PS 
 
 1214 
 
 S96 
 
 cou.l Burnett - 
 
 
 Southern Branch 
 of the 
 
 University of California 
 
 Los Angeles 
 
 Form L 1
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 
 
 I 
 
 OCT 2 
 
 APR 2 1 1953 
 5 1959 
 
 Form L-9-15t-10,'25
 
 SURLY TIM AND OTHER 
 STORIES.
 
 SURLY TIM 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES 
 
 NEW YORK 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1887
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1877, 
 By SCRIBNKR, ARMSTRONG, & Co. 
 
 TROWS 
 
 PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY, 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 5333
 
 4 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 MM 
 
 " SURLY TIM." A LANCASHIRE STORY . . I 
 
 "LE MONSIEUR DE LA. PETITE DAME" ... 26 
 
 SMETHURSTSES . 70 
 
 ONE DAY AT ARLE , 104 
 
 ESMERALDA 124 
 
 MERE GIRAUD'S LITTLE DAUGHTER . . 162 
 
 LODUSKY . iSS 
 
 "SETH" ... .... 337 
 
 '* 
 
 *
 
 "SURLY TIM." 
 
 A LANCASHIRE STORY. 
 
 ORRY to hear my fellow-workmen speak so 
 disparagin' o' me ? Well, Mester, that's as 
 it may be yo' know. Happen my fellow-workmen 
 ha' made a bit o' a mistake happen what seems 
 loike crustiness to them beant so much crustiness 
 as summat else happen I mought do my bit o' 
 complainin' too. Yo' munnot trust aw yo' hear, 
 Mester ; that's aw I can say." 
 
 I looked at the man's bent face quite curiously, 
 and, judging from its rather heavy but still not un 
 prepossessing outline, I could not really call it a bad 
 face, or even a sulky one. And yet both managers 
 and hands had given me a bad account of Tim 
 Hibblethwaite. " Surly Tim," they called him, and 
 each had something to say about his sullen disposi 
 tion to silence, and his short answers. Not that 
 he was accused of anything like misdemeanor, but 
 he was " glum loike," the factory people said, and
 
 2 "SURLY TJM." 
 
 "a surly fellow well deserving his name," as the 
 master of his room had told me. 
 
 I had come to Lancashire to take the control of 
 my father's spinning-factory a short time before, 
 being anxious to do my best toward the hands, and, 
 I often talked to one and another in a friendly way, 
 so that I could the better understand their griev 
 ances and remedy them with justice to all parties 
 concerned. So in conversing with men, women, 
 and children, I gradually found out that Tim Hib- 
 blethwaite was in bad odor, and that he held himself 
 doggedly aloof from all ; and this was how, in the 
 course of time, I came to speak to him about the 
 matter, and the opening words of my story are the 
 words of his answer. But they did not satisfy me 
 by any means. I wanted to do the man justice 
 myself, and see that justice was done to him by 
 others; and then again when, after my curious 
 look at him, he lifted his head from his work and 
 drew the back of his hand across his warm face, I 
 noticed that he gave his eyes a brush, and, glanc 
 ing at him once more, I recognized the presence of 
 a moisture in them. 
 
 In my anxiety to conceal that I had noticed any 
 thing unusual, I am afraid I spoke to him quite 
 hurriedly. I was a young man then, and by no 
 means as self-possessed as I ought to have been. 
 
 " I hope you won't misunderstand me, Kibble- 
 thwaite," I said; "I don't mean to complain in 
 deed, I have nothing to complain of, for Foxley
 
 "SURLY TIM." 3 
 
 tells me you are the steadiest and most crderly 
 hand he has under him ; but the fact is, I should 
 like to make friends with you all, and see that no 
 one is treated badly. And somehow or other I 
 found out that you were not disposed to fee] 
 friendly towards the rest, and I was sorry for it. 
 But I suppose you have some reason of your 
 own." 
 
 The man bent down over his work again, silent 
 for a minute, to my discomfiture, but at last he 
 spoke, almost huskily. 
 
 "Thank yo', Mester,"Jie said; "yo're a koindly 
 chap or yo' wouldn't ha' noticed. An' yo're not 
 fur wrong either. I ha' reasons o' my own, tho' 
 I'm loike to keep 'em to mysen most o' toimes. 
 Th' fellows as throws their slurs on me would na 
 understond 'em if I were loike to gab, which I 
 never were. But happen th' toime '11 come when 
 Surly Tim '11 tell his own tale, though I often think 
 its loike it wunnot come till th' Day o' Judgment." 
 
 " I hope it will come before then," I said, cheer 
 fully. " I hope the time is not far away when we 
 shall all understand you, Hibblethwaite. I think 
 it has been misunderstanding so far which has 
 separated you from the rest, and it cannot last al 
 ways, you know." 
 
 But he shook his head not after a surly fash 
 ion, but, as I thought, a trifle sadly or heavily 
 so I did not ask any more questions, or try to 
 force the subject upon him.
 
 4 "SURLY TIM." 
 
 But I noticed him pretty closely as time went on, 
 and the more I saw of him the more fully I was 
 convinced that he was not so surly as people im 
 agined. He never interfered with the most active 
 of his enemies, nor made any reply when they 
 taunted him, and more than once I saw him per 
 form a silent, half-secret act of kindness. Once I 
 caught him throwing half his dinner to a wretched 
 little lad who had just come to the factory, and 
 worked near him ; and once again, as I was leav 
 ing the building on a rainy night, I came upon him 
 on the stone steps at the door bending down with 
 an almost pathetic clumsiness to pin the woolen 
 shawl of a poor little mite, who, like so many others, 
 worked with her shiftless father and mother to add 
 to their weekly earnings. It was always the poor 
 est and least cared for of the children whom he 
 seemed to befriend, and very often I noticed that 
 even when he was kindest, in his awkward man 
 fashion, the little waifs were afraid of him, and 
 showed their fear plainly. 
 
 The factory was situated on the outskirts of a 
 thriving country town near Manchester, and at the 
 end of the lane that led from it to the more thickly 
 populated part there was a path crossing a field to 
 the pretty church and church-yard, and this path 
 was a short cut homeward for me. Being so pretty 
 and quiet, the place had a sort of attraction for 
 me, and I was in the habit of frequently passing 
 through it on my way, partly because it was pretty
 
 "SURLY TIM." 5 
 
 and quiet, perhaps, and partly, I have no doubt, 
 because I was inclined to be weak and melancholy 
 at the time, my health being broken down under 
 hard study. 
 
 It so happened that in passing here one night, 
 and glancing in among the graves and marble 
 monuments as usual, I caught sight of a dark 
 figure sitting upon a little mound under a tree and 
 resting its head upon its hands, and in this sad- 
 looking figure I recognized the muscular outline of 
 my friend Surly Tim. 
 
 He did not see me at first, and I was almost in 
 clined to think it best to leave him alone ; but as I 
 half turned away he stirred with something like a 
 faint moan, and then lifted his head and saw me 
 standing in the bright, clear moonlight. 
 
 " Who's theer ? " he said. " Dost ta want 
 owt ? " 
 
 " It is only Doncaster, Hibblethwaite," I re 
 turned, as I sprang over the low stone wall to join 
 him. " What is the matter, old fellow ? I thought 
 I heard you groan just now." 
 
 " Yo' mought ha' done, Mester," he answered 
 heavily. " Happen tha did. I dunnot know 
 mysen. Nowts th' matter though, as I knows on, 
 on'y I'm a bit out o' soarts." 
 
 He turned his head aside slightly and began to 
 pull at the blades of grass on the mound, and all 
 at once I saw that his hand was trembling nerv 
 ously.
 
 6 "SURLY TIM." 
 
 It was almost three minutes before he spoke 
 again. 
 
 " That un belongs to me," he said suddenly at 
 last, pointing to a longer mound at his feet. " An' 
 this little un," signifying with an indescribable gest 
 ure the small one upon which he sat. 
 
 " Poor fellow," I said, " I see now." 
 
 " A little lad o' mine," he said, slowly and trem 
 ulously. " A little lad o' mine an' an' his mother.' 
 
 " What ! " I exclaimed, " I never knew that you 
 were a married man, Tim." 
 
 He dropped his head upon his hand again, still 
 pulling nervously at the grass with the other. 
 
 " Th' law says I beant, Mester," he answered in 
 a painful, strained fashion. " I conna tell mysen 
 what God-a'-moighty 'ud say about it." 
 
 " I don't understand," I faltered ; " you don't 
 mean to say the poor girl never was your wife, 
 Hibblethwaite." 
 
 "That's what th' law says," slowly; "I thowt 
 different mysen, an' so did th' poor lass. That's 
 what's the matter, Mester; that's th' trouble." 
 
 The other nervous hand went up to his bent face 
 for a minute and hid it, but I did not speak. There 
 was so much of strange grief in his simple move 
 ment that I felt words would be out of place. It 
 was not my dogged, inexplicable " hand " who was 
 sitting before me in the bright moonlight on the 
 baby's grave ; it was a man with a hidden history 
 of some tragic sorrow long kept secret in his
 
 "SURLY TIM." J 
 
 homely breast, perhaps a history very few of us 
 could read aright. I would not question him, 
 though I fancied he meant to explain himself. I 
 knew that if he was willing to tell me the truth it 
 was best that he should choose his own time for it, 
 and so I let him alone. 
 
 And before I had waited very long he broke the 
 silence himself, as I had thought he would. 
 
 " It wur welly about six year ago I comn here," 
 he said, " more or less, welly about six year. I 
 wur a quiet chap then, Mester, an' had na many 
 friends, but I had more than I ha' now. Happen 
 I wur better nater'd, but just as loike I wur loigh- 
 ter-hearted but that's nowt to do wi' it. 
 
 " I had na been here more than a week when 
 theer comes a young woman to moind a loom f th' 
 next room to me, an' this young woman bein' 
 pretty an' modest takes my fancy. She wur na 
 loike th' rest o' the wenches loud talkin' an' 
 slattern i' her ways ; she wur just quiet loike and 
 nowt else. First time I seed her I says to mysen, 
 ' Theer's a lass 'at's seed trouble ; ' an' somehow 
 every toime I seed her afterward I says to mysen, 
 ' Theer's a lass 'at's seed trouble.' It wur i' her eye 
 she had a soft loike brown eye, Mester an' it 
 wur i' her voice her voice wur soft loike, too I 
 sometimes thowt it wur plain to be seed even i' her 
 dress. If she'd been born a lady she'd ha' been 
 one o' th' foine soart, an' as she'd been born a fac-
 
 8 "SURLY TSM." 
 
 tory-lass she wur one o' th' foine soart still. So 1 
 took to watchin' her an' tryin' to mak' friends wi' 
 her, but I never had much luck wi' her till one neet 
 I was goin' home through th' snow, and I seed her 
 afore fighten' th' drift wi' nowt but a thin shawl 
 over her head ; so I goes up behind her an' I says 
 to her, steady and respecful, so as she wouldna be 
 feart, I says : 
 
 " ' Lass, let me see thee home. It's bad weather 
 fur thee to be out in by thysen. Tak' my coat an' 
 wrop thee up in it, an' tak' hold o' my arm an' let 
 me help thee along.' 
 
 " She looks up right straightforrad i' my face wi' 
 her brown eyes, an' I tell yo' Master, I wur glad I 
 wur a honest man 'stead o' a rascal, fur them quiet 
 eyes 'ud ha' fun me out afore I'd ha' done sayin' 
 my say if I'd meant harm. 
 
 " ' Thank yo' kindly Mester Hibblethwaite,' she 
 says, ' but dunnot tak' off tha' coat fur me ; I'm 
 doin' pretty nicely. It is Mester Hibblethwaite, 
 beant it ? ' 
 
 " ' Aye, lass,' I answers, ' it's him. Mought I 
 ax yo're name.' 
 
 " ' Aye, to be sure,' said she. ' My name's 
 Rosanna 'Sanna Brent th' folk at th' mill allus 
 ca's me. I work at th' loom i' th' next room to 
 thine. I've seed thee often an' often.' 
 
 " So we. walks home to her lodgins, an' on th' 
 way we talks together friendly an' quiet loike, an' 
 th' more we talks th' more I sees she's had trouble^
 
 " SURLY TIM." 9 
 
 an' by an' by bein' on'y common workin' folk, 
 we're straightforrad to each other in our plain way 
 it comes out what her trouble has been. 
 
 " ' Yo' p'raps wouldn't think I've been a married 
 woman, Mester,' she says ; ' but I ha', an' I 
 wedded an' rued. I married a sojer when I wur a 
 giddy young wench, four years ago, an' it wur th' 
 worst thing as ever I did i' aw my days. He wur 
 one o' yo're handsome, fastish chaps, an' he tired 
 o' me as men o' his stripe allus do tire o' poor 
 lasses, an' then he ill-treated me. He went to th' 
 Crimea after we'n been wed a year, an' left me to 
 shift fur mysen. An' I heard six month after he 
 wur dead. He'd never writ back to me nor sent 
 me no help, but I couldna think he wur dead till 
 th' letter comn. He wur killed th' first month he 
 wur out fightin' th' Rooshians. Poor fellow ! Poor 
 Phil ! Th' Lord ha' mercy on him ! ' 
 
 " That wur how I found out about her trouble, 
 an' somehow it seemed to draw me to her, an' 
 mak' me feel kindly to'ards her ; 'twur so pitiful to 
 hear her talk about th' rascal, so sorrowful an' 
 gentle, an' not gi' him a real hard word for a' he'd 
 done. But that's allus th' way wi' women folk 
 th' more yo' harry's them, th' more they'll pity yo' 
 an' pray for yo'. Why she wurna more than twenty- 
 two then, an' she must ha' been nowt but a slip o' a 
 T ass when they wur wed. 
 
 " Hows'ever, Rosanna Brent an' me got to be 
 good friends, an' we walked home together o*
 
 IO "SURLY TIM." 
 
 nights, an' talked about our bits o' wage, an' our 
 bits o' debt, an' th' way that wench 'ud keep me 
 up i' spirits when I wur a bit down-hearted about 
 owt, wur just a wonder. She wur so quiet an' 
 steady, an' when she said owt she meant it, an* 
 she never said too much or too little. Her brown 
 eyes allus minded me o' my mother, though th' old 
 woman deed when I were nobbut a little chap, but 
 I never seed 'Sanna Brent smile th'out thinkin' o' 
 how my mother looked when I wur kneelin' down 
 sayin' my prayers after her. An' bein' as th' lass 
 wur so dear to me, I made up my mind to ax her to 
 be summat dearer. So once goin' home along wi' 
 her, I takes hold o' her hand an' lifts it up an' 
 kisses it gentle as gentle an' wi' summat th' same 
 feelin' as I'd kiss th' Good Book. 
 
 " ' 'Sanna,' I says, ' bein' as yo've had so much 
 trouble wi' yo're first chance, would yo' be afeard 
 to try a second ? Could yo' trust a mon again ? 
 Such a mon as me, 'Sanna ? ' 
 
 " ' I wouldna be feart to trust thee, Tim,' she 
 answers back soft an' gentle after a manner. ' I 
 wouldna be feart to trust thee any time.' 
 
 " I kisses her hand again, gentler still. 
 
 '"God bless thee, lass,' I says. 'Does that 
 mean yes ? ' 
 
 " She crept up closer to me i' her sweet, quiet 
 way. 
 
 " ' Aye, lad,' she answers. ' It means yes, an* 
 I'll bide by it'
 
 "SURLY TIM." II 
 
 " ' An' tha shalt never rue it, lass,' said I. 
 ' Tha's gi'en thy life to me, an' I'll gi' mine to thee, 
 sure and true.' 
 
 " So we wur axed i' th' church th' next Sunday, 
 an' a month fro then we wur wed, an' if ever God's 
 sun shone on a happy mon, it shone on one that 
 day, when we come out o' church together me 
 and Rosanna an' went to our bit o' a home to 
 begin life again. I couldna tell thee, Mester 
 theer beant no words to tell how happy an' peace 
 ful we lived fur two year after that. My lass never 
 altered her sweet ways, an' I just loved her to 
 make up to her fur what had gone by. I thanked 
 God-a'-moighty fur his blessing every day, and every 
 day I prayed to be made worthy of it. An' here's 
 just wheer I'd like to ax a question, Mester, about 
 summat 'ats worretted me a good deal. I dunnot 
 want to question th' Maker, but I would loike to 
 know how it is 'at sometime it seems 'at we're clean 
 forgot as if He couldna fash hissen about our 
 troubles, an' most loike left 'em to work out their- 
 sens. Yo' see, Mester, an' we aw see sometime He 
 thinks on us an' gi's us a lift, but hasna tha thysen 
 seen times when tha stopt short an' axed thysen, 
 ' Wheer's God-a'-moighty 'at he isna straighten 
 things out a bit ? Th' world's i' a power o' a snarl. 
 Th' righteous is forsaken, 'n his seed's beggin' 
 bread. An' th' devil's topmost agen.' I've talked 
 to my lass about it sometimes, an' I dunnot think 
 I meant harm, Mester, for I felt humble enough
 
 12 "SURLY TIM: 1 
 
 an' when I talked, my lass she'd listen an' smile 
 soft an' sorrowful, but she never gi' me but one 
 answer. 
 
 "'Tim,' she'd say, 'this is on'y th' skoo' an 
 we're th' scholars, an' He's teachin' us his way 
 We munnot be loike th" children o' Israel i' th' 
 Wilderness, an' turn away fro' th' cross 'cause o' th' 
 Sarpent. We munnot say, "Theer's a snake : " we 
 mun say, " Theer's th' Cross, an' th' Lord gi' it to 
 us." Th' teacher wouldna be o' much use, Tim, if 
 th' scholars knew as much as he did, an' I allus 
 think it's th' best to comfort mysen wi' sayin', "Th' 
 Lord-a'-moighty, He knows.'" 
 
 "An' she allus comforted me too when I wur 
 worretted. Life looked smooth somewhow them 
 three year. Happen th' Lord sent 'em to me to 
 make up fur what wur comin'. 
 
 " At th' eend o' th' first year th' child wur born, 
 th' little lad here," touching the turf with his hand, 
 " ' Wee Wattie' his mother ca'd him, an' he wur a 
 fine, lightsome little chap. He filled th' whole 
 house wi' music day in an' day out, crcwin' an' 
 crowin' an' cryin' too sometime. But if ever 
 yo're a feyther, Mester, yo'll find out 'at a baby's 
 cry's music often enough, an' yo'll find, too, if yo' 
 ever lose one, 'at yo'd give all yo'd getten just to 
 hear even th' worst o' cryin'. Rosanna she couldna 
 find i' her heart to set th' little un out o' her arms 
 a minnit, an' she'd go about th' room wi' her eyes 
 aw leeted up, an' her face bloomin' like a slip o' a
 
 "SUKLY TIM." 13 
 
 girl's, an' if she laid him i' th' cradle her head 'ud 
 be turnt o'er her shoulder aw th' time lookin' at 
 him an' singin' bits o' sweet-soundin' foolish 
 woman-folks' songs. I thowt then 'at them old 
 nursery songs wur th' happiest music I ever heard, 
 an' when 'Sanna sung 'em they minded me o' 
 hymn-tunes. 
 
 " Well, Mester, before th' spring wur out Wee 
 Wat was tocldlin' round holdin' to his mother's 
 gown, an' by th' middle o' th' next he was cooin' 
 like a dove, an' prattlin' words i' a voice like hers. 
 His eyes wur big an' brown an' straightforrad like 
 hers, an' his mouth was like hers, an' his curls wur 
 the color o' a brown bee's back. Happen we set 
 too much store by him, or happen it wur on'y th' 
 Teacher again teachin' us his way, but hows'ever 
 that wur, I came home one sunny mornin' fro' th' 
 factory, an' my dear lass met me at th' door, all 
 white an' cold, but tryin' hard to be brave an' help 
 me to bear what she had to tell. 
 
 " ' Tim,' said she, ' th' Lord ha' sent us a trouble ; 
 but we can bear it together, conna we, dear lad ? ' 
 
 " That wur aw, but I knew what it meant, though 
 th' poor little lamb had been well enough when I 
 kissed him last. 
 
 " I went in an' saw him lyin' theer on his pillows 
 strugglin' an' gaspin' in hard convulsions, an' I 
 seed aw was over. An' in half an hour, just as th' 
 sun crept across th' room an' touched his curls, th' 
 pretty little chap opens his eyes aw at once.
 
 14 "SUKLY TIM." 
 
 "'Daddy!' he crows out. ' Sithee Dad ! 
 an' he lifts hissen up, catches at th' floatin' sun 
 shine, laughs at it, and fa's back dead, Mester. 
 
 "I've allus thowt 'at th' Lord-a'-moighty knew 
 what He wur doin' when he gi' th' woman t' Adam 
 i' th' Garden o' Eden. He knowed he wur nowt 
 but a poor chap as couldna do fur hissen ; an' I 
 suppose that's th' reason he gi' th' woman th' 
 strength to bear trouble when it comn. I'd ha' 
 gi'en clean in if it hadna been fur my lass when th' 
 little chap deed. I never tackledt owt i' aw my 
 days 'at hurt me as heavy as losin' him did. I 
 couldna abear th' sight o' his cradle, an' if ever I 
 comn across any o' his bits o' playthings, I'd fa' 
 to cryin' an' shakin' like a babby. I kept out o' th' 
 way o' th' neebors' children even. I wasna like 
 Rosanna. I couldna see quoite clear what th' 
 Lord meant, an' I couldna help murmuring sad and 
 heavy. That's just loike us men, Mester ; just as 
 if th' dear wench as had give him her life fur food 
 day an' neet, hadna fur th' best reet o' th' two to 
 be weak an' heavy-hearted. 
 
 " But I getten welly over it at last, an' we was 
 beginnin' to come round a bit an' look forrard to 
 th' toime we'd see him agen 'stead o' luokin' back 
 to th' toime we shut th' round bit of a face under 
 th' coffin-lid. Th' day comn when we could bear 
 to talk about him an' moind things he'd said an" 
 tried to say i' his broken babby way. An' so we 
 wur creepin' back again to th' old happy quiet, an
 
 "SURLY TIM:'' 15 
 
 jve had been for welly six month, when summat 
 fresh come. I'll never forget it, Mester, th' neet it 
 happened. I'd kissed Rosanna at th' door an' left 
 her standin' theer when I went up to th' village to 
 buy summat she wanted. It wur a bright moon 
 light neet, just such a neet as this, an' th' lass had 
 followed me out to see th' moonshine, it wur so 
 bright an' clear ; an' just before I starts she folds 
 both her hands on my shoulder an' says, soft an' 
 thoughtful : 
 
 " ' Tim, I wonder if th' little chap sees us ? ' 
 
 " ' I'd loike to know, dear lass,' I answers back. 
 An' then she speaks again : 
 
 " ' Tim, I wonder if he'd know he was ours if he 
 could see, or if he'd ha' forgot ? He wur such a 
 little fellow.' 
 
 " Them wur th' last peaceful words I ever heerd 
 her speak. I went up to th' village an' getten 
 what she sent me fur, an' then I comn back. Th' 
 moon wur shinin' as bright as ever, an' th' flowers 
 i' her slip o' a garden wur aw sparklin' wi' dew. I 
 seed 'em as I went up th' walk, an' I thowt again 
 of what she'd said bout th' little lad. 
 
 " She wasna outside, an' I couldna see a leet 
 about th' house, but I heerd voices, so I walked 
 straight in into th' entry an' into th' kitchen, an' 
 theer she wur, Mester my poor wench, crouchin' 
 down by th' table, hidin' her face i' her hands, an' 
 close beside her wur a mon a mon i' red sojer 
 dothes. 
 
 V
 
 16 "SURLY TIM:'' 
 
 " My heart leaped into my throat, an' fur a min- 
 nit I hadna a word, fur I saw summat wui up, 
 though I couldna tell what it wur. But at last my 
 voice come back. 
 
 " ' Good evenin', Mester,' I says to him ; ' I 
 hope yo' ha'not broughten ill-news? What ails 
 thee, dear lass ? ' 
 
 " She stirs a little, an' gives a moan like a dyin' 
 child ; and then she lifts up her wan, broken 
 hearted face, an' stretches out both her hands to 
 me. 
 
 " ' Tim,' she says, ' dunnot hate me, lad, dunnot. 
 I thowt he wur dead long sin'. I thowt 'at th' 
 Rooshans killed him an' I wur free, but I amna. I 
 never wur. He never deed, Tim, an' theer he is 
 the mon as I wur wed to an' left by. God 
 forgi' him, an' oh, God forgi' me ! ' 
 
 " Theer, Mester, theer's a story fur thee. What 
 dost ta' think o't ? My poor lass wasna my 
 wife at aw th' little chap's mother wasna his 
 feyther's wife, an' never had been. That theer 
 worthless fellow as beat an' starved her an' left 
 her to fight th' world alone, had comn back alive 
 an' well, ready to begin agen. He could tak' her 
 away fro' me any hour i' th' day, and I couldna say 
 a word to bar him. Th' law said my wife th' 
 little dead lad's mother belonged to him, body 
 an' soul. Theer was no law to help us it wur aw 
 on his side. 
 
 " Theer's no use o' goin' o'er aw we s aid to each
 
 "SURLY TIM:' 17 
 
 other i' that dark room theer. I raved an' prayed 
 an' pled wi' th' lass to let me carry her across th' 
 seas, wheer I'd heerd tell theer was help fur such 
 loike ; but she pled back i' her broken, patient way 
 that it wouldna be reet, an' happen it wur the Lord's 
 will. She didna say much to th' sojer. I scarce 
 heerd her speak to him more than once, when she 
 axed him to let her go away by hersen. 
 
 "'Tha conna want me now, Phil,' she said. 
 'Tha conna care fur me. Tha must know I'm 
 more this nion's wife than thine. But I dunnot ax 
 thee to gi' me to him because I know that wouldna 
 be reet ; I on'y ax thee to let me aloan. I'll go fur 
 enough off an' never see him more.' 
 
 " But th' villain held to her. If she didna come 
 wi' him, he said, he'd ha' her up before th' court fur 
 bigamy. I could ha' done murder then, Mester, 
 an' I would ha' done if it hadna been for th' poor 
 lass runnin' in betwixt us an' pleadin' wi' aw her 
 might. If we'n been rich foak theer might ha' 
 been some help fur her, at least ; th' law might ha' 
 been browt to mak' him leave her be, but bein' 
 poor workin' foak theer wur on'y one thing : th' 
 wife mun go wi' th' husband, an' theer th' husband 
 stood a scoundrel, cursin', wi' his black heart on 
 his tongue. 
 
 " ' Well,' says th' lass at last, fair wearied out wi' 
 grief, ' I'll go wi' thee, Phil, an' I'll do my best to 
 please thee, but I wunnot promise to forget th' 
 
 2
 
 1 8 "SURLY T/M." 
 
 mon as has been true to me, an' has stood betwixt 
 me an' th' world.' 
 
 " Then she turned round to me. 
 
 " ' Tim,' she said to me, as if she wur haaf feart 
 aye, feart o' him, an' me standin' by. Three 
 hours afore, th' law ud ha' let me mill any mon 'at 
 feart her. ' Tim,' she says, ' surely he wunnot re 
 fuse to let us go together to th' little lad's grave - 
 fur th' last time.' She didna speak to him but ta 
 me, an' she spoke still an' strained as if she win 
 too heart-broke to be wild. Her face was as white 
 as th' dead, but she didna cry, as ony other woman 
 would ha' done. 'Come, Tim,' she said, 'he conna 
 say no to that.' 
 
 " An' so out we went 'thout another word, an' 
 left th' black-hearted rascal behind, sittin' i' th' 
 very room th' little un deed in. His cradle stood 
 theer i' th' corner. We went out into th* moonlight 
 'thout speakin', an' we didna say a word until we 
 come to this very place, Mester. 
 
 "We stood here for a minute silent, an' then I 
 sees her begin to shake, an' she throws hersen 
 down on th' grass wi' her arms flung o'er th' grave, 
 an' she cries out as if her death-wound had been 
 give to her. 
 
 " ' Little lad,' she says, ' little lad, dost ta see 
 thy mother ? Canst na tha hear her callin' tl.ce ? 
 Little lad, get nigh to th' Throne an' plead ! ' 
 
 " I fell down beside o' th' poor crushed we-eh 
 an' sobbed wi' her. I couldna comfort her, *r
 
 "SURLY TIM:'' 19 
 
 wheer wur there any comfort for us ? Theer wur 
 none left rheer wur no hope. We was shamed 
 an' broke down our lives was lost. Th' past wur 
 nowt th' future wur worse. Oh, my poor lass, 
 how hard she tried to pray fur me, Mester 
 yes, fur me, as she lay theer wi' her arms round 
 her dead babby's grave, an' her cheek on th' grass 
 as grew o'er his breast. ' Lord God-a'-moighty, 
 she says, ' help us dunnot gi' us up dunnot^ 
 dunnot. We conna do 'thowt thee now, if th' time 
 ever wur when we could. Th' little chap mun be 
 wi' thee, I moind th' bit o' comfort about getherin' 
 th' lambs i' his bosom. An', Lord, if tha could 
 spare him a minnit, send him down to us wi' a bit 
 o' leet. Oh, Feyther ! help th' poor lad here 
 help him. Let th' weight fa' on me, not on him. 
 Just help th' poor lad to bear it. If ever I did owt 
 as wur worthy i' thy sight, let that be my reward. 
 Dear Lord-a'-moighty, I'd be willin' to gi' up a bit 
 o' my own heavenly glory fur th' dear lad's sake.' 
 
 " Well, Mester, she lay theer on th' grass prayin' 
 an cryin', wild but gentle, fur nigh haaf an hour, 
 an' then it seemed 'at she got quoite loike, an' she 
 got up. Happen th' Lord had hearkened an' sent 
 th' child happen He had, fur when she getten up 
 her face looked to me aw white an' shinin' i' th' 
 clear moonlight. 
 
 " ' Sit down by me, dear lad,' she said, ' an' hold 
 my hand a minnit.' I set down an' took hold of 
 her hand, as she bid me.
 
 2O "SURLY TIM." 
 
 "'Tim/ she said, 'this wur why th' little chap 
 deed. Dost na tha see now 'at th' Lord knew 
 best ? ' 
 
 " ' Yes, lass,' I answers humble, an' lays my face 
 on her hand, breakin' down again. 
 
 '"Hush, dear lad,' she whispers, 'we hannot 
 time fur that. I want to talk to thee. Wilta lis 
 ten ?' 
 
 " ' Yes, wife,' I says, an' I heerd her sob when I 
 said it, but she catches hersen up again. 
 
 " ' I want thee to mak' me a promise,' said she. 
 ' I want thee to promise never to forget what peace 
 we ha' had. I want thee to remember it allus, an' 
 to moind him 'at's dead, an' let his little hond 
 howd thee back fro' sin an' hard thowts. I'll pray 
 fur thee neet an' day, Tim, an' tha shalt pray fur 
 me, an' happen theer'll come a leet. But if theer 
 dunnot, dear lad an' I dunnot see how theer 
 could if theer dunnot, an' we never see each 
 other agen, I want thee to mak' me a promise that 
 if tha sees th' little chap first tha'lt moind him o' 
 me, and watch out wi' him nigh th' gate, and I'll 
 promise thee that if I see him first, I'll moind him 
 o' thee an' watch out true an' constant.' 
 
 " I promised her, Mester, as yo' can guess, an' 
 we kneeled down an' kissed th' grass, an' she took 
 a bit o' th' sod to put i' her bosom. An' then we 
 stood up an' looked at each other, an' at last she 
 put her dear face on my breast an' kissed me, as 
 she had done every neet sin' we were mon an' 
 wife.
 
 "SURLY TIM." 21 
 
 " ' Good-bye, dear lad,' she whispers her voice 
 aw broken. ' Doant come back to th' house till 
 I'm gone. Good-bye, dear, dear, lad, an' God 
 bless thee.' An' she slipped out o' my arms an' 
 wur gone in a moment awmost before I could cry 
 out. 
 
 " Theer isna much more to tell, Mester th' 
 eend's comin' now, an' happen it'll shorten off th' 
 story, so 'at it seems suddent to thee. But it were 
 na suddent to me. I lived alone here, an' worked, 
 an' moinded my own business, an' answered no ques 
 tions fur nigh about a year, hearin' nowt, an' seein' 
 nowt, an' hopin' nowt, till one toime when th' 
 daisies were blowin' on th' little grave here, theer 
 come to me a letter fro' Manchester fro' one o' th' 
 medical chaps i' th' hospital. It wur a short letter 
 wi' prent on it, an' the moment I seed it I knowed 
 summat wur up, an' I opened it tremblin'. Mester, 
 theer wur a woman lyin' i' one o' th' wards dyin' o' 
 some long-named heart-disease, an' she'd prayed 
 'em to send fur me, an' one o' th' young soft 
 hearted ones had writ me a line to let me know. 
 
 " I started aw'most afore I'd finished readin' th' 
 letter, an' when I getten to th' place I fun just what 
 I knowed I should. I fun her my wife th' 
 blessed lass, an' if I'd been an hour later I would- 
 na ha' seen her alive, fur she were nigh past knowin' 
 me then. 
 
 "But I knelt down byth' bedside an' I plead wi'
 
 22 "SURLY 77/17." 
 
 her as she lay theer, until I browt her back to th 
 world again fur one moment. Her eyes flew wide 
 open aw at onct, an' she seed me an' smiled, aw 
 her dear face quiverin' i' death. 
 
 " ' Dear lad,' she whispered, ' th' path was na so 
 long after aw. Th' Lord knew He trod it hissen' 
 onct, yo' know. I knowed tha'd come I prayed 
 so. I've reached th' very eend now, Tim, an' I 
 shall see th' little lad first. But I wunnot forget 
 my promise no. I'll look out fur thee fur 
 thee at th' gate.' 
 
 " An' her eyes shut slow an' quiet, an' I knowed 
 she was dead. 
 
 " Theer, Mester Doncaster, theer it aw is, fur 
 theer she lies under th' daisies cloost by her child, 
 fur I browt her here an' buried her. Th' fellow as 
 come betwixt us had tortured her fur a while an' 
 then left her again, I fun out an' she wur so 
 afeard of doin' me some harm that she would na 
 come nigh me. It wur heart disease as killed her, 
 th' medical chaps said, but .1 knowed better it 
 wur heart-break. That's aw. Sometimes I think 
 o'er it till I conna stand it any longer, an' I'm fain 
 to come here an' lay my hand on th' grass, an* 
 sometimes I ha' queer dreams about her. I had 
 one last neet. I thowt 'at she comn to me aw at 
 onct just as she used to look, on'y, wi' }'er white 
 face shinin' loike a star, an' she says, 'Tim, th' path 
 isna so long after aw tha's come nigh to th' eend, 
 an' me an' th' little chap is waitin'. He knows 
 thee, dear lad, fur I've towt him.'
 
 "SURLY TIM." 23 
 
 "That's why I comn here to-neet, Mester; an' 
 I believe that's why I've talked so free to thee 
 If I'm near th' eend I'd loike some one to know, 
 I ha' meant no hurt when I seemed grum an' surly, 
 It wurna ill-will, but a heavy heart." 
 
 He stopped here, and his head drooped upon his 
 hands again, and for a minute or so there was an 
 other dead silence. Such a story as this needed 
 no comment. I could make none. It seemed to 
 me that the poor fellow's sore heart could bear 
 none. At length he rose from the turf and stood 
 up, looking out over the graves into the soft light 
 beyond with a strange, wistful sadness. 
 
 ''Well, I mun go now," he said slowly. "Good- 
 neet, Mester, good-neet, an' thank yo' fur listenin'." 
 
 " Good night," I returned, adding, in an impulse 
 of pity that was almost a passion, " and God help 
 you ! " 
 
 " Thank yo' again, Mester ! " he said, and then 
 turned away ; and as I sat pondering I watched his 
 heavy drooping figure threading its way among the 
 dark mounds and white marble, and under the 
 shadowy trees, and out into the path beyond. I did 
 not sleep well that night. The strained, heavy 
 tones of the man's voice were in my ears, and the 
 homely yet tragic story seemed to weave itself into 
 all my thoughts, and keep me from rest. I could 
 ^ot get it out of my mind. 
 
 In consequence of this sleeplessness I was later
 
 24 "SURLY TIM." 
 
 than usual in going down to the factory, and when 
 I arrived at the gates I found an unusual bustle 
 there. Something out of the ordinary routine had 
 plainly occurred, for the whole place was in confu 
 sion. There was a crowd of hands grouped about 
 one corner of the yard, and as I came in a man ran 
 against me, and showed me a terribly pale face. 
 
 "I ax pardon, Mester Doncaster," he said in a 
 wild hurry, " but theer's an accident happened. 
 One o' th' weavers is hurt bad, an' I'm goin' fur 
 th' doctor. Th' loom caught an' crushed him afore 
 we could stop it." 
 
 For some reason or other my heart misgave me 
 that very moment. I pushed forward to the group 
 in the yard corner, and made my way through it. 
 
 A man was lying on a pile of coats in the middle 
 of the by-standers, a poor fellow crushed and 
 torn and bruised, but lying quite quiet now, only 
 for an occasional little moan, that was scarcely 
 more than a quick gasp for breath. It was Surly 
 Tim! 
 
 " He's nigh th' eend o' it now ! " said one of the 
 hands pityingly. " He's nigh th' last now, poor 
 chap ! What's that he's sayin', lads ? " 
 
 For all at once some flickering sense seemed to 
 have caught at one of the speaker's words, and the 
 wounded man stirred, murmuring faintly jut not 
 to the watchers. Ah, no ! to something far, far 
 beyond their feeble human~sight to something 
 in the broad Without.
 
 "SURLY TIM." 25 
 
 " Th' eend ! " he said, " aye, this is th' eend, 
 dear lass, an' th' path's aw shinin' or summat an 
 Why, lass, I can see thee plain, an' th' little chap 
 too ! " 
 
 Another flutter of the breath, one slight move 
 ment of the mangled hand, and I bent down closer 
 to the poor fellow closer, because my eyes were 
 so dimmed that I could not see. 
 
 " Lads," I said aloud a few seconds later, " you 
 can do no more for him. His pain is over ! " 
 
 For with a sudden glow of light which shone 
 upon the shortened path and the waiting figures of 
 his child and its mother, Surly Tim's earthly trouble 
 had ended.
 
 " LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 
 
 IT was Madame who first entered the box, and 
 Madame was bright with youthful bloom, bright 
 with jewels, and, moreover, a beauty. She was a 
 little creature, with childishly large eyes, a low, 
 white forehead, reddish-brown hair, and Greek nose 
 and mouth. 
 
 " Clearly," remarked the old lady in the box op 
 posite, "not a Frenchwoman. Her youth is too 
 girlish, and she has too petulant an air of indif 
 ference." 
 
 This old lady in the box opposite was that ven 
 erable and somewhat severe aristocrat, Madame de 
 Castro, and having gazed for a moment or so a 
 little disapprovingly at the new arrival, she turned 
 her glasses to the young beauty's companion and 
 uttered an exclamation. 
 
 It was at Monsieur she was looking now. Mon 
 sieur had followed his wife closely, bearing her fan 
 and bouquet and wrap, and had silently seated him 
 self a little behind her and in the shadow.
 
 LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 2/ 
 
 " del!" cried Madame de Castro, "what an ugly 
 little man ! " 
 
 It was not an unnatural exclamation. Fate had 
 not been so kind to the individual referred to as 
 she might have been in fact she had been 
 definitely cruel. He was small of figure, insignifi 
 cant, dark, and wore a patient sphynx-like air of 
 gravity. He did not seem to speak or move, simply 
 sat in the shadow holding his wife's belongings, 
 apparently almost entirely unnoticed by her. 
 
 " I don't know him at all," said Madame de 
 Castro ; " though that is not to be wondered at, 
 since I have exiled myself long enough to forget 
 and be forgotten by half Paris. What is his 
 name ? " 
 
 The gentleman at her side a distinguished- 
 looking old young man, with a sarcastic smile 
 began with the smile, and ended with a half laugh. 
 
 "They call him," he replied, "Le Monsieur de 
 la petite Dame. His name is Villefort" 
 
 "Le Monsieur de la petite Dame," repeated 
 Madame, testily. " That is a title of new Paris 
 the Paris of your Americans and English. It is 
 villainously ill-bred." 
 
 M. Renard's laugh receded into the smile again, 
 and the smile became of double significance. 
 
 "True," he acquiesced, "but it is also villain 
 ously apropos. Look for yourself." 
 
 Madame did so, and her next query, after she 
 had dropped her glass again, was a sharp one.
 
 28 "LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 
 
 " Who is she the wife ? " 
 
 " She is what you are pleased to call one of our 
 - Americans ! You know the class," with a little 
 wave of the hand, " rich, unconventional, com 
 fortable people, who live well and dress well, and 
 have an incomprehensibly naive way of going to 
 impossible places and doing impossible things by 
 way of enjoyment. Our fair friend there, for 
 instance, has probably been round the world upon 
 several occasions, and is familiar with a number of 
 places and objects of note fearful to contemplate. 
 They came here as tourists, and became fascinated 
 with European life. The most overwhelming pun 
 ishment which could be inflicted upon that excel 
 lent woman, the mother, would be that she should 
 be compelled to return to her New York, or Phila 
 delphia, or Boston, whichsoever it may be." 
 
 " Humph ! " commented Madame. " But you 
 have not told me the name." 
 
 " Madame Villefort's ? No, not yet. It was 
 Trent Mademoiselle Bertha Trent." 
 
 " She is not twenty yet," said Madame, in a 
 queer, grumbling tone. " What did she marry that 
 man for ? " 
 
 "God knows," replied M. Renard, not too de 
 voutly, " Paris does not." 
 
 For some reason best known to herself, Madame 
 de Castro looked angry. She was a shrewd old 
 person, with strong whims of her own, even at 
 seventy. She quite glared at the pretty American 
 from under her bushy eyebrows.
 
 "LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 29 
 
 " Le Monsieur de la petite Dame ! " she fumed. 
 "I tell you it is low low to give a man such 
 names." 
 
 " Oh ! " returned Renard, shrugging his shoul 
 ders, "we did not give it to him. It was an awk 
 ward servant who dubbed him so at first. She was 
 new to her position, and forgot his name, and be 
 ing asked who had arrived, stumbled upon this 
 bon mot : ' Un monsieur, Madame le monsieur de 
 la petite dame, 1 and, being repeated and tossed 
 lightly from hand to hand, it has become at last 
 an established witticism, albeit bandied under 
 breath." 
 
 It was characteristic of the august De Castro 
 that during the remainder of the evening's enter 
 tainment she should occupy herself more with her 
 neighbors than with the opera. She aroused M. 
 Renard to a secret ecstasy of mirth by the sharp 
 steadiness of her observation of the inmates of the 
 box opposite to them. She talked about them, too, 
 in a tone not too well modulated, criticising the 
 beautifully dressed little woman, her hair, her eyes, 
 her Greek nose and mouth, and, more than all, her 
 indifferent expression and her manner of leaning 
 upon the edge of her box and staring at the stage 
 as if she did not care for, and indeed scarcely saw, 
 what was going on upon it. 
 
 " That is the way with your American beauties, " 
 she said. " They have no respect for things. 
 Their people spoil them their men especially.
 
 30 "LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE 
 
 They consider themselves privileged to act as theii 
 whims direct. They have not the gentle timidity 
 of Frenchwomen. What French girl would have 
 the sangfroid to sit in one of the best boxes of the 
 Nouvelle Opera and regard, with an actual air of 
 ennui, such a performance as this? She does not 
 hear a word that is sung." 
 
 " And we do we hear ? " bantered M. Renard. 
 
 "Pouff" cried Madame. "We! We are world- 
 dried and weather-beaten. We have not a worm- 
 eaten emotion between us. I am seventy, and you, 
 who are thirty-five, are the elder of the two. Bah ! 
 At that girl's age I had the heart of a dove." 
 
 " But that is long ago," murmured M. Renard, 
 as if to himself. It was quite human that he should 
 slightly resent being classed with an unamiable 
 grenadier of seventy. 
 
 " Yes ! " with considerable asperity. " Fifty 
 years ! " Then, with harsh voice and withered face 
 melted suddenly into softness quite na'ive, " Mon 
 Dieu ! " she said, " Fifty years since Arsene whis 
 pered into my ear at my first opera, that he saw 
 tears in my eyes ! " 
 
 It was at this instaut that there appeared in the 
 Villefort box a new figure, that of a dark, slight 
 young man of graceful movements, in fact, a 
 young man of intensely striking appearance. M. 
 Villefort rose to receive him with serious courtesy, 
 but the pretty American was not so gracious. Not 
 until he had seated himself at her side and spoken
 
 "LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 31 
 
 to her did she turn her head and permit her eyes 
 simply to rest upon his face. 
 
 M. Renafd smiled again. 
 
 " Enter," he remarked in a low tone, " enter 
 M. Ralph Edmondstone, the cousin of Madame." 
 
 His companion asked no questions, but he pro 
 ceeded, returning to his light and airy tone : 
 
 " M. Ralph Edmondstone is a genius," he said. 
 " He is an artist, he is a poet, he is also a writer 
 of subtile prose. His sonnets to Euphrasie in 
 the day of Euphrasie awakened the admiration 
 of the sternest critics : they were so tender, so full 
 of purest fire ! Some of the same critics also could 
 scarcely choose between these and his songs to 
 Aglae in her day, or Camille in hers. He is a young 
 man of fine fancies, and possesses the amiable 
 quality of being invariably passionately in earnest. 
 As he was serious in his sentiments yesterday, so 
 he will be to-morrow, so he is to-day." 
 
 " To-day ! " echoed Madame de Castro. " Non 
 sense ! " 
 
 Madame Villefort did not seem to talk much. It 
 was M. Ralph Edmondstone who conversed, and 
 that, too, with so much of the charm of animation 
 that it was pleasurable even to be a mere looker- 
 on. One involuntarily strained one's ears to catch 
 a sentence, he was so eagerly absorbed, so full 
 of rapid, gracefully unconscious and unconven 
 tional gesture. 
 
