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 VIRGINIA F. TOWNSEND'S BOOKS. 
 
 Uniform Style. Price, $1.5O each. 
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 BUT A PHILISTINE. 
 
 A WOMAN'S WORD, AND HOW SHE KEPT IT. 
 
 DARRYLL GAP; OR, WHETHER IT PAID. 
 
 ONLY GIRLS. 
 
 THAT QUEER GIRL. 
 
 New Editions. Price, $1.OO each. 
 
 THE MILLS OF TUXBURY. 
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 SIX IN ALL 
 
 THE DEERINGS OF MEDBURY. 
 
 LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS, 
 BOSTON.
 
 BY 
 
 VIRGINIA F. TOWNSEND 
 
 BOSTON 
 LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS 
 
 NEW YORK CHARLES T. THLLINGHAM 
 
 1887
 
 COI'YKIGHT, 188G, HV LlCE AND SnEl'AKD. 
 
 All Rights Reserved. 
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 ELECTROTVPKD 
 BY C. J. PETERS AND SON, BOSTON.
 
 I. 
 
 THE story I am about to tell you opened just as 
 the hands of the clock 011 the Boston Old South 
 Meeting-House pointed to noonday. 
 
 At that moment, a young man came out of a 
 building on Somerset Street. The lintel over the 
 doorway bore, in large lettering, the words : " New 
 England Historic and Genealogical Society." He 
 paused, glancing up and down the thoroughfare, 
 evidently in some doubt as to his next movement. 
 Then, looking at his watch, he faced rapidly about, 
 and strode up the sidewalk, toward Beacon Street. 
 
 It was one of those lovely days which, in that 
 latitude, succeed the autumnal equinox. The sun 
 lay with soft, mellow warmth on the tall brick 
 houses opposite, and on the sidewalk of the narrow, 
 irregular street. It was easy to fancy, at that mo- 
 ment, that the summer had relented, and turned 
 back to smile upon the land she had left to the fierce 
 lashing of the line-storm. 
 
 Raymond Gathorpe, or Ray, as ninety-nine people 
 out of a hundred would have called him, straight- 
 ened his shoulders, and passed with the strong alert 
 
 7
 
 8 . A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 tread of young manhood along the pavement. He 
 inspired deep breaths of the glorious autumn air; 
 he felt it was a good thing to be alive ; he could not, 
 indeed, remember a time when he had felt otherwise; 
 the darkest experiences of his life affording only 
 some shadowy reminiscences of measles and whoop- 
 ing-cough. 
 
 Kay Gathorpe could, of course, have no suspicion 
 that events destined to exercise a powerful influence 
 on his future, had just hinged on the choice he had 
 made as to the way he should go. His train would 
 leave the Eastern station in half an hour ; but there 
 was a chance, if he ran round to the Revere, that he 
 would meet a classmate from New York. Ray de- 
 cided, as we have seen, for the chance, and> the later 
 train. 
 
 He had spent the last hour in the Historic Library, 
 searching out some remote branches of his own an- 
 cestral tree. He had never been inside the walls 
 before. It was, therefore, with some curiosity that 
 he ascended the staircase. At its landing, the first 
 object that faced him was a tall clock, briskly tick- 
 ing away the nineteenth century, and looking ancient 
 enough to be a contemporary of the Mayflower. On 
 his right was a plaster bust of Washington. Ancient 
 engravings and portraits hung on the walls. Alto- 
 gether, there was a mild, pleasant flavor of antiquity 
 about the place. 
 
 The idea of inspecting the family records of re- 
 mote connections had never originated with Ray ; he 
 had undertaken it at the request of his grand-uncle 
 Kenneth, whose wishes were invariably a law to his
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 9 
 
 nephew. But as the young man sat at one of the 
 reading-tables, several thin, black-covered pamph- 
 lets awaiting his examination, he glanced about the 
 apartment, where the plain, dark bookcases lined the 
 walls from floor to ceiling ; he began to feel the at- 
 mosphere of the place. As he copied the names out 
 of the records, names of dead generations and of 
 old colonial days, they acquired some fresh human 
 interest for him. Many of these names had already 
 grown dim on ancient headstones upon Copp's Hill 
 and in the old Granary burying-ground. But behind 
 the dead names which flowed rapidly from his pen, 
 men witfi keen brains, strong hearts, and strenuous 
 purposes had once stood. 
 
 " Plucky old set they were ! " Ray's rapid thoughts 
 went. He felt a new admiration for the high cour- 
 age that had faced the wilderness and the wintry 
 climate, the howling beasts and the treacherous 
 savages. He wondered whether the old heroic 
 breed was not pretty much extinct. " I suspect we 
 are rather a poor lot of weak nerves and flaccid 
 muscles, at the best," he comfortably philosophized, 
 as he fingered the records, and finished his lists of 
 names and dates. 
 
 But somehow the Boston of to-day vast, noisy, 
 thrifty seemed to have undergone some change, 
 when he stepped out from that quiet building on 
 Somerset Street. He did not suspect that he was 
 under the spell of her old traditions, of her noble 
 memories, of her lofty, if stern, ideals. But, all the 
 same, his imagination had been touched, and his 
 thoughts set to a higher key.
 
 10 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 Ray Gathorpe was a slender, well built, broad- 
 shouldered young fellow, who had graduated from 
 Harvard the previous summer. The clear, strong 
 lines of his face gave the impression of having been 
 moulded after some tenacious family type. He was 
 not in the least an Adonis ; still, he looked something 
 better than handsome, at moments when feeling and 
 enthusiasm kindled his face ; he wore a suit of dark, 
 well fitting cloth, but though he was young enough 
 to make a point of such a matter, there was nothing 
 of the fop in his dress or his bearing. 
 
 The fire of young manhood was in Ray Gathorpe 's 
 blood, its high courage, and infinite hope in his soul, 
 as his swift steps rang along the narrow sidewalk, 
 until he reached Ashburton Place. He glanced up 
 the short thoroughfare, that looked sombre, even in 
 the noon sunshine ; no sign of shrub or leaf, no bit 
 of green relieving its melancholy bareness. 
 
 Oidy one figure was in sight, and it was thrown 
 into sharp relief by the noonday glare. It was the 
 figure of a slender-built youth, hardly more than a 
 lad. His clothes had a decidedly seedy look. He 
 walked at so rapid a gait that by the time he had 
 reached the corner, the two faced each other. 
 
 Had several people been in sight, Ray's attention 
 might not have been so strongly drawn to that soli- 
 tary figure in the perspective. Something a little 
 unusual in the stranger's appearance struck him, and 
 when they came together at the corner, and barely 
 escaped running into each other, Ray gazed curiously 
 at the dark, thin face under the shabby cap. 
 
 The youth, startled by grazing somebody's arm,
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 11 
 
 raised his head, and then first became aware of Ray's 
 proximity. He had a good deal the appearance of 
 one who wakes suddenly from a nightmare. Ray 
 gazed into the large, black, deeply rimmed eyes. In 
 all his life he had never seen eyes with such a look 
 of misery in them. 
 
 The stranger's glance went over Ray in a dazed, 
 listless fashion. Then something curious happened. 
 There was a quickening of life in the melancholy 
 eyes ; the slight figure seemed on the instant to 
 grow tall and tense. The youth stood still and 
 stared at Ray with a stern, solemn gaze, that held in 
 it a question of life or death. There was no appeal 
 for help or pity in that brief, despairing gaze ; yet he 
 knew that under a look like that must lie some awful 
 need, some grief too mighty for moan or cry. 
 
 But it was all over in an instant or two. No word 
 had been uttered on either side, though the gaze had 
 brought Ray to a standstill. 
 
 All his classmates would have taken their oath 
 that young Gathorpe was a kind-hearted fellow. 
 The wretchedness which he had read in the young 
 face younger than his own had touched his gen- 
 erous side. He had the swift impulsive tempera- 
 ment, too, that never admits long debate on any 
 course of action. 
 
 "I am going to see this thing out," he said to 
 himself, and he wheeled sharply round, and started 
 for the stranger, whose rapid gait would soon have 
 carried him out of sight. 
 
 " Hold up, will you, for a moment ? I want to 
 speak with you."
 
 12 A BOSTON GIBL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 The words, shouted a little way behind the youth, 
 arrested him. He stopped, turned sharply round, 
 and confronted the stranger he had seen at the 
 corner. 
 
 Ray came up on a run. "I hope you will pardoa 
 me," he said; "but I want to know what you were 
 thinking of when we met just now, and you looked 
 at me in that strange fashion ? " 
 
 A faint flush crept into the dark, thin cheeks. 
 The youth hesitated a moment. " I didn't mean to 
 be rude," he said. " I hardly knew what I was do- 
 ing." He spoke in low, clear tones, which showed 
 that early training had formed a habit. There was 
 a touch of apology in his manner, as in his words. 
 
 Ray began to feel the situation awkward. The 
 easiest way out of it would be the frankest. He 
 laid his hand on the shabby coat-sleeve. Whatever 
 were the young man's faults, the generous, lovable 
 side of his nature always came to the surface when 
 he did a kindly action, and always gave to the deed 
 an added grace. " My dear fellow," he said, look- 
 ing into the black eyes, which were regarding him 
 with a kind of dazed wonder, his own full of some- 
 thing that would have drawn a timid woman or a 
 frightened child to him with unquestioning faith; 
 "I was sure, when you looked at me as you did, 
 that you were in some horrible trouble. I couldn't 
 let you go until I had followed you and asked what 
 it all meant, and whether I could serve you ? " 
 
 A change flashed over the dark face ; the thin lips 
 quivered, then a husky, tremulous voice said: "You 
 are very good, but I am not a beggar."
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 13 
 
 There was something in the last words half re- 
 proachful, half defiant, and yet infinitely pathetic. 
 They gave Ray a glimpse into some great misery and 
 pride, such as he had never come across in his brief, 
 prosperous life. But this speech had afforded him 
 an advantage. 
 
 " Have I acted as though I thought you one ? " he 
 asked, quietly, looking at the stranger with his clear, 
 expressive eyes. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," and at that moment out of 
 the shabby clothes and the sad young face shone 
 the quality, lacking which no man can be a gentle- 
 man. 
 
 "And I begged yours at the outset," replied 
 Ray, with a smile that lent a new grace to 
 the words. "I think we are on equal ground 
 now. Won't you go a little beyond that, and trust 
 me?" 
 
 The black eyes searched the fine blond face for a 
 moment. A new expression crept into their hope- 
 lessness. The answer came with an effort that 
 almost wrenched the slender frame. " You looked 
 so brave, and strong, and glad at that moment, I 
 wondered what you would do if you were in my 
 case ! " 
 
 There was no need Ray should speak, with his 
 eyes asking in that pitying, compelling way, " What 
 is your case ? " 
 
 There was a kind of gasping sob; then the words 
 came, with a sort of hurried fierceness, as though the 
 speaker feared he should not get through with them. 
 "What you would do, if you had seen the friend
 
 14 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 who was all the world to you, whom you would die 
 for, perhaps you have one, dropping at your 
 feet from sheer starvation, and you hadn't a crust, or 
 a way to get one ? " 
 
 Ray's hand clutched the speaker's arm. " I should 
 steal, murder, anything," he burst out. " But good 
 heavens ! you don't really mean it ! you don't dare 
 to say it is so bad as that ? " 
 
 "Just so bad as that." A dull red stole into the 
 dark cheeks, but the eyes held Ray's steadily. 
 
 "Who is your friend? Where is he?" 
 
 "It isn't a man. She " 
 
 ," You don't mean it is a woman? " 
 
 " It is my own sister ! " 
 
 " A girl a girl actually starving to death ! " 
 
 " She is two years younger than I." 
 
 " It is monstrous - I say it is devilish ! " burst 
 out Ray. He had a feeling that somebody must be 
 responsible for such a state of things, and his 
 mingled pity and wrath wrought him to such a 
 mood of fierceness, that had anybody dared at that 
 moment to hint a doubt of the stranger's stoiy, in 
 Ray Gathorpe's hearing, it would have gone hard 
 with the speaker. But the next instant, Ray had 
 whipped out his pocket-book and was fumbling in- 
 side. He had been making some rather extravagant 
 purchases that morning, and they had, for the mo- 
 ment, a good deal reduced his finances. Four ten 
 dollar notes were all, it appeared, that he had about 
 him. He pressed the money into the stranger's 
 palm. "There, that will tide her over starvation 
 this time ! " he said ; and now he perceived what
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 15 
 
 the pinched face and the deep rims round the eyes 
 must mean. 
 
 The youth glanced at the notes, and stood rooted 
 to the spot. " Do you know what you have done ? " 
 he asked, his tone, his expression, one of sheer 
 amazement. 
 
 Kay's look showed that he did not catch the drift 
 of this question. 
 
 " You have given me forty dollars ! " 
 
 " Oh ! that is all, is it ? " Ray tried to carry it off 
 gayly, but the smile shone about unsteady lips. " It 
 doesn't strike me as any great munificence, not 
 worth making a fuss about, certainly. But it is all 
 I happen to have about me at the moment." 
 
 The next instant Ray Gathorpe heard a cry. 
 To the day of his death he will not forget it. 
 " You have saved her life ! You have saved her 
 life ! " 
 
 " Do you want a fellow to make an ass of himself 
 on the street here ? " Ray burst out, the tears in his 
 eyes. " You may rest assured of one thing, though ; 
 you haven't seen the last of me yet." He snatched 
 out a pencil and card from his pocket. " What is 
 'your name ? Where do you live ? " 
 
 Ray scrawled down the reply. Two minutes later 
 he could not, for his life, have repeated the address 
 on that card, but it was safe for future reference in 
 his coat-pocket. 
 
 Then he held out his hand. His smile at that 
 moment would have made his face beautiful in the 
 eyes of the dullest beholder. "Now go to your 
 sister," he said.
 
 16 A BOSTON GIKL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 They stood still with locked hands, looking at 
 each other; neither spoke. But the change which 
 had come over the younger of the faces was the 
 change from despair to hope, from death to life. 
 The next moment Ray Gathorpe was standing alone 
 near the corner of the street, in the bright October 
 noonday.
 
 II. 
 
 THE house stood in the centre of a tall brick block, 
 in a short, narrow street at the North End. It was a 
 noisy, crowded thoroughfare, with huddled roofs 
 darkening the sky. The block had long ago seen 
 its best days, and had the shabby broken-down air of 
 houses which seem to have a consciousness of their 
 approaching doom in their very walls and timbers. 
 The fateful eye of some capitalist would be sure to 
 light on the building one of these days, and it would 
 be pulled down remorselessly, to give place to some 
 smart successor, with granite faade and plate-glass 
 windows. Meantime, the great block did duty in 
 sheltering scores of families under roofs where, in 
 its palmy days, a single household had been comfort- 
 ably domiciled among wide, airy rooms and halls. In 
 the front windows were frequent cards announcing 
 "apartments to let." One of these cards was con- 
 spicuously large, in the window of the central house 
 of the block, where the high flight of steps and the 
 front door looked a little dingier than any of their 
 neighbors. This house had a larger list of tenants, 
 too, than any other member of the block ; no need 
 to say these tenants, too, were people of greatly 
 straitened means. But there was a choice in the 
 rooms, as there was in the resources and character 
 of their occupants. The old roof, with its dingy 
 
 17
 
 18 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 red brick front, sheltered many a pitiful and tragic 
 drama of human life. It is with only a single one 
 of these that this story is concerned. 
 
 If you had ascended three tall, winding flights of 
 stairs, each flight a little shabbier and dimmer than 
 the preceding one, you would have found, at the 
 back of the third landing, a door that opened into a 
 large attic-chamber. The furniture was composed 
 of odds and ends from the lower stories. Articles 
 unfit for further service there had been relegated to 
 this apartment. The chairs were rickety, the carpet 
 was threadbare and ragged in places ; the wall-paper, 
 of a sprawlingly hideous pattern, was stained where 
 the rains had dripped from the roof. In one of the 
 recesses stood an old pine bedstead of brimstone 
 yellow. In an opposite corner was a lounge, covered 
 with chintz, hopelessly faded, and patched with the 
 miscellany of the rag-bag. Yet this old back attic, 
 with its story of poverty written on the walls and 
 every article inside them, gave one a curious impres- 
 sion that its occupants were people of refinement. 
 In the lower and better furnished rooms, one cer- 
 tainly would have been conscious of no such feeling. 
 A few small articles of personal property scattered 
 about, were not sufficient to relieve the general bare- 
 ness, or to account for the subtle atmosphere of the 
 place. 
 
 The sun was shining through the large window 
 that looked down on the unsightly squares of back 
 yard, where the fences were tumbling, and ashes lay 
 in frequent heaps, and garments flapped on the 
 clothes-lines. The mid-day sun did its best with the
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 19 
 
 old attic. It poured through the window-panes, and 
 flooded the carpet, and wanned and brightened every 
 object on which it rested. It flickered about the old 
 brimstone-colored bedstead in the recess, and a soli- 
 tary beam glanced over a head that lay, as though in 
 deep slumber, on the pillow. 
 
 The light shot across the face and into the hair. 
 It was a young, almost childish face, half in profile. 
 The hair lay in such dark abundance on the pillow 
 and about the cheeks that it seemed a soft brown 
 nest for the young, pale face, that made one think of 
 a flower, a flower chilled and drooping, as it climbed 
 after light and warmth. For there was no hint of 
 color in the cheeks, and scarcely one about the lips. 
 There was an unspeakable pathos about the face, 
 as it lay there, white and still, with the noonday 
 light flickering about it. Every delicate line seemed 
 to have a story of loss and suffering. You might 
 have noticed that the lips were closed tightly, as 
 though from a habit of reticence, which controlled 
 them, even in slumber. 
 
 For at first you would have thought the girl was 
 in a sound sleep, in the shabbiness and silence of the 
 old attic, and then, watching the white face, and the 
 motionless figure, a sudden fear would have darted 
 to your heart, lest this might be the sleep into which 
 one falling shall never awaken. Then if, in swift 
 terror, you drew near, you would have caught no 
 flutter of breath from the lips, no stir of life from 
 the limbs; you would have known that the girl 
 lying there in the old attic was either unconscious 
 or dead.
 
 20 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS* 
 
 Somebody must have cared for her. A blanket 
 was wrapped about the slight figure, and she had 
 evidently stirred since that was done, for it was all 
 disarranged about the shoulders, and a small, delicate, 
 blue-veined throat rose out of the old blanket, and 
 formed a slender support for the young head and the 
 weight of hair. 
 
 There was a sound of swift footsteps mounting the 
 stairs ; the door opened, and somebody burst into 
 the room. The youth who had had that strange 
 interview with Ray Gathorpe rushed to the bedside. 
 " Dorrice ! Dorrice dear ! " he shouted, in a voice full 
 of solicitous tenderness, and he placed on a chair, 
 near the bed, a large lunch-basket, from which a 
 warm, stimulating odor began to penetrate the room. 
 
 The girl moved slightly. The familiar voice, the 
 hands about her, the scent of the food, penetrated 
 the semi-unconscious state in which she had lain, for 
 the most part, during the Last two hours, though she 
 had occasionally started and stared doubtfully about 
 her, and then lapsed again into the faintness which 
 had overcome her so suddenly that morning. 
 
 Her brother lifted her head, and raised the pillows 
 against it. She opened her eyes for a moment, and 
 looked at him in a dim, bewildered way. Her lips 
 formed a word, but it fluttered too faintly from them 
 to become audible to a stranger, though it was evi- 
 dent she had attempted to speak a name. Then the 
 deep-lashed lids dropped again. 
 
 The eager, tender, imperative cry rang once more 
 through the chamber. " Dorrice dear, look up ! I 
 have brought you something to eat ; see here." The
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 21 
 
 speaker threw off the cover of the lunch-basket, 
 revealing a large tureen of chicken-broth, piping 
 hot, and savory enough to have tempted a highly 
 pampered palate. The tureen was flanked by fresh 
 baked rolls and dainty pats of butter. The lunch- 
 basket contained other succulent edibles, and about 
 the whole lay bunches of grapes, and some Florida 
 oranges. The meal was well calculated to stimulate 
 a long-fasting palate. 
 
 The voice, and the savory smell of the food 
 brought close to her nostrils, reached the failing 
 senses again. The girl roused ; she felt her brother's 
 hand on her forehead ; she opened her eyes ; they 
 rested on the contents of the lunch-basket, which 
 had been placed on the bed. A low, hungry cry 
 wavered about the attic ; then the wild, terrible greed 
 of those who are famishing came into her eyes 
 eyes so large and dark that they seemed half of the 
 small, colorless face. 
 
 The youth standing over her heard the cry, and 
 saw the greed in the eyes ; his lips quivered, half 
 with joy, half with pity. He dipped the spoon in 
 the broth. " I dare say I shall make an awful boggle 
 feeding you," he attempted to say playfully. 
 
 A small hand, the delicate skin chapped and 
 roughened, stole out from under the blanket, and 
 laid itself on his arm. "I can do it myself, Carryl," 
 said a faint voice, and the girl seized the spoon, and 
 it had almost touched her lips, when she suddenly 
 paused. "Let us take the first mouthful together," 
 she said, in a stronger tone. 
 
 A dark flush stole into the youth's cheek. Pride
 
 22 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 mastered the pang of hunger that was gnawing him. 
 " I got it for you, Dorrice," he said, in a low voice, 
 that he did not mean should be stern, but it con- 
 vinced the girl that her brother had, for her sake, 
 begged the food that he refused to share with her. 
 
 A swift tremor passed over the pale face. She 
 put back the laden spoon. "If you will not eat 
 with me, I shall not taste it, Carryl ! " 
 
 Her voice struggled with weakness, but you could 
 have heard it to the farthest corner of the room. 
 
 Her brother looked in her eyes, and knew she 
 would keep her word; he could not let his young 
 ifster starve. Pride was vanquished at last; with- 
 out another word, he sat down, took a spoon and 
 dipped it in the broth ; his sister followed his exam- 
 ple ; but before they had swallowed a mouthful, they 
 paused and kissed each other with a tender solemnity 
 that was like a sacred rite. 
 
 Three hours later, the sun was shining into the 
 old attic, not with quite the brightness of the noon- 
 day, but it shed a pleasant afternoon glow on the 
 stained walls and the shabby carpet. For the first 
 hour there had been few words spoken. The two 
 young people ate their meal the first full one 
 they had had for a week with an eagerness that 
 left no time for speech, and afterward, in a slow, 
 dallying fashion, that made the most of every mouth- 
 ful, as warmth and strength gradually penetrated 
 body and soul. 
 
 Carryl had watched the slow color deepen in 
 Dorrice's pale cheeks, and the pink brighten the 
 white lips. For himself, he had had no farther
 
 A BOSTON GIRI/S AMBITIONS. 23 
 
 struggle with his pride after that first mouthful 
 passed his lips. He had forgotten everything but 
 the joy of seeing his sister eat, and the look in the 
 young stranger's eyes as the two locked hands. 
 
 But as the dreadful hunger was appeased, words 
 had grown more frequent. Once in a while the two 
 had paused to smile at each other, the smile saying 
 much for which speech was not yet ready. Occa- 
 sionally, too, there would be some brief interjection 
 over the contents of the basket. " This broth is 
 just delicious." " What perfect breakfast-rolls these 
 are ! " " Were oranges ever so sweet ? ". " Cer- 
 tainly nobody ever tasted such grapes before^" 
 The end came at last when Dorrice drew a deep sigh 
 of repletion, and laid down the plate which her 
 brother had freshly laden with fruit. "I can't, 
 Carryl," she answered to his inquiring glance. 
 " Really, I can't eat another mouthful ! " 
 
 " Nor I, Dorrice ! " and he too set down his plate. 
 
 A little silence followed ; then Dorrice's hand 
 stole into her brother's. She drew a deep breath, 
 her mouth twisted a moment, then she cried out, 
 "Oh, Carryl, how good it is not to be hungry! " The 
 great tears showered over her cheeks. 
 
 "I know it is, Dorrice." He tried to say some- 
 thing more, but a sob came, and he dropped his head 
 in the pillow that had slipped away from her, and 
 shook from head to foot. 
 
 Dorrice cried too, but more quietly, one" hand 
 every few moments moving with a kind of pleading 
 touch through the short, black rings of hair buried 
 in the pillow. During the week that had passed,
 
 24 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 the brother and sister had not seen each other 
 shed a tear. Now they seemed weeping away all the 
 misery which must make these last days' a dreadful 
 memory throughout their lives. 
 
 At last the sobs grew quieter. Carryl raised his 
 head ; his sister met his look with a smile that shone 
 about tremulous lips, and under long, tear-wet lashes, 
 but it was the sort of smile that always gives heart 
 and hope to another. 
 
 In a moment he said : " Dorrice, you want to 
 know how I got this food for for us ? " 
 
 The question took her by surprise, it went so 
 straight to the point ; and his tone, too, was quite 
 calm. She had believed that it must cost Carryl a 
 terrible struggle to tell his sister that he had turned 
 beggar to save her from starvation. She had not 
 dared, with all her courage, to approach the subject. 
 
 Now her hand stole into his. " Yes, I want to 
 know," she said, softly. But she did not look him 
 in the eyes. 
 
 He had, for a long time, the talking to himself; 
 he related every detail of his interview with young 
 Gathorpe. There was something else that he had to 
 tell, though, in his narrative, the first came last. It 
 was such a confused, dim, wretched time in his 
 thoughts, that the words which described it were 
 broken and half coherent, for Carryl was trying to 
 recount what had happened after his sister had 
 dropped senseless at his feet that morning, and he 
 had placed her on the bed, and wrapped her in the 
 blankets, and rushed from the attic in a wild, fren- 
 zied impulse to save her from famishing.
 
 A BOSTON GIKL'S AMBITIONS. 25 
 
 One event stood out in sharp relief from the con- 
 fused misery of that time. He found himself in 
 front of a bakery. Loaves of bread, piles of cake 
 fresh from the ovens, were on the counter. He 
 seemed to smell again, the warm, appetizing odor of 
 the newly baked food. A slight girl, hardly older 
 than Dorrice, was standing before the counter. 
 Then a mad impulse came over Carryl ; it almost 
 mastered him. If he could dart inside that door, 
 seize a loaf and rush off with it before a soul could 
 interfere, Dorrice's life would be saved. He had 
 moved toward the threshold, another step would 
 have carried him across it, when it flashed on his 
 consciousness that he was on the point of turning 
 thief. All the instincts of his nature, strengthened 
 by his early training, recoiled even in that moment 
 of utmost temptation. He faced about sharply, 
 rushed off with all his might, half fearing lest a 
 demon was just behind, intent on dragging him back. 
 After that, everything was blurred again. He could 
 not remember how he reached Ashburton Place. He 
 must have wandered about the streets in a vague, 
 aimless way ; but it probably was less than half an 
 hour after he left the bakery, when he came upon the 
 young stranger. He should see those white loaves, 
 those sheets of fresh brown gingerbread all his life ! 
 
 Dorrice, sitting up in bed, drank in every word of 
 her brother's story, her little thin hands clasped to- 
 gether, her eyes wide and bright at times, the tears 
 blinding them at others. Ray Gathorpe had looked 
 very splendid in Carryl's eyes; and, in his grateful 
 admiration, he painted the youth to Dorrice as an
 
 26 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 almost supernaturally glorious creature. Ray's 
 dearest friends would hardly have recognized the 
 portrait, though, of course, Carryl had not the faint- 
 est idea that the colors owed any of their depth and 
 brilliancy to his imagination. 
 
 "I could not feel humiliated when I took that 
 money, Dorrice," he said, "any more than if my 
 best friend, or an angel of God, had given it to me." 
 
 " He was that to you and me, Carryl ! " with a 
 touch of wonder and awe in her voice, and in the 
 sweet, half-childish face. 
 
 But half an hour later, when the westering sun 
 had crept far away from the bed in the recess, she 
 was saying, with a bright, girlish air and tone, " I am 
 just awfully tired of lying here, Carryl ! It seems 
 like playing sick when one is well ; and I always did 
 hate 'possuming,' you know. I must get up and sit 
 on the lounge." The bright voice, the little decided 
 movement of the head, that was so much a part of 
 her, were all immensely pleasant to Carryl. 
 
 He sprang up. " Let me carry you, Dorrice. I 
 can set you down there in two seconds." 
 
 " So can my own feet," she answered, and her low, 
 gay little laugh wavered about the attic. 
 
 "We shall see whether they can ! " he exclaimed, 
 and, catching her up with the old blanket in his 
 arms, he deposited her on the lounge. There was a 
 double ring of merry laughter over that feat. 
 
 A tired, wrinkled old woman, passing the door at 
 that moment, caught the sounds, and sighed heavily 
 for onvy of the happy creatures who could laugh in 
 that way in such a dreary world !
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 27 
 
 " You are about as much weight as your first doll ! 
 A fellow could carry you a mile without resting," 
 said the brother. 
 
 " So can my own feet, I tell you again, Carryl 
 Dacres ! I shall prove it too, this evening." 
 
 " That is a threat to make a fellow's hair stand on 
 end, Dorrice ! Won't you please to be a little less 
 ambiguous?" 
 
 " 1 am going to have a walk with you on the 
 Common ! There is no mystery in that statement, I 
 think." 
 
 " No ; it is simply ridiculous." 
 
 " It is the most sensible thing I could do. It is the 
 one that will make me feel perfectly well again. 
 Oh, Carryl," the playful, chaffing tone changing sud- 
 denly to an earnest one, " how delightful it will be 
 to saunter under the old trees once more, and watch 
 the great shadows on the mall, and hear the little 
 rustles of wind in the fading leaves, and half believe 
 they are tlie. tripping of fairy feet among the 
 branches. Then there will be the busy crowds com- 
 ing and going, arid the streets full of life and bright- 
 ness, making one feel that one is a part of the life 
 and brightness too." 
 
 In talk like this, the well-spring of gladness at the 
 roots of the girl's nature, rippled and sparkled. 
 
 Carryl's mood rose to meet hers. It was such an 
 infinite relief to be gay and careless after the strain 
 of the last days; indeed, the awful weight had 
 slipped off the young souls so suddenly, the deliver- 
 ance had come about in such a strange, unlooked-for 
 fashion, that it had an element of mystery and ro-
 
 28 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 mance to their imaginations. The gift itself had 
 been so large, the giver so gracious, that now, the 
 craving pang of hunger satisfied, and they could 
 reflect on it all, it seemed as though anything good 
 and beautiful might follow. They were both very 
 young, though recent events had matured them in 
 certain respects. But youth, with its hope and its 
 courage, was once more alert in their souls, and look- 
 ing out bravely to the future. Yet these two had, as 
 we have seen, been facing starvation for the last 
 week, fighting him hour by hour, and a short time 
 ago it seemed at least doubtful with whom the 
 victory would lie. 
 
 "Well, Dorrice," said Carryl, in a tone whose 
 light key echoed his sister's, " you shall have your 
 own way. You always do, you know, in the long 
 run." 
 
 " You dear old boy ! you shall have the nicest 
 breakfast, though you don't deserve it for telling 
 such a tremendous fib. Oh, Carryl," the eager voice 
 faltered, "how good it will seem to have a real 
 breakfast again ! " 
 
 "I shall be satisfied with nothing less than a 
 Maecenas-feast," said Carryl, gayly, resolved to 
 banish any grim phantoms that might be lurking in 
 their memories. 
 
 " You can't have quite that," the archness of her 
 smile shone out again, " unless it means broiled beef- 
 steak, hot coffee, and fresh rolls. Now, isn't that a 
 menu to make your mouth water ? " 
 
 " No doubt it will haunt my dreams ! ITow per- 
 fectly you have arranged it all, so long ahead ! "
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 29 
 
 "But you know, Cariyl,"- here her voice and 
 manner, though she was two years his junior, had 
 that maternal air which had crept into them since 
 their mother died "I always could make money go 
 farther than you." 
 
 " I see what you are after ! well, you shall have 
 the spending of this ; only you must remember that 
 we have our strength to build up, yours especially, 
 and that there were forty dollars ! " 
 
 "Yes, I shall remember," replied Dorrice. Her 
 tone implied that she regarded it as a fabulous sum. 
 Indeed, they both had a feeling that the crisis of 
 their lives had passed, and that the long road of their 
 dark fortunes had turned at last. But older and 
 wiser souls might, perhaps, have questioned whether 
 this conviction was not largely owing to the fact that 
 one of the two was sixteen and the other eighteen. 
 
 The light of that October day was flickering on 
 the housetops, and a last beam shimmered and faded 
 in Dorrice's brown hair. Human happiness is a 
 curious, elusive thing. It is doubtful whether the 
 sun, going down over the vast, busy, hurrying city, 
 shone on two happier souls than the brother and 
 sister in the tenement-house attic, who had just 
 escaped starvation.
 
 III. 
 
 ON the evening of the clay that Ray Gathorpe had 
 that strange encounter in Boston, he was sitting 
 under the roof where he had passed most of the 
 years of his life. It was an ample roof, nearly as 
 old as the century. The house was of gray stone. 
 Wings had been added to it in later years ; it stood 
 on a slight elevation in the midst of handsome 
 grounds a wide, noble, hospitable mansion, with 
 little ornament about it, and yet with a character of 
 repose and dignity which long occupancy can alone 
 confer on a dwelling. 
 
 The house, two stories in height, with a third one 
 in the roof, seemed to have some closer relation to 
 the soil about it than most houses do. You felt this 
 gray, nearly three-quarters of a century old mansion, 
 with its porticos and fluted columns, was the only 
 possible one for the place. The grounds, too, had 
 the ancient, home-like air which comes of long culti- 
 vation. They were bordered by a low stone wall, 
 and broken up into slopes of rich lawn, and masses 
 of evergreens, and shrub-shaded driveways ; while 
 beds and borderings of flowers gave vivid color and 
 grace to the landscape. At the back of the house 
 stretched a large, fragrant old garden. Some of the 
 fruit-trees drew their mellow juices from a soil that 
 
 30
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 31 
 
 had nourished them for more than a century. An 
 older house had occupied the site of the present one. 
 There was a tradition that the Guthorpe grounds had 
 never been sold. A grateful Indian chief, for some 
 special service rendered to his tribe, had bestowed 
 the land on the first of the Gathorpes, who, be- 
 fore the middle of the seventeenth century, had 
 crossed the sea. Later purchases of outlying acres 
 had brought into the estate several deep old lanes 
 that wound between high pastures, and were rich 
 with grasses, and beautiful with giant oaks and 
 graceful old elms. 
 
 Wandering through these lovely, fragrant places, 
 embowered in foliage, and with their dim depths of 
 cool shadow opening out into fair sunny spaces, 
 where the lush grass was snowed and crimsoned 
 with the wild blooms of the New England summer, 
 it was not difficult to understand why the first 
 owner of the Gathorpe estate had christened it 
 Bylanes. That homely, picturesque name had clung 
 to the land ever since. It was about five miles from 
 the Massachusetts coast-line, and twenty-five north 
 of Boston. 
 
 On this evening, the last representatives of the 
 Gathorpe name and race sat in a small, lower room, 
 in one of the wings of the house. This apartment 
 had a character of its own. It had been originally 
 designed for a breakfast-room, but it was such a 
 quiet, restful, home-like nook that, when they were 
 alone, the statelier rooms were sure to be deserted 
 for the small one. 
 
 No room at Bylanes, however, had the air of soli-
 
 32 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 tude and silence which pervades the rooms of many 
 old houses. A subtle atmosphere seemed to haunt 
 each apartment, as though the vanished generations 
 had left there some aroma of life and sentiment. 
 It was easy to imagine that the walls had witnessed 
 many a drama of human life. One almost listened 
 for footfalls on the staircases, and fancied forms 
 moving about the wide old halls they had once 
 tenanted. 
 
 The people who had lived and died, who had had 
 their joys and sorrows, their gay feasts and their 
 solemn funerals, under the ancient roof, appeared to 
 have left something of themselves to brood there in 
 tender memories, when they passed, for the last 
 time, over its threshold. 
 
 But in the warm, softly lighted room, the two who 
 represented all who were left of their kin, were just 
 now very intent on the present. Even the furni- 
 ture here was, for the most part, modern, while in 
 the rest of the house, embroidered panels and hang- 
 ings, solid sideboards, and carved cabinets, tables, 
 and chairs, were largely suggestive of other fashions 
 and times. A wood-fire crackled and blazed in the 
 wide chimney. The great fire-dogs, the fender of 
 twisted, burnished brass, flashed back the hurrying 
 flames. The gray furnishings of the room were 
 tinted by the fire-light, so that the whole had a soft, 
 warm dimness, like that of a moss-hung grotto, with 
 a red flush of sunrise all through it. 
 
 For the last fifteen minutes there had been no 
 sound in the room, but the crackling of the flames 
 as they leaped over the logs, and shot, in a vast red
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 33 
 
 volume of blaze, up the wide-mouthed chimney ; 
 while outside, the moon was riding in full state, with 
 some silvery clouds scarfed about her calm, sweet 
 face. Little winds wandered and moaned about the 
 windows, as though they had lost themselves. There 
 was a frosty chill in the air, though the golden-rod 
 still shook its yellow tassels by the roadways, and 
 the beds and borders of the grounds flamed with the 
 most splendid flowering of the year. 
 
 Ray sat on one side of the great carved chimney- 
 piece, his uncle Kenneth on the other. There was 
 more than a half-century between the years of the 
 two, and an artist, seeing them at that moment, 
 might have been struck with the idea that they em- 
 bodied two distinct types of manhood : one the fire 
 and strength and pride of youth ; the other, the 
 calm, the dignity, and beauty of old age. 
 
 For the elder of the two who sat by the fire that 
 night, and who silently watched his nephew across 
 the flames, was a splendid old man. If you had met 
 him in a crowd, you would have turned to look at 
 his face, and been sorry when it vanished from your 
 sight. He was tall, and straight as an oak ; he had a 
 noble head, with white hair, and silver flowing beard. 
 The face, with its strong, pure outlines, must have 
 had a certain ruggedness in youth, which age had 
 gone far to soften. His skin was still un wrinkled ; 
 his heavily arched brows were coal-black, and under 
 these shone very remarkable eyes. They were of 
 deep gray, with a keen, penetrating quality, which 
 gave one an impression that they always pierced the 
 surface into the heart of things, and measured these,
 
 34 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 not after a hard, critical, unimaginative standard; 
 but with that kindliness and sympathy which came 
 partly of his inborn quality, partly from his large 
 knowledge and experience of life and men. 
 
 There were certain lines of family likeness, which 
 grew clearer with acquaintance, between the two 
 men ; while the smooth skin, the black brows, the 
 bright, powerful eyes, made the elder look much 
 younger than he was. 
 
 So they sat there in the silence, the Gathorpe of 
 a past generation, and the Gathorpe of the present. 
 And the latter was gazing, with an absent, thought- 
 ful expression, quite unlike his usual one, into the 
 blaze ; and the other was watching his nephew ; and 
 the red flames leaped and flickered between them. 
 
 At last Ray stirred, drew a deep breath, ran his 
 hands through his hair, and glanced at his uncle. 
 When he caught the calm, bright gaze with which 
 he was so familiar, he asked, " How long have I 
 been sitting here as dumb as the latest exhumed 
 mummy ? " 
 
 "I think it must be half an hour since you last 
 spoke to me." 
 
 Ray gave a short laugh. " It is the first time you 
 could have said it, after we had been together for 
 that length of time." 
 
 In a moment the grave look was in his face again. 
 " What curious things happen in this world ! " he 
 said, half to himself. "If we read of them in a 
 novel, we should say they were overdrawn un- 
 natural ! " 
 
 "And yet surprises are the rule," replied the
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 35 
 
 elder man. " That old adage, ' It is the unexpected 
 that happens,' is always proving itself true. How, 
 indeed, can it be otherwise, in this huge, changing 
 drama of human life?" 
 
 "It was the unexpected that happened to me 
 to-day, witli a vengeance ! " exclaimed Ray, still half 
 to himself, half to his auditor. 
 
 " How ? " Kenneth Gathorpe could put a singular 
 force into a monosyllable. People frightened, dazed, 
 bewildered, had often gone to him for counsel or 
 help in some strait, and had been steadied and con- 
 trolled by a word. 
 
 During the next ten minutes, Ray related the 
 scene which had occurred on his leaving the library 
 that morning. 
 
 His uncle listened with that concentration which 
 he always gave to the speaker who interested him. 
 
 " It is a pitiful story," lie said, sadly, when Ray 
 had finished. u It makes the world seem a sadder 
 place, and our own fortunate share in it not quite 
 the fair thing, when we know what is happening 
 under the sun." 
 
 " I shall see the look in that poor fellow's eyes as 
 long as I live," continued Ray. "How do people 
 get into such horrible straits, I wonder!" 
 
 The misery can, as a rule, be traced to some- 
 body's lack of brains or of moral fibre. But, if that 
 goes far to explain the fact, it does not make the 
 suffering less easy to bear. Certainly, if the world 
 were what it ought to be, what I believe it is surely 
 destined to become, such a scene could never 
 happen."
 
 36 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 "There seemed an awful injustice about it," broke 
 out Ray again, in an impatient, resentful tone. " I 
 had a curious feeling, in that fellow's presence, that 
 I ought to beg his pardon ; that I somehow was 
 responsible for his suffering , that my own good 
 fortune, ease, luxury, and all that, were a wrong and 
 an insult to him." 
 
 A glance that was like joy, so full was it of deep, 
 solemn approval, flashed from under the black 
 brows. Ray, with his eyes on the flames, did not 
 catch the look. 
 
 " My dear boy," said his uncle, " no man is fit for 
 'good fortune, ease, luxury, and all that,' unless he 
 often has the feeling you have owned to." 
 
 "All I have to say, then, is," replied Ray, with a 
 rather grim smile, " he won't be likely to get much 
 comfort out of his better luck. I know mine made 
 me feel small enough this morning! But, of course, 
 that poor young fellow's case was no more my fault 
 than if the thing had happened in Jupiter." 
 
 " That thought has often to be one's greatest con- 
 solation. But, Ray," the quiet voice deepened to a 
 graver key, "it will be your fault, when it is too 
 late to help it, if you do not guard against one 
 thing." 
 
 " What may that be, Uncle Ken ? " 
 
 " Don't die too rich ! Don't dare to do it, Ray ! " 
 
 The youth was used to his uncle's epigrammatic 
 way of putting things ; but this speech, or the tone 
 of it, startled him. 
 
 " Do you really think me in danger of doing 
 that?" he asked, half amused, half serious.
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 37 
 
 " I have been fearing it for the last few days. If 
 you should, the fault would lie, perhaps, chiefly at 
 my own door. I set out in a way likely to spoil 
 you. But you had a good start. You can never 
 rid yourself of the responsibility that fact im- 
 poses. Think of the place you were. born into; of 
 the stanch old ancestry that lies behind you ; of 
 the toils and struggles, the strong conscience, and 
 high moral instincts, that have gone into the making 
 of yourself and your lot in life." 
 
 " Uncle Ken, what is the meaning of all this 
 talk ? " asked Ray, suddenly turning and confront- 
 ing his uncle. 
 
 " The meaning is, Ray Gathorpe, that one of these 
 days you will be my heir ! " 
 
 " I never want to hear you say that." Ray looked 
 tenderly at the snowy head. He loved and admired 
 the man sitting there more than he did anybody in 
 the world. 
 
 " Did you suppose I was going to live forever, you 
 absurd boy? Can you look at these white hairs 
 and flatter yourself I have stumbled on the fountain 
 of perpetual youth ? Do try and make clear to your- 
 self the fact that I am an old man ; so old that I can 
 remember, dim and vague as a dream, for the most 
 part, but I can remember faces and voices of the 
 last century." 
 
 " Everybody says you do not look your age, Uncle 
 Ken " ; there was a kind of tender reproach in Ray's 
 voice. "Despite your white hairs and your last- 
 century memories, I won't believe in the years. I 
 deny and defy them. You are as young as the
 
 38 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 youngest of us fellows. Haven't you often insisted 
 to me that youth was not a matter of birthdays but 
 of temperament ? " 
 
 " So it is, in feeling ; but it has no spell that can 
 transmute eighty into eighteen ; and I am so close 
 on fourscore that I know the clock may run down 
 at any time." 
 
 " If you please, Uncle Ken " 
 
 " But, Ray," said his uncle, in those quiet, master- 
 ful tones which had exercised such a power over 
 others all his life, " we must be reasonable people, 
 you and I. The chances are that you will have to 
 stand alone some time ; and if it should come sud- 
 denly, you would be -orry to miss any words of 
 mine," 
 
 There was a little pause. Then Ray spoke up, 
 sharply, " Has anything been happening to you, 
 Uncle Ken?" 
 
 Again there was a little pause. The red flames 
 shot after each other up the logs in tumultuous glee. 
 " Nothing alarming, that I know of," answered the 
 elder man, as though something made him choose 
 his words carefully. " I should hardly have minded 
 the thing when I was a strapping young fellow like 
 you ; but at my time of life trifles are often signifi- 
 cant." 
 
 Was it the words or the quiet voice that sent a 
 sudden chill to Ray's heart? It seemed as easy to 
 conceive of an earthquake's swallowing the conti- 
 nent as that his uncle Ken should die. The man, so 
 strong and erect, so full of all human interests and 
 vital energies, so much more alive than most people
 
 A BOSTON GIEL'S AMBITIONS. 39 
 
 he knew, seemed still in the prime of his years to his 
 nephew. Ray did not answer his uncle ; but there 
 was something in his eyes which made the elder man 
 hasten to say : " Perhaps it is not worth telling, after 
 all ; but we will make no mystery of it. I was out 
 on the piazza last week for my usual afternoon walk. 
 Something suddenly stopped me. I cannot describe 
 it. It was not like a blow, though it had a good 
 deal the effect of one. I sat or sank down on a 
 lounging-chair which happened to be at hand. I felt 
 no oppression, no sensation of pain. In a moment, as 
 I thought, I was on my feet again. Then I glanced 
 at the clock in the hall. I remember seeing it as I 
 sat down. There were more than two hours I could 
 not account for." 
 
 "Isn't it just possible you dropped off into a 
 doze ? " asked Ray, eagerly catching at this straw. 
 
 " In that sudden way, and in the midst of a walk ! 
 There is no disguising the truth ; I must have been 
 unconscious for about two hours." 
 
 *" And you never breathed a syllable of this to any 
 of us?" 
 
 " If you look arid speak like that, you will make 
 me regret having done so now." 
 
 "But you have felt no bad effects from this?" 
 anxiously persisted Ray. 
 
 " Perhaps not. It has seemed it may, after all, 
 be a mere notion that my heart has never quite 
 regained its old steady beat since that afternoon." 
 
 " Have you consulted a doctor ? " 
 
 " I did that at once." 
 
 " What did he say ? "
 
 40 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 " He warned me to be careful of sustained effort 
 or violent exertion. Pie hoped there, was nothing 
 serious in my attack. My ancestral longevity was in 
 my favor. Really, I was no wiser when I parted 
 with the famous doctor." 
 
 "But you believe the trouble whatever it may 
 be was with your heart? " 
 
 " That weakness is in our race. My mother died 
 of heart-disease when I was younger than you." 
 
 The silence fell again. The red tongues of flame 
 lapped the great logs, and the brass andirons glittered 
 in the blaze. 
 
 At last, Ray leaned over, and laid his hand on the 
 arm of his uncle's easy-chair ; for during their talk 
 the two had unconsciously drawn nearer to each 
 other. "Uncle Ken," he said, his tone low and a 
 good deal tremulous, " you know we are all that is 
 left. I never realized what the other losses meant, 
 they came so early. And then you seemed to make 
 up for all that was gone. But without you well, 
 it is impossible to conceive how life could go on, or 
 that it would be worth anything." 
 
 " Ah, Ray, what a commentary such words are on 
 my bringing-up ! But they cannot shake my faith in 
 you, my belief in the man you will prove, in the 
 future you will make." 
 
 "You ought to be certain of the stuff that has 
 gone to the making of a fellow before you set such 
 tremendous hopes on him," replied Ray, rather 
 grimly. 
 
 " My faith has at least the foundation of twenty 
 years intimate knowledge and observation."
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 41 
 
 " At all events, the fault won't lie at your door, 
 Uncle Ken, if I sow my wild oats go to the dogs." 
 
 "I should feel it must, if I feared anything of that 
 sort. But I have tried to give you the right start. 
 From the time that you came to me, I always looked 
 forward to leaving you some day with the burdens 
 and responsibilities of a rich man ; but I find that 
 you are to be richer than I supposed. The property, 
 in its varied forms, has grown on my hands. There 
 have been shrinkages, of course, in investments, and 
 depressions in portions of the real estate, but of late 
 years there has been a steady current of prosperity. 
 Many things have doubled, trebled, their values. 
 You will be so rich a man, Ray, that you will be a 
 great debtor to the world." 
 
 Ray drew his breath with a sudden sense of oppres- 
 sion. He sprang up and stood by the mantel, his 
 tall, lithe figure drawn to its full height. He had 
 that day gained a new insight into the meaning of 
 wealth. His careless, happy life, the large place, the 
 good fortune, into which he had been born, had some 
 new significance for him. For the first time, the 
 weight of varied duties, of new, coming responsibili- 
 ties weighed heavily on his young, ardent manhood. 
 
 " Uncle Ken," he said, with a laugh that was any- 
 thing but gay to the solitary ear that heard it, "you 
 almost make a fellow feel that it would be easier for 
 him, in the long run, to be born in the slums. Money, 
 family, culture, a grand start in the world great 
 heavens ! I never sa-w the thing in this light before." 
 
 "Thank the heavens that they have sent you this 
 light now. But come, Ray> sit down here, and let us 
 talk like reasonable men for a while."
 
 42 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 Ray threw himself into his arm-chair again. For 
 a long while his uncle had all the talking to himself, 
 Ray never losing a syllable. The old man was speak- 
 ing of his will and of matters connected with it. 
 There were numerous bequests, annuities, legacies, to 
 persons, public institutions, and charities ; all the 
 details as he wished them carried out would be 
 found fully laid down in the will. The remainder 
 of the property, including the Gathorpe estate, was 
 to revert to Ray. 
 
 After his uncle had dwelt on all these matters, he 
 continued : " The largest personal bequest I have 
 made is to the heirs if they are living of a man 
 of whom you have never heard, and yet, had it not 
 been for him, I should not be here to-night." 
 
 " You would not ? " Ray spoke at last. 
 
 " No ; for he saved my life twenty-five years ago, 
 saved it at the risk what seemed, at the time, the 
 certain loss of his own." 
 
 "Uncle Ken, why did you never tell me of this?" 
 
 " I always meant to ; but the right time seemed 
 never to come. Then I am constitutionally averse to 
 speaking of what most intimately concerns me. 
 That was like my father. Curious, how this heredity 
 crops out ! " 
 
 This last remark was in a low, absent tone. 
 
 " Uncle Ken," exclaimed Ray, " I want to hear 
 about this man who saved your life." 
 
 " It is too late to begin that, Ray. It is an exciting 
 tale. We must take another evening for it." 
 
 The tones had some repressed weariness. 
 
 Ray glanced at the small French clock on the
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 43 
 
 mantel. He was amazed to find that it was past 
 midnight. He would gladly have sat on until dawn, 
 listening to the elder man's talk ; but for almost the 
 first time in his life he realized that his uncle had 
 not the vigor of young manhood, which makes so 
 light of every fresh expense of time and strength.' 
 
 Yet it was with something of an effort that he 
 rose, saying : " I see it is high time that we go to our 
 beds. It isn't often the Fates permit us an evening 
 like this alone together." 
 
 They turned and looked at each other, for the 
 elder man had risen too. A tender light crept into 
 his eyes, as they rested on the face of the youth who 
 bore his name, and was so soon to take his place as 
 the owner of Bylanes. He laid his hand on his 
 nephew's shoulder. " My dear boy, Ray," he said. 
 
 " My dear old Uncle Ken," answered Ray ; and 
 
 for a moment he too stood still, looking at his uncle, 
 
 and feeling in some deeper, more intimate sense than 
 
 he ever had done before, all that the man was to him 
 
 all that he had been from the beginning. 
 
 And all this was in Ray's eyes, and his uncle read 
 it there. 
 
 The noble white head and the brown one, that, 
 even at rest, seemed alert with youth and its pride 
 and strength, made a grouping that would have 
 haunted a poet for days, if he had caught a glimpse 
 of it. 
 
 Then the two separated. 
 
 And the great leaping flames had dropped into a 
 heap of red coals, around which a bordering of gray 
 ashes was slowly gathering.
 
 IV. 
 
 CARRYL and Dorrice Dacres were sitting together 
 in the tenement-house attic. It was now four days 
 since the meeting with Ray Gathorpe had brought 
 about such a change in their fortunes. It was even- 
 ing, and a kerosene lamp was burning on the table. 
 The light softened the bareness and shabbiness of the 
 room, and revealed the change which had come over 
 the faces of its inmates. It was wonderful what 
 those four days of ample food and reviving hope had 
 done for the young people. Dorrice's lips had 
 regained their color, and a soft pink often crept into 
 her cheeks when she spoke. Her brother's face had 
 lost its dark pallor, and the great black eyes held no 
 longer the look of some hunted, despairing creature. 
 
 " Carryl," said Dorrice, suddenly leaning forward 
 from the corner of the lounge, where she was sitting, 
 with a light shawl thrown around her shoulders, and 
 slipping her hand in her brother's, "you and I have 
 had four such happy days ! " 
 
 Carryl sat near his sister, in a rickety arm-chair. 
 He looked down on the bright, delicate face, with 
 something in his own to which the history of the 
 last week could alone have furnished a clew. 
 
 " Yes i they have been happy," he said, fervently. 
 " I think you and I, Dorrice, will always have a 
 
 44
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 45 
 
 notion how people feel when they first come out of 
 prison." 
 
 Dorrice drew a long breath. A swift shiver went 
 over the slight frame. "It was dreadful," she said, 
 in a low, half-scared voice. " I don't dare to think 
 about those last two days ! " 
 
 This was her first allusion to them since she had 
 broken her fast. She had resolutely put that terrible 
 time behind her until she could look back on it 
 through a vista of changed, brightened life. 
 
 Carryl had understood her feeling and shared it. 
 But now he turned suddenly and looked his sister 
 sternly in the eyes. "Dorrice Dacres," he said, 
 "you told me a lie ! " 
 
 Her lids drooped, her cheek flamed, but in an 
 instant she lifted her eyes to him, half defiant, half 
 pleading "I did not say there was any more, 
 Carryl," she answered, with a little stress of em- 
 phasis on the verb. 
 
 " But you made me believe part of the loaf was 
 left, when I ate that last slice. If you had died, that 
 remembrance would have finished me, if the starving 
 hadn't done it ! " 
 
 " You had to be out on the street," said the soft, 
 pleading, but not weak voice if it had been this 
 last, it would never have spoken such words. " You 
 needed the food more than I, who stayed at home." 
 
 " I knew that was the way you argued it out to 
 yourself. And I was such a stolid ass I didn't see, 
 and bolted the bread ! " he continued, his tone cruelly 
 remorseful. 
 
 Dorrice leaned forward with that little air of ma-
 
 46 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 ternity which sat so oddly on her sixteen years. 
 "Dear, don't let's talk about it any more," she said. 
 "We must learn to put all that where it belongs 
 now behind us." 
 
 "How is a fellow to put behind him the conscious- 
 ness that he has been infernally selfish? " 
 
 " Carryl Dacres, I will not listen if you talk like 
 that. There was 110 selfishness in it. You simply 
 did not know." 
 
 "And ought to! Does that make the case any 
 better for me ? " 
 
 "I won't hear another syllable," putting her fingers 
 to her ears playfully. 
 
 But not long afterward she was saying, very 
 gravely, " Carryl, people are always wiser after they 
 have been through things. We must never get 
 down into that depth again." 
 
 " Heaven forbid ! " She felt him shudder. 
 
 " Heaven will, if we do our part, Carryl," turn- 
 ing her face, so that all its young earnestness was 
 brought full upon him. " We must make up our 
 minds now what we will do before this money is 
 all gone." 
 
 " I see that as clearly as you." 
 
 "The money seemed so large at first !" her serious 
 tone in odd contrast with the girlish lines of the 
 lips. " But stretch and scrape as we may, it cannot 
 hold out much longer." 
 
 " No ; not even you can make it do that ! " 
 
 "The next month's rent," she continued, as though 
 the matter had been gone over many times in her 
 own mind, "won't be due for almost- two weeks.
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 47 
 
 You know we had to pay in advance, and it was 
 doing that the last time which brought us to such a 
 pass. Bat we are sure of a roof over our heads for 
 the next twelve days. If you don't get any place by 
 that time, Carryl " 
 
 "You know I keep on trying from morning till 
 night," he broke in, springing to his feet, and ner- 
 vously pacing the room. "But it seems a fool's 
 chase. The market is overcrowded. Then, I'm 
 not one of your big, burly fellows that look as 
 though I could handle heavy weights and go into 
 rough work. They glance me over, and make up 
 their minds in a flash that my muscle isn't the stuff 
 for their business. Of course, the other places, where 
 a little brains might tell, are all filled up.* When it 
 comes to those, a fellow needs a friend at court." 
 
 " Well, Carryl," interposed again the clear young 
 contralto, "you can keep on trying a little longer, 
 so that, if all fails, you can make sure it was not 
 your fault. But if, at the end of another week, 
 nothing has happened, we must do something 
 else." 
 
 Carryl understood perfectly what the last words 
 meant, and why the speech suddenly swerved aside, 
 and came to so lame and impotent a conclusion. 
 He turned, lowered the wick slightly, for the kero- 
 sene-lamp was smoking; then he stood still before 
 her, and exclaimed, in a low, bitter tone, " What a 
 fool I was ! " 
 
 " What fools we were ! " she flashed back at him. 
 
 "You were only fifteen, and a girl! " 
 
 " You were only seventeen and a boy ! No doubt,
 
 48 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 in years and, of course, you believe, in sex you 
 had the advantage of me ! " 
 
 He smiled. A smile always made a real brightness 
 in his dark, serious face ; yet, when he spoke, his 
 tone was anything but an amused one. u My years 
 or my sex proved of little advantage when the pinch 
 came! Oh, Dorrice ! " he broke out, in an impatient, 
 remorseful tone, " what a wild flight it was ! What 
 babes in the woods we were ! " 
 
 " I see all that now, Carryl." 
 
 The ice was broken. It was easy to talk after- 
 ward. In a little while, Dorrice was saying, with 
 her gravest air, u We have learned something that 
 will last us all our lives, Carryl ! " 
 
 " But at what a price ! " 
 
 " I know ; but people have to pay prices for their 
 knowledge in this world. Carryl, if you don't get 
 anything to do by another week, we must go back 
 to Foxlow." 
 
 She brought out the last word steadily, but it was 
 with an effort, and she looked doubtfully, anxiously, 
 in his face. 
 
 "I I see that we must, Dorrice ! " 
 
 She drew a long breath. It was evident that a 
 great weight slipped off her soul with his reply. 
 
 In a moment she continued, with great animation, 
 " We shall go at once to Deacon Spinner's. Whatever 
 the silence means, you and I will find our old wel- 
 come under that roof. You would have time to look 
 about for something to do, without fearing it would 
 lead in Foxlow to what it has in Boston. Even if 
 it came to our being apart for a little while ' her
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 49 
 
 voice faltered and then steadied itself, "well, we 
 could see each other every day or two. I might get 
 a little sewing, or take care of children, and before 
 long if I can only manage to look old and sedate 
 enough I could set up an infant-school. Then I 
 should be in a seventh heaven ! Oh, Carryl ! " she 
 burst out in a changed tone, " we have each other ; 
 we will be brave ; we shall pull through ! " 
 
 He seized the warm little hands, that suddenly 
 reached themselves out to him. The courage that 
 shone responsive in his dark young face gave it a fresh 
 manliness. 
 
 "I believe you, Dorrice," he said. "We will be 
 brave ; we shall pull through ! " 
 
 So the brother and sister held up each other's 
 courage. And, meanwhile, the money which had 
 dropped into their utmost need, almost as though it 
 had fallen from the heavens, was slowly dwindling, 
 and nothing happened nobody came. 
 
 They said little about him ; but Carryl and Dorrice 
 were always on the lookout for the stranger who 
 had befriended them. During the days when her 
 brother was away, pacing the streets on his fruitless 
 quest for employment, Dorrice's little quick ears 
 were on the alert, and her cheek would flush and 
 her heart bound, whenever she caught a quick step 
 on the landing. But it never paused at the door. 
 The tall, splendid youth whom Carryl had painted 
 in such a way that he had taken possession of Dor- 
 rice's imagination, until he seemed like the grand 
 hero of one of her childhood's story-books never 
 appeared at the attic doorway.
 
 50 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 A week went by, bringing no change. The finances 
 were dwindling rapidly to a sum barely sufficient to 
 pay their fare to Foxlow. 
 
 The memory of all they had passed through had 
 burned itself too deeply into heart and brain, for 
 either to dream of drawing on their last resource 
 while they remained in the city. The return to 
 Foxlow in their present straits was not agreeable, 
 but it was infinitely pleasanter than staying to face 
 starvation again in Boston. 
 
 One morning, Carryl said to his sister, " This will 
 be our last day, Dorrice ! If I haven't found any- 
 thing when I return to-night, I shall give up the 
 search. We will leave to-morrow." 
 
 " We must, Carryl ! If we stay another day, there 
 will not be money to take us back." 
 
 Carryl strode about the room with a moody face. 
 " It won't be altogether disagreeable to take leave of 
 our sky-parlor. We sha'n't be likely to forget some 
 scenes which these old walls have witnessed." 
 
 "No; we sha'n't forget," echoed Dorrice, softly. 
 
 "The mystery of Deacon Spinner's silence will 
 be cleared up now ! " he went on, in a rather bright- 
 ening tone. "I shall be glad to see his old face, and 
 his little apple-cheeked wife's. I knew perfectly well 
 that he never approved of our mad flight to the 
 city. But I thought he was old and slow and poky. 
 Yes, the conceit has been well taken out of me ! 
 Perhaps the old man will be able to put me on the 
 track of some work. If everything fails, I can 
 turn chore-boy. We cannot afford to be proud, 
 Dorrice."
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 51 
 
 " Yes, we can," she answered, with a swift bridling 
 of her small brown head. " We shall never do any- 
 thing to disgrace ourselves. You are too proud to 
 feel you would do that, Carry 1 Dacres, by turning 
 chore-boy." 
 
 "Perhaps I am. But a fellow can't be sure of 
 feeling precisely as he ought, when it comes to the 
 test Whether my future destiny is that of chore- 
 boy or not, I own to an ignoble dread of facing 
 some questions which I foresee ; and of knowing 
 that my admissions must prove me an unmitigated 
 fool. If ever a fellow fairly earned the old mot- 
 ley the cap and bells it's the one who has the 
 honor to stand before you ! " 
 
 " Oh, Carryl," looking at him reproachfully, 
 "why will you go on in that strain, when you 
 know it hurts me?" 
 
 "Then I will shut up. Only when I think how 
 we set off for the city, our small heads full of the 
 absurdest hopes and dreams, and how we are going 
 back well, I suppose we must make up our minds 
 to let this lost year slide ! " and he tried to whistle 
 a tune not very successfully. 
 
 " I don't believe in lost years," said Dorrice. " It 
 is people's own fault if they have them. We shall 
 be wiser and better for what we have been through 
 together. You and I are not going to let it prove a 
 lost year, Carryl." 
 
 With that she went up to him, put her arms 
 jT'fMmd his neck, and kissed him. She did not do 
 this so often that it had grown into a habit with 
 either of them.
 
 52 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 And with that kiss on his lips, and those words in 
 his soul, Canyl Dacres went out to search a last 
 time for some work in Boston. 
 
 But that day something happened !
 
 V, 
 
 LESS than three hours after he left his sister, 
 Carry 1 returned. When he burst open the door, 
 when lie bounded into the room, where Dorrice had 
 begun to pack their scant wardrobe for to-morrow's 
 journey, she knew that some good fortune had be- 
 fallen Mm. 
 
 Before she could speak, he seized her in his arms, 
 and whirled her about the room as though she had 
 been a baby: " Dorrice, little woman," he shouted, 
 " I have found a place ! Do you hear that ? I have 
 found a place ! " 
 
 Then he set her down and stood looking at her 
 with a face of exultant happiness ! 
 
 " Oh, Carryl ! " It was a low, breathless cry, so 
 tremulous for joy that you might have mistaken it 
 for pain. 
 
 Then again, for half a minute, they stood still, gaz- 
 ing at each other. 
 
 " But I want to know, Carryl ! " said Dorrice, at 
 last. 
 
 Half an hour later she 'did know. Carryl had 
 gone out with hardly a glimmer of hope that morn- 
 ing. It seemed like a grim farce, going over the 
 same old rounds that he had gone for months, 
 making applications in all sorts of likety and un- 
 
 53
 
 54 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 likely places. Indeed, Carryl had a secret convic- 
 tion that, had it not been for Dorrice, he should not 
 have left the house at all. He could understand 
 now how a commander feels about surrendering the 
 fort though his last hope has vanished so long 
 as there is a gun to be fired. 
 
 " And to-day I am firing my last gun ! " Carryl 
 told himself as he moved along the noisy, crowded 
 streets. It was no wonder that wild scheme of 
 coming to Boston to seek their fortunes, without a 
 single friend in the big, strange Babel, had come to 
 such grief as this ! But the dark chapter was draw- 
 ing to its end; and to-morrow he and Dorrice 
 would go back to Foxlow with the story of their 
 failure, and see what life would open to them 
 
 Into the midst of these thoughts came a sudden 
 shout, the thunder of heavy wheels, the thud oi 
 horses' feet. Carryl, crossing the street at that mo- 
 ment, looked up to see a great, lumbering ex- 
 press-wagon close on him. The big horses had taken 
 fright, and were dashing madly down the street, 
 without their driver. As Carryl darted out of their 
 path, his glance fell on a small child, who stood 
 directly in the way of the frightened beasts. An in- 
 stant more, and plunging hoofs and grinding wheels 
 would have gone over the dazed, helpless creature. 
 
