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30	THE QUENCHING OF QUIPAI.	The cottage at Alta Vista had expanded little by little into a long, single storied flat-roofed house, shaded by palm-trees and set in a fair garden, which looked all the brighter from its contrast with the brown and herbless hill-sides that uprose around it. In the after part of the day on which I discovered the theft, Angela and myself were sitting under the veranda, which fronted the house and commanded a view of the great reservoir, the oasis and the ocean. She was reading aloud a favorite chapter in "Don Quixote," one of the few books we possessed. I was smoking. Angela read well; her pronunciation of Spanish was faultless, and I always took particular pleasure in hearing her read the idiomatic Castilian of Cervantes. Nevertheless, my mind wandered; and, try as I might, I could not help thinking more of the theft of the diamonds than the doughty deeds of the Don and the shrewd sayings of Sancho Panza. Not that the loss gave me serious concern. A few stones more or less made no great difference, and I should probably never turn to account those I had. But the incident revived suspicions as to the good faith of the two castaways, which had been long floating vaguely in my mind. From the first I had rather doubted the account they gave of themselves. And Kidd! I had never much liked him; he had a hard inscrutable face, and unless I greatly misjudged him was capable of bolder enterprises than petty larceny. He was just the man to steal secretly away and return with a horde of unscrupulous treasure-seekers, for he knew now that there were diamonds in the neighborhood, and he must have heard that we had found gold and silver ornaments and vessels in the old cemetery-- "_Dios mio! _ What is that?" exclaimed Angela, dropping her book and springing to her feet, an example which I instantly followed, for the earth was moving under us, and there fell on our ears, for the first time, the dread sound of subterranean thunder. "An earthquake!" But the alarm was only momentary. In less time than it takes to tell the trembling ceased and the thunder died away. "Only a slight shock, after all," I said, "and I hope we shall have no more. However, it is just as well to be prepared. I will have the mules got out of the stable; and if there is anything inside you particularly want you had better fetch it. I will join you in the garden presently." As I passed through the house I saw Kidd coming out of the room where I kept my specimens. "What are you doing there?" I asked him, sharply. "I went for a tool I left there" (holding up a chisel). "Did you feel the shock?" "Yes, and there may be another. Tell Maximiliano to get the mules out." "If he has been after the diamonds," I thought, "he must know that I have taken them away. I had better make sure of them." And with that I stepped into my room, put on my quilted jacket, and armed myself with a small hatchet and a broad-bladed, highly tempered knife, given to me by the abbé, which served both as a dagger and a _machete_. When I had seen the mules safely tethered, and warned the servants and others to run into the open if there should be another shock, I returned to Angela, who had resumed her seat in the veranda. "Equipped for the mountains! Where away now, _caro mio_?" she said, regarding me with some surprise. "Nowhere. At any rate, I have no present intention of running away. I have put on my jacket because of these diamonds, and brought my hatchet and hunting-knife because, if the house collapses, I should not be able to get them at the very time they would be the most required." "If the house collapses! You think, then, we are going to have a bad earthquake?" "It is possible. This is an earthquake country; there has been nothing more serious than a slight trembling since long before the abbé died; and I have a feeling that something more serious is about to happen. Underground thunder is always an ominous symptom. --Ah! There it is again. Run into the garden. I will bring the chairs and wraps." The house being timber built and one storied, I had little fear that it would collapse; but anything may happen in an earthquake, and in the garden we were safe from anything short of the ground on which we stood actually gaping or slipping bodily down the mountain-side. The second shock was followed by a third, more violent than either of its predecessors. The earth trembled and heaved so that we could scarcely stand. The underground thunder became louder and continuous and, what was even more appalling, we could distinctly see the mountain-tops move and shake, as if they were going to fall and overwhelm us. But even this shock passed off without doing any material mischief, and I was beginning to think the worst was over when one of the servants drew my attention to the great reservoir. It smoked and though there was no wind the water was white with foam and running over the banks. This went on several minutes, and then the water, as if yielding to some irresistible force, left the sides, and there shot out of it a gigantic jet nearly as thick as the crater was wide and hundreds of feet high. It broke in the form of a rose and fell in a fine spray, which the setting sun hued with all the colors of the rainbow. It was the most splendid sight I had ever seen and the most portentous--for I knew that the crater had become active, and remembering how long it had taken to fill I feared the worst. The jet went on rising and falling for nearly an hour, but as the mass of the water returned to the crater, very little going over the sides, no great harm was done. "Thank Heaven for the respite!" exclaimed Angela, who had been clinging to me all the time, trembling yet courageous. "Don't you think the danger is now past, my Nigel?" "For us, it may be. But if the crater has really become active. I fear that our poor people at San Cristobal will be in very great danger indeed." "No! God alone--Hearken!" A muffled peal of thunder which seemed to come from the very bowels of the earth, followed by a detonation like the discharge of an army's artillery, and the sides of the crater opened, and with a wild roar the pent-up torrent burst forth, and leaping into the lake, rolled, a mighty avalanche of water, toward the doomed oasis. We looked at each other in speechless dismay. Nothing could resist that terrible flood; it would sweep everything before it, for, though its violence might be lessened before it reached the sea, only the few who happened to be near the coast could escape destruction. Nobody spoke; the roar of the cataract deafened us, the awfulness of the catastrophe made us dumb. We were as if stunned, and I was conscious of nothing save a sickening sense of helplessness and despair. For an hour we stood watching the outpouring of the water. In that hour Quipai was destroyed and its people perished. As the blood-red sun sank into the bosom of the broad Pacific, a great cloud of smoke and steam, mingled with stones and ashes, was puffed out of the crater and a stream of fiery lava, bursting from the breach in the side of the mountain, followed in the wake of the water. The uproar was terrific; explosion succeeded explosion; great stones hurled through the air and fell back into the crater with a din like discharges of musketry, and whenever there came a lull we could hear the hissing of the water as it met the lava. We remained in the garden the night through. Nobody thought of going indoors; but after a while we became so weary with watching and overwrought with excitement that, despite the danger and the noise we could not keep our eyes open. Before the southern cross began to bend we were all asleep, Angela and I wrapped in our cobijas, the others on the turf and under the trees. When I opened my eyes the sun was rising majestically above the Cordillera, but its rays had not yet reached the ocean. I rose and looked around. The crater was still smoking, and a mist hung over the oasis, but the lava had ceased to flow, and not a zephyr moved the air, not a tremor stirred the earth. Only the blackened throat of the volcano and the ghastly rent in its side were there to remind us of the havoc that had been wrought and the ruin of Quipai. I roused the people and bade them prepare breakfast, for though thousands may perish in a night, the survivors must eat on the morrow. The house, albeit considerably shaken, was still intact, but several of the doors were so tightly jammed that I had to break them open with my hatchet. When breakfast was ready I woke Angela. "Is it real, or have I been dreaming?" she asked, with a shudder, looking wildly round. "It is only too real," I said, pointing to the smoking crater. " _Misericordia! _ what shall we do?" "First of all, we must go down to the oasis and see whether any of the people are left alive." "You are right. When we have done what we can for the others it will be time enough to think about ourselves." "Are there any others?" I thought, for I greatly doubted whether we should find any alive, except, perhaps, Yawl and the three or four men who were helping him. But I kept my misgivings to myself, and after breakfast we set off. Angela and myself were mounted, and I assigned a mule to Kidd. The man might be useful, and, circumstanced as we were, it would have been bad policy to give him the cold shoulder. We also took with us provisions, clothing, and a tent, for I was by no means sure that we should find either food or shelter on the oasis. As we passed the volcano I looked into the crater. Nearly level with the breach made by the water was a great mass of seething lava, which I regarded as a sure sign that another eruption might take place at any moment. The valley lake had disappeared; banks, trees, soil, dwellings, all were gone, leaving only bare rocks and burning lava. Of San Cristobal there was not a vestige; the oasis had been converted into a damp and steaming gully, void of vegetation and animal life. But, as I had anticipated, the force of the flood was spent before it reached the coast. Much of the water had overflowed into the desert and been absorbed by the sand, and the little that remained was now sinking into the earth and being evaporated by the sun. For hours Angela and I rode on in silence; our distress was too deep for words. "Quipai is gone," she murmured at length, shuddering and looking at me with tear-filled eyes. "Yes, gone and forever. As entirely as if it had never been. It is worse than the carnage of a great battle. These poor people! Nature is more cruel than man." "But surely! will you not try to restore the oasis and re-create Quipai?" "To do that, _cara mia_, would require another Abbé Balthazar and sixty years of life. And to what end? Sooner or later our work would be destroyed as his has been, even if we were allowed to begin it. The volcano may be active for ages. We must go." "Whither?" "Back to the world, that in new scenes and occupation we may perchance forget this crowning calamity." "It is something to have been happy so long." "It is much; it is almost everything. Whatever the future may have in store for us, darling, nothing can deprive us of the sunny memories of the past, and the happiness we have enjoyed at Quipai." "True, and if this misfortune were not so terrible--But God knows best. It ill becomes me, who never knew sorrow before, to repine. --Yes, let us go. But how?" "By sea. I fear you would never survive the hazards and hardships of a journey over the Cordillera, and dearly as I love you--because I love you--I would rather have you die than be captured by Indians and made the wife of some savage cacique. Yes, we must go by sea, in the sloop built by these two castaways. Yet, even in that there will be a serious risk; for if they suspect I have the diamonds in my possession--and I am afraid the suspicion is inevitable--they will probably--" "What?" "Try to murder us." "Murder us! For the diamonds?" "Yes, my Angela, for the diamonds. In the world which you have never seen men commit horrible crimes for insignificant gains, and I have here in my pocket the value of a king's ransom. Even the average man could hardly withstand so great a temptation, and all we know of these sailors is that one of them is a thief." "What will you do then?" "First of all, I must find a safer hiding-place for our wealth than my pockets; and we must be ever on our guard. The voyage will not be long, and we shall be three against two." "Three! You will take Ramon, then?" "Certainly--if he will go with us." "Of course he will. Ramon would follow you to the world's end. And the other sailor--Yawl--may have been drowned in the flood." "I don't think so. The flood did not go much farther than this, and Yawl was busy with his boat. But we shall soon know; the cliffs are in sight."	{ "id": "14779" }
31	NORTH BY WEST.	Besides Yawl and his helpers, we found on the beach about thirty men and women, the saved of two thousand. Among them was one of the priests ordained by the abbé. All had lived in the lower part of the oasis, and when the volcano began spouting water, after the third earthquake, they fled to the coast and so escaped. Though naturally much distressed (being bereft of home, kindred, and all they possessed), they bore their misfortunes with the uncomplaining stoicism so characteristic of their race. The immediate question was how to dispose of these unfortunates. I could not take them away in the sloop, and I knew that they would prefer to remain in the neighborhood where they were born. But the oasis was uninhabitable. A few weeks and it would be merged once more in the desert from which it had been so painfully won. Therefore I proposed that they should settle at Alta Vista under charge of the priest. Alta Vista being above the volcano no outburst of lava could reach them, and the _azequia_ being intact beyond that point they could easily bring more land under cultivation and live in comfort and abundance. To this proposal the survivors and the priest gladly and gratefully assented. They were very good, those poor Indians, and seemed much more concerned over our approaching departure than their own fate, beseeching us, with many entreaties, not to leave them. Angela would have yielded, but I was obdurate. I could not see that it was in any sense our duty to bury ourselves in a remote corner of the Andes for the sake of a score or two of Indians who were very well able to do without us. What could be the good of building up another colony and creating another oasis merely that the evil genii of the mountains might destroy them in a night? Had the abbé, instead of spending a lifetime in making Quipai, devoted his energies to some other work, he might have won for himself enduring fame and permanently benefited mankind. As it was, he had effected less than nothing, and I was resolved not to court his fate by following his example. Those were the arguments I used to Angela, and in the end she not only fully agreed with me that it was well for us to go, but that the sooner we went the better. The means were at hand. Yawl could have the yacht ready for sea within twenty-four hours. There was little more to do than head the sails and get water and provisions on board. I had the casks filled forthwith--for the water in the channels was fast draining away--set some of the people to work preparing _tasajo_, and sent Ramon with the mules and two _arrieros_ to Alta Vista for the remainder of our clothing, bedding, and several other things which I thought would be useful on the voyage. Ramon, I may mention, was my own personal attendant. He had been brought up and educated by Angela and myself, and was warmly attached to us. In disposition he was bright and courageous, in features almost European; there could be little doubt that he was descended from some white castaway, who had landed on the coast and been adopted by this tribe. He said it would break his heart if we left him behind, so we took him with us, and he has ever since been the faithful companion of my wanderings and my trusty friend. My wife and I slept in our tent, Kidd and Yawl on the sloop. As the sails were not bent nor the boat victualled, I had no fear of their giving us the slip in the night. In the morning Ramon and the _arrieros_ returned with their lading, and by sunset we had everything on board and was ready for a start. The next thing was to settle our course. I wanted to reach a port where I could turn some of my diamonds into cash and take shipping for England, the West Indies, or the United States. We were between Valparaiso and Callao, and the former place, as being on the way, seemed the more desirable place to make for. But as the prevailing winds on the coast are north and northwest a voyage in the opposite direction would involve much beating up and nasty fetches, and, in all probability, be long and tedious. For these reasons I decided in favor of Callao, and told Kidd to shape our course accordingly. "Just as you like, sir," he said; "it is all the same to Yawl and me where we go. But it's a longish stretch to Callao. Don't you think we had better make for some nearer place? There's Islay, and there's Arica; and I doubt whether our water will last out till we get to Callao." "We must make it last till we get to Callao," I answered, sharply; "except under compulsion I will put in neither at Islay nor Arica." "All right, sir! We are under your orders, and what you say shall be done, as far as lies in our power." Kidd's answer was civil but his manner was surly and defiant, and it struck me that he might have some special reason for desiring to avoid Callao. But I was resolved to go thither, so that in case of need I might claim the protection of the British consul, whom I was sure to find there. I was by no means sure that I should find one either at Islay or Arica. I knew something of the ways of Spanish revenue officers, and as I had no papers, it was quite possible that (in the absence of a consul) I might be cast into prison and plundered of all I possessed, especially if Mr. Kidd should hint that it included a bag of diamonds. The sloop's accommodation for passengers was neither extensive nor luxurious. The small cabin aft was just big enough to hold Angela and myself, and once in it, we were like rats in a hole, as, to get out, we had to climb an almost perpendicular ladder. Kidd and Yawl were to sleep, turn and turn about, in a sort of dog-house which they had contrived in the bows. Ramon would roll himself in his _cobija_ and sleep anywhere. Before going on board I made such arrangements as I hoped would insure us against foul play. I stitched one half of the diamonds in my waist-belt; the other half my wife hid away in her dress. Among the things brought down from Alta Vista was an exquisite little dagger with a Damascened blade, which I gave to Angela. I had my hunting-knife, and Ramon his _machete_. I laid it down as a rule from which there was to be no departure, that Ramon and I were neither to sleep at the same time nor be in the cabin together, and that when we had anything particular to say we should say it in Quipai. As it happened, he knew a little English; I had taught my wife my mother-tongue, and Ramon, by dint of hearing it spoken, and with a little instruction from me and from her, had become so far proficient in the language that he could understand the greater part of what was said. This, however, was not known to Kidd and Yawl; I told him not to let them know; but whenever opportunity occurred to listen to their conversation, and report it to me. I thought that if they meditated evil against us I might in this way obtain timely information of their designs; and I considered that, in the circumstances (our lives being, as I believed, in jeopardy), the expedient was quite justifiable. We sailed at sunset and got well away, and the clear sky and resplendent stars, the calm sea and the fair soft wind augured well for a prosperous voyage. Yet my heart was sad and my spirits were low. The parting with our poor Indians had been very trying, and I could not help asking myself whether I had acted quite rightly in deserting them, whether it would not have been nobler (though perhaps not so worldly wise) to throw in my lot with theirs and try to recreate the oasis, as Angela had suggested. I also doubted whether I was acting the part of a prudent man in embarking my wife, my fortune, and myself on a wretched little sloop (which would probably founder in the first storm), under the control of two men of whom I knew no good, and who, as I feared, might play us false? But whether I had acted wisely or unwisely, there was no going back now, and as I did not want Angela to perceive that I was either dubious or downcast, I pulled myself together, put on a cheerful countenance, and spoke hopefully of our prospects. She was with us on deck, Kidd being at the helm. "I have no very precise idea how far we maybe from Callao," I said, "but if this wind lasts we should be there in five or six days at the outside. Don't you think so, Kidd?" "May be. You still think of going to Callao, then?" "Still think of going to Callao! I am determined to go to Callao. Why do you ask? Did not I distinctly say so before we started?" "I thought you had maybe changed your mind. And Callao won't be easy to make. Neither Yawl nor me has ever been there; we don't know the bearings, and we have no compass, and I don't know much about the stars in these latitudes." "But I do, and better still, I have a compass." "A compass! Do you hear that, Bill Yawl? Mr. Fortescue has got a compass. Go to Callao! Why, we can go a'most anywhere. Where have you got it, sir--in the cabin?" "Yes, Abbé Balthazar and I made it, ever so long since. It is only rudely fashioned, and has never been adjusted, but I dare say it will answer the purpose as well as another." "Of course it will, and if you'll kindly bring it here, it'll be a great help. I reckon if I keep her head about--" "Nor' by west." "Ay, ay, sir, that's it, I have no doubt. If I keep her head nor' by west, I dare say we shall fetch Callao as soon as you was a-saying just now. But Bill and me should have the compass before us when we're steering; and to-morrow we'll try to rig up a bit of a binnacle. You, perhaps, would not mind fetching it now, sir? --Bring that patent lantern of yours, Bill." I fetched the compass and Yawl the lantern, made of a glass bottle and a piece of copper sheeting (like the rest of our equipments, the spoil of the sea). Kidd was quite delighted with the compass, the card of which was properly marked and framed in a block of wood, and said it could easily be suspended on gimbals and fixed on a binnacle. After a while, Angela, who felt tired, went below, and I with her, but only to fetch my _cobija_ and a pillow, for, as I told Kidd, I intended to remain on deck all night, the cabin being too close and stuffy for two persons. This was true, yet not the whole truth. I had another reason; I saw that nothing would be easier than for Kidd or Yawl to slip on the cabin-hatch while I was below, and so have us at their mercy, for Ramon, though a stalwart youth enough, could not contend with the two sailors single-handed. "Just as you like, sir; it's all the same to me," answered Kidd, rather shortly, and then relapsed into thoughtful silence. I felt sure that he was scheming something which boded us no good, though, as yet, I had no idea what it could be. His motive for desiring to take the sloop to Islay or Arica, rather than to Callao, was pretty obvious, but why he should change his mind on the subject simply because of the compass, passed my comprehension. We could make Callao merely by running up the coast, with which, despite his disclaimer, I had not the least doubt he was quite familiar; and even if he were not, there was nothing in a compass to enlighten him. But whatever his scheme might be I did not think he would attempt to use force--unless he could take us at a disadvantage. Man for man, Ramon and I were quite equal to Kidd and Yawl. We were, moreover, better armed, as so far as I knew, they had no weapons, save their sailors' knives. In a personal struggle, they might come off second best; were, in any case, likely to get badly hurt, and unless I was much mistaken, they wanted to get hold of my diamonds with a minimum of risk to themselves. Wherefore, so long as we kept a sharp lookout, we had little to fear from open violence. As for the scheme which was seething in Kidd's brain, I must needs wait for further developments before taking measures to counteract it. When I had come to this conclusion I told Ramon, in Quipai, to lie down, and that when I wanted to sleep I would waken him. I watched until midnight, at which hour Yawl relieved Kidd at the helm, and Kidd turned in. Shortly afterward I roused Ramon, and bade him keep watch while I slept.	{ "id": "14779" }
32	FOUND OUT.	When I awoke it was broad daylight, Yawl at the helm, the sloop bowling along at a great rate before a fresh breeze. But, to my utter surprise, there was no land in sight. "How is this, Yawl?" I asked; "we are out of doors. How have you been steering?" "The course you laid down sir, nor' by west." "That is impossible. I am not much of a seaman, yet I know that if you had been steering nor' by west, we should have the coast under our lee, and we cannot even see the peaks of the Cordillera." "Of course you cannot; they are covered with a mist," put in Kidd. "I see no mist; moreover, the Cordillera is visible a hundred miles away, and by good rights we should not be more than thirty or forty miles from the coast." "It's the fault of your compass, then. The darned thing is all wrong. Better chuck it overboard and have done with it." "If you do, I'll chuck you overboard. The compass is quite correct. You have been steering due west for some purpose of your own, against my orders." "Oh, that's your game, is it? You are the skipper, and us a brace of lubbers as doesn't know north from west, I suppose. Let him sail the cursed craft hissel, Bill." Yawl let go the tiller, on which the sloop broached to and nearly went on her beam ends. This was more than I could bear, and calling on Ramon to follow me, I sprang forward, seized Kidd by the throat, and, drawing my dagger, told him that unless he promised to obey my orders and do his duty, I would make an end of him then and there. Meanwhile, Ramon was keeping Yawl off with his _machete_, flourishing it around his head in a way that made the old salt's hair nearly stand on end. Seeing that resistance was useless, Kidd caved in. "I ask your pardon, Mr. Fortescue," he said, hoarsely, for my hand was still on his throat. "I ask your pardon, but I lost my temper, and when I lose my temper it's the very devil; I don't know what I'm doing; but I promise faithfully to obey your orders and do my duty." On this I loosed him, and bade Ramon put up his _machete_ and let Yawl go back to his steering. In one sense this was an untoward incident. It made Kidd my personal enemy. Quite apart from the question of the diamonds, he would bear me a grudge and do me an ill turn if he could. He was that sort of a man. Henceforward it would be war to the knife between us, and I should have to be more on my guard than ever. On the other hand, it was a distinct advantage to have beaten him in a contest for the mastery; if he had beaten me, I should have had to accept whatever conditions he might have thought fit to impose, for I was quite unable to sail the sloop myself. A light was thrown on his motive for changing the sloop's course by something Ramon had told me when the trouble was over. Shortly before I awoke he heard Kidd say to Yawl that he would very much like to know where I had hidden the diamonds, and that if they could only keep her head due west, we should make San Ambrosio about the same time that I was expecting to make Callao. I had never heard of San Ambrosio before; but the fact of Kidd wanting to go thither was reason enough for my not wanting to go, so I bade Yawl steer due north, that is to say, parallel with the coast, and as the continent of South America trends considerably to the westward, about twenty degrees south of the equator, I reckoned that this course should bring us within sight of land on the following day, or the day after, according to the speed we made. I not only told Yawl and Kidd to steer north, but saw that they did it, as to which, the compass being now always before us, there was no difficulty. Thinking it was well to learn to steer, I took a hand now and again at the tiller, under the direction of Kidd, whose manners my recent lesson had greatly improved. He was very affable, and obeyed my orders with alacrity and seeming good-will. The next day I began to look out for land, without, however, much expectation of seeing any, but when a second day, being the third of our voyage, ended with the same result or, rather, want of result, I became uneasy, and expressed myself in this sense to Kidd. "You have miscalculated the distance," he said, "and there's nothing so easy, when you've no chart and can take no observations. And how can you tell the sloop's rate of sailing? The wind is fair and constant--it always is in the trades--but how do you know as there is not a strong current dead against us? I don't think there's the least use looking for land before to-morrow." This rather reassured me. It was quite true that the sloop might not be going so fast as I reckoned, and the coast be farther off than I thought--although I did not much believe in the current. But the morrow came and went, and still no sign of land, and again, on the fifth day, the sun rose on an unbroken expanse of water. In clear weather--and no weather could be clearer--the Andes, as I had heard, were visible to mariners a hundred and fifty miles out at sea. Yet not a peak could be seen. Then I knew beyond a doubt that something was wrong. What could it be? Sailing as swiftly as we had been for five days, it was inconceivable that we should not have made land if we had been steering north, and for that I had the evidence of my senses. Where, then, was the mystery? As I asked myself this question, Ramon touched me on the shoulder, and whispered in Quipai: "Just now Yawl said to Kidd that it was quite time we sighted San Ambrosio, and that if we missed it, after all, it would be cursed awkward. And Kidd answered that 'if we fell in with Hux it would be all right.'" This was more puzzling still. He had said before that, if we continued on the westward tack, we should make San Ambrosio at the time I was expecting to sight Callao, and now, although we were sailing due north, the villains counted on making San Ambrosio all the same. Where was San Ambrosio? Not on the coast, for they were clearly looking for it then, had probably been looking for it some time, and the mainland must be at least two hundred miles away. If not on the coast San Ambrosio was an island, yet how it could lie both to the west and to the north was not quite obvious. And who was Hux, and why should falling in with him make matters all right for my interesting shipmates? Of one thing I felt sure--all right for these meant all wrong for me, and it behooved me to prevent the meeting--but how? While these thoughts were passing through my mind, I was pacing to and fro on the sloop's deck, where was also Angela, sitting on a _cobija_, and leaning against the taffrail, Kidd being at the helm, and Ramon and Yawl smoking in the bows, for though they did not quite trust each other, they occasionally exchanged a not unfriendly word. Now and then I glanced mechanically at the compass. As I have already mentioned, it was not an ordinary ship compass in a brass frame, but a makeshift affair, in a wooden frame, to which Kidd had attached makeshift gimbals and hung on a makeshift binnacle, the latter being fixed between the tiller and the cabin-hatch. The deck was very narrow, and to lengthen my tether I generally passed between the tiller and the binnacle, sometimes exchanging a word with Angela. Once, as I did so, the sun's rays fell athwart the sloop's stern, and, happening the same moment to look at the compass, I made a discovery that sent the blood with sudden rush first to my heart and then to my brain; a small piece of iron, invisible in an ordinary light, had been driven into the framework of the compass, close to that part of the card marked "W," thereby deflecting the needle to the point in question, so that ever since our departure from Quipai, we had been steering due west, instead of north by west, as I intended and believed. The dodge might not have deceived a seaman, but it had certainly deceived me. "You infernal scoundrel, I have found you out. Look there!" I shouted, pointing at the piece of iron. As I spoke Kidd let go the tiller, and quick as lightning gave me a tremendous blow with his fist between the shoulders, which just missed throwing me head foremost down the cabin-hatch, and sent me face downward on the deck breathless and half stunned. Before I could even think of rising, Kidd, who, as he struck, shouted to Yawl to "kill the Indian," was kneeling on my back with his fingers round my windpipe. "At last! I have you now, you conceited jackanapes, you d----d sea-lawyer. Where have you got them diamonds? You won't answer! Shall I throttle you, or brain you with this belaying-pin? I'll throttle you; then there'll be none of your dirty blood to swab up." With that the villain squeezed my windpipe still tighter, and quite unable either to struggle or speak, I was giving myself up for lost, when his hold suddenly relaxed, and groaning deeply, he sank beside me on the deck. Freed from his weight, I staggered to my feet to find that I owed my life to Angela, who had used her dagger to such purpose that Kidd was like never to speak again. "Ramon! Ramon! Haste, or that man will kill him," she cried, all in a tremble, and pale with horror at the thought of her own boldness. Yawl's onslaught was so sudden that the boy had been unable to draw his _machete_, and after a desperate bout of tugging and straining, the sailor had got the upper-hand and was now kneeling on Ramon's chest, and feeling for his knife. Though sorely bruised with my fall, and still gasping for breath, I ran to the rescue, and gripping Yawl by the shoulders, bore him backward on the deck. Another moment, and we had him at our mercy; I held down his head, while Ramon, astride on his body, pinioned his arms. "Now, look here, Yawl!" I said. "You have tried to commit murder and deserve to die; your comrade and accomplice is dead, but I will spare your life on conditions. You must promise to obey my orders as if I were your captain, and you under articles of war, and help me to work the sloop to Callao, or some other port on the mainland. In return, I promise not to bring any charge against you when we get there." "All right, sir! Kidd was my master, and I obeyed him; now you are my master and I will obey you." I quite believed that the old salt was speaking sincerely. He had been so completely under Kidd's influence as to have no will of his own. "Good! but there is something else. I must have those diamonds he stole from my house at Alta Vista. Where are they?" "Stitched inside his jersey, under the arm-hole." I went to Kidd's body, cut open his jersey, and found the diamonds in two small canvas bags. They were among the largest I had and (as I subsequently found) worth fifty thousand pounds. After we had thrown the body overboard, I ordered Yawl to put the sloop on the starboard tack, and myself taking the helm changed the course to due north. Then I asked him who he and Kidd were, whence they came, and why they had so shamefully deceived me as to the course we were steering. On this Yawl answered in a dry, matter-of-fact manner, as if it were all in the way of business, that Kidd had been captain and he boatswain and carpenter of a "free-trader," known as the Sky Scraper, Sulky Sail, and by several other aliases; that the captain and crew fell out over a division of plunder, of which Kidd wanted the lion's share, the upshot being that he and Yawl, who had taken sides with him, were shoved into the dinghy and sent adrift. In these circumstances they naturally made for the nearest land, which proved to be Quipai, and deeming it inexpedient to confess that they were pirates, pretended to be castaways. They built the sloop with the idea of stealing away by themselves, and but for my discovery of the theft of the diamonds and the bursting of the crater would have done so. As I suspected, Kidd allowed us to go with them, solely with a view to cutting our throats and appropriating the remainder of the diamonds. This design being frustrated by our watchfulness, he next conceived the notion of putting in at Arica or Islay, charging me with robbing him, and, in collusion with the authorities, whom he intended to bribe, depriving me of all I possessed. This plan likewise failing, and having a decided objection to Callao, where he was known and where there might be a British cruiser as well as a British consul, Kidd hit on the brilliant idea of doctoring the compass and making me think we were going north by west, while our true course was almost due west, his object being to reach San Ambrosio, a group of rocky islets some three hundred miles from the coast, and a pirate stronghold and trysting-place. If they did not find any old comrades there, they would at least find provisions, water, and firearms, and so be able, as they thought, to despoil me of my diamonds. Also Kidd had hopes of falling in with Captain Hux, a worthy of the same kidney, who commanded the "free-trader" Culebra, and whose favorite cruising-ground was northward of San Ambrosio. "But in my opinion," observed Mr. Yawl, coolly, when he had finished his story, "in my opinion we passed south of the islands last night, and so I told Kidd; they're very small, and as there's no lights, easy missed." "We must be a long way from Callao, then. How far do you suppose?" "That is more than I can tell; may be four hundred miles." "And how long do you think it will take us to get there, assuming it to be four hundred miles?" "Well, on this tack and with this breeze--you see, sir, the wind has fallen off a good deal since sunrise--with this breeze, about eight days." "Eight days!" I exclaimed, in consternation. "Eight days! and I don't think we have food and water enough for two. Come with me below, Ramon, and let me see how much we have left."	{ "id": "14779" }
33	GRIEF AND PAIN.	It was even worse than I feared. Reckoning neither on a longer voyage than five or six days nor on being so far from the coast that, in case of emergency, we could not obtain fresh supplies, we had used both provisions and water rather recklessly, and now I found that of the latter we had no more than, at our recent rate of consumption, would last eighteen hours, while of food we had as much as might suffice us for twenty-four. It was necessary to reduce our allowance forthwith, and I put it to Yawl whether we could not make for some nearer port than Callao. Better risk the loss of my diamonds than die of hunger and thirst. Yawl's answer was unfavorable. The nearest port of the coast as to distance was the farthest as to time. To reach it, the wind being north by west, we should have to make long fetches and frequent tacks, whereas Callao, or the coast thereabout, could be reached by sailing due north. So there seemed nothing for it but to economize our resources to the utmost and make all the speed we could. Yet, do as we might, it was evident that, unless we could obtain a supply of food and water from some passing ship we should have to put ourselves on a starvation allowance. I was, however, much less concerned for myself and the others, than for Angela. Accustomed as she had been to a gentle, uneventful, happy life, the catastrophe of Quipai, the anxieties we had lately endured, and the confinement of the sloop, were telling visibly on her health. Moreover, Kidd's death, richly as he deserved his fate, had been a great shock to her. She strove to be cheerful, and displayed splendid courage, yet the increasing pallor of her cheeks and the sadness in her eyes, showed how much she suffered. We men stinted ourselves of water that she might have enough, but seeing this she declined to take more than her share, often refusing to drink when she was tormented with thirst. And then there befell an accident which well-nigh proved fatal to us all. A gust of wind blew the mainsail (made of grass-cloth) into ribbons, the consequence being that our rate of sailing was reduced to two knots an hour, and our hope of reaching Callao to zero. Meanwhile, Angela grew weaker and weaker, she fell into a low fever, was at times even delirious, and I began to fear that, unless help speedily came, a calamity was imminent, which for me personally would be worse than the quenching of Quipai. And when we were at the last extremity, mad with thirst and feeble with fasting, help did come. One morning at daylight Yawl sighted a sail--a large vessel a few miles astern of us, but a point or two more to the west, and on the same tack as ourselves. We altered the sloop's course at once so as to bring her across the stranger's bows, for having neither ensign to reverse, nor gun wherewith to fire a signal of distress, it was a matter of life and death for us to get within hailing-distance. "What is she! Can you make her out?" I asked Yawl, as trembling with excitement, we looked longingly at the noble ship in which centered our hopes. "Three masts! A merchantman? No, I'm blest if I don't think she's a man-of-war. So she is, a frigate and a firm 'un--forty or fifty guns, I should say." "Under what flag?" "I'll tell you in a minute--Union Jack! No, stars and stripes. She belongs to Uncle Sam, she do, sir, and he's no call to be ashamed of her; she's a perfect beauty and well handled. By--I do believe they see us. They are shortening sail. We shall be alongside in a few minutes." "Who are you and what do you want?" asked a voice from the frigate, so soon as we were within hail. "We are English and starving. For God's sake, throw us a rope!" I answered. The rope being thrown and the sloop made fast, I asked the officer of the watch to take us on board the frigate, as seeing the condition of our boat and ourselves, I did not think we could possibly reach our destination, that my wife was very sick, and unless she could have better attention than we were able to give her, might not recover. "Of course we will take you on board--and the poor lady. Pass the word for the doctor, you there! But what on earth are you doing with a lady in a craft like that, so far out at sea, too?" Without waiting for an answer to his question, the officer ordered a hammock to be lowered, in which we carefully placed Angela, who was thereupon hoisted on the frigate's deck. We men followed, and were received by a fine old gentleman with a florid face and white hair, whom I rightly conjectured to be the captain. "Well," he said, quietly, "what can I do for you?" "Water," I gasped, for the exertion of coming on board had been almost too much for me. "Poor fellow! Certainly. Why did I not think of it before? You shall have both food and drink. Somebody bring water with a dash of rum in it--not too much, they are weak. And Mr. Charles, tell the wardroom steward to get a square meal ready for this gentleman. Might I ask your name, sir?" "Nigel Fortescue." "Thank you, Mr. Fortescue. Mine is Bigelow, and I have the honor to command the United States ship Constellation. Here's the water! I hope you have not forgotten the dash of rum, Tomkins. --There! Take a long drink. You will feel better now, and when you have had a square meal, you shall tell me all about it. And the others? You are an old salt, anybody can see that." "Yes, sir. Bill Yawl at your service, an old man-o'-war's man, able-bodied seaman, bo's'n, and ship's carpenter, anything you like sir. Ax your pardon, sir, but a glass of half-water grog--" "Not until you have eaten. Then you may have two glasses. Tomkins, take these men to the purser and tell him to give them a square meal. The doctor is attending to your wife, Mr. Fortescue. She is in my state-room and shall have every comfort we can give her." "I thank you with all my heart, Captain Bigelow. You are really too good, I can never--" "Tut, tut, tut, my dear sir. Pray don't say a word. I have only given her my spare state-room. Mr. Charles will take you to the ward-room, we can talk afterward. Meanwhile, I shall have your belongings got on board, and then, I suppose, we had better sink that craft of yours. If we leave her to knock about the ocean she may be knocking against some ship in the night and doing her a mischief." After I had eaten the "square meal" set for me in the ward-room, and spent a few minutes with Angela, I joined the captain and first lieutenant in the former's state-room, and over a glass of grog, told them briefly, but frankly, something of my life and adventures. "Well, it is the queerest yarn I ever heard; but I dare say none the less true on that account," said Captain Bigelow, when I had finished. "With that sweet lady for your wife and your belt full of diamonds, you may esteem yourself one of the most fortunate of men. And you did quite right to get away from that place. But what was your point? where did you expect to get to with that sloop of yours?" "Callao." "Callao! Why the course you were on would never have taken you to Callao. Callao lies nor' by east, not nor' by west. If you had not fallen in with us, I am afraid you would never have got anywhere." "I am sure we should not. Three days more and we should have died of thirst." "Where shall we put you ashore?" "That is for you to say. Where would it be convenient?" "How would Panama suit you?" "It is just the place. We could cross the isthmus to Chagres; but before going to England, I should like to call at La Guayra, and find out whether my friend Carmen still lives." "You can do that easily; but if I were you, and had all those diamonds in my possession, I would get home as quickly as possible, and put them in a place of safety. There are men who would commit a thousand murders for one of them." "Well, I shall see. Perhaps I had better consign them to London through some merchant, and have them insured." "Perhaps you had, especially if you can get somebody to insure the insurer. And take my advice, don't tell a soul on board what you have told us. My crew are passably honest, but if they knew how many diamonds you carried about you, I should be very sorry to go bail for them." As I went on deck after our talk, I was met by the surgeon. "A word with you, Mr. Fortescue," he said, gravely, taking me aside, "your wife--" "Yes, sir, what about my wife?" I asked, with a sudden sinking of the heart, for the man's manner was even more portentous than his words. "She is very ill." "She was very ill, and if we had remained longer on the sloop--but now--with nourishing food and your care, doctor, she will quickly regain her strength. Indeed, she is better already." "For the moment. But she is very much reduced and the symptoms are grave. A recurrence of the fever--" "But such a fever is so easily cured. I know what you are hinting at, doctor. Yet I cannot think--You will not let her die. After surmounting so many dangers, and being so miraculously rescued, and with prospects so fair, it would be too cruel." "I will do my best, sir, you may be sure. But I thought it my duty to prepare you for the worst. The issue is with God." * * * * * This is a part of my story on which I care not to dwell. Even yet I cannot think of it without grief and pain. My dear wife was taken from me. She died in my arms, her hand in mine, as sweetly and serenely as she had lived. But for Captain Bigelow and his officers I should have buried myself with Angela in the fathomless sea. I owed him my life a second time--such as it was--more, for he taught me the duty and grace of resignation, showed me that, though to cherish the memory of a great sorrow ennobles a man, he who abandons himself to unmeasured grief is as pusillanimous as he who shirks his duty on the field of battle. Captain Bigelow had a great heart and a chivalrous nature. After Angela's death he treated me more as a cherished son than as a casual guest. Before we reached Panama we were fast friends. He provided me with clothing and gave me money for my immediate wants, as to have attempted to dispose of any of my diamonds there, or at Chagres, might have exposed me to suspicion, possibly to danger. In acknowledgement of his kindness and as a souvenir of our friendship, I persuaded him to accept one of the finest stones in my collection, and we parted with mutual assurances of goodwill and not without hope of meeting again. Ramon of course, went with me. Bill Yawl, equally of of course, I left behind. He had slung his hammock in the Constellation's fo'castle, and became captain of the foretop.	{ "id": "14779" }
34	OLD FRIENDS AND A NEW FOE.	I had made up my mind to see Carmen, if he still lived; and finding at Chagres a schooner bound for La Guayra I took passages in her for myself and Ramon, all the more willingly as the captain proposed to put in at Curaçoa. It occurred to me that Van Voorst, the Dutch merchant in whose hands I had left six hundred pounds, would be a likely man to advise me as to the disposal of my diamonds--if he also still lived. Rather to my surprise, for people die fast in the tropics, I did find the old gentleman alive, but he had made so sure of my death that my reappearance almost caused his. The pipe he was smoking dropped from his mouth, and he sank back in his chair with an exclamation of fear and dismay. "Yor need not be alarmed, Mynheer Van Voorst," I said; "I am in the flesh." "I am glad to see you in the flesh. I don't believe in ghosts, of course. But I happened to be in what you call a brown study, and as I had heard you were shot long ago on the llanos you rather startled me, coming in so quietly--that rascally boy ought to have announced you. But I was not afraid--not in the least. Why should one be afraid of a ghost! And I saw at a glance that, as you say, you were in the flesh. I suppose you have come to inquire about your money. It is quite safe, my dear sir, and at your disposal, and you will find that it has materially increased. I will call for the ledger, and you shall see." The ledger was brought in by a business-looking young man, whom the old merchant introduced to me as his nephew and partner, Mynheer Bernhard Van Voorst. "This is Mr. Fortescue, Bernhard," he said, "the English gentleman who was dead--I mean that I thought he was dead, but is alive--and who many years ago left in my hands a sum of about two thousand piasters. Turn to his account and see how much there is now to his credit?" "At the last balance the amount to Mr. Fortescue's credit was six thousand two hundred piasters." [2] [2] At the time in question, "piaster" was a word often used as an equivalent for "dollar," both in the "Gulf ports" and the West Indies. "You see! Did I not say so? Your capital is more than doubled." "More than doubled! How so?" "We have credited you with the colonial rate of interest--ten per cent. --as was only right, seeing that you had no security, and we had used the money in our business; and my friend, compound interest at ten per cent, is a great institution. It beats gold-mining, and is almost as profitable as being President of the Republic of Venezuela. How will you take your balance, Mr. Fortescue? We will have the account made up to date. I can give you half the amount in hard money--coin is not too plentiful just now in Curaçoa, half in drafts at seven days' sight on the house of Goldberg, Van Voorst & Company, at Amsterdam, or Spring & Gerolstein, at London. They are a young firm, but do a safe business and work with a large capital." "I am greatly obliged to you but all I require at present is about five hundred piasters, in hard money." "Ah then, you have made money where you have been?" observed Mr. Van Voorst, eying me keenly through his great horn spectacles. "Not money, but money's worth," I replied, for I had quite decided to make a confident of the honest old Dutchman, whom I liked all the better for going straight to the point without asking too many questions. "Then it must be merchandise and merchandise is money--sometimes." "Yes, it is merchandise." "If it be readily salable in this island or on the Spanish Main we shall be glad to receive it from you on consignment and make you a liberal advance against bills of lading. Hardware and cotton prints are in great demand just now, and if it is anything of that sort we might sell it to arrive." "It is nothing of that sort, Mr. Van Voorst." "More portable, perhaps?" "Yes, more portable." "If you could show me a sample--" "I can show you the bulk." "You have got it in the schooner?" "No, I have got it here." "Gold dust?" "Diamonds. I found them in the Andes, and shall be glad to have your advice as to their disposal." "Diamonds! Ach! you are a happy man. If you would like to show me them I can perhaps give you some idea of their value. The house of Goldberg & Van Voorst, at Amsterdam, in which I was brought up, deal largely in precious stones." On this I undid my belt and poured the diamonds on a large sheet of white paper, which Mr. Van Voorst spread on his desk. " _Mein Gott! Mein Gott! _" he exclaimed in ecstacy, glaring at the diamonds through his big glasses and picking out the finest with his fat fingers. "This is the finest collection of rough stones I ever did see. They are worth--until they are weighed and cut it is impossible to say how much--but at least a million dollars, probably two millions. You found them in the Andes? You could not say where, could you, Mr. Fortescue?" "I could, but I would rather not." "I beg your pardon. I should have known better than to ask. You intend to go there again, of course?" "Never! It would be at the risk of my life--and there are other reasons." "There is no need. You are rich already, and enough is as good as a feast. You ask my advice as to the disposal of these stones. Well, my advice is that you consign them, through us, to the house of Goldberg, Van Voorst & Company. They are honest and experienced. They will get them cut and sell them for you at the highest price. They are, moreover, one of the richest houses in Amsterdam, trustworthy without limit. What do you say?" "Yes, I will act on your advice, and consign these stones to your friends for sale at Amsterdam, or elsewhere, as they may think best. And be good enough to ask them to advise me as to the investment of the proceeds." "They will do that with pleasure, mine friend, and having financial relations with every monetary centre in Europe they command the best information. And now we must count and weigh these stones carefully, and I shall give you a receipt in proper form. They must be shipped in three or four parcels so as to divide the risk, and I will write to Goldberg & Van Voorst to take out open policies 'by ship or ships'--for how much shall we say?" "That I must leave to you, Mr. Van Voorst." "Then I will say two million dollars--better make it too much than too little--and two millions may not be too much. I do not profess to be an expert, and, as likely as not, my estimate is very wide of the mark." After the diamonds had been counted and weighed, and a receipt written out, in duplicate and in two languages, I informed Mr. Van Voorst of my intention to visit Caracas and asked whether things were pretty quiet there. "At Caracas itself, yes. But in the interior they are fighting, as usual. The curse of Spanish rule has been succeeded by the still greater curse of chronic revolution." "But foreigners are admitted, I suppose? I run no risk of being clapped in prison as I was last time?" "Not the least. You can go and come as you please. You don't even require a passport. The Spaniards, who were once so hated, are now almost popular. I hear that several Spanish officers, who served in the royal army during the war, are now at Caracas, and have offered their swords to the government for the suppression of the present rebellion. Do you intend to stay long in Venezuela?" "I think not. In any case I shall see you before I leave for Europe. Much depends on whether I find my friend Carmen alive." "Carmen, Carmen! I seem to know the name. Is he a general?" "Scarcely, I should think. He was only a _teniente_ of guerillas when we parted some ten years ago." "They are all generals now, my dear sir, and as plentiful as frogs in my native land. If you are ever in doubt as to the rank of a Venezolano, you are always safe in addressing him as a general. Yes, I fancy you will find your friend alive. At any rate, there is a General Carmen, rather a leading man among the Blues, I think, and sometimes spoken of as a probable president. You will, of course, put up at the Hotel de los Generales. Ah, here is Bernhard with the five hundred dollars in hard money, for which you asked. If you should want more, draw on us at sight. I will give you a letter of introduction to the house of Blühm & Bluthner at Caracas, who will be glad to cash your drafts at the current rate of exchange, and to whose care I will address any letters I may have occasion to write to you." This concluded my business with Mr. Van Voorst, and three days later I was once more in Caracas. I found the place very little altered, less than I was myself. I had entered it in high spirits, full of hope, eager for adventure, and intent on making my fortune. Now my heart was heavy with sorrow and bitter with disappointment. Though I had made my fortune, I had lost, as I thought, both the buoyancy of youth and the capacity for enjoyment, and I looked forward to the future without either hope or desire. As I rode with Ramon into the _patio_ of the hotel, where I had been arrested by the alguazils of the Spanish governor, a man came forward to greet me, so strikingly like the ancient _posadero_ that I felt sure he was the latter's son. My surmise proved correct, and I afterwards heard, not without a sense of satisfaction, that the father was hanged by the patriots when they recaptured Caracas. After I had engaged my rooms the _posadero_ informed me (in answer to my inquiry) that General Salvador Carmen (this could be none other than my old friend) was with the army at La Victoria, but that he had a house at Caracas where his wife and family were then residing. He also mentioned incidentally that several Spanish officers of distinction, who had arrived a few days previously, were staying in the _posada_--doubtless the same spoken of by Van Voorst. The day being still young, for I had left La Guayra betimes, I thought I could not do better than call on Juanita, who lived only a stone's throw from the Hotel de los Generales. She recognized me at once and received me--almost literally--with open arms. When I essayed to kiss her hand, she offered me her cheek. "After this long time! It is a miracle!" she exclaimed. "We mourned for you as one dead; for we felt sure that if you were living we should have had news of you. How glad Salvador will be! Where have you been all this time, and why, oh why, did you not write?" "I have been in the heart of the Andes, and I did not write because I was as much cut off from the world as if I had been in another planet." "You must have a long story to tell us, then. But I am forgetting the most important question of all. Are you still a bachelor?" "Worse than that, Juanita. I am a widower. I have lost the sweetest wife--" "_Misericordia! Misericordia! Pobre amigo mio! _ Oh, how sorry I am; how much I pity you!" And the dear lady, now a stately and handsome matron, fell a-weeping out of pure tenderness, and I had to tell her the sad story of the quenching of Quipai and Angela's death. But the telling of it, together with Juanita's sympathy, did me good, and I went away in much better spirits than I had come. Salvador, she said, would be back in a few days, and she much regretted not being able to offer me quarters; it was contrary to the custom of the place and Spanish etiquette for ladies to entertain gentlemen visitors during their husbands' absence. After leaving Juanita I walked round by the guard-house in which I had been imprisoned, and through the ruins where Carmen and I had hidden when we were making our escape. They suggested some stirring memories--Carera (who, as I learned from Juanita, had been dead several years) and his chivalrous friendship; Salvador and his reckless courage; our midnight ride; Gahra and the bivouac by the mountain-tarn (poor Gahra, what had become of him?) ; Majia and his guerillas; Griscelli and his blood-hounds (how I hated that man, but surely by this time he had got his deserts); Gondocori and Queen Mamcuna; the man-killer; and Quipai. My mind was still busied with these memories when I reached the hotel. There seemed to be much more going on than there had been earlier in the day--horsemen were coming and going, servants hurrying to and fro, people promenading on the _patio_, a group of uniformed officers deep in conversation. One of them, a tall, rather stout man, with grizzled hair, a pair of big epaulettes, and a coat covered with gold lace, had his back toward me, and as my eye fell on his sword-hilt it struck me that I had seen something like it before. I was trying to think where, when the owner of it turned suddenly round, and I found myself face to face with--GRISCELLI!! For some seconds we stared at each other in blank amazement. I could see that though he recognized me, he was trying to make believe that he did not; or, perhaps, he really doubted whether I was the man I seemed. "That is my sword," I said, pointing to the weapon by his side, which had been given to me by Carera. "Your sword! What do you mean?" "You took it from me eleven years ago, when I fell into your hands at San Felipe, and you hunted my friend Carmen and myself with bloodhounds." "What folly is this? Hunted you with bloodhounds, forsooth! Why, this is the first time I ever set eyes on you--the man is mad--or drunk" (addressing his friends). "You lie, Griscelli; and you are not a liar merely, but a murderer and a coward." " _Por Dios_, you shall pay for this insult with your heart's blood!" he shouted, furiously, half drawing his sword. "It is like you to draw on an unarmed man." I said, laying hold of his wrist. "Give me a sword, and you shall make me pay for the insult with my blood--if you can. Señores" (by this time all the people in the _patio_ had gathered round us), "Señores, are there here any Venezuelan caballeros who will bear me out in this quarrel. I am an Englishman, by name Fortescue; eleven years ago, while serving under General Mejia on the patriot side, I fell into the hands of General Griscelli, who deprived me of the sword he now wears, which I received as a present from Señor Carera, whose name you may remember. Then, after deceiving us with false promises--my friend General Carmen and myself--he hunted us with his bloodhounds, and we escaped as by a miracle. Now he protests that he never saw me before. What say you, señores, am I not right in stigmatizing him as a murderer and liar?" "Quite right!" said a middle-aged, soldierly-looking man. I also served in the war of liberation, and remember Griscelli's name well. It would serve him right to poniard him on the spot." "No, no. I want no murder. I demand only satisfaction." "And he shall give it you or take the consequences. I will gladly act as one witness, and I am sure my friend here, Señor Don Luis de Medina, who is also a veteran of the war, will act as the other. Will you fight, Griscelli?" "Certainly--provided that we fight at once, and to the death. You can arrange the details with my friends here." "Be it so." I said, "_A la muerte. _" "To the death! To the death!" shouted the crowd, whose native ferocity was now thoroughly roused. After a short conference and a reference to Griscelli and myself, the seconds announced that we were to fight with swords in Señor de Medina's garden, whither we straightway wended, for there were no police to meddle with us, and at that time duels _a la muerte_ were of daily occurrence in the city of Caracas. When we arrived at the garden, which was only a stone's-throw walk from the _posada_, Señor de Medina produced two swords with cutting edges, and blades five feet long; for we were to fight in Spanish fashion, and Spanish duelists both cut and thrust, and, when occasion serves, use the left hand as a help in parrying. Then the spectators, of whom there were fully two score, made a ring, and Griscelli and I (having meanwhile doffed our hats, coats, and shirts), stepped into the arena. I had not handled a sword for years, and for aught I knew Griscelli might be a consummate swordsman and in daily practice. On the other hand, he was too stout to be in first-rate condition, and, besides being younger, I had slightly the advantage in length of arm. When the word was given to begin, he opened the attack with great energy and resolution, and was obviously intent on killing me if he could. For a minute or two it was all I could do to hold my own; and partly to test his strength and skill, partly to get my hand in, I stood purposely on the defensive. At the end of the first bout neither of us had received a scratch, but Griscelli showed signs of fatigue while I was quite fresh. Also he was very angry and excited, and when we resumed he came at me with more than his former impetuosity, as if he meant to bear me down by the sheer weight and rapidity of his strokes. His favorite attack was a cut aimed at my head. Six several times he repeated this manoeuvre, and six times I stopped the stroke with the usual guard. Baffled and furious, he tried it again, but--probably because of failing strength--less swiftly and adroitly. My opportunity had come. Quick as thought I ran under his guard, and, thrusting his right arm aside with my left hand, passed my sword through his body. Then there were cries of bravo, for the popular feeling was on my side, and my seconds congratulated me warmly on my victory. But I said little in reply, my attention being attracted by a young man who was kneeling beside Griscelli's body and, as it might seem, saying a silent prayer. When he had done he rose to his feet, and as I looked on his face I saw he was the dead man's son. "Sir, you have killed my father, and I shall kill you," he said, in a calm voice, but with intense passion. "Yes, I shall kill you, and if I fail my cousins will kill you. If you escape us all, then we will charge our children to avenge the death of the man you have this day slain. We are Corsicans, and we never forgive. I know your name; mine is Giuseppe Griscelli." "You are distraught with grief, and know not what you say," I said as kindly as I could, for I pitied the lad. "But let not your grief make you unjust. Your father died in fair fight. If I had not killed him he would have killed me, and years ago he tried to hunt me to death for his amusement." "And I and mine--we will hunt you to death for our revenge. Or will you fight now? I am ready." "No, I have no quarrel with you, and I should be sorry to hurt you." "Go your way, then, but remember--" "Better leave him; he seems half-crazed," interposed Medina. "Come into my house while my slaves remove the body."	{ "id": "14779" }
35	A NOVEL WAGER.	Three days afterward Carmen, apprised by his wife of my arrival, returned to Caracas, and I became their guest, greatly to my satisfaction, for the duel with Griscelli, besides making me temporarily famous, had brought me so many friends and invitations that I knew not how to dispose of them. In discussing the incident with Salvador, I expressed surprise that Griscelli should have dared to return to a country where he had committed so many cruelties and made so many enemies. "He left Venezuela the year after you disappeared, and much is forgotten in ten years," was the answer. "All the same, I don't suppose he would have come back if Olivarez--the last president and a Yellow--had not made it known that he would bestow commissions on Spanish officers of distinction and give them commands in the national army. It was a most absurd proceeding. But we shot Olivarez three months ago, and I will see that these Spanish interlopers are sent out of the country forthwith, that young spark who threatens to murder you, included." "Let him stay if he likes. I doubt whether he meant what he said." "I have no doubt of it, whatever, _amigo mio_, and he shall go. If he stayed in the country I could not answer for your safety; and if you come across any of the Griscellis in Europe, take my advice and be as watchful as if you were crossing a river infested with _caribe_ fish." Carmen was much discouraged by the state of the republic, as well he might be. By turning out the Spaniards the former colonies had merely exchanged despotism for anarchy; instead of being beaten with whips they were beaten with scorpions. But though discouraged Carmen was not dismayed. He belonged to the Blues, who being in power, regarded their opponents, the Yellows, as rebels; and he was confident that the triumph of his party would insure the tranquillity of the country. As he was careful to explain to me, he was a Blue because he was a patriot, and he pressed me so warmly to return with him to La Victoria, accept a command in his army, and aid in the suppression of the insurrection, that I ended by consenting. At Carmen's instance, the president gave me the command of a brigade, and would have raised me to the rank of general. But when I found that there were about three generals for every colonel I chose the nominally inferior but actually more distinguished grade. I remained in Venezuela two years, campaigning nearly all the time. But it was an ignoble warfare, cruel and ruthless, and had I not given my word to Carmen, to stand by him until the country was pacified, I should have resigned my commission much sooner than I did. Ramon, who acted as one of my orderlies, bore himself bravely and was several times wounded. In the meanwhile I received several communications from Van Voorst, and made two visits to Curaçoa. The cutting and disposal of my diamonds being naturally rather a long business, it was nearly two years after I had shipped them to Holland before I learned the result of my venture. After all expenses were paid they brought me nearly three hundred thousand pounds, which account Goldberg, Van Voorst & Company "held at my disposal." It was to arrange and advise with the Amsterdam people, as to the investment of this great fortune, that I went to Europe. But I did not depart until my promise was fulfilled. I left Venezuela pacified--from exhaustion--and Carmen in somewhat better spirits than I had found him. His last words were a warning, which I have had frequent occasion to remember: "Beware of the Griscellis." I sailed from Curaçoa (Ramon, of course, accompanying me), in a Dutch ship, bound for Rotterdam, whither I arrived in due course, and proceeding thence to Amsterdam, introduced myself to Goldberg, Van Voorst & Company. They were a weighty and respectable firm in every sense of the term, and received me with a ponderous gravity befitting the occasion. Though extremely courteous in their old-fashioned way, they neither wasted words nor asked unnecessary questions. But they made me a momentous proposal--no less than to become their partner. They had an ample capital for their original trade of diamond merchants; but having recently become contractors for government loans, they had opportunities of turning my fortune to much better account than investing it in ordinary securities. Goldberg & Company did not make it a condition that I should take an active part in the business--that would be just as I pleased. After being fully enlightened as to the nature of their transactions, and looking at their latest balance-sheets, I closed with the offer, and I have never had occasion to regret my decision. We opened branch houses in London and Paris; the firm is now one of the largest of its kind in Europe; we reckon our capital by millions, and, as I have lived long, and had no children to provide for, the amount standing to my credit exceeds that of all the other partners put together, and yields me a princely income. But I could not settle down to the monotonous career of a merchant, and though I have always taken an interest in the business of the house, and on several important occasions acted as its special agent in the greater capitals, my life since that time--a period of nearly fifty years--has been spent mainly in foreign travel and scientific study. I have revisited South America and recrossed the Andes, ridden on horseback from Vera Cruz to San Francisco, and from San Francisco to the headwaters of the Mississippi and the Missouri. I served in the war between Belgium and Holland, went through the Mexican campaign of 1846, fought with Sam Houston at the battle of San Jacinto, and was present, as a spectator, at the fall of Sebastopol and the capture of Delhi. In the course of my wanderings I have encountered many moving accidents by flood and field. Once I was captured by Greek brigands, after a desperate fight, in which both Ramon and myself were wounded, and had to pay four thousand pounds for my ransom. For the last twenty years, however, I have avoided serious risks, done no avoidable fighting, and travelled only in beaten tracks; and, unless I am killed by one of the Griscelli, I dare say I shall live twenty years longer. While studying therapeutics and pathology under Professor Giessler, of Zurich, shortly after my return to Europe, I took up the subject of longevity, as to which Giessler had collected much curious information, and formed certain theories, one being that people of sound constitution and strong vitality, with no hereditary predisposition to disease may, by observing a correct regimen, easily live to be a hundred, preserving until that age their faculties virtually intact--in other words, only begin to be old at a hundred. So far I agree with him, but as to what constituted a "correct regimen" we differed. He held that the life most conducive to length of years was that of the scholar--his own, in fact--regular, uneventful, reflective, and sedentary. I, on the other hand, thought that the man who passed much of his time in the open air, moving about and using his limbs, would live the longer--other things being equal, and assuming that both observed the accepted rules of health. The result of our discussion was a friendly wager. "You try your way; I will try mine," said Giessler, "and we will see who lives the longer--at any rate, the survivor will. The survivor must also publish an account of his system, _pour encourageur les autres_." As we were of the same age, equally sound in constitution and strong in physique, and not greatly dissimilar in temperament, I accepted the challenge. The competition is still going on. Every New Year's day we write each other a letter, always in the same words, which both answers and asks the same questions: "Still alive?" If either fails to receive his letter at the specified time, he will presume that the other is _hors de combat_, if not dead, and make further inquiry. But I think I shall win. Three years ago I met Giessler at the meeting of the British Association, and, though he denied it, he was palpably aging. His shoulders were bent, his hearing and eye-sight failing, and the _area senilis_ was very strongly marked, while I--am what you see. I have, however, had an advantage over the professor, which it is only fair to mention. In my wanderings I have always taken occasion, when opportunity offered, to observe the habits of tribes who are remarkable for longevity. None are more remarkable in this respect than the Callavayas of the Andes, and I satisfied myself that they do really live long, though perhaps not so long as some of them say. Now, these people are herbalists, and when they reach middle age make a practice of drinking a decoction which, as they believe, has the power of prolonging life. I brought with me to Europe specimens and seeds of the plant (peculiar to the region) from which the simple is distilled, analyzed the one and cultivated the other. The conclusion at which I arrived was, that the plant in question did actually possess the property of retarding that softening of the arteries which more than anything else causes the decrepitude of old age. It contains a peculiar alkaloid of which, for thirty years past, I had taken (in solution) a much-diluted dose almost daily. You see the result. I also give Ramon an occasional dose, and he is the most vigorous man of his years I know. I sent some to Giessler, but he said it was an empirical remedy, and declined to take it. He preferred electric baths. I take my electric baths by horseback exercise, and riding to hounds. Yes, I believe I shall finish my century--without becoming senile either in body or mind--if I can escape the Griscelli. I was in hopes that I had escaped them by coming here; but I never stay long in Europe that they don't sooner or later find me out. I think I shall have to spend the remainder of my life in America or the East. The consciousness of being continually hunted, that at any moment I may be confronted with a murderer and perchance be murdered, is too trying for a man of my age. To tell the truth, I am beginning to feel that I have nerves; though my elixir delays death, it does not insure perpetual youth; and propitiating these people is out of the question--I have tried it. Three years after my return from Venezuela, Guiseppe, son of the man whom I killed at Caracas, tried to kill me at Amsterdam, fired at me point-blank with a duelling pistol, and so nearly succeeded that the bullet grazed my cheek and cut a piece out of my ear. Yet I not only pardoned him, but bribed the police to let him go, and gave him money. Well, seven years later he repeated the attempt at Naples, waylaid me at night and attacked me with a dagger, but I also happened to be armed, and Guiseppi Griscelli died. At Paris, too--indeed, while the empire lasted--I found it expedient to shun France altogether. At that time Corsicans were greatly in favor; several members of the Griscelli family belonged to the secret police and had great influence, and as I never took an _alias_ and my name is not common, I was tracked like a criminal. Once I had to leave Paris by stealth at dead of night; another time I saved my life by simulating death. But why recount all the attempts on my life? Another time, perhaps. The subject is not a pleasant one, but this I will say: I never spared a Griscelli that I had not cause to regret my clemency. The last I spared was the young man who tried to murder me down in the wood there; and if he does not repay my forbearance by repeating the attempt, he will be false to the traditions of his race.	{ "id": "14779" }
36	EPILOGUE.	It is scarcely necessary to observe that the deciphering of Mr. Fortescue's notes and the writing of his memoirs were not done in a day. There were gaps to be filled up, obscure passages to be elucidated, and parts of several chapters and the whole of the last were written to his dictation, so that the summer came and went, and another hunting-season was "in view," before my work, in its present shape, was completed. I would fain have made it more complete by giving a fuller account of Mr. Fortescue's adventures (some of which must have been very remarkable) between his first return from South America and his appearance at Matching Green, and I should doubtless have been able to do so (for he had promised to continue and amplify his narrative during the winter, as also to give me the recipe of his elixir), had not our intercourse been abruptly terminated by one of the strangest events in my experience and, I should think, in his. But, before going further, I would just observe that Mr. Fortescue's cynicism, which, when I first knew him, had rather repelled me, was only skin-deep. Though he held human life rather cheaper than I quite liked, he was a kind and liberal master and a generous giver. His largesses were often princely and invariably anonymous, for he detested everything that savored of ostentation and parade. On the other hand, he had no more tolerance for mendicants in broadcloth than for beggars in rags, and to those who asked he gave nothing. As an instance of his dislike of publicity, I may mention that I had been with him several months before I discovered that he had published, under a pseudonym, several scientific works which, had he acknowledged them, would have made him famous. After Guiseppe Griscelli's attempt on his life, I prevailed on Mr. Fortescue never to go outside the park gates unaccompanied; when he went to town, or to Amsterdam, Ramon always went with him, and both were armed. I also gave strict orders to the lodge-keepers to admit no strangers without authority, and to give me immediate information as to any suspicious-looking characters whom they might see loitering about. These precautions, I thought, would be quite sufficient to prevent any attack being made on Mr. Fortescue in the daytime. It was less easy to guard against a surprise during the night, for the park-palings were not so high as to be unclimbable; and the idea of a night-watchman was suggested only to be dismissed, for the very sufficient reason that when he was most wanted he would almost certainly be asleep. I had no fear of Griscelli breaking in at the front door; but the house was not burglar-proof, and, as it happened, the weak point in our defence was one of the windows of Mr. Fortescue's bedroom. It looked into the orchard, and, by climbing a tree which grew hard by, an active man could easily reach it, even without a ladder. The danger was all the greater, as, when the weather was mild, Mr. Fortescue always slept with the window open. I proposed iron bars, to which he objected that iron bars would make his room look like a prison. And then I had a happy thought. "Let us fix a strong brass rod right across the window-frame," I said, "in such a way that nobody can get in without laying hold of it, and by connecting it with a strong dynamo-battery inside, make sure that the man who does lay hold of it will not be able to let go." The idea pleased Mr. Fortescue, and he told me to carry it out, which I did promptly and effectively, taking care to make the battery so powerful that, if Mr. Griscelli should try to effect an entrance by the window, he would be disagreeably surprised. The circuit was, of course, broken by dividing the rod in two parts and interposing a non-conductor between them. To prevent any of the maids being "shocked," I told Ramon (who acted as his master's body servant) to connect the battery every night and disconnect it every morning. From time to time, moreover, I overhauled the apparatus to see that it was in good working order, and kept up its strength by occasionally recharging the cells. Once, when I was doing this, Mr. Fortescue said, laughingly: "I don't think it is any use, Bacon; Griscelli won't come in that way. If, as some people say, it is the unexpected that happens, it is the expected that does not happen." But in this instance both happened--the expected and the unexpected. As I mentioned at the outset of my story, the habits of the Kingscote household were of an exemplary regularity. Mr. Fortescue, who rose early, expected everybody else to follow his example in this respect, and, as a rule, everybody did so. One morning, at the beginning of October, when the sun rose about six o'clock, and we rose with it, I got up, donned my dressing-gown, and went, as usual, to take my matutinal bath. In order to reach the bath-room I had to pass Mr. Fortescue's chamber-door. As I neared it I heard within loud exclamations of horror and dismay, in a voice which I recognized as the voice of Ramon. Thinking that something was wrong, that Mr. Fortescue had perchance been taken suddenly ill, I pushed open the door and entered without ceremony. Mr. Fortescue was sitting up in bed, looking with startled gaze at the window; and Ramon stood in the middle of the room, aghast and dismayed. And well he might, for there hung at the window a man--or the body of one--his hands convulsively grasping the magnetized rod, the distorted face pressed against the glass, the lack-lustre eyes wide open, the jaw drooping. In that ghastly visage I recognized the features of Giuseppe Griscelli! "Is he dead, doctor?" asked Mr. Fortescue. "He has been dead several hours," I said, as I examined the corpse. "So much the better; the brood is one less, and perhaps after this they will let me live in peace. They must see that so far as their attempts against it are concerned, I bear a charmed life. You have done me a great service, Doctor Bacon, and I hold myself your debtor." Ramon and I disconnected the battery and dragged the body into the room. We found in the pockets a butcher's knife and a revolver, and round the waist a rope, with which the would-be murderer had doubtless intended to descend from the window after accomplishing his purpose. This incident, of course, caused a great sensation both at Kingscote and in the country-side, and, equally of course, there was an inquest, at which Mr. Fortescue, Ramon, and myself, were the only witnesses. As Mr. Fortescue did not want it to be known that he was the victim of a _vendetta_, and detested the idea of having himself and his affairs discussed by the press, we were careful not to gainsay the popular belief that Griscelli was neither more nor less than a dangerous and resolute burglar, and, as his possession of lethal weapons proved, a potential murderer. As for the cause of death I said, as I then fully believed (though I have since had occasion to modify this opinion somewhat), that the battery was not strong enough to kill a healthy man, and that Griscelli had died of nervous shock and fear acting on a weak heart. In this view the jury concurred and returned a verdict of accidental death, with the (informal) rider that it "served him right." The chairman, a burly farmer, warmly congratulated me on my ingenuity, and regretted that he had not "one of them things" at every window in his house. So far so good; but, unfortunately, a London paper which lived on sensation, and happened at the moment to be in want of a new one, took the matter up. One of the editor's jackals came down to Kingscote, and there and elsewhere picked up a few facts concerning Mr. Fortescue's antecedents and habits, which he served up to his readers in a highly spiced and amazingly mendacious article, entitled "old Fortescue and his Strange Fortunes." But the sting of the article was in its tail. The writer threw doubt on the justice of the verdict. It remained to be proved, he said, that Griscelli was a burglar, and his death accidental. And even burglars had their rights. The law assumed them to be innocent until they were proved to be guilty, and it could be permitted neither to Mr. Fortescue nor to any other man to take people's lives, merely because he suspected them of an intention to come in by the window instead of the door. By what right, he asked, did Mr. Fortescue place on his window an appliance as dangerous as forked lightning, and as deadly as dynamite? What was the difference between magnetized bars in a window and spring-guns on a game-preserve? In conclusion, the writer demanded a searching investigation into the circumstances attending Guiseppe Griscelli's death, likewise the immediate passing of an act of Parliament forbidding, under heavy penalties, the use of magnetic batteries as a defence against supposed burglars. This effusion (which he read in a marked copy of the paper obligingly forwarded by the enterprising editor) put Mr. Fortescue in a terrible passion, which made him, for a moment, look younger than ever I had seen him look before. The outrage rekindled the fire of his youth; he seemed to grow taller, his eyes glowed with anger, and, had the enterprising editor been present, he would have passed a very bad quarter of an hour. "The fellow who wrote this is worse than a murderer!" he exclaimed. "I'll shoot him--unless he prefers cold steel, and then I shall serve him as I served General Griscelli; and 'pon my soul I believe Griscelli was the least rascally of the two! I would as lief be hunted by blood-hounds as be stabbed in the back by anonymous slanderers!" And then he wanted me to take a challenge to the enterprising editor, and arrange for a meeting, which rendered it necessary to remind him that we were not in the England of fifty years ago, and that duelling was abolished, and that his traducer would not only refuse to fight, but denounce his challenger to the police and gibbet him in his paper. I pointed out, on the other hand, that the article was clearly libellous, and recommended Mr. Fortescue either to obtain a criminal information against the proprietor of the paper, or sue him for damages. "No, sir!" he answered, with a gesture of indignation and disdain--"no, sir, I shall neither obtain a criminal information nor sue for damages. The man who goes to law surrenders his liberty of action and becomes the sport of chicaning lawyers and hair-splitting judges. I would rather lose a hundred thousand pounds!" Mr. Fortescue passed the remainder of the day at his desk, writing and arranging his papers. The next morning I heard, without surprise, that he and Ramon were going abroad. "I don't know when I shall return," said Mr. Fortescue, as we shook hands at the hall door, "but act as you always do when I am from home, and in the course of a few days you will hear from me." I did hear from him, and what I heard was of a nature so surprising as nearly to take my breath away. "You will never see me at Kingscote again," he wrote; "I am going to a country where I shall be safe, as well from the attacks of Corsican assassins as from the cowardly outrages of rascally newspapers." And then he gave instructions as to the disposal of his property at Kingscote. Certain things, which he enumerated, were to be packed up in cases and forwarded to Amsterdam. The furniture and effects in and about the house were to be sold, and the proceeds placed at the disposal of the county authorities for the benefit of local charities. Every outdoor servant was to receive six months' pay, every in-door servant twelve months' pay, in lieu of notice. Geirt was to join Mr. Fortescue in a month's time at Damascus; and to me, in lieu of notice, and as evidence of his regard, he gave all his horses, carriages, saddlery, harness, and stable equipments (not being freehold) of every description whatsoever, to be dealt with as I thought fit for my personal advantage. His solicitors, with my help, would wind up his affairs, and his bankers had instructions to discharge all his liabilities. His memoirs, or so much of them as I had written down, I might (if I thought they would interest anybody) publish, but not before the fiftieth year of the Victorian era, or the death of the German emperor, whichever event happened first. The letter concluded thus: "I strongly advise you to buy a practice and settle down to steady work. We may meet again. If I live to be a hundred, you shall hear from me. If I die sooner you will probably hear of my demise from the house at Amsterdam, to whom please send your new address." I was exceedingly sorry to lose Mr. Fortescue. Our intercourse had been altogether pleasant and agreeable, and to myself personally in a double sense profitable; for he had taught me many things and rewarded me beyond my deserts. Also the breaking up of Kingscote and the disposal of the household went much against the grain. Yet I freely confess that Mr. Fortescue's splendid gift proved a very effective one, and almost reconciled me to his absence. All the horses and carriages, except five of the former, and two traps, I sent up to Tattersall's. As the horses, without exception, were of the right sort, most of them perfect hunters, and it was known that Mr. Fortescue would not have an unsound or vicious animal in his stables, they fetched high prices. The sale brought me over six thousand pounds. Two-thirds of this I put out at interest on good security; with the remainder I bought a house and practice in a part of the county as to which I will merely observe that it is pleasantly situated and within reach of three packs of hounds. The greater part of the year I work hard at my profession; but when November comes round I engage a second assistant and (weather permitting) hunt three and sometimes four days a week, so long as the season lasts. And often when hounds are running hard and I am well up, or when I am "hacking" homeward after a good day's sport, I think gratefully of the man to whom I owe so much, and wonder whether I shall ever see him again.	{ "id": "14779" }
1	None	Lay your course south-east half east from the Campanella. If the weather is what it should be in late summer you will have a fresh breeze on the starboard quarter from ten in the morning till four or five o'clock in the afternoon. Sail straight across the wide gulf of Salerno, and when you are over give the Licosa Point a wide berth, for the water is shallow and there are reefs along shore. Moreover there is no light on Licosa Point, and many a good ship has gone to pieces there in dark winter nights when the surf is rolling in. If the wind holds you may run on to Palinuro in a long day before the evening calm comes on, and the water turns oily and full of pink and green and violet streaks, and the sun settles down in the north-west. Then the big sails will hang like curtains from the long slanting yards, the slack sheets will dip down to the water, the rudder will knock softly against the stern-post as the gentle swell subsides. Then all is of a golden orange colour, then red as wine, then purple as grapes, then violet, then grey, then altogether shadowy as the stars come out--unless it chances that the moon is not yet full, and edges everything with silver on your left hand while the sunset dyes fade slowly to darkness upon your right. Then the men forward will bestir themselves and presently a red glow rises and flickers and paints what it touches, with its own colours. The dry wood crackles and flares on the brick and mortar hearth, and the great kettle is put on. Presently the water boils--in go the long bundles of fine-drawn paste, and everybody collects forward to watch the important operation. Stir it quickly at first. Let it boil till a bit of it is tender under the teeth. In with the coarse salt, and stir again. Up with kettle. Chill it with a quart of cold water from the keg. A hand with the colander and one with the wooden spoon while the milky boiling water is drained off. Garlic and oil, or tomato preserve? Whichever it is, be quick about it. And so to supper, with huge hard biscuit and stony cheese, and the full wine jug passed from mouth to mouth. To every man a fork and to every man his place within arm's length of the great basin--mottled green and white within, red brown and unglazed on the outside. But the man at the helm has an earthen plate, and the jug is passed aft to him from time to time. Not that he has much to do as he lies there on his six-foot deck that narrows away so sharply to the stern. He has taken a hitch round the heavy tiller with the slack of the main sheet to keep it off the side of his head while he eats. There is no current, and there is not a breath of air. By and by, before midnight, you will smell the soft land breeze blowing in puffs out of every little bay and indentation. There is no order needed. The men silently brace the yards and change the sheets over. The small jib is already bent in place of the big one, for the night is dark and some of those smart puffs will soon be like little squalls. Full and by. Hug the land, for there are no more reefs before Scalea. If you do not get aground on what you can see in Calabria, you will not get aground at all, says the old proverb. Briskly over two or three miles to the next point, and the breeze is gone again. While she is still forging ahead out go the sweeps, six or eight of them, and the men throw themselves forward over the long slender loom, as they stand. Half an hour to row, or more perhaps. Down helm, as you meet the next puff, and the good felucca heels over a little. And so through the night, the breeze freshening before the rising sun to die away in the first hot morning hours, just as you are abreast of Camerota. L'Infresco Point is ahead, not three miles away. It is of no use to row, for the breeze will come up before long and save you the trouble. But the sea is white and motionless. Far in the offing a Sicilian schooner and a couple of clumsy "martinganes"--there is no proper English name for the craft--are lying becalmed, with hanging sails. The men on board the felucca watch them and the sea. There is a shadow on the white, hazy horizon, then a streak, then a broad dark blue band. The schooner braces her top-sail yard and gets her main sheet aft. The martinganes flatten in their jibs along their high steeving bowsprits and jib-booms. Shift your sheets, too, now, for the wind is coming. Past L'Infresco with its lovely harbour of refuge, lonely as a bay in a desert island, its silent shade and its ancient spring. The wind is south by west at first, but it will go round in an hour or two, and before noon you will make Scalea--stand out for the reef, the only one in Calabria--with a stern breeze. You have passed the most beautiful spot on the beautiful Italian coast, without seeing it. There, between the island of Dino and the cape lies San Nicola, with its grand deserted tower, its mighty cliffs, its deep, safe bay and its velvet sand. What matter? The wind is fair and you are for Calabria with twenty tons of macaroni from Amalfi. There is no time to be lost, either, for you will probably come home in ballast. Past Scalea, then, where tradition says that Judas Iscariot was born and bred and did his first murder. Right ahead is the sharp point of the Diamante, beyond that low shore where the cane brake grows to within fifty yards of the sea. Now you have run past the little cape, and are abreast of the beach. Down mainsail--down jib--down foresail. Let go the anchor while she forges, eight to nine lengths from the land, and let her swing round, stern to the sand. Clear away the dingy and launch her from amidships, and send a line ashore. Overboard with everything now, for beaching, capstan, chocks and all--the swell will wash them in. As the keel grates on the pebbles, the men jump into the water from the high stern and catch the drifting wood. Some plant the capstan, others pass the long hemp cable and reeve it through the fiddle block. A hand forward to slack out the cable as the heavy boat slowly creeps up out of the water. The men from other craft, already beached, lend a hand too and a score of stout fellows breast the long oars which serve for capstan bars. A little higher still. Now prop her securely and make all snug and ship-shape, and make fast the blade of an oar to one of the forward tholes, with the loom on the ground, for a ladder. You are safe in Calabria. To-morrow at early dawn you must go into the hills, for you cannot sell a tenth of your cargo in the little village. Away you trudge on foot, across the rocky point, along the low flat beach by the cane brake, up the bed of the rivulet, where the wet green blades of the canes brush your face at every step. Shoes and stockings in hand you ford the shallow river, then, shod again, you begin the long ascent. You will need four good hours, or five, for you are not a landsman, your shoes hurt you, and you would rather reef top-sails--aye, and take the lee earing, too, in any gale and a score of times, than breast that mountain. It cannot be helped. It is a hard life, though there are lazy days in the summer months, when the wind will do your work for you. You must live, and earn your share; though they call you the master, neither boat nor cargo are yours, and you have to earn that share by harder work and with greater anxiety than the rest. But the world is green to-day. You remember a certain night last March--off Cape Orso in the gulf, when the wind they call the Punti di Salerno was raging down and you had a jib bent for a mainsail, and your foresail close reefed and were shipping more green water than you like to think of. Pitch dark, too, and the little lighthouse on the cape not doing its best, as it seemed. The long line of the Salerno lights on the weather bow. No getting there, either, and no getting anywhere else apparently. Then you tried your luck. Amalfi might not be blowing. It was no joke to go about just then, but you managed it somehow, because you had half a dozen brave fellows with you. As she came up she was near missing stays and you sang out to let go the main halyards. The yard came down close by your head and nearly killed you, but she paid-off all right and went over on the starboard tack. Just under the cape the water was smooth. Just beyond it the devil was loose with all his angels, for Amalfi was blowing its own little hurricane on its own account from another quarter. Nothing for it but to go about and try Salerno again. What could you do in an open felucca with the green water running over? You did your best. Five hours out of that pitch black night you beat up, first trying one harbour and then the other. Amalfi gave in first, just as the waning moon rose, and you got under the breakwater at last. You remember that last of your many narrow escapes to-day as you trudge up the stony mule-track through the green valleys, and it strikes you that after all it is easier to walk from Diamante all the way to Verbicaro, than to face a March storm in the gulf of Salerno in an open boat on a dark night. Up you go, past that strange ruin of the great Norman-Saracen castle standing alone on the steep little hill which rises out of the middle of the valley, commanding the roads on the right and the left. You have heard of the Saracens but not of the Normans. What kind of people lived there amongst those bristling ivy-grown towers? Thieves of course. Were they not Saracens and therefore Turks, according to your ethnology, and therefore brigands? It is odd that the government should have allowed them to build a castle just there. Perhaps they were stronger than the government. You have never heard of Count Roger, either, though you know the story of Judas Iscariot by heart as you have heard it told many a time in Scalea. Up you go, leaving the castle behind you, up to that square house they call the tower on the brow of the hill. It is a lonely road, a mere sheep track over the heights. You are over it at last, and that is Verbicaro, over there on the other side of the great valley, perched against the mountain side, a rough, grey mass of red-roofed houses cropping up like red-tipped rocks out of a vast, sloping vineyard. And now there are people on the road, slender, barefooted, brown women in dark wine-coloured woollen skirts and scarlet cloth bodices much the worse for wear, treading lightly under half-a-quintal weight of grapes; well-to-do peasant men--galantuomini, they are all called in Calabria--driving laden mules before them, their dark blue jackets flung upon one shoulder, their white stockings remarkably white, their short home-spun breeches far from ragged, as a rule, but their queer little pointed hats mostly colourless and weather-beaten. Boys and girls, too, meet you and stare at you, or overtake you at a great pace and almost run past you, with an enquiring backward glance, each carrying something--mostly grapes or figs. Out at last, by the little chapel, upon what is the beginning of an inland carriage road--in a land where even the one-wheeled wheelbarrow has never been seen. The grass grows thick among the broken stones, and men and beasts have made a narrow beaten track along the extreme outside edge of the precipice. The new bridge which was standing in all its spick and span newness when you came last year, is a ruin now, washed away by the spring freshets. A glance tells you that the massive-looking piers were hollow, built of one thickness of stone, shell-fashion, and filled with plain earth. Somebody must have cheated. Nothing new in that. They are all thieves nowadays, seeking to eat, as you say in your dialect, with a strict simplicity which leaves nothing to the imagination. At all events this bridge was a fraud, and the peasants clamber down a steep footpath they have made through its ruins, and up the other side. And now you are in the town. The streets are paved, but Verbicaro is not Naples, not Salerno, not even Amalfi. The pavement is of the roughest cobble stones, and the pigs are the scavengers. Pigs everywhere, in the streets, in the houses, at the windows, on the steps of the church in the market-place, to right and left, before you and behind you--like the guns at Balaclava. You never heard of the Six Hundred, though your father was boatswain of a Palermo grain bark and lay three months in the harbour of Sebastapol during the fighting. Pigs everywhere, black, grunting and happy. Red-skirted, scarlet-bodiced women everywhere, too, all moving and carrying something. Galantuomini loafing at most of the corners, smoking clay pipes with cane stems, and the great Jew shopkeeper's nose just visible from a distance as he stands in the door of his dingy den. Dirtier and dirtier grow the cobble stones as you go on. Brighter and brighter the huge bunches of red peppers fastened by every window, thicker and thicker on the upper walls and shaky balconies the black melons and yellowish grey cantelopes hung up to keep in the high fresh air, each slung in a hitch of yarn to a nail of its own. Here and there some one greets you. What have you to sell? Will you take a cargo of pears? Good this year, like all the fruit. The figs and grapes will not be dry for another month. They nod and move on, as you pass by them. Verbicaro is a commercial centre, in spite of the pigs. A tall, thin priest meets you, with a long black cigar in his mouth. When he catches your eye he takes it from between his teeth and knocks the ash off, seeing that you are a stranger. Perhaps it is not very clerical to smoke in the streets. But who cares? This is Verbicaro--and besides, it is not a pipe. Monks smoke pipes. Priests smoke cigars. One more turn down a narrow lane--darkest and dirtiest of all the lanes, the cobble stones only showing here and there above the universal black puddle. Yet the air is not foul and many a broad street by the Basso Porto in Naples smells far worse. The keen high atmosphere of the Calabrian mountains is a mighty purifier of nastiness, and perhaps the pig is not to be despised after all, as sanitary engineer, scavenger and street sweeper. This is Don Pietro Casale's house, the last on the right, with the steep staircase running up outside the building to the second story. And the staircase has an iron railing, and so narrows the lane that a broad shouldered man can just go by to the cabbage garden beyond without turning sideways. On the landing at the top, outside the closed door and waiting for visitors, sits the pig--a pig larger, better fed and by one shade of filthiness cleaner than other pigs. Don Pietro Casale has been seen to sweep his pig with a broken willow broom, after it has rained. "Do you take him for a Christian?" asked his neighbour, in amazement, on the occasion. "No," answered Don Pietro gravely. "He is certainly not a Christian. But why should he spoil the tablecloth with his muddy hog's back when my guests are at their meals? He is always running under the table for the scraps." "And what are women for, except to wash tablecloths?" inquired the neighbour contemptuously. But he got no answer. Few people ever get more than one from Don Pietro Casale, whose eldest son is doing well at Buenos Ayres, and in whose house the postmaster takes his meals now that he is a widower. For Don Pietro and his wife Donna Concetta sell their own wine and keep a cook-shop, besides a guest-room with a garret above it, and two beds, with an old-fashioned store of good linen in old-fashioned iron-bound chests. At the time of the fair they can put up a dozen or fourteen guests. People say indeed that the place is not so well managed, nor the cooking so good since poor Carmela died, the widow of Ruggiero dei Figli del Rè--Roger of the Children of the King. For this is the place where the Children of the King lived and died for many generations, and this house of Don Pietro Casale was theirs, and the one on the other side of the cabbage garden, a smaller and poorer one, in which Carmela died. The garden itself was once theirs, and the vineyard beyond, and the olive grove beyond that, and much good land in the valley. For they were galantuomini, and even thought themselves something better, and sometimes, when the wine was new, they talked of noble blood and said that their first ancestor had indeed been a son of a king who had given him all Verbicaro for his own. True it is, at least, that they had no other name. Through generation after generation they were christened Ruggiero, Guglielmo, and Sebastiano "of the Children of the King." Thus they had anciently appeared in the ill-kept parish registers, and thus was Ruggiero inscribed for the conscription under the new law. And now, as you know, gaunt, weather-beaten Luigione, licensed master in the coast trade and just now captain of the Sorrentine felucca Giovannina, from Amalfi to Diamante with macaroni, there are no more of the Children of the King in old Verbicaro, and their goods have fallen into divers hands, but chiefly into those very grasping and close-holding ones of Don Pietro Casale and his wife. But they are not all dead by any means, as you know also and you have even lately seen and talked with one of the fair-haired fellows, who bears the name. For the Children of the King have almost always had yellow hair and blue eyes, though they have more than once taken to themselves black-browed, brown-skinned Calabrian girls as wives. And this makes one, who knows something more about your country than you do, Luigione--though in a less practical way I confess--this makes one think that they may be the modern descendants of some Norman knightling who took Verbicaro for himself one morning in the old days, and kept it; or perhaps even the far-off progeny of one of those bright-eyed, golden-locked Goths who made slaves of the degenerate Latins some thirteen centuries ago or more, and treated their serfs indeed more like cattle than slaves until almost the last of them were driven into the sea with their King Teias by Narses. But a few were left in the southern fastnesses and in the Samnite hills, and northward through the Apennines, scattered here and there where they had been able to hold their own; and some, it is said, forgot Theodoric and Witiges and Totila and Teias, and took service in the Imperial Guard at Constantinople, as Harold of Norway and some of our own hard-fisted sailor fathers did in later years. Be that as it may--and no one knows how it was--the Children of the King have yellow hair and blue eyes to this present time, and no one would take them for Calabrians, nor for Sicilians, still less for monkey-limbed, hang-dog mouthed, lying, lubberly Neapolitans who can neither hand, reef nor steer, nor tell you the difference between a bowline and a buntling, though you may show them a dozen times, nor indeed can do anything but steal and blaspheme and be the foulest, filthiest crew that Captain Satan ever shipped for the Long Voyage. Not fit to slush down the mast of a collier, the best of them. It must be a dozen years since Carmela died in that little house beyond the cabbage garden. It was a glorious night in September--a strange night in some ways, and not like other nights one remembers, for the full moon had risen over the hills to the left, filling the world with a transparent vapour of silver, so clear and so bright that the very light seemed good to breathe as it is good to drink crystal water from a spring. Verbicaro was all asleep behind Don Pietro Casale's house, and in front, from the terrace before the guest-room, one could see the great valley far below beyond the cabbages, deep and mysterious, with silver-dashed shadows and sudden blacknesses, and bright points of white where the moon's rays fell upon a solitary hut. And on the other side of the valley, above Grisolia, a great round-topped mountain and on the top of the mountain an enormous globe of cloud, full of lightning that flashed unceasingly, so that the cloud was at one instant like a ball of silver in the moonlight, and at the next like a ball of fire in darkness. Not a breath stirred the air, and the strange thunderstorm flashed out its life through the long hours, stationary and alone at its vast height. In the great silence two sounds broke the stillness from time to time; the deep satisfied grunt of a pig turning his fattest side to the cobble stones as he slept--and the long, low wail of a woman dying in great pain. The little room was very dark. A single wick burned in the boat-shaped cup of the tall earthenware lamp, and there was little oil left in the small receptacle. On the high trestle bed, upon the thinnest of straw mattresses, decently covered with a coarse brown blanket, lay a pale woman, emaciated to a degree hardly credible. A clean white handkerchief was bound round her brow and covered her head, only a scanty lock or two of fair hair escaping at the side of her face. The features were calm and resigned, but when the pain of the death agony seized upon her the thin lips parted and deep lines of suffering appeared about the mouth; She seemed to struggle as best she could, but the low, quavering cry would not be stifled--lower and more trembling each time it was renewed. An old barefooted friar with a kindly eye and a flowing grey beard stood beside her. He had done what he could to comfort her and was going away. But she feebly begged him to stay a little longer. In an interval, while she had no pain, she spoke to her boys. "Ruggiero--Sebastiano--dear sons--you could not save me, and I am going. God bless you. Our Lady help you--remember--you are Children of the King--remember--ah." She sighed heavily and her jaw fell as another sort of pallor spread suddenly over her face. Poor Carmela was dead at last, after weeks of sickness, worked to death, as the neighbours said, by Pietro Casale and his wife Concetta. She left those two boys, lean, poorly clad lads of ten and twelve years, yellow haired and blue eyed, with big bones and hunger-pinched faces. They could just remember seeing their father brought home dead with a knife wound in his breast six years earlier. Now they took hands as they looked at their dead mother with a sort of wondering gaze. There were no tears, no cries of despair--least of all did they show any fear. Old Padre Michele made them kneel down, still hand in hand, while he recited prayers for the dead. The boys knew some of the responses, learned by ear with small regard for Latinity, though they understood what they were saying. When the monk got up they rose also and looked again at the poor dead face. "You have no relations, my children," said the old man. "We are alone," answered the elder boy in a quiet, clear voice. "But I will take care of Sebastiano." "And I will help Ruggiero," said the younger in much the same tone. "You are hungry?" "Always," answered both together, without hesitation. Padre Michele would have smiled, but the hungry faces and the mournful tone told him how true the spoken word must be. He fumbled in the pockets in the breast of his gown, and presently produced a few shady-looking red and white sugar sweetmeats, bullet-like in shape and hardness. "It is all I have now, my children," said the old man. "I picked them up yesterday at a wedding, to give them to a poor little girl who was ill. But she was dead when I got there, so you may have them." The lads took the stuff thankfully and crunched the stony balls with white, wolfish teeth. With Padre Michele's help they got an old woman from amongst the neighbours to rouse herself and do what was necessary. When all was over she took the brown blanket as payment without asking for it, smuggling it out of the mean room under her great black handkerchief. But it was day then, and Don Pietro Casale was wide awake. He stopped her in the narrow part of the lane at the foot of his own staircase, and forcibly undid the bundle, to the old woman's inexpressible discomfiture. He said nothing, as he took it from her and carried it away, but his thin grey lips smiled quietly. The old woman shook her fist at him behind his back and cursed his dead under her breath. From Rome to Palermo, swear at a man if you please, call him by bad names, and he will laugh at you. But curse his dead relations or their souls, and you had better keep beyond the reach of his knife, or of his hands if he have no weapon. So the old woman was careful that Pietro Casale should not hear her. "Managgia l'anima di chi t' è morto!" she muttered, as she hobbled away. Everything in the room where Carmela died belonged to Don Pietro, and he took everything. He found the two boys standing together, looking across the fence of the cabbage garden down at the distant valley and over at the height opposite, beyond which the sea was hidden. "Eh! You good-for-nothings!" he called out to them. "Is nothing done to-day because the mother is dead? No bread to-night, then--you know that." "We will not work for you any more," answered Ruggiero, the elder, as both turned round. Don Pietro went up to them. He had a short stout stick in his hand, tough and black with age, and he lifted it as though to drive them to work. They waited quietly till it should please him to come to close quarters, which he did without delay. I have said that he was a man of few words. But the Children of the King were not like Calabrian boys, children though they were. Their wolfish teeth were very white as they waited for him with parted lips, and there was an odd blue light in their eyes which is not often seen south of Goth-land. They were but twelve and ten years old, but they could fight already, in their small way, and had tried it many a time with shepherd lads on the hill-side. But Don Pietro despised children and aimed a blow at Ruggiero's right shoulder. The blow did not take effect, but a moment had not passed before the old peasant lay sprawling on his back with both the boys on top of him. "You cannot hurt the mother now," said Ruggiero. "Hit him as I do, Bastianello!" And the four bony boyish fists fell in a storm of savage blows upon Don Pietro Casale's leathern face and eyes and head and thin grey lips. "That is for the mother," said Ruggiero. "Another fifty a-piece for ourselves." The wiry old peasant struggled desperately, and at last threw himself free of them and staggered to his feet. "Quick, Bastianello!" shouted Ruggiero. In the twinkling of an eye they were over the fence and running at full speed for the valley. Don Pietro bruised, dazed and half-blinded, struggled after them, crashing through hedges and stumbling into ditches while he shouted for help in his pursuit. But his heavy shoes hampered him, and at best he was no match for them in speed. His face was covered with purple blotches and his eyelids were swelling at a terrible rate. Out of breath and utterly worn out he stood still and steadied himself against a crooked olive-tree. He could no longer hear even the footsteps of the lads before him. They were beyond his reach now. The last of the Children of the King had left Verbicaro, where their fathers had lived and died since darker ages than Calabrian history has accurately recorded.	{ "id": "15187" }
2	None	"We shall never see him again," said Ruggiero, stopping at last and looking back over the stone wall he had just cleared. Sebastiano listened intently. He was not tall enough to see over, but his ears were sharp. "I do not hear him any more," he answered. "I hurt my hands on his nose," he added, thoughtfully, as he glanced at his bruised knuckles. "So did I," returned his brother. "He will remember us. Come along--it is far to Scalea." "To Scalea? Are we going to Scalea?" "Eh! If not, where? And where else can we eat? Don Antonino will give us a piece of bread." "There are figs here," suggested Sebastiano, looking up into the trees around them. "It has not rained yet, and if you eat figs from the tree before it has rained you will have pain. But if we are very hungry we will eat them, all the same." Little Sebastiano yielded rather reluctantly before his brother's superior wisdom. Besides, Padre Michele had given them a little cold bean porridge at the monastery early in the morning. So they went on their way cautiously, and looking about them at every step now that there was no more need of haste. For they had got amongst the vineyards and orchards where they had no business, and if the peasants saw them, the stones would begin to fly. They knew their way about, however, and reached an open footpath without any adventure, so that in half an hour they were on the mule track to Scalea. They walked much faster than a grown peasant would have done, and they knew the road. Instead of turning to the left after going down the hill beyond the tower, they took the right hand path to the Scalea river, and as it had not rained they got across without getting very wet. But that road is not so good as the one to Diamante, because the river is sometimes swollen, and people with laden mules have to wait even as much as three days before they can try the ford, and moreover there is bad air there, which brings fever. At last they struck the long beach and began to trudge through the sand. "And what shall we do to-morrow?" asked Sebastiano. Ruggiero was whistling loudly to show his younger brother that he was not tired nor afraid of anything. At the question he stopped suddenly, and faced the blazing blue sea. "We can go to America," he said, after a moment's reflection. Little Sebastiano did not seem at all surprised by the proposition, but he remained in deep thought for some moments, stamping up a little hillock of sand between his bare feet. "We are not old enough to be married yet," he remarked at last. "That is true," admitted Ruggiero, reluctantly. Possibly, the close connection between going to America and being married may not be apparent to the poor untutored foreign mind. It would certainly not have been understood a hundred miles north of Sebastiano's heap of sand. And yet it is very simple. In Calabria any strong young fellow with a decently good character can find a wife with a small dowry, though he be ever so penniless. Generally within a week, and always within a fortnight, he emigrates alone, taking all his wife's money with him and leaving her to work for her own living with her parents. He goes to Buenos Ayres or Monte Video. If, at the end of four, five or six years he has managed to increase the money so as to yield a small income, and if his wife behaves herself during his absence, he comes home again and buys a piece of land and builds a house. His friends do not fail to inform him of his wife's conduct, and he holds her dowry as a guarantee of her fidelity. But if he fails to enrich himself, or if she is unfaithful to him, he never comes back at all. It is thus clear that a penniless young man cannot go to America until he is married. "That is very true," Ruggiero repeated. "And we must eat," said Sebastiano, who knew by experience the truth of what he said. "And we are always hungry. It is very strange. I am hungry now, and yet we had the beans only this morning. It is true that the plate was not full, and there were two of us. I wish we were like the son of Antonio, who never eats. I heard his mother telling the chemist so last winter." "He is dead," said Sebastiano. "Health to us!" he added, according to custom. "Health to us!" repeated Euggiero. "Perhaps he died because he did not eat. Who knows? I should, I am sure. Is he dead? I did not know. Come along! If Don Antonino is not away we shall get some bread." So they trudged on through the sand. It was still very hot on the yellowish white beach, under the great southern sun in September, but the Children of the King had been used to bearing worse hardships than heat, or cold either, and the thought of the big brown loaves in Don Antonino's wine-shop was very cheering. At last they reached the foot of the terraced village that rises with its tiers of white and brown houses from the shore to the top of the hill. Not so big nor so prosperous a place as Verbicaro, but much bigger and richer than Diamante. There are always a good many fishing boats hauled up on the beach, but you will not often see a cargo boat excepting in the autumn. Don Antonino keeps the cook-shop and the wine cellar in the little house facing the sea, before you turn to the right to go up into the village. He is an old sailor and an honest fellow, and comes from Massa, which is near Sorrento. A vast old man he is, with keen, quiet grey eyes under heavy lids that droop and slant outward like the lifts of a yard. He is thickset, heavy, bulky in the girth, flat-footed, iron-handed, slow to move. He has a white beard like a friar, and wears a worsted cap. His skin, having lost at last the tan of thirty years, is like the rough side of light brown sole leather--a sort of yellowish, grey, dead-leaf colour. He is very deaf and therefore generally very silent. He has been boatswain on board of many a good ship and there are few ports from Batum to San Francisco where he has not cast anchor. The boys saw him from a long way off, and their courage rose. He often came to Verbicaro to buy wine and had known their father, and knew them. He would certainly give them a piece of bread. As he saw them coming his quiet eyes watched them, and followed them as they came up the beach. But he did not turn his head, nor move hand or foot, even when they were close to him. He looked so solid and determined to stand still where he was, in the door of his shop, that you might have taken him for an enormous lay figure of a man, made of carved oak and dressed up for a sign to his own business. The two lads touched their ragged woollen caps and stood looking at him, wondering whether he would ever move. At last his grey eyes twinkled. "Have you never seen a Christian before?" he inquired in a deep gruff voice. He did not seem to be in a good humour. The boys drew back somewhat in awe, and sat down to rest on the stones by the wall. Still Antonino's eyes followed them, though he did not move. Sebastiano looked up at him uneasily from time to time, but Ruggiero gazed steadily at the sea with the affectation of proud indifference to scrutiny, which is becoming in a boy of twelve years. At last the old man stirred, turned slowly as on a pivot and went into the shop. "Is it not better to speak to him?" asked Sebastiano of his brother in a whisper. "No. He is deaf. If he did not understand us he would be angry and would give us no bread." Presently Don Antonino came out again. He held half a loaf and a big slab of goat's-milk cheese between his huge thumb and finger. He paused exactly on the spot where he had stood so long, and seemed about to become absorbed in the contemplation of the empty fishing boats lying in the sun. Sebastiano watched him with hungry eyes, but Ruggiero again stared at the sea. After several minutes the old boatswain got under way again and came to them, holding out the food to them both. "Eat," he said laconically. They both jumped up and thanked him, and pulled at their ragged caps before they took the bread and cheese from his hand. He nodded gravely, which was his way of explaining that he could not hear but that it was all right, and then he watched them as they set to work. "Like wolves," he said solemnly, as he looked on. The place was quite deserted at that hour. Only now and then a woman passed, with an earthen jar of water on her head and her little tin bucket and rope in her hand. The public well is not fifty yards from Antonino's house, up the brook and on the left of it. The breeze was dying away and it was very hot, though the sun was already behind the high rocks of the cape. "Where are the beasts?" asked Don Antonino, as the boys swallowed their last mouthful. Ruggiero threw his head back and stuck out his chin, which signifies negation in the south. He knew it was of little use to speak unless he could get near the old man's ear and shout. "And what are you doing here?" asked the latter. Speech was now unavoidable. Ruggiero stood on tiptoe and the old man bent over sideways, much as a heavily laden Dutch galliot heels to a stiff breeze. "The mother is dead!" bawled the boy in his high strong voice. Oddly enough the tears came into his eyes for the first time, as he shouted at the deaf old man, and at the same moment little Sebastiano's lower lip trembled. Antonino shook his head in rough sympathy. "We have also beaten Don Pietro Casale, and so we have run away," yelled the boy. Antonino grunted thoughtfully and his grey eyes twinkled as he slowly righted himself and stood up again. Very deliberately he went into the shop again and presently came back with a big measure of weak wine and water. "Drink," he said, holding out the jug. Again the two boys pulled at their caps and each raised the jug respectfully toward the old man before drinking. "To health," each said, and Antonino nodded gravely. Then Ruggiero took the jug inside and rinsed it, as he knew it was his duty to do and set it on the table. When he came back he stood beside his brother, waiting for Don Antonino to speak. A long silence followed. "Sleep," said the old man. "Afterwards we will talk." He took his old place in the doorway and stared steadily out to sea. The boys lay down beside the house and having eaten and drunk their fill and walked a matter of fifteen miles, were sound asleep in three minutes. At sunset Ruggiero sat up suddenly and rubbed his eyes. Don Antonino was no longer at the door, and the sound of several men's voices came from within, mingled with the occasional dull rattle of coarse glasses on wooden tables. "Ò!" Ruggiero called softly to his brother. Then he added a syllable and called again, "O-è!" Little Sebastiano woke, sat up and looked about him, rubbing his eyes in his turn. "What has happened?" he inquired, only half awake. "By the grace of God we have eaten, we have drunk and we have slept," said Ruggiero by way of answer. Both got up, shook themselves and stood with their hands in their pockets, looking at the sea. They were barefooted and barelegged, with torn breeches, coarse white shirts much patched about the shoulders, and ragged woollen caps. Presently they turned as by a common instinct and went and stood before the open door, peering in at the guests. Don Antonino was behind his black counter measuring wine. His wife was with him now and helping him, a cheerful, clean woman having a fair complexion, grey hair and round sharp eyes with red lids--a stranger in Calabria like her husband. She held the neck of a great pear-shaped demijohn, covered with straw, of which the lower part rested on the counter. Antonino held a quart jug to be filled while she lowered the mouth, and he poured the measure each time into a barrel through a black tin funnel. They both counted the measures in audible tones, checking each other as it were. The wine was very dark and strong and the smell filled the low room and came out through the door. Half-a-dozen men sat at the tables, mostly eating ship biscuit of their own and goat's-milk cheese which they bought with their wine. They were rough-looking fellows, generally in checked flannel shirts, and home-spun trousers. But they all wore boots or shoes, which are in the south a distinctive sign of a certain degree of prosperity. Most of them had black beards and smart woollen caps. They were men who got their living principally by the sea in one way or another, but none of them looked thorough seamen. They talked loud and with a certain air of boasting, they were rough, indeed, but not strongly built nor naturally easy in their movements as sailors are. Their eyes were restless and fiery, but the glance was neither keen nor direct. Altogether they contrasted oddly with Don Antonino, the old boatswain. This part of Calabria does not breed genuine sea folk. Antonino took no notice of the boys as they stood outside the door, but went quietly on with his work, measuring quart after quart of wine and pouring it into the barrel. "If it were a keg, I could carry it for him," said Ruggiero, "but I cannot lift a barrel yet." "We could roll it, together," suggested Sebastiano thoughtfully. Presently Don Antonino finished his job and bunged the barrel with a cork and a bit of old sailcloth. Then he looked up and stood still. The boys were not quite sure whether he was watching them or not, for it was already dusk. His wife lit a small German petroleum lamp and hung it in the middle of the room, and then went to the fireplace in the dark corner where something was cooking. One of the guests shouted to Antonino. "There is a martingane at San Nicola," he bawled. Antonino turned his head slowly to the speaker and waited for more. "Bound east," continued the man. "From Majuri." "What is wrong with her?" inquired the old host. Boats going west, that is, towards Naples and Civita Vecchia often put in to the small natural harbours to wait for the night wind. Those going east never do except for some especial reason. The man said nothing, but fixed his eyes on Antonino and slowly filled his pipe, evidently intending to convey some secret piece of information by the look and action. But the old sailor's stolid face did not betray the slightest intelligence. He turned away and deliberately took half-a-dozen salted sprats from a keg behind the counter and laid them in a dish preparatory to cleaning them for his own supper. The man who had spoken to him seemed annoyed, but only shrugged his shoulders impatiently and went on eating and drinking. Antonino took a jug of water and went outside to wash his fish. The two boys offered to do it for him, but he shook his head. He did not speak until he had almost finished. "We will fish to-night," he said at last, in a low voice, pouring a final rinsing of water into the dish. "Sleep in the sand under the third boat from the rocks. I will wake you when I am ready." He looked from one to the other of the lads with a keen glance, and then laid one huge finger against his lips. He drained the water from his dish and went in again. "Come along," said Ruggiero softly. "Let us find the boat and get out of the way." The craft was a small "gozzo," or fisherman's boat, not above a dozen or fourteen feet long, sharp and much alike at bow and stern, but with a high stem surmounted by a big ball of wood, very convenient for hanging nets upon. It was almost dark by this time, but the boys saw that she was black as compared with the other boats on both sides of her. She was quite empty and lay high and dry on three low chocks. Ruggiero lay down, getting as close to the keel as he could and Sebastiano followed his example. They lay head to head so that they could talk in a whisper. "Why are we not to speak of his fishing?" asked the younger boy. "Who knows? But if we do as he tells us he will give us more bread to-morrow." "He is very good to us." "Because we beat Don Pietro Casale. Don Pietro cheated him last year. I saw the cottonseed oil he mixed with the good, in that load we brought down." "Perhaps the fishing is not for fish," suggested little Sebastiano, curling himself up and laying his head on the end of the chock. They did not know what time it was when Don Antonino gently stirred them with his big foot. They sprang up wide awake and saw in the starlight that he had a pair of oars and a coil of rope in his hands. "As I launch her, take the chocks from behind and put them in front," he said in a low voice. Then he laid the oars softly in the bows and dropped the rope into the bottom, and began to push the boat slowly down to the sea. The boys did as he had told them to do, and in a few minutes the bows were in the rippling water. The old sailor took off his shoes and stockings and put them on board, and rolled up his trousers. Then with a strong push he sent her down over the pebbles and got upon the bows as she floated out. To look at his heavy form you would not have thought that he could move so lightly and quickly when he pleased. In a moment he was standing over the oars and backing to the beach again for the boys to get in. They stood above their knees in the warm water and handed him the chocks before they got on board. He nodded as though satisfied, but said nothing as he pulled away towards the rocky point. The lads sat silently in the stern, wondering whither he was taking them. He certainly had brought no fishing tackle with him. There was not even a torch and harpoon aboard for spearing the fish. He pulled rapidly and steadily as though he were going on an errand and were in a hurry, keeping close under the high rocks as soon as he was clear of the reefs at the cape. At last, nearly an hour after starting, the boys made out a great deserted tower just ahead. Then Antonino stopped pulling, unshipped his oars one after the other and muffled them just where the strap works on the thole-pin, by binding bits of sailcloth round them. He produced the canvas and the rope-yarn from his pockets, and the boys watched his quick, workmanlike movements without understanding what he was doing. When he began to pull again the oars made no noise against the tholes, and he dipped the blades gently into the water, as he pulled past the tower into the sheltered bay beyond. Then a vessel loomed up suddenly under the great cliffs, and a moment later he was under her side, tapping softly against the planking. The boys held their breath and watched him. Presently a dark head appeared above the bulwarks and remained stationary for a while. Antonino stood up in his boat so as to lessen the distance and make himself more easily recognisable. Then a hand appeared beside the head and made a gesture, then dived down and came up again with the end of a rope, lowering it down into the boat. Antonino gave the line to Ruggiero and then stepped off upon the great hook on the martingane's side to which the chain links for beaching, got hold of the after shroud and swung himself on board. Now it may be as well to say here what a martingane is. She is a good-sized, decked vessel, generally between five-and-twenty and a hundred tons, with good beam and full bows, narrow at the stern and rather high out of water unless very heavily laden. She has one stout mast, cross-trees, and a light topmast. She has an enormous yard, much longer than herself, on which is bent the high peaked mainsail. She carries a gaff-top-sail, fore-staysail, jib and flying-jib, and can rig out all sorts of light sails when she is before the wind. She is a good sea boat, but slow and clumsy, and needs a strong crew to handle her. The two boys who sat in the fishing boat alongside the martingane on that dark night had no idea that all sea-going vessels were not called ships; but there was something mysteriously attractive to them in the black hull, the high tapering yard, and the shadowy rigging. They were certainly not imaginative boys, but they could not help wondering where the great dark thing had been and whither she might be going. They did not know what going to sea meant, nor what real deep-sea vessels were like, and they even fancied that this one might have been to America. But they understood well enough that they were to make no noise, and they kept their reflections to themselves, silently holding on to the end of the rope as they sat in their places. They did not wait very long. In a few minutes Antonino and the other man came to the side, carrying an odd-looking black bundle, sewn up in what Ruggiero felt was oiled canvas as he steadied it down into the stern of the little boat, and neatly hitched round from end to end with spun-yarn, so as to be about the shape of an enormous sausage. The two men lowered it without much caution; it was heavy but rather limp. Then came another exactly like the first, which they also lowered into the boat, and a moment later Don Antonino came over the side as quickly and noiselessly as he had gone up, and shoved off quietly into the starlight. Half an hour later he ran alongside of a narrow ledge of rock, apparently quite inaccessible from the land above, but running up along the cliff in such a way that, in case of danger from the sea, a man could get well out of reach of the breakers. He went ashore, taking the end of his own coil of rope with him. He made it fast in the dark shadow, and he must have known the place very well, for there was but one small hole running under a stone wedged in a cleft of the rock, through which he could pass the line. He got back into the boat. "Get ashore, boys," he said, "and wait here. If you see a revenue boat, with coast guards in it, coming towards you as though the men wanted to speak to you, cast off the end of the rope and let it run into the sea. Then run up the ledge there, and climb the rock, the faster the better. There is a way up. But keep out of sight when it is day, by lying flat in the hollow there. If anybody else comes in a boat, and says nothing, but just takes the rope, do not hinder him. Let him take it, and he will take you too, and give you a couple of biscuits." Don Antonino pushed off a little, letting the rope run out. Then he made his end of it fast to the two ends of the black bundles, and backing out as far as he could, he let them both down gently into the water, and pulled away, leaving the Children of the King alone on the ledge. He had managed to bring the rope down through the cleft, so that it could not easily be seen from the sea. The boys waited some time before either of them spoke, although the old fellow was deaf. "Those things looked like dead men," said Sebastiano at last. "But they are not," answered Ruggiero confidently. "Now I know why Don Antonino is so rich. He smuggles tobacco." "If we could smuggle tobacco, too, it would be a fortune," remarked the younger boy. "He would give us bread every day, with cheese, and wine to drink." "We shall see." They sat a long time, waiting for something to happen, and then fell asleep, curling themselves up in the hollow as they had been told to do. At dawn they awoke and began to look out for the revenue boat. But she did not appear in sight. The hours were very long and it was very hot, and they had nothing to eat or drink. Then all at once they saw what seemed to them the most beautiful vision they could remember. A big felucca shot round the rocks, still under way from the breeze she had found in the little bay. Her full white sails still shivered in the sun, and the boys could see the blue light that passed up under her keel and was reflected upon her snow-white side as she ceased to move just in front of them. A big man with a red beard and a white shirt stood at the helm and fixed his eyes on the point where the lads were hiding. He evidently saw them, for he nodded to a man near him and gave an order. In a moment the dingy was launched and a sailor came ashore. He jumped nimbly out, holding the painter of his boat in one hand, glanced at the boys, who stood up as soon as they saw that they were discovered, and cast off the end of the rope, keeping hold of it lest it should run. Then without paying any more attention to the boys, he went on board again taking the end with him. "And we?" shouted Ruggiero after him, as he pulled away facing them. "I do not know you," he answered. "But we know you and Don Antonino," said Sebastiano, who was quick-witted. "Wait a while," replied the sailor. The man at the helm spoke to him while the others were hauling up the bundles out of the water and getting them on board. The dingy came rapidly back and the sailor sterned her to the rock for the boys to get in. In a few minutes they were over the side of the felucca. [1] They pulled at their ragged caps as they came up to the man at the helm, who proved to be the master. [Footnote 1: A felucca is a two-masted boat of great length in proportion to her beam, and generally a very good sailer. She carries two very large lateen sails, uncommonly high at the peak, and one jib. She is sometimes quite open, sometimes half-decked, and sometimes fully decked, according to her size. She carries generally from ten to thirty tons of cargo, and is much used in the coasting trade, all the way from Civita Vecchia to the Diamante. The model of a first-rate felucca is very like that of a Viking's ship which was discovered not many years since in a mound in Norway.] "What do you want?" he asked roughly, but he looked them over from head to foot, one at a time. "The mother is dead," said Ruggiero, "and, moreover, we have beaten Don Pietro Casale and run away from Verbicaro, and we wish to be sailors." "Verbicaro?" repeated the master. "Land folk, then. Have you ever been to sea?" "No, but we are strong and can work." "You may come with me to Sorrento. You will find work there. I am short-handed. I daresay you are worth a biscuit apiece." He spoke in the roughest tone imaginable, and his black eyes--for he had black eyes and thick black hair in spite of his red beard--looked angry and fiery while he talked. Altogether you would have thought that he was in a very bad temper and not at all disposed to take a couple of starving lads on board out of charity. But he did not look at all such a man as those awkward, gaudily dressed, unsteady fellows the boys had seen in Antonino's shop on the previous night. He looked a seaman, every inch of him, and they instinctively felt that as he stood there at the helm he knew his business thoroughly and could manage his craft as coolly in a winter storm as on this flat September sea, when the men were getting the sweeps out because there was not a breath of wind to stir the sails. "Go forward and pick beans for dinner," he said. That was the first job given the Children of the King when they went to sea. For to sea they went and turned out seamen in due time, as good as the master who took them first, and perhaps a little better, though that is saying much. And so I have told you who the Children of the King are and how they shipped as boys on board of a Sorrento felucca, being quite alone in the world, and now I will tell you of some things which happened to them afterwards, and not quite so long ago.	{ "id": "15187" }
3	None	Ten years have passed since the ever-memorable day on which the Children of the King hurt their fists so badly in battering Don Pietro Casale's sharp nose. They are big, bony men, now, with strongly marked features, short yellow hair and fair beards. So far they are alike, and at first sight might be taken for twin brothers. But there is a marked difference between them in character, which shows itself in their faces. Ruggiero's eye is of a colder blue, is less mobile and of harder expression than Sebastiano's. His firm lips are generally tightly closed, and his square chin is bolder than his brother's. He is stronger, too, though not by very much, and though he is more silent and usually more equable, he has by far the worse temper of the two. At sea there is little to choose between them. Perhaps, on the whole, Sebastiano has always been the favourite amongst his companions, while Ruggiero has been thought the more responsible and possibly the more dangerous in a quarrel. Both, however, have acquired an extraordinarily good reputation as seamen, and also as boatmen on the pleasure craft of all sizes which sail the gulf of Naples during the summer season. They have made several long voyages, too. They have been to New York and to Buenos Ayres and have seen many ports of Europe and America, and much weather of all sorts north and south of the Line. They have known what it is to be short of victuals five hundred miles from land with contrary winds; they have experienced the delights of a summer at New Orleans, waiting for a cargo and being eaten alive by mosquitoes; they have looked up, in January, at the ice-sheeted rigging, when boiling water froze upon the shrouds and ratlines, and the captain said that no man could lay out upon the top-sail yard, though the north-easter threatened to blow the sail out of the bolt-ropes--but Ruggiero got hold of the lee earing all the same and Sebastiano followed him, and the captain swore a strange oath in the Italo-American language, and went aloft himself to help light the sail out to windward, being still a young man and not liking to be beaten by a couple of beardless boys, as the two were then. [2] And they have seen many strange sights, sea-serpents not a few, and mermaids quite beyond the possibility of mistake, and men who can call the wind with four knots in a string and words unlearnable, and others who can alter the course of a waterspout by a secret spell, and a captain who made a floating beacon of junk soaked in petroleum in a tar-barrel and set it adrift and stood up on the quarter-deck calling on all the three hundred and sixty-five saints in the calendar out of the Neapolitan almanack he held--and got a breeze, too, for his pains, as Ruggiero adds with a quiet and somewhat incredulous smile when he has finished the yarn. All these things they have seen with their eyes, and many more which it is impossible to remember, but all equally astonishing though equally familiar to everybody who has been at sea ten years. [Footnote 2: The writer knows of a Sorrentine captain, commanding a large bark who, when top-sails are reefed in his watch regularly takes the lee earing, which, as most landsmen need to be told, is the post of danger and honour.] And now in mid-June they are at home again, since Sorrento is their home now, and they are inclined to take a turn with the pleasure boats by way of a change and engage themselves for the summer, Ruggiero with a gentleman from the north of Italy known as the Conte di San Miniato, and Sebastiano with a widowed Sicilian lady and her daughter, the Marchesa di Mola and the Signorina Beatrice Granmichele, generally, if incorrectly, spoken of as Donna Beatrice. Now the Conte di San Miniato, though only a count, and reputed to be out at elbows, if not up to his ears in debt, is the sole surviving representative of a very great and ancient family in the north. But how the defunct Granmichele got his title of Marchese di Mola, no one knows precisely. Two things are certain, that his father never had a title at all, and that he himself made a large fortune in sulphur and paving stones, so that his only daughter is much of an heiress, and his elderly widow has a handsome income to spend as she pleases, owns in Palermo a fine palace--historical in other hands--is the possessor of a smartish yacht, a cutter of thirty tons or so, goes to Paris once and to Monte Carlo twice in every year, brings her own carriage to Sorrento in the summer, and lives altogether in a luxurious and highly correct manner. She is a tall, thin woman of forty years or thereabouts, with high features, dark eyes, a pale olive complexion, black hair white at the temples, considerable taste in dress and an absolute contempt for physical exertion, mental occupation and punctuality. Donna Beatrice, as they call her daughter, is a very pretty girl, aged nineteen or nearly, of greyhound build, so to say, by turns amazingly active and astonishingly indolent, capricious and decided in her caprices while they last, passionately fond of dancing, much inclined to amuse herself in her own way when her mother is not looking, and possessing a keen sense of prime and ultimate social ratios. She is unusually well educated, speaks three languages, knows that somehow North and South America are not exactly the same as the Northern and Southern States, has heard of Virgil and the Crusades, can play a waltz well, and possesses a very sweet little voice. She is undoubtedly pretty. Brown, on the whole, as to colouring--brown skin, liquid brown eyes, dark brown hair--a nose not regular but attractive, a mouth not small but expressive, eyebrows not finely pencilled, neither arched nor straight, but laid on as it were like the shadows in a clever charcoal drawing, with the finger, broad, effective, well turned, carelessly set in the right place by a hand that never makes mistakes. It is the intention of the Marchesa di Mola to marry her daughter to the very noble and out-at-elbows Count of San Miniato before the summer is out. It is also the intention of the Count to marry Beatrice. It is Beatrice's intention to do nothing rashly, but to take as much time as she can get for making up her mind, and then to do exactly as she pleases. She perfectly appreciates her own position and knows that she can either marry a rich man of second-rate family, or a poor man of good blood, a younger son or a half ruined gentleman at large like San Miniato, and she hesitates. She is not quite sure of the value of money yet. It might be delightful to be even much richer than she is, because there are so many delightful things to be done in the world with money alone. But it might turn out to be equally agreeable to have a great name, to be somebody, to be a necessary part of society in short, because society does a number of agreeable things not wholly dependent upon cash for being pleasant, and indeed often largely dependent on credit. San Miniato attracts her, and she does not deny the fact to herself. He is handsome, tall, fair, graceful and exceedingly well dressed. He was several years in a cavalry regiment and is reputed to have left the service in order to fight with a superior officer whom he disliked. In reality his straitened means may have had something to do with the step. At all events he scratched his major rather severely in the duel which took place, and has the reputation of a dangerous man with the sabre. It is said that the major's wife had something to do with the story. At present San Miniato is about thirty years of age. His only known vice is gambling, which is perhaps a chief source of income to him. Every one agrees in saying that he is the type of the honourable player, and that, if he wins on the whole, he owes his winnings to his superior coolness and skill. The fact that he gambles rather lends him an additional interest in the eyes of Beatrice, whose mother often plays and who would like to play herself. Ruggiero, who is to be San Miniato's boatman this summer, is waiting outside the Count's door, until that idle gentleman wakes from his late sleep and calls him. The final agreement is yet to be made, and Ruggiero makes calculations upon his fingers as he sits on the box in the corridor. The Count wants a boat and three sailors by the month and if he is pleased, will keep them all the season. It became sufficiently clear to Ruggiero during the first interview that his future employer did not know the difference between a barge and a felucca, and he has had ocular demonstration that the Count cannot swim, for he has seen him in the water by the bathing-houses--a thorough landsman at all points. But there are two kinds of landsmen, those who are afraid, and those who are not, as Ruggiero well knows. The first kind are amusing and the sailors get more fun out of them than they know of; the second kind are dangerous and are apt to get more out of the sailor than they pay for, by bullying him and calling him a coward. But on the whole Ruggiero, being naturally very daring and singularly indifferent to life as a possession, hopes that San Miniato may turn out to be of the unreasonably reckless rather than of the tiresomely timid class, and is inclined to take his future master's courage for granted as he makes his calculations. "I will take the Son of the Fool and the Cripple," he mutters decisively. "They are good men, and we can always have the Gull for a help when we need four." A promising crew, by the names, say you of the North, who do not understand Southern ways. But in Sorrento and all down the coast, most seafaring men get nicknames under which their real and legal appellations disappear completely and are totally forgotten. The Fool, whose son Ruggiero meant to engage, had earned his title in bygone days by dancing an English hornpipe for the amusement of his companions, the Gull owed his to the singular length and shape of his nose, and the Cripple had in early youth worn a pair of over-tight boots on Sundays, whereby he had limped sadly on the first day of every week, for nearly two years. So that the crew were all sound in mind and body in spite of their alarming names. Ruggiero sat on the box and waited, meditating upon the probable occupations of gentlemen who habitually slept till ten o'clock in the morning and sometimes till twelve. From time to time he brushed an almost imperceptible particle of dust from his very smart blue cloth knees, and settled the in-turned collar of the perfectly new blue guernsey about his neck. It was new, and it scratched him disagreeably, but it was highly necessary to present a prosperous as well as a seamanlike appearance on such an important occasion. Nothing could have been more becoming to him than the dark close-fitting dress, showing as it did the immense breadth and depth of his chest, the clean-cut sinewy length of his limbs and the easy grace and strength of his whole carriage. His short straight fair hair was brushed, too, and his young yellow beard had been recently trimmed. Altogether a fine figure of a man as he sat there waiting. Suddenly he was aware of a wonderful vision moving towards him down the broad corridor--a lovely dark face with liquid brown eyes, an exquisite figure clad in a well-fitted frock of white serge, a firm, smooth step that was not like any step he had ever heard. He rose quickly as she passed him, and the blood rushed to his face, up to the very roots of his hair. Beatrice was too much of a woman not to see the effect she produced upon the poor sailor, and she nodded gracefully to him, in acknowledgment of his politeness in rising. As she did so she noticed on her part that the poor sailor was indeed a very remarkable specimen of a man, such as she had not often seen. She stopped and spoke to him. "Are you the Count of San Miniato's boatman?" she asked in her sweet voice. "Yes, Eccellenza," answered Ruggiero, still blushing violently "Then he has engaged the boat? We want a boat, too--the Marchesa di Mola--can you get us one?" "There is my brother, Eccellenza." "Is he a good sailor?" "Better than I, Eccellenza." Beatrice looked at the figure before her and smiled graciously. "Send him to us at twelve o'clock," she said. "The Marchesa di Mola--do not forget." "Yes, Eccellenza." Ruggiero bowed respectfully, while Beatrice nodded again and passed on. Then he sat down again and waited, but his fingers no longer moved in calculations and his expression had changed. He sat still and stared in the direction of the corner beyond which the young girl had disappeared. He was conscious for the first time in his life that he possessed a heart, for the thing thumped and kicked violently under his blue guernsey, and he looked down at his broad chest with an odd expression of half-childish curiosity, fully expecting to see an outward and visible motion corresponding with the inward hammering. But he saw nothing. Solid ribs and solid muscles kept the obstreperous machine in its place. "Malora!" he ejaculated to himself. "Worse than a cat in a sack!" His hands, too, were quite cold, though it was a warm day. He noticed the fact as he passed his thumb for the hundredth time round his neck where the hard wool scratched him. To tell the truth he was somewhat alarmed. He had never been ill a day in his life, had never had as much as a headache, a bad cold or a touch of fever, and he began to think that something must be wrong. He said to himself that if such a thing happened to him again he would go to the chemist and ask for some medicine. His strength was the chief of his few possessions, he thought, and it would be better to spend a franc at the chemist's than to let it be endangered. It was a serious matter. Suppose that the young lady, instead of speaking to him about a boat, had told him to pick up the box on which he was sitting--one of those big boxes these foreigners travel with--and to carry it upstairs, he would have cut a poor figure just at that moment, when his heart was thumping like a flat-fish in the bottom of a boat, and his hands were trembling with cold. If it chanced again, he would certainly go to Don Ciccio the chemist and buy a dose of something with a strong bad taste, the stronger and the worse flavoured the better, of course, as everyone knew. Very alarming, these symptoms! Then he fell to thinking of the young lady herself, and she seemed to rise before him, just as he had seen her a few moments earlier. The signs of his new malady immediately grew worse again, and when it somehow struck him that he might serve her, and let Sebastiano be boatman to the Count, the pounding at his ribs became positively terrifying, and he jumped up and began to walk about. Just then the door opened suddenly and San Miniato put out his head. "Are you the sailor who is to get me a boat?" he asked. "Yes, Eccellenza," answered Ruggiero turning quickly, cap in hand. Strange to say, at the sound of the man's voice the alarming symptoms totally disappeared and Ruggiero was quite himself again. He remembered also that he had been engaged for the Count, through the people of the hotel, on condition of approval, and that it would be contrary to boatman's honour to draw back. After all, too, women in a boat were always a nuisance at the best, and he liked the Count's face, and decided that he was not of the type of landsmen who are frightened. The interview did not last long. "I shall wish to make excursions in all directions," said San Miniato. "I do not know anything about the sea, but I dislike people who make difficulties and talk to me of bad weather when I mean to go anywhere. Do you understand?" "We will try to content your excellency," answered Ruggiero quietly. "Good. We shall see." So Ruggiero went away to find the Son of the Fool, and the Cripple, and to engage them for the summer, and to deliver to his brother the message from the Marchesa di Mola. The reason why Ruggiero did not take Sebastiano as one of his own crew was a simple one. There lived and still lives at Sorrento, a certain old man known as the Greek. The Greek is old and infirm and has a vicious predilection for wine and cards, so that he is quite unfit for the sea. But he owns a couple of smart sailing boats and gets a living by letting them to strangers. It is necessary, however, to have at least one perfectly reliable man in charge of each, and so soon as the Children of the King had returned from their last long voyage the Greek had engaged them both for this purpose, as being in every way superior to the common run of boatmen who hung about the place waiting for jobs. It was consequently impossible that the two brothers could be in the same boat's crew during the summer. Ruggiero found the Cripple asleep in the shade, having been out all night fishing, and the Son of the Fool was seated not far from him, plaiting sinnet for gaskets. The two were inseparable, so far as their varied life permitted them to be together, and were generally to be found in the same crew. Average able seamen both, much of the same height and build, broad, heavy fellows good at the oar, peaceable and uncomplaining. While Ruggiero was talking with the one who was awake, his own brother appeared, and Ruggiero gave him the message, whereupon Sebastiano went off to array himself in his best before presenting himself to the Marchesa di Mola. The Son of the Fool gathered up his work. "Mola?" he repeated in a tone of inquiry. Ruggiero nodded carelessly. "A Sicilian lady who has a cutter?" "Yes." "Her daughter is going to marry a certain Conte di San Miniato--a great signore--of those without soldi." The sailor coiled the plaited sinnet neatly over his bare arm, but looked up as Ruggiero uttered an exclamation. "What is the matter with you?" he asked. Ruggiero's face was quite red and his broad chest heaved as he bit his lip and thrust his hands into his pockets. His companion repeated his question. "Nothing is the matter," answered Ruggiero. "Wake up the Cripple and see if there is everything for rigging the boat. We must have her out this afternoon. The Conte di San Miniato of whom you speak is our signore." "Oh! I understand!" exclaimed the Son of the Fool. "Well--you need not be so anxious. I daresay it is not true that he has no money, and at all events the Greek will pay us." "Of course, the Greek will pay us," answered Ruggiero thoughtfully. "I will be back in half an hour," he added, turning away abruptly. He walked rapidly up the steep paved ascent which leads through the narrow gorge from the small beach to the town above. A few minutes later he entered the chemist's shop for the first time in his life in search of medicine for himself. He took off his cap and looked about him with some curiosity, eying the long rows of old-fashioned majolica drug jars, and the stock of bottles of all colours and labels in the glass cases. The chemist was a worthy old creature with a white beard and solemn ways. "What do you want?" he inquired. "A little medicine, but good," answered Ruggiero, looking critically along the shelves, as though to select a remedy. "A little of the best," he added, jingling a few silver coins in his pockets and wondering how much the stuff would cost. "But what kind of medicine?" asked the old man. "Do you feel ill? Where?" "Here," answered Ruggiero bringing his heavy bony hand down upon his huge chest with a noise that made the chemist start, and then chuckle. "Just there, eh?" said the latter ironically. "You have the health of a horse. Go to dinner." "I tell you it is there," returned Ruggiero. "Sometimes it is quite quiet, as it is now, but sometimes it jumps and threshes like a dolphin at sea." "H'm! The heart, eh?" The old man came round his counter and applied his ear to Ruggiero's breast. "Regular as a steam engine," he said. "When does it jump, as you call it? When you go up hill?" Ruggiero laughed. "Am I old or fat?" he inquired contemptuously. "It happened first this morning. I was waiting in the hotel and a lady came by and spoke to me--about a certain boat." "A lady? H'm! Young perhaps, and pretty?" "That is my business. Then half an hour later I was talking to the Son of the Fool. You know him I daresay. And it began to jump again, and I said to myself, '"Health is the first thing," as the old people say.' So I came for the medicine." The chemist chuckled audibly. "And what were you talking about?" he asked. "The lady?" "It is true," answered Ruggiero in a tone of reflection. "The Son of the Fool was telling me that the lady is to marry my signore." "And you want medicine!" cried the old man, laughing aloud. "Imbecile! Have you never been in love?" Ruggiero stared at him. "Eh! A girl here and there--in Buenos Ayres, in New Orleans--what has that to do with it? You--what the malora--the plague--are you talking about? Eh? Explain a little." "You had better go back to Buenos Ayres, or to some other place where you will not see the lady any more," said the chemist. "You are in love with her. That is all the matter." "I, with a gran' signora, a great lady! You are crazy, Don Ciccio!" "Crazy or not--tell me to-morrow whether your heart does not beat every time she looks at you. As for her being a great lady--we are men, and they are women." The chemist had socialistic ideas of his own. "To please you," said Ruggiero, "I will go and see her now, and I will be back in an hour to tell you that you do not understand your business. My brother is to go there at twelve and I will go with him. Of course I shall see her." He turned to go, but stopped suddenly on the threshold and came back. "There!" he cried triumphantly. "There it is again, but not so hard this time. Is the lady here, now?" He pushed his chest against the old man's ear. "Madonna mia! What a machine!" exclaimed the latter, after listening a moment. "If I had a heart like that!" "Now you see for yourself," said Ruggiero. "I want the best medicine." But again the chemist broke into a laugh. "Medicine! A medicine for love! Do you not see that it began to beat at the thought of seeing her? Go and try it, as you proposed. Then you will understand." "I understand that you are crazy. But I will try it all the same." Thereupon Ruggiero strode out of the shop without further words, considerably disappointed and displeased with the result of the interview. The chemist apparently took him for a fool. It was absurd to suppose that the sight of any woman, or the mention of any woman, could make a man's heart behave in such a way, and yet he was obliged to admit that the coincidence was undeniable. He found his brother just coming out of the house in which they lodged, arrayed at all points exactly like himself. Sebastiano's young beard was not quite so thick, his eyes were a little softer, his movements a trifle less energetically direct than Ruggiero's, and he was, perhaps, an inch shorter; but the resemblance was extraordinary and would have struck any one. They were admitted to the presence of the Marchesa di Mola in due time. She lay in a deep chair under the arches of her terrace, shaded by brown linen curtains, languid, idle, indifferent as ever. "Beatrice!" she called in a lazy tone, as the two men stood still at a respectful distance, waiting to be addressed. But instead of Beatrice, a maid appeared at a door at the other end of the terrace--a fresh young thing with rosy cheeks, brown hair, sparkling black eyes and a pretty figure. "Call Donna Beatrice," said the Marchesa. Then, as though exhausted by the effort of speaking she closed her eyes and waited. The maid cast a quick glance at the two handsome sailors and disappeared again. Ruggiero and Sebastiano stood motionless, only their eyes turning from side to side and examining everything with the curiosity habitual in seamen. Presently Beatrice entered, looked at them both for a moment and then went up to her mother. "It is for the boat, mamma," she said. "Do you wish me to arrange about it?" "Of course," answered the Marchesa opening her eyes and immediately shutting them again. Beatrice stepped aside and beckoned the two men to her. To Ruggiero's infinite surprise, he again felt the blood rushing to his face, and his heart began to pound his ribs like a fuller's hammer. He glanced at his brother and saw that he was perfectly self-possessed. Beatrice looked from one to the other in perplexity. "You are so much alike!" she exclaimed. "With which of you did I speak this morning?" "With me, Eccellenza," said Ruggiero, whose own voice sounded strangely in his ears. "And this is my brother," he added. The arrangement was soon made, but during the short interchange of questions and answers Ruggiero could not take his eyes from Beatrice's face. Possibly he was not even aware that it was rude to stare at a lady, for his education had not been got in places where ladies are often seen, or manners frequently discussed. But Beatrice did not seem at all disturbed by the scrutiny, though she was quite aware of its pertinacity. A woman who has beauty in any degree rarely resents the genuine and unconcealed admiration of the vulgar. On the contrary, as the young girl dismissed the men, she smiled graciously upon them both, and perhaps a little the more upon Ruggiero, though there was not much to choose. Neither of them spoke as they descended the stairs of the hotel, and went out through the garden to the gate. When they were in the square beyond Ruggiero stopped. Sebastiano stood still also and looked at him. "Does your heart ever jump and turn somersaults and get into your mouth, when you look at a woman, Bastianello?" he asked. "No. Does yours?" "Yes. Just now." "I saw her, too," answered Sebastiano. "It is true that she is very fresh and pretty, and uncommonly clean. Eh--the devil! If you like her, ask for her. The maid of a Marchesa is sure to have money and to be a respectable girl." Ruggiero was silent for a moment and looked at his brother with an odd expression, as though he were going to say something. Unfortunately for him, for Sebastiano, for the maid, for Beatrice, and for the count of San Miniato, too, he said nothing. Instead, he produced half a cigar from his cap, and two sulphur matches, and incontinently began to smoke. "It is lucky that both boats are engaged on the same day," observed Sebastiano. "The Greek will be pleased. He will play all the numbers at the lottery." "And get very drunk to-night," added Ruggiero with contempt. "Of course. But he is a good padrone, everybody says, and does not cheat his men." "I hope not." By and by the two went down to the beach again, and Sebastiano looked about him for a crew. The Marchesa wanted four men in her boat, or even five, and Sebastiano picked out at once the Gull, the Son of the American, Black Rag--otherwise known as Saint Peter from his resemblance to the pictures of the Apostle as a fisherman--and the Deaf Man. The latter is a fellow of strange ways, who lost his hearing from falling into the water in winter when overheated, and who has almost lost the power of speech in consequence, but a good sailor withal, tough, untiring, and patient. They all set to work with a good will, and before four o'clock that day the two boats were launched, ballasted and rigged, the sails were bent to the yards and the brasses polished, so that Ruggiero and Sebastiano went up to their respective masters to ask if there were any orders for the afternoon.	{ "id": "15187" }
