisted upon had not fallen on unfruitful soil. It was not only the picturesque and unusual fate that had followed her which made Rose interesting. She had never lost her original charm of spontaneity, because she had never known of it. She was absolutely free from self - consciousness. Nor had all the sorrow and shock which had befallen her injured her beauty. It was of that order which improves with time, and which grows finer as it gains more expression. XXXIII. Bur what of Arthur Amberley ? It was a singular meeting which took place between Rose and her devoted friend when she first met him after his great service to her. He seemed to her to have grown twenty years younger. And she seemed to have become another woman, older, more mature, a sad, quiet, beautiful creature, who looked into his eyes as his equal. As we never say what we wish on occasions of great feeling, Rose could think of nothing better to remark upon than, " Why, Mr. Amberley, how young you look !" A TRANSPLANTED BOSS. 249 Perhaps, although it was an awkward speech, and one which Rose blushed for afterwards, she had not made her- self altogether unacceptable. Perhaps Arthur Amberley knew that, to a very young girl, a man of his years had seemed far older than he was. Perhaps he had reached that period when to be told he was looking young was not unpleasant. At any rate, to be thanked by her for his long work in her behalf, to see the expression in those radiant eyes, was not as disagreeable as it was exciting. The truth was this, the two now stood on a more equal plane. Had it not been for their power of branching off and talking about Harriet, they would have been embarrassed occasionally. For after the dull details of business were ended ; after Amberley had unfolded his budget; after he had told her that he believed that Hathorne Mack had instigated the murder of her father; that he had certainly tried to steal all his property ; after they had talked over Rebecca Ethel Marjoribanks and her complicity in Mack's crimes then they would get to more agreeable topics, and Rose would say, "I do not know, dear Mr. Amberley, why you have done all this for me !" And then Arthur would ask her, " Do you know why every one works for you?" and the situation would grow embarrassing, and they would both stammer and blush, and then Arthur would begin to talk about Harriet again. Matters were in this perilous way, when, if poor Sir Lytton could have put his head in at the parlor door, he would have had reason to fear that Arthur was making very great strides towards winning the heart of Rose, when a letter from Harriet gave them the most wonderful, inter- esting, and valuable news. 250 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. She was going to be married ! The dear, plain Harriet was about to make a most excellent match. One Captain Mortlock, a retired officer of the navy, with money, family, position, had had the good luck to win Harriet. " We are neither of us very young or very handsome," Harriet wrote ; " but we are as much in love as if we were both." " Dear Harriet," said Rose, " that is news to make one happy! I hope Captain Mortlock is good enough for her." " I hear that he is an admirable fellow, Rose ; and now, as Harriet elects to be married in London, I must go over to give her away. Won't you and Mrs. Carver go too ?" " London ! No," said Rose ; " not even to Harriet's wedding." A deep flush followed these words, and Arthur Amber- ley's heart sank down like a plummet of lead. Amberley had not dared to think over or to question the matter of Sir Lytton ; nor had Rose, with all her frankness, told him the story of the recovered letters. That part of Miss Mar- joribank's history rested with Ludley, Mrs. Carver, and her- self. " Mrs. Philippeau and Jack Townley are making great fools of themselves in Paris, I hear," said Arthur Amber- ley, very suddenly. "Oh! has he joined her there?" said Rose. "I am so sorry ! Mr. Philippeau and Pierre came to see me be- fore they left for France, but Marie did not. I could not bear to part with Pierre : he clung to me to the last." "Yes, I know you were great friends. I am sorry for poor Jean Pierre. His wife had not head enough for a fashionable career; and that episode of the French attache A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 251 at Saratoga seems to have driven Jack Townley from trivial flirtation into a mad love affair. Ah ! dear Miss Rose, what fools love makes of us all !" " Certainly such love as*that," said Rose. " Rose," said Arthur Amberley, turning suddenly pale, " there is a love of which I must speak a love which is not mad, which does not make fools of us. It is a noble and a generous emotion, I am sure ; for it can stand dis- appointment, and can bear rejection. It is my love for you. Now tell me, could you love me, and be my wife? or do you love another ?" His mouth was firm ; as he stopped he closed it with a grave and steady sweetness, but his face was pale. It moved Rose to the quick to see this man, strong, worthy, and self-contained, agitated before her : she the little, igno- rant Western girl, who had been humble and pitiable be- fore him ; she who had looked up to this noble, true, good friend ; she who owed him so much. "Oh! Mr. Amberley." It was all she could say, and she covered her face with her hands. " No more, dear Rose. I read it all," said Mr. Amber- ley, after a moment's pause. " I have only myself to thank for this ; but that, you know, does not for the mo- ment add to the delights of a man's self-reproach. I fell in love with you very early in your career, and I should have known that I was too old and too dry for the bloom' ing Rose ; then I hoped that, if you did not love me, you might respect and like me. My love for you is not a fancy : it is one of those strong, overmastering passions, one which makes me almost forgive Hathorne Mack for all his villany. It has mastered me in spite of myself. I 252 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. cannot tear it away. It has grown into a desire to serve you, and in that way it has now found vent, Rose, in a few useless words. Eastman Jones will lay before you the result of our joint work. You are rich. Your father's name is cleared. Sir Lytton Leycester enters into a large fortune through your father's efforts in his behalf. He is, with you, the joint owner of the silver mine. All this we shall be able to prove. Now tell me, do you love him ?" Rose sat trembling before him like a guilty creature. "Oh yes! Forgive me, Mr. Amberley, but I do love him." "Forgive you, Rose! Yes. But it was necessary for me to tell you that I too loved you. Now what are your relations to Sir Lytton ? Does he love you ?" And then Rose told him the story of the intercepted letters, her long waiting, the silence of Sir Lytton. Arthur Amberley walked to the window, and looked out upon the hurrying crowd which swept up and down Fifth Avenue. Perhaps for a moment he asked himself if any one of these were suffering what he suffered. Yet he con- quered ; he turned to Rose. " The silence of Sir Lytton is to be explained. So help me God, dear Rose, I shall find out everything for you ; and now I ask one reward " He pushed the beautiful hair away from her forehead, and, stooping, kissed it as a brother might. But Rose, looking up to him with radiant gratitude, unspeakable re- spect, and friendship, rose from her chair. "Arthur Amberley," said she, "true, faithful, and dear friend, take this, and this," and, throwing her arms about his neck, she kissed him on either cheek. " A little more of this would reward a man for a great A TRANSPLANTED BOSK. 353 deal," said Amberley, returning to his old scoffing way to hide his deep feeling. " Rose, do you remember Leigh Hunt's lines about ' Jenny kissed me ? ' " Their eyes met, and a glance in which each read the other's love and loyalty passed between them. He took her hands in both of his. " One kind deed you can do : always call me Arthur," said the rejected lover. " Yes, Arthur, always." At this moment Mrs. Carver entered the room. " You can converse with more than one woman at a time, can you not ?" said she, with ready tact, for she saw that some exciting conversation had transpired. " Yes," said Amberley. " I was just telling Miss Rose that all female faults were virtues carried to excess, and we got into a fight over it. I say that women talk better when alone with men. She desires a crowd, and says I do not appreciate woman's talents and fascination and powers of conversation. I say that her ' social anxiety ' ruins her when in company, and that her mind loses its power to work vigorously. Now leave her alone with her enemy, man, and she talks well ; she makes the man talk well that is, tolerably. In society she increases the amount of talk, but she dilutes the quality. To which Miss Rose says no." " I said nothing of the kind, nor did he," said Rose. " Women dread taciturnity ; they consider a pause as fatal ; they are deficient in the graceful talent of listening. Men have no difficulty in remaining silent, but no woman can do so gracefully ; they consider silence as synonymous with bad manners. They talk from amiability in society, having nothing to say. Now when alone with a man a woman always talks well," Arthur rambled on, 17 254 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. "I think I had better leave, then," said Mrs. Carver, laughing. "Mr. Amberley is spinning an imaginary conversation out of his brain," said Rose ; " he is not telling you one word of the truth. Now I shall leave you, and I leave my character behind me." Rose escaped to her room, and Mrs. Carver and Arthur had a long talk about Sir Lytton. Neither of them knew yet what were his present feelings towards Rose, or indeed if he were alive or dead ; but both had the welfare of their beloved girl so intensely at heart that it should go hard but they found out. " That is a pearl brought from afar," said Arnberley, as he mused over the morning's adventures. " There are few such." " There are many such, Heaven bless them !" said Mrs. Carver, " and the best of you men may well kneel before them as before the presence of a superior divinity." "Here come some of the opposite sort," said Arthur, still looking out of the window. "Mrs. Morella's carriage stops the way. She is no divinity, no pearl brought from afar. She has some dis- agreeable news, I am sure," said Mrs. Carver. " Excuse Miss Chadwick, then," urged Arthur. " Mrs. Morella is inside the door, and I must see her," said Mrs. Carver. Mrs. Morella was full of news. " Did you know that Jack Townley and Mrs. Philippeau had run away together, and all Paris is in a turmoil ? She pretended to drown herself, and a bundle of her clothes was found on the banks of the Seine, but she and Townley were tracked to Italy. Her poor little husband ! I dare say he will suffer; A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 255 but he was a very vulgar little man, not at all her equal. For my part, I felt very sorry for Marie. And do you know it has come out that Hathorne Mack was secretly married to that horrid red-headed governess of hers? And how Miss Chadwick must feel when she reflects that she had such a person about her !" " Miss Chadwick has known the latter fact for months," said Arthur Amberley. " You know it was part of a con- spiracy to cheat her out of her very large fortune." " No, I did not," said Mrs. Morella. " Why, isn't life dreadful ! And to think of Jack Townley ! Well, I sup- pose Marie will get a divorce and marry him, and then they will hate each other forever afterwards. Is Hathorne Mack ruined ?" said Mrs. Morella, pausing to breathe. "I should say he was; but no man ever knows when Hathorne Mack is ruined," said Amberley. " He is like that California poison-oak which dies down in one branch, and then puts forth as another plant. He is concealing his straits by a judicious economy just now, I believe." " And that creature, he does not mean to acknowledge her as his wife, does he ?" " Oh yes, Mrs. Morella. You will be calling on her next year." " Bah ! Mr. Amberley, there must be an end even to your joking." " Well, well. Would you like a new piece of news brand-new news?" "Yes, indeed. You are engaged to Miss Chadwick; everybody says so." "No such good luck. But Harriet is the fortunate member of our family. Mrs. Carver, tell Mrs. Morella that Harriet is going to marry the Duke of Nocastle, and is in 256 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. a