 It was all done in a flash. There was no time for 
 thought, but, with one wild, overmastering im- 
 pulse, Carryl sprang forward, caught the boy, 
 swung him clear of the plunging hoofs, and darted 
 back with him to the sidewalk. Noi. a hair of the 
 round, curly head had been harmed.
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 55 
 
 Carryl was trembling with his desperate effort, 
 and his bare escape for the wheels had grazed one 
 ankle when he stumbled against something soft. 
 A wild cry half of joy, half of terror rang in his 
 ears ; the frightened child was snatched from his 
 arms ; he heard the sobbing of a woman, and he 
 knew that he had saved her boy's life. 
 
 When he turned to look at her, he saw a lady, 
 young, graceful, handsomely dressed. A gentleman 
 in his prime, with a shrewd face and heavy side- 
 whiskers, had leaped too late from the curbstone, 
 as he caught sight of the boy, who had trotted 
 unobserved into the middle of the street, during the 
 few moments that his parents had been talking on 
 the sidewalk. 
 
 "Oh, Ned, he has saved Tom's life!" exclaimed 
 the mother, as she hugged her child, and clung to its 
 father. 
 
 " You risked your life to do it too, young man ! " 
 said the gentleman, grasping Carryl's hand. 
 
 "There was no time to think about that, sir," he 
 answered. 
 
 At this point there was a second outcry from 
 Dorrice. 
 
 " But I didn't get a scratch, you see," said Carryl, 
 quite forgetting his ankle. " Come, now, for a sensi- 
 ble girl to get pale like that over an if! " 
 
 The story was soon resumed. The scene had hap- 
 pened near the junction of Milk and Devonshire 
 streets. A good many people had witnessed it. A 
 crowd gathered and stared, and then there was some 
 huzzaing for Carryl. The gentleman's office was
 
 56 . A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 only a few blocks off. He begged Carryl to go with 
 them ; while his wife continued to pour out her 
 thanks, with wet eyes and quivering lips. 
 
 The nerves of the four had been a good deal 
 shaken, and it was a relief to get away from the 
 crowd and roar of the great business thoroughfare, 
 into the handsome private office, where Carryl soon 
 found himself. Tom, by this time, was getting over 
 his fright ; he had roared loudly at one time ; but 
 now he only sobbed occasionally, and stared with 
 big, solemn eyes from one face to another ; he was a 
 beautiful child, three years old. 
 
 His father wrung Carryl's hand again ; his keen 
 gaze going over the stranger who had just rescued 
 his boy from a horrible death. He saw the shabby 
 shoes, the seedy clothes; his first impulse was to 
 present the youth with a reward in the shape of a 
 handsome sum of money. 
 
 But when the gaze returned to Carryl's face, the 
 man's impulse wavered. " Young man, will you tell 
 me if there is any way in which I can serve you ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 " If you will put me in the way of getting some 
 employment, you will do me the greatest favor in 
 the world," Carryl replied. 
 
 His wife, while she was passionately hugging 
 Tom, had been listening to every word. She broke 
 in here, " Oh, Ned, you remember what you said at 
 breakfast, about getting somebody to fill Warren's 
 place at once ? " 
 
 " I remember, Emmeline," and now another gaze 
 went over Carryl. The sharp, incisive gaze of the
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 57 
 
 business man, that measured him from another stand- 
 point than that of the grateful father whose boy's 
 life had just been saved. "The position is one 
 which requires some experience," he said, in a differ- 
 ent tone, " and some one who is absolutely trust- 
 worthy, as the firm will often have important 
 matters to place in his hands. To whom can you 
 refer me ? " 
 
 " To nobody in the city," replied Carryl. " I am 
 a stranger here. But I will do my best, sir, if you 
 will give me a trial." 
 
 " Yes, Ned ; you can't do less than that," eagerly 
 interposed the wife. " As for references, I am sure 
 he has just afforded you the best in the world." 
 
 Mr. Hallowell smiled rather gravely at this re- 
 mark. "That is a woman's reasoning, Emmeline," 
 he said; "but it isn't business." 
 
 " I don't care what it is ! " she exclaimed, with 
 feminine vehemence. " Where would Tom be this 
 blessed minute if it hadn't been for him?" and she 
 fell to hugging her boy again. 
 
 Mr. Hallowell turned to Carryl once more, who 
 had a feeling that his fate was hanging in the 
 balance. 
 
 "You have had no experience in business of this 
 sort, I suppose ? " he said. 
 
 "Not the slightest, sir," replied Carryl, still with- 
 out an inkling of what the business was. "But he 
 who reaches the top of the ladder has sometime to 
 begin at the lowest rung." 
 
 " The fellow knows how to make pat replies, as 
 well as to risk his neck to save another!" thought
 
 58 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 Mr. Hallowell. He liked the young man's face as he 
 regarded it more closely. It had a bright, honest 
 expression, while its delicate lines gave the shabby 
 clothes a pathos, which, under ordinary circum- 
 stances, the prosperous business man, the head of 
 the large shipping firm of Hallowell, Howth, and 
 Company, would not have been likely to notice. 
 
 " My partners will have something to say in this 
 matter," continued Mr. Hallowell, turning to his 
 wife. " They won't regard it as we do, from the 
 point of sentiment." 
 
 "But your influence can turn the scale, you 
 know that perfectly, Ned. Give him a chance for 
 Tom's sake ! " And as though these words had given 
 her a new idea, the lady turned suddenly to Tom, 
 whispered something very earnestly two or three 
 times in his ear ; and then led him up to his father, 
 where he stood at the man's knee, a lovely picture 
 of dimpled, rosy childhood. 
 
 " Now say it," exclaimed his mother. 
 
 " Dib him a tance, papa ! " piped the pretty so- 
 prano, the cheeks puffing out, and getting red with 
 the effort it cost to achieve this sentence. Then 
 Tom turned and looked at his mother, his round 
 little face aglow with triumph. His three auditors 
 burst into a laugh. 
 
 " You see, young man," said Mr. Hallowell, tun> 
 ing to Carryl, " what forces you have arrayed on }-our 
 side ! It is useless for me to attempt to resist them, 
 when I remember what a debt you have laid me 
 under. I am going to take Tom's advice and give 
 you the chance. You shall have a month's trial.
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 59 
 
 Be on hand to-morrow morning by eight o'clock, 
 and we will give you " here Mr. Hallowell 
 glanced at the shabby clothes, " well twelve 
 dollars a week for the first month, and, if we keep 
 on, something better." 
 
 Carryl could not speak for a moment. He turned 
 to Mrs. Hallowell. She thought she should never 
 forget the look in that boy's eyes. But she only 
 lifted Tom and held him up to kiss Carryl. 
 
 Mr. Hallowell thought the young fellow knew 
 where his thanks were due. He certainly would not 
 have stepped so easily into that berth, had not his 
 wife pleaded his case so urgently. But Mrs. Hallo- 
 well did not understand quite so well as her hus- 
 band what a position had opened to Carryl, and 
 that it was one which many a rich man would 
 gladly have secured for his son. 
 
 The sky was gray and wan overhead ; and gusts 
 of the chilly November wind were rattling the 
 blinds of the old tenement house, as Carryl Dacres 
 related the morning's story to his sister. But had 
 the sun shone in cloudless summer skies, and all the 
 birds of the forest filled the air with their singing, 
 the day could not have seemed brighter, nor its 
 sounds been sweeter to the two. 
 
 And this day, they remembered, was to have been 
 their last in Boston.
 
 VI. 
 
 IT was more than a week before the uncle and 
 nephew sat alone again at evening in the breakfast- 
 room at Bylanes. There had been a constant influx 
 of guests during these last days. The Gathorpe 
 mansion kept up its ancient traditions of hospitality; 
 and people from all quarters of the world crossed its 
 threshold, to gain their first impressions of America 
 amid such agreeable surroundings. Ray had had a 
 busy week with his company, amongst whom were 
 some bright young English people, fellows from 
 Oxford, with their sisters, out on a brief visit to 
 the States. 
 
 Outside, a wild November storm was holding its 
 way. Fierce blasts swept the air, and blinding 
 sheets of rain lashed the windows. Inside, a great 
 blaze swirled, and shot up the big-mouthed chimney. 
 Little tongues of fire darted out and lapped the fore- 
 sticks. The tall brass andirons, the burnished fen- 
 der, glittered in the flames. 
 
 " Whew ! just hear that wind, will you ? " ex- 
 claimed Ray, as a blast thundered at the windows. 
 " If this sort of weather holds on to-morrow, I sha'n't 
 enjoy running down to Boston, even for the special 
 business I have in hand." 
 
 " I hope, whatever this business may be, it is not 
 60
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 61 
 
 such a life-and-death matter that it can't wait until 
 day after to-morrow," said Ray's uncle, laying down 
 his paper, and removing his glasses. 
 
 Ray fancied there was a touch of satire in this 
 speech ; he always enjoyed detecting that in his 
 uncle's talk. The two were much given to badger- 
 ing each other, in the half-earnest, half-playful way 
 which grows out of the closest sympathy and trust. 
 
 The young man raised his eyebrows. "You are 
 right, Uncle Ken ; my business is not a life-and- 
 death matter to myself" 
 
 The little pause, the stress on the pronoun, gave 
 significance to the close of this speech. 
 
 " I hope you don't mean it is to anybody else," 
 continued his uncle, as he leaned forward, seized the 
 tongs, and replaced one of the sticks, which had 
 fallen out of the pyramidal line. 
 
 " That depends, perhaps, on how well forty dollars 
 have held out. They seem to me a wretchedly 
 slender outpost against starvation." 
 
 For a moment his uncle's inquiring look showed 
 he did not catch the drift of this speech. Then he 
 said : " Ah, yes ! I see what you mean, Ray. You 
 have found no time, then, to look that matter up?" 
 
 "Absolutely none. This last onset of company 
 hasn't allowed a fellow many half-hours for his own 
 affairs. I had Bylanes to show up pretty thoroughly, 
 of course. I have been to Boston three times ; but 
 it was always in the r61e of escort and chief man- 
 ager of a party of very curious and critical young 
 English folk. I played the host showed the lions, to 
 the best of my capacity, with a pleasant conviction
 
 62 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 that my charge were all the time secretly drawing 
 comparisons, immensely in favor of their own coun- 
 try and its institutions." 
 
 His uncle's eyes twinkled. "Of course," he said; 
 "we all do that when we are over there for the first 
 time." 
 
 "Oh, I wasn't thin-skinned! The sense of supe- 
 riority, whenever it cropped out, was so sublimely 
 unconscious, too ! But the fellows, in spite of cer- 
 tain British prejudices, were gentlemanly and agree- 
 able, and the girls pretty and accomplished. I 
 enjoyed my role ; but I should have liked vastly to 
 run off and do a stroke of business on my own 
 account." 
 
 His uncle thought the stroke of business would 
 have done the young man's heart credit ; but he only 
 asked, " What kind of plans have you formed for 
 this young prote'ge' of yours, if he turns out what 
 you believe him ? " 
 
 " Uncle Ken," said Ray, hotly, " I would answer 
 for that young fellow's honesty with my life ! " 
 
 " My dear boy, I had no intention of chilling your 
 sympathy with an old man's caution. I have often 
 thought of the pitiful story, though we seemed to 
 have no time to recur to it. There is no reason, in 
 the nature of things, why the tale should not be 
 true. As sad, as unlikely, events happen every 
 day." 
 
 "If they do," answered Ray, grimly, "this insignifi- 
 cant part of the solar system is a most uncomfortable 
 place for some of its population. I certainly hoped 
 this case was, in many of its aspects, a solitary one.''
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 63 
 
 " We will treat it now as though it were," replied 
 the elder man. " What are your plans, I venture 
 to ask again, for the young fellow, when you hunt 
 him up ? Of course, if he is the right sort of stuff, 
 he is not going to depend on you long for his 
 future." 
 
 " He isn't the kind of fellow to whom it will be 
 easy to offer money a second time. He has got to 
 take it, though," added Ray, very decidedly, "if he 
 needs it. Of course, he will want to fight his own 
 battle, as soon as he gets breath and standing-room. 
 I have thought all that out." 
 
 " To what conclusion ? " 
 
 Ray turned squarely on his uncle. " That is just 
 the point where you can step in and help him better 
 than I." 
 
 "In what way?" 
 
 "A line from you to almost any one of your profes- 
 sional or business friends in Boston will secure him 
 a berth somewhere, either in a business house, or a 
 lawyer's or broker's office. Of course, he must take 
 a low place and small wages at the beginning. But 
 that isn't the question ; the place is the thing." 
 
 " But you forget, Ray, that I am wholly ignorant 
 of this young man's character and capacity ; I am 
 unable to vouch for either." 
 
 " I see all that. Of course it is impossible for you 
 to assume the slightest responsibility. But you have 
 many a friend who will, for your sake, be ready to 
 give the young fellow a trial." 
 
 " I perceive you can be practical enough when 
 your sympathies are thoroughly aroused."
 
 64 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 "Which means when it comes to other people's 
 affairs ! That, at least, ought to be presumptive evi- 
 dence that I can manage my own, on occasion. But, 
 Uncle Ken, you see what an immense service it is in 
 your power to do this poor fellow." 
 
 " Perhaps." 
 
 " And that means you will ! " The tone made 
 this speech less a question than a confident asser- 
 tion. 
 
 The elder man reflected a moment, then he 
 answered : " One doesn't like to set about a thing of 
 this sort in the dark. You want to know something 
 of your young fellow's likings and aptitudes. Find 
 out what kind of place he wants, and then come 
 to me." 
 
 Ray knew it was all settled then. " Thank you, 
 Uncle Ken," he replied, in a tone with which he 
 never thanked him for any personal favor, because 
 all that he regarded as a matter of course. " I mean 
 to bring him up to By lanes one of these days, and 
 prove to you that my instinct was not at fault." 
 
 " I don't remember that you told me his name." 
 
 " I can't do that at this moment. I scrawled down 
 his address before we parted ; it is in my drawer, up- 
 stairs." 
 
 In these few moments' talk, the future of Carryl 
 Dacres seemed to become, between the old man and 
 the young one, a settled thing. 
 
 The storm increased. " Old Boreas is booming 
 to-night ! " exclaimed Ray, as he listened to the roar- 
 ing of the wind, the rattling of the rain. " If this 
 keeps on, we shall have the storm of the season."
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS, 65 
 
 "It must be terribly rough off the coast. I have 
 weathered too many storms at sea not to think of the 
 sailors on such a night," said the elder man. 
 
 Ray sat still a while, in his warm, soft nest, listen- 
 ing to the tumult outside. His uncle sat still, too. 
 The red fire-light flickered about the noble head, the 
 snowy beard, the strong, fine face. In a little while 
 he ceased to hear the storm. His thoughts slipped 
 easily into the past ; they wandered among fa days 
 and scenes that were close and vivid in Kenneth 
 Gathorpe's memory. He heard voices that dulled 
 the roar of the wind, and saw visions that quite shut 
 out that warm, bright interior, and the proud young 
 face opposite him." 
 
 Kenneth Gathorpe had had a remarkable life. 
 Among his earliest memories was one of a day when 
 he played on a grassy slope, in front of his home, 
 and his father came out on the small, steep-roofed, 
 slender-pillared portico, and called to him. A min- 
 ute later, he held the child on his knee, and, as they 
 sat on the broad bench, in the shadow of the portico, 
 he told the boy, in solemn, faltering tones, that 
 George Washington was dead. Kenneth Gathorpe 
 had never forgotten that moment, nor the look in his 
 father's face. 
 
 Another of those early recollections was one of 
 sad-faced, foreign-looking men and women, who sat 
 at his father's hearth and board. These strangers 
 were the exiles the French Revolution had driven to 
 our shores. They found their way to Bylanes, 
 because its owner had, in happier days, been the 
 guest of some of them, his business connections hav-
 
 66 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 ing for years caused Kenneth's father to reside 
 in France. Many scenes of the terrible tragedy that 
 shook a continent had been gone over in the low- 
 studded, ancient house which occupied the site of 
 the present mansion. Kenneth, with his grave, 
 childish face, sat in a corner, and drank in some of 
 the most terrible stories of that time, told oftenest 
 in broken English, but with tones and gestures 
 which made the whole a wonderfully vivid drama. 
 In that low-ceiled New England parlor he had heard 
 the roll of the tumbrels through the pleasant Paris 
 streets, and he had seen the white, sad faces of the 
 victims on their way to the guillotine. 
 
 These things had made a lasting impression on 
 the boy's young heart and imagination. The man 
 had often been heard to declare he could never get 
 over a feeling that he had lived through the French 
 Revolution. 
 
 In later years, it had been Kenneth Gathorpe's 
 fortune to see many lands, to mingle much with men 
 of different nationalities, to live a crowded and 
 eventful life. 
 
 The business which he had inherited from his 
 father had made it important that he should spend 
 much time abroad. He had felt a profound interest 
 in the politics of Europe, while his avowed liberal 
 sympathies had made him the friend of the great 
 leaders of progress, both on the continent and in 
 England. 
 
 For the instinct of freedom was in the Gathorpe 
 blood. Kenneth was brought up on traditions of the 
 American Revolution, in which his ancestors had
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 67 
 
 borne a heroic part. In his youth he had spent many 
 hours with Lafayette, and talked with Jefferson and 
 the elder Adams. His memory was a precious store- 
 house, crowded with historic events and personages, 
 and was one of his strong attractions to scholars and 
 statesmen. It was delightful to listen to the talk of 
 the large-brained, sweet-natured old man, when it 
 was illuminated by swift, graphic pictures of the 
 great historic scenes of the century. 
 
 Kenneth Gathorpe had been an eye-witness to 
 some of these ; for he was in France during that ter- 
 rible July which saw the fall of a throne and the 
 flight of the Bourbons. A little later he watched, 
 with the keenest sympathy, the passage of that 
 Reform Bill, which shook England like an earth- 
 quake. He was in Paris again when the House of 
 Orleans forfeited the realm it had won so easily ; and 
 he was there a little later, when Louis Napoleon 
 waded to crown and throne through the horrors of 
 the coup d'etat. 
 
 But, even in his young days, when Kenneth Ga- 
 thorpe's blood beat highest with hope for humanity, 
 and the way seemed easy for other nations to rise 
 up, as his own had done, and make prompt, short 
 work with their oppressors, the centripetal forces 
 of his temperament always held him to his own 
 orbit. This fact was a standing joke between Ray 
 and his uncle. " You would have been a Round- 
 head in Oliver Cromwell's time, Uncle Ken no 
 question of that. You would have rushed with the 
 bravest of those old fellows on the Cavaliers at 
 Naseby and Marston Moor ; a century and a half
 
 68 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 later, you would have gone serenely to the guillotine 
 with the Girondists ! But, when it came to cropped 
 hair or red cap, I don't feel like answering for you. 
 Somehow, you always do draw a line just inside of 
 radicalism." 
 
 The old man was ready with an unanswerable re- 
 joinder. But he felt, at the same time, that Ray's 
 metaphorical line had expressed a truth; and he 
 sometimes questioned with himself how much its 
 existence was owing to temperament, and how much 
 to the experience of life. 
 
 A thought flashed across Ray. He turned sud- 
 denly to speak to his uncle, and then, catching the 
 look on the old man's face, checked himself. He 
 knew the light of days which had never risen on him 
 was bright in the elder's memory. 
 
 So Ray sat still, and the red blaze hummed and 
 leaped before him, and, outside, wind and rain harried 
 the earth and air. 
 
 At last the elder Gathorpe looked up and met a 
 bright, rather amused gaze. 
 
 He laughed. " We have been sitting here as mo- 
 tionless as two old monoliths." 
 
 "Yes; I saw you had taken to reminiscencing, 
 and I wouldn't interrupt you." 
 
 "You are very considerate, Ray. But you had 
 something to ask me ? " 
 
 " The last night we sat here alone together, you 
 promised to tell me something." 
 
 " Really, I have forgotten." 
 
 " It was about the man who saved your life, whom 
 you have remembered in your will."
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 69 
 
 " Yes," said the old man, his eyes bright as youth 
 under the beetling brows : " I remember." 
 
 " This is just the sort of night to tell me the 
 story. I have been listening to that high old wind 
 outside, until it has grown to be the cry of some 
 infinite tragedy. You and I are sure of an evening 
 alone together, which is rather of a rarity. Uncle 
 Ken, I want to hear about this man, and what he 
 did for you." 
 
 "It all happened twenty-eight years ago, some 
 time before you had your first peep of daylight. 
 Yet it seems, curiously, as though it all must have 
 taken place yesterday." 
 
 He paused a moment. Ray did not speak ; he 
 knew the time, the place, the event of which he was 
 so eager to hear, had started up in his uncle's mem- 
 ory, and that speech strong and vivid would 
 speedily follow. 
 
 " I was in California for the first time," resumed 
 the old man. "That was when I made a voyage 
 around the world, and returned home across the con- 
 tinent. My visit to the Pacific coast, however, was 
 largely one of business, which took me among the 
 mountains of the coast range, and into the foot- 
 hills of the Sierras. Of course, there was a good 
 deal of hard riding and tough work about the jour- 
 ney ; but, a quarter of a century ago, I was still 
 elastic enough not to mind that. Then, what a won- 
 derful life it was ! It made me feel like a boy again ! 
 The sky, with its steady blue glare, not blurred by a 
 faint breath of cloud ; the dry, warm, delicious air, 
 that made sleeping out-of-doors such a delight ; the
 
 70 A BOSTON GIKL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 silence and immensity of the plains ; the valleys, 
 lovely as gardens of Eden, with their infinite verd- 
 ure, and their seas of dazzling bloom ; the great 
 mountains, solemn, mysterious, implacable, their 
 flanks thick-wooded with pine and cedar, their far- 
 away, snow-crowned summits ghostlike in the deep 
 blue heaven, ah, that wonderful world, that 
 wide, free, exultant life, it makes every drop of 
 my old blood tingle to think of it ! " 
 
 " It makes every drop of my young blood tingle to 
 hear of it," interposed Ray. " I must have a taste 
 of it too, sometime ! " 
 
 " Of course you must. But there's time, Ray, my 
 boy there's time enough." 
 
 " Of course there is," added Ray, bent on ignoring 
 some meaning that the quiet tones did not mask. 
 " There is no magnet in this world powerful enough 
 to draw me away from Bylanes ; so you need not 
 flatter yourself with any hope of getting rid of me 
 for the next cycle." 
 
 The old man smiled on his nephew, a smile that 
 gave to the strong, keen face something of the 
 grace and tenderness of a woman's. 
 
 Then he returned to the talk. " But wonderful 
 as the world was on that old Pacific coast, it seemed 
 the grand, fitting stage for the human life going on 
 there. This, as always, was the supreme interest. 
 It was a life full of strong, rough, elemental passions. 
 It brought a man's real quality to the surface. The 
 restraints and disguises of civilization had been 
 largely left behind, in other atmospheres, on another 
 coast. Everything here had new values and stand-
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 71 
 
 ards. Deeds, whether for good or evil, were, like the 
 country, on a gigantic scale. Character showed 
 itself in stronger lines. Crime was coarser and 
 blacker, had a reckless, dare-devil boldness about it ; 
 and all generosities, nobleness, virtues, were finer, 
 sweeter, more luminous, amid the temptations that 
 surrounded them." 
 
 " What a huge drama it must have been through 
 all those years ! " exclaimed Ra) r , when his uncle 
 paused again. " The tragedy and the comedy would 
 be likely to get mightily mixed up, though ! " 
 
 " Yes ; I saw plenty of the comedy ; had my own 
 share in it, too. But one time, as was not unlikely 
 to be the case with any man in those days, some of 
 the tragedy fell to my r81e."
 
 VII. 
 
 THE clock struck. The chimes rang like a peal 
 of soft laughter into the silence. The flock of sweet 
 sounds had hardly died away, and the low ticking 
 begun again, when Ray heard his uncle's voice. 
 
 " One night, I was on my return from Monterey, 
 the old Spanish capital, where I had been passing a 
 few days. I came suddenly on a camp, among the 
 Sierra foot-hills, not many miles from Sonora. 
 
 "The camp was largely composed of muleteers, 
 Mexicans, frontiersmen. As I emerged from the trail 
 in the pines, I caught sight of the groups, seated on 
 their blankets, or stretched around the camp-fire, 
 with jugs of whiskey and packs of cards lying loose 
 around. As they turned their heads, or raised them- 
 selves on their elbows, to stare at me, I felt, for the 
 moment, that I had stumbled on some old gypsy 
 encampment, like those I had seen in southern 
 Europe. There was the same rich, dark coloring; 
 there were the same sombre shadows, and wonder- 
 fully picturesque grouping. The red fire-light flashed 
 over big, swarthy limbs, over hard, fierce faces. But 
 it struck me that I had never come across, even in 
 those regions, a set of more thoroughgoing despera- 
 does, unless their looks greatly belied them. 
 
 72
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 73 
 
 "As I rode up on my jaded beast, I remember 
 saying to myself, ' You are a set of precious rascals, 
 no doubt; but, at all events, you are picturesque.' 
 
 " The men, however, gave me the rough welcome 
 of camp and wilderness, and I learned that they had 
 lately dropped down at that point, to work a new 
 claim in. Red Stone Gulch, a mile off. The camp 
 was not a week old ; the men were still fired with 
 enthusiasm over the new find ; the canon was already 
 torn with shafts and seamed with ditches, in that 
 first frenzy for gold with which the roving miner 
 sets himself to work on a new claim. 
 
 " My intercourse with the camp did not tend to 
 ameliorate my first impressions of its character. 
 Some of the roughest and worst elements of the 
 mining community had drifted to Red Stone Gulch. 
 Coarse songs, loud oaths, odors of vile whiskey and 
 cheap tobacco, formed the principal features of the 
 next two hours. I was eager to push up the rough 
 mountain-trail, to a point where, twelve miles off, I 
 was to intercept the stage, and some friends, who 
 were to return east with me. I secured a fresh 
 beast for the ride. While I was bargaining with its 
 Mexican owner, several men, rough-bearded, with 
 heavy, lowering faces, hung about, drinking in the 
 talk. Of each of these might be said what Gonzalo 
 did of his boatswain : 
 
 " ' His complexion is perfect gallows.' 
 
 "When the owner hurried off to fetch his mustang, 
 my glance happened to fall on a figure, a few rods off, 
 seated on a ragged boulder, at the foot of an immense
 
 74 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 pine. At that instant, some red rays of sunset struck 
 the bent shoulders, the shrunken limbs, and quivered 
 over the thin, livid cheeks. The man sitting there, 
 and staring at rne with bright, hollow eyes, had but a 
 few days to live. Tt was a pitiful sight; all the sur- 
 roundings lent it an added pathos. I went up to the 
 poor fellow, spoke to him, and in a moment he hud 
 launched into his story. It was the familiar one of 
 that latitude, a tale of wild hopes and bitter hard- 
 ships, and cruel disappointments and wrongs. But 
 the poor fellow expected to be well in a short time, 
 and his last days were gilded, and his sufferings 
 lightened, by visions of future good fortune. I see 
 now how his livid cheek flushed and his hollow 
 eyes fired as he talked. 
 
 " Before he had finished, the Mexican brought up 
 my horse. There was not a moment to spare. I 
 said the kind words that came first, drew the blanket 
 about the man's shoulder, thrust some gold into his 
 hand, and hurried off. 
 
 " As I turned away, I perceived that the men who 
 had overheard my talk with the Mexican, had drawn 
 closer, and watched this interview. I caught a gleam 
 of evil eyes, in hard, sullen faces. But at that in- 
 stant a stranger, standing a little apart from the 
 group of heavy, lounging figures, drew my attention ; 
 he was a young, rather slenderly built man, with a 
 countenance singularly fine and frank, under the 
 shadow of the sombrero; his bright, dark eyes, as 
 they met mine, were alive with interest ; his whole 
 appearance, thrown into bolder relief by the group- 
 ing about him, so impressed me that I should cer-
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 75 
 
 tainly have spoken to him, had moments been less 
 precious. But I resisted the impulse, mounted my 
 horse, plunged into the rough mountain-trail ; and 
 soon the camp-fire, with all its rich coloring and 
 motley characters, lay far behind me. 
 
 "It was hard climbing, even for my sure-footed 
 little mustang. The steep, narrow trail grew so dim 
 among the thick pines that I was in constant danger 
 of losing it. It was a glorious night in September, 
 with a full harvest moon overhead. When I burst 
 into an open, or spurred out on some rocky ledge, I 
 saw the moonlight silvering the pines, and shining 
 on the rough, gaunt walls of some canon that lay far 
 below me. I rode through the rocky wilderness for 
 more than an hour, when I suddenly caught a sound 
 behind me. I thought it was the stealthy tread of 
 some wild beast in the underbrush, and seized my 
 rifle. An instant later, I heard the flying of a horse's 
 hoofs. Before I could move, the animal dashed 
 abreast of me, a hand seized my bridle ; I lifted 
 my rifle just then the moon shone through the 
 branches, and the light struck the sombrero, and the 
 face beneath was the young man's who had watched 
 me at the camp. But he was white now, and his 
 great black eyes, as they met mine, were full of 
 alarmed warning. 
 
 " I knew some peril was at hand. But before I 
 could speak, he broke out in a low, hurried voice, 
 'Don't enter the canon when you come to it, a few 
 rods on your left. Take the road to your right. It 
 is a rough way, but it will bring you out on the 
 stage road at last.'
 
 76 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 " * But what has brought you here to warn me ? ' 
 I asked, sure, in a flash, there was some foul play at 
 bottom. 
 
 " ' The men at the camp,' broke out the low, rapid 
 voice again, ' are on your track ! I overheard their 
 talk. They have sworn to have your money, and 
 they won't have a scruple about taking your life ! I 
 got the start of the villains, and rode hard to over- 
 take you. They mean to wait for you on the trail 
 that runs along the ledge. If you enter that canon, 
 you are a dead man.' 
 
 "'Give me your hand,' I said. I had no more 
 doubt of the story than if he had been my best 
 friend. 
 
 " But his palm had barely touched mine when we 
 caught a sound behind us, swift and muffled ; it was 
 not the soft rustle of winds in the pines, it was not 
 the stealthy tread of wild beasts in the underbrush ; 
 it was the men on my track, seeking my life ! 
 
 " There was not time for another word. My friend 
 wheeled his horse around, while I plunged into the 
 deep trail on my right. 
 
 " It was hard work afterward for my tough little 
 beast ; but she bent bravely to it. As we struggled 
 along through the dim, half-overgrown trail, or 
 crossed some moonbeam that lay a great silver 
 bolt among the black shadows, I listened every 
 nerve strung, every sense alert for any sound from 
 the long, deep canon on my left. The sharp crash of 
 of a rifle broke suddenly into the dead stillness ; the 
 echoes, far and near, flung it back ; then there was a 
 loud yell of fright and agony, a groan and crash of
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 77 
 
 branches, under some heavy falling body, all followed 
 by loud shouts and fierce oaths. 
 
 " I was sure some terrible accident had happened. 
 A stray shot might have struck one of my pursuers. 
 But there was no time for speculation. The next 
 two hours were a life-and-death struggle, getting 
 over that half-choked trail in the rocky wilderness 
 of the Sierra foot-hills ! My poor horse stood still 
 at times, and actually snorted and shivered with 
 fear. No ghost of a moonbeam could pierce the 
 thick ceiling of the trees overhead. As we slipped 
 into some deep ditch, or struggled on some nar- 
 row, broken ledge of rock, I said to myself that 
 the highwayman's shot would have been preferable 
 to the mass of broken bones I threatened to be with 
 every plunge of my quivering, snorting beast. But 
 the end came at last, when panting horse and rider 
 struggled out from the wilderness to the highway. 
 That long, straight belt of yellow sand in the moon- 
 light, was the most welcome sight my eyes ever 
 beheld. I spurred the mustang ahead, fearing I 
 might lose the stage. I had not, however, gone 
 more than a quarter of a mile, when something 
 burst through the dense woods on my left, and I saw 
 the sombrero, and, under it, the dark, handsome face 
 of the young stranger. 
 
 "I drew rein. He wheeled his horse abreast of 
 mine. ' Thank God you have come out safe and 
 sound,' he exclaimed, in a voice that was full of a 
 great relief and gladness. 
 
 " Not a bone broken, you see," I answered as I 
 sprang from my horse, and the stranger followed 
 me.
 
 78 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 " ' I knew it was a break-neck trail,' he continued, 
 " ' especially for one who went over it the first time. 
 But it was your only chance. I have been searching 
 the woods for the last hour. I was getting very 
 anxious.' 
 
 " As I repeat the words now, I hear the manly 
 tones, through which rang a kind of repressed exul- 
 tation. I hear them, as though the speaker were in 
 this room to-night, instead of out there on the lonely 
 moonlit highway among the Sierra foot-hills, twenty- 
 eight years ago. 
 
 "I inquired about the shot in the ravine. The 
 answer proved my suspicions correct. One of the 
 ruffians had raised his weapon to shoot. He must 
 have handled it carelessly in his haste, for it had 
 gone off and wounded him, perhaps fatally. He had 
 dropped into the ravine, from the narrow, jutting 
 ledge along which the upper trail ran. The men 
 had posted themselves here to wait for me. The 
 shot had demoralized the gang. They rushed shout- 
 ing and swearing down the canon to their wounded 
 comrade. ' Whether the shot finished him or not,' 
 the young man concluded, 'you are safe from as 
 precious a set of rascals as were ever bent on having 
 a man's life.' 
 
 " ' And I owe it to you that I stand here to- 
 night with nothing worse than a few bruises, and a 
 scratched skin,' I said. 
 
 " ' I did what I could for you,' he answered, and 
 his black eyes, full of bright exultation, looked into 
 mine. 
 
 " ' But what made you do it? ' I persisted.
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 79 
 
 " ' Well ; what if you struck me as a man worth 
 saving ? ' 
 
 " ' As to that you certainly had no chance to 
 form an opinion.' 
 
 "'I beg your pardon,' he answered, 'I saw what 
 you did for that poor fellow who was dying in the 
 camp.' , 
 
 " ' Was it that ? ' 
 
 " ' It was that, and if you will have it some- 
 thing in your voice and face which made me anxious 
 to serve you.' 
 
 " ' My dear young fellow/ It was all I could say 
 at that moment, but I placed my hand on his 
 shoulder, and wished that he had been my own son. 
 
 " Perhaps he read the wish in my face, for there 
 was a flash of pleasure in his eyes, and of something 
 infinitely deeper than that. In a few moments, I 
 was asking him how he got a clew to the murderous 
 plot. 
 
 " ' I saw the men lounging round and watching 
 you, as you drew the gold from your pocket ; I 
 caught the look shot after you from more than one 
 pair of evil eyes, as you mounted your mustang. I 
 have keen ears : I heard one of the ruffians say to 
 his comrades, " I swear the dog has money enough 
 about him to make it worth our while to spot him." 
 I knew then they meant mischief. They were a set 
 of the worst desperadoes in the camp, and bad luck 
 of late had made them dangerous. If they set out 
 on your trail, the chances were you would not see 
 the sunrise. But I had the fleetest horse in camp. 
 I knew the road too, thoroughly, as I had been pros-
 
 80 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 pecting about here for the last fortnight. I took a 
 shorter cut, and came out ahead of the gang.' 
 
 " He went through this recital in a light, joyous 
 kind of tone, as though the whole matter was so 
 far as it concerned himself a trivial one. 
 
 " ' But it appears you ran some risk yourself. If 
 the villains had found you ' 
 
 " ' In that case, I should unquestionably have re- 
 ceived some cold lead ! ' he interrupted. 
 
 " * You were within earshot, it appears, and heard 
 what happened when the rifle went off. Did you 
 follow the ruffians after you left me ? ' 
 
 " There was a curious flash in his eyes. Almost 
 before I was conscious of it, it had gone, and he was 
 regarding me with his bright, serious gaze. There 
 was a brief pause before he said, quietly, ' Oh, yes ! 
 I kept within earshot of the gang. I was resolved 
 to see the thing out.' 
 
 " This reply was the most natural in the world ; 
 yet I found myself listening, as a man does, half un- 
 consciously, for some deeper meaning than the words 
 carried on their surface. Was it my fancy that they 
 did not hold all the truth? Some vague doubt or 
 curiosity suddenly crystallized into this question. 
 We stood there on the yellow strip of highway, in 
 the moonlit midnight, looking steadily into each 
 other's eyes. It seemed to me that a shade of 
 defiance crept slowly into the young man's face, as 
 though he dared me to penetrate some mystery 
 which concerned us both. 
 
 " It came over me in a flash. The next moment I 
 had gripped his arms. ' Did you go down into that
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 81 
 
 cafion?' I asked. 'Were 'you there when the rifle 
 went off?' 
 
 " He turned on me with a good deal of fierceness. 
 'I suppose a man has a right not to answer those 
 questions if he doesn't see fit,' he said, grimly. 
 
 "I dropped his arms. I stood perfectly still. 
 ' Did you go down into that cafion, meaning the 
 men should take you for me ? ' I asked. 
 
 " ' I tell you you have no right to ask me such 
 questions ! ' His face flushed angrily ; he looked at 
 me like a man driven to bay. 
 
 " I drew close to him ; his breath touched my 
 cheek. ' But I will be answered ! ' I said. 
 
 "He glanced at his horse. I saw he was half 
 minded to mount him, and be off in a flash it 
 was easy doing it too ', but his gaze came back to my 
 f aoe I don't know to this day what he saw there, 
 but I did know the precise moment when his will 
 faltered. A little later, with a flushed cheek and an 
 awkward fingering of his short black beard, and a 
 few broken sentences, as though it were all some- 
 thing he ought to feel ashamed of, I plucked out the 
 heart of the mystery. That young fellow, Ray 
 he really looked hardly older than you had gone 
 down into the canon that night, believing he was 
 going to his death, sure of what would be lying in 
 wait for him on the upper trail, knowing that the 
 villains had sworn to have my life, and that they 
 must to a dead certainty take him for myself I " 
 
 " Oh, great God in Heaven! " exclaimed Ray, lean- 
 ing forward, with white lips. 
 
 "Yes, Ray," the deep, steady tones broke now
 
 82 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 " he was ready that stranger to give his life 
 in the flower of its young manhood for me a man 
 whom he had never seen for half an hour whose 
 name, even, he did not know ! " 
 
 "It was superb it was the grandest deed I ever 
 heard of ! " cried Ray, springing up and striding 
 about the room, his soul aglow with the excitement 
 which the story of a noble deed always kindles in a 
 generous nature. 
 
 Then he paused by his uncle's chair, his tall figure 
 towering over it. When his uncle looked up, he 
 met something in the bright young gaze he had 
 never seen there before.
 
 VIII. 
 
 A FEW moments later, Ray had thrown himself 
 down in his chair again. 
 
 " Shall I go on ? " asked his uncle, more to relieve 
 the tension of the moment than anything else. 
 
 " Go on ! I hope you don't mean to let anything 
 less than the crack of doom stop you ! " 
 
 The calm, deep voice resumed again : " Just after 
 my friend and I had parted in the woods, and as, in 
 consequence of his warning, I was making for the 
 blind trail on my right, the moonlight came near 
 betraying me. My course took me over a short 
 space, where the dense pine growth was a little 
 broken up. One of my pursuers caught a glimpse, 
 in the distance, of a dim figure on horseback ; this 
 man was the leader of the gang ; he alone knew of 
 the existence of the blind trail ; he instantly stopped 
 his comrades, and swore that he had seen me spur- 
 ring to the right of the canon. The men held a 
 parley. At first they greeted their comrade's story 
 with derisive shouts. They swore that horse and 
 rider were phantoms of his whiskey-muddled brain, 
 and vowed they would not budge an inch from their 
 course. But he persisted, telling them of the blind 
 trail ; and at last they rather sullenly consented to 
 follow him. In the black pine-shadows, a few rods 
 
 83
 
 84 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 off, the stranger who rode to save me had listened 
 to the parley. If the ruffians struck the blind trail, 
 he knew that I was a dead man. 
 
 " It came over him in a flash that there was still a 
 chance for my life a chance that now lay solely 
 with himself. An instant later his horse's head was 
 turned; he was making straight for the canon. To 
 gain this he must cross a small, rude clearing in the 
 woods. When the ruffians caught sight of him, as 
 they could not fail to do, a dim figure, in the dim 
 moonlight, spurring across the half-cleared open, 
 they would be sure they were on the right scent. 
 Even their leader must be satisfied that his eyes had 
 played him false. 
 
 "Three minutes later, that young man had crossed 
 the broken shadows and scant moonbeams, that 
 flecked the clearing, and plunged into the mouth of 
 the canon. This stretched, a long, deep, narrow 
 ravine, for more than a mile, between towering walls 
 of steep, bare rock, furrowed with deep crevices 
 and ragged ledges, and scantily wooded at the base. 
 The trail scaled this wall of rock, and ran, at the 
 highest point, along a narrow, jutting ledge, at least 
 two hundred feet above the canon, of which it com- 
 manded a long view. The horse, spurred by his 
 rider, went like the wind, but while he urged him 
 on, the young man's ear was strained for the shot 
 that would be his doom. 
 
 " He had not gained the middle of the road when 
 the shot came, loud and long, over his head, and fill- 
 ing the ravine with its rattling echoes. The horse 
 leaped with terror, and tore madly along the rough
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 85 
 
 road. Then came the loud yell of mortal fright and 
 pain, the thud of a heavy body through the crashing 
 branches of the wooded base of the rocks. A rifle 
 had gone off by accident, while its owner was aiming 
 to cover his victim. One of the ruffians had, in all 
 probability, met the fate he had designed for an- 
 other. Before the gang could recover from their 
 first consternation, the frantic horse had borne his 
 rider beyond their reach. 
 
 "This was my young friend's story, forced, in 
 broken sentences, from reluctant lips. Had he 
 spoken in a tongue I had not understood, I should 
 have imagined, from his manner, that he was 
 confessing something of which he was mortally 
 ashamed. 
 
 " When he had got through with his story, I said 
 to him : ' You must have known as you rode down 
 into that canon, that the chances were greatly 
 against your ever coming out alive.' 
 
 " ' There was no time to think about that,' he 
 answered, not seeming to understand of what a 
 splendid deed he had just shown himself capable. 
 ' I meant to save your life, if that could be done. 
 Really, that was all I was conscious of at first. 
 Later on, when I was deep in the canon, expecting 
 the shot every instant, I remember thinking that if 
 it was all over with me, the life of the man I should 
 save was doubtless worth a good deal more than my 
 own.' 
 
 " I took off my hat to him. ' My friend,' I said, 
 * when you thought that, you made a mistake.' And 
 then I drew close to him, put my arms around his
 
 86 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 neck, the tall, manly young fellow, and kissed 
 him." 
 
 There were tears in the bright gray eyes of the old 
 man ; there were tears in the eyes of the younger 
 who listened to him. 
 
 " You had some talk after that," said Ray, seeing 
 that his uncle did not at once go on. 
 
 " Of course, I learned my young friend's name 
 and a few main facts of his history. He had been in 
 California for more than two years. He had come 
 out from the East to seek his fortune, and I saw that 
 he had at first found hard lines in that rough mining 
 world. But within a few daj r s, he related, his for- 
 tunes had greatly brightened. A claim on which he 
 had founded large hopes, and where he had been 
 prospecting for months, until he had lately aban- 
 doned it for Red Stone Gulch, had been found to 
 contain rich ore. There was no farther question 
 about its paying to work it. He owned half the 
 claim, for which he was to set out in the morning." 
 
 " And his name ? " asked Ray. 
 
 "I thought I mentioned it; John Graileson." 
 
 "John Graileson," repeated Ray. 
 
 " That's it. I can never cease to regret that the 
 time for our interview was so brief, that there was 
 still so much left to learn. But I confidently reck- 
 oned on our soon meeting again, and urgent affairs 
 called each of us at that moment. It was important 
 that my friend should regain the camp before day- 
 light to meet an engagement before he set out for 
 his claim. I had to follow the stage with as little 
 loss of time as possible. We parted, after that hur-
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 87 
 
 ried talk on the lonely highway, in the moonlit mid- 
 night. We checked our horses several times to have 
 a last look, to wave each other a last farewell. But 
 I never saw my friend again." 
 
 " Uncle Kenneth ! " 
 
 "It has been a continuous regret to me. As I 
 said, we parted at midnight. In the gray dawn I 
 reached the point where I was to intercept the stage. 
 An accident had delayed it for several hours, and I 
 came up in the nick of time. My friends brought 
 letters from the East which made my prompt return 
 imperative. Your grandfather had been seized with 
 the long illness which at last ended his days. After 
 his death, business forced me to go to Europe. It 
 was ten years before I was in California again." 
 
 "But you wrote, made inquiries " began Ray. 
 
 " Of course, I did much more than that. During 
 my stay in California, I left no stone unturned to 
 get some trace of this man. But nothing came of my 
 efforts, or of those I set to work for me. I thought 
 more than once, we were on the right track ; but 
 when I followed it up, it failed absolutely. John 
 Graileson never crossed my path again." 
 
 "It is the most astonishing mystery," interposed 
 Ray. " With your facilities, too, for hunting up 
 people and things to the ends of the earth ! One 
 might almost be tempted to suspect that he had 
 given you the wrong name." 
 
 "One might. Only if you had looked into his 
 eyes that night, you would have been certain that 
 John Graileson would never fear to stand behind his 
 own name."
 
 88 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 " There was the claim. You investigated that, of 
 course?" 
 
 "Ah, there was the rub. In the hurry and agita- 
 tion of that night, I neglected to inquire either the 
 name or location of the claim. It seems incredible, 
 the way I have been baffled; for I have tried all 
 methods, secret and open. If the Christian name 
 had been less common, my chances for finding him 
 would perhaps have been greater. However, I came 
 once I am sure of it by the merest accident 011 
 some trace of my friend." 
 
 "Where was it?" 
 
 " More than twelve years ago, I was travelling in 
 Tennessee. On the train were some soldiers. Part 
 of these had served in the Northern army, part in 
 the Southern. They fraternized admirably, and be- 
 guiled their journey with war reminiscences. One 
 of these, a Kentuckian, long, lank, sandy-haired, and 
 red-bearded, who was in the campaign before Vicks- 
 burg, related, in his local dialect, some of his personal 
 experiences. He had been wounded at Champion's 
 Hill, which was, you remember, the hardest-fought 
 battle of the siege. During the night he lay upon 
 the ground, by his side a staff-officer, who had been 
 badly hurt in the engagement. This latter lay much 
 of the time unconscious, but occasionally rallied, and 
 talked in a touching, rambling way of his wife and 
 children at the North. And then again he would 
 fancy he was in California, and live over scenes and 
 adventures of his life there. His mind had wandered 
 a good deal ; but it was evident the talk had made 
 an impression on the rough soldier who lay by his
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 89 
 
 side on the battle-field of Champion's Hill, in the 
 soft May night, under the southern stars. 
 
 " At last help came. The wounded were removed, 
 among them the staff-officer ; but the soldier who lay 
 by his side so many hours never heard whether he 
 lived or died. He was from the North, a tall, fine- 
 looking fellow, with black hair and beard. 
 
 " ' Did you find out his name ? ' inquired one of 
 the man's auditors. 
 
 " 'I asked him that once,' he answered, 'when he'd 
 come out of a faint. It was John Graileson. At 
 times, his mind cleared up a good deal, and he talked 
 about the hard fightin' the boys had that day, and 
 what plucky fellows they were.' 
 
 " I had listened idly to the talk, as our train swept 
 through the rich, rolling landscape, but I was on my 
 feet at that name. It was but a step to the Ken- 
 tuckian's side, and in a moment I was seated by him. 
 During the next two hours I sifted him thoroughly. 
 He was an honest, good-natured fellow ; and, when 
 he saw my eagerness, did his best to recall every in- 
 cident of that night. But he could afford me no 
 farther trace of my friend ; only from his description 
 I was satisfied that the John Graileson who lay 
 wounded at Champion's Hill, his mind wandering 
 away to his wife and children, and to his old life in 
 California, was the man who rode down into the 
 canon to take my place. But, for all that, I was no 
 nearer finding him at the close of our two hours' 
 talk." 
 
 " It was terribly aggravating," commented Ray to 
 himself.
 
 90 A BOSTON GIKL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 " Yet I have always had a curious feeling that the 
 mystery must some day be cleared up." 
 
 " You tell me you have remembered John Graile- 
 son's heirs if he have any in your will?" 
 
 " He spoke, you remember, of wife and children. 
 If these come to light, I have left them fifty thousand 
 dollars. If, during the next twenty years, you hear 
 nothing of these heirs, devote the dividends, as they 
 fall due, to the noblest generosities within your 
 reach. After that, you can, if you prefer, bestow 
 the fifty thousand where, in your judgment, it 
 will do the most good. I have left all that in your 
 hands ; only remember, Ray, if the heirs never ap- 
 pear, this money is a sacred trust. It is always to be 
 used for others." 
 
 " I shall remember." Ray's tone made further 
 pledge unnecessary. " And you really have a feeling 
 that somebody something will turn up one of 
 these days ? " Ray had a large faith in his uncle's 
 prescience. 
 
 " If I had none, I should not have made this part 
 of my will." 
 
 In a little while Ray reverted to the story : " What 
 a splendid deed it was ! It gives one a new faith in 
 human nature to know such a man lived." 
 
 " You are right, my boy ; it is much to know such 
 a deed has been done that the man lived capable of 
 doing it. I believe it makes one better to owe a debt 
 of this sort ; and you will always owe it, Ray. If that 
 young fellow's John Graileson's heart or will 
 had failed him at the supreme moment, we should 
 not be sitting here to-night."
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 91 
 
 "Such an act shames me! "broke out Ray. "I 
 never could have stood such a test. I never could 
 have given my life for a man I did not know." 
 
 " Don't vex your soul with such questions, Ray. 
 A man never knows to what he may rise or sink, 
 until the time comes." 
 
 Ray never could tell, though he often tried to 
 recall the talk of this night, the precise point where 
 it entered a new channel. But he could remember 
 his uncle's saying: "Each man must live his life for 
 himself. I have tried to do the best for you, Ray ; 
 but it must all come down, at last, to the forces of 
 your own will and heart and conscience. In the long 
 run, they must decide everything. Of course, there 
 will come hard places for you, strains of soul and of 
 flesh, no man escapes those ; but, at least, see to it 
 that you sow no remorses in your youth, to haunt 
 your memory, and embitter your later years. If I 
 could foresee this would be our last night on earth, 
 I would adjure you there ! When my mantle has 
 fallen on your shoulders " 
 
 " They can't carry it, Uncle Ken ! I tell you they 
 are not broad enough." Ray's passionate depreca- 
 tion was in marked contrast with his usual confident 
 tone. 
 
 " If I had any fears, I should take care that the 
 weight was a light one. But let all that pass. 
 When the day comes in which you find yourself 
 alone at Bylanes, I want you to go abroad. Set off 
 at once. You will find business affairs which will 
 require your personal attention. Then you will 
 need change of scene, travel, new knowledge of
 
 92 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 the world. Be gone two, three, as many years as 
 you like.'' 
 
 He did not pursue the subject. Perhaps this was 
 because of the look in Ray's eyes. But he mur- 
 mured, in a half-absent tone, one of the old Latin 
 axioms he had learned in his boyhood, 
 
 " Fideli certa merces." 
 
 In a little while, and in a tone singularly tender, 
 he said, " There is one other matter I want to speak 
 of." 
 
 "Well, Uncle Ken." 
 
 " Some day, you will be bringing a wife to By- 
 lanes." 
 
 Ray flushed to the roots of his hair. " It will be 
 a long time first," he said, with the proud confidence 
 of a young fellow absolutely heart-free. But at this 
 moment he could not jest on the subject. 
 
 " I like to think of her," said the old man, with a 
 soft shining in his eyes, " moving about the rooms, a 
 fair, sweet, gracious presence, taking the place of 
 Margaret, my Margaret, who was lovely in soul and 
 body. You must tell that young wife sometimes, 
 that I thought of her, talked of her." 
 
 Ray did not speak. 
 
 " Be wise, be true to your highest instincts in that 
 choice," continued the old man, in a tone of solemn 
 tenderness. " Any failure there would be fatal 
 at least, would go far to spjil your life of this 
 world. See that your love be to you, what mine was 
 to me, my finest inspiration, my purest conscience, 
 my deepest joy."
 
 A BOSTON GIKL'S AMBITIONS. 93 
 
 And again Ray listened without speaking. 
 
 " And be sure, Ray, that you. hold your life as pure 
 and sacred, your honor as flawless, as you would have 
 hers, when she comes to you." 
 
 Then Ray rose from his chair and stood by the 
 mantel, as he had stood on that other night. " Uncle 
 Ken," he said, and his voice was not his usual gay, 
 careless one, " I have been an idle, lazy, selfish rascal, 
 at best, but, thus far, I have never done a thing for 
 which I should be ashamed to look my dead mother 
 in the face." 
 
 There was a pause. Then two low, silvery chimes 
 broke into the silence. 
 
 Ray started, and stared at the hands. " Did you 
 hear that ? " he asked. 
 
 "Yes. I had no idea it was so late." The old 
 man had a weary look. 
 
 " Uncle Ken," exclaimed Ray, marking the look 
 with compunction, " we must not have another word 
 to-night. But the story you have told me would, 
 like Prospero's to Miranda, ' cure deafness.' " 
 
 At the threshold the elder Gathorpe turned. " We 
 are in the small hours, Ray," he said ; " but I don't 
 grudge one minute of this night we have had to- 
 gether."
 
 IX. 
 
 THE next morning Ray Gathorpe went into Bos- 
 ton. The storm had vanished so completely that no 
 solitary plume of white cloud drifted along the hori- 
 zon. The air had the peculiar, transparent quality 
 which follows the clearing up of a long storm. 
 Every feature of the landscape stood out in bold re- 
 lief. Ray noticed, from his car -window, the delicate 
 interlacing of the bare branches, the flutter of yellow 
 leaves on the white birches, like swarms of pale yel- 
 low butterflies ; and the blue, distant reaches of sap- 
 phire sea. It struck him that the November scene 
 had a distinct charm of its own a tender, sunny 
 peacefulness, which one need not have cared to ex- 
 change for all the glowing joyousness of June. 
 
 But, as the landscape whirled past, the young 
 man's thoughts were much absorbed in the talk to 
 which he had listened, the night before, and which 
 had made an impression that would be lifelong. 
 
 After he arrived at the Eastern station, Ray 
 sought for the pocket letter-case which contained the 
 address he was bent on looking up the first thing. 
 To his dismay, it was not in his overcoat breast- 
 pocket, where he could have sworn he had placed it 
 before he left Bylanes that morning. He searched 
 his other pockets, with the same unsatisfactory 
 
 04
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 95 
 
 results, and was, at last, forced to believe that he 
 must have left the thing lying on his dressing- 
 bureau. 
 
 " Confound it ! " he exclaimed, inexpressibly 
 chagrined. " What an outrageously careless scamp I 
 must be I It makes a fellow want to curse himself. 
 And I have no more idea of that address than I 
 have of the man in the moon's ! " 
 
 It began to seem as though some hostile fate was 
 always interposing between him and the strangers he 
 was eager to serve ; he glanced at the station clock, 
 half minded to take the next train back, and return 
 to the city by a later one. But Ray had some per- 
 sonal errands to attend to, after he had disposed of 
 the more important matter ; he at last concluded to 
 finish up his errands, and make a fresh start next 
 day, in quest of his protege*. 
 
 The letter-case it was a new one, of black Rus- 
 sia leather contained some bank notes, and some 
 visiting cards ; but the latter were unimportant : 
 and he could easily obtain fresh funds ; so, the loss 
 of the address was the only thing that seriously 
 annoyed him. " What a thoroughgoing blunder it 
 was ! " he said to himself, as he jumped aboard the 
 horse-car. " It seems as though something bent on 
 defeating me, was at the bottom of this business ! 
 Be it man or devil, we shall have a tough fight before 
 I give in ! Meanwhile, I hope that little girl won't 
 go hungry again ! " 
 
 Ray had a curious impression, too, that while he 
 was on the cars, he had taken out the case and seen 
 the card which contained the address, lying in one
 
 96 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 of the red silk pockets." This impression kept re- 
 curring with teasing pertinacity. " Of course that 
 is all nonsense ! " he at last said to himself, in an irri- 
 tated tone. 
 
 His errands occupied several hours. It was get- 
 ting late in the short November afternoon when he 
 took the train for Bylanes. 
 
 At the station, two miles from the house, the 
 buggy was awaiting him. As he caught sight of the 
 driver's melancholy face, he called out, in the cheery 
 way, which always made him a favorite with the ser- 
 vants. " Well, Jack, old fellow, what's up with you 
 now?" 
 
 " Your uncle's had a turn, Mr. Ray." All the 
 light fell from the young man's face ; he grasped 
 Jack's arm. The man read the question in his 
 young master's eyes. " Oh, no, sir ! " he said. " It 
 is not so bad as that ! They hoped he was coming 
 out of it when I left." 
 
 A moment later, Ray was getting into the carriage 
 like a blind man. 
 
 As they dashed along the road, he learned all that 
 Jack could tell him. 
 
 His uncle, it appeared, was out on the piazza in 
 the early afternoon, as was his habit, when he sud- 
 denly staggered and dropped. Somebody saw him 
 fall ; there was a cry a rush of people ; he was 
 taken to his room, and physicians summoned. The 
 trouble, they said, was with his heart ; he lay quite 
 unconscious, despite all their efforts to restore him. 
 
 When Ray reached the bedside his uncle did not 
 know him ; he breathed rather heavily, but the face
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 97 
 
 under the white hair was peaceful as a sleeping 
 infant's ; he stirred slightly, at intervals, and there 
 were hopes that he would rally. But he never knew 
 his nephew again. As the night waned, his breath- 
 ing grew slower and softer. When the November 
 dawn looked through the windows, Ray Gathorpe 
 was master of Bylanes !
 
 X. 
 
 IT seemed as though all his life had fallen to ruins. 
 The loss of Kenneth Gathorpe, was not to his 
 nephew, simply the loss of one best beloved ; his 
 uncle had, as we have seen, stood in the place of all 
 those household ties which had vanished so early 
 from Ray's life. It was not only the man grand 
 as he was who had left him. Something of all 
 precious family-loves seemed to have perished with 
 Kenneth Gathorpe. 
 
 His uncle must have forecast the mood that would 
 follow on his death. It was the wisest possible 
 arrangement that Ray should leave America a fort- 
 night after the funeral. The will advised this, in 
 terms which gave them the force of a command. 
 The executors, who were personal friends of both the 
 Gathorpes, saw that entire change of scene and life 
 was the only thing likely to arouse the young man 
 at this juncture. There was a look in his eyes 
 which troubled all who saw it. Had Ray been left 
 to follow his own inclinations, he would, no doubt, 
 have preferred remaining at Bylanes, where every- 
 thing had some association with his uncle. But he 
 never dreamed of opposing his inclinations to the 
 wishes of the dead. 
 
 It was more than a week after Kenneth Gathorpe's 
 death before his nephew remembered the errand
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 99 
 
 which had taken him to Boston on that fatal day. 
 This recollection had the effect of rousing him as 
 nothing had yet done. He searched everywhere for 
 the letter-case that contained the address, without 
 which he could do nothing. Curiously enough, the 
 thing had disappeared. Nobody could give him any 
 information about it. Ray was at last forced to the 
 conclusion that he had mislaid or dropped the case 
 in some unaccountable fashion. 
 
 But he would not let the matter rest here. The 
 papers seemed now to afford him his sole chance of 
 communicating with the owner of the lost address. 
 A paragraph in two of the Boston dailies requested 
 the young man who, on a certain date, had an inter- 
 view with a stranger on Somerset Street, to call at 
 the office whose address was subjoined, and where he 
 would hear of something to his advantage. 
 
 Ray never related this interview to any one but 
 his uncle. He left orders at the office that, if a 
 young man answered the '' personal " he should be 
 furnished with tickets to take him at once to Bylanes. 
 
 But nothing came of the advertisement, and the 
 day of its last appearance, Ray Gathorpe sailed for 
 England.
 
 XL 
 
 DORRICE DACRES sat alone in the attic, a little 
 after dark. It was a cold December night, with 
 little gusts of bitter wind and frequent squalls of 
 snow outside. But the coals were bright in the 
 cracked old stove, and the kerosene-lamp was burn- 
 ing on the table. 
 
 In that double light the chamber had, despite its 
 general shabbiness, a certain air of warmth and com- 
 fort. The girlish presence there gave a subtle, re- 
 fined atmosphere to the room, despite the dinginess 
 and glare of discordant color. It would have seemed 
 quite another place the moment its young occupant 
 had gone out of it. 
 
 It was a month now since Carryl Dacres went to 
 his new place. It had been a happy, though rather 
 anxious time to the brother and sister. But Carryl 
 had done his best, and easily surmounted the awk- 
 ward beginnings. 
 
 There had naturally been a good deal of surprise 
 and some grumbling among the authorities of the 
 firm, at placing a strange youth in a position demand- 
 ing proved capacity and integrity ; but the head of 
 the house had insisted on making the experiment. 
 
 So there had been no more cold or hunger for 
 Carryl Dacres and his sister, and, though poverty 
 
 100
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 101 
 
 still pressed closely, they scarcely realized it, the con- 
 trast with what had gone be'fore was so great. 
 
 So, full of hope, but with a little pulse of anxiety 
 beating at the heart of it, Dorrice waited to-night for 
 her brother, the busy hands still, the brown head 
 leaned a little to the door as she listened. 
 
 At last, the swift steps mounted the stairs, two or 
 three at a time. Carryl burst into the room, and 
 stood before his sister ; he did not speak : but when, 
 in the lamp-light, she saw the beaming of his face, 
 she knew. 
 
 " Well, Carryl ! " 
 
 " It's good it's glorious, I tell you, little woman." 
 
 " I was certain of it. Oh Carryl, tell me all ! " 
 
 " Be careful how you address me ! I have a stand- 
 ing-place, I am a personage of consequence on this 
 planet. Like old Dogberry, I am rich enough go 
 to ! The private office clerk of Hallowell, Howth, 
 and Company stands before you, with a salary of 
 eight hundred dollars a year, and the probability 
 that, at the end of the time, it will be slightly ad- 
 vanced! " 
 
 " Oh, Carryl Dacres ! I am the happiest girl in the 
 world ! I I you know I always was a fool, Car- 
 ryl ! " for now she had burst out crying. 
 
 " So that is the way you take a fellow's good luck, 
 is it?" Carryl tried to look stern and disgusted; 
 but he was in mortal terror all the time lest he 
 should follow his sister's example. 
 
 An hour later, she sat drinking in, with happy 
 curiosity, her brother's talk. 
 
 " I have learned many things," Carryl said, " dur-
 
 102 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 ing the last month. One of them is that many a 
 rich man would be glad to see his son in my place. 
 I little dreamed what a good turn I was doing my- 
 self when I rescued Tom Hallowell's curly head 
 from under the horses' hoofs. But it was his 
 mother, after all, to whom I owe my present for- 
 tunes." 
 
 "We shall never forget that," interposed Dorrice, 
 fervently. 
 
 " She was in the office to-day," continued Carryl. 
 "She always makes a point of being polite to me. I 
 saw her ej r es glance over my old coat, then come 
 back to my face. I was perfectly satisfied she was 
 thinking at that moment she would like to offer me 
 a better one." 
 
 Here Dorrice broke in eagerly : " You are to 
 have the new coat of your own earning, too next 
 week, Carryl. There will be money ; I have been 
 saving and scraping for that. But you had to have 
 the boots first, you know." 
 
 Carryl made a grimace, half merry, half serious. 
 " I should think I had, when I remember the state 
 of their predecessors ! But my coat nobody can 
 have a keener sense of its shabbiness than its present 
 owner won't, I imagine, prove my worst enemy in 
 the long run." 
 
 "Have you had things to bear, Carryl?" in- 
 quired Dorrice, with flashing eyes. 
 
 " At first it was not all halcyon. I had some 
 snubbings to put up with from the younger clerks, 
 who wouldn't have ventured so far had my broad- 
 cloth been fresher. ' It is your turn now,' I philoso-
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 103 
 
 phized. ' If there is anything inside the old coat, 
 my turn will come later.' After all, I believe there 
 is nothing like shabby clothes to bring to the surface 
 whatever manliness may lie at the bottom of a fel- 
 low. They send him back on himself ; prove to him 
 what stuff he is really made of." 
 
 " Your turn will come, too, Carryl ! " exclaimed 
 Dorrice, with a world of proud confidence in her 
 tones. But just then she did not smile ; her heart 
 was full of a great indignation and pity for Carryl's 
 sake. 
 
 " I almost thought it had come to-night, when Mr. 
 Hallowell said, after he had offered me the situation 
 for next year : ' Yon have made a fair beginning. 
 We are satisfied as to your intelligence and trust- 
 worthiness ; go on as yon have begun.' He has not 
 usually many words, or much praise, for his employ- 
 ees ; so I was a good deal taken by surprise." 
 
 " I don't see why you should have been, Carryl. 
 Of course, it was no more than the truth." 
 
 " I intend to prove it was not. At first, everybody 
 seemed to regard me with a kind of hostile, suspi- 
 cious feeling ; but, for some reason, there has been a 
 change of late. I am treated now as though I had 
 a right to my place." 
 
