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 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 21 
 
 BY 
 
 SARAH P. McLEAN GREENE 
 
 AUTHOR OP 
 " VKSTY OF THE BASINS " " CAPE COD FOLKS " ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK AND LONDON 
 HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
 
 1897
 
 BY SARAH P. McL. GREENE. 
 
 VESTY OP THE BASINS. A Novel. Post 8v<>, 
 Cloth, $1 25. 
 
 One of the sweetest, freshest of novels. . . . There are 
 scenes of humor and of pal 1ms. 1'hilatlelphia HuUetin. 
 
 It is a work of real genius strong, true, brave, and 
 tender. It is a story to bo read and remembered. 
 Newark Advertiser. 
 
 A story of the far " down cast " coast of Maine, wonder- 
 fully realistic in its portrayal of life and manners among 
 the people of a remote flshing-village. and rich in episodic 
 incidents, amusing, sentimental, and dramatic. 
 
 NK\V YORK AND LONDON: 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS. 
 
 Copyright, 1897, by IURUCB & BROTIIKBS. 
 
 All riyliti ruentd.
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO

 
 STUAET AND BAMBOO 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 " SECOND class to Yarmouth," said Mar- 
 garet. 
 
 The man, giving quick automatic glances 
 in the rush of business, laid down a first- 
 class ticket. 
 
 " I said ' second class.' " 
 
 "Pardon," said the man, complying and 
 might be pardoned, for Margaret Stuart 
 stood there plainly and egregiously "first 
 class." 
 
 " Carriage, lady ?" " Porter, lady ?" 
 
 Margaret walked on, unheeding, with her 
 burdens. 
 
 She found a place in the crowded car at 
 last, but tete-a-tete with a bounteous moth-
 
 2 STUAKT AND BAMBOO 
 
 er and her surrounding galaxy of soiled 
 cherubs. 
 
 "Widow?" said this woman at length, 
 kindly. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Childern?" 
 
 " Yes in heaven," Margaret added, low, 
 for she had been a Sunday-school teacher 
 in the First Church at D . 
 
 "I surmised it from the heft o' your 
 weeds ; they was babies, I opine ye ain't 
 over twenty-five." 
 
 " I am thirty." 
 
 " Sho ! "Well, well so be they're better 
 off with God." 
 
 " Do you not think God is with them 
 here?" said Margaret, so fine a quality of 
 sarcasm in her sweet low voice the woman 
 looked safely incredulous. 
 
 " It's a thought, anyway !" she admitted, 
 guardedly, and proceeded to open her lunch- 
 basket. 
 
 Margaret was now the only one in the 
 car who was not eating. Freight-bound for 
 the night with the rest, she appeared to be
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 3 
 
 without resource for refreshment. The ma- 
 tron, looked over her disordered food, im- 
 printed everywhere with babies' fingers 
 the milk - bottles were out of the question. 
 But a trim little country milliner, the other 
 side of the aisle, took her life in her hand 
 and solved the problem. 
 
 " Try one of my sponge - cakes, madam," 
 said she, offering it to Margaret on a nap- 
 kin. " I made 'em myself. Do ! I'll feel 
 real hurt if you despise it." 
 
 " Despise it !" said Margaret, thanking 
 her as she took the gift, and they saw, 
 now that her still face broke into a smile, 
 a possibility of humor not to be excelled, 
 even in a second - class carriage, mingled 
 with a haunting sort of loveliness. 
 
 "I'll bet," said a buxom professional 
 nurse, who was engaged in a flirtation with 
 a blacksmith, as noisy and pronounced as 
 the play of the latter's own anvils "I'll 
 bet, now, that lady yonder 's travellin' off 
 on her temper. I know style. I've nursed 
 'em. Yes, sir! she's got her sails set for a 
 cruise in the schooner Holy Spunk!" She
 
 4 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 marched over to Margaret with a piece of 
 bread in her wholesome hand and dropped 
 it in her lap. "Eat that before you eat 
 your cake," said she ; " it's better for ye." 
 
 So! Not only to be fed as by ravens, 
 but on hygienic principles ! 
 
 "Try one o' my home-made pickles for 
 a ralish," said another voice. A cucumber 
 as large as a small kitten was deposited by 
 the side of the bread. 
 
 The milliner had plenty of sponge-cakes, 
 the nurse had superfluous bread, the pickle- 
 woman had profuse specimens of the same 
 abnormal development ; but a youthful pair 
 on the front seat had just one orange be- 
 tween them wherewith to moisten their bis- 
 cuits. 
 
 After a whispered conversation the boy 
 arose, walked solemnly to Margaret, lifted 
 his hat, as his girl had strictly enjoined 
 upon him to do, and without a word placed 
 the orange in the general contribution-box 
 her lap. 
 
 Margaret, meditating many things, waited 
 a little before she went over to the donors.
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 5 
 
 " I have eaten so much people have been 
 so kind I really cannot take this," she said, 
 with a manner that satisfied them ; and the 
 youth, who was a carpenter, now divided 
 the fruit with his girl as mathematically as 
 if he were working with chisel and plane. 
 
 A laugh startled Margaret as she turned 
 and stood face to face with a young wom- 
 an, only the back of whose restless auburn 
 head had been visible to her before. 
 
 She sat among a cluster of admirers of 
 the most overgrown sylvan type, whose ver- 
 dancy she evidently appreciated, for her 
 head was at once thrown back with a con- 
 temptuous indifference to all things, waiting 
 for the charity-fed lady to pass on. 
 
 She herself, with her radiant brown eyes 
 and hair, Avas a Hebe in form, with features 
 suggestive of a Madonna; long lashes in 
 this moment of social abeyance drooping, 
 dove-like, on her cheeks. 
 
 "What a beauty!" thought Margaret, 
 passing on to her seat. 
 
 As she did so Hebe, with insolent precipi- 
 tancy, became again an informing sun in
 
 6 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 I 
 
 the midst of her satellites. Pleasantry so 
 cheerful as to partake even of resounding 
 cuffs and slaps reached Margaret's ears; 
 presently she saw the auburn head crowned 
 with a male hat, ungallantly forced there 
 by the largest bumpkin of all, who had as- 
 sumed Hebe's own. His fat weak face, thus 
 adorned, took on a simpering look, and the 
 poor straggling feathers, so jaunty on their 
 owner, drooped strangely over his asinine 
 ears. 
 
 From this marked nucleus of wit the 
 mirth became general : the matron opposite 
 Margaret shook with unimbittered laughter. 
 " I'm goin' to give that hawk of a girl some- 
 thing to do!" said she. She took up the 
 smallest squirming baby and went over to 
 Hebe. " Would you hold him a little for me, 
 miss?" she said, with the simplest natural 
 confidence; "he's tired o' me; they like a 
 change o' arms." 
 
 Hebe was under the reckless and resentful 
 consciousness that she was tabooed, even in 
 a second-class caravan, for her wild con- 
 duct; a quick eager light came over her
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 7 
 
 face as she reached out her arms for the 
 child. 
 
 " Quit, now !" said she, authoritatively, to 
 the renewed bantering of her admirers, and 
 henceforth deigned no rejoinder to them as 
 she. tossed the delighted baby in her buoy- 
 ant young arms. 
 
 The rejected rose in a body and shuffled, 
 grinning foolishly, out to the smoking-car. 
 
 The baby, with growing jubilance, at last 
 thrust its ecstatic fingers into Hebe's hair; 
 she twisted about to extricate the little fist 
 and her eyes met Margaret's ; she gave the 
 older woman a glance, half of triumph, half 
 with a long, unmistakable gleam of dislike 
 and defiance in it. 
 
 " I can smell gov'ment bonds, fam'ly trees, 
 and indigo - blue Presbyterians clear the 
 whole length of this car," said she to the 
 child's mother, who came to her assistance. 
 " "Why don't she travel with her own set ?" 
 
 " She answers all my questions polite 
 enough," returned the matron ; " but, after 
 all, I don't seem to drain her o' no infor- 
 mation, and I'm on the tanterhooks all the
 
 8 STUAKT AND BAMBOO 
 
 time Avith the children mussin' over her silk 
 urabrell' and things. Ha! ha! ye've found 
 a better mother than me, hain't ye, ye little 
 ongrate!" she said, good-naturedly, taking 
 back her unwilling infant. 
 
 As the dusk was growing, some one had 
 opened wide both doors; the wind swept 
 through, sweet and cool; children were 
 swinging across the aisle on suspended 
 shawl - straps ; the conductor, making an 
 occasional entry, stepped obligingly over 
 both children and swings ; seeing the place 
 beside Hebe empty, he sat down there. 
 
 The young carpenter was having another 
 serious conversation with his girl ; he arose 
 and addressed something to the ears of the 
 passengers as he stepped down the aisle ; 
 when he reached Margaret he paused in the 
 same grave manner 
 
 " Will you join us in singing the ' Sweet 
 By-and-by'?" 
 
 Margaret's mouth twitched with the sur- 
 prise of the invitation. 
 
 " I will do my best," she said. 
 
 The carpenter's girl started it, but Hebe
 
 STUAKT AND BAMBOO 9 
 
 took it up and flooded the car with it ; she 
 sang the first verse in a thrilling soprano; 
 she rendered the second in a showy alto ; 
 she warbled the third in a melting tremulo, 
 " We shall meet on that beautiful shore." 
 
 The conductor, as temporary proprietor 
 of so much vocal pre-eminence, put his arm 
 engagingly along the back of Hebe's seat. 
 
 A man in sleek broadcloth, who had come 
 strolling from one of the first - class car- 
 riages, stood in the door and stared marked- 
 ly at Hebe with insolent favor. 
 
 The conductor at length rose up reluc- 
 tantly and went about his duties. 
 
 The first-class man, after a brief absence, 
 returned and renewed his unembarrassed 
 gaze and waiting attitude at the door. 
 Hebe's head was thrown back; when would 
 the dove-like lids open again and conscious- 
 ly or unconsciously invite this unctuous new- 
 admirer ? 
 
 Margaret, impelled by a new, perhaps a 
 second-class, impulse of tenderness for what 
 did not concern her, walked leisurely and, 
 as it were, indifferently over to the girl.
 
 10 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 " May I sit down here a moment ?" she 
 said. " One gets so tired in the one place." 
 
 " Cert'nly," said Hebe, stiffly. 
 
 " That is my card," said Margaret, put- 
 ting that choicely engraved and black-edged 
 memento in Hebe's hand. " Stuart. My 
 name was Stuart and I married a Stuart, 
 not a cousin either, not any relation but it 
 was quite odd, was not it?" she went on, 
 with trained facility for making talk. 
 
 " I don't carry my name around except in 
 my head," said Hebe. "It's Milderd St. 
 Thomas. ' Duds Sen Tammy ' they call me 
 over to Yarmouth." 
 
 " Do you live in Yarmouth ? I am going 
 there." 
 
 "I work in the lobster factory canning." 
 Mildred St. Thomas seemed to hope this 
 would prove shocking. 
 
 " We take the boat to-morrow ?" 
 
 " Yes, and it's an awful cranky boat, too : 
 the wind's east, it's going to be rough." 
 Mildred spoke as though this at least should 
 settle her undesired acquaintance, and turn- 
 ed her head to the window.
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 11 
 
 "Am I incommoding you?" said Mar- 
 garet, gently, after a little. "Would you 
 rather have the seat for other acquaint- 
 ances ?" 
 
 " I'm not pitch !" said Mildred St. Thomas, 
 with a relieving flash of indignation. " If 
 people come and stick to me, I can't help it ; 
 but I ain't a fool, and there's no pitch on 
 me, either !" 
 
 Margaret sat very quiet, not even draw- 
 ing away after this blow. 
 
 The first-class man in broadcloth had dis- 
 appeared from view. The car was growing 
 very dim, and there were yet no signs of 
 lighting the lamps ; mothers here and there 
 were crooning their tired babies to sleep; 
 and still the lady, silent and unoff ended, sat 
 close by the resentful member of the lobster 
 factory. 
 
 "May I kiss you, dear?" she said, rising 
 at last. " I am so lonely to-night I can 
 hardly keep from crying." 
 
 Mildred lifted a sudden wondering 
 glance to the pale face and trembling lips 
 above her. " You kiss me /" she laughed bit-
 
 12 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 terly under her breath. Margaret stooped 
 down and kissed her, and the veil she wore 
 fell for an instant softly over the girl's 
 shoulder; then she went back to her place. 
 
 When the lamps were ablaze the traveller 
 in broadcloth came again and stood tenta- 
 tively at the door, but Mildred's averted 
 face rested against the cushions, hopelessly 
 cold and unresponsive. 
 
 The matron disposed her sleeping children 
 wherever science, assisted by philanthropy, 
 could make room for them. One little fel- 
 low with home-knit woollen stockings, and 
 pink slippers from the shop, grew painfully 
 cramped and distressed in position as the 
 night wore on and his mother's unconscious 
 form became inattentive. 
 
 Margaret, sleepless, lifted him and laid him 
 easily in her own arras ; one wild, strange 
 look he gave her, then instantly caught up 
 the thread of his broken slumbers with a 
 grateful sigh. 
 
 " Have you been hold in' that young one 
 all night, ma'am? God forgive me, I 
 couldn't no more help sleepin' than a cat
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 13 
 
 under a stove! God bless ye kindly, ma'am ! 
 Do take my pocket-mirrer !" 
 
 It was thrice cracked. Margaret retained 
 it a moment, politely trying to find some 
 coherent plan of her features in it. Unsuc- 
 cessful in this, she smoothed some strands of 
 hair as gravely as if the reflection had been 
 in any degree suggestive. 
 
 " Goin' on by boat ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Well, I ain't, thank the Lord ! When 
 we get to Percy's Mount I'm home. Ye're 
 a proud-sized Avoman, but ye ain't over and 
 above robust lookin'. I invite ye kindly to 
 stop 'n' rest with me till Thursday's boat. 
 My man's dead, but I've always had a jant 
 o' meat in the house so far." 
 
 " No, thank you ; I will go on." 
 
 " Anybody waitiri' for ye?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Summerin' ?" 
 
 " Summering and wintering, both," said 
 Margaret, with a catch in her throat the 
 other did not hear. 
 
 On the boat Margaret clung for life to
 
 14 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 the cold wind of the deck ; the craft pitched 
 and rolled, and a dreadful premonition of 
 illness was upon her. All had gone below 
 save herself, braced amidships, and one 
 other individual, leaning with plain disgust 
 of life over the railing. In her sick despair 
 she had not even noticed that it was the 
 sleek first-class traveller of the train, now 
 miserably collapsed, with his hat hanging at 
 his side and his bald head revealed. 
 
 A steward ascended to sound the supper- 
 gong in the ears of this feeble audience. 
 
 "Bring me a piece of salt codfish, un- 
 cooked, and some pilot - bread," Margaret 
 said to him, and a sick hallucination came 
 to her that this repast, and this alone, could 
 stay her woes. 
 
 But no sooner had she taken it in her 
 hand than an uncontrollable desire came 
 over her to throw it as far from her as 
 possible into the sea. She knew that she 
 could never reach the deck-railing, yet un- 
 less that piece of fish were even in the 
 depths of the sea she felt that she should 
 die.
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 15 
 
 She had been called a straight and strong 
 thrower, for a woman, but illness had al- 
 ready seized her; the codfish glanced forth, 
 wavering, thwarted too by a gust of wind, 
 and hit her suffering solitary companion on 
 the back of his bald head ! 
 
 Margaret leaned, clinging faintly with her 
 slender straining muscles to a deck-chair in 
 front of her; she half expected that evil 
 missile to be hurled back at her, but was in- 
 different, and only remembered, for her own 
 unprovoked attack, that all crimes are for- 
 given to the dying. 
 
 " You're so cold ! you ought to- come 
 down" it was Mildred's voice "come 
 down to your state-room !" 
 
 " I haven't any state-room ; besides, if I 
 leave the air I shall die !" 
 
 " I'll fix you all right you sha'n't be sick 
 any more. Let me help you. Come !" 
 
 Half carried by those strong young arms, 
 Margaret found herself down the stairs in 
 the lighted cabin, and flat on her back amid 
 soothing pillows and blankets. Gentle hands 
 relieved her of her bonnet and smoothed
 
 16 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 the hair from her aching temples, and she 
 knew no more till morning. 
 
 " Say, we've struck Yarmouth ; let's get 
 off and beat the town for a lookin'-glass !" 
 
 " Oh, how good you have been to me !" 
 cried Margaret, springing up, yet with 
 something so blank and hopeless in her 
 face. 
 
 Mildred drew nearer, hesitating, a strange 
 softness in her voice : " Perhaps you're a 
 stranger? Perhaps you want a cheap place 
 to live ? Maybe perhaps you want some- 
 thing to do ?" 
 
 Margaret's great eyes answered her. 
 
 " I'm asettled' resident.'" Thegirllaughed. 
 " I'll fix you all right. It's poor and cheap 
 the place I mean but there ain't a shady 
 thing in it nor by it ; and I'll find you 
 something fit to do. I'm not working to- 
 day come! I feel like crusadin' 'round on 
 just this shape of a racket." She gathered 
 up Margaret's traps, laughing. "Look!" 
 said she, merrily, as if to stave off the tears 
 of gratitude in the other's eyes; "do you 
 see that lanr/or and coachman, and him get-
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 17 
 
 tin' in? That's the richest man in Yar- 
 mouth that's the big Judson Sprague." 
 
 Margaret saw the wily flirt of the train, 
 the miserable sufferer of the deck. 
 
 " He don't know me, but I know who he 
 is," continued Mildred. " Oh, ain't he giddy, 
 though, when he gets away from home !" 
 
 " I excelled him in sprightliness," said 
 Margaret. " I hit him on the head with 
 a good half pound of ossified codfish. The 
 wind blew so I was so ill 
 
 Mildred leaned her hands on her hips and 
 laughed till she was weak. " Say, your 
 ' reserved seat ' 's all right, if you never do 
 another good thing ! Say, he's an old wid- 
 ower you needn't 'a' been afraid I'd flirted 
 with him. High-toned folks like you he's 
 all right to, but poor girls like me are dirt 
 under his feet ; a try-to-kiss and a kick, 
 that's his style with such as me, and your 
 sort don't usually mind such as us bein' 
 insulted. It's expected. But he's got a boy 
 that ain't like him !" Mildred blushed frank- 
 ly. "Jeff Sprague. I know him to speak to. 
 Come on, now we're goin' to fix you cosey."
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 " MRS. MARGARET STUART Mrs. O'Ragan 
 Stuart." 
 
 "Stuart, is it? Thank God, thin, we've 
 the one name! and so I thought by the looks 
 o' ye, darlin'. 'Tis a race ye can tell ony- 
 wheres, begorry ! Look forninst me wall !" 
 
 Margaret did so, and saw an engraving of 
 the Scottish queen in her youth. 
 
 Mrs. O'Ragan, with the sleeves rolled up 
 from her powerful arms and a large rope 
 knotted aggressively about her waist, herself 
 stood gazing in rapture. 
 
 " Will," said she, turning to Margaret, 
 " would yez know us for the one family ?" 
 
 "The resemblance is something wonder- 
 ful." 
 
 " Will, thin ! blissed saint that she was, 
 that Quane Elizabeth put to the stroke ! 
 And what happened hersilf for doin' the
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 19 
 
 same, but didn't she combusticate in her 
 dith, so niver a flitherin of her could be 
 found between the two says ? Plontogonet, 
 go and fitch the clar't dimmyjon. Fool wid 
 the cork, and I'll fool wid yez ! 
 
 " ' Pleg ' he's called for short," she added, 
 gravely ; " and more Pleg he is for short 
 than long for Plontogonet. 
 
 " Take a sip, darlin'," said Mrs. O'Ragan, 
 pouring a little into a glass. " 'Tis the same 
 I took bit by bit to Winny Hinchy beyant 
 the yard, and 'twas the last sip she took jist 
 afore she died, yisterday. "Will yez wake wid 
 us the night ?" 
 
 " Pve been waking for two nights," said 
 Margaret, with unimpeachable solemnity, 
 tasting the wine, however, under the com- 
 pulsion of an inherited courtesy that could 
 march to the death. 
 
 " Dear, thin, niver mind. We can't all be 
 the one thing, and there's many a Bamboo 
 that I love as will as I do me own." For it 
 soon developed to Margaret's increasing in- 
 telligence that Mrs. O'Ragan had a conven- 
 ient habit of calling every one who was not
 
 20 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 both Celtic in race and Roman Catholic in 
 ritual a " Bamboo " not with religious rep- 
 robation, but merely as relying on the term 
 to convey a general sense of something for- 
 eign. Whether connected in her mind with 
 Bombay or not was never definitely known. 
 
 " Thank you. May I go up to my rooms 
 now ?" 
 
 " Pleg, show the lady. They're airy, 
 ma'am, on the side to the bluffs. Miss Duds 
 Sen Tammy said you was one o' this kind 
 must be always sippin' a bit o' frish air. 
 Don't be wishful, ma'am, dear. The blissed 
 Mother o' God is wid us here and yon and 
 iverywhere. Pleg!" 
 
 Plantagenet preceded Margaret up the 
 stairs, indicated her apartments by turning 
 and giving the door a stout kick with his 
 bare foot, and rushed from her presence. 
 
 Margaret picked up the key, rattled to the 
 floor by this procedure, and went in. 
 
 " The blessed Mother of God is with us 
 here and yon and everywhere." The \vords 
 came to her as she looked out on the bay 
 with its green islands.
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 21 
 
 Within was a tiny kitchen, white in the 
 sunlight, and adjoining a bedroom, bare as 
 to wall and floor, the latter throwing up 
 fretful splinters in retaliation for a recent 
 scrubbing. 
 
 There stood her trunks, remnants of the 
 labels of extensive foreign travel still adher- 
 ing to them. Margaret bit her lip with an 
 odd smile ; the smile deepened to half-h} 7 s- 
 terical, solitary laughter at the incongruous 
 quality of the contents, whose quiet, costly 
 elegance lay revealed amid her surround- 
 ings. Replacing all save a few of the plain- 
 est, and one summer gown of purest white, 
 daintily and choicely lace -trimmed, which 
 she laid on top as if for a purpose, she closed 
 the lid and answered a knock at the door. 
 
 " 'Tis dressed wid an onion it is, ma'am," 
 cried Mrs. O'Ragan, delightedly holding out 
 a piece of brown meat on a plate, "and know- 
 in' yez haven't yet had time to be layin' in 
 yer bits o' pervisions." 
 
 " You are too kind !" That the meat was 
 clothed even swathed in onion was evi- 
 dent to more than one sense. Finding an
 
 22 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 erratic knife and fork among her kitchen 
 furniture, Margaret proceeded to investi- 
 gate. Faint with hunger, she found the re- 
 sult strangely agreeable, and thus employed 
 was startled by another knock at the door. 
 
 "Call me always Agnaiz!" exclaimed 
 a wholesome, affectionate voice. Margaret 
 went into the bedroom to bring her other 
 chair she had one for each room. 
 
 Agnes appeared not to notice that she 
 had been absent for that purpose, or that 
 there were other than twenty chairs in the 
 room. 
 
 " I have five childs," she said, seating her- 
 self, " and one husban'." 
 
 Margaret smiled back into the comely 
 foreign face. 
 
 " I live also here. I wailcome you ! We 
 are Bamboos togezzer !" she added, laughing 
 with the most musical good-fellowship. 
 
 Her cotton dress was soiled and her hands 
 labor -worn, but she seemed a most serene 
 lady. 
 
 " My husban' is Irishmans. Well, he iaa 
 so good. Wait till I tell you. ' Agnaiz,' ho
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 23 
 
 says to me, 'everything ever you weesh I 
 give it you, and all the time you leef wicl 
 me I never seen you cry now you cry be- 
 cause I been drinkin' some liquors. Go put 
 on your t'ings and come 'long wid me.' So 
 we went, and he sign de pladge ! Now, 
 dare!" 
 
 " That is splendid !" 
 
 " Yas, is it not ? I love mans." 
 
 This was a little startling. 
 
 " Young mans !" 
 
 Margaret looked up and met a pair of 
 pure dark eyes gazing seriously at her from 
 Agn-es's face. 
 
 " One has also here a room. He was var' 
 ill. I save him from dine. I love him as 
 my own childs but he is Jew !" 
 
 Agnes lifted her eloquent eyes and crossed 
 herself, sorrowfully. 
 
 " Now I love you, too," she added. 
 
 " And I am neither Jew nor Catholic," 
 said Margaret, smiling. 
 
 " I care not. Somet'ing to my heart says 
 I shall meet you and Isaak in dose better 
 worl's. Have you a nutmaig, Miz' Stuart ?"
 
 24 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 Now, strangely, Margaret had seen this 
 very article, overlooked by a former tenant, 
 in a corner of the kitchen shelf, and she 
 brought it. Agnes blushed her most gra- 
 cious thanks, and rising soon thereafter, un- 
 folded from a damask napkin a loaf of cake, 
 than which Margaret had never seen any- 
 thing more alluringly toothsome in appear- 
 ance. 
 
 " Dis mornin'," said Agnes, inconsequent- 
 ly, laying the loaf in its white napkin on the 
 table, " I mek' a cake. You are yet so busy, 
 I baig you to accep' my poor meeserable 
 loaf of cake." 
 
 " I do not know how to thank you !" 
 
 "Come to see me. I shall mek' }'ou al- 
 ways 'appy; so shall my husban' and childs. 
 Isaak that is Jew young mans shall come 
 in an' play you 'armony, and I shall sing 
 you." 
 
 She went out. " She saw the nutmeg and 
 asked for it," thought Margaret, " so that 
 she could more easily give me the cake. I 
 have stumbled on a queer community," 
 she continued, musing; "they seem to have
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 25 
 
 a mania for giving! I must return these 
 favors. But I have heard that 'tenement' 
 people are always borrowing of and lending 
 to one another, and that is demoralizing," 
 she concluded, shivering a little righteously 
 under the spell of superior traditions. " I 
 shall treat them well I cannot, of course, 
 really associate with them but I shall nei- 
 ther lend nor borrow." 
 
 Seldom had a good resolution earlier op- 
 portunity for enforcement. 
 
 A third rap at the door, and a tall, thin 
 woman, with a great fund of humor in her 
 eye, and a very small Derby hat capping 
 jauntily a person otherwise unrecovered 
 from the dishabille of the kitchen, made 
 her appearance. 
 
 "I'm Mrs. Shaughnessy," she said, with 
 much hope. 
 
 "My name is Stuart," replied Margaret, 
 rather coldly. 
 
 "Yes, Mrs. O'Ragan was jist tellin' me ye 
 were her own cousin belike." 
 
 Margaret blushed violently, but did not 
 speak.
 
 26 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 " Ye're lookin' very fine, ma'am. If ever 
 there's ony thing I can do for ye, jist come 
 to the landin' an' pound wid yer petaty- 
 masher. I'm on the upper floor correspon- 
 din'. Could ye, Mrs. Stuart, ma'am, be 
 loanin' me a half-dizzen petatys till morn- 
 in' ?" 
 
 "I am very sorry," said Margaret (who 
 was very glad), " but I have not yet pur- 
 chased any potatoes." This last clause being 
 the pellucid truth. 
 
 " What ! not a petaty ? God help ye, 
 ma'am," cried Mrs. Shaughnessy, fervently ; 
 "that sha'n't long be said o' ye !' ' And she 
 shot away. 
 
 " I will go out and get some things," said 
 Margaret to herself, testily, locking the door, 
 " as soon as I can take my bath and change 
 my dress." 
 
 These things she accomplished with the 
 elaborate leisure of super-refined habit. " My 
 soiled clothing !" she said, with a new thought, 
 eying it in dismay. " Of course I shall have 
 to get a tub and do them myself ;" and she 
 folded them away, not without a smack of
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 27 
 
 conscious savor in the originality of this en- 
 terprise. 
 
 With gentle leisure, too, she adjusted her 
 bonnet, hesitated gracefully, as usual, which 
 wrap to put on, and was sailing out a dis- 
 proportionate figure through her wee kitch- 
 en, when there came another rap a cour- 
 teously firm one. 
 
 u I am very anxious about you," said a 
 slight young man, the sorrows of Israel in 
 his dark eyes, and bowing as he handed 
 Margaret an irreproachable card. " I am a 
 friend of Mrs. Agnes Sullivan." 
 
 " Will you come in ?" said Margaret, with 
 small animation, and leaving the door to 
 the dingy hall wide open. 
 
 " I will detain you but a moment ; you 
 are going out." He accepted one of the 
 chairs. Margaret, sitting in the other, her 
 choice black draperies sweeping the bare 
 little floor, blushed with annoyance. 
 
 But no sense of these things affected the 
 earnest and grave consciousness of Isaac Gil- 
 christ; his prophetic eyes took in no puny 
 detail.
 
 28 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 " I simply wish to say," he went on, " that 
 you must remember always that you have 
 friends dear and loving friends of whom 
 I am one. You must not let yourself be 
 afraid. Remember, always, there is one in 
 this house who thinks of you." 
 
 He rose to go. " I thank you," said Mar- 
 garet, biting her lip, nor wholly able to con- 
 ceal the irreverent amaze in her eyes. This 
 expression widened to frank and mirthful 
 scepticism as she closed the door after her 
 guest. 
 
 "He is the 'Wandering Je\v ' at last!" 
 with a gleam of her beautiful white teeth 
 that there was no one near to appreciate; 
 "his face is about thirty, his eyes witnessed 
 the erection of the pyramids ! * A dear and 
 loving friend ! thinking always of one!' and 
 with no more capacity for coquetry than the 
 stone tablets of the law! "Well, as ^Irs. 
 O'Ragan's 'own cousin,' I must be going 
 out for me petatys." 
 
 Margaret stepped charily down the stairs 
 and out. Hesitating a moment whether to 
 follow the attractive path along the bluffs,
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 29 
 
 or to go immediately to the town, she saw 
 a much -encumbered figure toiling up the 
 street. 
 
 With a glad leap in her heart she went to 
 meet Mildred St. Thomas. 
 
 " I'm used to these things. I c'n make 
 better bargains 'n you," said the handsome 
 girl, beaming erect amid her numerous par- 
 cels. " The coals are coming right along." 
 
 " Oh, how lovely of you ! Coals to be 
 sure ! I never thought." 
 
 So the two went up to the little kitchen, 
 and putting the small receipted bills to- 
 gether made up the sum with brows in- 
 dicating intense application, and Margaret 
 gratefully reimbursed her friend. 
 
 " Now stay to tea with me ; stay !" she 
 said, bustling about housewifely. 
 
 " I guess I will, for your sake, if you're 
 going to cook the meat that way," said Mil- 
 dred. " Mrs. Cap'n " she burst out laugh- 
 ing. 
 
 " What ?" 
 
 " Mrs. Cap'n Herkimer's coming up to see 
 you to-morrow morning. She"- -Mildred
 
 30 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 choked somewhat again "w-wants you to 
 help her." 
 
 " "Why are you laughing so ? Housework?" 
 
 " N-no. It's b-brain-work." 
 
 " Well, perhaps I am not so deficient as 
 you think," said Margaret, with slight asper- 
 it} r , putting an iron kettle in her dish-pan 
 and proceeding to wash the soot off the 
 bottom. 
 
 " People don't do that. They don't wash 
 the bottoms of kettles like that." 
 
 " They must be very indecent then," said 
 Margaret, with a fine virtue that neverthe- 
 less was already beginning to merge into 
 despair. 
 
 "See here! you've got in a rocky place. 
 You'll never see a rockier," said Mildred, 
 gently usurping the stand at the sink. 
 
 Margaret, with red cheeks, spent some ten 
 minutes in restoring her arms and hands to 
 their original complexion. 
 
 "What made you laugh so in speaking of 
 Mrs. Captain Ilerkimer?" 
 
 " Oh, n-nothing. I went to see her she'll 
 be up to-morrow."
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 31 
 
 " Is she a fool that wishes another fool for 
 company ?" said Margaret, discovering an- 
 other streak of soot on her fair wrist. 
 
 Mildred simply gave her a jovial, rather 
 reproachful, glance out of her bright brown 
 eyes. 
 
 "Come and sit with me just for a little, 
 dear I'm so lonely. We will put some 
 coals on the grate in ray bedroom." 
 
 Mildred watched the older woman's tran- 
 quil position, the graceful ease of her quiet 
 hands, the sweep of her soft dress on the 
 splintered floor, and half idolized her, and, 
 half, her heart broke over her. 
 
 Mildred's own hands, used to " job-work " 
 at the canning factory, clasped her knee 
 restlessly. 
 
 " Tell me some more about those places 
 where you have been, some time," she said, 
 earnestly, when she rose to go ; for Marga- 
 ret's conversation, though only of the past, 
 had been made vivid with interest for the 
 girl, and Mildred St. Thomas had asked no 
 questions. 
 
 " Wait a moment !" said Margaret, lightly,
 
 32 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 going to the trunk where she had laid the 
 white dress and lifting the lid. "I want 
 you to take this you would look so sweet 
 in it of a summer day; not"-- she said, 
 glancing at the girl's face " to pay you for 
 being so kind to me I could never do that 
 but because / wish you to have it." 
 
 " I can't take that !" said Mildred, looking 
 down with burning eyes and cheeks where 
 the exquisite, spotless thing lay unfolded. 
 " I love it ! I love those kind of things 
 but they ain't my sort ! I can't take that !" 
 
 Margaret, who was used to having her 
 own way, simply laid her head down on 
 the trunk and put her hands to her face 
 without a word. 
 
 " I'll take it," said Mildred, under this as- 
 pect of the affair. " Perhaps some time I'll 
 be fit to perhaps some time I can wear it." 
 
 "Why of course you will wear it," said 
 Margaret, now brightly, wrapping up the 
 gown. 
 
 The girl's face was pale ; the lids had their 
 dovelike droop, white and still. " Perhaps, 
 some time."
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 33 
 
 Margaret kissed her, and she went out 
 with her parcel. 
 
 At the third turn down the lighted street, 
 Jeff Sprague showed his homely, beaming 
 face. "Why, you're late to-night, Duds! 
 Let me carry your parcel." 
 
 " You can't touch it !" 
 
 Jeff tried to find a securer resting-place 
 for a small polo-cap on his particularly big 
 head of coarse brown hair. 
 
 " Well, never mind. Some time you won't 
 need to go about picking up old clothes," he 
 said, with lurking tenderness in the jest. 
 
 " The old clothes where I got this I'd 
 wear her rags, I'd wear her cast-off shoes, 
 sooner than I'll go with you any more, Jeff 
 Sprague !" 
 
 " Why, Duds ! Why, Mildred !" 
 
 "You're engaged to Nell Herkimer, and 
 her folks don't know that you ever spoke a 
 word to me. They was good to me when I 
 went to get work for Mrs. Stuart Nellie 
 and all. I ain't on the square with 'em, and 
 I don't like it !" 
 
 Jeff put his hands in his pockets and stood
 
 34 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 with legs firmly planted, as if he were com- 
 pelling the deck in a choppy sea. " I'll go and 
 tell Nellie to-night that I made a mistake 
 that I ain't fit to make her happy. I'll go 
 to-night and tell my father that I'm going 
 to marry Mildred St. Thomas a girl he 
 doesn't know, but whom, all the same, I'm 
 going to marry, and by to-morrow you shall 
 know that I have done both." 
 
