REUBEN H. HILTON. 
 Newburgh, N.Y. 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 Lb Jjaug/itez of the 
 and 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS. BURTON HARRISON 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE ANGLOMANIACS," "FLOWER DE HUNDRED," ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 104 & 106 FOURTH AVENUE
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1892. BY 
 CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, 
 RAHWAY, N. J.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Ul 
 
 PAGE 
 
 > 
 
 * A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH, i 
 
 o= 
 
 CO 
 
 ^3 A THORN IN His CUSHION, . . . 113 
 
 MR. CLENDENNING PIPER, 141 
 
 CM 
 
 ; 
 
 in JENNY, THE DEBUTANTE 155 
 
 > 
 
 WIFE'S LOVE, 189 
 
 A HARP UNSTRUNG, 211 
 
 <3 
 
 o A SUIT DECIDED e 243
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE 
 SOUTH.* 
 
 To look now at the scene of Berthe's 
 fondly remembered childhood would reveal 
 but a melancholy semblance of its old-time 
 stately beauty. The alleys of almond laurel, 
 under which the girl played until the crash 
 of war silenced forever the sweet symphony 
 of her Southern life, are matted and hoary, 
 their arches lost to sight beneath the 
 wedded blooms of wild-growing rose and 
 jasmine. The gardens around the old 
 house are a weedy ruin ; the walls of the 
 forsaken dwelling are scarred where patches 
 of stucco have dropped away. But why 
 
 multiply images of the most distressful fea- 
 * First published in the COSMOPOLITAN MAGAZINE.
 
 2 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 ture of American home history? Everyone 
 who has journeyed in the South will have 
 carried away some vision of 
 
 The nakedness and vacancy 
 Of the dark, deserted house, 
 
 which all the bourgeoning of new prosper- 
 ity is powerless to efface. Les Amandiers 
 had been built and named by Berthe's 
 great-grandfather St. Felix, from whom it 
 had come by inheritance to her mother, 
 Mme. de Lagastinc. 
 
 Early in the century M. Gaston de St. 
 Felix, then a youngster at his studies in 
 Paris, had scandalized his friends in New 
 Orleans by marrying a beautiful girl actress, 
 whom he transported from the scene of her 
 early triumphs to a home in the wilderness 
 across the sea. For her the enamored 
 young husband had lavished wealth upon 
 the great stately white house with wings and 
 galleries and colonnades; for her were the 
 terraces, with rows of orange and oleander
 
 A DAUGHTER OF 7^HE SOUTH. 3 
 
 trees, the flights of steps with vases holding 
 century plants, the gardens with clipped 
 hedges, the fountains, fish ponds, arbors all 
 fashions of old France designed to comfort 
 the expatriated little Parisienne. At no 
 great distance from one of the most pros- 
 perous of the towns built on the lower Mis- 
 sissippi River, in that region pictured as 
 tropical by Chateaubriand in "Atala," but in 
 reality bearing the characteristics of the 
 temperate zone, this earthly paradise had 
 been constructed. But, alas, at a season 
 when the splendid white chalice of the 
 cucumber tree opens its bosom to the 
 sun, the little French lady had put forth 
 her first blossom and faded from the 
 scene. 
 
 Berthe's mother, a famous heiress, was, 
 on coming into her majority, the only living 
 representative of the St. Felix line. They 
 had married her to Louis de Lagastine, the 
 handsome scion of an impoverished family
 
 4 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 of Louisiana Creoles, and Berthe was, in 
 turn, the sole offspring of that alliance. 
 
 Little Miss St. Felix de Lagastine, as her 
 mother took pains to style her, had but to 
 stamp her foot to call to her service a legion 
 of black folk, old and young, who loved 
 her, shadow and substance, better than the 
 world beside. Her frocks and fineries came 
 twice a year from Paris, and her father ad- 
 mired and applauded everything she did. 
 
 The dark side of life to Berthe was her 
 mother, a cold, haughty woman, so devoted 
 to church observance that she needed but a 
 few yards of saints' drapery and a nimbus 
 to entitle her to a niche ; who, when she was 
 not telling her beads like an image of yel- 
 low wax, sat working endless bands of cross- 
 stitch tapestry ; who smiled reluctantly, and 
 disapproved of the friendship between 
 Berthe and her papa. 
 
 Mme. de Lagastine, heartily ashamed 
 of her actress grandmother, would never
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 5 
 
 countenance Berthe's early passion for 
 counterfeit emotion. One day her lord, 
 coming in booted and spurred from riding, 
 found his wife paler than usual, her lips 
 compressed, listening in the dressing room 
 of one of the great spare chambers. When 
 she bade him look in and be shocked, he 
 saw through the door's crack a baby star, 
 ranting and raving the speeches of some 
 turbid tragedy of a Restoration dramatist, 
 taken at hazard from the library shelves, all 
 unconscious of the meaning of her elo- 
 quence, her cheeks crimsoned, her eyes 
 dilated ; around her, on the floor, the rest of 
 the dramatis personse small negroes im- 
 pressed into service, turbaned like Turks, 
 and writhing in death agonies that left an 
 eye open for general observation of occur- 
 rences. 
 
 "It is the taint in our doomed race," said 
 Mme. de Lagastine drearily. 
 
 Berthe, in the act of drinking a conclusive
 
 6 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 draught of poison from the eau sucre'e ap- 
 paratus on the night-stand by the bed, 
 heard the burst of irreverent laughter her 
 father could not restrain. 
 
 " Allez vous en, papa," she said vindic- 
 tively. "You have no right to spy on me. 
 You are dishonorable, and I don't love you 
 one single bit." 
 
 Lagastine, persisting, pushed his way into 
 the room, picked up the princess of tragedy, 
 kissed her until she cried out in pain, and 
 swore it was the best fun he ever saw. 
 
 "I don't like your choice of a play, little 
 one," he said; "but, by George, you've got 
 the stuff in you that warms the best of *em." 
 
 Berthe saw that she was admired, and im- 
 mediately the foolish little heart beat high 
 with satisfaction. While at a glimpse of 
 madame's spare figure the dead and dying 
 scrambled away in short order, that lady 
 came into the room, a gleam of sullen anger 
 in her eyes.
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 7 
 
 "So this is how you second my efforts 
 to bring my child up like a true demoiselle 
 St. Felix?" 
 
 "She is all Lagastine, I have heard you 
 say," her husband answered, with a mocking 
 bow. He was a-weary of the St. Felix lit- 
 urgy. The ten years of it seemed fifty. 
 
 "Papa, papa, you dear, sweet, beautiful 
 papa !" Berthe whispered in his ear, as he 
 carried her off to the library to see him lock 
 the cases where the offending dramatists 
 were kept; "I love you, do you hear, I love 
 you. You are my champion, and you make 
 my heart ache with love, sometimes. I will 
 never touch a book on that shelf again 
 whether you lock them up or not." 
 
 And Lagastine, with a second glance at her, 
 left the bookcase door as he had found it. 
 
 "Mammy Clarisse," announced Berthe to 
 her nurse one night, when the old woman 
 was on her knees taking the shoes and 
 stockings from the little feet she liked to
 
 8 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 bare and fondle ; "we are going to have a 
 visitor. To-morrow a boy a big boy 
 named Belmont Carrington is coming to 
 stay a week. Why, mammy ! what makes 
 you start and cry?" 
 
 "My lamb, it's an ole pain," the nurse 
 said between gasps. 
 
 "But there is something tell me quick," 
 said Berthe imperiously. 
 
 "It's on'y dat I cawn't hear dat name wid- 
 out surTerin* agin. Marse Belmont Carring- 
 ton, de uncle o' dis heah young one dat's 
 comin', was de master o' my husband, wot 
 I lost forty years ago." 
 
 Berthe felt a remorseful pang. She had 
 heard the neighborhood's dark story of the 
 elder Belmont Carrington's departure one 
 day for New Orleans, where, during a pro- 
 longed debauch, he had gambled away half 
 his patrimony and many slaves, including 
 his body servant, Johnson; she knew that 
 the offender had committed suicide, and
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 9 
 
 that Johnson had never come back to the 
 half-crazed Clarisse. 
 
 "Oh! how could I forget?" the child 
 cried, leaning over to kiss the wet cheek of 
 her nurse. "Never mind, mammy, I will 
 show this boy that he is not welcome in 
 our house. If papa and mamma want him 
 here, I don't." 
 
 "It's no fault o' his'n, honey, wat hap- 
 pened so long ago. But he's got blood in 
 his veins dat will surely bring pain and mis- 
 ery to dem dat loves him. Dey cawn't 
 help theyselves, dem Carrin'tons; dey's 
 beautiful and witchin', but de day comes 
 when you rues knowin' 'em." 
 
 Berthe, carrying to sleep with her the 
 wrongs of old Clarisse, awoke determining 
 to keep the new arrival at arm's-length. 
 There was, however, something interesting 
 about a scion of a wicked race through 
 whom misery was sure to come ; more inter- 
 esting than the dapper youths approved by
 
 10 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTff. 
 
 universal voice, who galloped up to the 
 house door on horseback, following the 
 barouches containing visiting parents and 
 unspotted relatives. 
 
 So she spent the day in secretly growing 
 impatience for Belmont to arrive, and when 
 the carriage went to meet him at the boat 
 landing began to play Cleopatra with her 
 doll, to while away the time of waiting. 
 
 From the verge of the fish pond she 
 launched a barge of gilded osier where, on a 
 bank of real flowers supplying the "strange 
 invisible perfume" that was to "hit the 
 sense of the adjacent wharves," reposed her 
 last and loveliest wax lady from a Paris 
 packing case. Holding a ribbon in his little 
 black paw, a negro boy was instructed to 
 tow the royal barge around the pond, 
 Berthe, with a ragged edition of Dick's 
 Shakespeare, declaiming as she followed. 
 
 Half way, the barge lurched and began to 
 sink. The valiant little darky, wading in to
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. n 
 
 the rescue of her majesty, slipped and was 
 lost to sight. The shrieks of the quarter 
 children brought Clarisse from the arbor 
 where she sat at work, too late to prevent 
 Berthe from plunging to the rescue of Cleo- 
 patra's ebon knight. 
 
 The families of St. Felix and Lagastine 
 might have lost their representative but for 
 the arrival on the scene of a tall lad of fif- 
 teen, who, running down an alley of olean- 
 ders, with prompt action fished out of the 
 deepest part of the pond Berthe, clinging to 
 the submerged Cato, who in turn clutched a 
 sovereign well on the way to deliquescence. 
 
 To this hero, young Belmont Carrington, 
 a beautiful, manly fellow, whom to see was 
 for most people to love, the little savage 
 princess surrendered heart and brain. She 
 followed him, waited on him, gloried in 
 him ; and when, after a week's visit, he 
 went away from Les Amandiers, Berthe 
 cried passionately over her loss and refused
 
 12 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 to be consoled for many a long day. He 
 had but melted into her dream world of 
 heroes when the war trumpet blew and Les 
 Amandiers passed under the pillar of cloud. 
 
 It is one thing to be rich Americans in 
 Paris and quite another to be so limited in 
 means that cab-hire becomes a considera- 
 tion, and cleaned gloves as much a matter 
 to be aired as one's distinguished ante- 
 cedents in the States. For some years after 
 the war between North and South the gay 
 French capital appeared to swarm with a 
 succession of families and individuals more 
 or less connected with the recent ravages in 
 the Southern country. Those who were 
 less connected posed heroically as victims 
 of unheard-of cruelty from their conquerors. 
 The enumeration of their losses in flocks 
 and herds, and maid servants and man ser- 
 vants, swelled as the tale went farther. 
 They "took their grievances to walk," as
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 13 
 
 the French saying goes, in every quarter 
 where observation might be counted on. 
 The real sufferers, whom chance or fate had 
 brought into haven there, after the ship- 
 wreck of their four years' hope, hugged 
 their sorrows proudly to their breasts. 
 The memory of fire, of famine, of desolated 
 homes, of husbands, sons, and brothers left 
 in soldiers' graves or toiling in exile at any 
 work they could find to put their hands to, 
 was too fresh to bear casual mention. 
 
 Among these might be numbered Mme. 
 de Lagastine and her young daughter 
 Berthe, late of Les Amandiers plantation in 
 Mississippi. Berthe, herself, the actual dis- 
 penser of finances, was possessor of a bright 
 intrepidity of spirit that made her confront 
 difficulties rather courtingly than otherwise, 
 as offering an agreeable variety of little hills 
 to be skipped over instead of the dead level 
 of a parquet floor to walk on in high-heeled 
 slippers, A girl who, at seventeen, had
 
 14 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 gone through her experience of conflict and 
 rapine could not class herself with the 
 jeunes demoiselles of the society their intro- 
 ductions permitted the dames Lagastine to 
 enter. She often tried to fancy the demure 
 damsels, who had never looked at anything 
 more exciting than the face of a mantel 
 clock or the frown of a mother superior, in 
 one of the many situations of that dark 
 dream of the war. Mme. de Lagastine, 
 hedged in from childhood by prosperity and 
 proprieties, had by now drifted into a 
 chronic state of bewilderment and helpless- 
 ness. As far as money matters went, 
 Berthe, who had never known where money 
 came from, was a match for her. Their 
 income, sufficient for their wants, was re- 
 mitted by a banker in New Orleans. For a 
 year or two after their arrival in Paris they 
 had, by the advice of one or two families of 
 old Louisianians settled there, lived in good 
 apartments in a fashionable street. Lessons
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 15 
 
 began for Berthe. She had certain hours 
 with a daily governess, others with, respec- 
 tively a music master, who came in his 
 coupe and was always cross and hurried ; a 
 dancing master, who found there was very 
 little he could teach a young person able to 
 waltz for hours with scarcely an increase of 
 the pale glow on her cheek ; a drawing mas- 
 ter, perpetually harassed by her heretical 
 ideas on art ; and the professors who kept 
 her hair and finger nails in order at five 
 francs the seance. Her mother had, of 
 course, a little carriage in which to take her 
 drives. Who ever heard of a demoiselle St. 
 Felix setting foot to earth? And there was 
 a lady's maid, a man, and a red-cheeked 
 cnisiniere, who ordered everything the 
 establishment required, while the butler, 
 when off other duty, skated in baize slippers 
 over the already shining floors. A modest 
 establishment in comparison with that of 
 Les Amandiers, but one that exacted a
 
 1 6 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 comfortable sum to support it ; and in the 
 course of time came warning from their 
 man of affairs (an old friend of gallant Colo- 
 nel de Lagastine, and sincerely anxious to 
 do his best for the widow and orphan) that 
 immediate retrenchment must be made. 
 
 Over this letter madame cried a little, 
 observing that it was impossible, barbarous 
 a fortune like hers to have melted into 
 thin air! asked Berthe to admire the effect 
 of the single-stitch background she was put- 
 ting into the tapestry intended for the 
 birthday of her gossip Mme. de Tersac ; 
 then rang to have hot water renewed in the 
 boule at her feet and dismissed the subject 
 from her thoughts. Berthe, picking up the 
 offending letter, studied it carefully, an un- 
 pleasant belief in its trustworthiness taking 
 possession of her mind. What should she 
 do? Whither turn for counsel? To-mor- 
 row, at any rate, she would call on good 
 Mme. de Tersac.
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. ij 
 
 While Berthe's brow was knotting over 
 these problems, and while Mme. de Laga- 
 stine stitched, or crooned over the Skye 
 terrier carrying an imperceptible though 
 suspected countenance under an enormous 
 yellow bow, Auguste came into the sitting 
 room with a card upon his tray. 
 
 "I am engaged. I am always engaged," 
 began madame fretfully; but Berthe 
 pounced upon the card. 
 
 "Mamma!" she exclaimed in a whisper, 
 "can you imagine who has found us out? 
 It is someone I knew long, long ago when 
 I was young it is Belmont Carrington !" 
 
 When, presently, their friend of happier 
 days sat, holding hat and stick, upon an 
 absurdly incompetent gilt chair, they saw 
 how nature had more than fulfilled the 
 promise of his beautiful youth. Oftentimes 
 they had heard of him ; knew that, recalled 
 from the university at the beginning of hos- 
 tilities, he had fought through the war as a
 
 1 8 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 member of the famous Washington Artil- 
 lery; and that, returning after Appomattox 
 to New Orleans, he had found himself to be 
 possessed of a principality in barren acres 
 with which to begin anew the world. En- 
 tering the banking house of Mme. de La- 
 gastine's kind agent, Mr. Duval, Belmont 
 had soon been fortunate enough to secure 
 a more lucrative post in Paris. Handsome, 
 well accredited, distinguished for gallantry 
 in service, possessed of unusual charm in 
 manner, he had at once made friends. 
 Berthe had repeatedly heard of him as a 
 bright particular star in the Creole colony of 
 Paris, so blent with the old regime of aris- 
 tocratic France as to be more than a reflec- 
 tion of the Faubourg St. Germain. While 
 he and her mother talked Berthe specu- 
 lated upon these things, and wondered 
 why his eyes kept wandering around to 
 her with such a curious expression of 
 surprise.
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 19 
 
 "I had promised myself the pleasure of 
 calling upon you long since, madame," he 
 said, hesitating for a moment as if about 
 rising to take leave. "I will honestly con- 
 fess that it was one of those visits we defer 
 through accident until we are at last 
 ashamed to show ourselves. To-day I am 
 armed with a letter from my friend, Mr. 
 Duval, who has charged me with a duty I 
 should be glad to put aside. It is about 
 business he fears that his letters have 
 failed to make you understand he begs me 
 to explain to you the disposition of certain 
 of your investments." 
 
 Madame grew inattentive. She found it 
 impossible to fix her gaze longer upon a 
 subject so uninteresting. At this juncture, 
 with a little toss of the head and a slight 
 inflation of the nostrils, mademoiselle en- 
 tered the arena. 
 
 "I think, if you will, Mr. Carrington, you 
 had better explain to me what Mr. Duval
 
 20 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 wishes us to know. It is I who take charge 
 of my mother's accounts." 
 
 "It is no doubt the same old story which 
 I cannot understand," said the widow wea- 
 rily. 
 
 Belmont looked at Berthe with a new em- 
 barrassment. From the steady gaze of her 
 serious eyes he gained courage. 
 
 With the papers sent by Mr. Duval open 
 between them at a little table, they went 
 over many details hitherto unknown to the 
 young girl. When the examination was at 
 an end she pondered briefly, then spoke 
 composedly: 
 
 "We have no right, then, to be living as 
 we are. The sum you say we may spend 
 would not pay a fourth part of what we do 
 spend. To-morrow, Mr. Carrington, I shall 
 see Mme. de Tersac, who will advise me 
 where to go." 
 
 "It is needless to say you may command 
 me in any and every way," he answered,
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 21 
 
 astonished at her composed acceptance of a 
 lot of poverty. 
 
 "That we shall, never fear," Berthe said 
 smiling; "I have the most vivid remem- 
 brance of the time when you played Perci- 
 net to my Graciosa at the fish pond." 
 
 "Oh, I remember now," he cried. "I 
 shall have to own that, until I met you 
 again, I had almost forgotten my rescue of 
 let me see what was it, your poodle, your 
 page boy, or 
 
 "It was me," Berthe interjected loftily. 
 
 Decidedly, she regretted her cordiality 
 with this oblivious personage. But when, 
 laughing and apologizing, he took his leave, 
 it seemed to her somehow that sunshine 
 had gone with him. With a sigh, she sat 
 down beside her mother and gently made 
 clear to her the inevitableness of a change 
 in their style of living. 
 
 Next day, and often thereafter, Belmont 
 placed himself at the disposal of his coun-
 
 22 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 trywomen, to aid in recasting their plans in 
 the narrower mold of cheap lodgings with 
 "table understood." Old Mine, de Ter- 
 sac, as practical, luckily, as she was kind, 
 herself a New Orleans woman living on 
 nothing in particular a year, took this mat- 
 ter into her own hands, driving about in a 
 fiacre, accompanied by Bcrthe, and occasion- 
 ally by Belmont, to find a suitable pension. 
 After several Chcsterfieldian spats about 
 terms and privileges with landladies, silver- 
 voiced and rapacious, of each of whom in 
 turn Mme. de Tersac, on returning to the 
 carriage, would aver "that woman is an infa- 
 mous plunderer, who would sell the bones 
 of her grandmother for cash," the order was 
 given to drive along the Avenue de la 
 Grande Arme, thence beyond the barrier 
 to a villa boarding house, adjoining one of 
 the chief gates of the Bois. 
 
 "I left this for the last, my dear, because 
 your poor mamma will have to pay extra
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 2$ 
 
 cab-hire for the privilege of driving one 
 square beyond the city limits." 
 
 "But it is charming!" cried the girl. 
 
 "Charming! Perhaps," said the old lady 
 with reserve; "but undoubtedly bourgeois; 
 and I'm wondering how we can ever bring 
 your poor mamma to think of it ! A demoi- 
 selle St. Felix ! But there, there, let's look 
 first and talk afterward. The gate with gilt 
 railings to the left, cocker ; and I hope this 
 creature won't prove a shark." 
 
 It was a bright day of autumn when 
 Berthe exclaimed with pleasure at her first 
 view of Bois Dormant. The inner walls 
 of the house and its dependencies, built 
 around a flagged and shady courtyard into 
 which peeped the treetops of the Bois, 
 Avere covered with overlapping ivy, save 
 where the jewel brightness of white-cur- 
 tained windows broke the green facade. In 
 many of these windows bloomed pots of 
 hardy flowers, and the garden beds below
 
 24 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 were gay with blossoms. A colony of 
 brown birds, chattering ceaselessly, were the 
 only tenants of the yard. 
 
 " Pretty, pretty place ! " said Berthe. 
 "Why is it so still?" 
 
 "Because the boarders are all old people, 
 my dear, and Ah! Mme. la Propri- 
 e"taire, no doubt!" 
 
 Mme. la Proprie"taire, in black silk, with 
 a velvet jacket, a tulle cap with pink rose- 
 buds, a gold watch ticking at her waist, 
 a mustache that would have been the 
 glory of a college lad, received ces dames 
 with the usual effusion of her class. Yes, 
 there was a rez-de~chauss4e still to let, with 
 meals at the pension table, where madame, 
 the mother of mademoiselle, could be made 
 most comfortable ; a little garden, a ber- 
 ceau, oh ! a berccau and in spring the 
 nightingales of the Bois the boarders all 
 excellent people people settled, people 
 delicate, whose candles are put out by ten
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 25 
 
 o'clock. Mademoiselle herself would, no 
 doubt, arrive from boarding-school, to visit 
 madame her mamma on Sundays? 
 
 Belmont laughed at Berthe's majesty of 
 mien, and Mme. de Tersac hastened to ex- 
 plain that her friends were the widow and 
 daughter of a Confederate officer, killed in 
 the late war in America, who required ac- 
 commodations together, as well as quarters 
 for their maid. 
 
 Mme. la Proprietaire's brow puckered 
 with instant sympathy. Truly, the rez-de- 
 c/taussSe, with the garden and the berceau, 
 seemed designed by Providence for the 
 retreat of ces dames ; she had heard of that 
 sad war in I'Amerique du Sud, but pardon, 
 was not mademoiselle a trifle fair for one of 
 her oppressed race? One of the boarders 
 a sister of the lamented genius Baras, the 
 great romancer was also a mulatto, but 
 darker far in tint than mademoiselle! 
 
 The ringing silver of Berthe's laugh re-
 
 26 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 fused to be restrained. It rippled into the 
 still precincts of Bois Dormant, and set the 
 birds to chirping more busily than before. 
 His friends established in their new 
 abode, Belmont's commission from Mr. 
 Duval was at an end. But many a time, 
 out of the busy, brilliant world of Paris, his 
 feet turned aside to seek the quiet spot 
 where, in a little salon hung with thread- 
 bare crimson stuff, Mme. de Lagastine 
 sat in her easy-chair working eternal tapes- 
 tries, and Berthe hovered, fresh, sparkling, 
 full of infinite variety, welcoming him with 
 all her ingenuous soul within her eyes. To 
 her he was not only the boy champion 
 illumined with the light of Les Amandiers, 
 the ideal soldier of the Lost Cause, but a 
 comrade in whose society her youth had 
 begun to bloom again, her sad memories to 
 fade. Often they walked together in the 
 Bois, in company with Berthe's neighbor 
 from the attic floor above, Mme. Letel-
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 27 
 
 Her, a gentle old woman who had conceived 
 a strong friendship for the solitary girl. 
 Sometimes Berthe and he dined with Mme. 
 de Tersac, to go to opera or theater. 
 Once Carrington was allowed to entertain 
 the girl and her kind old friend with a din- 
 ner followed by the play. But her moth- 
 er's declining health and their narrow cir- 
 cumstances shut Berthe out, in general, 
 from the pleasures of her age. Carrington 
 felt that in her he had discovered a virgin 
 island rich in budding fruit and bloom, the 
 right to which there was none to dispute 
 with him. His easy success in bringing 
 light to her eyes, and pink to her clear pale 
 cheeks, intoxicated him. All the while he 
 was stung by an inward conviction that a 
 knowledge of his real self, his life, would, if 
 known to her, cause Berthe pain beyond all 
 imagining. Each day he resolved to ex- 
 plain to her his actual position, to make 
 clear certain restraining circumstances that
 
 28 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 held him bound ; and each day Berthe's 
 sweet presence witched him to self-indul- 
 gence. 
 
 One bright winter's day, through the 
 kind offices of Mme. de Tersac's friend, the 
 Due de Bassano, came rose-colored tickets 
 of invitation to a ball to be given at the 
 Tuileries in honor of certain "visiting sov- 
 ereigns." It was all very well, Berthe 
 thought joyfully, for some of her mother's 
 friends, who were moldy old Legitimists, to 
 sigh and shake their heads over the idea of 
 their accepting. Mine, de Tersac, immo- 
 lating herself in an old blue velvet, with oft- 
 times cleaned point de Venise, that had seen 
 many a court festivity, had secured the 
 services as escort of the Comte de Barrot, 
 who, though no lover of the present court, 
 came sometimes across the Seine to look in 
 upon its extravagances; and with such a 
 background of respectability even Mme. de 
 Lagastine could not find fault.
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 29 
 
 Who shall sing of the glories of our 
 heroine's first ball? From the moment 
 when, rumpling herself into the corner 
 of the brougham in order not to crush 
 her young lady's tulle, Mme. de Tersac 
 called out in her hoarse old voice, "To 
 the Tuileries, Adolphe," Berthe's spirit was 
 on wings. 
 
 At the foot of the grand staircase of fifty 
 steps, carpeted with crimson and lined on 
 either side by the splendid phalanx of the 
 emperor's Cent Gardes, between whose 
 ranks flowed a glittering stream of men in 
 court costume, with swords and orders, and 
 women borne down under the weight of 
 hereditary gems, they were met by the 
 count, a stately vieux moustache with snow- 
 white hair, whose eye kindled approvingly 
 at sight of his youthful charge. 
 
 When, in the radiance of myriad wax 
 lights, caressed by the strains of Strauss 
 waltzes led by Strauss, they paused in the
 
 3 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 great Salle de la Paix for breath, hustled on 
 every side by a dazzling, pushing, courteous 
 multitude, Berthe's wonder found vent in 
 words. 
 
 "You must try to fancy it," said the 
 count, "as I saw this room when the palace 
 was held by the mob in Forty-eight. I 
 suppose a young lady would shudder at the 
 idea of the National Guards bivouacking 
 here on trusses of hay, eating their bread and 
 sausage and drinking the wine their majes- 
 ties had left behind ; but to me it was very 
 picturesque." 
 
 "I am not that kind of a young lady," 
 Berthe answered. "Our own dining room 
 at Les Amandiers, in Mississippi, was so 
 used by the soldiers during one of the Fed- 
 eral raids. We women kept ourselves 
 locked in upstairs with loaded pistols, which 
 we fortunately did not need. I shall never 
 forget that long night spent in listening to 
 their songs and shouts. When they left us
 
 A DAUGHTER OF TH'E SOUTH. 31 
 
 next day, it was as if the Egyptian locusts 
 had passed over the place" 
 
 "I had forgotten that it is a true daugh- 
 ter of Mars whom I have the honor to 
 escort," said the count. "Now, mesdames, 
 if you please, we had better push on to the 
 Salle des Mare"chaux. Ah ! what a crowd ! 
 It will need a stronger arm than mine to 
 open a way for both of you." 
 
 "Can I be of service, Count?" asked a 
 gentleman, against whom they were thrown 
 by a buffet of the throng. 
 
 "Ah ! Meester Ludlow, you are very 
 good. Permit me to introduce you to 
 Mme. de Tersac and to your charming 
 compatriot, Mees de Lagastine. If you will 
 give your arm to mademoiselle. There. 
 En avant ! March !" 
 
 Berthe saw the valiant count and breath- 
 less little Mme. de Tersac borne away 
 from her without resistance. A rumor that 
 their Majesties had come in swayed the
 
 32 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 entire mass of people in the direction of the 
 Salle des Marechaux, blazing with gilded 
 fretwork just ahead. Giving a side glance 
 at her companion, she discerned that he was 
 tall, blond, and stalwart, carrying himself 
 with a military air that became him well. 
 In turn, his rather cold blue eyes were scan- 
 ning her with an expression she could not 
 but resent. 
 
 "You did not expect to be burdened with 
 a girl?" she said, with a childish impulse to 
 withdraw her arm from his. 
 
 "We will discuss that when I have suc- 
 ceeded in restoring you to your friends," he 
 answered indifferently, and then the current 
 swept them on. In vain the chambellans 
 shouted " R-r-eculez-vous, messieurs et 
 dames, s'il vous plait" ; the throng moved 
 forward as one man. It was a crush in 
 which the fairest arms were excoriated by 
 contact with neighboring epaulets; where 
 swordhilts were pressed into adjacent ribs;
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 33 
 
 where a fat lady, requesting a gentleman to 
 be good enough to remove his finger from 
 her ear, was answered politely that nothing 
 would give him greater pleasure were not 
 the thing physically impossible just then ! 
 
 When, at length, brought up against a 
 gilded railing, Berthe found herself in a 
 wreck of tattered tulle, it was at the mo- 
 ment when Louis Napoleon and Eugenie 
 she fair as a swan, radiant and gracious, 
 aglitter with a thousand gems accompanied 
 by their royal guests, were in the act of 
 seating themselves upon their golden chairs 
 of state. Around them upon the dais was 
 grouped such a constellation of dignitaries 
 as made it appear that all Europe and the 
 Orient were focussed upon the left bank of 
 the Seine. Berthe, forgetting all besides, 
 bloomed with excitement, rained questions, 
 devoured Ludlow's information, and ended 
 by charming him with her naivett. 
 
 "You can say you have seen the Second
 
 34 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTJf. 
 
 Empire at flood tide of glory, certainly," he 
 said, at the end of half an hour. 
 
 "But I am awfully disappointed in its 
 chief," she cried. "He is little and yel- 
 low, and looks half asleep. Most of the 
 grandees, in fact, are disappointing; but 
 their clothes and jewels are all I could de- 
 sire. Thank you so much for enlightening 
 my ignorance. I am only afraid I've bored 
 you." 
 
 "Promise to let me settle that score with 
 you at another time," he began, with a smile 
 that reassured her, when an amused voice at 
 Berthe's elbow made her start. 
 
 "Here you are, in the front rank of star- 
 gazers," said Carrington. "If you knew at 
 what peril to life and limb I crossed to you ! 
 Colonel Ludlow, I am commissioned by 
 Mme. de Tersac to restore to her your 
 charge." 
 
 As Ludlow bowed and moved away, 
 Berthe laid her hand on Carrington's arm
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 35 
 
 and whispered eagerly, "Who is Colonel 
 Ludlow? He has been so very kind to 
 me." 
 
 " Ludlow ? " said Belmont carelessly, 
 "why, one of our conquerors. The best 
 fellow in the world." 
 
 "A Yankee officer?" 
 
 "Certainly, and a distinguished one. 
 We had, when we first met in Paris, been 
 figuratively engaged in popping bullets at 
 each other during the four years past, but 
 are now on amicable terms." 
 
 "Oh! how can you jest?" she said in her 
 tragic way. "You who have fought through 
 all you who upheld our glorious banner 
 till it trailed in dust. I understand now 
 why I disliked him at first sight." 
 