 " I wonder what he is saying ? " Madame de 
 Castro was once betrayed into exclaiming.
 
 32 " LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 
 
 " Something metaphysical, about a poem, or a 
 passage of music, or a picture, or perhaps his 
 soul," returned M. Renard. " His soul is his 
 strong point, he pets it and wonders at it. He 
 puts it through its paces. And yet, singularly 
 enough, he is never ridiculous only fanciful and 
 naive. It is his soul which so fascinates women." 
 
 Whether this last was true of other women or 
 not, Madame Villefort scarcely appeared fascinated. 
 As she listened, her eyes still rested upon his eager 
 mobile face, but with a peculiar expression, an 
 expression of critical attention, and yet one which 
 somehow detracted from her look of youth, as if 
 she weighed his words as they fell from his lips 
 and classified them, without any touch of the en 
 thusiasm which stirred within himself. 
 
 Suddenly she rose from her seat juu addressed 
 her husband, who immediately rose also. Then 
 she spoke to M. Edmondstone, and without more 
 ado, the three left the box, the young beauty, a 
 little oddly, rather followed than accompanied by 
 her companions, at the recognition of which 
 circumstance Madame de Castro uttered a series 
 of sharp ejaculations of disapproval. 
 
 " Bah ! Bah ! " she cried. " She is too young 
 for such airs ! as if she were Madame 1'Impera- 
 trice herself! Take me to my carriage. I am 
 tired also." 
 
 Crossing the pavement with M. Renard, they 
 passed the carriage of the Villeforts. Before its
 
 Los Airg- 
 
 "LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 33 
 
 open door stood M. Villefort and Edmondstone, 
 and the younger man, with bared head, bent for 
 ward speaking to his cousin. 
 
 " If I come to-morrow," he was saying, " you will 
 be at home, Bertha ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Then, good-night," holding out his hand, 
 " only I wish so that you would go to the Aylmers 
 instead of home. That protegee of Mrs. Aylmer's 
 the little singing girl would touch your heart 
 with her voice. On hearing her, one thinks at once 
 of some shy wild bird high in a clear sky, far 
 enough above earth to have forgotten to be timid." 
 
 " Yes," came quietly from the darkness within 
 the carriage ; " but I am too tired to care about 
 voices just now. Good-night, Ralph ! " 
 
 M. Renard's reply of " God knows, Paris does 
 not," to Madame de Castro's query as to why 
 Madame Villefort had married her husband, con 
 tained an element of truth, and yet there were num 
 bers of Parisian-Americans, more especially the 
 young, well-looking, and masculine, who at the 
 time the marriage had taken place had been ready 
 enough with sardonic explanations. 
 
 "There are women who are avaricious enough 
 to sell their souls," they cried ; "and the maternal 
 Trent is one of them. The girl is only to blame 
 for allowing herself to be bullied into the match." 
 
 " But the weak place in this argument," said M. 
 Renard, "is, that the people are too rich to be 
 3
 
 34 " LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 
 
 greatly influenced by money. If there had been a 
 title, but there was no title." 
 
 Neither did Bertha Trent comport herself like n 
 cowed creature. She took her place in society as 
 Madame Villefort in such a manner as could give 
 rise to no comment whatever ; only one or two of 
 the restless inquisitive wondered if they had not 
 been mistaken in her. She was, as I have said 
 already, a childishly small and slight creature, 
 the kind of woman to touch one with suggestions 
 of helplessness and lack of will ; and yet, notwith 
 standing this, a celebrated artist a shrewd, 
 worldly-wise old fellow who had painted her por 
 trait, had complained that he was not satisfied with 
 it because he had not done justice to " the obsti 
 nate endurance in her eye." 
 
 It was to her cousin, Ralph Edmondstone, he 
 had said this with some degree of testiness, and 
 Edmondstone had smiled and answered : 
 
 " What ! have you found that out ? Few people 
 do." 
 
 At the time of the marriage Edmondstone had 
 been in Rome singeing his wings in the light of the 
 eyes of a certain Marchesa who was his latest poetic 
 passion. She was not his first fancy, nor would 
 she be his last, but she had power enough for the 
 time being to have satisfied the most exacting of 
 women. 
 
 He was at his banker's when he heard the news 
 spoken of as the latest item from American Paris,
 
 ' "LE MONSIEUK DE LA PETITE DAME." 35 
 
 and his start and exclamation of disgust drew forth 
 some cynical after-comment from men who envied 
 him. 
 
 "Who?" he said, with indiscreet impatience. 
 " That undersized sphynx of a Villefort ? Faugh ! " 
 
 But insignificant though he might be, it was M. 
 Villefort who had won, and if he was nothing more, 
 he was at least a faithful attendant. Henceforth, 
 those who saw his wife invariably saw him also, 
 driving with her in her carriage, riding with her 
 courageously if ungracefully, standing or seated 
 near her in the shadow of her box at the Nouvelle 
 Opera, silent, impassive, grave, noticeable only 
 through the contrast he afforded to her girlish 
 beauty and bloom. 
 
 " Always there ! " commented a sharp American 
 belle of mature years, "like an ugly little con 
 science." 
 
 Edmondstone's first meeting with his cousin after 
 his return to Paris was accidental. He had rather 
 put off visiting her, and one night, entering a crowd 
 ed room, he found himself standing behind a girl's 
 light figure and staring at an abundance of red 
 dish-brown hair. When, almost immediately the 
 pretty head to which this hair belonged turned with 
 a slow, yet involuntary-looking movement toward 
 him, he felt that he became excited without know 
 ing why. 
 
 " Ah, Bertha ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 She smiled a little and held out her hand, and he
 
 36 " LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 
 
 immediately became conscious of M. Villefort be 
 ing quite near and regarding him seriously. 
 
 It was the perverseness of fate that he should 
 find in Bertha Villefort even more than he had 
 once seen in Bertha Trent, and there had been a 
 time when he had seen a great deal in Bertha 
 Trent. In the Trent household he had been a 
 great favorite. No social evening or family festiv 
 ity had seemed complete without his presence. 
 The very children had felt that they had a claim 
 upon his good-humor, and his tendency to break 
 forth into whimsical frolic. Good Mrs. Trent had 
 been wont to scold him and gossip with him. He 
 had read his sonnets and metaphysical articles to 
 Bertha, and occasionally to the rest ; in fact, his 
 footing in the family was familiar and firmly estab 
 lished. But since her marriage Bertha had be 
 come a little incomprehensible, and on that ac 
 count a little more interesting. He was sure she 
 had developed, but could not make out in what 
 direction. He found occasion to reproach her 
 sometimes with the changes he found in her. 
 
 " There are times when I hardly know you," he 
 would say, " you are so finely orthodox and well 
 controlled. It was not so with you once, Bertha. 
 Don't - don't become that terrible thing, a fine 
 lady, and worse still, a fine lady who is destl- 
 lusionee" 
 
 It baffled him that she never appeared much 
 moved by his charges. Certainly she lived the
 
 LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 37 
 
 life of a "fine lady," a brilliant life, a luxurious 
 one, a life full of polite dissipation. Once, when 
 in a tenderly fraternal mood, he reproached ner 
 with this also, she laughed at him frankly. 
 
 " It is absinthe," she said. " It is my absinthe 
 at least, and who does not drink a little absinthe 
 of one kind or another ? " 
 
 He was sincerely convinced that from this mo 
 ment he understood and had the right to pity and 
 watch over her. He went of tener to see her. In her 
 presence he studied her closely, absent he .brooded 
 over her. He became impatiently intolerant of M. 
 Villefort, and prone to condemn him, he scarcely 
 knew for what. 
 
 "He has no dignity no perception," was his 
 mental decision. "He has not even the delicacy 
 to love her, or he would have the tenderness to 
 sacrifice his own feelings and leave her to herself. 
 I could do it for a woman I loved." 
 
 But M. Villefort was always there, gravely 
 carrying the shawls, picking up handkerchiefs, and 
 making himself useful. 
 
 "Imbecile!" muttered M. Renard under cover 
 of his smile and his mustache, as he stood near his 
 venerable patroness the first time she met the 
 Villeforts. 
 
 " Blockhead ! " stealthily ejaculated that amiable 
 Aristocrat. But though she looked grimly at M. 
 Villefort, M. Renard was uncomfortably uncertain 
 that it was he to whom she referred.
 
 38 "LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 
 
 11 Go and bring them to me," she commanded. 
 " Go and bring them to me before some one else 
 engages them. I want to talk to that girl." 
 
 It was astonishing how agreeable she made her 
 self to her victims when she had fairly entrapped 
 them. Bertha hesitated a little before accepting 
 her offer of a seat at her side, but once seated she 
 found herself oddly amused. When Madame de 
 Castro chose to rake the embers of her seventy 
 years, many a lively coal discovered itself among 
 the ashes. 
 
 Seeing the two women together, Edmondstone 
 shuddered in fastidious protest. 
 
 "How could you laugh at that detestable old 
 woman ? " he exclaimed on encountering Bertha 
 later in the evening. " I wonder that M. Ville- 
 fort would permit her to talk to you. She is a 
 wicked, cynical creature, who has the hardihood to 
 laugh at her sins instead of repenting of them." 
 
 " Perhaps that is the reason she is so amusing," 
 said Bertha. 
 
 Edmondstone answered her with gentle mourn- 
 fulness. 
 
 " What ! " he said. " Have you begun to say 
 such things? You too, Bertha" 
 
 The laugh with which she stopped him was both 
 light and hard. 
 
 "Where is M. Villefort?" she asked. " I have 
 actually not seen him for fifteen minutes. Is it 
 possible that Madame de Castro has fascinated 
 him into forgetting me ? "
 
 LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 39 
 
 Edmondstone went to his hotel that night in a 
 melancholy mood. He even lay awake to think 
 what a dreary mistake his cousin's marriage was. 
 She had been such a tender and easily swayed 
 little soul as a girl, and now it really seemed as if 
 she was hardening into a woman of the world. In 
 the old times he had been wont to try his sonnets 
 upon Bertha as a musician tries his chords upon 
 his most delicate instrument. Even now he re 
 membered certain fine, sensitive expressions of hers 
 which had thrilled him beyond measure. 
 
 " How could she marry such a fellow as that 
 how could she ? " he groaned. " What does it 
 mean ? It must mean something." 
 
 He was pale and heavy-eyed when he wandered 
 round to the Villeforts' the following morning. M. 
 Villefort was sitting with Bertha and reading aloud. 
 He stopped to receive their visitor punctiliously 
 and inquire after his health. 
 
 " M. Edmondstone cannot have slept well," he 
 remarked. 
 
 " I did not sleep at all," Edmondstone answered, 
 "and naturally have a headache." 
 
 Bertha pointed to a wide lounge of the pouf 
 order. 
 
 " Then go to sleep, now," she said ; " M. Ville 
 fort will read. When I have a headache he often 
 reads me to sleep, and I am always better on 
 uwaking." 
 
 Involuntarily Edmondstone half frowned. Al>
 
 40 " LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 
 
 surdly enough, he resented in secret this amiabihtj 
 on the part of M. Villefort toward his own wife. 
 He was quite prepared to be severe upon the read 
 ing, but was surprised to be compelled to acknowl 
 edge that M. Villefort read wondrously well, and 
 positively with hints of delicate perception. His 
 voice was full and yet subtly flexible. Edmond- 
 stone tried to protest against this also, but use 
 lessly. Finally he was soothed, and from being 
 fretfully wide-awake suddenly passed into sleep as 
 Bertha had commanded. How long his slumber 
 lasted he could not have told. All at once he found 
 himself aroused and wide-awake as ever. His head 
 ache had departed ; his every sense seemed to have 
 gained keenness. M. Villefort's voice had ceased, 
 and for a few seconds utter, dead silence reigned. 
 Then he heard the fire crackling, and shortly af 
 terward a strange, startling sound a sharp, gasp 
 ing sob ! 
 
 The pang which seized upon him was strong 
 indeed. In one moment he seemed to learn a 
 thousand things by intuition to comprehend her, 
 himself, the past. Before he moved he knew that 
 Villefort was not in the room, and he had caught a 
 side glimpse of the pretty blue of Bertha's dress. 
 
 But he had not imagined the face he saw when 
 he turned his head to look at her. She sat in a 
 rigid attitude, leaning against the high cushioned 
 back of her chair, her hands clasped above her 
 head. She stared at the fire with eyes wide and
 
 "LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME:' 41 
 
 strained with the agony of tears unshed, and amid 
 the rush of all other emotions he was peculiarly 
 conscious of being touched by the minor one of his 
 recognition of her look of extreme youth the look 
 which had been wont to touch people in the girl, 
 Bertha Trent. He had meant to speak clearly, 
 but his voice was only a loud whisper when he 
 sprang up, uttering her name. 
 
 " Bertha ! Bertha ! Bertha ! " as he flung him 
 self upon his knees at her side. 
 
 Her answer was an actual cry, and yet it reached 
 no higher pitch than his own intense whisper. 
 
 " I thought you were asleep ? " 
 
 Her hands fell and he caught them. His sad 
 impassioned face bowed itself upon her palms. 
 
 " I am awake, Bertha," he groaned. " I am 
 awake at last." 
 
 She regarded him with a piteous, pitying glance. 
 She knew him with a keener, sadder knowledge 
 than he would ever comprehend ; but she did not 
 under-estimate the depth of his misery at this one 
 overwhelming moment. He was awake indeed and 
 saw what he had lost. 
 
 " If you could but have borne with me a little 
 longer," he said. " If I had only not been so shal 
 low and so blind. If you could but have borne 
 with me a little longer ! " 
 
 " If I could but have borne with myself a little 
 longer," she answered. "If I could but have 
 borne a little longer with my poor, base pride !
 
 42 "LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 
 
 Because I suffered myself, I have made another 
 suffer too." 
 
 He knew she spoke of M. Villefort, and the 
 thought jarred upon him. 
 
 " He does not suffer," he said. " He is not of 
 the fibre to feel pain." 
 
 And he wondered why she shrank from him a 
 little, and answered with a sad bitterness : 
 
 " Are you sure ? You did not know that I " 
 
 " Forgive me," he said brokenly, the face he 
 lifted, haggard with his unhappiness. "Forgive 
 me, for I have lost so much." 
 
 She wasted few words and no tears. The force 
 and suddenness of his emotion and her own had 
 overborne her into this strange unmeant confes 
 sion ; but her mood was unlike his, it was merely 
 receptive. She listened to his unavailing regrets, 
 but told him little of her own past. 
 
 " It does not matter," she said drearily. " It is 
 all over. Let it rest. The pain of to-day and to 
 morrow is enough for us. We have borne yester 
 day ; why should we want it back again ? " 
 
 And when they parted she said only one thing of 
 the future : 
 
 " There is no need that we should talk. There 
 is nothing for us beyond this point. We can only 
 go back. We must try to forget and be satisfied 
 with our absinthe." 
 
 Instead of returning to his hotel, Edmondstone 
 found his way to the Champs FJysees, and finally
 
 "LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAAfE." 43 
 
 to the Bois. He was too wretched to have an) 
 purpose in his wanderings. He walked rapidly, 
 looking straight before him and seeing nobody. 
 He scarcely understood his own fierce emotions. 
 Hitherto his fancies had brought him a vague 
 rapture ; now he experienced absolute anguish. 
 Every past experience had become trivial. What 
 happiness is so keen as one's briefest pain ? As 
 he walked he lived again the days he had thrown 
 away. He remembered a thousand old, yet new, 
 phases of Bertha's girlhood. He thought of times 
 when she had touched or irritated or pleased him. 
 When he had left Paris for Rome she had not bid 
 den him good-by. Jenny, her younger sister, had 
 told him that she was not well. 
 
 " If I had seen her then," he cried inwardly, " I 
 might have read her heart and my own." 
 
 M. Renard, riding a very tall horse in the Bois, 
 passed him and raised his eyebrows at the sight of 
 his pallor and his fagged yet excited look. 
 
 " There will be a new sonnet," he said to him 
 self. "A sonnet to Despair, or Melancholy, or 
 Loss." 
 
 Afterward, when society became a little restive 
 and eager, M. Renard looked on with sardonic 
 interest. 
 
 "That happy man, M. Villefort," he said to 
 Madame de Castro, u is a good soul a good soul. 
 He has no small jealous follies," and his smile was 
 scarcely a pleasant thing to see.
 
 44 " ^ MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 
 
 "There is nothing for us beyond this past," 
 Bertha had said, and Edmondstone had agreed with 
 her hopelessly. 
 
 But he could not quite break away. Sometimes 
 for a week the Villeforts missed him, and then 
 again they saw him every day. He spent his 
 mornings with them, joined them in their drives, 
 at their opera-box, or at the entertainments of their 
 friends. He also fell into his old place in the 
 Trent household, and listened with a vague effort 
 at interest to Mrs. Trent's maternal gossip about 
 the boys' college expenses, Bertha's household, and 
 Jenny's approaching social debut. He was continu 
 ally full of a feverish longing to hear of Bertha, 
 to hear her name spoken, her ingoings and out- 
 comings discussed, her looks, her belongings. 
 
 " The fact is," said Mrs. Trent, as the winter 
 advanced, "I am anxious about Bertha. She does 
 not look strong. I don't know why I have not 
 seen it before, but all at once I found out yester 
 day that she is really thin. She was always slight 
 and even a little fragile, but now she is actually 
 thin. One can see the little bones in her wrists 
 and fingers. Her rings and her bracelets slip 
 about quite loosely." 
 
 " And talking of being thin, mother," cried Jenny, 
 who was a frank, bright sixteen-year-old, " look at 
 cousin Ralph himself. He has little hollows in 
 his cheeks, and his eyes are as much too big as 
 Bertha's. Is the sword wearing out the scabbard,
 
 "LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 45 
 
 Ralph ? That is what they always say about 
 geniuses, you know." 
 
 " Ralph has not looked well for some time," said 
 Mrs. Trent. "As for Bertha, I think I shall scold 
 her a little, and M. Villefort too. She has been 
 living too exciting a life. She is out continually. 
 She must stay at home more and rest. It is rest 
 she needs." 
 
 " If you tell Arthur that Bertha looks ill" be 
 gan Jenny. 
 
 Edmondstone turned toward her sharply. "Ar 
 thur ! " he repeated. " Who is Arthur ? " 
 
 Mrs. Trent answered with a comfortable laugh. 
 
 " It is M. Villefort's name," she said, " though 
 none of us call him Arthur but Jenny. Jenny and 
 he are great friends." 
 
 " I like him better than any one else," said 
 Jenny stoutly. "And I wish to set a good exam 
 ple to Bertha, who never calls him anything but 
 M. Villefort, which is absurd. Just as if they had 
 been introduced to each other about a week ago." 
 
 " I always hear him address her as Madame Ville 
 fort," reflected Edmondstone, somewhat gloomily. 
 
 " Oh yes ! " answered Jenny, " that is his French 
 way of studying her fancies. He would consider 
 't taking an unpardonable liberty to call her ' Ber 
 tha,' since she only favors him with ' M. Villefort.' 
 I said to him only the other day, ' Arthur, you are 
 the oddest couple ! You're so grand and well-be 
 haved, I cannot imagine you scolding Bertha a little,
 
 46 "LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 
 
 and I have never seen you kiss her since you were 
 married.' I was half frightened after I had said it. 
 He started as if he had been shot, and turned as 
 pale as death. I really felt as if I had done some 
 thing frightfully improper." 
 
 "The French are so different from the Ameri 
 cans," said Mrs. Trent, "particularly those of M. 
 Villefort's class. They are beautifully punctilious, 
 but I don't call it quite comfortable, you know." 
 
 Her mother was not the only person who noticed 
 a change in Bertha Villefort. Before long it was 
 a change so marked that all who saw her observed 
 it. She had become painfully frail and slight. 
 Her face looked too finely cut, her eyes had 
 shadowy hollows under them, and were always 
 bright with a feverish excitement. 
 
 " What is the matter with your wife ? " demanded 
 Madame de Castro of M. Villefort. Since their 
 first meeting she had never loosened her hold upon 
 the husband and wife, and had particularly culti 
 vated Bertha. 
 
 There was no change in the expression of M. 
 Villefort, but he was strangely pallid as he made 
 his reply. 
 
 " It is impossible for me to explain, Madame." 
 
 " She is absolutely attenuated," cried Madame. 
 " She is like a spirit. Take her to the country 
 to Normandy to the sea somewhere! She 
 will die if there is not a change. At twenty, one 
 should be as plump as a young capon."
 
 "LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 47 
 
 A few days after this, Jenny Trent ran in upon 
 Bertha as she lay upon a lounge, holding an open 
 book, but with closed eyes. She had come to 
 spend the morning, she announced. She wanted 
 to talk about people, about her dress, about her 
 first ball which was to come off shortly. 
 
 " And Arthur says " she began. 
 
 Bertha turned her head almost as Edmondstone 
 had done. 
 
 " Arthur ! " she repeated. 
 
 For the second time Jenny felt a little em 
 barrassed. " I mean M. Villefort," she said, hesi 
 tantly. 
 
 She quite forgot what she had been going to say, 
 and for a moment or so regarded the fire quite 
 gravely. But naturally this could not last long. 
 She soon began to talk again, and it was not many 
 minutes before she found M. Villefort in her path 
 once more. 
 
 " I never thought I could like a Frenchman so 
 much," she said, in all enthusiastic good faith. 
 " At first, you know," with an apologetic half laugh, 
 " I wondered why you had not taken an American 
 instead, when there were so many to choose from, 
 but now I understand it. What beautiful tender 
 things he can say, Bertha, and yet not seem in the 
 least sentimental. Everything comes so simply 
 right from the bottom of his heart. Just think 
 what he said to me yesterday when he brought me 
 those flowers. He helps me with mine, and it is
 
 48 " LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE 
 
 odd how things will cheer up and grow for him, 
 I said to him, 'Arthur, how is it that no flower ever 
 fails you ? ' and he answered in the gentlest quiet 
 way, ' Perhaps because I never fail them. Flowers 
 are like people, one must love and be true to 
 them, not only to-day and to-morrow, but every day 
 
 every hour always.' And he says such things 
 so often. That is why I am so fond of him." 
 
 As she received no reply, she turned toward the 
 lounge. Bertha lay upon it motionless and silent, 
 
 only a large tear trembled on her cheek. 
 Jenny sprung up, shocked and checked, and went 
 to her. 
 
 "Oh, Bertha!" she cried, "how thoughtless I 
 am to tire you so, you poor little soul ! Is it true 
 that you are so weak as all that ? I heard mamma 
 and Arthur talking about it, but I scarcely believed 
 it. They said you must go to Normandy and be 
 nursed." 
 
 " I don't want to go to Normandy," said Bertha. 
 "I I am too tired. I only want to lie till and 
 rest. I have been out too much." 
 
 Her voice, however, was so softly weak that in 
 the most natural manner Jenny was subdued into 
 shedding a few tears also, and kissed her fervently. 
 
 " Oh, Bertha ! " she said, " you must do anything 
 
 anything that will make you well if it is only 
 for Arthur's sake. He loves you so so terribly.'' 
 
 Whereupon Bertha laughed a little hysterically. 
 "Does he," she said, "love me so 'terribly? 
 Poor M. Villefort ? "
 
 " LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 45 
 
 She did not go to Normandy, however, and still 
 went into society, though not as much as had been 
 her habit. When she spent her evenings at home, 
 some of her own family generally spent them with 
 her, and M. Villefort or Edmondstone read aloud 
 or talked. 
 
 In fact, Edmondstone came oftener than ever. 
 His anxiety and unhappiness grew upon him, and 
 made him moody, irritable, and morbid. 
 
 One night, when M. Villefort had left them alone 
 together for a short time, he sprang from his chair 
 and came to her couch, shaken with suppressed 
 emotion. 
 
 "That man is killing you!" he exclaimed. 
 "You are dying by inches ! I cannot bear it ! " 
 
 " It is not he who is killing me," she answered \ 
 and then M. Villefort returned to the room with 
 the book he had been in search of. 
 
 In this case Edmondstone's passion took new 
 phases. He wrote no sonnets, painted no pictures. 
 He neglected his work, and spent his idle hours in 
 rambling here and there in a gloomy, unsociable 
 fashion. 
 
 " He looks," said M. Renard, " as if his soul 
 had been playing him some evil trick." 
 
 He had at first complained that Bertha had 
 taken a capricious fancy to Madame de Castro, 
 but in course of time he found his way to the old 
 woman's salon too, though it must be confessed 
 that Madame herself never showed him any great 
 4
 
 5<D "LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 
 
 favor. But this he did not care for. He onlj 
 cared to sit in the same room with Bertha, and 
 watch her every movement with a miserable ten 
 derness. 
 
 One night, after regarding him cynically for 
 some time, Madame broke out to Bertha with 
 small ceremony : 
 
 " What a fool that young man is ! " she ex 
 claimed. " He sits and fairly devours you with his 
 eyes. It is bad taste to show such an insane pas 
 sion for a married woman." 
 
 It seemed as if Bertha lost at once her breath 
 and every drop of blood in her body, for she had 
 neither breath nor color when she turned and 
 looked Madame de Castro in the face. 
 
 "Madame," she said, "if you repeat that to me, 
 you will never see me again never ! " 
 
 Upon which Madame snapped her up with some 
 anger at being so rebuked for her frankness. 
 
 "Then it is worse than I thought," she said. 
 
 It was weeks before she saw her young friend 
 again. Indeed, it required some clever diplomacy 
 to heal the breach made, and even in her most 
 amusing and affectionate moods, she often felt af 
 terward that she was treated with a reserve which 
 held her at arm's length. 
 
 By the time the horse-chestnuts bloomed pink 
 and white on the Avenue des Champs Elysees, 
 Ihere were few people in the Trent and Villefort 
 circles who had not their opinions on the subject 
 of Madame Villefort and her cousin.
 
 "LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 51 
 
 There was a mixture of French and American 
 gossip and comment, frank satire, or secret remark. 
 But to her credit be it spoken, Madame de Castro 
 held grim silence, and checked a rumor occasion 
 ally with such amiable ferocity as was not without 
 its good effect. 
 
 The pink and white blossoms were already be 
 ginning to strew themselves at the feet of the pe 
 destrians, when one morning M. Villefort presented 
 himself to Madame, and discovered her sitting 
 alone in the strangest of moods. 
 
 "I thought I might have the pleasure of driv 
 ing home with Madame Villefort. My servant in 
 formed me that I should find her here." 
 
 Madame de Castro pointed to a chair. 
 
 " Sit down," she commanded. 
 
 M. Villefort obeyed her in some secret but well- 
 concealed amazement. He saw that she was under 
 the influence of some unusual excitement. Her 
 false front was pushed fantastically away, her rouge 
 and powder were rubbed off in patches, her face 
 looked set and hard. Her first words were abom 
 inably blunt. 
 
 " M. Villefort," she said, " do you know what 
 your acquaintances call you ? " 
 
 A deep red rose slowly to his face, but he did 
 not answer. 
 
 " Do you know that you are designated by them 
 by an absurd title that they call you in ridicule 
 ' Le Monsieur de la petite Dame ? ' Do you knott 
 that ? "
 
 52 "L MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 
 
 His look was incomprehensible, but he bowed 
 gravely. 
 
 " Madame," he answered, " since others have 
 heard the title so often, it is but natural that I my 
 self should have heard it more than once." 
 
 She regarded him in angry amazement. She 
 was even roused to rapping upon the floor with her 
 gold-headed cane. 
 
 " Does it not affect you ? " she cried. " Does it 
 not move you to indignation ? " 
 
 "That, Madame," he replied, "can only be my 
 affair. My friends will allow me my emotions at 
 least." 
 
 Then she left her chair and began to walk up 
 and down, striking the carpet hard with her cane 
 at every step. 
 
 "You are a strange man," she remarked. 
 
 Suddenly, however, when just on the point of 
 starting upon a fresh tour, she wheeled about and 
 addressed him sharply. 
 
 " I respect you," she said ; " and because I re 
 spect you, I will do you a good turn." 
 
 She made no pretense at endeavoring to soften 
 the blow she was about to bestow. She drew forth 
 from her dress a letter, the mere sight of which 
 seemed to goad her to a mysterious excitement. 
 
 " See," she cried ; " it was M. Ralph Edmond- 
 stone who wrote this, it was to Madame Ville- 
 fort it was written. It means ruin and dishonor. 
 I offer it to you to read."
 
 "LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 53 
 
 M. Villefort rose and laid his hand upon his 
 chair to steady himself. 
 
 "Madame," he answered, "I will not touch it." 
 
 She struck herself upon her withered breast. 
 
 " Behold me ! " she said. " Me ! I am seventy 
 years old ! Good God ! seventy ! I am a bad old 
 woman, and it is said I do not repent of my sins. 
 I, too, have been a beautiful young girl. I, too, 
 had my first lover. I, too, married a man who had 
 not won my heart. It does not matter that the 
 husband was worthy and the lover was not, one 
 learns that too late. My fate was what your wife's 
 will be if you will not sacrifice your pride and save 
 her." 
 
 " Pride ! " he echoed in a bitter, hollow voice. 
 " My pride, Madame ! " 
 
 She went on without noticing him : 
 
 " They have been here this morning both of 
 them. He followed her, as he always does. He 
 had a desperate look which warned me. Afterward 
 I found the note upon the floor. Now will you 
 read it ? " 
 
 " Good God ! " he cried, as he fell into his chair 
 again, his brow sinking into his hands. 
 
 "I have read it," said Madame, with a tragic 
 gesture, "and I choose to place one stumbling- 
 block in the path that would lead her to an old age 
 like mine. I do not like your Americans ; but I 
 have sometimes seen in her girl's face a proud, 
 heroic endurance of the misery she has brought
 
 54 " LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 
 
 upon herself, and it has moved me. And this let 
 ter you should read it, to see how such a man 
 can plead. It is a passionate cry of despair it is 
 a poem in itself. I, myself, read it with sobs in 
 my throat and tears in my eyes. ' If you love 
 me ! if you have ever loved me ! ' he cries, ' for 
 God's sake! for love's sake! if there is love 
 on earth if there is a God in heaven, you will 
 not let me implore you in vain ! ' And his prayer 
 is that she will leave Paris with him tonight 
 to-night! There! Monsieur, I have done. Be 
 hold the letter ! Take it or leave it, as you 
 please." And she flung it upon the floor at his 
 feet. 
 
 She paused a moment, wondering what he would 
 do. 
 
 He bent down and picked the letter up. 
 
 " I will take it," he said. 
 
 All at once he had become calm, and when he 
 rose and uttered his last words to her, there was 
 upon his face a faint smile. 
 
 "I, too," he said, "I, too, Madame, suffer 
 from a mad and hopeless passion, and thus can 
 comprehend the bitterness of M. Edmondstone's 
 pangs. I, too, would implore in the name of love 
 and God, if I might, but I may not." And so 
 he took his departure. 
 
 Until evening Bertha did not see him. The 
 afternoon she spent alone and in writing letters, 
 and having completed and sealed the last, she went
 
 " LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME:' 55 
 
 to her couch and tried to sleep. One entering the 
 room, as she lay upon the violet cushions, her 
 hands at her sides, her eyes closed, might well 
 have been shocked. Her spotless pallor, the fine 
 sharpness of her face, the shadows under her eyes, 
 her motionlessness, would have excused the mo 
 mentary feeling. But she was up and dressed 
 for dinner when M. Villefort presented himself. 
 Spring though it was, she was attired in a high, 
 close dress of black velvet, and he found her al 
 most cowering over the open fire-place. Strangely 
 enough, too, she fancied that when she looked up 
 at him she saw him shiver, as if he were struck 
 with a slight chill also. 
 
 "You should not wear that," he said, with a half 
 smile at her gown. 
 
 "Why? "she asked. 
 
 " It makes you so white so much like a too 
 early lily. But but perhaps you thought of going 
 out ? " 
 
 " No," she answered ; " not to-night." 
 
 He came quite close to her. 
 
 " If you are not too greatly fatigued," he said, 
 "it would give me happiness to take you with me 
 on my errand to your mother's house. I must 
 carry there my little birthday gift to your sister," 
 smiling again. 
 
 An expression of embarrassment showed itself 
 upon her face. 
 
 " Oh," she exclaimed, " to think that I had for-
 
 56 "LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 
 
 gotten it ! She will feel as if I did not care for hef 
 at all." 
 
 She seemed for the moment quite unhappy. 
 
 " Let me see what you have chosen." 
 
 He drew from his pocket a case and opened it. 
 
 "Oh," she cried, "how pretty and how suitable 
 for a girl ! " 
 
 They were the prettiest, most airy set of pearls 
 imaginable. 
 
 She sat and looked at them for a few seconds 
 thoughtfully, and then handed them back. 
 
 " You are very good, and Jenny will be in ecsta 
 sies," she said. 
 
 " It is a happiness to me to give her pleasure," 
 he returned. "I feel great tenderness for her. 
 She is not like the young girls I have known. 
 Her innocence is of a frank and noble quality, 
 which is better than ignorance. One could not 
 bear that the slightest shadow of sin or pain should 
 fall upon her. The atmosphere surrounding her is 
 so bright with pure happiness and the courage of 
 youth." 
 
 Involuntarily he held out his hand. 
 
 " Will you " he began. His voice fell and 
 broke. " Will you go with me ? " he ended. 
 
 He saw that she was troubled. 
 
 " Now ? " she faltered. 
 
 "Yes now." 
 
 There was a peculiar pause, a moment, as it 
 seemed to him, of breathless silence. This silence 
 she broke by her rising slowly from her seat.
 
 " LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 57 
 
 " Yes," she responded, "I will go. Why should 
 
 I not ? " 
 
 It was midnight when they left the Trents', and 
 Jenny stood upon the threshold, a bright figure in 
 a setting of brightness, and kissed her hand to them 
 as they went down the steps. 
 
 ' I hope you will be better to-morrow, Arthur," 
 she said. 
 
 He turned quickly to look up at her. 
 
 " I ? " 
 
 " Yes. You look so tired. I might say haggard, 
 if it was polite." 
 
 " Tt would not be polite," said Bertha, " so don't 
 say it. Good-night, Jenny ! " 
 
 But when they were seated in the carriage she 
 glanced at her husband's face. 
 
 "Are you unwell ? " she asked. 
 
 He passed his hand quickly across his forehead. 
 
 " A little fatigued," he replied. " It is nothing. 
 To-morrow to-morrow it will be all over." 
 
 And so silence fell upon them. 
 
 As they entered the drawing-room a clock chimed 
 the half hour. 
 
 " So late as that ! " exclaimed Bertha, and sank 
 into a chair with a faint laugh. " Why, to-day is 
 over," she said. " It is to-morrow." 
 
 M. Villefort had approached a side table. Upon 
 it lay a peculiar-looking oblong box. 
 
 " Ah," he said, softly, " they have arrived."
 
 58 "LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME:' 
 
 " What are they ? " Bertha asked. 
 
 He was bending over the box to open it, and did 
 not turn toward her, as he replied : 
 
 " It is a gift for a young friend of mine, a 
 brace of pistols. He has before him a long jour 
 ney in the East, and he is young enough to have a 
 fancy for firearms." 
 
 He was still examining the weapons when Bertha 
 crossed the room on her way up-stairs, and she 
 paused an instant to look at them. 
 
 " They are very handsome," she said. " One 
 could almost wear them as ornaments." 
 
 "But they would have too threatening a look," 
 he answered, lightly. 
 
 As he raised his eyes they met hers. She half 
 started backward, moved by a new sense of the 
 haggardness of his face. 
 
 " You are ill ! '' she exclaimed. " You are as 
 colorless as marble." 
 
 " And you, too," he returned, still with the same 
 tender lightness. " Let us hope that our ' to-mor 
 row ' will find us both better, and you say it is to 
 morrow now. Good-night ! " 
 
 She went away without saying more. Weary as 
 she was, she knew there was no sleep for her, and 
 after dismissing her maid, she threw herself upon 
 the lounge before the bedroom fire and lay there. 
 To-night she felt as if her life had reached its 
 climax. She burst into a passion of tears. 
 
 " Jenny ! Jenny ! " she cried, " how I envy 
 how I envy you ! "
 
 " LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 59 
 
 The recollection of Jenny shining in her pretty 
 gala dress, and delighting in her birthday presents, 
 and everybody else's pride and affection, filled her 
 with a morbid misery and terror. She covered her 
 face with her hands as she thought of it. 
 
 " Once," she panted, " as I looked at her to-night, 
 for a moment I almost hated her. Am I so bad as 
 that? am I?" 
 
 Scarcely two seconds afterward she had sprung 
 to her feet and was standing by the side of her 
 couch, her heart beating with a rapid throb of 
 fright, her limbs trembling. A strange sound had 
 fallen suddenly upon the perfect silence of the 
 night a sound loud, hard, and sharp the report 
 of a pistol ! What dread seized her she knew not. 
 She was across the room and had wrenched the 
 door open in an instant, then with flying feet down 
 the corridor and the staircase. But half way down 
 the stairs she began to cry out aloud, "Arthur! 
 Arthur ! " not conscious of her own voice " Ar 
 thur, what is it ? " The door of the drawing-room 
 flew open before the fierce stroke of her palm. 
 
 M. Villefort stood where she had left him ; but 
 while his left hand supported his weight against 
 the table, his right was thrust into his breast. One 
 of the pistols lay at his feet. 
 
 She thought it was Death's self that confronted 
 her in his face, but he spoke to her, trying faintly 
 to smile. 
 
 " Do not come in," he said, " I have met with
 
 60 " LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 
 
 an accident. It is nothing. Do not come in. A 
 servant " 
 
 His last recollection was of her white face and 
 white draperies as he fell, and somehow, dizzy, sick, 
 and faint as he was, he seemed to hear her calling 
 out, in a voice strangely like Jenny's, " Arthur 1 
 Arthur 1 !" 
 
 In less than half an hour the whole house was 
 astir. Up-stairs physicians were with the wounded 
 man, down-stairs Mrs. Trent talked and wept over 
 her daughter, after the manner of all good women. 
 She was fairly terrified by Bertha's strange shud- 
 derings, quick, strained breath, and dilated eyes. 
 She felt as if she could not reach her as if she 
 hardly made herself heard. 
 
 "You must calm yourself, Bertha," she would 
 say. " Try to calm yourself. We must hope for 
 the best. Oh, how could it have happened ! " 
 
 It was in the midst of this that a servant entered 
 with a letter, which he handed to his mistress. 
 The envelope bore upon it nothing but her own 
 name. 
 
 She looked at it with a bewildered expression. 
 
 " For me ? " she said. 
 
 " It fell from Monsieur's pocket as we carried 
 him up-stairs," replied the man. 
 
 "Don't mind it now, Bertha," said her mother. 
 " Ah, poor M. Villefort ! " 
 
 But Bertha had opened it mechanically and was 
 reading it.
 
 "LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 6 1 
 
 At first it seemed as if it must have been written 
 in a language she did not understand ; but after 
 the first few sentences a change appeared. Her 
 breath came and went more quickly than before 
 a kind of horror grew in her eyes. At the last she 
 uttered a low, struggling cry. The paper was 
 crushed in her hand, she cast one glance around 
 the room as if in bewildering search for refuge, and 
 flung herself upon her mother's breast. 
 
 " Save me, mother ! " she said. " Help me ! If 
 he dies now, I shall go mad ! " 
 
 Afterward, in telling her story at home, good 
 Mrs. Trent almost broke down. 
 
 "Oh, Jenny!" she said. "Just to think of the 
 poor fellow's having had it in his pocket then ! Of 
 course I did not see it, but one can fancy that it 
 was something kind and tender, perhaps some 
 little surprise he had planned for her. It seemed 
 as if she could not bear it." 
 
 M. Villefort's accident was the subject of discus 
 sion for many days. He had purchased a wonder 
 ful pair of pistols as a gift for a young friend. 
 How it had happened that one had been loaded 
 none knew ; it was just possible that he had been 
 seized with the whim to load it himself at all 
 events, it had gone off in his hands. An inch 
 nay, half an inch to the right, and Madame Vil- 
 lefort, who flew down-stairs at the sound of the 
 report, would only have found a dead man at her 
 feet.
 
 62 "L MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 
 
 "Mafoi /" said M. Renard, repressing his smile ; 
 " this is difficult for Monsieur, but it may leave ' la 
 petite Dame ' at liberty." 
 
 Madame de Castro flew at him with flashing 
 eyes. 
 
 " Silence ! " she said, " if you would not have me 
 strike you with my cane." And she looked as if 
 she were capable of doing it 
 
 Upon his sick-bed M. Villefort was continually 
 haunted by an apparition an apparition of a 
 white face and white draperies, such as he had 
 seen as he fell. Sometimes it was here, sometimes 
 there, sometimes near him, and sometimes indis 
 tinct and far away. Sometimes he called out to it 
 and tried to extend his arms ; again he lay and 
 watched it, murmuring gentle words, and smiling 
 mournfully. 
 
 Mrs. Trent and the doctor were in despair. 
 Madame Villefort obstinately refused to be forced 
 from her husband's room. There were times when 
 they thought she might sink and die there herself. 
 She would not even leave it when they obliged her 
 to sleep. Having been slight and frail from ill 
 health before, she became absolutely attenuated. 
 Soon all her beauty would be gone. 
 
 " Do you know," said Mrs. Trent to her hus 
 band, " I have found out that she always carries 
 that letter in her breast ? I see her put her hand 
 to it in the strangest way a dozen times a day." 
 
 One night, awakening from a long sleep to a
 
 "LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 63 
 
 clearer mental consciousness than usual, M. Ville- 
 fort found his apparition standing over him. 
 
 She stood with one hand clinched upon her 
 breast, and she spoke to him. 
 
 " Arthur ! " she said, " Arthur, do you know 
 me ? " 
 
 He answered her, " Yes." 
 
 She slipped down upon her knees, and held up 
 in her hand a letter crushed and broken. 
 
 " Try to keep your mind clear while you listen 
 to me," she implored. "Try try ! I must tell 
 you, or I shall die. I am not the bad woman you 
 think me. I never had read it I had not seen 
 it. I think he must have been mad. Once I 
 loved him, but he killed my love himself. I could 
 not have been bad like that. Jenny ! mother ! 
 Arthur ! believe me ! believe me ! " 
 
 In this supreme moment of her anguish and 
 shame she forgot all else. She stretched forth her 
 hands, panting. 
 
 " Believe me ! It is true ! Try to understand ! 
 Some one is coming ! Say one word before it is 
 too late ! " 
 
 " I understand," he whispered, " and I believe." 
 He made a weak effort to touch her hand, but 
 failed. He thought that perhaps it was the chill 
 and numbness of death which stole over him and 
 held him bound. When the nurse, whose footsteps 
 they had heard, entered, she found him lying with
 
 64 "LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 
 
 glazed eyes, and Madame Villefort fallen in a swoon 
 at the bedside. 
 
 And yet, from this time forward the outside world 
 began to hear that his case was not so hopeless 
 after all. 
 
 " Villefort will possibly recover," it was said at 
 first; then, " Villefort improves, it seems;" and, at 
 last, " Villefort is out of danger. Who would have 
 thought it ? " 
 
 Nobody, however, could say that Madame had 
 kept pace with her husband. When Monsieur was 
 sufficiently strong to travel, and was advised to do 
 so, there were grave doubts as to the propriety of 
 his wife's accompanying him. 
 
 But she would not listen to those doubts. 
 
 "I will not stay in Paris," she said to her 
 mother. " I want to b.e free from it, and Jenny has 
 promised to go with us." 
 
 They were to go into Normandy, and the day be 
 fore their departure Ralph Edmondstone came to 
 bid them good-by. 
 
 Of the three he was by far the most haggard 
 figure, and when Bertha came down to meet him 
 in the empty drawing-room, he became a wretched 
 figure with a broken, hopeless air. For a few sec 
 onds Bertha did not speak, but stood a pace or 
 two away looking at him. It seemed, in truth, as 
 she waited there in her dark, nun-like dress, that 
 nearly all her beauty had left her. There remained
 
 "LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 65 
 
 only her large sad eyes and pretty hair, and the 
 touching look of extreme youth. In her hand she 
 held the crushed letter. 
 
 " See ! " she said at last, holding this out to him. 
 " I am not so bad so bad as that." 
 
 He caught it from her hand and tore it into frag 
 ments. He was stabbed through and through with 
 shame and remorse. After all, his love had been 
 strong enough here, and his comprehension keen 
 enough to have made him repent in the dust of the 
 earth, in his first calm hour, the insult he had put 
 upon her. 
 
 " Forgive me ! " he cried ; " oh, forgive me ! " 
 
 The few steps between them might have been a 
 myriad of miles. 
 
 " I did love you long ago," she said ; " but 
 you never thought of me. You did not understand 
 me then nor afterward. All this winter my love 
 has been dying a hard death. You tried to keep it 
 alive, but you did not understand. You only 
 humiliated and tortured me. And I knew that if I 
 had loved you more, you would have loved me 
 less. See!" holding up her thin hand, "I have 
 been worn out in the struggle between my unhappi- 
 aess and remorse and you." 
 
 " You do not know what love is ! " he burst forth, 
 Btung into swift resentment. 
 
 A quick sob broke from her. 
 
 " Yes, I do," she answered. "I I have seen 
 t" 
 
 5
 
 66 "LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 
 
 " You mean M. Villefort ! " he cried in desperate 
 jealous misery. " You think that he " 
 
 She pointed to the scattered fragments of the 
 letter. 
 
 " He had that in his pocket when he fell," she 
 said. " He thought that I had read it. If I had 
 been your wife, and you had thought so, would you 
 have thought that I was worth trying to save as 
 he tried to save me ? " 
 
 "What!" he exclaimed, shamefacedly. "Has 
 he seen it ? " 
 
 "Yes," she answered, with another sob, which 
 might have been an echo of the first. " And that 
 is the worst of all." 
 
 There was a pause, during which he looked down 
 at the floor, and even trembled a little. 
 
 " I have done you more wrong than I thought," 
 he said. 
 
 "Yes," she replied ; " a thousand-fold more." 
 
 It seemed as if there might have been more to 
 say, but it was not said. 
 