 It was months later before Carryl Dacres surmised 
 certain tests to which he had been subjected, and 
 which had established his character for one of abso- 
 lute integrity with the house. 
 
 The grave talk took a lighter tone at last. The 
 outlook seemed so assured, the future so fair, to 
 young eyes !
 
 104 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 "Now I am a man of steady income," said Carryl, 
 assuming an air of ludicrous importance, "there is 
 one tiling I shall insist upon." 
 
 " What is that ? " 
 
 " We shall, in future, go out to our meals." 
 
 " Carryl Dacres ! " 
 
 " That is my name ; and I am master of this house 
 hum! I mean of this attic, and in this instance 
 shall assert my authority." 
 
 A girlish laugh rang its gayest. Dorrice assured 
 her brother that he reminded her alarmingly of the 
 fierce old Bluebeard of the picture-books. " But, of 
 course, you are not in earnest, Carryl ? " 
 
 " I never was more so in my life. I will no longer 
 see my small sister getting shadowy over the work 
 she has to do, with no conveniences," glancing at the 
 little red hands, of which their mother had been so 
 fond. 
 
 " But, Carryl, it will be awfully expensive ! " 
 
 " Of course, I have counted the cost. But I have 
 found a nice, quiet place, where the meals will not 
 be much more than yours would. You will still 
 have more than you ought to do. I must have my 
 own way in this matter, Dorrice." 
 
 When he spoke in that tone she knew it was use- 
 less to argue with him. She drew a long breath. A 
 great burden seemed suddenly to slip from the young 
 strength the last year had taxed so heavily. 
 
 Late that evening, when they had settled various 
 matters regarding the immediate future, Dorrice said, 
 suddenly, " Carryl, it is very strange you have never 
 heard from from "
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. . 105 
 
 "I understand you." Carryl's voice and face 
 were very serious now. " But he meant to come ; 
 something must have happened." 
 
 Dorrice was silent for a minute or two, then she 
 turned to her brother, and her large brown eyes 
 shone upon him, bright and confident. " Carryl," 
 she said, " we shall know some time ; it will all come 
 right." 
 
 For a while past the young people had not been 
 mucji in the habit of reading the papers, else they 
 might have lighted on a paragraph, in some of the 
 principal dailies, which would have had a personal 
 interest for them.
 
 XII. 
 
 ON that evening, while Carryl Dacres and his sister 
 were talking over his engagement with the house of 
 Hallowell, Howth, and Company, in a street a short 
 distance off, two men sat together before a table in a 
 beer-and-oyster saloon. Everything about the place 
 was coarse, dingy, and slatternly. Odors of vile to- 
 bacco, with a strong scent of whiskey, tainted the air. 
 The two men sat a little apart, in a corner. They had 
 the appearance of cronies, as they drank their beer 
 and peppered their bivalves. A number of people 
 were lounging about the room, smoking cigars and 
 pipes, discussing politics and telling stories, mingling 
 their talk with coarse jests and loud guffaws, in 
 which, however, the pair at the table did not seem 
 inclined to join. 
 
 Good comrades as they appeared, there was a no- 
 ticeable contrast between the two. The elder man 
 had an air and look which suggested different sur- 
 roundings and better days. He was tall, his hair 
 and mustache were iron-gray, his skin had an un- 
 healthy pallor. He must have been a good-looking 
 man in his youth ; but his features were sharpened 
 now, while his blue eyes had a hard, restless, and at 
 times sulleji expression. 
 
 His companion looked at least twenty years 
 younger. With him a coarse bravado of manner 
 
 106
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 107 
 
 and character was salient. He was rather heavily 
 built, with carrot-colored whiskers, and bristly hair, a 
 shade lighter. He had a cool, self-confident stare, 
 across which, at times, shot a furtive glance. 
 
 The elder man's dress was neat, but had evidently 
 seen long service. The younger's had the effect of 
 vulgar smartness. It was easy to associate one with 
 a different kind of environment ; the other seemed, 
 in accordance with the eternal fitness of things, to 
 belong to his present one. 
 
 " We must have a smoke, now, Reeves," said the 
 latter, pushing back his plate and his glass. " You 
 know I am to stand the racket for this treat." He 
 ordered some cigars, drew out something from his 
 pocket, and laid it on the table. It was a handsome 
 letter-case in black Russia leather. It caught the 
 eye of the elder man. "You have got a swell thing 
 there, Dick," he said, taking it up, and examining it 
 curiously. " That must have cost you a nice little 
 sum." 
 
 " Oh, not enough to bleed me very heavily," re- 
 plied the other, affecting a free-and-easy tone and 
 attitude. "Look inside, will you?" 
 
 The elder opened the case, and gazed at the dark 
 silken linings. He saw some bank notes and some 
 silver. A card rolled out on the table. A name, in 
 a large, rapid hand, caught his eye. He read it twice. 
 When he lifted his head, there was a change in his 
 face. "Dick," he asked, in quite another voice, 
 "how did you come by this?" 
 
 " As a man who honestly paid for it would be 
 likely to come by it," the younger replied, with an
 
 108 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 attempt to carry the matter off gayly ; but the swift 
 furtive gleam came and went in his eyes. 
 
 His comrade saw it. By this time, the waiter had 
 brought cigars and matches. The younger helped 
 himself ; the elder pushed them aside. He still held 
 the card between his fingers. "Tell me the truth, 
 Dick," he said ; the low tones had a half-menacing 
 sound. 
 
 "You needn't think that," replied Dick, half sul- 
 len, half defiant. "I'm too shrewd to go for any 
 game of that sort." 
 
 The elder man understood that, in this euphemistic 
 way, Dick denied having stolen the letter-case. 
 
 He made a fresh attempt to get at the truth. He 
 leaned over and seized Dick's arm. 
 
 " Tell me how you got hold of this, Dick Weare," 
 he said. This time the voice, a little louder, was 
 that of a man who will be answered, and who is con- 
 scious of a power in reserve over the person he 
 addresses. 
 
 Dick felt strongly aggrieved; but his wits were 
 more or less muddled with his drink. He had known 
 Andrew Reeves for several j-ears. The two had had 
 some business transactions which would not have 
 redounded to the credit of either ; but the elder was 
 cognizant of some facts in the younger's history 
 which placed the latter at disadvantage. Had Dick's 
 brain been clearer, he might have been more trucu- 
 lent ; but he glanced at Reeves' face, and something 
 he saw there decided him to make a clean breast 
 of it. 
 
 Dick began *his story with another oath, and in a
 
 A BOSTON GIKL'S AMBITIONS. 109 
 
 perfunctory manner. It was all told in a few short, 
 half-angry sentences : " Two or three weeks ago, I 
 was on the train, corain' back from a little business- 
 trip down East. There was only a few people aboard. 
 In front of me sat a young feller, who showed by his 
 whole cut and carriage that he was finer clay than 
 they usually make 'em. After a while, my fine 
 young gentleman takes this out, looks at it in a kind 
 of absent way, and slips it back ; he thought it went 
 into his pocket, plumb, but instead it dropped on the 
 seat. It wasn't my business to tell him. When he 
 got into Boston, he marches out o' the cars none the 
 wiser, for all he carried that head o' his'n so high. A 
 minute later, I marched out, too. I swear to you I 
 never touched the thing while its owner was by. If 
 he lost it, my right was as good as any other man's 
 who found it." 
 
 Reeves was not disposed to argue the ethics of this 
 conclusion. He knew his man ; he was satisfied 
 Dick Weare had told him the truth. 
 
 " What did you find in here ? " persisted the elder. 
 
 " Not the plum I expected from the looks of my 
 young sprig. There was only about sixty dollars." 
 
 " And this pasteboard ? " 
 
 " I thought I'd burned that up with a few visitin' 
 cards. In case anything turned up, ashes wouldn't 
 tell tales." 
 
 Reeves was convinced that he had got to the heart 
 of the matter. He deliberately emptied the contents 
 of the case on the table. " Take every penny of the 
 money, Dick," he said, pushing the bank notes and 
 the little pile of silver toward him ; " but / want 
 the case and the card."
 
 110 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 Dick reddened to his carroty hair. " I s'pose a 
 feller has a right to say somethin' about his own 
 property," he growled, threateningly. 
 
 " Now, Dick, don't bluster," rejoined the other, in 
 a rather mollifying tone, evidently feeling that his 
 high-handed proceeding required some slight justifi- 
 cation. "It won't do any good. I have a reason for 
 wanting these things. No harm shall come of them 
 to you. I pledge you my honor I will never go 
 back on you, Dick Weare." 
 
 He looked the other in the eyes with quiet mas- 
 tery. A powerful-willed man, though he was now a 
 much broken-down and defeated one, asserted him- 
 self at the saloon-table. 
 
 Dick Weare recognized this fact. At least, he 
 thought it wiser not to prolong the controversy. 
 They turnedto their cigars ; but the good camaraderie 
 of the pair was over for that night. 
 
 The younger smoked in a sullen, suspicious mood, 
 the elder in a gloomy, absent one ; and in these 
 frames of mind they separated. 
 
 The next morning's papers stated that a man 
 named Andrew Reeves, returning to his home, had 
 fallen on the ice and injured his spine ; he had been 
 carried to the hospital.
 
 XIII. 
 
 THE east winds had fought out the long, fierce 
 battle of March and April on the Massachusetts 
 coast ; and now all the old signs showed the summer 
 was coming that way. 
 
 The skies over the thick-huddled roofs of Boston 
 had a luminous, tender azure. The elms on the 
 Common were green as when the robins of long- 
 forgotten Mays sang in their young boughs. These 
 were days when some happy mystery seemed to brood 
 in the warm, sunlit air. 
 
 In the May evening, Carry! Dacres and his sister 
 sat together for the first time in their new home. 
 The window was open, and a soft south wind blew 
 into the large, low-studded chamber. Out of this a 
 somewhat smaller one opened, which was Dorrice's 
 bedroom ; and still beyond was a narrow side cham- 
 ber, which served Carryl's purpose admirably, and 
 which he already called his den. 
 
 Dorrice had a long, tiresome search for rooms in 
 the early spring. It was new work for the girl, whom 
 the last year and a half s experience had transformed 
 from a child into a woman. Sometimes the brave 
 young heart had sunk, and she almost resolved to 
 give up a quest which seemed so futile. 
 
 For all the comfortable places, the rooms out of 
 which the simplest home could be made, were so 
 
 111
 
 112 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 immensely beyond their slender means. The salary, 
 that had at first seemed such a grand fortune, dwin- 
 dled sadly when she came to face the world with it. 
 Dorrice was certain, too, that Carryl had all this time 
 strong misgivings about the success of her project. 
 Her arguments had barely succeeded in gaining his 
 consent to their weathering the winter in the attic, 
 whose dinginess and discomfort were a constant 
 offence to both. She never would have prevailed, 
 either, had she not had a secret abettor in the re- 
 morse Carryl felt for bringing his young sister into 
 such straits. So she had carried her point. They 
 not only had their attic-winter, as they called it ; 
 they denied themselves everything but the barest 
 necessities, in order to have something laid up for 
 the furnishings of the rooms on which Dorrice had 
 set her heart for the next spring. 
 
 And while they strained every nerve, with this 
 object in view, Dorrice made light of the daily 
 shifts and sacrifices, until Carryl was ashamed, and 
 grew merry and witty in his turn over their expe- 
 dients to make one dollar do the work of three. 
 
 Poor Dorrice ! It was hard to feel at times that 
 she might have been mistaken, that the little sum of 
 hardly saved money would have been better ex- 
 pended on a cheap boarding-house, which had been 
 Carryl's first plan, and to which, whenever disgust 
 and impatience got the mastery, he was much in the 
 habit of recurring. 
 
 Dorrice had her answer always ready, delivered 
 with that little maternal air, so oddly in contrast 
 with the girlish voice and face.
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 113 
 
 " No doubt, what you say is all true, Carry 1. We 
 must be very uncomfortable, if we stay here. But 
 we can rub through, you know ; and when the spring 
 comes, instead of two little, dark, stuffy rooms, in 
 some crowded boarding-house, if we can have a dear 
 little quiet nook of our own " 
 
 " Of course. I know just what a small paradise 
 that would be, oh, Athene's owl ! " he interrupted, 
 with a kind of playful grimness, " but the road is 
 such a horrid one to travel, and I am extremely 
 doubtful whether any paradise lies at the end of it ! " 
 
 "But it may ; and there is no other road to it. 
 ' He that will have a cake out of the wheat, must 
 needs tarry the grinding.' You used to believe in 
 that." 
 
 " ' Have I not tarried,' like poor Troilus ? " 
 
 " Poor Troilus, indeed ! " Dorrice's tone was 
 rather aggravating, but it changed the next moment. 
 " Oh, Carryl, I know it is horrid ; but you are not 
 going to let a girl be braver than you ? " 
 
 "No ; I am going to die, first ! " and he swallowed 
 his disgust and impatience for one more time. 
 
 One afternoon, when Dorrice was particularly dis- 
 heartened over a long, fruitless search for apartments, 
 and was making up her mind she must give up the 
 quest for another day, she learned, by the merest 
 chance, of some rooms to let on Pinckney Street. 
 She went to see them, feeling singularly old and 
 tired. The tall, narrow house, with its high, old- 
 fashioned stoop, its grim, red brick facade, and its 
 large bow-windows, must have seen more than half 
 a century. But on its highest flight Dorrice found
 
 114 A BOSTON GIEL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 two large, low-studded, sunny rooms, with a small 
 side one thrown in. The front windows afforded 
 glimpses of Charles River, and stretches of green 
 country, while the nearer spires and campaniles of 
 Boston soared above the dark house-roofs, into the 
 blue. These chambers would be let to the right sort 
 of tenant for two hundred and fifty dollars. Dor- 
 rice's heart gave a great bound when she learned 
 the price. A little way off, people who affected 
 more fashionable quarters were paying a thousand 
 dollars for apartments with less cheery outlooks, less 
 cosey interiors. That tall old house, with its grim, 
 bow-windowed front, had an attractive, homelike air, 
 when once the threshold was crossed. Dorrice's 
 feminine instincts took in all the possibilities of com- 
 fort and adornment which the rooms afforded. 
 When the light feet descended the winding stair- 
 flights, she no longer felt old or tired. 
 
 That evening the young people visited the rooms. 
 The price brought them within their means. The 
 next day the bargain was concluded. 
 
 The low-studded room, where the brother and 
 sister sit together in the late twilight, has, even now, 
 the look of a room much lived in. The walls have a 
 faint pearl-gray tint, finished and warmed at the top 
 by a frieze of rich, dull red. The room does not 
 seem bare, for the furnishings have been so carefully 
 arranged, with such an eye to color and effect, that 
 they seem more than they really are. 
 
 Every piece of furniture was doubly dear to the 
 occupants, because it had a history represented a 
 struggle. A deep, restful-looking lounge was cov-
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 115 
 
 ered with cretonne, the ground of sea-green and 
 gray, brightened with dashes of red. A large rug of 
 dim, rich colors filled the centre of the floor. Dor- 
 rice regarded this as her chef cCceuvre. She had pur- 
 chased it for a song, at an old auction-warehouse. A 
 number of pretty-shaped wicker chairs were disposed 
 about the room. A large, old-fashioned table was 
 covered with some heavy fabric, whose soft, varied 
 tints chorded with the rug. Dorrice's eyes had 
 ached and her soul sickened so long with the glare 
 of coarse, discordant color, that she was fain now to 
 feast soul and sense on quiet, neutral tints. 
 
 Through the open door the next room afforded 
 glimpses of a pretty chamber-set in ash, fresh from 
 Paine's warehouse. A rug of ingrain carpeting, 
 the centre of oak shades, with a bordering of deep 
 moss-colored green, and some satiny stuff, with bril- 
 liant crimson stripes, draped about the mirror, made 
 the only vivid color in Dorrice's bedroom. 
 
 The brother and sister sat opposite each other in 
 the blissful enjoyment of their first evening in the 
 new home. They were too happy for continuous 
 talk even, though the silences were broken by glib 
 little comments at short intervals. 
 
 " Carryl," Dorrice asked, with a little laugh, partly 
 gay and partly something else, " do you suppose any 
 human beings ever started housekeeping on such 
 small capital as we have ? " 
 
 " If they did, I am absolutely certain they never 
 achieved such results ! " 
 
 These furnishings had been an immense surprise 
 to Carryl. After Dorrice's success about the rooms,
 
 116 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 he had agreed to leave everything in her hands ; and 
 the climax came, when he entered his home for the 
 first time and stared about him in bewildered amaze- 
 ment. That was the proudest hour of Dorrice's life. 
 
 "How did you do this?" he 'asked, when they 
 were at last quietly seated, after he had, under 
 her supervision, duly inspected all the appointments 
 of each room. 
 
 "I do believe, Carryl, I evolved this furniture out 
 of my inner consciousness," her radiant glance going 
 from one article to another. " You see, I had all 
 winter to think about it. When I had once found 
 the rooms, everything began to go smoothly. I just 
 happened, by some mysterious affinity, on the things 
 I wanted. Sometimes it was in old, rubbishy auc- 
 tion-rooms; sometimes in great, smart warehouses. 
 But there the thing was, waiting for me, and the 
 marvel of all was, there was the little purse with the 
 money in my pocket to pay for it." 
 
 " It never would have bee-n there, though, if I had 
 had my way ! " rejoined Carryl, recalling some of his 
 moods and tempers, with a compunctious twinge. 
 
 " In my secret soul, I always took part with you, 
 when you were storming the worst. But if we 
 hadn't scraped and saved each sixpence, like a pair 
 of greedy old misers, you and I wouldn't be sitting 
 here this blessed hour. It was just the picture of 
 the little home ahead, shining before me, day and 
 night, that kept me fast in the old attic last winter." 
 
 "I confess your project seemed to me about as 
 sensible as a race for a rainbow." 
 
 But the talk, reflecting their moods, was constantly
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 117 
 
 glancing from one subject to another. In a few 
 moments, Dorrice broke out : "What a piece of good 
 fortune it was that the landlord let me choose the 
 wall-papers ! I hankered for the quietest tints, after 
 enduring so long that brimstone yellow, and that 
 horrid paper, with the great sprawling figures, that 
 always made me think of the saurians and lizards of 
 the old geologic aeons." 
 
 "Thank Heaven, they have vanished from our 
 horizon!" ejaculated Carryl, fervently. "But I 
 shall be lucky if I don't find myself, from the mere 
 force of habit, turning down to the old rookery 
 again." 
 
 " That would be just like you, you dear, absent- 
 minded old fellow ! And I can see you now waking, 
 with a start, to the blissful consciousness of the 
 facts, and wheeling sharply round, and facing for 
 Pinckney Street." 
 
 Her laugh rang out, a bit of sweet, infectious 
 gayety, which, it seemed, the very walls must catch. 
 
 Carryl was quite willing his sister should have her 
 fun at his expense. "I may be inclined to make a 
 visit, once in a great while, to the old place, for the 
 sake of happy contrasts. But I sha'n't be sorry to 
 learn that the old shell has tumbled down before the 
 march of improvement." 
 
 " It seems such a long time that we lived there," 
 said Dorrice, gravely enough, this time. " And yet, 
 it was barely eight months." 
 
 " Barely that." 
 
 " They are not so very much out of a lifetime. 
 We feel very old, Carryl, because of all we have been 
 through, but we are young still."
 
 118 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 His black eyes twinkled with fun, for she made 
 this statement as though it were a most surprising 
 fact. 
 
 " Young still," continued the bright, confident 
 voice. " And our dark da} r s are over, and we are 
 going to be happy for the rest of our lives ! If we 
 could only have been sure that such a home-nest was 
 awaiting us at the end, that such a night as this 
 was on the way to us, the worst would not have 
 been so hard to bear." 
 
 " It all seems like a bit of Prospero's work," con- 
 tinued Carry 1, settling himself back comfortably in 
 his rattan rocker. " Don't let me find out, in a little 
 while, Dorrice, that it is all such stuff as dreams are 
 made of." 
 
 "Don't you fear that, Carryl. All these things 
 are as substantial as you and I. My prophetic soul 
 catches glimpses of other lovely things that are to 
 stand here, some of these days ! " 
 
 ' What are they ? " 
 
 " Oh, portie'res, screens, lambrequins, curtains, 
 things that will make our home a fairy bower. Of 
 course it will take time. But you and I have learned 
 how to wait, Carryl ! " 
 
 " I make a solemn vow, at this moment, never to 
 growl again over your economies ; still, if you 
 hadn't proved yourself capable of the impossible, 
 I should make bold to inquire where all these lovely 
 things are to come from ? " 
 
 "I can't just tell, now. But they are sure to 
 come." 
 
 So the talk went on, playful for the most part, and
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 119 
 
 yet with its serious moods, through the hours of that 
 happy May evening, that would henceforth be a 
 landmark in their lives. But when it wore late, the 
 young people fell into a steadily grave vein. They 
 lived over the night, more than a year and a half 
 ago, when they alighted at the Boston and Albany 
 station, a boy and girl, dazed with wonder and de- 
 light over the vast, strange city, to which they had 
 come, with all the rash confidence of youth and 
 ignorance, to seek their fortunes. 
 
 They dwelt on the happy fortnight at the United 
 States Hotel, when they made their first acquaint- 
 ance with the city, and visited the Public Garden, 
 the Historical Rooms, Bunker Hill, and Faneuil Hall, 
 and saw one of Shakspere's dramas on the stage : 
 while life seemed, in those enchanted days, like a 
 grand, beautiful Miracle Play. 
 
 But when the first fortnight came to an end, the 
 fatuous young creatures discovered what alarming 
 inroads it had made on their slender finances, and 
 the result was they found somewhat less expensive 
 quarters, in a pleasant boarding-house at the West 
 End, where they spent a month. By this time their 
 funds had dwindled alarmingly, and Carryl began to 
 look grave, and to feel that it was high time to find 
 employment of some sort, though he had a very 
 nebulous idea what it would be, or how to set about 
 obtaining it; he had imagined that if he once got 
 into the city, the right sort of place would come 
 to him, inevitably as a law of nature. At last the 
 young people were forced to look up cheaper quar- 
 ters. Then the mother's watch had, after a sharp
 
 120 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 struggle, to be parted with. The question of ways 
 and means began to assume a very grave aspect. 
 Carryl at last arrived at the conviction that no em- 
 ployment would seek him, and that he could not 
 afford to be fastidious. A little box of their 
 mother's jewelry had, piece by piece, to follow the 
 watch. Of course all these things went at a terrible 
 sacrifice. But the problem for the brother and 
 sister was now fast becoming the primary one of 
 bread and shelter. Carryl began his quest for work, 
 and met with cold, curt negatives, and a coarse, 
 supercilious style of treatment, particularly galling 
 to that proud, sensitive youth ; but necessity forced 
 him to swallow his resentments, and persevere. 
 Meanwhile his young sister's bright wits were 
 rapidly gaining a fresh knowledge of the world ; it 
 was marvellous how the tenderly reared child roused 
 herself to meet the situation. It was Dorrice who 
 made the most of the scant funds, and who found 
 the cheaper boarding-house, where they had to put 
 up with much that was an offence to their tastes and 
 previous habits. An eager, anxious look, it was 
 pathetic to see, grew in those brown eyes ; but she 
 refrained, when Carryl came back at night, from ask- 
 ing any questions. Her first glance always settled 
 the one she had most at heart. 
 
 But as their fortunes grew darker, her spirit rose 
 bravely to meet them. It was Dorrice again who 
 proposed and carried out the plan of going into 
 lodgings, where, she insisted, the meals would be 
 provided at smaller expense. The mother's little 
 stock of jewelry was soon exhausted. The two grew
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 121 
 
 thin and pale, and an old, worried look came into 
 their young faces. It was necessary again to seek 
 cheaper lodgings, and these were found in the attic 
 of the old tenement-house. And here their fortunes 
 were destined to touch their nadir, and to brighten 
 at last. 
 
 But when the reminiscences reached that first 
 day so vivid in the memory of both when they 
 came to live in the attic, there was a dead pause, 
 as the contrasts of that hour and this forced them- 
 selves upon the two. 
 
 " You were splendidly brave, Dorrice. You made 
 fun of the worst things," said Carryl. 
 
 The small dark head was swiftly erect. The 
 brown eyes seemed to grow larger with the light 
 that kindled them ; yet it was a low, rather tremu- 
 lous voice that answered : " One has sometimes 
 to say, 'I can die, if I must, but I cannot break 
 down.' " 
 
 A little later, Carryl was striding about the room 
 with a novel, delightful sense of possession in all 
 that lay between those four walls. The feeling was 
 too deep, however, to find expression in anything 
 but a light, inadequate speech : " It's jolly for a 
 fellow to find himself at last under his own vine and 
 fig-tree." 
 
 A smile trembled out on Dorrice's lips ; but she 
 could not trust them for a word. 
 
 But a little later, and just before they separated 
 for the night, she turned to Carryl and said, half 
 seriously, half in jest: "I rather pity people who 
 have plenty of money to furnish their rooms just as
 
 122 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 they like all at once. Things mean more you get 
 more happiness out of them when you have to 
 wait, and contrive, and save, to get them." 
 
 "You may be right, Dorrice," Carryl replied ; "but 
 you will never get the world to agree with you ! "
 
 XIV. 
 
 ONE morning, when the young people had been 
 settled more than a month in their new home, Mr. 
 and Mrs. Hallowell sat at their breakfast-table in 
 their elegant house on Newbury Street. The east 
 wind of the early summer came across the Back Bay 
 and filled the large, handsome dining-room with de- 
 licious coolness. 
 
 The gentleman put down his cup, wiped his mus- 
 tache, and remarked, with the good-humored air of 
 a man who is satisfied with his surroundings, and 
 has just finished a perfect breakfast: " Bostonians 
 need be in no hurry to get out of town while this 
 weather lasts. Somebody who knew what he was 
 saying has declared that our Boston springs, which 
 so try soul and body, do yet make the most delicious 
 Junes in the world." 
 
 "Nobody could have said a more sensible thing," 
 replied Mrs. Hallowell, who had just returned, by 
 easy stages, from Florida. " It seems so delightful 
 to be at home again, and have the quiet and inde- 
 pendence of one's own house, that I doubt whether 
 seashore or mountains could tempt me away this 
 summer, if it weren't for Tom here." She glanced 
 at the small curly head in the high chair on her right. 
 
 " You would change your mind, my dear, with the 
 dog days, and with everybody out of town," her 
 
 123
 
 124 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 husband remarked. " How would it suit you, Tom," 
 turning to his boy, " to stay cooped up here all sum- 
 mer, instead of running your small neck into all 
 sorts of perils down on the beach, or among the 
 mountains ? " 
 
 " I wather wim my neck into 'em," promptly piped 
 the childish soprano, showing that Tom had caught 
 the gist of his father's question. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Hallowell laughed heartily, and be- 
 lieved their son a marvellously precocious child. 
 
 By this time the servant had left the room, and 
 the three lingered at the table, in the leisurely en- 
 joyment of the first half-hour after breakfast, while 
 Tom's round little head kept bobbing about as he 
 listened, alert and curious, to his parents' talk. 
 
 What occult association of ideas prompted Mr. 
 Hallowell's next remark, he did not stop to investi- 
 gate, but he suddenly remarked : " I saw young 
 Dacres you remember, Emmeline on the street, 
 the other evening, with a girl ; she was pretty as a 
 picture ; I joked him about it afterward, and lo ! it 
 appeared she was his sister, and that they are living 
 together somewhere on Pinckney Street." 
 
 Mrs. Hallowell's face and manner showed a fresh 
 accession of interest. " It has been on my tongue's 
 end a dozen times since I returned, to ask you how 
 you are getting on with him." 
 
 "Well enough. He is intelligent and trustworthy 
 puts his brains into the business." 
 
 " Then you didn't make a mistake, when you took 
 my advice for once even in business." 
 
 " You did happen to hit the mark that time."
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 125 
 
 " Happen ! " there was an indignant emphasis in 
 Mrs. Hallowell's voice. "There was no 'happening' 
 about it. I knew what the young fellow was, be- 
 cause of what he had done." 
 
 " Have it your own way, Emmeline. It has 
 turned out well for all concerned." 
 
 " It has certainly for us." 
 
 The slight significance on the pronoun rather put 
 Mr. Hallo well on his defence. " The young fellow 
 stepped into a nice berth that day," he said. 
 
 "I am glad to have your testimony that he de- 
 served it." 
 
 " But people are not always so lucky in getting 
 their deserts offhand. " 
 
 " I always had a feeling that he got less than his," 
 rejoined the lady. 
 
 " That is because you don't understand the situa- 
 tion. I did him an immense favor when I gave him 
 the place, and stood up for him, against all odds, 
 stranger, as he was, to everybody concerned. I 
 could have got a boy a smart one, too for con- 
 siderably less than I am paying him this summer." 
 
 " I hope you don't grudge him the money." 
 
 "You know better than that. What are you 
 driving at, Emmeline ? " 
 
 "Oh, nothing in particular! Only it strikes me 
 that your clerk may have a secret conviction that we 
 do not set a high value on our child's neck." 
 
 Mr. Hallowell was silent a moment. She looked 
 so pretty, sitting opposite him, at the breakfast-table, 
 the rather small, daintily modelled woman, in 
 her white breakfast-gown, relieved with soft lace
 
 126 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 about the throat, and a look of covert defiance in her 
 eyes, as though she were certain of being mistress of 
 the situation, that he burst into a laugh. "You 
 shall have the last word, Emmeline," he said. 
 " What a fool a man is, ever to attempt to argue 
 with a woman ! " 
 
 The lady raised her eyebrows. " And what shall 
 a woman be named, when she attempts to reach a 
 man on the side of his sentiment, or gratitude, or 
 human feeling, in short? All such considerations 
 would, of course, be wasted on him." 
 
 "No question of that! "Mr. Hallo well assented, 
 with another laugh. 
 
 " But we will stop this nonsense. See how gravely 
 Tom is staring at us ! Papa and mamma are not 
 quarrelling, you darling. Did you learn anything 
 about this pretty sister, Ned?" 
 
 " Not much. She is younger than he. They live 
 together alone." 
 
 " Those two young things ! You don't really sup- 
 pose his salary has to support both ! " 
 
 "If it does, they must find it tough work t( make 
 both ends meet. But one half of the world d esn't 
 know how the other half live," comfortably dispos- 
 ing of the whole matter with an axiom. 
 
 Mrs. Hallowell loved her husband dearly ; knew 
 there was nothing he would not do for herself or 
 Tom. Yet there were times when she secretly won- 
 dered whether the very best of men did not have a 
 hard, selfish side. 
 
 She recalled now the threadbare coat, the shabby 
 shoes, which Carry] Dacres had worn at their memo-
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 12T 
 
 ruble interview. " Ned," she said, after a little 
 pause, "I am going to call on that young man's 
 sister. Won't you find out to-day where they live?" 
 
 " I will try and remember to ask." 
 
 "But you never will unless you put it down in 
 your me. 1 lorandum please ? " She rose, came over 
 to his side, placed her small ringed hand on his 
 shoulder, and watched as he wrote down her request. 
 
 Then he said, " There ! are you satisfied ? " And 
 he pulled the delicate pink lobe of her ear. 
 
 Mrs. Hallowell smoothed her husband's whiskers, 
 
 and looked earnestly in his face. " Ned," she said, 
 
 half playfully, half seriously, " you are a good fellow 
 
 the best fellow in the world ; but you don't know 
 
 some things which a woman does."
 
 XV. 
 
 THREE days later, Mrs. Hallo well's coupe* drew up 
 before the house where the Dacres lived. The lady 
 alighted, followed by Tom. It was more than an 
 hour before they returned. 
 
 " Ned," said the wife to her husband after dinner, 
 " I made my call to-day." 
 
 " What call ? " asked Mr. Hallowell, laying down 
 his paper, and settling himself comfortably in his 
 arm-chair. Tom had just disappeared for the night, 
 leaving his father and mother alone in the alcove of 
 the sitting-room, to which they usually repaired after 
 dinner. 
 
 " You ought to know, when you brought me the 
 address so recently. You were right, Ned ; she is a 
 pretty creature." 
 
 Mr. Hallowell reflected a moment ; then he said, 
 " I see ; ' she ' stands for young Dacres' sister." 
 
 " Precisely." 
 
 " Go on, Emmeline." 
 
 " I found her in the third story of the house on 
 Pinckney Street. Those eyes of hers will be making 
 havoc with men's heads or hearts by the time she is 
 a year or two older. Just now she hasn't an idea of 
 anything of that sort. I hear her laugh still ; it is 
 the brightest, freshest thing in the world ! " 
 
 128
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 129 
 
 " See here ! if you go on at this rate much longer, 
 you will make an old Benedict's month water ! " 
 
 " She wore a white sacqne, and some loops of gold 
 ribbon at her throat. Nothing could be simpler ; 
 3 r et you would not have wanted to add a thing. The 
 room made me think of a little gray nest, and she 
 herself of a rare bird inside it." 
 
 " What curious ways you women do ha,ve of look- 
 ing at things ! " lazily commented Mr. Hallowell, as 
 he drew out his cigar-case. " What did this pretty 
 paragon of yours have to say for herself?" 
 
 Mrs. Hallowell's answer hardly replied to her hus- 
 band's question, and seemed half spoken to herself: 
 " Think of their coming to the city, nearly two years 
 ago, a mere boy and girl, not knowing a soul in 
 Boston ! " 
 
 " It was a mad thing to do ! " subjoined the practi- 
 cal business man. 
 
 " Of course ; but they pulled through their trou- 
 bles somehow. That little girl, with those quiet 
 ways, has resolute stuff in her ; I saw that." 
 
 A blue ring of smoke floated in the warm air. 
 Mr. Hallowell did not speak ; but his wife knew he 
 was listening with a kind of indolent curiosity to 
 her talk. 
 
 " We made a long call," she resumed, "more than 
 an hour, indeed. Her face flushed with pleasure 
 when I spoke of what her brother had done for 
 Tom. 'If he were not my brother, Mrs. Hallowell,' 
 she said, with proud eyes, * I should tell you there 
 was nothing brave or noble which he was not ready 
 to do.' "
 
 130 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 " That was very well put," rejoined Mr. Hallowell, 
 as one blue curl of smoke slowly followed another, 
 and floated in the evening air. 
 
 " Oh, she is wonderfully bright ! I said to her : 
 'My dear, you look like such a young thing to 
 undertake housekeeping ! ' : 
 
 " 4 Oh, my housekeeping is little more than play 
 nowadays ! ' she answered, with a laugh. ' Carryl 
 and I regard ourselves as old veterans, indeed. We 
 jog on together as comfortably as Philemon and 
 Baucis.' " 
 
 Mr. Hallowell laughed. By this time he was get- 
 ting interested in the talk. 
 
 " Ned," continued his wife, earnestly, " those 
 young people have a history. That girl was brought 
 up among gentle and refined influences. But all I 
 learned was that her brother was her sole living rela- 
 tive ; that their mother died more than two years 
 ago ; and that very soon afterward they came to 
 the city. One couldn't pry into their secrets, you 
 know." 
 
 " Of course not." 
 
 " She looked at Tom in a way that said as plainly 
 as words she felt that he had been at the bottom of 
 a blissful change in their fortunes. But I took care 
 to let her see, before the visit was over, that I felt the 
 debt was immensely on our side." 
 
 " I presume so." Mr. Hallowell's tone implied 
 that he did not wholly concur in his wife's opinion. 
 
 But she let it pass. " You ought to have seen 
 Tom ; he sat still as a mouse by my side, staring at 
 her with big, solemn eyes, while we talked. At
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 131 
 
 last I said, 'What makes you gaze at the young lady 
 in that way, Tom ? ' 
 
 " ' Cos I like to look at her ! ' he burst out." 
 
 Mr. Ilallowell laughed again. " The young fellow 
 won't be so honest, by a long shot, a score of years 
 from this time ! " 
 
 " Of course we had some fun over that. When 
 she spoke to him, he went over to her, and put up 
 his face to be kissed. It was a pretty sight to see 
 their two heads together." 
 
 " I shouldn't have objected to seeing that myself." 
 
 " I intend you shall have a chance ; 1 am going to 
 invite those young people here to dinner." 
 
 " You mean to be a sort of good genius to them, 
 do you ? I know what you are when you do take 
 people up ! " 
 
 An interruption at that moment prevented Mrs. 
 Hallowell's reply. 
 
 At the same hour Dorrice Dacres was relating to 
 her brother all the details of Mrs. Hallowell's visit. 
 She had much to say of the grace and charm of 
 the lady, of the beauty and pretty ways of the boy. 
 But for some reason, which she could not explain to 
 herself, she did not tell Carryl that when the fair, 
 elegant woman held her hand and smiled in her eyes 
 at parting, she knew that she had at last a friend in 
 Boston. 
 
 Two days later, when Carryl returned at night, his 
 sister held before his astonished eyes a beautiful, 
 flower-shaped, porcelain basket, filled with large, lus- 
 cious strawberries, rimmed with long, graceful ferns. 
 Fruit and basket were the gift of Mrs. Hallowell,
 
 132 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 whose coachman had left them at the door that alter- 
 noon. 
 
 So Dorrice had thereafter a lovely ornament her 
 first one for her mantel-piece. 
 
 But the young people did not visit the Hallowells 
 that summer. The heats came on suddenly ; every- 
 body who could hurried to the seaside or the moun- 
 tains.
 
 XVI. 
 
 Six months had passed. It was early in Novem- 
 ber. The streets were full of busy crowds and 
 brilliant color, and all the bright activity characteris- 
 tic of the great Northern cities in the late autumn. 
 
 But the people just returned from the beaches and 
 the hills brought with them no finer glow of health 
 and happiness than the two who had weathered the 
 summer in the heart of Boston. They had not been 
 given to envying their more fortunate fellow-beings. 
 There had been days, of course, when the city lay 
 stifling under the summer solstice ; but those were 
 the only days, Dorrice insisted, to find out just what 
 a delicious thing an east wind could be. 
 
 The young people devised their recreations on a 
 somewhat original plan ; but it had the merit of 
 affording them a great deal of genuine happiness. 
 
 In the long, fiery days when business languished, 
 Carryl could often leave the office before noon ; and 
 he and Dorrice made frequent excursions into the 
 lovely suburbs which engirdle Boston. They had 
 delightful trips on the horse-cars, where the terminus 
 brought them within easy walking distance of old 
 woods, cool and dim with shade, and full of all the 
 wonderful life and mystery of the green-leafed mid- 
 summer. They wandered through the forest ways, 
 
 133
 
 134 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 and revived the beautiful old myths their mother 
 had taught them ; and when they came on some bit 
 of wild, lovely vista, with a blue gleam of gurgling 
 brook deep in its heart, they called it their Vale 
 of Tempe. They gathered wild flowers and ferns 
 and bits of rare, bright-colored fungi to brighten 
 their home. Dorrice knew how to make the most 
 of her wood-treasures; and it was marvellous 
 to see the effects she contrived to get out of 
 some velvety mosses with red-berried vines trailing 
 across them. 
 
 Sometimes the young people chose deep, grassy 
 lanes and winding old country roads to wander 
 among; and as Dorrice drank in the wide, lovely 
 stillness about her, she would say: "One almost ex- 
 pects to see a hamadryad gliding among the trees. It 
 seems as though we must be miles and miles from a 
 hamlet, even." 
 
 "While the next rise of ground will be pretty 
 certain to spoil your romance, and bring us within 
 sight of the steeples and the old dome of the State 
 House," laughed Carryl. 
 
 At another time they would change their pro- 
 gramme, and set out in search of some high point, 
 where they could gain wide horizons and far-reach- 
 ing landscapes. They had glimpses of the blue 
 harbor, the green islands, the beautiful suburbs, from 
 Corey and Milton Hills and Arlington Heights. 
 They brought down from those fair, breezy outlooks 
 glowing color and bounding pulse, while the joyous 
 days were rounded with nights of youth's perfect 
 sleep.
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 135 
 
 But the gay little larks into the country were 
 only frequent breaks in the summer. It was a 
 religion with the two to take up their life where 
 their mother had left it " piece it right on," as 
 Carryl expressed it. 
 
 They came, on the maternal side, of a race of 
 scholars; and swift aptitudes for acquiring knowl- 
 edge were a part of their heredity. The mother had 
 done her work with the children before she left them. 
 She had been brought up by her father in an atmos- 
 phere of study ; and in the training of her boy and 
 girl she had followed the traditions of her own life. 
 When this had been darkened by widowhood, and 
 later by griefs before which even that pang seemed a 
 light one, Mrs. Dacres' greatest solace had been the 
 education of her children. Their young lives had 
 been nursed on the classics and on English literature. 
 They were only following their natural bent when 
 they resumed the studies which had been intermitted 
 since they came to the city. They read and recited 
 to each other with the old zest. The Public Library 
 was always at command ; and when a text-book occa- 
 sionally became indispensable, Carryl knew where to 
 find it at some cheap book-stall. So Don-ice carolled 
 her lessons, as she arranged her rooms. And when, 
 at last, the days had begun to shorten, and there was 
 a frosty chill in the air, she said to her brother, with 
 eyes that joyfully emphasized her words, " Whatever 
 the summer may have been to the rest of the world, 
 it has been a happy one to you and me, Carryl." 
 
 " Yes, you dear old girl ; we have managed to 
 enjoy it hugely."
 
 136 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 It would have been evident to one well acquainted 
 with the brother and sister, that something in the 
 nature of an agreeable surprise had happened to 
 them one night, soon after November had come in. 
 A note in a dainty envelope on the table would have 
 explained the mystery. Mrs. Hallowell's coachman 
 had left an invitation that afternoon for the two to 
 dine with them on the following evening. 
 
 " What a mercy it was," exclaimed Dorrice, " that 
 I got that ash-colored cashmere instead of a thin 
 dress ! I knew it would carry me later into the fall ; 
 and it was such an irresistible bargain, too. Can 
 you imagine my surprise when I read that note? 
 Mrs. Hallowell does not forget what you did for 
 Tom." 
 
 " She might easily feel all that had been paid for." 
 
 " That would depend upon the kind of woman she 
 is." Dorrice would not underrate her brother's 
 deed. 
 
 Mrs. Hallowell's young guests naturally felt some 
 shyness as they entered the elegant home that even- 
 ing; but their hostess' cordial manner soon placed 
 them at their ease. 
 
 Carryl's suit was all the occasion required. His 
 sister's head rose, flower-like, from the crepe lisse that 
 encircled her white young throat. The soft cash- 
 mere folds, of a tint nearer ashes-of-roses than any- 
 thing else, clung close to her girlish slenderness. 
 She needed no further color, with the clearness of 
 her olive skin, with her brown, luminous eyes, and 
 the hair whose dark abundance was gathered low at 
 the back of her graceful-shaped head, and which
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 137 
 
 shaded her forehead with clusters of auburn tendrils, 
 touched with gold. 
 
 There were no other guests, so the dinner was a 
 pleasant, informal affair, where the young people 
 were fully equal to their share in the talk, and said, 
 Mrs. Hallowell thought, some of the brightest things 
 that had ever been heard at that board. 
 
 Her husband, too, unbent himself at his own table; 
 and the host, with his affable bearing and amusing 
 jokes, was quite another person than the curt, ab- 
 sorbed business man whom Carry 1 knew in his office. 
 Indeed, it was rather surprising that they all had so 
 much common ground of talk. 
 
 The dinner was followed by some pleasant hours, 
 after they adjourned to the sitting-room. Here 
 Tom's admiration for Dorrice displayed itself in the 
 most undisguised fashion. He installed himself 
 close to her side, drinking in every look and word ; 
 and in a little while she drew him out of his shell, 
 and he chattered away briskly in his pretty, lisping 
 vernacular. 
 
 Later in the evening the young guests were shown 
 some fine pictures and some rare pottery. Mrs. Hal- 
 lowell and Dorrice had a good deal of talk to them- 
 selves ; so had her husband and Carryl. The young 
 people went home at last in the coupe*. The evening 
 had been a novel pleasure to all concerned. Even 
 Mr. Hallowell condescended to say "it has been 
 vastly pleasanter than being bored at some of your 
 swell parties." 
 
 After that, there was no doubt that Mrs. Hallowell 
 had the interests of Carryl Dacres and his sister at
 
 138 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 heart. A woman in her place had it in her power, 
 if she so willed, to be of much service to the young 
 people. Mrs. Hallowell was this, in many simple, 
 graceful ways, which never permitted them to feel 
 any weight of obligation. She sent frequent gifts of 
 flowers, that brightened the pretty gray nest with 
 bloom and fragrance. She often left tickets to lect- 
 ures, musicales, matinees. When great actors and 
 prima-donnas, with their world-wide fame, visited 
 Boston, she took care that her young friends should 
 hear them. She gladdened their lives with much 
 they must otherwise have missed, and she always did 
 this with womanly tact and graciousness. 
 
 But the favor was not altogether on one side. It 
 was impossible to know Dorrice Dacres without lov- 
 ing her ; and it did the woman of the world good to 
 be brought in frequent contact with that young, fine 
 nature. One day, after returning from a call at 
 Pinckney Street, Mrs. Hallowell said seriously to her 
 husband : " I believe, Ned, if I were forced to con- 
 fess whom I thought the happiest person in Boston, 
 it would be that young girl who comes to meet me 
 with such gladness in her great brown eyes. It seems 
 almost worth living in an upper story and on eight 
 hundred dollars a year to look like that." 
 
 " Well, I intend to make it a thousand next year. 
 That can't be a sufficient advance in their fortunes 
 to make them miserable ! "
 
 XVII. 
 
 A YEAR had passed since Carryl and Dorrice 
 Dacres came to Pinckney Street. It had been a 
 swift, happy, crowded year. It had wrought some 
 change in each. The down on Carryl's cheek was 
 thicker and darker, and. he, as well as his sister, had 
 gained some inches in height. The dark, handsome 
 youth, and the girl, blooming into slender maiden- 
 hood, were having the merriest of times at the close 
 of the May day. 
 
 A surprise, which Dorrice had been weeks in pre- 
 paring, had geeeted Carryl's eyes as he crossed the 
 door-sill that night. For the moment he was almost 
 as much bewildered as Glaucus when he first en- 
 tered the grotto of the sea-nymphs. 
 
 For the room had, since morning, undergone a 
 magic transformation. It was a dim-colored bou- 
 doir, lovely enough for a princess, with its portieres 
 and window and mantel lambrequins of a rich, 
 dull red tint, bordered with golden pomegranates 
 fruit and flower in a light-running Kensington 
 stitch. 
 
 As Carryl stared about him, he caught sight of a 
 radiant face between the portieres that separated the 
 two rooms ; a pair of great eyes, alive with happy 
 mischief, were watching him. With one bound he 
 
 139
 
 140 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 reached the girl, caught her in his arms, and set her 
 down in the middle of the room. 
 
 " Now, Dorrice Dacres, if you have any regard for 
 your life, tell me what this means ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 "Doesn't it speak for itself?" Her proud, happy 
 glance swept over the room. " You saw it all while 
 it was preparing. I got a woman to help me hang 
 the things to-day. It only took her an hour. I did 
 all the rest myself. I wanted to give you a little 
 surprise to-night." 
 
 " I should think you did, with a vengeance ! 
 Where if a fellow may venture to ask did those 
 lace curtains come from ? " 
 
 " Oh, I forgot ! You haven't seen those. They 
 came out of a little brown purse that is growing 
 shabbier every day, but that has got to do service 
 for many a one yet! Isn't the pattern charming? 
 It's only Nottingham lace, and I got them at the 
 most astonishing bargain." 
 
 Carryl had known that the portieres were in some 
 phase of what he supposed must be their long com- 
 pletion. It was not possible to keep that secret from 
 him. During the evenings, when the lessons were 
 in process, Don-ice's needle had been busy with her 
 embroidery. She had come, by the merest accident, 
 one day, on a heap of slightly damaged stuff in silks 
 and wools. Among the goods were some yards of 
 dark, rich, reddish fabric. Her native taste detected 
 at a glance its artistic possibilities. She did not in- 
 quire the price even, not dreaming it would come 
 within the reach of her slender finances ; but, as she 
 was turning away, the salesman named it to a lady
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 141 
 
 who was looking over the goods. Dorrice went 
 back and inspected the stuff. Its purchase would 
 involve some sacrifices on her part, but she was used 
 to those, and she told herself the portieres would be 
 a joy forever. 
 
 So she secured her bargain, and, a month later, its 
 rich, dull hues, bordered with the light-running 
 pomegranates, fell against the gray walls, and filled 
 the room with a soft, exquisite glow like the reflec- 
 tion of a pink sunset. 
 
 " It does seem like old Prospero's wand this time, 
 for sure ! " said Carryl, his gaze, having at last drunk 
 in the delicious surprise of form and color, coming 
 back to his sister's face. " I believe you are a kind 
 of witch, Dorrice." 
 
 A gay, confident little toss of the head answered 
 him. " Of course I am, and you have just found it 
 %>ut, you poor, slow old fellow ! But witches are to 
 be feared, as well as admired ! It isn't safe to snub 
 them on occasion, and treat them in your cool, mas- 
 culine fashion." 
 
 " I will be amiable from this hour. But where 
 have you found the time to get through with such a 
 huge job? When you talked of embroidering the 
 portieres, I confess it seemed to me Penelope's web 
 over again ! " 
 
 "Oh, you horrid boy! But of course you could 
 know nothing of Kensington stitch, nor how one's 
 needle just races over the ground." 
 
 " No ; a fellow can't gush over these thing like a 
 gir.1, you know, but he can see and feel when a thing 
 is pretty."
 
 142 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 " Oh, Carryl, the best of it all is seeing the pleas- 
 ure it gives you ! " 
 
 A little later, Dorrice said to her brother : " You 
 remember that first night after we came here, and 
 those lovely things I saw in the future ? " 
 
 "Don't I? And the game I made of you. In 
 the presence of these" bowing to the portieres 
 with mock gravity "I beg your pardon ! " 
 
 The young people had tried to make the most of 
 this year. Indeed, the great trouble was that the 
 days and nights were not long enough for the tasks 
 that crowded them. 
 
 Mr. Hallowell was one of the Athenaeum stock- 
 holders, and, through him, its libraries were opened 
 to the office clerk and his sister. 
 
 There, too, was the Art Museum, for which they 
 sometimes managed to secure half a day, when they 
 wandered amid a world of lovely form and color 
 which educated their tastes, and enlarged their men- 
 tal horizons. 
 
 " Boston is a good place for poor people to live 
 in ! " Dorrice would sometimes say to her brother, in 
 her serious way. 
 
 "That is true. You and I will always be grateful 
 to the old city for being a kind of Alma Mater to us. 
 Sometimes, when I go about the narrow, crowded 
 streets, that line of Emerson's steals up, and throws a 
 sort of glamor over things : 
 
 ' Thou darling town of ours.' 
 
 That is a bit of sentiment with which the office 
 clerk of Hallowell, Howth, and Company has no busi-
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 143 
 
 ness," added Carryl, with a laugh that was not 
 wholly gay. " By the bye, shall I get tickets for 
 the next Lowell course ? " 
 
 "We can't lose those." She glanced regretfully 
 at some volumes that lay on the table. " The books 
 must wait." 
 
 Among the habits of their childhood which the 
 two kept up, was one of having " the best book last," 
 - the few Bible verses before bedtime ; and the 
 sweet, soft tones of a voice whose echoes would lin- 
 ger in their memory until all voices were silent for 
 them, still hovered along the words of some tender 
 psalm, some precious promise of the Gospels. 
 
 Soon after they came to Pinckney Street, Dorrice 
 had inaugurated another change in the domestic 
 routine. She now prepared their simple breakfasts, 
 and, in the evening, she and Carryl dined at a quiet 
 refectory in the neighborhood. 
 
 In the morning she frequently accompanied Car- 
 ryl part of the way to the office. She enjoyed the 
 cool, sparkling air, the sight and sounds of the great 
 city, rousing itself to the life of another day. Some- 
 times they would go to the foot of Pinckney Street, 
 for a nearer view of Charles River. They liked to 
 watch the tossing of waves gray, with glints of 
 silver on their crests, and glimmers of beryl-green in 
 their troughs. 
 
 Then they found minutes to spare for the Public 
 Garden. They saw the tulips in all their glory ; 
 a blaze of color that rivalled the sunsets ; they lin- 
 gered by the Pond, or among the brown paths, 
 cooled with dews, and flecked with shadows.
 
 144 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 For a long while Dorrice had secretly brooded 
 over a project which had attractions for her in more 
 ways than one. She kept a practical aim in view in 
 all her studies ; she attended a course of lectures on 
 the kindergarten system ; she seized with happy in- 
 tuition, the spirit of its methods. Something of the 
 old college President was awake at this time in the 
 soul of his young granddaughter. 
 
 Mrs. Hallowell was the first person in whom Dor- 
 rice confided. The lady learned, with some surprise, 
 that it was the girl's supreme ambition to have a few 
 small pupils each day, whom she could instruct in 
 the elementary branches. 
 
 "But what does your brother say to all this?" 
 was Mrs. Hallowell's first question. 
 
 " Oh, he knows nothing about it yet ; he will be 
 sure to oppose it strenuously, at first. But I shall 
 bring him round," with her little, half playful, half 
 confident toss of the head. "This is no sudden 
 fancy of mine. I have thought about it dreamed 
 about it, a long while. Why shouldn't I? I have 
 the time ; I adore children ; it will all be mere play 
 to me, and then " 
 
 "Well, go on, Dorrice." The familiar address 
 had long ago become a habit. 
 
 " Really, there are some things for which I want a 
 little more money than Carryl can afford me." 
 
 " You dear child ! " 
 
 "Then you don't regard my plan as altogether 
 absurd ? " 
 
 " N-o ; at least, I shall be glad if it succeeds. 
 There is Tom, now. You know how fond he is of
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 145 
 
 you. I should like to feel that he was safe out of 
 mischief in your hands for some hours each morning. 
 Then she added, reflectively, " I might be able to get 
 you two or three more scholars. When do you want 
 to begin ? " 
 
 "Any time. To-morrow ! "
 
 XVIII. 
 
 IT was a large, white, green-blinded, two-storied 
 farm-house. There was a narrow portico in front 
 a wide piazza at the side. It was precisely the sort 
 of homestead in which, half a century ago, a thrifty 
 farmer would have sat down contented among his 
 Lares and Penates. A row of fine old cherry-trees 
 stood along the neat picket fence. The narrow walk 
 that ran from the front gate to the portico was bor- 
 dered on either side by old-fashioned flowers 
 sweetwilliams, marigolds, pinks, and peonies. 
 
 The robins sang in the cherry-trees. The winds 
 frolicked in the grass. The June morning lay in all 
 its wide, sunny loveliness before the eyes of the man 
 who sat at the front window and regarded the scene 
 with grave, wistful eyes. 
 
 It had been a familiar one to him all his life ; for 
 this had been passed in Foxlow, the pretty agri- 
 cultural hamlet, which lay in a wide valley, shaped 
 like a shallow trough, among the hills of western 
 Massachusetts. In this hamlet, Deacon Samuel Spin- 
 ner had first seen the light, sixty-five years ago that 
 very summer. 
 
 At last his slow gaze moved off to the thickly 
 wooded hills which bounded the horizon ; he had 
 
 146
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 147 
 
 climbed to their summits in his boyhood, and knew 
 just where the sweep of the Hudson made a wide 
 purplish-brown glitter in the landscape on the west ; 
 and how, beyond that, rose, far and dim, the gray- 
 blue outline of the Catskills. 
 
 The familiar scene had a charm in the eyes of the 
 elderly man which they had never perceived in it 
 before. The reason was not far to seek. Deacon 
 Spinner had come down stairs that morning after a 
 long illness, which had brought him to the borders 
 of the grave. All the old homely scenes had a new 
 meaning and preciousness to him. 
 
 He was a man slow of ideas, of movement, of 
 speech, he had a large, heavily built frame; his 
 smooth, square face had a semi-circle of thin gray 
 whiskers ; his light blue eyes had a simple honesty 
 of expression. The iron-gray hair, like the whis- 
 kers, was scant. There was a wide space where it 
 had fallen off, leaving a shining baldness above the 
 forehead. 
 
 In the hall outside, a sound of swift feet preceded 
 the entrance of the deacon's wife ; she was in every 
 respect the antipodes of her husband a small, 
 spare women, with keen black eyes, and thin lips, 
 that had a hint of shrewishness, until they broke 
 into a cheery smile. She must have been a pretty 
 girl ; she made you think of an apple, sound and 
 juicy at the core, though the frosts may have a little 
 puckered the skin. If the deacon never did any- 
 thing in a hurry, it was certain that his nimble 
 spouse would never be slow, when it came to speech 
 or action.
 
 148 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 The long, perilous illness through which she had 
 nursed her husband had aroused all the latent ten- 
 derness of the wife. Brought back from the borders 
 of the grave, the slow, silent man seemed once more 
 the lover of her youth. 
 
 She hurried up to him now, smoothed his pillow, 
 out of that habit of small attentions which had 
 grown during his illness ; then, dropping into a 
 chair, she regarded him with eyes of pleased af- 
 fection. 
 
 "Samwel," she said, in her thin, rather rapid 
 voice, " you can't think how good it does seem to see 
 you looking like your old self ! " 
 
 He smiled on the little woman in his lymphatic 
 way. " It seems good to be downstairs once more, 
 and lookin' on old things," he replied, in his slow, 
 woolly sort of voice. 
 
 " I'm thankful you had such a day to be round for 
 the first time, and enjoy the sight of outdoors," 
 added Mrs. Spinner, with a little nod of her head, 
 meant to include all outside. 
 
 The light blue eyes kindled with pleasure. "I 
 never see a pootier June mornin'," said the slow, 
 woolly voice again. "It makes me think of the 
 times when I was a boy." 
 
 Then the two were silent a while, and the birds 
 sang in the cherry-trees, and the wind brought the 
 scent of the brier-roses into the window. 
 
 Deacon Spinner looked at his wife, and his big 
 fingers moved restlessly over the blanket she had 
 laid across his knees. Her keen black eyes grew 
 soft, as she observed various traces of the fever
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 149 
 
 which had stricken down the strong man to the 
 helplessness of an infant. She perceived that some- 
 thing was on his mind ; something that did not 
 easily take the form of speech. 
 
 She laid her thin, dark hand on his large one. 
 " Well, Samwel," she said, encouragingly, almost as 
 a mother might to a child whom she was teaching to 
 talk. 
 
 " Rachel ! " 
 
 " Yes, Samwel." 
 
 "A man sort o' sees things with different eyes 
 when he lies on a bed o' sickness. I couldn't 'a' 
 closed mine in peace, seein' I hadn't done my whole 
 duty by them that wasn't my own flesh and blood." 
 
 The slow voice, the solemn look of the big, bucolic 
 face, gave a peculiar effect to these words. 
 
 Mrs. Spinner looked startled and anxious. The 
 drift of her husband's speech was evident enough 
 now ; but she thought best to ignore it. 
 
 " Samwel," she replied, " it al'ays was my belief 
 you'd come up all right raisin' day." 
 
 Had not Deacon Spinner been brought to death's 
 door, his wife would never have made this confes- 
 sion. The slow, lymphatic man often irritated his 
 nervous, energetic partner ; and when her temper 
 was rasped, she had a habit of " freeing her mind," 
 in terms as decided as they were uncomplimentary. 
 But the deacon, who was usually pachyderm to her 
 reproaches, showed himself equally unmoved by her 
 praises. 
 
 This time his speech went straight to the mark. 
 "That motherless boy and girl was sort o' left on our 
 hands, Rachel."
 
 150 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 " It can't be laid to your door that they was so 
 sot on goin' to the city ! " There was a touch of 
 asperity in her voice this time. 
 
 The big fingers fumbled again at the blanket. 
 "There's the rub, Rachel "; his tones had a sharp 
 accent of remorse. " I* ought to 'a' sot my foot 
 down." 
 
 " It ain't so easy doin' that, with other folks' chil- 
 dren ! " This time something in Mrs. Spinner's tone 
 showed she was not merely replying to her husband, 
 but to some inward monition that made her uneasy. 
 "Them young things had powerful wills o' their 
 own, in a quiet way. You know, too, Miss Dacres' 
 mind was al'ays bent on their goin' to Boston some 
 day." 
 
 " It was that onsettled me when it came to arguin' 
 with 'em. They al'ays brought her up at least, 
 the boy did, and the girl would 'a' followed him, 
 without a question, to the ends o' the earth. But I 
 ought to 'a' stood out." 
 
 " We thought it was best to let 'em have their 
 rope, and try goin' off on their own hook." In her 
 eagerness to justify herself to her own conscience, 
 Mrs. Spinner's metaphors rather jostled each other. 
 "We reckoned fully on their comin'-back, when they 
 got their fill o' new sights, or their means give out. 
 Young as they was, they was keen as briers, and, 
 come to the pinch, could look out for themselves, 
 equal to man or woman. It struck me, if they found 
 out Foxlow wasn't jest the worst place in the world, 
 they'd be more likely to settle down here content, 
 and it's cert'in, as you told 'em more than once,
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 151 
 
 they'd never want for a home while we had a roof 
 over our heads." 
 
 Mrs. Spinner had, in this last confession, touched 
 the heart of the matter; but she was hardly con- 
 scious herself how deeply she had resented the fact 
 that Boston should be presumed to enjoy any supe- 
 riority over Foxlow. 
 
 The deacon shook his head disapprovingly. " That 
 wasn't the way to reason, Rachel. If any harm be- 
 fell them children they wasn't much more I 
 shouldn't want to answer for it to their mother. I 
 seemed to see her standin' afore me, with that pale, 
 pretty face o' hern, when T lay upstairs. It appeared 
 to me she was askin' about her children." 
 
 Mrs. Spinner moved uneasily in her chair. The 
 tears came into her eyes. " You or I wouldn't have 
 harmed a hair of their heads, and you know it, Sam- 
 wel Spinner ! " she said, fervently. " Haven't you 
 writ and writ ? " 
 
 "'T'aint likely a letter ever reached 'em, when 
 'twas sent to Boston in a gin'ral way. I'd no means 
 o' knowin' where to direct." 
 
 " Well, I'm ready to make a clean breast of it," 
 resumed the wife. " I've had my turn, too, of lyin' 
 awake nights, worry in' about 'em. There was little 
 Dorrice, with her mother's big eyes, and a face 
 that al'ays made me think of one of my pink roses. 
 That Miss Dacres, with her soft voice, and her 
 gentle ways, had had a blow some time. I sensed as 
 much the fust time I put eyes on her. But she was 
 mum as the grave. She wasn't the kind that makes 
 you feel free to ask questions."
 
 152 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 "If she hadn't dropped off so sudden, we should 
 have known more about her plans. She had 'em all 
 cut and dried I feel sure o' that, by some hints she 
 let fall ; but she'd no more idee than the rest of us 
 that her end was so nigh." 
 
 * You fixed up all their affairs, as though they'd 
 been your own," remarked the wife, seeking to offer 
 some crumb of consolation. 
 
 " Yes ; my conscience can't reproach me on that 
 score," responded the deacon, in a more animated 
 tone. " I drove a sharper bargain for them children 
 than I would for myself. After all expenses was 
 settled up, there was a nice little sum left over. It 
 lies in the bank waitin' for 'em now. " 
 
 "I hope to the Lord that little brown-headed 
 Dorrice, putty creatur' ! ain't come to any grief," 
 added Mrs. Spinner, with a certain trembling of her 
 voice and lips. 
 
 So the childless couple talked together, while, out- 
 side, the birds sang in the cherry-boughs, as though 
 there was not such a thing as care or sorrow in all 
 the beautiful June world. 
 
 At last the deacon said, with a voice and look of 
 unusual decision, "Wife, there is one thing I am 
 going to do, when I get well. I promised the Lord 
 that, on my sick bed." 
 
 "What is that, Samwel?" leaning forward, im- 
 pressed and curious. 
 
 " I'm just going to make a trip to Boston, to hunt 
 up them children ! I've never been there, you know, 
 and I mayn't succeed, but I'm bound to try."
 
 XIX. 
 
 MORE than two years have passed since Carryl and 
 Dorrice Dacres came to live on Pinckney Street. 
 The last one has, like its predecessor, been full of 
 swift, happy days days crowded with activities, 
 wholesome for mind and body. Had the old legend 
 come true, had one of those kindly geniuses who were 
 once supposed to wait on human lives stood at the 
 door, bearing gifts of all good fortunes for the two, 
 I think he might have paused doubtful on the 
 threshold, and perhaps, in the end, have stolen down 
 the stairs and left the brother and sister to them- 
 selves, not daring to touch their lives to wider issues. 
 
 There is little to dwell on in this vanished twelve- 
 month ; yet it was to prove a great shaping power 
 in the lives of the two, who were passing into 
 young manhood and womanhood. They did their 
 work, they kept up their studies, with the zest of 
 youth, when every faculty is alert for knowledge. 
 They enjoyed to the full every pleasure that came 
 into their lives, because these were not so abundant 
 as to pall upon soul or sense. 
 
 With growing knowledge of the business, Carryl's 
 salary had increased, not largely, but still enough to 
 admit of various agreeable changes in their home 
 life. 
 
 153
 
 154 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 Dorrice had carried her point about the school, not 
 without a struggle. When she first broached the 
 subject to Carryl, she was met by a peremptory neg- 
 ative. Their disagreement on this subject had been 
 the sharpest of their lives. Carryl insisted that his 
 sister had plenty to do, and that she should not add 
 a feather's weight to her present burdens. 
 
 " I have been a poor stick of a brother, I know," 
 he would say, his remorse cropping out, as he recalled 
 the privations and sufferings she had endured, and 
 which he was always fearing had undermined her 
 health. " But you shall have a smooth life, if I can 
 make it for you, one of these days." 
 