 " Well go then !" 
 
 Jeff's face lighted unreservedly. He start- 
 ed off. 
 
 " Jeff ! Come back, Jeff ! I'm not ready 
 yet, Jeff. I I was just trying to see if 
 you are honest instead of a flirt like your 
 father. Your father tried to flirt with me 
 on the train, Jeff." 
 
 " I can't blame him ; but the old boy 's too 
 snobbish to marry a shop-girl, my darling 
 all the better luck! I wouldn't have you 
 for a ' mamma ' neither for a mamma nor a 
 sister." 
 
 Mildred laughed, but with an absorbing 
 triumph in her eyes. 
 
 " I knew you were honest, Jeff I knew.
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 35 
 
 But Nellie she thinks you are honest, 
 too." 
 
 " I am ! I haven't kissed her once since I 
 got acquainted with you. She thinks it's 
 only ' backsliding.' I've told you times 
 enough how her folks and my father hatch- 
 ed up that match, and she got me into a 
 meeting and cried. And I was younger 
 then. It was before you came." Jeff set 
 his teeth, then sighed drearily. " But we'll 
 work out of it all right, my girl. It's all 
 bound to clear !" 
 
 " And she loves you ?" 
 
 " How can she ?" Evidently Jeff was in- 
 credulous that more than one girl could love 
 him, if so much. Standing about the height 
 of Mildred herself, his broad form was roughly 
 muscular, his irregularly featured face looked 
 almost grotesque in contrast with hers. 
 
 " But she might like ugly things, the same 
 as me," said Mildred, pushing back one of 
 the stiff locks under his cap, quite in the way 
 of natural possession, a look in her face that 
 struck Jeff as something to be holily re- 
 garded.
 
 36 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 "But I believe in beauty in the family," 
 he said, " and I'm going to have it !" 
 
 Mildred laughed condescendingly, as she 
 would with an awkward child. 
 
 " Well, I can't have you walking with me 
 any farther. Good-night, Jeff !" 
 
 "It's a rocky world and a blind road, I 
 must say," said the poor girl in her own 
 room, spreading out Margaret's entrancing 
 gift again to view. She bent over it, touched 
 the soft lace, and inhaled the dainty perfume 
 still clinging to it, before putting it sacredly 
 away. 
 
 " But Jeff why, I love poor Jeff ! He's 
 just my own boy like, Jeff is, and I'm all 
 alone !" 
 
 " Well, it's rocky !" Mildred's mattress was 
 not calculated to soften her aspersions on 
 life. 
 
 She had not knelt beside her bed, for that 
 was not her habit, but after lying a long time 
 with wide-open eyes, she put up her hands 
 and forced the lids down, smarting : 
 
 " O God ! help me some time to be fit to 
 wear the dress."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 " I HEAR you have a personage in these 
 tenements," said Mrs. Captain Herkimer, se- 
 vere in rustling silk. 
 
 "And pray what am I meself, ma'am?" 
 inquired Mrs. O'Ragan. 
 
 "You used to do washing for me very 
 well very well, Bridget; but if you have 
 by chance a refined person in reduced cir- 
 cumstances come to lodge here, I should ad- 
 vise you to take away that old broom that 
 I've seen ricketin' up against the side o' the 
 house since time was." 
 
 "Thank ye for yer complimint, ma'am, 
 and the broom '11 stand there jist the same. 
 There's nothing in an innercent old broom, 
 swept clane wid mony a storm and Avid a 
 white rag flyin' to it for dark nights, to dis- 
 agree wid yer meddlin', thavin' old Board 
 o' Hilth, ma'am."
 
 88 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 " Of course she's a Protestant, Bridget ?" 
 
 " Why of course, thin ? Yez have the so- 
 cial tact on ye, begorry, to come and insult 
 me on me own door-stip!" 
 
 "Well, well, step aside, I'm coming in, 
 Bridget." Mrs. Ilerkimer held up her dress, 
 Bridget tightened the cable about her waist. 
 
 " I know you don't have unwholesome 
 dirt, but you always have so many rags and 
 tags lying about, Bridget. If you spent the 
 time picking up that you spend going to 
 that foolish 'mass,' raking and scraping all 
 you can get together to get somebody's soul 
 out o' purgatory 
 
 " Miz' Ilerkimaire !" cried an excited voice 
 down the stairway, " on your dine bed, your 
 sins look to you big as dis house !" 
 
 " Good-morning, Agnes," said Mrs. Iler- 
 kimer, pleasantly. 
 
 " Once," continued Agnes, " I went, dis- 
 custed, to your meeting. I hear get up a 
 convert, an old lady. ' I smokes, I chews,' 
 she says. ' Boo hoo ! for me pray ' while 
 de boys de wads of paper at her t'row. 
 I seen it !"
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 39 
 
 " It is Mrs. Herkimer !" gasped Margaret 
 to herself, hearing these turmoils. " Where 
 shall I place her in these bare rooms ?" Not 
 shame, but the inherited sense of luxury, 
 made her stand suddenly aghast like one 
 uncovered. 
 
 But now a fresh commotion on all sides 
 arose, a noise and tumult that drowned the 
 renewed altercation of the captain's lady 
 and Mrs. O'Ragan, and into Margaret's bed- 
 room came pouring the choicest furniture of 
 the tenements : 
 
 Mrs. Shaughnessy's two upholstered crim- 
 son plush chairs " Oh, do, ma'am, jist while 
 ye be havin' yer call! Sure, our Blissed 
 Saviour tells us to lind." 
 
 Agnes Sullivan's pretty rugs on the floor 
 " It is our 'abit. Our Fader in heaven says 
 we shall always borrow one anodder." 
 
 A blue-silk counterpane from somewhere 
 else, pillow-covers standing out with starched 
 ruffles a quarter of a yard Avide, gJory, color 
 everywhere, and Margaret alone again, try- 
 ing to bite back the tears. " And I would 
 not have loaned even a potato on princi-
 
 40 STUAKT AND BAMBOO 
 
 pie! Perhaps among the poor, it is it is 
 sometimes advisable !" 
 
 " Bridget," said Mrs. Herkimer's voice, on 
 the third stair, " here's a button off of one of 
 your boys' trousers. A button saved is a 
 button earned, Bridget." 
 
 " Thank ye !" replied Mrs. O'Eagan, sarcas- 
 tically. " Are ye sure it ain't the ' Christian 
 Indivor' badge dropped off yerself, ma'am?" 
 
 " Pshaw ! Bridget. You need a skewer 
 to get the dirt out of these little corners 
 here." 
 
 "Kape the button and welcome!" cried 
 Mrs. O'Ragan, wrathfully ; " it '11 do well to 
 dhrop for the support o' yer own church nixt 
 Sunday, where, begorry, they pass around a 
 smeltin'-net for a conthribution-box !" 
 
 The rustling silk entered Margaret's apart- 
 ment. 
 
 "Well, you look quite comfortable here, 
 Mrs. Stuart." 
 
 There were tears still in Margaret's eyes 
 and red in her cheeks; she was not very 
 comfortable, but she welcomed the captain's 
 lady graciously.
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 41 
 
 "Mildurd St. Thomas (Mildurd's a girl 
 that's sewed for me sometimes when she 
 was off work at the cannin' factory) tells 
 me you're a personage that wants some- 
 thing to do." 
 
 " Yes, I'll be glad of anything to do." 
 
 Now Margaret could no more help her 
 voice being sweet and lazy, than she could 
 help the air of self-possession enveloping 
 her. 
 
 " I see," said Mrs. Herkimer, contemplat- 
 ing her through her glasses "I see." For 
 a long time she saw, while Margaret gazed 
 politely and composedly at the grate. "I 
 know crosses n^self. When captain and I 
 was voyagin', I met with wreck once. We 
 don't cruise now. We're very comfortable. 
 Captain was on the seas at a time when 
 sailin'-vessels made money. Yes, I suppose 
 there ain't but one bigger house in Yar- 
 mouth, and that's Judson Sprague's. 
 
 " Ain't it hard, after all I've been through, 
 that there ain't a soul to sympathize and feel 
 with me ? nobody to set down and pet me 
 a little ? Dr. Saxe said the other day, ' Why,
 
 42 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 Mrs. Herkimer, what you need's a little pet- 
 tin',' he says." 
 
 The large and kindly eyes of the captain's 
 lady were raised in mournful questioning to 
 Margaret. 
 
 " Yes," said Margaret, vaguely. 
 
 " I feel if I could have some refined and 
 interestin' person around a good part o' the 
 time for company, it would do me more good 
 than all the medicines. What's your opinion 
 of prices ?" 
 
 " Oh," said Margaret, blushing warmly, 
 "I should think it would hardly be worth 
 anything !" 
 
 "/should consider it of some importance 
 if I could be consoled and sympathized w r ith 
 a little. Still, I should want you to have 
 dinner and supper with us, and as I require 
 no manual labors of you not even sew in' 
 nor constant attentions I should not desire, 
 but only just to have ye around, so I could 
 get at ye when I want ye. What do you 
 say to seven cents an hour fifty -six cents a 
 day?" 
 
 " I consider it extremely generous."
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 43 
 
 " I should wish you to stay stormy nights 
 I'm always particularly lonely then, thinkin' 
 o' the sea or on any particular occasions." 
 
 " I would stay." 
 
 "And now, can you begin to-day, Mrs. 
 Stuart put on your things and drive me 
 home? Eulalie's fastened down in the street. 
 Captain drove me, but he has business to 
 stay in town, and he said you, being a young 
 woman, could probably steer me home." 
 
 "Certainly, I can drive." But Margaret 
 did not yet know The Meanest Horse that 
 Ever Lived. Eulalie, rough, lean of neck 
 and corpulent of stomach, stood in the shafts 
 of a smart phaeton, half of an evil eye cocked 
 over her blinder discriminatingly at Margaret 
 as she came down the path. Margaret, with 
 some experience and an instinctive appreci- 
 ation of horse-flesh, regarded that eye and 
 form and sighed. 
 
 "She is well tied," she said, tentatively, 
 lingering a labyrinth of ropes. 
 
 " Yes," said Mrs. Herkimer, climbing into 
 the vehicle. " Captain turned her round and 
 headed her for home, and she needs tyin'
 
 44 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 under them circumstances. When you get 
 to the last knot, you want to make quick 
 step to the carriage, or she'll go off and leave 
 
 ye." 
 
 Margaret sprang the last knot warily, and 
 rushed, only to go down the street, poised 
 like an acrobat, on the carriage step. Pant- 
 ing, she gained her seat, and Mrs. Herkimer 
 handed her the lines. 
 
 " Now you want to saw on her," said the 
 captain's lady, with dignified admonition, 
 for Eulalie, under these auspices, had gained 
 a rattling rate of speed. Margaret sawed 
 energetically, and, with a flirt of her tail 
 that said, " I'll have you later on," Eulalie 
 subsided into a fickle trot, and a little later 
 into an indomitable walk. 
 
 " She'll start up fast enough when she sees 
 the watering-trough in the square," said Mrs. 
 Herkimer; and indeed at the first glimpse 
 of that prospective basin, the unlovely beast's 
 every fibre became imbued with a stony im- 
 petus of self-will. Leaning far forward, and 
 wrenching the bit from side to side of the 
 creature's sin -hardened mouth, Margaret
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 45 
 
 brought up at the tub with a mere side 
 clearing of one shaft, and Eulalie bent her 
 head to drink. Margaret's silent prayer was 
 that she would there drink until she died. 
 This, though swelling visibly with watery 
 greed, Eulalie refused to do. 
 
 "You done very well," said Mrs. Herki- 
 mer. " She's broke three shafts on captain." 
 
 Margaret's eyes were big and her face 
 white. "What will she do next?" she in- 
 quired with exceeding calm, straightening 
 her gloves. 
 
 " You don't need no particular directions 
 now till you get to the home turn ; only saw 
 her down when she gets to goin' too fast." 
 
 Thus with alternate snail-pace and frenzy 
 they came to a hill. Eulalie stopped, turned 
 her head around, and regarded them with 
 decision. "We've got to walk up," sighed 
 Mrs. Herkimer, descending. " Sometimes 
 she'll claw right up it." 
 
 " She'll claw right up it with me to-day !" 
 said Margaret, taking out the whip, a mad 
 joy in her eyes. 
 
 " Well, now, dear Mrs. Stuart, I'd just as
 
 40 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 soon she wouldn't spoil my carriage. Cap- 
 tain's tried it. She only just stands and 
 kicks." 
 
 " Very well," said Margaret, alighting, and 
 taking Eulalie by the bit. Eulalie snapped 
 at her. Margaret lifted her gloved hand and 
 gave her a ringing slap across the snout, after 
 which mutual expressions of regard they 
 toiled up the hill together. 
 
 "Do you like her?" said Margaret, after 
 desperately staying the brute for Mrs. Her- 
 kimer's reseating, and taking another acro- 
 batic race on the carriage stirrup. 
 
 " Oh yes ; I think a horse is safer that 
 you're on the lookout for; then you ain't 
 ever taken off your guard. You'll like her 
 when you get to know her. There's nothin' 
 like knowing a horse. You want to be care- 
 ful, takin' the turn to the driveway ; she's 
 apt to slew there." 
 
 If slewing consisted in rounding the curve 
 on the two right wheels of the vehicle while 
 the other two whizzed spherically in air, 
 Eulalie certainly accomplished that object 
 in spite of Margaret's exertions. At the
 
 STUAKT AND BAMBOO 47 
 
 door she stopped with a suddenness that 
 considerably assisted Mrs. Herkimer in her 
 descent, and Margaret stepped down breath- 
 less. 
 
 " I think," said she, in that fine, languid 
 voice of hers, and leaning up against the first 
 convenient object " I think, Mrs. Herkimer, 
 I've earned earned my first seven cents !" 
 The voice broke in merriment. 
 
 Mrs. Herkimer glanced up, at first won- 
 deringly, then slowly dropped her parcels 
 and laughed till the tears rolled down her 
 cheeks. 
 
 " Helen," said she to a grave beauty who 
 appeared in the doorway, " this is Mrs. Stu- 
 art. I don't know when I've been chirked 
 up so!" 
 
 Helen gave Margaret's hand a shy but 
 homely clasp. 
 
 " Now follow me, Mrs. Stuart." Through 
 velvet drawing-rooms Margaret followed 
 the majestic tread of the captain's lady, and 
 up a wide staircase. " There is your room, to 
 wash your hands or arrange your hair, or 
 when you stay overnight."
 
 48 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 It was a very handsome room, but the imp 
 that sometimes took possession of Margaret's 
 eyes shone broad in them still, and meeting 
 them Mrs. Ilerkimer yielded again to the 
 subtle instinct of laughter. 
 
 " Really, something's chirked me up amaz- 
 in' ! Wander around till dinner-time where 
 ye like, Mrs. Stuart : get acquainted with the 
 premises. That," she added, in her former 
 sombre tone, " was my only child my daugh- 
 ter Helen." 
 
 " I thought her charming," said Margaret, 
 now quite earnestly. 
 
 " She's a good girl. She's engaged to marry 
 Jeffrey Sprague." 
 
 " Yes, I've heard the name." 
 
 " She's melancholic. It's in the family. I 
 had a brother drowned himself. He left me 
 thirty thousand dollars. You'll see the well 
 when you go out." 
 
 Mrs. Herkimer's eyes were pitiful. Marga- 
 ret looked a sympathy she could not speak. 
 
 " I hope Jeffrey '11 pet her. Captain's a 
 good man, but he don't understand how 
 much folks need pettin' sometimes."
 
 STUAKT AND BAMBOO 49 
 
 Margaret wandered about the grounds, but 
 she had a secret sense that Mrs. Herkimer 
 was watching from a window to see if she 
 noticed the well ; so she went and leaned 
 pensively on the curb. 
 
 In the same fashion, at the dinner-table, as 
 the captain's lady lifted her glass, Margaret 
 looked and saw her tearful eyes fixed ap- 
 pealingly upon her. 
 
 " How long since you lost your brother ?" 
 she inquired, in tender tones. 
 
 " Three years but of course this always 
 reminds me 
 
 "Nonsense!" interposed Captain Herki- 
 mer. " I never think on't ! He wa'n't 
 in there but three hours, and we had it 
 all pumped out. Where 'd yer get this 
 meat?" 
 
 " I got it at the most expensive place in 
 town, Captain Herkimer." 
 
 " Ye might just as well 'a' gone where 'twas 
 cheap," said the captain, sawing, even as one 
 was required to saw upon the bit of the 
 malignant Eulalie. 
 
 Mrs. Herkimer glanced knowingly at Mar-
 
 50 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 garet, as much as to say, " Is it not as I told 
 you?" 
 
 There was an air of gloom over the table, 
 to which Helen, the daughter, seemed nat- 
 urally to assent, but the captain chafed. 
 
 "Eat the greens, then," said Mrs. Herki- 
 mer, solemnly ; " they're better food for ye, 
 now that your workin'-days are over." 
 
 "By God!" said the captain, still sawing, 
 " bring home such a piece o' meat as this, 
 and then say my workin'-days are over !" and 
 he laughed in defiance of the whole board. 
 
 " Mrs. Stuart," said the captain's lady, re- 
 ferring her directly to another guest at the 
 table, a chance visitor " Mrs. Cap'n Roberts 
 is sitting in the very chair that her husband 
 set in last time he was to this house before 
 he died o' heart disease. She was sitting 
 in it in the west parlor before dinner, and 
 I had it brought out for her. She comes 
 sometimes to set in it." 
 
 " Captain Iloberts was a good man," said 
 Captain Ilerkimer, with cheerful sincerity. 
 " He wouldn't have joined in with any such 
 dumbed nonsense."
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 51 
 
 " Captain Herkimer, are you a Methodist?" 
 
 " I am." 
 
 " Oh, I was under the impression that 
 maybe you was a free-thinker !" 
 
 " So I be. Have some blueberry sauce, 
 Tilly," said he, winking engagingly at Mrs. 
 Roberts's little girl. 
 
 " I'm sick of blueberry sauce," replied the 
 little girl, despondently ; " we have it all the 
 time to home." 
 
 Meanwhile Mrs. Roberts had been holding 
 her handkerchief to her eyes. Mrs. Herki- 
 mer now looked desperately at Margaret, 
 as one who was even under stipend to con- 
 sole. 
 
 " It is very sad," said the latter, tasting 
 the actual bitterness of a small daisy that 
 had mingled with her greens "it is very 
 sad," she went on, biting her sweet lips, " to 
 lose any one so dear in so sudden 
 
 " Say, Nell," said the captain to his wife, 
 triumphantly dancing a trio of burdocks on 
 the blade of his knife, " do you think that 
 colored lady you've got in the kitchen un- 
 derstands sortin' greens ?"
 
 53 STUAET AND BAMBOO 
 
 " She belongs to the same church you and 
 I do, Captain Herkiraer." 
 
 "Why, Nell ! Why, what the devil," said 
 the Captain reasonably and argumentative- 
 ]y " what difference does it make what 
 church she belongs to, her sortin' greens ?" 
 
 " I have said what I have said." 
 
 " I know ye have, and I wish to thunder 
 there was more sense to it. What ye go'n' 
 to have for dessert ?" 
 
 " Our dessert to-day you'll soon see. What 
 our final dessert is to be Mrs. Herkimer 
 paused with excess of meaning. " Life is 
 short," she at length concluded. 
 
 " Wall, I'm glad there's somethirf short," 
 said Captain Herkimer, without a sigh, " for 
 I'm darned sure this gingerbread ain't !" 
 
 In the awful silence that followed, some 
 thing occurred the sad little girl giggled. 
 
 The captain's face broke into approving 
 smiles. "That's right, Tilly! You and I 
 ain't got hypochondry, have we? Come, 
 ladies," said he, straightening his fine figure, 
 after having made, in spite of these unflat- 
 tering digressions, a very wholesome and
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 53 
 
 satisfactory meal, " the tide serves. Put on 
 your things, and come down for a sail." 
 
 Helen's dark eyes lifted for the first time 
 with a gleam of joy. 
 
 " Presently, captain," said Mrs. Herkimer, 
 gravely concealing her own elation. " We'll 
 go up to the cupola first and get weighed 
 and take the view." 
 
 " Gad ! do ye weigh yer company afore 
 dinner, too?" chuckled the captain. But Mrs. 
 Herkimer proceeded to lead to the execution 
 of these rites with unaffected solemnity.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 " THROUGH all my trials and sufferin's," 
 said Mrs. Herkimer, with significant re- 
 proach in the direction of the captain, " I've 
 never been petted before; but Mrs. Stuart 
 understands me." 
 
 " She pet ye !" said the captain. " She's all 
 o' thirty years younger 'n you be !" 
 
 "Sympathy is somethin' that, if it ain't 
 given to you by nature, you may be as gray 
 as a snow-storm" (now the captain's curly 
 head was gray) " and still you won't have 
 it." 
 
 A particularly handsome old dog rose up 
 at the doorway and prepared to follow them. 
 
 " No, Stack, you can't go!" said Mrs. ller- 
 kimer, with a firmness not calculated to be 
 gainsaid. " You'll be jumping out o' the 
 boat into the water, and then coining back 
 and shakin' it all over us."
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 55 
 
 Stack looked at her with his sublime 
 brown eyes, too noble for resentment, too 
 sad and loving for reproach, and lay down 
 again. 
 
 But, lo ! as they took the path around the 
 corner of the lawn, there, with genial wel- 
 come, and nothing sneakish in his expres- 
 sion, stood Stack waiting. 
 
 " Captain Herkimer, make that dog go 
 home !" 
 
 " Go home, Stack !" 
 
 Stack turned his huge frame with unof- 
 fended dignity and trotted back. 
 
 They went along the road and turned into 
 the lane, and there, on the other side of the 
 bars, his face of solemn, loving congratula- 
 tion turned full towards them, again stood 
 Stack, waiting. 
 
 " Captain Herkimer, can you be obeyed by 
 your OAvn dog ?" 
 
 " Stack ! Go home !" thundered the cap- 
 tain. 
 
 Again Stack gravely turned and disap- 
 peared. 
 
 The big boat was anchored at some little
 
 56 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 distance in the bay ; the dory for passage 
 to it waited on the beach, and when they 
 reached this latter and looked out, there, up- 
 right beside the main-mast, gazing fondly 
 and expectantly towards them, sat Stack. 
 
 "He's swum out to her?" said the captain, 
 delightedly. 
 
 " You'd ought to had a large family to 
 bring up," said his lady, with serene sar- 
 casm ; " it's a pity to have such trainin' gifts 
 as yours wasted !" 
 
 But it was perfectly evident that the ti- 
 rade about Stack had been a mere formal- 
 ity, and that both these partners in life's 
 joys were equally satisfied with his ad- 
 venture. 
 
 "Ye're pretty hefty women. I'll paddle 
 ye over one to time," said the captain. " She's 
 a little dory, and she leaks. Set square amid- 
 ships, Nell." 
 
 " If I'd sailed to the world's end with ye 
 a few more times than what I have. Captain 
 Herkimer, perhaps I'd need instructions how 
 to set in a dory." 
 
 The captain sculled, and the majestic form
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 57 
 
 of Mrs. Herkimer was soon descried sitting 
 beside Stack. 
 
 "Now, Mrs. Stuart," said the captain, lift- 
 ing the dory at one end and letting out a 
 cataract of water on the beach, " set just 
 where Mrs. Herkimer did, and do jest as I 
 tell ye, and don't worry. I shall get ye over 
 afore she fills." 
 
 Calmly taking her life in her hand, as it 
 seemed to her, at seven cents an hour, Mar- 
 garet stepped in. The race was exciting, and 
 the result appeared doubtful. She wrapped 
 her skirts about her and put her feet on the 
 box in front of her, as she had seen Mrs. 
 Herkimer do, while the green surges of the 
 sea lapped ever higher against the sides of 
 the dory. 
 
 The captain, with his back towards her, 
 stood erect, wielding one oar, and as he 
 brought up alongside the boat, Margaret 
 rose with the intention of getting aboard 
 with as little delay as possible, but the dory 
 gave an unexpected lurch ; she caught wild- 
 ly at the captain's coat-tails 
 
 " What in hell ye doin' ?" cried he, as they
 
 58 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 were both precipitated to the bilgy floor of 
 the dory. " Never mind," he added, with 
 tender apology, on recovering himself, " the 
 salt water won't hurt ye. But ye came pret- 
 ty near capsizin' us. Now wait, and do jest 
 as I say. I want ye always to wait my 
 word when ye're seafarin' with me." 
 
 " I will," said Margaret, climbing over into 
 the boat with the meek look of one who has 
 suffered watery eclipse. 
 
 But Mrs. Herkimer sat convulsed with si- 
 lent laughter. As one who has sailed the 
 seas, and is conversant with all the devices 
 of that lore, Margaret's performance appealed 
 most keenly to her sense of the ludicrous. 
 She tried to stem her mirthful tears, but 
 could not. 
 
 "I seem very successful in chirking you 
 up," said Margaret, languidly and sweetly. 
 But Stack came over to the humiliated one, 
 his coat still dripping, and shook the salt 
 water over those portions of her garments 
 not yet submerged, and looked up at her 
 gravely, straightforwardly, so great a meas- 
 ure of valiant love in his human truer than
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 59 
 
 human eyes that Margaret instinctively 
 reached out her hand and laid it on his 
 head. He steadily composed himself beside 
 her, and there remained. 
 
 When the "tacking" sail struck her hat 
 off, Stack lifted it to her in his mouth with 
 sublime expression, and its tooth - indented 
 surface suffered nothing in her estimation 
 thereby. 
 
 " How beautifully you steer !" she said to 
 Helen. 
 
 " She minds the helium as well as I do !" 
 said Captain Herkimer. 
 
 "I love it!" said the girl in a low tone, 
 with glowing eyes, to Margaret " I love it 
 so, I think sometimes I ought not to come, 
 just to try myself." 
 
 " Nonsense, child ! Isn't this wind strong 
 enough to blow such misconceptions out of 
 your head ?" 
 
 " Why," said the girl, very sadly, after a 
 pause, "aren't you a Christian?" 
 
 " Yes, surely," said Margaret, smiling. 
 
 " And don't you deny yourself things you 
 love?"
 
 60 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 " Nothing legitimate that I can get." 
 
 Stack thumped his tail appreciatively on 
 the floor. Mrs. Herkimer turned " You've 
 got a friend that '11 stand by you now," she 
 said, indicating Stack. 
 
 " He doesn't laugh at me," said Margaret. 
 
 This opened afresh the fountains of Mrs. 
 Herkimer's mirth. But Margaret had an 
 unsought revenge when, later, as they two 
 were wending their way homeward up the 
 lane together, she climbed lightly over the 
 fence, and was proceeding to put down the 
 bars for the captain's lady. 
 
 " I prefer to climb it," said the latter, with 
 solid dignity. 
 
 She was very stout, and reached the top 
 rail laboriously. There the progress of her 
 adventures became uncertain, and she sat, 
 fearfully poised, a limb on either side. 
 
 "Let yourself down gently right into my 
 arms," said Margaret, " I am strong." 
 
 " When I come, I mean to come altogeth- 
 er," replied Mrs. Herkimer. "No; I wish 
 you, Mrs. Stuart, to climb up here and steady 
 that other foot over ; then I can descend."
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 61 
 
 Margaret did so, but as they both sat 
 thus deliberating and wrestling on the fence, 
 a victoria, drawn by two horses with gold- 
 mounted harnesses, came richly tinkling 
 down the lane. 
 
 "Let me assist you, ladies, I beg," said 
 the unctuous voice of the elder Sprague. 
 
 Margaret, without assistance, was on ter- 
 ra firma in an instant. Mrs. Herkimer sol- 
 emnly committed herself to the arms of the 
 richest man in Yarmouth. 
 
 " I am passing your way, and I beg that 
 you will do me the honor," said he, animat- 
 edly pointing the w r ay to the carriage. 
 
 "I will walk with Stack, thank you," said 
 Margaret. 
 
 " I wish you to accompany me," said Mrs. 
 Herkimer, in a resonant whisper. "I have 
 something to say, and I need you to support 
 me through it." 
 
 Blushing madly at seven cents an hour 
 Margaret followed Mrs. Herkimer into the 
 carriage, where the latter sat as though it 
 belonged to her. 
 
 " How old was your wife when she died,
 
 63 STUAET AND BAMBOO 
 
 Judson?" said she, gravely, without other 
 initiative. 
 
 " Ah sixty ; yes, sixty a few months 
 over, Mrs. Herkimer." 
 
 "I was indisposed at the time, but I've 
 heard that ye had young men only boys 
 atxveen eighteen and twenty for pall-bear- 
 ers!" 
 
 " Ah yes ; a fancy. Just a fancy, Mrs. 
 Herkimer." 
 
 " If s a fancy I don't approve of in ye." 
 
 This was the ordeal Mrs. Herkimer had 
 anticipated, and in which she had required 
 Margaret to sustain her. 
 
 The autocrat of Yarmouth colored, and 
 looked at the younger woman with humor- 
 ous, disagreeably insinuating, sweetness. 
 
 Margaret bit her lip with conflicting emo- 
 tions and looked away. 
 
 " Since you are staying at Yarmouth, Mrs. 
 Stuart," said the urbane gentleman, assisting 
 them to alight, " may I have the pleasure of 
 calling upon you?" 
 
 " I I am working. I do not receive calls." 
 
 "Do not say so. Ah, too bad too bad,
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 63 
 
 I assure you. Remember ah remember 
 you made the ' first advances,' " he warned 
 her, with a sort of caressing laughter. 
 
 " I beg your pardon for that I was ill 
 I had no intention " said Margaret, in a 
 quicker tone than usual, remembering, in- 
 deed, painfully the fishy missile with which 
 she had once assailed him. 
 
 " Ah, yes ; but it struck it struck home," 
 he murmured, with his back well turned tow- 
 ards Mrs. Herkimer, and laying his plump 
 hand on the region of his heart. 
 
 " I am very glad, at least, if I left a ' good 
 impression,' " said Margaret, showing her 
 white teeth a trifle maliciously ; and she 
 walked away, giving room to Mrs. Her- 
 kimer, who was uneasily waiting to con- 
 vey some other admonition to her mature 
 friend. 
 
 Margaret walked up the path. The Mean- 
 est Horse that Ever Lived, who was allowed 
 free range of the premises, and of the uni- 
 verse, too, for that matter, stood directly 
 athwart it. "When Margaret, avoiding her 
 heels, attempted a semicircular movement
 
 64 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 in front of her, she steadily moved forward, 
 grazing with assumed innocence. 
 
 Margaret, who had wished to make a dig- 
 nified retreat, now heard the flowery Sprague 
 approaching. " Sho ! sho !" he cried, waving 
 his silk hat. Eulalie glanced at him, and 
 with a loud squeal and a backward thrust 
 of her heels, shot at a mad and wholly un- 
 necessary gallop out of sight. 
 
 Margaret, with hot cheeks and bursting 
 sensations, walked beyond the house, where 
 Stack lay on the lawn in the sun. She sat 
 down beside him, trembling with laughter. 
 Stack did not laugh, but only looked a benign 
 indulgence. She took a piece of pound-cake 
 from her pocket, that Mrs. Herkimer had 
 given her for her luncheon, and began to 
 feed him. Stack was fond of pound-cake, 
 and dainties were rare with him now ; for, 
 in view of his advanced years, the captain 
 had brought home a new puppy to take his 
 place when he should be gone. 
 
 Stack had accepted this fact, of his own 
 volition, with a quietness and magnanimity 
 exceeding much conduct that is called "Chris-
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 65 
 
 tian." Margaret had seen, when the plate 
 of scraps was set outside the door for the 
 two, how the great dog waited for the ado- 
 lescent about a tenth of his own size to 
 consume the choicest, and only when he 
 turned away satiated made his own meal 
 of the remains, with the lofty indifference 
 of a sage. 
 
 "I am going to save you the nicest of 
 everything I have, anywhere. I am going 
 to get you some splendid pieces of meat," 
 said Margaret, putting her arm around his 
 shaggy neck. 
 
 " Oh, how sweet you are ! But don't rob 
 yourself," said the brown eyes in return. 
 
 " I love to sit here with you. I love to 
 watch the sea at just about this distance, 
 Stack." 
 
 " Oh, but you need not fear ; I could save 
 you if you fell in. I've saved people before 
 I could do it again. I'm that breed." 
 
 " Yes, I believe you would." She gen- 
 tly twisted some of his hair into fantastic 
 shapes, but Stack looked sublime under all 
 circumstances.
 
 66 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 When she went towards the house she was 
 surprised at the excessive kindness in the 
 captain's face. " I shall never have another 
 dog like him, Mrs. Stuart," said he, in a 
 genuinely tremulous voice ; " but I had 
 to get the puppy, ye see. Stack's old, and 
 when 
 
 " Oh, hush !" said Margaret. " Don't say 
 it before him /" 
 
 Mrs. Herkimer, too, in reckoning up her 
 day's wage, beamed upon her like a mother. 
 
 " But I haven't really earned it," said Mar- 
 garet. " I'm sure I sat with Stack, just loaf- 
 ing, a whole hour in the sun." 
 
 " I shouldn't want ye if ye didn't set with 
 Stack," said Mrs. Ilerkimer, solemnly ; " he's 
 our friend." Then, as a last evidence of her 
 chirking up for the day, her lip began to 
 quiver. "Did Judson Sprague propose to 
 
 ye?" 
 
 " Not definitely ; he only intimated that 
 his heart was open for attack." 
 
 " I really don't think he's nothing worse 
 than an old fool." 
 
 " That is hopeful."
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 67 
 
 " Jeff's sensible and plain like his moth- 
 er." 
 
 " I should think it likely, however, that 
 her place would be tilled sometime by some- 
 body." 
 
 " If ye could make up your mind to it," 
 continued the facetiously quivering lips of 
 the captain's lady, " I should be very glad 
 for Helen to have ye for a mother-in-law. 
 The man's going to harness up Eulalie," she 
 added, in a matter-of-fact tone, " to take ye 
 home." 
 
 Margaret gave an involuntary plaintive 
 shriek. " Oh, I beg of you !" she added, with 
 ardor; "I need the exercise. Let me walk 
 home. I am going to walk home along the 
 beach." 
 
 " I've heard it's fashionable," said Mrs. 
 Herkimer, "to scrabble along over them 
 tormentin' shore-pebbles and salt-water soak 
 your shoes, but folks here don't do it ; but 
 if you're set on it, I'll countermand my or- 
 ders. Come to - morrow, as early as ye can. 
 I hope ye won't find me in depression." 
 
 As she was going out Margaret passed
 
 68 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 through the parlor where Helen sat at the 
 piano. " Yesterday," she was singing sadly 
 "yesterday I wandered in the paths of sin. 
 Yesterday I" 
 
 " Dear little girl," said Margaret, stooping 
 an instant over her, " you never wandered in 
 the paths of sin in your life !" 
 
 Helen raised her eyes half doubtfully, as if 
 to something irreligiously attractive. 
 