 In a little while he roused himself with an effort. 
 
 " I am not a villain," he said. " I can do one 
 thing. I can go to Villefort if you care." 
 
 She did not speak. So he moved slowly away 
 until he reached the door. With his hand upon 
 the handle he turned and looked back at her. 
 
 " Oh, it is good-by good-by ! " he almost 
 groaned. 
 
 "Yes."
 
 "LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 6"/ 
 
 He could not help it few men could have 
 done so. His expression was almost fierce as he 
 spoke his next words. 
 
 " And you will love him yes, you will love 
 him." 
 
 " No," she answered, with bitter pain. " I am 
 not worthy." 
 
 It was a year or more before the Villeforts were 
 seen in Paris again, and Jenny enjoyed her wander 
 ings with them wondrously. In fact, she was the 
 leading member of the party. She took them 
 where she chose, to queer places, to ugly places, 
 to impossible places, but never from first to last 
 to any place where there were not, or at least had 
 not been, Americans as absurdly erratic as them 
 selves. 
 
 The winter before their return they were at 
 Genoa, among other places ; and it was at Genoa 
 that one morning, on opening a drawer, Bertha 
 came upon an oblong box, the sight of which made 
 her start backward and put her hand to her beating 
 side. M. Villefort approached her hurriedly. An 
 instant later, however, he started also and shut 
 the drawer. 
 
 " Come away," he said, taking her hand gently. 
 ' Do not remain here." 
 
 But he was pale, too, and his hand was un 
 steady. He led her to the window and made her 
 sit down.
 
 68 " LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 
 
 "Pardon me," he said. "I should not have left 
 them there." 
 
 " You did not send them to your friend ? " she 
 faltered. 
 
 " No." 
 
 He stood for a moment or so, and looked out of 
 the window at the blue sea which melted into the 
 blue sky, at the blue sky which bent itself into 
 the blue sea, at the white sails flecking the deep 
 azure, at the waves hurrying in to break upon the 
 sand. 
 
 "That" he said at length, tremulously, and 
 with pale lips " that was false." 
 
 " Was false ! " she echoed. 
 
 "Yes," hoarsely, "it was false. There was no 
 such friend. It was a lie they were meant only 
 for myself." 
 
 She uttered a low cry of anguish and dread. 
 
 "Ah man Dieu /" he said. "You could not 
 know. I understood all, and had been silent. I 
 was nothing a jest ' le monsieur de la petite 
 dame' as they said, only that. I swore that I 
 would save you. When I bade you adieu that 
 night, I thought it was my last farewell. There 
 was no accident. Yes there was one. I did 
 not die, as I had intended. My hand was not 
 steady enough. And since then " 
 
 She rose up, crying out to him as she had done 
 on that terrible night, 
 
 "Arthur! Arthur'"
 
 "LE MONSIEUR DE LA PETITE DAME." 69 
 
 He came closer to her. 
 
 " Is it true," he said, " is it true that my 
 prayers have not been in vain ? Is it true that at 
 last at last, you have learned have learned " 
 
 She stretched forth her arms to him. 
 
 " It is true ! " she cried. " Yes. it is true ! --it 
 is true 1 "
 
 SMETHURSTSES. 
 
 SMETHURSTSES, mum yes, mum, on ac 
 counts of me bein' Smethurst an' the wax 
 works mine. Fifteen year I've been in the busi 
 ness, an' if I live fifteen year more I shall have 
 been in it thirty ; for wax-works is the kind of a 
 business as a man gets used to and friendly with, 
 after a manner. Lor' bless you ! there's no tellin' 
 how much company them there wax-works is. I've 
 picked a companion or so out of the collection. 
 Why, there's Lady Jane Grey, as is readin' her 
 Greek Testyment ; when her works is in order an' 
 she's set a-goin', liftin' her eyes gentle-like from her 
 book, I could fancy as she knew every trouble I'd 
 had an' was glad as they was over. And there's the 
 Royal Fam'ly on the dais all a settin' together as 
 free an' home-like an' smilin' as if they wasn't 
 nothin' more than flesh an' blood like you an' me 
 an' not a crown among 'em. Why, they've actually 
 been a comfort to me. I've set an' took my tea 
 on my knee on the step there many a time, because 
 it seemed cheerfuller than in my own little place at
 
 SMETHURSTSES. >j\ 
 
 the back. If I was a talkin' man I might object to 
 the stillness an' a general fixedness in the gaze, as 
 perhaps is a objection as wax-works is open to as a 
 rule, though I can't say as it ever impressed me as 
 a very affable gentleman once said it impressed 
 him. 
 
 " Smethurst," says he, " you must have a blamed 
 clear conscience (though, bein' rather free-spoken, 
 ' blamed ' was not the precise word employed) 
 you must have a blamed clear conscience or I'm 
 blamed if you could stand so many blamed pair of 
 staring eyes gimleting you year in an' year out. 
 An' as to them with works," says he, "they're 
 worse than the others, for even if they turn away a 
 minute they always turn back again, as if they 
 wouldn't trust you out of their sight." 
 
 But somehow, I never thought of it in that way, 
 an' as to not liking the quiet, why shouldn't I ? 
 In a general way I haven't got no more to say than 
 they have, and so it suits me well enough. I will 
 own though, as I've never felt particular comfort 
 able in the Chamber of Horrors, an' never wouldn't 
 have had one, but even in a small collection like 
 mine the public demands it, an' won't hear of 
 bein' satisfied without one; "for," says they, 
 " what's the use of a wax-works without Manning 
 an' them, an' the prisoners in the dock, an' the 
 knife as the young woman was cut up in pieces 
 with ? " So I was obliged to have the little back 
 room hung with black, like Madame Tussaud's in
 
 72 SMETHURSTSES. 
 
 a small way, and fitted up with murders, and a 
 model of the guillotine, and two or three heads of 
 parties as come to a untimely end in the French 
 Revolution. But it aint my taste for all that, and 
 there's always a heaviness in the air as makes me 
 low-like an' I'm glad to turn the key on 'em al 
 night an' leave 'em to have a rest from the stares 
 an' talk an' stirrin' up of their sin, an' the shame 
 an' agony of their dreadful deaths. Good Lord ! 
 it turns me sick to think of them havin' been real 
 livin' creatures, with mothers an' wives an' friends, 
 some of 'em perhaps livin' to-day, all crushed an' 
 blasted with the horror they've went through. 
 
 But that aint the story as I've half-way promised 
 to tell you. If you really want to hear it, mum, I 
 don't mind tellin' it, though I don't know as it will 
 be interestin' I've often wondered if it would be 
 as interestin' to outsiders as it was to me, bein' as 
 it's the story of a friend of mine as was something 
 like me an' likewise had a wax-works. Would you 
 mind settin' there, mum, next to the Japanese 
 party ? His lady's works was broke, an' her bein' 
 absent at the cleaner's leaves the chair vacant 
 most convenient. 
 
 His name it was Joe this acquaintance of 
 mine, an', as I said, he was somethin' of my build 
 an' temper. He was a quiet chap an' a lonely 
 chap, an' London was his native place leastways, 
 I don't see as it could have been no nativer than it
 
 SMETHURSTSES. 73 
 
 was, bein' as he was laid at the door of a London 
 foundlin' when he wasn't no more than a few days 
 old, and London fed him and clothed him until he 
 was big enough to take care of hisself. He hadn't 
 a easy life of it as you may be sure. He wasn't 
 handsome nor yet sharp, he couldn't answer back 
 nor yet give cheek ; he could only take it, which 
 he had to do frequent. 
 
 There was plenty of folks as give him the char 
 acter of a nat'ral born fool, an' they may have been 
 right. They said as no chap as had his right senses 
 could be as good-natured an' ready to forgive a in 
 jury, an' above all as slow to suspect as one was 
 bein' done him. I think they thought his bein' 
 slow to suspect harm a-goin' on was the best proof 
 of his bein' a fool, an' he wasn't ready enough 
 with his tongue to argy the point. He wasn't 
 never good at a argyment Joe wasn't. 
 
 Well, he growed up, an' he did first one thing 
 an' then another, until at last he was picked up by 
 a travelin' wax-works showman as had just such a 
 collection as this here of mine havin' in it just 
 such a Lady Jane Grey, and likewise a sim'lar 
 Royal Fam'ly. 
 
 " Well," says the wax-works man, when Joe first 
 goes to ask for work, " what can you do ? " 
 
 " Not much, perhaps," says Joe ; " leastways, 
 I've not been in the business before ; but if you'll 
 give me a job, Mister, I can do what I'm told." 
 
 The showman gives him a look from head to 
 foot
 
 74 SMETHURSTSES. 
 
 " Well," says he, " at all events, you're not one 
 of them blarsted sharp uns as knows everythin' an' 
 can't dust a figger without knockin' its head off. 
 I've had enough of them sort " savage like 
 "a-ruinin' my Richard Cure the Lion, an' a-settin' 
 Mary Queen o' Scottses insides all wrong " (which 
 was what his last young man had been a-doin'). 
 
 "No," answers Joe, slow an' serious, "I don't 
 think as I'd do that." 
 
 The showman gives him another look, an' seems 
 sort of satisfied. 
 
 "Go inside an' get your dinner," he says. "I'll 
 try you just because you haven't got so much 
 cheek." 
 
 And he did try him, an' pretty well they got on 
 together, after a while. Slowness is not a objec 
 tion in a wax-works as much as in a business as is 
 less delicater. I've thought myself as p'r'aps wax 
 works has their feelin's, an' knows who means 
 respec'ful by 'em an' who doesn't, an' this Joe 
 meant respec'ful, an' never took no liberties as he 
 could help. He dusted 'em regular, an' wound 'em 
 up an' set 'em goin' accordin' to rules ; but he 
 never tried no larks on 'em, an' that was why he 
 gets along so well with his master. 
 
 "That other chap was too fond of his larks," says 
 the showman, kind of gloomy whenever he men 
 tions the first young man. He never forgive him 
 to the day of his death for openin' the collection 
 one day with Charles the Secondses helmet on
 
 SMETffUKSTSES. 75 
 
 Mrs. Hannah Mooreses head, an' Daniel in the 
 Lions' Den in William Pennses spectacles, with 
 some other party's umbrella under his arm. 
 
 But Joe weren't of a witty turn, an' not given to 
 jokes, which is not suited to wax-works as a rule, 
 collections bein' mostly serious. An', as I say, 
 him an' his master got along so well that one day, 
 after they had been together a year or so, the show 
 man, he says to him, " Joe," says he, " I'm blessed 
 if I'd mind takin' you in as a partner." An' that 
 very mornin' he has the reg'lar papers made out, 
 an' the thing was done without no more said about 
 it. An' partners they was till he died, which 
 happened very unexpected him a sayin' sudden 
 one night when they was a-shuttin' up together, 
 "Joe, old chap, I'm blessed if my works aint a 
 runnin' down," an' gives one look round at the 
 riggers, an' then drops which the medical man 
 said as it was dropsy of the heart. When his 
 things was looked over, it was found he'd left 
 everythin' to Joe except one partic'lar ugly figger, 
 as turned his eyes with a squint an' couldn't be 
 done nothin' with, an' him he'd left to a old maid 
 relation as had a spite agin him "for," says the 
 will, " she'd ought to have him, for he's the only 
 chap I ever see yet as could match her let alone 
 stand her, an' it's time she was takin' a partner, if 
 she's goin' to." They did say as it was nearly the 
 party's death, for, though they'd quarreled reg'lar 
 for twenty-five years an' hated each other deadly^
 
 76 SMETHURSTSES. 
 
 she'd always believed as she'd come into his 
 belongin's if she outlived him, thinkin' as he would 
 make no will. 
 
 Well, havin' had company for so long, it was 
 nat'ral as Joe should feel lonely-like after this, an' 
 now an' then get a trifle down-hearted. He didn't 
 find travelin' all alone as pleasant as it had been, 
 so when he was makin' anythin' at all in a place, 
 he'd stay in it as long as he could, an' kind of try 
 to persuade hisself as it was kind of home to him, 
 an' he had things to hold him to it. He had a 
 good many feelin's in secret as might have been 
 laughed at if people had knowed 'em. He knowed 
 well enough as he wasn't the kind of chap to have 
 a home of his own men as has homes has wives, 
 an' who'd have wanted to marry him, bless you 
 he wasn't the build as young women take to. He 
 weren't nothin' to look at, an' he couldn't chaff, 
 nor yet lark, nor yet be ready with his tongue. In 
 general, young women was apt to make game of 
 him when their sweethearts brought 'em into the 
 collection, an' there was times when a pretty, light- 
 hearted one would put him out so as he scarcely 
 knowed the Royal Fam'ly by name, an' mixed up 
 the Empress of the French an' Lucreecher Borgiar 
 in the description. 
 
 So he lived on, lonesome enough, for two or 
 three year, an' then somethin' happened. He went 
 up to London to stay while the races was goin' on, 
 an' one day, when the collection was pretty full,
 
 SMETHURSTSES. 77 
 
 there comes in a swell paity with a girl on his 
 arm. The swell, as was a tall, fine-lookin' chap, 
 was in high sperits, an' had just come in for the 
 lark of the thing, Joe sees plain, for he were makin' 
 his jokes free an' easy about everythin', an' laughin' 
 fit to kill hisself every now an' then. But the girl 
 were different ; she were a little rosy thing, with 
 round, shinin' eyes, an' a soft, little timid way with 
 her. She laughed too, but only shy an' low, an' 
 more because she was happy an' because the swell 
 laughed. She wasn't the kind of young woman as 
 the swell ought to have been a-goin' with. She 
 was dressed in her best, an' was as pretty as a pic- 
 tur' ; but her clothes was all cheap, an' Joe could 
 see as she belonged to the workin' class, an' was 
 out for a holiday. She held close to the gentle 
 man's arm, an' seemed half frightened, an' yet so 
 glad an' excited that she would have minded you 
 of a six-year-old child. It were the first time 
 she'd ever been into a wax-works, an' things looked 
 wonderful to her. When they come to Lady Jane 
 Grey she was quite took with her, an' begun to ask 
 questions in the innocentest way. 
 
 " She's one of the nobility, sir, isn't she ? " she 
 says to her companion. " Did you ever see her ? 
 Isn't she beautiful, sir?" 
 
 He laughs delighted, an' squeezes her hand a bit 
 with his arm. 
 
 "No, Polly," he says. "I never saw her until 
 to-day. She didn't keep her head on her shoulders
 
 78 SME THURS TSES. 
 
 long enough. It was cut off some time ago, my 
 dear." An' then he whispers : " An' it wasn't 
 nearly as pretty a head as yours, Polly, either." 
 
 The little girl blushes like a rose, an' tries to 
 laugh too ; but Joe knew as she'd took the words 
 more to her innocent heart than was good for her. 
 
 " Lor' me ! " she says. " What a shame it was 
 to cut her head off, an' her so sweet an' quiet ! " 
 
 "Yes, Polly," says the young gentleman, a- 
 laughin' more. " Very quiet. Wax-works are, as 
 a rule. A nice time a proprietor would have, if 
 they were not, with such a lot of queer customers, 
 Bloody Mary, for instance, and Henry the 
 Eighth, and Nana Sahib, and John Knox, and 
 Lucretia Borgia, though you don't know much 
 of their amiable characteristics, my dear." 
 
 They went on in that way through the whole 
 room, him a-jokin' an' makin' light, an' her en- 
 joyin' herself an' admirin' everythin' she set eyes 
 on, an' Joe, a-watchin' her. He couldn't help it. 
 Somethin' queer seemed to have took hold of him 
 the minute he first sees her. He kep' a-wishin' as 
 the collection was ten times as big, so as it would 
 take longer for her to go through. He couldn't 
 bear the thought of seein' the last of her, an' when 
 they comes to the Russian party, as stands near 
 the door, dressed for the winter season, his nose 
 bein' protected with fur, after the fashion of the 
 country, his heart were in his mouth, an' when 
 she passed out into the crowd, he seemed to 
 
 \
 
 SMETHURSTSES. 79 
 
 swallow it with a gulp, as took it into the heels of 
 his boots. 
 
 " Lor' ! " he says, all of a tremble in his insides, 
 " I shan't never see her again, never ! " 
 
 He hadn't no spirit in him all that day, nor the 
 next either. It was as if somethin' altogether out 
 of common had happened, an' he couldn't never 
 be the same man again. He were miserable, an' 
 down an' nervous, an' there wasn't a figger in the 
 collection as didn't seem to know it. He took to 
 standin' at the door whenever he could, a-lookin' 
 at the people a-passin' by. An' yet he scarcely 
 knowed what for. If he'd seen the face he wanted 
 to, he wouldn't 'a' dared to say a word, nor yet to 
 move a step ; an' still he was a-hungerin' day an : 
 night for a glimpse of what couldn't be no good to 
 him. 
 
 Well, if you'll believe me, mum, instead of get- 
 tin' easier as time went on, he got uneasier. He 
 was as lonesome again as he had been, an' he took 
 his tea a-settin' with the Royal Fam'ly reg'lar, 
 he couldn't have swallowed it by hisself. After 
 shuttin' up, he'd go out wanderin' in the streets 
 melancholy and wistful like, an' one night he stops 
 short all at once, a-feelin' hisself turn pale in con 
 sequence of it comin' to him sudden what ailed 
 him. 
 
 " I've fell in love," says he, fearful an' respec'ful, 
 "that's it, an' there's no help for me. I'm 
 not the man as should have done it, for I can't look 
 for nothin' to come out of it."
 
 8O SMETffURSTSES. 
 
 He give hisself up to it, because he didn't see 
 no way out of it. Nobody wasn't troubled but his 
 self, an' so it didn't matter. He got pale an' thin, 
 an' didn't sleep well o' nights, but there wasn't 
 no one to bother themselves about him, there 
 weren't even a soul as he could 'a' left the collec 
 tion to, if he'd 'a' died. 
 
 It went pretty hard with him to leave London, 
 an' when he did leave it, he couldn't stay away ; 
 an' I'm blessed if he didn't come back in less than 
 six months ; for, says he to hisself : 
 
 " Here's a place as is somethin' more than the 
 others, at least, though it is in a sorrowful way, an' 
 I'd rather as the collection would earn me a bare 
 livin' in a side street in London, than make money 
 away from it. I might see her again ; an', Lor' 
 bless me ! what do I want of money a-layin' 
 back ? " 
 
 Well, the very first night after he came back, he 
 did see her again. He'd set out the collection in 
 the room he'd hired, an' then he'd gone out in the 
 old wanderin' way, an' he hadn't hardly stepped 
 into the street before he comes on a crowd gath 
 ered around somethin' near a lamp-post ; so he 
 stops nat'ral, an' makes inquiries. 
 
 " Anybody hurt ? " says he. 
 
 " No, not exactly," answers the man he'd spoke 
 to. " It's a young woman as has fainted, I think." 
 
 He makes his way a bit nearer, an' as soon as 
 he claps his eyes on the deathly face under the 

 
 SME THURSTSES. 8 1 
 
 lamp-light, he sees as it's the face he's been lookin' 
 for an' thinkin' about so long. 
 
 " It's her! " he says, so shook as he didn't know 
 what he was doin'. " It's Polly ! " 
 
 " Polly ! " says the woman as was holdin' her 
 head. "Do you know her, young man? If you 
 do, you'd better speak to her, for she's just comin' 
 to, poor little thing ! " 
 
 He knowed he couldn't explain, an' he thinks, 
 besides, as the feelin' he had for her might make 
 his face look friendlier than a stranger's, so he 
 kneels down as the woman tells him, just as she 
 opens her eyes. 
 
 The crowd seemed to frighten her, an' she began 
 to tremble an' cry ; an' so Joe speaks to her, low, 
 an' quiet, an' respec'ful : 
 
 "Don't be afraid, miss," he says, "don't. 
 You'll be well directly." 
 
 She catches hold of his hand like a frightened 
 baby. 
 
 " Send them away ! " she says. " Please, don't 
 let them stare at me. I can't bear it ! " 
 
 "Miss," says Joe, "would you mind bein took 
 into a collection, if this good lady would go with 
 you ? " 
 
 "A collection!" she says, all bewildered. "I 
 haven't got any money. What is it for? Oh, 
 please make them go away ! " 
 
 "Not a hat took 'round, miss," says Joe. "Oh 
 dear, no ! I was alludin' to a wax-works which is 
 6
 
 82 SMETHURSTSES. 
 
 quite convenient, an' belongs to me, an' a fire an' 
 a cup of tea ready immediate, an' a good lady to 
 stay with you until you feel better, an' all quite 
 private." 
 
 " Take me anywhere, please/' she says. " Thank 
 you, sir. Oh, take me away." 
 
 So between them, Joe an' the good woman helps 
 her up an' leads her to the door as was but a few 
 steps off, an' Joe takes them in an' on to the back 
 room, where the fire was a burnin' an' the kettle 
 singin', an' there he has them both to sit down. 
 
 The woman makes the girl lie down on the sofa 
 by the fire, an' she bein' weak an' wanderin' yet 
 did as she was told without asJdn' a question. 
 
 " A cup of tea'Il set her up," says the woman, 
 " an r then she can tell us where she lives an' we 
 can take her home." 
 
 Joe went about like a man in a dream. His legs 
 was unsteady under him, an' he was obliged to ask 
 the woman to pour the water on the tea, an' while 
 she was doin' it he takes a candle and slips into 
 the collection secret, to make sure the Royal 
 Fam'ly was there an' he wasn't out of his head. 
 
 The woman, havin' girls of her own, was very 
 motherly an' handy an' did all she could, but she 
 couldn't stay long, and after she'd give Polly her 
 tea, she says she must go. 
 
 " An' I dare say as the young man as is so kind- 
 hearted'll come along with me, an' we'll see you 
 home together, my dear."
 
 
 SMETIIUKSTSES. 83 
 
 They both looks at Polly then a-waitin' to see 
 what she would say, but she only looked frightened, 
 an' the next minute hides her face in her little 
 hands on the sofa-arm an' begins to sob. 
 
 " I haven't got no home," she says, " nor no 
 where to go. What shall I do what shall I 
 do?" 
 
 Then the woman looks very serious an' a bit 
 hard-like about the mouth though not as hard as 
 some might have done. 
 
 " Where's your mother?" she says, just the least 
 short. 
 
 " I haven't none," says Polly. " I lost her a 
 month ago." 
 
 " You aint in mournin'," says the woman. 
 
 " No, ma'am," says Polly, " I couldn't afford it." 
 
 " An' your father ? " 
 
 But this made the poor little thing cry harder 
 than ever. She wrung her hands an' sobbed piti 
 ful. 
 
 " Oh, father ! " she says. " Good, kind, easy 
 father, if you was alive I wouldn't be like this. 
 You always loved me always. You never was 
 hard, father." 
 
 " What have you been livin' on ? " says the 
 woman, lookin' as if she was a-relentin'. 
 
 " I was in a shop " 
 
 But Joe couldn't stand no more. 
 
 " Ma'am," he says in a undertone, " if a pound 
 or so, which not bein' a fam'ly man an' a good
 
 4 SMETHURSTSES. 
 
 business at times, I have it to spare, would make 
 matters straight, here it is." An' he pulls a handful 
 of silver out of his pocket and holds it out quite 
 eager an' yet fearful of givin' offense. 
 
 Well, then the woman looks sharp at him. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " she asks. " Do you 
 want me to take her home with me ? " 
 
 " Ma'am," says Joe, "yes, if a pound or so " 
 
 But she stops him by turning to the girl. 
 
 " Are you a respectable young woman ? " she 
 asks. 
 
 The pretty face was hid on the sofa-arm, an' the 
 little figure looked so droopin' that Joe could stand 
 that less than he could stand the other. 
 
 "Ma'am," says he hurried, "if five pound" 
 
 It seemed like the woman's heart was touched, 
 though she answered him rough. 
 
 "Young man," she says, "you're a fool, but if 
 you don't want me to speak out before her, take 
 me into the next room an' we'll talk it over." 
 
 So Joe took her into the collection, an' the end 
 of it was that they made an agreement, an' sharp 
 as she seemed, the woman showed as she was fair 
 and straight an' would take no advantage. She 
 let Joe persuade her at last to take the girl with 
 her an' ask no questions, an' he was to pay her a 
 trifle to make it straight an' no burden to her. 
 
 "Though," says she, "if she had a different face 
 an' one as wasn't so innocent an' young, I wouldn't 
 take her at no price, for I've girls of my own aa
 
 SME THUKSTSES. 8 5 
 
 I tell you, an' p'r'aps that's what makes me easier 
 on her." 
 
 When they was gone away, Joe goes into the 
 room they'd left an' sets hisself down by the fire 
 an' stares at the sofa. 
 
 " She set there," he says, "an' she laid her head 
 on the arm, and likewise drunk out of that there 
 cup. I've seen her again as sure as I'm a man." 
 
 An' not a wink of sleep does he get that night, 
 but sits, an' stares, an' thinks until the fire dies out 
 into ashes, an' it's gray early mornin'. 
 
 Through a delicateness of feelin' he does not go 
 anywheres near her for a day or so, an' then the 
 woman whose name is Mrs. Bonny calls in to 
 see him. 
 
 "Well," she says, "it seems all right so far. 
 She's a nice little thing, an' she's got work in a 
 millinery down town, an' I've kept my word an' 
 asked no questions, an' will you come an' have a 
 cup of tea with us this evening ? " 
 
 Of course he went, glad enough, though awk 
 ward, an' he saw her again, an' she was prettier an' 
 innocenter lookin' than ever, though pale an' timid. 
 When she give her hand at partin' an' says, 
 "Thank you for bein' so kind to me," he couldn't 
 say a single word in answer, he -were so bashful an' 
 upsot. 
 
 He was always bashful enough, even after they 
 knowed each other better an' was good friends, 
 which they came to be. She seemed to take a
 
 86 SMETIIURSTSES. 
 
 childish likin' to him, an' always to be a remem- 
 berin' as she'd somethin' to be grateful for. 
 
 " What made you so kind to me that night, 
 Joe ? " she'd say. " You hadn't never seen me 
 before, you know. Oh, how good you was, Joe ! " 
 An' he hadn't never the courage to tell her as he 
 had. 
 
 Through one thing an' another, it was quite a 
 while before she chanced to see the collection, but, 
 at last, one afternoon, they all comes down Mrs. 
 Bonny, the girls, and Polly. 
 
 Polly was a-goin' 'round with Joe, an' he couldn't 
 help wonderin' anxious if she would remember as 
 she had seen the place an' him before. An' she 
 did. Before she had been in the room three min 
 utes, she begins to look round strange an' puzzled, 
 an' when she comes to Lady Jane Grey, she 
 catches Joe's arm an' gives a tremblin' start. 
 
 " I've been here before," she says. " I was here 
 last races I oh, Joe," an' she breaks off with 
 a sob. 
 
 He sets her in a chair and stands before her, so 
 as the Bonnys can't see. 
 
 " Don't cry, Polly," he says, but he says it with 
 a sinkin' feelin', because he sees as she doesn't re 
 member him at all, an' that she hasn't forgot her 
 handsome sweetheart. 
 
 She doesn't cry much more for fear of the 
 Bonnys, but she doesn't laugh nor talk no more all 
 the rest of the day, an' her little downcast face
 
 SMETHUKSTSES. 8/ 
 
 was enough to make a man's heart ache. I dare 
 say you'll think as Joe was a fool to hang on so in 
 the face of all this, but it was his way to <hang on 
 to a thing quiet an' steady, and you remember what 
 I've said about his simpleness. So he does hang 
 on without a bit of hope until through Polly her 
 self he speaks almost without knowing it, an' it 
 happens in the collection just three months from 
 the day as she recognized Lady Jane Grey. 
 
 " What made you so good to me that night, 
 Joe ? " she says again to him, mournful an' gentle. 
 " I never shall forget it. No one else would have 
 been so good." 
 
 " Polly," he says, a-takin' out his bandanna an' 
 wipin' his forehead, for, though a cool day, he had 
 broke out in a free perspiration, " Polly, it was be 
 cause I loved you." An' he went straight through 
 an' told her the whole story. 
 
 " But," says he at the end, " don't let that come 
 between you an' me, Polly, for why should it? 
 You have nothing to give me, Polly, an', conse 
 quently, I don't ask nothin'." 
 
 " No," says she, in a half whisper, " I haven't 
 nothin' to give no one." 
 
 An' yet, it wasn't three weeks before but, 
 
 I'll tell you how it happened. 
 
 He'd been invited to the Bonnys' to tea, an 
 when he went there, he found Polly ailin'. She 
 vas white an' nervous, an' her eyes looked big an' 
 woful.
 
 88 SMETHURSTSES. 
 
 " She had a fright last night," Mrs. Bonny told 
 him. " Some scamp of a fellow followed her all 
 the way home an' it's upsot her." 
 
 She hardly spoke all the evenin', but lay back in 
 the big rockin'-chair a-lookin' at Joe every now an' 
 then as if she was askin' him to help her, an r when 
 he'd bid 'em all good-night an' was half-way down 
 the street, he hears the door open again, an' who 
 should come runnin' after him but her, all out of 
 breath, an' catches him by the arm, cryin' : 
 
 " Joe," she says, " do you do you love me yet, 
 Joe ? " 
 
 "Polly," he says, "what is it, my dear?" an' 
 hearin' her ask him such a question, turned him al 
 most sick with joy an' pain together. 
 
 "Because," she sobs out, "because, if you 
 love me yet, take me, Joe, an' keep me safe." 
 
 An' before he knows how it happens, he has her 
 in his arms, with her face against his coat. 
 
 After they was both a bit quiet, he takes her 
 back to Mrs. Bonny, an' says he : 
 
 " Mrs. Bonny, Polly an' me is goin' to be mar 
 ried." 
 
 An' Mrs. Bonny says : 
 
 "Well, now, Polly, that's sensible; an' though I 
 say it as shouldn't, I must own as I wouldn't care 
 if it was 'Meliar." 
 
 An' she kisses Polly, an' the girls kisses her, an' 
 they all shakes hands, an' it's a settled thing. 
 
 They was married almost immediate, an' Joe was
 
 SME THURS TSES. 89 
 
 as happy as a man could be under the circum 
 stances ; for, mind you, he wasn't a-deceivin' his- 
 self, an' knowed well enough as his wasn't the 
 kind of a marriage where there's two hearts beatin' 
 warm together, an' both is full of joy and hope. 
 
 " But," says he, " I never expected this much, 
 an' I'd be a queer sort of chap not to be grateful 
 as the woman I love could turn to me for comfort 
 when she needed it ; an' if love can bring love, 
 mine'll be like to do it some day." 
 
 So he waited an' hoped, and did his best, an' he 
 sometimes thought as Polly drawed a bit nearer to 
 him as time went on. At any rate, she was a 
 good, gentle little thing, an' always seemed try in' 
 to please him in a wistful, longin' way, as if she 
 had somethin' to make up for. Once, when they 
 was settin' together at night, she come an' knelt 
 down before him, and hid her face on his knee. 
 
 " Joe," she says, " was you never afraid to 
 marry me, when when you remember as I'd 
 never told you nothin' ? " 
 
 "No," he answers. "No, Polly never." 
 
 " But I might have been a wicked girl," she 
 whispers. 
 
 " No," says he, stout and tender. "You mightn't, 
 Polly ; " an' he stoops down an' kisses her pretty 
 hair. 
 
 She burst out a-cryin', and creeps closer, so as 
 to lay her cheek on his hand. 
 
 "I might have been," she says; "but I wasn't, 
 Joe, I wasn't, because God an' you helped me."
 
 QO SMETHURSTSES. 
 
 An' yet he knows as there's somethin' behind 
 as keeps her from bein' happy, though she tries so 
 hard an' faithful. He always sees the wistfulness 
 in her eyes, an' hears it in her voice, an' time an* 
 time again he knows she's lyin' awake at night a- 
 grievin' quiet. One mornin', after she's been lower 
 than common, a letter comes to her, an' he sees 
 her turn white, an' after she holds it a minute, she 
 walks up to the fire an' throws it in, an' before he 
 goes back to the collection, she comes an' catches 
 him 'round the neck, an' says : 
 
 " I want to be a good wife, Joe, I want to be, 
 an' I will," an' cries a bit again. 
 
 That very afternoon there comes a swell into the 
 wax-works, an' as soon as Joe sets eyes on him, he 
 knows it's the chap he first see Polly with in the 
 race-week, and there he is a-saunterin' 'round an' 
 pretendin' to be unconcerned, an' yet keepin' a 
 sharp look-out around him. So Joe goes up to 
 him, and speaks to him quite firm and low : 
 
 " Was you lookin' for any one, sir ? " he asks. 
 
 The swell looks at him cool enough. 
 
 " What's that you say, my good fellow ? " he an 
 swers. 
 
 " Well," says Joe, " nothing in a general way, 
 perhaps ; only, sir, I was a-thinkin' as p'r'aps you 
 might be lookin' for some one as was unprotected 
 &n' helpless, an' there aint no such a party here ; 
 an' if you'd like your money returned at the door, 
 me bein' the proprietor of the collection, J 
 shouldn't have no objection."
 
 SMETHURSTSES. 91 
 
 "D your collection ! " says the swell ; but he 
 
 turns 'round an' goes out, half a-laughin'. 
 
 At tea that evenin', Polly was dreadful restless 
 an' timid, an' seemed to be a-listenin' to somethin', 
 an' after a bit Joe finds out what it is, it's foot 
 steps a-passin' back'ard an' for'ard near the house, 
 passin' back'ard an' for'ard reg'lar; an' they 
 goes on that way for a good hour, an' then stops ; 
 an' all the time Polly sits close to Joe, as if she 
 was afraid to leave him, her eyes shinin', an' her 
 voice shakin' when she speaks. Only that some- 
 thin' tells him as she doesn't want him to go, he 
 would have went out ; an' in the middle of the 
 night he was almost sorry he didn't, for she started 
 out of her sleep, callin' out, frightened : 
 
 " Oh, the footsteps ! the footsteps ! Make 
 them go away ! save me from them, Joe, or I 
 must go ! " 
 
 She was quite ill an' weak for a month, an' then, 
 queer enough, a change come over her. She got 
 her color back gradual, an' went out oftener, an' 
 was brighter when she was in the house. She 
 went to see the Bonnys frequent, a-helpin' them 
 get ready to take their trip to the seaside, which 
 they did reg'lar ; for though workin'-people, they 
 was comfortable off. There was such a alteration 
 in her, that Joe began to feel hopeful, an' was as 
 cheerful as the day is long ; an' well he might be, 
 for she actually lays her pretty head on his breast 
 once, an' whispers :
 
 92 SMETHURSTSES. 
 
 "Joe, I believe I'm goin' to be happy, an' it', 
 all through you bein' so lovin' an' patient. You 
 bore with me a long time, didn't you, Joe ? " 
 
 They had been married near twelve months then, 
 an' the week the Bonnys goes away, Joe has to go 
 too, bein' called away by business ; an' sorry enough 
 ho was to go. But he says to Polly when he kisses 
 her good-by at the door : 
 
 " If you get lonesome, pack up an' go to the 
 Bonnys, my dear, an' let them take care of you; 
 but I won't be no longer than I can help." 
 
 An' she gives his neck a little wistful squeeze, 
 half laughin', with the tears in her eyes, an says : 
 
 " No, you mustn't, because no one can take such 
 care of me as you ; an' I want you, Joe." 
 
 Well, it happened as his business was got over 
 quicker than he'd looked for, an' he gets home 
 within two weeks. But when he gets back he 
 doesn't find Polly. Things are a bit upsot, as if 
 she'd gone off in a hurry, an' he finds a little letter 
 on the table as says, " I've gone to the Bonnys', 
 dear Joe it was so lonesome without you." 
 
 An' when he reads it he sees tear-marks on it, 
 an' he says to hisself, " Why, here a tear fell, Polly. 
 You must have been a bit low, my dear." He had 
 that there letter in his hand, an' was still a-lookin' 
 at it, when there comes a knock at the door an' he 
 answers it, an' in walks Mrs. Bonny herself. 
 
 "Well," she says, "you've come back, have you ? 
 How are you, an' how's Polly ? "
 
 SMETHURSTSES. 93 
 
 " Polly ! " says he. " Polly ! " 
 
 " Yes, to be sure," she answers him back, " Pol 
 ly; for, to tell the truth, I've been a bit anxious 
 about her, an' that's why I come here the minute 
 I got back to town." 
 
 Well, they both stood still an' looked at each 
 other her a bit impatient, an' him cold an' dazed. 
 
 "Mrs. Bonny, ma'am," says he at last, "Polly 
 went to you a week ago, for here's the letter as 
 tells me so." 
 
 "Joe," says Mrs. Bonny, a-fallin' back an' turnin' 
 pale too, " Polly aint never been nigh us ! " 
 
 " Then," says Joe, "she's dead." 
 
 He never thought of nothin' else but that some 
 cruel thing had happened as had cut her off in her 
 innocence an' youth. Think harm of Polly, as had 
 laid her cheek against his breast an' begged him to 
 come back to her ? Lor' bless you, ma'am, he 
 loved her far too tender ! 
 
 It was Mrs. Bonny as first said the word, for 
 even good women is sometimes hard on women, 
 you know. She followed him into the room an' 
 looked about her, an' she broke out a-cryin', angry 
 an' yet sorrowful : 
 
 " Oh, Joe ! Joe ! " she says. " How could she 
 have the heart to do it ? " 
 
 But Joe only answered her, bewildered : 
 
 " The heart, ma'am ! " he says. " Polly ? " 
 
 "The heart to leave you," she says. "The 
 heart to go to ruin when there was so much to hold
 
 94 SMETHURSTSES. 
 
 her back the heart to shame a honest man as 
 loved her, an' her knowin' what she did ! " 
 
 " Ruin, ma'am ? " says Joe. " Shame, ma'am ? 
 Polly ? " 
 
 He rouses hisself to understand what she meant, 
 an' he sees it's what the other people will say, too, 
 an' he cannot help it or save Polly from it. 
 
 " It isn't true," he cries, wild-like. " It isn't 
 nat'ral as it should be. She's trusted me all 
 along, an' we was beginnin' to be happy, an' " 
 
 " You've trusted her," says Mrs. Bonny. " An' 
 so have I ; but she's kept her own secrets, an' we 
 knowed she had 'em. An' there's my 'Meliar as 
 heard of some fine gentleman a-follerin' her on the 
 street an' talkin' to her." 
 
 But Joe stops her. 
 
 " If she doesn't come back," he says, " she's 
 dead, an' she died innocent," an' wouldn't hear 
 another word. 
 
 As soon as he could get his strength together, he 
 gets up and begins to set the place in order, a-mak- 
 in'. it look just as much as if she was there as he 
 could. He folds away the two or three things as 
 she's left about, an* puts 'em in the drawers an' 
 shuts 'em up, an' Mrs. Bonny sets a-watchin' him. 
 She couldn't understand the slow, quiet way as he 
 does everything. 
 
 "Joe," she says, when he's done, "what do you 
 mean ? " 
 
 "Mrs. Bonny, ma'am," he says, "I mean to trust
 
 SMETHURSTSES. 95 
 
 her, an* I mean to be ready for her an' a-waitin', 
 whenever she comes back, an' however." 
 
 " However ? " says Mrs. Bonny. 
 
 "Yes, mum," he says, "howsumever, for love 
 isn't a thing as is easy killed ; but, mind you, I'm 
 not afraid as her soul has come to hurt, an' I've no 
 thought of givin' her up." 
 
 Mrs. Bonny, she sees he's in earnest, an' she 
 shakes her head. She meant kind enough, but it 
 wasn't her as had been in love with Polly, an' had 
 worked so hard to win her. When she went Joe 
 followed her to the door. 
 
 " Ma'am," he says, " have you any objections as 
 this here should be a secret betwixt you an' me ? " 
 
 Well, I've no doubt as it was a bit hard on her 
 as she shouldn't have the tellin' of it and the talkin' 
 of it over, an' she couldn't help showin' it in her 
 looks ; but she's a good soul, as I've said, an' she 
 promises, an' Joe he answers her, "Thank you, 
 ma'am ; an' would you mind givin' me your hand 
 on it ? " An' she does, an' so they part. 
 
 You may think what the next week or so was to 
 Joe, when I tell you as, though he tried night an' 
 day, he couldn't hear a word from Polly, or find no 
 sign. An' still believin' in her, he wouldn't make 
 no open stir an' talk. He had a fancy as perhaps 
 somethin' of her old trouble had took her off, an' 
 he stuck to it in his mind as she'd come back an' 
 tell him all. An' I dare say you'll say, "Why 
 should he, in the name of all that's simple ? " Well,
 
 96 SMETHURSTSES. 
 
 ma'am, he had a reason, an' that tftere reason held 
 him up when nothin' else would. But it seemed as 
 if all hope was to be tore from him. A cleanin' up 
 the room one afternoon, he comes across a piece 
 of half-burnt paper as has lodged in a corner, an' 
 in pickin' it up somethin' catches his eye as strikes 
 him blind an' weak an' sick a few words writ in 
 a fine, flourishin' hand, an' these was them : 
 
 " wasting your life, my sweet Polly, on a stu 
 pid fellow who has not even sense enough to see 
 that you are making a sacrifice and breaking your 
 innocent, foolish heart. Don't break mine, too 
 don't turn away from me as you did on that dread 
 ful night. If you love me, trust me. Come to " 
 
 That was all, for the rest was burnt ; but when 
 he'd read it, Joe's hope was swept away complete. 
 She'd been gettin' love-letters from another man, 
 an' readin' them, an' keepin' them secret, an' now 
 she was gone ! 
 
 He set down, an' let the paper drop on the floor. 
 
 "I didn't know," he says, "as them was 
 women's ways. Lord help you, Polly, an' me, 
 an' Lord be pitiful to It ! " 
 
 There's no use of makin' the story longer than 
 can be helped, an' besides, words wouldn't tell 
 what sufferin' that there little back room saw in the 
 three next weeks. There's no knowin' what kept 
 the poor chap from staggerin' in from his work 
 some night an' fallin' heart-broke in death on his 
 lonely hearth. He suffered an' strove- an' bore, an'
 
 Ait NORMAL SCHOOL, 
 
 Los Angeles, C 
 SMETHURSTSES. 97 
 
 ?et kept his secret close. He neither eat nor slept, 
 his face growed white an' haggard, an' his eyes hoi* 
 ler. He kept away from the Bonnys, an' kept 
 away from all as knowed him. Even the sight of 
 the collection was too much for him. He'd set 
 there by the ashes of the fire hour after hour at 
 night, a-lookin' at the grayness, an' not carin' to 
 stir. 
 
 " I didn't know," he'd say again an' again over 
 slow to hisself an' the emptiness an' quiet, "I 
 didn't know as them was women's ways." 
 
 Just five weeks from the time as he'd come home 
 an' found his wife gone, he was a-settin' this very 
 way over the grate one evenin' at dusk, when he 
 hears a key a-turnin' in the door gentle-like, an' he 
 lifts his head to listen. " Who's that," he says, " as 
 is tryin' to come in ? " 
 
 But the next minute he starts up, a-knockin' the 
 chair over back'ard, his heart a-beatin' loud enough 
 to be heard, for the one as turned the key was in, 
 an' had light feet, an' come an' pushed the room 
 door open an' stood there a second. An' it was 
 Polly, with a bu-ndle in her arms. She didn't look 
 guilty, bless you, though she were a little pale an' 
 excited. She was even a-laughin', in a shy, happy, 
 timid way, an' her eyes was wide an' shinin'. 
 
 But Joe, he weren't strong enough to bear it. 
 He breaks out into a cry. 
 
 " Polly," says he, " is it because you're dead that 
 you've come back to me ? " An' he makes a step, 
 7
 
 gS SMETHUXSTSES. 
 
 gropin' an' staggerin', an' would have fell if she 
 hadn't run an' caught him, an' pushed him into a 
 chair. 
 
 " Joe," she cries out, kneeling down before him, 
 " Joe, dear Joe, what's the matter ? It's Polly, 
 an' " an' she puts her face against his vest in the 
 old way " an' you mustn't frighten me." 
 
 That, an' the touch of her hand brings him back, 
 an' he knows in a second as he has her safe, an' 
 then he catches her an' begins to hug her tight, too 
 shook to say a word. 
 
 But she pulls back a bit, half frightened an' half 
 joyful. 
 
 " Joe," she says, " didn't you think I was at the 
 Bonnys' ? Have you been anxious ? " An' then, 
 a-laughin' nervous-like, "You mustn't squeeze so, 
 Joe don't you see ? " 
 
 An' she lays the bundle on his knee an' opens 
 the shawl an' shows him what's in it. 
 
 " He's he's only a little one," she says, 
 a-laughin' an' cryin' true woman fashion, " but he 
 grows every day, an' he's noticin' already." 
 
 Joe makes an effort an' just saves hisself from 
 bustin' out in a sob as might have told her all 
 an' this time he folds 'em both up an' holds 'em, 
 a-tryin' to stumble at a prayer in his mind. 
 
 " Polly," he says after a bit, " tell me all about it, 
 for I don't understand how it is as it's come 
 about." 
 
 But girl as she is, she sees as there's somethin 
 behind, an' she gives him a long look.
 
 SMETHURSTSES. 99 
 
 "Joe," she says, " I've more to tell than just how 
 this happened, an' when I lay quiet with little Joe 
 on my arm, I made up my mind as the day I brought 
 him home to you was the day as had come for you 
 to hear it, an' so you shall ; but first I must lay him 
 down an' make the room warm." 
 
 Which she gets up an' does, an' won't let Joe do 
 nothin' but watch her, an' while she's at it he sees 
 her sweet young face a-workin'-, an' when every- 
 thin's done, an' the fire burnin' bright, an' the ket 
 tle on, an' the little fellow comfortable on her arm, 
 she draws a little wooden stool up to his knees an' 
 sits down on it, an' her face is a-workin' still. 
 
 " Not as I'm afraid to tell you now, Joe, though 
 I've held it back so long; but sometimes I've 
 thought as the day would never come when I could, 
 an' now I'm so glad so glad," she whispers. 
 