 " I am having one now, Carryl ; but I don't want 
 it to be also an indolent, useless one. Why can't 
 you be sensible?" 
 
 "I see where the trouble is," he would reply, 
 moodily. "You don't have the things you want; 
 you think this is the way to get them. Be brave a 
 little longer, Dorrice." 
 
 Speeches of this sort hurt her more than all his 
 unreasonable obstinacy, as she called it. The differ- 
 ence between them was getting serious, when her 
 heart and her good sense came to the rescue one 
 night, after a discussion in which there had been 
 some display of temper on both sides. Dorrice went 
 to her brother, laid her cheek against his, and said : 
 "Don't let us quarrel, dear. Are we not all the 
 world to each other? I won't say another word 
 about the school." 
 
 And she did not for a week. But Dorrice knew 
 her brother. At the end of that time, he said, most
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 155 
 
 ungraciously : " If you are still pining for that ex- 
 periment of school-teaching, go in and try. But you 
 may make up your mind to one thing : The instant 
 I see the first sign of its wearing on you, I shall 
 hustle every mother's kid out of doors, and lock you 
 up into the bargain." 
 
 Tom Hallowell was her first pupil. His mother's 
 influence secured half a dozen others, boys and 
 girls, who came for a three hours' session, brighten- 
 ing the rooms with their small curly heads and sweet 
 child-faces. The young teacher had a gift of walk- 
 ing straight into her young pupils' hearts. 
 
 They did Dorrice good, too, by bringing fresh in- 
 terests and affections into her life. 
 
 " It is such delightful work. Really, it is playing 
 school," she said, with her bright glance, to Mrs. 
 Hallowell. 
 
 " I see it agrees with you, my dear. I must own 
 it would be a horrible bore to me ; but it is a real 
 comfort to have Tom off my hands and safe in yours 
 three hours each day." 
 
 The young teacher had inherited a gift for arous- 
 ing the interests and unfolding the faculties of her 
 small pupils. Their rapid mental progress was fre- 
 quently a surprise to the home authorities. 
 
 The income from the small school was an agreeable 
 supplement to Carryl's salary. Among other things, 
 it afforded Dorrice some new decorations for her 
 rooms. But she introduced her high colors sparingly. 
 Certain associations with the attic still haunted her. 
 Her rooms always had the effect of a gray ground 
 with a tender rose-flush over everything.
 
 156 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 She had learned to draw when she was a child, and 
 had of late taken some lessons in painting. Pretty 
 plaques, of her own work, now brightened the walls. 
 These were made doubly effective by their settings 
 of velvety, mottled mosses, or by ferns and long- 
 stemmed grasses wreathed plume-like about them. 
 
 Carryl had come across some chairs in curious, an- 
 tique patterns. When the dingy things were brought 
 home from the dust of the auction-room, Dorrice 
 went into raptures over them. When they had been 
 freshly upholstered, she scarfed about them some 
 rich-colored stuffs, worked with vines and leaves. 
 Then there were screens, with quaint, graceful de- 
 vices. One of these held, against a background of 
 pale gold plush, a nest, with three small robins'-eggs. 
 Around this Dorrice had embroidered a gray branch 
 and some long-stemmed reeds and rushes. As you 
 gazed, you seemed to feel the wind shivering through 
 them. 
 
 Mrs. Hallowell said to her husband one day : " I 
 don't just see how it is, Ned, but whenever I make 
 a visit to Pinckney Street, and come back to my own 
 splendors, they look to me a little coarse and garish, 
 as though they had missed some fine secret those 
 low-studded rooms, at the top of that old house, had 
 found. I can't precisely tell where it lies. The ele- 
 gance, the values of things are, of course, immeasur- 
 ably on my side. But that girl seems to have a 
 genius for lifting everything she touches into poetry. 
 Her rooms rest and charm one, like a lovely bit of 
 outdoors." 
 
 On the day that Mrs. Hallowell made this remark
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 157 
 
 to her husband, he had, rather perfunctorily, prom- 
 'ised to accompany her to Class Day at Harvard, 
 where some young cousins were to graduate. But, 
 discovering, a little later, that business engagements 
 would interfere with his rash promise, he sought to 
 retract it. His wife was a good deal chagrined, arid 
 a happy way out of the difficulty presented itself to 
 his mind. "Didn't I hear you say something the 
 other day about inviting young Dacres' sister to go 
 with you? Why can't you take him along in my 
 place? He would, no doubt, enjoy the pow-wow 
 vastly more than I should." 
 
 Mrs. Hallowell reflected. " I'm not sure but that 
 is the best thing to do," she replied. 
 
 The next morning she called on Dorrice with the 
 invitation for Class Day. Of course it was a delight- 
 ful surprise. While they were discussing it, Dorrice 
 said: "I shall be forced to make a very simple toilet. 
 I don't know how it will appear among all those 
 gorgeously dressed people." 
 
 " Don't give yourself the least anxiety on that 
 score, my dear," Mrs. Hallowell rejoined. " Any- 
 thing cool and becoming will do for the day, which, 
 if it follows its traditions, will be perfect." 
 
 On the following day, Mrs. Hallo well's coachman 
 left a large package for Dorrice. She had a little 
 time of snipping cords, and tearing away wrappings, 
 and opening a box, when the mystery revealed itself 
 in folds of silk soft, rich, cream-colored, with the 
 faintest possible pink flush over all, as though it had 
 caught the dimmest reflection from some sunrise 
 cloud. There were lovely lace trimmings for cor-
 
 158 A BOSTON GIKL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 sage and sleeves, and a plume of a little darker 
 shade for a hat. Among the folds was a graceful 
 little note, half gay, half serious, in which the writer 
 stated that she had stolen a inarch on Dorrice, en- 
 gaged her own dressmaker for the silk, and that its 
 acceptance would be a favor to one who was under 
 such great obligations to the reader. 
 
 After that note,, only a narrow nature could have 
 felt any hesitancy in accepting Mrs. Hallowell's gift.
 
 XX 
 
 No lovelier day ever shone out of June skies than 
 that on which Mrs. Hallowell, with her young com- 
 panions, bowled along the elm-shaded vistas of the 
 old University town. Light winds rippled the young 
 green of the ancient trees. Long, purplish shadows 
 of hole, and branch, and swaying bough lay upon 
 the ground. The June sunshine gave a soft, ideal- 
 izing touch to the old college fronts, that had looked 
 down for so many years on the great annual holi- 
 day. 
 
 One must be young, of course, to enter heart and 
 soul into Class Day. But its memories and associa- 
 tions have a trick of stirring the calm pulses of age 
 with something of the fire of .youth. The gray- 
 haired man recalls the visions of graceful, blooming 
 maidenhood that shone and sparkled before his eyes, 
 and half sighs for that vanished loveliness. The 
 matron remembers the gallant youths, as they 
 marched proudly to the church for the last time, 
 and for the moment is the gay, light-hearted maiden 
 of those old memories. 
 
 To our young people, everything in the gay scene 
 had the largeness and charm of novelty. It was 
 difficult to realize there could be such things as care 
 or grief, as dull yesterdays or dreary to-morrows, in 
 
 159
 
 160 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 a world that seemed made up of joy and mirth, of 
 youth and loveliness. 
 
 At last the oration arid poem were over, and the 
 hundred voices of the seniors had united in singing 
 the ode which closed the exercises. The crowds 
 poured out from the dim old church, and then fol- 
 lowed the grand climax the feasting and fun of 
 Class Day. 
 
 Mrs. Hallowell and Dorrice were, of course, over- 
 whelmed with invitations to spreads. Carryl found 
 himself entirely superseded in his office of escort. 
 He did not, however, resign his post with reluc- 
 tance. He had a slight acquaintance with several 
 of the undergraduates, and there were pretty girls 
 and smiling faces, to which that youth was by no 
 means -invulnerable, ready to welcome him at the 
 spreads. 
 
 Dorrice was quite too much absorbed in the gay 
 drama, to realize her own share in it, but her chaper- 
 one was not so unconscious. She saw the admiring 
 glances which followed her prote'gde, and listened 
 amused to the gay persiflage which Dorrice was hav- 
 ing with some of the seniors. 
 
 The cream-colored silk, the soft laces about the 
 white throat, the little plumed hat surmounting all, 
 fitly enclosed the girlish lines and bloom. " She is 
 bewitching ! " said Mrs. Hallowell to herself. " It 
 seems as though half Harvard was coming up to be 
 presented. That pretty face draws them as a fresh 
 rose does the bees ! " 
 
 The afternoon was slowly waning when Carryl 
 Dacres found himself standing by one of the deep
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 161 
 
 window-seats in Holworthy. In one corner of the 
 room, a group of seniors were having a hilarious 
 time ; but Carryl was alone, awaiting the return of a 
 friend, who had been suddenly called away. 
 
 Standing in the deep-seated window, Carryl heard 
 the music of the band, to which the swift feet of the 
 dancers kept time ; he saw the long lines of noble 
 elms and the masses of moving color made by 
 the groups scattered over the grounds. But at 
 that moment the gay music grated on his ears ; and 
 all the life and brightness of the scene outside only 
 emphasized some pain that had been lurking in his 
 thoughts all day. 
 
 A voice suddenly attracted Carryl's attention. A 
 new figure had joined the group in the corner, where 
 the jests and laughter had waxed steadily louder. 
 " Fellows," exclaimed the new-comer, in a tragi- 
 comic tone, "I'm struck stunned smashed! 
 Cupid's arrow has finished me this time ! " 
 
 Carryl turned sharply round to see the speaker-, 
 he was a tall, rather good-looking fellow, with light 
 hair and whiskers. It was impossible to keep from 
 laughing at his woe-begone aspect; his statement 
 was received with immense howls and cheers by his 
 classmates ; "Who is she, old fellow? Where is she? 
 Make a clean breast of it ! " they shouted. 
 
 He shook his head with a grimace of despair. 
 " It is the most agonizingly lovely creature ! " he ex- 
 claimed. " Talk of eyes ! Talk of lightning darting 
 straight through a fellow ! I say there should be a 
 stop put to this thing, in the interests of male 
 humanity. Girls have no right to be so divinely
 
 162 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 pretty ! It ought to be made a crime to lacerate an 
 innocent man's feelings in this fashion." 
 
 This talk was received with acclamations and 
 fresh yells of laughter. " You're right, old boy ! " 
 exclaimed one of the group. "There should be a law 
 against a girl's striking a fellow dumb, like Medusa, 
 with a look! But there's safety in numbers! I 
 have seen such galaxies of transcendent creatures 
 to-day, that any special one has failed to transfix 
 me. I'm only dazzled and muddled with enchanting 
 visions of sparkling eyes and rosy cheeks, and all 
 that!" 
 
 Cries of " That's so ! you've expressed the general 
 feeling, Putnam ! " and like approving comments 
 filled the air. In the midst of all this, Sewall shook 
 his head with a ridiculously solemn gravity. " But 
 this was a superlative creature," he said. " She 
 stood out in sharp relief against all the other charm- 
 ers, just as that tall, white lily does in the bouquet 
 there. When she glanced at you with those great 
 starlike eyes, and smiled or spoke " he broke off 
 here with a sepulchral groan. 
 
 The room and the halls rang with the shouts of 
 the seniors. In the midst of them, Sewall glanced 
 outside. "Jove defend us !" he exclaimed. "There 
 she comes ! It's the one on the right, with the rav- 
 ishing little hat ! The lady ahead is her chaperone. 
 I should like to pommel the rascal she is talking 
 with ! Confound you fellows ! Don't block up the 
 way!" 
 
 For there was a craning of necks about the win- 
 dow. Carryl, whose curiosity had been a good deal
 
 A BOSTON GIKL'S AMBITIONS. 163 
 
 aroused, crossed the room, and looked over the heads 
 of the others. He had a glimpse of Mrs. Hallowell 
 coming up the avenue with a party of young friends; 
 and the girl just behind her, talking to a gentleman 
 at her side, was his own sister !
 
 XXI. 
 
 LATE on the evening of Class Day, Carryl and 
 Dorrice Dacres were sitting alone together in their 
 home. They had been separated most of the day, 
 and were now relating its varied events to each 
 other, living over again the joyous scenes which had 
 formed such an epoch in their lives. 
 
 Dorrice was, by virtue of her sex and her tempera- 
 ment, the more talkative and enthusiastic of the 
 two. It was a pity she had but one auditor. Her 
 pictures were so vivid, her narrative so sparkled 
 with girlish life and glee ! Carryl listened, thor- 
 oughly enjoying the stream of bright talk. His 
 shouts of laughter occasionally drowned his sister's 
 voice, or he would break in with some comical story 
 of his own. 
 
 At last Dorrice said, with a yawn of happy weari- 
 ness, " I wouldn't believe so much could be crowded 
 into one day." She glanced across the room, dimly 
 lighted in the warm summer night, to the mantel, 
 where her pretty bouquets filled the air with fra- 
 grance. These were trophies, torn, at the risk of 
 necks and limbs, from the garlands on the great elm, 
 and brought to her by some gallant senior. " What 
 will to-morrow be like, I wonder ! " 
 
 164
 
 A BOSTON GIKL'S AMBITIONS. 165 
 
 " The day after the fair," answered Carryl ; " rather 
 humdrum, I imagine." 
 
 "But it will be nice to live over what has hap- 
 pened," continued Dorrice, with her inveterate 
 optimism. " Then we haven't told each other 
 everything yet." 
 
 This last remark suggested to Carryl the talk at 
 Holworthy that afternoon. He saw, too, the chance 
 it afforded him for a grand climax. 
 
 So he began and related the scene to Dorrice, who 
 listened and laughed until the tears stood in her 
 eyes, but without the ghost of a suspicion that she 
 had any personal interest in the story. Carryl 
 paused at the point where he had gone to the win- 
 dow, and looked out with the others. 
 
 "And was she really such a bewitching creature?" 
 inquired Dorrice, curiously. 
 
 " Oh, she looked well enough ! " Carryl's tone 
 was at its coolest. 
 
 " Well enough ! She must have been awfully 
 pretty, or he would never have gone on about her 
 in that strain ! " 
 
 " Perhaps. I was hardly a judge ; I had seen too 
 much of her, you know." 
 
 "You had! Where?" 
 
 " Oh, for the last nineteen years, or so ! " 
 
 She glanced up at him. He was looking sus- 
 piciously unconcerned. Her face suddenly grew 
 scarlet. 
 
 " You don't mean it wasn't " 
 
 " Yes I do mean it was ! " he answered. 
 
 It was a critical moment for a girl just turned
 
 166 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 nineteen. A mother would have had a wiser sympa- 
 thy than was possible to a brother at this juncture. 
 Dorrice rose, went straight into the other room, and 
 surveyed herself at the mirror, with a pleased, star- 
 tled intentness, much as though she were looking 
 curiously at some new object. She saw, in the dim- 
 ness, the lovely face, the graceful, pliant lines, among 
 the creamy draperies. 
 
 Carryl watched her through the portieres in silent 
 amusement. 
 
 In his secret soul, he regarded his sister as a re- 
 markably pretty girl. She was like her mother, 
 whom he had always thought the most beautiful 
 woman in the world. But he took his sister's good 
 looks quite as a matter of course. The stars, and 
 the flowers, and the sunshine, were beautiful, too ; 
 but there was no use in a fellow's going into rhapso- 
 dies over them. He had not the slightest notion 
 that such a sensible little head could be turned by 
 any amount of flattery. Still, he was slightly sur- 
 prised at the palpable effect of his story ; and, half 
 amused and half serious, he said, at last : " I have 
 always heard that girls were as vain as Venus her- 
 self! You are not going to mind that fellow's stuff, 
 Dorrice ? " 
 
 She turned from the mirror, and came toward him 
 now. Her eyes, her whole face, fairly radiated light, 
 as she stood there in her gleaming silk and laces. 
 " Oh, Carryl ! " she said, " you are the dearest fellow 
 in the world ; but you don't understand girls ! "
 
 XXII. 
 
 ANYBODY who had watched Dorrice Dacres nar- 
 rowly for the next two or three days, would have 
 perceived that some new influence had entered into 
 her life. She came to the mirror a little oftener, and 
 lingered there a little longer, than had been her 
 habit, as she arranged some color at her throat, and 
 hummed some gay little song, that seemed to chord 
 with the light movement of her fingers. She had 
 been more or less aware of her good looks before ; 
 but they had not occupied the foreground of her 
 consciousness so long as she could say to herself 
 with perfect sincerity, " Of course I am glad to look 
 pretty, only there is so much else to think about." 
 
 But various straws showed, at this time, that the 
 wind was setting in a new quarter. Dorrice was 
 very human. She was barely nineteen. There is 
 always danger when the world's breath touches a 
 fresh, unspoiled nature. 
 
 But at this juncture something happened which 
 made a new centre for the girl's thoughts and inter- 
 ests. Heart and brain were absorbed in plans and 
 desires, before which all personal vanities sank into 
 the background. 
 
 One evening, less than a week after Class Day, 
 when that experience had gained some perspective in 
 
 167
 
 1G8 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 their thoughts, Dorrice said to Carryl : " Our reading 
 is getting dreadfully demoralized of late. One can't 
 go into anything profound, with the thermometer up 
 in the eighties. Can't we have something funny 
 and sparkling, something that will make us laugh, 
 - to-night ? " 
 
 " Suppose we try a little of Elia?" answered Car- 
 ryl, in a rather indifferent tone. 
 
 Dorrice assented, and Carryl went over to the small 
 book-case in the corner, which had been one of their 
 latest indulgences. He had been rather grave of 
 late ; and his sister had asked him if there was 
 any trouble at the office, and told him he looked as 
 solemn as Atlas with the world on his shoulders. 
 
 When he returned to the table, however, Carryl 
 did not bring Charles Lamb with him. " You have 
 the wrong book," said Dorrice, thinking he had 
 made a mistake. 
 
 " No," he said, decidedly, " I must have Emerson 
 to-night." He turned over the essays until he came 
 to the one on " Literary Ethics." It was a pleasure 
 to hear Carryl read. He had a rich quality of voice ; 
 and early training had given it compass and expres- 
 sion. He began the noble essay, whose first deliver- 
 ance at Dartmouth College must have made an epoch 
 there : 
 
 " I have reached the middle age of man ; yet I 
 believe I am not less glad or sanguine at the meet- 
 ing of scholars than, when a boy, I first saw the grad- 
 uates of my own college assembled at their anniver- 
 sary. Neither years nor books have yet availed to 
 extirpate a prejudice then rooted in me, that a
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 169 
 
 scholar is the favorite of Heaven and earth, the 
 excellency of his country, the happiest of men. His 
 duties lead him into the holy ground where other 
 men's aspirations only point." 
 
 Just here Carryl broke down ; he burst into tears, 
 and laid his head on the book. 
 
 " Oh ! what is the matter ? " cried Dorrice. 
 
 The next moment the book went spinning across 
 the room, and flopped in the farthest corner. " Of 
 all the infernal fools ! Of all the confounded 
 idiots ! " exclaimed Carryl, savagely ; and here again 
 his sobs choked him, and he laid his head on the table. 
 
 Dorrice had risen, much startled, and was hover- 
 ing about her brother. She knew no ordinary trou- 
 ble could thus have broken down the proud, reticent 
 youth. 
 
 " Oh ! what is it ? " she pleaded, sharply. 
 
 " Don't speak to me, Dorrice ! " he burst out, pas- 
 sionately. " If you do, I shall blow my brains out ! " 
 
 She was wise enough to keep silent ; but her swift 
 instinct could not be long at fault. There was a. 
 start, a flash of conviction, through the alarm and 
 perplexity of her face. It was all clear to her in an 
 instant. 
 
 The storm was brief, though it shook Carryl's tall, 
 lithe figure from head to foot. When he lifted his 
 head, the dark cheeks were scarlet with angry morti- 
 fication. " What an ass a fellow must be to cry 
 before a girl ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 " But if the girl happens to be his own sister." 
 
 " That makes no difference, I tell you ! " he re- 
 torted, wrathfully. " If you want to drive me into
 
 170 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 hanging myself, you will go on talking about this 
 thing!" 
 
 Her time had come now. She drew close to him ; 
 she laid her hand on his shoulder. " Carryl," she 
 said, " I know what the trouble is. It is one that 
 does my brother honor." 
 
 And when she said those words, and when he looked 
 at her standing there, her great brown eyes luminous 
 with pride and tenderness, he felt no more ashamed. 
 
 They talked far into the summer midnight. It 
 was an unspeakable comfort for Carryl, now the ice 
 was broken, to pour out his soul to a listener so full 
 of appreciative sympathy. He had meant to carry 
 his secret to the grave ; but Class Day, with all its 
 suggestions and associations, had made the supreme 
 desire of his soul more clamorous, while its long 
 repression had ended in the passionate outbreak 
 which surprised and betrayed him. Carryl Dacres 
 had done his best to accept the fate which had or- 
 dained him to a business career. He had tried to 
 put heart, soul, energy, ambition, into his work. He 
 had succeeded to the satisfaction of his employers ; 
 but he came, as we have seen, on his mother's side, 
 of a race of scholars, and heredity was powerful in 
 the last of their descendants. At times, his longing 
 for a student's life became an acute, almost unbeara- 
 ble, pain. 
 
 " God knows I have tried to crush it down," he said, 
 as, grown calm at last, he paced the room. " But 
 that day at Harvard cut me up horribly. It was the 
 sight of all those lucky fellows having what would 
 just be heaven to me, while they find the study a
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 171 
 
 good many of them a stupendous bore. Of course, 
 I know it can never be for me I might as well cry 
 for the moon ; but when a fellow is out of his right 
 place, it grinds, at times. I never was intended for 
 a business man. That was not the design of my 
 creation. I am as certain of it as I am of my own 
 soul." Then he burst into a laugh, partly merry and 
 partly derisive. "It struck me at that moment how 
 perfectly idiotic all this would sound to Hallowell." 
 
 But this time Don-ice's smile did not come in swift 
 response. 
 
 " He would make a huge mistake, though," Carryl 
 resumed, seriously. " I don't underrate his gift. It 
 is a grand one, this power to organize and control 
 material forces, and achieve a great business success. 
 I haven't been in the thick of things so long and 
 learned nothing. There never was a fortune built 
 up without brains and will, energy and dogged pluck, 
 going into it. A man is a fool who doesn't honor all 
 these ; but it isn't my fault if any original capacity 
 I may have is of another sort not my fault if, as 
 Emerson says, 'the scholar still seems to me the 
 favorite of earth and Heaven.' " 
 
 " And shall you go through all your life feeling 
 like that?" inquired Don-ice, in alow, anxious tone. 
 
 " I presume so. A fellow can't help the way he 
 was made up ; but if he finds himself in the wrong 
 place, with no way out of it, he must do his work 
 there as pluckily as though it were his first choice. 
 His grumbling and whining won't make things any 
 better." 
 
 A little pause followed his words. Then Dorrice
 
 172 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 spoke again, very seriously : " What you say, Carryl, 
 is certainly true. The business genius, as you men 
 call it, is a grand gift. Think of all it enables men 
 to be and do ! There are the Rothschilds, the Barings, 
 the Vanderbilts, you know. What a power there is 
 in such vast wealth ! It fairly dazes one to think of 
 it. If " 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 For, without being able to account for it to herself, 
 she had come to a sudden pause. 
 
 " If the choice were yours to-night," said the girl- 
 ish voice, so slowly that each word seemed weighed 
 by its speaker ; " if you had to decide for all your 
 future between the great fortune and the scholar's 
 life, which would.it be?" 
 
 Carryl did not reply at once. He turned from his 
 sister, and walked several times across the room. 
 The ancestral trend, which had made scholars of two 
 or three generations of his race, had been powerfully 
 transmitted to their sole descendant, the slender, 
 dark-eyed youth pacing the room in the late June 
 evening. His soul was fiercely athirst with their old 
 passion for study. He remembered what men had 
 done and sacrificed in all the ages to lead the intel- 
 lectual life, to hand on the torch from one generation 
 to another. He, the son of scholars, felt the old fire 
 within him. Knowledge seemed to him the one 
 intimate, essential treasure, beside which all other 
 possessions appeared poor and transient. At that 
 moment, Carryl Dacres felt the clamorous craving of 
 young faculty for its native air, felt that he must 
 "miss the true direction of his life," and that his
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 173 
 
 best powers must be crippled and wasted in the 
 business career, for which nature had not designed 
 him. 
 
 This feeling sometimes came over him when he 
 was in the office, amid the thick of business, or about 
 the streets, on the affairs of the house ; and his breath 
 would suddenly come hard, and he would grind his 
 heel into the ground, as he told himself there was no 
 help for it, and that he must put all he possessed 
 his young manhood, its hopes, its energies, its 
 strength into the work his heart had not chosen, 
 and did not love. 
 
 Dorrice had been silently watching her brother all 
 this time. At last, he turned, met her eyes, and 
 stood still before her. " If it were in my power to 
 choose, Dorrice," he said, " it would be the scholar's 
 life above all the kingdoms of the world ! " 
 
 " Oh, you poor boy ! You poor boy ! " exclaimed 
 Dorrice. 
 
 For days that followed there was no allusion to 
 the talk of that night. But the face that looked at 
 Dorrice Dacres from the mirror, no longer blushed 
 and smiled with pleased consciousness of its charms ; 
 and she did not now carol bits of gay ballads as she 
 put the finishing touches to her toilet. 
 
 The knowledge she had gained flashed a new light 
 upon the past. She understood now why Carryl had 
 been moody and irritable at times, and unnaturally 
 gay at others. She had enough of his quality to 
 enter into his feelings with perfect sympathy. She 
 felt more and more that her brother was losing his 
 best life.
 
 174 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 Dorrice procured a Harvard catalogue, and studied 
 the table of expenses. The dark brown head, bend- 
 ing over it, was anxiously seeking to solve the hard 
 problem of ways and means ; but it always baffled 
 her. 
 
 " If we only had a thousand dollars, there could be 
 a beginning," she said to herself a dozen times a da} r . 
 "And there are so many people to whom that would 
 be a mere drop in the ocean. I wonder why people's 
 lots should be so different in this world ! " 
 
 During this time, too, Dorrice was a good deal 
 depressed by a sense of inferior abilities. She en- 
 vied people who had great gifts she had heard of 
 singers who made hundreds of dollars in a single 
 night. "If I only had a voice that would make 
 crowds rush to hear it ; if I could write a book like 
 4 Uncle Tom's Cabin,' or paint some grand picture, 
 then it might be different with Carryl. But," 
 drawing a deep sigh, "I am a very commonplace 
 person ; I haven't a particle of creative power in any 
 direction. If the fates had only been kinder to me ! 
 Ah, I would raise heaven and earth just now to get 
 a thousand dollars."
 
 XXIII. 
 
 ONE morning, slow, heavy feet mounted the 
 stairs, and there was a fumbling knock at the door. 
 When Dorrice opened it, she saw a large, heavily 
 built figure in a gray coat and white hat. A second 
 glance at the broad, smooth cheeks, the light blue 
 eyes, the fringe of white whiskers about the chin, 
 and a low, startled cry broke from her lips. 
 
 " You guess who I be, then," said the old man ; 
 and his big chin quivered, and his light eyes stared 
 doubtful and bewildered at the fair, slender girl. 
 
 " Dear old Deacon Spinner ! " she burst out in 
 amazed delight. Her little soft hands were in his 
 large palms, her lips, tremulous with surprise and 
 joy, were lifted to his, and on the threshold the old 
 man and the young maiden kissed each other. 
 
 Once inside, Deacon Spinner's slow gaze went all 
 about the room, and then came back to his young 
 hostess, who had removed his hat, and was watching 
 him with eyes into whose joyful eagerness broke a 
 sudden mist of tears. "It's Dorrice," said the old 
 man, in a slow voice of conviction. "I'm cert'in 
 now ; but I was puzzled at fust. Them eyes and that 
 smile settled it. You've grown as putty as a pink, 
 and you look more like your ma than ever." 
 
 175
 
 176 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 The tears in the eyes were on the flushed cheeks 
 now. It was so long since anybody had spoken of 
 her mother. 
 
 She kept her hand in his. " How glad Carryl will 
 be ! " she said at last. 
 
 " Does he live here ? " 
 
 " Where else should he live ? " A merry glance 
 flashed through her tears. 
 
 " You and he all alone together ? " continued the 
 old man, and again his slow, bucolic gaze went about 
 the room. 
 
 " He and I all alone." 
 
 " Wall, I snum ! " mused the old man, half to him- 
 self, half to his auditor. " This beats all ! Won't 
 Miss Spinner be dumbfounded when I tell her how 
 fine and scrumptious you be ! You're sure you ain't 
 married, Dorrice?" he continued, rather anxiously. 
 
 Her laugh broke, one silvery peal following an- 
 other, until she grew breathless. " How could you 
 imagine anything so absurd ? " she said at last. 
 
 The old man drew out his red handkerchief, and 
 mopped his face, beaded with perspiration. "It's 
 amazin','' he said, solemnly, " how all young things, 
 like corn, and grass, and girls, grows up ! It seems 
 only yesterday you went pattin' round the medder, 
 along o' me, huntin' for wild roses and buttercups ; 
 and proud as a peacock when I sot you on top o' the 
 fresh hay, so you could ride to the barn ; and here 
 you are now, shot up into such a bloomin' young 
 woman, that my eyes is fairly dazzled ! " 
 
 " But the sight of you has made me that little girl 
 on top of the hay," rejoined Dorrice. She had
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 177 
 
 seated herself by the old man's side ; her eyes con- 
 tinued to devour him. 
 
 The pair were soon deep in mutual confidences 
 and explanations. The great mystery of the long 
 silence was now cleared up. The deacon had written 
 four times. In default of a more definite address, 
 his letters had been simply forwarded to Boston. 
 They were, of course, foredoomed to the dead-letter 
 office. But the failure of Carryl's letters to reach 
 their destination, was not so easily accounted for. It 
 never has been, to this day ; though, long afterward, 
 it appeared that, at the date of his first writing, there 
 had been confusion and robbery on some of the 
 mail-routes. The old man related how he had re- 
 turned each day from the post-office with a sinking 
 heart, because he brought no tidings from his young 
 friends. 
 
 Dorrice's eager, rapid questions frequently broke 
 into and confused his slow reminiscences. But 
 there were spaces when the impatient little tongue 
 was silent, and she sat quite still, and the contrast 
 of her young bloom and soft curves with the old 
 man's baldness and angles suggested a lovely flower 
 against a rough, scraggy bough. One of these times 
 of silence on her part was while the deacon related 
 the story of his long illness, and of the resolution 
 which he had solemnly made on his sick-bed. 
 
 It was impossible not to be touched by the old 
 man's story. Dorrice had her palm in his again, as 
 she listened, with eyes that often grew dim. She 
 broke in when he came to a pause. "But how in 
 the world did you find us at last ? "
 
 178 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 The deacon's reply was not the least surprising 
 part of his story. He had blundered straight at the 
 mark. Having passed the night at the hotel, he left 
 it in the morning, much dazed by the vastness, the 
 crowds, the noise of the great city, into which he 
 had ventured for the first time in his life. After 
 turning the matter over endlessly in his mind, he 
 resolved to apply to the police for counsel or assist- 
 ance. Not far from the hotel, he encountered a 
 couple of letter-carriers, who he concluded, from 
 their uniforms, must be policemen. He accosted 
 them, and inquired if they could tell him where a 
 youth named Carryl Dacres and his sister could be 
 found. 
 
 The old man's rusticity of speech and manner 
 could not fail to strike the men. One of them 
 muttered to his comrade that " the old fellow was a 
 green customer, and regular game," but, noticing 
 the honest, anxious face, he replied, rather conde- 
 scendingly, "No, uncle, I know nobody about here 
 of that name." 
 
 The other glanced rapidly, and with a look of 
 covert fun, over the massive frame, the old-fashioned 
 white coat, and big cane ; but when he caught the 
 anxious, appealing look of the light blue eyes, he 
 asked, in a tone of real interest, " What did you say 
 the name was ? " 
 
 The deacon repeated it. 
 
 "Oh, I know your man. Lives on Pinckney 
 Street on my route." 
 
 The deacon's big chin quivered. "Friend, can 
 you put me in the way of getting to him?" he 
 asked, eagerly.
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 179 
 
 " Come along with me, uncle ! I'll fix it all right," 
 answered the other, with brisk good nature. There 
 was no more trouble after that. 
 
 Dorrice's turn came at last, to tell her own story. 
 The deacon, full of sympathetic curiosity, asked all 
 sorts of probing questions. If Dorrice had had 
 time to think about it, she might have contrived not 
 to reveal the sad story of their first year in the city. 
 It had always appeared to the young girl rather a 
 matter of honor and pride to be silent over their 
 misfortunes. But Deacon Spinner knew the slender 
 resources with which they had started for the city. 
 So the dark chapter had to be told. There was one 
 page, the darkest of all, which she concealed, even 
 from kind old Deacon Spinner's pitying eyes. No- 
 body should ever know quite how near to starvation 
 she and Carryl had come. But he knew all the rest ; 
 the parting with the little stock of jewelry, the 
 growing privations, the bitter poverty, the old attic 
 where they had weathered the winter. Then the 
 story suddenly changed. "Something happened," 
 said the sweet, serious voice, " as strange and beau- 
 tiful as a Miracle Play ! " and she related how, the 
 very day they had given up their last hope, and were 
 about starting with their last means to Foxlow, 
 Carryl had saved little Tom Hallowell's neck, and 
 been rewarded with a place in his father's office. 
 From that hour it was a story of steadily advancing 
 fortunes. " You see where we are now," continued 
 Dorrice, with a glance of pride about the room, 
 whose pretty furnishings and mural decorations 
 made it seem luxurious as a palace to the eyes of the
 
 180 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 deacon, familiar with the homely comfort of his own 
 farm-house. "Carryl and I have been very happy 
 here. I have sometimes wondered whether there 
 were two people quite so happy in the world ! " 
 
 Deacon Spinner's face showed the pained, breath- 
 less interest with which he drank in the story. At 
 certain crises of it, he had to mop his wet eyes with 
 his great red silk handkerchief. But his whole face 
 glowed at last over the bright close of the sorrowful 
 tale. 
 
 "I was cert'in you must have had hard lines, two 
 young things like you, comin' to a big, strange city, 
 not knowin' a soul in it!" he said. "But your 
 brother was so sot on it, you know; and you would 
 have followed him to the jumpin'-off place." 
 
 " Oh, certainly ! " assented Dorrice, as though that 
 did not admit of a question. 
 
 "And I couldn't see as I was called to exercise 
 authority," continued the deacon, whose slow, woolly 
 voice was pleasant in his listener's ears. " You 
 wasn't the sort o' young folks to make that easy. 
 Then I allowed you'd come back to Foxlow, after a 
 little taste o' the world, and settle down better 
 pleased with things. Maybe I was more tetched than 
 I admitted to myself, that you was so ready to start 
 off in search of another place ; for take it, by and 
 large, I never b'lieved Boston could come up to Fox- 
 low for a place to live in. But after you'd gone, 
 and I got no tidin's, my mind misgive me that I 
 hadn't done my duty: and it's been on my con- 
 science ever sence." 
 
 "You meant to do right," said Dorrice, looking
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 181 
 
 affectionately at the kind, lymphatic face. " Carryl 
 and I have learned a great deal since that time. 
 We see now just what a rash, headlong thing it 
 was our setting off in the way we did. When 
 we talk of that time, now, we always call ourselves 
 'babes in the woods.' " 
 
 The deacon smiled; but Dorrice was not certain 
 whether he was quite clear as to her allusion. 
 
 "Miss Spinner has al'ays felt we ought to have 
 sot our foot down ! " 
 
 Dorrice laughed a little soft, curious laugh. "I 
 suspect that would not have been so easy," she said. 
 " We were an unmanageable brace, when we had 
 once made up our minds. But you know it was 
 always mamma's purpose that we should come to 
 Boston some time. I think it was that, more than 
 eagerness to see the big world, which decided us." 
 
 " I knew it was that, all the time. But it's won- 
 derful how things has turned out. The Lord must 
 have taken care on you, Dorrice ! " 
 
 " Yes ; I am sure of that," she said, softly. 
 
 So, through all the long summer day, the gray old 
 man and the maiden in the May of her youth 
 talked together. Dorrice had endless questions to 
 ask about the bay mare, and the big shepherd-dog, 
 and the roses in Mrs. Spinner's front yard. 
 
 Late in the afternoon a swift, elastic step rung on 
 the stairs, and Carryl Dacres bounded into the room. 
 Its two occupants, absorbed in their reminiscences, 
 had no idea of the swift passage of the hours. 
 
 Carryl knew the deacon at a glance ; but the old 
 man had a renewal of perplexity and amazement
 
 182 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 before he could recognize, in the tall, dark youth 
 before him, the stripling who, four years ago, had set 
 out, joyous and confident, to face the great, unknown 
 world. 
 
 Carryl's welcome was hardly less demonstrative 
 than his sister's. The grasp of the hand, the sight of 
 that white-whiskered, kindly old face, startled up a 
 flock of boyish memories. "It is a real comfort to 
 find you haven't changed a particle, though it seems 
 centuries since we saw you," said the young man to 
 the old one. 
 
 " I can't say the same o' you and Dorrice," replied 
 the deacon, feeling assured of Carryl's identity, when 
 the smile sparkled in his black eyes. " You young 
 things reminds me o' growing wheat. Give it a 
 week o' fine weather, plenty o' ripenin' sunshine, 
 with light showers thrown in, and you wouldn't 
 know it at the end o' that time. So far as looks 
 goes, Miss Spinner and me has been putty much 
 standin' still, while you two have shot up like the 
 pines in the hill pastur'." 
 
 It was Carryl's turn now to talk. He too had 
 innumerable questions to ask, but his own story had 
 been largely anticipated by his sister. Dorrice con- 
 siderately left the two together. She busied herself 
 in improvising one of her dainty little meals. They 
 would not go to the refectory that night. The 
 deacon should eat his first supper with them, under 
 their own roof ! 
 
 In the evening, when the guest had resumed his 
 chair by the window, where little flickers of east 
 wind ruffled his scant white hair, he remarked, as his
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 183 
 
 slow gaze went about the apartment, "If things 
 wasn't prosperin' with you, you couldn't be livin' in 
 this grand way." 
 
 " In three rooms at the top of a house ! " said 
 Dorrice, archly. 
 
 "We manage to keep our heads above water," 
 continued Carryl, half playful, half serious, " though 
 we haven't the purse of Fortunatus, by a long shot." 
 
 " Who was he ? " asked the deacon, blandly. 
 
 " Oh, one of the characters in the story-books," 
 answered Carryl, rather provoked at himself for for- 
 getting the mental limitations of his auditor. "You 
 remember how mamma used always to be reading 
 to us?" 
 
 "Al'ays," rejoined the old man. "I used to tell 
 my wife ' Miss Dacres means them children's heads 
 shall be chock full ! ' I s'pose, now, you never kept 
 any account o' the furnitur', and all the things that 
 belonged to your mother ? " 
 
 " I left all that with you, when you so kindly 
 offered to take charge of our affairs. I knew you 
 thought there would be enough to settle all the 
 bills." 
 
 " Well, there was, and somethin' over. I did my 
 best," continued the old man, earnestly. " I was 
 mindful of what the Scripter says about widders and 
 orphans. I had a cousin in Albany I'd known 
 him from a boy he was good as gold. I got him 
 to sell the pianer, and the pieces of old silver that 
 had belonged to your grandfer, and them engravin's, 
 and the rest of the furnitur'. He made the best bar- 
 gains he could, and things went better than I'd
 
 184 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 hoped for. When all was settled, there was a sum 
 in the bank, ready and waitin' your orders." 
 
 " There was ! " exclaimed the two voices simulta- 
 neously. 
 
 " It's drawed interest for more than three years ! " 
 
 " Interest ! " echoed the two voices again. 
 
 " Of course I see to all that ! " slowly proceeded 
 the deacon, with evident satisfaction in the account 
 he was rendering. " The whole sum must foot up 
 now to a little over a thousand dollars." 
 
 " A thousand dollars ! " repeated Carryl, like one 
 dazed with the sudden announcement of a grand 
 fortune. 
 
 But Dorrice started and drew her breath with a 
 gasp. Then she sprang to her feet ; she grasped the 
 old man's arm. " Say it again oh, say it again ! " 
 she cried, appealingly. 
 
 The deacon was a good deal startled by her man- 
 ner. He repeated the words with unusual emphasis : 
 " A thousand dollars and somethin' over."
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Two days had passed since Deacon Spinner's visit. 
 During this time, the young people had talked of 
 nothing else. The sight of the simple, kindly face, 
 had brought back the old, happy child-life with great 
 vividness. The youth and the maiden were boy 
 and girl again, playing under the cherry-trees in 
 the deacon's front yard, and the mother, standing in 
 the doorway, was watching them, with her beautiful, 
 sad, doating eyes. 
 
 The two sat together again in the midsummer 
 dusk. " What a trick those old times have of com- 
 ing back," said Carryl, half to himself. "They seem 
 more real than the present. I am a little shaver, off 
 there at Foxlow, and you, Dorrice, are pattering 
 around after me, and poor mamma is shaking her 
 head at us " 
 
 He could not get any farther. Dorrice knew why 
 he always said " poor mamma ! " 
 
 " I suppose those things will be coming up all our 
 lives, and at times we shall seem just those children 
 again, no matter how old we may be." 
 
 "I suppose so." A little pause followed his as- 
 sent ; then Carryl turned suddenly to his sister. 
 " Dorrice," he asked, " why have you said nothing, 
 all this time, about the money?" 
 
 185
 
 186 A BOSTON GIEL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 "Not because I have not been thinking about it 
 thanking God for it every moment." 
 
 " Glad as I am that it has come now, I can't help 
 the feeling that it would once have spared us the 
 bitterest hours of our lives." 
 
 " Yes ; we can't help remembering that, no matter 
 what the money may be to us now." 
 
 "I have seen all along that you had some plan in 
 your mind. What is it ? " 
 
 She had waited for the question. The curve of 
 the lips settled to a firmer line. " This money is not 
 like any other, Carryl. It is the gift of the dead. 
 We must put it to the noblest uses." 
 
 "To what uses?" he asked, with some compunc- 
 tion that he had not thought of that before. 
 
 The time for the battle of the giants had come ! 
 She faced him with her bright, resolute gaze. " Car- 
 ryl," she said, " you are going to Harvard ! " 
 
 " What do you mean, Dorrice ? " 
 
 " What I said." 
 
 He burst into a short, derisive laugh. " It is the 
 most inconceivably mad, ridiculous idea that ever 
 entered a girl's brain." 
 
 " But you are going to Harvard ! " 
 
 " Why don't you tell me I am going to the 
 moon ? " 
 
 " That question is too absurd to answer." 
 
 "It is not a particle more absurd, more ridiculous, 
 than the other. Do you mean I am to go on a thou- 
 sand dollars ? " 
 
 " I mean that is to go as far as it will to pay 
 for your studies each year."
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 187 
 
 "It is evident you have got a craze. Otherwise, 
 no sensible girl could talk such unmitigated folly ! " 
 
 This sort of thing could not go on forever. Dor- 
 rice was prepared for it. She foresaw the reception 
 which her proposal was doomed to meet from the 
 fiery youth. She knew that her talk must seem 
 cruelly tantalizing a trifling with his most sacred 
 longings and aspirations. For the obstacles to his 
 entering college at this time, must appear insur- 
 mountable at first sight. But Dorrice knew her 
 ground. 
 
 When Carryl had exhausted his superlatives, she 
 said to him quietly, " Will you listen to me ? " 
 
 " I should prefer to do that when you have some- 
 thing sensible to say." 
 
 But Dorrice paid no heed to the ungracious reply. 
 After she began, there was no danger of interrup- 
 tion. She was quite certain when her brother's 
 mood passed from contemptuous skepticism to pro- 
 found interest. For she was telling him how she 
 had studied the Harvard catalogue for days, before 
 Deacon Spinner's advent, how she had learned that 
 the tuition-fees were only a hundred and fifty dollars 
 a year. There would be no boarding expenses, as 
 he would live at home. She had heard Carryl more 
 than once avow his belief that, with a couple of 
 months' preparation, he could pass the freshman 
 examinations. He had not been so well started by 
 his mother, he had not been studying all his life for 
 nothing. Carryl now learned, for the first time, all 
 his sister had felt about the thousand dollars, that 
 seemed as far beyond her reach as the stars of
 
 188 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 heaven how she had pondered the matter by day, 
 and dreamed of it by night, until Deacon's Spinner's 
 appearance on the scene, and lo ! what she most de- 
 sired had fallen into her life from the hands of their 
 dead mother. 
 
 " This money is her gift, Carryl. It is our duty to 
 use it in the way she would prefer above all others." 
 
 When his sister ceased talking, Carryl Dacres no 
 longer replied with angry contempt. Her idea still 
 appeared to him a practically impossible one ; but he 
 could not fail to be touched by this fresh proof of 
 her devotion. 
 
 " If it were only a question of Harvard, your plan 
 might possibly be carried out," he admitted at last. 
 " But meanwhile there is a living for us both to be 
 thought of. Where is that to come from ? " 
 
 Her brown head bridled. "I knew you would go 
 to harping on that string, Carryl. When it comes 
 to ways and means, please to leave me out of the 
 question. / am not going to stand in my brother's 
 way." 
 
 "And I will die before I will let my sister go 
 through any more suffering for me," Carryl flashed 
 back. They were of the same strain. 
 
 They talked far into that night ; they talked far 
 into many that followed. One subject was always 
 uppermost in their thoughts, and was forever coming 
 to the surface in their talk. When they were silent, 
 each knew perfectly what was in the mind of the 
 other. No matter how far their words, with set pur- 
 pose, digressed, they were certain to gravitate back 
 to the all-absorbing theme. In these talks, too, Car-
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 189 
 
 ryl found himself forced from one position and 
 another which he had regarded as impregnable. 
 For here again Dorrice was sure of her ground. She 
 buttressed her arguments with the unimpeachable 
 authority of her figures. There was her school. 
 There were several hundred dollars which they could 
 yet manage to save from his wages advanced dur- 
 ing the last year. She proved to him that they 
 could see their way clear for the next two years. 
 She had not had her severe schooling in economies 
 for nothing. 
 
 Then there was the Harvard catalogue, with 
 which she clinched her arguments. Carryl used 
 laughingly to declare that she persecuted him with 
 it at this time, that he dreaded seeing it waved like 
 an oriflamme before his eyes, whenever he crossed 
 the threshold. They had occasionally gay chases 
 about the room, where his masculine muscle would 
 be sure to give him the advantage in the end, and 
 when he seized Dorrice, grown breathless with 
 laughter, he would snatch the book from her hands, 
 and make a feint of boxing her ears with it. 
 
 But these were only the playful interludes of 
 youthful spirits. For the most part, they discussed 
 the matter on which such issues hung for both, with 
 a seriousness which would not have misbecome gray 
 heads. At these times, Carryl would say : " Have 
 you looked this thing in the face, as / must look it 
 for you, Dorrice ? Do you know what my going to 
 Harvard means for you ? " 
 
 " I am not blind to that side, Carryl. It must 
 mean, of course, a good many privations and sacri-
 
 190 A BOSTON GIKL'S AMBITIOJSS. 
 
 fices on my part. But," her eyes flashed, "a girl 
 wouldn't be worth much if she were afraid of those, 
 when all her brother's future hangs in the balance ! " 
 
 But Carryl did not yield his defences so easily. 
 He held them all the more strenuously because of 
 that scholar's passion which made his sister's argu- 
 ments so seductive in his ears ; a passion whose fires 
 burned of late fiercer in his soul, because of the 
 efforts he made to smother them. 
 
 He drew a picture of their future. Attractive 
 as it was, it was one which the facts sufficiently 
 justified. Carryl felt himself out of the woods now, 
 as his metaphor ran. He confidently expected that 
 his salary would be advanced with each succeeding 
 year. He had reason to believe that he had made 
 himself of some value to the house of Hallowell, 
 Howth, and Company. There was every prospect 
 that, in the course of two or three years, they might 
 have that simplest of summer cottages by the sea, 
 which had been the dearest dream of both, and which 
 would make an idyl of all their future summers. 
 
 On the other hand, if he took his sister's advice, 
 and made the tremendous change in his life, all the 
 lovely hopes and dreams must be given up for 
 years at least. At best, there would be a long, des- 
 perate struggle, wearing deeply into their youth, 
 before he could make any sort of place in the world. 
 And Carryl would conclude, with a sadness, of whose 
 depth he was not conscious, in his tone, and with a 
 look of grim resolve on his features : " Your project 
 is hopelessly visionary, Dorrice. I wish it might 
 come true, but the fates are against it."
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 191 
 
 And Dorrice would listen as though the Arch 
 Tempter were pleading in the voice of that slender, 
 dark-eyed youth at her side. For there was a force 
 in his reasoning which she could not ignore. She 
 dreaded poverty she who knew so well what it 
 meant! She shrank from the strain of daily small 
 economies. Her tastes delighted in graceful sur- 
 roundings. She was not eager for the mere luxuries, 
 but her delicately organized nature craved the re- 
 finements of life. The contrasts which Carryl had 
 painted appealed to her powerfully. It was not, of 
 course, to either, now, a question of hunger or cold. 
 The time for that had passed. But she saw clearly 
 this girl of nineteen the privations and sacri- 
 fices which lay ahead for both, if Carryl took the 
 step she urged on him. She began to be afraid of 
 herself. 
 
 But this clear outlook, and the fear it brought, 
 only nerved Dorrice Dacres' resolution afresh. 
 Carryl, well as he knew his sister, had no suspicion 
 that she half faltered at times. But she had a secret 
 conviction that she herself formed the supreme 
 obstacle to his entering Harvard. Had there been 
 no sister in the way, she believed he would have 
 sent doubts and fears whistling down the winds, 
 and followed his bent, at all hazards. When she 
 thought of this, by herself, she would break out in a 
 passion of renunciation : " Mamma, mamma, your 
 little girl is going to be true she will not betray 
 her brother's birthright." 
 
 Carryl, finding himself hard pressed on one line 
 of argument, would occasionally take up another.
 
 192 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 " Well, granting what you say is true, Dorrice, 
 though I don't for an instant admit it, and that I 
 might, by hook or by crook, get into Harvard, it is 
 too late to attempt it. I should be such a venerable 
 fellow almost twenty-five before I graduated." 
 
 " You might be younger, Carryl. But I cannot 
 think so meanly of my brother as to conceive that 
 his future will be spoiled because he is a year or 
 two or three of them late in graduating." 
 
 Then he would take another tack. " It is still 
 counting without your host, Dorrice. If we did 
 manage to pull through the first two years, don't 
 you see there would be a third, in which we could 
 not subsist absolutely on air ? " 
 
 " Certainly. But if people had reasoned in that 
 way, nothing good or great would ever have been 
 accomplished in the world. Courage and hope and 
 faith have always counted for something in human 
 plans. I believe that when that third year takes 
 its turn, it will prove equal to standing on its own 
 feet." 
 
 " Well, you are the pluckiest little piece of femi- 
 nine humanity a fellow ever had to encounter; he 
 may as well make up his mind, first as last, that he 
 will have to lower his colors ! " 
 
 So the talk went the jest every little while 
 glancing across its serious mood. 
 
 But Dorrice had one dart in her quiver, which 
 she reserved to the last. It always went home. 
 " Remember it is mamma's gift, Carryl. We know 
 how she would feel what she would prefer should 
 be done with it ! "
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 193 
 
 Carryl Dacres could never tell when he began 
 seriously to entertain the thought of entering 
 Harvard. He himself imagined that he was only 
 regarding it as the most desirable, impossible thing 
 in the world, when his sister believed that he had 
 reached the parting of the ways. He almost ceased 
 to argue with her ; he told himself there was no use 
 of entering the lists where he had so often found 
 himself worsted. But he often said to her; " What 
 a confounded fool what a hopeless ass Hallo well 
 would regard me, if I should broach this matter to 
 him ! " 
 
 Dorrice saw that he was going over, in a kind of 
 tentative way, his first encounter with his employer. 
 When her brother made up his mind to speak to 
 the elder man, he would have crossed the Rubicon. 
 Dorrice had known the time for speaking : she knew 
 in these days, it was a time to keep silent.
 
 XXV. 
 
 " OF all the mad, nonsensical cranks that ever got 
 inside a fellow's brain, this carries the palm ! " Mr. 
 Hallowell suddenly broke out, at dinner, in an 
 angry, contemptuous tone. 
 
 " What do you mean, Ned ? " asked his wife, who 
 was helping herself to the salad, and displaying, in 
 her manipulation of fork and spoon, a graceful curve 
 of wrist. 
 
 " I mean that fine prote'ge' of yours. What insane 
 notion do you suppose has just run away with 
 him?" 
 
 " My prote'ge' ! " Mrs. Hallowell looked perplexed 
 for a moment. " Oh, is it young Dacres you mean?" 
 
 "Precisely. A confounded fool he is bound to 
 make of himself, after all ! " 
 
 " What has he done ? " There was real anxiety in 
 Mrs. Hallowell's tones. 
 
 " Done ! It is what he is going to do. The fellow 
 has actually taken it into his head that he is going 
 to college ! " 
 
 " Going to college ! " Mrs. Hallowell came to a 
 dead pause in her dinner. " What do you mean, 
 Ned?" 
 
 " Just what I said." 
 
 "But what how is he going to do it? " 
 194
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 195 
 
 "Ah, that is a question entirely beneath his con- 
 sideration ! My young man is as obstinate as fools 
 generally are, when they are bent on ruining them- 
 selves. He is utterly blind to any side of the ques- 
 tion but his own. When a fellow is bent on making 
 a devilish ass of himself, he may go ahead for all 
 
 me 
 
 " Oh, Ned, I don't like to hear you speak in that 
 way of Carryl Dacres ! " 
 
 " Well, I have had ample provocation. I'm thor- 
 oughly disgusted with the fellow. Such a grand 
 chance as was before him why, it doesn't fall to 
 one young man in a hundred. If he had kept on 
 with the business, he might have ended by becoming 
 a member of the firm been a rich man by the 
 time he was fifty. I saw the opening ahead for him, 
 and meant to give him a lift at the right moment 
 But now he has got this college craze, everything 
 must go by the board ! " 
 
 " But your opinion must have some weight with 
 him," continued the lady. "Of course, you tried to 
 reason with him ? " 
 
 " Of course, I did. I talked with him like a father. 
 But I might as well have argued with the winds. 
 It is the old story of Phaeton and his horses over 
 again. I thought the fellow had better stuff in him; 
 but it is evident he won't stop before his neck is 
 broken." 
 
 Mr. Hallowell prided himself on his cool clear- 
 headedness ; but when he was provoked, he could 
 indulge in as high-flying metaphors as a hysterical 
 woman.
 
 196 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 " I wonder what Dorrice thinks of all this," con- 
 tinued Mrs. Hallowell, rather dodging the point. 
 
 " Oh, I gathered from what he said that she 
 spurred him on in this fool's chase. It is just the 
 sort of thing to turn a girl's head." 
 
 "I hope it hasn't come of my inviting them to 
 Class Day," said Mrs. Hallowell, half earnestly, half 
 seriously. 
 
 u Very likely, that first started them off. But, in 
 the long run, it would have made no difference. If 
 people are bent on making fools of themselves, it is 
 no use trying to stop them." 
 
 But Mrs. Hallowell was not so ready as her 
 husband to dismiss the Dacres' fortunes with pat 
 epigrams and apothegms. She put aside several en- 
 gagements, so that by ten o'clock the next morning 
 her carriage drew up on Pinckney Street. The 
 interview that followed was one which neither she 
 nor Dorrice will ever forget. The lady had come 
 plied with arguments, whose logic she believed un- 
 answerable ; but when the long, serious talk came to 
 an end, and she took her leave, it was with a mind a 
 good deal perplexed and shaken. For the young 
 girl had opened her heart to her friend, as Carry 1 
 never could to his employer, after the angry, scornful 
 reception which his first suggestion of entering Har- 
 vard had met. Indeed, Mr. Hallowell had taken the 
 course most likely to confirm his clerk in his pulpose, 
 by treating it as one which no sensible man could 
 regard with a moment's patience. 
 
 But Mrs. Hallowell heard a story from Dorrice's 
 lips which placed the whole affair in a different light.
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 197 
 
 She learned now that Carryl's entering Harvard was 
 not a sudden fancy. She gained a new perception 
 of his hereditary bias, when she heard what had hap- 
 pened on the evening he read Emerson to his sister. 
 
 When she began, Dorrice had not intended to 
 relate that episode ; but her friend's evident sympa- 
 thy, and a sense of the share she had borne in their 
 brightened fortunes, drew her on. Almost before she 
 knew it, she was telling of the anxious days when 
 she studied the Harvard catalogue, and the rest of 
 the story followed inevitably. Mrs. Hallo well learned 
 how Deacon Spinner had suddenly appeared, and lo ! 
 the thousand dollars, that had been the supreme long- 
 ing arid despair of her life, were in her hands. 
 
 " Of course," said Dorrice, with tremulous lips, 
 "nobody can understand can feel about this money 
 as we do ; but it is sacred to us, it is our dead moth- 
 er's gift. It seems a solemn duty to use it in the 
 way she would wish." 
 
 This was a sort of reasoning for which Mrs. Hal- 
 lowell was unprepared. But she did her best. She 
 painted Carryl's business prospects in colors to which 
 her friendship added vividness ; she talked of her 
 husband's disappointment at the young man's cutting 
 short so promising a career. "Did he realize what 
 an immensely serious step he was taking?" she 
 asked. 
 
 Dorrice's eyes showed how strongly she was 
 moved. " Dear Mrs. Hallowell," she answered, " you 
 can never know how deeply it will hurt us, after all 
 we owe you, to disappoint you now. But when it 
 comes to a question of the kind of man Carryl was
 
 198 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 meant to be, of the work for which he was created, 
 and missing which he must always miss what, for 
 him, must be the true purpose of his life, ought we 
 to let anything stand in the way ought we not to 
 be ready for any sacrifice and equal to any daring ? 
 If the scholar's life did not seem to him the su- 
 premely good and beautiful tiling, if the scholar's 
 longing were not deeper with him than any other, 
 he would certainly better continue in business ; but 
 all men are not made alike, you know, and even if 
 he should be successful, and gain a grand fortune at 
 the last, he might still feel that he was poor, and that 
 his life, having missed its real purpose, was a failure. 
 For if men had not always lived who felt there was 
 something better and nobler than getting money and 
 enjoying it, the world would be in a bad case to-day." 
 
 This was a kind of reasoning to which Mrs. Hal- 
 lowell was not used. She tried to maintain her side 
 of the argument ; but it struck her that in all she 
 said afterward, there was something hard and mate- 
 rial something that savored of the Bourse and the 
 Stock-board. 
 
 At the last she said : " However Mr. Hallowell 
 may treat this new idea, I know he has your brother's 
 interests at heart. When you talk of being in our 
 debt, there is Tom in your scales, Dorrice." 
 
 They parted better friends than ever.
 
 XXVI. 
 
 THE following day, after breakfast, Mrs. Hallowell 
 informed her husband of her visit to Dorrice Dacres. 
 
 He laid down his paper, and listened attentively 
 to all the details of the interview ; but, in the present 
 instance, he was steeled against what he would have 
 termed "mixing up sentiment in the matter." 
 
 When his wife concluded, he answered with half a 
 sneer : " Strip the thing of those high-flown notions, 
 and what trumpery stuff it all is ! The fellow is 
 going to start off to college on one of Emerson's 
 talks and a small windfall of a thousand dollars. It 
 won't carry them through the first six months. What 
 a piece of egregious folly it is ! " 
 
 Mrs. Hallowell did not reply at once. In all prac- 
 tical matters she had great respect for her husband's 
 opinions. She was by no means sure that he was 
 not now in the right; still, her talk with Dorrice 
 had left its impression. 
 
 Mr. Hallowell caught the look in his wife's eyes. 
 " You don't mean to say, Emmeline," he exclaimed, 
 in a half amused, half derisive tone, " that you have 
 been talked over into approving of this consummate 
 folly?" 
 
 " No, I don't approve of it," replied Mrs. Hallow- 
 ell, with a fine stress on her verb. " I did my best 
 
 199
 
 200 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 to make Dorrice see it was all a mistake ; but I did 
 not succeed." 
 
 " Of course not. In such cases you might as well 
 attempt to argue with young colts afield. I can 
 understand how that pretty little head of his sister's 
 would be carried away, and she would help this rattle- 
 brained scheme along. She will find out to her own 
 cost, one of these days, what she has been about. 
 The old deacon appeared on the scene at an unlucky 
 moment. Of course, he meant well ; but his thou- 
 sand dollars will prove their evil genius in the end." 
 
 " It troubles me to hear you say that." 
 
 " What else is a sensible man to say ? Think of 
 young Dacres throwing up such business chances, in 
 order to muddle his brain over Greek and Latin for 
 the next four years ! " 
 
 " No, only three ; he intends to enter the sopho- 
 more class." 
 
 " It's all one, as the last King of England said 
 when he granted the Quakers an audience, and they 
 apologized for not addressing him by his title. Don't 
 you see that young Dacres is going to make a devij- 
 ish ass of himself? " 
 
 " Ask me that question, Ned, ten years from this 
 time, and I shall be better able to answer you." 
 
 " Emmeline, do you want to drive me into swear- 
 ing at you ? " 
 
 " No ; because you would be horribly ashamed of 
 yourself." 
 
 " It can't be possible that you can look at this mat- 
 ter in any light but one of plain common sense. How 
 many men do go through college to come out at the
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 201 
 
 little end of the horn practical failures in life ! 
 The years they waste over their dead languages 
 would fit them for some useful business put them 
 in the way of making a decent living, at least." 
 
 " No doubt that is true ; but all men are not alike. 
 There are many who fail in business, too ; but that 
 does not prove there is nothing in it." 
 
 " I haven't a word to say against colleges. They're 
 all well enough for those who can afford them, and 
 whose tastes lie in that direction. But I wonder 
 where you would have been to-day if I had happened 
 to get a college craze twenty years ago ! " 
 
 " You dear fellow ! " Mrs. Hallowell softly patted 
 her husband's arm. "It would have been worse for 
 me, no doubt. Indeed, it would go hard with many 
 women, if the men nearest to them had the scholar's 
 bent. Dearly as I love you, Ned, I could not make 
 the sacrifices for you that young girl is so eager to 
 make for her brother." 
 
 " More shame to him that he will permit her to 
 think of them ! But I am thoroughly disgusted with 
 young Dacres. He went into the business as though 
 he were cut out for it. He has done so well, too, 
 this year, that I intended to give him a couple of 
 hundred dollars over and above his wages, telling 
 -him he had fairly earned it." 
 
 " Yes ; and he is going to have it, too ! " added 
 Mrs. Hallowell, with a kind of gay confidence. 
 
 "That will be as I say!" commented Mr. Hal- 
 lowell, as lie resumed his paper. 
 
 "Oh, no, it won't!" It was on Mrs. Hallowell's 
 tongue to rejoin ; but she caught herself in the nick
 
 202 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 of time. She knew her power over her husband ; she 
 knew, also, its limitations. If, in his present irrita- 
 ted mood, he should vow that young Dacres should 
 never see a dollar of that money, he would keep his 
 word. 
 
 Mr. Hallowell's vexation at this time had its root 
 in mixed motives. He had felt a real friendliness 
 for Carryl Dacres, and a desire to advance his for- 
 tunes. His relations with the young man had been, 
 from the beginning, unlike those with any other of 
 his subordinates. Everybody in the firm perceived 
 that Dacres was a favorite with its head. 
 
 But Mr. Hallowell had also a personal interest in 
 not wishing to part with Carryl. He gauged, with a 
 business man's acuteness, the younger's capacity and 
 integrity. It was the latter's nature to do thor- 
 oughly whatever he attempted ; and he would not 
 permit any secret hankerings for another field of 
 work to interfere with the one which fate had 
 ordained him. 
 
 It was not Mr. Hallowell's fault, either, that he 
 could at this time see only one side of the shield ; 
 he prided himself on his knowledge of the world ; 
 he had been the architect of his own fortunes, and 
 was profoundly conscious of that fact ; he naturally 
 enjoyed such substantial proofs of his prosperity as 
 were afforded by his elegant home and his handsome 
 turnout. But he was far too sensible a man, and 
 had too good taste, for any of that arrogance of 
 manner which is brought into high relief by the sud- 
 den acquisition of wealth ; he was always equal to 
 the occasion, in society, in his own house, where he
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 203 
 
 was gracious and dignified, fond of dispensing his 
 hospitalities, and equal to taking his part in discuss- 
 ing English and American politics ; while he mostly 
 left the pictures and pottery, though he had tastes in 
 these, to his wife. 
 
 To a mind and temperament of this order, Carry 1 
 Dacres' project could appear little short of moon- 
 struck madness. 
 
 Long before this, the young man had read the char- 
 acter of his employer, and understood its limitations 
 and weak points ; but he was bound to him by many 
 ties of association and gratitude. Carryl could 
 never forget what he owed to Mr. Hallowell, even 
 if, as his guest, he had not been brought into fre- 
 quent contact with the agreeable, domestic side o. 
 the man. 
 
 All these things were strong factors in Mr. Hal- 
 lowell's influence ; and, had he used it with discre- 
 tion at this time, Carryl might never have brought 
 himself to take the momentous step which he was 
 now contemplating. 
 
 But, in their subsequent talks, the elder man 
 treated the younger's ideas with such undisguised 
 contempt that Carryl was frozen into resentful 
 silence. 
 
 This opposition only served to give him a keener 
 repugnance to his work ; while the scholar's passion 
 grew stronger within him, and the scholar's life 
 spread its horizons, spacious and shining, before his 
 imagination. 
 