 Margaret after a "good-night" hug given 
 to Stack, who came and asked her for it 
 went down the lane again to the beach, 
 strong in the salubrious wind, and thinking 
 how the great shadows of her life seemed 
 to have melted before her and given her a 
 place. 
 
 Enraptured with the sunset, she took the 
 stroll at her own leisure, until, about half the 
 distance covered, she caught a glimpse of 
 two figures sitting together on a natural 
 shelf in a cave of the cliffs, well retired. It 
 was Mildred St. Thomas's brilliant parasol, 
 obvious, though furled ; and the other, if 
 she had known it, was the burly form of 
 Jeffrey Sprague.
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 69 
 
 " Mildred has chosen a romantic place to 
 chat with some admirer," thought Margaret, 
 passing, still leisurely, with her face to the 
 sea, as though she had not seen. No other 
 sign of humanity greeted her till she had 
 climbed the rocky path and gained the 
 street ; there, astride the nearest lamp-post, 
 with his legs encircling the cage at the top, 
 sat Plantagenet Stuart. Thinking he too 
 might be enjoying stolen sweets as a fugi- 
 tive from home, Margaret passed on obliv- 
 iously. 
 
 " Ahem ! Ahem !" said the arresting voice 
 of Plantagenet, much embarrassed. It was 
 now distinctly revealed by the rays of the 
 lamp that he had a new cap on, and on its 
 fore-piece blazed the letters, " H.M.S. Mo- 
 hawk." 
 
 When he perceived that Margaret's eyes 
 had discerned so much, he lifted the cap, 
 as it were, incidentally, careful, however, to 
 keep its blood-curdling legend in the fore- 
 ground. 
 
 " What a beautiful new cap you have, 
 Plantagenet."
 
 70 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 Blush after blush of uncontainable pride 
 surged through the grime of his features ; the 
 near contact of the light made celestial glory 
 of his tawny, untracked mop of hair ; his face 
 gave suggestions through the dirt of some 
 wild flower going and blowing its own glad 
 way in the wilderness. 
 
 Margaret regarded his potential beauty 
 with a sort of pensive pang at the heart, and 
 went on ; presently she heard footsteps fol- 
 lowing. 
 
 "Say! Would ye like to take my book on 
 Kings and Quanes?" 
 
 "Why, yes, dear; but don't you need it at 
 school?" 
 
 " Pooh ! 'tain't a school-book, it's interest- 
 in'. Mar giv' it to me one Chris'mas ; it's 
 on our fam'ly ourn and yourn." 
 
 " Why, yes, in that case, I must read it, 
 surely. Bring it up to my room some time, 
 dear." 
 
 " 'Tain't proper, is it," said Plantagenet, 
 straightening himself to the utmost of his 
 sturdy twelve years, "for a gentleman to 
 come up to your room is it ?"
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 71 
 
 " Don't lecture me on propriety, ray little 
 lad," said Margaret, laughing. "It's quite 
 proper for a little boy like you to come up 
 to my room, if I do you the honor to ask 
 you, but not to kick the key out of the door 
 for introduction, as you did when you first 
 showed me the way !" 
 
 " Gee !" said the proud one, gasping, 
 " you're like her !" 
 
 " Like whom ?" 
 
 " Quane Sen' Marie Stuart. I tell ye she 
 was an eagle, she was ! She could ride hoss- 
 back ninety-six miles to a stretch. Oh, she 
 could spit, she could ! If I'd been a-livin', 
 what happened to her ud never 'a' hap- 
 pened. I'd 'a' brought out the Pluck and 
 Liver Kore !" 
 
 " Oh, Plantagenet, what is the ' Pluck and 
 Liver ' Corps ?" 
 
 " It's my mil't'ry comp'ny." 
 
 He procured the book and brought it up 
 to her door, " H.M.S. Mohawk" still pointed- 
 ly displayed in his hand. 
 
 The book was an excessively worn tradi- 
 tion of the era of Mary Stuart, so partisan
 
 72 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 in political and religious tendencies as al- 
 most to burn the covers ; and as for its phys- 
 ical qualities, they were so strongly evident 
 that every leaf seemed, like Mrs. O'Eagan's 
 brown beef, to be "dressed with an onion." 
 Margaret put it outside a window, under 
 shield of the blind, there permanently to air 
 until such time as it should be courteous to 
 return it.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 A DAY or two after this, as Margaret was 
 doing some shopping in the town, she heard 
 a voice of indignation and menace : 
 
 " You stole dat cap ! You stole it out my 
 show-box !" 
 
 A slighter and gentler Jew laid his hand 
 on the angry vender's arm. " "Well, if he 
 did, nevertheless you are to let him go," said 
 Isaac Gilchrist, in a tone of authority ; and, 
 for some reason, the wrathful one instantly 
 relaxed his hold. 
 
 " There ! You old 'Scariot Bologny Sau- 
 sage, you !" cried the accused Plantagenet, 
 triumphantly. 
 
 "Come here, Pleg!" said the liberator, in 
 a gentle and familiar way. 
 
 But without distinction in the Israelitish 
 camp, Pleg took to his heels. 
 
 " Did he steal the cap ?'' said Margaret.
 
 74 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 " I'm afraid so." Isaac lifted his hat with 
 a pleasant smile of greeting. " Ah, he's a 
 wild boy, and if I can keep the hand of the 
 law off of him to some good account in the 
 end, I shall have solved one mystery," he 
 said, quite merrily for him, and walking on 
 with her apace through the busy street. 
 " And how is it with you ? Are you getting 
 used to us? Are you well? Are you happy ?" 
 
 " Oh yes, I am at Avork and doing nicely, 
 thank you. And do you go about," she 
 said, after a pause, demurely, "delivering 
 naughty boys out of their prospective dun- 
 geons ?" 
 
 "I? Ah, no. I am a lazy man. I read 
 very much in my room. I have written and 
 published some things, but on the whole I 
 am too perplexed to write much." 
 
 His coarse but immaculate clothes and 
 fine linen; his quiet, unconscious manner of 
 authority piqued Margaret with a sense of 
 curiosity and interest. But he went on, in 
 his matter-of-fact tone: 
 
 "I am the son of a Jew who started in 
 business here in a small way ; later, as his
 
 STUAKT AND BAMBOO 75 
 
 means increased, he employed a tutor and 
 sent me abroad. I was an only child, and 
 he and my mother are both dead. I am not 
 poor. I own the shop where our little friend 
 appropriated his cap and other shops. T 
 suppose I might build myself a house of 
 some pretensions, but I do not seem to care 
 for it. I am rather studying many things." 
 
 "If you are studying humanity and its 
 philosophies and religions and come to any 
 conclusion, do let me know," said Margaret, 
 rather too cheerfully to inflict him with any 
 flattering sense of appreciation. 
 
 " Oh, I would do so," he replied, with the 
 utmost seriousness ; " and meantime I wish 
 you to understand," he continued, in his 
 perfectly unemotional manner, " that } 7 ou 
 are to rely upon me ; you are to come to me 
 if there is any trouble you do not know how 
 to bear." 
 
 " Why ?" The incredulous color mounted 
 to her face and a flash to her laughing eyes. 
 
 " ' Why ?' even in the Old Book we are 
 told, as we are placed, to be kind to one 
 another, are we not ?"
 
 76 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 " I think we have rather grown to adapt 
 that, both in the Old Book and the New, to 
 our own articles of convenience," she said, 
 with a pleasant satire she could not resist. 
 
 A look of pain came over his face. " That 
 is one of ray perplexities," he said. 
 
 They were nearing the house together, and 
 instead of suffering any sense of annoyance 
 therefor, something of his own impersonal 
 seriousness so impressed Margaret that his 
 company seemed rather to confer a protec- 
 tive distinction upon her. 
 
 She held out her hand to him. " I did 
 not mean to be flippant. What you say is 
 true; but I think a sort of hopelessness, in 
 great things, has come over us; at least, 
 when one dreads hard things as I do," she 
 added, with her bright smile, " the exigencies 
 of every-day existence are about as much us 
 we can contend with." 
 
 He looked at her kindly, with his foreign, 
 almost prophetic, eyes, and she left him, not 
 without a sense of relief, the groundwork of 
 her nature being substantially joyous. So, 
 when she looked out of her front window
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 77 
 
 and saw Plantagenet, under maledictions 
 from an upper-story oracle, sniffing volupt- 
 uously at some parcels he was assisting the 
 grocer's boy to deliver, her heart warmed 
 towards him. 
 
 " Stop smellin' the issence out o' my truck, 
 ye little tormint, Pleg Stuart, or Til be down 
 on ye!" cried the voice; at which Plantag- 
 enet drew so long and loud a sniff at a pack- 
 age of coffee that, but for the interruption 
 caused by his own excessive laughter, it 
 seemed likely to burst its cerements. So 
 unmixed a note of joy Margaret had never 
 heard, so free from any self-conscious tre- 
 mor even under reprobation. 
 
 The Avindow above went down with a 
 bang, indicating that footsteps were about 
 to follow. 
 
 " Plantagenet !" called Margaret, softly. 
 " Come, there's something in your book I 
 want you to explain to me." Almost be- 
 fore she could finish speaking she heard the 
 bound of his bare feet on the backstairs. 
 She let him in and closed the door. 
 
 " Now here," she said, careful to take
 
 78 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 the book of glorious ancestr}^ in her gloved 
 hands, and turning the pages with a quick 
 intention of finding the thing she wished. 
 "Ah, here," indicating the text with a lilac 
 kid finger. " ' They might be exterminated, 
 but they could not be conquered.' Now, of 
 course, with such a spirit as that, they they 
 could not steal, could they, Plantagenet ?" 
 
 " Oh yes, they did !" cried the descendant 
 of kings, with eager information. " They all 
 stoled ships, and jew'ls, and money, and 
 
 " But Mary Stuart, you know our family 
 she did not steal !" 
 
 " N n o, she didn't steal." 
 
 " Well, we don't mind the rest, we want 
 to be like our family. Now I want you to 
 go and take back the cap, and tell the man 
 you are sorry for what you said to him." 
 
 " Well, I ain't goin' to." 
 
 Margaret had worked around to the door, 
 and she stood with her back against it ; she 
 was tali and vigorous, but Plantagenet too 
 had the soul of the Stuarts. 
 
 " I tell ye, I ain't goin' to." 
 
 His beautiful deep eyes seemed to affirm
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 79 
 
 their purpose through a perpetual hunger, 
 madly joyful though enshaclowecl, like Mar- 
 garet's own. But the woman had the lon- 
 ger experience in having her own way, with 
 natural devices unknown to the ragged little 
 reprobate who confronted her: he seemed 
 so like herself ; besides, with honest pity of 
 him, the tears came to her eyes. 
 
 " Well, b' darn, I'll go !" said he, like a 
 gentleman. 
 
 " Then go and do it quick" said Marga- 
 ret, gladly yielding him the door ; " go the 
 way 'our family ' do when they're out con- 
 quering ; go like Mary, at the rate of ninety- 
 six miles an hour !" 
 
 She followed at a distance, to purchase 
 "H.M.S. Mohawk" as soon as it had been 
 restored to the legitimate channels of trade, 
 and came home with that identical cap in a 
 neat parcel under her arm. 
 
 Plantagenet, who was drilling his corps in 
 the front yard, looked up at her with his 
 hungry, merry eyes from under the ragged 
 unemblematized head-piece that now formed 
 his flower of tournament.
 
 80 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 The lilac finger beckoned him aside. 
 
 " Did you go, dear ?" 
 
 "Yes'm." 
 
 " And gave up the cap, and said you were 
 sorry ?" 
 
 " No !" said Plantagenet, too proud of the 
 fact to lie in this instance; "I thrun it at 
 him!" 
 
 Margaret sighed, not without perceptible 
 satisfaction. "With polite formalities of con- 
 cession, she realized the true Stuart sense of 
 not admitting one's self in the wrong, or 
 apologizing, therefore, to human soul. So 
 she produced the cap, a full consciousness 
 of Plantagenet's atonement glowing on her 
 charming face. "It has been bought. It 
 is your very own, now, dear." 
 
 He looked at it, then at her, and with one 
 lionlike bound threw his arms around her 
 neck and smacked her forcibly and loudly 
 on the cheek. Realizing his affront, humili- 
 ation replaced his ardor with puinful blushes. 
 "I tell ye what it is," said he, sheepishly, 
 " I'm soft on you !" 
 
 Margaret went up the stairs laughing.
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 81 
 
 Mrs. O'Ragan took advantage of this wit- 
 ness to say proudly to Mrs. Shaughnessy : 
 " Did it annoy ye, me dressin' me breakfast 
 wid onions this mornin', Mrs. Shaughnessy, 
 ma'am ? I persaved the odor wint through 
 the house." 
 
 "Not at all, Mrs. O'Ragan," replied the 
 other, with an equal blandishment of society 
 grace. " Faith, I wish I had a half-dizzen of 
 the same on a plate afore me this instant." 
 
 " Poor cratur !" Margaret heard, as she 
 closed her door ; " to my certain knowledge, 
 she 'ain't had a cabbage bilin' senct she came 
 here. Begorry, I sh'd have sech a cabbage 
 thirst on me there'd be no holdin' me off. 
 I'd offer her a bit, only these Bamboos bes 
 so quare." 
 
 " Thrue for ye. Mrs. Soollivan tells me 
 the Jew that takes his males wid her niver 
 thanks God by atin' the hid of a cabbage, 
 espicially if there's an ilegant bit o' pork 
 biled in wid it." 
 
 " All the same, he's a good young man 
 the holy saints convart them both ! But 
 hould the lady to me for a Bamboo, though
 
 82 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 she has me o\vn name, wid a washin' out 
 every evenin', like she was playin' dolls." 
 
 But it was no play to Margaret. Com- 
 posedly changing her raiment as often as 
 had ever been her wont, and as though 
 such extreme fastidiousness were an inflex- 
 ible law of nature, she was dismayed to find 
 that when she was not consoling Mrs. Her- 
 kimer at seven cents an hour she was bound 
 and wedded to the exigencies of her own 
 wash-tub, at first with bitter tears of weari- 
 ness and vexation, but now evermore with 
 growing stoicism, especially as the tenement 
 clothes-line was weak and her toil had often 
 to be duplicated. Her familiar figure in 
 the yard, stringing her immaculate clothing 
 along the line in unskilled fashion and with 
 gloved hands, provoked the gleeful comment 
 of the tenement. 
 
 " 'Tis a stiddy washer ye are, Mrs. Stuart," 
 said Mrs. O'Ragan, whistling through the 
 clothes-pins she held in her mouth, and who 
 had made a feint of hanging out a dish-towel 
 in order to be nearer the present source of en- 
 livenment.
 
 STLTAKT AND BAMBOO 83 
 
 " Yes," said Margaret, gravely and unsus- 
 piciously, " I wash very steadily." 
 
 " 'Tis many a poor widdy," continued Mrs. 
 O'Kagan, tentatively, " gets no insurance on 
 her man whin he dies. But, I praise God, 
 when O'Ragan Stuart goes, he'll be doin' me 
 wan good turn ony way. Faith, if such a sad 
 evint should happen, and me able to survive 
 the grafe, I'd be better off and aisier livin' by 
 far, Mrs. Stuart, than ye see me livin' this 
 day !" 
 
 Margaret paused in listening wonder, with 
 the sleeve of a lace -enshrouded night-robe 
 suspended in air. 
 
 " Sure, yes," continued Mrs. O'Kagan, de- 
 lighted with her audience and forgetting the 
 facetiousness of Margaret's performance in 
 the delectable enterprise of her own imagi- 
 nation ; " 'tis better off I'd be." 
 
 " But if you are fond of him and would 
 feel the loss so, I do not see how 
 
 " Oh, begorry, Mrs. Stuart, ma'am ! "Well, 
 thin, ' 'tis a wise cow that carries short 
 horns.' ' : With which utterance she tight- 
 ened her waist-cable and departed.
 
 84 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 " Hang it not so," said a new voice, and a 
 voice Margaret liked to hear " hang it not 
 by de sleeve, it shall blow itself a rent. I 
 shall show you! I seen you," continued 
 Agnes, her comely face shining " I seen 
 you wid my dear young mans." 
 
 "Js he young?" said Margaret, wearily. 
 
 " You are tired, you are discusted wid so 
 much wash." Agnes put her young, moth- 
 erly arm around her. " Come to my rooms, 
 now, soon it is evenin', and we shall play 
 you 'armony." 
 
 Margaret had ignored Agnes with the rest 
 of the tenement, socially, and now, depressed 
 and tired, she had a fancy for complying. 
 
 When she came, Agnes received her as 
 though she were quite in the habit of spend- 
 ing her evenings there. Mr. Sullivan rose and 
 shook hands heartily, then retired with ex- 
 clusive seriousness to his newspaper. 
 
 " Oh, this is good, to find you here !" said 
 Isaac Gilchrist when he entered. " I have 
 been very anxious about you to-day." His 
 dark eyes rested on her a moment in their 
 peculiar, tender, impersonal way. In her
 
 STUAKT AND BAMBOO 85 
 
 present mood this undeserved and uncalled- 
 for regard was grateful to Margaret. From 
 the confidence his presence inspired she gave 
 him, unconsciously, in her weariness, a look 
 instinctively large, with despair and grati- 
 tude almost childishly mingled. A light 
 swept over his dispassionate face. 
 
 Two of Plantagenet's " Pluck and Liver 
 Corps " Agnes's youngest, mere tin - pan 
 players were partitioned off by a graceful 
 curtain in a section of the drawing-room, 
 there supposed to be slumbering on their 
 cot after the conflicts of the day. But Mar- 
 garet, who had an instinctive affiliation with 
 small boys, saw four beautiful brown eyes 
 peering through a convenient opening in the 
 draperies while Isaac swept the strings of 
 his violin. 
 
 Conscious finally of this mutual regard, the 
 boys revealed their pleasure by a giggle. 
 
 " Roy ! 'Onry !" said Agnes, lovingly. 
 
 " My toof aches, mamma." 
 
 Agnes went to the cot and took up the 
 complainant, and returned to her chair with 
 him snuggled in her arms.
 
 86 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 The other night-robed figure trotted across 
 the room to his father, who received him and 
 continued reading the newspaper over him. 
 
 It was a scene so full of homely peace and 
 affection, Margaret's own heart sank to rest 
 when Mrs. O'Ragan summoned her at the 
 door. 
 
 "Is Mrs. Stuart widin? 'Tis Miss Duds 
 Sen' Tammy is callin', and says, could she 
 see her the wan moment? She'll only be 
 detainin' her the wan moment." 
 
 Margaret found Mildred waiting at her 
 door. " Don't light the lamp," said the 
 girl, as they went in. The moonlight filled 
 the room. " I suppose they're mad at me ?" 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 " The Herkimers." 
 
 " Why, no they always speak very kindly 
 of you!" 
 
 " Then you never told them you saw me 
 sitting down by the shore with Jeff? I 
 thought you wouldn't." 
 
 " Oh, was that Jeff ? I did not notice ; I 
 did not know." 
 
 " Oh, I tell you, it's rocky !" said Mildred,
 
 STOAKT AND BAMBOO 87 
 
 her voice quivering, almost breaking, with 
 tears. "We do love each other, Jeff and 
 me. It's just plain through quarrels and 
 everything else we come back to it. It's 
 just like we had a little kitchen together, all 
 warm, and the lamp lit, and the table set. 
 Jeff's plain his mother was a working girl; 
 and anyway it's me Jeff's wants; it ain't 
 Helen Herkimer." 
 
 " I can hardly blame him !" 
 
 " Then you don't think I ought to give 
 him up ?" said Mildred, eagerly. " We can 
 go away together and work he's willing 
 enough." 
 
 Margaret had never given up any one she 
 loved except by the inexorable law of death. 
 
 "Is Helen very fond of him, do you 
 fancy ?" 
 
 " Oh, she she just worships him, the 
 way that kind does wild boys." 
 
 " Mildred, dear, I don't know what to say. 
 I Ask Agnes," was on her lips to say. 
 Isaac Gilchrist's face, set calmly, without 
 even the shadow of conscious self-abnega- 
 tion amid the stormy passions of life, rose
 
 88 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 before her. " But for Helen's sake this must 
 not be known. Perhaps it will all come 
 right. Be patient wait 
 
 Mildred hid her face by the bed in a storm 
 of sobs. 
 
 " It won't come right, I know well enough. 
 You say there's a good God ; then why did 
 He put us here just to worry us and torment 
 us?" 
 
 It was a question not unknown to Mar- 
 garet in desperate hours, with set lips si- 
 lently. It rushed upon her now, and she 
 hid her face beside the girl's. 
 
 " I don't know. I don't know why, in one 
 way and another, He takes away the good, 
 sweet things we love, and leaves us in the 
 cold and dark, desolate. But even so, I must 
 love or I shall die! And I love you, Mil- 
 dred. It isn't like his young, dear love, I 
 know, but oh, I love you ! And the ques- 
 tion you have asked is all too ready to come 
 to me. Don't let it make shipwreck of us 
 help me, Mildred ! help me !" 
 
 The girl was used to self-sacrifice, the 
 woman quivered at the touch of pain.
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 89 
 
 The grave look of self-control came back 
 to Mildred's tear-stained face. " I'm wicked 
 and cruel to bring such troubles of mine to 
 you." 
 
 " No, you would be cruel not to come. 
 Will you remember that? for it is true. 
 Promise me to remember in this or any 
 trouble, you are cruel not to come." Her 
 strong, slender fingers grasped the girl's 
 hard hand. 
 
 " I can't see that I can't see anything 
 much; but I feel somehow like a taut line 
 just draws me here when I'm rocky and 
 I'm all right now." 
 
 " Oh, the poor, poor girl !" moaned Mar- 
 garet when she was gone. " If we could all 
 only be like Isaac Gilchrist loveless, hu- 
 manitarian, emotionless, studying life, not 
 drowned in it !" Again his dark eyes seemed 
 to dwell upon her face " 'I have been very 
 anxious about you to-day.' ' : Margaret bit 
 her lip in the silence and smiled. " He 
 seemed to know the old young Hebrew 
 that I was away down, down in the marsh- 
 lands of 'Despond' to-day; he seemed to
 
 90 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 know that I do not very well know how to 
 live; he seemed actually to know that I have 
 just a dollar and seventy cents in this wide 
 world! I must go early to-morrow and 
 comfort Mrs. Herkimer, and make a bit of 
 money."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 MRS. HEKKIMER was standing at the gate 
 with a spy-glass. 
 
 At first Margaret was flattered to think it 
 was bearing directly upon her, in anxiety for 
 her approach; but her patroness only said, in 
 an agitated voice, " Have you seen Eulalie ?" 
 
 " I trust not !'* said Margaret, firmly. " All 
 the horses in town not happening to be in 
 harness at this particular time, are feeding 
 along the highway as usual, but I am thank- 
 ful to say I did not see Eulalie." 
 
 Mrs. Herkimer's mouth twitched. " I no 
 sooner see you than I begin to get chirked up. 
 Captain's been off lookin' for her this hour. 
 Our young minister's sick, and I feel called 
 to go and see him, and I want you to accom- 
 pany me, but it's too far to walk. If it 
 wasn't for the responsibility of money I 
 could wish that Helen had chosen him in-
 
 92 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 stead of that wild Jeff." A hope for Mil- 
 dred sprang in Margaret's heart. " But," con- 
 tinued Mrs. Herkimer, emphatically, "mon- 
 ey is a great responsibility ; and besides, as 
 a husband, Helen can't abide the thought 
 of him. She's like all the rest of us she's 
 fixed her heart where perhaps she ain't like- 
 ly to get consoled." 
 
 She sighed significantly, fixing her spy- 
 glass on the captain, returning from unsuc- 
 cessful search, in the distance. 
 
 Stack, whom Margaret had meanwhile 
 caressed with that special fondness which 
 prevailed between the two, now tugged at 
 her skirts. 
 
 " Go see what he wants," said Mrs. Herki- 
 mer, solemnly. " Stack always means some- 
 thing when he does that." 
 
 Margaret followed. In behind Mrs. Her- 
 kimer's rose-tree at the south wing Stack 
 revealed and disclosed Eulalie nibbling at 
 those precious blossoms, and leaning, for 
 greater security, against the side of the 
 house. 
 
 " Oh, you naughty, naughty Eulalie !"
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 93 
 
 cried Mrs. Herkimer, with dignified re- 
 proach. 
 
 The captain, now appearing, sprang in and 
 caught her. 
 
 " I'm sorry you found her, Stack, dear old 
 fellow !" said Margaret, while she was being 
 harnessed. " Oh, Stack, you would not have 
 found her if you knew how I hate to drive 
 her!" 
 
 " I know !" said Stack. " I guess I know ! 
 But you are trying to please, and you must 
 do the best you can the best you can." 
 
 " I've discovered this left rein's kinder 
 weak," said the captain, cheerfully, as they 
 climbed in ; " don't twitch up on her there." 
 
 As Eulalie's special crime was hard-bitted- 
 ness, the prospect was more than ever en- 
 couraging. But Stack watched them off 
 with benign wistfulness. Invariably with 
 them on the water, he was obedient in not 
 following the highway enterprises of Mrs. 
 Herkimer's chariot ; the frightened ejacula- 
 tions of the women at his size, the whistling 
 away and scattering of mongrel dogs, the 
 awesome and ever -retreating gaze of the
 
 94 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 small boys, all greatly deterred him with 
 the unmerited pangs of an honest heart. 
 
 Meanwhile Eulalie, inflated with her feast 
 of roses, shot forth at her own ugly, spas- 
 modic, ranting pace. 
 
 " You like her better, now you're getting 
 to know her, don't you?" said the captain's 
 lady, seriously. 
 
 " No," said Margaret ; " I consider that 
 remark only the fateful acceptance of an 
 apothegm. She inspires me continually with 
 ever-deeper forebodings of calamity and dis- 
 aster." 
 
 Mrs. Herkimer laughed. " Don't you no- 
 tice," she said, " that she never breaks?" 
 
 " A break from her present gait, whatever 
 it might be, would be agreeable." 
 
 The phaetons of Yarmouth, like its life- 
 boats, were constructed to contend with any 
 sea; so, a wide berth being given them, they 
 rattled on, broad in the beam and mighty in 
 the hub, to their destination. 
 
 "Will you come in with me?" 
 
 The view was fine, and " No," said Mar- 
 garet, " I would rather stay here."
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 95 
 
 "If the little crazy house -keeper comes 
 out, you mustn't mind. She's as innocent 
 as harmless, and she's a remarkable cook." 
 
 In view of a tete-a-tete with a lunatic, 
 Margaret stepped out and cabled Eulalie to 
 the post. She had but regained her seat 
 when a sprightly little old figure came fly- 
 ing down the path and sprang up beside her. 
 
 "I've been waiting for you!" she cried, 
 embracing her eagerly. " I knew you'd 
 come ! Oh, I knew you'd come !" 
 
 " Yes," said Margaret, kindly, " I have 
 come." 
 
 A new thought came to the airy brain. 
 She tripped into the house and reappeared 
 with a steaming cup of tea. Again she van- 
 ished and returned with cakes and jelly. 
 
 " Now, no more, dear," said Margaret; " if 
 you love me, and have been waiting for me 
 so long, you do not wish to make me ill, do 
 you?" 
 
 " No, no !" said the other, " we mustn't 
 make you ill!" and she leaned her head 
 lightly and contentedly on Margaret's shoul- 
 der while the latter tasted the food.
 
 96 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 " "Why, Zely !" said Mrs. Herkimer, when 
 she came, " have you found such a friend ?" 
 
 " I've been waiting for her," said Zely, and 
 she chatted on mercurially with the cap- 
 tain's lady without the least demonstration 
 of affection towards her. 
 
 "I only thought she'd rattle on to you," 
 said Mrs. Herkimer afterwards. " I didn't 
 know she was going to hug ye. She don't 
 do that, as I know of. She must 'a' had a 
 queer kind of a takin' to ye." 
 
 "Cranks and imbeciles and lunatics al- 
 ways have," said Margaret, biting her lip. 
 
 " Well, now," said Mrs. Herkimer, as soon 
 as she could recover from tho facetious as- 
 pect of this idea, " I am neither one, and I 
 was strongly attached to ye from the first. 
 Turn to the left." 
 
 They drove over a road unexampled for 
 wild beauty, into the driveway of a private 
 park, and confronted an imposing mansion. 
 
 " Whose place is this ?" said Margaret, 
 wondering. 
 
 " I am going to call," said Mrs. Ilerkimer, 
 " on Judson Sprague's sister, who is keep-
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 97 
 
 ing house for him now. This is Judson's 
 home." 
 
 " I will sit here and hold the horse," said 
 Margaret, rather shortly. 
 
 "If you do, Judson will come out and 
 visit with ye. I don't say that he'll offer to 
 hug and kiss ye as Zely did, but he'll be 
 fool enough to want to. Ye'll feel more 
 comfortable to come in." 
 
 Margaret's eyes flashed, but she shut her 
 lips under the stress of existence at seven 
 cents an hour; and at this juncture the 
 burly form and rugged, genial features of 
 Jeff appeared. 
 
 " Let me fasten the horse." 
 
 " I will show you how to tie her," said 
 Margaret, as Mrs. Herkimer sailed off grand- 
 ly towards the house. 
 
 " Oh, I know ! I know Eulalie," said Jeff, 
 showing his big white teeth. " I'm rather a 
 special friend down at the Ilerkimers, you 
 know ;" but he gave the latter clause with 
 little animation. 
 
 " Alas ! I know more about you than you 
 think, my young friend," thought Margaret.
 
 98 
 
 But she liked Jeff. They tied Eulalie in 
 the shade and went in together Margaret 
 suffering an effusive greeting from the elder 
 Sprague at the door to the cloistered splen- 
 dors of one of the great parlors. 
 
 " I hope you will find a comfortable chair, 
 Mrs. Stuart," said the sister, with solemnity, 
 as if to emphasize further the luxurious up- 
 holstery displayed in the room. 
 
 Margaret sat down a little apart with 
 Jeff. A boyish desire to make her happy 
 irradiated his plain face, he reached out 
 and took a photograph album, pointing out 
 his family relations to her, at first with dry 
 statistics as to residence and order of pro- 
 pinquity, but gradually working into a vein 
 of great humor and freedom, with running 
 comments hard to resist. 
 
 The felicities of one volume exhausted, 
 he reached out for another. 
 
 " Jeff," said his father, " have you been to 
 the post ?" 
 
 "No, sir." Jeff's honest jaw drooped. 
 
 " Will you go, my son ?" 
 
 " Certainly, sir."
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 99 
 
 The elder Sprague came over and took the 
 chair thus perfunctorily vacated. 
 
 " After the cruel impression you left upon 
 me, both the first and last time we ever met, 
 Mrs. Stuart, how has Mrs. Herkimer per- 
 suaded you to visit my humble home ?" 
 
 "I came merely as Mrs. Herkimer's com- 
 panion." 
 
 " Ah, too bad ! too bad ! But allow me 
 to say the companion outshines the matron, 
 to my eyes, as the sun the moon." 
 
 " Very much obliged, I'm sure," said Mar- 
 garet, dryly. " You have exceedingly charm- 
 ing views here." 
 
 " You will be surprised perhaps that on 
 an estate of this size I keep only three 
 servants a man for the garden, and two 
 maids in the house. It is my great desire, 
 if I could find a sufficient incentive ah, a 
 companion who would encourage me to ex- 
 tend the style of my house -keeping on a 
 more sumptuous and hospitable scale." 
 
 Mrs. Herkimer and the sister, according 
 to the custom of old seaport towns, had 
 turned their backs upon this eligible pair
 
 100 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 and become deeply engrossed in conversa- 
 tion. Margaret, with anger in her heart, 
 thus basely deserted to mischief, determined 
 to make the most of the precarious advan- 
 tage. 
 
 " Your sister seems to be a most amiable 
 companion," she said. 
 
 " Ah, too bad ! too bad ! Have the ties of 
 the past been so precious to you, Mrs. Stuart, 
 that you could not even contemplate form- 
 ing new ones for the future ?" 
 
 " Possibly but that would depend al- 
 together upon circumstances." 
 
 "Then I am going to hope your circum- 
 stances may become more and more re- 
 duced!" 
 
 "You misunderstand me. There is no 
 combination of circumstances that could 
 drive me to take a step I did not wish to 
 take." 
 
 " Ah, how you would shine in a generous 
 establishment ! Too bad ! too bad ! But if 
 one comes only as a slave at your feet ?" 
 
 " I have no desire for slaves. Mrs. Ilerki- 
 mer, Eulalie is such an unreliable beast, do
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 101 
 
 not you think we would better be making 
 some investigations as to what her present 
 misconduct may be?'' 
 
 "Patrick has put her in the barn," said 
 the sister, in her solemn voice. " We shall 
 lay it up as a slight if you do not both stay 
 to luncheon." 
 
 Mrs. Herkimer, who had evidently already 
 composed herself to this idea, did not dare 
 look at Margaret. They were about to re- 
 sume their conversation. 
 
 " I do not like to have you turn your 
 backs on me," said Margaret, simply. 
 
 The sister looked with considerable sur- 
 prise at one who attempted such innovations 
 on the established framework of society. 
 
 " You must come up to the blue-room and 
 take off your things," she said, when she had 
 recovered her breath. 
 
 Mrs. Herkimer kept close to her, not wish- 
 ing any confidential communion with Mar- 
 garet at this time. 
 
 But when, having reached this bourn, they 
 looked out of the windows and saw it rain- 
 ing, the captain's lady resumed her mantle
 
 102 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 of superior dignity. "Well, it's fortunate 
 we accepted!" she said. "The shower will 
 probably be over by the time we wish to go." 
 
 "We have ample guest-rooms," said the 
 sister, with a sad, proud smile, as though 
 such a self-evident fact should hardly have 
 been brought to the exigency of comment. 
 
 Margaret got near Mrs. Herkimer. " If 
 you stay overnight, I shall walk home," 
 she whispered. 
 
 "I have no intention of staying over- 
 night !" said Mrs. Herkiraer, in her recovered 
 state, quite reprovingly. 
 
 The luncheon - table was so loaded with 
 silver and cut-glass the sense was oppres- 
 sive. Poor Jeff spilled his glass of claret 
 on the damask cloth and dropped his fork 
 twice, but even in the midst of such discour- 
 agements kept his ingenuous smile of good- 
 fellowship directed at Margaret across the 
 table. 
 
 "Ah, too bad! Aren't you a bit clumsy 
 to-day, my son ?" 
 
 " I'm always clumsy, father." 
 
 The elder Sprague wished Margaret's eyes
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 103 
 
 would rest on him with the frank liking they 
 gave to this wayward youth. 
 
 Remaining, to the very moment, the tech- 
 nical length of time prescribed by Yarmouth 
 good -manners after partaking of such glit- 
 tering hospitality, Mrs. Herkimer finally rose 
 and announced her intention of going. 
 
 Jeff was sent to tell Patrick to harness 
 Eulalie ; he came springing back, his white 
 teeth gleaming and a good-natured laugh in 
 his eyes. 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Herkimer, you're going home 
 with the drollest, prettiest little colt !" 
 