 An' then a-holdin' his hand an' the child's too, 
 she tells him the whole story of what her secret 
 vas an' why she kept it one, an' as you may guess 
 it was all about the man as Joe had seen her with. 
 
 The night she'd fainted in the street she'd found 
 out his cruel heart for the first time, an' it had well- 
 nigh broke her own. The people as she worked 
 for had turned her off through hearin' of him, an' 
 her own mother, as was a hard, strict woman, had 
 believed the scandal and turned against her too. 
 An' then when she had gone to him in her fear an' 
 trouble he had struck her down with words as was 
 worse than blows.
 
 IOO SMETHURSTSES. 
 
 " But bein' so young, Joe, an' so weak," she says, 
 " I couldn't forget him, an' it seemed as if 1 
 couldn't bear my life ; an' I knowed that if he come 
 back again it would be harder to turn away from 
 him than ever. An' it was an' when he follerred 
 me an' tried me so as I knowed as I'd give up if 
 there wasn't something to hold me strong. An' I 
 asked you to save me that night, Joe, an' you said 
 you would. Joe," she whispers, " don't hate me for 
 bein' so near to sin and shame." 
 
 After a little while she tells him the rest. 
 
 " But even when he knowed I was a good man's 
 wife he wouldn't let me rest. He tried to see me 
 again an' again, an' wrote me letters an' besot me 
 in every way, knowin' as I wasn't worthy of you, 
 an' didn't love you as I ought. But the time come 
 when he grew weaker an' you grew stronger, Joe. 
 How could I live with you day after day an' see 
 the contrast between you, an' not learn to love the 
 man as was so patient an' true to me, an' despise 
 him as only loved hisself an' was too selfish an' 
 cruel to have either mercy or pity ? So the day 
 come when I knowed I needn't fear him nor myself 
 no more, an' I told him so. It was then I told you 
 I was goin' to be happy ; an' Joe, dear, I was happy 
 particular lately. Do you believe me, Joe? 
 say as you do." 
 
 " Yes, Polly," says Joe. " Thank God ! " 
 
 " Kiss me, then," she says, " an' kiss little Joe, 
 an' then I'll tell you how the other come about."
 
 SMETHURSTSES. IOI 
 
 He did it prompt, an' with a heavin' heart, an' 
 then the other was soon told. 
 
 " I hadn't seen him for a long time when you 
 went away," she tells him, " an' I thought I'd seen 
 the last of him ; but you hadn't been gone a week 
 before I met him face to face in the street; an' 
 that same night a letter come, an' through me bein' 
 lonesome an' nervous-like, and seein' him so deter 
 mined, it frightened me, an' I made up my mind 
 I'd go to the Bonny's an' get heartened up a little 
 before you come back. So I started all in a hurry 
 as soon as I could get ready. But before I'd got 
 more than half way to my journey's end, we had a 
 accident, not much of a one, for the trains as 
 met each other wasn't goin' so fast but that they 
 could be stopped in time to save much real harm 
 bein' done, an' people was mostly badly shook an' 
 frightened. But I fainted away, an' when I come 
 to myself I was lyin' on a bed in a farmhouse near 
 the line, an' the farmer's wife, as was a good soul, 
 she was a-takin' care of me, an' says she, 'Where's 
 your husband, my girl ? ' an' I says, ' I'm not sure I 
 know, ma'am,' an' faints away again. 
 
 "Well, the next mornin' I was lyin' there still, 
 but little Joe was on my arm, an' I had the strength 
 to tell where I lived, an' how it was I didn't know 
 where to send for you. An' the farmer's wife was 
 like a mother to me, an' she cheers me up, an' 
 says, 'Well, never mind. Bless us ! what a joyfu, 
 surprise it'll be to the man ! Think of that ! ' An
 
 IO2 SMETHURSTSES. 
 
 I did think of it until I made up my mind as 1 
 wouldn't send no word at all until I could come 
 home myself; for, says I, 'He'll think I'm at the 
 Bonnys', an' it'll save him bein' worried.' An' 
 that was how it was. Joe," kind of hesitatin', 
 " have you anythin' to tell me ? " 
 
 She looks at him timid an' gentle, and he looks 
 down at the fire. 
 
 " Not if you'd rather not, Joe," she says ; " but I 
 thought " 
 
 Joe, he thinks a bit, an' then answers her grave 
 an' slow : 
 
 " Polly," says he, " I found a piece of that 
 there letter. Will you forgive me, an' let it pass at 
 that for little Joe's sake ? " 
 
 She stoops down and kisses his hand, with tears 
 in her eyes. 
 
 " Yes," she answers, " an' for yours too. You've 
 more to forgive than me, Joe, an' it was quite 
 nat'ral." 
 
 An" she never asks him another question, but 
 sets there sweet an' content, an' they both sets 
 there almost too happy to speak ; and there's such 
 a look in her face as goes to Joe's heart, an' he 
 breaks the quiet, at last, a-sayin' : 
 
 " Polly, I hope it aint no wrong in me a-thinkin' 
 it, for this aint no time for me to have none 
 but the reverentes tand gratefulest humble heart, 
 but as you set there with the little fellow so peace 
 ful on your breast, I can't help bein' 'minded of
 
 SMETHURSTSES. 1 03 
 
 the Mother as we see in the churches, an' as some 
 prays to." 
 
 Well, mum, that's the whole story, an' somehow 
 it's run out longer than I thought for ; but there's 
 nothin' more left to say, but that if you could see 
 that there little Joe to-day he'd astonish you ; for 
 though but five year old, I'm blessed if he don't 
 know every figger in the collection by name, an' is 
 as familiar with Henry the Eighthses fam'ly as I 
 am myself ; an' says he to me only the other day, 
 "Father" at least Well, mum, I suppose I 
 may as well own up to it, now I've done, though 
 a nat'ral back'ardness made it easier for me to tell 
 it the other way. But you're right in supposin' so ; 
 an' not to put too fine a point to it, the story is 
 mine, that there Joe bein' me, an' Polly my wife, 
 an' that there collection Smethurstses.
 
 ONE DAY AT ARLE. 
 
 ONE day at Arle a tiny scattered fishing 
 hamlet on the northwestern English coast 
 there stood at the door of one of the cottages near 
 the shore a woman leaning against the lintel-post 
 and looking out : a woman who would have been 
 apt to attract a stranger's eye, too a woman 
 young and handsome. This was what a first glance 
 would have taken in ; a second would have been 
 apt to teach more and leave a less pleasant impres 
 sion. She was young enough to have been girlish, 
 but she was not girlish in the least. Her tall, lithe, 
 well-knit figure was braced against the door-post 
 with a tense sort of strength ; her handsome face 
 was just at this time as dark and hard in expres 
 sion as if she had been a woman with years of bit 
 ter life behind her ; her handsome brows were knit, 
 her lips were set; from head to foot she looked 
 unyielding and stern of purpose. 
 
 And neither form nor face belied her. The ear 
 liest remembrances of the coast people concerning
 
 ONE DAY AT ARLE. 10$ 
 
 Meg Lonas had not been over-pleasant ones. She 
 had never been a favorite among them. The truth 
 was they had half feared her, even as the silent, 
 dogged, neglected child who used to wander up 
 and down among the rocks and on the beach, 
 working harder for her scant living than the oldest 
 of them. She had never a word for them, and 
 never satisfied their curiosity upon the subject of 
 the treatment she received from the ill-conditioned 
 old grandfather who was her only living relative, 
 and this last peculiarity had rendered her more un 
 popular than anything else would have done. If 
 she had answered their questions they might have 
 pitied her ; but as she chose to meet them with stub 
 born silence, they managed to show their dislike in 
 many ways, until at last it became a settled point 
 among them that the girl was an outcast in their 
 midst. But even in those days she gave them 
 back wrong for wrong and scorn for scorn ; and as 
 she grew older she grew stronger of will, less prone 
 to forgive her many injuries and slights, and more 
 prone to revenge them in an obstinate, bitter fash 
 ion. But as she grew older she grew handsomer 
 too, and the fisher boys who had jeered at her in 
 her childhood were anxious enough to gain her 
 good-will. 
 
 The women flouted her still, and she defied 
 them openly; the men found it wisest to be humble 
 in their rough style, and her defiance of them was 
 more scornful than her defiance cf their mothers
 
 IO6 ONE DAY AT A RLE. 
 
 and sisters. She would revenge herself upon them, 
 and did, until at last she met a wooer who was 
 tender enough, it seemed, to move her. At least 
 so people said at first ; but suddenly the lover 
 disappeared, and two or three months later the 
 whole community was electrified by her sudden 
 marriage with a suitor whom she had been wont to 
 treat worse than all the rest. How she treated him 
 after the marriage nobody knew. She was more 
 defiant and silent than ever, and gossipers gained 
 nothing by asking questions. So at last she was 
 left alone. 
 
 It was not the face of a tender wife waiting for 
 a loving husband, the face that was turned toward 
 the sea. If she had hated the man for whom she 
 watched she could not have seemed more unbend 
 ing. Ever since her visitor had left her (she had 
 had a visitor during the morning) she had stood in 
 the same place, even in the same position, without 
 moving, and when at last the figure of her husband 
 came slouching across the sands homeward she 
 remained motionless still. 
 
 And surely his was not the face of a happy 
 husband. Not a handsome face at its dull best, 
 it was doubly unprepossessing then, as, pale and 
 breathless, he passed the stern form in the door 
 way, his nervous, reluctant eyes avoiding hers. 
 
 " Yo'll find yo're dinner aw ready on th' table," 
 she said to him as he passed in. 
 
 Everything was neat enough inside. The fire-
 
 ONE DAY AT AR*. ?. 1 07 
 
 place was clean and bright, the table was set tidily, 
 and the meal upon it was good enough in its way ; 
 but when the man entered he cast an unsteady, un 
 comprehending glance around, and when he had 
 flung himself into a chair he did not attempt to 
 touch the food, but dropped his face upon his arm 
 on the table with a sound like a little groan. 
 
 She must have heard it, but she did not notice 
 it even by a turn of her head, but stood erect and 
 steadfast until he spoke to her. She might have 
 been waiting for his words perhaps she was. 
 
 " Tha canst come in an' say what tha has to say 
 an' be done wi' it," he said at last, in a sullen, 
 worn-out fashion. 
 
 She turned round then and faced him, harder to 
 be met in her rigid mood than if she had been a 
 tempest. 
 
 "Tha knows what I ha' getten to say," she an 
 swered, her tone strained and husky with repressed 
 fierceness. " Aye ! tha knows it well enough. I 
 ha' not much need to tell thee owt. He comn 
 here this morning an' he towd me aw I want to 
 know about thee, Seth Lonas an' more too." 
 
 " He comn to me," put in the man. 
 
 She advanced towards the table and struck it 
 once with her hand. 
 
 " Tha'st towd me a power o' lies," she said. 
 " Tha's lied to me fro' first to last to serve thy 
 own eends, an' tha'st gained 'em tha'st lied me 
 away fro' th' man as wur aw th' world to me, bu*
 
 108 ONE DAY AT A RLE. 
 
 th' time's comn now when thy day's o'er an' his 
 is comn agen. Ah ! thou bitter villain ! Does ta 
 mind how tha comn an' towd me Dan Morgan had 
 gone to th' fair at Lake wi' that lass o' Barnegats ? 
 That wur a lie an' that wur th' beginnin'. Does ta 
 mind how tha towd me as he made light o' me when 
 th' lads an' lasses plagued him, an' threeped 'em 
 down as he didna mean to marry no such like lass 
 as me him as wur ready to dee fur me ? That 
 wur a lie an' that wur th' eendin', as tha knew it 
 would be, fur I spurned him fro' me th' very next 
 day, an' wouldna listen when he tried to straight 
 en' out. But he got at th' truth at last when he 
 wur fur fro' here, an' he browt th' truth back to me 
 to-day, an' theer's th' eend fur thee husband or 
 no." 
 
 The man lay with his head upon his arms until 
 she had finished, and then he looked up all white 
 and shaken and blind. 
 
 " Wilt ta listen if I speak to thee ? " he asked. 
 
 " Aye," she answered, " listen to more lies ! " 
 
 And she slipped down into a sitting posture on 
 the stone door-step, and sat there, her great eyes 
 staring out seaward, her hands lying loose upon 
 her knee, and trembling. 
 
 There was something more in her mood than re 
 sentment. In this simple gesture she had broken 
 down as she had never broken down in her life be 
 fore. There was passionate grief in her face, a 
 wild sort of despair, such as one gimht see in a
 
 ONE DAY AT ARLE. 109 
 
 suddenly-wounded, untamed creature. Hers was 
 not a fair nature. I am not telling the story of a 
 gentle, true-souled woman I am simply relating 
 the incidents of one bitter day whose tragic close 
 was the ending of a rough romance. 
 
 Her life had been a long battle against the 
 world's scorn ; she had been either on the offensive 
 or the defensive from childhood to womanhood, 
 and then she had caught one glimpse of light and 
 warmth, clung to it yearningly for one brief hour, 
 and lost it. 
 
 Only to-day she had learned that she had lost it 
 through treachery. She had not dared to believe 
 in her bliss, even during its fairest existence ; and 
 so, when light-hearted, handsome Dan Morgan's 
 rival had worked against him with false stories and 
 false proofs, her fierce pride had caught at them, 
 and her revenge had been swift and sharp. But it 
 had fallen back upon her own head now. This 
 very morning handsome Dan had come back again 
 to Arle, and earned his revenge, too, though he 
 had only meant to clear himself when he told her 
 what chance had brought to light. He had come 
 back her lover, the man who had conquered and 
 sweetened her bitter nature as nothing else on 
 earth had power to do he had come back and 
 found her what she v as the wife of a man for 
 whom she had never cared, the wife of the man 
 who had played them both false, and robbed her of 
 the one poor gleam of joy she had known. She
 
 I IO ONE DAY AT A RLE. 
 
 had been hard and wild enough at first, but just 
 now, when she slipped down upon the door-step 
 with her back turned to the wretched man within 
 when it came upon her that, traitor as he was, she 
 herself had given him the right to take her bright- 
 faced lover's place, and usurp his tender power 
 when the fresh sea-breeze blew upon her face and 
 stirred her hair, and the warm, rare sunshine 
 touched her, even breeze and sunshine helped her 
 to the end, so that she broke down into a sharp 
 sob, as any other woman might have clone, only 
 that the repressed strength of her poor warped 
 nature made it a sob sharper and deeper than an 
 other woman's would have been. 
 
 " Yo' mought ha' left me that ! " she said. " Yo' 
 mought ha' left it to me ! There wur other women 
 as would ha' done yo', there wur no other man on 
 earth as would do me. Yo' knowed what my life 
 had been, an' how it wur hand to hand betwixt 
 other folk an' me. Yo' knowed how much I cared 
 fur him an' what he wur to me. Yo' mought ha' 
 let us be. I nivver harmed yo'. I wouldna hai.n 
 yo' so sinful cruel now." 
 
 " Wilt ta listen ? " he asked, laboring as if for 
 breath. 
 
 " Aye," she answered him, " I'll listen, fur tha 
 conna hurt me worsen Th' day fur that's past an' 
 gone." 
 
 "Well," said he, "listen an' I'll try to tell yo'. 
 I know it's no use, but I mun say a word or two
 
 ONE DAY AT A RLE. 1 1 1 
 
 Happen yo' didna know I loved yo' aw' yo i-e. .ife 
 happen yo' didna, but it's true. When yo' wur a 
 little lass gatherin' sea-weed on th' sands I watched 
 yo' when I wur afeared to speak afeared lest yo'd 
 gi' me a sharp answer, fur yo' wur ready enow wi* 
 'em, wench. I've watched yo' fur hours when I 
 wur a great lubberly lad, an' when yo' gettin' to be 
 a woman it wur th' same thing. I watched yo' an' 
 did yo' many a turn as yo' knowed nowt about. 
 When yo' wur searchin' fur drift to keep up th' fire 
 after th' owd mon deed an' left yo' alone, happen 
 yo' nivver guessed as it wur me as heaped little 
 piles i' th' nooks o' th' rocks so as yo'd think 'at 
 th' tide had left it theer happen yo' did n't, but it 
 wur true. I've stayed round th r old house many a 
 neet, feared summat mought harm yo', an' yo' know 
 yo' nivver gave me a good word, Meg. An' then 
 Dan comn an' he made way wi' yo' as he made way 
 wi' aw th' rest men an' women an' children. He 
 nivver worked an' waited as I did he nivver 
 thowt an' prayed as I did ; everything come easy 
 wi' him everything allus did come easy wi' him, 
 an' when I seed him so light-hearted an' careless 
 about what I wur cravin' it run me daft an' blind. 
 Seemt like he couldna cling to it like I did, an' I 
 begun to fight agen it, an' when I heerd about that 
 lass o' Barnegats I towd yo', an' when I seen yo' be 
 lieved what I didna believe mysen, it run me dafter 
 yet, an' I put more to what he said, an' held back 
 some, an' theer it wur an' theer it stands, an' if
 
 1 1 2 ONE DAY AT ARLE. 
 
 I've earnt a curse, lass, I've getten it, fur fur 1 
 thowt yo'd been learnin' to care fur me a bit sin' 
 we wur wed, an' God knows I've tried to treat yo' 
 fair an' kind i' my poor way. It wurna Dan Mor 
 gan's way, I know his wur a better way than 
 mine, th' sun shone on him somehow but I've 
 done my best an' truest sin'." 
 
 " Yo've done yo're worst," she said. "Th' worst 
 yo' could do wur to part us, an' yo' did it. If yo'd 
 been half a mon yo' wouldna ha' been content wi' 
 a woman yo'd trapped with sayin' ' Aye,' an' who 
 cared less for yo' than she did fur th' sand on th' 
 sea-shore. What's what yo've done sin' to what 
 yo' did afore ? Yo' conna wipe that out and yo' 
 conna mak' me forget. I hate yo', an' th' worse 
 because I wur beginnin' to be content a bit. I 
 hate mysen. I ought to ha' knowed " wildly 
 " he would ha' knowed whether I wur true or false, 
 poor chap he would ha' knowed." 
 
 She rocked herself to and fro for a minute, 
 wringing her hands in a passion of anguish worse 
 than any words, but a minute later she turned on 
 him all at once. 
 
 "All's o'er betwixt yo' an' me," she said with 
 fierce heat ; " do yo' know that ? If yo' wur half a 
 mon yo' would." 
 
 He sat up and stared at her humbly and stu 
 pidly. 
 
 " Eh ? " he said at last. 
 
 " Theer's not a mon i' Arle as isna more to me
 
 ONE DAY AT ARLE. \ \ 3 
 
 now than tha art," she said. " Some on 'em be 
 honest, an' I conna say that o' thee. Tha canst get 
 thee gone or I'll go mysen. Tha knows't me well 
 enow to know I'll ne'er forgie thee for what tha's 
 done. Aye " with the passionate hand-wringing 
 again " but that wunnot undo it." 
 
 He rose and came to her, trembling like a man 
 with the ague. 
 
 " Yo' dunnot mean that theer, Meg," he said 
 slowly. " You dunnot mean it word fur word. 
 Think a bit." 
 
 " Aye, but I do," she answered him, setting her 
 white teeth, " word fur word." 
 
 " Think again, wench." And this time he stag 
 gered and caught hold of the door-post. " Is theer 
 nowt as'll go agen. th' wrong ? I've lived wi' thee 
 nigh a year, an' I've loved thee twenty is theer 
 nowt fur me ? Aye, lass, dunnot be too hard. Tha 
 was allus harder than most womankind ; try an' be 
 a bit softer like to'rds th' mon as risked his soul 
 because he wur a mon an' darena lose thee. Tha 
 laid thy head on my shoulder last neet. Aye, lass 
 lass, think o' that fur one minnit." 
 
 Perhaps she did think of it, for surely she fal 
 tered a little what woman would not have fal 
 tered at such a moment ? but the next, the mem 
 ory of the sunny, half-boyish face she had clung to 
 with so strong a love rushed back upon her and 
 struck her to the heart. She remembered the days 
 when her life had seemed so full that she had 
 8
 
 1 1 4 ONE DAY AT ARLE. 
 
 feared her own bliss ; she remembered the gallant 
 speeches and light-hearted wiles, and all at once 
 she cried out in a fierce, impassioned voice : " I'll 
 ne'er forgie thee," she said "I'll ne'er forgie 
 thee to th' last day o' my life. What fur should 1 ? 
 Tha's broke my heart, thou villain tha's broke 
 my heart." And the next minute she had pushed 
 past him and rushed into the house. 
 
 For a minute or so after she was gone the man 
 stood leaning against the door with a dazed look 
 in his pale face. She meant what she said : he 
 had known her long enough to understand that she 
 never forgave never forgot. Her unbroken will 
 and stubborn strength had held her to enmities all 
 her life, and he knew she was not to be won by 
 such things as won other women. He knew she 
 was harder than most women, but his dull nature 
 could not teach him how bitter must have been the 
 life that rendered her so. He had never thought 
 of it he did not think of it now. He was 'not 
 blaming her, and he was scarcely blaming himself. 
 He had tried to make her happy and had failed. 
 There were two causes for the heavy passion oi 
 misery that was ruling him, but neither of them 
 was remorse. 
 
 His treachery had betrayed him, and he had lost 
 the woman he had loved and worked for. Soul 
 and body were sluggish alike, but each had its dull 
 pang of weight and wretchedness. 
 
 " I've come to th' eend now surely," he said, 
 and, dropping into her seat, he hid his face.
 
 ONE DAY AT AKLE. 11$ 
 
 As he sat there a choking lump rose in his 
 throat with a sudden click, and in a minute or so 
 more he was wiping away hot rolling tears with the 
 back of his rough hand. 
 
 "I'm forsook somehow," he said "aye, I'm 
 forsook. I'm not th' soart o' chap to tak' up wi' 
 th' world. She wur all th' world I cared fur, an' 
 she'll ne'er forgie me, for she's a hard un she is. 
 Aye ! but I wur fond o' her ! I wonder what she'll 
 do I do wonder i' my soul what she's gettin' her 
 mind on ! " 
 
 It did not occur to him to call to her or go and 
 see what she was doing. He had always stood in 
 some dull awe of her, even when she had been 
 kindest, and now it seemed that they were too far 
 apart for any possibility of approach at reconcilia 
 tion. So he sat and pondered heavily, the sea air 
 blowing upon him fresh and sweet, the sun shining 
 soft and warm upon the house, and the few com 
 mon flowers in the strip of garden whose narrow 
 shell walks and borders he had laid out for her 
 himself with much clumsy planning and slow labor. 
 
 Then he got up and took his rough working- 
 jacket over his arm. 
 
 " I mun go down to th' Mary Anne," he said, 
 " an' work a bit, or we'll ne'er get her turned o'er 
 afore th' tide comes in. That boat's a moit o' 
 trouble." And he sighed heavily. 
 
 Half-way to the gate he stopped before a cluster 
 of ground honeysuckle, and perhaps for the first
 
 Il6 ONE DAY AT ARLE. 
 
 time in his life was conscious of a sudden curious 
 admiration for them. 
 
 " She's powerful fond o' such loike Wts o' things 
 posies an' such loike," he said. " Thems some 
 as I planted to please her on th' very day as we 
 were wed. I'll tak' one or two. She's main fond 
 on 'em fur such a hard un." 
 
 And when he went out he held in his hand two 
 or three slender stems hung with the tiny pretty 
 humble bells. 
 
 He had these very bits of simple blossoms in his 
 hand when he went down to where the Mary Anne 
 lay on the beach for repairs. So his fellow-work 
 men said when they told the story afterwards, .re 
 membering even this trivial incident. 
 
 He was in a strange frame of mind, too, they no 
 ticed, silent and heavy and absent. He did not 
 work well, but lagged over his labor, stopping every 
 now and then to pass the back of his hand over his 
 brow as if to rouse himself. 
 
 " IV look as if yo' an' th' missus had had a fallin' 
 out an' yo'n getten th' worst o' th' bargain," one of 
 his comrades said by way of rough jest. 
 
 They were fond of joking with iiim about his 
 love for his handsome, taciturn wife. But he did 
 not laugh this time as he usually did. 
 
 " Mind thy own tackle, lad," he said dully, " an 
 I'll mind mine." 
 
 From that time he worked steadily among them
 
 ONE DAY AT ARLE. 117 
 
 until it was nearly time for the tide to rise. The 
 boat they were repairing had been a difficult job to 
 manage, as they could only work between tides, 
 and now being hurried they lingered longer than 
 usual. At the last minute they found it must be 
 moved, and so were detained. 
 
 " Better leave her until th' tide ebbs," said one, 
 but the rest were not of the same mind. 
 
 " Nay," they argued, " it'll be all to do o'er agen 
 if we do that. Theer's plenty o' time if we look 
 sharp enow. Heave again, lads." 
 
 Then it was that with the help of straining and 
 tugging there came a little lurch, and then it was 
 that as the Mary Anne slipped over on her side one 
 of the workers slipped with her, slipped half under 
 neath her with a cry, and lay on the sand, held 
 down by the weight that rested on him. 
 
 With his cry there broke out half a dozen others, 
 and the men rushed up to him with frightened 
 faces. 
 
 " Are yo' hurt, Seth, lad ? " they cried. " Are yo' 
 crushed or owt ? " 
 
 The poor fellow stirred a little and then looked 
 up at them pale enough. 
 
 " Bruised a bit," he answered them, " an' sick a 
 bit, but I dunnot think theer's any bones broke. 
 Look sharp, chaps, an' heave her up. She's a moit 
 o' weight on me." 
 
 They went to work again one and all, so relieved 
 by his words that they were doubly strong, but after
 
 1 1 8 ONE DAY AT ARLE. 
 
 toiling like giants for a while they were compelled 
 to pause for breath. In falling the boat had so 
 buried herself in the sand that she was harder to 
 move than ever. It had seemed simple enough at 
 first, but it was not so simple, after all. With al 
 their efforts they had scarcely stirred her an inch, 
 and their comrade's position interfered with almost 
 every plan suggested. Then they tried again, but 
 this time with less effect than before, through their 
 fatigue. When they were obliged to pause they 
 looked at each other questioningly, and more than 
 one of them turned a trifle paler, and at last the 
 wisest of them spoke out : 
 
 " Lads," he said, " we conna do this oursens. Run 
 for help, Jem Coulter, an' run wi' thy might, fur it 
 wunnot be so long afore th' tide'll flow." 
 
 Up to this time the man on the sands had lain 
 with closed eyes and set teeth, but when he heard 
 this his eyes opened and he looked up. 
 
 " Eh ! " he said, in that blind, stupid fashion. 
 " What's that theer tha's sayin' Hester ? " 
 
 "Th' tide," blundered the speaker. "I wur 
 tellin' him to look sharp, that's aw." 
 
 The poor fellow moved restlessly. 
 
 "Aye] aye! "he said. "Look sharp he mun 
 do that. I didna think o' th' tide." And he shut 
 his eyes again with a faint groan. 
 
 They strove while the messenger was gone ; and 
 they strove when he returned with assistance ; they 
 strove with might and main, until not a man among 

 
 ONE DAY AT ARLE. 119 
 
 them had the strength of a child, and the boldest of 
 them were blanching with a fearful, furtive excite 
 ment none dared to show. A crowd had gathered 
 round by this time men willing and anxious to 
 help, women suggesting new ideas and comforting 
 the wounded man in rough, earnest style ; children 
 clinging to their mothers' gowns and looking on ter 
 ror-stricken. Suddenly, in the midst of one of their 
 mightiest efforts, a sharp childish voice piped out 
 from the edge of an anxious group a brief warning 
 that struck terror to every heart that beat among 
 them. 
 
 " Eh ! Mesters ! " it said, " th' tide's creepin' up 
 a bit." 
 
 The men looked round with throbbing pulses, 
 the women looked also, and one of the younger 
 ones broke into a low cry. " Lord, ha' mercy ! " 
 she said ; " it'll sweep around th' Bend afore long, 
 an' an' " and she ended with a terror in 
 her voice which told its own tale without other 
 words. 
 
 The truth forced itself upon them all then. Wo 
 men began to shriek and men to pray, but, strange 
 to say, the man whose life was at stake lay silent, 
 with ashen lips, about which the muscles were 
 tensely drawn. 
 
 His dull eyes searched every group in a dead 
 despair that was yet a passion, in all its stillness. 
 
 "How long will it be," he asked slowly at last 
 " th' tide ? Twenty minutes ? "
 
 I2O ONE DAY AT A RLE. 
 
 11 Happen so," was the answer. "An', lad, lad! 
 we conna help thee. We'n tried our best, lad " 
 'with sobs even from the uncouth fellow who spoka 
 " Theer is na one on us but 'ud leave a limb be 
 hind to save thee, but theer is na time theer is 
 na" 
 
 One deep groan and he lay still again quite 
 still. God knows what weight of mortal agony and 
 desperate terror crushed him in that dead, helpless 
 pause. 
 
 Then his eyes opened as before. 
 
 " I've thowt o' deem','' he said with a catch of 
 his breath. " I've thowt o' deein', an' I've won 
 dered how it wur an' what it felt like. I never 
 thowt o' deein' like this here." Another pause and 
 then 
 
 " Which o' yo' lads '11 tell my missus ? " 
 
 " Ay ! poor chap, poor chap ! " wailed the women. 
 "Who on 'em will?" 
 
 " Howd tha noise, wenches," he said hoarsely. 
 ' Yo' daze me. Theer is na time to bring her here. 
 I'd ha' liked to ha' said a word to her. I'd ha' 
 liked to ha' said one word; Jem Coulter" rais 
 ing his voice " canst tha say it fur me ? " 
 
 "Aye," cried the man, choking as he spoke, 
 "surely, surely." And he knelt down. 
 
 " Tell her 'at if it wur bad enow this here it 
 wur not so bad as it mought ha' been fur me. I 
 mought ha' fun it worser. Tell her I'd like to ha' 
 said a word if I could but I couldna. I'd like to
 
 ONE DAY AT ARLE. 121 
 
 ha' heard her say one word, as happen she would 
 ha' said if she'd been here, an' tell her 'at if she 
 had ha' said it th' tide rnought ha' comn an' wel 
 come but she didna, an' theer it stands." And 
 the sob that burst from his breast was like the sob 
 of a death-stricken child. " Happen " he said 
 next " happen one o' yo' women-foak con say a 
 bit o' a prayer yo're not so fur fro' safe sand but 
 yo' can reach it happen one o' yo' ha' a word 
 or two as yo' could say such like as yo' teach 
 yo're babbies." 
 
 Among these was one who had thank God, 
 thank God ! and so, amid wails and weeping, rough 
 men and little children alike knelt with uncovered 
 heads and hidden eyes while this one woman fal 
 tered the prayer that was a prayer for a dying 
 man ; and when it was ended, and all rose glancing 
 fearfully at the white line of creeping foam, this 
 dying man for whom they had prayed lay upon his 
 death-bed of sand the quietest of them all quiet 
 with a strange calm. 
 
 " Bring me my jacket," he said, " an' lay it o'er 
 my face. Theer's a bit o' a posie in th' button-hole. 
 I getten it out o' th' missus's garden when I comn 
 away. I'd like to howld it i' my hand if it's theer 
 yet." 
 
 And as the long line of white came creeping on 
 ward they hurriedly did as he told them laid the 
 rough garment over his face, and gave him the 
 humble dying flowers to hold, and having done this
 
 122 ONE DAY AT A RLE. 
 
 and lingered to the last moment, one after the 
 other dropped away with awe-stricken souls until 
 the last was gone. And under the arch of sunn^ 
 sky the little shining waves ran up the beach, chas 
 ing each other over the glittering sand, catching at 
 shells and sea-weed, toying with them for a moment, 
 and then leaving them, rippling and curling and 
 whispering, but creeping creeping creeping. 
 
 They gave his message to the woman he had 
 loved with all the desperate strength of his dull, 
 yet unchanging nature ; and when the man who 
 gave it to her saw her wild, white face and hard-set 
 lips, he blundered upon some dim guess as to what 
 that single word might have been, but the sharpest 
 of them never knew the stubborn anguish that, fol 
 lowing and growing day by day, crushed her fierce 
 will and shook her heart. She was as hard as ever, 
 they thought ; but they were none of them the men 
 or women to guess at the long dormant instinct of 
 womanhood and remorse that the tragedy of this 
 one day of her life had awakened. She had said 
 she would never forgive him, and perhaps her very 
 strength made it long before she did ; but surely 
 some subtle chord was touched by those heavy last 
 words, for when, months later, her first love came 
 back, faithful and tender, with his old tale to tell 
 she would not listen. 
 
 "Nay, lad," she said, "I amna a feather to blow 
 wi' th' wind. I've had mv share o' trouble wi' men
 
 ONE DAY AT ARLE. 123 
 
 foak, an' I ha' no mind to try again. Him as lies 
 i' th' churchyard loved me i' his way men foak's 
 way is apt to be a poor un an' I'm wore out wi' 
 life. Dunnot come here courtin' tak' a better 
 woman." 
 
 But yet, there are those who say that the time 
 will come when he will not plead in vain.
 
 ESMERALDA. 
 
 TO begin, I am a Frenchman, a teacl er of lan 
 guages, and a poor man, necessarily a poor 
 man, as the great world would say, or I should not 
 be a teacher of languages, and my wife a copyist of 
 great pictures, selling her copies at small prices. In 
 our own eyes, it is true, we are not so poor my 
 Clelie and I. Looking back upon our past we con 
 gratulate ourselves upon our prosperous condition. 
 There was a time when we were poorer than we 
 are now, and were not together, and were, more 
 over, in London instead of in Paris. These were 
 indeed calamities : to be poor, to teach, to live 
 apart, not even knowing each other and in Eng 
 land ! In England we spent years ; we instructed 
 imbeciles of all grades ; we were chilled by east 
 winds, and tortured by influenza ; we vainly strove 
 to conciliate the appalling English ; we were dis 
 couraged and desolate. But this, thank k Ion Dieu ! 
 is past. We are united ; we have our little apart 
 ment upon the fifth floor, it is true, but still not
 
 ESMERALDA. 125 
 
 hopelessly far from the Champs Elyse'es. Clelie 
 paints her little pictures, or copies those of some 
 greater artist, and finds sale for them. She is not 
 a great artist herself, and is charmingly conscious 
 of the fact. 
 
 " At fifteen," she says, " I regretted that I was 
 not a genius ; at five and twenty, I rejoice that I 
 made the discovery so early, and so gave myself 
 time to become grateful for the small gifts bestowed 
 upon me. Why should I eat out my heart with 
 envy? Is it not possible that I might be a less 
 clever woman than I am, and a less lucky one ? " 
 
 On my part I have my pupils, French pupils 
 who take lessons in English, German, or Italian ; 
 English or American pupils who generally learn 
 French, and, upon the whole, I do not suffer from 
 lack of patrons. 
 
 It is my habit when Cle'lie is at work upon a 
 copy in one of the great galleries to accompany her 
 to the scene of her labor in the morning and call 
 for her at noon, and, in accordance with this habit, 
 I made my way to the Louvre at midday upon one 
 occasion three years ago. 
 
 I found my wife busy at her easel in the Grandt 
 Galerie, and when I approached her and laid my 
 hand upon her shoulder, as was my wont, she 
 looked up with a smile and spoke to me in a cau 
 tious undertone. 
 
 "I am glad," she said, "that you are not ten 
 minutes later. Look at those extraordinary peo 
 ple."
 
 1 26 ESMERALDA. 
 
 She still leaned back in her chair and looked up 
 at me, but made, at the same time, one of those in 
 describable movements of the head which a clever 
 woman can render so significant 
 
 This slight gesture directed me at once to the 
 extraordinary people to whom she referred. 
 
 " Are they not truly wonderful ? " she asked. 
 
 There were two of them, evidently father and 
 daughter, and they sat side by side upon a seat 
 placed in an archway, and regarded hopelessly one 
 of the finest works in the gallery. The father was 
 a person undersized and elderly. His face was 
 tanned and seamed, as if with years of rough out 
 door labor ; the effect produced upon him by his 
 clothes was plainly one of actual suffering, both 
 physical and mental. His stiff hands refused to 
 meet the efforts of his gloves to fit them ; his body 
 shrank from his garments ; if he had not been 
 pathetic, he would have been ridiculous. But he 
 was pathetic. It was evident he was not so attired 
 of his own free will ; that only a patient nature, in 
 ured by long custom to discomfort, sustained him ; 
 that he was in the gallery under protest ; that he 
 did not understand the paintings, and that they 
 perplexed overwhelmed him. 
 
 The daughter it is almost impossible to describe, 
 and yet I must attempt to describe her. She had 
 a slender and pretty figure; there were slight 
 marks of the sun on her face also, and, as in her 
 father's case, the richness of her dress was set at
 
 ESMERALDA. 127 
 
 defiance by a strong element of incongruousness. 
 She had black hair and gray eyes, and she sat with 
 folded hands staring at the picture before her in 
 dumb uninterestedness. 
 
 Clelie had taken up her brush again, and was 
 touching up her work here and there. 
 
 "They have been here two hours," she said. 
 "They are waiting for some one. At first they 
 tried to look about them as others did. They wan 
 dered from seat to seat, and sat down, and looked 
 as you see them doing now. What do you think of 
 them ? To what nation should you ascribe them ? " 
 
 " They . are not French," I answered. " And 
 they are not English." 
 
 "If she were English," said Cle'lie, "the girl 
 would be more conscious of herself, and of what we 
 might possibly be saying. She is only conscious 
 that she is out of place and miserable. She does 
 not care for us at all. I have never seen Ameri 
 cans like them before, but I am convinced that 
 they are Americans." 
 
 She laid aside her working materials and pro 
 ceeded to draw on her gloves. 
 
 '" We will go and look at that ' Tentation de St. 
 Antoine ' of Teniers," she said, " and we may hear 
 them speak. I confess I am devoured by an anx 
 iety to hear them speak." 
 
 Accordingly, a few moments later an amiable 
 young couple stood before " La Tentation," regard 
 ing it with absorbed and critical glances.
 
 t2S ESMERALDA. 
 
 But the father and daughter did not seem to see 
 us. They looked disconsolately about them, or at 
 the picture before which they sat. Finally, how 
 ever, we were rewarded by hearing them speak to 
 each other. The father addressed the young lady 
 slowly and deliberately, arid with an accent which, 
 but for my long residence in England and familiar 
 ity with some forms of its patois, I should find it im 
 possible to transcribe. 
 
 " Esmeraldy," he said, "your ma's a long time 
 acomin'." 
 
 " Yes," answered the girl, with the same accent, 
 and in a voice wholly listless and melancholy, 
 " she's a long time." 
 
 C161ie favored me with one of her rapid side 
 glances. The study of character is her grand pas 
 sion, and her special weakness is a fancy for the 
 singular and incongruous. I have seen her stand 
 in silence, and regard with positive interest one of 
 her former patronesses who was overwhelming her 
 with contumelious violence, seeming entirely uncon 
 scious of all else but that the woman was of a spe 
 cies novel to her, and therefore worthy of delicate 
 observation. 
 
 " It is as I said," she whispered. " They are 
 Americans, but of an order entirely new." 
 
 Almost the next instant she touched my arm. 
 
 " Here is the mother ! " she exclaimed. " She is 
 coming this way. See ! " 
 
 A woman advanced rapidly toward our part of
 
 ESMERALDA. 1 29 
 
 the gallery, a small, angry woman, with an un 
 graceful figure, and a keen brown eye. She began 
 to speak aloud while still several feet distant from 
 the waiting couple. 
 
 " Come along," she said. " I've found a place 
 at last, though I've been all the mon.ing at it, 
 and the woman who keeps the door speaks English. 
 
 "They call 'em," remarked the husband, meekly 
 rising, " con-ser-ges. I wonder why." 
 
 The girl rose also, still with her hopeless, ab 
 stracted air, and followed the mother, who led the 
 way to the door. Seeing her move forward, my 
 wife uttered an admiring exclamation. 
 
 " She is more beautiful than I thought," she said. 
 " She holds herself marvelously. She moves with 
 the freedom of some fine wild creature." 
 
 And, as the party disappeared from view, her 
 regret at losing them drew from her a sigh. She 
 discussed them with characteristic enthusiasm all 
 the way home. She even concocted a very prob 
 able little romance. One would always imagine 
 so many things concerning Americans. They were 
 so extraordinary a people ; they acquired wealth 
 by such peculiar means ; their country was so im 
 mense; their resources were so remarkable. These 
 persons, for instance, were evidently persons of 
 wealth, and as plainly had risen from the people. 
 The mother was not quite so wholly untaught as 
 the other two, but she was more objectionable. 
 
 " One can bear with the large simplicity of utter 
 9
 
 /3O ESMERALDA. 
 
 ignorance," said my fair philosopher. " One fre 
 quently finds it gentle and unworldly, but the other 
 is odious because it is always aggressive and nar 
 row." 
 
 She had taken a strong feminine dislike to Mad 
 ame la Mere. 
 
 " She makes her family miserable," she said. 
 " She drags them from place to place. Possibly 
 there is a lover, more possibly than not. The 
 girl's eyes wore a peculiar look, as if they 
 searched for something far away." 
 
 She had scarcely concluded her charming little 
 harangue when we reached our destination ; but, 
 as we passed through the entrance, she paused 
 to speak to the curly-headed child of the concierge 
 whose mother held him by the hand. 
 
 "We shall have new arrivals to-morrow," said 
 the good woman, who was always ready for friendly 
 gossip. "The apartment upon the first floor," and 
 she nodded to me significantly, and with good- 
 natured encouragement. "Perhaps you may get 
 pupils," she added. "They are Americans, and 
 speak only English, and there is a young lady, 
 Madame says." 
 
 " Americans ! " exclaimed Clelie, with sudden in 
 terest. 
 
 "Americans," answered the concierge. "It was 
 Madame who came. Mon Dieu I it was wonderful ! 
 So rich and so so " filling up the blank by a 
 shrug of deep meaning.
 
 ESMERALDA 131 
 
 " It cannot have been long since they were 
 peasants," her voice dropping into a cautious whis 
 per. 
 
 "Why not our friends of the Louvre? ' said 
 Clelie as we went on up-stairs. 
 
 " Why not ? " I replied. " It is very possible." 
 
 The next day there arrived at the house number 
 less trunks of large dimensions, superintended by 
 the small angry woman and a maid. An hour later 
 came a carriage, from whose door emerged the 
 young lady and her father. Both looked pale and 
 fagged ; both were led up-stairs in the midst of 
 voluble comments and commands by the mother ; 
 and both, entering the apartment, seemed swal 
 lowed up by it, as we saw and heard nothing fur 
 ther of them. Cle'lie was indignant. 
 
 " It is plain that the mother overwhelms them," 
 she said. " A girl of that age should speak and be 
 interested in any novelty. This one would be if 
 she were not wretched. And the poor little hus 
 band ! " 
 
 "My dear," I remarked, "you are a feminine 
 Bayard. You engage yourself with such ardor in 
 everybody's wrongs." 
 
 When I returned from my afternoon's work a 
 few days later, I found Clelie again excited. She 
 had been summoned to the first floor by Madame. 
 
 " I went into the room," said Cle'lie, " and found 
 the mother and daughter together. Mademoiselle, 
 who stood by the fire, had evidently been weeping,
 
 132 ESMERALDA. 
 
 Madame was in an abrupt and angry mood. She 
 wasted no words. ' I want you to give her lessons,' 
 she said, making an ungraceful gesture in the 
 direction of her daughter. ' What do you charge a 
 lesson ? ' And on my telling her, she engaged me 
 at once. ' It's a great deal, but I guess I can pay 
 as well as other people,' she remarked." 
 
 A few of the lessons were given down-stairs, and 
 then Clelie preferred a request to Madame. 
 
 " If you will permit Mademoiselle to come to 
 my room, you will confer a favor upon me," she 
 said. 
 
 Fortunately, her request was granted, and so I 
 used afterward to come home and find Mademoi 
 selle Esmeralda in our little salon at work discon 
 solately and tremulously. She found it difficult to 
 hold her pencil in the correct manner, and one 
 morning she let it drop, and burst into tears. 
 
 " Don't you see I'll never do it ! " she answered, 
 miserably. " Don't you see I couldn't, even if my 
 heart was in it, and it aint at all ! " 
 
 She held out her little hands piteously for Cle'lie 
 to look at. They were well enough shaped, and 
 would have been pretty if they had not been 
 robbed of their youthful suppleness by labor. 
 
 " I've been used to work," she said, " rough 
 work all my life, and my hands aint like yours." 
 
 " But you must not be discouraged, Mademoi 
 selle," said Clelie gently. " Time " 
 
 "Time," interposed the girl, with a frightened
 
 ESMERALDA. 133 
 
 look in her pretty gray eyes. " That's what I can't 
 bear to think of the time that's to come." 
 
 This was the first of many outbursts of con 
 fidence. Afterward she related to Clelie, with the 
 greatest naivete, the whole history of the family 
 affairs. 
 
 They had been the possessors of some barren 
 mountain lands in North Carolina, and her descrip 
 tion of their former life was wonderful indeed to the 
 ears of the Parisian. She herself had been brought 
 up with marvelous simplicity and hardihood, barely 
 learning to read and write, and in absolute igno 
 rance of society. A year ago iron had been dis 
 covered upon their property, and the result had 
 been wealth and misery for father and daughter. 
 The mother, who had some vague fancies of the 
 attractions of the great outside world, was ambi 
 tious and restless. Monsieur, who was a mild and 
 accommodating person, could only give way before 
 her stronger will. 
 
 " She always had her way with us," said Mad 
 emoiselle Esmeralda, scratching nervously upon 
 the paper before her with her pencil, at this part of 
 the relation. " We did not want to leave home, 
 neither me nor father, and father said more than I 
 ever heard him say before at one time. ' Mother,' 
 says he, 'let me an' Esmeraldy stay at home, an' 
 you go an' enjoy your tower. You've had more 
 schoolin' an' you'll be more at home than we 
 should. You're useder to city ways, havin' lived
 
 1 34 ESMERALDA. 
 
 in 'Lizabethville.' But it only vexed her. People 
 in town had been talking to her about traveling 
 and letting me learn things, and she'd set her mind 
 on it." 
 
