To 
 
 Albert B . Chandler , Esq., 
 
 Whose kind letr,er to the author, when 
 
 "Oakum Pickings" was published nearly 
 twenty years ago, is still preserved 
 
 and cherished. 
 
 New York, June 28,189j 
 
 MfvAJLU>*i 
 
MY DEBUT IN JOURNALISM 
 
 AND 
 
 OTHER ODD HAPPENINGS. 
 
 BV 
 
 WALTER F\ PHILLIPS. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 THE INTERNATIONAL TELEGRAM CO. 
 
 Xl 
 
<\ 
 
 
 
 
 Copyrighted, jSg2, by Walter P. Fhillips. 
 
 • « • 
 
 ' c 
 
 • I 
 
 Evening Post Job Printing House, N. Y. 
 
TO MY GALLANT COMRADES 
 IN THE RANKS OF 
 
 glue mixitcxl ^xtss 
 
 THIS BOOK 
 IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. 
 
 M126913 
 
 ftf 1 1 G ( 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 My Debut in Journalism, 
 
 • 5 
 
 An Agreeable Saunterer, 
 
 23 
 
 Miss Britton's Romance, 
 
 • 45 
 
 An Evening Reverie, 
 
 65 
 
 Esther Romaine, 
 
 • 79 
 
 An Old Man's Exegesis, 
 
 in 
 
 Agnes Leigh, .... 
 
 . 121 
 
 Stage Coaching, .... 
 
 167 
 
 Old George Wentworth, 
 
 . 185 
 
MY DEBUT IN JOURNALISM. 
 
MY DEBUT IN JOURNALISM. 
 
 " TF you will come over and see Ferguson right 
 away," wrote my friend, the managing editor 
 of The Plantation Harbinger, " I think you can ob- 
 tain the position of local editor. Charlie Hurd 
 has lit out." 
 
 Ferguson was the proprietor of The Harbinger, 
 and I was an ambitious telegraph operator eager to 
 enter the journalistic field, so I went in pursuit of 
 him. I met Hurd on my way over, and asked him 
 what was the trouble, and where he was going. 
 
 " On the Boston Globe" he answered. "Fer- 
 guson does not pay his help." 
 
 "Why," returned I, "his managing editor, Mr. 
 Pickett, has just written me a note asking me to go 
 and see Ferguson about the situation you have 
 vacated. He said nothing about bad pay, simply 
 stating that you had ' lit out.' " 
 
 "Pickett is in the ring," observed Hurd, sig- 
 nificantly, and he hastened in the direction of the 
 Boston depot. 
 
8 MY DEBUT IN JOURNALISM. 
 
 It was with my enthusiasm considerably abated 
 that I entered the presence of Mr. Ferguson. I 
 knew him slightly, his rotund form and genial 
 face, in connection with a stub-tailed horse and 
 Concord wagon, being familiar to about every man, 
 woman and child in town. He was a person who 
 never wholly lost his aplomb under the most dis- 
 couraging circumstances, as I afterward learned, 
 and who, under ordinary conditions, was a perfect 
 Chesterfield. It will be a good many years in the 
 future before I shall have forgotten the cordial 
 grasp he gave my hand, and the benignant smile 
 which played upon his lips as he said : 
 
 "Mr. Pickett's heart is set upon having you 
 come on our paper as local editor. I have studied 
 with great care such occasional work as you have 
 done for us. It is exceedingly good. I am a man 
 of few words, Mr. Phillips. I like you. I want 
 you to like me. I do business on the square. I 
 will pay you twenty dollars per week, and you get 
 your cash every Saturday. " Afterward I learned 
 that Ferguson never read a line in his paper unless 
 his attention was called to something, and he read 
 
MY DEBUT IN JOURNALISM. 9 
 
 it then under protest. I learned a great deal during 
 the next year, but of that hereafter. 
 
 "Mr. Hurd said"— 
 
 "One moment," interrupted Ferguson, "see 
 you again in a second," and he went to his desk, 
 and making a note for thirty days sent it to the 
 bank. Before I could resume my story about 
 Hurd, Ferguson said : 
 
 "I never like to talk about a man behind his 
 back. But here are the facts in a nutshell : Mr. 
 Hurd is a good fellow, sharp writer and all that, 
 but he is extravagant. He has drawn his salary in 
 advance ever since he came here. Yesterday he 
 wanted me to advance him a hundred dollars. I 
 declined, and he is gone, thank fortune ! He is a 
 good paymaster who pays when the work is done. 
 I do that. I am willing to pay one or two weeks' 
 salary in advance, but I can't furnish money to 
 everybody who comes along, in quantities to suit — 
 like to accommodate, you know, but it isn't busi- 
 ness, and I am not in a position to do it without 
 cramping myself. Another thing," he went on 
 glibly, " Hurd's wife is afraid of thunder and light- 
 
10 MY DEBUT IN JOURNALISM. 
 
 ning, and every time a shower comes along, off 
 he goes home — no matter if it's only eight o'clock. 
 Now, the local editor of a morning paper can't go 
 home at eight o'clock in the evening and do justice 
 to the city department. I tolerated this because I 
 wished the man well, but you know how 'tis your- 
 self. There comes a straw one day that breaks 
 the camel's back, and Hurd's constant hypotheca- 
 tion of his salary and his attempts to browbeat me 
 into lending him large sums have done the business 
 for him." 
 
 After a great number of compliments on my 
 lively way of writing, and no end of assurances 
 that if a man did not "impose on him unreason- 
 ably it was all right," I left the mighty presence 
 with a very high regard for Ferguson, and a very 
 seriously changed heart toward my avaricious pre- 
 decessor. And if Hurd's rapacity in seeking to do 
 a sort of free banking with his employer hadn't set- 
 tled him in my estimation, his habit of going 
 home "in the midst of a murder," as Ferguson 
 said, "if a thunderstorm came up," would have 
 done the business for him of itself. I had engaged 
 
MY DEBUT IN JOURNALISM. 11 
 
 myself for one year at twenty dollars per week, 
 and began work the next day. As I had only 
 worked half a week when pay day came I thought 
 it wiser to let the amount lie until the next Satur- 
 day than to bother Ferguson about half a week's 
 pay, and I did so. As my hours were from seven 
 p.m. to two or three a.m., and as Ferguson seldom, 
 if ever, visited the editorial rooms at night, I did 
 not see him from one week to the other. Occa- 
 sionally I visited the counting-room to find it in 
 charge of a supremely saucy boy, who sat on a high 
 stool and shrilly whistled, and who invariably 
 answered the question, "When will Ferguson be 
 in?" with a grunt, which the practiced ear recog- 
 nized as "Give it up.'' But though I saw him 
 not, Ferguson sent me numerous kind messages 
 during the week, and finally, at the bottom of one 
 of his pleasant notes, he wrote: " Didn't see you 
 Saturday ; money waiting for you. " On receipt of 
 that missive so great was my confidence in his in- 
 tegrity I would have lent Ferguson a thousand 
 dollars had he asked for it and I could have raised 
 it. When Saturday arrived I went to the counting- 
 
12 MY DEBUT IN JOURNALISM. 
 
 room and ran upstairs with a light step. Ferguson 
 was not in, and several persons with anxious faces 
 were in waiting. To my question as to when Mr. 
 Ferguson would be in, the shrill whistler grunted as 
 usual, and as I seemed to be at a loss what to say, 
 he volunteered the remark : 
 
 " Don't pay off till two o'clock." 
 
 The city clock struck eleven as I passed down- 
 stairs and out upon the busy street. I felt very 
 sure about Ferguson, but I had my doubts about 
 the boy, Brooks. He was becoming a thorn in 
 my side with his stereotyped "Give it up," and his 
 disturbing remarks. I was positive he misrepre- 
 sented Mr. Ferguson, and took advantage of his 
 absence to snub and render uncomfortable not 
 only employees but also patrons of the paper. I 
 determined to speak to Mr. Ferguson about him 
 and have him admonished — annihilated, if possible. 
 
 I returned to the office at five minutes past two 
 o'clock to find the little counting-room crowded 
 with compositors, reporters, pressmen, editors, 
 route-boys, bootblacks, and a great many others. 
 As I peered over the sea of shoulders my eyes 
 
MY DEBUT IN JOURNALISM. 13 
 
 caught those of Ferguson, and he shouted, " Make 
 room there for Mr. Phillips." As I approached 
 the desk Ferguson dipped a pen, put his chubby 
 finger against an entry in a large book where he 
 wished me to sign, and, before I had scarcely 
 finished my name, he placed thirty dollars before 
 me. I stepped aside to make room for Dr. Rose, 
 our foreman, who had just come in, but I did not 
 retire, as I wished to consult Ferguson about sev- 
 eral matters which struck me as being of vital im- 
 portance to The Harbinger s welfare. As I stood 
 waiting I observed that Dr. Rose's youthful face 
 wore an expression much graver than I had ever 
 seen there before. I was surprised that no pen 
 was dipped for him to sign with, and that Ferguson 
 requested no one to " Make room for Dr. Rose." 
 The Doctor was admitted behind the counter after 
 a few seconds, and Ferguson whispered with him 
 earnestly. Then a ten-dollar note was handed to 
 him, and he walked out looking very severe. I 
 saw it all. Dr. Rose had been drawing his salary 
 in advance, and Ferguson would only be imposed 
 upon within reasonable bounds. He had given 
 
14 MY DEBUT IN JOURNALISM. 
 
 the Doctor ten dollars, which was generous under 
 the circumstances. My heart warmed toward him 
 for his liberality. Next came Henry Ladd, the 
 telegraph editor. 
 
 "What can I do for you, Henry?" inquired 
 Ferguson. 
 
 " Let me have twenty," said Ladd; " rent due." 
 
 " Sorry, but I can't do it, Henry," returned Fer- 
 guson, in the blandest tones imaginable. " Here," 
 he added, "are two dollars in pennies. Now git ! " 
 I had no doubt that Ladd had overdrawn his salary 
 by several hundred dollars, and his assurance in 
 coming to ask for money at all surprised and 
 pained me. 
 
 The next Saturday Mr. Ferguson paid me with 
 less alacrity, and I noticed that he addressed me 
 by my given name. A week later he said: "Wally, 
 old boy, here's fifteen dollars for you, can't make 
 change any nearer. Hand you the other five 
 on Monday," and upon my third appearance he 
 simply handed me a ten-dollar note, with the ob- 
 servation, " Here you go, Phil; hang up the other 
 ten with that five I owe you on last week. " 
 
MY DEBUT IN JOURNALISM. 15 
 
 ' ' But what kind of a way to do business is this ? " 
 I asked. 
 
 "Oh, run along, sonny," said Ferguson, with a 
 smile; "no time to 'yawp' on the day preceding 
 the peaceful Sabbath. Come in any day but Satur- 
 day, and we will talk matters up." 
 
 I walked out considerably worried and cast down. 
 "Come in any day but Saturday," was refreshing 
 in the extreme. As if I hadn't visited his office 
 day after day to talk about the feasibility of adding 
 another reporter to our force, and been met by that 
 incorrigible whistler, whose " Give it up " had be- 
 come a perfect nightmare. Mr. Ferguson was 
 seldom in, though I found, during my periods of 
 watching and waiting, that very few men were in 
 greater demand. 
 
 On making my fifth appearance, as I reached for 
 a pen, my employer said: 
 
 "You needn't sign that book, Phil." 
 
 "Not sign!" I ejaculated, thoroughly non- 
 plused. 
 
 "No; money about all gone. Have to pay the 
 compositors, or they won't go to work Sunday 
 
16 MY DEBUT IN JOURNALISM. 
 
 night — have no paper Monday. You and Ladd, 
 and Rose and Bowers and Bishop, get three dollars 
 apiece to-day, and that settles your hash. Mem- 
 bers of the intellectual department are supposed to 
 work for fame, not money." 
 
 He handed me three dollars, and inquired if I 
 would like to go to the Theodore Thomas concert 
 that evening. Replying in the affirmative, he passed 
 me two complimentary tickets, and dashed down- 
 stairs. A moment later he was gathering up the 
 reins, which had fallen under the feet of the stub- 
 tailed horse, and I sat watching him as one in a 
 trance. 
 
 "Brooks ! Brooks ! " called Ferguson. 
 
 Brooks made a break in the tune he had been 
 whistling ever since I had known him, and going 
 to the window, responded, "Aye, Aye." 
 
 " Charge Phillips with six dollars — three cash, 
 and three for those Thomas concert tickets," said 
 Ferguson, and then he drove away. 
 
 To say that I was enraged, as I tore up the 
 street, but feebly expresses the intemperate frame 
 of mind in which I found myself after all this. I 
 
MY DEBUT IN JOURNALISM. 17 
 
 soon met Rose and Ladd, and began my tale of 
 woe. They stopped me at once, and said: 
 
 "So he's landed you, too, eh? Give us your 
 hand." 
 
 I felt that congratulations were by no means in 
 order, but I mechanically put forth my hand, and 
 both shook it warmly. They knew that I had 
 "joined the band of hope." 
 
 I staid on The Harbinger as "local," political 
 writer, managing editor, and what not for two years, 
 and with the exception of such payments as I have 
 mentioned, my cash receipts from Ferguson's trea- 
 sury were slim indeed. Why I remained I cannot 
 explain. Pickett, who once visited Ferguson with 
 the determination of squeezing fifty dollars out of 
 him, was assuaged with an " order " for a grind- 
 stone ; but, in the face of asking for money and 
 receiving a stone, Pickett still stuck to the paper 
 and "salivated the Republican Party," as he ex- 
 pressed it, months and months after his labor had 
 ceased to bring shekels. Rose and Ladd, the 
 ancient and precise ship-news reporter, Mr. Tilley, 
 and many others, were doing the same thing, and 
 
18 MY DEBUT IN JOURNALISM. 
 
 wondering at it. There was something in the at- 
 mosphere of The Harbinger office which had a 
 mollifying effect on everybody who entered Fergu- 
 son's service, and at the end of two months I found 
 myself very well contented with my lot, a popular 
 man around town, and the possessor of more furni- 
 ture, curtains, cooking stoves, etc., which I had 
 taken from Ferguson or purchased on his " orders " 
 than I knew what to do with. When I had been 
 with him six months I was one day in sore need 
 of money, and sought his office. Luckily, I found 
 him in, and I stated my case with a degree of flu- 
 ency that ought to have moved him. But it didn't. 
 He listened patiently until I had closed, and then 
 replied : 
 
 " Haven't a dollar ; but," pointing to a corner, 
 "there are two hundred and fifty feet of galvan- 
 ized iron clothes-line that I took on an advertise- 
 ment, which I will sell you cheap." 
 
 I retired heart-broken. 
 
 Mr. Ferguson was a man of "orders." There 
 was "nothing under the canopy, from a rotten 
 apple to a locomotive," as he phrased it, which he 
 
J/} ' DEB UT IN JO URN A LI SM. 19 
 
 could not furnish on call or give an "order" for. 
 " I get a man to advertise in The Harbinger, as a 
 general thing," he explained, "on the strength of 
 my offering to take my pay out in trade. Then I 
 send you, or Ladd, or Rose, or Bowers, and buy 
 about fifty dollars' worth of truck, and I keep on 
 buying so that I am always ahead of that man. He 
 wants to take his advertisement out at the end of 
 three months but he cannot do it, because I am 
 owing him. Had men in this paper several years 
 in just that way. Once in a while a man gets mad, 
 and I have to square up with him in cash, and let 
 him take his advertisement out, but that doesn't 
 often happen." 
 
 It happened sometimes, however, when I was 
 present, and it was then that Ferguson's abilities 
 shone resplendent. The reader must have sur- 
 mised that Ferguson was always short of ready 
 money. He was. So when one of these trouble- 
 some advertisers came along and demanded a settle- 
 ment, Ferguson would meet him something as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 "I owe you a balance of $79.85. I have no 
 
20 MY DEB UT IN JO UKNA LISM. 
 
 money, but I'll give you my note for thirty days. 
 Put it in your bank, get her discounted, and I'll 
 pay the discount. Just as good as cash." 
 
 To this the party of the other side would assent, 
 and Ferguson would draw up a note in very pretty 
 shape, and bringing it over would say: 
 
 "I have made this note for $150, because I 
 make all my notes for a round sum. You get it 
 discounted, and send me your check for the bal- 
 ance. Here, Brooks, go down with Mr. Blank 
 and bring back a check." And, before the aston- 
 ished recipient of the note could recover his equi- 
 poise, Ferguson would have bowed him out of the 
 room. 
 
 Sometimes the men who accepted these promises 
 to pay, and gave checks which could be used 
 immediately, found themselves in a rather embar- 
 rassed situation when the notes matured. Fergu- 
 son was one of those men who imagined that it 
 added dignity and character to a promissory note 
 to let it go to protest. Thus it would often hap- 
 pen that, after the disaffected advertiser had enjoyed 
 the felicity of paying Ferguson's note, and had 
 
MY DEBUT IN JOURNALISM. 21 
 
 visited the whistler fifteen or twenty times without 
 even getting sight of the object of his search, I 
 would receive a letter from Ferguson instructing 
 me to write a third of a column notice puffing the 
 business of the man to whom the note had been 
 given. When this appeared, Ferguson would drive 
 to the store of the whilom customer, and, laying 
 The Harbinger before him, would say: 
 
 "It is the biggest kind of a shame that I haven't 
 taken up that note, but I have not had the money. 
 I haven't it now; but if it would give you any satis- 
 faction to kick me, you are at liberty to do it " — 
 and he would present himself for chastisement. 
 
 I believe, however, that he was never kicked. 
 After this, the editorial notice, which I had written 
 the night before, would be read as Ferguson's own 
 production, and in nine cases out of ten that $150 
 would be taken out in advertising — and the men 
 thus won over never deserted him. They had met 
 the enemy, and they were his. 
 
 Many years have passed since I wrote my last 
 line for The Harbinger, but sometimes, sitting in 
 the twilight, the remembrance of those old days 
 
22 MY DEBUT IN JOURNALISM. 
 
 comes back with such startling force that it seems 
 as if the atmosphere of The Harbinger's dingy edi- 
 torial room was still around me, and I half imagine 
 I see Arthur Bowers, Dr. Rose, Pickett, and all the 
 others, filing up the narrow stairway, thankful for 
 such small favors as the iconoclastic and persuasive 
 Ferguson doles out to them. I do not forget that 
 above the dust of the quaintly original Pickett the 
 springtide winds are sighing mournfully, and that 
 the correct and genial Tilley sleeps the deep 
 slumber from which there is no earthly awakening. 
 I know, moreover, that the others are widely scat- 
 tered; that the thundering press, whose clangor 
 was as music to my youthful ears, is stilled for- 
 ever, and that The Harbinger s precarious existence 
 is ended. Still, I remember it kindly; for with its 
 life are associated some of the pleasantest episodes 
 in mine. And Ferguson ? In the grand cavalcade 
 of life-insurance canvassers he has taken a prom- 
 inent place. Writing me recently, he said: 
 
 "At present I am working and talking that man- 
 kind in general may achieve for itself a grand ben- 
 eficent destiny, by providing for its widows and 
 orphans." 
 
AN AGREEABLE SAUNTERER. 
 
AN AGREEABLE SAUNTERER. 
 
 JAMES DULIN, practical printer and cosmopoli- 
 tan, was a type of a class. I speak of him in 
 the past tense, because the scenes which knew him 
 once know him no more; and it is almost certain 
 that his wanderings are over, and in some quiet 
 nook, lying between the Gulf Stream and the golden 
 sands of the Pacific, his peaceful dust reposes. I 
 trust that fate dealt kindly with him and closed his 
 cheerful being in no unfavored spot, where the 
 winter winds sweep mournfully above the dead. 
 Rather let me indulge the sweet belief that he fell 
 asleep in some genial clime, where the long grass 
 growing above him, is stirred only by kindly 
 breezes, and where the flowers exhale their 
 fragrance from June to June. 
 
 My acquaintance with Dulin began in Providence 
 a few years after the close of the great civil conflict 
 — probably in 1870. I was, at the time, the hope- 
 ful editor of a struggling daily newspaper which has 
 since succumbed to the inevitable, after a praise- 
 
26 AN AGREEABLE SAUNTERER. 
 
 worthy but futile attempt to convince the Demo- 
 cracy of Rhode Island that it was worthy of en- 
 couragement and support. The portly and punc- 
 tilious ship news reporter, Mr. Tilley, complained 
 to me one afternoon that the regular marine news 
 compositor was absent on one of his periodical 
 enterprises, the objective point of which was to 
 demonstrate, to his own satisfaction, that sorrow 
 may be effectually buried by recourse to the flow- 
 ing bowl. The complainant added that " some- 
 thing must be done," as the new incumbent was 
 making the ship news simply ridiculous by his mis- 
 chievous blunders in reading copy. Mr. Tilley 
 then proceeded to descant on the plainness of his 
 manuscript, and appealed to me to corroborate his 
 claim that his handwriting was as legible as reprint. 
 I assented to the proposition, but with a colossal 
 mental reservation, for Mr. Tilley usually wrote 
 with a dull-pointed lead pencil about half an inch 
 in length, and his writing bore about the same re- 
 lation to penmanship that the pot-hooks and tram- 
 mels used by the shorthand reporters of old bear 
 to the modern and thoroughly perfected system of 
 
AN AGREEABLE SAUNTERER. 27 
 
 phonography. But feeling sorry for the genial and 
 kindly soul who had come to me for sympathy, I 
 volunteered to go upstairs and see if some im- 
 provement could not be had. This proposal was 
 rather impatiently received, Mr. Tilley ejaculating 
 sharply, "You can't do anything with him. He 
 wont say anything but ' Kayrect.' I wrote yester- 
 day that the schooner Jane Montgomery had arrived 
 with three hundred carboys for Chambers & 
 Calder. It was printed three hundred cabbages. 
 Everybody is laughing at me. It is shameful 
 that after forty years' experience as a marine 
 reporter I should fall into the clutches of an irre- 
 sponsible tramp printer and be made to arrive 
 cabbages for one of the largest drug houses in this 
 section." 
 
 By this time the old gentleman was walking up 
 and down the room greatly excited. 
 
 "And when I went to him and remonstrated," 
 cried Mr. Tilley, " what does the loafer do but wink 
 at me! Yes, sir, he winked at me and said: 'Don't 
 distress yourself, uncle ; no one ever reads the 
 ship news slop. Such skulch is printed, when used 
 
28 AN AGREEABLE SAUNTERER. 
 
 at all, to flatter the vanity of old fossils like you 
 who can't do anything else but spy out vessels' 
 names through a glass. You don't seem to under- 
 stand it ; the publisher has no real need for you ; 
 he just lets you fool with the ship news rather than 
 hurt your feelings by putting you on a pension. If 
 I were running this paper I would have put you 
 on the retired list as eirly as 1847.' Heavens and 
 earth ! I let into him after that speech," concluded 
 the speaker, whose face now rivaled the hue of a well 
 boiled lobster. 
 
 "And he promised to be more careful in the 
 future ?" I inquired. 
 
 " Careful ! not he. He just winked at me again 
 — a plague on his familiar winking — and said, 
 ' Kayrect.' " With this Mr. Tilley seized his spy- 
 glass and notebook, and passed out, slamming the 
 door after him. 
 
 When I had once more demolished the preten- 
 sions of the Republican party in a column article, 
 and had produced accompanying paragraphs and 
 political notes to fill the regular amount of space 
 devoted to my use, I took my copy and climbed a 
 
AN A G REE ABLE SA UNTERER. 29 
 
 pair of untidy stairs leading to the composing 
 room. 
 