 Fire flashed from her eyes. Belmont, 
 to hide a smile, turned and looked at a 
 far window-seat shrouded in velvet dotted 
 with golden bees. There, limp and yawn- 
 ing, sat Mme. de Tersac, her lace torn, her
 
 36 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 poor blue velvet whipped out of shape, her 
 feet aching, but thankful to find a chair. 
 Beside her, erect and gallant, the old count 
 stood beckoning. 
 
 "I am glad, mademoiselle, that you were 
 cared for by my excellent friend Ludlow," 
 he said, when the party came again to- 
 gether. "I felt safe in presenting to you a 
 compatriot so well indorsed by your amia- 
 ble meenester, le General Deex." 
 
 "He is not my amiable minister," ex- 
 claimed rebel Berthe pettishly. But she 
 felt, when she caught the twinkle in Bel- 
 mont's eyes, that she had not aquitted her- 
 self with heroic dignity. 
 
 On the morning of Christmas Eve 
 Berthe's light feet sped up the stairs, flight 
 after flight, to the attic of Villa Bois 
 Dormant. 
 
 "Entrez" said a sweet voice, as she 
 knocked at a door under the eaves.
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 37 
 
 Berthe turned the knob and found herself in 
 a large room with sloping ceilings, the space 
 divided by screens, walls, and windows, hung 
 with glazed chintz scattered with rosebuds 
 and green leaves, floor brightly waxed, a 
 sunny window full of birds and plants. 
 This was the nest of Mine. Letellier, 
 Berthe's chosen friend of all the ancients of 
 Bois Dormant, a swarthy, bright-eyed little 
 lady, who had been a prize pupil of Samson 
 in the Conservatoire and had made a suc- 
 cessful dtfbut at the Odeon many a long 
 year agone. Leaving the stage, tempora- 
 rily, to marry, she had, upon the birth of her 
 first child, been stricken with a malady that 
 robbed her of strength and voice. 
 
 "We lived then in a little cottage at 
 Asnieres," the old woman had told Berthe. 
 "Thither came my old associates to condole 
 with me ; Louise, from the Come'die Fran- 
 $aise, Clementine from the Gaiete". They 
 would bring in at the door a whiff of the air 
 
 458657
 
 38 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 that intoxicates me even now the true air 
 of the theater that the actor does not forget. 
 They would rustle and chatter and boast 
 while I would rock the cradle and listen, my 
 heart tugging at its leash. Oh, then it was 
 that I seemed again to hear the great wave 
 of applause, on which a player rides into his 
 paradise I, who had tasted my moment of 
 success!" 
 
 "And what then, dear madame?" 
 "Eh! what then? My tempters went 
 away, my boy awoke and cried for nourish- 
 ment, my good husband came in from his 
 work. We had means enough, we loved. 
 No, no, there are sorrows in life more 
 poignant than to renounce ambition. Mine 
 were to come. What was I, after all, 
 but 'encore une toile qui file, file et 
 disparait.' " 
 
 "Now I know what an artist you were 
 you are!" cried the girl ; "to hear you say 
 that line of Beranger was like the breath of
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 39 
 
 an ^Eolian harp. But tell me more about 
 your life." 
 
 "After I was a widow and had suffered in 
 many ways, I thought myself lucky to 
 secure this asylum under the roof-tree of a 
 quiet house. When I rented it, ma foi, 
 Mme. Thonet was surprised it had been 
 used as a garret only. I was poor, and 
 little by little have hung the walls with my 
 own hands, have added books, flowers, fur- 
 niture, as you see. It is a good air that I 
 breathe here, and in spring the treetops of 
 .the Bois make a green murmuring ocean 
 beneath me as I sit at the window sewing." 
 
 "And your son, madame? Does he come 
 on Sundays with his wife and little ones to 
 take you home to dinner, like the rest?" 
 
 "No, my child," the old Frenchwoman 
 said gently. "When the emperor sent 
 Maximilian into Mexico my boy went too. 
 See, there is all that is left me of my 
 son."
 
 4<5 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 And Berthe's eyes, following the indica- 
 tion of her finger, saw on the wall a soldier's 
 picture swathed in crape ; above it the tri- 
 color of France. 
 
 "Ours is a common grief, madame. My 
 father also lies in a soldier's grave," she 
 answered, bursting into the old hot tears 
 that had seemed in Confederate days to 
 come from a bottomless fountain. It was 
 madame, dry-eyed and tender, who soothed 
 her into repose. 
 
 After that time Berthe's intimacy with 
 the old woman had rapidly increased. Ma- 
 dame lent her books first, grudgingly, as 
 to a jeune fille of France "La Colombe" 
 of Alexander Dumas, pure as its title, "La 
 Tulipe Noire," and "La Mare au Diable," 
 the lovely idyl of George Sand ; afterward, 
 with astonishment at her maturity of taste, 
 dramatists, ancient and modern, from whose 
 pages Berthe was bidden to read and recite. 
 In return, Berthe saved for her fruit and
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 41 
 
 bonbons, welcomed as a canary welcomes 
 sugar in his cage ; and the girl's pretty fash- 
 ion of stealing in with violets for the hang- 
 ing cup beneath the soldier's portrait on 
 the wall sealed to hers indissolubly the old 
 woman's loving heart. 
 
 To-day Berthe was in high spirits. Car- 
 rington had written to propose to Mme. 
 Letellier and herself to attend with him 
 the midnight mass at the Madeleine. To 
 please her, to waken that bright look of girl- 
 ish joy in her face, Belmont was even pre- 
 pared to run away from a dinner of men to 
 which he was engaged, and sit half the 
 night on a hard chair in the surge of a 
 crowd combining sensationalism with en- 
 forced religious observance. 
 
 Berthe found her friend in street costume, 
 her face pale, her eyes red with weeping. 
 
 " Tenez, mon enfant, it is the anniversary 
 of my greatest sorrow," the old woman said. 
 "Since early this morning I have been in
 
 42 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 the Chapelle Expiatoire to pray for my lost 
 Elise." 
 
 "A daughter, too? All you loved dead? 
 Poor, poor madame !" 
 
 A look of anguish came into the mother's 
 face. 
 
 "She is not dead. It would have been 
 better had she died. It is a whole year 
 since she left me," she cried chokingly. 
 
 Berthe started, shuddering. For the life 
 of her she could not govern the chill that 
 held her in its grip. The stricken mother, 
 offering no protest, simply bent her head 
 forward and stood waiting. Then blushing 
 hotly, and with a keen impulse of remorse, 
 Berthe exclaimed " Oh ! I was cruel to let 
 you see my heart." 
 
 "Not so, my child. It is part of my 
 cross that I must daily and nightly bear," 
 the widow answered gently. "But, oh! to 
 lie down and to rise up knowing that this 
 great city holds hidden one so dear, one that
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 43 
 
 no hand of mine may rescue. Ah me! God's 
 will be done. My petite Berthe will forgive 
 me that I had not courage to tell her this 
 before. She will forget the poor sinner who 
 is part of me; she will not withhold from 
 me her love?" 
 
 "Trust me," said Berthe. 
 
 Since ten o'clock they had been seated in 
 the nave of the vast church, in a semi-dark- 
 ness that hid the tracery of carved stone, 
 the mosaic of many-colored marbles, the 
 luster of gilded chapels. Around them the 
 crowd gathered to the utmost limits of the 
 interior a strange, mixed company of dev- 
 otees, from the boulevardier fini in evening 
 clothes reeking with fumes of cigars and 
 wine, kneeling side by side with the peasant 
 woman in her turret cap, to the petite dame 
 in sables, telling her beads with downcast 
 eyes at the elbow of some workman, swart 
 and grimy spite of his new-washed blouse of
 
 44 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 blue. Through the night these people were 
 to troop up continually to the high altar, 
 scattering, after the most solemn commun- 
 ion of the year, to resume their several 
 avocations. Berthe, heedless of incongrui- 
 ties, rapt in a trance of pleasure, sat 
 with Belmont beside the old madame, who 
 for the most part knelt, lost in devotion, 
 upon the marble flags. At no time had the 
 girl felt so near, so deliciously at rest with 
 him to whom she had now come to surren- 
 der the love of her maiden heart. They 
 spoke rarely, to exchange whispers in which 
 each strove to repress the trembling of 
 happy voices fraught with tenderness. 
 
 To Berthe it was as if they two had 
 secured some little island around which an 
 ocean surged to cut them off from human- 
 ity less blest. To Belmont, alas ! this was 
 but a time of indulgence too precious to be 
 given up, too perilous to be repeated. 
 
 Then, from behind the sculptured angels
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 45 
 
 of the high altar issued a blast as of silver 
 trumpets, and over the kneeling multitude 
 burst a flood of light. During the pageant 
 of the mass a man's voice chanted Adolphe 
 Adam's "Noel": 
 
 " Minuit, Chretien ! C'est 1'heure solennelle 
 Ou I'Homme-Dieu descenclit sur la terre." 
 
 Berthe sat spellbound until the triumph- 
 ing refrain : 
 
 " Noel ! Noel ! Voici le Redempteur ! " 
 
 swelled to the full force of a glorious bary- 
 tone, and the organ caught up and swept 
 away the strain. 
 
 "I feel as if I had touched the gate of 
 heaven," she whispered to Carrington, who 
 smiled and answered that the famous singer 
 from the opera house was in very good form 
 to-night, certainly. Belmont did not care 
 how long this sort of thing went on, so that 
 he might watch the girl's face glowing and 
 paling like an aurora borealis.
 
 46 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Suddenly she looked at a point near one 
 of the chapels at the side. 
 
 "Anyone you know?" he asked carelessly. 
 
 "The strangest thing," she said; "I felt as 
 if someone were impelling me to look, and, 
 over there, I saw such a sad white face gaz- 
 ing at us a girl, beautifully dressed, with 
 golden hair; there, do you see? no, she has 
 vanished in the crowd." 
 
 "I saw her rather an unusual type of 
 her class a little 'off/ probably. Please, 
 when you have any glances to bestow, turn 
 them this way." 
 
 "Hush!" said Berthe reprovingly. Dur- 
 ing the remainder of the service she could 
 feel nothing but the fullness of content. 
 As they came out into the struggling dawn 
 of Christmas morning, through the vestibule 
 that was a few years later to be the scene of 
 the Communist slaughter by the troops, she 
 saw Colonel Ludlow with a party of Ameri- 
 cans. To her present exalted state of mind 
 he was an interruption, a cloud. While
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 47 
 
 bestowing on him a frosty little nod, she 
 wondered at a certain indefinable shadow in 
 his eyes, which, from a person privileged 
 to bestow on her compassion, might have 
 been interpreted into expressing that emo- 
 tion. 
 
 Carrington put the ladies into a fiacre to 
 set off on their long drive to Bois Dormant. 
 Standing upon the sidewalk, hat in hand, 
 the familiar brilliant smile upon his face, 
 Berthe's last glimpse of him filled her heart 
 with a proud joy. 
 
 To have seen the society of Villa Bois 
 Dormant at its best before the siege of the 
 Versailles troops in 1871 laid low the quaint 
 old domicile and worked havoc in the bow- 
 ery streets surrounding it one should have 
 waited until evening brought out the an- 
 tique butterflies in what they called their 
 "toilets for the day." At the dejeuner de 
 midi the groups around the tables in the 
 great bare dining room resembled a collec-
 
 48 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 tion of shrunken chrysalids. Equipped in 
 skull caps, camisoles, curl papers, snuffy 
 coats, or dingy short gowns generally 
 omitting wigs and teeth the old creatures 
 mumbled and grumbled, compared symp- 
 toms, mixed doses, scolded Mme. la Propri- 
 taire and her minions, and often' went 
 through the ceremony of threatening to 
 change their quarters to the pension across 
 the way. 
 
 It was at dinner, when the lamps were 
 lighted and some vases of artificial flowers 
 lent to the tables a festal air, that the old 
 ladies emerged in gayest attire of silk and 
 velvet, with tiers of snowy curls or frontlets 
 of jetty black; th'e men, shaven and spruce, 
 in tight-fitting black coats showing the inev- 
 itable red button of honor on the breast ; 
 all chattering, laughing, bandying jests and 
 compliments, offering snuffboxes, and wav- 
 ing handkerchiefs of flaring silk. 
 
 Christmas week having passed without
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 49 
 
 especial celebration, the dawn of New 
 Year's day woke up, in common with all 
 Paris, the Villa Bois Dormant. Directly 
 after the first breakfast, set in a procession 
 of servants and tradespeople, even including 
 the merry little Auvergnat cobbler who had 
 once mended a rip in Mile. Berthe's shoe, to 
 offer compliments and smiles and to receive 
 reward according to the limit of the giver's 
 purse. Then the boarders, attired as for 
 Sunday junketings abroad, came fluttering 
 out into the sunshine of the green-walled 
 court. The air was full of shrill pipings of 
 good-fellowship. Next, flinging wide the 
 gilded gates of the porte-cochere, Belgian 
 Antoine stood, with his crumpled face re- 
 laxed into a broad smile of welcome. In 
 trooped a gay medley of married sons and 
 daughters, leading or carrying their little 
 ones, each laden with a New Year's offering 
 of flowers or sweets. To find out bon papa, 
 to surprise bonne maman, was the order of
 
 50 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 the hour. Nothing was heard but outcries 
 of pleasure and caressing. Bearded men 
 kissed each other on both cheeks, kissed the 
 grandparents, kissed the children ; when the 
 tumult subsided there arose the quavering 
 exclamations of the old people upon the 
 schoolboy's growth and uniform, the baby's 
 teeth, the young matron's bravery of lace 
 and jet and fur. A ceremony not omitted 
 was the formal presentation to fellow board- 
 ers of families known, through the daily 
 gossip of Bois Dormant, from A to Z. And 
 at last, after a visit to the quarters of bon 
 papa or bonne maman in search of ttrenncs 
 hidden there, the merry crowd dispersed. 
 Bonneted, cloaked, cosseted by their young, 
 the boarders were carried off in triumph to 
 finish the day en fete. 
 
 Well pleased to be sought by Berthe, 
 Mme. Letellier that afternoon quitted her 
 solitude beneath the eaves to walk with the 
 young girl along the boulevards, where the
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 51 
 
 whole bright world of Paris seemed to have 
 flung itself upon the street in a delirium of 
 fun. In Berthe the Southern gayety of 
 nature, ever quick to be aroused, made 
 instant answer to the challenge of this 
 brilliant atmosphere touched but not 
 chilled by frost, the booths edging for miles 
 the sidewalks, the ambulating venders of 
 hot drinks carried in reservoirs upon their 
 backs, of flowers, of "gauffres et plaisirs, 
 M'sieurs et Mesdames" the black throngs 
 of sightseers, the bands of maskers, the 
 incessant ripple of merriment tinkling along 
 the lines. Herself an unconscious picture 
 in the toque and fur-bordered pelisse of 
 Polish cut, all russet-brown in tint save for 
 the red rose nestling at her breast and the 
 clear shining of her happy face, she walked 
 with a free, quick stride with which ma- 
 dame's mouse-like steps had much ado to 
 keep company. 
 
 Madame, shrewd and anxious, had a fair
 
 52 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 suspicion of the origin of some part of 
 Berthe's exhilaration on this Jour de I" An. 
 That morning had arrived, with a card from 
 Carrington, whom she had failed to see 
 since the night of the midnight mass, a 
 basket of gilded osier overflowing with red 
 roses and white lilacs ; after it, a box sent 
 by express from Nice from the gardens of 
 the poet florist, Alphonse Karr, in which, 
 bedded in large and luscious violets, lay a 
 tangle of wet jasmine that might have 
 twined on the galleries of Les Aman- 
 diers. 
 
 "Who could have divined my longing to 
 smell jasmine again?" Berthe had won- 
 dered, laying the sprays against her cheek, 
 drinking in the familiar fragrance, shutting 
 her eyes to dream of her ruined home. 
 
 "Mamma, madame, see here!" she had 
 cried eagerly to her two observers. "Not a 
 note or a card to say who has made my 
 New Year dawn so happily."
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 53 
 
 "Some one of our Southern friends, no 
 doubt," said Mme. de Lagastine, looking 
 up for a moment with lackluster eyes. 
 "One, two, three greens and one red. You 
 grow more like your father, child. Will 
 you -remember to tell the person of the 
 house that I cannot put up with the draught 
 from that window another day." 
 
 Although Berthe wore loyally one of Bel- 
 mont's roses, "the scent of that jasmine 
 flower" followed her throughout the wintry 
 walk. It was, therefore, with not only sur- 
 prise but distaste that she found herself 
 accosted in the thickest of the throng by 
 the man of all others least in touch with her 
 happy reverie. Ludlow, who could not well 
 have failed to read her impulse in her art- 
 less face, wasted no time in idle ceremony. 
 
 "You will pardon me, I hope," he said in 
 French to include madame, "but I don't 
 think you ladies should walk along this 
 square alone. There is a party of masquer-
 
 54 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 aders just ahead who arc likely to get into 
 mischief with the police if they keep on 
 their present line. If you don't mind, I shall 
 go with you until you have passed the 
 spot." 
 
 "Thank you," said Berthe briefly, while 
 madame poured out more bounteous courte- 
 sies. To recede was worse than to go on. 
 Ludlow, keeping close ahead of Bcrthe, 
 madame following, used his shoulder as a 
 wedge to open a way through the multitude 
 now unpleasantly astir. For it needs but 
 such a trifle to shift the temper of a Paris 
 crowd from gayety to anger. A bourgeois, 
 insufficiently excusing himself for treading 
 on his neighbor's toe in his zeal to push for- 
 ward to see he knows not what, may in an 
 instant transform these smiling revelers to a 
 semblance of the human tigers of the past 
 tragedies of Paris streets. Startled by the 
 ominous mutter of the excited throng, 
 Berthe instinctively glanced at the house-
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 55 
 
 front nearest them, hoping to find a refuge. 
 On the balcony above, a party of people in 
 street dress had come out to look at the 
 panorama of the boulevard. Behind the 
 others, leaning down with the bright look of 
 interest Berthe knew so well, was Belmont 
 Carrington in close conversation with a 
 woman. 
 
 "Handsome, well bred, well dressed, not 
 too young," was Berthe's mental inventory. 
 "How many friends he has we do not know! 
 I am glad he does not see me hustled in 
 this crowd. I will not look again because 
 well, because I want to look." At this 
 point of her speculation she lost count of 
 minor incidents. The police, interposing, 
 had forced a vent ahead for the passage of 
 the strugglers. A portion of the crowd sur- 
 rounding the drunken maskers was pushed 
 between the booths into the street. A 
 scream in a woman's voice was followed by 
 oaths, shouts, the trampling of horses, a
 
 56 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 fresh rush of the crowd. Berthe, carried 
 resistlessly toward the point of excitement, 
 found herself, to her dismay, caught up in 
 Ludlow's arms, and, to avoid being violently 
 hurled upon the asphalt, held for a long mo- 
 ment clasped to his breast. The words of 
 reluctant gratitude tempered with shame- 
 faced rebuke that, when she was set in 
 safety down, rushed to her lips were silenced 
 by the stern reality confronting her. Al- 
 most at her feet lay a young lad, pale and 
 lifeless, his short golden hair brushing the 
 knee of the gendarme who had dragged him 
 from beneath the hoofs of a pair of spirited 
 horses attached to a brougham, in which sat 
 two gentlemen on their way to make calls of 
 the Jour de I'An, laden with costly flowers 
 and bonbonnieres. Upon her first glance at 
 the still face, shadowed by sunny locks from 
 which the cap had fallen away, Berthe, with 
 a thrill, recognized the features of the girl 
 whose mournful gaze she had encountered
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 57 
 
 at the Madeleine. The puzzle was made 
 clear when, uttering a strange cry that 
 pierced the bystanders' hearts with sym- 
 pathy, Mme. Letellier ran forward and fell 
 upon her knees beside the inanimate figure, 
 
 calling out, "Elise, ma fille, Elise!" 
 
 i 
 "It is her daughter, who has been lost," 
 
 Berthe whispered tremblingly in Ludlow's 
 ear. "Oh, what shall we do?" 
 
 "A little actress of the Bouffes, no doubt, 
 who is masquerading in boy's clothes," said 
 a bystander. 
 
 "Mats non, my little cabbage, she is not 
 dead," panted a fat bourgeoise, whose hus- 
 band had elbowed for her a way to the front 
 ranks of lookers-on. "Tiens, Joseph, she 
 breathes. Madame her mother will have 
 difficulty to remove her from this crowd." 
 
 In the confusion of the scene Berthe felt 
 rather than saw that Ludlow's chief concern 
 was to withdraw her from contact and iden- 
 tification with the centers of interest.
 
 5 8 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 "You treat me like a child," she ex- 
 claimed. "What can it matter beside her 
 trouble? Oh, I must go to poor madame!" 
 
 "Madame would be the last person to 
 desire your presence now," he said peremp- 
 torily urging her back into the throng upon 
 the sidewalk. 
 
 "I have never been dictated to before; I 
 have been many times able to help in. emer- 
 gencies ; I cannot leave my poor old friend 
 in such a dreadful strait," she protested, 
 fairly vexed. 
 
 "It is impossible that you should mix 
 with this affair," he returned briefly. "If 
 you will remain here in the doorway beside 
 some of the family folk who have taken 
 refuge from the crowd, I shall go and do all 
 that can be done." 
 
 Conquered, though far from convinced, 
 by the quiet decision of his manner, Berthe 
 obeyed with the best grace at her command. 
 Her heart swelled with pity for her friend,
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 59 
 
 and her conscience accused her of cowardice 
 in holding back from active service in the 
 poor woman's behalf. Waiting impatiently, 
 she at length saw Ludlow pushing toward 
 her through the crowd. 
 
 "There has been a delay," he explained. 
 "The men whose horses ran her down were 
 at first inclined to do everything necessary 
 in the case, but the testimony of bystanders 
 and of the gendarme who witnessed it 
 unites in saying that the wretched creature 
 threw herself deliberately in the way of the 
 approaching carriage. The pol'ice had just 
 warned her to behave with more discretion, 
 when she broke away from the officer whose 
 hand was on her shoulder, and it was over 
 in a flash. Under these circumstances the 
 owners of the horses decline to interfere, 
 and the case must be left to take the usual 
 course." 
 
 "Will she die?" asked Berthe. 
 
 "That cannot be known until they get her
 
 60 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 to the hospital. The poor mother, who is 
 quite composed, thinks of everything, and 
 has besought me to keep you apart from 
 them, for your mother's sake, she says. 
 Now, if you can rely on me to do what is 
 best for you in this trying emergency, I will 
 see you safely home, and I promise to look 
 out afterward for Mme. Letellier to the ex- 
 tent of my ability." 
 
 "But there is something else," she said 
 gratefully. "I am sure madame has little 
 or no money, and if you will please take my 
 purse to her 
 
 "I have attended to all that," he inter- 
 rupted. "They are to have every consider- 
 ation that the authorities will allow." 
 
 "Thank you a thousand times," cried 
 Berthe, flashing upon him one of her enthu- 
 siastic glances. "If you knew the poor 
 woman's story you would realize how well 
 your kindness is bestowed. And you have 
 given me the only comfort possible in hav-
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 61 
 
 ing to turn my back and leave her in such 
 distress." 
 
 "You could do nothing whatever except 
 in a sentimental sense," he replied ; "and a 
 Paris street crowd on a fete day is hardly 
 the place for the exhibition of a young 
 girl's sympathies. Be sure that Mme. 
 Letellier whose face carries its own sad 
 story will be best relieved by having 
 you returned promptly to your mother's 
 care." 
 
 By the time he had secured a cab all 
 trace of the episode a page torn from 
 the daybook of Paris life had been swept 
 from the street, and, renewed in merri- 
 ment, the sparkling throng poured up and 
 down the boulevards. Shocked and sad- 
 dened beyond expression, Berthe was in 
 no mood for making conversation, and the 
 drive along the Champs lysees and the 
 Avenue de la Grande Arme"e to Neuilly 
 passed almost in silence. Certainly, to the
 
 62 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 handsome and distinguished young officer 
 who had put himself about to perform such 
 acts of kindness, the sense of virtue must 
 have been its own reward. Berthe, in one 
 corner of the fiacre, her hands clasped in 
 her muff when she was not mopping her 
 eyes from time to time, thought alternately 
 of the mother and child so strangely re- 
 united and of Belmont's attitude toward the 
 pretty, stylish woman with the tired look in 
 her eyes, who had appeared somehow to 
 appropriate his talk. After passing the bar- 
 riere she roused from these meditations to 
 a sense of courtesy withheld. 
 
 "You will allow me to present you to my 
 mother, Colonel Ludlow?" she said form- 
 ally. "The obligation you have placed us 
 under is so great 
 
 "That's a small matter," he said, smiling. 
 "But I should like to feel that I have carried 
 out Mme. Letellier's wish literally ; and I 
 suppose," he added, hesitating, "les con-
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 63 
 
 venances of a French pension would be bet- 
 ter satisfied." 
 
 "Oh, I had not thought of that," cried 
 Berthe scornfully. "You cannot imagine 
 what it is for a girl who has grown up in 
 America in war time to be hedged in by all 
 these petty proprieties. But you are right. 
 The Villa Bois Dormant must be propi- 
 tiated. Luckily the place is almost de- 
 serted at this hour, and most of them will 
 be spared the shock of seeing me arrive 
 alone with you. As old Mme. Jerome told 
 me the other day, about my crossing the 
 courtyard with the upholsterer, much is 
 pardoned to an American 'young miss,' 
 brought up to roam unattended in the 
 virgin forests of her pays sauvage!' 
 
 There was, after all, only the old porter 
 to be scandalized as their cab rolled into 
 the courtyard. Mme. de Lagastine, com- 
 ing out of her silks and wools to hear 
 Berthe's excited narrative, received Colonel
 
 64 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Ludlow with polite frigidity. To her he 
 was the incarnate type of wrongs and losses 
 that a slight service to her daughter could 
 not put out of sight. Ludlow, lingering for 
 a moment before the grate with its heaped- 
 up billets of wood, an extravagance of the 
 American ladies styled by their fellow 
 lodgers a "feu ttenfer" felt an impulse of 
 strong compassion for the child whose sole 
 protector was this cold, impassive creature, 
 so locked in from human sympathies. 
 Promising Berthe to send her early word of 
 the condition of Mme. Letellier's affairs, and 
 receiving a perhaps tardy, but certainly grat- 
 ifying acknowledgment of her indebtedness 
 to him, in a smile that was like a sunburst, 
 he took his leave. 
 
 "I am afraid I am getting to like him," 
 she meditated, while sitting that night in the 
 light of the dying fire, combing her dusky 
 locks. "That is, if I were not a tiny bit 
 afraid of him ; and I don't like to be afraid.
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 65 
 
 Belmont, now, has such a lovely sunny 
 nature one feels like basking in his neigh- 
 borhood. He draws to him every heart 
 and holds it. Ah me, I had hoped, until 
 just a little while ago, that he would find 
 time to come to us to-day. Perhaps those 
 people were friends just arrived, to whom 
 he was obliged to show civility. I shall tell 
 him, though, how devoted that little tete-a- 
 tete behind the rest appeared. She is too 
 old. She looks hard to please, and cynical. 
 Oh, what does it matter? How he will 
 chaff me for my foolishness." 
 
 Late in the afternoon she had received 
 from Mine. Letellier a note, penciled in the 
 hospital, informing her of a shade of im- 
 provement in the condition of the patient, 
 who was, however, seriously injured and 
 might not survive. 
 
 "The commissionaire who carries this 
 takes also a line to Mme. Thonet, who will 
 send what I need," the note went on to say.
 
 66 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 "Until God wills that her misery shall pass 
 into His keeping, my place is at her side. 
 It is thanks to noble M. Ludlow that I and 
 my poor unfortunate are treated here with 
 high consideration. When I pray for her 
 whom the good God has rendered into my 
 longing arms for you, tender child, who 
 have blossomed upon my solitary pathway 
 to the tomb must I not also include him, 
 this stranger who has poured upon me a 
 bounty so undeserved, so lavish?" 
 
 "Poor, dear madame!" thought Berthe, 
 weaving her veil of hair into plaits that, as 
 she stood, touched the hem of her trailing 
 skirts, "hers is a grateful heart. He has 
 behaved splendidly, if he is a Yankee colo- 
 nel. Few men would have felt called on to 
 do so much for perfect strangers. Perhaps 
 he went into the war so young that he was 
 not entirely responsible. Maybe he is con- 
 scious of wrong done, and is trying to atone 
 to the South through me. When I think
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 67 
 
 that he actually held me in his arms, even if 
 it was to save me from being crushed, I feel 
 so angry and ashamed. If he had ever 
 heard half I've said against them, he'd have 
 dropped me quick enough. Belmont will 
 laugh at me, I know." 
 
 A tap at the door withdrew Berthe from the 
 incidents of her eventful day to admit Hen- 
 riette, the cherry-cheeked maid of all work, 
 yawning and holding a letter in her hand. 
 
 "It has just arrived, mademoiselle, and 
 the porter is in a temper incredible because 
 he was called after ten o'clock." 
 
 "Give it to me. I will make peace with 
 M. Antoine to-morrow," Berthe cried, recog- 
 nizing upon the envelope the handwriting 
 of Belmont Carrington. When again alone, 
 for a moment she held her treasure, yearn- 
 ing over it, yet begrudging herself the taste 
 of it ; then, to make herself amends, tore it 
 open in hot haste and read its contents with 
 a fast throbbing heart.
 
 68 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 "To-night, by the midnight train," wrote 
 Belmont, "I start for London, to be absent 
 some two weeks on business for the firm. I 
 am writing this lest you should wonder why 
 I have not in person offered you such good 
 wishes for the year as my poor flowers have 
 left unexpressed. Think anything but that 
 I have forgotten the memory of. those last 
 hours spent with you has hardly been ab- 
 sent from my thoughts. That I have not 
 dared to tell you so, that I am goaded by 
 the inevitable as man never was before, 
 makes this letter the most difficult one to 
 frame that I have ever attempted. A 
 dozen times I have written and destroyed 
 it, and after all I can only write the bitter 
 word farewell." 
 
 "What is it? I cannot understand;" 
 then brightly, "ah, how he loves me!" cried 
 unsuspecting Berthe. "I can bear not see- 
 ing him to-day, to be made to feel this so. 
 He will come back, and then and then
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 69 
 
 who would have believed that I could give 
 Belmont such pain?" 
 
 All else forgetting, she sat and pondered 
 over the embers of the fire until the chill of 
 waning night sent her into the refuge of her 
 bed. Then, remembering that she had 
 failed to carry her vases of violets and jas- 
 mine into the antechamber for the night, 
 she went out again into the little salon, to 
 be met by a gush of fragrance that might 
 have been blown on a wind from Les 
 Amandiers. 
 
 "Belmont must have sent them," was her 
 last waking thought ; "he only could have 
 known what would make me so exquisitely 
 glad." 
 
 January set in bitter cold, and from all 
 parts of the Continent came reports of im- 
 peded industry, blocked travel, starved 
 game driven from the woods to die upon 
 the doorstones of villages, flocks of birds
 
 7 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 dropping frozen by the wayside ; of a cattle 
 train snow-bound in the Forest of Ardennes 
 attacked by gaunt wolves, kept at bay all 
 night by the engineer and his assistants, in- 
 trenched in the fourgon ; heroes who doubt- 
 less felt little inclined to cry out, with the 
 duke, 
 
 Here feel we not the penalty of Adam, 
 The season's difference. 
 