 " Haven't you anything better to do, Jef- 
 fre\ r ," said Mrs. Herkimer, with motherly for- 
 bearance, " than to make fun of poor Eula- 
 lie? There are many older horses, though 
 I know Eulalie is no colt !" 
 
 " But she's she's got a colt, Mrs. Herki- 
 mer such a droll little thing, running all 
 about !" 
 
 Confirmation of this appalling statement 
 
 was now afforded by the spectacle of Patrick 
 
 leading Eulalie down the driveway, the colt 
 
 all legs making this condign occasion
 
 104 STCART AND BAMBOO 
 
 more lamentable by his unappreciative frisk- 
 iness. 
 
 Mrs. Herkimer compressed her lips. Never 
 had Margaret seen such solemnity on her 
 features as when she shook hands with her 
 entertainers, uttering the usual common- 
 places of farewell. 
 
 Jeff was opening an umbrella to see Mar- 
 garet down the path, but his father antici- 
 pated him, interposing his own silk canopy 
 between her and the clouds. So Jeff went 
 ahead, sheltering Mrs. Herkimer. 
 
 Margaret, with her light step and head 
 well carried, chatted cheerfully of the pros- 
 pect of clearing weather, of the extraordi- 
 nary beauty of the landscape. She dared 
 not look ahead at the supernal dignity of 
 Mrs. Herkimer' s carriage, nor at other feat- 
 ures of the near prospect. 
 
 Accustomed to having women duck their 
 heads nervously under the umbrella and 
 hold to its progress, the elder Sprague was 
 now compelled rather to dance a watchful 
 attendance upon his companion, so erect 
 and indifferently she sailed on.
 
 STUAKT AND BAMBOO 105 
 
 " This is the woman for my enlarged estab- 
 lishment !" thought he. 
 
 "I have a feeling," he murmured, "that 
 you will not always be so inconsiderate of a 
 sincere adorer." 
 
 In the agitation of the moment he knocked 
 her hat with a corner of the umbrella, and 
 saw with dismay the rain -drops falling on 
 her sweet face. 
 
 She smiled, untroubled and unvexed. 
 " Treasure that feeling," she drawled, coolly, 
 as if with a subtle suggestion there might 
 be less warrant for it in the future. 
 
 The two women drove on silently until, at 
 a discreet distance from the house, the colt 
 forsook its mother for some wayside investi- 
 gations and Eulalie stopped short with a 
 watchful sideways cast of body ; then Mar- 
 garet handed the lines to Mrs. Herkimer 
 and shrieked with laughter. The captain's 
 lady waited quietly. 
 
 " When you get through," said she, " I'll 
 take my turn." 
 
 " This must be done now," she said, " and 
 forever afterwards repressed. My inmost
 
 106 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 feelings are far otherwise from mirthful. I 
 was not informed. The captain kne\v what 
 was likely to happen. I I am almost in- 
 clined," she said, in a deep voice, " to visit 
 him with corporeal punishment !" 
 
 " I will assist you with all my heart," said 
 Margaret. 
 
 The captain himself, when he saw them 
 approaching the colt having by this time 
 got down to a steady stalking gait, the 
 weather now quite clear and a fresh wind 
 blowing looked at first with a searching 
 intentness, then, as the truth burst upon him, 
 turned his head in a sort of sickly despair, 
 and as they drew nearer even affected to 
 whistle. 
 
 " "Well," said Mrs. Herkimer, " here we 
 are!" 
 
 The tone implied bodily attack, and Mar- 
 garet only waited the initiative from her 
 protectress. 
 
 " The tide serves and the moon's full 1" 
 said the captain, turning his guilty face tow- 
 ards them. " We must have a sail this even- 
 in-!"
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 107 
 
 It was the one point on which he could 
 ever hope to begin to be restored to the 
 favor of his lady. The serving of the tide 
 and a sail were ever as manna to her soul, 
 but she did not yield so readily not she. 
 
 "What do you think of yourself, Captain 
 Herkimer?" 
 
 " I hadn't no idea it was goin' to happen 
 so soon on my word, I hadn't, Nell!" he 
 protested, but his face broke into a fateful 
 grin at the antics of his new and untoward 
 possession. 
 
 " Smile smile if you can, Captain Herki- 
 mer ! I shall never hold my head up again !" 
 Having said this, and holding her head very 
 high indeed, Mrs. Herkimer swept into the 
 house. " You must stay to-night, Mrs. Stu- 
 art. I can never live through the night 
 without the consciousness that you are un- 
 der my roof." 
 
 " Yes, I will stay." It came to Margaret 
 that she might chance upon a little private 
 conversation with Helen, and learn, in a casual 
 way, the stringency of her affection for Jeff, 
 in whom, for Mildred's sake, as well as his
 
 108 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 own boyish fate, she had become sincerely 
 interested. "But," she added, referring to 
 the captain, "shall you forgive him so soon? 
 It has grown a perfect evening, and, as you 
 say, the tide serves ; but shall you go sailing 
 this evening ?" 
 
 "The pangs of remorse," replied Mrs. 
 Herkimer, "are no less on the ocean than 
 on the land !" and with an evident intention 
 that, though bounding joyfully on the ca- 
 prices of the deep, the captain should not 
 forget the torments of that never-dying 
 worm, she meanwhile laid aside her bonnet.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 HELEN looked on with grave disapproval 
 while the captain pulled up an eel-trap or 
 two and emptied the contents into a box. 
 
 "What would people think of a man of 
 your professions and money," said his lady, 
 " out here by moonlight, stealin' snakes ?" 
 
 " Pshaw ! I've only took half o' what 
 there was in two traps, and they'll fill up 
 again before morning. ' Snakes !' They're 
 fine eatin'. They're worth a dollar apiece 
 over in the States !" 
 
 " Poor souls ! Have you got to take pat- 
 tern after all the heathen that you know of, 
 Captain Herkimer?" 
 
 To Margaret, this sail by moonlight along 
 an untamed coast was an ecstasy. The in- 
 timation of theft, the wriggling of the eels 
 in the box, only made more weird such law- 
 less riding of the waves ; her eyes sparkled
 
 110 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 with laughing encouragement at the chief 
 marauder, the captain, while Helen, near to 
 whom she sat, steered sadly, watching the 
 self-abandoned sympathy with the elements 
 on the older woman's face. 
 
 " What should you do if something should 
 happen to the boat, Mrs. Stuart if there 
 should be danger?" she said, wistfully. 
 
 " I feel as though I should hardly care," 
 laughed Margaret. " If we Avere riding so 
 fast, and a wind like this, I know I should 
 not drown, I should go somewhere nice !" 
 
 " What church do you belong to ?" 
 
 " Oh, the Presbyterian ; but at heart, I 
 fear, always a wretched little Catholic, of 
 the old days, when they could not read 
 and a few images were enough!" Mar- 
 garet spoke, with laughing half earnestness, 
 in a low voice, but Helen shuddered. " My 
 dear little girl," the Stuart went on, " every 
 thought is so hackneyed, so attenuated, 
 in these days, the brain has outgrown the 
 limbs that carry it and is a deformity. 
 There is this theory and that theory, and 
 lots of pale people in spectacles running to
 
 STUAKT AND BAMBOO 111 
 
 hear them expounded. I envy the brown 
 and red fish-wife, with a shawl over her head 
 and no alphabet, who gets down by a way- 
 side cross and tells her beads. We theorize, 
 she sees we hardly hope, she knows." 
 
 The girl listened, fascinated, but too chary 
 even to attempt comprehension. 
 
 At this point something slimy and ser- 
 pentine began to wind itself round Marga- 
 ret's ankle. She gave a shriek as impetuous 
 and clearly defined as the edge of a knife, 
 and sprang, still shrieking, into Helen's 
 arms. 
 
 The captain rushed over and captured a 
 large eel which had escaped consignment to 
 the box by oversight ; he also took the helm 
 while Helen held Margaret. 
 
 " It was only an eel, Mrs. Stuart ; dear 
 Mrs. Stuart, father has put it in the box ; it 
 was only an eel." At which Margaret only 
 emitted another piercing scream. 
 
 The captain left the helm momentarily, 
 and, lifting the box, precipitated its entire 
 contents into the water. The sound of the 
 struggling and writhing ceased.
 
 112 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 "They're all back in the water, Mrs. 
 Stuart. Father has emptied them all into 
 the water." 
 
 Margaret first grew cold, then trembled, 
 then sobbed, then laughed again. The grave 
 Helen got the impression that she was a 
 spirit possibly much subject to " mad fits " 
 in her childhood, and that her usual com- 
 mendable self-control was perhaps primarily 
 a matter of culture rather than of native 
 predilection. 
 
 " I never had a snake near me before," 
 said the Stuart, relapsing into Mrs. Ilerki- 
 mer's own terms. "In Fox's Book of J/<//-- 
 tyrs, when my old nurse used to read me 
 about putting people into bags of them, I 
 always had to scream. It isn't a matter of 
 courage; I'd rather die. I've always known 
 I never could bear that /" She glanced with 
 dilated eyes about the boat. 
 
 " They're every one of 'em overboard," said 
 Mrs. Herkimer in a soothing voice. " You 
 see now," she said, with the utmost solem- 
 nity to the captain, "what's come o' your 
 didos with them eels." The poor captain
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 113 
 
 steered on, deeply oppressed by this culmi- 
 nating disaster of the day. 
 
 " Oh, do get some more, captain, if you 
 wish !" cried Margaret. " I could look out 
 another time ; it was being taken so by sur- 
 prise. Still, if you don't mind going with- 
 out" 
 
 " There's not going to be any more eel 
 tantrums in this boat!" said Mrs. Herkimer, 
 decidedly. 
 
 "Any body 'd think I did it a-purpose!" 
 exclaimed the captain. " I wouldn't 'a' had 
 it happen for anything." 
 
 " When we set out by breaking the com- 
 mandments" began his lady. 
 
 "Breaking your granny!" cried the cap- 
 tain, desperate in his woe, and would hear 
 no more. 
 
 "We will have devotions to-night," said 
 Mrs. Herkimer, with meaning, when they 
 reached home. 
 
 Helen set a lamp on the piano. 
 
 " Will you read, or shall I, Captain Herki- 
 mer? Helen will then sing." 
 
 The captain, who was too manly to con-
 
 114 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 tinue pettish, took the Bible reverently and 
 turned to the fluid sentences of a reassuring 
 psalm. 
 
 " We must remember," said Mrs. Herkimer 
 at the close, " that those promises are for 
 such as keep the narrow way. "Will you 
 sing, Helen, ' Yesterday I wandered ' 2" 
 
 "'Yesterday I wandered in the paths of sin.'" 
 
 Helen's sweet spirit-burdened voice filled the 
 room with an uneasy awe. 
 
 The Stuart, nervous^as only a high-strung 
 animal can be at some slimy incident, still 
 casting an occasional involuntary glance along 
 the floor, met the captain's generally cool 
 and contemptuous bearing with a wide, star- 
 tled smile of sympathy in her eyes. 
 
 " P'sh !" said the hero of many seas at the 
 close of these exercises. " Anybody 'd think 
 I was lost just because I took a dozen of Ed 
 Harris's eels, when he's told me a thousand 
 times to help myself." 
 
 "It's the spirit and not the letter," said 
 Mrs. Herkimer, finally. 
 
 ""What we need is a good night's rest,"
 
 STUAKT AND BAMBOO 115 
 
 said the sea- veteran, cheerfully. " We ain't 
 got half a dozen brains between us as it is." 
 
 "A good conscience is better than a 
 mountain of the brilliantest brains," said his 
 lady. 
 
 "It may be better," replied the captain, 
 " but conscience without brains makes a dev- 
 ilish poor show." 
 
 His disappearance with these words was 
 timely and instantaneous. 
 
 Helen accompanied Margaret to her room. 
 
 " You must not be nervous to-night," said 
 the girl, setting down the lamp. " After all, 
 it was nothing, you know." 
 
 " Oh, I shall not be nervous !" said Marga- 
 ret, quite with her usual manner. " But what 
 a charming fire ! I love a climate where one 
 can always enjoy a fire at night. Sit down 
 a moment, dear !" 
 
 Helen sat clown not far from the enigma, 
 and watched her composed face and retro- 
 spective eyes kindling in the firelight. 
 
 Margaret did not hurry. " Should you 
 have acted as I did about that eel?" she 
 asked, at last, tranquilly.
 
 116 8TUAKT AND BAMBOO 
 
 Helen, too, took time for thought. " No," 
 she said, very gravely. 
 
 "But why not? Are you used to being 
 embraced by creeping things?" 
 
 " No, I am not used to them." 
 
 " Well, then, Helen, why not ?" 
 
 " Because I try to be always prepared for 
 hard things any hard thing." 
 
 " Oh, my child," said Margaret, impetu- 
 ously, "you ought not to feel that way so 
 good and so young, and with such a happy 
 future before you !" But her heart smote 
 her at that last clause. Perhaps Helen was 
 wise, after all. 
 
 "I do not know that my future will be 
 happy." 
 
 " But you are engaged " Margaret spoke 
 in a tentatively delicate way "to such a 
 nice young man. I met him to-day. I think 
 he is a dear boy." 
 
 " He is dear enough," said the girl, shyly, 
 and her lips trembled. 
 
 " This poor child is like the sea she was 
 born by," thought Margaret, " deep and sad. 
 Mildred should give him up yes, Mildred
 
 STUABT AND BAMBOO 117 
 
 should give him up. But he loves Mil- 
 dred !" 
 
 The girl, watching her enigma's face, saw 
 it perplexed and wearily saddening in the 
 firelight, and, without knowing the cause, 
 her heart was moved to a sudden confidence. 
 
 " Yes, he is dear enough, Mrs. Stuart ; so 
 dear that I could myself endure to suffer 
 or be deprived of anything if it was for his 
 happiness and good. I know that." 
 
 In her self-contained life this impulse to 
 confession shook her almost as if it had been 
 a crime. 
 
 " Let us hope for happy things happy 
 things," said Margaret, rising in her own 
 bright way. She bent down and kissed the 
 girl ; her very presence gave a sense of per- 
 sonal endearment. 
 
 Helen's thoughts turned ever rapidly from 
 her own case to care for others. " Now you 
 must not get nervous in a strange room 
 in the night," she repeated. "Remember, 
 it was nothing." She paused a moment, 
 standing. " And remember," she said, as if 
 still under a spell of confession, "if ever
 
 118 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 you needed me as a friend, if ever there 
 was any hard thing, I would do it for you." 
 
 Margaret looked into her dark eyes. Many 
 had said that to her in the sanguine day of 
 prosperity who had tacitly fallen off in ad- 
 versity. 
 
 " I believe you, dear," she said. 
 
 " I did not take to her at first," said Mar- 
 garet, alone, musing over the fire, " because 
 I had thought she had no mitigating sense 
 of humor whatever. Possibly she has some- 
 thing less easily to be spared. Still it is 
 lugubrious." She shrugged her shoulders, 
 her glance wandering, startled, about the 
 floor again. She heard a soft " tap ! tap !" 
 at the door ; she opened it, and there stood 
 Stack ; he entered and immediately stretched 
 himself on the rug thereby. 
 
 " Helen sent you !" cried Margaret, joy- 
 fully. 
 
 " Anyway, I came," said Stack, closing his 
 august eyes and already pretending to snore. 
 
 " But you must eat this cake I saved for 
 you, you dear fellow!" said Margaret, pro- 
 ducing the prize from her pocket.
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 119 
 
 He munched it, adoring her. 
 
 " Well, good - night then !" The lace of 
 her sleeve fell over his shaggy neck in a ca- 
 ress. 
 
 His steady breathing sent her off to sleep, 
 reassured her in those waking moments 
 which might otherwise have been afflicted 
 with tremors. For uncanny noises disturbed 
 that night. The new puppy broke his chain, 
 and weirdly, wailingly, bayed the moon hour 
 after hour under her window. Eulalie, more 
 than usually indifferent to propriety under 
 the prestige of motherhood, led or followed 
 her colt in ghoulish wanderings and antics 
 about the lawn in the immediate vicinity of 
 the house, kicking tragically at the garden 
 gate, calling shrilly, and shaking the gaunt 
 apple-trees, subsiding into a deceptive si- 
 lence only to startle the night with some 
 new and hideous vagary of conduct. It 
 seemed at some point in these proceedings 
 that Margaret heard the captain's voice in 
 the big hall below, directed widely, like the 
 general reveille of a trumpet : 
 
 " Why the - - don't some o' ye get up ?
 
 120 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 It's half after seven ! The girl's had the cof- 
 fee made an hour !" 
 
 Mrs. Herkimer, who had left her hall door 
 open for circulation of air, rose and pointed- 
 ly shut it to. 
 
 Margaret, laughing to herself, sprang out 
 of bed and released Stack, who stood pa- 
 tiently waiting at the door with averted 
 head, and who never once looked at her in 
 her night-robe. 
 
 She was in a sunny humor at breakfast, 
 and even Helen seemed to reflect hope from 
 her. 
 
 " How many seconds o' sleep did you get 
 last night, Mrs. Stuart ?" said Mrs. Herkimer, 
 who had herself been sleepless and felt the 
 necessity for severity. 
 
 " Oh, I slept ever so much ! I had Stack 
 at the door," and she unreservedly cut out 
 the tenderloin from her steak and laid it one 
 side for a purpose. 
 
 " There now, don't, Mrs. Stuart," said the 
 captain, beaming beatifically, " I'll save him 
 some from the dish." 
 
 "No," said the Stuart, with childish mo-
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 121 
 
 nopoly of privilege, " 1 thought of it first. 
 It's my trick !" 
 
 " Yarmouth is the only place," persisted 
 Mrs. Herkimer, but without so much asper- 
 ity as she had shown at first " the only place 
 I ever was in where puppies and horses were 
 allowed to beset creation all night long with 
 their ' go as you please ' !" 
 
 "Why, Yarmouth's the only place you 
 ever lived in, anyway, Nell," said her hus- 
 band. 
 
 " I've dwelt weeks at foreign ports," said 
 the lady, majestically, ignoring the interrup- 
 tion. 
 
 ""Well, yes; but Yarmouth's the only 
 place you ever lived in steady." 
 
 " Steady ! Do you call it living steady to 
 be hallooed at all night with the didos of 
 wild beasts, and awakened by profanity in 
 the morning?" 
 
 Margaret burst fearlessly into laughter; 
 the captain followed with a whole heart. 
 Helen bit her lip and choked. Mrs. Herki- 
 mer herself succumbed, finally drying the 
 mirthful tears from her eves.
 
 122 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 " I wish you'd marry into the family," she 
 said, half facetiously, half earnestly, to the 
 Stuart, bidding her good-bye at the door 
 for Margaret felt the necessity of looking to 
 her affairs at the tenements " meanin', of 
 course, Judson." 
 
 "We will see," said Margaret, who, with 
 health and hope and the ringing air of the 
 morning, felt ready to jest with fate. 
 
 And lo ! his carriage overtook her as she 
 walked down towards the town. 
 
 " Ah, how fortunate, Mrs. Stuart ! I am 
 going your way, and my sister is with me, 
 see ! Now I beg of you, do me the honor." 
 
 He had alighted and was addressing her 
 in a low, unctuous voice. 
 
 " I enjoy and need the walk. I really pre- 
 fer to walk ; thank you very much !" 
 
 "Ah, too bad! too bad! Still cruel? 
 Well The sister looked at her with won- 
 dering disapproval as a vagrant from priv- 
 ilege. He regained his seat, and the rich 
 equipage rolled out of sight. 
 
 Margaret walked on, conscious as she 
 neared the town of the mean little rooms
 
 STUAKT AND BAMBOO 123 
 
 awaiting her, which her dainty garments 
 swept incongruously, of an impoverished 
 larder, of a cooking-stove which either bel- 
 lowed with flame up the chimney or threw 
 out smoke at her, of the merciless, insistent 
 wash-tubs and the halting clothes-line, and 
 she shivered and sighed. 
 
 " What is the use, after all, when I might 
 ugh ! But don't ask me too many times " 
 she laughed softly and insolently after the 
 retreating carriage " or perhaps, after all, I 
 shall get in and ride with you 1"
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 " PLONTOGONET'S gone on progriss, Mrs. 
 Stuart, ma'am." 
 
 " On progress !" 
 
 " Yes, drat take him ! From the book o' 
 Kings and Quanes he's got it. And the 
 school-teacher's been sindin' down here to 
 tell me she's never seen the light o' him this 
 day, nor tin others he's beguiled off wid 
 him for a ratinue. Begorry, I'd rat him if 
 I had him betune my two honds !" 
 
 Mrs. O'Ragan was in evil spleen. " Path- 
 rick !" she said, with a groan, to a small heir 
 who was not off on progress, " run over to 
 Dr. McGuire and tell him I'm did wid the 
 pain and nade a bit o' midicine. Run now ! 
 
 " I had a benanny thirst on me this morn- 
 in'," she explained to Margaret, "and I 
 squinched it wid a half-dizzen benannys aff 
 a cart, and they lift me groanin'."
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 125 
 
 The small boy returned. " The doctor 
 says, sind to the sody-water man and git a 
 anterdote." 
 
 " How much be they ? Here, take a quar- 
 ther, and if they're expinsive git a small 
 one, and hurry wid ye !" 
 
 The boy returned breathless. " The sody 
 man says, what do ye want a anterdote for ?" 
 
 Mrs. O'Ragan gasped with indignation. 
 " Go offer him yer money, fair," said she, 
 at length, with portentous calm, " and if he 
 don't give ye one, return yerself straight 
 and tell me." 
 
 The boy crept back with a haggard air. 
 " He says he says, what do ye want a an- 
 terdote for?" 
 
 Mrs. O'Kagan rose, impressively securing 
 her waist -cable; outside she put a shawl of 
 many colors, and a bonnet evidently the 
 cast-off freak of some fashionable dame. It 
 was extremely small, and Mrs. O'Eagan's 
 head was masterful in proportions ; perched, 
 therefore, on the extreme backward summit 
 of her pug of hair, it gave her an aspect so 
 martial that even the heart of a friend shook
 
 126 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 at her. Into the bill of a moribund hum- 
 ming-bird which topped the last aspiring 
 point of this head-piece, dangling, however, 
 in a tottering position from recent hard 
 wear, Plantagenet, before he went on prog- 
 ress, had stuffed an entire peanut. But Mrs. 
 O'Ragan was too excited to observe this 
 lesser indignity. 
 
 As she marched away, awful with over- 
 perpendicularity of carriage, this sorrowful 
 bird, at the very summit of her, was the only 
 thing about her that fluttered, and seemed 
 trying to disgorge the plebeian fruit which 
 Plantagenet had all too firmly implanted in 
 its bill. 
 
 " I'll have an antherdote," said she, enter- 
 ing the drug store with treacherous calm 
 and displaying a large purse with a gilt 
 clasp. 
 
 "What do you wish an antidote for, 
 madam ?" 
 
 "You lay that antherdote down on the 
 counther and give me the price of it, you 
 little razor -toed, hair-'zled, rubous - ringed 
 jude you, or I'll be over behint there and
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 127 
 
 let you know what I want anything for ! I 
 ain't did yit !" 
 
 The clerk looked at Mrs. O'llagan, and 
 hastening to his stores, evolved and tied up 
 with rapid fingers a small parcel which he 
 handed her with unaffected humility. 
 
 "Perhaps I could suit you better if I 
 knew what you wished it for, madam, but 
 this is innocuous 
 
 " Quit now ! Quit your langvvidge to me !" 
 said Mrs. O'Eagan. " No one ever insoolt- 
 ed me twicet, ye little flea-bite ye! How 
 much is it?" 
 
 " A nickel, ma'arn." 
 
 "What do ye take me fur? Give me a 
 tin-cint one, and make haste wid ye !" 
 
 The clerk instantly made substitution of 
 the increased order. And with the con- 
 temptuous snort of an easy conqueror, Mrs. 
 O'Ragan, capped by that ennauseated and 
 tottering humming-bird, made her depart- 
 ure. 
 
 " Say, mammy," said little Pat, restored 
 in spirit by her successful return with a par- 
 cel, " your bird's eatin' a peanut, he is !"
 
 128 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 "What bird, thin? What's the child 
 mean in' ?" 
 
 " The bird in your bunnit's eatin' a pea- 
 nut, te-he !" 
 
 Mrs.O'Ragan divested herself of that proud 
 ornament and found that it was even so. 
 
 " Did you know it was fixed on me that 
 shape, thin, whin I wint down to the sody 
 man's ?" she said, eying her offspring. 
 
 " No, ma'am," said Pat, with instant com- 
 mendable resource to negation ; " I seen it on 
 ye jest as ye was turndin' the cornder home." 
 
 " Sure how could ye see it on me behind 
 when I was comin' forninst ye ?" 
 
 " Why, mammy, I seed ye sideways when 
 ye turndid the cornder ! I guess Pleg done 
 it te-he ! 'cause he stoled a peanut off Jim- 
 my las' night." 
 
 " I don't guess at all, I know viry will 
 who done it, and when Plontogonet Stu- 
 art gets home from this progress, whativer 
 that he's on now, he'll go on another right 
 straight ! He'll go on a progress up and 
 down this room wid a sthick after him ! 
 That's the nixt progress he'll go on !"
 
 STUAKT AND BAMBOO 129 
 
 Margaret kept an eye out at her window 
 for the hero's return. She had this un- 
 accountable feeling towards Plantagenet 
 of late, that she would even rather suffer 
 stripes on her own body than have him bear 
 them. 
 
 Advanced exploiting parties from the reti- 
 nue slunk in one by one at dusk two of 
 Agnes's boys, but she only took them and 
 washed and fed and wept over them for the 
 sorrow they had given her, which they 
 dreaded far more than the beating their 
 comrades looked forward to as the natural 
 corollary of aspiring acts. 
 
 At last Margaret saw a sturdy form 
 mounting the cliffs, its garments deplorable, 
 even "H.M.S. Mohawk" was rent with the 
 dark significance of some stirring adventure. 
 She caught up a sandwich she had ready 
 prepared and threw a shawl over her head 
 after the manner of the tenements. 
 
 Plantagenet expected her, his joyful, hun- 
 gry eyes glowing larger than ever out of a 
 battle-worn face. 
 
 " The ' Pluck and Liver Kore ' 's done
 
 130 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 glorious to day!" said he, devouring the 
 bread and meat in a few gulps. 
 
 " I would have brought you more, dear," 
 said Margaret, sitting on a rock at his side, 
 " but it happened to be " she blushed 
 " all the meat I had in the house." 
 
 " I couldn't eat no more," said the hero, 
 loyally, whose healthy stomach had only 
 been incited to greater desire by the sop 
 offered it. 
 
 " I've just made some cake and put it on 
 the iron sink to cool a bit ; it will be ready 
 by the time we get down to the house. I've 
 made four loaves !" 
 
 The woman's pride was as pathetic as the 
 boy's, and their elated, woe-begone counte- 
 nances were as if they had been mother and 
 child. 
 
 'Oh, you're a giddy house -keeper, you 
 be !" said the commander of the " Pluck and 
 Liver Corps," with tender gallantry. " Say ! 
 Sen' Marie Stuart and Botherwell set on a 
 rock jest the same way us is settin', that 
 time they runned away together." 
 
 Margaret laughed merrily to the echoes.
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 131 
 
 A lean kitten came galloping up to them, 
 trailing the broad strings of a ribbon that 
 occasionally tripped her and rolled her to 
 earth. 
 
 " You poor, sad thing !" said Margaret, re- 
 tying the silk so jauntily around its neck 
 that the starved form of the cat was hardly 
 discoverable in the midst of her exterior 
 splendors. " Don't you think she's gaining 
 a little, Plantagenet ? She was almost dead 
 when I took her. She would come, she 
 would stay, she would get in somehow." 
 
 " She's plumpin' up, you can tell by her 
 liveliness." 
 
 " Oh, she's dreadfully lively ! She has 
 broken my clock already, and some other 
 things. I used to say I never would be an 
 old woman living with a cat but you see !" 
 
 Plantagenet looked wistfully at her. "With 
 the soft, white shawl half escaped from her 
 head, and the wind making havoc in her 
 beautiful hair, she looked so young that the 
 commander-in-chief laughed merrily. 
 
 " Oh, Plantagenet !" 
 
 " Did you wash to-day ?"
 
 132 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 " Yes, I washed and made cake." 
 
 "You won't feel so old to-raorrer, when 
 you git rested." 
 
 " I don't know. I wish you would not go 
 on progress any more !" 
 
 " But I got to," said he, very sadly and 
 gravely, winding a black rag with heroic 
 firmness around an injured toe ; " they all 
 did, ye know." 
 
 " But I wish you would hold Dumbarton 
 Castle for a while. I am so afraid some- 
 thing will happen while you're gone." 
 
 " Well," said Plantagenet, glowing almost 
 to bursting, " I will ! I'll stay and hold it 
 a while." 
 
 Margaret's shawl drooped over him as 
 they came towards the house. She had a 
 key of the back door, and they went up the 
 stairs together, the kitten following trip- 
 pingly in her again loosened ribbon. Mar- 
 garet thrust her into her own kitchen 
 and locked the door on her, and they 
 went on. 
 
 " We'll run to Sanctuary, won't we ?" said 
 she.
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 133 
 
 " Yes," said Plantagenet, again swelling ; 
 " I guess we will !" 
 
 Up two flights more they climbed and 
 knocked at a door in the attic. 
 
 " Coom ye in ! Coom ye in ! 
 
 " What have they been doin' to ye two ?" 
 said Granny Stuart, pluming in her chair 
 like a hen over hawk -endangered chickens. 
 Granny never asked of a refugee, " What 
 have you been doing ?" Never. But always, 
 " What have they been doing to you ?" 
 
 "Nothing," said Margaret, sitting down 
 on a stool, to which she seemed very much 
 accustomed ; " we just wanted to see you." 
 
 " Has old Jusson Sprague been chasin' 
 ye to marry him, because ye're poor and 
 he owns the tiniments and many more ?" 
 
 " No," said Margaret, obediently, from 
 her stool on one side of Granny. 
 
 " Has O'Ragan Stuart been beatin' ye ?" 
 
 " No, ma'am," replied Plantagenet from 
 the stool on the other side. 
 
 "Then why are ye all wind-blown, my 
 darlin'?" said Granny, patting Margaret with 
 one hand ; " and why are ye lookin' more like
 
 134 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 a scarecrow nor iver, poor darlin' ?" patting 
 the commander-in-chief with the other. 
 
 " Why, I just been on a little progress to- 
 day, Granny, and she come to meet me." 
 
 " God bless her ! God bless her !" Gran- 
 ny's soft old hand went " pat, pat " on Mar- 
 garet's head. u Ye must have a bit o' cordial, 
 the two o* ye." 
 
 She rose, leaning on them both, for no 
 one could get the cordial but she, and hob- 
 bled to her cupboard. Into two handleless 
 earthen cups she poured an equal measure 
 compounded with a teaspoon, and Margaret 
 sipped from her stool and Plantagenet sip- 
 ped from his stool. It smacked of no qual- 
 ity libellous to temperance ; no one knew 
 what it was but Granny, but it was the most 
 ecstatic mixture mortal tongue could taste. 
 
 As they sat thus in the Elj'sian Fields of 
 enjoyment, Granny between them, crooning 
 beautiful old-time tales, with that film over 
 her faded eyes that wrung both their hearts 
 with aching tenderness, little Pat appeared 
 at the door. 
 
 " Mammy wants ye, Pleg !"
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 135 
 
 They laughed him to scorn. " Yer mam- 
 my niver sint that word up here!" said 
 Granny, sternly. And it was true. O'Ra- 
 gan Stuart himself, on those rare occasions 
 when the festive cup had obscured his senses 
 so he could only sprawl on his hands and 
 knees to his mother's room to Granny 
 was safe even from the shadow of connubial 
 reproach. Pat slunk away just in time to 
 avoid his mother, bearing a tray. 
 
 And she was the embodiment of gracious 
 smiles unaffected smiles true, valiant sym- 
 pathy. " Has any one whativer, anywheres, 
 been a-scoldin' of you, Plontogonet, my son ?" 
 she inquired, stoutly. 
 
 " No, mammy." 
 
 " Well for them ! If a son of mine, that's 
 descinded from such a descint as he is, can't 
 go on a bit o' progriss like his perginnitors 
 afore him, and take his bit ratinue along, 
 widout a little haythen Bamboo o' a school- 
 tacher, that niver had a candle blissed to her 
 sowl, sindin' down here to know the why 
 and the whyfore of it, then I'll be askin' the 
 why and the whyfore too; and I'll ask it,
 
 136 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 begorry, so she'll know whose voice it is 
 a-spakin' !" 
 
 With this she set down the tray. 
 
 " There's enough for the three o' ye ; and 
 the mate," said Mrs. O'Ragan, blushing 
 proudly, " is drissed wid a bit o' onion. Take 
 your enj'yment ! Sure ye're like three pays 
 in the one pod ! and I big Mrs. Stuart's par- 
 don for iver callin' her a bit o' a Bamboo. 
 She's one of us intirely." 
 
 Thus was the universal aspect of things 
 changed by the safe occupation of Sanctu- 
 ary. Still beaming beneficently, Mrs. O'Ra- 
 gan departed. 
 
 Margaret had grown used to the orna- 
 mentation of meat with an onion ; she fre- 
 quently clothed her own that way now, 
 fancying, by experience, that it provided 
 more enduring sustenance, and with her 
 heart resolutely set to a stainless past. 
 
 The three revelled in the enjoyment to 
 which Mrs. O'Ragan had referred them. 
 Granny told more tales, at some of which 
 they wept, at some of which they laughed ; 
 but in either case Margaret lifted her own
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 237 
 
 dainty handkerchief to wipe the tears from 
 Granny's cheeks for the lifting of her arms 
 to that height was a painful inconvenience 
 to Granny. 
 
 " Now for the cake !" said Margaret, and 
 ran lightly down the stairs to fetch it. 
 
 On opening the door she was met b}^ a 
 flood of water. The kitten the kitten 
 whom she had taken unwillingly, but with- 
 out question or reproach, from the very scum 
 of society and the throes of starvation this 
 kitten, Avith playful, investigating paws, had 
 turned both faucets over the sink, which she 
 had left spotlessly dry; her four loaves of 
 cake were submerged, disintegrated in watery 
 waste ; the floor itself was becoming a lake. 
 
 "Isaac!" she called, with instant indiffer- 
 ence to formalities, hearing a step in the hall 
 below. Isaac bounded up the stairs, turned 
 off the water, seized all the mop-rags avail- 
 able. 
 
 " I'll have it up before it leaks through 
 the floor. I'll see to it !" cried this descend- 
 ant of Abraham, cheerfully, his fine linen 
 already clinging limply to his wrists.
 
 138 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 Margaret's first thought had been that it 
 was an occasion of important peril. She 
 rushed to Agnes. " Oh, Agnes, my kitchen 
 is all in a flood ; the kitten turned on the 
 water. Isa Mr. Gilchrist is mopping it. 
 My four loaves of cake !" 
 
 " Have dey been also washed ?" 
 
 " Oh yes." 
 