 "Who is slug nine while Wilcox is absent ? " I 
 inquired, addressing collectively the dozen or 
 fifteen men who had been throwing in their cases, 
 and who were waiting for the copy which I held in 
 my hand. A companionable looking man of 
 about thirty years, in broken boots, a frilled shirt 
 and a vest and pantaloons which proclaimed as 
 distinctly as tongueless clothes could speak that 
 they were originally intended to adorn a differently 
 proportioned person than their present wearer, 
 stepped forward and said pleasantly: " I am slug 
 nine — James Dulin ; I've got a working card, 
 and I'm in a good standing with the Union." 
 
 " In better standing with the Union than with 
 Mr. Tilley, perhaps," I said, smiling. Dulin had 
 taken the first page of manuscript and had gone to 
 his case while I was speaking. I followed him. 
 
 "The fact is," he said, good naturedly, and 
 with an inoffensive degree of freedom which indi- 
 cated that in his opinion, at least, there could not 
 possibly be any lack of sympathy between gentle- 
 
30 AN AGREEABLE SAUNTERER. 
 
 men like him and me, "the fact is the old party 
 with the telescope and that stub-toed lead pencil 
 doesn't turn out just the stuff for a stranger to 
 tackle. I'm all right on ' straight matter ' like 
 this truck of yours. If it were not good manu- 
 script — which it is — I would still be all right. But 
 old Carboy is a tough citizen as a quill driver, I 
 can tell you. He came up here when I was new 
 and nervous, talking about those cabbages, and he 
 wasn't very choice in his language. I wished to 
 respect his age and said nothing until he told me 
 he was a ' comp. ' That pricked my professional 
 piide, and I lost my temper. Bless his crabbed 
 old soul, he couldn't stick type in these days ; and 
 I told him so. I reckon he doesn't like me pretty 
 well from what he said," Dulin added, thought- 
 fully, "but I can't help it. The old and new do 
 not assimilate, you know. He thinks I am too 
 young for the responsible task of setting his 
 matter ; while in my judgment he should have 
 been planted twenty years ago. He doesn't seem 
 to see it ; but, really, Methuselahs are not in 
 fashion in this nineteenth century. It is too pro- 
 
AN AGREEABLE SAUNTERER. 31 
 
 gressive an age to admit of our encouraging the 
 veteran to any great extent. In fact, the veteran, 
 as has been remarked before, is inclined to lag 
 reluctant on the stage without any special induce- 
 ments." 
 
 After a veiy pleasant talk, in the course of which 
 I cautioned Dulin against making any further 
 errors in Mr. Tilley's reports of the same absurd 
 character as the one which had annoyed the old 
 gentleman so greatly, I left the room. As I passed 
 into the hall I heard Dulin ejaculate with a some- 
 what irrevelant prefix that he "couldn't set type 
 on an empty stomach." One of the other com- 
 positors dropped his stick in astonishment and 
 replied : 
 
 " Why ! I lent you some money to get break- 
 fast with, didn't I ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Dulin, as he went to the "galley" 
 and emptied a stickful of matter, before any of his 
 companions had set half as much, "yes, you lent 
 me money. It was very kind of you, too, Eben ; 
 but an empty ' comp ' can't spread himself on 
 fifteen cents." 
 
32 AN A GREEA BLE SA UNTERER . 
 
 " But it was half a dollar I gave you," pursued 
 Eben. 
 
 " Kayrect," responded Dulin, "but I paid out 
 thirty-five cents of it for getting my moustache 
 painted." 
 
 I then noticed for the first time, as Dulin re- 
 turned to his case and transferred the type to his 
 stick with marvelous rapidity, that his moustache 
 had indeed just received an application which gave 
 it the appearance of a very inky tooth brush. This 
 exhibition of vulgar taste on Dulin's part hurt my 
 feelings; but when the "proofs" came down to 
 the editorial room that night for correction, and 
 never an error, typographical or otherwise, dis- 
 covered itself under slug nine, I yielded him his 
 full due of admiration, and went home well forti- 
 fied in my belief that he was a real acquisition to 
 the paper, and half convinced that if a man wished 
 to dye his subnasal appendage and make himself 
 ridiculous, it was nobody's business but his own. 
 
 Dulin made his reputation very rapidly, and at 
 the end of a month, having made " large bills," he 
 indulged his taste for fashionable attire by giving 
 
AN A GREEA BLE SA UNTERER. 33 
 
 his order to the leading tailor for "a complete 
 outfit," as he expressed it. A few weeks later he 
 left town. Meeting him on the street and hearing 
 of his determination to take the train for New 
 York that evening, I accompanied him to the 
 station. As the train was about to start he quietly 
 observed : 
 
 " I heard what you said about it. It did sort 
 of size my intellect ; but, somehow, it never struck 
 me that way before. If you ever see me again it 
 will show up straw color as nature made it. We 
 learn mighty slowly, particularly in these matters of 
 taste, old man; and I've never had so much of a 
 
 chance as some men to " 
 
 The train moved off, thus abbreviating his dis- 
 course as quoted above, and leaving me, blushing 
 and embarrassed, to learn that anything I had said 
 of his inclination to avail himself of the friendly 
 offices of nitrate of silver had reached his ears. 
 
 The delicate health of The Plantation Harbinger — 
 it was always in pecuniary distress — together with 
 a longing to display my energy and journalistic 
 blandishments in a wider field, ultimately persuaded 
 
34 AN AGREEABLE SAUNTERER. 
 
 me to seek my fortune in New York. I met Dulin 
 occasionally in Printing House Square, and came 
 to learn by degrees that the Dulin of my imagina- 
 tion and the real Dulin possessed remarkable points 
 of difference. The discovery made me melancholy 
 at first — it is very saddening to see our idols dashed 
 before our very eyes. But there was no escape for 
 me ; and little by little I learned Dulin's history 
 and some of his ways, and became reconciled to 
 the inevitable. It appeared that notwithstanding 
 he was an expert compositor and had performed 
 splendid service on many occasions when the 
 emergency of the moment demanded it, he very 
 rarely soiled his fingers by bringing them in contact 
 with prosaic type. I was told that he was a tele- 
 graph operator as well as a compositor, and that his 
 crowning glory was one of the sweetest tenor voices 
 to be heard this side of Italy. It transpired that he 
 relied upon his telegraphic relations for the pro- 
 curement of railroad passes from time to time ; 
 upon his skill as a printer to obtain what money 
 was necessary to meet his pressing wants ; and 
 upon his ability to tell an amusing story or sing 
 
AN AGREEABLE SAUNTERER. 35 
 
 a song to advance his social interests. He was 
 well groomed and characterized by an air of genteel 
 prosperity. Having incidentally told me a month 
 after my arrival that he was looking for a boarding 
 place, I invited him to share my own room and 
 take his meals with me until he could make some 
 better arrangement. He cordially adopted my sug- 
 gestion and made me a longer visit than I had 
 expected he would. But he was always cheerful 
 and deferential and his society was rather pleasant 
 and desirable, although the discharge of my in- 
 debtedness, incurred on his account, added to my 
 own expenses, made sad havoc with my slender 
 income. He finally gathered his impedimenta to- 
 gether one morning, and simply saying, ' 'Au revoir, 
 if I shouldn't come back again," passed out-of- 
 doors softly whistling an air from "Mignon." 
 That was the last I saw of him for two years. I 
 renewed my acquaintance with him as he stepped 
 out of a coupe in front of the Hoffman House one 
 September morning. He insisted that I should 
 breakfast with him. We talked upon every con- 
 ceivable subject; and he casually mentioned as we 
 
36 AN AGREEABLE SAUNTERER. 
 
 separated, that he had just returned from Havana, 
 where he had been the guest of a wealthy New York 
 merchant. I never saw him afterward, though for 
 some years later I heard of him at intervals — some- 
 times in one locality and again in another — always 
 well fed, fairly clothed, and invariably popular. 
 
 When Dulin told me he had been the guest of a 
 generous host in Havana I was not surprised, for 
 it was as the honored guest of somebody or other 
 that he generally figured. In his day he had tarried 
 for indefinite periods beneath the hospitable roofs of 
 reporters, city editors, publishers, telegraph super- 
 intendents, railroad magnates and their subordi- 
 nates. He had an especial fondness for railroad 
 and steamboat people; and in his latter days, when 
 "passes" were difficult to get he continued his 
 travels just the same, depending upon his linguistic 
 accomplishments to remove the obstacles to riding 
 free which lie in the way of ordinary mortals. Once 
 in a long time a newly appointed conductor would 
 compel him to leave the train; but he boarded the 
 next one that came along, and improved the time 
 placed at his disposal, by these enforced delays, by 
 
AN AGREEABLE SAUNTER ER. 37 
 
 a tour of the town if he happened to debark at a 
 metropolis, or by going out into the fields and 
 watching the flight of the birds, noting the methods 
 of the husbandman or listening to the hum of the 
 bees, if it were his good fortune to be stranded at a 
 way station. 
 
 But in spite of his tendency to visit, Dulin 
 rarely, if ever, wore his welcome entirely out. He 
 seemed to know by intuition when the pleasure 
 his presence gave was waning, and at the proper 
 moment he departed. Unless he had been invited 
 elsewhere, he would repair to some democratic 
 resort of entertainment where the admission and 
 music were free and where the beverages were dis- 
 pensed at nominal prices. Here, assuming an 
 attitude of respectful attention, he would await 
 with stoical patience the rosy opportunity which 
 never failed to come. If he were disappointed on 
 the first night he would go again, and ultimately 
 the hour arrived when the tenor of the occasion 
 was indisposed or inebriated, and the cry would 
 be raised, "We must have a song! Who can 
 sing a song ? " Rising modestly, Dulin would say 
 
38 AN AGREEABLE SAUNTERER 
 
 in an unobtrusive way, that his voice was husky 
 from long disuse ; that the words of many of the 
 songs he had once known had escaped his mem- 
 ory ; but that, if it were agreeable, he would try 
 and sing " I Would I Were a Bird.'' 
 
 His vocal performances never failed to elicit in- 
 vitations to eat and drink, and then, warmed by a 
 moderate quantity of stimulant and reinforced by 
 a larger amount of digestible food than had sur- 
 prised his inner man since his departure from the 
 gates of his most recent entertainer, he would 
 sing, "Come Where My Love Lies Dreaming," 
 "Annie Laurie," and other ensnaring ballads. 
 And he sang in tones so sympathetic and with an 
 art so utterly devoid of art that he brought tears to 
 his hearers' eyes, and invariably attracted to his 
 side some impressionable fellow-being who, for the 
 nonce, had forgotten the price of pork or of can- 
 dles, and was giving his soul a holiday by seeking 
 the scenes where beer and song held sway. These 
 appreciative and unsophisticated sons of trade, 
 who seldom visited the halls of jollity and wassail, 
 and to whom men of Dulin's sort were as a revela- 
 
AN AGREEABLE SAUNTERER. 39 
 
 tion, were his natural victims. "You have a 
 splendid voice, sir," "That was a touching song, 
 young man," and similar observations were cues 
 for which Dulin was ever watchful. He never 
 took the initiative, but waited with a degree of 
 reticence, almost touching, for overtures from 
 those whom he had mentally selected as a means 
 to his future aggrandizement. Winning in man- 
 ner, deferential and responsive, he seldom failed to 
 become the guest of whomsoever, entertaining the 
 opinion that his voice was good, was indiscreet 
 enough to mention it. 
 
 To an acquaintance who had taken a position 
 as station agent and telegraph operator on the 
 Union Pacific Railroad, Dulin once wrote as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 "My Dear Proctor — My luck has changed 
 again ; my star is dim and I am going West. I 
 am not in funds, but I hope to close the weary ex- 
 panse lying between us in the course of the next 
 twenty days. The itinerant telegraphers have of 
 late been showing a preference for the turnpike, 
 and they give sombre accounts of the methods 
 
40 AN A GREEABLE SA UNTERER. 
 
 which the modern conductor is developing in the 
 absence of transportation papers. But I fancy the 
 conductor's heart is as green as ever, and has only 
 taken on a veneering of brusqueness, so to speak, 
 in pretended recognition of the prevailing tendency, 
 on the part of his superior officers, to adopt a par- 
 simonious and grinding policy towaid the public, 
 looking to an increased return for money invested 
 and the augmentation of railroad power. In any 
 event, I have no dreams of pedestrianic honors as 
 an outcome of my contemplated pilgrimage toward 
 the setting sun. Humanity is all of one clay — 
 only the outward limbs and flourishes are variant. 
 Once we reach a man's core all is won ; and the 
 conductor is no exception to this universal rule. 
 In my occasional ramblings from New York to the 
 Pacific coast, and from Montreal to Galveston, the 
 average conductor has proven to my satisfaction 
 that he is a credit to humanity ; and in thrusting 
 myself upon his attention now I trust, by tarrying 
 over a train now and again at points where the 
 attractions of the town or the beauty of the land- 
 scape merit the attention of an indolent tourist, to 
 grasp your cordial hand about the seventh prox- 
 imo. Across the yawning chasm of space which 
 lies between us — two thousand three hundred 
 
AN AGREEABLE SAUNTERER. 41 
 
 miles, according to ' Rand McNally ' — I send my 
 greeting. I promise myself great pleasure during 
 the week I hope to pass with you before leaving 
 for the remoter West. God bless you, my boy, 
 and if you ever pray, don't fail to remember in 
 your devotion, that I have undertaken a long jour- 
 ney and that a prayer or two may help to pull me 
 through on time." 
 
 Fifteen days after the receipt of Dulin's letter, 
 and somewhat to his friend's surprise, he stepped 
 gaily from a westward bound train at Bridger ; and 
 after making a ten days' stop, he proceeded on- 
 ward to Virginia City, to take up the long dropped 
 threads of an acquaintance with Dan de Quille, and 
 test the quality of that gentleman's hospitality. 
 During his stay at Bridger he feasted royally on 
 canned oysters and other delicacies suited to his 
 cultivated tastes. He was always entertaining and 
 his society was much sought. His bill amounted 
 to thirty-eight dollars, but it was cheerfully paid by 
 his entertainer, and while his departure was not 
 regretted, his friend would not have hastened it by 
 an hour if he could. Indeed, so nicely did Dulin 
 
42 AN AGREEABLE SAUNTERER. 
 
 balance everything that his arrivals and departures 
 seemed to be in accordance with the eternal fitness 
 of things ; and no one ever seemed to regret any- 
 thing which happened on his account. 
 
 I have been impelled to write this desultory 
 paper by accidentally coming upon a bright bit of 
 humorous writing, by a Western philosopher, affect- 
 ing the proposition which has so long gone un- 
 challenged, viz.: "The world owes me a living." 
 This writer says : " The world may owe you a 
 living, son, if you can get it. But if you are not 
 spry, the world doesn't care much whether you 
 get it or not. The world got along, son, very well 
 before you came into it ; and it will continue to 
 whirl on its axis when you are gone." This is 
 sound doctrine ; it is a sensible every-day philoso- 
 phy, which can be safely followed by ordinary 
 travelers along life's great highway ; and I sub- 
 scribe to it unhesitatingly and with all my heart. 
 But what, I wonder, would James Dulin have 
 thought of it? What would those who belong to 
 the class of which he was a type say to such simple 
 teachings ? 
 
AN AGREEABLE SAUNTERER. 43 
 
 I can easily imagine the scorn with which Dulin 
 would have regarded such an assumption. And 
 when I remember his successful pursuit of what he 
 conceived to be the highest order of happiness, I am 
 inclined to doubt the truth of his own proposition 
 that "humanity is all of one clay." Perhaps, just 
 as there are religious natures so peculiarly con- 
 structed as forms to despise, creeds to distrust, pre- 
 tensions to deride, there are men possessed of 
 mental organizations differing so radically from 
 the general one that they work out their individual 
 destinies by a violation of those moral laws and 
 conceded principles through an observance of 
 which the majority attain happiness, prosperity and 
 honor. Dulin achieved those ends, undoubtedly, 
 by his own unorthodox means ; for with him it was 
 happiness to be a transient guest, prosperity to 
 travel across the Continent without the formality 
 of purchasing a ticket, and honor of the superbest 
 quality to resemble the lilies which neither toil nor 
 spin. 
 
MISS BRITTON'S ROMANCE. 
 
MISS BRITTON'S ROMANCE. 
 
 " 1 AM not willing to accept so small a royalty 
 on the sales of the etching and I will with- 
 draw the plate, if you please. You'll find it 
 entered up against my own name — King, Herki7iier 
 King — and not against my nom de guerre." 
 
 The person addressed was a clerk in one of the 
 New York publishing houses, and after referring to 
 a record book he produced, from among many 
 parcels, a package which he handed to the first 
 speaker. I had come into the room just as Mr. 
 King had spoken the words quoted above. I had 
 heard his name before and was not surprised that 
 he should bestow a look of intelligence upon me. 
 He made an almost imperceptible halt near the 
 door and I imagined he faintly nodded, but he 
 shot out of the office without speaking. 
 
 Herkimer King ! I hadn't thought of him in an 
 age. I am rather loth to count up the number of 
 years ago it was that I formed King's acquaintance 
 
48 MISS BRITTON'S ROMANCE. 
 
 up among the white hills of New Hampshire. I 
 was sitting on the piazza of the Profile House one 
 afternoon when the stage arrived from the Craw- 
 ford House. King and his newly- made wife, ac- 
 companied by a middle-aged lady, were among 
 the passengers. Mrs. King was one of the pretti- 
 est women I had ever seen, but impressionable as 
 I was in those remote days, I was much more in- 
 terested in the middle-aged lady than in her youth- 
 ful companion. The elder lady's face was one of 
 the most refined I had ever beheld, and she had the 
 graceful carriage, the dignified poise of head and 
 the general air which those who have not been 
 abroad are wont to associate with queens. 
 
 In the evening King came to me for a bit of fire 
 for his cigar as I was promenading up and down 
 the piazza, and we were soon chatting together 
 familiarly. In the course of conversation I inquired 
 about the lady who accompanied him. He made 
 some evasive answer and began to sing softly to 
 himself. The burden of his song, I remember, 
 referred to the palpable advantages of a starry night 
 for a ramble. Presently he said : 
 
MISS MUTTON'S ROMANCE. 49 
 
 "Quite a singular story associated with that 
 lady. I have known her a long, long time. Per- 
 haps I can interest you by relating the salient fea- 
 tures of what I call 'her romance.' ' 
 
 I said, promptly, that I had no doubt he could 
 and begged him to proceed. His narrative ran as 
 follows : 
 
 " Her name is Edith Britton. She is no longer 
 young, as you saw, but she will always be attrac- 
 tive. Time was, too, when she was pretty enough, 
 as many of the Yale alumni can bear sorrowful tes- 
 timony. I was too young when I first met her to 
 be justified in aspiring to share her winning smile 
 with my full grown associates, but I knew that her 
 ways were sunny and her whole bearing that of a 
 thorough lady. In those days she was a medium- 
 sized, brown-haired, rosy-cheeked maiden, with 
 graceful manners, a finished education, and her 
 voice was a sort of ' vocal velvet. ' She attracted 
 suitors without number, and among those who 
 worshiped at her shrine in those ante-war days 
 were two students who have since become eminent 
 lawyers, one who has developed into a railroad 
 
50 MISS BRITTON'S ROMANCE. 
 
 president, another who now shares with only one 
 man the honor of being the leading journalist of 
 the West, while still others are occupying positions 
 of more or less importance in mercantile pursuits, 
 medicine and the law. It was naturally discour- 
 aging to be rejected, but none of them, I believe, 
 ever cherished a moment's resentment when each, 
 in his turn, was denied a closer companionship 
 than that of friend, and Harry Perkins, a passen- 
 ger-train conductor, was accepted as the man of 
 men and it was settled that Miss Britton should be- 
 come Mrs. Perkins. 
 
 "As the word is usually understood, Perkins was 
 one of the most patriotic of men. Without pos- 
 sessing any particularly noble traits of character 
 or any unusual mental gifts or acquirements, he 
 had a blind confidence in the greatness of the 
 United States, and an almost idolatrous faith in the 
 puissance of the American eagle, while to him the 
 American flag meant more than any other symbol 
 upon which his eyes had ever rested. As would 
 logically follow, therefore, when hostilities between 
 the Government and the South were avowed and 
 
MISS BRITTON'S ROMANCE. 51 
 
 Anderson's brave little band in Charleston harbor 
 were assailed by Confederate guns, the smoul- 
 dering enthusiasm in Harry Perkins' bosom burst 
 into flame, and dropping every pursuit, including 
 that of love making, in which he was largely en- 
 gaged just then, he donned the blue and went 
 marching southward to martial measure. We 
 heard but little from him after he went away, and 
 though it was generally admitted that Miss Britton 
 was in regular receipt of letters from her soldier 
 lover, it was occasionally hinted that the epistolary 
 blandishments of Private Perkins, of which some- 
 thing had been known in the bud, had not devel- 
 oped into perfect flower as a result of his associa- 
 tion with the implements of war and the carnage 
 of sanguinary strife. 
 
 ' ' My old associates often used to discuss Perkins. 
 They were anxious to discover what there was 
 about the fellow that should have secured him 
 favor with a woman who had discouraged so many 
 handsomer, cleverer and finer grained men than he. 
 As I neared my majority and an incipient mous- 
 tache began to disfigure my upper lip, I sometimes 
 
52 MISS BRITTON'S ROMANCE. 
 
 took a modest part in these debates. But that was 
 a long time ago. I have grown wiser since. No 
 sensible man, I fancy, ever bothers his head any 
 more endeavoring to analyze the elusive causes 
 underlying the preferences of women. I can 
 answer for one who does not, at all events, for I 
 am inclined to class their preferences with their 
 hates and quarrels, of which the astute Henry 
 Clay once said, shaking his head helplessly : 
 * They are like the hates and quarrels of the 
 Medes and Persians — they admit of neither inquiry 
 nor explanation.' 
 
 ' ' Years passed by, and the unfortunate war, which 
 had carried such cruel havoc to heart and purse, both 
 North and South, had terminated. On every hand 
 bells were ringing, and up from throats, irrespective 
 of their owners' political predilections, went joyous 
 cheers for the great captain who had smoothed 
 war's wrinkled front by his negotiations at Appo- 
 mattox. Again sweet peace reigned in our land, 
 and all was hope and thanksgiving everywhere. 
 Each and every north-bound train brought back 
 those of our brave, battered boys who had escaped 
 
MISS BR IT TON'S ROMANCE. 53 
 
 death by bullet and disease, while the dismembered 
 ranks of the Confederates were broken, and the 
 sturdy fellows who had fought for a principle they 
 conceived to be right sought their dismantled 
 homes. But the tidal wave flowing northward did 
 not restore Perkins to the eager arms of his affi- 
 anced wife. And yet sufficient evidence of his safe 
 delivery from the crucible of battle reached Miss 
 Britton's ears to satisfy her that he still lived. Mean- 
 time she had passed beyond the pale of youth and 
 was entering upon the epoch of mature spinster- 
 hood. The crimson in her cheeks began to fade, 
 the gloss went gradually but surely from her 
 beautifully abundant hair, and perchance a re- 
 minder that life was transitory — a reminder in the 
 shape of a silvery thread — came, now and again, 
 and shone among her luxuriant tresses. 
 
 "About this time Jack Dunwoody, one of her old 
 Yale lovers, who had married in the South during 
 the war, and who had meantime been widowed, 
 renewed his suit, but without success. He made 
 me his confidant and we discussed Miss Britton's 
 prolonged engagement the better part of the night. 
 