 There were fierce storms, and the coasts 
 of France and England were stre\vn with 
 wrecks. But inside of indomitably gay 
 Paris people laughed defiance at the 
 weather. The chilled alleys of the Bois de 
 Boulogne were filled daily with promenad- 
 ing crowds. Babies, strapped upon lace- 
 trimmed pillows, were dandled by white- 
 capped nursemaids who sat upon iron 
 benches. Punch and Judy pursued their 
 eternal drama with the hangman and the 
 crocodile, before audiences eternally enter- 
 tained. On every lake skaters swarmed.
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 71 
 
 Berthe, bringing back winter roses upon her 
 pale cheeks, walked daily in the Bois, 
 attended by her mother's maid. She 
 missed sorely the congenial companionship 
 of Mme. Letellier, still a prisoner at the 
 bedside of her child. Mme. de Tersac, 
 wrapped to the nose in furs, ventured but 
 rarely to Villa Bois Dormant ; and the 
 young girl was obliged to decline overtures 
 and invitations from the rest of their friends 
 to vary her solitary life. At home, when 
 not engaged in reading aloud to her mother 
 from the dreary lives of saints, which formed 
 the intellectual aliment of Mme. de Laga- 
 stine, Berthe's resource was to mount up to 
 Mme. Letellier's deserted haunt and, kind- 
 ling a few sticks with a boule de re"sine in 
 the little stove, to read or recite the 
 dramatic passages acquired under the tui- 
 tion of her dear old friend. 
 
 Twelve days after Christmas occurs the 
 fete cherished by Parisian bourgeoisie, "the
 
 72 A DAUGHTER Of THE SOUTH. 
 
 Feast of Kings." To prepare for it, Villa 
 Bois Dormant put forth its best endeavor. 
 Floors were rewaxed, furniture polished, 
 lamps and candlesticks borrowed from the 
 boarders, the salon and dining room decked 
 with garlands of evergreen and paper flow- 
 ers, card tables were set, a mysterious 
 punch, pink and sickly, was mixed, many 
 little cakes were ordered in from the confec- 
 tioner, forests of curl papers appeared nod- 
 ding over the breakfast table. Home for 
 the holiday arrived Thrsine, the youthful 
 granddaughter of Mme. la Propritaire, 
 whose advent was hailed by the old people 
 much as that of a monkey loosed to work 
 his will. The're'sine, aged six, had a beauti- 
 ful rosy little face framed in a close-bordered 
 cap, a voice like the enchanted flute, and 
 the temper of an imp. Before she had 
 been an hour under the grandmaternal roof 
 Bois Dormant was broad awake and on its 
 guard. Lumbering after her like an ele-
 
 A DAUGHTER OP THE SOUTH. 73 
 
 phant, Mme. Thonet was always appearing 
 in breathless apology for havoc wrought by 
 Theresine. At breakfast, Berthe's skirt, 
 violently tugged, revealed The"resine emerg- 
 ing from beneath the cloth and holding up 
 a rosebud mouth for kisses. 
 
 "I have been pinching their legs, ces 
 autres," she frankly avowed. "I love you, 
 Mile. Berthe, and you shall give me a 
 spoonful of your comfitures. Dame ! you 
 are as pretty as the ladies in the ballet who 
 twirl like this so do you see? I shall be 
 one some day. As for those others, I will 
 not make them my compliments, as bonne 
 maman desires they are all vielles dia- 
 blesses, va ! " 
 
 In the general excitement below stairs, 
 Berthe escaped to her garret refuge to read 
 a sad little note just received from Mme. 
 Letellier. 
 
 "If I have not sought to press my lips 
 again upon your pure brow, beloved child.
 
 74 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 it is because between you and me is a great 
 gulf fixed. I dare not speak to you of what 
 fills my days and nights. If she lives, the 
 task to which the remainder of my life is to 
 be set the work of rehabilitation must be 
 worked out in silence, in the twilight of some 
 forgotten corner of the world ; not in the 
 sunshine in which your steps should walk." 
 Berthe, feeling the truth of this to be a 
 pang, looked sadly about the pretty, cheer- 
 ful room, kept in spotless order by rough- 
 handed but soft-hearted Henriette. In a 
 stream of winter sunshine she sat down 
 with her book to study a certain piece 
 from "Athalie," recommended by madame 
 for practice during the interruption to their 
 lessons. With a little blue shawl huddled 
 around her shoulders, madame's artificial 
 begonias spreading their broad leaves above 
 her head, she knit her brows and conned 
 the words; then, springing to her feet, 
 essayed to render them with the old zeal of
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 75 
 
 the days of Les Amandiers. Back came 
 the fire of enthusiasm which, during ma- 
 dame's measured teachings according to the 
 strict canons of French art, had seemed to 
 despairing Berthe to have forever fled. 
 Thrilling and flushing, she declaimed the 
 clear-cut verses to the end. 
 
 Then from behind the chintz screen at 
 the door stepped a stranger, hat in hand. 
 He was a rusty little man, wrapped in a 
 paletot lined with sable fur, with a head 
 too big for his slender body, a pair of glit- 
 tering black eyes and a wide, distorted 
 mouth. 
 
 Berthe's face burned with blushes as she 
 made him a little courtesy, holding out her 
 hand. 
 
 "I know you," she said. "Madame has 
 been always hoping you would come. You 
 are M. Bertin." 
 
 " Everybody knows the little Polichi- 
 nelle," he said, with a short, harsh laugh.
 
 7 6 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 "Everyone who honors your art recog- 
 nizes the master." 
 
 Her directness pleased him. A born 
 bully of women, the teacher of actors most 
 in demand in Paris, Bertin liked to be faced 
 by fearless eyes. But he did not dispense 
 with his usual preliminary bluster. 
 
 "I suppose, then, as a seeress, you know 
 that I came here, coaxed by a note from 
 my old friend, Julie Letellier, to hear 
 you try your pipe. And I've heard you. 
 Humph!" 
 
 "Oh, monsieur!" said Berthe, a faint sick- 
 ness creeping over her at thought of her 
 display. 
 
 "I have had enough, look you," said 
 Bertin, sitting down and taking out his 
 snuffbox, "of deluding young women with 
 false hopes because their eyes are bright 
 and their tongues are supple." 
 
 "Mme. Letellier calls you a clairvoyant," 
 said she, mustering fresh courage. "She
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 77 
 
 says if there is hope you will fan it into a 
 flame." 
 
 "Did she tell you that I refuse to accept 
 any pupil who fails in that intuitive percep- 
 tion of my art without which my calling 
 would be carthorse drudgery? Bon! Then 
 what do you think of your chances at my 
 hands?" 
 
 "What could I put into words, mon- 
 sieur?" said trembling Berthe, half encour- 
 aged by something like a soft beam in his 
 eye, "that would not seem to you bold and 
 audacious? All my life long nearly 
 eighteen years since I could speak, I have 
 escaped into the world of your 'art,' like the 
 girl in the story who, when cast into a pit, 
 stretched out her hand, touched a spring, 
 and opened a door into fairyland." 
 
 "Tiens. It is as Julie said. She is not 
 jeune fille like most of them," murmured 
 Bertin. 
 
 "When I go to the play I am like a fool-
 
 ?8 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 ish creature. I sit spellbound, and laugh 
 and cry. To me it is more than music or 
 painting to be able to interpret the burning 
 words of a great poet or playwright and 
 make them real." 
 
 "Oh, la belle jeunesse / " said Bertin, 
 grown indulgent. "Now sit here, my child, 
 and let me tell you that Julie Letellier has 
 strongly enlisted my interest in you. For 
 her, to whom in the past I am bound by 
 many ties of friendship, I will do what I 
 would refuse to a princess of blood royal or 
 of finance. I will let you come to me now 
 and again to report progress under Julie's 
 teaching. If, as I believe, the true spark 
 is there, we shall find it, never fear. 
 But " 
 
 "But?" repeated Berthe, foreseeing diffi- 
 culty. 
 
 "There is one point on which I am inflex- 
 ible. I no longer live to encourage the 
 banalit^ of drawing-room recitations. If
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 79 
 
 you work under me it must be for the 
 stage." 
 
 Berthe's head swam, and her heart beat 
 violently. Bertin smiled. The old fox 
 knew his power. 
 
 "That is Mme. Letellier's day-dream," 
 she stammered; "I have never dared 
 there are circumstances, M. Bertin." 
 
 "Exactly," said Bertin, rising and looking 
 at his watch. "And now, as I have an 
 appointment, I must be off. When you are 
 ready for me, come. Au plaisir, mademoi- 
 selle." 
 
 The little man vanished as he had ap- 
 peared noiselessly. Longing, yet not pre- 
 suming to call him back, Berthe asked 
 herself if her interview with the celebrated 
 artist had not been a delusion born of the 
 most secret longing of her heart. 
 
 Caps! above all, caps! To outdo her 
 neighbor in the matter of festal headgear
 
 8o A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 was the ambition of every old lady who sat 
 down that evening to the annual "Diner des 
 Rois." Some of them wore helmets, others 
 towers, some windmills, others, again, great 
 butterflies of gauze and flowers and ribbons. 
 The widow of the Spanish general alone 
 came as usual in her calash of drawn black 
 silk, in the depths of which her face looked 
 like a little withered apple. She carried 
 on her arm a cheap straw basket, passed 
 around the table to receive from the plates 
 of guests scraps and bones intended for her 
 cat and dog at home. Madame Blanchet, 
 ex-actress of the Gaiete, who was rolled 
 across the courtyard in a fine chair with a 
 hood and lamps, and was attended at table 
 by her servants, wore a gown of stiff bro- 
 cade, and her withered hand sparkled with 
 fine rings. She, who had once held audi- 
 ences entranced by her matchless skill, 
 who had had lovers by the score, was 
 now a mumbling old wreck, pushed and
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 81 
 
 patted into shape in her chair by her page 
 and a scowling maid. But her eyes 
 gleamed, and she exchanged calembours 
 with M. Jerome, the gallant of Bois Dor- 
 mant, who wore a yellow skull cap and 
 blew kisses to the ladies as they took their 
 places. Mme. Thonet, her mustaches brist- 
 ling with excitement under a frontispiece of 
 lilies of the valley set in tulle, patrolled the 
 room until fifty souls were seated around 
 the T-shaped table. For to-night she had 
 thrown aside domestic cares and held herself 
 like a duchess. She was gracious to the 
 most implacable of her daily foes, who in 
 turn met her upon a common ground, igno- 
 ring gravies and discussing questions of the 
 beau monde of bourgeoisie. So, too, M. 
 Auguste, the carver, who, in evening dress 
 with a flower in his buttonhole and with a 
 military air, circled among the guests. No 
 snappish rejoinders to everyday complaints 
 about rosbif saignant or fowls unjustly dis-
 
 82 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 tributed. To-morrow, in his alpaca jacket, 
 he will go around collecting the five 
 francs per capita meant to cover the extra 
 expenses of the banquet. To-night his wit, 
 his compliments, put everyone in spirit. 
 Decidedly, averred the old ladies, M. 
 Auguste was a man tres comine il faut ! 
 
 Jean, the head waiter, laden with plates 
 from armpits to finger tips, flew like a 
 meteor around the board. His jokes, of a 
 personal character, were distributed impar- 
 tially. The overworked maids, who were 
 his subordinates, also forgot their aching 
 bones, bridled, smiled, and were everywhere 
 at once. When the feast had progressed to 
 the stage of the dessert an awestruck hush 
 ensued. Jean, the observed of every eye, 
 appeared from the pantry carrying the 
 galette. This, a huge cake, decorated with 
 sugar ornaments, was cut by Mme. Thonet 
 and handed among the guests. 
 
 Berthe's dread, that she might acquire
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 83 
 
 the queen's half of the magic bean hid in. 
 the cake, was of brief duration. To the lot 
 of little. There'sine fell the great prize of the 
 year, and to that of old M. Jerome its com- 
 panion, announcing him the king. Arm- 
 and-arm (or hand in hand, rather), amid a 
 tumult of acclamation, their majesties made 
 the circuit of the board, clinking glasses 
 with each subject and bestowing on each 
 a double-barreled kiss. 
 
 Theresine, for a wonder, behaved de- 
 murely. Stopping by Berthe, she threw 
 both arms around her neck. 
 
 "Oh, how you smell sweet!" cried the 
 little outlaw. "But that bonne maman says 
 they will give me money and sweets, I 
 would not kiss one of those old and ugly ! 
 I should rather kill them all !" 
 
 Next, seated side by side, amid a cackling 
 as of peacocks and macaws, their majesties 
 were toasted. The king having ordered, 
 as entailed by custom upon the sovereign,
 
 84 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 fresh wine for all, whenever either he or 
 Queen The"resine lifted glass to lips, the 
 company cried out, "The king drinks!" 
 "The queen drinks!" "Bravo! Brava!" 
 
 After a brief adjournment to the salon 
 for cards and coffee, the tables were dis- 
 mantled and pushed back; a big red- 
 bearded German, an agent for the sale of 
 Prussian beer, sat down to the piano and 
 dashed off a spirited galop. The irrepressi- 
 ble old people took the floor! 
 
 Berthe, who had left her mother for 
 awhile to view the merry scene, stood in a 
 doorway, resisting invitations to join the 
 dance, when Jean spoke to her from behind. 
 
 "A monsieur for ces dames, mademoiselle. 
 He is here waiting, as I feared to disturb 
 madame." 
 
 Berthe turned quickly, an ecstasy of hope 
 lighting up her face. It was Ludlow who 
 stood in the entry near the front door. 
 
 "I will not detain you," he said, noting
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 85 
 
 her change of expression. "I have just 
 come from Mme. de Tersac, who asks if 
 your mother will spare you to her for the 
 'Fete des Patineurs' next Tuesday night. 
 I have tickets, and Comte de Barrot will go, 
 too. I fancied the thing might amuse you 
 to look on." 
 
 "You are very kind," said Berthe, pleased 
 in spite of herself. "I should like it very 
 much indeed." 
 
 But she could not do away with the first 
 effect of her disappointment manifested in 
 meeting him. He stopped for a few min- 
 utes to watch the old folk "foot it featly," 
 and then abruptly took his leave. 
 
 "I suppose it is a judgment on me for 
 fraternizing with an enemy of my country," 
 Berthe said to herself; "but I am always 
 uncomfortable when he is near." 
 
 By Tuesday, however, she was quite pre- 
 pared to again invoke the wrath of Fate.
 
 86 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 When she found herself with Ludlow on 
 the edge of the illuminated pond, their 
 chaperon having elected to remain under 
 shelter on the bank, Berthe's vivacity got 
 the better of her patriotism. She even for- 
 got the gnawing anxiety at her heart to see 
 or hear something of the still absent Bel- 
 mont. With the glee of a child she threw 
 herself into the spirit of the dazzling scene. 
 Ludlow, in turn, charmed out of his own 
 reserve, showed her a side he had not before 
 displayed. She began to feel that it was 
 time to give up the futile task of adjusting 
 political prejudice to individual instance. 
 
 In the brilliant figures flashing upon their 
 rounds Berthe recognized many of the per- 
 sonages seen at the ball of the Tuileries; 
 last, but not least, to her girl's delight, came 
 the Empress, more beautiful than ever in her 
 clinging costume of sapphire blue velvet 
 edged with plumage of the grebe, skating 
 slowly, and holding a pole supported at 
 either end by gentlemen of the court.
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 87 
 
 Now the crowd on the pond increased to a 
 kaleidoscope of color. Two American girls 
 with their escorts, pausing close to Berthe, 
 chattered incessantly about the actors in 
 the scene. 
 
 "Carrington is the handsomest man here; 
 I don't care if he was a rebel," said one of 
 these young women, in answer to a remark 
 unheard by Berthe. "He goes, of course, 
 chiefly with that New Orleans set married 
 into the old French families. I think Mrs. 
 Forsyth may well congratulate herself on 
 such a prize." 
 
 "Everybody knew she 'went' for him last 
 season, but everybody was surprised at the 
 announcement in Galignani yesterday that 
 the wedding is set for April," said the other 
 girl. 
 
 "Who is Mrs. Forsyth, anyhow?" asked a 
 young man newly arrived. 
 
 "Not know Mrs. Forsyth? Why, she is 
 the enormously rich widow of one of the 
 partners of the banking firm Mr. Carrington
 
 88 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 is employed by quite a romance, isn't it? 
 Came from Mobile originally, or some one 
 of those Southern towns five years older 
 than he, if she's a day. Pretty? yes, or 
 chic rather, and such taste in dress. There 
 they come now. Carrington returned from 
 England Saturday, and the affair was an- 
 nounced at once." 
 
 Berthe, to whose consciousness these 
 facts were conveyed with fatal accuracy, 
 had no need to question the truth of them. 
 Directly thereafter the couple under discus- 
 sion stopped skating close to her, and 
 Berthe recognized at once the companion of 
 Belmont's talk in the balcony on New 
 Year's day. A blinding light broke upon 
 her. When Belmont, stooping to adjust 
 Mrs. Forsyth's skate, rose again with his 
 charming smile, to meet Berthe's eyes 
 opened wide to his, he read, even then, 
 something of the unalterableness of her 
 estimate of him.
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 89 
 
 By the time they joined Mme. de Tersac 
 that lady, who had met friends, was full 
 of the gossip of the new engagement. 
 Berthe's yearning hope, that no one might 
 peep behind the curtain drawn over her 
 slain love, was gratified by Colonel Ludlow's 
 request that the ladies would excuse his 
 attendance on their drive to Bois Dormant. 
 
 It was well into March, and the frowns 
 of departing winter had been succeeded by 
 spring warmth that brought into quick 
 bloom the pansies and wall flowers around 
 the court, when Mme. Letellier, released 
 from her sad service, came back to take up 
 her old routine at Bois Dormant. With 
 the soldier's honors of her son and the 
 shame and sorrow of her daughter lying 
 alike beneath the sod, the one in far Mex- 
 ico, the other in Pere la Chaise, there was 
 little left in her but a mere spark of life. 
 But her quick perceptions took note at once
 
 90 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 of the brave fight Berthe was making to 
 live down some dominating passion that 
 had shaken her young being as the wind 
 shakes a reed. With tender solicitude the 
 old woman gave herself to the task of awak- 
 ening anew Berthe's interest in her inter- 
 rupted studies, and hardly a day passed that 
 they did not walk together in the Bois, and 
 return for an hour of hard work in the 
 chamber beneath the roof. Berlin's visit 
 and the girl's account of it awoke for the 
 first time a smile on madame's face. 
 
 " He was in earnest, my good Bertin," 
 she said. " I wonder if you realized how 
 much that offer meant." 
 
 " I could not trust myself to think much 
 about it then," Berthe answered with a 
 sigh. " Now, again and again, it returns to 
 me. But oh! madame, help me to put it 
 from my mind. My poor mother would not 
 dream of consenting. I should not venture 
 to propose it."
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 91 
 
 Mme. de Lagastine, who, in her im- 
 passive way, had grown fond of Belmont 
 Carrington, lamented daily that he had quite 
 given them up. She consulted Mme. de 
 Tersac, who told her that Mr. Carrington 
 was now always on duty with his affianced 
 bride, and was little seen by any of his old 
 friends. The marriage, which was to take 
 place in April, was thought by everyone to 
 be a most appropriate alliance, and had 
 been settled between their nearest friends 
 long before the couple had come into 
 agreement on their own account. Mrs. 
 Forsyth, a pretty enough creature a little 
 spoiled and whimsical, but no harm in her 
 was the uncontrolled possessor of an income 
 that would put the ruined young Southerner 
 beyond all chances of fortune for the future. 
 He was handsome as a picture and every- 
 body's favorite, had made his coup on first 
 arriving in Paris, it was whispered, but had 
 now fairly settled down : truly, thought Mme.
 
 92 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 de Tersac, a most suitable affair. When 
 Berthe went out of the room the little old 
 lady took occasion to nod her head and 
 add: 
 
 " But for the lack of dot I have no doubt 
 he would have offered to you for Berthe. 
 Of course, it would have been madness for 
 those two." 
 
 "Of course," repeated Mine, de Lagas- 
 tine drearily. " I appear to recall some old 
 talk between my husband and his neighbor, 
 Colonel Carrington, when these children 
 were very young. But then it was all so 
 different." 
 
 "It is most unfortunate, Berthe's lack 
 of dot," went on Mme. de Tersac. "There 
 is the nephew, now, of the Comte de Barrot, 
 an amiable young man, of excellent charac- 
 ter, the count most willing but, what would 
 you have ? " 
 
 " I am cold in these raw spring days," 
 said Berthe's mother, shivering.
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 93 
 
 " Again, I had an idea that the young 
 Union officer, introduced to us by Barrot, 
 admired your child greatly. But there, he 
 has gone off to Italy, and we hear no more 
 of him." 
 
 " Berthe de Lagastine could not ally her- 
 self with a soldier of that hated service," 
 said Mme. de Lagastine, actually letting 
 fall her embroidery frame. And Mme. de 
 Tersac, who had lived in Paris during the 
 late excitement, and cherished more luke- 
 warm views about its issue, hastened to com- 
 fort her friend by suggesting a new stitch. 
 
 Berthe did not fail to receive from Bel- 
 mont a letter written the day after the 
 skating festival. He made no attempt at 
 self-defense, telling her that he had been, 
 since many months before his first visit to 
 Rue Morny, engaged to marry Mrs For- 
 syth. The lady's absence in England, 
 until after Christinas, had conspired with 
 circumstances to bring about the present
 
 94 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 deplorable result. With all the eloquence 
 of evident deep feeling he urged upon her 
 to receive him for a personal explanation. 
 Destroying this communication, she had 
 tried to put the matter from her mind, but, 
 as the days went on with weary tread, felt 
 the sting of the wound increase. 
 
 It was a lovely morning in "proud-pied " 
 April ; the balm of flowers and the 
 song of birds filled the soft spring air, 
 when Berthe, walking in the Bois with 
 madame, saw that the old woman's eyes 
 expressed something she wished to speak 
 yet dared not. The girl, conscious of a new 
 letter thrust into the folds of her gown, 
 that tormented her with beseechings to see 
 Belmont once again, sat down beneath an 
 oak tree in a quiet spot, and tried to 
 think what she should do. 
 
 " My own Berthe," began the French- 
 woman timidly, " sympathy you have, but 
 you need counsel. May I speak?"
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 95 
 
 " If you only knew what a struggle is 
 going on within me," cried the girl passion- 
 ately. " I seem to have lost my sense of 
 right or wrong. Oh, but I cannot tell you 
 I cannot ! I should die of shame ! " 
 
 The words were no sooner spoken than re- 
 pented of. A dull red burned on the old 
 woman's swarthy cheek. Her head dropped 
 upon her chest, and her eyes brimmed with 
 hot tears. 
 
 " That fate is not for you, my child," said 
 madame brokenly. " No, never mind, it 
 gives me the courage I required. Berthe, 
 can you bear a blow ? Try, then, to under- 
 stand why every impulse of my nature is 
 against your trusting him who has won 
 your love." 
 
 Berthe started fiercely, as if a serpent had 
 writhed across her path. She ventured an 
 imploring glance into madame's face, and 
 read there the blasting truth. 
 
 " Elise, too, loved him she believed in
 
 96 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 him ; because he forsook her she cast away 
 the remnants of her miserable life," the 
 mother stammered, pressing her hands to- 
 gether in the effort at self-repression. 
 
 Berthe did not question her. She only 
 sat in a kind of dumb despair. Her 
 thoughts, roving over her brief, eventful 
 life, recalled what, long ago, her old nurse 
 Clarisse had cried out from the anguish of a 
 life-long grief, " Dey cawn't help dcyselves, 
 dem Carrin'tons. He's got blood in his 
 veins what will surely bring misery to dem 
 dat loves him." 
 
 "Oh, Mammy Clarisse!" the girl said 
 within herself, " I'm glad you didn't live to 
 know I was to suffer with the rest." 
 
 She saw Belmont again, unseen by him, 
 when with Mme. de Tersac she went to a 
 concert given for the benefit of the exiled 
 Poles in Paris by their aristocratic country- 
 women of the Hotel Lambert. In the cen- 
 ter of the large salle, at Mrs. Forsyth's side,
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 97 
 
 amid an animated group of the beautiful 
 women and picturesque men whose velvet- 
 soft dark eyes and dazzling tint of skin be- 
 tokened their nationality, Belmont Carring- 
 ton was sitting. He had turned away from 
 his betrothed, and was talking with a little 
 fair-haired prince of an ancient Polish house, 
 whose mother, a great lady of Spain, bent 
 graciously toward him from the other side. 
 During the hush attending a performance 
 on the piano by the Princess Marcelline 
 Czartoryska accompanied by a chosen or- 
 chestra, Mrs. Forsyth, her throat wrapped 
 with strings of priceless pearls, her pretty 
 head overweighted by an aigret of gems, 
 whispered to Belmont, who gave her no an- 
 swering smile. He had lapsed into reverie, 
 evidently not of an enlivening nature, and 
 Mrs. Forsyth, in token of her displeasure, 
 promptly devoted herself to the man upon 
 her right. At the first interval Carrington 
 arose and withdrew from the hall, and from
 
 98 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 her modest corner Berthe caught one final 
 glimpse of him standing, jaded and unsmil- 
 ing still, in the doorway, behind a crowd of 
 golden youths, idlers and butterflies, whose 
 rank he was now to join for good. That he 
 had changed, that he was not the happy, 
 buoyant Belmont of a few months back, 
 she could not doubt. In her dread of en- 
 countering his wandering eye she shrank be- 
 hind Mme. de Tersac, and effaced herself 
 with a fan, until the concert came to a close. 
 The experience of this evening, however 
 poignant, was destined to be swept away 
 by one more momentous in consequence. 
 Reaching Villa Bois Dormant, Berthe found 
 her mother suffering from an attack of heart 
 trouble, of which she had had one or two 
 premonitory hints. Two days later Mme. 
 de Lagastine died, and Berthe, casting her- 
 self into the arms of feeble Mme. Letellier, 
 realized that she and the great world were 
 now looking at each other face to face. The
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 99 
 
 immediate cause of Mme. de Lagastine's 
 seizure, it was thought, was a letter from 
 Mr. Duval, in New Orleans, informing her 
 of the final shrinkage of the sources of her 
 income, which would reduce the sum hence- 
 forth to be counted on to a pittance insuffi- 
 cient for their support. 
 
 At the first news of Berthe's loss came 
 kind Mme. de Tersac, proffering to the 
 girl a home until her affairs could be put 
 into shape. Other friends called, and the 
 Southern colony bestirred itself with cordial 
 tokens of regard. Laid in her coffin, poor 
 Mme. de Lagastine looked almost as in life; 
 but when the still form was shut finally 
 from human sight, Berthe's lonely heart 
 ached to bring back her solitary prop. 
 
 Driving to Mme. de Tersac's apartment 
 from the funeral, and consenting to let her 
 friend go on alone to Bois Dormant for 
 necessary oversight of what was left there, 
 Berthe mounted many flights, solitary and
 
 loo A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 heart-sick, to be admitted by sympathetic 
 Marie, madame's maid. 
 
 There was tea in waiting, Marie said, but 
 if mademoiselle would prefer a tisane of eau 
 de fleur d'oranger to calm the nerves, Marie 
 would mix one before she should see the 
 gentleman. What gentleman, did mademoi- 
 selle ask ? Dame! Marie could not say, 
 not being in the habit of answering the bell ; 
 but a gentleman, young and handsome, who 
 had positively declared that he must see 
 mademoiselle, with or without madame, as 
 soon as she returned from the last melan- 
 choly duties to feu madame la mere de 
 mademoiselle. 
 
 Berthe's heart gave a great leap when she 
 went into Mme. de Tersac's tiny sitting- 
 room. Haggard, pallid, love pleading in 
 his eyes, Belmont Carrington stood before 
 her. 
 
 " I was there at the cemetery and at the 
 church," he said in a hoarse voice. "Could
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. iof 
 
 you think that I would let you bear this 
 alone? For the sake of old times, for Les 
 Amandiers, I could not keep away." 
 
 " It has been a great shock," Berthe be- 
 gan mechanically, and stopped, choking. 
 On a billow of love her heart went out to 
 answer the look in his face. Not moving 
 toward her, but beseeching her by gaze, he 
 held out his arms. Fora moment she stood 
 trembling, fascinated, sorely tempted to 
 weep away her lonely sorrows on his breast 
 then drew back with a shudder. 
 
 "Oh, you are cruel!" she said. "You 
 would make me like yourself." 
 
 " Berthe, hear me," he whispered in her 
 ear. " Anything is better than to live a lie. 
 You and I love one another. I have done 
 my best to be true to her; it is a miserable 
 failure. Last week, when I sat at her side 
 listening to music, the thought of that 
 Christmas mass came between us and I 
 believe I hated her."
 
 102 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 " Hush, hush, you pain me beyond 
 words," she said imploringly. 
 
 " Pain you ? When it is because of the 
 vast desire I have to comfort you, to take 
 you into my life and surround you with my 
 love that I am driven to speak now ? Come 
 to me, Berthe. Be my wife, let the world 
 wag as it may. What can a frail young 
 thing do in a solitude like yours ? Duval has 
 written to me of your new embarrassments. 
 Let me care for you, share my lot with you. 
 Marry me to-day, to-morrow, if you will." 
 
 " But I don't understand. You are 
 now free ? " she stammered. 
 
 " I admit no ties but the one that God 
 has made between your heart and mine," he 
 said with a clouding brow. 
 
 Berthe clasped her hands over her face 
 and tried to think. If in the first strong 
 temptation her sense of right had tottered, 
 it was still firm on a foundation he could 
 not understand. Being true to her loftier
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 103 
 
 instincts, it was impossible that she should 
 yield. But in the somber, insistent man 
 beside her she had met with a new element 
 in her girlish experience. It seemed to her 
 that another creature was looking from 
 Belmont's eyes. 
 
 " Berthe, what good can you do by con- 
 demning our two lives to misery?" he 
 went on, dreading her silence. " If you 
 like, I can be transferred to New Orleans, 
 and our home shall be far from the memo- 
 ries of Paris. Some day, when we are rich, 
 we shall go back to Les Amandiers. Do 
 you remember that alley of oleanders down 
 which I ran to save you ? To walk there 
 with your hand in mine Berthe, you are 
 cold you tremble are you faint ? " 
 
 " Listen to me," she said, rising to put the 
 width of the room between them. " I've 
 let you speak because I am weak, maybe 
 too weak even to resent affront. No, don't 
 interrupt me. I don't mean to resent it now.
 
 104 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 I'm not going to pretend to hide what you've 
 made me feel. I think there can never have 
 been a girl who suffered more in being de- 
 ceived. Whatever I suffer henceforth, it 
 can't be worse than that. Even if I con- 
 sidered you honorably free, it would not 
 alter the mistrust I should have of 
 you." 
 
 "Ah, how you can sting!" he cried. 
 " Who would think that a young creature 
 like you would be one of the judicial, unfor- 
 giving sort ? " 
 
 " I can forgive," she went on more gently, 
 seeing him deeply wounded. " But long 
 before we met here to-day I had made up 
 my mind that I dared not trust." 
 
 " What are women put in the world for 
 but to be angels of pity and gentleness, if 
 they are not angels of the other sort ? 
 Why can't you say : ' He sinned, he offended 
 me, he cut me in my tenderest part, but he 
 loves me and I love him.' Love like ours
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 105 
 
 ought to be the first law of the universe, 
 after love for God. You stand there just 
 like a sister who has resolved to put on 
 the black veil. Only think what a glorious 
 thing life is when you come out into the 
 broad light. If you want a mission, reform 
 me. Take my burdens with my love. For 
 I do love you, Berthe. You have got hold 
 of the fibers of my heart." 
 
 " No matter what came, there would 
 always be that between us," she said reso- 
 lutely. " If I live to be an old woman I 
 could never get back just what you have 
 taken from me. At the moment when 
 inclined to think most kindly of you, I 
 should find myself calling on you to give 
 me back my lost faith, my girl's joy in 
 loving." 
 
 " You are too young to cherish such 
 thoughts. Come to me, and I will make 
 your life a glory and a beauty such as you 
 never dreamed of, Berthe."
 
 106 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 " You have everything upon your side," 
 she said, with a pathos that struck him with 
 compassion. " And I, who am, as you say, 
 a young girl with no one to counsel me, no 
 experience of the world, only my instincts 
 to guide me, am not good at such an argu- 
 ment. But, such as I am, I have lived, I 
 have thought and weighed and measured 
 things. It is my unhappiness, not my fault, 
 that I do not now feel as I did five months 
 ago." 
 
 "You are indeed a wonder," he answered, 
 goaded by her calm. 
 