 " Dar' ! I am so glad ; for I have made 
 you one loaf of cake dis mornin', and I t'ink 
 you shall have so much you will not weesh 
 it. Now you shall tako it." It was already 
 forced into Margaret's hands. " Now I \vili 
 go help my dear young mans." 
 
 Margaret appeared at the door, awe-struck 
 and awe-inspiring as the indirect author of 
 a considerable dilemma, holding her skirts 
 chastely from the indiscriminate wreckage 
 on the floor. What shall / do ?" 
 
 " Not'ing you go 'way ! It shall make 
 you seeck." 
 
 " It is very damp. I would not come in 
 here just now," said Isaac, wringing his mop 
 in an original but effective manner. " It is 
 very malarious in here just now," he laugh-
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 139 
 
 eel ; " and," he added, very kindly and seri- 
 ously, "you know I am very anxious about 
 you all the time." 
 
 .Margaret blushed with her old brightness 
 and bit her lip. " I do not know," said she, 
 tapping with her boot on the floor. Then 
 she burst out, impulsively, "I do not know 
 how to thank you both ! I do not know " 
 
 " Go 'way !" said Agnes. " Go 'way dis 
 minute ! You shall be seeck." 
 
 Margaret returned to Granny's room with 
 a better loaf of cake than she had ever made, 
 or could ever aspire to make, in her life ; and 
 there, in Granny's lap, with her excess of 
 ribbon trailing and bedraggled, and her wet 
 form looking preternaturally thin, sat the 
 kitten. 
 
 Margaret's eyes flashed, then she laughed. 
 
 " Well, why not ?" said she ; " we all 
 come !" She related the recent avalanche of 
 events. 
 
 " Well, well, she knew no better," said 
 Granny, very judicially, stroking the out- 
 cast. " The cake tastes like Agnes's cake." 
 The kitten was feasting: too. " So Isaac
 
 140 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 Gilky ran to help you ? This big soft chair 
 I'm settin' in he gav' me. I never knew 
 what comfort was afore, since I got rheu- 
 matiz. Run, Plontogonet, tell Isaac Gilky 
 when he's finished the flure to coom up 
 here !" 
 
 Margaret heard Plantagenet calling, naugh- 
 tily, from the lower flight, in a modulated 
 voice that did not reach his granny : 
 
 "Jerusalem! Mr. Jerusalem! Granny 
 wants ye when ye' re through !" 
 
 Margaret met his return with eyes of hope- 
 less reproach ; he leered uneasily and hung 
 his head. 
 
 After a while Isaac came in, beautifully 
 renewed in linen. 
 
 " It is always an honor to be called to you, 
 mother," he said, with a low bow before the 
 ancient dame. 
 
 She chuckled melodiously, and held his 
 hand. "Why do not ye marry my lassie, 
 my son?" she said, nodding with tender 
 family pride towards Margaret. " "Why do 
 not ye marry her and keep her out o' harm's 
 way ?"
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 141 
 
 " I could not presume to that, mother." 
 He stood frankly facing the old woman. 
 
 Plantagenet drew his stool, bustling an- 
 grily, over to Margaret's side, and she ex- 
 changed her look of reproach for one of un- 
 speakable welcome. They sat very close 
 together. 
 
 When Isaac turned, his look had no em- 
 barrassment. "Your kitchen is beautiful 
 now," he said, his great dark eyes resting on 
 her with their singularly humane and per- 
 sonally unmoved expression. 
 
 Plantagenet thrust his shock head against 
 her shoulder, she put an arm around him ; 
 she was very pale. 
 
 " I seem," she said, " helplessly to impose 
 on the kindness of a great many." Her 
 voice was a little bitter and very cold. 
 
 " Ye're my fam'ly, down from Sen' Ma- 
 rie!" asserted Plantagenet, fiercely, "and 
 Pll get yer 'states back for ye some time, 
 and Pll get ye outer custerdy !" Certainly 
 the two had the look of clinging to each 
 other against the world. 
 
 "Oh, Granny, how could you?" Isaac
 
 142 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 was gone, and she laid her head, broken- 
 hearted, in Granny's lap. 
 
 "Why, I've r'ason I've r'ason to," said 
 Granny, caressingly and undismayed. " Do 
 not ye trust him ? Do not ye trust him 
 some way or 'nother? Now tell me that." 
 
 " She don't !" cried Plantagenet, wrathful 
 in tears. " Her and me's goin' to be king and 
 quane when I'm growed. It don't make no 
 dif'rence for age 'mongst sech like, it's for 
 p'litical r'asons." 
 
 " You dear little old crazy Irishman my 
 darling boy," said Margaret, as they went 
 down the stairs together, "you must never 
 talk like that again ! I do not like it, and I 
 won't have it do you hear?" 
 
 " Yes'm," said Plantagenet, hopelessly, lift- 
 ing the great, pure, desolate stars of his eyes 
 to her. 
 
 When she had thrust the kitten into the 
 kitchen before the disaster, she had also 
 thrown her slender purse on the table. Now, 
 alone, she took it up, musing. " Just iifty 
 cents, and the rent due Saturday. Oh heav- 
 ens ! that / "
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 143 
 
 But the purse felt strange. She opened it, 
 and there, obscuring the residue of her own 
 fortune, were five crisp ten-dollar notes. 
 
 " Plantageuet !" She called him back. 
 "Have you been oh, this will break my 
 heart have you been stealing money and 
 putting it in my purse? Kow, by Sen' 
 Marie by Sen' Marie ?" 
 
 " By Sen' Marie, I didn' !" said Plantage- 
 net. It was enough ; he never lied by that 
 oath. 
 
 "Agnes!" She went to Agnes. "Have 
 you have you been putting money in my 
 purse?" 
 
 " Navaire !" said Agnes, whose word was 
 sufficient without oath. 
 
 " I could hardly be mistaken," said Mar- 
 garet, recovering through her quick pride a 
 diplomatic tone. " I have great confidence 
 in Mr. Gilchrist; he would not, of course, 
 Agnes, through however generous an im- 
 pulse, venture to do so insolent a thing?" 
 
 " My dear young mans, he is out !" said 
 Agnes, dismounting Margaret from her high 
 horse with simple social tenderness. "Lat
 
 144 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 me tell you ; dar is one poor Baptiste meen- 
 ester you call it ? \vid six childs, dat so 
 vary few go listen at him vary soon he lose 
 his place and break his heart, see? So every 
 Wadnesday night at dose evenin' meet'n' 
 you call it? also I t'ink Sunday, my dear 
 young mans go gadder mans and boy and 
 girl a number and parsuade dem (I t'ink 
 also he gets dem ' jobs ') to listen at him." 
 
 Margaret looked searchingly at Agnes. 
 Agnes returned the look with beautiful fond- 
 ness. Margaret went back to her rooms.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 MARGARET purposely loitered by a side 
 street on her way to the Herkimers next 
 morning until Isaac should take his usual 
 swing down the main road. 
 
 She gracefully, and, as it were, by chance, 
 intercepted him. " I fear you made a serious 
 mistake yesterday, Mr. Gilchrist. Doubtless 
 you laid your purse on my table to keep it 
 dry ; here it is. Have you mine ?" 
 
 " Is this yours ?" said Isaac, solemnly, tak- 
 ing out a large leathern book, worn and 
 masculine, and secured with a rubber band 
 an inch wide. 
 
 " You know that it is not. Probably mine 
 is lost ; it is of little consequence. Here, at 
 least, is yours." 
 
 "But I cannot take your money, dear 
 Mrs. Stuart. I would indeed, if I needed it, 
 Heaven bless you ! but I am not poor." 
 
 ID
 
 146 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 " I am poor," said Margaret, passionately, 
 " but I cannot take your money !" 
 
 As he would not reach his hand to take 
 it, she let it drop at his feet and turned 
 logo. 
 
 He overtook her, the little bone of their 
 contention in his hand. "Have I deserved 
 this of you ?" he said, pale, and his black eyes 
 blazing. " I a gentleman who hold sacred 
 the very ground you tread on !" The corpu- 
 lent little purse was pressed back into her 
 hand, his indignation towering over hers. 
 " You have made some mistake ; one often 
 does. I am perfectly justified in warranting 
 you that the contents of this purse are yours." 
 
 He raised his hat and stalked away, of- 
 fended dignity in his gait. Margaret sucked 
 in her underlip with the same childish sob 
 her grandfather had died with at eighty. 
 
 "I'll go by the shore road," she said. 
 " I'll sit down there and die. I do not care 
 whether I ever get anywhere or not. Ac- 
 tors are born, not made," she mused, with 
 curling lip, having found a comfortable rock 
 to be cast away upon. " I will post it to
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 147 
 
 him. How mad he can look ! It is not the 
 least in his heart, but the God of Abraham, 
 Isaac, and Jacob helps him to look mad, I 
 suppose." Having thus punished the absent 
 and defenceless Israelite with the fine lash 
 of her irony, she recovered her tone some- 
 what. " He ' holds sacred the ground I tread 
 upon !' So he holds sacred the earth walked 
 over by Mrs. Shaughnessy, Mrs. O'Ragan, 
 Agnes all ; he makes no distinction. And 
 he is ' goody-goody ' I do not like him." 
 
 Her eyes wandered desolately out to sea, 
 the untamed lakes of Plantagenet's pet his- 
 tory in them. The whistle of a steam-launch 
 blew, and, soon after the signal, groups of 
 young people began to gather on the beach. 
 Picnics were frequent and sacred in Yar- 
 mouth, and secular employments were not 
 allowed to interfere with them. 
 
 So Mildred's form appeared conspicuously 
 in gala dress Jeff, in the group, as canty 
 and loud as if he were one of the shop- 
 hands. 
 
 " Well, if it is gone so far that they will 
 go openly on a picnic together, Helen will
 
 148 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 soon kno\v," sighed Margaret. Insensibly 
 her form straightened; a sorrow that was 
 not for herself came over her face and gave 
 it a pensive dignity. Here were some chil- 
 dren more vexedly tossed on the sea of life 
 than she herself was. 
 
 Mildred saw her ; she hesitated, then 
 walked boldly over, flauntingly handsome. 
 
 "We're off on a little spree," she said, 
 rather condescendingly in her own pride of 
 spirits, seeing Margaret was so sad. 
 
 " You have not been to see me for a long 
 time, Mildred." 
 
 " I've been very busy." 
 
 " I see you are going to take Jeff," said 
 Margaret, with delusive simplicity. "You 
 are not going to have any more scruples." 
 
 " Yes, I am going to take him ! And, no 
 I am not going to kick against a little 
 good luck of my own, if I happen to have 
 it, any more ! I find folks look out for 
 themselves in this world, and I don't know 
 as I'm bound to beat the crowd for holi- 
 ness." 
 
 " I think you might have worn to-day the
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 149 
 
 dress I gave you," said Margaret, looking 
 wounded in her own sweetly audacious 
 manner. " You have never yet worn it." 
 
 "I can't! I feel 'funny' about that 
 dress. I'm going to put that on when I'm 
 good. So I'm keeping it to be laid out in. 
 I shall be good when I'm dead !" 
 
 " Like the Indians. I know. I often feel 
 that way myself." 
 
 Mildred looked curiously at her. " You're 
 getting peaked," she said, trying to sustain 
 her manner of disinterested gayety. 
 
 " Not at all. Is that the whistle blowing 
 for you ?" 
 
 " Say," said the girl, bending over to her 
 eagerly, "are things getting rocky with 
 you?" 
 
 "No, you ridiculous child. There's the 
 whistle again ; go, if you are going." 
 
 " Oh, I'm going fast enough ! I ain't go- 
 ing to break my heart for anybody. Say, 
 I've made up my mind what I'd ought to do, 
 and I'm going to do it. Jeff's a high-flyer 
 put it honest and so am I, and we can have 
 patience with each other see ?"
 
 150 STUAET AND BAMBOO 
 
 " You are not already married ?" 
 
 "No. We sha'n't deny it when we're 
 married ; we'll face the music. And Jeff is 
 only waiting for me !" She tossed her head. 
 
 " I can readily believe that." Margaret's 
 look was so sympathetic and so proud in the 
 girl's beauty, Mildred stepped suddenly down 
 from her attitude of defiance. 
 
 " You won't throw me off, will you, Mrs. 
 Stuart ? You you'd be my friend ?" 
 
 " I will be as good a friend to you as I 
 know how, always, Mildred, and I'll pray 
 God every day to help me to be a better 
 one." 
 
 Mildred did not look down into Margaret's 
 white face again lest she should have fore- 
 gone Jeff, the picnic, and all; she gathered 
 up her resolution and rushed away, and with 
 shouting, laughter, and the blowing of horns 
 the launch swept out of sight. 
 
 Margaret arose from her supine mood and 
 pursued her own way. 
 
 " Are you becoming melancholic, too ?" 
 said Mrs. Herkimer, wistfully, at the first 
 sight of her.
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 151 
 
 " Never ! My living depends, you know, 
 on my capacity for chirking." 
 
 " And you do it always ; but you needn't, 
 you know," said the captain's lady, smiling 
 wisely. " Judson has told us he's going to 
 marry ye, if he can get ye and he thinks 
 he can get ye." 
 
 " Then / should be melancholic, and have 
 to employ people to chirk me up. I 
 think, on the whole, I'd rather be a 
 chirker." 
 
 " Well, if ye could stand him, Mrs. Stuart, 
 captain and me would be pleased. There's 
 some we shouldn't like to think of as holding 
 that position over Helen ; but if you could 
 make up your mind to it, we should all be 
 pleased." 
 
 " That is good of you. Where is Stack ?" 
 
 " Now I've got to break your heart." 
 
 "Stack!" 
 
 "No, he ain't dead. Captain's took him 
 over to the island. He was gettin' so old, 
 and he giv' all his victuals to the puppy ; so 
 cap'n took him over to old man Deans on 
 the island. He'll take loviu' care of him.
 
 152 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 But Stack seemed to understand it all 
 you'd ought to seen his eyes !" 
 
 " I don't want to think of his eyes !" said 
 Margaret, flaming, and her lips trembling. 
 
 She stood over by the wall, by herself, a 
 moment, and Mrs. Herkimer had a vivid sus- 
 picion that she took out her handkerchief. 
 
 "Why, he wasn't human, Mrs. Stuart!" 
 
 Margaret made no reply. 
 
 "Well, I've got something else to break to 
 ye. Judson's comin' over to dinner." 
 
 " It would not become me, I am sure," said 
 Margaret, without an}' emotion whatever, " to 
 object to any guest you might choose to in- 
 vite to your house." 
 
 " Well, I wish ye'd make it kind of pleas- 
 ant for him. Ye're a woman that's been 
 used to everything that ever was. If ye see 
 a book ye want, ye buy it without thinkin' ; 
 if a beggar asks ye for a dime, out it comes 
 by natur' ; if yer gloves begin to look worn, 
 why it's the simple law and the prophets to 
 get new ones. That's the way it should be. 
 I like it in ye. But sometimes I see, perhaps 
 with winter and all comin', a kind of dilem-
 
 STUAKT AND BAMBOO 153 
 
 my, perhaps, corain' to ye. Men poor creat- 
 ures ! have to be taken up and cared for by 
 women, and the Lord forgive me ! but a 
 man's a man when ye look for any comfort 
 from 'em, and there ain't much to pick and 
 choose." 
 
 Margaret, whose antecedents were as 
 worldly as the best, naively admitted to 
 herself that the practical tenor of this ad- 
 vice was sound. She met the elder Sprague 
 at table with a forced, slight smile, which 
 wandered, almost in its inception, into a 
 look of frank pathos in another direc- 
 tion. 
 
 "Captain, how could you?" 
 
 "I know it; but that puppy imposed on 
 the old fellow's Christianity there ! I can't 
 think o' no other name for Stack ; and the 
 little dogs all around yapped and worried 
 him, and Stack never would turn on a little 
 dog never ! But I tell ye, Avhen the tide 
 serves, to-morrow, I'll take ye all over to see 
 him." 
 
 At this, Margaret, in spite of " company " 
 and Mrs. Herkimer's observing scandal, calm-
 
 154 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 ly put away the choice bits of her meat, as 
 usual. 
 
 " Too bad ! too bad !" said Judson Sprague, 
 attempting, with his usual salve of comment, 
 to enter generally into the conversation. 
 
 " He'll be taken the best of care of," contin- 
 ued the captain, unheeding; " but I miss him. 
 If it wasn't done, it never would be done. 
 When I pushed the boat off, Mrs. Stuart, and 
 left him, he didn't try to come. He under- 
 stood, and he minded ; but if ye'd seen 
 
 The captain, without shame, turned his 
 head away and had recourse to his pocket- 
 handkerchief. A short and distinct snivel 
 was heard from this man of hardy experi- 
 ence and cold heart. 
 
 Margaret bit in her underlip with her own 
 peculiar gasp of grief. 
 
 Mrs. Herkimer coughed sternly. " If you're 
 both going to cry," said she, " I must be ex- 
 cused from table. I'm particularly depressed 
 to-day, anyway. Of course Mr. Sprague and 
 I can't expect to stand in the affections of 
 you two along o' dogs." 
 
 "Pshaw, Nell!"
 
 STUAKT AND BAMBOO 155 
 
 " Did you ever weep for me, Captain Her- 
 kimer?" 
 
 "Why, what is there to weep about ye 
 for?" 
 
 " If you ever thought upon my sufferings, 
 you wouldn't need to ask." 
 
 "I don't see as ye do suffer. Ye have 
 everything ye want, and I take ye a sail 
 every pleasant day when the tide serves." 
 
 A sigh, like the last, long-despairing breath 
 of an autumn gust, escaped Mrs. Herkimer. 
 " ' Seein' they shall see and shall not under- 
 stand,' " said she, solemnly, leading the way 
 from the table before the captain's fatuous 
 brain could frame a reply. 
 
 In the parlor the captain sank down with 
 smiling comfort into one of the great chairs. 
 There was a look of permanency about him 
 which was like cordial to Margaret's secret 
 soul. 
 
 " Captain Herkimer," said his lady, " I 
 wish particularly to see you in the h'berary." 
 
 " Oh, I forgot, Nell," said the captain, leap- 
 ing, with a blush, to his feet, " what ye 
 what ye told me afore dinner !"
 
 156 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 Mrs. Herkimer retreated with her prize of 
 perspicuity in tow, and her manner suggested 
 disgust and bodily chastisement. Sarcastic 
 expostulation, however, was the only sound 
 borne back upon the air. 
 
 Margaret did not condescend to blush. 
 She faced her companion easily, with a little 
 ripple of cool laughter. 
 
 So ostensibly left to his designs, the pluto- 
 crat of Yarmouth did not, however, waver. 
 He had the captain's lack of astute percep- 
 tion, without his ingenuousness. 
 
 "I am glad that chance has offered me 
 this gracious opportunity," he said, inelliflu- 
 ously. 
 
 "I ascribe it, frankly," said Margaret, a 
 gleam of laughter still slightly disclosing her 
 white teeth, " to Mrs. Ilerkimer's good gen- 
 eralship." 
 
 " Ah, too bad ! But surely you will be 
 serious with me when I lay my heart at your 
 feet and ask you to marry me ?" 
 
 "And would you be serious in asking me 
 to marry you, knowing that I have no regard 
 whatever for you 2"
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 157 
 
 " Ah, most serious ; for I should make it 
 the blissful occupation of my existence to 
 win that regard." 
 
 " I think the less time you devoted to the 
 purpose the more likely you would be to 
 succeed," said Margaret, in simple self-de- 
 fence, induced by the horror of his ingrati- 
 ating leer. 
 
 " Ah, you shall be as cruel as you like, dear 
 Mrs. Stuart, only say ' Yes '." 
 
 " I cannot do that," said the lady, with 
 sudden determination, " but I will consider 
 your very kind expressions. I will think of 
 what you have said," she added, restlessly. 
 " Will you excuse me ? I must be on my 
 Avay home." 
 
 "Am I to congratulate you?" said Mrs. 
 Herkimer, with low -voiced gravity, at the 
 door. 
 
 " Yes, on my present escape." 
 
 The captain's lady indulged in surrepti- 
 tious mirth. " I knew ye wouldn't bite at 
 the first fly. But Judson can fish as patient 
 as the foolishest of 'em." 
 
 The captain was farther on, at the gate.
 
 158 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 His sraile was fatherly and, under the cir- 
 cumstances, idiotic. 
 
 " Wai, ye got it all fixed up?" he inquired, 
 with heroic cheerfulness. 
 
 " No, it was another exhibition of my en- 
 counter with the eel. I screamed and ran 
 away." 
 
 " I'm dum glad on it dum !" said the hero 
 of the seas, revelling in untamed English in 
 the absence of his spouse, "for your sake! 
 For Helen's sake, and ourn, I wish ye could. 
 I don't want to spread reports about Judson 
 but, slippery ? Yes, sir ; some of his trans- 
 actions have been slippery. Jeff's honest, 
 but he's onsteady. I don't bite that way for 
 Helen so fierce as Nell does." He sighed. 
 
 Margaret did not say that if she married 
 Judson Sprague she was likely to be mother- 
 in-law to Duds Sen' Tammy of the lobster 
 factory, rather than to the heiress of the Her- 
 kimers. 
 
 "When is the picnic launch in?" she asked. 
 The captain was a recognized time-table on 
 the incoming of all craft. 
 
 " Due at seven ; but when them high-flown
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 159 
 
 birds o' plumage from the shops get off, I al- 
 ways allow 'em an extra hour for flutin' and 
 sand-gallopinV 
 
 Drawn by some irresistible impulse, Mar- 
 garet found herself, by moonlight, on the 
 rock where she had been cast away in the 
 morning, still waiting for the boat -signal. 
 It came, alarmingly tardy, and jubilantly de- 
 fiant of the fact. Margaret thought the 
 gayety of some vinously irresponsible, and 
 their steps marked by a suspicious irresolu- 
 tion. 
 
 Among this latter number Mildred and 
 Jeff emerged and came digressively, without 
 yet seeing her, towards the cluster of rocks 
 where she sat. 
 
 Jeff carried a market-basket in which jelly- 
 tumblers, or champagne - bottles, or both, 
 clattered noisily as he walked, without his 
 particular observation. Mildred lurched 
 against him, to her own self -astonishment, 
 and they both laughed with endearing good- 
 nature. 
 
 " Hide basket here in rocks till nex' pic- 
 nic," said Jeff. "Beg pardon! Oh, Mrs.
 
 160 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 Stuart ! How d' ye do ? 'Lighted !" Jeff 
 gave his cap a low sweep. 
 
 Mildred looked as though she had seen a 
 ghost. " Been here, deares' friend, all day ?" 
 she inquired, with great aplomb, however. 
 
 " Shall be 'lighted t' see two such lovely 
 ladies home," said Jeff, the color in his genial, 
 boyish face not disparaged by the coldness 
 of the moonlight. 
 
 " Jeff," said Mildred, severely, her beauti- 
 ful hair tossed about her Madonna-like feat- 
 ures, "I won't have it! We'd make holy 
 show o' 'rselves. You take Mrs. Stuart. I 
 go home 'lone !" 
 
 " Goin' to see you home. Don't care a 
 damn !" said Jeff ; a true Lochinvar, in spite 
 of difficulties. 
 
 "Go as quietly straight home as you 
 can," said Margaret, who had risen, laying 
 her hand in sane admonishment on Jeffrey's 
 shoulder. " I will see Mildred home."
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 MARGAEET felt that she had reason to 
 doubt whether the willingness of Mildred 
 and Jeff to excuse each other's delinquencies 
 would much conspire, on the whole, to their 
 mutual benefit. 
 
 Mildred was in such a state that she had 
 brought her to her own room, covering, with 
 the alert secrecy of a sister, her unsteady 
 progress up the backstairs. 
 
 "Good -night, deares' friend," Mildred 
 had said with the utmost complacency, ac- 
 cepting at once the proffered comforts of 
 Margaret's bed. So Margaret had propped 
 herself in her chair by the fire. The girlish 
 face on the pillow, as she glanced at it now 
 and then, was so chaste in feature and so 
 free from any mark of dissipation, she found 
 it hard to believe that Mildred had gone, that 
 night, to the extent of actual intoxication.
 
 162 STUAKT AND BAMBOO 
 
 At all events, her heart was as savagely 
 maternal over her as over her other wan- 
 dering star, Plantagenet. No one should 
 know, no one should accuse, no one should 
 reproach. 
 
 Present defence rather than mental analy- 
 sis of the misdoings of her friends, was Mar- 
 garet's attitude; wherein she and Granny 
 Stuart, in her " Sanctuary " up-stairs, did in- 
 deed seem members corporate of one imme- 
 morial family. 
 
 " What have they been doin' to ye, my 
 quane, darlin' ?" For Margaret, restless her- 
 self, seeing Mildred safely sleeping, and know- 
 ing that Granny's lamp was burning, had 
 softly made her way thither over the tene- 
 ment stairs in a dressing-gown fit for a 
 princess. Margaret was getting reduced to 
 some of her finest apparel. 
 
 "What have they been doin' to ye?" 
 
 " Oh, Granny, I love to come to you even 
 when I'm not abused !" 
 
 If she had been born of Granny's own 
 self, a fiercer love -light could not have 
 flamed in the faded old eyes. "Well ye
 
 STUAKT AND BAMBOO 163 
 
 may ! The first day ye came, Bridget O'Ka- 
 gan cam' up here to me. ' She's a bamboo,' 
 says she. ' Whish !' says I, 'I see her come 
 up the path. She's a Stuart,' says I. ' What's 
 her name ?' says I. ' Stuart,' says she." Gran- 
 ny chuckled with spring-time laughter. 
 
 " ' Her husband's did,' says she, ' wid no 
 insurance on him. Her two babbies wint 
 afther, like aingil sirruphs, callin' Daddy,' 
 says she. ' She had a raillen dollars in the 
 banks,' says she, ' and thim as counts it over 
 ivery Satherday night grapped it up the 
 thaves! and rinned away wid it. No hide 
 or hair to thim was iver found,' says she." 
 
 Margaret listened in stupefied admiration 
 throughout to this unconscious testimony to 
 Mrs. O'Ragan's glories in the line of fictional 
 art. 
 
 " But it was not that way at all, Granny, 
 dear." 
 
 " Niver mind ! niver mind !" said Granny, 
 still on fire, and unheeding. "I'll see ye 
 blissed yet, I will !" 
 
 The old face became at once softened and 
 broodingly wise. For Granny was no com-
 
 164 STUAET AND BAMBOO 
 
 mon old woman ; she had tremendous ideals ; 
 she had a heart unzoned by any earthly cir- 
 cumference. 
 
 Isaac Gilchrist heard three raps of Gran- 
 ny's poker on her wood - box. Margaret 
 thought she was merely tightening the han- 
 dle of that article. Margaret knew some of 
 the signals of the tenements, but not all. 
 She was not even alarmed by the fact that 
 Granny took off her apron with the plain 
 button in the back and put on the white one 
 with strings. Isaac had received by the 
 post that night a package, whose authorship 
 he instantly divined; he knew the contents 
 before he opened it, and he seemed to dread 
 to open it. 
 
 At last he did so, possessed by the vision 
 of a note, perhaps, wafting the same elusive 
 perfume, some gracious words commensurate 
 with his own ardor of simple loyalty. 
 
 But there was no note; there was only 
 the sordid fact of the fifty dollars. 
 
 Slowly he unbound the leathern book and 
 put the notes therein. With extreme pa- 
 tience he folded the wrapper with the hand-
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 165 
 
 writing, and that he placed deliberately, 
 with persevering care, in the breast-pocket 
 of his coat. 
 
 He then took an attitude before his fire, 
 with both hands clasped about his knees, 
 and, without paper or pen, pursued for a 
 long time his desolate researches into hu- 
 man philosophy. 
 
 It was thus that he heard Granny rap 
 three times with her poker on her wood- 
 box. 
 
 " Poor old mother !" said he, rising. " She's 
 in trouble for somebody. It's never herself 
 grand old soul !" 
 
 So he sprang up the stairs and rapped at 
 the door. 
 
 " Coom ye in ! Why it's Isik !" said 
 Granny, with a diplomatic surprise worthy 
 of worldlier circles. 
 
 Isaac smiled ; he never betrayed a lady. 
 Margaret looked pathetically glorious on 
 her stool in Granny's poor little room. 
 
 " I came to say good-night, mother. You 
 must pardon my coming so late I was very 
 busy."
 
 106 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 "I'll pardon yer comin' late, but niver 
 yer goin' without a word, Isik." 
 
 So Isaac took Plantagenet's stool. The 
 news of the day, the weather, his constant 
 interest in both ladies on all these themes 
 he discoursed in his usual calm manner. 
 
 Margaret, in Granny's immediate proxim- 
 ity and leaning against her chair, had at first 
 regarded him with eyes in which a hint of 
 contemptuous triumph was not easily con- 
 cealed. 
 
 As he continued to meet her look so 
 gravely and unconsciously, with uninter- 
 mitted kindness, she grew safely piqued. 
 
 " Did you receive it back ?" said the great 
 eyes from the queenly head leaning against 
 Granny's chair. " Do you not think I have 
 won ? I usually win. Are you not punished 
 for your insolence ?" 
 
 But the Jew pursued the even tenor of his 
 way. 
 
 " One o' ye comes to me, and then the 
 ither comes to me !" said Granny, gladly, 
 unobservant of all tactics save her own. 
 " Some time ye'll be comin' to me togither!"
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 167 
 
 Margaret laughed slightly, without regard, 
 as though she were at some small theatre con- 
 doning the crudeness of the actors. 
 
 " Here, take her, my son !" continued Gran- 
 ny, aloud, in the uninterrupted flow of her 
 innocent aspirations " take her to the priest 
 and marry her. She's fit for ye ! Come and 
 take her, I say, and take keer o' her. She's 
 wurstlin' wi' the world, poor darlin', and 
 she's no fit to wurstle wi' the world." 
 
 " Granny Granny, you are going too 
 far !" Margaret drew her head back, color- 
 less. 
 
 " ISTot to - night, mother," said Isaac, very 
 calmly, rising. " Yes, I will take her to the 
 priest and marry her, but not to-night." 
 
 He held out his hand to Granny and bow- 
 ed low over hers. He held out his hand, 
 firm, unshrinking, warm, to Margaret. She 
 turned from him and went to the window. 
 So he bowed where she had stood, and with- 
 out one glance of understanding with Gran- 
 ny thereafter so grave a gentleman was he 
 left the room. 
 
 Margaret, standing frigid by the window,
 
 168 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 heard a sob. She turned. Yes, there was 
 the film over Granny's old eyes. 
 
 " I wouldn't hurt a hair o' yer sweet head ! 
 I loove ye ! I loove ye !" 
 
 That straining film, the heart-broken catch- 
 ing of the breath in one so aid, so infinitely 
 loving though Granny had humbled her to 
 the dust, Margaret would have rushed to her, 
 stung by such compunction, put her arms 
 about her and taken to her own cheeks the 
 tears from those withered ones. 
 
 "Ye should no' be so highty-tighty, little 
 one ! I been a lang, lang journey in this auld 
 world. I worked a lang, lang stent in it afore 
 me auld honds failed me. I seen mony men 
 and mony things. There's no mony men like 
 Isik. When I was a little girl like you, I seen 
 the rivers rollin' in a far, far land- 
 Granny's old mind was moving, as it did 
 sometimes, in large rather than distinct areas. 
 "A little girl like me! Oh, look at 
 me, Granny !" Margaret laughed tenderly 
 through her own tears. 
 
 "Aye, so ye be ! But I don't worry of ye 
 anymore. Isik '11 keep liairm from ye. He
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 169 
 
 b'langs to Holy Church. He don't know it, 
 the chiel, but he b'langs. So do ye, but ye're 
 no' so true to the faith as Isik, my poor dar- 
 lin'. No, ye're no' so true to yer faith as 
 Isik." 
 
 " There is one promise, at least," thought 
 Margaret, going down the stairs, " that 
 ' Isaac' will never be held accountable for !" 
 
 Granny's model young man heard the soft 
 swish of that descending dress. His black 
 eyes glowed exultantly, as though his hearth- 
 fires were already kindled. 
 
 Margaret, after another shielding look at 
 the erring beauty on her bed, composed her- 
 self again in her chair as best she could.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 MARGARET slipped out early to her kitchen 
 to prepare a breakfast. She left the door 
 ajar lest Mildred should escape unobserved 
 a thing which that young woman, with 
 a face of dark despair, came very near 
 doing. 
 
 " Mildred, come ! Help me! I'm in such 
 a mess !" 
 
 Margaret's house-keeping was always con- 
 veniently and that without much affecta- 
 tion serving the purposes of tragedy. 
 
 "The bacon fat's on fire!" 
 
 Mildred subdued this holocaust, but there 
 was a fire of shame on her own face not so 
 easily vanquished. 
 
 "I little thought," said Margaret, "that, 
 because I happened to have a very plain 
 breakfast, you would not sit down and eat 
 it with me." And the reproach in her eyes
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 171 
 
 was for this present inhumanity of treat- 
 ment, and for nothing else. 
 
 " I've had your bed all night, now you 
 want me to eat your breakfast." 
 
 " Once," said Margaret, " there was a cer- 
 tain woman went down by boat to Yar- 
 mouth, and thereupon she fell deadly ill, and 
 a certain dear girl with a great big heart 
 gave her her own nest in the cabin, and made 
 her warm, and cured her headache, and sat 
 up herself all night long." 
 
 The tears began to run down Mildred's 
 cheeks and fall on her burnt bacon, which 
 was already exceedingly bitter. 
 
 " You'll pity me and be good to me, but 
 you won't love me any more." 
 
 Margaret rushed over from her chair and 
 practically demonstrated the falsehood of 
 this statement by a warm and tenacious em- 
 brace. 
 
 " I never did that thing before," sobbed 
 the girl. " Jeff didn't take it out of the cellar, 
 though he bought it himself !" 
 
 " Well, that is something to be proud of, 
 at least."
 
 172 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 " And we were th-thirsty, and it did t-taste 
 nice ; but it's like everything else you have 
 to c-cry in the end." 
 
 " I know it," said Margaret, with a look 
 only of the clearest sympathy. "I wish I 
 were unselfish and good, so I could talk to 
 you about self-denial and spurning tempta- 
 tion. But I will only tell you that when I 
 discovered you down at the beach last night, 
 and when you lay there on the bed, it just 
 about broke my heart; for I've always been 
 so proud of you, and ever since the first time 
 I saw you, you know, it has seemed as though 
 you belonged to me." 
 
 "/seemed to belong to you?" 
 
 "Why, certainly. Nothing in the world 
 could ever alter that." 
 
 " I guess," said Mildred, rising with a sud- 
 den intimation of buoyancy where she had 
 been downcast and confused, " if I ever touch 
 that stulf again, it '11 be poisoned first and set 
 on fire! But see here! could could things 
 be getting a little rocky, perhaps, for you to 
 stand ?" 
 
 " Nonsense ! Do you think you deserved
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 173 
 
 a sumptuous breakfast this morning? Run 
 along to } T our work, and do not criticise the 
 means I have seen fit to use for your chasten- 
 ing." 
 