54 MISS BRITTON'S ROMANCE. 
 
 She had made her choice, Jack contended, and it 
 would be her final one. Deserving or undeserving 
 as Perkins might have been, Miss Britton had given 
 him her heart, and while it was plainly doubtful if 
 he ever returned to claim the treasure which had 
 awaited him through all the years, Dunwoody was 
 satisfied that no one else would ever fill the place 
 in her heart where Perkins, in fact, or his memory, 
 the idea, was imperishably enshrined. I do not 
 altogether indorse Jack's reasoning, and of course 
 I am not responsible for it. His views are pecu- 
 liar, and he discussed the subject something after 
 this fashion : 
 
 "'I sometimes think a woman enjoys the ' ' might 
 have been " more than she does the bright reality. 
 To her everything is dearest which is tinged with 
 sadness. Her favorite poem is pretty sure to be 
 " Lucille," her choice in music most certainly in- 
 cludes Gottschalk's "Last Hope," and the songs 
 which she adores are "When the Flowing Tide 
 Comes In," if she chances to like Millard ; 
 " Will He Come ?" if Sullivan be her preference, or 
 "Three Fishers Went Sailing Out into the West," 
 
MISS BRITTOJV'S ROMANCE. 55 
 
 if she has a fondness for Charles Kingsley. The 
 frame of mind which we regard as melancholy and 
 unfortunate is, perhaps, a woman's most ecstatic 
 condition. She is loyal by nature, and if oppor- 
 tunity has enabled her to show her fealty to a per- 
 son or an idea, then is she happy. If, in addition, 
 there is a dash of mystery thrown in as part and 
 parcel of her life and love, her imagination, ever 
 active and alert, fills in the lapses left by actualities, 
 and a series of alluring memories, impressions, 
 hopes and aspirations — all of them mere intangi- 
 bilities — are the result. Man cannot have his life 
 reduced to a point where it is too definite to suit 
 him. He would be glad to know in advance 
 just what was in store for him. Not so a woman — 
 any definite plan of life would bore her to death. 
 And we make the mistake, I think, of assuming 
 that a man who can make plain sailing for the wife 
 of his bosom, and who can do the most toward 
 reducing life's problem to an exact science, enters 
 the list of suitors well equipped for the contest. 
 No, my dear Herkimer, that isn't the way to win. 
 Devotion in exaggeration, neglect by wholesale, 
 
56 MISS BRITTON'S ROMANCE. 
 
 more or less mystery, and our adorable sister can 
 imagine things as beautiful and unmeaning as the 
 frost etchings on yonder window pane, and these 
 she undoubtedly prefers to such accurate and pro- 
 saic pictures as are the outcome of a union with a 
 man of regular habits, a good digestion and a log- 
 ical mind.' " 
 
 " Poor Jack," said King, tenderly, " he was very 
 funny at times. And yet we won't quarrel — in fact 
 we can't — with his odd notions, for it must be 
 remembered that he had twice received the mitten. 
 You remember what Holmes says — that when the 
 tide is very low it is possible to decipher the in- 
 scriptions on the Dighton rocks. Well, the tide 
 was very low with Jack on that gusty winter's 
 evening when he told me of his love and his 
 repeated rejections, and essayed to analyze the 
 feminine mind. The scars upon his heart, which 
 he then revealed, are not visible, I assure you, 
 when the stream is full and flows freely to the sea." 
 
 At this point King became silent for a moment. 
 Then he hummed in a rich mellow baritone a few 
 bars of "Sweet Flower, Impart." Resuming his 
 narrative, shortly, he concluded thus : 
 
MISS BRITTON'S ROMANCE. 57 
 
 " Last Christmas afternoon there was a great 
 merrymaking at 'Squire Britton's house in the out- 
 skirts of New Haven. There were present sons, 
 daughters, nephews and nieces, with their col- 
 lective progeny. The day was glorious ; ' the 
 Christmas sun was shining and the Christmas bells 
 were ringing far and near.' About four o'clock 
 Miss Britton was presiding over a rehearsal in a 
 large front room upstairs. A series of charades 
 were contemplated for the evening and she was 
 putting the children through their final paces pre- 
 paratory to their appearance at night. One of the 
 little ones who was perched in the broad window 
 seat, awaiting her cue, espied in the distance a man 
 making his uncertain way down the slippery road. 
 With her alternate outbursts of terror and amuse- 
 ment as the jaded and shabby stranger staggered 
 along the road, the little miss soon attracted her 
 aunt Edith to the window. Miss Britton peered 
 fixedly at the unkempt figure which by this time 
 had reached the avenue leading to the house. 
 Something in the man's mien as he came up the 
 walk caused her to grow pale, and firmly enjoining 
 
58 MISS BRITTON'S ROMANCE. 
 
 the children not to follow her, she passed quickly 
 down-stairs and met the stranger at the door. He 
 was ushered into the kitchen, where he was fed and 
 warmed. At nightfall, when his drunken stupor 
 had somewhat passed away, Miss Britton let the 
 visitor out at the side door, and giving him a bank 
 note, exacted a promise that he would go away. 
 From a window in her own room she watched his 
 departure. The moon had risen, and the encrusted 
 snow glistened and crunched beneath his steps as 
 he walked on and disappeared in the distance. 
 Two tears — only two — stole down Miss Britton's 
 cheeks. She thought of the unfortunate wanderer 
 plodding over the slippery road to some adjacent 
 town, and as she listened to the merriment that 
 pervaded the house like an aroma, she sighed and 
 pondered on the widely differing conditions of 
 God's creatures that Christmas night. Then she 
 dried her eyes, and, with a smile of resignation on 
 her lips, she mingled with the gleeful throng below. " 
 "Well, that is the whole story," said King, with 
 a sigh. "What follows you have suspected, of 
 course. In a little while it came to be understood 
 
MISS BRITTON' S ROMANCE. 59 
 
 in New Haven that Perkins had returned and had 
 gone away again forever. With all the varying 
 degrees of sympathy and the myriad of other 
 emotions which do credit to the human heart, it 
 was further understood, although never betrayed 
 by word or look in her presence, that Miss Britton 
 had had her romance and that its end had come." 
 
 "Going to be here long ? " asked my companion 
 after a brief pause. 
 
 "A week or two," I returned. 
 
 "That's good; we shall become better ac- 
 quainted, as I intend to stay here a fortnight at 
 least. Mrs. King will be glad to know you. We 
 will make up a party if you like and climb Mount 
 Lafayette to-morrow. I'll have to go in now," he 
 said, consulting his watch, "or Mrs. King will be 
 inconsolable." 
 
 We shook hands, and afterward, up in my room 
 under the eaves, as I smoked innumerable cigars 
 and gazed up into the star-enstudded heavens until 
 long after midnight, I thought a great deal about 
 Miss Britton and "her romance." The next 
 morning, after breakfast, when I went out to note 
 
60 MISS BRITTON'S ROMANCE. 
 
 the arrivals from Littleton, everybody, including 
 Miss Britton, with the exception of Mr. and Mrs. 
 King, was on the piazza. I looked for the Kings 
 everywhere, but found them not. My search, 
 however, was cut short by the arrival of the stage, 
 which was crowded. Among the first to clamber 
 down from the roof of the lumbering old vehicle 
 was Curtis Dodge, a banker in one of the in- 
 terior cities of New York. I had known him 
 several years, and was about to accost him, when, 
 to my horror, he seized the patient mourner for 
 the lapses of Perkins and imprinted kiss after kiss 
 upon her smiling face, only ceasing when she ex- 
 postulated, saying: 
 
 "Why, Curtis! Consider where we are and 
 all the people !" 
 
 Mr. Dodge laughed merrily, and espying me he 
 came up and nearly wrung my hand off. In 
 another minute I was bowing confusedly before 
 my heroine of the romance, to whom I had sud- 
 denly been presented. 
 
 "Mrs. Dodge," said my friend, "has been 
 roaming about these hills for a month await- 
 
MISS BKITTON'S ROMANCE. 61 
 
 ing my arrival. We are building a little railroad 
 from " 
 
 "Mrs. Dodge!" I exclaimed, interrupting 
 him. 
 
 "Yes, this is she," he replied. "Thought I 
 wasn't married, eh ? Oh, yes, we have been wedded 
 these twenty years, and one of our three boys is 
 already in college at Cambridge." 
 
 And thus Miss Britton, with her pathetic ro- 
 mance, the erring and dissolute Perkins, and the 
 imagined sweetness of childish laughter reverbera- 
 ting through the rooms of the mythical farm- 
 house at Christmas-tide, were swept into the limbo 
 of uncreated things, where lie buried forever my 
 unspoken eloquence, my unpainted pictures and 
 my songs unsung. 
 
 I went again in quest of Herkimer King, and as 
 I searched for him in vain my mind was active. I 
 am not too familiar with the Scriptures, but I 
 remembered something contained in them, and I 
 fully accepted the proposition that all men are lia 
 — liable to indulge their propensity for romancing. 
 Presently there arose the sound of carriage-wheels 
 
62 MISS MUTTON' S ROMANCE. 
 
 and Mrs. King came bowling up the road. Toss- 
 ing the reins to an attendant, who led away her 
 foaming horse, she sprang lightly upon the piazza, 
 and opened up a lively dialogue with a gentleman 
 who had sprained his wrist by falling from his 
 horse in coming down the mountain drive. Her 
 cheeks were ruddy, her eyes were flashing and her 
 white teeth glistened in striking contrast with the 
 ruby of her lips. 1 walked over to where Mr. and 
 Mrs. Dodge were sitting, and said carelessly, ad- 
 dressing the latter: "This Mr. King — he is a 
 friend of yours, I believe." 
 
 "Oh, yes," she replied, "anew friend. The 
 Kings were at the Crawford House for a week, and 
 I took that delightful creature yonder quite to my 
 heart. I found her husband very entertaining, too, 
 and then I am indebted to him for many little 
 favors. He had the knack of eloquently recom- 
 mending charming books which I had not read, 
 and then he would produce them for me to read." 
 
 "What is his business? " I pursued. 
 
 "Oh, he has no business — that is, not in the 
 sense that husband has. He is an artist and 
 
MISS BRITTON'S ROMANCE. 63 
 
 makes for the newspapers pictures which, he says, 
 are a long way after Du Maurier." 
 
 "Ah, indeed," I returned dryly. Then after a 
 pause I added : "Supposing you introduce me to 
 Mrs. King. Her husband said she would be glad 
 to know me." 
 
 Mrs. Dodge quickly assented, and I was pre- 
 sented accordingly. After a spirited exchange of 
 badinage between Mr. Dodge and Mrs. King, I 
 addressed myself to the latter, saying: "And 
 Mr. King — where is he this morning ? " 
 
 " Gone back to New York," replied his vivacious 
 wife. "Isn't it too bad? But his time was up 
 yesterday, and he is needed at the office. Such 
 a fellow as he is, too, a perfect athlete. He is 
 going to walk from Littleton to Plymouth and take 
 train from there. It was only under protest that he 
 would permit me to drive him part of the way." 
 
 "I trust you left him 'in good form,' Mrs. 
 King. That, I believe, is one of the phrases 
 which finds favor in pedestrianic circles," said I. 
 
 "Yes, indeed," she replied gaily, "in excellent 
 form. As he swung down the road he was every 
 
64 MISS BRITTON'S ROMANCE. 
 
 inch a King." Then laughing, she added, with 
 just a hint of pathos in her velvety voice: "The 
 mowers ceased their labors and leaned upon their 
 scythes, to listen, as he went singing afield, 
 ' All in the rosy morning.' : 
 
AN EVENING REVERIE. 
 
AN EVENING REVERIE. 
 
 lyiND reader, did you ever steal away from 
 everybody and everything, and, seeking your 
 library, sit down in the coming twilight before a 
 glowing grate ? If you have, you will sympathize 
 fully with me in that sweet inertia that comes over 
 one as he sits thus and puffs the much abused but 
 ever soothing weed, of which his Satanic majesty is 
 said to have sown the germ. If you have never 
 done so, listen and you may sit by me. The 
 cheerful fire awakens pleasant memories, and the 
 fragrant tobacco induces a mellowness of mind 
 almost ecstatic. When the moon's soft beams fall 
 beside you, as the evening advances, as was the case 
 with me last night, there is little else attainable in 
 this world worth wishing for. You may not see 
 the pictures on the wall, but you feel their pres- 
 ence. You realize that Beatrice Cenci regards you 
 kindly as you puff the smoke rings upward. And 
 though Washington and his small band of fol- 
 lowers, who are crossing the Delaware — in a steel 
 
68 AN EVENING REVERIE. 
 
 engraving — over behind you, are invisible as you 
 gaze into the fire, you know that they are dividing 
 their attention between the guidance of their 
 frail craft on its perilous journey and your airy 
 musings. There are many other pictures adorning 
 the walls, and you experience that quiet satisfac- 
 tion inseparable from being in delightful company. 
 On your right sit Washington Irving and his 
 friends, and on your left Shakespeare and his con- 
 temporaries, both groups indulging in achat which 
 you would give half your life — possibly that half 
 you are done with — to have heard. The busts of 
 Burns, of Scott and Byron surmount the mantel- 
 piece; a pair of Rogers' groups are near at hand, 
 and, finally, there are those wonderful entertainers, 
 the books on your library shelves. And if Wash- 
 ington and his followers are mute; if Beatrice is 
 content to entrance the eye without adding the 
 music of her voice ; if Irving, Shakespeare and 
 their respective associates say nothing to you, and 
 Burns, Scott and Byron deign not to relax their 
 set features for your instruction, what recks it ? The 
 books will talk to you as men can never speak. 
 
AN EVENING REVERIE. 69 
 
 You sit within an enchanted circle, and have only 
 to rise, step forward two strides, and, mirabile 
 dicta! you may commune with Landor, with 
 Goethe, Shakespeare, Plutarch, Balzac, or any of 
 the others who have contributed their wisdom for 
 the benefit of mankind, from wise Confucius to 
 dainty, bewitching Thomas Bailey Aldrich. 
 
 I was sitting thus last evening, when I heard a 
 voice so wondrously modulated and sweet that I 
 fancied, for the instant which it required for me to 
 emerge from my reverie, that Beatrice had surely 
 spoken, and the voice inquired, " May I come 
 in?" Before I could say "Yes," this practical 
 observation followed: " Why, John, you great 
 goose, why don't you light the gas ? It is as 
 dark as a pocket here " ; saying which, my 
 bonny wife approached me, and brushed back 
 my hair with the same lingering tenderness 
 with which she fondled me many years ago, 
 when we were in the heyday of our honey- 
 moon. We are lovers still, Mary and I — we 
 must always be. Adapted to each other by 
 temperament, education and general tendencies, 
 
70 AN E VENING RE VERIE. 
 
 our love has grown with our years and strengthened 
 with our strength. Behold in us the happiest 
 couple in Christendom! Not that we are by any 
 means alike ; oh, no! Mary is shrewd, practical — 
 in fact, she is common sense personified. She 
 makes good bargains, takes a wholesome view of 
 life, and does good to all about her as naturally 
 and easily as the sun shines or the wind blows. I 
 am a bit of a dreamer, I am given to the advocacy 
 of ideas which I am so often convinced are impracti- 
 cable that I have but little faith in my own views ; 
 I am easily imposed upon in numerous ways, and, 
 except at rare intervals, I go about my business 
 feeling, with Meredith, that life is not altogether 
 what we planned it out. As you may judge, Mary 
 is a perfect balance for me. Without her I should 
 be as nothing, but together we are a steady going 
 couple, who admire each other's qualities, and fall 
 more and more deeply in love as we grow older; 
 for in spite of our differing views we sympathize 
 fully on all matters of importance to our own and 
 the well being of those near and dear to us. 
 
 I regret that I have not time to tell you all 
 
AN EVENING REVERIE. 71 
 
 about ourselves, and give an episode here and there 
 in our married life. Suffice it that we were friends 
 at first, lovers betimes, and "married folk" at last. 
 I would like, moreover, to tell you what we were 
 talking about last evening, but Mary would not 
 approve of it, and as usual I yield to her better 
 judgment. I am so happy under circumstances 
 peculiarly adapted to my eccentric though not 
 altogether sunless nature, that I would communi- 
 cate my thoughts and the pretty things my wife 
 and I say to each other to the whole world. But 
 Mary says the world would laugh at us, and very 
 likely she is right, so I shall spare you a report of 
 our conversation. 
 
 But I may safely tell you what was occupying 
 my mind when Mary came to sit by me. I was 
 thinking of our early love ; of how we were associ- 
 ated together in a pretty Massachusetts village, 
 and of our increasing fondness for each other as 
 we approached that period which by a polite fiction 
 is called years of discretion. She grew to be 
 delicate in health as she attained her eighteenth 
 year, and fears were entertained that she would die 
 
72 AN EVENING REVERIE. 
 
 of consumption, as her mother had done. Her 
 physician prescribed a change of air, and her 
 father took her abroad. Our parting was very sad, 
 for she was ill and strangely whimsical. " I shall 
 die in some strange land, John,'" she said, " and 
 shall never see you again." And then she wept 
 softly, and my own eyes were not wholly dry. I 
 had just graduated at the bar, and went to Boston 
 to practice my profession in her absence. During 
 the two years which followed I was moderately 
 successful, but I must confess that I was not happy. 
 Mary's letters and those from her father were not 
 encouraging, but I was young and brave hearted. 
 So I hoped for the best, and, if sometimes I lost 
 interest in my law books, and my mind wandered 
 to the sequestered village where I had met my 
 love, and I fell to thinking fondly of green 
 lanes and of her who used to be my companion 
 amid scenes of quiet loveliness, I came back to my- 
 self shortly and resumed the duties of my work-a- 
 day life. I cannot say that I thought of the 
 country with a feeling of regret. I only dwelt on 
 it because it suggested the happiest hours of my 
 
AN E VENING RE VERIE. 73 
 
 life — my three years as a student in Judge Bas- 
 com's office. Although born in the country I was 
 a town man by adoption and instinct, and though 
 visiting the country at favorable seasons of the year 
 and enjoying these changes exceedingly, I admired 
 the rural scenery at certain other periods some- 
 thing after the manner in which that very funny 
 man admired the sea, who, after sailing around 
 Cape Horn, ejaculated in homely rhyme : 
 
 " Oh ! I love the sea, as I've said before, 
 But I love it best when seen from shore." 
 
 Well, Mary came home at last and we were mar- 
 ried. How well I remember that golden August 
 day — the 1 7th. She had entirely recovered her 
 health, and, oh, how beautiful she was ! I remem- 
 ber that she seemed to me as an angel, and even 
 at the altar my better nature rebelled at the idea of 
 linking her pure life with my imperfect one, and 
 I had serious intentions of forbidding the bans. 
 But I was selfish, as all men are, and, ignoring my 
 own unworthiness, I permitted the ceremony to go 
 forward. As we emerged from the church, followed 
 by the worthy villagers, the birds sang joyously, 
 
74 AN EVENING REVERIE. 
 
 and I was very, very happy. I felt that God had 
 indeed blessed me beyond my deserts, but I kept 
 my emotion to myself. A week later, deferring to 
 my whimsical tendencies, and intuitively fathoming 
 my unfitness for the country, Mary announced one 
 morning her preference for the town, and asked 
 me as a favor to her that we go at once to Boston. 
 Her father accompanied us, but he passed away 
 after a few years. He blessed us with his dying 
 breath, and smilingly went forth into the great here- 
 after. How the past came back to me last night 
 as I sat dreaming my day dreams in the mingled 
 moon and fire light ! I was almost a poet then, 
 and if a diviner hand had not swept the lyre to the 
 same purpose, I belive I could have written some- 
 thing beautiful on the " Pleasures of Memory." 
 
 "Will I let the children come up ?" inquired 
 Biddy, from the dining-room. 
 
 The children finally come up. There are three 
 of them — John, nine years old; Henry, seven, and 
 Mamie, three. I object to having the gas lighted 
 when Mary urges its ignition. Behold me victori- 
 ous in the dimly lighted room ! On a low stool at 
 
AN E VENING RE VERIE. 75 
 
 my side sits Mary, fairer, sweeter than the flowers — 
 those voiceless, yet earnest and convincing preach- 
 ers. On one knee sits John, on the other Henry, 
 while Mamie clings to my neck, and nestles her 
 sunny head upon my shoulder. Verily I would do 
 without the gaslight always, if only to have the 
 children sit so closely and seem to place themselves 
 under my protection without reserve — to have them 
 look up to me with that aspect of perfect trust 
 which never characterizes my children except when 
 darkness is around us. Of course we must tell them 
 stories, so Mary and I alternate as the inventors of 
 little romances, such as children like. She relates 
 tales of knights and great achievements, and I tell 
 them of the grotesque and fanciful. And how 
 silent the little ones are as Mary weaves her pretty 
 tales of chivalrous men and deeds. How merrily 
 they laugh when I narrate the mythical adven- 
 tures of impossible boys and girls. We are very 
 happy, I can tell you. Then follows song after 
 song, with very perfect result, for Mary's voice, 
 like her every other attribute, is sweet and winning, 
 and the boys are making good headway with their 
 
76 AN E VENING RE VERIE. 
 
 music. Mamie and I are the only weak ones in 
 our home quintette, she being too young to learn 
 the songs the boys are taught at school, and I 
 being ambitious to sing the right words to the 
 wrong tune, without making discord, and always 
 failing. 
 
 As the evening drew on we purposed to close 
 our delightful session with "Hold the Fort," 
 something perfectly familiar to all of us, even to 
 Mamie. The first verse seemed to limp a little, 
 and I looked inquiringly at Mary, but her glance 
 of encouragement reassured me, and I sang on 
 right sturdily thenceforward. It was during the 
 progress of the second stanza that we discovered 
 the cause of the inharmony — Mamie was singing 
 "Little Brown Jug, You and Me." At this we 
 laughed heartily, and as our voices died away a 
 sort of blindness stole upon me. My wife's sweet 
 face seemed to fade from sight, then the children 
 began to recede from view, at last dissolving alto- 
 gether, and, starting up, I stood alone. The fire 
 was nearly dead, there were no pictures on the 
 wall, there were no copies of Shakespeare, Plutarch, 
 
AN EVENING REVERIE. 77 
 
 Goethe — or of anybody except Coke and Black- 
 stone, and other legal lights, on the single shelf 
 above the fireplace. My vision had passed away, 
 and again I was an old bachelor lawyer — the self- 
 same gray old John Marble, whom my brethren 
 who congregate at the courthouse know so well, 
 and, no doubt, depreciate, were the truth known. 
 I walked stiffly to the window, for my limbs are no 
 longer young, and looking out I beheld the sleep- 
 ing city bathed in radiant light. The cathedral 
 bells had just rung out the midnight hour. Turn- 
 ing, I marked that the moon's soft beams fell 
 across the oaken floor, as I had seen them rest 
 upon the richly tinted carpet of my library, and 
 a pain like an unexpected twinge from an old 
 sprain shook me, for I knew that the moonbeams 
 lighting my dingy room rested also on a grave in 
 a country church yard not far remote. They have 
 rested there through thirty years — above my Mary's 
 dust. John and Henry and Mamie — God bless 
 you, my dream children! — were never born, but 
 since God willed it so, I thank Him as I brush 
 away an old man's foolish tears. 
 
ESTHER ROMAINE. 
 
ESTHER ROMAINE. 
 