4	None	Ruggiero found out before long that his master for the summer was eccentric in his habits, judging from the Sorrentine point of view in regard to order and punctuality. Ruggiero's experience of fine gentlemen was limited indeed, but he could not believe that they all behaved like San Miniato, whose temper was apparently as changeable as his tastes. Sometimes he went to bed at nine o'clock and rose at dawn. Sometimes on the other hand he got up at seven in the evening and went to bed by daylight. Sometimes everything Ruggiero did was right, and sometimes everything was wrong. There were days when the Count could not be induced to move from the Marchesa di Mola's terrace between noon and midnight or later, and again there were days when he went off in his boat in the morning and did not return until the last stragglers on the terrace of the hotel were ready to go to bed. He was irregular even in playing, which was after all his chief pastime. Possibly he knew of reasons why it should be good to gamble on one day and not upon another. Then he had his fits of amateur seamanship, when he would insist upon taking the tiller from Ruggiero's hand. The latter, on such occasions, remained perched upon the stern in case of an emergency. San Miniato was a thorough landsman and never understood why the wind always seemed to change, or die away, or do something unexpected so soon as he began to steer the boat. From time to time Ruggiero, by way of a mild hint, held up his palm to the breeze, but San Miniato did not know what the action meant. Ruggiero trimmed the sails to suit the course chosen by his master as well as possible, but straightway the boat was up in the wind again if she had been going free, or was falling off if the tacks were down and the sheets well aft. San Miniato was one of those men who seem quite incapable of doing anything sensible from the moment they leave the land till they touch it again, when their normal common sense returns, and they once more become human beings. On the other hand nothing frightened him, though he could not swim a stroke. More than once Ruggiero allowed him almost to upset the boat in a squall, and more than once, when, steering himself, and when there was a fresh breeze, drove her till the seas broke over the bows, and the green water came in over the lee gunwale--just to see whether the Count would change colour. In this, however, he was disappointed. San Miniato's temper might change and his tastes might be as variable as the moon, or the weather, but his face rarely expressed anything of what he felt, and if he felt anything at such times it was assuredly not fear. He had good qualities, and courage was one of them, if courage may be called a quality at all. Ruggiero was not at all sure that his new master liked the sea, and it is possible that the Count was not sure of the fact himself; but for the time, it suited him to sail as much as possible, because Beatrice Granmichele was fond of it, and would therefore amuse herself with excursions hither and thither during the summer. As her mother rarely accompanied her, San Miniato could not, according to the customs of the country, join her in her boat, and the next best thing was to keep one for himself and to be as often as possible alongside of her, and ready to go ashore with her if she took a fancy to land in some quiet spot. The Marchesa di Mola, having quite made up her mind that her daughter should marry San Miniato, and being almost too indolent about minor matters to care for appearances, would have allowed the two to be together from morning till night under the very least shadow of a chaperon's supervision, if Beatrice herself had shown a greater inclination for San Miniato's society than she actually did. But Beatrice was the only one of the party who had arrived at no distinct determination in the matter. San Miniato attracted her, and was very well in his way, but that was all. Amidst the shoals of migratory Neapolitans with magnificent titles and slender purses, who appeared, disported themselves and disappeared again, at the summer resort, it was quite possible that one might be found with more to recommend him than San Miniato could boast. Most of them were livelier than he, and certainly all were noisier. Many of them had very bright black eyes, which Beatrice liked, and they were all dressed a little beyond the extreme of the fashion, a fact of which she was too young to understand the psychological value in judging of men. Some of them sang very prettily, and San Miniato did not possess any similar accomplishment. Indeed, in the young girl's opinion, he approached dangerously near to being a "serious" man, as the Italians express it, and but for his known love of gambling he might have seemed to her altogether too dull a personage to be thought of as a possible husband. It is not easy to define exactly what is meant in Italian by a "serious" man. The word does not exactly translate the French equivalent, still less the English one. It means something in the nature of a Philistine with a little admixture of Ciceronism--pass the word--and a dash of Cato Censor to sour the whole--a delight to school-masterly spirits, a terror to lively damsels, the laughing-stock of the worldly wise and only just too wise to find a congenial atmosphere in the every-day world. However, as San Miniato just escaped the application of the adjective I have been trying to translate, it is enough to say that he was not exactly a "serious man," being excluded from that variety of the species by his passion for play, which was dominant, and by the incidents of his past history, which had not been dull. It is true that a liking for cards and a reputation for success gained in former love affairs are not in any sense a substitute for the outward and attractive expressions of a genuine and present passion, but they are better than nothing when they serve to combat such a formidable imputation as that of "seriousness." Anything is better than that, and as Beatrice Granmichele was inclined to like the man without knowing why, she made the most of the few stories about him which reached her maiden ears, and of his taste for gaming, in order to render him interesting in her own eyes. He did, indeed, make more or less pretty speeches to her from time to time, of a cheerfully complimentary character when he had won money, of a gracefully melancholy nature when he had lost, but she was far too womanly not to miss something very essential in what he said and in his way of saying it. A woman may love flattery ever so much and have ever so strong a moral absorbent system with which to digest it; she does not hate banality the less. There is no such word as banality in the English tongue, but there might be, and if there were, it would mean that peculiarly tasteless and saltless nature of actions and speeches done and delivered by persons who are born dull, or who are mentally exhausted, or are absent-minded, or very shy, but who, in spite of natural or accidental disadvantages are determined to make themselves agreeable. The standard of banality differs indeed for every woman, and with every woman for almost every hour of the day, and men of the world who husband their worldly resources are aware of the fact. Angelina at three in the afternoon, fresh from rest and luncheon--if both agree with her--is wreathed in smiles at a little speech of Edwin's which would taste like sweet camomile tea after dry champagne, at three in the morning, when the Hungarian music is ringing madly in her ears and there are only two more waltzes on the programme. Music, dancing, lights and heat are to a woman of the world what strong drinks are to a normal man; they may not intoxicate, but they change the humour. Fortunately for San Miniato the young lady whom he wished to marry was not just at present exposed to the action of those stimulants, and her moods were tolerably even. If he had been at all eloquent, the same style of eloquence would have done almost as well after dinner as after breakfast. But the secret springs of love speech were dried up in his brain by the haunting consciousness that much was expected of him. He had never before thought of marrying and had not yet in his life found himself for any length of time constantly face to face in conversation with a young girl, with limitations of propriety and the fear of failure before his eyes. The situation was new and uncomfortable. He felt like a man who has got a hat which does not belong to him, which does not fit him and which will not stay on his head in a high wind. The consequence was that his talk lacked interest, and that he often did not talk at all. Nevertheless, he managed to show enough assiduity to keep himself continually in the foreground of Beatrice's thoughts. Being almost constantly present she could not easily forget him, and he held his ground with a determination which kept other men away. When a man can make a woman think of him half-a-dozen times a day and can prevent other men from taking his place when he is beside her, he is in a fair way to success. On a certain evening San Miniato had a final interview with the Marchesa di Mola in which he expressed all that he felt for Beatrice, including a little more, and in which he described his not very prosperous financial condition with mitigated frankness. The Marchesa listened dreamily in the darkness on the terrace while her daughter played soft dance music in the dimly lighted room behind her. Beatrice probably had an idea of what was going on outside, upon the terrace, and was trying to make up her own mind. She played waltzes very prettily, as women who dance well generally do, if they play at all. When San Miniato had finished, the Marchesa was silent for a few seconds. Then she tapped her companion twice upon the arm with her fan, in a way which would have seemed lazy in any one else, but which, for her, was unusually energetic. "How well you say it all!" she exclaimed. "And you consent, dear Marchesa?" asked the Count, with an eagerness not all feigned. "You say it all so well! If I could say it half so well to Beatrice--there might be some possibility. But Beatrice is not like me--nor I like you--and so--" She broke off in the middle of the sentence with an indolent little laugh. "If she were like you," said San Miniato, "I would not hesitate long." There was an intonation in his voice that pleased the middle-aged woman, as he had intended. "What would you do?" she asked, fanning herself slowly in the dark. "I would speak to her myself." "Heavens!" Again the Marchesa laughed. The idea seemed eccentric enough in her eyes. "Why not?" "Why not? Dearest San Miniato, do not try to make me argue such insane questions with you. You know how lazy I am. I can never talk." "A woman need not talk in order to be persuaded. It is enough that the man should. Let me try." "I will shut my ears." "I will kneel at your feet." "I shall go to sleep." "I could wake you." "How?" "By telling you that I mean to speak to Donna Beatrice myself." "Such an idea would wake the dead!" "So much the better. They would hear me." "They would not help you, if they heard you," observed the Marchesa. "They could at least bear witness to the answer I should receive." "And suppose, dear friend, that the answer should not be what you wish, or expect--would you care to have witnesses, alive or dead?" "Why should the answer be a negative?" "Because," replied the Marchesa, turning her face directly to his, "because Beatrice is herself uncertain. You know well enough that no man should ever tell a woman he loves her until he is sure that she loves him. And that is not the only reason." "Have you a better one?" asked San Miniato with a laugh. "The impossibility of it all! Imagine, in our world, a man deliberately asking a young girl to marry him!" San Miniato smiled, but the Marchesa could not see the expression of his face. "We do not think it so impossible in Piedmont," he answered quietly. "I am surprised at that." The lady's tone was rather cold. "Are you? Why? We are less old-fashioned, that is all." "And is it really done in--in good families?" "Often," answered San Miniato, seeing his advantage and pressing it. "I could give you many instances without difficulty, within the last few years." "The plan certainly saves the parents a great deal of trouble," observed the Marchesa, lazily shutting her eyes and fanning herself again. "And it places the decision of the most vital question in life in the hands of the two beings most concerned." San Miniato spoke rather sententiously, for he knew how to impress his companion and he meant to be impressive. "No doubt," answered the Marchesa. "No doubt. But," she continued, bringing up the time-honoured argument, "the two young people most concerned are not always the people best able to judge of their own welfare." "Of course they are not," assented San Miniato, readily enough, and abandoning the point which could be of no use to him. "Of course not. But, dearest Marchesa, since you have judged for us--and there is no one else to judge--do you not think that you might leave the rest in my hands? The mere question to be asked, you know, in the hope of a final answer--the mere technicality of love-making, with which you can only be familiar from the woman's point of view, and not from the man's, as I am. Not that I have had much experience---" "You?" laughed the Marchesa, touching his hand with her fan. "You without much experience! But you are historical, dearest friend! Who does not know of your conquests?" "I, at least, do not," answered San Miniato with well-affected modesty. "But that is not the question. Let us get back to it. This is my plan. The moon is full to-morrow and the weather is hot. We will all go in my boat to Tragara and dine on the rocks. It will be beautiful. Then after dinner we can walk about in the moonlight--slowly, not far from you, as at the end of this terrace. And while you are looking on I, in a low voice, will express my sincere feelings to Donna Beatrice, and ask the most important of all questions. Does not that please you? Is it not well combined?" "But why must we take the trouble to go all the way to Capri? What sense is there in that?" "Dearest Marchesa, you do not understand! Consider the surroundings, the moonlight, the water rippling against the rocks, the soft breeze--a little music, too, such as a pair of mandolins and a guitar, which we could send over--all these things are in my favour." "Why?" asked the Marchesa, not understanding in the least how he could attach so much value to things which seemed to her unappreciative mind to be perfectly indifferent. "Besides," she added, "if you want to give a party, you can illuminate the garden of the hotel with Chinese lanterns. That would be much prettier than to picnic on uncomfortable rocks out in the sea with nothing but cold things to eat and only the moon for an illumination. I am sure Beatrice would like it much better." San Miniato laughed. "What a prosaic person you are!" he exclaimed. "Can you not imagine that a young girl's disposition may be softened by moonlight, mandolins and night breezes?" "No. I never understood that. And after all if you want moonlight you can have it here. If it shines at Capri it will shine at Sorrento. At least it seems to me so." "No, dearest Marchesa," answered San Miniato triumphantly. "There you are mistaken." "About the moon?" "Yes, about the moon. When it rises we do not see it here, on account of the mountains behind us." "But I have often seen the moon here, from this very place," objected the Marchesa. "I am sure it is not a week ago that I saw it. You do not mean to tell me that there are two moons, and that yours is different from mine!" "Very nearly. This at least I say. When the moon is full we can see it rise from Tragara, and we can not see it from this place." "How inexplicable nature is!" exclaimed the Marchesa fanning herself lazily. "I will not try to understand the moon any more. It tires me. A lemonade, San Miniato--ring for a lemonade. I am utterly exhausted." "Shall I ask Donna Beatrice's opinion about Tragara?" inquired San Miniato rising. "Oh yes! Anything--only do not argue with me. I cannot bear it. I suppose you will put me into that terrible boat and make me sit in it for hours and hours, until all my bones are broken, and then you will give me cold macaroni and dry bread and warm wine and water, and the sailors will eat garlic, and it will be insufferable and you will call it divine. And of course Beatrice will be so wretched that she will not listen to a word you say, and will certainly refuse you without hesitation. A lemonade, San Miniato, for the love of heaven! My throat is parched with this talking." When the Marchesa had got what she wanted, San Miniato sat down beside Beatrice at the piano, in the sitting room. "Donna Beatrice gentilissima," he began, "will you deign to tell me whether you prefer the moon to Chinese lanterns, or Chinese lanterns to the moon?" "To wear?" asked the young girl with a laugh. "If you please, of course. Anything would be becoming to you--but I mean as a question of light. Would you prefer a dinner by moonlight on the rocks of Tragara with a couple of mandolins in the distance, or would you like better a party in the hotel gardens with an illumination of paper lanterns? It is a most important question, I assure you, and must be decided very quickly, because the moon is full to-morrow." "What a ridiculous question!" exclaimed Beatrice, laughing again. "Why ridiculous?" "Because you ought to know the answer well enough. Imagine comparing the moon with Chinese lanterns!" "Your mother prefers the latter." "Oh, mamma--of course! She is so practical. She would prefer carriage lamps on the trees--gas if possible! When are we going to Tragara? Where is it? Which boat shall we take? Oh, it is too delightful! Can we not go to-night?" "We can do anything which Donna Beatrice likes," answered San Miniato. "But if you will listen to me, I will explain why to-morrow would be better. In the first place, we have dined once this evening, so that we could not dine again." "We could call it supper," suggested Beatrice. "Of course we could, if we could eat it at all. But it is also ten o'clock, and we could not get to Tragara before one or two in the morning. Lastly, your mother would not go." "Will she go to-morrow?" asked Beatrice with sudden anxiety. "Have you asked her?" "She will go," answered San Miniato confidently. "We must make her comfortable. That is the principal thing." "Yes. She shall have her maid and we must take a chair for her to sit in, and another to carry her, and two porters, and a lamp, and a table, and a servant to wait on her. And she will want champagne, well iced, and a carpet for her feet, and a screen to keep the wind from her, if there is any, and several more things which I shall remember. But I know all about it, for we once made a little excursion from Taormina and dined out of doors, and I know exactly what she wants." "Very well, she shall have everything," said San Miniato smiling at the catalogue of the Marchesa's wants. "If she will only go, we will do all we can." "When it is time, let the two porters come in here with the chair and take her away," answered Beatrice. "Dear mamma! She will be much too lazy to resist. What fun it will be!" And everything was done as Beatrice had wished. San Miniato made a list of things absolutely indispensable to the Marchesa. The number of articles was about two hundred and their bulk filled a boat which was despatched early in the following afternoon to be rowed over to Tragara and unloaded before the party arrived. Ruggiero and his brother worked hard at the preparations, silent, untiring and efficient as usual, but delighted in their hearts at the prospect of something less monotonous than the daily sail or the daily row within sight of Sorrento. To men who have knocked about the sea for years, from Santa Cruz to Sebastopol, the daily life of a sailor on a little pleasure boat lacks interest, and if circumstances had been, different Ruggiero would probably have shipped before now as boatswain on board one of the neat schooners which are yearly built at the Piano di Sorrento, to be sold with their cargoes of salt as soon as they reach Buenos Ayres. But Ruggiero had contracted that malady of the heart which had taken him to the chemist's for the first time in his life, and which materially hindered the formation of any plan by which he might be obliged to leave his present situation. Moreover the disease showed no signs of yielding; on the contrary, the action of the vital organ concerned became more and more spasmodic and alarming, while its possessor grew daily leaner and more silent. The last package had been taken down, the last of the score of articles which the Marchesa was sure to want with her in the sail boat before she reached the spot where the main cargo of comforts would be waiting; the last sandwich, the last box of sweetmeats, the iced lemonade, the wraps and the parasols were all stowed away in their places. Then San Miniato went to fetch the Marchesa, marshalling in his two porters with their chair between them. "Dearest Marchesa," said the Count, "if you will give yourself the trouble to sit in this chair, I will promise that no further exertion shall be required of you." The Marchesa di Mola looked up with a glance of sleepy astonishment. "And why in that chair, dearest friend? I am so comfortable here. And why have you brought those two men with you?" "Have you forgotten our dinner at Tragara?" asked San Miniato. "Tragara!" gasped the Marchesa. "You are not going to take me to Tragara! Good heavens! I am utterly exhausted! I shall die before we get to the boat." "Altro è parlar di morte--altro è morire," laughed San Miniato, quoting the famous song. "It is one thing to talk of death, it is quite another to die. Only this little favour Marchesa gentilissima--to seat yourself in this chair. We will do the rest." "Without a hat? Just as I am? Impossible! Come in an hour--then I shall be ready. My maid, San Miniato--send for Teresina. Dio mio! I can never go! Go without us, dearest friend--go and dine on your hideous rocks and leave us the little comfort we need so much!" But protestations were vain. Teresina appeared and fastened the hat of the period upon her mistress's head. The hat of the period chanced to be a one-sided monstrosity at that time, something between a cart wheel, an umbrella and a flower garden, depending for its stability upon the proper position of several solid skewers, apparently stuck through the head of the wearer. This headpiece having been adjusted the Marchesa asked for a cigarette, lighted it and looked about her. "It is really too much!" she exclaimed. "Button my gloves, Teresina. I shall not go after all, not even to please you, dearest friend. What a place of torture this world is! How right we are to try and get a comfortable stall in the next! Go away, San Miniato. It is quite useless." But San Miniato knew what he was doing. With gentle strength he made her rise from her seat and placed her in the chair. The porters lifted their burden, settled the straps upon their shoulders, the man in front glanced back at the man behind, both nodded and marched away. "This is too awful!" sighed the Marchesa, as she was carried out of the door of the sitting room. "How can you have the heart, dearest friend! An invalid like me! And I was supremely comfortable where I was." But at this point Beatrice appeared and joined the procession, radiant, fresh as a fragrant wood-flower, full of life as a young bird. Behind her came Teresina, the maid, necessary at every minute for the Marchesa's comfort, her pink young cheeks flushed with pleasure and her eyes sparkling with anticipation, fastening on her hat as she walked. "I was never so happy in my life," laughed Beatrice. "And to think that you have really captured mamma in spite of herself! Oh, mamma, you will enjoy it so much! I promise you shall. There is iced champagne, and the foot warmer and the marrons glacés and the lamp and everything you like--and quails stuffed with truffles, besides. Now do be happy and let us enjoy ourselves!" "But where are all these things?" asked the Marchesa. "I shall believe when I see." "Everything is at Tragara already," answered Beatrice tripping down the stairs beside her mother's chair. "And we really will enjoy ourselves," she added, turning her head with a bewitching smile, and looking back at San Miniato. "What a general you are!" "If you could convince the Minister of War of that undoubted fact, you would be conferring the greatest possible favour upon me," said the Count. "He would have no trouble in persuading me to return to the army as commander-in-chief, though I left the service as a captain." So they went down the long winding way cut through the soft tufo rock and found the boat waiting for them by the little landing. The Marchesa actually took the trouble to step on board instead of trusting herself to the strong arms of Ruggiero. Beatrice followed her. As she set her foot on the gunwale Ruggiero held up his hand towards her to help her. It was not the first time this duty had fallen to him, but she was more radiantly fresh to-day than he had ever seen her before, and the spasm that seemed to crush his heart for a moment was more violent than usual. His strong joints trembled at her light touch and his face turned white. She felt that his hand shook and she glanced at him when she stood in the boat. "Are you ill, Ruggiero?" she asked, in a kindly tone. "No, Excellency," he answered in a low voice that was far from steady, while the shadow of a despairing smile flickered over his features. He put up his hand to help Teresina, the maid. She pressed it hard as she jumped down, and smiled with much intention at the handsome sailor. But she got no answer for her look, and he turned away and shoved the boat off the little stone pier. Bastianello was watching them both, and wishing himself in Ruggiero's place. But Ruggiero, as he believed, had loved the pretty Teresina first, and Ruggiero had the first right to win her if he could. So the boat shot out upon the crisping water into the light afternoon breeze, and up went foresail and mainsail and jib, and away she went on the port tack, San Miniato steering and talking to Beatrice--which things are not to be done together with advantage--the Marchesa lying back in a cane rocking-chair and thinking of nothing, while Teresina held the parasol over her mistress's head and shot bright glances at the sailors forward. And Ruggiero and Bastianello sat side by side amidships looking out at the gleaming sea to windward. "What hast thou?" asked Bastianello in a low voice. "The pain," answered his brother. "Why let thyself be consumed by it? Ask her in marriage. The Marchesa will give her to thee." "Better to die! Thou dost not know all." "That may be," said Bastianello with a sigh. And he slowly began to fake down the slack of the main halyard on the thwart, twisting the coil slowly and thoughtfully as it grew under his broad hands, till the rope lay in a perfectly smooth disk beside him. But Ruggiero changed his position and gazed steadily at Beatrice's changing face while San Miniato talked to her. So the boat sped on and many of those on board misunderstood each other, and some did not understand themselves. But what was most clear to all before long was that San Miniato could not make love and steer his trick at the same time. "Are we going to Castellamare?" asked Bastianello in a low voice as the boat fell off more and more under the Count's careless steering. Ruggiero started. For the first time in his life he had forgotten that he was at sea.	{ "id": "15187" }
5	None	San Miniato did not possess that peculiar and common form of vanity which makes a man sensitive about doing badly what he has never learned to do at all. He laughed when Ruggiero advised him to luff a little, and he did as he was told. But Ruggiero came aft and perched himself on the stern in order to be at hand in case his master committed another flagrant breach of seamanship. "You will certainly take us to the bottom of the bay instead of to Tragara," observed the Marchesa languidly. "But then at least my discomforts will be over for ever. Of course there is no lemonade on board. Teresina, I want lemonade." In an instant Bastianello produced a decanter out of a bucket of snow and brought it aft with a glass. The Marchesa smiled. "You do things very well, dearest friend," she said, and moistened her lips in the cold liquid. "Donna Beatrice has had more to do with providing for your comfort than I," answered the Count. The Marchesa smiled lazily, sipped about a teaspoonful from the glass and handed it to her maid. "Drink, Teresina," she said. "It will refresh you." The girl drank eagerly. "You see," said the Marchesa, "I can think of the comfort of others as well as of my own." San Miniato smiled politely and Beatrice laughed. Her laughter hurt the silent sailor perched behind her, as though a glass had been broken in his face. How could she be so gay when his heart was beating so hard for her? He drew his breath sharply and looked out to sea, as many a heart-broken man has looked across that fair water since woman first learned that men's hearts could break. It was a wonderful afternoon. The sun was already low, rolling down to his western bath behind Capo Miseno, northernmost of all his daily plunges in the year; and as he sank, the colours he had painted on the hills at dawn returned behind him, richer and deeper and rarer for the heat he had given them all day. There, like a mass of fruit and flowers in a red gold bowl, Sorrento lay in the basin of the surrounding mountains, all gilded above and full of rich shadows below. Over all, the great Santangelo raised his misty head against the pale green eastern sky, gazing down at the life below, at the living land and the living sea, and remembering, perhaps, the silent days before life was, or looking forward to the night to come in which there will be no life left any more. For who shall tell me that the earth herself may not be a living, thinking, feeling being, on whose not unkindly bosom we wear out our little lives, but whose high loves are with the stars, beyond our sight, and her voice too deep and musical for ears used to our shrill human speech? Who shall say surely that she is not conscious of our presence, of some of our doings when we tear her breast and lay burdens upon her neck and plough up her fair skin with our hideous works, or when we touch her kindly and love her, and plant sweet flowers in soft places? Who shall know and teach us that the summer breeze is not her breath, the storm the sobbing of her passion, the rain her woman's tears--that she is not alive, loving and suffering, as we all have been, are, or would be, but greater than we as the star she loves somewhere is greater and stronger than herself? And we live upon her, and feed on her and all die and are taken back into her whence we came, wondering much of the truth that is hidden, learning perhaps at last the great secret she keeps so well. Her life, too, will end some day, her last blossom will have bloomed alone, her last tears will have fallen upon her own bosom, her last sob will have rent the air, and the beautiful earth will be dead for ever, borne on in the sweep of the race that will never end, borne along yet a few ages, till her sweet body turns to star-dust in the great emptiness of a night without morning. But Ruggiero, plain strong man of the people, hard-handed sailor, was not thinking of any of these things as he sat in his narrow place on the stern behind his master, mechanically guiding the tiller in the latter's unconscious hand, while he gazed silently at Beatrice's face, now turned towards him in conversation, now half averted as she looked down or out to sea. Ruggiero listened, too, to the talk, though he did not understand all the fine words Beatrice and San Miniato used. If he had never been away from the coast, the probability is that he would have understood nothing at all; but in his long voyages he had been thrown with men of other parts of Italy and had picked up a smattering of what Neapolitans call Italian, to distinguish it from their own speech. Even as it was, the most part of what they said escaped him, because they seemed to think so very differently from him about simple matters, and to be so heartily amused at what seemed so dull to him. And he began to feel that the hurt he had was deep and not to be healed, while he reflected that he was undoubtedly mad, since he loved this lady so much while understanding her so little. The mere feeling that she could talk and take pleasure in talking beyond his comprehension wounded him, as a sensitive half-grown boy sometimes suffers real pain when his boyishness shows itself among men. Why, for instance, did the young girl's cheek flush and her eyes sparkle, when San Miniato talked of Paris? Paris was in France. Ruggiero knew that. But he had often heard that it was not so big a place as London, where he had been. Therefore Beatrice must have some other reason for liking it. Most probably she loved a Frenchman, and Ruggiero hated Frenchmen with all his heart. Then they talked about the theatre and Beatrice was evidently interested. Ruggiero had once seen a puppet show and had not found it at all funny. The theatre was only a big puppet show, and he could pay for a seat there if he pleased; but he did not please, because he was sure that it would not amuse him to go. Why should Beatrice like the theatre? And she liked the races at Naples, too, and those at Paris much better. Why? Everybody knew that one horse could run faster than another, without trying it, but it could not matter a straw which of two, or twenty, got to the goal first. Horses were not boats. Now there was sense in a boat race, or a yacht race, or a steamer race. But a horse! He might be first to-day, and to-morrow if he had not enough to eat he might be last. Was a horse a Christian? You could not count upon him. And then they began to talk of love and Ruggiero's heart stood still, for that, at least, he could understand. "Love!" laughed Beatrice, repeating the word. "It always makes one laugh. Were you ever in love, mamma?" The Marchesa turned her head slowly, and lifted her sleepy eyes to look at her daughter, before she answered. "No," she said lazily. "I was never in love. But you are far too young to talk of such things." "San Miniato says that love is for the young and friendship for the old." "Love," said San Miniato, "is a necessary evil, but it is also the greatest source of happiness." "What a fine phrase!" exclaimed Beatrice. "You must be a professor in disguise." "A professor of love?" asked the Count with a very well executed look of tenderness which did not escape Ruggiero. "Hush, for the love of heaven!" interposed the Marchesa. "This is too dreadful!" "We were not talking of the love of heaven," answered Beatrice mischievously. "I was thinking at least of a love that could make any place a heaven," said San Miniato, again helping his lack of originality with his eyes. Ruggiero reflected that it would be but the affair of a second to unship the heavy brass tiller and bring it down once on the top of his master's skull. Once would be enough. "Whose love?" asked Beatrice innocently. San Miniato looked at her again, then turned away his eyes and sighed audibly. "Well?" asked Beatrice. "Will you answer. I do not understand that language. Whose love would make any place--Timbuctoo, for instance--a heaven for you?" "Discretion is the only virtue a man ought to exhibit whenever he has a chance," said San Miniato. "Perhaps. But even that should be shown without ostentation." Beatrice laughed. "And you are decidedly ostentatious at the present moment. It would interest mamma and me very much to know the object of your affections." "Beatrice!" exclaimed the Marchesa with affected horror. "Yes, mamma," answered the young girl. "Here I am. Do you want some more lemonade?" "She is quite insufferable," said the Marchesa to San Miniato, with a languid smile. "But really, San Miniato carissimo, this conversation--a young girl---" Ruggiero wondered what she found so obnoxious in the words that had been spoken. He also wondered how long it would take San Miniato to drown if he were dropped overboard in the wake of the boat. "If that is your opinion of your daughter," said the latter, "we shall hardly agree. Now I maintain that Donna Beatrice is the contrary of insufferable--the most extreme of contraries. In the first place---" "She is very pretty," said Beatrice demurely. "I was not going to say that," laughed San Miniato. "Ah? Then say something else." "I will. Donna Beatrice has two gifts, at least, which make it impossible that she should ever be insufferable, even when her beauty is gone." "Dio mio!" ejaculated the young girl. "The compliments are beginning in good earnest!" "It was time," said San Miniato, "since your mother---" "Dear Count," interrupted Beatrice, "do not talk any more about mamma. I am anxious to get at the compliments. Do pray let your indiscretion be as ostentatious as possible. I cannot wait another second." "No need of waiting," answered San Miniato, again addressing himself to the Marchesa. "Donna Beatrice has two great gifts. She is kind, and she has charm." There being no exact equivalent for the word "charm" in the Italian language, San Miniato used the French. Ruggiero began to puzzle his brains, asking himself what this foreign virtue could be which his master estimated so highly. He also thought it very strange that Beatrice should have said of herself that she was pretty, and still stranger that San Miniato should not have said it. "Is that all?" asked Beatrice. "I need not have been in such a hurry to extract your compliments from you." "If you had understood what I said," answered San Miniato unmoved, "you would see that no man could say more of a woman." "Kind and charming! It is not much," laughed the young girl. "Unless you mean much more than you say--and I asked you to be indiscreet!" "Kind hearts are rare enough in this world, Donna Beatrice, and as for charm--" "What is charm?" "It is what the violet has, and the camelia has not--" "Heavens! Are you going to sigh to me in the language of flowers?" "Beatrice! Beatrice!" cried the Marchesa, with the same affectation of horror as before. "Dear mamma, are you uncomfortable? Oh no! I see now. You are horrified. Have I said anything dreadful?" she asked, turning to San Miniato. "Anything dreadful? What an idea! Really, Marchesa carissima, I was just beginning to explain to Donna Beatrice what charm is, when you cut me short. I implore you to let me go on with my explanation." "On condition that Beatrice makes no comments. Give me a cigarette, Teresina." "The congregation will not interrupt the preacher before the benediction," said Beatrice folding her small hands on her knee, and looking down with a devout expression. "Charm," began San Miniato, "is the something which some women possess, and which holds the men who love them--" "Only those who love them?" interrupted Beatrice, looking up quickly. "I thought," said the Marchesa, "that you were not to give us any comments." She dropped the words one or two at a time between the puffs of her cigarette. "A question is not a comment, mamma. I ask for instruction." "Go on, dearest friend," said her mother to the Count. "She is incorrigible." "On the contrary, Donna Beatrice fills my empty head with ideas. The question was to the point. All men feel the charm of such women as all men smell the orange blossoms here in May--" "The language of flowers again!" laughed Beatrice. "You are so like a flower," answered San Miniato softly. "Am I?" She laughed again, then grew grave and looked away. Ruggiero's hand shook on the heavy tiller, and San Miniato, who supposed he was steering all the time, turned suddenly. "What is the matter?" he asked. "The rudder is draking, Excellency," answered Ruggiero. "And what does that mean?" asked Beatrice. "It means that the rudder trembles as the boat rises and falls with each sea, when there is a good breeze," answered Ruggiero. "Is there any danger?" asked Beatrice indifferently. "What danger could there be, Excellency?" asked the sailor. "Because you are so pale, Ruggiero. What is the matter with you, to-day?" "Nothing, Excellency." "Ruggiero is in love," laughed San Miniato. "Is it not true, Ruggiero?" But the sailor did not answer, though the hot blood came quickly to his face and stayed there a moment and then sank away again. He looked steadily at the dancing waves to windward, and set his lips tightly together. "I would like to ask that sailor what he thinks of love and charm, and all the rest of it," said Beatrice. "His ideas would be interesting." Ruggiero's blue eyes turned slowly upon her, with an odd expression. Then he looked away again. "I will ask him," said San Miniato in a low voice. "Ruggiero!" "Excellency!" "We want to know what you think about love. What is the best quality a woman can have?" "To be honest," answered Ruggiero promptly. "And after that, what next?" "To be beautiful." "And then rich, I suppose?" "It would be enough if she did not waste money." "Honest, beautiful, and economical!" exclaimed Beatrice. "He does not say anything about charm, you see. I think his description is extremely good and to the point. Bravo, Ruggiero!" His eyes met hers and gleamed rather fiercely for an instant. "And how about charm, Ruggiero?" asked Beatrice mischievously. "I do not speak French, Excellency," he answered. "You should learn, because charm is a word one cannot say in Italian. I do not know how to say it in our language." "Let me talk about flowers to him," said San Miniato. "I will make him understand. Which do you like better, Ruggiero, camelias or violets?" "The camelia is a more lordly flower, Excellency, but for me I like the violets." "Why?" "Who knows? They make one think of so many things, Excellency. One would tire of camelias, but one would never be tired of violets. They have something--who knows?" "That is it, Ruggiero," said San Miniato, delighted with the result of his experiment. "And charm is the same thing in a woman. One is never tired of it, and yet it is not honesty, nor beauty, nor economy." "I understand, Excellency--è la femmina--it is the womanly." "Bravo, Ruggiero!" exclaimed Beatrice again. "You are a man of heart. And if you found a woman who was honest and beautiful and economical and 'femmina,' as you say, would you love her?" "Yes, Excellency, very much," answered Ruggiero. But his voice almost failed him. "How much? Tell us." Ruggiero was silent a moment. Then his eyes flashed suddenly as he looked down at her and his voice came ringing and strong. "So much that I would pray that Christ and the sea would take her, rather than that another man should get her! Per Dio!" There was such a vibration of strong passion in the words that Beatrice started a little and San Miniato looked up in surprise. Even the Marchesa vouchsafed the sailor a glance of indolent curiosity. Beatrice bent over to the Count and spoke in a low tone and in French. "We must not tease him any more. He is in love and very much in earnest." "So am I," answered San Miniato with a half successful attempt to seem emotional, which might have done well enough if it had not come after Ruggiero's heartfelt speech. "You!" laughed Beatrice. "You are never really in earnest. You only think you are, and that pleases you as well." San Miniato bit his lip, for he was not pleased. Her answer augured ill for the success of the plan he meant to put into execution that very evening. He felt strongly incensed against Ruggiero, too, without in the least understanding the reason. "You will find out some day, Donna Beatrice, that those who are most in earnest are not those who make the most passionate speeches." "Ah! Is that true? How strange! I should have supposed that if a man said nothing it was because he had nothing to say. But you have such novel theories!" "Is this discussion never to end?" asked the Marchesa, wearily lifting her hand as though in protest, and letting it fall again beside the other. "It has only just begun, mamma," answered Beatrice cheerfully. "When San Miniato jumps into the sea and drowns himself in despair, you will know that the discussion is over." "Beatrice! My child! What language!" "Italian, mamma carissima. Italian with a little Sicilian, such as we speak." "I am at your service, Donna Beatrice," said the Count. "Would you like me to drown myself immediately, or are you inclined for a little more conversation?" Ruggiero had now taken the helm altogether. As San Miniato spoke he nodded to his brother who was forward, intimating that he meant to go about. He was certainly not in his normal frame of mind, for he had an evil thought at that moment. Fortunately for every one concerned the breeze was very light and was indeed dying away as the sun sank lower. They were already nearing the southernmost point of Capri, commonly called by sailors the Monaco, for what reason no one knows. To reach Tragara where the Faraglioni, or needles, rise out of the deep sea close to the rocky shore under the cliffs, it is necessary to go round the point. There was soon hardly any breeze at all, so that Bastianello and the other men shipped half-a-dozen oars and began to row. The operation of going about involved a change of places in so small a boat and the slight confusion had interrupted the conversation. A long silence followed, broken at last by the Marchesa's voice. "A cigarette, Teresina, and some more lemonade. Are you still there, San Miniato carissimo? As I heard no more conversation I supposed you had drowned yourself as you proposed to do." "Donna Beatrice is so kind as to put off the execution until after dinner." "And shall we ever reach this dreadful place, and ever really dine?" asked the Marchesa. "Before sunset," answered San Miniato. "And we shall dine at our usual hour." "At least it will not be so hot as in the hotel, and after all it has not been very fatiguing." "No," said the Count, "I fail to see how your exertions can have tired you much." Ruggiero looked down at his master and at the fine lady as she lay listlessly extended in her cane chair, and he felt that in his heart he hated them both as much as he loved Beatrice, which was saying much. But he wondered how it was that less than half an hour earlier he had been ready to upset the boat and drown every one in it indiscriminately. Nevertheless he believed that if there had been a stiff breeze just then, enough for his purpose, he would have stopped the boat's way, and then put the helm hard up again, without slacking out a single sheet, and he knew the little craft well enough to be sure of what would have happened. Murderous intentions enough, as he thought of it all now, in the calm water under the great cliff from which tradition says that Tiberius shot delinquents into space from a catapult. The men pulled hard by the lonely rocks, for the sun had almost set and they knew how sharp the stones are at Tragara, when one must tread them barefoot and burdened with hampers and kettles and all the paraphernalia of a picnic. Then the light grew rich and deep, and the sea swallows shot from the misty heights, like arrows, into the calm purple air below, and skimmed and wheeled, and rose again, startled by the splash of the oars and the dull knock of them as they swung in the tholes. And the water was like a mirror in which all manner of rare and lovely things are reflected, with blots of liquid gold and sheen of soft-hued damask, and great handfuls of pearls and opals strewn between, and roses and petals of many kinds of flowers without names. And the air was full of the faint, salt odours that haunt the lonely places of the sea, sweet and bitter at once as the last days of a young life fading fast. Then the great needles rose gigantic from the depths to heaven, and beyond, through the mysterious, shadowy arch that pierces one of them, was opened the glorious vision of a distant cloud-lit water, and a single dark sail far away stood still, as it were, on the very edge of the world. Beatrice leaned back and gazed at the scene, and her delicate nostrils expanded as she breathed. There was less colour in her face than there had been, and the long lashes half veiled her eyes. San Miniato watched her narrowly. "How beautiful! How beautiful!" she exclaimed twice, after a long silence. "It will be more beautiful still when the moon rises," said San Miniato. "I am glad you are pleased." She liked the simple words better, perhaps, than some of his rather artificial speeches. "Thank you," she said. "Thank you for bringing us here." He had certainly taken a great deal of trouble, she thought, and it was the least she could do, to thank him as she did. But she was really grateful and for a moment she felt a sort of sympathy for him which she had not felt before. He, at least, understood that one could like something better in the world than the eternal terrace of a hotel with its stiff orange trees, its ugly lanterns and its everlasting gossip and chatter. He, at least, was a little unlike all those other people, beginning with her own mother, who think of self first, comfort second, and of others once a month or so, in the most favourable cases. Yet she wondered a little about his past life, and whether he had ever spoken to any woman with that ringing passion she had heard in Ruggiero's voice, with that flashing look she had seen in the sailor's bright blue eyes. It would be good to be spoken to like that. It would be good to see the colour in a man's face change, and come and go, red and white like life and death. It would be supremely good to be loved once, madly, passionately, with body, heart and soul, to the very breaking of all three--to be held in strong arms, to be kissed half to death. She stopped, conscious that her mother would certainly not approve such thoughts, and well aware in her girlish heart that she did not approve them in herself. And then she smiled faintly. The man of her waking vision was not like San Miniato. He was more like Ruggiero, the poor sailor, who sat perched on the stern close behind her. She smiled uneasily at the idea, and then she thought seriously of it for a moment. If such a man as Ruggiero appeared, not as a sailor, but as a man of her own world, would he not be a very lovable person, would he not turn the heads of the languid ladies on the terrace of the hotel at Sorrento? The thought annoyed her. Ruggiero, poor fellow, would have given his good right arm to know that such a possibility had even crossed her reflections. But it was not probable that he ever would know it, and he sat in his place, silent and unmoved, steering the boat to her destination, and thinking of her. It was not dusk when the boat was alongside of the low jagged rocks which lie between the landward needle and the cliffs, making a sort of rough platform in which there are here and there smooth flat places worn by the waves and often full of dry salt for a day or two after a storm. There, to the Marchesa's inexpressible relief, the numberless objects inscribed in the catalogue of her comforts were already arranged, and she suffered herself to be lifted from the boat and carried ashore by Ruggiero and his brother, without once murmuring or complaining of fatigue--a truly wonderful triumph for San Miniato's generalship. There was the table, the screen, and the lamp, the chairs and the carpet--all the necessary furniture for the Marchesa's dining-room. And there at her place stood an immaculate individual in an evening coat and a white tie, ready and anxious to do her bidding. She surveyed the preparations with more satisfaction than she generally showed at anything. Then all at once her face fell. "Good heavens, San Miniato carissimo," she cried, "you have forgotten the red pepper! It is all over! I shall eat nothing! I shall die in this place!" "Pardon me, dearest Marchesa, I know your tastes. There is red pepper and also Tabasco on the table. Observe--here and here." The Marchesa's brow cleared. "Forgive me, dear friend," she said. "I am so dependent on these little things! You are an angel, a general and a man of heart." "The man of your heart, I hope you mean to say," answered San Miniato, looking at Beatrice. "Of course--anything you like--you are delightful. But I am dropping with fatigue. Let me sit down." "You have forgotten nothing--not even the moon you promised me," said Beatrice, gazing with clasped hands at the great yellow shield as it slowly rose above the far south-eastern hills. "I will never forget anything you ask me, Donna Beatrice," replied San Miniato in a low voice. Something told him that in the face of all nature's beauty, he must speak very simply, and he was right. There is but one moment in the revolution of day and night which is more beautiful than the rising of the full moon at sunset, and that is the dawn on the water when the full moon is going down. To see the gathering dusk drink down the purple wine that dyes the air, the sea and the light clouds, until it is almost dark, and then to feel the darkness growing light again with the warm, yellow moon--to watch the jewels gathering on the velvet sea, and the sharp black cliffs turning to chiselled silver above you--to know that the whole night is to be but a softer day--to see how the love of the sun for the earth is one, and the love of the moon another--that is a moment for which one may give much and not be disappointed. Beatrice Granmichele saw and felt what she had never seen or felt before, and the magic of Tragara held sway over her, as it does over the few who see it as she saw it. She turned slowly and glanced at San Miniato's face. The moonlight improved it, she thought. There seemed to be more vigour in the well-drawn lines, more strength in the forehead than she had noticed until now. She felt that she was in sympathy with him, and that the sympathy might be a lasting one. Then she turned quite round and faced the commonplace lamp with its pink shade, which stood on the dinner-table, and she experienced a disagreeable sensation. The Marchesa was slowly fanning herself, already seated at her place. "If you are human beings, and not astronomers," she said, "we might perhaps dine." "I am very human, for my part," said San Miniato, holding Beatrice's chair for her to sit down. "There was really no use for the lamp, mamma," she said, turning again to look at the moon. "You see what an illumination we have! San Miniato has provided us with something better than a lamp." "San Miniato, my dear child, is a man of the highest genius. I always said so. But if you begin to talk of eating without a lamp, you may as well talk of abolishing civilisation." "I wish we could!" exclaimed Beatrice. "And so do I, with all my heart," said San Miniato. "Including baccarat and quinze?" enquired the Marchesa, lazily picking out the most delicate morsels from the cold fish on her plate. "Including baccarat, quinze, the world, the flesh and the devil," said San Miniato. "Pray remember, dearest friend, that Beatrice is at the table," observed the Marchesa, with indolent reproach in her voice. "I do," replied San Miniato. "It is precisely for her sake that I would like to do away with the things I have named." "You might just leave a little of each for Sundays!" suggested the young girl. "Beatrice!" exclaimed her mother.	{ "id": "15187" }
6	None	While the little party sat at table, the sailors gathered together at a distance among the rocks, and presently the strong red light of their fire shot up through the shadows, lending new contrasts to the scene. And there they slung their kettle on an oar and patiently waited for the water to boil, while the man known as the Gull, always cook in every crew in which he chanced to find himself, sat with the salt on one side of him and a big bundle of macaroni on the other, prepared to begin operations at any moment. Ruggiero stood a little apart, his back against a boulder, his arms crossed and his eyes fixed on Beatrice's face. His keen sight could distinguish the changing play of her expression as readily at that distance as though he had been standing beside her, and he tried to catch the words she spoke, listening with a sort of hurt envy to the little silvery laugh that now and then echoed across the open space and lost itself in the crannies of the rocks. It all hurt him, and yet for nothing in the world would he have turned away or shut his ears. More than once, too, the thoughts that had disturbed him while he was steering in the afternoon, came upon him with renewed and startling strength. He had in him some of that red old blood that does not stop for trifles such as life and death when the hour of passion burns, and the brain reels with overmastering love. And Bastianello was not in a much better case, though his was less hard to bear. The pretty Teresina had seated herself on a smooth rock in the moonlight, not far from the table, and as the dishes came back, the young sailor waited on her and served her with unrelaxed attention. Since Ruggiero would not take advantage of the situation, his brother saw no reason for not at least enjoying the pleasure of seeing the adorable Teresina eat and drink as it were from his hand. Why Ruggiero was so cold, and stood there against his rock, silent and glowering, Bastianello could not at all understand; nor had he any thought of taking an unfair advantage. Ruggiero was first and no one should interfere with him, or his love; but Bastianello, judging from what he felt himself, fancied that she might have given him some good advice. Teresina's cheeks flushed with pleasure and her eyes sparkled each time he brought her some dainty from the master's table, and she thanked him in the prettiest way imaginable, so that her voice reminded him of the singing of the yellow-beaked blackbird he kept in a cage at home--which was saying much, for the blackbird sang well and sweetly. But Bastianello only said each time that "it was nothing," and then stood silently waiting beside her till she should finish what she was eating and be ready for more. Teresina would doubtless have enjoyed a little conversation, and she looked up from time to time at the handsome sailor beside her, with a look of enquiry in her eyes, as though to ask why he said nothing. But Bastianello felt that he was on his honour, for he never doubted that the little maid was the cause of Ruggiero's disease of the heart and indeed of all that his brother evidently suffered, and he was too modest by nature to think that Teresina could prefer him to Ruggiero, who had always been the object of his own unbounded devotion and admiration. Presently, when there was nothing more to offer her, and the party at the table were lighting their cigarettes over their coffee, he went away and going up to Ruggiero drew him a little further aside from the group of sailors. "I want to tell you something," he began. "You must not be as you are, a man like you." "How may that be?" asked Ruggiero, still looking towards the table, and not pleased at being dragged from his former post of observation. "I will tell you. I have been serving her with food. You could have done that instead if you had wished. You could have talked to her, and she would have liked it. It is easy when a woman is sitting apart and a man brings her good food and wine--you could have spoken a word into her ear." Ruggiero was silent, but he slowly nodded twice, then shook his head. "You do not say anything," continued Bastianello, "and you do wrong. What I tell you is true, and you cannot deny it. After all, we are men and they are women. Are they to speak first?" "It is just," answered Ruggiero laconically. "But then, per Dio, go and talk to her. Are you going to begin giving her the gold before you have spoken?" From which question it will be clear to the unsophisticated foreigner that a regular series of presents in jewelry is the natural accompaniment of a well-to-do courtship in the south. The trinkets are called collectively "the gold." Ruggiero did not find a ready answer to so strong an argument. Little guessing that his brother was almost as much in love with Teresina as he himself was with her mistress, he saw no reason for undeceiving him concerning his own feelings. Since Bastianello had discovered that he, Ruggiero, was suffering from an acute attack of the affections, it had become the latter's chief object to conceal the real truth. It was not so much, that he dreaded the ridicule--he, a poor sailor--of being known to love a great lady's daughter; ridicule was not among the things he feared. But something far too subtle for him to define made him keep his secret to himself--an inborn, chivalrous, manly instinct, inherited through generations of peasants but surviving still, as the trace of gold in the ashes of a rich stuff that has had gilded threads in it. "If I did begin with the gold," he said at last, "and if she would not have me when I spoke afterwards, she would give the gold back." "Of course she would. What do you take her for?" Bastianello asked the question almost angrily, for he loved Teresina and he resented the slightest imputation upon her fair dealing. Ruggiero looked at him curiously, but was far too much preoccupied with his own thoughts to guess what the matter was. He turned away and went towards the fire where the Gull was already tasting a slippery string of the macaroni to find out whether it were enough cooked. Bastianello shrugged his shoulders and followed him in silence. Before long they were all seated round the huge earthen dish, each armed with an iron fork in one hand and a ship biscuit in the other, with which to catch the drippings neatly, according to good manners, in conveying the full fork from the dish to the wide-opened mouth. By and by there was a sound of liquid gurgling from a demijohn as it was poured into the big jug, and the wine went round quickly from hand to hand, while those who waited for their turn munched their biscuits. Some one has said that great appetites, like great passions, are silent. Hardly a word was said until the wine was passed a second time with a ration of hard cheese and another biscuit. Then the tongues were unloosed and the strange, uncouth jests of the rough men circulated in an undertone, and now and then one of them suffered agonies in smothering a huge laugh, lest his mirth should disturb the "excellencies" at their table. The latter, however, were otherwise engaged and paid little attention to the sailors. The Marchesa di Mola, having eaten about six mouthfuls of twice that number of delicacies and having swallowed half a glass of champagne and a cup of coffee, was extended in her cane rocking-chair, with her back to the moon and her face to the lamp, trying to imagine herself in her comfortable sitting room at the hotel, or even in her own luxurious boudoir in her Sicilian home. The attempt was fairly successful, and the result was a passing taste of that self-satisfied beatitude which is the peculiar and enviable lot of very lazy people after dinner. She cared for nothing and she cared for nobody. San Miniato and Beatrice might sit over there by the water's edge, in the moonlight, and talk in low tones as long as they pleased. There were no tiresome people from the hotel to watch their proceedings, and nothing better could happen than that they should fall in love, be engaged and married forthwith. That was certainly not the way the Marchesa could have wished the courtship and marriage to develop and come to maturity, if there had been witnesses of the facts from amongst her near acquaintance. But since there was nobody to see, and since it was quite impossible that she should run after the pair when they chose to leave her side, resignation was the best policy, resignation without effort, without fatigue and without qualms. Moreover, San Miniato himself had told her that in some of the best families in the north of Italy it was considered permissible for a man to offer himself directly to a young lady, and San Miniato was undoubtedly familiar with the usages of the very best society. It was quite safe to trust to him. San Miniato himself would have greatly preferred to leave the negotiations in the hands of the Marchesa and would have done so had he not known that she possessed no power whatever over Beatrice. But he saw that the Marchesa, however much she might desire the marriage, would never exert herself to influence her daughter. She was far too indolent, and at heart, perhaps, too indifferent, and she knew the value of money and especially of her own. San Miniato made up his mind that if he won at all, it must be upon his own merits and by his own efforts. He had not found it hard to lead Beatrice away from the lamp when dinner was over, and after walking about on the rocks for a few minutes he proposed that they should sit down near the water, facing the moonlit sea. Beatrice sat upon a smooth projection and San Miniato placed himself at her feet, in such a position that he could look up into her face and talk to her without raising his voice. "So you are glad you came here, Donna Beatrice," he said. "Very glad," she answered. "It is something I have never seen before--something I shall never forget, as long as I live." "Nor I." "Have you a good memory?" "For some things, not for others." "For what, for instance?" "For those I love---" "And a bad memory for those whom you have loved," suggested Beatrice with a smile. "Have you any reason for saying that?" asked San Miniato gravely. "You know too little of me and my life to judge of either. I have not loved many, and I have remembered them well." "How many? A dozen, more or less? Or twenty? Or a hundred?" "Two. One is dead, and one has forgotten me." Beatrice was silent. It was admirably done, and for the first time he made her believe that he was in earnest. It had not been very hard for him either, for there was a foundation of truth in what he said. He had not always been a man without heart. "It is much to have loved twice," said the young girl at last, in a dreamy voice. She was thinking of what had passed through her mind that afternoon. "It is much--but not enough. What has never been lived out, is never enough." "Perhaps--but who could love three times?" "Any man--and the third might be the best and the strongest, as well as the last." "To me it seems impossible." San Miniato had got his chance and he knew it. He was nervous and not sure of himself, for he knew very well that she had but a passing attraction for him, beyond the very solid inducement to marry her offered by her fortune. But he knew that the opportunity must not be lost, and he did not waste time. He spoke quietly, not wishing to risk a dramatic effect until he could count on his own rather slight histrionic powers. "So it seems impossible to you, Donna Beatrice," he said, in a musing tone. "Well, I daresay it does. Many things must seem impossible to you which are rather startling facts to me. I am older than you, I am a man, and I have been a soldier. I have lived a life such as you cannot dream of--not worse perhaps than that of many another man, but certainly not better. And I am quite sure that if I gave you my history you would not understand four-fifths of it, and the other fifth would shock you. Of course it would--how could it be otherwise? How could you and I look at anything from quite the same point of view?" "And yet we often agree," said Beatrice, thoughtfully. "Yes, we do. That is quite true. And that is because a certain sympathy exists between us. I feel that very much when I am with you, and that is one reason why I try to be with you as much as possible." "You say that is one reason. Have you many others?" Beatrice tried to laugh a little, but she felt somehow that laughter was out of place and that a serious moment in her life had come at last, in which it would be wiser to be grave and to think well of what she was doing. "One chief one, and many little ones," answered San Miniato. "You are good to me, you are young, you are fresh--you are gifted and unlike the others, and you have a rare charm such as I never met in any woman. Are those not all good reasons? Are they not enough?" "If they were all true, they would be more than enough. Is the chief reason the last?" "It is the last of all. I have not given it to you yet. Some things are better not said at all." "They must be bad things," answered Beatrice, with an air of innocence. She was beginning to understand, at last, that he really intended to make her a declaration of love. It was unheard of, almost inconceivable. But there he was at her feet, looking very handsome in the moonlight, his face turned up to hers with an unmistakable look of devotion in its rather grave lines. His voice, too, had a new sound in it. Indifferent as he might be by daylight and in ordinary life, the magic of the place and scene affected him a little at the present moment. Perhaps a memory of other years, when his pulse had quickened and his voice had trembled oddly, just touched his heart now and it responded with a faint thrill. For a moment at least he forgot his sordid plan, and Beatrice's own personal attraction was upon him. And she was very lovely as she sat there, looking down at him, with white folded hands, hatless in the warm night, her eyes full of the dancing rays that trembled upon the softly rippling water. "If they are not bad things," she said, speaking again, "why do you not tell them to me?" "You would laugh." "I have laughed enough to-night. Tell me!" "Tell you! Yes--that is easy to do. But it would be so hard to make you understand! It is the difference between a word and a thought, between belief and mere show, between truth and hearsay--more than that--much more than I can tell you. It means so much to me--it may mean so little to you, when I have said it!" "But if you do not say it, how can I guess it, or try to understand it?" "Would you try? Would you?" "Yes." Her voice was soft, gentle, persuasive. She felt something she had never felt, and it must be love, she thought. She had always liked him a little better than the rest. But surely, this was more than mere liking. She had a strange longing to hear him say the words, to start, as her instinct told her she must, when he spoke them, to be told for the first time that she was loved. Is it strange, after all? Young, imaginative and full of life, she had been brought up to believe that she was to be married to some man she scarcely knew, after a week's acquaintance, without so much as having talked five minutes with him alone; she had been taught that love was a legend and matrimony a matter of interest. And yet here was the man whom her mother undoubtedly wished her to marry, not only talking with her as they had often talked before, with no one to hear what was said, but actually on the verge of telling her that he loved her. Could anything be more delicious, more original, more in harmony with the place and hour? And as if all this were not enough, she really felt the touch and thrill of love in her own heart, and the leaping wonder to know what was to come. She had told him to speak and she waited for his voice. He, on his part, knew that much was at stake, for he saw that she was moved, and that all depended on his words. The fewer the better, he thought, if only there could be a note of passion in them, if only one of them could ring as all of poor Ruggiero's had rung when he had spoken that afternoon. He hesitated and hesitation would be fatal if it lasted another five seconds. He grew desperate. Where were the words and the tone that had broken down the will of other women, far harder to please than this mere child? He felt everything at once, except love. He saw her fortune slipping from him at the very moment of getting it, he felt a little contempt for the part he was playing and a sovereign scorn for his own imbecility, he even anticipated the Marchesa's languid but cutting comments on his failure. One second more, and all was lost--but not a word would come. Then, in sheer despair and with a violence that betrayed it, he seized one of Beatrice's hands in both of his and kissed it madly a score of times. As she interpreted the action, no eloquence of words could have told her more of what she wished to hear. It was unexpected, it was passionate; if it had been premeditated, it would have been a stroke of genius. As it was, it was a stroke of luck for San Miniato. With the true gambler's instinct he saw that he was winning and his hesitation disappeared. His voice trembled passionately now with excitement, if not with love--but it was the same to Beatrice, who heard the quick-spoken words that followed, and drank them in as a thirsty man swallows the first draught of wine he can lay hands on, be it ever so acid. At the first moment she had been startled and had almost uttered a short cry, half of delight and half of fear. But she had no wish to alarm her mother and the quick thought stifled her voice. She tried to withdraw her hand, but he held it tightly in his own which were cold as ice, and she sat still listening to all he said. "Ah, Beatrice!" he was saying, "you have given me back life itself! Can you guess what I have lived through in these days? Can you imagine how I have thought of you and suffered day and night, and said to myself that I should never have your love? Can you dream what it must be to a man like me, lonely, friendless, half heart-broken, to find the one jewel worth living for, the one light worth seeking, the one woman worth loving--and then to long for her almost without hope, and so long? It is long, too. Who counts the days or the weeks when he loves? It is as though we had loved from the beginning of our lives! Can you or I imagine what it all was like before we met? I cannot remember that past time. I had no life before it--it is all forgotten, all gone, all buried and for ever. You have made everything new to me, new and beautiful and full of light--ah, Beatrice! How I love you!" Rather a long speech at such a moment, an older woman would have thought, and not over original in choice of similes and epithets, but fluent enough and good enough to serve the purpose and to turn the current of Beatrice's girlish life. Yet not much of a love-speech. Ruggiero's had been better, as a little true steel is better than much iron at certain moments in life. It succeeded very well at the moment, but its ultimate success would have been surer if it had reached no ears but Beatrice's. Neither she nor San Miniato were aware that a few feet below them a man was lying on his back, with white face and clenched hands, staring at the pale moonlit sky above him, and listening in stony despair to every word that was spoken. The sight would have disturbed them, had they seen it, though they both were fearless by nature and not easily startled. Had Beatrice seen Ruggiero at that moment, she would have learned once and for ever the difference between real passion and its counterfeit. But Ruggiero knew where he was and had no intention of betraying himself by voice or movement. He suffered almost all that a man can suffer by the heart alone, but he was strong and could bear torture. The hardest of all was that he understood the real truth, partly by instinct and partly through what he knew of his master. Those rough southern sailors sometimes have a wonderful keenness in discovering the meaning of their masters' doings. Ruggiero held the key to the situation. He knew that San Miniato was poor and that the Marchesa was very rich. He knew very well that San Miniato was not at all in love, for he knew what love really meant, and he could see how the Count always acted by calculation and never from impulse. Best of all he saw that Beatrice was a mere child who was being deceived by the coolly assumed passion of a veteran woman-killer. It was bitterly hard to bear. And he had felt a foreboding of it all in the afternoon--and he wished that he had risked all and brought down the brass tiller on San Miniato's head and submitted to be sent to the galleys for life. He could never have forgotten Beatrice; but San Miniato could never have married her, and that satisfaction would have made chains light and hard labour a pastime. It was too late to think of such things now. Had he yielded to the first murderous impulse, it would have been better. But he had never struck a man from behind and he knew that he could not do it in cold blood. Yet how much better it would have been! He would not be lying now on the rock, holding his breath and clenching his fists, listening to his Excellency the Count of San Miniato's love making. By this time the Count of San Miniato would be cold, and he, Ruggiero, would be handcuffed and locked up in the little barrack of the gendarmes at Sorrento, and Beatrice with her mother would be recovering from their fright as best they could in the rooms at the hotel, and Teresina would be crying, and Bastianello would be sitting at the door of his brother's prison waiting to see what happened and ready to do what he could. Truly all this would have been much better! But the moment had passed and he must lie on his rock in silence, bound hand and foot by the necessity of hiding himself, and giving his heart to be torn to pieces by San Miniato's aristocratic fine gentleman's hands, and burned through and through by Beatrice's gentle words. "And so you really love me?" said San Miniato, sure at last of his victory. "Do you doubt it, after what I have done?" asked Beatrice in a very soft voice. "Did I not leave my hand in yours when you took it so roughly and--you know---" "When I kissed it--but I want the words, too--only once, from your beautiful lips---" "The words---" Beatrice hesitated. They were too new to her lips, and a soft blush rose in her cheeks, visible even in the moonlight. Ruggiero's heart stood still--not for the first time that day. Would she speak the three syllables or not? As for San Miniato, his excitement had cooled, and he threw all the tenderness he could muster into, his last request, with instinctive tact returning to the more quiet tone he had used at the beginning of the conversation. "I ask you, Beatrice mia, to say--" he paused, to give the proper effect in the right place--"I love you," he said, completing the sentence very musically and looking up most tenderly into her eyes. She sighed, blushed again, and turned her head away. Then quite suddenly she looked at him once more, pressed his hand nervously and spoke. "I love you, carissimo," she said, and rose at the same moment from her seat. "Come--it is time. Mamma will be tired," she added, while he held her hand and pressed it to his lips. Her confusion had made it easy for him. He would have had difficulty in ending the scene artistically if she had not unconsciously helped him. Ruggiero clenched his hands a little tighter and tried not to breathe. "It is a lie," he said in his heart, but his lips never moved, nor did he stir a limb as he listened to the departing footsteps on the ledge above. Then with the ease of great strength he drew himself along through cranny and hollow till he was far from where they sat, and had reached the place where the boats were made fast. It would seem natural to every one that he should suddenly be standing there to see that all was right, and that none of the moorings had slipped or chafed against the jagged rocks. There he stood, gazing at the rippling water, at the tall yards as they slowly crossed and recrossed the face of the moon, with the rocking of the boats, at the cliffs to the right and left, at the dim headland of the Campanella, at all the sights long familiar to him--seeing none of them and yet feeling that they at least were his own people, that they understood him and knew what he felt--what he had no words with which to tell any one, if he had wished to tell it. For he who loves and is little loved, or not at all, has no friend, be he of high estate or low, beyond nature, the deep-bosomed, the bountiful, the true; and on her he may lean, trusting, and know that he will not be betrayed. And in time her language will be his. But she will be heard alone when she speaks with him, and without rival, with the full right of a woman who gives all her love and asks for a man's soul in return, recking little of all the world besides. But not all know how kind she is, how merciful and how sweet. For she does not heal broken hearts. She takes them as they are into her own, with all the memory and all the sin, perhaps, and all the bitter sorrow which is the reward of faith and faithlessness alike. She takes them all, and holds them kindly in her own breast, as she has taken the torn limbs of martyred saints and tortured sinners and has softly turned them all into a fragrant dust. And though the ashes of the heart be very bitter, they are after all but dust, which cannot feel of itself any more. Yet there may be something left behind, in the place where it lived and was broken and died, which is not wholly bad, though there be little good in this earth where there is no heart. Moreover, nature is a silent mistress to all but those who love her, and she tells no tales as men and women do, and forgets none of the secrets which are told to her, for they are our treasures--treasures of love and of hate, of sweetness and of poison, which we lay up in her keeping when we are alone with her, sure that we shall find again all we have given up if we require it of her. But as the years blossom, bloom, and fade in their quick succession, the day will come when we shall ask of her only the balm and be glad to leave the poison hidden, and to forget how we would have used it in old days--when we shall ask her only to give us the memory of a dear and gentle hand--dear still but no longer kind--of the voice that was once a harmony, and whose harsh discord is almost music still--of the hour when love was twofold, stainless and supreme. Those things we shall ask of her and she, in her wonderful tenderness, will give them to us again--in dreams, waking or sleeping, in the sunlit silence of lonely places, in soft nights when the southern sea is still, in the greater loneliness of the storm, when brave faces are set as stone and freezing hands grasp frozen ropes, and the shadow of death rises from the waves and stands between every man and his fellows. We shall ask, and we shall receive. Out of noon-day shadow, out of the starlit dusk, out of the driving spray of the midtempest, one face will rise, one hand will touch our own, one loving, lingering glance will meet ours from eyes that have no look of love for us in them now. These things our lady nature will give us of all those we have given her. But of the others, we shall not ask for them, and she will mercifully forget for us the bitterness of their birth, and life, and death.	{ "id": "15187" }
7	None	"I THOUGHT I was never to see you again," observed the Marchesa, as Beatrice and San Miniato came to her side. "Judging from your calm, you were bearing the separation with admirable fortitude," answered the Count. "Dearest friend, one has to bear so much in this life!" Beatrice stood beside the table, resting one hand upon it and looking back towards the place where she had been sitting. San Miniato took the Marchesa's hand and raised it to his lips, pressed it a little and then nodded slowly, with a significant look. The Marchesa's sleepy eyes opened suddenly with an expression of startled satisfaction, and she returned the pressure of the fingers with more energy than San Miniato had suspected. She was evidently very much pleased. Perhaps the greatest satisfaction of all was the certainty that she was to have no more trouble in the matter, since it had been undertaken, negotiated and settled by the principals between them. Then she raised her eyebrows and moved her head a little as though to inquire what had taken place, but San Miniato made her understand by a sign that he could not speak before Beatrice. "Beatrice, my angel," said the Marchesa, with more than usual sweetness, "you have sat so long upon that rock that you have almost reconciled me to Tragara. Do you not think that you could go back and sit there five minutes longer?" Beatrice glanced quickly at her mother and then at San Miniato and turned away without a word, leaving the two together. "And now, San Miniato carissimo," said the Marchesa, "sit down beside me on that chair, and tell me what has happened, though I think I already understand. You have spoken to Beatrice?" "I have spoken--yes--and the result is favourable. I am the happiest of men." "Do you mean to say that she answered you at once?" asked the Marchesa, affecting, as usual, to be scandalised. "She answered me--yes, dear Marchesa--she told me that she loved me. It only remains for me to claim the maternal blessing which you so generously promised in advance." Somehow it was a relief to him to return to the rather stiff and over-formal phraseology which he always used on important occasions when speaking to her, and which, as he well knew, flattered her desire to be thought a very great lady. "As for my blessing, you shall have it, and at once. But indeed, I am most curious to know exactly what she said, and what you said--I, who am never curious about anything!" "Two words tell the story. I told her I loved her and she answered that she loved me." "Dearest friend, how long it took you to say those two words! You must have hesitated a good deal." "To tell the truth, there was more said than that. I will not deny the grave imputation. I spoke of my past life--" "Dio mio! To my daughter! How could you--" The Marchesa raised her hands and let them fall again. "But why not?" asked San Miniato, suppressing a smile. "Have I been such an impossibly bad man that the very mention of my past must shock a young girl--whom I love?" In the last words he found an opportunity to practise the expression of a little passion, and took advantage of it, well knowing that it would be useful in the immediate future. "I never said that!" protested the Marchesa. "But we all know something about you, dear Don Juan!" "Calumnies, nothing but calumnies!" "But such pretty calumnies--you might almost accept them. I should think none the worse of you if they were all true." "You are charming, dearest Marchesa. I kiss your generous hand! As a matter of fact, I only told Donna Beatrice--may I call her Beatrice to you now, as I have long called her in my heart? I only told her that I had been unhappy, that I had loved twice--once a woman who is dead, once another who has long ago forgotten me. That was all. Was it so very bad? Her heart was softened--she is so gentle! And then I told her that a greater and stronger passion than those now filled my present life, and last of all I told her that I loved her." "And she returned the compliment immediately?" asked the Marchesa, slowly selecting a sugared chestnut from the plate beside her, turning it round, examining it and at last putting it into her mouth. "How lightly you speak of what concerns life and death!" sighed San Miniato. "No--Beatrice did not answer immediately. I said much more--far more than I can remember. How can you ask me to repeat word for word the unpremeditated outpourings of a happy passion? The flood has swept by, leaving deep traces--but who can remember where the eddies and rapids were?" "You are very poetical, caro mio. Your language delights me--it is the language of the heart. Pray give me one of those little cigarettes you smoke. Yes--and a light--and now the least drop of champagne. I will drink your health." "And I both yours and Beatrice's," answered San Miniato, filling his own glass. "You may put Beatrice first, since she is yours." "But without you there would be no Beatrice, gentilissima," said the Count gallantly, when he had emptied his glass. "That is true, and pretty besides. And so," continued the Marchesa in a tone of languid reflection, "you have actually been making love to my daughter, beyond my hearing, alone on the rocks--and I gave you my permission, and now you are engaged to be married! It is too extraordinary to be believed. That was not the way I was married. There was more formality in those days." Indeed, she could not imagine the deceased Granmichele throwing himself upon his knees at her feet, even upon the softest of carpets. "Then I thank the fates that those days are over!" returned San Miniato. "Perhaps I should, too. I am not sure that the conclusion would have been so satisfactory, if I had undertaken to persuade Beatrice. She is headstrong and capricious, and so painfully energetic! Every discussion with her shortens my life by a year." "She is an angel in her caprice," answered the Count with conviction. "Indeed, much of her charm lies in her changing moods." "If she is an angel, what am I?" asked the Marchesa. "Such a contrast!" "She is the angel of motion--you are the angel of repose." "You are delightful to-night." While this conversation was taking place, Beatrice had wandered away over the rocks alone, not heeding the unevenness of the stones and taking little notice of the direction of her walk. She only knew that she would not go back to the place where she had sat, not for all the world. A change had taken place already and she was angry with herself for what she had done in all sincerity. She was hurt and her first illusion had suffered a grave shock almost at the moment of its birth. She asked herself how it could be possible, if San Miniato loved her as he had said he did, that he should not feel as she felt and understand love as she did--as something secret and sacred, to be kept from other eyes. Her instinct told her easily enough that San Miniato was at that very moment telling her mother all that had taken place, and she bitterly resented the thought. It would surely have been enough, if he had waited until the following day and then formally asked her hand of the Marchesa. It would have been better, more natural in every way, just now when they had gone up to the table, if he had said simply that they loved one another and had asked her mother's blessing. Anything rather than to feel that he was coolly describing the details of the first love scene in her life--the thousandth, perhaps, in his own. After all, did she love him? Did he really love her? His passionate manner when he had seized her hand had moved her strangely, and she had listened with a sort of girlish wonder to his declarations of devotion afterwards. But now, in the, calm moonlight and quite alone, she could hear Ruggiero's deep strong voice in her ears, and the few manly words he had uttered. There was not much in them in the way of eloquence--a sailor's picturesque phrase--she had heard something like it before. But there had been strength, and the power to do, and the will to act in every intonation of his speech. She remembered every word San Miniato had spoken, far better than he would remember it himself in a day or two, and she was ready to analyse and criticise now what had charmed and pleased her a moment earlier. Why was he going over it all to her mother, like a lesson learnt and repeated? She was so glad to be alone--she would have been so glad to think alone of what she had taken for the most delicious moment of her young life. If he were really in earnest, he would feel as she did and would have said at once that it was late and time to be going home--he would have invented any excuse to escape the interview which her mother would try to force upon him. Could it be love that he felt? And if not, as her heart told her it was not, what was his object in playing such a comedy? She knew well enough, from Teresina, that many a young Neapolitan nobleman would have given his title for her fortune, but Teresina, perhaps for reasons of her own, never dared to cast such an aspersion upon San Miniato, even in the intimate conversation which sometimes takes place between an Italian lady and her maid--and, indeed, if the truth be told, between maids and their mistresses in most parts of the world. But the doubt thrust itself forward now. Beatrice was quick to doubt at all times. She was also capricious and changeable about matters which did not affect her deeply, and those that did were few enough. It was certainly possible that San Miniato, after all, only wanted her money and that her mother was willing to give it in return for a great name and a great position. She felt that if the case had been stated to her from the first in its true light she might have accepted the situation without illusion, but without disgust. Everybody, her mother said, was married by arrangement, some for one advantage, some for the sake of another. After all, San Miniato was better than most of the rest. There was a certain superiority about him which she would like to see in her husband, a certain simple elegance, a certain outward dignity, which pleased her. But when her mother had spoken in her languid way of the marriage, Beatrice had resented the denial of her free will, and had answered that she would please herself or not marry at all. The Marchesa, far too lacking in energy to sustain such a contest, had contented herself with her favourite expression of horror at her daughter's unfilial conduct. Now, however, Beatrice felt that if it had all been arranged for her, she would have been satisfied, but that since San Miniato had played something very like a comedy, she would refuse to be duped by it. She was very bitter against him in the first revulsion of feeling and treated him more hardly in her thoughts than he, perhaps, deserved. And there he was, up there by the table, telling her mother of his success. Her blood rose in her cheeks at the thought and she stamped her foot upon the rock out of sheer anger at herself, at him, at everything and everybody. Then she moved on. Ruggiero was standing at the edge of the water looking out to sea. The moonlight silvered his white face and fair beard and accentuated the sharp black line where his sailor's cap crossed his forehead. Wild and angry emotions chased each other from his heart to his brain and back again, firing his overwrought nerves and heated blood, as the flame runs along a train of powder. He heard a light step behind him and turned suddenly. Beatrice was close upon him. "Is that you, Ruggiero," she asked, for she had seen him with his back turned and had not recognised him at first. "Yes, Excellency," he answered in a hoarse voice, touching his cap. "What a beautiful night it is!" said the young girl. She often talked with the men in the boat, and Ruggiero interested her especially at the present moment. "Yes, Excellency," he answered again. "Is the weather to be fine, Ruggiero?" "Yes, Excellency." Ruggiero was apparently not in the conversational mood. He was probably thinking of the girl he loved--in all likelihood of Teresina, as Beatrice thought. She stood still a couple of paces from him and looked at the sea. She felt a capricious desire to make the big sailor talk and tell her something about himself. It would be sure to be interesting and honest and strong, a contrast, as she fancied, to the things she had just heard. "Ruggiero---" she began, and then she stopped and hesitated. "Yes, Excellency." The continual repetition of the two words irritated her. She tried to frame a question to which he could not give the same answer. "I would like you to tell me who it is whom you love so dearly--is she good and beautiful and sensible, too, as you said?" "She is all that, Excellency." His voice shook, not as it seemed to her with weakness, but with strength. "Tell me her name." Ruggiero was silent for some moments, and his head was bent forward. He seemed to be breathing hard and not able to speak. "Her name is Beatrice," he said at last, in a low, firm tone as though he were making a great effort. "Really!" exclaimed the young girl. "That is my name, too. I suppose that is why you did not want to tell me. But you must not be afraid of me, Ruggiero. If there is anything I can do to help you, I will do it. Is it money you need? I will give you some." "It is not money." "What is it, then?" "Love--and a miracle." His answers came lower and lower, and he looked at the ground, suffering as he had never suffered and yet indescribably happy in speaking with her, and in seeing the interest she felt in him. But his brain was beginning to reel. He did not know what he might say next. "Love and a miracle!" repeated Beatrice in her silvery voice. "Those are two things which I cannot get for you. You must pray to the saints for the one and to her for the other. Does she not love you at all then?" "She will never love me. I know it." "And that would be the miracle--if she ever should? Such miracles have been done by men themselves without the help of the saints, before now." Ruggiero looked up sharply and he felt his hands shaking. He thought she was speaking of what had just happened, of which he had been a witness. "Such miracles as that may happen--but they are the devil's miracles." Beatrice was silent for a moment. She was indeed inclined to believe in a special intervention of the powers of evil in her own case. Had she not been suddenly moved to tell a man that she loved him, only to discover a moment later that it was a mistake? "What is the miracle you pray for, Ruggiero?" she asked after a pause. "To be changed into some one else, Excellency." "And then--would she love you?" "By Our Lady's grace--perhaps!" The deep voice shook again. He set his teeth, folded his arms over his throbbing breast, and planted one foot firmly on a stone before him, as though to await a blow. "I am very sorry for you, Ruggiero," said Beatrice in soft, kind tones. "God render you your kindness--it is better than nothing," he answered. "Is she sorry for you, too? She should be--you love her so much." "Yes--she is sorry for me. She has just said so." He raised his clenched hand to his mouth almost before the words were uttered. Beatrice did not see the few bright red drops that fell upon the rock as he gnawed the flesh. "Just said so?" she said, repeating his words. "I do not understand? Is she here to-night?" He did not answer, but slowly bent his head, as though in assent. An odd foreboding of danger shot through the young girl's heart. Little as the man said, he seemed desperate. It was possible that the girl he loved might be a Capriote, and that he might have met her and talked with her while the dinner was going on. He might have strangled her with those great hands of his. She would not have uttered a cry, and no one would be the wiser, for Tragara is a lonely place, by day and night. "She is here, you say?" Beatrice asked again. "Where is she? Ruggiero, what is the matter? Have you done her any harm? Have you hurt her? Have you killed her?" "Not yet---" "Not yet!" Beatrice cried, in a low horror-struck tone. She had heard his sharp, agonised breathing as he reeled unsteadily against the rock behind him. She was a rarely courageous girl. Instead of shrinking she made a step forward and took him firmly by the arm. "What have you done, Ruggiero?" she asked sternly. He felt that she was accusing him. His face grew ashy white, and grave--almost grand, she thought afterwards, for she remembered long the look he wore. His answer came slowly in deep, vibrating tones. "I have done nothing--but love her." "Show her to me--take me to her," said Beatrice, still dreading some horrible deed, she scarcely knew why. "She is here." "Where?" "Here! --Ah, Christ." His great hands went out madly as though to take her, then tenderly touched the loose sleeves she wore, then fell, as though lifeless, to his sides again. Beatrice passed her hand over her eyes and drew back quickly a step. She was startled and angered, but not frightened. It was almost the repetition of the waking dream that had flitted through her brain before she had landed. She had heard the grand ring of passionate love this once at least--and how? In the voice of a common sailor--out of the heart of an ignorant fellow who could neither read nor write, nor speak his own language, a churl, a peasant's son, a labourer--but a man, at least. That was it--a strong, honest, fearless man. That was why it all moved her so--that was why it was not an insult that this low-born fellow should dare to tell her he loved her. She opened her lids again and saw his great figure leaning back against the rock, his white face turned upward, his eyes half closed. She went near to him again. Instantly, he made an effort and stood upright. Her instinct told her that he wanted neither pity nor forgiveness nor comfort. "You are a brave, strong man, Ruggiero; I will always pray that you may love some one who will love you again--since you can love so well." The unspoiled girl's nature had found the right expression, and the only one. Ruggiero looked at her one moment, stooped and touched the hem of her white frock with two fingers and then pressed them silently to his lips. Who knows from what far age that outward act of submission and vassalage has been handed down in southern lands? There it is to this day, rarely seen, but still surviving and still known to all. Then Ruggiero turned away and went up the sloping rocks again, and Beatrice stood still for a moment, watching his tall, retreating figure. She meant to go, too, but she lingered a while, knowing that if ever she came back to Tragara, this would be the spot where she would pause and recall a memory, and not that other, where she had sat while San Miniato played out his wretched little comedy. It all rushed across her mind again, bringing a new sense of disgust and repulsion with it, and a new blush of shame and anger at having been so deceived. There was no doubt now. The contrast had been too great, too wide, too evident. It was the difference between truth and hearsay, as San Miniato had said once that night. There was no mistaking the one for the other. Poor Ruggiero! that was why he was growing pale and thin. That was why his arm trembled when he helped her into the boat. She leaned against the rock and wondered what it all meant, whether there were really any justice in heaven or any happiness on earth. But she would not marry San Miniato, now, for she had given no promise. If she had done so, she would not have broken it--in that, at least, she was like other girls of her age and class. Next to evils of which she knew nothing, the breaking of a promise of marriage was the greatest and most unpardonable of sins, no matter what the circumstances might be. But she was sure that she had not promised anything. At that moment in her meditations she heard the tread of a man's heel on the rocks. The sailors were all barefoot, and she knew it must be San Miniato. Unwilling to be alone with him even for a minute, she sprang lightly forward to meet him as he came. He held out his hand to help her, but she refused it by a gesture and hurried on. "I have been speaking with your mother," he said, trying to take advantage of the thirty or forty yards that still remained to be traversed. "So I suppose, as I left you together," she answered in a hard voice. "I have been talking to Ruggiero." "Has anything displeased you, Beatrice?" asked San Miniato, surprised by her manner. "No. Why do you call me Beatrice?" Her tone was colder than ever. "I suppose I might be permitted--" "You are not." San Miniato looked at her in amazement, but they were already within earshot of the Marchesa, who had not moved from her long chair, and he did not risk anything more, not knowing what sort of answer he might get. But he was no novice, and as soon as he thought over the situation he remembered others similar to it in his experience, and he understood well enough that a sensitive young girl might feel ashamed of having shown too much feeling, or might have taken offence at some detail in his conduct which had entirely escaped his own notice. Young and vivacious women are peculiarly subject to this sort of sensitiveness, as he was well aware. There was nothing to be done but to be quiet, attentive in small things, and to wait for fair weather again. After all, he had crossed the Rubicon, and had been very well received on the other side. It would not be easy to make him go back again. "My angel," said the Marchesa, throwing away the end of her cigarette, "you have caught cold. We must go home immediately." "Yes, mamma." With all her languor and laziness and selfishness, the Marchesa was not devoid of tact, least of all where her own ends were concerned, and when she took the trouble to have any object in life at all. She saw in her daughter's face that something had annoyed her, and she at once determined that no reference should be made to the great business of the moment, and that it would be best to end the evening in general conversation, leaving San Miniato no further opportunity of being alone with Beatrice. She guessed well enough that the girl was not really in love, but had yielded in a measure to the man's practised skill in love-making, but she was really anxious that the result should be permanent. Beatrice was grateful to her for putting an end to the situation. The young girl was pale and her bright eyes had suddenly grown tired and heavy. She sat down beside her mother and shaded her brow against the lamp with her hand, while San Miniato went to give orders about returning. "My dear child," said the Marchesa, "I am converted; it has been a delightful excursion; we have had an excellent dinner, and I am not at all tired. I am sure you have given yourself quite as much trouble about it as San Miniato." Beatrice laughed nervously. "There were a good many things to remember," she said, "but I wish there had been twice as many--it was so amusing to make out the list of all your little wants." "What a good daughter you are to me, my angel," sighed the Marchesa. It was not often that she showed so much, affection. Possibly she was rarely conscious of loving her child very much, and on the present occasion the emotion was not so overpowering as to have forced her to the expression of it, had she not seen the necessity for humouring the girl and restoring her normal good temper. On the whole, a very good understanding existed between the two, of such a nature that it would have been hard to destroy it. For it was impossible to quarrel with the Marchesa, for the simple reason that she never attempted to oppose her daughter, and rarely tried to oppose any one else. She was quite insensible to Beatrice's occasional reproaches concerning her indolence, and Beatrice had so much sense, in spite of her small caprices and whims, that it was always safe to let her have her own way. The consequence was that difficulties rarely arose between the two. Beatrice smiled carelessly at the affectionate speech. She knew its exact value, but was not inclined to depreciate it in her own estimation. Just then she would rather have been left alone with her mother than with any one else, unless she could be left quite to herself. "You are always very good to me, mamma," she answered; "you let me have my own way, and that is what I like best." "Let you have it, carissima! You take it. But I am quite satisfied." "After all, it saves you trouble," laughed Beatrice. Just then San Miniato came back and was greatly relieved to see that Beatrice's usual expression had returned, and to hear her careless, tuneful laughter. In an incredibly short space of time the boat was ready, the Marchesa was lifted in her chair and carried to it, and all the party were aboard. The second boat, with its crew, was left to bring home the paraphernalia, and Ruggiero cast off the mooring and jumped upon the stern, as the men forward dipped their oars and began to pull out of the little sheltered bay. There he sat again, perched in his old place behind his master, the latter's head close to his knee, holding the brass tiller in his hand. It would be hard to say what he felt, but it was not what he had felt before. It was all a dream, now, the past, the present and the future. He had told Beatrice--Donna Beatrice Granmichele, the fine lady--that he loved her, and she had not laughed in his face, nor insulted him, nor cried out for help. She had told him that he was brave and strong. Yet he knew that he had put forth all his strength and summoned all his courage in the great effort to be silent, and had failed. But that mattered little. He had got a hundred, a thousand times more kindness than he would have dared to hope for, if he had ever dared to think of saying what he had really said. He had been forced to what he had done, as a strong man is forced struggling against odds to the brink of a precipice, and he had found not death, but a strange new strength to live. He had not found Heaven, but he had touched the gates of Paradise and heard the sweet clear voice of the angel within. It was well for him that his hand had not been raised that afternoon to deal the one blow that would have decided his life. It was well that it was the summer time and that when he had put the helm down to go about there had been no white squall seething along with its wake of snowy foam from a quarter of a mile to windward. It would have been all over now and those great moments down there by the rocks would never have been lived. "Through the arch, Ruggiero," said San Miniato to him as the boat cleared the rocks of the landward needle. "Let us go home," said Beatrice, with a little impatience in her voice. "I am so tired." Would she be tired of such a night if she loved the man beside her? Ruggiero thought not, any more than he would ever be weary of being near her to steer the boat that bore her--even for ever. "It is so beautiful," said San Miniato. Beatrice said nothing, but made an impatient movement that betrayed that she was displeased. "Home, Ruggiero," said San Miniato's voice. "Make sail!" Ruggiero called out, he himself hauling out the mizzen. A minute later the sails filled and the boat sped out over the smooth water, white-winged as a sea-bird under the great summer moon.	{ "id": "15187" }
8	None	It was late on the following morning when the Marchesa came out upon her curtained terrace, moving slowly, her hands hanging listlessly down, her eyes half closed, as though regretting the sleep she might be still enjoying. Beatrice was sitting by a table, an open book beside her which she was not reading, and she hardly noticed her mother's light step. The young girl had spent a sleepless night, and for the first time since she had been a child a few tears had wet her pillow. She could not have told exactly why she had cried, for she had not felt anything like sadness, and tears were altogether foreign to her nature. But the unsought return of all the impressions of the evening had affected her strangely, and she felt all at once shame, anger and regret--shame at having been so easily deceived by the play of a man's face and voice, anger against him for the part he had acted, and regret for something unknown but dreamt of and almost understood, and which could never be. She was too young and girlish to understand that her eyes had been opened upon the workings of the human heart. She had seen two sights which neither man nor woman can ever forget, love and love's counterfeit presentment, and both were stamped indelibly upon the unspotted page of her maiden memory. She had seen a man whom she had hitherto liked, and whom she had unconsciously respected for a certain dignity he seemed to have, degrade himself--and for money's sake, as she rightly judged--to the playing of a pitiful comedy. As the whole scene came back to her in all distinctness, she traced the deception from first to last with amazing certainty of comprehension, and she knew that San Miniato had wilfully and intentionally laid a plot to work upon her feelings and to produce the result he had obtained--a poor result enough, if he had known the whole truth, yet one of which Beatrice was sorely ashamed. She had been deceived into the expression of something which she had never felt--and which, this morning, seemed further from her than ever before. It was bitter to think that any man could say she had uttered those three words "I love you," when there was less truth in them than in the commonest, most pardonable social lie. He had planned the excursion, knowing how beautiful things in nature affected her, knowing exactly at what point the moon would rise, precisely at what hour that mysterious light would gleam upon the water, knowing the magic of the place and counting upon it to supplement his acting where it lacked reality. It had been clever of him to think it out so carefully, to plan each detail so thoughtfully, to behave so naturally until his opportunity was all prepared and ready for him. But for one little mistake, one moment's forgetfulness of tact, the impression might have remained and grown in distinctness until it would have secured the imprint of a strong reality at the beginning of a new volume in her life, to which she could always look back in the hereafter as to something true and sweet to be thought of. But his tact had failed him at the critical and supreme moment when he had got what he wanted and had not known how to keep it, even for an hour. And his mistake had been followed by a strange accident which had revealed to Beatrice the very core of a poor human heart that was beating itself to death, in true earnest, for her sake. She had seen what many a woman longs for but may never look upon. She had seen a man, brave, strong, simple and true, with the death mark of his love for her upon his face. What matter if he were but an unlettered sailor, scarcely knowing what moved him nor the words he spoke? Beatrice was a woman and, womanlike, she knew without proof or testimony that his heart and hands were clean of the few sins which woman really despises in man. They are not many--be it said in honour of womanly generosity and kindness--they are not many, those bad deeds which a woman cannot forgive, and that she is right is truly shown in that those are the sins which the most manly men despise in others. They are, I think, cowardice, lying for selfish ends, betraying tales of woman's weakness--almost the greatest of crimes--and, greatest of all, faithlessness in love. Let a man be brave, honest, discreet, faithful, and a woman will forgive him all manner of evil actions, even to murder and bloodshed; but let him flinch in danger, lie to save himself, tell the name of a woman whose love for him has betrayed her, or break his faith to her without boldly saying that he loves her no more, and she will not forgive him while he lives, though she may give him a kindly thought and a few tears when he is gone for ever. So Beatrice, who could never love Ruggiero, understood him well and judged him rightly, and set him up on a sort of pedestal as the anti-type of his scheming master. And not only this. She felt deeply for him and pitied him with all her heart, since she had seen his own almost breaking before her eyes for her sake. She had always been kind to him, but henceforth there would be something even kinder in her voice when she spoke to him, as there would be something harder in her tone when she talked with San Miniato. And now her mother had appeared and settled herself in her lazy way upon her long chair, and slowly moved her fan, from habit, though too indolent to lift it to her face. Beatrice rose and kissed her lightly on the forehead. "Good morning, mamma carissima," she said. "Are you very tired after the excursion?" "Exhausted, in mind and body, my angel. A cigarette, my dear--it will give me an appetite." Beatrice brought her one, and held a match for her mother. Then the Marchesa shut her eyes, inhaled the smoke and blew out four or five puffs before speaking again. "I want to speak to you, my child," she said at last, "but I hardly have the strength." "Do not tire yourself, mamma. I know what you are going to say, and I have made up my mind." "Have you? That will save me infinite trouble. I am so glad." "Are you really? Do you know what I mean?" "Of course. You are going to marry San Miniato, and we have the best excuse in the world for going to Paris to see about your trousseau." "I will not marry San Miniato," said Beatrice. "I have made up my mind that I will not." The Marchesa started slightly as she took her cigarette from her lips, and turned her head slowly so that she could look into Beatrice's eyes. "You are engaged to marry him," she said slowly. "You cannot break your word. You know what that means. Indeed, you are quite mad!" "Engaged? I? I never gave my word! It is not true!" The blood rose, in Beatrice's face and then sank suddenly away. "What is this comedy?" asked the Marchesa, raising her brows. For the first time in many years she was almost angry. "Ah! If you ask me that, I will tell you. I will tell you everything and you know that I speak the truth to you as I do to everybody--" "Except to San Miniato when you tell him you love him," interrupted the Marchesa. Beatrice blushed again, with anger this time. "Yes," she said, after a short pause, "it is quite true that I said I loved him, and for one moment I meant it. But I made a mistake. I am sorry, and I will tell him so. But I will tell him other things, too. I will tell him that I saw through his acting before we left Tragara last night, and that I will never forgive him for the part he played. You know as well as I that it was all a play, from beginning to end. I liked him better than the others because I thought him more manly, more honest, more dignified. But I have changed my mind. I see the whole truth now, every detail of it. He planned it all, and he did it very well--probably he planned it the night before last, out here with you, while I was playing waltzes. You could not make me marry him, and he got leave of you to speak to me. Do you think I do not understand it all? Would you have let me go away last night and sit with him on the rocks, out of your hearing, without so much as a remark, unless you had arranged the matter between you? It is not like you, and I know you meant it. It was all a plot. He had even been there to study the place, to see the very point at which the moon would rise, the very place where he would make me sit, the very spot where your table could stand. He said to himself that I was a mere girl, that of course no man had ever made love to me and that between the beauty of the night, my liking for him, and his well arranged comedy, he might easily move me. He did. I am ashamed of it. Look at the blood in my cheeks! That tells the truth, at all events. I am utterly ashamed. I would give my right hand to have not spoken those words! I would almost give my life to undo yesterday if it could be undone--and undo it I will, so far as I can. I will tell San Miniato what I think of myself, and then I will tell him what I think of him, and that will be enough. Do you understand me? I am in earnest." The Marchesa had listened to Beatrice's long speech with open eyes, surprised at the girl's keenness and at her determined manner. Not that the latter was new in her experience, but it was the first time that their two wills had been directly opposed in a matter of great importance. The Marchesa was a very indolent person, but somewhere in her nature there lay hidden a small store of determination which had hardly ever expressed itself clearly in her life. Now, however, she felt that much was at stake. For many reasons San Miniato was precisely the son-in-law she desired. He would give Beatrice an ancient and honourable name, a leading position in any Italian society he chose to frequent, whether in the north or the south, and he was a man of the world at all points. The last consideration had much weight with the Marchesa who, in spite of her title and fortune had seen very little of the men of the great world, and admired them accordingly. Therefore when Beatrice said she would not marry him, her mother made up her mind that she should, and the struggle commenced. "Beatrice, my angel," she began, "you are mistaken in yourself and in San Miniato. I am quite unable to go through all the details as you have done. I only say that you are mistaken." Beatrice's lip curled a little and she slowly shook her head. "I am not mistaken, mamma," she answered. "I am quite right, and you know it. Can you deny that what I say is true? Can you say that you did not arrange with him to take me to Tragara, and to let him speak to me himself?" "It is far too much trouble to deny anything, my dear child. But all that may be quite true, and yet he may love you as sincerely as he can love any one. I do not suppose you expect a man of his sense and education to roll himself at your feet and tear his hair and his clothes as they do on the stage." "A man need not do that to show that he is in earnest, and besides he--" "That is not the question," interrupted the Marchesa. "The real question concerns you much more than it affects him. If you break your promise--" "There was no promise." "You told him that you loved him, and you admit it. Under the circumstances that meant that you were willing to marry him. It meant nothing else, as you know very well." "I never thought of it." "You must think of it now. You know perfectly well that he wished to marry you and had my consent. I have spoken to you several times about it and you refused to have him, saying that you meant to exercise your own free will. You had an opportunity of exercising it last night. You told him clearly that you loved him, and that could only mean that your opposition was gone and that you would marry him. You know what you will be called now, if you refuse to keep your engagement." Beatrice grew slowly pale. Her mother had, for once, a remarkably direct and clear way of putting the matter, and the young girl began to waver. If her mother succeeded in proving to her that she had really bound herself, she would submit. It is not easy to convey to the foreign mind generally the enormous importance which is attached in Italy to a distinct promise of marriage. It indeed almost amounts, morally speaking, to marriage itself, and the breaking of it is looked upon socially almost as an act of infidelity to the marriage bond. A young girl who refuses to keep her engagement is called a civetta--an owlet--probably because owlets are used as a decoy all over the country in snaring and shooting all small birds. Be that as it may, the term is a bitter reproach, it sticks to her who has earned it and often ruins her whole life. That is what the Marchesa meant when she told Beatrice that she knew what the world would call her, and the threat had weight. The young girl rose from her seat and began to walk to and fro on the terrace, her head bent, her hands clasped together. The Marchesa slowly puffed at her cigarette and watched her daughter with half-closed eyes. "I never meant it so!" Beatrice exclaimed in low tones, and she repeated the words again and again, pausing now and then and looking fixedly at her mother. "Dear child," said the Marchesa, "what does it matter? If it were not such an exertion to talk, I am sure I could make you see what a good match it is, and how glad you ought to be." "Glad! Oh, mamma, you do not understand! The degradation of it!" "The degradation? Where is there anything degrading in it?" "I see it well enough! To give myself up body and soul to a man I do not love! And for what? Because he has an old name, and I a new one, and I can buy his name with my money. Oh, mother, it is too horrible! Too low! Too vile!" "My angel, you do not know what strong words you are using--" "They are not half strong enough--I wish I could--" But she stopped and began to walk up and down again, her sweet young face pale and weary with pain, her fingers twisting each other nervously. A long silence followed. "It is of no use to talk about it, my child," said the Marchesa, languidly taking up a novel from the table beside her. "The thing is done. You are engaged, and you must either marry San Miniato or take the consequences and be pointed at as a faithless girl for the rest of your life." "And who knows of this engagement, if it is one, but you and I and he?" asked Beatrice, standing still. "Would you tell, or I? Or would he dare?" "He would be perfectly justified," answered the Marchesa. "He is a gentleman, however, and would be considerate. But who is to assure us that he has not already telegraphed the good news to his friends?" "It is too awful!" cried Beatrice, leaning back against one of the pillars. "Besides," said her mother without changing her tone. "You have changed to-day, you may change again to-morrow--" "Stop, for heaven's sake! Do not make me worse than I am!" Poor Beatrice stopped her ears with her open hands. The Marchesa looked at her and smiled a little, and shook her head, waiting for the hands to be removed. At last the young girl began her walk again. "You should not talk about being worse when you are not bad at all, my dear," said her mother. "You have done nothing to be ashamed of, and all this is perfectly absurd. You feel a passing dislike for the idea perhaps, but that will be gone to-morrow. Meanwhile the one thing which is really sure is that you are engaged to San Miniato, who, as I say, has undoubtedly telegraphed the fact to his sister in Florence and probably to two or three old friends. By to-morrow it will be in the newspapers. You cannot possibly draw back. I have really talked enough. I am utterly exhausted." Beatrice sank into a chair and pressed her fingers upon her eyes, not to hide them, but by sheer pressure forcing back the tears she felt coming. Her beautiful young figure bent and trembled like a willow in the wind, and the soft white throat swelled with the choking sob she kept down so bravely. There is something half divine in the grief of some women. "Dear child," said her mother very gently, "there is nothing to cry over. Beatrice carissima, try and control yourself. It will soon pass--" "It will soon pass--yes," answered the young girl, bringing out the words with a great effort. During fully two minutes more she pressed her eyes with all her might. Then she rose suddenly to her feet, and her face was almost calm again. "I will marry him, since what I never meant for a promise really is one and has seemed so to you and to him. But if I am a faithless wife to him, I will lay all my sins at your door." "Beatrice!" cried the Marchesa, in real horror this time. She crossed herself. "I am young--shall I not love?" asked the young girl defiantly. "Dearest child, for the love of Heaven do not talk so--" "No--I will not. I will never say it again--and you will not forget it." She turned to leave the terrace and met San Miniato face to face. "Good morning," she said coldly, and passed him. "Of course you have telegraphed the news of the engagement to your sister?" said the Marchesa as soon as she saw him, and making a sign to intimate that he must answer in the affirmative. "Of course--and to all my best friends," he replied promptly with a ready smile. Beatrice heard his answer just as she passed through the door, but she did not turn her head. She guessed that her mother had asked the question in haste in order that San Miniato might say something which should definitely prove to Beatrice that he considered himself betrothed. Yesterday she would have believed his answer. To-day she believed nothing he said. She went to her room and bathed her eyes in cold water and sat down for a moment before her glass and looked at herself thoughtfully. There she was, the same Beatrice she saw in the mirror every day, the same clear brown eyes, the same soft brown hair, the same broad, crayon-like eyebrows, the same free pose of the head. But there was something different in the face, which she did not recognise. There was something defiant in the eyes, and hard about the mouth, which was new to her and did not altogether please her, though she could not change it. She combed the little ringlets on her forehead and dabbed a little scent upon her temples to cool them, and then she rose quickly and went out. A thought had struck her and she at once put into execution the plan it suggested. She took a parasol and went out of the hotel, hatless and gloveless, into the garden of orange trees which lies between the buildings and the gate. She strolled leisurely along the path towards the exit, on one side of which is the porter's lodge, while the little square stone box of a building which is the telegraph office stands on the other. She knew that just before twelve o'clock Ruggiero and his brother were generally seated on the bench before the lodge waiting for orders for the afternoon. As she expected, she found them, and she beckoned to Ruggiero and turned back under the trees. In an instant he was at her side. She was startled to see how pale he was and how suddenly his face seemed to have grown thin. She stopped and he stood respectfully before her, cap in hand, looking down. "Ruggiero," she said, "will you do me a service?" "Yes, Excellency." "Yes, I know--but it is something especial. You must tell no one--not even your brother." "Speak, Excellency--not even the stones shall hear it." "I want you to find out at the telegraph office whether your master has sent a telegram anywhere this morning. Can you ask the man and bring me word here? I will walk about under the trees." "At once, Excellency." He turned and left her, and she strolled up the path. She wondered a little why she was doing this underhand thing. It was not like her, and whatever answer Ruggiero brought her she would gain nothing by it. If San Miniato had spoken the truth, then he had really believed the engagement already binding, as her mother had said. If he had lied, that would not prevent his really telegraphing within the next half hour, and matters would be in just the same situation with a slight difference of time. She would, indeed, in this latter case, have a fresh proof of his duplicity. But she needed none, as it seemed to her. It was enough that he should have acted his comedy last night and got by a stratagem what he could never have by any other means. Ruggiero returned after two or three minutes. "Well?" inquired Beatrice. "He sent one at nine o'clock this morning, Excellency." For one minute their eyes met. Ruggiero's were fierce, bright and clear. Beatrice's own softened almost imperceptibly under his glance. If she had seen herself at that moment she would have noticed that the hard look she had observed in her own face had momentarily vanished, and that she was her gentle self again. "One only?" she asked. "Only one, Excellency. No one will know that I have asked, for the man will not tell." "Are you sure? What did you say to him? Tell me." "I said to him, 'Don Gennaro, I am the Conte di San Miniato's sailor. Has the Conte sent any telegram this morning, to any one, anywhere?' Then he shook his head; but he looked into his book and said, 'He sent one to Florence at nine o'clock.' Then I said, 'I thank you, Don Gennaro, and I will do you a service when I can.' That was for good manners. Then I said, 'Don Gennaro, please not to tell any one that I asked the question, and if you tell any one I will make you die an evil death, for I will break all your bones and moreover drown you in the sea, and go to the galleys very gladly.' Then Don Gennaro said that he would not tell. And here I am, Excellency." In spite of all she was suffering, Beatrice laughed at Ruggiero's account of the interview. It was quite evident that Ruggiero had repeated accurately every word that had been spoken, and he looked the man to execute the threat without the slightest hesitation. Beatrice wondered how the telegraph official had taken it. "What did Don Gennaro do when you frightened him, Ruggiero?" she asked. "He said he would not tell and got a little white, Excellency. But he will say nothing, and will not complain to the syndic, because he knows my brother." "What has that to do with it?" asked Beatrice with some curiosity. "It is natural, Excellency. For if Don Gennaro went to the syndic and said, 'Signor Sindaco, Ruggiero of the Children of the King has threatened to kill me,' then the syndic would send for the gendarmes and say, 'Take that Ruggiero of the Children of the King and put him in, as we say, and see that he does not run away, for he will do a hurt to somebody.' And perhaps they would catch me and perhaps they would not. Then Bastianello, my brother, would wait in the road in the evening for Don Gennaro, and would lay a hand on him, perhaps, or both. And I think that Don Gennaro would rather be dead in his telegraph office than alive in Bastianello's hands, because Bastianello is very strong in his hands, Excellency. And that is all the truth." "But I do not understand it all, Ruggiero, though I see what you mean. I am afraid it is your language that is different from mine." "It is natural, Excellency," answered the sailor, a deep blush spreading over his white forehead as he stood bareheaded before her. "You are a great lady and I am only an ignorant seaman." "I do not mean anything of the sort, Ruggiero," said Beatrice quickly, for she saw that she had unintentionally hurt him, and the thought pained her strongly. "You speak very well and I have always understood you perfectly. But you spoke of the King's Children and I could not make out what they had to do with the story." "Oh, if it is that, Excellency, I ask your pardon. I do not wonder that you did not understand. It is my name, Excellency." "Your name? Still I do not understand---" "I have no other name but that--dei figli del Rè--" said Ruggiero. "That is all." "How strange!" exclaimed Beatrice. "It is the truth, Excellency, and to show you that it is the truth here is my seaman's license." He produced a little flat parchment case from his pocket, untied the thong and showed Beatrice the first page on which, was inscribed his name in full. "Ruggiero of the Children of the King, son of the late Ruggiero, native of Verbicaro, province of Calabria--you see, Excellency. It is the truth." "I never doubt anything you say, Ruggiero," said Beatrice quietly. "I thank you, Excellency," answered the sailor, blushing this time with pleasure. "For this and all your Excellency's kindness." What a man he was she thought, as he stood there before her, bareheaded in the sun-shot shade under the trees, the light playing upon his fair hair and beard, and his blue eyes gleaming like drops from the sea! What boys and dwarfs other men looked beside him! "Do you know how your family came by that strange name, Ruggiero?" she asked. "No, Excellency. But they tell so many silly stories about us in Verbicaro. That is in Calabria where I and my brother were born. And when our mother, blessed soul, was dying--good health to your Excellency--she blessed us and said this to us. 'Ruggiero, Sebastiano, dear sons, you could not save me and I am going. God bless you,' said she. 'Our Lady help you. Remember, you are the Children of the King.' Then she said, 'Remember' again, as though she would say something more. But just at that very moment Christ took her, and she did not speak again, for she was dead--good health to your Excellency for a thousand years. And so it was." "And what happened then?" asked Beatrice, strangely interested and charmed by the man's simple story. "Then we beat Don Pietro Casale, Excellency, and spoiled all his face and head. We were little boys, twelve and ten years old, but there was the anger to give us strength. And so we ran away from Verbicaro, because we had no one and we had to eat, and had beaten Don Pietro Casale, who would have had us put in prison if he had caught us. But thanks to Heaven we had good legs. And so we ran away, Excellency." "It is very interesting. But what were those stories they told about you in Verbicaro?" "Silly stories, Excellency. They say that once upon a time King Roger came riding by with all his army and many knights; and all armed because there was war. And he took Verbicaro from the Turks and gave it to a son of his who was called the Son of the King, as I would give Bastianello half a cigar or a pipe of tobacco in the morning--it is true he always has his own--and so the Son of the King stayed in that place and lived there, and I have heard old men say that when their fathers--who were also old, Excellency--were boys, many houses in Verbicaro belonged to the Children of the King. But then they ate everything and we have had nothing but these two hands and these two arms and now we go about seeking to eat. But thanks to Heaven--and to-day is Saturday--we have been able to work enough. And that is the truth, Excellency." "What a strange tale!" exclaimed the young girl. "But to-day is Tuesday, Ruggiero. Why do you say it is Saturday?" "I beg pardon of your Excellency, it is a silly custom and means nothing. But when a man says he is well, or that there is a west wind, or that his boat is sound, he says 'to-day is Saturday,' because it might be Friday and he might have forgotten that. It is a silly custom, Excellency." "Do not call me excellency, Ruggiero," said Beatrice. "I have no right to be called so." "And what could I call you when I have to speak to you, Excellency? I have been taught so." "Only princes and dukes and their children are excellencies," answered Beatrice. "My father was only a Marchese. So if you wish to please me, call me 'signorina.' That is the proper way to speak to me." "I will try, Excellency," answered Ruggiero, opening his blue eyes very wide. Beatrice laughed a little. "You see," she said, "you did it again." "Yes, Signorina," replied Ruggiero. "But I will not forget again. When the tongue of the ignorant has learned a word it is hard to change it." "Well, good-day Ruggiero. Your story is very interesting. I am going to breakfast, and I thank you for what you did for me." "It is not I who deserve any thanks. And good appetite to you, Signorina." She turned and walked slowly back towards the hotel. "And may Our Lady bless you and keep you, and send an angel to watch over every hair of your blessed head!" said Ruggiero in a low voice as he watched her graceful figure retreating in the distance.	{ "id": "15187" }
9	None	After what had happened on the previous evening Ruggiero had expected that Beatrice would treat him very differently. He had assuredly not foreseen that she would call him from his seat by the porter's lodge, ask an important service of him, and then enter into conversation with him about the origin of his family and the story of his own life. His slow but logical mind pondered on these things in spite of the disordered action of his heart, which had almost choked him while he had been talking with the young girl. Instead of going back to his brother, he turned aside and entered the steep descending tunnel through the rock which leads down to the sea and the little harbour. Two things were strongly impressed on his mind. First, the nature of the service he had done Beatrice in making that enquiry at the telegraph office, and secondly her readiness to forget his own reckless conduct at Tragara. Both these points suggested reflections which pleased him strangely. It was quite clear to him that Beatrice distrusted San Miniato, though he had of course no idea of the nature of the telegram concerning which she had wanted information. He only understood that she was watching San Miniato with suspicion, expecting some sort of foul play. But there was an immense satisfaction in that thought, and Ruggiero's eyes sparkled as he revolved it in his brain. As for the other matter, he understood it less clearly. He was quite conscious of the enormity of his misdeed in telling a lady, and a great lady, according to his view, that he loved her, and in daring to touch the sleeves of her dress with his rough hands. He could not find it in him to regret what he had done, but he was prepared for very hard treatment as his just reward. It would not have surprised him if Beatrice had then and there complained of him to her mother or to San Miniato himself, and the latter, Ruggiero supposed, would have had no difficulty in having him locked up in the town gaol for a few weeks on the rather serious ground of misdemeanour towards the visitors at the watering-place. A certain amount of rather arbitrary power is placed in the hands of the local authorities in all great summer resorts, and it is quite right that it should be so--nor is it as a rule unjustly used. But Beatrice had acted very differently, very kindly and very generously. That was because she was naturally so good and gentle, thought Ruggiero. But the least he had expected was that she would never again speak to him save to give an order, nor say a kind word, no matter what service he rendered her, or what danger he ran for her sake. And now, a moment ago, she had talked with him with more interest and kindly condescension than she had ever shown before. He refused, and rightly, to believe that this was because she had needed his help in the matter of the telegram. She could have called Bastianello, who was in her own service, and Bastianello would have done just as well. But she had chosen to employ the man who had so rudely forgotten himself before her less than twenty-four hours earlier. Why? Ruggiero, little capable, by natural gifts or by experience, of dealing with such questions, found himself face to face with a great problem of the human self, and he knew at once that he could never solve it, try as he might. His happiness was none the less great, nor his gratitude the less deep and sincere, and with both these grew up instantly in his heart the strong determination to serve her at every turn, so far as lay in his power. It was not much that he could do, he reflected, unless she would show him the way as she had done this very morning. But, considering the position of affairs, and her evident distrust of her betrothed, it was not impossible that similar situations might arise before long. If they did, Ruggiero would be ready, as he had now shown himself, to do her bidding with startling directness and energy. He was well aware of his physical superiority over every one else in Sorrento, and he was dimly conscious that a threat from him was something which would frighten most men, and which none could afford to overlook. He remembered poor Don Gennaro's face just now, when he had quietly told him what he might expect if he did not hold his tongue. Ruggiero had never valued his life very highly, and since he had loved Beatrice he did not value it a straw. This state of mind can make a man an exceedingly dangerous person, especially when he is so endowed that he can tear a new horse shoe in two with his hands, and break a five franc piece with his thumbs and forefingers as another man breaks a biscuit. As Ruggiero came out of the tunnel and reached the platform of rock from which the last part of the descent goes down to the sea in the open air, he stood still a moment and expressed his determination in a low tone. There was no one near to hear him. "Whatever she asks," he said. "Truly it is of great importance what becomes of me! If it is a little thing it costs nothing. If it is a great thing--well, I will do it if I can. Then I will say, 'Excellency'--no--'Signorina, here it is done. And I beg to kiss your Excellency's hand, because I am going to the galleys and you will not see me any more.' And then they will put me in, and it will be finished, and I shall always have the satisfaction." Ruggiero produced a fragment of a cigar from his cap and a match from the same safe place and began to smoke, looking at the sea. People not used to the peculiarities of southern thought would perhaps have been surprised at the desperate simplicity of Ruggiero's statement to himself. But those who have been long familiar with men of his country and class must all have heard exactly such words uttered more than once in their experience, and will remember that in some cases at least they were not empty threats, which were afterwards very exactly and conscientiously fulfilled by him who uttered them, and who now either wears a green cap at Ponza or Ischia, or is making a fortune in South America, having had the luck to escape as a stowaway on a foreign vessel. Nor did it strike Ruggiero as at all improbable that Beatrice might some day wish to be rid of the Conte di San Miniato, and might express such a wish, ever so vaguely, within Ruggiero's hearing. He had the bad taste to judge her by himself, and of course if she really hated her betrothed she would wish him to die. It was a sin, doubtless, to wish anybody dead, and it was a greater sin to put out one's hands and kill the person in question. But it was human nature, according to Ruggiero's simple view, and of course Beatrice felt like other human beings in this matter and all the principal affairs of life. He had made up his mind, and he never repeated the words he had spoken to himself. He was a simple man, and he puffed at his stump of a black cigar and strolled down to the boat to find out whether the Cripple and the Son of the Fool had spliced that old spare mooring-rope which had done duty last night and had been found chafed this morning. Meanwhile the human nature on which Ruggiero counted so naturally and confidently was going through a rather strange phase of development in the upper regions where the Marchesa's terrace was situated. Beatrice walked slowly back under the trees. Ruggiero's quaint talk had amused her and had momentarily diverted the current of her thoughts. But the moment she left him, her mind reverted to her immediate trouble, and she felt a little stab of pain at the heart which was new to her. The news that San Miniato had actually sent a telegram was unwelcome in the extreme. He had, indeed, said in her presence that he had sent several. But that might have been a careless inaccuracy, or he might have actually written the rest and given them to be despatched before coming upstairs. To doubt that the one message already sent contained the news of his engagement, seemed gratuitous. It was only too sure that he had looked upon what had passed at Tragara as a final decision on the part of Beatrice, and that henceforth she was his affianced bride. Her mother had not even found great difficulty in persuading her of the fact, and after that one bitter struggle she had given up the battle. It had been bitter indeed while it had lasted, and some of the bitterness returned upon her now. But she would not again need to force the tears back, pressing her hands upon her eyes with desperate strength as she had done. It was useless to cry over what could not be helped, and since she had made the great mistake of her life she must keep her word or lose her good name for ever, according to the ideas in which she had been brought up. But it would be very hard to meet San Miniato now, within the next quarter of an hour, as she inevitably must. Less hard, perhaps, than if she had convicted him of falsehood in the matter of the telegram, as she had fully expected that she could--but painful enough, heaven knew. There was an old trace of oriental fatalism in her nature, passed down to her, perhaps, from some Saracen ancestor in the unknown genealogy of her family. It is common enough in the south, often profoundly leavened with superstition, sometimes existing side by side with the most absolute scepticism, but its influence is undeniable, and accounts for a certain resignation in hopeless cases which would be utterly foreign to the northern character. Beatrice had it, and having got the worst of the first contest she conceived that further resistance would be wholly useless, and accepted the inevitable conclusion that she must marry San Miniato whether she liked him or not. But this state of mind did not by any means imply that she would marry him with a good grace, or ever again return in her behaviour towards him to the point she had reached on the previous evening. That, thought Beatrice, would be too much to expect, and was certainly more than she intended to give. She would be quite willing to show that she had been deceived into consenting, and was only keeping her word as a matter of principle. San Miniato might think what he pleased. She knew that whatever she did, he would never think of breaking off the engagement, since what he wanted was not herself but her fortune. She shut her parasol with a rather vicious snap as she went into the cool hall out of the sun, and the hard look in her face was more accentuated than before, as she slowly ascended the steps. The conversation between her mother and San Miniato during her short absence had been characteristic. They understood each other perfectly but neither would have betrayed to the other, by the merest hint, the certainty that the marriage was by no means agreeable to poor Beatrice herself. "Dearest Marchesa," said San Miniato, touching her hand with his lips, and then seating himself beside her, "tell me that you are not too much exhausted after your exertions last night? Have you slept well? Have you any appetite?" "What a good doctor you would make, dear friend!" exclaimed the Marchesa with a little smile. And so they exchanged the amenities usual at their first meeting in the day, as though they had not been buying and selling an innocent soul, and did not appreciate the fact in its startling reality. Several more phrases of the same kind were spoken. "And how is Donna Beatrice?" inquired San Miniato at last. "Why not call her Beatrice?" asked the Marchesa carelessly. "She is very well. You just saw her." "I fancy it would seem a little premature, a little familiar to call her so," answered the Count, who remembered his recent discomfiture. "For the present, I believe she would prefer a little more ceremony. I do not know whether I am right. Pray give me your advice, Marchesa carissima." "Of course you are right--you always are. You were right about the moon yesterday--though I did not notice that it was shining here when we came home," she added thoughtfully, not by any means satisfied with the insufficient demonstration he had given her at first. "No doubt," replied San Miniato indifferently. He took no further interest in the movements of the satellite since he had gained his point, and the Marchesa was far too lazy to revive the discussion. "I am glad you agree with me about my behaviour," he continued. "It is of course most important to maintain as much as possible the good impression I was so fortunate as to make last night, and I have had enough experience of the world to know that it will not be an easy matter." "No, indeed--and with Beatrice's character, too!" "The most charming character I ever met," said San Miniato with sufficient warmth. "But young, of course, as it should be and subject to the enchanting little caprices which belong to youth and beauty." "Yes, which always belong to youth and beauty," assented the Marchesa. "And I am quite prepared, for instance, to be treated coldly to-day and warmly to-morrow, if it so pleases the dear young lady. She will always find me the same." "How good you are, dearest friend!" exclaimed the Marchesa, thoroughly understanding what he meant, and grateful to him for his tact, which was sometimes, indeed, of the highest order. "It would be strange if I were not happy and satisfied," he answered, "and ready to accept gratefully the smallest favour with which it may please Donna Beatrice to honor me." He was indeed both happy and satisfied, for he saw no reason to suppose that the Granmichele fortune could now slip from his grasp. Moreover he had considerable confidence in himself and his powers, and he thought it quite probable that the scene of the previous evening might before long be renewed with more lasting effect. Beatrice was young and capricious; there is nothing one may count on so surely as youth and caprice. Caprice is sure to change, but who is sure that the faith kept for ten years will not? In youth love is sure to come some day, but when that day is past is it ever sure that he will come again? San Miniato knew these things and many more like them, and was wise in his generation as well as a man of the world, accustomed to its ways from his childhood and nourished with the sour milk of its wisdom from his earliest youth upward. So he quietly conveyed to the Marchesa the information that he understood Beatrice's present mood and that he would not attach more importance to it than it deserved. They talked a little longer together, both for the present avoiding any reference to the important arrangements which must soon be discussed in connection with the marriage contract, but both taking it entirely for granted that the marriage itself was quite agreed upon and settled. Then Beatrice returned and sat down silently by the table. "Have you been for a little walk, my angel?" enquired her mother. "Yes, mamma, I have been for a little walk." "You are not tired then, after our excursion, Donna Beatrice?" enquired San Miniato. "Not in the least," answered the young girl, taking up a book and beginning to read. "Beatrice!" exclaimed her mother in amazement. "My child! What are you reading! Maupassant! Have you quite forgotten yourself?" "I am trying to, mamma. And since I am to be married--what difference does it make?" She spoke without laying down the volume. San Miniato pretended to pay no attention to the incident, and slowly rolled a fat cigarette between his fingers to soften it before smoking. The Marchesa made gestures to Beatrice with an unusual expenditure of energy, but with no effect. "It seems very interesting," said the latter. "I had no idea he wrote so well. It seems to be quite different from Télémaque--more amusing in every way." Then the Marchesa did what she had not done in many years. She asserted her parental authority. Very lazily she put her feet to the ground, laid her fan, her handkerchief and her cigarette case together, and rose to her feet. Coming round the table she took the forbidden book out of Beatrice's hands, shut it up and put it back in its place. Beatrice made no opposition, but raised her broad eyebrows wearily and folded her hands in her lap. "Of course, if you insist, I have nothing to say," she remarked, "any more than I have anything to do since you will not let me read." The Marchesa went back to her lounge and carefully arranged her belongings and settled herself comfortably before she spoke. "I think you are a little out of temper, Beatrice dear, or perhaps you are hungry, my child. You so often are. San Miniato, what time is it?" "A quarter before twelve," answered the Count. "Of course you will breakfast with us. Ring the bell, dearest friend. We will not wait any longer." San Miniato rose and touched the button. "You are as hospitable as you are good," he said. "But if you will forgive me, I will not accept your invitation to-day. An old friend of mine is at the other hotel for a few hours and I have promised to breakfast with him. Will you excuse me?" Beatrice made an almost imperceptible gesture of indifference with her hand. "Who is your friend?" she asked. "A Piedmontese," answered San Miniato indifferently. "You do not know him." "We are very sorry to lose you, especially to-day, San Miniato carissimo," said the Marchesa. "But if it cannot be helped--well, good-bye." So San Miniato went out and left the mother and daughter together again as he had found them. It is needless to say that the Piedmontese friend was a fiction, and that San Miniato had no engagement of that kind. He had hastily resolved to keep one of a different nature because he guessed that in Beatrice's present temper he would make matters more difficult by staying. And in this he was right, for Beatrice had made up her mind to be thoroughly disagreeable and she possessed the elements of success requisite for that purpose--a sharp tongue, a quick instinct and great presence of mind. San Miniato descended the stairs and strolled out into the orange garden, looking at his watch as he left the door of the hotel. It was very hot, but further away from the house the sea breeze was blowing through the trees. He was still smoking the cigarette he had lighted upstairs, and he sat down on a bench in the shade, took out a pocket book and began to make notes. From time to time he looked along the path in the direction of the hotel, which was hidden from view by the shrubbery. Then the clock struck twelve and a few minutes later the church bells began to ring, as they do half a dozen times a day in Italy on small provocation. Still San Miniato went on with his calculations. Before many minutes more had passed, a trim young figure appeared in the path--a young girl, with pink cheeks and bright dark eyes, no other than Teresina, the Marchesa's maid. She carried some sewing in her hand and looked nervously behind her and to the right and left as she walked. But there was no one in the garden at that hour. The guests of the hotel were all at breakfast, and the servants were either asleep or at work indoors. The porter was at his dinner and the sailors were presumably eating their midday bread and cheese down by the boats, or dining at their homes if they lived near by. The breeze blew pleasantly through the trees, making the broad polished leaves rustle and the little green oranges rock on the boughs. As soon as San Miniato caught sight of Teresina he put his note-book into his pocket and rose to his feet. His face betrayed neither pleasure nor surprise as he sauntered along the path, until he was close to her. Then both stopped, and he smiled, bending down and looking into her eyes. "For charity's sake, Signor Conte!" cried the girl, drawing back, blushing and looking behind her quickly. "I ought never to have come here. Why did you make me come?" "What an idea, Teresina!" laughed San Miniato softly. "And if you ask me why I wanted you to come, here is the reason. Now tell me, Teresinella, is it a good reason or not?" Thereupon San Miniato produced from his waistcoat pocket a little limp parcel wrapped in white tissue paper and laid it in Teresina's hand. It was heavy, and she guessed that it contained something of gold. "What is it?" she asked quickly. "Am I to give it to the Signorina?" "To the Signorina!" San Miniato laughed softly again and laid his hand very gently on the girl's arm. "Yes," he whispered, bending down to her. "To the Signorina Teresinella, who can have all she asks for if she will only care a little for me." "Heavens, Signor Conte!" cried Teresina. "Was it to say this that you made me come?" "This and a great deal more, Teresina bella. Open your little parcel while I tell you the rest. Who made you so pretty, carissima? Nature knew what she was doing when she made those eyes of yours and those bright cheeks, and those little hands and this small waist--per Dio--if some one I know were as pretty as Teresinella, all Naples would be at her feet!" He slipped his arm round her, there in the shade. Still she held the package unopened in her hand. She grew a little pale, as he touched her, and shrank away as though to avoid him, but evidently uncertain and deeply disturbed. The poor girl's good and evil angels were busy deciding her fate for her at that moment. "Open your little gift and see whether you like the reason I give you for coming here," said San Miniato, who was pleased with the turn of the phrase and thought it as well to repeat it. "Open it, Teresinella, bella, bella--the first of as many as you like--and come and sit beside me on the bench there and let me talk a little. I have so much to say to you, all pretty things which you will like, and the hour is short, you know." Poor girl! He was a fine gentleman with a very great name, as Teresina knew, and he was young still and handsome, and had winning ways, and she loved gold and pretty speeches dearly. She looked down, still shrinking away from him, till she stood with her back to a tree. Her fresh young face was almost white now and her eyelids trembled from time to time, while her lips moved though she was not conscious of what she wanted to say. "Ah, Teresina!" he exclaimed, with a nicely adjusted cadence of passion in the tone. "What are you waiting for, my little angel? It is time to love when one is young and the world is green, and your eyes are bright, carina! When the heart beats and the blood is warm! And you are made for love--that mouth of yours--like the red carnations--one kiss Teresinella--that is all I ask--one kiss and no more,--here in the shade while no one is looking--one kiss, carina mia--there is no sin in kissing--" And he tried to draw her to him. But either Teresina was naturally a very good girl, or her good angel had demolished his evil adversary in the encounter which had taken place. There is an odd sort of fierce loyalty very often to be found at the root of the Sicilian character. She looked up suddenly and her eyes met his. She held out the little package still unopened. "You have made a mistake, Signor Conte," she said, quietly enough. "I am an honest girl, and though you are a great signore I will tell you that if you had any honour you would not be making love to me out here in the garden while you are paying court to the Signorina when you are in the house, and doing your best to marry her. It is infamous enough, what you are doing, and I am not afraid to tell you so. And take back your gold, for I do not want it, and it is not clean! And so good-day, Signor Conte, and many thanks. When you asked me to come here, I thought you had some private message for the Signorina." During Teresina's speech San Miniato had not betrayed the slightest surprise or disappointment. He quietly lighted a cigarette and smiled good-humouredly all the time. "My dear Teresina," he said, when she had finished, "what in the world do you think I wanted of you? Not only am I paying court to your signorina, as you say, but I am already betrothed to her, since last night. You did not know that?" "The greater the shame!" exclaimed the girl, growing angry. "Not at all, my dear child. On the contrary, it explains everything in the most natural way. Is it not really natural that on the occasion of my betrothal I should wish to give you a little remembrance, because you have always been so obliging, and have been with the Marchesa since you were a child? I could not do anything else, I am sure, and I beg you to keep it and wear it. And as for my telling you that you are pretty and young and fresh, I do not see why you need be so mortally offended at that. However, Teresina, I am sorry if you misunderstood me. You will keep the little chain?" "No, Signor Conte. Take it. And I do not believe a word you say." She held out the parcel to him, but he, still smiling, shook his head and would not take it. Then she let it drop at his feet, and turned quickly and left him. He watched her a moment, and his annoyance at his discomfiture showed itself plainly enough, so soon as she was not there to see it. Then he shrugged his shoulders, stooped and picked up the package, restored it to his waistcoat pocket and went back to his bench. "It is a pity," he muttered, as he took out his note-book again. "It would have been such good practice!" An hour later Bastianello was sitting alone in the boat, under the awning, enjoying the cool breeze and wishing that the ladies would go for a sail while it lasted, instead of waiting until late in the afternoon as they generally did, at which time there was usually not a breath of air on the water. He was smoking a clay pipe with a cane stem, and he was thinking vaguely of Teresina, wondering whether Ruggiero would never speak to her, and if he never did, whether he, Bastianello, might not at last have his turn. A number of small boys were bathing in the bright sunshine, diving off the stones of the breakwater and running along the short pier, brown urchins with lithe thin limbs, matted black hair and beady eyes. Suddenly Bastianello was aware of a small dark face and two little hands holding upon the gunwale of his boat. He knew the boy very well, for he was the son of the Son of the Fool. "Let go, Nennè!" he said; "do you take us for a bathing house?" "You have a beautiful pair of padroni, you and your brother," observed Nennè, making a hideous face over the boat's side. Bastianello did not move, but stretched out his long arm to take up the boat-hook, which lay within his reach. "If you had seen what I saw in the garden up there just now," continued the small boy. "Madonna mia, what a business!" "Eh, you rascal? what did you see?" asked the sailor, turning the boat-hook round and holding it so that he could rap the boy's knuckles with the butt end of it. "There was the Count, who is Ruggiero's padrone, trying to kiss your signora's maid, and offering her the gold, and she--yah!" Another hideous grimace, apparently of delight, interrupted the narrative. "What did she do?" asked Bastianello quietly. But he grew a shade paler. "Eh? you want to know now, do you? What will you give me?" inquired the urchin. "Half a cigar," said Bastianello, who knew the boy's vicious tastes, and forthwith produced the bribe from his cap, holding it up for the other to see. "What did she do? She threw down the gold and called him an infamous liar to his face. A nice padrone Ruggiero has, who is called a liar and an infamous one by serving maids. Well, give me the cigar." "Take it," said the sailor, rising and reaching out. The urchin stuck it between his teeth, nodded his thanks, lowered himself gently into the water so as not to wet it, and swam cautiously to the breakwater, holding his head in the air. Bastianello sat down again and continued to smoke his pipe. There was a happy look in his bright blue eyes which had not been there before.	{ "id": "15187" }
10	None	Bastianello sat still in his boat, but he no longer looked to seaward, facing the breeze. He kept an eye on the pier, looking out for his brother, who had not appeared since the midday meal. The piece of information he had just received was worth communicating, for it raised Teresina very much in the eyes of Bastianello, and he did not doubt that it would influence Ruggiero in the right direction. Bastianello, too, was keen enough to see that anything which gave him an opportunity of discussing the girl with his brother might be of advantage, in that it might bring Ruggiero to the open expression of a settled purpose--either to marry the girl or not. And if he once gave his word that he would not, Bastianello would be no longer bound to suffer in silence as he had suffered so many weeks. The younger of the brothers was less passionate, less nervous and less easily moved in every way than the elder, but he possessed much of the same general character and all of the same fundamental good qualities--strength, courage and fidelity. In his quiet way he was deeply and sincerely in love with Teresina, and meant, if possible and if Ruggiero did not take her, to make her his wife. At last Ruggiero's tall figure appeared at the corner of the building occupied by the coastguard station, and Bastianello immediately whistled to him, giving a signal which had served the brothers since they were children. Ruggiero started, turned his head and at once jumped into the first boat he could lay hands on and pulled out alongside of his brother. "What is it?" he asked, letting his oars swing astern and laying hold on the gunwale of the sail boat. "About Teresina," answered Bastianello, taking his pipe from his mouth and leaning towards his brother. "The son of the Son of the Fool was swimming about here just now, and he hauled himself half aboard of me and made faces. So I took the boat-hook to hit his fingers. And just then he said to me, 'You have a beautiful pair of masters you and your brother.' 'Why?' I asked, and I held the boat-hook ready. But I would not have hurt the boy, because he is one of ours. So he told me that he had just seen the Count up there in the garden of the hotel, trying to kiss Teresina and offering her the gold, and I gave him half a cigar to tell me the rest, because he would not, and made faces." "May he die murdered!" exclaimed Ruggiero in a low voice, his face as white as canvas. "Wait a little, she is a good girl," answered Bastianello. "Teresina threw the gold upon the ground and told the Count that he was an infamous one and a liar. And then she went away. And I think the boy was speaking the truth, because if it were a lie he would have spoken in another way. For it was as easy to say that the Count kissed her as to say that she would not let him, and he would have had the tobacco all the same." "May he die of a stroke!" muttered Ruggiero. "But if I were in your place," said his brother calmly, "I would not do anything to your padrone, because the girl is a good girl and gave him the good answer, and as for him--" Bastianello shrugged his shoulders. "May the sharks get his body and the devil get his soul!" "That will be as it shall be," answered Bastianello. "And it is sure that if God wills, the grampuses will eat him. But we do not know the end. What I would say is this, that it is time you should speak to the girl, because I see how white you get when we talk of her, and you are consuming yourself and will have an illness, and though I could work for both you and me, four arms are better than two, in summer as in winter. Therefore I say, go and speak to her, for she will have you and she will be better with you than near that apoplexy of a San Miniato." Ruggiero did not answer at once, but pulled out his pipe and filled it and began to smoke. "Why should I speak?" he asked at last. There was a struggle in his mind, for he did not wish to tell Bastianello outright that he did not really care for Teresina. If he betrayed this fact it would be hard hereafter to account for his own state, which was too apparent to be concealed, especially from his brother, and he had no idea that the latter loved the girl. "Why should you speak?" asked Bastianello, repeating the words, and stirring the ashes in his pipe with the point of his knife. "Because if you do not speak you will never get anything." "It will be the same if I do," observed Ruggiero stolidly. "I believe that very little," returned the other. "And I will tell you something. If I were to speak to Teresina for you and say, 'Here is my brother Ruggiero, who is not a great signore, but is well grown and has two arms which are good, and a matter of seven or eight hundred francs in the bank, and who is very fond of you, but he does not know how to say it. Think well if you will have him,' I would say, 'and if you will not, give me an honest answer and God bless you and let it be the end.' That is how I would speak, and she would think about it for a week or perhaps two, and then she would say to me, 'Bastianello, tell your brother that I will have him.' Or else she would say, 'Bastianello, tell your brother that I thank him, but that I have no heart in it.' That is what she would say." "It may be," said Ruggiero carelessly. "But of course she would thank, and say 'Who is this Ruggiero?' and besides, the world is full of women." Bastianello was about to ask the interpretation of this rather enigmatical speech when there was a stir on the pier and two or three boats put out, the men standing in them and sculling them stern foremost. "Who is it?" asked Bastianello of the boatman who passed nearest to him. "The Giovannina," answered the man. She had returned from her last voyage to Calabria, having taken macaroni from Amalfi and bringing back wine of Verbicaro. A fine boat, the Giovannina, able to carry twenty tons in any weather, and water-tight too, being decked with hatches over which you can stretch and batten down tarpaulin. A pretty sight as she ran up to the end of the breakwater, old Luigione standing at the stern with the tiller between his knees and the slack of the main-sheet in his hand. She was running wing and wing, with her bright new sails spreading far over the water on each side. Then came a rattle and a sharp creak as the main-yard swung over and came down on deck, the men taking in the bellying canvas with wide open arms and old Luigione catching the end of the yard on his shoulder while he steered with his knees, his great gaunt profile black against the bright sky. Down foresail, and the good felucca forges ahead and rounds the little breakwater. Let go the anchor and she is at rest after her long voyage. For the season has not been good and she has been hauled on a dozen beaches before she could sell her cargo. The men are all as brown as mahogany, and as lean as wolves, for it has been a voyage with share and share alike for all the crew and they have starved themselves to bring home more money to their wives. Then there is some bustle and confusion, as Luigione brings the papers ashore and friends crowd around the felucca in boats, asking for news and all talking at once. "We have been in your town, Ruggiero," said one of the men, looking down into the little boat. "I hope you gave a message from me to Don Pietro Casale," answered Ruggiero. "Health to us, Don Pietro is dead," said the man, "and his wife is not likely to live long either." "Dead, eh?" cried Bastianello. "He is gone to show the saints the nose we gave him when we were boys." "We can go back to Verbicaro when we please," observed Ruggiero with a smile. "Lend a hand on board, will you?" said the sailor. So Ruggiero made the boat fast with the painter and both brothers scrambled over the side of the felucca. They did not renew their conversation concerning Teresina, and an hour or two later they went up to the hotel to be in readiness for their masters, should the latter wish to go out. Ruggiero sat down on a bench in the garden, but Bastianello went into the house. In the corridor outside the Marchesa's rooms he met Teresina, who stopped and spoke to him as she always did when she met him, for though she admired both the brothers, she liked Bastianello better than she knew--perhaps because he talked more and seemed to have a gentler temper. "Good-day, Bastianello," she said, with a bright smile. "And good-day to you, Teresina," answered Bastianello. "Can you tell me whether the padroni will go out to-day in the boat?" "I think they will not," answered the girl. "But I will ask. But I think they will not, because there is the devil in the house to-day, and the Signorina looks as though she would eat us all, and that is a bad sign." "What has happened?" asked Bastianello. "You can tell me, because I will tell nobody." "The truth is this," answered Teresina, lowering her voice. "They have betrothed her to the Count, and she does not like it. But if you say anything--." She laughed a little and shook her finger at him. Bastianello threw his head back to signify that he would not repeat what he had heard. Then he gazed into Teresina's eyes for a moment. "The Count is worse than an animal," he said quietly. "If you knew how true that is!" exclaimed Teresina, blushing deeply and turning away. "I will ask the Marchesa if she will go out," she added, as she walked quickly away. Bastianello waited and in a few moments she came back. "Not to-day," she said. "So much the better. I want to say something to you, Teresina. Will you listen to me? Can I say it here?" Bastianello felt unaccountably nervous, and when he had spoken he regretted it. "I hope it is good news," answered the girl. "Come to the window at the end of the corridor. We shall be further from the door there, and there is more air. Now what is it?" she asked as they reached the place she had chosen. "It is this, Teresina," said Bastianello, summoning all his courage for what was the most difficult undertaking of his life. "You know my brother Ruggiero." "Eh! I should think so! I see him every day." "Good. He also sees you every day, and he sees how beautiful you are, and now he knows how good you are, because the little boy of the Son of the Fool saw you with that apoplexy of a Count in the garden to-day, and heard what you said, and came and told me, and I told Ruggiero because I knew how glad he would be." "Dio mio!" cried Teresina. She had blushed scarlet while he was speaking, and she covered her face with both hands. "You need not hide your face, Teresina," said Bastianello, with a little emotion. "You can show it to every one after what you have done. And so I will go on, and you must listen. Ruggiero is not a great signore like the Count of San Miniato, but he is a man. And he has two arms which are good, and two fists as hard as an ox's hoofs, and he can break horse-shoes with his hands." "Can you do that?" asked Teresina with an admiring look. "Since you ask me--yes, I can. But Ruggiero did it before I could, and showed me how, and no one else here can do it at all. And moreover Ruggiero is a quiet man and does not drink nor play at the lotto, and there is no harm in a game of beggar-my-neighbour for a pipe of tobacco, on a long voyage when there is no work to be done, and--" "Yes, I know," said Teresina, interrupting him. "You are very much alike, you too. But what has this about Ruggiero to do with me, that you tell me it all?" "Who goes slowly, goes safely, and who goes safely goes far," answered Bastianello. "Listen to me. Ruggiero has also seven hundred and sixty-three francs in the bank, and will soon have more, because he saves his money carefully, though he is not stingy. And Ruggiero, if you will have him, will work for you, and I will also work for you, and you shall have a good house, and plenty to eat and good clothes besides the gold--" "But Bastianello mio!" cried Teresina, who had suspected what was coming, "I do not want to marry Ruggiero at all." She clasped her hands and gazed into the sailor's eyes with a pretty look of confusion and regret. "You do not want to marry Ruggiero!" Bastianello's expression certainly betrayed more surprise than disappointment. But he had honestly pleaded his brother's cause. "Then you do not love him," he said, as though unable to recover from his astonishment. "But no--I do not love him at all, though he is so handsome and good." "Madonna mia!" exclaimed Bastianello, turning sharply round and moving away a step or two. He was in great perturbation of spirit, for he loved the girl dearly, and he began to fear that he had not done his best for Ruggiero. "But you did love him a few days ago," he said, coming back to Teresina's side. "Indeed, I never did!" she said. "Nor any one else?" asked Bastianello suddenly. "Eh! I did not say that," answered the girl, blushing a little and looking down. "Well do not tell me his name, because I should tell Ruggiero, and Ruggiero might do him an injury. It is better not to tell me." Teresina laughed a little. "I shall certainly not tell you who he is," she said. "You can find that out for yourself, if you take the trouble." "It is better not. Either Ruggiero or I might hurt him, and then there would be trouble." "You, too?" "Yes, I too." Bastianello spoke the words rather roughly and looked fixedly into Teresina's eyes. Since she did not love Ruggiero, why should he not speak? Yet he felt as though he were not quite loyal to his brother. Teresina's cheeks grew red and then a little pale. She twisted the cord of the Venetian blind round and round her hand, looking down at it all the time. Bastianello stood motionless before her, staring at her thick black hair. "Well?" asked Teresina looking up and meeting his eyes and then lowering her own quickly again. "What, Teresina?" asked Bastianello in a changed voice. "You say you also might do that man an injury whom I love. I suppose that is because you are so fond of your brother. Is it so?" "Yes--and also--" "Bastianello, do you love me too?" she asked in a very low tone, blushing more deeply than before. "Yes. I do. God knows it. I would not have said it, though. Ah, Teresina, you have made a traitor of me! I have betrayed my brother--and for what?" "For me, Bastianello. But you have not betrayed him." "Since you do not love him--" began the sailor in a tone of doubt. "Not him, but another." "And that other--" "It is perhaps you, Bastianello," said Teresina, growing rather pale again. "Me!" He could only utter the one word just then. "Yes, you." "My love!" Bastianello's arm went gently round her, and he whispered the words in her ear. She let him hold her so without resistance, and looked up into his face with happy eyes. "Yes, your love--did you never guess it, dearest?" She was blushing still, and smiling at the same time, and her voice sounded sweet to Bastianello. Only a sailor and a serving-maid, but both honest and both really loving. There was not much eloquence about the courtship, as there had been about San Miniato's, and there was not the fierce passion in Bastianello's breast that was eating up his brother's heart. Yet Beatrice, at least, would have changed places with Teresina if she could, and San Miniato could have held his head higher if there had ever been as much honesty in him as there was in Bastianello's every thought and action. For Bastianello was very loyal, though he thought badly enough of his own doings, and when Beatrice called Teresina away a few minutes later, he marched down the corridor with resolute steps, meaning not to lose a moment in telling Ruggiero the whole truth, how he had honestly said the best things he could for him and had asked Teresina to marry him, and how he, Bastianello, had been betrayed into declaring his love, and had found, to his amazement, that he was loved in return. Ruggiero was sitting alone on one of the stone pillars on the little pier, gazing at the sea, or rather, at a vessel far away towards Ischia, running down the bay with every stitch of canvas set from her jibs to her royals. He looked round as Bastianello came up to him. "Ruggiero," said the latter in a quiet tone. "If you want to kill me, you may, for I have betrayed you." Ruggiero stared at him, to see whether he were in earnest or joking. "Betrayed me? I do not understand what you say. How could you betray me?" "As you shall know. Now listen. We were talking about Teresina to-day, you and I. Then I said to myself, 'I love Teresina and Ruggiero loves her, but Ruggiero is first. I will go to Teresina and ask her if she will marry him, and if she will, it is well. But if she will not, I will ask Ruggiero if I may court her for myself.' And so I did. And she will tell you the truth, and I spoke well for you. But she said she never loved you. And then, I do not know how it was, but we found out that we loved each other and we said so. And that is the truth. So you had better get a pig of iron from the ballast and knock me on the head, for I have betrayed my brother and I do not want to live any more, and I shall say nothing." Then Ruggiero who had not laughed much for some time, felt that his mouth was twitching raider his yellow beard, and presently his great shoulders began to move, and his chest heaved, and his handsome head went back, and at last it came out, a mighty peal of Homeric laughter that echoed and rolled down the pier and rang clear and full, up to the Marchesa's terrace. And it chanced that Beatrice was there, and she looked down and saw that it was Ruggiero. Then she sighed and drew back. But Bastianello did not understand, and when the laugh subsided at last, he said so. "I laughed--yes. I could not help it. But you are a good brother, and very honest, and when you want to marry Teresina, you may have my savings, and I do not care to be paid back." "But I do not understand," repeated Bastianello, in the greatest bewilderment. "You loved her so--" "Teresina? No. I never loved Teresina, but I never knew you did, or I would not have let you believe it. It is much more I who have cheated you, Bastianello, and when you and Teresina are married I will give you half my earnings, just as I now put them in the bank." "God be blessed!" exclaimed Bastianello, touching his cap, and staring at the same vessel that had attracted Ruggiero's attention. "She carries royal studding-sails," observed Ruggiero. "You do not often see that in our part of the world." "That is true," said Bastianello. "But I was not thinking of her, when I looked. And I thank you for what you say, Ruggiero, and with my heart. And that is enough, because it seems that we know each other." "We have been in the same crew once or twice," said Ruggiero. "It seems to me that we have," answered his brother. Neither of the two smiled, for they meant a good deal by the simple jest. "Tell me, Ruggiero," said Bastianello after a pause, "since you never loved Teresina, who is it?" "No, Bastianello. That is what I cannot tell any one, not even you." "Then I will not ask. But I think I know, now." Going over the events of the past weeks in his mind, it had suddenly flashed upon Bastianello that his brother loved Beatrice. Then everything explained itself in an instant. Ruggiero was such a gentleman--in Bastianello's eyes, of course--it was like him to break his heart for a real lady. "Perhaps you do know," answered Ruggiero gravely, "but if you do, then do not tell me. It is a business better not spoken of. But what one thinks, one thinks. And that is enough." A crowd of brown-skinned boys were in the water swimming and playing, as they do all day long in summer, and dashing spray at each other. They had a shabby-looking old skiff with which they amused themselves, upsetting and righting it again in the shallow water by the beach beyond the bathing houses. "What a boat!" laughed Bastianello. "A baby can upset her and it takes a dozen boys to right her again!" "Whose is she?" enquired Ruggiero idly, as he filled his pipe. "She? She belonged to Black Rag's brother, the one who was drowned last Christmas Eve, when the Leone was cut in two by the steamer in the Mouth of Procida. I suppose she belongs to Black Rag himself now. She is a crazy old craft, but if he were clever he could patch her up and paint her and take foreigners to the Cape in her on fine days." "That is true. Tell him so. There he is. Ohè! Black Rag!" Black Rag came down the pier to the two brothers, a middle-aged, bow-legged, leathery fellow with a ragged grey beard and a weather-beaten face. "What do you want?" he asked, stopping before them with his hands in his pockets. "Bastianello says that old tub there is yours, and that if you had a better head than you have you could caulk her and paint her white with a red stripe and take foreigners to the Bath of Queen Giovanna in her on fine days. Why do you not try it? Those boys are making her die an evil death." "Bastianello always has such thoughts!" laughed the sailor. "Why does he not buy her of me and paint her himself? The paint would hold her together another six months, I daresay." "Give her to me," said Ruggiero. "I will give you half of what I earn with her." Black Rag looked at him and laughed, not believing that he was in earnest. But Ruggiero slowly nodded his head as though to conclude a bargain. "I will sell her to you," said the sailor at last. "She belonged to that blessed soul, my brother, who was drowned--health to us--to-day is Saturday--and I never earned anything with her since she was mine. I will sell her cheap." "How much? I will give you thirty francs for her." Bastianello stared at his brother, but he made no remark while the bargain was being made, nor even when Ruggiero finally closed for fifty francs, paid the money down and proceeded to take possession of the old tub at once, to the infinite and forcibly expressed regret of the lads who had been playing with her. Then the two brothers hauled her up upon the sloping cement slip between the pier and the bathing houses, and turned her over. The boys swam away, and Black Rag departed with his money. "What have you bought her for, Ruggiero?" asked Bastianello. "She has copper nails," observed the other examining the bottom carefully. "She is worth fifty francs. Your thought was good. To-morrow she will be dry and we will caulk the seams, and the next day we will paint her and then we can take foreigners to the Cape in her if we have a chance and the signori do not go out. Lend a hand, Bastianello; we must haul her up behind the boats." Bastianello said nothing and the two strong men almost carried the old tub to a convenient place for working at her. "Do you want to do anything more to her to-night?" asked Bastianello. "No." "Then I will go up." "Very well." Ruggiero smiled as he spoke, for he knew that Bastianello was going to try and get another glimpse of Teresina. The ladies would probably go to drive and Teresina would be free until they came back. He sat down on a boat near the one he had just bought, and surveyed his purchase. He seemed on the whole well satisfied. It was certainly good enough for the foreigners who liked to be pulled up to the cape on summer evenings. She was rather easily upset, as Ruggiero had noticed, but a couple of bags of pebbles in the right place would keep her steady enough, and she had room for three or four people in the stern sheets and for two men to pull. Not bad for fifty francs, thought Ruggiero. And San Miniato had asked about going after crabs by torchlight. This would be the very boat for the purpose, for getting about in and out of the rocks on which the crabs swarm at night. Black Rag might have earned money with her. But Black Rag was rather a worthless fellow, who drank too much wine, played too much at the public lottery and wasted his substance on trifles. Ruggiero's purchase was much discussed that evening and all the next day by the sailors of the Piccola Marina. Some agreed that he had done well, and some said that he had made a mistake, but Ruggiero said nothing and paid no attention to the gossips. On the next day and the day after that he was at work before dawn with Bastianello, and Black Rag was very much surprised at the trim appearance of his old boat when the brothers at last put her into the water and pulled themselves round the little harbour to see whether the seams were all tight. But he pretended to put a good face on the matter, and explained that there were more rotten planks in her than any one knew of and that only the nails below the water line were copper after all, and he predicted a short life for Number Fifty Seven, when Ruggiero renewed the old licence in the little harbour office. Ruggiero, however, cared for none of these things, but ballasted the tub properly with bags of pebbles and demonstrated to the crowd that she was no longer easy to upset, inviting any one who pleased to stand on the gunwale and try. "But the ballast makes her heavy to pull," objected Black Rag, as he looked on. "If you had arms like the Children of the King," retorted the Cripple, "you would not trouble yourself about a couple of hundredweight more or less. But you have not. So you had better go and play three numbers at the lottery, the day of the month, the number of the boat and any other one that you like. In that way you may still make a little money if you have luck. For you have made a bad bargain with the Children of the King, and you know it." Black Rag was much struck by the idea and promptly went up to the town to invest his spare cash in the three numbers, taking his own age for the third. As luck would have it the two first numbers actually turned up and he won thirty francs that week, which, as he justly observed, brought the price of the boat up to eighty. For if he had not sold her he would never have played the numbers at all, and no one pretended that she was worth more than eighty francs, if as much. Then, one morning, San Miniato found Ruggiero waiting outside his door when he came out. The sailor grew leaner and more silent every day, but San Miniato seemed to grow stouter and more talkative. "If you would like to go after crabs this evening, Excellency," said the former, "the weather is good and they are swarming on the rocks everywhere." "What does one do with them?" asked San Miniato. "Are they good to eat?" "One knows that, Excellency. We put them into a kettle with milk, and they drink all the milk in the night and the next day they are good to cook." "Can we take the ladies, Ruggiero?" "In the sail boat, Excellency, and then, if you like, you and the Signorina can go with me in the little one with my brother, and I will pull while Bastianello and your Excellency take the crabs." "Very well. Then get a small boat ready for to-night, Ruggiero." "I have one of my own, Excellency." "So much the better. If the ladies will not go, you and I can go alone." "Yes, Excellency." San Miniato wondered why Ruggiero was so pale.	{ "id": "15187" }