 She was very simple and unsophisticated. To 
 the memory of her former truly singular life she 
 clung wiith unshaken fidelity. She recurred to it 
 constantly. The novelty and luxury of her new 
 existence seemed to have no attractions for her. 
 One thing even my Clelie found incomprehensible, 
 while she fancied she understood the rest she 
 did not appear to be moved to pleasure even by 
 our beloved Paris. 
 
 " It is a true maladie du pays" Cle'lie remarked 
 to me. ''And that is not all" 
 
 Nor was it all. One day the whole truth was 
 told amid a flood of tears. 
 
 "I I was going to be married," cried the poor 
 child. " I was to have been married the week the 
 ore was found. I was all ready, and mother 
 mother shut right down on us." 
 
 Clelie glanced at me in amazed questioning. 
 
 "It is a kind of argot which belongs only to 
 Americans," I answered in an undertone. " The 
 alliance was broken off." 
 
 " Ciell" exclaimed my Clelie between her small 
 shut teeth. " The woman is a fiend ! " 
 
 She was wholly absorbed in her study of this un 
 worldly and untaught nature. She was full of sym 
 pathy for its trials and tenderness, and for its pain.
 
 ESMERALDA. 135 
 
 the girl's peculiarities of speech were full of 
 interest to her. She made serious and intelligent 
 efforts to understand them, as if she studied a new 
 language. 
 
 " It is not common argot" she said. " It has its 
 subtleties. One continually finds somewhere an 
 original idea sometimes even a ban mot, which 
 startles one by its pointedness. As you say, how 
 ever, it belongs only to the Americans and their re 
 markable country. A French mind can only arrive 
 at its climaxes through a grave and occasionally 
 tedious research, which would weary most persons, 
 but which, however, does not weary me." 
 
 The confidence of Mademoiselle Esmeralda was 
 easily won. She became attached to us both, and 
 particularly to Cle'lie. When her mother was ab 
 sent or occupied, she stole up-stairs to our apart 
 ment and spent with us the moments of leisure 
 chance afforded her. She liked our rooms, she 
 told my wife, because they were small, and our so 
 ciety, because we were " clever," which we dis 
 covered afterward meant " amiable." But she was 
 always pale and out of spirits. She would sit be 
 fore our fire silent and abstracted. 
 
 " You must not mind if I don't talk," she would 
 say. " I can't ; and it seems to help me to get to 
 sit and think about things- Mother won't let me 
 ^o it down-stairs." 
 
 We became also familiar with the father. One 
 day I met him upon the staircase, and to my amaze-
 
 136 ESMERALDA. 
 
 ment he stopped as if he wished to address me. I 
 raised my hat and bade him good-morning. On 
 his part he drew forth a large handkerchief and 
 began to rub the palms of his hands with awkward 
 timidity. 
 
 " How-dy ? " he said. 
 
 I confess that at the moment I was covered 
 with confusion. I who was a teacher of English, 
 and flattered myself that I wrote and spoke it flu 
 ently did not understand. Immediately, however, it 
 flashed across my mind that the word was a species 
 of salutation. (Which I finally discovered to be 
 the case.) I bowed again and thanked him, haz 
 arding the reply that my health was excellent, 
 and an inquiry as to the state of Madame's. He 
 rubbed his hands still more nervously, and an 
 swered me in the slow and deliberate manner I had 
 observed at the Louvre. 
 
 " Thank ye," he said, " she's doin' toFable well, 
 is mother as well as common. And she's a-en- 
 joyin' herself, too. I wish we was all " 
 
 But there he checked himself and glanced hastily 
 about him. 
 
 Then he began again : 
 
 " Esmeraldy," he said, " Esmeraldy thinks a 
 heap on you. She takes a sight of comfort out of 
 
 Mis' Des I can't call your name, but I mean 
 
 your wife." 
 
 "Madame Desmarres," I replied, "is rejoiced 
 indeed to have won the friendship of Mademoi 
 selle,"
 
 ESMERALDA. 137 
 
 "Yes," he proceeded, "she takes a sight of 
 comfort in you ans all. An' she needs comfort, 
 does Esmeraldy." 
 
 There ensued a slight pause which somewhat 
 mbarrassed me, for at every pause he regarded me 
 vith an air of meek and hesitant appeal. 
 
 " She's a little down-sperrited is Esmeraldy," he 
 said. " An'," adding this suddenly in a subdued 
 and fearful tone, " so am I." 
 
 Having said this he seemed to feel that he had 
 overstepped a barrier. He seized the lapel of my 
 coat and held me prisoner, pouring forth his con 
 fessions with a faith in my interest by which I was 
 at once amazed and touched. 
 
 " You see it's this way," he said, " it's this 
 way, Mister. We're home folks, me an' Esmeraldy, 
 an' we're a long way from home, an' it sorter seems 
 like we didn't get no useder to it than we was at 
 first. We're not like mother. Mother she was 
 raised in a town, she was raised in 'Lizabethville, 
 an' she allers took to town ways; but me an' 
 Esmeraldy, we was raised in the mountains, right 
 under the shadder of old Bald, an' town goes hard 
 with us. Seems like we're allers a thinkin'of North 
 Callina. An' mother she gits outed, which is likely. 
 She says we'd ought to fit ourselves fur our higher 
 pear, an' I dessay we'd ought, but you see it goes 
 sorter hard with us. An' Esmeraldy she has her 
 trouble an' I can't help a sympathizin' with her, fur 
 young folks will be young folks j an' I was young
 
 138 ESMERALDA. 
 
 "oiks once myself. Once once I sot a heap o' 
 store by mother. So you see how it is." 
 
 " It is very sad, Monsieur," I answered with 
 gravity. Singular as it may appear, this was not 
 so laughable to me as it might seem. It was so 
 apparent that he did not anticipate ridicule. And 
 my Clelie's interest in these people also rendered 
 them sacred in my eyes. 
 
 "Yes," he returned, "that's so; an' sometimes 
 it's wuss than you'd think when mother's outed. 
 An' that's why I'm glad as Mis' Dimar an' Esme- 
 raldy is such friends." 
 
 It struck me at this moment that he had some 
 request to make of me. He grasped the lapel of my 
 coat somewhat more tightly as if requiring addi 
 tional support, and finally bent forward and ad 
 dressed me with caution, "Do you think as Mis' 
 Dimar would mind it ef now an' then I was to 
 step in fur Esmeraldy, an' set a little just in a 
 kinder neighborin' way. Esmeraldy, she says you're 
 so sosherble. And I haint been sosherble with no 
 one fur fur a right smart spell. And it seems 
 like I kinder hanker arter it. You've no idea, 
 Mister, how lonesome a man can git when he 
 hankers to be sosherble an' haint no one to be 
 sosherble with. Mother, she says, 'Go out on 
 the Champs Elizy and promenard,' and I've done 
 it ; but some ways it don't reach the spot. I don't 
 seem to get sosherble with no one I've spoke to 
 rnay be through us speakin' different languages,
 
 ESMERALDA. 139 
 
 an' not comin' to a understandin'. I've tried it 
 loud an' I've tried it low an' encouragen', but some 
 ways we never seemed to get on. An' ef Mis' 
 Dimar wouldn't take no exceptions at me a-drop- 
 pin' in, I feel as ef I should be sorter uplifted if 
 she'd only allow it once a week or even fewer." 
 
 "Monsieur," I replied with warmth, "I begjou 
 will consider our salon at your disposal, not once 
 a week but at all times, and Madame Desmarres 
 would certainly join me in the invitation if she 
 were upon the spot." 
 
 He released the lapel of my coat and grasped 
 my hand, shaking it with fervor. 
 
 "Now, that's clever, that is," he said. "An' its 
 friendly, an' I'm obligated to ye." 
 
 Since he appeared to have nothing further to 
 say we went down-stairs together. At the door we 
 parted. 
 
 "I'm a-goin'," he remarked, "to the Champs 
 Elizy to promenard. Where are you a-goin' ? " 
 
 " To the Boulevard Haussmann, Monsieur, to 
 give a lesson," I returned. " I will wish you good- 
 morning." 
 
 "Good-mornin'," he answered. "Bong" re 
 flecting deeply for a moment " Bong jore. I'm 
 a tryin' to learn it, you see, with a view to bein j 
 more sosherbler. Bmg jore" And thus ;ook his 
 departure. 
 
 After this we saw him frequently. In fact it be- 
 vxme his habit to follow Mademoiselle Esmeralc'a
 
 I4O ESMERALDA. 
 
 in all her visits to our apartment. A few minutes 
 after her arrival we usually heard a timid knock 
 upon the outer door, which proved to emanate 
 from Monsieur, who always entered with a labori 
 ous " jBongjore" and always slipped deprecatingly 
 into the least comfortable chair near the fire, hur 
 riedly concealing his hat beneath it. 
 
 In him also my Clelie became much interested. 
 On my own part I could not cease to admire the 
 fine feeling and delicate tact she continually ex 
 hibited in her manner toward him. In time he 
 even appeared to lose something of his first em 
 barrassment and discomfort, though he was always 
 inclined to a reverent silence in her presence. 
 
 "He don't say much, don't father," said Mad 
 emoiselle Esmeralda, with tears in her pretty eyes. 
 " He's like me, but you don't know what comfort 
 he's taking when he sits and listens and stirs his 
 chocolate round and round without drinking it. 
 He doesn't drink it because he aint used to it ; but 
 he likes to have it when we do, because he says it 
 makes him feel sosherble. He's trying to learn to 
 drink it too he practices every day a little at a 
 time. He was powerful afraid at first that you'd 
 take exceptions to him doing nothing but stir it 
 round ; but I told him I knew you wouldn't for you 
 wasn't that kind." 
 
 " I find him," said Clelie to me, " inexpressibly 
 mournful, even though he excites one to smiles 
 upon all occasions. Is it not mournful that his
 
 ESMERALDA. 14! 
 
 very suffering should be absurd. Man Dieu ! he 
 does not wear his clothes he bears them about 
 with him he simply carries them." 
 
 It was about this time that Mademoiselle Esme- 
 ralda was rendered doubly unhappy. Since their 
 residence in Paris Madame had been industriously 
 occupied in making efforts to enter society. She 
 had struggled violently and indefatigably. She 
 was at once persistent and ambitious. She had 
 used every means that lay in her power, and, most 
 of all, she had used her money. Naturally, she had 
 found people upon the outskirts of good circles 
 who would accept her with her money. Conse 
 quently, she had obtained acquaintances of a class, 
 and was bold enough to employ them as stepping- 
 stones. At all events, she began to receive invita 
 tions, and to discover opportunities to pay visits, 
 and to take her daughter with her. Accordingly, 
 Mademoiselle Esmeralda was placed upon exhibi 
 tion. She was dressed by experienced artistes. 
 She was forced from her seclusion, and obliged to 
 drive, and call, and promenade. 
 
 Her condition was pitiable. While all this was 
 torture to her inexperience and timidity, her fear of 
 her mother rendered her wholly submissive. Each 
 ilay brought with it some new trial. She was ad 
 mired for many reasons, by some for her wealth, 
 of which all had heard rumors ; by others for her 
 freshness and beauty. The silence and sensitive 
 ness which arose from shyness, and her ignorance
 
 142 ESMERALDA. 
 
 of all social rules, were called naivetd and modesty, 
 and people who abhorred her mother, not unfre- 
 quently were charmed with her, and consequently 
 Madame found her also an instrument of some 
 consequence. 
 
 In her determination to overcome all obstacles, 
 Madame even condescended to apply to my wife, 
 whose influence over Mademoiselle she was clever 
 enough not to undervalue. 
 
 " I want you to talk to Mademoiselle," she said. 
 " She thinks a great deal of you, and I want you to 
 give her some good advice. You know what so 
 ciety is, and you know that she ought to be proud 
 of her advantages, and not make a fool of herself. 
 Many a girl would be glad enough of what she 
 has before her. She's got money, and she's got 
 chances, and I don't begrudge her anything. She 
 can spend all she likes on clothes and things, and 
 I'll take her anywhere if she'll behave herself. 
 They wear me out her and her father. It's her 
 father that's ruined her, and her living as she's 
 done. Her father never knew anything, and he's 
 made a pet of her, and got her into his way of 
 thinking. It's ridiculous how little ambition they 
 have, and she might marry as well as any girl. 
 There's a marquis that's quite in love with her at 
 this moment, and she's as afraid of him as death, 
 and cries if I even mention him, though he's a nice 
 enough man, if he is a bit elderly. Now, I want 
 you to reason with her."
 
 ESMERALDA. 143 
 
 This Cle'lie told me afterward. 
 
 " And upon going away," she ended, " she turned 
 round toward me, setting her face into an inde 
 scribable expression of hardness and obstinacy. 
 ' I want her to understand,' she said, ' that she's 
 cut off forever from anything that's happened be 
 fore. There's the Atlantic Ocean and many a mile 
 of land between her and North Carolina, and so 
 she may as well give that up.' " 
 
 Two or three days after this Mademoiselle came 
 to our apartment in great grief. She had left 
 Madame in a violent ill-temper. They had re 
 ceived invitations to a ball at which they were to 
 meet the marquis. Madame had been elated, and 
 . the discovery of Mademoiselle's misery and trepida 
 tion had roused her indignation. There had been 
 a painful scene, and Mademoiselle had been over 
 whelmed as usual. 
 
 She knelt before the fire and wept despairingly. 
 
 " I'd rather die than go," she said. " I can't 
 stand it. I can't get used to it. The light, and 
 the noise, and the talk, hurts me, and I don't know 
 what I am doing. And .people stare at me, and I 
 make mistakes, and I'm not fit for it and and 
 I'd rather be dead fifty thousand times than let 
 that man come near me. I hate him, and I'm 
 afraid of him, and I wish I was dead." 
 
 At this juncture came the timid summons upon 
 the door, and the father entered with a disturbed 
 and subdued air. He did not conceal his hat, but
 
 /44 ESMERALDA. 
 
 held it in his hands, and turned it round and round 
 in an agitated manner as he seated himself beside 
 his daughter. 
 
 " Esmeraldy," he said, " don't you take it so hard, 
 honey. Mother, she's kinder outed, and she's not 
 at herself rightly. Don't you never mind. Mother 
 she means well, but but she's got a sorter curi 
 ous way of showin' it. She's got a high sperrit, an' 
 we'd ought to 'low fur it, and not take it so much 
 to heart. Mis' Dimar here knows how high-sper- 
 rited people is sometimes, I dessay, an' mother 
 she's got a powerful high sperrit." 
 
 But the poor child only wept more hopelessly. 
 It was not only the cruelty of her mother which op 
 pressed her, it was the wound she bore in her heart. 
 
 Cle'lie's eyes filled with tears as she regarded her. 
 
 The father was also more broken in spirit than 
 he wished it to appear. His weather-beaten face 
 assumed an expression of deep melancholy which 
 at last betrayed itself in an evidently inadvertent 
 speech. 
 
 "I wish I wish," he faltered. "Lord! I'd 
 give a heap to see Wash now. I'd give a heap to 
 see him, Esmeraldy." 
 
 It was as if the words were the last straw. The 
 girl turned toward him and flung herself upon his 
 breast with a passionate cry. 
 
 "Oh, father!" she sobbed, "we sha'n't never 
 see him again never never! nor the mountains; 
 nor the people that cared for us. We've lost it all,
 
 ESMERALDA. 145 
 
 and we can't get it back, and we haven't a soul 
 that's near to us, and we're all alone, you and 
 me, father, and Wash Wash, he thinks we don't 
 care." 
 
 I must confess to a momentary spasm of alarm, 
 her grief was so wild and overwhelming. One 
 hand was flung about her father's neck, and the 
 other pressed itself against her side, as if her heart 
 was breaking, 
 
 Clelie bent down and lifted her up, consoling 
 her tenderly. 
 
 "Mademoiselle," she said, "do not despair. Lt 
 Bon Dieu will surely have pity." 
 
 The father drew forth the large linen handker 
 chief, and unfolding it slowly, applied it to his 
 eyes. 
 
 " Yes, Esmeraldy," he said ; " don't let us give 
 out, at least don't you give out. It doesn't mat 
 ter fur me, Esmeraldy, because, you see, I must 
 hold on to mother, as I swore not to go back on ; 
 but you're young an' .likely, Esmeraldy, an' don't 
 you give out yet, fur the Lord's sake." 
 
 But she did not cease weeping until she had 
 wholly fatigued herself, and by this time there ar 
 rived a message from Madame, who required her 
 presence down-stairs. Monsieur was somewhat 
 alarmed, and rose precipitately, but Mademoiselle 
 was too full of despair to admit of fear. 
 
 "It's only the dress-maker," she said. "Ycj 
 can stay where you are, father, and she won'f 
 10
 
 146 ESMERALDA. 
 
 guess we've been together, and it'll be better for us 
 both." 
 
 And accordingly she obeyed the summons alone. 
 
 Great were the preparations made by Madame 
 for the entertainment. My wife, to whom she dis 
 played the costumes and jewels she had purchased, 
 was aroused to an admiration truly feminine. 
 
 She had the discretion to trust to the taste of the 
 artistes, and had restrained them in nothing. Con 
 sequently, all that was to be desired in the ap 
 pearance of Mademoiselle Esmeralda upon the 
 eventful evening was happiness. With her mother's 
 permission, she came to our room to display her 
 self, Monsieur following her with an air of awe and 
 admiration commingled. Her costume was rich and 
 exquisite, and her beauty beyond criticism ; but as 
 she stood in the centre of our little salon to be 
 looked at, she presented an appearance to move 
 one's heart. The pretty young face which had by 
 this time lost its slight traces of the sun had also 
 lost some of its bloom ; the slight figure was not so 
 round nor so erect as it had been, and moved with 
 less of spirit and girlishness. 
 
 It appeared that Monsieur observed this also, 
 for he stood apart regarding her with evident de 
 pression, and occasionally used his handkerchief 
 with a violence that was evidently meant to conceal 
 some secret emotion. 
 
 " You're not so peart as you was, Esmeraldy," he 
 remarked, tremulously ; " not as peart by a i igbt
 
 ESMERALDA. 14? 
 
 sm^rt, and what with that, and what with your 
 fixin's, Wash I mean the home- folks," hastily 
 " they'd hardly know ye." 
 
 He followed her down-stairs mournfully when 
 she took her departure, and Clelie and myself be 
 ing left alone interested ourselves in various specu 
 lations concerning them, as was our habit. 
 
 "This Monsieur Wash," remarked Clelie, "is 
 clearly the lover. Poor child ! how passionately 
 she regrets him, and thousands of miles lie be 
 tween them thousands of miles ! " 
 
 It was not long after this that, on my way down 
 stairs to make a trifling purchase, I met with some 
 thing approaching an adventure. It so chanced 
 that, as I descended the staircase of the second 
 floor, the door of the first floor apartment was 
 thrown open, and from it issued Mademoiselle Es- 
 meralda and her mother on their way to their wait 
 ing carriage. My interest in the appearance of Ma 
 demoiselle in her white robes and sparkling jewels 
 so absorbed me that J inadvertently brushed against 
 a figure which stood in the shadow regarding them 
 also. Turning at once to apologize, I found my 
 self confronting a young man, tall, powerful, but 
 with a sad and haggard face, and attired in a strange 
 and homely dress which had a foreign look. 
 
 " Monsieur ! " I exclaimed, " a thousand par 
 dons. I was so unlucky as not to see you." 
 
 But he did not seem to hear. He remained 
 silent, gazing fixedly at the ladies until they had
 
 148 ESMERALDA. 
 
 disappeared, and then, on my addressing him again, 
 he awakened, as it were, with a start. 
 
 "It doesn't matter," he answered, in a heavj 
 bewildered voice and in English, and turning back 
 made his way slowly up the stairs. 
 
 But even the utterance of this brief sentence 
 had betrayed to my practiced ear a peculiar accent 
 an accent which, strange to say, bore a likeness 
 to that of our friends down-stairs, and which caused 
 me to stop a moment at the lodge of the concierge, 
 and ask her a question or so. 
 
 " Have we a new occupant upon the fifth floor ? " 
 I inquired. " A person who speaks English ? " 
 
 She answered me with a dubious expression. 
 
 " You must mean the strange young man upon 
 the sixth," she said. " He rs a new one and speaks 
 English. Indeed, he does not speak anything else, 
 or even understand a word. Mon Dieu ! the trials 
 one encounters with such persons, endeavoring 
 to comprehend, poor creatures, and failing always, 
 and this one is worse than the rest and looks 
 more wretched as if he had not a friend in the 
 world." 
 
 " What is his name ? " I asked. 
 
 " How can one remember their names ? it is 
 worse than impossible. This one is frightful. But 
 he has no letters, thank Heaven. If there should 
 arrive one with an impossible name upon it, I 
 should take it to him and run the risk." 
 
 Naturally, Cle'lie, to whom I related the incident,
 
 ESMERALDA. 149 
 
 was much interested. But it was some time beforr 
 either of us saw the hero of it again, though both 
 of us confessed to having been upon the watch for 
 him. The concierge, could only tell us that he lived 
 a secluded life rarely leaving his room in the day 
 time, and seeming to be very poor. 
 
 " He does not work and eats next to nothing," 
 she said. " Late at night he occasionally carries 
 up a loaf, and once he treated himself to a cup of 
 bouillon from the restaurant at the corner but it 
 was only once, poor young man. He is at least 
 very gentle and well-conducted. 
 
 So it was not to be wondered at that we did not 
 see him. Clelie mentioned him to her young friend, 
 but Mademoiselle's interest in him was only faint 
 and ephemeral. She had not the spirit to rouse 
 herself to any strong emotion. 
 
 " I dare say he's an American," she said. " There 
 are plenty of Americans in Paris, but none of them 
 seem a bit nearer to me than if they were French. 
 They are all rich and fine, and they all like the life 
 here better than the life at home. This is the first 
 poor one I have heard of." 
 
 Each day brought fresh unhappiness to her. 
 Madame was inexorable. She spent a fortune upon 
 toilette for her, and insisted upon dragging her from 
 place to place, and wearying her with gayeties 
 from which her sad young heart shrank. Each af 
 ternoon their equipage was to be seen upon the 
 Champs Elyse'es, and each evening it stood before
 
 150 ESATERALDA. 
 
 the door waiting to bear them to some place ol 
 festivity. 
 
 Mademoiselle's bete noir, the marquis, who was a 
 debilitated rout in search of a fortune, attached 
 himself to them upon all occasions. 
 
 " Bah ! " said Clelie with contempt, " she amazes 
 one by her imbecility this woman. Truly, one 
 would imagine that her vulgar sharpness would 
 teach her that his object is to use her as a tool, and 
 that having gained Mademoiselle's fortune, he will 
 treat them with brutality and derision." 
 
 But she did not seem to see possibly she 
 fancied that having obtained him for a son-in-law, 
 she would be bold and clever enough to outwit and 
 control him. Consequently, he was encouraged 
 and fawned upon, and Mademoiselle grew thin and 
 pale and large-eyed, and wore continually an ex 
 pression of secret terror. 
 
 Only in her visits to our fifth floor did she dare 
 to give way to her grief, and truly at such times 
 both my Clelie and I were greatly affected. Upon 
 one occasion indeed she filled us both with alarm. 
 
 " Do you know what I shall do ? " she said, 
 stopping suddenly in the midst of her weeping. 
 "I'll bear it as long as I can, and then I'll put an 
 end to it. There's there's always the Seine left, 
 and I've laid awake and thought of it many a 
 night. Father and me saw a man taken out of it 
 one day, and the people said he was a Tyrolean, 
 and drowned himself because he was so poor and 
 lonely and and so far from home."
 
 ESMERALDA. 1$^ 
 
 Upon the very morning she made this speech I 
 saw again our friend of the sixth floor. In going 
 down-stairs I came upon him, sitting upon one of 
 the steps as if exhausted, and when he turned his 
 face upward, its pallor and haggardness startled 
 me. His tall form was wasted, his eyes were 
 hollow, the peculiarities I had before observed were 
 doubly marked he was even emaciated. 
 
 "Monsieur," I said in English, "you appear in 
 disposed. You have been ill. Allow me to assist 
 you to your room." 
 
 " No, thank you," he answered. " It's only 
 weakness. I I sorter give out. Don't trouble 
 yourself. I shall get over it directly." 
 
 Something in his face, which was a very young 
 and well-looking one, forced me to leave him in 
 silence, merely bowing as I did so. I felt instinct 
 ively that to remain would be to give him addi 
 tional pain. 
 
 As I passed the room of the concierge, however, 
 the excellent woman beckoned to me to approach 
 her. 
 
 "Did you see the young man?" she inquired 
 rather anxiously. " He has shown himself this 
 morning for the first time in three days. There 
 is something wrong. It is my impression that he 
 suffers want that he is starving himseh to 
 death ! " 
 
 Her rosy countenance absolutely paled as she 
 uttered these last words, retreating a pace from me 
 and touching my arm with her fore-linger.
 
 152 ESMERALDA, 
 
 " He has carried up even less bread than usual 
 during the last few weeks," she added, " and there 
 has been no bouillon whatever. A young man can 
 not live only on dry bread, and too little of that. 
 He will perish ; and apart from the inhumanity of 
 the thing, it will be unpleasant for the other loca- 
 taires." 
 
 I wasted no time in returning to Clelie, having 
 indeed some hope that I might find the poor fellow 
 still occupying his former position upon the stair 
 case. But in this I met with disappointment : he 
 was gone and I could only relate to my wife what I 
 had heard, and trust to her discretion. As I had 
 expected, she was deeply moved. 
 
 " It is terrible," she said. " And it is also a del 
 icate and difficult matter to manage. But what can 
 one do ? There is only one thing I who am a 
 woman, and have suffered privation myself, may 
 venture." 
 
 Accordingly, she took her departure for the floor 
 above. I heard her light summons upon the door 
 of one of the rooms, but heard no reply. At last, 
 however, the door was opened gently, and with a 
 hesitance that led me to imagine that it was Cle'lie 
 herself who had pushed it open, and immediately 
 afterward I was sure that she had uttered an 
 alarmed exclamation. I stepped out upon the 
 landing and called to her in a subdued tone, 
 
 " Cle'lie," I said, " did I hear you speak ? " 
 
 " Yes," she returned from within the roon? 
 " Come at once, and bring with you some brandy.
 
 ESMERALL4. 15' 
 
 In the shortest possible time I had joined her in 
 the room, which was bare, cold, and unfurnished 
 a mere garret, in fact, containing nothing but a. 
 miserable bedstead. Upon the floor, near the win 
 dow, knelt Cle'lie, supporting with her knee and 
 arm the figure of the young man she had come to 
 visit. 
 
 " Quick with the brandy," she exclaimed. " This 
 may be a faint, but it looks like death." She had 
 found the door partially open, and receiving no 
 answer to her knock, had pushed it farther ajar, 
 and caught a glimpse of the fallen figure, and hur 
 ried to its assistance. 
 
 To be as brief as possible, we both remained 
 at the young man's side during the whole of the 
 night. As the concierge had said, he was perish 
 ing from inanition, and the physician we called in 
 assured us that only the most constant attention 
 would save his life. 
 
 " Monsieur," Cle'lie explained to him upon the 
 first occasion upon which he opened his eyes, 
 " you are ill and alone, and we wish to befriend 
 you." And he was too weak to require from her 
 anything more definite. 
 
 Physically he was a person to admire. In health 
 his muscular power must have been immense. He 
 possessed the frame of a young giant, and yet there 
 was in his face a look of innocence and inexpe 
 rience amazing even when one recollected his 
 youth.
 
 154 ESMERALDA. 
 
 " It is the look," said Cle'lie, regarding him at 
 tentively, " the look one sees in the faces of 
 Monsieur and his daughter down-stairs ; the look 
 of a person who has lived a simple life, and who 
 knows absolutely nothing of the world." 
 
 It is possible that this may have prepared the 
 reader for the denotiment which followed ; but sin 
 gular as it may appear, it did not prepare either 
 Clelie or myself perhaps because we had seen 
 the world, and having learned to view it in a prac 
 tical light, were not prepared to encounter sud 
 denly a romance almost unparalleled. 
 
 The next morning I was compelled to go out to 
 give my lessons as usual, and left Clelie with our 
 patient. On my return, my wife, hearing my foot 
 steps, came out and met me upon the landing. 
 She was moved by the strongest emotion and much 
 excited ; her cheeks were pale and her eyes shone. 
 
 " Do not go in yet," she said, " I have some 
 thing to tell you. It is almost incredible ; but 
 but it is the lover ! " 
 
 For a moment we remained silent standing 
 looking at each other. To me it seemed incredible 
 indeed. 
 
 " He could not give her up," Clelie went on, 
 "until he was sure she wished to discard him. 
 The mother had employed all her ingenuity to 
 force him to believe that such was the case, but he 
 could not rest until he had seen his betrothed face 
 to face. So he followed her, poor, incxperi-
 
 ESMERALDA. 15^ 
 
 enced, and miserable, and when at last he saw 
 her at a distance, the luxury with which she was 
 surrounded caused his heart to fail him, and he 
 gave way to despair." 
 
 I accompanied her into the room, and heard the 
 rest from his own lips. He gathered together all 
 his small savings, and made his journey in the 
 cheapest possible way, in the steerage of the 
 vessel, and in third-class carriages, so that he 
 might have some trifle left to subsist upon. 
 
 " I've a little farm," he said, " and there's a 
 house on it, but I wouldn't sell that. If she cared 
 to go, it was all I had to take her to, an' I'd worked 
 hard to buy it. I'd worked hard, early and late, 
 always thinking that some day we'd begin life there 
 together Esmeraldy and me." 
 
 " Since neither sea, nor land, nor cruelty, could 
 separate them," said Clelie to me during the day, 
 " it is not I who will help to hold them apart." 
 
 So when Mademoiselle came for her lesson that 
 afternoon, it was Clelie's task to break the news to 
 her, to tell her that neither sea nor land lay be 
 tween herself and her lover, and that he was faith 
 ful still. 
 
 She received the information as she might have 
 received a blow, staggering backward, and whit 
 ening, and losing her breath ; but almost immedi 
 ately afterward she uttered a sad cry of disbelief 
 and anguish. 
 
 " No, no," she said, " it it isn't true ! I won't
 
 156 ESMERALDA. 
 
 believe it I mustn't. There's half the world be 
 tween us. Oh, don't try to make me believe it, 
 when it can't be true ! " 
 
 " Come with me," replied Clelie. 
 
 Never never in my life has it been my fate tc 
 see, before or since, a sight so touching as the 
 meeting of these two young hearts. When the 
 door of the cold, bare room opened, and Mademoi 
 selle Esmeralda entered, the lover held out his 
 weak arms with a sob, a sob of rapture, and yet 
 terrible to hear. 
 
 " I thought you'd gone back on me, Esmeraldy," 
 he cried. " I thought you'd gone back on me." 
 
 Cle'lie and I turned away and left them as the 
 girl fell upon her knees at his side. 
 
 The effect produced upon the father who had 
 followed Mademoiselle as usual, and whom we 
 found patiently seated upon the bottom step of the 
 flight of stairs, awaiting our arrival was almost 
 indescribable. 
 
 He sank back upon his seat with a gasp, clutch 
 ing at his hat with both hands. He also disbe 
 lieved. 
 
 " Wash ! " he exclaimed weakly. " Lord, no I 
 Lord, no ! Not Wash ! Wash, he's in North Cal- 
 lina. Lord, no ! " 
 
 " He is up-stairs," returned Cle'lie, " and Mad 
 emoiselle is with him." 
 
 During the recovery of Monsieur Wash, though
 
 ESMERALDA. 157 
 
 but little was said upon the subject, it is my opin 
 ion that the minds of each of our number pointed 
 only toward one course in the future. 
 
 In Mademoiselle's demeanor there appeared a 
 certain air of new courage and determination, 
 though she was still pallid and anxious. It was 
 as if she had passed a climax and had gained 
 strength. Monsieur, the father, was alternately 
 nervous and dejected, or in feverishly high spirits. 
 Occasionally he sat for some time without speak 
 ing, merely gazing into the fire with a hand upon 
 each knee ; and it was one evening, after a more 
 than usually prolonged silence of this description, 
 that he finally took upon himself the burden which 
 lay upon us unitedly. 
 
 " Esmeraldy," he remarked, tremulously, and 
 with manifest trepidation, " Esmeraldy, I've been 
 thinkin' it's time we broke it to mother." 
 
 The girl lost color, but she lifted her head 
 steadily. 
 
 " Yes, father," she answered, " it's time." 
 
 " Yes," he echoed, rubbing his knees slowly, 
 " it's time ; an', Esmeraldy, it's a thing to to 
 sorter set a man back." 
 
 " Yes, father," she answered again. 
 
 " Yes," as before, though his voice broke some 
 what ; " an' I dessay you know how it'll be, Es 
 meraldy, that you'll have to choose betwixt 
 mother and Wash." 
 
 She sat by her lover, and for answer she dropped 
 her face upon his hand with a sob.
 
 158 ESMERALDA. 
 
 " An' an' you've chose Wash, Esmeraldy ? " 
 
 " Yes, father." 
 
 He hesitated a moment, and then took his hat 
 from its place of concealment and rose. 
 
 " It's nat'ral," he said, " an' it's right. I wouldn't 
 want it no other way. An' you mustn't mind, 
 Esmeraldy, it's bein' kinder rough on me, as can't 
 go back on mother, havin' swore to cherish her 
 till death do us part. You've allus been a good 
 gal to me, an' we've thought a heap on each other, 
 an' I reckon it can allers be the same way, even 
 though we're sep'rated, fur it's nat'ral you should 
 have chose Wash, an' an' I wouldn't have it no 
 other way, Esmeraldy. Now I'll go an' have it out 
 with mother." 
 
 We were all sufficiently unprepared for the an 
 nouncement to be startled by it. Mademoiselle 
 Esmeralda, who was weeping bitterly, half sprang 
 to her feet. 
 
 " To-night ! " she said. " Oh, father ! " 
 
 ' : Yes," he replied ; "I've been thinking over it, 
 an' I don't see no other way, an' it may as well be 
 to-night as any other time." 
 
 After leaving us he was absent for about an 
 hour. When he returned, there were traces in his 
 appearance of the storm through which he had 
 passed. His hands trembled with agitation ; he 
 even looked weakened as he sank into his chair. 
 We regarded him with commiseration. 
 
 " It's over," he half whispered, " an' it was even
 
 STATf NORMAL SC 
 
 l& ^*g 
 
 ESMERALDA. 159 
 
 rougher than I thought it would be. . She was ter 
 rible outed, was mother. I reckon I never see her 
 so outed before. She jest raged and tore. It was 
 most more than I could stand, Esmeraldy," and he 
 dropped his head upon his hands for support. 
 " Seemed like it was the Markis as laid heaviest 
 upon her," he proceeded. " She was terrible sot 
 on the Markis, an* every time she think of him, 
 she'd just rear she'd just rear. I never stood up 
 agen mother afore, an' I hope I sha'n't never have 
 it to do again in my time. I'm kinder wore out." 
 
 Little by little we learned much of what had 
 passed, though he evidently withheld the most for 
 the sake of Mademoiselle, and it was some time be 
 fore he broke the news to her that her mother's 
 doors were closed against her. 
 
 " I think you'll find it pleasanter a-stoppin' here," 
 he said, " if Mis' Dimar'll board ye until the 
 time fur startin' home. Her sperrit was so up that 
 she said she didn't aim to see you no more, an' you 
 know how she is, Esmeraldy, when her sperrit's up." 
 
 The girl went and clung around his neck, kneel 
 ing at his side, and shedding tears. 
 
 "Oh, father!" she cried, "you've bore a great 
 deal for me ; you've bore more than any one knows, 
 and all for me." 
 
 He looked rather grave, as he shook his head at 
 the fire. 
 
 "That's so, Esmeraldy," he replied; "but we 
 ailers seemed nigh to each other, somehow, and
 
 I6O ESMERALDA. 
 
 when it come .to the wust, I was bound to kinder 
 make a stand fur you, as I couldn't have made fur 
 myself. I couldn't have done it fur myself. Lord, 
 no!" 
 
 So Mademoiselle remained with us, and Clelie 
 assisted her to prepare her simple outfit, and in the' 
 evening the tall young lover came into our apart 
 ment and sat looking on, which aspect of affairs, I 
 will confess, was entirely new to Cle'lie, and yet did 
 not displease her. 
 
 " Their candor moves me," she said. " He 
 openly regards her with adoration. At parting she 
 accompanies him to the door, and he embraces her 
 tenderly, and yet one is not repelled. It is the 
 love of the lost Arcadia serious and innocent." 
 
 Finally, we went with them one morning to the 
 American Chapel in the Rue de Berri, and they 
 were united in our presence and that of Monsieur, 
 who was indescribably affeQted. 
 
 After the completion of the ceremony, he pre 
 sented Monsieur Wash with a package. 
 
 " It's papers as I've had drawd up fur Esme- 
 raldy," he said. " It'll start you well out in the 
 world, an' after me and mother's gone, there's no 
 one but you and her to have rest. The Lord 
 may the Lord bless ye ! " 
 
 We accompanied them to Havre, and did not 
 leave them until the last moment. Monsieur was 
 strangely excited, and clung to the hands of his 
 daughter and son-in-law, talking fast and nervously,
 
 ESMERALDA. l6l 
 
 and pouring out messages to be delivered to his 
 distant friends. 
 
 " Tell 'em I'd like powerful well to see 'em all, 
 an' I'd have come only only things was kinder 
 onconvenient. Sometime, perhaps " 
 
 But here he was obliged to clear his throat, as his 
 voice had become extremely husky. And, having 
 done this, he added in an undertone : 
 
 "You see, Esmeraldy, I couldn't, because of 
 mother, as I've swore not to go back on. Wash, 
 he wouldn't go back on you, however high your 
 sperrit was, an' I can't go back on mother." 
 
 The figures of the young couple standing at the 
 side, Monsieur Wash holding his wife to his breast 
 with one strong arm, were the last we saw as the 
 ship moved slowly away. 
 
 " It is obscurity to which they are returning," I 
 said, half unconsciously. 
 
 " It is love," said Clelie. 
 
 The father, who had been standing apart, came 
 back to us, replacing in his pocket his handker 
 chief. 
 
 " They are young an' likely, you see," said Mon 
 sieur, " an' life before them, an' it's nat'ral as she 
 should have chose Wash, as was young too, an' sot 
 on her. Lord, it's nat'ral, an' I wouldn't have it 
 no otherways." 
 ii
 
 MERE GIRAUD'S LITTLE DAUGHTER 
 
 " T)RUT ! " said Annot, her sabots clattering 
 
 JL loudly on the brick floor as she moved more 
 rapidly in her wrath. " Prut ! Madame Giraud, in 
 deed ! There was a time, and it was but two years 
 ago, that she was but plain Mere Giraud, and no 
 better than the rest of us ; and it seems to me, neigh 
 bors, that it is not well to show pride because one 
 has the luck to be favored by fortune. Where, for 
 sooth, would our ' Madame ' Giraud stand if luck 
 had not given her a daughter pretty enough to win 
 a rich husband ? " 
 
 " True, indeed ! " echoed two of the gossips who 
 were her admiring listeners. " True, beyond doubt. 
 Where, indeed? " 
 
 But the third, a comely, fresh-skinned matron, 
 who leaned against the door, and knitted a stout 
 gray stocking with fast-clashing needles, did not ac 
 quiesce so readily. 
 
 "Well, well, neighbors," she said, "for my part, 
 I do not see so much to complain of. Mere Giraud
 
 MERE GIRAUD'S LITTLE DAUGHTER. 163 
 
 she is still Mere Giraud to me is as hones 
 and kindly a soul as ever. It is not she who has 
 called herself Madame Giraud ; it is others who 
 are foolish enough to fancy that good luck must 
 change one's old ways. If she had had the wish 
 to be a grand personage, would she nut have left 
 our village before this and have joined Madame 
 Legrand in Paris. On the contrary, however, she 
 remains in her cottage, and is as good a neighbor 
 as ever, even though she is fond of talking of the 
 carriages and jewels of Madame Legrand and her 
 establishment on the Boulevard Malesherbes. In 
 fact, I ask you, who of us would not rejoice also to 
 be the mother of a daughter whose fortune had 
 been so good ? " 
 
 "That also is true," commented the amiable 
 couple, nodding their white-capped heads with a 
 sagacious air. " True, without doubt." 
 
 But Annot replied with a contemptuous shrug of 
 her shoulders : 
 
 " Wait until Madame Giraud is invited to visit 
 the Boulevard Malesherbes," she said. " We have 
 not heard that this has happened yet." 
 
 " She would not go if she were, at least not to 
 remain. Her heart has grown to the old place she 
 bore her children in, and she has herself said to 
 me most sensibly : ' Laure is young, and will learn 
 easily the ways of the great world ; I am old, and 
 cannot ; I am better at home among my neighbors.' 
 Doubtless, however, In course of time she will pay
 
 1 64 MERE GIRAUD'S LITTLE DAUGHTER. 
 
 Madame Legrand a visit at her home in Paris, oi 
 at the chateau which Monsieur Legrand of course 
 possesses, as the rich and aristocratic always do." 
 
 " Doubtless ! " said Annot, grimly ; " doubt 
 less." 
 
 Honest Jeanne Tallot passed the sneer by, and 
 went on with stout gravity of demeanor : 
 
 " There is only one thing for which I somewhat 
 blamed Mere Giraud, and that is that I think she 
 has scarcely done her duty toward Valentin. He 
 disappointed her by being an ugly lad instead of a 
 pretty girl, and she had not patience with him. 
 Laure was the favorite. Whatever Laure did was 
 right, and it was not so with the other, though I 
 myself know that Valentin was a good lad, and 
 tender-hearted." 
 
 " Once," put in a white cap, " I saw her beat 
 him severely because he fell with the little girl in 
 his arms and scratched her cheek, and it was not 
 his fault. His foot slipped upon a stone. He was 
 carrying the child carefully and tenderly enough. 
 You are right in calling him a good lad, neighbor 
 Tallot. He was a good lad, Valentin Giraud, 
 and fond of his mother, notwithstanding that she 
 was not fond of him." 
 
 "Yes," added her companion; "but it is a truth 
 that he was a great contrast to the girl. Man Dieu t 
 his long limbs and awkward body, his great sad 
 eyes and ugly face ! While Laure, was she not 
 tall and slender and white, like a lily in a garden ?
 
 A1ERE GIRAU&S LITTLE DAUGHTER. 165 
 
 And her voice was like the ringing of silver, and 
 her eyes so soft and large. As an infant, she re 
 minded one of the little Jdsu as one sees him in 
 the churches. No wonder that Mere Giraud fretted 
 at the difference between the two. And Valentin 
 was her first, and what mother does not look for 
 great things in her first? We cannot help feeling 
 that something must come of one's own charms if 
 one has any, and Mere Giraud was a handsome 
 bride. An ugly bantling seems to offer one a sort 
 of insult, particularly at first, when one is young 
 and vain." 
 
 " There was no more beautiful young girl than 
 Laure Giraud at sixteen," said Jeanne Tailor. 
 
 " And none more useless," said Annot loudly. 
 " Give me a young girl who is industrious and hon 
 est. My Margot is better provided for than Laure 
 Giraud was before her marriage ; but her hands 
 are not white, nor is her waist but a span around. 
 She has too much work to do. She is not a tall, 
 white, swaying creature who is too good to churn 
 and tend the creatures who give her food. I have 
 heard it said that Laure would have worked if her 
 mother had permitted it, but I don't believe it. 
 She had not a working look. Mademoiselle Laure 
 was too good for the labor of humble people ; she 
 must go to Paris and learn a fine, delicate trade." 
 
 " But good came of it," put in Jeanne Tallot 
 " It proved all the better for her." 
 
 "Let her mother thank the Virgin, then," cried
 
 1 66 MERE GIRAUD'S LITTLE DAUGHTER. 
 
 Annot, contemptuously. " It might not have proved 
 the bettt r ; it might have proved the worse ; evil 
 might have come of it instead of good. Who 
 among us has not heard of such things ? Did not 
 Marie Gautier go to Paris too ? " 
 
 " Ah, poor little one, indeed ! " sighed the white 
 caps. 
 
 " And in two years," added Annot, " her mothe r- 
 died of a broken heart." 
 
 " But," said cheerful Jeanne, somewhat dryly, 
 " Laure's mother is not dead yet, so let us con 
 gratulate ourselves that to go to Paris has brought 
 luck to one of our number at least, and let us deal 
 charitably with Mere Giraud, who certainly means 
 well, and is only naturally proud of her daughter's 
 grandeur. For my part, I can afford to rejoice 
 with her." 
 
 She rolled up her stout stocking into a ball, and 
 stuck her needles through it, nodding at the three 
 women. 
 
 " I promised I would drop in and spend a few 
 minutes with her this morning," she said ; " so I 
 will bid you good-day," and she stepped across the 
 threshold and trudged off in the sunshine, her 
 wooden shoes sounding bravely on the path. 
 
 It was only a little place, St. Croix, as we 
 shall call it for want of a better name, a little 
 village of one street, and of many vines, and roses, 
 and orchards, and of much gossip. Simple people 
 inhabited it, simple, ignorant folk, who knew
 
 MERE GIRAU&S LITTLE DAUGHTER. 1 6? 
 
 one another, and discussed one another's faults 
 and grape-crops with equal frankness, worked hard, 
 lived frugally, confessed regularly, and slept well 
 Devout people, and ignorant, who believed that the 
 little shrines they erected in their vineyards brought 
 blessings upon their grapes, and who knew nothing 
 of the great world beyond, and spoke of Paris with 
 awe, and even a shade of doubt. Living the same 
 lives generation after generation, tilling the same 
 crops, and praying before the same stone altar in 
 the small, quaint church, it is not to be wondered 
 at that when a change occurred to any one of their 
 number, it was regarded as a sort of social era. 
 There were those in St. Croix who had known 
 Mere Giraud's grandfather, a slow-spoken, kindly 
 old peasant, who had drunk his vin ordinaire, and 
 smoked his pipe with the poorest ; and there was 
 not one who did not well know Mere Giraud her 
 self, and who had not watched the growth of the 
 little Laure, who had bloomed into a beauty not 
 unlike the beauty of the white Provence roses 
 which climbed over and around her mother's cot 
 tage door. " Mere Giraud's little daughter," she 
 had been called, even after she grew into the won 
 derfully tall and wonderfully fair creature she be 
 came before she left the village, accompanying her 
 brother Valentin to Paris. 
 