 Never had Margaret's laugh sounded mer- 
 rier. When Mildred was gone, however, she 
 leaned her head on the table in dreary appre- 
 hension : 
 
 " ' Rocky ' ? Oh, what is this coming to ? 
 Yesterday I found it pecuniarily convenient 
 to purchase only three rolls, and the shop- 
 girl had the good-natured, unconscious heart- 
 lessness to ask me if I ' was not taking big 
 chances ?' What is it all" 
 
 " For'erd, march ! Folly yer leader !" called 
 the voice of the captain of the " Pluck and 
 Liver Corps " ; and with an ever-ready aspira- 
 tion to be diverted somehow from her sor- 
 rows, Margaret rose and went to the window. 
 
 She was astonished to be the only visible 
 spectator of the painfully elaborated scene 
 there in progress. The mature occupants 
 of the tenements being mostly employed in 
 the rear at this hour, Plantagenet was fear- 
 lessly re-enacting some of the bloodiest of
 
 174 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 barbaric annals in the very front of Catholic 
 Christendom. 
 
 The dirty and wondering little Kate 
 Shaughnessy six years comprised her earth- 
 ly experience was erected upon a scaffold, 
 which consisted exclusively of an inverted 
 wash-tub, time-worn and inclined to sprawl, 
 and poised on the rim of this same tragic 
 elevation stood Tommy Sullivan, brandish- 
 ing the executioners axe, a weapon composed 
 in this case, as Margaret rejoiced to see, sim- 
 ply of a broad chip, tied, with the natural 
 indecision of a white cotton string, to a 
 broom handle. 
 
 But even this was not intended to descend 
 upon Katie. She represented Sen' Marie 
 Stuart, whom Plantagenet, taking the se- 
 quel of his chosen history deliberately into 
 his own hands, was about to rescue. 
 
 The marvelling Katie had, in a less inter- 
 esting hour of the morning, stolen a cucum- 
 ber from a neighboring garden; it was too 
 large for the pocket of the one garment she 
 wore, and she now grasped its exposed portion 
 convulsively with her broad red little hand,
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 175 
 
 as a safeguard against the astounding events 
 of time. 
 
 " For' erd, march! Folly yer leader!'' It 
 was not as a pedestrian that Plantagenet ap- 
 peared at this proud crisis. As the troop, to 
 the clatter of several tin -pail covers and 
 one diseased mouth-organ, swung round the 
 corner of the house to the rescue, Margaret 
 beheld her boy, the remnants of " H. M. S. 
 Mohawk" courageously flaunting one ear, 
 seated on his own mother's cow. 
 
 The cow, accustomed to being led, followed 
 in demure obedience the one small and wicked 
 boy at the other end of her halter, whose 
 trousers were held in place by a meat skewer. 
 As the cavalcade approached, Katie's immu- 
 table wonder changed instantly to a thorough- 
 ly sensible yell of distinct distress. The boy 
 with the skewer halted the cow at the block, 
 where she bent at once to an unperturbed 
 search for grass. Plantagenet reached over 
 to draw up Marie Stuart, alias Katie, to his 
 saddleless mount. She resisted lustily. In 
 view of execution she had maintained a 
 calm, even an awesomely expectant atti-
 
 176 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 tilde, but she naturally objected to being 
 rescued. 
 
 In the frantic struggle, the top of the 
 wash-tub caved in, and Katie went with it ; 
 the cow, startled at last both by the spec- 
 tacle and the crash, lifted her head, swung 
 her tail, and flung out to the highway with 
 Plantagenet clinging dauntlessly to her neck. 
 The array, without the slightest regard for a 
 long -sustained course of martial discipline, 
 tore after Plantagenet and the cow. And 
 ere Margaret could descend to a wholly in- 
 formal rescue of the quasi queen, both Mrs. 
 O'Ragan and Mrs. Shaughnessy stood on the 
 spot. 
 
 " 'Tis a fine lot o' milk yer coo '11 be giv- 
 in' the night, Bridget, wid that divil of a 
 Pleg ridin' the poor domesthic cr'atur' all 
 over town on his haythen progrissions !" 
 
 Mrs. O'Ragan had this thought herself 
 and was wrathy ; but at this sally, the point 
 of her anger turned. 
 
 " Sure I can't hilp it at all, if my childern 
 is that will descinded they be rampajus wid 
 the glory of it. It's not her coo a thrue
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 177 
 
 mother's heart Vd be thinkin' of, it's her 
 darlin' child." 
 
 " Oh," cried Mrs. Shaughnessj, with a sar- 
 castic laugh, "I lay yer worry, then. Never 
 fear. Pleg Stuart '11 get home safe to his 
 supper though he's drowndit by sea, and 
 flailed by land. 'Tis poor little innercents 
 like my Katie is in danger o' bein' kilt by 
 the likes o' him. Will ye have a bit o' salt 
 on yer fruit, my sweet lamb?" said Mrs. 
 Shaughnessy, straining Katie to her bosom, 
 who, in turn, had renewed her embrace of 
 her cucumber. 
 
 "If ye allow yer child to ate a grane 
 melon o' that size espicially one that 
 she's broke God's holy law by st'alin', don't 
 be layin' the dith of her to my Pleg !" said 
 Mrs. O'Kagan. 
 
 Mrs. Shaughnessy set Katie down and 
 squared off. Mrs. O'Ragan was drawing her 
 waist-cable to the seeming point of belliger- 
 ency, when a dapper form appeared in the 
 distance which drew the absorbing gaze of 
 both. 
 
 " 'Tis old Sprague for his rint. The low- 
 
 12
 
 178 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 ness of him ! to go around collectin' of his 
 own rints !" 
 
 "Thrue for ye, Bridget Stuart. 'Tis a 
 thrue word ye're sp'akin'." 
 
 "I hope yer headache is betther to-day, 
 Kate Shaughnessy." 
 
 "Much better, Mrs. O'Ragan Stuart, 
 ma'am thank ye, kindly." 
 
 "Come in and have a sup o' tay wid me, 
 Mrs. Shaughnessy, ma'am. I was jist put- 
 tin' the same to draw on the stove whin 
 Plontogonet distressed me so wid his be- 
 havior. Faith, he's a-wearin' the life o' 
 me." 
 
 " Plontogonet's a fine, handsome boy as 
 iver slipped abroad, and '11 soon be out-grow- 
 in' his bit o' wildness." 
 
 In sweet amicability, the two climbed the 
 steps together, Katie following with her cu- 
 cumber, her round face wearing its normal 
 expression of blank astonishment. 
 
 Margaret, whose rooms were sublet to her 
 by Mrs. O'Kagan, had no dealing with the 
 rent-collector, and not desiring to meet him 
 on the way out, she waited till he should
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 179 
 
 have made his departure before starting on 
 her walk to the Herkimers. 
 
 But he anticipated her by an emissary- 
 no less than Mrs. O'Ragan herself, in a state 
 of disgust. 
 
 " "Tis old Sprague has been skinnin' us of 
 our rint again, Mrs. Stuart, dear; and he 
 says he has a missage for you from Mrs. 
 Herkimer, so I sint him in me parlor, know- 
 in' I could sphrinkle it wid holy wather after 
 I have it rid of the prisence of him." 
 
 " Won't you sprinkle a little over me be- 
 fore I go down ?" said Margaret, meeting the 
 other's eyes with full solemnity. 
 
 " Oh, darlin' one, when ye come back to 
 the church that loves ye, ye shall have an 
 annointin' niver forget !" 
 
 Margaret opened the "parlor" door and 
 stood leaning against it. Her attitude ex- 
 pressed not so much dislike as a weary in- 
 difference. 
 
 "Mrs. Herkimer wished me to remind you 
 that she is expecting you. Oh, why should 
 you be at anybody's call, you beautiful creat- 
 ure !" Judson broke off, but in a scrupu-
 
 180 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 lously soft voice. " Too bad ! too bud ! 
 Why should you suffer when there are pro- 
 tecting arms open to receive you ?" 
 
 He spread his cuffs abroad and even ap- 
 proached her. Her eyes, twice their natural 
 size, were as full of pure horror and specula- 
 tion as Plantagenet's when he saw uncanny 
 aspects at night after a misspent day. 
 
 Judson was not flattered by this regard, 
 but he thought it a good time to proceed. 
 
 " "Why will you not drop the burden and 
 let me bear it for you ? Ah, you must ! I 
 have the intimation the intimation of love 
 that you cannot bear the burden much 
 longer. Let it fall. Let it fall, sweet one, 
 and be buried in my heart." 
 
 Margaret, still with her wide, spectre-see- 
 ing eyes, caught her breath in her own pe- 
 culiar sob. 
 
 " There, there ! I ask you to make no 
 demonstration not even a word. I will 
 simply call you mine and I forever your 
 slave. Why should you be so proud ? And 
 yet I wish you proud. Not a word ! not a 
 word ! You look very pale and tired. Let
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 181 
 
 the day for our marriage be as early as pos- 
 sible. Farewell, my own, farewell !" 
 
 " ' Pale and hungry] he was going to say," 
 thought Margaret, and reaching her room, 
 laughed, and then lay back in her chair 
 trembling. 
 
 " I am not engaged to him. He is like an 
 ugly spell ; he enthralled my imagination in 
 a moment of weakness and faintness. Oh, 
 Isaac ! Isaac ! Isaac ! I trust you ! I almost 
 1 But to be taken up as an incompetent 
 by you, to be cared for out of pity never ! 
 never! I will marry Judson Sprague first, 
 and show you that there can be glaciers as 
 cold as yourself."
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 " BUSSED SAINT ANTHONY " Margaret 
 heard Mrs. O'Ragan in the hall " I've lost 
 me coo!" 
 
 It was only one phase of the flexible strain, 
 " Blessed Saint Anthony, I've lost me glass- 
 es!" or "Blessed Saint Anthony, restore me 
 me choppin'-tray !" or whatever. 
 
 Never was a patron saint more indulgent ; 
 and, as she was going out, Margaret was not 
 surprised to hear, "Thanks to blissqd Saint 
 Anthony, Mrs. Stuart, dear, me coo's re- 
 stored." 
 1 " And Plantagenet ?" 
 
 " The b'ys say, when the coo shook him 
 off he borryd a dory along shore and put off 
 on a progriss to the island the gall o' him !" 
 
 " People ought not to lend a dory to such 
 a young boy alone." 
 
 " Blame no one, dear, for none was nigh.
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 183 
 
 He borryd it free and aisy, like thim kings 
 and quanes afore him, begorry ; and coy he'll 
 be about comin' in and lavin' it on the beach, 
 and then rin to his granny. 'Tis a regular 
 thayeter I'm livin' in, and not like the mither 
 of a baptized family at all. God help me !" 
 
 " Blessed Saint Anthony ! blessed Saint 
 Anthony !" murmured Margaret, on her way 
 to the Herkimers, " do not let me lose my 
 heart ! One can bear all things if one does 
 not lose one's heart. A Christian has no af- 
 finity for a Jew, though sometimes now 
 she bit her lip as warmly as though there 
 had been any one near to see her confusion 
 "it does comfort me that he is always 'so 
 anxious about me ' ' so anxious about me ' !" 
 
 As for Plantagenet, she felt a bit of family 
 pride in the dauntless way he was conserving 
 the talents of the primitive aristocracy since 
 Mrs. Shaughnessy had said, " By sea or land 
 he would come home safe to his supper " ; for 
 Margaret had another wayward impulse to 
 feel that the light would go out of her life if 
 she should lose Plantagenet. 
 
 When, at evening, the "tide served," she
 
 184 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 preceded the Herkimers with whom she was 
 to take the promised sail to the island to see 
 Stack in a stroll to the beach. 
 
 But there was no sail to the island that 
 night. Stack was coming home. He had 
 stay ed loyally and un complain in gly; but now 
 he had a good excuse, and he was coming 
 home. In the distance Margaret saw him, 
 and he was holding a tawny head that she 
 knew above the waves. 
 
 Plantagenet's "borrowed" craft, ill -ma- 
 noeuvred in the mounting sea, had upset him 
 as he pursued his homeward trip. Stack, 
 looking wistfully across, had seen the boy 
 clinging to the boat and drifting outward, 
 and had himself, with the last swift exertion 
 of his old age, organized a rescue. He was 
 coming home with the hero of many advent- 
 ures, himself to be a sublimated hero at last. 
 
 Margaret looked wildly about her. She 
 saw Helen coming down the lane in advance 
 of her father and mother, and ran to her. 
 " Plantagenet is drowned !" she said, her face 
 perfectly colorless, "and Stack is bringing 
 him home ! Run run for Isaac !"
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 185 
 
 " Isaac ?" 
 
 "Isaac Gilchrist! He can save him, if 
 there is any hope ! Oh, Helen, run !" 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 " In/the place where I live ! Take the short 
 cut over the cliffs ! He may be nearer ! he 
 may be on the road ! He is usually coming 
 home at this hour ! Oh, run ! run !" 
 
 " Go meet my father ! He can save them 
 in the boat if Stack gives out !" cried Helen, 
 reasonably, and then ran as she was bid. 
 
 " Plantagenet is dead !" gasped Margaret, 
 meeting the captain. " Stack is bringing him 
 home the boat !" 
 
 But before the captain had reached the beach 
 and could board his dory, Stack, bravely, des- 
 perately swimming, was too near for that aid ; 
 so he did it all himself. He brought Plan- 
 tagenet in, and he himself lay panting on the 
 beach. 
 
 " Yes, the boy's gone, I'm afraid," said the 
 captain, dolefully shaking his head ; " but I 
 might try." 
 
 But Margaret had taken the drowned body 
 in her arms, sheltering it almost fiercely. She
 
 186 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 had seen the lids close over too many be- 
 loved eyes. In extremities she had never, 
 now, any hope of life ; so she held the limp 
 form when Isaac came bounding to them 
 over the cliffs. 
 
 " Give him to me !" he said. Margaret 
 shook her head, the tears running piteously 
 down her cheeks and dropping on Plantag- 
 enet's streaming curls. 
 
 With gentlest force Isaac loosened the boy 
 from her grasp, and, with swift action, and 
 orders to those not too despairing to assist 
 him, in no long time he had the briny deep 
 pumped out of Plantagenet and the breath 
 of life faintly heaving in him again. 
 
 " Sure as I'm a sinner the little devil's 
 breathin' !" cried the captain, in unbelieving 
 joy, while Margaret's face went from pallor 
 to an amazing rose color. 
 
 " Let us remember, captain," his lady ad- 
 jured him, "that we've just been standin' on 
 the brink of eternity." 
 
 " I supposed the boy'd pitched over," re- 
 sponded the captain, cheerfully. "If it 
 hadn't been for that Jew?" he indicated
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 187 
 
 the place where Isaac was still leaning over 
 Plantagenet. 
 
 " Yes," said Margaret, and very proudly. 
 Jew or Christian, it was sufficient to her 
 mind to have a knight who could bring the 
 dead to life. 
 
 No one had much noticed the old dog, 
 Stack, nor had he thought of his own condi- 
 tion, gazing with all his heart at the efforts 
 to restore this last trophy of his magnanim- 
 ity and prowess. But now it was evident 
 that it was Stack, and not Plantagenet, who 
 was dying. 
 
 When the captain saw this he went and 
 stood over him with a pale face, and his lady 
 took her place in unreproachful sympathy 
 at his side. But Stack's solemn eyes were 
 turned full upon Margaret, and with a sharp 
 pang of remorse and love she went over and 
 encircled his wet, shaggy neck with her arms. 
 
 Then came the last conversation they ever 
 had together, and it was a brief one an in- 
 audible but clearly understood language of 
 the eyes. 
 
 " I am very sorry for you," said Stack,
 
 188 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 utterly unselfish to the last ; " it is hard for 
 you to see me die." 
 
 At this Margaret gave him a look which 
 opened without further pain the ascending 
 gates of life to him. For, as she pressed her 
 sweet face against his, already cold, the strug- 
 gle was over. 
 
 " I wish you to come with me, if you will " 
 she heard Isaac's kind voice. " I am go- 
 ing to take the boy home. Come !" 
 
 She rose vaguely but obediently. With 
 Plantagenet in his arms, and Margaret at his 
 side, it was a strangely assorted, remarkable- 
 looking company that started up the cliff 
 path home. 
 
 Now that the stray lamb's arms hung so 
 limp over Isaac's shoulder, Margaret saw 
 how the boy had grown of late, and that his 
 jacket and trousers, though never so gener- 
 ously supplemented with fortunate bits of 
 fabric, impartial in color and design, had 
 still been unable to keep pace with the swift 
 evolutions of time. 
 
 Moreover, Isaac, though so strong, was of 
 slender build, and the resistless members of
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 189 
 
 this lost one of the flock seemed to surround 
 him, crayfish-like. And in this manner he 
 whom Plantagenet had so often and wilfully 
 called " Jerusalem," bore the Catholic prince 
 of the house of Stuart very carefully and 
 tenderly up the steeps. 
 
 The rescued one himself, though so weak, 
 was proud nothing less. To have been 
 overturned in a dory betwixt shores, to 
 have been in deathly peril, and to have 
 been towed ashore by a dog it was a con- 
 summation of bliss that sat nobly on his 
 features. 
 
 " Granny !" he demanded, faintly, and 
 Margaret and Isaac nodded. 
 
 This was the evening hour when the free^ 
 born of the tenements rallied one another 
 from their front door-steps. The trio crept 
 softly up the dark backstairs. 
 
 "What have they been doin' to ye, my 
 lamb ?" cried Granny. 
 
 "A wicked boat overturned him," said 
 Isaac, without perceptible sarcasm ; " a noble 
 dog saved him." 
 
 " God rest his so\vl!" said Granny, fervent-
 
 190 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 ly, irrespective of race or kind, and raised 
 her eyes and crossed herself. 
 
 "Have you just a bit of beef, Agnes?" 
 said Margaret, appearing at that matron's 
 door. " I happen to be out, and I need it at 
 once for some one who is ill." 
 
 It was given eagerly. 
 
 " And will 3 r ou come and help me make it 
 into beef-tea, Agnes ?" 
 
 "We shall mek it right here upon my 
 keetchen fire. Yours, maybe, iss gone out." 
 
 It was out, indeed, and Margaret was well 
 content not to have the poverty of her larder 
 revealed. In the general excitement Mrs. 
 Herkimer had not paid her for the few hours 
 of chirking she had been able to render that 
 day. She had given her last dollar for rent, 
 and her home meals were consisting exclu- 
 sively of toast from accumulated fragments 
 of bread. But she went up the stairs happy 
 with her steaming bowl of tea. 
 
 " Oh, you are a genius !" said Isaac. 
 
 lie knew the moment he looked at it that 
 it was a concoction of Agnes's own, and Mar- 
 garet was conscious that he knew, but his
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 191 
 
 commendation was so vivid and tender she 
 accepted it with a simply reflected triumph 
 in her tired, wide e\ r es. 
 
 Isaac had Plantagenet bathed and in clean, 
 dry clothes, lying on his granny's lounge, sip- 
 ping " cordial." 
 
 Margaret had never seen her young rela- 
 tive clean and thoroughly brushed before. 
 His recent experiences had made his high- 
 born features eminently pale, and she stood 
 gazing at him herself thin and toast-fed 
 in pleased surprise. 
 
 " There ! Isik, be they mother and child, 
 or be they not ?" 
 
 Isaac smiled. "They are both of your own 
 superb family, mother." 
 
 " And have you taken her to the priest yet, 
 Isik?" 
 
 " Not yet, mother." 
 
 "But ye will?" 
 
 " Oh, surely ; all in good time, mother." 
 
 Margaret was giving Plantagenet his tea, 
 with her back happily turned to this dia- 
 logue. The boy saw her face go from red 
 to white and white to red.
 
 192 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 " Jerusalem's a brick," he whispered, tears 
 in the desolate beauty of his eyes. " I'm too 
 young. You you can have him." 
 
 " Thank you, dear," said Margaret, coldly, 
 all her dignity returning to her. 
 
 When she went out Isaac followed her. 
 
 " Now he will propose to me," she 
 thought, " in order to feed me ! And I 
 must refuse him." But her heart beat vio- 
 lently. 
 
 Isaac, however, reflected none of her agi- 
 tation as he walked methodically down the 
 stairs at her side. 
 
 " What an engaging, haunting face that 
 little reprobate up there has," he said. 
 
 " He is charming, now that he is bathed," 
 said Margaret, gladly. 
 
 " We must try to do something for him," 
 continued Isaac. " He is wonderfully bright 
 for his station, and he certainly has the lion- 
 heart of the race he counts his descent from. 
 He has more life than he knows what to do 
 with, and he is devoted to you. You could 
 shape his energies. We must give him a 
 chance."
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 193 
 
 Margaret's heart stood still. " "We ! We ! 
 We !" swam in her brain. 
 
 But Isaac took her hand in parting, with 
 unbroken calm. " I shall be glad when there 
 is not so much to try you," he said. " I think 
 of you constantly. Eemember that I am al- 
 ways thinking of you, and always near." 
 
 " It is adorable of him not to compel me 
 to refuse him to-night," said Margaret, in 
 her own room. " I think it would almost 
 have broken my heart to have to refuse him 
 to-night." 
 
 She had deliberately put pen, paper, and 
 ink before her, and the object of her long- 
 suspended epistolary efforts was to write 
 Judson Sprague. 
 
 " If Stack if a dog can give his life la- 
 boriously and painfully in a good cause, I 
 think I can starve on toast by cheerful de- 
 grees rather than sell myself, simply to be 
 supported in ease by a man I can hardly 
 bear in my sight." 
 
 So she wrote : 
 
 " DEAR MR. SPRAGUE, I am confident that you have 
 deceived yourself in some inferences which you seemed
 
 194 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 to draw regarding my sentiments towards you ; and I 
 am to blame that, in a moment of mental anxiety and 
 bewilderment, I did not tell you frankly the real con- 
 viction of my heart, that I do not care for you and that 
 I can never marry you. 
 
 "Very gratefully and sincerely, 
 
 "MARGARET STUART."
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 BUT Judson Sprague had determined to 
 marry Margaret Stuart, and he chose to con- 
 strue what he had imputed as a hopeful sign 
 of concession on her part into full authority 
 to execute his plans. A little bird in the 
 air had told him that she entertained a 
 friendly acquaintance with the Jew, and 
 he resolved to nip any possible fancy of 
 that sort discreetly and promptly in the 
 bud. 
 
 Isaac had a bit of an office in the city, 
 where he sat when it pleased him ; and the 
 magnates of the town, in judicious awe of 
 the golden calf, though a closeted and unas- 
 suming one, knew that office well. 
 
 So Isaac was not surprised when Judson 
 Sprague entered, smiling and gracious. 
 
 " Ah, you could buy us all out, Mr. Gil- 
 christ, and you sit here as demurely as
 
 196 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 though you and we did not know it! Ah, 
 too bad of you ! too bad !" 
 
 "I have no desire to buy you out, Mr. 
 Sprague." Isaac practised carelessly with a 
 pencil on a scrap of paper at his side. 
 
 " No, there is nothing of the usual 
 nothing of the pawnbroker about you 
 nothing of the pawnbroker. We all know 
 that." 
 
 The Jew's dark eyes regarded the other 
 too gravely for reproach. 
 
 "Now I," continued Judson Sprague, and 
 that gayly, " though an older man I have 
 more of the fever, the joy, the animus of 
 existence. Take warning, Mr. Gilchrist, and 
 keep in the safe seclusion of the unemotion- 
 al. It is a better investment in a pecuniary 
 sense ha ! ha ! a better investment. Still, 
 I am content I am content." 
 
 A shade of impatience passed over Isaac's 
 face, still absently drawing with his pencil. 
 
 "But I came here on business, Mr. Gil- 
 christ. In order, however, that I may do 
 justice to my errand, and that you may un- 
 derstand why I wish to sell certain valuable
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 197 
 
 properties, I will explain, if you will allow 
 me." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I take, perhaps, a boyish pleasure in do- 
 ing so. I am supremely happy. I am go- 
 ing to marry a most charming woman. I 
 think perhaps you have heard of her Mrs. 
 Stuart ah, Mrs. Margaret Stuart, ah !" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 Judson Sprague wondered if the Jew was 
 engaged in pencilling some new Levitical 
 law, so absolutely calm was his face. 
 
 " I propose, for her sake she is not strong 
 to break up my humdrum existence here 
 for a while, to spend a couple of years in 
 travel and residence abroad." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " My tenement property, Mr. Gilchrist, 
 particularly my houses on Cliff Street, I have 
 always found very remunerative. But that 
 is when the owner is by to regulate, as far 
 as possible, the contingent expenses, to mod- 
 ify and supervise all demands made upon 
 him, and to look strictly after his own rents. 
 Ah, you understand."
 
 198 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " I desire, therefore, under the flattering 
 circumstances before alluded to, to sell this 
 property to get it off my hands, good gold 
 though it is. Conditions change values. 
 Remember, I do not regret the conditions 
 ha! ha!" 
 
 Isaac's face looked drawn. He made no 
 reply. 
 
 " I come to you because, while some of 
 us are reputed to be wealthy men, and 
 are indeed, I trust, wealthy men, you ah, 
 too bad of you! but it is your way have 
 come, nevertheless, to control the literal 
 finance of our banks, as it were ha ! ha ! 
 if I may so speak. And yet you live 
 the life of a hermit. We have asked you 
 in vain to dine with us. Ah, well, in a 
 pecuniary sense, doubtless, it is wisdom it 
 is wisdom." 
 
 Isaac had taken a fresh piece of paper, 
 upon which he drew some slight plans. 
 
 " Those are the houses you wish to sell ?" 
 
 " Quite right quite right." 
 
 Isaac, taking back the paper, made some
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 199 
 
 computations, and handed it again to Jud- 
 son Sprague. 
 
 " I will give you so much. I have placed 
 the amount there individually and collec- 
 tively." 
 
 " Ah, but, Mr. Gilchrist, you are jesting 
 you are jesting ! Keally you are taking ad- 
 vantage of my present disposition to sell." 
 
 "It is quite optional with you whether 
 you will take it or not. It is my offer in 
 price. I shall make no other." 
 
 "Ah, ah!" The sum was a little more 
 than Judson had determined to take at the 
 lowest. A glance at Isaac's face quieted a 
 little his voluble tongue, and convinced him 
 besides that, if he let this opportunity slip, 
 he would have no other. 
 
 "Well well very well. So be it. Shall 
 we step in next door and have the papers 
 drawn ?" 
 
 When Isaac returned to his office, he locked 
 the door, drew the shades down over the 
 windows, and shut out all the light from his 
 eyes with his long, thin hands. 
 
 " If that be so," he said, at last, " she needs
 
 200 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 a friend more than ever. If I could have 
 had time to win her trust and love ! God 
 of my fathers! God of my fathers!" his 
 heart clung desperately and with unrea- 
 soning simplicity, in this hour, to the power 
 of a mighty tradition " God of my fathers, 
 turn her heart to me! I will be true to 
 her!"
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 AND instead of an acceptance of her re- 
 fusal came a magniloquent box of flowers 
 from Margaret's unblushing suitor. She ate 
 her crusts amid the odor of the choicest 
 exotics. 
 
 And the Jew was sad when by chance 
 she met him. " He is in love with some 
 one," thought Margaret, " and he is sorry 
 for me." And so she swept by distantly, her 
 head neither more nor less proudly carried 
 than ever. 
 
 "It is evident she has made up her mind 
 to marry him," thought Isaac. " Perhaps 
 she cares for him ! I am a Jew he is a 
 Christian." He laughed, sombrely, and grew 
 into the habit of pacing the beach a great 
 deal with his hat pulled low over his eyes. 
 
 Plantagenet, mainly occupied in wearing 
 out the new clothes Isaac had given him,
 
 202 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 sometimes watched him wistfully. " They're 
 all alike, all them Sen' Marie Stuarts," he 
 pondered. " It takes a whole rigimunt, cav- 
 ulry and harkerbusses, swingin' around the 
 cornder, to fetch 'em. / could git her, if I 
 was old enough. He don't know how he 
 talked gamey up in Granny's room, but 
 suthin's knocked him over. Psh ! He wants 
 to read up a little." 
 
 Isaac saw the royal, but, on the whole, 
 compassionate, disdain on Plantagenet's feat- 
 ures. 
 
 "Would you like to go away to school, 
 Plantagenet ? To a real military school, and 
 wear a handsome uniform, and study like a 
 brave boy would you ?" 
 
 " No, sir, I wouldn't. I've got some pretty 
 funny beats around here, and I've got my 
 own * Pluck and Liver Kore.' r 
 
 "But would you go if Mrs. Stuart asked 
 you?" 
 
 " Not if she asked me ; but if she cried, 
 I'd have to !" 
 
 " Does she ever cry, Plantagenet ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir, she does cry."
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 203 
 
 " Oh, I thought she was one of the kind 
 that never cried !" Isaac tried to be scoffing. 
 
 " See here !" said Plantagenet ; " onct, nex' 
 to me, you had the most sand o' anybody in 
 Yarmouth, you had !" 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " If you Avant to ketch a Stuart, you don't 
 want to filter out on sand !" 
 
 Isaac's gloomy smile encouraged his Cath- 
 olic tutor. 
 
 " Ah, but if she is going to marry some- 
 body else, Plantagenet ?" 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 " Mr. Judson Sprague, for instance." 
 
 " That roun'-toed> snifflin' ol' jelly-tumbler ! 
 No, sir." 
 
 " But he is rich, you know." 
 
 " No, sir ; she won't do it." 
 
 " Why, Plantagenet ?" 
 
 " I won't let her !" 
 
 " You must feel very smart, indeed, to say 
 that." 
 
 " I be smart. I'm smart as the hull city 
 o' Yarmouth!" Plantagenet put his new 
 and larger "II.M.S. Mohawk" over one ear
 
 204 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 and spat out a little licorice as a shining 
 substitute for the dignity of tobacco. " Set 
 
 o / 
 
 yer mind easy. I won't let her not if I 
 come into church with my kore and bust the 
 perceedin's no, sir !" 
 
 " And would you let her marry me ?" 
 
 Plantagenet wilted, his cap sought a nat- 
 ural level, his eyes became the solemn deso- 
 lations of a country loved and lost. 
 
 " Yep," he said ; but with the words he 
 turned abruptly and took to his heels. 
 
 Margaret closed her inner door upon the 
 flowers they were wearily sweet. She had 
 felt an increasing weakness for days and 
 crusts are not sustaining. Languidly she let 
 the intention of walking to the Herkimers, 
 of bringing in her clothes from the line 
 all other actual intentions slip from her 
 mind. 
 
 "He would then be free from his self-im- 
 posed notion of loyalty, to marry whom he 
 liked. If I marry Judson Sprague, it will 
 solve all difficulties. It may be too late al- 
 ready to get sufficiently nourished. I do not 
 feel that I shall ever be hungry again."
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 205 
 
 She laughed with a fine scorn, but fever- 
 ishly, drew the low chair she was sitting in 
 to the bed, and laid her head down there. 
 
 And that, for some long weeks, was the 
 last of Margaret's perplexed and weary 
 scheming. 
 
 Towards nightfall of that day Helen came 
 as a deputation of inquiry from her mother, 
 as well as from a strong personal intuition of 
 trouble, and she found Margaret in the de- 
 lirium of a fever. 
 
 " My trunks are all packed," said the lady. 
 " I sail for England to-night the climate is 
 so moist and cool cool and the hedges 
 the hedges I have been lying down all day 
 in preparation, you see, Helen the cool 
 climate cool and the hedges 
 
 " I see," said Helen, at once, for in sor- 
 row lay this young woman's strength, and a 
 smile more cheerful than usual came to her 
 prematurely grave face. " I understand it 
 all. You have nothing to do now but to 
 rest." 
 
 She went out and despatched one messen- 
 ger for a doctor, another to her mother, say-
 
 206 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 ing she should not be home that night, and 
 requesting a nursing-gown and certain arti- 
 cles to be sent to her. 
 
 The pessimism of Mrs. Herkimer's spirit 
 may be imagined. " Well, I'm to lose all ! 
 Such fevers are usually ketchin'. Helen was 
 born in depression, and now she has found 
 a way to go down the dark valley. Well, 
 well." 
 
 " For God's sake," said the captain, " brace 
 up ! Helen's used to sickness. She's one o' 
 these 'ere nateral-born Sisters o' Charity. 
 She's been into everything, and she's come 
 out all right." 
 
 " There's always a last time, Captain Her- 
 kimer, and a last straw, and it is fittin', as a 
 last straw, that the husband of my youth 
 should go over to Rome !" 
 
 " Go over to thunder !" cried the captain. 
 " Who the devil, then, 's the husband o' your 
 old age?" And with tears in his eyes, for 
 his heart was heavy for his only child, he 
 walked down towards his boat. 
 
 He met Judson Sprague on the high- 
 way. " Ah, is our Mrs. Stuart with you
 
 STDAKT AND BAMBOO 207 
 
 this evening, captain, or has she gone 
 home?" 
 
 The oily manner irritated the captain. 
 " She's got a bad fever," said he, brusquely, 
 and passed on. 
 
 " Ah, too bad ! too bad !" said Judson 
 Sprague to the listening atmosphere, and 
 reddened with chagrin and annoyance. The 
 illness of a helpmate, of which he had had 
 considerable experience, was disagreeable to 
 him. Margaret pale and languid was inter- 
 esting to him. Margaret suffering with a 
 fever was an object, for his own peace of 
 mind, temporarily to be suspended from his 
 affections. " She is, after all, a woman of 
 vigorous constitution. Let us hope she will 
 soon recover soon recover," he murmured, 
 and retraced his steps homeward. 
 
 Overhauling his dory on the beach, the 
 captain saw the Jew strolling near by in 
 the moonlight. He had admired this expo- 
 nent of an ostracized faith for his skill in 
 Plantagenet's case, and he beckoned to him. 
 
 " Would ye like to go out to my boat and 
 take a sail with me ? The tide's servin'."
 
 208 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 "Thank you, yes," said the Jew, pleas- 
 antly. 
 
 "I'm all upset to-night," owned the cap- 
 tain, with instant confidence in the others 
 frank eyes. " Mrs. Stuart, up there, 's in a 
 bad way with a fever, and my Helen's nursin' 
 of her." 
 
 " I won't go for the sail, thank you," said 
 Isaac. The captain wondered if some whiter 
 light from the moon had fallen on his face. 
 " I will go up to the house ; there may be 
 something I can do." 
 
 Helen answered his knock, speaking with 
 him in the hall. 
 
 " I thank God you are with her, Miss Her- 
 kimer," he said. 
 
 The girl read his face, trusted him, and, 
 above all, pitied him. 
 
 " You can pull her through ! You can 
 save her! Is she suffering? Is she very 
 ill?" 
 
 " Yes," said Helen, to this last clause, but 
 with a quiet strength inspired for the emer- 
 gency. 
 
 " When when " said the Jew " when
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 209 
 
 Mrs. Stuart was well she entrusted this 
 amount to me for safe -keeping. She had 
 business confidence in me." He thrust a roll 
 of bank-notes into Helen's hands. "It is 
 possible she may need them now. She- 
 she had no other confidence in me, though 
 I worship her," said he, as if to a safe con- 
 fessor in the presence of an awful emer- 
 gency. "God knows, if I could send her 
 out in health and peace, and myself bear 
 her illness, though to die, I would do it ! I 
 hoped but I seemed always to offend her. 
 I have been much alone. I have not learned 
 the ways of other men. You must pardon 
 me, but she had confidence in my rectitude. 
 The amount is hers. She should have every- 
 thing done for her physicians a nurse to 
 relieve yourself." 
 