 AM what the world calls "an oldish fellow"; 
 but the boy never dies out of some natures, 
 and mine is such an one. I am as fond of reading 
 sentimental stories, pretty little poems, and sad, 
 weird novels, of listening to the morning songs of 
 the birds and of plucking wild flowers in the fields, 
 as I was years ago, when in the heyday of my 
 youth I was, like my fellows, more or less roman- 
 tic. Albeit the winters have drifted "like flakes 
 of snow, and the summers like buds between," 
 until I sometimes feel, with Ruskin, that it is a 
 little saddening to watch the golden sunsets, the 
 sun goes down so fast, yet am I young in all but 
 outward form and semblance. I make little pil- 
 grimages when the summer has fled, to the no 
 great neglect of my legal business, to watch the 
 changing colors of the forest trees, and sometimes, 
 once in a few years, I visit New York, and pass a 
 sunny autumn day at Central Park. No words at 
 the command of a superannuated old lawyer, like 
 
82 ESTHER ROMAINE. 
 
 the writer, can properly describe the beauties of 
 that marvel of city gardening when the frost has 
 put its imprint on the myriad of trees and shrubs. 
 A lovely spot, to all admirers of art in nature, at 
 any time, Central Park becomes indescribably cap- 
 tivating when its plumage has changed from the 
 emerald of spring and summer, and has assumed 
 the numberless tints of the rainbow. To wander 
 on, heedless of whither my footsteps tend, and 
 note this specimen of gorgeous scarlet, that clump 
 of golden leaves, and the ever recurring browns, 
 silvers, purples and yellows, is my delight. And 
 when the sun shines brightly and the birds sing 
 their melancholy songs — it always seems to me as 
 if they sing in unison with nature ; merrily when 
 she is reviving, serenely and with mellowness in 
 the days of her summer opulence, and sadly in the 
 hours of her decay — I feel as if I had come into 
 possession of my Spanish castles, and in heart, at 
 least, I am a boy again. 
 
 I recall, at this moment, a visit made to Central 
 Park two years ago. I am not positive whether it 
 was in the last days of October, or in the first of 
 
ESTHER ROMAINE. 83 
 
 November. Suffice it that the weather was most 
 beautiful. I had strolled about until I was weary 
 and footsore, and had stopped to rest on the bridge 
 overlooking the lake. As you will remember, 
 this bridge is reached from the Mall by crossing 
 the Drive, and one may loiter there and see all 
 those who pass in carriages. There were but few 
 people visible as I leaned against the rail and sur- 
 veyed the lovely scene about me. The sun was 
 sinking rapidly below a bank of gray, cold look- 
 ing clouds, a chilling wind was springing up, and 
 I was about buttoning my coat more firmly around 
 me and setting out for the city, when I noticed a 
 rather distinguished looking gentleman down by 
 the lake. He was, perhaps, five and thirty years 
 of age, and was amusing himself by throwing 
 pebbles out into the wrinkled waters. He was a 
 handsome fellow, smoothly shaven and tastefully 
 dressed, though something about the cut of his 
 attire persuaded me that it was not of American 
 manufacture. I set him down in my mind as an 
 English tourist, and as he was now coming toward 
 me I prepared to scrutinize him more closely. 
 
84 ESTHER ROMAINE. 
 
 Just as he was mounting the steps which led to 
 where I was standing, the rumbling of wheels 
 diverted my attention, and I turned my gaze in 
 the opposite direction. Presently, a lady and 
 gentleman came dashing by behind a pair of high 
 stepping horses. From the instant the carriage 
 came within sight until it disappeared my eyes 
 rested on the lady. To say that she was beautiful 
 beyond the power of this hand to express, scarcely 
 dismisses the subject. I never saw, to my recollec- 
 tion, so faultless a pair of shoulders. Her head, 
 too, was a marvel of loveliness. There was a poise 
 about it which enhanced the sweetness of a face 
 reminding me of Lucca's, and the rich locks of 
 hair which escaped from control with the rapid 
 pace, were as those of Dante's Beatrice — like 
 sheaves of gathered sunshine. I stood spellbound, as 
 if an angel had passed my way. For a moment 
 I scarcely breathed, counting it wrong to inhale the 
 air, hallowed as I thought it, by a recent presence 
 bordering on the divine. 
 
 " Lovely woman, isn't she ? " came from beside 
 me, and as soon as I could recover my equanimity 
 
ESTHER ROMAINE. 85 
 
 I turned, and meeting the eyes of the pebble caster, 
 I replied : 
 
 " Indeed, sir, you may well say so. Like most 
 men of my years, I have my sweet and bitter mem- 
 ories; I have castles of gold and cedar, and im- 
 mense domains in dreamland, through which flow 
 silver rivers. My castles overlook lawns of peren- 
 nial green, and the air is fragrant with the incense 
 of orange blossoms and myrrh. Sitting at my 
 windows at eventide, I see in the luminous atmos- 
 phere faces of wondrous beauty, but none fairer 
 or more angelic than hers. A lovely woman, 
 most assuredly." 
 
 " I suppose, of course, you know her ?" he re- 
 turned. 
 
 " I haven't that honor. I wish 1 had," I said. 
 " Do you know her?" I inquired. 
 
 My companion gave a long whistle, and finally 
 answered abruptly: "Yes, I do know her; and 
 she has a history, too ; but it is not much known, 
 nor of particular interest to strangers. Let it pass. 
 But," he added, in a brisker vein, " I am sur- 
 prised, if you are a New Yorker, that you do not 
 know the brilliant Mrs. Vaughn. " 
 
86 ESTHER ROMAINE. 
 
 " I am not a New Yorker," I rejoined. " I live 
 in Boston, and have never heard of Mrs. Vaughn, 
 I assure you. " 
 
 "Well, you have of her husband, surely," my 
 entertaining friend resumed. " She is the wife of 
 Howard Vaughn, the capitalist — Vaughn, Giddings 
 & Gluck, the Broad street bankers. Vaughn is a 
 fine fellow, I think, though I have abundant reason 
 to hate him cordially. But I respect the man and 
 ignore my personal animosity. He likes good 
 horses, good wine and good living, but he is a 
 man of cultivation, also. You may remember him 
 as the companion of George Kennan, who was 
 sent out to construct an overland line of telegraph 
 in northern Siberia, to connect the exisiting lines 
 in British Columbia with the established Russian 
 lines on the Asiatic Coast, some years ago, and 
 which was abandoned with the unexpected success 
 of the second Atlantic cable. Vaughn afterward 
 wrote a book reciting his experiences in Siberia 
 — 'Snow Shoes and Sledges,' I think was its 
 title. Oh, yes ! he is a clever fellow ; he writes 
 articles for the daily papers on finance, essays on 
 
ESTHER ROMAINE. 87 
 
 social and literary themes for the magazines, and 
 a poem now and then so sweet and pathetic that 
 you would imagine its author to be some pastoral 
 queen who had never wandered from the shaded 
 lanes and quiet forests of her country home long 
 enough to even hear the echo of a city's hum and 
 bustle." 
 
 My companion subsided, and as we had begun 
 walking while he was speaking, he fell to cutting 
 at the bushes with his cane, and seemed to be 
 preoccupied. I had become greatly interested in 
 his remarks, and expressing my thanks for the 
 confidences he had communicated, I intimated 
 that I should be glad to know what reasons he had 
 for hating so gifted a man as Mr. Vaughn. But 
 my words seemed to be utterly lost upon him. 
 Evidently his mind was elsewhere. We walked on 
 in silence for some minutes when my friend asked 
 abruptly : 
 
 "Did you notice Vaughn at all ?" 
 
 I replied that I did not ; that my attention was 
 so much engrossed by the lady and her marvelous 
 beauty that I had not bestowed so much as a 
 glance on her husband. 
 
88 ESTHER KOMAINE. 
 
 "I am sorry," continued my companion, "that 
 you did not note him more closely. He is a won- 
 derful man, possessed of a face which once seen 
 can never be forgotten. Born in the country, he 
 has a nature so informed by the idyllic surround- 
 ings of his childhood that his manner is almost 
 womanly in its sweetness. Contact with the 
 world in later years has polished him outwardly 
 to the last degree, so that, take him all in all, he is 
 really a most remarkable specimen of simplicity, 
 wordly wisdom, large heartedness, culture and 
 affection delightfully blended." 
 
 We had now reached the Exit, and without 
 ceremony my friend called a coupe and plunged 
 into it. I was moving off, not a little perplexed at 
 all I had heard and his unceremonious manner of 
 quitting me, and had just signaled a Fourth avenue 
 car, when a carriage stopped beside me, and a 
 voice I recognized at once said : 
 
 " I suppose you would like to hear her history, 
 since you think Mrs. Vaughn so beautiful ?" 
 
 To my answer in the affirmative, the voice con- 
 tinued : " Well, come and dine with me to-morrow 
 
ESTHER ROMAINE. 89 
 
 night, at the Clarendon, and I will tell you about 
 her." 
 
 And a hand was put forth which grasped mine 
 cordially, as the speaker concluded : "I some- 
 how took a fancy to you from the first, and over 
 our coffee and cigars to-morrow evening I will 
 tell you a story so strange, inexplicable and sad 
 that you will have something to think of for a long 
 time. Be at the Clarendon at seven o'clock sharp, 
 and ask for Conrad Kirschbaum — pshaw! not a 
 card with me, just my luck — and you shall know 
 all." 
 
 I readily assented, and my new acquaintance, 
 falling back among the cushions with a sigh, sig- 
 naled wearily to his driver to proceed, and the 
 carriage passed rapidly down Fifth avenue, quickly 
 disappearing around a corner. 
 
 I dined with Kirschbaum the next evening ac- 
 cording to engagement. After dinner he told me 
 the following singular story : He was the son of 
 the Rev. Conrad Kirschbaum, deceased, of Allen- 
 town, Pa. In 1870 he had fallen a prey to a 
 malarial fever, and went abroad to recuperate his 
 
90 ESTHER ROMAINE. 
 
 health. In Paris he met Miss Esther Romaine, of 
 Albany ; they fell in love, became engaged, and 
 were to be married on their return to America. 
 While they were deep in their plans for future bliss, 
 the Commune revolted. The siege of Paris began 
 and progressed without eliciting their attention, 
 until one day, when it was too late to leave the 
 city by the usual methods of conveyance, they 
 awoke to a realization that they were prisoners in a 
 foreign city. From this point I will let Kirschbaum 
 tell his own story : 
 
 "Oh! how I loved that girl — howl love her 
 still. But that is not to the purpose. There was 
 only one way out of the city — by balloon. It was 
 with no small difficulty that I obtained Esther's 
 consent to leave by that means, but she reluctantly 
 complied at last. Then I had no end of trouble 
 about getting a balloon, and ran the imminent risk 
 of being shot in making the start. In a few days, 
 however, all was ready. I was to meet Esther at her 
 hotel at seven o'clock in the evening, and from thence 
 we hoped to quit Paris before night had set in. As 
 I was pacing the floor at my lodgings, she came to 
 
ESTHER RO MAINE, 91 
 
 me about six o'clock — an hour before the time at 
 which I had agreed to call for her. I remonstrated 
 with her for jeoparding her life by coming out-of- 
 doors before nightfall and without an escort, but 
 she averred that she felt so wretched away from me 
 in the great danger which threatened us and she 
 seemed so dependent on me that I ceased my 
 chiding. We left my lodgings about fifteen minutes 
 before seven, and between seven and eight o'clock 
 we stepped on board the balloon, which, when the 
 word was given, shot up into the air and rose to a 
 great height. Have you ever done any ballooning ? 
 No ? Well, it is a queer sensation which a man 
 feels on his first trip. The firm earth seems to drop 
 from beneath you, the people and objects below 
 appear to be rapidly falling into space. It is 
 impossible at first to realize that you are ascend- 
 ing. It was a moonlight night and we could see 
 that we were passing over the suburbs of Paris. To 
 our rear lay the vast extent of the city. Beneath us 
 the land, trees, houses and fields swept past in 
 such rapid succession that I decided that I must 
 shortly think about making a landing. On which 
 
92 ESTHER KOMAINE. 
 
 side of the city I was, I could not determine, but 
 I knew that at the terrific rate of speed at which 
 we were going, I must descend before long. 
 Faster and faster the now indefinable objects below 
 swept past us, when suddenly the report of a rifle 
 startled me. Breaking from Esther, whose arms 
 were around me, and whose head rested upon my 
 shoulder, I peered over the side of the car, but 
 could discover nothing. We were being fired at, 
 I judged, and so with a view to rising higher, and 
 thus placing ourselves out of range, I began to 
 empty the bags of ballast. I now abandoned all 
 thought of descending. My only hope of safety 
 was to go higher, higher. The balloon seemed to 
 shoot up a limitless distance, as the sand ran out. 
 The moon was so low on the horizon that I knew 
 that it would soon sink and leave us in total dark- 
 ness and indescribable desolation, but safe at all 
 events from hostile bullets. The darkness and 
 desolation followed very shortly afterward, and I 
 resumed my place at Esther's side. She was 
 brave and calm, and seated up there in boundless 
 space, knowing not whither we went, nor at what 
 
ESTHER ROMAINE. 93 
 
 moment we might be plunged into the yawn- 
 ing abyss below us, I felt to the full how 
 dearly I loved her, and how little I deserved her 
 love. A man realizes his utter worthlessness at 
 such times ; he feels how completely his poor 
 mortal shell is in the grasp of God ; how easy 
 it is to crush him out of existence, and how mean, 
 narrow and inconsequential is all human effort. 
 In the silence of that night, and in the presence of 
 the majestic conditions around us, Esther and I 
 found voice to talk of our love and our future as 
 we had never talked before — as no lovers had ever 
 talked before, perhaps. We spoke low, and with 
 something of the timidity of children when the 
 lightning darts across the skies, accompanied by 
 the reverberations of deafening peals of thunder. 
 It is under such circumstances, sir, no matter how 
 self-dependent a man may be by nature, that he 
 speaks like a sick girl, and qualifies his declara- 
 tions with ' i f it please God, ' ' if Heaven approves, ' 
 and similar phrases of deference to the Supreme 
 Being whom he feels is very near to him. 
 And thus through the night we sat motionless, 
 
94 ESTHER RO MAINE. 
 
 and talked until Esther grew silent and finally 
 dropped asleep in my arms, like a tired child 
 upon its mother's breast. I sat supporting her 
 fair head for perhaps an hour or more, when 
 the first sound that I had heard, except our sub- 
 dued voices, since the rifle shot as we soared 
 over the Paris fortifications, fell upon my ears. 
 It was a plashing noise, suggestive of water below 
 us, and my heart stopped beating. I listened, and 
 again I heard the complaining voices of the waves. 
 Removing Esther from my arms and placing her 
 in as comfortable a position as possible, I went and 
 looked over the side of the car, but I could see 
 nothing. A dull, opaque gloom, in which noth- 
 ing whatsoever was distinguishable, was all that met 
 my eager gaze. But after a time I discovered 
 something like motion. Whether it was the roll- 
 ing clouds or the movement of waves I could not 
 determine. I went back to where Esther was 
 reclining. She was still sleeping soundly, and, 
 kissing her softly, I enveloped her more snugly in 
 the wraps we had brought, and returned to watch 
 developments. As I gazed the sounds seemed to 
 
ESTHER RO MAINE. 95 
 
 come nearer and nearer, and at length the moving 
 objects beneath became more distinctly revealed in 
 the increasing dawn, which was apparently break- 
 ing. All at once I beheld the movement beneath 
 and around me regular and recurrent, and in my 
 ears sounded the dash of angry waters — the surg- 
 ing, foaming, seething billows of the sea ! I sud- 
 denly recognized, then, that I had been gradually 
 descending by reason of the percolation of the gas, 
 and so I began again to cast out ballast. This had 
 the desired effect, and we rapidly ascended. No, 
 not we. For when I returned to where I had left 
 Esther sleeping, she was gone." 
 
 "I will not weary you," he went on rapidly, 
 " with a recital of what I suffered in the next few 
 hours. Though I was satisfied that I was sus- 
 pended above the Atlantic Ocean, and the beating 
 of the sullen waves beneath me sounded plainly in 
 my ears, what cared I ? Esther, my Esther, gentle, 
 loving, peerless Esther, had perished ! And how, 
 only God and the angels knew. I laid down in 
 the bottom of the car and waited for death. It 
 could not be far off, I reasoned, for it was now 
 
96 ESTHER ROMAINE. 
 
 light, and as far as the eye could reach there was 
 one vast expanse of water. It was the Atlantic ; 
 that was patent, and I made ready to meet my fate. 
 After lying in a semi-dazed state of despair for 
 hours, I was at length awakened to consciousness 
 and action by a rustling, scraping sound. As I 
 staggered to my feet the balloon tilted, and it was 
 only by a quick movement and by strenuously 
 holding on to the rigging, that I escaped being 
 thrown from the car. Ready and willing to die, 
 with nothing but sorrowful recollections and a fu- 
 ture as dull and cold as the tomb, Fate decreed 
 that I should live. The car had caught in the top 
 of some lofty forest trees, and in a few moments I 
 was safe on terra firma. I found a village near at 
 hand, and having the good fortune to find a man 
 who spoke French, I ascertained that I had come 
 to anchor in Norway. That I was beside myself 
 with grief, you can readily believe. But what 
 could I do ? I could not communicate with 
 Esther's friends in Paris, even if they still remained 
 there, which was unlikely, and so I proceeded 
 with all haste to Liverpool, and took the first 
 
ESTHER ROMAINE. 97 
 
 steamer for home. From Allentown I wrote to her 
 relatives in Albany the sad story of Esther's mys- 
 terious death, and my brother, who is a merchant 
 in Shanghae, being on the point of returning to 
 China, I accompanied him thither, hoping to bury 
 my troubles by diving into commercial pursuits. 
 But it was useless ; I stayed in China until last 
 year, and then came to New York as a representa- 
 tive of my brother's firm. " 
 
 Kirschbaum seemed much moved at this point, 
 and walked nervously about the room for two or 
 three minutes. Then he proceeded : 
 
 "Perhaps I told you yesterday that Central 
 Park has a strange fascination for me. No ? Well, 
 it has. One day, some months after my arrival, 
 while I was horseback riding, I came upon a lady 
 and gentleman, and that is all I remember. I 
 swooned in my saddle and fell. When I revived 
 I was lying in a summer-house near where I had 
 fallen, and the result of the fall was to put me in 
 bed for three months. You naturally wonder what 
 caused me to faint. I will tell you. 
 
 "1 had seen Esther Romaine. 
 
 7 
 
98 ESTHER R0MA1NE. 
 
 "And what was worse, I learned that she was 
 married. You saw her yesterday, sir, in the per- 
 son of Mrs. Howard Vaughn." 
 
 "But how did she escape death?" I inquired, 
 aghast. " Why did she marry, why did — " 
 
 " There is where the mystery comes in," he inter- 
 rupted. " I arranged an interview when I got out 
 again, and she charged me with having deserted 
 her, of having left her to perish in Paris, while she 
 maintained that she was in readiness at the hotel as 
 agreed, at seven o'clock precisely, and that I never 
 came to her, which was true enough. Finally she 
 denied that she ever set foot in that balloon. And 
 so, chagrined at my supposed desertion and almost 
 crazed with fear, she was about to give up all hope, 
 when Howard Vaughn, a casual acquainiance of 
 ours, then came to her like a guardian angel, and 
 got her safely out of Paris. Piqued by my supposed 
 cruelty and subsequent running away to China, as 
 she inferred, and earnestly besought by Vaughn, 
 who really loved her, she finally consented to be 
 his wife. Moreover, she blamed me for writing, 
 wantonly, as she then belived, to her relatives, 
 
ESTHER ROMAINE. 99 
 
 thereby plunging them in grief at her death while 
 she was still living and well." 
 
 " But who was the woman you took with you by 
 mistake, and whose unhappy death sent you off to 
 China ? How in the world could you have made 
 such a blunder ? I should suppose — " 
 
 "Stop there, my friend," he said, in measured 
 accent, raising his finger; " the woman I took from 
 Paris was Miss Esther Romaine or her ghost. Why, 
 sir, we talked of matters — matters affecting our 
 future — known only to us two. No other person 
 could have — why, sir," he exclaimed passionately, 
 " do you suppose I could have made a mistake ? 
 Impossible, absurd, preposterous ! " 
 
 " But your story is so unreasonable as it stands. 
 I don't believe in ghosts — I cannot understand — " 
 
 "You cannot understand," he said, with biting 
 scorn. ' ' I cannot understand it either, nor can she, 
 and we have been studying upon it for months. Do 
 you suppose, sir, that you, who haven't yet had time 
 to even digest the bare facts, can understand what 
 has been and will be a life-long enigma to those 
 who are most vitally interested ? Do you im- 
 
100 ESTHER ROMA1NE. 
 
 agine, " he inquired, with a burst of indignation, 
 ' ' that I would bring you here to listen to a tame 
 recital of matters that you could understand after 
 the specific statement that what I had to tell was 
 strange, inexplicable and sad?'' 
 
 I saw that the man was in earnest, that he was 
 deeply moved; but I could not account for, nor 
 could I scarcely believe, what I had heard, and still 
 I was satisfied this was no madman's tale. The 
 speaker was sane beyond question. I was sorely 
 puzzled. I essayed an apology for what I had 
 said, when Kirschbaum interrupted me, saying 
 soothingly: 
 
 "There, there, never mind. I have lost the 
 brightest gem in the casket of womanly grace and 
 beauty, and I lose my temper when I dwell on the 
 horrors of that night. I have made myself quite 
 ill by letting my anger get full rein. It is late; you 
 had better go and leave me to myself." 
 
 I was about to withdraw when he said: " I have 
 abused you, sir, but I have likewise honored you. 
 To no other human being have I ever told that 
 story; but I took a fancy to you, as I told you yes- 
 
ESTHER ROMAINE. 101 
 
 terday, and broke the seal of silence. Think of me 
 kindly, and forgive my indecorum, if you can. I 
 am terribly unnerved. Good night ! " 
 
 I got very little sleep that night, and my theories 
 and speculations only plunged me in deeper gloom 
 than ever. I despaired of ever solving Kirsch- 
 baum T s mystery, but I could not keep his story out 
 of my mind. Thus two days passed, and I had made 
 my plans for returning home on the evening train, 
 when, as I was strolling in Madison Square, I met 
 Mrs. Blossom, a lady whom I had known in 
 Boston many years before. She had married Mr. 
 Blossom in the meantime, and was now a widow. 
 Like many other not over-cultivated women, she 
 entertained a passion for literary and theatrical 
 people, concert and opera singers, artists, sculp- 
 tors, and persons of that ilk, who gathered about 
 her for several reasons, prominent among which 
 were that she was a kind-hearted, motherly woman, 
 and a hostess withal whose means enabled her to 
 give regal entertainments. She had frequently in- 
 vited me to her house, and once or twice I had 
 gone, but had generally felt my unfitness to mingle 
 
102 ESTHER ROMAINE. 
 
 satisfactorily to myself with the clever people who 
 congregated within her hospitable walls, and I had 
 decided not to go again. But Mrs. Blossom was 
 very pressing, and finally she said : " Do stop over 
 and come to my little party this evening." Then 
 she named many persons of note who would be 
 present ; but I resolutely shook my head, and held 
 that I must positively go home. 
 
 "Then you won't have no opportunity of meet- 
 ing Miss Vaughn, perhaps '11 never see her, and 
 she's all the rage." 
 
 I answered quickly: "Well, then, since you 
 will have it so, I'll come." 
 
 As the reader may surmise, I changed my mind 
 in view of the suddenly opened prospect of meet- 
 ing Kirschbaum's love. True, Mrs. Blossom had 
 spoken of the lady as Miss Vaughn, but I had no- 
 ticed a great many times before that Mrs. Blos- 
 som's pronunciation of " Miss" and " Mrs." did 
 not vary. She Missed all ladies, married or single, 
 even as she missed hitting plural verbs to tally 
 with her plural nouns. But let us not cavil at her 
 pronunciation or her grammar ; her goodness of 
 
ESTHER RO MAINE. 103 
 
 heart made ample amends for her partiality for two 
 negatives and other eccentricities of speech, as well 
 as for careless pronunciations. 
 
 I was not amiss in my calculation, and at ten 
 o'clock that evening I found myself gaily chatting 
 with my divinity of the Park. We talked with the 
 utmost freedom and frankness, the disparity in our 
 ages rendering it unnecessary that we should ob- 
 serve the little ceremonies common between young 
 people in society. We spoke at length of Paris, 
 and she listened attentively to all I said of the 
 French capital, its arts, industries and architectural 
 splendors. She hoped she should go there some 
 day, she said. 
 