 The young man had a secret conviction, too, that 
 he had reached the great crisis of his life ; that, if he
 
 204 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 did not seize the present chance, it would be his 
 last ; that, if he continued longer in business, the 
 fine edge of his aspiration would wear away ; and 
 that, whatever financial successes might await him, 
 he would always have a consciousness that for him 
 they had been " the mess of pottage for which he 
 had sold his birthright." 
 
 Carryl made the most of every hour for study 
 which business admitted during these days. But 
 there came times when he would brush his books 
 aside, and pace the room with the long, nervous 
 stride that suggested a hunter upon the hills. 
 " Dorrice," he would break out passionately, " I dare 
 say I am a brute to let you make all these sacrifices 
 for me ! I see perfectly what Hallowell thinks of it. 
 Perhaps he is in the right, too. Because giving up 
 the thing I want, striving and reaching for some- 
 thing I don't, seems, at times, like the bitterness of 
 death, may prove nothing more than that I have 
 inherited strong tastes and tendencies in a certain 
 direction. But I may be a very insignificant entity, 
 and have a very slight r61e to play in the big drama, 
 after all." 
 
 " Please don't go on in that way, Carryl ! " 
 "Yes, I shall too." His staccato would silence 
 her. " And all the more, because I don't want you 
 should have any illusions about this matter. You 
 will hold on you have the grip of the gods, when 
 you once make up your mind to a thing. But you 
 may make a mistake, this time. If I throw up busi- 
 ness for college, I see too clearly what it must mean 
 for you. It will be a long strain, a heavy sacrifice
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 205 
 
 no don't interrupt me I know what splendid 
 things you have done, and that you are ready to 
 move heaven and earth for me to-day ! But I want 
 you to look at me as I am not through the lens of 
 your pride and affection. I am not sure of myself. 
 I have my vacant moods and barren spaces, when it 
 seems as though I had no latent power only strong 
 impulses and longings that may never achieve any- 
 thing, to speak of. It would be tragic enough, if you 
 made all this sacrifice and effort for a fellow who 
 proved himself of small account, in the end. I 
 should be filled with infinite remorse to find out, at 
 last, that you had done that." 
 
 When he talked in this strain, she never attempted 
 to reason with him. But she would go to him, look 
 in his eyes, with a beautiful, exultant shining in her 
 own, and say, simply, " I am not afraid to take the 
 risks, Carryl ! " 
 
 All this young courage, and faith, and devotion, 
 were needed to brace him during these days, when 
 he feared and she knew it little for himself, and 
 much for his sister. 
 
 But the next autumn, Carryl Dacres took the irrev- 
 ocable step. He passed the freshman examinations, 
 and entered the sophomore class at Harvard.
 
 XXVII. 
 
 IT was summer again, and two years later. They 
 had been happy, busy years to the young people. 
 Only youth, and health, and high enthusiasm could 
 have held their lives at this tension. There might 
 be danger of reactions ; but, thus far, there was no 
 sign of flagging nerves or energies. 
 
 It was much in their favor that this eager, alert, 
 studious life was their native air. But there was 
 much, also, in the quality of both brother and sister, 
 that would prevent either ever turning into a book- 
 worm. 
 
 Dorrice's figures had proved correct, in the main, 
 and the problem of ways and means, when put to a 
 practical solution, was not quite so formidable as she 
 had anticipated. Daily economies and denials are 
 not agreeable ; but a great purpose lightens and 
 sanctifies them. Perhaps this time was harder for 
 Carryl than for his sister, as he was thrown con- 
 stantly into intimate relations with rich men's sons, 
 and the contrasts were sometimes galling. But the 
 philosophy with which he had once worn his old 
 coat stood him in good stead now. His classmates 
 called him "a dig," but there was much about the 
 studious youth which was certain, in time, to make 
 him a favorite with those who knew him best. 
 
 900
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 207 
 
 Dorrice kept on with her small school ; its num- 
 bers occasionally re-enforced, through Mrs. Hal- 
 lowell's influence, or by the young teacher's success 
 with her pupils. These occupied three of the morn- 
 ing hours. Carryl usually returned from his recita- 
 tions in high spirits, which rejoiced his sister's heart ; 
 she compared the bright, eager face with the moody 
 one which he often brought back at the close of day 
 from the office. He had found his right place in the 
 world now, and the great law of transmitted apti- 
 tudes made the daily study a perpetual delight to 
 him. 
 
 Mrs. Hallowell continued the young people's 
 stanch friend. Dorrice went to lunch with her every 
 week, while she and her brother received occasional 
 invitations to dinner. 
 
 Mr. Hallowell had not in the least changed his 
 mind as to the madness of the step which young 
 Dacres had taken. In his first vexation, he declared 
 he had no wish ever to set eyes on him, and was 
 willing the young fellow should go to the dogs for 
 all him. 
 
 But when the women of two households are bent 
 on maintaining pleasant social relations, the male 
 members usually acquiesce. Carryl had always been 
 able to see his employer's view of the matter in dis- 
 pute, and to sympathize with him so far that he felt 
 no resentment, after the first heat of their angry 
 interviews had subsided. The elder man could not 
 meet his former clerk at his own table without some 
 revival of his old friendly interest. 
 
 Mrs. Hallowell was right about the two hundred
 
 208 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 dollars. Her husband, when he added this to 
 Carryl's last payment, had the grace to assure the 
 young man he had fairly earned it. It formed a 
 most welcome supplement to the carefully husbanded 
 resources of the young people. 
 
 Mr. Hallowell's liking for Dorrice had not been 
 affected by the part she had played in her brother's 
 entering Harvard. He set all that down to her 
 young ignorance ; and the pretty face won indemnity 
 for what he regarded as her folly. 
 
 " She seems to be growing prettier every time I 
 set my eyes on her," he would say to his wife. " I 
 wonder if she knows just how lovely a creature she 
 is ! " he would add, with masculine fatuity. 
 
 Mrs. Hallowell's amused laugh answered her hus- 
 band. " Trust a woman for that ! " she said. " Do 
 you suppose that girl can enter a horse-car and be 
 blind to the admiring glances that are bent on her? 
 But my little lady has made up her mind that her 
 pretty face shall not turn her head ! Besides, she 
 has, just now, you know, something else to think 
 about." 
 
 "More's the pity," growled the man. 
 
 Dorrice's painting-lessons came into play at this 
 juncture. She executed some pleasing work in 
 plaques and panels, which formed a welcome tribu- 
 tary to the main currents of their income. 
 
 She had personal ambitions, too ; she resolved she 
 would do her utmost to keep abreast of Carryl in 
 certain departments of his studies, mainly those of 
 history and belles-lettres. " You shall not be finding 
 out one of these days," she said, with a little defiant
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 209 
 
 shake of her head, " that we can have no intellectual 
 pleasures in common." 
 
 Carryl laughingly assured her that was all 
 a piece of unmitigated nonsense. She would 
 know quite enough, all her life, for his masculine 
 complacency. 
 
 But she held to her purpose, and, as she shared his 
 aptitudes for study, she did not lag so far behind 
 him in Virgil or Horace, that the reading them was 
 not a source of much mutual stimulation and enjoy- 
 ment. One evening, when the lessons were over, 
 Dorrice said to her brother, after showing him a 
 small thing she had painted on china for Mrs. Hallo- 
 well, a branch of wild-brier roses, with a red- 
 breasted robin atilt on it : " Oh, yes ! it is all well 
 enough. I can imitate tolerably. But I can't create 
 anything. There is the difference between me and 
 a born artist. I am a dreadfully limited creature. 
 It is a nice thing, no doubt, to paint roses and golden- 
 tipped butterflies; but I should like to get the low- 
 ering gloom of some mighty storm, a stretch of wet 
 sea-beach, a glory of mountain sunrise, on my can- 
 vas. Do you know, Carryl, I shall always fill an 
 awfully small niche ? " 
 
 " Talk of niches ! " Carryl replied. " What sort 
 of one do you suppose I should ever have filled 
 without you ? " 
 
 At the end of his second year at Harvard, the 
 domestic finances had fallen so low that he made up 
 his mind to look out for a place to teach during the 
 vacation. 
 
 It was decided to close the rooms on Pinckney
 
 210 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 Street for the rest of the summer. Dorrice would 
 keep her promise to Deacon Spinner, and visit Fox- 
 low. The programme had been barely arranged 
 between them, when something happened which 
 altered Carryl's share. A party of his classmates 
 were going into the Adiroudacks for some weeks, 
 boating and fishing. They were good fellows, bent 
 on having a grand lark. Two or three had flunked, 
 more or less, at their lessons, and needed some 
 coaching during the vacation, but wanted "some- 
 body around who wouldn't spoil the fun." 
 
 Young Dacres was a favorite with one of the fel- 
 lows, who proposed to his classmates that he should 
 be asked to go along and help them with the lan- 
 guages. When they assented, the proposition was 
 made to Carry 1. It was vastly better than anything 
 he could have imagined for himself. 
 
 One day, a little after midsummer, when Carryl 
 had entered the senior class, Dorrice was busy mak- 
 ing her last arrangements for the double trip. 
 Carryl was to accompany her to Foxlow, remain a 
 couple of days, and then rejoin his classmates for the 
 Adirondacks. " What a splendid thing it will be for 
 you, Carryl ! " Dorrice often said. " What a splendid 
 thing for me, when you come back, and we can live 
 it all over together ! " She would not permit herself 
 to dwell on the thought that this was to be the 
 longest separation which had, thus far, occurred in 
 their lives. 
 
 Dorrice was thinking, too, in that busy summer- 
 afternoon, as she moved about the rooms, intent on 
 her packing, what a different going back to Foxlow
 
 A BOSTON GIRI/S AMBITIONS. 211 
 
 this was from the one they had looked forward to 
 almost five years ago. Her heart sang like a bird's, 
 for joy, as her memory glanced over the years which 
 lay in such fair lights behind her ; and the cares and 
 the anxieties that had often shadowed the days were 
 faint and dim now, as the memory of their storms. 
 
 Carryl, who had been out on some errand, returned 
 with a letter for Dorrice. She knew, at a glance, the 
 handwriting of Mrs. Hallowell, who was at the 
 White Mountains. Before she opened the letter, she 
 had an impression that it contained some momentous 
 news for herself. A little later, this impression was 
 confirmed. Mr. Hallowell found it necessary to go 
 West, for some weeks, on a business trip ; he might 
 get two-thirds across the continent ; he much desired 
 his wife should accompany him. It would be incon- 
 venient to have Tom along. They did not like to 
 leave him alone at the hotel. There was but one 
 solution of the problem. Mrs. Hallowell proposed 
 that Dorrice should join them at the Glen House, 
 and remain during their absence. The rooms and 
 the maid were placed at her command. 
 
 "Tom is just wild with delight over the thought 
 of your coming," wrote his mother. "I think, my 
 dear, you will have a happy time, in the midst of 
 this novel scenery, beside doing us an immense 
 favor." 
 
 When Dorrice had finished her letter, she handed 
 it to Carryl, without a word. 
 
 When he, in his turn, had read it, they sat still a 
 few moments, looking at each other. 
 
 At last Dorrice said, in a half awed, half exultant
 
 212 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 tone ; " Carryl, what a way lovely surprises have of 
 coming to us ! " 
 
 "You are right, little sister." It was not often, 
 now, that he used the old pet name. 
 
 It was necessary to telegraph at once. There 
 could be but one reply to Mrs. Hallowell.
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 DORBICE D ACRES had been a week at the Glen 
 House, when she wrote a letter to her brother, a part 
 of which ran : 
 
 " I have just returned with Tom from a drive to 
 Glen Ellis Fall ; and you are to have my next half- 
 hour, snatched for you out of the divinest day that 
 ever shone on the world since the morning stars sang 
 for joy over that first one ! 
 
 " Oh, Carryl the flash and plunge and tumult of 
 the water, like some live, fierce, splendid creature, 
 shooting down to the dark pool, a hundred feet 
 below, dazzle my eyes still ! How I wish you could 
 have seen it all, and the grim, solemn wildness amid 
 which that life and passion leap and foam. 
 
 " If you could only be with me, too, as I sit here 
 by the window, and look up to where Washington 
 pushes its huge, granite shoulder against the sky, and 
 the softest, pearl-blue mists cling and loiter, and get 
 entangled and ravelled out on the ridges and among 
 the slopes of this glorious old Range ; while, just 
 now, Madison hides its forehead under a great, 
 white, shining hood of fog. 
 
 " I know you are laughing at me by this time ! 
 No wonder my pen has run away with me ! The 
 
 213
 
 214 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 merest clod in the world ought to be transformed to 
 a poet by the infinite beauty and grandeur of these 
 Mountains, and by the unutterable loveliness of this 
 Paradise at their feet ! 
 
 " But you are in the presence of the Kings, too ! 
 I often think what a double miracle it is this 
 mountain-summer of yours and mine ; and yet it all 
 came about as though it were the most natural thing 
 in the world that the Adirondacks should come to 
 you the White Mountains to me ! 
 
 " I suppose, however, that Eden-Garden would not 
 have been quite the same to Eve, with Adam away, 
 and so I occasionally think my Paradise would be a 
 little better if the only Adam / shall ever have were 
 here to enjoy it with me. 
 
 " Tom is a dear, naughty, affectionate little rogue ! 
 He is in a seventh heaven here, trotting endlessly 
 about the piazzas, tumbling over the huge, good- 
 natured mastiffs, marching off with them into the 
 woods and along the banks of the little, sparkling 
 Peabody. 
 
 " There are delightful people here. All dear Mrs. 
 Hallowell's friends are as civil as possible, and I 
 have my share of attentions and nice speeches ! 
 
 " There are girls here, too, lovely enough to steal 
 a march on your heart, despite all its masculine de- 
 fences ! 
 
 " One of these, to whom I have taken a fancy, 
 said to me, with a pout, as she tossed down a letter 
 she had just read : ' That is like Jack, for all the 
 world ! He gave me his word he would be here 
 Saturday night, and now those fellows from Yale
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 215 
 
 have got hold of him, and he is going off for a week 
 to Lake George. I do think brothers are such 
 nuisances.' 
 
 " ' I suppose they are sometimes,' I replied. 
 
 " One must say something, you know. But / 
 thought of a brother who once, in his old attic-days, 
 went without his lunches for a fortnight, to buy his 
 sister a Christmas present, so she might be like 
 other girls that happy day ; and when she opened 
 her eyes in its morning, lo ! there was a warm, 
 bright-colored jacket, with a branch of red-berried 
 holly, on the chair by her bed. Do you remember 
 it and how perfectly the jacket fitted, and how 
 warm it kept her under her shabby cloak, that 
 winter? 
 
 " She would never have known the truth, either, 
 if it hadn't come out, long afterward, by the merest 
 accident. 
 
 " Such a brother has been ! The future should 
 hold all noble fortunes for him ! I believe it does. 
 But he will never be a greater hero than he was 
 when he tramped the streets in those winter days ! 
 
 " Now don't go to pluming yourself on my praises ! 
 You know it is my private conviction that you are a 
 dreadfully obstinate, aggravating biped for one small 
 feminine to manage, who has got you on her hands 
 for the next half-century, if Heaven so pleases! 
 
 " You always were a reckless rascal ! Please don't 
 risk your precious neck in climbs, and hunts, and 
 swims, that just make one's hair stand on end to read 
 about ! 
 
 " Next week I expect to have some grand times !
 
 216 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 A party of us some young and some not are 
 going over to Jefferson to see, from the Waumbek 
 piazzas, the wide, beautiful landscapes we are always 
 hearing about; and, later, we shall drive over to 
 Jackson, the little hamlet which Thorn Mountain 
 looks down to see cradled at its feet, with its be- 
 witching Falls and lovely bits of scenery, that draw 
 the artists every summer. 
 
 " Then, there is to be the crowning day of all, 
 when I go up Mount Washington, and the dear old, 
 familiar world lies far below me, almost like another 
 planet. Each night, when skies are clear, I look 
 from my window, to see how, afar on the summit, 
 the light shines, like a great star in the heavens. 
 
 " Now, my Harvard boy, don't let your canoes 
 and camps, your bears and birds, your trout and 
 deer, beguile you into breaking that promise to write 
 every other day ! I won't complain though every 
 other sentence holds a bit of your horrid Harvard 
 slang ! 
 
 " Oh, Carryl, just here at the last, my heart must 
 have its way! God, the God of our dear dead 
 mother, take care of you ! DOKKICE." 
 
 A few days later, Carryl's reply ran : 
 
 " I answer your last under difficulties. Hosts on 
 every side of me are eager to drink my blood 
 midgets, black flies, mosquitoes ! I keep up an un- 
 equal fight with my left hand, until they come upon 
 me in such myriads that I drop my pen and go at 
 them for my life !
 
 A BOSTON GTRI/S AMBITIONS. 217 
 
 " But, despite these enemies of man, we are having 
 hugely jolly times in these primeval wildernesses. 
 We must seem like the pre-historic savages, come 
 back to their old haunts, as we make these ancient 
 solitudes ring with our songs and yells and war- 
 whoops ! 
 
 " Boating and fishing, tramping and hunting 
 there you have the heads of each day's history all 
 the rest would be an expansion of these topics ! We 
 bring back to the camp, each night, the appetites 
 of long-fasting savages ! I am as strong as some 
 Athlete who bore off the prize in a Greek race, more 
 than two thousand years ago, and as brown as a 
 Bedouin to boot ! 
 
 "One thing I am sure of the first denizens of 
 this planet were the only ones who ever got at the 
 secret of happiness. A fellow believes that, when he 
 has cut civilization, and can sing his Vanitas vani- 
 tatum over all the fool's-chases in the world ! 
 
 " I, too, could wax eloquent over the trout in these 
 waters the deer in these woods; but all that would 
 be wasted on feminines ! 
 
 " Two days ago, something happened which proved 
 to me that I still retained a ghost of a conscience, or a 
 fibre of heart. I was under cover, among some hem- 
 locks, on the shore of a little blue bowl of lake, 
 when lo ! a deer a splendid creature sprang out 
 of the forest, ran down to the water, and began to 
 nibble at the thick lily-pads. The prize was within 
 a few rods of me. I raised my rifle to shoot, and 
 then, just at the critical moment, I winced. I tell 
 you, Dorrice Dacres, I couldn't send that free, beau-
 
 218 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 tiful creature out of life ! What business had I 
 to do it ? He had as good a right to his existence 
 as I to mine. It seemed a barbarous thing to 
 kill him. My hand dropped. The next instant 
 something startled him ; and he was off into the 
 forest. 
 
 " A moment later, Walters came panting up : 
 4 Dacres,' he began, 'we ought to tar and feather 
 you. Such a beauty, and you had covered him with 
 your rifle ! Why didn't you shoot ? ' 
 
 " ' There's the rub ! If you ever had a twinge of 
 conscience at the most inconvenient time, you know 
 as much about the matter as I do ! ' 
 
 " ' Confound your conscience ! What business had 
 it to interfere, and that splendid creature under your 
 rifle ! You won't be squeamish to-night, I'll wager. 
 I've noticed you go into the venison as heavy as the 
 rest of us ! ' 
 
 " ' Of course. Do you expect a fellow to be 
 always consistent ? ' 
 
 " He chaffed me mercilessly. I made up my mind 
 to be the butt of the camp for the next twenty-four 
 hours. But Walters is a prime fellow ; he has never 
 peached. 
 
 " What a high Jubilate you set up over your White 
 Mountains ! I send you back Exultemus from the 
 heart of these old Adirondacks. 
 
 "Much joy to your pretty girls ! Only just now I 
 am intent on other quarry. 
 
 " You must be horribly in want of material for a 
 hero, or you never would resort to getting one up 
 out of a fellow who could manage to go without his
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 219 
 
 lunches on occasion ! He still has the grace to won- 
 der whether he is not the greatest scamp and scala- 
 wag in creation to see his young sister make such 
 sacrifices in order to get him through Harvard 
 especially as he may turn out a negative quantity, for 
 all her pains! If there happens to be some saving 
 stuff in him, he means to make what amends he can 
 to ' the only Eve he will ever have ' for all she has 
 done for him. 
 
 "So I am an 'obstinate, aggravating biped,' am I? 
 No doubt it is wholesome to see one's portrait drawn 
 by an impartial hand ! Suppose I take my turn 
 at yours. Here goes : As though I didn't know, all 
 the time, just what an imperious little minx you are, 
 always managing to take the wind out of a fellow's 
 sails, and having your own way ninety-nine times 
 out of a hundred ! 
 
 "But your chef d'oeuvre must still remain your 
 arguing and coaxing, your wheedling and forcing me 
 into Harvard. When I contemplate that feat, I am 
 still lost in amazement and admiration. But you 
 will, like the Duke of Marl borough, labor all your 
 life under the disadvantage of having executed a 
 masterpiece. Any future achievement of yours must 
 pale before that crowning one. 
 
 " The fellows here are a splendid set, jolly, good- 
 hearted, grand on a lark gentlemen, too, to the 
 core. I have yet to know one of them utter a word 
 I should blush to have my sister hear. So, you see, 
 I have at present no need to brace my morals with 
 Virgil's, 
 
 * Facilis descensus Avernus.'
 
 220 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 "Now, good night, little woman. God bless her! 
 How bravely she pulled with me over the rough 
 places, through the bitter weather! 
 
 " The camp-fire burns low, and I hear the wild cry 
 of the loon on the lake and the hooting of the owl in 
 the pines. I look up and see, through the branches, 
 the dear old stars in the steadfast heavens, and I 
 think how they shine at this moment over a little 
 brown head that lies fast asleep at the Glen House. 
 
 "And I say to the stars what I should never 
 say to somebody, lest she might take on the airs 
 of Juno if I did, ' The bravest sister, the tenderest, 
 the best, a brother ever had ! ' CARRYL."
 
 XXIX. _ 
 
 THE morning Dorrice received this letter, she set 
 out for a walk. This time she went alone, and was 
 soon deep among the wildness and fragrance of the 
 woods that border the Peabody. 
 
 Dorrice was used to long walks. She, as well as 
 Carryl, had, from their earliest remembrance, lived 
 much in the open air. They owed largely to this 
 habit the splendid health which had borne some 
 severe strains without serious faltering. 
 
 As a result of her early training, Dorrice was a 
 famous walker; her light, swift limbs could keep 
 abreast of Carryl's long strides on a six or eight 
 miles' tramp. 
 
 That morning, soft gauzy draperies of mist hung 
 about the peaks, and rolled great silver and pearl- 
 colored folds down into the ravines and chasms of 
 the mountains. There was a thin veiling of vapor 
 over the sky, a veiling frayed and broken in places, 
 showing spaces of the loveliest midsummer blue. 
 
 The day was very warm ; not a breath of wind 
 stirred the leaves in the green, dim depths of the 
 wood. Dorrice strayed on through the winding vistas, 
 unconscious of the lapse of time ; she came upon all 
 sorts of lovely surprises in rare-tinted leaves and 
 mottled mosses and velvety lichens. 
 
 221
 
 222 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 She wore that morning a gray dress, of some soft, 
 woolly texture, whose folds clung close to her pliant 
 slenderness. A gray shade-hat, wreathed with some 
 silky material of the same hue, matched the dress. 
 The gray gleamed, soft and cool, against the world of 
 green. The graceful figure, gliding about the ancient 
 boles and among the dusky vistas of the forest, 
 seemed like some dryad revisiting her old haunts. 
 
 At last, a little tired with the long ramble, the 
 girl threw herself down at the foot of a great white- 
 birch tree. On one side of her the roots of a half- 
 dead cedar were covered over with moss. The vivid 
 greens and mottled browns formed a rare mosaic. 
 
 Through the birch canopy, far above her, broken 
 sunbeams glanced and quivered upon the ground, 
 like live restless things. She heard the dreamy 
 sounds of the forest in summer noondays, the 
 drone of insects, the stir of leaves, the low tinkling 
 of streams. 
 
 A look of still happiness grew upon her face. She 
 took off her hat and placed it by the side of the 
 handkerchief she had filled with bright-colored 
 things. Then she heard a robin sing suddenly in 
 the distance ; it seemed to sing something that was 
 in her heart at that moment. She saw a great crim- 
 son-winged butterfly alight, like a flaming jewel, on 
 the moss. The wide patchwork of greens and browns 
 ran suddenly together. The young head drooped 
 against the bole of the ancient birch, and in that 
 warm, drowsy stillness Dorrice Dacres fell fast asleep. 
 
 Ten minutes later, a lady came slowly through the 
 wood and along the slight footpath which led near
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 223 
 
 the white-birch. She had been wandering on the 
 banks of the Peabody, watching the brown wimpling 
 waters, and at last she had strolled away from the 
 heat and the voices of the stream, into the cool dim- 
 ness of the woods. She had a beautiful face. Its 
 fine outlines struck one first; but these were soon 
 lost sight of in a charm of expression which made 
 this woman's face rare among ten thousand faces. 
 Soft, fluffy gray hair formed a shining aureole about 
 the low brow and the delicate temples. You might 
 have hesitated to pronounce this woman, with the 
 rich-toned complexion and the clear, deep azure of 
 her eyes, more than forty years old, though she was 
 in reality past fifty. 
 
 She was rather above medium height ; she wore a 
 black walking-dress, and a shawl a soft, white, 
 fleecy thing was drawn about her shoulders. Even 
 her garments seemed to have caught some of the 
 simple grace of the wearer. 
 
 As she made her way along the slightly defined 
 footpath, there was a curious gray gleam on her 
 right. When she caught sight of that, she paused 
 and turned aside, with a look of roused curiosity. 
 A few steps from the path she came where the girl 
 slept under the flickering shadows of the birch- 
 leaves. 
 
 The lady gave a little half-suppressed cry. Dor- 
 rice, her head pillowed against the smooth bole of 
 the white-birch, lay sleeping the perfect sleep of 
 youth and health ; her limbs had taken a pose simple 
 and graceful as an infant's. Bright masses of hair 
 clung about her forehead; into them broken sun-
 
 224 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 beams shot golden glints. Brown lashes, curled, 
 stamen-like, shaded her cheeks. The pure olive skin 
 had an unusual pink flush. The fine modelling of 
 chin and cheek and brow did not escape the stran- 
 ger's long, intent gaze. 
 
 At last, she drew a deep breath, and looked about 
 her curiously. There was no sign of any one at 
 hand. She noticed the gray hat, and the handker- 
 chief with its curious, bright-lined contents. 
 
 At that sight, a little amused smile crept about 
 her lips ; but it did not chase away some wistfulness 
 that had grown in her eyes. 
 
 " I can't go away now, and leave her alone," the 
 stranger said to herself, in a voice not so loud as that 
 of a yellow bee humming on a hardback-flower at 
 her feet. She sat down on the ground, and the 
 steady, wistful gaze grew into a tender one. Her 
 face showed that some memory was astir in her 
 thoughts. She did not miss one of those soft, even 
 breaths ; once, when a leaf drifted down on the girl's 
 forehead, she bent over and flipped it off with light, 
 swift touch. 
 
 Dorrice moved suddenly, lifted her head, and 
 opened her eyes. Out of their brown darkness, she 
 stared at the stranger sitting there. She was not 
 yet wide-awake ; and, startled and dazed, she had 
 but one consciousness that the face bending over 
 her had the look of her mother. 
 
 " Oh, mamma mamma ! " she cried out, and her 
 voice was the cry of her heart. 
 
 It shook . the woman like a sudden blow. It 
 seemed the voice for which her own heart had gone
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 225 
 
 hungering for years. " Oh, my child my child ! " 
 she said, in a moment. The words were a pleading, 
 passionate cry. 
 
 Then Dorrice sat straight up. She stared bewil- 
 dered about her. When she saw the green midsum- 
 mer world, it all came back in a flash. She 
 remembered how she had dropped down, heated and 
 tired, at the foot of the old birch-tree ; she must have 
 fallen asleep. But who was this woman, with the 
 beautiful face, who sat by her side, and looked at her 
 with eyes so like her own dead mother's? 
 
 The stranger read the question in Dorrice's face. 
 "I found you here asleep," she said, "and so took 
 upon myself the charge of you. If it was a liberty, 
 will you excuse it?" 
 
 "I thought you were mamma," answered Dorrice. 
 It was the one thought uppermost. All the feeling 
 of her childhood had come back. Her great eyes 
 continued to devour the strange, lovely face. 
 
 " Did your mother come with you ? " 
 
 " Oh, mamma is dead ! " 
 
 Her voice rang out sharply. The old grief was a 
 live, palpitating thing at that moment. 
 
 " My child ! My poor child ! " exclaimed the 
 stranger again. She laid her hand on Dorrice's; 
 she held the young palm in her soft, warm touch. 
 During the minutes that she had watched the sleeper, 
 she had been saying to herself : " How I envy that 
 girl's mother ! " 
 
 The two sat still and looked at each other with 
 tear-blinded eyes. But it was Dorrice who recov- 
 ered herself first. "I must have been very sound
 
 226 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 asleep," she said. " In this old wood in broad 
 daylight too ! How very odd it was ! " 
 
 " It did not seem so, my dear," replied the lady, 
 and her smile reached her eyes this time. " It was a 
 great pleasure to sit here and watch you." 
 
 "I am so glad to hear you say that," answered 
 Dorrice. She had a curious feeling that she must 
 have known this woman a long while. 
 
 It was impossible that the two should feel like 
 strangers. They sat long in that cool, dusky aisle of 
 the forest, while, a little way off, the Peabody danced 
 and flashed, and sang the song of countless summers, 
 gayly as though no solemn, impassive mountains 
 watched and frowned above it. The two told each 
 other their names, and something of personal history 
 naturally followed. 
 
 But this was dwelt upon in neither case ; and the 
 talk ran largely on the mountain-landscapes so 
 familiar to the woman, so marvellous and varied a 
 surprise to the girl ; and while they talked, the eyes 
 of each dwelt, with a curious, tender interest, upon 
 the other ; and each seemed to- hear in the other's 
 tones the echo of a long-silent voice. 
 
 The afternoon shadows had climbed far up the 
 gorges and ravines of the Mount Washington Range 
 when the two came out of the forest, on their way to 
 the Glen House.
 
 XXX. 
 
 FIVE years before Mrs. Esther Kent met Dorrice 
 Dacres, a great blow had fallen into her life ; her 
 only daughter a girl of sixteen went to ride one 
 morning, turning to throw a kiss, and shake her 
 head archly at her mother, before she cantered down 
 the road on her small black mare. She seemed at 
 that moment an embodiment of the spirit of the joy- 
 ous May morning into whose sunshine and bursting 
 green she rode so gayly. An hour later, Alice Kent 
 was brought home, white, drooping, unconscious. 
 The gash on her left temple was large and deep. 
 Like Mercutio's, it served. The bright lips had 
 smiled their last smile. The little black mare had 
 taken fright, grown unmanageable, and thrown his 
 young mistress against the curbstone. 
 
 At this time, Mrs. Kent had been a widow five 
 years ; her husband had died suddenly, in the south 
 of France, to which he had gone to recruit his health, 
 shattered by the wear and tear of large business 
 responsibilities. Their married life had been one of 
 rare sympathy and happiness. Alice had much re- 
 sembled her father in character and person. 
 
 For a while the friends of the widowed, childless 
 woman feared she would never rally from this blow. 
 But she had a fine elasticity that would not, in the 
 227
 
 228 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 end, succumb to any personal grief. Mrs. Kent 
 aroused herself to find that, though all her dearest 
 loves and joys had vanished, duty still remained. She 
 had many friends ; she was capable of those large, 
 impersonal interests which so often prove the best 
 solace and stimulation of wounded souls. 
 
 Mrs. Kent had been left by her husband with a 
 considerable fortune. It was her aim to have this 
 widen many straitened lives, and smooth rough 
 places for tired feet. 
 
 She had been at the Glen House two days when 
 she met Dorrice Dacres. The acquaintance, which 
 had so unusual a beginning, grew easily under favor- 
 ing circumstances. The girl who, waking from her 
 slumber, had called Mrs. Kent by the name she had 
 last heard from dear, dead lips, must henceforward be 
 set apart from all other girls in the thought and 
 heart of the woman. She fancied, too, that she de- 
 tected various resemblances, in subtle lines and 
 tricks of expression, between Dorrice's face and that 
 of her own lost daughter's. 
 
 Dorrice heard from Mrs. Kent's own lips that she 
 was a widow, living in a cottage on one of the West 
 Newton Avenues. But it was some time before she 
 learned, from one of the lady's friends, of the sudden 
 tragedy that had left her childless. 
 
 When she heard this story, Dorrice gained a new 
 insight into Mrs. Kent's manner toward herself, 
 though they had been long acquainted before the 
 lady alluded to her daughter. But there was some- 
 thing in tone and glance which touched the heart of 
 the young girl, and drew it to the beautiful, gracious
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 229 
 
 woman. Nobody had looked at her nobody had 
 spoken to her in just that way, since her mother 
 died. 
 
 On her side, Mrs. Kent would be sure to hear 
 about Carryl. A day or two after their first meeting, 
 she and Dorrice were on the piazza, watching, at sun- 
 set, the purple shadows, as they crept slowly up the 
 vast flanks of the Range, and drowned the chasms 
 and ravines ; while far up in the pale saffron sky a 
 lovely rose-pink flushed the peaks and transfigured 
 all the hard lines and barren spaces. 
 
 Suddenly Dorrice exclaimed : " Oh, how Carryl 
 would enjoy that delicious color ! " 
 
 Mrs. Kent did not speak ; only her eyes asked who 
 Carryl was. 
 
 " Oh," exclaimed Dorrice, with her bright, half 
 apologetic little laugh. " I forget ! you do not know 
 who Carryl is." 
 
 " I do not know even whether Carryl means he or 
 she ! " 
 
 " Carryl is my brother, Mrs. Kent ; he is camping 
 out now, with some of his class, in the Adirondacks." 
 
 " His class ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes I forgot again ! He is at Harvard ; 
 he is a senior now. We are each having our moun- 
 tain-summer. That makes the best part of it !" 
 
 Mrs. Kent looked at the great, glad eyes. " I 
 see," she said, " you will have notes to compare, and 
 wonderful stories to tell your people when you 
 return home. What a grand rivalry there will be 
 between you two the White Mountains and the 
 Adirondacks ! "
 
 230 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 Dorrice's happy laugh rang out again. " There is 
 really nobody but each other to tell ! " she said, too 
 used to the fact to perceive its pathos. " Carryl and 
 I are all ! " 
 
 In ways like this, bits of autobiography came out. 
 Mrs. Kent learned about the home on Pinckney 
 Street, and the small pupils who came there each 
 morning ; and how it happened that Dorrice was at 
 the Glen House, and her brother at the Adirondacks 
 that summer. 
 
 All that Mrs. Kent heard, and all that her fine 
 instincts penetrated, as her knowledge of Dorrice 
 grew, gave her a deeper interest in the girl. Dor- 
 rice was so perfectly at ease with her new friend 
 talking with her was so different from talking 
 with anybody else that she did not in the least 
 suspect what an insight a few casual sentences must 
 afford to so interested a listener. 
 
 When the girl spoke of her daily living, Mrs. 
 Kent had a far clearer perception of its denials and 
 sacrifices than Dorrice could have believed possible. 
 Yet it was a living that opened into such large hori- 
 zons of young hopes, of high aspirations and beauti- 
 ful affections, that one might well listen with envy 
 to the speaker. 
 
 The life that young orphan boy and girl had 
 wrested out of hard circumstances appeared to Mrs. 
 Kent a story of rare heroism. How many would 
 have gone under in that struggle with fate ! What 
 fine temper of soul it required, too, to come out 
 glad and sweet from the long battle of their young 
 years ! And the girl sitting there had such inborn
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS' 231 
 
 grace and fragrance, she was so fair and fine, that 
 it seemed she must have been nurtured in the 
 softest atmospheres of love and home that no 
 harsh winds could ever have broken into her down- 
 lined nesting-place ! 
 
 Of course, Mrs. Kent was always hearing about 
 Carryl. Dorrice's pride and affection unconsciously 
 cropped out in her talk. It was half amusing, half 
 pathetic, Mrs. Kent sometimes thought. With her 
 knowledge of the world, she secretly questioned the 
 girl's estimate of her brother. She feared lest all 
 those splendid qualities existed largely in his sister's 
 imagination. "No doubt he had fine traits, but this 
 sort of devotion would go far to make a selfish scamp 
 out of any but the noblest material." 
 
 Dorrice's letters had, of course, much to tell her 
 brother of her new friend. " Do you know it reads 
 horribly like gush ? " Carryl wrote in reply. " It is 
 rather tough on a fellow to put him through two 
 pages of superlatives ! As for your paragon, with 
 her aureole of silver hair, it is all a matter of taste, 
 but I happen, as a rule, to prefer glossy locks gold, 
 or brown, or raven, as the case may be ! " 
 
 s Dorrice was so indignant at this letter that she 
 did not, in her answer, mention the lady's name. 
 When her resentment had cooled, she wrote Carryl 
 every detail of her first interview with Mrs. Kent. 
 She had intended to keep that until she saw him. 
 When he learned how curiously the stranger had re- 
 minded Dorrice of their mother, he did not jest any 
 more. 
 
 As the days went on, the two were much together.
 
 232 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 In the beautiful summer weather, in the wonderful 
 mountain-world, they had opportunities for constant 
 informal meetings. Every interview added to the 
 attraction which each felt for the other. Mrs. Kent 
 had known man}' young girls, and was fond of them ; 
 for the years had not chilled her heart, though their 
 snows had fallen early in her hair. She sometimes 
 compared Dorrice to a new landscape, full of the 
 witchery of wide, leafy woods, and dingle and copse, 
 with large, open stretches where the rich green was 
 flecked with sunshine and wild bloom. In these 
 pretty fancies Mrs. Kent's heart and imagination at- 
 tempted to embody something of the effect which 
 Dorrice produced on her the quaint gravity, the 
 radiant joyousness, the bright intellect, and the na- 
 ture, whose fine issues were the most precious quality 
 of all to the woman. 
 
 Mrs. Kent remained three weeks at the Glen. At 
 the end of that time, both she and Dorrice were 
 aware that a new affection had entered into their 
 lives. The lady returned to meet some guests from 
 the West, but she had set her heart on Dorrice's 
 coming to her, for a fortnight at least, before she 
 went back to Pinckney Street. Mrs. Kent now took 
 matters into her own hands. She wrote Carryl, 
 begging him to give her the pleasure of seeing him 
 rejoin his sister under her own roof. 
 
 An invitation of this sort would not have been 
 easy to refuse had it not come in the nick of time. 
 Carryl's party had decided to make a brief tour 
 through Canada, after they broke up in the wilderness, 
 and the fellows would not hear of his leaving them.
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 233 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Hallowell returned the week after 
 Mrs. Kent left. The gentleman had to start the 
 next day for Boston, but he left his wife and boy be- 
 hind. It was early in September. In one of its per- 
 fect mornings, Mrs. Hallowell and Dorrice, with a 
 small party, ascended Mount Washington on foot, 
 and gazed, from the highest point of New England, 
 on a landscape whose vast sweep included six hun- 
 dred miles. 
 
 In the scene that spread below them, they found 
 ample reward for their nine miles' climb. The 
 air had the golden clearness of a September noon- 
 day. Overhead, a few clouds scattered snowy 
 fleeces across the dazzling blue. The travellers fed 
 their eyes on foregrounds of savage mountain- walls, 
 on all the wildness and grandeur and gloom of 
 beetling rock and solemn wilderness and yawning 
 gorge. Then their gaze turned to the distant low- 
 lands, and caught, amid green, sunny vistas, the white 
 gleam of villages, the blue glint of distant lakes 
 and rivers. 
 
 At last, on the far southeastern horizon, somebody 
 saw, and in a moment it had fascinated all eyes, the 
 gray, wan glimmer of the Atlantic. 
 
 The day ended with a blaze of crimson and orange 
 clouds about the sunset, with the slow rising of 
 stars, and the climbing of a great harvest moon up 
 the blue avenues of sky. 
 
 In the night they heard a menacing cry of winds, 
 as though angry spirits were abroad, seeking those 
 who had dared invade their solitudes and defy their 
 wrath.
 
 234 A BOSTON GIKL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 In the chill dawn, the little party huddled together 
 and watched the sun wheel, victorious, over the hori- 
 zon-line. Then the sea of cold white fog, in the vast 
 ravine below, shook and broke into great masses of 
 silver, into plumes and tufts of sun-touched mist, 
 and drifted away, and, lo! the sweet faces of the 
 valleys were uncovered to the rejoicing day. 
 
 When the party drove down the steep granite 
 stairway that leads from the Arctic solitude and 
 desolation, they listened, as one might returning 
 from another planet, for the old familiar sounds 
 the babbling of streams, the murmur of winds in 
 leaves, and all the blessed stir and voices of the 
 every-day world. 
 
 This novel experience to one of the party, at 
 least was followed by another: a leisurely tour of 
 the mountains in one of those weeks of cloudless 
 skies and golden atmospheres with which the New 
 England autumn often opens. The little party, 
 which included Mrs. Hallowell and Dorrice, and did 
 not embrace more than half a dozen, all bright, 
 agreeable people, visited North Conway, and saw 
 its beautiful intervales unrolled like a carpet for the 
 feet of approaching gods. They had a day at Craw- 
 ford's, with an afternoon among the Titanic masonry 
 of the Willey Notch. 
 
 Then they went on to Bethlehem, and fed their 
 gaze on the finer lines and softer modelling of the 
 Franconia Range, with Mount Lafayette and the 
 Profile, and the bewitching scenery of the Flume, in 
 the soft, violet hazes of September, and at last they 
 went home by the lovely windings and intervales of 
 the Pemigewasset valley.
 
 XXXI. 
 
 THERE are houses which seem to acquire, by the 
 long process of years, something of the character of 
 the people who inhabit them. There was one which 
 stood on a slight elevation in West Newton that had 
 a homelike air, which many of its smarter neighbors 
 missed. 
 
 It was a broad, low, gray cottage, its sky-line 
 broken with dormers and gables. Beneath were 
 bay-windows and piazzas. In front, was a graceful 
 sweep of lawn, with clumps of shrubbery and beds 
 of flowers, that made patches of gorgeous color 
 against the varied greens. 
 
 The interior of this cottage had an exquisite har- 
 mony with its surroundings. Everything here was 
 simple and tasteful. Yet the subtle charm of the 
 interior did not consist chiefly in its adornings. 
 You had a feeling, when once you crossed the 
 threshold, that you were in the heart of a home. 
 Books scattered about, some rare paintings on the 
 walls, the grace and harmonies of arrangement, could 
 not wholly account for that indescribably restful, 
 homelike atmosphere which pervaded these rooms. 
 
 If you had known Mrs. Esther Kent, you must 
 have felt that the home fitted its mistress that it 
 was curiously expressive of herself. 
 
 235
 
 236 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 In this cottage, on her return from the mountains, 
 Dorrice Dacres spent three delightful weeks. 
 
 She was not conscious until she came here, dropping 
 as a bird drops at night into its soft, tree-sheltered 
 nest, how heart and soul and nerves craved this home 
 atmosphere, with its freedom from all responsibility, 
 its long leisures, its ineffable peace. Her young life 
 had been for years pitched on a high key. With 
 the standards she had set for herself, it was inevitable 
 there should be a long strain on body and soul. 
 Admirably as these had, thus far, responded to her 
 demands, there were perils for the nerves set to such 
 high tasks. It was impossible that a young girl, 
 alive and healthful in every fibre, should be con- 
 scious of any dangers of reaction, when she taxed 
 herself so heavily. Even had Dorrice perceived 
 these, she would have insisted they must be risked. 
 There would be time to talk of rest when Carryl 
 was through Harvard. 
 
 The summer had, as we know, brought delightful 
 changes of scene, and recreation. But it had been 
 crowded with pleasures and excitements, and it was 
 doubly fortunate for Dorrice that she could have 
 this restful interlude of home-life before she resumed 
 that of Pinckney Street. 
 
 From the hour of her first coming to West New- 
 ton, it had not been at all like visiting. She 
 wondered at this, as she moved about her own large, 
 cool, prettily furnished chamber, with its great dor- 
 mer-window, which looked .into the gnarled, sun- 
 flecked branches of an ancient pear-tree. She moved 
 about the halls and staircases, and among the cosey
 
 A BOSTON GIKL'S AMBITIONS. 237 
 
 nooks and corners, with such a curious sense of 
 freedom and happiness that it amazed herself. 
 
 " Everything seems so strangely natural and fam- 
 iliar, as though I must have known it all my life," 
 she occasionally said to her hostess, with a bright 
 gravity in her face. 
 
 " I should be sorry if it seemed otherwise," Mrs. 
 Kent would reply, looking at the girl with pleased 
 eyes. 
 
 Dorrice imagined that the balance of happiness in 
 this visit was immensely in her favor, but she could 
 not understand how much she conferred. 
 
 It seemed to her hostess as though these days 
 belonged to another time as though a presence had 
 come back to fill the rooms once more with its 
 young, joyous life. 
 
 Mrs. Kent saw a likeness not so clear to other 
 people between Dorrice and a portrait which hung 
 in her own chamber. It was that of a young girl 
 with a face of wonderful sweetness, and masses of 
 yellow-brown hair, and eyes of intense, smiling blue. 
 
 At the close of Dorrice's three weeks, Carryl came 
 to the cottage at West Newton. He returned in 
 superb health and spirits, sunburnt and muscular, 
 and bringing down from the wilderness the strong 
 heart and high courage that made him feel equal to 
 any tussle with fate. 
 
 Mrs. Kent had looked forward with some anxiety 
 to the young man's advent. She had long seen that 
 Dorrice regarded him as everything that was honor- 
 able, high-souled, generous. In spite of all this, she 
 held her judgment in reserve.
 
 238 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 But when she saw the eager, frank, handsome face, 
 when she listened to the talk of the bright, manly 
 youth, and perceived, as, in a thousand little ways, it 
 showed itself, a lack of self-conceit, which his sister's 
 devotion and his recent successes at college might 
 have excused, Mrs. Kent began to feel that the 
 youth was, on the whole, much what Dorrice believed 
 him. 
 
 " Not all, of course ! That, with young human 
 nature, would perhaps be impossible. But he is a 
 splendid fellow ; I am so glad for her sake ! " Mrs. 
 Kent said to herself, after her first long interview 
 with the young man. 
 
 On Carryl's part, his sister's reports, and his own 
 correspondence with Mrs. Kent, had given him very 
 agreeable impressions of that lady. But he felt it 
 due to his masculine poise and coolness, not to be 
 carried off his feet. As he put it to himself, " Of 
 course, it is different with a girl." 
 
 But before the second day was over, Carry 1 had 
 
 / / 
 
 said to his sister: "You were right, Dorrice! There 
 is something about Mrs. Kent's look or manner 
 which, at times, reminds me of our mother." 
 
 When he said that, Dorrice was satisfied. Of 
 course, Carryl's appearance was the signal for the 
 return to Pinckney Street. Mrs. Kent was very 
 solicitous that her young friends should prolong 
 their visit, but circumstances at this time were too 
 strong for her. She only succeeded in detaining 
 them for a few days. 
 
 The last evening they were at the cottage, Carryl 
 said to his sister, in that half serious, half bantering
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 239 
 
 tone which was so much the habit of their talk, 
 " You must make up your mind, Dorrice, that you 
 will have an insufferable fellow to manage, when we 
 are once more under our own vine and fig-tree ! It 
 will take a year of Harvard drudgery to smooth 
 down the original savage that has come to life with 
 six weeks of the Adirondack wilderness!" 
 
 " I have not the least fear of the ' original 
 savage,' " rejoined Dorrice, with a defiant shake of 
 her head. "But I tremble for the time when you 
 come to realize you are a full-fledged senior, and take 
 on the proper airs ! If you mount your high horse 
 too often, I have an arrow in reserve." 
 
 " That ambiguous threat is well calculated to make 
 a fellow pause and quake ! What does it mean ? " 
 
 " It means Mrs. Kent. If you get too unbearable, 
 I shall run away to her for support and advice." 
 
 She had been listening 1 , amused, to the playful 
 talk. It seemed to the widowed, childless woman 
 that her home would be conscious of some loss and 
 loneliness when this bright young manhood and 
 maidenhood went out of it. 
 
 "Wouldn't it be wiser to save yourself all trouble 
 by not going at all ? " she now answered Dorrice, 
 half in jest, half in earnest. 
 
 The girl did not dream there could be anything 
 serious at the bottom of this question. " You hear 
 what Mrs. Kent says, Carryl ! " turning to him with 
 an air of triumph. 
 
 " I hear and am vanquished ! A fellow's only 
 safety now will be in carrying himself as though the 
 sword of Damocles always hung over his head ! "
 
 240 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 The talk went on for some time. Mrs. Kent was 
 pleased to see the young people so unconsciously free 
 and joyous under her roof in her presence. But 
 all the time there was a serious under-current in her 
 thoughts. She was pondering some important matter, 
 weighing the balances carefully. Once, in a pause of 
 the gay banter, she opened her lips to speak. Then 
 she checked herself, with a slight, decided movement 
 of her head. "No!" she said to herself, "it would 
 be hasty ill judged to propose that now. Per- 
 haps the time will come ; I must wait." 
 
 The next day the young people returned to Pinck- 
 ney Street.
 
 XXXII. 
 
 DORRICE'S prophecy came true. Carryl's senior 
 year proved able to stand on its own feet. Indeed, 
 it was financially easier than the two which preceded 
 it. Carryl had formed acquaintances at Harvard 
 who proved of service to him : he had some coaching 
 to do, which paid handsomely. Dorrice's work in 
 water-colors furnished occasional tributaries to their 
 main resources. Altogether, it was a busy, hopeful, 
 happy time. 
 
 A new interest and pleasure had entered into it. 
 There was a constant interchange of visits between 
 West Newton and Pinckney Street. The home in 
 those upper rooms had a charm for Mrs. Kent. As 
 she sat amid the pretty furnishings, she wondered at 
 the taste which had achieved all these results 
 with such limitations, tool" 
 
 It came soon to be an understood matter that 
 Dorrice should give Mrs. Kent an afternoon each 
 week, and that Carryl should join her at evening 
 and bring her home. 
 
 Mrs. Kent often pondered how she could be of 
 service to her young friends. It was a problem that 
 required delicate handling. She did find many ways 
 of brightening their lives ; but their fine reserves, 
 their spirit of high independence, always warned her 
 
 241
 
 242 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 to move warily in these matters. After all, she was 
 in herself, and in what she could be to Carryl and 
 Dorrice Dacres, the most precious gift she could 
 have brought them. 
 
 Before that winter was over, Mrs. Kent gained a 
 fresh insight into the young people's history. She 
 met Mrs. Hallowell one da} r on Pinckney Street, and 
 afterward the ladies exchanged calls. The younger 
 one related the circumstances of her first acquaint- 
 ance with Carryl Dacres ; as well as the events 
 which had led to his entering Harvard, and the part 
 which Dorrice had borne in that matter. 
 
 There was no reason, Mrs. Hallowell told herself, 
 why she should not confide this to one who took so 
 warm an interest in all that concerned the young 
 people. 
 
 The story could not fail to impress Mrs. Kent. " It 
 had a heroic quality," she thought, " that high cour- 
 age of both that fine devotion of one ! " 
 
 But Mrs. Hallowell 's knowledge of her young 
 friends' past however intimate she might believe 
 it still left her in complete ignorance of their 
 hardest straits, their darkest hours. 
 
 Carryl, on occasion, brought some of his classmates 
 to introduce to his sister, and two or three favored 
 ones enjoyed occasionally a simple little banquet on 
 Pinckney Street, where the young hostess did her 
 part with graceful ease that would have left nothing 
 wanting amid statelier surroundings. 
 
 So there was more or less talk among the fellows 
 of Dacres' lovely sister. Some of them got to be, 
 as the college slang went, "spooney" over her.
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 243 
 
 They sent her bouquets learned the places which 
 were favorite walks with her and Carryl, and hung 
 about certain streets for a chance of meeting the pair. 
 They drank her health at their parties and suppers, 
 and declared Dacres was a horrid old ogre to keep 
 his rare bird shut up as he did, in her high cage. 
 All of which Carryl duly reported to his sister, who 
 listened and laughed at the nonsense, and flushed at 
 the praises, and enjoyed them as a girl would. But 
 they did not go so deep as that old talk at Class Day. 
 At twenty-one, Dorrice tried to believe she had out- 
 grown vanities of that sort. 
 
 This year, also, brought with it opportunities for 
 an enlarged social life. Of these, however, more 
 pressing interests allowed the young people to avail 
 themselves only in a very limited degree. The 
 party with whom Dorrice had made the tour of the 
 White Mountains could not forget the young girl 
 who had added so much to the pleasure of their trip. 
 They hunted her up. They showed her graceful 
 attentions, and sent her invitations of various kinds, 
 which, on rare occasions, she and Carryl found time 
 to accept.
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 ONE morning in early May, Dorrice Dacres was 
 leaving a woman's ward of the Massachusetts Gen- 
 eral Hospital. She had been here on a visit to one of 
 the inmates a servant of Mrs. Kent's, that lady 
 being absent from home a few days. 
 
 As the girl passed rapidly along the ward, she un- 
 consciously glanced toward a bed on her right. A 
 woman's face was lying on the pillow, a drawn, 
 wasted face, ashen with the shadow of the coming 
 death. 
 
 About this face was a mass of dark hair, into 
 which the gray had crept thickly. But the eyes 
 were the dominant feature large, bright, hollow, 
 with a dreadful pathos in them which might mean 
 weariness, or remorse, or despair, or all of these. 
 
 Yet, despite all the waste and ghastliness, a strik- 
 ing face lay on the hospital pillow. It must have 
 had a powerful attractiveness when life and bloom 
 gave their charm to the clear-cut features. 
 
 When the woman caught sight of Dorrice, a swift 
 change came over her. She raised her head from the 
 pillow; a wild, scared look shot into her eyes; a 
 low, repressed cry of recognition, amazement, horror, 
 broke from her lips. 
 
 244
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 245 
 
 At that cry, Dorrice caught her breath, and stood 
 still. She saw the wild, burning eyes staring at her 
 out of the sharp, livid face the white lips trembling 
 the thin fingers clutching at the bed-clothes; then 
 she heard the low, scared cry that followed : " Oh, 
 Grace Dacres Grace Dacres don't ! don't ! " 
 
 She waved her hands in the air with a piteous, 
 imploring gesture ; her whole frame cowered and 
 trembled. 
 
 At those words, Dorrice grew white. There was 
 no sound for a moment or two. The woman on the 
 bed and the girl stared at each other. 
 
 One of the nurses caught the cry ; she hurried to 
 the patient. 
 
 The blue-veined, shadowy hands waved once more 
 in the air, in that terrified, appealing way. " I know 
 her ! " muttered the woman in her low, scared voice. 
 " It is Grace Dacres stands there ! She has been fol- 
 lowing me ever since that day ! I knew she would 
 come at the last come with those eyes as they 
 looked at me after I had said the words and sworn 
 the oath ! " 
 
 The nurse attempted to soothe the woman. " She 
 must think you are somebody else," she said to Dor- 
 rice, in an undertone. " Don't let her see you." 
 
 But Dorrice did not move. She was shaking in 
 every limb. Not a syllable of that low, scared mut- 
 ter had escaped her. 
 
 At that instant the doctor entered the ward. He 
 was a pleasant-faced, dark-haired, middle-aged man. 
 He had the brisk, prompt air of one who is used to 
 facing emergencies and mastering them.
 
 246 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 His rapid glance took in the figures at the bed- 
 side. He saw in a moment that something unusual 
 had happened. By this time the attention of the 
 patients in the vicinity was aroused. Nothing had, 
 thus far, happened to agitate them the woman, 
 through all her excitement, had spoken in a low 
 voice even her gestures had a repressed air, as 
 though this had become a habit with her. 
 
 The nurse explained the situation so far as she 
 understood it in a few words. 
 
 The doctor gave his first attention to the sick 
 woman ; her head had fallen back. There was a 
 wild glitter in her eyes. She muttered to herself in 
 a low, incoherent way. 
 
 The doctor felt her pulse ; said something to her 
 which had a soothing effect ; then he turned to 
 Dorrice, who still stood, motionless as a statue, 
 at the foot of the bed. "You will have to leave 
 her at once," he said in a kindly, but decided 
 voice. 
 
 Then Dorrice spoke.- Her words were a cry out 
 of her heart. "But she thought I was mamma! 
 She spoke her name ; she must have known her ! " 
 
 The voice was one which no man could fail to 
 heed. " I will see you in a few moments," the doctor 
 added. Then he made a sign to the nurse to lead the 
 young lady away. 
 
 Dorrice could never tell how long she waited in 
 the office. It was probably but a few minutes, though 
 it seemed hours to her. For once she did not know 
 that outside the May sun was shining ; she did not 
 heed that all the northern land was glad in the fresh
 
 A BOSTON GIKL'S AMBITIONS. 247 
 
 young green with which it was robing itself to meet 
 the summer. 
 
 At last the doctor came ; he looked at Dorrice 
 with his keen, penetrating eyes, that grew kindly as 
 he gazed. " You knew this woman ? " he asked. 
 
 " Never ! But she called me Grace Dacres. That 
 was my mother's name. They say I am like her. 
 There is some mystery some wrong to clear up! 
 You will allow me to see her again ? " 
 
 That was the beginning of the talk that lasted ten 
 minutes perhaps. The doctor was all sympathetic 
 attention. The more he saw of Dorrice, the more he 
 was inclined to render her any service in his power. 
 
 The patient, he said, was fast approaching her 
 end. Her mind had wandered, more or less, during 
 the last days. It was possible there would be a 
 lucid interval before the end came ; but, seeing the 
 flash of joy in Dorrice's eyes at those words, he 
 warned her not to trust too much to that. 
 
 The woman's name was Madeline Reeves. She 
 had been brought to the hospital a month ago. She 
 was a widow, she stated, and had no relatives in 
 Boston. She was dying of consumption, though the 
 doctor had perceived that her disease was aggravated 
 by some mental trouble and remorse. 
 
 She was quiet, now, partly from exhaustion, partly 
 from the effect of a narcotic. He would not be sur- 
 prised if she did not survive another day. 
 
 The doctor's clear statements, his kindly manner, 
 and his evident control of the situation, all tended 
 to calm Dorrice. 
 
 He agreed that the woman should be removed to
 
 248 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 another room, so that the interview if one could 
 be had should take place in strict privacy. 
 
 Dorrice gave him her address. He assured her 
 that every care should be taken of the sick woman, 
 and that he would send a message as soon as there 
 were signs of returning strength and reason. 
 
 An hour later, the girl sat in her own room wait- 
 ing, with strained ears, for Carryl's return. 
 
 He came at last, mounting the stairs two or 
 three at a time and humming one of his gay col- 
 lege songs. 
 
 When she turned her face toward him, he stopped 
 short, then he cried out sharply : " What has hap- 
 pened, Dorrice ? " 
 
 She told him. 
 
 There was a day far back in Carryl Dacres' boy- 
 hood so far back that his sister two years his 
 junior could not recall it, but which had burned 
 itself into his memory. 
 
 They had not alluded to it for years. Indeed, 
 Dorrice had only a vague, confused idea of the whole 
 matter. Carryl could not bring himself to speak of 
 that painful memory in the first place, because 
 Dorrice was too young to comprehend it, and could 
 only be bewildered and saddened by the mystery ; 
 and, later, because he had felt that nothing was to be 
 gained for the past, and something of courage and 
 strength must be wasted for the present, by dwelling 
 on the scene that stood in such strong relief in the 
 background of his memory. 
 
 But none the less, it had always been his secret 
 conviction that on this far-off day, some mysterious 

 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 249 
 
 blow had been dealt his mother a blow that had 
 shaped and saddened all her future, and her chil- 
 dren's that it had broken her heart, and was the 
 cause of her death. 
 
 As he listened to Dorrice's strange tale, that dis- 
 tant time rose vividly to Carry!, and persistently 
 associated itself with the woman who lay dying in 
 the hospital, and who had ca!led his sister by her 
 mother's name. 
 
 And now, for the first time, Dorrice heard the 
 whole story. 
 
 It all happened before they went to live at Fox- 
 low, when Carryl was past five, and Dorrice three. 
 At that time, their father had been dead more than 
 a year. 
 
 The two were having a merry time around their 
 mother, when a message was brought that a gentle- 
 man and lady were waiting in the parlor. 
 
 Carryl could see his mother now, as she turned at 
 the door with a little smile on her lips, and a warn- 
 ing shake of the head, at their loud mirth, before 
 she passed from the room. 
 
 She was gone a long while so long, Carryl re- 
 membered, that they grew tired of the fun, and Dor- 
 rice was cross, and at last fell asleep, while he buried 
 himself in a picture-book. 
 
 But the woman who went out of that room with 
 the warning shake of her head, and the tender smile 
 on her lips, never came back again. It was a 
 woman with a face white as the dead, and with 
 wild, hunted eyes, who crept back at last, in a blind, 
 groping way.
 
 250 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 She did not see Carryl ; she did not appear to 
 know where she was. 
 
 "Oh, mamma!" he cried out, with the swift, sure 
 instinct of childhood, " what have they been doing 
 to you ? " 
 
 She started and stared at him ; she lifted her 
 finger. "Hush! hush!" she said, in a frightened 
 whisper. " Nobody must hear you ; nobody must 
 know, and tell." 
 
 She said this, at times, for days that followed ; 
 and she would look at him and Dorrice in a way that 
 made the young boy shut his eyes ; sometimes she 
 would be lost in thoughts and memories that kept 
 her for hours unconscious of their presence. 
 
 At night, too, the boy would hear her walking the 
 next room, talking and moaning to herself; and 
 often he would hear her cry out in a voice he did 
 not know, it was so sharp with its passion of grief 
 and agony : " Oh, John ! John ! " 
 
 One day the boy's instinct served him better than 
 the wisdom of years. Dorrice was clinging to her 
 mother, who did not notice her. The child felt the 
 changed atmosphere, though she was too young to 
 reason about it. 
 
 Carryl went over to the two ; he put his arm about 
 his sister. " Mamma, you have got me and Dorrice," 
 he said. 
 
 He remembered that a year ago that seemed 
 ages at five his mother said those words, not long 
 after the tidings came that their father had been 
 killed in the war. 
 
 He was not able to recall much of that time,
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 251 
 
 though he had a vague sense of some awful shock 
 and grief. 
 
 The words in that childish voice went to the moth- 
 er's heart. She started, and gazed a minute or two 
 in silence on her children. Through all the pain in 
 her eyes, the boy was conscious of something else. 
 His mother, his beautiful young mother, seemed to 
 be asking pardon of her children, as though some 
 wrong or shame, for which she held herself accounta- 
 ble, had come to them. 
 
 But now a softer look stole into her eyes. She 
 drew the boy and girl to her heart. " Oh, God," 
 she said, " I must not die ; I must not go mad ; I 
 must live for them ! " 
 
 But afterwards she never, if she could help it, 
 named their father's name to his children. 
 
 She had always been so proud of him forever 
 telling them stories about him. Carryl knew that 
 she thought him the tenderest, noblest, the supreme 
 man in the world. 
 
 Carryl was a serious, keenly observant boy. He 
 noticed the change. 
 
 One day that was after he had grown older, and 
 they had lived at Foxlow a long time Carryl spoke 
 his father's name. His mother made no reply. He 
 came to her, and, looking in her face, said, " Mamma, 
 papa was a good man, wasn't he ? " 
 
 She drew a long breath. There was a flash of pain 
 and shame in her eyes ; her white lips trembled, but 
 they did not utter a word. 
 
 The two looked at each other a moment. The 
 mother could not answer her son. Carryl turned
 
 252 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 away. Boy as he was, the iron had entered his 
 soul. 
 
 But from that time there was a change in him. 
 He was more manly, he was tenderer toward his 
 mother and young sister. 
 
 There was another scene which had burned itself 
 into Carryl Dacres' memory. It was the day his 
 mother died. They had been living in Foxlow ten 
 years when that happened. Her health had been 
 gradually failing for a long time ; but nobody 
 dreamed least of all, her children that she 
 would not rally. 
 
 Carryl had been sitting by her side while she slept. 
 Her eyes suddenly opened. What a strange, solemn 
 gladness shone in them ! What a light and joy illu- 
 minated the sweet, white face! "Carryl," she said, 
 and the low, exultant tones thrilled his soul, " your 
 father was a good man remember always that I 
 said that. Oh, thank God, he was a good man ! It 
 was all a lie ! " 
 
 " What was a lie, mamma ? " He bent over her. 
 
 " I can't tell you now ; I'm very tired," she an- 
 swered, in a weary voice, but one of perfect content. 
 " When I am rested, you shall know all about it ; 
 only you and Dorrice need not be afraid ashamed 
 do you hear that, dear? Your father was a good 
 man the best man in all the world!" and she 
 smiled on him a smile of ineffable happiness, and 
 stroked his black locks with her thin ringers. 
 
 " But what has happened ? How do you know ? " 
 His intense craving for the truth forced out the ques- 
 tions.
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 253 
 
 "It was like a dream," murmured the fain., voice, 
 thrilled with joy ; " yet it was not one. We were 
 together again. ' Grace,' he said, in his old, tender 
 voice, ' you should have had faith in me. It was all 
 &/-' 
 
 "And when he spoke, and looked at me with the 
 old, brave love in his eyes, I knew it was just as he 
 said, and I cried out, ' Oh, John, can you forgive me?' 
 