fair way to succeed to the English throne." And so, bowing and smiling, Arthur Amberley took his leave. XXXIV. IT has been said of women that their social instincts, when kept within due bounds, constitute them " the sun- shine of life ;" but when allowed to run riot amid all the possibilities of society, will transform them into " a raging fire." It is the truth that the fashionable women who in these days exercise the greatest influence in arranging life, and compelling society to be what it is, do hunger perpetu- ally for excitement and a round of gayety. Their physique is not quite equal to this strain ; hence they grow ill-nat- ured, and after the " flagging of the flesh " comes the unquiet- ness of the spirit. If a man cannot keep up to all this, a heartless woman of the world taunts him with the fact that he is allowing his youth to depart, that he is growing old. She stimulates his amour propre, calls him rusty, says he needs shaking up. Hence society gets to the point where the excessive influence of gay married women and of younger men, where aggravated ostentation and rivalry, are constantly felt and deplored by the more quiet, sensi- ble, and elderly men. No one can say that these leaders of the gayest set cherish very lofty ideals of life. They prefer the looks of things to the thing itself ; they prefer a flirtation to a love affair ; above all things, they love eclat. They are quite inconsequent. Hence come the great surprise and the very severe shock with which such a woman as Mrs. Morella hears that a Mrs. Philippeau has A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 257 done so foolish a thing as to run away with a Jack Townley. To Mrs. Morella " appearances " had been inculcated as a virtue from her earliest childhood ; no matter what she did, so that les convenances were observed. To poor, low-born Marie Philippeau, " appearances " were things of which she had heard little. " Society puts the premium on the lie " so says a mod- ern cynic. None of these women wished to hear the truth. They did not wish for disgrace or the legitimate conse- quence of their own acts. To do them justice, there was never very much heart in their love affairs ; they were all done to be seen of other women. With poor Marie Philippeau, perhaps, the crime, analyzed in the crucible, was not so great as a course of prudent deception would have been. She threw away a world of which she knew little for a feeling which for the moment was sincere. But her conduct was a greater injury to so- ciety than that of many a more wicked woman. It cuts with a two-edged sword either way into the safety of so- ciety when a woman breaks her marriage vow. And no people were more severe than those who should have pitied the weak and foolish victim of a weak and foolish ambition their own victim, in fact. No one particularly blamed the man whose selfish vanity had wrought this woe. The utmost that could be said was that Jack Townley had been a fool, and that he had forgotten his social position ; for how could he fight so low a man as Jean Pierre Philip- peau? And for him, this honest, sincere, and humble soul, there was no voice of pity but the one which spoke in the heart of Rose. She felt as she did in the first hour of her suffer- 258 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. ing over her mutilated limb sick, faint, and overwhelmed. Had that unlucky accident of hers led to all this? She remembered now how her girlish fancy had found Jack Townley all that was delightful and fascinating ; how she had suffered over his early snobbery and his inconstancy. She well remembered how he could look in a woman's eyes and charm her heart away, and how she had thought him the soul of honor he who could enter that house to so fatally dishonor it. And she pictured poor Jean Pierre and little Pierre weeping together over "little maman." Ah ! that was the cross on the dome of Marie's disgrace. Kose was now the successful, courted woman of fortune, the idol of the hour ; that brilliant vision of a world at her feet had come to pass. And yet what a murky reality it all was ! The bitterness of Marie's disgrace poisoned every draught: that household whose every act she had known so well ; that foolish, kindly, vain little Marie, who in her way was lovable, and who was Pierre's mother. It would haunt her, do what she would. Then hope would come, and build air-castles ; they went up mountains high, these castles, all based on one letter which did not come. Arthur Amberley had gone to England, and his fine tonic was missing. Mrs. Mortimer said at Mrs. Freely's ball that Rose Chadwick looked very well in half-mourning. " But," said she, " she cannot disguise her regrets that, after all, she has not caught Arthur Amberley." So much does the world know of our real life. Rose was a person who kept her troubles, whatever they were, locked in her own bosom, and no one knew why she wore so sad and so troubled a face. She drew her woes closer around her than a mantle, and if she was sorrowing over poor Marie's disgrace, or over the silence of Sir Lytton, no one knew it, A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 259 not even Mrs. Carver. She had a great talent for silence where her feelings were concerned. But the world crowns him or her who conquers it, and Rose had conquered the world conquered it by not caring for it longer and so it came and laid itself at her feet. Every ring at her door brought a friend or a begging letter, an invitation or a con- gratulatory address, or thanks for some splendid benefac- tion to a hospital or a church. For the young heiress was religious and good, and she enjoyed the power of giving. That at least could never be taken away. And she enjoyed her horseback rides, and as she rambled in the Park she would recall all the delicious days of the past, go and admire the swans sailing on the water, remem- ber what Sir Lytton had said as he looked over the blue of the distant prospect, and how he had pointed out the shadows on the lake. Fountain had a successor now, but never a rival. She rioted always in the beauties of nature, but somehow the landscape seemed to need primroses and hawthorn. She wished that an English pheasant would troop through the grass. Do not think Rose was unpatri- otic. No; a woman's country is the country where her lover lives. Rose tried the blandishments of the Dorcas Society, and studied up the question of High and Low Church. She knew all the details of the turmoil and trouble between High and Low and Broad. She read the History of the Popes. Mr. Christmas, the rector of St. Sebastian's, thought she was going over to Rome, so devout did she become, so fond of the holy seasons and the hours of prayer. The sub- lime, the mysterious, the unknown, the Consoler of woes, the long-sought, the much-needed Father ! To Him conies every waiting and sorrowing woman soul, nor care they 260 \ TRANSPLANTED R08K. much at what altar they kneel. But to Roe the air seemed filled with lifeless emanations. The breath of the spirit had not yet come. And then she tried literature. She had thought once or twice of putting her thoughts on paper, and she sat down and wrote a little story. It was a great pleasure while it lasted, and she put into it some of her secret, sacred, best thoughts. It was a record of a part of her heart-history, delightful and pathetic to herself : as she read it over, it seemed good better than the generality of short stories which she read. She signed it with a nom de plume, sent it to a famous magazine, and in a few weeks waited for it at Station G with almost a guilty sense of pleasure. It came, and the legend within was, " Returned, with thanks." She did not know that she could be so miserably disap- pointed; that she had built so much on this frail bridge which she had thrown from her own heart out to that dear, invisible, and beloved public of readers who are to the au- thor such friends friends whose hands he will never take, eyes into which he will never look, hearts which he will never clasp to his own, yet held by such close filaments, dearer and closer than many a brother! Who does not (who writes) love these impersonal friends, and long to reach them ? The joys of authorship were denied to Rose. She had to learn that there is an apprenticeship to this trade as to all others, and that even to the rich the gates of the pub- lisher open as hardly as those of the city that could not let the camel in. Had she been starving and in a garret, she might, too, have failed. An anxious eye and a seedy garb do not al- ways open the door, but the pressure of necessity does A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 261 sharpen the wits and nib the pen : there is no doubt of that. We are not always responsible for our failures or our successes, but the trade of the writer is one which, stimulated by necessity, does grow large and real to the worker. There would be no victory were there no obstacles to overcome. Meantime a great excitement was coming to her in the re- turn of Eastman Jones, who wrote her the following letter : "Mr DEAR Miss CHADWICK. Behold me fresh and flushed with victory. You know that there was a link in the chain wanting to perfect our case against Hathorne Mack. I have secured it. "After going off on several vain quests, I finally found the man Herzog, who put me on the track of certain Spanish miners, who were said to have boasted of having buried a man whose pockets were full of gold. It is not an easy thing to track a Spanish miner ; but fortune did for me what my own acumen could not do. " I had gone up to the silver mine, and was looking about me, when one dull evening I sat out on a felled tree, looking at the sunset. Suddenly I heard a man chanting in Spanish what sounded like a hymn to the Virgin. It is not a common sort of music in this wild place, and it attracted me. I walked towards the sound, and found a miner on his knees. I waited for him to rise and to stop singing, then advanced. " ' Is your name Jose* Sanchez ?' I asked, for Jose Sanchez was the man I wanted. " ' No, master ; my name is Pedro ; but my chiefs name is Jose Sanchez.' ' ' ' Could I speak with him ? I have a large sum of money for him,' said I. " ' Ah, yes ! who has money for Jose* has speech with him. Does the signer play at cards ?' " ' Yes,' said I 'a quiet game sometimes.' " ' Caramba . r> said Pedro. ' No quiet games for Jose'.' " ' Well,' said I, ' where does Jos play to-night?' " 'I will show the signer,' said Pedro. " When we reached the cabin of the great Jose', I saw a picture 262 A. TRANSPLANTED ROSE. worthy of Velasquez or Murillo. Imagine a swarthy group of Span- ish miners around a long low table, on which stood silver and pewter mugs, bottles, jugs, and brass pots, while over their heads swung a lamp which might have been stolen from some church. The man Jose had a red handkerchief tied around his head, a very handsome pair of black eyes looked out from under this picturesque head-gear, and his belt was stuck full of pistols, knives, etc. As I entered he looked up for a moment, then went on with his game. He was los- ing, and in a bad temper. I paused and watched the game. He staked his last dollar, and then pulled out from his pocket a handful of small articles of gold and silver, and from his breast a gold minia- ture case, which, as he threw it on the table, sprang open, and I saw your picture ! Yes, you, Miss Rose, your very self. His antagonist grumbled, and called for higher stakes. This was my opportunity. I begged of Captain Jose five minutes' conversation, and promised him a hundred dollars a minute if he would comply with my request. He needed the money sadly at that crisis, as a fellow named Miguel had cleaned him out completely. The end of all this was that I be- came possessor of the miniature, and of the papers, which are of the greatest importance, and which include a letter from Hathorne Mack. They were taken, dear Miss Chadwick, from your father's dead body, which I afterwards identified by two buttons which Pedro had kept, and which he cut from the coat." XXXV. THE toils were closing around Hathorne Mack. He was losing his hold on the life which he had attempted to con- quer. He began to be compelled to explore the subterra- nean chambers of his own heart. There he found Murder, Cruelty, Treachery, and Deceit. He had tried the game of the midnight assassin at arm's-length. He had, with a stroke of the pen and with money judiciously