 " I am very tired," she said, dropping 
 into a chair and throwing back the long 
 crape veil that had fallen half across her 
 face. This gesture reminded Carrington, 
 with a shock, of what he had forgotten. He 
 bowed in silence, and turned to go out of 
 the room. 
 
 " Not in anger? " she exclaimed, with a 
 touch of her old impulsiveness. " Won't
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 107 
 
 you take the hand of your playmate and bid 
 her a kind good-by ? " 
 
 " Berthe, let me be something in your 
 life," he cried, coming back to her side im- 
 petuously. 
 
 " Not now," she said, very low. He took 
 her fingers in his warm clasp, but she did not 
 stir toward him. Then Belmont moved to 
 the door. With his hand upon the knob, he 
 looked back and met her gaze. Her sad 
 eyes, her slight figure in the mourning dress, 
 the proud poise of her head under its brown 
 coronal of hair, might haunt his memory 
 but they did not suggest to him that Berthe 
 would change. 
 
 Some years after this episode Bertin's 
 pupil, Miss St. Felix, made her first courtesy 
 behind the footlights in New York. Her 
 American birth and parentage, her beauty 
 and talent, even the old story about her 
 great-grandmother, the French actress, had
 
 108 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 been discussed in the newspapers for a year 
 before her ddbut in her native land. The 
 disclosure of her ancestor's calling, which 
 afflicted no one living save Mme. de 
 Tersac, inclined Parisians to look favorably 
 upon Berlin's clever prot^gde, and her ap- 
 pearance in various modest roles of the 
 French drama had been well received. The 
 old master, who watched her like a hawk, 
 had taken care that her dramatic ascent had 
 been made by safe degrees. When the dis- 
 turbances in France afforded her a good 
 opportunity to accept an engagement in 
 America, Bertin, with fierce begrudging, lent 
 her to the English-speaking stage, " as an 
 experiment," he said. During her novitiate 
 of hard work she had remained as if clois- 
 tered under Mme. Letellier's charge at 
 Bois Dormant. The ex-actress, whose 
 youth was renewed in her, trotted about 
 after Berthe and waited in the wings with 
 perfect satisfaction. On her first appear-
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 109 
 
 ance as an ingenue Berthe's private claque 
 had consisted of a deputation from Bois 
 Dormant, headed by M. Jerome with 
 his skullcap and snuffbox, and including 
 Mme. Thonet, . M. Auguste, and as many 
 of the ancients as could sally forth to chirp 
 approval. The success of her efforts being 
 duly sanctioned by the habitue's of a favorite 
 theater, Mrs. Belmont Carrington, who hap- 
 pened to be in the audience that night, re- 
 marked afterward to her husband who had 
 happened to stay at home that he must 
 really make it a point to go to see that little 
 Miss What's-her-name from New Orleans, as 
 Angtle in " Le Monde d'Aujourdhui." 
 
 Now Berthe had tried her wings in the 
 broad empyrean. She came back into her 
 little gas-lighted dressing room in the New 
 York theater, after the third act, stunned 
 by her success. While madame and the 
 maid hovered over her toilet for the final 
 scene, she appeared to be restlessly looking
 
 no A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 for something that had not come. A box, 
 handed in, was opened eagerly. She blushed 
 like a schoolgirl when she drew out from a 
 bed of violets a bunch of southern jasmine. 
 As there was still some little time before her 
 last entrance upon the scene, she dismissed 
 her attendants and sat plunged in thought. 
 When Mme. Letellier came in again she 
 found that Berthe had fastened the jasmine 
 on her breast, and was looking at herself 
 in the mirror with a somewhat melancholy 
 smile. 
 
 " But you, who never wear flowers upon 
 the scene, my Berthe ! " exclaimed madame, 
 noting it. 
 
 " I shall always wear this flower," Berthe 
 answered. 
 
 When, after a finale that left no room to 
 doubt of the enthusiastic temper of the 
 audience in favor of the actress, Berthe went 
 out to get into her carriage, she found Lud- 
 low waiting at the stage door.
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. in 
 
 " Is it true ? " he said, " I can't half be- 
 lieve it. I feel like a beggar who has 
 plucked a star to wear in his buttonhole." 
 
 " I have something more to give you than 
 I had at first," she answered. " And you 
 deserve everybody's best. The only thing 
 I fear is that people will say I have done 
 this to avenge history." 
 
 Happily, people say very little of any 
 sort about Berthe in these latter days. 
 Mine, de Tersac died rejoicing, Mme. 
 Letellier not so assured in satisfaction at 
 her marriage and consequently brief career 
 upon the stage. Little Bertin was, of course, 
 furious over it, but when he fell fighting 
 like a Tro-jan in defense of Paris in 1871, 
 .the number of Berthe's lawful critics was 
 notably reduced. Ludlow, of course, came 
 in for the lion's share of unfavorable com- 
 ment bestowed by society upon the situa- 
 tion, but as he was well known for cool
 
 112 A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 indifference to trivial opinion, and as the 
 couple set themselves to live their united 
 life after their own fashion in a community 
 where all sensations are transient, gossip 
 soon left them for a more shining mark. 
 " In each of our lives the seasons are 
 
 mingled as in the golden age Fruit 
 
 and blossom hang together . . . harvest 
 and springtime are continually one." In 
 the fullness of contentment long withheld, 
 Berthe's glad youth came back to reward 
 her husband.
 
 A THORN IN HIS 
 CUSHION. 
 
 " WELL, I've obtained the chariot for a 
 day," Dale said, settling himself comfort- 
 ably back in an easy-chair, representing the 
 editorial throne of a certain monthly maga- 
 zine a place which it did not occur to him 
 to think himself lacking in any requisite to 
 fill ; " the question is, Shall I be merciful 
 and refrain from ' setting the world on 
 fire'?" 
 
 Looking up, the young editor caught a 
 rather severe glance from a very black-a- 
 vised photograph of Thomas Carlyle hang- 
 ing on the wall above the desk ; an expres- 
 sion at once convicting him of untimely
 
 114 A THORN IN HIS CUSHION. 
 
 levity. Pulling himself together, he pro- 
 ceeded to the work in hand turning over 
 and sorting a series of MSS. left from the 
 last labor of Hercules of his departed chief. 
 For, on the morning of one of those 
 "drippy, slippy, nippy" mornings in March, 
 of which New York alone is capable, the 
 editor of the Cosmos had betaken himself, 
 his weak lung, his wife, baby, etc., to a train 
 in Jersey City, bound for Florida. And as 
 luck would have it, on the same day, the 
 second in command had succumbed to a 
 sudden cold, threatening evils that would 
 hold him house-bound for a week. There- 
 fore it was that upon Mr. Henry Hillhouse 
 Dale, junior in office as in years, fell the 
 honors of the editorial hour. All things 
 considered, it was a surprisingly short time 
 since he had been called on to perform the 
 same duties for that respected and long- 
 lived periodical, the Yale Lit. Harry's 
 mother, widow of the late Judge Dale, for
 
 A THORN IN HIS CUSHION. 115 
 
 many years a most estimable citizen of the 
 pretty leafy town in Berkshire where she 
 still dwelt, thought it was only a just recog- 
 nition by Fate of her boy's surprising tal- 
 ents that had carried him so briskly along 
 the literary path. 
 
 However self-satisfied, Dale soon relapsed 
 into the inevitable paralysis of hope that 
 besets the reader of average MSS. One 
 contribution after another, from authors 
 convinced that their right to enlighten 
 society through the columns of the Cosmos 
 had been revealed to them by a handwriting 
 of celestial fire, was tossed aside. The usual 
 callers important, insistent, pathetic, un- 
 sparing, or business-like ha f d been inter- 
 viewed. There was within Dale a still small 
 voice pleading for lunch, unanswered, and 
 there yet remained to him for examination 
 a woman's MS. 
 
 " Here goes," he said, suppressing the 
 anticipatory groan : " I begin to understand
 
 1 1 6 A THORN IN HIS CUSHION. 
 
 the resignation that routine work must have 
 inspired in those headsmen in the Reign of 
 Terror. A story ! Yes, of course, and twice 
 too long, to begin with. Luckily her ink is 
 black and her manuscript don't roll. How 
 well she dots her i's. Ha ! that's not bad. 
 The description's too diffuse ; but she's got 
 a grip on her idea. Let me see, who is the 
 contributor in the case ? " 
 
 He turned back to the note accompanying 
 the parcel, running his eye lazily over its 
 pages a true girl's letter, couched between 
 coaxing and command. This was her first 
 contribution to any magazine. In notifying 
 her of his acceptance, the editor might 
 address " Miss E. T., care of Mme. Leblanc, 
 No. 3001 West Thirty-sixth Street." 
 
 " Fresh as Bermuda cucumbers ! " Dale 
 said, smiling. But he did not put aside the 
 manuscript. Like the good and conscien- 
 tious editor he was, the young man picked 
 it up again. Whatever might have been the
 
 A THORN IN HIS CUSHION. 
 
 faults of E. T.'s style, and they were plenti- 
 ful, there was a true ring in her sentiment, a 
 sparkle in her unjaded humor, that gushed 
 like a spring under the palms of the editorial 
 oasis. It smoothed Dale's wrinkled front, 
 and left him in as good a humor as can be 
 expected of an empty man, who has gone 
 luncheonless till 3 P.M. One thing Dale did 
 not do. He did not bow-string Miss E. T. 
 upon the spot. He merely pigeon-holed 
 her, intending to write her a personal note 
 upon the morrow. 
 
 Next day, when Dale's thoughts were a 
 thousand miles away from Miss E. T., she 
 called. The young man from the outermost 
 circle of office guardians, who announced 
 the visitors, merely, however, presented 
 to Dale a card announcing that Mme. 
 Leblanc, approved by the Society of Deco- 
 rative Art, gave lessons in china painting, 
 tapestry painting, macrame lace, and ar- 
 rasene embroidery, either at the residence
 
 A THORN IN HIS CUSHION. 
 
 of pupils or at her own house, No. 3001 
 West Thirty-sixth Street. 
 
 " That's the old lady, a French one, sir," 
 said Wilson, faintly grinning. " There's 
 another one, sir, and they say they will keep 
 the editor only one moment." 
 
 " Show them in, then ; and mind, call me 
 in ten minutes, Wilson." 
 
 A moment later the portal of multicolored 
 glass slid noiselessly upon its groove to 
 admit the callers. First, Mme. Leblanc, 
 habited like an empress of the lyric stage, 
 her vast person gleaming with jet, her 
 bonnet beplumed after a fashion recently 
 introduced under the style of " Enterre- 
 ment de la premiere classe." 
 
 Behind her, a slight young thing in a 
 close-fitting brown frock, with a veil of 
 brown tissue half drawn across a peach- 
 tinted face, a mouth made for laugh- 
 ter and for kissing, just now rather woe- 
 struck and drooping at the corners. Dale's
 
 A THORN IN HIS CUSHION. 
 
 eye took all this in while addressing itself 
 politely to the exhortation of Mme. 
 Leblanc, who had come, she informed 
 him, to inquire about a story sent by her 
 young friend, Miss E. T., now some weeks 
 since. 
 
 "Your young friend is probably little ac- 
 customed to the slow grinding of editorial 
 mills," answered Dale, attempting to as- 
 sume an air at once impersonal and fatherly; 
 and hurrying on he tried to pave the way 
 toward extracting the MS. from its pigeon- 
 hole, and conveying it back to Miss E. T. 
 with all the grace and ease of which he felt 
 himself to be master. 
 
 " But are you sure the editor has seen 
 it? " here interposed the girl, with a bridling 
 of her small head that seemed not to accord 
 with the shabby gentility of her protector. 
 
 " I am the editor," Dale answered, some- 
 what nettled ; " by to-morrow this story 
 would have been in your hands again, had
 
 120 A THORN IN HIS CUSHION. 
 
 you not honored me to-day. To read it has 
 given me pleasure, and I sincerely wish it 
 might do so to the many readers of our 
 magazine but " 
 
 "There is no hope for me?" she cried, 
 with the upbraiding of a child in her soft 
 voice, and to Dale's dismay two bright 
 tears rolled down from under the brown- 
 tissue veil upon the flushing cheeks. 
 
 Wilson's arrival at that crisis was a boon 
 for which Dale afterward rewarded the 
 young man by the unexplained present of 
 a couple of theater tickets. 
 
 " Talk about thorns in the editorial cush- 
 ion," Dale remarked, when on a visit that 
 evening to his convalescent superior. " Dear 
 old Thackeray knew what he was about when 
 he wrote that essay. To have a pretty girl, 
 who, no doubt, expected to feed several 
 widowed mothers from the proceeds, come 
 into your private office, and cry over her 
 rejected manuscript by Jove ! another
 
 A THORN IN HIS CUSHION. 1 2 1 
 
 minute, and I should have been wiping 
 away her poor dear little tears." 
 
 " It's high time I turned out again," re- 
 marked the other grimly, reaching over for 
 a cigar. 
 
 Next day, what should Dale do but settle 
 himself squarely to the task of writing " E. 
 T." a letter, which should embody all the 
 disinterested good advice on the art of mod- 
 ern composition, to supply the demand of 
 buyers of modern magazines, his experience 
 could suggest. It was an excellent letter 
 Harry felt with pride a letter worthy to be 
 hektographed and retained in the office for 
 similar occasions a letter that would be 
 eagerly bought up by a syndicate to print 
 as the official utterance of an expert. Might 
 it not, therefore, serve as a peace-offering to 
 the sorely afflicted Miss E. T., whose look, 
 as she retired with her rejected treasure, he 
 could not yet forget ? Poor girl ! poor girl ! 
 No doubt everything pointed to the con-
 
 122 A THORN IN HIS CUSHION. 
 
 elusion she had staked an infinity of hope 
 upon her hapless venture, and it was curious 
 to see how long those round, pellucid tears 
 had held together before dissolving on the 
 peach-bloom of her cheek. He had never 
 
 seen a woman cry becomingly before 
 
 Well, of all the driveling idiots ! 
 
 Finding himself tete-a-tete with a post-box, 
 Dale dropped into it his letter to E. T., and 
 dismissed or thought he did the subject 
 from his mind. 
 
 A week later he had the curiosity to turn 
 his steps across Sixth Avenue, into the mid- 
 way region of one of those cross-streets that 
 begin so well and finish so shabbily. Within 
 the border-line of decrepit respectability, he 
 found the house designated by the card 
 of Mme. Leblanc. It was a recently built 
 structure, of brick with a plaster of brown 
 stone, and cheap colored glass bedecked 
 the transom of the front door a " flat " 
 house of the most depressing pattern. In
 
 A THORN IN HIS CUSHION. 123 
 
 the vestibule were rows of speaking trum- 
 pets, with the card of the owner of each 
 tacked above it. Mine. Leblanc lived on 
 the fifth floor. He looked about him hesi- 
 tatingly. On one side of the house was a 
 German grocery ; on the other the entrance 
 to a stable. In the dirty street, dirty chil- 
 dren were wrangling at their play beneath 
 the grocer's wagon. A boy, carrying a load 
 of kindling-wood, jostled him roughly. 
 Dale, who was uncertain what he came 
 there to do, found himself the object of 
 speculation from frowsy lodgers who passed 
 in and out. As the door opened, a gush 
 of onions, cooking, rushed forth upon the 
 breeze. 
 
 " Poor E. T.," sighed Dale, and turned 
 away. 
 
 During the spring following this trivial 
 episode, Dale's time and attention were ab- 
 sorbed by weightier things. " Poems, by
 
 124 A THORN IN HIS CUSHION. 
 
 Henry Hillhouse Dale," a modest volume, 
 bound in olive green, with orange lettering, 
 had made its appearance before a moder- 
 ately startled world. Among the varied 
 comments upon his book, Harry held sacred 
 a letter from his mother, that had drifted 
 down to him from her bowery home, as an 
 apple-blossom falls to earth. 
 
 "Oh! my dear, darling boy," the letter 
 ran, " how shall I ever tell you my feelings 
 when I cut the string around your precious 
 book? My hand trembled so, my heart 
 beat, and I couldn't help looking up at 
 your father's picture for sympathy. In my 
 delight over its present beautiful appear- 
 ance, I will confess to you that the galley 
 slips you first sent gave me many pangs. 
 I couldn't imagine how the gold-winged 
 butterfly of my ambition was to emerge 
 from that dingy chrysalis. O, Harry, the 
 poems are lovelier than ever ! Everybody 
 must think so. You will be famous, and I
 
 A THORN IN HIS CUSHION. 125 
 
 shall be so proud prouder than before, if 
 such a thing can be of my own, clever, 
 handsome, loving son." 
 
 Dale began by smiling broadly, and ended 
 by wiping his eyes. He read the letter 
 while waiting for his dinner in an Italian 
 restaurant, and his sentiment was cut short 
 by a dish of macaroni au gratin, briskly 
 deposited before him. By and by he took 
 up the sheet again. 
 
 " It is so beautiful in Hillsboro, now ; you 
 can't imagine a more lovely June. The old 
 syringa bushes over the front gate look as 
 if a snow-drift were upon them ; the meadow 
 is full of big daisies and buttercups ; the 
 robins sing from morning until night. Do 
 get off for a Sunday, soon, and run up to 
 me, my lad 
 
 " And now for our village gossip. It is 
 quite true the old Gardiner homestead has 
 been sold to one of your New York capital- 
 ists, a Mr. Jeremiah Thorne."
 
 126 A THORN IN HIS CUSHION. 
 
 " Thorne, Baker & Evans, the sugar peo- 
 ple," ejaculated Dale. "Alas ! for poor old 
 Hillsboro ! the Egyptians will despoil her." 
 
 " Although workmen have been occupied 
 in overhauling the house for some months 
 past, the name of the buyer has never come 
 out till this week. You remember my tell- 
 ing you of the young people of the Thorne 
 family last year. They had rooms at the 
 hotel, with their governess and maids, while 
 the father and mother, and oldest sister, were 
 in Europe. This summer they have come 
 again, the mamma with them, a faded, over- 
 dressed little person, who drives about the 
 village streets in a victoria with showy horses 
 and clanking chains. They are to move 
 into the old house when the furniture is in 
 order. The father, who comes up on Satur- 
 day evening by the late train, and goes back 
 on Monday morning, looks as if he were on 
 springs, so nervous and restless he is. It is 
 hard to believe that pair the parents of the
 
 A THORN IN HIS CUSHION. 127 
 
 charming children with whom I have already 
 made acquaintance shall I tell you how? 
 
 " Last summer, one of the little lads came 
 up the garden path, as bold as Julius Caesar, 
 to tell me he had thrown his ball across my 
 palings, and broken one of my tall, white 
 lilies from the stalk, and that he \vished to 
 beg my pardon. 
 
 "'As for the lilies, there are plenty of 
 them,' I said, smiling ; ' but there are not 
 many little boys who think of an old 
 woman's feelings for her flowers.' 
 
 "'Oh! but I didn't/ he cried out. 'It 
 was my sister Nora, who told me I must 
 come, and Nora's such a jolly girl, you 
 know. She's out there walking along, wait- 
 ing for me, and I must go.' 
 
 "'Take Nora this lily and another, won't 
 you?' I said, putting the flowers in a rather 
 grimy little paw. He ran off with a merry 
 'Thank you,' and I saw him join a girl, who 
 bent down and kissed him as he handed
 
 128 A THORN IN HIS CUSHION. 
 
 her the lilies. A Sunday or two later I 
 met Master Tom Thome with his sister 
 coming out of church, and we struck up 
 a conversation based upon the lilies. 
 Until the other day I saw no more of 
 them. Last week Tom and Nora, accom- 
 panied by a splendid collie dog, passed by 
 our house, and the dog, dashing in, threat- 
 ened to devastate my poppy bed. To call him 
 away brought the two young people to our 
 gate, and as I was working among my flowers, 
 they stopped awhile to aid me, Tom with 
 more zeal than discretion, I'm afraid. All 
 this time I haven't told you that Nora is 
 a darling ; sweet, unspoiled, impulsive, just 
 what I should have wished your poor sister 
 to have grown up had she lived. It is in- 
 credible that she should belong to those 
 Thornes, who are essentially commonplace 
 and self-important people. This girl lives 
 her own life apart from theirs, it's plain. 
 She is fond of nature, out-door sports, of
 
 A THORN IN HIS CUSHION. 129 
 
 dogs, of the company of her brother Tom. 
 She is well poised, mentally, and 'hath a 
 pretty wit.' Altogether, her society is 
 agreeable to me, and, if this is not an old 
 woman's vanity, I fancy mine is to her. 
 She caught sight of the shelves full of by- 
 gone books in our sitting-room, and begged 
 my leave to look at them. Since then 
 hardly a day has passed that I have not 
 had her at the house. What will you say 
 now to the old lady's romantic attachment ? " 
 
 Next week Harry's letter from Hillsboro 
 contained more details of his mother's new- 
 found friendship : 
 
 " What more natural than that our con- 
 versation should frequently turn upon you ? 
 Nora looked at your old college photograph, 
 but said little in comment. Of course, that 
 was because it never did you justice, dear. 
 With your present beard and mustache, 
 too, it can hardly be said to resemble you. 
 When, however, she came to take up my
 
 13 A THORN IN HIS CUSHION. 
 
 copy of your poems, and saw what you had 
 written on the fly leaf that dear inscription 
 offering your first fruits of poetry to me 
 her face brightened. Was it possible that I 
 was the mother of this ' Henry Hillhouse 
 Dale ' was the ' Harry ' who why, for a 
 year past she had been cutting everything 
 signed by that name out of the newspapers 
 and pasting it in her scrap-book ! When 
 your poems were announced, she had sent 
 an immediate order to her bookseller to for- 
 ward to her a copy of the book as soon as it 
 was published." 
 
 " That's tangible ! " said Dale. " I like 
 that kind of an admirer. Unfortunately, 
 the crop is limited. I like her scrap-book, 
 too." 
 
 " She is immensely interested in the Cos- 
 mos magazine ; says her father has taken it 
 for years, and approves of it as a distinct 
 business success of a pure American type, 
 although she has never seen him do much
 
 A THORN IN HIS CUSHION. 
 
 more than glance over the pictures. She 
 asked me all sorts of questions about your 
 staff the editor-in-chief, particularly. I 
 said I had never met him, but believed 
 him to be a most worthy gentleman. 
 Next, she wanted to know if he is married, 
 and I told her yes, to such a pretty wife, 
 and that their twins are, to judge from 
 what you said, a most wonderful pair of 
 children." 
 
 Dale's mid-summer holiday with his 
 mother was spent at a seashore resort upon 
 the Jersey coast, instead of, as usual, at Hills- 
 boro, and it was not until late in September 
 that he again visited his home. The autumn 
 fires had begun to kindle in swamp and for- 
 est, and all nature was in readiness to cele- 
 brate that season which makes of Berkshire 
 one of earth's rarest garden spots. Harry 
 knew every station on the dusty, dislo- 
 cating Housatonic Railway every shoulder
 
 *3 2 A THORN IN HIS CUSHION. 
 
 of the hills, every brawling torrent, every 
 manufactory and wayside village was dear 
 to him. When he reached home, it was 
 with a school-boy's fervor that he threw his 
 arms around his mother's neck and kissed 
 her. He had walked ahead of the lumbering 
 stage, had burst in, unannounced, and, in 
 his glee, did not perceive the presence 
 of a young woman, who had quietly with- 
 drawn as he entered his mother's sitting 
 room. 
 
 " Harry ! why, Harry ! " cried breathless 
 Mrs. Dale. Then looking around, she 
 added : " How nice that you should meet 
 Nora in this informal way. Well, she's gone 
 by the side porch, after all the trouble she's 
 taken to arrange the flowers. It's really too 
 bad." 
 
 Harry, politely sympathetic, did not feel 
 particularly sorry to miss the encounter. 
 He looked around him full of satisfaction in 
 the old room, so fresh and smart with new
 
 A THORN IN HIS CUSHION. 133 
 
 chintzes, and with late roses in every vase 
 and corner. 
 
 " It never looked so nice," he said, com- 
 placently. 
 
 "Yes, we've worked hard," Mrs. Dale 
 answered, with a sagacious nod. "Nora 
 put all sorts of ideas into my head 
 about turning and twisting furniture, and 
 scattering odds and ends around the tables. 
 Girls are all that way, nowadays, it seems. 
 O Harry ! you must like Nora, if it's 
 only for the sake of the poor sister you 
 lost." 
 
 A method of reasoning not very clear to 
 Dale, but he acquiesced, lazily, and before 
 the day was out, found himself even 
 wondering when the much-bepraised Miss 
 Nora would show up. To Mrs. Dale's regret, 
 the young lady was out on horseback when 
 the widow called next morning, in due form, 
 with her son. The same ill luck attended 
 several attempted meetings until, out of
 
 134 A THORN IN HIS CUSHION. 
 
 patience, Mrs. Dale sent a note containing 
 an invitation to tea, so couched that Miss 
 Thorne could not, in courtesy, decline it. 
 
 At the appointed hour, therefore, enter 
 Miss Nora Thorne, her head well up, a flush 
 upon her cheeks, her erect, young figure 
 attired with what seemed to her enter- 
 tainers rather unusual splendor for a cot- 
 tage banquet. As Dale took the cold 
 hand she held out to him, he became con- 
 scious of a familiar line of lips and chin, 
 of a pearly texture of the skin around 
 them, of a certain dimple lying in wait 
 for an -opportunity to appear near the 
 left-hand corner of the mouth. 
 
 "You you are not E. T. ?" he stam- 
 mered, with all a man's bluntness. 
 
 "I am Eleanora Thorne," the girl said 
 with dignity. 
 
 "What do you mean, Harry?" asked the 
 puzzled widow. 
 
 "A stupid mistake of mine, that's all,"
 
 A THORN IN HIS CUSHION. 135 
 
 """* 
 
 Dale said, smothering a strong desire to 
 laugh. To Nora it was evidently not a 
 joke. 
 
 A week of ambient atmosphere, of un- 
 premeditated meetings, of rambles in the 
 rainbow woods, of talks beside the dropping 
 embers in the widow's sitting room, broke 
 down the barrier, as not a year's acquaint- 
 ance in city limits could have done. 
 
 " Chiefly because you have never asked 
 me," said Nora to Dale one evening at the 
 hour of blind man's holiday, when his 
 mother had left the two young people to- 
 gether for a space, "I will tell you about 
 that adventure of mine. First of all, I 
 honestly believed my story was a good 
 one." 
 
 "So say we all of us," answered Dale, but 
 not with malice. 
 
 "Then, my father, who was rather proud 
 of my taking so many first-composition
 
 136 A THORN Iff HIS CUSHION. 
 
 prizes at school, told me he would give me 
 $500 for our 'Baby Shelter' in New York 
 (I'm the secretary, you know, and a lot of us 
 girls work hard for it) if I could succeed in 
 getting an article accepted by a first-class 
 magazine. Naturally, I thought of the 
 Cosmos" 
 
 " Thanks. So many writers do," mur- 
 mured Dale. 
 
 "Oh! You needn't be sarcastic. I don't 
 mind you, now. It was only when I thought 
 you were the editor. The real thing, you 
 know. Well, I wrote that story, and pol- 
 ished it and copied it and sent it, and then, 
 while I was waiting to hear about it, I 
 thought I should die. I did not dare take 
 anyone at home into my confidence, and so 
 I sent for old Leblanc, the teacher of our 
 china-painting class at school, the best old 
 soul. They say she supports an ancient 
 father (exactly like old Time, with a velvet 
 cap on) in her rooms, somewhere on the
 
 A THORN IN HIS CUSHION. 137 
 
 West Side, and that she has to feed and 
 dress him like a child." 
 
 " And I, who believed you to be a scion 
 of the house Leblanc ! Why, the senti- 
 ment I wasted in that vestibule!" 
 
 " What are you talking about ? Oh ! 
 Yes, I remember your letter ; that letter 
 came through madame to me." 
 
 "Why do you say 'that letter' with 
 such a sniff of contempt ? It appears to 
 me, as I remember it, that letter was a 
 model." 
 
 " Of conceit and condescension, certainly," 
 said Miss Thorne, with much amusement. 
 " I don't believe patronage could farther go. 
 One might have supposed you to be as old 
 as old Monsieur Leblanc. But then, luckily, 
 I had seen you." 
 
 " The recollection seems to have afforded 
 you solace in your trial," said Harry, piqued. 
 
 " I don't deny what you said was clever. 
 Perhaps it was just, although it did seem to
 
 138 A THORN IN HIS CUSHION. 
 
 me rather ridiculous that the only part you 
 singled out for praise was the passage-at- 
 arms between Agnes and her great-aunt 
 about the Sunday bonnet." 
 
 "Yes, the Sunday bonnet," repeated 
 Dale, who was just then wandering a little 
 in admiration of the way Nora's loose hair 
 curled in fluffy rings upon the back of her 
 neck. " Oh yes ; as I said, the Sunday 
 bonnet. That was natural, sprightly, a bit 
 of everyday life photographically repro- 
 duced. What I told you then, I mean. 
 You have undoubted power of expression. 
 With years of practice, you might in time 
 come to write acceptable stories for our 
 magazines. But, oh ! there are so many 
 people who write acceptable stories, and so 
 few like you, who 
 
 " Mr. Dale ! " said Nora, interrupting him, 
 " I can't think what is the matter with you. 
 You are not a bit like yourself, generally. 
 Your mind is not in the least fixed on the
 
 A THORN IN HIS CUSHION. 139 
 
 subject of our talk. Now, please brace up 
 and pay me some attention." 
 
 " Good gracious ! " said Harry helplessly. 
 " That's exactly what I'm doing. Too much 
 for my own good." 
 
 " I want to start fresh with you, and ask 
 you to be my friend and helper. I believe 
 your letter, hateful as it was to take like a 
 particularly big pill did me good. I don't 
 agree to give up scribbling. Perhaps I may 
 write one good, short story, publish it in the 
 Cosmos, and then expire of pride. But I 
 don't even promise that " 
 
 " Promise only to enchant me as you do 
 now, forever," said the irrelevant young 
 man, with deplorable impetuosity. Nora's 
 heart gave a great rejoicing bound. She did 
 not believe her ears. He was outrageous, 
 deserving of instant punishment. Her over- 
 powering desire was to jump up and run out 
 of the room. But she did nothing of the 
 kind.
 
 140 A THORN IN HIS CUSHION. 
 
 Dale went back to town glorified. The 
 "thorn in his cushion " had been made to 
 blossom like a rose. 
 
 As far as heard from, Nora has never be- 
 come a contributor to the Cosmos magazine, 
 unless, perhaps, indirectly a state of things 
 seeming to give equal satisfaction to all 
 concerned.
 
 MR. CLENDENNING 
 PIPER. 
 
 MR. CLENDENNING PIPER will be remem- 
 bered as the aspirant to fashion who, ap- 
 pearing at one or two places of summer 
 resort a few years since, the proprietor 
 of a well-set-up four-in-hand, spilt vari- 
 ous confiding parties of guests, sprained 
 the ankles of at least three women, 
 and reduced several promising young 
 dudes to the condition of football cham- 
 pions after a prize match, before pub- 
 lic opinion prevailed on him to lay the 
 ribbons down and part with his outfit at 
 such price as it would fetch. Mr. Piper, 
 while he is written down a resident and
 
 I4 2 MR. CLENDENNING PIPER. 
 
 voter of New York, has been little seen 
 there during the season when the society 
 of which he desires to form a part is en- 
 gaged in its dizzy round of diurnal pleas- 
 ures. Although no one, to gaze upon his 
 cherubic proportions and cheeks perma- 
 nently blushing like lady apples, would give 
 him credit for weakness of the lungs, he 
 has thrown out a hint to the effect that his 
 physicians insist upon his wintering in 
 Florida ; and to the Oriental splendors of 
 the Ponce de Leon he has accordingly 
 allied himself not infrequently. Ill-natured 
 people say that he avoids New York be- 
 cause he has failed to get into certain 
 clubs for which his small soul yearns ; but 
 then people are so ill-natured ! Those who 
 have whispered these legends oftenest, it 
 must be observed, have eaten Mr. Piper's 
 dinners, drunk his wines, and used his 
 horses whenever bidden to do so outside of 
 the metropolis.
 