11	None	Again the mother and daughter were together in the cool shade of their terrace. Outside, it was very hot, for the morning breeze did not yet stir the brown linen curtains which kept out the glare of the sea, and myriads of locusts were fiddling their eternal two notes without pause or change of pitch, in every garden from Massa to Scutari point, which latter is the great bluff from which they quarry limestone for road making, and which shuts off the amphitheatre of Sorrento from the view of Castellamare to eastward. The air was dry, hot and full of life and sound, as it is in the far south in summer. "And when do you propose to marry me?" asked Beatrice in a discontented tone. "Dearest child," answered her mother, "you speak as though I were marrying you by force to a man whom you detest." "That is exactly what you are doing." The Marchesa raised her eyebrows, fanned herself lazily and smiled. "Are we to begin the old argument every morning, my dear?" she asked. "It always ends in the same way, and you always say the same dreadful things to me. I really cannot bear it much longer. You know very well that you bound yourself, and that you were quite free to tell San Miniato that you did not care for him. A girl should know her own mind before she tells a man she loves him--just as a man should before he speaks." "San Miniato certainly knows his own mind," retorted Beatrice viciously. "No one can accuse him of not being ready and anxious to marry me--and my fortune." "How you talk, my angel! Of course if you had no fortune, or much less than you have, he could not think of marrying you. That is clear. I never pretended the contrary. But that does not contradict the fact that he loves you to distraction, if that is what you want." "To distraction!" repeated Beatrice with scorn. "Why not, dearest child? Do you think a man cannot love because he is poor?" "That is not the question, mamma!" cried Beatrice impatiently. "You know it is not. But no woman can be deceived twice by the same comedy, and few would be deceived once. You know as well as I that it was all a play the other night, that he was trying to find words, as he was trying to find sentiments, and that when the words would not be found he thought it would be efficacious to seize my hand and kiss it. I daresay he thought I believed him--of course he did. But not for long--oh! not for long. Real love finds even fewer words, but it finds them better, and the ring of them is truer, and one remembers them longer!" "Beatrice!" exclaimed the Marchesa. "What can you know of such things! You talk as though some man had dared to speak to you--" "Do I?" asked the girl with sudden coldness, and a strange look came into her eyes, which her mother did not see. "Yes, you do. And yet I know that it is impossible. Besides the whole discussion is useless and wears me out, though it seems to interest you. Of course you will marry San Miniato. When you have got past this absurd humour you will see what a good husband you have got, and you will be very happy." "Happy! With that man!" Beatrice's lip curled. "You will," answered her mother, taking no notice. "Happiness depends upon two things in this world, when marriage is concerned. Money and a good disposition. You have both, between you, and you will be happy." "I never heard anything more despicable!" cried the young girl. "Money and disposition! And what becomes of the heart?" The Marchesa smiled and fanned herself. "Young girls without experience cannot understand these things," she said. "Wait till you are older." "And lose what looks I have and the power to enjoy anything! And you say that you are not forcing me into this marriage! And you try to think, or to make me think, that it is all for the best, and all delightful and all easy, when you are sacrificing me and my youth and my life and my happiness to the mere idea of a better position in society--because poor papa was a sulphur merchant and bought a title which was only confirmed because he spent a million on a public charity--and every one knows it--and the Count of San Miniato comes of people who have been high and mighty gentlemen for six or seven hundred years, more or less. That is your point of view, and you know it. But if I say that my father worked hard to get what he got and deserved it, and was an honest man, and that this great personage of San Miniato is a penniless gambler, who does not know to-day where he will find pocket money for to-morrow, and has got by a trick the fortune my father got by hard work--then you will not like it. Then you will throw up your hands and cry 'Beatrice!' Then you will tell me that he loves me to distraction, and you will even try to make me think that I love him. It is all a miserable sham, mamma, a vile miserable sham! Give it up. I have said that I will marry him, since it appears that I have promised. But do not try to make me think that I am marrying him of my own free will, or he marrying me out of disinterested, pure, beautiful, upright affection!" Having delivered herself of these particularly strong sentiments, Beatrice was silent for a while. As for the Marchesa, she was either too wise, or too lazy, to answer her daughter for the present and she slowly fanned herself, lying quite still in her long chair, her eyes half closed and her left hand hanging down beside her. Indeed Beatrice, instead of becoming more reconciled with the situation she had accepted, was growing more impatient and unhappy every day, as she realised all that her marriage with San Miniato would mean during the rest of her natural life. She had quite changed her mind about him, and with natures like hers such sudden changes are often irrevocable. She could not now understand how she could have ever liked him, or found pleasure in his society, and when she thought of the few words she had spoken and which had decided her fate, she could not comprehend the state of mind which had led her into such a piece of folly, and she was as angry with herself as, for the time being, she was angry with all the world besides. She saw, too, and for the first time, how lonely she was in the world, and a deep and burning longing for real love and sympathy took possession of her. She had friends, of course, as young girls have, of much her own age and not unlike her in their inexperienced ideas of life. But there was not one of them at Sorrento, nor had she met any one among the many acquaintances she had made, to whom she would care to turn. Even her own intimate associates from childhood, who were far away in Sicily, or travelling elsewhere, would not have satisfied her. They could not have understood her, their answers to her questions would have seemed foolish and worthless, and they would have tormented her with questions of their own, inopportune, importunate, tiresome. She herself did not know that what she craved was the love or the friendship of one strong, honest man. It was strange to find out suddenly how wide was the breach which separated her from her mother, with whom she had lived so happily throughout her childhood and early youth, with whom she had agreed--or rather, who had agreed with her--on the whole almost without a discussion. It was hard to find in her now so little warmth of heart, so little power to understand, above all such a display of determination and such quiet force in argument. Very indolent women are sometimes very deceptive in regard to the will they hold in reserve, but Beatrice could not have believed that her mother could influence her as she had done. She reflected that it had surely been within the limits of the Marchesa's choice to take her daughter's side so soon as she had seen that the latter had mistaken her own feelings. She need not have agreed with San Miniato, on that fatal evening at Tragara, that the marriage was definitely settled, until she had at least exchanged a word with Beatrice herself. The future looked black enough on that hot summer morning. The girl was to be tied for life to a man she despised and hated, to a man who did not even care for her, as she was now convinced, to a man with a past of which she knew little and of which the few incidents she had learned repelled her now, instead of attracting her. She fancied how he had spoken to those other women, much as he had spoken to her, perhaps a little more eloquently as, perhaps, he had not been thinking of their fortunes but of themselves, but still always in that high-comedy tone with the studied gesture and the cadenced intonation. She did not know whether they deserved her pity, those two whom he pretended to have loved, but she was ready to pity them, nameless as they were. The one was dead, the other, at least, had been wise enough to forget him in time. Then she thought of what must happen after her marriage, when he had got her fortune and could take her away to the society in which he had always lived. There, of course, he would meet women by the score with whom he was and long had been on terms of social intimacy far closer than he had reached with her in the few weeks of their acquaintance. Doubtless, he would spend such time as he could spare from gambling, in conversation with them. Doubtless, he had many thoughts and memories and associations in common with them. Doubtless, people would smile a little and pity the young countess. And Beatrice resented pity and the thought of it. She would rather pity others. Evil thoughts crossed her young brain, and she said to herself that she might perhaps be revenged upon the world for what she was suffering, for the pain that had already come into her young life, for the wretched years she anticipated in the future, for her mother's horrible logic which had forced her into the marriage, above all for San Miniato's cleverly arranged scene by which the current of her existence had been changed. San Miniato had perhaps gone too far when he had said that Beatrice was kind. She, at least, felt that there was anything but kindness in her heart now, and she desired nothing so much as to make some one suffer something of what she felt. It was wicked, doubtless, as she admitted to herself. It was bad and wrong and cruel, but it was not heartless. A woman without heart would not have felt enough to resent having felt at all, and moreover would probably be perfectly well satisfied with the situation. The expression of hardness deepened in the young girl's face as she sat there, silently thinking over all that was to come, and glancing from time to time at her mother's placid countenance. It was really amazing to see how much the Marchesa could bear when she was actually roused to a sense of the necessity for action. Her constitution must have been far stronger than any one supposed. She must indeed have been in considerable anxiety about the success of her plans, more than once during the past few days. Yet she was outwardly almost as unruffled and as lazy as ever. "Dearest child," she said at last, "of course, as I have said, I cannot argue the point with you. No one could, in your present state of mind. But there is one thing which I must say, and which I am sure you will be quite ready to understand." Beatrice said nothing, but slowly turned her head towards her mother with a look of inquiry. "I only want to say, my angel, that whatever you may think of San Miniato, and however much you may choose to let him know what you think, it may be quite possible to act with more civility than you have used during the last few days." "Is that all?" asked Beatrice with a hard laugh. "How nicely you turn your phrases when you lecture me, mamma! So you wish me to be civil. Very well, I will try." "Thank you, Beatrice carissima," answered her mother with a sigh and a gentle smile. "It will make life so much easier." Again there was a long silence, and Beatrice sat motionless in her chair, debating whether she should wait where she was until San Miniato came, as he was sure to do before long, or whether she should go to her room and write a letter to some intimate friend, which would of course never be sent, or, lastly, whether she should not take Teresina and go down to her bath in the sea before the midday breakfast. While she was still hesitating, San Miniato arrived. There was something peculiarly irritating to her in his appearance on that morning. He was arrayed in perfectly new clothes of light gray, which fitted him admirably. He wore shoes of untanned leather which seemed to be perfectly new also, and reflected the light as though they were waxed. His stiff collar was like porcelain, the single pearl he wore in his white scarf was so perfect that it might have been false. His light hair and moustache were very smoothly brushed and combed and his face was exasperatingly sleek. There was a look of conscious security about him, of overwhelming correctness and good taste, of pride in himself and in his success, which Beatrice felt to be almost more than she could bear with equanimity. He bent gracefully over the Marchesa's hand and bowed low to the young girl, not supposing that hers would be offered to him. In this he was mistaken, however, for she gave him the ends of her fingers. "Good morning," she said gently. The Marchesa looked at her, for she had not expected that she would speak first and certainly not in so gentle a tone. San Miniato inquired how the two ladies had slept. "Admirably," said Beatrice. "Ah--as for me, dearest friend," said the Marchesa, "you know what a nervous creature I am. I never sleep." "You look as though you had rested wonderfully well," observed Beatrice to San Miniato. "Half a century, at least!" "Do I?" asked the Count, delighted by her manner and quite without suspicion. "Yes. You look twenty years younger." "About ten years old?" suggested San Miniato with a smile. "Oh no! I did not mean that. You look about twenty, I should say." "I am charmed," he answered, without wincing. "It may be only those beautiful new clothes you have on," said Beatrice with a sweet smile. "Clothes make so much difference with a man." San Miniato did not show any annoyance, but he made no direct answer and turned to the Marchesa. "Marchesa gentilissima," he said, "you liked my last excursion, or were good enough to say that you liked it. Would you be horrified if I proposed another for this evening--but not so far, this time?" "Absolutely horrified," answered the Marchesa. "But I suppose that if you have made up your mind you will bring those dreadful men with their chair, like two gendarmes, and they will take me away, whether I like it or not. Is that what you mean to do?" "Of course, dearest Marchesa," he replied. "Donna Beatrice has taught me that there is no other way of accomplishing the feat. And certainly no other way could give you so little trouble." "What is the excursion to be, and where?" asked Beatrice pretending a sudden interest. "Crab-hunting along the shore, with torches. It is extremely amusing, I am told." "After horrid red things that run sidewise and are full of legs!" The Marchesa was disgusted. "They are green when they run about, mamma," observed Beatrice. "I believe it is the cooking that makes them red. It will be delightful," she added, turning to San Miniato. "Does one walk?" "Walk!" exclaimed the Marchesa, a new horror rising before her mental vision. "We go in boats," said San Miniato. "In the sail boat first and then in a little one to find the crabs. I suppose, Marchesa carissima, that Donna Beatrice may come with me in the skiff, under your eye, if she is accompanied by your maid?" "Of course, my dear San Miniato! Do you expect me to get into your little boat and hunt for reptiles? Or do you expect that Beatrice will renounce the amusement of getting wet and covered with seaweed and thoroughly unpresentable?" "And you, Donna Beatrice? Do you still wish to come?" "Yes. I just said so." "But that was at least a minute ago," answered San Miniato. "Ah--you think me very changeable? You are mistaken. I will go with you to find crabs to-night. Is that categorical? Must you consult my mother to know what I mean?" "It will not be necessary this time," replied the Count, quite unmoved. "I think we understand each other." "I think so," said Beatrice with a hard smile. The Marchesa was not much pleased by the tone the conversation was taking. But if Beatrice said disagreeable things, she said them in a pleasant voice and with a moderately civil expression of face, which constituted a concession, after all, considering how she had behaved ever since the night at Tragara, scarcely vouchsafing San Miniato a glance, answering him by monosyllables and hardly ever addressing him at all. "My dear children," said the elder lady, affecting a tone she had not assumed before, "I really hope that you mean to understand each other, and will." "Oh yes, mamma!" assented Beatrice with alacrity. "With you to help us I am sure we shall come to a very remarkable understanding--very remarkable indeed!" "With originality on your side, and constancy on mine, we may accomplish much," said San Miniato, very blandly. Beatrice laughed again. "Translate originality as original sin and constancy as the art of acting constantly!" she retorted. "Why?" enquired San Miniato without losing his temper. He thought the question would be hard to answer. "Why not?" asked Beatrice. "You will not deny me a little grain of original sin, will you? It will make our life so much more varied and amusing, and when I say that you act constantly--I only mean what you said of yourself, that you are constant in your actions." "You so rarely spare me a compliment, Donna Beatrice, that you must forgive me for not having understood that one sooner. Accept my best thanks--" "And agree to the expression of my most distinguished sentiments, as the French say at the end of a letter," said Beatrice, rising. "And now that I have complimented everybody, and been civil, and pleased everybody, and have been thanked and have taken all the original sin of the party upon my own shoulders, I will go and have a swim before breakfast. Good-bye, mamma. Good-bye, Count." With a quick nod, she turned and left them, and went in search of Teresina, whose duty it was to accompany her to the bath. The maid was unusually cheerful, though she had not failed to notice the change in Beatrice's manner which had taken place since the day of the betrothal, and she understood it well enough, as she had told Bastianello. Moreover she pitied her young mistress sincerely and hated San Miniato with all her heart; but she was so happy herself that she could not possibly hide it. "You are very glad that I am to be married, Teresina," said Beatrice as they went out of the house together, the maid carrying a large bag containing bathing things. "I, Signorina? Do you ask me the real truth? I do not know whether to be glad or sorry. I pray you, Signorina, tell me which I am to be." "Oh--glad of course!" returned Beatrice, with a bitter little laugh. "A marriage should always be a matter for rejoicing. Why should you not be glad--like every one else?" "Like you, Signorina?" asked Teresina with a glance at the young girl's face. "Yes: Like me." And Beatrice laughed again in the same way. "Very well, Signorina. I will be as glad as you are. I shall find it very easy." It was Beatrice's turn to look at her, which she did, rather suspiciously. It was clear enough that the girl had her doubts. "Just as glad as you are, Signorina, and no more," said Teresina again, in a lower voice, as though she were speaking to herself. Beatrice said nothing in answer. As they reached the end of the path through the garden, they saw Ruggiero and his brother sitting as usual by the porter's lodge. Both got up and came quickly forward. Bastianello took the bag from Teresina's hand, and the maid and the two sailors followed Beatrice at a little distance as she descended the inclined tunnel. It was pleasant, a few minutes later, to lie in the cool clear water and look up at the blue sky above and listen to the many sounds that came across from the little harbour. Beatrice felt a sense of rest for the first time in several days. She loved the sea and all that belonged to it, for she had been born within sight of it and had known it since she had been a child, and she always came back to it as to an element that understood her and which she understood. She swam well and loved the easy, fluent motion she felt in the exercise, and she loved to lie on her back with arms extended and upturned face, drinking in the light breeze and the sunshine and the deep blue freshness of sky and water. While she was bathing Bastianello and Teresina sat together behind the bathing-house, but Ruggiero retired respectfully to a distance and busied himself with giving his little boat a final washing, mopping out the water with an old sponge, which he passed again and again over each spot, as though never satisfied with the result. He would have thought it bad manners indeed to be too near the bathing-place when Beatrice was in swimming. But he kept an eye on Teresina, whom he could see talking with his brother, and when she went into the cabin, he knew that Beatrice had finished her bath, and he found little more to do in cleaning the old tub, which indeed, to a landsman's eye, presented a decidedly smart appearance in her new coat of white paint, with a scarlet stripe. When he had finished, he sauntered up to the wooden bridge that led to the bathing cabins and sat down on the upper rail, hooking one foot behind the lower one. Bastianello, momentarily separated from Teresina, came and stood beside him. "A couple of fenders would save the new paint on her, if we are going for crabs," he observed, thoughtfully. Ruggiero made that peculiar side motion of the head which means assent and approval in the south. "And we will bring our own kettle for the crabs, and get the milk from the hotel," continued the younger brother, who anticipated an extremely pleasant evening in the society of Teresina. "And I have told Saint Peter to bring the torches, because he knows where to get them good," added Bastianello who did not expect Ruggiero to say anything. "What time do we go?" "Towards an hour and a half of the night," said Ruggiero, meaning two hours after sunset. "Then the padroni will have eaten and the rocks will be covered with crabs, and the moon will not be yet risen. It will be dark under Scutari till past midnight, and the crabs will sit still under the torch, and we can take them with our hands as we always do." "Of course," answered Bastianello, who was familiar with the sport, "one knows that." "And I will tell you another thing," continued Ruggiero, who seemed to warm with the subject. "You shall pull stroke and I will pull bow. In that way you will be near to Teresina and she will amuse herself the better, for you and she can take the crabs while I hold the torch." "And the Signorina and the Count can sit together in the stern," said Bastianello, who seemed much pleased with the arrangement. "The best crabs are between Scutari and the natural arch." "One knows that," assented Ruggiero, and relapsed into silence. Presently the door of the cabin opened and Beatrice came out, her cheeks and eyes fresh and bright from the sea. Of course Bastianello at once ran to help Teresina wring out the wet things and make up her bundle, and Beatrice came towards Ruggiero, who took off his cap and stood bareheaded in the sun as she went by, and then walked slowly behind her, at a respectful distance. To reach the beginning of the ascent they had to make their way through the many boats hauled up beyond the slip upon the dry sand. Beatrice gathered her light skirt in her hand as she passed Ruggiero's newly painted skiff, for she was familiar enough with boats to know that the oil might still be fresh. "It is quite dry, Excellency," he said. "The boat belongs to me." Beatrice turned with a smile, looked at it and then at Ruggiero. "What did I tell you the other day, Ruggiero?" she asked, still smiling. "You were to call me Signorina. Do you remember?" "Yes, Signorina. I beg pardon." Beatrice saw that Teresina had not yet left the cabin with her bag, and that Bastianello was loitering before the door, pretending or really trying to help her. "Do you know what Teresina has been telling me, Ruggiero?" asked Beatrice, stopping entirely and turning towards him as they stood in the narrow way between Ruggiero's boat and the one lying next to her. "Of Bastianello, Signorina?" "Yes. That she wants to marry him. She told me while I was dressing. You know?" "Yes, Signorina, and I laughed when he told me the story the other day, over there on the pier." "I heard you laughing, Ruggiero," answered Beatrice, remembering the unpleasant impression she had received when she had looked down from the terrace. His huge mirth had come up as a sort of shock to her in the midst of her own trouble. "Why did you laugh?" she asked. "Must I tell you, Signorina?" "Yes." "It was this. Bastianello had a thought. He imagined to himself that I loved Teresina--I! --" Ruggiero broke off in the sentence and looked away. His voice shook with the deep vibration that sometimes pleased Beatrice. He paused a moment and then went on. "I, who have quite other thoughts. And so he said with himself, 'Ruggiero loves and is afraid to speak, but I will speak for him.' But it was honest of him, Signorina, for he loved her himself. And so he asked her for me first. But she would not. And then, between one word and another, they found out that they loved. And I am very glad, for Teresina is a good girl as she showed the other day in the garden, and the little boy of the Son of the Fool saw it when she threw the gold at that man's feet--" He stopped again, suddenly realising what he was saying. But Beatrice, quick to suspect, saw the look of pained embarrassment in his face and almost guessed the truth. She grew pale by degrees. "What man?" she asked shortly. Ruggiero turned his head and looked away from her, gazing out to seaward. "What was the man's name?" she asked again with the stern intonation that anger could give her voice. Still Ruggiero would not speak. But his white face told the truth well enough. "On what day was it?" she enquired, as though she meant to be answered. "It was the day when you talked with me about my name, Signorina." "At what time?" "It must have been between midday and one o'clock." Beatrice remembered how on that day San Miniato had given a shallow excuse for not remaining to breakfast at that hour. "And what was his name?" she now asked for the third time. "Excellency--Signorina--do not ask me!" Ruggiero was not good at lying. "It was the Conte di San Miniato, Ruggiero," said Beatrice in a low voice that trembled with anger. Her face was now almost as white as the sailor's. Ruggiero said nothing at first, but turned his head away again. "Per Dio!" he ejaculated after a short pause. But there was no mistaking the tone. Beatrice turned away and with bent head began to walk towards the ascent. She could not help the gesture she made, clenching her hands once fiercely and then opening them wide again; but she thought no one could see her. Ruggiero saw, and understood. "She is saying to herself, 'I must marry that infamous animal,'" thought Ruggiero. "But I do not think that she will marry him." At the foot of the ascent, Beatrice turned and looked back. Teresina and Bastianello were coming quickly along the little wooden bridge, but Ruggiero was close to her. "You have not done me a good service to-day, Ruggiero," she said, but kindly, dreading to wound him. "But it is my fault, and I should not have pressed you as I did. Do not let the thought trouble you." "I thank you, Signorina. And it is true that this was not a good service, and I could bite out my tongue because it was not. But some Saint may give me grace to do you one more, and that shall be very good." "Thank you, Ruggiero," said Beatrice, as the maid and the other sailor came up.	{ "id": "15187" }
12	None	Beatrice did not speak again as she slowly walked up the steep ascent to the hotel. Bastianello and Teresina exchanged a word now and then in a whisper and Ruggiero came last, watching the dark outline of Beatrice's graceful figure, against the bright light which shone outside at the upper end of the tunnel. Many confused thoughts oppressed him, but they were like advancing and retreating waves breaking about the central rock of his one unalterable purpose. He followed Beatrice till they reached the door of the house. Then she turned and smiled at him, and turned again and went in. Bastianello of course carried the bag upstairs for Teresina, and Ruggiero stayed below. He was very calm and quiet throughout that day, busying himself from time to time with some detail of the preparations for the evening's excursion, but sitting for the most part alone, far out on the breakwater where the breeze was blowing and the light surf breaking just high enough to wet his face from time to time with fine spray. He had made up his mind, and he calmly thought over all that he meant to do, that it might be well done, quickly and surely, without bungling. To-morrow, he would not be sitting out there, breathing in the keen salt air and listening to the music of the surging water, which was the only harmony he had ever loved. His was a very faithful and simple nature, and since he had loved Beatrice, it had been even further simplified. He thought only of her, he had but one object, which was to serve her, and all he did must tend to the attainment of that one result. Now, too, he had seen with his eyes and had understood in other ways that she was to be married against her will to a man she hated and despised, and who was already betraying her. He did not try to understand how it all was, but his instinct told him that she had been tricked into saying the words she had spoken to San Miniato at Tragara, and that she had never meant them. That at least was more comprehensible to him than it might have been to a man of Beatrice's own class. Her head had been turned for a moment, as Ruggiero would have said, and afterwards she had understood the truth. He had heard many stories of the kind from his companions. Women were changeable, of course. Every one knew that. And why? Because men were bad and tempted them, and moreover because they were so made. He did not love Beatrice for any moral quality she might or might not possess, he was far too human, and natural and too little educated to seek reasons for the passion that devoured him. Since he felt it, it was real. What other proof of its reality could he need? It never entered his head to ask for any, and his heart would not have beaten more strongly or less rudely for twenty reasons, on either side. And now he was strangely happy and strangely calm as he sat there by himself. Beatrice could never love him. The mere idea was absurd beyond words. How could she love a common man like himself? But she did not love San Miniato either, and unless something were done quickly she would be forced into marrying him. Of course a mother could make her daughter marry whom she pleased. Ruggiero knew that. The only way of saving Beatrice was to make an end of San Miniato, and that was a very simple matter indeed. San Miniato would be but a poor thing in those great hands of Ruggiero's, though he was a well grown man and still young and certainly stronger than the average of fine gentlemen. Of course it was a great sin to kill San Miniato. Murder was always a sin, and people who did murder and died unabsolved always went straight into eternal fire. But the eternal fire did not impress Ruggiero much. In the first place Beatrice would be free and quite happy on earth, and in the natural course of things would go to Heaven afterwards, since she could have no part whatever in San Miniato's destruction. Secondly, San Miniato would be with Ruggiero in the flames, and throughout all eternity Ruggiero would have the undying satisfaction of having brought him there without any one's help. That would pay for any amount of burning, in the simple and uncompromising view of the future state which he took. So he sat on the block of stone and listened to the sea and thought it all over quietly, feeling very happy and proud, since he was to be the means of saving the woman he loved. What more could any man ask, if he could not be loved, than to give his soul and his body for such a good and just end? Perhaps Ruggiero's way of looking at the present and future state might have puzzled more than one theologian on that particular afternoon. While Ruggiero was deciding matters of life and death in his own way, with absolute certainty of carrying out his intentions, matters were not proceeding smoothly on the Marchesa's terrace. The midday breakfast had passed off fairly well, though Beatrice had again grown silent, and the conversation was carried on by San Miniato with a little languid help from the Marchesa. The latter was apparently neither disturbed nor out of humour in consequence of the little scene which had taken place in the morning. She took a certain amount of opposition on Beatrice's part as a matter of course, and was prepared to be very long-suffering with the girl's moods, partly because it was less trouble than to do battle with her, and partly because it was really wiser. Beatrice must grow used to the idea of marriage and must be gradually accustomed to the daily companionship of San Miniato. The Marchesa, in her wisdom, was well aware that Beatrice would never see as much of him when he was her husband as she did now that they were only engaged. San Miniato would soon take up his own life of amusement by day and night, in his own fashion, and Beatrice on her side would form her own friendships and her own ties as best pleased her, subject only to occasional interference from the Count, when he chanced to be in a jealous humour, or when it happened that Beatrice was growing intimate with some lady who had once known him too well. After breakfast, as usual, they drank coffee and smoked upon the terrace, which Beatrice was beginning to hate for its unpleasant associations. Before long, however, she disappeared, leaving her mother and San Miniato together. The latter talked carelessly and agreeably at first, but insensibly led the conversation to the subject of money in general and at last to the question of Beatrice's marriage settlement in particular. He was very tactful and would probably have reached this desired point in the conversation in spite of the Marchesa, had she avoided it. But she was in the humour to discuss the matter and let him draw her on without opposition. She had thought it all over and had determined what she should do. San Miniato was surprised, and not altogether agreeably, by her extreme clearness of perception when they actually arrived at the main discussion. "You are aware, San Miniato mio," she was saying, "that my poor husband was a very rich man, and you are of course familiar--you who know everything--with the laws of inheritance in our country. As our dear Beatrice is an only child, the matter would have been simple, even if he had not made a will. I should have had my widow's portion and she would have had all the rest, as she ultimately will." "Of course, dearest Marchesa. I understood that. But it is most kind of you to tell me about the details. In Beatrice's interest--and her interests will of course be my first concern in life--" "Of course, carissimo," said the Marchesa, interrupting him. "Can I doubt it? Should I have chosen you out of so many to be my son-in-law if I had not understood from the first all the nobility and uprightness of your fine character?" "How good you are to me!" exclaimed San Miniato, who mistrusted the preamble, but was careful not to show it. "Not at all, dear friend! I am never good. It is such horrible trouble to be either good or bad, as you would know if you had my nerves. But we were speaking of my poor husband's will. One half of his fortune of course he was obliged to leave to his daughter. He could dispose of the other half as he pleased. I believe it was that admirable man, the first Napoleon, who invented that just law, was it not? Yes, I was sure. My husband left the other half to me, provided I should not marry--he was a very thoughtful man! But if I did, the money was to go to Beatrice at once. If I did not, however, I was--as I really am--quite free to dispose of it as I pleased." "How very just!" exclaimed San Miniato. "Do you think so? Yes. But further, I wish to tell you that he set aside a sum out of what he left Beatrice, to be her dowry--just a trifle, you know, to be paid to her husband on the marriage, as is customary. But all the remainder, compared with which the dowry itself is insignificant, does not pass into her hands until she is of age, and of course remains entirely in her control." "I understand," said San Miniato in a tone which betrayed some nervousness in spite of his best efforts to be calm, for he had assuredly not understood before. "Of course you understand, dearest friend," answered the Marchesa. "You are so clever and you have such a good head for affairs, which I never had. I assure you I never could understand anything about money. It is all so mysterious and complicated! Give me one of your cigarettes, I am quite exhausted with talking." "I think you do yourself injustice, dearest Marchesa," said San Miniato, offering her his open case. "You have, I think, a remarkably good understanding for business. I really envy you." The Marchesa smiled languidly, and slowly inhaled the smoke from the cigarette as he held the match for her. "I have no doubt you learned a great deal from the Marchese," continued San Miniato. "I must say that he displayed a keenness for his daughter's interests such as merits the sincerest admiration. Take the case, which happily has not arisen, dearest friend. Suppose that Beatrice should discover that she had married a mere fortune-hunter. The man would be entirely in your power and hers. It is admirably arranged." "Admirably," assented the Marchesa without a smile. "It would be precisely as you say. Beyond a few hundred thousand francs which he would control as the dowry, he could touch nothing. He would be wholly dependent on his wife and his mother-in-law. You see my dear husband wished to guard against even the most improbable cases. How thankful I am that heaven has sent Beatrice such a man as you!" "Always good! Always kind!" San Miniato bent his head a little lower than was necessary as he looked at his watch. He had something in his eyes which he preferred to hide. Just then Beatrice's step was heard on the tiled floor of the sitting-room, and neither the Marchesa nor San Miniato thought it worth while to continue the conversation with the danger of being overheard. So the afternoon wore on, bright and cloudless, and when the air grew cool Beatrice and her mother drove out together along the Massa road, and far up the hill towards Sant' Agata. They talked little, for it is not easy to talk in the rattling little carriages which run so fast behind the young Turkish horses, and the roads are not always good, even in summer. But San Miniato was left to his own devices and went and bathed, walking out into the water as far as he could and then standing still to enjoy the coolness. Ruggiero saw him from the breakwater and watched him with evident interest. The Count, as has been said before, could not swim a stroke, and was probably too old to learn. But he liked the sea and bathing none the less, as Ruggiero knew. He stayed outside the bathing-house fully half an hour, and then disappeared. "It was not worth while," said Ruggiero to himself, "since you are to take another bath so soon." Then he looked at the sun and saw that it lacked half an hour of sunset, and he went to see that all was ready for the evening. He and Bastianello launched the old tub between them, and Ruggiero ballasted her with two heavy sacks of pebbles just amidships, where they would be under his feet. "Better shift them a little more forward," said Bastianello. "There will be three passengers, you said." "We do not know," answered Ruggiero. "If there are three I can shift them quickly when every one is aboard." So Bastianello said nothing more about it, and they got the kettle and the torches and stowed them away in the bows. "You had better go home and cook supper," said Ruggiero. "I will come when it is dark, for then the others will have eaten and I will leave two to look out." Bastianello went ashore on the pier and his brother pulled the skiff out till he was alongside of the sailboat, to which he made her fast. He busied himself with trifles until it grew dark and there was no one on the pier. Then he got into the boat again, taking a bit of strong line with him, a couple of fathoms long, or a little less. Stooping down he slipped the line under the bags of ballast and made a timber-hitch with the end, hauling it well taut. With the other end he made a bowline round the thwart on which he was sitting, and on which he must sit to pull the bow oar in the evening. He tied the knot wide enough to admit of its running freely from side to side of the boat, and he stowed the bight between the ballast and the thwart, so that it lay out of sight in the bottom. The two sacks of pebbles together weighed, perhaps, from a half to three-quarters of a hundredweight. When all was ready he went ashore and shouted for the Cripple and the Son of the Fool, who at once appeared out of the dusk, and were put on board the sailboat by him. Then he pulled himself ashore and moored the tub to a ring in the pier. It was time for supper. Bastianello would be waiting for him, and Ruggiero went home. As the evening shadows fell, Beatrice was seated at the piano in the sitting-room playing softly to herself such melancholy music as she could remember, which was not much. It gave her relief, however, for she could at least try and express something of what would not and could not be put into words. She was not a musician, but she played fairly well, and this evening there was something in the tones she drew from the instrument which many a musician might have envied. She threw into her touch all that she was suffering and it was a faint satisfaction to her to listen to the lament of the sad notes as she struck them and they rose and fell and died away. The door opened and San Miniato entered. She heard his footstep and recognised it, and immediately she struck a succession of loud chords and broke into a racing waltz tune. "You were playing something quite different, when I came to the door," he said, sitting down beside her. "I thought you might prefer something gay," she answered without looking at him and still playing on. San Miniato did not answer the remark, for he distrusted her and fancied she might have a retort ready. Her tongue was often sharper than he liked, though he was not sensitive on the whole. "Will you sing something to me?" he asked, as she struck the last chords of the waltz. "Oh yes," she replied with an alacrity that surprised him, "I feel rather inclined to sing. Mamma," she cried, as the Marchesa entered the room, "I am going to sing to my betrothed. Is it not touching?" "It is very good of you," said San Miniato. The Marchesa smiled and sank into a chair. Beatrice struck a few chords and then, looking at the Count with half closed eyes, began to sing the pathetic little song of Chiquita. "On dit que l'on te marie Tu sais que j'en vais mourir--" Her voice was very sweet and true and there was real pathos in the words as she sang them. But as she went on, San Miniato noticed first that she repeated the second line, and then that she sang all the remaining melody to it, singing it over and over again with an amazing variety of expression, angrily, laughingly, ironically and sadly. " --Tu sais que j'en vais mourir!" She ended, with a strange burst of passion. She rose suddenly to her feet and shut the lid down sharply upon the key-board. "How perfectly we understand each other, do we not?" she said sweetly, a moment later, and meeting San Miniato's eyes. "I hope we always shall," he answered quietly, pretending not to have understood. She left him with her mother and went out upon the terrace and looked down at the black water deep below and at the lights of the yachts and the far reflections of the stars upon the smooth bay, and at the distant light on Capo Miseno. The night air soothed her a little, and when dinner was announced and the three sat down to the table at the other end of the terrace her face betrayed neither discontent nor emotion, and she joined in the conversation indifferently enough, so that San Miniato and her mother thought her more than usually agreeable. At the appointed time the two porters appeared with the Marchesa's chair, and Teresina brought in wraps and shawls, quite useless on such a night, and the little party left the room in procession, as they had done a few days earlier when they started for Tragara. But their mood was very different to-night. Even the Marchesa forgot to complain and let herself be carried down without the least show of resistance. On the first excursion none of them had quite understood the other, and all of them except poor Ruggiero had been in the best of humours. Now they all understood one another too well, and they were silent and uneasy when together. They hardly knew why they were going, and San Miniato almost regretted having persuaded them. Doubtless the crabs were numerous along the rocky shore and they would catch hundreds of them before midnight. Doubtless also, the said crustaceans would be very good to eat on the following day. But no one seemed to look forward to the delight of the sport or of the dish afterwards, excepting Teresina and Bastianello who whispered together as they followed last. Ruggiero went in front carrying a lantern, and when they reached the pier it was he who put the party on board, made the skiff fast astern of the sailboat and jumped upon the stern, himself the last of all. The night breeze was blowing in gusts off the shore, as it always does after a hot day in the summer, and Ruggiero took advantage of every puff of wind, while the men pulled in the intervals of calm. The starlight was very bright and the air so clear that the lights of Naples shone out distinctly, the beginning of the chain of sparks that lies like a necklace round the sea from Posilippo to Castellamare. The air was soft and dry, so that there was not the least moisture on the gunwale of the boat. Every one was silent. Then on a sudden there was a burst of music. San Miniato had prepared it as a surprise, and the two musicians had passed unnoticed where they sat in the bows, hidden from sight by the foresail so soon as the boat was under way. Only a mandolin and a guitar, but the best players of the whole neighbourhood. It was very pretty, and the attempt to give pleasure deserved, perhaps, more credit than it received. "It is charming, dearest friend!" was all the Marchesa vouchsafed to say, when the performers paused. Beatrice sat stony and unmoved, and spoke no word. She said to herself that San Miniato was again attempting to prepare the scenery for a comedy, and she could have laughed to think that he should still delude himself so completely. Teresina would have clapped her hands in applause had she dared, but she did not, and contented herself with trying to see into Bastianello's eyes. She was very near him as she sat furthest forward in the stern-sheets and he pulled the starboard stroke oar, leaning forward upon the loom, as the gust filled the sails and the boat needed no pulling. "You do not care for the mandolin, Donna Beatrice?" said San Miniato, with a sort of disappointed interrogation in his voice. "Have I said that I do not care for it?" asked the young girl indifferently. "You take too much for granted." Grim and silent on the stern sat Ruggiero, the tiller in his hand, his eye on the dark water to landward constantly on the look-out for the gusts that came down so quickly and which could deal treacherously with a light craft like the one he was steering. But he had no desire to upset her to-night, nor even to bring the tiller down on his master's head. There was to be no bungling about the business he had in hand, no mistakes and no wasting of lives. The mandolin tinkled and the guitar strummed vigorously as they neared Scutari point, vast, black and forbidding in the starlight. But a gloom had settled upon the party which nothing could dispel. It was as though the shadow of coming evil had overtaken them and were sweeping along with them across the dark and silent water. There was something awful in the stillness under the enormous bluff, as Ruggiero gave the order to stop pulling and furl the sails, and he himself brought the skiff alongside by the painter, got in and kept her steady, laying his hand upon the gunwale of the larger boat. Bastianello stood up to help Beatrice and Teresina. "Will you come, Donna Beatrice?" asked San Miniato, wishing with all his heart that he had never proposed the excursion. It seemed absurd to refuse after coming so far and the young girl got into the skiff, taking Ruggiero's hand to steady herself. It did not tremble to-night as it had trembled a few days ago. Beatrice was glad, for she fancied that he was recovering from his insane passion for her. Then San Miniato got over, rather awkwardly as he did everything so soon as he left the land. Then Teresina jumped down, and last of all Bastianello. So they shoved off and pulled away into the deep shadow under the bluffs. There the cliff rises perpendicularly seven hundred feet out of the water, deeply indented at its base with wave-worn caves and hollows, but not affording a fast hold anywhere save on the broad ledge of the single islet of rock from which a high natural arch springs suddenly across the water to the abrupt precipice which forms the mountain's base. Calmly, as though it were an every-day excursion, Ruggiero lighted a torch and held it out when the boat was alongside of the rocks, showing the dark green crabs that lay by dozens motionless as though paralysed by the strong red glare. And Bastianello picked them off and tossed them into the kettle at his feet, as fast as he could put out his hands to take them. Teresina tried, too, but one almost bit her tender fingers and she contented herself with looking on, while San Miniato and Beatrice silently watched the proceedings from their place in the stern. Little by little Ruggiero made the boat follow the base of the precipice, till she was under the natural arch. "Pardon, Excellency," he said quietly, "but the foreigners think this is a sight with the torches. If you will go ashore on the ledge, I will show it you." The proposal seemed very natural under the circumstances, and as the operation of picking crabs off the rocks and dropping them into a caldron loses its interest when repeated many times, Beatrice immediately assented. The larger boat was slowly following and the tinkle of the mandolin, playing waltz music, rang out through the stillness. Ruggiero brought the skiff alongside of the ledge where it was lowest. "Get ashore, Bastianello," he said in the same quiet tone. Bastianello obeyed and stood ready to help Beatrice, who came next. As she stepped upon the rock Ruggiero raised the torch high with one hand, so that the red light fell strong and full upon her face, and he looked keenly at her, his eyes fixing themselves strangely, as she could see, for she could not help glancing down at him as she stood still upon the ledge. "Now Teresina," said Ruggiero, still gazing up at Beatrice. Teresina grasped Bastianello's hand and sprang ashore, happy as a child at the touch. San Miniato was about to follow and had already risen from his seat. But with a strong turn of his hand Ruggiero made the stern of the skiff swing out across the narrow water that is twenty fathoms deep between the mountain and the islet. "What are you doing?" asked San Miniato impatiently. "Let me land!" But Ruggiero pushed the boat's head off and she floated free between the rocks. "You and I can take a bath together," said the sailor very quietly. "The water is very deep here." San Miniato started. There was a sudden change in Ruggiero's face. "Land me!" cried the Count in a commanding tone. "In hell!" answered the sailor's deep voice. At the same moment he dropped the torch, and seizing the bags of ballast that lay between his feet, hove them overboard, springing across the thwarts towards San Miniato as he let them go. The line slipped to the side as the heavy weight sank and the boat turned over just as the strong man's terrible fingers closed round his enemy's throat in the darkness. San Miniato's death cry rent the still air--there was a little splashing, and all was done. * * * * * So I have told my tale, such as it is, how Ruggiero of the Children of the King gave himself body and soul to free Beatrice Granmichele from a life's bondage. She wore mourning a whole year for her affianced husband, but the mourning in her heart was for the strong, brave, unreasoning man, who, utterly unloved, had given all for her sake, in this world and the next. But when the year was over, Bastianello married Teresina, and took her to the home he had made for her by the sea--a home in which she should be happy, and in which at least there can never be want, for Beatrice has settled money on them both, and they are safe from sordid poverty, at all events. The Marchesa's nerves were terribly shaken by the tragedy, but she has recovered wonderfully and still fans herself and smokes countless cigarettes through the long summer afternoon. Of those left, Bastianello and Beatrice are the most changed--both, perhaps, for the better. The sailor is graver and sterner than before, but he still has the gentleness which was never his brother's. Beatrice has not yet learned the great lesson of love in her own heart, but she knows and will never forget what love can grow to be in another, for she has fathomed its deepest depth. And now you will tell me that Ruggiero did wrong and was a great sinner, and a murderer, and a suicide, and old Luigione is sure that he is burning in unquenchable fire. And perhaps he is, though that is a question neither you nor I can well decide. But one thing I can say of him, and that you cannot deny. He was a man, strong, whole-hearted, willing to give all, as he gave it, without asking. And perhaps if some of us could be like Ruggiero in all but his end, we should be better than we are, and truer, and more worthy to win the love of woman and better able to keep it. And that is all I have to say. But when you stand upon the ledge by Scutari, if you ever say a prayer, say one for those two who suffered on that spot. Beatrice does sometimes, though no one knows it, and prayers like hers are heard, perhaps, and answered.	{ "id": "15187" }
1	THE FARMER'S WIFE.	It is an evening in June, and the skies that have been weeping of late, owing to some calamity best known to themselves, have suddenly dried their eyes, and called up a smile to enliven their gloomy countenances. The farmers, who have been shaking their heads at sight of the unmown grass, and predicting a bad hay-harvest, are beginning to brighten up with the weather, and to consult upon the propriety of mowing to-morrow. The barometer is gently tapped by many a sturdy hand, and the result is favourable; so that there are good prospects of a few weeks' sunshine to atone for the late clouds. Sunshine: how gracious it is just now! Down yonder in the west, that ancient of days, the sun throws around him his evening glory, and right royally he does it. The rain-covered meadows glow beneath it, like so many lakes--the river looks up rejoicing, and the distant mountains are wrapped in garments dyed in the old king's own regal colours. The woods look as smooth and glossy as the braided locks of maidens prepared for conquests; and the roads and paths that wind here and there amongst the trees, are as gay as little streamlets in the sun's reflected light. Suddenly a rainbow leaps, as it were, out of the river, and spans, with its mighty arch, the country scene before us. 'A rainbow at night Is the shepherd's delight;' so the proverbially-grumbling farmers will have another prognostic to clear their countenances. Perchance the worthy man who inhabits the farm we have just reached, may be congratulating himself upon it, as he jogs home from market this Saturday evening. If he could look upon his homestead with our eyes, I feel sure he would cease to despond. How cheerily the wide, slated roof gleams forth from amongst the trees, and returns the warm glance of the sun with one almost as warm, albeit proceeding from a very moist eyelid! How gladly the white smoke arises once more, spirally, from the large chimneys, after having been so long depressed by the heavy atmosphere! and how the massive ivy that covers the gable end, responds to the songs of the birds that warble their evening gladness amongst its gleaming leaves! The face of the dwelling is as cheerful as are the sun, river, mountains and meads, that it looks down upon from its slight elevation. Every leaf of the vine and pyrus-japonica that covers its front, is bedecked with a diamond; and the roses, laburnums, nasturtiums, and other gay flowers in the garden, drop jewels more freely than the maiden in the fairy tale, as they glisten beneath the rainbow. This is what we see from the hawthorn lane below the house; but walking up into the highroad at the back, the scene changes, and just as our sympathies with beautiful nature were called forth below, so are they instantaneously assailed by our fellow-creatures above. We come to the substantial gate that is the entrance to the pretty farm, and a curious and a motley group is there. We see such groups almost daily, here in Carmarthenshire; but as all the counties of England and Wales are not thoroughfares for the Irish from their country to England, we will describe these poor people as graphically as we can. There is evidently a consultation going on amongst them, and the general attention is directed to one individual of their party. This is a young girl of some seventeen or eighteen years of age. She is seated on the ground, and leans her back against the stone wall that flanks the substantial gate afore mentioned. To judge from her general appearance she can scarcely belong to the ragged set that surround her, for there is an attempt at neatness and cleanliness in her attire, though it is poor enough, that the rest cannot boast of. She wears a cotton gown, shawl, straw bonnet, and shoes and stockings, which were once respectable and seem to have been originally intended for her. True, they are all worn and shabby-looking. The gown is faded, the bonnet very brown, and the shoes have holes in them; but they indicate a mind, or station, at least a degree above those of her companions. Her head is so inclined upon her breast, that it is difficult to see more than a pale face underneath the bonnet; but a pair of thin white hands that rest listlessly upon her lap, still tend to induce the notion that the girl cannot quite belong to the wild-looking company with which she is mixed up. Right in front of her, and looking alternately from her to a man to whom she is talking, stands a middle-aged woman of good-natured but terrified aspect. A checked and ragged handkerchief confines her black, rough hair--a torn red cloak covers a portion of her body, and a curious collection of rags and tatters makes a vain effort to shelter the rest. In the large hood of the red cloak a hardy-looking infant is tied up, its little head and hand being alone visible, which are engaged in munching and holding a crust of bread. At the feet of the woman are sundry articles, amongst which a bundle of rags, an iron pot, and a tin saucepan, are the most conspicuous. The man to whom she is talking is a tall, gaunt specimen of Irish poverty and famine. He holds a rake and pitchfork in his hand, and leans upon them for support. Gazing into his face is a rough, surly-looking youth, who seems cordially to agree with all that he says. Leaning against the wall that flanks the gate on the side opposite that which supports the girl, are another man and woman, who cast from time to time pitying glances at the pale face beneath the straw bonnet. These are as raggedly picturesque in their attire as the rest--a short red petticoat, a blanket substituted for a shawl, and a bundle on the back, distinguish the female; a long great coat and short trousers the male. They are deep in conversation upon the common theme. A young man of more stalwart figure stands beside the girl, and failing to attract her attention, kneels down on one knee and speaks low to her. A little boy is seated at her feet, alternately stroking her hands, and stirring up a small puddle of water with a short stick. Two other children are engaged at a little distance in making a lean cur beg for a mouthful of bread, which the generous urchins would evidently rather share with the dog than eat alone. The one prevailing feature of the party is rags, and how they hold together no tongue can tell. At last there is a general movement, as well as general clamour of voices and much gesticulation. All, old and young, with the exception of the girl, gather round the woman in the red cloak, and seem to be urging her to do something that she does not like to do. They point to the girl, and the appeal is not in vain. The woman moves slowly and somewhat sulkily towards one of the boys, takes him by the hand, and returning to the gate, opens it, and walks down the good broad road that leads to the farm, the boy trotting by her side. We watch the bright red cloak till it disappears amongst the trees that surround the house; and turn again to wonder what can be the matter with the girl. She neither moves nor speaks, although her kindly companions in turn endeavour to attract her attention. In the course of a few minutes the red cloak is again seen coming up the road, closely followed by another figure. We soon hear sounds of earnest pleading, in a broad Irish brogue, from our friend of the red cloak. As they approach the gate sound distinctly the words,-- 'It's all thrue, my leddy--as thrue as the blessed gospel. I'm afeered she's dyin' if yer honour's glory won't lend us a hand.' 'I don't know how to believe you, my good woman, for some of you come every week and deceive me with all kinds of stories.' 'An' she's Welsh, yer honour. She's come to find out her friends, my leddy! God bless ye, ye've a kind eye and a gintle voice,' Red cloak spoke the truth. The woman who is now added to the group has truly 'a kind eye and a gintle voice.' She is short and small of form, of middle age and matronly appearance; neatly and even handsomely dressed, as becomes the mistress of one of the largest and wealthiest farms of a country where large farms are rare. She has a handsome, placid face, and looks as if the world had moved on quietly and happily ever since she had been on its surface. Her dark eyes, that must once have been bright and piercing, are softened down to gentleness by the quieting hand of time; and the black hair is slightly streaked with white by the same unsparing fingers. But for this, age would seem to have little to do with the comely dame who is now bending her neatly-attired head before the shabby-looking girl against the wall, 'What is the matter with you, my poor girl?' says the 'gintle voice,' These kind words have a power that the equally kind ones of the rough friends around had not. The brown straw bonnet is raised from the breast, and we perceive that the girl is neither dead nor sleeping. We perceive something more--a pair of the most painfully melancholy, and beautiful violet eyes that we ever looked into, which are languidly uplifted to the farm-lady. With the words, 'I am very tired, ma'am,' the eyes reclose, and we see long black fringes of soft hair rest upon the pale, thin cheek. The ready tear of compassion springs to the matron's eyes, as she stoops still lower to feel the pulse in the wan hand. 'What is the matter with her?' she inquires, turning to the bystanders. 'Tis tiert all out she is, my leddy. We come by say from Watherford to Milford, and thin, yer honour, we come on foot all trough Pembrokeshire, and County Carmarthin, and now she's jist kilt.' 'But what is she going to do? Why do you come away from Ireland at all?' 'Och, my leddy, shure we're starvin' there. And we jist come to luk for the work in the harvest, an' we're goin' to Herefordshire to git it. An' plaase yer honour's glory, she come wid us to this counthry to luk for her mother's relations that's Welsh, my leddy, small blame to thim, seein' her mother married an Irishman, and come to live in our counthry.' 'I will give you a night's lodging, and that is all I can do for you,' says the gentle mistress of the farm. 'The Lord bless ye, my leddy, the holy angels keep ye, the blessed Vargin and all the saints--' 'Oh, hush! hush!' exclaims the good woman, highly shocked. 'Help the poor girl, and come with me.' The woman went towards the girl, and trying to assist her to rise, said,-- 'Now, Gladys, asthore! An' shure, my leddy, she's a thrue Welsh name. I'll help ye, my darlin', there! Och! an it's betther she is already, as soon as she heerd of a night's lodgin'.' The young man who was kneeling by the girl just now, goes to her other side, and succeeds in supporting her by putting his arm round her waist, whilst the woman holds her by one arm; and thus they follow the good mistress of the farm, followed in their turn by the rest of the party. They move slowly down the road, underneath the fine oak and ash trees that shelter the back of the farm, until they reach a large farm-yard, wherein some thirty fine cows, of Welsh, English, and Alderney breed, are yielding their rich milk at the hands of some three or four rough-looking men and women who are kneeling down to get it. 'Come here, Tom,' cries the mistress, authoritatively. Tom gives a knowing wink to the nearest girl, mutters, 'Irish again,' and goes to his mistress. 'See if there is good clean straw spread in the barn, Tom, and make haste.' Tom goes to a large building outside the farm-yard, whither his mistress and the rest follow him. 'Plenty of straw, ma'am, good enough for such folk,' says Tom. 'Spread some more, and shut the window in the loft.' This is done in a slow grumbling way. The barn is a large, clean, airy building, that must look like a palace to these ragged, way-worn people. 'Now you may sleep here to-night, provided you go off early and quietly to-morrow morning. There is a good pump down below, where you can get water to wash yourselves, and at eight o'clock I shall lock the barn door; my husband always insists upon that.' Thus speaks the mistress. 'Heaven bless his honour, we're all honest. We wouldn't harm a hair of your blessed heads. We heerd o' ye many a time, and o' the good lodgin' and supper--the sun shine upon ye--ye give to the poor Irish on their thravels.' Thus answers the Irishwoman. 'You tell one another then! And this is why we have more calls than any one else!' 'The Lord love ye, and why wouldn't we? 'Tis the good as always gets the blessin'.' Whilst this little conversation is going on, the girl, Gladys, is laid upon the shawl-blanket of the woman who wears that singular attire, and a pillow, half rags, half straw, is contrived for her head. The bonnet is taken off to increase her comfort, and, as her head falls languidly back upon the rough pillow, a wan, thin face is disclosed, that, from the regular outline of the profile, must be pretty, under happier circumstances, and is interesting. Whilst the guests prepare to make themselves comfortable in different ways, the kindly farm-lady leaves them, amid many and enthusiastic blessings, and returns to the house. In less than half-an-hour she reappears, followed by a female servant, both carrying tokens of a true hospitality that expects no return. She goes towards the poor girl with a small basin of good broth and a plate of toasted bread, such as might tempt the palate of a more dainty invalid; whilst the servant places a can of real Welsh broth, smelling strongly of the country emblem, the leek, in the midst of the hungry crew who are scattered over the barn. To this she adds various scraps of coarse bread and hard cheese, which she draws from a capacious apron, and evidently considers too good for the luckless vagabonds before her. She is soon, however, as much interested as her mistress in the sick girl, to whom the latter is administering the warm restorative. Spoonful after spoonful is applied to her lips, and greedily swallowed though with evident effort. The toasted bread is soaked in a portion of the broth, and is also devoured as speedily as offered, with an avidity made still more painful by the difficulty of swallowing, occasioned by some obstruction in the throat. 'God help you, poor girl,' says the good Samaritan, as she puts the last mouthful to the lips of the patient. The eyes unclose, and a tear falls upon the wan cheek, as a murmured, 'Thank you, my lady,' is faintly heard. The 'lady' turns away with a heavy sigh, whilst the servant begins to arrange the blanket-shawl and rags more comfortably, and finally takes off her large linsey-woolsey apron to make a softer resting-place for the head and neck of the girl. The grateful friends that stand around now bless the servant as zealously as they blessed her mistress, and if she understood the language in which the warm Irish hearts express their gratitude, she would probably wonder who 'the Vargin and all the holy saints and angels' are, that are invoked for her sake. Again the farm-lady goes away, and returns bearing a small bottle of medicine, that she bids the red-cloaked woman give the sick girl in about an hour. She then leaves her patient and motley guests to their supper and night's repose, followed by such prayers as the poor alone know how to utter, and perhaps how to feel.	{ "id": "15315" }
2	THE FARMER.	The rainbow was a true prophet; the sun that went down so gloriously last night amid the half-dried tears of a lately weeping earth, has arisen this morning with a resolution to dry up all the remaining tears, and to make the Sabbath as it should be--a day of rejoicing. Sunrise amongst the hills and valleys! I wish we all saw it oftener. Not only would the glorious spectacle make us wiser and better, but the early rising would be not only conducive to health and good spirits, but to the addition of a vast amount of time to the waking and working hours of our very short life. All nature arouses herself by degrees, as the great source of light rises from his couch, curtained with rose and daffodil-coloured drapery. As these gorgeous curtains spread east and west, and he takes his morning bath in the clouds and vapours, rises up the proud monarch of the farm-yard, as if in bold rivalry, outspreads his fine plumage in emulation of the rose and daffodil curtains, and bids him welcome with a voice so loud and shrill, that he must almost hear it from his domed throne above. More arbitrary in his kingdom than the sun in his, this grand Turk insists on arousing all his subjects; and the sleepy inmates of his harem withdraw their heads from beneath their wings, and, one by one, begin to smooth their feathers, and to descend lazily from their dormitories. A faint twittering is heard amongst the ivy-leaves, in answer to 'the cock's shrill clarion,' and in a few seconds, the little sleepers amongst the oak and ash trees take it up, and by the time the sun has come out of his bath, and the cock has ceased crowing, there is a full chorus of heart stirring minstrelsy round about the quiet farm. Down below in the meadow, the cattle begin to shake off the dew-drops from their hides, and to send forth a plaintive low as they slowly seek their early breakfast in the spangled grass, or by the steaming river. Away among the hills, the faint bleat of the sheep echoes from heath to heath, whilst their white fleeces dot the plains. Over the face of happy nature creeps a glow that seems to come from the heart, and to make her look up, rejoicing, to the sun as part of herself, and yet a type of the Great Creator. But whilst this Sabbath morning hymn thus rises, betimes, to the throne of Him who sits beyond the sunbeams, tired man sleeps on. The farmer's household is still slumbering, and after a week of hard labour, taking an additional hour's repose on that day which was graciously appointed as a day of rest. Scarcely can the sun peep in through the drawn curtains and shutters of the windows, and no song of birds, or low of cows, seems as yet to have reached the closed ears of the sleepers. Master and men alike obtain the bounteous gift of sleep so often denied to the less laborious rich. We are wrong in supposing that all are slumbering in the farm-house. Quietly the mistress steps out of the back door which she has noiselessly opened, as if afraid of disturbing her household. As the brisk little figure moves across the farm-yard, it is instantly surrounded by a flock of poultry that seem intuitively to expect an alms at her hand, as do the poor Irish who haunt her dwelling. But she has nothing to give them thus early in the morning, and scarcely heeds their cackling and crowing. The fierce house-dog, however, will be noticed as bounding through the poultry, and knocking down one luckless hen, he jumps upon his mistress, and almost oversets her also. The 'Down Lion, down,' of the 'gintle voice,' serves only to make him more demonstrative, as he gambols roughly on her path as she proceeds towards the barn. Mrs Prothero--such is the name of our farm-lady--had been haunted all night long by visions of the poor Irish girl. She had not slept as soundly as the other members of her family, because there was a fellow-creature suffering within her little circle. Although she had lived nearly fifty years in the world, and had been variously cheated and imposed upon by beggars of all kinds, her heart was still open to 'melting charity,' and liable to be again and again deceived. As she stopped before the barn door with the key in her hand, Lion began a low growl. He could never get over his antipathy to Irish beggars, and all his mistress's influence was necessary to prevent the growl becoming a bark. She put her ear to the door and listened, but no sound disturbed the stillness within. She knocked gently, but there was no answer. At last she thought she heard a feeble voice say something which she interpreted into 'Come in,' and she turned the key in the lock of the door and opened the top half of it. She looked in, and saw all her mendicant guests in profound repose, excepting the girl Gladys, who endeavoured to rise as she perceived the kindly face, but fell back again immediately. She unclosed the other half of the door, and carefully excluding Lion, by shutting it after her, walked softly across the barn to the rough couch on which Gladys lay. She appeared to be in the same state of exhaustion as on the previous night; and if she had noticed Mrs Prothero at all, the transient effort was over, and she remained with closed eyes and listless form, whilst the good woman looked at her and felt her pulse. Then her lips moved slightly, as if wishing to say something, but emitted no sound. What was to be done for one in such a helpless state? Mrs Prothero's kind heart sank within her. As she did not like to disturb the weary wretches, who were sleeping so soundly in their rags amongst the hay and straw, she prepared to leave the barn; but as she moved away, the girl's eyes unclosed, and glanced dimly at her through a film of tears. Nourishment seemed the only remedy that presented itself to her mind. She smiled kindly at the girl, murmured 'I will come again,' and went through the sleepers towards the door, pausing, however, to look at the peaceful face of the baby, as it lay on its mother's arm, covered with the old red cloak. She returned to the house, and went to the clean, large dairy, where she took a cup of the last night's milk, already covered with rich cream, from a pan and went with it to the back kitchen, where was a fire, kept up all night by means of the hard Welsh coal, and heat-diffusing balls. She warmed the milk, procured a piece of fine white bread, and once more returned to the barn. She administered these remedies to her patient, who swallowed them with the same avidity and difficulty as she had done the broth. She fancied she again heard the words, 'God bless you, my lady,' but they were so faint that she was not sure. Again she threaded her way amongst the sleepers, and left the barn. She went into her garden, and walked for a few moments amongst the flowers, as if for council. The bees were beginning to hum about the hives, and the butterflies to flit amongst the flowers. She stood and looked at the beautiful scene before her--the woods, hills, river, and above, the morning sun--and offered up a prayer and thanksgiving to the Giver of all good things. Her thoughtful face brightened into a smile, and her walk became more brisk as she left her garden, and went again into the farm-yard. The cow-man was bringing up the cows to be milked, and he looked astonished as he greeted his mistress. So did the two ruddy, disheveled farm maidens, who had barely turned out of their beds to milk the cows, and had paid small attention either to their toilet or ablutions. The house was perfectly quiet as she entered it, and she crept upstairs, and into her bedroom very softly, for fear of disturbing any one. 'Where in the world have you been, my dear?' greeted her, in a gruff voice from amongst the bed-clothes, that covered a large old-fashioned bed, hung with chintz curtains. 'Go to sleep and don't trouble, Davy, _bach'_, [Footnote A Welsh term of endearment, equivalent to 'dear,' pronounced like the German.] quietly replied the brisk little dame. 'Go to sleep, indeed! Easier said than done, when one wakes up in a fright, and finds you gone, nobody knows where. Now where _have_ you been? You 'ont let one sleep, even of a Sunday morning.' 'Well, now, don't get into a passion, my dear--I mean, don't be angry.' 'What have I to be angry about when I don't know what you've been doing?' This was said in an injured tone, as if the heart under the bed-clothes were softer than the voice. 'I didn't mean to say you were angry, only I thought--' 'You thought what?' 'Well, my dear, I have only just been across to the barn.' This was uttered timidly and pleadingly, and as if our good housewife knew she had been doing wrong. Suddenly, a large red face started up from amongst the bed-clothes, ornamented with a peculiarly-shaped white cap and tassel. 'Now you haven't been after them Irishers again?' exclaimed the owner of the red face. 'The idle vagabonds! I vow to goodness that all our money, and food and clothing, too, I believe, go to feed a set of good-for-nothing, ragged rascals.' 'Hush, Davy! Remember they are God's creatures, and this is Sunday.' 'I don't know that. And if it's Sunday, why mayn't I sleep in peace?' 'Indeed, I am very sorry. But that poor girl I told you of is so ill!' 'Hang the poor girl! Then send her to the workhouse, and they'll give her a lift home.' 'But if she has no home?' 'Then let her go to her parish.' 'But they don't seem to have any parishes in Ireland.' 'No parishes! I suppose that's the geography the vagabonds teach you? Well you pay dear enough for your lessons. But I tell you what, Mary, you just go and tell 'em all to decamp this minute.' 'But the girl is too weak and ill.' 'Then send her to the Union, I say, and they are bound to forward her.' 'But a Sunday! and the House miles away! Oh, Davy, we really cannot do it to-day!' 'What with the Irish, and one charity and another, I declare there's no peace in life! Name o' goodness, 'oornan, why do you harbour such folk? If the girl's too ill to go on with her gang, they must leave her at the Union, or else get the overseers to send for her.' 'Will you just go and look at her?' 'No, I 'ont, and that's plain speaking!' Here the red face, and white night-cap and tassel, suddenly, disappeared amongst the bed-clothes. Mrs Prothero considered a few minutes, and again left the room, and went to the barn. Here, all was confusion and consultation. They had tried to help Gladys to rise, and the girl could not stand. A clamour of voices assailed Mrs Prothero, who was bewildered by the noise, and terrified at the remembrance of her husband. 'My good people, I don't know what to advise,' she said at last. 'She don't want to laive Carrmanthinshire, my leddy.' 'We'll be ruined intirely if we stop till she's cured, yer leddyship!' 'Niver a frind in the worrld, yer honour.' 'Her mother and father, sisthers and brothers, all dead of the faver and the famine.' 'Nobody left but her relations in Carrmarrthinshire, and, maybe, they're all dead and buried, yer honour's glory.' 'And what'll we do wid her, poor sowl?' Mrs Prothero was looking compassionately on the poor girl, whilst sentence upon sentence was poured into her ear; and as the death of her relation was mentioned, she fancied she perceived a movement in her seemingly impassive features. She opened her eyes, and looked at Mrs Prothero, who went to her, and seeing her lips move, knelt down by her side. 'Let them go, and send me to the workhouse, if you please, my lady,' she murmured. Mrs Prothero once more left the barn, promising to return shortly, and, with trembling steps, again sought the apartment where her lord and master was reposing. A very decided snore met her ear. She stood by the bedside, and looked at the tassel, which was the only portion visible of her better half. She sat down on a chair; she got up again; she fussed about the room; she even opened the drawers and took out the Sunday attire of that Somnus before her. But nothing she could do would arouse him. At last she gently touched the face. A louder snore was the only reply. She gave a nervous push to the shoulder, and whispered into the bed-clothes, 'My dear.' 'Well, what now?' growled the justly irritated sleeper. 'My dear, I am very sorry, but the poor girl is too ill to move, and I really don't know what is to be done.' 'Upon my very deed, if you are not enough to provoke a saint!' broke out Mr Prothero, now fairly sitting up in bed. 'If you will encourage vagrants, get rid of 'em, and don't bother me. I'll tell you what it is, Mrs Prothero, if all of 'em are not off the farm before I'm up, I'll give 'em such a bit of my mind as 'll keep 'em away for the future; see if I don't.' Mrs Prothero saw that her husband was redder in the face than usual, and she had a very great dread of putting him in a passion; still she ventured one word more very meekly. 'But the girl, David?' 'What's the girl to you or me! we've a girl of our own, and half-a-dozen servant girls. We don't want any more. Send her to the Union.' 'How can we send her?' 'Let the rascally Irish manage that, 'tis no affair of mine; but if you bother me any more, I vow I'll take a whip and drive 'em, girl and all, off the premises.' 'Very well, David,' said Mrs Prothero, submissively, and with a heavy sigh: 'but if the girl should die?' She walked across to the door, paused on the threshold, and glanced back; but there was no change in the rubicund face. She went into the passage, and slowly closed the door, holding the handle in her hand for a few seconds as she did so. She walked deliberately down the passage, pausing at each step. Before she was at the end of it, a loud voice reached her ear. She joyfully turned back and re-entered the bedroom. 'Yes, David?' she said quietly. 'If the girl is really bad, send her in the cart, or let her have a horse, if you like,' growled Mr Prothero. 'Only I do wish, mother, you would have nothing to do with them Irishers.' 'Thank you, my dear,' said the quiet little woman. 'Then if the rest go away, I may manage about the girl?' 'Do what you like, only get rid of 'em somehow.' 'Thank you.' 'Oh, you needn't thank me! I'd as soon send every one of 'em to jail as not; but I can't stand your puffing and sighing just as if they were all your own flesh and blood.' 'We're all the same flesh and blood, my dear.' 'I'd be uncommon sorry to think so. I've nothing but Welsh flesh and blood about me, and should be loath to have any other, Irish, Scotch, or English either.' Mrs Prothero disappeared. 'That 'ooman 'ould wheedle the stone out of a mill,' continued the farmer, rubbing his eyes, and deliberately taking off his night-cap, 'and yet she don't ever seem to have her own way, and is as meek as Moses. She has wheedled me out of my Sunday nap, so I suppose I may as well get up. Hang the Irish! There is no getting rid of 'em. She's given 'em a night's lodging, and a supper for so many years, that they come and ask as if it was their due. But I'll put a stop to it, yet, in spite of her, or my name isn't David Prothero.' When Mr Prothero came forth from his dormitory, he was in his very best Sunday attire. As he walked across the farm-yard in search of his wife, there was an air about him that seemed to say, 'I am monarch of all I survey.' Indeed, few monarchs are as independent, and proud of their independence, as David Prothero of Glanyravon. He was a tall, muscular man, of some fifty years of age. He was well made, and of that easy, swinging gait, that is rather the teaching of Dame Nature, than of the dancing mistress or posture master. His face was full and ruddy, betokening health, spirits, and that choleric disposition to which his countrymen are said to incline, whether justly or unjustly is not for me to determine. His hair had a reddish tinge, and his whiskers were decidedly roseate, bearing still further testimony to a slight irrascibility of temperament. But he was a good-looking man, in spite of his hair and whiskers, which, as his wife admired them, are not to be despised. 'Where's your mistress, Sam?' roared Mr Prothero across the farm-yard. 'In the barn, master,' answered a man, who was eating bread and cheese on the gate, and swinging his legs pleasantly about. 'Tell her I want her,' In answer to the summons, immediately appeared his worthy helpmate. She carried a very beautiful half-blown rose in her hand, which, as soon as she approached her husband, she placed carefully in his button-hole, standing on tiptoe to perform this graceful Sunday morning service. 'Thank you, mother,' said Mr Prothero, smiling, and looking down complacently on his little wife. What went with all his lecture upon the profligacy of Irish beggars? I suppose it was silently delivered from his breast to the rose, for none of it came to his lips, though it was quite ready to be heard when the rose made her appearance. All the Irish are gone except the girl, Davy, _bach_' said quiet Mrs Prothero, 'and they are gone to the Overseer to tell him about her, and I will see that she is sent to the workhouse to-night, that is to say if I can.' 'I suppose you fed and clothed the ragged rascals?' 'I just gave them some scraps for breakfast, and indeed their blessings did me good,' 'I should think they must. People that left a dying girl behind 'em.' 'They promised to come back and see after her when the hay-harvest is over. They are going into Herefordshire to get work, and she, poor thing, is looking for her relations in this county, and meant to get work here.' 'Well, I want my breakfast. I promised brother Jonathan to go to church to-day. He is going to preach a charity sermon for the Church Building Society, and wants my shilling. He and Mrs Jonathan are to come to-morrow, you know, my dear. I hope in my heart everything is as fine as fippence, or my lady 'll turn up her nose.' 'I can't make things neater, Davy.' This was said by Mrs Prothero, in a desponding tone, quite different from her former quiet cheerfulness, and she accompanied the words by rubbing her hands nervously one over the other. 'There now, don't look as if you were going to be smothered. Mrs Jonathan isn't so bad as all that. I wish to goodness Jonathan hadn't married a fine lady. But then she brought him a good fortune, and it's all the better for our children.' 'I don't want her money.' 'But if it wasn't for her, my dear, Rowland would never have had an Oxford edication.' 'I'd as soon he had gone to Lampeter, or been made a good Wesleyan minister, and then he might have been content to stay in Wales, instead of going off to England.' 'There, there! never mind! He'll be a bishop some day; and though you do still incline to the chapel, you'll be proud of that. Now, name o' goodness, let's have some breakfast.' With this peculiarly Welsh interjection, Mr Prothero turned towards the farm, and, followed by his wife, went to the desired repast.	{ "id": "15315" }
3	THE FARMER'S DAUGHTER.	'Nobody has come for that poor girl, Netta, and I have'n't the heart to send her away,' said Mrs Prothero to her only daughter Janetta, towards the close of the Sunday, the morning of which we noticed in the last chapter. 'I am sure, mother, you have been plagued quite enough with her already. You have neither been to church nor chapel, and scarcely eaten a morsel all the day. I can't imagine what pleasure you take in such people.' 'I wouldn't care if your father was at home; but I don't quite like to have her into the house without his leave, and she is not fit to be left in the barn.' 'Into the house, mother! That wild Irish beggar! Why, father would get into a fury, and I'm sure I should be afraid to sleep in the same place with such a creature.' 'Oh, my dear child! when will it please the Lord to soften your heart, and teach you that all men and women are brothers and sisters.' 'Never, I'm sure, in that kind of way.' Whilst the mother and daughter continue their conversation about Gladys, of which the above is a specimen, we will glance at Janetta Prothero, the spoilt daughter of Glanyravon Farm. She is decidedly a pretty girl? some might call her a beauty. She has dark eyes, black hair, a clear pink and white complexion, a round, dimpled cheek, a fair neck, a passable nose, and a very red-lipped, pouting mouth. She is small of stature--not much taller than her mother--but so well-formed, that her delicate little figure is quite the perfection of symmetry. Her movements are languid rather than brisk like her mother's, and she either has, or is desirous of having, more of the fine lady in her manners and appearance. We discern, as she talks, more of obstinacy than reason, and more of pride than sense, in her conversation, and the face rather expresses self-will than intellect, although not deficient in the latter. We are led to suppose, from the appearance of the room in which the mother and daughter are located, that Miss Janetta is somewhat accomplished; more so than young ladies in her position commonly were some thirty or forty years ago. This is a large parlour, with some pretensions to be called a drawing-room. True, the furniture is of old-fashioned mahogany, the sofa of hair, the curtains of chintz, and all that appertains to the master and mistress of the house, of solid but ancient make. But the square piano, the endless succession of baskets, card-racks, etc., the footstools with the worsted-work dog and cat thereon emblazoned, the album and other books, so neatly and regularly placed round the table, and above all, three heads in very bad water-colours that adorn the walls--all proclaim the superior education of the daughter of the house, and her aspirations after modern gentility. We will just take up the thread of the conversation of the mother and daughter at the end of it, and see what conclusions they have arrived at. In a somewhat doggedly excited tone, Miss Janetta says,-- 'Well, mother, I know that father would be very angry, and that she might give us all low Irish fever. I shouldn't wonder if she brought a famine with her.' 'Remember, Netta, who said "and if ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."' 'If those people are one's brethren, as father says, the sooner we disown our relations the better.' Whilst Miss Janetta was uttering this unchristian speech, and greatly shocking her mother thereby, a young man entered with a book in his hand, and throwing himself on the sofa, began to read. It was soon, however, evident that he was listening to the conversation, although he professedly kept his eyes on his book. Poor Mrs Prothero continued her efforts to enlist her daughter on the side of charity, but did not greatly prevail. The young man did not interfere, probably being aware that it is better to let two women finish their own quarrel. Again, however, they were interrupted by the appearance of a fourth, and more animated personage. 'Good evening, Mrs Prothero. How do you do, Netta?' exclaimed the new comer, shaking Mrs Prothero's hand, and pulling Netta's curls. Hereupon the young man arose from the sofa, and bowing profoundly, said,-- 'Good evening, Miss Gwynne,' with a tone as grave as his appearance. 'I beg your pardon, Mr Rowland,' said the young lady, who we now introduce in form as Miss Gwynne of Glanyravon Park. With a very becoming grace, she advanced and held out her hand to Mr Rowland Prothero, eldest son of the good farmer and his wife, just returned from Oxford. Mr Rowland slightly touched the hand, bowed again gravely, and placed a chair for Miss Gwynne. 'I thought I should never come here again,' said that young lady, turning from Mr Rowland with a nod and a 'thank you,' and retreating towards the window where the mother and daughter were standing, 'what with the rain, and poor papa's nervous complaints, and all the affairs, I declare I have been as busy as possible.' 'Now, Miss Gwynne, I am sure you will agree with me,' cried Netta, suddenly brightening up and getting animated 'Do you think it right to encourage those Irish beggars?' 'Right! no, of course I don't.' 'And do you think people ought to allow them to come into the house--to take them in, and to--to shelter them in short?' 'Decidedly not. I hope you don't do such things, Mrs Prothero?' There was a wicked twinkle in a merry eye as this was said. 'The truth is, Miss Gwynne,' said Mrs Prothero, slowly rubbing her hands one over another, 'there is a poor Irish girl in the barn almost dying, and it is impossible to send her to the Union to-night, or to leave her where she is.' 'Oh, I'll write an order for the Union in papa's name. You can't believe a word those Irish say. You had better get her sent off directly.' This was said with the air of command and decision of one not accustomed to have her orders disputed. 'But, Miss Gwynne, if you only knew--' began the overwhelmed Mrs Prothero. 'I know quite well. We are obliged to commit dozens of them as vagrants, and I should not at all wonder if we should not be compelled to have you taken up some day for harbouring suspicious characters.' The tears stood in Mrs Prothero's kind eyes. She had not much authority amongst the young people apparently. 'There, mother! I knew Miss Gwynne would agree with me.' 'And do you think the law of Christian charity would agree with you, Netta?' here broke in a grave and stern voice from the sofa. Both the young ladies coloured at this interruption? Miss Gwynne with mortified dignity, Netta with anger. Mrs Prothero cast an appealing glance at her son, who came forward. 'She may have my bed, mother,' said the young man, colouring in his turn, as he met Miss Gwynne's defiant glance, that seemed to say, 'Who are you?' 'How very absurd, Mr Rowland,' said that young lady, laughing scornfully. 'I suppose, according to your law of Christian charity, we must fill our houses with all the Irish beggars that come through Carmarthenshire! A goodly company!' 'Have you seen this poor girl. Miss Gwynne?' 'No, certainly not, but I know by heart all she has to say.' 'If you would but just see her,' said Mrs Prothero entreatingly not daring to contradict the heiress of Glanyravon Park, who had a will of her own, if Mrs Prothero had not. 'With the greatest pleasure; but I know all the "my leddy's," "yer honour's," and "the sweet face o' ye," that I shall hear.' 'Don't go, Miss Gwynne, you may take the fever. I wouldn't go for the world,' cried Netta. 'I am not afraid of fevers or anything else, I hope,' said Miss Gwynne contemptuously. 'You will be afraid of catching a toothache from infection next,' and herewith she left the room, followed by Mrs Prothero. During their short absence, Mr Rowland Prothero read his sister a very proper lecture for a clergyman, on Christian charity and filial obedience, to which she listened with pouting lips and knitted brow, but with no answering speech, good or bad. She was not silent because she had nothing to say, but because she was afraid of her brother, who was the only person of whom she was afraid. Her feelings, however, found vent in the leaves of a rose that she was pulling to pieces and scattering ruthlessly. The lecturer on Christian charity was a tall, gentlemanly-looking young man, whose apparently habitual gravity of deportment warmed into earnestness and animation as he talked to his sister. He looked and spoke as if his soul were in the words he uttered, and as if it had been choice and not compulsion that led him to become a minister in Christ's family. The entrance of Mrs Prothero and Miss Gwynne was a great relief to Netta. She looked up briskly at the latter, as if sure of sympathy, and if eyes full of tears could give it, she certainly was satisfied. Mr Rowland Prothero perceived the tears, and retired to his sofa, taking up his book and pretending to read. 'Can I help you, Mrs Prothero? There does not seem a moment to lose. I will send for a doctor, or do anything I can,' said Miss Gwynne. 'Thank you, dear Miss Gwynne,' replied Mrs Prothero, 'I will put her in Owen's room.' 'Who can we get to bring her in? Shall I go and fetch one of the men? Netta, do get some one to help us.' 'I will help you, if you will allow me,' said Mr Rowland, rising from his sofa, and looking at Miss Gwynne with a glance of warm approval. 'Pray do; now; at once. I will go with you whilst your mother prepares the room. You could carry her quite well, for she is as thin as a ghost; I never saw such a wretched girl.' Miss Gwynne hurried to the barn, followed by Rowland. They found Gladys with a farm-servant by her side, apparently either dead or asleep. Rowland Prothero knelt down, and took her up gently in his arms, Miss Gwynne assisting. The poor girl unclosed her eyes, and looked wistfully at the face that was bending over her. 'You are with friends, and in God's hands,'said Rowland gently, as the eyes languidly reclosed. He carried her upstairs to his brother's room, and having placed her on the bed, left her to the care of his mother and Miss Gwynne. Whilst they were employed in getting her into bed, a house-servant came to say that Miss Gwynne was wanted. She found a footman awaiting her, who told her that his master had sent him in search of her, and was in a state of great anxiety about her. She ran up to Mrs Prothero for a few minutes. 'Really papa is too absurd, too provoking,' she said with a vexed voice; 'he has sent after me again, and I am sure he must know I am here. Let me hear if I can be of any service, Mrs Prothero; I will send anything in the way of medicine or nourishment. Good-bye, I will come again to-morrow.' 'Mr and Mrs Prothero, the Vicarage, come to-morrow,' said Mrs Prothero. 'Yes, they are to dine with us on Wednesday, and told me they meant to sleep here. Good evening. Dear me, how wretched that poor girl looks.' Miss Gwynne was soon hastening homewards, heedless of the splendid sky above, or the glowing fields beneath. She was making reflections on the excellence of Mrs Prothero, the silliness of Netta, the precision of Rowland, and the misery of the girl Gladys. Thence she turned her thoughts upon herself, and suddenly discovered that she had been too decided in at once ordering any person to the workhouse, without at first knowing the case. 'But it is no wonder that I am too decided sometimes, when my father is so dreadfully weak and vacillating,' she said to herself; 'indeed I do not think, after all, that one can be too decided in this irresolute world.' This very decided young lady is the only child and supposed heiress of Gwynne of Glanyravon, as her father is usually called. She is an aristocratic-looking personage, with a certain I-will-have-my-own-way air, that you cannot help recognising at once. She is rather taller than most tall women, and the tokens of decision in her carriage, eyes, voice, and general deportment would be disagreeable, but for the extreme grace of her figure, the unaffected ease of her manner, and the remarkable clearness and sweetness of her voice. She is handsome, too, with a noble forehead, sensible grey eyes, glossy chestnut hair, and a very fine complexion. The many of her nominal friends and admirers who at heart dislike her, prophesy that in a few years she will be coarse, and say that she is already too masculine; but the few who love her, think that she will improve both in person and mind, as she rubs off the pride and self-opinionativeness of twenty years of country life against the wholesome iron of society and the world. But we shall see. At present she is fortunate enough to rule everybody she comes in contact with; her father, his servants, his tenants, the poor, the very mendicants that come to the door. Certainly there is something very charming in her appearance, as she hurries up the fine old avenue that leads to her ancestral home. The ease of her port, the graceful dignity of her extreme haste, the heightened colour, and the glowing eye, are all very handsome, in spite of the coarseness in perspective. The poor footman can scarcely keep up with her; he has not found the last twenty years at Glanyravon productive of the same lightness of step to him, as to his young mistress, and wishes she were a little less agile. A handsome country house in a good park has not often in itself much of the picturesque. Ruskin would not consider Glanyravon, with its heavy porch, massive square walls, and innumerable long windows, a good specimen of architectural beauty; still it is a most comfortable dwelling, beautifully situated; and the magnificent woods at the back, and grand view in front, would make the most unartistic building picturesque in appearance if not in reality. Miss Gwynne ran up the broad stairs, through the large hall, and into a good library. Here a very tall, thin, sickly-looking man was seated in an easy-chair. 'My dear Freda, I am so thankful you are come!' 'My dear father, how I wish you would not send for me the very moment I go out. I really cannot be pestered with servants. It fidgets me to death to have a man walking and puffing after me.' 'But just consider, my love, the lateness of the hour.' 'It is scarcely eight o'clock now, papa, and as light as possible.' 'I am too nervous, my love, to bear your being out alone.' Miss Gwynne rang the bell authoritatively, and the footman entered. 'Tell Mrs Davies to send some jelly, and whatever strengthening things there are in the house, to Glanyravon Farm immediately,' she said; then turning to her father, added, 'do you know, papa, Mrs Prothero has taken in a sick Irish girl, and I have abetted it.' 'You, child! I hope she has no infectious disease; it quite alarms me.' 'I really don't know. But Mr and Mrs Jonathan Prothero are going to Glanyravon to-morrow, and remember you invited them to dinner on Wednesday.' 'I am very sorry! that man kills me with the antiquities of the Welsh language, and heaven knows what old things that happened before the flood. But you must entertain them. I suppose we had better ask young Rowland.' 'Oh, papa! He is so dreadfully quiet and stiff, and thinks there is only one man who ever went to Oxford, and he is that man; and I can't endure him.' 'Perhaps not, my dear--indeed, perhaps not.' 'If we ask him, we must ask Netta. She has come home quite accomplished from boarding school, and would do in a quiet way. Mrs Jonathan would be pleased, and you know she _is_ a lady, though awfully particular. I can't endure her either.' 'Perhaps you could invite Lady Mary, and Miss Nugent to meet them?' 'I don't think they would like it. They would not object to the two clergymen, because, as Lady Mary says, 'You see, my dear, the cloth is a passport to all grades of society;' but they would not approve of Netta. That is to say, Lady Mary would think herself insulted if we introduced her sweet Wilhelmina to a farmer's daughter.' 'She is a very superior woman, my love, and understands etiquette, and all that sort of thing, better than any one I ever met.' 'She seems to me to understand her own interests, papa, as well as most people. But I will tell her that Sir Hugh and the Protheros are coming, and that we have asked Netta, so she can accept or decline as she likes.' 'Do you think it wise, my dear, to put yourself so much on a level with Miss Prothero, as to invite her?' 'Oh! she understands how we are very well. It will be a source of pride and satisfaction to her, without making her presume more than before; and the vicar and his lady will like the attention.' 'I dread the vicar. His genealogies are too much for me.' 'Oh, I can put up with the vicar's antiquities, but not with the young vicar's pedantic Oxonianism. He does think so well of himself, and quite rules every one at home.' 'Oh! that is very fatiguing, I should think.' 'I wish he would fall in love with Miss Nugent, and she with him, and carry off her forty-thousand pounds. She is silly enough for anything, and it would be such a downfall to her mother's pride.' 'Her mother is much too careful, my dear, and by far too superior a woman. And Miss Wilhelmina is very accomplished and all that sort of thing, you know, and likely to make a fine match. She is very pretty, too.' 'Yes; she and Netta Prothero would run in harness. Pretty, silly, rather affected, and having drawn each four or five drawings, and learnt six tunes on the piano. Only the one is more fashionable than the other. Do you know, papa, Miss Nugent can play the Irish and Scotch quadrilles, and Netta '_Ar hydy Nos,_' with small variations. We will have a concert; you know I have asked the Rice Rices?' 'Very well, my dear. Now I think I will read a sermon to the servants, so just ring the bell.'	{ "id": "15315" }
4	THE MISER.	Whilst Mr Gwynne is reading his sermon, and Mrs Prothero is nursing the mendicant Gladys, an event is passing in the neighbouring country-town, involving matters of interest to her, and those belonging to her. In a small bedroom over a little huckster's shop, an old man lies dangerously ill. By his side is seated a middle-aged woman watching. In a dark corner, behind the bed, stands a man, who is so deep in shadow that you scarcely know whether he is young or old. The room is small and shabby, and contains apparently few comforts for one nearly approaching his last hour. There is a tap at the door, upon which the man behind the bed goes out, and returns, almost immediately, followed by Rowland Prothero. He goes towards the bed, and stooping down, whispers to the sick man. 'Father, you wished to see Rowland--he is here.' Rowland advances, and takes the seat vacated for him by the woman. The three inmates of the room are Mr and Mrs Griffith Jenkins, and their only son, Howel. They are cousins of the Protheros, Mrs Jenkins being Mr Prothero's first cousin, and the members of the younger generation being consequently second cousins. Griffith Jenkins motions to his wife and son to leave the room, which they do immediately. Rowland kneels beside his bed, the better to hear what he has to say. He appears, however to revive, and is distinct enough in his enunciation of the following words, though very slow. 'My son Howel is come back, Mr Rowland, and do promise to be study.' 'I am very glad to hear it; it must be a great comfort to you,' 'But I am not seure of him. He will be spending my money that I have been takking such pains to make.' 'I hope he may do good with it, Uncle Griff.' 'Good! no such thing. Squander, squander! Spend the beauty gold! Will you promise me to see to it? tak' care of it?' 'I, Uncle Griff! I have no power with Howel. Would it not be better to pray to God to guide Howel, and trust in a higher power than mine?' Mr Jenkins put a long, thin, bony hand out of bed, and grasped Rowland's hand tightly. He fixed two keen black eyes upon him, and, as he half raised himself in bed, displayed a withered face, the most remarkable feature of which was a very prominent, hooked nose, like the beak of a large bird. 'You wasn't thinking I was going to die, was you, Rowland? I 'ont just awhile, see you. But tell you your father there's more gold than he is thinking of; and Howel'll be a husband for any one, much less for Miss Netta. Promise me to be lending him a hand, if he do keep constant to your sister.' 'I am sorry, Uncle Griff, that I cannot promise anything for Howel. If he grows steady as you say, there can be no objection; but he must prove it first. Would you like me to read to you, and pray to Almighty God, for Christ's sake, to change his and all our hearts?' 'I didn't be wanting a parson, but a relation, sir; and I don't be going to die yet. Look you here. There's money in the bank--there's more in mortgages on Davies, Llansadwn, and Rees, Llanarthney--there's more on loan to Griffiths, Pontardewé,--Jones, Glantewey,--Pugh the draper, Llansant--and others. And there's a box beside. Mind you, I 'ont die yet, but I tell you, because I can trust you; and Howel don't know nothing.' 'May I write it down for you, Uncle Griff; or would you have a lawyer?' 'No, no. I've had enough of law in paying for Howel, and nothing come of it. But you may be writing down a little. Here, in that chest, there's pen, ink and paper; tak' you my keys, and open you it.' Griffith Jenkins took from under his pillow a bunch of keys, and fumbling amongst them, gave one to Rowland, with which he opened the chest, and procured the necessary writing apparatus. 'Give you me my keys--quick, quick!' cried the old man, again hiding them somewhere in his bed.' At his dictation, Rowland wrote a list of the different moneys he possessed in various places, and was utterly astonished to find that he had soon written down between sixty and seventy thousand pounds. Everybody knew that Griffith Jenkins was rich, but nobody had guessed how rich he was. 'Now say, "I give and bequeath to my wife, 'Lizbeth Jenkins, ten thousand pound out of the aforesaid mortgage on Jacob Davies Llansadwn's property."' 'Is that all, Uncle Griff?' 'Yes, I sha'n't say no more.' 'And the box of gold?' Again the miser grasped Rowland's hand, and fixed his keen eyes on his face. 'I 'ont be dying yet, and I 'ont be putting that down to-night. Tell you your father what there is, without the box, and without more mortgages and loans; but don't you be talking to anybody about it. Mind you, not to Howel nor to 'Lizbeth: promise me.' Rowland promised. The miser fell back exhausted. 'And now Uncle Griff, may I pray for you? Only think how soon you may be called to your account, to say exactly how you have employed your time, and the talents given--' 'I have done plenty--plenty--all out at interest, at five, six, even ten per cent.; none wrapped up in a napkin. I don't be calling a box a napkin, Rowland Prothero.' 'May I call in Mrs Jenkins and Howel, and pray for you? Think; oh think, of the great Judge, and great Mediator. O God, have mercy upon us, miserable sinners!' As Rowland said this, he clasped his hands, and looked upwards, in unutterable supplication. The old man was alarmed. 'I don't be going to die, but you may call 'em in.' Rowland rose and obeyed. Mrs Jenkins appeared with a candle in her hand. The old man rose with an effort as she drew near the bed. 'Put--out--the--candle,' he muttered. As the night was fast drawing in, Mrs Jenkins hesitated. 'Put--out--the--candle,' repeated the dying man, with a still stronger effort to rise and extinguish it himself. 'The ruling passion strong in death' must be attended to, and the light was extinguished. Rowland Prothero clasped his hands with a groan, and repeated aloud a prayer from the service for the dying. The terrified wife knelt down by the bed in the deep gloom, and in the still deeper gloom behind, the son buried his face in his arms, and leaned upon the little table. Whilst Rowland Prothero was praying from the very depth of his heart for the soul that was thus awfully passing to its account, they were all aroused by the last fearful struggle between death and life of him who had made gold his god. For some time they feared to rekindle the light, but at last they ventured. It was but to witness the last dread pangs of one who had made wife and son secondary to the great absorbing passion of avarice; and now he was constrained to depart from the scene of his toil, and to leave all that he had grovelled for behind him, for ever! We will not dwell upon the awful hours that succeeded his final words. He neither spoke nor was conscious again. Light and dark were alike to him. Save that he grasped something in his right hand with an iron hold, reason and power had left him; death was still fighting with life, and gradually gaining the last great victory. A few hours afterwards, and when that victory had been gained, the scene was changed in that small house. The chamber of death was deserted, and the wretched clay of the miser, decently covered with a white sheet, lay heavy and still, where the spirit that formerly animated it had been accustomed to brood over the miserable gains of its clays and years on earth. In the small sitting-room below, behind the little shop where these gains had been begun and continued for half-a-century or more, sat the widow, surrounded by a score of gossips, who had left their beds and homes at daybreak to condole with her. It would have been much more unnatural than natural if Mrs Jenkins had grieved at heart for the husband she had lost. Married, or rather sold to him, when he was fifty and she thirty, she had lived five or six and twenty years of pure misery with him. She had starved with him, when she could not pilfer from him, and had endured patiently all these years what seemed past endurance in expectation of the closing scene. She had married and lived upon the prospect of his death, and it was come at last; and now that it was come, the awfulness of that last struggle overpowered her, and she wept and lamented as copiously as if her husband had been the kindest and most liberal in the world. Still, she was free, with competence, she hoped, in perspective? and this thought, together with the ever all-pervading one of her idol, her treasure, her only son, and his expectations, more than counterbalanced that of the death she had witnessed. 'Come you, don't you be takking on so,' said one old woman soothingly, as the widow rocked herself to and fro, and held her handkerchief to her eyes. 'Tak' you this drop o' tea,' said another, 'it'll be doing you good,' 'The Lord will be having mercy on his soul,' said a third, whose conscience was large when she was offering comfort. 'There now, keep up your spirits, Mrs Jinkins, fach,' said a fourth, entering with a comfortable glass of gin and water that did seem of an exhilarating nature. 'There's a comfort Howel will be to you now!' said a fifth triumphantly. 'Deed to goodness, Griffey Jinkins was a saving man, and you have lost him, Mrs Jinkins, fach,' began the friend with the gin and water; 'but I am seeing no use in takking on so. When John Jones died, he was leaving me with ten children, and they have all come on somehow. And you have only wan son, and he is so ginteel! Drink you this, my dear, and don't be down-hearted.' Mrs Jenkins turned from the tea to the gin and water with no apparent reluctance, and swallowed a portion of it. Revived by the beverage, she responded to the condolences of her friends by more rockings, sobs, and applications of the handkerchief and finally unburdened herself of her grief in the following manner. 'My son Howel, oh yes, he'll be a blessing to me, I know. Says I to my poor Griffey--oh, dear, only to be thinking of him now! --says I, "Let us be giving Howel a good eddication, and he so clever as never was, and able to be learning everything he do put his mind to, and never daunted at nothing--grammar, nor music, nor Latin, nor no heathen languages, and able to read so soon as he could speak, and knowing all the beasts in the ark one from another, when he was no bigger than that," says I, to my poor Griffey; "oh, annwyl! we have only wan child, let him be a clargy, or a 'torney, or a doctor, or something smart," and says he, "I can't afford it." He was rather near or so, you know, was my poor Griffey; but I never was letting him rest day or night, and the only thing he wasn't liking was being much talked over. So says I, "Come you, Jinkins, bach,"--he liked to be called by his sirname--"if you do larn Howel well, he'll be making his fortune some day," for he do say so, he do be always saying, "I'll be a great man, and get as much money as father." I eused to put in the last words of myself, for Howel never was taking to making money, but 'ould as soon give it away as not. Only poor Griffey--oh dear! oh dear! --was never knowing that, because I did be hiding it from him as much as I could.' Whilst the widow talks on in this strain to her sympathising friends, her son and Rowland Prothero are in another small room of the house, engaged in a very different style of conversation. The room in which they are is worth a few words of description, not for any beauty or desert of its own, but for its heterogeneous, contents. You would think a small music warehouse, a miniature tobacco shop, or branch depot of foreign grammars and dictionaries were before you. Every kind of musical instrument seems to have met with a companion in this tiny apartment. Here are a violin, violoncello, horn, and cornopean; there an old Welsh harp and unstrung guitar. On this shelf are pipes of all sorts and sizes, forms, and nations--the straight English, the short German, and the long Turkish; on that are cigar-boxes, snuff-boxes, and tobacco-boxes of various kinds and appearances. Scattered about the room are play-books without number, from Shakspeare to the dramatists of the present day; and, interspersed with these, collections of songs of all countries and of all grades of merit. Some few novels, mostly French, live with the plays and songs; and Latin, French, German, Italian, Welsh, Spanish, and English grammars and dictionaries take up their abode in every available corner. A quantity of fishing tackle and a gun are thrown upon the window seat, and an embroidered waistcoat, blue satin cravat, and a pair of yellow kid gloves lie on an unoccupied chair. From the general appearance of this room, the imagination would conceive great things of its inmate. All we shall here say is that he is one who has the reputation of being a natural genius, and firmly believes that he is one. As all natural geniuses are supposed to have something very remarkable in their appearance, we will just take a sketch of the miser's son, as he alternately leans on the table or stalks about the room during his earnest conversation with his cousin. He has decidedly sentimental hair; long, black, shining, and with a tendency to curl; he has what might be termed poetical eyes, bright, piercing, and very restless; the sharp, aquiline nose of his father, slightly modified; and a mouth and brow which curl and knit in a manner that may be poetic, but might be disagreeable, under less soothing influences. That he is very handsome no one could dispute, and it is equally certain that he has an air much above the position in which he was born; but the expression of his face inspires distrust rather than confidence, and conveys the impression that there is more of passion than feeling beneath the fiery eyes and compressed mouth. A great contrast to this family genius is presented in the person of his cousin Rowland, now addressing him earnestly and seriously upon the grave subjects naturally uppermost at such a time. He, too, is sufficiently good-looking, with an open, though grave, cast of countenance, fine, soft, hazel eyes, and a tall, manly figure. By 'sufficiently good-looking,' I mean that he is neither very handsome nor ugly, and when his lady friends debate upon his outer man they generally wind up by saying, 'Well, if he isn't handsome, he is very genteel.' We are not going to repeat here the well-known fable of the 'Hare and the Tortoise,' but something of the character of those animals may be found in the cousins. At their first dame's school, as well as at the more advanced grammar school of their little town. Howel was always able to beat Rowland in swiftness, whilst Rowland effectually distanced Howel in the long run. It was Rowland who carried off the prizes, when study and prolonged endeavour were necessary to obtain them, whilst Howel eclipsed all his contemporaries, if a theme were to be written, or a poem learnt. Such differences are so frequent, and have been so often discussed that it is scarcely necessary to pursue the contrast further; but the result at the present stands thus. Howel, the elder of the two, has dipped a little into everything; has gained a reputation for genius; has been articled to an attorney--but is in no apparent danger of becoming one--has written various articles for the county papers, and has had the pleasure of seeing them printed; has acquired a smattering of several languages, and various styles of music; and has proved himself an admired beau amongst the ladies, and a favourite boon companion amongst the gentlemen. He has been idolised and spoilt by his mother, and stinted and pinched by his father, and having no very great respect or admiration for the talents or conduct of either parent, has not tried much to please them, save when it suited him. The result of all this, if not already apparent, will doubtless be seen hereafter, for, at four or five and twenty, conduct and principles begin to establish themselves. Rowland Prothero is very much the reverse of all this. From a child he had a desire to enter the Church, which desire was fostered by his uncle and aunt into a resolution, when he grew old enough to resolve. As they very nearly adopted and educated him, his parents made no objection, and as they were ambitious to raise their family in worldly position, they spared no expense. Rowland was reckoned dull, but plodding, at Rugby, whither his uncle sent him. However, his dulness and plodding were more successful than the brightness of many, since they managed to gain a scholarship at school, which helped him at Oxford. He was called proud and obstinate, and he was both. Pride and obstinacy were the characteristics of his family, but in him they fortunately tended to good: inasmuch as his pride generally led him to do well, and his obstinacy kept up his pride. At present, it would be difficult to say whether he is a young man likely to shine in the path he has chosen, or to walk quietly along it unnoticed. His friends do not anticipate anything remarkable, but they expect him to be slow and sure. He did very well at college, but gained no greater honours than the respect and goodwill of those he was known to. Query--Is not that worth as much, morally, as a first class? At home, he is understood by few. He has not many associates, because, either from his own fault, or some mental peculiarity, he cannot fall in with those who are immediately about him; and consequently is rather feared by his acquaintances and reckoned proud, stiff, and conceited--above his birth, in short. With him, as with Howel and every one else, the course of years will show the man. 'Handsome is that handsome does.' 'The fact is, Rowland,' said Howel, as he suddenly stood still in one of his rapid walks across the room, 'you and I never could agree in anything, and never shall.' 'I hope we may yet agree in many things,' said Rowland gently. 'At present, all I wish you to do is to pay your debts, go to London, take out your stamps, and become an attorney.' 'I am the best judge of that, and shall be my own master now. At all events, I can make some people ashamed of themselves.' 'I only wish to advise you for your good, now that you are your own master. Your poor father begged me--' 'Oh, Rowland, I can't stand any more about my father. Everybody knows what he was, and, I suppose, nobody expects me to live in the same line. I am emancipated, thank heaven! and the world shall soon know it.' 'Still, he was your father.' 'No one knows that better than I do, I should imagine; but if you expect me to mourn as others do for a parent, you will be disappointed. He never showed me one token of love, or acted by me as a father from the day of my birth till his death.' 'At least he has left you and your mother handsomely provided for, and with his last words, hoped that you were now very steady.' 'He did! I wonder who dares to say that I am not steady? But how do you know how we are provided for?' 'He begged me to write down what he was worth. I will give it you at some future period, but not now.' 'Why not now?' 'Because I think it is scarcely yet a time to consider money matters. After the last duties are performed you shall have the paper. Part of his property is written down, but a box of gold and some other sums he did not name. After that last sad scene one can scarcely think of anything earthly. Oh, Howel! I wish you would consider the shortness and uncertainty of life, and what is its end.' 'So awful do I consider its end that I mean to enjoy it while it lasts. But don't go off with the impression that I was not shocked and frightened with what we have just seen. It is one thing to read and write about a death-bed and another to witness it. But I cannot weep or pray as some people can.' 'You might do both if you would only seek aright.' 'There, enough! I am past being preached to as a naughty boy, and can now look forward to some enjoyment without robbing my own father, or getting my mother to rob him, to procure it. But I shall never forget that last struggle? no, never.' Here, with a face of horror, Howel began his restless walk again. Rowland sat in melancholy silence. 'Rowland,' suddenly broke in Howel, 'how is Netta?' 'Quite well, I thank you,' answered Rowland gravely. 'I have not seen her for a long time? will you remember me to her?' 'I cannot promise to do so.' 'Do you think me a fiend, sir, that my name cannot be mentioned to my cousin? I will manage to convey my own remembrances.' 'Howel, you know how it is? I do not mean to be unkind. If only you would give up your old life, enter your profession, and begin another--' 'That is as I choose. I shall be glad of the paper you wrote for my father, and then you and I, Rowland, are best apart.' 'Good-bye then, Howel? perhaps some day you may know that I wish you well. I will bring the paper at the funeral.' 'For heaven's sake stay, or send some one else! I cannot bear to be alone here? his ghost will haunt me.' 'Then let me read to you.' Howel assented gloomily and threw himself on the bed in the corner of the room. Rowland took a small Testament from his pocket and resolutely read several chapters. During the reading Howel fell asleep.	{ "id": "15315" }
5	THE FARMER'S SON.	At about ten o'clock on Monday morning Miss Gwynne rode up to the door of Glanyravon Farm, and, dismounting, entered the house. She was attended by a groom, and told him that she should not be long. 'How is that poor girl, Netta?' were her first words on entering the house. 'Very ill indeed, I believe,' said Netta, rather sulkily. 'Where is your mother?' 'She has been with the Irish beggar all the morning, and all night too. I don't know what father and uncle and aunt will think.' 'Will you ask your mother whether I can see her for a few minutes?' 'Certainly.' 'Netta, you must come and dine with us on Wednesday, with your uncle and aunt.' 'Thank you,' said Netta, brightening up as she left the room. 'I'm sure I scarcely know whether she will behave rightly,' muttered Miss Gwynne, tapping her hand with her riding-whip. Mrs Prothero soon appeared. 'You good, clear Mrs Prothero!' exclaimed Miss Gwynne, running up to her and taking both her hands. 'You look quite worn out. How is that poor girl?' 'Alive, Miss Gwynne, and that is almost all,' was the reply very gravely uttered. 'Can we do anything? Did Dr Richards come?' 'Yes, Miss Gwynne, and was very kind. He has been again this morning.' 'I came to invite Mr Rowland and Netta to dinner on Wednesday, with Mr and Mrs Jonathan Prothero.' 'Thank you, Miss Gwynne, I will tell Rowland; but I really think Netta had better not go.' 'I have just told her of the invitation.' 'Dear me! I am really very sorry. I beg your pardon, Miss Gwynne, but it will put ideas into her head above her station.' 'We shall be very quiet.' The conversation was interrupted by the sudden entrance of Rowland. He drew back on seeing Miss Gwynne, and bowed, as usual, profoundly. She also, as usual, advanced and held out her hand. 'My father begged me to ask if you would come and dine with us on Wednesday,' said Miss Gwynne. 'Thank you, I am much obliged,' stammered Rowland, whilst a bright Hush overspread his face, 'I shall be very happy, if I am not obliged to be elsewhere. Mother, poor Griffith Jenkins is dead. I have been there all the night.' 'Dead! I had no idea he was so ill! Oh, Rowland, how did he die?' 'Just as he lived, mother. With the key of his coffers so tightly clasped in one hand that it was impossible to take it from it after he was dead. And the said coffers hidden, nobody knows where. But poor Mrs Jenkins has no friend near who can be of any real comfort to her. I wish you could go to her for a few hours.' 'This poor girl, Rowland--what can I do with her? And your uncle and aunt coming.' 'I think I can manage my uncle and aunt till your return. As to the poor girl I really know not what to say.' 'Oh! if you will trust her to me, Mrs Prothero, I will nurse her till you come back!' exclaimed Miss Gwynne eagerly. 'I assure you I can manage capitally, and will send back the horses, and a message to papa.' 'I am afraid it would not be right--I think the girl has low fever--Mr Gwynne would object.' 'I assure you it would be quite right, and I don't fear infection and papa would let me do just as I like. In short, I mean to stay, and you must go directly. Is young Jenkins at home, Mr Rowland?' 'Yes, he returned a few hours before his father's death.' 'I suppose that horrid old man died as rich as Croesus, and, according to custom in such cases, his son will spend the money.' 'I wish he had not got it,' said Mrs Prothero. 'That is scarcely a fair wish, mother. Let us hope that he will do well with it.' 'Never, never. He was not born or bred in a way to make him turn out well.' 'Nothing is impossible, mother.' 'You must take care of Netta, Mrs Prothero. But now do go to that wretched Mrs Jenkins, and leave the poor girl to me, and Mr and Mrs Jonathan to Mr Rowland. I hope you have been studying the antiquities of Wales at Oxford, Mr Rowland?' This was said as Mrs Prothero left the room; and Rowland was startled from a rather earnest gaze on Miss Gwynne's very handsome and animated face, by this sudden appeal to him, and by meeting that young lady's eyes as they turned towards him. A slight blush from the lady and a very deep one from the gentleman were the result. The lady was indignant with herself for allowing such a symptom of female weakness to appear, and said somewhat peremptorily,-- 'Will you be so good as to tell Jones to take the horses home, and to let my father know that he must not wait luncheon, or even dinner for me?' 'Excuse me, Miss Gwynne,' said the young man, recovering his composure, 'but I do not think my mother would be justified in allowing you to attend upon that poor girl.' 'Allowing me! Really I do not mean to ask her. I choose to do it, thank you, and I will speak to the servant myself.' It was now Miss Gwynne's turn to grow very red, as, with haughty port, she swept past Rowland, leaving him muttering to himself. 'What a pity that one so noble should be so determined and absolute. Let her go, however. Nobody shall say that I lent a hand to her remaining here. In the first place she runs the risk of infection, in the second every one else thinks she degrades herself by coming here as she does. Still, her desire to take care of the girl is a fine, natural trait of character. I must just go and look over the _Guardian_. A curacy in England I am resolved to get, away from all temptation. Yet I hate answering advertisements, or advertising. If my aunt's friends would only interest themselves in procuring me a London curacy, I think I should like to work there. That would be labouring in the vineyard, with a positive certainty of reaping some of the fruits.' The soliloquy was interrupted by the reappearance of Mrs Prothero, dressed for her walk. 'Mother, you ought not to let Miss Gwynne stay.' 'I! my dear Rowland! Do you think she would mind what I say to her?' Miss Gwynne entered. 'I have sent off the servant, and now let me go to the girl.' This was said with the decision of an empress, and with equal grandeur and dignity was the bow made with which she honoured Rowland as she made her exit, followed meekly by Mrs Prothero. A short time afterwards she was alone by the bedside of the sick girl. Every comfort had been provided for her by Mrs Prothero, and Miss Gwynne had little to do but to administer medicines and nourishment. 'Is there anything I can do for you, my poor girl?' she said, leaning over her bed. 'Anything you have to say--any letter I can write--any--' 'If--you--would--pray--my lady,' was the slow, almost inarticulate reply. Pray! This was what Miss Gwynne could not do. 'Why,' she asked herself, 'can I not say aloud what I feel at my heart for this unhappy creature? I never felt so before, and yet I know not how to pray.' She went to the head of the stairs, and called Netta. 'Will you ask your brother whether he will come and read a prayer to the poor girl?' she said. A few seconds after there was a knock at the door. She opened it and admitted Rowland. He went to the bed, and began to whisper gently of the hope of salvation to those who believe. Gladys opened her eyes, and caught the hand extended to her. 'More--more,' she murmured. 'Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief.' Rowland read the Office for the Sick, from the prayer book, and she responded inwardly, her lips moving. Miss Gwynne came to the bed, and kneeling down, joined in the prayers. Again Rowland spoke soothingly to the girl of the need of looking to Christ, the Saviour, alone in the hour of her extremity; and she murmured, 'He is my rock and my fortress.' 'Do you trust wholly in Him?' 'In whom else should I trust? All human friends are gone.' 'Not all, you have friends around you.' 'Have I? Thank you, sir? God bless you.' 'I will come again and read to you when you are able to bear it.' Rowland said this and withdrew, without speaking again to Miss Gwynne, or even bowing as he left the room. 'He certainly reads most impressively,' thought Miss Gwynne; 'I could scarcely believe he was not English born and bred; but still he is quite a Goth in manners, and I am sure he thinks no one in the country so clever as himself.' Rowland met Netta at the foot of the stairs. 'Netta, I really am ashamed to think that you can allow Miss Gwynne to wait upon that girl in your own house.' 'I'm sure, Rowland, Miss Gwynne needn't do it if she didn't choose. I don't want to catch the fever, and I never will run the risk by nursing such a girl as that.' 'Surely, Netta, you cannot be our mother's daughter, or you could not use such unchristian expressions.' 'I'm no more unchristian than other people, but you're always finding fault with me.' The conversation was interrupted by a loud knocking at the house door, and Farmer Prothero's voice was heard without, calling,-- 'Mother, mother, where are you? Here we are, all come!' Netta flew to open the door, and was soon industriously kissing a lady and gentleman, who had just alighted from a little four-wheeled carriage, and were waiting, with her father, for admission. Rowland, also, in his turn, duly embraced the lady, who seemed much pleased to see him. They brought in various packages, and proceeded to the parlour. 'Where's mother, Netta?' exclaimed Mr Prothero. Rowland answered for her. 'She is gone to Mrs Griffey Jenkins, father; perhaps you have not heard that Uncle Griff is dead.' 'Not I, indeed. Well! he's as good out of the world as in, though I'm sorry for the old fellow. But what'll we do without mother? She's always nursing somebody or other, either alive or dead.' Rowland turned to his aunt, and said that his mother begged him to apologise for her necessary absence for a few hours. 'I shall do very well, I daresay,' said the aunt, whose countenance wore a somewhat austere expression. She was a lady of middle age, who prided herself upon having a first cousin a baronet. Her father, a clergyman, rector of a good English living, was the younger son of Sir Philip Payne Perry, and she an only child, was his heiress. Mr Jonathan Prothero had been, in years gone by, his curate, and had succeeded in gaining the affections, as well as fortune, of the daughter, and in bringing both into his native country. He had the living of Llanfach, in which parish Glanyravon was situated, and lived in very good style in a pretty house that he had built something in the style of an English vicarage. Mrs Jonathan Prothero, or Mrs Prothero, the Vicarage, as she was usually called, was tall and thin, very fashionably dressed, with a very long face, a very long nose, very keen greenish grey eyes, a very elaborately curled front, a very long neck, very thin lips, and very dainty manners. She was proud of her feet and hands, which were always well shod, stockinged, gloved, and ringed, and as these were the only pretty points about her, we cannot wonder at her taking care of them. People used to say she would have been an old maid, had not a certain auspicious day taken the Rev. Jonathan Prothero to her father's parish, who, having an eye after the fashion of servants of a lower grade, to 'bettering himself,' wisely made her a matron. Having no children of their own, they lavished their affections on their nephews and niece, and their money on their education. 'My dear Rowland,' said Mrs Jonathan, 'I think I have agreeable news for you. I wrote to my cousin, Sir Philip Payne Perry, whose wife's brother is, as you know, high in the church, and received this answer.' She put a letter into Rowland's hands, and watched his countenance as he read it. 'My dear aunt, how very good of you!' exclaimed Rowland; 'the very thing I wished for. Oh, if I can only get it, I shall be quite happy. A curacy in London, father! Just read this. Sir Philip thinks I might not like it in the heart of the city, but that is really what I wish. Plenty to do all the week long. Oh, aunt, how can I thank you enough?' 'By making every effort to advance yourself in life, and to rise in the world, my dear nephew,' said Mrs Jonathan. 'What do you think, uncle?' asked Rowland, turning to Mr Jonathan Prothero, who was seated in the window, with a large book before him, that he had brought from the carriage. 'He! what! what did you ask?' 'Only what you think of this London curacy that my aunt has been so kind as to write about.' 'Me! I! Oh, capital! just the thing in my humble opinion. If you get it, you will be able to go to the Museum, and look up the old genealogy we were talking about. Do you know I have made a remarkable discovery about Careg Cennin Castle. It was built--' 'Never mind, my dear, just now; we were talking of Rowland's curacy,' interrupted Mrs Jonathan, who generally managed all business matters. 'To be sure, my dear, to be sure, you know best,' said Mr Jonathan absently, resuming his book. 'For my part, sister,' said the farmer, 'I 'ould rather he had a curacy in his own country, and so 'ould his mother; but he's so confoundedly ambitious.' 'Aunt, won't you come upstairs and take off your things?' asked Netta, interposing, for once in her life, at the right time. 'Thank you, my dear, I should be very glad,' and they accordingly disappeared. 'Father,' began Rowland, as soon as they were gone, 'I think it right to tell you, that we were obliged, out of sheer charity, to take that poor Irish girl into the house. It was impossible to move her without risk of instant death.' 'And upon my very deed, Rowland, if this isn't too bad,' cried the farmer, stamping his foot on the floor, and instantaneously swelling with passion. 'As if it wasn't enough to have paupers, and poor-rates, and sick and dying, bothering one all day long, without your bringing an Irish beggar into the house. I never saw such an 'ooman as your mother in my life; she's never quiet a minute. I 'ont stand it any longer; now 'tis a subscription for this, now a donation for that, then sixpence for Jack such a one, or a shilling for Sal the other, till I have neither peace nor money. Come you, sir, go and turn that vagabond out directly, or I'll do it before your mother comes home, hark'ee, sir.' 'I can't father, really.' 'Then I will.' Off stalked the farmer in his passion, crying out in the passage, 'Shanno, come here!' A servant girl quickly answered the summons. 'Where's that Irish vagabond?' 'In Mr Owen's room, sir.' Upstairs went the farmer, leaving Shanno grinning and saying, 'He, he, he'll do be turning her out very soon, she will, he, he.' Rowland ran upstairs after his father, calling out gently, 'Stop, father, Miss Gwynne--' but the father was in the bedroom before he heard the words, and had made the house re-echo the noise of his opening the door. He was instantaneously checked in his career by seeing Miss Gwynne advance towards him, with her finger in the air. 'Hush, Mr Prothero,' she whispered, 'she is asleep. Look here; gently, very gently.' She led the enraged farmer by one of his large brass buttons to the bedside, where the white-faced Gladys lay. She looked so much like a corpse, that he started back affrighted. Then Miss Gwynne led him out into the passage, and seeing from his angry face the state of the case, instantly said,-- 'It was I who had her brought here, Mr Prothero; and by-and-by I will get her sent back to her parish, but until she is better we must take care of her.' At these words from the all-powerful Miss Gwynne, Mr Prothero was fain to put such check upon his rising choler as the shortness of the notice would allow. He could not, however, fully restrain the whole of the invective that had been upon his lips a short time before. 'No offence, Miss Gwynne? but 'pon my soul, I'm sick to death of my missus's pensioners and paupers, and I'm determined to have no more of 'em. You may do as you please, miss, at your own house, and I'll do as I please in mine.' Here Rowland popped his head out of a neighbouring bedroom 'Father, Miss Gwynne is taking upon herself a risk and encumbrance that should be wholly my mother's. She has nothing to do with the girl, beyond showing her great kindness.' 'Really, Mr Rowland Prothero,' began Miss Gwynne, drawing herself up to her fullest height, 'I wish you would allow me to manage my own affairs.' 'Yes, yes, Rowland. What, name o' goodness, have you to do with Miss Gwynne? I'm ashamed of the boy. I really beg your pardon, miss, but I believe he's so set up by having a chance of going to London, that he don't know whether he stands on his head or his heels. Go you away, Rowland, directly. I won't have you interfaring with me.' Miss Gwynne could not help laughing as she saw Rowland's sense of duty struggle with his pride at this authoritative mandate; but she was very much surprised to see him bow politely to her and walk away. She wondered whether anything on earth could have induced her to obey a similar order. She followed Mr Prothero downstairs and made herself so agreeable to him and Mrs Jonathan, that they quite forgot Mrs Prothero's absence, until the sudden return of that good woman set all matters right, and enabled Miss Gwynne to leave the farm.	{ "id": "15315" }
6	THE MISER'S WIFE.	'I must have money,' said Howel Jenkins as he sat alone with his mother in their little parlour, the evening after Mrs Prothero had left them. 'My dear, there will be plenty when we can find it, be you sure of that. I do know well enough that your poor father was having a chest full, only he was keeping his door locked and barred so that I couldn't see him at it.' 'But surely, mother, you must have some idea where my father kept his gold. If I don't pay a man in London by tomorrow's post, I shall be in jail before a week is over my head.' 'Mercy! Howel, bach! Now don't you be spending the mint o' money that'll be coming to you, there's a good boy, before you do know what it is. Remember Netta! You'll be as grand as any of 'em now, if you do only begin right, and are being study and persevaring, and sticking to your business. I 'ouldn't wonder if you was to be a councillor some day. Only to think of me, mother of Councillor Jenkins! You may be looking higher than Netta, and be marrying a real lady, and be riding in your coach and four, and be dining with my Lord Single ton, and be in the London papers; and I 'ouldn't wonder if you was to be visiting the Queen and Prince Albert again, and behaving your picture taken to put into your own books and the "'Lustrated." I always was saying I 'ould be making a gentleman of you, and I have.' 'But, mother, before I can do anything like this I must pay my debts and make a new beginning. I will marry Netta, now, in spite of the whole tribe of Davids and Jonathans, and they shall see us as much above them as--as--money can make us. Now, mother, we must have a search for the money.' 'Not whilst your father is in the house, Howel; I should be afraid. Be you sure his spirit'll be looking after the money till the funeral's over.' 'Nonsense; where are the keys? We'll have a turn at the old bureau anyhow. Money I must have, at once, and Rowland is as obstinate as a pig about what the governor told him.' 'Indeet, and indeet, Howel, you had better don't. Suppose it 'ould bring him to life again?' 'I'll risk that. Give me the keys.' Mrs Jenkins handed a bunch of keys to her son with trembling fingers. 'Tak you a drop of spirits first. It do show how rich they are thinking us now. There's Jones, the Red Cow, and Lewis, draper, are letting us have as much credit as we like; and they 'ouldn't let us have as much as a dobbin or a yard of tape before poor Griffey died.' Howel drank a wine-glass of raw brandy and went upstairs with the keys in his hand. He crept stealthily into that room where the miser breathed his last, as if fearful of arousing the body within the drawn curtains. He proceeded to the bureau and tried the various keys of the large bunch that he now grasped for the first time in his life. At last one key entered the lock and turned in it. Hush! there is a sound in the room. He turns very pale as he glances round. He sees no movement anywhere. The curtains are so still that he almost wishes the wind would stir them. He opens the bureau and again looks wistfully round. He is almost sure that the curtains move. 'Coward that I am,' he cries, 'what do I fear?' He turns again, and, looking into the bureau, sees that all the open divisions are filled with papers, and imagines what must be the contents of the closed and secret compartments. As he touches one of these a tremor seizes him, and he fancies that a hand is on his shoulder. He starts and turns, but the curtains are motionless as ever. He goes into the passage and calls, 'Mother, come here. Quick! I want you directly.' Mrs Jenkins comes upstairs, looking as pale as her son. 'Just help me out with this bureau, mother; I cannot examine it in this room, you have put such ridiculous notions into my head.' 'I'm afraid, Howel.' 'Nonsense, come directly, or I must get some one else.' The pair went into the room and tried to move the bureau that had stood for nearly fifty years in that corner untouched, save by the husband and father, now lifeless near them. It was very heavy, and scarcely could their united strength move it from its resting-place. They finally succeeded, however, in dragging it towards the door, in doing which they had to pass the foot of the bed. Unconsciously they pushed the bed with the corner of the bureau and shook it. They nearly sank to the ground with terror, expecting, for the moment, to see the miser arise, and again take possession of his treasures. The mother rushed into the passage, the son again called himself a coward, and, with a great effort, pushed the bureau through the door and shut it after him. 'Now, mother, help to get it into my room. One would think we were breaking into another man's house, instead of taking possession of our own property.' With the whole of their joint strength they succeeded in getting the heavy piece of furniture into Howel's room, where, having first locked the door, they proceeded to examine its contents. Disappointment awaited them; they could find nothing but papers. Deeds, mortgages, bills, letters, accounts, were arranged in every open and shut division. The drawers contained nothing else, and the little locked cupboard in the centre, the key of which was found upon the bunch, also enshrined nothing but a few very particular documents. 'These papers could not have made the bureau so heavy,' said Howel, biting his nails. 'There must be secret drawers.' He pulled out the drawers and papers, and threw them on his bed. He tried to move the bureau, and found it almost as heavy as ever. 'I am thinking, Howel, bach, that cupboard don't go through to the back of the bureau,' suggested Mrs Jenkins. Howel seized the poker and aimed a blow at the cupboard; the mahogany did not give way, but they fancied they heard a chinking sound within. 'I am thinking,' said the mother, 'that it must be a double bureau. It is looking so much broader than it do seem.' Howel examined it, and began to think so, too; he took some carpenter's tools down from the shelf, and set to work to try to pierce the back of the bureau with a gimlet, in order to see if the gimlet would appear on the other side. He worked the implement through a portion of the wood, and then found its course stopped by some still harder matter. He had recourse to his penknife, with which he hacked a hole in the wood, large enough to find that there was an inner back of iron, or some kind of metal. Each new obstacle served only to inflame his impatience, and to provoke his temper. He forgot the bed in the next room, and everything else in the world except the attainment of his object, and running downstairs, returned with a large sledge-hammer that he found in the coal-hole. With his strength concentrated in one blow, he swung it against the back of the bureau, and had the satisfaction of finding his wishes gratified. The concussion moved some secret spring somewhere, for as the piece of furniture tottered on its foundation, and fell forwards against the bed, out rolled such a profusion of gold, as led Howel to believe, the 'El dorado' was found at last. Mother and son lifted up their hands in astonishment; gold pieces were in every corner of the room, scattered here and there like large yellow hail. The noise of the blow, however, and the subsequent fall of the bureau had alarmed a neighbour, and before one piece of the tempting gold had been picked up, there was a loud knock at the door. 'Say the house has fallen in; the inquisitive fools!' exclaimed Howel, as his mother left the room. Howel began to fill his pockets with gold pieces, and opening a box, pushed as many as he could hastily gather up into it also. There were thousands upon thousands of sovereigns upon the floor. 'It was old Pal, the shop,' said Mrs Jenkins, returning to her golden harvest, 'she was up nursing next door, and heard the noise. I tell her it was the table falling down.' 'Now, mother, as soon as all is over, I must go to London and clear off my debts with some of this money; but I must see Netta first.' 'Why don't you be putting it in the bank, Howel, bach? It will make a gentleman of you.' 'There's enough besides to make me a gentleman, if I am not one already; and I promise you, that when I am clear again I will come back and make all the rich men in the country hang their heads. But I want to see Netta.' 'Write you a bit of a note, and I will manage to send it.' 'Pick up the money, mother, and I will write the note.' Mrs Jenkins proceeded to obey her son, whilst he unlocked a desk, and wrote the following hasty lines:-- 'I must be in London next Monday. I must see you before I leave. Meet me at the old place in the wood by the little Fall, Sunday evening, during church time.' He folded the note without signing it, and gave it to his mother, without adding any address. 'Seal it mother, and deliver it, or rather send it by some one you can trust.' 'I'll manage that. Now pick you up some of the money. Here's a hundred pound in my apron now, and gracious me! the lots more!' 'If you will keep the hundred pounds in your apron, mother, and let me have the rest, I shall be satisfied.' 'But what'll you be doing with all this goold?' 'Preparing to make you the mother of Councillor Jenkins, or of a famous man of some sort or other. What do you say to a poet or a prime minister?' 'I 'ould rather you do be a councillor, than anything--like Councillor Rice, Llandore.' 'Well, I shall perhaps, be a judge with all this money, and I daresay my father--' Here a vision of the bed in the next room stopped the young man's speech, and shuddering slightly, he kicked a heap of sovereigns that lay near his foot, and sent them rolling into different corners of the room. 'Take away the ill-gotten gain, mother, it will never prosper; you had better go to bed, and I will do the same. I suppose it would be impossible to sleep with that yellow usury on the floor. I should have Plutus at the head of the imps of darkness about my bed, instead of "Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John," that I used to pray to "bless the bed that I lie on."' 'Don't talk so fullish, Howel.' 'Why it was you taught me all that Popery.' 'The Lord forgive you, Howel, I never did see the Pope, and 'ould sooner teach you the Methodist hymn book.' 'Well, never mind, let us go to bed.' 'I'll go down and sit by the fire. Lie you down here. God bless you, my boy, give your poor mother a kiss.' 'Good-night, mother, or rather good morning,' said the son, bending down carelessly to be embraced by the parent who would sacrifice her life for him. When Mrs Jenkins had left the room, Howel hastily collected the gold that was scattered about, and tossed it, without counting it, into the box already mentioned, which he locked, and put the key in his pocket. He then lay down on the bed without undressing, and tried to sleep. In vain, no sleep would come to 'steep his senses in forgetfulness.' The bed in the next room, with its grim, gaunt inmate, was constantly before his eyes. If he dozed for a moment, the miser, his father, and the gold he had for years longed to obtain possession of, haunted him, and made him start like a thief, as if taken in the act of stealing the coin now by inheritance his own. 'Cursed gold!' he exclaimed at last, jumping from the bed, 'what shall I do with it? Pay my debts, and turn a sober man? I will try. If 'Netta will have me, perhaps I may; indeed I am sure I could. We will come here and cut a dash first, however. I should like to humble some of our Welsh aristocrats by showing them how the son of Griffey Jenkins can eclipse their genealogies, by the magic power of the Golden God. I will stay over the funeral, then off to town and get rid of my pressing debts; then pay Levi and Moses, and all my debts of honour; then set myself up in clothes and jewels, and come home and carry off Netta; and, finally, have a year's pleasure at least. Take Netta to the continent, and teach her to _parlez-vous_ a little more fluently than she does now, and to assume more aristocratic manners; in short--in short--' The soliloquy was interrupted by the sudden explosion of some substance under his feet, upon which he accidentally trod as he was pacing up and down the room. He swore an oath that emanated from his fear, and thought that the lower regions had actually opened to receive the gold he was meditating upon, since fire and smoke accompanied the noise, together with a smell of gunpowder. He rushed out of the room, just as his mother, alarmed by the sound, was running upstairs. 'They will carry him off before the funeral,' he cried, as his mother asked what was the matter. Ashamed of his cowardice, he made an effort to return to the room, followed by his mother. There was such a strong smell of sulphur that both recoiled. 'What fools we are!' exclaimed Howel, forcing himself to enter. He stooped to examine the floor, and to his amusement and disgust, found the remains of a cracker, which had burst beneath his foot-tread. There were several others scattered about, that had been unnoticed, because they looked simply like bits of paper. These had evidently been placed by his father amongst the gold, in the hope of frightening any one who might wish to finger it, and had rolled out with the treasure they were intended to protect. Mother and son again left the room, the latter locking the door as he did so, and putting the key in his pocket. They descended to the little parlour below stairs, where they finished the night, alternately dozing in their chairs, and talking, and occasionally supporting themselves by draughts of the different liquors that were spread upon the table near them. In spite of his best efforts to throw aside such thoughts, Howel could see nothing all that night but the gold, the father who had won it, and the poor wretches who had been ruined in paying usurious interest for it.	{ "id": "15315" }