invested, A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 263 planned to stab and kill (while he stayed in New York and Washington and bought and sold stocks and men and wom- en) a man who had been his trusting, faithful friend : if he did not drive home the knife himself, he had known very well who did. He had tried to deceive society and God. He had tried to win a woman. He had been foiled in all three, let us hope. One woman still clung to him, although he did not often attempt to deceive her even with a kind word. He became dependent upon her, afraid of her; she -was necessary to him that was enough for her. Adversity makes us court people sometimes to whom we are indifferent in the hour of prosperity. The internal poison of fear brought out an eruption of humility on the surface of the man's manners ; he began to crouch and tremble, and to call himself a " wronged man," and he railed at Fate, in good set terms, when alone with his wife. The order, the watchword, the essence of nature is to defend one's own actions to one's self ; and it is not strange that in this world, where justice is not always strong-handed, it was almost impossible to bring home to Hathorne Mack the true reward of his crimes. He had cunningly evaded the law ; he had covered up his tracks ; he had so involved Pascal Chadwick in an admis- sion here and a power of attorney there, that Arthur Am- berley could only frighten him into restoring Rose her prop- erty; he could only make him disgerge he could not quite hang him yet; nor could any of the three men Decker, Eastman Jones, or Amberley go on 'Change and denounce him, nor did they wish to tell (and Hathorne Mack knew this) of his 'efforts to force Rose to marry him. It was, however, most important evidence against him 264 A TRANSPLANTED ROSK. that Eastman Jones had found in the possession of Joa6 Sanchez even one of his own letters. It was at this crisis of his affairs that a complication arose which made it necessary for him to call on Miss Sidonie Devine. He had invested some money for her, which had turned out very well, and she was grateful. It must be re- membered that up to this moment, although society had heard rumors against Hathorne Mack, it knew no facts ; and Sidonie Devine, whatever she knew or did not know, was remarkably gracious to the somewhat wounded lion. In- deed, so gracious that Hathorne Mack went away very much elated, and determined to call on Genealogy Arling- ton, as he was called a man who knew all the old family secrets, relationships, and intermarriages of all the old fam- ilies. " Who are the connections of the Devines ?" asked Ha- thorne Mack. " Oh, all the best families of New York," said Geneal- ogy, firing up. " You see, her mother was a Tubbs good old Revolutionary stock and her grandmother was a Nobbs, related to the famous Tory family, and her great- grandfather was a signer of the Declaration ; and on her father's side they were all aristocrats. There were the Car- rots, very rich, and the Elands of Bond Street very musi- cal people, and always pompous. Oh, I suppose Sidonie Devine has more cousins and relations than any girl in New York, and she feels it too feels her blood." " They would all stand by her if she married, wouldn't they ?" asked Hathorne Mack. " Yes, if she married well. Money, you know money is what they want, these old aristocrats, and no matter who brings it ; that is not so much matter." A THAJfSPLASTED ROSK. 265 Hathorne Mack had many irons in the fire besides the silver -mine and poor Pascal Chadwick's stolen fortune. He had a possible fortune in one more adventure which he was manipulating. He saw plainly that Sidonie Devine was, for some inscrutable reason (probably the tombstone reason), determined to encourage him. " By Jove ! I'll do it !" said he to himself, as he thought of all his mortifications, and the immense moral support which such a wife one connected with the Tubbses, the Nobbses, the Carrots, and the Elands would be to him. There was one obstacle in the way that red-haired woman, to be sure, and that service and the clergyman at Harlem. But that could be arranged, he thought. It is to be remembered that one of Miss Marjoribanks's precautions had been to write a letter which in three days should reach the police, defining her whereabouts and her intended visit to Hathorne Mack's rooms on a certain day. This was a false step, and one which she had deeply de- plored. Her precious husband had taunted her with it more than once. For the past of Rebecca Ethel Marjoribanks was not one which bore looking into too closely. There had been a diamond robbery in England ; there had been an inquiry at Scotland Yard ; there had been one or two crimes here, not to speak of the outrageous complicity with Hathorne Mack in his attempt to marry Rose. So from place to place, from disguise to disguise, the poor creature was being driven, the inevitable Decker upon her track all the time. She had great skill, enormous tal- ent, a thousand wiles, devices, and arrangements by which she baffled pursuit. She taught school in Jersey City, in a 266 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. meek and proper manner passing Decker a hundred times (a pretty, dark-haired widow she was now), and Decker de- clared, as he thought of her, that she was the hardest bird to catch that he had ever seen. Although she kept up a correspondence with some of her old pals, no one knew of her real whereabouts but her vile husband, Hathorne Mack, and he turned traitor. A letter was dropped into a lamp-post box ; that was all. Decker was in waiting for the pretty school-mistress on the wharf when the ferry-boat landed ; but, alas ! she did not come. No; Hathorne Mack had played a double game. He only wished to frighten her out of the country. Other letters had been written to her by one of her supposed friends, her spies and accomplices. She was a country- woman carrying eggs as she passed Decker, who she now knew was watching for her. She was thus far deceived into falling into Hathorne Mack's trap. She became aware that the police had tracked her. It did not require much persuasion or much money to get rid of her; and Ha- thorne Mack saw her off for Australia with a lighter heart than he had dared to hope for. With what promises of following her, with what bribes, with what cunning hints of a life in California, which one day might be peaceful and happy, did he smooth her path, we shall never know. But no sooner was she gone than there came one of the surprises and the wonders of modern history which so often come to people who are watching the great game of human cards. Hathorne Mack was engaged to Sidonie Devine ! The public men- tioned to each other that unpleasant rumor of his marriage to the governess, etc. A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 207 " Oh, that never was a marriage, you know," said Dicky Small weed, who heaved a sigh of relief as he heard that Sidonie was really engaged. He had feared he might have to marry her himself ; she had always been so very per- emptory with him, and he was so afraid of her. Arthur Amberley was in Europe when this extraordinary engagement was announced; the people who knew most of Hathorne Mack were, all but Rose, away 5rom New York ; her lips were sealed. "You can and must eongratulate her when you meet her, because she is your old, old enemy, you know," said Mrs. Mortimer, who still kept up a sort of half-intimate hatred with Rose a state of feeling which would describe almost all the fashionable friendships of the day. " No, never," said Rose. " That I cannot do." Harriet was safely married. The only sincere regret that accompanied her to the altar was that Rose was not at her side. But Sir Lytton Leycester was in London, and showed his pale face at the wedding - breakfast. Both brother and sister were shocked at the ravages which wounds and fever had made. " It is my fear that when she sees me she may not love me," said Sir Lytton to Arthur Amberley, after a long talk, in which that excellent friend had made it all right with him. " How does she look ? my love ! my life ! " said the poor fellow, covering his face with his hands. " More beautiful, more noble, more attractive than ever," said Arthur, bravely. " And, my dear boy, she loves you so well that, had you come home without a leg or an arm, she would have insisted upon marrying you. Now that you are only a well-born young English baronet, a famous soldier, and made interesting by wounds, she may decline. 268 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. It would be like the folly of the well born and bred young American girl, as depicted by contemporaneous novelists," said Arthur, smiling. " Are you sure she loves no one else ?" asked the lover. For a moment a shadow came over the clean-cut, rather sallow, and calm face of Arthur Amberley. " Quite sure," said he. " I did not know but this young Eastman Jones, this young lawyer of whom I hear so much, this fellow who has been of such inestimable value to her, and remotely to me, in finding out about that silver-mine I did not know but that he might have found a place in her heart," said Sir Lytton, with a touch of the old hospital despon- dency upon him. " No," said Arthur Amberley, " I think not." And in spite of the knife which was turning round in his heart, Ar- thur Amberley's keen sense of the ridiculous took a new re- freshment as he thought how entirely ignorant Sir Lytton was of the real power behind all this apparent help, which had unravelled for him and for Rose the tangled web of their mingled destiny. " The Cunarder sails on the 2d," said Arthur, looking at Sir Lytton. " I have already taken my passage," said Sir Lytton. " I thought so I thought so," said Amberley. Sir Lytton Leycester told his lady mother that he was going over to marry an American girl if she would have him. Tellisor House was wrapped in gloom over this dreadful announcement. They had observed, not without satisfaction, that Sir Lytton had ceased to watch for let- ters from America before he left for Zululand. And yet they were not hard-hearted women, the mother and sisters. A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 269 Rebecca Ethel had not found them so when skies clouded for her. No ; they were simply true to their birth, their antecedents, and their prejudices. And, truth to tell, the American women they had seen had not been of the most attractive kind young married women, living away from their husbands, trying to attract the notice of the gay men in London, and especially of the Prince of Wales ; young and beautiful women, extremely careless of their reputations, and girls wandering alone over the Continent, with extraordinary ideas of freedom, chap- eronless, utterly devoid of reverence for les convenances such were the American women whom Lady Leycester had seen. Also another type, which we sometimes see at home. " I do not wish to hurt your feelings, my dear son," said Lady Leycester ; " but this is my idea of an American woman. I have read it in a book, but it entirely describes that strong-minded Mrs. Sproale whom I met at Nice: ' She invades the market-place, she storms the Forum, sho directs the stage, she controls art, she arranges morals, she prates metaphysics, she rules philosophy, she directs poli- tics, she is everywhere in season and out of season ; she is rampant in the house; she is turbulent out of it; she usurps the public parlor and the billiard-room; she is thoroughly at home at the gaming-table at Monaco ; she smokes, and she is intolerable.' " " Yes, mamma, I should think she would be. I have seen Englishwomen who answered that not too flattering de- scription. Do you suspect me of marrying such a woman ?" " We have heard that when Miss Rose Chadwick first arrived in New York she excited much ridicule by her want of table manners," said one of his prim sisters. 