 "He smiled on me then. There was such an un- 
 utterable pity in his eyes, as though he knew all I 
 had suffered, and there was to be no talk of forgive- 
 ness between us. Then I awoke. But I am tired 
 now " her voice gradually sank ; " I will tell you 
 all about it, dear, when I am stronger. Thank God, 
 your father was a good man ! " 
 
 Her head drooped on the pillow. Carryl sat a long 
 time by the bedside, going over all she had told him. 
 At last somebody came in. But he never heard his 
 mother's voice again. The sudden joy, after the long 
 grief, had killed her. 
 
 The brother and sister sat together all that May 
 day, the present swallowed up in the past. Dorrice 
 heard much from Carryl that she had never known 
 before. 
 
 And as they talked, or sat silent, looking at each 
 other with strange, awed faces, one question was 
 still uppermost in the thoughts of both. Did that 
 woman, dying in the hospital a little way off, know 
 the secret of the wrong and mystery which had shad- 
 owed their childhood and killed their mother ? Was 
 she concerned in it all ?
 
 254 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 She herself could alone answer, and she might die 
 without speaking. 
 
 Dorrice was dreadfully shaken by all she had seen 
 and learned that day. Through the night she and 
 Carryl had only fitful, broken slumbers. Before ten 
 o'clock the next morning, while they waited, a mes- 
 sage arrived from the doctor, " Come at once."
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 THE doctor met the young people. He was pre- 
 pared to see Carryl, as Dorrice had spoken of him in 
 their interview. The sick woman had roused from 
 her long stupor, with faculties clear and alert, but 
 she was rapidly sinking. 
 
 She remembered what had happened the preceding 
 day, and had asked questions, and listened greedily 
 to explanations, and insisted that she could not die 
 without seeing the young people. 
 
 They were shown, without delay, to the private 
 room to which she had been removed. Before they 
 entered, the doctor warned them that any fresh ex- 
 citement might prove fatal to the patient, and so 
 prevent her ever getting through with any revelation 
 she might wish to make. 
 
 They found Mrs. Reeves carefully pillowed up in 
 bed, with the May sunshine making a pleasant 
 warmth and brightness all about her. But it seemed 
 as though every breath that panted out of the thin, 
 drawn lips might be her last, and the gray ghastli- 
 ness had deepened on her face. 
 
 The doctor and the nurse went out, and left the 
 three together. 
 
 The great dark eyes rested for a few moments in 
 silence on Carryl Dacres. The sick woman was too 
 
 255
 
 256 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 far exhausted for much emotion. "You are John 
 Dacres' son," she said at last. " You are much like 
 your father." 
 
 " You knew him, then? " asked Carryl. His heart 
 was full of a great pity for the woman lying there. 
 He had never come so near death before, except when 
 his mother died, and that was all so different. 
 
 A look of swift pain came into the hazel-gray eyes, 
 which seemed to hold all the life of the livid face. 
 u Yes, I knew him," said the hollow tones, " to his 
 sorrow to your mother's ! " 
 
 There was a little silence. Then the woman 
 motioned faintly to the chairs. "Sit down," she 
 said ; " I must tell you quickly, or it may be too 
 late." 
 
 The two sat down without a word. For the next 
 hour Mrs. Reeves did all the talking. Sometimes 
 her voice was clear through its hollowness, sometimes 
 it came in gasps and pants ; but she kept on stead- 
 ily, evidently in fear lest her strength should fail her 
 at any moment, and she should never be able to 
 complete her story. 
 
 And the two listened, not losing a syllable, while 
 their faces grew white almost as the dying woman's. 
 
 It would be impossible to repeat Madeline Reeves' 
 story in her own words. Even Carryl and Dorrice 
 Dacres never attempted that. 
 
 She first met John Dacres in California. He had 
 been there at that time less than a year. She was 
 out on a visit to her cousins, a gay, handsome, 
 dashing Eastern girl, a good deal of a belle in her 
 native town, while the adulation she received in
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 257 
 
 California was well calculated to stimulate all her 
 vanity. 
 
 Her lovers insisted, too, that there was a bright, 
 piquant charm in the girl's talk and manner, which 
 vastly enhanced her attractions in their eyes. 
 
 John Dacres was a handsome young fellow, about 
 twenty-seven. When she compared her other admir- 
 ers with him, they seemed smaller and coarser. Her 
 woman's instinct perceived that his slightest mark of 
 regard meant more than the most fervid vows of the 
 men in her train. He had a tender reverence for 
 woman, a chivalric regard for her, which Madeline 
 Reeves had never met before, and which, while it 
 sometimes amused her, interested and touched the 
 best side of her nature. 
 
 Not that she was really in love with young Dacres. 
 Perhaps it would have been impossible for her to be, 
 at that time, with any man. 
 
 An atmosphere of flattery and admiration had be- 
 come the breath of her life. She coquetted with one 
 lover after another, and each, at times, believed him- 
 self the favored suitor, and at others, full of mad 
 jealousies, was ready to shoot his rivals. 
 
 John Dacres, however, was easily deceived by the 
 accomplished flirt. His nature, was singularly ingen- 
 uous and trustful with his friends ; and the hand- 
 some, sparkling girl soon made a profound impression 
 upon his heart and imagination. 
 
 In his presence, too, Madeline was another woman 
 a softer, more serious one ; and this was really not 
 mere acting on her part. In his society, under his in- 
 fluence, she was drawn to a higher mood ; but the
 
 258 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 reaction would come, and, in his absence, she would 
 flirt more desperately than ever. 
 
 At this crisis Andrew Reeves appeared upon the 
 scene. He was a remote connection of Madeline, 
 and in their Eastern home they had been thrown 
 much together. 
 
 Reeves was a quick-witted, jovial young fellow, 
 with good looks and agreeable manners, ambitious to 
 make his way in the world. Before he set out for 
 the West for the fortune he was bent on acquiring, 
 Madeline had promised to be his wife. She had, in 
 the opinion of her small social world, secured the 
 great prize. They had not seen each other for more 
 than two years when they met in San Francisco. 
 The young man had spent much time in southern 
 California and in Mexico. His associations had not 
 been of a kind to elevate him morally ; but they 
 had sharpened his faculties, given him a large knowl- 
 edge of one side of the world, and developed his 
 native capacity for making himself agreeable in any 
 society in which he happened to find himself. 
 
 The two had corresponded during these years. 
 Madeline had often questioned with herself whether 
 she should not break the engagement ; but Andrew 
 had always taken its continued existence for granted, 
 and now he appeared, much improved in certain 
 respects, with the power of old association and habit 
 in his favor, and with the reputation of having 
 achieved a grand fortune. 
 
 During these years Madeline had changed too. 
 She enjoyed the exercise of her power over men ; 
 she knew how, in their eyes, her sparkling talk and
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 259 
 
 dashing manner enhanced her good looks ; and she 
 was mistress of all the arts and graces of a finished 
 coquette. Her lover was fairly taken by storm. All 
 his old passion revived. 
 
 The only man of whom Andrew Reeves ever 
 showed the slightest jealousy was John Dacres. He 
 was absolutely indifferent to all Madeline's other suit- 
 ors, and seemed rather to enjoy her flirtations and tri- 
 umphs ; but from his first meeting with young Dacres, 
 he regarded him as a dangerous rival. The object of 
 this jealousy had not the remotest suspicion of its 
 existence. All the same, Reeves made every effort to 
 win the young man's confidence and favor, in which 
 he succeeded. 
 
 The interviews between the lovers were often 
 stormy. Enraged at his reproaches and the manner 
 in which he insisted on their engagement, Madeline 
 often vowed to herself she would break it ; but when 
 it came to that point, Andrew still maintained some 
 of his old influence over the proud, undisciplined 
 girl. His strong will, his dash and audacity, attracted 
 her. Sometimes she believed that she hated him ; at 
 others, she was not certain whether she feared or 
 loved him. 
 
 The fact that Reeves was Madeline's relative, as it 
 had been represented to young Dacres, fully ac- 
 counted to him for their intimacy. The two men 
 began to have an interest in some mining specula- 
 tions. Reeves was bent on their entering into busi- 
 ness relations. 
 
 But though he courted young Dacres' society on 
 every occasion, he had the habit, when alone with
 
 260 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 Madeline, and when rage and jealousy got the better 
 of his usual self-command, of expressing the utmost 
 contempt for his rival, "for his high-flown ideas, his 
 absurd notions of business honor, his conscientious 
 scruples, that would, no doubt, go down in the nursery 
 and infant school, for which they were well adapted, 
 but were the most infernal humbug in the eyes of 
 any man who knew the world." 
 
 All this while Madeline was encouraging John 
 Dacres' suit. He had not, indeed, urged it in words ; 
 but she knew perfectly that he was only waiting for 
 a suitable time to ask her to be his wife. She always 
 managed to put off the critical moment; but she had 
 a thousand ways of leaving him in no doubt as to 
 what her answer would be. 
 
 His confidence in her was not surprising. John 
 Dacres had not been brought up among women, and 
 it was natural to his fine and generous nature to 
 idealize those for whom he cared. 
 
 The end came suddenly when all the three were 
 least prepared for it. Madeline had returned from a 
 long drive with young Dacres. She always believed 
 that he had meant that day to ask her to be his wife ; 
 and that all her woman's tact had barely sufficed to 
 postpone the question she was not prepared to an- 
 swer. On their return, they met Reeves. The sight 
 had inflamed his jealousy. 
 
 He came to the house soon afterward, and the in- 
 terview which followed was the stormiest that ever 
 took place between the two. 
 
 When Andrew Reeves' rage was at white heat, he 
 could be outwardly calm, and insufferably aggravat-
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 261 
 
 ing ; but, at this time, his passion slipped its leash, 
 and he overwhelmed Madeline with accusations and 
 reproaches for her faithlessness to their engagement, 
 while she continued to encourage the suit of another. 
 
 The scene reached its climax, when John Dacres 
 suddenly appeared from an alcove that opened out of 
 the room, and was shielded by draperies, so that one 
 inside could hear every sjdlable spoken in the larger 
 apartment. The young man had returned for a 
 volume he had inadvertently left behind. A loud, 
 angry sentence held him spellbound. Others fol- 
 lowed in the same strain, a part of them in the voice 
 that had grown so dear to him, before he realized 
 what he was doing. 
 
 Madeline gave a little cry, as she caught sight of 
 him, and sank upon the sofa. Even Reeves, whose 
 coolness was proof against almost any emergency, 
 turned white, and did not utter a word. 
 
 But John Dacres had nothing to say to him. He 
 turned to Madeline ; there was an awful scorn in his 
 eyes in his quiet, incisive tones. "I beg your par- 
 don," he said. " As soon as I found I was listening, 
 I came out. You cannot be surprised, if I did not 
 realize for an instant what I was doing. But I have 
 heard enough. Madeline Reeves, you have been one 
 long LIE to me from the beginning ! " 
 
 Then he turned and left them. Reeves threatened, 
 swore, wanted to follow and fight him for the word 
 he had spoken to Madeline ; but she hung to him 
 held him back almost by main force. 
 
 They never saw John Dacres again. 
 
 Andrew Reeves' power was strong enough to win
 
 262 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 Madeline at the last. They were married in less 
 than three months after that scene in the parlor. 
 But she always had a feeling that when John Dacres 
 had turned and left her that day, with the scorn in 
 his eyes, and the dreadful word on his lips, he had 
 carried with him something of herself, something 
 that was best, and truest, and that might, perhaps, 
 have belonged to him. 
 
 The marriage did not, in the end, prove a happy 
 one. So long as fortune smiled, Andrew Reeves was 
 a kind husband. No doubt, Madeline was the only 
 woman he had ever really cared for. But, after a 
 while, his temper grew soured, embittered, as one 
 business trouble followed another, and, with the de- 
 cline of his fortunes, he fell among bad influences, 
 grew more or less dissipated, and his temper, over 
 which he had always showed great control, began to 
 wax explosive and savage. 
 
 Madeline's health and high spirits failed with their 
 misfortunes. Her two children died ; she saw the 
 evil side of her husband come more and more to the 
 surface, while her own influence over him, powerful 
 at the first, began steadily to decline. 
 
 At last there were pecuniary transactions, the 
 nature of which his wife never precisely understood, 
 which made it necessary that Reeves should leave 
 California, secretly and suddenly. 
 
 They came east, stopping at Rochester, where 
 Reeves had business acquaintances, and hoped to 
 retrieve his fortunes. But these did not brighten 
 rapidly as he expected. In his morose moods, he 
 would swear that an evil fate tracked him. He
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 263 
 
 drank heavily at this time, but the habit did not 
 shake his nerves it only made his brain cool and 
 steady for the gambling in which he now indulged, 
 with varied fortunes. 
 
 One day, sitting on the veranda of the hotel, he 
 saw a tall, singularly beautiful woman pass by. He 
 inquired her name, learned she was the widow of 
 John Dacres, who had been killed, the year before, in 
 the war. The name at once riveted Reeves' atten- 
 tion. Subsequent inquiries satisfied him of the 
 identity of the dead officer with his former friend. 
 Reeves took pains to learn every fact connected 
 with the widow and her children. She was quite 
 alone ; her father had died soon after her mar- 
 riage ; her husband had brought his family to Roch- 
 ester, intending to go into business. Then the war 
 broke out ; he joined the army, was a captain in one 
 of the earliest regiments that went to the field. 
 
 Reeves also learned that John Dacres had left a 
 considerable fortune, largely in California mining- 
 stocks and lands. His father-in-law, president of a 
 college in western New York, had also left his 
 daughter a small property. 
 
 At the time Andrew Reeves learned these facts, 
 his fortunes had reached their nadir, his brief gam- 
 bling luck had deserted him ; his wife, who had a 
 high temper of her own, began to dread his savage 
 moods. 
 
 Mrs. Reeves never knew the precise time when 
 the plot he afterwards consummated w T ith such cool 
 villany, first entered her husband's mind. She 
 noticed a deadly gleam in his eye, when he swore
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 that the day had come to turn the tables on fate 
 that he was going to do it, too, by fair means or foul ! 
 
 Then he began to hint darkly that lie must have 
 money to lift him out of his present state; and that 
 it was in her power to aid him to get it. 
 
 Mrs. Reeves was rendered very uneasy by this 
 talk. The brilliant, high-spirited girl had, by this 
 time, subsided into the faded, disappointed woman. 
 When she begged her husband to explain himself, 
 he lapsed into sullen silence. But she had a feeling 
 that some mischief was brewing. 
 
 Mrs. Reeves had learned of John Dacres' death, 
 and of the widow and children who were living in 
 Rochester. She knew that her husband had once 
 set his heart on entering into a business partnership 
 with the dead man, and that he always believed he 
 should have succeeded to his own immense advan- 
 tage, if the interview between him and Madeline had 
 not proved fatal to all such projects. 
 
 When Reeves had matured the plot, on which he 
 had been brooding for some time, the first step, 
 which he probably regarded as the most difficult 
 one, was to broach it to his wife. He made his 
 approaches in a tentative way, which, for a while, 
 hopelessly bewildered her. But one after another, 
 as he talked on for hours, sometimes parrying her 
 questions, sometimes fairly meeting them, the hid- 
 eous features came to light, and at last the whole 
 infamous scheme was laid bare to the horrified 
 woman. It was simply a plot to blackmail the 
 widow of John Dacres! Madeline's r61e was to pass 
 herself off as his first wife, privately married to him
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 265 
 
 in California. Mrs. Dacres was quite alone. She 
 had no near living relatives. Once convinced of the 
 fact of the previous marriage, she would be ready, 
 for her own sake, for the good name of her children, 
 to pay a heavy price for the silence of those most 
 interested. Reeves would manage all that. He 
 would make Mrs. Dacres fully alive to the misery 
 and disgrace which the publicity of the facts would 
 involve for her and her children. Madeline was to 
 agree to waive her claims, if her successor would 
 make over to her a piece of valuable mining prop- 
 erty which she owned in California. Reeves had 
 ferreted out this fact. In the interview, he proposed 
 to represent himself as Madeline's cousin and friend, 
 as well as a witness of her first marriage. His plan 
 was to strike at once, swiftly, boldly, straight at 
 the mark. 
 
 Reeves was, no doubt, prepared for his wife's first 
 recoil from the whole foul business. But he was 
 determined and desperate. All the evil forces of 
 his nature were roused at this time. He counted on 
 being able, after a while, to overcome his wife's 
 scruples, and to partly force and partly cajole her 
 into abetting him. 
 
 She was dumb with horror as his meaning revealed 
 itself. When she spoke, at last, it was to avow her 
 solemn determination to die of starvation before she 
 would lift a finger in aid of so monstrous a crime. 
 
 Then Reeves turned on her savagely ; he swore 
 they had come to their last dollar. They were 
 heavily in debt for their board at the hotel. In a 
 few days they would be turned into the street.
 
 266 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 A week went by. Reeves gave the wretched 
 woman no peace ; he used all the influence he pos- 
 sessed, and all his knowledge of his wife's character, 
 in order to secure her aid in carrying out his plot ; 
 he played on her pride, on her fears, on any lingering 
 affection she might have for himself. Sometimes he 
 argued and entreated; at others, he grew white with 
 passion, and threatened her with his vengeance, if 
 she persisted in her refusal. 
 
 At last, frantic with misery, Madeline resolved to 
 end the matter by destroying herself; but, when it 
 came to the pinch, her courage failed. 
 
 She had proved less manageable than her husband 
 anticipated. But, in the end, his calculations came 
 true. One day, worn out, body and mind, with her 
 long resistance, and feeling she had no further 
 strength to oppose him, Madeline consented to do 
 what her husband required. 
 
 The man had not hitherto been a fiend. No 
 doubt, it was disagreeable enough to him to force his 
 wife to this act. But the old deadly gleam would 
 flash in his eyes, as he ended each talk by saying : 
 " I must have money ! this is the only way to come at 
 it ! " and then he would swear that " in spite of God, 
 man, or the devil, he would have John Dacres' land ! " 
 
 Reeves gave his wife no time for reflection ; he 
 always insisted that her share in the interview, on 
 which hung such issues for the three, should not be 
 a difficult one. She would simply have to corrobo- 
 rate his statements at critical points, and insist on 
 her relation to the dead man, which would, of course, 
 invalidate that of Mrs. Dacres.
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 267 
 
 The day after Madeline's consent had been wrung 
 from her, the interview took place. As she ap- 
 proached this culminating point in her confession, 
 the dying woman's breath began to fail. Nobody 
 ever learned the full details of that meeting. Weak, 
 faltering sentences flashed vivid light upon scenes 
 and moments: but much that went untold was sup- 
 plied by the imaginations of her hearers. 
 
 Reeves played his villanous game consummately. 
 So far as was possible, he spared his wife : she fol- 
 lowed his lead absolutely; she confirmed his story 
 whenever he appealed to her. It seemed, all the 
 time, as though it was not herself who was speaking 
 as though she was acting a part in some horrible dream. 
 
 The blow, of course, fell on a. victim totally un- 
 prepared. Reeves' plot had been well devised to 
 impose on a helpless woman, whom life had kept in 
 singular ignorance of the worst side of the world. 
 Even Madeline, as she listened, found herself half 
 wondering whether her husband was not telling the 
 truth ; his knowledge of young Dacres' character, of 
 dates, names, and events, coincided with much that 
 must be perfectly familiar to Mrs. Dacres. 
 
 She listened, at first, in stunned silence. She ap- 
 peared bewildered, her faculties frozen by the sur- 
 prise and hideousness of the thing. At last, its 
 whole drift flashed upon her consciousness ; she rose 
 to her feet ; her face was white as the dead ; a great 
 wrath and scorn burned in her eyes ; she declined to 
 listen to another word ; she passionately avowed her 
 faith in her husband's innocence and honor; she 
 turned toward the door.
 
 268 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 But the poor young wife was in the toils. Reeves 
 was prepared for all that ; he produced a package of 
 letters two or three of these, unimportant notes, 
 had been written by John Dacres to Madeline ; the 
 others, in which he addressed her as his wife, had 
 been composed by Reeves, who had successfully 
 counterfeited, not only the handwriting, but the very 
 tricks of expression of the dead man. 
 
 The interview lasted for hours. There came a 
 time when Mrs. Dacres dragged herself across the 
 room, with a pallid, smitten face, an awful agony 
 in her strained, wild eyes, and stood still before 
 Madeline Reeves. 
 
 For a few moments the two women looked silently 
 in each other's face. Then Mrs. Dacres spoke : " I 
 have heard your name. He told me that he cared 
 for you once ; but that you had deceived him, and 
 that the end came suddenly, and that you had died 
 from that moment out of his thought and heart. 
 I begged him not to go on, for I saw he dreaded lest 
 he should pain me by recalling that old memory, 
 and he said, ' There is nothing for you to fear, 
 Grace ; nothing to shame me in that time, except 
 my faith in a false woman. Sometime } T OU shall 
 know all about it.' 
 
 "And now will you the woman whom he said 
 deceived him swear to me the mother of John 
 Dacres' children that you were his wife ? " 
 
 There was an instant's pause. Then the low, stern 
 voice of Andrew Reeves came into the silence the 
 voice which his wife had grown to recognize as that 
 of her master. " You hear what she asks, Madeline ? "
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 269 
 
 Then she rose ; she swore the oath ! 
 
 When she heard that, Mrs. Dacres cowered and 
 sank down with a low, heart-broken cry, " Oh, my 
 poor boy and girl ! " 
 
 Afterward all was easy. There had been no loud 
 talking, no threats. Reeves had, throughout the 
 interview, carried himself with the air of a gentle- 
 man. He played his last cards with cool adroitness : 
 he insisted that he felt the utmost sympathy for the 
 situation in which the supposed widow and the chil- 
 dren of John Dacres were placed. 
 
 The marriage of his cousin as Reeves through 
 all the talk represented his wife had been a strictly 
 private one, with only a single witness beside him- 
 self. The reason for this was the strong opposition 
 of Madeline's father to his daughter's union with 
 John Dacres. She had other and richer suitors, 
 whom the old man favored. 
 
 The marriage had not been made public when, 
 soon afterward, Dacres left California for a short 
 time, no doubt intending to keep his word, return, 
 and acknowledge his young wife. 
 
 Other attractions, however, proved powerful 
 enough to overcome all scruples of duty and 
 honor. 
 
 But John Dacres was in his grave, and his widow 
 had no desire to inflict misery on others. She, who 
 had suffered so much, was ready to spare another 
 woman a mother, too! She shrank from publish- 
 ing the father's shame, the children's illegitimacy, to 
 the world ! 
 
 But Mrs. Dacres had been left without resources.
 
 270 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 It was only the barest justice that she should have 
 some share of her husband's property. 
 
 When she heard that, Grace Dacres lifted her white 
 face. " What is it you want me to do ? " she asked. 
 
 The fortunes for which Andrew Reeves had staked 
 so much hung on his next move ; he reverted to 
 the mining property in California; he stated that 
 young Dacres had, soon after his marriage, promised 
 to make that over to his wife. If this were done 
 now, she would solemnly pledge herself never to 
 show her marriage certificate to human eyes ; never 
 to reveal her secret to a soul. 
 
 There was no danger of publicity from any other 
 source. The clergyman who performed the cere- 
 mony, the friend who, with Andrew Reeves, had 
 witnessed it, were both dead. Mrs. Dacres had 
 never borne her husband's name ; he must have 
 known her well enough to feel perfectly assured 
 she would never assert her claims after he had de- 
 serted her. 
 
 No suspicion of blackmail crossed the mind of 
 the white,- crushed woman who listened to this talk. 
 With her husband's letters before her e} 7 es, with all 
 the supplementary evidence which Reeves adduced, 
 she was forced to believe his horrible story. His 
 claim seemed to her a just one. Measuring another 
 woman's sufferings by her own, she was eager to 
 make some reparation to the wife she had super- 
 seded. It was arranged that the transfer of the 
 property should be made to Andrew Reeves his 
 cousin, he stated, had reasons for wishing him to 
 hold it for her the next morning.
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 271 
 
 Andrew Reeves must have felt the triumph of the 
 wicked, as he returned home. Yet he was, no doubt, 
 glad to get away from that woman's eyes. The 
 interview had not been an easy one, even for his 
 strong nerves, his hardened conscience. 
 
 On their way to the hotel, the two said but little 
 to each other. Soon after they reached their room, 
 Madeline rose and went toward the door. Her hus- 
 band had been watching her for some minutes. He 
 sprang before her now. "Where are you going?" 
 he asked. 
 
 " To tell that woman it was all a lie ! " she an- 
 swered. 
 
 Then he swore a terrible oath, and felled her to 
 the floor. It was the first blow he had ever dealt 
 her. She was senseless for some time. 
 
 For the next twenty-four hours, she was unable to 
 leave her bed. Reeves said to her, more than once, 
 "If you betray us now, I will kill you ! " She saw 
 that in his eyes which satisfied her he meant what 
 he said. 
 
 The next morning his villany was consummated. 
 He called on Mrs. Dacres, with two hotel acquaint- 
 ances. These men were his creditors. They prob- 
 ably had no suspicion of foul play. Reeves explained 
 the whole transaction in his rapid, plausible way. 
 Mrs. Dacres was too stunned by her recent blow to 
 perceive his sophistries. Indeed, it was doubtful 
 whether she heard a word that he said ; but her 
 very indifference enabled her to go through with 
 her part calmly. The California lands were, in the 
 end, made over to Reeves.
 
 272 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 Two days later, he, with his wife, left Rochester. 
 
 The ill-gotten gains did not prosper. The sales 
 brought less than thirty thousand dollars, where 
 Reeves had counted on more than fifty. His invest- 
 ments did not turn out well. A part of the money 
 was lost in gambling. In a little while, he was an 
 impoverished man again. 
 
 They came to Boston, where Reeves was engaged 
 in various enterprises some of which, his wife 
 suspected, would not bear the light. He drank 
 heavily ; he often treated her brutally. She had no 
 friends to whom she could appeal. Her health 
 gradually failed. One great remorse, one awful 
 memory, haunted her life ! 
 
 One winter evening, about six years ago, Andrew 
 Reeves, returning home, had slipped and fallen on 
 the ice. His spine was injured. He was carried to 
 the hospital. The hurt proved fatal. He died in 
 less than a month. 
 
 He had not, for years, mentioned, in his wife's 
 hearing, Mrs. Dacres' name. 
 
 Madeline Reeves' voice suddenly grew faint. The 
 light that had burned in her eyes faded. " There is 
 no time for more," she gasped. " I could not die 
 without telling you the truth, begging you to for- 
 give me ! " 
 
 Had marble statues sat in their places, they could 
 not have been whiter than the two who listened, 
 speechless, motionless, to the dying woman's story. 
 
 As she went on, one memory rose to Carryl 
 Dacres, and did not vanish through all the talk. It 
 was that of his poor young mother, as she came into
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 273 
 
 the room, after her terrible interview. It seemed to 
 him he should never see anything all his life but 
 the wild, piteous look in her eyes. 
 
 The heart of Carryl Dacres was tender as a 
 woman's, but at that moment, with his mother's face 
 before him, with the thought of the long yeai-s' 
 grief, ending only with the flash of joy that killed 
 her, he could only feel that the woman before him 
 had done her part in that day's dreadful work. He 
 rose to his feet, his face hardened to an awful stern- 
 ness. He gave one glance at the bed a glance 
 full of pitiless -reproach, that was like an unuttered 
 doom, and then, without a word, he turned and left 
 the room. 
 
 Dorrice was alone with the dying woman. She 
 saw the despair which crept into the glazing eyes. 
 She heard the moan from the cold lips, " He will not 
 forgive me, and I am going to God ! " 
 
 It was fortunate for Dorrice Dacres that all which 
 had happened on that fatal day, lay just beyond the 
 border line of her memory. At this moment, she 
 was only conscious of the remorseful agony in the 
 woman's cry. 
 
 She turned away ; she went swiftly from the room ; 
 she found Carryl alone in the doctor's office. He 
 sat by the table, on which his arms were crossed ; he 
 had buried his face in them. 
 
 Dorrice went straight to him ; she pulled his 
 sleeve. He looked up ; he saw the appealing eyes. 
 
 The dark young face seemed to harden into stone, 
 as he gazed at her. " How dare you ask that ? " he 
 said, in low, stern tones. " Think of our mother ! "
 
 274 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 " She would ask you what I do ! " came the 
 solemn, pleading answer. " Oh ! Carryl, come 
 quickly, or it will be too late, and you will be sorry 
 all your life ! Remember you, one day, must be 
 where she is must ask God's mercy, too ! " 
 
 His head sank once more in his hands. A shiver 
 went over the strong young frame. In a moment 
 he lifted his face. There was a dreadful whiteness 
 in it ; but he rose, without saying a word, and left 
 the room with his sister. 
 
 The dying eyes opened as the steps came about 
 the bed. They saw Carryl, with his father's face, 
 standing there. He bent over Madeline Reeves. 
 " I forgive you," he said, in the low, solemn tones 
 through which one human heart speaks to another. 
 " May God forgive you, too God and my mother ! " 
 
 There was a flash of joy in the glazing eyes. 
 That was a smile that flickered about the drawn 
 lips. She turned to Dorrice. The look in the 
 girl's pitying face answered her question. 
 
 Madeline Reeves reached out her cold hands to 
 the two. When she held them, she did not speak. 
 A moment later, the May sunshine was smiling on 
 the face of the dead woman.
 
 XXXV. 
 
 THE blackmail of which Mrs. Dacres had been 
 made the victim was a crude and bungling piece of 
 villany. A sharp cross-examination, by a shrewd 
 lawyer, would have shown up Reeves' plot in all its 
 naked scoundrelism. But it was well adapted to 
 accomplish its purpose with a lonely, helpless woman, 
 eager to spare her husband's memory and her chil- 
 dren's good name. 
 
 Grace Carryl had been brought up by her schol- 
 arly old father in a sheltered life, which afforded 
 very little knowledge of the world. He had doated 
 on her. He had devoted much time and pains to 
 her mental training, but he could not supply the in- 
 fluence of the mother she had lost in her childhood. 
 
 The carefully reared girl bloomed into early 
 womanhood, a lovely creature in mind and character. 
 On his return from California, John Dacres stopped 
 to see an acquaintance in the small town where the 
 college president lived, and so met his daughter at 
 the house where the young man was visiting. 
 
 What followed was almost a story of love at first 
 sight. Grace Carryl's beauty, her fresh charm of 
 mind and manner, fascinated the stranger, and the 
 dark-eyed, handsome young traveller, with some per- 
 
 275
 
 276 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 sonal quality that attracted all sorts of people, 
 made at once a powerful impression on the heart of 
 the young maiden. 
 
 In less than six months after their first meeting, 
 the two were betrothed ; in less than a year they 
 were married. 
 
 The old college president had been extremely 
 fond of his son-in-law, but he survived the marriage 
 less than two years. Soon after his death, Mr. and 
 Mrs. Dacres removed, with their infant boy, to 
 Rochester, where, a little later, Dorrice was born. 
 
 A fine opportunity for entering into business had 
 opened to John Dacres. But, at this crisis, the war 
 broke out. He was full of patriotic ardor ; and when 
 offered a captaincy in a regiment, he accepted it. 
 
 His married life had been one of rare happiness. 
 After the death of Mrs. Dacres' father, the pair were 
 left with no near connections, and this fact tended 
 to make them all the world to each other. 
 
 The sudden tidings of John Dacres' death had 
 prostrated his young wife for a while. She rallied, 
 at last, for the sake of her fatherless children. She 
 had, too, the proud consciousness that her husband 
 had given his life to his country. When the later 
 blackness fell, the earlier grief must have appeared 
 a light one. 
 
 John Dacres had made a mistake in not relating to 
 his wife the whole story of his acquaintance with 
 Madeline Reeves. He had, it appeared, intended to 
 do this ; but, when the time came, he shrank from the 
 recital. He had been the dupe of an artful woman, and 
 it was not pleasant to reveal that experience to the
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 277 
 
 fine, unsoiled nature of the girl he was to wed. It 
 no doubt seemed to him enough to tell all that honor 
 demanded. 
 
 Andrew Reeves had read his victim well. A more 
 worldly-wise woman one who had loved less 
 would, after that harrowing interview, have sought 
 the counsel of some trusted friend. Had Mrs. 
 Dacres done this had she even consulted her hus- 
 band's lawyers she would have saved herself years 
 of cruel anguish. 
 
 But her maternal instincts made the young mother 
 strong to suffer and be silent. She had a stinging 
 consciousness that she and her children had no right 
 to the name they bore ; she dreaded to look her 
 friends in the face. These were comparatively few 
 in the city where she had spent three years of perfect 
 wedded life, and one of widowed seclusion. She 
 could not return to the old home she had left in her 
 pride and happiness. She could not look upon the 
 old scenes and faces and hear constant talk of her 
 husband. That would drive her mad ; she longed to 
 get away into hiding with her children, among peo- 
 ple who had never heard his name. 
 
 She happened, through a former maid, to know 
 something of Foxlow the pretty scattered hamlet 
 nestled deep among the Berkshire Hills In a little 
 while, she arranged to go there. They went first to 
 Deacon Spinner's. Afterward, they rented a small, 
 pleasant cottage near his own. 
 
 The young life growing up around her the care 
 and training of her children proved Mrs. Dacres' 
 salvation at this time. Something like a shadow of
 
 278 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 her old self came back, as maternal interests took the 
 place of all others in her heart and life. The boy 
 and girl grew used to the sad eyes, to the quiet ways 
 of their mother. Only Carryl could remember a 
 time when she was different; and that was so far 
 away, he had only a dim idea of the gay, joyous crea- 
 ture she had once been. 
 
 The two had a happy childhood. The mother 
 would not have their young lives shadowed by the 
 grief that had wrecked her own. Years dulled, in 
 some measure, the sharpness of that first agony. 
 The society of her children their rare promise as 
 they grew into boyhood and girlhood could not fail 
 to gladden her life. The old impulse to hide from 
 the world had been so far vanquished that Mrs. 
 Dacres began to make plans for removing to Boston, 
 so that Carryl should, after a year's study, be able to 
 enter Harvard, as his grandfather had done. 
 
 The widow had not been impoverished by making 
 over the mining-lands to Reeves. She still had re- 
 turns from other properties which her husband had 
 owned in California. Her father had also left her 
 all he possessed a few thousands. 
 
 But she was obliged to draw heavily on the latter, 
 as her California remittances grew scantier and more 
 infrequent. No doubt, the property was shamefully 
 mismanaged. Mrs. Dacres was far away, and knew 
 little of business. Her confidence was sustained, 
 and her anxieties were alleviated, by plausible 
 promises of future prosperity and increasing divi- 
 dends. She had no idea of the condition of affairs 
 ?t the time of her death. . . .
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 279 
 
 For days after that scene at the hospital, the 
 world seemed a changed world to Carryl and Dorrice 
 Dacres. The present was a kind of dream. The 
 past absorbed it. 
 
 The mystery that had hung about their lives was 
 cleared up now. Their mother need never to have 
 cowered before her children. But that conscious- 
 ness, and the relief it brought, came later. The 
 awful wrong that had been done seemed to lie vast, 
 and press close around them. 
 
 Carryl tried to bear himself bravely. He went to 
 his recitations, got through with them somehow 
 but the fellows said to him : " What ails you, 
 Dacres ? You look as though you had taken a 
 second trip with Dante, through the Inferno ! " 
 
 And at that he turned about, and was the gayest 
 of the crowd the very leader of the fun, for the 
 next hour. 
 
 But it was on Dorrice that the strain told heaviest. 
 She went through with the tasks of each day. But 
 the horror was still too near. She would, every few 
 minutes, lapse into forgetfulness. Even her pupils 
 felt the change. 
 
 All Carryl's solicitude was aroused. He seemed 
 to hear his mother's voice saying : " That little 
 sister ! You must always make her your first care." 
 He knew now what that meant. 
 
 It appeared to him that Dorrice's eyes looked 
 more than ever like their mother's. He insisted on 
 their taking long walks together, where each relig- 
 iously avoided the subject that was uppermost in 
 their thoughts. But these hardly proved a success.
 
 280 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 As soon as Mrs. Kent returned, Dorrice went out 
 to West Newton to see her. The girl had a settled 
 determination not to betray, by look or word, any- 
 thing that had passed. 
 
 They had been talking, for half an hour per- 
 haps ; and Dorrice was finding it an immense pleas- 
 ure to be with her friend once more, when the lady 
 suddenly turned, and, looking into her eyes, anx- 
 iously asked : " What has happened to my little 
 girl since I went away?" 
 
 There was one swift, frightened glance. Then the 
 storm broke. Sobs shook the girl as young trees 
 shake in. summer gales. Mrs. Kent was much 
 startled. But she was too discreet to say a word. 
 She drew the dark head down on her lap ; and in 
 that nesting-place, Dorrice wept away some of the 
 grief and horror that had been in her heart it 
 seemed for ages it was only four days. 
 
 When the words came, at last, they were a broken 
 cry : " It is all about mamma poor mamma ! " 
 
 After that, other words came. The sentences, 
 broken and incoherent at first, gathered strength and 
 steadiness, until, at last, Mrs. Kent knew the story 
 of the visit to the hospital. 
 
 She was the one friend in whom it was safe and 
 wise to confide. Profoundly shocked, as she could 
 not fail to be, over that dying confession, her insight 
 and sympathy were an unspeakable comfort at this 
 time. 
 
 When Carryl appeared that night, Dorrice met 
 him with her old smile with the fright gone out 
 of her eyes. He turned and looked with a long,
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 281 
 
 questioning gaze at Mrs. Kent. He saw that she 
 knew. 
 
 Then he heard Dorrice's : " Yes, Carry], I have 
 told her." 
 
 The first feeling of the proud, reticent youth was 
 one of strong recoil. Mrs. Kent had expected that. 
 But she did her part with such wise tenderness that, 
 before the evening was over, Carryl's heart was 
 lighter because she knew. 
 
 The three talked far into the midnight. Mrs. 
 Kent's speech was like the dropping of balm on the 
 hurt places. 
 
 In the confidences of that time, she learned much 
 about the life at Foxlow and of the poor hunted 
 wife, who bore her griefs with such long, brave 
 silence. 
 
 "But it was not for herself not even for us 
 she cared mostly," said Carryl. " She, who believed 
 my father the noblest of men, had to face the horror 
 of his crime ! She would have died any moment with 
 unutterable joy to know he was innocent ; she did 
 die when she believed that ! Through all, too, she 
 never doubted his love for her. I look back now, 
 and see many things in a new light. She believed 
 it was his feeling for her which lured him away 
 from the other woman, after he learned the fatal mis- 
 take he had made in marrying her. I think she al- 
 ways had a great pity for Madeline Reeves. For my 
 mother loved my father all the time she believed 
 that foul lie. In those nights when she walked 
 about the room and called his name, a great passion 
 of tenderness would struggle through the reproach
 
 282 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 of her voice. I can hear her now " he could not 
 get on any farther. 
 
 Mrs. Kent insisted on her guests remaining over 
 night. She kept Dorrice with her next day. 
 
 There was something of the old brightness in the 
 girl's face, when she returned with Carryl to Pinck- 
 ney Street. There was a fresh bond between the 
 young people and Mrs. Kent. 
 
 They found a small package awaiting them, with 
 a note from the doctor. Mrs. Reeves had, on the 
 morning of her death, exacted a promise from the 
 nurse, that, in case the young lady should arrive too 
 late for an interview, the package should be for- 
 warded to her. 
 
 Mrs. Reeves also stated that her husband, on the 
 night his accident occurred, had come across the 
 case, in the hands of one of his cronies, in a restau- 
 rant. Reeves had opened the case, and been startled 
 by a name inside ; his friend could give him no infor- 
 mation about this, though he was at last forced to 
 admit he had seen the owner leave the thing on the 
 car-seat, when the train stopped. 
 
 When Carryl tore the wrappings away, a gentle- 
 man's pocket letter-case, of black Russia leather, 
 came to light. Among the silken linings was a soli- 
 tary card with Carryl Dacres' name and their old 
 attic address in a large, rapid hand. 
 
 How it came there was a baffling mystery. Dur- 
 ing the months they had occupied the attic, no- 
 body not one of Hallowell's clerks even had 
 known their address cared to inquire about it. 
 Yet there it was, in those hurried pencil-marks !
 
 A BOSTON GIEL'S AMBITIONS. 283 
 
 Who wrote it, and how did it get into that handsome 
 case?" 
 
 It was altogether probable, they reasoned, that 
 Reeves had told the truth. On his death-bed at the 
 hospital, he could have no motive for concealing that 
 from his wife ; he knew Mrs. Dacres' maiden name ; 
 lie would feel assured the one on the card was that 
 of her child ; he might be curious about the fate of 
 those he had wronged. 
 
 But this left the mystery still unexplained. For 
 two days the young people puzzled over it. On the 
 evening of the third one, Dorrice said to her brother, 
 as they sat together : " Such a curious dream as I 
 had last night ! It has not seemed like a dream to- 
 day." 
 
 "What was it about?" asked Carryl, adjust- 
 ing the lamp-shade, and then, taking up a sheet of 
 paper, he began to draw an old, leafless and scraggy- 
 branched apple-tree. He had a knack at light, 
 sketchy things of this sort, and often amused himself 
 with them, before they settled down to the evening's 
 work. 
 
 " It was about that letter-case," continued Dorrice. 
 " You were standing by the side of a young man on 
 the street. There was nobody else in sight. He 
 was tall and slender, but his face was quite turned 
 away from me. He was writing down something. 
 In a moment I knew perfectly it was your name he 
 was writing on that card." 
 
 Before she was through, Carryl's pencil came to a 
 sudden stop. His eyes were on her face ; he was 
 drinking in every syllable.
 
 284 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 When she paused, he brought down his closed 
 hand on the table. " What an idiot I was not to 
 remember that ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 "What do you mean, Canyl?" 
 
 "Do you remember that time that worst of all 
 times when I came home and found you lying 
 there, that I told you he had asked my name, and 
 written it down. 
 
 She started, stared at him a moment, with a new 
 consciousness growing in her face. "I remember," 
 her voice was keyed almost to a whisper. "O-h, 
 Carryl ! " 
 
 " It must have been the very card he wrote," he 
 continued, with a tone of absolute conviction. " The 
 other things drove that out of my mind." 
 
 There was a little silence. Then the light bright- 
 ened from ar, dusky depths in Dorrice's eyes. She 
 lifted her head. " Carryl," she said, in the low, quiet 
 voice of conviction, " it is all a great mystery now, 
 but you and I will know some day." 
 
 " Why do you feel so certain, Dorrice ? It is a 
 long time since that happened." 
 
 " I know it is. I can't explain my feeling I can't 
 even talk about it ; but it is there, all the same." 
 
 In a few moments she spoke again : " Carryl, if 
 you should see that young man after all these years, 
 do you think you would know him?" 
 
 " Think ! I am sure of it." He rose, and walked 
 the room with long, nervous strides. "No other 
 human being could have just that smile. He treated 
 me," he went on, his voice a good deal broken with 
 feeling, "as though I were his friend. It no more
 
 A BOSTON GIKL'S AMBITIONS. 285 
 
 hurt my self-respect when I took that money than it 
 would if, wrecked out on the wide sea, I should seize 
 the plank some man, knowing I was about to go 
 under, shot out to me. I tell you, Dorrice," and his 
 black eyes fired, " I would go round this planet to 
 find that grand young fellow, and take his hand 
 again." 
 
 " It is very curious," she said, after another pause, 
 " that one person in the world an utter stranger, 
 too should know all about that darkest day in our 
 lives the day we can never speak of, even to dear 
 Mrs. Kent." 
 
 She took the card out of the case once more. 
 Carryl came to her side, and looked over her shoul- 
 der; but the name in that large, rapid hand could 
 tell them nothing of the stranger who, long ago, had 
 written it there.
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 EVENTS that occurred soon after that memorable 
 day at the hospital were important enough to draw 
 the young people's thoughts into other channels. 
 
 Carry 1 received a proposal that, under different 
 circumstances, would have been immensely attractive 
 to him. 
 
 One of his classmates, with whom he had made the 
 Adirondack trip, had two young brothers whom their 
 father wished to send abroad for a year's travel with 
 a tutor. The youth talked up Dacres to his father 
 satisfied the elder man that he would be the best 
 fellow in the world to take charge of those rattle- 
 brained boys for a year's travel and study in Europe. 
 
 So the proposition was made to Carryl. To his 
 young, eager manhood, the prospect thus opened to 
 him the new life, the great world of art, of fresh 
 scenes, of novel experiences was irresistibly fas- 
 cinating. The teaching to which he had made up 
 his mind, before he should settle down to his profes- 
 sional studies, looked like horrible drudgery in com- 
 parison with the spacious horizons that now arched 
 themselves, mysterious, alluring, before his imagina- 
 tion. 
 
 But there was Dorrice ! Could he leave her be- 
 hind the sister who had been so much to "him? 
 
 286
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 287 
 
 Leave her, too, just after they had been through their 
 great sorrow together? 
 
 " I should be the biggest brute on this planet, to 
 think of doing it," said Carryl, settling his jaws to- 
 gether in a way that gave their strong lines a grim look. 
 
 When Dorrice heard of this offer, she saw at once 
 all it meant for her brother. She" knew perfectly his 
 old passionate longings to see something of the great 
 world. Had they not often quoted to themselves 
 that saying of Charles Lamb's, " I believe I should 
 die of joy to set foot on a foreign shore " ? 
 
 Of course, they had had their dreams of going 
 abroad soms day; but that must be "when they got 
 awfully old, and had lots of money," Dorrice said; 
 and then she would laughingly tell Carryl that their 
 sight-seeing, for the next twenty years, must be lim- 
 ited to a slice of New England sea-coast, of which 
 they must make the most. 
 
 But at this time the brave young heart faltered. 
 It had had much to bear of late ; she could not brace 
 it to the thought of parting. Her gaze went wist- 
 fully about the room. " This offer is a great thing 
 for you, Carryl," she said. " You ought to accept it ; 
 but it would be so strange here all alone oh, I can- 
 not bear it ! I cannot bear it ! " She burst into pas- 
 sionate sobbing. 
 
 It was so unlike her. 
 
 Carryl went to her. " You silliest of girls ! " and 
 he lifted the drooping head. " Why don't you cry be- 
 cause I am going to set off on a trip to Saturn ? Did 
 you think I would leave you, Dorrice ? " 
 
 "But I ought to let you," she sobbed again. " It
 
 288 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 is very selfish to stand in your light. Think of what 
 you will sacrifice for me ! " 
 
 "I suppose you never sacrificed anything for me ! 
 But all our talk must simply come down to this : I 
 shall not go away and leave you, Dorrice, for a sight 
 of all the kingdoms of the world." 
 
 When Mrs. Kent learned what offer had been 
 made to Carryl, she felt that the time for which she 
 once told herself she would wait had come. She 
 suggested that he should go abroad, and that Dor- 
 rice should stay with her during his absence. She 
 needed some bright young presence in the silent old 
 home. Her lips shook, and a mist of tears darkened 
 her fine eyes. " Why could not Dorrice come to her?" 
 she continued, in a moment. "She needed that 
 young strength, those bright energies, those happy 
 spirits, under her own roof, among her outside chari- 
 ties. Would not Dorrice take pity on all this loneli- 
 ness and selfishness, and stay with her for a year? " 
 
 Mrs. Kent said all this to the young people. She 
 said a great deal more to Carryl when he and she 
 were alone together. But all her persuasive argu- 
 ments had less influence than the simple words, " If 
 you will let Dorrice come to me, Carryl, I will try to 
 be a mother to her." 
 
 This proposal set the matter of his going abroad 
 in an entirely new light. He could leave his sister 
 with perfect content under Mrs. Kent's roof. It 
 would be like going home, to her. The house in 
 West Newton was the loveliest place in the world to 
 Dorrice Dacres. 
 
 There were two or three days of indecision ; but
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 289 
 
 at last it was settled that Carryl should go abroad, 
 and that Dorrice should leave Pinckney Street for 
 the love and care that awaited her with Mrs Kent. 
 
 Busy days followed. Carryl and Dorrice were 
 deeply immersed in the present and its practical de- 
 mands, in packing and storing of household fur- 
 nishings, their Lares and Penates, as they called 
 these, and in the changes and preparations for new 
 scenes and lives. 
 
 Mrs. Kent and Mrs. Hallowell accompanied Dor- 
 rice to her brother's Class Day. It was the proudest 
 one of the girl's life. It could not fail to bring back 
 that other Class Day, three years ago, which had 
 proved such a turning-point in their lives. But this 
 time it was not the gay scene, the picturesque crowds, 
 the dazzling color, the young life and joy, that made 
 Dorrice Dacres' radiant happiness ; it was the con- 
 sciousness of her brother's share in all that was best 
 and noblest of that day. 
 
 Carryl came to his sister late in the afternoon, 
 when the merry scrambling for the flowers on the old, 
 garlanded elm was over, and, looking in the proud 
 young face with his dark, glad eyes, he said softly, 
 so that no one but herself should hear, " If it had not 
 been for you, Dorrice, I never should have seen this 
 day!" 
 
 That was the crowning moment. 
 
 Before Class Day, the home on Pinckney Street, 
 where they had spent six years, was given up. 
 
 Less than a week after he graduated, Carryl 
 Dacres left his sister with Mrs. Kent, and sailed with 
 his boy companions for Europe.
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 Two years had passed since Dorrice Dacres first 
 came to live with Mrs. Kent. Carryl had been home 
 less than two months. The European tour had 
 proved too extensive to be carried out in a single 
 year. To the immense delight of his pupils, their 
 father had urged Carryl to prolong the time abroad; 
 so they had a winter in southern Europe, with some 
 weeks in the spring for Greece, and the last three 
 months in England, during which they made trips 
 into Wales and among the Scotch Highlands. 
 
 The refined, restful home-atmosphere was precisely 
 what Dorrice needed at the time she entered it. The 
 youth that had girded itself to such high tasks, such 
 noble ambitions, had begun to show signs of falter- 
 ing. Dorrice, happily, was unconscious of this ; but 
 Mrs. Kent could not be deceived. Now the burdens 
 were lifted, the responsibilities lightened, Dorrice, 
 charged as every nerve of her soul, every fibre of 
 her body, was with bounding vitality, lapsed for a 
 while into a most uncharacteristic inertia. She did 
 not perceive that this was the natural reaction of 
 years of inveterate activity. The collapse would 
 have been far more serious in a less healthful organi- 
 zation ; but for several months Dorrice found herself 
 
 290
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 291 
 
 indisposed for any sustained exertion. She often 
 told Mrs. Kent that she was spoiling her, that she 
 was rapidly becoming the most useless entity on the 
 planet. 
 
 Mrs. Kent had her reply ready : "You had to come 
 to me, Dorrice, to learn there was a time for lying 
 still in all human lives. We were not originally de- 
 signed to be forever up and doing." 
 
 The girl, all this time, had a lurking fancy that it 
 was the atmosphere of the house which had thrown 
 its delicious, enervating spell about her. 
 
 It is always a dangerous experiment for two peo- 
 ple, who have known each other only a short period, 
 to attempt living together. Time, however, proved 
 that the elder and the younger woman could undergo 
 all the " crucial tests of daily intercourse " without 
 any secret friction. Mrs. Kent had the respect of a 
 large and generous nature for another's individuali- 
 ties of temperament and opinion. There was, be- 
 tween the two, none of that jarring of tastes and 
 instincts which so often seriously mars the relations 
 of people who are really fond of each other. Dor- 
 rice believed there was no other woman in the world 
 like Mrs. Kent, and the latter was satisfied there was 
 not another young girl in all her wide acquaintance 
 who could have been to her heart and home what 
 Dorrice Dacres was. 
 
 Her life had, of course, widened in many direc- 
 tions since she came to West Newton. A large and 
 agreeable social world had opened to her. She had 
 many pleasant companions among her own sex, many 
 admirers among the other. Some of these had made
 
 292 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 efforts to be more ; but Dorrice's heart was as kind 
 
 and calm as Portia's was to her lovers before Bas- 
 
 . i. 
 
 sanio came. 
 
 She could not fail to perceive that her services 
 were of value in many ways to Mrs. Kent, so that no 
 sense of dependence could chafe her high spirit ; but 
 the affection between the two soon became one in 
 which a thought of dependence would have appeared 
 to either a wrong to the other. 
 
 One evening, at the end of May, a young man 
 walked up through the grounds to Mrs. Kent's front 
 door. It was a warm, still, moonlit night. The air 
 was full of subtle fragrances of fresh leaves and buds 
 and blossoming things. The stranger looked about 
 him with alert interest, as though the black clumps 
 of shrubbery, the dark line of hedge, and the flower- 
 beds, strongly outlined against the moonlight, were 
 familiar to him. 
 
 The young man was tall, of a strong, firm, harmo- 
 nious build. The modelling of his head and shoul- 
 ders would have been likely to strike a sculptor. 
 "Indeed, he was one of the people at whom, if you 
 glanced once, you would probably have turned and 
 looked a second and longer time. 
 
 At the door there was a little talk. The stranger 
 learned that Mrs. Kent was absent, but might return 
 at any moment. After an instant's hesitation, he 
 concluded to go in and wait for her. 
 
 He was shown into the large, dimly lighted sitting- 
 room. The sight of it revived a thousand memories 
 of his boyhood. The room seemed to have kept that 
 serene, reposeful air through all the changeful,
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 293 
 
 crowded years, just as some old drawers keep the 
 faint scent of roses that have long turned to ashes. 
 He took a seat in the deep bay-window, and looked 
 out on the lawn, dreaming in the moonlight, and 
 flecked with brown, motionless shadows. 
 
 Suddenly he heard a voice singing in the other 
 room. It was not a voice of large compass ; but it 
 had a wonderfully clear, bright quality. It made 
 him think of a reach of sunny brook, rippling and 
 glancing in the light. Yet the song was not bright. 
 It held the pathos of a life's hidden loss and grief; 
 for it was " Auld Robin Gray." 
 
 The singing ceased suddenly. There was a brief 
 murmur of voices ; then light footsteps approached 
 the room. There was a soft glimmer of woman's 
 garments in the dcrorway, a moment's pause and 
 glancing about the room, then a tall, graceful figure 
 came swiftly toward the stranger. " Oh, Carryl, you 
 dear boy," exclaimed a voice which must have been 
 a pleasant sound in the ears for whom its sweet, 
 eager welcome was meant. " I am so glad to see 
 you at last ! I had quite given you up for to-night. 
 You must have a good excuse for not coming out to 
 lunch as you promised." 
 
 She came close to the figure in the shadow of the 
 window; she laid her hand on the stranger's arm. 
 
 It was awkward for him, but he rose on the in- 
 stant. "I think there must be some mistake," he 
 said ; " I am waiting to see Mrs. Kent." 
 
 There was a swift start, a half suppressed exclama- 
 tion ; but she did not lose her presence of mind; she 
 stepped back to the table, turned on the low-burning
 
 294 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 gas, and, as its light streamed over the room, it 
 caught the fine oval of her face ; she saw the tall, 
 blond, tawny-bearded stranger. Nothing could have 
 been more unlike her dark-eyed, serious-faced 
 brother. He stepped forward and presented his 
 card. Dorrice read the name there with a glance : 
 Raymond Gathorpe. 
 
 She turned toward him at once, with a swift 
 transition of manner. " Oh, 3 r es," she said, cordially, 
 "I have heard Mrs. Kent speak of you, Mr. Ga- 
 thorpe. She will be very glad to see you. I am ex- 
 pecting her every moment." 
 
 It appeared that the maid, who had caught a 
 glimpse of the stranger in the hall, had taken 'for 
 granted that he was Dorrice's brother; hence, the 
 mistake that followed. 
 
 " I am Miss Dacres," she explained now. " It 
 was very curious that I should have mistaken you 
 for my brother," a glint of amused smile about the 
 corners of her mouth, as she recalled the effusive 
 greeting which she had bestowed on the distin- 
 guished-looking guest. "Will you sit down again, 
 Mr. Gathorpe? I am certain Mrs. Kent will be 
 greatly disappointed if she does not see you." 
 
 Dorrice Dacres was dressed all in gray this even- 
 ing. It was a color she was much in the habit of 
 wearing. Mrs. Kent liked her better in this than in 
 anything else. She used, half playfully, to call her 
 " My little girl whom I found in gray." 
 
 Carryl, too, whose salary, during his absence, had 
 admitted of his furnishing his sister's wardrobe, 
 without serious inconvenience to himself, an ar-
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 295 
 
 rangement to which Mrs. Kent did not venture to 
 demur, liked best to see his sister in neutral tints, 
 because his mother had worn them. 
 
 She had on, this evening, a dress of some fine wool 
 fabric, that hung in soft, clinging folds about her 
 long slenderness. She had fastened a cactus blossom 
 at her throat. The deep red glowed like some great 
 burning jewel against that nun-like gray. The soli- 
 tary touch of brilliant color imparted warmth and 
 character to the dress. 
 
 The two sat down, and some talk mostly ques- 
 tions about Mrs. Kent, on the guest's part, and 
 answers, on Dorrice's followed. Young Gathorpe 
 wondered if she were a distant connection of his 
 friend's. She must have been a guest for some time, 
 with that subtle, unconscious air of being at home 
 amid the surroundings. 
 
 In his long travels about the world, Ray Gathorpe 
 had made a wide acquaintance with women ; he was 
 accustomed to form rapid opinions regarding them. 
 
 Almost the first thing that struck him about this 
 one, as was usually the case with strangers, was her 
 eyes. These were truly "the life and soul of her 
 face." But he was aware, too, that she was of rather 
 tall and slender height, that hair of an auburn 
 shade, with a glimmer of gold, made a glory about 
 her head. He was aware, too, of a clear, healthy 
 olive skin of a kind that never has much color, except 
 under strong excitement ; of a straight line of nose, 
 and a firmly cut chin, that curved down in perfect 
 lines to the white young throat. 
 
 Dorrice, on her part, while she answered his ques-
 
 296 A BOSTON GIKL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 tions with an accent and a simple directness that 
 struck him agreeably, was regarding Mrs. Kent's 
 friend with interest. She observed the modelling of 
 his head. There was something rather grand about 
 it, she thought. The strong character of his features 
 struck her, and so did the fine frank expression of 
 his eyes, when the light flashed into them. 
 
 She was very gracious, but perhaps the little 
 native touch of dignity in her manner was slightly 
 accented, because of the absurd mistake she had 
 made at the beginning. She would not let such a 
 trifle annoy her, but she would rather it had not 
 happened. 
 
 At the end of five minutes Mrs. Kent appeared. 
 As she entered the room, Ray came forward to meet 
 her. " Do you know me ? " he asked, putting out 
 both hands. 
 
 With a second glance she broke out in a tone 
 thrilled with the gladdest surprise : " Ray Gathorpe ! 
 Oh, my dear boy ! " He bent his head, and they 
 kissed each other. 
 
 " I have wondered you did not come to me at 
 once, Ray," said Mrs. Kent, after the first greetings 
 were over. 
 
 " I wanted to ; but all sorts of things have been 
 absorbing my time and attention. I couldn't get 
 two hours to spare from any day, and I wasn't going 
 to rush out on you with less than that, after three 
 years' absence." 
 
 " ' Less ' would certainly have been an aggravation. 
 But you cannot be talking seriously of three years ! " 
 
 "It doesn't seem so, now I am looking at you.
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 297 
 
 But my last stay abroad was nearly three times as 
 long as I intended. There was no help for it. 
 Affairs had to be settled on a solid basis, or I should 
 find myself forced to turn nomad again in a little 
 while. I had no fancy for that, so I stayed away; 
 and, now I am back once more, it is with a grim res- 
 olution not to set foot off my native soil again." 
 
 Mrs. Kent laughed : " After all they haven't 
 spoiled you ! " 
 
 "Did you fear that?" 
 
 Dorrice did not hear Mrs. Kent's reply. At this 
 point she slipped softly and unobserved from the 
 room. 
 
 When she reached her chamber, she saw the moon- 
 beams on the floor; and the shadows from the leaves 
 and boughs of the ancient pear-tree mingled with 
 the light, and made strange, fantastic patterns of 
 silver and sable. 
 
 She walked about the room, a slender, noiseless 
 figure in gray, that gleamed against the windows, as 
 she passed back and forth. She could not settle her- 
 self down to a book, even, on such a wonderful night. 
 She thought about the guest she had left with Mrs. 
 Kent. She laughed in a low, amused way as she 
 fancied the fun Carry 1 would have over her meeting 
 this young Gathorpe in such a demonstrative fash- 
 ion. 
 
 Then she began to wonder if he was handsome, 
 and, afterward, rather resented the question, because 
 he was something more and nobler than that. She 
 could not think of any adjective that precisely de- 
 scribed him. It appeared to her there was a subtle
 
 298 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 something which differentiated him from all the 
 young men she had known. Was it a certain 
 quiet air of distinction? But here again she was 
 baffled. The " difference " certainly seemed some- 
 thing finer and deeper than one of manner. 
 
 At last the gray-robed figure, that had been gleam- 
 ing back and forth among the shadows and the 
 moonlight, came to a pause before the window. 
 Was there ever such a night? It was the last one of 
 the May. Was it listening, through all its lovely 
 shining and stillness, for the summer? How sweet 
 was its breath of buds and leaves and all earliest 
 blossoming things ! Sometimes she caught a whiff 
 of syringas and lilacs. It carried her back to the old 
 front-yard at Foxlow. How long ago it was since 
 she and Carryl had played there with those dear, 
 dead eyes watching them in the door-wa}^ ! Did 
 their father and mother know now how all the mys- 
 tery and pain had vanished, and how their boy and 
 girl had come into lives full of blessedness? It ap- 
 peared like a miracle, when she looked back on that 
 first year in Boston. And this night was another 
 miracle, coming out of the fierce storms of the 
 winter, the long, dark rains of the spring! How 
 beautiful the world was ! How dear and full was 
 life! 
 
 The great, solemn -faced moon looked on her 
 through the twisted boughs and tremulous leaves of 
 the gnarled pear-tree. She sat down, at last, on a low 
 seat by the window, and leaned her head forward on 
 the sill. Bits of moonlight glimmered about the 
 small, dark head. She heard a hum of voices
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 299 
 
 below, and occasionally a man's full, deep-chested 
 laugh. But at last the sounds grew faint, as did the 
 scent of the syringas. When she awoke she would 
 be provoked at herself for going to sleep with her 
 head on the window-sill. 
 
 Meanwhile Mrs. Kent and Ray Gathorpe were 
 having the talk of friends long separate, but with 
 whom the old associations and interests have sur- 
 vived. 
 
 "How much you are getting to resemble your 
 uncle, Ray ! " said Mrs. Kent, with her eyes riveted 
 to his face. She had known Kenneth Gathorpe from 
 her childhood. She had always been very fond of 
 him. She had also been intimate with Ray's mother, 
 so their talk went back and forth from the present 
 to the past. 
 
 " You couldn't say anything which would give me 
 so much pleasure!" he replied. "It is the highest 
 aim of my life that the resemblance shall be deeper 
 than one of appearance. Of course I shall fall 
 immeasurably below my prototype. But it is a great 
 thing to have known such a man as my uncle Ken. 
 The longer I live, the more I see how grand he was 
 - how large how many-sided. That was the 
 reason, I suppose, that everything seemed to have 
 fallen to pieces when he left me. I had a feeling 
 that the world, or at least my share in it, had come to 
 a permanent stop ! " 
 
 Perhaps there was nobody in the world but Mrs. 
 Kent to whom Ray could have talked of his uncle 
 in just this way. 
 
 She laid her hand on his arm. " I know how it
 
 300 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 seemed, Ray," she said, and her lips trembled. After 
 a little silence, she continued : " It was the best 
 possible thing that you went abroad at once." 
 
 " Yes; that was his wish, else I never could have 
 roused myself to it at that time. But the change of 
 scene and life had precisely the effect he foresaw." 
 
 " You were away, that first time, more than two 
 years, I think ? " 
 
 " Yes; I made my trip around the world, expecting, 
 when I returned to Bylanes, to settle down, like old 
 Dogberry, 'a rich fellow enough.' But affairs took me 
 off again, in little more than a year. You see, there 
 were large interests to settle, and much foreign 
 property to dispose of. Things move slowly, and 
 with an immense amount of red tape, the other side 
 of the Atlantic. As time went on, I used to chafe 
 horribly under the delays. But I couldn't turn my 
 back on things that required my presence at least, 
 I couldn't with a clear conscience, and the other 
 kind," his humorous smile broke into his eyes, "isn't 
 a pleasant companion for a fellow." 
 
 "Certainly not, if he happens to be of the Gathorpe 
 strain! It does me good to find you are back at 
 Bylanes, and such a true son of the soil, Ray." 
 
 " Yes," he went on now, in a tone half gay, half 
 serious, " I have a tolerably big slice of the planet 
 for my share. But that means a big responsibility 
 too. If he who left it in sacred trust to me had 
 been another sort of man, I might have a different 
 feeling about the property; though, in any case, I 
 should probably have the grace to reflect that I 
 owed something to the world, besides living in it the
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 301 
 
 ' life of an animal of large and varied consumption ! ' 
 That really appears to be the aim get to the heart 
 of the matter of most of the young fellows who 
 have inherited fortunes. The best of them wouldn't 
 be quite prepared to admit this, but it is what their 
 living amounts to. With a tolerably large field for 
 observation, I have come to the conclusion that this 
 being born into a big fortune means, as a rule, being 
 cursed with a dry-rot of selfishness ! " 
 
 " That sounds like one of your uncle's speeches, 
 Ray. And I hear that Bylanes, and all it includes, 
 means a very big fortune." 
 
 " You probably hear it exaggerated. Still, I may 
 own to you that the property my uncle left would 
 to-day exceed, rather than fall short of, six mil- 
 lions." 
 
 " So much as that ! No ; the world hasn't exag- 
 gerated this time." 
 