7	THE SQUIRE.	The dinners at Glanyravon were always unexceptionable. Mr Gwynne was a bit of an epicure, and kept a capital cook, and his daughter liked to see everything done in good style. Even Mrs. Jonathan Prothero declared that the dinner-parties at her cousin's, Sir Philip Payne Perry's, were scarcely more agreeable or better managed. Still, at the dinner in question, all the elements were not quite well amalgamated. Although the dishes were so discreetly seasoned, and the _entremets_ so exquisitely prepared, that the most fastidious critic of the gastronomic art would not have found a grain too much of any one ingredient, there was a less judicious mixture amongst the guests. Nothing could be more perfect than the bearing of the host and hostess. Mr Gywnne was a gentleman, even in his peculiarities--fastidiously a gentleman--and comported himself as such to every one. But he was too nervous, and had too low a voice to put his guests at ease: one half did not hear him at all, and the rest were slightly afraid of him on account of this extreme fastidiousness, his nervous complaints and his being very easily tired, or bored. Miss Gwynne was more successful at her end of the table, but she rather annoyed some of her guests by being too much bent on bringing out her friend Netta, and playing her off against Miss Nugent. She was, however, very polite to all, and, for so young a woman, made a very agreeable and fascinating hostess. So, apparently, thought all the gentlemen, as they principally addressed their conversation to her, and had manoeuvred, particularly the young ones, to sit as near her as possible. The Rev Jonathan Prothero had the place of honour at her right, and did not take up much of her time. He appeared to be deep in the speculation concerning the ancient castle of which we have already heard, and was learnedly descanting upon it to Mrs Rice Rice, a lady on his other side. The said Mrs Rice Rice, having _un oeil aux champs, et l'autre à la ville,_ was ostensibly listening to him, whilst she was really attending to her son, who was making visible efforts on the heart of the heiress, Miss Gwynne. The Rice Rices were people of family and fortune, living in the neighbouring town. Mr Rice Rice was in the law, and was at that moment engaged in discussing the affairs of the deceased Mr. Griffith Jenkins and his quondam articled pupil, Howel, with Rowland Prothero across Miss Nugent. He was a portly well-to-do-looking man, with a bald head and good-humoured countenance. His wife was even more portly than himself, and sat, in black velvet and marabout feathers, as stately as a princess at a drawing-room. The task of keeping up the family reputation of the ancient house of Rice Rice devolved in a great measure on this lady, assisted by her daughter; and, it must be said, that if any one could have doubted the antiquity of this honourable race after an hour's conversation with this enthusiastic pair he must have been a sceptic indeed! Family pride is a common weakness, but one could almost call it the stronghold of Mrs. Rice Rice, just as the various archæological and historical glories of Wales and the Welsh was the fortress of Mr. Jonathan Prothero. It was into these towers of strength that these worthies retreated on all occasions. One saw the bulwark in Mrs. Rice Rice's ample, immoveable figure, and in the glance of the eyes that looked over the somewhat mountainous cheek; one saw it in a certain extension of the chin, turn of the mouth, and slightly _retroussé_ nose. One saw it, above all, in her manner to the Protheros. But Mrs. Jonathan Prothero was quite as capable of sustaining the dignity of the Philip Payne Perrys as the Welsh lady that of the Rice Rices, and a satirist might have made a clever caricature of these patriotic dames--the one thin and stiff, the other stout and stiff--as they compared their family honours. But the lady of undoubted rank and pretension of the party is Lady Mary Nugent, who can afford to patronise or throw over-board whomsoever she will. She is seated next to Mr Gwynne, and is lavishing a considerable share of good looks and eloquence on that gentleman. Still in the prime of life, elegant, refined, pretty, and a skilful tactician, she is a dangerous rival of the young ladies, and is not wholly innocent of a desire to eclipse them. She and her daughter are dressed very nearly alike, in some white and light material, and at a little distance she might pass for the fair Wilhelmina's elder sister. A profusion of ornaments, too well arranged to appear too numerous, alone distinguish mother and daughter. She has a handsome profile and a captivating manner, two dangerous things in woman; but therewith she has an occasionally malicious expression of eye and mouth, that somewhat impairs the effect of the captivation. Her daughter is like her in profile, but has not her fascination of manner. She is, however, beautiful as a statue, with chiselled features and marble complexion. But she does not at present appear to have character enough to possess the clever malice of her mother. This may possibly come with suitors and rivals, who generally draw out all the evil, and sometimes much of the good, of woman's nature. She is now simpering and blushing and saying pretty nothings between Rowland Prothero and a certain Sir Hugh Pryse, who, on their respective parts, think her a goose, being attracted elsewhere. Sir Hugh is exerting his lungs to their utmost, and much beyond the boundaries that etiquette would vainly try to impose upon them, in endeavouring to attract the attention of Miss Gwynne; whilst Rowland is, as we before said, discussing the death of Mr Jenkins and the prospects of his son. Perhaps the most uncomfortable person at the table is Netta, who really does not quite understand how to behave herself in the new atmosphere in which she finds herself. She never was at a dinner-party before, never waited upon by grand servants, never surrounded by such gay people; and, in spite of her ambition to eclipse by her beauty the Misses Nugent and Rice Rice, she feels and looks rather awkward. Miss Gwynne does all in her power to reassure her, but she sits, looking very pretty--by far the prettiest person in the room--and very ill at ease, until the ladies adjourn to the drawing-room, and she takes refuge in the pictures of the drawing-room scrap-book and her aunt. The gentlemen arrive in course of time, which they must do, linger as long as they will over the delights of port and politics, and then the various schemes and thoughts engendered at the dinner-table are brought to light over the coffee-cup. Miss Gwynne patronisingly singles out Rowland Prothero, who, reserved by nature, feels doubly so amongst the ill-assorted elements around him. 'Have you seen that poor girl since I was last at your house, Mr Prothero, and how is she to-day?' inquires the heiress. 'She asked to see me yesterday, and I went to her. She seemed more composed, and liked being read to; but she is in a very precarious state.' 'Is your father more reconciled to her being with you?' 'Not at all. And it certainly is very unfortunate. But he would not allow her to be neglected now she is thrown on his kindness.' 'I wish she had never come,' interposed Netta, who had ventured to cross the room to Miss Gwynne. 'Have you heard of the great catch you are all likely to have, Miss Gwynne?' here broke in Sir Hugh Pryse, of stentorian reputation. 'I do not know what you mean,' said Miss Gwynne. 'Why, Mr Rice Rice tells me there is more than a hundred thousand pounds to be raffled for by all the young ladies in the country. They have simply to put themselves into the lottery, and only one can have the prize.' 'I never knew you so figurative before. Sir Hugh.' 'Don't pay any attention to him, Miss Gwynne,' said a fresh addition to the circle that stood round that young lady's chair. 'He means that old Griffey Jenkins, the miser, is dead, and that Howel comes into all his immense wealth.' Miss Gwynne gave her head such a magnificent toss that her neck looked quite strained. 'I do not imagine many _young ladies_ will purchase tickets in that lottery,' she said, with a stress upon the 'young ladies.' 'I have no doubt there are dozens who would, and will, do it at once,' responded Sir Hugh. 'And quite right too. Such a fortune is not to be had every day.' 'But it is gentlemen, and not ladies, who are fortune-hunters,' said Miss Gwynne, changing her tone, when she suddenly perceived that Netta's face and neck were crimson. But the subject was become quite an interesting piece of local gossip, and, one after another, all the party joined in it. 'Howel Jenkins might make anything of himself if he would but be steady,' said Mr Rice Rice. 'Except a gentleman by birth,' said his lady. 'Or the least bit of an archæologist,' said Mr Jonathan Prothero. 'I tried one day--you will scarcely believe it, Mr Gwynne--to make him understand that Garn Goch was an old British encampment, but he would not take it in.' 'Ah, really; I do not very much wonder myself, for I cannot quite "take in" those heaps of stones and all that sort of thing,' responded the host. 'What can they find to interest them in that sort of person?' asked Lady Mary in an aside to Mr Gwynne. Miss Gwynne overheard it, and answered for her father. 'He is a young man of great talent, very rich, very handsome, and has had a miser for a father. Is not that the case Mr Rowland?' 'I--I--really, it is scarcely fair to appeal to me, as he is a relation.' 'And do you never say a good word in favour of your relations?' 'I hope so, when they deserve it,' said Rowland resolutely, glancing at his sister, who was biting her glove. 'If I may be allowed an opinion,' said Mrs Jonathan decidedly, also glancing at poor Netta, 'I should say that Howel Jenkins was a complete scapegrace. What he may yet turn out remains to be proved.' 'Well, that is putting an end to him at once,' said Miss Gwynne, 'and I think we had better play his funeral dirge. Lady Mary, will you give us 'The Dead March in Saul,' or something appropriate? Never mind, Netta; I daresay cousin Howel will turn out a great man by-and-by;' this last clause was whispered to Netta, whilst the young hostess went towards a grand piano that stood invitingly open, and begged Lady Mary Nugent to give them some music. That lady played some brilliant waltzes, after which, her daughter accompanied her in the small bass of a duet. 'Pon my soul, that's a pretty girl, that little Prothero!' said Sir Hugh Pryse to young Rice Rice. 'I never saw such a complexion in my life. Roses and carnations are nothing to it.' 'Rather a vulgar style of beauty, I think,' said Mr Rice Rice, junior, taking up an eyeglass, and finding some difficulty in fixing it in his eye. He had lately discovered that he was nearsighted, to the great grief of his mother, who, however, sometimes spoke of the sad fact in the same tone that she used to speak of the Rice Rice, and Morgan of Glanwilliam families. She herself belonged to the latter. 'I vow she's lovely!' cried the baronet, so emphatically that every one in the room might have heard him. Most of the ladies, doubtless, did, and appropriated the sentiment, but, by-and-by, Netta was triumphant, as he went and sat by her, and complimented her in very audible terms. She blushed and coquetted very respectably for a country damsel, and wondered whether a poor baronet, or a wealthy miser's son would best help her to humble the pride and condescension of the Nugents and the Rice Rices. Whilst Lady Mary Nugent was playing, Mr Gwynne very nearly went to sleep, and Rowland Prothero, who liked nothing but chants, and a solemn kind of music that he chose to think befitting a clergyman, was, in his turn, looking over the drawing-room scrap book. Miss Gwynne gave her papa a sly push, and whispered, that she believed Mr Rowland Prothero played chess. Mr Gwynne aroused himself, and challenged his young neighbour. Miss Gwyne, assisted by all the gentlemen, brought the chess-table, and the game soon began. There is no doubt that there is nothing in the world more selfish, more absorbing, more disagreeable to every one excepting the players, than chess. Mr Gwynne began his game half asleep; Rowland began his in a very bad temper. The former was glad of anything that could keep him awake, the latter was disgusted at having been made the victim of Miss Gwynne's anxiety to preserve her father from falling fast asleep in the midst of his guests. But, by degrees, the one was thoroughly aroused, and the other forgot his annoyance. Both soon ignored the presence of any human being save himself and his opponent. Music and talking sounded on all sides, but they made no impression on the chess-players. Lady Mary performed all her most brilliant airs and variations in vain, as far as Mr Gwynne was concerned; and Rowland was even unconscious that Netta had resolutely played through all the small pieces she had learnt at school at the particular request of Sir Hugh Pryse. 'That game will never finish,' at last exclaimed Lady Mary, approaching Mr Gwynne. 'How can any one like chess?' Mr Gwynne kept his finger on a piece he was about to move, glanced up, but did not speak. 'They tell me you ought to have at least five or six moves in your eye whilst you are making one,' said Sir Hugh. 'For my part, I always find one move at a time more than I can manage. It certainly is the dullest game ever invented.' 'Chess is a game of great antiquity,' said the Rev. Jonathan sententiously. 'It is supposed to have been invented in China or Hindustan, and was known in the latter place by the name _Chaturanga_, that is, four _angas_, or members of an army.' 'The army must be proud to send such members to parliament,' said young Rice Rice, with a consciousness of superior wit, in which the remainder of the party did not appear to participate. 'True, young gentleman,' said Mr Jonathan, 'and well she might, for they were elephants, horses, chariots, and foot-soldiers; but what such members of an army have to do with parliament, I should be glad to hear you explain. I do not remember mention being made of parliament till the twelfth century. It was first applied to general assemblies in France during the reign of Louis the Seventh; and the earliest mention of it in England is in the preamble to the statute of Westminster in 1272. It is derived from the French word _parler_, to speak.' 'Then,' said Miss Gwynne, 'there must be some truth in what I have heard, that the first parliament was composed of women.' 'Good, good, 'pon my soul!' roared Sir Hugh. 'But Sir William Jones says of chess,' continued Mr Jonathan, in the same unchanged tone and manner, 'that the Hindus--' 'Oh, my dear, pray do not let us hear anything of Sir William Jones; I am sick to death of all the Jones',' interrupted Mrs Prothero, causing a diversion, and a suppressed laugh at her expense, instead of at young Rice Rice's, who had made the last sally upon Mr Jonathan, and a somewhat mortifying retreat. It was remarkable, that whoever made a sly attack upon that worthy, with a view to a joke, was sure to have the tables turned upon him, by the matter-of-fact way in which his joke was received, refuted, and cut to pieces. 'I assure you, my dear, there have been many very celebrated Jones', Sir William at the head of them. He was a great Oriental scholar. Then there was Inigo Jones, the architect; and John Paul Jones, the admiral; and Dr John Jones, the grammarian, born in this very county; and--and--' 'That celebrated Mr David Jones, Mr Prothero, whose locker was so deep that I am sure he must have been a relation of the admiral,' suggested Miss Gwynne. 'Truly so, my dear--but I have read--' 'I am afraid I must trouble you to order my carriage, Mr Gwynne,' said Lady Mary, looking impatiently, first at the chess-table, secondly at her daughter, who was engaged in animated nonsense with Mr Rice Rice, junior; and thirdly at Sir Hugh, still occupied in making Netta blush. 'I beg your pardon; one moment, Lady Mary; I must just castle my king.' 'Perhaps you had better put an end to the game, papa,' said Miss Gwynne. 'Not for the world, my dear. What do you say, Mr Rowland?' 'I should certainly like to finish it, but perhaps we are inconveniencing others.' 'Ah, yes, to be sure. Then will you come and dine with me to-morrow, and we will finish it?' 'Thank you, I shall be very happy,' Mr Rice Rice, junior, and Sir Hugh wished that they were good chess players. It was quite an honour to be invited to a family party at Glanyravon. 'Put the chess-table into the book-room, Winifred, and lock the door.' Mr Gwynne actually rose in the excitement of the moment. 'If the servants come they will disturb the men, and--and--all that sort of thing, you know.' Miss Gwynne and Rowland carried the chess-table into a small room, opening into the drawing-room, and duly locked the door after them. 'I suppose you are fond of chess,' said Miss Gwynne for want of something to say. 'Very,' said Rowland laconically, and she little knew what was passing in his mind. Always the same thoughts when in her presence--thoughts of mingled approbation and dislike. But she cared little what he thought of her. 'Dry and pedantic, and very disagreeable,' was what she thought of him. 'Your nephew is rather a sinking-looking young man,' were Lady Mary's words to Mrs Prothero, during his temporary absence. 'Yes, he is very clever and gentlemanlike. He gained high honours at Oxford, and my cousin. Sir Philip Payne Perry, is going to procure him a London curacy,' Lady Mary looked still more favourably upon Rowland when he returned, with a flush on his face, from the book-room. 'Do you know that young Prothero is a very handsome young man?' she said to Miss Gwynne. 'Very handsome,' said Miss Gwynne, remembering her intentions for Wilhelmina. And the carriages were announced.	{ "id": "15315" }
8	THE MISER'S SON.	It was Sunday evening, and all the inmates of Glanyravon Farm were either at church or chapel, with the exception of Netta and one of the servants, who remained to watch the sick Gladys. Netta said she had a headache, and preferred staying at home. By way of curing it she put on her best bonnet and went for a walk. As soon as she was out of sight of the house she set off at a pace that did not bespeak pain of any kind. She soon struck out of the country road, with its hedges of hawthorn, into a field, and thence into a small wood or grove, almost flanking the road. The warm June sun sent his rays in upon her through the trees, and helped them to cast checkered shadows upon her path, lighting up, every here and there, a bunch of fern or flowers, and brightening the trunks of the interlacing trees. As she saw the lights and shadows dancing before her she became serious for a moment, and fancied they were like the will-o'-the-wisp, and portended no good; but she soon quickened her pace, and at the first opening went out again into the road, where the sun was uninterrupted in his gaze, and her few fanciful thoughts took flight. She glanced furtively into one or two cottages as she passed them, and the absence of all inmates seemed to reproach her for her Sunday evening falsehood. At last she reached a small cross-road or lane, down which she turned, heedless of the profusion of wild roses that actually canopied the way. Another path, narrower still, and thickly bordered with blackberry bushes in full blossom, brought her to what seemed a large mass of brambles, low underwood, and occasional young oaks. There were, however, little patches of grass here and there amongst the thicket, and into one of these she got with some difficulty. This was the hall from which diverged one or two little passages, that looked so dark, narrow, and brambly, that they appeared inaccessible. But Netta managed to push aside some briars with her parasol and enter one. Almost at her first footstep she tore her pretty muslin dress, but folding it closer round her, she pushed her way. The smart pink bonnet was in great danger, but escaped uninjured. At last she found herself on the brink of a deep ravine, almost precipitous, and heard the sound of rushing water beneath her. Large, gloomy trees outspread their brawny arms on each side of this gorge and lovingly embraced above it, so that the rays of the sun were again thwarted in their purpose, and turned and twisted about before they could glance upon the dark waters below. Netta did not know all the tangles and tears she was to meet with when she set out on her walk. She had not visited this spot for some time, and then she had taken a more frequented path, on the other side of the ravine. She looked around, and down into the depth below, but she could see nothing but trees and brushwood. She was not strong-minded, so she began to be afraid. However, summoning up her courage, she pushed into a kind of broken stony path, down the side of the gully, and at the expense of a few more rents in the muslin dress, and some scratches on her hands, she succeeded in scrambling to the bottom. Here was a wild and beautiful scene. A waterfall rolled from a height, over rocks and brushwood, down into a foaming stream beneath, that rushed, in its turn, over huge stones through the dark ravine. As Netta stood almost at the base of the waterfall, and on the edge of the rapid brook, something like reflection took possession of her volatile mind. There was a solemn gloom and grandeur about the scene that reminded her of the Sabbath she was desecrating, and therewith of her parents, and her duty to them. For a moment--only for a moment--she thought she would return, and strive to atone for the falsehood, by giving up the object of her evening wandering. But a bright gleam of sunshine darted through the trees--the stream foamed and leapt towards it--the waterfall sparkled beneath--the arrowy fern glittered like gold, and Netta's heart forgot her duty, and thought of her recreant lover. Her repentance must come in gloom, her sin in sunshine. She plucked a bunch of the wild roses that hung around and above her, and dashed them petulantly into the stream. She watched them as their course was interrupted by the large masses of rock, and they were tossed here and there by the angry mischievous water. At last they hung trembling on a huge stone, stranded, as it were, on their impetuous course. Again, for a moment, a serious comparison arose in her mind, and she wondered whether her life might be like that of the flowers she had cast away from her? whether she might be carried, by the force of contending passions, and left to wither upon some hard shore that as yet she knew not of. Such ideas naturally present themselves to the mind of all who are not wholly devoid of imagination and when the rapid stream again bore, away the bunch of roses, and Netta saw them no more, she had quite believed that such would be her course upon the troubled waters of the world. But she was not long left to speculate upon her future. Whilst her eyes were yet fixed upon the spot whence the roses had vanished, she felt a hand on her shoulder, heard a voice call her name, and starting round, saw her cousin Howel behind her. He had crept so softly down that she had not heard him, and she uttered a sharp cry that sounded like one of terror, as she suddenly felt his touch. 'A strange greeting, Netta,' were the first words, after they had shaken hands. 'You frightened me, and why were you not here sooner? I have been waiting an hour,' was the rejoinder, in a tone of voice that belied the radiant joy of the young face. Suddenly Netta seemed to recollect something that brought a shadow over the sunshine. 'Cousin Howel, I--I am very sorry for you. Poor Uncle Griff! How is aunt? --and you--you look ill, Howel; what is the matter?' It was difficult for Netta to know what to say about the death of the miser. She was not sorry, and she could not tell how her cousin felt. 'Oh, yes; my mother is pretty well. I have been ill, but shall soon be all right again. Netta, how long is it since we met?' 'A twelvemonth next Friday.' 'You remember the day, dear Netta. Then you do not hate me, although they have done their best to make you do so, by calling me gambler, spendthrift, drunkard, and all the charming etceteras.' 'Oh no, Howel.' 'Take off that bonnet, and let me see if you are altered.' He unfastened the strings, and let the long black curls fall over the girl's neck. 'No, you are only prettier than ever, cousin Netta. How would you look in lace and pearls, and all the goodly array of a fine lady?' 'I don't know, Howel; but tell me what you wanted me for. 'Just let me twist this bunch of roses into your hair first, to see how an evening toilette would become my pretty cousin Netta.' Howel had torn a spray from the rose-bush at their back, and he inserted it carelessly amongst the curls. 'How well you look, Netta. I should like to see you in a ball-room. We will go together to plenty of balls, if you will only consent.' 'I don't like those roses, cousin,' said Netta hastily, 'they are unlucky I think,' and she tore them from her hair, and threw them, as she had done the previous ones, into the brook. 'Now let us see where they will go.' 'We have not time, Netta, and I do not know why I am fooling away the hours. You must answer all my questions truly and plainly. I am become a rich man, how rich I do not myself know; and I mean to let every one belonging to me see that I can spend my money like a gentleman, and be as grand as those who have hitherto lorded it over me.' 'Particularly the Rice Rices and Lady Mary Nugent,' interrupted Netta. 'Would you like to be grander than they, Netta? have a finer carriage, more beautiful clothes, a handsomer house, plate, jewels, servants, and all sorts of magnificence?' 'Oh, yes, of all things in the world.' 'Then you shall be my wife, Netta, and we will soon see whether we cannot be as grand as the grandest.' 'Oh, cousin!' 'Well, dear Netta; tell me, are you changed?' 'No, cousin.' 'If I ask your father's consent, and he gives it, will you marry me?' 'You know we settled that long ago, cousin Howel; but father will not consent, unless--unless--' 'Pshaw, but if I ask his consent, and he refuses it, will you marry me then, dear Netta, dear, dear cousin?' Howel fixed his large, piercing eyes upon Netta, who coloured and trembled, and murmured, 'Oh, Howel, I don't know--how can I?' 'How can you? Who is to prevent you? We can marry and go abroad, and return and ask pardon, and I will take a fine house, and they will be only too proud to own us?' 'Not father, Howel, unless--' 'Unless I become a steady fellow, and settle down, as I mean to do, if you will marry me. But if you refuse me, I shall just go on as I am, or put an end to my wretched life perhaps.' 'Howel, don't be so wicked,' cried Netta, bursting into tears. 'Then, Netta, you must give me your promise to be mine, whether your father consents or not, whenever I write you word, through my mother, that I will have a carriage ready at the corner near the turnpike. But I can settle all particulars at the proper time, provided only you promise. Remember, you have told me hundreds of times that you will be my wife, and neither father nor mother should prevent it.' 'I do not know--I cannot tell whether it would be right.' 'Not right to save me from destruction, to make me what I ought to be, to cleave to your husband as if he were yourself, in spite of parents or relations! I am sure, Netta, that you are taught to do all this; besides, you cannot help it, if you love me. You know that I would have married you when I had nothing, as readily as I will now that I have tens of thousands, and surely this deserves a return?' Netta began to sob. 'You know how it is, Howel. I am afraid of father, and could not bear to annoy mother, but--' 'But you love me better still, Netta; so do not cry, and we will be as happy as the day is long. Will you promise me?' Netta sobbed on and hesitated. 'I am going to London to-morrow, cousin Netta, to pay debts, and make myself clear of the world. If you will promise, in a few months I will return for you; we will travel, we will do anything in the world you like; I shall have plenty of money, I shall probably write a book when we are abroad, which will make me famous as well as rich; we will come home and astonish the world. If you do not promise, I shall never come here again, and shall probably live a gay, wretched life on the continent, or elsewhere, and be really the good-for-nothing fellow I am thought to be;--will you promise, dear cousin Netta?' Howel knew well how to assume a manner that should add force to the feelings he expressed, and rarely did he employ his powers of persuasion in vain, particularly with the fair sex, never with his cousin, to whom he was really attached, and who was wholly devoted to him. 'Netta,' he added, in a low, sad voice, 'I fear, after all, you do not love me, and I have very few who care for me in this world.' 'Do not say this, cousin,' sobbed Netta, 'you know I always promised--I always said--I--I--will do anything in the world you wish me, cousin Howel.' 'Even if your father refuses?' 'Yes, I will not care for any one but you.' 'Thank you, dear Netta; now I know that we shall be happy, and you shall have everything you can desire.' 'Stop, cousin; I shall not marry you because you are rich, or great, or likely to be as grand as other people--though I should like to put them down, just as well as you--but because we have loved each other ever since we were little children, and I could not care for any one else--not even if Sir Hugh Pryse were to ask me.' Howel was both touched and amused. 'You are a good, kind, little cousin, Netta; but what can you mean about Sir Hugh?' Netta tossed her head, and looked vain-glorious. 'Oh, I dined at Glanyravon on Thursday, and the Rice Rices, and Nugents, and Sir Hugh were there; and Sir Hugh was very attentive to me, and said a great many things to me. And he has been at our house since, and has met me in the road, and been as polite as possible.' 'But he is desperately in love with Miss Gwynne, or her fortune; so you need not alarm yourself, my little cousin.' 'You need not alarm _yourself_, you ought to say,' and Netta again tossed her head. 'Well, I am not jealous. Sir Hugh, with his loud voice, vulgar manners, and stupid fat face, could not light a candle to me, and as to his title, I will back my fortune against that.' 'It sounds very grand to be called my lady.' Netta said this to pique her cousin, and she succeeded; but she did not expect to provoke the storm that she raised. The dark brow lowered, and he said,-- 'Netta, I am in no mood to be trifled with. If you wish to be 'my lady,' take Sir Hugh, if he will have you; but I go halves with nobody. Now is the time to resolve; I shall never ask you again; and whatever your opinion may be upon the subject, I consider that I do you as great honour in asking you to be my wife, as if there were fifty Sir Hughs at your feet.' It was now Netta's time to pout and look cross. She generally did before her private interviews with her cousin ended. Their quick tempers were sure to inflame each other. 'I am sure I don't care whether you ask me again or not. It is not such a great favour on your part.' 'Very well; then "your ladyship" has probably decided in favour of this,' and Howel made a face to represent Sir Hugh swelling his cheeks to their utmost extent. Netta tried to smother a laugh. 'I am sure he is quite as good looking as you are, with your cross face. You are enough to frighten one out of one's wits.' 'If you had any, Miss Netta. But come, this is absurd. Is it to be Sir Hugh in perspective, or cousin Howel at once?' Netta was still pouting, fidgeting with her parasol, and restlessly pushing her foot through the grass and flowers, when they were startled by a voice crying,-- 'Is that you, Netta?' Both looked up in affright, and, to their extreme disgust, perceived their very sedate brother and cousin, Rowland, threading his way down the opposite side of the ravine. He was soon at the bottom, and in less than a minute had crossed from stone to stone over the brook, and stood by the side of his sister. 'Netta, what can you be doing here?' he asked abruptly. 'I came for a walk,' was the somewhat hesitating reply. 'Then, perhaps, you will have no objection to walk home with me,' said Rowland, looking reproachfully at Howel. He met a defiant glance in return. 'Howel,' he said, 'I do not think my father would approve of Netta's meeting you here, and, I therefore, must beg to break up an interview that had been better avoided.' 'Whatever right your father may have, sir, to prevent my seeing your sister, at any rate you have none,' was Howel's indignant reply. 'Then I shall take a brother's right, and in the absence of my father, assume his place. Netta, you know you are doing wrong; come with me.' Netta hesitated, but her brother's manner was authoritative, and she felt that she dared not disobey. 'I tell you what it is, Rowland, you have always assumed a tone with me that I neither can nor will brook,' passionately exclaimed Howel.' I beg you to account for your conduct, and to understand that I will have either an apology or satisfaction for your ungentlemanly proceedings.' 'I never apologise when I have done no wrong; and as for satisfaction, as you understand it, I have not the power of making it. I will not desecrate the Sabbath by an unseemly quarrel amidst the most beautiful works of creation, nor offend my sister's ear by recrimination. If you have any real regard for her, you will allow her to go home quietly with me, and remember that we are all relations, and ought to be friends.' 'Friends we can never be. The only friend I have in your family is Owen, except, perhaps, Netta, who is turned by one and the other of you, like a weathercock by the winds.' 'I beg your pardon, cousin Howel,' began Netta. 'We have had enough of this,' said Rowland calmly. 'If you choose to come and see us as a relation, in a straightforward manner, Howel, we should be glad to see you, but underhand ways are equally disagreeable to us all.' 'How remarkably condescending!' said Howel with a sneer. 'But I will not waste time with a canting, Methodist parson like you. I wish you as many converts as you desire, but not myself amongst them. Remember, Netta! Good bye. I suppose your most excellent brother will allow us to shake hands.' Netta held out her hand, and as Howel shook it, he again repeated the word 'remember.' Rowland advanced a pace or two, and partly extended his hand. Howel turned abruptly away, and with a contemptuous glance, merely said, 'Good day to you,' The brother and sister took an opposite course to his, and had to cross the brook, whilst he pushed his way through the briers that had impeded Netta's path. He turned and watched them as they stepped from stone to stone, and finally ascended the ravine. Netta looked round, and he kissed his hand to her, to which she responded by nodding her head; but Rowland neither turned to the right nor left. 'Meddling coxcomb!' he exclaimed, 'what is there in him that commands the attention and respect that I fail to obtain with ten times his talents?' He stood for a few minutes musing, whilst the music of the waterfall insensibly soothed his irritated mind. 'Why should I care for Netta, who could marry any one I like?' were his thoughts. 'I suppose because she really loves me, and because they all oppose me. Well, supposing I do turn over a new leaf, and spend the gold my father got so usuriously, in doing good! That would be making a use of a miser's money, rarely, if ever, made before? and might be worth the trial, if only to work a new problem, whether ill-gotten wealth could conduce to moral health. I should like to out-Herod that puppy Rowland, and make a saint of myself out of a sinner. That would be working out two problems at once. I wonder whether Netta will help me to solve them?' Netta, meanwhile, was receiving a very severe lecture from her brother, to which she did not condescend to reply, until he spoke of what his father would say to her meeting Howel clandestinely, 'I suppose you are not going to be cross enough to tell father,' said Netta' 'I shall certainly think it my duty to tell him,' was the reply. 'Then you are an unkind, unfeeling, unnatural brother,' cried Netta, bursting into tears. 'Will you promise not to meet Howel again without my father or mother's consent?' asked Rowland, relenting, 'I won't promise anything? and Howel is a thousand times nicer and kinder than you are. You have no feeling for any one. I wish Owen were at home.' 'Netta, you are very unjust? you know I only wish your good.' 'And I suppose you wish Howel's good, too. Just as his father is dead, and he meaning to be good, and only wishing to see me before he goes to London, and having plenty of money to do what he likes, and intending to pay his debts with it, and--and--' Here sobs and tears came to the rescue of the voluble words that would soon have worn themselves out--for Netta had no great flow of language. Rowland was perplexed. He was fond of his sister? he wished Howel well? he did not know whether it would be best to let them marry or not. If they were prevented, they would either take French leave, or hate all their relations? and if they married they would not be happy, he was sure. But he knew it was wrong to deceive his parents. In this uncertain state of mind they reached home, through, the little hawthorn lane before described. Mrs Prothero was on the look out for them, she having returned from chapel and missed them. Netta ran past her mother into the house, without replying to her question concerning her headache, and Rowland at once related to his mother what he had seen of Howel and Netta's private interview, which that good lady was very much distressed to hear.	{ "id": "15315" }
9	THE IRISH BEGGAR.	Glanyravon farm was anything but a quiet home during the ensuing week. Mrs Prothero thought it right to inform her husband of what had passed; and he blustered and raged even more than he had ever done about the Irish beggars. Everybody thought proper to try to convert Netta, but none of them knew the indomitable obstinacy of her character, and all signally failed. Even Uncle and Aunt Jonathan had their turn, and drove over on purpose to canvass the matter; but as the elders disagreed upon the various points at issue, it was no wonder that all remained much as it was before the unfortunate meeting we have mentioned. 'For my part,' said Mrs Jonathan Prothero, when all were assembled, except Netta, in family conclave, 'I cannot see so much against the young man after all. Such a fortune as his is not to be met with every day, and I must say he is very handsome and clever.' Here we must remark that this lady's sentiments had undergone a change, since it had been rumoured that Howel was worth more than a hundred thousand pounds. 'I tell you what it is, ma'am,' roared the farmer, 'if he were worth his weight in gold, he 'ouldn't be a good match for any prudent 'ooman. To my certain knowledge he drinks and gambles, and he shall never have my consent to marry Netta so long as I live, and you may tell him so.' 'I do not know enough of him, sir, to have any communication of the kind with him,' said Mrs Jonathan, stiffly. 'My dear,' interposed mild Mrs Prothero, 'if he gets steady, and settles down, it might be better to let them marry, than to make them miserable for life.' ' _Study_! miserable! mother, you're a--I beg your pardon, but when Howel's study, I'll turn to smoking cigars. Why, the very night of his father's funeral he was half drunk, instead of being decent for once.' 'He couldn't care much for his father, my dear; you must make allowances.' 'An odd man, that Griff, brother David,' said Mr Jonathan Prothero, as if just awaking from a dream. 'Do you remember when we were lads together, and used to go up to Garn Goch looking for treasures? I knew, even then, that it was an old British encampment, and began to speculate upon its date, and so on; you used to hunt rabbits, and provoke me by overturning the walls, but Griff got it into his head that there was money buried somewhere, and never ceased digging for it. At last he found an old coin of very ancient date, and seeing that I wished to have it, he bargained with me, until he got all the money I had for it. Of course the coin was worth any money, and satisfactorily proves that Garn Goch was an old British encampment at the time of the invasion of the Romans.' 'Well, brother, you _are_ by the head! That old coin is nothing but a well-used sixpence.' 'I have every reason to believe, and I am supported in my opinion by various antiquaries, that it bears the inscription either of Cunobelin or Caractacus. There is a decided C, and we are told that money was coined in Britain in the time of Cunobelin.' 'And how on earth did he get up to Garn Goch?' 'Why, you know that Caractacus commanded the Silures, or people of South Wales, against the Romans, and that they held out bravely, I have no shadow of doubt that Garn Goch was one of their strongholds.' 'But what can Garn Goch have to do with Netta and Howel? Brother, I always shall say you are by the head with your antiquities.' 'Well, I think you had better let them marry, I really do. It's no good opposing young people, when they will have their own way at last.' 'I sha'n't send for you to consult with again. Mother, go and bring Netta here, and let us see what she has to say for herself.' 'My dear Davy, would it not be better to speak to her privately?' 'Not a bit. I can't say a word when I am alone with her, but I could give her a bit of my mind when you are all present. Why don't you go, and not stand looking as if you was as much by the head as brother Jo.' Poor Mrs Prothero perceived that her husband was determined to have Netta publicly reprimanded, so, much against her will, she left the room. Rowland was preparing to follow, not liking the prospect of a scene, when his father peremptorily called him back. 'Stay you, sir. If you was the better for going to Oxford, you'd try to teach your sister how to behave, instead of cutting off the moment you're wanted.' 'I really do not think, father, that a public reproof is likely to make Netta change her mind. You would do better to talk quietly to her.' Here Mrs Prothero returned, followed by Netta, looking as sulky as she possibly could, and with the traces of tears on her face. There was an awkward silence for a few seconds, during which both Mr Prothero and Netta were getting redder and redder, and their inner man correspondingly choleric. At last the father began the strife. 'Now, I say, Miss Netta,' there was a pause for a few minutes. 'Do you hear, miss?' 'Yes, father, I hear very well,' said Netta, and muttered to herself in continuation, 'who could help it?' 'You hear very well--I should think so. You hear a good deal you've no business to listen to. Do you mean to give up that scamp Howel?' No reply. 'Now it's no use for you to stand there and say nothing, for an answer I will have.' 'I don't think he's a scamp,' said Netta boldly. Poor Mrs Prothero trembled, and looked imploringly at Netta. 'My dear Netta, you should not contradict your father,' said Mrs Jonathan, with a severe look. 'You don't think he's a scamp. Then you mean to have him, I suppose?' said Mr Prothero. 'I didn't say that, father. But I don't see why I may not speak to my own cousin.' Every one was surprised at Netta's answers. Like her father, she could talk better before numbers. She had done nothing but cry when her mother had reasoned with her. 'Very well, miss. All I can say is, that if you meet him again I'll--I'll--I'll--' the good farmer did not know what he would do. He was not prepared to say. 'He is gone to London, father,' 'Will you promise not to meet him any more, you good-for-nothing girl, you? You most disobedient daughter!' Again Netta was silent. 'Will you promise your father, Netta,' said Mrs Prothero, gently, 'not to meet Howel again, or have anything to say to him, without his consent?' Still Netta was silent. 'He may reform, you know,' suggested Mrs Jonathan, 'and then you may be allowed to marry,' 'No chance of that,' roared Mr Prothero, advancing towards Netta, taking her by the arm, and looking as if a few more of her rejoinders would bring her a good shaking. 'Do you mean to promise, miss?' 'Father, you're hurting me,' said Netta petulantly. 'You needn't pinch me so.' Mr Prothero relaxed his hold. He doated on this obstinate, pretty, wilful child of his--the only girl, and whose temper was the very facsimile of his own. 'It's you're hurting me most, Netta, by rushing into certain misery. Will you promise?' Again he took hold of the arm. 'One would think you were a Papist, father, and this the Inquisition,' said Netta, growing learned under the torture of her father's grasp, 'Well said, Netta,' broke in Mr Jonathan, aroused by any allusion to any subject out of the present. 'A cruel court that perhaps more properly called Jesuitical than Papistical.' Mr Prothero gave Netta a slight shake, which shook more passion into both of them, and frightened Mrs Prothero. 'Once for all, Netta, will you promise to give up that scamp of a cousin of yours, Howel Jenkins?' roared the father. 'I won't promise anything at all,' replied Netta doggedly; and freeing herself from her father, she ran to her uncle as if for protection. 'You won't!' said Mr Prothero, pursuing her, 'then I tell you what it is. The moment you are known to keep company with him, you may find some other home than this; and if you determine to marry him, you shall be no longer a daughter of mine. I'll never, as long as I live--' 'Hush, hush, David, hush, please,' said Mrs Prothero, putting her hand on his arm. 'Netta will not disobey us, I am sure. But it is her obstinate temper; she never would say anything she was commanded to say.' 'Then you ought to have taught her better. She is a good-for-nothing girl, and I'll--' 'Netta, you had better leave the room,' said Rowland, opening the door, through which Netta gladly escaped. ' "Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath,"' he added, turning to his father. 'You will do nothing with her at present. She is worked up to a spirit of resistance by too much argument, and the more you say the more obstinate she will become.' 'You are all as obstinate as mules,' said Mr Prothero; 'I can't think who you turn after. And then to have the impudence to say I was a Papist! Why, I'd rather be a Methody preacher any day. And you to encourage her, brother Jonathan. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.' Brother Jonathan started up from his dream of Garn Goch and the Inquisition, to repudiate the imputation of encouragement. 'I was merely glad to find that she knew anything about the Inquisition, and had any information at all in her head; generally speaking, women know so little. I assure you, David, it was far from me to wish to encourage her in disobedience, or to offend you; so give me your hand.' The brothers shook hands very warmly, and in so doing, the contrast between them was very great. The farmer I have already described. The clergyman was a remarkable specimen of the 'dry-as-dust' species. Very tall, very thin, with very loose joints, seemingly hung together on wires, and a very prominent nose. He had acquired the habit of poking his chin and looking on the ground, as if he were always in search for something, which he possibly was, as he never despaired of finding some antiquity or curiosity at any moment. It must not be augured from his devotion to antiquarian lore that he made a bad clergyman On the contrary, he was always ready at the call of the poorest parishioner, regular in his visits to the sick, charitable in no mean degree, and humble in his deportment to rich and poor. True, his sermons were somewhat dry, and occasionally too learned for the greater portion of his flock; but he made up for this by the simplicity of his conversation when he talked to them at their own houses. He seldom was seen without a sort of school-boy satchel at his back, containing a small hammer and other useful tools, which, it was believed, had actually carried his lesson-books years ago. All the villagers knew his strong-and-weak point, and he rarely appeared amongst them without having various stones and imaginary curiosities presented to him, particularly by the young people. Many of these stones found their way into his bag, and it was not to be wondered at that he had a somewhat round back, as he frequently carried a load upon it, that a beast of burden would not have rejoiced in. He and Mrs Jonathan were a remarkable pair; one of those ill-assorted couples that you wonder at. 'How in the world did they come together?' was the usual question, the philosophic reply to which would have been, that theirs was actually one of the 'Matches made in heaven.' The gentleman got money to enable him to follow the bent of his genius without anxiety for his daily bread, and therewith a stirring wife to take care of him and his house; the wife got her great desideratum, a husband, and therewith the desideratum of all women, her own way. But we must return to Netta and the other belligerents. As nothing more was to be made of her at present, they let her alone, perhaps the wisest thing they could do, and sat down to dinner. Netta declined eating, and consequently was left to her own reflections. Mr Prothero inquired anxiously of his wife, when he had cooled a little, whether he had really hurt Netta when he took hold of her arm; to which Mrs Prothero replied with unusual severity, 'No, perhaps it had been better if you had; she wanted some trial or punishment to bring down her proud spirit.' In the course of the evening, a little before Mr and Mrs Jonathan left Glanyravon to return home, Miss Gwynne came to inquire for the poor Irish girl. She joined the party in the parlour for a short time, and gave a message from her father to Rowland, to the effect that he was very anxious for another game of chess, and begged him to come and dine at the Park on the morrow. Of course Rowland was only too happy, and the rest of the party too proud. 'Papa is disgusted at your having beaten him the other night,' said Miss Gwynne to Rowland. 'I think Mr Gwynne got tired,' said Rowland modestly. 'What affectation,' thought Miss Gwynne, as she said, 'oh, no! he says you are the best player.' 'I disclaim that entirely,' said Rowland. 'I merely beat two games out of three, and we had not time for another.' Rowland had been, according to promise, to dine and play chess with Mr Gwynne; Miss Gwynne had dined with them, but had left them after dinner to follow their own devices, whilst she had followed hers, and did not reappear during the evening. Mr Gwynne had reproached her for her absence, and she had declared that she hated to be so long without talking, and that chess and young Prothero were perfect antidotes to conversation. 'That ancient, Saracenic game, as Mr Jonathan Prothero calls it, played by a Goth,' she said, 'is beyond my store of politeness.' Mrs Prothero and Miss Gwynne went to see the poor Irish girl; they found her rather better, and able to speak to them with some degree of composure. The fever and its accompanying delirium had abated, and the danger was past; but, as is usual in such cases, extreme weakness was the result. 'God bless you, my ladies,' she murmured, as Miss Gwynne stooped over her to inquire how she did, and Mrs Prothero took her thin hand. 'I am better, thank ye; I can see and understand, and know now all that you have done for the wretched beggar.' Here the poor girl's tears began to flow. 'We only wish to see you get well,' said Miss Gwynne softly, 'and then we can help you to find your friends.' 'I have no friends in the world miss, asthore; my father died years ago, and my mother, brother, and sister all died of this horrible famine and pestilence! oh me! oh me!' The tears flowed still faster, and Mrs Prothero begged her to be silent, and not to excite herself; but with restless eagerness she went on, as if anxious to pour forth her sorrows whilst she felt the strength to do so. It was remarkable that her English was very good, and that, with the exception of an occasional Irish epithet of endearment, you would scarcely have discovered her country. Indeed, the Welsh peculiarities of expression and accent sometimes appeared, so that it would have been difficult to say where she was born or brought up. 'I am going to look for my friends, if I live, and then, may be, I may be able to repay you for your kindness to me, a poor, wretched wanderer on the face of God's earth. If you'll be pleased to listen whilst I have the strength, I will tell you my story. 'My mother was a Welshwoman, born in some part of South Wales; she was the daughter of a clergyman, and respectably brought up. Her father taught her a great many things that we ignorant people in Ireland used to think a great deal of. Oh, she was a good and tender mother to me, ladies, avourneen. 'My father was an Irishman, and a fine, handsome man. He was a soldier, a corporal in the Welsh Fusiliers, and used to be called Corporal O'Grady. He was going through this country to Ireland, to visit his friends, on leave, when he first saw mother, and fell in love with her, and she with him. She knew that her father would not be willing that they should marry, so she ran away with him to Ireland. They travelled about for some time with his regiment, but, after I was born, mother went to settle in Ireland with father's family, and there she had three other children, two boys and a girl. After this my father was wounded in India, and got his discharge and his half-pay. He became a kind of under-agent for a gentleman that lived in England, so we were very well off as long as he lived; but he died when I was about twelve years old, and then mother did not well know what to do. I remember my father's death, and all our trouble, as if it was yesterday. 'She set up a little school, and for some years did pretty well. She could teach all that the farmers' daughters wanted to learn, and I helped her; so we managed to live. It was a hard struggle sometimes, but everybody was kind to widow O'Grady and her orphans; God reward them. 'But the bad time came for poor Ireland; the famine visited us, and then the pestilence! Ye have heard enough of the horrors, without doubt, but not half of what they really were. We were all starving, dying--I saw enough people die to make me wish myself dead hundreds of times, to be hidden from the sight; but I was fated to live. You, ladies, in your charity, have saved me again; but oh! if it were not wicked, I should wish myself with my mother, brothers, and sister in heaven.' Here the poor girl's sobs choked her speech, and Mrs Prothero entreated her not to proceed. 'Only one word more, my ladies, and I have done. When they were all gone--all--all--and I only left, I did not care what became of me. I went about amongst those stricken down with the fever; but, woe is me, I never caught it. I fasted from morning to night, day after day, but I could not die of starvation; nothing would kill me. I was alone in the wide world, yet it would not please God to take me to another, much as I prayed to Him. 'Before mother died she told me to go into Wales, and try to find if she had any relations left. It was all she said, or had strength for; and before she got ill she seldom talked of her friends. All that I know of them I heard from my father when I was quite a child. He told me that mother had written to her father when she settled in Ireland, and that her letter had been returned with a note, saying that he was dead, and his only son gone away, no one knew where. This was her brother, and my uncle, but I do not know where to find him, only I am come to seek them, that I may do her bidding.' 'And what was your mother's name?' asked Mrs Prothero. 'Margaret Jones, ma'am,' 'My poor girl, there are hundreds of that name in South Wales. But we will make inquiries for you, and when you are better--' 'I am better now, thank you, ma'am. To-morrow I think I may go on my way. I would not trouble you any more; a poor beggar like me is not fit--oh dear! oh dear!' 'Now I insist on your being quiet and going to sleep, and forgetting all those horrors,' said Miss Gwynne, assuming her most decided voice to hide her emotion. 'You are not to go away to-morrow; but I daresay in a few days you will be able to do so, and we can help you a little. But your best plan now is to get as strong as you can whilst you have the opportunity,' and herewith Miss Gwynne put a large spoonful of jelly into the girl's mouth. Mrs Prothero was wiping her eyes, and stifling a rising sob behind the curtain, which caused Miss Gwynne to become very severe, and to utter something about giving way to foolish weakness which aroused Mrs Prothero, and made the patient bury her head beneath the bed-clothes. Miss Gwynne beckoned to Mrs Prothero, and they left the room together. Upon asking for Netta, Miss Gwynne was let into the secret of the family troubles and consultations, and greatly fearing to be made a party in the lecturings overhanging the luckless head of the offender, she took a hasty leave of Mr and Mrs Jonathan, and begging Mrs Prothero not to be too hard upon Netta, or to let her son Rowland preach too many sermons, went her very independent way.	{ "id": "15315" }
10	THE SQUIRE'S DAUGHTER.	'You will oblige me by remaining at home this evening, my dear,' said Mr Gwynne to his daughter. 'That I assuredly shall, papa,' was the reply, 'for dear Miss Hall is coming to-day, and that princess of bores, Miss Nugent, has invited herself to tea. I certainly do wish Rowland Prothero would fall in love with her. She is quite ready for the _premier venu_, be he prince or peasant.' 'Does not Lady Mary come, my dear?' 'No; I am thankful to say she is gone to spend a few days with the Llanfawr family.' 'I am very glad Miss Hall is coming, Freda. I wish she would live with you; it would be very pleasant, and a protection for you, and all that sort of thing.' 'Oh, do ask her, dear papa. I have tried a thousand times to persuade her to come here and live with us for ever; but I think she will not come on my invitation.' 'I could not possibly ask her, my dear. I should break down at the first word; we never were very familiar. She is stiff, and I am nervous--and--and--I really could not summon courage.' Miss Hall had been Miss Gwynne's governess during a few years of her education era, and had succeeded in entirely gaining her affections, as well as a small portion of ascendancy over her determined will. She had left Glanyravon to reside with an aged father, who, having lately died, left her again under the necessity of seeking a situation. Miss Gwynne had invited her to pay her a visit, and she was to arrive almost immediately. She did arrive whilst they were talking about her, and as the carriage that had been sent to meet her drove up to the door out flew Freda in great excitement, and scarcely allowed her _ci-devant_ governess to alight before she was overwhelming her with embraces. Mr Gwynne followed somewhat more leisurely, and received Miss Hall with his usual nervous reserve of manner, but great courtesy. She responded most warmly to the embraces of Freda, and quietly to the welcome of Mr Gwynne. We will not give a minute description of the new comer, because she is not quite a person to be described. She is neither very good-looking nor very plain, neither very old nor very young, neither very tall nor very short, neither very talkative nor very reserved, neither very much over-dressed nor very much under-dressed, neither very merry nor very grave. Freda used to say that she was the personification of gentle dignity and serenity, and in the days of her Italian studies called her occasionally _La Dignità_, but more frequently _La Serenità_, which epithet would sometimes be abbreviated into Serena, or Sera, or Nita, or anything but Miss Hall, which the love of the impulsive pupil, so hard to obtain, and so great when obtained, thought much too formal. When Freda took Miss Hall to the delightful apartment she had been adorning for her for a week past, the first impulse of the older lady was to throw herself upon the neck of the younger, and burst into tears. 'Dearest Serena, I have been so very sorry for you,' was all that Freda could say. For a minute there was silence, when Miss Hall, recovering herself, said,-- 'Dear Freda, this is all so kind of you. If anything could console me for the loss of my last earthly support, it is such affection as yours.' We will pass over the long conversation of those two friends, its melancholy and its mirth, for there was much of both, and bring them to the dinner-table and Messrs Gwynne and Rowland Prothero. They were rather a formal quartette, and at first conversation did not flow easily. Mr Gwynne's nerves, Rowland's embarrassment Miss Hall's natural depression of spirits, and Freda's resolution not to make herself agreeable to a person she was determined to consider conceited, were bad ingredients for a dish of good sociable converse. By degrees, however, they thawed a little. Mr Gwynne wished to say something that would set his young chess opponent at his ease, and said the very thing likely the most to confuse a shy man. He made a personal remark and paid a compliment. 'I am sure your uncle and--and your father, of course, must have been much gratified, and so forth, at your gaining that fellowship at Oxford.' 'I think you labour under a mistake,' said Rowland, looking more than usually confused when he saw Miss Gwynne's eyes turned upon him; 'I merely gained a scholarship at Rugby, which is really nothing. I did not even try for a fellowship.' 'Conceited!' thought Freda. 'I suppose he thinks if he had tried he would have got one.' 'Were you not at Baliol?' asked Mr Gwynne. 'Yes; I went there because my aunt had a fancy for the college, her father having been, there, otherwise I should have gone to Jesus College and tried for a Welsh fellowship, which is more easily obtained, because there are few competitors.' 'Did you know anything of Mr Neville, Sir Thomas Neville's son?' asked Miss Hall. 'Yes; I was introduced to him through some friends of my aunt's, and we became very intimate. He was very kind to me.' 'Is he clever?' 'Very. I think he has very fine talents, and is likely to shine at the bar if he continues in his resolution to go to it. I have just had an invitation to spend a few days with him, but do not think I shall have time before I go to be ordained.' 'Has your aunt settled the curacy?' asked Freda, with a wicked laugh in the corner of her eye. 'I think and hope so,' replied Rowland, answering the visible smile by a blush; 'she has done her utmost to obtain it for me.' 'Ah! she was well connected, and has some interest, and a--a great deal of energy, and all that sort of thing; I should think she was a clever, or I mean a--an enterprising woman.' Mr Gwynne hesitated as he said this, not admiring the lady in question, yet thinking it incumbent upon him to pay her a compliment. His daughter glanced inquiringly at Rowland, as if wondering what he could say to so dubious a speech. He appeared equally at a loss, and, as he turned from Mr Gwynne for a moment, caught Miss Gwynne's mirthful eye. He could not help smiling, but said with much spirit,-- 'My aunt has been very good to me, Mr Gwynne, and I owe her a heavy debt of gratitude for giving me at least the opportunity of getting on in the world.' 'Well, I like him for that,' thought Freda; 'and are you going to London?' she asked aloud, with a degree of interest. 'I am to be ordained by the Bishop of London to a city curacy,' was the reply. 'Will you allow me to take wine with you and wish you success, sir?' said Mr Gwynne. 'Who knows but we may see you Bishop of London some day? Miss Hall, Freda, will you join us?' Mr Gwynne became quite animated. He felt proud that the son of his most respectable tenant should be going to take a London curacy. Freda bent rather less stiffly than usual to Mr Rowland Prothero. She was annoyed with herself for feeling more inclined to be friendly with him since she had heard that he was intimate with young Neville, and was to be ordained by the Bishop of London. There was more conversation, which it is unnecessary to repeat; but in due course of time the ladies retired to the drawing-room, where they found Miss Nugent awaiting them. 'Whose _beaux yeux_ do you think we have in the dining-room?' asked Freda. 'I am thure I cannot gueth; perhapth Thir Hugh Prythe's,' Miss Nugent lisped. 'Do you call his _beaux yeux_? Little ferret eyes like his! No; guess again.' 'Young Rithe Rithe?' 'Wrong again.' 'Not Captain Lewith?' 'Some one much nearer home.' 'I do not know any one elthe, exthept that Mr Howel Jenkinth, who, they thay, will be quite a grand man.' 'I do not even know him. What do you think of his cousin, Mr Rowland Prothero?' 'I never thought about him; mamma thayth he ith very handthome, but I am thure he is very _gauche_ and countrified.' 'Oh, I am sure he is not. You are greatly mistaken, he has been in excellent society, and is going at once to a London living--curacy I mean, but it is all the same.' Miss Hall looked rather amazed at Freda. A few hours before she had been lamenting the necessity of entertaining that 'stupid young Prothero.' 'Ith he really?' said Miss Nugent. 'The London curateth are tho interething. There ith one at Tht Jameth'th, with a pale face and black hair, and thuch a beautiful voice. Ith Mr Prothero going to Tht Jameth'th?' 'You shall ask him yourself; I daresay he will like you to seem interested.' 'Are you going to Tht Jameth'th, Mr Prothero?' inquired Miss Nugent, when that young man entered the room shortly after. 'I beg your pardon, I do not quite understand what you mean.' 'Mith Gwynne thaid you were going to a London curacy; I thought it might be Tht Jameth'th.' 'I believe not. If I go to London I shall probably be in the city--a very different locality to St James's.' 'Oh! when we are in town we alwayth go to Tht Jameth'th, it ith thuch a nice church.' Freda perceived that Miss Nugent's interest fell as soon as she found that Rowland was going into the city. She also saw a smile lurking about Rowland's mouth when he said,-- 'I have never been in London; but I suppose St James's is one of the fashionable parts.' 'Oh yeth, very. Numberth of grand people go to Tht Jameth'th; don't you with you were going to be curate there instead of the thity?' Rowland was grave in a moment. 'I should wish to labour wherever there is the largest field to work in, Miss Nugent, whether in the city or St James's.' 'Yeth, to be sure, I believe there are loths of poor people in Tht Jameth'th. I onthe went by chance into thuch a nathty alley clothe by Tht Jameth'th Threet. Thuch dirty children!' 'Alas,' said Miss Hall, coming to the rescue of Rowland, who was looking quite distressed, 'we cannot go many steps in the London parishes, be they fashionable or unfashionable, without entering a "vineyard" amply wide enough for any one who wishes to work in it, whether priest or layman.' Rowland looked round brightly and pleasantly at Miss Hall. Freda could not help noticing the sudden animation in a face that she had considered a minute ago almost heavy. 'When are we to have our game at chess?' interrupted Mr Gwynne. 'The poor of London is a subject I quite dread to hear discussed, it is so hopeless. One can do no good, and what is the use of tormenting oneself about it here in Wales.' 'Oh, papa! they want very decided measures; plenty of police, active magistrates, and I don't know what besides,' said Freda. 'Would you allow me to supply what you have omitted?' asked Rowland; 'they want Christian sympathy, Christian teaching, brotherly kindness, and the aid of the rich and powerful.' Freda considered Rowland's finale to her sentence impertinent and was about to take up the defence of her magisterial system very warmly, when she met a glance so earnest and appealing, and withal so beautiful in its earnestness, that she could not find in her heart to answer it by a hard look or word; so, for want of better reply, she went to prepare the chess-table. 'I wish you joy of that Saracenic game,' she said ironically, as her father and Rowland sat down to chess, not perhaps quite by the wish of one of the pair. 'I thought you liked chess, Freda?' said Miss Hall. 'Oh, pretty well, when I can get any one who does not beat me. I hate so to lose a game that I think it is better not to play at all than to run the risk of feeling in a passion, and not being able to give vent to it.' 'Perhaps the better plan would be to control the passion,' said Miss Hall. 'Impossible! I am sure it must be just such a feeling as a good general would have if he lost a battle, after having done his best to win it.' 'I suppose the best general is always the calmest, both in victory and defeat,' murmured Rowland, without taking his eyes from his men. 'If you would oblige me by not talking,' said Mr Gwynne nervously; 'I can never play if my opponent talks.' 'I beg your pardon,' said Rowland; 'I know it is very disagreeable.' 'Are you too tired to visit some of your old haunts, Serenità?' said Freda. 'By the way that would be a good name for Mr Prothero's ideal general.' 'Not quite,' began Rowland, but was silent in a moment. 'My dear Freda, are you going out? I really am sorry to stop your amusement, and so forth, but I cannot play,' said Mr Gwynne. 'Exactly, papa; we will go directly if Miss Hall likes.' The three ladies left the room, and, as Rowland glanced after them, he very decidedly wished that he might be permitted to accompany them. One other great wish he also had at his heart, the conversion of Miss Gwynne to a purer and higher tone of mind. He did not, we grieve to say, bestow a similar pastoral thought on Miss Nugent. 'That position of your queen at such an early stage of the game must be an oversight, I think. Excuse me, but I could not take such an unfair advantage,' said Mr Gwynne. Rowland was roused at once. He gave himself up to his game, and an hour afterwards, when the ladies returned from their walk, and candles were ordered, it was still in progress, but he had the best of it. 'Will you sing for us, Serena?' said Freda. 'Will you sing a duet with me?' was the reply. The duet was sung, and another and another and another, and Rowland lost the game. Mr Gwynne arose, very much elated and rubbing his hands gently, according to his wont. 'How do you feel, general, defeated?' asked Freda. 'Very much like a subaltern,' said Rowland. 'Do you sing, Mr Prothero?' asked Miss Hall; 'all the Welsh are so musical that I think there are few who have not voices.' 'I sometimes sing chants and sacred music; but I know very few songs, and those old ones.' 'Perhaps you will take the bass of some of these old glees. Here is "The Chough and Crow," "When shall we three meet again," "The Canadian Boat Song," "The Sicilian Mariner," and I know not how many more,' said Miss Hall, turning over the leaves of a thick old book full of glees. 'I will do my best,' said Rowland, and the glees began in earnest. All the Protheros were musical, and Rowland had a very fine clear voice. Miss Hall was right in saying that the Welsh are a musical people; Rowland was a happy example. He had been studying Church music a good deal, and learning to take different parts, so he acquitted himself very creditably in the glees, all of which he had either tried or heard sung. Freda was quite astonished. She had a great taste for music herself, and a good voice, but would never sing with any one but Miss Hall, a piece of wilfulness that her father occasionally reproached her with. The addition of Rowland was rather agreeable to her, as it enabled them to sing the glees that she was fond of. She no longer objected to the chess, and when her father proposed giving Rowland his revenge on the morrow, she added, 'And then we can wind up with a few more glees.' Rowland bowed his thanks and departed. During the ensuing month there were frequent chess and glee clubs at Glanyravon. What the effect such associations had upon Rowland he never confided to any one, but when Miss Hall expressed her opinion that 'Mr Prothero was a sensible, unaffected young man, but shy,' Freda condescended to say, 'Well, he is not quite such a Goth or half as affected as I fancied he was, but he has a very good opinion of himself, nevertheless.' In due course Rowland went to London to be ordained, and so ended the chess and glee clubs.	{ "id": "15315" }
11	THE SAILOR.	Argument and persuasion were alike thrown away upon Netta Prothero. She would make no promises, no concessions; she stood her ground with the obstinacy of a Cadwallader. Her father stormed for about a week, when he got tired of the subject and of Netta's resolute manner and cross face, and gave it up. He heard that Howel had started for London, having put his affairs in the hands of an attorney, and that it was not at all unlikely that he would marry some lady of rank. He laughed heartily at the notion. It was also rumoured that he meant to return and take a place in the neighbourhood, stand for the county, and be one of the greatest men in South Wales. In short, the enchanter, the merlin, the open sesame, the omnipotent sorcerer _gold_ was to work the miracles to which Howel had been so long looking forward. And the gossips were not far wrong. Gold is truly a famous master-key to all hearts and to all companies. But whilst the gossips--and who is not a gossip in a country neighbourhood? --whilst the gossips were settling Howel's future so comfortably and respectably for him, he was dispensing his gold amongst gamblers and the like--paying debts of honour as they are called. However, Mr Prothero thought it not unlikely that what the gossips said might prove true, and was therefore tolerably comfortable about his spoilt pet, Netta. When his anger and her pouting had subsided, matters went on much as usual for a time at the farm. Even the blaze that was kindled at the incursion of the Irish girl, had well-nigh gone out, and Mr Prothero had nearly forgotten her existence. She, meanwhile, was slowly recovering under Mrs Prothero's kind care. One day, that good woman was sitting with her in the little room that had been allotted to her, and said,-- 'Is there anything you could think of that would amuse you, my dear?' 'If I might--' Gladys began and paused. 'Pray, go on, do not be afraid to ask.' 'If I might only make up that cap for you, ma'am, I should be so proud. I used to make caps at home.' Mrs Prothero was manufacturing a cap for herself, and had a certain womanly fear as to how it would turn out, if transferred to other fingers; but she did not like to refuse the request, so she resigned it into the thin hands of Gladys. She was almost immediately called away, and did not return for some hours. When she again visited her invalid she found her quite excited with her work that she had just completed. 'Oh, what a pretty cap!' said Mrs Prothero, quite astonished at the taste displayed. 'I must just run and show it to Netta--I am so much obliged to you.' Mrs Prothero left the room and soon returned, followed by her daughter. 'Can you trim bonnets as well as make caps?' asked Netta, forgetful of infection when her personal interest was involved. 'Yes, miss, a little,' replied Gladys modestly. 'I wish you would trim mine for me to-morrow.' 'Oh, thank you, miss! If you will only let me try I shall be so grateful.' 'She does not seem like a beggar after all,' thought Netta. 'Who taught you to work so nicely?' she said aloud. 'I was apprenticed to a mantua-maker and milliner for six months, miss, and after that I worked for the neighbours.' 'How could you work for them, when they are all rags and tatters?' 'There were some farmers' wives, miss,' said Gladys, colouring slightly, 'and the clergyman's family, and the steward's--I used to work for them.' 'Then how came you here?' 'People couldn't work, or pay for work, miss, when every one was starvin' around them.' Mrs Prothero looked at Netta reproachfully. The girl was not really hard-hearted, so she changed the subject. 'I daresay you can knit and mark samplers?' she said. 'Yes, miss, mother taught us to do that at school.' 'I think, Netta,' interrupted Mrs Prothero, 'that she must go to bed now. She looks tired, and has been up long enough.' 'What a fuss mother makes about the girl,' muttered Netta as she left the room. The following day the bonnet was tastily trimmed under Netta's superintendence, and work enough hunted up to employ Gladys for a month at least. Netta even found an old cotton gown, which she presented to her in return for her labours. It was not long enough, but Gladys thought she might be able to lengthen it. Whilst her convalescence and Netta's needlework were thus progressing, there was an arrival at the farm. One evening the family were assembled in the large hall, their usual sitting-room. Mr Prothero was reading the newspaper at a small round table, with an especial candle to himself. His worthy wife was mending or making shirts. At another round table, not very far off, Netta had some work in her hands, and one of Captain Marryat's novels open before her. 'Why don't you do your work instead of reading those trashy stories, Netta?' suddenly exclaimed Mr Prothero. 'I am working, father,' said Netta. 'Pretty working sure enough. What nonsense have you got reading now?' 'Peter Simple, father, oh it is so funny.' 'Ah! it was that stupid stuff, and 'The Pilot,' and 'The Spy,' and I don't know what else, that sent Owen off to sea. I suppose it's there you learn all your nonsense. I wish you would read the cookery book, and help your mother to take care of the house and dairy, instead of doing what's no good in the world.' A loud knocking at the door interrupted a rather pert reply. 'Who on earth is that at this time of night?' exclaimed the farmer, throwing down his paper. 'Shanno,' called Mrs Prothero into the passage, 'ask who it is before you open the door.' 'It's no great things,' suggested Netta, 'for they're knocking with a stick, and not with the knocker.' 'Name o' goodness, what's the row?' said the farmer. 'Who's there?' demanded Shanno, in the passage. The answer did not reach the hall, but Shanno came rushing in, 'It's them Irishers again, master, upon my deet, they do be here for ever.' 'Give me my stick!' exclaimed Mr Prothero, 'if I don't give them a lesson my name isn't David.' He seized a stick and went into the passage, followed by his wife, murmuring, 'Oh, David, bach,' and by Netta as far as the door, from which she peeped down the passage. 'Who's there?' roared the farmer in a voice of thunder. 'May it please yer honour, I'm cowld and hungry. Long life to yer honour and her leddyship, if yell only give the loan o' yer barn, or maybe yer loft, or--' 'I'll show you the way to my barn, you idle, good-for-nothing scamp,' cried Mr Prothero, opening the door, and levelling a blow with his stick into the moonlight, that must infallibly have knocked down any one less agile than the man for whom it was intended. As it was, the unwelcome visitor jumped aside, whilst the portly farmer tripped himself up by his own impetuosity, and fell upon the threshold. Mrs Prothero and Netta screamed, and Shanno took hold of the beggar's arm, to prevent his escape. But the beggar had pulled Mr Prothero up, and was beginning to sympathise with him in broad brogue, when that valiant anti-Irishman got hold of his stick again, and began to belabour the unoffending party's back most manfully. 'Enough's as good as a faist, yer honour,' cried the stranger, skipping from side to side, and evading the blows very skilfully; 'pon my sowl, yer honour 'ud do for a fair or a wake. 'Tis madam as has the heart an' the conscience for the poor Irish, an' miss, too, asthore!' The impudent fellow ran round to where Netta stood, who, in terror, went into the house, followed by the man, and after him, the rest in full hue and cry. 'Tin thousand pardons, miss,' said the man, taking off his hat and confronting Netta. 'Owen! Owen!' screamed Netta. 'For shame upon you, you naughty boy,' and therewith Netta and the unexpected guest were hugging one another, most lovingly. ''Tis the mother will give the poor Irisher a lodgin' and a drop o' the cratur,' cried that mother's well-beloved eldest born almost catching her up in his arms, and smothering her with kisses. 'And the masther isn't so hard-hearted as he looks,' he added, shaking the astonished farmer by the hand. 'Owen! oughtn't you to be ashamed of yourself?' cried the farmer, laughing aloud, and rubbing his right leg. 'Not kilt intirely, yer honour! didn't I take you all in, that's all!' 'Where did you come from? How did you come? When did you leave your ship?' were the questions reiterated on all sides of the welcome guest. 'I'll tell you all that to-morrow. At present I am dying of cowld and hunger, and haven't broke me fast since morning. Let me show you how the locker stands.' Owen emptied his pockets, and from a corner of one of them turned out a solitary halfpenny. 'I shouldn't have had that if old Nanny Cwmgwyn hadn't given it to me just now. But I'll tell you my story to-morrow in character.' 'Not an improved one anyhow,' said Mr Prothero with a gathering frown. 'Don't lecture to-night, Datta, bach; you shall have an hour on purpose to-morrow, when I promise to listen to edification. 'Pon my word it is pleasant to be at home again. How I long to sleep in my comfortable bed once more.' Poor Mrs Prothero's countenance fell, and Netta looked malicious. 'Not likely to sleep there to-night, boy,' said the farmer; 'mother has got visitors.' 'Visitors!' exclaimed Owen, 'and gone to bed already! what sleepy people.' 'Some of your friends of the cowld and hungry sort,' said the farmer. 'Not mother's old friends, and my relations, the Irish beggars?' 'Singular number, and a young lady!' said the farmer with a sneer and a puff of the tobacco with which he was beginning to solace himself, at the sight of the bread and cheese that were appearing. 'A poor girl, Owen, who was taken ill,' said Mrs Prothero. 'I understand it all, mother; never mind, she's welcome for once, provided I get a good bed, but to-morrow she must turn out.' 'Very well, my dear,' said Mrs Prothero submissively; for Owen, though a prodigal, was the eldest son, and generally had his own way. 'Now don't be frightened at my appetite,' said Owen, sitting down to cold meat and strong ale. 'Bless you and your appetite,' said Mrs Prothero, kissing his forehead; upon which he jumped up again, and hugged her with all his heart. 'Now, Netta, let us go and see about the sheets,' said Mrs Prothero, smoothing her dress. The mother and daughter left the room, and were not long in preparing the best bedroom for Owen. This done, they hastened back to the hall, where they found diminished ham and increased smoke, Owen having lighted a short pipe, and taken to smoking with his father, over a large jug of ale. 'We must have your adventures to-night, Owen,' cried Netta, as she entered, 'and you must tell us why you came home so very shabby. I suppose you have been wrecked on a desert island.' 'To be sure,' said Owen, laying down the pipe. 'But I must go out and find my wardrobe, and all my valuables, that my hospitable Daddy there caused me to throw down, when he gave me such a warm welcome.' Owen disappeared, but soon returned with a box in his hands, apparently of some weight, and a bundle slung across his shoulder, suspended on a walking stick. Putting down the box he began to sing,-- 'A handkerchief held all the treasure I had.' whilst he flourished his walking-stick and bundle over his mother's head. When he had finished his song, he put down his bundle and went to the box. 'I have shown you the size of my wardrobe, now allow me to show off the rest of my fortune and stock in trade. Father, you shall have the first peep. Let me put my box on the table, and the light--so. Now, stoop, so--look through that glass, so--and--have you got the right focus? Yes! --To the right, you beholds the gallant 'ero, Lord Nelson, him as lost his harm, a just fallin' in the harms of Capen 'Ardy and Victory. --To the left--but first his lordship is a singin' "England expects every man to do his dooty." To the left--' 'Well, if that isn't as pretty a picture and as much like life as anything I ever saw,' said Mr Prothero, interrupting the showman. 'Come here, mother; Netta, look here.' Mrs Prothero glanced into the box, which was nothing more nor less than a penny peep-show, and Owen began again. 'To the right you beholds,' when Netta, impatient, looked through a second glass, and exclaimed in ecstasy, 'Where did you get this, Owen?' In answer, the scene shifted, and Owen recommenced. 'Here you beholds Lisbon, that wast city, or rayther what wos Lisbon after the great earthquake. See the ruins all around, and the women and children a screamin'; and the priests a-prayin'--those men in robes is priests, papishers, like them Irish beggars.' 'Hush, Owen,' interrupted Mrs Prothero. 'Look, father, do look here!' While Mr Prothero and Netta gazed admiringly, Mrs Prothero was off and returned with Shanno, Mal, and Tom the boy, who were all in a broad grin of delight at the arrival of their prime favourite, Owen. He, meanwhile, is in his element; begins with Lord Nelson again, and makes the whole party take turns. Then he goes to Lisbon; afterwards he has The Queen of the Cannibal Islands; The Great Fire of London; a portrait large as life of the immense fat man Daniel Lambert, at sight of which the servants all exclaim 'Ach!' and a variety of other splendid designs, which we decline to enumerate. Suffice it to say that they all draw forth the approving commendations of the spectators, from Mr Prothero, master, to Tom, serving-lad. When the peep-show has been duly exhibited, Netta again demands her brother's history, and a particular account of how he procured the show. 'Oh! there is not much to tell,' says Owen, 'and I won't tell that unless father promises to keep his lecture till to-morrow. I hate a sermon late at night, but don't so much mind it in the morning. Don't look so serious, mother; I don't mean a clerical preachment. Do you promise, father?' 'Well, there, as you like,' said Mr Prothero, laughing? 'but I wish you hadn't made me break my shin.' 'Here's a patch of diaculum, father. I hope you have not really hurt yourself?' 'No, wild goose. Now, let's have the story.' 'Well, here goes. Since this time twelvemonth I have been a voyage to Australia and back: seen Sydney and Botany Bay, and my brethren the convicts; done a little in the mercantile way: speculated in gin and 'baccy on my own account, and helped the captain. Came home as first mate of the 'Fair Weather,' and had enough of tailoring in the worst voyage I ever made. We were almost wrecked more than once, and almost starved for the last month, owing to the time the leaky old hulk took in the voyage. When we landed in Plymouth we had a spree, as you may suppose, and soon spent most of our money. I and a messmate were to travel together as far as Swansea, so we just saved money enough to pay our way, and enjoyed ourselves with the rest; but, as ill luck would have it, we fell in with a poor Welsh woman, who had come to Plymouth in the hope of meeting her husband, and being disappointed, and having spent all her money, she didn't know how to get back to her home again. Of course we couldn't leave a fellow-countrywoman in distress, so we gave her what we had: enough to pay her journey home, and a few shillings over. We then sold some of our clothes, and stumbling upon a man with this old box in his arms, we bargained with him, and bought it for twelve shillings. He wanted a pound, but we beat him down. 'Having thus a fortune in our possession we set out with our peep-show, and thought of getting interest for our money. We have been about three weeks journeying from place to place; and I assure you we have seen a good deal of life. We unfortunately spent the interest of our fortune as it came in; but, as you will perceive, I have brought the whole capital home with me. When we entered a town on a fair or market-day, we made a great deal of money, but then the temptations to spend were all the greater. I used to have all the labour of the imagination, for my friend Jack Jenkins had not the gift of eloquence; so we agreed that I should be showman, and he porter--a division of work that we thought quite fair. When we arrived at Swansea I gave him all the money we had in hand, and he resigned the peep-show to me, and so we parted company; he to go to his friends in Glamorganshire, I to come on here. 'I had a rare lark on my way home. I went to uncle's, and finding aunt in the garden, slouched my hat over my face, and began my story. She ordered me off the premises instantly as a vagrant. I went round to the back door and got a penny a-piece from the servants, who were quite delighted. Then I met uncle, and telling him that I had a wonderful box of antiques to exhibit, he gave me sixpence, and with great curiosity poked his proboscis against the glass. It was worth something to see him. I at once put a picture of Stonehenge, and afterwards one of Herculaneum into the box, that I had bought on purpose for his benefit. I went through the history of the Druids, and managed a touch of Garn Goch and the Welsh castles with a strong and masterly nasal, that so delighted the worthy vicar, that he actually invited me in to see his museum. I excused myself by saying that my wife was waiting for me--mother, that was my only fib, I assure you--and hastened away, lest in his delight at finding an itinerant archæologist, he should ask my wife to see his museum as well. The rest of my adventures you had the honour and glory of sharing, so I must beg to say they are at an end. And now I am really and truly and soberly come to settle at home for the remainder of my days, and to become a farmer in good earnest if father will take me into partnership. The two things I like best in the world are, the rolling sea by moonlight and a field of golden corn in broad sunshine, of a fine day in autumn.' 'Oh, you naughty boy!' cried Netta, as Owen ended his story. 'A fine sturdy farmer you would make,' said Mr Prothero, trying to stifle a very hearty fit of laughter, that burst out at last in spite of himself. 'I'm glad you took in brother Jonathan, or he'd have had the laugh against me.' Mrs Prothero had a tear in her eye as she smiled sadly, and shook her head at the darling son who had caused her nothing but love and grief since he was born; but the tear was soon kissed away, and the smile turned into a cheerful one by that son's merry lips.	{ "id": "15315" }
12	THE SEMPSTRESS.	Owen Prothero, like his sister Netta, had been very much spoilt by his father during his childhood and boyhood. Indeed it would have been difficult not to have spoilt him. Handsome in person, and frank in manners, he was a general favourite. His uncle, the vicar, quite idolised him, and would have lavished a fortune on his education had he been of a studious nature. His mother, alone, conscious of his many faults, strove to correct them, and to counterbalance the undue admiration he received on all sides, by impartial justice in her praises and reproofs. But we have not much to do with his boyhood, which was wild and untameable; beyond the fact that, when sent by his good uncle to Rugby with a view to his becoming a clergyman, he resolutely declared his intention of going to sea, and ran away from school to effect his purpose. He was captured, however by the masters, and a sharp look-out kept upon him for the future, which prevented further escapades. He did not make brilliant progress in his studies, though he was clever enough, and accordingly his aunt persuaded her vicar to adopt her favourite nephew, Rowland, in his stead, and to let Owen go a voyage or two in a merchant vessel, to cure him of his love for a seafaring life. It was Mr Prothero's wish to have one of his two sons a farmer, he did not much care which, so it was with some difficulty that Aunt Jonathan induced him to listen to her proposal of making a clergyman of Rowland. He yielded at last, however, in the hope that when Owen had had enough of the sea, he would come and settle at home, since, next to this, his favourite hobby, he professed to like farming. Owen was about fifteen when he first went to sea--he was just seven-and-twenty when he came home with the peep-show. During the intermediate twelve years he had been all over the world: not merely as a sailor, but as an adventurer, traveller, speculator, merchant, and wandering Jack-of-all trades. As quickly as he made money, so he lost it, spent it, or gave it away; and when he had no other resource, he worked as a common sailor, or labourer, until some lucky chance opened a passage for some fresh excitement. There is this to be said in his favour. During this long period he was never chargeable to his father in any way. If he got into difficulties, he got out of them pretty easily: if he was in want of bread, which had been frequently the case, his friends at home knew nothing of it. Beyond the regular new outfit, in the way of clothes, that his mother made for him each time that he returned home, he had never had anything from his parents, and resolutely refused it if offered. Always cheerful, hopeful, in high spirits, open as the day, affectionate, and attractive, he was a welcome guest wherever he went. Did he come home in rags, or as now, with a peep-show in his arms, or as once before, with a hurdy-gurdy and monkey, all his old friends made merry, and gave parties in his honour. And whatever the state of his wardrobe or exchequer, he was sure to be in the fields the following day, reaping, hay-making, ploughing, sowing, or even milking, as either of these, or similar avocations, came in his way. Nobody could be angry with him, and his father's lectures, and his brother's reasonings all melted away before the row of white teeth that he was for ever displaying in his joyous laughter. Of middle height, athletic, sunburnt--with hands almost as brown as his merry brown eyes--with black, long, curly hair, a bushy beard, and plenty of whiskers, a bronze neck from which, in sailor fashion, the blue and white shirt-collar receded--and a broad forehead, showing all kinds of bumps, particularly those of locality over the bushy black eyebrows--Owen Prothero was as fine a type of an English sailor as could be found the broad seas over. He was in the habit of falling desperately in love with at least one out of every five or six girls that came in his way, and of making frightful havoc in the hearts of females of all ranks and ages. Netta's general inquiry was,--'Well, Owen, who is the last new love?' to which Owen would gravely reply, by a recapitulation of the charms of some fair damsel on whom his affections would be for ever fixed, could he only afford to marry. All his beauties had bright eyes, bright complexions, mirthful smiles, and were very 'jolly,' which seemed to be the word including all that was necessary to make a woman charming in his eyes. 'So, Netta, Howel has come into a fine fortune!' he began one morning, when he and his sister were alone together. 'I suppose he won't think of little cousin Netta now?' 'Oh! indeed,' was Netta's reply with a toss of the head. 'I wish he was here now. He is a fine fellow in his way. I do like Howel.' 'I knew you would say so,' exclaimed Netta. 'You are a kind, dear brother. They are all turned against him, even mother, who can take in the scum of the earth, and make much of a wretched Irish beggar, and will not ask Howel here, who is a gentleman,' 'Oh! oh! that's the way the wind blows. So you do not forget cousin Howel, Miss Netta.' 'No, I assure you; and I won't forget him, that's more.' 'Bravo! Netta. I admire a girl of spirit. But, perhaps now he is so rich he will not think of you.' 'I suppose that depends upon whether I choose to think of him. They say he is coming down soon, and that he will be the grandest man in the county.' What Netta had heard rumoured came to pass in due time, Mr Howel Jenkins did come from London, and established himself in the best hotel of his native town, throwing out hints as to the probability of his taking a certain beautiful park in the neighbourhood. He was soon supplied with the best horses, dogs, and general appointments of any man in the county; and being really clever, handsome, and sufficiently gentleman like, had made his way into society that had hitherto been closed to him. Like Prince Hal, he eschewed most of his former companions and appeared to be beginning life anew, in a new world. The country rang with rumours of his enormous wealth, which, considerable as it was, report nearly doubled. Indeed he himself scarcely knew what he was worth, as he was continually finding memorandums of moneys out at high interest, of which his father had not chosen to speak to Rowland, but which his carefully secreted books and papers proved, as well as the knowledge of Mr Rice Rice, who had been his attorney. In the course of the autumn the Irish girl was quite convalescent and, although not strong, had recovered from the fever, and was regaining some degree of health. As she was such a clever sempstress, even Netta did not object to a proposal made by Mrs Prothero, that she should remain as a work-girl, at least until Owen's wardrobe was in a decent condition; and she was accordingly installed in a small room, half lumber-room, half work-room, as shirt-maker in ordinary to the son and heir. He was restored to his own bedroom, and, together, with his father kept at a distance from the bone of contention. However, adverse elements cannot always be kept apart, and one day when Mrs Prothero was sitting stitching wrist-bands with Gladys, her better half made his appearance suddenly in the room. 'Mother, I have been hunting you out all over the house,' he exclaimed? 'I have torn the sleeve of my coat from top to bottom in that confounded hedge.' As he took off his coat and displayed the tear, he perceived Gladys, who had risen from her work, and curtseyed very timidly and profoundly. Mr Prothero had almost forgotten the Irish beggar, and certainly did not suppose the tidy-looking, pale, tall girl before him to be her. 'Oh, young 'ooman, I daresay you can do this job for me. You've got a new manty-maker, mother; where's Jane Morris, name o' goodness?' 'We're only making shirts for Owen, father,' replied the wife meekly, dreading an outburst. Gladys took up the coat and was instantly engaged in mending it, whilst Mr Prothero produced a letter just received from Rowland. 'There, my dear, now you ought to be satisfied, and I am sure Mrs Jonathan will be as proud as Punch. Rowland has been ordained by the Bishop of London himself, and "passed a very good examination," or whatever they call it. He has taken lodgings up in London, and preached his first sermon in a great church that 'ould hold three of ours. He has dined with the rector, and been to call on Sir Philip Payne Perry,--the three green peas as Owen calls him--and I wonder what even Mrs Jonathan 'ould desire more?' Mrs Prothero read, her dear son's letter with tears in her eyes, the sudden sight of which caused sympathetic tears to flow from the eyes of the poor work-girl, much to the surprise of Mr Prothero, who chanced to look round to see whether his coat was finished. 'Hang the 'oomen,' he muttered to himself, 'they can't read a bit of a letter without blubbing. How long will that take you to do? --what's your name?' 'Gladys, if you please, sir,' said Gladys, looking up from her work. 'I shall have finished it directly, sir.' 'Gladys? Gladys what?' asked Mr Prothero. 'Gladys O'Grady, sir,' was the reply whilst the mending was coming to a close. 'Where on earth did you pick up such names as that?' 'One was my mother's, and the other my father's, sir,' said Gladys, rising and presenting the coat with a deep curtsey. Mrs Prothero was absorbed in her letter. 'Name o' goodness where did your father get such a name? and where do you live?' The girl bent her head over the coat she held in her hand, and her tears fell upon it. 'There, never mind? give me my coat. Thank you. Why, Lewis the tailor 'ouldn't 'a mended it better. Why, girl, where did you learn tailoring?' 'Mother taught me to mend everything, sir.' 'There then, take you that old hat and see if you can make as good a job of sewing on the brim as you done of the coat. Mother, come you here, I want to speak to you.' Mr Prothero left the room, and Mrs Prothero followed. 'Who's that girl, mother? I never saw her before,' were his first words in the passage, whilst pulling to the coat that he had begun to put on in the work-room. 'Why, David, you see--it is--there now, don't be angry.' 'Angry! what for? Hasn't she mended my coat capital, and isn't she as modest looking a young 'ooman as I ever saw?' 'She is very delicate, but she works night and day. Indeed, she does more in a day than most girls in a week Owen wanted some shirts, you see--she made that cap you admired so much, and that new gown of Netta's; and has more than paid for--' 'But who the deuce is she?' 'There now, don't be angry, David. 'Tis that poor Irish girl that was so ill of the fever.' 'I'll never believe she's Irish as long as I live--she's too pretty and tidy and delicate and fair. She's no more Irish than I am, mother, and you've been taken in.' 'She is Welsh on the mother's side. But are you very angry, David?' 'No, I don't mind her doing a little work in an honest way like that. I'm not such a fool. When she has done the work send her off, that's all. Poor soul! she does look as if she had been dead and buried and come to life again. Mother, you're a good 'ooman, and God bless you!' Mrs Prothero looked up into her husband's face with an expression of such love and joy as must have delighted a much harder heart than that spouse possessed. Don't laugh, gentle reader, at the conjugal embrace of that middle-aged pair, which seals the quarrel about the Irish girl; but believe me, there is more real sentiment in it than in most of the love-scenes you may have read about. Mrs Prothero took advantage of her husband's approval of Gladys's exterior to send her out into the garden in the evening to breathe the air, and afterwards into the fields. The girl's strength gradually returned, but with it there appeared to be no return of youth or hope. A settled melancholy was in her countenance and demeanour; and when Netta rallied her on being so sad and silent, her reply was, 'Oh, miss, there is no more joy or happiness for me in this world! all I love have left it, and I am but a lonely wanderer and an outcast!' When the shirts were finished, it was time to think of her departure, for she had exhausted all the sewing-work of the house. Mrs Prothero could not bear to turn the friendless, homeless girl adrift on the world. She ventured upon the subject one day at dinner. 'What will become of her, David? And she so beautiful! I declare I think I never saw a prettier girl.' 'Well, mother, who will you call pretty next?' said Owen, who had seen her once or twice by chance. 'Why, she has no more colour in her face than this tablecloth, and I don't believe she has any eyes at all; at least, I never saw them; but I mean to try whether she has any some day, by making a frightful noise when she drops me that smart curtsey in passing.' 'I am sure we want hands badly enough in the wheat field, said Farmer Prothero. 'If the girl could pick up her crumbs a little by harvesting, you could keep her a while longer, and then send her off in search of her relations.' 'Thank you, David. I will ask her what she can do,' said Mrs Prothero. 'Not much in that way, I am pretty sure,' said Netta. 'How should those wretched Irish, who live on nothing but potatoes, know any thing about the wheat harvest?' 'Treue for you there, my girl,' said Mr Prothero, 'but I daresay mother will make believe that she knows something. 'Mother' found the object of their conversation that very evening in the wheat field, sitting under a tree, at work. She had sent her out for a walk, and this was her exercise. Owen and Netta were with their mother, and as they approached, Gladys rose, curtseyed, and was going away, when Owen made an unnatural kind of whistle, as if to frighten away some cows in the distance. Gladys started, and with a terrified face glanced at him. He found that she had very beautiful, violet eyes, with lashes so long and black, that when she looked to the earth again they made a strange contrast to her pale face. 'What sad, uncomfortable eyes,' thought Owen; 'I must have another glance at them by-and-by. If she had a colour she might be pretty, as mother says, but it makes one ill to look at her.' 'Do you think,' said Mrs Prothero, addressing Gladys, 'that you could manage to help in the harvest; My husband says he will employ you, if you can.' 'Oh, thank you, my lady! I would do my best, and if I could only stay here longer under any circumstances--I should--oh, be so thankful!' This was said with much hesitation. 'Very well, then; if you will try to-morrow we shall be able to judge what you can do.' 'She don't look strong enough to bind the sheaves,' said Owen. 'I will try, sir, if you please,' said Gladys. 'What is the name of the friends you are seeking?' asked Owen with a glance at his sister. 'Jones, sir,' replied Gladys, again looking at Owen. 'Perhaps there is a David in the family?' asked Owen. 'I believe that my grandfather's name was David,' was the reply. 'Now, if you walk through Carmarthenshire, and just ask every one you meet if they know David Jones, I am sure you would find him. It is astonishing what a powerful name David Jones is. I know a Rev. David Jones very well? a clergyman too--' 'Oh! if you could only tell me where to find him. I would go anywhere for my poor mother's sake!' The girl clasped her hands and looked imploringly at Owen. He was silenced by the appeal of the eyes he did not believe in. Mrs Prothero glanced at him reproachfully, and said,-- 'It is such a common Welsh name that I am afraid it would be no guide to you, unless you would remember the place where he lived.' 'I daresay it began with Llan,' broke in Owen. 'I am almost sure it did,' said Gladys; 'but mother never liked to talk of the place,' 'What do you say, mother, to writing to the Rev. David Jones, Llan., etc., Carmarthenshire?' Netta laughed aloud; she could not help it; whilst Gladys again looked upon the ground. 'Owen,' whispered Mrs Prothero, taking her son's arm and leading him away, 'what is a joke to you is death to her, remember that.' 'There, don't be angry, mother; I will help her to do her work to-morrow.' 'He was as good as his word, and the following day resolutely kept near the poor, timid girl, aiding her to bind up the full-eared corn, and carrying it himself for her to the mows, into which they were hastily forming the sheaves for fear of rain. He could not resist occasionally alluding to Mr David Jones, but receiving no encouragement to carry out the jest, and finding her as silent and shy as a frightened child, he gave up the subject, and with it all attempt at conversation. He declared afterwards that she worked like a slave, and knew all about harvesting as well as anybody, only she was not strong, and that she was the dullest Irish woman he ever saw in his life, since even the beggars had a bit of fun in them. Indeed he didn't believe her to be Irish, or credit a word of her story; but, as to beauty, he began to agree with his mother, for if she had only a colour she would be as pretty a girl, with as graceful a figure, as anybody need wish to see. The farmer declared that she had well earned her supper; and that if mother thought she would do, she might keep her instead of Betty, after Hollantide; the said Betty having signified her intention of getting married at the matrimonial season of the year. Mrs Prothero said she would think it over, but she was afraid she was not strong enough for hard farm service. It was evident that Gladys had taken a step into the kind heart of the worthy farmer.	{ "id": "15315" }
13	THE WIDOW.	'Whose grand groom is that, half afraid to ride through the yard?' asked Mr Prothero, as he and his son Owen were standing by the big wheat-mow, awaiting the arrival of a load of corn. 'I'll go and see what he wants,' said Owen, and off he went. He returned, bearing a note for his father. 'He says he is Mr Griffith Jenkins's groom, and waits for an answer. Howel doesn't do the thing by halves anyhow.' 'Mr Griffith Jackanapes!' said the farmer, breaking the seal of the note hastily, and reading it. Owen watched his countenance assume an angry expression, and then heard him utter a very broad Welsh oath. 'Tell that feller there's no answer,' said Mr Prothero. 'What is it about father? you had better let mother see it first.' 'The impudent young ass! does he think I am to be taken in by all that gold and plush? He shall never have my consent, and you may tell him so, Owen.' 'Come into the house a minute, father, and let us see the note.' They went into the house, the farmer giving an indignant grunt at the groom as he passed. 'Mother, come here!' he roared as he entered the parlour, followed by Owen. The obedient wife left her kitchen and went to her husband. 'Read you it out loud, Owen.' Owen read. 'SIR,--Being in a position to marry, and to marry any lady in the county, I think you need not be surprised at my now aspiring to the hand of your daughter, to whom I have been many years attached. I beg, therefore, to say that my object in writing to you is, to ask your permission to pay my addresses to her, and to make her my wife. My attorney will see to any arrangements you may require as regards settlements, which are matters of no importance to me,--I remain, sir, your obedient servant, 'HOWEL GRIFFITH JENKINS.' 'The impudent scoundrel!' said Mr Prothero. 'Well, father, I don't see--' began Owen. 'You don't see, sir, I daresay you don't. Wasn't he as near ruining you as possible! Didn't he teach you to gamble, and fleece you, and lead you into all kinds of mischief? Didn't I forbid him the house for it? Didn't he rob his own father, and make his mother miserable? Didn't he drink and keep company with the worst profligates of the country? Didn't he as good as rob me, sir, out of a ten-pound note when he was a bit of a boy, and when I found it out, called it a lark? Do you think a great fortune will all of a sudden change such a chap as that into an honest man? No, what's ill got is ill spent, and old Giffrey Jenkins's money 'ill never turn to good account. He that grinds the poor, and goes against scripture as a usurer, 'ill never find his son do well. Howel shall never have my consent to marry Netta, and there's an end of it.' 'But suppose they are determined,' said Mrs Prothero. 'Then I'll wash my hands of 'em for ever, and vow Netta's no girl of mine. Go you, Owen, and send off that fine yellar-band, sent to astonish me, and tell him I'll have nothing to do with his master nor him.' 'But, father, you must write!' 'Write! not I: but stop, I'll write. Bring the paper. Haven't you got any with a fine gloss, and coloured?' 'Now, David, bach, if you would only consider a little. I am really afraid of the consequences.' 'Now, mother, my mind's made up, and you won't wheedle me in this matter. So, here's the pen and ink,' Mr Prothero sat down and wrote the following reply to Howel's note:-- 'HOWEL,--You have had my answer before now, and you may have it again. When I know you're out-and-out a changed man, I may think differently; but I don't know it yet, so you shall not have my consent to marry Netta. One hundred pounds of steadiness and honesty is worth a hundred thousand pounds of gold. I wish you well, but if you was king of England you shouldn't have my girl as you are now.' --Yours to command, 'DAVID PROTHERO,' 'There, mother, there's my mind,' said Mr Prothero, giving the note to his wife. 'Well, David, I believe you are right, only Netta is so determined!' 'Determined, is she! Then I'll lock her up. Take that to yon yellar-band, Owen.' Owen took the note to the servant 'Tell your master that I am coming to see him this evening,' he said, and soliloquised thus when the man was gone. 'Howel is a good fellow, I believe, only a little extravagant and gay. I must tell him not to be down-hearted about Netta. Why, the girl isn't worth such a bother? I never saw one that was yet. It would take a great deal of time and trouble to work me up into that kind of thing--and at least a dozen girls. Netta's very pretty, to be sure, but she has a will of her own, and so has Howel. I am sure they would soon fight. As to father, he is as obstinate as a mule. And Howel with such a mint of money! But I like father's pride, and I must say I reel proud of him for it. I would never give in just because a man has suddenly got a fortune.' When Owen had arrived at this conclusion, he perceived Netta coming towards him. 'What did that servant want, Owen?' she asked when she came quite near? 'and what were those two notes about?' 'I dare say you know, Miss Netta. It is all over with you for this present. Howel has popped the question, and father has refused him.' If Owen had ever been really in love, he would have spoken less abruptly on such a delicate subject, as he found, when he saw Netta turn pale, then red, then burst into tears and run away from him into the house. He followed her, somewhat distressed, to the door of her bedroom. He knocked gently, but received no answer. 'Netta, let me in, I have something to say to you,' No reply, but a passionate sobbing audible. 'Netta, dear Netta, I am so sorry for you. Let me in.' He tried the door, but it was locked. 'Netta, if you don't let me in I'll go and fetch mother directly. One, two, three, and, now, open the door, I'm going. One, two, three, and away!' He walked down the passage, and heard the door opened behind him. 'Owen, come here, I will let you in,' 'There's a good little sister.' 'Don't palaver me, sir,' burst forth Netta, as soon as her door was closed. 'You are all unfeeling, unnatural, cruel, selfish, hard-hearted heathens! You don't care for me or Howel any more than as if we were strangers. Father don't mind what he drives me to, and mother cares more for that Irish beggar than for me--I know she does. I did think you would be our friend, and now you are as stiff and unfeeling as Rowland. Seure you are,' 'Why, if I was a parson like Rowland, I'd marry you to-morrow.' 'Then, why don't you try to bring father round. You know he thinks more of you than of anybody else.' 'It's no use trying; nobody but mother has any influence with father, and she is not sure that 'tis right or good for you and Howel to marry.' 'She is cruel and unkind,' sobbed Netta; 'I don't believe any one really loves me but Howel,' 'Stick to that, Netta; 'I for one haven't a spark of affection for you. All father wants is to get rid of you, and that is why he is in such a hurry for you to make such a grand match!' 'Oh! indeed! he and all the rest of you are as jealous of Howel's good fortune as you can be,--you know you are. And you wouldn't like to see me a grand lady, grander than Miss Rice or Miss Nugent even. Won't I let them know I'm somebody, and not to be looked down upon any more, that's all!' Hereupon Netta wiped her eyes, and walked up and down the room grandly, whilst Owen burst out laughing, 'I beg you to go out of, my room, Owen!' said Netta, stamping her foot and getting into a passion. 'One can't expect manners or sympathy from seafaring porcupines like you. Go away directly. Why, John James, the carter, is genteeler than a great coarse sailor such as you. Go you away, I say.' 'You ought to have said a seafaring dolphin or whale; they don't pay twopence a week to learn manners, like you land-lubbers. When you want me you may send for me.' Owen went off very much offended, leaving Netta to cogitate upon the cruelty of her relations. In the course of that afternoon, a very well-dressed woman, in the deepest of sables, was seen going down the road to the farm. She went round through the garden to the glass-door, disdaining the yard, knocked a great many times, to the great astonishment, of Shanno, and was at last admitted, as Mrs Griffith Jenkins. Shanno, all reverence at sight of the crape bonnet, crape veil, and widow's cap, ushered her into the parlour, feeling that a chasm now lay between her and the dame she had last seen in a high-crowned Welsh hat, striped flannel gown, and checked apron. Having duly dusted a chair with her skirts, Shanno glanced at Mrs Jenkins, and was about to leave the room, when Mrs Jenkins said,-- 'Tell you your missus that I am coming on particular business and wish to speak with her in private. Here, stop you, Shanno, where is Miss Netta? I 'ouldn't mind giving you a shilling to tell her I was wanting to see her before I am seeing her mother.' The shilling was offered, and received with much satisfaction and an intelligent grin, and in less than five minutes Netta was with Mrs Jenkins. 'Deet to goodness, and you do look very poorly, Netta, fach!' said that worthy, 'Howel was telling me to see you, and to be giving you this note. Give you another to Shanno before I will be going away, and I will give it to my Howel. Annwyl! you shall be seeing my Howel, now; how he do look a horseback. Beauty seure! he do say you will have a horse, too. There, go you? tell Shanno to tell your mother that I do be glad to see her, let her tak' care how she do refuse you again.' Netta escaped with her note, and was soon succeeded by Mrs Prothero, who shook hands in a trembling, frightened way with Mrs Jenkins, who, on the contrary, strong in the consciousness of fortune and new apparel, was perfectly self-possessed. She began at once. 'I am coming about my Howel and your Netta, Mrs Prothero Howel is in a fine temper, keeping noise enough, I can tell you; and I should like to be knowing why he isn't good enough for your doater, Mrs Prothero; him as is worth hundreds of thousands, and is as like to be coming a member, and to be riding in his own carriage, and to be dining with the Queen for that much! and seurely, he don't be good enough for Miss Prothero Glanyravon Farm! Ach a fi! some peoples do be setting themselves up! my Howel, too! So handsome, and genteel, so full of learning! Name o' goodness what would you have, Mrs Prothero, Glanyravon Farm?' Mrs Jenkins paused with a long emphasis on the farm. 'I am very sorry, Mrs Jenkins,' began trembling Mrs Prothero rubbing one hand nervously over the other, 'but my husband is afraid that Howel is not quite steady enough for such a giddy young thing as Netta.' 'Study! why, tak' your time and you'll be seeing how study and pretty he do behave. On my deet, and I 'ouldn't say that, if I wasn't as seure as I'm alive, he haven't took a drop too much, nor said a wicked word, nor keep no low company since his poor dear father was dying. Ah, Mrs Prothero! you was being very good to us when I was losing my poor Griffey. Who'd be thinking what a heap of money he'd be leaving, and Howel'll be building a good house for me? and seure, I must be dressing in my best, and having servants to wait on me? and, bless you, nothing as my son Howel's can be getting is too good for his poor old mother!' 'I am very glad to hear he is so kind,' said Mrs Prothero. 'Then what do you say about Netta, Mrs Prothero, fach?' sharply asked Mrs Jenkins. 'To tell you the truth, I have very little power; my husband made up his mind and wrote the note without consulting me.' 'Then maybe I could be seeing Mr Prothero?' 'I am afraid it would only lead to something unpleasant between you.' 'Oh, you needn't be taking the trouble to be afraid, ma'am! I am calling my Howel as good or better as your Netta. There was a time when you might been looking higher, but now I conceit it, it will be us as do condescend. There's Miss Rice Rice, and the Miss Jamms's, Plas Newydd, and Miss Lawis, Pontammon, and Miss Colonel Rees, and Miss Jones the 'Torney, and Miss Captain Thomas, and I 'ouldn't say but Miss Gwynne, Glanyravon, do be all speaking, and talking, and walking, and dancing with my Howels! There's for you: and yet he do like his cousin Netta best he do say.' 'If you wish to see David, Mrs Griffey, I will call him,' said timid Mrs Prothero, at her wits' end for anything to say or do. 'Seurely I am wishing to see him,' said Mrs Jenkins majestically. David had not come in from his farm, so there was nothing for it but to ask Mrs Jenkins to take off her bonnet and have some tea, to which that lady graciously consented. When the crape shawl and black kid gloves were removed Mrs Prothero perceived a large mourning brooch, containing a gloomy picture of a tomb, set in pearls and diamonds, and surrounded by the age, death, etc., of the lamented deceased; and a handsome mourning ring, displaying a portion of iron-grey hair, also set in pearls and diamonds, and surrounded with an appropriate epithalamium. Mrs Prothero sat 'washing her hands in invisible soap,' whilst she saw these ensigns of grandeur in the once mean, ill-dressed Mrs Jenkins, and heard of all that 'her Howels' was about to effect. Owen came in, and with due gravity admired the mourning insignia, and examined the dates, age, etc., of the defunct Griffey. He went so far as to venture upon a distant allusion to the future. 'I never thought those caps so becoming before, Aunt Jenkins,' he said, eyeing her from head to foot, and wondering that he had never previously been aware of what a good-looking woman his Welsh aunt was. A Welsh aunt, be it understood, is your father or mother's cousin, and Mrs Jenkins and Mr Prothero were first cousins. 'Isn't Davies, Pennycoed, that you used to tell us was once a lover of yours, a widower?' continued Owen. 'Well, Owen,' said Mrs Jenkins, not displeased, 'you are always for jokes, but I do mean never to marry again.' 'Don't make any rash vows; a young woman like you!' Here Netta having dried her eyes, joined the party, and shortly after Mr Prothero's voice was heard. 'After tea!' whispered Mrs Prothero to Mrs Jenkins, as she went out to meet her husband. 'Here's Elizabeth Jenkins, David, come over to see us, and she is going to stay to tea. I think she wants to speak to you afterwards.' 'Very glad to see her; but Howel sha'n't have Netta a bit the more for that.' Mr Prothero put on a smart coat, brushed his hair, and came into the parlour, as became one about to meet a grand lady. 'How d'ye do, cousin 'Lizabeth? Glad to see you looking so well; welcome to Glanyravon.' They shook hands, and as Mrs Jenkins made rather a grand attempt at a curtsey, Owen looked at Netta, and showed his white teeth; but Netta was as grave as a judge. Mr Prothero was as much struck with the improvement in the widow's appearance as his son. 'Why, I declare, cousin 'Lizabeth, you look ten years younger than you did when I saw you last. Do you mind when we two used to go nutting together? If 'twasn't for my good 'ooman there--' 'I was just saying so, father,' interrupted Owen; 'don't you think Davies, Pennycoed--' 'I am not having no intentions of marrying again,' simpered the widow; 'wanst is enough. My poor Griffey.' 'Quite right, cousin 'Lizabeth, wan Griffey is enough, in all conscience.' The best tea things were duly arranged; cakes hot from the oven buttered; the best green tea put into the best teapot, and all proper honour done to Mrs Jenkins, from which she augured well for her Howels. As Shanno was very busy and very dirty, Mrs Prothero, during her preparations in the kitchen, was at a loss to know who was to wait if anything was wanted. Gladys chanced to be there, and said modestly,-- 'If I could do, ma'am, I would soon make myself neat in Miss Prothero's gown; and if I might just take in the tray instead of you.' 'Thank you, Gladys, I am sure you will do,' and Gladys was installed. 'There is nothing that girl cannot do,' thought Mrs Prothero, as she arranged everything on the tea-table as neatly and properly as Mrs Prothero could have done herself. 'What a tidy girl you have!' said Mrs Jenkins. 'Do she mean to be staying over Hollantide? I am wanting a servant.' All eyes were turned on Gladys as she came into the room again, but as hers were always fixed on what she was carrying, or on her mistress, she was not aware of the sudden attention she excited. 'Irish beggars!' muttered Netta. 'One of mother's godsends,' said Mr Prothero. 'What a beautiful piece of snow,' thought Owen. After tea Mr Prothero invited Mrs Jenkins to go and see his fine fat cattle. The pair went together, leaving an anxious trio behind them. Farmer Prothero was a man of few words when his mind was made up, and was not long in beginning the subject each had at heart. 'I'm sorry, cousin 'Lizabeth, that I can't let Netta marry just now. She's too young, and Howel isn't the lad to study her.' 'Oh! but you can't be knowing, David Prothero, how study he is since his poor father's death.' 'Then let him wait two years, and if he is downright well-conducted, then he may have Netta.' 'Upon my deet! he as can be marrying Miss Rice Rice or any young lady in the country! Mighty condescent, Mr Prothero!' 'Let him marry 'em all, I don't want him.' 'Then you won't let Netta marry my Howels?' 'If he's study in two years, and they are both in the same mind, they may marry, and be hanged to 'em! I never was so bothered in my life. But, between ourselves, I think it's just as likely your son Howel 'ould be study in two years as my son Owen.' 'Oh, name o' goodness, we don't want Miss Netta! No 'casion to be waiting!' 'Then don't wait, 'ooman! Who wants you to wait?' Mrs Jenkins hurried back into the house, and left Mr Prothero with his cattle. 'I must be going now, Mrs Prothero--my son Howels too! Thousands and thousands of pounds. Netta, come you upstairs, my dear, whilst I am putting on my bonnet.' Mrs Prothero was not duenna enough to accompany them upstairs, and consequently Netta gave a note to Mrs Jenkins, cried a little, and helped her to abuse her parents. 'Never you mind, Netta, fach,' were the last words, 'Howels don't be meaning to give you up.' 'Good evening, ma'am; good evening, Mr Owen,' said Mrs Jenkins, as she made the attempt at a curtsey, that caused Owen to show his white teeth again. 'Oh dear, dear! what will be the end of it?' said Mrs Prothero to Owen as Netta sulked upstairs. 'I wish Rowland was at home.' 'Very complimentary to your eldest son!' said Owen, laughing.	{ "id": "15315" }
14	THE MILLIONAIRE.	Nearly a twelvemonth passed, and an autumn morning again hovered over Glanyravon Farm. It would seem that all the inmates of the homestead were sleeping; but there was one already awake and moving furtively about. It was Netta, not usually such an early riser. The curtains of her trim little bed and window were drawn aside to admit all the light that a September twilight could cast upon the chamber in which she had slept since her childhood. A lovely bunch of monthly roses and some leaves of dark green ivy alone looked in upon her in the uncertain gloaming, as if imaging her present and future. She was dressing herself hastily, but with care, in her very best attire. She stood before the glass braiding and arranging her dark glossy hair, that luxuriant ornament of her bright, rosy face; then she put on the blossom white lace habit-shirt and striped pink and drab silk dress, her kind father's last gift, and the smart shawl and pink bonnet were duly arranged afterwards. Whatever the early visit Netta was about to make, it was evidently a premeditated one. When the attire was quite complete, and she had surveyed herself in the glass, she suddenly paused and looked around her. In a moment she was putting her room to rights, and pushing stray articles of dress into drawers, until all was quite neat; then she paused again, and glanced at a letter that was lying on her little dressing-table. Turning hastily away from this she opened the window and looked out. The sun had not yet arisen, though there was a streak of light, forerunner of his advent, on the horizon. Mountains, rivers, fields, and woods were all wrapped in a cold, grey mist, but still it was not dark. Netta tore the bunch of roses from the bough and put them in her bosom, then re-closed the window. She took up a large shawl that was lying on a chair, and a small package from underneath and dexterously arranged the shawl so as to fall over the parcel, as she held both in her hand and on her arm. Again she paused a moment and glanced around her. Her face was flushed, and there was moisture in her dark eye. Oh, pause a little longer and consider, poor Netta! But no. The sudden flash of sunlight into the room terrifies the thoughtless child, and she goes hastily into the passage. Quietly she closes her door; stealthily she creeps along. She makes no sound as she steals, like a thief, through the house where she was born some eighteen summers ago. Before one closed door she pauses again--listens. She can hear the breath of the sleepers within. She is on her knees, and represses with difficulty a rising sob, 'Mother! mother! forgive me! God bless you!' she whispers, as she once more rises and runs down the remainder of the passage--downstairs--through the hall--through the parlour, and out by the little glass door into the garden. In spite of her tears, haste, agitation she cannot pass that bed of carnations--her mother's treasure--without stopping to gather one fresh and dripping with the air and dews of night. Innocent flowers! they will see her mother that very day; but what of the stray, wandering rose of Glanyravon? Through the garden, and out by the little wicket into the lane; across a field sparkling with dewdrops; over a stile; down another lane; over another stile, and into another field! Here she pauses and glances round. A dark figure at the opposite side of the field seems to assure her that all is well. She runs quickly across the meadow, and within it, under shelter of the hedge, near a half-open gate, stands Mrs Griffith Jenkins. 'Where is Howel?' asks Netta hastily. 'He did write yesterday to say he 'ould bring the carriage from Swansea to meet us at Tynewydd, and he was sure to be there by six o'clock,' 'Let us make haste then, Aunt 'Lisbeth. Why didn't he come here himself? I have a great mind to turn back.' 'Come you, Netta, fach! we'll soon be there. See you the letter?' 'Not now--not now,' cries Netta impatiently, walking along the high road as fast as she possibly can. Mrs Jenkins keeps up with her, but is soon out of breath. 'There's Jack Trefortyn; he'll be sure to tell. Aunt 'Lisbeth, I will turn back. Father will be after me. It is too bad,' sobs Netta. 'We are near by now, Netta, fach. Come you!' The little woman quickened her pace into a short run to keep up with Netta. 'Here's the turnpike; we'll be at Tynewydd 'rectly.' 'I see Tynewydd,' says Netta, straining her eyes to catch sight of some object far down the road; 'there is no carriage--I am sure there is none. Cousin Howel ought to be ashamed of himself.' Netta runs on very fast, leaving Mrs Jenkins far behind, until she reaches the turning to a lane that leads to a little farm called 'Tynewydd.' She bursts out crying, and stamps her foot as she exclaims,-- 'Does he think he's going to do what he likes with me because he's rich? I'll tell him he shall wait for me, I will!' Hereupon she turns back and runs faster than before towards Mrs Jenkins. 'Come you, Netta, fach! He'll be here by now. Read you the letter.' Netta pauses a moment to read a letter held out to her by Mrs Jenkins. It runs thus:-- 'I can't be with you to-day. Meet Netta at the appointed place, and walk to Tynewydd. I will be there with a carriage by six o'clock. --Yours, H.J.' 'See you, Netta, it isn't six yet.' Mrs Jenkins pulls out a large gold watch, which, while Netta was running on, she has managed to put back half-an-hour. 'Five-and-twenty minutes to six, see you.' Netta turns again and hurries on. 'There is Jones Tynewydd. If he should see me,' says Netta. 'Do make haste, Aunt 'Lisbeth.' They walk on for about a quarter of a mile, when carriage wheels are distinctly heard, and in a few moments a fly and pair is distinctly seen coming at great speed. The driver would have passed them, but Mrs Jenkins calls out,-- 'A gentleman for Tynewydd inside?' Upon which he pulls up. Howel is out of the fly, and Netta lifted in before she knows what she is about. Mrs Jenkins is put in almost as quickly, and the fly turned and off again in less time than it takes to write it. 'Howel, how could you? I was going back, and I wish I had,' sobs Netta. Howel kisses her and tells her to be a good little cousin, and she shall see London in no time. She clings close to him, and hides her face on his shoulder and sobs on. He draws her to him, and lets her grief have way. Few words are spoken for a time, but at last Netta dries her tears and says,-- 'I was so frightened, cousin, and I didn't think it would be so hard to leave mother without saying good-bye. Mother was always kind.' 'Hide you, Howel! hide you, Netta! there's Mr Jonathan Prothero,' says Mrs Jenkins, shrinking back into the corner of the fly. Howel peeps out and sees Netta's worthy uncle, bag on back, setting forth on some archæological search. Howel and Netta lean back in the fly whilst he passes, little thinking whom the vehicle contains. 'Uncle and aunt will be glad at least,' says Netta. 'Aunt says you are very clever and handsome, Howel, and wonders why father won't let us--' 'Marry, Netta--say the word. I suppose Aunt Jonathan found out my talents and beauty after I acquired my fortune.' After driving about ten miles they stop to change horses, and in the course of three or four hours arrive at the Swansea railway station, newly erected within the last few months. The scene is equally new to Netta and Mrs Jenkins, and whilst Howel goes to take their tickets they stand wondering and admiring. Neither of them has ever travelled by rail, and both are equally nervous at the prospect. They are just in time for the express, and soon find themselves seated in a first-class carriage. As it is a carriage of two compartments, Howel fastens the door between the two, draws down the blind, puts some coats on the fourth seat, and says they will now have it to themselves all the way to London. Netta seizes his hand and screams when the steam whistle sounds, and his mother falls down upon him from the opposite seat He laughs aloud, and seems in such buoyant spirits that the women laugh too; and very soon Netta has quite forgotten her home, as with her hand clasped in Howel's he unfolds to her his future plans and arranges hers. 'Deet, and this is like a sofa in a drawing-room. I shall be asleep if I don't take care,' says Mrs Jenkins. 'The best thing you can do, mother. I will awake you when we get to Reading, where the biscuits are made you used to sell, faugh! and be sure to show you Windsor Castle.' Mrs Jenkins obeys her son's wish, and is soon sleeping soundly. Howel then gives Netta the following intelligence, which, as it interests her, we will hope may be interesting to her friends. 'The old gown you gave my mother, Netta, I sent to a celebrated house in town, and calling there the next day ordered a proper _trousseau_ to be made for you.' 'What's a _trousseau_, Howel?' 'You little dunce. Why, what we call a _stafell_ without the household furniture. So you will find a wedding dress and all kinds of dresses and garments without number awaiting you, for I gave the milliner _carte blanche_.' 'What's _carte blanche_, cousin? You are become so grand.' 'Never mind--white paper with two meanings. And here is a present to begin with.' Howel takes a leather case from his pocket and puts it into Netta's hand. She opens it, and sees a beautiful little gold watch and chain. 'Oh, you dear, kind cousin, Howel!' she cries; her eyes sparkling with delight. 'I have longed for one all my life.' 'Will you go back again, Netta dear?' asks Howel archly. The watch and chain are duly put on, and then Howel continues,-- 'To-morrow you will have a hard day's work. You must purchase a great many things that will be necessary for travelling that I could not buy. The rest we can get in Paris. I have invited my friends, Sir John and Lady Simpson, and their son and daughter, to the wedding, which I have fixed for the day after to-morrow. One of the reasons for my not being able to come to you yesterday was that I must be a fortnight in the parish where we are to be married before we are married. I just ran down by the night train, took the fly, and met you; and shall make up my lost night by sleeping in town, for certainly I slept nowhere yesterday. Can't sleep in a train like mother; always feel too excited.' 'I don't like those grand people,' interrupted Netta, pouting. 'You will know them directly. But don't let out anything about the farm, or father and mother; papa and mamma now, little coz. Miss Simpson guesses it is an elopement, I think, but I haven't told her so. They are very great friends of mine; very grand people.' 'Quite like Lady Nugent, I suppose,' suggests Netta. 'Quite--grander indeed. Well, I have ordered the wedding-breakfast, carriages, everything. Never had such fun in my life. It was quite an excitement. You don't know half my talents yet.' 'Suppose brother Rowland were to hear of it?' says Netta, frightened at the idea. Howel laughs aloud, and awakes his mother. 'He is east, we are west, my dear cousin. He is amongst the plebeians, we the patricians; he is _canaille_, we are _noblesse_.' 'What are they, Howel?' ''Tis a pleasure to be hearing you talk, Howel,' says Mrs Jenkins, yawning and rubbing her eyes. 'I was saying, mother, that we are to have a grand wedding, and you must take care not to let anything come out about the shop, faugh! or, indeed, not talk much to the friends I have asked--Lady Simpson, for instance,' 'Oh, yes? you was telling me of her. Wasn't it when you was dining with Prince Albert wanst, and was wanting that money of my Griffey?' 'Do hold your tongue, mother,' shouts Howel, shuddering; he always shivers when he hears his father's name. He sees a head trying to peep through the curtain, and thinks it best to hold his tongue for a time, then continues,-- 'I mean, mother, don't mention my dining with the prince, or any of these old stories, to the Simpsons. You must both be very careful of what you say. I shall show you as much as I can of London to-morrow, mother, as you will be obliged to return the day after.' 'Deet now, I did be thinking I should stay a week in London, now I am going there for the first time in my life? I'll be staying after you, Howel, bach. I've plenty of money now.' 'You shall come up again to meet us when we return; but you must be at home to see to the house, and let us know what is said of our doings. You see we shall go direct to Paris, stay some time abroad, and then come and settle at home. Won't we astonish the county! Mr and Mrs Howel Jenkins will be no longer the Howel and Netta of old days; we shall be the upon, not the fawners!' 'I'd scorn to fawn on any one, Howel,' says Netta indignantly; 'I never did in my life. I always gave Miss Rice Rice as big a stare as she gave me.' 'You will be able to give her a bigger now,' laughs Howel. As they journeyed on, Howel pointed out all the different objects that were likely to interest his mother and Netta. Every one, or nearly every one, knows what an exciting event is a first journey to London, it matters not whether performed at eighteen or sixty-five. And if the first journey to London be also the first journey by rail, the wonder and excitement are doubled. When Howel had finished all his instructions concerning the future, he thoroughly entered into the present, and enchanted his companions by his general knowledge of the passing scenes, and the amusing stories he had to tell. Netta was more in love with him than ever before they reached town, and wondered that such a grand and clever gentleman could have kept constant to a little country cousin like herself. She had seen nothing of Howel during the most stirring years of his life, and could not have supposed what a change the mere commerce with the world could effect. She considered him far more agreeable than her brother Rowland, handsomer and more polished than Sir Hugh Pryse, and much more fashionable than Mr Rice Rice. At Swindon he treated them liberally, and loaded Netta with sweets to take with her to the carriage after she had swallowed her cold chicken and wine. As to his mother, knowing her peculiar tastes, he gave her a glass of brandy and water, upon plea of illness, which she took with evident pleasure; but fearing to attract the attention of the smart people around her, sipped so daintly, that it was not half finished when the signal to return to the carriages sounded, and Howel hurried her off. 'Just let me put this piece of chicken and ham into my bag, Howel, and finish this drop,' she whispered. 'Quick, mother, not a minute,' was all the answer she received, accompanied by a pull of the sleeve so imperative, that she was obliged to leave her half filled glass behind her. At the Oxford Station, Netta began to wonder what Rowland would think of her conduct. 'Think!' said Howel, with a scowling brow, 'the prig! what right has he to think? He will know that three or four thousand a-year are somewhat better than a London curacy--ha! ha! and wish himself in my place, I fancy,' As they neared London, Netta was haunted by visions of her brother, the only person she really feared. 'Suppose he should meet them! should find her out! Suppose the clergyman who married them should guess, from her name, she was his sister, and go and tell him?' Howel laughed heartily at this, told her to look out of the window at London as they entered it, and see whether she thought one parson would be likely to be met by chance by another. 'This London!' exclaims Netta, 'I see nothing but the roofs of a lot of ugly black houses!' 'Carmarthen is as fine, and Swansea finer!' says Mrs Jenkins, her face expressive of great disappointment. 'Draw down your veils, and stand there whilst I get a cab,' says Howel, after they have descended upon the platform. Netta trembles all over, and fancies every tall man in black must be Rowland. 'Name o' goodness what are all the people about?' says Mrs Jenkins. 'My deet, there do be a lot of carriages! And look you, Netta, at all the gentlemen's servants in blue and silver! Here's a place! big enough to hold our town. Look you at the glass--like a large hot-house. Seure all London isn't covered up like this!' 'Here you are! all right--come along quick!' says Howel, taking them to a cab, and putting them in. 'Half Moon Street, Piccadilly,' and off they go, as fast as the poor cab-horse can take them. 'Now, what do you think of it, Netta?' asks Howel, as they drive through the magnificent streets and squares of the West End of London, where every house looks a palace. Netta was so bewildered that she could not answer; but Mrs Jenkins talked for both. 'Look you! well to be seure! that's grander than I ever see. There's a church! Trees too! Who'd be thinking of trees in London? Well, name o' goodness, where are all they people going? That church 'ont hold 'em all! There's beauty! Is that St Paul's, Howel, bach! or the Monument? My Griffey was talking of them! There's houses! Seure that's Prince Albert's coach! There again! Where was all those carriages going? Ach a fi! that man was just driving into our horse. Howel, name o' goodness tell the coachman to tak' care. He'll be upsetting us. Yes, indeet, Netta, there's shops! One after another. Did you be buying Netta's wedding clothes there, Howel! Is that a play-house? No! not a gentleman's house? I 'ould like to see a play for wanst, if nobody 'ould tell our minister.' 'If you are not too tired, I'll take you to-night, mother,' here broke in Howel. 'We may go, perhaps, after you have had some tea. What do you say, Netta?' 'Anywhere you like, Howel,' said Netta, 'I am no more ready than if I was just starting.' 'Pic what, Howel, was you calling this?' asked Jenkins. 'Piccadilly, mother. One of the best parts of London.' 'Deet, and I should think so. 'Tis like a 'lumination lights. There's no night here. Daylight all the year round. Trees again, like Glanyravon Park, and lights along by. There pretty--what a many carriages! Was they all going to the play? Soldiers, too, I am thinking! And more o' them gentlemen's servants in blue and white. Do all the servants in London be wearing the same livery, Howel?' 'Those are the police, mother,' said Howel, laughing. 'The pleece! Well, I do be calling them handsome men. When will the noise stop, Howel? I can't hear myself speak, much less you and Netta. 'Tis more noise than Hollantide fair! But maybe 'tis fairday here to-day, only I wasn't seeing no cattle. There for you! that man 'll upset us, seure he will.' 'Here we are, mother,' interrupted Howel, as the cab stopped in Half Moon Street. 'Now, you must remember that the landlady is not to be in all our secrets.' 'Seure, and this isn't half as grand as Pic--what's that long name, Howel?' 'Will you walk upstairs, ma'am,' said a well-dressed woman who stood in the passage of the house at which they stopped. 'Thank you, ma'am,' said Mrs Jenkins, making her very best curtsey to the landlady. 'Is tea ready, Mrs Thompson?' asked Howel, hastening into the passage. 'Yes, sir!' replied Mrs Thompson, trying to catch a glimpse of Netta's face. 'This way, mother,' said Howel, striding upstairs. 'You can send the traps into the bedrooms, Mrs Thompson. William, take them up.' This to a smart tiger, emblazoned in green and gold, belonging to Howel's private menagerie. 'What a lovely room! what a beautiful fire!' cried Netta, as she followed Howel into a handsome first-floor drawing-room. 'Treue for you there!' said Mrs Jenkins, surveying herself in the glass. Tea was ready, and a substantial repast besides, of which they all soon began to partake, and to which they did justice. 'I do wish I had that drop of brandy I left in those grand rooms, I am feeling a pain,' began Mrs Jenkins. Howel drew a flask from his pocket, and poured a little brandy into his mother's tea. 'This must be the first and last time mother,' he said, as he did so. When they had finished tea, Howel told them that their room was within the folding-doors, and that Netta would find a dress there for the play, and must make haste, if she meant to go. His mother, being in her very best black, wanted nothing but the widow's cap to complete her attire as chaperon. Howel lighted his cigar, and finished the brandy in the flask whilst the women were dressing. They soon returned, Netta looking really beautiful, in a new and fashionable white dress, elaborately trimmed with ribbons and lace. Howel went up to her and kissed her with infinite satisfaction. 'Won't we create a sensation at the Olympic,' he said. 'There will not be such bright eyes and lilies and roses to be seen there as yours, cousin Netta!' 'Mother don't approve of plays, Howel!' 'You must think of me, not mother now,' said Howel, ringing the bell and ordering a cab, which as soon as it arrived received our trio, and was driven to the Olympic, where they arrived in due time, and where we will leave them for the present.	{ "id": "15315" }
15	THE MILLIONAIRE'S WIFE.	'Don't you be taking on so, Netta, fach! if you do be crying this way, your eyes 'll be as red as carrots, and Howel 'ont like it.' 'Oh! Aunt 'Lisbeth, I can't help thinking of mother, and how she is vexing about me.' 'Look you at yourself in the glass, Netta, fach! and you 'ont be vexing any more. I never was seeing such a glass as that before. Look you! you can see yourself from the beauty-flowers in the white bonnet--dear! there is a bonnet! and you was looking so well in it--down to them lovely white shoes on your foots, I never was thinking before you had such little foots.' This conversation takes place whilst Mrs Jenkins is engaged in dressing Netta for her wedding, and in endeavouring at the same time to soothe various ebullitions of grief that burst out ever and anon, between the different acts of the attiring. The girl cannot quite forget the friends she left behind her, when she so suddenly ran away from home. The appeal to her personal appearance is not, however, in vain. She looks in the cheval-glass which draws forth Mrs Jenkins' admiration, and thinks she has seldom seen anything so pretty as the reflection of her own person in her bridal dress. She hastily dries her eyes, and turns round and round several times to assure herself that all is right. 'Ah! Howel is knowing everything!' says Mrs Jenkins. 'Silks and laces, and flowers, and worked-handkerchiefs, and all as white as a lily! And your cheeks a deal redder than any I do see here along! My deet! but you do be looking genteel.' 'Do I look as if I had been crying, aunt?' asks Netta, wetting her eyes with lavender water. 'I'm afraid of Howel and those grand people. I wish he hadn't asked them.' 'Oh, for sham! Netta. There they are, I shouldn't wonder! Yes indeet! says Mrs Jenkins, 'I hear them talking on the stairs.' A knock at the bedroom door is followed by the entrance of two ladies, apparently mother and daughter; the former a portly and roseate dame, clad in the richest of brocades and white lace shawls--the latter a thin and somewhat yellow damsel, a tired in white and pink bonnet and mantle to match, evidently in bridesmaid's gear. 'Ah I how charming! how beautiful! what a country-flower in London leaves!' exclaim the ladies, rushing up to Netta and kissing her. 'Good morning, Mrs Jenkins, your son has chosen a bewitching young person indeed!' 'Treue for your ladyship,' says Mrs Jenkins, making her very best curtsey, as the ladies alternately shake hands with her. 'Your ladyship' is no less a person than Lady Simpson, the wife of Sir John Simpson, a gentleman who acquired that title on an occasion when William the Fourth, of blessed memory, was fêted in the city. Sir John, having made a considerable fortune in trade, and being blessed with a helpmate of an aspiring mind, has removed from his old neighbourhood to that of Hyde Park, where he is spending the money he earned on the general advancement of his family. This family consists of a son and daughter, who have been highly educated according to the general acceptation of the term. With the son Howel is very intimate, and through him he has long been known to the rest of the family; but it is only since his vast accession of wealth that he has had the distinguished honour of claiming Sir John and Lady Simpson as his particular friends. To them he confided his intended marriage with a beautiful cousin, who, for family reasons, was coming to London, he said, under his mother's protection, to be united to him. They had called on Mrs Jenkins and Netta the previous day, and were invited to the wedding in the various capacities of father, bridesman, and bridesmaid. Previously to their making his mother's acquaintance, Howel informed them that being Welsh, she naturally spoke the language of her country, and was so patriotic that she disliked any other; and said that they must not be surprised at her peculiar English, which was simply a translation of the Welsh idioms into what, to her, was a foreign tongue. He also gave his mother an hour's lecture upon her dress and deportment; and Netta a few hints as to her general behaviour, which, whilst it enchanted the elder, frightened the younger lady. Thus 'forewarned,' if not 'fore-armed' the forces of Simpson and Jenkins were thrown together. Lady Simpson is an average specimen of a vulgar woman aping gentility; her daughter of a would-be fine lady. After they have sufficiently admired Netta's dress, and put the finishing touches to it, Miss Simpson informs Netta of her duty as bride elect. 'Of course, my dear, papa will take you to the hymeneal altar, and our friend Captain Dancy will take me.' 'Oh! I hope there is no other stranger,' gasps Netta. 'Only a particular friend of my brother's and of Mr Jenkins'. Do not be alarmed, you shy little dove.' 'Netta, fach!' whispers Mrs Jenkins, 'the ladies was knowing what is right' 'Then my brother must take up Mrs Jenkins, and Mr Jenkins, mamma. I declare we shall be a charming party; and remember to take off your glove, dear, and give it to me.' 'We had better go downstairs now,' said Lady Simpson. 'Bridegrooms are very impatient at these times.' Lady Simpson took the blushing, frightened Netta by the hand, and led her into the drawing-room. Truly the poor child did look like a lovely country rose, as Miss Simpson had not inaptly called her. Howel led her, proud of her beauty, to the portly Sir John, who patted her kindly on the cheeks, and reminded Netta so strongly of her father that the tears sprung into her eyes. Howel's frown soon checked them, and a thundering knock at the door, followed by the entrance of Mr Simpson, junior, and his friend, Captain Dancy, turned her attention from the father to the son. The look of decided admiration that the new comers cast upon her, quite revived her drooping spirits, and she smiled, curtseyed, and blushed as becomingly and naively as Howel could have wished. Mr Horatio Simpson was a young man very much adorned with chains, rings, studs, and black curls. He had, moreover, a very fine waistcoat, and was altogether well fitted by his tailor. His face was not unlike that of an otter. He used grand words when he spoke, but did not tire his companions by quite as voluble a tongue as did his mother. He was one of those fine gentlemen who would, or could neither plod nor dash at his studies, and who was quite willing to take all his knowledge second hand from any one who would kindly impart it. Captain Dancy was so entirely his devoted friend, that he gladly gave him the advantage of his superior parts, in return for various favours which Miss Simpson also aided in conferring. Captain Dancy is a tall, fashionable-looking man, with what Miss Simpson and her mamma consider a splendid figure. 'And such a lovely moustache!' Miss Simpson usually adds with a sigh. The moustache and hair are, however, inclined to red, and the face within them is not unlike that of a fox. Perhaps some of his friends might be surprised if they found him in the present company; but he would do anything to oblige Simpson and Jenkins, who are, in turn, always at his service, in more ways than one. After a little preliminary conversation, Mr Simpson offers Netta his arm; and followed by the rest of the bridal party, leads the way downstairs. A smart little liveried page is at the door, and two fine carriages are in the street, each with its horses and coachman ornamented with bridal favours. 'We cannot make all our arrangements' as I could wish, whispers Howel to Miss Simpson, 'owing to circumstances; or I should have met you at the church from another house.' Netta, Mr Simpson, and the two ladies are in the first carriage, which soon arrives at St James's Church, followed by the other. How the bouquet in Netta's hand trembles, as she takes Mr Simpson's arm, and walks with him up the steps, and finally through the centre aisle to the altar! She has never been in a London church before, and the varied colours of that magnificent painted window strike her with wonder even now. Netta turns very pale as she stands by the altar, and waits until Howel comes up. Sir John whispers some kindly words, which so forcibly remind her of her father, that she can scarcely repress her tears. She glances at Howel, as he stands opposite, gazing at her, and sees that his handsome face is calm and determined. He smiles as she looks at him, which reassures her. A prettier bride could never stand before an altar; Howel feels this and is satisfied. And Netta has loved her cousin all her life, and thinks him perfect. She can truly say that she leaves father, mother, all for him. And these are the feelings with which they receive the first words of the earnest-spoken grey-haired priest, who tells them that they are assembled in the sight of God, to be joined indissolubly together. Netta once read through the marriage service years ago. She had forgotten it, and would have read it again, but she did not take away either her Bible or prayer book when she fled from her home, and did not like to ask Howel to buy her one. Now, as the clergyman continues his exhortation, the words sound to her as some solemn and wonderful address spoken for her alone. She listens in spite of a multitude of feelings that are struggling within her, and is struck with fear when she is adjured to confess, if there is any impediment to her being lawfully wedded. She knows that her father's anger and her mother's sorrow are broad impediments in her road to happiness. Her hand trembles, as he who holds the office that offended father ought to hold, takes it and places it in that of the clergyman It trembles still more as she hears the question put to her concerning her future conduct to him, so soon to be her husband, and to think she must audibly respond. Howel has already answered firmly and boldly, and she strives to say the final, 'I will,' firmly too, but her voice falters; she is too much absorbed in her own emotions to notice how carelessly and thoughtlessly Howel repeats his solemn promise to her after the clergyman, but she feels him press her hand and is reassured. Tremblingly, but in all earnestness of purpose, she makes her vow to 'love, cherish, and obey' him whom she has resolutely chosen for her husband; and, as if touched by her manner, and by the searching glance of the clergyman, Howel becomes more serious as he places the ring on her finger and repeats the last words in those great and awful names, which it is sin to utter but with humility and prayer. Truly, as they kneel before the altar to receive the final blessing of the clergyman, they are a sight for much joy or much grief. Who shall say what the end will be? Two human beings joined in one to all eternity! As that prayer and blessing are being spoken, a bright flash of lightning darts through the church, followed by a heavy peal of thunder; suddenly a great gloom fills the sacred edifice, and a storm of hail and rain dashes against the windows. Poor Netta is superstitious and as easily frightened as a child; she starts and gives an involuntary little cry as the lightning flashes before her eyes, and the thunder seems to shake her as she kneels. She turns paler and paler as the storm continues, and can scarcely hear the concluding psalms, prayers, and exhortation, for her fear of the lightning which fitfully and at intervals slants through the painted windows. Stronger nerves than Netta's have been shaken by a thunderstorm on a wedding-day. Even Howel involuntarily quails at this evil omen, and Mrs Jenkins clasps her hands and mutters a Welsh proverb. She and Netta had been congratulating each other on the sunshine of the morning, and such a storm was bad indeed. However, the service proceeds, and then he who addresses the newly-married pair in God's name, makes himself heard in spite of the pattering hail. He seems the more impressive as he cannot but remark Howel's frowning brow and Netta's agitation. It is a relief to all the wedding-party when the last words are spoken and Howel leads his bride into the vestry. By this time tears are running fast down her pale cheeks, and Howel's efforts at encouragement, and the warm kiss he gives her, fail to dry them; Sir John Simpson's fatherly embrace rather serves to increase than diminish the emotion, and poor Netta is conscious that Howel must be very displeased. She mutters something about her great fear of lightning and thunder; signs her name even more stragglingly than usual, and is at last led by Howel through the church to the carriage. 'I don't wonder she is frightened and nervous,' says Miss Simpson? 'I am sure I should have fainted if such a storm had come on at my marriage. It is--' 'Nonsense!' exclaims Howel, somewhat rudely, as they drive quickly through Jermyn Street, up St James's Street, down Piccadilly, and into Half Moon Street, without much farther conversation, whilst the storm rolls on. Netta hurries upstairs and gives way to a burst of sobs and tears; Howel follows, and knowing the best way to console her, takes her in his arms, and having told her that she is his own little wife now, begs her to remember all the grand things they are going to do. 'You are a great lady now, Netta. We must astonish the little people down in Wales. Think of Paris, and that Lady Nugent and Miss Rice Rice, and all your old rivals will hear of your being there, and soon see you return smarter and richer than any one,' 'But the storm, cousin Howel! All those solemn words! I am frightened to death!' 'Silly little Netta! what has the storm to do with you and me? All our prosperity and happiness are beginning.' 'But they say, "Blessed is the bride the sun shines on," and that thunder and lightning are such a bad omen.' 'Don't be'--a fool, Howel was going to say, but he modified it into 'Don't be such a silly little puss, but dry your eyes, and come and make yourself agreeable to our first visitors. _Ours,_ Netta dear.' Netta did as she was bid, and in a short time was at the head of the table, on which a wedding-breakfast had been duly placed, according to the general rules laid down for such occasions. Howel had given _carte blanche_ to a fashionable confectioner, and everything was as it should be for the quiet and private marriage of a man of large fortune. The cake was splendidly ornamented, the champagne iced, and the other viands and wines in keeping with them; the hired waiters vied with Sir John's servants in propriety of demeanour, and Howel's page was as pompous as pages generally are. All Netta's pride and ambition returned when she saw herself mistress at a table more luxuriously spread than that of Mr Gwynne, and she soon began to enjoy her new dignity very much. 'I am to have a French maid when I get to Paris,' she said to Miss Simpson. 'Howel does not like to take one with us, and we shall form our establishment when we return.' Howel laughed in his sleeve when he heard this: he managed to hear every word that Netta uttered, and gave her an approving glance; he also saw that his friends, Captain Dancy and Mr Horatio Simpson, greatly admired his beautiful young wife, and little cousin Netta rose in his, estimation. 'We shall soon meet in Paris, I hope,' said Captain Dancy. 'Simpson and I are going to run over next week. I should like to assist in showing you some of the lions, Mrs Howel Jenkins,' 'Lions! name o' goodness don't tak' her to see them!' exclaims Mrs Jenkins, now put off her guard by fear. 'Ah! you have not that Welsh figure; it means--' began Miss Simpson, but she was interrupted by Mr Simpson proposing the health of the bride and bridegroom. The breakfast went off very well, and the champagne went round only too often; ladies as well as gentlemen were flushed by this exhilarating beverage, and Mrs Griffith Jenkins was beginning to be very voluble on the subject of 'my son Howels,' when that gentleman gave her a look that silenced her, and that reminded Netta that he had told her to look at Lady Simpson when it was time for her to put on her travelling-dress. The ladies went to their retiring-room, whilst the gentlemen drank more champagne, and arranged various Parisian amusements. It was understood that, as Howel had no friends to leave behind him for the final settlement of lodgings and the like, his guests were to depart before he and his bride left. They accordingly took their leave as soon as Netta reappeared in fashionable travelling costume. No sooner were they fairly gone than Howel set to work to pay and arrange; this done, he called Netta to look at their wedding cards. There were a great number directed to different friends, some to acquaintances in their old neighbourhood, and one to David Prothero, Esq., Glanyravon. Netta quailed but said nothing. 'Now let me read you this, Netta? it is for the _Welshman,_ and every one will see it:--"On the 16th instant, at St James's Church, Piccadilly, London, Howel Jenkins, Esq., of our county, was married to Miss Prothero, daughter of D. Prothero, Esq., of Glanyravon. Sir John Simpson gave away the lovely bride, and the wedding-breakfast was attended by a select, but fashionable party of friends."' 'Father will see that,' said Netta; 'he will be in such a passion.' 'Serve him right,' replied Howel, and called the page and sent the letters to the post. The carriage was at the door, and the luggage in. Mrs Griffith Jenkins was busily engaged in packing up the cake and a spare bottle of champagne, together with a few other confections' in a stray hamper. 'Make haste, mother,' cried Howel. 'Stop you, Howel, bach! in a minute. We must be wishing you joy at home; and I should like to be sending cousin Prothero some of this grand cake.' At last Mrs Jenkins and her hamper were ready, and the trio started for the Paddington Station. When they arrived there Howel took a second-class ticket for his mother as far as Swansea, telling her to take a first-class from that place home. She was to sleep with some friends at Swansea. 'We mustn't waste money, mother.' 'Treue for you, Howel.' 'Tell everybody at home of the grand wedding.' 'Don't be afraid of that.' When Howel had seen his mother off, he and Netta drove to their station, and, per first-class carriage, with page in second, steamed off to Folkestone, which was to be the first stage of their life-journey.	{ "id": "15315" }
16	THE SERVANT.	We must now leave Netta and her husband for a time, and return to the morning when Netta left her home to go forth in search of a new one. The breakfast-table was spread at the farm, and all were assembled except Netta. 'Owen, go and call Netta,' said Mr Prothero, seating himself before some smoking rashers of bacon; 'she's always late, I'll say that for her.' Owen did his father's bidding, but returned exclaiming,-- 'She is up and out of her room. There must be something wonderful to make her go out before breakfast.' 'Such a lovely morning,' said Mrs Prothero, 'I daresay she is in the garden.' 'Well, let her find her way in,' said the farmer; 'she knows the hour, and we'll fall to. Say grace, mother, if you please.' Mrs Prothero said grace, and the trio sat down to breakfast. 'I expect brother Jo and Mrs Jonathan to-day,' said Mr Prothero; 'they are going to a clerical meeting, and are coming here on their way back.' 'Dear me!' said Mrs Prothero. 'What can we have for dinner?' 'Eggs and bacon. What better?' said the farmer. 'But you needn't be afraid, they 'ont come till tea. Owen, I wish you'd just look out and see after that idle slut Netta.' Off started Owen with a piece of bread and butter in his hand. 'Mother, why don't you make that girl more regular?' asked Mr Prothero. 'Oh, David! you know she doesn't mind me.' 'Then you should make her.' Mrs Prothero could have said, 'You should have helped me to make her all her life,' but she refrained. 'Can't find her,' cried Owen, returning. 'Perhaps she is ill upstairs,' suggested Mrs Prothero, rising, and running up to her room. The room was empty, as we know, and Mrs Prothero was about to leave it again, when she went to the open window to see if she could espy Netta from it. She passed the dressing-table as she did so, and perceiving a letter, glanced at the direction. She was surprised to find it addressed to herself, and on a nearer examination saw that it was in Netta's handwriting. It was with a trembling hand and foreboding heart that she took it up and broke the seal After she had done this, she was some time before she could summon courage to open it. When she did so, her brain swam as she read the following words, written with trembling fingers:-- 'DEAR MOTHER,--I am going to marry cousin Howel. Father won't consent, so we are going to London to be married. I hope you will forgive me for not telling you, but I knew it was no good, as father is so much against it. I am sure I shall be very happy, only I should like to have been married properly at home; but it is not my fault that father would not hear of it, and that Howel would not wait. We are going to France and a great many other countries, and it grieves me to think how long it will be before I shall see you again. I hope you and father will forgive me? as Howel is a gentleman with plenty of money, and we have loved one another all our lives. I don't see why we were not allowed to marry like anybody else, instead of being obliged to go so far away; I am sure it would have been better if father had let us. Dear mother, you were always very good to me, and I am sorry if I ever offended you; but father called me bad names, and was very cross; he will be vexed, perhaps, when he sees how grand and happy I am. 'Good-bye for a little time, my dear mother. Don't be very angry with your dutiful, affectionate daughter, JANETTA.' The word 'dutiful' was scratched through and affectionate added. When Mrs Prothero had read this letter, she turned very pale, and stood like one in a dream; she could not realise the contents. That Netta was wilful and obstinate she knew, but she had never known her guilty of resolute disobedience; she felt very faint, and sat down on a chair opposite the open door--she tried to rise to go downstairs to her husband, but found that her head was too giddy, and she could not move; she put her hand before her eyes, and became unconscious. At this moment Gladys passed down the passage, and seeing Mrs Prothero in this strange attitude, went into the room and asked if anything was the matter. Receiving no answer, she put her hand tenderly on Mrs Prothero's, and removing it from before her face, saw that she was pale, and appeared to have fainted. She ran hastily downstairs, and finding Owen alone, told him that his mother was ill. He followed her upstairs, and soon perceived that Mrs Prothero was really in a kind of swoon. Whilst he supported her, Gladys brought water and such restoratives as she could procure; she begged him to go for his father, and whilst he was gone, succeeded in restoring Mrs Prothero. At the sight of the open letter, however, she sank again into a fainting fit. Mr Prothero and Owen appeared. 'Mother, what is the matter? Name o' goodness what is the matter?' said Mr Prothero in great alarm. Gladys pointed out the letter to Owen, who glanced at it whilst his father took his wife into his arms. Gladys put vinegar to her temples and nostrils, and begged Mr Prothero to take her to the open window; as he did so he saw Owen reading a letter. 'How can you read now, you unnatural son?' he said sternly. 'Oh, father! father, Netta!' he exclaimed. 'Never mind her; think of your mother, ten thousand times as precious.' At last Gladys succeeded in restoring Mrs Prothero to consciousness and when she found herself in her husband's arms, with Owen bending over her, she burst into a flood of hysterical tears, which partially relieved her. 'Oh, Netta! Netta!' was all she could say, when they asked her what was the matter. 'Never mind her, mother, but get better,' said Mr Prothero, his usually rosy face almost as pale as his wife's. 'If you please, sir, we will lay her on the bed,' said Gladys. 'Not here--not here,' gasped Mrs Prothero. They took her to her own room, and Gladys said,--'Perhaps, sir, if you would leave her to me a little I could get her into bed, I am used to illness.' Mr Prothero looked at the girl, and saw her eyes full of tears, but her face was calm and pale, and seemed to indicate a self-possession that no one else present had. 'I will come back again soon, mother,' he said as he left the room, followed by Owen. When they were gone, Mrs Prothero gave way to an uncontrollable grief, and threw herself upon the neck of the girl Gladys. 'What will he say? what will he do when he knows it all?' she sobbed. 'If you only hope and pray, ma'am, perhaps all will be right that troubles you now,' faltered Gladys. 'My only girl! to be so wilful, so disobedient!' 'May I ask what has happened to Miss Netta?' 'She has run away with her cousin, and her father will never forgive her--never!' 'Ah! that was what my poor mother did; but she was happy with my father; and Mr Jenkins is rich and kind. Take comfort, ma'am, it may not be so very bad.' Gladys managed to get Mrs Prothero into bed, who, happily, did not see the effect produced by Netta's letter on her husband. Whilst she was shedding quiet tears on her pillow, he was raging with furious passion to his son. Over and over again did he comment on every word of the letter, sometimes with keen irony, sometimes with a burst of rage, until Owen endeavoured to suggest pursuit. 'Go after her! the ungrateful, disobedient, good-for-nothing hussey! No, not if she were stopping a mile off instead of whirling away in her grand coach and four nobody knows where. Let her go, the impertinent baggage! "Father 'ont consent! father was very cross! father had better let us marry! he will be sorry when he sees how grand and happy I am! father called me bad names!" I wish I had called her worse! she deserves every name that was ever written!' 'But, perhaps,' suggests Owen, 'she will be happy, and Howel will be steady.' 'Steady! hold your tongue and don't be a fool! Make a drunkard steady! make a bad son steady! make a gambler steady! make a horse-racer steady! make--make--make--hold your tongue, sir: don't say a word for the ungrateful girl--never mention her name to me again--I never wish to see her face more as long as I live--I--I--I--' Mr Prothero's passion choked his words. Could Netta have suddenly returned and seen her father shaking with suppressed grief, his face crimson with rage, and his hands and teeth clenched, and her mother pale and weeping on her bed, she would, I think, have paused longer before she caused them this great grief. Mr Prothero returned to his wife before his passion was calmed. He found her sitting up in bed wringing her hands, and crying as if her heart would break. 'Now, mother, there's no good in this,' began the farmer. 'That girl don't deserve tears and lamentations, and I 'ont have 'em. We 'ont have the house turned upside down because a bad, obstinate, ungrateful daughter has run away with a miser's son, and a good-for-nothing spendthrift. Let 'em go, I say! I 'ouldn't stir a step to bring 'em back--' 'Oh, David! dear, dear husband! if only you will find out that they are married; if only you would send some one to see that Howel marries her! This is all--all--all! I will never name her again! I will try to forget her--I will do all you wish! but for my sake, for yours, for all, for God's sake, see to this, or I shall die.' Mr Prothero was cowed at once by this passionate burst of grief. He had never seen his submissive, patient little wife excited in this way before, for never before had she felt so deep a pain. Her only daughter! 'God help me! God help me!' she sobbed, when she had controlled her great emotion. 'I know I have indulged her--spoilt her perhaps. I know she is proud and wilful, and obstinate; but oh! to disobey us all--to go off, she doesn't know where--with Howel, too, who has no religion, nothing to keep him pure and honest--this is too much! too hard! No, David, bach! it is no good to be angry now--if you won't go after her I must.' 'Stop you, mother, stop you! we'll see the slut married anyhow; that is to say, Howel shall marry her--who ever doubted that? but I'll never set eyes on her again as long as I live, I 'ont.' Whilst Mr Prothero was speaking, Gladys, who had been waiting upon Mrs Prothero until that moment, slipped out of the room, and ran in search of Owen. She found him amongst servants making inquiries. 'Mr Owen, may I speak with you if you please.' Owen followed her into the hall. 'Oh! sir, if you would go after Miss Netta, now that the master is willing, at once; may be you will save your mother's life. If she goes on this way, she will surely be very ill.' 'What use would it be for me to go after her? The cow-boy saw her pass at about five this morning, and she is at Swansea by this time. My father ought to have let 'em marry, and get on together like other young couples.' 'But, Mr Owen, the mistress is afraid--she wants to be sure--she would be happier, sir, if some one could see them married!' 'Oh! that's the way the wind blows! You may tell mother that I'll try to track them--but it won't be of any use. At any rate it will calm her to think we are making the attempt. You write to my brother Rowland, Gladys, and tell him of this affair; but the truth is, we must make the best of it. They are off to London to be married, and 'tis no good to try to look for 'em there.' Here Shanno entered. 'Mr Owen, Mr Jones, Tenewydd, did tell Mr Thomas, Trefortyn, who did tell John, blacksmith, who did tell Betto, that he saw Miss Netta and Mrs Jenkins, tallow-chandler, this morning about six o'clock, and they did get into a carriage by there.' 'Go and tell mother that Aunt Jenkins was with Netta, Gladys, and I'll go and see whether Mr Jones really saw her or not.' Gladys returned to her mistress, who had become more quiet, and was trying to persuade Mr Prothero to go after the fugitives. 'Mr Owen is gone, ma'am,' said Gladys, 'and Mr Jones, of Tynewydd, saw Miss Netta this morning with Mrs Griffith Jenkins, and they got into a carriage together.' 'Thank God that 'Lizbeth was with her,' said Mrs Prothero. 'The deceitful, pompous old vagabond,' thundered Mr Prothero. 'She to connive and contrive! fit mother for such a son. They 'ont come to no good end. No, mother, I can't, nor I 'ont go after 'em; Netta has made her own bed, and she must lie on it.' 'Mr Owen is gone, ma'am,' whispered Gladys. 'Try to take comfort; there is One who can make all our rough ways straight, and will bring poor Miss Netta home again, if we pray for it.' 'What's the girl preaching about?' said Mr Prothero, glancing sternly at Gladys, who was silenced at once. 'Now, mother, we mustn't let that undutiful girl upset us. I must go to the wheat-field--you must--' he looked at his wife, and changed what he was going to say to, 'lie in bed.' 'No, Davy, I can't lie in bed, I must go and look for Netta.' 'Now, wife, I 'ont have none of this nonsense. You must either lie in bed or go about your work. The whole house sha'n't be turned topsey-turvey for a baggage like that.' Mr Prothero left the room, and his wife insisted upon getting up. 'If you could pray for her, ma'am, you would be happier, and perhaps poor Miss Netta might be helped in a way we cannot see.' 'Pray for me, Gladys, I cannot think or pray for myself, I am so bewildered.' The two earnest-minded women knelt down by the bedside, and Gladys offered up a simple prayer in her clear, strong language, for the 'poor lamb who had strayed from the fold;' in which the mother joined in the midst of her sobs and tears. When they arose from their knees, Mrs Prothero kissed Gladys, and said she would go downstairs, and try to work, and seek to keep her heart in prayer. And the day wore through, until the evening brought Mr and Mrs Jonathan Prothero. For the first time, Mrs Jonathan comforted her sister-in-law. 'Now, really, I do not see why you should be so very much distressed,' she said. 'Howel is a fine, clever young man, with plenty of money. He is sure to make his way into good society, and to place Netta in a superior position. Of course, it was very wrong of her to elope, very; but your husband is so obstinate that they knew he would never consent, and what else were they to do? I confess I should have done the very same thing. As to his not marrying her after all, that is absurd. He is devotedly attached to her, and he knows that with her beauty and spirit, she will soon be fit for good society.' Mr Jonathan was not so successful with his brother. After saying that he had seen a carriage and pair pass at about six that morning, he proceeded to offer consolation. 'It is according to nature, brother. Since the creation, the man has cleaved to the woman and the woman to the man. You married according to your fancy, so did I; so have men and women ever since the world began. It may turn out better than you imagine.' 'Brother Jo!' thundered the farmer, 'hold your tongue. I know Howel better than you do, or anybody else, except Rowland. I 'ont hear any more about 'em, and the less you say the better. She's no daughter o' mine any more.' With this Mr Prothero walked away, leaving his brother very much perplexed and distressed, but comforting himself with hoping that time would soften even his choleric relative. Owen returned about ten o'clock. He had ridden to the inn where Howel had changed horses, and learnt the name of the house whence the fly came; had left his own horse and taken another, and gone on to Swansea, where he found from the drivers that the trio had gone direct to London. Thinking it useless to try to track them farther, he returned, fully impressed with the wisdom of Howel in running off with what he couldn't get by fair means. 'Such a row as father makes,' he soliloquised. 'Why, I should do the very same thing to-morrow. And Howel's a decent chap too; will be, at least, when he's sown a few more wild oats. But if Netta doesn't lead him a dance I'm mistaken. She's father all over. There's a difference between her and that Irish girl! My wig! if she isn't a quiet one. But I never saw such eyes as hers in all my life, or such a sweet temper. I wonder what father would say if I ran off with her, and took her a voyage or two to give her a little more colour. That's all she wants to make her a downright angel'	{ "id": "15315" }