18 270 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. Perhaps the "lingering influence of a chivalric educa- tion" caused Sir Lytton to blush for his sister. Perhaps one or two recollections came back. But whether they did or not, he simply said, "If I have the happiness to bring home a wife, I trust you will all treat her well." XXXVI. MRS. CARVER had a touch of romance in her elderly disposition, and she had determined, after Arthur Amber- ley had telegraphed her that Sir Lytton was coming to America, that he and Rose should meet under somewhat romantic circumstances. She had persuaded the young heiress to take a country place on the Hudson River, one of those of which some always stand empty and waiting for an occupant. She had pretended that she, good woman, needed the fresh air, the ever-lovely prospect, the summer morning, and opening flower, and shading tree, that amethyst range of mountains, that imperial sunset, the belongings of the great river she, Mrs. Carver, must have these. Rose had thought of going to Newport. Saratoga was too full of sad memories; it would not do to go there again, where she had been with poor disgraced Marie. No. Would not Newport do ? Mrs. Carver was gently inexorable. " A house for June and July, dear Rose, on the Hudson, if you wish to please me. Let Newport come later." It touched Mrs. Carver to the quick to see how listless Rose was, how she yielded to this change of plans as if nothing troubled her further. A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 271 " La joie fait peur" said Mrs. Carver to herself ; " are we not managing this thing too much ? Would it not be better to allow her to go on alone, and let it all happen in a natural way ? No; I have committed myself, and I must trust to good fortune now. It has always deserted me when I courted it for myself, but never when I wooed for a friend." And the generous woman heaved a sigh as she thought of the lost fortune arid the faithless friend, the absence of that sort of secondary Providence which had always watched over Rose. " No one got back for me my lost silver-mine," thought Mrs. Carver. " Here these two young people have only been asked to exist, and to accept everything. Yet they have had their sorrows." Rose was delighted with Swanswick, where she found herself ensconced, looking out on the bright and noble river. Her horses, her pony-phaeton, her model servants, had all preceded her. She loved the spot from the first moment of landing from the Mary Powell. The early morning found her up and ready to bathe in all the glory of sunrise ; the wind and the sunshine greeted their young sister ; a long and picturesque mountain ramble on Black Manfred, her blooded and beautiful horse, followed over the hidden ways that revealed themselves; the splendid appetite for lunch which she brought home ; the evening drive in the phaeton with Mrs. Carver to hear the music of the band at West Point all enraptured her. She had been " below tone," and this was a judicious tonic. And when came the starlight night, with a crescent moon hang- ing over the tip of the mountain, with the sound of rippling water and the peerless summer weather all combined, Rose fell on Mrs. Carver's neck and said : 272 A TRANSPLANTED KOBE. " Ah, you have worked a spell more powerful than that of ' mystic graces and of woven hands ' you have brought back my happiness." " Be careful, Rose," said Mrs. Carver. " Happiness is a dangerous guest. Receive him calmly." " I thought ' Happiness ' was a woman," said Rose. " Why do you say ' he ' and ' him ' ? " " I don't know. I always say ' him ' and ' he ' when I am uncertain. Our English genders are so particularly vague." And Rose recognized by the untaught instincts of wom- anhood that there was something behind Mrs. Carver's sweet, low voice, something in the look of her eyes, which she had never before felt or seen. Her heart gave a great leap, and her pulses beat fast and irregularly. Her blood jumped in her veins. But speech was never easy to her when she was moved. She sat quite still, and held Mrs. Carver's hand, and looked at the river and the sky, and hoped and dreamed. Happy Rose! Several days passed in this paradise brought Rose to her finest bloom. " declare, Rose, you have a color such as you first brought from Chadwick's Falls !" said Mrs. Carver. " If I should paint it, how excessively unnatural it would look !" " You mean that I am blowzy ! I know you do." "No; but I would not ride to-day. Go and sit with your book and work down in the glen. I will come in half an hour." " Very well. I will wait for you." Rose took her parasol, her garden-hat, her favorite vol- ume of Mrs. Browning, and her little dog Pippa, and wandered down to her pretty garden-seat in the glen. It A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 2*73 was so silent and lonely that for a moment she paused and looked about her. "Rather a dangerous place in which to meet a tramp," thought Rose. She began reading the " Lady Geraldine's Courtship," and lost herself in the fascinating measure, until Pippa gave an alarmed bark. " A tramp !" thought Rose, dropping her book. Two or three hurried steps, a broken bough, a trampled flower, a bird flying frightened from the nest, and a man stood before her whom she did not know. "Rose!" said a voice which awoke all the echoes of the past. " Sir Lytton !" He took her hand ; there had always been something in the touch of that hand wholly unlike that of any other. " Rose, I have come for you. Do you still love me ?" An hour later the lovers sat alone together, happy, iso- lated, to all intents and purposes alone in the universe. The great fiver went rippling on, making music for them ; the boughs watched their solitude, nor permitted an in- truder to see. Birds alone knew what they said, and Pippa had considerately gone to sleep. " And you doubted and feared, Rose ?" said Sir Lyt- ton. " No matter now," said she. " There is no one like you in the whole world. Surely it is not wrong to love you, as I do, with all my heart and soul. Do you think it is unpatriotic ?" Her face, which was thrown back to look at him better, was as beautiful as the face of Aphrodite. " No, dear Rose. Unpatriotic ? Why, what can be bet- 274 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. ter than that America should reconquer England in this way once more? It is simply Yorktown over again." They felt safe now. They could joke and laugh. The first great pang and pain of happiness was past. The silent breathless embrace, the almost inarticulate vow, the moment when existence seemed too full that had been bridged over. The river went on lapping and gurgling and beating with lazy murmur against the rocks at their feet ; the boats went silently up and down. The puffing steamer alone broke the intense quiet as the lovers talked, and explained, and supplied the missing links. The dreadful story of Miss Marjoribanks ; their own early youthful error in recommending her to Marie ; Marie's own sad fate, on which they touched but lightly; Hathorne Mack and his persecutions; the tragedy on the Pacific coast ; the long story of suffering and suspense in Zululand all had to be told; and with what dear and precious interruptions, as hand clasped hand and lip met lip ! Their voices fell to a softer cadence, and almost into silence, when a strain of music floated over their heads, now loud, now low, now rising high, now dying away, but thrilling and full of majesty. It idealized life into that poetry and romance which wait for all lovers. " ' I am never merry when I hear sweet music,' " said Sir Lytton, " and that recalls Zululand. What is it?" " Some military exercise at West Point," said Rose. " What time can it be ?" " I have done with time," said the happy lover. " Don't ask." " Mrs. Carver will be frightened. She will expect us at lunch." " Lunch ? Why, Rose, look at the sun. The meal that A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 275 she expects us to must be dinner. Rose, Mrs. Carver and I are confederates. She planned this meeting for me." And then Rose found out what a friendly set of traitors she had about her. That "Swanswick" was only one of many plots. And how she thanked them all as the first days of betrothal and perfect peace came and went ! These are days which teach souls their own value. Teach men and women their own great value, and every day they will strive to make themselves more valuable, more worthy of happiness. Rose was glad of this beautiful solitude, and this absence of gay crowds. She had wrestled too long not to be glad of quiet. She had stood mentally with hands clasped over her heart, trying to still its tumultuous beatings. She was not at fault that now her whole nature sang aloud for joy. He was living ! he was safe ! he was here ! But she did not forget that the tempest had swept over the land and felled the mighty tree. Neither of them forgot Pascal Chadwick, who had lived, suffered, worked, who had given his life, that they might be rich, prosperous, happy. " I loved him. I knew him well before I ever saw you," said Sir Lytton. " It was the first thing to make me love you that you praised him," said Rose. Sir Lytton's face grew radiant. " I knew I was right," said he; "an unerring finger pointed you out to me. I looked through your eyes down into your soul at once, and I found it pure." And he folded her to his breast, giving her a kiss which lasted long; his love for her was unspeakable. " I am not worthy of you, Rose. Your gen- erosity carries you away. Divine womanly compassion and love what will they not do for us men !" 376 A TRAtfSPl ANTED ROSE. " Oh !" said Rose, lost in wonder. " And yet you knew me when I was so ignorant and awkward. What in the world makes you love me so?" " Rose," said he, " no man knows why he loves any wom- an. I might give you a number of reasons, and still fall short of the truth. He only knows that he does love her." Mrs. Carver had feared that Rose was too much in love, that Sir Lytton was to be utterly master of the situation. But their first quarrel came too soon to allow her to be long under that delusion. Sir Lytton wanted Rose to go to England to be married in the old family chapel. " Oh, Rose, I have seen it in my dreams !" said he. And he told the story of h-is spiritual presentiment in Zululand. She told her vision of the chapel. " But I shall not be married there," said Rose. " Oh, my dear, it is your duty. All the wives in our family come there to be married," said Sir Lytton. " I shall not be one of them " " Oh, then, you do not love me ! Well, all this has been a mere abstraction, and I must give you up." " Yes, and go home to England without me," said Roae, with solemnity. " Oh, Rose ! after all we have suffered 1" " Yes good-by. I never will be married anywhere but at Chadwick's Falls." " Rose," said Sir Lytton, " I do not love lightly. I can- not give you up; but I must be married to you in that stone chapel." " Lytton," said Rose, " I am not to join hands with you in any meaningless, formal, fashionable marriage ceremony. My duty is clear. We are to be married at Chadwick'a Falls, where my own dear missionary bishop heard my first A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 277 catechism, where he confirmed me with the young Indian girls, where my father knelt and worshipped, and where he lived. If you leave me, it will be barbarous ; but I shall go there. You can go back to England alone. I shall never go to England except as your wife." There was something in the sound of that word as she pronounced it which seemed to thrill Sir Lytton to the heart. With a feeble attempt at masculine guile, which is a poor thing anyway, and always detected by a woman, Sir Lytton tried to hide his defeat behind the name of duty. He murmured something about her father's memory, some- thing about duty. "It would, perhaps, be a tribute to an honored memory," said Sir Lytton. " But really I do not know what my family will say." " But if you care more for your family than you do for me!" " Oh, my dear Rose, it is such a beautiful old chapel ! It dates from the days of Edward the Third." "And the little church at Chadwick's Falls is so very new and so very ugly ! But, Lytton, we will be married there, you know." " Yes, dear how soon ?" asked Sir Lytton, anxious per- haps to obtain the marital power over this strong-minded young woman. Mrs. Carver never felt alarmed again lest this wife should be too subservient to that husband. America held her own. 278 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. XXXVII. THE next month saw Swanswick filled with people in- vited in judicious groups by Mrs. Carver. She knew very well " what the world would say," and she knew also how to give the world a hint. It should see the young Western heir- ess at home ; it should see how the inexperienced and igno- rant girl had improved ; how she finally mastered etiquette, learned the formulary of polite society ; how she had gained all this surface polish without injuring the solid gold which was the foundation of her character. And