 " Go there again, I presume you mean ?" I ob- 
 served, adding that I hoped she would find the city 
 more quiet than in the old days of the Commune. 
 She bestowed on me a puzzled look, but said 
 nothing. Presently I continued: " Kirschbaum 
 told me that strange, sad story. Perhaps I ought 
 not to speak of the balloon mystery, but really I 
 have studied over it so much I can scarcely think 
 of anything else." Her puzzled look gradually 
 
104 ESTHER ROMAINE. 
 
 changed to one of apparent fright, and to pacify her 
 I concluded quickly : " Pardon me, Mrs. Vaughn, 
 I can understand your feelings ; it was indeed a 
 most inexplicable and mysterious affair The only 
 pleasant thing in connection with it is the manly 
 attitude Kirschbaum maintains. I can assure you 
 and your husband — " 
 
 "My husband!" she ejaculated, in surprise; 
 "why, Mr. Marble, I have no husband, at least 
 not yet," she said, blushing. "It is no secret in 
 society, however, that I shall soon wed with 
 Signor Feoretti, the tenor." 
 
 It was my time now to ejaculate. "Not 
 married!" I returned; "and who, pray, was the 
 gentleman with whom I saw you riding in Central 
 Park on Monday ?" 
 
 "Why, my uncle, of course — Captain Peters, of 
 the Inman Line," she replied. "And who is this 
 Kirschbaum," she inquired, "of whom you speak 
 as if he knew me? I remember no gentleman 
 among my friends bearing that name." 
 
 "My dear Miss Vaughn," I said, respectfully, 
 " I am all at sea. Somebody has gone out of his 
 
ESTHER ROMAINE. 105 
 
 head — possibly I, perad venture another man, but 
 things are getting queerly mixed up," saying which 
 I wiped the beads of perspiration from my face, 
 which were exuding from every pore. "Pray 
 pardon me, but may I ask who you are ? " 
 
 "Somebody is certainly demented. All your 
 talk about the Commune, the balloon mystery and 
 my going to Paris again was as a sealed book to me, 
 but I let it pass, hoping we should flounder out of 
 the maze shortly. As to who I am, I supposed 
 Mrs. Blossom had told you. I am only an aspir- 
 ing woman with a soprano voice which the critics 
 say promises future distinction for me, and indeed 
 I have been very successful in 'Mignon.' It is 
 not pleasant for me, as you see, sir, to speak of 
 myself (her sweet face was painfully flushed), 
 "but we seem to be drifting so hopelessly that I 
 have answered your question in all candor." 
 
 As I turned to apologize I saw Kirschbaum on 
 the opposite side of the room, engaged in merry 
 conversation with Mrs. Blossom. He had not seen 
 me, apparently, and I changed my position so 
 that my face would not be visible to him, and said 
 to Miss Vaughn : 
 
106 ESTHER ROMA1NE. 
 
 " My dear young lady, you shall have an ample 
 apology for what no doubt seems to you like rude 
 conduct from a man old enough to have a proper 
 regard for a lady — a fatherly tenderness, indeed, 
 for a woman of your age ; but before I say a word 
 in explanation I wish to ask one more question. 
 Will you kindly tell me if you ever saw that hand- 
 some, smooth-faced gentleman before who is talk- 
 ing with Mrs. Blossom ? " 
 
 "Oh, yes, indeed," she replied, " I know him 
 very well." 
 
 "Oh, you do, eh!" I returned, petulantly. 
 " I dare say you do." 
 
 She looked at me reproachfully, and said very 
 gravely: "We may as well agree to disagree. 
 Your last remark was intended to be invidious, 
 and I submit that you have no reason to annoy me 
 further." 
 
 If I had been a younger man I believe I should 
 have determined, as I stood looking down into the 
 pure depths of Miss Vaughn's angelic eyes, to cast 
 the gauntlet at Signor Feoretti's feet, and enter the 
 lists as a competitor for the smiles of her who held 
 
ESTHER ROMAINE. 107 
 
 me spell-bound with her graceful beauty. "But 
 no," thought I, "all that is past for me; I am 
 wedded to a memory ; let me not add weakness, 
 even in thought, to my palpable rudeness. " After 
 a moment I found voice to ask very meekly : 
 
 " And who is this gentleman ? " 
 
 " I thought you knew him or I would have told 
 you that before," she rejoined, half pityingly. 
 
 "That is Mr. John K , the somewhat celebrated 
 
 actor, who has just returned from Australia. He 
 will play a round of old English characters soon, at 
 Wallack's." 
 
 " Have you known him long? " I pursued. 
 
 "Oh, yes," she said, laughing, "since child- 
 hood. He is, in fact, my brother — his real name is 
 Silas Vaughn. " 
 
 I felt faint and giddy, but soon summoned 
 strength to ask if the gentleman was a man of 
 veracity. She regarded me with a look of genuine 
 sympathy, as if by the quick intuition of her sex 
 she had made a discovery, and said slowly, 
 "Y-e-s and n-o. He is truthful enough about 
 matters of vital importance, but he sometimes lets 
 
108 ESTHER RO MAINE. 
 
 his imagination run wild for amusement, and at 
 such times I have heard Mr. Sothern say that he 
 evolves such romances as to create the impression 
 among his professional friends that he missed his 
 calling in not going into fiction. I hope," she 
 continued, with a womanly sweetness that went to 
 my soul, and which I shall never forget, "that 
 Silas hasn't been — " 
 
 At this moment Signor Feoretti came up, and I 
 stood to one side ; and as this soon to be mated 
 pair were temporarily engaged in conversation, I 
 quietly passed through the throng to the lower 
 rooms. Here, while donning my coat and hat, I 
 encountered and bade Mrs. Blossom an abrupt 
 good night, and thence I proceeded to my hotel. 
 And as I passed thither under the silent, solitary 
 stars, I began to study upon a plan for the regen- 
 eration of those misguided sons of men who speak 
 with most miraculous organ, but with an utter dis- 
 regard of truth. I confess that I have not pro- 
 gressed well thus far in perfecting my plan, and 
 every-day occurrences sometimes make me feel 
 that I have not only entered upon my life work, 
 
ESTHER ROMAINE. 109 
 
 but, if we are not without occupations in the next 
 world, that I shall still have food for study and 
 reflection, even after I have passed to where, 
 beyond these voices, all is peace. 
 
AN OLD MAN'S EXEGESIS. 
 
AN OLD MAN'S EXEGESIS. 
 
 " IV /FY dear Marble," said a young friend, who 
 met me on the street the other day, "why 
 the .Dickens will you persist in associating with 
 that Gregory Judd ? " 
 
 I know all about Judd. He fails to pay his 
 bills, neglects his engagements and dresses far 
 from fashionably. Judd is what the world styles 
 a shiftless man. His tout ensemble, whichever 
 way you view him, reminds you of a shoe that 
 has run down at the heel. The question put 
 to me was a difficult one to answer offhand, and 
 so I did what my fellow-man usually does when he 
 is puzzled. I assumed a look of surprise and re- 
 plied : 
 
 "Why !" 
 
 My interrogator, aware that I knew Judd's fail- 
 ings fully as well as he, became indignant at once, 
 and bestowing a look on me which said as plainly 
 as words could do, "Marble, I blush for you," 
 walked away, blushing as he went, whether from 
 
 8 
 
114 AN OLD MAN'S EXEGESIS. 
 
 shame for me or from indignation, I cannot pre- 
 tend to say. 
 
 When I reached my office I sat and thought 
 about Judd for a long time, but pondering on the 
 question propounded did not assist me much 
 toward giving a satisfactory answer. Finally I was 
 aroused by a light tap on my shoulder, and look- 
 ing up I beheld the veritable Mr. Judd himself. 
 He was as forlorn looking as ever, under a vener- 
 able hat, matched with an untidy cravat, lack 
 luster gaiters, and a suit of clothes which had not 
 improved on long acquaintance. "I have just 
 dropped in," said Judd, " like Pry in the play, and 
 I hope I don't intrude." He added that having 
 discovered a creditor whom he could not pay com- 
 ing up the street, he had eluded him by dodging 
 into my office. 
 
 An hour elapsed before Judd departed. It was a 
 joyous hour to me, and to him, too, I think, for 
 when he left me the look of weariness which was 
 settled on his face when he came had disappeared, 
 and his countenance beamed as pleasantly as ever 
 Harold Skimpole's beamed in his afflictions. Judd 
 
AN OLD MAN'S EXEGESIS. 115 
 
 is, in fact, a sort of modified Skimpole, with em- 
 barrassments as numerous, though lacking some 
 of the lax ideas entertained by Mr. Dickens' hero. 
 If my young friend had been present as I pressed 
 a bank note into Judd's hand and wished him 
 better fortune, I should have replied to the query 
 with which this explanation opens something as 
 follows : 
 
 There is no good end to be served by my deny- 
 ing that I like Judd immensely, or that his society, 
 despite his many weaknesses, is dearer to me than 
 that of any of my other friends. I always feel 
 younger after seeing him — his presence near me is 
 a perpetual solace. In Judd you behold the friend 
 and companion of my youth. We are getting on in 
 years ; our spring, summer and autumn have 
 passed away, and as we approach the winter of our 
 lives, when the snow is beginning to settle on our 
 heads and beards, and when our faces are begin- 
 ning to bear witness of heavy weather experi- 
 enced during life's voyage, we live over in memory 
 the three seasons which are gone, and deduce un- 
 speakable pleasure therefrom. Away up among 
 
116 AN OLD MAN'S EXEGESIS. 
 
 the hills and dales of Massachusetts, where the 
 Blackstone winds brightly in the sunlight, a mere 
 brook ; where the atmosphere is as clear and fra- 
 grant as nectar ; where, of all the world, the trees 
 and the fields are of the greenest possible tint ; 
 where the robin sings in the sweetest strains at 
 morning ; where the bluejay is the bluest ; where 
 the whippoorwill chirps in tones of the most mel- 
 ancholy sweetness at night ; where the sun is 
 brightest, the sky clearest ; where the moon shines 
 the softest ; where the stars twinkle the merriest, 
 and where everything around, in our opinion at 
 least, is primitive, beautiful and smiling, we were 
 born, and passed together our dear, dreamy, deli- 
 cious days of boyhood. 
 
 Amid these gentle scenes we read the "Chil- 
 dren of the Abbey, " the ' ' Arabian Nights, " ' ' Rob- 
 inson Crusoe," and many other delightful books bor- 
 rowed from a half hermit, half philosopher, who 
 lived in our neighborhood. Along the banks of 
 the most crooked and most lively of all brooks 
 that babble through sweet meadows we have crept 
 with cat-like steps, angling for the wary trout, until 
 
AN OLD MAN'S EXEGESIS. Ill 
 
 we knew by heart each rock and bush along the 
 devious course of that garrulous streamlet. We 
 have hunted the hills together for miles around for 
 hazel nuts ; we have raked hay, stolen peaches 
 and musk melons, and attended huskings, wed- 
 dings and rural merry makings of every kind, in 
 company, forty long years ago. Schools were not 
 as plentiful in our time as now ; but after the 
 busy summer-time was over, when the "school 
 marm " had departed for the season, and the long 
 vacation had passed, then would come some tall, 
 strapping Ichabod Crane to occupy the throne at 
 the district school during the winter, and we would 
 pack up our little stock of books, tallow our great 
 cowhide boots, and adopt the role of pupils. We 
 were quite " man grown " before we graduated at 
 Science Hill, and we remember very distinctly 
 that near the end of our last term we were not a 
 little chagrined by having the rector's daughter, a 
 pert little miss of perhaps ten years, "go above" 
 us both in the spelling class. 
 
 Forty years have wrought great changes even in 
 that secluded region, where the air is so pure and 
 
118 AN OLD MAN'S EXEGESIS. 
 
 everything so joyous that it seems singular that 
 people ever become ill or weary there, when we 
 consider that they exist at all in great cities. Much 
 of the somnolence which once lingered about the 
 section has been marred by the advent of the rail- 
 road, but sufficient that is old remains to render 
 it the "dearest spot on earth " to us still. How 
 dearly we love to revisit those scenes! How happy 
 we are in walking over the paths we once trod so 
 buoyantly, and in dwelling on old recollections ! 
 
 We make our excursions quite incognito. Saun- 
 tering through the town, or lingering in the old 
 burial-ground, reading the names engraven on the 
 slabs, we are almost strangers among those who 
 now people our old neighborhood. But what mat- 
 ters it ? If the pine grove is still and neglected 
 where once our laughter echoed so joyously, can- 
 not imagination, dipping her pencils in the sun- 
 set's richest hues, fill out the picture? Certainly it 
 can and does, for Judd and I are a pair of very 
 imaginative as well as very soft-hearted old fel- 
 lows. We are sometimes a trifle melancholy on 
 these visits, particularly when we think of our old 
 
AN OLD MAN'S EXEGESIS. 119 
 
 companions. Alas ! where are they ? Beneath 
 the greensward in the quaint little burial-ground 
 some are sleeping, a part of whom lived and died 
 amid the familiar scenes of youth. Others went 
 forth into the world, were lured on and on by 
 visions of renown and wealth, and returned like 
 poor Slingsby, footsore, weary and poverty 
 stricken, to their birthplace, to 
 
 " Husband out life's taper at the close, 
 And keep the flames from wasting, by repose," 
 
 but who died at last, and were gathered to their 
 fathers. Many are scattered about the world, still 
 living; more have died in regions far remote from 
 their homes; while a few, a very few, are yet living, 
 like Miriam Lane, "old and garrulous" — vol- 
 umes incarnate richly stored with legends and 
 anecdotes bearing on the past. 
 
 Tis a simple tale, this one of ours, scarcely 
 worth the telling, perchance; and yet there is some- 
 thing in it. There is hardly a community, how- 
 ever small, that has not its Judd and Marble, 
 sometimes many braces of them, about whom 
 their acquaintances are ever speculating. We 
 
120 AN OLD MAN'S EXEGESIS. 
 
 should not forget that there are many " ups and 
 downs " in life, and that the " downs " are usually 
 the more common. Judd's experience has been 
 wholly with them. There are many things besides 
 prosperity which should endear to us our fellow- 
 creatures. Success commands admiration and 
 should receive its due; but honest failure, with 
 its long train of enervating embarrassments and 
 disappointments, should receive our respect and 
 sympathy. A green spot existing at this advanced 
 day in Judd's heart, as illustrated by the loye he 
 bears the region in which he was born and the 
 associations of his childhood — existing where it 
 would seem such repeated failures and disasters 
 in life as have been his could have given birth to 
 nothing but bitterness — speaks of the goodness 
 and largeness of his soul, and makes him worthy 
 of a better friendship than mine. 
 
 But a little longer shall we perplex you; our 
 candle is burning low, and ere long its weak light 
 will expire, to be relumed no more. 
 
AGNES LEIGH. 
 
AGNES LEIGH. 
 
 ]\/|R. JACK MASTERS, clerk to a Wall street 
 broker, had just dined at the St. Denis 
 Hotel, and having sought his room in West 14th 
 street, was seated before a glowing grate. The 
 wind howled dismally out-of-doors, and the snow 
 was falling as Jack calmly lighted a cigar and 
 sat down before the fire. Judging from the varying 
 expressions of his face, very pleasant thoughts were 
 chasing each other to and fro in the graceless 
 fellow's mind as he reclined luxuriously in his 
 easy chair and peered through the little smoke 
 rings which he was sending upward like bubbles 
 out of a child's pipe. Jack Masters was very 
 handsome and elegant, and his only fault, per- 
 haps, was that he had a passion for adventure 
 which was not becoming in a well-bred and prop- 
 erly educated young man. His good mother and 
 father, whom he had left two years before at the 
 old home, in Cortland, N. Y., had views matri- 
 monial and otherwise for their only son, and Jack 
 
124 AGNES LEIGH. 
 
 knew it. He loved his mother devotedly and re- 
 spected his father very highly, and was as affec- 
 tionate, I dare say, as sons on an average are ; 
 but he had an indefinable notion that he would 
 one day marry some sentimental creature in a 
 romantic fashion, and he had been dreaming 
 many bright visions over his cigar these March 
 evenings. True, he corresponded regularly with 
 Miss Harriet Van Wormer, and it was well under- 
 stood in Cortland that when Jack Masters had 
 finished his business education at Salivateum & 
 Co. 's he was to return to his native town, embark 
 in business, marry Miss Van Wormer, join the 
 church and settle down to a life of eminent 
 respectability. Privately Jack disliked this pro- 
 gramme, and, as is too often the case when men 
 pretend to be en rapport with other people's 
 schemes, he had a whole set of visions which he 
 dreamed at opportune moments, and about which 
 he never talked to any one. I would not say that 
 he ever doubted that he would ultimately carry 
 out his part of the programme as above set down, 
 but he liked to think about other plans and possi- 
 
AGNES LEIGH. 125 
 
 bilities; though they were always shadowy affairs, 
 as intangible and shapeless as the autumnal mists 
 dimly enshrouding the far-off points as the sun 
 imprints its good-night kiss on forest, hill and 
 mead, and, smiling upward at the blushing 
 heavens, still smiles and vanishes. 
 
 On this particular evening Masters was un- 
 usually thoughtful and speculative. As he grace- 
 fully snapped the ashes from the end of his cigar 
 with his little finger, he laughed softly to himself 
 and murmured : 
 
 "I've half a mind to answer it. No harm can 
 possibly come of it. If a man is honorable in his 
 intentions, I don't see any reason why he shouldn't 
 have a little entertainment. Goodness knows I 
 have a tedious time of it here. The life of a Wall 
 street man is like a Christmas annual — bright and 
 gaudy outside, but dismal as a swell party within. 
 I have no taste for this broker's business. I some- 
 times doubt if I will ever make a good, solid, re- 
 spectable citizen of Cortland or any other town, 
 and I have a great mind to try my hand at a cor- 
 respondence which will undoubtedly prove inter- 
 
126 AGNES LEIGH. 
 
 esting. Miss Van Wormer is all very well in her 
 way, but her letters are scarcely calculated to turn 
 the head of an anchorite or accomplish a miracle in 
 any other direction. Who was that fellow who 
 said that ' there is no loneliness like the loneli- 
 ness of a great city'? His head was awfully level, 
 whoever he was," and jumping from his chair, 
 Masters exclaimed: " By Jove, I'll do it or I'm 
 a Dutchman ! " He was not a Dutchman, so 
 it is safe to assume that he meant to keep his word. 
 The following paragraph, which he had found 
 in the columns of an evening paper, was what 
 had upset Mr. Masters' equipoise and set his 
 tongue to running at an unusually lively gait : 
 
 " Wanted. — By a young lady, twenty-two years 
 of age, tolerably well educated and traveled, a lady 
 correspondent, not younger than twenty years and 
 not older than twenty-five years. Address, with real 
 name, Agnes Leigh, Station E., New York City." 
 
 Since I cannot defend Masters, I may as well say 
 frankly that he proposed to answer this advertise- 
 ment, leading Miss Agnes Leigh to suppose that he 
 was a lady. Some of my readers may look upon 
 his action in the light of a misrepresentation. I 
 
AGNES LEIGH. 127 
 
 rather incline to that belief myself, but as the affair 
 is Jack's and not mine, I should be very foolish if I 
 were to quarrel with him about it. So would you. 
 
 When a young fellow who has been obtaining 
 his education in a desultory sort of a way at a 
 country college, interspersing his studies with more 
 or less yachting, sprinting, tennis playing and 
 kindred out-of-door pursuits, suddenly settles 
 down in a city like New York and goes through 
 the motions, at least, of being a man of business, 
 he is pretty certain to find his new environment so 
 different from what he has been accustomed to, 
 that the theatre, the billiard-room, the club and 
 drawing-room do not fully recompense him for 
 the open air pleasures he has foregone. 
 
 It is in the presence of such conditions that men 
 take naturally to flirtations, and thus it came about 
 that on the next day Jack wrote in a good imitation 
 of a fashionable feminine hand the first of the ap- 
 pended letters. It was duly mailed to his friend, 
 Sam Hooker, in Chicago, with the request to re-mail 
 it to New York, and to forward also any letters re- 
 ceived by him addressed to Miss Charlotte Heywood. 
 
AGNES LEIGH. 129 
 
 this note to you, hoping it may lead to our be- 
 coming correspondents. I dare say you will re- 
 ceive hundreds of replies to your advertisement, 
 and among the many there will essentially be some 
 whose writers will betray graces of mind and 
 charms of composition, better entitling them to 
 your consideration than I am entitled by anything 
 written herewith. And yet I would like to be the 
 " chosen one"; but I send you this with something 
 of the feeling that sweet Robert Burns experienced 
 as he let the mouse go and fell to thinking of his 
 own future. You will remember the last verse : 
 
 " Still thou art blest compared vvi' me. 
 The present only toucheth thee. 
 But, och ! I backward cast my e'e 
 
 On prospects drear ; 
 And forward, though I canna' see, 
 I guess and fear." 
 
 Yes, I guess and fear. I guess you will be over- 
 run with answers and fear you will scarcely care 
 for poor me. However, should you honor me 
 with your attention, I shall bring to the pleasant 
 duty of answering your letter the honesty of pur- 
 pose which exists only in a woman's heart. 
 Very respectfully yours, 
 
 Charlotte Heywood. 
 Miss Agnes Leigh, New York City. 
 
130 AGNES LEIGH. 
 
 24 Irving Place, 
 New York, April 2, 187 — 
 
 Dear Miss Heywood, — Heigho ! What a lot of 
 rubbish I have read to-day ! I have received a 
 hundred and thirty-five answers to my advertise- 
 ment. Some of the letters are tolerable, others are 
 stupid and all of one-half of them apparently come 
 from men. I am disgusted with the whole perfidious 
 sex when I think how many have had the audacity 
 to assume such fearfully unreal names as Maude 
 Chesterfield, Heather Browning, etc., expecting 
 me to be deceived by their flowery and vapid utter- 
 ances. A plague on all the men, say I ! 
 
 Your letter completely won my heart, and I 
 have no hesitation in saying that I prefer you not 
 only to any of the others who have written to me, 
 but to all the others. As Dickens beautifully 
 says, in one of his private letters, written more 
 than thirty years ago : "And for the pleasure with 
 which I shall always think of you, and the glow I 
 shall feel when I see your handwritirg in my own 
 home, I hereby enter into a solemn league and 
 covenant to write as many letters to you as you 
 write to me, at least. Amen. " 
 
 Business settled, let us compare notes. What 
 do you read ? Whom do you like best, and what 
 
AGNES LEIGH. 131 
 
 are you reading now ? I am madly in love with 
 Longfellow and Tennyson ; don't care much for 
 the pre-Raphaelites. I admire their genius, because 
 it is genius ; but Aldrich is a greater favorite with 
 me than his more sensuous contemporaries. You 
 have read "Prudence Palfrey," of course. Isn't 
 it nice ? I like John Dent very much, but he 
 isn't as nice as Nevins. What a dear old rascal 
 the fellow was ! I am sure I should have fallen 
 straight in love with him had I been in Prue's 
 place. Oh, isn't she a darling ! 
 
 About this correspondence, here is how I came 
 to advertise. We are strangers here, papa, mamma 
 and I. We live in New Orleans and came North 
 last month. Mamma is an invalid, and papa has 
 the greatest faith in Dr. Brown-Sequard, and 
 brought her here to be treated. Of course I have 
 been very lonely with no friends as I had in New 
 Orleans, and so, while I was complaining of the 
 dullness, papa proposed that I should advertise for 
 a lady correspondent. "But," said I, "some 
 gentleman will palm himself off on me as a lady, 
 and the first thing I know I shall be in love, en- 
 gaged, and perhaps married." Papa laughed 
 heartily at the idea, and said : " Let me pick out 
 the correspondent you shall select when the an- 
 
132 AGNES LEIGH. 
 
 swers begin to come in, and I'll make no mistake, 
 puss." So, when my letters began to arrive, he 
 rejected one after another until he came to yours. 
 He read it very carefully, and said : "That young 
 lady can be trusted. There is a ring about what 
 she says that carries conviction with it." And thus 
 it happened that you were our choice. Papa and 
 I seldom agree on any subject, but it is true that 
 my heart yearned toward you from the first, and 
 papa's approval of the selection I had mentally 
 made was all that was necessary to my happiness. 
 