 MR. CLENDENNING PIPER. M3 
 
 Reputed to be the heir of ancestral mil- 
 lions, Mr. Piper might have been, nay is, a 
 planet of the first importance in the hori- 
 zons below the empyrean where he aspires 
 to rule. " What ! You don't know Mr. 
 Clendenning Piper?" inquire in astonish- 
 ment the denizens of cities where the little 
 man has managed to get a foothold in so- 
 ciety, of their friends within the penetralia 
 of New York. " Why, down here he is no 
 end of a swell. Mrs. Druid Park, under 
 the impression that he belonged to your 
 smart set, you know, had him at her 
 autumn house party. And the Schuylkills 
 took him on their yacht, and the F. F. 
 Richmonds got him to lead their cotillon 
 when they brought out their oldest girl," 
 etc., etc., etc. And still the portals Mr. 
 Piper longs to enter in New York open not ! 
 
 The little episode of his checkered career 
 which I am about to divulge had its origin 
 in an expedition at Bar Harbor, arranged
 
 144 MR. CLENDENNING PIPER. 
 
 by him in honor of a certain Mrs. Penfold, 
 greatly in vogue that season upon the 
 plank-walk, in hotel verandas, and on the 
 rattling parties by buckboard to sup at 
 Somesville, across the island, and drive home 
 by light of the moon. Mrs. Penfold, like 
 Mr. Piper, was a newcomer of antecedents 
 vague a widow of several years' standing, 
 not particularly young, or pretty, or rich, 
 and not accomplished, save in the one ex- 
 quisite art of making herself agreeable to the 
 person with whom it was her lot to be tempo- 
 rarily thrown. Added to this she had large, 
 dark eyes, a knack of telling fortunes of the 
 most flattering elasticity of bounds, and 
 waltzed so well as to accentuate her com- 
 plaisance in allowing Mr. Piper, who spins 
 like a teetotum, to take her out for many a 
 turn at the Kebo Valley dances. Like Mr. 
 Piper, Mrs. Penfold knew herself to be as yet 
 a burr on the outer skirts of society. The 
 tabbies of the hotel said many unkind things
 
 MR. CLENDENNING PIPER. 145 
 
 of her flirtations, and she was as yet unrecog- 
 nized by the social autocrats who make or 
 mar. Like him, too, she had industry, per- 
 sistence in shedding snubs, good temper, 
 and a secret determination to get on. 
 Recognizing fellowship, Mr. Piper felt at 
 first inclined to avoid rather than to 
 fraternize with this doubtful little person ; 
 but finding himself seated at her table at 
 the Merry-Go-Round Hotel, and exposed 
 daily to the appeal of her pathetic eyes and 
 ways, his reserve melted. When his new 
 naphtha launch came around from Boston, 
 he went so far as to ask Mrs. Penfold to 
 preside over his initial party for a run about 
 Frenchman's Bay. 
 
 Passing over the details of this entertain- 
 ment, when Mr. Piper, like a grand pasha, 
 surrounded himself chiefly with fair females, 
 and a couple of men so insignificant that ri- 
 valry was not to be feared; when, clad in all 
 the latest coquetries of male nautical attire,
 
 146 MR. CLENDENNING PIPER. 
 
 he stood like Pleasure at the Prow; when, 
 after the champagne and sandwiches and 
 marsh mallows had been exhausted, it was 
 discovered that the naphtha had followed 
 suit, and that it was necessary, then several 
 miles beyond Bald Rock, to row the launch 
 to shore it will suffice to say that Mrs. Pen- 
 fold's amiability, her two Spanish songs, her 
 conundrums and her fortune-telling carried 
 the day, and Mr. Piper fell in love. 
 
 Everybody predicted that the wise little 
 widow would, before Christmas, have the 
 lawful spending of Mr. Piper's shekels ; but 
 no engagement was announced. For rea- 
 sons best known to herself she kept his 
 proposal at arm's length. He and she, and 
 the gay revelers of a season, drifted away 
 from Bar Harbor long before the first leaves 
 had left the trees, and nobody knew that 
 Mrs. Penfold had given her Piper leave to 
 speak definitely, with the hope of a not un- 
 favorable reply, during the first week of
 
 MR. CLENDENNING PIPER. 147 
 
 December, at her apartments in New York. 
 Mr. Piper sighed at his probation, but ac- 
 quiesced. He was, by that time, bowled by 
 the tender passion completely off his feet. 
 What to do with the intervening months, 
 for she had exacted that he was to keep his 
 distance from New York, he could not tell. 
 So he got aboard a steamer, turned up a 
 week later in London, drifted to Paris, and 
 while there had the signal good fortune to 
 save from annihilation, by an omnibus upon 
 the asphalt, the Skye terrier of Mrs. De- 
 lancey Griffith, a potentate of fashion in 
 New York. This lady, who wept real tears 
 upon the restoration of her jewel, could not, 
 upon further acquaintance with his rescuer, 
 say enough of her obligation to Mr. Piper. 
 She murmured something about seeing him 
 often when they should be back in town, 
 hinted at tickets to her opera-box, and cups 
 of tea at her Thursdays, and finally crystal- 
 lized into an invitation to him to a Christ-
 
 148 MR. CLENDENNING PIPER. 
 
 mas party which she had promised to chap- 
 erone for her brother, at his country place on 
 the Sound. The latter suggestion was to Mr. 
 Clendenning Piper like the vision of a Vic- 
 toria Cross to an English soldier of the line. 
 He knew that the hospitalities of the 
 brother in question, Mr. Peter Percival, were 
 mentioned in the society columns of the 
 newspapers as courted by the exclusive 
 world. He knew of Mr. Peter Percival him- 
 self as a man of many clubs, well-born, well- 
 placed, and rich ; a bachelor on the shady 
 side of fifty, for whom nets matrimonial had 
 long been vainly spread ; given to rallying 
 about him choice gatherings of people, and 
 setting before them something original in 
 his programme for the day or week. But, 
 luckily for him, Mr. Piper did not know that 
 Mrs. Griffith had said, inwardly, before 
 bestowing on him the eagerly-accepted invi- 
 tation : " I must do something for this 
 funny little man who saved my darling
 
 MR. CLENDENNING PIPER. 149 
 
 Fussy. Peter's Christmas party will more 
 than pay him up, and I can drop him after 
 that. Peter is so good-natured he won't 
 mind, and, besides, it will set off some 
 horrid new creature he'll be sure to discover 
 and expect me to countenance because she 
 plays on the zither, or recites, or whistles, 
 or dear knows what ! " 
 
 By the time Mr. Piper again set foot upon 
 his native shore, many ideas had chased each 
 other through his alleged mind. Upon the 
 threshold of a new existence, as it were a 
 new birth into fashionable life, he had found 
 himself gravely hampered by ties which, 
 viewed in absence and cooler judgment had 
 become quite another thing. As the day 
 drew near to present himself before the lady 
 of his love, he saw, unmistakably, that, as 
 the affianced husband of an insignificant Mrs. 
 Penfold, his chances of becoming a familiar 
 member of Mrs. Griffith's circle would be 
 narrowed hopelessly. He rued the hour
 
 MR. CLENDENNING PIPER. 
 
 in which he had visited Bar Harbor and 
 taken his quarters at the Merry-Go-Round 
 Hotel. Mrs. Penfold's mature age, the lines 
 around her eyes, suspicion of the faint 
 bloom on her cheek, conviction of her want 
 of style, haunted him ceaselessly ..... 
 After much mental anguish, he decided up- 
 on the course of sending to her address a 
 huge box of American Beauty roses, with 
 a bonbonniere of extravagant proportions, 
 and a note regretting that, acting upon the 
 peremptory advice of his physician, he was 
 compelled to pass directly through New 
 York and go South, for a period to which 
 no limit had been set. To justify himself, 
 he arranged to visit the Hygeia Hotel at 
 Old Point Comfort, and remain there until 
 Christmas week. 
 
 The invitation given by Mrs. Griffith to 
 Mr. Percival's country house having been 
 duly seconded by that complaisant gentle-
 
 MR. CLENDENNING PIPER. 
 
 man, we may now behold Mr. Piper on the 
 eve of realizing his fondest hopes. Fortified 
 by an English valet and an outfit of English 
 clothes, he stood ready to join, at their 
 rendezvous at the Grand Central Station 
 upon the morrow, the party to which Mrs. 
 Griffith had decreed that he should be an- 
 nexed. Fevered with excitement, he spent 
 the last evening at the play, somewhere, and 
 on returning to his rooms, found awaiting 
 him a bombshell in the shape of a com- 
 munication running thus : 
 
 " Mrs. Delancey Griffith's compliments to 
 Mr. Piper, and regrets that owing to cir- 
 cumstances over which she has no control 
 the party projected for to-morrow is indefi- 
 nitely postponed. As Mrs. Griffith is im- 
 mediately leaving town, she will also be 
 debarred from receiving her friends on 
 Thursdays, as proposed." 
 
 " What on earth have they heard against 
 me ? " asked Mr. Piper, wiping the cold
 
 152 MR. CLENDENNING PIPER. 
 
 sweat of misery from his haggard brow. 
 " Can it be the newspapers have been pub- 
 lishing something about my engagement to 
 that hanged little widow ? " 
 
 He passed a sleepless night, and next 
 morning read in the journals served to 
 him with his coffee, announcements of the 
 surprising marriage of the great Mr. Peter 
 Percival with a Mrs. Agnes Blanche Pen- 
 fold, unknown in the smart set, but said to 
 be a widow encountered by the magnate 
 on a steamer coming from England a few 
 months back. The wedding, occurring at a 
 quiet uptown church the day before, had 
 not been previously announced, to Mr. 
 Percival's family, and was now a subject 
 of lively comment in clubs and drawing 
 rooms. 
 
 " So that was her game, the little ser- 
 pent ! " spluttered Mr. Piper in a rage ; 
 " she wanted to hold on to me for fear of 
 not landing him !" a mixture of metaphors
 
 MR. CLENDENNING PIPER. 153 
 
 which, interspersed with language not fit- 
 ting to record, may be pardoned our hero at 
 this point. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Peter Percival traveled for 
 some months, and by the time they were 
 ready to reopen the family mansion in New 
 York, so many more startling dtfnoue- 
 ments had been reached in society that 
 they had almost ceased to be discussed. 
 Mrs. Percival, indeed, soon conquered all 
 prejudices, save those of her sister-in-law, 
 Mrs. Delancey Griffith. She makes quite a 
 model great lady, and dispenses her boun- 
 ties to the fashionable world with a tactful 
 and not too lavish hand. Mr. Piper, who is 
 of a forgiving nature, left his card at the 
 Percivals' soon after her installation in New 
 York ; but as he was not included in the 
 invitation to her first general crush, and was 
 hopelessly cut by her in the lobby of the 
 Opera House soon after, he is, at last
 
 154 MR. CLENDENNING PIPER. 
 
 accounts, on the lookout for some other 
 loophole by which to get into our best 
 society. Neither he nor the late Mrs. 
 Penfold has since favored Bar Harbor 
 with a visit.
 
 JENNY, 
 THE DEBUTANTE 
 
 ONE fine day in spring, a rattling fiacre, 
 driven by a red-nosed, red-waistcoated, and 
 quarrelsome old coachman, pulled up with 
 a jerk before the door of the " Ladies of the 
 Sacred Heart," in a quiet boulevard of Paris. 
 
 Out of this equipage, stopping on the 
 sidewalk to pick the straws from her respect- 
 able black-worsted ankles, stepped a stout 
 woman with beetling brows that met over a 
 hooked nose. 
 
 She wore a black stuff frock and red 
 
 striped jacket with a clean fluted cap, a 
 
 costume that indicates her class. She was, 
 
 in fact, the bonne, or maid-of-all-work, sent 
 
 * First published in Wide A wake.
 
 I5 6 JENNY, THE DEBUTANTE. 
 
 by Mrs. Platt to accompany that lady's two 
 young daughters back from their convent 
 boarding-school to the fifth-floor apartment 
 in the Rue Vernet that served them as a 
 home. 
 
 Annette, at ordinary times so fierce and 
 and bustling, had like a true Frenchwoman 
 made ready for her outing by putting on a sort 
 of holiday face. She even exchanged grim 
 jokes with the cocker as that functionary, 
 whipping from underneath an oil-skin petti- 
 coat around his box a black bottle and a 
 piece of cheese wrapped in a copy of Le Petit 
 Journal, with a yard or so of bread, settled 
 himself fora comfortable lunch. 
 
 Upon this spectacle the eyes of the two 
 girls rested, when they came out of the 
 convent, the great doors of the best home 
 they had ever known clanging behind them 
 sharply. 
 
 " So this is your fairy chariot, Jenny, you 
 little goose ? " Estelle said scornfully.
 
 JENNY, THE DEBUTANTE. 157 
 
 Jenny could not answer. As they turned 
 the corner of the street she leaned out to 
 look her last at the familiar walls of the be- 
 loved Sacred Heart. For the remainder of 
 the drive her little cotton pocket-handker- 
 chief was saturated with very honest tears. 
 
 " Do stop crying, Jenny," said her sister. 
 " For my part, bad as it is, I am thankful 
 for any change from that poky place. It 
 was perfectly ridiculous of mamma to keep 
 us there so long." 
 
 At Rue Vernet, leaving Annette and the 
 driver to indulge in the usual wrangle over 
 the fare and drink-money, the girls ran with 
 light footsteps up four long flights of stairs. 
 The door was opened for them by their 
 mother, dressed in a tumbled tea-gown of 
 blue china-silk, trimmed with an abundance 
 of not over-clean lace. Mrs. Platt's face 
 looked pinched and tired, under the forest 
 of blond curls she wore when not adorned 
 with crimping pins.
 
 158 JENNY, THE DEBUTANTE. 
 
 " My dear," said this lady, kissing Estelle 
 on either check, then holding her off for a 
 survey, " you really surpass my hopes. One 
 can never tell how a complexion will clear 
 up. Yes, you may go directly into the salon, 
 my child. A friend of mine, Monsieur de 
 Patras, has come to breakfast." 
 
 "Mamma!" said an appealing voice. 
 
 " O Jenny! is that you, child? And 
 that's the cashmere ? How badly it has 
 worn ! I declare you're browner than 
 before ! The very image of your father's 
 people ! Go into my bedroom or no, 
 you'd better help Annette. Do keep her 
 in a good humor and coax her to make an 
 omelette with jam. I'm sure that woman's 
 temper will bring me to my grave." 
 
 Jenny dressed the salad, arranged a few 
 grapes and pears, tidied the scantily served 
 table, and at last, to soothe the now raging 
 Annette, undertook to make the coffee, and 
 to watch the omelette. She heard Estelle
 
 JENNY, THE DEBUTANTE. 159 
 
 singing, at the little cracked piano, a song 
 from the " Noces de Jeannette " they had 
 both learned at the convent : 
 
 Cours, mon aiguille, dans la laine. 
 
 And afterward the approving voice of Mon- 
 sieur de Patras, crying "Brava, brava ! " 
 She caught a glimpse of that gentleman sit- 
 ting on a little sofa nursing his hat and 
 stick, and his moustachios amused her 
 mightily. 
 
 By the time Jenny found an opportunity 
 to eat her own scrappy midday meal, Estelle 
 and her mamma had gone off to drive in 
 the Bois de Boulogne, in Monsieur de 
 Patras's carriage. 
 
 " And you will dine afterward with me at 
 the restaurateur's, chere Madame?" the 
 Baron had said, in setting out. " Perhaps it 
 will amuse Mademoiselle to visit the spec- 
 tacle at the Chatelet, this evening." 
 
 " You are too good, Monsieur, to my little
 
 160 JENNY, THE DEBUTANTE. 
 
 convent-bred girl," madame had answered, 
 fluttering with satisfaction. " Think what 
 it has been to me to be separated from this 
 dear angel ; " at which moment Annette, 
 putting her blunt head in at the door, had 
 summoned her mistress to know what she ex- 
 pected to have for dinner, now that the chops 
 had been sacrificed to the " second dejeuner" 
 
 "How dare you interrupt me ?" said the 
 lady in a sharp whisper. " Idiot ! cook any- 
 thing you have. Mademoiselle and I do not 
 return till after the spectacle to-night." 
 
 Poor little Jenny, who would have given 
 her eyes to see the old story of Cin- 
 derella acted with a hundred tricks of stage- 
 craft about which all Paris had been talk- 
 ing latterly, was forgotten. Luckily, the 
 girls in the convent school, except those 
 who, when at home for the holidays, were 
 taken by their guardians to see an occasional 
 fairy piece, knew very little about theat- 
 rical delights. Jenny, too, was accustomed
 
 JENNY, THE DEBUTANTE. 161 
 
 through long habit to give up to Estelle ; 
 and, in unpacking their boxes and practicing 
 a while on the piano, the afternoon was 
 passed not unpleasantly. Old Annette, 
 mollified by her helpfulness, managed to 
 prepare for her tea a delicious dish of toasted 
 rusk, with apples spiced and roasted and a 
 tiny pot of cream. 
 
 " For with that charcutier at the corner, 
 insisting as he does on being paid, ma foi" 
 the woman said, " another scrap of meat 
 this day is not a thing to think of." 
 
 The first day of Jenny's life at home was 
 a sample of those that followed. She used 
 often to think longingly of the merry com- 
 panionship of the girls at the Sacre Cceur. 
 She missed more than she could say the 
 gentle sympathy of Sister Genevieve, the 
 nun who had been " faither an' mither an' 
 a'," to the two young Americans growing up 
 in her charge.
 
 162 JENNY, THE DEBUTANTE. 
 
 For Mrs. Platt, who had been a widow 
 ever since Jenny's babyhood, had long ago 
 fallen in with the vagrant, hand-to-mouth 
 style of living pursued by a certain number 
 of her country people in Europe. It had 
 been to her a great convenience to tuck 
 away Estelle and J'enny in the safe precincts 
 of the convent school while she traveled 
 about in the wake of a floating colony of 
 idle people, who are seen at Paris, Hom- 
 burg, Rome, Nice, etc., in turn. 
 
 But Estelle and Jenny, heretofore spoken 
 of as " my darling little girls," had perse- 
 vered in a habit healthy girls have of grow- 
 ing and budding and putting out all manner 
 of fresh charms and graces, until Sister 
 Genevieve had felt obliged to inform their 
 mother it was time to take them home " for 
 good." 
 
 Poor Mrs. Platt was at first really over- 
 whelmed. How could her scant supply of 
 ready money be made to cover the expenses
 
 JENNY, THE DEBUTANTE. 163 
 
 of three who must share and share alike? 
 Estelle, with her beautiful coloring and 
 stylish figure, might indeed help to reflect 
 credit on the widow ; but Jenny Jenny, 
 little, brown, bright-eyed, like a robin on 
 a twig who could do anything with such 
 as Jenny? 
 
 As the May days passed away, and all of 
 Paris beautiful, bewildering, blossoming, 
 laughing Paris in spring garb poured out 
 upon the streets and parks and drives and 
 boulevards, Mrs. Platt and Estelle were con- 
 tinually abroad. To provide both of them 
 with the wonderful toilets in. which they 
 appeared in public, the little day-dress- 
 maker could never have sewed fast enough, 
 unless Jenny's fingers had been there to 
 help. Jenny sewed long seams, hemmed 
 ruffles, tied bows and, when Estelle was 
 attired for conquest, stood back to ad- 
 mire the lovely vision she had helped to 
 create. For Estelle, aided by her mother's
 
 164 JENNY, THE DEBUTANTE. 
 
 taste in dress, was beautiful, undoubtedly. 
 Many people of Mrs. Platt's acquaintance, 
 who for some time past had taken little 
 notice of the widow, left cards and re- 
 newed their invitations, in consideration of 
 the new attraction the Rue Vernet now 
 offered. 
 
 There was, however, one person who had 
 never been brought to recognize the social 
 claims of Mrs. Platt, and that was her country- 
 woman, Mrs. Noble of New York, who with 
 her young family occupied the best apart- 
 ment of the house in the Rue Vernet. It 
 was too exasperating, the widow thought, 
 to have everybody taking for granted that 
 she knew her " charming compatriot, the 
 distinguished Madame Noble." 
 
 In spite of many opportunities of which 
 she might well have taken advantage, Mrs. 
 Noble had remained blind and deaf to the 
 existence of Mrs. Platt. Every day, com- 
 ing and going, it was the widow's lot to see
 
 JENNY, Th DEBUTANTE. 165 
 
 the Nobles' carriage, drawn by those famous 
 American horses, standing in the court- 
 yard; to see Mrs. Noble with her son or 
 daughter get into it and drive away, with- 
 out a glance in her direction. The wealth, 
 the ease, the assured position of the Nobles, 
 were what the foolish woman envied ; not 
 the good breeding, the family union, the 
 simplicity of dress and manner that marked 
 her neighbors au premier. 
 
 Little Jenny, tripping up and down the 
 stairs, unnoticed, to save Annette's old 
 bones in household errands, found her- 
 self too, one day, looking after the Nobles' 
 carriage as it drove away from the court- 
 yard, with a sort of yearning in her heart. 
 She had heard an interchange of loving 
 banter between the mother and her children, 
 and the contrast between that and her own 
 domestic atmosphere went through her with 
 a pang. 
 
 Early in June came invitations, for which
 
 166 JENNY, THE DEBUTANTE. 
 
 Mrs. Platt had plotted and planned with per- 
 sistence worthy of a better cause, to a fete 
 at the hotel of one of the ministers of gov- 
 ernment ; a ball, with dancing in a tent to be 
 pitched in the middle of an illuminated gar- 
 den. Monsieur de Patras had brought the 
 two rose-colored tickets that were to admit 
 Estelle and her mamma into this dazzling 
 scene. 
 
 New dresses, fresh in every particular, 
 with the exception, perhaps, of the make- 
 shift by which madame's old pink silk 
 might be made to serve under a new pink 
 gauze for mademoiselle, were absolutely 
 necessary. The little dressmaker, Jenny, 
 madame, and Estelle (who directed but did 
 not sew) met together daily in important 
 conclave. The sitting room fairly over- 
 flowed with flounces and furbelows and snip- 
 pings of tulle and silk and ribbon. Jenny, 
 as much excited as if she herself were to be 
 the happy wearer of the robe now nearly
 
 JENNY, THE DEBUTANTE. 167 
 
 finished, had sewed until she began to feel 
 a chronic headache. 
 
 " There is one thing I forgot to tell you, 
 Estelle," said excited Mrs. Platt on the 
 morning of the fete ; " I am told that the 
 Nobles will certainly be there, and a friend 
 has promised to introduce us to them with- 
 out fail. Really, my dear, you are looking 
 pale to-day. Come out with me for a walk, 
 and if I can possibly afford it I will bargain 
 with the florist to let you have a bouquet 
 for to-night that will be worth the carrying." 
 
 " May I go for a walk in the Pare Mon- 
 ceaux, mamma?" asked Jenny. "Marie 
 and I can't both sew at once on your skirt, 
 and I have been feeling rather dizzy." 
 
 " Yes, go," answered the mother shortly. 
 "The Pare Monceaux is so given up to nur- 
 sery maids and children you can walk there 
 alone. Besides, nobody would be likely to 
 notice you, I think ! " she ended, with a 
 little slighting laugh.
 
 168 JENNY, THE DEBUTANTE. 
 
 Jenny had often before found her solitary 
 way to the pretty little park in the heart of 
 the great bustling city near their home. In 
 her plain frock, with her threadbare gloves, 
 the girl could glide about unobserved, like 
 the modest little working woman that she 
 was. 
 
 Sometimes a child at play would stop to 
 talk to her, and dogs scampering away from 
 their owners would frisk and lick her hand 
 when she accosted them. The birds knew 
 her and her pocket full of crumbs ; but with 
 these exceptions Jenny had for the most 
 part only the companionship of her cheer- 
 ful thoughts. 
 
 For I defy anyone who has youth and 
 strength and the future stretching far ahead 
 to be doleful in such an atmosphere as that 
 of an early summer's day in Paris. The 
 sparkle of sunshine, the green of grass and 
 trees, the play of fountains and the brilliant 
 show of flowers and, over all, such a stir and
 
 IE\ T NY, THE DEBUTANTE. 169 
 
 murmuring of re-awakened nature, enjoyed 
 by throngs of pleasant-spoken people, are 
 quite irresistible. 
 
 Jenny made no attempt to resist it. She 
 walked more rapidly, she hummed, she 
 skipped. Turning into a shady avenue of 
 horse-chestnuts, she found herself alone. A 
 little Scotch terrier, gamboling without his 
 leash, ran with her. When tired of racing 
 him she stopped by a fountain, and from 
 the leaves of a broken bough of horse-chest- 
 nut made for herself a cup, and stooped to 
 drink. 
 
 " Here, Rags ! here, Rags ! " said a pleas- 
 ant voice, calling the little dog. Jenny 
 looked up, and saw on a bench near by, their 
 neighbor, Mrs. Noble. 
 
 " Oh ! Rags is such a darling little fel- 
 low," she exclaimed ; " I hope you do not 
 mind my racing him." 
 
 " Rags is a wise little fellow," said his 
 mistress, smiling. " He knows how to
 
 JENNY, THE DEBUTANTE. 
 
 choose his comrades for a game. Of course 
 he gets tired sometimes of following my 
 sober steps, and my own poor girl isn't 
 strong enough to run with him. See here, 
 my child, I have a fancy to taste water from 
 a leaf-cup like the one you threw away ; 
 won't you make another one for me?" 
 
 Jenny made the cup, and after drinking, 
 Mrs. Noble sighed. " It was on my father's 
 farm in Massachusetts I don't like to 
 think how many years ago that I quaffed 
 my last draught from such a sylvan goblet. 
 It was for old associations' sake I asked 
 you." 
 
 " Then you can tell me about Amer- 
 ica," cried Jenny, kindling. " My father, 
 too, I think lived in Massachusetts as a boy. 
 I don't know anything about my own 
 country except what the geographies tell 
 us and at a French convent that's not 
 much." 
 
 Unconsciously she had seated herself at
 
 JENNY, THE DEBUTANTE. 
 
 the other end of Mrs. Noble's bench. She 
 took her hat off, and the heat making 
 her hair curl into rings of golden brown 
 around her temples, deepened the color in 
 her cheeks. Jenny looked yes, it is actu- 
 ally true so pretty, that the lady of the 
 fountain smiled admiringly. Mrs. Noble, 
 interested in the subject as in her listener, 
 talked long and pleasantly. 
 
 When, in the course of their conversa- 
 tion, she found out that Jenny was the 
 child of the Mrs. Platt who lived au 
 cinqutime in the Rue Vernet, an expres- 
 sion Jenny could hardly understand came 
 into her mild eyes. 
 
 " I do not know your mother," she said, 
 after a moment's pause. " But, my dear, if 
 you think she will not mind, it would give 
 me the greatest pleasure to take you with us 
 this evening to hear Madame Galli-Marie' 
 sing the part of Mignon at the Opera- 
 Comique."
 
 I? 2 JENNY, THE DEBUTANTE. 
 
 " / oh ! " Jenny drew a long breath of 
 pleasure. " I have never heard an opera. 
 The Sisters took us to a Mass at St. Eustache 
 one day; we heard the 'Stabat Mater.' 
 Oh ! how thrilling it all was. There was a 
 man's voice he came from the Pope's choir, 
 they said ; it was like an angel's trumpet ! 
 Oh! do you believe mamma will let me?" 
 she concluded, in a burst of joyful inco- 
 herence. 
 
 " I believe she will," said Mrs. Noble 
 smiling. 
 
 It was all astonishing, Jenny thought. 
 There were mamma and Estelle lying on 
 their beds, trying to get a little sleep, they 
 said, before dressing for the ball. (Mamma 
 was in a queer kind of humor, half pleased, 
 half snappish!) There was little Marie, the 
 sewing-girl, lingering beyond her time to 
 fasten Jenny's one white frock, the muslin 
 Sister Genevieve had ordered for their
 
 JENNY, THE DEBUTANTE. 173 
 
 school exhibition the year before. Marie's 
 deft fingers tied her white silk sash in a 
 truly Parisian bow behind the slender waist, 
 and when all was finished stood back to 
 inform Jenny that she was vraiment tres 
 bien ; not beautiful like Mademoiselle 
 Estelle, but comme il faut ! There was 
 Annette, in a red camisole and spotless cap, 
 waiting to escort her down the stairs and 
 deliver her up in state to Mrs. Noble's 
 keeping ! Surely, it could not be true. 
 Surely, little Jenny must awake and find it 
 but a dream. 
 
 Jenny had never seen anything like the 
 elegance and comfort of her new friend's 
 quarters. When the doors opened, and she 
 was ushered into the large drawing room 
 filled with luxurious furniture and hang- 
 ings, with blooming plants everywhere, and 
 softly-shaded lamps, with abundant books 
 and work-tables, and an open grand piano, 
 behind which sat a young girl playing one
 
 174 JENNY, THE DEBUTANTE. 
 
 of Chopin's waltzes, she felt absolutely over- 
 come with fear. 
 
 But there, in a deep armchair, holding 
 out her hand and gently greeting her little 
 visitor, was the lady of the fountain. Be- 
 hind Mrs. Noble stood her tall son, George, 
 and Helen came forward from the piano. 
 
 "See, children," said Mrs. Noble, when 
 they rose to go in to dinner presently, 
 "did I not tell you truly? Jenny has 
 just the turn of the head, the trick of 
 looking up when spoken to. I am speak- 
 ing of my married daughter in New York, 
 my dear; you reminded me of Grace the 
 moment I laid eyes on you." 
 
 "And you must expect to be spoiled 
 outrageously in consequence," said Helen. 
 " Mamma can never forgive my brother-in- 
 law for carrying off her eldest." 
 
 The dinner was pleasant, and uncon- 
 strained beyond anything in Jenny's previ- 
 ous experience. When the carriage was an-
 
 JENNY, THE DEBUTANTE. 175 
 
 nounced to take the ladies to the opera, Mrs. 
 Noble gave to each of the girls a bunch of 
 deep-red roses and, drawing Jenny aside 
 to her own room, put something in her 
 hand. 
 
 "There, my dear, is a little trinket to 
 wear on that velvet at your throat a mere 
 trifle of a thing, but I found it in my jewel- 
 box, and it will remind you of our meeting 
 at the fountain." 
 
 Eagerly Jenny opened the little velvet 
 box to find a pendant resembling a leaf, 
 made of green enamel, on which lay a pearl 
 and two tiny diamonds. Needless to tell of 
 her rapture when Helen slipped the pretty 
 ornament her very, very first ! upon the 
 velvet round her neck. 
 
 Jenny went to bed that night as happy 
 as a queen. She was up next morning and 
 about her work, long before it was time to 
 carry mamma's and Estelle's chocolate into 
 their bedrooms. From her sister she re-
 
 176 JENNY, THE DEBUTANTE. 
 
 ceived no greeting, but Mrs. Platt plied her 
 with a hundred questions. 
 
 " Humph ! " said that lady, when she had 
 heard a full account of Jenny's evening of 
 pure bliss. "A dinner the opera roses 
 pearls and diamonds ! Upon my word, 
 Miss, you are prettily set up. I must say 
 it was a thousand pities you got that slice of 
 luck, instead of poor Estelle. Was there ever 
 anything so provoking as my missing Mrs. 
 Noble's call, when she came yesterday to 
 leave the note asking if you might go with 
 her? However, Estelle and I will make it 
 a point to return the visit this afternoon. 
 Mrs. Noble ought to see Estelle." 
 
 " I hope your ball was lovely," ventured 
 Jenny in return. 
 
 " Well, the crowd was awful. I lost my 
 fan, and Estelle's goxvn was torn nearly in 
 two. There was not much chance for danc- 
 ing, and we walked around with that stupid 
 old Patras until our feet ached. I think it
 
 JENNY, THE DEBUTANTE. 1 77 
 
 very strange, Jenny, that the Nobles were 
 not there. I thought they would be sure to 
 look in after they left you at home." 
 
 " I heard Mrs. Noble say that she did not 
 approve of taking a girl so young as Helen to 
 those semi-public balls, and that she herself 
 never went into a crush," said Jenny ; a re- 
 mark that had the immediate effect of mak- 
 ing her mother scold her for impertinence 
 until the poor girl burst into tears, and 
 hurried from the room. 
 