they were allowed to hear, these visitors, many an argument between Mrs. Carver and Rose as to the expediency of being married at the far-off Chadwick's Falls instead of in New York, at Swanswick, or, as Sir Lytton urged, in England at his little chapel near Tellisor House. But Rose received valuable aid from two unexpected re- inforcements. Arthur Amberley came home, and formed a segment of the party, which also contained Mrs. Morti- mer. He expressed himself delighted with the Chadwick's Falls arrangement. " Let him take you from your own place, dear Miss Rose," said he. " I rather wondered at your wishing to rake open those ashes again, Arthur," said Mrs. Mortimer to him, later. "Why arouse all that talk, particularly as Hathorne Mack is so rehabilitated by his engagement to Sidonie De- vine, and the enormous rise in Brandy Gulch ? Remember, A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 279 he has his side of the story to tell, and half of society and all of the McBrides will believe his version." Arthur Amberley was not so much under the influence of this lady as he had once been, and he did not answer with his old suavity. " We shall be very glad to have those ashes raked open, Mrs. Mortimer, for we have a very live coal in them for Hathorne Mack." " Hum !" said Mrs. Mortimer to a lady near her ; " Arthur Amberley must have had a great deal of money in Pascal Chadwick's hands." Another advocate for the Western marriage was the President of Charpentier College. He and his wife were delighted to stand in loco parentum to their dear Rose, and did not mind the inconvenience of the journey quite as much as Mrs. Carver did. So Eastman Jones, who had become the landlord of the Chadwick homestead for the time, received the reward of all his devotion to Rose by being allowed to arrange for her marriage to another man. He and Arthur Amberley stood in the same rather try- ing attitude of chivalrous and unpaid devotion, without bearing any other relationship to each other. But the younger man found his reward in the great case which he was unravelling, and in the many curious coincidences which always reveal themselves as we cut transversely into the ideas, schemes, and unfinished theories of another man's life. It seemed to him, from the first visit of Sir Lytton Leyces- ter, that Pascal Chadwick had striven to intertwine his in- terests with those of Rose. Nothing could be more certain, singular, marked, and curiously joined than were the fort- unes of the two. Together their interests in the great 280 A TRANSPLANTED ROBS. silver-mine ; together their joint ownership of lands, stocks, herds, and all that Pascal Chadwick left; together they could make a fight against Hathorne Mack, which either alone would have found almost impossible. Eastman Jones had the generosity of youth, and he wrote all this to Rose. It gave the last added leaf to float on her full cup. But these were things apart from all that the world saw. The world found Sir Lytton changed. To the people who had known the gay and laughing young baronet he was more silent and reserved, and a graver man ; for his doubts, his fears, his hard experiences, had altered and aged him. They saw that with Rose alone did he come to his old cheerfulness. His caresses were few, his words of endearment carefully repressed; but his eyes eloquently told of feelings deeper than words a love which, starting in the sun, had been rooted in adversity and trouble ; feel- ings which had come to their full noble growth through a long, painful probation. There was a silent expression of determination and trust on the faces of both these young lovers which struck all observers. There was no longer a passionate fitfulness; and although occasionally, when Rose appeared in a white morning dress and a moss-rose in her corsage, there would be an expression of the ortho- dox lover rapture on his face, Sir Lytton controlled him- self under these trying circumstances, and behaved like the delicate, reticent, manly Englishman that he was. Those were precious moments when Sir Lytton and his beloved could steal off for a ramble on horseback, or a walk in the soothing shadow of the woods. The little dog kept watch and ward against intruders meantime. " What does Mrs. Carver mean by insisting upon all A TRAK8PLAWTED ROSE. 981 these guests ?" asked Sir Lytton, rather crossly, one morn- ing. " I don't know," said Rose, laughing. " She always talks about ' what the world will say.' I suppose she wishes to show them that I am not beguiling you by unholy arts, or marrying you against your own consent. She wants them all to think that you are a 'marvellously proper man,' and I the 'sweetest lady-bird that ever was wooed and won.' " Sir Lytton kissed away the ripple of a smile which had always been one of the charms of a certain mouth, and then demanded, in good terse English, " who cared for the opinion of the world ?" "Oh, I do," said Rose. "Just imagine! I have to please all your sisters and your lady mother." Sir Lytton smiled as he thought of the bright picture which his beautiful young wife would make in that long oaken chamber at Tellisor House. He thought how the high-born dowagers would sit in the oriel-window and gaze at her, and how difficult it would be to pick a flaw in voice, accent, figure, face, or " deportment." " Rose, dear," said he, " I think you have lost a charm you are grown so like other people. The tender, tremu- lous, sensitive loneliness, the unconscious sweetness, the blushing awkwardness, with which you won me that first evening, are all passed away. Could you not get them back again?" "Shall I pull over the epergne and spill the claret for you again, Sir Lytton, when 'I am introduced at Tellisor House ?" said Rose. " I wish you would." Then followed some " blissful brevities," and Sir Lytton 282 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. fell seven fathoms deeper in love ; and if the rich red flush on the cheek of the transplanted Rose paled or deepened, he breathed a prayer that it might ever glow, as roses always do, the brighter in the atmosphere of his own England. Meantime the engagement of Hathorne Mack to Sidonie Devine was the theme at Newport. The diamonds were splendid, the settlements enormous. The family said, " Oh, you know there was a great deal of talk about his having attempted to cheat Miss Chadwick, who has caught Sir Lytton Leycester (I hear he is very much broken down by his wounds, by the way) but wait till you hear his story," etc., etc. And Hathorne Mack was still the " important factor in the development of the West;" he was the owner of an immense number of stocks. Brandy Gulch had risen won- derfully ; he was a member of the lower house; he helped to make his nation's laws ; he was a " rough diamond ;" he had sterling traits; he was, to some minds, still the coming decillionaire. Asmodeus had not unroofed that house where Ethel Marjoribanks had knelt and wept and conquered; it had not revealed the scene in the clergyman's little room at Harlem. Decker had not spoken ; President Williams re- mained silent. Why, we shall see later. Mrs. Morella had heard mmors ; so had everybody. Who can follow a society story? There are too many of them to follow. They are never told twice alike, and they are sure to be wrong. And it was so probable that the "Rose Chadwick faction should manufacture a set of stories which would be disadvantageous to the Sidonie Devine faction." Ah, it had got round to that, had it ? How curiously A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 283 the whirligig of fate changes its spots ! No wonder that the poet sang, "Good-by, proud world; I'm going home; Thou'rt not my friend, I am not thine; Good-by to Flattery's fawning face ; To Grandeur, with his wise grimace ; To upstart Wealth's averted eye ; To supple office, low and high ; To crowded halls ; to court and street ; To frozen hearts and hasting feet ; To those who go and those who come : Good-by, proud world; I'm going home" when he listened to the idle, false, and foolish commen- taries upon character, when he observed the illogical and wretched subterfuges by which worldlings seek to apolo- gize for their " change of base." Hathorne Mack was playing a bold game, and for the moment boldness won. It always does. Goethe never said a wiser thing than when he made this couplet: "What you can do, or think you can, begin it: Boldness hath genius, power, and magic in it. " The fact that the stylish and fashionable Sidonie Devine had accepted him introduced him anew to the innermost circle of exclusive fashion. Every one of the aristocratic relatives put their scruples in their pockets, and found Hathorne Mack " charming." Even those who knew more of him than the rest of the world were silenced by his audacity. Could it be possible that he was able to escape all punishment, all exposure, and to marry this fashionable girl, and to enter for life the best " inner circle" ? Other men had done it as heavily handicapped as he. So Arthur Amberley well remembered; but, after a careful study of 284 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. his own duty in the matter, he went to Sidonie's nearest friend, and put that gentleman in possession of all that he knew. All that he gained by this was a little delay, for Hathorne Mack had anticipated him, and was ready for him. The wedding had been put down for August, but it was postponed to October 7. And it so happened that it fell on the very day which, after much arranging and circum- locution, had been fixed upon for the wedding of Rose and Sir Lytton.. Asmodeus had on that day to look down on two very different scenes. The little town of Chadwick's Falls was gay with the unexpected lustre of a wedding. The great rambling house where Pascal Chadwick had lived was buried in its mass of fragrant bushes, vines, and tangled verdure. Dogs and ponies, carriages and horses, dashed up the walks; groups of gayly-dressed New-Yorkers and slouched-hatted Westerners stood in groups, awaiting the advent of the bride. No one needed a prettier subject for a picture than that little church of four stone walls and its accessories. It did not deserve the dispraise which Rose had given it. It had no pretensions to age or to architectural graces, but it was mantled with vines, and as it stood against a clear blue sky, with the snow-capped mountains for its distant back- ground, it was not unlovely. An endless grand prairie reached out for hundreds of miles before it, while around its near neighborhood crept up the industries and the houses of the little settlement which Pascal Chadwick had made. And in the church one stained-glass window, erected to his memory by his daughter, told the world that the murdered man was not forgotten. Its varied colors fell upon her as she stood at the altar pledging her troth. A TRANSPLANTBD ROSE. 285 Her whole delicately rounded figure was one living, breath- ing statue of joy and happiness, although the eyes were full of dew-drops. Arthur Amberley was best man. The President gave her away ; the faithful Mrs. Carver and her friends sat and wept in true maternal fashion. Jack Long and his wife had come on to the wedding, and a number of young American ranckeros, and English buffalo -hunters, and offi- cers of the army and their wives, helped to fill the scene. Sir Lytton was the model English bridegroom, and was married with a severe gravity, which fell off at the wed- ding breakfast. "It is a wedding in a garden," said one of his friends, as they looked throxigh the rich dark green of the rhodo- dendrons. " But, Lytton, you do not intend to bury yourself here, do you ?" asked another. "No. Lady Lytton Leycester has never seen Europe; we intend to leave for the Continent in a month, and next spring will see us in England," said the bridegroom, look- ing not too unhappy. And then came the rice and the slipper, and the four horses, and the coachman with white favors, and away drove the happy pair, out into the unknown land of matri' mony. XXXVIII. FAR, far away, out at sea, with a dagger in her heart, a wasted, guilty, and bitter memory behind her, Ethel Mar- joribanks wept alone in the darkness. ' 19 286 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. It was a long, hard dream, a bitter experience, a dread- f ul fate. She had had little else in her poor life, this woman of many gifts, of much culture, of great natural cleverness. Those who believe in " luck " would have found much to help them to believe