 I hope you won't find me dull and regret that 
 you wrote to me. You must excuse me now as 
 we are going to Wallack's to-night, and I am in a 
 desperate hurry. Write soon. 
 
 Affectionately yours, 
 
 Agnes. 
 Miss Charlotte Heywood, Chicago, 111. 
 
 246 Wabash Avenue, 
 Chicago, III., April 5, 187 — . 
 Dear Miss Agnes, — I was overjoyed on return- 
 ing home from a drive on the Drexel Boulevard 
 this evening to find your capital letter of the 2d 
 instant. I have been out riding with brother Hal, 
 the dearest old brother you ever saw. He is in 
 
AGNES LEIGH. 133 
 
 college at Ann Arbor, but occasionally he runs 
 home and keeps us in excellent spirits for a week, 
 and then vanishes like an exhalation. Hal is three 
 years my senior, tall, black as a bandit, and a tor- 
 nado incarnate of compliments, sweet nothings and 
 poetry. All the girls in Chicago adore him. I 
 wonder if you would like him, too. Dear old 
 Hal ! How I love him ! 
 
 I have just finished reading Irving's " Life of 
 Goldsmith," and I scarcely know which I like the 
 more, Irving or poor Goldy. They are both en- 
 trancing. I have read Irving a great deal, and 
 at one time refused to believe that there was any- 
 thing half as nice as " The Alhambra, " but as we 
 grow old — ahem ! — we get new notions. Latterly 
 I have taken up Sir Philip Gilbert Hammerton. 
 His writings are very good reading, though I don't 
 like them as well as Mr. Harte's delightful sketches. 
 But Hal is always saying : "Brace up, young lady, 
 and read Herbert Spencer, or Arthur Helps, or 
 Hammerton/' and my regard for that graceless 
 brother of mine is so great that I try to please him. 
 
 Yes, I read " Prudence Palfrey" in the Atlantic. 
 I was madly in love with Dillingham, and felt 
 quite angry with Mr. Aldrich for upsetting all my 
 hopes and plans as to the result. A lady who 
 
134 AGNES LEIGH. 
 
 lives near us said she saw through the whole story 
 from the first, and thought me very stupid because 
 I was unsuspecting to the last. I told Hal about 
 it in one of my letters, and he replied: "Your 
 friend is troubled obviously with big head. I don't 
 believe she did any such thing. ' Prudence Pal- 
 frey' was read by almost every man in college, and 
 the denouement was a genuine surprise to all of 
 us." I don't know what Hal means by "big 
 head," but I suppose it is a slang phrase at Ann 
 Arbor. Hal is always saying things that I don't 
 understand, and when I remonstrate with him he 
 chucks me under the chin and says: "It is all 
 right, sis. I am your brother, you know, you 
 know, by Jove." When Mr. Sothern was here 
 last we went to see him, and Hal has never 
 ceased since to give us " Dundreary on a half 
 shell," as he calls it. Indeed, Hal does it very 
 well for an "armature," as Mrs. Partington would 
 say. 
 
 It is still cold here, but I dare say the birds 
 are clearing their throats in New York, and ere 
 many weeks you will begin to visit Central Park. 
 We have a park here, but it is scarcely to be com- 
 pared with yours. I love New York dearly, and 
 often indeed have I passed a delightful day trip- 
 
AGNES LEIGH. 135 
 
 ping through the byways and sailing on that sweet 
 little lake at Central Park. 
 
 You New Yorkers have many advantages over 
 us Chicagoans. We have no Theodore Thomas 
 to make music as sweet as the songs of angels for 
 us to listen to, in a fragrant garden glittering as 
 green and beautiful under the gaslight as if it were 
 a little section of fairy land. But we are quite 
 content, and so long as we get a glimpse of New 
 York occasionally we are not disposed to wish our 
 home elsewhere than by the side of this beautiful 
 lake, which glistens under the moonlight as I 
 write, like a sea of quicksilver, and calls up a 
 recollection of all the gorgeous scenery which 
 Charles Warren Stoddard saw, or thought he saw, 
 in the South Sea Islands. What a writer that man 
 is! Have you read "South Sea Idyls"? If not 
 please do for my sake. You will be more than de- 
 lighted, I am sure. 
 
 By the way, Hal thinks of visiting New York in 
 July, and would like to call on you. I haven't 
 mentioned our correspondence to him at all, and 
 of course I shouldn't think of sending him to see 
 you, unless you and your good parents fully ap- 
 prove. Have you any objection to my showing 
 him an occasional paragraph in your letters ? 
 
136 AGNES LEIGH. 
 
 Hal is waiting to take me to dinner and then to 
 McVicker's. So I must therefore close "with all 
 regret and all good wishes, and so good night." 
 Affectionately yours, 
 
 Charlotte. 
 
 No. 24 Irving Place, 
 New York, May 5, 187 — 
 
 Dear Charlotte, — A month has passed since 
 yours of April 5th reached New York, but I as- 
 sure you it has been no fault of mine that I did 
 not reply sooner. We have been to Washington 
 on account of mamma's health. The weather, 
 contrary to your anticipations, has not been very 
 spring-like here, but in Washington words fail to 
 give an idea of how very beautiful it is there 
 already. The trees are clothed in their spring 
 suit of green, the grass is up and the flowers are 
 blooming as generally as they will be here a month 
 from now. We instructed our landlady in Irving 
 Place to forward all letters to the Arlington, where 
 we were stopping. But as bad luck would have it, 
 your perfectly charming epistle was mislaid by a 
 stupid servant, and was only found yesterday. We 
 returned this morning. 
 
 It is hard to resist the temptation to say some- 
 
AGNES LEIGH. 137 
 
 thing about Washington; but that city has been 
 written about until everybody knows it as thor- 
 oughly as if he had lived there. I had a very 
 delightful time. Papa knows a great many news- 
 paper men, and also many members of Con- 
 gress, and we were thus afforded opportunities, 
 through their acquaintance with men and things, 
 to visit the White House and other interesting 
 places, and to see more of each than is usually 
 accorded to the casual visitor. I have seen all the 
 celebrities, but after all they are men like papa, 
 and only now and then is there one half as good 
 looking. 
 
 From my window I could see the historic 
 Potomac winding like a silver ribbon through a 
 beautiful groundwork of glorious green ; also 
 Arlington, where General Lee used to live, Mun- 
 son's Hill and Fort Stevens, of war renown, etc. 
 Fairfax Court House and Bull Run are not far off, 
 but they are not visible from the city ; at least so I 
 was told. One of my pleasantest experiences was 
 an inspection of the Capitol. I visited it under 
 the protection of an enthusiastic delegate from one 
 of the territories. Before we made our visit he 
 said : " Do you know the frescoing in that build- 
 ing is really beautiful ? People go to Rome and 
 
138 AGNES LEIGH. 
 
 Grenada, and roll their eyes like dying geese over 
 work far inferior to that which Mr. Brumidi has 
 been doing up there, in the many years he has 
 been at work. You can see the old gentleman 
 any day suspended on a scaffold and busily en- 
 gaged in adding one more masterpiece to the many 
 contained in the building. He is quite old now, 
 and as I watch him in his declining years with 
 frosted head and beard toiling patiently and with 
 cheerfulness, I recall what I once heard Bishop 
 Clarke, of Rhode Island, say in his lecture, ' The 
 World Moves,' about the old monks laboring un- 
 ceasingly in their cloisters, content if after years 
 of weary toil they could give the world another 
 book. Mr. Brumidi has no desire for fame. He 
 has applied his life and his genius to beautifying 
 the interior of the Capitol, and it will be his monu- 
 ment. Some of the committee-rooms which have 
 flowered under his clever pencil are magnificent." 
 I could not quite reconcile what I saw with the 
 view as thus expressed, and perhaps papa is right 
 in saying that the gentleman's sentiments are 
 patriotic and, therefore, to his credit, but that his 
 ideas of art are peculiarly Western. 
 
 How did you enjoy your evening at McVicker's ? 
 I hardly know what to say about meeting Hal ; 
 
AGNES LEIGH. 139 
 
 though I should dearly like to meet his delightful 
 
 sister. We will talk more about his visit anon — 
 
 when Hal is ready to come East. You may show 
 
 him such portions of my letters as your own good 
 
 taste may approve. 
 
 I am going out this evening — to the Fifth Avenue 
 
 Theatre. My uncle Sheridan, who joined us in 
 
 Washington, accompanied us to New York. He 
 
 is a South Carolinian and very nice. He is only 
 
 thirty years old, being papa's youngest brother. 
 
 He lives at home in Greenville, S. C, on the old 
 
 plantation with grandmamma and the slaves, the 
 
 latter now happily emancipated. Uncle Sheridan 
 
 proposes to return home shortly. It is his first 
 
 visit on this side of Mason and Dixon's line, but I 
 
 scarcely think he is enjoying it a bit more than we 
 
 enjoy having him with us. With all respect for 
 
 Hal, I must say that to my mind uncle Sheridan 
 
 is the one man of all others. Not that I am in 
 
 love with him. No, indeed ! But I would be if 
 
 he were not my uncle. I can assure you it can be 
 
 said of him as Byron said of uncle's namesake : 
 
 " Heaven never made but one such man, 
 And broke the die in casting Sheridan." 
 
 I had never read " South Sea Idyls," but I have 
 induced papa to buy the book, and already I am 
 
140 AGNES LE/GH. 
 
 deep in the delightful story about "Chumming 
 with a Savage." I will learn wisdom from your 
 brother, and read some of the books he recom- 
 mends. I know that the brother of so sweet a 
 sister must have excellent taste. All of Herbert 
 Spencer that I know is one phrase : "In its ulti- 
 mate essence nothing can be known." I should 
 not have known that much but for uncle Sheridan. 
 He says he once quoted that sentence to a Yankee 
 whom he met in Charleston, and the fellow said : 
 "Oh! by gosh now, that ain't so. A limburger 
 cheese can be known in its ultimate essence or its 
 sooper-natural essence either." But I don't believe 
 that story. Uncle is such a romancer ! He would 
 tell you anything if he thought it would make you 
 laugh. Besides, he does not like the Yankees, or 
 thinks he does not. He admits, however, that he is 
 finding the ladies and gentlemen at the North about 
 as they are elsewhere. Here he is now; I must fly. 
 Affectionately and sincerely yours, 
 
 Agnes. 
 
 246 Wabash Avenue, 
 Chicago, III., May 15, 187- 
 My Dear Miss Agnes, — There are a great many 
 sweet things in life. A poem, a song or a flirtation 
 
AGNES LEIGH. 141 
 
 used to meet my views very well in that respect; 
 but latterly I have come to think your letters better 
 than all the rest. I have been on the anxious seat 
 for weeks, and had feared that in some way I had 
 offended you. But your letter of the 5th, ex- 
 plaining as it did why I did not hear from you 
 before, sweetened my whole existence. All day 
 long I ran about the house singing the liveliest airs 
 and reciting bits of poetry from my favorite authors. 
 Wasn't it Beranger who described how he ran up 
 seven pairs of stairs in the brave days when he was 
 twenty-one ? Well, I have been a sort of female 
 Beranger ever since your letter came. It was like 
 the dew to the drooping flower, like a ray of sun- 
 shine on a dismal day, like moonlight on the 
 lake. Oh ! darling, it was everything to me, your 
 poor, tender-hearted little friend. I am beginning 
 to love you devotedly, and I shall certainly send 
 Hal to New York to see you. You ?nnst meet 
 
 him. 
 
 I was much interested in your description of 
 the sights you saw at Washington. I have never 
 been in that city, and your little stories entertained 
 me wonderfully. 
 
 I have taken quite a fancy to your uncle Sheri- 
 dan and shall be delighted to hear more of him, 
 
142 AGNES LEIGH. 
 
 but my interest in him is as nothing compared 
 with my burning desire to see you. Indeed, I 
 find that I care very little for men. Looking back 
 across an expanse of every-day experiences I descry 
 here and there a friendship with men that I would 
 rather not have erased, but I can think of no one 
 to whom my heart has gone out fully and unre- 
 servedly as it has to you. I have never been in 
 love with a man, which may account for my fall- 
 ing in love with a woman. And you love me a 
 little in return, don't you? 
 
 Since writing you before I have been having 
 some queer experiences. A man, old enough to 
 be my father, proposed for my hand, and I re- 
 jected him, of course. It was a very painful affair 
 to me, for my suitor was an eligible match enough 
 for those who believe in the May and December 
 style of unions. He is rich and has always been 
 very kind, but I had to say nay. Poor fellow ! I 
 hope he will meet with better fortune next time. 
 Do you blame me ? 
 
 I have just received a jolly letter from Hal. He 
 has written a story for the college magazine. He 
 says : "Oh, Lot, if I could only moralize, what a 
 chap I would be ! But I can't be wise to save me, 
 for more than a minute at a time. When I think 
 
AGNES LEIGH. 143 
 
 how Thackeray and George Eliot spin out their 
 wisdom I become broken-hearted straightway." 
 Hal writes very nicely, though, I think, if he is my 
 brother, and I have replied as follows : 
 
 "You lament that you cannot moralize. You 
 do better — you let your characters tell their own 
 stories, as you did in 'Seeking for Bait,' and do 
 their own moralizing. You don't have to stop 
 every now and then to give them a lift in order to 
 prevent your productions from degenerating into 
 trash — as too many do. Take my advice, my big 
 brother, and don't try to drag in any more moral- 
 izing than you can help. It isn't popular; it isn't 
 in good form. It looks as if there were a defect 
 in the plot or in the characters when so many side 
 lights are necessary to help the actors through; 
 and, moreover, it is generally a clear waste of am- 
 munition, as ninety readers out of every hundred 
 skip the moralizing and don't bless the moralizer. 
 I maintain that it isn't fair of any writer who sets 
 out to tell a story to leave his characters to take 
 care of themselves while he indulges in little di- 
 gressions specially designed to give his own smart- 
 ness an airing. It is in bad taste — it is disrespect- 
 ful to the people he calls into being to give them 
 his second best speeches, and to keep all the 
 
144 AGNES LEIGH. 
 
 choicest bits for his own private speaking. It is 
 egotistical ; it looks as if he couldn't bear to have 
 his own personality thrown into the shade, even by 
 his own creations." 
 
 Of course I am no critic, and perhaps the dear 
 fellow will laugh at my assumption of wisdom, 
 but I know what I have said is true, and laugh or 
 not laugh, Mr. Hal shall have a bit of sisterly 
 advice and encouragement. 
 
 Don't go flying off again and leave me to run to 
 seed, as you did before, and believe me, 
 
 Devotedly thine, 
 
 Charlotte. 
 
 24 Irving Place, 
 New York, May 30, 187 — 
 
 My Dear Charlotte, — Ever since your delight- 
 ful favor of the 15th instant reached me I have 
 been on the go. Uncle Sheridan only started for 
 home last evening; and being intent on seeing as 
 much as possible in a given time, and not caring 
 to "play a lone hand," as he expresses it, he has 
 been whirling me from theatre to concert, from con- 
 cert to opera, and from opera back to theatre. 
 Even my Sundays have not been my own, for he 
 was bent on hearing Beecher and Frothingham, 
 
AGNES LEIGH. 145 
 
 and could do nothing without his "guide, philos- 
 opher and friend, " as he calls me. 
 
 Well, he has gone, and I hope that I may now 
 be able to do my share of letter-writing. I haven't 
 much to say this time. If I thought you would 
 care for a critique on the plays I have seen, the 
 concerts I have attended and the operas I have 
 heard, I might make a long letter. But of course 
 you see the New York papers, and after such clever 
 writers as those who conduct their dramatic and 
 musical departments have had their say, anything 
 I might feel impelled to offer would sound absurdly 
 commonplace. 
 
 I felt much flattered that my previous letter 
 should make you so happy, and I despair of mak- 
 ing proper recognition of the many kind words 
 you have said of my poor missives. 
 
 I liked the extracts from your letter to Hal. I 
 is a wise view to take of the matter, and if he really 
 cannot moralize he can certainly do no better than 
 accept your idea about it. As for myself, I care 
 more as a general thing for the moralizing in the 
 books I read than for plots or incidents. But I am 
 not clever enough to argue the question with you. 
 I should be glad to see his story when it is printed. 
 
 You did quite right about rejecting your ancient 
 
 ] o 
 
146 AGNES LEIGH. 
 
 suitor. The poet probably had such a match as 
 
 your union with the old gentleman in view when he 
 
 wrote: 
 
 " Love is like the rose; 
 Oft seeing scarce a month, 
 Ere it withers where it grows." 
 
 Girls who marry old men because they do not 
 quite hate them, under the impression that love 
 may come, generally make a mistake at once fool- 
 ish and wicked. As uncle Sheridan says, the aim 
 of young ladies should not be to get married. He 
 holds that marriage is a great institution, and with- 
 out it there would be a great depletion of the cen- 
 sus (sage man !). But he says it has its drawbacks; 
 and no person, male or female, should embark in 
 such a serious business unless impelled by an in- 
 ward force so overwhelming that nothing but mar- 
 riage will keep it in abeyance. This inward force, 
 he says, is love (true love), and the only quality 
 that will endure through life's vicissitudes and con- 
 tinue until death. I think myself that about half 
 the people who marry are worse off than they would 
 have been single. I have a theory that somewhere 
 in this world there is a mate for each of us — a mate 
 fitted by temperament, education and natural tend- 
 encies — to make the other supremely happy. 
 
 " What avails it," asks Emerson, *' to fight with 
 
AGNES LEIGH. 147 
 
 the eternal laws of mind, which adjust the relation 
 of all persons to each other, by the mathematical 
 measure of their havings and beings ? " He con- 
 tinues : "Gertrude is enamored of Guy; how 
 high, how artistocratic, how Roman his mien and 
 manners ! To live with him were life indeed, and 
 no purchase is too great; and heaven and earth are 
 moved to that end. Well, Gertrude has Guy; but 
 what now avails how high, how aristocratic, how 
 Roman his mien and manners if his heart and aims 
 are in the Senate, in the theatre and in the bil- 
 liard-room, and she has no aims, no conversations 
 that can enchant her lord ? He shall have his own 
 society. We can love nothing but nature. 
 Nothing," he concludes, ''is more deeply pun- 
 ished than the neglect of the affinities." 
 
 The great trouble seems to be, however, that our 
 affinities, not being distinguishable by strawberry 
 marks on the left arm, or anything equally tangible, 
 we miss them in the crowd, and such of us as 
 marry take a great risk. If we don't get the wrong 
 mate it is a wonder; and I am actually astonished 
 that all marriages are not misfits. But then we do 
 not know how few of them are successful. Pride 
 keeps many tongues still. But we know from those 
 who will talk that the hand is given where the 
 
148 AGNES LEIGH. 
 
 heart can never be in its entirety oftener than it is 
 pleasant for fledgelings like you and me to contem- 
 plate, in view of our liability to find ourselves sail- 
 ing on a sea of connubial glory, "at no distant 
 day," as the newspapers say. 
 
 I hope I do not bore you with my long letters. 
 If I do, be frank and say so, and I will make them 
 
 briefer. 
 
 Affectionately yours, 
 
 Agnes. 
 
 Miss Charlotte Heywood, 
 
 Chicago, 111. 
 
 246 Wabash Avenue, 
 Chicago, III., June 20, 187 — 
 
 My Own Darling, — Yours of the 30th ultimo 
 found me ill with periostitis, which has made me 
 your insolvent debtor until now. I have been 
 utterly unable to use my right hand for three 
 weeks, and even now I respond at the risk of a 
 relapse. I can only stand the pain long enough 
 to jot down a line or two to assure you of my 
 heartfelt gratitude for your most welcome letter. 
 I am almost frantic because my illness will prevent 
 me on this occasion from answering you even as 
 well as usual — and that is not saying anything 
 
AGNES LEIGH. 149 
 
 remarkable. I will make a fresh attempt, how- 
 ever, as soon as possible. 
 
 Hal writes me that he is going to New England 
 with Fred Ballantyne, a college chum, and tells 
 me to address him at Rye Beach, N. H., after July 
 i st. I have been quoting extracts from your letters 
 in my epistles to him, and he is very anxious to 
 meet you. May I write to him to call on you ? 
 
 My wrist aches, so I shall be obliged to finish 
 this letter to-morrow, if I can. If not then — I dare 
 not set a time. Perhaps I had better mail this 
 much at once, and have it off my mind. Mean- 
 time allow me to assure you that 
 
 " There's not an hour of day or dreaming night but I am 
 with thee ; 
 There's not a wind but whispers of thy name ; 
 There's not a flower that sleeps beneath the moon 
 But in its hues or fragrance tells a tale of thee." 
 
 Fondly thine, 
 
 Charlotte. 
 Miss Agnes Leigh, New York. 
 
 P. S. — I must positively leave Chicago for a time 
 and seek much-needed rest. I will answer your 
 letter — such a charming letter it was, too — imme- 
 diately on my return. As I don't know exactly 
 where I shall be, I will relieve you of the task of 
 writing until you hear from me again, though I 
 
150 AGNES LEIGH. 
 
 shall almost die in the absence of your exquisite 
 letters. My dear aunt Sarah, who is my only 
 living relative except Hal, proposes taking me 
 into Ohio for a breath of pure air. Dear Aunty is 
 an Ohioan, and she divides her faith in the cura- 
 tive properties of the Ohio atmosphere equally with 
 her belief with the efficacy of cold water, which 
 latter she maintains has nearly cured my wrist. 
 
 C. H. 
 
 Masters was really ill, and was going home to 
 Cortland for a fortnight, and he could not affoid 
 to have any letters from strange young ladies 
 passing through the hands of the Cortland post- 
 master, Mr. Breitman Van Wormer, father of Miss 
 Harriet. 
 
 246 Wabash Avenue, 
 Chicago, III., July 8, 187 — 
 
 My Sweet Darling, — I have to-day returned 
 fresh and invigorated from a sojourn at Spring- 
 field, Ohio. We stopped there by chance, and 
 found the little old-fashioned city so delightful that 
 we took up our residence at the Lagonda House, 
 and lived there like princesses of the realm until 
 yesterday. 
 
AGNES LEIGH. 151 
 
 Recurring to yours of May 30th, which my hate- 
 ful malady prevented me from answering at length, 
 I must first scold you a little for your closing para- 
 graph. You say: 
 
 "I hope I do not bore you with my long letters. 
 If I do be frank and say so, and I will make them 
 briefer. " 
 
 I think, my dear Agnes, if you only knew how 
 much real good your letters do me ; how much 
 better and happier and stronger and less lonesome 
 I have been since our correspondence began, in- 
 stead of expressing any fear of my being wearied 
 you would thank God for having given you so 
 much power to do good. I remember how, when 
 I was a child at home, my mother used to come 
 softly into my room at night while she thought I 
 slept ; and, as she bent lovingly down to drop a 
 tender kiss on my little brown face, she would gent- 
 ly whisper : " May Heaven make my child a bless- 
 ing ! " And as I read your letters and gather 
 strength and courage from their cheering words, 
 the thought often comes to me that your mother, 
 too, has prayed that you might live to be a bless- 
 ing to others. And I say to myself, " That prayer 
 has been answered." Whether I reply to your 
 letters as they should be answered or not, of this 
 
152 AGNES LEIGH. 
 
 one thing you may be sure ; I do appreciate and 
 shall always be very grateful for all your kind 
 efforts to amuse, instruct and help me. I remem- 
 ber that one morning I came down to breakfast 
 feeling cold and cross and not well disposed to- 
 ward my fellow-creatures. A letter from you was 
 awaiting me, and as I read it a glow of kindliness, 
 a gushing desire to shake hands with everybody 
 and to wish all a merry Christmas, came over me ; 
 just the sort of feeling we experience after reading 
 Dickens' genial sketches. Make your letters 
 briefer? No, ma'am, if you love me. 
 