 Spite of its auspicious beginning, the ac- 
 quaintance between the families of Platt 
 and Noble did not appear to flourish. Mrs. 
 Noble was from home when Mrs. Platt 
 called on the afternoon following the ball. 
 Maneuver as she might, Mrs. Platt could 
 find no way of introducing her darling Es- 
 telle to such important notice. 
 
 " I have it," said Mrs. Platt, coming in to 
 her eldest daughter's room; " Mrs. Noble 
 has asked Jenny to meet her in the park
 
 I7 8 JENNY, THE DEBUTANTE. 
 
 for a walk this morning. It is easy enough 
 for me to keep that tiresome little Jenny 
 in. There is always work enough for her 
 to do at home. Do you dress yourself, 
 Estelle, in that e'cru pongee with the 
 embroidered parasol to match, and the 
 knots of poppy-colored ribbon. You are 
 sweet in that. Annette shall walk with 
 you, and you can introduce yourself to Mrs. 
 Noble by saying you came to bring Jenny's 
 apologies. Come, don't sulk, my darling ; 
 you know Mrs. Noble can do everything 
 for you if she only takes the fancy." 
 
 It was with no very good grace, however, 
 that Estelle followed these directions. When 
 she reached the park, she ordered Annette 
 to sit down upon a bench, which the over- 
 worked old woman was glad enough to do. 
 
 Strolling up and down the avenue leading 
 to the fountain, Estelle's heart was filled 
 with weariness and unsatisfied longing. She 
 resented her mother for the schemes of
 
 JENNY, THE DEBUTANTE. 179 
 
 which she was beginning to heartily tire ; 
 she resented Jenny's gleam of good fortune. 
 Everything seemed jaundiced in her sight. 
 
 No sign yet of Jenny's good Fairy of the 
 Fountain. In her place, an elderly English 
 maid was crocheting on a bench, a small 
 dog was careering wildly around the gravel 
 walk. A light puff of wind blew Estelle's 
 parasol from her hand. The fall detached a 
 bow of poppy-colored ribbon which blew 
 over upon the grass. In a moment the little 
 dog was after it. Estelle called to him 
 angrily, but the mischievous little fellow 
 ran the faster with his prize. By the time 
 she came up with him, he had chewed the 
 ribbon into a shapeless mass. 
 
 The angry blood rushed into Estelle's 
 face. With the stick of her parasol she beat 
 the dog so fiercely that he screamed with 
 pain. She did not see or care who looked 
 at her. A moment later, a girl, whom she 
 did not at first recognize as Helen Noble,
 
 l8o JENNY, THE DEBUTANTE. 
 
 had picked up the terrier and clasped it to 
 her breast. 
 
 "You are a wicked, cruel person! " cried 
 Helen, confronting Estelle with a degree of 
 energy born of her righteous indignation. 
 " I know you, and I would not speak to you 
 if it were not for my poor Rags. I believe 
 you have half killed him." 
 
 "I wish I had killed him," returned Es- 
 telle angrily. 
 
 " Come, Miss Noble, this is no company 
 for you," said the prim maid, who had 
 been crocheting on the bench. " I wonder 
 what Mrs. Noble will say when she hears 
 the way her pet has been a-treated ? One 
 thing's certain she'll find out fine feathers 
 don't make fine birds, I'm thinking," and 
 she darted a resentful glance at Estelle's 
 finery. 
 
 Estelle's cowardly heart began to beat 
 with quite a new sensation. How came it 
 that she had not know Helen Noble? This
 
 JENNY, THE DEBUTANTE. 181 
 
 was the end, then, of all the wiles and 
 schemes. While trying to think how she 
 could smooth the matter over, she .found 
 herself alone. The occasional outcries of 
 poor little wounded Rags, as he was borne 
 away, on the gravel at her feet a crushed 
 and soiled knot of ribbon on which a toad 
 was sitting, were all that remained to tell 
 the tale of her defeat ! 
 
 By midsummer, Paris was deserted by the 
 fashionable world, and Mrs. Platt, following 
 the example of her richer friends, betook 
 herself, her older daughter, and several 
 trunks full of made-over furbelows, to va- 
 rious places of resort. 
 
 Jenny tried bravely to bear up against 
 the solitude of the long hot days, but the 
 strain was terrible. Many a time did her 
 thoughts turn to the alleys of the con- 
 vent garden, and to Sister Genevieve ; but 
 Paris lay between them and she had no
 
 1 82 JENNY, THE DEBUTANTE. 
 
 money to pay cab-fare, and dared not go on 
 foot. Of the Nobles, she knew only that 
 they had set out on a long journey; to Nor- 
 way, she had heard. Since the encounter 
 with Estelle at the fountain, Mrs. Platt, in 
 a fury at the insult, as she chose to call it, 
 directed to her child, had refused to let 
 Jenny accept any farther notice from the 
 family. Jenny never received the kind note 
 written by Mrs. Noble on leaving Paris, bid- 
 ding the girl keep a brave heart and not 
 forget those, who would one day find her 
 out again. " Such impudence! " Mrs. Platt 
 had remarked, waylaying the billet, and tak- 
 ing care that it did not reach the little girl, 
 who was at that moment crying her eyes out 
 on her cot because she believed her friends 
 had gone away offended beyond recall. 
 
 And at last, one morning, Annette, going 
 into Jenny's bedroom, found her complaining 
 of a bad sore throat, with pains unlike any 
 she had known before laying hold of all her
 
 JENNY, THE DEBUTANTE. 183 
 
 limbs. Annette had not money wherewith 
 to pay a doctor, and the concierge, sum- 
 moned into council, procured a physician 
 from an infirmary, who straightway pro- 
 nounced the disease to be diphtheria. 
 
 It is an old saying that Paris is a capital 
 place to laugh and be merry in, but a poor 
 one in which to sorrow, to suffer, or to die. 
 The concierge, hearing the doctor's decree, 
 consulted M. le Proprie'taire, who with scant 
 preparation (having, indeed, but little regard 
 for a family of tenants whose rent was al- 
 ready overdue) bundled Miss Jenny and her 
 belongings off to a hospital. 
 
 "Sister Genevieve ! Oh! let me have 
 Sister Genevieve ! " repeated the girl inces- 
 santly, as delirium set in. 
 
 Jenny always said she went to sleep in the 
 ward of a common hospital, and woke up 
 in Paradise. What her eyes really opened 
 upon, when fever left them, was a little
 
 184 JENNY, THE DEBUTANTE. 
 
 chamber with walls tinted a cool green, a 
 wide window draped with dimity, through 
 which she could see a mass of waving tree- 
 tops under a summer sky. Street sounds, 
 mellowed by distance, came to her not un- 
 pleasantly. The few articles of furniture in 
 the room were exquisitely clean and neat. 
 She saw a vase of honeysuckle on the dress- 
 ing-stand, and smelt its delicious odor. 
 Then she closed her eyes again and on 
 next awaking, refreshed, and anxious to 
 ask questions, there, at her elbow, with 
 a cup of iced bouillon, was dear Sister 
 Genevieve. 
 
 Before Jenny had a chance to express her 
 satisfaction at the sight, the door opened to 
 
 
 
 admit a lady in wrap and bonnet ; none 
 other than Mrs. Noble, who, journeying 
 back to Paris with her son in answer to a 
 call on business from her banker, had 
 reached the Rue Vernet to hear from the 
 concierge of Jenny's removal to the hospital.
 
 JEA'A'Y, THE DEBUTANTE. 185 
 
 A very ill person does not trouble to 
 know where comforts come from. Jenny 
 did not hear, until nearly well again, how it 
 was Mrs. Noble, who had removed her to 
 a private room of an English hospital of 
 which she happened to be lady-patroness ; 
 how Sister Genevieve, summoned to take 
 the invalid in charge, had nursed her ten- 
 derly through a perilous attack ; how Mrs. 
 Noble, refusing to leave Paris again until 
 Jenny's convalescence was established, came 
 every day for news of her. 
 
 Letters written to inform Mrs. Platt of 
 these events miscarried and, no answer to 
 them coming, Mrs. Noble took the affair 
 in her own hands. The latter part of a 
 summer opening so dismally for Jenny was 
 spent with her dearest friend in one of the 
 loveliest spots of the High Pyrenees. 
 
 When Mrs. Platt did hear of these occur- 
 rences, she was divided between relief and 
 anger. But her marriage with M. de Patras
 
 1 86 JENNY, THE DEBUTANTE. 
 
 occurring just then, she was inclined to be 
 forgiving. This marriage secured a home 
 for Estelle and herself, but about Jenny 
 there was the usual difficulty. The Baron, 
 who had no great fortune, did not welcome 
 so large a family. 
 
 In this emergency, Jenny took heart to 
 confide to her mother an offer George Noble 
 had made, to transfer the little waif entirely 
 into his own keeping, to return with him as 
 his wife to America, where he was to find 
 employment in the' management of the 
 paternal estates. 
 
 "Jenny! Why, Jenny!" said the new 
 Mme. de Patras, "it's hardly possible Mrs. 
 Noble should it's just like a fairy-tale but 
 if she is willing to let George marry you, 
 there's not a debutante in the American 
 colony this year that's made her market half 
 as well as you. I always thought you took 
 after me rather than your father he, poor 
 man, had no foresight, no management
 
 JENNY, THE DEBUTANTE. 187 
 
 he was exactly like Estelle. Come here, 
 and kiss me, you dear little brown mouse ! " 
 
 " Everything has a moral, if you can only 
 find it," says the sprightly Duchess in " Al- 
 ice in Wonderland"; and this is mine naif 
 and time-worn, but distinctly" up to date": 
 
 " Kind words are as precious as pearls and 
 diamonds, and as sweet as roses. Cross, 
 unkind words are as bad as toads and 
 vipers."
 
 WIFE'S LOVE. 
 
 [A Folk Tale told to a party of American tourists in 
 Norway. Old Clemens, the guide, speaks.] 
 
 SUCH a pretty girl was Aslog, daughter of 
 a great Norwegian chieftain of the olden 
 time. White and soft was her skin as the 
 swan's-down of her Sunday cap and mantle. 
 Red roses bloomed in her cheeks, a kind 
 smile hovered around her little mouth, and 
 her blue eyes looked frank and fearless upon 
 the world about her. Lonely enough was 
 Aslog's bit of this big world, and at times a 
 chill, drear spot ; but at times again full of 
 radiant color, and of the chatter of nesting 
 ducks and the dash of waterfalls. Her 
 father's house was like the eyrie of a wild 
 
 bird, built in the cleft of frowning rocks 
 
 789
 
 19 WIFE'S LOVE. 
 
 above the rude North Sea. Happy? Aye, 
 that was she ; as happy as the day is long in 
 Norway, until she fell in love with Orm, one 
 of the young fellows employed by the chief, 
 her father, to guard his herds, to hunt and 
 fish for him r and to fight his battles whenever 
 called upon. How this falling in love came 
 about I know not. Who knows why the 
 wind blows, why birds seek their mates, 
 why the snowdrop bursts its sheath and 
 blooms into a flower? Aslog saw Orm, and 
 her heart went into his keeping forever- 
 more. As for Orm, he would have died to 
 save her little finger from a scratch ; at 
 least he said so, and lovers always tell the 
 truth. 
 
 When Orm asked Aslog's father for her 
 hand there was a dreadful scene. The old 
 man stormed at the young people, shut As- 
 log up in her bower, drove Orm off the 
 premises in short order. Didn't Orm know, 
 didn't everybody know that the Lady As'
 
 WIFE'S LOVE. 
 
 log was soon to marry her cousin, the great 
 sea-captain, who was just then coming home 
 from a cruise in which he had burnt and de- 
 spoiled the ships of many enemies? Not 
 until grass grew down and streams ran back- 
 ward should this fitting match be broken ! 
 No ! There was an end of it ! 
 
 Alsog, through her tears, caught a glimpse 
 of her tall young lover standing pale but 
 resolute before the angry chief. As her 
 maidens hustled her away, she managed to 
 give Orm one sweet look that warmed his 
 heart. 
 
 A month later, the wedding of Aslog 
 and her cousin was announced to take place 
 upon the morrow. That night, through 
 wind and storm, the lovers fled to the dwell- 
 ing of the old priest who had baptized the 
 girl, and who could refuse her nothing. He 
 warmed them, gave them wine and food, 
 and in the presence of his ancient serving
 
 192 WIFE'S LOVE. 
 
 maid and man made them husband and 
 wife. 
 
 " Not for your sake only, my nestling," 
 the old priest said, "but for your mother's, 
 who, in dying, asked me to save you from a 
 fate like hers a marriage without love. 
 Orm have I known from boyhood ; he is 
 brave and true, and worthy even of you. Go 
 now, and may Heaven keep you from all 
 harm." 
 
 That was a wedding journey ! Orm had 
 but one present for his bride, a cloak of seal- 
 skin, trophy of his hunts. The wedding 
 ring was a beauty, of beaten gold, like ser- 
 pents twisted with jewels for their scales ! 
 The young couple had to climb in the dark- 
 ness up a steep, rocky pathway, where a 
 goat would have hard work to keep his 
 footing, let alone a Christian. Orm knew 
 the track, since he was the boldest hunter 
 in the old chief's band ; and when Aslog
 
 WIFE'S LOVE. 193 
 
 trembled overmuch he took her in his 
 arms and strode along the verge of the 
 precipice, and laughed and talked to cheer 
 her. 
 
 Ere long they reached the home he had 
 secretly made ready for her a deep, dry 
 cavern, all glittering inside, with chairs and 
 couches spread with skins and birds' plum- 
 age. There were bowls and cups beautifully 
 shaped from wood ; for Orm was a rare 
 hand to carve. There was a cask of mead; 
 there were strings of dried fish, and game 
 and eggs in plenty. Oh, no fear of starv- 
 ing, or of freezing either; and as the fire 
 they kindled sent up its blue smoke into 
 the cavern's chimney, Aslog's pale cheeks 
 reddened with returning warmth. 
 
 " To think you had to carry all this 
 up that terrible pathway, Orm ! " she said, 
 exulting in his strength and daring. And 
 Orm said the last load he had carried was 
 the lightest.
 
 194 WIFE'S LOVE. 
 
 For some time the runaways kept close 
 watch on the valley below; but, although 
 they could plainly see the search parties sent 
 out for them, nobody found out their 
 retreat ; and so the winter wore away. Orm 
 hunted, \vhileAslog kept up the fire, cooked, 
 broidered a little (for she had brought a 
 needle and some stuffs), and tried not to 
 feel lonely when her man was away from her 
 side. But it wouldn't have been natural for 
 the poor child to forget her home. She 
 used to picture the great hall, the fire snap- 
 ping, the maidens spinning, the songs sung 
 by her father's minstrels, the music made 
 upon golden harps. 
 
 But this was only when Orm was belated. 
 When he came in, strong and loving, noth- 
 ing seemed to make much difference to 
 Aslog. One day he brought with him a 
 broken-winged eaglet for her to tame; and 
 after that Aslog had company while he was 
 gone.
 
 WIFE'S LOVE. 195 
 
 Spring came. The huge waterfall, dash- 
 ing down the heights hard by, softened its 
 roar, the ice melted, the valley put on its 
 green. 
 
 " Now I have nothing more to ask," cried 
 the happy Aslog ; but one day Orm ran in 
 breathless, to say that he had seen her 
 cousin, the sea-captain, with a -band of fol- 
 lowers, spying out the path by which the 
 lovers had escaped. 
 
 " Now must we fly, my darling," he 
 added ; " for I ventured near enough to 
 hear them talking, and to-morrow they are 
 determined to find a way to us. It is the 
 fault of the bow which I let fall over the 
 cliff, last week, which they found and knew 
 to be mine." 
 
 That evening the lovers crept down to 
 the shore, where Orm had hidden a boat in 
 case of an alarm. They set sail upon a dark 
 and stormy sea, and for three days the tem- 
 pest raged, blinding Orm, till he knew not
 
 I9 6 WIFE'S LOVE 
 
 his right hand from the left. It seemed to 
 him that they were nearing shore, but that 
 a mighty blast of wind was blowing them 
 back from it. At last his strong arm grew 
 weak, and he could no longer grasp the rud- 
 der. Aslog, seeing their peril, uttered a 
 fervent prayer. At once the wind ceased, 
 and the boat drifted quietly into a little 
 bay, where green grass grew close to a beach 
 of sparkling sand. Astonished and de- 
 lighted, Orm anchored the boat. He 
 looked about him and saw that they had 
 reached an island, apparently deserted. 
 
 Two odd things they beheld not far 
 ahead of them. One was a huge Stone Man 
 sitting, like a monument. The other a 
 cone-shaped hill of grass soft as green 
 velvet, with smoke issuing from a chim- 
 ney at the top, and at a closed door, to 
 which led up a path of glittering pink 
 shells. 
 
 Shipwrecked people are not easily scared
 
 LOVE. 19? 
 
 by what they first see on terra firma, and the 
 husband and wife took heart to pass by the 
 Stone Man, follow up the shell walk and 
 knock at the hill door. No answer ; but the 
 door slowly swung open, and there, within, 
 they espied a dainty, shining hall, contain- 
 ing, at one end, a single large armchair, or 
 throne, and, all about it, little stools and 
 easy-chairs of silver, with not a soul to sit in 
 them ! The rest of the Hill House was in 
 order for housekeeping fires burning, white 
 beds spread, a pot bubbling on the hearth, 
 delicious smells coming out of it. Tables, 
 cupboards with silver plates and spoons, 
 chairs, everything ! Even a flagon of wine, 
 with beakers, on the shelf. 
 
 Starving and athirst, they could not wait 
 the return of the owner of this delightful 
 spot. Orm gave food to his wife, then a 
 draught of wine, after which he, too, ate and 
 drank. At once, a deep sleep fell upon the 
 two, and they felt invisible hands bearing
 
 WIFE'S LOVE. 
 
 them and laying them on beds of eider 
 down. 
 
 How long they slept they knew not. On 
 awaking, they found a tall, stately woman 
 sitting in an armchair by the fire. As she 
 arose, her great height and noble bearing 
 convinced the pair that they were in the 
 presence of a giantess, a race then almost 
 vanished out of Norway. 
 
 " Fear not," she said kindly. " I am the 
 Giantess Gurn, and this is a country place 
 of mine, where I sometimes come to pass a 
 week or two. Our race is at enmity with 
 yours, and so when I saw your boat ap- 
 proaching my island, I amused myself by 
 standing on the cliff, and blowing you out 
 with my breath to sea again. But the 
 prayer you uttered conquered me, and thus 
 you drifted in unharmed. When I saw that 
 you were a young wife and husband, so 
 loving and so tender, my heart melted, and I 
 let you have the food and rest you needed."
 
 WIFE'S LOVE. 199 
 
 Orm and his Aslog kissed the hands of the 
 gentle giantess in silence, offering to take 
 their leave. But the Lady of the Hill bade 
 them tarry ; and when next she spoke tears 
 came in her eyes. 
 
 " Never shall it be said that I failed to be- 
 friend two loving hearts that beat as one," 
 she said. " Look out of the door and see 
 yonder stone image sitting there, and know 
 that it is none other than my husband, 
 whom I cherished tenderly. Condemned to 
 remain in that shape by the magic of an 
 enemy more powerful than we, once a year 
 I have power to bring my dear lord to life 
 again by sacrificing a hundred years of my 
 own existence. Gladly, gladly are they 
 given ; for what is life to me without him ? 
 Soon my span will be over, and I shall go to 
 take my place beside him. Answer me not, 
 for mortals may not hold familiar converse 
 with giants of a grand old race like ours ; 
 but heed. Your story I have ascertained,
 
 200 WIFE'S LOVE. 
 
 and I feel for you. Homeless outcasts as 
 you are, this house may shelter you until I 
 come again next Yule, and longer if you 
 obey my orders. On Christmas Eve you 
 must go up into the loft and remain there 
 in hiding until dawn, when we depart. 
 Strange ceremonies do we hold then, when 
 our subjects pay their homage to my lord 
 and me. Should mortal eye behold us at 
 our revels, and it were known that I per- 
 mitted this breach of our laws, you and 
 yours would be punished cruelly, while I 
 would lose another hundred years of my 
 existence upon earth." 
 
 Orm and Aslog strove to speak, but their 
 tongues clove to the roofs of their mouths, 
 as if in some weird dream. They could 
 only kneel and thank their benefactress in 
 dumb show. Then, to their astonishment, 
 they saw the lady, grown taller and more 
 majestic, go down the path to the water, 
 stoop and kiss the Stone Man as she passed,
 
 WIFE'S LOVE. 201 
 
 and, wading deliberately out into the sea. 
 vanish from their sight beneath the foam 
 crest of a mighty wave. 
 
 Affairs prospered with Orm and Aslog 
 after the strange interview, and shortly be- 
 fore Christmas they had a son, so strong and 
 beautiful no baby ever equaled him. As 
 Christmas approached, Aslog made ready 
 the Hill House for the festival, dusting and 
 scrubbing until no speck was left. On the 
 appointed night they took the baby and 
 climbed up into the loft. The sea roared, 
 the wind howled, there was a strange tremor 
 in the air. From the chinks of the roof, 
 they could see the wide expanse of water 
 around their rock-bound home wrinkled 
 with seething waves, over which danced, 
 dipped, and courtesied lights, red, blue, vio- 
 let, and orange, drawing ever nearer to 
 the island. After these lights came to- 
 gether and formed in a long procession to 
 march up to the house, they gathered
 
 202 WIFE'S LOVE. 
 
 around the figure of the Stone Man, and 
 stood still. Then was heard the sound as 
 of the swoop of mighty swan's wings 
 through the air. A mighty, mysterious 
 shape, clad in luminous white, descended 
 upon the Island, and cast a cloud of silver 
 brightness around the Stone Man. Shouts 
 arose, hoarse and shrill, as if from numbers 
 of dwarf throats. Aslog, frightened out 
 of her wits, threw her arms around Orm's 
 neck and clung to him in silence. The 
 baby, sucking his thumb, slept unconscious 
 of the turmoil. 
 
 And now the procession of light-bearers 
 drew near the house, the Stone Man walking 
 with a tread that shook the earth, beside 
 Gurn, who wore a gown like hoarfrost, with 
 a crown of sparkling diamonds. The 
 torches, borne by hundreds of little elves, 
 made the scene as distinct as if it were 
 broad day ; but when once the revelers 
 had crossed the Hill House threshold
 
 WIFE'S LOVE. 203 
 
 Orm and Aslog dared no longer look at 
 them, even though a crevice in the loft floor 
 presented itself provokingly close to Aslog's 
 very feet. 
 
 Laughter, talk, odors of delicious food 
 and drink floated up to the married pair, 
 who still stood motionless, wreathed in each 
 other's arms. Then, alas ! began the tun- 
 ing of tiny harps and fiddles, at the first 
 sounds of which the mortals started, as if 
 at an electric shock. 
 
 " I did not bargain for elf-music," Orm 
 said, palpitating, his breath beginning to 
 come quicker. 
 
 "Oh! husband, husband!" cried Aslog, 
 panting, as the first silver strain rang out. 
 Music that sent sweet madness coursing 
 like quicksilver in the listeners' blood. 
 Music that wooed sea-monsters from the 
 deep, sea-birds from the air, to gather by 
 hundreds round the island. What mere 
 mortal could withstand it ?
 
 204 WIFE'S LOVE. 
 
 " Heaven send they play not the Elf- 
 King's Merry Round," cried the terrified 
 Orm, seeing that his full strength could 
 with difficulty restrain the struggles of his 
 wife ; " for when that's played, all who hear 
 must dance to it or die." 
 
 With reeling brain, with twitching hands 
 and feet, Aslog listened ; and when sud- 
 denly the measure changed to one of 
 quicker time, dangerously sweet, like tink- 
 ling flower bells mixed with shattered bird 
 notes, she gave one great, convulsive gasp, 
 and, wrenching herself from her husband's 
 arms, darted down the ladder, and danced 
 into the middle of the room below. 
 
 Orm heard an exclamation of dismay in 
 gentle Gurn's voice, then a mad hurly-burly 
 of groans and cries of rage from the insulted 
 dwarfs. 
 
 " Save her ! Save my Aslog ! " he cried 
 aloud, his feet twitching and stumbling as 
 he stooped over to reach his baby in the
 
 WIFE'S LOVE. 205 
 
 cradle. Before he could lift the child into 
 the protection of his arms, the little dis- 
 turbed creatures below ran with the speed of 
 light up the ladder, snatched the baby and 
 made off with it. Blinded and despairing, 
 Orm staggered after them and stood in 
 the hall below. All was confusion. The 
 torches, swirling together like the figures in 
 a kaleidoscope, were suddenly put out, and 
 in the darkness he felt himself pinched and 
 tugged and beaten by invisible hands. 
 
 "Aslog, my own," he cried out with one 
 last effort, and fell, stunned and motionless, 
 upon the floor. 
 
 When consciousness returned, he lay alone 
 on the cold hearth. Instantly Orm remem- 
 bered what had befallen him. Half crazed, 
 he dashed out into the night, calling aloud 
 for Aslog and his baby. No answer but the 
 dash of angry waves upon the cliff. As oi 
 old, the Stone Man sat dumb and unsym- 
 pathizing on his pedestal.
 
 206 WIFE'S LOVE. 
 
 Orm went back, chilled and heart sore, to 
 his forsaken dwelling. It was cold comfort 
 to him to find the floor strewn with fairy 
 relics. There were little glass slippers, with 
 shoe-strings of red ribbon, harps, fiddles, 
 dulcimers, plates, goblets, flagons of pure 
 gold and silver, hammered by elf-hands un- 
 derground, and set with rarest gems. There 
 was Gurn's mantle fallen across her chair, a 
 woven of eider-down tissue, and broidered 
 thick with silver threads. To possess all 
 nay half of these meant riches to a 
 mortal ; but what use was wealth to a man 
 who had lost Aslog and her baby? 
 
 Time went on. Orm had endured life he 
 knew not how. At Easter-tide, he was again 
 sitting sadly in the room. He had come 
 home from fishing, and, on the way, had 
 plucked a bunch of early blue harebells 
 growing in a cleft of the rocks. " How As- 
 log would have welcomed them," he said, 
 and with the words a pang came that made
 
 WIFE'S LOVE. 207 
 
 him cast the tiny things despairingly away. 
 At that moment the noise of great wings 
 was heard, and a shadow fell across the 
 doorway. It was none other than Gurn, 
 pale, unsmiling, and weaker than of old, who 
 alighted at his side. 
 
 " No grudge do I bear you,.mortal," she 
 said, in solemn tones. " Your punishment 
 has been great ; and before I go hence to 
 join my dear one in his eternal sleep of 
 stone, where to-morrow's rise of sun shall 
 find me, I have asked a last favor of the 
 dwarfs, and they have granted it. At Easter 
 dawn your darlings shall be restored to you. 
 Farewell, remember Gurn ! " 
 
 Orm's heart gave a mighty bound ; he be- 
 lieved that it broke then and there with joy. 
 All grew dark before him. Trying to kiss 
 the hem of his benefactor's garment he fell 
 forward on his face. 
 
 Here, in the earliest rays of Easter sun- 
 light, Aslog and her baby came to him. At
 
 208 WIFE'S LOVE. 
 
 the first touch of his wife's hand Orm stirred 
 from his trance, and opened his eyes upon 
 her rosy face. Never had it seemed to him 
 so fair. 
 
 What most astonished Orm, however, was 
 that, after greeting him tenderly, Aslog set 
 about her household tasks as if she had 
 never been away. Where she had been, 
 how she came back, she could not say. We 
 who know the old trick of fairy kidnappers, 
 how they always rob their captives of. 
 memory before restoring them to earth, are 
 not so much inclined to wonder as was our 
 simple Orm. 
 
 Presently the husband and wife left their 
 baby in the cradle and wandered out into 
 the gladness of the newborn day. Oh, sad 
 and strange sight ! There, beside the Stone 
 Man, her calm lips smiling peacefully, her 
 sightless eyes opened full upon the rising 
 sun, sat the Gentle Giantess, turned, like her 
 mate, to stone.
 
 WIFE'S LOVE. 209 
 
 Aslog plucked flowers and laid them in 
 her lap. Orm vowed that he would build 
 around the faithful pair a wall so broad and 
 strong that it should stand for ages. 
 
 In the course of time a ship, coming to 
 anchor in the bay of Orm's Island, found 
 Aslog and her husband living in peace and 
 happiness. They took this occasion, how- 
 ever, to journey back to their former home, 
 where, by the sale of some of his fairy sil- 
 verware and trinkets, Orm found himself a 
 rich man, able to beg forgiveness from the 
 father of his wife. 
 
 The old chief, they say, warmly urged 
 the young people to remain with him. But 
 the Hill House was their favorite dwelling- 
 place, and there they spent their lives. 
 
 Orm's children moved away from the 
 island, as years went on ; but if you go to 
 visit the spot to-day you will certainly find 
 there the figures of the Stone Man and his 
 Gentle Giantess.
 
 A HARP UNSTRUNG, 
 
 ONE evening in March, George Talbot 
 had gathered in his comfortable old-time 
 dining room a merry company. An invita- 
 tion to one of his well-appointed bachelor 
 dinners was considered by aspirants to social 
 place in New York a brevet of fashion. On 
 this occasion the party was chaperoned by 
 Mrs. Malbone large, bland, platitudinous 
 wearing the famous Malbone necklace 
 under her triple chin. It included the more 
 promising elements of the latest bride, two 
 of the newest beauties, a clever widow, 
 little Mrs. Bob Stryker, from Baltimore 
 who makes every party go an English earl, 
 in search of an American " Motor," Regy
 
 A HARP UNSTRUNG. 
 
 Glenham, Langford, of the Age, Mrs. Bob's 
 husband, et a/., as the lawyers say. 
 
 Talbot himself, at the foot of the table, on 
 which the silver candlesticks and India china, 
 cut-glass and thick white damask bespoke 
 the fittings of a generation past, was by all 
 odds the most distinguished figure of the 
 circle. The slim little earl, with his patches 
 of whitish whisker on a pair of continually 
 blushing cheeks, made a poor show of weight 
 and girth and muscle beside his stately 
 host. Talbot resembled the oak of the 
 Western forest rather than the iron-bound 
 elm that has sprung between city paving- 
 stones. And yet, save for his campaigns in 
 the war between the States and the easy 
 journeys here and there around the world 
 of an untrammeled man of means, his life 
 had been spent in New York; most of it 
 in the same house, whither his mother had 
 come as a bride, now five-and-forty years 
 ago.
 
 A HARP UNSTRUNG. 213 
 
 There had been no Mrs. Talbot to succeed 
 that worthy lady. Worse luck, thought 
 some of the marriageable maidens, in whose 
 eyes the quiet dwelling in the conservative 
 quarter of the eastern part of the town the 
 broad, red-brick, " English-basement" house 
 with its old furniture, old books and pictures, 
 customs and servants, and the not partic- 
 ularly young master had an attraction hard 
 to rival. 
 
 For it, and for him, did they and their 
 mammas cheerfully forsake the brown-stone 
 haunts of the elect uptown, where night 
 by night are spread banquets of Lucullus, 
 each so patterned after the other that the 
 givers of the feasts alone accentuate the 
 difference between them. 
 
 " The truth is," said lively Mrs. Bob to 
 her neighbor, Regy Glenharri, as she leaned 
 across him to help herself to salted almonds, 
 " you New York people are getting tired of 
 your everlasting straining after style. You
 
 214 A HARP UNSTRUNG. 
 
 aren't quite certain what style, don't you 
 know? If there were only a fixed law, it 
 would be such a comfort. I dined last night 
 at the Slowmores' ; the night before at 
 the Van Sluypperkins'. The Slowmores' 
 chef got up their dinner. Of course it 
 was gorgeous, \>\\\. heavy ! ' Well,' I remem- 
 ber thinking, in the middle of the fish, 
 ' is it possible my immortal part is given me 
 for such as this? ' But the funny thing was 
 that the Van Sluypperkins had had the 
 same 11161111, the same flowers, the same 
 wines. Everybody knows the Slowmores' 
 income is fabulous. Why should the Van 
 Sluypperkins try to live up to them, 
 struggling with strange hirelings in the 
 kitchen and dining room, who report the 
 affair to the society column of the next 
 day's newspaper, with their chef's name 
 appended as having served the dinner?" 
 "Why, indeed?" languidly responded 
 Glenham, who liked little Mrs. Bob because
 
 A HARP UNSTRUNG. 215 
 
 she never bothered him to talk. Mrs. Bob 
 sipped, like the birdling that she is, at the 
 champagne-and-water in her tazza and re- 
 sumed. 
 