in the story of this woman. Reality, hard facts, a sad following of evil fortune, a worthless father, a broken-hearted mother who died young, a lover who deceived all that before she was twenty. Then to win the hard bread of a daily governess! then a knowledge of her own self-reliance, quick ability to decide in emer- gencies, a certain power which she found always telling in her favor; then a great fascination, for she was pretty in those days a fascination which she never entirely lost; then the " sentirnentalism" of character which Rose had so justly characterized all were against her. She was one of those clever women who are only not quite clever enough ; one of those wicked women who are not wicked enough. Something good in her came always to defeat her. Had she been worse, she would have done better for herself. And now where was she going? A bitter feeling of jealousy told her that Hathorne Mack wished to get rid of her ; that he had traded on her fears. "Jealousy is a passion which eagerly seeks that which has caused us to suffer;" she went over in her mind the thousand things which in her hurry and fright she had overlooked, and which now convinced her that she was foolish to have left him. Her past would not bear scrutiny, that she knew, but as Hathorne Mack's wife she had a stronghold which she ought not to have relinquished. All the answer that she got was that melancholy surge against the ship's side. The ocean, A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 287 unsympathetic and cruel, moaned and bore her on towards far-distant Australia. Some days she thought she should go mad, but the habit of self-control was strong with her. She began to observe her fellow-passengers, to be observed by them, and to exercise, unwontedly, some of her old fas- cination. " It's fine weather, miss," the captain would say to her, as she raised her head from her hands, and looked out on the waves. And she would respond, and, all perversely, smile and show a set of fine teeth. Then the mate would come along and speak kindly to her, and ask if she was getting over her seasickness. And two or three women and their little children drew up near her, and, all unknown to themselves, told her that her old power had not left her she was still attractive. Perhaps these more reasonable and comforting thoughts might have, in time, won her from herself. Perhaps, had she been allowed to go on with that homely company to a new land, Ethel Marjoribanks might have lived a good and useful life might have been won to another and an honorable future. Who knows ? But her luck was ever against her. One afternoon she noticed that the mate, Mr. Terry, who was a broad-faced, honest, calm personage, looked at her with a mingled ex- pression of confidence and alarm. As he passed her he said, " We are to have a storm : can you keep the women and children quiet?" " I will try," said she, and she looked her gratitude that he should expect it of her. A gale came up, and raged all day and night. The wind howled, the skies were leaden, the sea looked like pea- soup, the billows ran mountains. There was a deep, hollow 288 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. roar, and all the timbers creaked. Everything fell, every- thing was broken. Ethel found herself kneeling on the cabin floor clasping a child to her breast. It was a little girl who had played with the tassels of her cloak a pretty child, whose mother was shrieking in another part of the ship. Then came a darkness a darkness so pitchy that she could not see the golden gleam of the child's hair ; then a mighty bang and blow ; then a disjointed murmur, hurrying men, weeping women, angry oaths, a great rush of water, a surging and uncertain motion, a groaning, splitting, creaking, rattling noise something struck her, and she lost consciousness. When she regained it she was floating on the water, still holding the child in her arms. She was so utterly bewil- dered that she hardly realized that a strong arm was hold- ing her up, that the voice of Terry was in her ears, urging her to try to live, to keep quiet, and to catch at a spar if she could. Cold and terrible was the water, and to the miserable woman life then looked warm and sweet and de- sirable. What would she not give for one hour of that dreadful life which had but lately seemed so unendurable ! She never knew what happened, how Terry got her and the child into a boat, where she found two men and the captain. The sea and the wind went on in their mutual commo- tion. Neither relaxed a moment. The survivors in the boat saw their great ship go down ; they felt the faint, sickly sense of despair as they heard groans and shrieks above the gale ; they saw spars and timbers and pieces of furniture from the ship go by them, and then they were swept far away, a waif on the bosom of the great deep. And still she held the child close to her breast a little alien child, whose name she did not even know. Then A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 289 came the reaction stillness, calm, and corresponding faint- ness, hunger, and thirst. The men had each a flask of spirits ; Terry put his to her lips. The cordial revived her ; and a better cordial, the child the little child put its still warm hand up to her cheek. A sense of terror overcame her. " Why was I saved, and this child's mother lost ?" said she. " Perhaps God has need of you," said Terry, raising his bruised tarpaulin from his head. " I, who asked for death who longed for it !" said the poor woman. " You must live God wills it ; live for the child," said Terry. The horrors of shipwreck did not haunt these people long. They were picked up by a homeward-bound vessel and taken to New York. Before they reached that port every man was Ethel Marjoribanks's slave. She had that curious quality, she could bear the worst discomforts with courage. She began to encourage the others, before there even was need of it. She saw Terry looking at her with his chin in his hand, his great honest eyes calmly reading her face ; she knew that she could trust him. "When they were on the home- ward voyage, she told him enough to insure his help and his care. She told him that she was a hunted creature, and that she was the wife of a worthless husband. The honest sailor gave a sigh. " Do you know, marm, the captain said I was making a fool of myself about you. Well, perhaps I was ; but if you are a married woman, and in trouble, I'll help you.'* And he did. He helped her to secrecy, to quiet, to a respectable lodging, where she passed for the mother of 290 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. the child. Who read or cared or knew of the identity of the poor creatures who were saved from the wreck of that Australian ship ? Certainly not Hathorne Mack. She needed money, she must have it ; poor Terry could not furnish her with that. She had one means of getting it. Around her neck, secured by a strong chain, hung the diamond ring with which Hathorne Mack had once sought to affiance Rose the ring which had been thrown against the looking-glass, to the unending fear and trembling of poor Jean Philippeau. She must sell that, and to do it properly she must make herself look respectable. She would then find out what Hathorne Mack was doing. Her landlady lent her some modest, decent clothes, in which she dressed herself before starting for the grand counter of a fashionable jeweller. She knew but too well how dangerous it was to go to any other. A reduced lady can take her diamonds to Tiffany to sell. It is not sus- picious ; it is often done. But to go to a pawnbroker or an inferior house Rebecca Ethel Marjoribanks knew too much for that. She was skilled in the arts of disguise, as we have seen ; she could " make up " for any part ; even her landlady did not know the quiet, elegant, slender lady, who left her house for a momentous bit of shopping. It was a large, fine diamond, and she must make up a good story, which she did. While she was bargaining, and before the sale was completed, a party of ladies came in to buy wedding presents. " I must give Sidonie something handsome," said Mrs. Morella. " I suppose a diamond ring will be the best. Would you give that ? I am tired of silver." " Yes," said Mrs. Mortimer, " a ring is always a judicious present." A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 291 And they looked and admired. " Mrs. Hathorne Mack must have something handsome," said Mrs. Morella. " Oh yes, very handsome. They say that he has given such splendid black pearls." " When is the wedding to be ?" asked one of the ladies. " The 7th of October," said Mrs. Morella. The quiet lady moved off, motioning to the shop-keeper. He waited upon her at a different counter. " Offer this jewel to them at a price so low that they will be tempted to buy it. Tell them it is from the box of a countess who must sell her jewels," said she. Before she left the shop the transfer was made, and the money was in her pocket vengeance and hatred and rage in her heart ; and the ring was on its way to Sidonie Devine. The arrangements for the wedding were all made, and the Hon. Hathorne Mack was going round in his coup6 to call on his fiancee. She was in high spirits, and showed him the wedding presents. " They are very handsome first class," said Hathorne Mack, weighting the silver soup-tureen. " And see how generous Mrs. Morella has been look at this superb diamond ring ! It is one a Polish countess sold at the jeweller's only the other day, and she bought it for me. See what a peculiar blue and gold setting and what a superb stone !" A sudden, violent rush of blood to the head, a black darkness over everything, and the Hon. Hathorne Mack clutched at a chair. He thought that accursed ring was on its way to Australia. How well he knew it ! How he, in his passionate love for Rose, had had her initials care- fully and minutely enamelled in blue on gold there they stood out, " R. C.," looking him full in the face ! C92 A TRANSPLANTED EOIK. " Where did you get this where did it come from f* said he, wildly. " I told you," said Sidonie, in an alarmed voice. " Give it to me I must find out about it." " Why, Mr. Mack, how very strangely you behave !" said she. The entrance of a third person restored Hathorne Mack to a temporary calmness, and his bride was too prudent to carry on the discussion. There were papers to sign, and the various arrangements for the wedding. Best men and lesser men came in. All was busy confusion, and Sidonie, after one or two anxious looks towards her lover, to see if he really were going off in an apoplectic fit, calmed down and became the busy bride again. She was to be married at the most fashionable church in New York ; it would be crowded to repletion. She " should not see him again until they met at the altar," she said playfully, as she kissed his purple cheek. " Let me take the ring," said he, hoarsely. " No," said she, " I shall keep it ;" and she did. As she put it on, a thrill ran up her finger. " I wonder what is the matter with it," said Sidonie. XXXIX. THK Metropolitan Church had never held a more fash- ionable, gay audience. Asmodeus, who had just been looking at Rose Chadwick's simple, pretty wedding in the little stone church with its background of snow moun- A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 298 tains, thought with one of his habitual sneers that there was more fashion at Sidonie's, after all. The bride, her attendant vestals, and the ushers were all there. The organ played the Wedding March, a stout figure appeared near the rail of the chancel, and Dicky Smallweed rushed into the waiting-room to tell the bridal cortege that it was time to move on. Ten bridemaids, all with deferent-colored rosebud bou- quets, followed the six ushers. Every one rose to look at the bride, as in magnificent array she marched up, on her father's arm, to the altar. The clergyman descended to greet her. But where was the bridegroom ? She cast one hurried look to right and left; so did the best man, who retreated to the vestry to find his friend. Alas, not there ! "He has fallen in a fit," whispered Sidonie to her father. Every one rose, sat down, trembled, and felt the cold perspiration start to the brow. There was no Hathorne Mack. The stout figure who had seemed to be that honorable gentleman was the sexton, who bore so strong a resemblance to him that Dicky had been deceived. They waited an eternity. It was five minutes only, but it seemed years. And then