17	THE COLONEL.	The next day it was evident to every one that Mrs Prothero was very ill. She had never had any very extraordinary misfortunes or troubles, and the elopement of an only daughter was an event to her so dreadful and unexpected that it seemed as bad, or worse, than her death. As nothing more was to be gleaned concerning Netta, and further inquiries were literally useless--indeed, Mr Prothero would not hear of their being made--Mrs Prothero gave way to her grief, and her husband's most passionate demonstrations of displeasure failed to frighten her into her usual calm submission to him and his humours. Owen paid a visit to Mrs Jenkins' abode, and heard from the servant left in charge that she was not expected home for some time. Owen bribed the woman to let him know when her mistress returned, and comforted his mother by assuring her that he would find out all about Netta from Aunt 'Lizbeth, whose tongue was too well oiled to stop going. Mr and Mrs Jonathan offered to remain at the farm, but as they rather irritated Mr Prothero by their evident inclination to take up the defence of the offenders, Owen told his aunt that she had better write to Lady Payne Perry about Netta, as there was always a chance of great people hearing the news. Owen was very well aware that his aunt could not possibly write to her aristocratic cousin with the pens, ink, and paper in general use at the farm, and that she would be obliged to go to her davenport at the vicarage, where he already saw her, in imagination, with the finest satin letter paper before her, mending her pen into the most delicate of points. Accordingly they took their leave, with a promise to return on Monday, and were soon succeeded by Miss Gwynne, who, having heard of the elopement, came to see Mrs Prothero. 'If you could prevail on the mistress to go to bed, ma'am,' said Gladys when she opened the door to her, 'I would be for ever thankful to you; she is much too ill to be about, and she has done nothing but mope and fret all day.' Miss Gwynne went straight into the dairy, where Mrs Prothero was making butter. 'So Netta has taken the law into her own hands, Mrs Prothero. So much the better; I shouldn't grieve about it if I were you. It is a grand thing for her.' 'Not to disobey us and run away, Miss Gwynne? she would be better doing her father's bidding than marrying a lord, much less Howel.' 'But you are not going to make yourself ill and miserable about it. Since it is done, you may as well make the best of it; but you must go to bed and keep quiet, to-day at least. You are not fit to see all the people who are already on their way to condole or congratulate. You will have half the parish here before night; I passed old Nancy, Cwmriddle, hobbling down the lane, and she will be here shortly.' 'Oh, I couldn't see them, Miss Gwynne.' 'Then you must go to bed to avoid it. Do be advised, you look so ill.' 'When Miss Gwynne so far forgot herself as to be persuasive instead of commanding, she was irresistible. She put her hand so gently on Mrs Prothero's shoulder, and looked so kindly into her tearful eyes, that the poor woman began to cry afresh. The sound of a stick knocking at the back door completed the victory, and Mrs Prothero went sobbing upstairs, whilst Gladys opened the door to admit Nancy, Cwmriddle, and another gossip who had overtaken her. Mr Prothero came into the yard at the same time. 'Well, sir, to be sure; only to think of Miss Netta,' began the old woman in Welsh. 'If you're come here to talk about her, I'll thank you to go away again, and tell everybody you meet that they may have their nine days' wonder about us anywhere but here,' roared Mr Prothero into Nancy's ear, who was very deaf. The old crones, knowing Mr. Prothero well, turned away quicker than they came, and soon began to do his bidding, perceiving that he was in an 'awful way.' 'Mr Prothero, do you know I have sent Mrs Prothero to bed,' began Miss Gwynne, advancing towards him; 'she looks so very ill and unlike herself that I am sure you must be careful of her for a time.' 'All that ungrateful, good-for-nothing daughter of ours, Miss Gwynne. What would she care if she were to kill her mother? I know you are a true lady and a kind friend, miss, and have more sense than all the rest of the country put together, so I don't mind telling you what I think. Those that disobey their parents'll be seure to come to a bad end.' 'We will hope the best, Mr Prothero; and you must remember that you have your sons to comfort you.' 'Fine comfort to be seure. There's Owen as wild as an untrained colt, and Rowland such a grand man up in London that he 'ont know his own father by-and-by. Dining with bishops and rectors, and as fine as my lord. I always told my wife that all Mrs Jonathan's eddication was too much for us, and so it is turning out. We shall be left in our old age to shift for ourselves; one son at sea, without a shirt to his back; another preaching upon a hundred a-year--gentleman Rowland I call him; and the third in a workhouse, maybe. And all this because brother Jo must needs bring a fine lady amongst us, and with her nothing but grammar-schools, boarding-schools, and colleges. My wife always spoilt that girl.' 'Perhaps you helped a little bit, Mr Prothero,' said Miss Gwynne, smiling, to stop the farmer's flow of words. 'But one couldn't help spoiling poor--' 'There, don't you go for to take her part, miss. Name o' goodness, let alone the girl. Beg pardon for being so rude.' Here Gladys appeared, who had followed her mistress upstairs. 'Sir, the mistress is very ill. I think she would like to see you. Perhaps you had better have a doctor.' 'Never had a doctor in my house since Netta was born, that's the trouble she brought with her; I'd as soon have an undertaker. Send you for a doctor, and everybody in the house is seure to be ill. He's infectious. Excuse me, Miss Gwynne, whilst I go and see what's the matter.' Miss Gwynne waited until she heard Mr Prothero come down from his wife's room, calling busily for Owen, who was in the wheat-field, and telling him to go and fetch Dr Richards. She then called Gladys, and said she should have whatever her mistress could fancy from the Park, and that she would come again in the afternoon and see how she was. This done, Miss Gwynne went her own erratic way, which led her over stiles, and through fields, and into various cottages, where she alternately scolded, lectured, and condoled, accordingly as she thought their inmates deserved the one or the other. She rarely left them, however, without giving some substantial proof of the interest she felt in their wants and trials, either by promises of food or clothing, or by money given then and there. She finally anchored in a pretty school-house that she had lately prevailed on her father to build, close by the Park, where she found Miss Hall patiently superintending the needlework of the girls. She gave two or three quick nods to the children, and they curtseyed and bowed on her entrance, and then told Miss Hall it was twelve o'clock, and she had had quite enough teaching for one morning. 'I don't see what use it is having a school, if half the children are to stay away,' she said to the mistress. 'It is the harvest, ma'am; they stay at home to take care of the younger children; that is why we have so few.' 'Yes, and half go to the Dissenting schools; I see them creeping out. Now, children,' turning to the terrified urchins, who were just about to leave the room, if I see any of you going to any other school but this, or going away from church to the meeting-houses, you shall neither have new frocks, hats, nor shawls, nor shall you come to the tea-party I am going to give you soon; do you hear?' 'Yes, ma'am--yes, ma'am,' muttered the children as they curtseyed and bowed and slipped away. As Freda and Miss Hall walked through the park to the house, the former grew very excited in her manner. 'I tell you what it is, Nita,' she said, 'Lady Nugent is doing everything in her power to win papa, and as soon as Miss Nugent marries, or rather as soon as somebody marries her fortune, she will get papa to marry her, I am sure of it. She must propose for him herself, for he will never have the courage to do so; I see through her, and I am sure you must do the same. He is flattered by the constant attentions, and little notes, and insinuating manners of a very handsome, fashionable, agreeable woman; and she thinks Glanyravon Park and a man of fortune that she will be able to turn round her fingers, better than the jointure she will have to live upon when her daughter leaves her. I was actually disgusted with her yesterday; it was what I call a dead set; if he marries her I shall hang myself, for live with her I never will; I positively detest her.' 'Oh! Freda; those are the old expressions of years gone by. But you are jumping at a conclusion.' 'Not at all; papa always stands up for Lady Nugent and her insipid daughter. You know he is a thorough gentleman himself and does not understand such a maneuvering woman. I told him so the other day, and he was quite angry; and I am sure she sets him against me. Why will you not try to marry papa, if he must marry again? and you are the only person I could tolerate for a step-mother.' 'My dear Freda,' said Miss Hall, laughing, 'your papa would as soon think of Miss Rice Rice as of me.' 'You are quite mistaken, he has always admired you very much, only you are so dreadfully reserved with him. You won't see that he wants some one who can talk to and for him, to save him the trouble. This Lady Nugent does with the most contemptible tact; and does it so cleverly that nobody sees through her. If you will only try, and just propose at the right moment, I am convinced papa would have you. If he marries her, I say good-bye to Glanyravon for ever.' 'You are so impetuous, Freda; I am sure your papa has never thought of it.' 'Not exactly in a downright way, nor will he till Lady Nugent makes the proposal; then he will be rather frightened at first, and finally think that she will head his table more gracefully than I shall, and be less dictatorial--and I shall go into a convent.' 'Better marry yourself, my dear.' 'Marry who? The only person who would really care to have me, whether I had a fortune or not, is Sir Hugh Pryse, and I could no more marry him than--than--Mr Rice Rice, or Major Madox, who thinks only of the heiress of Glanyravon.' 'But you have refused half-a-dozen more, and have not even taken the trouble to try to like any one of them!' 'They were all in love with the Park, not with me; and I certainly never mean to try to like any one. It must be true love with me, or none at all. I shall die an old maid, and unless you will, just for my sake, try to cut out Lady Nugent, I daresay you and I will nurse the black cat together.' Freda's conversation was checked by the sound of horses' hoofs behind; she turned sound and saw a gentleman riding slowly up the drive. He soon overtook them, and raising his hat, said,-- 'Miss Gwynne! I am sure it must be Miss Gwynne; am I right?' Freda bowed. 'You do not remember me! twelve years make a great difference! and you were a child when I left.' 'Colonel Vaughan! Oh! I am so glad to see you!' claimed Freda. 'And papa will be charmed; we heard you were in England, but did not know you were in this county.' Colonel Vaughan dismounted, and shook hands with Freda, evidently with all his heart, then glancing at Miss Hall, started, and said,-- 'Yes--no--I beg your pardon, surely not Miss Hall.' 'Yes,' said Miss Hall, colouring slightly, and holding out her hand, I am very glad to welcome you home again, but can well imagine you did not expect to see me here.' By this time they were at the house, and Freda was planning introducing Colonel Vaughan to her father as a stranger, and seeing whether he would recognise him or not. She accordingly preceded him to the study, and said to Mr Gwynne, 'A gentleman wishes to see you, papa.' Mr Gwynne rose and made his bow, and motioned to a seat in his usually nervous manner. 'How do you do, Mr Gwynne? Don't you know me?' said the colonel, standing up before him. 'I beg your pardon--no--I do not think I have ever--impossible! It cannot be my godson, Gwynne Vaughan?' 'The very same!' said the colonel. 'I only came down last night, and this is the first place I have visited.' 'I am very glad to see you, my dear fellow,' said Mr Gwynne, absolutely rising from his chair. 'And this was what the bells were ringing for last night?' said Freda, looking flushed and handsome. 'In spite of my poverty they did me that honour,' said the colonel. 'I heard the old place was likely to be let again, and so ran down to have a look at it first, and beat up my old friends. It was years ago that I went, a youth of nineteen, into the army, and twelve since I have been here, and I have been all the world over since then; but I come back and find everything much as I left it.' 'But surely you will not go away again?' said Mr Gwynne. 'I am not rich enough to keep up the old place as it ought to be kept, and the debts are not half wiped off yet, so I don't mean to settle down at present.' 'But a little economy and that sort of thing would soon clear the property. You had better settle down.' 'I don't think I should like it; besides, I hear there are negotiations going on between my attorneys and some other persons for a fresh tenant.' The luncheon-bell rang, and the party went into the dining-room; and whilst they are eating and talking we will examine the new comer. He is decidedly a handsome man. The most fastidious judge of masculine beauty could scarcely deny this fact. Tall, well made, of commanding figure and aristocratic appearance, black hair, a high rather than a broad forehead, well marked eyebrows, and black lashes so long that they half conceal the grey eyes beneath; an aquiline nose, and a well-defined mouth, with an expression slightly sarcastic; a chin so deeply indented with a dimple that, if the old saw be true, he must be a flirt or a deceiver; and withal, a manner so perfectly easy and self-possessed that you say at once court, camp, or cottage must be equally accessible to that man. There is a certain power in him that even a reader of character would scarcely understand for some time. Is it intellect? There is decidedly intelligence in the face, yet it is not highly intellectual; there are no disfiguring lines and cross lines, the furrows of study or thought. Is it mere health and animal spirits? He is neither particularly rosy nor overpoweringly cheerful. Does he read your mind at a glance? His eyes are penetrating, but not uncomfortably so. It is, we are inclined to think, that general and instinctive knowledge of the characters and tendencies of those with whom he converses, which commerce with the world, and a keen observation of men and manners, alone can give. He is, in short, a man of the world. When he first entered the army his father and an elder brother were alive. They, dying about three years after, left him in possession of a large but greatly encumbered property. It was estimated that it would take twenty years at least to clear the estate, and that only by letting it and never drawing upon the proceeds. The young heir was wise enough to retain his post as officer in Her Majesty's service, though not to sequester all his income for the payment of his father's, grandfather's, and great-grandfather's debts or mortgages. He spent about a fourth of it annually, and consequently the property was still greatly encumbered and he knew that to reside on it and clear it he would be obliged to live in a very humdrum style, or else add to the burden of debt already incurred. He preferred, remaining in the army, and being a general favourite in society, and having no near relations in Wales, it never occurred to him to spend his furloughs in his native county. He had always some distant land to visit, and either with his regiment or on leave had travelled nearly all over the world. His return was therefore an event of considerable interest to the neighbourhood in which his place and property lay; and, doubtless, Mr Gwynne was not the only person who wished Colonel Vaughan to settle at Plas Abertewey. When he was last at Glanyravon Park Mrs Gwynne was alive, Freda was a child of eight, and Miss Hall a very elegant and pretty young woman. Mr Gwynne Vaughan was then one of her numerous admirers; but there was apparently no remnant of his early passion left, if you can judge of the heart of a man, or his character at least, by his face or manner. Miss Hall was much more confused when she suddenly met him than he was when he first recognised her. Freda had always had a pleasant recollection of him. He had been very kind to her when she was a child, and an occasional letter to her father, or the intelligence, through the papers, of his distinguishing himself in India, or his gradual rise in the army, had kept alive a certain amount of interest in her mind for this old friend. She showed it at once, and delighted Colonel Vaughan by the perfectly natural manner with which she welcomed him, and the frank heartiness of her expressed wish that he should remain in the country now he had returned to it. 'We have never had any one we cared for at Abertewey,' she said. 'Sometimes it was an English family who came to ruin themselves in mining speculations; sometimes a sporting man who came for the hunting, shooting, and fishing; and now, if you don't stay, I daresay it will be a Manchester mill owner or some such person.' 'Much nearer home, I fancy; but I believe it is a kind of secret, only I am so much like a woman that I cannot keep a secret. To my utter astonishment I find it is to be a son of old Jenkins, the miser! I remember the father, but the son was some years my junior. You need not mention this, however, as it may fall to the ground. He wanted to buy the place, but I am too patriotic still to wish to sell.' 'Howel Jenkins! little Netta! at Abertewey!' exclaimed the trio in concert. 'True it is that mountains fall and mushrooms rise,' said the colonel laughing. 'But he has money, and as far as negotiations have gone, seems willing to pay, so I am content.' 'And I am not,' said Freda. 'It will be odious, and I shall be so sorry for poor Mrs Prothero. You must settle there yourself, Colonel Vaughan.' 'A poor lonely bachelor with no money!' 'Hem--hem, you might find a wife, I should think,' suggested Mr Gwynne. 'There is a beautiful girl in this neighbourhood with thirty thousand pounds at her disposal.' 'Oh, papa!' said Freda frowning perceptibly, 'such an empty-headed, insipid idiot would be dear at a hundred thousand.' Colonel Vaughan looked at Freda to see whether she was jealous, but could not quite understand the frown. Soon after luncheon he took his leave, with promises to make Glanyravon his head-quarters if he remained any time in the country.	{ "id": "15315" }
18	THE NURSE.	Mrs Prothero continued very ill, and the doctor said there was no chance of her amendment until her mind was more at ease. Four days had passed, and no intelligence of Netta. Each day found her worse than the preceding, and brain fever was apprehended. Gladys nursed her day and night. Mr Prothero stormed and lamented by turns. Owen did what he could to assist and comfort all, and Miss Gwynne and Miss Hall sent every kind of nourishing food from the Park. On the fifth morning, Owen rode into the town in the vague hope that he should hear something of his sister, either through Mrs Jenkins's servant or the post. Mrs Jenkins had not returned, but there was a neat, smooth letter for his father, directed by Howel, with which he rode off homewards at full gallop. He longed to open it, but he dared not. He was fearful that his father would put it into the fire unread, so he formed twenty plans for securing it, which he knew he could not carry out; however, when he returned home and sought his father in the harvest field, he said,-- 'Father, I have a letter directed by Howel. Will you let me open it for mother's sake?' 'If it is yours, do what you will with it? if it is mine, burn it unread.' 'But, father, surely you would do something to save mother's life. Any news of Netta--' 'Don't name that girl to me, sir, or I'll horsewhip you!' 'May I open the letter, father?' 'Do as you will, but don't let me see it. The deceitful up-start! the pompous fool! the--the--' Owen waited for no more epithets but ran into the house, and stumbling upon Gladys in the passage, told her to come and see what the letter contained. When he opened the outer envelope and took out the beautiful little glossy note with its silver border and white seal, stamped with a small crest of an eagle, he burst out laughing. 'Cards, by jingo!' he exclaimed. 'Oh, Mr Owen, just let me cut round the neat little seal. I am sure your mother would like to see it,' said Gladys, joining involuntarily in the laugh, and taking a pair of scissors out of her pocket. The seal was cut, and two cards were taken out, silver-lettered and silver-bordered, showing that Netta was now Mrs Howel Jenkins. Gladys ran off with them without asking any questions, followed by Owen. They found Mrs Prothero crying, as she usually was when left alone. 'I hope we have good news, ma'am,' said Gladys. 'All right, mother. Cheer up! Netta is married at any rate,' cried Owen. 'Thank God!' said Mrs Prothero, taking the cards and pressing them to her lips. 'But not a line--not a word from Netta!' 'She would not dare to write, ma'am,' suggested Gladys. 'I suppose not? but why did she go away? Why did she leave me never to see me again?' The following day brought the _Welshman_, Mr Prothero's weekly treat, which it generally took him the week thoroughly to read and enjoy. Owen chanced to open it first, and, as is usually the case, stumbled at once upon the marriage of his sister. When his father came in he was in uncontrollable fits of laughter. 'Don't be angry, father, but I can't help it. Ha, ha, ha! D. Prothero, Esq. of Glanyravon! Oh, I shall die of it! Now, really, father, you ought to be proud.' 'What are you making such a row about?' said Mr Prothero looking over Owen's shoulder. His eye caught the words, 'Howel Jenkins, Esq., and Miss Prothero, Glanyravon, and Sir John Simpson. This was quite enough. He seized the paper with an oath, crumpled it up, and thrust it into the fire, and gave Owen such a violent blow on the back with his fist, that the young man's first impulse was to start up and clench his in return; however, his flush of passion cooled in a moment, and he said,-- 'Come, father! remember it isn't I that ran away. Time enough to give me a licking when I do. I'm much obliged to you for letting me know what a strong father I've got.' 'Once for all, Owen, take you care how you laugh upon that subject or name it to me. I can give and take a joke as well as most people, but not about that, sir, and from you. Name o' goodness, what d'ye think I'm made of!' The farmer walked out of the hall, and left Owen heartily sorry for having hurt his father's feelings, but chuckling over the fashionable marriage. The following morning he managed to procure another paper, and read his mother and Gladys the announcement, knowing full well that maternal pride must rejoice in the exaltation, whilst it wept over the disobedience of an only daughter. To the astonishment of every one, the following morning brought Mrs Griffith Jenkins to Glanyravon, attended by her maid-servant. Gladys answered the door to the thundering double-knock that resounded through the house, and was quite taken aback when she saw who the visitor was. 'Is Mrs Prothero at home, young 'ooman?' asked Mrs Jenkins in a grand tone of voice. 'My mistress is very ill, ma'am,' said Gladys. 'Ill! Since when?' 'Ever since Miss Netta left, ma'am.' 'Do Mr Prothero be in the house, or Mr Owen?' 'They are out harvesting, ma'am.' 'Tell you Mrs Prothero that I do bring message from Mrs Howel Jenkins for her, and that I was promising to give it myself.' Gladys did not know what to do. She felt sure that Mr Prothero would not admit Mrs Jenkins under his roof, and that her mistress would be afraid to do so; however, she ventured to ask her to come in and wait a little time whilst she sent for Mr Owen. Fortunately, Owen was not far from the house, and Mr Prothero was riding to some distant part of his farm, so Gladys left Mrs Jenkins to Owen, and went upstairs to tell Mrs Prothero that she was in the house. Mrs Prothero was greatly agitated, but declared that she would see her at all risks, and tell her husband that she had done so. She begged Gladys to remain in the room during the visit, and to prevent a meeting between Mrs Jenkins and Mr Prothero. Gladys went downstairs again, and found Owen telling Mrs Jenkins what he thought of Howel's and her own conduct. 'My mistress would like to see you, ma'am,' said Gladys. 'I'm thinking I 'ont go near her now, you, Owen, have been so reude.' 'Oh, for that much, you may do as you please, Aunt 'Lizbeth. I shall have the pleasure of going with you to my mother. You've pretty nearly killed her amongst you, and I don't mean to let her be quite put an end to.' 'Will you be showing the way, young 'ooman,' said Mrs Jenkins, rising majestically and smoothing down a very handsome silk dress, which she had carefully taken up before she sat down. Owen's wrath was turned to amusement 'Did you think we hadn't a duster in the house, aunt? I can tell you you've pretty well dirtied that white petticoat.' Gladys led the way to Mrs Prothero's room, and Mrs Jenkins and Owen followed. 'I'm sorry to see you so poorly, cousin,' said Mrs Jenkins, approaching the bed on which Mrs Prothero lay, looking flushed and excited. 'What did you expect, 'Lizabeth Jenkins? when you have carried off my daughter--my child--my Netta! And caused misery in our house never to be mended.' 'Well, seure! One 'ould think we'd murdered Netta, 'stead of making her as grand as a queen, with a lord and a lady to be giving her away, and a captain to be at the wedding, and a gentleman in a waistcoat and chains and rings that do be worth a hundred pounds at least, and a young lady for bridesmaid in a shoall of lace, handsomer than your Miss Gwynne of the Park, and a wedding-cake covered with sugar, and silver, and little angels, and all sorts of things which I was bringing with me for you; and a clergy like a bishop to marry her, and a coach and horses to be taking her back and fore, and she looking as beauty and happy as ever I was seeing! And my Howel's as rich and fine as anybody in London, Prince Albert nothing to him, and might be marrying Miss Simpson, my ladyship's doter, if he wasn't so fullish as to be marrying your Netta!' 'Now, aunt, it is our turn, if you please,' said Owen, as soon as Mrs Jenkins gave him time to speak. 'Will you tell my mother Netta's message?' 'I am taking it very unkind that you should all turn upon me. David Prothero I 'spected 'ould be in a passion, but, stim odds! Netta said, cousin, that I wos to tell you she was sorry to be leaving you in a hurry, but that she had everything she could be wishing, gowns, and white shoes, and lace veils--seure you never wos seeing such a beauty--and a _stafell_--_trosy_ they do call it in London--good enough for my Lady Nugent, and a goold watch and chains, and rings and bracelets, ach un wry! there's grand!' 'But what did Netta say to me, cousin 'Lizbeth? I don't care if she was all gold from head to foot. I would rather have her here in rags,' said Mrs Prothero, bursting afresh into tears. 'She's more likely to be here in satins and velvets, cousin,' said Mrs Jenkins, rising from her seat, and walking up and down, apparently in great wrath. 'What you think of my Howels and your Netta at Abertewey: And you to be all toalking as if we wos ail dirt. And they in France, over the sea, where I 'ould be going with them only I am so 'fraid of the water.' 'There's a loss it would be, Aunt 'Lizbeth, if anything had happened to you! Suppose a shark had swallowed you up! gold watch, mourning ring, silk gown, brooch, and all? Those creatures aren't particular. But we haven't had all Netta's message yet.' 'She was sending her kind love and duty to you, cousin, and was saying she was sorry to be leaving you, but my Howels was so kind as you, and she was as happy as could be.' 'Did she cry, cousin? did she shed one tear?' asked Mrs Prothero, sitting up in bed, and looking at Mrs Jenkins with a quick, wild eye, quite unlike her usual quiet glance. 'You needn't be looking at me so fierce, cousin, I didn't be killing Netta. Is seure--she did cry enough, if that's a pleasure to you. She was crying when she was meeting my Howels; she was crying when she was putting on her wedding gown; she was crying when the parson was preaching that sermon, and when the thunder and lightning did frighten her, seure, and no wonder--' 'Did it thunder and lighten when they were married? 'asked Mrs Prothero, through her sobs. 'Yes, indeet! I thoate I should be struck myself; but she was soon forgetting it at breakfast; they do call it breakfast, you see, but I never was seeing a grander dinner. Chickens, and tongue, and ham, and meats, and cakes, and jellies, and fruit, and wines, all froathing up like new milk, some sort of _pain_ they was calling it; but I never did be seeing such good _pain_ or tasting it before, he! he!' 'I don't care about the dress or the dinner, or the grand people, cousin,' said Mrs Prothero, 'I pray God to forgive Howel for making our only girl run away from us like a thief in the night; and I would rather hear she cried for us whom she treated so badly, than that she was dressed in velvet and jewels. All those fine people and fine things won't make her happy, and her father will never forgive her, never. Oh dear! oh dear!' 'What will I tell her, Mrs Prothero, when I do write to my son Howels?' 'Tell her--tell her that my heart is breaking; but I forgive her. Beg her not to forget her parents, and, above all, not to forget her God. Poor child! poor silly, thoughtless child, she will never be happy again.' 'Indeet to goodness, this is fullish! I shall go, Mrs Prothero. Good morning.' Just as Mrs Jenkins was making a kind of curtsey by the bedside Gladys said that she saw Mr Prothero riding up to the house. 'Perhaps you had better make haste, Aunt 'Lizbeth,' said Owen, 'it would not very well do for you and my father to meet.' 'I 'ont be running away from any man's house, Mr Owen. I do hope I'm as good as your father any day.' 'Oh, pray make haste,' said Mrs Prothero, very much frightened. 'Good-bye, cousin. Forgive me if I have been rude? I beg your pardon.' 'This way, ma'am, if you please,' said Gladys, opening the door; but Mrs Jenkins was smoothing down her silk dress, and arranging her bonnet in the looking glass. 'Quite ready for another husband, aunt; but you had better make haste, you don't know what you may come in for if you meet my father.' 'I am not caring neither,' said the little woman, sweeping across the room and out at the door. At the top of the stair she met Mr Prothero, face to face. The effect of her appearance upon that worthy man is not to be described. She made a kind of curtsey and began to speak, but no sooner did she see his face than she held her tongue. Neither did words appear to come at the farmer's bidding, but very decided deeds did. He took the alarmed Mrs Jenkins by the two shoulders, literally lifted her from the ground, carried her downstairs a great deal faster than she came up, helped her along the passage much in the same way, and with something very nearly approaching a kick and an oath, turned her out of doors, and shut the door behind her with so violent a bang that it echoed through the house. Owen ran down stairs to receive the first brunt of his passion, and to prevent his going up to his mother. He allowed the words that came at last to have way, and then took all the fault on himself; said that he had admitted Mrs Jenkins to try to soothe his mother, and that she had done so, he thought. 'Take you care, sir, how you let that 'ooman darken my doors again, or any one belonging to her. It'll be worse for you than for them,' said Mr Prothero, with a brow like a thunder cloud. His wrath was interrupted by the sound of wheels, and to Owen's great relief, he saw the head of his uncle's well known grey mare through the window. He ran out to admit him and his aunt. 'We have just seen Mrs Jenkins, Owen,' began his aunt. 'Not a word to father, aunt.' 'Very well. But she stopped us and began telling us that she had been turned out of these doors, and would have the law on your father. She was furious; talked of Netta and Howel, and your mother, and Paris, and the wedding, all in the same breath, and would not let us go on until we had heard all. Neither of us spoke to her, but she stood at the horse's head and frightened me to death.' When they all went into the hall, they found that Mr Prothero was not there. Gladys came in and said he was with her mistress, but had not mentioned Mrs Jenkins. 'I am afraid she has made my mistress worse, sir,' she said to Owen. 'She has been very faint ever since she left,' In truth she had made her worse, and when Dr Richards came to see her that afternoon, she was quite delirious. He shook his head, and declared that she had brain fever, and that the utmost quiet and freedom from all excitement were necessary for her. Poor Mr Prothero was beside himself, and the whole household was in great consternation. Serious illness had never visited either the farm or the vicarage before, and none of the Prothero family knew what it was. Not so Gladys, however. She did not wait to be directed or ordered, but took her post as nurse by her dear mistress's bedside. To her the doctor gave his directions, to her Mr Prothero turned for information, to her Owen came for comfort; and even Mrs Jonathan, who had scarcely ever spoken to her before, looked to her as the only hope in this time of uncertainty. 'I have seen all kind of fevers,' she would say to one and another as they questioned her, 'worse than this, and with God's grace the dear mistress will recover. I am not afraid to sit up alone with her, oh, no! It is better not to have too many in the room at once. Do not be uneasy, master, the delirium is not very bad. Yes, Mr Owen, you can do better than any one else, because you are calmer. No, ma'am, it is not an infectious fever--you need not be afraid,' and so from one to another at intervals she went, giving hope and comfort. During all that night and several successive ones, Gladys sat up with her beloved mistress. It was she who listened to her disturbed, delirious talk about Netta, and tried to console her; she who read the Bible to her, and prayed with and for her during the intervals of reason, and she who gave her all her medicines and nourishment. Poor Mr Prothero could do nothing but wander from the fields to the house, and the house back again to the fields, followed by his brother like his shadow, who strove to comfort him in vain. Mrs Jonathan made jellies, and did her best. Owen was gentle and tender as a girl, and helped to nurse his mother with a love and care that Gladys could scarcely understand in the lighthearted, wild sailor. Before the end of the week, they wrote to summon Rowland, for Mrs Prothero's life was despaired of, and great was the anxiety and terror of all, lest he should come too late. 'Pray for her, Mr Owen, pray for her. There is nothing else of any avail at such a time as this,' would Gladys say in answer to the young man's entreating glance. 'If I were as good as you I could, Gladys. Oh, God! spare my beloved mother!' he would reply.	{ "id": "15315" }
19	THE CURATE.	Although it was a bright autumn morning, the stillness of death hovered over Glanyravon Farm. There was scarcely a sound to be heard within or without. The men in the yard moved about like spectres, and work was suspended in the harvest fields; whispers circulated from bedroom to kitchen, and from kitchen to outhouse, that the good and kind mistress whom every body loved, was on her deathbed; and how should they labour? All the talk of the farm-servants was upon subjects ominous of death. One said that he had heard Lion, the big watch-dog, howl long and loud before daylight; another that he had seen a corpse candle as he went homewards the previous evening; a third that she had seen her mistress all in white at her bedside, looking beautiful; a fourth that she had heard a raven croak; in short, if sighs and wonders could kill poor Mrs Prothero, there was little chance for her life. Where every one was usually so busy, so full of energy and spirit, there was more than a Sabbath calm. They were expecting some one, too, for Tom and Bill were looking down the road about every five minutes, whilst Shanno appeared now and again at the back door, and whispered 'Is he coming?' to which a shake of the head was a constant reply. The doctor had just gone into the house, and knots of men and women stood about with sorrowful faces; kind neighbours who came one after another to hear the last report as soon as he should again reappear. Mrs Prothero was greatly beloved, and no one could afford to lose her. 'She was so bad last night that she was not expected to see the morning,' whispered one. 'Couldn't take a drop of anything,' said another. 'Is talking of Miss Netta for ever,' said a third. 'There'll be a loss to every one. Mr Jonathan prayed for her in church last Sunday; if prayers'll save her she 'ont die, no seure.' 'She gave me a jug of milk only Friday week.' 'And was coming to see my John in the measles Wednesday before Miss Netta ran away.' 'She's the death of her mother I always say.' 'Poor master is nearly mad.' 'And Mr Owen crying like a baby.' 'And they do say that the Irish girl is better than a daughter to 'em all.' 'Hush! I do hear wheels. Oh! if he do come, perhaps he may rouse her up a bit.' The gates were open, and before the last whisper was over Mr Gwynne's carriage was driving down to the farm. The bystanders drew back as it rolled through a part of the yard and stopped at the door. Rowland got out, and was in the house almost before any one could see him. He went into the hall, and there he saw Miss Gwynne, Miss Hall, and Dr Richards. Miss Gwynne held out her hand, and said at once,--'Your mother is still alive.' 'Thank God I!' exclaimed Rowland, giving a sort of convulsive gasp, and wringing the hand that pressed his. 'Is there any hope?' he asked of Dr Richards. 'The crisis is at hand, and she is insensible; it is impossible to say--if we could rouse her?' 'I may go upstairs?' 'Yes, but you had better let your father know you are come; he is in the outer room.' Rowland went at once to what had been his own bedroom in former times; he opened the door gently, and there alone on his knees by the bedside, groaning audibly, was his poor stricken father. He went up softly to him and whispered, 'Father, it is I, Rowland!' and Mr Prothero rose, and in a few seconds went with him into the room where the beloved wife and mother lay. Rowland went up to the bedside, and took the place which Gladys silently vacated for him. He gazed upon what appeared to him to be death, but was really the prostration and insensibility that followed the delirium and fever of the past week. He bent down and kissed the cold forehead of his mother, then turned away, covered his face with his hands, and wept silently. Gladys whispered to him that there was still hope, and resumed her occupation of bathing the temples with vinegar, wetting the lips with wine, and administering tea spoonfuls of wine, which still continued to find a passage down the throat. Mrs Jonathan Prothero crept softly up to Rowland, and put her hand in his--Owen came to him--his uncle--all were there. But as soon as he had recovered from his temporary emotion, he went to his father's side, who had seated himself on a chair behind the curtain of the bed, and tried to comfort him. The presence of his second son was in itself a consolation to poor Mr Prothero; but he could not listen to his words. 'Pray for your mother, Rowland,' was all he could say. Rowland knelt down with all those present, except Gladys, who joined in spirit and prayed. Never before had he known what it was to use the prayers of his church for one so dear to him; never before had he felt the great difficulty of reading them when his emotion nearly choked his utterance. But as priest and son he prayed fervently for his mother. Mr Prothero seemed calmer after he rose from his knees, and ventured to lean over his wife to assure himself that she still breathed. There was an occasional slight pulsation scarcely to be called breath. The doctor came in and felt her pulse. It was not quite gone, and whilst there was life there was hope. They stood round her bed watching the calm, pale face with a love and anxiety so intense that they could neither speak nor breathe. Gladys looked almost as pale as her mistress, and as the light fell upon her when she was leaning over her, she might have been the angel of death herself. Mrs Jonathan Prothero drew Rowland from the room and insisted upon his taking some refreshment. He had travelled all night, and Mr Gwynne, at his daughter's request, had sent his carriage to meet him. Miss Gwynne and Miss Hall were still waiting downstairs. They asked Mrs Jonathan if they could be of any use in taking Gladys's place whilst the poor girl got some rest; Mrs Jonathan said it was useless to urge her to leave her mistress for a moment. Rowland thanked Miss Gwynne for her kindness, and she said she would do anything in the world for Mrs Prothero. She and Miss Hall went away in the carriage that brought Rowland, promising to return again in the afternoon. When Rowland had swallowed some coffee, he went back to his mother's room. As he walked from the door to the foot of the bed, she opened her eyes, and seemed for a moment to look at him; a thrill of hope shot through him. He went round and took her hand, and whispered, 'Mother!' Did she smile? He thought she did. Shortly afterwards her lips moved, and Gladys heard the name ever on them, 'Netta.' This was better, far better, than that death-like trance. 'Mother, dear mother,' again whispered Rowland, and once more her eyes opened and fixed on him, with something like consciousness. At last an opiate which the doctor had given took effect, and she slept; her pulse was so weak, and her breathing so faint, that at first the watchers thought she was passing away into that sleep from which there is no awakening; but it was not so. It was a weak troubled sleep; still it was a sleep. By degrees all left the room but Rowland and Gladys. Mrs Prothero's hand seemed to be clasping that of her son, as if it would not let go; and Gladys never moved from the bedside. She saw that there must be hope if real sleep came. As she sat down in a kind of easy chair that Owen had placed for her by the bedside, she thanked God for this amount of hope, 'Sleep, Gladys, I will watch,' whispered Rowland. And truly the poor girl had need of rest. Scarce had she closed her eyes during that anxious week, and she knew well how necessary rest was to her. But she felt as if she could not sleep whilst this uncertainty lasted. All the anxious faces of the household flitted before her when she tried to compose herself. Her poor master, his brother, Mrs Jonathan, Rowland, but mostly Owen. He who had said the least, had shown the greatest self-command and done the most. His large kind eyes seemed to be looking at his mother or at her, and trying to anticipate their wants. His hands so brown and sinewy, yet so very gentle, seemed to be touching hers, as they had done when moving his mother or otherwise helping in the sick-room. His cheery voice seemed to be telling her not to weary herself so much, or to be thanking her for the care she bestowed upon his dear parent. In vain she tried to put aside this kind of haunting vision. Her mistress and Owen were painted on the over-strained retina, and she could not efface the picture. She prayed for them, for all. Then, as the afternoon sunlight faded away, and a twilight hue crept over the room, with just a flickering streak of light playing on the wall opposite to her, the death-beds of her father, mother, sister, and brothers rose up before her with a vivid reality that made her tremble, and forced tears from her weary eyes. The tears seemed a relief, and as they flowed quietly down her cheeks, and the coming shadows dispersed the visions of the living, dying, and dead faded away, a mist fell on her eyes and she slept. Rowland, meanwhile, watched his mother. During the twelve months that he had been a curate in a parish in one of the worst parts of London, he had seen much of the sick and the dying. He had seen poverty, wretchedness, and sin in their most dreadful aspects, and the peace and comfort of his mother's present condition were a great contrast to the riot and squalor of many a death room into which he had sought to carry the gospel message of mercy. Truly he felt thankful in his inmost soul that she, over whom he was watching with filial love, was ready at any moment to appear before the great Tribunal, because she 'believed and knew in whom she believed.' It was for Netta, his beloved and wayward sister, the cause of this first great family trouble, that he grieved the most, because he feared that she had entered upon that downward path that would lead her far astray from the one in which her mother had so long and happily trod. But he, too, knew where to apply in all his times of doubt and misgiving, and thither he went for comfort as the shadows fell around and night crept on. Mrs Jonathan Prothero came noiselessly into the room, bringing in a shaded night light, and anxious to bear some intelligence to the watchers downstairs. Her step, light as it was, awoke Gladys. She started up, and looking on her mistress, clasped her hands, and fervently thanked God. 'She is sleeping as calmly as a child,' she said. 'I am sure the worst is past.' Mrs Jonathan went out to tell the good news, and to beg the brothers to go to bed, which they did, after some demur. Gladys and Rowland watched on for about an hour longer, when Mrs Prothero opened her eyes and fixed them upon Rowland. She smiled as if she knew him, and when he bent over her and kissed her, murmured some faint words which he could not understand. Gladys gave her some jelly which she swallowed, and soon afterwards she slept again. 'The crisis is over, she will recover, I hope, Mr Rowland,' said Gladys. 'You can go to bed, sir--you had better. The mistress will want you to-morrow, and you can be of no use to-night.' Rowland felt the force of this, and again kissing his mother's forehead, and shaking Gladys by the hand, he went downstairs to Owen, who he found asleep on the sofa in the parlour. Supper was awaiting him, and Owen and he were soon seated over the fire, discussing their mother's illness and Netta's conduct. They had not met for three or four years, and there was much to say. Few brothers loved one another more tenderly than they did, despite the dissimilarity of habits, tastes, and occupations, and when they were together, all the secrets of their hearts were usually unfolded. Although Owen's wild roving nature had caused Rowland much anxiety, still he had perfect confidence in his honest, open character. Owing to early education Owen was not deficient in general acquirements. He knew a little Latin and Greek, and could read, write, and cypher well. Added to this, his knowledge of foreign lands was great, and of men and manners greater. Under a careless exterior, he had a considerable portion of talent and information, and Rowland was delighted to find in his sea-faring, roystering brother, a much more cultivated and sensible mind than he had expected. Rowland was beginning to be conscious of wishing to see all his family superior to what they were. Placed by his own profession amongst gentle-folks, and feeling in himself all the refinement of the class so called, he was often annoyed and pained to be differently situated from those who were nearest and dearest to him. He knew that in London he was received as an equal by men and women of rank and position, as well as by those of talent and learning; whereas, in the country, even Miss Gwynne, at whose house he visited, considered it a condescension to speak to him, whilst she looked upon those who belonged to him as people of another sphere. In spite of all his prayers for humility, and his striving after pure Christianity, Rowland was, and knew that he was a proud man, and all the prouder because his original station was beneath his present one. He felt that he must be humbled before he could be the pastor and disciple of One whose whole life was a lesson of humility. But the world knew nothing of this. He walked before it, and through it as a bright example of a young clergyman devoted to his work. Neither was he less devoted to his mother, dutiful to his father, or loving to his brother, because they were good, honest, plain farmers, and he a clergyman; or which was, perhaps, more to the point, because Miss Gwynne could not, or would not separate him from his family. When he and his brother and sister were children, they were constantly at the vicarage with their uncle and aunt, and Miss Gwynne was their playmate there, and had not known their inferiority. Now that he really was a man of education and a gentleman, in spite of all her kindness to his mother, she knew it full well. Why did he never consider what any one else in his own neighbourhood thought of him or his family? It was only Miss Gwynne--always Miss Gwynne. Early the following morning that young lady came to inquire for Mrs Prothero, accompanied by Miss Hall. It was Rowland who gave them the joyful intelligence that his mother had had a good night, and was much more quiet. The real pleasure that shone from Miss Gwynne's intelligent and intelligible eyes, showed Rowland how fond she was of his mother. 'And now,' she said, 'Miss Hall and I are come, resolutely bent on remaining with your mother, whilst your aunt and Gladys go to bed. We are quite determined, and you know I always have my way.' Rowland bowed, smiled, and called his aunt, who, after some hesitation consented, and went upstairs to request Gladys to do the same, but Gladys was inexorable until Mr Prothero came in, and in his most decided manner insisted on her taking some rest. Mrs Prothero also murmured a 'Go, Gladys fach!' and she kissed the dear cheek and went at once. Mr Prothero took her place. He was alone with his wife, and the rough, loud man became gentle as one of his own lambs, as he bent over her and thanked God that she was better. A big tear fell from his eyes on her face, and he made an inward vow, that if her life were spared, he would never again say a cross word to her as long as he lived. She felt the tear, heard the kind words, and seemed to understand the vow, for she looked at him tenderly, and said in her low, weak voice, 'God bless you, David!' From that moment he went out to his work with a lightened heart; the labourers read the good news that their mistress was better in his face, and heard it in his voice. Even Netta's disobedience was forgotten, if not forgiven, in the joy of feeling that the partner of more than half his life was likely to recover. And by degrees she did recover. That is to say, before Rowland was obliged again to leave her, she was able to go down into the parlour and sit at her work, 'quite like a lady,' as she expressed it. And even out of the evil of such an illness good had sprung. It had aroused all the sympathy and kind feeling of relatives, friends, and neighbours; but especially had it been beneficial in bringing out the womanly kindness that lay hid under the stiffness of pride in Mrs Jonathan Prothero, and in opening the hearts of the sisters-in-law towards each other. Mrs Jonathan forgot her cousin, Sir Philip Payne Perry, and helped to nurse, and learned to love her humbler connection, whilst the ever-ready tenderness of the simple farmer's wife, sprung up to respond to it like a stream leaping in the sunlight. Gladys, too, reaped the reward of her devotion, in the increased kindness of Mr Prothero, who began to forget the Irish beggar in the gentle girl whose care, under God, had saved his wife's life; and so, as is usually the case, affliction had not come from the ground, but had fallen like a softening dew upon the irritated feelings of the afflicted, and bound heart still nearer to heart. Perhaps in the younger and more impetuous natures it had done almost too much. Thoughtless of consequences, they had all worked to save a life, valuable to so many. Rowland, Owen, Miss Gwynne, Miss Hall, Gladys, had been thrown together at a time when the formalities of the world and the distinctions of rank are forgotten, and the tear of sympathy, the word of friendly comfort, or the pressure of the hand of kindly feeling are given and taken, without a thought of giver or receiver. But they are remembered, and dwelt upon in after years as passages in life's history never to be obliterated--never to be forgotten.	{ "id": "15315" }
20	THE HEIRESS.	Glanyravon Park lay, as we have said, in the parish of which Mr Jonathan Prothero was vicar, but as the parish and park were large, the house was three or four miles from the church; and it was on account of this distance of Glanyravon and its dependencies from church and school, that Miss Gwynne had induced her father to build the school-house, of which mention has been already made, since there was a large school in the village for such children as were within its reach. She would have had him build a small church also, and endow it, to remove all excuse, as she said, from the chapel-goers; but this was an undertaking too mighty for him. However, the school flourished wonderfully, both on week days and Sundays, and Miss Gwynne always filled every corner of an omnibus in which the servants went to church with such of the children as could not walk so far. Miss Hall was an admirable assistant to the school-mistress during the week; and Gladys, with Mrs Prothero's permission, undertook the Sunday duty for the mistress, in order that she might have a holiday on that day. Miss Gwynne also attended, but she was too impatient and imperious to be a good teacher, much as she wished to be one. Miss Gwynne had great ideas of doing good; grand schemes that she tried to carry out, but in which she often failed. Nevertheless, she did a great deal of good in her own peculiar way. She had been reading of the 'harvest homes' that they were endeavouring to revive in England, and had induced her father to have one in the park. Happily, the day fixed for this general rejoicing was during Mrs Prothero's convalescence, and before Rowland's return to London, so that most of the members of the Prothero family could be present. They also yielded to Miss Gwynne's ready assistance in such preparations as she made, and were the instruments in surprising her and her father by some tasteful decorations in their honour, unknown to them. Owen and Gladys worked very hard at floral and evergreen mottoes for the tent, whilst Rowland gave his advice as he sat with his mother, and tried to amuse her during the tedium of her recovery. A few hours before the general gathering, a messenger arrived at the Park in great haste, bearing a note to Miss Gwynne, containing the information that the vicar had sprained his ankle just as he was going to set out for Glanyravon, and was unable to move. There was another note for Rowland, which was to be carried on to the farm, requesting him to supply his uncle's place. Miss Gwynne was greatly annoyed; wished that the vicar would not go wandering about after old stones, as she was sure he had done; knew that Rowland would never be able to manage and was very sorry she had attempted the treat at all. Whilst she was still grumbling, and Miss Hall laughing and consoling, Rowland arrived. This was his first visit to the Park since he had been in the country, and Mr Gwynne was delighted to see him. He perceived at once that Miss Gwynne's equanimity was disturbed; and said that he was very sorry to come as a substitute for his uncle, but that he would do his best. His manner was so quiet and composed, and he seemed so little alarmed by the honours thrust upon him, that Miss Gwynne gradually became reassured. In less than half-an-hour she told Miss Hall that he was worth a hundred of the vicar, and that after all the sprained ankle was rather a fortunate accident. At about two o'clock the guests began to assemble at the school-house, over the door of which was the motto in dahlias on a ground of evergreens, 'Welcome for all,' which had been arranged by Miss Hall. The school-room was very tastefully decorated by the mistress, Gladys, and the children; and the motto, 'Long Live Miss Gwynne,' was very apparent in scarlet letters amongst a crown of laurels. All the children and their teachers were assembled here, and a great many of their relations, also most of the farmers and their families. In addition, there were Mr and Miss Gwynne, Miss Hall, Lady Mary and Miss Nugent, Colonel Vaughan, who was staying at the Park, Sir Hugh Pryse, Mrs Jonathan Prothero, who left her husband at his particular request, and Rowland. No one out of the precincts of the Park had been invited, and as it was, there was a goodly number. As there was no church near enough for them to go to, Rowland read the evening service in the school-room; after this he gave out one of the hymns for harvest, and led the youthful band in singing it. His fine clear voice seemed to give the children courage, especially when a beautiful full treble joined, to which they were evidently accustomed. It was impossible not to try to discover from whom those sweet notes proceeded, and one by one everybody looked at Gladys, who had a magnificent voice; she, however, was unconscious of observation, for her eyes were fixed on her hymn-book that she was sharing with a small child. It must be acknowledged that she not unfrequently distracted the attention of many a young man from his hymn-book on Sunday, when at church; and on the present occasion, what with the face and the voice, more than one pair of eyes were fixed on her. Owen, I am sorry to say, looked more attentively at her than at his book; and, as to Colonel Vaughan, he never took his eyes off her face, and was heard to whisper the question of 'Who is that girl?' to Lady Mary Nugent. When the hymn was sung, Rowland stood behind the high desk of the mistress, and gave a short lecture on the words, 'Thou crownest the year with thy goodness.' Rowland was not ungifted with the talent for extempore preaching, common to so many of his countrymen, and therewith possessed, in general, much self-possession; on the present occasion, it must be confessed that he felt unusually nervous, still he commanded himself and his feelings, and by degrees, forgetting them and his hearers, in his subject, warmed into a natural flow of eloquence that somewhat astonished his congregation, and entirely gained their attention. Beneath a quiet exterior Rowland hid a romantic and poetic mind, which few, if any of his friends knew anything about; for he had never shown his poetry to them, and never attempted to publish it. But it sometimes appeared, in spite of his efforts to repress it, in his sermons; and now it made a desperate effort to burst forth, and conquered. There was so much to excite the enthusiasm of a young preacher in that harvest-home gathering--in the mows of golden corn heaped up against the future--in the splendid autumn weather they were then enjoying--in the bright sunshine and many-hued leaves of the changing trees--and the goodness of God crowning the whole! I am not going through his sermon, for I should only mar what his feelings made powerful. Suffice it to say that some of his friends had tears in their eyes as he preached; others, according to the custom of their country, uttered occasional exclamations of approval as he went on, and some were glad to own him as their near and dear relation. Perhaps the proudest moment of the farmer's life was when Mr Gwynne went up to him after that short discourse, and shook him by the hand, with the words--emphatic words for him-- 'Well, Prothero, I congratulate you upon your son. You have reason to be proud of him. He managed his sermon well at a short notice, clear, poetical, etc., and all that sort of thing.' The abrupt termination to the speech was occasioned by the approach of Lady Mary Nugent, who also congratulated Mr Prothero. 'Thank you, sir; thank your ladyship; glad you approve,' was all the proud father could say, with the tears in his eyes all the while. As to Rowland, he was undergoing an ovation of hand-shakings and praises from everybody present, which he was fain to put an end to, by beginning to organise the procession to the tent. One simple sentence, however, rang in his ears for the remainder of that day. 'Thank you, Mr Rowland, for your sermon. I hope you have done us all good,' said Miss Gwynne. She began to think more highly of him than she had ever thought before, and owned to Miss Hall that he had words at command, and that at a short notice. The procession was very pretty. The school-children walked two and two, and looked like so many large scarlet poppies, as they wended their way through the avenue. Miss Gwynne gave them all their outer garments, and it was her picturesque and pleasing fancy to keep to the national costume; so they had high-crowned black beaver hats, scarlet cloaks with hoods, striped linsey frocks, and woollen aprons. They carried a due amount of little flags with appropriate mottoes, and some few of the Glanyravon musicians formed a band for the occasion, and played cheerily, 'The March of the Men of Harlech.' Mr Prothero and his son Owen headed the tenantry, and carried between them a magnificent banner, fashioned at the farm, bearing as motto, 'Prosperity to Glanyravon.' Others followed with appropriate Welsh mottoes. And one was conspicuous as containing the sentiment, 'Long live our Vicar and his Lady.' A large tent was erected in front of the house, ornamented with flowers, wreaths of evergreens, devices, and mottoes. The most conspicuous of these was in Welsh, and above Mr Gwynne's seat at the head of the long table. It was composed of wheat-ears and oak-leaves, and contained the words, 'May God bless Gwynne of Glanyravon and his daughter.' Mr Gwynne felt almost uncomfortable in seating himself beneath such a sentence, but having consented for the first time in his life, and, he earnestly hoped, for the last, to become a hero, he knew he must go through with it. Accordingly, with Colonel Vaughan on his left, and Lady Mary Nugent on his right hand he prepared to do the honours of a most substantial feast to his tenantry, their wives and children. When every one was seated Rowland said grace, and they began the feast _con amore_. They were as merry and happy a party as could be assembled on a fine autumn day. Every one was in good humour, and thoroughly enjoyed the treat. As soon as they had feasted enough, they proceeded to give toasts, which were enthusiastically drunk in good Welsh ale. Mr Gwynne proposed the health of the Queen and royal family. Sir Hugh proposed Mr Gwynne and his daughter, the kind and liberal donors of the feast, in a hearty speech, which all understood. Mr Gwynne did his best to return thanks, but found that he could not get much beyond,--'I feel most grateful for the honour you have done me, but--my feelings--been--and--and--all that sort of thing,' at which point the cheers grew so deafening that he sat down quite overwhelmed, and wished himself in his library. 'So very exciting, so complimentary, so touching,' whispered Lady Mary Nugent to Mr Gwynne. Rowland was again called upon to exert his eloquence in responding for the Church, which he did in a short, apt speech, duly applauded. He, in return, proposed the army, coupled with Colonel Vaughan, who--and, he said, he knew he was expressing the thoughts of all present--was heartily welcomed home, and earnestly entreated to remain in his native country. Colonel Vaughan delighted every one by a most eloquent response. 'Such a grand gentleman, but so humble,' was the general opinion of him. As for the ladies, they were all in love with him. Lady Mary Nugent, Freda, Miss Nugent--they had never seen so charming a man. And he was so universally gallant that he might have been in love with them all in return. He gave the 'Welsh Yeomanry,' for whom Mr Prothero returned thanks, and right well he did it; giving the colonel to understand in something more than a hint, that if he wished the farmers and farming to improve, he, and other absent landlords, must come and live on their property as Mr Gwynne did, and then there would be more wealth and prosperity, and more 'harvest homes.' And so, with various other toasts, including the vicar and his lady, for whom Owen had to return thanks, the afternoon wore on. The children were playing at games in the Park, and by degrees the elders joined them. Here Gladys was foremost. It was wonderful to see how she had gained the affections of the young. One and all were round her, and when the gentlemen and ladies came to look on, and join in the revels, the first thing that attracted them was the flushed face and graceful figure of this really beautiful girl, as she led the boisterous youngsters in a game of 'French and English.' In a moment Colonel Vaughan was in the ring heading the boys; but Gladys immediately retired, abashed, as he stood opposite to her, as captain on the French side. But Owen came to the rescue, and the gallant officer and equally gallant sailor headed the ranks, as commanders of the bands of French and English. They had a hard fight on both sides, but at last the English conquered, and Owen and his party won the day amidst great cheering. Sir Hugh and Rowland joined in the succeeding games; and sixpences, sweetmeats, apples, and every available prize was given to the boys and girls for racing, jumping, singing, and the like, until the shades of evening fell over the scene. Lady Mary Nugent and her daughter were the first to wish good-night; as they were to walk home, Colonel Vaughan proposed accompanying them. 'You will return at once?' asked Freda, rather peremptorily, for she disliked that the Nugents should carry off the all-fascinating colonel. He bowed and said 'yes,' and Rowland, who was near, saw Freda's cheek flush as he looked at her. It chanced that Rowland and Miss Gwynne were left together at a distance from the revel. They stood awhile, looking on, and talking over the day. Rowland said it had been most successful. Indeed he felt that all had been pleased; none more than himself, for had not everyone congratulated him, and above all, had not Miss Gwynne been even kinder and more friendly, than when by his mother's bed side she had seemed to him as a sister? 'If it has been successful, Mr Rowland, it is in a great measure due to you,' said Miss Gwynne, looking up into his face with a smile of real satisfaction. 'I should never have managed the children so well, and I must say, much as I like your uncle, I don't think he would have managed the services so well as you have done.' Reader! were you ever praised by a very handsome woman, whom you have loved all your life, when standing with her alone under a wide-spreading oak, in a noble park, with mountains bathed in the red and yellow of the sunset before you, and a broad harvest-moon rising above your heads? If so, you will not wonder at the end of this chapter. Rowland suddenly fixed his fine, dark eyes upon Freda's face, and looked into it, as if he would read her soul. For a moment she was abashed at the gaze, and coloured deeply, whilst her eye-lids drooped over the eyes he sought. Was there ever a woman who was not flattered and excited by such a look? 'Miss Gwynne,' at last said Rowland tremulously, 'if in any way I can have served and pleased you I am happy. For this, in part, I have laboured, and still would labour. You do not, you cannot know how I have loved you all my life.' Poor Rowland almost whispered these few words, and as he did so, wished he could recall them, but now the deed was done, and she knew the secret of his childhood, boyhood, and manhood. He said no more, but stood looking down upon her with his heart beating as it had never beaten before. Higher and higher rose the colour on her cheek. What were the feelings that deepened it so? Alas! poor Rowland! Pride, only pride. For a moment she stood as if hesitating what to say, then, suddenly drawing herself up to her full height, she looked haughtily at him, and said words that he never forgot to his dying day. 'Mr Rowland Prothero, have you quite forgotten who I am, and who you are?' With these words she made a stately bow, and turned towards the house. Proudly and hastily she walked up the avenue; once she had turned round, and seeing Rowland standing exactly where she had left him, hurried on until she found herself in her own room, indulging in a very decided flood of indignant tears.	{ "id": "15315" }
21	THE BROTHERS.	During this short conversation between Rowland and Miss Gwynne, Gladys was still playing with the children at no great distance from them. With all a woman's penetration, she had guessed Rowland's secret during his mother's illness, and had perceived no symptoms of attachment on the part of Miss Gwynne; and now, with all a woman's pity, she was watching him from afar. She had seen them standing together, had marked the hasty bow and retreat of the lady, and the immoveable attitude of the gentleman; she saw that he continued to stand where Miss Gwynne had left him, as if he were a statue; she guessed something must have passed between them. As twilight was fairly come on, she told the schoolmistress that she must go home, and begged her to see that the children dispersed when she thought best. Owen, who was in the midst of a game of cricket with the boys, was as well aware of all Gladys's movements as if he had been by her side. He saw that she was shaking hands with the mistress, and that the children were imploring her to stay a little longer. He went to her and asked her to remain until he had finished his game, in order that he might see her home. She thanked him, but said, rather abruptly for her, that she must go at once, and, heedless of what he or others might think, went hastily across the park to Rowland. 'That's the way the wind blows, is it?' said Owen to himself, whilst a frown gathered on his open forehead. Rowland was unconscious of the approach of Gladys, and was startled from his trance by the words,-- 'Mr Rowland, sir, I think the mistress will be expecting you home.' He looked at her half unconsciously for a moment, and then rousing himself, said,-- 'Oh! Gladys, is it you? Yes, I will go directly. Where? Home? Of course it is time. I will walk with you.' These were the only words spoken between the pair. Rapidly he strode down the avenue, inwardly resolving never to enter it again; as rapidly along the road that led to the farm, until he reached the house, with Gladys breathless by his side. 'I am afraid I have walked too quickly, Gladys, I am very sorry. I was anxious to get home, I do not feel very well.' With these words he hurried through the passage, and was going to his room, when his father met him and called him into the parlour. He felt so bewildered that he scarcely knew what his mother said, when she told him how proud and happy he had made her by his conduct that day. 'All, my dear son, church-people and dissenters were pleased with your sermon, and the way you managed everything. Your aunt repeated it word for word to me, and it was just what I like. This is the first comfort I have felt since--' Mrs Prothero pressed her son's hand, and her eyes filled with tears. 'Thank you, mother, I am glad,' was all Rowland could say. 'Mind you, Row, my boy, you must write a good sermon for Sunday. You've got a character to lose now,' said Mr Prothero, giving him a slap on the back. 'Yes, father. I will go and write it.' 'Not to-night, Rowland,' said Mrs Prothero, anxiously; 'you look pale and tired. What is the matter?' 'Nothing, mother; but I must think of this sermon, I have only one clear day. We will talk to-morrow. Good-night, dear mother.' Rowland stooped to kiss his mother, and she felt that his face was very cold, and that his hand trembled. 'You are ill, Rowland?' 'No, only tired. I will come and see you again by-and-by.' Rowland went to his room and bolted himself in. He threw himself on a chair, covered his face with his hands, and wept like a child. He was seated by a little writing-table near the window, through which the moon looked down pitifully upon him in his great anguish. Yes, great. Perhaps the greatest anguish of a life. His arms on the table, his head on his arms, he thought, in the misery of that moment, that he must die, and he wished to die. The illusion of a life was destroyed, and how? So rudely, so cruelly, so heartlessly broken! He could have borne it if there had been one kind word, only a look of interest or pity; but that pride and haughtiness were like the stabs of a dagger in his heart. 'Womanly weakness! unmanly folly!' you say, some one who has never felt keenly and suddenly the pangs of such a passion unrequited. Perhaps so. But out of our great weakness sometimes grows our strength; out of our bitterest disappointments our sternest resolution. By-and-by such weakness will strengthen; such folly will breed wisdom. Thus Rowland remained for some time, with unkind and unholy thoughts and feelings rushing through his mind, like the howling winds through the air in a great storm. Afterwards, he prayed humbly to be forgiven those devilish feelings of anger, pride, hatred of life and mistrust of God's goodness that assailed him in that hour of misery. But for the time, they were darting to and fro, and casting out every good thought, and hopeful purpose from his soul, like demons as they were. But strength came at last, and like one arising out of a horrid dream, Rowland got up from his anguish, and looked out into the night. The moon was too tender and beautiful for his mood at that time; he roughly drew down the blind, took a box of matches from the table, and lighted a candle. Then he paced up and down the room, and suddenly thought of Howel and Netta. He knew not how the transition took place, but he immediately accused himself of having been hard to them. Does any one ever fully sympathise with another, until he has felt as he does? No, we should not judge our weak fellow mortals so harshly, if we knew all their temptations and trials. Then, again, Miss Gwynne returned to him, with her pride and coldness. How could he love such a woman? he, whose beau ideal of feminine perfection was a creature of gentleness, love, and pity? but he would think of her no more. She, at least, should discover that he was as proud as herself. Yes, he was proud, he knew it, and now, he would glory in his pride instead of trample it down, as he had been of late trying to do, as an arch tempter; he should be justified in showing pride for her pride. Again a gentler and better mood came. Was he not vain, ambitious, ridiculous in her eyes, for venturing to speak to her as he had done? Doubtless he had been wrong, but she needed not to spurn him as she had done; she might have told him so as a friend. Friend! she thought him beneath her friendship. But we will not pursue these musings further; every kind and degree of feeling alternated for nearly two hours, when, as if by some sudden impulse or resolution, Rowland sat down and determined to write his sermon. It should be upon pride, and should touch her as well as himself. He found pleasure in thinking of all the texts in which the word occurs, in looking for them, and considering which was the most biting. A hasty knock at his door interrupted this study. It was Owen, who insisted upon coming in, and would take no excuse. Owen, too, had been ruminating upon the nature of woman, and was not in a very good humour; he, however, had been cheerfully talking to his mother of the events of the day, and duly lauding their own particular hero, Rowland. When he entered, he looked surprised at seeing Rowland with his Bible in his hand; he took a chair, and, turning his seat towards him, sat down astride upon it, leaning his chin upon the back and facing Rowland. 'Now, Rowland, I'm going to ask you a very plain question. There ought to be no secrets between brothers: I've told you all mine, nearly? you must tell me yours. Are you in love?' Poor Rowland coloured to the temples, but did not answer. 'You won't tell me? There was a time, Rowland, when you and I knew one another's hearts as well as if they were two open books, in which we could read when we like, but I suppose London and fine people--' 'Stop, Owen, do not disgrace yourself or me by going on. Why do you wish to probe me in a wounded place, where every stab is death?' Owen looked at his brother, and saw the conflict that was going on in his mind in the working of his features. 'Rowland, I only want your confidence; by Jove you shall have mine, even though you are my successful rival; and I love you so well that I would give her up to you, if it cost me--let me see--a voyage to the North Pole.' 'Owen, this is no jesting matter. I have been a fool, I am ashamed of myself, I am trying to conquer my feelings; leave me until I have succeeded, and then--' 'But, Rowland, if she loves you, I don't see why you should try to overcome your feelings. It would not be quite the right match, certainly; but she would make a better parson's wife than a sailor's wife after all; and my father might consent in time, and--' 'Owen, is it kind of you to make a jest of me?' asked Rowland, rising from his chair, and resuming his walk up and down his room. 'If you had ever really loved either of the many girls you have fancied you adored, you would understand me better; but I deserve it all for my presumption--my folly.' 'For that much, Rowland, perhaps I love her a trifle better than you do at this very moment; still I am not selfish enough to come between you, and would rather try absence and the northern latitudes; only just be honest. I'm not quite such a piece of blubber as not to be capable of constancy, though I may have been a rover until now; but when I see a girl walk right away from me, and refuse to wait for me to go home with her, and go straight off to another man, never mind if he was my father, instead of my brother, I don't mean to break my heart about her. Besides, I'm disappointed in her, and that's the truth. I thought she was as modest as the moon; but I never saw the moon walk out of her straight path to go after another planet, and no girl that I have anything to say to, shall go after another man. So you're welcome to her, though I'll say this, that I never saw the woman yet I loved so well, and believe she's as good as gold, as pure as that same moon, but as cold as ice itself; at least, so I've found her, perhaps you've a warmer experience.' As soon as Owen paused in his rapid speech, Rowland paused in his walk, and putting his hand on Owen's shoulder, said,-- 'This is a misapprehension, my dear Owen; you and I are thinking of a different person.' 'I am thinking of Gladys,' said Owen bluntly, 'and repeat that I love you both too well to come between you and happiness.' 'I am sure of that, Owen, you have no selfishness about you; but I do not love Gladys. I never thought of her except as a beautiful and superior girl, thrown by Providence amongst us, and to be treated with kindness and consideration. I only hope my manner to her has never indicated anything else.' 'Do you mean what you say?' said Owen, jumping up from his chair, and cutting a caper, 'then shake hands, and tell me you forgive me for being so hasty.' They shook hands heartily, and Rowland said,-- 'Thank you, Owen, you have done me good; now go away, and I will write my sermon.' 'Not before I know what is the matter with you, and why Gladys went across on purpose to walk home with you.' After much hesitation, and some pressing on the part of Owen, Rowland told his brother what had passed between him and Miss Gwynne. When he had made a clean breast of it, he felt as if relieved of half his load--especially when Owen assured him that women were all alike, and that when you asked them the first time, they were as proud as Lucifer. 'It is first and last with me, Owen. I have forgotten my position, my profession, my own dignity in giving way to a passion that I had no right to suppose could be returned. I will crush it, and nobody but you shall ever know of its existence. This struggle over, and I shall hope henceforth to have but one Master and to serve Him.' 'Well, I never should have thought you would have fancied Miss Gwynne; not but that she is handsome and clever and very agreeable and kind, too, when she pleases; but so proud, so domineering, and then--' 'Neither should I have supposed Gladys to be your choice, Owen; and I am sorry it should be so. What would my father say? so soon upon Netta, too; and you must confess that her uncertain history, her present condition, the way she came to us, would be utter barriers to anything serious.' 'Bravo, Rowland; now I must put the application to your lecture. I suppose everything is by comparison in this world--the squire and the squire's daughter look down upon the farmer and the farmer's son, and beg to decline the honour of an alliance. The farmer and the farmer's son look down upon the corporal and corporal's daughter, and beg to do the same, especially as she is their servant. Tom, the carpenter, thinks his daughter too good for Joseph the labourer, and Matthew the shoeblack wouldn't let his son marry Sal the crossing-sweeper for all the world. Oh, Rowland! , is this what you have learnt from your profession, and the book before you? Why, I've found a better philosophy on board ship, with no teachers but the moon and stars.' 'Owen, I am ashamed of myself. My pride deserves to be thus pulled down.' 'I don't want to seem unkind, Rowland, but my notion is, that an honest gentleman, such as you, educated, and a clergyman is good enough for any lady; and that a good, religious girl, who has saved my mother's life, is a great deal too good for a ne'er-do-well fellow like me. But I won't fall before I'm pushed, since I'm pretty sure she thinks so too. So, now, cheer up, old boy! and show the heiress what a sermon you can preach; and let her see you don't care a fig for her; and then, by jingo, she'll be over head and ears in love with you, and propose herself next leap-year.' Rowland laughed, in spite of himself, at this notion. 'I will go and wish my mother good night,' he said, 'and then set to work.' The brothers went together to their mother, who was in bed, and together received her 'God bless you, my children!' Then they separated for the night, and Rowland returned to his room a wiser, if still a sadder, man, than when Owen visited it. Owen's plain common sense had often got the better of Rowland's romance; and although he could not approve his roving and seemingly useless life, he always acknowledged that he gathered some wisdom by his experience. Again Rowland sat down, but this time he drew up the blind, and let the moonlight in upon his chamber like a silver flood. He took himself to task for his pride, ambition, and conceit, in a way that did him good, doubtless, but was not palatable; still he made many excuses for himself, and none for Miss Gwynne. He was not to recover the effects of that disappointment in a few hours! Days and even years were necessary for that. But he asked for strength where it is never asked in vain, and then resolutely wrote a sermon on the words, 'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.' He wrote as he felt, and under the influence of those strong, half-curbed feelings, wrote so easily, that he was astonished to find how quickly he composed, and how soon a sufficient number of sheets were written, to occupy his customary half-hour when preached. He did not read them over, but promised to do so on the morrow, which was Saturday. He was already far into the small hours, and knew that he ought to be in bed. When he was there he could not sleep. That love of his was too deeply-rooted to be torn up by a few proud words that haunted him all the night, and to which he was constantly adding 'Yes, you are the heiress of Glanyravon, and I am only a farmer's son and a poor curate.'	{ "id": "15315" }
22	THE GOVERNESS.	'Only a curate!' exclaimed Miss Gwynne, as she and Miss Hall were discussing Rowland's presumption the following morning. 'Still, a gentleman,' replied Miss Hall quietly. 'The son of one of my father's tenants; a farmer's son!' 'Still, a gentleman!' 'The ninety-ninth attempt on Glanyravon, and, happily, an unsuccessful one.' 'Perhaps the first sincere attempt to gain the heiress's heart, without any thought of her park and its broad acres.' 'I declare, Serena, _vous m'impatientez_. I verily believe you are in his interest and confidence, and trying to plead his cause.' This was said with great excitement; the answer, however, was calm. 'Scarcely possible, if probable, because I was never alone with him in my life, and have rarely seen him except in your presence.' 'Then, why do you take up his defence? You would not have me marry him, would you?' 'Certainly not, for many reasons. In the first place, you do not love him; in the second, your father would not approve of such a match; in the third, you are not suited to him.' 'I understand. Not good enough. But why do you defend him? Do you think it was right of him to say what he did to me?' 'Well, perhaps not. But I think he has been nursing these feelings for you so long, that he began to forget whether they were right or wrong, sensible or foolish; and last night, carried away by the excitement of the day and his own success, and finding himself alone with you--you, probably, more friendly than usual--he forgot his customary prudence, and overstepped the bounds of conventionality.' 'Very well said, Nita. Then it was wrong of me to be friendly, and right of him to make a dunce of himself.' 'Perhaps if you had ever felt as he does, Freda, you might make some excuse for him.' 'I am sure you must have been in love a hundred times, you are so sentimental, and would like to see him run away with me.' 'Quite wrong again.' 'Then what would you like, for I am sure you don't approve of my conduct?' 'Simply, that you should have treated a clergyman and a gentleman as such, and at least felt grateful that a good and honest heart was offered to you, even though you would not accept it.' 'But I don't believe in the heart, you see, Serena. There is not a more mercenary race under the sun than the clergy. They all marry for money. I can mention quite a dozen; his own uncle at the head of them. Now, you cannot suppose that he married Mrs Jonathan Prothero for anything but her fortune and her family.' 'I think he is too simple-minded a man to have considered either the one or the other.' 'Then why didn't he marry some simple-minded girl, his equal? No, you are quite out of your depth now, Serena. Depend upon it, that Rowland Prothero will soon find some English lady just as rich as _I am to be_--always provided that Lady Mary Nugent doesn't carry off papa, and get him to leave her the property. These men don't seem to know that it is not entailed; and that, after all, I may be cut off with a shilling. I think I may venture to affirm that were such the case, there is not one of my ninety-nine adorers who would have me, except, perhaps poor Sir Hugh.' 'Perhaps, Freda, I may have been imprudent, situated as I am here, in even saying what I have in favour of Rowland Prothero. The fact is, that not only do I particularly like what I know of him, but there is a little passage in my early history that makes me have a great pity for young men who venture to fall in love with young ladies who consider themselves their superiors.' 'If you will tell me your story, Nita, I will forgive you all the rest, and finish this sketch of Abertewey for Colonel Vaughan, meanwhile.' Freda drew well in water-colours, and had before her, as she sat in the embrasure of one of the windows of that charming morning-room, a half-finished sketch of Colonel Vaughan's place, which he had begged her to take for him. Hitherto it had been untouched; now she began to work at it with pretended vigour, whilst Miss Hall took up the little frock she was making for a poor child, which had been laid down during the discussion, and also made believe to stitch and sew industriously. But there was a flush on her cheek, and a tremor in her voice, as she began to tell Freda the little passage in her life to which she had alluded. Freda was conscious of this, and accordingly devoted herself more energetically to her drawing. 'It was when I was just eighteen, Freda, and during my _beaux jours_, before my father had lost his fortune, or been obliged to retire from the army on half-pay on account of that dreadful paralytic stroke--before my sister's imprudent marriage, and consequent emigration to Australia--before my dear mother's death. We were a happy and gay family, and I had then more pride and higher spirits than you would probably give me credit for now. 'I was visiting a friend who had married the head-master of one of our principal grammar schools. Amongst his tutors there was a young man of whom he was very fond, and who used to be a good deal with his family after the duties of the day were over. It is just possible that he was a countryman of yours, for his name was Jones.' 'Oh, Serena! you don't mean to say that you fell in love with a Jones in England, and then came into Wales to be in the midst of that very ancient and numerous family.' 'I have not come to the love part yet, Freda. He was a very quiet and unobtrusive person, but, my friends said, very amiable and sufficiently clever. I know that I used to take an unkind delight in teasing him, and that he was rather clever in repartee, and never spared me in return. I liked him as an amusing companion, and had no objection to his getting me books or flowers, or whatever lay within his reach that might be agreeable to me. Moreover, I pitied him, because I was told that both his parents were dead, and that he was working hard to pay for his own course at college, whither he intended to go as soon as he could get the means. 'As my father was with his regiment abroad at this time, and my mother and sister were making a round of visits amongst our Scotch friends, I stayed a long time with the Merryweathers. They were very pleasant people, and had an agreeable circle of acquaintance. 'But that has nothing to do with my story. The evening before I left them to return home, my friend, Mr Jones, managed to be alone with me; how, I never found out, for he ought to have been with the boys--and committed a similar misdemeanour to that of poor Rowland Prothero. He had unfortunately lost his heart to me--so he said, and was constrained to tell me so. Would I think of him, if, in the course of time, he could enter the church and marry me? 'Now I had the world before me, a happy home, a prospect of a certain independence, and, I suppose, a sufficient share of personal attractions. I had never considered whether I could like this young man or not; but I had well considered that when I married, I must have talent, position, personal beauty, and a hundred other visionary attributes in my husband. I was of a most imaginative, and at the same time, ambitious temperament; and on the one hand, thought a great poet or warrior would fall to my lot, and on the other, that a prince of the blood royal was not too good for me. 'Your pride, my dear Freda, is too matter-of-fact, as is your general character, thoroughly to understand me. At that time I was touched and flattered by the devotion of this young man, and felt, that had he been differently placed, and had he more of the attributes either of station or romance about him, I might have taken him under my august consideration; but as I had never even looked upon him in the light of a lover, or supposed it possible that he could be one, I at once, and decidedly refused him. 'I shall never forget the pained and melancholy expression of his features when I did so, or the few words he uttered. He said that he had not ventured to hope for a different answer, though he had dared to speak, and that his one slight prospect of happiness had vanished. He had now nothing but a life of labour before him, without a gleam of hope to cheer his way, but that he should think of me always, and of the happy hours we had passed together. I felt so sorry for him that I could really say nothing, either to cheer or discourage him. He simply asked me to allow him to remain my friend, and to forgive his presumption; and so we shook hands and parted. He did not join the family that evening, and the next day I left the Merryweathers. 'I do not know how it was, but when I returned home, I thought more of this young man than of any one else. Although my sister and myself were surrounded by men of a very different, and I may say, superior class, still he haunted me very much, for a time at least. 'Then came my sister's marriage, which proved, as you know, unfortunate in a pecuniary point of view, and her and her husband's emigration to Australia in search of fortune. Then followed our own ruin, and my father's paralytic seizure. To help my parents and support myself, I came to you as governess. You know, dearest Freda, how happy your dear mother made me as long as she lived, and how ardently I desired to fulfil her dying wish that I should finish your education. Most thankful I am that I was permitted to do so. 'I need not tell you, over and over again, the sad story of my mother's death, and my return home to live with my father, and become a daily instead of a resident governess. All the happiness I have known--at least the greatest--since our troubles, has been in this house. 'But this has nothing to do with Mr Jones. I heard, casually from my friend, Mrs Merryweather, that he had left them and gone to college; what college, she did not say. For some years I had quite enough of painful duty to perform to make me forget the weeks passed in his society, and their termination; or to think of a person of whom I had quite lost sight. About six or seven years ago, however, I heard of him, strange to say, through my sister. I had, of course, told her of his proposal and my refusal. 'She and her husband were among the early settlers at Melbourne, and in the course of time became tolerably prosperous. He, you know, was obliged to leave his regiment for drunkenness, and contrary to the usual course of things, became steadier, though not steady, in Australia. My sister lost two children in one week from fever, and during her great sorrow, was constantly visited by the clergyman of her parish, who turned out to be my early friend, Mr Jones. I do not think he knew she was my sister for some time; but she described his untiring kindness and gentleness as her greatest comfort during her troubles. He was also of great benefit to her husband, by taking advantage of the opportunity offered by the loss of his children, to press upon him the necessity of a reformation in his own course of life, which, I am thankful to say, has been gradually effected. They became very intimate, and, I suppose by mutually comparing notes concerning Old England, found one another out, so to say. But he seldom spoke of me. If my sister tried to draw him into the subject of his acquaintance with me, he changed it as soon as possible, as if it were disagreeable to him. And no wonder. 'However, my sister looks upon this man as her greatest benefactor--him, whom I, in my pride and ignorance, considered beneath me in every respect; and when he left Melbourne a year or two ago, she said they had lost their best and dearest earthly friend, and that the children cried when he wished them good-bye, as if they were parting from a father.' Whilst Miss Hall was telling this simple narrative, Freda was very attentive. As it drew to a close, she rose from her drawing, and kneeling, as she sometimes would do, by Miss Hall's side, put her arm affectionately round her. There was something in the action at that moment which drew tears from Miss Hall's eyes. 'But he is not married, Serena, I know he is not married,' she exclaimed. 'Who knows!' 'My dear child,' said Miss Hall, smiling, and stroking Freda's shining hair, 'I have long given up all thoughts of matrimony. But the recollection of old times always affects me, and your love affects me still more. I have not told you this because I regret not being married to Mr Jones--it was mercifully ordained that I should not marry any one. What would my dear father have done if I had? but simply to show you how the very people we think the least of frequently become our best friends; the "weak things of the earth confounding those that are mighty," in scripture phrase.' 'Oh, Serena! do you hear?' interrupted Freda, 'there is Miss Nugent in the hall. Of all the bores! we never can be free from those people. Yes it is; I hear her _lithp_;' and Miss Nugent was announced. She had walked over, she said, to ask how they all were after the delightful Harvest Home, and to bring an invitation from her mamma to dinner the following Tuesday. 'I do hope you will come, Freda, and you, Mith Hall, and bring that charming Colonel Vaughan with you. He ith tho nithe. Don't you think tho.' 'Very,' said Freda, drily. 'But, do you know, I don't admire him half ath much ath Mr Rowland Prothero. Mamma thaith he ith tho gentlemanlike and that the meanth to athk him Tuethday.' 'Really!' again said Freda, not daring to look at Miss Hall. 'We are going to Llanfach to-morrow to hear him preach. Hith thermon wath beautiful in the school-room. Don't you think he ith like the picture at the beginning of "Evangeline." Dear me, who wath he, Freda?' 'Longfellow, you mean, I suppose.' 'Of courth. And hith language ith tho poetical. Mamma thaith the thouldn't wonder if he turned out a great author by-and-by. Thould you, Mith Hall?' 'It takes so much to make a great author, dear; but it is just possible.' 'But not probable,' whispered Freda. 'Oh, Freda! don't you like him? I am thure you ought; he managed everything tho nithely for you yethterday. Mamma thaith--Ah! there is Colonel Vaughan coming up the drive.' Miss Hall looked across at Freda, and remarked that she began to draw most industriously, and did not glance out of the window as Miss Nugent did. 'Mamma thaith,' began that young lady, 'that the colonel ith the motht accomplithed and agreeable man in Waleth.' 'How can she tell that?' asked Freda, with feigned surprise. 'There are so many clever men in Wales. I assure you we are a talented race.' 'I am thure of that, Freda; but I think the Englith are more thinthere; mamma thaith tho.' 'Ah, she must be a good judge,' said Freda, somewhat ironically. 'Yeth; mamma ath theen a great deal of the world,' replied the unsuspecting Miss Nugent. Here Colonel Vaughan made his appearance, and that young lady gave him her mamma's invitation, which he said he should be delighted to accept, if his friends did; so Freda said her papa was out, but she would send Lady Mary Nugent an answer when he came in. 'Ah! this _is_ a sketch, Freda,' said Colonel Vaughan, who had somehow returned to the old familiarity of earlier days. 'How can I thank you sufficiently? who could think that the child I left twelve years ago would be such a good artist when I returned? But that was the cleverest bit of life-like drawing I ever saw, that sketch of your old pony. By the way, do you know who this is?' The colonel opened a sketch-book that he had in his hand, and put it into Freda's. 'Why, this is Gladys, Mrs Prothero's Gladys. How could you prevail on her to stand for her picture? Look, Serena, how well Colonel Vaughan has hit off her expression and general effect in those few touches!' 'I went to see Prothero, who used to be a good friend of mine in old times, and whilst I was waiting for him and looking out of the window, I saw this Gladys in the garden, and made the attempt you are pleased to praise. Certainly she is about the loveliest specimen of country beauty I ever saw in my life.' 'Do you admire her, Colonel Vaughan? I think the ith tho very pale and thupid.' 'I never contradict a young lady, and suppose you must be right; but in the present company, one cannot think of other belles. It would be a case of looking for stars in the presence of the sun.' Colonel Vaughan glanced from one to the other of the ladies. Freda bent more closely over her sketch, but coloured perceptibly. Miss Nugent simpered and looked very handsome withal. Miss Hall was struck with her beauty as she then appeared; a perfect profile, perfect complexion, perfect features, beneath a most becoming straw hat and feathers. Such a colour and complexion, but no expression, not even the sarcastic turn of the lip of the mother. 'Perfectly child-like, amiable, and silly,' thought Miss Hall, 'and yet Colonel Vaughan admires that statue more than the noble face and grand expression of my Freda.'	{ "id": "15315" }
23	THE PREACHER.	As Mr Jonathan Prothero's sprain proved to be a very bad one, Rowland was obliged to undertake his weekly as well as his Sunday duty, and being summoned to the vicarage early on Saturday morning for a wedding, and finding other clerical duty in the afternoon, he had no time to revise his sermon until the morning on which he was to preach it. His mind was still in a state of so much excitement, that he found, on reading it over, that he had no power to amend what he had written hastily, but feeling that it was what he earnestly desired to act up to himself, and to bring his own mind down to, he hoped the words would not be without effect on his hearers. If Miss Gwynne took them as intended personally to touch her, why, he could not help it, and besides, she probably would be at Llanfawr church, to avoid seeing him. But this was not the case. Gwynnes, Nugents, Protheros, and many others of Rowland's neighbours, helped to fill the little church that Sunday, all anxious to hear him preach; this made him feel nervous in spite of himself. In vain he reasoned with himself, prayed to forget himself, and those present--he could not get rid of those haunting words of Miss Gwynne's, or of the consciousness that she was listening to him. However, he read the service clearly and impressively, in the manly tone, and simply religious manner of one who knows that he is leading the prayers and praises of a congregation who cannot express their wants too humbly and naturally, to One who knows what they desire, even before they ask. No one in that church prayed more earnestly to be delivered from 'all blindness of heart, from pride, vain-glory and hypocrisy; from envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness,' than he did. And as he proceeded with the litany, his mind grew calmer, and he gradually received strength to overcome the great inward struggle that he was suffering from. Before reading the thanksgiving, he gave out in a tremulous voice, that a 'member of that congregation was desirous of returning thanks to Almighty God for her recovery from dangerous, illness.' When he thanked God for all His mercies to all men, 'particularly to her who desires now to offer up her praises and thanksgivings for late mercies vouchsafed unto her,' every one felt that he was returning thanks for his own mother's recovery, and joined him in so doing. His father was seen to put his handkerchief to his eyes, as he lifted up his heart in praise. His earnest manner evidently impressed his congregation, who were usually accustomed to the somewhat monotonous reading of his uncle, and to his rather learned discourses. It is generally the case, that words spoken from the overflowings of the speaker's own heart and feelings, make the greatest impression on the hearts and feelings of his hearers; so it was now. When Rowland, in simple and forcible language, told his listeners that the first words of our Lord's Sermon on the Mount were to bless the poor in spirit, and to promise them the kingdom of heaven; and went on to contrast such poverty of spirit with the pride and vain glory inherent in man, and to call up the various scriptural examples and texts that bore upon the subject of humility; he gained the attention of all. Then he enlarged more particularly on the necessity of curbing and bridling and keeping down the spirit, until it attained that lowliness to which Our Saviour alludes in the very first of the beatitudes; and finally went through that Saviour's life, as the great example for all men, of meekness, gentleness, and humility--the interest in his words increased. Rowland preached from the heart to the heart, and so his sermon that day was not in vain, albeit not perhaps written in the very best of moods. There was no poetry, no overheated enthusiasm no display of eloquence, but the plain, straightforward announcement to rich and poor alike, that to enter God's kingdom the spirit must become even as that of a little child. Perhaps this is the least understood, and least palatable of all subjects, and when brought before a congregation, and well discussed for half-an-hour, must make many of its members pause to consider whether, on such terms, 'theirs is the kingdom of heaven.' Miss Gwynne was one of those who paused so to consider, and acknowledged to herself that she had never looked upon our Lord's Sermon on the Mount, as so practically and so particularly addressed to herself before. She did not for a moment believe that the sermon was intended for her, more than for the rest of the congregation, but she felt, for the first time, that she had been proud and overbearing in her conduct to the preacher, as well as to many others whom she chose to think her inferiors. She left the church, resolved to make such amends as were in her power, for the hasty and haughty way of her rejection of Rowland, and to strive to be less proud for the future. When she was without, her father said to her, that he must go into the vicarage to congratulate the vicar on his nephew's preaching, and to ask Rowland to dinner. Miss Gwynne endeavoured to dissuade him from doing so, but Lady Mary Nugent expressed her intention of performing similar civilities; consequently the whole party, Colonel Vaughan and Miss Hall inclusive, walked across the churchyard to the vicarage, which lay just the other side of it. The vicarage was a snug little cottage, with a rustic porch, adorned with the Virginian creeper, which, together with the massive ivy, also nearly covered the house. Red and cheerful looked the tiny dwelling beneath the autumn sun; and very pretty was the garden which surrounded it, still bright with dahlias, fuchsias, red geraniums, and monthly roses. It was here, years ago, that Rowland, Miss Gwynne, and Netta had often played together; and it was here that Rowland had passed the principal part of his holidays when at home from Rugby or college. It was here that Mrs Jonathan had done her utmost to make a gentleman of him, and had succeeded to her heart's content. Rowland had been very happy with his uncle and aunt, and loved them almost as well as his parents. In the pretty garden were innumerable wonderful stones heaped into all sorts of masses, which he had helped his uncle to bring from various parts in the neighbourhood, and all of which were curiosities in their way; and there, also, was a fernery which he himself had made, and which contained all the remarkable ferns of a country rich in those beautiful productions of nature. The vicarage and its garden were neatness itself. Mrs Jonathan prided herself on them, and took great pains to prove that there could be, in a Welsh country village, a clergyman's abode something akin to the far-famed dwellings of the English ecclesiastic. The party from the church quite filled the little drawing-room. Mr Jonathan Prothero was in an easy-chair, with his foot on a cushion, and looking very much like a caged stork. Every one began by congratulating him on the success of his nephew in the pulpit. 'He must become a popular preacher,' said Lady Mary Nugent. 'I must say I have seldom heard more simple yet forcible language,' said Mr Gwynne. 'He touched us all upon our besetting sin of pride,' said Colonel Vaughan, glancing at Miss Gwynne, who said nothing. 'And thuch a beautiful voice!' remarked Miss Nugent. Mrs Jonathan looked delighted. 'But where is he all this time, my dear?' asked the vicar. We must answer the question by informing the reader that, having watched his congregation leave the church, he went into the vestry and sat down there, in order to avoid meeting any of the Gwynne party; when a messenger from his aunt came to inform him that he was wanted at once. He inquired by whom, and on hearing, tried to arm himself for an unavoidable encounter with Miss Gwynne. When he entered the room she was talking to his uncle, and had her back turned to the door. He was at once greeted by Mr Gwynne and Lady Mary Nugent, so that he did not find it necessary to shake hands with every one, and made a kind of general bow, which he addressed to Miss Hall particularly, and was therefore unconscious of the half-attempt of Freda to rise from her seat as he entered. Miss Hall, alone, saw the flush on her cheek, as she relapsed into her position by Mr Jonathan Prothero and professed to be listening to the cause of his accident. His adventurous search after trinobites in a celebrated quarry, the slipping of a stone, and consequent spraining of his right ankle, sounded into one of her ears, whilst the following conversation, entered the other:-- 'I hope you will give us the pleasure of your company on Tuesday,' said Lady Mary Nugent. 'We shall not be a large party.' 'And will come to us on Wednesday,' said Mr Gwynne. 'We must have some more chess. I have never met with a fair opponent since--hem--I beg your pardon, Lady Mary--Ah--yes--or, on Thursday. You see we did not like to ask you whilst your mother was so ill; my daughter thought it would be useless.' Rowland coloured at the allusion to Freda, but did not even glance at her. 'Thank you, Lady Mary; thank you, Mr Gwynne, very much indeed, but I intend being in London on Tuesday. I have already outstayed my prescribed fortnight.' 'My dear Rowland!' exclaimed his aunt, 'you do not mean this?' 'Yes, aunt; my fellow curate has been fortunate enough to get a living given to him, and is to read himself in next Sunday, and I have promised to take double duty.' 'But one day more or less,' suggested Lady Nugent, who did not imagine it possible that Rowland Prothero _could_ refuse an invitation from her, which was, in her opinion, quite a royal command. She, so exclusive! 'I am very much obliged to your ladyship, but I have promised to be in London on Tuesday; and as my mother is really better, there is no longer any necessity for my staying in the country.' 'Your uncleth foot?' suggested Miss Nugent. 'Two good dinners, and more agreeable company than you will meet with in your East End parish!' said Colonel Vaughan. 'My uncle will easily find help,' said Rowland, turning to Miss Nugent, 'although I am sorry not to be able to give him more; and,' to Colonel Vaughan, with a smile, 'had you ever tried the far East, you would know that there is very good company there, as well as in the West. I should be very glad to introduce you to some, if you would come and see me in town.' 'That I certainly will,' said the colonel, heartily; 'and I shall be able to tell you all about your sister, as I heard yesterday that her husband has finally taken my place, and will be down here as soon as it is put in first-rate order, furnished, etc.' 'You are not likely to leave us yet I hope, Colonel Vaughan?' said Lady Mary Nugent. 'For a time, I must; but having found how pleasant you all are down here, I shall hope to come again frequently, if Miss Gwynne will second her papa's invitation.' Freda just turned round, bowed, and smiled, and then resolutely resumed her conversation with, or rather act of listening to, the vicar. 'How interested you appear to be,' whispered the colonel, sitting down behind her. Rowland saw this little bit of by-play, and wished himself in London; whilst Colonel Vaughan joined in the vicar's archæological description of the quarry in which he had met with his accident. Freda heard all that Rowland said more distinctly than what passed close at her side. She heard her father and Lady Mary's repeated entreaties that he would remain until the end of the week, and the decided, but polite refusal of Rowland. She heard her father prophecy that he would soon have a good living, and Rowland's reply, 'that without interest or any particular talent for what is called "popular preaching," there was little chance of church preferment. 'But,' he added, 'I am well content to be only a curate. There is enough to do in my parish to keep one from morning to night employed, and that in real, active, heart-stirring work, that will not let one flag if one would wish it.' 'I thould like to thee the Eatht End, mamma,' said Miss Nugent. 'People in the Wetht theem to think all the inhabitanths barbarians.' 'It is a pity they don't come and try to civilise us, then,' said Rowland. 'We should be very glad of their help.' 'I will go if mamma will let me,' said Miss Nugent. Lady Mary smiled somewhat superciliously, and observed that she did not think she would be of much use. 'All who have a desire to do good will make a path of usefulness, Lady Mary, I think,' said Rowland. 'In these days the enlightened must not hide their light under a bushel. We live in stirring, striving times, when good and evil seem at terrible issue.' 'And which will conquer?' broke in Colonel Vaughan suddenly. 'I don't see that all the meetings and tracts have done much, as yet, towards their part in the fight.' 'Good must conquer eventually,' said Rowland, 'and is conquering daily and hourly.' 'In your East End parish?' 'We hope so. If our progress is slow we are not without encouragement even there, in the very thick of the battle, and where the armies of evil are ten to one against good.' 'I know something of fighting, Mr Rowland, and I fear the odds are too great. You may as well give up the conflict.' 'Remember, Colonel Vaughan, that in all the great battles of antiquity, and not a few of modern times--the Swiss for example--those who fought for freedom and right have always found their arms nerved to resist multitudes--hundreds have conquered tens of thousands. So is it with our warfare. We have strength given us that makes the single champion of the cross, powerful against the legion of his adversaries.' 'Very well said, nephew,' broke in the vicar, 'Marathon, Thermopylæ, Platea--' 'I am afraid we are keeping you from your dinner, Mrs Prothero,' interrupted Mr Gwynne, who had a nervous dread of the vicar's antiquities, whether in war or peace. 'Freda, I think we must go.' Freda rose from her seat, and shook hands very warmly with Mr and Mrs Prothero. She had made up her mind to do the same with Rowland; but just as she approached the door near which he had been standing, he said he would go out and see whether the carriages were ready, and did so accordingly. They followed him as soon as the leave-takings were over, and found him waiting at the gate. He immediately assisted Lady Mary and Miss Nugent into their carriage, leaving Colonel Vaughan to perform the same office for Miss Gwynne and Miss Hall. Mr Gwynne stayed to shake hands with him, and tell him that he should always be glad to see him; and Colonel Vaughan promised to pay him a visit as soon as he went to town. The former got into the carriage, the latter upon the box to drive. Rowland stood by the door a moment irresolute. 'Good-bye, Mr Rowland,' said Miss Hall, 'I shall hope often to see your mother.' 'Thank you, Miss Hall,' said Rowland, pressing the hand she held out to him with an iron pressure. Freda was just going to put out her hand across Miss Hall, when Colonel Vaughan touched the horses, and the carriage drove off. Rowland raised his hat, and as he glanced at Freda saw that she was looking at him not altogether unkindly. After those words of hers, he never could have shaken hands with her, unless she made the advance; and so they parted, he believing her too proud to acknowledge him after what he had said to her; she admiring what she considered his pride and resentment a great deal more than she had ever done his humility.	{ "id": "15315" }
24	THE LOVER.	Spring came round again, and Owen and Gladys were still at the farm. The following conversation will show how they went on together. 'Let me carry that bucket for you, Gladys,' said Owen, one evening when she was proceeding across the farm-yard, to carry a warm mesh to a sick cow. 'It is not heavy, sir,' said Gladys, gently. 'It is too heavy for you, _ma'am_, said Owen, emphasising the 'ma'am.' He took the bucket from her, and carried it to the shed, where Gladys dosed and fed her sick cow so very tenderly, that Owen was impelled to say,-- 'I wish I were that cow.' 'Oh, sir! she is but a poor, sick, witless animal.' 'But she has you to nurse and be kind to her; so I wish I were that cow.' 'Sure, sir, I would be glad to nurse you if you were sick,' 'Would you, Gladys? Then I will be sick to-morrow.' 'I hope not, Mr Owen. Come, poor Mally. Drink it up.' 'Never mind, Mally, but attend to me. Will you not be so cold and stiff, and respectful to me? I hate a girl who "sir's" me as if I were a lord, and makes me curtseys, and never looks at me, and seems as if she hated me--' 'Oh, no, indeed no, sir--' 'And lives all day long in the same house, and scarcely speaks to me. You will drive me off to sea again, _ma'am_, if you don't take care. Look into my face, and say why you hate me so!' 'I hate no one in the world, sir; much less any one of your name.' Here the girl looked up from the poor cow who was licking her hand, and round whose neck her arm was flung, into the face of the young man. Owen put his hand on the arm that rested on the cow, and said earnestly,-- 'Then treat me as your brother.' 'I have lost my brothers and sisters, and father and mother, and kith and kin. I have seen them all die--all that ever loved me. Oh! Mr Owen! you are too kind--too kind; but do not talk to me so, or it will break my heart.' Here was even more of Irish feeling than Owen either expected or desired. But he took Gladys's hand in his, and, looking kindly from his large honest dark eyes into hers, said,-- 'Forgive me, Gladys, for making you think of your sorrows. But you know my dear sister Netta is as good as lost to me, and I want some one who will be like her, or at least, who will not be quite as cold as clay.' 'Gladys withdrew her eyes and her hand. There was even more than brotherly warmth in that kind glance and winning manner. 'Thank you, sir, I will try; indeed I will,' said Gladys, as she took up the bucket, and turned to leave the shed. 'Thank you, ma'am, you are very obliging, but you are not going to carry my bucket.' 'Oh,' sir! if you please do not speak so to a poor servant girl like me. I would rather not hear it.' 'You will not see, or hear, or believe what I do, and say and think all day long; so now, here, where nobody else can listen, you must hear me. You must learn to be happy with us, you must love us, you must--' 'Oh! I do, sir, I do. Let me go, sir, if you please.' 'Not until you hear that you must love me, even me whom you cannot bear.' 'Oh! I do, sir--I do. I thank you, I pray for you, I love you all, always; indeed, indeed, I do.' 'But better than all the others, as I love you, so as to be my wife when--when--' 'Let me go, Mr Owen, if you please. You must not talk to me so, sir; me, just now a beggar at your gate.' 'But I must, I will, and you must listen. In spite of myself, and of your cold manners and pale face, and all the trouble you take to avoid me, I love you, Gladys, and will marry you if you will have me. I will give up the sea, and become a steady fellow, and live at home, and make you and my parents happy, and--' 'Oh! Mr Owen, if your parents were to hear you talking like this to me, what would they say to you? what would they think of me? You should not make a joke of my poverty and friendless state, sir. Anything else, but not this! oh! not this! and from you.' 'I was never more in earnest in all my life, and ask for only one word of encouragement from you to go and tell my and mother directly,' 'Oh! if you please, Mr Owen, do not do this. If are in earnest, sir, and I hope you are not, you must forget that you ever said this to me.' 'I do not mean to forget it, Gladys, or to let you forget it. Will you say the word? only give me hope and all will be right. Will you marry me, and be the daughter of your adopted mother?' 'I can never marry any one, sir; I have nothing to live for in this world, but to try to do my duty to you and yours, and to think of those I have lost.' 'Gladys, your cold manner maddens me. Say you hate me, and would rather marry some one else; say anything that has some heart in it. We sailors are made of warmer stuff than such icebergs as you.' 'I cannot say that, sir, because I do not hate you; and I never mean to marry, and I would sooner die than cause trouble in your family.' 'Then you won't have me, Gladys? and you mean to send me back to sea again, and to make me return to my wild ways, and to make my mother miserable?' 'Och hone! what will I do? Why do you say such things to me, Mr Owen, who have never done you any harm? I cannot marry--I cannot do what would be wicked and ungrateful--I will go away again back to old Ireland, and not cause trouble to those who have been so good to me.' 'No, you will not do anything of the kind, unless you wish me to go after you. I shall tell my father that I will be off to sea again, and then I need not trouble you any more.' 'I will not stay, Mr Owen, to make mischief; so if you will only please to stop at home with your parents I will go away.' 'I shall not please to do anything of the kind, for I only stayed so long on your account, and this is the reward I get.' Owen was in a passion, and vainly striving to keep it down. His face was flushed, he looked angrily and moodily upon the drooping head of Gladys as it bent lower and lower over the poor cow upon which she was leaning. He suddenly seized her hand, and exclaimed,-- 'I am not used to be refused in this cool sort of way, and I don't believe there ever was a woman in the world who doesn't wish to get married to some one or other. Now whether you mean to have me or not is not the question I am going to ask; but whether you have any other lover, or ever had one that you prefer to me? --Tell me this, and I shall be satisfied.' Gladys tried to draw away her hand from the impetuous young man, but he held it fast. 'You needn't be afraid; I would not hurt a hair of your head. And if you knew what I am feeling now at this moment you will tell me the truth. Will you answer me a few questions?' 'Yes, Mr Owen, if I can without doing or saying what is wrong.' Owen looked Gladys again in the face, as she slightly raised her head to answer his question. Why that burning blush? Why those bright, expressive eyes, if she did not care for him? For a moment he had hope, and pressed the hand he held. Again she bent over the cow that divided them, and tried to withdraw her hand. At any other time Owen would have laughed at the notion of making an offer, divided from his beloved by a fine Alderney cow, but now he was too much in earnest for laughing. 'Gladys, do you love my brother Rowland?' he asked. Gladys now looked at him in unfeigned astonishment as she answered,-- 'No, Mr Owen; surely I have never given you reason to suppose so. A grand gentleman like him!' 'But there is a still grander of whom I am jealous,' continued Owen. 'Colonel Vaughan, I have often seen him here upon every excuse--and always to look at you. I have seen him, and know it well. Do you care for this great gentleman?' 'Oh! no sir,' said Gladys, sadly. 'How can you suspect me of such a thing? Are my manners so forward, or am I so foolish as to let any one suppose I could think of people so far above me? This is not kind, Mr Owen.' 'One more, Gladys. Those beneath you, then. You cannot, I feel you cannot, think of that gardener or footman at the Park, or of young Gwillim, the Half Moon, or--there are so many who admire you, Gladys.' 'Oh! no, sir, I do not think so; no one says so to me, and I care for none of them. Now, I had better go, if you please, Mr Owen--my mistress will be wanting me.' 'I should think she 'ould, seure enough,' said a stentorian voice, as Mr Prothero entered the cow-house, having just heard the last words, and seen the clasped hands. Gladys looked entreatingly at Owen, who at once said, 'It was my fault that she stayed here, I kept her against her will.' Gladys glanced gratefully at Owen, and left him with his father; but before she was out of hearing, the farmer's loud voice was audible, informing Owen that he 'didn't want another 'lopement from his house; and that that Irish beggar should leave the place.' 'It was all chance, father, and my fault,' said Owen. 'It's always chance and your fault then. Where Gladys is, you're seure to be pretty near. She's a good sort of young 'ooman enough, but you have no call to be for ever hunting after her.' 'I don't see why I shouldn't if I like. It doesn't hurt anybody, and is only kind to her.' 'But I don't cheuse her to be thinking you're going to make love to her, and by-and-by, perhaps, expecting to--there's no knowing what young 'oomen may expect.' 'She isn't one to expect very much, and I am sure she doesn't take any liberties with any one, or go beyond her place.' 'Treue for you there; but that's no fault of yours. You don't take notice of any other female that I see, and seure you eused to make love to them all in turns.' 'I don't see any girl half as good as Gladys, or worthy to light a candle to her, that's why I have given them all up.' 'Name o' goodness what for? If you are going to make a fool of yourself about her, I'll soon send her away, and stop that anyhow.' 'You may save yourself the trouble, father, for I am going away myself. I can't be a land-lubber any longer, and I won't, so I shall look out for a ship, pretty soon.' 'All because that girl came here to bother us. Deet to goodness, them Irishers have been the plagues of my life ever since I married.' 'But she's Welsh, father, and you said so yourself.' 'She's a mongrel, and no good ever came out of them.' 'She saved mother's life, anyhow.' This reflection posed the worthy farmer. He softened somewhat in his reply. 'Treue for you again there. But that's no reason for your going to sea, just when you're getting euseful here.' 'Well, father, thank you for saying for once in my life that I'm useful. You never said that before.' 'And it don't seem out of any great favour to us that you are euseful now; but only to please an Irish beggar.' 'I tell you what, father, if you were anybody else, you shouldn't call her an Irish beggar.' As Gladys went on her way, she heard the voices, ever louder and louder; she hurried into the house, and then to her own little bedroom, where she still seemed to hear the words, 'Irish beggar,' and a little spark of the pride of poor human nature kindled in her heart. 'They shall not quarrel about me--they shall not throw my misery after me--they shall not think I want to marry him--I will go away,' were her muttered expressions. 'Why have I lived--why have I been kindly treated? if I am to be the sport and the by-word of my friends? A poor outcast--an Irish beggar--a lone girl, friendless, homeless, heartless, wretched, miserable! Och hone! what will I do? what will I do?' She threw herself on her bed and sobbed. 'And I only want to do my duty--to show my gratitude--to die for the mistress, if needs be, and they will think me forward and vain. Why was I born to cause trouble and to bear such misery? Oh! mother, mother, if you were here to comfort your poor child! If I could but go after you! if I could but go away to my mother and all the lost ones!' This thought of her mother and the lost ones seemed to overpower her for a few seconds, and then to calm her. She rose from her bed, and fell upon her knees and prayed. 'I can go to them, if they cannot come to me. I can fill my place of sorrow, as is best for me. I need not bring trouble on this blessed home! I will not. I need not send away that kind Mr Owen from his family. I will not. Why does he think of a poor, wretched being like me? Why has he been so good to me; so tender to me--as if he were my brother? If I go away, he will think of some one else, and make them all happy here, and live with them, and be good and steady. And I shall be only one sufferer instead of many. May God bless them all! I will go away, but never to see him more! --never, never!' Thus thought Gladys. For half-an-hour, whilst she was striving to calm herself, such thoughts and thousands of others flitted through her mind; but she did not murmur again at the sad lot which had been assigned to her by Providence; she had gathered strength in that prayer which she had offered up out of her trouble of heart. Still she felt aggrieved by her master's hard words, knowing as she did that she did not deserve them; but she struggled hard to conquer that pride which she knew ill became one in her dependent and friendless state. When she had sufficiently recovered herself, she went down to prepare the supper, according to her custom. She found the hall empty, and wondered what had become of her master and mistress. She glanced into the garden, and saw them walking up and down engaged in earnest conversation, although the hour was late and it was getting dark and chill. She felt that they were talking about her. She would not listen, and returned to spread the table for their evening meal; whilst doing so, Owen made his appearance. 'Gladys,' he said, 'shake hands with me, and forgive me for causing you pain. I hope it will be the first and last time.' Gladys held out her hand, saying 'Oh, Mr Owen, I have nothing to forgive, I am only very sorry'' As Owen held her hand, in stalked Mr Prothero, followed by his wife. He was not looking very well pleased when he entered, but finding them together, his dark frowning brow became still darker. 'Good-night, mother,' said Owen, 'I don't want any supper. Good-night, father,' he added with a strong effort, but receiving no response, he left the room. Gladys longed to follow his example, but feared it would not be right. 'Gladys, I fear you are not well,' said Mrs Prothero gravely, but kindly, 'perhaps you would like to go to bed.' 'Thank you, ma'am,' said Gladys, glancing furtively at her mistress, whose gentle face looked perplexed and anxious. 'Good-night, then,' said Mrs Prothero. Gladys could not speak, for there was something constrained in the manners of her dear mistress, that she could not bear to see. She did not venture to speak to Mr Prothero, but dropping him a silent curtsey, as she left the room, went to bed, but not to sleep. That night, Mrs Prothero went to her son, Owen's room, and heard the history of the evening. He told her that he loved Gladys, but that she did not care for him; and that his father would not believe him when he said so. Mrs Prothero gave him a maternal lecture on his conduct, and the impossibility of his marrying Gladys, particularly whilst his father was so irritated against his sister. She rallied him, in a quiet way, on his various previous loves, and said that she had no doubt he would forget his present one in the same manner. She was struck with the unusually grave tone of his reply, as he simply said, that if Gladys were like his other loves, he might forget her in the same way; but as she was quite different from any one he had ever liked before, so he should remember her as he had never before remembered any one. She was also struck with his manner of wishing her good night, and of recommending Gladys to her care, entreating her not to be less kind to her than she had always been, because he had the misfortune to love her. Mrs Prothero promised all he desired, scarcely believing, as she did so, in the depth of his affection. 'And, mother, fach,' he said, 'you must not be vexed if I run away again to cure myself. There is nothing like sea air for my disease; and if I do, I promise to write regularly, and to come home at the end of my voyage. Only be kind to Gladys, and don't let her go away.' Owen had a presentiment, that if he did not leave Glanyravon, Gladys would. 'And you must try to bring father round by degrees. I don't want to annoy him; and I know you are as fond of Gladys as if she were your own daughter, and father likes her, too. Will you try, mother?' 'Anything to keep you at home, and steady, my son,' said Mrs Prothero with tears in her eyes, 'but you must not go away again, we cannot do without you.' 'Only this once, for change of air; I assure you it is best' 'Well, we will talk of this again, Owen; good night, and God bless you.' 'Just tell father not to be angry with me or Gladys, and that I can't run away with her, because she won't have me. Good night, mother dear.' Again Owen kissed his mother, more lovingly than usual, and so they parted for the night.	{ "id": "15315" }
25	THE FUGITIVE.	Gladys did not go to bed all that night. If her mistress could have watched her occupations, seen her tears, and listened to her prayers, she would, at least, have known that she was grateful. The first thing she did was to finish a cap that she had been making for her, the next to complete a large piece of ornamental netting, that had been long in secret progress, and had been intended as a present for that dear mistress's birthday on the morrow. The third, last and most difficult, was to write a letter. Gladys usually wrote easily and well. She had been accustomed to assist her father at an early age, and had been carefully taught by her mother, but on the present occasion she considered every sentence with a too painful thoughtfulness, and literally blotted her writing with her tears. Morning was beginning to dawn before she had finished these tasks, and then she washed her face and hands, took off the pretty cotton gown she had on, and put on the one Netta gave her when first she came to Glanyravon. An old straw hat that she had been in the habit of wearing in the fields, and a tidy, but plain shawl, completed her attire. She had a few shillings which Mr Prothero had given her, and these she put into her pocket, together with a pincushion, and a curious foreign shell, gifts of Owen. She thought of Netta, and of her very different flight from the same house; she fancied that if she had been in her place, no lover, however dear, could have prevailed upon her to leave so good a mother; but she was different. An orphan and a beggar, she had no right to remain to cause dissension between father and son. And so she fell upon her knees, and prayed for blessings on every member of that family; she forgot no one, not even poor Owen, whose suit she had rejected. Most especially she prayed that he might be a comfort to his parents, and turn from his wild, wandering ways, to those of rest and sobriety; she particularly used that latter word, which would have sounded formal in less earnest lips. With tearful eyes, and throbbing heart, but with a resigned spirit, she rose from her knees, took her little bundle in her hand, and went quickly out into the passage. She did not trust herself to pass the doors of her slumbering friends, but went by the back-staircase into the kitchen, and thence into the yard. There was a thick mist over the face of nature, falling like a heavy veil on the rising sun, and making the early day but a lengthened night; not a sound was heard, not an animal had yet been aroused from sleep, save Lion, the large watch-dog, whose duty it was to wake when others slept, and he bounded towards Gladys, and her suppressed, 'Down, Lion, down,' failed to quiet him. As she hurried up the road, he ran after her, and it was not until she reached the gate, that she had courage to command him with heightened voice, and threatening manner, to go home. The dog crouched, and then licked the hand, upraised to send him back. Poor Gladys fell upon his neck, and burst into tears. He licked off the tears with a wistful, canine earnestness and love, and again prepared to follow her. 'Back, good dog! Home, Lion!' said Gladys. The dog turned away with his tail between his legs, and walked half-way down the road. Gladys hurried through the gate, and along the public road, shutting the gate behind her upon Lion. No sooner was she out of sight than the tail was again in motion, the head turned, and Lion was peering over the hedge after her. As she swiftly pursued her way, turning neither to the right nor to the left, she did not perceive the faithful friend that was literally dogging her steps; but still Lion followed; and thoughtless of master and mistress at home, kept in view the poor beggar-girl who had managed to win his love, together with that of all the animal kind around and about Glanyravon. Thus pursuing her unknown way, and thus pursued by Lion, we must leave Gladys and return to the farm. At the usual hour, Mrs Prothero came down to breakfast; no Gladys was visible, and no neat table was laid for the early meal. Mrs Prothero asked the servants if they had seen Gladys, and they said she had not yet come down; not altogether ill-pleased to find the favourite, for once, in fault. Mrs Prothero thought that the events of the past night had probably made her ill; and relenting from her somewhat severe feelings towards her, she went upstairs to see what was the matter. Receiving no answer to her tap at the door, and call of 'Gladys,' she went into her little room. She saw all neat as usual, and the bed unruffled. Her heart misgave her, and she painfully remembered the morning of Netta's flight. As if by instinct she went to the small dressing-table, and at once had her fears confirmed. Very sadly she took up the pretty cap that was left there, and looked at the large piece of netting to which was appended a paper. She unpinned the paper, and read the following words:--'For my dear mistress, with respectful wishes, and best prayers for many happy returns of the day.' Mrs Prothero unfolded the work slowly, and saw two handsome, long, netted window curtains, with a fancy border, that must have taken hours from the donor's sleep to accomplish. As she unfolded them, a letter fell upon the floor. Poor, nervous Mrs Prothero, rubbed her hands over one another several times before she had the courage to pick it up, and then she scarcely dared to open it. As she made the attempt, however, a cry of 'Mother! mother! why isn't my breakfast ready?' was heard from the foot of the stairs, proceeding from Mr Prothero's lusty voice, who was too proud and too angry to call for Gladys. Mrs Prothero ran downstairs with the letter in her hand. 'My dear David, I am afraid Gladys is gone,' she said tremblingly. 'Well, let her go,' said the farmer. 'A good riddance. But what do you mean?' Mrs Prothero told of the empty room, unused bed, cap, curtains, and letter. 'This house is bewitched!' said Mr Prothero. 'What's in the letter?' 'Indeed, I don't know, Davy bach!' said the wife, giving him the document. Mr Prothero took out his glasses, wiped them deliberately, and put them on, whilst his wife stood before him rubbing her poor little hands as usual. 'What a good hand the girl writes,' said Mr Prothero, as he carefully unfolded the letter, and then began to read aloud as follows:-- 'DEAR AND HONOURED MISTRESS,--Before leaving for ever your blessed home, I beg you will allow me to write you a few lines, and I hope you will not think me too bold in so doing. I am going away, because I would not cause trouble to you, or my good, kind master. May it please God to bless you both for ever and ever! As long as I live I shall pray for you and love you! If I am too bold, forgive me, but my heart is full. I can only thank you for all you have done for me, by my prayers! Farewell! my dear, kind, honoured mistress and master. You will be rewarded in this world for your care of the poor orphan, who prays to meet you in the next. --GLADYS.' It was evident that the writer had been obliged to conclude hastily, because her paper was so wet with tears that she could write no more. When Mr Prothero finished reading, he hemmed two or three times and cleared his throat, and took off his spectacles and wiped them; then perceiving that his wife was crying like a child, he said,-- 'Don't be so fullish!' Suddenly recollecting himself, he exclaimed, 'Where's Owen? Go you, mother, and see if we haven't had another 'lopement,' 'No fear of that,' said Mrs Prothero, leaving the room to do her husband's bidding. She stayed so long that Mr Prothero, out of patience, bustled after her. He found her standing before an open, half-empty chest of drawers. The room was very untidy, and here, also, the bed had not been slept in the past night. Mrs Prothero was rubbing her hands and crying pitifully; more from fear of her husband's wrath than from sorrow for Owen, because she had anticipated a sudden flight. Mr Prothero began to stamp with rage. It was a long time before he could speak, and his wife had a certain fear that he would choke. At last words found vent. 'The impudent, lying, hypocritical, young baggage! The ungrateful, disobedient, good-for-nothing brute! Ach a fi! upon 'em both. That's what you get by harbouring Irish beggars! --that's the return they make! A pale-faced, deceitful hussy!' 'Davy, bach! they are not gone together,' said Mrs Prothero, half-believing at the same time that they were. 'Shall I lay breakfast, ma'am?' interrupted Shanno, putting her head in at the door and grinning suspiciously. 'Go your way, and mind your own business,' said Mr Prothero. Shanno disappeared. 'I'll go out and see whether either of the horses is gone. Go you and make breakfast--the good-for-nothing--' 'Just let me tell you first what Owen said to me last night,' said Mrs Prothero. 'I don't think he ever deceived us, Davy; and if he did wrong, he was never the one to hide it.' 'Treue for you! Well, what did the young scamp say? I don't blame him half as much as that meek, pale-faced, still-water thing, who's as deep as the north star, I'll be bound.' 'But Owen told me, seriously, that she refused to have anything to say to him, and begged me to be kind to her when he was gone away, for his sake.' 'Nothing but a trap to take you in--the deceitful young puppies--the--the--' 'Go and look about the horses and I'll make breakfast.' He went accordingly. All the horses were safe. Nothing was missing anywhere but Lion. 'I 'ouldn't take twenty pounds for that dog,' said Mr Prothero when he returned to the house, and sat down to breakfast. 'Hadn't we better send to look for them?' asked Mrs Prothero timidly. 'I'll see 'em hanged first. What! go and make another hullabaloo all through the country, as if one wasn't enough in one house. No, not I. Let 'em go to sea, or where they will; but don't tell anybody anything about 'em. Let people think what they will; I only wish I was at the world's end. But it's all your fault. Do you remember that morning when you bothered me into letting the girl stay? Fine things have come of it, seure enough.' 'But we don't know that they're together.' 'But we do, I say, Mrs Prothero; or why should they go off together? Fine things, indeed, for the gossips! Two 'lopements from one house. The young hussy.' Mrs Prothero could not help crying. To lose them both at once--a son and one who had been better than a daughter to her--it was too sad--and to feel so uncertain as to what would become of them! Mr Prothero was resolved to take no notice of her tears, but hastily swallowed his breakfast and went out. The servants did not need to be asked about the fugitives. They were all sure that they had run away together. Gladys, good and quiet as she seemed, was deep enough; and they had managed so well that nobody had seen them! Not like Miss Netta, who was so open! Many had seen her when she ran away! Mrs Prothero sent one of the men off in a search for Lion, feeling sure that if he were found, Gladys would be discovered. At about eleven o'clock, to Mrs Prothero's great delight, Miss Gwynne and Miss Hall called to see if the report about Owen and Gladys were true, and to hear what Mrs Prothero thought of it. Miss Gwynne was highly indignant. 'You cannot believe it, Mrs Prothero. That girl Gladys would no more run away with any man living than I would. If Mr Prothero won't send after her I will. Where is he?' 'Shall I send and tell him you want to speak to him?' 'By all means--directly.' Mr Prothero was soon in the house again, at Miss Gwynne's bidding. He looked more than usually red and excited. 'Mr Prothero, I would stake my life upon it, that girl has not gone off with your son. I don't like the Irish, or their beggars more than you do; but I am very fond of Gladys, and she shall not lose her character, or die of starvation whilst I have a horse to send after her, or a shilling to help her.' 'That's very well for you, Miss Gwynne, but Owen is no relation of yours; and I don't cheuse him to marry an Irish beggar. This house is bewitched, and my children are bewitched, all except Rowland.' Miss Gwynne wondered what Mr Prothero would think of _him_ if he knew all. 'Well, Mr Prothero, will you send after Gladys, or shall I? You needn't have her back here. There is a situation of schoolmistress or lady's maid for her at once. I will take her in either capacity.' 'Indeed, Mr Prothero,' said Miss Hall, 'I think you may trust Gladys; that letter is sincere if ever anything was.' 'Who is to search, for there is no time to lose?' asked Miss Gwynne. She was the only person in Wales who would have moved Mr Prothero, but he never could refuse her anything. 'What you say, Miss, is seure to have sense in it. I never knew you take to any one yet who wasn't worth something, so I'll just ride myself and look after 'em both. I shouldn't like people to fancy we were in a fuss and fright. But remember, Miss Gwynne, it is to oblige you; and if I find that she has run away with my son--' 'You may do what you like, Mr Prothero, for then I will have nothing to say to her. But go at once, and thank you very much.' 'I'll go Swansea way, for I am sure they'll take to the sea. Ach a fi! what's gone to the young people.' In less than a quarter of a hour Mr Prothero had mounted his best mare, and muttering a great many Welsh oaths, was soon riding in search of the fugitives. When he got out of his own immediate neighbourhood, he began to ask whether 'a tall, dark, young man, and a tall, pale, young 'ooman' had been seen. 'Is it a couple of gipsies, Mr Prothero?' asked a farmer, who lived about seven miles from Glanyravon. 'I did see a dark man, and a sallow 'ooman go up the lane by now.' 'Was the man like my son Owen?' 'Well, I didn't be seeing his face, but I shouldn't wonder.' Up the lane Mr Prothero went for a good half mile, and at last reached a gipsy encampment, where there were plenty of dark men, and sallow women, but not Owen and Gladys. A shrewd old gipsy, seeing him evidently on the search for some one, assured him before he had asked any questions, that she had seen those whom he was looking for. 'Where?' asked the farmer. 'Cross my hand with a silver coin, and I'll tell ye,' she said. He gave her a shilling. 'Young couple, my lord?' asked the woman. Mr Prothero nodded assent. 'Dark and fair, yer honour?' Another nod. 'I never tell secrets under a half-a-crown, but I have seen them, sir. Young man something like you, and handsome.' 'Make haste and tell, you cheat and vagabond,' said Mr Prothero, throwing her eighteenpence. 'Up the first turning to the right, off the road, over the hill,' said the woman. 'When?' 'An hour ago.' Mr Prothero rode quickly down the lane, along the turnpike, up the first turning to the right, and then up a long and tedious hill. It will be unnecessary to describe how Mr Prothero wandered over this hill for hours, without finding those he sought. As the said hill was a short cut to the road to Swansea, whither he was persuaded they were gone, it is not much to be wondered at that he was taken in, and that he went on as fast as his good horse would go for many a long mile; but he found neither Owen nor Gladys, and all his inquiries after them were fruitless. Towards evening he returned home, tired and very cross, and found his good wife looking anxious and unhappy, and ready to say at any moment, 'Dear, dear, how I do miss Gladys.' A messenger from the Park was awaiting him, with a note from Miss Gwynne, inquiring whether he had found the poor girl or not. He was obliged to write a few respectful lines in reply, to inform her of the failure of his search. 'I wish we had never set eyes on the girl,' he muttered, as he was writing the note with much pains and some difficulty. 'To take off Owen, too, just as he was getting euseful, and he such a good writer and accountant.' Still more heartily did he repeat that wish several times during the night. Mrs Prothero could not sleep, and what with her anxiety about Gladys, sorrow for the departure of Owen, and longing to see her own daughter, her mind was excited beyond its wont. As is often the case under such circumstances, she fancied she heard all kinds of noises in the house; once she was sure some one was coming upstairs, and another time that there was a tapping at the front door. She crept softly out of bed, and half fancying she should find Gladys without, went downstairs, and opened it. Nothing was visible but the flickering moonbeams amongst the trees, or audible save the tinkling of the brook through the farm-yard. 'Name o' goodness, what's the matter now?' ejaculated the farmer, as the creaking of the bedroom door awoke him. 'Don't be angry, Davy, bach, but I can't sleep for thinking of that poor girl; maybe she's without a roof to cover her.' 'Owen'll see to that. 'Tis a hard case a man mayn't sleep in his bed because of a good-for-nothing wench like her.' The next morning, after breakfast, when Mrs Prothero was urging him once more to look for Gladys, and he was vehemently refusing, Miss Gwynne and Miss Hall again made their appearance. Mr Prothero had to swallow a very broad expression of disgust, as well as to listen politely to that young lady, who persisted in saying she would continue the search for Gladys if he would not. 'I am sorry to annoy you, Mr Prothero,' she said, 'but it is due to Gladys to clear her character; there are plenty of jealous people about us, quite ready to take it away. I do not wish you to have any more trouble in this matter, but I cannot let it rest until I find the poor girl. She shall come to me direct, and need not be an eyesore to you. I will send off in every direction until I find her.' 'I beg your pardon, Miss Gwynne. If she is to be found, I must do it. I 'ont have a talk made about our turning her out of doors, and such like. As she isn't gone Glamorganshire way, I suppose she must be gone towards Ireland, and I had best follow that scent. I'll give her one more turn, and then have done with her. Mother, if I don't come home to-night, don't be frightened, as she may have gone a good step.' Mr Prothero was leaving the room, when Miss Hall stopped him, saying,-- 'I thought, Mr Prothero, that you might not have seen this notice of a meeting in your son's parish, and as he is mentioned, I brought over the paper for you.' Mr Prothero thanked Miss Hall, and took out his spectacles. Whilst he was wiping them, however, Miss Hall read from the _Times_ the report of a meeting for forming a ragged school in Rowland's parish, in which was the following paragraph:--'The Reverend Rowland Prothero, curate of the parish, made a very clear and able speech upon the subject, and brought forward a well-digested plan for the school, which will probably be adopted. The thanks of the meeting were offered to him.' 'There is always a pleasure with every pain,' said Mrs Prothero, wiping her eyes. 'Thank you, Miss Hall.' 'And the Bishop of London was in the chair. So, mother, if he isn't a bishop himself, you see he's been very near one,' said Mr Prothero, looking very much gratified. 'Well, I'll go now, Miss Gwynne, and look after that confounded--I beg your pardon, Miss--after that Irish jade,' and he went accordingly, leaving the ladies to talk it over with his wife.	{ "id": "15315" }
26	THE FRIEND.	Mr Prothero started as soon as his horse was ready, and, it must be confessed, in a very bad temper. As soon as he got out of the precincts of Glanyravon, he began to make inquiries of every one he met, and at every cottage he passed, concerning Gladys. It was evident, from the replies that he received, that if she had gone that road, it was so early in the morning that no one had seen her. At last he fell in with a farmer's wife whom he knew, who was jogging along on horseback, with a little boy behind her. After the usual greetings, he said,-- 'You never come to Glanyravon now, Mrs Davies. I daresay you haven't seen any of our folk for a year?' 'Well, not exactly. But I almost fancied I saw that pretty young 'ooman that lives with you yesterday morning. She was too shabby, or I should have been seure of the face. Only when she saw me she turned away and went on.' 'Which way?' 'Oh, down the Carmarthen road, seure.' 'You'll excuse my hurrying on, Mrs Davies; I want to call at Lewis, Dryslwyn.' 'To be seure. Good morning, Mr Prothero.' The worthy farmer rode off at a gallop, till he was more than out of sight of Mrs Davies. He stopped at a tidy cottage to speak to an old woman who was washing at the door. 'Did you chance to see a strange young 'ooman go by here yesterday, early?' he asked. 'What young 'ooman?' was the rejoinder. 'Rather shabbily dressed, with blue eyes, and a very pale face?' 'Had she a big black dog along, sir?' asked a boy who came from within the house. 'I think she had.' 'Then granny gave her a cup of tea when she asked for some water, and I gave the dog a piece of my bread and cheese,' said the boy. 'There's sixpence for you, my lad,' said Mr Prothero. 'Was there a young man with the girl?' 'Nobody was along, sir.' 'Which way did she go?' 'By there, to Dryslwyn, sir.' Mr Prothero rode on to the picturesque village bearing this name. The old ruined castle looked down upon him from its curiously formed, tumulus-looking elevation, as he stopped before a neat farm-house. 'Good morning, Mrs Lewis.' 'Walk in, Mr Prothero. We were talking of you by now. There was a young 'ooman by here yesterday, and John Lewis said he was seure she had your dog with her. She went away so fast, that I hadn't time to ask about the dog.' 'Which way did she go?' 'Down the Carmarthen road.' 'Good morning, Mrs Lewis, thank you. I must look after my dog.' Mr Prothero found it easiest to ask for the girl with a large black dog, and traced them to within a mile of Carmarthen. He stopped at a small roadside inn to have a glass of _cwrw da_. [Footnote: Good ale] Here he asked the landlady of Gladys. 'See her and the dog! Is seure. They come here in the evening, and she asked for a slice of bread and a drink of water, and took out sixpence to pay for it. She gave all the bread to the dog, and my master, who is fond of dogs, told me to give 'em both a good supper. Poor dear! she couldn't help crying; and my master, who is tender-hearted when he sees a girl do be crying, tell me to give her and the dog a good supper and a bed in the barn, which I did, is seure.' Mr Prothero paid handsomely for his ale, and having learnt that Gladys and Lion went straight to Carmarthen, went thither also. He made some few inquiries at the small inns that he passed, but gained no information. He accordingly rode through the town, and took the direct route to Hob's Point, whence, he knew, she would probably sail for Ireland. The afternoon was far advanced, still he rode on. He began to feel as anxious as he was angry and annoyed, and declared to himself that he wouldn't turn back until he had found her. He soon began to track her again. All the little boys on the way had noticed the big dog, and could point out the route he and Gladys had pursued. He stopped at one cottage where the mistress told him that she had made the girl sit down in the porch, because she looked so tired; and at another where she had asked how far it was to Pembrokeshire. He had ridden about thirty miles, and twilight was creeping on. He began to think of the necessity of finding a night's lodging, and once more consigned Gladys and the Irish generally to any distant region where he should never see them again. 'If she hadn't nursed mother so tenderly,' he muttered to himself, 'I'd turn back now; but as she does seem to be running away from Owen, and not with him, it 'ould be creuel.' The moon, the young May moon, arose in the heavens, and the farmer quickened his pace, for he knew the road, and that he was a good way from an inn, or, indeed, from any habitation where he could ask a night's lodging. Lights peeped out, one by one, from the cottages as he passed, and when he glanced into them, and saw the cheerful little fires, he thought more compassionately of Gladys, and wondered whether she had found food and lodging for the night. He was within a mile of a small village that he knew very well, when it was about ten o'clock. The wind blew rather keenly, and he buttoned up his great-coat, and began to whistle, by way of keeping himself warm. 'Come, old girl! we shall soon have something to eat! come along,' he said to his mare, as he gave her a slight touch with his whip. He was passing by a very lonely quarry in a field by the road-side, about which he had heard some ugly stories of robbers and ghosts years ago. Although he was a courageous, he was a superstitious man, and gave his mare another stroke as he encouraged her to proceed. She started, however, suddenly, and made a kind of halt. The moon was shining so brightly that Mr Prothero could see into the quarry across the hedge, and he fancied he perceived somebody moving about. He urged his horse on by whip and voice, but as he did so, some one jumped over the gate that led into the quarry, and made towards him. He was so much alarmed that he spurred the mare vigorously. He was sure it was a robber. He turned his whip, and held the heavy handle ready for a blow, which fell, in effect on the robber or ghost, or whatever it was, that leapt upon his leg, and seemed, to his imagination, to lay hold of it. A loud howl, and then a sharp, joyous bark, however, soon told him who the intruder was, and gave him courage to encounter the jumpings and gambols of his own good dog, Lion. The mare kicked, and Mr Prothero exclaimed, 'Lion! Lion! down, good dog, down! Don't upset me, Lion, bach. Let me get off, Lion! Name o' goodness, be quiet, dog! There; now you may jump as you will. Where is she? Where's Gladys?' Mr Prothero was off his horse, and Lion was over the hedge in a moment. The former climbed the gate somewhat less speedily--and both were, in a few seconds, in the quarry, where, either dead or asleep, lay Gladys, beneath and upon the hard stones. As the rays of the moon fell upon her pale face, Mr Prothero almost thought it was death and not sleep; but when Lion began to bark joyously, and to lick the cold hands and cheek, and when Mr Prothero ventured to stoop down and whisper, 'Gladys! Gladys!' and to take one of the damp, clammy hands in his, the white eyelids unclosed, and with a little scream of terror, the poor girl started up. There, beneath the moonlight, she recognised her master, and falling down on her knees before him, clasped her hands, but uttered no word. Where was Mr Prothero's ready-prepared lecture on ingratitude? Where were the questions about Owen? Where was the passion of the previous day? He could not tell. He only knew that he raised the poor kneeling girl kindly, almost tenderly. She threw her arms round him, and for the first time kissed him as if he were her father. Then, suddenly, recollecting herself, she exclaimed,--'Oh! Master! Oh, sir! forgive me.' Her master did not speak, but lifted her in his strong arms, and carried her to the gate; lifted her over, lifted her on his horse, and, amidst the joyous caperings of Lion, mounted himself. 'Put you your arms round me, and hold fast,' he said to Gladys. 'Come you, Lion, good dog! we'll have a supper by now!' And so they all went, as fast as they could, to the neighbouring village. Mr Prothero, with no small noise and bluster, knocked up the inmates of the little inn of that little place, and succeeded in getting Gladys ensconced by a cheerful fire in the kitchen. The poor girl was benumbed with cold and overpowered with fatigue. The landlady rubbed her feet and hands, administered hot brandy and water, and finally got her to bed. Mr Prothero kept out of her way lest he should say something that he might afterwards repent of in the warmth of his delight at finding her again. After she was in bed, and he had heard from the landlady that she seemed better and more comfortable, he and Lion had a good supper--a meal the dog appeared thoroughly to enjoy, and which he ate with a ravenous appetite. Mr Prothero told the landlady to leave Gladys in bed the next morning until nine o'clock, by which hour he supposed she would be sufficiently refreshed, and then retired himself, feeling thankful to Miss Gwynne for having made him do a good action, but still believing that Owen must have been in the secret of Gladys' sudden flight. Gladys slept soundly until the landlady took her a good breakfast at nine o'clock. She then awoke, refreshed but frightened, and uncertain as to her present state or future proceedings. She was told that Mr Prothero wished to see her as soon as she was dressed, and accordingly when she had eaten her breakfast, she got up. She felt very stiff and weak, and her hands trembled so much that she could scarcely dress herself. Lion found her out, however, and gained admittance into her bedroom. He was in such very boisterous spirits that he quite cheered her, as pale and frightened she tried to gain courage to meet her master. Before she left the bedroom, she sought for guidance where she was always in the habit of going for help and comfort, and found strength 'according to her day.' Mr Prothero was waiting for her in the little parlour of the inn. During the morning, having nothing to do, he had employed himself by getting up his temper, and persuading himself that he ought to be very angry with Gladys. He had quite slept off his softer feelings, and whilst at his lonely breakfast had gone through an imaginary quarrel with Owen, and a dispute with his wife, which had so raised his choler, that when Gladys entered he was as red as he usually was when in a passion at home. Gladys saw that he was angry and trembled very much; but she knew that she had done no wrong, and tried to reassure herself. Mr Prothero began at once. It must be remarked, however, that he had previously learnt from the landlady that Gladys was pretty well, and had eaten a good breakfast. 'Name o' goodness, young 'ooman, what did you run away from our house for in such a sly, underhand way, and give us all this trouble and bother? Don't suppose I 'ould a run after you, if it wasn't for Miss Gwynne and your mistress.' 'Oh, sir, I am very thankful to ye and to them. I know I don't deserve such kindness.' 'Treue for you there. I should have thought you'd have known that one 'lopement was quite enough from one house. Pray, what have you done with my son Owen?' 'I, sir? Nothing, sir!' said Gladys, trembling at this abrupt question. Lion licked her hand as if to reassure her. 'You needn't tell no lies about it, because I shall be seure to find out. Where is he gone?' 'Indeed--indeed, I don't know, sir. I thought he was at home at Glanyravon.' 'But he isn't at home. He went off with you.' 'Oh, not with me, sir--not with me, I assure you. I went away that he might stay, and that I might not cause anger between you. I am speaking the truth, sir, indeed I am.' Mr Prothero looked at the agitated girl, and felt inclined to believe her. 'Tell me why you went away at all, then?' 'Because Mr Owen said to me words that I knew he would be sorry for, and because I saw that you, sir, were displeased at what he said about me.' 'What did he say to you? Tell me the truth.' 'He said, sir--oh! I cannot tell. Perhaps you would be more angry with him if you knew.' Gladys' head drooped low, and a burning blush overspread her pale face. 'I can't be much more angry with him than I am, but tell you the treuth. Did he want to marry you?' 'Yes, sir.' 'And you--what did you say?' 'That I couldn't marry any one in this world, sir.' 'What do you mean to wait for, then?' 'Nothing, sir, nobody.' 'And what did Owen say to that?' 'I don't think anything more particular passed between us. He was very kind, sir.' 'I daresay. But what made him go away?' 'I think it must have been because he thought you would send me away.' 'And you don't want to marry my son Owen?' 'No, sir.' Gladys' voice wavered slightly as she said this. 'Ha, ha! He's a fine young man, however.' 'Yes, sir, and very kind.' 'I daresay. Will you promise never to marry him?' As Mr Prothero asked this question, he looked Gladys full in the face. She blushed again, but returned his gaze with a quiet, grave look that seemed to wonder at the question. She did not reply at once, and Mr Prothero repeated it, louder than before, with the additional one of 'Do you hear, girl?' 'Sir, I don't like to make promises,' said Gladys; 'suppose the temptation to break it ever came, and proved too strong for me. I might perjure myself.' 'Then you mean to marry my son Owen?' 'No, sir, I don't think I shall ever marry him. As far as I can see now, I am sure I never shall.' 'Name o' goodness, what does the girl mean? You don't mean to marry him, and yet you 'ont promise--what do you mean?' 'I scarcely know myself, sir. But I cannot tell what God may appoint for me in the future, and so I cannot make a solemn promise.' 'Then I 'spose you're going to run off like Netta?' 'No, sir, never.' 'Why, "no, sir," if you 'ont promise?' 'Because I could never do what you and my mistress would dislike.' 'Then you can promise, perhaps, never to marry my son Owen without my consent.' 'Yes, sir, I can--do--that--' Gladys said these words very slowly, and turned very pale as she said them. She clasped her hands firmly together with a visible effort. 'Well, you're an odd girl; you 'ont promise one thing, and yet you as good as promise it in another way. What's the difference?' Again the colour came and went. 'It would be wrong, sir, in me to make a son disobey a father, and I wouldn't like to do it; so I can promise that; and maybe you may change.' 'Then you love the boy? Tell me the treuth.' Gladys began to cry, and was a few moments before she could say, somewhat more resolutely than usual,-- 'Sir, my feelings are my own. Mr Owen has been like a brother to me, and the mistress like a mother--and you--oh, sir! should I not love his mother's son?' Mr Prothero was touched; he could ask no more questions. 'There, there--go you and get ready directly. I promised Miss Gwynne to bring you back to Glanyravon, where she means to make you schoolmistress and lady's maid, and all the rest. I suppose you don't want to go to Ireland?' 'No, sir.' 'Have you any relations there?' 'No, sir.' 'You don't want to leave Glanyravon parish?' 'No, sir. I would rather live and die there than anywhere else in the world.' 'Then go you and get ready; and, mind you, have some ale before you start. I must keep my promise to Miss Gwynne; mind you yours to me. You 'ont encourage my son Owen without my consent' 'No, sir--never. And I do not wish or mean ever to marry any one, if you will only believe me.' 'I don't believe any young 'ooman who says that. You may as well go into a nunnery. But I believe the rest till I find you out to the contrary. Now, go you and get ready.' 'Thank you, sir--thank you.' Soon after this conversation the farmer had mounted his good mare, who was as much refreshed as her master by a night's rest, and with Gladys, _en croupe_, and Lion running by his side, he jogged back to his home. 'We shall have a fine long journey, and a tiresome one enough,' he muttered. 'Thirty mile and carrying double is too much for my mare. --take the 'oomen! they'll be the death 'o me, one way and another. There's mother, and Netta, and Miss Gwynne, and now this Gladys! This is the last time I'll put myself out for any of 'em, or my name isn't David Prothero.'	{ "id": "15315" }
27	THE MISSIONARY.	It was about half-past ten o'clock when Mr Prothero and Gladys started on their homeward journey. When they had gone about half way, they stopped for an hour to bait the mare, which brought them to nearly two o'clock, and reduced Mr Prothero to a state of great ill humour. Poor Gladys had to bear many reproachful speeches, which reached her between a very animated conversation which he kept up with the mare and Lion alternately. He did not talk much to her, but contented himself with making her eat and drink a great deal more than was pleasant for her, because, as he phrased it, 'People shouldn't think she was starved at Glanyravon.' In truth, there was a great contrast between the farmer's rosy, broad, good-humoured countenance, which not even his present angry feelings could make morose, and Gladys' pale, wearied face, rendered more palid than usual by her late fatigue and anxiety. It was with some difficulty that she could keep her seat behind Mr. Prothero, as the mare trotted on at an equal but somewhat rough pace, and made her long for rest. However, all things come to an end, and within about five miles of Glanyravon, Mr Prothero muttered,--'Confound the 'ooman! Shall we ever get home; 'tis enough to kill the mare. Come along, old girl! Good dog! Lion, old boy!' --which sentences were interrupted by the address of a stranger on horseback, who asked if he were right for Glanyravon Park. 'Quite right, sir,' said Mr Prothero, pleased at any break in a ride that had been peculiarly devoid of adventure. 'I am going half a mile beyond the Park myself, and shall be proud to show you the way if you aren't in a hurry.' 'By no means. I am too tired to ride very fast myself, for I have been a great traveller of late. I came down from London to Glamorganshire two days ago, and have come across country in coaches and dogcarts to the "Coach and Horses." I daresay you know the inn?' 'Oh yes, sir. That's the "Coach and Horses" mare you're upon now?' 'Yes; I borrowed her to come to Glanyravon, and have promised to ride her back to-night, but I am sure I shall not be able. How far are we from Glanyravon?' 'About four mile and a half.' 'You live in the village?' 'There is no village, sir. I live at Glanyravon Farm.' 'Is there any inn nearer than the "Coach and Horses" where I might get a night's lodging, and a man to ride the mare back?' 'No, sir; but I shall be glad to offer a bed to any friend of Mr Gwynne's, though I am sure you'll find one at the Park.' 'Thank you kindly. I am not known to Mr Gwynne; but I am going to see Miss Hall, who, I believe, resides with him.' 'To be seure she does; and a better lady never lived. If you're a friend of Miss Hall's, you're as welcome to our house as if you were born and bred at Glanyravon.' 'You are very kind. It does one good to meet with true Welsh hospitality once more.' 'You're not Welsh, sir, I should say?' 'I was Welsh originally; but it would be difficult to make out my parish, as I have been wandering about for many years.' 'A clergyman, sir?' 'Yes, sir.' The gentleman smiled, and thought the question savoured of American curiosity. 'I have a son a clergyman. Perhaps you may have fallen in with him. They tell me he's a very promising young man.' 'What is his name?' 'Prothero, sir--Rowland Prothero.' 'I do not know him personally, but I know him by reputation; he is curate of an old friend of mine, Mr Stephenson.' 'To be seure--Rowly's rector! Allow me to shake hands with you, sir. You'll sleep at Glanyravon.' 'Certainly, if I shall not inconvenience you and your family. Your daughter looks very ill and tired; perhaps it may--' 'Not a bit, sir. She's not my daughter; she always looks as pale as moonlight, 'scept when she blushes up; she'll see to a bed for a strange gentleman, and so'll my missus. To think of your knowing Mr Stephenson!' 'Yes, I saw him during my short stay in town, and he told me he had a capital curate, a countryman of mine. A regular hard-working, useful parish priest, he called him; a good preacher besides!' 'Well, mother will be pleased, won't she, Gladys?' This was said in the old good-humoured way, and Gladys brightened up as she answered,-- 'Yes, sir, very.' 'Are you ill?' said the stranger, looking at Gladys with sudden interest. 'No, sir, thank you; I am only rather tired,' was the reply. 'Tired! I should think so! Why, she's walked more than thirty miles, and ridden thirty in the last two days,' said the farmer gruffly. The stranger glanced again compassionately at Gladys, but merely said,-- 'She looks so pale that I fancied she was suddenly faint. How long has Miss Hall been at Glanyravon?' 'Somewhere about two or three years now, I should say; but when she was teaching Miss Gwynne she was there a great many years.' 'Is she in good health? How does she look? Is she happy?' 'If she was ill, sir, I don't think any one 'ould know it, she's so quiet and patient; but I think she's pretty well, and she can't help being happy, for she's just the same as if she was at home with her father and sister. Now she is a nice lady! If all 'oomen were like her there 'ouldn't be half the plague with 'em there is. She's quite content without having a lot of lovers after her, and running away, and making everybody in a fever. Deet to goodness, my opinion is that the world 'ould go on a sight better without 'em. What do you think, sir? You must have plenty of experience as a clergyman, for all the ladies are pretty sharp after the cloth.' The stranger laughed, and said he thought the world would be very disagreeable without the fair sex, and that he had no doubt Mr Prothero would find it so if they became suddenly extinct. The farmer was so pleased with his new acquaintance that when they reached the Park gate, he said very heartily,-- 'Now, mind you, sir, there's a warm welcome, and a well-aired bed, and fine, white, home-spun linen at the farm. The squire may give you a better dinner, may be, but not a hotter, I'll answer for it; Gladys'll see to that; she's capital for that. And mother 'ould be so glad to hear what the rector said about our Rowly.' 'You may depend upon my coming,' said the stranger. 'What time does Mr Gwynne dine? I suppose I shall escape his dinner hour? It is now about five o'clock.' 'Oh! they don't dine till Christian folks are going to bed--seven or eight o'clock, or some such heathen hour. You'll be able to see them all before dinner; but I don't believe Mr Gwynne'll let you come away.' 'I shall not see him probably. Good day for the present.' The stranger rode slowly up the drive from the lodge to the house, and Mr Prothero quickened his pace homeward. The mare, nothing loath, trotted off hard and fast, and Gladys looked paler than ever. When they reached the farm gate they were greeted by a loud shout from the 'boys,' Tom and Bill, who were right glad to see pretty Gladys back again. They both ran as fast as they could to the house, to tell their mistress the good news, and Lion after them. Mrs Prothero was at the door to receive the travellers, and as Gladys slipped off the mare, took her round the neck, and gave her a hearty kiss. 'My dear David, I am so thankful! so much obliged!' she said, as her more portly husband dismounted. 'Come in quick; Miss Gwynne and Miss Hall are here. They were just going, but they will be relieved of all their anxiety when they see Gladys. Come in, Gladys, fach! don't be afraid; they must see you.' Poor Gladys was crying with all her heart--good, comfortable, refreshing tears of joy at her mistress's kind welcome. Miss Gwynne appeared at the parlour door. 'Well, Gladys! you have had your long walk for nothing. What a foolish girl you were to go away. Mr Prothero, how do you do? I am so glad you have brought us back Gladys. We couldn't do without her in these parts.' 'Do you still stand to your text, Miss Gwynne?' said Mr Prothero. 'We may as well settle the matter at once. It will be a great thing for the girl.' 'Oh, certainly; only she looks too tired to settle anything. Gladys, I will give you a day or two to consider whether you will come and live with me, as my maid, or be Miss Hall's pattern school-mistress.' Gladys looked from Miss Gwynne to Miss Hall, and then from her master to her mistress, through the tears that were gathering faster and faster. She answered in a voice half choked by them,-- 'Thank you, ma'am, thank you over and over and over again. If I must go away--if I must--whichever--you--like--I--' Here she finally gave way, and, sitting down on a chair, sobbed aloud. Mrs Prothero went to her, and put her arm round her neck. Miss Gwynne looked on compassionately, and Miss Hall turned to Mr Prothero. 'She does not like to leave you, Mr Prothero,' she said gently. 'I don't want to turn the girl out of the house. But if Miss Gwynne wants her, I think it is better for all parties for her to go.' 'If you please--certainly,' said Gladys, recovering herself with an effort. 'I would much rather go to Miss Gwynne in any capacity, and if I can be of use--it is best, my dear mistress.' 'Then go you, Gladys, and stop crying,' said Mr Prothero. 'Why, your eyes'll be as red as ferrets when the gentleman comes, and he'll think we've been giving you an appetite by making you cry. I was near forgetting, Miss Hall, that we left a strange gentleman at the Park gate, who said he was going to call on you; he's going to take a bed here, because there's no inn nearer than the "Coach and Horses."' 'Who can that be?' said Miss Hall. 'We had better make haste home, or we shall miss him,' said Freda. 'Good-bye, Mrs Prothero; I will come again and settle about Gladys.' It was nearly dusk when the ladies left the farm, and they walked very fast. They had not gone far when they saw some one on horseback coming towards them. 'I daresay this is your friend, and that stupid Morgan hasn't let him in,' said Freda. 'It cannot be; I do not know this gentleman at all,' said Miss Hall, as the stranger advanced. He looked at them, and they looked at him; but as there was no symptom of recognition on either side, they passed without speaking. 'I hope we shall have a good night's rest, now that Gladys is found,' said Miss Gwynne. 'What is there in the girl that interests one so much? Even Mr Prothero, in spite of his son, was glad to find her, and to have her at the farm again. Colonel Vaughan admires her very much.' 'I hope not too much,' said Miss Hall quietly. 'What an absurd idea!' said Miss Gwynne, colouring from beneath her broad hat. 'He is a man that admires beauty and talent, wherever it is to be found. I do like that sort of person; free from vulgar prejudice.' 'Not quite, I think, my dearest Freda. He is not so easily read, perhaps, as you in your straightforward nature fancy.' 'If he isn't prejudiced, you are, at any rate,' said Freda. When they reached the house, Freda went into the drawing-room first, and Miss Hall heard her exclaiming, as she rushed out of it with a card in her hand,-- 'Serena! Nita! only think! Mr Jones, Melbourne, South Australia! Hurrah! I never thought I should be so glad to see a card bearing that name. Morgan! why didn't you ask the gentleman who called on Miss Hall to come in and wait?' 'I did not know, ma'am,' said the man who was at the door. 'My master does not always like strangers, and I did not know the gentleman.' Miss Hall had vanished upstairs during this little interlude with Morgan, so Freda did not see the agitation of her manner when she took the card and read the name. Freda went straight into the library, where she found her father half asleep over a letter. 'Papa! papa! Do you know an old friend of Miss Hall's has called, that she has not seen for twenty years, and Morgan let him go away?' 'Wasn't she glad, my dear? It is so exciting to see people whose very faces you have forgotten.' 'Glad, papa? Of course not. He must just have come from Australia, where her sister is living, and I daresay has brought letters. By the way, there was a packet near the card.' 'I don't understand people going so far away from their own country.' 'But, papa, Mr Jones--this gentleman--has gone to sleep at Mr Prothero's, and I daresay they are not prepared for him.' 'Really--well, my dear?' 'Don't you think you had better write and ask him here to dinner, and I will order a bed to be prepared?' 'Me! My dear! --a perfect stranger! --a bore! Some one full of tiresome adventures and travellers' stories, and all that sort of thing.' 'He is a clergyman, papa, and a Welshman, I believe. It would only be hospitable. We must not belie our country. Do write, papa. Think how anxious Miss Hall must be to hear of her sister.' 'But you say she has a packet of letters.' 'There is nothing like seeing a friend who has seen one's sister, I should think. Just one line of invitation! We will amuse him. He is very quiet, Miss Hall says. Here is the paper and a new pen. There's a good pappy, and--yes, "Presents his compliments"--yes--don't forget the bed. That's right! Now, just add, "that if he prefers not coming to-night, you hope he will make a point of spending the day here to-morrow."' 'But I don't hope it, my dear.' 'We will amuse him. Drive him out--anything. And perhaps he won't come.' 'Very well. Remember that I am not expected to--to--' 'Nothing, but just to drive with him. Thanks! you are a capital _pater_, and I will send this off immediately. Just direct it, "---- Jones, Esq., Glanyravon Farm." I wonder whether his name is David? I hope not. I don't like David.' 'Freda carried the note to the butler herself, and told him to get it sent immediately, and to tell the messenger to wait for an answer; then she went with the parcel of letters to Miss Hall. The note found Mr Jones, Mr Prothero, and Gladys comfortably established near a snug fire in the hall, at a well-spread tea-table. Mr Jones asked for tea in preference to _cwrw da_, and he and Gladys were enjoying it, whilst Mr Prothero chose the good home-brewed. Eggs and bacon, cold meat, and most tempting butter were upon the table, and Mrs Prothero was acting waitress and hostess at the same time. Shanno appeared with the note, delicately held by the corner between her finger and thumb. 'From the Park, missus, for the gentleman.' 'Promise you me, before you open it, not to go there to-night,' said Mr Prothero, taking the note. 'That I can safely do,' said Mr Jones. When he had read the note he looked pleased, and his manner was rather flurried, as he said,-- 'Perhaps I can manage to stay over to-morrow, but I will not go to-night. Will you oblige me with a pen and ink?' Gladys was off in a moment, and returned with writing materials. Mr Jones wrote a polite note, declining the invitation for that evening upon plea of the lateness of the hour and fatigue, but promising to call on the morrow early, and to remain the day, if he possibly could. After he had despatched his note he seemed more thoughtful than he was before, and, for a short time, absent when spoken to; but rousing himself he made good return for the kindness and hospitality of his host and hostess by his agreeable and instructive conversation. He told them that he had been a missionary ever since his ordination, and had travelled over the principal parts of the continent of Australia. Gladys forgot her fatigue in her great interest in his subject; and when he saw her deep attention, he frequently addressed her and drew forth questions from her which surprised Mr Prothero quite as much, or more than it did Mr Jones. Mrs Prothero knew the girl's turn of mind too well to be astonished at the amount of missionary and geographical knowledge that she possessed. Gladys was naturally very timid and modest, but when subjects of interest were introduced she forgot her timidity in a desire for information. Owen had discovered her bent, and in their frequent meetings, accidental or designed, had often chained her to him by descriptions of the countries he had visited and the wonders he had seen. He, too, had found out that there was a deep vein of romance running beneath the stratum of reserve that, at first, had formed the outward feature of her character, but which was wearing away as she became accustomed to her new friends, and had been treated as a friend by them. It was evident that Mr Jones was greatly interested in Gladys. He addressed her, looked at her, called her 'my dear,' somewhat to the scandal of Mr Prothero, who thought him too young a man for such a familiar address. But Gladys only turned on him two beautiful eyes beaming with a kind of wondering gratitude, and thought the white and grey hairs that were mingled with the brown, and the deep lines in his forehead, quite passport enough for the two kind words. In addition to a great deal of missionary adventure, Mr Jones told his new friends that he had come home partly in search of health and rest, and partly to stir up friends at home in the cause of religion abroad. He said that he might or might not return himself to Australia,--it would depend on circumstances; but that he could not be idle in England, and was likely to become either a fellow-curate of Rowland's, or a neighbouring one. He liked a city curacy, because, having taught the heathen in another land for many years, he thought he might do some good amongst them at home. He told them, also, that it was during a year's residence in Melbourne that he had known Miss Hall's sister. He had been obliged to undertake clerical duty there, because his health was failing in his attempts to convert the aborigines. Mr Jones was a man of grave and quiet manner, one who seemed to think much and deeply. He habitually led the conversation, without pedantry, to religious or instructive subjects, and when lighter matter was introduced, was given rather to withdraw his mind from it to his own thoughts. He had been little in society for many years, during which his time had been passed in the highest, weightiest, gravest, grandest of all labours,--that of studying to turn the human soul from darkness to light. Now that he found himself in his own country again, he felt far behind most men in worldly conversation though very far beyond them, not only in religious, but in practical, useful, and general knowledge; such knowledge, I mean, as would be suited to the improvement, not merely of savages, but of the wild, lawless bushmen, gold diggers, and convicts of the Australian world. His manners were gentlemanlike but slightly old-fashioned, and, doubtless, many a young Englander would have found matter for ridicule in some of his doings and sayings. Not so, however, the good and cultivated Englishman of the nineteenth century. He would have found abundance to love and respect in the man who left the luxury, science, learning and refinement of England, in that most wonderful of all ages, to labour amongst the refuse of her people in the largest of her colonies. For Mr Jones had seen but little, during his twenty years of Australian life, of the better portion of Australian settlers, or the grandeur of her cities. He had devoted himself to those who had no means of gaining religious teaching elsewhere and he thanked God that the years of his ministry had not been without abundance of those fruits in which the heart of the laborious worker in Christ's vineyard rejoices. When Mr Jones left the farm the following morning, it was with a promise to pay it another visit at no very distant period. He took away with him a letter to Rowland, which was to introduce the brother, clergymen to each other. As he shook Mr Prothero by the hand, he thanked him warmly for his hospitality, and then abruptly added, 'Take care of that young girl Gladys. She will surely prove a blessing to you, and repay you for any kindness you may bestow upon her,'	{ "id": "15315" }