 Helen, with her steady eyes, divined that 
 the Jew, in this instance, might possibly be 
 a Jesuit of the Jesuits. But his face was a 
 book of pathos, and she did not thwart him. 
 
 " I am glad that she has this. It shall 
 be used for her, and I will myself keep the 
 account." 
 
 14
 
 210 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 "I must not detain you." But Isaac's 
 hand trembled on the baluster with an un- 
 finished appeal. 
 
 " Call me by knocking at this outer door 
 whenever you like," said this girl of sad in- 
 tuitions. " I will come as often as you de- 
 sire, to tell you how she is." 
 
 " God bless you !" said Isaac ; and then 
 this legitimate offspring of an unbelieving 
 and acquisitive race went up to Granny's 
 room and laid his head in her lap and cried. 
 Plantagenet and she were saying their pray- 
 ers on a string of beads. The beads dangled 
 in Isaac's black locks. 
 
 " There !" said Granny, gently, at the end, 
 with a face calm as if earthly trouble had 
 never touched her senses ; " all is well !" 
 
 But Mildred St. Thomas's beads hung 
 gaudily on her beautiful neck, and were not 
 designed for prayer. She, too, came, and 
 Helen went out to her. 
 
 " I have come to nurse Mrs. Stuart," said 
 Mildred, with a rather forced boldness in her 
 impressive presence as she confronted her 
 lover's unappreciated fiancee.
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 211 
 
 If Helen had latterly learned something 
 of the state of affairs, if she knew that the 
 splendid beauty before her was implicated 
 with Jeffrey, she still showed no bitterness 
 either in her face or voice, and Mildred was 
 stormily conscious of her own false position. 
 
 " If you care for Mrs. Stuart, if you wish 
 her to live, you will not disturb her now," 
 said Helen. 
 
 " I I knew her first." 
 
 " Later on, perhaps, you can help us ' Ag- 
 nes,' as Mrs. Stuart calls her, and me. Later, 
 perhaps, you can help us." 
 
 " Is she so dangerous ?" 
 
 " She is very ill." 
 
 Mildred's hand trembled in the place where 
 Isaac's had been. She knew persuasion or 
 rebellion were useless. She went out reck- 
 lessly, and she prayed her prayer an im- 
 pious prayer ; but she was crude in the ef- 
 fort, and at least it was a beginning. 
 
 "O God," said Mildred popularly known 
 as Duds Sen' Tammy " if you will save her 
 to be in health again, I will join any church 
 that will take me in and live up to it! I
 
 212 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 will! I don't break ray word you know 
 that ! If not " the stormy young woman 
 ground her teeth as in conclusion. 
 
 And just at this point the familiar strains 
 of the Salvation Army suddenly arrested her 
 on the street. Hundreds of times she had 
 heard them without hearing them, and hun- 
 dreds of times, in company with Jeffrey, or 
 some other congenial spirit, she had mocked 
 their songs or ridiculed their persuasions and 
 their bonnets. 
 
 "Just as I am, without one plea, 
 ***** 
 
 O Lamb of God, I come ! I come !" 
 
 " Just as I am !" Now Mildred was wait- 
 ing for something something imperative 
 something without which 
 
 "Just as I am!" sang the trumpet, now 
 without aid of human voice. " Just as I 
 am! Just as I am!" It filled and flooded 
 her turbulent brain. 
 
 It did not come with any sense of awak- 
 ened spiritual perceptions to Duds Sen' Tam- 
 my. It was a wonder whereat she gasped
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 213 
 
 the sudden opening of a ne\v vista on life's 
 common highway, awesome, almost strange- 
 ly lovely, with undreamed-of possibilities. 
 
 It was a natural flood that laved her a 
 voice piercing to the exclusion of all other 
 voices ; and she turned unresistingly and fol- 
 lowed the group into their dingy barracks.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 " HERE, Plontogonet ! Go down to Father 
 Walsh wid this candle and git it blissed, till 
 I burn it for the hilth God grant it ! o ? the 
 dear one that's ill. Now, I want no progris- 
 sions by the way. Mind ye that !" 
 
 There was no danger. It was an errand 
 grateful to the soul of Plantagenet. He car- 
 ried the candle there and back awesomely in 
 his soiled, iniquitous hands. 
 
 Moral peace now settled upon Mrs. O'Ra- 
 gan, though her heart was perturbed in many 
 ways. 
 
 " Sure there be fayvers that be light and 
 some that be hard, Mrs. Shaughnessy !" she 
 moaned, with doleful suggestion. 
 
 " Yis, Mrs. O'Ragan. There's a bit of a 
 hay-fayver, for insthance, that's little harm 
 at all." 
 
 " Harm, was ye savin' ? 'Tis glad I'd be
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 215 
 
 to suffer it. Whin we resided in the coun- 
 thry, six miles beyant, I kipt sivinty hens 
 and of coos a dizzen and one. Holy Saint 
 Father in heaven knows it !" 
 
 " I admire yer aristhocracy, Mrs. O'Ragan, 
 but what has that to do wid yer hay-fay ver ?" 
 
 "Viry much, indade, Mrs. Shaughnessy. 
 Hay was hay there, and no say-wind a-blas- 
 thin' it. 'Tis little hay one sees here, grane 
 or dry." 
 
 "True for ye, and the weather grows 
 blightin'. I seen O'Ragan's shirts ye hung 
 out yistherday is as sthiff as a ghost, as 
 though niver a bit o' wather had been wrung 
 out o' thim." 
 
 " Indade, Kate Shaughnessy ! Look to your 
 own drhawers is flantin' on the line wid the 
 icicles to thim a yard long !" 
 
 "Whish! now" 
 
 Mrs. O'Ragan drew her cable. 
 
 T\vo sleek individuals were coming up the 
 walk. " We come from the Board of Health, 
 ladies ; merely a little formality." 
 
 Mrs. O'Ragan and Mrs. Shaughnessy turn- 
 ed their cannon from one another to sweet,
 
 216 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 mutual defence, and a volley of sarcasm 
 pointed outward. 
 
 "Look to 3^er own Bamboo dwellin's!" 
 said the dauntless Mrs. O'Ragan. " Whin I 
 washed for yer wife, Mr. Capron, sure didn't 
 I see the maid emp'yin' all the refuge into a 
 hole forninst the kitchen windy ? Ha ! ha !" 
 
 Mrs. Shaughnessy also laughed valiantly. 
 
 Mr. Capron blushed contemptuously. " We 
 have never had a case of severe illness in our 
 house, madam." 
 
 " No, and ye're not a poor soul, overborne 
 wid trial and misfortin', that was daintily 
 r'ared, like the poor sick lady that's higher 
 borned than iver ye had any dr'amin' of; 
 but whin she's ill, ye must come here nosin' 
 around to find the cause of it in a bit of 
 orange -pale in the coort-yard or a mug o' 
 stale milk on me panthry shilf ! Do ye make 
 yer girdle-cakes o' swate milk, then ? God 
 knows when I ate them to your house, I 
 thought I was 'atin' the soles off me own 
 shoes! Ha! ha!" 
 
 " Ha ! ha !" echoed Mrs. Shaughnessy, with 
 delirious scorn.
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 217 
 
 " But come in ; the law sint ye. Come in 
 and smill ! From the odors I met wid in yer 
 own risidence it will be a pleasant change to 
 ye ; and I don't begrudge yer eyes for onct 
 from dwellin' on a clane staircase !" 
 
 Mrs. Shaughnessy, absorbed in admiration 
 of her general, gave a rapturous giggle. 
 
 " Come in ! Come in and smill do !'' re- 
 peated Mrs. O'Ragan. 
 
 Very haughtily the two gentlemen in- 
 spected the place and premises. " There 
 may be no direct cause of fever here, mad- 
 am, but the general appearance is unkempt 
 and shackling. Look at that old broom, for 
 instance, leaning against the outside of the 
 house." 
 
 " Look at it !" said Mrs. O'Ragan, folding 
 her arms, her cable taut " look at it ! wid a 
 bit of a white rag tied to it for dark nights ! 
 Look at it! but tech it -wid a point o' yer 
 finger, and I'll saze it and lay it over the 
 Bamboo o' the two o' ye ! Begone !" 
 
 " I've been told she's a vixen," said one 
 inspector to the other, not taking the pains 
 to make the remark inaudible to its subject.
 
 218 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 Mrs. O'Ragan, with folded arms of full 
 contempt, watched them out of sight. She 
 then leaned her head over on Mrs. Shaugh- 
 nessy and wept. 
 
 " The dear, swate lady ! I feel it in ray 
 sowl 'tis goin' hard wid her. Me heart's 
 clane broke, Katie, dear. The house is goin' 
 disthracted, and mesilf wid it, sinct she was 
 taken ill." 
 
 Mrs. Shaughnessy bore her commander 
 soothingly on her breast. 
 
 " 'Tis one o' yer own family, Bridget, and 
 the swatest, and it's tearin' the poor gizzard 
 out o' ye. Maybe ye nade a drhop o' some- 
 thin' sustainin'." 
 
 " I detist the sight o' it," said Mrs. O'Ra- 
 gan, "but maybe 'twill keep me up to 
 perform me duties and drowned me sor- 
 rows. Don't be seen in the dram-shop, 
 Katie 'tis not ilegant but get it off the 
 sody man, and tell him 'tis wanted only 
 physical. Mind the word, Katie get it 
 physical." 
 
 Readily Mrs. Shaughnessy threw the 
 fringe of her shawl over her head and
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 219 
 
 stalked her tall and slender person jauntily 
 to the druggist's. 
 
 " A quart of it, physical," said she. 
 
 " A quart of what ? if you please, mad- 
 am." 
 
 " Oh, get away wid ye !" said Mrs. Shaugh- 
 nessy, who had been something of a flirt in 
 her day ; and she winked the technicali- 
 ties of commonplace existence not being un- 
 known to her either. 
 
 " What quality will you have, madam ?" 
 
 " Ye didn't know, did ye !" the lady airily 
 rated him. "Sure, your best physical," and 
 with her parcel under her arm, she returned 
 to her fellow-wrestler in life's Olympic ring. 
 
 Now Mrs. O'Ragan and Mrs. Shaughness}^ 
 never got drunk ; it was seldom, and only 
 under circumstances of peculiar distress, that 
 they imbibed at all, and when they did so, 
 it was by table-spoonfuls at regular inter- 
 vals, that sustained Mrs. O'Ragan in a con- 
 dition gloomily intrepid and kept her lighter- 
 witted companion trippingly elate. Under 
 this stimulus, however, duties even out of 
 the ordinary round now appealed to them.
 
 220 
 
 " 'Tis a long time since the cats has had a 
 dose o' catnip, Bridget. We would not be 
 havin' the poor cr'atures in fits." 
 
 "True. Catch them and bring them in 
 to me, Katie, while I'm puttin' the 'arb to 
 draw." 
 
 This injunction Mrs. Shaughnessy proceed- 
 ed to obey, with a perkish impartiality of 
 detail grabbing one cat after another off the 
 fence, where they lay sunning in an appar- 
 ently interminable line. Mrs. O'Ragan, with 
 a solemnity as methodical, dosed them and 
 returned them to the world of nature. 
 
 At last Mrs. Shaughnessy brought in a 
 cat with what had once been a beautiful 
 ribbon round its neck, and at sight of it Mrs. 
 O'Ragan threw up her spoon wildly, over- 
 turning the dish of catnip on the stove, and 
 buried her face in her hands. 
 
 " 'Tis her kitten ! Oh, me ! oh, me !" 
 
 Mrs. Shaughnessy purged a spoonful of tea 
 from the streaming mixture on the stove, 
 administered it to the cat with an unceremo- 
 nious dismissal, and then put her head down 
 and began to weep, her mercurial sympathies
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 221 
 
 flowing as readily in tears as in mirth. Thus 
 Plantagenet found them and regarded them 
 with hopeful curiosity. 
 
 " Plontogonet," said Mrs. O'Ragan, " yer 
 mother's weery, me child. Will yez black 
 the stove for her ?" 
 
 The boy's eyes shone. Left alone in the 
 room, he first polished the stove energetical- 
 ly, then decided to take it to pieces and put 
 it together again a thing that had long 
 been one of the minor objects of his ambi- 
 tion. He was a strong lad, and he was suc- 
 ceeding admirably in the process of dissec- 
 tion, when, as though he had touched the 
 main -spring or combination key in some 
 subtle joint, the whole structure, preluded 
 by the frying-pans, and consummated by 
 the stove-pipe, fell over him on the floor. 
 Extricating himself, he fled with a few 
 bounds to Sanctuary. 
 
 It was Saturday evening, and O'Ragan 
 himself, coming home with a bit of comfort 
 in his pocket, scented a general air of con- 
 cession to human frailties in the house an 
 infringement on the decorous conservatism of
 
 222 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 manner which had prevailed since the fine 
 lady cume to dwell among them. lie sighed 
 and patiently put up the stove. 
 
 Both Mrs. O'Ragan and Mrs. Shaughnessy 
 commended him. " 'Tis a good man I have, 
 Katie. Heaven grant I'll niver see no insur- 
 ance on him ! Sure I'd be flingin' it back in 
 the face o' them for an insoolt that 'u'd go 
 offerin' me insurance on me man the poor, 
 patient cr'atur' !" 
 
 " He is that !" replied Mrs. Shaughnessy ; 
 " and a mate for me own, that's got an as- 
 surance on him, too; but let anybody come 
 offerin' that same to me, he'd think 'twas the 
 expriss had struck 'm! If there's anything 
 more to say," added Mrs. Shaughnessy, " me 
 fists shall say it !" 
 
 "Beautiful women desarves good hus- 
 ban's," said O'Ragan, who had taken a sip 
 of refreshment while at work. He. indeed, 
 had been originally a handsome man, and he 
 now rose and bowed low. 
 
 Mrs. O'Ragan put her apron to her eyes 
 with painful pleasure. Mrs. Shaughnessy 
 laughed coquettishly.
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 223 
 
 " Rose of Killarney !" said O'Ragan, bow- 
 ing low before his wife, " will ye h'ist a step 
 o' the ould dance wid me ?" 
 
 Mrs. O'Ragan's pessimism unlike Mrs. 
 Herkimer's was always valiant. She rose 
 and courtesied with a melodramatic sweep of 
 her draperies. 
 
 " "Wait ti' I get Jamie !" said Mrs. Shaugh- 
 nessy, " and we'll have the ' Peeler's Keel,' 
 wid the windy open for a revivin' breath on 
 us." 
 
 "With Jamie came others, male and female, 
 buoyed up by the trifling elation incident to 
 a week well ended. Plantagenet ventured 
 down and found his obliquities lost, like dry 
 leaves, far down the winds of oblivion. De- 
 lightedly he went out and tacked a placard 
 over the sentinel broom : 
 
 CIRKUS IN HERE!! 
 
 GOTES A DIM/-:. 
 KIDS A NIGKKIL. 
 
 After a markedly decorous dance the oc- 
 cupants of the kitchen sat down and reflected 
 with acute sympathy the stanchly sorrow-
 
 224 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 ful countenance of their hostess. She whis- 
 pered to her husband. " I move," said he, 
 gallantly, " that a contribution be taken up 
 for the ilegant lady in misfortin' that's sick 
 above-stairs." 
 
 With the natural air of a lord, he emptied 
 all the money that was his by Saturday- 
 night possession into the hat ; he literally 
 cleaned out his pockets, and joy without 
 compunction shone on his features as he 
 passed the receptacle on. A like example 
 of voluptuous giving was shown on every 
 side. The sum and it was not an incon- 
 siderable one was handed to Mrs. O'Ragan, 
 and she toiled up- stairs with it, her heart 
 beating for joy. 
 
 Helen came out. 
 
 "'Tis a bit of remimbrance among us, 
 darlin', remimbrin' the kindness and love of 
 the dear one that's afflicthed," and she emp- 
 tied the sum with trembling haste and turned 
 to retreat. 
 
 " Stop !" said Helen. " Stop ! Mrs. O'Ra- 
 gan." Catholics and Jews and what not! 
 And the girl had been trained in rigorous
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 225 
 
 distrust of them all. But Helen was an in- 
 tuitive scholar, and the tears swam in her 
 eyes and her cheeks were flushed with a feel- 
 ing that was not indignation. "Stop!" said 
 she, pressing the money back into Mrs. O'Ra- 
 gan's hands; " when she is able she shall know 
 of your lovely kindness. But she does not 
 need this she has more than sufficient she 
 had something reserved in a case of need 
 like this. Thank you, with all my heart! 
 Thank you all !" 
 
 Mrs. O'Ragan returned, explained, and re- 
 distributed the money. 
 
 "'Tis swately she done it," said she. 
 " Sure 'tis a Bamboo she is, but steppin' 
 handy on the idge o' convarsion, and pug- 
 geratory niver '11 contain her lang, mark me 
 words to that !" 
 
 The distributants took back their cash, 
 not as cheerfully as it had been given, but 
 with philosophy. 
 
 " Well thin, God be thanked !" said they. 
 
 Isaac, coming home, saw the sign posted 
 over the sentinel broom, and withdrew it, 
 his sombre eyes lighting only with a sort of
 
 236 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 fatherly compassion for the vagabond Plan- 
 tagenet. He called him, and the sad one ap- 
 peared. Plantagenet now, whether involved 
 in crime, in debt, or in affection, equally 
 trusted the Jew. 
 
 " Is that a nice thing to have posted on 
 the house, when a lady of the Stuarts is 
 lying ill, think you ?" 
 
 " I didn' mean to ! I don' care what hap- 
 pens the heart o' me's clane broke in me !" 
 said Plantagenet, accepting his mother's lan- 
 guage in his desperation, and laying his head 
 in his ragged sleeve.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 IN a room that Helen kept chaste and 
 quiet from all the small turmoils of life, 
 Margaret rambled on through a fever as 
 weary and capricious as if the pulse of life 
 were maimed and could never take up its 
 normal course again. Strange vagaries ab- 
 sorbed her fitfully, and might have enter- 
 tained one with a keener sense of humor than 
 Helen Herkimer; but Helen took all with 
 careful seriousness, weighed these swallow 
 flights, and returned them with just appre- 
 ciation and a smile of constant loyalty. Pos- 
 sibly, this gravity of manner helped Marga- 
 ret back to the gravity of existence. Agnes, 
 no less tender, giggled unguardedly now and 
 then. 
 
 "Sister," said Margaret, "you are good, 
 but in this present ex ex" said the sick 
 one, laying her hand on her head for her
 
 228 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 vagrant list of long words " I need, besides 
 you, a Catholic, a true Catholic." 
 
 "So? Dear Miz' Stuart, God shall bless 
 you ! I am doze all ovaire !" cried Agnes, 
 cheerfully. 
 
 "But I need," said Margaret, with her 
 large eyes solemn and exalted to the occa- 
 sion, "one who has taken vows like this 
 one!" She touched Helen reverently with 
 her thin hand. 
 
 Helen blushed painfully. Here was a jag- 
 ged problem indeed. 
 
 Agnes regarded the situation with broad 
 optimism. 
 
 " I will go look after my boys one while 
 now," she said ; "then I shall relief you." 
 
 Margaret heard the door close, and pon- 
 dered deeply what she would next say. 
 
 "I would not talk," said Helen, with the 
 utmost gentleness. " I would not talk now." 
 
 " I must. As the saint angel God sent 
 to me, will you you take my trouble and 
 con condition and all off of me and bear 
 them till I know how to do so? Now, will 
 you?"
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 229 
 
 Helen met frankly the compelling intent- 
 ness of the other's look. 
 
 " Christ will do that," she said, slowly. 
 
 "Very very true," was the response, 
 startling in a naked simplicity of logic ; " but 
 I do not see Him, and I see you. Now, will 
 you?" 
 
 Margaret, in health, had a way of putting 
 her soul into her eyes, and now they regard- 
 ed Helen as though life itself hung on the 
 solution of the theme propounded. 
 
 Helen turned very pale; the fountains of 
 her orthodoxy were stirred. Impiety pro- 
 fanity itself stared her in the face. 
 
 The dilemma suited the recumbent one ; she 
 had a grateful sense that she was still up to 
 the discussion of metaphysical subtleties, and 
 that Helen would take no vantage ground. 
 
 Helen watched the shadow of a hand 
 trembling on the coverlet. The doctor had 
 said a day would decide the fever's turn 
 now. It was no time for ecclesiastical logic 
 or excitement. She closed her eyes with an 
 inaudible " Forgive me !" and let her ortho- 
 doxy slip to the winds.
 
 230 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 "'Yes, I will," she said, with the usual 
 careful decision, and a smile even more than 
 usually reassuring. 
 
 Margaret sank back as though the moun- 
 tains had been rolled off of her, slept and 
 slept, and woke, feeble, but autocratically 
 sane. " When can I see Mildred?" she said. 
 " I am anxious about Plantagenet. I would 
 like to see ' the pinched face flushed. 
 " Please hand me my porridge, Helen. I get 
 nothing to eat !" 
 
 Now Helen's rival, in her crude way, had 
 been growing into and putting on something 
 of the regalia of saintship too. Truth to 
 tell, Mildred had never once admired herself 
 in her "Salvation" bonnet; her thoughts 
 had turned another way, like the straight 
 flight of a bird. Nevertheless, her allurini: 
 features had never been framed in anything 
 so becoming. 
 
 Jeff protested, while admiring. 
 
 " Well, wear what you like, do what you 
 like only you're not going to shift me off; 
 you are not going to get so good that you
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 231 
 
 want to do that. I'll throttle you first!" 
 Jeff laughed, but with considerable excite- 
 ment. 
 
 Mildred had made up her mind to some- 
 thing. It cut her at every word she uttered, 
 like the sapping of a young tree, but she did 
 not flinch. 
 
 "Helen Herkimer is a saint, Jeff; she'd 
 give her life for anybody ! She'll never be 
 put out of her rights by me !" 
 
 " "What do you mean ? If you think you'll 
 turn me back to Helen with that kind of 
 talk, you will see !" he threatened, harshly. 
 "Helen is all right, but she's nothing to 
 me." 
 
 "Well, then," said Mildred, with another 
 swift decision, " I care more for somebody 
 else, Jeff," and she wet her lips and drew 
 her breath as though she had just gathered 
 herself up from a blow. "If I tell him," 
 she thought, " that it is to do the Only 
 Right, though it kills me, and that it is my 
 Lord Saviour I love best, he will laugh and 
 wait ; he will never leave off so this settles 
 it. Some time, maybe he'll know.*'
 
 232 STUAET AND BAMBOO 
 
 So Mildred, too, trod the Jesuitical path, 
 with a bleeding heart of self-sacrifice at 
 least. 
 
 Jeff's shock head seemed stunned ; his own 
 lips grew thin and parched. 
 
 " Somebody down at the Salvation Army?" 
 he said, mechanically. 
 
 " Yes," said Mildred, " it's Somebody down 
 at the Salvation Army. (Some time, per- 
 haps, he'll know he'll know.)" 
 
 "Well, by God! Helen's faithful, any- 
 way!" sneered the young fellow in a high 
 voice. Quivering, and without another word, 
 he turned and walked away. 
 
 Mildred crawled home like a broken thing. 
 "But it's right it's right! It's got to 
 be borne ! Oh, Jeff ! Oh, my boy ! my 
 boy! 
 
 " ' Saviour, more than life to me, 
 I am clinging, clinging ' " 
 
 this special Salvationist's voice, usually so 
 confident and clear, sounded more now like 
 a spent old woman's as she climbed up the 
 lodging stairs
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 233 
 
 " ' close to Thee. 
 
 Trusting Thee, I shall not stray. 
 I shall never never lose my way. 
 Never never ' " 
 
 sobbed the voice, low and brokenly 
 " ' lose my -way."' 
 
 "Miss Sen' Tammy," said the landlady, 
 " they've sent down word to ye ; ye can come 
 see the lady ye've been frettin' over. She's 
 not dangerons any more." 
 
 " Thank you, yes, I'm going. ' Never, 
 never,' " the voice clung persistently to the 
 strain, " ' lose-my-way.' " 
 
 Having brushed her hair into the austere 
 form she had adopted, and from which it 
 was ever in a gay quarrel to escape, Mil- 
 dred, with a gentle and cautious touch, took 
 from among her belongings the white dress 
 Margaret had given her, and as quietly un- 
 folded it. 
 
 " I think, to please her," she whispered to 
 herself, " I'll wear the white dress ; I've nev- 
 er had it on. Yes, I think, to please her,
 
 234 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 I'll wear it. I sha'n't be proud," she gasped, 
 " nor take back Jeff. I see the way. I'm 
 going to walk it. And I think, to please 
 her, I can put it on now. 
 
 *' 'Never never lose my way.' " 
 
 Thus arrayed, Mildred turned away from 
 the glass, cold to the vivid charms reflected 
 there. This unbaptized vagrant of the can- 
 ning factory had a stout heart when she 
 "saw the way" and realized in her simple 
 faith once more a capacity for the old feat 
 of martyrdom. 
 
 Jeff saw her pass, glowering from a shop- 
 window, where he was buying a new tie for 
 some purpose. Fine cords drew and pinched 
 his heart at that radiant vision, but he set 
 his teeth and turned to a higher brilliancy 
 in his selection of color. 
 
 "If she thinks she can throw me off as 
 light as an old shoe, and watch me suffer, 
 she's mistaken! I'll go make merry with 
 Helen that is, as merry as one can." 
 
 Margaret read a clear story when Mildred 
 came in Helen, too. But the girl chatted
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 235 
 
 away of bits of pleasant news, and how fast 
 Margaret was gaining, and she heard the 
 doctor had said " 'twas Helen Herkiraer that 
 saved her." 
 
 Helen was regarding the girl with the 
 wonder of a new conviction. 
 
 "And you are working in the same 
 place ?" said Margaret. 
 
 " Yes, there, and in the Army." 
 
 " Oh yes, I know ! I know !" said Marga- 
 ret, as if she had been told. " Do you work 
 in the Army ?" 
 
 "I should think so!" Mildred, laughing, 
 held up her hands in confirmation. "We 
 look them up, we scrub and wash and nurse 
 and sew. Yes, I should think so. Why, 
 there'd be no life in it if you did not work !" 
 
 "When I am stronger," said the Stuart, 
 holding the girl's hands at leave-taking, " I 
 want to learn some things of you. I know ! 
 I know ! darling." 
 
 Mildred blushed with a quick joy. "I 
 am going away," she bent and whispered 
 " a long way off. It will be best for Jeff 
 and all. I am going to work in the place
 
 236 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 where my aunt lives. There's work there 
 and the Army just the same." 
 
 " I know ! I know," said Margaret, still as 
 if she had been told. But she clung to the 
 girl's hand. 
 
 Mildred seemed the older, with that strong 
 peace on her face as she stooped to Mar- 
 garet. 
 
 " I shall have you always," she said " al- 
 ways. And some time I shall have you 
 where people don't get wrenched apart." 
 And at that she kissed her as if there were 
 need of haste, for people had a way of lov- 
 ing Margaret not appreciable except in the 
 fact itself. 
 
 Mildred went home and laid the white 
 dress away. "There's another time when 
 I'll wear it," she said; and the broken- 
 hearted girl was thinking of that " Lover 
 down at the Salvation Army," the tryst 
 with Whom is kopt only by the fording of a 
 certain cold stream. 
 
 Plantagenet and Isaac knew that their 
 lady had been receiving a friend or two, and, 
 under the disguise of talking about bait for
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 237 
 
 u pog" fishing, they comforted the turbulence 
 of one another's hearts in the front yard. 
 
 " Plontojonay ! Plontojonay !" called Ag- 
 nes, from the window, '' Miz' Stuart say she 
 see you one meenet !" 
 
 Plantagenet was indeed already brushed 
 and in his best, but now he fell a-trerabling. 
 He caught up with Tommy Sullivan on the 
 stairs. Tommy, always eating bread and 
 treacle, was as broad as he was long. Too 
 indifferent for more active service in the 
 "Kore," he had been deputed to priestly 
 office and had been given a name from Plan- 
 tagenet's own book of history. 
 
 " Come 'long, Leggit," said the trembling 
 commander-in-chief. "I want you to come 
 'long with me !" 
 
 Tommy, his hands dripping sweetness, had 
 no objection to disseminating it further in- 
 deed, he rather affected progression. Plan- 
 tagenet thrust him first into the room. 
 
 " I thought you might like to see this lit- 
 tle chub," he gasped, obviously seeking to 
 hide his own perturbation. " He's ' Leggit of 
 the 'Postolic See.' "
 
 238 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 The Legate of the Apostolic See took a 
 bite from the overflowing gifts of Providence, 
 and gazed with indifferent and general in- 
 terest about the room. 
 
 At the sight Margaret laughed as though 
 the world had come back to her. 
 
 " And you, Plantagenet, why do you not 
 come up and speak to me ?" 
 
 Plantagenet had a look holier than when 
 he carried the candles. He stepped stiffly to- 
 wards Margaret's bedside. " How de do?" he 
 said. But at the touch of her hand he choked. 
 
 "Why, my little boy !" she said, and drew 
 his face down; and at that this poor Irish 
 vagabond and great living representative of 
 the Stuarts fell a-sobbing. 
 
 " What is the matter ?" Isaac waited for 
 him below " is she worse ?" 
 
 " No, no," said Plantagenet, growing stout 
 at the sight of one even more sentimental 
 than himself ; " no, sir ; she's boss." 
 
 " What are you crying about ?" 
 
 "Why, she she kisst me! and she wins- 
 pert to me, too !"
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 239 
 
 " Did she ask about any of us ?'' 
 
 " She whispert me ef you was well." 
 
 "No!" 
 
 " Yes, sir she did ; and I I said you was 
 thinner 'n an old sea-quail wi' worritin' about 
 her!" 
 
 " Honor bright, Plantagenet ?" Isaac was 
 trembling now. 
 
 " Honor bright !" Plantagenet's beautiful 
 eyes were lifted, unassailable, with the heart- 
 broken truth. 
 
 " Let's go down-town, Plantagenet." 
 
 " See here," said Isaac, pausing before a 
 shop-window, "you've worn a navy cap so 
 long now you are really commander of a land 
 force, you know ! "What do you say to that 
 major-general's cap in there with the gilt 
 bands?" 
 
 " She's none too much for me !" said Plan- 
 tagenet. And, in truth, the -cap was none 
 too great for him. 
 
 "Them pink sodys look nice in there, 
 don't they ?" Plantagenet suggested, as they 
 moved on. 
 
 "Why, to be sure! What flavor is that?
 
 240 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 Strawberry ? Ah, that's good ! that's good ! 
 Come, we'll go in! We must brace up, my 
 boy, for we've some shopping to do yet !" 
 
 And the treasures with which Plantagenet 
 returned home after that memorable walk 
 occupied rapturous days for himself and 
 Granny in Sanctuary.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 JEFF took the first opportunity of Helen's 
 partial return to her home to present himself. 
 
 Helen had never seen him look so much 
 like his father. He had gotten himself up, 
 face and all, for a hypocrite, only whereas 
 the father was smooth, the son was an ill 
 one ; and the torment produced in the pierc- 
 ing of his swart neck by an immaculate new 
 collar showed in undisguised anguish on his 
 face. 
 
 " I am glad, Helen," he began, " that you 
 have been so good to Mrs. Stuart. I am 
 very fond of her myself. "We are all very 
 fond of her. I wish that she would marry 
 my father. Do you think" Jeff saw with 
 horror that his kid glove had split at the 
 thumb. He concealed the rent with a flur- 
 ried attempt at secrecy " do you think that 
 she will ever marry my father ?"
 
 242 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 " I am very sure, Jeff, that she will never 
 marry your father." 
 
 "No, I should think not," said Jeff, throw- 
 ing his arms out and letting his fine raiment 
 strain and creak as it liked. " We are to be 
 trifled with and thrown over and snubbed ! 
 That is what we are for !" 
 
 "Jeffrey," said Helen, meeting his anger 
 with a pair of dark eyes, kind, but not easy 
 to get away from, " has anybody snubbed 
 you?" 
 
 Jeff fairly perspired in this dilemma. 
 
 " You are snubbing me now by looking at 
 me as though I were a beast." 
 
 "You do not seem to me like a beast at 
 all, Jeff. You seem to me like an honest 
 fellow, who has something on his heart to 
 tell me." 
 
 " I al always loved you, Helen," respond- 
 ed the faithless Jeff, with tears; "but she 
 was so loud and jolly and handsome !" 
 
 "Mildred?" 
 
 " Yes the hussy ! She's run off and gone 
 to the bad with another fellow ! Serves her 
 right!"
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 243 
 
 " I will tell you what she did. She is a 
 noble girl Mildred St. Thomas is. She has 
 not run off with any man at all. She has 
 given herself to be good and true and to help 
 others, and she left you of her own resolve, 
 because it seemed to her a duty." 
 
 " She 7 told me she liked somebody else bet- 
 ter." 
 
 " She meant the very highest devotion of 
 all, Jeff." 
 
 " Oh guns !" said Jeff, whose spiritual 
 perceptions still hardly attained to the pri- 
 mary form. " I beg your pardon, Helen I 
 mean oh 
 
 " And if you love her truly, you would 
 better try to walk the same path she is going 
 so bravely in, and then you might meet 
 some time and be worthy of one another. I 
 do not think, as it was, you would have 
 helped one another. But now 
 
 Jeff's jaw fell. Helen, calmly giving him 
 away, had never looked so charming. Hel- 
 en's black hair waved amazingly prettily, and 
 how small and dainty her ears were ! and 
 such a proud, tantalizing, womanly smile!
 
 244 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 Jeff leaped up. "Do you think I would 
 marry anybody, Helen Herkimer, that went 
 gaping around the streets in a poke-bonnet, 
 yelling, and shaking a drum - head with a 
 fringe of bells round it ! Well, you have an 
 opinion of me! Ha! ha!" He took a 
 righteously injured attitude. 
 
 Helen's eyes dwelt on him with some con- 
 tempt. He melted and fell. 
 
 "I'm a good-for-nothing ass," said he. 
 " I'm going out to drown myself." 
 
 " I would be a man, with God's help, first !" 
 said Helen. " It would be kinder to those 
 you leave." 
 
 " But you don't love me any more. Oh, 
 Helen !" Jeff, with unpremeditated tragedy, 
 knelt before her and laid his pitiable head on 
 her knee. " I do love you ! I love you more 
 than I ever loved, or ever could love, any 
 other woman. Oh, Helen, I'll be all that you 
 wish, if you'll only have me !" 
 
 Helen's slender fingers did not run into 
 his hair as they had done in days of blessed 
 memory so perilously lost. He waited in 
 vain.
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 245 
 
 " Oh, Helen !" 
 
 She gently pushed him up and away from 
 her. What a grave, beautiful, womanly face 
 she had ! 
 