 " What I was going to say is, that Talbot's 
 old-fashioned ways (where else does one see 
 such a grizzled negro butler take off the cloth 
 and fetch fresh glasses for the after-dinner 
 wines ?) convey to the minds of some of his 
 guests a distinct assurance that he repre- 
 sents the class of old New Yorkers who can 
 afford to be eccentric. The new people 
 don't really admire it. They wouldn't at- 
 tempt it in their own homes for a kingdom. 
 They don't appreciate the ease, the mellow 
 charm of Talbot's atmosphere." 
 
 " By Jove, they must appreciate his 
 port," said Glenham, surveying the topaz 
 sparkle of the liquid in his glass, with cor- 
 dial approbation. "There's color for you, 
 Mrs. Stryker ! It is like my collie's eyes. 
 No; it is like the eyes of the young lady
 
 2l6 A HARP UNSTRUNG. 
 
 who sits near Talbot, with the bunch of yel- 
 low roses in her yellow gown. I dare not 
 mention names, for I see she thinks we are 
 discussing her." 
 
 " That girl ! " said Mrs. Bob, with fearless 
 unconcern. " She may have great, big, lan- 
 guishing, yellow eyes, but I can't endure 
 her. For a debby who came out only last 
 November, Maud Grafton is the most self- 
 possessed and determined young person of 
 my acquaintance. Mark my words, Mr. 
 Glenham, if Mr. Talbot sees much more of 
 her, he's gone." 
 
 " Suppose I take him somewhere for a 
 cruise," said Glenham, looking a little 
 alarmed, for Talbot was the one chosen 
 of his soul among all other men to be his 
 comrade. 
 
 " It wouldn't be the first time the experi- 
 ment was tried," said Mrs. Bob mischiev- 
 ously. She remembered the occasion, two 
 years back, when Glenham had fairly turned
 
 A HARP UNSTRUNG. 217 
 
 tail and sailed around the globe, to avoid 
 a dangerous crisis of the kind. " Well, I 
 advise prompt action. He may have no 
 idea that he's in danger. For a man of the 
 world, our friend has a most unworldly soul ; 
 and it's no business of mine. Life is too 
 complicated, as we live, to go to mixing in 
 other people's love affairs. But not only is 
 that girl what, in Baltimore, we'd call an 
 outrageous flirt, but she's cold as a stone 
 inside calculating, and quietly determined 
 to improve her condition by getting out of 
 her family groove before another season's 
 over. Yes, she knows we are talking about 
 her, but I don't care a snap. She poses to 
 Talbot as an adorer of the silent, speech- 
 less type. By the way, Mr. Glenham, you 
 know everything; why did Talbot never 
 marry ?" 
 
 " Good Heavens ! my dear madam, you 
 are like an electric shock ! " exclaimed Glen- 
 ham. At this moment there was an inter-
 
 2l8 A HARP UNSTRUNG. 
 
 ruption. Talbot had just leaned forward to 
 take a glass of wine with Mrs. Malbone, pre- 
 paratory to the general reaching down after 
 dropped gloves and fans that heralds 
 feminine departure from the table. A lull 
 followed the merry chatter of the group. 
 The large room was brimming with im- 
 prisoned warmth and light and comfort. 
 On the rich crimson of the plush hangings 
 the high lights glanced like the glow from 
 rubies. The air was heavy with the scent of 
 lilacs and roses, heaped, in massive wine- 
 coolers of beaten silver, upon the shining 
 board. In the half-silence thus falling on 
 the company they heard the burst of a 
 wintry storm upon the windows, and above 
 its bluster, hoarsely tremulous but distinct, a 
 woman's voice was singing in the street : 
 
 No more to chiefs and ladies bright 
 The harp of Tara swells. 
 
 "Goodness, what a gruesome sound!" 
 said little Mrs. Bob, shivering. She saw
 
 A HARP UNSTRUNG. 219 
 
 Glenham glance at Talbot, and her eyes fol- 
 lowed his. Their host had certainly grown 
 paler, the glass trembled in his hand. With 
 a sign he summoned the butler, who imme- 
 diately left the room. 
 
 " Mr. Talbot is ill, I fear," whispered Mrs. 
 Malbone's neighbor in her ear, and that lady, 
 slowly taking the hint, arose, and gathering 
 dames and damsels in her wake, departed 
 up the stairs. From the servants, who fol- 
 lowed them with coffee, the ladies reassured 
 themselves as to Talbot's health, Maud 
 Grafton, in particular, with a somewhat pro- 
 prietary air, taking the lead in inquiry. As- 
 certaining that their host was much as 
 usual, Mrs. Malbone subsided into a broad 
 armchair with her satellite, Mrs. Carver, 
 at her elbow; and Mrs. Bob, after toasting 
 herself thoroughly before a huge wood 
 fire, picked out a corner of a sofa, where, 
 with cushions all about her, she soon 
 became the center of a group of women
 
 220 A HARP UNSTRUNG. 
 
 who one and all voted her " a perfect 
 dear, too sweet for anything," the acme 
 of feminine eulogium. 
 
 All, indeed, but Maud Grafton. This 
 young woman, who, until now, had enlisted 
 under Mrs. Bob's banner with meekness, if 
 inwardly remonstrant, chose now to sit aloof, 
 radiant in the wide circle of light cast by 
 the shade of a standing lamp. She had a 
 portfolio of etchings in her lap, and her pale 
 cheeks were flushed with some inward ex- 
 citement. Once, when Mrs. Stryker hap- 
 pened to catch her eye, the astute little 
 lady read there a defiance that fairly startled 
 her. 
 
 " It's worse even than I thought," mur- 
 mured the older of the duelists. " But, oh! 
 the pity of it!" 
 
 They were sitting, by common consent, in 
 the library, the great drawing rooms with 
 their pier-glasses, groups of statuary, and 
 crystal chandeliers, having, in their formal
 
 A HARP UNSTRUNG. 221 
 
 chill, no charm for women to compare with 
 that of a genuine " man's room," lived in 
 and warm to the core with past good-fellow- 
 ship. The re-entrance of the gentlemen was 
 always preluded at Talbot's house by a tea- 
 table, carried in by the ancient butler, and 
 set at the elbow of the guest of honor among 
 the ladies. On this occasion, Mrs. Malbone, 
 who was much too grand to make tea, be- 
 sides being interested in a stolid way in the 
 particulars of a divorce case Mrs. Carver was 
 pouring into her ears, waved the man aside. 
 Then Mrs. Bob, rising to the emergency, in- 
 tercepted a movement on Miss Grafton's 
 part, and beckoned the man to her own 
 neighborhood. As her pretty white fingers, 
 flashing with many gems, twinkled in and 
 out among the ponderous tea-things from 
 which Talbot's mother had been wont to 
 serve the cheery beverage, Mrs. Bob laughed 
 her merry, lawless laugh. 
 
 " Checkmate again, my young lady ! " the
 
 222 A HARP 
 
 little woman said. " But I suppose your 
 time will come ! " 
 
 A reluctant prophesy, which seemed likely 
 to be fulfilled, if one might judge from 
 the manner of the master of the house. 
 Flushed, animated beyond his wont, Talbot, 
 on coming into the room, went at once to- 
 ward Miss Grafton's side, entering into a 
 conversation of so evidently personal a char- 
 acter that people looked at each other in 
 astonishment. It was as if Talbot meant to 
 take this method of letting his friends know 
 the truth of what had been, till then, the 
 merest floating gossip. 
 
 And now the party, breaking into groups 
 of twos or threes, wandered about the 
 rooms, handling Talbot's books, eying his 
 porcelains and pictures a collection notable 
 for excellence in this dilettante age of New 
 York art-history. In an alcove, framed by 
 the projection of two bookcases, hung a 
 portrait of Talbot's mother, pink-tinted,
 
 A HARP UNSTRUNG. 223 
 
 smiling, with bunches of pale brown ring- 
 lets on either temple, a white gown and a 
 vaporous blue scarf. Below it stood an an- 
 tique harp, of a pattern seen in American 
 homes at the beginning of this century, but 
 unfamiliar now. The gilding, although 
 dulled by time, was fine, and the decora- 
 tions of painted wreaths of sweet-pea were 
 remarkably well preserved. " Query ? " said 
 Langford to the young lady at his side. 
 " Is this a souvenir of the lady who watches 
 over it, or simply bric-a-brac ? " 
 
 " Oh ! it must have been his mother's," 
 said Miss Carroll carelessly, stretching out 
 her gloved hand to run it across the strings. 
 Tuneless, yet pathetic, was the answer of 
 the slumbering spirit within the instrument. 
 A sigh rather than a Avail, an echo of a 
 heartbreak, was breathed upon the air. 
 
 Glenham, on duty with Mrs. Malbone, 
 had not been able to keep his honest, anx- 
 ious eyes from roving in the direction of
 
 224 A HARP UNSTRUNG, 
 
 Talbot's t$te-a-t$te. He had seen Miss 
 Grafton's lashes fall, her face, half-shaded 
 by a great feather fan, assume a look of vir- 
 gin innocence. He had seen Talbot's eye 
 kindle with an eager fire, his whole air indi- 
 cating an almost boyish disregard of com- 
 ment from lookers-on. 
 
 " Good God ! " said Glenham to himself. 
 "It's the most barefaced infatuation I ever 
 saw. That man sacrificed to that girl, who 
 is not worthy to tie his shoes. Where was 
 I that matters got so far without my know- 
 ing it ? He won't speak here if he hasn't 
 spoken but there's the rub ; /tashe spoken, 
 or is there yet a chance ? " 
 
 The twang of the harpstrings answered 
 him. Talbot, as he had done once before 
 that evening, started, shuddering. He 
 gasped, passed his hand over his eyes, gave 
 a quick glance at the group around the harp, 
 rallied, and tried to take up the thread of 
 his conversation with Miss Grafton. But
 
 A HARP UNSTRUNG. 22$ 
 
 with a difference. Glenham, drawing a 
 long, deep sigh of relief, met a mocking 
 glance from Mrs. Bob. 
 
 " Where did he get this dear, quaint old 
 instrument?" repeated Miss Carroll. "I 
 am sure it has a history." 
 
 " I'll tell you," said Mrs. Bob, looking 
 saucily at Talbot, who had risen, and with 
 his unwilling companion was coming toward 
 them, " for I've already asked. At a bric-a- 
 brac shop on Broadway. In our part of the 
 world we either inherit heirlooms or go 
 without them." 
 
 During the week following the dinner, 
 Glenham saw nothing of his friend, either at 
 their club or, according to their custom, 
 when riding together daily in the park. At 
 the end of that time he went to Talbot's 
 house, finding him alone in the dining room 
 sitting over his wine, a couple of fox-terriers 
 in chairs on either side of him watching his
 
 226 A HARP UNSTRUNG. 
 
 every movement while apparently subdued 
 into attitudes of repose, with their noses 
 touching their fore-paws. 
 
 " Ha ! Glenham ! This is a happy thought 
 of yours," he said, dislodging a terrier to 
 offer his friend a chair, the dog, nothing 
 daunted, springing with prompt agility to 
 nestle on his master's knee. Glenham saw 
 on Talbot's face lines of care that in a man 
 of his age come only too readily at the chaf- 
 ing of circumstances. He even fancied that 
 Talbot had grown grayer in a week. The 
 two men smoked for a while, in silence, as 
 old comrades are privileged to do, and, after 
 some desultory talk, Talbot spoke abruptly: 
 
 " What brutal weather we've been hav- 
 ing ; worthy of our New York March at her 
 worst ! I'm outdone with it, and shall start 
 for Florida to-morrow." 
 
 " St. Augustine, and that sort of thing ! " 
 asked Glenham. 
 
 " Not if I know myself. The Indian
 
 A HARP UNSTRUNG. 227 
 
 River now, and perhaps I'll wind up in the 
 West Indies. I'd ask you to come along, 
 old man, but I think you'd put a bullet 
 through me for a bore, before two days 
 were over." 
 
 " Well, I've tried your quality before," 
 was Glenham's answer. He felt pretty 
 sure that confidence would come, and come 
 it did. 
 
 " Glenham," said his friend presently, in 
 somber tones, "you saw what happened here 
 the other night? I know, for I read it in 
 your face." 
 
 " This is a bid for my congratulations," 
 said Glenham hoarsely, his heart thumping 
 with real pain. 
 
 " That depends on how you look at it. 
 If you mean that I am going to marry Miss 
 Grafton, set your mind at rest ; I have not 
 asked her; I shall not ask her; though I'll 
 own I came precious near it. No, not she, 
 nor anyone. When a man's possessed by
 
 228 A HARP UNSTRUNG. 
 
 by-gones to the extent I am, you may give 
 him up. I'm a hopeless case, Glenham a 
 hopeless case." 
 
 He was silent for a while, the fox- 
 terrier licking his hand first, then stand- 
 ing on its hind legs to rest its fore-paws 
 on his waistcoat in the attempt to lick 
 his face. 
 
 " You saw how the spirit in the old 
 harp convicted me of folly? That and 
 another incident have roused in my brain 
 of late a witches' Sabbat of old mem- 
 ories. I long for the South the South 
 where I loved and suffered where, as a lad 
 of twenty, all the poetry of my life was writ- 
 ten on one page, then sealed from sight till 
 now. I have long had an idea the most 
 Quixotic sort, no doubt that I might hunt 
 up Lnore Detreville and her children, and 
 do something to help them in their strait. 
 I heard of her, you know, after I came on 
 her harp in the hands of a Broadway
 
 A HARP UNSTRUNG. 22$ 
 
 dealer, and recognized it by the initials on 
 the plate. I traced her to a country neigh- 
 borhood in Carolina, where she was living, 
 a widow with two children, in the poorest 
 kind of way. That was two years ago, 
 and when I heard she had moved away 
 leaving no clew that I could follow, I 
 made up my mind that chapter of my life 
 was done and forever put away. But it 
 isn't, Glenham. I'm not that sort. Con- 
 found me, I wish I were. In the midst of 
 our dinner, the other night, the sound of a 
 street-singer's voice, chanting the old tune 
 Le"nore used to sing for me on summer 
 nights in the Rose Hill drawing room, went 
 through me like a knife. In a moment I 
 seemed to smell the Cape jasmines in the 
 garden outside, and to see the big stars 
 shining in the Southern sky. My heart 
 swelled with the wish to love, and to be 
 loved as I was then. The passionate de- 
 light in L6nore's touch and presence seemed
 
 230 A HARP UNSTRUNG. 
 
 to tingle in my veins. Was it any wonder 
 that I acted like a madman?" 
 
 " It is impossible that you shouldn't find 
 Mrs. er Haskett again, if you set about it 
 in good earnest/' said Glenham, in his prac- 
 tical way. " But I'll warn you, Talbot, 
 you're no fit subject for that sort of experi- 
 ment. You have dwelt upon this thing for 
 so long now, it is like a monomania. If 
 you did meet her, no doubt it would be 
 more trying than anything that has past. 
 Pshaw ! this is drivel between you and me. 
 Hang it all, Talbot, why didn't you run 
 away with Miss Detreville that time and be 
 done with it ? It would have been all for- 
 given and forgotten by her people when 
 the war was over. What were those four 
 years anyhow, in comparison with the twenty 
 odd that have elapsed since you and I were 
 boys." 
 
 " Run away," said Talbot, with a grim 
 smile; "why, my dear boy, have you for-
 
 A HARP UNSTRUNG. 231 
 
 gotten the spirit of those Southern girls 
 at the outset of the war? They actually 
 yearned to immolate themselves on the 
 altar of their country. When Lenore heard 
 me say that I should feel it my duty to 
 fight with the North, she cast me from her 
 as old fanatics cut their offending hands off. 
 After I did fight against her people, I knew 
 I might as well try to get a river to run 
 backward as to go after her again. Besides, 
 you forget ; she married her cousin, Major 
 Haskett. We killed him in '65, and her 
 father died a pauper from the war." 
 
 Without, the wind raved, and a dash of 
 sleet smote on the windowpanes. Glen- 
 ham, getting up, drew aside the curtain 
 and looked out into the night. Shiver- 
 ing, he came back to his comfortable 
 corner. 
 
 "Another storm," he said, " a night for 
 wanderers to be abed, and yet I fancied I 
 saw a tall woman across the street, bending
 
 232 A HARP UNSTRUNG. 
 
 before the blast and snow like a reed. Ah ! 
 what is that ? " 
 
 Not a cry of distress, as they both fancied, 
 but, as before, a woman's voice, singing the 
 sad old song : 
 
 No more to chiefs and ladies bright 
 
 The harp of Tara swells, 
 The chord alone that breaks at night 
 
 Its tale of ruin tells. 
 
 "If not bewitched, what am I?" ex- 
 claimed Talbot, springing to his feet, his 
 face twitching. " By Jove, Glenham, I 
 can't stand this; I could swear that is Ig- 
 nore Detreville's voice! Ring the bell, will 
 you? No, stay! I'll go myself. I'll pay 
 this singing woman any money never to 
 come back here." 
 
 Glenham, whom curiosity led to lift the 
 shade and look outside, saw Talbot's pow- 
 erful form dart out into the storm and ap- 
 proach the hooded creature who stood 
 clinging to the railing of the steps. In the
 
 A HARP UNSTRUNG. 233 
 
 white glare of the electric light, he saw, 
 also, to his unqualified astonishment, the 
 woman stretch out her arms toward his 
 friend, then throwing them above her head 
 with a gesture of despair, sway forward as 
 if about to fall. 
 
 They bore her gently into the house. 
 Talbot's old housekeeper took the fainting 
 wanderer in charge, and Talbot told his 
 friend that he had thus met again the love 
 of his long-gone youth. When conscious- 
 ness returned she plead pitifully to be taken 
 to her child her dying son for whose 
 necessity the gently born and nurtured 
 woman, starving and friendless in the streets 
 of the great city, had stooped to this 
 crudest extremity of effort. Lenore had 
 recognized Talbot, who at first still believed 
 himself to be the victim of hallucination 
 when he identified her features. 
 
 She had gone to his house, not knowing 
 whose it might be, simply because there, a
 
 234 A HARP UNSTRUNG. 
 
 week before, on the occasion of her first 
 direful attempt, generous alms had been 
 given her; money that till now had sufficed 
 to keep her and her sufferer in life. 
 
 Reunited to her boy for whose sake she 
 had braved and borne so much, believing 
 that employment and success would ulti- 
 mately come to him in the metropolis, L- 
 nore almost forgot Talbot in her ecstacy of 
 hope that she might win back to health and 
 strength again the child who was more to 
 her sad heart than any lover. 
 
 Talbot suspected this, suspected it with a 
 pang, when, the crisis of her son's illness past, 
 he again met his old love face to face. She 
 had changed less than had at first appeared. 
 Her old willowy grace remained, her glorious 
 dark eyes shone out of a pale, moonlit face, 
 her occasional smile charmed him with a 
 reminiscence of past joys. The attitude 
 into which fate had thus forced her, of a sup-
 
 A HARP UNSTRUNG. 235 
 
 pliant for his alms, filled him with reverential 
 tenderness. To gather her and hers into a 
 home was henceforth his dearest wish. How 
 to effect it, was the problem that puzzled 
 him day and night. Glenham came away 
 from the interview with Mrs. Haskett, in 
 which he acted for his friend trying to 
 phrase the offer of substantial help from Tal- 
 bot, feeling profoundly sad and touched. 
 He had seen enough of the terrible after- 
 chapters of the war to know that Lnore's 
 was no unprecedented case. His chivalry 
 laid itself at the feet of this beautiful woman, 
 born to bestow, not ask for bounty, who was 
 now only a poor waif of the great Southern 
 wreck, beaten by wind and wave into an 
 alien port a woman who wore her sorrows 
 like a crown. But more than all was he sad 
 because he saw what his friend was slower 
 in discerning that Talbot could no more 
 rekindle the flame of love in her heart than 
 he could relight a lamp that had no oil.
 
 236 A HARP UNSTRUNG. 
 
 Glenham trusted rightly in the healthy 
 tone of Talbot's mind for adjusting the con- 
 fusion that had so long possessed it. L6- 
 nore's presence in the flesh, his frequent 
 talks with her, gradually weaned him from 
 dwelling on illusions. His old self, that had 
 so long walked like a ghost in the haunts of 
 memory, died with a final throb. He was 
 no more the fond young lover masquerading 
 under the early snows that drop on the head 
 of " forty year." He was a man, mature 
 and generous, strong to rule himself and to 
 think for others. His first care had been to 
 secure for Le"nore and for her son some tri- 
 fling employment that robbed the situation of 
 its sting; for he had insisted on establishing 
 them in rooms looking on a city park, where 
 she might watch the unfolding of the spring. 
 Then he eased her sorest anxiety by promis- 
 ing to charge himself with the future of her 
 son, her other child, a daughter, having 
 been left to share the poverty of relatives in
 
 A HARP UNSTRUNG. 
 
 the South. In time Talbot hoped to bring 
 the little family together, but of that she 
 would not hear as yet. 
 
 Glenham's visits to Mrs. Haskett's new 
 quarters were almost as frequent as those of 
 Talbot. From the two she enjoyed a hun- 
 dred marks of delicate sympathy. Noth- 
 ing, however, went so promptly to her 
 heart, melting her to exquisite tender- 
 ness, as when her old harp, restrung, 
 found its way to her little sitting room. 
 Sometimes she would run her thin fingers 
 over it, but never again was heard in 
 song the voice that had once caused 
 Talbot's soul to " float like an enchanted 
 boat upon the silver waves of her sweet 
 singing." 
 
 Before the spring was fairly changed to 
 summer, it became apparent that all plans 
 for Lnore's future were to be interrupted by 
 the strong hand that overreaches man's best 
 reckonings. A cold, induced by exposure,
 
 A HARP UNSTRUNG. 
 
 passed into a malady her enfeebled frame 
 could not resist. 
 
 In the first stage of her illness, Talbot 
 found her restless, nervous, unlike the brave 
 and self-contained woman she had shown her- 
 self to be. 
 
 " I have taken a liberty," he said, striving 
 to speak lightly, although a chill of dread 
 passed into his veins ; " in spite of your 
 refusal to let me send to fetch your daugh- 
 ter, I have arranged for her to come North 
 with some friends returning this week to 
 town. If all goes well, she should be with 
 you by Saturday at latest." 
 
 Le'nore's eyes shone brilliantly, a deep 
 red spot flamed in either cheek. Ill as 
 she was, she looked the embodiment of 
 joy. 
 
 " She will come ! I shall see her once 
 again! My darling, my treasure, for whom 
 I have been longing hour by hour ever since 
 I left her in that sordid home. Now you
 
 A HARP UNSTRUNG. 239 
 
 have put the finishing touch to all your 
 kindness." 
 
 " There is no need of words between us 
 two," said Talbot. " The idea of that poor 
 child needing you as you have needed her, 
 has been haunting me. It is an actual relief 
 to me to send for her. And the people with 
 whom she will travel northward are all 
 that you could wish refined, whole-souled, 
 kindly. The Carltons have no young people 
 of their own, and will no doubt take her to 
 their hearts." 
 
 " Thank God ! " she said. " Oh ! Lenore 
 will be to her brother what I have been. 
 Louis can support her until she finds work 
 to do. Lenore must succeed she is so 
 clever she is so noble she has borne every- 
 thing so bravely. Ah ! all I had left to wish 
 for was that you might know Lenore! " 
 
 A few nights later, after a struggle short 
 and sharp, her watchers saw peace return to
 
 240 A HARP UNSTRUNG. 
 
 her troubled brow. She had heard a foot- 
 step on the stair. 
 
 The door opened and a girl, pale with an- 
 guish, but in Talbot's eyes a rare, fine image 
 of his Lnore at seventeen, swiftly crossed 
 the floor, throwing herself in an agony of 
 grief upon her knees beside the bed. 
 
 Talbot went to the window of the adjoin- 
 ing room and gazed out into the night. 
 Clouds were hurrying across the sky, fitful 
 and fantastic, as if to bear the tidings that a 
 soul was free. He wondered if his heart too 
 were dead, that it had ceased to ache. Then 
 the clouds passed, and the moon rode out 
 between them in unstained majesty. From 
 the chamber that had held Le"nore her son 
 came to him weeping. 
 
 "You are mine, now," Talbot said, hold- 
 ing his hand out to the handsome lad. Only 
 to utter the words sent a quick thrill of 
 human warmth into him.
 
 A HARP UNSTRUNG. 241 
 
 " But poor Lnore ? " Louis said, falter- 
 ing. 
 
 " Oh, she is mine, too," Talbot answered, 
 trying to speak cheerfully, and again the 
 door opened, and looking up, he saw his 
 lost love's eyes shining upon him through 
 her daughter's tears. 
 
 When it was noised abroad that the lad 
 Talbot had adopted was the child of an early 
 friend left destitute by war, many were 
 the comments of society upon his action. 
 
 " Take my word for it," said Mrs. Bob, in 
 her stall at a bazaar where, jauntily attired as 
 a Russian peasant, she was vending Russian 
 tea, "it's all very well about the boy, but for 
 a girl as pretty as that one Mrs. Carlton has 
 taken into her home, this fatherly enthusiasm 
 will soon wear itself out. Talbot will find 
 another place for her in that great big heart 
 of his ; at least, I hope so. I, for one, have 
 no patience with martyrs."
 
 242 A HARP UNSTRUNG. 
 
 "Talbot's no martyr," said Glenham, to 
 whom the outspoken lady had addressed 
 herself. " He is more cheerful, more equa- 
 ble than he has been in years. As for Miss 
 Haskett, she's simply enchanting. If Tal- 
 bot will give me leave, I shall propose for 
 her myself." 
 
 " Don't, please," said Mrs. Bob, putting a 
 slice of lemon in his glass; "that would 
 leave the coast clear for our common enemy, 
 Miss Grafton." 
 
 " Haven t you heard ? " asked Glenham, in 
 astonishment. "You, the headquarters of 
 all gossip that is worth listening to ? Her 
 engagement to old Slowmore is announced, 
 and before the year is out the enterprising 
 Maud will be in possession of his abundant 
 shekels." 
 
 "Goodness!" said Mrs. Bob.
 
 A SUIT DECIDED. 
 
 A POPULAR writer for the Cosmos Maga- 
 zine of New York, having accomplished an 
 article about the home and haunts of old 
 Gilbert White of Selbourne, the Cosmos 
 editors, in whose eyes the article found 
 favor, had instructed one of their wandering 
 artists, then in London, to go down to Sel- 
 bourne and make sketches of the house and 
 grounds and church. 
 
 Robert Kenyon,the young man to whose 
 lot fell this pleasant pilgrimage, left his 
 lodging in town one August morning and, 
 casting a light portmanteau and still lighter 
 knapsack, with his staff and umbrella, into 
 the hansom at his door, gave the driver 
 orders to proceed to Waterloo station.
 
 244 A SUIT DECIDED. 
 
 Kenyon had no very clear idea of the 
 place of his destination. He vaguely re- 
 called Gilbert White as an amiable old par- 
 son who wrote about birds and weather, 
 and set down the dates of the annual ap- 
 pearance of all things that flew and grew 
 and blossomed in his neighborhood. 
 
 The artist had put into his knapsack 
 a roll of typed MS. sent to him by the 
 editors, representing the impression made 
 by Selbourne upon the author he was to 
 illustrate; and this he meant, upon the first 
 convenient opportunity, to consult. But 
 mankind is apt to put off reading typed 
 MS. It is a shade less interesting than 
 MS. in pen and ink, and one must be born 
 with a love for that. 
 
 Kenyon, even in the short run to Dork- 
 ing, where he desired to tarry on the way, 
 found metal more attractive for his eyes 
 than the clever American lady's views of 
 the abode of Gilbert White. He dawdled
 
 A SUIT DECIDED. 245 
 
 at Dorking for a day or so, and after an 
 enfeebling interview with Bradshaw and 
 local railway guides, shipped his port- 
 manteau by train to Guild ford, and started 
 south on foot. His delight was in solitary 
 tramps, and, ere long,' within thirty miles of 
 the huge heart of England, he struck into 
 a region of rolling hills abloom with purple 
 heather, and came out upon a summit where 
 a stone tower marks the highest point of 
 the North Downs. 
 
 It was a clear morning, and after buy- 
 ing for a penny permission from an old 
 woman to mount the tower, he faced 
 one of the most glorious views in Eng- 
 land. Five counties clad in midsummer 
 garb lay at his feet, and all about him 
 were broken hills and deep hollows filled 
 with heath and furze and bracken or cluster- 
 ing woods. 
 
 As Kenyon, descending from the tower, 
 climbed up over the door outside, to study
 
 246 A SUIT DECIDED. 
 
 a half-effaced inscription in Latin, placed 
 there by an Evelyn, descendant of the 
 gossiping old chronicler of the court of 
 Charles II., and forbear of the present lord 
 of the neighboring manor, he heard a voice 
 of a kind often breaking the repose that 
 hangs around Old-World shrines a voice 
 not mellowed by soft English airs, but 
 sharpened by the dry winds of the Western 
 Continent. 
 
 " It's a fine open piece of country, and 
 salubrious, no doubt," observed a gentleman 
 wearing a high hat set back upon his crown, 
 and what in America is known as a " busi- 
 ness suit " of tweeds, wrinkled and baggy at 
 the knees. " But I can't say I perceive any 
 remarkable points about this landscape, ex- 
 cept the Crystal Palace, that I'd as lief for- 
 get since the day you brought my lumbago 
 back walking me over it. However, I guess 
 it'll even up on historical association. They 
 generally do. So, come on, Idalia, trot out
 
 A SUIT DECIDED. 247 
 
 your history, and let's get it over while I've 
 got strength to listen." 
 
 " Sh sh! papa !" said a girl's reproving 
 tones ; and at once the obedient gentleman, 
 with a glance at Kenyon and a shrug of 
 comical resignation to authority, was si- 
 lenced. 
 
 Kenyon, coming back to terra fir ma, ven- 
 tured a look at the historical Idalia, whom 
 he found to be a young and very pretty girl, 
 attired in the soft blending of grays and 
 white seen in the plumage of a gull, and car- 
 rying a notebook and pencil in her hand. 
 Piqued, apparently, by the unconsciously 
 approving survey bestowed on her by the 
 stranger, she went off to ascend the tower, 
 at which the gentleman in tweeds relaxed 
 his decorum and sidled up in Kenyon's im- 
 mediate vicinity. 
 
 " Pleased to meet you, sir," he said cor- 
 dially. " My name's McCunn Cyrus K. 
 McCunn, of Sago Falls, Wisconsin, now a
 
 248 A SUIT DECIDED. 
 
 resident of New York City. I am traveling 
 with m' wife and daughter, an' m' wife, who's 
 rather fleshy, draws the line at towers, and 
 summits generally ; but I have yet to see 
 any eminence in art or nature that can daunt 
 the spirit or take the wind out of Miss 
 McCunn." 
 
 "You are fortunate in your companion," 
 said Kenyon, in a perfunctory way. 
 
 " Yes, sir, very," said the good-natured 
 Mr. McCunn. " But to tell you the facts of 
 the case, it was all very well on our last two 
 visits to Europe, when we kept on the 
 beaten tracks and did the regular things set 
 down on the guidebooks, that you can read 
 up at night for the next day, and check off 
 when you've finished them. I flatter my- 
 self I stood that like a man. But it's Miss 
 McCunn's last caper that her mother and I 
 feel like speaking up against, only, of .course, 
 we don't. This trip, she's taken it into her 
 head to include the by-ways and less familiar
 
 A SUIT DECIDED. 249 
 
 places that have to do with a course of liter- 
 ature she and some other ladies went in for, 
 last Lent, in New York City. I believe 
 Miss McCunn's to read a paper before the 
 class, next Lent," he added, with a twinkle 
 in his eye. 
 