 "Ma/oi/" said the men, "but she is truly a 
 beauty, Mere Giraud's little daughter ! " 
 
 " She should be well looked to," said the wise 
 acres, " Mere Giraud's little daughter."
 
 1 68 MERE GIRAU&S LITTLE DAUGHTER. 
 
 " There is one we must always give way before,'' 
 said the best-natured among the girls, " and that 
 one is Mere Giraud's little daughter." 
 
 The old Cure'oi the parish took interest in her, 
 and gave her lessons, and, as Mere Giraud would 
 have held her strictly to them, even if she had not 
 been tractable and studious by nature, she was bet 
 ter educated and more gently trained than her com 
 panions. The fact was, however, that she had not 
 many companions. Some element in her grace and 
 beauty seemed to separate her from the rest of her 
 class. Village sports and festivities had little at 
 traction for her, and, upon the whole, she seemed 
 out of place among them. Her stature, her fair, 
 still face, and her slow, quiet movements, suggested 
 rather embarrassingly to the humble feasters the 
 presence of some young princess far above them. 
 
 "Pouf!" said a sharp-tongued belle one day, 
 " I have no patience with her. She is so tall, this 
 Laure, that one must be forever looking up to her, 
 and I, for one, do not care to be forever looking 
 up." 
 
 The hint of refined pride in her demeanor was 
 Mere Giraud's greatest glory. 
 
 " She is not like the rest, my Laure," she would 
 say to her son. "One can see it in the way in^ 
 which she holds her head. She has the quiet, grave 
 air of a great personage." 
 
 There were many who wondered that Valentin 
 showed no jealousy or distaste at hearing his f's
 
 MERE GIRAUD'S LITTLE DAUGHTER. 169 
 
 ter's praises sounded so frequently to his own det 
 riment. There was no praise for him. The poor, 
 fond mother's heart was too full of Laure. Her 
 son had been a bitter disappointment to her, and, 
 to her mind, was fitted for nothing but to make 
 himself an adoring slave to his sister's beauty ; and 
 this, the gentle, generous fellow certainly was. He 
 was always ready to serve her ; always affectionate, 
 always faithful ; and Mere Giraud, who was blind to, 
 or careless of, all his loving, constant labor for her 
 own comfort, deigned to see that he did his duty 
 toward Laure. 
 
 " He has at least the sense to appreciate her as 
 far as he is able," she said. 
 
 So when Valentin, who had a talent for engrav 
 ing, was discovered by some one who understood 
 his genius, and could make use of it, and was 
 offered a place in the great, gay city, Mere Giraud 
 formed an ambitious plan. He should take Laure 
 and find her a position also ; she had the fingers of 
 a fair magician, and could embroider marvelously. 
 So she trusted Laure to him, and the two bade 
 farewell to St. Croix and departed together. A 
 month passed, and then there came a letter con 
 taining good news. Valentin was doing well, and 
 Laure also. She had found a place in a great 
 family where she was to embroider and wait upon a 
 young lady. They were rich people, and were kind, 
 and paid her well, and she was happy. 
 
 " When they first saw her, they were astonished,"
 
 I7O MERE GIRAUD'S LITTLE DAUGHTER. 
 
 wrote the simple, tender Valentin. " I went with 
 her to present herself. My employer had recom 
 mended her. There is a son who is past his youth, 
 and who has evidently seen the world. He is aris 
 tocratic and fair, and slightly bald, but extremely 
 handsome still. He sat holding a newspaper in his 
 long, white fingers, and when we entered, he raised 
 his eyes above it and looked at Laure, and I heard 
 him exclaim under his breath, ' Mon Dieu /' as if 
 hf:r beauty fairly startled him." 
 
 When the Cure, to whom the proud mother 
 showed the letter, read this part, he did not seem 
 as rejoiced as Mere Giraud had expected. On the 
 contrary, he looked a little grave, and rubbed his 
 forehead. 
 
 " Ah, ah ! " he said ; " there lies the danger." 
 
 " Danger ! " exclaimed Mere Giraud, starting. 
 
 He turned, and regarded her with a rather hesi 
 tant air, as if he were at once puzzled and fearful, 
 puzzled by her simplicity, and fearful of grieving 
 her unnecessarily. 
 
 "Valentin is a good lad," he said. "Valentin 
 will be watchful, though perhaps he is too good 
 to suspect evil." 
 
 Mere Giraud put her hand to her heart. 
 
 " You are not afraid ? " she said, quite proudly, 
 beginning at last to comprehend. " You are not 
 afraid of evil to Laure ? " 
 
 " No, no, no," he answered ; " surely not." 
 
 He said no more then, but he always asked to
 
 MERE GIRAUD^S LITTLE DAUGHTER. I /I 
 
 see the letters, and read them with great care, 
 sometimes over and over again. They came very 
 regularly for six or seven months, and then there 
 was a gap of a few weeks, and then came a strange, 
 almost incomprehensible, letter from Valentin, con 
 taining news which almost caused Mere Giraud's 
 heart to burst with joy and gratitude. Laure was 
 married, and had made such a marriage as could 
 scarcely have been dreamed of. A rich aristocrat, 
 who had visited her employers, had fallen in love 
 with her, and married her. He had no family to 
 restrain him, and her beauty had won him com 
 pletely from the first hour. He had carried her 
 away with him to make a prolonged tour. The 
 family with whom she had lived had been lavish in 
 their gifts and kindness, but they had left Paris 
 also and were voyaging. The name of Laure's 
 bridegroom was Legrand, and there came messages 
 from Laure, and inclosed was a handsome present 
 of money. 
 
 Mere Giraud was overwhelmed with joy. Before 
 three hours had passed, all St. Croix knew the 
 marvelous news. She went from house to house 
 showing the letter and the money, and it was not 
 until night that she cooled down sufficiently to 
 labor through a long epistle to Valentin. 
 
 It was a year before Laure returned to Paris, 
 and during that time she wrote but seldom ; but 
 Valentin wrote often, and answered all his mother's 
 questions, though not as fluently, nor with so many
 
 1/2 MERE GIRAUD" S LITTLE DAUGHTER. 
 
 words as i he often wished. Laure was rich, and 
 beautiful as ever; her husband adored her, and 
 showered gifts and luxuries upon her ; she had 
 equipages and jewels ; she wore velvet and satin 
 and lace every day ; she was a great lady, and had 
 a house like a palace. Laure herself did not say 
 so much. In her secret heart, Mere Giraud often 
 longed for more, but she was a discreet and far- 
 seeing woman. 
 
 " What would you ? " she said. " She must 
 drive out in her equipage, and she must dress and 
 receive great people, and I am not so blind a 
 mother as not to see that she will have many 
 things to learn. She has not time to write long 
 letters, and see how she cares for me, money, 
 see you, by every letter, and a silk dress and lace 
 cap she herself has chosen in the Boulevard Capu- 
 cines. And I must care for myself, and furnish 
 the cottage prettily, and keep a servant. Her 
 wealth and great fortune have not rendered her 
 unclutiful, my Laure." 
 
 So she talked of Madame Legrand, and so all 
 St. Croix talked of Madame Legrand, and some, of 
 course, were envious and prophesied that the end 
 had not come yet, and Mere Giraud would find 
 herself forgotten some fine day ; and others rejoiced 
 with her, and congratulated themselves that they 
 knew so aristocratic a person as Madame Legrand. 
 
 Jeanne Tallot was of those who sympathized 
 with her in all warm-heartedness and candor
 
 MERE GlKAU&S LITTLE DAUGHTER. 173 
 
 With her knitting in her hand ready for action, 
 and with friendly unceremoniousness, she presented 
 herself at the cottage door one morning, nodding 
 and speaking before she had crossed the thresh 
 old. 
 
 " Good-day, neighbor Giraud. Any letters from 
 Laure this morning ? " 
 
 Mere Giraud, who sat before the window under 
 the swinging cage of her bird, looked up with an 
 air a little more serious than usual. 
 
 " Ah ! " she said, " I am glad it is you, Jeanne. 
 I have been wishing to see you." 
 
 Jeanne seated herself, smiling. 
 
 " Then," said she, " it is well I came." 
 
 But immediately she noticed the absent look of 
 her friend, and commented upon it. 
 
 " You do not look at your best this morning," 
 she said. " How does it occur? " 
 
 " I am thinking," said Mere Giraud with some 
 importance of manner, "I am thinking of going 
 to Paris." 
 
 " To Paris ! " 
 
 " I am anxious," shaking her head seriously. 
 "I had last night a bad dream. I wish to see 
 Laure." 
 
 Then she turned and looked at Jeanne almost 
 wistfully. 
 
 " It is a long time since I have seen her," she 
 said. 
 
 "Yes," answered Jeanne in a little doubt ; "but 
 Paris is a long way off."
 
 174 MERE GIRAUD'S LITTLE DAUGHTER. 
 
 " Yes," said Mere Giraud ; "but it appears that 
 all at once I realize how long it is since I have 
 seen my child. I am getting old, you see. I was 
 not very young when she was born, and, as one 
 grows older, one becomes more uneasy and obsti 
 nate in one's fancies. This morning I feel that I 
 must see my Laure. My heart yearns for her, 
 and" hastily "she will undoubtedly be re 
 joiced to see me. She has often said that she 
 wished she might lay her head upon my breast 
 again." 
 
 It seemed that she was resolved upon the jour 
 ney. She was in a singular, uneasy mood, and 
 restless beyond measure. She who had never been 
 twenty miles from St. Croix had made up her mind 
 to leave it at once and confront all the terrors of a 
 journey to Paris, for there were terrors in such a 
 journey to the mind of a simple peasant who had 
 so far traveled but in one groove. She would not 
 even wait to consult Monsieur le Cure, who was un 
 fortunately absent. Jeanne discovered to her as 
 tonishment that she had already made her small 
 preparations, had packed her best garments in a 
 little wooden box, laying the silk gown and lace 
 cap at the top that they might be in readiness. 
 
 " I will not interfere at all, and I shall not re 
 main long," she said. " Only long enough to see 
 my Laure, and spend a few days with her quietly. 
 It is not Paris I care for, or the great sights ; it is 
 that I must see my child."
 
 MERE G'RAUD'S LITTLE DAUGHTER. I/C 
 
 St. Croix was fairly bewildered at the news il 
 heard the next day. Mere Giraud had gone to 
 Paris to visit Madame Legrand had actually 
 gone, sending her little servant home, and shutting 
 up her small, trim cottage. 
 
 " Let us hope that Madame Legrand will receiva 
 her as she expects to be received," said Annot. 
 " For my part I should have preferred to remain in 
 St. Croix. Only yesterday Jeanne Tallot t&W us 
 that she had no intention of going." 
 
 " She will see wonderful things," said the more 
 simple and amiable. " It is possible that she may 
 be invited to the Tuileries, and without doubt she 
 will drive to the Bois de Boulogne in Madame Le 
 grand 's carriage, with servants in livery to attend 
 her. My uncle's sister's son, who is a valet de plact 
 in a great family, tells us that the aristocracy drive 
 up and down the Champs Eflyse'es every afternoon, 
 and the sight is magnificent." 
 
 But MeYe Giraud did not look forward to such 
 splendors as these. " I shall see my Laure as a 
 great lady," she said to herself. " I shall hold her 
 white hands and kiss her cheeks." 
 
 The roar of vehicles, and the rush and crowd and 
 bustle bewildered her ; the brightness and the roll 
 ing wheels dazzled her old eyes, but she held her 
 self bravely. People to whom she spoke smiled at 
 her patois and her innocent questions, but she did 
 not care. 
 
 She found a fiacre which took her to her destina-
 
 1 76 MERE GIRALWS LITTLE DAUGHTER. 
 
 tion ; and when, after she had paid the driver, he 
 left her, she entered the wide doors with a beating 
 heart, the blood rising on her cheek, and glowing 
 through the withered skin. 
 
 " Madame Legrand," she said a little proudly to 
 the concierge, and the woman stared at her as she 
 led her up the staircase. She was so eager that 
 she scarcely saw the beauty around her, the 
 thick, soft carpets, the carved balustrades, the su 
 perb lamps. But when they stopped before a door 
 she touched the concierge upon the arm. 
 
 " Do not say my name," she said. " I am her 
 mother." 
 
 The woman stared at her more than ever. 
 
 " It is not my place to announce you," she said. 
 " I only came up because I thought you would not 
 find the way." 
 
 She could not have told why it was or how it 
 happened, but when at last she was ushered into 
 the salon a strange sense of oppression fell upon 
 her. The room was long and lofty, and so shad 
 owed by the heavy curtains falling across the win 
 dows that it was almost dark. 
 
 For a few seconds she saw nobody, and then all 
 at once some one rose from a reclining chair at 
 the farther end of the apartment and advanced a 
 few steps toward her a tall and stately figure, 
 moving slowly. 
 
 " Who ? " she heard a cold, soft voice say, 
 and then came a sharp cry, and Laure's white
 
 MERE GIRAU&S LITTLE DAUGHTER. \J) 
 
 hands were thrown out in a strange, desperate gest 
 ure, and she stopped and stood like a statue of 
 stone. "Mother mother mother! " she re 
 peated again and again, as if some indescribable 
 pain shook her. 
 
 If she had been beautiful before, now she was 
 more beautiful still. She was even taller than 
 ever, she was like a queen. Her long robe was 
 of delicate gray velvet, and her hair and throat and 
 wrists were bound with pearls and gold. She was 
 so lovely and so stately that for a moment Mere 
 Giraud was half awed, but the next it was as if her 
 strong mother heart broke loose. 
 
 " My Laure ! " she cried out. " Yes, it is I, my 
 child it is I, Laure ; " and she almost fell upon 
 her knees as she embraced her, trembling for very 
 ecstasy. 
 
 But Laure scarcely spoke. She was white and 
 cold, and at last she gasped forth three words. 
 
 " Where is Valentin ? " 
 
 But Mere Giraud did not know. It was not Val 
 entin she cared to see. Valentin could wait, since 
 she had her Laure. She sat down beside her in 
 one of the velvet chairs, and she held the fair hand 
 in her own. It was covered with jewels, but she 
 did not notice them ; her affection only told her 
 that it was cold and tremulous. 
 
 " You are not well, Laure ? " she said. " It was 
 well that my dream warned me to come. 
 thing ii wrong." 
 
 12
 
 178 Mb RE GIRAUHS LITTLE DAUGHTER. 
 
 " I am quite well," said Laure. " I do not suffer 
 at all." 
 
 She was so silent that if Mere Giraud had not 
 had so much to say she would have been troubled ; 
 as it was, however, she was content to pour forth 
 her affectionate speeches one after another without 
 waiting to be answered. 
 
 "Where is Monsieur Legrand?" she ventured 
 at last. 
 
 " He is," said Laure, in a hesitant voice, " he 
 is in Normandy." 
 
 " Shall I not see him ? " asked Mere Giraud. 
 
 " I am afraid not, unless your visit is a long one. 
 He will be absent for some months." 
 
 She did not speak with any warmth. It was as 
 if she did not care to speak of him at all, as if 
 the mention of him even embarrassed her a little. 
 
 Mere Giraud felt a secret misgiving. 
 
 " I shall not stay long," she said ; " but I could 
 not remain away. I wished so eagerly to see you, 
 and know that you were happy. You are happy, 
 my Laure ? " 
 
 Laure turned toward her and gave her a long 
 look a look which seemed unconsciously to ask 
 her a question. 
 
 " Happy ! " she answered slowly and deliberately, 
 " I suppose so. Yes." 
 
 Mere Giraud caressed her hand again and again. 
 "Yes," she said, "it must be so. The good are 
 always happy; and you, my Laure, have always
 
 MERE GIRAUD'S LITTLE DAUGHTER. 179 
 
 been dutiful and vL .nous, and consequently you 
 are rewarded. You have never caused me a grief, 
 and now, thank the good God, you are prosper 
 ous." She looked at her almost adoringly, and at 
 last touched the soft thick gray velvet of her 
 drapery with reverence. " Do you wear such things 
 as this every day ? " she asked. 
 
 " Yes," Laure answered, " every day." 
 
 " Ah ! " sighed the happy mother. " How Mon 
 sieur Legrand must adore you ! " 
 
 At length she found time to ask a few questions 
 concerning Valentin. 
 
 " I know that he is well and as prosperous as 
 one could expect him to be ; but I hope " 
 bridling a little with great seriousness "I hope 
 he conducts himself in such a manner as to cause 
 you no embarrassment, though naturally you do 
 not see him often." 
 
 " No," was the answer, they did not see him 
 often. 
 
 "Well, well," began Mere Giraud, becoming 
 lenient in her great happiness, " he is not a bad 
 lad Valentin. He means well " 
 
 But here she stopped, Laure checked her with 
 a swift, impassioned movement. 
 
 " He is what we cannot understand," she said in 
 a hushed, strained voice. " He is a saint. He has 
 no thought for himself. His whole life is a sacrifice. 
 It is not I you should adore it is Valentin." 
 
 " Valentin i " echoed Mere Giraud.
 
 ISO MERE GIRAUD'S LITTLE DAUGHTER, 
 
 It quite bewildered her, the mere thought of 
 adoring Valentin. 
 
 " My child," she said when she recovered her 
 self, " it is your good heart which says this." 
 
 The same night Valentin came. Laure went 
 out into the antechamber to meet him, and each 
 stood and looked at the other with pale face and 
 anguished eyes. Valentin's eyes were hollow and 
 sunken as if with some great sorrow, and his large 
 awkward frame seemed wasted. But there was no 
 reproach mingled with the indescribable sadness 
 of his gaze. 
 
 " Your note came to me," he said. " Our 
 mother " 
 
 " She is in there," said Laure in a low, hurried, 
 shaken voice, and she pointed to the sa/on. " She 
 has come to embrace me, to make sure that I 
 am happy. Ah, my God ! " and she covered her 
 deathly face with her hands. 
 
 Valentin did not approach her. He could only 
 stand still and look on. One thought filled his 
 mind. 
 
 "We have no time to weep, Laure," he said 
 gently. " We must go on as we have begun. Give 
 me your hand." 
 
 This was all, and then the two went in together, 
 Laure's hand upon her brother's arm. 
 
 It was a marvelous life Mere Giraud lived during 
 the next few days. Certainly she could not com 
 plain that she was not treated with deference and
 
 MERE GIRAUD"S LITTLE DAUGHTER. l8l 
 
 affection. She wore the silk dress every day ; she 
 sat at the wonderful table, and a liveried servant 
 stood behind her chair ; she drove here and there 
 in a luxurious carriage ; she herself, in fact, lived 
 the life of an aristocrat and a great lady. Better 
 than all the rest, she found her Laure as gracious 
 and dutiful as her fond heart could have wished. 
 She spent every hour with her ; she showed her all 
 her grandeurs of jewelry and toilette ; she was not 
 ashamed of her mother, untutored and simple as 
 she might be. 
 
 " Only she is very pale and quiet," she remarked 
 to Valentin once ; " even paler and more quiet than 
 I should have expected. But then we know that 
 the rich and aristocratic are always somewhat re 
 served. It is only the peasantry and provincials 
 who are talkative and florid. It is natural that 
 Laure should have gained the manner of the great 
 world." 
 
 But her happiness, poor soul, did not last long, 
 and yet the blow God sent was a kindly one. 
 
 One morning as they went out to their carriage 
 Laure stopped to speak to a woman who crouched 
 upon the edge of the pavement with a child in her 
 arms. She bent down and touched the little one 
 with her hand, and Mere Giraud, looking on, 
 tnought of pictures she had seen of the Blessed 
 Virgin, and of lovely saints healing the sick. 
 
 " What is the matter?" asked Laure. 
 
 The woman looked down at the child and 
 shivered.
 
 1 82 MERE GIRAU&S LITTLE DAUGHTER. 
 
 " I do not know," she answered hoarsely. " Only 
 we are ill, and God has forsaken us. We have not 
 tasted food for two days." 
 
 Laure took something from her purse and laid 
 it silently in the child's small, fevered hand. The 
 woman burst into tears. 
 
 " Madame," she said, " it is a twenty-franc 
 piece." 
 
 "Yes," said Laure gently. "When it is spent 
 come to me again," and she went to her carriage. 
 
 " My child," said Mere Giraud, " it is you who 
 are a saint. The good God did wisely in shower 
 ing blessings upon you." 
 
 A few days longer she was happy, and then she 
 awakened from her sleep one night, and found 
 Laure standing at her bedside looking down at her 
 and shuddering. She started up with an exclama 
 tion of terror. 
 
 " Mm Dieu ! " she said. " What is it ? " 
 
 She was answered in a voice she had never heard 
 before, Laure's, but hoarse and shaken. Laure 
 had fallen upon her knees, and grasped the bed 
 clothes, hiding her face in the folds. 
 
 " I am ill," she answered in this strange, changed 
 tone. "I am I am cold and burning I am 
 dying." 
 
 In an instant Mere Giraud stood upon the floor 
 holding her already insensible form in her arms. 
 She was obliged to lay her upon the floor while 
 she rang the bell to alarm the servants. She sent
 
 MERE GIRAU&S LITTLE DAUGHTER. 183 
 
 for Valentin and a doctor. The doctor, arriving, 
 regarded the beautiful face with manifest surprise 
 and alarm. It was no longer pale, but darkly 
 flushed, and the stamp of terrible pain was upon it. 
 
 " She has been exposed to infection," he said. 
 " This is surely the case. It is a malignant fever." 
 
 Then Mere Giraud thought of the poor mother 
 and child. 
 
 " O my God ! she prayed, " do not let her die a 
 martyr." 
 
 But the next day there was not a servant left in 
 the house ; but Valentin was there, and there had 
 come a Sister of Mercy. When she came, Valentin 
 met her, and led her into the salon. They re 
 mained together for half an hour, and then came 
 out and went to the sick-room, and there were 
 traces of tears upon the Sister's face. She was a 
 patient, tender creature, who did her work well, 
 and she listened with untiring gentleness to Mere 
 Giraud's passionate plaints. 
 
 " So beautiful, so young, so beloved," cried the 
 lX>or mother ; " and Monsieur absent in Normandy, 
 though it is impossible to say where ! And if 
 death should come before his return, who could 
 confront him with the truth ? So beautiful, so 
 happy, so adored ! " 
 
 And Laure lay upon the bed, sometimes wildly 
 delirious, sometimes a dreadful statue of stone, 
 unhearing, unseeing, unmoving, death without 
 death's rest, life in death's bonds of iron.
 
 1 84 MERE GIRAUD' S LITTLE DAUGHTER. 
 
 But while Mere Giraud wept, Valentin had no tears. 
 He was faithful, untiring, but silent even at the worst 
 
 "One would think he had no heart," said Mere 
 Giraud ; " but men are often so, ready to work, 
 but cold and dumb. Ah ! it is only a mother who 
 bears the deepest grief." 
 
 She fought passionately enough for a hope at 
 first, but it was forced from her grasp in the end. 
 Death had entered the house and spoken to her in 
 the changed voice which had summoned her from 
 her sleep. 
 
 "Madame," said the doctor one evening as they 
 stood over the bed while the sun went down, " I 
 have done all that is possible. She will not see 
 the sun set again. She may not see it rise." 
 
 Mere Giraud fell upon her knees beside the bed, 
 crossing herself and weeping. 
 
 " She will die," she said, " a blessed martyr. 
 She will die the death of a saint." 
 
 That very night only a few hours later there 
 came to them a friend, one they had not for one 
 moment even hoped to see, a gentle, grave old 
 man, in a thin, well-worn black robe, the Cure 
 of St. Croix. 
 
 Him Valentin met also, and when the two saw 
 each other, there were barriers that fell away in 
 *heir first interchange of looks. 
 
 " My son," said the old man, holding out his 
 hands, "tell me the truth." 
 
 Then Valentin fell into a chair and hid his face,
 
 MERE GIRAUD'S LITTLE DAUGHTER. 1 85 
 
 " She is dying," he said, " and I cannot ask tha 
 she should live." 
 
 "What was my life" he cried passionately, 
 speaking again "what was my life to me that I 
 should not have given it to save her, to save her 
 to her beauty and honor, and her mother's love ! 
 I would have given it cheerfully, a thousand 
 times, a thousand times again and again. But 
 it was not to be ; and, in spite of my prayers, I 
 lost her. O my God ! " with a sob of agony, 
 " if to-night she were in St. Croix and I could hear 
 the neighbors call her again as they used, ' Mere 
 Giraud's little daughter ! ' " 
 
 The eyes of the Cure had tears in them also. 
 
 " Yesterday I returned to St. Croix and found 
 your mother absent," he said. " I have had terri 
 ble fears for months, and when I found her house 
 closed, they caused me to set out upon my journey 
 at once." 
 
 He did not ask any questions. He remembered 
 too well the man of whom Valentin had written ; 
 the son who was " past his youth, and had evi 
 dently seen the world;" the pale aristocrat, who 
 had exclaimed " Mon Dieu!" at the sight of 
 Laure's wondrous beauty. 
 
 " When the worst came to the worst," said Val 
 entin, " I vowed myself to the labor of sparing 
 our mother. I have worked early and late to sus 
 tain myself in the part I played. It was not from 
 Laure the money came. My God ! Do you think
 
 1 86 MERE GIRAU&S LITTLE DAUGHTER. 
 
 I would have permitted my mother's hand to have 
 touched a gift of hers ? She wrote the letters, but 
 the money I had earned honestly. Heaven will 
 justify me for my falsehood since I have suffered 
 so much." 
 
 " Yes," responded the Cure, looking at his bent 
 form with gentle, pitying eyes, " Heaven will jus 
 tify you, my son." 
 
 They watched by Laure until the morning, but 
 she did not see them ; she saw nothing ; to-night it 
 was the statue of marble which lay before them. 
 But in the early morning, when the sky was dappled 
 with pink and gold, and the air was fresh and cool, 
 and a silence, even more complete than that of the 
 night, seemed to reign, there came a change. The 
 eyes they had seen closed for so many hours were 
 opened, and the soft voice broke in upon the per 
 fect stillness of the room : 
 
 " The lilies in the garden are in bloom to-day. 
 They were never so tall, and white, and fair before. 
 I will gather them for the altar to give to the 
 Virgin at my confession. Mea culpa Mca " 
 and all was over, and Mere Giraud fell upon her 
 knees again, crying, as she had cried before, amid 
 a passion of sobs and tears : 
 
 " She has died, my child, the death of a blessed 
 martyr." 
 
 It was rather strange, the villagers said, that Ma 
 dame Legrand should have been buried in the little
 
 MERE GIRAUD'S LITTLE DAUGHTER. 1 87 
 
 graveyard at St. Croix instead of in some fine 
 tomb at Pere la Chaise; but it was terribly sad ! 
 her husband was away, they knew not where, and 
 it was Valentin's wish, and Mere Giraud's heart 
 yearned so over her beloved one. So she was laid 
 there, and a marble cross was placed at her head 
 a tall, beautiful cross by Monsieur Legrand, of 
 course. Only it was singular that he never came, 
 though perhaps that is the way of the great not 
 to mourn long or deeply even for those who have 
 been most lovely, and whom they have most ten 
 derly loved.
 
 LODUSKY. 
 
 r I "HEY were rather an incongruous element 
 \. amid the festivities, but they bore themselves 
 very well, notwithstanding, and seemed to be suf 
 ficiently interested. The elder of the two a tall, 
 slender, middle-aged woman, with a somewhat se 
 vere, though delicate face sat quietly apart, look 
 ing on at the rough dances and games with a keen 
 relish of their primitive uncouthness ; but the 
 younger, a slight, alert creature, moved here and 
 there, her large, changeable eyes looking larger 
 through their glow of excitement. 
 
 "Thet gal thar," drawled a tall mountaineer who 
 supported himself against the chimney and spat 
 with placid regularity into the fire. " They tell me 
 thet gal thar hes writ things as hes been in print. 
 They say she's powerful smart arns her livin' by 
 it. 'T least thet's what Jake Harney says, V 
 they's a-boardin' at Harney's. The old woman's 
 some of her kin, 'n' goes 'long with her when she 
 travels 'round."
 
 LO DUSKY. 189 
 
 There was one fiddler at work sawing industri 
 ously at one tune which did good service through 
 out the entertainment ; there was a little furious and 
 erratic reel-dancing, and much loud laughter, and 
 good-natured, even if somewhat personal, jest. 
 The room was one of two which formed the house ; 
 the walls were of log ; the lights the cheery yellow 
 flare of great pine-knots flung one after the other 
 upon the embers. 
 
 " I am glad I thought of North Carolina," Re 
 becca Noble said to herself. There is a strong 
 hint of Rembrandt in this, the bright yellow 
 light, the uncouth figures. Ah ! who is that ? " 
 
 A short time after, she made her way through 
 the crowd': to her relative's corner among the 
 shadows. She looked eager and excited, and 
 spoke in a quick, breathless fashion. 
 
 " I want to show you something, if you have not 
 already seen it," she said. " There is in this room, 
 Aunt Miriam, the most wonderful creature your 
 eyes ever rested on ! You must prepare yourself 
 to be startled. Look toward the door at that 
 tall girl standing with her hands behind her." 
 
 She was attired in a calico of flaunting pattern, 
 md leaned against the log wall in an indifferent at 
 titude, regarding the company from under the heavy 
 lashes of her eyes, which had a look of stillness in 
 them which was yet not repose. There was some 
 thing even secretive in her expression, as if she 
 watched them furtively for reasons of her own. At
 
 I QO LODUSKY. 
 
 her side stood a big, discontented-looking young 
 man, who confronted aggressively two or three other 
 young men equally big, if not equally discontented, 
 who seemed to be arguing some point with him and 
 endeavoring to engage the attention of his compan 
 ion. The girl, however, simply responded to their 
 appeals with an occasional smile, ambiguous, if not 
 scornful. 
 
 "How I wish I could hear them!" exclaimed 
 Miss Noble. 
 
 It was her habit to utilize any material she 
 chanced to find, and she had really made her sum 
 mer jaunt to North Carolina in search of material, 
 but she was not thinking of utilizing this girl, as she 
 managed to keep near her during the remainder of 
 the evening. She had merely found something to 
 be keenly interested in, her interest in any human 
 novelty being, on occasion, intense. In this case 
 her interest increased instead of diminished. She 
 found the girl comporting herself in her natural 
 position as belle, with a calm which was slightly 
 suggestive of " the noble savage." Each admirer 
 seemed to be treated with indifference alike, though 
 there were some who, for reasons best known to 
 themselves, evidently felt that they stood more se 
 curely than the rest. She moved through game 
 and dance with a slow yet free grace ; she spoke 
 seldom, and in a low, bell-like monotone, contain 
 ing no hint of any possible emotional develop 
 ment, and for the rest, her shadow of a disdainful
 
 LODUSKY. 191 
 
 smile seemed to stand her in good stead. Clearly 
 as she stood out from among her companions from 
 the first, at the close of the evenir.g she assumed a 
 position actually dramatic. 
 
 The big young mountaineer, who, despite his dis 
 content, was a very handsome fellow indeed, had 
 held his own against his rivals stubbornly during 
 the evening, but when, after the final dance, he went 
 in search of his charge, he found that he was not 
 first. 
 
 She had fallen into her old attitude against the 
 wall, her hands behind her, and was listening to the 
 appeal of a brawny youth with a hunting-knife in 
 his belt. 
 
 " Dusk," he was saying, " I'm not such a chicken 
 hearted chap as to let a gal go back on me. Ye 
 sed I mout hev yer comp'ny home, V I'm a-gwine 
 to hev it, Dave Humes or no Dave Humes." 
 
 Dusk merely smiled tolerantly. 
 
 " Are ye ? " she said. 
 
 Rebecca Noble, who stood within a few feet of 
 them, was sure that the lover who approached was 
 the Dave Humes in question, he advanced with such 
 an angry stride, and laying his hand on his rival's 
 shoulder, turned him aside so cavalierly. 
 
 " No he aint," he put in ; " not an' me about. I 
 brought ye, an' I'll take ye home, Lodusky, or me 
 and him '11 settle it." 
 
 The other advanced a step, looking a trifle pale 
 and disheveled. He placed himself square in front 
 of Lodusky.
 
 192 LODUSKY. 
 
 " Dusk Dunbar," he said, " you're the one to 
 settle it. Which on us is a-gwine home with ye 
 me or him ? Ye haint promised the two of us, hev 
 ye ? 
 
 There was certainly a suddenly lit spark of exul 
 tation in the girl's coolly dropped eyes. 
 
 " Settle it betwixt ye," she answered with her ex 
 asperating half smile again. 
 
 They had attracted attention by this time, and 
 were becoming the centre figures of a group of 
 lookers-on. 
 
 The first had evidently lost his temper. She was 
 the one who should settle it, he proclaimed loudly 
 again. She had promised one man her " comp'ny " 
 and had come with another. 
 
 There was so much fierce anger in his face that 
 Miss Noble drew a little nearer, and felt her own 
 blood warmed. 
 
 " Which on us is it to be ? " he cried. 
 
 There was a quick, strong movement on the part 
 of the young man Dave, and he was whirled aside 
 for a second time. 
 
 " It's to be me," he was answered. " I'm the 
 man to settle that I don't leave it to no gal to 
 settle." 
 
 In two seconds the lookers-on fell back in dis 
 may, and there was a cry of terror from the 
 women. Two lithe, long-limbed figures were strug 
 gling fiercely together, and there was a flash of 
 knives in the air.
 
 LODUSKY. 193 
 
 Rebecca Noble sprang forward. 
 
 "They will kill each other," she said. "Stop 
 them ! " 
 
 That they would have done each other deadly 
 injury seemed more than probable, but there were 
 cool heads and hands as strong as their own in the 
 room, and in a few minutes they had been dragged 
 apart and stood, each held back by the arms, star 
 ing at each other and panting. The lank peace 
 maker in blue jeans who held Dave Humes shook 
 him gently and with amiable toleration of his 
 folly. 
 
 " Look 'ere, boys," he said, " this yere's all 
 a pack of foolishness, ye know all a pack of 
 foolishness. There aint no sense in it it's jest 
 foolishness." 
 
 Rebecca cast a quick glance at the girl Lodusky. 
 She leaned against the wall just as she had done 
 before ; she was as cool as ever, though the spark 
 which hinted at exultation still shone steadily in 
 her eye. 
 
 When the two ladies reached the log-cabin at 
 which they had taken up their abode, they found 
 that the story of the event of the evening was be 
 fore them. Their hostess, whose habit it was to 
 present herself with erratic talk or information at 
 all hours, met them with hospitable eagerness. 
 
 "Waal now," she began, "jest to think o' them 
 thar fool boys a-lettin' into one another in thet 
 thar way. I never hearn tell o' sich foolishness. 
 13
 
 IQ4 ' LODUSKY. 
 
 Young folks is so foolish. 'N' they drord knives ? " 
 This is in the tone of suggestive query. 
 
 " Yes," answered Miss Noble, " they drew 
 knives." 
 
 " They did ! " benignly. " Lord ! What fools ! 
 Waal now, an' Dusk what did Dusk do ? " 
 
 " She stood by and looked on," was the reply. 
 
 " Lord ! " with the .inimitable mountain drawl ; 
 " ye don't say so ! But it's jest like her thet is. 
 She's so cur'us, Dusk is. Thar aint no gettin' at 
 her. Ye know the gals ses as she's allers doin' 
 fust one quare thing 'n' then another to get the 
 boys mad at each other. But Lor', p'r'aps 'taint 
 so ! Dusk's powerful good-lookin', and gals is 
 jealous, ye know." 
 
 "Do you think," questioned Miss Noble, "that 
 they really would have killed each other ? " 
 
 " Lord ! yaas," placidly. " They went to do it. 
 Both Dan'l and Dave's kinder fiery, 'n' they'd 
 nuther on 'em hev give in with Dusk a-lookin'on 
 they'd hev cut theirselves to pieces fust. Young 
 folks is so foolish ; gettin' mad about a gal ! Lord 
 knows gals is plenty enough." 
 
 "Not girls like this one," said Miss Noble, laugh 
 ing a little. 
 
 " Waal now, she is good-lookin', aint she ? But 
 she's cur'us, Dusk is she's a cur'us creetur." 
 
 " Curious ! " echoed Rebecca, finding the term 
 vague even whJe suggestive. 
 
 " Yaas," she said, expansively, " she's cur'us.
 
 LODUSKY. 195 
 
 kinder onsosherble 'n' notionate. Now Dusk is 
 c-ur'us. She's so still and sot, 'n' Nath Dunbar and 
 Mandy they think a heap on her, 'n' they do the 
 best they kin by her, but she don't never seem to 
 keer about 'em no way. Fur all she's so still, she's 
 powerful sot on fine dressin' an' rich folkses ways. 
 Nath he once tuk her to Asheville, 'n' seems like 
 she's kinder never got over it, but keeps a-broodin' 
 'bout the way they done thar, 'n' how their clothes 
 looked, 'n' all thet. She knows she's handsum, 'n' 
 she likes to see other folks knows it, though she 
 never says much. I hed to laugh at my Hamp 
 once ; Hamp he aint no fool, an' he'd been tuk 
 with her a spell like the rest o' the boys, but he got 
 chock full of her, 'n' one day we was a-talkin,' 'n' 
 the old man he says, 'Waal now, that gal's a hard 
 wad. She's cur'us, 'n' thar's no two ways about it.' 
 An' Hamp he gives a bit of a laugh kinder mad, 'n' 
 
 he ses, ' Yes, she's cur'us cur'us as ! ' May 
 
 be he felt kinder roughed up about her yet but t 
 hed to laugh." 
 
 The next morning Miss Noble devoted to letter- 
 writing. In one of her letters, a bright one, of a 
 tone rather warmer than the rest, she gave her 
 correspondent a very forcible description of the 
 entertainment of the evening before and its closing 
 scene. 
 
 " I think it will interest him," she said half aloud, 
 as she wrote upon the envelope the first part of the 
 address, ' Mr. Paul Lennox.'
 
 196 LO DUSKY. 
 
 A shadow falling across the sunshine in the door 
 way checked her and made her look up. 
 
 It had rather an arousing effect upon her to find 
 herself confronting the young woman, Lodusky, who 
 stood upon the threshold, regarding her with an air 
 entirely composed, slightly mingled with interest. 
 
 " I was in at Mis' Harney's," she remarked, as if 
 the explanation was upon the whole rather super 
 fluous, "V I thought I'd come in 'n' see ye." 
 
 During her sojourn of three weeks Rebecca had 
 learned enough of the laws of mountain society to 
 understand that the occasion only demanded of her 
 friendliness of demeanor and perfect freedom from 
 ceremony. She rose and placed a chair for her 
 guest. 
 
 " I am glad to see you," she said. 
 
 Lodusky seated herself. 
 
 It was entirely unnecessary to attempt to set her 
 at ease ; her composure was perfect. The flaunt- 
 ing-patterned calico must have been a matter of full 
 dress. It had been replaced by a blue-and-white- 
 checked homespun gown a coarse cotton gar 
 ment short and scant. Her feet were bare, and 
 their bareness was only a revelation of greater 
 beauty, so perfect was their arched slenderness. 
 Miss Dunbar crossed them with unembarrassed 
 freedom, and looked at the stranger as if she found 
 her worth steady inspection. 
 
 "Thet thar's a purty dress you're a-wearin'," she 
 vouchsafed at length.
 
 LODUSKY. 197 
 
 Rebecca glanced down at her costume. Being a 
 sensible young person, she had attired herself in 
 aooarel suitable for mountain rambling. Her dress 
 was simple pilgrim gray, taut made and trim ; but 
 she never lost an air of distinction which rendered 
 abundant adornments a secondary matter. 
 
 " It is very plain," she answered. " I believe its 
 chief object is to be as little in the way as possible." 
 
 "'Taint much trimmed," responded the girl, 
 "but it looks kinder nice, V it sets well. Ye come 
 from the city, Mis' Harney says." 
 
 " From New York," said Rebecca. She felt sure 
 that she saw in the tawny brown depths of the girl's 
 eyes a kind of secret eagerness, and this expressed 
 itself openly in her reply. 
 
 " I don't blame no one fur wantin' to live in a 
 city," she said, with a kind of discontent. " A body 
 might most as soon be dead as live this way." 
 
 Rebecca gave her a keen glance. "Don't you 
 like the quiet ? " she asked. " What is it you don't 
 like ? " 
 
 " I don't like nothin' about it," scornfully. 
 " Thar's nothin' here." 
 
 Very slowly a lurking, half-hidden smile showed 
 itself about her fine mouth. 
 
 " I'm not goin' to stay here allers," she said. 
 
 " You want to go away ? " said Rebecca. 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 "I am goin'," she answered, "some o' these 
 days."
 
 198 LO DUSKY. 
 
 " Where ? " asked Rebecca, a little coldly, rec 
 ognizing as she did a repellant element in the girl, 
 
 The reply was succinct enough : 
 
 " I don't know whar, 'n' I don't keer whar but 
 I'm goin'." 
 
 She turned her eyes toward the great wall of for 
 est-covered mountain, lifting its height before the 
 open door, and the blood showed its deep glow 
 upon her cheek. 
 
 " Some o' these days," she added ; " as shore as 
 I'm a woman." 
 
 When they talked the matter over afterward, Miss 
 Thome's remarks were at once decided and severe. 
 
 " Shall I tell you what my opinion is, Rebecca ? " 
 she said. " It is my opinion that there is evil 
 enough in the creature to be the ruin of the whole 
 community. She is bad at the core." 
 
 " I would rather believe," said Rebecca, musing 
 ly, "that she was only inordinately vain." Almost 
 instantaneously her musing was broken by a light 
 laugh. " She has dressed her hair as I dress mine," 
 she said, " only it was done better. I could not 
 have arranged it so well. She saw it last night 
 and was quick enough to take in the style at a 
 glance." 
 
 At the beginning of the next week there occurred 
 an event which changed materially the ordinary 
 routine of life in the cabin. Heretofore the two 
 sojourners among the mountain fastnesses had 
 walked and climbed under the escort of a small.
 
 LODUSKY. 199 
 
 tow-headed Harney. But one evening as she sat 
 sketching on her favorite flat seat of rock, Miss 
 Noble somewhat alarmed this youth by dropping 
 her paper and starting to her feet. 
 
 " Orlander " Harney sat and stared at her with 
 black eyes and opened mouth. The red came and 
 went under her fair skin, and she breathed quickly. 
 
 "Oh," she cried softly, "how could I be mis 
 taken ! " 
 
 That she was not mistaken became evident imme 
 diately. At the very moment she spoke, the ad 
 vancing horseman, whose appearance had so roused 
 her, glanced upward along the path and caught 
 sight of her figure. He lifted his hat in gay greet 
 ing and struck his horse lightly with his whip. Re 
 becca bent down and picked up her portfolio. 
 
 "You may go home," she said quietly to the boy. 
 " I shall be there soon ; and you may tell Miss 
 Thorne that Mr. Lennox has come." She was at 
 the base of the rock when the stranger drew rein. 
 " How is this ? " she asked with bright uplifted 
 eyes. " We did not think " 
 
 It occurred to Lennox that he had never recog 
 nized her peculiar charm so fully as he did at this 
 moment. Rebecca Noble, though not a beauty, 
 possessed a subtle grace of look and air which was 
 not easily resisted, and just now, as she held out 
 her hand, the clear sweetness of her face shadowed 
 by her piquantly plain hat of rough straw, he felt 
 the influence of this element more strongly than 
 ever before.
 
 2OO LODUSKY. 
 
 " There was no reason why I should not come," 
 he said, "since you did not forbid me." 
 
 At sunset they returned to the cabin. Lennox 
 led his rather sorry-looking animal by the bridle, 
 and trusting to its meekness of aspect, devoted his 
 attention wholly to his companion. 
 
 "Thet's Nath Dunbar's critter," commented 
 " Mis' " Harney, standing at the door. " They've 
 powerful poor 'commodations fur boardin', but I 
 reckon Nath must 'a' tuk him in." 
 
 " Then," said Rebecca, learning that this was the 
 case, " then you have seen Lodusky." 
 
 But he had not seen Lodusky, it seemed. She 
 had not been at home when he arrived, and he had 
 only remained in the house long enough to make 
 necessary arrangements before leaving it to go in 
 search of his friends. 
 
 The bare, rough-walled room was very cheery 
 that night. Lennox brought with him the gossip of 
 the great world, to which he gave an air of fresh 
 ness and spice that rendered it very acceptable to 
 the temporary hermits. Outside, the moon shone 
 with a light as clear as day, though softer, and the 
 tender night breezes stirred the pine-tops and 
 nestled among the laurels ; inside, by the beautiful 
 barbarous light of the flaring pine-knots on the 
 hearth, two talkers, at least, found the hours fly 
 swiftly. 
 
 When these two bade each other good-night it 
 was only natural that they should reach the poiiV
 
 LO DUSKY. 2O I 
 
 toward which they haa been veering for twelve 
 months. 
 
 Miss Thorne remained in the room, drawing 
 nearer the fire with an amiable little shiver, well 
 excused by the mountain coolness, but Rebecca 
 was beguiled into stepping out into the moonlight. 
 The brightness of the moon and the blackness of 
 the shadows cast by trees and rocks and under 
 growth, seemed somehow to heighten the effect of 
 the intense and utter stillness reigning around 
 them, even the occasional distant cry of some 
 wandering wild creature marked, rather than broke 
 in upon, the silence. Rebecca's glance about her 
 was half nervous. 
 
 " It is very beautiful," she said, " and it moves 
 one strongly ; but I am not sure that it is not, in 
 some of one's moods, just a little oppressive." 
 
 It is possible Lennox did not hear her. He was 
 looking down at her with eager eyes. Suddenly 
 he had caught her hand to his lips and kissed it. 
 