 I have just received a letter from Hal, some ex- 
 tracts from which I will give you, since you will 
 find his writing more interesting than mine. He 
 says, under date of Rye Beach, July 5th : 
 
 "My Dear Lot, — I came up here from Boston 
 a week ago. I like the place amazingly as a place, 
 but so far as my experience enables me to judge 
 there is an infinite space for improvement in the 
 hotels. I have taken up my brief abode at the 
 Leamington, the leading caravansary of the place. 
 I can't repress a sigh when I contemplate in 
 imagination what the Farragut, the Sea View 
 House and the other fashionable hostelries must be, 
 with the Leamington occupying the pinnacle of 
 
AGNES LEIGH. 153 
 
 popular favor. I engaged a room by telegraph 
 before leaving Boston, and on arriving about 
 ii p.m. was ushered into my palatial quarters. In 
 the matter of proximity to heaven my room was 
 almost sublime ; but at this point all relevancy to 
 the superb and grand ingloriously ends. Miserably 
 furnished, with two beds, on one of which a stranger 
 here, like myself, had stretched his weary legs, the 
 room was not particularly enticing. However, I 
 was tired and sleepy, and my room-mate, who had 
 not yet surrendered himself to the embraces of the 
 drowsy god, proving of a loquacious and enter- 
 taining turn of mind, I got along very comfortably 
 until sleep weighed my eyelids down, and I fell to 
 dreaming pleasant visions, under the soporific in- 
 fluence of the dashing waters' music, as the waves 
 came softly breaking on the shore, scarcely ten 
 rods from my window. The table at the Leam- 
 ington does not in any manner rival that of the 
 Sherman House or the Grand Pacific. The coffee 
 is weak and muddy, the steak is tough, the mack- 
 erel salter than the tears of old Neptune himself, 
 and the attendance despicable. The dining-room 
 reminded me of a circus. I removed the disfigured 
 bodies of four flies which had lain down their lives 
 as a sacrifice at some time when the wheaten grits 
 
154 AGNES LEIGH. 
 
 in which I found them were hot and uncomfort- 
 able, before I could proceed satisfactorily with my 
 frugal meal. From all this you will correctly infer 
 that I did not achieve at the Leamington that easy 
 and pronounced success which usually attends my 
 gastronomic efforts, and that when I passed out 
 from its venerable walls to go and seek Ballantyne 
 at his mother's dainty cottage, my feelings were 
 akin to those entertained by the warriors of old, 
 who, making unsuccessful forays on the domains of 
 adjacent rulers, were skinned alive in reality, as I 
 was in a pecuniary sense, and had very little done 
 to make them happy in return. 
 
 " But leaving the hotel and getting out-of-doors 
 Rye Beach, being a thing of beauty, becomes a 
 joy forever. I daily turn my idle footsteps toward 
 the beach, and, lingering long, watch the rolling 
 waters which break soft and low on her sandy 
 shores, as if in respect for her venerable years. 
 
 "When Ballantyne was in Naples last year, he 
 worked out a theory in verse, that he could hear 
 the curfew bells in his native England, and having 
 had the good fortune to get his ' pome ' printed 
 in the New York Home Journal, he asks me to clip 
 and send it along. Here it is : 
 
 " ' A grand old hymn sang those village bells, 
 Which I heard in the golden past ; 
 
AGNES LEIGH. 155 
 
 Their cadence was mellow, but clear and high, 
 And I hear them again 'neath the starlit sky ! 
 And a spell o'er my soul is cast. 
 
 I stand again midst whispering trees, 
 
 And their murmur a story tells 
 Of wonderful valor, of love and fame, 
 While I listen with longings too sweet to name 
 
 To the song of those evening bells. 
 
 There are thoughts I fancied were gone for aye, 
 But they come trooping back to-night ; 
 
 There are unspoken hopes and visions rare, 
 
 A locket of gold and a ringlet of hair 
 And a face of wondrous light. 
 
 Loved forms return at this curfew hour, 
 And dreams which ended in sadness ; 
 Old memories, sweeter than breath of June, 
 Scent of faded flowers and a long lost tune, 
 Which chasten my hours of gladness. 
 
 Ring out, oh ! bells of the by-gone years, 
 
 Your voices are dearer to me 
 Than all musical strains on earth beside, 
 As your mellow tones reach me at eventide 
 
 From over the shimmering sea.' 
 
 " You must excuse the appearance of this letter. 
 I am writing with what Sam Weller would call a 
 soft-nibbed pen ; my fingers are as far from pliable 
 as a patent poker; which fact, combined with the 
 circumstance that too many Rye Beach cigars have 
 destroyed my usually good nerve, ought to account 
 for any sins, either caligraphical or rhetorical. 
 Moreover, I am writing in a hurry, while dinner is 
 preparing, and there are many conditions about 
 me not conducive to letter-inditing. Through the 
 open window I plainly hear the waves pounding 
 
156 AGNES LEIGH. 
 
 melodiously and regularly on the beach beyond ; 
 the wind, which blows freshly from the sea, comes 
 laden with a wealth of fragrance in which the odors 
 of clover bloom and new mown hay are blended 
 with the saltness ; a lively brook babbles hard by, 
 and seems to whisper sweet stories of ease and 
 idleness to all who listen ; the birds sing, the flies 
 buzz — and bite too, for that matter — and the thin 
 gray clouds drift lazily across the serenest of all 
 possible skies. Who could escape feeling indolent 
 under the influence of all this ? Certainly not I. 
 
 " Midnight. — I have just returned from a hop at 
 the Farragut House, and will add a line to the 
 above and send my letter down-stairs to go off in 
 the early mail. Your brother Hal, as you may 
 infer, does not intend to rise with the lark to-mor- 
 row morning, sister dear. 
 
 " Do not think I have forgotten about Miss 
 Leigh. I have not, and I hope your next letter 
 will convey permission for me to call on her when 
 I pass through New York en route to Chicago, 
 about the 12th. But I have found a new divinity, 
 and have, of course, man fashion, been making my- 
 self agreeable. I had some excuse for so doing, as 
 she is undeniably pretty and cultivated. And pretty 
 and cultivated young ladies are like Christian 
 
AGNES LEIGH. 157 
 
 charity — a rarity under the sun — particularly under 
 the sun here at Rye Beach. The number of 
 simpering, addle-pated and shallow-minded girls 
 is simply heart-rending. But you find them 
 everywhere. 
 
 " ' They're like the poor — they're always with us ; 
 Burrs on the coat-tails of society 
 Which won't be brushed away.' 
 
 " I am sorely stricken with Miss Julia Twombly, 
 
 of Northampton, Mass., however — my partner at 
 
 to-night's ball. She is actually ' half human, half 
 
 divine,' like Dr. Holland's specimen woman. I 
 
 am afraid I flirted with her in a most outrageous 
 
 fashion. She recited Shelley to me, and I, in the 
 
 role of a blase man of fashion claiming to be thirty 
 
 years old, responded by talking about things of 
 
 twenty years ago and cynically quoting Bret Harte's 
 
 pretty verse : 
 
 " ' Then my friend was a hero and then 
 My girl was an angel. In fine, 
 I drank buttermilk ; for at ten 
 Faith asks less to aid her than when, 
 At thirty, we doubt over wine.' 
 
 "She seemed to pity me, and rather regretted, I 
 
 think, that I am not a total abstinence man, like 
 
 her good neighbors up in Massachusetts. At all 
 
 events, she seemed to like me very well, and I 
 
 promise myself much pleasure in her society during 
 
158 AGNES LEIGH. 
 
 the remainder of my stay. Oh, Lot, she is wonder- 
 fully nice and exasperatingly clever ! Now, don't 
 blame me for faltering in my allegiance to your un- 
 known seraph, Miss Leigh. You know I cannot re- 
 sist the temptation to make the most of a bright real- 
 ity, even if you have fired my soul with your praises 
 of one who at best is as yet a mere abstraction. 
 
 " However, if your rara avis will permit me to 
 call on her, I will straightway transform myself 
 into a pink of propriety; and if she pleases me, 
 will forswear flirtations forever and a day, and be as 
 faithful and true to her as the shadow that she casts. 
 
 "You will, I know, regard this episode with 
 
 Miss Twombly as perfectly natural, for I am a 
 
 disciple of the stranger in ' Lucille/ who says : 
 
 " ' Man's life is short, and the youth of a man 
 Is yet shorter. I wish to enjoy what I can, 
 A sunset, if only a sunset be near ; 
 A moon, such as this, if the weather be clear ; 
 A good dinner, if hunger come with it; good wine 
 If I'm thirsty ; a fire if I'm cold ; and, in fine, 
 If a woman is pretty, to me 'tis no matter 
 Be she blonde or brunette, so she let me look at her. ' 
 
 "While I am home comparatively early, like a 
 pious brother, and scratching away for your 
 edification, like a devoted one, the festivities still 
 continue at the Farragut House. The busy feet of 
 the dancers ceased half an hour ago, but the grand 
 
AGNES LEIGH. 159 
 
 piano, under the skillful touch of somebody's 
 pliant fingers, is making itself heard. What more 
 delicious than music on the midnight air? As I 
 write there comes to my ears amid a myriad of 
 variations, Balfe's old, but ever sweet refrain, 
 ' Then You'll Remember Me.' Just now an un- 
 broken strain reached me, but anon some truant 
 wave, more boisterous than those it followed, 
 drowns the piano's tones, and the music of the 
 one is lost in the complaining of the other. At this 
 moment the music of the sea alternates with the 
 strains floating over from the Farragut, and the 
 latter are heard only at intervals, even as a change- 
 ful wind brings plainly to our ears, then wafts 
 them from us altogether, the tuneful chimes of 
 distant wedding bells. I wish you were here to 
 enjoy the beautiful moon, the mingled music of 
 the waves, and that Farragut House piano, and the 
 cool, delicious breeze. It would put the roses into 
 your cheeks to be here, even if you did keep as 
 ridiculous hours as your 
 
 " Ever loving, Hal." 
 
 If you love me, Agnes darling, let Hal call and 
 
 see you. I await a reply with the highest hopes. 
 
 Always your own, 
 
 Lottie. 
 
 Miss Agnes Leigh, New York. 
 
Blank JVo. 1. 
 
 THE WESTERN ONION T EL E GRAPH COMPANY. 
 
 This Company TRANSMITS ami DELIVERS messages only on conditions, limiting its liability, which 
 have been assented to by the sender of the following message 
 
 Errors can be guarded against only by repeating a message back to the sending station forcomparison.and 
 the Company will not hold itself liable for errors or delays in transmission or delivery of V ■repeated 
 Mentage*. 
 
 This message is an UN REPEATED MESSAGE and is delivered by request of the sender under the 
 conditions named above.^--^ 
 
 iR. BREiSCEEK Sec'y. NORVIN GREEN, President. 
 
 /-/....._.. .- 187 
 
 
 cud 
 
 p (rod* AnXk^AuXij o4£*b tb Qfo+or 
 
AGNES LEIGH. 161 
 
 As the reader may surmise, Masters has been 
 falling in love with Miss Leigh more and more 
 deeply as the days have run into weeks and the 
 weeks into months. His tactics looking to his 
 gaining an audience with her have fallen to the 
 ground. The brother Hal stroke of policy was a 
 good one, but it has failed. He has determined, 
 therefore, to tear away the veil behind which he 
 has been hiding, and appear to his deceived and 
 trustful correspondent in his true colors. He 
 purposes doing this by letter. 
 
 ' ' Miss Van Wormer and my parents' pet schemes 
 can go to the dogs for aught I care," he said; 
 "marry Miss Leigh I will if she will overlook the 
 astounding deception I have practiced. It was all 
 for love," he ejaculates, as he paces up and down 
 his room. Then follows this bit of rhapsody : 
 
 " Oh ! woman, woman ! You impale us on a 
 lance as long as life. Had Fate not willed it other- 
 wise, we might detect the incipient shaft lurking 
 beneath the smile which wreathes thy baby lips, or 
 see it darting from the dancing eyes of maid and 
 matron fair. As it is, we dangle near thee always — 
 ti 
 
162 AGNES LEIGH. 
 
 pierced through the heart — yet all oblivious how 
 and when you dealt the painless blow that makes 
 man thine forever." 
 
 As Masters walks to and fro you notice that 
 his face wears a look betokening physical suf- 
 fering. Scrutinizing him carefully in the dimly 
 lighted room, you will perceive that he carries 
 his right hand in his vest. He is suffering again 
 from an attack of periostitis, and his right arm is 
 useless. Accordingly he has sent by an American 
 District messenger for his cousin, Tom Somerby, 
 of the World, once aptly described by George 
 Lanigan as "a chain lightning telegrapher and a 
 thundering good newspaper man," to come in and 
 act as his amanuensis. Tom and he were at school 
 together at Amherst in their boyhood, but though 
 living near together in New York they see very 
 little of each other. They have not met in six 
 months ; but Jack thought of Tom immediately 
 in casting about in his mind for some suitable 
 confidant, and sent for him. 
 
 "Tom," said Jack, when the former had arrived 
 and they were lighting their cigars, " I've sent for 
 
AGNES LEIGH. 163 
 
 you to do a little confidential writing for me. You 
 know all about Miss Van Wormer. She's a good 
 girl and all that ; but, confound it, I have no 
 heart to marry her. She is too good for me. In- 
 deed, Tom, I am a sad dog. And what I want 
 you to do is to write a letter from dictation. Have 
 you any objection ? " 
 
 " Not the slightest," replied Tom. 
 
 "Thanks," continued Masters. "Help your- 
 self to pens, ink and paper and go in." 
 
 "All ready," said Tom, after some little de- 
 lay. 
 
 "Never mind the date or the address. I'll 
 manage to scrawl those afterward. Now: 
 
 " ' I received your telegram, and it found me so 
 ill that I cannot write. Consequently I must dic- 
 tate this letter, which will be sad enough before 
 it is finished, to an amanuensis who will betray no 
 secrets, unless those who are unlikely to write for 
 me 
 
 "Hold on, Jack," interrupted Tom, "this 
 seems rather loose jointed." 
 
 "Let me look at it." returned Jack. "I am 
 
164 AGNES LEIGH. 
 
 not accustomed to dictating, and have, no doubt, 
 made a mess of it." 
 
 Somerby handed the page to Masters, and the 
 latter, holding it awkwardly in his left hand, 
 turned livid and nearly fell to the floor as his 
 eyes rested on the handwriting. Tom sat gazing 
 into space and was scarcely prepared for the ques- 
 tion hoarsely uttered by Masters: 
 
 "Thomas Somerby, have you any female cor- 
 respondents ? " 
 
 "That is a leading question," answered Tom, 
 "and I " 
 
 "As you value your life answer me truthfully; 
 or by heaven I'll " 
 
 Masters went no further. Somerby was thor- 
 oughly frightened. He thought Masters had taken 
 leave of his senses, and that he might as well 
 humor him. So he answered quickly: 
 
 "Yes, I have one. Advertised for her over 
 the name of 'Agnes Leigh,' last March, when I 
 was out with Miss Harrison ; and she's a ripper, 
 too. Now that Dolly and I have made up I must 
 saw off this correspondence somehow. The girl 
 
AGNES LEIGH. 165 
 
 has a brother who threatens to come up here from 
 Rye Beach to see me, confound him! But I've 
 fixed his flint with a telegram." 
 
 Masters tore up and down the room. It was 
 touching to behold his agony. Finally he said: 
 
 "Tom, pardon my rudeness just now. What- 
 ever happens we will be friends — we will be true 
 to each other. Won't we ? " 
 
 " We will," said Somerby, wondering what was 
 
 coming. 
 
 '' Give me your hand, Tom — dear, good old 
 friend. We are in a bad box." 
 
 And seizing his cousin's extended hand, the 
 elegant Jack Masters hid his face on Somerby's 
 shoulder, and said, in a voice that came within 
 a hair's breadth of petrifying the latter young 
 gentleman where he stood, 
 
 "Tom, I am — Miss Charlotte — Heywood, of 
 Chicago ! " 
 
 A profound silence prevailed for a moment, 
 which was broken at last by Somerby, who ob- 
 served, in solicitous tones: 
 
 " I trust, Jack, that brother Hal is well !" 
 
STAGE COACHING. 
 
STAGE COACHING. 
 
 IT was a magnificent afternoon, when, on the 
 occasion of my last visit to the White Moun- 
 tains, the train which had borne us on through the 
 beautiful Pemigewasset Valley, and over a tract of 
 country unequaled in the world for its quiet gran- 
 deur and beauty, halted at Littleton. There was a 
 grand debarking here, and each started for his 
 particular destination by some one of the stage 
 coaches which ply between Littleton and the 
 numerous summer resorts scattered among the 
 mountains. With some twenty others I took pas- 
 sage on the stage destined for the Profile House, 
 and was fortunate enough to secure a seat by the 
 side of the driver. He proved to be a pleasant- 
 mannered old gentleman, with clear gray eyes 
 which twinkled merrily whenever he spoke. He 
 was quite intelligent, withal, and had that inde- 
 scribable something about him which makes one 
 feel when he encounters men of his kind that if 
 accident had placed them in some higher walk in 
 
170 STAGE COACHING. 
 
 life they had within them the elements to adorn 
 that higher plane, even as my friend adorned the 
 box and lent dignity to the coach and four over 
 which he presided. He was decidedly entertain- 
 ing, and directed my attention to different points 
 in the landscape which had been rendered classic 
 by what Edward Everett, Thomas Starr King, 
 Bayard Taylor and others had written about them. 
 And he informed me with a great deal of impress- 
 iveness when alluding to either of the gentlemen 
 that "He was a man that had the sand in him." 
 I had no definite idea of his meaning, but I did 
 not see fit to question him as to the exact definition 
 of the term. There are certain expressions met 
 with quite often which are beyond the ken of the 
 analyst, but which have a significance after all, 
 like Mr. Peggotty's "Well, I'mgormed," and may 
 properly be accepted unquestioned. 
 
 When we had driven down to the village of 
 Franconia, my friend pointed out several features 
 of the country which had been described, and gave 
 me an outline of some of the originals of the char- 
 acters figuring in a series of books called the 
 
STAGE COACHING. 171 
 
 " Beechnut Stories," which I remember, and many 
 of my readers will remember, as a very amusing 
 and instructive part of our early reading. After we 
 left Franconia and began to climb the rugged hills 
 which culminate in the mountains beyond, prog- 
 ress was not over rapid. My entertainer, there- 
 fore, at the end of a few miles had gone over New 
 Hampshire matters pretty thoroughly, and for some 
 time we rode on in silence. Then, with a view 
 evidently of finding a respectable peg on which to 
 hang some further intelligence, he observed : 
 
 " I suppose you hail from Boston way ? " 
 
 "No. From New York," I answered. 
 
 "Now, you don't know how glad I am of 
 that," said he, gleefully. "I say, neighbor, you 
 don't know Judge Proudfit, of Poughkeepsie, do 
 you ? " 
 
 "Oh ! yes, quite well by reputation, and I have 
 met him personally once or twice in a professional 
 capacity." 
 
 "Well, I want to know ! So you know the 
 Judge," he went on. " He's a pretty fair sort of 
 a man, neighbor ; a pretty goldarned sight of a 
 
172 STAGE COACHING. 
 
 man. He's a man that has got the sand in him, 
 or I'm a cow," and he wagged his head sagely and 
 seemed to be musing. 
 
 To all of this I assented, for the gentleman in 
 question is one of the most eminent men in New 
 York. I should have inquired into the relations 
 existing between those two, so far apart in a social 
 sense, and apparently with paths in life running in 
 almost opposite directions ; but my companion 
 seemed to wish to change the subject, and so con- 
 tenting myself with the thought that probably the 
 Judge came to the mountains often, and had been 
 gracious to the old gentleman, I again relapsed 
 into silence. This had the effect of starting him 
 off on a new subject, and he related the following : 
 
 "It must be nigh onto thirty years ago that I 
 went down to New York to see an aunt of mine. 
 I was a young man then, and the folks around the 
 house wasn't the sociablest kind of critters I ever 
 see, so I used to look around for something inter- 
 esting, and among other places I went to was a 
 police court on the same road she lived on, a little 
 further to the west. There's a good deal of hu- 
 
STAGE COACHING. 173 
 
 man nature to be seen and studied in a police 
 court. It's a good place for a man to take his boy 
 to, and let the youngster judge for himself whether 
 the use of rum has a good effect on the system. 
 It done me more good them few days I was there 
 than all the temperance lectures I could ever have 
 heard. Fellows brought up there in the morning, 
 nice, respectable looking fellows, too, and charged 
 with being drunk and disorderly the night before. 
 Very likely brought in from behind an ash barrel 
 or something of that sort. The saddest sight of 
 all was the women, some of 'em real bright look- 
 ing, likely girls, with faces as pretty as angels, but 
 their showy clothes and a good deal of bogus 
 jewelry gave a clue to how they came to fall, and 
 indicated their bad occupation. One morning I 
 remember there was among the prisoners a boy — 
 a bootblack — charged with stealing something or 
 other. He had bright brown eyes, and a way of 
 speaking right out and looking you square in the 
 face. I never believed he was guilty from the way 
 he argued his own case and the way his eyes filled 
 with tears when he told the Judge that he was an 
 
174 STAGE COACHING. 
 
 orphan ; he had been obliged to commence pretty 
 low down in life, he knew, but he was trying to 
 make an honest living and get some education, 
 hoping some time to be somebody, because his 
 mother told him when she lay sick that she should 
 watch over him and watch his career in life from 
 her home in heaven. When he got to talking this 
 way I just says to myself, ' That boy has got the 
 sand in him,' and as I am a sinner I believe he 
 had. I had hard work to keep from blarting right 
 out like a calf, right before the whole kit of 'em. 
 The Judge looked kinder hazy around the eye 
 when he began to question the boy, and he went 
 on and talked real handsome to him. He said he 
 would look into the matter thoroughly, and if he 
 found there was a mistake, he would provide for 
 him in his own office. And, by grief, that little 
 chap spoke up as smart as a man, and said he, 
 ' That ain't the usual practice of judges, if I am 
 rightly informed, but I appreciate your kindness 
 and shall try to merit your esteem. The charge is 
 as baseless as anything, and I am sure of the place 
 you promise me.' And he was, too, for the day 
 
STAGE COACHING. 175 
 
 afore I come away I dropped into the Judge's law 
 office, and there sot that boy reading a calfskin 
 book, with a quill pen behind his ear, and feeling 
 as big as Cuffy. And I heard from that boy after 
 that, and he was admitted to the bar. I always 
 had a good opinion of judges ever since that one 
 there in New York acted so human like, and I'm 
 glad to know that Judge Proudfit is one of the 
 right sort. Them are the only two judges I ever 
 knew, and they both had the sand in them." 
 