 " Good ! Perhaps here's my chance to hear 
 about Gilbert White," came into Kenyon's 
 mind. But he suppressed satiric comment, 
 and Mr. JVTcCunn again took up his tale. 
 
 "Just now, it's Southern England, and 
 the cathedral towns we're after chiefly, 
 I believe. Miss McCunn's paper's to be 
 about the town she likes the best. I hope 
 it'll be a short one. Winchester, where we go 
 next, has a good-sized cathedral and schools 
 and almshouses, too, I'm told, and would 
 take longer than the others to do, archaeolog- 
 ically, as Miss McCunn means to do it. I 
 hope she won't fake much of a fancy to 
 Winchester. There must be some of 'em 
 shorter. If her mother and I could only
 
 250 A SUIT DECIDED. 
 
 sit in hotels, or even in carriages and 
 wait for her. But m* wife says it isn't the 
 thing to let a young lady go around alone 
 in the old countries, though England isn't 
 as bad as it was on the Continent of Europe. 
 Yes, sir, I've known myself in by-gone days 
 to pity the sorrows of the unfortunate hack- 
 men, but, by George, it isn't a patch on the 
 waiting I've done for Miss McCunn. I sup- 
 pose we've got to take the consequences of 
 her having graduated No. I at the Skowhegan 
 Female College, in our State, when she was 
 sixteen, three years ago. And since we 
 moved to New York to live, it's been noth- 
 ing but masters and lectures and subscribing 
 to magazines and libraries. We take six 
 American, three English, two French, and 
 one German periodical, sir. Miss McCunn 
 cuts the leaves of all of 'em, and puts marks 
 in the articles she thinks best for her mother 
 and me to read. But to tell you the truth, 
 sir, by the time I've looked at the advertise-
 
 A SUIT DECIDED. 251 
 
 ments, front and back, I'm pretty apt to 
 drop asleep, of an evening, over most of 
 'em." 
 
 Kenyon, basely conscious of fellow-feeling, 
 here broke into a cheery laugh ; and at this 
 juncture the young lady, who had been 
 jotting entries in her little book, rejoined 
 them. 
 
 " I think I have all I need now, papa," 
 she said, in a businesslike way. " And if 
 you would like to return to the carriage to 
 mamma and go on to Wootton, I'm ready." 
 
 " All right, Idalia," responded her father, 
 preparing to move on, in a stiff fashion that 
 suggested to Kenyon the first locomotion 
 of a cab-horse after a wait. " Have you 
 found out yet who's the owner of this 
 eminence and tower?" 
 
 " Oh ! yes, the lord of the manor, of 
 course. ' Gulielmus Johannes Evelyn, Domi- 
 nus Manorii,' the old one was called." 
 
 " Did he put all that on his visiting card,
 
 A SUIT DECIDED. 
 
 I wonder?" said Mr. McCunn. "Well, sir, 
 I'll bid you good-morning. I'd like to make 
 you acquainted with my daughter, Miss Mc- 
 Cunn, Mr. -- " 
 
 " Kenyon," supplied the young man, tak- 
 ing off his hat to the girl, who bowed and 
 blushed slightly. " And a countryman of 
 your own, Mr. McCunn." 
 
 " My dear sjr, allow me to shake hands 
 with you," said the other warmly. " I beg 
 your pardon a thousand times, but I took 
 you for a Britisher." 
 
 Kenyon laughed again, as he parted with 
 them, and smiled more than once at the rec- 
 ollection of the prize pupil of Skowhegan 
 Female College and her resigned parent. 
 And more than once, also, he caught him- 
 self reverting admiringly to the prize pupil's 
 erect figure, her peach-blossom cheeks, and 
 her thick masses of waving golden hair. 
 
 Striking north by compass over the cattle- 
 tracked common, he at last found his be-
 
 A SUIT DECIDED. 253 
 
 lated way to the public at Wootton Hatch, 
 where, under the portraits of the queen and 
 sundry Evelyns, he dispatched a lunch of 
 bread and cheese and beer ; then, resuming 
 his line of march, went on through seven 
 miles of lovely rural landscape to Guildford, 
 where he took train for Alton, the station 
 nearest Selbourne. 
 
 Now, indeed, there was no longer time to 
 delay informing himself about the object of 
 his jaunt, and taking out the MS. Mr. Ken- 
 yon speedily ran over its contents. The 
 author, it should be said, was none other 
 than the accomplished Mrs. Euretta Hardy 
 Lodge, whose sketches of foreign travel are 
 so favorably known throughout her native 
 country, and whose charming " Glimpses at 
 Avon " Kenyon had illustrated the year be- 
 fore for another magazine ; and as he 
 read on to the end, he felt she had, here, ac- 
 quitted herself well. He remembered all 
 now the very look of the copy of " White's
 
 254 A SUIT DECIDED. 
 
 Selbourne," with its engravings of birds and 
 beasts and insects, over which he used as a 
 little boy to pore in his uncle's old rectory in 
 the New England town where he grew up ! 
 And then the train slowed beside a platform, 
 and " Alton " was written on a sign before 
 his eyes. 
 
 Taking a rusty little trap, Kenyon, who 
 had had, for the day, enough of tramping, 
 drove through a region beautiful as many- 
 shaded verdure and lengthening shadows 
 of the afternoon could make it. But owing 
 to the extraordinary depth of the lanes, 
 "worn" (vide G. White himself) "by the 
 traffic of ages, and the fretting of water 
 down through the first stratum of freestone, 
 and partly through the second, in many 
 places sixteen or eighteen feet beneath the 
 level of the fields," there was little scenery 
 until the great chalk-hill above the village 
 came into sight. 
 
 The cart climbed up the single narrow
 
 A SUIT DECIDED. 255 
 
 street and deposited our artist at the 
 " Queen's Arms," and Kenyon bethought 
 him, as it was then well on to seven o'clock, 
 to order dinner. 
 
 " What can I have ? " he asked of the land- 
 lady. 
 
 " Chops, sir, or bacon and heggs, or what- 
 ever you" please to choose, sir, if you can 
 wait. But there's a joint down for the 
 hother party, sir, hand a pair of fowls 
 hand hit's hordered hat seven o'clock, sir, 
 hin the sitting room, hupstairs." 
 
 " Very well," said Kenyon, seeing what 
 was expected of him. " Then I'll take my 
 share of the joint at seven and soup, I sup- 
 pose, and a tart to follow. I only hope the 
 other party'll be on time." 
 
 "Who beside myself has chanced to wan- 
 der to this sweet and placid nook ? " he won- 
 dered, strolling out presently for a glimpse 
 at the little church. 
 
 The church door was unlocked, and he
 
 256 A SUIT DECIDED. 
 
 heard people talking within. Going to the 
 portal, he ventured a glance inside and be- 
 held, in custody of the witch-like old woman 
 carrying the keys, a pair in whom he recog- 
 nized the acquiescent McCunn and Skow- 
 hegan's pride, Idalia ! On a tombstone 
 without sat a large lady fanning herself with 
 a palm-leaf fan, who smiled on him blandly 
 in response to his salutation. 
 
 "I'm right afraid of these churches," she 
 volunteered to say. " They 'most always 
 give me a check of perspiration. I think 
 this is the eighteenth or nineteenth sacred 
 building my daughter and husband have 
 done this summer. Daughter never tires of 
 churches, now. But then, she never gets 
 tired of anything. Often and often I say to 
 her, ' Daughter, stretch yourself out for a 
 half hour every day on the recliner, now, 
 and it'll add ten years to your life.' " 
 
 " I had the pleasure of making ac- 
 quaintance with Mr. and Miss McCunn at
 
 A SUIT DECIDED. 257 
 
 Leith Hill, this morning, madam," said 
 Kenyon. " But I had no idea I should so 
 soon meet them again, and in this rather un- 
 usual place." 
 
 " Oh ! nothing's too unusual for daugh- 
 ter ! " answered the lady in a monotonous 
 voice, with an unchanging countenance. 
 Kenyon, accepting this as final, bowed again 
 and betook himself to a study of the old 
 yew tree, coeval with the church, which, 
 measuring in White's day three-and-twenty 
 feet in girth, has now expanded to an actual 
 circumference of twenty-seven, and a re- 
 puted one of thirty-six feet. 
 
 Here he was joined by Mr. McCunn, who 
 gave him cordial greeting. 
 
 "Mr. Kenyon, sir! I'm delighted to 
 meet you again. Of course you are stop- 
 ping at the Queen's Arms, and I hope you 
 will dine with us unless," with a falling 
 face, " you are the guest of the family at 
 the house."
 
 258 A SUIT DECIDED. 
 
 " I'm the veriest wayfarer, and, until to- 
 day, had no idea of what I was coming to. 
 I'm afraid our good hostess at the inn had 
 already made up her mind to billet me upon 
 the dinner ordered for you. I fancy there 
 is no great run of custom in these parts. 
 But it's very kind to make me one of your 
 party, and I accept with thanks." 
 
 " Talk about Robinson Crusoe looking 
 for the tracks of a white man, sir," said 
 McCunn, walking beside him, following the 
 ladies, a moment later ; " and you can 
 understand my feelings when I meet a 
 fellow-citizen in a place like this. I believe 
 I didn't mention to you this morning, that 
 the lady an elegant lady, sir, an ornament 
 to American womanhood who conducts 
 the literature class to which Miss McCunn 
 belongs, has written an article about this 
 venerable village that's to be published in 
 one of our leading magazines no doubt 
 sir, you have heard of her all Ameri-
 
 A SUIT DECIDED. 259 
 
 cans are proud of Mrs. Euretta Hardy 
 Lodge. 
 
 "And that is what brought you here?" 
 Kenyon began, and refrained from finishing. 
 
 " Exactly," answered Mr. McCunn, ap- 
 preciating Kenyon's point. " I remarked 
 to you this morning that Miss McCunn's 
 layout, at present, is the unhackneyed past. 
 But I am pleased to say that she has given 
 her mother and me reason to believe she will 
 finish Selbourne in time for the 2:15 train 
 from Alton to Winchester to-morrow. In 
 the meantime, I have no great hopes of the 
 bill of fare, have you ? " 
 
 Their dinner, served in a stuffy sitting 
 room by the light of a dimly burning oil 
 lamp, was an experience happily brought 
 soon to an end ; and after it Kenyon 
 strolled away with his cigarette, to enjoy 
 the long soft evening light from the beech 
 wood called " The Hanger," clothing part 
 of the chalk cliff that dominates the village.
 
 260 A SUIT DECIDED. 
 
 Stretching himself at length under a tree, 
 he gazed down at the humble dwellings, the 
 church, and " The Wakes " amid its ample 
 lawns, all a hundred feet below ; and a reverie 
 that was sweet and restful as England's 
 atmosphere could make it, took possession 
 of his soul. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said, in rather dis- 
 tressful cadence, the voice of Miss McCunn ; 
 "I hate to disturb you, but I'm quite sure 
 I left my notebook there, when I climbed 
 farther up the hill." 
 
 " So you did," remarked Kenyon, stirring 
 himself to discover something square and 
 hard under his left shoulder blade. " Why, 
 what a fleet nymph you must be to have 
 distanced me in getting here. I thought 
 you had gone with your mother to her 
 room." 
 
 " I came off when you and papa were 
 waiting for your coffee," she said. " I did 
 want to give my poor father a rest, and,
 
 A SUIT DECIDED. 261 
 
 besides, I like to be alone in an hour and 
 place like this." 
 
 " That's an unkind hint," said Kenyon, 
 getting upon his feet. 
 
 " Oh ! please, I didn't mean to seem 
 rude," she exclaimed. " I am going di- 
 rectly back to the inn." 
 
 " Don't go," he urged, admiring her girlish 
 readiness to take alarm. " Sit down here a 
 few minutes, and enjoy this pearly atmos- 
 phere, the deepening of all those greens and 
 the exquisite charmed slumber of the homes 
 nestled in leafage below one never has 
 such an impression of peace in any Ameri- 
 can landscape where man has settled." 
 
 The frank Idalia, bestowing on him a 
 pleased smile, took her seat beside him on 
 the cliff, and they began a talk that lasted 
 until growing dusk sent her springing 
 lightly as a young fawn down the hill-path, 
 for a second time neglectful of the note- 
 book, that compendium of valuable informa-
 
 262 A SUIT DECIDED. 
 
 tion, bound in green alligator-skin and edged 
 and clasped with silver, that Kenyon again 
 picked up and carried after her. 
 
 They met, walking in the middle of the 
 village street, smoking a cigar, and wearing 
 his hat a-tilt as usual, the unruffled Mr. 
 McCunn. 
 
 " I cal'lated you young folks were off to- 
 gether," he said pleasantly. " Idalia, my 
 dear, your mother's about read up all the 
 literature in that sitting room, I reckon ; 
 and she's talking some of going to bed. 
 Mr. Kenyon, sir, this place of resort aint as 
 exciting as the Stock Exchange in New 
 York City in a boom. Will you walk up 
 and down a bit, and try one of my cigars? " 
 
 From his artless compatriot, our artist as- 
 certained sundry details of his life and con- 
 dition in the States. Cyrus K. McCunn, 
 beginning life as a mechanic, had invented 
 an automatic car-coupler, for use in railway 
 trains, and, this proving a success, had
 
 A SUIT DECIDED. 263 
 
 for a number of years enjoyed an ample 
 income from royalties paid by the com- 
 panies which used it. 
 
 Having set out on the glittering road to 
 wealth, the temptation of Cyrus had been 
 next to add to his gains by speculation, and 
 it was plain to Kenyon that the poor man's 
 heart was left behind in the fevered atmos- 
 phere where dollars change hands before 
 moth or rust has time to corrupt their 
 sheen. 
 
 "If the ladies didn't mind my leaving 
 them," he said pathetically, " you'd better 
 believe, sir, that I'd be off from here at day- 
 break, and catch the next North German 
 Lloyd's boat at Southampton sailing for 
 New York. When they told me how near 
 Winchester that's our next stopping-place 
 is to Southampton, sir, I just thought of 
 that steamer's gang-plank, and ached to be 
 walking it ached, Mr. Kenyon, ached ! 
 But m' wife has had nervous prostration,
 
 264 t A SUIT DECIDED. 
 
 and won't hear of being left ; and Miss 
 McCunn well, you can see what she is as 
 nice and sweet a little girl as ever grew up 
 and took such an education, that Mrs. 
 Euretta Hardy Lodge says it would be an 
 evidence of incomplete civilization not to 
 afford her all the advantages ; and I s'pose 
 Mrs. Lodge is right. I never had any of 
 Miss McCunn's advantages myself ; and m' 
 wife went to a country school, and don't 
 pretend to keep up with her. I guess we're 
 pretty plain people, Mr. Kenyon, sir, and it 
 would be natural to some girls who had Miss 
 McCunn's education and if I say it, who 
 shouldn't the money she has to spend, for 
 I don't count the dollars I shell out for her 
 to hitch on to some of our stylish folks, 
 who'd be quick enough to take her up, and 
 travel about with her, or marry her off to a 
 count or lord. B'gosh, sir, I'd like to see 
 the lord that 'ud get Miss McCunn ! My 
 girl had a bid to go to Europe this summer
 
 A SUIT DECIDED. 265 
 
 with some of her high-flying friends, and 
 what d'ye suppose she did ? Why, sir, just 
 came up and put her arms around my neck, 
 and says, ' As long as I can coax my home- 
 spun dad to travel, he's good enough for 
 me ! ' Gee Whillikins, Mr. Kenyon, I'd 'a' 
 traveled around creation with little Daly 
 after that !" 
 
 Kenyon was up betimes, next day, stalk- 
 ing through de\vy fields, starting the birds 
 in the thickets, and the hares under his feet, 
 to the Priory farm, where a civil farmer 
 showed him the relics, still in process of ex- 
 humation, of the old-time monastery once 
 upon the spot, and, at parting, told the 
 visitor that he had heard a rare thing 
 after midsummer a nightingale's note the 
 day before. 
 
 At ten o'clock, as early as he dared pre- 
 sent himself at a private dwelling, Kenyon, 
 who had come back to the village through 
 sweet-scented lanes and tasseled hop-gar-
 
 266 A SUIT DECIDED. 
 
 dens, offered his credentials at the house- 
 door of " The Wakes," to find himself most 
 kindly welcomed, and made free to sketch 
 such tokens of old Gilbert's life there as 
 might still be found. 
 
 When, at luncheon-time, he returned to 
 the inn, the McCunn family was seated 
 in a carriage at -the door, about to drive 
 away. 
 
 " We shall keep a sharp eye on that article 
 of Mrs. Euretta Hardy Lodge's in the Cos- 
 mos, sir," said Cyrus, jumping down to shake 
 Kenyon elaborately by the hand. " I guess 
 Miss McCunn won't have to put a marker 
 in, to point that out to me." 
 
 " Miss McCunn will be putting the con- 
 tents of her own notebook into print before 
 long, I fancy," said the young man, going 
 around to Idalia'sside of the trap. " I hope, 
 by the way, you have that important volume 
 safe." 
 
 " I hope so, sir," answered the young
 
 A SUIT DECIDED. 267 
 
 lady's father, in her stead. " For if she 
 didn't, I guess we'd all be making tracks 
 back to Selbourne to look for it, and I've 
 had enough of this antiquity in mine, thank 
 you, for some time to come. Now, Mr. 
 Kenyon, don't forget to hunt us up when 
 you get back to New York City. You'll 
 always find my name in the. Directory, even 
 if I fail in business and have to move out 
 o' No. 4001 Fifth Avenue, where we hang 
 out now." 
 
 " I don't think that's likely, Mr. McCunn," 
 said his lady stolidly, and her husband 
 chuckled, as if the contingency were in truth 
 a remote one. 
 
 " Good-by," said Idalia, letting her eyes, 
 blue as forget-me-nots, rest fearlessly on 
 Kenyon's, as she put her little gloved hand 
 in his. " I have written down what you 
 said last night about the charm that lies 
 in repose. It is strange Mrs. Lodge never 
 thought of calling our attention to that, in
 
 268 A SUIT DECIDED. 
 
 class. And I am sure your pictures will be 
 beautiful." 
 
 " May I send you a little sketch of the 
 church to your banker's care in London?" 
 he asked. " I should be so glad to have 
 you remember me by it." 
 
 " That's a handsome offer, sir," said Mr. 
 McCunn, shaking hands again. "And Miss 
 McCunn is glad to accept of it. Any- 
 thing sent to the care of Messrs. Clayton, 
 Jones & Co., London, will reach us till Sep- 
 tember 2$th and after that, please the 
 Fates, we'll be on the briny, making the best 
 time we can across the Western ocean." 
 
 Kenyon in due time forwarded the draw- 
 ing, received in return for it a rather prim 
 and sedately worded note on Irish linen 
 paper, with a silver monogram, and Idalia 
 faded from his mind. 
 
 More than two years later, after he had 
 sketched in Venice and Madrid and Vienna, 
 had tried his luck in Russia and Constants
 
 A SUIT DECIDED. 
 
 nople, Kenyon dropped in one day in Jan- 
 uary upon his friend the editor of the Cos- 
 mos Magazine in New York. As they two, 
 in connection with the Art Editor, finished 
 the discussion of a series of drawings pro- 
 posed for the coming year of the magazine, 
 and Kenyon went into the outer office, he 
 saw, waiting there under guard of the angels 
 with typewriters who keep the editorial 
 doors, a figure seated upon a chair. It was 
 a woman, young and graceful, in mourning 
 dress, holding in her hand a flat package 
 that betokened MSS., left studiously un- 
 rolled. Through her veil of black net, he 
 recognized the face, and strove to recall the 
 name that ought to go with it. 
 
 " Why, Mr. Kenyon," she said, holding 
 out her hand, and at once, he knew Idalia 
 
 Me " Now, what in the dickens is the 
 
 rest of it ? " he inquired of his inner man. 
 
 " My father will be so glad to hear of you 
 again," she went on rapidly. " He took
 
 27 A SUIT DECIDED. 
 
 such a fancy to you, you can't think. And 
 if you could find time to visit us " 
 
 " Nothing would give me greater pleas- 
 ure," he said suavely, still harping eternally 
 
 on the string. "Me What in the world 
 
 is she I can't call her Miss McWhat?" 
 
 " I have a card here, and he is always at 
 home in the evening since my mother's 
 death and other changes. Now, I must 
 hurry, as I have an appointment with the 
 editor." 
 
 " You are by this time a full-fledged au- 
 thor?" Kenyon went on, as the recollection 
 of her notebook came back to him. 
 
 " They have printed two or three things 
 for me, here," she said, blushing. " But not 
 over my own name. I took a fancy, when I 
 first wrote, to call myself and the story 
 was liked so I was advised not to change 
 it by a rather stupid little name Olive 
 White." 
 
 " What, you are Olive White? "
 
 A SUIT DECIDED. 271 
 
 " And I chose the last part of it because 
 I remembered that dear little place, and a talk 
 I had with you that influenced me so much. 
 Good-by, and you'll come, won't you ? I 
 ask because it would so cheer my father 
 up." 
 
 "Olive White is ' Miss Idalia McCunn,' " 
 he repeated, reading the card she had left 
 with him. " Why, I read that last story of 
 hers when I was flat on my back in a sunny 
 corner of Spain, and cried over it too, by 
 Jove ! What a queer thing for such grace 
 and poetic fancy to have sprung from that 
 parent stock. I must find time to look in 
 on them some day." 
 
 If all the promises we mortals make to 
 call upon chance encountered friends, were 
 registered in heaven to our debit, it would 
 be a serious addition to our stock of things 
 to be atoned for. Robert Kenyon fully 
 meant to visit the McCunns, but somehow 
 he failed to do so, until the May number
 
 272 A SUIT DECIDED. 
 
 of the Cosmos, containing an especially 
 charming little story from " Olive White," 
 jogged his delinquent memory. 
 
 " I'll go this evening and take my chance," 
 he said, decisively, and proceeded to hunt 
 up Miss McCunn's address. 
 
 On finding the long-lost card, to Kenyon's 
 surprise, their abode was recorded as not in 
 Fifth Avenue, but in a remote eastern quar- 
 ter of a side street, certainly one not to be 
 selected by plutocracy for its dvvellingplace. 
 This fact served to whet Kenyon's appetite 
 for search, and soon after dinner he made 
 his way to the address indicated. 
 
 It was a poor house in a plain neighbor- 
 hood, and the room, in which a maid-servant 
 bade him wait, confirmed his astonishment 
 at the change in the fortune of the 
 McCunns. Was it possible that the father 
 of Idalia had deceived him as to his cir- 
 cumstances? Where then was McCunn's 
 successful car-coupler? Why had its profits
 
 A SUIT DECIDED. 273 
 
 not continued to pour gold into the purse 
 of Cyrus K. ? 
 
 " I call this neighborly," said a wan, 
 shabby, and grizzled edition of the Cyrus of 
 nearly three years back, who at that mo- 
 ment came into the little gas-lighted room. 
 "Mr. Kenyon, sir, I'm about as pleased to 
 see you, as if the U. S. Supreme Court had 
 pronounced a judgment in my favor. I told 
 Miss McCunn I was pretty sure the frowns 
 of Fortune upon our lot would make no 
 difference to you. I rather guess she felt 
 kind of badly at meeting you, remembering 
 how different things had been before that 
 is to say, she felt badly when you didn't 
 call. But I told her a traveler like you a 
 man that travels for the love of it, and can't 
 get his fill of those old antiquities had 
 gone off somewhere to Japan, or to the 
 South Pole, and would drop in when he got 
 back." 
 
 " I'm here, as you see, Mr. McCunn," said
 
 274 A SUIT DECIDED. 
 
 Kenyon, touched by the man's insistent 
 cheerfulness. " And I'm more sorry than I 
 can say to hear that affairs have gone ill 
 with you." 
 
 " It can't be helped now, Mr. Kenyon, 
 and I've no call to whine over spilt milk, 
 sir. But it 'most killed m' poor wife, and 
 pneumonia did the rest. She never could 
 be got to understand where the money 
 went, and b'gosh, sir, few people did. 
 With what funds I had, I dipped into a lot 
 of things that went against me and, while 
 I was off in Europe that last time, a strong 
 combine of capitalists, holding a patent in- 
 fringing on my invention, ruined me ; but my 
 case has gone to the Supreme Court, on ap- 
 peal, sir, and I've still hopes strong hopes 
 for Miss McCunn's sake, sir for, though she 
 don't know it, the doctor tells me I can't 
 get over this trouble in my lungs. She 
 works hard, does Miss McCunn, and you 
 wouldn't believe the pleasure she takes in
 
 A SUIT DECIDED. 275 
 
 settling bills out of her own little earnings. 
 She's become quite an authoress, you know, 
 sir. Tell you what, education's a mighty 
 fine thing, Mr. Kenyon. And how is art, 
 sir. Flourishing, I hope?" 
 
 " Pretty flourishing," said Kenyon ; and 
 the entrance of Idalia struck him with a 
 strong sense of the girl's refined beauty in 
 her developed womanhood. He told her of 
 the pleasure he had had in her recent 
 stories, and she ran upstairs to fetch his 
 framed sketch of Selbourne Church, which 
 she took from her bedroom wall. The three 
 talked, and Kenyon lingered until eleven 
 o'clock warned him that his visit had lasted 
 long enough to make amends for its delay 
 in beginning. 
 
 Kenyon went back, more than once, to 
 the little house in the unfashionable quar- 
 ter, and when summer came found Idalia 
 making preparations for the transfer of her 
 invalid whose malady had now advanced
 
 276 A SUIT DECIDED. 
 
 beyond concealment to a cheap little 
 boarding place on the Jersey coast. 
 
 At Nahant, where he was stopping later 
 in the season, he wrote to inquire for them, 
 and received, in answer, a pitifully cheerful 
 note, saying that although the air had not 
 done all they expected for her father's 
 health, Idalia felt his spirits were kept 
 up by hope for the favorable termination of 
 his law suit in the autumn. Kenyon had to 
 suppress a strong impulse to go down and 
 see about these matters for himself. His 
 lifelong habit of scoffing at weakness of the 
 sentimental order was not to be conquered 
 in a day ; and, besides, he had promised his 
 friend Clive to cruise with him during 
 August in his yacht. 
 
 Through one cause or another our artist 
 did not return to town until late in Oc- 
 tober; and, dropping in that evening to 
 dine at the Club, he found awaiting him a 
 note in Idalia's hand informing him of her
 
 A SUIT DECIDED. 277 
 
 father's serious illness, asking him to call, 
 and dated some days back. 
 
 Summoning a cab, he drove immediately 
 to the house, a blank feeling that all might 
 be over having taken possession of his 
 mind. A light, however, was burning in 
 the invalid's room, and a message was 
 brought him with the request to walk up- 
 stairs. 
 
 Poor Cyrus K. McCunn, with the look 
 upon his face almost of death, lay on his 
 pillows apparently in coma ; on one side, a 
 nurse held a glass with stimulant, and on 
 the other knelt Idalia, clinging tearfully to 
 his chill hand. She gave Kenyon a quick 
 greeting and then resumed her study 
 of her father's face, while the nurse glided 
 around the bed and addressed the new- 
 comer. 
 
 " He has been asking for you, sir, and it 
 is possible he may rouse again ; in which 
 case you could answer the question that
 
 278 A SUIT DECIDED. 
 
 seems to weigh upon his mind. But there 
 is no telling, and he may go off as he is." 
 
 The artist, who was a soft-hearted man, 
 and little used to scenes of this kind, was 
 at .first painfully embarrassed and oppressed. 
 The sight of the woe-stricken girl about to 
 be left to fight her way, unaided, through the 
 world, roused in him not only a desire to 
 help her, but a tenderer feeling, that he had 
 fancied overcome. Drawing nearer, he took 
 her trembling hand in his; and as she started 
 and shivered, he noticed a hot blush settle 
 upon her still averted face. 
 
 But he did not loose his hold, and soon 
 the nurse looked up from her patient, to 
 whom she had just administered the stimu- 
 lant. 
 
 " Now, he is coming to," she whispered. 
 
 " Idalia, is Mr. Kenyon there? " were the 
 next words to break the stillness of the 
 room. 
 
 " I am here, Mr. McCunn, and glad
 
 A SUIT DECIDED. 279 
 
 to do anything I can for you," said his 
 visitor. 
 
 " Mr. Kenyon, sir, I was sure you'd not 
 mind my sending. The world and I are 
 about settling up accounts. A little while 
 ago, sir, thinking of what might come, I 
 made a new will it's all straight, signed 
 and sealed, in my lawyer's hands and I've 
 named you trustee of my entire estate, sir. 
 No offense meant, Mr. Kenyon ; but, if it 
 bothers you, I want to ask your pardon, now. 
 Sole trustee Idalia knows what I haven't 
 strength to say. It's because we believe 
 in you, Mr. Kenyon Miss McCunn and I." 
 
 " I accept the charge. You may trust 
 your child to me, Mr. McCunn," said Ken- 
 yon, tightening his clasp upon the little 
 hand. That much, he felt, was tangible, the 
 rest he believed to be a mere delusion of a 
 dying brain. 
 
 " Is that so, Mr. Kenyon ? " the man said, 
 a pleased look coming amid the violet
 
 A SUIT DECIDED. 
 
 shadows on his countenance. " Then I 
 guess it's about the last thing to trouble me. 
 She won't let the business bother you any 
 more than she can help. It'll be a big lot 
 of money to look out for, but she's a level- 
 headed girl, and a good, dear, loving girl, 
 that deserves every cent of it, and more. 
 God bless my little one why, Daly dear, 
 who'd V thought you'd be crying the 
 day the news came I'd won my suit and 
 you're one of the champion heiresses of 
 America . . . Mr. Kenyon, sir, ... to hear 
 to-day that the Supreme Court . . . has 
 decided ... in my favor ... is what I call 
 a close connection ! " 
 
 " Oh ! father, father," cried Idalia implor- 
 ingly, throwing herself on the bed in a fresh 
 burst of grief, as Kenyon loosed her hand 
 and started back. " Speak to me again 
 don't leave me alone like this." 
 
 But with his last grim effort at a joke, 
 McCunn's voice had failed, and he lay quite
 
 A SUIT DECIDED. 281 
 
 deaf and still. Very soon they saw that he 
 had passed beyond earthly jurisdiction to 
 appear before the final Arbiter. 
 
 A deep red flush burned upon Kenyon's 
 cheek, as with some constraint he bent over 
 the weeping girl and whispered in her ear. 
 Then with a sudden confiding movement, 
 like a child eager for con-solation from the 
 one it loves, Idalia turned toward him and, 
 with his arm about her, let him lead her 
 from the room. 
 
 THE END.
 
 UNIVERSITY ot CALIF 
 
 AT 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 LIBRARY
 
 THE ANGLOMANIACS. 
 
 A Story of New York Society To-day. 
 
 By MRS. BURTON HARRISON. 
 
 A Volume, i2mo, on Extra Fine Laid Paper, Dainty Binding) 
 $1.00. Also in " Cassell's Sunshine Series," paper, 500. 
 
 This is the story that has attracted such wide attention while 
 running through the Century Magazine. There has been no such 
 picture of New York social life painted within the memory of the 
 present generation. The satire is as keen as a rapier point, while the 
 story itself has its marked pathetic side. Never has the subject of 
 Anglomania been so cleverly treated as in these pages, and it is not 
 to be wondered at that society is deeply agitated as to the authorship 
 of a story which touches it in its most vulnerable part. 
 
 " This delicious satire from the pungent pen of an anonymous writer 
 must be read to be appreciated. From the introduction on board the 
 Etruria to the final, when the heroine waves adieu to her English Lord, it 
 Is life, real, true American life, and we blush at the truth of the picture. 
 There is no line not replete with scathing sarcasm, no character which we 
 have not seen and known. . . . Read this book and see human nature ; 
 ponder upon what is there written, and while it may not make you wise, it 
 certainly will make you think upon what is a great and growing social 
 evil." Norristovan Daily Herald. 
 
 " The heroine is the daughter of an honest money-making old father 
 and an ignorant but ambitious mother, whose money has enabled the 
 mother and daughter to make their way into the circle of the ' Foui 
 Hundred.' " N. Y. Herald. 
 
 CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
 
 104 &. 106 FOURTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
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