 " You know why I am here, Rebecca," he said. 
 " Surely, all my hoping is not vain ? " 
 
 She looked pale and a little startled; but she 
 lifted her face and did not draw herself away. 
 
 " Is it ? " he asked again. " Have I come on a 
 hopeless errand ? " 
 
 " No," she answered. " You have not." 
 
 His words came freely enough then and with fire. 
 When Rebecca reentered the cabin her large eyes 
 shone in her small, sweet face, and her lips wore a 
 charming curve.
 
 2O2 LO DUSKY. 
 
 Miss Thorne turned in her chair to look at hei 
 and was betrayed into a smile. 
 
 " Mr. Lennox has gone, of course," she said. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 Then, after a brief silence, in which Rebecca 
 pushed the pine-knots with her foot, the elder lady 
 spoke again. 
 
 " Don't you think you may as well tell me about 
 it, Beck, my child ? " she said. 
 
 Beck looked down and shook her head with very 
 charming gravity. 
 
 " Why should I ? " she asked. " When when 
 you know." 
 
 Lennox rode his mildly disposed but violently 
 gaited steed homeward in that reposeful state of 
 bliss known only to accepted lovers. He had 
 plucked his flower at last ; he was no longer one of 
 the many; he was ecstatically content. Uncer 
 tainty had no charm for him, and he was by no 
 means the first discoverer of the subtle fineness her 
 admirers found so difficult to describe in Miss No 
 ble. Granted that she was not a beauty, judged 
 rigidly, still he had found in her soft, clear eye, in 
 her color, in her charming voice, even in her little 
 gestures, something which reached him as an artist 
 and touched him as a man. 
 
 " One cannot exactly account for other women's 
 paling before her," he said to himself; "but they 
 do and lose significance." And then he laughed 
 ienderly. At this moment, it was true, every othei 
 thing on earth paled and lost significance.
 
 LO DUSKY. 203 
 
 That the family of his host had reti.ed made 
 itself evident to him when he dismounted at the 
 house. To the silence of the night was added the 
 silence of slumber. No one was to be seen ; a 
 small cow, rendered lean by active climVng in 
 search of sustenance, breathed peacefully near the 
 tumble-down fence ; the ubiquitous, long-legged, 
 yellow dog, rendered trustful by long seclusion, 
 aroused himself from his nap to greet the arrival 
 with a series of heavy raps upon the rickety porch- 
 floor with a solid but languid tail. Lennox stepped 
 over him in reaching for the gourd hanging upon 
 the post, and he did not consider it incumbent upon 
 himself to rise. 
 
 In a little hollow at the road-side was the spring 
 from which the household supplies of water were 
 obtained. Finding none in the wooden bucket, 
 Lennox took the gourd with the intention of going 
 down to the hollow to quench his thirst. 
 
 " We've powerful good water," his host had said 
 in the afternoon, " 'n' it's nigh the house, too. I 
 built the house yer a-purpose, on 'count of its be- 
 in' nigh." 
 
 He was unconsciously dwelling upon this state 
 ment as he walked, and trying to recall correctly 
 the mountain drawl and twang. 
 
 "She," he said (there was only one "she" for 
 him to-night) "she will be sure to catch it and 
 reproduce it in all its shades to the life." 
 
 He was only a few feet from the spring itself and
 
 2O4 LODUSKY. 
 
 he stopped with a sharp exclamation of the mosl 
 uncontrollable amazement, stopped and stared 
 straight before him. It was a pretty, dell-like 
 place, darkly shadowed on one side but bathed in 
 the flooding moonlight on the other, and it was 
 something he saw in this flood of moonlight which 
 almost caused him to doubt for the moment the 
 evidence of his senses. 
 
 How it was possible for him to believe that there 
 really could stand in such a spot a girl attired in 
 black velvet of stagy cut and trimmings, he could 
 not comprehend ; but a few feet from him there 
 certainly stood such a girl, who bent her lithe, round 
 shape over the spring, gazing into its depths with 
 all the eagerness of an insatiable vanity. 
 
 " I can't see nothin','' he heard her say impa 
 tiently. " I can't see nothin' nohow." 
 
 Despite the beauty, his first glance could not 
 help showing him she was a figure so incongruous 
 and inconsistent as to be almost bizarre. When 
 she stood upright revealing fully her tall figure in 
 its shabby finery, he felt something like resentment. 
 He made a restive movement which she heard. 
 The bit of broken looking-glass she held in her 
 hand fell into the water, she uttered a shamefaced, 
 angry cry. 
 
 " What d'ye want ? " she exclaimed. " What 
 are ye a-doin' ? I didn't know as no one was a- 
 lookin'. I"- 
 
 Her head was flung backward, her full throat
 
 LODUSA y. 20$ 
 
 looked like a pillar of marble against the black 
 edge of her dress, her air was fierce. He would 
 not have been an artist if he had not been power 
 fully struck with a sense of her picturesqueness. 
 
 But he did not smile at all as he answered : 
 
 " I board at the house there. I returned home 
 late and was thirsty. I came here for water to 
 drink." 
 
 Her temper died down as suddenly as it had 
 flamed, and she seemed given up to a miserable, 
 shamed trepidation. 
 
 "Oh," she said, "don't ye tell 'em don't I 
 I'm Dusk Dunbar." 
 
 Then, as was very natural, he became curious 
 and possibly did smile a very little. 
 
 " What in the name of all that is fantastic are 
 you doing ? " 
 
 She made an effort at being defiant and suc 
 ceeded pretty well. 
 
 "I wasn't doin' no harm," she said. "I was 
 dressin' up a bit. It aint nobody's business." 
 
 " That's true," he answered coolly. " At all 
 events it is not mine though it is rather late for 
 a lady to be alone at such a place. However, if 
 you have no objection, I will get what I came for 
 and go back." 
 
 She said nothing when he stepped down and 
 filled the gourd, but she regarded him with a sort 
 of irritable watchfulness as he drank. 
 
 " Are ye are ye a-goin' to tell ? " she faltered, 
 when he had finished.
 
 206 LODUSKY. 
 
 " No," he answered as coolly as before. " Why 
 should I ? " 
 
 Then he gave her a long look from head to foot, 
 The dress was a poor enough velveteen and had a 
 cast-off air, but it clung to her figure finely, and its 
 sleeves were picturesque with puffs at the shoulder 
 and slashings of white, indeed the moonlight 
 made her all black and white ; her eyes, which 
 were tawny brown by day, were black as velvet now 
 under the straight lines of her brows, and her face 
 was pure dead fairness itself. 
 
 When, his look ended, his eyes met hers, she 
 drew back with an impatient movement. 
 
 " Ye look as if as if ye thought I didn't get it 
 honest," she exclaimed petulantly, "but I did." 
 
 That drew his glance toward her dress again, for 
 of course she referred to that, and he could not 
 help asking her a point-blank question. 
 
 " Where did you get it ? " he said. 
 
 There was a slow flippancy about the manner of 
 her reply which annoyed him by its variance with 
 her beauty but the beauty ! How the moonlight 
 and the black and white brought it out as she 
 leaned against the rock, looking at him from under 
 her lashes ! 
 
 " Are ye goin' to tell the folks up at the house ? " 
 she demanded. " They don't know nothin', and I 
 don't want 'em to know." 
 
 He shrugged his shoulder negatively. 
 
 Sli2 laughed with a hint of cool slyness and tri 
 vjmph. 
 

 
 LODUSK\ 2O7 
 
 " I got it at Asheville," she said. 1 went with 
 father when they was a show thar, 'n' the women 
 stayed at the same tavern we was at, 'n' one of 'em 
 luk up with me 'n' I done something for her 
 carried a letter or two," breaking into the sly, tri 
 umphant laugh again, "'n' she giv'me the dress fur 
 pay. What d'ye think of it ? Is it becomin' ? " 
 
 The suddenness of the change of manner with 
 which she said these last words was indescribable. 
 She stood upright, her head up, her hands fallen at 
 her sides, her eyes cool and straight her whole 
 presence confronting him with the power of which 
 she was conscious. 
 
 " Is it ? " she repeated. 
 
 He was a gentleman from instinct and from 
 training, having ordinarily quite a lofty repugnance 
 for all profanity and brusqueness, and yet some 
 how, account for it as you will, he had the 
 next instant answered her with positive brutality. 
 
 " Yes," he answered, " Damnably ! " 
 
 When the words were spoken and he heard their 
 sound fall upon the soft night air, he was as keenly 
 disgusted as he would have been if he had heard 
 them uttered by another man. It was not until 
 afterward when he had had leisure to think the 
 matter over that he comprehended vaguely the 
 force which had moved him. 
 
 But his companion received them without dis 
 comfiture. Indeed, it really occurred to him at 
 the moment that there was a possibility that she
 
 208 LO DUSKY. 
 
 would have been less pleased with an expression 
 more choice. 
 
 " I come down here to-night," she said, " because 
 I never git no chance to do nothin' up at the house. 
 I'm not a-goin' to let them know. Never mind why, 
 but ye mustn't tell 'em." 
 
 He felt haughtily anxious to get back to his 
 proper position. 
 
 " Why should I ? " he said again. " It is no 
 concern of mine." 
 
 Then for the first time he noticed the manner in 
 which she had striven to dress her hair in the style 
 of, her model, Rebecca Noble, and this irritated 
 him unendurably. He waved his hand toward it 
 with a gesture of distaste. 
 
 " Don't do that again," he said. " That is not 
 becoming at least " though he was angrily con 
 scious that it was. 
 
 She bent over the spring with a hint of alarm in 
 her expression. * 
 
 " Aint it ? " she said, and the eager rapidity with 
 which she lifted her hands and began to alter it 
 almost drew a smile from him despite his mood. 
 
 " I done it like hern," she began, and stopped 
 suddenly to look up at him. " You know her," 
 she added ; " they're at Harney's. Father said 
 ye'd went to see her jest as soon as ye got here." 
 
 " I know her," was his short reply. 
 
 He pioked up the drinking-gourd and turned 
 away.
 
 LO DUSKY. 209 
 
 "Good-night," he said. 
 
 " Good-night." 
 
 At the top of the *ocky incline he looked back 
 at her. 
 
 She was kneeling upon the brink of the spring, 
 her sleeve pushed up to her shoulder, her hand 
 and arm in the water, dipping for the fragment of 
 looking-glass. 
 
 It was really not wholly inconsistent that he 
 should not directly describe the interview in his 
 next meeting with his betrothed. Indeed, Rebecca 
 was rather struck by the coolness with which he 
 treated the subject when he explained that he had 
 seen the girl and found her beauty all it had been 
 painted. 
 
 " Is it possible," she asked, " that she did not 
 quite please you ? " 
 
 " Are you sure," he returned, " that she quite 
 pleases you 2" ^ 
 
 Rebecca gave a moment to reflection. 
 
 " But her beauty " she began, when it was 
 over. 
 
 " Oh ! " he interposed, " as a matter of color and 
 curve and proportion she is perfect; one must 
 admit that, however reluctantly." 
 
 Rebecca laughed. 
 
 " Why ' reluctantly ? ' " she said. 
 
 It was his turn to give a moment to reflection. 
 14
 
 2IO LO DUSKY. 
 
 His face shadowed, and he looked a little d s- 
 turbed. 
 
 " I don't know," he replied at length ; " I give it 
 up." 
 
 He had expected to see a great deal of the girl, 
 but somehow he saw her even oftener than he had 
 anticipated. During the time he spent in the 
 house, chance seemed to throw her continually in 
 his path or under his eye. From his window he 
 saw her carrying water from the spring, driving the 
 small agile cow to and from the mountain pastur 
 age, or idling in the shade. Upon the whole it 
 was oftener this last than any other occupation. 
 With her neglected knitting in her hands she would 
 sit for hours under a certain low-spreading cedar 
 not far from the door, barefooted, coarsely clad, 
 beautiful, every tinge of the sun, every indiffer 
 ent leisurely movement, a new suggestion of a new 
 grace. 
 
 It would have been impossible to resist the temp 
 tation to watch her ; and this Lennox did at first 
 almost unconsciously. Then he did more. One 
 beautiful still morning she stood under the cedar, 
 her hand thrown lightly above her head to catch at 
 a bough, and as she remained motionless, he made 
 a sketch of her. When it was finished he was 
 seized with the whimsical impulse to go out and 
 show it to her. 
 
 She took it with an uncomprehending air, bu/
 
 LO DUSKY. 211 
 
 the moment she saw what ii ./as a flush of triumph 
 ant joy lighted up her face. 
 
 " It's me," she cried in a low, eager vo>ce. Me ! 
 Do I look like that thar ? Do I ? " 
 
 " You look as that would look if it had color, 
 and was more complete." 
 
 She glanced up at him sharply. 
 
 " D'ye mean if it was han'somer ? " 
 
 He was tempted into adding to her excitement 
 with a compliment. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " very much handsomer than I 
 could ever hope to make it." 
 
 A slow, deep red rose to her face. 
 
 " Give it to me ! " she demanded. 
 
 " If you will stand in the same position until I 
 have drawn another certainly," he returned. 
 
 He was fully convinced that when she repeated 
 the attitude there would be added to it a look of 
 consciousness. 
 
 When she settled into position and caught at the 
 bough again, he watched in some distaste for the 
 growth of the nervously complaisant air, but it did 
 not appear. She was unconsciousness itself. 
 
 It is possible that Rebecca Noble had never 
 been so happy during her whole life as she was 
 during this one summer. Her enjoyment of every 
 wild beauty and novelty was immeasurably keen. 
 Just at this time to be shut out, and to be as it were 
 high above the world, added zest to her pleasure. 
 
 " Ah," she said once to her lover, " happiness is 
 better here one can taste it slowly."
 
 212 LODUSKY. 
 
 Fatigue seemed impossible to her. With Len 
 nox as her companion she performed miracles in 
 the way of walking and climbing, and explored the 
 mountain fastnesses for miles around. Her step 
 grew firm and elastic, her color richer, her laugh 
 had a buoyant ring. She had never been so nearly 
 a beautiful woman as she was sometimes when she 
 came back to the cabin after a ramble, bright and 
 sun-flushed, her hands full of laurel and vines. 
 
 " Your gown of ' hodden-gray ' is wonderfully be 
 coming, Beck," Lennox said again and again with 
 a secret exulting pride in her. 
 
 Their plans for the future took tone from their 
 blissful, unconventional life. They could not settle 
 down until they had seen the world. They would 
 go here and there, and perhaps, if they found it 
 pleasanter so, not settle down at all. There were 
 certain clay-white, closely built villages, whose 
 tumble-down houses jostled each other upon divers 
 precipitous cliffs on the wayside between Florence 
 and Rome, toward which Lennox's compass seemed 
 always to point. He rather argued that the fact of 
 their not being dilated upon in the guide-books 
 rendered them additionally interesting. Rebecca 
 had her fancies too, and together they managed to 
 talk a good deal of tender, romantic nonsense, 
 which was purely their own business, and gave the 
 summer days a delicate yet distinct flavor. 
 
 The evening after the sketch was made they 
 spent upon the mountain side together. When
 
 LODUSKY. 213 
 
 they stopped to rest, Lennox flung himself upon 
 the ground at Rebecca's feet, and lay looking up 
 at the far away blue of the sky in which a slow-fly 
 ing bird circled lazily. Rebecca, with a cluster of 
 pink and white laurel in her hand, proceeded with 
 a metaphysical and poetical harangue she had pre 
 viously begun. 
 
 " To my eyes," she said, " it has a pathetic air 
 of loneliness pathetic and yet not exactly sorrow 
 ful. It knows nothing but its own pure, brave, 
 silent life. It is only pathetic to a worldling 
 worldlings like us. How fallen we must be to find 
 a life desolate because it has only nature for a 
 companion ! " 
 
 She stopped with an idle laugh, waiting for an 
 ironical reply from the "worldling" at her feet; 
 but he remained silent, still looking upward at the 
 clear, deep blue. 
 
 As she glanced toward him she saw something 
 lying upon the grass between them, and bent to 
 pick it up. It was the sketch which he had for 
 gotten and which had slipped from the portfolio. 
 
 "You have dropped something," she said, and 
 seeing what it was, uttered an exclamation of 
 pleasure. 
 
 He came back to earth with a start, and, recog 
 nizing the sketch, looked more than half irritated. 
 
 " Oh, it is that, is it ? " he said. 
 
 " It is perfect ! " she exclaimed. " What a pict 
 are it will make ! "
 
 214 LO DUSKY. 
 
 " It is not to be a picture," he answered. " II 
 was not intended to be anything more than a 
 sketch." 
 
 " But why not ? " she asked. " It is too good 
 to lose. You never had such a model in your life 
 before." 
 
 " No," he answered grudgingly. 
 
 The 'hand with which Rebecca held the sketch 
 dropped. She turned her attention to her lover, 
 and a speculative interest grew in her face. 
 
 " That girl " she said slowly, after a mental 
 summing up occupying a few seconds " that girl 
 irritates you irritates you." 
 
 He laughed faintly. 
 
 " I believe she does," he replied; "yes, 'irritates* 
 is the word to use." 
 
 And yet if this were true, his first act upon re 
 turning home was a singular one. 
 
 He was rather late, but the girl Lodusky was 
 sitting in the moonlight at the door. He stopped 
 and spoke to her. 
 
 " If I should wish to paint you," he said rather 
 coldly, "would you do me the favor of sitting to 
 me ? " 
 
 She did not answer him at once, but seemed to 
 weigh his words as she looked out across the moon 
 light. 
 
 " Ye mean, will I let ye put me in a picter ? " 
 he said at last. 
 
 He nodded.
 
 LODUSKY. 21$ 
 
 " Yes," she answered. 
 
 " I reckon he told ye he was a-paintin' Dusk's 
 picter," "Mis'" Harney said to her boarders a 
 week later. 
 
 "Mr. Lennox?" returned Rebecca; "yes, he 
 told us." 
 
 " I thort so," nodding benignly. " Waal now, 
 Dusk'll make a powerful nice picter if she don't git 
 contrairy. The trouble with Dusk is her a-gittin' 
 contrairy. She's as like old Hance Dunbar as she 
 kin be. I mean in some ways. Lord knows, 
 'twouldn't do to say she was like him in every- 
 thin'." 
 
 Naturally, Miss Noble made some inquiries into 
 the nature of old Hance Dunbar's " contrariness." 
 Secretly, she had a desire to account for Lodusky 
 according to established theory. 
 
 " I wonder ye haint heern of him," said " Mis' " 
 Harney. " He was just awful old Hance! He 
 was Nath's daddy, an' Lord ! the wickedest feller ! 
 Folks was afeared of him. No one darsn't to go 
 a-nigh him when he'd git mad a-rippin' 'n' a- 
 rearin' 'n' a-chargin'. 'N' he never got no religion, 
 mind ye ; he died jest that a-way. He was allers a 
 hankerin' arter seein' the world, 'n' he went off an' 
 stayed off a right smart while, nine or ten year, 
 'n' lived in all sorts o' ways in them big cities. 
 When he come back he was a sight to see, sick 'n j 
 pore 'n' holler-eyed, but ab wicked as ever. Dusk 
 was a little thing 'n' he was a old man, but he'd
 
 2l6 LODUSXY. 
 
 laugh 'n' tell her to take care of her face 'n' be a 
 smart gal. He was drefful sick at last 'n' suffered 
 a heap, 'n' one day he got up offen his bed 'n' tuk 
 down Nath's gun 'n' shot hisself as cool as could 
 be. He hadn't no patience, 'n' he said, ' When a 
 G derned man had lived through what he had 'n' 
 then wouldn't die, it was time to kill him.' Seems 
 like it sorter 'counts fur Dusk ; she don't git her 
 cur'usness from her own folks ; Nath an' Mandy's 
 mighty clever, both on 'em." 
 
 " Perhaps it does 'count for Dusk," Rebecca 
 said, after telling the tale to Lennox. " It must be 
 a fearful thing to have such blood in one's veins 
 and feel it on fire. Let us," she continued with a 
 smile, " be as charitable as possible." 
 
 When the picture was fairly under way, Lennox's 
 visits to the Harneys' cabin were somewhat less 
 frequent. The mood in which she found he had 
 gradually begun to regard his work aroused in Re 
 becca a faint wonder. He seemed hardly to like it, 
 and yet to be fascinated by it. He was averse to 
 speaking freely of it, and still he thought of it con 
 tinually. Frequently when they were together, he 
 wore an absent, perturbed air. 
 
 " You do not look content," she said to him 
 once. 
 
 He passed his hand quickly across his forehead 
 and smiled, plainly with an effort, but he made nc 
 reply. 
 
 The picture progressed rather slowly upon the
 
 LODUSKY. 217 
 
 whole. Rebecca had thought the subject a little 
 fantastic at first, and yet had been attracted by it. 
 A girl in a peculiar dress of black and white bent 
 over a spring with an impatient air, trying in vain to 
 catch a glimpse of her beauty in the reflection of 
 the moonlight. 
 
 " It 's our spring, shore," commented " Mis' " 
 Dunbar. " 'N' its Dusk but Lord! how fine 
 she's fixed. Ye're as fine as ye want to be in the 
 picter, Dusk, if ye wa'n't never fine afore. Don't 
 ye wish ye had sich dressin' as thet thar now ? " 
 
 The sittings were at the outset peculiarly silent. 
 There was no untimely motion or change of expres 
 sion, and yet no trying passiveness. The girl gave 
 any position a look of unconsciousness quite won 
 derful. Privately, Lennox was convinced that she 
 was an actress from habit that her ease was the 
 result of life-long practice. Sometimes he found 
 his own consciousness of her steady gaze almost 
 unbearable. He always turned to meet her deep 
 eyes fixed upon him with an expression he could 
 not fathom. Frequently he thought it an expres 
 sion of dislike of secret resentment of subtle 
 defiance. There came at last a time when he knew 
 that he turned toward her again and again because 
 he felt that he must because he had a feverish 
 wish to see if the look had changed. 
 
 Once when he did this he saw that it had 
 changed. She had moved a little, her eyes were 
 dilated with a fire which startled him beyond self
 
 21 8 LO DUSKY. 
 
 control, her color came and went, she breathed 
 fast. The next instant she sprang from her chair. 
 
 "I wont stand it no longer," she cried panting j 
 " no longer I wont ! " 
 
 Her ire was magnificent. She flung her head 
 back, and struck her side with her clinched hand. 
 
 " No longer ! " she said ; " not a minute ! " 
 
 Lennox advanced one step and stood, palette in 
 hand, gazing at her. 
 
 " What have I done ? " he asked. " What ? " 
 
 " What ? " she echoed with contemptuous scorn. 
 " Nothin' ! But d 'ye think I don't know ye?" 
 
 " Know me ! " he repeated after her mechanic 
 ally, finding it impossible to remove his glance 
 from her. 
 
 " What d'ye take me me fur ? " she demanded. 
 " A fool ? Yes, I was a fool a fool to come 
 here, 'n' set 'n' let ye let ye despise me ! " in a 
 final outburst. 
 
 Still he could only echo her again, and say " De 
 spise you ! " 
 
 Her voice lowered itself into an actual fierceness 
 of tone. 
 
 "Ye've done it from first to last," she said. 
 " Would ye look at her like ye look at me ? Would 
 ye turn half way 'n' look at her, 'n' then turn back 
 as if as if . Aint there " her eyes ablaze 
 " aint there no life to me ? " 
 
 " Stop ! " he began hoarsely. 
 
 " I'm beneath her, am I ? " she persisted. '' Ma
 
 LODUSKY. 219 
 
 beneath another woman Dusk Dunbar ! It's the 
 first time ! " 
 
 She walked toward the door as if to leave him, 
 but suddenly she stopped. A passionate tremor 
 shook her; he saw her throat swell. She threw 
 her arm up against the logs of the wall and dropped 
 her face upon it sobbing tumultuously. 
 
 There was a pause of perhaps three seconds. 
 Then Lennox moved slowly toward her. Almost 
 unconsciously he laid his hand upon her heaving 
 shoulder and so stood trembling a little. 
 
 When Rebecca paid her next visit to the picture 
 it struck her that it appeared at a standstill. As 
 she looked at it her lover saw a vague trouble 
 growing slowly in her eyes. 
 
 " What ! " he remarked. " It does not please 
 you ? " 
 
 " I think," she answered, "I feel as if it had 
 not pleased you." 
 
 He fell back a few paces and stood scanning it 
 with an impression at once hard and curious. 
 
 " Please me ! " he exclaimed in a voice almost 
 strident. " It should. She has beauty enough." 
 
 On her return home that day Rebecca drew forth 
 from the recesses of her trunk her neglected writ 
 ing folio and a store of paper. 
 
 Miss Thorne, entering the room, found her kneel- 
 ing over her trunk, and spoke to her. 
 
 " What are you going to do ? " she asked.
 
 220 LODUSKY. 
 
 Rebeeca smiled faintly. 
 
 " What I ought to have begun before," she said. 
 " I am behindhand with my work." 
 
 She laid the folio and her inkstand upon the 
 table, and made certain methodical arrangements 
 for her labor. She worked diligently all day, and 
 'ooked slightly pale and wearied when she rose 
 from her seat in the evening. Until eleven o'clock 
 she sat at the open door, sometimes talking quietly, 
 sometimes silent and listening to the wind among 
 the pines. She did not mention her lover's name, 
 and he did not come. She spent many a day and 
 night in the same manner after this. For the pres 
 ent the long, idle rambles and unconventional 
 moon-lit talks were over. It was tacitly understood 
 between herself and her aunt that Lennox's labor 
 occupied him. 
 
 " It seems a strange time to begin a picture 
 during a summer holiday," said Miss Thorne a 
 little sharply upon one occasion. 
 
 Rebecca laughed with an air of cheer. 
 
 " No time is a strange time to an artist," she 
 answered. " Art is a mistress who gives no holi 
 days." 
 
 She was continually her bright, erect, alert self. 
 The woman who loved her dearly and had known 
 her from her earliest childhood, found her sagacity 
 and knowledge set at naught as it were. She had 
 been accustomed to see her niece admired far be 
 yond the usual lot of women ; she had gradually
 
 LODUSKY. 221 
 
 learned to feel it only natural that she should in 
 spire quite a strong sentiment even in casual ac 
 quaintances. She had felt the delicate power of 
 her fascination herself, but never at her best and 
 brightest had she found her more charming or 
 quicker of wit and fancy than she was now. 
 
 Even Lennox, coming every few days with a 
 worn-out look and touched with a haggard shadow, 
 made no outward change in her. 
 
 " She does not look," said the elder lady to her 
 self, " like a neglected woman." And then the 
 sound of the phrase struck her with a sharp incred 
 ulous pain. " A neglected woman ! " she repeated, 
 " Beck ! " 
 
 She did not understand, and was not weak 
 enough to ask questions. 
 
 Lennox came and went, and Rebecca gained 
 upon her work until she could no longer say she 
 was behindhand. The readers of her letters and 
 sketches found them fresh and sparkling, " as if," 
 wrote a friend, " you were braced both mentally 
 and physically by the mountain air." 
 
 But once in the middle of the night Miss Thorne 
 awakened with a mysterious shock to find the place 
 at her side empty, and her niece sitting at the open 
 window in a quiet which suggested that she might 
 not have moved for an hour. 
 
 She obeyed her strong first impulse, and rose and 
 went to her. 
 
 She laid her hand on her shoulder, and shook 
 her gently.
 
 222 LO DUSKY. 
 
 " Beck ! " she demanded, " what are you do 
 ing?" 
 
 When the girl turned slowly round, she started 
 at the sight of her cold, miserable pallor. 
 
 "I am doing nothing nothing," she answered. 
 "Why did you get up? It's a fine night, isn't 
 it?" 
 
 Despite her discretion, Miss Thorne broke down 
 into a blunder. 
 
 " You you never look like this in the day 
 time ! " she exclaimed. 
 
 " No," was the reply given with cool deliberate- 
 ness. " No ; I would rather die" 
 
 For the moment she was fairly incomprehensible. 
 There was in the set of her eye and the expres 
 sion of her fair, clear face, the least hint of dogged 
 obstinacy. 
 
 " Beck " she began. 
 
 ''You ought not to have got up," said Beck. 
 " It is enough to look ' like this ' at night when I 
 am by myself. Go back to bed, if you please." 
 
 Miss Thorne went back to bed meekly. She was 
 at once alarmed and subdued. She felt as if she 
 had had a puzzling interview with a stranger. 
 
 In these days Lennox regarded his model with 
 morbid interest. A subtle change was perceptible 
 in her. Her rich color deepened, she held herself 
 more erect, her eye had a larger pride and light. 
 She was a finer creature than ever, and yet she 
 came at his call. He never ceased to wonder at
 
 LO DUSKY. 223 
 
 it. Sometimes the knowledge of his power stirred 
 within him a vast impatience ; sometimes he was 
 hardened by it ; but somehow it never touched him, 
 though he was thrown into tumult bound against 
 his will. He could not say that he understood her. 
 Her very passiveness baffled him and caused him 
 to ask himself what it meant. She spoke little, 
 and her emotional phases seemed reluctant, but 
 her motionless face and slowly raised eye always 
 held a meaning of their own. 
 
 On an occasion when he mentioned his approach 
 ing departure, she started as if she had received a 
 blow, and he turned to see her redden and pale al 
 ternately, her face full of alarm. 
 
 "What is the matter?" he asked brusquely. 
 
 "I hadn't bin thinkin' on it," she stammered. 
 "I'd kinder forgot." 
 
 He turned to his easel again and painted rapidly, 
 for a few minutes. Then he felt a light touch on 
 his arm. She had left her seat noiselessly and 
 stood beside him. She gave him a passionate, pro 
 testing look. A fire of excitement seemed to have 
 sprung up within her and given her a defiant dar 
 ing. 
 
 " D'ye think I'll stay here when ye're gone 
 like I did before ? " she said. 
 
 She had revealed herself in many curious lights 
 to him, but no previous revelation had been so 
 wonderful as was the swift change of mood and 
 bearing which took place in her at this instant. ID
 
 224 LODUSKY. 
 
 a moment she had melted into soft tears, her lips 
 were tremulous, her voice dropped into a shaken 
 whisper. 
 
 " I've allers wanted to go away, "she said. "I 
 
 I've allers said I would. I want to go to a city 
 somewhar I don't keer whar. I might git work 
 
 I've heerd of folks as did. P'r'aps some un ud 
 hire me ! " 
 
 He stared at her like a man fascinated. 
 
 " You go to the city alone ! " he said under his 
 breath. " You try to get work ! " 
 
 " Yes," she answered. " Don't ye know no 
 one " 
 
 He stopped her. 
 
 " No," he said, " I don't. It would be a danger 
 ous business unless you had friends. As for me, I 
 shall not be in America long. As soon as I am 
 married I go with my wife to Europe." 
 
 He heard a sharp click in her throat. Her 
 tears were dried, and she was looking straight at 
 him. 
 
 " Are ye a-goin' to be married ? " she asked. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " To her ? " with a gesture in the direction of 
 the Harneys' cabin. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Oh ! " and she walked out of the room. 
 
 He did not see her for three days, and the 
 picture stood still. He went to the Harneys' and 
 found Rebecca packing her trunk.
 
 LODUSKY. 22$ 
 
 " We are going back to New York," she said. 
 
 " Why ? " he asked. 
 
 " Because our holiday is over." 
 
 Miss Thorne regarded him with chill severity. 
 
 " When may we expect to see you ? " she in 
 quired. 
 
 He really felt half stupefied, as if for the time 
 being his will was paralyzed 
 
 " I don't know," he answered. 
 
 He tried to think that he was treated badly and 
 coldly. He told himself that he had done nothing 
 to deserve this style of thing, that he had simply 
 been busy and absorbed in his work, and that if he 
 had at times appeared preoccupied it was not to be 
 wondered at. But when he looked at Rebecca he 
 did not put these thoughts into words ; he did not 
 even say that of course he should follow them soon, 
 since there was nothing to detain him but a sketch 
 or two he had meant to make. 
 
 By night they were gone and he was left restless 
 and miserable. He was so restless that he could 
 not sleep but wandered down toward the spring. 
 He stopped at the exact point at which he had 
 stopped on the night of his arrival at the top of 
 the zigzag little path leading down the rocky in 
 cline. He stopped because he heard a sound of 
 passionate sobbing. He descended slowly. He 
 knew the sound angry, fierce, uncontrollable 
 because he had heard it before. It checked itself 
 the instant he reached the ground. Lodusky lean- 
 
 -
 
 226 LODUSKY. 
 
 ing against a projecting rock kept her eyes fixed 
 upon the water. 
 
 " Why did you come here ? " he demanded, a 
 little excitedly. " What are you crying for ? What 
 has hurt you ? " 
 
 " Nothin','' in a voice low and unsteady. 
 
 He drew a little nearer to her and for the first 
 time was touched. She would not look at him, she 
 was softened and altered, in her whole appearance, 
 by a new pallor. 
 
 " Have " he began, " have I ? " 
 
 " You ! " she cried, turning on him with a bitter, 
 almost wild, gesture. " You wouldn't keer if I was 
 struck dead afore ye ! " 
 
 " Look here," he said to her, with an agitation 
 he could not master. " Let me tell you something 
 about myself. If you think I am a passably good 
 fellow you are mistaken. I am a bad fellow, a poor 
 fellow, an ignoble fellow. You don't understand ? " 
 as she gazed at him in bewilderment. " No, of 
 course, you don't. God knows I didn't myself 
 until within the last two weeks. It's folly to say 
 such things to you ; perhaps I say them half to 
 satisfy myself. But I mean to show you that I am 
 not to be trusted. I think perhaps I am too poor a 
 fellow to love any woman honestly and altogether. 
 I followed one woman here, and then after all let 
 another make me waver" 
 
 " Another ! " she faltered. 
 
 He fixed his eyes on her almost coldly.
 
 LODUSKY. 227 
 
 ."You," he said. 
 
 He seemed to cast the word at her and wonder 
 what she would make of it. He waited a second 
 or so before he went on. 
 
 " You, and yet you are not the woman I love 
 either. Good God ! What a villain I must be. I 
 am an insult to every woman that breathes. It is 
 not even you though I can't break from you, 
 and you have made me despise myself. There ! do 
 you know now do you see now that I am not 
 worth " 
 
 The next instant he started backward. Before 
 he had time for a thought she had uttered a low 
 cry, and flung herself down at his feet. 
 
 "I don't keer," she panted; "I wont keer fur 
 nothin', whether ye're good or bad, only don't 
 leave me here when ye go away." 
 
 A week later Lennox arose one morning and set 
 about the task of getting his belongings together. 
 He had been up late and had slept heavily and 
 long. He felt exhausted and looked so. 
 
 The day before, his model had given him his last 
 sitting. The picture stood finished upon the easel. 
 It was a thorough and artistic piece of work, and 
 yet the sight of it was at times unbearable to him. 
 There were times again, however, when it fasci 
 nated him anew when he went and stood opposite 
 to it, regarding it with an intense gaze. He 
 scarcely knew how the last week had passed. It
 
 228 LODUSKY. 
 
 seemed to have been spent in alternate feverish 
 struggles and reckless abandonment to impulse. 
 He had let himself drift here and there, he had at 
 last gone so far as to tell himself that the time had 
 arrived when baseness was possible to him. 
 
 " I don't promise you an easy life," he had said 
 to Dusk the night before. " I tell you I am a bad 
 fellow, and I have lost something through you that 
 I cared for. You may wish yourself back again." 
 
 " If you leave me," she said, " I'll kill myself ! " 
 and she struck her hands together. 
 
 For the moment he was filled, as he often was, 
 with a sense of passionate admiration. It was true 
 he saw her as no other creature had ever seen her 
 before, that so far as such a thing was possible 
 with her, she loved him loved him with a fierce, 
 unreserved, yet narrow passion. 
 
 He had little actual packing to do merely the 
 collecting of a few masculine odds and ends, and 
 then his artistic accompaniments. Nothing was of 
 consequence but these ; the rest were tossed to 
 gether indifferently, but the picture was to be left 
 until the last moment, that its paint might be dry 
 beyond a doubt. 
 
 Having completed his preparations he went out. 
 He had the day before him, and scarcely knew 
 what to do with it, but it must be killed in one way 
 or another. He wandered up the mountain and at 
 last lay down with his cigar among the laurels. 
 He was full of a strange excitement which now 
 thrilled, now annoyed him.
 
 LODUSKY. 229 
 
 He came back in the middle of the afternoon 
 and laughed a rather half-hearted laugh at the ex 
 cellent Mandy's comment upon his jaded appear 
 ance. 
 
 " Ye look kinder tuckered out," she said. " Ye'd 
 oughtn't ter walked so fur when ye was a-gvvine off 
 to-night. Ye'd orter rested." 
 
 She stopped the churn-dasher and regarded him 
 with a good-natured air of interest. 
 
 " Hev ye seed Dusk to say good-by to her?" she 
 added. " She's went over the mountain ter help 
 Mirandy Stillins with her soap. She wont be back 
 fur a day or two." 
 
 He went into his room and shut the door. A 
 fierce repulsion sickened him. He had heretofore 
 held himself with a certain degree of inward lofti 
 ness ; he had so condemned the follies and sins of 
 other men, and here he found himself involved in 
 a low and common villainy, in the deceits which 
 belonged to his crime, and which preyed upon sim 
 plicity and ignorant trust. 
 
 He went and stood before his easel, hot with a 
 blush of self-scorn. 
 
 " Has it come to this ? " he muttered through his 
 clinched teeth " to this ! " 
 
 He made an excited forward movement ; his foot 
 touched the supports of the easel,jarring it roughly ; 
 the picture fell upon the floor. 
 
 "What?" he cried out. "Beck! You! Great 
 God!"
 
 230 LO DUSKY. 
 
 For before him, revealed by the picture's fall, the 
 easel held one of the fairest memories he had of 
 the woman he had proved himself too fickle and 
 slight to value rightly. 
 
 It was merely a sketch made rapidly one day 
 soon after his arrival and never wholly completed, 
 but it had been touched with fire and feeling, and 
 the face looked out from the canvas with eyes 
 whose soft happiness stung him to the quick with 
 the memories they brought. He had meant to 
 finish it, and had left it upon the easel that he 
 might turn to it at any moment, and it had re 
 mained there, covered by a stronger rival for 
 gotten. 
 
 He sat down in a chair and his brow fell upon 
 his hands. He felt as if he had been clutched and 
 dragged backward by a powerful arm. 
 
 When at last he rose, he strode to the picture 
 lying upon the floor, ground it under his heel, and 
 spurned it from him with an imprecation. 
 
 He was, at a certain hour, to reach a particular 
 bend in the road some miles distant. He was to 
 walk to this place and if he found no one there, 
 to wait. 
 
 When at sunset that evening he reached it, he 
 was half an hour before the time specified, but he 
 was not the first at the tryst. He was within 
 twenty yards of the spot when a figure rose from 
 the roots of a tree and stood waiting for him the 
 girl Dusk with a little bundle in her hand.
 
 LO DUSKY. 231 
 
 She was not flushed or tremulous with any hint 
 of mental excitement ; she awaited him with a fine 
 repose, even the glow of the dying sun having no 
 power to add to her color, but as he drew near he 
 saw her look gradually change. She did not so 
 much as stir, but the change grew slowly, slowly 
 upon her face, and developed there into definite 
 shape the shape of secret, repressed dread. 
 
 " What is it," she asked when he at last con 
 fronted her, " that ails ye ? " 
 
 She uttered the words in a half whisper, as if 
 she had not the power to speak louder, and he 
 saw the hand hanging at her side close itself. 
 
 " What is it that ails ye ? " 
 
 He waited a few seconds before he answered her. 
 
 " Look at me," he said at last, " and see." 
 
 She did look at him. For the space of ten sec 
 onds their eyes were fixed upon each other in a 
 long, bitter look. Then her little bundle dropped 
 on the ground. 
 
 " Ye've went back on me," she said under her 
 breath again. " Ye've went back on me ! " 
 
 He had thought she might make some passion 
 ate outcry, but she did not yet. A white wrath 
 was in her face and her chest heaved, but she 
 spoke slowly and low, her hands fallen down by her 
 side. 
 
 "Ye've went back on me," she said. "An' 7 
 knew ye would" 
 
 He felt that the odor of his utter falseness tainted
 
 232 LODUSKY. 
 
 the pure air about him; he had been false all 
 round, to himself, to his love, to his ideals, 
 even in a baser way here. 
 
 " Yes," he answered her with a bitterness she 
 did not understand, "I've gone back on you." 
 Then, as if to himself, " I could not even reach per 
 fection in villainy." 
 
 Then her rage and misery broke forth. 
 
 " Yer a coward ! " she said, with gasps between 
 her words. " Yer afraid ! I'd sooner I'd sooner 
 ye'd killed me dead!" 
 
 Her voice shrilled itself into a smothered shriek, 
 she cast herself face downward upon the earth and 
 lay there clutching amid her sobs at the grass. 
 
 He looked down at her in a cold, stunned fashion. 
 
 " Do you think," he said hoarsely, " that you can 
 loathe me as I loathe myself? Do you think you 
 can call me one shameful name I don't know I de 
 serve ? If you can, for God's sake let me have it." 
 
 She struck her fist against the earth. 
 
 "Thar wasn't a man I ever saw," she said, 
 " that didn't foller after me, 'n' do fur me, V wait 
 fur a word from me. They'd hev let me set my 
 foot on 'em if I'd said it. Thar wasn't nothin' I 
 mightn't hev done not nothin'. An' now an' 
 now " and she tore the grass from its earth and 
 flung it from her. 
 
 " Go on," he said. " Go on and say your worst." 
 
 Her worst was bad enough, but he almost ex 
 ulted under the blows she dealt him. He felt their
 
 LODUSKY '. 233 
 
 horrible sting a vague comfort. He had fallen low 
 enough surely when it was a comfort to be told 
 that he was a liar, a poltroon, and a scoundrel. 
 
 The sun had been down an hour when it was 
 over and she had risen and taken up her bundle. 
 
 " Why don't ye ask me to forgive ye ? " she said 
 with a scathing sneer. " Why don't ye ask me to 
 forgive ye an' say ye didn't mean to do it ? " 
 
 He fell back a pace and was silent. With what 
 grace would the words have fallen from his lips ? 
 And yet he knew that he had not meant to do it. 
 
 She turned away and at a distance of a few feet 
 stopped. She gave him a last look a fierce one 
 in its contempt and anger, and her affluence of 
 beauty had never been so stubborn a fact before. 
 
 " Ye think ye've left me behind," she said. " An' 
 so ye hev but it aint fur allers. The time'll 
 come when mebbe ye'll see me ag'in." 
 
 He returned to New York, but he had been 
 there a week before he went to Rebecca. Finally, 
 however, he awoke one morning feeling that the 
 time had come for the last scene of his miserable 
 drama. He presented himself at the house and 
 sent up his name, and in three minutes Rebecca 
 came to him. 
 
 It struck him with a new thrill of wretchedness 
 to see that she wore by chance the very dress she 
 had worn the day he had made the sketch a 
 pale, pure-looking gray, with a scarf of white lace 
 loosely fastened at her throat. Next, he saw that
 
 234 LODUSKY. 
 
 there was a painful change in her, that she looked 
 frail and worn, as if she had been ill. His first 
 words he scarcely heard and never remembered. 
 He had not come to make a defense, but a naked, 
 bitter confession. As he made it low and monoto 
 nously, in brief, harsh words, holding no sparing 
 for himself, Rebecca stood with her hand upon 
 the mantle looking at him with simple directness. 
 There was no rebuke in her look, but there was 
 weariness. It occurred to him once or twice and 
 with a terribly humiliating pang, that she was tired 
 of him, tired of it all. 
 
 " I have lost you," he ended. "And I have lost 
 myself. I have seen myself as I am, a poorer 
 figure, a grosser one than I ever dreamed of being, 
 even in the eyes of my worst enemy. Henceforth, 
 this figure will be my companion. It is as if I 
 looked at myself in a bad glass ; but now, though 
 the reflection is a pitiable one, the glass is true." 
 
 " You think," she said, after a short silence, " of 
 going away ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 " To Europe." 
 
 "Oh," she ejaculated, with a soft, desperate 
 sound of pain. 
 
 His eyes had been downcast and he raised them. 
 
 "Yes," he said, mournfully. "We were to have 
 gone together." 
 
 " Yes," she answered, " together."
 
 LO DUSKY. 235 
 
 Her eyes were wet. 
 
 "I was very happy," she said, "for a little 
 while." 
 
 She held out her hand. 
 
 " But," she added, as if finishing a sentence, 
 " you have been truer to me than you think." 
 
 " No no," he groaned. 
 
 " Yes, truer to me than you think and truer to 
 youi self. It was I you loved I ! There have 
 been times when I thought I must give that up, but 
 now I know I need not. It was I. Sometime, 
 perhaps, sometime, not now " 
 
 Her voice broke, she did not finish, the end was 
 a sob. Their eyes rested upon each other a few 
 seconds, and then he released her hand and went 
 away. 
 
 He was absent for two years, and during that 
 time his friends heard much good of him. He lived 
 the life of a recluse and a hard worker. He learned 
 to know his own strength, and taught the world to 
 recognize it also. 
 
 At the end of the second year, being in Paris, he 
 vent one night to the Nouvelle Opera. Toward the 
 close of the second act he tecame conscious of a 
 little excited stir among those surrounding him. 
 Every glass seemed directed toward a new arrival 
 who stood erect and cool in one of the stage-boxes. 
 She might have been Cleopatra. Her costume was 
 of a creamy satin, she was covered with jewels, and
 
 236 LO DUSKY. 
 
 she stood up confronting the house, as it regarded 
 her, with sang froid. 
 
 Lennox rose hurriedly and left the place. He 
 was glad to breathe the bitterly cold but pure night 
 air. She had made no idle prophecy. He had 
 seen her again ! 
 
 There hung upon the wall of his private room a 
 picture whose completion had been the first work 
 after his landing. He went in to it and looked at 
 it with something like adoration. 
 
 "'Sometime '"he said, "perhaps now," and the 
 next week he was on his way home.
 