28	THE LADY'S MAID.	Miss HALL and Freda were sitting alone in the morning-room that has before been alluded to. The former was much more nervous than Freda had ever seen her. First she took up her work, then her book, then she began to copy some music. Freda had great pleasure in watching her, and in remarking that the calm Serena could be excited by the expected appearance of a lover of twenty years ago; also in observing that she had a most becoming colour on her cheeks, and looked quite young; also that she was dressed even with more care than usual, and her hair was smooth as brush could make it. Freda longed to laugh at her, but she forbore; she felt that there was something very touching in this meeting between two people who had parted under such uncomfortable circumstances so many years ago. When the door bell rang Freda rose to leave the room. 'If you please, Freda, remain where you are, I would very much rather.' Freda resumed her seat, and shortly after Mr Jones was announced. 'Quite an old man; twice as old as Nita,' was Freda's first thought as she looked at him. Miss Hall rose and advanced to meet Mr Jones. They shook hands, Freda thought, very much like other people, and then Miss Hall introduced her, and Mr Jones bowed. 'I promised your sister to come and see you, Miss Hall, when I came down into Wales,' he said after he was duly seated. 'I am very much obliged to you, it was very kind,' was the reply. Freda saw that they were both as nervous and shy as a couple of children, and came to the rescue by apologising for her father's unavoidable absence, he having gone to a neighbouring tenant's, and by saying that he would be at home at luncheon. By degrees they all three got into conversation, and Mr Jones gave Miss Hall an account of her sister and her family. One little girl was very like Miss Hall, and she was the general favourite.' 'I am sure she must be very pretty,' suggested Freda. 'Very,' said Mr Jones, with a smile at Freda, of greater archness than she gave him credit for. 'Don't you think Miss Hall very little altered?' she asked again. 'I think I should have known her anywhere, though I passed her in the twilight, uncertain who she was.' A long conversation followed upon various general topics, until the luncheon bell rang. As no Mr Gwynne appeared, Freda was obliged to make another excuse for him; but Mr Jones seemed perfectly satisfied without him, if not relieved by his non-appearance. Freda proposed a walk as soon as luncheon was over, and she and Miss Hall took their guest to see the school, which Freda was careful to say was under Miss Hall's superintendence. Then they pioneered him to various points of view, which he seemed to look upon with the eye of a real lover of the beauties of nature; and finally they rested on a rustic seat at the top of a wooded hill, whence they looked down on the magnificent valley beneath, with its green meadows, winding river, and boundary of distant mountains. Alter Freda had remained here a few minutes, she suddenly said,-- 'Would you mind my just running down to Mrs Prothero's to settle with her about Gladys? I am sure we shall none of us be happy until that matter is arranged. If you will go down through the wood, Nita, I will join you at the waterfall, or somewhere else, in less than a quarter of an hour. Will you excuse me, Mr Jones?' 'Certainly,' was the reply. 'But had we not better all go?' asked Miss Hall, casting an entreating glance upon Freda, who, however, would not see it. 'I think not. Mrs Prothero is so nervous that we should frighten her to death. It will take me five minutes to run down the hill, five minutes to say my say, and five to get to the waterfall. But you need not hurry away, as I can wait for you; or, if you are not there, I will find you. Come, Frisk, come with me.' Frisk was a fine, little Scotch terrier, his mistress's especial favourite, and he bounded after her with great satisfaction. The pair were soon half-way down the hill, near the bottom of which Glanyravon Farm lay. 'I think I managed that capitally,' said Freda to Frisk? 'didn't I, Frisk? Now, if he doesn't take advantage of the opportunity, he is very foolish. Don't you think so, Frisk?' Frisk jumped, and barked, and twirled about in a very affirmative way. 'I should like to make up a match, it would be such fun. And I think he is a very worthy, gentlemanly sort of man, though I shouldn't like him for myself, and he is not quite the sort of person that I could have supposed would have made such an impression on Serena. But she would be such a capital clergyman's wife, and he would be so fond of her! But what should I do without her? Get married myself? The only man that I ever saw that I could marry won't marry; and then he doesn't care for me. Heigho! this is an odd world. All of us at cross-purposes. But I don't mean to break my heart,--do I, Frisk?' The 'do I, Frisk?' brought Freda and her dog to the gate that led into the road, and the road soon led them to the farm, where Frisk began at once to run after all the poultry, to the no small annoyance of Shanno. But Freda succeeded in catching him, and carrying him off with her into the parlour, whither she went, and whither Mrs Prothero followed her. 'I have just come to ask what you have settled about Gladys,' said Miss Gwynne. 'I cannot stay long, and am anxious to know.' 'My husband thinks it better that she should go to you, as you kindly wish to take her,' replied Mrs Prothero, with tears in her eyes. 'He says that he has no ill-will to the poor girl; on the contrary, he is very fond of her; but he don't think her a good match for our eldest son, Owen, who might marry very well. For my own part, I think he would never meet with such another as Gladys; but that is in the hands of Providence, and if it is to be it will be. He says that he is sure Owen will never come home as long as she is with us, for fear of sending her away; but that when he knows that she is so well off with you, he will perhaps come back again. And, indeed, we want him sadly, Miss Gwynne. It is a great trial to us, to have three children, and neither of them at home to help us. My husband is much altered since Netta married, though he don't show it; and Netta won't write, or do anything to prove she's sorry, and though he don't say so, I think this makes him more angry.' 'Then you really wish Gladys to come to me?' 'I do indeed, Miss Gwynne. I am quite sure it will be for her good; and you cannot help liking her. But she will not make any choice between the two situations you offer, but says you must do with her whatever you think best.' 'Is she very unhappy at the idea of coming to us?' 'Not at all. She is very sad to leave us, but she says she would rather do so, and would rather serve you than any other lady in the world.' 'Well, perhaps it may be best for all parties. I think she is too young and too pretty to live alone at the school-house, and besides, I don't particularly want to change mistresses: so I mean to have her as my maid, and then I can take care of her myself. You know I have not had a regular maid since that disagreeable affair of Evans; one of the housemaids has waited on me, and I don't like maids, they are so in one's way. But I shall like Gladys. And she can help Miss Hall in the school, and go and see you every evening if she likes, when we are at dinner. In short, I am sure it is a capital plan for us all, and will make matters easy for you.' 'You are so very kind, Miss Gwynne, I do not know what we should have done without you. Gladys would have begged her way back to Ireland, and died there.' 'I mustn't stay any longer; I have outstayed my five minutes over and over again. You can send Gladys when you like. I have heaps of dresses, and clothes, of all kinds for her, so don't you think of giving her anything new. I will give her the same wages that I gave Evans, so she will feel quite independent; and I will put her under the particular charge of the housekeeper, until she gets into the ways of the house. Now I must go; what will Miss Hall say?' Well might Freda ask, 'What will Miss Hall say?' She walked as quickly as possible to the waterfall, she was not there; up the hill again, not there; home through the wood, not there; into the house, not there. She waited a little while with her hat on, but as no Mr Jones or Miss Hall arrived, she took off her walking things, and went about her usual avocations, saying to herself, with a smile on her lips the while,-- 'I never thought I was a manoeuvrer before. It is evident they don't want me, or they would have waited for me, and I have no doubt they are much happier without me. I must go and look, after my father.' Freda found Mr Gwynne in his library. 'Where is your guest, Freda? What is he like? Is he a bore?' were his queries. 'He is walking with Miss Hall, and my impression is they are very good company. He is very quiet, very grave, has no wonderful travellers' stories, and none of the ologies, and can play chess, for I asked him. I don't think him a bore, and I am sure Miss Hall doesn't.' 'Very well, then I will go into the drawing-room against he comes in.' 'Thanks; and I will whisper a little secret into your ear; he is an old lover of Serena's, and I cannot help hoping he is come to propose for her.' Mr Gwynne was alive and interested in a moment. It is curious how on the alert people are when they hear of a love affair. 'I will go and dress at once; he must be nice if Miss Hall likes him, for she is certainly the least intrusive, and all that sort of thing. Is he like Rowland Prothero?' Freda coloured at this sudden question. 'No, not at all; besides, he is a middle-aged man.' 'To be sure; I suppose so. Miss Hall must be--I don't know--nearly forty I suppose. I wish Rowland Prothero lived at the farm; he was so obliging and pleasant; even Lady Mary Nugent admires him.' 'She is no great criterion of what is agreeable; I shouldn't think it any compliment to be liked by her. There is the dressing bell. Now, papa, do be ready for dinner, if you please.' Freda went to her room in a sudden fit of ill-temper. The mention of Lady Mary always put her out of humour. In a few moments there was a tap at the door, and Miss Hall made her appearance. 'I might have waited a long time at the waterfall, Serena,' she began maliciously. For answer, Miss Hall went to her and kissed her, and when Freda looked up, she saw that there was an unusually bright colour in her cheeks, and something very like tears in her eyes. Freda threw her arms round her friend, exclaiming,-- 'I know, Nita dear! It is all signed, sealed, and settled _n'est-ce pas_?' And so it proved; during that long walk the old love had become new, and two people as deserving of happiness as most of the poor sinful mortals who are for ever seeking her, were made perfectly happy for that day at least. Freda's reflections, whilst she sat alone, listlessly brushing her hair and dressing herself, were as follows:-- 'How happy she seems; she looks twenty years younger; and he, an elderly, iron-grey clergyman; it would be ridiculous, only it is all so true and good. I suppose, after all, there is something grand, as the poet says, in constancy, and love, and the like; and I ought to pity Rowland Prothero, if he really cares for me. And yet I don't; on the contrary, I could be over head and ears in love with another man to-morrow if he would only ask me; and he is gone away without telling me that he cares for me, if he does, as I cannot help hoping. But nothing shall induce me to give my heart to any one, unless I am asked for it, of that I am resolved; no, not if I were to die in the struggle to keep it.' With this prudent and womanly resolution, Freda got up from her seat, hastily put on her dress, and went to Miss Hall, to insist on dressing her on that particular day. 'You must put on the pink and white muslin that you look so well in. I insist on it, and will have my way to-night,' she said, and had her way accordingly, and the satisfaction of hearing her father remark afterwards, that he had 'not seen Miss Hall look so well for years. She really was a very pretty ladylike person, and Mr Jones ought to think himself very fortunate, and all that sort of thing.' To judge from Mr Jones' manner and countenance, he did think himself very happy and fortunate; and his happiness and good fortune had the effect of making him so very agreeable, that Mr Gwynne was quite pleased with him, and strongly urged his remaining some days at Glanyravon. But this could not be, as he was engaged to be present at a meeting of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel the next day but one. To Freda's indignation, her father engaged him in a game of chess, which lasted the greater part of the evening; but as he seemed quite patient under the infliction, and Miss Hall glad that he should be agreeable to her kind friend, Mr Gwynne, Freda was obliged to give up her plan of leaving them alone for the remainder of the evening, and to be content with resolving that they should at least have the following morning to themselves. This she effected, and was rewarded by a lusty squeeze of the hand from the gentleman, when he took his leave, which she afterwards declared to Miss Hall, would have made an Australian native scream. Mr Gwynne sent Mr Jones to meet the train in his carriage, and invited him to return as soon as he possibly could. It may, perhaps, be as well to anticipate some of the events of this story, and to say that in the course of three or four months, Mr Jones and Miss Hall were married. Soon after his return to London, Mr Jones was appointed brother curate to Rowland Prothero, recommended by his friend, the rector. He undertook this as temporary duty, because he was in expectation either of obtaining a living or of returning to Australia; Miss Hall was quite ready for either kind of work, feeling that, whether as the wife of a clergyman at home or abroad, she would be most thankful to be permitted to devote herself to her woman's part of missionary labour. Mr Jones had a small income as secretary to one of the London and Colonial religious societies, and was also engaged in work for the S.P.G., which, together with his curacy, and the small savings of twenty years abroad, enabled him to take and furnish a home for his wife, and gave them the prospect of comfort, if not of ease and riches. Their desires were very moderate, and their hopes fixed on objects beyond the general scope of vision; so that they were content to 'live by the day,' and trust for the rest. The world called them romantic and foolish for people of their ages; they 'knew in whom they believed,' and, 'having food and raiment, were therewith content.' Gladys had been installed in her offices of parcel lady's-maid, parcel school-mistress at the Park, nearly three months, when the wedding took place. She had largely contributed towards making Miss Hall's simple wardrobe and wedding gear, and was rewarded by being allowed to marshal the school children on the happy-day, as they lined the drive at the Park gates, on the going forth and return of the bridal party. She was, moreover, the one selected by the children to present Miss Hall with a handsome Bible in Welsh and English, in token of their gratitude and love for her. Mr Jones had been too much engaged in London to allow of his visiting Wales until two or three days before his marriage, during which time he had occasionally met, and spoken kindly to Gladys, and given her a book on Missionary subjects, which he had brought purposely for her, expecting to find her at the farm. He had also carried pleasant news of Rowland to Mrs Prothero, and frequently spoken of him to Mr Gwynne and Freda--of his earnestness in his profession, and of the love and esteem in which he was held by his rector and his flock. Freda felt very lonely when her dear Serena was gone. She had no one amongst her immediate neighbours for whom she cared much. The general round of country dinner-parties she had always found very dull, and the annual hunt week and assize balls she had never liked; so she found herself again thrown quite upon her own resources. As long as Colonel Vaughan had been in the country, she had taken an interest in everything; when he left, her ordinary pursuits--her riding, painting, music, garden--in all of which he had aided her, suddenly lost their charm. Her friend's marriage came about just when she wanted an object of interest, and when that was over she was thrown back upon herself. By degrees, however, a healthier tone returned to her mind, and she forgot the fascinating Colonel Vaughan, and recovered her interest in her house, school, dogs, birds, garden, and the thousand and one small objects that serve to make time pass cheerfully and happily in a country home. Above all, she became more and more interested in Gladys, and anxious to shelter her from the many dangers and temptations which she saw her peculiar beauty and position subjected her to. She soon found out that all the men-servants paid their devotions to her shrine, and that even the ancient and portly butler was not indifferent to her charms; but the simplicity and modesty of Gladys kept them all at a respectful distance, and the housekeeper told Miss Gwynne, that 'Reelly, she was quite a pattern in the servants' 'all, and it was a treat to see a young 'oman who knew how to keep the men off--not but the girls were as jealous of her as could be; but that wasn't to be wondered at, for none of 'em was made anything of when Gladys was near.' Even Mr Gwynne roused himself to make inquiries concerning Freda's pretty maid, which was quite the crowning feather in Gladys' cap.	{ "id": "15315" }
29	THE COUNTRY GENTLEMAN.	Plas Abertewey was a fine old country seat, that had been in Colonel Vaughan's family for generations. Miss Gwynne was not the only scion of the good old county gentry who was disgusted at seeing it in the possession of a son of old Griffey Jenkins, the miser. But so it was to be. Howel took the place, nominally for a term, but with the avowed intention of purchasing it, or the first place of any note that should be for sale in the county. He made liberal proposals to Colonel Vaughan's agents as regarded improvements and repairs, the house having been much neglected for some years; and in the course of a few months after his marriage with Netta, workmen of all kinds were employed in adorning Plas Abertewey for his expected arrival with his bride. This did not take place, however, until the following spring, by which time the house and grounds were in as fine order as money could make them. Howel sent down a person from London to superintend the work, and remained with Netta in Paris until it was nearly completed; then he brought her over to England, left her in London with his friends the Simpsons, and ran down into Wales, accompanied by Captain Dancy, who had been his companion during a great portion of his Paris trip. They remained only a few days, and then returned to town to superintend the purchase of furniture, plate, and the various appurtenances of a country establishment, which were duly despatched to the _chargé d'affaires_ in the country, and vigilantly guarded by Mrs Griffith Jenkins, who took up her abode at Abertewey for the time being. As bell-ringers do not pause to consider the cause and effect of the events they are ordered to commemorate, but rather think of the amount of money and liquid they are likely to receive for their labour, the chime of Llanfawr rang a merry peal when the future master and mistress of Plas Abertewey drove through the town. There was, moreover, a small show of fireworks on the occasion. Blue balls, crackers, rockets and the like blazed and hissed about to the no small danger of the thatched roofs of some of the houses. Mrs Griffith Jenkins undrew her purse strings on that day, and the cheering and shouting were great as the bride and bridegroom appeared. Howel bowed and smiled as all great men do on such occasions, and Netta laughed, and was proud. One of the blue balls made the fine pair of horses that drew Howel's new carriage take fright, but the London coachman showed the superiority of his driving by pulling them in' and the crowd shouted amain. Captain Dancy and Miss Simpson, who accompanied the pair, were duly impressed with the loyalty of Howel's subjects, and were not particularly shown the little shop to which he owed their sudden devotion. 'Jenkins, the miser,' was quite swallowed up in 'Howel Jenkins, Esq.,' and 'Netta Prothero, Glanyravon,' was engulphed in his wife. So goes the world. Shout on, little boys, for so will it be when you are in your turn big men, and 'adore the rising, rather than the setting sun,' as the French proverb hath it. Fortunately, Abertewey was in the parish of Llanfawr, and some seven or eight miles from Glanyravon, therefore Mr and Mrs Prothero knew nothing of the demonstrations in honour of their children. Mrs Griffith Jenkins received them, dressed in a new _moiré antique_, quite in baronial style, under the portico of their dwelling, and the proper complement of retainers was in the background. More shouts were heard from some of the immediate neighbours, who had gathered round the door to see the arrival; and as Netta alighted from her carriage, attired like a Paris doll, she felt that she was now a grand lady, and could conscientiously look down on Miss Rice Rice, and be on an equality with Miss Nugent. Howel gave some orders in a very commanding tone to the various lords-in-waiting, and then the door closed upon their majesties, and the admiring crowds saw them no more. It is no wonder that the world without Plas Abertewey was much engaged in talking of, and speculating on, the world within. Howel's horses, Netta's dress, Miss Simpson's father's baronetcy, Captain Dancy's regiment, Plas Abertewey's appointments, the footmen's liveries, the reputed wealth of the miser, even Mrs Griffith Jenkins' _moiré antique_, mourning ornaments and gold watch were variously remarked upon, and doubtless with great good nature and deserving approbation. We all know how we rejoice when our neighbours rise to wealth or eminence. There was not one breakfast-table within twenty miles of Abertewey, from that of my lord and my lady to Jim Davies and his wife, shoemakers, over which the arrival of Howel Jenkins, the miser, as he was called, according to his father before him, was not pulled to pieces, from the first sound of the bells to the last shout at his hall door. 'Shall we call?' were the words on the lips of all heads of families, generally settled by the said 'heads' driving in their very best equipages and gayest clothes, to pay the wedding visit to the reputed millionnaire and his pretty, elegantly attired wife. Money, as I have somewhat commonplacedly remarked elsewhere, is the master-key to most hearts, and Howel found that nearly all the hearts in his native county were opened by his wealth. The exceptions were principally those of his wife's family, and even in some of these he managed to turn the key. It was shortly after the arrival at Plas Abertewey that Owen and Gladys simultaneously left the farm, and we find the former on that same morning, standing at a little distance from this residence of his sister and Howel, surveying it, and ruminating on the family fortunes. 'Well done, Howel,' he said to himself; 'if money hasn't done something for you, I don't know for whom it has done anything. I declare I will try and make some myself, and come back and marry Gladys in spite of the world.' Then he began to ask himself, whether it was kind and brotherly to pass by his only sister's door without saying good-bye to her, and whether his father had any right to expect all her relations to give her up, because he chose to do so? His reflections were suddenly cut short by the appearance of Howel and another gentleman, bound, apparently, on a fishing expedition. 'Owen, come at last!' cried Howel, hastening up to him with great good will. 'Better late than never. I am very glad to see you, so will be Netta. Travelled early to hide your carpet bag, or whatever it is?' 'Knapsack,' said Owen, shaking his cousin's offered hand; 'I'm off to sea again.' 'A queer road to take; but you come to see us on your way, of course. Let me introduce you to Mr Simpson, Sir John Simpson's son. My cousin, Mr Simpson, my wife's brother. Owen nodded, and Mr Simpson bowed. 'We're going out fishing, but you'll find Netta--in bed, I'm afraid, but she'll be glad to see you anywhere. Go up the avenue, and let Netta know you've come. We shall be home to dinner at seven. Good-bye for the present.' Owen did not stay to consider, but walked past the handsome lodge, and up the drive, according to Howel's direction. 'Mighty condescending and very patronising, cousin Howel!' he soliloquised; 'but I will go and see how Netta gets on, and how your highness treats her.' He reached the house, and rang stoutly at the bell. A servant answered it, who was adjusting his coat just put on, he not having expected such early visitors. 'The back entrance is round the corner there, young man,' were his words on perceiving Owen, whose pride was greatly roused thereby. 'Tell Mrs Howel Jenkins that her brother, Mr Owen Prothero, is here,' said Owen, intending to electrify the man. But he did not succeed. The servants knew very well that their mistress's family was not of 'county rank,' and that its members were not upon terms with the Aberteweys, therefore had no very high opinion of them. He turned on his heel, and told a female servant to tell Lucette, the French maid, to tell her mistress that Mr Owen Prothero was at the door. In a few minutes the man reappeared, and, with a great increase of civility, asked Mr Prothero to walk into the breakfast-room, and said his mistress would be down as soon as possible. Whilst he was admiring the room and its costly furniture, and considering the tea service, a smart little French-woman came to him and asked him in French, whether he would stay to breakfast; as he knew something of the language he replied in the affirmative. Then appeared an equally smart and fascinating French valet, who begged to be allowed the honour of conducting Monsieur to a bedroom, to arrange his toilet. Owen laughed heartily and followed the man, who took up his knapsack daintily, and led him to a very handsome bedroom, where Owen brushed his hair as becomingly as he could, arranged his beard, and made himself as smart as his wardrobe would allow of his doing. He was, as we have before said, a very handsome young man, and sufficiently well mannered to pass muster anywhere. 'What is the next act, I wonder?' said he, as he found his way into the breakfast-room. He was quite taken aback as he entered, when he saw a pale young lady sitting in one of the windows, reading. He made his bow, she curtseyed, and said,-- 'Mrs Howel Jenkins' brother, I believe? My name is Simpson.' Owen bowed again, and not being of a shy turn, and having seen ladies of various degrees during his travels, began to make himself agreeable. In a few minutes, a little French fairy flitted into the room, with her hair off her face to display such eyes and complexion as are rare in all times; and muslins, laces, and ribbons so blended, as to set off a petite figure to the very best advantage. Owen was going to bow again, when a little affected laugh, and a 'Ma foi! he doesn't know me, Miss Simpson,' proclaimed the fairy to be his sister Netta. 'Owen, you naughty boy, not to know me,' the little thing continued, more naturally, running up to her brother, who took her, despite muslins, laces, and ribbons, almost up in his big arms, and kissed her. 'How you have rumpled me, Owen? did you ever see such a thing, Miss Simpson?' she cried, half laughing, half in tears, as she smoothed down the point-lace sleeves and collar. Just then a tall man entered, and Netta disengaging herself from Owen, who was on the point of kissing her again, and asking her what she had done to herself, simpered out an introduction between 'Captain Dancy and my brother, Captain Prothero.' 'Not quite that yet,' began Owen, anxious to disclaim the captaincy, when he was interrupted by the entrance of one or two other men, who were, in their turn, named to him as Sir Samuel Spendall and Mr Deep. Owen did not like their appearance and looked towards his really lovely little sister, to see how she received them. Her manners had a mixture of affectation and simplicity that was rather taking than otherwise. And Owen wondered how Howel could leave one so young and pretty amongst three men of the world, which he soon discovered his new acquaintances to be. True, Miss Simpson was with her, and in the middle of breakfast, to which, in due time, they sat down, another lady came upon the scene, by name Madame Duvet, who turned out to be the English widow of a Frenchman. She was young, handsome, but over-bold for the taste of a man who was in love with Gladys. She was at once taken with Owen's handsome face, and talked to him incessantly, whilst Captain Dancy seated himself near Netta, and devoted himself to her much more closely than Owen liked. However, he was very hungry, and managed to make a good breakfast. He heard Netta telling Captain Dancy that her brother had been at sea all his life, and knew nothing of the fashionable world; at which he thought the ham he was eating would have choked him, in his effort to repress a laugh. He longed very much to knock down one of the 'Jeames's,' who would stand gazing at him, and did so far betray his indignation, as to ask him, when he came behind his chair, whether he saw anything remarkable in his appearance, which so amused Madame Duvet, that she exclaimed '_Charmant! brava! _ you make me _crêver de rire_.' Owen was astonished at everything, but at nothing so much as at his sister. Netta had always aped the fine lady, and made the most of her few accomplishments; but now it was all like a fairy-tale, and the heroine was Netta, transformed by some fairy into a princess. By turns coquettish, affected, simple, languishing, accordingly as she feared she was too like her natural self--the Netta of the Farm was no more, and her representative was, to Owen at least, an anomaly. How she could have acquired such an amount of small talk, and such a mincing speech in nine months, was an enigma to him. London, Paris, the opera, the fashions, even the picture galleries, were alternately in her mouth; and she poured out tea and coffee, and laughed a silly laugh, much to her own satisfaction, and Owen's disgust, whilst all the men were looking at her; for assuredly she was very pretty. 'Owen,' she said, during a sudden pause in rather a noisy conversation, 'I hear Rowland is quite a fashionable preacher. Howel means to ask him down here, I believe. Miss Simpson went to hear him--didn't you, Miss Simpson?' This was drawled out, and Owen felt very much disposed to get up and shake his sister, as he had often done when she came from school with any new airs and graces. But he contented himself with saying,---- 'Rowly's a capital fellow, Netta, fach, and doing his best. Whether he's a fashionable preacher or not I don't know, but he kept us all awake at Llanfach one Sunday for half-an-hour, which is something.' 'Your brother is so amusing! so _naïf_! I die of him!' said Madame Duvet. 'Very original!' remarked Miss Simpson; 'I do like originality--' 'Then you must like Netta,' said Owen; 'for there was never any one of our family the least like her.' 'Oh yes! you are, about the eyes. _Malin! _' said Madame Duvet. After breakfast, Owen tried to get Netta a little to himself, but there were distant calls to make, and drives and rides to be arranged, which caused him to be unsuccessful in his efforts. So he fell to the lot of Mr Deep, who took him to see Howel's hunters and dogs, and all the other wonders of Abertewey. 'Deep by name, and deep by nature,' was Owen's reflection, after his morning with his new acquaintance. 'He has managed to get all my secrets out of me, one excepted; but he has not confided any to me in return. One thing I suspect, however, that he has a turn for horse-racing and betting.' Howel and Mr Simpson came home about six o'clock; and the whole party, with the addition of Mr Rice Rice, assembled at dinner. Howel had ordered his valet to see that 'Captain Prothero' was properly dressed; and, accordingly, Owen was obliged to put on a smart waistcoat and tie belonging to Howel, which greatly embellished his outer man, and gave him increased favour in the eyes of Madame Duvet and Miss Simpson. He was more astounded than ever when he saw his sister in her evening costume. 'What do you think of her, Owen?' whispered Howel, as he stood literally gazing at her before dinner. 'I can't exactly say,' was the reply; 'but she is no longer Netta Prothero of the Farm.' 'I should imagine not!' said Howel. 'Pray don't let us talk of farms here, Owen. I don't like conversation that smells of the shop.' 'Not even of the old place where we used to steal lollilops?' asked Owen, maliciously. Howel turned away for fear of being overheard, and devoted himself quite as much to Madame Duvet, as Captain Dancy still did to Netta; and Owen wondered on. Again he looked at Netta, as she sat curled up on a sofa, a mere child in appearance, but so pretty, in white, with some sort of cherry-coloured ornaments for dress and head, that no one could possibly have recognised her as the country belle of twelve months ago. 'Her own mother would not know her!' thought Howel. 'Poor mother, she would scarcely care for all this grandeur, though one can't help envying it a little. I will be off to California, and come home and buy a place, and see whether Gladys would not be as good a fine lady as Netta.' The dinner was grand; the servants were grand; all was grand to Owen's bewildered imagination. Madame Duvet made such very decided attempts to talk to him, however, that he was obliged to cease wondering, and to bring his usually versatile genius into play, in the light of all the grandeur. He got on so well with the lady, that Howel wondered in his turn, and after dinner told Owen that he verily believed if he played his cards well, he might make an impression on the pretty widow. 'One can do that, I should say, without any cards at all,' said Owen, showing his white teeth from amidst his big black beard. When the ladies had left the dinner-table, Owen began to gain some insight into the characters and pursuits of Howel's guests. He had not spent thirteen or fourteen years amongst men of all ranks and all nations, without having acquired a shrewd judgment, and a tolerable knowledge of mankind. The conversation turned at once upon hunting, racing, steeple-chasing, billiards, bets, and the like. It was evident that Howel, too, was well initiated into such matters. Mr Rice Rice asked him when the question of the hounds was to be decided, and Howel said that kennels were in preparation, and that he hoped to have a first-rate pack by the winter. There arose a dispute about a celebrated racer that Howel appeared to possess in London, and that was expected daily at Abertewey. Howel declared his intention of letting her run at the Carmarthen races. Captain Dancy, having heavy stakes on the mare, vowed it might disable her for the Derby, and words ran high; but Mr Deep interposed, and changed the subject to that of _rouge et noir_. They sat over the dinner-table till nearly eleven o'clock, by which time they were all more or less exhilarated. Howel's wines were good, his cellar was well stocked, and he was lavish of everything that might give him a reputation amongst the Welsh squires that surrounded him, many of whom still worshipped at the shrine of Bacchus. When they joined the ladies, Owen thought the conversation was rather too loud and boisterous. Captain Dancy alone was quite himself, and made Netta sing some little French songs to Owen's great amusement. After tea and coffee had been carried round, a card table appeared, and _vingt-et-un_ was proposed. The stakes were so high that Owen trembled for his small stock of wealth? but to his astonishment again, he found himself, at the end of the evening, a gainer of nearly five pounds, although he had been most moderate in his own stakes. He was struck with the eagerness of Madame Duvet and Netta, who entered into the game with all the avidity of accomplished gamblers. It was very late when they finished the game, and nominally retired for the night, but not late enough to prevent Howel, Captain Dancy, Mr Deep, and Sir Samuel Spendall from sitting down again to whist. Owen left them at it, not altogether satisfied with himself or his companions. The following day, Owen again tried to get some private conversation with Howel or Netta, but in vain. The breakfast was even later than the previous morning, as Howel did not go out fishing, and afterwards there were more distant calls to make, and Netta was engaged in preparing her dress with her maid for a dinner-party at Mr Rice Rice's, at which she desired to appear particularly grand. The gentlemen were playing billiards part of the day, and riding the rest, in neither of which amusement Owen joined. Madame Duvet did her best to amuse him, and succeeded very well, for Owen was far from insensible to the charms of beauty, and, in spite of Gladys, could not resist flirting a little, in his own matter-of-fact way, with a pretty woman. The three ladies, Captain Dancy and Howel, were the dinner guests at Mr Rice Rice's, the other gentlemen were invited for the dance in the evening. Young Rice Rice had given Owen a lame invitation the previous day, which he had declined; never having been in the habit of visiting him when at home, he did not choose to do so under Howel's countenance. Owen's astonishment was brought to a climax that evening when his sister appeared dressed for this, her first public appearance on the small stage of a country-neighbourhood, or, to speak more respectfully, county visiting. It was Howel's pleasure that she should make it in point lace and diamonds. Not even to Owen was it whispered that the lace was a wonderfully good imitation, or that the diamonds, instead of being of the first water, were first-rate paste; and no one suspected the deception. The great millionnaire, Howel Jenkins, could well afford to give his pretty wife the real jewels and lace, and had the credit of so doing; and as no one, save himself and the jeweller, knew that they were false, he thought himself a very clever fellow for gaining the reputation of unbounded liberality upon very small means. Be it said, however, that his own studs, pin and ring, were real. The French maid had eclipsed herself in Netta's toilet, and Owen felt that if she were not his sister, he must have fallen in love with her himself. The black roguish eyes sparkled like the brilliants she wore, and the complexion was scarcely rivalled by the roses she had in her bouquet. Howel looked really proud of her, and it is not surprising that he felt greatly elevated as he took the reins from the coachman and drove off in his fine new carriage, drawn by capital horses, and attended by liveried servants. His last whisper to Netta, before they entered Mr Rice Rice's drawing-room was, 'Keep up your consequence, and don't say, "Yes, indeed!" every minute.' He was determined to keep up his own consequence, and began at once by patronising everybody present. There were some of the county gentry who had demurred as to calling on the old miser's son, and who were astonished at the kind of tone he assumed. They, who had been gravely considering whether they could possibly shake hands with him, found themselves on a level with, if not beneath him, at once, by mere effrontery. There is some truth in the saying that, 'Accordingly as you think of yourself, others will think of you;' and impudence and riches combined, together with a certain amount of talent and personal appearance, can overcome vast worldly obstacles. Besides did he not bring an unmarried baronet with him--one of the very ancient family of Spendalls--and the son and daughter of a man of title, and a captain of the dragoon guards? to say nothing of that fashionable widow, reputed a fortune. And were there not plenty of young ladies, poor if proud, in the county, wanting partners, either for dancing or life, or both? After that evening, people sneered at home perhaps, but they called and invited and made much of the master and mistress of Plas Abertewey, forgetting or ignoring their origin. Netta, too, obeyed Howel's last injunction to the best of her ability. Her youth and beauty were greatly in her favour, and her affectation covered the shyness and awkwardness that she felt in being suddenly thrown amongst people upon whom she had formerly looked with awe. The Nugents were there, but the Gwynnes were absent, and she had the pleasure of feeling that she had as many, if not more, partners than the heiress, Miss Nugent, and was much more grandly dressed. As for Miss Rice Rice, she fell quite into the shade before her. Her old friend, Sir Hugh Pryse, was particularly attentive, and talked to her of Miss Gwynne; and Captain Dancy was as much devoted to her abroad as at home. Her head was quite turned, and nothing but the consciousness that Howel was present kept it on her shoulders at all; but the fear of a lecture for some mistake in manners kept her so much on her guard, that she got through the evening wonderfully, and achieved what Mme. Duvet called _un grand succès_. And Howel danced, and talked, and introduced his friends, and patronised everybody, much as if he had been a feudal monarch amongst his barons. Here and there might have been seen a suppressed smile, as one of the company whispered to another, 'Where is Mrs Griffey Jenkins to-night? What would old Griff, the miser, say to those diamonds? I wonder his very ghost doesn't appear?' but still money won its usual way. And when Howel's chariot came to the door, there were more surprised and admiring eyes fixed upon it from the bystanders without, than on that of any other of the assembled party. As Mrs Griffey Jenkins said when she heard of the evening gaieties,-- 'Deet to goodness, and my Howel's was grander than any one. I do answer for that. Now his is a beauty carriage and horses, and servants as grand as Queen Victoria's or Prince Albert's, for I did be seeing them in London myself.'	{ "id": "15315" }
30	THE PATRON.	Tuesday and Wednesday had passed quickly away, and Thursday brought to Owen amusements similar to those of the previous days; but no private intercourse with his relations. In the evening of his third day at Abertewey, there was a concert at the neighbouring town, huge bills of which had been posted up on the walls and houses of the said town, purporting that the entertainment was under the immediate patronage of Howel Jenkins, Esq. of Plas Abertewey, and his friends. Elegant little pink and blue programmes were scattered over that patriotic gentleman's tables, and he had used his eloquent language, and made great efforts to get together a large party for the occasion. It was principally a Welsh concert, he urged, and he considered it right to patronise native talent. There was the celebrated _Eos_, and the last representative of the ancient bards, and the best specimen of a Welsh harper, besides several respectable English singers, and he, for one, should muster as many supporters as he possibly could. He did so, accordingly, and with that spirit of liberality which characterised him when any popularity was to be acquired thereby purchased a great number of tickets, and distributed them amongst his servants and neighbours with majestic grace. He had managed to enlist a large party at Mr Rice Rice's the previous evening, some of whom were to dine at Abertewey, and to go thence to the concert; others to meet him and his friends there. Owen felt lost in the grandeur of that evening, and would have been quite forgotten but for Mme. Duvet, who was constant in her admiration of him. But it was amusement and wonder enough for him to watch Howel and Netta, quite _en prince et princesse_, receiving their guests, who, if not as yet of the aristocracy of the county, were of high respectability and good position in it. If the host and hostess were rather desirous of showing how grand they were, their dinner and wines were so good as to cover their efforts. What if their guests remarked, as guests will, gentle reader, when our backs are turned, that Howel was insufferably purse-proud and conceited, and his wife as affected and provincial as possible; they did not hear the friendly notices, and were well content to fill the concert room with their party, all in full dress, to the admiration of the townsfolk, and of Mrs Griffey Jenkins in particular. Howel had quite forgotten his mother in his general invitation and did not even see her for some time, seated in a prominent position, and making one of his own party, to all appearance. She had saved his character for filial duty by going where he would little have thought of placing her, and awaiting his arrival, as her pride impelled her to do. Owen spied her at once, and took Mme. Duvet to the seat next her, on her left; whilst on her right sat Mr Deep, and nigh to him, of all people in the world, Mrs Rice Rice, that staunch supporter of family dignity. Owen shook hands with Aunt 'Lizbeth, and introduced her to Madame Duvet and Mr Deep, after having asked them first of all whether they had seen her previously. 'I never had that honour,' said Madame Duvet, curtseying. 'I didn't be going to Abertewey since you was coming there, ma'am,' said Mrs Griffey, rising and curtseying, to the unspeakable diversion of Mrs Rice Rice and Mr Deep. The reader may remember that Mrs Jenkins was at Abertewey when Howel made his triumphant entry there, but the following morning he gave her to understand, as delicately as he could, that the idiomatic translations of the Welsh language which had been so refreshing in London, would be better in her native town than at Abertewey, and she departed accordingly. His ire may be imagined, when he suddenly heard the well-known idioms lavished upon Madame Duvet and Mr Deep, who were enjoying them a great deal more than the concert, which, being principally in the vernacular, was not so intelligible and far less amusing. Mrs Jenkins was in her glory. Never had Mrs Rice Rice been so condescending before. She and Mr Deep made themselves more agreeable than she had supposed it possible for such grand people to be, and she frequently glanced at Owen, as much as to say, 'And I am the person that your father turned out of doors!' Owen, on his side, was sorry that he had exposed her to the sarcasm that she so little understood, and talked to Madame Duvet to withdraw attention from her. As to Howel, his rising sun was obscured--his blushing honours were dimmed--his majesty, patronage, grandeur were lowered by the propinquity of his nearest of kin. In the midst of his county friends himself, he still felt that his mother was making herself ridiculous near at hand; whilst complimented and thanked for his patriotic support of native _cos_,[Footnote: Nightingales.] the native idioms rang in his ears, and he longed to annihilate them altogether. This on his right hand. On his left, Netta, looking literally like 'a rose in June,' and receiving the very marked attentions of Captain Dancy, on one side, and of Mr Rice Rice, junior, on the other. He scarcely knew which was most irritating, 'the idioms,' or her affected giggle. Trite but true is the proverb, 'There is no rose without its thorn;' and Howel was pricked severely by the thorns surrounding the rose of his first step into popularity. Between the acts, and between the songs, Mrs Griffey went on something in this sort,-- 'Indeet yes, sir! treue for you there. The Welsh is a splendit language. My son Howels--there he is to be proving it--do always say so. Ah! that's "The rising of the lark," I was singing that myself years ago. London! to be seure! Now there was singing I was hearing at the play. My son Howels did tak us to the play. I never was hearing or seeing the like in my life. Seure, the Queen Victoria or Prince Albert don't be dressing half as fine as the gentlemen and ladies I was seeing act. The Queen! Oh, Mrs Rice Rice, fach! Ma'am, I was disappointed! Just a bonnet no better than my doater-in-law's. What, sir! a crown? Not 'sactly a crown; but I was 'specting to see a queen different from other people. Hush! I do hear my son Howels cry, "Silence!" and they do be playing "Ap Shenkin." Not so bad that for Wales, Mrs Rice Rice. My son Howels do sing beautiful himself, and do play--Hush! look you at him. He don't like tolking in the music. He, he, he, sir! you do make me laugh. To be seure I don't mean to be marrying again, though men are so much for money. I am thinking you gentlemen 'ould be marrying your grandmothers for the beauty money! Not my son Howels, indeet! He don't be wanting money. He marry his cousin for love. Hush you! There's Pengoch beginning a Penyll! You don't be hearing anything like that in England. Ach a fi! my 'deet, I am sorry. "God save the Queen!" and it don't seem an hour since they began!' Mrs Jenkins stood up with the rest, and beat time emphatically Scarcely was the last verse of 'God save the Queen' finished, when Howel came up to his mother, and biting his tongue to keep in his ire, said-- 'Mother, I will see you safe first!' and without allowing her time to do more than make a curtsey to her companions, offered her his arm, and led her quickly down the room. He did not venture to speak to her, but nodding to one and another as he passed, said, 'I shall be back directly. I am just going to send my mother home first,' reached the door, and called for his carriage. It was close at hand, the hour for ordering the carriages being past; and he speedily put his mother into it. 'Drive Mrs Jenkins home, and return immediately,' he exclaimed. 'Which way, ma'am?' asked the servant. 'Go you down the street, then turn to the right, and the first house with a railing and steps, and a brass knocker,' said Mrs Jenkins, exulting as they drove off in her new dignity and importance. Howel, on the contrary, returned to the concert-room, cursing his folly for having settled in his native county, and wishing his mother anywhere else. Nevertheless, he received the thanks of the conductor of the concert with bland humility, and expressed his intention of using all his best efforts in behalf of his country and countrymen. Finally he assisted in cloaking and shawling the ladies, seeing them to their carriages, and bidding them condescending good nights. For himself, however, he had not a good night, being haunted with the demons of jealousy and discontent. As soon as Netta and he were alone, he addressed her in very different tones from those which he had called forth for the ladies of the concert-room. 'Netta, why do you let Dancy pay you such attentions?' he began, with a scowling brow and flashing eye. 'Why does Mme. Duvet let you pay her such attention?' was Netta's instant reply. Now Netta was too well pleased with herself, and the effect of her beauty on others, to endure being snubbed, and was very angry that Howel was not pleased also. 'Don't be a fool, Netta. You know Madame Duvet is doing all she can to catch Owen.' 'Oh! jealous are you? Well, there were plenty of other ladies who let you pay them attention; why was that I wonder?' 'I tell you what it is, Netta, I won't allow Dancy to devote himself to you as he does.' 'Then you had better tell him so, I ain't going to do it; he's your friend, and if he admires me, I think you ought to be proud of it.' 'You did nothing but flirt and giggle with him all the evening. What with you on one side and my mother on the other, I thought I must have left the room.' 'Giggle, indeed; I don't know what you mean, sir; you never eused to say I giggled.' 'Can't you say _used_, and not _eused_, you will never cease to be provincial,' 'Other folks are provincial, I think, besides me. If you said your own mother was provincial, it 'ould be true enough.' 'There again! if you are your own natural self, you leave out all your _w's_ directly; I wish you would be careful, Netta.' 'Well, so do the French. I declare I won't speak again to-night, that I won't, you cross, unnatural, unfeeling fellow; and all because you're jealous of Owen. Madame Duvet says he's the handsomest man she ever saw, and that his beard is enough to win any woman's heart.' 'You had better hold your tongue, I think,' said Howel, stifling a laugh at the idea of Owen's irresistible beard; 'you never say a word of sense.' 'And you never say a kind word,' said Netta, breaking down at that last attack, and beginning to cry. 'Now don't blubber, and let all the house hear you.' 'I wonder whether leaving out a _w_ is half as vulgar as to tell one's wife not to blubber. But I won't speak to you again. I wish I hadn't married you, I do.' 'I wish to heaven you hadn't.' At this Netta began to sob very much, and Howel softened somewhat, but not sufficiently to make any excuse for his conduct; and Netta went to bed, proud, indignant, and unhappy, and wishing herself back again at Glanyravon. The next morning, Owen remarked that Netta did not speak to Howel at all, and that she was very reserved and strange in her manner to Captain Dancy. The captain, however, took no notice of the change, but whilst he seemed to converse more than usual with Miss Simpson, anticipated all Netta's wants and wishes with most insinuating tact. Netta, with her changing colour, and half-pettish, half-shy manner, was still more attractive than Netta affected and silly. Owen thought that Howel felt this, for he went behind her chair, and put his hand on her shoulder, whilst he asked for some more sugar in his tea. Netta's lips pouted, but her eyes brightened as she said in a half whisper, 'You're sweeter than you were, Howel.' Howel excused the common-place allusion to the sugar, in consideration of the bright face that looked up at him, and so the storm lulled for the present. This was Owen's fourth day at Abertewey, and it was a facsimile of the second, with the exception that Mr and Miss Simpson and Mr Deep did not go to the dinner-party to which the rest went, at a neighbouring country house, so Owen had company at dinner, and was ordered by Netta to do the honours. Miss Simpson refused to play whist, and Owen declined billiards, so whilst Mr Deep got as much money as he could out of Mr Simpson, Owen devoted himself and his captivating beard to Miss Simpson. In the course of conversation that young lady informed him that she and her brother intended leaving Abertewey the following week, and that she supposed the rest of the party would soon follow for the Ascot Races, and she hoped Owen would join them; she was sure her papa and mamma would be very glad to see him. She also let out that her brother, Captain Dancy, and Howel had heavy bets on the different horses that were to run, and that she expected there would be great excitement. As to Mr Deep, nobody quite knew what he did, he was so very reserved and quiet. Owen stayed on at Abertewey day after day, he scarcely knew why. In the first place, he was very well amused, and liked his quarters. In the second, his new friends all liked him; the women for his good looks and open-hearted civility, the men, because he took his own course and did not interfere with them, and was a very amusing fellow besides. In the third place, he stayed on because he felt anxious about Howel and Netta and their way of beginning life. He had been a man careless of money himself all his days, but he had been, as the saying goes, no one's enemy but his own--he feared that Howel might turn out, not only his own foe but the foe of others, since he perceived that the propensities of his unmonied youth were strengthening and maturing in his monied manhood. He had no opinion of any man who would fleece another, and he saw that Howel and Mr Deep were preying upon the simple, conceited Mr Simpson, and the careless, lavish Sir Samuel Spendall. As to Mr Deep, he watched his opportunity of outwitting either of the four as it offered. Saturday came and passed, as usual, in visiting and gambling. A good many of the sporting men of the country called to see Howel's famous race-horse, Campaigner, in training for the St Leger, and to indulge in a little of the sporting gossip of the day, whilst their womankind indulged in more general, and equally intellectual, country gossip. Some of the young men stayed to dinner, and when Miss Simpson had duly played her waltzes, and Netta had gone through her French songs, _vingt-et-un_ was proposed. Owen took his customary place by Madame Duvet, and played his usual game. But he had not the luck of the previous evening, and soon lost the five pounds he then won, and very nearly the little he possessed besides. When he knew that he was within a few shillings of bankruptcy he said,-- 'I am very sorry to leave such agreeable society, but if I play any more I shall never get to sea. Look at my purse!' holding it up and shaking it, 'it is very nearly empty.' 'Luck will change,' said Madame Duvet. 'You shall go partners with me,' pointing to a large heap of money and counters. 'I should be only too happy if I could bring anything to the bank, said Owen; 'but I am too proud to be a penniless partner.' 'You need only bring yourself,' said Madame Duvet, lowering her voice, and giving such a glance from a pair of fine black eyes as few men could have withstood. Perhaps Owen would have yielded to it, for he was by no means a hero, had not a sudden vision of Gladys passed before his mind, followed by one of his mother, just as he had seen her when she bade him that last solemn good-night only the Tuesday in that very week. How the vision came he knew not, nor did he pause to ask; but it gave him strength to resist the temptation to begin regular gambling, a vice he had hitherto steadily avoided. 'No,' he said, with a merry laugh; 'I cannot afford to run into debt.' 'Mortgage those entailed farms of yours,' said Howel. 'I wouldn't mind lending you a trifle on them.' 'And I will lend you five pounds without a mortgage,' said Netta. 'Can't afford to borrow or mortgage,' laughed Owen. 'Besides it is nearly Sunday morning, and we must all break up directly,' so he slipped away from his seat, looked on for a few minutes, and when the party were again absorbed in their game, went to bed. 'Well,' he thought; 'I am not as particular as I ought to be, I know, myself; but to play cards into Sunday morning! I could not do this. What would my poor mother say of Netta if she knew it? I will have a serious conversation with her to-morrow, when I suppose she will have an hour to spare, and be off on Monday. I almost wish I had never come. That Madame Duvet, too! One cannot help paying her attention, and she is very handsome and agreeable; but even if there were no Gladys, she wouldn't suit me; and here am I almost making her believe--Pashaw! She don't care for me. What a vain fellow I am! But, I suppose, as Netta says, they admire my beard. All but Gladys, who won't even look at it, or me. I wonder what she would think of me in the midst of all these fine people, dressed up in Howel's London attire! At any rate I shouldn't be half as worthy of her good opinion as when I carried that unfortunate mash to the Alderney, which caused the rumpus with my father. How beautiful the girl looked, leaning upon that fortunate animal; and what a fool I made of myself on the other side of her! Well, I was never so happy at home before; and I know it isn't right to leave my father and mother; and I have never done any good all my life; and I, the eldest son, and very nearly thirty years of age! Poor uncle and aunt gave me an education, to very little purpose I fear; and I shall have to answer for the use I have made of it, just as those Sabbath-breakers downstairs will have to answer for profaning this holy day. Half of it is the force of example. Here is Howel leading Netta to destruction, just as Gladys might lead me to--heaven, I verily believe. Rowland used to argue with me about individual responsibility, and I suppose he was in the right of it.'	{ "id": "15315" }
31	THE PATRON'S WIFE.	The following morning, Netta was not well, and did not appear at the breakfast-table. Howel said she had a bad headache, and did not intend going to church. Breakfast was hurried over to prepare for a six miles' drive to church, and the carriage conveyed the two ladies and three of the gentlemen thither, resplendent with fashion and emblazoned prayer-books. Mr Deep did not go, and Owen determined to remain at home, in order to secure the desired conversation with Netta. Mr Deep, however, seized upon him first of all. It had not escaped that keen observer, that Howel had hinted the previous evening that Owen possessed property in reversion; which, indeed, he did, inasmuch as his father was a small landed proprietor, and had several farms of his own, descended to him from his father, and entailed upon Owen. Mr Deep was reading some racing calendar, and called Owen's attention to his brother-in-law's name in connection with the names of men of note on the turf. Also to his horse, Campaigner as being one of those entered for the Ascot races. Then he went very cautiously to work to see whether he could not induce Owen to bet; but he, holding up again his nearly empty purse, laughed his merry laugh, and said,-- 'I am not to be caught, Mr Deep. I hate horse-racing, and never laid a wager of any kind in my life. That is the only redeeming point in my character. Wild enough I have been, and roving all my life, but I never gambled. Excuse me now, as I must go and see my sister.' He went accordingly to Netta's room, and after knocking at the door, and hearing that she was still in bed, entered unceremoniously. He was at once struck with the difference between the Netta of the farm, in her little muslin night-cap, that he had often fairly pulled off, to get her to promise to leave the pretty white-curtained bed, and the lady of Abertewey, in lace and fine linen, reclining beneath satin drapery, in a room furnished most luxuriously. 'Well, Netta, I have you alone at last; and now, if your head is not very bad, we will have a regular old-fashioned gossip,' said Owen, stooping to kiss the pretty flushed face of the little sister he dearly loved, despite her follies. 'Did you stop at home for me, Owen? How very kind! I don't think any one else would,' said Netta. 'Oh, yes, many others would if it were necessary; but I wanted to have you all to myself. Now I know you have been longing to ask me a hundred questions, but have never got beyond "How are they all at home?" yet.' Netta blushed, and stammered out, as an apology, that she had never been at leisure one minute all the week. By degrees she began to talk of home and her parents, and Owen was glad to find that as she did so she returned to her old, natural self. He told her everything that had happened at Glanyravon since she left it, save and except what related to Gladys. He never even mentioned her name. Netta had various ebullitions of temper during their conversation and declared herself greatly aggrieved by her father's conduct. 'But it is just as well,' she said, 'for our positions are so different that we should never have got on comfortably. Howel is determined never to make up with father.' 'I am afraid he is not likely to have the option,' said Owen, gravely. 'But you should write and beg his pardon, Netta; you know you acted directly contrary to his wishes.' 'I think I would write, Owen, but Howel won't hear of it; he gets furious if I even name Glanyravon, and can't bear any of 'em except you.' 'Netta, I think you must use your influence to keep Howel from so much horse-racing and betting and card-playing.' 'He don't care for what I say, and goes in a passion when I advise him.' 'But surely you needn't play yourself as you do, and so late! Only think what my mother--' 'Nonsense, Owen. That would be very fine for Rowland; but you needn't take to lecturing. You never were a pattern brother or son either.' Owen felt his sister's words more keenly than she intended. 'You are right, Netta, but I hope to mend. I must go away to-morrow in order that I may begin. I mean to make some money this next voyage, and come home, and set up as a steady fellow and good son.' 'And marry Madame Duvet? Do you know she is regularly in love with you? and they say she has a large fortune in France.' 'There it may remain for me. But I wish you wouldn't play cards Sundays.' 'They all do it in Paris, Owen, and what's the harm? Besides, it was only Saturday night; and we never do play Sundays, as you will see to-day. By-the-bye, what's gone with that Methodistical, lack-a-daisical Gladys? Is mother as mad about her as ever?' 'She saved your mother's life when there was no one else to nurse her, and is an angel, if ever there was one!' Netta opened her large black eyes very wide, and burst out laughing. ' _Ma foi_! is that the last? Well, indeed! I never should have suspected her of making an impression. But she's deep enough for anything. How would father like that? Irish beggar against Abertewey! Come, Howel's better than that any day. 'Handsome is that handsome does,' said Owen, getting very red. 'And Gladys has done well ever since she's been at Glanyravon by every one belonging to us, not excepting yourself.' 'Very much obliged to her, I am sure,' said Netta, suddenly sitting up in bed, and forgetting her headache. 'She needn't trouble herself about me. I fancy we are never likely to cross one another again, unless she chances to come a-begging to Abertewey, and then perhaps--' 'And then perhaps you would give her a penny and send her on to starve. Oh! Netta, Netta, how were you ever my mother's daughter? But once for all, Netta, I will never hear one word spoken against Gladys. _I_ at least am thankful that I still have a mother, and I owe it to her.' 'Dear me! you needn't be in such a huff directly, Owen. How was I to suppose you were in love with an Irish--I beg your pardon, with Miss Gladys O'Grady, County Kilkenny, Ireland? A very pretty name, to be sure! But if you don't go away I shall never be dressed by the time they come from church. There, go like a good boy. I 'ont offend you any more.' 'I will go as soon as you have told me what you and Howel did in Paris. I seem to know nothing of your proceedings for ages past.' 'It was dreadfully dull there at first, and I thought I should have died of it. I quite longed to be at home again. Howel was a great deal out, and I was alone; but then he gave me a singing master, and a French and dancing mistress, and made me work as hard as if I was at school again. In about a month Captain Dancy and Mr Simpson came over, and it was much more pleasant. We used to go to the opera and the play nearly every night, and Captain Dancy introduced me to Madame Duvet, and she introduced me to a great many other ladies, English and French, and we had a good deal of fun. I went to balls and parties, and picture galleries, and the Champs Elysées, and all the fashionable places.' 'But where did Howel meet with Mr Deep?' interrupted Owen. 'Oh! he used to be with him from the first. They are very old friends, Howel says, and have known one another for years; he is a very fashionable man, an attorney by profession. Simpson says that the races couldn't go on without him.' 'I should think not,' said Owen, smiling; 'at all events, Mr Simpson's races would be at a stand still without him. Did you, did Howel play much abroad?' 'Yes, I learned from Madame Duvet? and I think Howel and Mr Deep and the other gentlemen used to play all day. You know they have nothing else to do in Paris. It would be very dull there without cards.' 'Poor Netta! is that what you learned with your little bit of French?' 'I assure you, Owen, Monsieur Letellier and a dozen other Frenchmen said I had a beautiful accent, and that they would have thought I was born in Paris.' Owen laughed heartily, and Netta was offended, and told him to go away. Just as he was in the act of obeying, Howel appeared. 'What! not up, Netta? How's the head? Owen, there's a letter for you. Llanfach post-mark, and from a lady? such a neat, pretty, ladylike hand! How sly you are to have lady correspondents, and not let us know who the charmer is!' 'Let me see the direction,' said Netta, trying to get the letter from her brother. 'No, no,' said Owen. 'I must keep my secret for the present when it is all settled you shall know.' 'It makes you blush, however,' laughed Howel. 'Is it Mary Jones, or Anne Jenkins, or Amelia Lewis, or Miss Richards, doctor, or Jemima Thomas--or--or--perhaps it is Gladys. Ha, ha! do you know, Howel, Owen's last is mother's Irish girl, Gladys?' 'Really?' sneered Howel. 'My mother tells me that she ran away from Glanyravon, and report says with somebody we know of. But report was false as usual; and she turns up again as Miss Gwynne's lady's maid. Miss Gwynne is about as eccentric as the rest of the clique, and I wish her joy of her bargain. The girl is a beauty, certainly, but--' 'Hush, Howel!' cried Netta; 'Owen was nearly boxing my ears about her just now.' 'Not exactly, Netta,' said Owen, smothering rising anger, and looking very red; 'but I won't hear a word said against her either by man or woman. I am going to read my letter now, and you are going to get up, so I won't stop here any longer,' and Owen left the room. He went at once to his own bedroom, where he hastily broke open the letter Howel had given him, and read as follows:-- 'GLANYRAVON PARK, _May_----. 'SIR,--I hope you will excuse my boldness in writing to you; but having heard that you are at Abertewey, I take the liberty of doing so, to tell you that your leaving home has made us all very unhappy. Oh! Mr Owen, if you would only go back and see your dear mother and honoured father, and learn how lonely they are without you, I think you would give up the sea, or at least remain with them for some time. If you would write to the master, or say a few gentle words to him, he would overlook your going to see your sister, I am almost sure; and, indeed, it breaks my heart to know that I was the cause of your going away so suddenly, after you had been so long at home, and so good to your parents. 'Then, dear Mr Owen, you, who have been always so kind to me, a poor orphan wanderer, and beggar at your father's gate, do, I pray you, add this one favour more to the many you have done me, and return to your parents, to take leave of them at least before you go away. Hoping you will forgive my writing to you on this subject, believe me to remain, Mr Owen, your obedient and grateful servant, GLADYS O'GRADY.' When Owen had read this letter twice, he devoutly kissed it, and exclaimed,-- 'This favour, Gladys! ay, and a thousand more, if you will only write to me, and let one little "_dear_" slip in unawares every time you ask one. I suppose I had better write to father to-day, and follow my letter to-morrow.' Owen sat down at once, and wrote the following brief epistle:-- 'MY DEAR FATHER,--If I have offended you in any way, I am very sorry. I didn't mean to do so, and shall return to-morrow to ask pardon in person; but, remember, I am just as much in love with Gladys as ever, and don't mean to curry favour about her. With best love to mother, I am, your affectionate son, OWEN.' That day at luncheon Owen announced his intention of leaving Abertewey the following morning. 'To see the fair lady who wrote that neat note?' said Howel. 'Probably so,' replied Owen. 'Where are you going? We shall miss you dreadfully,' said Madame Duvet, with an entreating glance. 'I fear we must all leave on Tuesday or Wednesday,' said Miss Simpson: 'at least if you still intend going to London with us, Madame Duvet. I have had a letter from home, positively refusing any further extension of leave, and my brother promises to return with me.' 'We may as well all go together, then,' said Captain Dancy, 'as I must be in town this week; and Deep goes up on Tuesday. When are you coming, Jenkins?' 'Only in time for Ascot. I cannot leave home until to-morrow week, and shall probably only remain the race week. Mrs Jenkins is not going up, and I shall not like to leave her long alone. Owen, you must come over and see her when I am away.' 'I think you had better stay at home, Howel. You will run less risk in taking care of Netta than you will at Ascot.' 'Thanks for your advice, but I know my own business best.' 'I beg your pardon, Howel, I meant no offence. But although I am going home, I don't know how long I may stay there. Perhaps shall be off to sea in a few days.' 'I will use your own words,' said Madame Duvet, 'and say better stay at home, and take care of--let me see--yourself, I suppose. You will run less risk than at sea.' Owen laughed, and said he would not reply in Howel's words, as he was not sure that he knew his own business best. But he did not add that he should like to take care of Madame Duvet as she wished him to do. Neither did that afternoon and evening at Abertewey improve Owen's opinion of its inmates. French novels and betting-books were their sermons, and he longed to take his poor little sister Netta away from the contamination of such society. But she came downstairs after luncheon was over, gay and bright in dress and person, and ready for any amount of frivolity. Her countenance clouded over, when she heard how soon the party was to be broken up; but when Howel assured her he should be only a week absent, and that he would take her to town in June, it cleared again. Owen took his leave of Abertewey the following morning. Netta whispered 'Give my love to mother,' and had a very large tear in her black eye, as he walked away, the remembrance of which often haunted him in after days. Howel told him to come again whenever he liked, and accompanied him as far as the lodge on his homeward journey. When he reached Glanyravon, he found his mother prepared to receive him with joyful love. His father came in soon after his return, and greeted him as he expected, with a very wrathful lecture, which he bore patiently, and to which he replied as follows:-- 'Thank you, father; I am much obliged to you for all your abuse, but I don't think I deserve it. As I am of age, and a few years past that period, you must let me have a will of my own.' 'I think you have always had one,' roared the farmer. 'Yes, but not at home, father. I was obliged to run away to get it. But now I mean to stay at home if you will let me. Gladys is gone away, so I don't stay on her account.' 'I'm not seure of that. You never stayed on ours.' 'Well, I will now. But I can't promise to give up Netta. I've had enough of Abertewey, and don't mean to go there any more as far as I can see at present, and that's all I can say about that matter. As for Gladys, I suppose I must get her consent and yours to marry her, and when I've got them you won't object, I suppose?' 'I think you'd best go off to sea again. I don't want any agreements made here.' 'I am not going to make any agreements, but as I am your eldest son, and the only one able and willing to stay at home and help you and mother, I do not see why you should wish to send me off to sea again, now that I really would be of use to you. I know that I have not been what I ought to have been to you hitherto, and my desire is to make up for the past as well as I can. So, father, you had better take me whilst I am in the humour, and see what you can make of me. Hit the nail while it is hot, and don't discourage me at first starting, or I shall never get on. You know I'm very shy, and want some one to lend me a helping hand. If you're not too hard upon me you may make something useful of me yet.' Owen put his hand on his father's shoulder, as he wound up his speech, in a coaxing, boyish way, that had always proved irresistible. The honest farmer pished and pshawed, and tried to get into a fresh passion, but meeting Owen's saucy eyes, fairly broke down. 'I tell you what it is, Owen, you're a regular scamp, and always were; but you know better than any of 'em to come over me, so--now, don't be a fool, mother! Just because the good-for-nothing young scoundrel promises to stay at home you must begin to cry. Name o' goodness hold your tongue, and don't be coaxing and kissing me, and all that nonsense. He 'out keep his promise a month, you shall see.' 'So she shall, father, and you and I will shake hands upon it, and I'll be a good boy, and never be naughty any more.' Father and son shook hands, and mother and son embraced, and future chapters will show whether Owen kept his word.	{ "id": "15315" }
32	THE MAN OF THE WORLD.	Two or three months passed, and no particular event happened either at the park or farm, and summer came round again. Gladys was now established at the former, and Owen at the latter, but although they had seen one another frequently at church or at a distance, they had scarcely spoken since they parted on the evening of their remarkable meeting in the cow-house. Gladys scrupulously avoided Owen, and all his endeavours to fall in with her were fruitless. Colonel Vaughan was again at Glanyravon, and Freda was in buoyant spirits. So, indeed, were her neighbours, the Nugents,--Miss Nugent in particular. She was to be of age in a few days, and grand preparations were making to celebrate the event. On the morning on which we take up our Glanyravon narrative Miss Nugent is inflicting herself upon Miss Gwynne, who longs to tell her to go away, but is too polite to do so. 'You know, Freda,' she says, 'I have been longing to be of age for yearth. Mamma ath been tho thrict, and kept me tho clothe, that I never dared to thpeak to a gentleman. Now I can do ath I like.' 'And what will you have to say?' asked Freda, bluntly. 'I never hear you venture upon many topics, when you have an opportunity.' 'Oh, Freda! there are tho many thingth.' 'Just tell me one or two.' 'Let me thee. Ballth and contherth, and the opera when I go to London, and--and--muthic--' 'Is that all?' 'You are tho tirethome, Freda; of courthe there are other thingth, but one cannot think of them all at onthe. Every one ithent tho clever ath you. Colonel Vaughan thaid I talked quite enough for any young lady. Gentlemen didn't like ladieth who talked too much.' 'Indeed! Where was your mamma when he said that?' 'Oh! the didn't hear him. Do you know I think the liketh Colonel Vaughan, and ith jealouth of me. He thaid he would come down when I came of age, and tho he did, you see, Freda.' 'To your mamma, or you?' 'To me quite alone. But you needn't look tho croth and fierthe, Freda. I couldn't help hith being polite to me, and paying me complimenth.' 'What compliments?' 'Oh! I can't tell you, he thaid so much about my lookth, that I am thure he made me bluth.' 'Did you believe him?' 'Yeth; and I think he liketh me better than mamma.' 'Do you think there is any one else in the world besides your mamma and yourself?' 'Well, yeth, of courth.' 'Then why don't you sometimes talk of some one else? Do you like Colonel Vaughan, for instance?' 'Oh! I never thaw any one in my life I like tho much, except Rowland Prothero. He ith younger. Mamma thaith--' 'There again, Wilhelmina!' 'I forgot--you are tho quick, Freda. Don't you like Colonel Vaughan?' 'Pretty well sometimes.' 'What a colour you have, Freda. You thouldn't draw tho much. I with I had a tathte for drawing. Colonel Vaughan drawth tho well!' 'What can his drawing well have to do with your drawing?' 'He would look over my drawing then ath he doth yourth, Freda. He thaith you are very clever. But you mutht be nearly five-and-twenty, Freda; and he thaith no woman ought ever to be more than twenty-one,' 'When did he favour you with that remark? I think I once heard him say twenty-five was the most charming age of all.' At this part of the conversation the subject of it entered the room, and whilst Freda's colour rose higher and higher, and she stooped more closely over her drawing, Miss Nugent got up and greeted him with great delight. Freda made up her mind not to speak, that she might listen to the conversation that ensued. 'Are all the preparations progressing, Miss Nugent? What are we to do to celebrate the great event?' asked the colonel. 'There ith to be an oxth roathed for the poor people, and tea on the lawn, and a ball in the evening, you know, colonel.' 'Oh, yes, I am looking forwards to that, and to the first dance. Remember you promised me.' 'Oh, yeth, I am thure of plenty of partnerth.' 'I should imagine so. We men must have very bad taste if we let you sit down. Did you walk here this morning?' 'No, I rode. The hortheth are taken round. I have been here a long time with Freda. It ith thuch a nice morning, ithn't it, Colonel Vaughan?' 'Delightful! What do you mean to do when you are your own mistress? I quite fancy how grand you will feel when you have struck the magic hour.' 'I darethay I thall be jutht the thame, unleth I get married.' Freda glances up, and perceives a smile of amusement on Colonel Vaughan's lips, and the usual calm inanity on Miss Nugent's handsome features. 'That will depend on yourself, I am sure,' said the colonel. Freda looks again, and sees the colonel's magnificent eyes fixed on the young lady, who returns his glance, and simpers out,-- 'I darethay it will.' Colonel Vaughan turns suddenly, and encounters Freda's glance. 'How does the drawing get on Freda? Capitally! What a sky! quite artistic.' This is said whilst looking over Freda's shoulder, but she does not respond to the remark. 'I wath jutht thaying I with I could draw. It mutht be thuth a nithe amuthement.' 'Very. How is Lady Mary, to-day? I am ashamed to say I forgot to ask for her.' 'Very well, thank you. The thaid you promithed to come over and help to arrange the decorationth. I hope you will.' 'Thank you, yes. Perhaps Miss Gwynne will ride over with me to-morrow; will you, Freda?' 'I am engaged to-morrow,' said Freda shortly. 'You will come at any rate, if Freda won't?' said Miss Nugent; 'the alwayth thayth the ith engaged when we athk her. Now, don't be engaged on Thurthday. I muth go now; will you be tho kind ath to ring for the hortheth, Colonel Vaughan?' The horses were ordered, and the colonel assisted the young heiress to mount. She looked remarkably well on horseback, and even Freda was obliged to allow that she and her grey mare would have made a fine equestrian statue. She saw Colonel Vaughan look at her, and even watch her down the drive. When he returned to the drawing-room, he said,-- 'What is the matter, Miss Freda? Have the domestic deities been adverse this morning? I am afraid you are very--cross,' 'Thank you, Colonel Vaughan. I am not at all--cross.' 'Have I had the misfortune to offend you?' 'You? by no means. But I do not wish to assist in any of the Nugent decorations. I am not so fond of the family as you may imagine; Lady Mary and Miss Nugent are less than indifferent to me. Lady Mary is a mere manoeuvrer, that no straightforward person could like; and Miss Nugent is a mere handsome wax figure, with such clever machinery inside, that she can literally say the words, "mamma thaith." I have heard of a doll who could say "mamma," but she is still cleverer.' 'Colonel Vaughan bit his lips, knit his forehead, but smiled. 'You are severe upon your neighbours, Freda.' 'Do you admire them, then? do you think Miss Nugent altogether charming? or will she be perfect in your eyes the day after to-morrow?' 'If perfection consists in being a beauty and an heiress, I need not go away from Glanyravon to seek one, Freda.' 'Do you stereotype your compliments? I hear that you pay them wherever you go, and I hate compliments, particularly from people whose good opinion I value. Besides, I am neither a beauty nor an heiress, and to be complimented in almost the same words as Miss Nugent is too contemptible.' 'You do not suppose that I class you together, Freda?' 'I am thankful to say that you cannot do that, Colonel Vaughan, at least if I know myself at all; but, after all, I may be infinitely her inferior.' Freda got up from her drawing with a very flushed face. She knew that she had said more than she meant to say, and that Colonel Vaughan was scrutinising her with his calm, collected mind and penetrating eyes. 'I am going out now, and you promised to ride with papa, I think,' she said abruptly. 'But you must not go until you have told me how I have displeased you,' said Colonel Vaughan, rising and detaining her. He had such a power over her that he always wormed her thoughts out of her. 'I did not like to hear you saying what you did not mean, to Miss Nugent,' said Freda, as if she were obliged to make a confession; 'and I think it beneath a man like you to pay frivolous compliments to a girl you must despise.' 'Oh, is that all! I make a point of complimenting handsome girls, _pour passer le temps_; it is the only way of getting on with half of them. You must forgive me this once.' Freda looked at him, and even he, clever as he was, could not tell whether her glance expressed pity, contempt, or love. She turned away, and left the room without speaking; he made another movement to detain her, but she was gone; his thoughts were as follows:-- 'Charming girl! yes, she is charming: of a truthful, noble, trusting nature; still too _prononcée_ for a woman. I scarcely think I love, much as I must admire that sort of girl; and as a wife, I should be afraid of her. Yet she provokes me, interests me. She is jealous of those Nugents, and if she doesn't take care, they will cut her out, mother and daughter, with their manoeuvres and wax; and she will be heiress of Glanyravon no longer. Better the waxen heiress, Miss Nugent, with thirty thousand pounds in possession in some thirty-six hours, than the iron heiress, Miss Gwynne, with Glanyravon _in futuro_. 'Moreover, the one may be moulded into any shape one pleases--the other must have her own opinion, and her own way, unless a man beat her into subjection. Certainly, few people were ever more fortunately, or perplexingly placed, than I am just now. 'Between two young women, handsome, rich, of good family; if I mistake not, in love with me, and to be had for the asking. But if I married Freda, Mr Gwynne would marry Lady Nugent directly; and then one could tell what would become of the property. If, on the other hand, I were to marry Miss Nugent, I should incur the utmost contempt of which Miss Gwynne is capable, and should not wholly esteem myself. But why am I thinking of marrying at all? Because I am forty years old, and found a grey hair in my whiskers yesterday; because I am tired of an unsettled life, and should like to clear off the old place, and end my days there; and because, after all, a married man has a better position than a single one. If that girl Gladys were in the place of either heiress, I would not hesitate a moment. I declare she would grace a coronet; no wonder all the young men round are in love with her. And yet, meet her when I will, I can scarcely get more than 'yes,' and 'no,' out of her. 'It is utterly impossible she can be what she seems, or is supposed to be. I never saw more thoroughly aristocratic beauty in our most aristocratic circles. Miss Nugent is as handsome as a woman can well be, in form and feature; but her eyes are like two frozen pools, whereas this Gladys, are literally two deep blue lakes with stars shining into them, or out of them, or something or other that a poet would describe better than I do. Well, what a fool I am! "A dream of fair women," in my fortieth year, just as I dreamt of them in my sixteenth. The Fates must decide for me, only I wish they would clear up the mystery that hangs over that girl, and give her Miss Nugent's thirty thousand pounds.' Such were the thoughts that rushed through Colonel Vaughan's mind, as he sat, apparently looking at Freda's drawing in the place that she had vacated. We have unveiled a portion of his mind, because he is too good a tactician to unveil it himself. It is needless to say that this fascinating man, who has that nameless power which some men possess of making all women love him, has himself no heart to bestow on any one. Beyond the gratification of the moment, he is totally indifferent to all the consequences of his powers. He is not a bad man, he would not do anything that the world--his world, at least--would consider dishonourable; but as to reflecting upon the cruelty of inflicting wounds, never to be healed, upon the hearts of young ladies--why, he would as soon reflect upon the wounds he gave an enemy in the battle-field. He considers Cupid as fair game as Mars, and thinks that if women will be weak, and if he is irresistible, it is no fault of his, but rather their and his misfortune. Young ladies! the vulgar saying that a woman should never give her heart to a man until she is asked for it, is, like many vulgar sayings, a good one. Colonel Vaughan is the type of a class amongst which all are liable to be thrown; and although men of his talent, knowledge of the world, and apparent sincerity are rare, you may each of you meet with one such. If you do, beware of falling in love with him until he plainly tells you that he is in love with you, and asks if you are willing to marry him. Colonel Vaughan leaves the drawing-room in search of Mr Gwynne, humming a little Scotch air, the _refrain_ of which is 'and troth I'll wed ye a,' a thing he has often wished he could actually do. He finds Mr Gwynne in his library, and reminds him of the promised ride. The horses are ordered, and they are soon trotting down the drive. As if by mutual consent, they take the turn that leads to Pentre, Lady Mary Nugent's place. It is about a mile from Glanyravon, and beautifully situated on a hill that commands a fine prospect of dale, wood, and river. The handsome mother and daughter are at home, and hail the arrivals with great glee. As Lady Mary is not at all certain that Colonel Vaughan's attentions are not exclusively meant for her, she divides her civilities with a charming tact between the two gentlemen, and looks so captivating whilst she does so, that the colonel wishes that her statue-like daughter had a little of her animation. Everything that art and taste can devise is collected to adorn the ladies and their abode, and if nature is lacking within doors, she is profuse in her gifts without. There is nothing worth recording in the conversation; if Colonel Vaughan had thought it over afterwards, he would probably have laughed at the platitudes he had uttered, and wondered why people paid morning visits. The coming of age was a grand topic, and the colonel promised to go again the following day, and 'help in the decorations.' When the gentlemen took their leave, Mr Gwynne proposed a ride through his plantations, which he was improving and enlarging. They went accordingly. On their way they stopped at a small farm to inquire for one of Mr Gwynne's tenants, who was dangerously ill. Mr Gwynne dismounted, and as he entered the house, Gladys came out; she curtseyed as she passed Colonel Vaughan, who said,-- 'How is the invalid, Gladys? I take it for granted you have been to see him.' 'Yes, sir, Miss Gwynne sent me with some jelly. He is better, I hope?' 'And are you going home now?' 'Yes, sir.' 'Stay one moment; will you give the poor man this half-crown when you see him again?' Gladys approached, and took the half-crown, but with it there was half-a-sovereign. 'The rest is for yourself, to do what you like with,' added the colonel, in a low voice. 'Thank you, sir, but I never take money,' said Gladys, leaving the gold in his hand, 'I do not need it.' 'Give it to the poor, then,' said the colonel, letting it drop, and looking annoyed. 'Certainly, sir, if you wish it; I will tell Miss Gwynne, and she will know to whom to give it.' 'By no means--I mean it for you.' 'Sir, you will excuse me, I would rather not,' said Gladys, curtseying again, and hastening on. Colonel Vaughan called to a boy who was near, and told him to pick up the money and give it to him. 'How often does that young lady come here?' he asked. 'Almost every day, sir,' was the reply. 'At what time?' 'In the afternoon, sir, from three to five, or thereabouts.' 'Goes back in time to help Miss Gwynne dress for dinner,' thought the colonel; 'what a lovely face it is! And what grace of movement.' He watched Gladys cross the farm-yard, and disappear in the plantations, through which there was a private path to the house. Mr Gwynne and he passed her again as they rode on, and she curtseyed once more, Mr Gwynne nodding to her kindly as she looked at him. 'Who _is_ that girl, Mr Gwynne?' 'Oh! my daughter's maid, I believe. A very pretty, modest young woman, and all that sort of thing. Freda is very fond of her.' They struck into another path, and Colonel Vaughan saw no more of Gladys that day, though he peeped into various stray corners of the house in the hope of doing so. Moreover, he found Freda captious and cross, and particularly annoyed at his and her father's visit to Pentre. He punished her by playing chess with her father nearly all the evening, and leaving her to a variety of reflections that were anything but satisfactory to her.	{ "id": "15315" }
33	THE TEMPTER.	'I particularly wish you to go, Gladys, and there will be plenty of time. He was worse when I saw him yesterday, and I promised to send you to-day to read to him, and take him some wine. I shall not want you till five, and my dress is quite ready. They dine at half-past six, and the evening party are invited for nine, I believe.' This was said by Miss Gwynne to Gladys, at about half-past two o'clock, on the day of Miss Nugent's festivities. 'Very well, ma'am,' said Gladys, 'I will make as much haste as possible.' 'Do you know where Colonel Vaughan is, Gladys?' asked Miss Gwynne. 'I heard some one say, ma'am, that he and Mr Gwynne had walked to Pentre, to see the dinner on the lawn.' 'Oh! By the way, would you have liked to have gone to see these said diversions? If so, I can send some one else with the wine.' 'Oh no, thank you, ma'am. I would much rather walk to see poor Lloyd.' 'Then you had better make haste.' Gladys was soon on her way, through the wood, to the farm mentioned in the last chapter. She thoroughly enjoyed her walk on that lovely July day, and thought she had never heard the birds sing so sweetly before. In truth, Gladys had not been so happy since her sorrows as she was now. She felt independent, and placed in a position where she knew her exact duties. She devoted herself and her time wholly to Miss Gwynne, and was repaid, not only by regular wages, but by kindness, and even affection from her mistress. There was increased colour on her cheek, brightness in her eyes, mirth in her smile, elasticity in her step, and life in her whole being as she entered the cottage whither she was sent. She found her patient better, and having given him some wine, read to him, and helped his wife to make his bed. She was preparing to leave the farm, when Owen made his appearance. He came, ostensibly to see the sick man, but prefaced his visit to him by shaking hands with Gladys, and talking to her. When she left the house, he followed her into the yard. 'I have caught you at last, Gladys. You always run away from me as if I were a monster.' 'No, Mr Owen, you are mistaken.' 'Then why don't you come and see us oftener?' 'Because I have a great deal to do, sir; and I do not think Mr Prothero wishes to see me.' 'You thrive upon your absence, Gladys. I never saw any one look so much better.' 'How is the dear mistress, Mr Owen? and your father? and Lion? and the cows? and--and--' 'Not so fast, Gladys. Come and see. They are all quite well. And the Alderney is my particular charge.' Gladys blushed and smiled. 'You see I came home because you told me, and am as steady as old Time. Don't I look so? I am going to shave off my beard--do you approve?' 'No,' said Gladys, laughing. She scarcely knew why she felt more at ease with Owen in her present than in her past position. 'Then I won't do it. Did you hear that I was going to be married to Miss Richards, Dr Richards' daughter?' 'Yes, sir. I was told so.' Why did Gladys blush so very much more than before, and say the 'sir' so stiffly? 'Then you may deny it, for it is not true. I have not changed, Gladys, since--do you remember the Alderney?' Gladys' smile said that she did. 'But I am on parole, both to you and my father. I am quite ready to break it with your leave.' 'I must go, Mr Owen--Miss Gwynne will be waiting for me. Will you give my duty to the dear mistress?' 'I will take your love to her, Gladys, and keep half of it. May I walk with you?' 'If you please not, Mr Owen. I would rather not.' 'Are you happy? just tell me this.' 'Very--very. Miss Gwynne is so good. I can only be happy. Good-bye, Mr Owen.' 'Good-bye, dear Gladys,' said Owen, pressing her trembling hand that she held out to him, and opening the farm-yard gate for her to go out. As Gladys hurried on with a light heart and light step, she little thought that those kind eyes which had looked so lovingly at her were clouded with the mists of jealousy in less than five minutes after she had left the farm. She could not guess that the boy who had picked up the half sovereign for Colonel Vaughan would give Owen the history of the same, and would tell him that Gladys had dropped it, but that he was pretty sure she had more money in her hand. Unconscious of anything but sunshine above and within, she hastened on, thinking of Owen, in spite of her resolution not to think of him--a resolution she was making and breaking from morning till night. Her thoughts were turned into another channel, however, by the appearance of Colonel Vaughan, who suddenly came upon her from one of the many cross-paths in the wood. She curtseyed slightly, and was about to pass him, but he turned and walked with her. 'Gladys,' he began, 'I wish to know why you refused the money I offered you yesterday.' 'Because, sir, I did not think it right to take it,' answered Gladys, promptly. 'Why! what harm could there have been?' Gladys quickened her steps, but did not answer. 'Not so fast, Gladys. I have you at last, in spite of yourself. You have avoided me hitherto, both when you were at Prothero's and here, and purposely misunderstood me--now you must walk through the wood with me, and at my pace, for I must speak to you.' 'Sir, Miss Gwynne expects me early,' said Gladys, with wonderful dignity of manner, which was not lost upon the colonel--'_she_ is my mistress, and I must obey her. I shall be obliged by your letting me go on.' 'We will both go on, but leisurely and together. I have much to say to you, and I may not have another opportunity.' Gladys tried to pass on, but finding that Colonel Vaughan's hand was on her arm, and that he was resolved to detain her, she endeavoured to summon up all her resolution and sense, and to answer his questions, whatever they might be, according to what she might think right. 'You will be so good as to account to my mistress for this delay, sir,' she said. 'I am no longer a free agent.' 'I shall do no such thing; neither will you, I hope?' 'I most certainly shall, if necessary.' 'Never mind; I must know, at all risks, who and what you are.' 'I am Irish on my father's side, and Welsh on my mother's; my name is O'Grady.' 'But you were not born in the position you now occupy?' 'My father was a corporal in the Welsh Fusiliers; I was brought up to work for my bread.' 'And your mother?' 'Was the daughter, I believe, of a clergyman.' 'I was sure of that--and she educated you?' 'She taught me what she herself knew.' 'What brought you into Wales?' 'Starvation.' 'How did you get to Mr Prothero's?' 'I was a beggar and they took me in out of charity.' 'Why did you leave them and come here?' 'Because they wished it.' 'Say because Owen Prothero was in love with you.' No answer. 'Do you love that rough sailor?' No answer. 'I must know all, Gladys. I must and will.' 'Colonel Vaughan, I shall only answer such questions as you, as a gentleman, may _think_ you have a right to ask a friendless girl, whom you forcibly detain. You _know_ you have no right to ask this.' Colonel Vaughan looked at the usually shy girl, and saw a spirit and resolution in her bearing that he had not believed were in her. 'I beg your pardon, Gladys, I was wrong. Can you endure the state of dependence you are now in?' 'I consider myself independent I work for my bread, and am paid for it.' 'But you might be independent without working.' 'Impossible, unless beggary is independence.' 'Quite possible; I am sure you must feel your dependence on such an imperious mistress as you now have.' 'My present mistress, sir, Miss Gwynne, is far too noble to let any one feel dependent, even those who are, like myself, wholly her servants.' 'You like Miss Gwynne?' 'I respect and love her. Perhaps you will now let me go to her.' 'Not yet. This independence. I could make you independent.' 'You! How? Impossible!' 'I love you, Gladys.' 'Me! This to me! Is it to insult me that you have detained me? Let me go, sir--I insist--and my mistress! You, Colonel Vaughan, who have been paying her such attentions as no man has a right to pay a lady unless he loves her, to dare to say this to me, and I a servant in her house. You, sharing her father's hospitality, to deceive her, and insult me. What have I done to encourage you to speak thus to me?' Gladys stood still amidst the lights and shadows of the sun-crowned trees, and looked the colonel steadily in the face. That look, voice, manner, completed the conquest that had been maturing for weeks and months. The flushed cheek, the sparkling eyes, the tall, slight, erect figure, the voice, deportment--all were those of a lady in mind as well as person. 'Gladys, hear me calmly. I do not wish to insult you; I have never meant anything by my attentions to Miss Gwynne.' 'Then you are a--' Gladys checked herself. 'A villain, you would say. Not at all. I merely pay Miss Gwynne the civilities due to her. I am not obliged to fall in love with every young lady in whose father's house I am visiting. But I admired you the first moment I saw you; and now, at this moment, I vow that I love you as I never loved in my life before.' They stood face to face, looking at each other. Gladys' eyes drooped before the gaze of the colonel. 'This to me!' she exclaimed, 'and yet you say you do not insult me! Let me go, sir, I insist!' She tried to hasten on, but the strong hand was again on her arm. 'I do not insult you, Gladys, I honour and respect you. If you will only say you love me, I will--yes, I will--I think, at least--I will marry you privately, and take you abroad at once. I vow this is more than I ever said to any woman in my life before.' 'And you will repent having said it to me before the night is out, Colonel Vaughan, and you do not mean it. Think of who I am; think of Miss Gwynne; think of yourself. Oh! this is cruel, cruel jesting to all!' 'I was never more serious in my life.' As Colonel Vaughan said this, he saw nothing, thought of nothing, but the peculiar beauty of the creature who stood, flushed and agitated, at his side. He forgot himself and his purposes, in his temporary blind admiration. 'Now, Gladys, I await your answer,' he said, not doubting what that answer would be. 'I have no answer to give, sir, because I know that, even if you now think yourself in earnest, you will be no longer so to-night.' 'Before we leave this wood, girl, I will and must have an answer, and beware how you irritate me.' He seized her hand as he spoke, and held it tight. 'You will release me before I answer you, sir; I have gone through too many dangers and temptations to be frightened into speech.' He released her hand, but kept his eyes fixed on her face. She did not quail, though she felt her heart beat violently. 'If you are serious, sir, I ought, I suppose, to be grateful for so strange an honour; but I do not believe you are so, and my answer is, that a servant such as I, can have nothing to say to a gentleman such as you.' 'A servant! You will be no longer a servant. You are not one at this moment.' Again he seized her hand. She was frightened, but did not loose her self-command. 'Sir, you had now better let me return home. Miss Gwynne will wonder what has become of me. It is time that she should be ready--that you, sir, should be ready. What will she think and say?' 'I care not; nothing shall turn me from my purpose. You shall not leave this wood until you promise.' 'Then I shall never leave it, sir; and if you persist in detaining me, I will make known to every one, how a gentleman can demean himself to a poor, unprotected girl, who has no friend near her but her God. To Him I appeal for help in this hour, when you, sir, a gentleman and a Christian, so far forget yourself as to insult and persecute me.' As Gladys spoke, she lifted her eyes solemnly to heaven--both her hands were held by Colonel Vaughan. As he gazed at her, he suddenly relaxed his hold, saying, 'You are a wonderful girl! I do not persecute you, but I will not give you up.' No sooner did Gladys feel the grasp loosen, than she made a sudden bound, almost a leap, onwards, and ran with incredible swiftness through the path. Colonel Vaughan pursued her, but soon found that she ran more swiftly than he did. However, he would not give up the chase, and in spite of the hot sun, ran on, in somewhat undignified haste and anger. Every one knows that winding paths in plantations are not always perfectly smooth. So found our gallant colonel to his cost. With his eyes fixed on the quickly vanishing form of Gladys, how was he to see the gnarled root of an oak, that sprung up through the ground, directly in his path? His foot caught in it, and he fell with considerable violence upon his face. He got up again as quickly as he could, cursing his carelessness and folly. He felt that he had knocked his somewhat prominent nose rather severely, and to his great dismay, found that it was bleeding copiously. All further pursuit was out of the question. He must staunch the blood of the much-offending member, and being rather giddy for the moment, sat down to do so. It is said that any sudden and violent blow sobers a drunkard; so did this unforeseen fall sober the mental intoxication of the colonel. As his nose bled, so did his intellect clear. Bleeding, on the old system, was never more successful. This was truly a descent, if not from the sublime, at least from the heroic, to the ridiculous. Panting with heat, bleeding, apostrophising, the lover came to his senses. Partly aloud, at intervals, partly muttered between his teeth, he gave forth the following sentences; and when he became calm he thought the subsequent thoughts, which, although he did not rail them forth against the rooks and smaller birds, we will venture to repeat, for the further elucidating the mystery of his mind. 'Fool to let go her arm! No; fool to take it at all! What a girl! I never saw such--pho! How it bleeds! Will it never stop! They'll think there's been a murder here. What could possess me to run after her? A rustic coquette! Rustic! No; a most courtly one. She had me fairly in her power. But she has too much sense to tell. 'Pon my word, I never loved any one so much before. Disgusting! All over my cravat. If I were to meet any one? If Freda were to see me, what would she think or say? And I actually talked of marriage. Let me see; what did I say? But nobody could believe her. Pshaw! what a fool I have been. Suppose she had taken me at my word, and accepted me, I wonder how I could have got out of it! There is such a power in her eyes, that as long as I am looking at them she could make me do anything. I wish she was the heiress, and not Miss Nugent. Yes; and I shall be too late for dinner. What will they think? I vow, I am so giddy I can scarcely walk; and this horrible bleeding won't stop. I must stuff this bunch of keys down my back, and see what that will do. Well! if that isn't enough to cool any one's courage, together with this disgusting--I must go on, and get into my room as quickly as possible. I vow, it is just six o'clock. If she tells Freda! But she won't do that--no woman ever does. She'll think it over, and manage to let me see her again--and then--and then--I shall not be able to resist her eyes, and she shall not be able to resist mine. The witch! A mere servant to do what no woman ever has done, or ever would do--positively refuse me. But she knows her power, I daresay. There it is bleeding again, and I thought I had stopped it. I am just at home though, and if I go round by the stables no one can make any remarks. Confound this--here's the coachman in full hue and cry after me. Yes, I will dress directly. Thomas! tell your master not to wait. The heat has made my nose bleed, and detained me. If he and Miss Gwynne will go on, you can drive back for me, and I shall be in time for the ball. Beg them to make my excuses to Lady Mary Nugent, and explain how it is. You are quite right. It has bled tremendously; but I shall stop it as soon as I get to my room.' It need not be said that the concluding portion of Colonel Vaughan's speech was addressed to a servant, who came in search of him with the intelligence that the carriage was waiting, and his master ready. He managed to get to his room, however, unperceived, where we will leave him to dress and recover himself at his leisure.	{ "id": "15315" }
34	THE RIVALS.	We will now return to Miss Gwynne, who pursued her usual avocations until about five o'clock, and then began to wonder what detained Gladys. However, as she was quite independent of maids in her toilette, she went to her room and began to dress herself at the usual hour. She found all her attire already spread upon the bed, as if Gladys anticipated being late; nothing was wanting, and she had nothing to do but to dress. As it happened, however, she was particularly anxious to look her best that evening; why, she would not even ask herself; but she, who was usually careless of what she wore, provided she were properly attired, began to fidget over wreaths and ornaments as if she were going to her first ball. 'Miss Nugent will be all jewels,' she said, taking up a set of pearls that was on the dressing-table. 'At any rate, I will not be like her. And, of course, she will wear white, so I shall change my mind and won't wear white. Where is Gladys? The only evening I ever really wanted her, she is out of the way.' Miss Gwynne rang her bell violently, and the housemaid answered it. 'Send Gladys. Surely she is come back.' 'No, ma'am. I can't think where she is. I went a little way to look for her, but she is not in sight. Can I do anything, ma'am?' 'No, thank you; but send Gladys as soon as she comes. Provoking,' continued Miss Gwynne, turning out two or three shelves of a large wardrobe. 'Where are the trimmings of that blue dress? He said I looked best in blue, and so, I think, I do. That wreath of blue forget-me-nots and lilies of the valley, where in the world is it? But forget-me-nots are so ridiculously sentimental; and the turquoise ornaments? I suppose I must wear the bracelets and locket. Oh! here they are; and here are the flowers and trimmings in a box, in the neatest possible order.' Miss Gwynne began to arrange her hair. 'I declare I have forgotten how to do anything since Gladys has been with me. I cannot put up this braid neatly. I must wait, and it is nearly six o'clock, and dinner at half-past. What does it matter how I look? I daresay Miss Nugent will look twenty times as well, and her mother will dress her up to perfection. But he _cannot_ care for such a girl as that. It is impossible; and he always looks at me with such interest, and has such a kind manner, and says things that convey so much. But if he really cares for me, why does he not say so? He knows papa would consent, and--but he does not know that; I never--Ah! here she is at last! Come in! Where have you been, Gladys? It really is too provoking that you should have stayed so long, when you knew that I particularly wanted you to-day.' Gladys enters the room pale and breathless, just as Miss Gwynne is endeavouring to fasten in the wreath of forget-me-nots and lilies. She does not turn round, and is at the moment too much engrossed with her own appearance to think of Gladys. 'Come quickly and finish my hair, and put in this wreath. We ought to be starting now.' Gladys obeys without speaking, and steadying her nerves and fingers as best she may, begins to arrange a most elegant and becoming wreath round her young mistress's head. Whilst she does this, and afterwards dresses her and fastens on the turquoise ornaments, she endeavours to collect her thoughts, and to summon courage for what she has resolved to do and say. Gladys has long known Miss Gwynne's secret; as she discovered that she did not care for Rowland, so she has found out that she cares over much for Colonel Vaughan. She now knows that he is not worthy of her, and that if he should ever ask her to marry him, it would be that he might gain possession of Clanyravon, and not of the warm, sincere heart of its mistress. Gladys feels sure that a man who could say such words as Colonel Vaughan said to her, whether meant seriously or not, could not be worthy of Miss Gwynne; and she determines to open that young lady's eyes to the real state of his mind, even if she loses her favour for ever by so doing. 'I shall save her,' thinks Gladys, 'if I ruin my own happiness.' When the dressing is completed, Freda stands before a cheval glass to see that all is right. Gladys has never before seen her examine every portion of her attire so minutely, or look so satisfied with the survey. In truth she never before saw her look so handsome, or so perfectly well dressed. The full, light, many-skirted blue dress, with its bouquets of forget-me-nots and lilies, its fringes and ribbons, suits so well the fine complexion of the very distinguished-looking girl who wears it--whilst the wreath slightly crowns the well-shaped head, and falls gracefully down the neck and back in becoming simplicity and elegance. Poor Freda! She has more colour than usual, more animation in her eyes, and more anxiety at her heart. Were she to analyse her feelings, she would thoroughly despise herself for the envy, vanity, and distrust she would find in them, and think herself unworthy of the name of woman for allowing herself to study to gain the attentions of any man who might feel disposed to give them to another. But her pride is for a time swamped in her weakness; and the hitherto haughty and unsuspectible Miss Gwynne is no better than the most sentimental of school girls. Whilst Gladys is putting the last pin into the dress, and Freda is still watching her own shadow, there is a knock at the door. 'Make haste, Gladys. The carriage, I suppose. Come in,' says Freda. 'Mr Gwynne wishes to know, ma'am, whether you have seen Colonel Vaughan, or whether he intends dressing at Pentre?' asks the servant who opens the door. 'I have not seen him since the morning, and do not know what he means to do,' is the reply. 'Did you see anything of him when you were out, Gladys?' continues Miss Gwynne, after the servant has left the room. As she makes the inquiry, she, for the first time catches the reflection of Gladys' face in the glass, and is struck with its unusual pallor. She turns quickly and looks at the girl. 'What is the matter, Gladys? Something must have happened? It must have something to do with Colonel Vaughan. Did you see him? Speak.' 'Yes, ma'am, I saw him in the wood.' 'And is that the reason you are looking so frightened? What has happened to him? Speak, I say, or I must ring the bell and send some one in search of him.' With her usual impetuosity, Freda's hand was on the bell. Gladys exclaimed quickly,-- 'Do not ring, Miss Gwynne. I can tell you all I know. Nothing has happened to injure Colonel Vaughan, bodily at least' 'What do you mean, girl?' said Miss Gwynne, turning round again and facing Gladys. Gladys stood before her mistress with clasped hands, heaving breast, quivering lips, and downcast eyes. She tried to summon courage and words, but neither would come. How could she crush the love and hopes of one so dear to her? her benefactress, her all? But it must be done. With one great effort she began, and in as few words as possible, without comment or gloss, related what had passed between her and Colonel Vaughan. She told all, as nearly as she could remember, in his own words, merely omitting what he said about Miss Gwynne. As she spoke, she felt like a culprit before a judge, who, though conscious of his innocence, has not courage to meet the glance of him on whom his fate depends. But not on her own account had she that throbbing fear at her heart; she felt for her mistress alone. That mistress stood erect, towering above the drooping girl, like a queen above a slave or suppliant. Red and pale by turns, with compressed lips and flashing eyes, she listened to the tale. When it was finished, she, too, strove for words, but none came; so she laughed a short, sarcastic laugh, and moved back a few paces. At last,-- 'Why do you tell me this ridiculous tale? Have you no better confidante for such absurd imaginations? You have dreamt it, Gladys. I do not believe you. Go!' Gladys gave one penetrating, truthful look at her mistress, before which the defiant glance fell: but the rigid features alarmed her, and she would fain have remained, had not another. 'Go! I do not want you any longer!' sent her at once from the room. When Gladys was gone, Miss Gwynne sat down upon the nearest chair, and covered her face with her hands. Another knock at the door. 'Come in! What do you want?' she exclaimed in a suppressed voice. 'My master says the carriage is ready, and he thinks you had better go, ma'am. Colonel Vaughan has just come in. The heat has made his nose bleed so violently that he cannot be ready for dinner, but will be at Pentre for the ball, ma'am, my master says.' 'Very well; I shall be ready in a few moments.' Freda rose from her chair, and went to her dressing-table. There was a bottle of eau-de-cologne on it. She poured out nearly half a wine-glassful, added water, and drank the dose. Then she dashed a quantity over her forehead; wetted her handkerchief with more, and having nearly exhausted the bottle, prepared to leave the room. Suddenly she stopped, exclaiming,-- 'I cannot go! I feel as if I must faint; yet I must see the farce played out.' A bitter smile, almost ghastly, passed over her face, as she muttered these words. She took up a splendid bouquet of greenhouse flowers that had been prepared for her, and were placed on the table, almost mechanically, and looking like one in a dream, left the room. 'It is half-past six, Freda,' said Mr Gwynne in the loudest tone of which his voice was capable, as he descended the stairs. The servants remarked to one another how very ill Miss Gwynne was looking, but her father did not perceive it. He was talking of Colonel Vaughan. 'So provoking of Vaughan, to go and tire himself in the heat, and make his nose bleed, and all that sort of thing.' Freda did not answer. Her thoughts were running wild--here, there, and everywhere. One moment, she believed that Gladys had been romancing for some purpose of her own; the next, that all she said was true. Then she felt sure that Colonel Vaughan must really love Gladys, and must mean all that he said; and a cold shudder crept over her, as she became aware how much she loved him. Again, she knew that a man of his position could only be trifling with a girl in her's, and was ready to hate and despise one who could be so vile. As she thought and thought, she grew paler and paler--colder and colder; and when she entered Lady Mary Nugent's drawing-room, that lady said,-- 'My dear Freda, what is the matter? You look so ill, and feel so cold.' 'Nothing but the heat. It always has this enervating effect on me,' was the answer. The absence of Colonel Vaughan set the shrewd Lady Mary guessing as to the real cause of the sudden indisposition; she felt sure that something must have passed between him and Freda more exciting than usual to occasion such paleness. At dinner, Freda was fortunate in being placed next Sir Hugh Pryse, who knew her too well, and was far too fond of her, to make any personal remarks. Miss Nugent's uncle, Lord Nugent, was the master of the ceremonies for the evening. He had come, as Miss Nugent's guardian, to resign his office, and to be present at her attaining her majority. Freda had once met him before, and liked him. He was now particularly friendly in his manner to her, but when he spoke to her across one intermediate person, she could only answer him in monosyllables. Every one silently remarked her absence of mind and unusual frigidity. When the dinner was over, of which Freda only remembered that she had had certain viands placed before her, and when the ladies were leaving the dining-room, Colonel Vaughan's voice was heard in the hall. Lady Mary told a servant to show him into the dining-room; and as Freda was crossing the hall, she saw him at the opposite end of it. She hurried into the drawing-room, but was keenly alive to what passed in the hall after she had done so. She heard him, with his usual courtly manner, apologise to Lady Mary Nugent for his non-appearance at the dinner-table, and attribute his accident to his having stood so long on her lawn, in the heat, watching the poor people at their dinner. He added that he was glad to have arrived in time to drink Miss Nugent's health, and proceeded to the dining-room. Freda did her best to talk to the few, and very select, ladies, who had been honoured by an invitation to dinner; and felt intense relief when, one after another, all the evening-party arrived. Dancing soon began, and Freda saw Colonel Vaughan and Miss Nugent together in a quadrille. Sir Hugh had asked her to dance with him, but she begged him to let her sit down that first dance, and promised him the next. Of course she watched the pair in whom she was most interested. She was obliged to confess that Miss Nugent was the handsomest, most elegant, and best dressed girl in the room; as she talked to Colonel Vaughan, she looked almost animated; and he, on his part, seemed as gay and perfectly at his ease, as if there had never been a Gladys in the world. They were, unquestionably a fine, aristocratic couple; danced well, walked well, and to all appearance were well pleased with one another. Lady Mary Nugent watched them quite as narrowly as Freda. Sick at heart, Freda danced the next dance with Sir Hugh, and managed to avoid coming in contact with Colonel Vaughan, who had secured Lady Mary as his partner. Once or twice, however, Freda caught his keen, searching glance fixed upon her, and knew that he was trying to read her mind, as he had often done before. It was useless for her to try to avoid him, as he came direct to her to ask her for the next dance. She longed to say that she would never dance with him again, but even she had tact enough to know that it would not do to refuse, for the sake of the effect such a refusal might have both on him and the world. All she could do, however, was to bow her consent, take his arm, and walk, pale, silent, and stately, to the top of a quadrille. They had met Sir Hugh and Miss Nugent, and Colonel Vaughan had secured them as _vis-à-vis_; for once his tact had failed him, he could not have managed worse. Freda tried to answer his questions, but in vain; she could not be hypocrite enough to treat him as she was accustomed to do. In him there was no perceptible change; she once fancied she perceived an uneasy expression in his face, as he looked at her, but his manner was friendly, lively, fascinating as ever; he even asked her what was the matter, and said she looked ill. Her answer was contained in the few sarcastic words,-- 'The heat. I hear you have suffered from it also.' Although Freda could not, herself, enter into the conversation she could observe the by-play between the colonel and Miss Nugent; the bashful, simpering smiles of the young lady, the flattering glances of the gentleman. She would not have believed, when she awoke that morning, that it was possible to endure so much real suffering as she was enduring, in the short space of one quadrille. It was over at last, and Colonel Vaughan led her to a seat amongst some ladies. She said she would go to her father, when she saw that he was going to sit down by her side. He offered her his arm again, and took her to the drawing-room; here she found her father, somewhat apart from the rest of the company, talking to Lady Mary, or more properly being talked to by her. She sat down on a sofa near her father, and bowing statelily to Colonel Vaughan, said,-- 'I will not detain you. I shall remain here for the present.' He made some passing observation to Mr Gwynne, and returned to the drawing-room, followed shortly after by Lady Mary. Sir Hugh came up and began talking to Freda; he was so kind and so natural even in his loudness, that Freda felt as if she would rather trust him with every secret of her heart, than the polished worldling who had just left her. 'And yet, perhaps,' she thought, 'Gladys has really deceived me, and he is innocent; still, better Gladys than that statue-like Miss Nugent.' Freda thought the night would never end; she exerted herself to talk and dance, because every one came to ask what was the matter with her, and by the time they went to supper, she was as flushed as she had previously been pale. Lord Nugent was particularly attentive to her, and evidently admired her very much; bitterly she thought that she could gain, unsought, the civilities of one man, whilst she was but too conscious that the one she cared the most for in the world, was devoting himself almost exclusively to the Nugents. But he was unworthy of the heart of any right-minded woman, so she would tear him from hers, and again make her father her first care. But those despicable Nugents had got possession of him also. He was seated next to Lady Mary at supper, her profile and diamonds were directed at him, and she looked almost as young, and quite as handsome as her daughter. Alas! and again alas! poor Freda! However, all things come to an end, and an heiress's twenty-first birthday amongst them. Miss Nugent's did not finish till three o'clock in the morning, at which hour, Mr and Miss Gwynne and Colonel Vaughan were driving home from the festivities at Pentre. The gentlemen were keeping up a rather lively conversation on the events of the evening, and the lady was sustaining a very strong conflict with her own pride. As the carriage rolled past a certain large oak tree in the Park, Freda suddenly remembered Rowland Prothero. About a twelvemonth ago she had left him beneath that oak, humbled and deeply pained, doubtless, by her haughty words. Now she was similarly pained and humbled, and she was, for the first time, aware of the shock her proud refusal of his love must have been to him. Had she not been weak enough to yield her heart unasked, and was it not almost thrown back into her own bosom? She, who had believed herself above the silly romance of her sex, to have sunk below even Miss Nugent. But she would rouse herself from such a mania, and show Colonel Vaughan how thoroughly she despised him. She did rouse herself, and the first words she heard were,-- 'Yes, certainly, very handsome, mother and daughter,' from Colonel Vaughan's lips. 'And which is to be the happy object of your notice, Colonel Vaughan?' she asked, suddenly joining in the conversation. 'I heard grand discussions on the subject on all sides.' 'Really,' replied the colonel, somewhat surprised by the sudden question, 'I did not know I was of so much importance.' 'What! you, about whom every one is speculating.' 'Freda, my dear, I am so glad you are able to speak. I thought you so--ill, dull, unlike yourself, and all that sort of thing.' 'Thanks, papa, I was thoroughly overpowered by the heat; but this delightful breeze has refreshed me. I hope, Colonel Vaughan, you also have got over your weakness. I wonder you ever returned alive from India, if such a day as this was sufficient to upset you.' Further sarcasm was cut short by their reaching the house, for which Freda was very thankful, at a later period, feeling that she lowered her dignity by allowing herself to allude, however covertly, to Gladys or Miss Nugent. But she was scarcely herself when she did so. Colonel Vaughan was going to help her out of the carriage, but she passed quickly up the steps without touching his arm. He had felt her lash, and now fully understood that she knew of his meeting with Gladys, and guessed that he had designs upon Miss Nugent or her fortune. For once in his life he felt somewhat abashed as he met the eye of the pale, haughty girl, whom he really admired twenty times as much as Miss Nugent, or any other young lady of his then devotees. And he admired her still more, as she kissed her father's cheek, nodded a haughty 'good-night' to himself, and went upstairs to her room in the haste of strong excitement. As soon as she was gone, Colonel Vaughan told Mr Gwynne that he had promised Sir Hugh Pryse to go and spend a week with him, and that he should leave Glanyravon for that purpose on the morrow. 'You will come back again, of course?' said Mr Gwynne. 'Oh yes, certainly! but I have only ten days more leave, and then I must bid you all good-bye again.' 'I am so sorry, and so will be Freda when she hears it. What could have been the matter with Freda to-night, I never saw her so odd? But I suppose it was the heat, and all that sort of thing; good-night. I am tired to death, though it was a charming party, certainly a charming party.'	{ "id": "15315" }
35	THE LADY IN HER OWN RIGHT.	When Freda reached her room, Gladys was awaiting her there. 'Why did you not go to bed, Gladys? you know I dislike your sitting up so late.' 'I could not go to bed, ma'am, feeling that I have offended you, without begging your pardon for having done so.' 'Then all you said was an invention.' 'I said nothing but the truth, ma'am, but perhaps offended you in saying it to you, merely to excuse myself. I am very sorry.' There were traces of tears on Gladys' face and she looked pale and agitated. 'Gladys, you can go to bed, I have nothing to forgive. If you tell me the truth, I am very sorry for it, and that such words should have been said to you. Of course you did not believe them?' 'No, ma'am, I certainly did not.' Miss Gwynne was fidgeting with her dress, and Gladys went to assist her, uncalled for. When it was unfastened, Miss Gwynne again said, 'Thank you, that will do; I wish you to go to bed; good-night,' and Gladys again obeyed in sorrow. Miss Gwynne had little sleep that night, and the next morning she felt very ill. Much as she longed to lie in bed, however, and to avoid meeting Colonel Vaughan again, she got up when Gladys called her, and was, as usual, first downstairs. Much to her satisfaction, her father appeared next, and the colonel soon afterwards. She exerted herself to talk and laugh as usual, and the only difference in her manner to Colonel Vaughan was, that instead of shaking hands with him, as was her custom every morning, she busied herself with the cups and saucers when he approached, and simply said good morning. Her father remarked that she was looking ill, and she said she had one of her old headaches. When breakfast was over, she expressed her intention of visiting the school, and said that, as Colonel Vaughan was going to Sir Hugh's, she probably should not see him again before he left. She wished him good morning and a pleasant visit, stiffly, but courteously; felt compelled to shake hands with him, and went her way with a proud but aching heart. He also went his, wondering in his very selfish heart whether Freda really cared for him after all, and scheming to see Gladys, whose utter carelessness of him had roused his vanity. When he had left Glanyravon, with a promise to Mr Gwynne of returning, Freda no longer strove to appear what she was not, and went to bed really ill. She was subject to occasional severe nervous headaches, and was obliged to be very quiet when so attacked, in order to prevent congestion of the brain, which the doctors had once threatened her with. Her father, therefore, insisted on her keeping her room until she was quite well, which she was only too thankful to do, and so great were her actual sufferings from her head, that they distracted her mind from brooding over her real or imaginary miseries. Gladys waited on her quietly and patiently for about a week, at the end of which time she began to feel better. Her gratitude to Gladys for the perfectly unobtrusive nature of her attention was so great that she felt as if she could never do enough for her, and she frequently assured her that she knew she had been unjust towards her in accusing her of falsehood. She never, however, again mentioned Colonel Vaughan's name to her. Mr Gwynne paid daily visits to his daughter's sick-room. In spite of her head, she could not help noticing something peculiar in his manner. He did not talk, because conversation was forbidden during these attacks, but there was an increased briskness in his eyes and step as he approached her, and, she fancied, more of anxious care in his tone when he spoke. She was sure he had something to communicate. 'Gladys, what makes you so calm and patient?' she suddenly asked, when she was getting better, and trying to reason herself out of her fancy for Colonel Vaughan. 'Perhaps, ma'am, trouble has made me calm, and I pray to be made patient; but I have a rebellious heart,' was the reply. 'Have you? I am very glad to hear it. Then there is hope for me. Now I am going to get up.' Freda had made some good resolutions during the intervals of her pain, the principal of which were, entirely to forget Colonel Vaughan, or to feel only intense contempt for him; to be more gentle with her father, and more considerate of his nerves and peculiarities; more patient with the servants, school children, and poor people generally; to do more good, and to be more useful to others; but she had not made these resolutions in Gladys' spirit. They were not made with prayer for help, but in her own strength. In the same way, she threw off the remains of her headache, and went downstairs again with a prouder step and a prouder heart than when she went up last. In the library she found her father writing a letter and looking quite animated. He was so sprucely dressed that she asked him if he were going out. 'Not at present,' he said. 'I am so glad you are come down again. There is so much to tell you; I have scarcely been able to keep myself from letting you hear the news. Do you know it is all settled, and Gwynne Vaughan is actually engaged to Miss Nugent! Isn't he a lucky fellow?' Freda felt suddenly very sick; she sat down in an arm-chair near her father, but did not speak. He looked at her, and said,-- 'My dear, you are very pale still. Coming downstairs has been too much, and dressing, and--and--all that sort of thing. Let me ring for Gladys.' 'No, I shall be better directly. Only the exertion--yes, you were telling me--' Strange that Mr Gwynne never supposed that Freda could be in love with any one. She had refused so many, and was so different from other girls, that the thought never entered his mind, and he had left her alone with Colonel Vaughan, and would have done so with Cupid himself, quite thoughtless of results. Moreover, his own natural inactivity and love of ease, led him to allow her to take her own course, as long as she left him alone to take his. 'Yes; I was saying that it is now quite settled. I believe he proposed the very ball-night to Miss Nugent, at least, and the next day went in form, and after certain preliminaries, was duly accepted by all parties. Of course, he is quite unexceptionable, and she can do as she likes now she is of age. Lady Mary expected a title, and I don't think she is quite satisfied. She told me--at least--they say--at least--of course, there are always objections, and--and--all that sort of thing, you know.' Freda was too hard at work, trying to overcome a very strong desire to burst into tears, to observe that her father had not once used his favourite phrase, or lost the thread of his words, until he came to 'Lady Mary told me,' so when he stopped, she simply said, 'Really! Yes!' and he went on again. 'I must confess, Freda, I am rather disappointed. I thought Gwynne liked you, and, indeed, I think so still. But--ah! my dear--you are so proud, or cold, or--or--that you refuse every one. It has been suggested to me by--ah! I have remarked, I mean, that you must have a secret liking for some one, not quite what one considers--ah! --eligible--and that--but, I am sure, Freda, I would make any sacrifice for your happiness, and should wish to see you married.' 'What do you mean, papa?' said Freda, effectually roused. 'Well, my dear, it is thought--I mean, I have fancied--I mean Lady--I--I--the fact is, are you attached to Rowland Prothero? Now, I am not angry, Freda; he is one of the nicest young men, and the best--but I should have preferred Gwynne, or Sir Hugh, or--or--in fact, many others, in a worldly point of view. A tenant's son, and only a curate! --and all that sort of thing. But then as Lady--as--as I--as your father, my dear, I should like to make you happy. You see, that day at the vicarage, we--that is to say, I--thought there was something peculiar in his manner and yours; and to be sure, he may be a bishop, he is so good and clever. A great favourite of mine. And if he lives in London, it doesn't so much matter; and--and--in short--Freda--' 'Papa, I understand,' said Freda, rising from her seat with majestic pride, 'Lady Mary has been kind enough to suggest, doubtless for her own ends, what never could have entered your mind. I am very much obliged to you for forgetting, on my account, what I cannot forget on my own, that I am a Gwynne of Glanyravon! and I daresay you meant it kindly. But you may make my compliments to Lady Mary Nugent, and tell her, that if there was anything peculiar in Rowland Prothero's manner on that particular Sunday, it was because he had been bold enough to propose for me, and I had rejected him. You may tell her also that if he had asked her daughter instead, she would have given him herself and her fortune quite as willingly, and, I believe, more willingly, than to Colonel Vaughan. With her it is a case of "first come first served."' When Freda had given her message to Lady Mary Nugent, she walked out of the room. But scarcely had she crossed the hall when she turned again and re-entered it. 'Papa, I must beg you _not_ to tell Lady Mary Nugent that Rowland Prothero proposed for me. He is at least a gentleman, and a man of honour, and deserves to be treated as such with all due courtesy. The more I see of men, the more I begin to think him one of the few true gentlemen one meets with. I should not even have told you this had it not escaped me in reply to what you said, because I thought it would annoy you, and perhaps make you feel unkindly towards the Prothero family. But you may tell her, if you like, that were Rowland Prothero not the gentleman I begin to perceive he is, Miss Nugent and her money might be his.' 'But, Freda--after all--if you do like him. You see, his uncle married a Perry, one of the oldest families in Herefordshire, niece of the baronet, daughter of the dean, cousin of the present baronet.' 'My dear father! I know all the Perrys by heart. Mrs Jonathan is not likely to have left me ignorant of their antiquity. But, pray, do you want to get rid of me, that you force me upon poor Rowland, or him upon me, whichever it may be?' 'Of course not, my dear. Only I am naturally anxious to see you settled. And if you really like him--' 'But I am settled, and I do not like him; that is to say, I like him well enough, fifty times better than I used to like him, but I have not the most remote intention of marrying him. And now, I should like to know what particular reason Lady Mary Nugent had for putting this absurd notion into your head. There must be something, my dear papa, under all this sudden anxiety to get me married. You used rather to rejoice when I declined settling Glanyravon on a suitor.' 'Yes, my dear--but--you see--it is not quite certain that Glanyravon--I mean that you--I mean that I--in short--the fact is--you are so impetuous, Freda.' 'What can my impetuosity have to do with it?' Freda saw that her father was more than usually nervous and fidgety, and became alarmed lest there should be some sudden money difficulty, as any threat, however slight, of debt or involvement always made him ill. She sat down beside him, and putting her hand in his, as it rested on a table nervously fidgeting with a pen, she said gently,-- 'Now, pappy, I hope we are not all going to jail?' 'By no means; the tenants are most prosperous. I could raise any sum if necessary, and give you a marriage portion suitable in every way.' What was there in this marriage scheme? Freda grew impatient and indignant again. 'Now, really, papa, this is too absurd; If you have anything on your mind, will you say it?' 'Well--the fact is, Freda, that you--I mean that I, have made up my mind--you see you may marry, and leave me alone, and I should want a companion, and--and all that sort of thing, you know--so I have considered--for your--for our--for my, perhaps--happiness, that it might be well for me to--to--to--in short, my dear--to marry again; in fact, Freda, I have resolved to do so.' 'Lady Mary Nugent!' screamed Freda; 'not her! not her! not settled! oh papa!' Mr Gwynne had called Freda impetuous, but he was not prepared for the sudden burst of uncontrollable grief that followed his announcement. Often as Freda had jested over the proposal Lady Mary was to make her father, she had never believed that he would marry her. It came upon her like the news of an unexpected death, or great family misfortune. She covered her face with her hands, and sobbed till her father thought she must burst some blood vessel then and there before him. He got up, sat down; went to the bell, touched the rope, let it go; opened the window, put his hand on Freda's bowed head, called her by name, and, in return, was greeted by-- 'Not Lady Mary! think of my mother! think of me! oh father! father! cruel! this is too much! Say it is not true; only a jest. What have I done? I will be better, kinder, gentler--I will nurse you, tend you--never marry. I would rather not--I never shall. Nobody loves you as well as I. Your only child. My mother's only child. Say it is not true--oh, say it is not true?' This was impossible, for Mr Gwynne knew full well that he was pledged beyond recall. But now, as he looked on his daughter, heard her words, thought of her mother, he began to repent of what he had done. He, who hated scenes, dreaded tears, would not annoy Freda for the world, to have raised such emotion! He did not understand it. Lady Mary had assured him Freda would be so glad to be allowed to marry Rowland. And she was so discerning and clever! But he could not bear those sobs. 'Freda! my dear, don't, I beg, I entreat! You will make me so nervous. You know I cannot bear--in short, I feel quite ill. The fact is, you will make yourself ill, and after all, it need make no difference to you. You will be just the same. Freda, I must beg you to desist. I must insist--I will ring for the housekeeper.' 'No, no, papa. Do not let us expose ourselves!' cried Freda, rising suddenly; 'I will go upstairs. Neither you nor I will ever be happy again!' Freda was about to leave the room, when Mr Gwynne suddenly went up to her, and putting his arm round her neck, whispered, whilst the tears sprang into his eyes,-- 'Freda, Freda! my child, forgive me! I didn't think it would vex you so. I scarcely know how it has all happened.' Poor Freda threw both her arms around her father, and sobbed again. As she leaned on his shoulder, his white hairs touched the brown glossy braids of her head, and his lips kissed them. At that moment he knew that he did not love Lady Mary Nugent as well as he loved his child, and that child was conscious for the first time how very dear her father was to her. Again she roused herself, and as if ashamed of her emotion, hastened out of the room. She went upstairs, and locking herself in her room, threw herself on her bed. Here she gave way to feelings that were as new as strange to her, unaccustomed as she was to what some one calls 'the luxury of tears.' She scarcely knew whether sorrow or anger predominated, but she was wretched and indignant. Tumultuous thoughts rushed through her mind of the past, present, and probable future! thoughts too numerous and changeable to be transcribed, but which may well be imagined. At last her pride, that one grand feature of her character, got the better of her grief and anger. She rose from her bed, dried her eyes, arranged her hair, and with a carriage as erect as her soul was haughty, once more entered her father's library. The momentary emotion and pathos of their last embrace had been overpowered in both by stronger sensations; in him by the remembrance of Lady Mary Nugent's fascinations, in her by the sense of that lady's tact and duplicity. Freda sat quietly down opposite her father, and said abruptly,-- 'Papa, this odious subject must be begun and ended between us this day. If you will be good enough to answer me a few questions and to listen to me, I will never mention it again. Are you really engaged to Lady Mary Nugent, or is it a horrible dream?' 'I--yes--I certainly am, my dear--engaged to be married to her ladyship.' 'And you mean to marry her? Impossible!' 'Do you consider me a man of honour? or am I one likely to break my word when pledged?' 'Oh! papa, when a woman proposes and makes love, and waits till the very moment when it suits her own convenience to marry, do you think she deserves consideration? You know that Lady Mary Nugent has done it all herself, and that you would never have taken the trouble, or had the courage to propose for any woman under the sun, if she had not asked you first. You know you do not want to marry. I would give the world to know how she managed to bring you to the point.' 'Really, Freda, this is too--too--personal, and rude, I may call it--and--' 'Forgive me, papa. Of course you are your own master, and are at liberty to be chosen by any woman, but she will not choose me, nor I her. I hate Lady Mary Nugent, despise her most intensely, and shall leave this house before she comes into it; never--' It seemed as if an invisible hand checked the end of Freda's determination, for she stopped short at the 'never.' 'But what I came particularly to say, papa, is, that I believe I have some little private fortune of my own, my dear mother's, in short, and I suppose I can have that when I like.' 'Certainly--certainly--but--' 'Then I wish both you and Lady Mary Nugent to understand that I shall not live here. Not on your account, but on hers. I ask, as a particular favour, that I may not be informed of the day of your marriage; and I shall make it a point of going away in a month or so, so as to leave you free to act. I shall hope to hear from you, and to write to you. I am only sorry for you, because she cannot understand your tastes; but that is nothing. I don't think either she or her daughter ever read any book but a fashionable novel in their lives. But what is the difference! Money and tact against the world! I cannot help speaking my mind for this first and last time. Forgive me. You will not have me long to speak it, and my successor never spoke her's in her life, so she will not bore you by abruptness and sincerity, as I perhaps have done.' Freda had spoken so fast that she paused to take breath, and during that necessary process her father wiped his face, as if he, too, were exhausted by her volubility. Freda could scarcely help smiling. 'I am very sorry for everything I have ever done to displease you,' she began again; 'and I only hope you will not be so unhappy, as I am afraid you will be.' 'This is too exhausting!' muttered Mr Gwynne, sinking back in his chair. 'Freda, you really do talk too much. Will you ring for Perkins? I must take a dose of that cordial.' When the cordial was mentioned, Freda knew that all conversation was at an end. She rang the bell, and when Perkins came, left the room. She went at once to her writing desk, and wrote the following note:-- 'MY DEAREST SERENA,--What you and I have sometimes feared is about to come to pass. My father is going to marry Lady Mary Nugent. Of course I can no longer live here; will you and Mr Jones give me shelter for a time whilst I arrange my thoughts and plans? I will give as little trouble as I can, but I know you will bear with me. --Your loving friend, 'WINIFRED GWYNNE.' Freda sealed and directed her letter, and then went to the open window, and stood there for some time. A slight shower of rain was falling and a few light clouds were struggling with the afternoon sunbeams. Strong shadows fell from the trees in the Park, equally strong lights were on the distant hills. The river looked hot and hazy, and the cattle had congregated under the arch of the bridge--the only cool spot--as if for shelter from the sun. A shrill, blithe, distant whistle sounded, and the bells of Llanfawr church pealed in the far-away town, just sending their faint echoes across the river. 'What are those bells ringing for?' said Freda, as she wiped away some large tears that were gathering in her eyes. 'They ring for everything; soon it will be for these odious marriages. Why was I ever born? Why, above all, was I born in such a place as this? And to leave it! Yes, Frisk' (to her terrier, that was barking and jumping outside the window), 'you and I must go away. No more quarrels with Jerry; no more fights with Gelert? ; no more hunts in the brook. Will you come with me to smoky London? Yes, and hate it as much as I shall. Sleep away your life by a city fire, and grow fat and old, instead of racing after me and Prince. But we shall not live long in a town, Frisk. We shall soon die of sheer laziness, and so much the better--for who will care for us? Lion and Jerry and even Gipsy will forget you; and every one has forgotten me already. Why am I so foolish as to cry so? I never knew how weak I could be until these last few days. But we must be strong, Frisk--we must be strong, and not care for this old place, and the beautiful park, and all the--oh, why will those bells ring? and what are they ringing for? And there is the dinner-bell, too, harsh as my lot. And I must try to be dutiful, and show a bold face and good courage to the world, who will pity me, or rejoice over me, and say that I wanted something to pull down my pride. And so, perhaps, I do; but this shall not be the something. No, no; it shall only make me prouder. Poor papa, too; he will be more wretched than I--I am sure he will. I cannot bear to think of him. Frisk! Frisk! don't make such a noise. Don't jump so, Frisk. There! I will take you in. Good dog! good Frisk! You love me if no one else does; you and Gladys.'	{ "id": "15315" }
36	THE FIRST-BORN.	Those Llanfawr bells which, as Freda said, certainly did ring for everything, were sending forth their chimes to celebrate the birth of a daughter at Plas Abertewey. But whilst they were ringing, and Freda was abusing them, the mother of the little daughter was, apparently, about to depart for that other country where bells shall no longer 'ring out the old, and ring in the new,' welcome the babe, or speed the spirit of the dead. Good Dr Richards and the nurse stood, one on either side of Netta's bed, pouring brandy and wine down her throat, whilst her infant was on its grandmother's, Mrs Jenkins's lap, in the next room. The doctor was in a state of intense anxiety. He had sent off one man and horse for another surgeon, and a second to Swansea, to telegraph for Howel, who had not yet returned from London, where he had been nearly three months. He felt the great responsibility of his situation, and that if Netta did not rally, she must die. It was six o'clock in the evening; the baby had been born in the morning, and Netta's continual cry had been 'Howel! Howel! When will my husband come?' But she had not spoken for some hours, and seemed to be sinking out of the world. As Dr Richards leaned over her, he thought she murmured something. Putting his ear close to her, he heard the words, 'Mother! oh, mother!' 'She shall come! you shall see her!' said Dr Richards. He went to a writing-table, and wrote as follows:-- 'Mrs Howel Jenkins is dying. The only chance to save her is her mother's presence. Come, for God's sake.' He went out of the room, and ordered the carriage and horses to be prepared at once, and sent them and the coachman to Glanyravon Farm. The man said it was as much as his place was worth to go; but Dr Richards insisted, and he went. In about two hours the carriage returned. Dr Richards heard the distant sound of wheels, so did Netta. She opened her eyes, and with a painful, eager glance, again said, 'Mother!' Dr Richards left the room, and, to his great joy, welcomed Mrs Prothero in the hall. 'Thank God, you are come! She is yet alive,' said he. 'I did not stop to ask David,' said Mrs Prothero, 'but came straight away.' She followed Dr Richards to Netta's room, and the feelings of the mother and the daughter may well be imagined, as they thus met after such a separation. Mrs Prothero turned away and wept--then prepared to wait upon her child. As the long absence of Howel, and his non-arrival day after day, according to promises almost daily made, had caused Netta's extreme prostration of mental as well as physical power; so the presence of her mother appeared to revive and cheer her. Again she had some one near her who loved her. Her mother, whom she had so grievously offended, had come to her in trouble, and she was roused and comforted. The mother-in-law, who had been so anxious to take her from her parents, did not fill their places. Whilst Mrs Prothero was tenderly nursing her daughter, and gently assuring her of her love and forgiveness, Mrs Griffey Jenkins was discussing her arrival with the various domestics and the nurse, who went into an adjoining room to have her supper, where Mrs Griffey also had hers. Their conversation was carried on in an under voice, and between sips of gin and water, Mrs Griffey said,-- 'You do see, Mrs Gwillim, that if Mrs Howel was to die, my Howels 'ould be seure to be marrying again. He could have anybody.' 'Of course, ma'am--of course.' 'There don't be a lady anywhere as 'ouldn't be proud to be marrying my Howels. Up in London there's my Lady Sinclairs, and a hundred others; and down here there's Miss Nugent, or Miss Gwynne. You do see, Mrs Gwillim, that though Mrs Howels do be very respectable, she 'ouldn't be Mrs Howel Jenkins, Abertewey, only my Howels was too honourable not to be marrying her. I 'ould be sorry after her, but if she was to be taken, why, she couldn't go at a better time. What was you thinking of her by now?' 'Very bad, ma'am, very bad,' said Mrs Gwillim, ominously shaking her head. And 'very bad,' Netta undoubtedly was all that night. Dr Richards did not leave the house, and in due course of time the other medical man arrived; still, the half-expressed and wholly felt wishes of her mother-in-law for her death were not realised. The dawn of morning found her sleeping peaceably with her infant in her arms, and her mother thanking God that she was better. At ten o'clock in the morning, carriage wheels were again heard, and Mrs Prothero trembled as Howel entered the house, and there was a consultation of doctors as to the propriety of his seeing his wife at once. Mrs Griffey anticipated every one else by going direct to Howel. 'How is she, mother?' were his first words. 'Better they do say.' 'Then why on earth did they telegraph for me. It may be the loss of thousands.' 'Mrs Prothero is with Netta, Howel, bach.' 'Who dared to bring her into my house?' 'Netta, I 'spose. They was turning _me_ out of Glanyravon.' 'And I'll turn her out of Abertewey, the canting old humbug.' Here Dr Richards came in. 'She is out of danger, I hope, Mr Jenkins; anxiety about you reduced her so low; and I took upon myself to send for her mother, who has roused her, and, I believe, saved her life. She knows you are come, and perhaps the sight of you for a moment may not injure her, as she is very anxious to see you; but we must not excite her.' Howel looked paler and darker than usual, and Dr Richards attributed it, and his silence, to his emotion. They went together upstairs, and Howel stood by the bed where lay his young wife and his first-born child. As he looked upon the pale face of Netta, and saw her large black eyes gleam with joy, and her lips purse themselves up like a double cherry, to kiss him, he was touched. He bent over her, and kissed her warmly. When she uncovered a small portion of the bed-clothes, and displayed the infant that lay in her arms, a smile passed over his countenance, and he kissed his wife and child together. 'Dear Howel,' murmured Netta, as the nurse covered up the mother and her babe, and the doctor touched Howel, and told him to come away. He caught sight of the trembling Mrs Prothero as he was leaving the room, and a terrible frown passed over his face. She followed him downstairs, and anticipated his abuse of her, by saying at once, gently, but firmly,-- 'Howel, I came here at Dr Richards' summons to my dying child. My husband did not even know I was coming, but neither he nor you could have prevented me at such a time. You cannot turn me from your doors whilst she is still in danger. When she is out of danger I will go.' 'You turned my mother from yours.' 'Not I, Howel; and I have never injured you. Leave me till to-morrow, and I will go.' One of the few people in the world for whom Howel had a small amount of respect and affection, was Mrs Prothero. The simply good, and unaffectedly pious, will sometimes command the regard of the worldly and irreligious. 'If you remain in my house, Mrs Prothero, it is because you have been consistently kind to me, and received my mother. As to your husband, I would--' 'Not to me, Howel, if you please I can hear nothing against him. You must remember the provocation, and try to forgive and forget as I do. But thank you for letting me stay with Netta. I have so longed and prayed to see her again, and it has been brought about for me.' Mrs Prothero remained one clear day and two nights longer at Abertewey. As Netta was quite out of danger before that time had expired, she thought it right to go home, both on Howel's account and her own husband's, whose anger she would have to allay. During her stay with Netta she lost no opportunity to work gently on the mind of her child, now opened and softened by her late trials. She found, with grief, what she had always feared, that Howel and Netta were not happy together; that he was frequently morose and unkind, and that she was passionate and revengeful. This eked out in Netta's confessions to her mother, for Howel was attentive and affectionate during her illness. Mrs Prothero entreated her to be gentle and obedient. Earnestly did she speak to her of religion, trying to recall the lessons of her childhood; and with tears poor Netta promised everything. Particularly she promised to read her Bible. Her mother was shocked that the Book was not to be found in her bedroom. She put a little Testament, that she always carried in her pocket, under her child's pillow. It was lined, and underlined by her own hand, and she fondly hoped she might read it for her sake. Netta was so loving, gentle, and teachable with her mother--blamed herself so severely for having displeased her and her father--sent so many messages to him, and seemed so desirous of obtaining his forgiveness, that Mrs Prothero hoped everything. It was a hard struggle to part again with that dear child, and to kiss the little grandchild for the last time, perhaps, for years--she would not believe for ever; but both she and Netta were obliged to put a brave face upon it, in order not to displease Howel, already suspicious of their conversations. 'You see Netta has all the grandest lady could desire,' said Howel, before Mrs Prothero left. 'Oh yes! I hope you will be happy,' was the reply. Mrs Prothero had never given a thought to the grandeur by which she was surrounded. 'Why not? Does Netta complain?' said Howel. 'No, no; she says you are very good, and let her have all she wants; but, Howel, riches may not always bring happiness, and we must try to look beyond the perishable things of life for it.' 'Pshaw!' said Howel, impatiently; 'you know, aunt, I hate that sort of cant.' Soon after she left Abertewey, Colonel Vaughan called Howel and he had a long conversation, the purport of which was, that the colonel wished to come himself to reside at Abertewey at the end of Howel's term of two years; and Howel was quite ready and willing to give it up to him, saying that he meant to purchase a house in town--in Belgravia, of course--and to reside there until he could meet with a property that he could purchase. Howel told Netta that he was tired of the neighbourhood already, it was so stupid; and that London, and a country house in some English county, would be far preferable to living in such a dull part of the world. She quite agreed with him, and had her own reasons for being glad to leave Wales. In the first place, she was not at home with the people she met in society, and liked the notion of living where no one would know that she was the daughter of the Protheros of Glanyravon. In the second, Howel would be always at home in London, and never again absent for three months, she knew not why. Moreover, she longed to be far away from the mother-in-law, who was a sort of spy over all she said or did; and she thought Howel would be kinder to her when he was at a distance from their kith and kin, whose propinquity seemed to irritate him. Netta did not stop to consider Howel's real reasons for leaving the country, or imagine for a moment that a man of his, to her, inexhaustible resources, could be induced to do so because he found those resources were not inexhaustible. Neither did she remember that in London he would be in the midst of the gamblers, horse-racers, and spendthrifts who had been helping him to diminish his father's ill-gotten gains, before and since, he came into possession of them. During the remainder of his stay in the county, his house was open to sportsmen of every grade. His racers, hunters, hounds, and good dinners were points of union to all the sporting men of the county; and Captain Dancy, Mr Deep, Sir Samuel Spendall, the Simpsons, Madame Duvet, and many others, again adorned Plas Abertewey. Races and race-balls, steeple-chases, and steeple-chase balls, hunts, and hunt-balls, took Howel, Netta, and his friends from place to place, and he and his horses soon became celebrated. The latter ran at all the races. He was a good rider, and rode himself in several steeple-chases; in short, he was declared to be 'a capital fellow!' and one who, if he would only remain in the county, would raise the sporting interest throughout it. As 'blessings brighten as they take their flight,' so Howel's popularity reached its zenith just as he resigned Abertewey to Colonel Vaughan, and went, with his wife and child, abroad for a few months. As Freda foretold, bells rang, bonfires blazed, and cannons fired, when the respective owners of Glanyravon and Abertewey brought home their respective brides, which took place in due course. If anybody thought of Miss Gwynne, it was to comment loudly on her conduct in leaving her home, because her father chose to marry again, and lowering herself and her position by going to reside with her former governess, the wife of a curate in the East End of London. Some few sympathised with her, but the greater number laughed at Mr Gwynne, admired Lady Nugent's tact, and blamed Freda. Those, also, who discussed Colonel Vaughan, as everybody did, thought him a wise man to marry a woman who could at once clear his estate, and enable him to live upon it as his fathers had never lived before him, and welcomed him home with great ardour, and a regular volley of dinner parties. Thus Lady Mary Nugent and her daughter, with their various worldly and external advantages, and Colonel Vaughan, with his _savoir faire_, had done more for themselves than Freda or Gladys, or Owen or Rowland could have done, with their honesty of purpose, beauty, and intelligence, in a worldly point of view, I would be understood to mean.	{ "id": "15315" }