 I was greatly interested in this little story, 
 homely though it was ; there was a quiet earnest- 
 ness about the speaker which made every word of 
 importance. I expressed myself much pleased 
 that an acquaintance so unpromisingly begun 
 should have terminated so well for the youth, and 
 tried to say something appropriate about judges 
 exercising more discretion in their edicts in cases 
 of juvenile misdemeanor or apparent depravity, 
 with all of which my companion agreed. We had 
 now reached a difficult point in the road, which 
 ran up the mountain-side at an angle, it seemed 
 to me, of about eighty-nine degrees, and for half 
 
176 STAGE COACHING. 
 
 an hour neither of us spoke, but as the old gentle- 
 man gave the animals their bit as we came into a 
 short space of flat country, he said : 
 
 "Somehow a courtroom has always been an 
 attractive spot to me. I never get into Concord 
 but what I have to go up to the courthouse and 
 see what is the matter. About ten years ago I was 
 visiting a sister of mine who lives down in Rhode 
 Island, at a little place called Greenville. There 
 is nothing there but mills and factory people, with 
 a farmer now and then, not very near together. I 
 didn't particularly like around there, but the day 
 before I came away I heard there was going to be 
 a trial of a young man who had married a pretty 
 hard case, for desertion and non-support. It was 
 coming off before a country judge, a hard headed 
 old farmer, living about a mile from our place. I 
 went over there the day it was down for. It was 
 some kind of a State holiday, and the old farm- 
 house was packed from the front room way back 
 into the kitchen. There was lots of men and 
 more women than you'd think lived within a hun- 
 dred miles. A young lawyer from Providence 
 
STAGE COACHING. 177 
 
 came out to argue the case for the woman, and the 
 boy, who was pretty stuffy, had no lawyer and 
 wouldn't get any. He'd just as soon go to jail, he 
 said, and no one doubted he would have to go, 
 either. There was great excitement while the law- 
 yer was talking, and the women whispered and had 
 a good deal to say among themselves that wasn't 
 complimentary to the girl, but they rather favored 
 her as agin the boy, and the old judge was 
 swallowing every word that the oily chap was 
 saying. After a little, three young fellows with 
 fishing rods and tackle came riding along, and 
 they stopped and came in. They were city bred, 
 you could tell that easy enough ; and there was a 
 sensation as they took their seats in among the 
 women, who made a place for 'em mighty quick. 
 I was attracted to one of them before he had been 
 there long, by the way he watched the lawyer, and 
 a quick way he had of asking questions of the 
 folks sitting near him. Pretty soon he took out a 
 book and wrote down a few words now and then, 
 and when the other chap sat down he jumped up 
 as quick as a cat and made the politest bow to the 
 
 12 
 
178 STAGE COACHING. 
 
 Judge, and smiled on everybody in the sweetest 
 way, and said, that as the defendant seemed to be 
 without counsel, he would undertake, with the 
 consent of the court and the approval of his col- 
 league, to defend the youth. He added that 
 though a stranger, he had just obtained permission 
 to practice in the Rhode Island courts, and had 
 set up an office in Providence. He was allowed 
 to argue the case, and then there was a stir. I just 
 rubbed my hands together, and says I, ' Here's a 
 man that has got the sand in him !' and he had. 
 Why, he talked more law and said more things 
 that made us laugh and then cry, than I could tell 
 you in a week. He spoke of the woman first, and 
 said that a woman's reputation was like a fragile 
 vase — the slightest blow ruined it forever. And 
 then he spoke of the blessed influence of a good 
 woman on a man's desiiny, and pictured the com- 
 fort and holiness of home in such words that I 
 shall never forget it. And then when the women 
 were all crying slyly, he pointed out that in this 
 case the woman was older than the husband, and 
 said there was reason to believe that her path in 
 
STAGE COACHING. 179 
 
 life had not always been bounded with rectitude 
 or truth. Instead of bringing a pure and faithful 
 heart to her young and trusting husband, she had 
 married him under false pretenses, taking advan- 
 tage of his youth and inexperience. She had dis- 
 graced his name and made him ashamed to be 
 longer seen in public with her, and finally he had 
 sought to escape by striking out a new path for 
 himself and leaving her to go her way in peace — 
 if she could. Oh, it was beautiful !" said the old 
 man, cracking his whip as we came upon another 
 level space ; and though it was quite dark now, I 
 fancied the tears were beaming in his eyes, brought 
 there by his own honest enthusiasm. 
 
 "That young man talked," he continued, "for 
 an hour; and he might have talked for twenty-four, 
 and no one would get tired. Before he had spoken 
 fifteen minutes the old Judge raised his spectacles 
 up onto his forehead, and putting his chin in his 
 hands, he never took his eyes off of him until he 
 sat down. And when he did sit down there was a 
 stillness all over that great house like that in a 
 meeting-house when the minister spreads out his 
 
180 STAGE COACHING. 
 
 arms and says, ' Now may the grace of our Lord 
 and Saviour be with you all !' I could hardly keep 
 in my chair till the old Judge got up, and then I 
 arose with him. He wasn't a man of many words. 
 He very deliberately said : ' In my opinion the 
 indictment's squashed. The court has adjourned. ' 
 I couldn't hold in any longer ; I yelled right out, 
 'Judge, you've got the sand in you, and no 
 joking ; ' and that was the opinion of everybody. 
 As for the young man, why, sir, they'd carried him 
 on their shoulders if he'd let 'em, they were so glad 
 he popped in as he did. They cheered him and 
 shook hands with him, and he laughed and shook 
 hands back, and everybody was as happy as kit- 
 tens. I stood back watching his handsome face 
 and figure, and thinking all the time I had seen 
 him before, till he started to go out the door, and 
 then, as I wasn't going to lose my shake, I started 
 after him. He was just trotting out of the yard as 
 I overtook him trying to catch up with his friends, 
 who had gone on a little ahead to unhitch the 
 horse. I reached out my hand to him, and told 
 him how glad I was he called around, and then all 
 
STAGE COACHING. 181 
 
 of a sudden he gave me a look, and I spoke right 
 out, and said I, 
 
 " 'Young man, I've seen you before some- 
 where 's. ' " 
 
 ' ' ' Well, I don't know,' says he, as kind and gen- 
 tlemanly as if I'd been the Governor of the 
 State, ' I am from New York. Have you been 
 there lately ?' " 
 
 " ' Not in a good many years. You must have 
 been a boy when I was there, and a pretty small 
 boy, too.'" 
 
 " ' Well, if I was a very small boy, I was a boot- 
 black. Who knows but I shined 'em up for you 
 twenty good years ago ? ' and he laughed again, 
 and said he was quite proud to say that at an early 
 age he had acquired a tolerable acquaintance with 
 the difference between calfskin and cowhide by 
 actual experience with both. I couldn't hardly 
 catch my breath, I was so eager, but I choked 
 down my heart that was all the time trying to 
 crowd up into my mouth, and says I, ' Your name 
 a'n't Henry Proudfit ?' and before 1 knew it he said 
 it was ; and then we shook hands again and 
 
182 STAGE COACHING. 
 
 again, and talked things over till his friends got 
 so impatient he had to go, though he didn't want 
 to. Well, well, welly ! he's a judge now, God 
 bless him, and I'm going to Poughkeepsie some 
 day and see him. The sand in that man," he 
 concluded impressively, "would sink a ship." 
 
 For a quarter of an hour we rode on in silence. 
 No comment of mine could have added a touch to 
 the symmetry of the story ; the wrong word would 
 surely have jarred upon the old man's mind and 
 hurt his feelings. I knew this, and therefore held 
 my peace. But as we reached the summit of 
 the last hill-top and saw at our feet the brilliantly 
 lighted Profile House, its great white surface stand- 
 ing out against the inky background formed by 
 Moun t Lafayette in most dazzling relief, I es- 
 sayed to re-open the conversation on a new topic 
 as we dashed along, and observed that I supposed 
 there were a good many newspaper correspondents 
 in the vicinity this season. 
 
 " Oh ! yes," said he, "lots of 'em every season, 
 and your speaking about 'em puts me in mind. 
 Some of 'em have got the sand in 'em, but not 
 
STAGE COACHING. 183 
 
 many. There was one chap up here two summers 
 ago," and here he broke out laughing till his hearty 
 peals reverberated again and again among the 
 ledges through which the road was cut. " He was 
 up here," he continued, "two seasons ago. I 
 didn't see him to know him, but I believe he came 
 over the mountain from the Crawford House and 
 then rode over to Littleton with me. His name was 
 Tom — Tom Somerset — Somerby. Tom Somerby, 
 that's the fellow. Well, I read a piece of his in 
 the New York Commercial Advertiser about this 
 country, and if he hasn't got the longest gaspipe in 
 himofanymanl ever see, then I don't know a 
 whip-socket from an ear of green corn." 
 
 The road at about this point was very rocky, 
 and the coach made a hideous noise, so I could 
 not well discover my identity. Afterward I might 
 have done so, but after all I am a modest man ; I 
 don't care to have it bruited about who I am, when 
 for the nonce I forget my proud eminence in life and 
 am traveling incognito. It was for this reason, and 
 for no other, I assure you, that I refrained from 
 pressing my card on the old gentleman at parting. 
 
OLD GEORGE WENTWORTH. 
 
OLD GEORGE WENTWORTH. 
 
 TN the year of our Lord 1S67 there came to 
 work in the Western Union Telegraph Office at 
 No. 145 Broadway a thin, prematurely old and gray 
 young man of not more than twenty-six years. No 
 one seemed to know anything about him, and he 
 soon dropped into our ranks, and came and went 
 day after day without eliciting much interest on 
 the part of those around him. He was very quiet, 
 and seldom spoke unless addressed, but then in a 
 low and sweetly musical voice. That he was intelli- 
 gent and well educated everybody conceded, but he 
 manifested no disposition to mix with the general 
 throng; and thus it happened that the general 
 throng, without thinking much about it, came to 
 speak of him with more respect than the appella- 
 tion given him would imply as " Old George 
 Wentworth," and to leave him pretty much to 
 himself. He sat right across the aisle from me, 
 and I often studied his sad though pleasant 
 face, and ere long put his name down in my mind 
 
188 OLD GEORGE WENTWORTH. 
 
 with those of some other men I had met, and 
 whom I may briefly describe by stating that 
 they were men with histories. Yes, I was 
 moderately sure that George Wentworth had a 
 history, and I longed to know what it was, and 
 give him my young and boyish friendship with my 
 whole heart. But months passed, and we knew no 
 more of our associate then we did when he came, 
 except that he was a magnificent operator, and 
 that he was as sweet as a day in June, though as 
 sad, as I have indicated, as the melancholy and 
 sighing days of the later autumn. His voice and 
 manner always reminded me of the falling of the 
 hectic October leaves, the surging of the autumn 
 wind through leafless branches. But the glorious 
 sunbeams were always resting on his head, making 
 sweet and lovable his life and character. 
 
 One night we had a severe sleet storm, and 
 hardly a wire was left intact in any direction. The 
 full force had been ordered on duty waiting for the 
 lines to come " O. K.," and sat about in little 
 knots, telling stories and speculating on the 
 chances of being kept on duty until morning. 
 
OLD GEORGE WENT WORTH. 189 
 
 For a time I formed one of a little company, but 
 not being particulary interested in the topic of 
 discussion, and seeing George Wentworth sitting 
 alone, I approached him. After a short exchange 
 of commonplaces, I asked, abruptly : 
 
 "Are you a married man, Mr. Wentworth?" 
 
 The reply came slowly: "No." 
 
 If that little monosyllable had been kept on ice 
 for a century it could not have been colder. I saw 
 that I had been imprudent, that I had awkwardly 
 touched a chord in the man's heart that was sacred. 
 I was very sorry, and being very young and inex- 
 perienced in hiding my emotions, I made a failure 
 of it. The tears came into my eyes, my lip 
 trembled, and I felt wretched. He saw the state 
 of things at a glance, and said, kindly : 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Tom, I didn't mean to be 
 rude, but I had just been thinking of events scarcely 
 six years old, but such bitter, hopeless memories 
 that it seems as if I had lived a thousand years 
 since the page on which they are written was 
 turned down in the book of Fate — turned down 
 forever. " 
 
190 OLD GEORGE WENTWORTH. 
 
 He paused, and I said nothing. " I have never 
 spoken of these things,'' he continued, " but I 
 think I was something like you at twenty; how 
 sadly I have changed since then !" 
 
 He stopped again, and then continued : "I 
 don't mind telling you my story, if you would care 
 to hear it ;" and as I eagerly answered, " Do tell 
 me," he resumed : "It is a sad story, my little 
 friend, it concerns a woman. Some say hearts do 
 not break ; others, that women's hearts do some- 
 times, but that a man's is tough, and can bear 
 disaster to the affections without material injury. 
 May be it is true, generally speaking, but there are 
 exceptions — the exceptions, I suppose," he said, 
 musingly, "that philosophers would tell you prove 
 the rule. You see me to-day old and prematurely 
 gray. I have never been a dissipated man. I 
 inherited a fine constitution from my father. I 
 have lived regularly and have never suffered from 
 disease, but I am as you see me, nevertheless. Do 
 you ask me if I am heart-broken ? I cannot say 
 that, but I have mourned over dead and buried 
 hopes for five years, and God's beautiful world will 
 
OLD GEORGE WENTWORTH. 191 
 
 never look so fair and sweet again to me as the 
 hour when I close my eyes upon it forever." 
 
 He moved slightly in his chair, and said, as if 
 studying on the matter, "It looks like a case of 
 broken heart, doesn't it ? " 
 
 Then he was silent for several minutes, but when 
 he spoke again his voice had changed and he pro- 
 ceeded more cheerfully than I had ever heard him 
 speak before : 
 
 "Six years ago last August I was employed in 
 an Eastern city. I worked the New York wire, 
 and one day while I was sending, an office boy 
 came up and said : ' Mr. Wentworth, there's a 
 lady outside as wants to see yer.' I cleared my 
 hook, asked New York to wait a second, and went 
 out into the vestibule of the office. A vision of 
 loveliness, such as I had never seen until then, 
 stood before me. She was an entire stranger to me, 
 but we were soon chatting gaily, nevertheless, for 
 she had said in the meantime : ' I am Helen Banks, 
 from Saybrook, and, as I was passing through 
 here, on my way to Rockville, where I am to take 
 the office, I thought it not improper that I should 
 
192 OLD GEORGE WENTWORTH. 
 
 call and renew, in propria persona, the acquaint- 
 ance we had formed by wire.' 
 
 "I have burdened you by inference with one 
 exploded theory, so don't mind another," he con- 
 tinued ; " I fell in love at first sight. She was a 
 lovely creature, small of stature, bright, intelligent, 
 modest, enchanting, and she appeared to me as 
 suddenly and unexpectedly as Diana appeared to 
 Endymion. How readily I accepted Endymion's 
 role, and with what alacrity I awoke from my 
 sleep of every-day life to a new life of love and 
 bliss, I need not tell you. She stayed only a few 
 minutes, and at parting she said gaily : 
 
 "'I expect to be intensely lonesome down at 
 Rockville, and that my only recreation will be 
 that derived from listening to the birds and to your 
 musical sending. Think of me sometimes, and 
 when the wire is idle say a word to poor me, won't 
 you ? ' she went on, half jocosely, half in earnest. 
 ' And,' she concluded, ' when you are too busy to 
 bid a body good day, please imagine that 
 
 Pretty and pale and tired 
 
 She sits, in her stiff-backed chair, 
 
 While the blazing summer sun 
 Shines on her soft brown hair, ' 
 
OLD GEORGE WE NT WORTH. 193 
 
 and all the rest of it. Good-by!' and she was 
 gone. 
 
 " How dark and dismal the old office looked as 
 I resumed my duties. The sunbeams which in 
 my imagination nestled in her hair and played 
 around the dimples in her cheeks, lending a new 
 and genial luster to the office, and blessing every 
 nook and corner in the dim old room like a visible 
 benediction, went out with her. I was very 
 thoughtful and preoccupied that afternoon, and 
 felt that I could afford to smile at my companions 
 who sought to tease me by asking if that was the 
 young lady who inquired over the wire so often if 
 Mr. Wentworth was in. Well, time passed on, 
 and what with chatting on the wire, and corre- 
 sponding by mail, we finally reached the period 
 in our acquaintance when I dared to offer myself 
 in marriage. A letter was the medium of my pro- 
 posal — I had not courage to make a personal 
 appeal." 
 
 He paused and drummed on the desk with his 
 fingers for a little time and then said : 
 
 "1 waited patiently three days for an answer, 
 
 1 3 
 
194 OLD GEORGE WENTWORTH. 
 
 but none came. Then I waited a week, a month, 
 and then she resigned and went home. I dared 
 not make any inquiry of her meantime, though I 
 did write confidentially to the postmaster at Rock- 
 ville, and learned that he had himself delivered 
 the letter into her hands. I saw how it was, she 
 could not accept me and was too kind to tell me 
 so. I went into the army when the war broke out, 
 but returned home on a furlough in 1863. I 
 learned that Helen had married her cousin a few 
 months before and had removed to Iowa. I was 
 resolved to make the best of it and be a man. 
 You see how well I have succeeded," he said, 
 smiling sadly. " Just before my furlough was out 
 I took up a copy of a morning paper published in 
 the city where I had been formerly employed and 
 started on seeing my own name. 
 
 "At first I thought I had been accidentally in- 
 cluded in a list of killed and wounded. I hastily 
 turned the paper to read the heading, and my 
 heart sank within me. Through hot, blinding 
 tears, which I could not stay, I read the sad, sad 
 story that made me what I am. A post-office clerk 
 
OLD GEORGE WENTWORTH. 195 
 
 had been arrested for robbing the mail ; in his 
 room were found unendorsed, and therefore use- 
 less checks, 'and among other things,' the account 
 said : ' Personal letters to the following named ad- 
 dresses.' Then followed a list of a hundred or more 
 names, among which was mine. I took the first 
 train to , and applying at police headquar- 
 ters, obtained my letter. It was as I had feared ; it 
 was her letter accepting me as her husband. I 
 crushed it in my hands, and crying : ' O God, 
 too late, too late ! ' fell swooning on the floor. 
 A few weeks later I went back to my post in the 
 army. My comrades said I was the bravest man 
 they had ever seen. I rushed into the thickest of 
 the fight, and feared nothing. I courted an hon- 
 orable death ; but bullets whistled by me, shells 
 burst by my side, killing men by dozens. The 
 fever broke out in our regiment and fifty men died 
 in one week, but I lived on. Promotion followed 
 promotion, and at last, to please my mother, I 
 resigned my commission, stayed at home a month, 
 and finally promised to keep out of the army on 
 condition that I should resume work at my old 
 
196 OLD GEORGE WENTWORTH. 
 
 business wherever I could find it. Since then I 
 have been in Canada, and finally drifted to New 
 York to be nearer home. Now, Tom, let me tell 
 you here that — " 
 
 "Mr. Wentworth, we have got one wire up to 
 Washington ; answer him for a Sun special, please," 
 called out Night Manager Marks from the switch, 
 and the story was ended. 
 
 The thread thus broken was never taken up 
 again, and by some indefinable understanding 
 between us, I guarded Wentworth's secret as 
 jealously as if it were I who had loved and lost, 
 and henceforward neither of us mentioned it. 
 
 I left New York soon after this, and never saw 
 George Wentworth again until I stood one August 
 day two years later in a small Connecticut town, 
 and looked down upon all that was mortal of him 
 as he lay in his coffin. His sweet face was as 
 natural as in life, and scarcely any paler. His 
 mother stood by and reverently kissed his brow 
 again and again, while the sturdy frame of his 
 grand old father trembled like a reed shaken in 
 the wind as he gazed fondly and tearfully upon 
 
OLD GEORGE WENTWORTH. 197 
 
 the dead. There were not many particulars of his 
 death to be obtained. It was obvious that no one 
 excepting the old pastor knew of his love and the 
 suffering he had undergone. 
 
 " He came home," said his mother, "about a 
 month ago, looking no worse than usual, but he 
 shortly began to fail perceptibly day by day. The 
 doctor came and prescribed a change of air, but 
 George said he would be better soon, and begged 
 to remain quietly where he was. One afternoon 
 he walked out under the elms and laid down in 
 the hammock. At six o'clock I went out and 
 asked him to return to the house. He said : ' Not 
 yet, mother. It is delightful here, the breeze 
 refreshes me, and I feel perfectly easy and content. 
 I will remain where I am — thank you — -and watch 
 the sun go down.' When the sun had set I went 
 out again, but," she added, in a breaking, though 
 sweetly musical voice, like George's, "my boy 
 had gone to rest with the sun, whose downward 
 course he watched.'' 
 
 The minister came and preached the customary 
 sermon, ranking the dead man with 
 
198 OLD GEORGE WENT WORTH. 
 
 " Men whose lives glide on like rivers that water the 
 
 woodlands, 
 Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of 
 
 heaven; " 
 
 the modest cortege moved away, and George 
 Wentworth was laid to rest in a solitary grave be- 
 neath the murmuring pines on a neighboring hill- 
 side. This was done at his request, made to the 
 old preacher, whom he also acquainted with his 
 story when he felt that the end was near. Not 
 being a relative, I did not go to the grave, and as 
 I prepared to leave the house I met a sweet, sad 
 faced woman, whom I had noticed approach and 
 gaze long and tenderly upon the form of my de- 
 parted friend, and then retire to a remote corner 
 of the room weeping painfully. Some one said 
 she was a stranger, others that she was some 
 woman living in the village, and still others said 
 that she was a relative. But I knew she was not 
 the latter, else she would have been provided with 
 a carriage. We left the house together, and as we 
 walked down the neat gravel path, I said: 
 
 "This is a very pretty village. Do you live 
 here ? " 
 
OLD GEORGE WENTWORTH. 199 
 
 "No, sir," she replied, "I live many, many 
 miles from here. Mr. Wentworth was an old 
 friend of mine, and my husband insisted that 
 I should come to his funeral." 
 
 "You live in Iowa, perhaps," said I gently. 
 Our eyes met for a moment, and we understood 
 each other. 
 
 " You are married, I believe — happily so, I 
 trust," I ventured, after a moment. 
 
 " My husband is very kind," she replied. " I 
 am quite content, thank you. We have two chil- 
 dren. " 
 
 " I suppose you know the whole story," I add- 
 ed, after a pause, "the stolen letter, his suffering 
 and his unaltered love." 
 
 "Yes, sir, I know it all now, Mr. Somerby,"she 
 said, weeping. " The good parson who preached 
 the funeral sermon to-day wrote me the sad story 
 a few weeks ago. It was he, too, who telegraphed 
 George's death, and influenced his parents, without 
 disclosing his motive, to defer the funeral until 
 now. I arrived only at noon to-day. Oh ! sir," 
 she continued, " I try to think it is all for the best. 
 
200 OLD GEORGE WENTWORTH. 
 
 I pray to Heaven to help me to be true and good 
 to my kind and affectionate husband, and to make 
 me worthy of my pure and guileless little ones ; 
 but I sometimes fear that I have only a shattered 
 heart left to love them with." 
 
 We shook hands and separated, probably forever. 
 I went back to my telegraphing, and she back to 
 Iowa, her husband and little ones, and her great 
 sorrow. And that ends the story, unless I add an 
 odd fancy of my own. 
 
 Sometimes when the house is hushed and mid- 
 night draws near, I sit and smoke and dream. 
 Watching the clouds as they curl upward from my 
 cigar, or peering through the smoke rings I blow 
 forth, I see hopes and joys that have passed 
 me by, which, as they vanish in the haze, leave 
 my cheeks wet. And as I sit and muse anon, 
 my mind flits back to a quiet rustic village, 
 and I hear the winds softly sighing through the 
 pines above a solitary grave on a hill-side. 
 Looking west, I see a sweet, sad-faced matron 
 sitting beneath a cottage portico, and happy, 
 gleeful children are about her. Then I listen 
 
OLD GEORGE WENTWORTH. 201 
 
 to the pines again, and I fancy I hear them 
 whisper, 
 
 " Pretty and pale and tired 
 
 She sits in her stiff backed chair, 
 While the blazing summer sun 
 Shines on her soft brown hair; " 
 
 and as I turn once more I see her yet again — wait- 
 ing, waiting, waiting. 
 
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