 " SETH." 
 
 HE came in one evening at sunset with the 
 empty coal-train his dull young face pale 
 and heavy-eyed with weariness, his corduroy suit 
 dusty and travel-stained, his worldly possessions 
 tied up in the smallest. of handkerchief bundles and 
 slung upon the stick resting on his shoulder and 
 naturally his first appearance attracted some atten 
 tion among the loungers about the shed dignified 
 by the title of " depot." I say " naturally," because 
 arrivals upon the trains to Black Creek were so 
 scarce as to be regarded as curiosities ; which again 
 might be said to be natural. The line to the mines 
 had been in existence two months, since the Eng 
 lish company had taken them in hand and pushed 
 the matter through with an energy startling to, and 
 not exactly approved by, the majority of good East 
 Tennesseeans. After the first week or so of arri 
 vals principally Welsh and English miners, with 
 an occasional Irishman the trains had returned 
 daily to the Creek without a passenger; and ac 
 cordingly this one created some trifling sensation.
 
 
 238 "SET/7." 
 
 Not that his outward appearance was particularly 
 interesting or suggestive of approaching excitement. 
 He was only a lad of nineteen or twenty, in work 
 ing English-cut garb, and with a short, awkward 
 figure, and a troubled, homely face a face so 
 homely and troubled, in fact, that its half-bewil 
 dered look was almost pathetic. 
 
 He advanced toward the shed hesitatingly, and 
 touched his cap as if half in clumsy courtesy and 
 half in timid appeal. "Mesters," he said, "good- 
 day to yo'." 
 
 The company bestirred themselves with one ac 
 cord, and to the roughest and most laconic gave 
 him a brief " Good-day." 
 
 "You're English," said a good-natured Welsh 
 man, " ar'n't you, my lad ? " 
 
 " Ay, mester," was the reply : " I'm fro' Lanca 
 shire." 
 
 He sat down on the edge of the rough platform, 
 and laid his stick and bundle down in a slow, 
 wearied fashion. 
 
 " Fro' Lancashire," he repeated in a voice as 
 wearied as his action "fro' th' Deepton coal 
 mines theer. You'll know th' name on 'em, I ha' 
 no doubt. Th' same company owns 'em as owns 
 these." 
 
 " What ! " said an outsider " Langley an 
 'em ? " 
 
 The boy turned himself round and nodded. 
 "Ay," he answered "them. That was why I 
 comn here. I comn to get work fro' fro' him"
 
 239 
 
 He faltered in his speech oddly, and even red 
 dened a little, at the same time rubbing his hands 
 together with a nervousness which seemed habitual 
 to him. 
 
 "Mester Ed'ard, I mean," he added "th' 
 young mester as is here. I heerd as he liked 
 'Merika, an' an' I comn." 
 
 The loungers glanced at each other, and their 
 glance did not mean high appreciation of the 
 speaker's intellectual powers. There was a lack of 
 practicalness in such faith in another man as ex 
 pressed itself in the wistful, hesitant voice. 
 
 "Did he say he'd give you work?" asked the 
 first man who had questioned him, the Welshman 
 Evans. 
 
 "No. I dunnot think I dunnot think he'd 
 know me if he seed me. Theer wur so many on 
 us." 
 
 Another exchange of glances, and then another 
 question : " Where are you going to stay ? " 
 
 The homely face reddened more deeply, and the 
 lad's eyes dull, soft, almost womanish eyes 
 raised themselves to the speaker's. " Do yo' know 
 anybody as would be loikely to tak' me in a bit," 
 he said, " until I ha' toime to earn th' wage to pay ? 
 I wouldna wrong no mon a penny as had trusted 
 me." 
 
 There was manifest hesitation, and then some 
 one spoke : " Lancashire Jack might." 
 
 " Mester," said the lad to Evans, " would you
 
 240 "SETH." 
 
 moind speakin' a word fur me ? I ha' had a long 
 tramp, an' I'm fagged-loike, an' " He stopped 
 and rose from his seat with a hurried movement. 
 " Who's that theer as is comin' ? " he demanded. 
 " Isna it th' young mester ? " 
 
 The some one in question was a young man on 
 horseback, who at that moment turned the corner 
 and rode toward the shed with a loose rein, allow 
 ing his horse to choose his own pace. 
 
 " Ay," said the lad with an actual tremor in his 
 excited voice " it's him, sure enow," and sank 
 oack on his seat again as if he had found himself 
 scarcely strong enough to stand. "I I ha' not 
 eaten much fur two or three days," he said to 
 Evans. 
 
 There was not a man on the platform who did 
 not evince some degree of pleasure at the approach 
 of the new-comer. The last warm rays of the sun, 
 already sinking behind the mountains, seemed 
 rather to take pride in showing what a debonair 
 young fellow he was, in glowing kindly upon his 
 handsome face and strong, graceful figure, and 
 touching up to greater brightness his bright hair. 
 
 The face was one to be remembered with a sen 
 timent approaching gratitude for the mere existence 
 of such genial and unspoiled good looks, but the 
 voice that addressed the men was one to be loved, 
 and loved without stint, it was so clear and light- 
 hearted and frank. 
 
 "Boys," said he, ''good-evening to you. Evans, 
 f you could spare me a minute "
 
 "SETff." 241 
 
 Evans rose at once. 
 
 " I'll speak to him" he said to the ,ad at his side. 
 " His word will go further with Lancashire Jack 
 than mine would." He went to the horse's side, 
 and stood there for a few minutes talking in an un 
 dertone, and then he turned to the stranger and 
 beckoned. " Come here," he said. 
 
 The lad took up his bundle and obeyed the 
 summons, advancing with an awkward almost 
 stumbling step, suggestive of actual weakness as 
 well as the extremity of shyness. Reaching the 
 two men, he touched his cap humbly, and stood 
 with timorous eyes upraised to the young man's 
 face. 
 
 Langley met his glance with a somewhat puzzled 
 look, which presently passed away in a light laugh. 
 " I'm trying to remember who you are, my lad," he 
 said, " but I shall be obliged to give it up. I know 
 your face, I think, but I have no recollection of 
 your name. I dare say I have seen you often 
 enough. You came from Deepton, Evans tells 
 me." 
 
 " Ay, mester, fro' Deepton." 
 
 " A long journey for a lad like you to take 
 alone," with inward pity for the heavy face. 
 
 " Ay, mester." 
 
 " And now you want work ? " 
 
 " If you please, mester." 
 
 " Well, well ! " cheerily, " we will give it to you. 
 16
 
 242 
 
 There's work enough, though it isn't such as you 
 had at Deepton. What is your name ? " 
 
 " Seth, mester Seth Raynor," shifting the stick 
 and bundle in uneasy eagerness from one shoulder 
 to another. " An' I'm used to hard work, mester. 
 It wur na easy work we had at th' Deepton mine, 
 an' I'm stronger than I look. It's th' fagged ness 
 as makes me trembly an' hunger." 
 
 " Hunger ? " 
 
 " I ha' not tasted sin' th' neet afore last," shame 
 facedly. " I hadna th' money to buy, an' it seemt 
 loike I could howd out." 
 
 " Hold out ! " echoed Langley in some excite 
 ment. ''That's a poor business, my lad. Here, 
 come with me. The other matter can wait, 
 Evans." 
 
 The downcast face and ungainly figure troubled 
 him in no slight degree as they moved off together, 
 they seemed to express in some indescribable fash 
 ion so much of dull and patient pain, and they 
 were so much at variance with the free grandeur 
 of the scene surrounding them. It was as if a 
 new element were introduced into the very air it 
 self. Black Creek was too young yet to have 
 known hunger or actual want of any kind. The 
 wild things on the mountain sides had scarcely had 
 time to learn to fear the invaders of their haunts 
 or understand that they were to be driven back 
 ward. The warm wind was fragrant with the keen 
 freshness of pine and cedar. Mountain and forest
 
 ' SETH." 243 
 
 and sky were stronger than the human strag 
 glers they closed around and shut out from the 
 world. 
 
 " We don't see anything like that in Lancashire," 
 said Langley. " That kind of thing is new to us, 
 my lad, isn't it ? " with a light gesture toward the 
 mountain, in whose side the workers had bur 
 rowed. 
 
 " Ay, mester," raising troubled eyes to its grand 
 eur " ivverything's new. I feel aw lost some- 
 toiines, an' feared-loike." 
 
 Langley lifted his hat from his brow to meet a 
 little passing breeze, and as it swept softly by 
 he smiled in the enjoyment of its coolness. 
 " Afraid ? " he said. " I don't understand that." 
 
 "I dunnot see into it mysen', mester. Happen 
 it's th' bigness, an' quiet, an' th' lonely look, an' 
 happen it's summat wrong in mysen'. I've lived 
 in th' cool an' smoke an' crowd an' work so long 
 as it troubles me in a manner to to ha' to look 
 so high." 
 
 " Does it ? " said Langley, a few faint lines 
 showing themselves on his forehead. " That's a 
 queer fancy. So high ! " turning his glance up 
 ward to where the tallest pine swayed its dark 
 plume against the clear blue. " Well, so it is. But 
 you will get used to it in time," shaking off a rather 
 unpleasant sensation. 
 
 " Happen so, mester, in toime," was the simple 
 answer ; and then silence fell upon them again.
 
 244 "SETff." 
 
 They had not very far to go. The houses of the 
 miners rough shanties hurriedly erected to sup 
 ply immediate needs were most of them con 
 gregated together, or at most stood at short dis 
 tances from each other, the larger ones signifying 
 the presence of feminine members in a family, 
 and perhaps two or three juvenile pioneers the 
 smaller ones being occupied by younger miners, 
 who lived in couples, or sometimes even alone. 
 
 Before one of the larger shanties Langley reined 
 in his horse. "A Lancashire man lives here," he 
 said, " and I am going to leave you with him." 
 
 In answer to his summons a woman came to the 
 door a young woman whose rather unrespon 
 sive face wakened somewhat when she saw who 
 waited. 
 
 " Feyther," she called out, " it's Mester Langley, 
 an' he's getten a stranger wi' him." 
 
 " Feyther," approaching the door, showed him 
 self a burly individual, with traces of coal-dust in 
 all corners not to be reached by hurried and not 
 too fastidious ablutions. Clouds of tobacco-smoke 
 preceded and followed him, and much stale in 
 cense from the fragrant weed exhaled itself from 
 his well-worn corduroys. " I ha' not nivver seed 
 him afore," he remarked after a gruff by no means 
 ill-natured greeting, signifying the stranger by a 
 iuck of the head in his direction. 
 
 " A Lancashire lad, Janner," answered Langley : 
 rt l want a home for him."
 
 "SETH." 245 
 
 Janner regarded him with evident interest, but 
 shook his head dubiously. " Ax th' missus," he 
 remarked succinctly : " dunnot ax me." 
 
 Langley's good-humored laugh had a touch of 
 conscious power in it. If it depended upon "th' 
 missus " he was safe enough. His bright good 
 looks and gay grace of manner never failed with 
 the women. The most practical and uncompromis 
 ing melted, however unwillingly, before his sun 
 shine, and the suggestion of chivalric deference 
 which seemed a second nature with him. So it 
 was easy enough to parley with "th r missus." 
 
 " A Lancashire lad, Mrs. Janner," he said, " and 
 so I know you'll take care of him. Lancashire 
 folk have a sort of fellow feeling for each other, you 
 see ; that was why I could not make up my mind 
 to leave him until I saw him in good hands ; and 
 yours are good ones. Give him a square meal as 
 soon as possible," he added in a lower voice : " I 
 will be accountable for him myself." 
 
 When he lifted his hat and rode away, the group 
 watched him until he was almost out of sight, the 
 general sentiment expressing itself in every coun 
 tenance. 
 
 " Theer's summat noice about that theer young 
 chap," Janner remarked with the slowness of a 
 man who was rather mystified by the fascination 
 inder whose influence he found himself "sum- 
 mat as goes wi' th' grain loike." 
 
 " Ay," answered his wife, " so theer is ; an' its
 
 246 "STff." 
 
 natur' too. Coom along in, lad," to Seth, "an 
 ha' summat to eat: yo' look faintish." 
 
 Black Creek found him a wonderfully quiet mem 
 her of society, the lad Seth. He came and went 
 to and from the mine with mechanical regularity, 
 working with the rest, taking his meals with the 
 Janners, and sleeping in a small shanty left vacant 
 by the desertion of a young miner who had found 
 life at the settlement too monotonous to suit his 
 tastes. No new knowledge of his antecedents was 
 arrived at. He had come "fro' Deepton," and 
 that was the beginning and end of the matter. In 
 fact, his seemed to* be a peculiarly silent nature. 
 He was fond of being alone, and spent most of his 
 spare time in the desolate little shanty. Attempts 
 at conversation appeared to trouble him, it was dis 
 covered, and accordingly he was left to himself as 
 not worth the cultivating. 
 
 " Why does na' tha' talk more ? " demanded Jan- 
 ner's daughter, who was a strong, brusque young 
 woman, with a sharp tongue. 
 
 " I ha' not gotten nowt to say," was the meekly 
 deprecating response. 
 
 Miss Janner, regarding the humble face with 
 some impatience, remarkably enough, found noth 
 ing to deride in it, though, being neither a beauty 
 nor in her first bloom, and sharp of tongue, as I 
 have said, she was somewhat given to derision as a 
 rule. In truth, the uncomplaining patience in the 
 dull, soft eyes made her feel a little uncomfortable.
 
 "SETff." 247 
 
 " I dunnot know what ails thee," she remarked 
 with unceremonious candor, "but theer's summat 
 as does." 
 
 " It's nowt as can be cured," said the lad, and 
 turned his quiet face away. 
 
 In his silent fashion he evinced a certain degree 
 of partially for his host's daughter. Occasionally, 
 after his meals, he lingered for a few moments 
 watching her at her work when she was alone, sit 
 ting by the fire or near the door, and regarding her 
 business-like movements with a wistful air of won 
 der and admiration. And yet so unobtrusive were 
 these mute attentions that Bess Janner was never 
 roused to any form of resentment of them. 
 
 " Tha's goin' to ha' a sweetheart at last, my 
 lass," was one of Janner's favorite witticisms, but 
 Bess bore it with characteristic coolness. "I'm 
 noan as big a foo' as I look," she would say, "an' 
 I dunnot moind him no more nor if he wus a 
 wench hissen'." 
 
 Small as was the element of female society at 
 Black Creek, this young woman was scarcely pop 
 ular. She was neither fair nor fond : a predom 
 inance of muscle and a certain rough deftness of 
 hand were her chief charms. Ordinary sentiment 
 would have been thrown away upon her ; and, for 
 tunately, she was spared it. 
 
 " She's noan hurt wi' good looks, our Bess," her 
 father remarked with graceful chivalrousness on 
 more than one occasion, " but hoo con heave 
 a'most as much as I con, an' that's summat."
 
 248 "SETH." 
 
 Consequently, it did not seem likely that the 
 feeling she had evidently awakened in the breast 
 of their lodger was akin to the tender passion. 
 
 " Am I in yo're way ? " he would ask apologet 
 ically; and the answer was invariably a gracious 
 if curt one : "No no more than th' cat. Stay 
 wheer yo' are, lad, an' make yo'resen' comfort 
 able." 
 
 There came a change, however, in the nature of 
 their intercourse, but this did not occur until the 
 lad had been with them some three months. For 
 several days he had been ailing and unlike himself. 
 He had been even more silent than usual ; he had 
 eaten little, and lagged on his way to and from his 
 work ; he looked thinner, and his step was slow and 
 uncertain. There was so great an alteration in him, 
 in fact, that Bess softened toward him visibly. She 
 secretly bestowed the best morsels upon him, and 
 even went so far as to attempt conversation. " Let 
 yo're work go a bit," she advised : " yo're noan fit 
 fur it." 
 
 But he did not give up until the third week of 
 illness, and then one warm day at noon, Bess, at 
 work in her kitchen among dishes and pans, was 
 startled from her labors by his appearing at the 
 door and staggering toward her. " What's up wi' 
 yo' ? " she demanded. " Yo' look loike death." 
 
 " I dunnot know," he faltered, and then, stagger 
 ing again, caught at her dress with feeble hands. 
 ' Dunnot yo'," he whispered, sinking forward 
 * dunnot yo' let no one come anigh me."
 
 "SETH." 249 
 
 She flung a strong arm around him, and saved 
 him from a heavy fall. His head dropped help 
 lessly against her breast. 
 
 " He's fainted dead away," she said : u he mun 
 ha' been worse than he thowt fur." 
 
 She laid him down, and, loosening his clothes at 
 the throat, went for water ; but a few minutes after 
 she had bent over him for the second time an ex 
 clamation, which was almost a cry, broke from her. 
 "Lord ha' mercy !" she said, and fell back, losing 
 something of color herself. 
 
 She had scarcely recovered herself even when, 
 after prolonged efforts, she succeeded in restoring 
 animation to the prostrate figure under her hands. 
 The heavy eyes opening met hers in piteous appeal 
 and protest. 
 
 "I thowt it wur death comn," said the lad. 
 " I wur hopin' as it wur death." 
 
 " What ha' yo' done as yo' need wish that ? " 
 said Bess ; and then, her voice shaking with ex 
 citement which got the better of her and forced 
 her to reveal herself, she added, " I've fun' out 
 that as yo've been hidin'." 
 
 Abrupt and unprefaced as her speech was, it 
 scarcely produced the effect she had expected it 
 would. Her charge neither flinched nor red 
 dened. He laid a weak, rough hand upon her 
 dress with a feebly pleading touch. " Dunnot yo' 
 turn agen me," he whispered : " yo' wouldna if yo 1 
 Knew."
 
 250 " SETH:'- 
 
 " But I dunnot know," Bess answered, a trifle 
 doggedly, despite her inward relentings. 
 
 " I comn to yo'," persisted the lad, " because I 
 thowt yo' vvouldna turn agen me : yo' wouldna," 
 patiently again, "if yo' knew." 
 
 Gradually the ponderous witticism in which Jan- 
 ner had indulged became an accepted joke in the 
 settlement. Bess had fallen a victim to the tender 
 sentiment at last. She had found an adorer, and 
 had apparently succumbed to his importunities. 
 Seth spent less time in his shanty and more in her 
 society. He lingered in her vicinity on all possi 
 ble occasions, and seemed to derive comfort from 
 her mere presence. And Bess not only tolerated 
 but encouraged him. Not that her manner was in 
 the least degree effusive : she rather extended a 
 rough protection to her admirer, and displayed a 
 tendency to fight his battles and employ her 
 sharper wit as a weapon in his behalf. 
 
 " Yo' may get th' best o' him," she said dryly 
 once to the wit of the Creek, who had been jocular 
 at his expense, " but yo' conna get th' best o' me. 
 Try me a bit, lad. I'm better worth yo're mettle." 
 
 " What's takken yo', lass ? " said her mother at 
 another time. "Yo're that theer soft about th 
 chap as theer's no makkin' yo' out. Yo' wur niv- 
 ver loike to be soft afore," somewhat testily. " An' 
 it's noan his good looks, neyther." 
 
 "No," said Bess "it's noan his good looks."
 
 "SETH." 251 
 
 " Happen it's his lack on 'em, then ? " 
 
 " Happen it is." And there the discussion ended 
 for want of material. 
 
 There was one person, however, who did not 
 join in the jesting ; and this was Langley. When 
 he began to understand the matter he regarded the 
 two with sympathetic curiosity and interest. Why 
 should not their primitive and uncouth love develop 
 and form a tie to bind the homely lives together, 
 and warm and brighten them ? It may have been 
 that his own mental condition at this time was 
 such as would tend to often his heart, for an inno 
 cent passion, long cherished in its bud, had burst 
 into its full blooming during the months he had 
 spent amid the novel beauty and loneliness, and 
 perhaps his new bliss subdued him somewhat. Al 
 ways ready with a kindly word, he was specially 
 ready with it where Seth was concerned. He never 
 passed him without one, and frequently reined in 
 his horse to speak to him at greater length. Now 
 and then, on his way home at night, he stopped at 
 the shanty's door, and summoning the lad detained 
 him for a few minutes chatting in the odorous even 
 ing air. It was thoroughly in accordance with the 
 impulses of his frank and generous nature that he 
 should endeavor to win upon him and gain his con 
 fidence. " We are both Deepton men," he would 
 say, " and it is natural that we should be friends. 
 We are both alone and a long way from home." 
 
 But the lad was always timid and slow of speech.
 
 252 " SETH." 
 
 His gratitude showed itself in ways enough, but it 
 rarely took the form of words. Only, one night as 
 the horse moved away, he laid his hand upon the 
 bridle and held it a moment, some powerful emo 
 tion showing itself in his face, and lowering his 
 voice until it was almost a whisper. " Mester," he 
 said, " if theer's ivver owt to be done as is hard an' 
 loike to bring pain an' danger, yo'll yo'll not for 
 get me ? " 
 
 Langley looked down at him with a mingled feel 
 ing of warm pity and deep bewilderment. " Forget 
 you ? " he echoed. 
 
 The dullness seemed to have dropped away from 
 the commonplace face as if it had been a veil ; the 
 eyes were burning with a hungry pathos and fire 
 and passion ; they were raised to his and held 
 him with the power of an indescribable anguish. 
 "Dunnot forget as I'm here," the voice growing 
 sharp and intense, " ready an' eager an' waitin' fur 
 th' toime to come. Let me do summat or brave 
 summat or suffer summat, for God's sake ! " 
 
 When the young man rode away it was with a 
 sense of weight and pain upon him. He was mys 
 tified. People were often grateful to him, but their 
 gratitude was not such as this ; this oppressed and 
 disturbed him. It was suggestive of a mental con 
 dition whose existence seemed almost impossible. 
 What a life this poor fellow must have led, since 
 the simplest kindliness aroused within him such 
 emotion as this ! " It is hard to understand," he
 
 "SETH." 253 
 
 murmured ; " it is even a little horrible. One fan 
 cies these duller natures do not reach our heights 
 
 and depths of happiness and pain, and yet 
 
 Cathie, Cathie, my dear," breaking off suddenly 
 and turning his face upward to the broad free blue 
 of the sky as he quickened his horse's pace, " let 
 me think of you ; this hurts me." 
 
 But he was drawn nearer to the boy, and did his 
 best to cheer and help him. His interest in him 
 grew as he saw him oftener, and there was not only 
 the old interest, but a new one. Something in the 
 lad's face a something which had struck him as 
 familiar even at first began to haunt him con 
 stantly. He could not rid himself of the impres 
 sion it left upon him, and yet he never found him 
 self a shade nearer a solution of the mystery. 
 
 " Raynor," he said to him on one of the evenings 
 when he had stopped before the shanty, ." I wish I 
 knew why your face troubles me so." 
 
 " Does it trouble yo', mester ? " 
 
 "Yes," with a half laugh, "I think I may say it 
 troubles me. I have tried to recollect every lad in 
 Deepton, and I have no remembrance of you." 
 
 " Happen not, mester," meekly. " I nivver wur 
 much noticed, yo' see : I'm one o' them as foak is 
 more loike to pass by." 
 
 An early train arriving next morning brought 
 visitors to the Creek a business-like elderly gen 
 tleman and his daughter, a pretty girl, with large 
 bright eyes and an innocent rosy face, which be-
 
 254 "SETff." 
 
 came rosier and prettier than ever when Mr. Ed 
 ward Langley advanced from the de'pot shed with 
 uncovered head and extended hand. " Cathie ! " 
 he said, when the first greetings had been inter 
 changed, " what a delight this is to me ! I did not 
 hope for such happiness as this." 
 
 "Father wanted to see the mines," answered 
 Cathie, sweetly demure, " and I I wanted to see 
 Black Creek ; your letters were so enthusiastic." 
 
 " A day will suffice, I suppose ? " her paternal 
 parent was wandering on amiably. " A man should 
 always investigate such matters for himself. I can 
 see enough to satisfy me between now and the 
 time for the return train." 
 
 " I cannot," whispered Langley to Cathie : " a 
 century would not suffice. If the sun would but 
 stand still ! " 
 
 The lad Seth was late for dinner that day, and 
 when he entered the house Bess turned from her 
 dish-washing to give him a sharp, troubled look. 
 " Art tha' ill again ? " she asked. 
 
 "Nay," he answered, "nobbut a bit tired an 
 heavy-loike." 
 
 He sat down upon the door-step with wearily- 
 clasped hands, and eyes wandering toward the 
 mountain, whose pine-crowned summit towered 
 above him. He had not even yet outlived the awe 
 of its majesty, but he had learned to love it and 
 draw comfort from its beauty and strength. 
 
 " Does tha' want thy dinner ? " asked Bess.
 
 255 
 
 " No, thank yo'," he said ; " I couldna eat." 
 
 The dish-washing was deserted incontinently, 
 and Bess came to the door, towel in hand, her ex 
 pression at once softened and shaded with discon 
 tent. " Summat's hurt yo'," she said. " What is 
 it ? Summat's hurt yo' sore." 
 
 The labor-roughened hands moved with their old 
 nervous habit, and the answer came in an odd, 
 jerky, half-connected way : " 1 dunnot know why it 
 should ha' done. I mun be mad, or summat. I 
 nivver had no hope nor nothin' : theer nivver wur 
 no reason why I should ha' had. Ay, I mun be 
 wrong somehow, or it wouldna stick to me i' tins 
 road. I conna get rid on it, an' I conna feel as if 
 I want to. What's up wi' me? What's takken 
 howd on me ? " his voice breaking and the words 
 ending in a sharp hysterical gasp like a sob. 
 
 Bess wrung her towel with a desperate strength 
 which spoke of no small degree of tempestuous 
 feeling. Her brow knit itself and her lips were 
 compressed. " What's happened ? " she demanded 
 after a pause. " I conna mak' thee out." 
 
 The look that fell upon her companion's face 
 had something of shame in it. His eyes left the 
 mountain side and drooped upon his clasped hands. 
 "Theer wur a lass coom to look at 'th place to 
 day," he said "a lady lass, wi' her feyther an' 
 him. She wur aw rosy red an' fair white, an' it 
 seemt as if she wur that happy as her laughin' made 
 th' birds mock back at her. He took her up th'
 
 256 "SETff." 
 
 mountain, an' we heard 'em both even high up 
 among th' laurels. Th' sound o' their joy a-floatin ; 
 down from the height, so nigh th' blue sky, made 
 me sick an' weak-loike. They wur na so gay when 
 they comn back, but her eyes wur shinin', an' so 
 wur his, an' I heerd him say to her as ' Foak didna 
 know how nigh heaven th' top o' th' mountain 
 wur.' " 
 
 Bess wrung her towel again, and regarded the 
 mountain with manifest impatience and trouble. 
 " Happen it'll coom reet some day," she said. 
 
 "Reet!" repeated the lad. as if mechanically. 
 " I hadna towd mysen' as owt wur exactly wrong 
 on'y I conna see things clear. I nivver could, air 
 th' more I ax mysen' questions th' worse it gets. 
 Wheer wheer could I lay th' blame ? " 
 
 " Th' blame ! " said Bess. " Coom tha' an' get 
 a bite to eat ; " and she shook out the towel with a 
 snap and turned away. " Coom tha," she repeated ; 
 " I mun get my work done." 
 
 That night, as Seth lay upon his pallet in the 
 shanty, the sound of Langley's horse's hoofs 
 reached him with an accompaniment of a clear, 
 young masculine voice singing a verse of some sen 
 timental modern carol a tender song ephemeral 
 and sweet. As the sounds neared the cabin the 
 lad sprang up restlessly, and so was standing at 
 the open door when the singer passed. "Good- 
 neet, mester," he said. 
 
 The singer slackened his pace and turned his
 
 "SETH." 257 
 
 bright face toward him in the moonlight, waving 
 his hand. "Good-night," he said, "and pleasant 
 dreams ! Mine will be pleasant ones, I know. 
 This has been a happy day for me, Raynor. Good 
 night." 
 
 When the two met again the brighter face had 
 sadly changed ; its beauty was marred with pain, 
 and the shadow of death lay upon it. 
 
 Entering Janner's shanty the following morning, 
 Seth found the family sitting around the breakfast- 
 table in ominous silence. The meal stood un 
 touched, and even Bess looked pale and anxious. 
 All three glanced toward him questioningly as he 
 approached, and when he sat down Janner spoke : 
 " Hasna tha' heerd th' news ? " he asked. 
 
 " Nay," Seth answered, " I ha' heerd nowt." 
 
 Bess interposed hurriedly : " Dunnot yo' fear 
 him, feyther," she said. " Happen it isna so bad, 
 after aw. Four or hve foak wur takken down ill 
 last neet, Seth, an' th' young mester wur among 
 'em ; an' theer's them as says it's cholera." 
 
 It seemed as if he had not caught the full mean 
 ing of her words ; he only stared at her in a 
 startled, bewildered fashion. " Cholera ! " he re 
 peated dully. 
 
 " Theer's them as knows it's cholera," said Jan 
 ner, with gloomy significance. "An' if it's chol 
 era, it's death ;" and he let his hand fall heavily 
 upon the table. 
 
 " Ay," put in Mrs. Janner in a fretful wail, " fur 
 17
 
 258 "SETH." 
 
 they say as it's worse i' these parts than it is i* 
 England th' heat mak's it worse an' here we 
 are i' th' midst o' th' summer-toime, an' theer's no 
 knowin' wheer it'll end. I wish tha'd takken my 
 advice, Janner, an' stayed i' Lancashire. Ay, I 
 wish we wur safe at home. Better less wage an' 
 more safety. Yo'd nivver ha' coom if yo'd listened 
 to me." 
 
 " Howd thy tongue, mother," said Bess, but the 
 words were not ungently spoken, notwithstanding 
 their bluntness. " Dunnot let us mak' it worse 
 than it need be. Seth, lad, eat thy breakfast." 
 
 But there was little breakfast eaten. The fact 
 was, that at the first spreading of the report a panic 
 had seized upon the settlement, and Janner and his 
 wife were by no means the least influenced by it. 
 A stolidly stubborn courage upheld Bess, but even 
 she was subdued and somewhat awed. 
 
 " I nivver heerd much about th' cholera," Seth 
 said to her after breakfast. " Is this here true, 
 this as thy feyther says ? " 
 
 " I dunnot know fur sure," Bess answered gravely, 
 "but it's bad enow." 
 
 " Coom out wi' me into th' fresh air," said the 
 lad, laying his hand upon her sleeve : " 1 mun say 
 a word or so to thee." And they went out to 
 gether. 
 
 There was no work done in the mine that day. 
 Two 01 three new cases broke out, and the terror 
 spread itself and grew stronger. In fact, Black
 
 "SETH." 
 
 Creek scarcely comported itself as stoically as 
 might have been expected. A messenger was dis 
 patched to the nearest town for a doctor, and his 
 arrival by the night train was awaited with excited 
 impatience. 
 
 When he came, however, the matter became 
 worse. He had bad news to tell himself. The 
 epidemic had broken out in the town he had left, 
 and great fears were entertained by its inhabitants. 
 " If you had not been so entirely thrown on your 
 own resources," he said, " I could not have come." 
 
 A heavy enough responsibility rested upon his 
 shoulders during the next few weeks. He had lit 
 tle help from the settlement. Those who were un- 
 stricken looked on at the progress of the disease 
 with helpless fear : few indeed escaped a slight 
 attack, and those who did were scarcely more use 
 ful than his patients. In the whole place he found 
 only two reliable and unterrified assistants. 
 
 His first visit was to a small farm-house round 
 the foot of the mountain and a short distance from 
 the mine. There he found the family huddled in a 
 back room like a flock of frightened sheep, and in 
 the only chamber a handsome, bright-haired young 
 fellow lying upon the bed with a pinched and omi 
 nous look upon his comely face. The only person 
 with him was a lad roughly clad in miner's clothes 
 a lad who stood by chafing his hands, and who 
 turned desperate eyes to the door when it opened. 
 "Yo're too late, mester," he said "yo're too 
 late."
 
 26O "SETH." 
 
 But young as he was and he was a very young 
 man the doctor had presence of mind and en 
 ergy, and he flung his whole soul and strength into 
 the case. The beauty and solitariness of his pa 
 tient roused his sympathy almost as if it had been 
 the beauty of a woman ; he felt drawn toward the 
 stalwart, helpless young figure lying upon the hum 
 ble couch in such apparent utter loneliness. He 
 did not count much upon the lad at first he 
 seemed too much bewildered and shaken but it 
 was not long before he changed his mind. "You 
 are getting over your fear," he said. 
 
 " It wasna fear, mester," was the answer he re 
 ceived ; " or at least it wasna fear for mysen'." 
 
 " What is your name ? " 
 
 " Seth Raynor, mester. Him an' me," with a 
 gesture toward the bed, "comn from th' same 
 place. Th' cholera couldna fear me fro' him nor 
 nowt else if he wur i' need." 
 
 So it was Seth Raynor who watched by the bed 
 side, and labored with loving care and a patience 
 which knew no weariness, until the worst was over 
 and Langley was among the convalescent. 
 
 " The poor fellow and Bess Janner were my only 
 stay," the young doctor was wont to say. " Only 
 such care as his would have saved you, and you 
 had a close race of it as it was." 
 During the convalescence nurse and invalid were 
 drawn together with a stronger tie through every 
 hour. Wearied and weak, Langley's old interesi
 
 "SET/f." 26l 
 
 in the lad became a warm affection. He could 
 scarcely bear to lose sight of the awkward boyish 
 figure, and never rested so completely as when it 
 was by his bedside. 
 
 " Give me your hand, dear fellow," he would say, 
 " and let me hold it. I shall sleep better for know 
 ing you are near me." 
 
 He fell asleep thus one morning, and awakened 
 suddenly to a consciousness of some new presence 
 in the room. Seth no longer sat in the chair near 
 his pillow, but stood a little apart ; and surely he 
 would have been no lover if the feeble blood had 
 not leaped in his veins at the sight of the face 
 bending over him the innocent, fair young face 
 which had so haunted his pained and troubled 
 dreams. " Cathie ! " he cried out aloud. 
 
 The girl fell upon her knees and caught his ex 
 tended hand with a passionate little gesture of love 
 and pity. " I did not know," she poured forth in 
 hurried, broken tones. " I have been away ever 
 since the sickness broke out at home. They sent 
 me away, and I only heard yesterday Father, 
 tell him, for I cannot." 
 
 He scarcely heard the more definite explanation, 
 he was at once so happy and so fearful. 
 
 " Sweetheart," he said, " I can scarcely bear to 
 think of what may come of this; and yet how 
 blessed it is to have you near me again ! The dan 
 ger for me is all over : even your dear self could 
 not have cared for me more faithfully than I have 
 been cared for. Raynor there has saved my life."
 
 262 " SETH." 
 
 But Cathie could only answer with a piteous, re 
 morseful jealousy : " Why was it not I who saved 
 it ? why was it not I ? " 
 
 And the place where Seth had stood waiting was 
 vacant, for he had left it at the sound of Langley's 
 first joyous cry. When he returned an hour or so 
 later, the more restful look Langley had fancied he 
 had seen on his face of late had faded out : the old 
 unawakened heaviness had returned. He was 
 nervous and ill at ease, shrinking and conscious. 
 
 " I've comn to say good-neet to yo','' he said hes 
 itatingly to the invalid. " Th' young lady says as 
 she an' her feyther will tak' my place a bit. I'll 
 coom i' th' mornin'." 
 
 "You want rest," said Langley; "you are tired, 
 poor fellow ! " 
 
 "Ay," quietly, " I'm tired ; an' th' worst is over, 
 yo' see, an' she's here," with a patient smile. " Yo' 
 wunnot need me, and theer's them as does." 
 
 From that hour his work at this one place seemed 
 done. For several days he made his appearance 
 regularly to see if he was needed, and then his 
 visits gradually ended. He had found a fresh field 
 of labor among the sufferers in the settlement itself. 
 He was as faithful to them as he had been to his 
 first charge. The same unflagging patience showed 
 itself, the same silent constancy and self-sacrifice. 
 Scarcely a man or woman had not some cause to 
 remember him with gratitude, and there was not
 
 "SJETff." 263 
 
 one of those who had jested at and neglected him 
 but thought of their jests and neglect with secret 
 shame. 
 
 There came a day, however, when they missed 
 him from among them. If he was not at one house 
 he was surely at another, it appeared for some time ; 
 but when, after making his round of visits, the doc 
 tor did not find him, he became anxious. He might 
 be at Janner's ; but he was not there, nor among 
 the miners, who had gradually resumed their work 
 as the epidemic weakened its strength and their 
 spirits lightened. Making these discoveries at 
 nightfall, the doctor touched up his horse in some 
 secret dread. He had learned earlier than the rest 
 to feel warmly toward this simple co-laborer. " Per 
 haps he's gone out to pay Langley a visit," he said : 
 " I'll call and see. He may have stopped to have 
 a rest." 
 
 But before he had passed the last group of cabins 
 he met Langley himself, who by this time was well 
 enough to resume his place in the small world, and, 
 hearing his story, Langley's anxiety was greater 
 than his own. " I saw him last night on my way 
 home," he said. " About this time, too, for I re 
 member he was sitting in the moonlight at the door 
 of his shanty. We exchanged a few words, as we 
 always do, and he said he was there because he 
 was not needed, and thought a quiet night would 
 do him good. Is it possible no one has seen him 
 since ? " in sudden alarm.
 
 264 "SETH" 
 
 " Come with me," said his companion. 
 
 Overwhelmed by a mutual dread, neither spoke 
 until they reached the shanty itself. There was no 
 sign of human life about it : the door stood open, 
 and the only sound to be heard was the rustle of 
 the wind whispering among the pines upon the 
 mountain side. Both men flung themselves from 
 their horses with loudly-beating hearts. 
 
 " God grant he is not here ! " uttered Langley. 
 " God grant he is anywhere else ! The place is so 
 drearily desolate." 
 
 Desolate indeed ! The moonbeams streaming 
 through the door threw their fair light upon the 
 rough boards and upon the walls, and upon the 
 quiet figure lying on the pallet in one of the cor 
 ners, touching with pitying whiteness the homely 
 face upon the pillow and the hand that rested 
 motionless upon the floor. 
 
 The doctor went down on his knees at the pal 
 let's side, and thrust his hand into the breast of 
 the coarse garments with a half-checked groan. 
 
 " Asleep ? " broke from Langley's white lips in a 
 desperate whisper. " Not not " 
 
 "Dead!" said the doctor "dead for hours!' 
 There was actual anguish in his voice as he uttered 
 the words, but another element predominated in 
 the exclamation which burst from him scarcely a 
 second later. " Good God ! " he cried " good 
 God ! " 
 
 Langley bent down and caught him almost
 
 "SETH." 265 
 
 fiercely by the arm : the exclamation jarred upon 
 him. " What is it ? " he demanded, " What do you 
 mean ? " 
 
 " It is a woman ! " 
 
 Even as they gazed at each other in speechless 
 questioning the silence was broken in upon. Swift, 
 heavy footsteps neared the door, crossed the thresh 
 old, and Janner's daughter stood before them. 
 
 There was no need for questioning. One glance 
 told her all. She made her way to the moonlit 
 corner, pushed both aside with rough strength, and 
 knelt down. "I might ha' knowed," she said with 
 helpless bitterness "I might ha' knowed ; " and 
 she laid her face against the dead hand in a sud 
 den passion of weeping. "I might ha' knowed, 
 Jinny lass," she cried, but I didna. It was loike 
 aw th' rest as tha' should lay thee down an' die 
 loike this. Tha' wast alone aw along, an' tha ? wast 
 alone at th' last. But dunnot blame me, poor lass. 
 Nay, I know tha' wiltna." 
 
 The two men stood apart, stirred by an emotion 
 too deep for any spoken attempt at sympathy. She 
 scarcely seemed to see them : she seemed to rec 
 ognize no presence but that of the unresponsive 
 figure upon its lowly couch. She spoke to it as if 
 it had been a living thing, her voice broken and 
 tender, stroking the hair now and then with a 
 touch all womanly and loving. " Yo' were nigher 
 to me than most foak, Jinny," she said ; " an' tha' 
 trusted me, I know."
 
 266 
 
 They left her to her grief until at last she grew 
 calmer and her sobs died away into silence. Then 
 she rose and approaching Langley, who stood at 
 the door, spoke to him, scarcely raising her tear- 
 stained eyes. " I ha' summat to tell yo', an' sum- 
 mat to ax yo','' she said, " an' I mun tell it to yo' 
 alone, Will yo' coom out here ? " 
 
 He followed her, wondering and sad. His heart 
 was heavy with the pain and mystery the narrow 
 walls inclosed. When they paused a few yards 
 from the house, the one face was scarcely more full 
 of sorrow than the other, only that the woman's 
 was wet with tears. She was not given to many 
 words, Eess Janner, and she wasted few in the 
 story she had to tell. " Yo' know th' secret as she 
 carried," she said, "or I wouldna tell yo' even 
 now ; an' now I tell it yo' that she may carry the 
 secret to her grave, an' ha' no gossiping tongue to 
 threep at her. I dunnot want foak starin' an' won- 
 derin' an' makkin' talk. She's borne enow." 
 
 " It shall be as you wish, whether you tell me the 
 story or not," said Langley. " We will keep it as 
 sacred as you have done." 
 
 She hesitated a moment, seemingly pondering 
 with herself before she answered him. " Ay," she 
 said, "but I ha' another reason behind. I want 
 summat fro' yo' : I want yo're pity. Happen it 
 moight do her good even now." She did not look 
 at him as she proceeded, but stood with her face a 
 little turned away and her eyes resting upon the
 
 "SETff." 267 
 
 shadow on the mountain. " Theer wur a lass as 
 worked at th' Deepton mines," she said "a lass 
 as had a weakly brother as worked an' lodged wi' 
 her. Her name wur Jinny, an' she wur quiet and 
 plain-favored. Theer wur other wenches as wur 
 well-lookin', but she wasna ; theer wur others as 
 had homes, and she hadna one ; theer wur plenty 
 as had wit an' sharpness, but she hadna them 
 neyther. She wur nowt but a desolate, homely lass, 
 as seemt to ha' no place i' th' world, an' yet wur 
 tender and weak-hearted to th' core. She wur allus 
 longin' fur summat as she wur na loike to get ; an* 
 she niwer did get it, fur her brother wasna one as 
 cared fur owt but his own doin's. But theer were 
 one among aw th' rest as niwer passed her by, an' 
 he wur th' mester's son. He wur a bright, hand 
 some chap, as won his way iwerywheer, an' had a 
 koind word or a laugh fur aw. So he gave th' lass a 
 smile, an' did her a favor now and then loike as 
 not without givin' it more than a thowt until she 
 learned to live on th' hope o' seein* him. An', 
 bein' weak an' tender, it grew on her fro' day to 
 day, until it seemt to give th' strength to her an' 
 tak' it both i* one." 
 
 She stopped and looked at Langley here. " Does 
 tha' see owt now, as I'm getten this fur?" she 
 asked. 
 
 " Yes," he answered, his agitation almost master 
 ing him. "And now I have found the lost face 
 that haunted me so."
 
 268 "SJSTff." 
 
 " Ay," said Bess, " it was hers ; " and she hurried 
 on huskily : " When you went away she ^ouldna 
 abide th' lonesomeness, an' so one day she said to 
 her brother, ' Dave, let us go to th' new mine wheer 
 Mester Ed'ard is ; ' an' him bein' allus ready fur a 
 move, they started out together. But on th' way 
 th' lad took sick and died sudden, an' Jinny wur 
 left to hersen'. An' then she seed new trouble. 
 She wur beset wi' danger as she'd nivver thowt on, 
 an' before long she foun' out as women didna work 
 o' this side o' the sea as they did o' ours. So at 
 last she wur driv' upon a strange-loike plan. It 
 sounds wild, happen, but it wasna so wild after aw. 
 Her bits of clothes giv' out an' she had no money ; 
 an' theer wur Dave's things. She'd wore th' loike 
 at her work i' Deepton, an' she made up her moind 
 to wear 'em agen. Yo' didna know her when she 
 coom here, an' no one else guessed at th' truth. 
 She didna expect nowt, yo' see ; she on'y wanted 
 th' comfort o' hearin' th' voice she'd longed an' 
 hungered fur ; an' here wur wheer she could hear 
 it. When I fun' her out by accident, she towd 
 me, an' sin' then we Ve kept th' secret together. 
 Do yo' guess what else theer's been betwixt us, 
 mester ? " 
 
 " I think I do," he answered. " God forgive me 
 for my share in her pain ! " 
 
 "Nay," she returned, "it was no fault o' thine. 
 She nivver had a thowt o' that She had a patient
 
 "SETff." 269 
 
 way wi' her, had Jinny, an' she bore her trouble 
 better than them as hopes. She didna ax nor hope 
 neyther ; an' when theer coom fresh hurt to her she 
 wur ready an' waitin', knowin' as it moight comn 
 ony day. Happen th' Lord knows what life wur 
 give her fur I dunnot, but it's ower now an' 
 happen she knows hersen'. I hurried here to-neet," 
 she added, battling with a sob, " as soon as I heerd 
 as she was missin'. Th' truth struck to my heait, 
 an' I thowt as I should be here first, but I wasna, 
 I ha' not gotten no more to say." 
 
 They went back to the shanty, and with her own 
 hands she did for the poor clay the last service 
 it would need, Langley and his companion waiting 
 the while outside. When her task was at an end 
 she came to them, and this time it was Langley 
 who addressed himself to her. " May I go in ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 She bent her head in assent, and without speak 
 ing he left them and entered the shanty alone. The 
 moonlight, streaming in as before, fell upon the 
 closed eyes, and hands folded in the old, old 
 fashion upon the fustian jacket : the low whisper of 
 the pines crept downward like a sigh. Kneeling 
 beside the pallet, the young man bent his head and 
 touched the pale forehead with reverept lips. " God 
 bless you for your love and faith," he said, " and 
 give you rest ! " 
 
 And when he rose a few minutes later, and
 
 270 SETH. n 
 
 saw that the little dead flower he had worn had 
 dropped from its place and lay upon the pulseless 
 breast, he did not move it, but turned away and 
 left it resting; ther
 
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