37	THE SPENDTHRIFT.	We must now run rapidly through the next six years of Howel and Netta's career. After spending nearly a year abroad, where Howel amused himself, in addition, to his usual diversions, by speculating in some German mines, they came back to England. They went for a time to Spendall Lodge in Yorkshire, on a visit to Sir Samuel Spendall, in order to be in the vicinity of the Doncaster races. Thence they went to Scarborough, where Howel left Netta, her child and maid in a lodging, whilst he attended the various races in other parts of the country. About this time, Sir John Simpson died, and his son came into his fortune. Howel immediately bought a handsome house in Belgravia, furnished it expensively, and began life as a London fine gentleman. It is needless to describe how Howel's income and position in society gradually dwindled down; or more properly, how his means fluctuated according as his horses lost or won, or his various speculations succeeded or failed. Long before his father died, he had mortgaged that father's very mortgages; and had spent a large portion of his wealth in paying off debts of honour, and freeing himself from the Jews, into whose hands he had got before he went to live at Abertewey. During his four years' residence in London, it was evident that his means fluctuated in some wonderful way. His house was the rendezvous of men of all ranks who were on the turf, and his life was passed in a state of perpetual excitement. Netta did not see much of him, except at their own table, or that of their acquaintances. When she was alone with him, he was either quite silent, or abusive; the career of such a man will be better understood by most of my readers, than described by me. The resorts of black-legs, and the betting-books of men on the turf, the dishonourable payment of so-called debts of honour, the trickery of horse-dealers, horse-trainers, and horse-racers, and the wretched madness of professed gamblers, are things we have all heard of, but of which, happily, comparatively few of us know much, practically. Howel managed to maintain his reputation as a gentleman and man of large fortune, even when he was, from time to time, on the verge of ruin; and the purchase of Sir Samuel Spendall's property in Yorkshire, when that baronet was obliged to leave the country for debt, confirmed the opinion of his wealth. Every one did not know that Sir Samuel, like Mr Simpson, owed him an enormous sum of money, for various bets, loans, and even mortgages, of which Howel kept quite as usurious an account as his father would have done before him, and at which the lawyers of those gentlemen shook their heads, although they could not disprove any item of it. Howel had learnt enough of law to serve his purposes, and to teach him how far he might venture to go, in the matter of interest and compound interest, with impunity. Howel's friend, Mr Deep, was a lawyer by profession. He had duly taken out his stamps, and had chambers in Lincoln's Inn, and did such business as fell in his way amongst his sporting friends. It was he who had been Howel's attorney in all his dealings with Sir Samuel Spendall, Mr Simpson and others, and although his reputation was not very good amongst his professional brethren, nothing dishonourable had ever been proved against him. We will now look into the chambers of this worthy in Lincoln's Inn, and listen to a conversation that is passing between him and Howel, over what appears to be their mid-day potation of brandy and water. Howel's manner is excited, and his face at its darkest; Mr Deep is calm, and his face smooth as usual. 'You see, we must have money!' says Howel, 'I, at least, must have six thousand five hundred pounds before this month is out. I owe that to Dancy, who, of all men in the world, I don't choose to make wait. If I lose at the Derby, I must have twenty thousand more.' 'But the chances are you will win. Alma is pretty safe, I think.' 'Yes, if we can manage to drug Magnificent. I think I have Little Bill in my power; he will do anything for us. But this six thousand five hundred is the first thing to think of. I have mortgaged Spendall Lodge almost to its value. By the way, are you quite sure that Spendall has nothing against us? They say his mother is paying his debts, and that he will be able to come back.' 'Positive; besides, he never knows what money he has paid, or what receipts he has had, or what the amount of his mortgages was.' 'Simpson, again, I think he is sharper since his father's death. He was regularly frightened when he found what a sum he owed me; and if I hadn't got into a passion, and threatened to call him out for doubting my honour, I believe he would have checked our bill.' 'Can't you get more money on your house in town?' 'No; I have tried Levi and Jacobs, and they won't advance any more without better security.' 'Your mother; surely she would help you, if you were to make up a good story.' 'No; I ran down to see her the other day, and she had taken offence because she chose to think I had neglected her, and was as obstinate as an old mule. I believe she is getting stingy, too, and says she will keep her money as long as she lives, and then I may do what I like with it.' 'What is she worth?' 'Well, I should say by this time, she must have as good as six or seven hundred a-year. She hasn't lived up to her income, and what she has doled out to me now and then, hasn't touched the principal. She must have from fifteen to twenty thousand pounds one way and another.' 'Ask her to come and visit you; take her about and make much of her, and then seize upon her in an unwary moment. Borrow the money, and say you will pay it back, which you know, you will be able to do, if you have any luck.' 'That's a bright idea. The old soul has always been hankering to come to London. Give me a pen and ink directly. Let me see; I know how she likes me to begin. "Dear and honoured mother." Faugh! shall we go on in the ancient style? "I hope this will find you well, as it leaves me at present." I only wish it would find her--well--I think that will do. I have told her that Netta and I will be delighted to see her, etc., etc. And Netta hates her, too.' 'By the way, Jenkins, could not Mrs Howel Jenkins get Dancy to give in about that money? She is a prime favourite.' 'Mrs Jenkins knows nothing of my money transactions, and certainly would be the last person I should wish to interfere in such a matter. Let us go and post this letter, and then I want to go to Tattersalls. Will you dine with me at the club at six? and afterwards we will keep our appointment with Dancy and Lord Dupe; we may make something of the latter, if we can't of the former.' It was nearly two o'clock in the morning when Howel reached his home. His little girl was ill in the measles, and Netta, feeling anxious about her, had been sitting up with her. When Howel entered the bedroom in which the mother and child were, he began to talk in a loud voice. 'Why on earth don't you go to bed, Netta?' Netta put her finger on her lips, and pointed to the little bed in which her child was sleeping, then hurried into the next room, a kind of nursery and play-room, and sent the maid, who was sitting there, into the bedroom. Howel followed her; Netta saw that he had been drinking, and was greatly excited; he never was absolutely intoxicated, but he constantly drank too much. 'Why do you sit up I say, Netta?' 'Because Minette is so feverish; I did not like to leave her.' The child had been called Minette by a French _bonne_, and they had all somehow adopted it as a name; her real name was Victoria. 'You didn't sit up for me, of course?' 'Certainly not; you are not so very agreeable when you come home, as to make me sit up for you.' 'I say, Netta, do you know I have written to invite my mother to come and pay us a visit.' 'Your mother! then you must amuse her, for I certainly won't.' 'I beg to say you will, and will do everything in your power to make her visit agreeable. It will be worse for you if you do not. What do you mean by always disobeying me?' 'You had better not strike me again, you coward, you! Justine will hear you. She can see and hear, if she can't understand.' 'I tell you what, Netta, everything may depend on our reception of my mother--your very living, and mine, and Minette's.' 'I don't care about living; I'd rather starve than live the life I do, and if I have Aunt 'Lizbeth, too, I shall run away, I am sure I shall.' 'With whom, madam?' 'With anybody or nobody; I don't care what becomes of me since you're so unkind. Perhaps you'd like to see my shoulder that you hurt yesterday? I haven't had the pleasure of seeing you since. Your shakes, and pinches ain't very soft, sir, I assure you.' Netta threw off a portion of the white dressing-gown she had on, and displayed her round white neck and shoulder disfigured by a black-and-blue mark. 'I'll do the same to the other if you aggravate me any more,' said Howel, clenching his teeth, and moving towards Netta. 'Not to-night, anyhow,' said Netta, running through the door and short passage into her child's bedroom. She knew that he was always sufficiently master of himself not to expose himself before the servants. 'Justine, I shall sleep with Minette to-night--that is to say, I shall lie down on this sofa by her side. You can go to bed as usual,' said Netta. And when Minette and Justine were fast asleep in their respective beds, poor Netta sat and cried the livelong night, with her feet upon the fender, and her eyes fixed upon the almost-extinguished fire. The following morning, when she was watching her child, Howel came into the room. He went up to the bed on which Minette lay, and kissed her, and asked her how she did. The little girl looked pleased, and putting her arms round her father's neck, whispered,-- 'Papa! do you know mamma has not been in bed all night? Will you tell her I am quite well, and ask her to go to bed?' 'I will, darling. I have a new picture-book for you downstairs Mamma will come and fetch it. Mamma, will you come and fetch a new book for Minette?' Netta looked at Howel for the first time, and seeing that his face was tolerably pleasant, followed him out of the room, and down into the dining-room, where his breakfast was awaiting him. 'Netta! you must make my breakfast, and have some with me. Minette is better, and you needn't starve yourself to death,' said Howel, sitting down at the breakfast-table. 'Thank you,' replied Netta sulkily. 'I can't eat anything, I am a great deal too tired and wretched.' 'Netta, I am sorry I hurt you; but you do aggravate me so, and I have a great deal on my mind.' Netta's face brightened a little. 'Why don't you tell me what you have on your mind, instead of bullying me from morning to night?' 'Because a woman cannot understand such matters. But if I do not get some money this month we shall be ruined. I have asked my mother up to see whether she will advance it, and that will depend on our treatment of her. Will you be kind to her?' 'I suppose you will give me some of the money, if you get it, to pay servants' wages, and other bills? I am dunned for money from morning to night, and never have a farthing to pay.' 'I shall be able to pay everything next month. I am sure of plenty of money.' 'And I suppose you want to get money from your mother to pay bets, or something of the sort? Why won't you tell me?' 'Yes; I owe it to _your_ friend Dancy. Perhaps you will help me to pay _him_.' 'He is no friend of mine. I don't like him; but he would do more for me than you would, and is kinder too. But I don't want to be under any obligation to him.' 'If you wish to keep a house over your head, or me out of a prison, you must either ask him, as a personal favour, to let me off the debt, or you must help me to get the money out of my mother.' 'Howel, I don't like underhand ways. I don't mind trying to be civil to Aunt 'Lizbeth, provided you tell her exactly how you are situated, and promise me never to bet with Captain Dancy, or borrow money of him again.' 'I promise most faithfully.' 'And if you can't afford to live in this grand house, Howel, why don't you give it up, and take to the law, or anything to get your living? Perhaps, if you did, we should be happy again. I would rather work like a slave, and not keep a servant, and live in a small lodging, or anything, than see you so altered.' Here Netta began to cry. 'If I get this money from mother, and what I expect from other sources, we shall be all right again, and then--' 'And then, Howel, you will give up horse-racing and betting and gambling and bad company, and think more of Minette and me--your poor unhappy Netta--your wife--your little cousin that you used to say you loved! --oh, Howel! Howel! that you hate so now, and treat so unkindly.' Netta had been standing by the fire-place hitherto, but at this juncture she went towards Howel timidly, and kneeling down by his side as he sat at the table, put her hands on his arm, and fixed her tearful eyes on his face. Howel was touched. We know that there are moments in the lives of the worst of men when better feelings overcome the evil ones; and Howel was not utterly bad; and now his guardian angel seemed to be making a great effort to reclaim him from his sins. He really loved Netta as much as he could love anything. Was she not the only creature in the world who had really loved him? 'Then you do not quite hate me, Netta?' he said, putting his arm round her neck, 'I thought all the old love was gone.' 'No, no, Howel! Dear, dear Howel! I love you in my heart! but you are so changed--so--so--you don't care for my company now. You never come home and play and sing as you used to do. You never speak to Minette; you never speak to me except--' Here Netta leant her head on Howel's knees, and began to sob. He put his hand on her head, smoothed her hair, and finally raised her from the ground, and took her in his arms to his weak, wicked heart--a heart not wholly depraved, because there was still in it love for his wife. For a long time she clung to him; her arms round his neck, her cheek to his cheek, her beating heart to his bosom, as if she was afraid that the spell would be broken if once she let go. Howel kissed her pale cheek, wiped those large black eyes, and comforted her as she had never hoped to be comforted again. Vague thoughts entered his mind of the possibility of beginning life afresh--of being a better husband and father--of giving up his wild, sinful courses. 'Shall the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots.' 'I will do anything, Howel, darling--anything you wish,' suddenly murmured Netta, returning his caresses, 'only you will promise never to be unkind again. I will beg, starve for you as long as you love me; but you know I am hot-tempered, and when you are cross I get angry; and then you are violent, and I am hard and sullen and wicked--oh, so wicked! I think I must have lived fifty years in the last five years, Howel, I feel so old and altered. Don't make me so hard-hearted again, Howel, bach, or I shall die, indeed I shall; I feel it now at my heart.' Netta put her hand on her heart as she leant against Howel. He raised her, and saw that she was of a deathly paleness. 'Don't be--frightened--I have--it--often--only--a spasm,' she gasped, as frightened he went to the sideboard, and poured out some brandy into one of the tea cups, and putting a little water to it, gave it her to drink. She soon revived, and recovering a little of her old colour again, put her arms round Howel, and thanked him for being so kind. Howel was aware, for the first time for many years, that conscience is not a myth; his smote him. 'Will you stay at home to-day, Howel?' asked Netta. 'I will write myself to your mother, if you will.' 'Yes, Netta, dear, I will. Now, shall we carry the picture-book to Minette?' 'No; you must have your breakfast now, and I will make it. Oh! I am so happy.' 'And you do not care for Dancy, Netta?' 'No; I hate him.' Howel kept his word, and stayed at home that one day with Netta and her child, and she wrote that day down on the tablets of her memory as the brightest spot in six years of trouble and distrust.	{ "id": "15315" }
38	THE FORGER.	In a few days Mrs Griffith Jenkins arrived in London, equally surprised and delighted by the invitation she had received from her son and daughter-in-law. Netta kept her word, and behaved to her with all the kindness and consideration she could assume. She took her to various places of amusement, and tried to find pleasure herself in scenes that a few years before would have given her great delight; but the forebodings of coming evil hung heavily over her, and she could not rouse herself into her old spirits. Howel was very kind to her when with her; but after that one white day he was not much at home. He went out once or twice with her and his mother in the evening, and was so very attentive to the latter that she began to think herself a person of consideration once more. 'There's kind Howels is, Netta, fach!' she would say. 'There's proud you ought to be to be having such a kind husband. But he don't be looking well, nor you neither. You was looking as pale as those wox figures at Mrs Tuss's; and seure won was as like you as could be. Ach a fi! I 'ouldn't like to be going again into that little room with all the murderers. And Howel was looking quite pale. But such beauty music, and dresses, and all like life. I thought I should a-screeked out when that man turned and looked at me, and wogged his head, and was nodding, is seure as if he was alive, and he only wox!' Mrs Jenkins had been in London about a week, when Howel began carelessly the subject nearest his heart. 'I say, mother, fach, how does your money hold out? I daresay you are rich as a Jew by this time.' 'Pretty well, Howel. I hope you do be well off now, and don't be living so gay as you wos.' 'Well, mother, if I could just get a few thousands for a couple of weeks I should be as rich as Croesus, and out of all those difficulties I told you of in another month. Do you know of any one likely to have such a sum to lend?' 'Thousands, Howel! why hundreds wasn't plenty with us, let alone thousands. You do know that there don't be any wan so rich as you in our parts.' 'So I am, mother, or rather shall be by-and-by. I have lived beyond my income, but I am going to retrench, and if you could only lend me five or six thousands pounds, it would set me right, and I could pay you again in a month.' 'Five or six thousand! Why, Howel, I 'ouldn't know how to get it; and I don't cheuse to be reuining myself, and bringing myself down again for nobody.' 'Not even for me, mother? To save me from jail, perhaps! Ha! ha! I'm sure you wouldn't like to see me in jail; and 'pon my honour I don't know how I shall keep out of it unless you help me.' 'And where's the thousands and hundreds of thousands your father was leaving you? Ten years ago come next Jeune he did die, my poor Griffey.' 'Now, mother, don't humbug me about that. You know you were glad enough. Only let me have the money, unless you want me to leave the country, never to come back.' 'Ach an wyr! How you be talking. You wos frightening me to death. I 'ouldn't mind lending you a few hundreds, but--' 'Hundreds won't do, mother. I must have five thousand six hundred before this week is out, or else--It is impossible you could be cruel enough to see your only son in distress, and not help him out of it.' 'I have been helping you all your life, Howel. I could lend you wan thousand, and no more, and if you'll promise to be paying me soon.' 'One thousand six hundred, mother, I must have that at least.' It would be waste of time to write the reasons urged by Howel to induce his mother to advance him this money; but after some hours of entreaty, and a promise from him that he would repay it shortly, she consented to write the necessary cheque for that sum. She insisted upon the business being managed through Mr Rice Rice, her attorney at home, and wrote to him to empower him to raise it as he best could for her son at once. As she was a poor scribe, and a still worse orthographer, Howel superintended the letter, and when it was written said he would enclose and post it. He was most particular in telling her where and how to write the figures; and before the ink was dry begged her to go to a davenport, which stood at the other end of the room, for a stamp. No sooner was her back turned towards him, than with the same pen and ink he made the straight figure _one_ into a _four_, and in the cheque which she had written, as well as in the accompanying letter, four thousand six hundred pounds held the place that one thousand six hundred had held when Mrs Griffith Jenkins left the table to go to the davenport. If Howel trembled, or if his conscience smote him when he did this dreadful deed, he did not let his mother see it. 'Perhaps, after all, you had better direct the letter, mother,' he said, as he finished sealing it. 'If I do it it will look as if I thought you couldn't write, and you really write just as well as any other lady of your age. I am really very much obliged to you.' When Howel carried the letter out of the room, and went for a few moments into another, he said to himself, 'I can pay the whole back after the races, and manage so as to prevent her knowing anything about it. And if the worst come to the worst, I must tell her what I did. She won't expose me; it will be a furious quarrel, and then all will be over. We must keep her here for a long time, and I must get hold of her letters first and read them to her, and alter them if necessary. Now I must look about for another thousand pounds.' In due course of time the money was procured for Mrs Jenkins, and paid into a London bank. Howel took possession of the letter of advice concerning it, and told his mother he had opened it because she was out when it arrived, and he had not a moment to lose in obtaining the money from the bank. He kissed her, and talked to her, and hurried her and Netta to dress for a drive in the park with him, until he made her forget to obtain possession of the letter, and so far his fraud prospered. A few mornings after he had received the money, he had a note from Mr Deep, containing the intelligence of the return from abroad of Sir Samuel Spendall, and that his attorneys were investigating his affairs. As soon as he received this note, he went by a succession of omnibuses to the east of London, and, as it chanced, into his brother-in-law's parish. In this parish there was a wretched-looking suburb, inhabited principally by Jews, whose houses were, unlike the whited sepulchres metaphorically used in scripture to describe the hearts of their race, most unclean without, but magnificent within. Into many of these dwellings Howel went in the hope of raising money, but without success. His credit was at zero. In a desolate, but somewhat more respectable-looking house of the same parish, he hired a couple of rooms, giving his name as Mr Mills, and paying a week's rent in advance. He was walking up this street, looking for a cab, when he was suddenly accosted by his brother-in-law, Rowland Prothero. 'You are coming to see me, Howel, I am so glad,' said Rowland, as they shook hands. 'Not to-day; I am here on a little business, and in a great hurry.' Howel walked on, but Rowland accompanied him. 'You were all out when I called yesterday,' said Rowland, 'and I particularly wanted to see you, Howel. When will you be at home?' 'It is impossible to say.' 'It is on your own account; it is about Sir Samuel Spendall that I wish to speak.' Howel turned pale, and stood still for a moment, looking round him as he did so to see that no one was listening. 'What of him?' 'Sir Philip told me that he had been heard to say he would dispute your right to his property, for you had acquired it by unfair means.' 'The scoundrel!' cried Howel, turning pale. 'You have always something agreeable to communicate when we do meet. It is well it is so seldom, Mr Rowland Prothero.' 'Oh, Howel! hear me whilst it is yet time, and clear yourself from the imputations to which I cannot shut my ears. My eyes, alas! have been long opened, and I would have helped you, but neither Netta nor you will listen.' 'Cab!' shouted Howel, and a cab drew up, and Howel jumped into it, with a 'good morning,' leaving Rowland looking mournfully after it. The next morning Rowland was at Howel's house very early. He found Netta alone, and heard from her that Howel had not been at home since the previous morning. She had had a line from him telling her that he was going with Mr Deep to Greenwich. Netta looked ill and anxious. Rowland entreated her to tell him freely what made her so unhappy. He said he did not wish to interfere between her and her husband, only to advise her for her good. Netta burst into tears, and said that Howel was very kind now, but that she feared there was something on his mind. She knew they were in debt, but that Howel told her all would soon be right. Rowland begged her to come to him if she were in any difficulty; assured her of his brotherly love and deep interest in her; pointed out her path of duty to her, and urged her to be patient with her husband whatever might happen, and to endeavour to win him to better courses; then left her with a heavy heart and a promise to return on the morrow. He was obliged to be at home that evening for a service in the church. Late at night Howel returned, anxious and pale. Netta and Mrs Griffey had been to see Albert Smith's entertainment, and the latter was in a great state of descriptive excitement, when Howel interrupted her by saying,-- 'Mother, I am very sorry to seem so unkind and inhospitable, but I am afraid I must ask you to return home to-morrow.' 'To-morrow! I am feeling too tired to be up in time to-morrow, and, seure! if you 'on't give your own mother a home for as long as she do like to stay, there's my Lady Simpson who is asking me there, and--' 'Impossible, mother, I must see you off for Wales. I am in great trouble about money, and I must leave to-morrow myself or shall be in jail.' 'Name o' goodness, Howel, what wos you doing with what I did give you?' 'Never mind; only, if anything is said to you about that money by any one, take care what you say in answer. Don't answer at all, indeed, or it may ruin you and me. Now you must pack up your things to be ready for the first train. Tell the servants--I will--that you are summoned home by a telegraphic message.' Howel impelled his mother upstairs, and then said to Netta, who was standing looking very pale, with her hand on her heart,-- 'Netta, you must fill your pockets, and every corner of your dress that will contain them, with such jewels and plate as are of value. Money, I fear, there is none, unless my mother has any. Send the servants to bed, and do this when all is quiet. I am liable to be arrested for debt, and do not know when it may or may not take place. Have a cab to-morrow morning, and send my mother to the station; then take Minette, at your usual hour, through the park to Hyde Park Corner. Start about ten. I will meet you. I must not stay here to-night; indeed, I must not stay longer.' Netta threw her arms round Howel's neck, and entreated him not to leave her. 'Netta, don't be a fool! You don't want to ruin me, do you?' Netta withdrew her arms, and stood like a statue before Howel. 'You needn't look so frightened? it will be all right in a few weeks. To-morrow at ten, remember.' Howel kissed her, and again left the house. Poor Netta set about the work that was appointed her mechanically. First of all, however, she went into her mother-in-law's room, and assisted her to pack. Mrs Griffey was by turns indignant, alarmed, and sorrowful; but finding that she must depart, and that some real difficulty existed, she made no further resistance. Seeing that Netta had literally no money, she gave her a ten-pound note, under a faithful promise that she would not transfer it to Howel. 'He do be very good-for-nothing, Netta, and have been spending money enough to buy half London. Tak' you care of this, and write you to me. You was very good to me since I was come here.' The kind word was too much for Netta, and she sat down and cried bitterly. Mrs Griffey tried to comfort her by crying too, and so the night waned away. The following morning the cab was sent for, according to Howel's order, and a man-servant ordered to accompany Mrs Griffith Jenkins to the station and see her off. Netta had never believed it possible that she could have cried at parting with her mother-in-law; but after she left the house she wrung her hands in despair, and wept as if she had lost her last earthly friend. Still, she thought, Howel is kind, and loves me, so I will not mind what else happens. She ordered Justine to dress Minette, whilst she hurriedly finished such preparations as she could make for her uncertain future. She found that all Howel's jewels were already gone, so she had only to fill her pockets and a bag with the best of her own and some plate and lock her drawers. She took it for granted that Howel wanted the jewels for himself, and that she would be obliged, when she returned home, to secure other things. As she took Minette by the hand, and led her along the handsome square in which they lived, she saw two men look at her very intently, and then exchange some words apparently about her. In former days, when her bright colour and pretty face attracted the notice of passers-by, this would only have pleased her; now it frightened her. Before they reached Hyde Park Corner Howel hailed her from a cab. 'Netta, would you rather go into Wales to my mother or come with me?' said Howel. 'With you, Howel, anywhere, not into Wales for the world.' Howel leaned back into a corner of the cab, and did not speak again. Netta did not know where they went, but they got into four cabs in succession, driving a certain distance in one, then paying the driver, then walking into another street and hailing a fresh vehicle. At last they reached the far east of London, and found themselves in a dirty, wretched street, amongst a squalid population. 'Give me the bag, and take care of your pocket,' said Howel, as they walked along the pavement. 'Keep close to me.' They reached the house where Howel had taken a lodging the previous day. He walked through the passage, and bade his wife and child follow him; ascended two pair of stairs, and entered a large and tolerably respectable room. There was a letter on the table, which he opened at once. It contained the following lines:-- 'The double S are comparing notes, and various rumours are in circulation amongst that set.' He put the letter in his pocket, and, turning to Netta, told her to go into the bedroom and take off her own and Minette's bonnet, as they must stay for a little while where they were. 'Not here, papa,' said Minette, beginning to cry. 'I don't like this place.' 'Hold your tongue!' said her father sternly, as Netta led her out of the room. 'Netta,' whispered Howel, 'our name is Mills here--just for a time only.' When Netta went into the close, dark bedroom at the back of the sitting-room, she took off her sobbing child's things, set her on her lap, and by degrees soothed her to sleep. She laid her on such a bed as she had assuredly never slept on before, and then returned to Howel. She stood before him pale and resolute. He was pacing the room rapidly, and muttering to himself. 'Howel, I must know all! What is the matter? What is to become of us?' she said. 'We must not be seen by our friends for a time, dear Netta, because I am liable to be arrested. Will you mind staying here a day or two alone? I must go away for a short time on business but will return and remove you when it is settled. You are better here than at home, as everything will be seized. You are in Rowland's parish, if the worst should come to the worst; but I don't want him to know anything about me, as it will be all right again by-and-by.' 'Howel, I asked Captain Dancy not to insist upon that money.' 'You did! That is why he let me off with half for another month. What did he say?' 'He said, Howel, that if I would go to France with him he would forgive your debt.' 'And you, Netta?' Howel clenched his fist. 'And I, Howel? I left the room, and have never seen him since. He called after, but I could not speak to him again. How could I?' 'Netta, will you forgive and try to forget how jealous and unkind I have been? In spite of all, I have loved you, Netta. Oh! if I had not taken you away from your happy home!' 'I can bear anything if you love me, Howel. We will try to get through this difficulty, and then you will begin afresh as a clerk or anything; and we will be happy--oh, so happy again! Happier than ever!' Netta smiled through her tears, whilst Howel groaned aloud. 'Think kindly of me, Netta; don't let them make you hate me. I care for no one else in the world. If I send for you, will you come to me, supposing I cannot come myself?' 'Anywhere! anywhere!' Netta put her arms around her husband and sobbed aloud. By-and-by some refreshments that Howel had ordered came up. The landlady appeared, who seemed a quiet, meek-looking woman. 'I shall be obliged to leave Mrs Mills and the little girl for a day or two,' said Howel. 'You will see they are attended to, I hope.' 'Yes, sir,' said the landlady looking, and, doubtless, feeling astonished at the sort of person Netta was, so pretty and well-dressed. That evening another letter arrived from Mr Deep, which told Howel very plainly that writs were issued against him, and that his bills, cheques, betting debts, and affairs generally, were being questioned by his friends. There was also rather more than a hint of his being suspected of forgery. He went out as soon as he had received that letter, and did not return until past midnight. Netta awaited him in an agony of terror lest he should return no more. He gave Netta ten pounds and told her on no account to disclose her real name, or give a clue to his having been with her in those lodgings, if she should see Rowland. 'But you will be back soon?' said poor Netta. 'In a few days I hope, or else I will send for you. I must leave to-morrow morning at daybreak.' A few weeks ago and neither husband nor wife would have cared how long the separation might be, now it seemed death for each to part. Howel kissed his child again and again as she lay sleeping in her dingy bed, and held Netta long in his arms. The only human being who really loved him! Him, weak, wild, sinful, godless! yet with one divine spark rekindling in his breast--the spark of human love. He laid his wife, fainting, by the side of her child on the bed, bathed her temples with water until he saw that she would revive, and then rushed out into the dirty streets, under the misty, murky morning sky, a reckless and miserable man.	{ "id": "15315" }
39	THE ACCOUNTANT.	'I never shall get through these accounts!' is the soliloquy of Miss Gwynne, to whom we return with much pleasure, on my part, at least, after a separation of six years. She is seated in a gloomy but comfortable dining-room, in a house situated in one of the squares at the East End of London. We left her in her large, airy, country home, looking out upon a beautiful view of hill and valley--we find her in a close, dark square, with nothing to enliven the scene without but a few dingy shrubs, a row of tall gaunt houses, and a smoke-discoloured, soot-filled atmosphere. We left her unhappy and discontented--we find her happy and contented. We left her with a mind harassed by uncertain plans, disappointed hopes, and humbled pride--we find her with a mind strengthened by good purposes, holy aspirations, and prayers for humility. Still, we left her and find her Winifred Gwynne. She has not lost her idiosyncrasy. Reader, be not hasty to pronounce upon the suddenness of these changes. Six years spent principally amongst the earnest minded, laborious clergy of London and their families, in the heart of the most wretched, squalid parish, amongst the lowest, most depraved, most ignorant, most utterly miserable set of people in England, would sober the most thoughtless woman in the world, provided she had a heart. And Freda has not only a heart, but one earnestly desirous of doing good. She has found vent for her energy, occupation for her time, a bank for all the money she possesses; therefore we find her in the midst of papers covered with figures, containing accounts of ragged schools, which she is labouring to reckon up, in the simplest of morning dresses, without ornament or extraneous adornment. She is somewhat paler and thinner than she used to be amongst the breezy hills of Wales, but her eyes are brighter, and the expression of her countenance is gentler. 'How stupid I am!' she exclaims. 'Gladys would reckon them up directly, but she is at the school, and I am ashamed to ask Nita, with all her accounts.' She pauses a moment and lays down her pen. Her eyes fall upon an unopened letter. 'And I declare I have not broken the seal of my own father's letter,' she mutters, performing this duty as she does so, and running through it with occasional comments. ' "We hope you will come and spend Christmas--" I suppose I must--"and see your little brother, who longs to see sister Freda again--" Humph! but who cut her out of Glanyravon Park and all thereto belonging, though he certainly is a dear little man. "Her ladyship quite well, and desires her love." I suppose I ought to be glad and try to return the love. "Mrs Gwynne Vaughan and her children were here yesterday. She asked for you, and the little ones wished to know when you were coming home--" I am much obliged to her, and am afraid I am _not_ too anxious to see either her or her husband, in spite of their civility. "Little Harold is really a wonderful child! He begins to spell already!" So like my good father. Well, I ought to be thankful he is happy, and that it all turned out so much better than I expected. But I can't help feeling a kind of wicked disappointment when I think that Lady Mary should be quite as good a tactician as a second wife, as she was before she married again. But, I hope, I am happy that she makes poor papa comfortable and doesn't worry him to death. I don't think he loves her now half as well as he does me; still, perhaps she suits him better, because she manages him, and I never could. But the _tyfydd_ [Footnote: Welsh for heir.] is a dear little fellow, and I am really fond of him.' Miss Gwynne's soliloquy is cut short by a rap at the door, followed by the entrance of Rowland Prothero, who says, as he bows and seems about to retreat,-- 'I beg your pardon--I was told Mr Jones was here.' 'Oh, do come in!' says Miss Gwynne, rising, and advancing to meet Rowland; 'I cannot get through these accounts. I have been reckoning and reckoning ever since breakfast, and they will not come right. I should be so much obliged to you if you would just look them over for me.' Rowland seated himself at Freda's desk, and began at once to do her bidding. The ragged school was the one in which he was so much interested, and that he had been instrumental in establishing. Whilst Miss Gwynne had been living with her friend, Mrs Jones, she had seen a great deal of Rowland; they had, in fact, been thrown much together. At first, Rowland ceased to come to consult the Joneses, or to spend his few spare hours with them, when he heard that Freda was there; and, of course, they and she understood and respected his reasons for absenting himself; but in the course of time, they met at Sir Philip Payne Perry's, at his rector's, and elsewhere, and his reserve slightly wore off. When Freda began to assist Mrs Jones in her parish work, and threw herself, heart and soul, into the ragged school, they met of necessity very frequently. Freda was so studiously polite in her manners to him, and so careful to avoid every subject that would recall their old relations at Glanyravon, that he gradually felt more at his ease with her, and it ended by his resuming his old, friendly intercourse with Mr and Mrs Jones. But Freda knew well that, in spite of her best efforts to propitiate him, he never forgot those words, 'Do you know who I am, and who you are?' He was always gentlemanlike, always kind, always ready to do anything she asked him, but he never relaxed the somewhat formal respect of his manner. In society, he was quite different with every one else to what he was with her. With the Perrys he was as much at ease as if he were their own son; and they seemed almost to consider him as such. At his rector's he was the life of their little circle, and might have been, Freda shrewdly suspected, united to it by a link closer than that of curate, had he so chosen; for there was a very pretty daughter who evidently looked upon him with favourable eyes. Amongst the respectable portion of his flock he was a general favourite, and all the young ladies, as young ladies will, worked with and for him; not only in the matter of schools, but in slippers and purses. What was still more clear and satisfactory to Freda was, that he made way amongst the miserable poor. The ragged school children loved him, and through them, he got at the hearts of some of their degraded parents. His seemed a labour of love with every one but her. She received his marked politeness and nothing more. But he interested her daily. Some new trait of character would break out--some little touch of deep feeling--some symptom of a highly sensitive nature, which told her how much he must have felt her cutting words. He was proud, too, and she liked him for it, although she was striving to humble her own pride. What would she not have given to have recalled those words! The Rowland Prothero of London, esteemed and loved by the wise and good, for his unpretending but strenuous parochial labours, his clear, forcible, but very simple preaching--was to her quite a different person from him of Glanyravon Farm, the son of her father's tenant. In short they were no longer identical. As she was no longer the heiress of Glanyravon, but simply Miss Gwynne, Mrs. Jones' friend--so he was Mr. Rowland Prothero, a respectable and respected London clergyman. And these are the relations under which they appear, sitting near one another over the accounts of the ragged school, which Freda has undertaken to keep. 'I think there is a slight fault here, Miss Gwynne,' he says, pointing out an error in calculation. 'Of course, I never had a head for figures, and Mrs. Jones could never get me to do my sums.' 'Still, the account is quite right in the main, the errors were in the adding up, and it is rightly balanced.' 'Thank you, I am so very much obliged to you. I should never have got through them. And now, will you tell me of those wretched people that Mr. Jones would not let me go and see.' 'I gave them the money you kindly sent, or, at least, laid it out for them, as they would have spent it in gin, and they are already more comfortable; but the father is gone away, and the mother apparently dying.' 'Is there no way of alleviating all this wretchedness?' 'I fear none. Sin is at the root, and as long as the present world lasts, there must be misery with it.' Rowland spoke these words in an unusually melancholy and depressed tone of voice, which caused Miss Gwynne to look up from the papers, directly at him. He was paler than usual, and his lip quivered. He met her glance, and making an effort to rise, said hastily,-- 'Can I have the honour of doing anything more for you, Miss Gwynne. I am sure I can return you the thanks of the committee, indeed of every one concerned for--' 'I want no thanks, I deserve no thanks from any one; are you ill, Mr. Rowland? You have been in some of those dreadful haunts, and they have upset you. May I get you something?' 'Thank you, I am quite well.' Rowland's lip quivered still more and he grew still less calm, as he again met Miss Gwynne's eye fixed on him with evident interest. 'I am sure you are ill; you must allow me the privilege of a parishioner, if not of an old friend, and let me ask what is the matter?' Her manner was so kind, that Rowland's reserve was for a moment overcome. 'Thank you, Miss Gwynne--my poor sister.' 'Yes, what of her? I assure you I am truly interested for her; poor Netta!' 'I fear she is in serious trouble, I scarcely know what myself as yet; but she, her husband and child have left the house, and Howel's creditors have taken possession of all his effects. No one knows where they are gone, or what is to become of them.' Rowland had not the courage to tell Miss Gwynne that the police were searching for Howel right and left upon a charge of forgery. 'Poor Netta! I am very, very sorry. What can have reduced him to this?' 'Gaming, horse-racing, speculating! These will waste the largest fortune and ruin the fairest hopes. But he deserves it all, only my poor sister is the victim, and the respectability of an honest name is impeached.' 'Oh no--poor Netta's hasty marriage and wilful temper were the causes of her trouble, it can have nothing to do with your family; besides, many people of high family and position are obliged to fly for debt.' 'That is dishonour enough, Miss Gwynne, but this--this is worse; Howel is suspected of--of forgery.' Rowland gave Miss Gwynne one quick, searching glance as he said that word, and then rose to go. She rose, too, but putting out her hands, and looking him full in the face, kindly and gently, she said,-- 'Mr. Prothero, I am very sorry for you; for Netta; for all. But if this is true, the sin and the shame will rest with him who caused them--it cannot fall on you or yours.' Rowland shook the offered hand, and then left the room. In the hall he met Gladys, who had just come in from the school. Frisk was barking and jumping about her with great animation, not having grown, as Freda foretold, a useless and fat London dog. When Rowland appeared, he transferred his attentions to him, and looked much disappointed at receiving none in return. Rowland shook hands with Gladys, and asked her to come with him into Mr Jones' little study, where he told her, more clearly than he had told Miss Gwynne, what he knew of Howel and Netta. He said that he had been to their house the previous day in the afternoon, and had found it occupied by sheriffs' officers and policemen, who were trying, in vain, to ascertain from the servants where their master and mistress were. All that they knew was that their master did not sleep in the house the previous night, and that their mistress left it that morning. Rowland had waited until late at night, but no further intelligence was gained. He gleaned that Howel was accused of having forged cheques, at different times, to a very large amount, in the names both of Sir Samuel Spendall and Sir Horatio Simpson. The frauds had been discovered through a cheque on the latter's bank, purporting to be written by him for five hundred pounds, received by Howel a few weeks before. Sir Horatio Simpson having gone himself to his bankers for some money, it was found that he had overdrawn his account, and, upon examining his late cheques, he utterly disclaimed that of Howel, and declared it forged. The result of this was a general examination of his banking accounts for the last four years, and the discovery of forgeries, by alteration of figures and forged signatures, to the amount of some five or six thousand pounds. At the same time Sir Samuel Spendall's attorneys found, from a rigid examination of that baronet's affairs, that Howel's claim on him did not amount to two-thirds of his demand, and that various signatures to betting debts, and loans of money, etc., were forgeries. In addition to this, Howel's own debts, both on the turf and to his tradesmen, were enormous, and ignominy surrounded him on all sides. Rowland groaned aloud as he told Gladys these horrible truths, and Gladys had no words of comfort; all she could say was,-- 'It is not poor Netta's fault; it is not yours, Mr Rowland, or that of any one belonging to you.' 'But the shame, Gladys; you know my father, it will be his death.' 'Oh no, sir, he always expected something of the kind. I have often heard him say so. If we could only find Mrs Jenkins and her child it would not be so bad.' Mr Jones came in, and Gladys left the room and went to Miss Gwynne. Gladys has become the friend and confidential adviser of every member of that small household; no one but herself considers her as a servant. She acts as housekeeper for Mrs Jones, maid to Miss Gwynne, school teacher and district visitor to Mr Jones and Rowland, almoner and confidante to all. Gladys, within doors, Miss Gladys, without; no one knows that she has any other name. In spite of her beauty, her youth, her timidity, she goes amongst scenes and people, from whom most women, even the best, would shrink, and seems to bear about with her a charmed life and invisible strength that nothing can destroy. Amongst the wretched Irish who inhabit a portion of that vast, depraved parish, she has an influence that even the clergy cannot boast, due to her Irish extraction and slight accent; and the sufferings she has herself undergone from gaunt famine and grim death, make her keenly alive to their wants and feelings. No one has such power over the poor untutored heathen children of the ragged school as she has, and no one loves them as she does. She, too, like her mistress, has found her vocation in their city home; who cannot find a vocation in any home, if they will only look around them for it? Whilst Rowland and Mr Jones discuss the sad news Rowland has to tell, Miss Gwynne, Mrs Jones and Gladys discuss it also, for Mrs Jones has joined the pair in the dining room. There is but one feeling in that household--sorrow for Rowland and his family, anxiety about Netta. Tears are in the eyes of all those true-hearted women as they think of the probable fate of the once bright little belle of their country neighbourhood, deserted, perhaps amongst the wild wildernesses of London houses. Mr Jones endeavours to console Rowland by suggesting that if Netta is left by her husband she will surely fall back upon her brother; and when he has exhausted what little portion of hope he can inspire, Rowland turns resolutely to subjects that must be attended to, even if his heart were breaking from sorrow. The respected rector of that large parish was in very uncertain health, and had gone abroad with his family for three months, leaving all the parochial duties in the hands of his two curates. They were heavy enough for three clergymen, but Mr Jones and Rowland found them almost too weighty for them, unassisted by their chief; however, they fought manfully through them, Sundays and week days. Rowland refused Mr and Mrs Jones' invitation to dinner, and, crossing the square, entered his solitary lodging in one of the opposite houses, and began to write to his brother Owen. He told him all that he knew of Howel and Netta, and begged him to break it to their parents as best he might. When he had finished his letter he prepared to go out again. His landlady brought him some luncheon, but he could not touch it. He went first to his ragged school, and there the sight of those children of crime and infamy recalled his little niece to his mind, and made his heart sink still lower with the fear of what she might become. Never had he spoken with such feeling to the motley throng that stood about him as he did that day. Then he had to thread some of the haunts whence those children came to seek out the miserable parents to whom they had been a sort of introduction, and never before had he experienced so forcibly that he was their brother, even theirs, as now that he knew that his sister's husband was 'a thief and a forger;' he could almost fancy that they already pointed to him as belonging, at least, to one as degraded as themselves. That evening he read prayers and lectured in one of the churches. He lectured extempore, and it was noted by all his congregation that more than once his feelings nearly overcame him. They thought and talked of the fact, when, at a later period, they heard of his family sorrow. But they all said that his 'word was with power,' and there was many a moist eye amongst them as he warned them, in language made even more forcible than usual by the events of the day, against the pleasures and vices of the world. After the service many of the school teachers and Scripture-readers met him in the vestry to have their work allotted, and their word of advice and encouragement. Again he pressed upon them the subject brought home to his heart, that of resisting in youth the 'temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil.' His youthful regiment of soldiers talked to one another afterwards of the earnestness and piety of Him who led them on in their battle against evil, and prayed to become more like one who was so devoted to 'fighting that good fight,' which they had enlisted to join in. Tired and exhausted, Rowland returned to his lodging. He tried to review the events of the day, but in doing so, fairly broke down. He had been striving to keep his mind in subjection by beating down his monster enemy, pride, for the last six years; but he found that he was still rampant within him. It was not simply the grief for a sister's distress and a brother-in-law's sin that he felt, but strong personal mortification. How could he think of self, of the Perrys, of his rector, of his family, of his parishioners and their opinion, above all, how could he think of Miss Gwynne, who disdained him,--at a time when every personal feeling ought to be merged into sympathy with others? He prayed and struggled against the tempter; prayed for his sister; above all, for Howel; in words too fervent and holy for these pages; and went to bed and slept from mere exhaustion of mind and body. Little did Netta imagine, when she made that disobedient step into the dark future, what misery it would bring upon all who loved her! Pause, then, and think, all you young women who may be meditating a similar course, even whilst reading this story, or may be at issue with your parents, because their experience shows them a future which your inexperience cannot show you! Pause and think that Netta is no fictitious character, her story no mere creation of an author's brain, but the portrait and history of one out of hundreds of wilful daughters brought to shame and grief, and bringing all belonging to them to shame and grief by an unblessed and unholy marriage.	{ "id": "15315" }
40	THE FORGER'S WIFE.	Days and weeks passed, and there was no intelligence of Netta. Rowland had heard from Owen of the domestic misery at home, and also that he had been to see Mrs Griffith Jenkins, who disclaimed all knowledge of her son's hiding place, or what had become of his wife and child. Her own grief was too real to allow even the sceptical Owen to doubt it; and when, in addition, she gave him to understand that she, too, was nearly ruined by Howel's forgeries, but that she would die rather than tell any one else of it, he could only pity the wretched mother who had, by her bad example and teaching, helped to train her son for the ruin into which he had fallen. Rowland heard that Mr Deep had been arrested upon a charge of abetting Howel in his crimes, and that a search-warrant for the examination of his papers had brought to light other nefarious dealings, as well as an unsigned letter, supposed to be in Howel's writing, intimating his intention of going to America. This had caused inquiries to be made at the docks, and police emissaries to be despatched forthwith to America. A person answering his description had sailed for that continent from Southampton the day after Howel left his house, but unaccompanied by wife or child. Strange to say that the Epsom races had come off, and that Howel's horse, Magnificent, had actually won the Derby stakes! Too late! save for his creditors and those he had defrauded. Still, doubtless, one more bitter drop in the cup of his despair, wherever he might chance to be drinking it. All that he had left behind him was sold, hunters inclusive, and this Magnificent alone, particularly after the Derby, yielded a princely fortune. Too late, either for further crimes, or poor Netta's hoped-for reformation. It was hard work for Rowland to go through his heavy parochial duties with this great misfortune hanging over his head. But if the sympathy and kindness of friends could help him in his work, and support him under the pressure of anxiety, he was helped and supported. Still it was evident to all that he fled from society, and in spite of the delicate tact of the Joneses and Freda, he had scarcely been near them since that first day. Whether it was pride or susceptibility, he could scarcely tell himself, but he could not bring himself to thrust his sorrow and those of his family upon others. He caused every possible search to be made, through the police and otherwise for Netta, but in vain. But Providence answered his prayers, when his own efforts seemed fruitless, and that through the instrumentality of one of the poor children, for whose benefit he had exerted such talents as God had given him. Some four years before, a miserable girl of eleven years old had become one of his ragged school children. I say _his_, because even his rector allowed him the merit of establishing the school. Through this child, Rowland became acquainted with her mother, a wretched, starving widow, living in squalor and iniquity. Miss Gwynne had helped her temporally, Rowland spiritually, and when she had died, about a year ago, he had strong hopes that much suffering had brought forth a sincere repentance. Her little girl was one of the many examples of the blessed effects of a ragged school. At her mother's death she was fifteen years old, teachable and anxious to be taught. Rowland prevailed on a respectable woman, the lodging-house keeper, in whose house Netta had found a refuge, to try her as a servant, and she had turned out well. So it was that this girl, having an idea that Rowland could effect wonders, waited for him one Sunday evening after service, and asked if she might speak with him. She told him, with a long preface of apologies, that she did not know if she was right in saying what she was going to say, but that there was a poor lady in her mistress's second floor, who was very ill, out of her mind she thought, and who hadn't a friend in the world. The lady had forbidden her mistress to speak to any doctor or clergyman about her, but she had not forbidden her. And indeed it seemed almost worse to see a lady in such trouble and sickness than it did those who were used to it, as she, and the like of her had been, and would be still, but for Mr Prothero. 'What is her name?' asked Rowland eagerly. 'Mrs Mills, sir.' Rowland's sudden hope fell. 'And she has a little girl, sir, who isn't well either, and who does nothing but cry and moan.' 'What is her name?' 'Her mamma calls her Minette, or some such name, sir.' 'I will come with you now,' said Rowland, in great agitation. 'Make haste; I suppose she has been with you some time.' 'More than a month, sir, and she is always expecting some one to come--and no one comes.' Rowland strode on, fast--faster than he had once before walked with Gladys--heedless of everything around him. In about a quarter of an hour he and the girl reached the lodging house. 'You will tell missus how it was, please, sir. I don't think she can be angry, sir.' 'I am sure she will not be angry; tell her that I want to see her. Mrs Saunders, the landlady, came at once. Rowland inquired into the particulars of Netta's arrival at her house, her illness, etc., and heard what we already know of Howel's sudden departure; and the following account, in addition of the month Netta had spent since he left her. 'The morning after Mr Mills left, sir,' said the landlady 'Mrs Mills did not ring for breakfast, or show any sign of being up. I waited for a long time, and then I went and listened at the bedroom door. I heard a kind of moaning, and was so frightened, I made so bold as to go in. I found the poor lady lying down on the bed, beside the little girl, who was still asleep. She seemed more dead than alive, and looked at me terrified-like, as if she didn't know who was coming in. When she saw me, she tried to get up and look cheerful, and to give account of her never having undressed. I went and made her some tea, and got her to go into the sitting-room by the fire which the girl lighted, for she was as cold as death. Then I dressed the little girl, who awoke and began to cry when she saw how pale her mamma looked, and I told her to try to make her mamma eat and drink. And the little dear, like an angel as she is, began to comfort her mother, and to coax her, and when I saw the poor lady begin to shed tears over the child I went away. 'Ever since that morning, sir, she has been in a kind of a dream. She does nothing but look out of the window, up and down the street, as if she was expecting some one, and whenever there is a step on the stairs, she runs to the door and peeps out. And then, when the postman's knock is heard, she starts, turns red, turns pale, and puts her hand on her heart. I am sure she has heart complaint, and I asked her to let me send for a doctor, but she wouldn't hear of it. Sometimes I think she's a little crazed. Once I mentioned the clergy, and asked if she wouldn't like to see one, and said you and Mr Jones, sir, were very kind gentlemen. She started up, and said, "Hush! hush! not for worlds--not for worlds! Mr Mills will soon be back!" She gave me a ten-pound note to change twice--and I was obliged to buy everything for her and the little girl, for they hadn't a rag with them, except what they stood up in. I was as careful as I could be, but the money went, and now she talks of selling some jewels and things she brought with her. Oh, sir! if you could find their friends!' As may be supposed, Rowland had some difficulty in controlling his emotion during this recital. When Mrs Saunders paused, he said,-- 'I have every reason to believe that I know this poor lady, and, if you will trust me to go to her, I am sure that I shall be of service. I must go quite alone. You may depend upon my having a right to do this.' 'Whatever you do, sir, is sure to be right and kind. If you will take it upon yourself I shall be only too glad. You know the room, sir? the one where you used to go and see my poor husband.' Rowland was upstairs immediately. Almost before he reached the door, a pale, haggard face peered out of it. 'It is--it is Howel!' cried poor Netta, rushing into the gloomy passage, and throwing her arms round Rowland's neck. 'No, Netta--dearest Netta! it is I, Rowland--your brother,' said Rowland, supporting his fainting sister back into the room. 'Uncle! Uncle Rowland! I am so glad!' exclaimed a little voice, as Minette ran towards him and clasped his knees. As, the glare of the gas by which the room was lighted fell upon Netta's face, Rowland half believed that it was the corpse of his once blooming sister that he was placing on the sofa. 'Fetch some water, Minette, darling,' said Rowland, supporting Netta. 'This is what mamma takes,' said the child, bringing Rowland a small bottle labelled 'Prussic acid' from the bedroom. 'I cannot give her this. Is there no wine?' 'The little girl went to an old chiffonier and brought a decanter with wine in it. Rowland poured some down Netta's throat, and she recovered. 'Rowland, is it you? Not--not--' muttered Netta, as she strove to rise. 'I think you had better go. Perhaps, when he comes, he won't like--oh, my heart.' 'Be calm, dear Netta; I will do nothing you dislike. If Howel comes back I will go away directly. I will be most careful of what I say. You need not fear me, Netta,--your brother who loves you so dearly' 'You won't go away again, uncle, will you?' said the pale, little Minette, climbing on Rowland's knee and nestling her head in his bosom; 'or will you take mamma and me away from this nasty place?' 'No, dear, Uncle Rowland will not leave you, he is so very glad to find you.' Tears, actual tears, filled Rowland's eyes as he kissed the brow of the child, who was soon fast asleep in his arms, and as he held Netta's thin hand and looked at her bewildered face. 'Did you say you loved me, Rowland?' asked Netta, looking at him with a strange, wandering glance, whilst large tears rolled down her cheeks. 'I don't think I deserve any one's love, do I? Is mother vexed that I have been away so long?' 'Yes, dear, and you must come home at once. You must come to me first to get strong, and then--' 'Hush! hush! No, I cannot leave this house,--I will not; never, never till Howel comes or sends for me. Isn't that some one on the stairs?' 'I will see, dear.' 'No, not you,--not you.' 'It is some one gone to the next floor. Lie still, dear Netta.' 'It is nice having you, Rowland; but if he should come--' 'I would go away. You are ill, Netta. Tell me what is the matter with you.' Rowland was feeling Netta's pulse, and found that they were too rapid to be counted, whilst he could literally hear the pulsation of her heart. 'I don't know; something at my heart. And--and--my head, just here,--at the top. It is so burning, like fire.' 'We must nurse you, Netta. If you would only come to my lodgings.' 'Hush! hush! not for the world. I will stay here till--I am sure that is a step.' 'No dear. Try to be calm and sleep for half-an-hour, whilst I go and make some arrangements.' 'Do you think he will come to-night?' 'I scarcely think he can, Netta. You know he is obliged to hide, dear, do you not? for--' 'Yes, yes! he told me for a few days for debt, and then he would come back. But he didn't murder Captain Dancy, did he?' Netta started up and fixed her eyes wildly on her brother. 'No,--I assure you, no! I saw some one who saw Captain Dancy yesterday.' 'Thank God! thank God!' 'And, Netta, I do not think he can venture to come back just yet; so you must try to get well for all our sakes.' 'Yes, I will, that I may go to him. I will sleep now. Put Minette by my side. Poor Minette!' Rowland laid the child's head on her mother's lap, and arranged the pillows for Netta, and then went, with a heart full to bursting, to Mrs Saunders. 'Mrs Saunders,' he said, 'I know that I can trust you. The poor lady to whom you have been so kind is my own sister, for whom we have been anxiously searching all this time. I don't know how far secrecy may be necessary, but, at present at least, do no let this fact go beyond yourself. Her husband has reduced her to what you see. I must leave her for half-an-hour; meanwhile, will you prepare supper, make a cheerful fire, let off the gas, and give us a couple of candles? Make the room as home-like as you can, in short. After my sister and the little girl are gone to bed, put a couple of blankets on the sofa in the sitting-room for me. I cannot leave her to-night.' 'Excuse me, sir,' said Mrs Saunders, 'wouldn't your sleeping here excite observation, if secrecy is necessary. You may depend on my care. Sarah has slept on the sofa for a fortnight, unknown to Mrs Mills, to be within call.' 'Perhaps you are right; but I want to make my sister fancy she is at home. It might recall her mind, which is evidently wandering. I shall be back soon.' Rowland walked as fast as he could to Mr Jones'. He found him, his wife, and Freda together in his library. 'I must apologise for coming so late,' he began; 'but I know you are so kindly interested in my poor sister that you will excuse me. I have found her and her child, and cannot prevail on her to leave her rooms at Mrs Saunders', where she is.' Then Rowland told his friends shortly how he had found her, and that he feared her mind was in a most uncertain state. 'She evidently does not know her husband's crimes, but thinks he is hiding on account of debt, and is expecting him to fetch her away every moment. I think if we could distract her thoughts from this one subject she might get better; but she is very ill, bodily as well as mentally.' 'Would not the sight of old friends be the best restorative?' suggested Miss Gwynne. 'Gladys and I could go to her, and as we are in the habit of visiting the sick in the parish, no suspicion could attach to our being with her; for it would never do, in poor Netta's state, to expose her to inquisitive people connected with her husband's flight.' 'Thank you--thank you, Miss Gwynne,' said Rowland 'This is what I wished, but scarcely dared to ask.' Miss Gwynne left the room, and returned accompanied by Gladys. 'Gladys says she is ready to go at once, if necessary,' said Freda; 'and we can do without her, cannot we, Serena?' 'Quite well,' said Mrs Jones; 'but it will not do to excite an invalid, and so sudden a visit may not be good for her.' 'She must not be left another night without a friend at hand,' said Freda decidedly. Rowland looked his thanks. 'Could not Mr Rowland prepare her for my coming? And I could sleep in the sitting-room, and not even see her to-night, but be ready to wait upon her to-morrow morning,' said Gladys. 'Yes,' said Freda. 'If you will go back and try to prepare her for Gladys, Mr Prothero, she shall follow you in a short time.' 'I will bring her,' said Mr Jones, 'and she can but return, if you cannot prevail on your sister to see her.' Rowland could only press the hands of his kind friends, and hurry back to Netta. He found her sitting in an old easy-chair, with Minette on a stool at her feet, fast asleep. The child refused to go to bed till 'Uncle Rowland' came back. There was a bright fire in the grate, and a supper was spread on a table drawn close to it. Candles replaced the gas-lamp, and the room looked almost cheerful, in spite of its faded red curtains and dingy furniture. Netta had a small book in her hand, which she gave Rowland to look at. 'Mother gave me that when I was ill years ago--how long ago? How old is Minette?' 'She must be nearly eight, I think,' said Rowland, turning over the small, well-read Testament that had once been his mother's. 'I like that book now, Rowland!' said Netta. 'I am so glad you have come back. It seemed so lonesome when you were gone. Ha! ha! Howel used to say I must say _lonely_ and not lonesome. Are you sure he won't come and find you here?' 'Quite sure. And I am going to bring another old friend to see you? --you remember Gladys?' 'Gladys! No, I don't remember her. What! The Irish beggar? I don't like her, and she don't like me. I think I was very unkind to her. Yes, I should like to see her once to ask her pardon.' Minette awoke just at this moment, and Rowland took her on his knee, and gave her some supper, and tried to make Netta eat, but it was evident that she had neither appetite nor inclination for food, though she did her best to please her brother. 'This is like old times, Rowland,' she said. 'I like it better than grandeur. When will Gladys come? Owen told me she saved mother's life. Is it true? Why doesn't mother come?' 'Would you like to see Gladys to-night, Netta?' 'Yes. Will you go and fetch her?' Rowland found Gladys and Mr Jones in Mrs Saunders' parlour. Gladys said she would take her bonnet off, that she might meet Netta as she used to do at the farm. Rowland did not know that Gladys had put on the identical print gown that Netta had given her years ago, and which she had kept carefully, in remembrance of her. This and a plain cap transformed her into the Gladys of Netta's recollection, from the Gladys of Miss Gwynne's attiring. Her heart beat almost as quickly as Netta's as she entered her room, but she steadied her nerves and voice as she went up to Netta, curtseyed, and said quite naturally,-- 'How do you do, Miss Netta?' Netta put her hand to her brow, as if to clear her memory, and fixed her large bewildered eyes on Gladys. Then she put out her hand, rather condescendingly, with something of the old attempt at superiority, and finally burst into tears. The tears were so natural that Rowland and Gladys let them flow on; only the latter knelt down by poor Netta's side, and taking her hands in hers, pressed them tenderly. Netta threw her arms round Gladys' neck and kissed her, and called her, 'Gladys, Gladys, fach!' and said, 'You will not leave me.' And thus the once proud little Netta and the always humble Gladys clave to one another, as Naomi and Ruth. Minette got off her uncle's knee, and climbed up into the chair, and put her arms, too, round her mother's neck, and began to cry with her. Rowland's emotion at this scene found vent in prayer. Inwardly he asked that Gladys might be a comfort and support to his dear, wandering, forsaken sister. When Netta's emotion had worn itself out, Rowland prepared to go, promising to return early on the morrow. He asked Netta if she would like him to offer up a few words of thanksgiving for their reunion before he left her, and when she assented they all knelt together in family prayer. Eight full years had passed since Netta had so knelt before. When Rowland had departed, Gladys asked Minette if she might put her to bed. The child looked shyly at her at first, and then allowed her to undress her, and to take her to the close, gloomy bedroom. It was so late, and the child was so tired, that her little head drooped in sleep even before she was undressed, and when Gladys laid her pale cheek on the pillow she slept soundly at once. Then Gladys returned to the sitting-room, and found Netta at the door listening. 'Hush! you had better go. I think he is coming,' she said. Gladys withdrew for a moment, till the steps were no longer heard. As long as Netta had been occupied with her brother and Gladys, she seemed to have forgotten the passing sounds, but when left alone she listened as before. With some difficulty Gladys prevailed on her to go to bed. Mrs Jones had given her night-lights, and a slight sleeping potion before she left home, upon the chance of their being wanted; and she put one of the former in the bedroom, and gave Netta the latter. She sat by her side until she fell asleep, and then returned to the sitting-room, literally 'to watch and pray.'	{ "id": "15315" }
41	THE SISTER OF CHARITY.	The following morning, soon after eight o'clock, there arrived a basket from Miss Gwynne, containing various meats and condiments that she thought might be good for Netta and her child, and, above all, a nosegay of Glanyravon flowers. Mr Gwynne had of late taken to send his daughter baskets of game, poultry, and other country cheer, to which her particular ally, the old gardener always added a tin of well-packed flowers. These Miss Gwynne was in the habit of tending and treasuring, as people in large cities alone can tend and treasure flowers, until their last odour and colour departed, and these she now gladly sacrificed to Netta. It was an October morning, dull and misty. Gladys had kept up the fire, and when Rowland's friend, Sarah, came to clean the room, she found that her work had been done for her. 'Oh, Miss Gladys,' said the girl, 'why did you?' 'Never mind, Sarah, you get the breakfast things and boiling water, and I will do the rest.' Netta and her child slept late, and so heavily, that Gladys thought they would never awake. She had arranged and rearranged the room, the breakfast, everything; and was employed in mending a rent in Minette's frock, when she heard the little girl say 'Mamma!' She went into the bedroom, and found Minette sitting up in bed, and her mother still sleeping. She washed and dressed the child, who seemed to take to her naturally, and then led her into the sitting-room. Her delight was so unbounded at the sight of the breakfast and the flowers on the table, that her exclamations pierced the thin partition, and awoke her mother. 'He is come! he is come!' cried Netta, jumping out of bed, and hastening into the sitting-room in her night-dress through the door that communicated with the bedroom. When Gladys saw the wild excitement of Netta's manner, and the unusual gleam of her eyes, she understood what Rowland meant by saying that her mind was unsettled; when she saw Gladys, she started, and ran back again into the bedroom, whither Gladys followed her. A fit of depression and pain at the heart succeeded, as they always did, this new disappointment; and it was evident to Gladys that the only chance of restoring her to health of mind or body was by keeping her amused, and distracting her thoughts from her husband. Minette brought in the flowers, and Gladys ventured to say that they came from Glanyravon, and that Miss Gwynne had sent them. The flowers, or their associations, brought the tears, which were the best outlets for poor Netta's hysterical feelings, and when she had minutely examined each--chrysanthemums, verbenas, salvias, geraniums--she shook the one carnation from the vase, and kissing it, and pressing it to her heart, said,-- 'This came from mother, how good of her to think of me.' Then she let Gladys help her to dress, and went to the well-stored breakfast-table, sitting down on a chair Gladys placed for her. She seemed to take up the teapot mechanically, and began to pour out the tea; Gladys did not attempt to sit down, but waited upon her and Minette, as if she were, indeed, the servant she professed to be. Either Netta took this as a matter of course, or was too much absorbed in other thoughts to give it consideration. 'Mamma, I should like Gladys to have some breakfast with us,' said Minette, 'she must be so hungry. I think she is a lady, mamma; I like her, she is so kind.' 'Yes, Gladys, do,' said Netta, 'you know this is not Abertewey. But where did you get this game?' 'Miss Gwynne sent it, ma'am, she will come and see you by-and-by. I am sure I hear Mr Rowland's voice on the stairs,' Gladys said this to avoid another start, and Rowland appeared. Having kissed his sister and niece, and shaken hands with Gladys, he sat down to the breakfast-table. Gladys was still standing, but he begged her to sit down, and she did so. 'Miss Gwynne sent me all this, Rowland,' said Netta, 'except the carnation, that was mother's.' Netta had placed it in her bosom. 'Uncle must have a flower too, mamma,' said Minette, jumping up, and taking him a red geranium. 'Let me put it into your button-hole, it smells so sweet.' Rowland smiled and coloured as that sprig of red geranium from Glanyravon was placed in his coat by his little niece, and in spite of his better resolutions, when he went home, it was transferred to a glass, and treasured as long as imagination could fancy it a flower. After breakfast, Gladys asked Netta if Minette might go with her to see Miss Gwynne, as she was obliged to leave for a short time. 'Gladys, you are going away, and would carry off my child, I know you are,' said Netta, 'all, all! nobody cares what becomes of me. Why can I not die?' Minette's arms were round her mother's neck in a moment. 'I will stay till you return, Gladys,' said Rowland. 'She will not come back if once she goes,' repeated Netta; 'none of them do, except you, Rowland. Owen never did--mother never did--Howel--oh! he will! he will!' 'They will both return, dear Netta, only let Minette go.' 'No, uncle, I won't leave mamma, never--never!' Gladys went away alone. Sarah came to clear the breakfast things, and when Netta was seated in her old armchair, Rowland again began to urge her to leave the lodgings she was in, and either come to his, or accept an invitation that he brought her from Mrs Jones to go to her house. 'I will never leave these rooms, Rowland,' she said solemnly, 'until _he_ fetches me, or sends for me, or bids me go. He loves me, Rowland, dearly; he said so. Do you know, I once fancied he did not, and tried not to care for him. But when he was in debt and trouble, it all came back again. And, you know, he is my husband, even if I did run away from home, and I must do as he bids me.' Mrs Saunders came to say that Mr Wenlock wanted Rowland. 'Perhaps it is he, Rowland,' said Netta. 'No, dear Netta; it is a great friend of mine, a doctor. Will you see him to please me? We all want so much to get you better.' 'Yes, if you will not tell him about Howel. I must get well, for it may be a long, long journey. Do you know that I dreamt last night that he sent for me, and that I was to travel thousands of miles before I met him. I must get well, so I will see your friend, Rowland, only don't tell him my name. Minette, go with Mrs Saunders, whilst mamma sees Uncle Rowland's friend.' Mrs Saunders took Minette away, and Mr Wenlock, a gentle-looking, elderly medical man, a great friend of Rowland's, made his appearance. Netta rose with a little attempt at her Parisian curtsey, and an effort to assume her Abertewey manners; but she soon forgot her grandeur when the doctor spoke to her in a soothing, fatherly way, and won her to confide her long-concealed illness to him. Rowland left them together, and went down to Mrs Saunders' parlour to amuse his little niece. In something less-than half-an-hour he was joined by Mr Wenlock, who took Minette on his knee, and looked at her thin cheeks and hollow eyes, felt her weak pulse, and asked her many questions. When she went upstairs to her mother, Mr Wenlock said,-- 'The poor lady is very ill, dangerously, I fear. She must have had some heavy sorrows for years to have reduced her to her present state of nervousness, nearly amounting to insanity, but not quite. This may yet be warded off with great care, total freedom from all excitement, and change of air and scene. She has heart complaint of an alarming nature. This can never be cured; but if her strength can be restored, she may live for years--her natural life, in short--or she may be taken at any moment. Any sudden shock would probably be fatal.' Rowland had not told Mr Wenlock that Netta was his sister. When he heard his opinion, so clearly and unreservedly expressed, he was greatly distressed. 'She will not be moved from these lodgings,' he said. 'She positively refuses. Will it do to oblige her to leave?' 'By no means. But I hear that admirable young woman, whom I call _our_ Sister of Charity, Miss Gladys, has undertaken to nurse her. If any one can persuade her to submit to go elsewhere she will do it. It should be into the country. To her native air, if possible.' Just at this juncture, Gladys returned, and Rowland called her into the consultation. Mr Wenlock continued,-- 'Lead her to think of her child, who is also in a most delicate state. Tell her, that change of air, country air, is absolutely necessary for her--which it really is--but she must not be taken from her mother. Distract her mind as much as possible from the trouble, whatever it is, that oppresses it. Had she been left much longer to herself, she would have quite lost her reason. Let her see such friends as can be trusted to talk to her cheerfully and to amuse, without wearying her. If you undertake this office, Miss Gladys, you will require all your patience, and more than your natural health; and once undertaken, you must not give it up, for she will get used to you, and depend upon you. Poor thing! poor thing! I have seen many such cases, and never need to inquire much into private history to know their origin. Wicked, morose, unfeeling, cruel husbands are generally at the root, and God only knows what their victims have to bear. There will be a pretty large account to make up at the Great Day, Mr Prothero, between man and wife, of marriage vows broken, and feelings outraged.' 'And my poor--and Mrs Mills,' said Rowland, 'ought, you think, to be removed at once from London?' 'Decidedly, if she can be prevailed upon to go of her own free will, not otherwise. I will see her again to-morrow, and watch her case as long as she remains here. As regards the poor child, Miss Gladys, she, too, must be nursed and amused, and well fed. I suppose she has been neglected since the measles that her mother told me of, or else she never was a strong child. Poor little lamb! It would kill her mother if she were to be taken! But, really, I couldn't say--however, we shall see. Good morning. I ought to be elsewhere by this time.' Mr Wenlock took his departure. 'Miss Gwynne is coming directly, Mr Rowland,' said Gladys; 'I suppose I had better tell Mrs Jenkins so. She has been out all the morning, purchasing everything she thought Mrs Jenkins and Miss Minette could want, and is going to bring what she has bought, in a cab, herself,' 'God bless her!' murmured Rowland. 'Gladys, do say Minette, and not Miss. Why will you not consider yourself as a friend--a sister?' Why did that quick, bright flush spread so suddenly over Gladys' pale face? 'Thank you, Mr Rowland, I will. But I cannot forget what I really was, and am.' 'You are and have been everything to us all, and now all our hopes seem to centre in you. Can Miss Gwynne spare you?' 'She proposed my coming herself; but even if she had not, my first duty is to my dear mistress and her children.' 'You will receive Miss Gwynne, Gladys. It will be less awkward. I have a hundred things to do. Tell Netta that I will come again.' Rowland went first of all to his lodgings, and wrote a long letter to his father. He told him boldly and plainly what Mr Wenlock had said; he had already written to his mother the good news of his having found Netta. He asked his father in a straightforward manner to receive Netta, and to forgive her. He made no comments, preached no sermon. He thought that a statement of facts would have more effect on his father than all his eloquence, or all the texts of the Bible, every one of which his father knew as well as he did. He also began to feel it was not for him to lecture and reprimand a parent, even though he knew that parent to be in the wrong. As he folded his manly and affectionate letter, he prayed for a blessing upon it, and went to preach and pray with many members of his flock, who, alas! knew not, like his father, those blessed texts, which teach us to 'forgive as we hope to be forgiven.' Later in the afternoon he went to Netta again; he found Miss Gwynne with her, cloak and bonnet thrown off, and Minette in full and eager talk on her lap. Netta was looking quite cheerful under the influence of Miss Gwynne's animated manners, and Minette's shouts of laughter. Toys and picture-books were on the table before the child, and all sorts of garments spread about the room. Miss Gwynne had sent Gladys home for a large dressing-gown for Netta, and had expressed her intention of remaining some time. Minette jumped off her lap when Rowland entered, and ran towards him, with a book in one hand, and a doll in the other. 'Look, uncle, what this kind lady has brought me; and she has made mamma quite well. She has been laughing like she used to laugh. Oh, uncle, I love her very much, don't you?' Rowland did not say 'yes,' but went up to Miss Gwynne, and with all his heart,-- 'Oh, Miss Gwynne, how can we ever thank you enough for all this kindness?' 'By not thanking me at all,' replied Miss Gwynne, stooping to pick up a book, doubtless to conceal a very decided increase of colour. These were the first genuine and natural words that Rowland had spoken to Miss Gwynne since those fatal sentences under the great oak in her father's park. 'It is all like a dream,' said Netta, passing her hand over her eyes and forehead, as she did constantly, as if to clear away some cloud that obscured her memory. 'If mother were only here, it would be quite home-like.' Truly Gladys had made the room almost a pleasant place. The books and work she had brought with her, were already on the tables, and the flowers filled all the old-fashioned vases, taken from the mantelpiece. The fire was bright, and the hearth swept, and poor Netta and Minette were neat and clean. 'Uncle, what have you done with the geranium?' suddenly asked Minette. 'I left it at home, dear.' 'How cross of you, uncle, to let the pretty flower die.' 'I put it in water, Minette, because it came from Glanyravon, where your mother and I were born, and where your grandfather and grandmother live.' 'I don't like grandmamma, uncle, she was so fat, and talked so strangely.' 'You should not say that; but you have another grandmother whom you have never seen.' 'Shall we go to her, mammy dear? and will you come, Uncle Rowland? and shall the kind lady come, and Gladys? and then we can gather those pretty flowers. I saw them growing once at the Crystal Palace, and they would not let me pick them.' Netta forgot her grief, Rowland his sermon, Miss Gwynne her dignity, in talking to Minette of Glanyravon and its inhabitants; and, by degrees, they fell into a conversation upon old friends and old times, that ended in the days when they played together as children in the garden at the vicarage, whilst the squire and his lady were paying their periodical visits to the vicar and his lady. Unconsciously it oozed out how every incident of those childish games was remembered and treasured up by Rowland, as well as the meetings of a more advanced age, when, as a Rugby boy, he tried to make himself agreeable to the young heiress, who bestowed no thought on him. But Rowland suddenly remembered that he was treading on dangerous ground, and must not forget who he was, and who Miss Gwynne was. Those words always came to haunt him, whenever he felt more than usually happy; and how could he feel happy for one moment, with Netta possibly dying, and Howel an exile for forgery. Poor fellow, it was only a passing gleam through the mists of a hard life; let him enjoy it. Gladys returned, and Rowland got a cab for Miss Gwynne, who went home to dinner. Rowland had some tea, and went to his evening service in the church. After tea, Gladys read a story to Minette, which interested Netta, and so the day passed, with but a slight recurrence of Netta's nervous excitement. Gladys asked Netta if she would like her to read a chapter in the Bible, and Netta said yes; so, with Minette on her lap, she read one of the lessons of the day, which she knew to be particularly applicable to her. 'I will read the other with you,' said Netta, when it was concluded taking her mother's little Testament out of her pocket. 'I wish you would teach me to read, Gladys?' said Minette. 'Justine taught me to read French, and to say French prayers, but I can't read English,' 'Perhaps mamma will teach you, darling!' said Gladys, 'and I will help when she is poorly.' 'We will begin to-morrow,' said Netta? 'I meant to get her a governess, but we were always moving about, and so I never did.' They read the second lesson, and when it was finished, Netta asked Gladys to sing her a hymn. 'The Evening Hymn, Gladys. I could sing and play that once, before I learnt to sing French songs.' Gladys' beautiful, clear voice soon began the 'Glory to Thee, my God, this night,' that has been the evening song of praise of so many thousands for so many years. Netta joined at intervals, and her wandering eyes seemed to be steadied, for the time, into a fixed attention, as she gazed at Gladys whilst she sung. When she finished, Minette was crying. Gladys soothed her, and asked her what was the matter. 'It was so beautiful!' she said. 'Your voice was like the lady's I heard at the play, only the words were so solemn. I thought of my papa. I do not love him much, because he was cross to mamma, but I want to see him, that you may sing to him and make him good.' Gladys saw Netta's countenance lose the expression of calm it had worn for a few moments, and regain the bewildered and painful one of the morning. 'We can pray for your papa, my love,' she said, gently. 'Will you, will you, Gladys!' almost screamed Netta. 'Your prayers will be heard, you are so good. Now, before Minette goes to bed, that she, too, may pray for her father.' Gladys had long been in the habit of praying with and for people in great misery, as well as in great sin, so the request did not startle her as it might have startled many. She read, from the Prayer Book, the Confession, and then chose the concluding portion of the Litany, feeling sure that almost any part of that list of petitions was suitable both for Howel and themselves. When she read the words, 'That it may please Thee to have mercy upon all men,' she paused, and added earnestly, 'especially upon him for whom we now desire to pray,' and little Minette added to this, 'that is my poor papa.' It was with difficulty that Gladys could conclude, she was herself so affected by Netta's sobs, and Minette's innocent petition, but when they rose from their knees, Netta said, 'I have not really prayed before, Gladys, for a long time. Will God ever forgive me?' and Minette entreated Gladys 'to teach her prayers in English; she liked them so much better than in French.' Gladys endeavoured to comfort the poor mother by passages from the Scripture, and promised the child 'to teach her to pray,' and so she helped to repay to her mother and grandmother the debt of gratitude she owed to her and her family.	{ "id": "15315" }
42	THE NIECE.	THE following day Mrs Jones came to see Netta, and to do her part in amusing her, and distracting her mind from Howel's promised return. Mr Jones also accompanied Rowland in the afternoon in his visit to his sister, and, the ice once broken, these kind and Christian people came, alternately with Miss Gwynne, daily, for about a week, during which period there had been no news of Howel, either public or private. Mr Wenlock visited Netta regularly, but said there could be no improvement in her health, and comparatively little strengthening of the mind, until she could be removed to country air; this, however, she would not hear of, although she cried very much, and was painfully excited, when Rowland gave her a letter from her mother, entreating her to come to Glanyravon, and made her acquainted with the contents of a letter he had received from his father, which we will transcribe. GLANYRAVON FARM, _October 9, 18--. _ 'MY DEAR SON,--Your letter came duly to hand, and I will not deny that it affected me very much. Netta, set up above her station at Abertewey, after disobeying her parents by running away, is very different from Netta, deserted by her scamp of a husband, and left in a poor London lodging. Bring her home, and we will take care of her and her child, though I would rather lose a thousand pounds than have to see her as she is. Mother wants to go up and nurse her, but as that would kill her, I don't choose to let her go. If you can't bring her down, Owen shall fetch her. I always said how it would all end. Netta will believe me now it's no good; but no need to tell her that. I wish Howel the--Well, I won't say more, but remain your affectionate father, DAVID PROTHERO.' Miss Gwynne was very anxious to tell Netta that Howel was supposed to be in America, and that it was well known he could not return; and at last Rowland took Mr Wenlock into full confidence and asked him whether it would be advisable to do so. He said that he feared she would be frightened at first, and then consider it a _ruse_ to get her away. However, something must be done. To tell her that her husband was a felon would kill her; and she would die if she remained in that close air. He would think the matter over, and decide. It was, however, decided for them the following morning. Netta was the first to hear, as usual, the postman's rap. Manoeuvre as she would, Gladys could not prevent this, and it always brought on considerable excitement. This morning, however, there was actually a letter for Netta, and Sarah went upstairs with it to Gladys. Although she called Gladys out of the room to give it to her, Netta suspected something, ran into the passage, and seized the letter. Gladys was obliged to support her back to the sofa, and give her some medicine, before she was sufficiently herself to open it When she recovered, she waited for Gladys to leave the room, which she thought it best to do, and then broke the seal. The letter contained the following words:-- 'DEAREST,--You had better go to your mother or mine. Kiss our child for me. Believe that I love you. God bless you.' When Gladys returned to the sitting-room, upon a cry from Minette, she found Netta in a swoon. The letter was tightly clasped in her hand, the envelope was on the floor. She ventured to look at the address and postmark. The former was to Mrs Mills, the latter some illegible place in America. She wanted no more information, and asked for none. She brought poor Netta to herself with difficulty, and let her put the letter in its envelope, and both in her bosom, without a question. Netta lay on the sofa, with her eyes closed, and said not a word. All that Gladys or Minette could do to attract her attention was unavailing. But when Rowland came, she roused herself sufficiently to say, 'I am ready to go home now, Rowland: I must go directly.' And then she relapsed into a state of passive inaction. Rowland went for Mr Wenlock, and was fortunate in finding him at home. He accompanied him to Netta, and said that she must be roused by a change of some kind. Rowland said that it was absolutely necessary to write to summon his brother to fetch Netta, and that by the time the letter reached home, and Owen reached London, three days must elapse. Fortunately, Miss Gwynne arrived, and with her usual promptitude, proposed that Netta should be taken for those three days to Mrs Jones'; and she returned home at once to expedite any arrangements Mrs Jones might have to make. 'I am afraid, my dear Serena,' she said, when she had begun the subject, 'that it will put you out. But the poor creature shall have my bedroom, and I can sleep anywhere for those few nights. The dressing-room, Gladys' workroom, will do beautifully for her to sit in if she shouldn't be able to come into the drawing-room.' 'Yes,' said Mrs Jones, 'we can put a sofa in it and easy-chair, and make a regular snuggery of it.' Mr Jones came in and entered into consultation. 'I shall be thankful if she can come here,' he said, 'for poor Prothero is making himself quite ill with anxiety and overwork. I don't think he has slept four hours a night since he found her. And then, Gladys! she is not strong, she will be laid up.' 'I believe you love Gladys better than me,' laughed Mrs Jones. 'It was love at first sight, my dear. She was the first pretty girl that I saw after I came from Australia. And I have gone on loving her better and better ever since.' 'The worst of it is, that it is mutual,' said Miss Gwynne. 'I wonder whether it is on your account or Owen Prothero's that she has refused all the London swains who are dying for her.' Mrs Jones and Freda were soon hard at work arranging rooms. Every available comfort was put into Freda's bedroom and dressing-room, and her own clothes and general possessions were turned out to find a home elsewhere. Gladys' little workroom soon wore a most cheerful aspect, and the easiest chair and sofa the house afforded were put into it. Whilst these matters were being arranged, Mr Jones was despatched to tell Rowland to bring his sister as soon as possible, and in the course of a few hours they arrived, accompanied by Gladys and Minette. The shock of the morning had so weakened Netta's nervous system, that Rowland was obliged to carry her upstairs. When she was put on the sofa in the little room, and saw so many kind friends about her once more, the bewildered, wandering eyes found relief in tears. 'Gladys! you will not go away?' she said, holding Gladys by the hand. 'She may come home with me, Miss Gwynne?' Gladys knelt down by the sofa, and tried to soothe her, by telling her that her brother was coming to fetch her. 'I can't go home without Gladys!' persisted Netta, casting wild, beseeching glances from one to the other of the friends who stood round her. 'She shall go with you, Netta, decidedly,' said Miss Gwynne. 'It will be much the best plan.' 'Gladys, you will come with us?' said Minette, throwing her arm round her neck, as she knelt by her mother. 'You won't go away from poor mamma, and your little Minette.' Gladys felt, that in this, she was but an instrument. However it was settled that she was to accompany Netta home; and if the inmates of the farm did not receive her willingly, she was to go to the Park, whither Miss Gwynne was to follow shortly, for her long-promised Christmas visit. When Netta and Rowland were left alone, Minette having been seduced by Miss Gwynne into another room, Netta said,-- 'You see, Rowland, I must go away directly, because I don't know when he may come. I am sure he will fetch me, and if I stay here he will not know where to find me.' 'Only two or three days, dear Netta. I have written to Owen. He will get the letter to-morrow, and be here the next day. You can start the day after to-morrow, if you will try to rouse yourself, and eat and drink.' 'Yes, I will; but I am afraid of father. It is nearly ten years since I saw him, and if he is cross now, I shall die.' 'He will be kind, quite kind.' 'Are you sure?' 'Yes, quite sure.' 'And will you come and see me, Rowland? I used to think you cross too, but now you are very good to me. Do you think it was wrong of me to run away with Howel? You know he loves me; he says so, Rowland.' Here Netta pressed her hand upon the letter that was in her bosom, and Rowland kissed her tenderly. At intervals, during that day and the next, Netta made fitful efforts to exert herself, but it was evident to all that her body was getting weaker, and every one dreaded the journey in prospect, and longed for its conclusion. Netta had taken a sudden and violent interest in teaching her child to read and repeat hymns. The hymns that it pleased Minette best to learn were some that Gladys had sung at her mother's request. These Netta did not know by heart, indeed, her failing memory prevented her retaining anything she had once known; so an old hymn book was produced from Gladys' book-shelf, which contained these hymns that she had been taught in her childhood by her mother. It was the second evening of Netta's stay with the Joneses, and she had been prevailed upon to go into the drawing-room, where Rowland was added to the usual little party. She was gradually sinking into a state of apparent forgetfulness of those around her, from which it had been so difficult to rouse her since Howel's letter, when Miss Gwynne said,-- 'I think Minette knows the hymn now, Mr Jones. Ask mamma if you may say it, dear.' 'Mamma, may I try to say the hymn now? Mr Jones will take me to see the little children to-morrow if I know it,' asked the child. Netta was roused. 'Where is the book? I don't think I remember it, she said. 'I will go to Gladys for the book. I know the way, mamma.' Minette ran to the little room where Gladys was at work busily preparing for the journey. She got the hymn book, asked Gladys to find the place, and returning to the drawing-room triumphantly, gave the book to Mr Jones. 'You must hear me, to see that I say it quite, quite right,' The hymn was somewhat difficult for a child, but it had taken Netta's fancy, because the words were written for an old Welsh air that she knew well; indeed the book consisted principally of English and Welsh hymns that had been composed for some of the fine old Welsh tunes. The words were as follow:-- MORNING, Y FOREU. Great God, look on me, From Thy throne eternal; Make pure unto Thee This my hymn diurnal. I my grateful voice would blend, With nature's loud thanksgiving; Praises through the earth would send For the bliss of living. Then, God, look on me, From Thy throne eternal, Make pure unto Thee, This my hymn diurnal. On the wings of morning, With songs of birds up-soaring, I address Thee, Praise and bless Thee, Joying and adoring. O Lord! bless this day, All my thoughts and doings, And keep my heart away From all vain pursuings. Shield me with Thy fostering wings, From every wild temptation. Let the daily course of things, Work for my salvation. O Lord I bless this day, All my thoughts and doings, And keep my heart away From all vain pursuings. With the hymns of flowers, And streams and fountains blending? I adore Thee, And implore Thee, Prayer and praise upsending. Minette was in a great state of excitement whilst saying her hymn, and repeated it so energetically, and withal so feelingly, that the attention of Mrs Jones, Miss Gwynne, and Rowland was quite drawn towards her. They did not, therefore, notice the still greater excitement of Mr Jones, as he was, professedly, looking at the hymn book to see whether the child repeated her task correctly. 'Well done, my little niece,' cried Rowland, catching her up in his arms, and giving her a hearty kiss. 'Let me go, uncle. Mr Jones, Mr Jones,' screamed Minette, 'may I go with you to see the poor children, Mr Jones?' Mr Jones did not even hear the entreating appeal of the little girl. He was out of the drawing-room, book in hand, and in Gladys' work-room, almost before the struggling Minette was released from her uncle's arms, and forcibly caught by Miss Gwynne. Gladys was sitting quietly at her work, humming low the air of the hymn Minette had been saying, when Mr Jones entered the room abruptly. 'Gladys, tell me where you got this book?' he said, putting the hymn book on the table before her. He looked so nervous and excited that Gladys was almost frightened. 'My mother gave it me, sir,' was the reply. 'And who wrote these names?' he asked, pointing to the words written on the fly-leaf, which were, "Margaret Jones, from her affectionate brother, William Jones." 'My uncle, sir, I believe, who gave the book to my mother.' 'And your mother--your mother, who was she?' 'The daughter of a clergyman, sir.' 'I know that. But where--what--who?' 'That is what I don't know, sir.' 'Who did she marry? For God's sake tell me all, Gladys.' 'She ran away with my father, sir, an Irish soldier, a corporal named O'Grady. She went abroad with him, and did not come back to Ireland for two years.' 'And then--and her father--and--and her brother?' 'Her father was dead, sir, and nobody knew where her brother was.' 'Where did her father live?' 'Alas! sir, I cannot tell that either. We never talked to my poor mother about him, because it made her so unhappy, and as he was dead, I had no interest in asking for the address. All I know was, that she was Welsh; and when she was dying, she told me to go into Wales and find my uncle. I don't think she quite knew what she was saying, but I came.' The tears gathered in Gladys' eyes, and hearing a strange heavy sigh from Mr Jones, she looked up at him through their mist, and saw that he was struggling to speak through some great emotion. 'Oh, sir! what is the matter?' said Gladys, rising and going towards him as he stood, trembling, on the other side of her work-table. He could not speak, but opening his arms as she approached him, folded her in them, and kissed her, as she had not been kissed before, since her poor mother died. Gladys could only yield to the embrace, she knew not wherefore. She loved Mr Jones as if he were her own father, he had been almost like a father to her ever since she had been in his house; she felt as if she were once more in a father's arms. We will leave them thus for one moment, to return to the drawing-room. Mrs Jones, in her turn, kissed Minette, and praised her for repeating her hymn so well. 'But where is Mr Jones?' asked the child. 'Will he take me to see the little boys and girls?' 'I think he must be gone to find a book for you, dear,' was the reply. But as neither Mr Jones nor the book came, Mrs Jones got rather fidgety, and fancying her husband might be ill, left the room to see what had become of him. She went to the dining-room, study, and bedroom, and, not finding him, went to ask Gladys whether she knew where he was. She was not a little astonished at finding him with Gladys in his arms, and the door half open at his back. Mrs Jones was not a jealous wife, but Gladys was a very pretty girl, Mr Jones was avowedly very fond of her, and Mr Jones was mortal. She felt a strange pain at her heart, turned pale, and stood for a moment unobserved by either, on the threshold, irresolute, when she heard these words from her husband,-- 'It must be so. Gladys--you are--you must be--my poor, dear, lost sister's child!' Gladys and Mrs Jones uttered a simultaneous cry, and the latter entered the room. 'My dear William, what does this mean?' she said, approaching her husband and putting her hand on his shoulder. 'Serena!' (he, too called that gentle woman Serena) 'my love. For my sake! This is my sister's child--my niece--my--our Gladys!' Mr Jones released the bewildered Gladys from his embrace, and almost placed her in the arms of his wife, who, scarcely comprehending what was passing, kissed her tenderly. Then Gladys sat down, covered her face with her hands, and sobbed convulsively. It was all a dream to her, from which she must awake. It could not be true. Mr and Mrs Jones soothed her. The former, restraining his own emotion, endeavoured to calm hers, by telling her that it was he who had written the names in that fortunate hymn book; he who was the brother of her mother; he who was her uncle, and who would be, not only an uncle, but a father to her henceforth. At last, the agitated girl looked up at the kind and loving faces that were bending over her, and murmured,-- 'It cannot be--it is--too good--too great--too happy.' 'It is true, Gladys, my niece, my child,' said Mr Jones, stooping to kiss her forehead. Mrs Jones sat down by her, and taking one of her hands in hers, said,-- 'It all seems a dream, Gladys. But if it be true, remember, you are now my niece, my child as well; and, God knows, I love you, and value you dearly.' Once more the lonely Gladys felt that she had kindred. Yielding to the feeling, she threw her arms round Mrs Jones' neck, and gave vent to the emotion she had been striving to suppress. At this juncture, Miss Gwynne appeared, who, wondering in her turn what could detain Mr and Mrs Jones so long from their guests, came to look for them. Of course, she wondered still more when she found them both with their arms round one another and Gladys. She was going away; but Mrs Jones, perceiving her, said,-- 'Come in, dear Freda, Minette's hymn has led to a wonderful discovery--has given us a niece--a child--in--in--our dear friend Gladys.' Miss Gwynne knelt down at the feet of the sobbing Gladys, and taking one of her hands, said,-- 'Gladys, if this be true, we cannot love you better than we do now, or esteem you more; but you now _feel_ one of us, instead of the isolated Gladys of this little room, which you have resolutely been hitherto.' As may be imagined, Gladys was a long time realising the fact, that she was suddenly, and in the most extraordinary manner, raised from the Irish beggar, lady's maid, or whatever she had hitherto chosen to consider herself--for every one about her had long looked upon her as a friend--to the niece of the good and kind Mr Jones. When she was able to speak, her first words were,-- 'I do not understand it--I cannot believe it. It is too good--too happy.' 'I can scarcely believe it either,' said Mr Jones, taking up the hymn book, and turning to his wife and Miss Gwynne, who had, thus far, taken the strange news upon Mr Jones' word, which they never ventured to dispute. 'This is my writing. Margaret Jones was my sister, and Gladys' mother. I gave her this book when we were both young, and the date, also in my handwriting, marks the time, some two or three years after the gift, when I was at college, and she must have been about eighteen; she ran away with an Irish soldier, whose real name, even, we never learnt. My poor father doated on my sister, and spoilt her. She was high-spirited and wilful, but very loving, and very handsome. Not at all like Gladys. My sister's was the Welsh, Gladys' the Irish cast of countenance; yet I have seen an expression in Gladys' face that has reminded me of her mother.' 'We discovered, after my sister ran away, that she had met the man she married when going to visit the landlady of a small inn, in my father's parish, who was ill. It seems that this woman connived at their meeting; and when strictly questioned, said, that she had believed he was a gentleman, and that he had called himself Captain O'Brien.' 'My poor father!' here broke in Gladys. 'He bitterly repented this, his only deception. He was of a good family, and his mother was an O'Brien; but no one belonging to him could afford to purchase him a commission, and so he went into the ranks. He once told me, that he persuaded my mother to marry him first, and then promised to let her write to his father. But I only know scraps of the story. I fancy my father was on his way home on leave, when he saw my mother and fell in love with her. He loved her very dearly, and as long as he lived she wanted nothing that he could get her. The regiment was suddenly ordered abroad, and my mother could not write to her father, or did not, before they sailed. And so she delayed, and delayed; but she wrote at last, and received no answer at all. I fancy she wrote several times from foreign parts, but never heard from any one. I know she wrote again from Ireland; but the letter was returned, with a note from some one, saying that her father had been dead some years, and no one knew anything of her brother.' 'Too true! too true!' said Mr Jones. 'My poor father, never very strong, was in his grave in less than six months after my sister left him. I returned from college to nurse, and bury him. I have told you all this, my dear Serena, little thinking that the young girl I first saw, after visiting his grave some twenty years after I had seen him laid in it, should be the child of the beloved daughter who had helped to hasten him thither.' 'My poor, dear mother!' said Gladys, sobbing as if her heart would break. 'Still less that you, my dear niece, would be five or six years in my house; I loving you as a daughter, and yet not knowing the relationship existing between us. But how could it have been discovered but for this book? I only knew of you, that you were an Irish girl escaping from poverty in Ireland, to find some Welsh friends, whose address even you did not know. But for your evident truthfulness, the very story must have been doubted. When I saw you at Mr Prothero's, I took you for his daughter; since I have looked upon you as one of our family, an orphan to be pitied and loved. Let us thank God and kind Christian people, that you have been so pitied and loved.' Mr Jones' mild grey eyes, full of tears, turned upon Miss Gwynne, who said, hastily,-- 'Ought not we to tell her first and best friends of this strange discovery? --Rowland, Mr Prothero, and Netta. What must they think of our long absence?' 'Not for worlds, Miss Gwynne, if you please!' cried Gladys, 'I could never be what I would like to be to Mrs Jenkins and her dear mother, if I were anything but the Gladys they have always known. They would be treating me as--as--they would not let me work and wait upon Mrs Jenkins. Until she is at home, at least, let me be as I am, as I was; it is all so strange. Until I have offered to remain and nurse her, and been refused--until, in short--' 'I understand, Gladys,' said Miss Gwynne. 'You are quite right. Let them all value you for yourself, and then we will introduce you as--' 'I didn't mean that, indeed, indeed, Miss Gwynne,' said Gladys, her pale face growing red. 'I only wanted to show my gratitude, as I am, to them all. Perhaps even Mr Prothero may excuse me then, and--' Here Gladys broke down again. She could not explain her own bewildered thoughts; but her friends understood her, and respected the honest pride that would be known, welcomed and beloved for merit, and not for a bettered position and condition. Miss Gwynne saw a vision of Owen in the background, with his handsome, honest, black eyes, and white teeth; but she did not mention what she saw. 'At any rate, I must go and make the best of lame excuses,' she said, 'and leave you in your new relationship, to dry your eyes, and learn to say "Uncle." Such a pleasant name! I always longed for an uncle.' Miss Gwynne returned to the drawing-room, and told Rowland that Mr Jones had been quite upset by the Welsh hymn that Minette had repeated, having known it under peculiar circumstances when he was young. She apologised for his non-appearance, and Rowland, seeing that something unusual had occurred, took his departure. She promised Minette a visit to the school, and prevailed on the little girl to allow one of the servants to put her to bed, instead of Gladys. Minette begged Miss Gwynne to let her say her 'English prayers' to her first, which she, of course, did. Then Freda did her best to amuse Netta until Mrs Jones appeared, and said Gladys was quite ready to assist Netta, if she liked to retire for the night. When Netta was in bed, Gladys joined her friends, and they discussed, more calmly than before, their newly-found relationship. Gladys brought with her her Bible, in which her mother had written her name, and Mr Jones recognised his sister's hand writing. She had also a lock of her mother's hair, and her wedding-ring, and one or two other trifles, that drew fresh tears from a brother's eyes. Gladys said that she should like, for her own satisfaction, that a certificate of her mother's marriage, and of her birth, should be obtained. Her mother was married, she believed, during the short time she was in Ireland; and she was born, she knew, in the parish where her father's parents lived, to whose care her father had confided her mother. Two children had been born, and died before her birth, during the period that her parents were abroad. It may be as well to say here, that the certificates were duly procured, through the clergyman of the parish, to whom Mr Jones wrote a statement of the case. Also that letters, written for the gratification of Gladys, to the Protestant and Roman Catholic clergy of her parent's last neighbourhood were duly answered, and confirmed all that Gladys had said of them and of herself from first to last. This, of course, took some time to effect; but I have so far anticipated the event, to avoid fanning to it again. Gladys now recapitulated, more minutely, the circumstances of her early history, a sketch of which she gave Miss Gwynne and Mrs Prothero when she was recovering from her fever. There were a few points that she did not mention at that time, which, we will insert for the benefit of the reader, in Gladys' own words. 'My father left my mother in Ireland, and went with his regiment to India. My mother lived with my grandfather, who was old and infirm, but still managed a small farm, in which my mother assisted. He died, and then my mother kept a school, took in needlework, and did what she could to help out my father's remittances, which were small, but regular. He was severely wounded in the head, and got his discharge upon his corporal's pay. Being a clever man, he soon procured work, as a kind of under-agent, and we lived very happily together for some years. He was never a saving man, so what he earned he spent, and my poor mother spent it with him. I had two brothers and three sisters, and when my father died, rather suddenly, we had nothing but our own exertions to depend upon. My mother and I managed to live and keep the children--how, I scarcely know--till the famine from the failure of the potato crop, and consequent fever and starvation came upon us. God preserve me, and every one else, from witnessing such misery again! One child died after another, and then the darling mother! I had nothing to give her; literally nothing. Every one round us was in the same state. On her death-bed she was rambling and incoherent, but talked of Wales, and her father and brother. ' "Go to them, Gladys," she said, "when I am gone. Maybe they'll take to ye." "Where, mother dear!" I asked. But she did not hear me. Thank God! she clasped her hands and prayed for pardon of her sins through Jesus Christ; and so she died. I don't know how I lived after her--how I buried her--how I came into Wales. I scarcely remember anything, till I awoke from that illness in calm, clean, beautiful Glanyravon; with my mistress's blessed face looking down upon me, and Miss Gwynne waiting on me, and Mr Rowland praying for me.' For some years past Gladys had succeeded in obtaining a calm and even spirit, by striving to banish these dreadful scenes from her mind, by active labours for others, and abnegation of self. Now, they opened once more the flood-gates of memory, and as the old recollections rushed through, like repressed waters, her strength of mind gave way, and she could do nothing but weep. 'Only to-night--forgive me!' she sobbed. 'I shall be better to-morrow. But it all comes back, all; even in the moment of my great happiness.' Her kind friends soothed and comforted her--her uncle wept with her, and by degrees she once more grew calm. Before they separated for the night, Mr Jones offered up a thanksgiving for the great mercy God had vouchsafed to them; and commending his newly-found niece to the further protection of that gracious Providence, who had led the orphan to her home; in His presence, and that of his wife and her friends, he solemnly blessed her, and adopted her as his own child. It need scarcely be added that his wife registered and signed the vow that her husband made.	{ "id": "15315" }
43	THE HAPPIEST MAN IN THE WORLD.	Most people know what it is to awake from sleep the morning after a great sorrow; some, also, know what it is to awake after a great and unexpected joy. Gladys opened her eyes upon a dark, thick, cheerless November fog in London, one of the most depressing of all the atmospheric influences. But she did not think of the fog. Although she did not at first fully realise the happiness that she had experienced, and was to experience, she felt, on awakening, a strange sensation of spirits so light, and a heart beating to such cheerful measure, that it all seemed too ethereal to be real. She thought it was the continuation of a blissful dream. For many a long year she had retired to rest, and arisen in the morning calm, resigned, nay, cheerful; but it was the calmness and resignation of a soul attuned by prayer and self-restraint to an equanimity that rarely was disturbed by mirth or pleasure. Now, that soul seemed to dance within her to exhilarating melodies. So happy had been her dreams, so joyous her sleep, that her eyes sparkled unwonted fires when she opened them; and as she jumped out of bed, there was an elasticity in her movements that surprised her very self. Netta and Minette were still sleeping, and as she dressed herself carefully and neatly, she almost forgot that every one else was not as suddenly raised from sorrow to joy as herself. 'He will come to-day,' she thought, as she smoothed her dark hair, 'and I shall meet him as an equal, no longer a suspicion of my truth. He will not know it yet, but I know it, and oh! the difference of feeling that you can clear yourself by a word when you like. Not to him, for he never doubted--generous, kind Mr Owen! but to his father! to all. How can I be thankful enough! and such an uncle and aunt! It must be a dream; but will he care for me still? so long! and after all my coldness. He has asked me again and again, and each time have I refused him; but then I was an Irish beggar, and nothing more, and I would have died rather than have brought disgrace into his family. And still my promise to his father is binding, and without his consent I never could--but where am I wandering? Maybe he'll not care for me now I am all this older--and he so handsome that he may have any one in and about Glanyravon.' Gladys cast a shy look into her glass, and a delicate blush kindled her cheek as those dark violet eyes glanced from beneath their long black fringes. Gladys! you are but a weak woman after all. When Gladys was dressed, she gently awoke Minette, and took her into the dressing-room to attire her also. 'Gladys, dear, how pretty you look!' exclaimed the child, 'you have a pink cheek, and your eyes are as bright as the sky; and you have such a pretty gown and collar, and everything. You are quite a lady, now you have left off that gown mamma gave you so long ago. Is Uncle Owen, who is coming to-day, as nice as Uncle Rowland? Do you love him as well, Gladys?' 'He is very, very nice, dear, and as kind as any gentleman in the world.' The little girl clapped her hands. 'I shall like to go to Glanyravon and make mamma quite well.' Soon after breakfast, Rowland arrived, accompanied by Owen, who had travelled all night. Gladys was with Netta in her bedroom, but all the rest of the family welcomed Owen. Mr Jones shook him by the hand with peculiar warmth, because he was given to understand that he loved his newly-found niece. Minette was soon on his knee, and in less than ten minutes had duly informed him that she loved him next to Uncle Rowland and that Gladys told her he 'was the nicest gentleman in the world.' Owen laughed heartily at this, to conceal his rising colour, and said,-- 'And how is Gladys?' 'Quite well; she is coming to Glanyravon with us, to take care of mamma and me.' Here Mrs Jones interposed, and explained how matters stood. In a few moments Gladys appeared to say that Netta was ready in her little sitting-room to see her brothers. Owen was not shy, so he walked bravely across the room to meet Gladys, and to shake hands with her, so thoroughly _con amore_ that if, as Minette expressed it, her cheek was pink when she entered the room, it was crimson when she quitted it. Mr and Mrs Jones looked at one another with great satisfaction, and somehow or other Rowland's eyes met Miss Gwynne's, and both smiled involuntarily. 'He is a fine young fellow,' said Mrs Jones, when Owen and Rowland had gone upstairs to Netta, accompanied by Minette. 'I almost wonder how two such sons, with such a fine, sturdy, sensible father, should have had such a silly little sister as that poor child upstairs; but I must go out. Ask them to dinner, my dear, and don't let Gladys tire herself to death before she starts for her journey. Did you ever see any one look prettier in your life than she did when she met that fine young man? What a couple they will make!' 'What a romance you have worked up already, my dear,' said Mrs Jones laughing, 'but certainly one may be proud of Gladys. How thoroughly ladylike she is, and looks. And she is so happy; she told me just now that she felt as if she had suddenly begun a new life.' 'God grant it may be a happy one, and may He bless you, my dear, for taking to the poor child so kindly.' Miss Gwynne, who had left the party to put on her bonnet, here appeared, and Mr Jones and she set out on parochial business. When Rowland and Owen had been some time with Netta, they returned to Mrs Jones, who pressed them to come to dinner. They declined, however, having much to talk of, that could not be discussed in public, even before the kindest of friends. Moreover, when Owen had been in London before, he told his brother that he would not dine in any house as guest where Gladys was considered as a servant. In vain his brother assured him that she was more friend than servant--she did not dine with her friends, and therefore he would not dine with them. When they had left the house, and reached Rowland's lodging, Owen said, his usually joyful face clouded by an expression of sorrow and pain,-- 'Curse that fellow! I say, Rowland, I can't help it, it breaks my heart to see Netta as she is; and she will kill mother. As to father, there is no getting a civil word from him ever since the news came.' 'I suppose every one knows it?' said Rowland. 'Of course Aunt 'Lizbeth has employed Mr Rice Rice and a counsel for that scoundrel, to do what they can when the case is tried. You know they have indicted him, and, present or absent, it is to come on at the next assizes. Then, if they prove him guilty, or make out a case against him, or whatever they call it, he will be brought to trial as soon as they can catch him.' 'Sir Samuel Spendall and Sir Horatio Simpson are furious against him, I hear,' said Rowland. 'No wonder; I foresaw something bad when I was at Abertewey. But what of that rascal, Deep?' 'They can make nothing of him; he is already released, and if he knows anything of Howel he has not let it out.' 'I can't help liking poor Aunt 'Lizbeth; she says she will spend every farthing she has for Howel, and when I tell her to remember her old age and keep her money, all I get is, "What will I do if my Howel is ruined? What will I care for money if he is gone?" It is pretty well known that he has forged her name for thousands of pounds, but she won't own it, and swears to all his signatures as her own, I verily believe, with her eyes shut.' 'Does father hear all these things?' 'Nobody dares to speak to him. He opens out to me with a vengeance, and wants a little of your preaching to refine his language. But who can wonder? I am ashamed to show my nose myself. The first bit of pleasure I have had since it began was seeing Gladys look so well and happy this morning. What has happened to her? Is she going to be married? for nothing else have changed a girl's face from November to June. At the same time, she might have a little more feeling for us than to look her best when we are at our worst. Poor Netta! I'm sure she won't live. I've wished myself at sea nearly every day for the last six years, and I'm sure I wish myself there now.' 'My good fellow,' said Rowland, 'don't say that; what should any of us do without you? You are the only stay of our parents at home, and will be poor Netta's last comfort.' 'If I were sure I were of any use I wouldn't mind; but when I see Gladys, or think of her, the truth is I get savage. Perhaps it is a proper punishment for pretending to stay at home on father and mother's account, when it was really on hers. But never mind; I suppose one girl's really as good as another. Will you come down at Christmas, Rowland?' 'I wish I could; but our rector is so ill that there is no chance of his being able to leave Nice this winter, and Jones and I have all the duty. The last account was so bad that Mr Wenlock fears, if he returns at all, it will be only to die.' We will not follow the brothers further in their conversation; they made the most of the few hours they were together, and after a short night's rest, arose early, breakfasted, and went to fetch Netta. The sight of her favourite brother, and the prospect of returning home had roused her, and she seemed more herself than she had been since Howel's letter. Gladys was as bright and busy as a queen-bee, and Minette was all tears and smiles. There were a great many 'last words' to be said, and as all the preparations had been made the previous day, there was plenty of time to say them. 'I don't know how to thank you,' said poor Netta to Mrs Jones and Miss Gwynne, as they were putting on her last warm cloak. The tears were streaming down her pale cheeks, and her hand, as usual, was on her heart. Mrs Jones kissed her, and Miss Gwynne said cheerfully, 'I shall see you soon, Netta, and I want Mrs Jones to come to Glanyravon with me, so it will not be a long parting.' 'You have been very good to my child and me,--God will bless you!' sobbed Netta. 'I will come again, Mr Jones, and see you, and Mrs Jones, and the little children,' said Minette, who was hugging Mr Jones warmly. He took her up in his arms, kissed her, and put her into the cab next her mother, who had been placed therein by Rowland. Gladys' farewells were the last. 'That's what I call something like it, Rowly,' said Owen tapping his brother's shoulder, as he watched Mr and Mrs Jones alternately give Gladys a most affectionate embrace. 'But why does the old parson hug her so? He shouldn't do that if I were Mrs Jones, or if she were Mrs--' The truth was, that at the last the uncle's feelings overcame Gladys' desire for secrecy, and exploded in a kiss long and fatherly. When she was in the cab Mr Jones called Owen aside, and said in a whisper,-- 'I know you will take care of Gladys, and remember, that although she is ready for everything that is good, she is not strong. If your father makes the least objection to her remaining with your sister, take her to the Park, whence she can return at once to us. As long as I live, no one will neglect her with impunity; but I am sure I can trust you and yours.' 'That you certainly may,' said Owen, nearly shaking Mr Jones' hand off, but saying to himself a few minutes after, 'What could he mean by putting her into my care? If his wife had done it, or Miss Gwynne, well and good; but I declare parsons are no better than the rest of us, I daresay Rowly isn't half as steady as he seems; he and Miss Gwynne are wonderfully polite to one another, and he's as grand as any lord.' Owen jumped upon the box, and Rowland by the side of Gladys inside the cab, and so they drove off through the thick fog, some five or six miles to the Paddington Station. Owen took a second-class ticket for himself, but when Netta heard that he had done so she begged so hard to be allowed to travel second class with him, or that he would come with her, that he was obliged to change it, and become, as he expressed it, 'a grand gentleman for once in his life.' They had a compartment to themselves, into which Rowland went, to be with Netta until the whistle sounded. 'Oh, brother!' sobbed Netta, 'if I never see you again, promise to be kind to Howel; promise to give him whatever I leave for him. Perhaps I shall die,--I don't know. Tell him all you have said to me; try to make him good, and give him the hope you have given me. Will you, brother? Say, will you?' 'I will do everything you wish, my darling sister, if I have the opportunity.' 'And will you write to me about what you have been saying to me?' 'I will, dear, regularly. But you have only to believe and pray. God bless you, Netta, dear! God for ever bless you!' The guard was at the door, Owen in the carriage. Rowland gave Netta one long, last kiss, and went out upon the platform. 'Kiss me, uncle,' said Minette, putting her little face out of the window. When she drew it in again she wiped off a tear that Rowland had left upon her cheek. 'Good-bye, Gladys,--good-bye, Owen,' he said, stretching out his hand, which was clasping that of his brother as the train began to move, and separated him from the sister, brother, niece, and friend whom he loved so well. Poor Netta cried long and quietly in the corner of the carriage in which she had been placed. Of course she had the side without an arm that she might put up her feet when she liked, so Owen and Gladys were placed, of necessity, side by side, and Minette jumped upon Gladys' lap, and began talking of Glanyravon. Owen and Gladys were quite shy with one another. The former studied Bradshaw, the latter occupied herself with Minette. When Netta ceased crying, Owen tried to engage her attention, and amused her for a time by accounts of home and country news. But by degrees she relapsed into her usual abstraction. Owen hated railway travelling, and was a great fidget. Out at every station, of course, and alternately reading the newspaper and making remarks upon the confounded November weather when in the carriage. He scarcely addressed Gladys particularly, but talked to Netta or Minette; and Gladys thought him very cold and constrained, but did not know that he was thinking of what Colonel Vaughan had done years ago, and comparing it with Mr Jones' embrace. 'Do you know, Netta, that I am thinking of getting married?' he said suddenly, and thoroughly rousing Gladys. 'Don't be so foolish, Owen! You have been getting married or falling in love ever since you were twelve,' said Netta. 'Who is it now?' 'Miss Richards,--Dr Richards' daughter. It is the talk of the county. You know she has plenty of money.' Owen cast a side glance towards Gladys and saw her turn quite pale, which was very satisfactory to him. 'Is Miss Richards pretty, uncle?' asked Minette. 'Is she as pretty as Gladys?' 'That depends upon taste.' 'But what do you think, uncle? She must be very pretty, if she is as pretty as my dear Gladys! Isn't Gladys pretty, uncle?' 'Gladys knows what I think on that subject,' said Owen, 'but she doesn't care what I think.' This was said so that Netta, sitting opposite, did not hear. 'Oh, Mr Owen!' said Gladys, involuntarily. 'Oh, Mrs Snow!' said Owen. 'As the day went on, Netta got very weary, and, finally, slept. Minette, also, in spite of Gladys' resolute efforts to keep her awake, fell fast asleep, curled up in the corner, with her mother's feet in her lap. And so Owen and Gladys were _tête-à-tête_. The November day was drawing to a close, and it was dull and dark. Gladys fancied Owen was asleep, and was thinking how very much more cheerful she felt in the morning than she did at that moment; and all because Owen said he was going to be married. She was trying to remember the great blessings she had lately experienced, and that she ought to be thinking of Netta instead of her brother. At last, Owen started up, and said,-- 'Gladys, do you like coming back to Glanyravon?' 'Dearly, sir, if you like to have me.' 'Now, Gladys, that is too absurd! You know I have wanted to have you all these years.' 'I didn't mean that, Mr Owen.' 'Gladys, tell me why that old Jones kissed you.' 'I--I--don't know. Because--because he is fond of me, Mr Owen.' 'That is no reason, Miss Gladys. If it was, somebody else would kiss you, too. Now I have an opportunity, I must ask you a few more questions. I beg you to understand that old Jones, who is so fond of you, put you under my especial care.' 'Oh, Mr Owen!' 'Oh, Mrs Snow! Now, tell me why you let that cunning man of the world, Colonel Vaughan, give you ten shillings? This has been on my mind for six or seven years, and I have never had an opportunity of getting it off before. You know if you won't have me for a lover, you may for a brother.' 'Colonel Vaughan offered me the money, Mr Owen, and I returned it to him. Who could have told you of that?' 'The boy who saw him give you some money, and picked up the half-sovereign you dropped.' 'He gave me money for poor Mr Lloyd, who was ill, and offered me the half-sovereign for myself, which I refused.' 'Why did you refuse it.' 'Because I did not want it, and because he had no right to offer it me.' 'Bravo, Gladys! You are a capital girl!' 'And yet, Mr Owen, you think all sorts of unkind things of me when I am absent. For six years!' 'How can I help it, Gladys? You know that I love you better than my life, and yet you won't care one straw for me.' 'Oh! Mr Owen.' 'I can tell you it is no trifling mark of constancy, for a wandering fellow like me to stick to farming, and doing the dutiful son all these years. I should have been off to sea again long ago but for you, and--' 'And the father and mother, Mr Owen.' 'Well, yes, to a certain extent. But you always answer every question but one like a pure, straightforward young woman, as you are. Why won't you tell me the reason you have for hating me so?' 'I don't hate you, Mr Owen.' 'It must be either love or hate. You don't love me. Do you love any one else?' 'No.' 'Have you a heart to give?' 'Ye--no.' 'Which do you mean?' 'I cannot tell you, indeed I cannot!' 'Oh! Gladys, if you knew the pain! Why will you not make me happy, or at least give me a sensible reason?' 'I--I--promised--oh, Mr Owen.' 'Dear Gladys, what? I will never betray you, and will always be a friend, a brother. Who have you promised? Not to marry, not to love--' 'Your father, Mr Owen. I--I--promised never--to--without his consent.' Fortunately it was dusk, and the curtain between the double carriage was drawn, and Netta and Minette were, apparently at least, fast asleep, so no one saw Owen jump up from his seat with a kind of bound, seize Gladys' hand, try to look into her face, and finally sit down again, retaining possession of the said hand across the elbow of the carriage. 'Do you mean, Gladys, that you promised never to marry me without my father's consent?' 'Yes.' 'Never to love me without his consent?' 'No.' 'That you don't hate me?' 'No.' 'That if I got his consent you would make me the happiest man in the world?' 'I would try, Mr Owen.' 'Nothing but his consent? 'Nothing, Mr Owen. If you do not change, I cannot. 'Gladys, do not trifle with me. But you could not trifle. Have you cared for me--may I say loved me--all these years?' 'All these years.' Gladys bowed her head as if in shame over those clasped hands, and a large tear fell upon Owen's. He wanted no other confirmation of her words, and felt, as he had expressed it, the happiest man in the world.	{ "id": "15315" }
44	THE PRODIGAL DAUGHTER.	It was nine o'clock when the fly that took the travellers from Swansea to Glanyravon reached the door of the farm. The night was 'dark and dreary;' very different was the weather, the aspect of external nature; very different were Netta's feelings and all the circumstances, when she was at home ten years ago. She had been thinking again on all these things during that gloomy drive, when her companions thought she was asleep. Bright lights are in the windows and passage as the travellers look out of the carriage. Mrs Prothero's anxious face is visible in front, Mr and Mrs Jonathan's tall forms above her from behind, the servants are without, Lion is barking joyously, but there is no Mr Prothero. 'Is this Glanyravon, mamma?' asks Minette waking up and rubbing her eyes. No answer. Owen jumps out, and without stopping to greet his pale, trembling mother, turns to help Netta, who cannot help herself. He carries a dead weight into the parlour, and lays it on the sofa. Netta has fainted. Gladys is at her side in a moment with every kind of restorative but no one notices or thinks of her. Mrs Prothero is on her knees rubbing her child's cold hands, and looking as white as the corpse-like daughter thus restored to her. Mr and Mrs Jonathan look at one another, and then at Netta, with a glance of pity and grief. There is another face for one moment bent over the sofa, and the next a loud heavy groan is heard in the corner of the room that comes from a heart in extreme agony; but no one, save Minette, seems conscious of it. She turns affrighted at the sound, and in the impulse of her quick, warm nature runs to comfort. 'Mamma will be better soon,' she says; 'she is often so. Don't cry so loud, you will frighten her.' Poor Mr Prothero removes his hand from his eyes to behold, for the first time, his grandchild. Another heavy groan, almost a cry, and he takes the child in his large arms, and presses her to his breast, weeping like an infant. Netta uncloses her eyes on familiar objects for a moment, and shuts them again. Has she seen the cheerful, old-fashioned parlour, the bright fire, near which the sofa is wheeled, her father's portrait over the mantelpiece, her mother at her feet? 'She is getting better,' whispers Gladys, who still holds her place at Netta's head, with strong salts in her hand, and a bottle and glass by her side. Again the eyes unclose, wander restlessly from one anxious face to another, settling on none; close again, once more unclose and look with some consciousness on the breathless group that surrounds the sofa. 'Father! father!' now murmurs Netta; 'where is father?' The feeble cry has reached that father's ears and inmost heart. He puts down Minette and staggers, blinded by his grief, to the sofa. All withdrew but his wife. He is on his knees before his poor penitent daughter. Her arms are round his neck, and she strives to rise but cannot. Oh! the depth, agony, remorse of that long, silent, paternal, and filial embrace. 'Do you forgive me, father?' asks Netta. 'All--all. God forgive us both!' groans Mr Prothero. Mrs Prothero lays her head on her hands on the sofa, by which she kneels, and gives way to a passionate burst of grief. 'My poor, poor mistress,' says Gladys, unable any longer to refrain from approaching her. 'All is well; she will be better now.' 'Mother!' cries Netta. 'Don't cry so for me. Come and kiss me, mother.' Father and mother surround with their arms that wandering, restored lamb, and take it into the fold again. A little voice from behind is heard. 'Mamma! mamma! think of your poor Minette!' And in another minute Minette is on the sofa, in the midst of her mother, grandfather, and grandmother. Blessed are the warm, gushing tears that fall on the child's head--tears of love and reconciliation. Soon the worthy vicar and his wife, who have thus far been only spectators of the scene, draw near to bless and welcome their niece. 'She will faint again,' whispers Gladys to Owen. 'She is happy now,' replies Owen, looking into Gladys' tearful eyes from his own, equally dimmed with tears. It is the first time he has seen that face since he has known that Gladys loves him. But Gladys is right--happiness is too overpowering for Netta. She faints in the midst of all those dear ones, so kind and loving. Again Gladys is at her side to revive her, which she is able to do more quickly than before. When she is better, Gladys raises her pillows, and places her in a more comfortable posture. By degrees every one is conscious that Gladys is present. 'Dear Gladys!' says Netta, 'I am better now; quite--quite well, father!' 'Drink this first,' says Gladys, giving her some wine and water that Owen has brought. She drinks the wine and water, and again calls her father 'I brought Gladys, father; I cannot do without her. She has saved my life, I think, and mother's, so Owen told me--didn't you, Owen? May she stay with me, father?' Netta presses her hand to her head, and looks at her father with those bewildered eyes, which are only too sadly irresistible. 'Gladys!' he replies. 'Oh, yes! I haven't seen her yet.' Gladys is by his side, and he turns and shakes her hand warmly, and says,-- 'Thank you, Gladys, thank you, I have heard all; but we will talk of this another time.' 'Best now, father, whilst I remember. She may stay? You like to have her?' 'Of course, of course, my dear.' Mr Prothero glances rather uneasily at the very lady-like looking young woman, for whom he is thus humbly petitioned, and in doing so spies Owen close behind her. His feelings are too much softened by Netta to allow him to feel angry; still he does not know what to make of if. Mrs Prothero kisses Gladys, and Mr and Mrs Jonathan shake hands with her. 'Nothing like the present time,' thinks Owen; but Gladys declares decidedly that Netta ought to go to her room, and everybody yields to her calm, assured voice. 'Then you will stay with us?' asks gentle Mrs Prothero, looking the while at her husband. 'To be sure she will,' says Mr Prothero. 'Thank you, sir; thank you, ma'am. I shall be only too glad,' replies Gladys, as humbly as if she were really the servant she professes to be. 'Miss Gwynne will allow me to stay, if you wish it.' After they had been upstairs they returned to tea, and Mr Prothero could not quit Netta, but sat watching her with a painful anxiety. She was greatly excited, and her mind and eyes appeared equally to wander on the objects of her childhood. She asked her father a variety of questions concerning scenes and people that she felt were particularly associated with him, and he was quite overcome. When the meal was finished, Owen carried Netta at once to her room, and all the womankind accompanied her. It was then that poor Mr Prothero's wrath and grief exploded. Left alone with his brother he vented both in language which, as Owen had expressed it, needed clerical revision. But Mr Jonathan knew that it must have its course before exhortations could take effect. He paced up and down the room pouring curses loud and deep upon Howel, and bemoaning his unfortunate daughter. At last he sat down and cried bitterly. It was then that his brother drew near to comfort, and that Owen returned to the room. 'So young, so pretty--our only girl! God only knows how I love her--to come to die! Driven mad by that heartless villain--curse him--a thousand--' 'Hush, brother! hush! You cannot alter the past. Home and a father's and mother's love will soon bring her round, poor dear.' 'Do you think so? why, she looks like a corpse. No rose was redder when she went away, when I kissed her the night before. And now! and now! I say again, curse the man! I can't help it, brother,--I won't help it.' 'Come, father, let us hope the best, now we have her home again.' Owen put his hand on his father's shoulder as he spoke, but there was no comfort for that sorrowing parent. While he cursed Howel there, was much self-reproach within him for long-harboured feelings of anger and unforgiveness against his daughter. He even began, to think that if he had been gentle and kind he might have saved her. The proud hearts of parent and child were alike subdued by heavy sorrow. The following day Netta was unable to leave her bed. Excitement and fatigue had been too much for her. Dr Richards was sent for, who shook his head, and ordered quiet and rest. Mrs Prothero and Gladys were with her, and as she was continually sleeping, no one else was admitted. Mr and Mrs Jonathan left early, after having made friends with Minette, who confided to them that she liked them better than grandpapa and grandmamma, because they were gentlefolks. She didn't know why there was no carpet in the hall, and didn't like stones to her feet. She promised to go and see them when her mamma was better. The worthy couple took to her as they had done to her mother. In a day or two Netta was much better and able to be brought downstairs. Matters gradually settled into their regular course at the farm, and all went on as usual. Mr Prothero spent every spare moment with Netta and his grandchild, who soon forgot that 'grandfather,' as he insisted on her calling him, 'talked loud, and had large, rough hands.' Gladys slipped imperceptibly into her old place, and alternately nursed Netta and helped Mrs Prothero in the dairy. Owen found many opportunities of entreating Gladys to let him speak to his father, but she positively forbade him, as long as there was painful anxiety about Netta; and, at the same time, angered him by refusing to consider him as her accepted lover until his father's consent was obtained. Mrs Prothero schooled her aching heart into outward calm, but her white hair and paleface showed what she had gone through, and was still suffering. Howel's name was never mentioned, except between Netta and Gladys. It was to Gladys that poor Netta opened her mind, and poured out all her hopes and fears about Howel's return. The state of that mind varied continually. Sometimes it was tolerably clear, at others sadly wandering, and the least excitement produced faintness and pain at the heart; still her friends fancied she gained strength. She had the sofa placed so that she could look out of the parlour-window upon the distant hills. The weather cleared up brisk and bright. The red and yellow foliage that still remained to cover the huge trunks of the oaks shone in the sunlight, and the lights and shadows danced upon the mountains. A few white chrysanthemums, and one or two roses still looked in at the window, upon her who had once been the brightest flower of Glanyravon. Netta had been at home a fortnight, and was really stronger and better. The sun was setting behind those distant hills, and casting glorious shades of red, purple, and gold upon them. She was gazing wistfully on the sky, and thinking of Howel, whilst Minette was sitting on a stool at her feet, turning over a book, out of which she had been reading to her mother, whose chief occupation was trying to teach her. Mr Prothero came in, and took his customary seat at the head of her sofa. He was followed, almost instantly, by Gladys, who called Minette out to have her cup of warm milk fresh from the cow, ordered by her doctor. 'Father,' began Netta, abruptly, 'I have something to say to you.' 'Well, Netta, fach!' said her father, cheerfully. 'Say away. I'm all attention,' 'Do you like Gladys, father?' 'Of course I do, my dear. Who could help it? She's an excellent young 'ooman.' 'I wish you would promise me one thing, father, before I go away.' 'But you are not going away ever again, my love?' 'Perhaps I may--far, far away; and perhaps I may go to heaven. I don't know. But I should like, when I go away, to leave you a better daughter than I have ever been to you. One that will take care of you and mother, and my Minette, as long as you and she live; who will make Owen a good wife and a happy man, as he is now, a good son and brother. Father, will you take her for my sake?' 'My darling, I don't know what you mean?' 'I mean--You won't be cross, father, bach?' 'Never again with you, Netta, please God.' 'Will you promise to grant me this great favour, now that my head is clear, and I have no pain, and can ask it right?' 'There is little I 'ould refuse you, Netta; but I should rather hear it first.' 'It is about Owen and Gladys, father. They have loved one another ever since they were first together. I found it out in the train; and when Owen pressed Gladys very hard to tell him why she didn't love him, she said it was because she had promised you something. I could not hear what; but I heard enough to know that she loved Owen dearly. And she is good and clever; and, oh! so kind and gentle to me. I never think now of what I used to think so much--how she was a beggar at our gate; and everybody in London looks up to her and loves her. Mr and Mrs Jones, Miss Gwynne, and Rowland, all treat her like a lady. I should die, I think I should, so much happier, or go away when I am fetched, so much happier, if I could know she was with you as a daughter. I have been very disobedient and wilful; but she has been obedient and grateful, though she was not your child. When I left mother to die of fever, she nursed her and saved her life. May God forgive me, for Christ's sake, and bless her! She has made Owen steady. She has nursed the sick. She has taught in the poor, wretched London ragged-schools, as well as in the others. She has made clothes for the poor. What has she not done? Oh, that I were like her! And now she is waiting on me, and helping mother, and nursing my child, like a common servant. Oh, father! take to her instead of me. Indeed indeed, you will never repent--never!' As Netta spoke, her wasted cheek flushed, her eyes sparkled, and her manner grew more and more animated. Her father listened attentively, without interrupting her, and when she paused, said,-- 'Netta, fach, are you seure you didn't dream or fancy this? Owen declared to me, Gladys 'ouldn't have him, and didn't love him.' 'Because you would not let her, father. Think of her making him believe this, and yet loving him dearly all the time; and because she was too grateful to you and mother to do what you don't like.' 'Yes; the girl's a good girl, Netta, I don't deny that; but I can't bear the Irish, and don't want Owen, who is a fine, sensible young man, who might have any respectable young 'ooman, to marry a girl nobody knows of, and there's the treuth! If you let him alone, he'd marry Miss Richards.' 'Never, father! Only ask him; for my sake--though I don't deserve you should do anything for me.' 'There--there; don't you begin to cry, and excite yourself. I'll ask the boy.' 'Now, father! He's in the hall; I heard him whistling. Let him come here.' Mr Prothero went out and called Owen, who came in forthwith He began the subject at once. 'Owen, Netta has got into her head that you and Gladys are making fools of one another still, in spite of all I said. Is that treue?' 'Not exactly, father. You know I have been in love with Gladys nearly ever since I knew her, and made up my mind never to have anybody else. I don't call that making a fool of her; perhaps it was of myself. She has refused me, without rhyme or reason, more than once; and it was only when we came home with Netta that I found out the cause of her refusal. It is just because she won't marry me without your consent. I have been waiting for her permission to speak to you about this ever since I came home; but she wouldn't let me, because Netta was ill. I must confess to you, honestly, that I would have married her any day these seven years, and worked for her, by sea of land, if she would have had me. But she wouldn't, so there's an end of that I find, now, that your consent is wanting alone, and I ask it boldly. If you let us marry, you make us happy; if you refuse, you make us miserable, and send me to sea again--for I don't see that you can expect me to work at home, if you don't try to contribute to my happiness. I am not angry, father, though I can't see what right you had to extract a promise from a girl to whom you had done a service. That was not generous, or like Prothero, Glanyravon.' 'Treue for you there, boy.' Mr Prothero began to rub his ear; a trick he had when in doubt. Netta, seeing this, put her arms round his neck, and whispered,-- 'Oh, father! make us happy. He is a good son, father, bach.' 'Then go you and tell the girl, you may have her, as far as I am concerned,' said Mr Prothero. 'Indeed, father!' said Owen doubtfully. 'Do you want me to swear, sir? Upon my deed, then, you may marry the girl. I have but one objection, and that's the way she came here. The girl's a good girl, and I like her well enough. Now, p'r'aps you 'ont go to sea.' 'Decidedly not; I'm a steady land-lubber for my life: thank you, father. Shake hands upon it! You won't repent. Kiss me, Netta! You have done it, I know, and you shall dance at the wedding. Now, I'll go and tell Gladys.' Owen and his father shook hands until their arms ached. Then the brother and sister kissed one another, and, with a sort of greyhound leap, or caper, Owen started off in search of Gladys. 'Father, you will never repent it. Thank you--a thousand times,' said Netta, covering her face with her hands, and bursting into tears. The worthy farmer cried with her, and thus the father and daughter's love returned and increased.	{ "id": "15315" }
45	THE BETROTHED.	Owen found Gladys in the dairy with his mother and Minette. She had a candle in one hand, lighting Mrs Prothero, whilst she was looking at the fresh milk just put into the pans; Minette held the other. 'All right, Gladys! all right! Father has consented!' cried Owen, literally tumbling down the passage between the milk-pans. Down went a splendid tin of milk right over Minette. Owen didn't mind. His arm was round Gladys' waist, and the candle stowed away somewhere, before any one knew what he was about. Mother and niece saw the long, fervent embrace to which Gladys yielded; but Owen didn't mind that. If all the servants, domestic and otherwise, had been there, he wouldn't have cared. 'Oh, Mr Owen!' said Gladys. 'Oh, Mrs. Owen,' said he. 'Mother, she is mine and yours now for ever!' he continued, releasing Gladys somewhat from his firm clasp. 'Father has given her to me. I needn't ask you. We will live all together. I will herd the cows, and she shall milk them.' 'Come into the kitchen, Owen,' said Mrs Prothero, utterly astonished. 'Uncle, you have wet me all over,' sighed Minette. 'Never mind. Come by the fire and dry yourself.' They all went into the kitchen, which was empty. There, by the blazing wood fire, Owen kissed Gladys and his mother and Minette, and Mrs Prothero kissed Gladys; and the women cried and Owen laughed. It was a long time before he could explain the real state of the case. 'You are quite sure you love me, Gladys? It is not _gratitude_, but love!' said Owen, looking into the pure, lustrous 'violets dropping dew,' that he had studied so long and so lovingly. The answering glance and the quick blush were quite satisfactory. 'Then, will you come with me to father and Netta. We owe it all to her--poor dear Netta!' 'Please to wipe my frock first,' said Minette to her grandmother; 'and tell me if uncle is going to marry Gladys. I am so glad.' The frock was wiped, and Owen took the child up in his arms, and told her to love her new aunt better than ever. 'I can't love her better, uncle,' was the simple assurance of the little girl. 'Nor can I, even as my daughter,' said Mrs Prothero, pressing the hand she held with a mother's love. They all went to the parlour, where Mr Prothero and Netta were sitting, quite silent, by the fire-light. Owen led Gladys to his father, who did not well know what to do on the occasion, not being quite satisfied with the respectability of the parentage of his future daughter-in-law. Gladys summoned all her courage, and standing before Mr Prothero, said firmly,-- 'You will be glad, sir, to know that I have found my friends, and that they acknowledge me as their relation. I could never have consented to bring disgrace upon you and yours. I do not think I could have accepted your present great kindness even, had I not been able to make my truth as clear as the noon-day. Mr Jones, with whom Miss Gwynne and I have been living so long, is my uncle--my mother's own brother.' The general exclamations of surprise may be imagined. 'The girl's dreaming, like Netta,' from Mr Prothero. 'Why didn't you tell me before?' from Owen. 'I knew she was true,' from Mrs Prothero. 'How can this be, Gladys?' from Netta. Gladys told her story simply. Every one was too much engrossed with it, to think of the pretty picture that wondering family group made; but as we know it already, we will look at the picture whilst she is telling her tale. The large, old-fashioned sofa is placed at one side of the fire-place, its head against the wall, its foot towards the window, so as to give Netta warmth and the view of the distant hills at the same time. Between the head of the sofa and the fire-place is an arm-chair, also against the wall, Mr Prothero's favourite seat; and Minette's footstool is by the side of her mother, and at the feet of her grandfather. Netta's pale face is in shadow, but the large, bright black eyes beam upon Gladys, with preternatural lustre, and the raven hair shines against the white pillow that supports her head. The broad, massive figure of the father, in its rough work-a-day clothes, is also in shadow. One elbow rests upon the arm of Netta's sofa, one hand smooths mechanically the head of his grandchild, resting against his knee. This large hand and that tender head come within the glow of the fire-light. His grey head is lifted towards Gladys, on whom his keen black eyes, so like Netta's, are also fixed. Minette, too, sitting at his feet, gazes with child-like wonder on Gladys; her long black curls falling over her pale face. Grandsire, daughter, child, so like one another, and yet so far apart in age. Three types they are of the ancient Briton. Opposite this trio, with her left hand clasped in that of Netta, and close to her sofa, stands the fair, blue-eyed, graceful Gladys; thoroughly Irish in beauty, if Welsh in heart. The red glare of the large bright fire brings out her sweet, earnest face, and slight form. Her eyes are cast down, as if they cannot support the gaze of so many other eyes, and her cheeks are flushed with a strange excitement. Towering a full head above her, his arm round her waist, the thick black beard touching her hair is the manly, handsome Owen. Love, joy, pride, in his honest black eyes, and health on his bronzed and ruddy cheeks. Seated on the sofa, her arms on Netta's knees, her head, with its silver hair, and plain white lace cap, eagerly pressed forward, is the well-beloved mother. For the first time since Netta's return, grief for the one child, has merged into joy for the other, and prayer and praise for all are in her heart even whilst she listens. The story is told, Gladys raises her eyes and head somewhat proudly for her. Owen lowers his, and kisses the pure, white forehead. There is silence for a few moments, no one can speak for tears. Owen is the first. 'Well, father! all's right now, at any rate.' 'Treue for you there, Owen, my boy. The only objection is removed; everybody will know now that Gladys was honest, God bless you both, and make you happy.' At this moment there was a suppressed sob from Netta. Her mind had wandered from the open, straightforward betrothal of Owen and Gladys, crowned, after years of difficulty, with a father's and mother's blessing, to her own unhallowed marriage--to her lost husband. Again poor Netta was the object of every one's thoughts, Gladys forgot herself, and Owen his joy, to cheer and comfort her. It was in private that Mrs Prothero poured out her feelings to Gladys, and assured her of her unbounded satisfaction in the prospect of such a daughter. It was also in private that Netta solemnly gave her child into Gladys' care. She said,-- 'If I die, Gladys, you are to be her mother. You are to bring her up; she is never to leave you. If Howel comes back, say to him this was my wish. But I will write it for him. You must teach her to love her father, and to pray for him; and when she is old enough to be firm in her duty, to go to him if he wishes it. But never let Aunt 'Lizbeth have her--never. I _must_ see Aunt 'Lizbeth, I must tell her my wishes myself; you must talk to her, Gladys; she must not have my child if I die.' Owen and Minette went together to see poor Mrs Griffey. They found her much altered. Owen could scarcely recognise the brisk, handsomely-dressed Aunt 'Lizbeth who came to announce her son's gay wedding to Mrs Prothero, in that son's mother, as stricken by his crime. Moreover, there was a very strong smell of spirits in the room, and Owen perceived a bottle and glass, that had been hastily put aside, under a table in the corner. Mrs Jenkins cried a great deal when she saw Minette, and Owen was soon very sorry that he had brought the child. However he told her to go to a small inner room, the window of which looked into the street, and her attention was soon quite absorbed. Her grandmother was in a maudlin condition, out of which, under any other circumstances, Owen would have extracted mirth, but now he only felt anger and sorrow. 'Have you heard anything of Howel, Aunt 'Lizbeth?' he asked. 'Oh, _annwyl_! No. Mr Rice Rice is telling me there is a 'ditement brought against him for forgery, and now they can be taking him anywhere, and bringing him to trial as soon as they do find him. Forgery! name o' goodness, why 'ould he be forging, as I do say to every one, and his own mother as 'ould be giving him thousands of pounds. My Howels! Ach a fi! for sham to them! But he 'ont be found guilty, if they do tak him. Owen, bach! it was killing me, 'deet to goodness it was,' 'Don't cry, Aunt 'Lizbeth, I wanted to speak to you about Netta.' 'Oh seure! she 'ont come to see her husband's mother! and I don't be cheusing to be turned out of doors again.' 'She is very ill, aunt. We don't know whether she can ever recover. Her mind is wandering, and has been ever since that--Howel left her; she thinks he is gone for debt, and if she knew the real state of the case, it would probably be the death of her. If we could manage a meeting between you, could you speak only of Howel's debts, and not of this terrible suspicion.' 'Seurely I could; but I 'ont go to Glanyravon; if your father was turning me out of doors then, what will he be doing now?' 'We must see, Aunt 'Lizbeth? poor Netta sends her love to you, and begs you to keep up; she says she is sure Howel will come back; I was to tell you this.' 'Netta! Netta! poor dear, poor dear.' Mrs Jenkins began to rock herself to and fro in her chair violently, and to cry hysterically. 'He was very fond of her, Owen; you don't think she'll be dying? I do be wishing all day long that she hadn't gone off with him, and that my Griffey hadn't left all that money--and--and--tak you a glass of brandy and water, Owen, it will be warming you after your cold walk, and I do feel so poorly and wretched all over, that I'll be having a drop along.' 'No thank you, aunt, we must be going; what of the counsel for Howel?' 'Oh, I do be having the best in all London; Prince Albert or Queen Victoria 'ouldn't be having a better; to think of him as was dining with them wanst.' 'Don't believe such nonsense, Aunt 'Lizbeth.' 'Was you thinking that my Howels is not telling the treuth? But I am seure they 'ont be finding him; they was telling me that America, where they do think he is gone, is bigger than all Wales, and England, and London put together. Oh, if I could be going to him, I 'ouldn't be vexing shocking, as I was now. All that money that my Griffey was putting by in pence and sixpences and shillings all gone, and he no better, and Howels no better, and I no better, 'scept that I did be seeing London. Come you, Owen, tak you a drop of brandy and water. I do tak it very kind of you to be coming to see me.' 'What message shall I give Netta, Aunt 'Lizbeth?' 'Give you her my love, and I'll be seeing her whenever she do like. Tell you her that Howels shall be having every penny his poor old mother do own to set him right again; he'll be seure to be proving himself right, come you. Them Simpsons and Spendalls were always living upon him, and now to be turning against him. Ach a fi! now do be taking a drop before you do go.' 'No thank you, Aunt 'Lizbeth; and I don't think spirits good for you. You had better be careful.' 'I don't be drinking a wine glass full in a week, but when I am having the spasms, and now I am vexing so, they was coming oftener than they was eused to.' Owen left Mrs Jenkins with a heavy heart, foreseeing her end; Minette said she didn't like her because she smelt so of wine, and wasn't a lady. The next day but one Gladys went to see her, and did what she could to comfort and help her; she was used to all sorts of sorrow and sin, and was so gentle a consoler, and so Christian an adviser, that poor Mrs Jenkins asked her to come and stay with her always; but that could not be; she went, however, as often as she could leave Netta. Netta's will and word was now law with her father; he refused her nothing; he even allowed her to see her mother-in-law, provided the meeting was managed when he was from home. It was so managed, and a melancholy meeting it proved; the old woman's tears and sobs were so irrepressible, that Gladys was obliged to shorten it as much as possible; Netta, however, was calmer than she expected. 'Mother,' she said, 'I want you to promise me one thing. If I die--' 'Oh, Netta, fach! why was you talking of dying? you 'ont be dying.' 'I said _if_, mother. I wish Gladys, who is going to marry Owen--' 'Gladys, Owen! name o' goodness! and your father! he 'ouldn't let you marry my Howels, and she--' 'Is very good, mother, whilst I am very bad. But I wish her and Owen to bring up my child; you must tell Howel so, when he comes back; and when she is grown up, she will be a comfort to you and him. My head is confused; I dreamt last night Howel was here, and he was going to take away Minette. Is he with you, mother? tell me! do you know where he is? Oh! if I could see him once more! once more!' 'He is being safe in America, Netta, fach, but is coming home soon I am thinking. Don't you be dying; he was doating upon you, and if he do come home, and don't be finding you, he'll be dying too.' 'Are you sure he will come back? Did he tell you so himself?' 'To be seure. He is coming back soon, only he must be paying his debts first. Come you!' Mrs Jenkins' unmitigated falsehoods did Netta a great deal of good; they cheered her, and gave her hope for the time. Gladys doubted whether hopes so based, and to be so miserably crushed, were to be encouraged, but she had not the heart to undeceive her. When Mr Prothero returned home that evening, he was surprised to see Netta looking so much more cheerful than she had done since her return. 'Better, much better,' was her answer to his eager look of inquiry. 'And now I am better, I have another favour to ask. I want to see Owen and Gladys married while I am here. I think it would almost cure me to feel that I had helped to do one kind and right thing in my wrong life. Would you mind it, father?' 'I shall be very glad to see them married, my dear; the sooner the better. Owen's good-for-nothing now but sitting with his arm round Gladys' waist all day long, and I hate those sort of follies.' 'Oh! Davy,' said Mrs Prothero, 'young people will be young people, and I'm sure no one can be so modest as Gladys,' 'Well, I'm of Netta's opinion, and the sooner they're married the better. I must confess, now I know who Gladys is, there isn't a girl in all the country I like so well. And Mr and Mrs Jones have written as a gentleman and lady ought to write, owning her, and giving their free consent to her marrying our Owen. So, Netta, fach, if you can get the young folk's consent you have mine.' Owen and Gladys had accompanied Mrs Jenkins part of the way home. She had particularly asked Gladys to 'send her,' and as it was getting dusk, Owen had 'sent her' also. They returned during the conversation respecting their marriage and Mr Prothero who had forgotten, if he had ever experienced, the shyness of affianced lovers, began the subject at once. 'Netta wants you two young people to be married directly, so do I. I shall be glad when 'tis all over. What do you say to it?' They had nothing to say, Gladys blushed, and Owen felt awkward on her account, not his own. 'There, I always said that lovers were fools,' said Mr Prothero. 'We will settle it another time,' said Netta. 'Go you and settle it directly,' said Mr Prothero; 'what my little girl here says, is law in this house.' Poor Netta always began to cry when her father said anything particularly kind. She did so now. There was a reaction on her spirits, and she suddenly became as depressed as she had previously been gay. The constantly recurring contrasts between herself and Gladys continually affected her, and her father's readiness for the marriage reminded her of the scenes between him and herself previously to her own. The topic was given up for that evening, but the following morning Netta renewed it with Owen, who declared himself ready to marry Gladys that very moment. The upshot of it all was, that the wedding was settled for New Year's Day, at Netta's particular request. No one cared, or indeed thought what the world would say at a marriage taking place during a period of such heavy affliction. Netta willed it, and to give her pleasure, and an object for her poor wandering mind, every member of the family would have made any sacrifice; and this was not a sacrifice at all, but an event of importance to all. Mr and Mrs Jones promised to come if only for one clear day, and sent a box of presents to their niece, which Netta had the pleasure of unpacking. Amongst them was a simple and pretty wedding dress and bonnet, that poor Netta wept over, thinking of her own. On the whole, however, Netta was better and more cheerful, and even assisted in the preparations that were going forward. She helped to make that pretty dove-coloured silk dress that was manufactured at home, and tried to join in the happiness which her apparently improved health seemed to make allowable. But Netta's heart was with Howel, and the certainty that she felt of his return and constant love, alone sustained her. Alas! that poor, fluttering, uncertain heart!	{ "id": "15315" }