the bride fainted, or seemed to faint, under the pressure of the greatest insult which can be put upon a woman. She was carried into the ves- try-room, her friends following her. The great crowd dispersed, every one with a theory. The fear that an accident had occurred was the favorite one, as they whis- pered behind their hands. And, indeed, Hathorne Mack was for once guiltless; for 294 A TRANSPLANTED ROBS. he lay, a lifeless mass of human nothingness, floating on the tide, as it surged to and fro in the North River. He could not come, he could keep no more engage- ments; he had stepped off in the darkness into that fast- running current, hiding disgrace and exposure in the flood which tells no tales. It was a nine days' wonder to the world, but to Decker it was but the consummation of the plot which he had been weaving, with the addition of one piece of testimony which he had not expected that of Ethel's reappearance. When Hathorne Mack left Sidonie, after the episode of the ring, he had gone to his own rooms to be confronted by the sight of his wife. Decker was there, and with him the clergyman of Harlem, with the dropped handkerchief marked R. E. M. Another man was there Herzog, who knew all about the disappearance of Pascal Chad wick. At the sight of this man Hathorne Mack grew pale. Decker held in his hand the papers which had been found on the dead body of his victim. One glance sufficed. " A pleasant little family party," said the Hon. Hathorne Mack, as he looked around him, and his old sneer settled on his mouth. They did not watch him very closely ; per- haps they did not care where he went, as he left his rooms at midnight. It was not their business to send round to the fashionable bride who was to await him at the altar. Indeed, Decker spent no more time on him, but went off to hunt up another case, and Herzog had vanished into dark- ness too. Only one faithful woman watched and waited in her humble hiding-place thinking, as she curled the golden hair of the rescued child over her fingers, that per- haps he might come to her again for comfort and for A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 295 succor. And it was only from the paper which she bought in the street that she knew what had become of him he had not even thought of her. Taking one poor little hand in hers, Ethel Marjoribanks, too, vanished into darkness. Perhaps God had sent her an angel unawares in this child whom she had saved from the deep sea, who should lead her out of the mesh of a guilty life. Sidonie Devine had been warned Arthur Amberley had seen to that. But, with the mingled audacity and self- assertion of her character, she had chosen to act on her own wisdom. She believed, for she had seen it done be- fore, that an old family, a large family, a family with a recognized name, could carry an illiterate, a vulgar, a low- born man along, if he had money. Hathorne Mack had told her his own story his own way, no doubt, and that she had chosen to believe. Now that he was dead, no concealment was either neces- sary or possible ; and a book was opened and read, in which many living characters figured, who did not at all relish the expose. Therefore Sidonie Devine received very little or no sympathy she did not ask it. Meantime Sir Lytton took his fair bride to foreign parts. She had lived a long life in her twenty-one years; her mind had come in contact with much that ripens and im- proves ; it was a mind, too, of no common order. No English girl of her age and position could have had the ex- perience she had had nor would any "parent or guard- ian" wish to expose an innocent heart to the burden of grief, sorrow, suffering, and hope deferred which had been the portion of Rose ; but it had ripened without withering her. 296 A TRANSPLANTED ROBK. "She is certainly very different from other people," thought Sir Lytton, who tried occasionally to look at her with other than a lover-husband's eye. He thought, perhaps, that at home they would find her too quick, too independent, too vehement; perhaps in Eng- land she would not seem so gracious: unconsciously he dreaded his mother's criticism. He lingered as long as he could in the pleasant business of showing Europe to his young wife. And she wished that it could last forever, this wandering from land to land, and this dream of fair cities ; this f ol- lowing-up of Romeo and Juliet, Portia and Viola. Her old days at Chadwick's Falls, her dreams over her books, her lonely long hours with Shakespeare, were all coming to pass. She thought how she had lived there, perfectly un- expectant, unaware of the net which circumstance, past, present, and to come, was weaving about her. But her father, who had seemed so absent, so queer, so neglectful, had been working for her, and had been thinking oh, 90 tenderly ! of the future of his little girl ! And with the faithful eyes of a tender husband Sir Lytton watched his young wife, and strove to save her from all shock and sorrow. He hoped, above all things, that she would not meet Marie Philippeau or Jean Pierre, or in any way be annoyed and troubled by the recurrent trials of the past. So far as he could temper or humanize the bitter wind which must blow on everybody, he deter- mined to do it. He would be the second Providence to this woman to whom he had given his name. She had shown sometimes, by a word spoken in sleep, that months of hard trouble, fear, and shame, and sorrow had passed over her 1 They should not come again. And one nama A TRANSPLANTED KO8E. 297 she could not speak without tears it was that of littla Pierre. Sir Lytton heard that Marie Philippeau and Jack Town- ley had been seen at Baden, at Nice, at Trouville, at Monaco. Both had boldly entered that half -world which accepts such a lawless couple. Marie's beauty was highly extolled, and the gay world of the gamblers greeted her with loud acclamations. But of such a couple as this there was al- ways a warning note, and Sir Lytton drew his young wife away from scenes which had no temptation for either of them. Together they wandered down into the beautiful scenery about Orleans, together they went to see the feudal chateaux of France ; together they traced Diana de Poitiers at Che- nonceaux, and read up the legends of Blois and Amboise ; then they wandered into rural France, and saw the spring come on in soft tender green. They went up Philip Ham- erton's " unknown river," and watched the sprightly water gleam and caught the tone of the wavelets. They sketched together, and put in here a stunted willow, there a droop- ing birch, then " tufted bights of bottom growth," and the dank green verdure of a pool with lilies in it. And then they would look at each other and sketch in familiar feat- ures, and then laugh at their own folly. What is amenable to foresight ? How could Sir Lytton have foreseen what was to come to pass amid this sylvan paradise ? Looking over the blue river, yet unvexed by storm or turbulence, over green pastures filled with cattle, over the picturesque peasantry, he felt that Rose was safe from even a regret, and so one day he told her that he must leave her for a day or two, to attend to some busi- ness which his prolonged absence had caused to accumulate. 298 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. It was their first separation, and they looted forward to it with almost tragic solemnity, and then laughed again at themselves. " Ob, Lytton !" said Rose, " with my novels and guide- books, and my embroidery, and with Barbe, my maid, I shall be quite happy, and not know that you are gone but do come back soon !" " Don't walk too far, dear," said Sir Lytton. " Leave the mountain-walk until I return." And so with tender leave-takings the young couple part- ed for two days. Barbe, who was to the manner born, was an excellent cicerone for the short expeditions which Rose chose to take around the little hamlet where they were spending the week. Rose, a true daughter of the country, loved the freedom, the solitude, and the picturesque novelty of the whole thing. It was one of Fate's sordid arrangements that she should happen to wander into the little cemetery one afternoon alone. She looked at the crosses, at the yellow and black wreaths of immortelles, and read the inscriptions, as the young even read them, with a sort of poetic pleasure. When we are gay and happy, we love to toy with grief. As she passed down a little valley she saw a grave cov- ered with violets, and at the foot of it lay a man stretched at full length, as if asleep she advanced and read, CI GIT PIERRE PHILIPPEAU. Before she could finish the long inscription, the man had sprung to his feet. He turned upon her the wildest, most awful face that she had ever seen. For a moment he gazed A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 299 at her without a word, and she looked at him. Her heart was beating so loud that she could hear it, yet she did not stir. Pale, with hair white, standing up all over his head, Jean Pierre Philippeau gazed at her with the wild glare of a maniac ; then a softer expression came into his face. " It is ze Mees Rose, dear child, come for poor leetle Pierre ! I give him leetle dog, leetle cat, everyting, but he could not stay ! Oh, Mees Rose ! he cry for you, for ze leetle maman. No, I never speak her name again ! Oh, Mees Rose ! why you break ze looking - glass ? it mean death it mean death to mon Pierre !" Rose shook in every limb, but she was inspired to do the best thing. " Pierre dead ! my Pierre ?" said she, sobbing, and she knelt on the sod, and clasped the cross in her arms. " That is good. You weep, Mees Rose. I cannot weep ! My eyes burn. I see ze little boy cry all time, ' Papa, give me water, give me cool, give me ze food.' I see him die of fever, here in my own town, where I bring him for ze fresh air, when zat black-hearted Jaques Town- ley ah !" And poor Jean Philippeau sank on the ground, foaming at the mouth. The touch of that cross, the prayer she had uttered, the memory of the child she had loved, had given Rose strength and power to speak. She went to the little brook near the cemetery, and filled her hat with fresh water ; bringing it back, she knelt by her poor old friend, and bathed his head with her wet handkerchief, and talked to him in sweet, tender voice. " Look up," said she, " look up at that sky. Pierre is there watching us ; pray to God to comfort you and to sustain you. No mortal man can keep his child from 300 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. dying look at these other graves ! Pierre was only lent to us, and we can only weep and pray." " Ah, ze poor Mees Rose ! it was always a kind leetle heart," said poor Jean Pierre. " I ml pray vil you pray ?" And together, kneeling on that violet sod, the two, who had loved Pierre so well, prayed that they might in some better world see his face once more. XL. IT was not strange that, when Sir Lytton came back, he should have given Barbe a scolding for letting her young mistress wander off into the graveyard. Rose, although not " born to the noble privilege of weariness," was easily shaken, and the interview with poor Jean Pierre had given her a terrible shock. She lay on her sofa, quite unable and unwilling to rise. " Take me home, dear," she said, finally, amid her sobs ; " take me to our quiet, healthy English home. I shall get strong there." Perhaps it was well for all parties that the young Ameri- can wife reached her English home a somewhat more gen- tle and dependent being than was her nature, needing care, and deeply needing the loving devotion of the most chival- rous of men. Lady Leycester was propitiated. There was nothing of the strong-minded or the pert American manner in this grateful girl, who responded to the courtly morning ques- tion of her mother-in-law, " / hope you are better ?" with A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 301 that smile and dewy kiss which had once almost reached the worldly heart of Mrs. Mortimer. The sisters, too, large women, with good, resolute, well- marked features, and long teeth (they were plain replicas of their handsome brother), with lady-like voices, and the most delicious pronunciation and accent, were unexpectedly agreeable to Hose. She wished that she felt as strong as they looked. They were soon friends, talking of their dogs and horses. But Rose had brought home a fever from the pretty little French valley, and it was a long time before she walked through her own house with the alert step of its mistress. She