 " It is a heavy responsibility for a fellow to carry 
 who is perfectly conscious he will have shirked his 
 trust, if he doesn't make the world a little better and 
 happier because he had the good or ill luck to be 
 born heir to all this wealth. If Uncle Ken had 
 believed I would feel otherwise, he would never 
 have made me his heir." 
 
 There was a great gladness in Mrs. Kent's heart. 
 She laid her hand on the young man's arm. " Ray," 
 her soft, solemn tones sounded like a benediction, 
 " your uncle was right when he trusted you with this 
 money." 
 
 A little later the talk ran in a lighter key. Mrs. 
 Kent was asking gayly : " Can this big, blond
 
 302 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 fellow, with the tawny beard, be the little boy I 
 remember, who used to come here and eat my plum 
 cake ! " 
 
 Ray laughed. It was that laugh which Dorrice 
 heard, sitting upstairs by the window. " I have 
 eaten in tents of the desert," he said, " in the palaces 
 of princes, and in old, stately, Gothic banqueting- 
 halls ; but I give you my word, nothing ever had 
 quite the relish of your plum cake and ymr 
 damson preserves." 
 
 " You shall have them every time you come out 
 to see me, Ray ! " 
 
 " Thank you. That promise ought to make a boy 
 of me, if the sight of you hadn't done so already." 
 He rose now, came to her chair, and, bending his tall 
 height over her, said : " May I tell you the truth, 
 when, spoken to somebody else, it would sound like 
 a man's flattery ? " 
 
 " What woman could make but one answer to that 
 speech, Ray Gathorpe ? " 
 
 " As I remember you, and as I look at you to-night, 
 it seems as though each year had only touched you 
 with some finer grace." 
 
 "Ah, Ray, you ought to keep that pretty speech 
 for your wife, when she begins to grow old, and 
 looks in the glass, and sees her graying hair." 
 
 A moment later, he was going about the room, 
 looking into the nooks and corners, and at the 
 furnishings and pictures. " After all my tumblings 
 about the world," he said, " it is pleasant to find a 
 room that has kept the old familiar look and atmos- 
 phere."
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 303 
 
 "You must have plenty of such rooms at By- 
 lanes." 
 
 Ray sat down by his hostess again. " The rooms 
 are there," he replied, " but something that made 
 my boyhood's Bylanes went out of it, seven years 
 ago." ' 
 
 At the last, Mrs. Kent talked of herself, and of 
 various happenings in her life. She spoke of the 
 young lady who was living with her. 
 
 " I must have met her when I first came in," said 
 Ray. 
 
 " Her name is Dorrice Dacres. She has been with 
 me two years. I cannot tell you, Ray, what she has 
 been to my heart in my home. She she reminds 
 me of my dead Alice." 
 
 Ray knew what that must mean. The boy and 
 girl had spent many happy hours together, at her 
 home and at Bylanes. 
 
 A few facts of Dorrice's history followed. Ray 
 learned that she was an orphan, with no relative in 
 the world but a brother, who, immediately after his 
 graduation at college, had gone abroad for nearly 
 two years. 
 
 He had returned home in the spring, and, a few 
 weeks ago, entered the Harvard Law School. Mrs. 
 Kent spoke of him as a noble fellow. His name was 
 Carryl Dacres. 
 
 Ray looked at his watch and rose ; he had barely 
 time to reach the train. 
 
 "You will not think of going in town to-night!" 
 remonstrated Mrs. Kent. 
 
 But he had engaged to meet a friend in the
 
 304 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 morning. He promised to be out soon again, and 
 his adieux had to be made in a hurry. 
 
 Dorrice roused herself at last. She was much 
 surprised to perceive the fashion in which she had 
 fallen asleep. She groped her way to the clock on 
 the mantel, and read the time by a moonbeam. 
 
 While she had been sleeping, the May, robed in 
 green and white-veiled in moonlight, had glided into 
 the embrace of June ; and in the old pear-tree the 
 birds would soon be welcoming the first dawn of 
 another summer.
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 ONE afternoon during the week following young 
 Gathorpe's visit, Mrs. Kent and her young friends 
 were together. The day had been oppressively 
 warm, though, just now, little wafts of cool west 
 wind came through open doors and windows. 
 
 Carryl Dacres had returned a good deal bronzed, 
 and some inches broader-chested. These were about 
 all the surface changes Dorrice had been able to 
 detect in him ; but she was conscious of subtler ones. 
 He had come back to her in splendid health and 
 courage, equipped, as he assured her, for any tussle 
 with fortune. The two years' travel and varied 
 experience had widened the horizon of his thoughts 
 and sympathies. They had modified some of his 
 convictions, and settled others more firmly. His 
 imagination and all his artistic tastes had been 
 awakened and stimulated, and he had gained a 
 better estimate and a stronger grasp of his intel- 
 lectual powers. Long before he sailed, he had 
 settled with himself the paramount question of his 
 profession, and, having made the most of his oppor- 
 tunities abroad, he was, on his return, like an ath- 
 lete, eager for the race. He was no longer handi- 
 capped in the struggle. The problem of ways and 
 
 305
 
 306 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 means was a light one, when it came to facing it for 
 himself alone. He had friends, now, who would 
 supply him with all the coaching he could attend to. 
 As for Dorrice, it would have been a cruel ingrati- 
 tude to Mrs. Kent to suggest their resuming the old 
 housekeeping, as had been tacitly taken for granted 
 on their part, when he went abroad ; so the subject 
 was not even broached. 
 
 Of course the cottage at West Newton was, what 
 Mrs. Kent insisted it should be, a home to Carryl. 
 After this long separation, Dorrice claimed every 
 instant of the time he could spare from his studies 
 and work. The changes which the two years had 
 wrought in her were more apparent at least on 
 the outside than those in himself. Her beauty 
 had the power of a fresh surprise to him ; her fine 
 organization had long ago surmounted the effects of 
 the strain it had undergone ; and during her brother's 
 absence, and amid her happy surroundings, she had 
 opened, naturally as a flower opens, into the fragrance 
 and perfection of young womanhood; her presence 
 radiated life and brightness. Carryl was ready to 
 give Mrs. Kent ample credit for all the lovely 
 changes he saw in his sister. He was certain no 
 other woman could have been to Dorrice what she 
 had. 
 
 This afternoon he had been amusing the ladies 
 with some incidents he had witnessed among the 
 mountains and people of Wales. He had not written 
 about these adventures to his sister, because he felt 
 that tones and dramatic action could only do justice 
 to the comical side.
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 307 
 
 The dark, slender, supple-framed young man, with 
 his serious black eyes, moved much about the room, 
 with his old restless habit, while he talked. Dorrice's 
 eyes followed him with proud content. She wore, 
 this afternoon, a white dress, with a wide lace scarf 
 at her throat. In its folds she had fastened a little 
 bunch of forget-me-nots. Carryl, she knew, always 
 liked to have flowers about her. 
 
 " How lovely the child is looking to-day," Mrs. 
 Kent thought. 
 
 Carryl stopped suddenly in his walk, and threw 
 himself down on the lounge by his sister. "Dor- 
 rice," he said, " can you imagine whom I went to see 
 yesterday had a long talk with, indeed?" 
 
 "It is too warm for my wits to attempt any 
 guesses. Tell me, Carryl ! " 
 
 " It was Hallowell. I had a curious feeling, after 
 I had stepped into the office, that I ought to go 
 straight to my old desk, and told him so." 
 
 " What did he say to that ? " 
 
 " ' If you had kept to the desk, Dacres, you would 
 have been far on the road to becoming a rich man by 
 this time.' 
 
 " I agreed with him that I should probably have 
 had more money ; but I spoiled that by adding that 
 I had never seen a moment when I regretted my 
 decision. He was most friendly interested to learn 
 all about my prospects. In the course of the talk 
 he admitted that things had turned out better with 
 me than he supposed possible, when I threw up my 
 chances with the house. I, in turn, acknowledged 
 Miat, viewed from his standpoint, my course must
 
 308 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 have appeared to him little short of insanity, and a 
 piece of ingratitude to boot. 
 
 "'Well,' he said, 'nobody will be more heartily 
 glad of your success, Dacres, than I. So you are 
 going into the law?' 
 
 "That fact seemed to make a good impression. 
 While we were talking, a sentence I read somewhere, 
 long ago, came up: 'Every man's aim must either 
 be riches or something better than riches.' I could 
 not doubt that, for myself, I had chosen the some- 
 thing better." 
 
 " But you did not tell him so ? " interposed Dor- 
 rice. 
 
 " Oh, no ! It would have been worse than gratui- 
 tous at that time, in that place. By the bye, he had 
 some things to say about you, which I also think it 
 wise not to repeat. Even her sensible little head 
 came near being turned, long ago, by some stuff 
 which I had overheard, and was simple enough to 
 retail to her." 
 
 This last remark was addressed to Mrs. Kent. 
 
 " When was that ? " asked Dorrice, with an 
 amused glance. 
 
 "Have you forgotten, Portia? It was the even- 
 ing of our first Class Day, when I told you about the 
 talk at Holworthy." 
 
 " Oh, yes ! I think you are right, Carryl. My head 
 was a little turned for two or three days that fol- 
 lowed, and then " she paused and looked at him 
 with a tender seriousness in her eyes. 
 
 "Well, go on." 
 
 "You read Emerson to me one night, and after-
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 309 
 
 ward I had something to think about which put all 
 your seniors into the background." 
 
 Canyl caught her meaning. " So it was getting 
 me into college which cured you of your sole attack 
 of feminine vanity ! " he said, in a tone which tried 
 to be gay. " Mrs. Kent, I am hugely compunctious ! 
 What an ungrateful rascal I must have been not to 
 suspect all this ! " 
 
 When he took that tone, Dorrice was sure to come 
 to the rescue. " You foolish boy ! As though it 
 wasn't lucky for me that I got rid of that 'peacock 
 vein,' before it had spoiled me." 
 
 There was a knock at the door. An instant later, 
 Mrs. Kent rose to receive Ray Gathorpe. 
 
 It was now more than seven years since the two 
 young men who were meeting in Mrs. Kent's cool, 
 shaded sitting-room had seen each other for a few 
 brief, agitated moments, and then gone their differ- 
 ent ways. 
 
 The tall, blond, tawny-bearded stranger was not 
 likely to suggest the slender youth, just out of col- 
 lege, to one who had seen him but a single time. 
 
 But the change in Carryl was far greater than any 
 in young Gathorpe, whose classmates knew him 
 with a glance. There was nothing that could possi- 
 bly have any association for him in the dark, slender, 
 handsome young man, with the seedy youth, the thin 
 face, the deep-rimmed, despairing eyes of that old 
 interview. 
 
 But as the two grasped hands, and looked earnestly 
 in each other's eyes, there was a change in Carryl's. 
 For, at the sight of his fine, eager face, Ray had
 
 310 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 smiled a little, and it was the smile which Dorrice's 
 brother had once assured her he should recognize 
 anywhere ; he stared, silent and bewildered, at the 
 stranger, his memory striving to grasp some scene or 
 person that all the time baffled it. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Mr. Gathorpe," he said, at 
 last, for his manner was beginning to attract the 
 notice of the ladies, " but I have a strong impression 
 that I have met you before." 
 
 " I am sorry to say I have no recollection of it, 
 Mr. Dacres." Ray's smile grew more pronounced as 
 he looked into the eyes regarding him with that 
 bright, penetrating gaze. The clear, decided accent 
 seemed to stir some long-silent echo in Carryl's 
 memory. What was that far, faint voice from the 
 past, that he was on the point of catching one mo- 
 ment, and that fell and died the next? 
 
 "I must be mistaken," said Carryl, at last, half 
 speaking to himself, as the vividness of his first im- 
 pression waned. " I have been thrown among such 
 a variety of people during the last two years, that 
 my memory is likely to play me all sorts of tricks." 
 
 " That is precisely my own case," answered Ray. 
 
 " But what made you stare at him in that dazed 
 fashion when you first met?" asked Dorrice. 
 
 She was standing in the late summer twilight, on 
 the piazza. The young men had remained to supper, 
 and Carryl and his sister had left Mrs. Kent a few 
 minutes with their guest. 
 
 "I can no more explain it than you can. I shall 
 never trust my first impressions again. I could
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 311 
 
 almost have sworn I had seen talked with the 
 young fellow somewhere. But that was im- 
 possible." 
 
 " It must have been." She turned to gaze through 
 the honeysuckle-vines at the dull-red afterglow in 
 the western sky. "What do you think of him?" 
 
 "He is a fine fellow. Did you notice what a 
 grand head he has ? " 
 
 " Yes ; it struck me the first time I saw him." 
 
 "He has brains, and heart, and conscience, and 
 they haven't any of them gone to rust. One can 
 perceive that, who has learned the signs. I like to 
 see a fellow with such a splendid mental and moral 
 equipment," he added, fervently. 
 
 " All that is high praise, after a first interview," 
 commented Dorrice, leaning over the low parapet 
 and plucking a yellow rose from a large bush below 
 her. 
 
 "I know it is; and you know whether my weak- 
 ness is in the way of superlatives." 
 
 " Hardly ! " she said, with a little, significant ele- 
 vating of her eyebrows. Then she went on to tell 
 him what she had heard of this young Gathorpe 
 from Mrs. Kent how he was the heir of his uncle, 
 and the owner of Bylanes. 
 
 "Where is that?" 
 
 "It is a noble old family-estate, somewhere in 
 northeastern Massachusetts. It has come down to 
 him through generations of ancestors. He is the 
 last of the race. It all sounds a little like the 
 inheritance of some old feudal domain ; but the for- 
 tune hasn't spoiled him in the least, Mrs. Kent says.
 
 312 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 His long life abroad, too, has only sent him back with 
 more faith in the future of his native land, and more 
 love for it. His uncle he was an old friend of 
 Mrs. Kent's, who was very fond of him was a man 
 of men." 
 
 While Dorrice was talking, she had been fastening 
 the yellow rose in Carryl's vest button-hole. 
 
 " Thank you," he said, laying his hand affection- 
 ately on her shoulder. " You are the dearest old 
 girl in the world, Dorrice ! " 
 
 " For one yellow rose, Carryl ! " she said, play- 
 fully. " That superlative did not cost me dear." 
 
 Her gaze went about all the honeysuckle-vines, 
 and bushes, gay with blossoms, and low, wide- 
 spreading shrubs, which, at that season, hid the 
 piazza in a great nest of greenery, and then her 
 glance came and rested, wistful and tender, on 
 Carryl. The sense that he was once more by her 
 side had not yet lost its freshness. " Oh, Carryl," 
 she broke out, " how often I have walked here and 
 longed to have you with me just one hour! You 
 can't imagine how good it does seem to wake at 
 night, and know that big Atlantic .no longer rolls 
 between us." 
 
 " You will never have that experience again," he 
 rejoined, very decidedly. "When I go over next 
 time, you will be along." 
 
 She thanked him with a smile in which her eyes 
 had, just then, more share than her lips, and it struck 
 him that she looked, as she leaned against the para- 
 pet, with her dark head and slender limbs in strong 
 relief against the greenery, like some piece of rare
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 313 
 
 sculpture ; but even such a brother as Carryl Dacres 
 would be less likely than a lover to say this to his 
 sister. 
 
 In a moment his thoughts recurred to another sub- 
 ject. " But you haven't told me yet what you think 
 of young Gathorpe," he said. 
 
 Before she could reply, there was a movement at 
 one of the windows, and Mrs. Kent and her guest 
 came out and joined the two on the piazza. 
 
 That evening the young men returned in company 
 to the city. Each felt that he had enjoyed a rare 
 afternoon a stimulating, delightful companionship. 
 Each had a strong desire to know more of the other. 
 
 " One doesn't come across a fellow like this young 
 Dacres every day," said Ray to himself, after they 
 had shaken hands warmly, and separated. 
 
 But when he got to his room that night, it was 
 less the dark, handsome face of young Dacres which 
 stood before him, than another, a woman's face, 
 fair and fine, with dark, mystic eyes, that held in 
 their depths the still, clear shining of stars.
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 DURING the next two months, Ray Gathorpe was 
 much at the cottage in West Newton. The necessity 
 of frequent consultations with his lawyer brought 
 him often to Boston at this time, and he would, in 
 any case, have seized every opportunity to see the 
 friend who was such a link with his uncle, and his 
 own past. 
 
 But the society of her young people formed one of 
 the cumulative attractions which drew Ray Gathorpe 
 so often to Mrs. Kent's. 
 
 He and Carryl had recently been over much the 
 same European ground, and enjoyed living over 
 again the impressions which foreign scenes, and art- 
 centres, and noble historic associations, had made on 
 the eager, alert minds of young manhood. 
 
 Then, too, there was the delightful home-environ- 
 ment, the sweet and gracious presence of Mrs. Kent, 
 to place her young people on that familiar footing 
 which they would have reached nowhere else in the 
 world. 
 
 Circumstances, too, favored the growing intimacy. 
 Everybody was away, at the seashore or the moun- 
 tains, so the young men had their own time, and the 
 society of the ladies quite to themselves. 
 
 314
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 315 
 
 In a little while these visits had become the most 
 agreeable feature of the summer fo Ray Gathorpe. 
 Indeed, both he and Carryl felt that they had found 
 in each other's society a wide range of sympathies 
 and a source of fresh mental stimulus for which each 
 must be grateful all his life. 
 
 Ray could not, of course, be much in the society 
 of the brother and sister without perceiving their 
 fondness for each other. Not that this took the 
 form of speech or demonstration of any sort, in the 
 presence of strangers. On the contrary, they were 
 much in the habit of bantering each other ; and in 
 their lively badinage and repartee, sometimes one, 
 sometimes the other, got the better. 
 
 When he was alone with Mrs. Kent, they naturally 
 talked of her young friends. But, herself a woman 
 of fine reserves, she was, for some reason which she 
 did not analyze, rather unusually reticent on these 
 occasions. The things which all the world might 
 know of Carryl and Dorrice Dacres were pretty 
 much all that she confided to young Gathorpe. 
 
 So he learned about their early orphanage, their 
 coming to Boston, their home on Pinckney Street, 
 the small school Dorrice had taught there, and the 
 first meeting, three summers ago, at the Glen House. 
 
 Mrs. Kent could not relate this without alluding, 
 more or less, to early sacrifices and struggles, but 
 she did not enter into these matters at any length. 
 
 It is almost impossible for one reared amid wealth 
 and luxury to conceive of poverty, unless it is 
 brought in some palpable, sordid form under his 
 eyes.
 
 316 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 Ray Gathorpe had not the dimmest notion of what 
 the struggle had really been for these two the 
 manly, lovable fellow, and the young woman with 
 her luminous, magical eyes, and a grace and loveli- 
 ness which began to seem to him more and more to 
 lend fragrance to the air about her. 
 
 One day a slight thing happened, which puzzled 
 Ray at the time, and which he thought of afterward. 
 They had got into some very serious talk indeed, 
 one of the things which would most likely have 
 struck a stranger would have been the manner in 
 which the mood of the talk between these young 
 people varied from grave to gay. Nobody could 
 have told just how the differences in human fates 
 happened to come up at that time, but, during the 
 course of the talk, Ray had said, gravely : " Of 
 course, one cannot understand anything until he has 
 lived it. How can any of us enter into the feeling 
 of a man who actually has' not money to bu} r his 
 dinner ! There are many poor fellows every day in 
 precisely that plight ! Of course we are sorry, when 
 we hear about them. But we, who never knew the 
 bitterness of cold or hunger, have as little real con- 
 ception of it as we have of the feeling of the 
 handful of survivors who staggered, pallid and gasp- 
 ing, into the morning after that night in the Black 
 Hole of Calcutta." 
 
 There was a little silence. Carryl had been 
 moving about the room, during the last few minutes ; 
 he came to a full pause before his sister, and the two 
 looked in each other's face. Ray caught the glance 
 that stole up from the brown, dark-lashed eyes.
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 317 
 
 There was a strange solemn look in them. What 
 did it mean ? 
 
 It was Mrs. Kent's voice that answered at last. 
 " You are right, Ray ! We know, after all, very little 
 about the things we have never lived."
 
 XL. 
 
 ONE morning Ray's lawyer disappointed him. A 
 note at the office explained the necessity for this. 
 The young man found himself in Boston with several 
 unoccupied hours on his hands. After debating the 
 matter briefly with himself, he resolved to go out 
 to West Newton. 
 
 He found Dapple Mrs. Kent's big-framed, trusty 
 old mare, her deep sorrel color mottled about the 
 head and chest with light yellow spots at the gate. 
 Dorrice was just stepping into the small phaeton. 
 Ray took in at a glance the airy grace of her figure, 
 in a buff cambric, the fine cool fabric clinging close 
 to her limbs, with a scarf of pale lemon color tied in 
 large, pendant bows at her throat. She wore a small 
 round hat of light yellow straw, around which was 
 knotted some soft gauzy stuff, of a little darker 
 shade. Her dresses were always simple in make, as 
 they were quiet in tint, but clinging folds and 
 flexile lines invested her with a subtle womanly 
 daintiness. 
 
 Chief always following her about like a shadow 
 had come out to the carriage with her. He was 
 an English mastiff a huge creature, with the light 
 yellowish coat and long, loping gait of the thorough- 
 bred. A friend had given the dog to Mrs. Kent 
 
 318
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 319 
 
 when he was only a few weeks old. He raised his 
 forefeet to the carriage-step, and looked at Dorrice 
 with his big, entreating eyes, as she took the reins. 
 
 She shook her head, but it was with evident re- 
 luctance. "No, Chief, I can't have you along this 
 morning," she said, in a tone which showed the 
 animal was a pet with her. " Be a good dog and go 
 straight to your mistress, and take care of her until 
 I come back." 
 
 Chief took his feet from the step, turned his huge 
 length obediently, and started for the house. Then, 
 much to Dorrice's surprise, Ray Gathorpe came for- 
 ward. 
 
 He lifted his hat. " You have a lovely morning 
 for your drive, Miss Dacres," he said. " Is it to be 
 a long one? " 
 
 " Not very : I am going over to Belmont, on 
 some errands for Mrs. Kent." 
 
 " If I should presume to ask permission to accom- 
 pany you, I wonder if it would be to meet with the 
 fate that Chief did, just now ! " patting the big head, 
 for, on recognizing that voice, the dog had returned, 
 and was regarding the pair with solemn, intent gaze. 
 
 " Can you muster courage to try and see, Mr. 
 Gathorpe? " she answered, archly. 
 
 " Well, then, may I have the pleasure of driving 
 with you this morning, Miss Dacres?" 
 
 For answer she made room on the seat, and placed 
 the reins in his hands. 
 
 It was a perfect morning in the waning midsum- 
 mer. Days of fiery heat had preceded it, paralyzing 
 the air, and parching the land ; but at last the
 
 320 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 longed-for change had come. An east wind blew, 
 and stirred the drooping leaves, and thrilled the faint- 
 ing land. A thin, gray haze ravelled away in places, 
 and, showing stripes and reaches of brilliant azure, 
 shielded the earth from the intense sun-rays. The 
 odor of flowering things, in wildwood and field and 
 garden, was in the air. The heart of the summer no 
 longer throbbed with the full life, the bounding pulse, 
 of the June. It rather beat now with the calm exult- 
 ant consciousness of work accomplished and perfect. 
 
 Dapple, despite twenty years of service, had 
 plenty of his old fire left ; he felt the touch of strong 
 hands on the reins, and started off at a brisk pace. 
 Dorrice's heart was full of glad response to all the 
 loveliness of the summer morning. When Ray 
 turned to speak to her, there was a light in her face 
 as though she had heard " the Muses sing around the 
 rose of joy." 
 
 The talk, for the first two miles, ran in a light, rath- 
 er intermittent vein. They had grown well enough 
 acquainted, by this time, not to feel awkward at 
 little lapses of silence. The thought may have 
 occurred to one, or both, that this was the first drive 
 they had ever taken together, and that it had come 
 about in the most unlooked-for fashion. 
 
 " What a still, picturesque bit of old road this 
 is ! " exclaimed Ray as he came upon a stretch of 
 sloping highway, where the orchards on one side, 
 and fields on the other, with the brown cattle show- 
 ing finely against the brilliant green of grass and 
 trees, had a more decidedly rural effect than any- 
 thing they had yet traversed.
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 321 
 
 Dorrice bent forward now, and surveyed the scene 
 with the keenest interest. " I cannot be mistaken," 
 she exclaimed, in a voice of glad recognition. "This 
 is the old place where Carryl and I used to come. 
 It seems only yesterday." 
 
 " Was it so long ago, then ? " 
 
 " It was that first summer after we went to live on 
 Pinckney Street. We used to have such glorious 
 larks when Carryl could get a holiday, or a part of 
 one." 
 
 "And this, it appears, was one of your favorite 
 drives ? " 
 
 "Drives!" She repeated the word as though she 
 had not quite comprehended it. Then, in a flash 
 she added : " Oh, Mr. Gathorpe, we never had 
 drives in those days ! We used to take the horse- 
 cars to some convenient terminus, and then strike off 
 into the woods, and find the most bewitching out-of- 
 the-way nooks and bits, just off the dreamy old 
 country-highways. This old road was one of 
 them. It seems as though we must be walking here 
 again." 
 
 Ray could not credit his own ears. Take the 
 horse-cars, indeed ! Did the straitened resources 
 at which Mrs. Kent had hinted, mean economies and 
 denials so rigid that the two could not afford a little 
 afternoon drive into the country ? 
 
 He heard the soft melody of Dorrice's voice break 
 again at his side. " You have no idea what famous 
 tramps we were. I used to tell Carryl that the law 
 against the class would fairly include us ! " 
 
 Ray laughed ; but there was a little odd, puzzled
 
 322 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 note in the laugh, as he glanced at the smiling lips, 
 and the great, luminous eyes. 
 
 Perhaps it struck her, for she was silent a moment, 
 and then she said, with a kind of bright gravity : " I 
 dare say it all seems very strange to you." 
 
 " What does ? " he asked, flicking off with his 
 whip-lash a big fly that had settled on Dapple's flank. 
 
 " That we could be so happy with with so many 
 limitations." 
 
 He turned and faced her seriously. What large, 
 beautiful hazel-gray eyes he had, when he brought 
 their full power to bear upon anybody ! 
 
 " Happy !" he repeated. "You are the only per- 
 son, Miss Dacres, who ever gave me the impression 
 of never having known a sorrow." 
 
 " Oh, do I really seem like that to you ? " she 
 exclaimed, a good deal startled. 
 
 " Precisely." 
 
 " But it is not true. It would be very bad for me 
 if it had been." 
 
 The answer came this time in a quick, exclamatory 
 way, which showed some feeling hurried her into 
 speech before she had time for a second thought. 
 
 " Would you mind telling me why ? " 
 
 "If I had never known a sorrow I should have 
 been horribly selfish." 
 
 "You mean we must have some experience of 
 trouble before we can sympathize with it in others ? " 
 
 " Yes ; that was what I meant, at least in my 
 own case." 
 
 " I should have been inclined to say the exception 
 was in your case."
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 323 
 
 " Ah ! that is because you don't know." 
 
 Before lie could reply, she had spoken again. 
 "We are to stop at that house on the right, the 
 white one with the straw-colored blinds, and the 
 row of tiger-lilies in the front yard. I shall be gone 
 only a few minutes." 
 
 They drew up to the gate of the farm-house, and 
 after he had assisted her to alight, and she had gone 
 inside, he walked about in the short grass that 
 bordered the road, and patted Dapple's white nose, 
 and absently snapped off a grasshopper from his 
 coat-sleeve, and smiled to himself a little, as he 
 thought what a grave turn the gay talk with which 
 they started had taken. He thought, too, what a 
 lucky fellow Dacres was, to have such a sister. 
 How much he had missed ! What a constant de- 
 light it would have been, could he have had such a 
 tender, joyous influence about his own youth. 
 
 Then his thoughts recurred again to what she had 
 said about their tramps. Could that lovely creature, 
 who seemed made of all that was finest and rarest in 
 spirit and flesh, have really gone without things 
 she wanted! It hurt him made him indignant to 
 feel that must be true. Then it struck him that he 
 really knew very little of the Dacres' history de- 
 spite what Mrs. Kent had told him, and though he 
 had been meeting them constantly for the last two 
 months. 
 
 In a little while Dorrice came out of the front 
 door. Mrs. Kent's table was largely supplied from 
 the farm-house, and its small, sharp-featured mis- 
 tress accompanied the young woman to the gate,
 
 324 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 eying Ray curiously, her apron drawn over her 
 head. 
 
 They had got but a short distance on their return, 
 when Ray suddenly asked, as though the question 
 was of importance to him, " Should you regard it, 
 Miss Dacres, as a good fortune as an enviable 
 thing to be the owner of large wealth ? " 
 
 Dorrice was one of those comfortable people who 
 are not startled by an unlooked-for question. 
 
 " I hardly know how to answer you," she said. 
 " Something must depend on what you would call a 
 large fortune." 
 
 "Well say a few millions." 
 
 Mrs. Kent, when she talked of young Gathorpe, 
 had never made a point of his wealth. To do this 
 would have seemed to her essentially vulgar. The 
 growing intimacy between the young men who met 
 so often under her roof was a source of much pleas- 
 ure to her. She felt an almost maternal pride in the 
 noble, lovable young fellows, and often in her 
 thoughts, and occasionally to their faces, called them 
 her boys. 
 
 Her silence did not, of course, come from any 
 doubt lest the vast difference in their worldly 
 fortunes could have a remote influence on their 
 relations. But she could see no reason for 
 dwelling on a mere accident of wealth. She was 
 aware, too, that the world, with its love of gossip, 
 and idolatry of money, would not long permit the 
 brother and sister to remain in the dark regard- 
 ing the extent of young Gathorpe's possessions. 
 But, for her own part, she never added anything
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 325 
 
 to her first statement, that he was the owner of 
 Bylanes. 
 
 It therefore never entered Dorrice's mind that his 
 question could have any personal bearing, as she re- 
 plied : " Oh, my imagination is not equal to any- 
 thing of that sort ! I know, of course, there must 
 be people in the world who count their wealth by 
 millions ; but all that seems to me like the old east- 
 ern fables of gardens where the trees sparkled and 
 glittered with diamonds and emeralds and all pre- 
 cious stones. Do, Mr. Gathorpe, bring your talk 
 down to values that are, at least, possible for me to 
 conceive of ! " 
 
 There was an amused flash in his eyes. " Yet 
 there are people," he said, " who are born into these 
 grand fortunes. The world, at least, regards them as 
 immensely lucky fellows. They don't have to en- 
 dure the heat, and bear the burdens of the day. 
 They have nothing to do with the fierce tug and 
 scramble for existence, in which most of their fellow- 
 beings are absorbed. Somebody else has gone 
 through with all that for the small minority who are 
 left to enjoy the ease, the freedom, the leisure, 
 which the rest of the world are straining soul and 
 body to attain. It doesn't seem quite the fair thing. 
 I was curious to know how all this would strike you, 
 Miss Dacres." 
 
 "The subject, no doubt, has a good many sides. 
 But I think one born to this grand fortune must 
 feel at least, ought to feel that he has duties 
 and responsibilities he cannot shirk." 
 
 " You mean that he owes much to others."
 
 326 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 " Yes. One always does that who has wealth, or 
 any other gift of God." 
 
 There was a little silence. Dapple went at a 
 smart pace along the highway that stretched, a 
 smooth yellow-brown line, between wide margins of 
 grass, flecked with daisies and white clover. When 
 Ray Gathorpe spoke again, there was a touch of 
 deeper feeling in his voice. "I believe what 3^011 say 
 is true, Miss Dacres. Every man who inherits a 
 fortune ought to feel that this fact charges him with 
 a debt to the world. He has something to do with 
 his wealth, beside using it for his own self-indul- 
 gence, though that may take all fine forms that noble 
 and cultivated tastes suggest. Let him indulge 
 these to the top of his bent. But a man hasn't 
 reached the highest aim of life when he surrounds 
 himself with grand architecture and beautiful land- 
 scapes, and collects costly pictures and libraries. 
 He may be a selfish curmudgeon, for all that." 
 
 " If the men who own millions felt like this, what 
 a different world it would be ! " said the soft, earnest 
 voice by Ray Gathorpe's side. 
 
 "Some man even among them possibly may. 
 I can conceive how such a one would feel at times, 
 to see others his own workmen, for instance look 
 at him with a curious mingling of awe and envy in 
 their eyes with something of dumb appeal too, 
 against the injustice of the fate that had made such 
 a difference in their lots. If he had a heart in him, 
 the look on the hard, dull faces would hurt him. 
 His wealth would seem a kind of wrong, insult, to 
 his own laborers ; and if, in certain moods, he spoke
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 327 
 
 out his own feeling, it would be : ' You poor fellows, 
 I don't know any more about the matter than you 
 do. I don't deserve the good fortune any more than 
 you ; and God only knows why the balance is so im- 
 mensely in my favor.' A man feeling like that must 
 regard his wealth from a standpoint less of owner- 
 ship than of stewardship." 
 
 The eyes of the tall, fair young woman, who sat 
 at Ray Gathorpe's side, kindled as she listened. 
 When he paused, she turned their dark, luminous 
 splendors upon him. " Oh, Mr. Gathorpe," she said, 
 " the man who could feel like that talk like that 
 would be worthy of his millions ! " 
 
 He looked at her a moment without speaking. 
 Then he said, "Miss Dacres, are you willing to 
 shake hands with me on those words ? " 
 
 In the exalted mood of the moment, his request 
 did not even surprise her. She drew off her glove, 
 and gave him her soft, slender hand; and his own, 
 large and white and shapely, closed over it. 
 
 After that, the talk took a lighter vein, and by 
 the time they entered the cool shaded avenues of 
 West Newton, the young man and woman were in a 
 sufficiently gay mood. 
 
 Mrs. Kent was waiting on the east piazza, and 
 was surprised to see Dorrice's companion. As soon 
 as the first greetings were over, Ray explained the 
 happy ^chance which had brought about his drive 
 with Miss Dacres that morning. 
 
 Mrs. Kent tried to insist on his remaining to 
 lunch ; but an engagement in the city forced him to 
 take the next train.
 
 328 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 A little later, when the two ladies sat at lunch, 
 Dorrice asked suddenly : " Is Mr. Gathorpe a very 
 rich man ? " 
 
 " I suppose he is, my dear," said Mrs. Kent, set- 
 ting down a china tea-cup of delicate, ancient pat- 
 tern, which had come to her from her grandmother. 
 
 "But you don't mean worth millions for 
 instance?" 
 
 " Probably. The Gathorpes have been wealthy for 
 generations, and the property was well managed by 
 Ray's uncle. But why do you ask, Dorrice ? " 
 
 " It was something he said during our drive that 
 that suggested the question."
 
 XLI. 
 
 Two days after the drive to Belmont, Ray and 
 Carryl were together in Mrs. Kent's garden. It was 
 a favorite resort of theirs. It had a charm for every- 
 body who entered it. It was an old, fragrant, 
 dreamy place, reaching far down from the back of 
 the house, filled with fruit-trees and vines and 
 bushes, while beds full of sweet, old-fashioned 
 flowers edged the walks with narrow borderings of 
 bright color. 
 
 It was the most delightful place in the world to 
 lose one's self in, for there were nooks filled with 
 ferns, and small terraces, and little paths twisting 
 about among the shrubbery, so that the old-fashioned 
 garden gave pretty effects of mystery and distance, 
 and seemed much larger than it actually was. 
 
 The young men were in a corner of the grounds, 
 under a large cherry-tree. It was getting late in 
 the afternoon. Ray was lounging on a little rustic 
 bench, while Carryl had stretched his length on the 
 short grass. They had been deep in a discussion of 
 European politics. Their recent travels had had 
 the effect of widening and stimulating their historic 
 sympathies. They had brought to their discussion 
 the strong convictions and enthusiasms of earnest 
 young manhood. 
 
 329
 
 330 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 A pause came in the talk, which, for the last half- 
 hour, had run on Beaconsfield and Gladstone, and 
 on the influence which the characters and work of 
 the two statesmen would be likely to exert on their 
 own age. 
 
 In the silence, Carryl's profile showed in high re- 
 lief against the grass. The sun of the waning after- 
 noon caught the dark, clear outline, and sent little 
 golden flecks among the thick, glossy hair. 
 
 Carryl turned lazily in the drowsy warmth, rested 
 his chin on his palms, and looked up at his com- 
 panion in an intent, absent sort of way. Both the 
 young men wore suits of dark, well-fitting summer- 
 cloth. A stranger would have found it difficult to 
 decide, from their dress or their bearing, which of 
 the pair was the owner of millions. 
 
 " Well, Gathorpe," said Carryl, meeting his friend's 
 gaze, and plucking a spear of grass, " what are you 
 thinking about? " 
 
 " Curious thing that law of association of ideas." 
 Ray spoke absently. " What could have started that 
 train of thought, T wonder?" 
 
 " I shall be better able to answer you when I have 
 some idea what the train of thought was." 
 
 " It was rather a scene that happened years ago. 
 Nothing in our present surroundings can possibly 
 have any connection with it; yet, as you lay there, 
 and I looked at your profile, cut sharply against the 
 grass, the whole thing came up to me, clear and fresh 
 as though it happened yesterday." 
 
 Something in the speaker's tone aroused Carryl's 
 curiosity. "Can't you give a fellow a hint about it, 
 or was it a private matter ? " he inquired.
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 331 
 
 "Hardly that. There were only two actors one 
 of them myself. The other was a youth, scarcely 
 more than a boy. I see him now, coming up 
 Ashburton Place toward Somerset Street, in the 
 bright noon sunshine. He is a slender-built young 
 fellow, and has a rather shabby look, and is coming 
 on in a blind, rapid way. Something in his gait or 
 manner strikes me curiously. He runs against me 
 at the corner, and then starts back ; and when I get 
 a glance into his eyes, there is a look of wild misery 
 in them which I hope never to see in human eyes 
 why, Dacres, what is the matter ? " 
 
 For Carryl had partly raised himself, and was 
 staring at his friend. Among the soft brown shad- 
 ows, his face had a strained, white look. " Go on, 
 Gathorpe," he said, in a low, imperative voice. 
 
 Ray saw that he could not relate the story without 
 figuring as a benefactor ; but it was not easy to stop 
 now, so he kept on, with brief, rapid sentences : " I 
 followed the fellow made him stop dragged the 
 truth out of him. It cost him an awful wrench to 
 tell it. Of course I forced something on him ; he 
 couldn't have been more grateful if I had saved his 
 life. I got his address meant to see him again - 
 but, to make the story short, I have never heard a 
 syllable of him from that day to this. I told the 
 story to but one person. That was my uncle. It 
 was one of the things we talked of the last night we 
 spent together, and we had plans for brightening the 
 poor fellow's fortunes. Strange, what could have 
 brought the thing up while you lay there with the 
 sunshine on your face ! "
 
 332 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 Carryl had lain back on the grass. Two or three 
 moments passed before he asked, " Did he say any- 
 thing about a sister who was starving?" 
 
 " Yes." The next instant Ray's startled voice 
 broke out, " But how should you know anything 
 about that?" 
 
 Carryl sprang to his feet. His black eyes blazed 
 large in his white face. For a few moments he stood 
 motionless, gazing at his companion, without uttering 
 a syllable. Then he said, " Come with me, Ga- 
 thorpe ! " 
 
 And without a word too surprised and perplexed 
 by the other's behavior to utter one Ray rose and 
 went with him. 
 
 They turned toward the piazza on the east of the 
 house. When they reached the side door, Carryl 
 went to the foot of the stairs, and called, " Dorrice 
 Dacres, come here ! " 
 
 The loud, imperative summons reached her in her 
 own room. It did not sound just like Carryl. It 
 brought her, swift and startled, down the stairs. 
 She had on a dressing-sacque of cream-colored cash- 
 mere, edged with a light blue embroidery. She had 
 been arranging her hair ; and, in her haste, a part of 
 the rich auburn mass had slipped down, and hung, a 
 rippling heap about her shoulder. 
 
 She found the young men on the piazza. Her 
 dishabille was rather picturesque, and her beauty, 
 and its fine, finished quality, struck Ray anew at that 
 moment. 
 
 She, in her turn, might, another time, have noticed 
 the fine foil the young men made for each other.
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 333 
 
 Ray, with his strong, erect build, blond and brown- 
 bearded, a touch of the Berserker about him, but 
 something that was better and nobler and modern. 
 Against him were drawn Carryl's slighter lines and 
 darker coloring. His young, earnest face might, 
 to a romantic observer, have suggested some picture 
 of a mediaeval knight about to set off on a quest of 
 honor and danger only there was something more 
 and nobler, too, in Carryl Dacres something that 
 belonged to the larger purpose, the finer atmosphere, 
 of the nineteenth century. 
 
 " What has happened ? " exclaimed Dorrice, her 
 startled glance going from one to the other. 
 
 " Dorrice," said her brother, " I have just learned 
 who it was that saved us in the darkest hour, and the 
 utmost strait of our lives. You always said we 
 should find him." Then he turned and clasped his 
 hands, with something of a woman's caressing move- 
 ment, on Ray's shoulder. The tears were in his 
 eyes. " Here he stands." 
 
 " Good Heavens ! " burst out Ray, staring from 
 one to the other, and growing very white. " You 
 don't mean " He could get no farther. 
 
 But Dorrice ! There was a moment's bewilder- 
 ment in her face ; then a low, amazed cry burst from 
 her lips, as the truth forced itself on her. She 
 turned white, as she might under a staggering blow. 
 But with her rare self-poise the calmness returned, 
 and controlled all the tumult of heart and brain. 
 After an instant's pause, she turned to Ray Gathorpe. 
 She reached out her hands to him. He would never 
 forget how she looked at that instant, with the great
 
 334 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 shining in her eyes, with her proud, tremulous lips, 
 and her hair, with its golden glints, like a dark cloud, 
 about her pale face. " Oh, I am glad it was you ! " 
 she said. "I would rather it had been you than 
 anybody in the world."
 
 XLII. 
 
 
 LESS than half an hour later, Carryl came up 
 
 stairs to his sister. After her brief speech to Ray 
 Gathorpe, she had turned and left him and her 
 brother on the piazza. For a few moments the young 
 men had looked at each other, without a word. Then 
 there was a diversion in the shape of a telegram for 
 Ray. Nothing could have been more unwelcome to 
 him ; but it was, perhaps, the best thing that could 
 have happened at that juncture. Some business 
 matter it was important to settle that day, required 
 his immediate presence at his lawyer's. There was 
 barely time to seize the next train. 
 
 Carryl accompanied Ray to the station. On their 
 way, neither alluded to what had passed ; but before 
 they separated, the two grasped hands, looked in 
 each other's eyes, and felt there was a new, lifelong 
 bond between them. 
 
 " I see now why I felt toward you from the first, 
 Gathorpe, as Carryl could not finish the sen- 
 tence. 
 
 "My dear Dacres, all this has cut me up horri- 
 bly ! " Then the train began to move, and Ray had 
 to spring aboard. 
 
 Carryl found his sister pacing the room. She gave 
 a low cry at sight of him, and tried to speak ; but 
 
 335
 
 336 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 sobs broke instead of words. When he went to her, 
 she clung to him, white and shaken. 
 
 Carryl was tenderness itself. " It was cruel, I 
 know, to take you in that sudden, unprepared way. 
 I shall never forgive myself for it ; but the whole 
 thing came upon me such an overpowering sur- 
 prise ! " . 
 
 In a little while she had mastered her agitation. 
 When she was calm enough to listen, Carryl drew 
 her down on the lounge, and, seating himself by her 
 side, he related all that had happened under the 
 cherry-tree. " When you learned the truth, you said 
 just what I felt, Dorrice," he concluded. 
 
 A faint flush crept under the clear olive skin. " I 
 could not help saying what I did," she answered, 
 in low, shaken tones. " I could not help going 
 away and leaving you after I had spoken. Ho\v 
 strange how marvellous it all seems ! " 
 
 A little later, they heard Mrs Kent's voice she 
 had been out for a drive in the hall. Then there 
 was a summons to supper. 
 
 Late that evening, Ray Gathorpe walked his room 
 at the Parker House, and went over all that had hap- 
 pened in the afternoon. He had been compelled to 
 give his undivided attention to the affairs which had 
 summoned him to the city; but as soon as his 
 thoughts were free to follow their own bent, they 
 recurred to the scene between himself and young 
 Dacres and his sister. 
 
 The rattling of horse-cars, the rumbling of coach 
 wheels, the hum of voices, the movement of feet, and 
 all the myriad sounds with which the great city was
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 337 
 
 filling the summer night, came through his window 
 in a dim, muffled way. He did not hear them; he 
 was living over the story he had learned that after- 
 noon ; he was seeing the look in Dorrice Dacres' 
 eyes, as she stood on the piazza. He heard again the 
 clear accents of her voice, and he felt that the words 
 she had spoken at that crucial moment, would haunt 
 his memory as long as he lived. 
 
 Then his thoughts went to that far-off time when 
 he first met^ Carryl Dacres. The whole scene was 
 again before him, the bright, noonday sunshine, 
 the short, narrow perspective, with the gloomy brick 
 fa9ades, and that rapid young figure coming toward 
 him. Ray actually groaned sharply, and set his jaws 
 grimly, as he thought of all that high-spirited, sensi- 
 tive boy and girl must have gone through, before 
 they reached their depth of misery. The old wrath 
 against some cruel, malignant fate worked fiercer 
 than ever within him. Then his mood changed ; he 
 threw himself into a chair, crossed his arms on the 
 table, buried his face in them, and broke down in a 
 great sob.
 
 XLIII. 
 
 WHEN Ray Gathorpe was next at Mrs. Kent's, no- 
 body alluded to what had passed. Impersonal topics 
 were more agreeable on this occasion. Even when 
 the young men started off on one of their long even- 
 ing walks, there was no recurrence to fhe subject 
 that was uppermost in their consciousness. 
 
 There was no perceptible change in Dorrice, either, 
 when sh& and Ray Gathorpe met. Her gay moods 
 sparkled out of her grave ones as they had always 
 done. She seemed to him the embodiment of bright 
 and graceful young womanhood. When he was with 
 her, he used half to wonder whether there had not 
 been some huge mistake on all sides. 
 
 As the summer waned, the cottage at West New- 
 ton began to seem to Ray Gathorpe the pleasantest 
 place in the world. Even his own Bylanes lacked 
 something which he found in the smaller home. 
 The freedom and simplicity of the life here formed 
 one of its greatest attractions. All his future he 
 must remember the charming little suppers they had 
 on the piazza, embowered in the greenery of shrubs 
 and vines, while the old garden behind filled the air 
 with the sweet, subtle odors of ripening flowers and 
 fruits, and the sunset slowly dulled into the pale 
 saffrons and lavenders of twilight. 
 
 338
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 339 
 
 At these times, the spell of the hour and place 
 would fall upon each ; upon Mrs. Kent, a beautiful, 
 matronly presence at the head of the small table ; 
 upon Dorrice, cool and graceful in some light sum- 
 mer-dress, the glint of a sunbeam in her hair, the 
 glancing of a shadow on the curve of her cheek ; and 
 upon the strong, stalwart young men, until they 
 all waxed merry, and told stories, and the brother 
 and sister bantered each otheu in their bright way ; 
 and at last Mrs. Kent would come to Dorrice's res- 
 cue, with a simulated frown and a warning, "Now, 
 Carryl, stop teasing your sister ! " 
 
 One morning, Carryl said suddenly to Dorrice, 
 "You have kept the letter-case which was sent us 
 from the hospital ? " 
 
 " Of course, Carryl." 
 
 " I want it." 
 
 She glanced at him with startled, questioning eyes ; 
 but she did not speak when she left the room, or 
 when she returned and placed the letter-case in his 
 hands. Still, she knew perfectly what he intended 
 to do with it. 
 
 That afternoon, the young men were together 
 again in the corner of the garden, under the big 
 cherry-tree. 
 
 They had a fancy for this remote nook, and always 
 preferred it to the small terraces and pretty summer- 
 houses and little, shadow-dappled grass-plots that 
 offered such tempting lounging-places nearer the 
 house. But this was the first time they had come 
 here, since that memorable scene, more than three 
 weeks ago.
 
 340 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 have been in both their minds as they set- 
 tled themselves in the familiar place. This time 
 Ray stretched himself on the grass, dim and cool 
 with shadows ; Carryl was on the little rustic bench 
 beside him. 
 
 He bent over suddenly, and placed the leather 
 case under Ray's eyes. "Do you know who wrote 
 that? " he asked, pointing to a card which lay on the 
 silken lining. 
 
 Ray took the card up, and scanned it curiously. 
 He read Carryl Dacres' name, and an address, in a 
 large, scrawling hand. 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Well, you wrote it." 
 
 "/did! When? where?" staring curiously from 
 the card a good deal worn round the edges to 
 his companion's face. 
 
 " You wrote it at our first meeting. It was my 
 address at that time." 
 
 Ray drew a long breath, turned over the case, and 
 inspected it curiously. Then, in a flash, it all came 
 back to him ; he was on his feet in a moment. " I 
 lost this, Dacres. I remember now. How did you 
 come by it ? " 
 
 Carryl stated, briefly as possible, that a woman, on 
 her death-bed at the hospital, had requested it should 
 be sent to him. Her husband had obtained it from 
 one of his cronies, who, he suspected, had not come 
 by it honestly. 
 
 This statement, of course, left much in the dark ; 
 but Ray hardly perceived that at the moment, he 
 was so absorbed with his own train of recollections.
 
 A BOSTON GIKL'S AMBITIONS. 341 
 
 "I remember perfectly the morning thtot I lost this. 
 I had come from By lanes with the express purpose 
 of searching you out. When I reached the city, 
 the case to my immense amazement and chagrin 
 was gone. I was forced to believe that I had 
 left it behind ; but that conclusion did not just sat- 
 isfy me. When I returned, I learned of my uncle's 
 illness. It was his last one. That drove everything 
 else from my mind. But before I sailed, I remem- 
 bered ; I advertised for you ; I did it so that nobody 
 but yourself could understand; but nothing came 
 of it." 
 
 Long before this, Ray had seated himself on the 
 grass once more. 
 
 " Is that true, Gathorpe ? " said Carryl, looking at 
 his friend with an unutterable look in his eyes. 
 
 " Of course, it is, Dacres. You did not suppose 
 I could forget ! " 
 
 " We looked for you a long while ; but we were 
 not much in the way of seeing the papers at that 
 time." Carryl's words came with difficulty. 
 
 " I wanted you should know this," continued Ray, 
 " after what I learned the other afternoon ; but, you 
 see, I -could never have alluded to the matter, if you 
 had not spoken first." 
 
 There was a long pause. Drowsy little winds 
 woke and went to sleep again among the leafy 
 cherry-boughs. A yellow shaft of sunlight struck 
 down on the big bole, and brought out all the knots 
 and wrinkles of the old bark. Big yellow butter- 
 flies, and brown-belted bees flitted about in the dim, 
 purplish shadows.
 
 342 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 At last Carryl spoke : " I have made up my 
 mind to tell you a long story, Gathorpe. I thought 
 some of it would never pass my lips. But it seems 
 your right to know all. Can you have patience to 
 listen ? " 
 
 " Patience, Dacres ! " 
 
 Sitting on the grass, silent, motionless, for long 
 spaces, as though the words to which he listened had 
 turned him to stone, Ray Gathorpe learned the story 
 of Carryl Dacres' youth. But he did not begin 
 with himself, but with his parents : and the confes- 
 sion of Madeline Reeves had to follow in its place. 
 
 The problem which had greatly perplexed Ray 
 was solved at last : he learned how the changed for- 
 tunes had come about with the rescue of little Tom 
 Hallowell from his deadly peril ; and afterward, the 
 current of the story ran continually smoother and 
 brighter, until it reached the great turning-point in 
 Carryl's youth, when Deacon Spinner came from 
 Foxlow, and, as the result, he entered Harvard. 
 
 It was impossible that Carryl should not have 
 much to say of Dorrice. The fair, girlish figure 
 moved along his story, and illumined its darkest 
 passages. Always her deed was fine ; always her 
 word rung true ; and it was with her, at last, that the 
 long drama concluded. "Among the daughters of 
 Eve, Gathorpe, there never was such a sister as 
 Dorrice ! Only I can know what splendid pluck 
 that girl carries under all her softness. Come to the 
 pinch, she would put most of us fellows to shame." 
 
 " I am sure of it, Dacres." 
 
 At last the young men rose. While Carryl had
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 343 
 
 been talking, the dim blue shadows had gathered 
 under the great tree, and a mass of low-lying, fleecy 
 clouds in the west, began to flush into deep crimsons 
 and brighten into dazzling yellows. 
 
 Carryl and Ray looked into each other's eyes, and 
 grasped each other's hands ; and each waited for the 
 other to speak : because his own word must fall so 
 far below his thought and feeling: and then each 
 found that the silence was speaking amply for him. 
 
 As they went up to the house, Ray asked : " May 
 I keep this case, Dacres ? " 
 
 " Certainly. It has come back at last to the right 
 owner." 
 
 A few days later, Mrs. Kent said suddenly to 
 Dorrice: "Carryl and Ray are fond of each other. 
 You must see that, Dorrice." 
 
 " Oh, yes ! " 
 
 " It must be a real pleasure to you." 
 
 " Oh, certainly ! " 
 
 These acquiescent laconics were not Dorrice's 
 habit. Mrs. Kent glanced at her, and saw an absent 
 expression on her face. Dorrice was at that moment 
 thinking of a day and a deed which would go far to 
 explain the young men's feeling for each other. 
 
 When she was alone, Mrs. Kent recalled the look, 
 and Dorrice's replies. A thought struck her, which 
 made her rise, and move about the room. Had she 
 been a different woman, this thought would have 
 occurred to her before. Perhaps*her native shrewd- 
 ness was less alert too, because the affection of the 
 brother and sister was so interwoven in the life and 
 personality of each, that it was difficult to conceive
 
 344 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 of its being supplanted by another, deeper and more 
 absorbing. 
 
 It was impossible not to feel that Dorrice Dacres 
 was a young woman made for love. Mrs. Kent 
 believed that if any man should succeed in winning 
 her, he would have reason to thank God every day 
 of his life. But Carryl was a splendid fellow, and 
 his sister had a tendency to ideals. When she coin- 
 pared him with her lovers, they naturally were at 
 some disadvantage at least, they all had been 
 Mrs. Kent was assured, until Ray Gathorpe ap- 
 peared. 
 
 The lady's secret thoughts as she moved about the 
 chamber summed themselves up, at last, in this char- 
 acteristic fashon : " Now, Esther Kent, you absurd 
 elderly person, don't ! Send your dreams packing 
 to the limbo where foolish dreams belong ! The next 
 time you take to building castles in the air, will you 
 please to remember your years ! They, at least, will 
 serve to remind you that things do not often turn 
 out on this planet as they do in the last chapter of a 
 novel." 
 
 That evening, Ray and Carryl came out. It was 
 so warm that more than half of it was spent on the 
 west piazza. The young men told stories of their 
 travels. Some of these were so amusing that, once 
 or twice, people passing on the sidewalk stopped to 
 listen to the laughter that floated out into the night. 
 It was only when they went inside that the talk 
 took a graver tone. 
 
 s The young men had barely started for the train, 
 when Carryl remembered some errand which in-
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 345 
 
 volved a few moments' talk with Mrs. Kent. He 
 stepped back to the house. Ray waited for him out- 
 side. An instant later, and Dorrice slipped out of 
 the front door. Her white dress gleamed between 
 the shrubberies, as she came swiftly down the path 
 to where Ray was standing. A lamp swung from 
 the iron arch over the gate. The light glanced upon 
 her dark hair, and caught the delicate oval of her 
 face, just as it had on the night when Ray first saw 
 her. 
 
 " Mr. Gathorpe," she said, in a low, rapid, breath- 
 less voice, "I wish yon would not look at me as 
 as you did this evening ! " 
 
 She was too intent on her meaning to be careful 
 of the words that attempted to convey it. 
 
 " I don't understand yon, Miss Dacres," Ray 
 answered, in simple amazement. 
 
 " I know Carryl has told you all about the past, 
 though he has never confessed doing so. I see, by 
 the way you look, that you remember it that it 
 troubles you. Do forget it, please ! The worst 
 times were not so very long, and from the worst of 
 all you saved us ! " 
 
 When she ceased speaking, there was such a rush 
 and tumult of emotion within him, that he could not 
 find a word to sa}^. He could only see her standing 
 there, with her white dress gleaming between the 
 shrubberies; and the liglit fell on her hair, on her 
 face, and there was a beautiful shining in her eyes. 
 
 It was like her this brave, generous thing that 
 she had done to spare him farther pain. 
 
 " You are very good," he said, at last, with a miser-
 
 346 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 able consciousness ho'w utterly bungling and inade- 
 quate his words were, " to come out here to say this 
 to me!" 
 
 "I could not help it, Mr. Gathorpe. Mayn't I 
 take your promise back with me?" 
 
 " That I will try and forget ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " If I should promise that, I would feel it was a 
 lie ; but I shall always remember what you have 
 asked." 
 
 There was not time for another word. That was 
 Carryl's stride along the gravel. Before he had 
 caught the gleam of his sister's dress, she had sprung 
 into a side-path which led up to the house ; and, as 
 she disappeared among the shrubberies, she heard 
 him calling, " Where are you, Gathorpe ? "
 
 XLIV. 
 
 ONE morning, Ray Gathorpe entered Mrs. Kent's 
 sitting-room through a window which opened on the 
 west piazza. He found nobody inside ; but his 
 attention was at once attracted to a new portrait on 
 the mantel-piece. It was that of a woman in the 
 colonial dress of the early part of the last century. 
 The face that looked down on him from the ancient 
 canvas had a rare fineness and sweetness of expres- 
 sion. It had evidently passed its zenith. The hair, 
 coiled high on the beautiful-shaped head, and 
 lying in large, soft rolls about the delicate temples, 
 was heavily frosted with gray, and there were hints 
 of wrinkles about the corners of the eyes and the 
 firm, sweet mouth ; but the face still retained so 
 much of its bright youth fulness of expression that it 
 was not difficult to imagine what it had been in its 
 blossoming. The ancient lady was dressed in a 
 silver brocade of richest texture, and in the scant, 
 stiff lines of her time. A kerchief, whose soft, white 
 folds, thin almost as mist, were drawn over her 
 bosom, showed the curve of her neck and the snowy 
 throat. 
 
 " Only a daughter of the Puritans could look like 
 that," said Ray to himself, as he stood regarding the 
 portrait, and thinking what a bewitching spell must 
 
 347
 
 348 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 have dwelt in those sweet, gray eyes, and fancying 
 he traced some lines of family resemjblance between 
 Mrs. Kent and that pictured presence over the man- 
 tel-piece. 
 
 There was a sudden stir at the door, and Dorrice 
 Dacres came into the room. They had not seen 
 each other since the hurried interview in the moonlit 
 gravel-path. She carried a large vase of brilliant- 
 hued flowers. Chief followed in .her wake, with a 
 little bark of welcome, as he caught sight of Kay, 
 whom, by this time, he recognized as one of the 
 habitue's of the cottage. 
 
 " You were looking at our new portrait when I 
 came in," said Dorrice, after a little desultory con- 
 versation. The guest thought that she, too, made a 
 study for an artist, now she was seated in the big 
 wicker-chair, with the huge mastiff stretched on the 
 rug at her feet. 
 
 " Yes ; it would have struck me in a great gallery 
 of fine portraits. I should have said there, as I did 
 just now, ' That is a true daughter of the Puri- 
 tans.' " 
 
 "You recognize the type, then?" said Dorrice, 
 with the light which a sudden pleasure always 
 brought up from the dark depths of her eyes. 
 " When I first saw the portrait, I said, ' It is a face 
 which looks as though it might have walked straight 
 out of the Mayflower ! ' ' 
 
 "Yes." And now it was his large, gray eyes that 
 smiled upon her. " You have perfectly expressed the 
 character of the face, Miss Dacres. You are sure it 
 would have carried its calm courage, its womanly
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 349 
 
 sweetness, through all that dreadful voyage. But 
 why has Mrs. Kent kept a picture like that in hiding 
 so long?" 
 
 Dorrice explained that it had come to her only 
 recently, through a cousin who had died. It was the 
 portrait of Mrs. Kent's great-great-aunt. 
 
 " It is singular," said Dorrice, after a little pause, 
 during which they had both gazed at the picture, 
 " how one gets to feel, after a while, toward a portrait 
 that really interests one. It seems as though I must 
 have known the woman whose face smiles on me up 
 there, long and intimately. . I come here sometimes, 
 and stand before her, and try to imagine what she 
 was, how she thought and felt and lived, until I 
 quite believe she would not be a stranger to me, if 
 she should step down out of that canvas, and take 
 my hand in her small, white one. I am convinced, 
 at such times, that I know a good deal about her 
 personality, her history, though a century and a half 
 lie between us. I try, too, to get some idea of her 
 surroundings ; of the things she saw and loved ; of 
 the daily life she led. I fancy I know a little some- 
 thing of the Boston of her time : the small, bustling, 
 seaport town, with its narrow streets, its little gabled 
 houses, and its old-world social atmosphere." 
 
 " That fair, ancient lady lived in stirring times, 
 too," subjoined Ray, beguiled into the current of 
 Dorrice's talk. "She was a subject of the last 
 of the Stuarts, of the first of the Brunswicks. 
 We may be sure she took a vital interest in the 
 downfall of one House, the accession of the other. 
 These were facts full of tremendous issues, in that
 
 850 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 day, for every man, woman, and child on our strip of 
 Atlantic seaboard. How little we can realize all 
 that now ! But I will answer for the lady up there, 
 that she was loyal, heart and soul, to her new 
 Hanover sovereign." 
 
 Dorrice laughed. " No question of that, with her 
 training and traditions. But the bewildering part of 
 it all is that she should seem so near at one moment, 
 such ages off at another. If I should speak to her 
 of George Washington or Napoleon Bonaparte, the 
 names would have no meaning for her. It is difficult 
 to feel they were not born when that portrait was 
 painted." 
 
 " Undoubtedly ; and how about your favorite au- 
 thors, Miss Dacres ? " 
 
 " Oh, but we should be more at home there ! She 
 must have known some of the greatest of those. I 
 have a happy conviction that she had read Dante and 
 Chaucer, Spenser and Shakespeare." 
 
 "I like to agree with you," said Ray. "At all 
 events, some of their drama and poetry must have 
 been born in the soul of the woman with that face. 
 She must have lived them, too, despite the stern old 
 times in which her lot fell." 
 
 " My own great-great-grandmother, Anna Ranger, 
 lived in them, too. She owned a part of Winter 
 Street. Sometimes, when I go about it now, I try to 
 think what it was like then." 
 
 Before Ray could reply, Mrs. Kent entered the 
 room, accompanied by Carryl, who had recently ap- 
 peared. 
 
 With their advent on the scene, the talk took 'a
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 351 
 
 different and livelier vein. It was rather curious 
 that when young Gathorpe and Dorrice were alone 
 the conversation usually fell into a serious mood. 
 
 But now the talk waxed merry, with frequent 
 bursts of laughter. In the course of it, Carryl, with 
 the unconsciousness of long habit, once addressed 
 his sister as Portia. 
 
 "What did you call her then ? " asked Ray. 
 
 Carryl explained. In the old days, when they read 
 Shakespeare together, he had been much in the habit 
 of calling his sister Portia. He insisted that this 
 was the one of Shakespeare's heroines -vhom Dorrice 
 most resembled. 
 
 Ray did not see fit to avow on this occasion that 
 of all Shakespeare's women Portia had been his own 
 favorite. 
 
 In a moment, Dorrice said, " But though I was 
 persecuted with a legion of names, they were not 
 always so immensely flattering as that one." 
 
 " What if a fellow may be bold enough to ask 
 were some of the others, Miss Dacres? " inquired Ray. 
 
 " Oh, classic, mediaeval, and modern literature had 
 to be ransacked for them," she replied, gayly. "I 
 was Athene's Owl, if I happened to look grave ; or 
 Cassandra, when I did not see things through Carryl 's 
 rose-colored lights ; or Boadicea, when- I was bent, 
 heart and soul, on carrying out some plan about 
 which he had wise doubts; or Beatrice, if I said 
 something which struck him as particularly nert ; or 
 I was a patient Griselda in my amiable moods, and, 
 alas! in his cross ones, I was Xantippe or Susan 
 Nipper."
 
 352 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 Her auditors laughed heartily ; and then Carryl 
 said, with portentous solemnity: "After all, the 
 worst charge I could bring against her was one I 
 never dared to breathe in those days. She kept a 
 fellow so dreadfully on his mettle ! Her ' enormous 
 ideals' made her demands on ordinary human nature 
 terribly hard at times. Somehow she had a way of 
 making a fellow feel that if he fell short of them, he 
 would stand convicted the veriest poltroon be- 
 fore earth and high Heaven." 
 
 "Oh, Carryl, is that true?" exclaimed Dorrice, 
 quite forgetful of everybody but himself, as she 
 turned to him with radiant eyes. " I never dreamed 
 of it ; but I am so glad to know." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because," she said, in a low, exultant tone, " if 
 I made such high demands, you did not as a whole 
 fail them!" 
 
 Carryl made a wry face ; but there was a touch of 
 embarrassment, and something deeper than that, in 
 his laugh. " I strike my colors, Dorrice," he said. 
 " A fellow can't do less before such delicate flattery ; 
 but it all comes of your feminine arts. If I were 
 not as hopeless an ass as Titania's love, I never 
 should attempt, after my experience, to enter into 
 another argument with you. It is certain as the law 
 of gravitation, that I shall be worsted." 
 
 There was another laugh; and Mrs. Kent said, 
 " Now, children, stop all this nonsense, and come out 
 to lunch."
 
 XLV. 
 