 " You cannot prove it to me by any words, 
 Jeff. You can only prove it by time and 
 your own actions." 
 
 " I will prove it !" 
 
 " Very well." She was moving away. 
 
 " Oh, Helen !" 
 
 She was gone. 
 
 Jeff stood like a statue, pale and ponder- 
 ing. 
 
 " Well, Jeffrey," said Mrs. Herkimer, 'ob- 
 serving him as she swept into the room, " I 
 see you have caught the family depression." 
 
 " If I could catch anything of Helen," said 
 Jeff, " I'd take it and die of it with pleasure." 
 
 " I must say, Jeffrey, I should prefer to 
 choose my own disease, and not go into 
 everything, hit or miss, as Helen does." 
 
 " She may go into all the diseases she 
 likes, Mrs. Herkimer, and I'll go with her 
 and help her to the best of my poor, poor 
 ability, if she'll only let me !"
 
 246 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 Mrs. Herkimer's attention by this time had 
 become more close!}' fixed. 
 
 "You've experienced a change, perhaps, 
 Jeffrey ?" she said, with a soothing air of sec- 
 tarian hopefulness. 
 
 " Yes, yes," said the materially minded 
 Jeff, with wild regret; "I experienced a 
 change, Mrs. Herkimer, but I'm all over it, 
 thank God, forever !" 
 
 "Well, well" gasped Mrs. Herkimer 
 " well, Jeffrey, harder cases have been broken 
 bv the anvil of the rock." 
 
 9? 
 
 "No anvil is ever going to break me up 
 again, Mrs. Herkimer." 
 
 " Poor Helen !" sighed the lady. " Well, 
 she courts obdurit cases, and " 
 
 " Oh, if she'll only ever court me," cried 
 Jeff, " or let me court her !" 
 
 "Oh," said Mrs. Herkimer, freshly ad- 
 justing her glasses, " I perceive ! You are 
 arguing from a fleshly stan'point, Jef- 
 frey?" 
 
 The captain laughed as he came in with 
 his newspaper. " Well, Nell, what stan'- 
 point are you arguin' from? Ye weigh a
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 247 
 
 han'some hunderd and eighty, God bless ye ! 
 I wouldn't have ye a mite less." 
 
 " If I haven't pined, Captain Herkimer," 
 replied his lady, sententiously, " it hasn't been 
 for lack o' trials." 
 
 " Ye fatten on 'em, Nell ye fatten on 
 'em !" said the captain, bravely, gloating over 
 the first page of his paper. " God bless ye, 
 Nell ye fatten on 'em !" 
 
 " Captain Herkimer, here is a youth who 
 is in a frame that, if he might be spoken to 
 by one who had not hidden his light under a 
 bushel" 
 
 " Say an oat-bin, Nell I'm a little broad- 
 er 'n that come, say an oat-bin !" 
 
 " Under a bushel 
 
 The captain looked up gravely at Jeff 
 from over his newspaper. " Ye are in a 
 frame, ain't ye, my boy?" he said, kind and 
 comprehensive sympathy in his eyes, and 
 scanning Jeff's tight new trousers and lacer- 
 ated gloves. " Go and take off them togs, 
 Jeff! What is a strong young fellow like 
 
 <_? / o 
 
 you doin' around in broad daylight with yer 
 legs pinioned and yer hands in a lot o' lilac
 
 248 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 rags ? Go home and get on some clo'es, ray 
 son, and go to work ! Ye'll find what ' sal- 
 vation ' means then. Go to work and make 
 yer way it's in ye go to work, my son !" 
 
 Jeff's intelligence was touched at last, and 
 his heart. (" My son !") He went over and 
 grasped the captain's hand. 
 
 " I'll prove worthy of Helen, captain. I 
 will !" he said. 
 
 " Men," said Mrs. Herkimer, " are all alike. 
 And yet there's a pernicious sect in this 
 town that's rabblin' to be saved on their own 
 merits !" 
 
 She sighed, wholesomely.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 MRS. HERKIMER had vigorous champions 
 in this thought that she wot not of. 
 
 Mrs. O'Ragan and Mrs. Shaughnessy, ap- 
 proaching the dregs of that draught which 
 was purely physical, decided to make an end, 
 and subsequently reached a condition even 
 of irascibility on ethical grounds. 
 
 " 'Tis two dizzen can'les me own poor silf 
 has offered for the dear lady's hilth and 
 hilth it is is lightin' in her swate, big, voylet 
 eyes again, God be thanked !" 
 
 " One dizzen have I." 
 
 "And yit there's some niver burns a 
 can'le, Katie no, niver a one !" 
 
 Mrs. Shaughnessy shook her head inex- 
 pressibly. 
 
 "And yit," continued Mrs. O'Ragan, "d' 
 ye hear. This very avenin' their haythen 
 Bamboo bells is ringin' in me ears."
 
 250 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 " I darst ye to go in at them, Bridget." 
 
 " Well do ye know, Katie," said Mrs. 
 O'Ragan, rising with resignation, " no Stuart 
 ever swallys a thrit. I've a sevare cabbage 
 thirst on me," she interpolated. " I'll stop 
 in at the grane grocer's and selict a blossom 
 o' the same agin to-morry's pot." 
 
 " Would it be well to sphrinkle ourselves 
 a bit, Bridget, considerin' of where we're 
 goin' ?" 
 
 "Ye're not the only one to have the 
 thought, Katie. Bring the holy wather." 
 
 Mrs. Shaughnessy, in some confusion of 
 choice, brought the bottle of benzoin ; and 
 fragrantly they departed. 
 
 Where, before, the suffering ornamental 
 bird in Mrs. O'Ragan's bonnet had held a 
 peanut in its tottering beak, Plantagenet 
 had lately inserted a very old and forlorn 
 ginger-cookie, and, for further security, had 
 not disdained the use of an effete shoestring 
 in clinching it in position. 
 
 Unconsciously, and with an almost para- 
 lyzing dignity, Mrs. O'Ragan sailed forth. 
 
 Mrs. Shaughnessy, too, to give loftier dis-
 
 STUAKT AND BAMBOO 251 
 
 approbation to her demeanor, had cocked 
 her " Darby " hat on one side. 
 
 As they flowed into the unsuspecting 
 group at the doors, they had an unmistak- 
 able air of wishing somebody to attack them. 
 Though there was no crowd, least of all about 
 the pungently anointed persons of these two, 
 Mrs. O'Ragan chose to believe that she was 
 pressed. 
 
 " What the ding's the matter o' ye here ?" 
 she exclaimed, valiantly working her elbows 
 in clear space. "I'll see whether a poor 
 Irishwoman is goin' to be flattened forninst 
 the wall be a lot o' unbelavin' Bamboos !" 
 
 Mrs. Shaughnessy confirmed this challenge 
 with a laugh of startling irony. 
 
 And all the while it looked as though the 
 whole innocent force of heresy combined 
 could hardly have flattened Mrs. O'Ragan's 
 encabled form against the Avail. 
 
 " I'm like that old haythen, Cram'll," she 
 continued, drawing on Plantagenet's history, 
 and addressing her amazed and inoffensivefoe- 
 at-large " I'm like that old haythen, Cram'll, 
 begorry ! I niver counts me inimy !"
 
 252 STCAKT AND BAMBOO 
 
 " No, niver," said Katie, " nor me no, not 
 a one !" 
 
 And still no combatant stepped forth in 
 active opposition. The utmost largess of en- 
 vironment was also allowed them in their 
 selection of seats, and of this they availed 
 themselves, each occupying the centre of a 
 form, with arms high-folded, and a posture 
 the most distinctly inimical. 
 
 A rather pleasantly argumentative and 
 familiar discourse was being delivered from 
 the platform, to which the fraternity now 
 and then responded with a cheerful "Amen !" 
 
 But Mrs. O'Ragan's spirit had by this time 
 reached the trumpet-call for the onset. 
 
 "Amin! Amin! Amin!" she exclaimed, 
 scornfully aloud, and very much aloud. 
 "Amin foriverand yit niverstoppin'! Amin! 
 and Amin ! and yit goin' on wid it always the 
 same! Ha! ha!" 
 
 " Ha ! ha !" thrillingly echoed Katie. 
 
 "Ladies," said a benevolent-looking gen- 
 tleman, softly approaching them at this junc- 
 ture, " allow me to escort you to the door." 
 
 His manner was so bland that Katie's vola-
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 253 
 
 tile nature instantly acquiesced, wearied be- 
 side with the heat and the uncongenial aspect 
 of the place. 
 
 " Sure, yes," said she, alertly ; " we'll be 
 goin'. Ye must excuse us. We only came 
 in by r'ason of feelin' a bit playful." 
 
 " Sure, yes," said Mrs. O'Ragan, grimly, 
 and glad at heart to forsake the field ; " 'tis 
 amusement intirely we came for." 
 
 " You have both received and given it. 
 Are these your groceries, madam?" contin- 
 ued the urbane individual, overtaking Mrs. 
 O'Ragan in the aisle and courteously hand- 
 ing her the unveiled cabbage, which she had 
 purchased by the way and frankly deposited 
 on the seat beside her. 
 
 " There now !" exclaimed Mrs. O'Kagan, 
 enabled by this rencounter to depart amid 
 the dying clash of arms in bannered victory 
 " there now ! a poor Irishwoman can't come 
 in among ye widout havin' the viry cabbage 
 stoled off her! And so it is Bamboo, in- 
 dade ! that a poor hard - workin' woman 
 can't come in here widout ye'd be stalin' the 
 viry cabbage off her ! Ah, so, indade !"
 
 254 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 And in this high tone, with supplementary 
 murmurings of indignation from Katie, they 
 withdrew, as it were, enlaurelled. 
 
 But at home, after the cool walk, Mrs. 
 O'Ragan fell a-sobbing. 
 
 " Oh, Katie, what have I done ? me, a re- 
 spickkable woman ! Whatever was in me ? 
 Shame to me, Katie ! shame to me !" 
 
 " 'Tis a bit fay verish ye are, Bridget dar- 
 lin' ! Sure, 'twas no harm done." 
 
 " Oh, Katie, 'tis many a pinance I'll do 
 mysilf on this night's ja'nthf ! 'Tis well I 
 served my Lord this night ! Oh, shame on 
 me !" and fell again a-bemoaning. 
 
 So sincere and lamentable was her state, 
 Katie, too, sank, pierced by contrition, and 
 their tears mingled. 
 
 " 'Tis a fine lesson I've showed them poor 
 wand'rin' Bamboos this night ! Ah, fine ! 
 Shame to me! And there's many a good 
 Bamboo, Katie!" 
 
 "There is so, Bridget. Look at Hillen 
 Harkimer, that nursed the dear lady night 
 and day !" 
 
 At this specific arrow of recollection, Mrs.
 
 STUAKT AND BAMBOO 255 
 
 O'Ragan groaned aloud with such material 
 and voiceful groans a fellow-tenant put her 
 head in at the door. 
 
 " Can I be bbrryin' a few coals off ye, Mrs. 
 O'Ragan, ma'am, till the mornin'?" she sub- 
 mitted, seeing that Mrs. O'Ragan's spirit was 
 still firmly implanted in her flesh. 
 
 " Yis, and wilcome ! wilcome !" said Mrs. 
 O'Ragan, with relief. " Our blissed Master 
 tills us to lind." 
 
 " I couldn't take them from ye, ma'am," 
 said the interloper, struck by the other's 
 manner of passionate generosity, " widout 
 ye'd be promisin' to take them back again." 
 
 "Oh, nivir fear!" interposed Katie, with 
 supreme pertness. "It's glad enough any- 
 body'd be to get the return of a loan off ye, 
 Nora. Sure, I've sometimes thought if I had 
 a porious plaster on me chist ye'd be borry- 
 in' it off me back !" 
 
 " Kate Shaughnessy !" said Mrs. O'Ragan, 
 in clear reproof, and she rose solemnly to 
 perform her own penances. 
 
 She loaned here and she loaned there, hop- 
 ing for nothing again. And, with a cabbage
 
 256 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 thirst" on her, she deliberately gave away 
 that choice flower of many perils to a family 
 with a similar chronic craving and poorer 
 than herself. And the next morning she 
 walked a mile to procure a particular bit of 
 tenderloin. 
 
 " I'll brile it for her, the way the fine folks 
 diz," she said. " Though for mesilf, I like it 
 me own way best; but maybe 'tis not fine 
 enough for the likes o' her." 
 
 She carried it up to Margaret. Margaret 
 tasted, then looked up with that singular 
 gift of the eyes prone in infatuating hu- 
 manity. 
 
 "I would rather have had it," she said, 
 with adorable fretfulness, "in your old way 
 dressed with an onion." 
 
 Mrs. O'Ragan went down the stairs as if 
 she trod on air. 
 
 "'Tis your middlin' class is hard to get 
 along wid," she affirmed ; " the old aristhoc- 
 racy o' the Stuarts is as aisy as yer shoe, 
 every time !"
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 HELEN still spent the greater part of each 
 day at the tenements with Margaret. 
 
 As soon as the Stuart began to weigh 
 things reasonably again she drew a very nat- 
 ural sigh. 
 
 " I must be vastly in debt in debt not only 
 for heavenly and unspeakable kindness, but 
 very sordidly so in many directions as well." 
 
 Helen meditated a moment, then she spoke 
 with grave composure. 
 
 " You must have forgotten the sum you 
 intrusted to the care of Mr. Gilchrist. It has 
 been more than enough." 
 
 Margaret gazed point-blank at her com- 
 panion with blazing eyes. Helen did not lift 
 her calm face from her book. 
 
 " Pardon me ; you must be reading some- 
 thing very interesting," said the Stuart, cold- 
 ly, at last.
 
 258 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 " Let me read you this chapter," suggested 
 the young Jesuit with ready animation, and 
 she began. 
 
 "Don't!" Margaret interrupted her, petu- 
 lantly. " I never had the fortitude to be 
 read aloud to in my best estate, and I am 
 not strong yet you know I am not strong," 
 the haughty voice broke pitifully and the 
 eyes were unsafe to look at. Helen longed 
 to rush to her, but she only stopped reading 
 aloud and bent stoically to her book. 
 
 The next time her attention was arrested 
 by the Stuart that lady had collected her- 
 self, and she gave a wicked laugh. 
 
 "Helen, however valuable may be the 
 practical lessons in which you are absorbed 
 in that volume, I stand, or, rather, recline, 
 before you as a living example, which please 
 regard a living example of worldly pru- 
 dence and foresight. Please look up at me, 
 Helen. Do you not think it Avas wise of me 
 to be so provident?" The voice was as 
 treacherous as a sigh. 
 
 Helen looked up and met those laughing, 
 slumberously revengeful, beautiful eyes.
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 259 
 
 " I think " she cried, warmly and bluntly 
 " I care not whether he is a Jew or what he 
 is I think Mr. Gilchrist is as honest and 
 splendid, and true a man as ever lived ! 
 There !" 
 
 "Why, assuredly, my dear. Do you think 
 I should have put funds, so important to me, 
 in his care, if I had not believed him to be 
 that 2" 
 
 " Oh, but you are laughing in your heart, 
 and you are cruel. Oh, Mrs. Stuart, if you 
 only knew !" Helen, rose-red with emotion, 
 looked ready to cry. 
 
 "But why all this tragedy, Helen? I 
 asked you a simple question, and you have 
 not answered it. Now do not you think I 
 was very provident?" 
 
 Helen gave the other a compendiously re- 
 proachful glance, and bent, scarlet, to the 
 printed page. 
 
 " Oh, Helen, always have something com- 
 mitted to the brokers how much I cannot 
 advise exactly, as my illness seems to have 
 obliterated from my mind the precise extent 
 of my own most fortunate deposit ; but the
 
 260 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 example holds good, and you have admitted 
 that I stand, or, rather, recline, before you 
 as a shining light." 
 
 Helen did not look up until she began to 
 \vonder at Margaret's quietness; then she 
 saw that she had both arms laid across her 
 e} r es. 
 
 She went to her and spoke. Margaret did 
 not answer. She lifted the arms and found 
 a white face, tear-washed, as if it had been 
 smitten, over and over, by waves of suffer- 
 ing. 
 
 "Oh, darling!" said the girl, with an im- 
 pulse to throw her own soul before the wom- 
 an in penitence without reason and in ador- 
 ing caresses, when a truer thought came to 
 her. " You have no trust even in what is 
 most worth trusting," she sighed, gently ; 
 "you have no faith in any one, I think."
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 BUT the Stuart's proud soul, withal, had 
 been beaten as with whips, and was lethar- 
 gic in despair. 
 
 " Come out just for a bit of a walk," Hel- 
 en urged, another day. " The doctor said 
 you might. The day is perfect." 
 
 " Wait till to-morrow, dear," replied Mar- 
 garet, with insinuating readiness. "I will 
 try to go to-morrow. But I am so desper- 
 ately tired. So, as I was telling you " She 
 went on with some pretty reminiscence. 
 
 "But you would gain so much faster if 
 you only wished to gain," interposed Helen, 
 " and if you would come out." 
 
 " Surely, yes ; I must try to-morrow. You 
 are a wise little woman." 
 
 Helen looked at the proud, sweet-featured 
 face, smilingly suave, even in the extremity 
 of its hopelessness.
 
 262 STUART AND J JAM BOO 
 
 " Come, dear Mrs. Stuart, just come to the 
 window ! See ! the sky is like June." 
 
 "Is it? Ah, so it is, I think." Margaret 
 looked up very listlessly. " And, as I was 
 telling you, dear She resumed her story, 
 playing with the curtain tassel, when Isaac 
 Gilchrist was seen suddenly approaching up 
 the walk. 
 
 Margaret dropped her toy as if she had 
 been given a blow. But Isaac never raised 
 his eyes. And herein had Margaret so re- 
 assuring a confidence that he would not 
 raise his eyes that she still stood at the 
 window, and they watched him enter the 
 door. 
 
 " Is not he good ?" said the Stuart, with a 
 touch of animation. 
 
 " He is very good, indeed, I think," replied 
 Helen, rather bitterly. " He longs very 
 much to see you," she added. 
 
 " Why, to be sure ; he is such an inestima- 
 ble friend, Helen," said the lady, with amaz- 
 ingly oblivious composure. " But I am not 
 able yet I really am not able." 
 
 Helen looked too unwarily into the infat-
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 263 
 
 uating despair of the Stuart's eyes, and tem- 
 porarily deserted her guns. 
 
 " No, I think you are not able yet," she 
 murmured. So she prepared Margaret's sup- 
 per, sat with her a little longer, and left her, 
 as was her wont now, for the night. 
 
 Margaret slept after her illness weakly, 
 absolutely like a child. 
 
 But in the middle of this night her frail 
 door was shaken, then crashed in. She woke 
 in a nightmare of smoke and crackling 
 flames. 
 
 "Where is your dressing-gown?" gasped 
 Isaac Gilchrist. " Here ! Quick !" 
 
 " I cannot see !" she cried, half-way across 
 the room, and hid her eyes in pain against 
 his coat. He lifted and carried her. 
 
 So at midnight they stood as in the heat 
 and glow of an awful noonday by the poplar- 
 tree at the gate. 
 
 "Why are they putting up the ladder?" 
 said Margaret. " The people are all out, 
 surely ? See !" 
 
 Isaac's eyes were red and streaming with
 
 264 STUAKT AND BAMBOO 
 
 the agony of the fire he had so barely es- 
 caped through with his burden. 
 
 "Plantagenet rushed up to his granny's 
 room," he said. " She was so high up and 
 now the staircase has fallen. ' Of the line 
 of the kings,'" he repeated, his tortured eyes 
 fixed on that attic window. 
 
 He of the "Line of the Kings," when escape 
 was so suddenly and terribly cut off, turned, 
 for the greatness of love's sake, a smiling 
 face to his granny. She, often wandering, 
 was wide adrift now in her mind. 
 
 " I think we're in the cathadral, Plontogo- 
 net, love," she said, awesomely ; " the can'les 
 is a' alit." 
 
 " So they be, Granny." 
 
 " 'Tis a bit of a noise about, wid the mul- 
 titude, but the organ is p'alin', afar off." 
 
 " Sure 'tis a swate sound afar off from the 
 roarin', Granny." 
 
 " Aye, it hushes ye like a mither like a 
 mither. I think Biddy Nolan has brought in 
 her infant, Plontogonet ; she was all'us bring- 
 in' it, wid nobody to care for it at home ; 'tis 
 a bit wailin' I heard, but 'twill soon cease.
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 2G.J 
 
 It hushes of us all, Plontogonet, like a 
 mither." 
 
 The armor of the Yarmouth fire depart- 
 ment was primitive, yet the ladder reached 
 so far that Plantagenet could save his granny. 
 
 The film was over her eves : she clung to 
 
 / 
 
 him in the holy trust of a great race, and he 
 did not deny his immortal origin. 
 
 "Come now, Granny, 'tis a field o' the 
 shamrock just outside as ye was tellin' me 
 about. Come, I'll lift ye over the sill. 
 Come, till ye tread in it once more !" 
 
 lie supported the frail, little, aged form, 
 clung to it with superhuman tenacity till the 
 strong arm of the giant below had received 
 it ; but for him to gain a footing there un- 
 aided was impossible. 
 
 " God helpin' me, I'll be back for ye, me 
 boy !" the fireman shouted, tears streaming 
 down the sweat and grime of his face. 
 
 Plantagenet's eyes rested with wide exul- 
 tation on the deliverance of his granny ; he 
 seemed little concerned. 
 
 "When the crowd below saw what he had 
 done, and that he was biding yet a perilous
 
 266 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 chance for himself, they broke into a shout 
 that transcended even their terror. 
 
 Plantagenet had on the cap designating 
 him as commander of all the forces. He 
 lifted it and smiled. 
 
 But there was no reascent of that insuffi- 
 cient ladder. The crash of the wall sublime- 
 ly anticipated the expectation of the multi- 
 tude, and the face with its halo of triumphant 
 love sank from sight.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 MARGARET stood gazing as though her 
 kinsman had lifted her into the length and 
 breadth of some tearless knowledge, whith- 
 er he had fled. When the lady was first 
 brought out Mrs. O'Ragan had put her own 
 shoes upon her ; these stalwart coverings 
 looked out broadly from under the richly 
 furred dressing-gown a relic of auspicious 
 days. Moreover, Mrs. Shaughnessy had 
 thrown her own ragged plaid shawl over 
 the Stuart's head. She held it below the 
 chin with her wasted hand, but her face was 
 strangely heedless and young. 
 
 " Come !" said Isaac. 
 
 " And where ? Where now ? I have no 
 place, except I might go with Plantagenet. 
 But," said she, musing, unhurried, and with 
 such unconcern as gave an air of great delib- 
 eration to her logic, " you risked your life to
 
 268 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 save me. Do you wish me to go ? I will go 
 where you wish." 
 
 "I have had a home for you this many a 
 day," said Isaac ; " and it is beautiful along 
 shore where you love to be. When you are 
 strong we will go where you will ; and Gran- 
 ny is waiting for you yonder in the carriage. 
 Come !" 
 
 Granny was telling her beads, and none 
 interrupted her. 
 
 " Aye, it hushes us," she murmured at the 
 end, "like a mither. And so ye are goin' 
 to take her to the priest at last, Isik 2" 
 
 " At last, mother." 
 
 "And 'tis me ye must have to the mer- 
 riage. Will! will! Plontogonet has run on 
 afore. lie niver was aisy like, but mus' be 
 all'us runnin' on afore. Like as not he'll be 
 off on a bit of a progriss the lad ! Niver 
 mind, 'tis in the race. Stuart be Stuart." 
 She tried feebly to straighten her shrivelled 
 little old form. " Stuart be Stuart. I was 
 merried meself, darlin'," she said, weakly 
 touching Margaret, a flush of hectic joy in 
 her cheeks, " wid a bit of a shawl over me
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 269 
 
 head, long ago. Ah, Michael, me own loving 
 man, d'ye mind the tune o' the sky and the 
 bells that evenin' ? Do ye see Plontogonet 
 on afore, Isik ?" 
 
 Isaac bent the quiet majesty of his eyes 
 full upon her. 
 
 " Yes, mother," he said, " I see Plantag- 
 enet on before !" 
 
 " Thank God ! It hushes us it hushes us 
 all" 
 
 With these words Granny's feet, seeking 
 a path from the way of tumult and bewilder- 
 ment, stepped over, thus suddenly and pain- 
 lessly, into assured peace. 
 
 Isaac suddenly took a turn of the mind for 
 ostentation. Mrs. Gilchrist was the lady of 
 Yarmouth now. 
 
 Mrs. Herkimer, when invited to the sumpt- 
 uousness of the Stuart - Gilchrist carriage, 
 comported herself with an impressiveness 
 that would have been stultifying but for the 
 easy levity of Margaret's manner. 
 
 " Do you really think I used to earn seven 
 cents an hour, Mrs. Herkimer?"
 
 270 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 "More, my dear Mrs. Gilchrist; far, far 
 more !" 
 
 " Well, perhaps I did, when I drove that 
 unspeakable beast. How is Eulalie ? How is 
 the colt ? IIo\v is Judson ?" 
 
 " Judson," said Mrs. Ilerkimer, "has had 
 a useful lesson. He is quietin' down. He 
 sees that the first gatherin' of the orchards is 
 not always for him. The captain never used 
 to company with him much, but I see he 
 takes him sailin' sometimes now." 
 
 She sighed, portentously. 
 
 " I trust," she said, " that the seeds of 
 grace in captain may be equal to this emer- 
 gency." 
 
 " Oh, they will ! I should feel absolutely 
 sure !" 
 
 "You have a very happy theology, Mrs. 
 Gilchrist," said the captain's lady, not with- 
 out much sadness. "I have sometimes 
 thought of late that Helen 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Was carryin' cheerfulness into themes 
 where a different manner might be ex- 
 pected."
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 271 
 
 " Oh, Helen," said Margaret, with bright 
 eyes and the glow of health in her cheeks 
 "Helen is my saint !" 
 
 " Mrs. Gilchrist !" 
 
 Margaret laughed encouragingly through 
 her white teeth. " Yes, indeed, Helen is my 
 saint. She consented to it when I was ill. 
 Dear Mrs. Herkimer, whatever should we do 
 without saints ?" 
 
 Mrs. Herkimer did not reply, but as soon 
 as Margaret had turned to a smiling contem- 
 plation of the landscape she put up her 
 glasses and regarded her narrowly. " I think 
 what she went through has touched her 
 mind a little," she concluded. " She appears 
 in perfect health, but she saw dreadful 
 things. "Well, perhaps He carries such!" 
 
 She sighed, replacing her spectacles in 
 their sheath. But the Stuart understood 
 both her act and her thought, " No, I 
 am not l out\" she said, still smiling, but 
 almost with tears in her eyes; "only, so 
 far as any knowledge goes, I am just a 
 wayworn, simple, superstitious Paddy! that 
 is all!"
 
 272 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 Mrs. O'Kagan could tell how her "own 
 blood - cousin, Mrs. Stuart- Gilky, ma'am," 
 among other benefits, ''did be takin' her for 
 a ride, God be thanked! so far into the 
 counthry as the say -wind niver smote a 
 feather of ye." 
 
 And indeed on this occasion the bird in 
 Mrs. O'Ragan's bonnet hung limp and de- 
 jectedly, carrying nothing in its bill forever- 
 more. 
 
 At which and other thoughts the blood- 
 cousins, Mrs. O'Ragan and Margaret, though 
 not always sad by any means, sometimes 
 wept familiarly together, as those of one 
 race should. 
 
 Then, one day, with a glowing sense of 
 graciousness, Margaret wrote to Mildred ; 
 the substance of which letter was, in brief, 
 that she desired to educate and make a fine 
 lady of her. 
 
 But Mildred wrote back that she was too 
 busy, and the time was short. Aside from 
 other work, she had the "Army" work. 
 There was a girl hopelessly ill, whose com- 
 forts would be snapped short and whose
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 273 
 
 heart would be broken if she left her 
 now. 
 
 " God bless you, dear Mrs. Gilchrist, but 
 I cannot leave!" 
 
 Margaret hung her head. " The saints," 
 she murmured, perplexed, "are growing on 
 my calendar. And of how many faiths! 
 Even Isaac my husband the Jew !" 
 
 But here she grew troubled again. If Mar- 
 garet's brain had been touched, it was not 
 in any point of perception ; but the adamant 
 of hereditary convictions had been broken, 
 perhaps that flowers might spring deep where 
 the gliding surface had been. 
 
 At present she was only conscious of dis- 
 turbance. Mentally, in this respect, she was 
 easily tired. In company, where questions 
 were brought up which once she would have 
 answered nonchalantly and at length in her 
 languid, graceful voice, she blushed wearily 
 now and avoided argument. If pressed, she 
 had infinite ease and skill in changing the 
 subject. 
 
 Isaac observed and smiled. 
 
 But there was one spar to which Margaret
 
 274 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 clung in this sea, and as she grew to love her 
 husband more a great trouble concerning him 
 grew also in her heart. 
 
 They stood by the shore, and it was sunset 
 of a cool, wild day. They had strolled on to 
 that little burial-place where some lay for 
 whom the tide had already " served." There 
 was a beautiful new stone there, and it was 
 Isaac's gift and of Mrs. O'Ragan's selection. 
 
 "She would have those words upon it!" 
 said he, his whole face lighting tenderly. 
 "Well, she is justified !" 
 
 PLANTAOENET STUART 
 
 * * * 
 
 Of the Line of t?ie Kings 
 
 A red gleam from the sky fell over the 
 raised marble of the letters and turned them 
 to gold. 
 
 " I would have added," said Isaac, the same 
 illumination touching his face "I would 
 have added, ' On Progress ' ; but, though Mrs. 
 O'Ragan evidently disliked to thwart me, 
 yet she demurred at that as ' a bit playful,' 
 she said."
 
 STUART AND BAMBOO 275 
 
 "Well, Isaac," said Margaret, whom the 
 time now moved, "do you not think that 
 death is solemn ? dreadful ?" 
 
 " I think it is nothing," said he, the red 
 gold from the west still shining on his face. 
 Margaret turned to him with a slight gasp. 
 " I think it is nothing, I know it is nothing ! 
 If we believe in God, surely we believe it 
 is nothing. If we believe even only in nat- 
 ure, we know it is nothing but new life! 
 In the sense of terror and despair and final- 
 ity, it has no existence except in unsound 
 minds. See how some souls instinctively 
 scorn it as powerless ! See how Plantagenet 
 scorned it !" 
 
 " Yes," said Margaret, " and you you 
 scorned it for me I remember !" 
 
 In the impulse of this thought she almost 
 forgot to put her next question ; but now, 
 after a little, she did so, timidly, those seek- 
 ing shadows wide in her eyes like Plantag- 
 enet's. 
 
 " And you, Isaac, do you believe in Christ?" 
 
 " With all my heart, Margaret !" 
 
 " As the Son," gasped Margaret, quickly,
 
 276 STUART AND BAMBOO 
 
 in unbelieving hope, and sucking in her under- 
 lip with her own inherited sob " as the Son 
 of God?" 
 
 Isaac smiled upon her perturbation. 
 
 " As the very Son of God," he said, quietly. 
 
 'IMF. END
 
 BY LILIAN BELL 
 
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 BY MARY E. WILKINS 
 
 JEROME, A POOR MAN. A Novel. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, 
 $1 50. 
 
 MADELON. A Novel. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25. 
 
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 GILES COREY, YKOMAN. A Play. Illustrated. 32mo, Cloth, 
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 Mary E. Wilkins writes of New England country life, analyzes New 
 England country character, with the skill and deftness of one who 
 knows it through and through, ami yet never forgets that, while real- 
 istic, she is first and last an artist lington Advertiter. 
 
 Miss Wilkins has attained an eminent position among her literary 
 contemporaries as one of the most careful, natural, and effective 
 writers of brief dramatic incident. Few surpass her in <>x pressing (he 
 homely pathoe of the poor and ignorant, while the humor of her stories 
 is quiet, pervasive, and suggestive I'liHti'lt-l/iln'it /'rest. 
 
 It takes just such distinguished literary art as Mary E. \Vilkins pos- 
 sesses to give an episode of New England its soul, pathos, and poetry. 
 N. Y. Times. 
 
 The pathos of New England life, its intensities <>f rcpros-Ji-d fooling, 
 its homely tragedies, and its tender humor, have never been better 
 told than by Mary E. Wilkins. /fox/on Courier. 
 
 The simplicity, purity, ami quaintness of these stories set them apart 
 in a niche of distinction where they have no rivals. Literary World, 
 Boston. 
 
 The charm of Miss Wilkins's stories is in her intimate acquaintance 
 and comprehension of humble life, and the sweet human interest she 
 fuels and makes her readers |> -irtake of. in the simple, common, homely 
 l>eople she draws. Si>ri<i/leld Republican. 
 
 Studies from real life which must be the result of a lifetime of pa- 
 tient, sympathetic observation. . . . No "in* 1ms done the same kind of 
 work BO lovingly and so well. Christian Register, Boston. 
 
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 HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS 
 
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 THE RED -BRIDGE NEIGHBORHOOD. A Novel. Post 
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 IN THE FIRST PERSON. A Novel. Post 8vo, Clotb, 
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 The plot is admirable, the characters are clearly conceived 
 :uul boldly drawn, and the dialogue ia animated. Saturday 
 Evening Gazette, Boston. 
 
 MRS. GERALD. A Novel. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, 
 Ornamental, $1 50. 
 
 A stirring story, a strong story, and a well-told one. The 
 author's narrative gift is as nearly perfect as one could wish. 
 Interior, Chicago. 
 
 AGAINST HUMAN NATURE. A Novel. Post 8vo, Cloth, 
 
 Ornamental, 1 25. 
 
 The contrasts of Northern and Southern temperament and 
 manners . . . are brought out with a fidelity that reveals intel- 
 ligent acquaintance and trained powers of observation. This 
 novel is far above the average. Watchman, Boston. 
 
 OUT OP STEP. A Novel. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, 
 
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 BY CONSTANCE F. WOOLSON 
 
 DOROTHY, and Other Italian Stories. Illustrated. IGino, 
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 Characterization is Miss AVoolson's forte. Her men and women arc 
 not mere puppets, but original, breathing, and finely contrasted creations. 
 Chicago Tribune. 
 
 Miss Woolsou is one of the few novelists of the day who know how to 
 make conversation, how to individualize the f?|ioakers. how to exclude 
 rabid realism without falling into literary formality X. )' Triliunr. 
 
 For tenderness and purity of thought, for exquisitely delicate sketch- 
 ing of characters, Miss Woolson is unexcelled among writers of fiction. 
 A'fw Orleant Picayune. 
 
 MENTONE, CAIRO, AND CORFU. Illustrated. Post 8vo, 
 
 Cloth, Ornamental, $1 7~>. 
 
 For swiftly graphic stroke, for delicacy of appreciative coloring, and 
 fur sentimental suggcstiveness, it would be hard to rival Miss Woolson's 
 i-keirhi's. Watchman, Boston. 
 
 Ti> the accuracy of a gtiidii-lxmk it ndds the charm of a cultured and 
 appreciative v\s\u'u. Philadelphia Ledger. 
 
 M:W YORK AND LONDON: 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS 
 
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