came to look at the beautiful views with the eyes of a convalescent, finally, and by that time they all loved her, these thoroughbred English women ; they had made her part and parcel of themselves. With her husband's arm around her she stood on the balcony, looking over towards the masses of green beyond the Moorland Height. She saw the leafy elms spread a carpet of thick shadow over the lawn ; the " roses red " mounted, in emulation with a honeysuckle, up to the very stone balustrade on which she leaned. It was all hers hers to live with, enjoy, and adorn. Sir Lytton held her close to his heart. Her illness had been a disappointment to him, for he was full of all sorts of feudal intentions of breakfasting with the tenantry, and flower-bedecked arches, and the pride of showing off his beautiful young wife, in all the glory of the early days of marriage. He felt that her entrance on her new home had been so sad that it would always bring a home-sick feeling to her. 20 302 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. But it was bis exquisite happiness to see her soon riding at his side, to find that she could walk, even with his sisters, and to hear her raptures over the lordly pheasant trooping through the grass, and to behold how pleased she was with the rural beauty of England, even to the flaunting wild poppy which filled the fields. Tellisor House struck her as the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, as indeed it was. She often scolded Sir Lytton, in good set terms, that he had permitted her to have her own way, not in- sisting on her being married in that " lovely, tumble-down gray chapel," with its brasses in the floor, memorials of the old Crusaders ! So much for the fairness of woman ! Shortly after all these romantic interludes, however, came the true girlish, womanly, foolish desire to go up to Lon- don to the gayeties of the season, and to see Harriet. Just to think, Harriet, her dear, best friend, was in Lon- don, and the lawn-tennis, the archery, the riding must give place for a time to theatricals, balls, presentations at Court, and all the dinners of all London ! Rose had a toilet from Worth in some of those un- opened trunks which now began to be remembered, and Sir Lytton had given her his famous family diamonds, which became her admirably. It was well for Rose that her love for Sir Lytton, and his for her, had been revealed to her with a sharp distinct- ness by their mutual trials, for she now saw him under circumstances which might have made her feel a certain humility and a consciousness of her own shortcomings. But he believed in her so intensely, loved her so devotedly, that she was never to experience that recoil. He was proud of her, too ; she was glad to see that. "Well, mamma, what do you think of her?" he asked A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 303 of Lady Leycester, as Rose stood dressed for her first draw- ing-room. "Perfect, my son, perfect. I would not have her changed in a single particular." Harriet had grown handsomer for being married, Rose thought ; or else beauty did not seem to be so important in London as it was in New York. Harriet's quiet manner, her good sense, her lady-like breeding, all told in London. She was delightfully happy in her quiet way, and charmed to see Rose. She was of infinite service to her, in advising and arranging the deli- cate shades of etiquette required by her own and Sir Lyt- ton's position. In a society so accurately defined as that of England these things are more easily learned than with us. "I shall never learn when to say 'your Grace' and 'my Lord,' etc.," said Rose, with a little of her old confidence in Harriet. " Oh yes, you will ; and if you make mistakes they will like your piquancy," said Harriet. " Lytton will never tell me what to do ; he is so atro- ciously pleased when I make a blunder!" said Rose to Harriet. And so our heroine danced and smiled and dined through her first London season with an ever-increasing success. And she sang, too, at the grand Musicale of the Duchess of No-Castle, and her voice had the freshness and clearness which only very young voices have. They were surprised to hear how well she could sing, and the Misses Leycester remembered poor Rebecca Ethel. And all her dresses were commended those latest Paris fashions as the tall and comely figure and graceful mien set them off, " Oh, Harriet ! do you remember the brilliant brocade 304 A TRANSPLANTED BOSK. at Mrs. Mortimer's ?" said Rose, as she looked at herself, in a gray silk with gray bonnet and plume, and long black gloves, one rose alone giving her a bit of color. "Yes, you looked like a beautiful paroquet in that, Rose," said Harriet. " Clothes have a great deal to do with one's happiness," said Rose, thinking of the agony of that evening. " What an ignoble sentiment !" said Sir Lytton, coming in at the close of this council of war. It was amid ices and sandwiches and claret-cup, at a garden-party, that Rose came unexpectedly upon an old friend. It was Jack Townley, with handsome face, bold eyes, and confident air, who, hand and glove with the young swells about him, touched his hat to the young beauty, the toast of the season, Lady Lytton Leycester ! The in- evitable years, the experiences of life, had written a few lines about Jack's eyes, still he looked very much the same. " Stylish man, your countryman !" said a young captain to Rose. The young man had an honest, simple face, and he looked with wonder at the sudden aversion, disgust, and anger which was depicted on the face of his pretty neighbor. " Mr. Townley has just come from China, I believe," said the captain. " I wonder where he has left her" thought Rose, dream- ily, as she remembered the parlor in Fifth Avenue, and th cemetery in the little French village. But no one asked for her. "These Americans never seem to like each other," said the young captain to his friend Mellish, as they criticised Lady Lytton Leycester, and pronounced her " good form." A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 305 " I would not bow to Jack Townley to-day," said Rose to her husband that evening after the garden-party. " It would not be wise, dear," said he, " the world does not exclude him." " Then I shall be unwise," said she. It hurt Jack Townley very much to be so decidedly cut by Rose. He was not accustomed to it. He had seen this girl first ; he had known the wild rose in the Western wilderness. He had recognized all her beauty and charm then. Had he been certain about Pascal Chadwick's fort- une he would have married her, he reflected, then and there, for if he had ever been in love it was with her. But he had allowed Hathorne Mack to sow doubt and dis- trust, and on the evening of the famous Masquerade he had believed what Mack had whispered in his ear, and the next day parted with his interest in the silver-mine. He had seen Rose in her awkward moments, in her hour of sorrow, in her days of tribulation ; but he had never ex- pected to see her as he saw her now, with that look upon her face of perfect happiness, without a shadow to dim the brightness of hope, or a past experience which could embitter or make her fearful of the future. The priceless illusions of youth had been brushed away to make room for a destiny more rare and perfect than any of which she had dreamed. No more radiant outlook for the future could a woman have than that which opened before Rose ; and as his critical eye swept over the details of dress, demeanor, and attitude, he felt that Rose had conquered them all. But the deadly aversion which marked her expression as she looked at him ! It remained to haunt him like a curse. Had he only known, had he been a little wiser, he might have gathered this flower, and have saved his soul one 306 A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. dreadful stain of guilt and sin ; there would have been one home less dishonored. But Sir Lytton Leycester had been the lucky man he had got it all. He saw the once ignorant girl, who had rushed across the room at Delraonico's to speak to him, now a queen of society. Truly, society is fearfully and wonderfully made ! How complex are its functions ; how delicate its organization ; but how feeble are its instincts ! How little does it recog- nize and estimate involuntary action at its real value ! what mistakes we all make in it what tricks our brains play us sometimes ! Whatever Jack Townley thought of society just then, however, was lost in the immense disgust with which he thought of himself. The self-reproaches of an unsuccessful snob must be most bitter; for he had not been true to his own party himself. His old friend Harriet refused to bow to him ; so let us hope that, spite of his bold eyes and somewhat defiant manner, the Lady-killer is receiving his reward. Society, as we have read, admits no obstacles to the de- mands of its all-comprehending activity ; it accepts no re- fusals ; it stands forward in its force as a recognized public necessity; as a valued public right it knocks imperiously at all doors it calls on the whole world to come out and participate in the universal mob ; and then it takes the liberty of rejecting many, of eating its own words, and of going back on itself, and no one knows who, or what, or where " Society " is. It is a great impersonal power, a Juggernaut, whose wheels either elevate or crush us, as the power within decides; who wields that power, and by what right, nobody can tell. A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. 307 " Society " scarcely ever has a virtuous fit, but when it does it is very terrible. Some rather innocent scapegoat is usually selected as the victim for the sins of the people. But Rose, our heroine, has done with all these problems. She has drawn one of the prizes in life's lottery, and she has risen to the top of the wheel without losing character or self-respect. And now has come to her a dearer study the ideal of Home. The national type of Home in England (not the modern fashionable one) is a high one. The national sen- timent of Home is a beautiful one. The son collects his scattered sisters under his roof; his family duties are pre- eminent when he marries. If his mother retires to her dower-house, he is still the guardian and friend to her, as when she was the mistress of the great house. Sir Lytton is not one of those Englishmen who write " No Admission for Strangers " on the lintels of his house. He and his American wife have much of the broad, genial American hospitality enamelled on their true English solid comfort. And Rose, who had never known what a " home " meant, clasped those old stone walls with all the tendrils of her af- fectionate nature as closely as does the ivy, and, like that, she every year adds a more tender grace, a fresh perennial charm, to the dignified English home. " You are a great compliment to my skill as a gardener, my ' Transplanted Rose,' " says her husband to her, as he touches with caress- ing hand a lovely and blooming cheek. THE END. Harper's Popular J2mo Series doth, Ornamental, 75 Cents Each With Frontispiece Portraits of Authors THE HOUSE-BOAT ON THE STYX. By JOHN KENDRICK BANGS. Illustrated. THE PURSUIT OF THE HOUSE-BOAT. By JOHN KENDRICK BANGS. Illustrated. THE WAR OF THE WORLDS. By H. G. WELLS. Illustrated. A NEW ENGLAND NUN, and Other Stories. By MARY E. WILKINS. PEMBROKE. By MARY E. WILKINS. THE GREAT STONE OF SARDIS. By FRANK R. STOCKTON. LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI. By MARK TWAIN. LORRAINE. By ROBERT W. CHAMBERS. THE COAST OF BOHEMIA. By W. D. HOWELLS. A LITTLE JOURNEY IN THE WORLD. By CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. THE DESCENDANT. By ELLEN GLASGOW. THE REFUGEES. By A. CONAN DOYLE. A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. By MRS. JOHN SHERWOOD. ROWENY IN BOSTON. By MARIA LOUISE POOL. A STRANGE MANUSCRIPT FOUND IN A COPPER CYLINDER. By JAMES DE MILLE. Illustrated. THE RED AXE. By S. R. CROCKETT. Illus- trated. PETER IBBETSON. By GEORGE DU MAU- RIER. Illustrated. THE PRINCESS ALINE. By RICHARD HARDING DAVIS. Illustrated. JUPITER LIGHTS. By CONSTANCE FENI- MORE WOOLSON. ANNE. By CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON. THE BREADWINNERS. ANONYMOUS. HARPER & BROTHER^ PUBLISHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON 3~ Any of the above works -will In sent by mail, postage prepaid t to any part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico on receipt of the price. A 000129592 2