 IT was not surprising that when the summer 
 closed, it left the inmates of the cottage at West 
 Newton where it had found them. 
 
 Mrs. Kent could not make up her mind to ex- 
 change the freedom and quiet of her own home, for 
 the gay crowds, the confined rooms, and the daily 
 excitements, of the summer-resorts. 
 
 To Dorrice's healthy organization of soul and 
 body frequent changes of scene and climate were not 
 essential; and, with all her delight in shore and 
 mountain scenery, she did not hanker for these, so 
 long as there was a chance of seeing Carryl each 
 day. 
 
 But early in September, young Gathorpe came out 
 with a proposal which took everybody by surprise. 
 This was nothing less than that Mrs. Kent and Dor- 
 rice should come to Bylanes for several weeks. 
 Ray was very much in earnest in this matter. He 
 had invited no visitors since his return home. But 
 the domestic service had now resumed its old order 
 and activity. Ray was eager for some of the former 
 life and brightness in the silent old rooms. Indeed, 
 he pleaded for this visit as a special favor to himself. 
 
 Mrs. Kent had, in other days, been frequently at 
 Bylanes, so that going there did not seem like an 
 
 353
 
 354 A BOSTON GIKL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 ordinary visit. Dorrice, too, had heard enough about 
 the Gathorpes' home to have a curiosity to see it. 
 Ray's invitation included Carryl, as a matter of 
 course, who was to pare off a day here and there 
 from his studies, and run out to Bylanes at odd 
 times, precisely as he did to West Newton. 
 
 " Well, Ray, you have conquered ! " Mrs. Kent 
 playfully saluted the young man the next time he 
 presented himself. " That means we have decided to 
 come to Bylanes for a week." 
 
 " A week ! " he repeated, incredulously. " Do you 
 imagine, when I have once got you fairly under the 
 old roof-tree, I shall let you go from it in less than 
 a month?" 
 
 It was in the second week of September that 
 Mrs. Kent and Dorrice Dacres went to Bylanes. 
 The young woman was much impressed with her 
 first glance at the stately stone house, amid its 
 noble grounds, as she caught sight of it from the 
 road. As she drew nearer, the first effect was 
 heightened by its mingled expression of solidity 
 and simplicity. 
 
 It was now the most perfect weather of the year. 
 The sultry heats had passed, and though the days 
 were bathed in rich, sunny atmospheres, these held 
 also the first fine, bracing tonic of the autumn. The 
 sky was a deep, shining, mysterious azure, unlike all 
 other azures of the year. It had a calm, brooding 
 peace. It was impossible to gaze on it and not 
 think of heaven. 
 
 Then there was the wide land, green with that 
 last rich, dazzling green, just before the frosts steal
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 355 
 
 in, and illuminate it with more than the glory of 
 sunrise and sunset. Soft, fragrant winds wandered 
 through the golden air. In it happy bees mur- 
 mured; through it butterflies flashed sparks of 
 crimson and gold and mottled red. The year in 
 these restful, luminous, September days had attained 
 its crowning mood the joy and serenity of accom- 
 plished work. The great miracle of its summer 
 had been finished once more, and it was good. 
 
 To Dorrice Dacres the interior of Bylanes was 
 full of a mystical charm and sentiment. It appealed 
 to her imagination, as though something that was 
 best and finest in each year of its three-quarters of a 
 century still lingered among the wide rooms and 
 winding staircases of the solid old New England 
 mansion. Its dark, rich, ancient furnishings, its 
 portraits of dead Gathorpes old and young 
 hanging in alcoves, and in the great drawing-room, 
 seemed to her to pervade the house with a certain 
 magnetism and romance. 
 
 This was all the more powerful because she had 
 never stood in grand cathedrals and old castles and 
 ancient palaces. But something of the charm and 
 mystery which she had always dreamed must haunt 
 them, appeared to hover about this fascinating old 
 house. 
 
 But the interior could not long hold her from the 
 enchantment of the world outside. She spent much 
 of each day exploring the wide grounds, leaving no 
 nook or corner unvisited. The broad lawns, the 
 high hedges, the magnificent old trees, the great 
 gardens and orchard, with their ripening fruits, were
 
 356 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 each a surprise and delight to her. But after she 
 had grown thoroughly acquainted with these, she 
 wandered off into lovely woodland ways, among the 
 shade-flecked copses and dingles, and into the great, 
 solemn aisles of the pine-woods. 
 
 Dorrice went often, too, into the deep, grassy old 
 lanes which gave the Gathorpe estate its name, and 
 which girdled it, and crossed its meadows, and dip] KM I 
 into the heart of its low hills, and slipped past its 
 copses and knolls, old sunny lanes, narrow and still, 
 and beautiful with leafage of trees and vines, and 
 carpeted with all New England's late wild-flowering 
 of clematis and golden-rod, of blue asters and pur- 
 ple hardhack. 
 
 The details of these days would fill a hundred 
 chapters. They were full of vivid, joyous life, not 
 only to the guests, but to their young host. Ray 
 drove them for miles and miles, about the beautiful, 
 varied country, and down to the sea; he was eager 
 that they should miss no picturesque point, no wide 
 sweep of landscape, no vista that stretched far and 
 dim through shady, sun-flecked aisles of forest, or 
 wound between the hills to the horizon. 
 
 Ray never asked himself whether it was the pres- 
 ence of Dorrice Dacres beneath his roof, which im- 
 parted to these days some new quality, which no 
 other days of his life had known. He was only" 
 aware that it was a novel pleasure to come upon the 
 slender figure in gray, in some corner of the grounds, 
 and see the dark eyes shine luminous upon him from 
 under the shade-hat. He liked to watch her come to 
 the breakfast-table, too, in some simple morning-
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 357 
 
 dress a white flannel for instance where every 
 line and fold had caught some of the wearer's indi- 
 viduality. 
 
 Dorrice, on her part, gave herself up to the en- 
 chantment of these days. She thought they must 
 hold the quintessence of all the life and beauty of a 
 hundred Septembers. She was so radiantly happy, 
 so glad to be alive in every fibre of her body, every 
 throb of her heart. 
 
 It was several days after the arrival of his guests, 
 before Ray introduced them to the breakfast-room, 
 as it was still called, though this was very much a 
 misnomer. Over the mantel hung a portrait of his 
 uncle, painted the year before he died. The grand 
 face, the deep, piercing eyes under the black brows, 
 with the snowy hair and shining beard, formed a 
 most impressive picture. It gave a distinct charac- 
 ter to the room. It seemed to pervade it with a noble 
 presence. 
 
 Carryl was at Bylanes that night. He and Dor- 
 rice stood together for some time, gazing silently at 
 this picture. They could not keep their eyes from 
 it. At last Carryl said, speaking half to himself: 
 " That seems to me one of the faces that give a new 
 meaning and nobleness to life. The longer one 
 looks at it, the more one feels any heroic deed is 
 possible." 
 
 At that speech, Ray turned and smiled on him ; 
 he had a rare smile when his heart was stirred. It 
 was the smile, too, which always brought out his 
 subtle resemblance to his uncle. 
 
 It seemed to Dorrice, though she did not say this
 
 358 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 at the time, that the house which held such a por- 
 trait ought to have a larger, nobler life, that to be 
 in its presence daily must have its effect lift one 
 to a plane of sweeter, higher thoughts and moods. 
 
 Mrs. Kent had given a little cry when she first saw 
 this portrait. Then she stood still, gazing at it with 
 wet, solemn eyes. She almost believed that her old 
 friend would step out of that canvas and take her 
 hand, and look at her with the old smile in his keen, 
 kindly eyes. 
 
 This room had been a sacred place to Ray since 
 his uncle died. There were few people he ever 
 brought into it. But after that first visit, he and 
 his guests formed a habit of coming here at night. 
 
 By this time, Carryl and Dorrice had discovered 
 that young Gathorpe must be the heir of vastly 
 greater wealth than they had at first imagined. Al- 
 though it appeared almost fabulous to them, they 
 were of too fine quality to be dazed by it. But a 
 new light was shed for Dorrice on the talk which 
 she and young Gathorpe had on the morning when 
 they drove to Belmont. 
 
 Ray had a habit of bantering Carryl about his pro- 
 fession. One day he said to him, half in jest, half 
 in earnest : " Make haste, Dacres, and get your ad- 
 mission to the bar. I want to give you your first 
 case." 
 
 It struck Carryl then, in a half amused way, that 
 it would go far to reconcile Hallowell to his having 
 given up his business career, if he could know he 
 had secured such a future client as young Gathorpe.
 
 XL VI. 
 
 IT was curious how soon Dorrice formed a habit 
 
 
 
 of going to the stable each morning. Mrs. Kent 
 often accompanied her ; so did Ray, unless business 
 affairs summoned him to the city, when he was com- 
 pelled to make his excuses to the ladies, and leave 
 them to their own devices and the care of the 
 housekeeper. 
 
 One of the traditional charms of Bylanes had been 
 th<3 perfect freedom which it allowed its guests. 
 
 But Dorrice's habit could not have been a surprise 
 to those who knew her best. Her love of animals 
 amounted to a passion. It had been one of the sorest 
 denials of her life that she was cut off from any 
 indulgence of this ; at least, until she came to Mrs. 
 Kent's, where Dapple and Chief had at once become 
 great favorites with the young woman. 
 
 Dorrice had not been at Bylanes many days before 
 she and Titan the huge, yellow-brown St. Bernard 
 which Ray had brought from abroad were the 
 best of friends. 
 
 Indoors, his grand old head was often in her lap, 
 and her arms about his neck ; while the big creature 
 followed her about the grounds much as Chief did 
 at home. 
 
 359
 
 3GO A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 Among the half-dozen horses in the stalls were two 
 which Dorrice specially admired. One of these Ray 
 usually rode. He was a large, superbly built crea- 
 ture a light bay, strong as a lion, and fleet as a 
 deer. This was Hercules. The other was Wizard 
 a small, perfectly formed mare, with a coat of glossi- 
 est jet, and black, weird, fiery eyes, with an intelli- 
 gence that seemed almost human. 
 
 The beautiful little mare, all grace and motion, 
 soon grew to know Dorrice. She would whinny at 
 the young woman's approach, and run her slender 
 nose into the soft, caressing palm. 
 
 One morning, Mrs. Kent and the young people 
 were in the grounds when the coachman passed their 
 way with Wizard. Dorrice hurried off to the mare, 
 and, while she was stroking the slender, glossy neck, 
 her companions came up, and, watching her for a 
 moment, Ray said, suddenly, "Surely, you must 
 have learned to ride, Miss Dacres." 
 
 " Why do you think so, Mr. Gathorpe ? " 
 
 " Because of all your ways with a horse." 
 
 " I did learn at Foxlow. I used to canter off, 
 among the rough hill-roads, on Sorrel, Deacon 
 Spinner's old mare ; Carryl and I used to ride the 
 colts, too, sometimes." 
 
 Mrs. Kent listened to the speech with surprise. 
 She understood perfectly why Dorrice had always 
 kept silent with regard to this accomplishment. She 
 was aware, too, that it was in Ray's thought, almost 
 on his lips, to invite her to ride with him. Then a 
 thought flashed across him ; he changed the conver- 
 sation abruptly. Mrs. Kent was certain, too, that
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 361 
 
 Don-ice had forgotten herself a moment, in that old 
 reminiscence. 
 
 A little later, the lady was saying to herself in 
 her own room : " I must put that pain behind me ; 
 I cannot see their young lives miss a great pleasure 
 because of my memories." 
 
 She had a long talk with the coachman that day. 
 The man corroborated all his master had said of 
 Wizard's perfect gentleness, despite her fire and 
 fleetness. 
 
 The next morning, Mrs. Kent sent some orders to 
 her dressmaker. A few days later, a box arrived, 
 which contained a riding-dress of fine, heavy wool 
 texture, in a rich, dark-green tint, that looked black 
 in the shadows. There was a small hat of the same 
 shade, surmounted with a little upright feather. 
 
 She took the box to Dorrice's room. "I want you 
 to wear these, my dear, when when the time 
 comes," she said ; and she went away. 
 
 A little later, Don#ce came to Mrs. Kent's cham- 
 ber ; her face was all aglow with surprise and 
 pleasure, and touched with something deeper than 
 these. She put her arms about her friend. " How 
 good you are ! " she exclaimed. 
 
 That evening, Mrs. Kent said to Ray, " I want 
 you to take Dorrice out on Wizard to-morrow." 
 
 He looked in her eyes a moment without speak- 
 ing. Then he said, and his voice, like Dorrice's, 
 made the speech much to her ear and heart, "How 
 good you are, dear Mrs. Kent ! "
 
 XL VII. 
 
 ONE afternoon the young people rode down to the 
 sea. The old training among the rough hill-roads 
 served Dorrice now. She managed her horse 
 admirably ; but they understood why Mrs. Kent 
 did not come to the door to see them set out. 
 
 The tall, pliant figure, in its dark, perfectly fitting 
 riding-dress, mounted on the small mare, black as 
 though all her delicate lines had been cut from 
 ebony, formed a superb grouping. Ray rode Her- 
 cules, whose magnificent build and bay color were 
 such a contrast to his companion. 
 
 The afternoon was perfect. It was suffused with 
 a warm, dreamy haze. By this time, September had 
 begun to vary and deepen the colors of her palette. 
 The low vines among the hills and pastures were 
 edged with russets and rich clarets. Crimsons and 
 maroons flashed among the maples. The oaks and 
 elms had frequent dashes of pale lemon or brilliant 
 gold. Here and there a tree wore a great baldric of 
 fiery red. When the south winds fluttered the 
 leaves of the white birches, it seemed as though 
 swarms of golden bees had settled among the pale 
 greens. 
 
 They took a roundabout way, which led them 
 through a varied, beautiful landscape, more or less 
 
 362
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 363 
 
 illuminated with autumn color. The road ran 
 through deep-shaded forests, by the banks of brooks, 
 into stretches of dreamy woodlands, and skirted low 
 hills, and cleft the long meadow-opens. The horses 
 went over the road at a smart gallop. It was won- 
 derful how that slight-built mare held her own by the 
 side of Hercules. He seemed formed to move at the 
 head of grand triumphal processions, where drums 
 beat and banners waved. The few people on the 
 lonely roads stopped and stared at the riders, as they 
 swept by the one, strong, erect, shapely, the very - 
 embodiment of young, triumphant manhood, as his 
 companion was of graceful young womanhood. 
 
 Dorrice was intoxicated with the motion, the life 
 and loveliness of the afternoon. Her mood of radi- 
 ant, irrepressible gayety was one which Ray had 
 never encountered on those occasions when they 
 had been alone together; but it was contagious, 
 and that hour and a half's ride to the sea was filled 
 with sparkling talk and merriment for both. 
 
 At the end of this time, a sharp turn in the road 
 brought them out from the dun shadows and dreami- 
 ness of the pine-woods, to the beach a sandy 
 stretch, glittering gray in the sunlight, with piles of 
 gaunt, jagged rocks on one side, their steely gray 
 broken up in places by patches of moss and lichen. 
 
 The two reined in their horses, and looked off at 
 the vast, tumbling, blue-green world before them. 
 The sight held Dorrice silent for a few moments ; 
 then she turned to her companion, and said, in a 
 graver tone than she had used for the last hour, " It 
 looks as the sea did the first time I saw it."
 
 364 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 " When was that, Miss Dacres ? " 
 
 " It was during that first week after we came to 
 Boston. We went down to Nantasket one afternoon, 
 and so had our first sight of the ocean. What that 
 was to our inland eyes ! " 
 
 " I am curious to know the first thing you said on 
 that occasion. Can you remember?" 
 
 " Yes, I remember everything that happened at 
 that time ; but I said nothing worth repeating." 
 
 "I would rather judge for myself, if you will 
 kindly permit me, Miss Dacres." 
 
 " I said to Carryl, as soon as I could find breath or 
 voice for speaking, ' Would you believe this little 
 world could go rolling on, night and day, and carry 
 such a glorious splendor as this ! ' ' 
 
 Ray smiled. " If I had heard the speech, I should 
 have known who made it." 
 
 "You should!" 
 
 "Yes; it is so characteristic." 
 
 "One never knows, I suppose, about one's own 
 speeches. I was very young at that time ; it is 
 almost eight years ago." Her tone implied there 
 was something to be apologized, or, at least, ac- 
 counted for. 
 
 They spent some time on the beach, watching the 
 color of the sky and rocks and water, the light on 
 the sails of the sloops and schooners; while the 
 pretty little rowboats from the hotels, lent a pleasant 
 aspect of human life and interest to the sea. Into 
 their talk, and into their silence, came the soft lap- 
 ping of waves on the beach and about the rocks. 
 
 At last, they turned their horses' heads homeward,
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 365 
 
 Ray intending to take the shortest road to Bylanes 
 this time. On the highway, half a mile from the 
 beach, stood a small yellow house, with some sun- 
 flowers and a stunted lilac-tree in the front yard. A 
 man in his shirt-sleeves, leaning on the gate, watched 
 the two, with a rather vacant stare in his light blue 
 eyes. He no doubt took them for summer visitors at 
 the seaside hotel, a mile away. 
 
 But, in a flash, a light of pleased recognition came 
 into the dull eyes. The man's lips parted ; he made 
 an awkward signal to Ray, and came out of the gate 
 with unusual alacrity a rather gaunt, loose-jointed, 
 shambling figure, with thin, intermittent tufts of 
 flax-colored beard about his cheek and chin. 
 
 Ray stopped his horse, and looked curiously at the 
 man, who put up a big-boned, freckled hand. "Don't 
 you know me, Mr. Gathorpe ? " he asked. 
 
 " I can't say I have that pleasure, sir," Ray replied, 
 with his invariable courtesy to inferiors. 
 
 " You ain't forgot the day you went diggin' clams 
 along o' me ! It was fifteen year ago last month." 
 
 In a flash, it was all back to Ray. He had come 
 down to the shore on some errand for his uncle, and 
 stopped, partly out of good nature, partly for amuse- 
 ment, to have a chat with the man, who was digging 
 clams on the point; and, full of boyish eagerness for 
 some novel experience, he had suddenly proposed 
 taking a hand at the work. 
 
 He and Abijah Eaves had dug clams together in 
 the wet sands for the next two hours. Ray had en- 
 joyed the thing hugely ; and his high spirits and his 
 bright talk and the novel event had made a lasting
 
 366 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 impression, on the dull imagination of Abijah Eaves. 
 The man was never tired of relating " how he and 
 Squire Gathorpe's nephew had dug their half-bushel 
 of clams together on Bayberry P'int ; and how my 
 young gentleman rolled up his shirt-sleeves, and 
 went into the work, lively as though he was born to 
 it, and kept a fellow's sides shakin' with his 'cute talk 
 about clams, and things in gin'ral." 
 
 " Oh, yes ; I remember perfectly, Mr. Eaves. You 
 and I had some capital fun that day," and Ray shook 
 hands cordially with the companion of that old lark 
 of his boyhood. 
 
 Some other talk naturally followed. Dorrice paced 
 slowly up the road, until Ray should rejoin her. But 
 the motion and excitement of the afternoon were 
 astir within her. Every sense was alert; every 
 breath was a keen delight. A spirit of wild adven- 
 ture seized and carried the young woman out of her- 
 self. She spurred Wizard forward, and, in an instant, 
 horse and rider went dashing up the long sandy 
 stretch of highway, between the hemlocks and cedars 
 on either side. 
 
 What a wild, delicious, exhilarating moment it 
 was ! Heart and brain were on fire ; every nerve 
 was tingling with the fierce joy of the race. Wizard 
 bent to it, with arching neck and flying hoofs, until 
 the little black mare, like the creatures of the wild 
 old legends, appeared to sweep through the air. 
 
 Ray Gathorpe suddenly caught sight of the girl. 
 All her graceful, pliant lines were outlined against 
 the sunset, into which she seemed to be riding. The 
 low western clouds had changed into heaps of daz-
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 367 
 
 zling color richest crimsons and burnished gold, 
 with a long stretch between of that rare, luminous 
 green sky, which has such an indescribable depth and 
 loveliness. 
 
 Ray suddenly paused in his talk ; he devoured 
 the swift-flying figure witli all his eyes with all 
 his soul. At that moment, he was only conscious 
 that Dorrice Dacres was going away from him, and 
 that all there was of him heart, and soul, and 
 manhood was going after her, with fierce, over- 
 mastering passion, to claim and hold her, against the 
 universe, for his own. Would she vanish forever, 
 riding away into that splendor of sunset, this won- 
 derful, ethereal creature, who was, in herself, the 
 poetry and perfume, the joy and glory, of life ? He 
 felt that the world without her would be utterly 
 empty, desolate, flavorless. The passion of his 
 strong young manhood beat hot in every pulse, as 
 he watched the dark, slender figure, in its flying 
 race, between black lines of cedars and hemlocks, 
 toward the burning sunset. His face flushed and 
 grew pale. It came upon him, with the force of a 
 conviction that years could not make clearer or 
 deeper. In the whole world, in time or eternity, 
 there could be but one woman for him ; and she was 
 Dorrice Dacres. 
 
 He returned, with a kind of shock, to the present 
 to the round-shouldered, shambling figure, in its 
 shirt-sleeves, by the side of Hercules. The man was 
 staring at him, with an alert curiosity in his light eyes. 
 
 Ray spurred his horse forward, throwing back a 
 parting word and gesture. The man shuffled inside
 
 368 A BOSTON GIIiL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 his front gate, and leaned on it, watching the horse- 
 man disappear up the road. There was a curious 
 intelligence and interest in his face. 
 
 That night, Abijah Eaves did something which 
 astonished his wife ; he came into the kitchen, where 
 she was frying clams for supper, and handed her, 
 with an air that was grotesquely awkward, a large, 
 yellow marigold, which he had just picked outside, 
 under the window. Mrs. Eaves was a small, dark, 
 sharp-featured woman ; and the sunset, that shone 
 through the small window-panes, brought out all the 
 lines in her sallow skin, and the pinched lips, and 
 the withered throat. Ail her girlish prettiness had 
 faded long ago, under disappointments, and hard 
 labor, and narrow circumstances. 
 
 The strong scent of the coarse flower mingled 
 with the odors of the frying fat. The woman held 
 the marigold, and stared from it to her husband. 
 
 " What under the canopy do you s'pose I want 
 with this marygool ? " she asked, in a thin voice, 
 that would have been fretful, if that quality had not 
 been rather held in abeyance, for the moment, by 
 amazement. 
 
 Abijah Eaves rubbed the right leg of his trousers 
 in his slow way. " I thought it might look pretty, 
 'Mandy," he said, "pinned to your waist. You 
 remember that day I rowed you over to Huckleberry 
 Cove. You was a nice-lookin', plump gal that time, 
 with as p'utty a red as paintin' in your cheeks. It 
 was the sight o' them gin' me pluck to up an' pop 
 the question then and there, though I'd had it on 
 my mind some time afore."
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 369 
 
 Mrs. Eaves laughed a little nervous laugh, and 
 wiped her hot face with her apron. She stared 
 again from her husband to the flower. " Sakes 
 alive, 'Bijah ! " she exclaimed; "ef I ain't beat, to 
 find you've got any such foolishness left inside o' 
 ye!" 
 
 That night, Mrs. Eaves had blackberry jam on the 
 supper-table, with the fried clams ; her husband 
 liked it. She wore a handkerchief around her neck, 
 in large pink and purple stripes, among which the 
 yellow disk of marigold was conspicuous. She spoke 
 in unusually mild tones to Abijah. The little dark, 
 faded woman opposite him was once more, in the eyes 
 of the lank, slow man, the pretty girl who had sat in 
 the boat, and smiled and blushed at his wooing. 
 
 But the wife never suspected it was the look her 
 husband had seen in Ray Gathorpe's eyes, which had 
 stirred that old memory in his dull thoughts. 
 
 And Abijah Eaves never, on his part, surmised 
 that his stopping 3 r oung Gathorpe on the highway 
 had proved the immediate cause of the most momen- 
 tous crisis of Ray's life.
 
 XL VIII. 
 
 DOERICE had turned back before Ray came up 
 with her. " Do excuse me ! I really could not help 
 it ! " she exclaimed, as she swept up, and wheeled 
 Wizard abreast of him. What a dazzling color there 
 was in her eyes ! What a glory of loveliness under 
 that small riding-cap ! 
 
 As he thought this, Ray did not speak for a 
 moment ; but his eyes regarded her with something 
 she had never seen in them before ; it startled her. 
 Feeling is contagious. A flush crept slowly into her 
 cheeks, and, for the first time, her eyes faltered and 
 fell beneath his gaze. A strange, swift, delicious 
 tumult of emotion suddenly shook her from head to 
 foot. What did it mean ? Its intensity, its rapture, 
 frightened her. 
 
 Then she heard Ray saying, and his voice did 
 not sound quite like his old one, "I started off for 
 you, Miss Dacres, lest you should ride away into the 
 sunset, and I should never find you again." 
 
 " You need not have feared," she tried to answer 
 gayly. " I am not made of elements ethereal enough 
 to vanish like the dryads and naiads of the delightful 
 old legends." 
 
 The ride home lay for miles through dusky, odor- 
 ous pine-woods, not so dense that the sunset could 
 
 370
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 371 
 
 not penetrate them, and illuminate the mossy boles, 
 or the vines and lichens that spread such beautiful 
 mottled tapestries upon the ground. 
 
 The young man and woman were in a graver 
 mood on their return, though this was broken occa- 
 sionally by flashes of gayest talk ; but it might, to a 
 nice ear, have seemed a little forced, not like the 
 unrestrained merriment with which, two hours be- 
 fore, they rode down to the sea. 
 
 Once, after a little silence, Dorrice broke out sud- 
 denly, "How I wish Carryl could have come with 
 us ! " One might almost have fancied there was a 
 touch of remorse in her tones. 
 
 A cold shadow fell upon Ray's heart. The words 
 seemed to set the woman by his side far apart from 
 him. Man of the world as he was past his first 
 youth his love had stolen upon him unawares 
 as it steals upon the heart of a fresh maiden. His 
 relations with Dorrice Dacres had, from the begin- 
 ning, been so out of the ordinary course of things, 
 that his interest in her seemed the most natural 
 thing in the world. The events of the past must 
 always make her to him a woman set apart from all 
 other women, so that while, with his growing inti- 
 macy, his feeling for her gained momentum, he 
 never suspected the goal toward which it was 
 tending. 
 
 His unconsciousness was the greater, too, because 
 he always now, as at the beginning, associated her 
 and her brother together in all his thoughts of their 
 future; and, by this time, he had grown to love 
 Dacres better than any other man.
 
 372 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 In previous instances where his fancy had been 
 attracted, he was keenly alive to the fact ; his clear 
 perception, and his fine sense of honor, had saved him 
 from any impulsive word or act which he must have 
 regretted, when he found the woman who had 
 attracted him could never be all that his heart 
 and soul craved all that his uncle had meant in 
 their last talk. 
 
 It was inevitable that his awakening to a con- 
 sciousness of the true character of his feeling for 
 Dorrice Dacres should come to him in a moment, 
 and with the force of absolute conviction. 
 
 As they rode home that afternoon, he knew that 
 he had found her the supreme woman at last 
 but it was to find also that she was separated from 
 him by affections so central and engrossing in her 
 life, that all others must fall immeasurably below 
 them. 
 
 Ray's intimacy with the brother and sister had 
 only served to deepen his sense of the bond existing 
 between them. Their affection seemed something 
 organic. Circumstances, in the past, no doubt, had 
 much to do with it, though much also was due to 
 something essential in their own characters. 
 
 All this, and vastly more, Ray Gathorpe was tell- 
 ing himself as they rode through the sunset-illu- 
 mined woods that night. Darling of Fortune as the 
 world regarded him, her gifts had not spoiled him. 
 Those only who knew him best, knew how singu- 
 larly free he was from personal vanities. He was 
 telling himself now that his love must last with his 
 life. That, perhaps, was natural with a young man
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 373 
 
 and a lover. But it was less natural with one in 
 his situation to tell himself, as he did in all good 
 faith, that his love must forever be hopeless. 
 
 The thought of Ray Gathorpe in the light of a 
 lover, had never entered Dorrice's mind. Had their 
 early acquaintance been of the ordinary kind, her 
 consciousness might have been more alert. But her 
 feeling for him seemed altogether right and natural. 
 She could not have conceived any other as possible. 
 For it was a feeling which struck its roots away 
 down in the darkest memory the crudest hour of 
 her life. All those years, when there seemed no 
 chance of her ever knowing his name even, he had 
 been set apart in her grateful thought the hero 
 of her girlish imagination. Her regard for him had 
 long seemed a part of her life ; much as, in a dif- 
 ferent way, her love did for Carryl. Her instincts, 
 which usually went so straight to the mark, would 
 as soon have questioned one sentiment as the other. 
 
 But an instant of that afternoon had been charged 
 with a mysterious power to move her. What was 
 that delicious tumult that had shaken soul and 
 body as she rode toward Ray Gathorpe ? What 
 was the look in his eyes which had drawn her 
 toward him like some spell of irresistible power 
 and rapture ? She was bewildered, almost fright- 
 ened. Her womanhood had taken the alarm. She 
 had never felt like that toward Carryl. 
 
 The horses came dashing in fine style up the drive 
 at Bylanes. Carryl, who had just come out, was 
 awaiting them by the west portico. The young men 
 lifted their hats, and shouted their greeting to each
 
 374 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS'- 
 
 other. Then, as the riders drew rein, Carryl turned 
 to his sister, saying, " Well, dear old girl, your looks 
 show you have had one of your splendid times ! " 
 
 Ray felt as though he could have sprung off his 
 horse and throttled the fellow. The idea of calling 
 that lovely creature, compounded of all that was 
 finest in flesh and spirit, " dear old girl." 
 
 The next instant he was laughing at himself, as 
 the most incorrigible of fools. 
 
 A few minutes later, Carryl and Dorrice were 
 standing alone in the portico, Ray having excused 
 himself, and gone round to the stable with the 
 horses. 
 
 They turned to look over the fair, wide landscape, 
 and off at the west, where the last bright splashes of 
 color were dulling among some leaden-gray clouds 
 that had gathered about the sunset; and then 
 Don-ice's gaze came back to her brother's face, and 
 dwelt there some moments, in a grave, wistful fash- 
 ion. " Carryl," she said, at last, drawing closer to 
 him, " it would be impossible that I should ever care 
 for anybody as I do for you impossible that any- 
 body should ever come between us." 
 
 Carryl stared at her a moment in blank amaze- 
 ment. Then he said, in a half ironical, half affec- 
 tionate tone: "Why don't you kindly assure me 
 the heavens are not just going to fall ! I should as 
 soon think of troubling myself over that possibility 
 as over the other thing. Besides, there is nobody of 
 whom I could be jealous, unless it is Mrs. Kent or 
 Gathorpe himself ! " 
 
 He laughed a half amused, half incredulous laugh.
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 375 
 
 Dorrice laughed too, but there was a little odd ring 
 in the sound, as she turned and went indoors. 
 
 She came down that evening in a dress which 
 Carryl had brought her from abroad. It was a soft 
 crape, of palest gold-color. Across the waist, trail- 
 ing from one shoulder, and down the front of the 
 skirt, she had wrought wild lilies of deepest crimson, 
 with leaves and stems in greens and browns. On 
 the cuff of either sleeve lay a half-blossomed lily, 
 with a coil of brown stem. She had worked these in 
 the same long, rapid stitch with which she had once 
 wrought her pomegranates. The effect was exqui- 
 site. One was half tempted to believe that real 
 flowers, and glossy leaves, and trailing stems, had 
 been scattered over the robe. 
 
 Dorrice hovered about her brother that night in a 
 half tender, half appealing way, almost as though 
 she were conscious of having done him some secret 
 wrong. All the time, too, she was haunted by a feel- 
 ing that the indescribable rapture of emotion which 
 had shaken her one moment, was biding its time 
 that it was fated to come back and possess her. 
 
 Her eyes burned ; there was an unusual glow in 
 her cheeks. She was all in arms angry, defiant, 
 with herself! 
 
 " Something is in the air to-night ! " Mrs. Kent 
 murmured the words under her breath. 
 
 But Dorrice was so radiantly lovely that she could 
 not keep her eyes off her. 
 
 Neither could Ray Gathorpe. Once, late in the 
 evening, he happened to stand near Mrs. Kent, and 
 directly in her line of vision. Dorrice was a little
 
 376 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 way off, at a table with her brother. They were 
 looking over a portfolio of fine etchings, with some 
 engravings of scenery in the Scotch Highlands ; her 
 hand rested on Carryl's shoulder; he was relating 
 one of his rides in the Highlands ; her profile was 
 turned toward the others. Mrs. Kent caught the 
 long glance which Ray bent on the girl ; his heart 
 was in his eyes. When he turned and came toward 
 her, Mrs. Kent had read his secret she knew what 
 was in the air that night !
 
 XLIX. 
 
 THE next day there was a change in the weather. 
 Sharp, chill winds blew in from the sea. Wan, 
 gloomy clouds spread themselves over the sky. 
 From the upper windows at Bylanes, one could no 
 longer catch the silver-gray or the sapphire sparkle 
 of the sea. Great masses of fog moved white and 
 spectral over the land. They drowned the low, dis- 
 tant hills, and filled the air with the coming and 
 going of wild, silent, mysterious hosts. 
 
 The ladies were much to themselves that day. 
 Letters brought him at breakfast made it imperative 
 that Ray should go to the city. Carryl accompanied 
 him ; but not until Dorrice had exacted a promise 
 that he would return that night. 
 
 Mrs. Kent noticed that she was in a restless mood, 
 that she moved aimlessly about from room to room, 
 or went outside, at short intervals, into the damp, 
 wind-swept air. Mrs. Kent had her own thoughts, 
 too, which kept her unusually silent during the day. 
 
 At night, when the young men returned, the wind 
 had increased, and the full yellow moon, behind 
 thick clouds, poured only a faint, weird light upon 
 the earth. 
 
 That evening, the four gathered in the room 
 where Kenneth Gathorpe's portrait hung. By this 
 
 377
 
 378 / A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 time, the wind had risen to a gale, and there were 
 angry dashes of rain at the windows. The line- 
 storm had come. 
 
 A fire had been kindled on the hearth, for the out- 
 door chill had crept into the house. A delightful 
 sense of home-peace pervaded the warm atmosphere, 
 the cosey room. 
 
 " I have been feeling all day," said Dorrice, in the 
 voice that had grown to be the sweetest of music in 
 Ray Gathorpe's ears, " that our northern summer 
 has really moved southward. Its flowers must 
 bloom, its birds must sing now in other latitudes. 
 One never feels that, until after the equinoctial ; 
 then, no matter what lovely days may come, 
 one knows that the earth our part of it must be 
 slowly turning her face toward the winter." 
 
 She sat opposite Ray when she said this. She 
 wore a black silk, that night, made in her usual 
 simple style. There was some soft lace at her 
 throat, and below that a bunch of chrysanthe- 
 mums, their brilliant gold streaked with rich claret 
 color. 
 
 When Ray's eyes left her face, they went to the 
 one over the mantel-piece. The room in which he 
 sat, the crackling of the flames, the crying of the 
 wind outside, all brought vividly to his mind that 
 other night, eight years ago, when he and his uncle 
 sat here together for the last time. 
 
 In a little while, Carryl exclaimed: "What a 
 tragic sound there is in that wind ! It would be 
 easy for a fellow to let his imagination run riot 
 on it."
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 379 
 
 " The wind had just that sound one night, eight 
 years ago." Ray was speaking half to himself. 
 
 Everybody looked at him in surprise. 
 
 "Eight years ago, did you say?" Mrs. Kent in- 
 quired. 
 
 " Yes ; it was the last night Uncle Ken and I were 
 together. We were alone in this very room." 
 
 Nobody spoke after that. 
 
 " But the tragedy was not in the wind ; it was in 
 what my uncle was telling me." Ray's voice still 
 sounded much like one who talks to himself. 
 
 " Was it a secret, Ray ? " again inquired Mrs. 
 Kent. 
 
 " Hardly that ; yet I have never repeated it to a 
 human being. It was something that happened to 
 my uncle." 
 
 " Do you think, if he were here to-night, he would 
 not be ready to tell us, also, Ray ? " 
 
 When his old friend asked that, Ray's gaze went 
 to each face of his audience ; but it was, perhaps, 
 some unconscious, pleading curiosity in the dark, 
 magical eyes opposite him which drew him on. 
 
 " It happened when my uncle was in California 
 the first time. His life was saved when it did not 
 seem worth a pin's fee. It was the most heroic deed 
 I ever heard of ; and the man who did it was a stran- 
 ger. He did not even know my uncle's name ; yet 
 he proved himself ready to die for him." 
 
 Mrs. Kent broke the silence. " Can you tell us 
 his name, Ray ? " 
 
 He was about to answer her, when he paused. " I 
 think I will tell you the story first," he said.
 
 380 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 The old words, which had taken such hold of him 
 at the time, came up now, and he related the whole 
 story in his uncle's speech, with his very tones. He 
 began with his visit to the mining-camp, and for 
 almost an hour, his audience listened in breathless 
 silence. 
 
 He had just reached the point where the two men 
 met, after their double escape, on the moonlit high- 
 way, when Carryl sprang to his feet. " Gathorpe," 
 he almost shouted, " I have heard that story before ! " 
 
 Ray was on his feet in an instant. " When 
 where did you hear it ? " he cried. He had grown 
 white. 
 
 Carryl put his hand, in a slow, bewildered way, to 
 his forehead. " Wait one moment," he said. " It will 
 all grow clear to me." His voice was hardly above 
 a whisper, and had the sound of one whose memory 
 is groping far away among dim visions or dreams. 
 He turned, and walked to the window, and stood 
 there, looking out into the. darkness, but not see- 
 ing it. 
 
 Nobody spoke ; but each followed him with 
 strained eyes. 
 
 In a few moments he returned; his black eyes 
 burned in his white face. " It has all come back ! " 
 he said, in clear, decided tones. " It is so far away 
 that it had slipped beyond the dim twilight of 
 my memory ; but I see it all now, plainly as I see 
 each of you here this moment. I am sitting in my 
 mother's lap ; her arms are around me. You, Dor- 
 rice, are a baby, asleep in the cradle by our side. 
 She is telling me how my father rode across the
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 381 
 
 clearing and down into the canon to save the stran- 
 ger's life. I could not have been four years old." 
 
 "What was your father's name?" Ray's voice 
 was not like his own, in its low sternness. 
 
 " John Dacres." 
 
 "But this man's name the name he told my 
 uncle was " Ray could not speak it. The great 
 strife of hope and fear at his heart turned the strong 
 man sick and tremulous. 
 
 Then he heard Dorrice's voice coming into the 
 silence, " It was John Graileson Dacres."
 
 L. 
 
 IT was long past midnight; but the four people 
 still sat together in the small room at Bylanes. By 
 this time, fierce blasts drove the rain against the 
 windows, and all the air was filled with the cry and 
 roar of the tempest ; but nobody heeded this, or 
 knew that the leaping flames had settled into red 
 coals, and that these were edged with gray ashes. 
 
 It was a night each must remember to his latest 
 one ; for the mystery which had baffled Kenneth 
 Gathorpe so long was at last cleared up. There 
 could be no possible room for doubt that the man 
 who rode into the canon to save Ray's uncle's life 
 was the father of Carryl and Dorrice Dacres. 
 
 The explanation of the confusion in the names 
 was a very simple one. John Dacres had, after his 
 parents' death, which occurred before he was ten 
 years old, been adopted by his mother's brother, who 
 had never been married. He was a man of many 
 oddities of temperament, combined with much 
 shrewdness of intellect and a womanly tenderness of 
 nature, which he usually attempted to disguise 
 under humorous talk and manners, all these quali- 
 ties serving to make Alexander Graileson a most 
 delightful companion. 
 
 382
 
 A BOSTON GIKL'S AMBITIONS. 383 
 
 He had been doatingly fond of his nephew, who, 
 he insisted, should bear his mother's maiden name, 
 which John had done during his uncle's life. 
 
 One of the man's innate oddities had shown itself 
 in his never allowing his nephew to enter college, 
 though he spared no pains to provide him with the 
 best of tutors, and devoted much time, in his odd, 
 capricious way, to the education of the youth. 
 
 John had barely reached his twentieth year, when 
 his uncle died. Later, he had resumed his own 
 name ; but the habit of his boyhood clung to him, 
 more or less, through life. In any hr.rry or excite- 
 ment he was apt to recur to the old name ; indeed, 
 Carryl could remember his mother's rallying his 
 father on this very subject, insisting she never felt 
 sure of the name she would find at the end of his 
 letters, although she had married John Dacres. 
 
 With this knowledge it was easy to understand 
 how, in the agitation of that midnight interview, 
 young Dacres had given Kenneth Gathorpe the 
 wrong name. 
 
 Other things, in the far morning of his childhood's 
 memory, rose clear this night to Carryl Dacres ; he 
 remembered his mother's look as she said, " There 
 was not another man in the world who would have 
 done what your father did would have been ready 
 to give his life for a stranger, whose name, even, he 
 did not know. You must always remember that, 
 Carryl ; the thought must make you a good and 
 noble man, when your turn comes a man like your 
 father." 
 
 He recalled something else she told him, too.
 
 384 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 When she had asked her husband how he could 
 have risked his life for one whom he had seen only a 
 few minutes, he had replied : " It was something in 
 his look and manner, in his very tones, that made 
 me do it, Grace. That man had the noblest face I 
 had ever seen." 
 
 When Ray heard that, he was silent a moment. 
 Then he asked : " Do you remember, Dacres, what 
 you said when you first saw that portrait? The 
 words were like your father's son." 
 
 Some time afterward, he spoke, looking on the 
 brother and sister : " I owe to your father the best 
 gift of my life. My uncle always believed I should 
 find out about him and his some day." A moment 
 later, he added, fervently, " I am glad it was to your 
 father I owe it ; I would rather it had been to him 
 than any man in the world." 
 
 Then all three remembered that these were like 
 the words Dorrice had once said to him. 
 
 Before they separated that night, he had told them 
 of the soldier's story of Champion's Hill, and of 
 the bequest so long awaiting them in Kenneth 
 Gathorpe's will.
 
 LI. 
 
 Two days had passed. The storm had been the 
 fiercest known for years on the Massachusetts coast. 
 Wild, white seas had hurled themselves against the 
 rocks, and drowned the beaches, and, when the 
 winds rushed and clamored, it seemed as though all 
 the wild hosts of Woden had gathered in the air. 
 
 But, at last, the clouds broke, and the drenched, 
 storm-lashed world came out once more in dazzling 
 radiance. At Bylanes, they had hardly been con- 
 scious of the weather. The host and his guests had 
 looked at each other with wondering, awe-struck 
 eyes. They seemed to live in an atmosphere of 
 mystery and marvels. When they were together, 
 they spoke but little of what was always uppermost 
 in their consciousness. 
 
 Carryl and Dorrice, by themselves, talked rather 
 about their father and mother than about the be- 
 quest which had come to them in so wonderful a 
 manner, and which could effect such changes in their 
 future. 
 
 Dorrice was much startled with something Carryl 
 said to her. " If our mother had lived, instead of 
 dying of the unutterable joy of that moment, she 
 
 385
 
 A BOSTON GIIIL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 would have made herself known to Kenneth Ga- 
 thorpe. I am sure of it. She knew his name, and 
 where to find him. All her love, all her splendid 
 courage, which had proved themselves so long in 
 silence and in hiding, would have roused her to 
 prompt action, from the hour in whic'h she doubted 
 that horrible story. They would have impelled her 
 to seek out the man whose life my father had saved, 
 rather than any of her old friends. She would have 
 known he, of all others, would be slowest to believe 
 any evil of her husband. She would have appealed 
 to Kenneth Gathorpe by one memory, and for the 
 sake of her children, to find out the truth ; and we 
 know what he would have done ; how easily he could 
 have unmasked the lie ! 
 
 " I see you are right, Carryl." 
 
 All her mother's spirit shone in Don-ice's eyes ; 
 but the next moment she was sobbing as though her 
 heart would break. 
 
 During another of their talks, she said to her 
 brother, in a low, awed tone : " We shall not have to 
 wait until we are old for our cottage by the sea. 
 How curious it seems that the dream of so many 
 years can come true, whenever we choose ! " 
 
 " It does, indeed, Dorrice." 
 
 Then they both thought of Mrs. Kent. At last, 
 Dorrice said, slowly and gravely, "I wonder if riches 
 ever seem, when they come, quite all they did when 
 one could only dream about them ! " 
 
 In the afternoon, when the storm had disappeared, 
 she went out for a long walk in the grounds. When 
 she came inside, she turned, with a sudden impulse,
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 387 
 
 at the foot of the stairs, and crossed the hall, to the 
 room where the old man's portrait hung. 
 
 A few minutes later, Ray Gathorpe opened the 
 door ; he had returned, after some hours' absence. 
 When he caught sight of the figure inside, he stood 
 still on the threshold. Dorrice was so absorbed that 
 she did not see him. She stood in front of the 
 mantel-piece, in her gray dress, her shade-hat in her 
 hands, her gaze upturned to the portrait. There 
 was a certain awe, a tremulous gladness and sweet- 
 ness, in her face. Flecks of sunlight stirred in the 
 brown masses of her hair. Ray devoured the sight, 
 speechless, spellbound, until his instinct warned him 
 it was time to make his presence known. 
 
 Dorrice started and turned, when he came for- 
 ward. There was a faint flush in her cheeks. " I 
 beg your pardon, Mr. Gathorpe," she said. "Tcaine 
 in here, a little while ago, because I wanted to 
 have a long look at your uncle again." 
 
 " I am glad to find you here," Ray answered : 
 and the wonderful eyes of the old man smiled down 
 upon them both ; and Dorrice thought they must 
 have once looked in that way upon her father. 
 
 Did they have some mysterious power to draw 
 Ray Gathorpe's heart to his lips? Nothing could 
 have been farther from his purpose than the words 
 he was speaking now. " Miss Dacres, may I tell 
 you all that my uncle said to me that night, after he 
 had related what your father had done for him ? It 
 has never passed my lips." 
 
 " Oh, I shall be so very glad to hear ! " 
 
 Then Ray Gathorpe repeated, word for word, all
 
 388 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 that his uncle had said to him the last night of his 
 life. 
 
 She listened, breathless, motionless, with drooping 
 profile and half-parted lips, to the strange, solemn, 
 beautiful talk of the old man to the young one 
 talk whose echoes, it seemed to her, must have fol- 
 lowed the speaker into that heaven to which he was 
 passing. 
 
 In the pause that followed, something for which 
 he had no name entered into and possessed Ray's 
 being. It forced him to speak ; it would, he 
 thought, if he had died for it the next moment. 
 "I have looked for her long I have found her at 
 last the woman who could be to me all that my 
 uncle said his wife was to him ! " 
 
 And now his eyes were on her face ; he knew then 
 that the words lie had believed he should carry 
 unspoken to the grave would, a moment later, be 
 in her ears, that, come life or death, he must speak 
 them. 
 
 Even then, she did not understand. She was 
 shaken, bewildered, by the look in his eyes, the 
 very look to which she rode in the highway, by 
 all that she had learned during these last days, 
 by that old, delicious tumult that was thrilling 
 heart and soul and sense again. 
 
 " You have ! " she was not aware when the low 
 monosyllables faltered out. 
 
 " Yes," he said, in his clear, tender, solemn tones. 
 "The woman my heart has found stands by my 
 side!" 
 
 There was one dazzling, overpowering moment, as
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 389 
 
 though some unspeakable joy and splendor had. 
 come close, and half blinded her. Then she thought 
 of Carryl. Was this the betrayal of the faith and 
 devotion of her life ? She grew weak with the swift 
 reaction from that transcendent moment. She put 
 up her hands with a quick, deprecating gesture. 
 " Oh, I cannot fail Carryl I cannot fail him ! " she 
 cried out, as one might under sudden, intolerable 
 pain. 
 
 He did not wince ; but he grew very white : he 
 the heir of Bylanes felt, in that bitter moment, 
 that the world had nothing left for him. 
 
 She saw the look in his face. With one long, 
 fluttering breath she turned from him, and walked 
 across the room. The truth came to her calmed 
 her in an instant; but she knew that it was the 
 supreme truth and blessedness of her life ; and that 
 years could make it no deeper or clearer. 
 
 For Dgrrice Dacres saw now that her feeling for 
 Ray Gathorpe was not what she had so long believed 
 one of deepest gratitude and profoundest admira- 
 tion ; she knew now the meaning of the tumult 
 which had shaken her when she rode to him away 
 from the sunset. 
 
 When she came back, she was quite calm ; she 
 reached out her hands to him. When the cold, 
 trembling palms had nestled in his own, the two 
 looked silently in each other's eyes, and in that long, 
 tender, solemn gaze, each read the other's heart. 
 
 Then they kissed each other, and each felt that 
 the kiss was the seal of their betrothal. 
 
 It was Dorrice broke the silence. Her eyes
 
 390 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 went up again to the portrait, and it was rather 
 to the old man than to the young lover at her side 
 that she spoke, low and tremulous: "You should 
 have chosen a better woman, Ray Gathorpe, to be to 
 you all that your uncle said the woman his wife 
 was to him 1 "
 
 LII. 
 
 A HALF-HOUR later, Carryl and Mrs. Kent came up 
 one of the side-paths to the house. They had hap- 
 pened to cross each other in the grounds, on his 
 return from the city. 
 
 As they entered the western portico, the sunset 
 flooded the skies with its splendor. In the horizon 
 was a long, broad stretch of dazzling gold, and above 
 that were masses of crimson and dusky reds, shad- 
 ing off into pale purples and blues, while above all 
 this bewilderment of color, fleecy, silver-gray clouds 
 rippled almost to the zenith, their edges touched 
 with soft pinks and pale saffrons. The autumn would 
 not probably have another sunset like this, which 
 came trailing its wide glory after the line-storm. 
 
 The voices of the two, as they paused to look at 
 the sunset, came through the open window, and 
 recalled Ray and Dorrice to the present. 
 
 A moment later the door opened, and the young 
 man and woman came out on the portico. Some- 
 thing in their eyes made the others speechless. 
 
 Kay turned to Carryl ; his voice, through all its 
 exultant gladness, seemed yet like that of one who 
 asks for grace or pardon : "I have just told your 
 sister that I love her, and she has promised to be my 
 
 wife ! " 
 
 391
 
 392 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 Had an earthquake shaken the ground around 
 them, Carryl Dacres could not have been more 
 totally unprepared. He turned to his sister. 
 
 " Dorrice ! " He could not say any more. 
 
 " Carryl ! " 
 
 It was a cry no words could interpret. Her very 
 life went into it the supreme joy of the present, 
 and all the memories of the past. There was some- 
 thing, too, that doubted and feared, and appealed to 
 him. They stood still a few moments looking at 
 each other. The faces of both were colorless. 
 
 But as he looked in his sister's radiant eyes, the 
 meaning of what he had heard, forced itself upon 
 Carry 1's consciousness ; he remembered the words 
 which Dorrice had said to him a few days ago, as 
 they stood in that very place ; his gaze went doubt- 
 fully to Ray for a moment, and then came back to 
 her. It seemed to him that he had lived years in 
 seconds ; but, at last, he took his sister's hand ; his 
 lips trembled as he said, "Gathorpe, it would have 
 been worse than death if any other man had asked 
 me to give him this." 
 
 And he laid the hand in Gathorpe's. 
 
 The two young men looked in each other's eyes ; 
 and forgot everything else in the joy of one con- 
 sciousness: the giving and the taking had made 
 them brothers! 
 
 They all turned to Mrs. Kent. " I have believed 
 this hour must come," she said. "I have been 
 thanking God for it." 
 
 At that moment the sunset poured its last splendor 
 upon the four who stood in the portico at Bylanes.
 
 LIII. 
 
 MKS. KENT did not learn until after she returned 
 to West Newton how Ray Gathorpe and Carryl 
 Dacres had first met. The brother and sister had 
 long felt it was right their friend should know, but 
 they dreaded the pain which the story must inevita- 
 bly cause her. It was Carryl who told her at 
 last. 
 
 A few days afterward, Mrs. Kent wrote to her 
 most intimate friend, whom she had intended to visit 
 for a week that autumn : 
 
 " I shall not be able to come to you, Agnes, at the 
 time I promised. There is to be a wedding at our 
 house. My beloved child, Dorrice Dacres, is to 
 marry the nephew of my old friend, Kenneth 
 Gathorpe. 
 
 " The wedding is to be absolutely private. The 
 only persons present will be Mr. and Mrs. Hallowell 
 and their young boy, Tom, and a Deacon Spinner 
 and his wife, from Foxlow. 
 
 " These people have, at critical moments, borne 
 some special share in the fortunes of the brother and 
 sister. 
 
 " I cannot tell you, my dear Agnes, how the pros- 
 pect of this marriage has stirred me. It has brought 
 
 393
 
 394 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 
 
 back something of the light and fragrance of my 
 own youth. 
 
 " For it is to be one of those rare unions of hearts 
 and tastes and intellectual sympathies which go far 
 to make an ideal marriage seem possible, in a world 
 where so much, disappoints and goes wrong. 
 
 " Ray Gathorpe is a noble young soul ; he inherits 
 many of the finest qualities of his stanch old race ; 
 and the two will dwell habitually on the same plane 
 of thoughts, aspirations, purposes. 
 
 " You know something of what Dorrice is, and 
 how her quality has been tested in the past, as you 
 know more of her history than anybody but myself. 
 
 " When I remember the hard places in which her 
 young days fell, and see her, as she is soon to be, the 
 graceful, beautiful mistress of Bylanes, my heart is 
 filled with a great wonder and joy; yet it is not 
 chiefly glad because of the pride and splendor of her 
 new fortunes, but because of the great love that has 
 come to her, and because she will be the heart of 
 that grand old home the inspiration and helper of 
 all that is finest and noblest in its wide-radiating 
 influences, its generosities, its life. 
 
 " Ah, Agnes, how little I dreamed, in the dark and 
 emptiness of a few years ago, that so much romance 
 and poetry such a fresh flavor and fragrance 
 would come into my own life ! 
 
 " The young people insist that Bylanes is to be 
 quite as much my home as West Newton. Dorrice 
 has a notion in some sense a mistaken one that 
 she will need me for the present. 
 
 " Dear, when you think of your old friend in these
 
 A BOSTON GIRL'S AMBITIONS. 395 
 
 days, think that the words often on her lips, of- 
 tenest in her heart, for these young people and for 
 herself, are the words with which she hopes all the 
 griefs and struggles and losses of human lives will at 
 last end : ' Thank God ! ' 
 
 "ESTHER KENT."
 
 SOPHIE MAY'S "GROWN-UP" BOOKS. 
 
 Uniform Binding. All Handsomely Illustrated. fl.SO. 
 
 JANET, A POOR HEIRESS. 
 
 "The heroine of this story is a true girl. An imperious, fault-finding, 
 nnappreciative father alienates her love, and nearly ruins her temper. 
 The mother knows the father is at fault, but does not dare to say so. 
 Then comes a discovery, that she is only an adopted daughter; a for- 
 saking of the eld home; a life of strange vicissitudes; a return; a mar 
 riage under difficulties; and a discovery, that, after all, she is an heiress. 
 The story is certainly a very attractive one." Chicago Interior. 
 
 THE DOCTOR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 "Sophie May, author of the renowned Prudy and Dotty books, has 
 achieved another triumph in the new book with this title just issued, 
 She has taken ' a new departure ' this time, and written a new story for 
 grown-up folks. If we are not much mistaken, the young folks will 
 want to read it, as much as the old folks want to read the books written 
 for the young ones. It is a splendid story for all ages." Lynn Semi 
 Weekly Recorder. 
 
 THE AGBURY TWINS. 
 
 " The announcement of another work by this charming and popular 
 writer will be heartily welcomed by the public. And in this sensible, 
 fascinating story of the twin-sisters, 'Vic' and ' Van,' they have before 
 them a genuine treat. Vic writes her story in one chapter, and Van in 
 the next, and so on through the book. Van is frank, honest, and practi- 
 cal ; Vic wild, venturesome, and witty; and both of them natural and 
 winning. At home or abroad, they are true to their individuality, and 
 see things with their own eyes. It is a fresh, delightful volume, well 
 worthy of ita gifted author." Boxton Contributor. 
 
 OUR HELEN. 
 
 " ' Our Helen ' is Sophie May's latest creation ; and she is a bright, 
 brave girl, that the young people will all like. We are pleased to meet 
 with some old friends in the book. It is a good companion-book for the 
 'Doctor's Daughter," and the two should go together. Queer old Mrs. 
 O'Xeil still lives, to indulge in the reminiscences of the young men of 
 Machius ; and other Quinnebasset people with familiar names occasionally 
 appear, along with new ones who are worth knowing. ' Our Helen ' is a 
 noble and unselfish girl, but with a mind and will of her own ; and the 
 contrast between her and pretty, fascinating, selfish little Sharley, is very 
 finely drawn. Lee & Shepard publish it." Ifolyoke Transcript. 
 
 QUINNEBASSET GIRLS. 
 
 "The story is a very attractive one, as free from the sensational and 
 impossible as could be desired, and at the same time full of interest, and 
 pervaded by the same bright, cheery sunshine that we find in the author's 
 earlier books. She is to be congratulated on the success of her essay in 
 a new field of literature, to which she will be warmly welcomed by thos 
 who know and admire her ' Prudy Books.' " 
 
 Sold by all booksellers and newsdealers, and sent by mail, postpaid, 
 on receipt of price. 
 
 LEE &. SHEPARD, Publishers, Boston.
 
 J. T. TROWBRIDGE'S NOVELS. 
 
 NEW UNIFORM EDITION. 
 FARNELL'S FOLLY. 
 
 As a Novel of American Society, this book has never been surpassed. 
 Hearty in style and wholesome in tone. Its pathos often melting! to 
 tears, its humor always exciting merriment." 
 
 CUDJO'S CAVE. 
 
 Like "Uncle Tom's Cabin," this thrilling story was a stimulating 
 power in the civil war, and had an immense sale. Secretary Chase, 01 
 President Lincoln's cabinet, said of it, "I could not help reading it: it 
 interested and impressed me profoundly. ' 
 
 THE THREE SCOUTS. 
 
 Another popular book of the same stamp, of which "The Boston Tran 
 script" said, "It promises to have a larger sale than 'Cudjo's Cave.' 
 It is impossible to open the volume at any page without being struck by 
 the quick movement and pervading anecdote of the story." 
 
 THE DRUMMER BOY. 
 A Story of Burnside's Expedition. Illustrated by F. O. C. BARLEY. 
 
 " The most popular book of the season. It will sell without pushing." 
 Zion'n Herald. 
 
 MARTIN MERRIVALE: His X Mark. 
 
 " Strong in humor, pathos, and unabated interest. In none of the books 
 issued from the American press can there be found a purer or more deli- 
 cate sentiment, a more genuine good taste, or a nicer appreciation and 
 brighter delineation of character." English Journal, 
 
 NEIGHBOR JACKWOOD. 
 
 A story of New-England life in the slave-tracking days. Dramatized 
 for the Boston Museum, it had a long run to crowded houses. The story 
 Is one of Trowbridge's very beet. 
 
 COUPON BONDS, and other Stories. 
 
 The leading story is undoubtedly the most popular of Trowbridge's 
 short stories. The others are varied in character, but are either intensely 
 interesting or " highly ammsiug." 
 
 NEIGHBORS' WIVES. 
 
 An ingenious and well-told story. Two neighbors' wives are tempted 
 beyond their strength to resist, and steal each from the other. One is 
 discovered in the act, under ludicrous and humiliating circumstances, 
 but f s generously pardoned, with a promise of secrecy. Of course she 
 LM/a"8 her secret, and of course perplexities come. It is a capital story. 
 
 12mo. Cloth. Price per volume, fl.60. 
 
 Sold by all bookielUrt and newsdealers, and sent by mail, poitpai*, 
 on receipt of price.
 
 THE DOUGLAS NOVELS. 
 
 BY: Miss AMANDA M. DOUGLAS. 
 Uniform Volumes. Price $1.50 each. 
 
 A WOMAN'S INHERITANCE. 
 
 ' Like all the romances of Miss Douglas, this story hat* a fascination 
 about it which enchains the reader's attention until the end." Balti- 
 more NetM. 
 
 OUT OF THE WRECK ; or, was it a Victory ? 
 
 " l!i iiiht anil entertaining as Miss Douglas's stories always are, thi.n, 
 her new one, leads them all." New-Bedford Standard, 
 
 FLOYD GRANDON'S HONOR. 
 
 "Fascinating throughout, and worthy of the reputation of the author." 
 Philadelphia Method ixt. 
 
 WHOM KATHIE MARRIED. 
 
 Kathie was tin; heroine of the popular series of Kathie Stories for 
 jrouug people, the readers of which were very anxious to know with 
 whom Kathie settled down in life. Hence this story, charmingly written 
 
 LOST IN A GREAT CITY. 
 
 "There is the power of delineation and robustness of expression that 
 would credit a masculine hand in the present volume, and the reader 
 will atiio stage of the reading regret having commenced its perusal. lu 
 some parts it is pathetic, ever? to eloquence." San Francisco Post. 
 
 THE OLD WOMAN WHO LIVED IN A SHOE. 
 
 " The romances of Miss Douglas's creation are all thrillingly interest- 
 ing." Cambridge Tribune. 
 
 HOPE MILLS ; or, Between Friend and Sweetheart. 
 " Amanda Douglas is one of the favorite authors of American novel- 
 readers." Manchester Mirror. 
 
 FROM HAND TO MOUTH. 
 
 "There is real satisfaction in reading this book, from the fact that we 
 can so readily ' take it home ' to ourselves." Portland Argus. 
 
 NELLY KINNARD'S KINGDOM. 
 
 " The Hartford Religious Herald " says, " This story is sc fascinating, 
 that one can hardly lay it down after taking it up." 
 
 IN TRUST; or, Dr. Bertrand's Household. 
 " She writes in a free, fresh, and natural way; and her characters are 
 never overdrawn." Manchester Mirror. 
 
 CLAUDIA. 
 
 " The plot is very dramatic, and the denoument startling. Claudia, the 
 heroine, is one of those self-sacrificing characters which it is the glory of 
 the female sex to produce." Boston Journal. 
 
 STEPHEN DANE. 
 
 " This is one of this author's happiest and most successful attempts at 
 novel-writing, for which a grateful public will applaud her." Herald. 
 
 HOME NOOK ; or, the Crown of Duty. 
 
 " An interesting story of home-life, not wanting in incident, and written 
 '.n forcible and attractive style." New- York Graphic. 
 
 SYDNIE ADRIANCE ; or, Trying the World. 
 " The works of Miss Douglas have stood the test of popular judgment, 
 and become the fashion. They are true, natural in delineation, pui - 'ud 
 elevating in their tone." Express, Easton, Penn. 
 
 SEVEN DAUGHTERS. 
 
 The charm of the story is the perfectly natural and home-likfe ai. fttucih 
 (ervades it. 
 
 Sold by all booksellers, and sent by mail, -postpaid, on receipt of price.
 
 MARY A. DENISON'S NOVELS. 
 
 UNIFORM EDITION. CLOTHI Tj PIPER, 50 CENTS. 
 
 HIS TRIUMPH. 
 
 " A sprightly story is ' His Triumph,' In spite of the fact that It opena 
 with a wedding, and ends with a renunciation. We read of two run- 
 aways, of lovers' letters, of a haunted house, a debutante, and all of th 
 romance and reality that pertain to a well-conceived and well-told story. 
 Mrs. Denison is a skilful story-teller, and ' Ilis Triumph ' is also her 
 triumph." Philadelphia Keystone. 
 
 LIKE A GENTLEMAN. 
 
 "The story of one who drank ' like a gentleman ' is one of Mrs. Den. 
 ison's best stories. The lovers of romance will pronounce this story 
 charming, and be all the more pleased with it because some of the char- 
 acters are purer, sweeter, and nobler than are often found in real life. 
 The incidents are thrilling, the plot interesAig, the story well told." 
 
 ROTHMELL. 
 
 " The style is clear and bright, abounding in little novel pictures and 
 delicate touches. Uothmell, the principal hero, is a brilliant surgeon, 
 with a magnetic eye, but a penchant in earlier life for marrying rich 
 women, which, indulged in, gives him considerable after trouble." 
 Chicago Inter-Ocean. 
 
 THAT WIFE OF MINE. 
 
 " There is now and then a touch of genuine pathos. Its incidents, its 
 characters, its language, are of the every -day sort : but its very sim- 
 plicity and naturalness give it a charm to the ordinary reader; and it is 
 undeniably pure and healthful in iu tone. We must pronounce ' That 
 Wife of Mine ' an excellent book of its kind." Boxton Journal. 
 
 THAT HUSBAND OF MINE. 
 
 " It is as bright and cheery as a sunbeam. Sparkles like dewdrops- 
 Full of good humor, with a great deal of patience. It teaches you how 
 to get a husband, how to manage one, and how an engagement can be 
 broken. It will amuse you and make you laugh. After reading the first 
 page, you will feel like joining in the pursuit of 'That Husband of 
 Mine.' " 
 
 MR. PETER CREWITT. 
 
 " ' Peter Crewitt,' from the same house, is a Dickens-sort of a story. 
 . . . There are passages of pathos, of moralizing, of pointed ridicule and 
 satire, that would do credit to the ablest novelist. The average novel- 
 reader will become quite infatuated over ' Peter Crewitt.' " Advertiser, 
 Elmira, N.Y. 
 
 Sold by all booksellers and newsdealers, and sent by mail, postpaid, 
 on rrif> of price. 
 
 I.I.I. AND SHEPARD, Publishers, Boston.
 
 20719
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 A A 000201365 4
 
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