46	THE HEIR.	Miss Gwynne returned to Glanyravon on Christmas Eve. She had not visited it before, since she left it when her father married. She had seen her father, his wife, and her little brother almost yearly in London, whither Lady Mary Nugent insisted on dragging her husband annually; but she had not hitherto had love, or courage, or Christian charity enough to visit them at home. When last in town, and repeatedly by letter, her father had urged her doing so, and she had at last complied with his request, more from a latent sense of duty than from inclination. It was a bright, frosty night, when the carriage that had been sent to meet her drove up to the door. If poor Netta had fainted on returning to the farm, Freda was obliged to brush away gathering tears as she returned to the Park. Every branch of tree, as it glittered in the moonlight in its dress of hoar frost, was familiar to her, every pane of glass in the windows of the old place seemed a friend. On the lowest step, bare-headed and expectant, were the old butler and footman she had left when she went away; she shook hands with each, and they almost rung her hand off. In the door-way stood her father, not bare-headed, but expectant, who received her with paternal warmth. Freda knew that he must for once have forgotten himself and his nervous debility to have thus exposed himself to the frosty air. In the hall was Lady Mary ready with smiles and embraces, with which Freda would gladly have dispensed; but she did her best to seem, if she could not feel, glad to see her. Her ladyship preceded her to her own old bedroom, where a huge fire, and bright wax candles bade her welcome, and whither she was followed by Frisk, who was exuberant in his demonstrations of delight at his return home after his long absence. 'I have ordered my maid to wait on you my dear,' said Freda's stepmother, 'because I find your's does not return to you. But we can replace her. Dinner will be ready whenever you are; can I do anything for you?' 'No, thank you, I shall not be long,' said Freda mechanically. Lady Mary left the room. Freda felt that her tact was good after all; for no nice feeling could have been more successful than it was. She had received her just as if she had come home after a short absence. No demonstrations of any kind; her room was much as it had ever been. There were even some of her clothes in the wardrobe. 'I won't cry! I won't give way!' muttered Freda, beginning to take off her wrappings. There was a tap at the door. 'Come in!' And Anne the old housemaid appeared. 'Oh, miss, I am so glad to see you home again, it do seem so natural. Please to let me unpack your things, miss. My lady thought you might like me better than Mrs Pink.' 'Thank you, Anne, it does look like home to see you.' 'Shall I get your dress, miss?' 'I can't dress to-night, I am too tired. There, that will do. Now I will go downstairs.' She did so, and found her father alone in the library. 'I won't cry,' again she said, as she kissed him affectionately. 'Thank you for coming, Freda, it will do me good, and my wife is delighted. Harold, too, is in ecstasies, and only went to bed with a promise that sister Freda--he calls you sister, you know, and--and all that sort of thing.' The 'my wife,' grated strangely on Freda's ear, but she promised to go and see her little brother. Lady Mary came in, and they went to dinner. It seemed strange to see her at the head of the table, and Freda felt as if she were in a dream. But nothing could be more perfect than her ladyship's manner. She behaved as if nothing had ever happened to cause the least estrangement between them, and almost as if she were still Lady Mary Nugent. Handsome as ever, and perfectly well-bred, she almost made even Freda believe, after her long absence from her, that she really was what she seemed. However, Freda tried to take her as she was, and to feel thankful that she was no worse. It was she who principally kept up the conversation; Freda made great efforts, and signally failed, and Mr Gwynne never talked much. After dinner, Freda proposed to go and see the little brother. As she looked at the magnificent boy who lay peacefully sleeping in his little crib, she was thankful to be able to kiss him, and say, 'God bless you, my brother,' without feeling angered that he had deprived her of the inheritance she had once been so proud of. She knew that Lady Mary was watching her narrowly, but there was no hypocrisy in her affection, so she did not care. They went down to the library, where were Mr Gwynne, tea and coffee. 'Is he not a splendid fellow, my dear?' said Mr Gwynne. 'He certainly is, papa,' replied Freda, aloud, saying inwardly, 'and everything with you now. I am quite second--third I ought to say.' This was true; Mr Gwynne was proud of his wife and son. The former took care of him, and did not greatly interfere with his pursuits or peculiarities, the latter gave him new life and hopes. An heir in his old age was a gift that might well exceed that of the daughter who could not perpetuate his name. Freda was glad when she went to bed, which she did as soon as tea was over. It was a great relief to sit down once more in the easy-chair which had helped to nurse so many crude fancies and humours in days gone by, and think over the past and present. There was an atmosphere of unreality about everything at Glanyravon, that she hoped to clear off on the morrow, so she resolved to try not to feel depressed under its influence; but having once known what it was to enjoy living with real, working men and women, with aims beyond the formalities of society, it seemed hard to be thrown back upon the cold worldliness of her stepmother, and the selfish nervousness of her father. She was, however, aroused on the blessed morning of Christmas Day by something that was very real. 'A merry Kismas, sister Freda,' shouted a sharp little voice into her ear, and before her eyes were half opened brisk little feet were stamping at her bedside, and the same voice authoritatively enouncing, 'Put me up, Dane, I 'ull be put up.' 'I beg your pardon, miss,' said the nurse, who stood in the doorway, 'but Master Harold would come, and my lady isn't up, and--' 'Never mind, let him in,' said Freda, sitting up in bed, and opening her arms to receive the rosy, wilful, handsome child, who did not know how he had supplanted her. 'A merry Kismas!' he repeated, returning Freda's kisses by pulling off her night-cap, and letting down her long hair before she knew what he was about. 'Now, I'll dive 'ou to Tewey.' 'Master Harold! don't, sir!' said the nurse. But Master Harold was jumping on the pillow behind his sister, making reins of her hair and horses of her head in no very gentle fashion. 'I sha'n't give you what I brought you from London if you pull my hair,' said Freda, catching the bare, firm, sturdy leg of the small tyrant who called her sister. 'Is it soldiers?' asked the child, suddenly tumbling down before her. She caught the little fellow in her arms, and told him that if he would go away whilst she dressed he should have the present. After some demur he consented, having first informed Freda that ''ittle Minnie, and Winnie, and Dot, and baby' were all coming to dinner. 'A family party!' groaned Freda, when the child was carried away by its nurse, 'myself the only rightful member of the family, and probably the only one who will feel as if she doesn't belong to it.' Freda got up and looked out upon the fine park and the hills beyond. She sighed involuntarily. 'Why should I sigh,' she said. 'I am happier than when it was my home,--happier, and, I hope, more useful. My father doesn't want me,'--here she paused. Perhaps that father really did want her, for she, at least, loved him, and his wife did not; and she was beginning to be conscious, daily more and more conscious, of the exceeding preciousness of love. Breakfast passed, with the same effort to feel at home on her part, and attempt to keep up a conversation on that of Lady Mary, as had the dinner of the previous day. Harold made a diversion by bursting into the room to ask for his soldiers. He, at least, was quite natural, and entirely spoilt. Immediately after breakfast they drove to church. It was delightful to Freda to see the good vicar in the reading-desk, and his wife in the pew beneath. She felt at home again for the first time. For the first time, also, she really listened to the worthy man's somewhat dry sermon, and strove to feel 'in charity with all men' on that blessed day. She thought once or twice of a sermon Rowland had preached that day twelvemonth, which riveted the attention of his large congregation, and made her wonder whence he had received the gift, by half-an-hour's plain eloquent preaching, of opening the heart to receive truths hitherto more understood than felt. Rowland had become to her, and many, the type of a preacher and minister of the Gospel, and to him she owed, under God, the fuller enlightenment and enlargement of her own mind. After the service was over she went into the vicarage. Here, again, she was at home. She had much to tell Mrs Prothero of the kindness of Sir Philip Payne Perry and his wife to her, and many messages to deliver from them. She had also to hear Mr and Mrs Jonathan's opinion of Netta, and of the approaching wedding. She avoided any word that could recall Howel. 'I hope you are not displeased with the match?' said Freda. 'By no means,' was Mrs Jonathan's reply. 'I always thought Gladys very superior, and her turning out to be Mr Jones' niece removes our only objection. It is quite a romance!' 'She is a clever young woman,' said Mr Jonathan. 'I was surprised the other day to find how much history she knew. As to Wales, she has it by heart, and is not wholly unacquainted with the antiquities of the country. It was quite a pleasure for me, Miss Gwynne, I assure you, to meet with any one who took so much interest in ancient lore. And now she is to be one of the family she is so much more at her ease. Actually asked me, of her own accord, of the fossils in the Park quarry, and a very acute question concerning the lords of the marches. She even knew that her name, Gladys, meant Claudia, and that the original Gladys is, probably, the very Claudia mentioned by St Paul.' 'We shall all be thrown into the shade now, Mrs Prothero,' said Freda, laughing. 'Gladys will evidently be the favourite.' 'I am afraid I must break up your conversation, my love,' interrupted Lady Mary. 'You can drive or ride over to finish it when you like.' On their way home her ladyship remarked,-- 'I suppose this unfortunate discovery concerning Mr Howel Jenkins will quite ruin Mr. Rowland Prothero's position in London society?' 'He is scarcely in what is called "society;" but his friends are not likely to be changed by the conduct of his brother-in-in-law. He is far too highly esteemed and admired to be injured by such a man as Howel Jenkins.' Freda felt the blood rush to her cheeks, and was convinced that Lady Mary noticed it. 'I am glad to hear you say so, my dear,' said Mr Gwynne. 'He is a great favourite of mine, and I should be sorry to think his prospects were injured. They are a rising family. His brother is very much thought of, and improving his own and my property amazingly. A most energetic young man, and so amusing, that he almost kills me whenever I see him. I am glad he is going to marry that pretty Gladys.' When they arrived at home they found the party from Abertewey ready to receive them,--at least, Mrs Gwynne Vaughan and her children. The colonel was to join them at dinner. 'Oh, Freda, dear, I am tho glad you are come home again!' lisped Mrs Gwynne Vaughan. 'Tho ith Gwynne. He thaith it will be delightful to have you. Thith ith little Gwynne, and thith ith Minnie, and we call thith one Dot, and baby ith in the nurthery. You thall thee her by-and-by. Kith Aunt Freda, Minnie,--they all call you Aunt Freda, you know.' Freda, not at all rejoicing in the honour, stooped to kiss all the pretty little children by turns, and had soon made friends with them all. The children were the greatest possible relief to her; she turned to them as a sort of neutral ground between the war in her own heart and the tact and inanity of her stepmother and stepsister. The latter was as unchanged as the former. Very handsome, very fashionably dressed, very good-tempered,--in short, Miss Nugent simply turned into Mrs Vaughan. Freda wondered how the really clever and agreeable Colonel Vaughan could live with so dull a companion. Having got through luncheon and the afternoon somehow, thanks to the children, the dinner-hour arrived, and therewith the colonel. Freda always felt reserved with him, and his studied kindness and politeness to her when she had met him occasionally in London, irritated her. She had spoken to him before his marriage so unreservedly of his wife, and had given him to understand so unmistakably that she knew what had passed between him and Gladys, that she fancied he must at heart cordially dislike her. Moreover, she had loved him. Much as she despised herself now for having done so, she knew it, and she despised him all the more on that account. There was, however, no mistaking the real warmth of his welcome, and for the moment--only for the moment--Freda's heart beat quick. 'I am so glad to see you, Freda,--sister Freda, you know, now,--and looking so well.' 'Yeth, ith'nt the looking well. I think the lookth younger than when the went away.' 'Handsomer, at any rate. I may pay you a compliment, now, Freda.' Freda could not return it. Colonel Vaughan looked more than six years older since his marriage, and there was a dissatisfied expression on his countenance very different from the old suavity. Freda was not long in discovering that if he had improved his fortune by marriage he had not improved his temper, or increased his happiness. Fortunately for his wife, her imperturbable placidity and want of acute feeling prevented her from appropriating many hard hits from her husband that would have made Freda wretched. Again, she admired the tact of the mother. By it she managed her husband admirably, and retained her power over him in precisely the same way as she did before she married him; while Wilhelmina wholly lost what little she had gained over hers prior to her marriage. Her silliness annoyed him continually, and her beauty, for want of expression, palled upon his fastidious taste. Freda's contempt very soon turned to pity. The handsome, fascinating, deceitful colonel was amply indemnified for all the hearts he had broken, and those broken hearts fully avenged by the tedium of his home life. Of course, Freda did not discover all this during that one Christmas Day, but it developed itself during her subsequent stay at Glanyravon. 'We did not ask any one else to dinner to-day, Gwynne,' said Mr Gwynne, 'because we thought Freda would like to have us alone, you know, and see the children, and--and all that sort of thing.' 'I hope Freda enjoys a family-party better than I do,' said the colonel, looking at her as he spoke. 'Of all things on earth, it is the slowest.' 'Complimentary,' said Lady Mary. 'Oh! Gwynne ith alwayth tho fond of thaying what he dothn't mean. He often doth to me, don't you, my dear? But I don't mind, becauth I underthtand him now.' Freda looked at Mrs Vaughan to see if she spoke ironically. Not at all. She fully believed what she said. Colonel Vaughan saw the glance, and smiling, said,-- 'All in good faith, I assure you.' Freda blushed, and to turn the conversation, began to talk to him of his children, and to praise their beauty. He smiled again, as perfectly understanding her ruse. 'People call them loves and angels!' he said, 'and even go into raptures over the baby. For my part, I never look at them when they are babies. Indeed, I don't like children, and all ours are so spoilt. Wilhelmina doesn't know how to manage them, and now their governess is away, the house is like a lunatic asylum.' 'Oh, Gwynne, how abthurd you are! He ith tho fond of them, Freda, you can't think, and they are thuch little dearth.' 'I was greatly amused,' said Freda, 'to hear Minnie call Harold "uncle," just now; and he seemed not a little proud of his dignity.' 'Surely, Freda, you haven't learnt to talk baby talk!' said Colonel Vaughan. 'You used to eschew such twaddle.' 'It was time for me to learn to like a great many things that I professed to hate. I hope I am improved since I was here last. But I always liked children.' 'Oh! Harold is so fond of her,' said Mr Gwynne. 'He is a wonderful boy.' Here followed a history of various achievements of Harold, during which Colonel Vaughan vainly endeavoured to catch Freda's eye. She was only too well-disposed to smile at the infatuation of the doating father. 'Here are the children, I think,' said Lady Mary. In bounded Harold, and jumped, unbidden, on Freda's lap. 'I ull have some of that--and that,' said Harold. 'And I will have--' began Minnie. 'You will have nothing if you ask for it,' said the colonel with a frown. His little trio were quiet in a moment. 'Ganpapa, take me up,' said Dot, creeping round to Mr Gwynne. Freda felt her blood creep at that word 'Grandpapa,' and also felt the colonel's glance. He seemed to take a pleasure in watching every expression of her countenance, and it did, unfortunately, always convey her feelings to the watcher. Freda had never passed so uncomfortable a dinner since the day when the present Mrs Vaughan came of age. Probably she was the only one of the party who was conscious of Colonel Vaughan's changed manner and temper, because it was new to her, and she could scarcely believe him to be himself. Her father was wrapped up in his boy--his wife's attention was divided between him and the other children, and Mrs Vaughan smiled and lisped on all by turns. Freda thought of old times, when her father and herself were so happy together; and then she thought of the last Christmas day in London, when Mr and Mrs Jones, Rowland, and herself dined late off a Glanyravon Park turkey, having first feasted as many poor people as the kitchen would hold, on geese from Glanyravon Farm. Certainly the comparison with her present companions was 'odious' to her. Freda scarcely knew which was worst--the riotous, untameable spirits of Harold, who did and said what he liked, unchecked either by father or mother, or the cowed and altered manner of the other children in the presence of their father; they, too, had been noisy enough before he arrived. 'It was very good of you to come to-day, Gwynne,' said Lady Mary; 'I scarcely expected you, knowing how you dislike this frosty weather.' 'Freda is attraction enough to draw off the frost, though she has become so much better than her neighbours. Wilhelmina, my dear, why do you let Minnie stuff her mouth so full of orange? The child will choke.' The dinner came to an end at last, and the children went to bed. Freda played and sung some sacred music at Colonel Vaughan's request, and he complimented her on her improvement, and said he wished his wife played and sung as well, because music was such a resource in a dull country place. 'I suppose you have practised a great deal since you have been in London?' he said. 'Mrs Jones and I play and sing whenever we have time, and I have had some lessons,' replied Freda. 'Besides, one hears all the first musicians and singers, and they teach one.' 'Did you see much of that young parson, Prothero? I remember he was somewhere in your neighbourhood,' asked the colonel. Freda was sure this question was a feeler, and she answered carelessly,-- 'Yes, naturally. He is Mr Jones' brother curate.' 'Now confess, you didn't like those people, and that sort of life? You must have been _ennuyée_ from morning to night.' 'On the contrary, the days were not half long enough.' 'Freda!' exclaimed Mrs Vaughan, 'I get tho tired, and tho doth the colonel, before half the evening ith over.' 'Some one else seems in the same condition,' said Freda. 'Papa is fast asleep.' 'And mamma nearly,' said Mrs Vaughan. 'And I am tho tired. I think Chrithmath dayth are very dull. One dothn't know what to do.' 'That isn't peculiar to Christmas days in your year,' said the colonel, sarcastically; 'but I suppose we had better go to bed. I hope we shall be more amusing to-morrow, Freda. All your old friends, the constant Sir Hugh amongst them, are invited to meet you. Let me light your candle. Remember, I always used to do that, when we had our snug evenings together such an age ago.' 'Yeth, he often talkth of you, Freda, and thayth you were thuch good company.' Freda heard Colonel Vaughan sigh, and thought, as she said 'good-night,' and hastened upstairs, that she ought to be thankful that the imperturbable and dull Wilhelmina Nugent had been the choice of that discontented and irritable colonel, instead of the quick-tempered, independent Winifred Gwynne.	{ "id": "15315" }
47	THE DAUGHTER-IN-LAW.	New Year's Day dawned under the influence of a bright sun, and a clear, frosty atmosphere. The old year was dead and buried with all his griefs and joys; his son and heir came forward smiling, to begin his career of times and seasons, clouds and sunbeams. With him, Owen and Gladys were to commence their united lives. An auspicious morning ushered in this, their bridal day, and the year's birthday. Nature had put on all her jewels in honour of the joint festivities. Her very tears were turned into diamonds that sparkled on her capacious breast, neck, and arms, more brilliantly than stomachers, necklaces and bracelets of gems, on the courtiers of an Indian monarch. Truly, as the fair and gentle Gladys drove through the roads and lanes that led from the farm to the church, the hedge-rows sparkled with these brilliants, and her very pathway was strewn with them. Attired in that Quaker-like garb of dove-colour and white, her soft cheek tinged as from the sun, her eyes cast down in modest shyness, and her heart beating with quiet happiness, she seemed a fitting bride to wait upon that heir of so many by-gone generations. And assuredly a happier never drove to a church to meet her expectant bridegroom, her hand clasped lovingly between the kindly palms of her future mother, sitting by her side; and the affectionate glances of her uncle and aunt cast upon her from the opposite seat. She felt as if it were all a dream. She, the Irish beggar--the friendless--the wanderer--the orphan! And now so honoured! All whom she most cared for in the world, with the exception of Rowland, were assembled in that village church to meet her. There were Owen and his father--Miss Gwynne and Minette--Mr and Mrs Jonathan Prothero. Gentleness, gratitude and simple merit, were, for once rewarded, even in this world. The kind and worthy Uncle Jonathan--so soon to be _her_ uncle--married her. Her own uncle gave her, with prayers and blessings, to him whom she had loved so long and truly--her former mistress, now her fast friend, and another mistress's grandchild, were her bridesmaids. If a tear gathered in her eye, it was a tear of joy; and there, at the altar, amongst all those to whom she was henceforth to be united by the ties of relationship, she inwardly vowed to devote herself to their happiness, and to the fulfilment of the promises she was making to him who would be one with her for ever. The churchyard was full of spectators, as the proud and happy Owen led his bride through it to the vicarage, and the general opinion was, that there had never been married so handsome a couple in the church of Llanfach. The bells and the sunbeams rang out and shone out together, and all the wedding-party forgot their private sorrows in the joy of the moment. Even Netta, who had been taken to the vicarage for the occasion, received them with one of her old bright smiles. She threw her arms round Gladys, and called her 'sister.' ' _My_ sister,' she said more than once emphatically. And if tears would, from time to time, spring into her eyes, as she contrasted herself with Gladys, she brushed them away, and did her best not to cast a shadow from her grief, on the brightness of a brother and sister's joy. That little drawing-room at the vicarage contained as pretty and pleasant a group as could well be seen, of which Owen and Gladys formed the centre figures. 'Now, my good girl, let me give you a real kiss,' said honest Mr Prothero, 'and tell you that I am proud of my daughter. Mother, what do you say?' 'I say, thank God for all His mercies,' said quiet Mrs Prothero, shaking Gladys' hand, which she seemed loath to part with. If there is a great variety of character and feeling displayed in shaking hands, there assuredly is, also, in kissing. Gladys experienced it in that same little drawing-room, where she submitted her blushing cheeks to all sorts of impressions. Mr Prothero gave her three very hearty smacks, which resounded through the room, and seemed to say at once, 'I am your father; his wife's embrace was quieter, but more tender. Mrs Jonathan stooped majestically, and imprinted her lips patronisingly on the forehead, as much as to say, 'I receive you into the family of the Payne Perrys, since you are respectably connected.' Mrs Jones kissed her on the lips, and said, 'God bless you, my dear.' Miss Gwynne, who hated kissing, and did not consider herself one of the family, looked on, but took no active part. Was that pride? she asked herself afterwards, and the answer was, 'Yes.' As to Mr Jones, his embrace made Owen exclaim, 'It is well I know you are her uncle now. I was as jealous as could be when you kissed her in London.' Minette's embrace was a long hug, and when the vicar came in, he wound up the scene by a salute as original as himself, which called forth the following reproof from his brother:-- 'Why, man, you don't know how to kiss. You stumbled upon the very tip of her nose, and almost put her eyes out with your spectacles.' Heedless of the interruption, Mr Jonathan addressed his niece as follows:-- 'My dear Niece, Claudia,--I shall henceforth call you by that name, in memory of her of the Epistle, and I so registered it just now, Gladys or Claudia--I wish you and my good nephew, Owen, all happiness and prosperity, both spiritual and temporal. I pray that you may, according to the example of your illustrious namesake, devote yourself to works of piety and hospitality, making your husband's home happy, and keeping a place therein for his and your friends.' 'To be sure she will, uncle,' said Owen, 'and we will have an especial corner for you, called "The Claudia," where the little hypocrite shall talk to you of all the druidical remains, and fossil mammoths, that she pretends to be so interested in.' 'You had better come and take off your bonnet now, my dear,' said Mrs Jonathan to the flushed and shy Gladys. 'I hope I shall never be married,' whispered Freda to Mrs Jones, 'if I am to undergo that sort of ordeal. But I suppose all brides are not kissed in that way.' Uncle and Aunt Jonathan had prepared a substantial early dinner--they did not dignify it by the name of _déjeuner_, or miscall it breakfast--to which, in the course of an hour or so, the family party sat down, much as they would have sat down to any ordinary dinner. The dining-table just accommodated ten comfortably, and Netta sat in her easy-chair by the fire, with a small table by her side, making the eleventh. Miss Gwynne remained to luncheon only, being engaged to dine at Abertewey, and not considering herself quite as one of the guests. She had come uninvited and unexpected, to show due honour to Gladys and her dear friends, Mr and Mrs Jones, and the whole party were gratified by the attention. The remarks upon her doing so made by her friends at home, were various. 'Freda is certainly very eccentric,' said Lady Mary to her husband. 'Her former maid--your tenant's son--the brother-in-law of that Howel Jenkins. Do you think it discreet, Mr Gwynne?' 'Why, really, Lady Mary, I didn't think about it. She has always done what she likes; they are very worthy, respectable people, you know, and all that sort of thing.' 'Well, if you don't object, of course it is no affair of mine. But it looks very much as if she still thought of Mr Rowland.' 'Oh, an excellent young man! It was only yesterday I saw his name mentioned in the _Times_, as having attended a large meeting in the place of his rector, who is ill. It was upon the general question of all sorts of improvements of the low parts of London. I can't exactly remember what they were, religious, and sanitary, and all that sort of thing you know. Well, the thanks of the meeting were awarded him, for his very clear and accurate information, or something of the sort. Very satisfactory, you know.' 'Oh very! but that can have nothing to do with Freda.' 'She is very good, is Freda, much improved! she never disputes and quarrels with me now. I hope she will live with us--indeed I cannot part with her again.' At Abertewey, Mrs Vaughan asked the colonel whether 'he thought Freda would come away from that thupid wedding, in time for dinner.' 'If she doesn't, I will never ask her here again,' was the reply. 'Now Freda really is a capital girl, unaffected and sensible; improving every year. I wish all women were more like her.' 'Tho do I, Gwynne; the ith very nice, tho kind to the children, and not tho thatirical to me as the uthed to be. I uthed to be afraid of her, but I am not now, at all. Don't you think thatirical people very dithagreeable? I hope Winnie won't be thatirical, don't you? Mamma thaith--' 'Never mind what she says, my dear. I hope Freda will come. All the people will be so disgusted if she does not, particularly poor Sir Hugh. I wish she would marry him--but she is too good for him. Intellectual people ought not to marry those who have no brains.' 'No, thertainly not. Oh! here they are! Freda and all. I hear her voithe. I am tho glad.' To Freda's surprise, every one seemed really glad to see her, and to the surprise of every one, the more they saw of her, the more they liked her. The very people whom she had shunned as bores, and who had shunned her as 'tho thatirical,' now became friendly and pleasant to her, and she to them; how it was they could not tell, but various reasons were assigned for the change. 'How altered Miss Gwynne is,' said one; 'I suppose the birth of the brother has made her more humble.' 'Nothing like London to pull the pride out of our country gentry,' said a second. 'Lords at home, they are only one of a multitude there. Miss Gwynne has learnt her true position at last.' 'How much more agreeable Miss Gwynne is,' said a fourth. 'I suppose it is because she has been living in a clergyman's family, where they are obliged to be pleasant to all the parishioners.' 'How much less fastidious, satirical, and overbearing Freda Gwynne is,' a fourth; 'her very countenance is altered; I am sure there has been some great change in her mind.' And thus the neighbours rang the changes upon Freda's change; but Mrs Gwynne Vaughan had been, perhaps, the nearest to the real cause. She was no longer satirical, no longer striving to find out vulnerable points in people's characters to laugh at; she had learnt to make allowances for others, who in turn made allowances for her. Satirical people are very amusing, but rarely welcome, companions; not that Freda was exactly satirical, but she had the gift of finding out every one's weak points--a good gift to those who will kindly cover the point, but a bad one to such as like to lay it bare. The party at Abertewey went off very well; the colonel was in good humour, and devoted to Freda, who tried to treat him as her brother-in-law; and Sir Hugh was more gallant than ever, and long before the evening was over, had managed to tell Freda that he would rather have her without the Park than with it, which Freda pretended to take as a joke on the part of her old admirer. The following day, Mr and Mrs Jones spent at the Park, according to a special invitation from its master and mistress. Lady Mary's attention to Freda's friends did more towards reconciling her to her step-mother than anything else; and she even forgot to ask whether it was tact or not. Mr Jones was obliged to return to London the next day, but at Freda's earnest entreaty, he left his wife behind him for a week, which was spent by her between the Park and farm very agreeably. Before she left, Mr Gwynne had a little private conference with her, to the following effect, and very nervous he was meanwhile:-- 'I am very much obliged to you and Mr Jones, I am sure, for your kindness to Freda. I hope you understand how satisfied, and--and--all that sort of thing, you know, I am whilst she is with you.' Mrs Jones saw that she must say something to help him on. 'We are only too glad to have her society and aid. I assure you she has been invaluable in the parish, and is beloved by every one.' 'Exactly; I perceive a wonderful change in her; she is gentler, and less excitable. I feel that you--that your husband--in short, I mean--that--hem--' 'Freda has such a fine natural character, Mr Gwynne.' 'Precisely; I would say that I am convinced you would not influence her, and so forth, in remaining away from--you understand--from me, in short.' 'Certainly not. I should be very glad to think that she would return and live happily at her natural home, sorry as I should be to lose her.' 'Thank you very much indeed; you have always been her true friend. I am very anxious--so we are all you see--Lady Mary would like a companion--Harold attends to her better than to any one else. I hope you like Harold; ah--yes--he is a fine boy, and so talented; and you know--to be sure. I should wish to have Freda to read with me again; I assure you I miss her in many ways. And the colonel and Mrs Vaughan--the children--in fact--in short--you understand?' 'Perfectly, and will not throw any obstacle in the way of Freda's remaining at home.' 'Thank you very much. You are a true friend, Mrs Jones; thank you.' Mrs Jones made a point of repeating that conversation to Freda, whose look of blank dismay quite startled her. 'Oh! Serena, you want to get rid of me. I could never live this kind of life again. Lady Mary would kill me in another month; not an idea in common. Her daughter is fifty times more endurable, for she is innocent in her silliness. And then that cranky, exigeant colonel, longing to make love to me if I would let him; the stiff dinner parties, tiresome people, spoilt children--though I do delight in Harold and Winnie and Gwynne and Dot and baby, too, for that much--and--' 'And your father,' quietly suggested Mrs Jones. 'I never thought you would wish me to leave you, Serena. Those happy, useful days! The poor, the schools, the church!' 'They are everywhere, my love.' 'But so different. I never felt so happy or useful before I lived with you in London.' 'The change is in yourself, not in the place.' 'Oh! Serena, this is cruel! I could live with my father anywhere, but the others--impossible.' 'Think it over. You know that you have a home with us whenever you like; that it would be my pleasure as well as interest to have you always. That we shall miss you in every possible way; still duty is duty. As long as your father did not care, and Lady Mary was rather glad to have the Park to herself, the thing was, perhaps, different, at any rate Freda was not then the Freda she is now. 'Serena, you are a bitter-sweet, and a horrible little apple that is.' 'But they say it makes good cider.' 'At any rate you ought not to influence me. I will not decide whilst you are here, and that is all I will promise. If I do, it will be to go to you undoubtedly. But I will think it over.' That very night before she went to bed, Freda did think it over, sitting by the fire in her delightful, warm, well-lighted, well-furnished bedroom; but she could not come to any determination. She made out a sort of debtor and creditor account in her own head, and cashed it according to her somewhat imperfect notions of book-keeping. 'My father--of course I owe him a great deal in the way of duty and love; but he owes me something for letting me have my own way all my life, bringing me up with the notion that I should be an heiress, and then disappointing me by marrying a woman whom I utterly despise. Lady Mary--I owe her nothing whatever, beyond the common proper treatment that one must give to every one; she, on the contrary, owes me compensation for marrying my father when I am sure he didn't want her, and certainly I did not. 'Colonel Vaughan--I don't owe him anything beyond a little improvement in my style of singing and drawing; yes, I owe him a heavy debt of gratitude for not proposing for me instead of Wilhelmina, for assuredly I should have married him, and he owes me something for making a fool of me. Wilhelmina--I owe her a good deal, firstly, for despising her, laughing at her, ridiculing her--and she all the time better than I was, for she never retaliated--and secondly, for trying to prejudice the colonel against her. Harold--I owe him the love of a sister, and he owes me nothing as yet; here I am decidedly debtor. The poor, of course, wherever one is, one owes them a great debt of Christian charity and love; and I must confess that they are not quite so well seen to as when Gladys was my almoner; but then she is here again to see to them, and that, on her own responsibility, and it is Lady Mary's place to care for them now. 'On the other hand, Serena--I owe her everything; all my few good thoughts, words and works. She owes me nothing. Mr Jones, ditto; I am wholly creditor in London: the poor, the ragged schools, I owe them every farthing I can give, for they want it, and have few to help them. I feel almost sure I should be best in London. Rowland Prothero, I owe him compensation for my great, unpardonable rudeness and pride; I am more ashamed of that one action than of any other. He so superior to me in every way, but the mere accident of birth.' Thus far Freda got in her arithmetic. But Rowland seemed to open a new rule, farther on in Butler than addition and substraction. In short, she found herself lost in the maze of fractions, and could not extricate herself. When she jumped up from her easy-chair, she was trying to reduce the following complex fractions, into one simple one, and entirely failed. 'A curate, the son of my father's tenant, the brother-in-law of my former maid, brother-in-law also of a man indicted for forgery. But, proud as myself; below me here, but above me in London; infinitely my superior in everything worth the consideration of a person travelling quickly through a world of silly distinctions, to one where we shall all begin life on very different principles. The fact is, Freda, that the tables are turned, and you now esteem this same Rowland Prothero much higher than he esteems you. Constant intercourse has brought out all his grand points, and all your weak ones. His mind has conquered your vulgar prejudices, but has also fully seen through them, and despises you accordingly. Well, I suppose duty and propriety concur in my remaining at Glanyravon Park, discretion being the better part of valour.' And so ended Freda's arithmetic.	{ "id": "15315" }
48	THE PENITENT.	A week after the marriage of Owen and Gladys, the following conversation took place between Gladys and Netta. The latter had been much more wandering in mind since the wedding, and had been occupying herself by writing a variety of letters, all of which were addressed to Howel, with the exception of one, which was to her brother Rowland. 'You see, dear sister,' said Netta, 'that Howel cannot come to me, because he is in debt, so I must go to him. He is in America, I know. His letter was from America.' 'But America is an immense continent, dear Netta,' said Gladys; 'you would not know where to seek him.' 'Oh, yes! I should find him very soon. My love would point the way. I should track his steps like a dog, Gladys--like a dog.' 'But you cannot go till you are better and stronger. Then we can all consult upon the best way.' 'Hush not a word to any one. They would stop me. And you know now Howell is my husband, I must leave father and mother to follow him. I know I was wrong to leave them to marry him; though he loves me, Gladys! he loves me! Don't you think he does?' 'I am sure he does. Still, it might not be well for you to go to him, if he is hiding for debt. He might prefer your remaining here?' 'Would you not go to Owen? Would he like you to be away from him in trouble? You, who have only been married a week, know better; and I have been married years.' 'Owen shall tell you, my dear love, whether he would wish me to go to him at such a time. Perhaps men know best what other men would like?' 'But I mean to go, Gladys. Neither Owen nor you can hinder me.' 'And what of Minette? You would kill her, if you took her so far.' 'Ah! that is what I wanted to say to you. I knew there was something; but my head aches so, I forget. If I go away, will you take care of Minette till I come back. Will you love her as if she were your own?' 'Wherever you go I will be a mother to her; but she would not like to part from her own dear mother, any better than you will from yours. We will not think of the journey just yet, dear; we will be happy together, all of us, for a little longer. You cannot leave so soon, after you have made Owen and me so blest.' 'None of you want me now; father and mother have a new daughter, a better one than I have ever been; Owen a wife! What a word that is, Gladys! We don't understand it till we are parted from our husband; and I give Minette a mother in my place. I must go very soon.' Poor Netta laid her head on Gladys' shoulder, and began to cry. 'Well, dear,' said Gladys soothingly, 'we will see about it, you and I. But you must not go till I think you strong enough, and till we are prepared with clothes and money.' 'Oh! I can beg! I don't want clothes or money to get to Howel.' Gladys knew that it was of no use to try to combat Netta's purpose. All she could do was to seem to yield. 'We will see,' she said, 'when the days are a little longer. But you have not told me about the letters yet.' 'No, I was forgetting them. If anything happens to me, or it I should miss Howel on my way, I want him to have this packet of letters. In them, I have told him that I wish Minette to remain here with you and mother; I have said a great deal to him, but mostly to beg him to forgive me, as I forgive him, all our unkindness to one another. Was that right, Gladys?' 'Quite right, love. We must forgive, as we hope to be forgiven.' 'Father and mother have forgiven me. Do you think my heavenly Father has?' 'Yes, I do; because you have repented, and "come to your Father," and asked forgiveness for His Son's sake.' 'I have, Gladys; so I can go on my journey cheerfully.' Gladys could scarcely refrain from tears, when she thought of the journey she was really travelling. 'I know you have forgiven me, Gladys, for all I said of you when you came here first. Strange that I should have been willing to leave you in the barn, or anywhere, to die; you who have done so much for me! Oh, Gladys!' 'Don't think of those times, Netta, dear; they are past, thank God.' Here the door opened, and Owen appeared, his face beaming with a happiness that it did all around him good to see. 'What! tears! both of you! Only a week married!' he said, half playfully, half reproachfully, as he kissed, alternately, his wife and sister, and finally, sat down by the side of the former. 'It was my fault, Owen,' said Netta. 'Is that true, Gladys--quite true?' asked Owen, taking Gladys' hands in his, and looking into her eyes. 'Quite true, Owen,' said Gladys, smiling lovingly on the open countenance of Owen, whilst a quiet tear rolled down her cheek. Owen kissed off the tear. 'You are happy, my love?' again he asked, as if fearing that a shadow should pass over that fair, sweet face, to obscure the light of their spring of wedded life. Gladys pressed his hands, assured him by a glance true as oaths, and looked at Netta. The hint was taken. In a moment Netta's were the thin hands that Owen clasped, her's the face into which he gazed. 'Owen,' she said earnestly, 'if I go away, will you take my child, as if she were your own? Will you love her, and bring her up?' 'You are not going away, Netta! But you may be quite sure that I will love Minette, without any going away. We will all keep together now, we are too happy--so happy, my Gladys, are we not?' There was a strange restlessness about Netta. This resolution to go away had taken such a hold upon her, that she reverted to it again and again. Gladys confided it to Owen and their mother, and they all decided that it would be necessary to watch her night and day, without letting her know that she was watched. They resorted to every possible means of amusement, but in vain. She was quite preoccupied, and even her child failed to attract her attention. Again she became nervous at every sudden sound, and started at every footfall. She told Gladys that she knew that Howel would either come to her during the course of that week, or that she should go to him. Her mother assisted her in going to bed that night, and before she laid down, she said,-- 'Dear mother! do you remember that you used to come to this dear room when I was a child, the last thing at night, and, sleeping or waking, to kiss me before you went to sleep? and do you remember that I always said my prayers at your knee, in that very corner by the little table? Sometimes I feel as if I was a child, or quite a young girl again. It was so good of you to give me my own room, and my own bed, that I love so well. If I go away, I should like Minette to have this room. It will make her think of me. I pray she may be a better child than I have been.' 'Will you not get into bed, dear, and try to sleep?' said Mrs Prothero. 'I think I should like to say my prayers again alone with you; so, at your feet. You shall pray for me, and I will join with you.' Netta knelt, as if she were, indeed, once more a child, at her mother's knees, and clasped her thin white hands together. 'Will you pray for Howel, mother?' asked Netta. Mrs Prothero laid her hand on her kneeling daughter's head, and uplifting her tearful eyes to heaven, prayed aloud for Netta, for Howel, for all. Netta repeated each sentence after her mother, and when the prayer was concluded, threw her arms around her, and thanked her for praying for Howel. 'I cannot deceive you again mother, fach,' she said 'I am going away to seek Howel, because he cannot come to me. If I should never find him, mother--but I shall, I know I shall, if I should die on the road--tell him that I never loved any one but him all my life, and I am sure he loves me. And now I am at peace with all the world, and have repented of all my sins. Gladys thinks I shall go to heaven if I die. And I humbly believe I shall. I feel quite calm and happy in my own mind, only wishful to go to my poor Howel, who is alone and unhappy. Now, mother, I will go to bed.' She went to bed accordingly. 'Let Minette come and say good-night to me, mother,' she said, when Mrs Prothero had made her comfortable. Mrs Prothero called the child, and her grandfather brought her upstairs. 'How does my girl feel to-night?' asked Mr Prothero cheerfully. 'Better, father, thank you; quite well indeed. God bless you, darling. Be a good child to grandmother and Aunt Gladys, and all. God bless you, father. I think I should like to have Owen and Gladys to wish me good-night; it is so nice to see you all together.' Owen and Gladys came, and Netta bade 'God bless' them all, and said she should now go to sleep quite happy. Gladys went to put Minette to bed, and Mrs Prothero sat by Netta's pillow. 'Good-night, mother; God bless you,' Netta said, more than once, before she fell asleep. When Gladys returned, she was sleeping peacefully. 'The excitement of the day seems to have passed away,' whispered Gladys. 'Let me watch by her, dear mother.' The words 'mother' and 'daughter' had come quite naturally to Mrs Prothero and Gladys. 'No, Gladys, thank you; not to-night. I will be in the room to-night.' 'Then you will go to bed soon?' 'Yes, very shortly.' The two women embraced one another tenderly. 'We can only pray for her, poor lamb,' said Mrs Prothero gently. 'I have given her to the Lord to do with her according to His good pleasure.' 'He will not leave her nor forsake her,' said Gladys. Mrs Prothero sat a long time by her child's side watching her, but she slept so calmly that at last she went to the little table by the fire, and read her Bible. It was late--very late for the farm--when she undressed herself and lay down on the little bed, placed near the larger bed of Netta. Even then, more than an hour passed before she slept. The last thing she heard before she closed her eyes was her daughter's somewhat irregular breathing--the last words that rang in her ears were her 'God bless you, mother.' Gladys, uneasy, she knew not wherefore, was in the room at about three o'clock in the morning. She had learnt to move so gently that the sleepers were not conscious of her presence. She was most thankful to find them sleeping. Gladys was up and dressed by six o'clock. She was anxious to spare her mother all possible trouble, and to see that the household was astir before she arose. It was a cold, dark January morning. As she went down the passage, a candle in her hand, towards Netta's room, she felt the chill air press heavily around her. She put the candle on the floor, outside the room, and went in. The night-light had burnt out, and the fire was dim, though not extinguished. Gladys passes Mrs Prothero without awaking her, and stands at Netta's bedside. She cannot see clearly the face of the sleeping Netta, but such a restless anxiety about her had haunted her all the night, that she stoops down to listen to her breathing. It is so faint that she kneels down, and puts her ear close to the face. So very faint it is, that she is not quite sure that she hears it at all. She goes into the passage for the candle, and meets Owen. She signs him to silence, and her pale face frightens him. He goes with her into Netta's room. Shading the candle with her hand, she again stoops over Netta, so does Owen. Very calm, very pale, and most lovely is the face on which they gaze with an eager, throbbing anxiety. Gladys presses her hand on Owen's arm, as she puts the candle near that placid face. He, too, puts his ear close to the half-open mouth, touches the hand that lies on the white counterpane, feels for the pulse, so quick but yesterday. He is about to utter the fear that oppresses him, but Gladys points to his mother, still heavily sleeping. 'Perhaps it is a swoon,' she whispers, and goes for the draught ready for such an attack. The light of the candle awakes Mrs Prothero, and she is out of bed in a moment. 'Netta has fainted, mother; she has one of her spasms,' says Owen, turning his pale face to his mother. 'My God, it is death!' cries the stricken mother, falling on her knees by the bedside of her child. And it is death. Without a groan the spirit has quitted its dwelling of clay to enter upon its eternal rest!	{ "id": "15315" }
49	THE RECTOR.	Life and death! What are they? A soul in chains, and a soul set free. Darkness and light, uncertainty and certainty! Warfare and peace! A railway journey and the great terminus! A span of time and immeasurable eternity! A bounded horizon and illimitable space! Earth and heaven! Satan and Christ! Man and God! Life! On New Year's morning Glanyravon Farm was gay with preparations for a wedding. All its inmates were hopeful and cheerful! Two human beings were made as happy as human beings can be in this world. Three generations witnessed the auspicious event, and blessings and congratulations mingled with the marriage bells! One short week, and Glanyravon Farm was mournful with lamentations for the dead. All its inmates were weeping. Death's angel had glided in unawares and unexpected, and had borne away one of that loving family, leaving only her earthly tenement behind! Another short week, and Glanyravon Farm held no longer even that once beautiful tenement. Quiet forms moved about in black clothing, and melancholy faces looked sadly at one another, and spoke low of her from whom they were parted for an indefinite period. Such is life! Death! what know the living of death? Is it not 'swallowed up in victory?' Death, then, to the believer in Christ is victory. Such is death! These were thoughts that presented themselves to Rowland Prothero after he had followed his sister's body to the grave. It was with such thoughts, simplified when put into words, that he attempted to comfort his mother, and to raise his father's mind from a morbid ruminating upon the past, to the hope that his beloved child had found death victory. Whilst Gladys comforted Owen and Minette, Rowland seemed to be all in all to his parents, and devoted himself to them during the period that he was able to leave his duties in London. The news of the death of his rector abroad had reached him the day before the intelligence of that of Netta; and, had it not been for the kind exertions of Mr Jones, he could not have stayed with his family the Sunday that followed the funeral. Mr Jones, however, managed everything for him in London, and procured help in the emergency. Thus Rowland was able to accompany his family to church, and to be with them a few days of the week succeeding that on which his dear sister was buried. It was on the afternoon of one of these few and precious days that he was sitting alone with his mother. The rest of the family were about their necessary avocations. Gladys, followed by poor little Minette in her black frock, was managing the household. Owen and his father were out of doors, the former doing his best to cheer his poor father, who had been perhaps more entirely cast down by his loss than any other member of the family, Mrs Prothero not excepted. As he himself said, he had not known what an idol he had made of his girl until she was gone from him. Rowland and his mother were talking of Netta. It was Mrs Prothero's one theme when alone with him or Gladys. They could comfort her aching heart by assuring her that they believed her child's repentance to have been sincere, and her faith, if at times troubled and confused by the wandering mind and puzzled brain, placed on the One sole and sure foundation. It was in the midst of this conversation that Mrs Griffith Jenkins entered, unushered, into the parlour where they were sitting. At the earnest request of his wife and all his children, backed by the feeling that Netta would have wished it, Mr Prothero had consented to ask Mrs Jenkins to the funeral, which she had attended, together with Mrs Prothero, Mrs Jonathan, and Gladys. Mr Prothero had shaken her by the hand on that sad day, but had not spoken to her. Sorrow had so far bowed his spirit as to teach him to forgive her, if not Howel. Mrs Jenkins scarcely gave herself time to say 'How do you do?' when she poured out the grief which had brought her to Glanyravon. 'Oh, Mrs Prothero, fach! Ach, Rowland! what will I do? They was finding him in America--the pleece was finding him, my Howels! And he do be in jail in London, 'dited for forgery. He, my beauty Howels--he forge! Why 'ould he be forging? Annwyl! Fie was innocent, Rowland--on my deet, he was innocent. Oh, bach gen anwyl!' [Footnote: Oh, darling boy!] Mrs Jenkins wrung her hands and cried bitterly. 'How do you know this, Aunt 'Lizbeth?' said Rowland. 'Tell me calmly, and then we will see what can be done,' 'Read you that letter. By to-morrow he'll be in all the papers. He--so clever, so genteel, so rich! And all my Griffey's savings--hundreds of thousands of pound--nobody do be knowing where they was. Ach a fi! ach a fi!' Rowland read a letter from a celebrated London counsel retained by Mr Rice Rice for Howel, to the effect that Howel had been taken in America on the very day that his poor wife was planning to wander away in search of him, and was a prisoner the day she died. He had arrived in London, and been lodged in Newgate the previous day, the one on which that letter was written. Rowland gently told his mother the contents of it. 'Thank God that my child did not live to see this day!' exclaimed Mrs Prothero. 'Better dead, cousin, than to be living as Howels is!' sobbed Mrs Griffey. 'In a prison, too, my beauty Howels! But I was wanting to know, Mr Rowland, when you was going to London? Seure, I do think of going to-night, or to-morrow morning.' 'Why must you go, aunt?' asked Rowland. 'Why must I be going? Why ask such a question? 'Ould I be staying at home, and my Howels in gaol? I do go to tak care of him, to pay for him, to be seeing justice done him, to be near him. Night or morrow morning I do mean to go.' 'Mother,' said Rowland, 'I am sure you will not mind sacrificing one day to poor Aunt Griffey and Howel. I must be in London the day after to-morrow. I will go to-morrow instead, and take her up with me, and see what is to be done for Howel. He will not have too many friends near him at such a time.' 'God bless you, Rowland, bach,' said Mrs Griffey, springing up from her chair, and running to Rowland and kissing him vigorously--a compliment, it must be confessed, he could have dispensed with. 'And you will be standing up for him, and be telling of his character--and of his living at Abertewey--and how he was so clever, and did never be doing anything wrong. You will be saving him, Rowland, seure!' Rowland shook his head. 'I will go with you, Aunt 'Lizbeth, and take you to my lodgings till I have seen Howel, and told him you are in London. We shall then see what can be done.' 'But you will be speaking up for him, Rowland, bach?' 'Cousin 'Lizbeth,' said Mrs Prothero, 'if Howel had been a good son, and a steady young man, you could scarcely ask Rowland to speak up for him, and his own sister in Llanfach churchyard! "As we have sown, so must we reap," in this world.' 'It do be fine for you, cousin, to be preaching, who was having fortunate sons, but--' 'Hush, Aunt 'Lizbeth, if you please,' interrupted Rowland. 'I will take you to London to-morrow, if you are resolved to go. You must meet me at the omnibus.' (There was now a railway within a few miles of Llanfawr.) 'Then I will be going home to get ready. You was seure to come, Mr Rowlands?' 'Sure, if nothing unforeseen prevents me.' At this point of the conversation, Mr Prothero entered the parlour, leading Minette, who had two letters in her hand. 'Here are two letters for you, Uncle Rowland,' said the child. 'Grandfather says one must be from a bishop. What's a bishop, uncle? Oh, Grandma Jenkins!' Minette gave the letters to Rowland, and then went to kiss her grandmother, who began to cry when she saw her. Mr Prothero suppressed a very equivocal question concerning the reason of her again appearing at Glanyravon, and said,-- 'How d'ye do, Mrs Griffey?' Rowland opened his letters. One was from Mr Jones, the other, as Minette said, was from a bishop--the Bishop of London. He read Mr Jones' first, and turned more than usually red as he did so. He uttered an exclamation of surprise when he finished reading it, and put it into his father's hands. He then read the second letter. It was short. He got up, sat down, got up again, gave the letter to his father, and said,-- 'It is too much! I do not deserve it! I wish it were Jones instead of me. He is much better--more suited--married. I cannot believe it!' Neither could Mr Prothero, to judge from the expression of his face. He read each letter twice over, and seemed struggling with some great emotion as he ejaculated, 'Rowland, my boy!' and burst into tears. Mr Prothero had not cried before since Netta's death, and those were, indeed, precious tears. Minette, terrified at seeing her grandfather cry, ran off in search of Gladys, who had been every one's refuge since her marriage. She and Owen were at the front door, receiving Mr and Mrs Jonathan Prothero, who had just arrived. 'Aunty, grandfather is crying,' said the child. 'You said you wished he would cry; but I don't like it. I think he is crying for poor mamma, who is in heaven, and can't come to him.' All hurried into the parlour. They found Mr Prothero holding one of his son's hands, and shaking it nervously, and Mrs Prothero holding the other, and vain attempts to speak. 'Brother Jo! sister-in-law! Just in time. If our Netta was but here!' said Mr Prothero. 'Mrs Jonathan shall read the letters. It was she who got him the curacy.' Mrs Jonathan was not a little surprised to be greeted by having two letters thrust into her hands, and being requested to read them. 'This one first, sister-in-law.' At any other time Mrs Jonathan would have resented the epithet of sister-in-law, but she now swallowed it, and began to read as follows:-- 'MY DEAR ROWLAND,--I should have written to you earlier, but I could not do so until a question that has been pending ever since you left was decided. Deputations and round-robins have been issuing from this parish by unanimous consent, and tending to St James'. For once High Church and Low Church have united in paying you the greatest compliment you can have paid just at present, viz., in requesting the bishop to give you the living of which you have been more than ten years curate. I believe it is pretty nearly settled that you are to be our new rector, and that I shall have to knock under, and solicit you to continue me in the curacy. I congratulate you from my heart; so does my wife; so, I am sure, do rich and poor around us. There never was a more popular presentation. May God prosper your labours as a rector as He has as curate. 'Give our love to my niece, Gladys, and kind regards to all the rest of your family, with a kiss to Minette, and believe me, most faithfully yours, WILLIAM JONES.' Mrs Jonathan Prothero had begun to read this letter with a firm voice. It faltered before she got half way through it, and nearly failed before she completed it. 'Read the other before you say anything,' said Mr Prothero. She began accordingly, clearing her throat and eyes at the same time. 'MY DEAR SIR,--I have great pleasure in offering you the living of which you are now curate, vacant by the lamented death of Mr Stephenson. I assure you that the united request of your friends and parishioners was but the echo of my own will, as I have long known and appreciated your untiring labours for the good of the souls committed to your care, particularly during the long illness of the rector, when you were of necessity brought more prominently forward. 'Praying that God's blessing may rest on you and your parishioners,--I remain, my dear sir, faithfully yours, 'LONDON.' 'Rowland! my dear nephew!' exclaimed Mr Jonathan Prothero, 'this is incredible! Such a living, without interest, personal application, much acquaintance with his lordship--' 'You forget, my dear,' said Mrs Jonathan interrupting her husband in his speech, and herself in an embrace she was about to give Rowland; 'you forget that Rowland frequently met the bishop at Sir Philip Payne Perry's, and was not without interest, I am proud to say.' 'And I am proud that he has got on by honest merit,' said Mr Jonathan. 'And so am I, uncle, much obliged as we are to the "three green peas,"' said Owen. 'Let us shake hands upon it, Rowly, and here's Gladys waiting for a kiss; she'll be running away from me again to be your district visitor, or Sister of Charity, or whatever you call it. Quite grand to have a near relation a London rector; I am half a foot taller already.' 'Kiss me, Uncle Rowland; I am very glad the bishop has written you such a nice letter,' said Minette. Rowland took the child up in his arms. 'Grandma Jenkins is crying so in the corner,' she whispered; 'is it for papa, or poor mamma?' Rowland's attention was instantly recalled to Mrs Jenkins, who was, indeed, crying and sobbing very much. He pointed her out to his mother, who at once went to her. 'Oh! I am thinking of your Rowlands and my Howels, so different!' said the wretched mother; 'he to be beginning life so rich, and your son with nothing; and now! oh, anwyl! oh, anwyl!' 'Come with me, cousin 'Lizbeth,' said Mrs Prothero kindly; 'come upstairs, and I will make you some tea, and then Owen shall send you home.' Mrs Prothero and Mrs Jenkins left the room, followed by Gladys, who was soon making the required beverage. Whilst congratulations were still going on in the parlour, Miss Gwynne's voice was heard in the passage. 'Not a word to Miss Gwynne, or indeed to any one, of my having the living, to-day at least,' said Rowland, leaving the room hastily, and repeating his request to Gladys in the hall. 'I can only stay a few minutes,' said Miss Gwynne, when she had shaken hands with the party in the parlour, 'I wished to ask how Mrs Prothero is, and to see you, Mrs Jonathan. I have been delayed at the school, and it is nearly dusk already.' 'Oh, don't go yet, Miss Gwynne,' said Minette, creeping up to her, and getting on her lap, 'it is so nice with you. Poor mamma is gone to heaven, Miss Gwynne.' 'Yes, love,' whispered Miss Gwynne, kissing Minette, 'but we will not talk of it before your grandfather, you see it grieves him.' 'But you won't go; it is moonlight now--a pretty moon--I see it. It will light you home.' The 'pretty moon' rather frightened Miss Gwynne, who said that if she did not go, she would have the servants in search of her. 'Will you allow me to walk with you, Miss Gwynne?' said Rowland; 'it is too late for you to return alone.' 'Thank you, I shall be really obliged, if I am not taking you from your friends. I am a much greater coward than I used to be. London lamps spoil one for country roads. Tell your grandmother that I will come again to-morrow and see her, Minette.' Miss Gwynne and Rowland left the house together. Mr Prothero saw them to the door, and watched them up the road. 'Strange times!' he said to his brother, when he returned to the parlour. 'Rowland walking with Miss Gwynne quite familiar. I hope he isn't too forward; to be seure he don't offer his arm, or go near her; but it seems out of place their going together in that way at all. Gwynne, Glanyravon is a proud man, perhaps he 'ouldnt like it; but Rowland is so grand and so good now, that I daren't say a word.' 'Oh!' said Mrs Jonathan, drawing herself up to her fullest height, 'a Rugby boy, and an Oxford man is a companion for any lady--and a London rector is a match for any lady in the kingdom, allow me to assure you, Mr Prothero; and Rowland has been in quite as good, or better society in town, than you can meet with in this neighbourhood. Sir Philip is quite in the first circles.' 'And Rowland isn't spoilt by it, brother,' said Mr Jonathan. 'He is a son and nephew we have reason to be proud of.' Thus, in the midst of heavy sorrow, a joy came to the inmates of Glanyravon Farm. A sunbeam through the shadows. Such, too, is life!	{ "id": "15315" }
50	THE DISINHERITED.	Miss Gwynne and Rowland walked on quietly together for a little space. There was something in the heart of each, unknown to the other, that seemed to close up speech. It was nearly five o'clock, and a January evening; but for the 'pretty moon' and the white mist from the river, and the frost-bitten snow on the roads, it would have been dark; but it was really a fine, bright night. That river-mist rose from the meadows beneath like a large lake, and the moonlight pierced through it and mingled with it. It was such a night as lovers of a healthy, natural tone of mind might rejoice in; frost and snow being no refrigerators of true, honest warmth, but rather tending to keep it alive, by exhilarating the spirits and clearing the atmosphere. Rowland broke the silence, and so clear was the air, that his own voice startled him. 'I am going to London to-morrow, Miss Gwynne; may I give Mrs Jones some hope that you will soon be back again?' 'I fear not,' said Freda; 'my father wishes me to remain at home, and I have decided upon doing so.' 'Not entirely?' asked Rowland, in a voice that all his self-command could not render calm. 'I believe it is so settled. He makes a great point of it. Lady Mary is equally urgent, and I have promised. Do you not think it is right?' 'I suppose so; but what shall we do without you?' Rowland spoke as he felt, from his heart. Miss Gwynne was touched by the words and tone. 'I shall be very sorry,' she said, simply. 'I never was so happy as in that dingy old square.' Rowland felt that his new living, with all its increased responsibilities, would be a heavy burden to him without Freda's ready energy to lighten it. He did not at that moment pause to think how closely even our highest duties are entwined with our affections, and thereby lowered to earth--but so it is. The conscientious man does them; but a helping hand, a friendly voice, a loving word, is a wonderful aid towards doing them with a cheerful spirit. There was silence for a few minutes between Rowland and Freda, and their quick steps slackened. At last: 'I thank you from my heart, Miss Gwynne,' said Rowland, for all your kindness to my dear sister. It must cease, alas! but it will never be forgotten.' 'Poor Netta! my old playfellow! I was only too thankful to be of any service. I wish we could have saved her.' 'God knows best. Her husband is in Newgate gaol.' Rowland said this with a great effort; Freda started, and there was again a brief silence. 'Miss Gwynne, I have long wished to say to you, how much I have felt your devotion to the schools and poor of our parish. Now that we are about to lose you, perhaps, I may do so. Glanyravon will gain what our poor East End loses.' 'Thank you. If I leave London in a better spirit than I entered it, I am in great measure indebted to you for it.' 'To me!' 'Yes. I do not wish to flatter, or to be religiously sentimental; but your practical, simple sermons, and your still more practical life have done me much good. Now we will not compliment one another any more.' 'Oh, Miss Gwynne! you do not know what you do when you say such words to me.' 'I simply tell the truth.' 'I, too, have another truth to tell, which, if not told now, will never be told.' Freda's heart beat quick, and her face flushed. She was thankful that silence concealed the one, and night the other. But the truth was not what the heart whispered, and the pulsation slackened. 'Years ago--I know not how many years, the time seems so long, and yet so short--I insulted you by words that should never have been said. We were on this very drive, near this very spot--the same moon was looking down upon us. This very tree was over our heads. Do you remember? You do--alas! you must. Pride, most improper pride in one who should be a teacher of humility, has prevented my alluding to the subject ever since.' Rowland paused, and he and Freda stood still beneath that old oak, so well remembered by both. She did not speak; she could not for the moment; and Rowland continued,-- 'Those words, which called forth your severe and deserved reproof, should never have been said; but your kindness, the hour, the scene, my own excited feelings, my--in short, they were called forth involuntarily, but were wholly inexcusable. I forgot my birth and position, and was punished accordingly. Pride has kept me silent ever since. Pride has prevented my saying that I am sorry now that I so forgot myself then, and pride has made me cold and reserved to you, when I saw clearly that you wished to be my friend, and have since proved yourself such. Will you forgive me?' Freda did not, as when they once before stood beneath that huge oak, draw herself up to her full height, and make an indignant answer. She trembled, and glanced very timidly into the face that looked down upon hers. There, in the cold moonlight, with the icicles hanging from the old tree, and the frost-spirit hovering near, she read that face more truly than she had done in the genial summer moonshine, and wished those words had never been spoken. She said, gently but decidedly,-- 'Mr Rowland, it is I, not you who ought to crave forgiveness. You did me an honour of which I was not deserving, and, therefore, I could not appreciate it. I have repented of those proud words almost ever since. I am heartily ashamed of them, and beg you to try to forget that they were ever uttered.' Once more there was a momentary silence, then Rowland said firmly,-- 'Miss Gwynne, you must understand that I only regret the boldness of my conduct, and that I did not conceal my feelings from you as from the rest of the world. I do not regret the feelings; do not apologise for them. They were my own, engendered by nature and circumstances, given me by God, as part of my portion of trial in this world; they grew with me from childhood, ever since I used to play with you at the vicarage--they were fostered by your father's kindness and my own self-esteem, as well as by your presence, which I ought to have fled; they are with me still, have never left me, will be my weakness and my strength so long as this earthly warfare lasts.' 'And is it really so?' said Freda, a large tear glittering in the eyes into which the moon, the frost-spirit, and Rowland were equally looking. Two hands were tightly clasped that had hitherto scarcely dared to touch each other; two hearts were for ever united, that hitherto had been as far estranged as Vesuvius and the icebergs. I know that many cynical and sentimental readers will ask if there is no danger of the pair of lovers taking cold on an evening in January, whilst thus mutually discovering the 'eternal passion' in the presence of the 'Erl-king.' Rowland and Freda seem to ask the same question, for, loosening that close grasp of hands, and without one word of love, they walk hastily towards the house. Rowland talks rapidly the whole way, interrupted by an occasional sentence from Freda. Readers, there is no proposal, no acceptance. The conversation is as follows:-- _Rowland. _--I have just received letters from the Bishop of London and Mr Jones offering me the living, and telling me that the parishioners wish me for their rector. I am most thankful now, for it puts me in a very different position--it allows me to hope, and with less presumption. _Freda. _--It makes no difference to me, you are yourself whether rector or curate. But I rejoice for your sake, and to know that they appreciate you. _Rowland. _--You will know and believe that it was Miss Gwynne, Freda, the woman, not the heiress, that I have loved so long and so well. _Freda. _--I am no longer an heiress; you are far the best off. _Rowland. _--I am most thankful. Had this wide park still been yours, I could never have said what I have dared to say to-day; but let me repeat once more your words that I may remember who I am--a farmer's son, your father's tenant. _Freda. _--A clergyman, a gentleman, and a Christian. _Rowland. _--My brother-in-law a--a--felon. _Freda. _--Yourself not changed by your brother-in-law's crimes. _Rowland. _--If then in the course of another year our present painful position should be forgotten, or at least, at rest, when I am established at the rectory as rector, when I can come forward on my own responsibility, when, in short, I can say without compunction all I now feel, may I hope?' _Freda. _--Then as now, you may be certain. They were on the steps before the door of the house; again their hands were firmly clasped. _Rowland. _--Till then, farewell, and God bless you. _Freda. _--Will you not come in? _Rowland. _--No, I would rather not now. _Freda. _--Then God bless you, and be with you during your coming trial. And thus they parted, happy, and having perfect faith in one another.	{ "id": "15315" }
51	THE CONVICT.	Forgeries of all sorts are so much the taste of genteel rogues of the present age, that the reader will readily dispense with a detailed account of the trial and conviction of Howel Jenkins. Any one of the various cases that fill those columns of the _Times_, devoted to such criminalities, will give a very good general idea of his. All that his mother's remnant of his father's hoarded wealth could do, was done, to prove him guiltless, but in vain. Counsel pleaded, some of his turf friends, themselves of doubtful reputation, spoke to his character, and he sat through his trial as imperturbably as if he had been at a dinner-party. The prosecutors, Sir Samuel Spendall and Sir Horatio Simpson, met with deserved reproofs for allowing themselves to be swindled, almost before their faces, out of money and property to an enormous amount. Long before his father's death, Howel had begun a system of betting-book cheating, and forgery on a small scale, which had ceased for a short time when he came into his enormous wealth, but recommenced as that wealth dwindled. Numerous instances came out from various sources whilst he was in America,--all his former associates being ready to leave his setting sun, for the rising one of his accusers. Sir S. Spendall and Sir H. Simpson were sole prosecutors, and between forgeries on banks, and in betting-books, and the unjust acquisition of Spendall Lodge, Howel was found guilty of forgeries to the amount of some fifty or sixty thousand pounds, and sentenced to transportation for fourteen years. So much general villainy transpired amongst the set in which these crimes were committed, and the prosecutors themselves were so weak and dissipated, that the sentence was supposed to be less severe than it might have been under other circumstances. The nefarious conduct of Mr Deep as Howel's attorney, and the enormous interest he was found to have received, caused him to be struck off the rolls, and very little evidence was wanting to prove him an accomplice in Howel's villainy. However, it was not forthcoming, and so Howel suffered alone. It was generally rumoured that Howel had forged his mother's name, at various times, to a very large amount; but, as she vigorously denied the fact, and acknowledged every signature as her own, the case was, of course, not brought forward. In spite of her manifold exertions in his favour, in spite of all Rowland's efforts, Howel positively refused to see either of them before the trial took place. He declared to his mother, through his attorney, that if he saw her, she would take away some of that nerve and courage so necessary to establish his innocence; and to Rowland, he politely hinted that he did not wish to see him at all. As the trial was almost immediate upon the imprisonment, they did not press the point. Rowland and Mr and Mrs Jones, pitying Mrs Jenkins in her evident misery, would have had her remain amongst them, but she insisted on taking a lodging near the gaol, that she might, at least, be in her son's neighbourhood, and hear from his attorney and others of his health daily. He was always reported to be well, and in good spirits, and indeed was so, to all appearance. He ate, drank, and slept much as if he had never committed crimes that at one period would have brought him to the gallows; and to the last moment of his leaving the prison for his trial, jauntily talked of what he should do when he was out of 'that confounded hole.' It was with great difficulty that Rowland persuaded Mrs Jenkins to remain in her lodging during the time of the trial, which he attended himself, more on her account than his own; for he was so fully convinced of Howel's guilt, that he knew he should only witness his degradation. In the court he fell in with Captain Dancy, who told him that he had wished to say a good word for Howel on his wife's account, for whom he entertained a great respect; but that Howel had positively refused any aid whatever from him. He thought this strange, as he owed him a large sum of money, and he had not brought forward his claim. Rowland thought it strange too, not knowing then, that Howel had one soft part in his hard nature, and that was love for Netta. Howel bore the summing up of the judge and his severe reprimand with indifference. He seemed slightly moved when the sentence was pronounced; but recovering perfect calmness, he said aloud, so that the whole court could hear,--'If I am guilty, my prosecutors are guilty, and all the speculators in the world are guilty.' When Rowland went to Mrs Jenkins' lodging after all was over, he found Mrs Jones with her, her husband having been with him during the trial. Mrs Jones had been endeavouring to prepare the poor mother for the probable sentence, but nothing could persuade her that 'her Howels, so clever, so genteel, who dined with the Queen and Prince Albert, and was handsomer than the Prince, for she had seen him,' could be transported for forgery. When Rowland told her the truth, as gently as he could, the effect it had upon her was quite different from what he had expected. She burst into a passion, not of grief, but of rage. She had been drinking brandy before Mrs Jones went to her, and had been greatly excited the whole morning, as she had also been on the previous day, the trial having lasted two days. At the climax, the true nature of the woman showed itself, and the friends who surrounded her thought she was insane. Judge, jury, witnesses, prosecutors, and finally every member of the Prothero family came in for a share of abuse of the coarsest kind. Rowland felt thankful that the greatest part of it was uttered in Welsh, and that, therefore, Mrs Jones could not understand it, although the strong guttural, made stronger by uncontrolled passion, was enough, in itself, to frighten any one. Happily, she was surrounded by Christians who pitied her, and did not leave her in her sin and sorrow to the strange people who came, uncalled, to see what was the matter, and who would fain have remained; but Rowland told them, decidedly, to go away. Mr and Mrs Jones, also, withdrew at Rowland's request when the outburst had somewhat subsided, and left him to reason with the wretched, maddened woman alone. He let the fury wear itself out, and then stood by to hear his unfortunate sister and his father abused as the primary causes of Howel's downfall. 'If he didn't be marrying beneath him, he 'ould be holding up his head, and looking for a lady, who do be keeping him in his place. And Netta Prothero so 'stravagant! ach a fi! and Prothero, Glanyfavon, who was turning against him, and kicking me out of his house. Shame for you all, Rowland Prothero! your own cousin and brother-in-law! and no one to be saying a word to help him. Oh, anwyl! my boy! my Howels! What 'ould his poor father be saying if he was knowing all! and how his money was going and all mine too! I shall be going to the Eunion, and then you'll be feeling satisfied, Rowland Prothero! and your mother, and that Gladys, and all so grand! 'll be looking down upon me. And my Howels over the sea! 'sported for fourteen years, and I 'ont be living to see him come back again. Anwyl! anywyl!' Here tears came, and Mrs Jenkins sank upon a chair, and covered her face with her hands. Rowland let them flow for a time, and then putting his hand kindly on her shoulder said,-- 'Aunt 'Lizbeth! you must try to keep up for Howel's sake. He will like you to visit him now, perhaps,' The kind tones touched a gentler chord in the poor woman's heart, and she looked up at Rowland, like one awaking from a dream. 'Seure! Mr Rowland Prothero! I'm thinking you're too fine for us now. A clergy and a rector! oh seure! you'll not be going to see my poor Howels!' 'Yes, I will, if you will try to be calm. I will see him first, and prepare him for your coming; I will not even ask his permission but go to him. I can gain admittance at once, I know, both as a clergyman and relation.' 'Now! go you directly! tell you my Howels--' 'I don't think I can go to-night. It is too late--but to-morrow I will go, on condition that you compose yourself, and return with me to my lodgings.' 'I 'ont be going to your lodgings, I 'ouldn't be leaving my Howels for the world.' 'You cannot see him to-night, you must not stay with the people of this house after what you said to-day, or they will take advantage of your being alone, to make you say more. I cannot remain here to-night, and I am the only friend you have in town to whom you could go.' 'Treue, for you, Rowland Prothero. There's my Lady Simpson was asking me to stay with her, when my Howels and I was having money enough to buy her presents, and her son and doater did go to Abertewey when they did like--and now, not wan of all the fine folks do come and say, "How was you, Mrs Jenkins?"' Rowland ventured to repeat a few verses from Scripture, and to beg her to turn her mind to better thoughts. Then he induced her to put on her bonnet and cloak and go home with him, promising to bring her back the following day, and retaining the lodging for another week. They passed a miserable evening. It was in vain that Rowland strove to comfort or advise his guest. She did nothing but abuse justice, and lament her son's past grandeur. The following day, Rowland fulfilled his promise. He left her at her lodging and went to the gaol. He had previously obtained full permission of the authorities, through the chaplain, who was well-known to him, to visit Howel when he liked, and to give him the letters left for him by his deceased wife. The chaplain had told him that the prisoner was quite indifferent to all that he said to him on religious subjects, and listened to them, if, indeed, he listened at all, with a scoffing, incredulous, hardness of manner, that was more painful than mere carelessness. When Rowland entered the cell, Howel was sitting with his back to the door, and did not turn or take any notice of the incomers. He had a piece of paper before him, and a pencil in his hand, over which he seemed rather to be dreaming than writing. The gaoler closed the door, having orders to remain without, and left the cousins alone. Rowland stood some time irresolute in the gloomy cell, but finding that Howel did not move, he went round in front of him, and said,-- 'Howel!' The word was quite sufficient. He started up, and whilst the blood rushed to his face, said coolly,-- 'To what am I indebted for the honour of a visit from Mr Prothero? I think I sent you a message to the effect that I am not now in a position to receive company. My chambers are anything but suited to convivial society, and I prefer solitude just at present. I have already had the benefit of clergy, and do not need any of your sermons, excellent as I am told they are. Indeed, divinity was always out of my line.' 'I come to fulfil the dying request of your wife and my sister, which that letter will explain,' said Rowland, calmly and gravely, placing an open letter on the table. Howel's countenance changed at once--the flush of passion passed away, and left a painful pallor, whilst the sarcastic mouth became compressed into a marble rigidity. He sat down again, and pushing aside the paper that had previously been before him, drew the letter towards him. He put his elbows on the table, and shrouded his face so that Rowland could not see him, and bending over the letter, gazed on the writing without attempting to read, as one might gaze on a spirit without daring to speak to it. The letter was, indeed, a voice from the dead, and dated the very day before that on which Netta died. Its contents were as follows:-- 'MY DEAR BROTHER,--I intend leaving Glanyravon, and all my dear relations, to go in search of Howel, who, you know, is my husband; and therefore to be loved and obeyed before any one else. If I die before I find him, as perhaps I may--my heart being so bad--I wish you to see him when he comes back, and to give him the accompanying sealed packet yourself. Nobody knows how I have loved him all my life, and perhaps if I had been better tempered and less jealous, he might have stayed at home, and not been obliged to go away for debt. But when I have found him, I will be very loving and patient, and then we shall be happy together again. If I don't find him, however--if I die first--will you, dear brother, talk to him as you have talked and written to me, and then I may meet him again in a happier world, where I am praying and striving to go, through the atonement of Him who died for sinners--even for me and Howel, who are both great sinners--yet not too great to be saved. Thank you, my dear, dear brother, for showing me the way to heaven, and for all your goodness to me and Minette--(my poor Minette, I must leave her, but you will all take care of her better than I have done). Thank you, I am very sorry that I was such a wilful, perverse sister, when you tried to do me good. 'God bless you for ever and ever--you and all--Your loving but afflicted sister, NETTA JENKINS.' Rowland sat down at one end of the cell, on the iron bedstead and that he might not seem to be watching Howel, took a small Testament from his pocket and began to read. This, too, he had brought for Howel. It was the one Netta had used, as long as she lived, and in it she had written, 'To be given to my dear husband, if I die. --Netta.' She had marked many passages, and appended her initials to each of the marks. Rowland could not read long. It was impossible not to see the trembling of that iron man who sat before him; the heaving breast and the convulsed hands. And yet Howel did not read the letter. He saw the familiar handwriting once more of the only thing he had ever loved--loved and murdered--and he sat transfixed before it. At last Rowland rose, and going to him, put his hand on his shoulder. He started as if Netta's spirit had appeared, and looked up wildly. Seeing Rowland, he struggled for self-possession and again shrouding his face, began to read. Rowland kept his hand on his shoulder, gently pressing it, as if to assure him of sympathy. He felt him trembling beneath his touch. As he stood thus his eye fell on the paper that Howel had had before him when he entered the cell. He could not help seeing the words, 'From my cell in Newgate--my judge and jury.' Underneath this heading appeared to be the commencement of a poem, and beneath that were caricatures of a man in a large wig, and of others, with every variety of nose and chin. This had been Howel's occupation within four-and-twenty hours of his conviction! Three times Howel turned the sheet of paper that he was reading, as if he had not understood the words that were written on it, and then he uttered a groan, so deep and loud, that Rowland could restrain himself no longer, but said,-- 'Howel, for her sake, listen to me, her brother. Look on me as your friend, your brother.' Howel looked up, and for one moment there was remorse and agony in his face; the next, no stone was harder and colder. 'Brother!' he said, with a voice of icy sarcasm, 'you have shown yourself my brother of late! I saw you in the court, cold and calculating; not a word for this, your _brother_! Bah!' 'What would you have had me say?' asked Rowland, recovering his composure, and glancing from Howel to Netta's letter. 'I understand you; you mean that I murdered her. I did, virtually. Then why be hypocrite enough to call me brother?' 'She forgave you, and called you husband.' 'Because she--she loved me.' There was another involuntary groan, and a brief silence. 'Where are her papers? Give them me, and go,' said Howel imperatively. Rowland put a neatly-sealed packet on the table, on which was written, 'For my husband, Howel Jenkins;--to the care of my brother, Rowland Prothero. Janetta Jenkins.' 'This, too, she left for you,' said Rowland, putting the small Testament, originally her mother's, on the table. Again the stony lips trembled, the eyes softened. 'Howel, Howel, for her sake!' once more ventured Rowland. There they lay--the letter, the packet, the Testament. All that was left to him of the once bright, loving, and lovely creature, who had been devoted to him all her life. He turned the leaves of the Testament mechanically; touched the packet--shuddered; then leaning his head upon his folded arms on the table, burst into an uncontrollable agony of grief. 'She is--she was--where?' he said, after a short interval, rising from his seat, and beginning to pace the cell. 'Her soul is in heaven, I hope and believe; her body rests in Llanfach churchyard, under the large hawthorn bush near the vicarage gate.' Often and often had Howel gathered Netta bunches of May from that very tree that now sheltered her remains. 'Tell me--tell me all,' he said, 'from the time I left her, till--how you found her--everything.' 'You must sit down, Howel, and hear me patiently if you can.' Howel sat down on the bedstead, and again covering his face with both hands, listened; whilst Rowland took the seat he had left, and fulfilled his bidding. He told him everything that had happened to Netta, from the period of her being left in the lodgings in his parish, until her death at the farm. He felt that the one hope of softening Howel, or doing him any good, was through his love for his wife; he therefore narrated simply what she had suffered and said; he told how that she had been hourly expecting him back, until his one short note; how she had listened for his footsteps, and refused to leave the place where he had left her, until he came. All that her friends had done for her, was introduced incidentally; Howel understood that she had been taken to her relations again, as the prodigal son to his father, but he was not told so. Rowland did not spare him, however, as regarded Netta. He knew him to be utterly callous as to the follies and crimes of his life; he must, therefore, be made conscious of their weight, through their effects upon others; he knew that they had been the cause of Netta's death, and this would show him the enormity of sin if nothing else would. As he detailed the wanderings of poor Netta's mind, and then her anxious inquiries of him of the way of salvation for Howel, as well as herself, he was visibly affected. Not even his determination that Rowland should not see his emotion could conceal it; but he did not speak a word. He listened to the end, and then, without uncovering his face, he said in a voice tremulous from emotion,-- 'Thank you; now go; and come back to-morrow; I would be alone with her.' 'And to-morrow I must bring your mother,' said Rowland 'No, no, let me see you alone,' was the hasty reply. 'God bless you, Howel, and grant you His help,' said Rowland, passing before the stooping figure. There was no reply, so, with a heavy sigh and an inward prayer, Rowland left the cell.	{ "id": "15315" }
52	THE PENITENT HUSBAND.	The following morning, Rowland again took Mrs Jenkins to her lodging and left her there. It was with very great difficulty that he persuaded Mrs Jenkins to remain behind, and only under a promise to prevail upon Howel to see her immediately after his interview with him. As he expected, he found Howel almost as cold and impassive as on the previous day. But he fancied that this was an assumed manner, and that he could trace workings of more natural feelings underneath. He was at least civil to him, and instead of receiving him as before, said,-- 'I thought you would never come; but I suppose prosperous people are never in a great hurry to visit the unfortunate. Ha! ha! Certainly my reception-rooms are not very inviting.' 'I came as soon as I could gain admittance. I wish you would believe, Howel, that I am very anxious to be of any use to you that I can. You know that you refused to see me before.' 'And it is no great compliment now; this confounded place will kill me. I have been haunted by spectres all the night, five thousand times worse than a voyage to Australia. That will be amusing, ha! ha! But to have my father in one corner, and--and Netta in the other,--and that cursed money rolling about everywhere, just as it did--well, never mind that! but hanging outright would have been better. Don't preach; it is no good; I am far beyond that, and I know you have your sermon ready; but your presence is some relief after such a night. I tell you what it is, Rowland, if you are a better and a happier man than I, it is because you had honest parents; it is no merit of yours, and no fault of mine.' 'Howel, I claim no merit; but we are all responsible for our own actions, God forgive those who set a bad example: they will have to answer for it.' 'Pshaw! Do you think I meant that? I mean that if my father hadn't heaped up all that gold--bah! the word makes me sick,--and denied me a sixpence whilst he lived; and if I hadn't seen my mother rob him whenever she could, and learnt from her to do the same, I shouldn't be here now! No, I should be a plodding shopkeeper, or at least a country lawyer, or doctor, and should have been living in a house with three steps to it, and a portico, by this time, with--don't suppose I regret such a house--but Netta! oh, God! Netta!' Howel beat his forehead with his hand, and pointed to the corner of his cell. 'There she is! there she has been all the night. Pale as when I laid her on her bed that miserable day!' 'Howel! you loved Netta, I see, and believe it now,' said Rowland. 'You do! And why not before? Ah! I see. Because I have never done anything to prove it. But I did not know how I loved her until I knew how she loved me.' 'Would you prove it now, if you could?' 'Would I? Why do you mock me by such a question?' 'Because she, being dead, yet speaks. Her last wishes, thoughts, words, writing, were for you.' 'Do I not know it? Have I not read? All night have her words not haunted me?' 'And her prayers, Howel? Shall they be forgotten? And that Book in which she wrote last, will you not read it?' 'I don't know. I tried last night, and I could not. I have never read the book since I wrote Greek at school.' 'Netta begged you to read it.' 'What is that to you, Rowland Prothero? Who put you over me as judge and counsellor?' 'Netta. As spiritual counsellor, at least; and in her name, since you will not let me appeal to you in a Higher name, I command you to listen to me.' Rowland saw that he had gained an advantage by appealing to Netta, and that Howel checked the irony that was on his tongue, out of reverence for her name. At once he spoke as an ambassador in that Higher name he had feared to use before. Rowland had had ten years' experience of men as bad and worse than Howel, and had learnt how to speak to them, and to seize the mood of the listener. He knew Howel well; and he, therefore, used the strong and powerful language of the Bible, as the priests, prophets, and apostles used it--as the word of God to man. Not diluted by their own reflections, but in its bare and grand simplicity. He had not made the Bible his study in vain. He knew how to bring it to the heart of men with a power that none 'could gainsay or resist,' Even Howel, sceptic, scoffer as he was, listened in spite of himself. Rowland was a humbler man than he had been, when he used, years before, to argue with Howel, and endeavour to convert him to the truth. He was equally right in his views then, but he gave them forth more dogmatically, and allowed self to peep in; now self was wholly swallowed up in the Word itself; and so Howel gave heed as to God, and not to man. He laid bare Howel's heart to himself, for the first time that it had ever been so exposed, and then showed him the denunciations of the law against sin. He did not spare him. He knew that the only way to save such a man was by bringing him to know himself first, and then to '' preach repentance and remission of sin.' In his energy and longing to rescue him from destruction, he stood before him as one sent to tear up his unbelief by the roots not to dally with it. 'Flee from the wrath to come,' might have been the text of his discourse, as it was that of the Baptist. When he paused, as if for breath, Howel exclaimed,-- 'Enough! enough! Stop! I can hear no more; you have opened to me the gates of hell wide enough.' 'And now I would open those of heaven. Let us pray.' Rowland's eyes flashed such a fire as Howel had never seen in them before; his voice and words had a command that he had never heard. Perforce he obeyed. And there, in that narrow cell, actuated by fear, rather than remorse, astonishment rather than contrition, bowed by a will yet stronger than his own, Howel fell on his knees beside his cousin, and listened to a prayer for pardon and help, that might have melted the heart of a Nero. At first he heard as in a dream, then his ears were opened, then his heart. And at last Rowland's spirit breathed within him the blessed words, 'Behold he prayeth.' It is not for us to look into the heart of the criminal, and decide how God works in it. Even Rowland could not tell the ultimate effect of his preaching and prayers. All he knew that from that day Howel welcomed him to his cell as the one hope of his life. He was awakened to a sense of his condition, and Rowland thanked God, and took courage. As the meetings and partings of parent and child--however wicked they both may be--in the cell of a felon, simply harrow the feelings of the reader, I will pass over those of Howel and his mother. Some recrimination, and much grief on the one side--some remorse, and much misery on the other. Rowland did what he could for both until the last parting was over. And then he left the mother to the care of Mrs Jones to accompany the son on board the ship that was to convey him to his convict home. We are not to suppose that the 'Ethiopian's skin' was changed because it was pierced. Howel continued outwardly proud, scornful, and hard to the last; but Rowland witnessed the struggle that went on within to maintain that bearing, and knew that some good might arise even out of the spendthrift and the forger. 'You will take care of Minette amongst you, for her mother's sake,' he said to Rowland. 'And for yours, and her own,' was the reply. 'Tell her not to hate her father. You who never told her mother of my--I suppose I must use the word--crime, will be as gentle as you can in letting the child know who and what her father is. I thank you all, more for keeping _her_ in ignorance till death, than for all the rest.' 'And for _her_ sake, Howel, you will read that book, and pray to be kept from temptation.' 'What temptation shall I have? I shall be more inclined to pray to be thrown into temptation.' 'Oh, Howel!' 'Well! This convict ship and the ocean, and chains and hard labour at the end, don't seem very inviting. I know it has been my own fault and my father's, but that doesn't make it better; however, I will try. And if ever I get back to Old England again a reformed character, will you lend me a helping hand, or turn your back upon me?' 'Give you the hand of friendship and brotherhood.' 'Thank you; and don't let them quite desert my mother. Bad as she is, I am worse, and I have ruined her; a worse thing that than getting a little money out of those turf-dupes and idiots, though hers was ill-gotten wealth.' 'We will take care of your mother amongst us as well as we can. My mother never forsakes an old friend.' 'Give my love to her; she was kind to me and to my child. All the rest have deserted me, and wished me hanged. But I have to thank you, who always despised me, for being here now, and for your anxiety about me. Rowland, you are a better fellow than I thought you, and you have helped to rid me of some of those spectres that haunted me night and day. You must go! I know it. Alone! alone! with this crew! Is this Heaven's law or man's? and I was not made for this. I shall destroy myself--I must--I will. Good-bye! oh Rowland! cousin! brother! remember me, for God's sake and for hers!' The hands of the minister of the Gospel and the felon were clasped for a few seconds, as if they could never unlink, and then, with a heavy groan, Howel sank down upon some timber that was near him, and covered his face with his hands. Thick tears filled Rowland's eyes as he stooped over his wretched cousin, and again whispered, 'God bless you, cousin Howel, God bless you.' And so they parted.	{ "id": "15315" }
53	GLADYS REAPING HER FRUITS.	Our story began at Glanyravon, in the cheery month of June, and at Glanyravon, in the same cheery month, we will end it. I must beg my readers to pass over in their imaginations one twelvemonth, of which I do not mean to say anything, and to accompany me to the gate at Glanyravon Farm, where they first made acquaintance with Mrs Prothero and Gladys. A hasty glance will suffice to show that all is much the same at this said gate as it was ten years ago, save and except that the extraneous accompaniments are changed. Instead of a group of Irish beggars and a dying girl, it is surrounded by a party of well-dressed peasants in high, smooth hats and striped flannel gowns. Moreover, it is surrounded by an arch of evergreens and flowers, of most tasteful form and beautiful colour. We will not linger here at present, but pursue our way along the road. We meet more peasants, in holiday costume, talking and laughing together, with Miss Gwynne's school children in their scarlet cloak and best frocks. They all seem to be lingering about, with nothing to do, and enjoying their idleness and June holiday as thoroughly as the greatest philanthropist in the world could desire. As we approach the entrance of the Park, we see another magnificent arch spanning the road. We turn to the large iron gates, and they, too, are circled with laurels and roses. We walk through the gates, and to the right, far in amongst the trees, are long lines of tables covered with white, and bearing the remains of a huge feast, at which, we take it for granted, the people we have met have been regaled. Scattered here and there amongst the oaks, elms, and ashes are more peasants and school children amusing themselves variously. We pursue our way up the drive until we come to the memorable oak, under which words were spoken greatly influencing the fates of two of the individuals in whom I have been endeavouring to interest my readers. From this venerable tree to another, almost as venerable, hangs another wreath, flanked with banners. We reach the house, and another garland entirely surrounds the door. White roses and lillies of the valley make the air heavy with their breath, drawn out by the attractive rays of the beaming afternoon sun. We enter the hall, and peep into the different rooms. In the dining-room is the remains of an ample repast. At the head of the table is an enormous cake, covered with silver doves and ornaments of all kinds; servants are drinking the remains of champagne out of glasses and bottles with healths innumerable. In the library and hall, children in white frocks, with silver bows fastened to them, pattering to and fro in unchecked excitement. In the drawing-room we pause, and listen to the conversation that is passing between Mr Gwynne, Lady Mary, Colonel and Mrs Gwynne Vaughan, and Sir Hugh Pryse. 'I am so thankful it is over, and that it has all gone off so well,' says Lady Mary. 'Really, Lady Mary,' says Mr Gwynne, 'great thanks are due to you for the admirable manner in which you managed everything. I think it was wonderful that we amalgamated, and all that sort of thing, don't you, Gwynne?' Colonel Vaughan replies, yawning,-- 'I don't know what on earth we shall do without Freda! And she to throw herself away upon that stupid London parish, where all her charming manner and talent will be lavished upon ragged schools and missionary meetings. I wish she had never come back.' 'Oh, Gwynne, I'm thure Mr Prothero ith very nithe, and tho gentlemanlike and good and handthome. And, you know, clergymen are ath good ath any one in London.' 'Prothero is better than most, I think,' says Sir Hugh, 'because there is no humbug about him. And I'm sure, since Freda wouldn't have me, I'm glad she had him, though I never guessed she liked him; I used to think she liked you best, Vaughan.' The colonel sighs. 'Oh! I never flattered myself so far, I wish--' 'Certainly, I could not have believed the Protheros were such superior people,' says Lady Mary. 'As to Mr Owen and his wife, they might be introduced into any society.' 'Thweetly pretty, Gladyth ith, I never thought tho much of her before,' lisps Mrs Vaughan. 'Tho interethting the looked in that dreth, the one the wath married in, my maid thaith.' 'I was obliged to call at the farm myself, to induce old Prothero and his wife to come,' says Mr Gwynne, 'Freda wished it so much; I cannot say I did: you see it was rather awkward. But he did not change his old manner towards me--or--in fact--you know, Sir Hugh he might have been--' 'Bumptious,' breaks in Sir Hugh; 'exactly, not a bit of it. They're better behaved. Besides, there was Mrs Jonathan to support the honour of the family, and her husband the learning.' 'Yes,' says Lady Mary; '' it is a comfort that they are really gentlefolks. And Mr and Mrs Jones too--in short, with the exception of the parents, after all, there is no great objection. Many girls make worse matches. Only they live so near.' Here little Harold comes bouncing into the room, followed by the other children. 'Mamma! papa! do you know I am going to marry Minette, I told her so; her name is Victoria, after the Queen, she said. I shall go to see her to-morrow; she is bigger than Minnie, and looked prettier in her veil. Didn't Dot look funny in a veil? Dot nearly cried, but Aunt Freda gave her some cake. Why did Mr Prothero come, papa? isn't he a farmer?' 'And isn't your papa a farmer? and am not I a farmer, Master Harold?' exclaims Sir Hugh, catching the boy up in his arms. 'I am so sorry Aunt Freda is going away,' says quiet little Minnie to her mother. 'And tho am I, my dear.' 'And tho am I, mamma,' lisps Dot, exactly as lisps her mamma. 'I hope she will be happy,' says Mr Gwynne, aside to the colonel; 'do you think she will?' 'Yes, I am sure she will; she is evidently sincerely attached to Rowland Prothero, and he to her. He is a good man and a gentleman, one cannot deny that. Pshaw! why am I so sorry she is gone? we shall miss her dreadfully after this twelvemonth.' 'Thank you, Gwynne; she has been very good and kind to us all; so much improved, and she told me she owed it all to Rowland. Well, I liked him from the first. You saw the Bible his school children gave him, and the presents from his parishioners and the letter from the bishop, so complimentary, you know, so flattering, and all that sort of thing. God bless them,' Mr Gwynne very nearly begins to cry, and Colonel Vaughan feels inclined to join; but by way of consoling himself, says,-- 'I shall go and see the Protheros sometimes now. I never saw anything in my life so lovely as that younger Mrs Prothero.' 'Take care, my dear,' cries Lady Mary to her daughter; 'the colonel is going to visit the fair Gladys.' 'Oh! I thant allow that, Gwynne, the ith much too pretty.' 'Let us go out and look at the people before dinner,' says Colonel Vaughan; 'I must say it was cruel of Freda to refuse to have a party. This is fearfully dull; the vicar and his wife, or Mr and Mrs Jones would have been better than nobody.' 'Much obliged!' says Sir Hugh. As all the party go into the Park, we will follow them, and leaving them there, retrace our steps to the farm. There is high tea going on in the parlour, and a pleasant, cheerful party they are, assembled round the tea-table. Gladys in the wedding-gown, with a colour on her cheeks and a light in her eyes that were not there in former days, presides. Owen divides his attentions between her and some object in the corner of the room; first jumping up to peep into this curtained curiosity, and then returning to put cream into the tea-cups, hand the cakes and bread and butter, or do any and everything that his loving and lovely Gladys asks him, with whom he is just as much in love as ever. Mr Jones and Mr Prothero sit on either side of Gladys, and seem to vie with one another in showing a father's and uncle's affection to her. Next to Mr Jones we have Mrs Prothero, looking more like what she looked when first we saw her, than she has done for years. Then Mr Jonathan and Mrs Jones; and between Mrs Jones and Owen we are glad to see poor Mrs Jenkins, very kindly treated by her neighbours, and dressed in the _moiré_ and a handsome shawl; then Mrs Jonathan, in the richest of silks, and the loveliest of caps; and, finally, Minette between her and her grandfather; completing a 'round table' more cheerful and natural than that of King Arthur. Through the open window and white netted curtains--Gladys' treasured work--the roses and sunbeams look in together, and the distant mountains are blue and hazy as the sky. Flowers are on the mantel-piece and tables, bridal-favours are scattered here and there. Above all, there is a large white and silver bow, surmounting that 'curiosity' in the corner, towards which all eyes occasionally turn. Perhaps we may as well peep within the little white curtains. There lies a wee baby, fast asleep, with its tiny hand outside the coverlet, and its lace cap on the little pillow. 'Netta,' is the name of that small fragment of humanity. Owen and Gladys' first-born. Having surveyed the company, we will listen to their conversation. 'Well, father, don't you feel vain-glorious to-day?' says Owen, stopping suddenly on his way to the cradle, and pulling his father's grey whisker. 'I feel very thankful that it is all over, and very unnatural.' 'Not unnatural, David, bach,' says his wife. 'Yes, unnatural. It was never intended for Miss Gwynne to be my daughter-in-law, and I breakfasting at the Park. I felt like a hog in armour, fidgeting inside and out.' 'Perhaps it was never intended for me to be your daughter, either,' says Gladys, looking archly at the farmer. 'Treue for you, my dear. That was a piece of luck that came without my seeking, and I like it all the better for that reason, I suppose.' 'I am sure you may rejoice in the present Mrs Rowland Prothero,' says Mrs Jonathan; 'and you certainly need not imagine, for one moment, that she is degrading herself by marrying your son. In London he is in the first society, and meets people constantly, on equal terms, who would quite throw your Lady Marys into the shade. Does he not, Mr Jones?' 'I cannot quite enter into these points, ma'am,' says Mr Jones; 'but he and his bride are as well suited to one another as any young people I ever saw, and will be a blessing to their parish and their friends.' 'Besides, if you come to family, brother David,' says Mr Jonathan, 'ours is of considerable antiquity, and I cannot think how it got Anglicised into Prothero. You know I have been enabled to trace it back to Rhyddrch, or Rhodri, a prince who fought with and frequently defeated Ethelbald. You may not be aware, Mrs Jones, that our name, properly Prydderch, means Ap Rhyddrch, and that we owe it to this illustrious source.' 'Now, aunt,' exclaims Owen, 'never mention the Payne Perrys again. Why, you cannot light a candle to us. I am sure your Herefordshire Perry can't date back to the conquest, and here are we long before it. What date, uncle?' ' 720, Owen. And I wish you, as the eldest son, would begin to write your name in the proper way. I contemn, absolutely, this altering our fine old language into that jargon of Anglo-Saxon, Danish, Norman, and French, now yclept English. 'Very well, uncle, let us spell it R, H, Y, D, D, R, C, H,--eight consonants without the aid of one single vowel. I declare the very name is courage itself,--no auxiliary forces. Gladys, I beg you will always sign yourself so when you write to Mrs Jones; and be sure you spell your own name as it ought to be spelt,--G, W, L, A, D, Y, S. Even this shows the weakness of the female sex; you do require one little vowel to help along the consonants,' 'Ha, ha, ha!' shouts Mr Prothero, 'he has you now, brother Jo.' 'Not at all. Owen seems to have forgotten that w and y are vowels. But he never had a taste for study, Rowland is quite different; and our dear niece, Claudia, is much better suited to him than to Owen, for she appreciates the wisdom of a past age.' 'The little hypocrite,' cries Owen. 'She doesn't--' 'I never could have supposed Lady Mary could be so affable,' interrupts Gladys, fearing a dispute. 'She can be anything she likes,' says Mrs Jones. 'She pressed me and Mr Jones to stay there to-day, but I could not have done so without Freda. She was especially kind all last week, and resolved to go through everything properly. I told her that your uncle could only stay two clear days, and that we had promised to spend them here. It is such a relief to be here, Mr Gwynne and Mrs Gwynne Vaughan are very well; but her ladyship's constant tact and effort to do exactly the right thing are wearying.' 'Do my Laddy Marry be very grand? Grander than Laddy Simpson, Mrs Jones?' asked Mrs Jenkins, in an undertone, of her neighbour. She has an infinite awe of Mrs Jonathan. 'I don't think I ever saw Lady Simpson,' says Mrs Jones, 'Not be seeing Laddy Simpson! Well, it is no loss for you. She was as ugly an 'ooman as I ever was seeing. I am hating the Simpsons, and no wonder. But Miss Gwynne is a lady,--Mrs Rowland Prothero, I am meaning. She was coming to see me the other day, and says she, "I know you have been unfortunate Mrs Jenkins, fach! and no fault of yours." And she was giving me this new white shoal. And, seure, if it wasn't for Rowland Prothero and she, I 'oudn't be in that tidy cottage by there, with Mrs Owen and my grandoater coming to see me and reading to me; and Mrs Prothero too, is seure, and bringing me something nice, and my Griffey with hundreds of thousands, Mrs Jones, as you was knowing,' Mrs Jenkins gradually gets excited, as she finds Mrs Jones listens, and by degrees she gains the ear of the rest of the party, who all, in spite of Gladys' efforts to divert their attention, turn to her when they hear the words 'Rowland and Miss Gwynne.' 'I must be telling you now, Mrs Jones, ma'am,' continues Mrs Jenkins, 'that I am not forgetting all your kindness to me up in London, when every one else was turning away. Ach a fi! and they 'joying themselves at Abertewey.' Mrs Jones presses Mrs Griffey's arm, and whispers 'hush!' 'To be seure! I was forgetting. But, indeet, Rowland Prothero did be more than a son to me, and if Miss Gwynne was my own doater she couldn't be kinder. She was buying up enough of my beauty furniture to fill the little cottage. I did be finding it out 'esterday, and seure it was their wedding present to a poor, childless widow, as 'ould be in the Eunion, and I with hundreds and thousands!' 'Hold your tongue, name o' goodness, 'Lizbeth Jenkins!' growls Mr Prothero. 'Hush, Davy, bach! we have all our troubles,' says Mrs Prothero, brushing a tear from her eye. 'Grandfather, I liked Harold so much!' says Minette, to the great relief of the rest of the party. 'Call him Master Gwynne, you forward little minx,' says Mr Prothero, patting the child's back gently. 'Oh! but he told me he should marry me, and that Colonel Vaughan said he was my uncle.' 'Children and 'oomen all alike,' says the farmer; 'thinking of marriage as soon as they can speak. Gladys, why don't you teach the child better?' 'It was the champagne, father,' says Owen. 'My full impression is, that a few glasses more and you would have kissed Lady Mary. I wish we had brought a glass for you to drink the bride and bridegroom's health, Aunt 'Lizbeth.' 'Oh, I have been drinking that pain!' A sudden little cry in the corner prevents any allusion to the occasion on which Mrs Jenkins drank champagne. Gladys has her baby in her arms in a few seconds. The infant is attired in her christening robe and cap, and seems to add a new beauty to the sweet and gentle Gladys. All eyes are directed towards them, all hearts warm towards them. Minette is instantly kissing her little cousin, even Mrs Jonathan takes its tiny hand, as Gladys carries it round in her mother's pride and joy. 'Your grandchild and my grandniece, Mr Prothero,' says Mr Jones, 'may she grow up as good as her mother.' 'Amen!' replies Mr Prothero. And with this word we end our story. The wedding wreath--the christening-robe--the shroud! Again the wreath and the robe! Such has been our tale, and 'such is life!' Printed by Morrison and Gibb Limited Edinburgh	{ "id": "15315" }
1	THE TELEGRAM.	'BREVOORT HOUSE, NEW YORK, Oct. 6th, 18--. ' _To Mr. Frank Tracy, Tracy Park, Shannondale_. 'I arrived in the Scotia this morning, and shall take the train for Shannondale at 3 p.m. Send someone to the station to meet us. 'ARTHUR TRACEY.' This was the telegram which the clerk in the Shannonville office wrote out one October morning, and despatched to the Hon. Frank Tracy, of Tracy Park, in the quiet town of Shannondale, where our story opens. Mr. Frank Tracy, who, since his election to the State Legislature for two successive terms, had done nothing except to attend political meetings and make speeches on all public occasions, had an office in town, where he usually spent his mornings, smoking, reading the papers and talking to Mr. Colvin, his business agent and lawyer, for, though born in one of the humblest of New England houses, where the slanting roof almost touched the ground in the rear, and he could scarcely stand upright in the chamber where he slept, Mr. Frank Tracy was a great man now, and as he dashed along the turnpike behind his blooded bays, with his driver beside him, people looked admiringly after him, and pointed him out to strangers as the Hon. Mr. Tracy, of Tracy Park, one of the finest places in the county. It is true it did not belong to him, but he had lived there so long that he had come to look upon it as his, while his neighbors, too, seemed to have forgotten that there was across the ocean a Mr. Arthur Tracy, who might at any time come home to claim his own, and demand an account of his brother's stewardship. And it was this very Arthur Tracy, whose telegram announcing his return from Europe was read by his brother with mingled feelings of surprise and consternation. 'Not that everything isn't fair and above-board, and he is welcome to look into matters as much as he likes,' Frank said over and over to himself, as he sat stating blankly at the telegram, while the cold chills ran up and down his back and arms. 'Yes, he can examine all Colvin's books and he will find them straight as a string, for didn't he tell me to use what I needed as remuneration for looking after his property while he was gallivanting over the world; and if he objects that I have paid myself too much, why, I can at once transfer those investments in my name to him. No, it is not that which affects me so, it is the suddenness of the thing, coming without warning and to-night of all nights, when the house will be full of carousing and champagne. What will Dolly say! Hysterics of course, if not a sick headache. I don't believe I can face her till she has had a little time to get over it. Here, boy, I want, you!' and he rapped at the window at a young lad who happened to be passing with a basket on his arm. 'I want you to do an errand for me,' he continued, as the boy entered the office, and, removing his cap, stood respectfully before him 'Take this telegram to Mrs. Tracy, and here is a dime for you.' 'Thank you, but I don't care for the money,' the boy said 'I was going to the park anyway to tell Mrs. Tracy that grandma is sick and can't go there to-night.' 'Cannot go! Sick! What is the matter?' Mr. Tracy asked, in some dismay, feeling that here was a fresh cause of trouble and worry for Dolly, as he designated his wife when off his guard and not on show before his fashionable friends, to whom she was Dora, or Mrs. Tracy. 'She catched cold yesterday fixing up mother's grave,' the boy replied; and, as if the mention of that grave had sent Mr. Tracy's thoughts straying backward to the past, he looked thoughtfully at the child a moment, and then said: 'How old are you, Harold?' 'Ten, last August,' was the reply; and Mr. Tracy continued: 'You do not remember your mother?' 'No, sir, only a great crowd, and grandma crying so hard,' was Harold's reply. 'You look like her,' Mr. Tracy said. 'Yes, sir,' Harold answered, while into his frank, open face there came an expression of regret for the mother who had died when he was three years old, and whose life had been so short and sad. 'Now, hurry off with the telegram, and mind you don't lose it. It is from my brother. He is coming to-night.' 'Mr. Arthur Tracy, who sent the monument for my mother--is he coming home? Oh, I am so glad!' Harold exclaimed, and his handsome face lighted up with childish joy, as he put the telegram in his pocket and started For Tracy Park, wondering if he should encounter Tom, and thinking that if he did, and Tom gave him any chaff, he should lick him, or try to. 'Darn him!' he said to himself, as he recalled the many times when Tom Tracy, a boy of his own age, had laughed at him for his poverty and coarse clothes. 'Darn him! he ain't any better than I am, if he does wear velvet trousers and live in a big house. 'Taint his'n; it's Mr. Arthur's, and I'm glad he is coming home. I wonder if he will bring grandma anything. I wish he'd I bring me a pyramid. He's seen 'em, they say.' Meantime, Mr. Frank Tracy had resumed his seat, and, with his hands clasped together over his head, was wondering what effect his brother's return would have upon him. Would he be obliged to leave the park, and the luxury he had enjoyed so long, and go back to the old life which he hated so much. 'No; Arthur will never be so mean,' he said. 'He has always shown himself generous, and will continue to do so. Besides that, he will want somebody to keep his house for him, unless--' and here the perspiration started from every pore, as Frank Tracy thought: 'What if he is married, and the _us_ in his telegram means a wife, instead of a friend or servant, as I imagined!' This would indeed be a calamity, for then his own and Dolly's reign was over at Tracy Park, and the party they were to give that night to at least three hundred people would be their last grand blow-out. 'Confound the party!' he thought, as he arose from his chair and began to pace the room. 'Arthur won't like that as a greeting after eleven years' absence. He never fancied being cheek by jowl with Tom, Dick and Harry; and that is just what the smash is to-night. Dolly wants to please everybody, thinking to get me votes for Congress, and so she has invited all creation and his wife. There's old Peterkin, the roughest kind of a canal bummer when Arthur went away. Think of my fastidious brother shaking hands with him and Widow Shipley, who kept a low tavern on the tow-path! She'll be there; in her silks and long gold chain, for she has four boys, all voters, who call me _Frank_ and slap me on the shoulder. Ugh! even I hate it all; and in a most perturbed state of mind, the Hon. Frank and would-be Congressman continued to walk the room lamenting the party which must be, and wondering what his aristocratic brother would say to such a crowd in his house on the night of his return. And if there should be a Mrs. Arthur Tracy, with possibly some little Tracys! But that idea was too horrible to contemplate, and so he tried to put it from his mind, and to be as calm and quiet as possible until lunch-time, when, with no very great amount of alacrity and cheerfulness, he started for home, where, as he had been warned by his wife when he left her in the morning, 'he was to lunch standing up or anyhow, as she had no time for parade that day.'	{ "id": "15321" }
2	ARTHUR TRACY.	Although it was a morning in October, the grass in the park was as green as in early June, while the flowers in the beds and borders, the geraniums, the phlox, the stocks, and verbenas were handsomer, if possible, than they had been in the summer-time: for the rain, which had fallen almost continually during the month of September, had kept them fresh and bright. Here and there the scarlet and golden tints of autumn were beginning to show on the trees; but this only added a new charm to a place which was noted for its beauty, and was the pride and admiration of the town. And yet Mrs. Frank Tracy, who stood on the wide piazza, looking after a carriage which was moving down the avenue which led through the park to the highway, did not seem as happy as the mistress of that house ought to have been, standing there in the clear, crisp morning, with a silken wrapper trailing behind her, a coquettish French cap on her head, and costly jewels on her short, fat hands, which once were not as white and soft as they were now. For Mrs. Frank Tracy, as Dorothy Smith, had known what hard labor and poverty meant, and slights, too, because of the poverty and labor. Her mother was a widow, sickly and lame, and Dorothy in her girlhood had worked in the cotton mills at Langley, and bound shoes for the firm of Newell & Brothers, and had taught a district school, 'by way of elevating herself,' but the elevation did not pay, and she went back to the mills in the day-time and her shoes at night, and rebelled at the fate which had made her so poor and seemed likely to keep her so. But there was something better in store for her than binding shoes, or even teaching a district school, and, from the time when young Frank Tracy came to Langley as clerk in the Newell firm, Dorothy's life was changed and her star began to rise. They both sang in the choir, standing side by side, and sometimes using the same book, and once or twice their hands met as both tried to turn the leaves together. Dorothy's were red and rough, and not nearly as delicate as those of Frank, who had been in a store all his life: and still there was a magnetism in their touch which sent a thrill through the young man's veins, and made him for the first time look critically at his companion. She was very pretty, he thought, with bright black eyes, a healthful bloom, and a smile and blush which went straight to his heart and made him her slave at once. In three months' time they were married and commenced housekeeping in a very unostentatious way, for Frank had nothing but his salary to depend upon. But he was well connected, and boasted some blue blood, which, in Dorothy's estimation, made amends for lack of money. The Tracys of Boston were his distant relatives, and he had a rich bachelor uncle who spent his winters in New Orleans and his summers in Shannondale, at Tracy Park, on which he had lavished fabulous sums of money. From this uncle Frank had expectations, though naturally the greater part of his fortune would go to his god-son and name-sake, Arthur Tracy, who was Frank's elder brother, and as unlike him as one brother could well be unlike another. Arthur was scholarly in his tastes, quiet and gentlemanly in his manners, with a musical voice which won him friends at once, while in his soft black eyes there was a peculiar look of sadness, as if he were brooding over something which filled him with regret. Frank was very proud of his brother, and with Dorothy felt that he was honored when, six months after their marriage, he came for a day or so to visit them, and with him his intimate friend Harold Hastings, an Englishman by birth, but so thoroughly Americanized as to pass unchallenged for a native. There was a band of crape on Arthur's hat, and his manner was like one trying to be sorry, while conscious of a great inward feeling of resignation, if not content. The rich uncle was dead. He had died suddenly in Paris, where he had gone on business, and the whole of his vast fortune was left to his nephew Arthur--not a farthing to Frank, not even the mention of his name in the will: and when Dorothy heard it she put her white apron over her face, and cried as if her heart would break. They were so poor, she and Frank, and they wanted so many things, and the man who could have helped them was dead and had left them nothing. It was hard, and she might not have made the young heir very welcome if he had not ensured her that he should do something for her husband. And he kept his word, and in course of time bought out a grocery in Langley and put Frank in it, and paid the mortgage on his house, and gave him a thousand dollars, and invited them for a few days to visit him; and then it would seem as if he forgot them entirely; for with his friend Harold he settled himself at Tracy Park, and played the role of the grand gentleman to perfection. Dinner parties and card parties, where it was said the play was for money, and where Arthur always allowed himself to lose and his friends to win; races and hunts were of frequent occurrence at Tracy Park, where matters generally were managed on a magnificent scale, and created a great deal of talk among the plain folks of Shannondale, whose only dissipation then was going to church twice on Sunday and to the cattle show once each year. Few ladies ever graced these festivities, for Arthur was very aristocratic in his feelings, and with two or three exceptions, held himself aloof from the people of Shannondale. It was said, however, that sometimes, when he and his friend were alone, there was the sweep of a white dress and the gleam of golden hair in the parlor, where sweet Amy Crawford, daughter of the housekeeper, played and sang her simple ballads to the two gentlemen, who always treated her with as much deference as if she had been a queen, instead of a poor young girl dependent for her bread upon her own and her mother's exertions. But beyond the singing in the twilight Amy never advanced, and so far as her mother knew she had never for a single instant been alone with either of the gentlemen. How, then, was the household electrified one morning when it was found that Amy had fled, and that Harold Hastings was the companion of her flight? 'I wanted to tell you,' Amy wrote to her mother in the note left on her dressing table. 'I wanted to tell you and be married at home, but Mr. Hastings would not allow it. It would create trouble, he said, between himself and Mr. Tracy, who I may confess to you in confidence, asked me twice to be his wife, and when I refused, without giving him a reason, for I dared not tell him of my love for his friend, he was so angry and behaved so strangely, and there was such a look in his eyes, that I was afraid of him, and it was this fear, I think, which made me willing to go away secretly with Harold and be married in New York. We are going to Europe; shall sail to-morrow morning at nine o'clock in the Scotia. The marriage ceremony will be performed before we go on board. I shall write as soon as we reach Liverpool. You must forgive me, mother, and I am sure you would not blame me, if you knew how much I love Mr. Hastings. I know he is poor, and that I might be mistress of Tracy Park, but I love Harold best. It is ten o'clock, and the train, you know, passes at eleven; so I must say good-bye. 'Yours lovingly, 'Amy Crawford, now, but when you read this, 'Amy Hastings.' This was Amy's letter which her mother found upon entering her room after waiting more than an hour for her daughter's appearance at the breakfast, which they always took by themselves. To say that she was shocked and astonished would but faintly portray the state of her mind as she read that her beautiful young daughter had gone with Harold Hastings, whom she had never liked, for though he was handsome, and agreeable, and gentlemanly as a rule, she knew him to be thoroughly selfish and indolent, and she trembled for her daughter's happiness when a little time had quenched the ardor of his passion. Added to this was another thought which made her brain reel for a moment an she thought what might have been. Arthur Tracy had wished to make Amy his wife, and mistress of Tracy Park, which she would have graced so well, for in all the town there was not a fairer, sweeter girl than Amy Crawford, or one better beloved. It did not matter that she was poor, and her mother was only a housekeeper. She had never felt a slight on that account, and had been reared as carefully and tenderly as the daughters of the rich, and if away down, in her mother's heart there had been a half defined hope that some time the master of Tracy Park might turn his attention to her, it had been hidden so closely that Mrs. Crawford scarcely knew of it herself until she learned what her daughter was and what she might have been. But it was too late now. There was no turning back the wheels of fate. Forcing herself to be as calm as possible, she took the note to Arthur, who had breakfasted alone, and was waiting impatiently in the library for the appearance of his friend. 'Lazy dog!' Mrs. Crawford heard him say, as she approached the open door. 'Does he think he has nothing to do but to sleep? We were to start by this time, and he in bed yet!' 'Are you speaking of Mr. Hastings?' Mrs. Crawford asked, as she stepped into the room. 'Yes,' was his crisp and haughty reply, as if he resented the question, and her presence there. He could be very proud and stern when he felt like it, and one of these moods was on him now, but Mrs. Crawford did not heed it, and sinking into a chair, for she felt that she could not stand and face him, she began: 'I came to tell you of Mr. Hastings and--Amy. She did not come to breakfast, and I found this note in her room. She has gone to New York with him. They took the eleven o'clock train last night. They are to be married this morning, and sail in the Scotia for Europe.' She had told her story, and paused for the result, which was worse than she had expected. For a moment Arthur Tracy stood staring at her, while his face grew white as ashes, and into his dark eyes, usually so soft and mild, there came a fiery gleam like that of a madman, as he seemed for a time to be. 'Amy gone with Harold, my friend!' he said at last. 'Gone to New York! Gone to be married! Traitors! Vipers! Both of them. Curse them! If he were here I'd shoot him like a dog; and she--I believe I would kill her.' He was walking the floor rapidly, and to Mrs. Crawford it seemed as if he really were unsettled in his mind, he talked so incoherently and acted so strangely. 'What else did she say?' he asked, suddenly, stopping and confronting her. 'You have not told me all. Did she speak of me? Let me see the note,' and he held his hand for it. For a moment Mrs. Crawford hesitated, but as he grew more and more persistent she suffered him to take it, and then watched him as he read it, white the veins on his forehead began to swell until they stood out like a dark blue net-work against his otherwise pallid face. 'Yes,' he snapped between his white teeth. 'I did ask her to be my wife, and she refused, and with her soft, kittenish ways made me more in love with her than ever, and more her dupe. I never suspected Harold, and when I told him of my disappointment, for I never kept a thing from him--traitor that he was--he laughed at me for losing my heart to my housekeeper's daughter! I, who, he said, might marry the greatest lady in the land. I could have knocked him down for his sneer at Amy, and I wish now I had, the wretch! He will not marry your daughter, madam; and if he does not I will kill him!' He was certainly mad, and Mrs. Crawford shrank away from him an from something dangerous, and going to her room took her bed in a fit of frightful hysterics. This was followed by a state of nervous prostration, and for a few days she neither saw, nor heard of, nor inquired for Mr. Tracy. At the end of the fourth day, however, she was told by the house-maid that he had that morning packed his valise and, without a word to any one, had taken the train for New York. A week went by, and then there came a letter from him, which ran as follows: 'New York, May ----, 18--. 'Mrs. Crawford:--I am off for Europe to-morrow, and when I shall return is a matter of uncertainty. They are married; or at least I suppose so, for I found a list of the passengers who sailed in the Scotia, and the names, Mr. and Mrs. Hastings, were in it. So that saves me from breaking the sixth commandment, as I should have done if he hid played Amy false. I may not make myself known to them, but I shall follow them, and if he harms a hair of her head I shall shoot him yet. My brother Frank is to live at Tracy Park. That will suit his wife, and as you will not care to stay with her, I send you a deed of that cottage in the lane by the wood where the gardener now lives. It is a pretty little place, and Amy liked it well. We used to meet there sometimes, and more than once I have sat with her on that seat under the elm tree, and it was there I asked her to be my wife. Alas! I loved her so much, and I love her still as I can never love another woman, and I could have made her so happy; but that is past, and I can only watch her at a distance. When I have anything to communicate, I will write again. 'Yours truly, 'Arthur Tracy.' 'P.S.--Take all the furniture in your room and Amy's, and whatever else is needful for your house. I shall tell Colvin to give you a thousand dollars, and when you want more let him know, I shall never forget that you are Amy's mother. This was Arthur's letter to Mrs. Crawford, while to his brother he wrote: 'Dear Frank:--I am going to Europe for an indefinite length of time. Why I go it matters not to you or any one. I go to suit myself, and I want you to sell out your business at Langley and live at Tracy Park, where you can see to things as if they were your own. You will find everything straight and square, for Colvin is honest and methodical. He knows all about the bonds, and mortgages, and stocks, so you cannot do better than to retain him in your service, overseeing matters yourself, of course, and drawing for your salary what you think right and necessary for your support and for keeping up the place as it ought to be kept up. I enclose a power of attorney. When I want money I shall call upon Colvin. I may be gone for years and perhaps forever. 'I shall never marry, and when I die, what I have will naturally go to you. We have not been to each other much like brothers for the past few years, but I do not forget the old home in the mountains where we were boys together, and played, and quarreled, and slept up under the roof, where the blankets were hung to keep the snow from sifting through the rafters upon our bed. 'And, Frank, do you remember the bitter mornings, when the thermometer was below zero, and we performed our ablutions in the wood-shed, and the black-eye you gave me once for telling mother that you had not washed yourself at all, it was so cold? She sent you from the table, and made you go without your breakfast, and we had ham and johnny-cake toast that morning, too. That was long ago, and our lives are different now. There are marble basins, with silver chains and stoppers, at Tracy Pack, and you can have a hot bath every day if you like, in a room which would not shame Caracalla himself. And I know you will like it all, and Dolly, too; but don't make fools of yourselves. Nothing stamps a person as a _come-up_ from the scum so soon as airs and ostentation. Be quiet and modest, as if you had always lived at Tracy Park. Imitate Squire Harrington and Mr. St. Claire. They are the true gentlemen, and were to the manner born. Be kind to Mrs. Crawford. She is a lady in every sense of the word, for she comes of good New England stock. 'And now, good-bye. I shall write sometimes, but not often. 'Your brother, 'Arthur Tracy.'	{ "id": "15321" }
3	MR. AND MRS. FRANK TRACY.	Mr. Frank, in his small grocery store at Langley, was weighing out a pound of butter for the Widow Simpson, who was haggling with him about the price, when his brother's letter was brought to him by the boy who swept his store and did errands for him. But Frank was too busy just then to read it. There was a circus in the village that day, and it brought the country people into the town in larger numbers than usual. Naturally, many of them paid Frank a visit in the course of the morning, so that it was not until he went home to his dinner that be even thought of the letter, which was finally brought to his mind by his wife's asking if there was any news. Mrs. Frank was always inquiring for and expecting news, but she was not prepared for what this day brought her. Neither was her husband, and when he read his brother's letter, which he did twice to assure himself that he was not mistaken, he sat for a moment perfectly bewildered, and staring at his wife, who was putting his dinner upon the table. 'Dolly,' he gasped at last, when he could speak at all--'Dolly, what do you think? Just listen. Arthur is going to Europe, to stay forever, perhaps, and has left us Tracy Park. We are going there to live, and you will be as grand a lady as Mrs. Atherton, of Brier Hill; or that young girl at Collingwood.' Dolly had a platter of ham and eggs in her hand, and she never could tell, though she often tried to do so, what prevented her from dropping the whole upon the floor. She did spill some of the fat upon her clean tablecloth, she put the dish down so suddenly, and sinking into a chair, demanded what her husband meant. Was he crazy, or what? 'Not a bit of it,' he replied, recovering himself and beginning to realize the good fortune which had come to him. 'We are rich people, Dolly. Read for yourself;' and he passed her the letter, which she seemed to understand better than he had done. 'Why, yes,' she said. 'We are going to Tracy Park to live; but that doesn't make us rich. It is not ours.' 'I know that,' her husband replied. 'But we shall enjoy it all the same, and hold our heads with the best of them. Besides, don't you see, Arthur gives me _carte blanche_ as to pay for my services, and, though I shall do right, it is not in human nature that I should not feather my nest when I have a chance. Some of that money ought to have been mine. I shall sell out at once if I can find a purchaser, and if I cannot, I shall rent the grocery and move out of this hole double quick.' His ideas were growing faster than those of his wife, who was attached to Langley and its people, and shrank a little from the grander opening before her. She had once spent a few days at Tracy Park, as Arthur's guest, and had felt great restraint even in the presence of Mrs. Crawford and Amy, whom she recognized as ladies notwithstanding their position in the house. On that occasion she had, with her brother-in-law, been invited to dine at Brier Hill, the country-seat of Mrs. Grace Atherton, a gay widow, whose dash and style had completely overawed the plain, matter-of-fact Dolly, who did not know what half the dishes were, or what she was expected to do. But, by watching Arthur, and declining some things which she felt sure were beyond her comprehension, she managed tolerably well, though when the dinner was over, and she could breathe freely again, she found that the back of her new silk gown was wet with perspiration, which had oozed from every pore during the hour and a half she had sat at the table. And even then her troubles were not ended, for coffee was served in the drawing-room, and as Arthur took his clear, she did not know whether she was expected to do the same or not, but finally ventured to say she would have hers with 'trimmin's.' There was a mischievous twinkle in Mrs. Atherton's eyes which disconcerted her so much that she spilled her coffee in her lap, and felt, as she afterward told a friend to whom she was describing the dinner, as if she could have been knocked down with a feather. 'Such folderol!' she said. 'Changing your plates all the time--eating peas in the winter greener than grass, with nothing under the sun with them, and drinking coffee out of a cup about as big as a thimble. Give me the good old-fashioned way, I say, with peas and potatoes, and meat, and things, and cups that will hold half a pint and have some thickness that you can feel in your mouth.' And now she was to exchange the good, old-fashioned way for what she termed 'folderol,' and for a time she did not like it. But her husband was so delighted and eager that he succeeded in impressing her with some of his enthusiasm, and after he had returned to his grocery, and her dishes were washed, she removed her large kitchen apron, and pulling down the sleeves of her dress, went and stood before the mirror, where she examined herself critically and not without some degree of complacency. Her hair was black and glossy, or would be if she had time to care for it as it ought to be cared for; her eyes were bright, and perhaps in time she might learn to use them as Mrs. Atherton used hers. Mrs. Atherton stood as the criterion for everything elegant and fashionable, and naturally it was with her that she compared herself. 'She is older than I am,' she said to herself; 'there are crow-tracks around her eyes, and her complexion is not a bit better than mine was before I spoiled it with soap-suds, and stove heat, and everything else.' Then she looked at her hands, but they were red and rough, and the nails were broken and not at all like the nails which an expert has polished for an hour or more. Mrs. Atherton's diamond rings would be sadly out of place on Dolly's fingers, but time and abstinence from work would do much for them, she reflected, and after all it would be nice to live in a grand house, ride in a handsome carriage, and keep a hired girl to do the heavy work. So, on the whole, she began to feel quite reconciled to her change of situation, and to wonder how she ought to conduct herself in view of her future position. She had intended going to the circus that night, but she gave that up, telling her husband that it was a second-class amusement any way, and she did not believe that either Mrs. Atherton or the young lady at Collingwood patronized such places. So they staid at home and talked together of what they should do at Tracy Park, and wondered if it was their duty to ask all their Langley friends to visit them. Mrs. Frank, as the more democratic of the two, decided that it was. She was not going to begin by being _stuck up_, she said, and when at last she left Langley four weeks later, every man, woman, and child of her familiar acquaintance in town had been heartily invited to call upon her at Tracy Park if ever they came that way. Frank had disposed of his business at a reasonable price, and had rented his house with all the furniture, except such articles as his wife insisted upon taking with her. The bureau, and bedstead, and chairs which she and Frank had bought together in Springfield just before their marriage, the Boston rocker her mother had given her, and in which the old mother had sat until the day she died, the cradle in which she had rocked her first baby boy who was lying in the Langley grave-yard, were dear to the wife and mother, and though her husband told her she could have no use for them at Tracy Park, where the furniture was of the costliest kind, and that she would probably put them in the servants' rooms or attic, there was enough of sentiment in her nature to make her cling to them as something of the past, and so they were boxed up and forwarded by freight to Tracy Park, whither Mr. and Mrs. Tracy followed them a week later. The best dressmaker in Langley had been employed upon the wardrobe of Mrs. Frank, who, in her travelling dress of some stuff goods of a plaided pattern, too large and too bright to be quite in good taste, felt herself perfectly _au fait_ as the mistress of Tracy Park, until she reached Springfield, where Mrs. Grace Atherton, accompanied by a tall, elegant looking young lady, entered the car and took a seat in front of her. Neither of the ladies noticed her, but she recognized Mrs. Atherton at once and guessed that her companion was the young lady from Collingwood, who, rumor said, was soon to marry her guardian, Mr. Richard Harrington, although he was old enough to be her father. Dolly scanned both the ladies very closely, noting every article of their costumes from their plain linen collars and cuffs to their quiet dresses of gray, which seemed so much more in keeping with the dusty cars than her buff and purple plaid. 'I ain't like them, and never shall be,' she said to herself, with a bitter sense of her inferiority pressing upon her. 'I ain't like them, and never shall be, if I live to be a hundred. I wish we were not going to be grand. I shall never get used to it,' and the hot tears sprang to her eyes as she longed to be back in the kitchen where she had worked so hard. But Dolly did not know then how readily people can forget the life of toil behind them and adapt themselves to one of luxury and ease; and with her the adaptability commenced in some degree the moment Shannondale station was reached, and she saw the handsome carriage waiting for them. A carriage finer far and more modern than the one from Collingwood, in which Mrs. Atherton and the young lady took their seats, laughing and chatting so gayly that they did not see the woman in the big plaid who stood watching them with a rising feeling of jealousy and resentment as she thought of Mrs. Atherton, 'She does not even notice me.' But when the Tracy carriage drew up, Grace Atherton saw and recognized her, and whispered, in an aside to her companion: 'For goodness' sake, Edith, look! There are the Tracys, our new neighbors.' Then she bowed to Mrs. Tracy, and said: 'Ah, I did not know you were on the train.' 'I sat right behind you,' was Mrs. Tracy's rather ungracious reply: and then, not knowing whether she ought to do it or not, she introduced her husband. 'Yes, Mr. Tracy--how do you do?' was Mrs. Atherton's response; but she did not in return introduce the young girl, whose dark eyes were scanning the strangers so curiously, and this Dolly took as a slight and inwardly resented it. But Mrs. Atherton had spoken to her and that was something, and helped to keep her spirits up as she was driven along the turnpike to the entrance of the park. On the occasion of Mrs. Frank's first and only visit to her brother-in-law it was winter, and everything was covered with snow. But it was summer now, the month of roses, and fragrance, and beauty, and as the carriage passed up the broad, smooth avenue which led to the house, Dolly's eyes wandered over the well-kept lawn, sweet with the scent of newly-mown grass, the parteries of flowers and shrubs, the winding walks and clumps of evergreens here and there formed into fancy rooms, with rustic seats and tables under the over-hanging boughs; and when she reflected that all this was hers to enjoy for many years, and perhaps for her life-time, she felt the first stirring of that pride, and satisfaction, and self-assertion which was to grow upon her so rapidly and transform her from the plain, unpretentious woman who had washed, and ironed, and baked, and mended in the small house in Langley into the arrogant, haughty lady of fashion, who courted only the rich and looked down upon her less fortunate neighbors. Now, however, she was very meek and humble, and trembled as she alighted from the carriage before the great stone house which was to be her home. 'Isn't this grand, Dolly?' her husband said, rubbing his hands together and looking about him complacently. 'Yes, very grand,' Dolly answered him; but somehow it makes me feel weaker than water. I suppose, though, I shall get accustomed to it.'	{ "id": "15321" }
4	GETTING ACCUSTOMED TO IT.	In the absence of Mrs. Crawford, who for a week or more had been domesticated in the cottage in the lane, as the house was designated which Arthur had given her, there was no one to receive the strangers except the cook and the house-maid, and as Mrs. Tracy entered the hall the two came forward, bristling with criticism, and ready to resent anything like interference in the new-comers. The servants at the park had not been pleased with the change of administration. That Mr. Arthur was a gentleman whom it was an honor to serve, they all conceded; but with regard to the new master and mistress, they had grave doubts. Although none of them had been at the park on the occasion of Mrs. Tracy's first visit there, many rumors concerning her had reached them, and she would scarcely have recognized herself could she have heard the remarks of which she was the subject. That she had worked in a factory--which was true--was her least offence, for it was whispered that once, when the winter was unusually severe, and work scarce, she had gone to a soup-house, and even asked and procured coal from the poor-master for herself and her mother. This was not true, and would have argued nothing against her as a woman if it had been, but the cook and the house-maid believed it, and passed sundry jokes together while preparing to meet 'the pauper,' as they designated her. In this state of things their welcome could not be very cordial, but Mrs. Tracy was too tired and too much excited, to observe their demeanor particularly. They were civil, and the house was in perfect order, and so much larger and handsomer than she had thought it to be, that she felt bewildered and embarrassed, and said 'Yes 'em,' and 'No, ma'am,' to Martha, the cook, and told Sarah, who was waiting at dinner, that she 'might as well sit down in a chair as to stand all the time; she presumed she was tired with so many extra steps to take.' But Sarah knew her business, and persisted in standing, and inflicting upon the poor woman as much ceremony as possible, and then, in the kitchen, she repeated to the cook and the coachman, with sundry embellishments of her own, the particulars of the dinner, amid peals of laughter at the expense of the would-be lady, who had said 'she could just as soon have her salad with her other things, and save washing go many dishes.' It was hardly possible that mistress and maids would stay together long, especially as Mrs. Tracy, when a little more assured, and a little less in awe of her servants, began to show a disposition to know by personal observation what was going on in the kitchen, and to hint broadly that there was too much waste here and expenditure there, and quite too much company at all hours of the day. 'She didn't propose to keep a boarding-house,' she said, 'or to support families outside, and the old woman who came so often to the basement door with a big basket under her cloak must discontinue her calls.' Then there occurred one of those Hibernian cyclones which sweep everything before them, and which in this instance swept Mrs. Tracy out of the kitchen for the time being, and the cook out of the house. Her self-respect, she said, would not allow her to stay with a woman who knew just how much coal was burned, how much butter was used, and how much bread was thrown away, and who objected to giving a bite now and then to a poor old woman, who, poor as she was, had never yet been helped by the poor-master, or gone to a soup-house like my lady! Martha's departure was followed by that of Sarah, and then Mrs. Tracy was alone, and for a few days enjoyed herself immensely, doing her own work, cooking her own dinner, and eating it when and where she liked--in the kitchen mostly, as that kept the flies from the dining-room, and saved her many steps, for Dolly was beginning to find that there was a vast difference between keeping a house with six rooms and one with twenty or more. Her husband urged her to try a new servant, saying there was no necessity for her to make a slave of herself: but she refused to listen. Economy was a part of her nature, and besides that she meant to show them that she was perfectly independent of the whole tribe; the _tribe_ and _them_ referring to the hired girls alone, for she knew no one else in town. Nobody had called except the clergyman, not even Mrs. Crawford, whose friendship and possible advice Mrs. Tracy had counted upon, and with whom she knew she should feel more at ease than with Mrs. Atherton from Brier Hill, or Miss Hastings from Collingwood. She had seen both the last named ladies at church and had a nod from Mrs. Atherton, and that was all the recognition she had received from her neighbors up to the hot July morning, a week or more after the house-maid's departure, when she was busy in the kitchen canning black raspberries, of which the garden was full. Like many housekeepers who do their own work, Dolly was not very particular with regard to her dress in the morning, and on this occasion her hair was drawn from her rather high forehead, and twisted into a hard knot at the back of her head; her calico dress hung straight dawn, for she was minus hoops, which in those days were worn quite large; her sleeves were rolled above her elbows, and, as a protection against the juice of the berries, she wore a huge apron made of sacking. In this garb, and with no thought of being interrupted, she kept on with her work until the last kettle of fruit, was boiling and bubbling on the stove, and she was just glancing at the clock to see if it were time to put over the peas for dinner, when there came a quick, decisive ring at the front door. 'Who can that be?' she said to herself, as she wiped her hands upon her apron. 'Some peddler or agent, I dare say. Why couldn't he come round to the kitchen, door, I'd like to know?' She had been frequently troubled with peddlers and agents of all kinds, and feeling certain that this was one--ringing the bell a second time, as if in a hurry--she started for' the door in no very amiable frame of mind, for peddlers were her abomination. Something ailed the lock or key, which resisted all her efforts to turn it; and at last, putting her mouth to the keyhole, she called out, rather sharply: 'Go to the back door: I cannot open this,' Then, as she caught a whiff of burnt syrup, she hurried to the kitchen, where she found that her berries had boiled over, and were hissing and sputtering on the hot stove, raising a cloud of smoke so dense that she did not see the person who stood on the threshold of the door until a voice wholly unlike that of any peddler or agent said to her; 'Good morning, Mrs. Tracy. I hope I am not intruding.' Then she turned, and to her horror and surprise, saw Grace Atherton, attired in the coolest and daintiest of morning costumes, with a jaunty French bonnet set coquettishly upon her head, and a silver card-case in her hand. For the moment Dolly's wits forsook her and she stood staring at her visitor, who, perfectly at her ease, advanced into the room and said: 'I hope you will excuse me, Mrs. Tracy, for this morning call I came--' But she did not finish the sentence, for by this time Dolly had recovered herself a little, and throwing off her apron, she replied, nervously: 'Not at all--not at all, I supposed you were some peddler or agent when I sent you to this door. They are the plague of my life, and think I'll buy everything and give to everything because Arthur did. I am doing my own work, you see. Come into the parlor;' and she led the way into the dark drawing-room, and where the chairs and sofas were surrounded in white linen, looking like so many ghosts in the dim, uncertain light. But Dolly opened one of the windows, and pushing back the blinds, let in a flood of sunshine, so strong and bright that she at once closed the shutters, saying, apologetically, that she did not believe in fading the carpets, if they were not her own. Then she sat down upon an ottoman and faced her visitor, who was regarding her with a mixture of amusement and wonder. Grace Atherton was an aristocrat to her very finger-tips, and shrank from contact with anything vulgar and unsightly, and, to her mind, Mrs. Tracy represented both, and seemed sadly out of place in that handsome room, with her sleeves rolled up and the berry stains on her hands and face. Grace knew nothing by actual experience of canning berries, or of aprons made of sacking, or of bare arms, except it were of an evening when they showed white and fair against her satin gown, with bands of gold and precious stones upon them, and she felt that there was an immeasurable distance between herself and this woman, whom she had come to see partly on business and partly because she thought she must call upon her for the sake of Arthur Tracy, the former occupant of the park. Grace and Arthur had been fast friends, and Brier Hill was almost the only place where he had visited on anything like terms of intimacy. Indeed, it was rumored by the busy knowing ones of Shannondale that, had the pretty widow been six years his junior instead of his senior, she would have left no art untried to win him. But here the wise ones were in fault, for though Grace Atherton's heart was not buried in her husband's grave, and, in fact, had never been her husband's at all, it was given to one who, though he cared for it once, did not prize it now, for, with all the intensity of his noble nature, Richard Harrington, of Collingwood; loved the beautiful girl whom, years ago, he had taken to his home as his child, and whom, it was said, he was to marry. But if the belief that the love she once refused and which she would fain recover was lost to her forever rankled in her breast, Grace never made a sign, and laughed as gayly and looked almost as young and handsome as in the days when Richard was wooing her in the pleasant old English town across the sea. She had loved Richard then, but, alas! loved money more, and she chose a richer man, old enough to be her father, who had died when she was twenty-one and left her the possessor of nearly half a million, every dollar of which she would have given to have recalled the days which were gone forever. Grace had been intending to call upon Mrs. Tracy ever since she came to the park. 'Not,' as she said to her friend, Edith Hastings, 'for the woman's sake, for she knew her to be vulgar: but because she was a neighbor and the sister-in-law of Arthur Tracy,' And so at last she came, partly out of compliment and partly on business, into which last she plunged at once. She was going to the mountains with Mr. Harrington and Miss Hastings: her cook, who had been with her seven years, had gone to attend a sick mother, and had recommended as a fit person to take her place the woman who had just left Tracy Park. 'I do not like to take a servant without first knowing something of her from her last employer,' she said: 'and, if you do not mind, I should like to ask if Martha left for anything very bad.' Mrs. Tracy colored scarlet, and for a moment was silent. She could not tell that fine lady in the white muslin dress, with seas of lace and embroidery, that Martha had called her _second classy_, and _stingy_ and _strooping_, and _mean_, because she objected to the amount of coal burned, and bread thrown away, and time consumed at the table, besides turning down the gas in the kitchen when she thought it too light, to say nothing of turning it off at the meter at ten o'clock, just when the servants were beginning to enjoy themselves. All this she felt would scarcely interest a person like Mrs. Atherton, who might sympathize with Martha more than with herself, so she finally said: 'Martha was saucy to me, and on the whole it was better for them all to go; and so I am doing my own work.' 'Doing your own work!' and Grace gave a little cry of surprise, while her shoulders shrugged meaningly, and made Mrs. Tracy almost as angry as she had been with Martha when she called her mean and second-class. 'It cannot be possible that you cook, and wash, and iron, and do everything,' Mrs. Atherton continued. 'My dear Mrs. Tracy, you can never stand it in a house like this, and Mr. Arthur would not like it if he knew. Why he kept as many as six servants, and sometimes more. Pray let me advise you, and commend to you a good girl; who lived with me three years, and can do everything, from dressing my hair to making a blanc-mange. I only parted with her because she was sick, and now that she is well, her place is filled. Try her, and do not make a servant of yourself. It is not fitting that you should.' Grace was fond of giving advice, and had said more than she intended saying when she began, but Mrs. Tracy, though annoyed, was not angry, and consented to receive the girl who had lived at Brier Hill three years, and who, she reflected, could be of use to her in many ways. While sitting there in her soiled working dress talking to the elegant Mrs. Atherton she had felt her inferiority more keenly than she had ever done before, while at the same time she was conscious that a new set of ideas and thoughts had taken possession of her, reawaking in her the germ of that ambition to be somebody which she had felt so often when a girl, and which now was to bud and blossom, and bear fruit a hundred fold. She would take the girl, and from her learn the ways of the world as presented at Brier Hill. She would no longer wear sacking aprons, and open the door herself. She would be more like Grace Atherton, whom she watched admiringly as she went down the walk to the handsome carriage waiting for her, with driver and footman in tall hats and long coats on the box. This was the beginning of the fine lady into which Dolly finally blossomed, and when that day Frank went home to his dinner he noticed something in her manner which he could not understand until she told him of Mrs. Atherton's call, and the plight in which that lady had found her. 'Served you right, Dolly,' Frank said, laughing till the tears ran. 'You have no business to be digging round like a slave when we are able to have what we like. Arthur said we were to keep up the place us he had done, and that does not mean that you should be a scullion. No, Dolly; have all the girls you want, and hold up your head with the best of them. Get a new silk gown, and return Mrs. Atherton's call at once, and take a card and turn down one corner or the other, I don't know which, but this girl of hers can tell you. Pump her dry as a powder horn; find out what the quality do, and then do it, and not bother about the expense. I am going in for a good time, and don't mean to work either. I told Colvin this morning that I thought I ought to draw a salary of about four thousand a year, besides our living expenses, and though he looked at me pretty sharp over his spectacles he said nothing. Arthur is worth half a million, if he is worth a cent. So, go it, Dolly, while you are young,' and in the exuberance of his joy Frank kissed his wife on both cheeks, and then hurried back to his office, where he spent most of his time trying to be a gentleman. That day they dined in the kitchen with a leaf of the table turned up as they had done in Langley, but the next day they had dinner in the dining-room, and were waited upon by the new girl as well as it was possible for her to do with her mistress' interference. 'Never mind; Mr. Tracy's in a hurry. Give him his pie at once,' she said, as Susan was about to clear the table preparatory to the dessert, but she repented the speech when she saw the look of surprise which the girl gave her and which expressed more than words could have done. 'Better let her run herself,' Frank said, when Susan had left the room, 'and if she wants to take every darned thing off the table and tip it over to boot, let her do it. If she has lived three years with Mrs. Atherton, she knows what is what better than we do.' 'But it takes so long, and I have much to see to in this great house,' Dolly objected, and her husband replied: 'Get another girl, then; three of them if you like. What matter how many girls we have so long as Arthur pays for them, and he is bound to do that. He said so in his letter. You are altogether too economical. I've told you so a hundred times, and now there is no need of saving. I want to see you a lady of silks and satins like Mrs. Atherton. Pump that girl. I tell you, and find out what ladies do!' This was Frank's advice to his wife, and as far as in her lay she acted upon it, and whatever Susan told her was done by Mrs. Atherton at Brier Hill, she tried to do at Tracy Park: all except staying out of the kitchen. That, from her nature, she could not and would not do. Consequently she was constantly changing cooks, and frequently took the helm herself, to the great disgust of her husband, who managed at last to imbue her with his own ideas of things. In course of time most of the neighbors who had any claim to society called at the park, and among them Mrs. Crawford. But Mrs. Tracy had then reached a point from which she looked down upon one who had been housekeeper where she was now mistress, and whose daughter's good name was under a cloud, as there were some who did not believe that Harold Hastings had ever made her his wife. When told that Mrs. Crawford had asked for her Mrs. Tracy sent word that she was engaged, and that if Mrs. Crawford pleased she would give her errand to the girl. 'I have no errand. I came to call,' was Mrs. Crawford's reply, and she never crossed the threshold of her old home again until the March winds were blowing and there was a little boy in the nursery at the park. At the last moment the expected nurse had fallen sick, and in his perplexity Mr. Tracy went to the cottage in the lane and begged of Mrs. Crawford to come and care for his wife. Mrs. Crawford was very proud, but she was poor, too, and as the price per week which Frank offered her was four times as much as she could earn by sewing, she consented at last and went as nurse to the sick-room, and the baby, Tom, on whose little red face she imprinted many a kiss for the sake of her daughter who was coming home in June, and over whom the shadow of hope and fear was hanging. Dolly Tracy's growth after it fairly commenced, was very rapid, and when Mrs. Crawford went to her as nurse she had three servants in her employ, besides the coachman, and was imitating Mrs. Atherton to the best of her ability; and when, early in the summer, she received the wedding cards of Edith Hastings, the young lady from Collingwood, who had married a Mr. St. Claire instead of her guardian, she felt that her position was assured, and from that time her progress was onward and upward until the October morning, ten years later, when our story proper opens, and we see her standing upon the piazza of her handsome house, with every sign of wealth and luxury about her person, from the silken robe to the jewels upon her soft, white hands, which once had washed her own dishes, and canned berries in her own kitchen, where she had received Grace Atherton, with her sleeves above her elbows. There were five servants in the house now, and they ran over and against each other, and quarrelled, and gossipped, and worried her life nearly out of her, until she was sometimes tempted to send them away and do the work herself. But she was far too great a lady for that. She dressed in silk and satin every day, and drove in her handsome carriage, with her driver and footman in tall hats and long coats. She was thoroughly up in etiquette, and did not need Susan to tell her what to do. She knew all about visiting cards, and dinner cards, and cards of acceptance, and regret, and condolence, and she read much oftener than she did her Bible a book entitled 'Habits of Good Society.' Three children played in the nursery now, Tom, and Jack, and baby Maude, and she kept a nurse constantly for them, and strove with all her might to instil into their infant minds that they were the Tracys of Tracy Park, and entitled to due respect from their inferiors; and Tom, the boy of ten and a half, had profited by her teaching, and was the veriest little braggart in all Shannondale, boasting of his father's house, and his father's money, without a word of the Uncle Arthur wandering no one knew where, or cared particularly for that matter. Arthur had never been home since the day he quitted it to look after Amy Crawford, now lying in the grave-yard of Shannondale, under the shadow of the tall monument which Arthur's money had bought. At first he had written frequently to Mrs. Crawford, and occasionally to his brother, and his agent, Mr. Colvin; then his letters came very irregularly, and sometimes a year would intervene between them. Then he would write every week, and he once told them not to be anxious if they did not hear from him in a long time, as in case of his death he had arranged to have the news communicated to his friends at once. After this letter nothing had been heard from him for more than two years, until the morning when his telegram came and so greatly disturbed the mental equilibrium of Mr. Frank Tracy that for an hour or more he sat staring into the street in a bewildered kind of way, wondering what would be the result of his brother's return, and if he should be required to give up the investments he had made from the exorbitant sum he had charged for looking after the place. Once he thought he would ask Colvin's opinion; but he was a little afraid of the old man, who had sometimes hinted that his salary was far greater than the services rendered, but as Mr. Arthur, to whom he made reports of the expenditures, had never objected, it was not for him to do so, he said. And still Frank distrusted him, and decided that, on the whole, his better plan was to wait, or at least to consult no one but his wife, and he was glad when lunch-time came, and he started home, where preparations were going forward for the first large party they had ever given.	{ "id": "15321" }
5	AT THE PARK.	Frank Tracy had at first grown faster than his wife, and the change in his manner had been more perceptible; for with all her foolishness Dolly had a kind heart, and a keen sense of right, and wrong, and justice than her husband. She had opposed him stoutly when he raised his own salary from $4,000 to $6,000 a year, on the plea that his services were worth it, and that two thousand more or less was nothing to Arthur; and when he was a candidate for the Legislature she had protested loudly against his inviting to the house and giving beer and cider to the men whose votes he wanted, and for whom as men he did not care a farthing; but when he came up for Congress she forgot all her scruples, and was as anxious as himself to please those who could help him secure the nomination and afterward the election. It was she who had proposed the party, to which nearly everybody was to be invited, from old Peterkin, with his powerful influence among a certain class, and Widow Shipleigh with her four sons, to Mr. and Mrs. St. Claire, from Grassy Spring, Squire Harrington, from Collingwood, and Grace Atherton, from Brier Hill. Very few who could in any way help Frank to a seat in Congress were omitted from the list, whether Republican or Democrat, for Frank was popular with both parties and expected help from both. Over three hundred cards had been issued for the party, which was the absorbing topic of conversation in the whole town, and which brought white kids and white muslins into great requisition, while swallow-tails and non swallow-tails were discussed in the privacy of households, and discarded or decided upon according to the length of the masculine purse or the strength of the masculine resistance, for dress coats were not then the rule in Shannondale. It was said that Mr. St. Claire and Squire Harrington always wore them to dinner, but they were the nobility _par excellence_ of the town, and were expected to do things differently from the middle class, who had their bread to earn. Old Peterkin, however, whom Frank in his soliloquy, had designated a _canal bummer_, had become a rich man, and was resolved to show that he knew what was _au fait_ for the occasion; a new suit throughout, in the very latest style, was in progress of making for him, and he had been heard to say that 'Tracy should have his vote and that of fifty more of the boys to pay for his ticket to the doin's'. This speech, which was reported to Mrs. Tracy, reconciled her to the prospect of receiving as a guest the coarsest, roughest man in town, whose only recommendation was his money and the brute influence he exercised over a certain class. Dolly has scarcely slept for excitement since the party had been decided upon, and everything seemed to be moving on very smoothly and in order. They were to have music, and flowers, and a caterer from Springfield, where a lovely party-dress for herself of peach-blow satin was making, and nothing occurred of any importance to disturb her until the morning of the day appointed for the party, when it seemed as if every evil culminated at once. First, the colored boy who was to wait in the upper hall came down with measles. Then Grace Atherton drove round in her carriage to say that it would be impossible for her to be present, as she had received news from New York which made it necessary for her to go there by the next train. She was exceedingly sorry, she said, and for once in her life Grace was sincere. She _was_ anxious to attend the party, for, as she said to Edith St. Claire in confidence, she wanted to see old Peterkin in his swallow-tail and white vest, with a shirt-front as big as a platter. There was a great deal of sarcasm and ridicule in Grace Atherton's nature, but at heart she was kind and meant to be just, and after a fashion really liked Mrs. Tracy, to whom she had been of service in various ways, helping her to fill her new position more gracefully than she could otherwise have done, and enlightening her without seeming to do so on many points which puzzled her sorely; on the whole they were good friends, and, after expressing her regret that she could not be present in the evening, Grace stood a few moments chatting familiarly and offering to send over flowers from her greenhouse, and her own maid to arrange Mrs. Tracy's hair and assist her in dressing. Then she took her leave, and it was her carriage Mrs. Tracy was watching as it went down the avenue, when little Harold Hastings appeared around the corner of the house, and, coming up the steps, took off his cap respectfully as he said: 'Grandma sends you her compliments, and is very sorry that she has rheumatism this morning and cannot come to-night to help you. She thinks, perhaps, you can get Mrs. Mosher.' 'Your grandmother can't come, when I depended so much upon her, and she thinks I can get Mrs. Mosher, that termagant, who would raise a mutiny in the kitchen in an hour!' Mrs. Tracy said this so sharply that a flush mounted to the handsome face of the boy, who felt as if he were in some way a culprit and being reprimanded. 'She _must_ come, if she does nothing but sit in the kitchen and keep order,' was Mrs. Tracy's next remark. 'She can't,' Harold replied; 'her foot and ankle is all swelled and aches so she almost cries. She is awful sorry, and so am I, for I was coming with her to see the show.' This speech put a new idea into Mrs. Tracy's mind, and she said to the boy: 'How would you like to come anyway, and stay in the upper hall, and tell the people where to go? The boy I engaged has disappointed me. You are rather small for the place, but I guess you'll do, and I will give you fifty cents.' 'I'd like it first-rate,' Harold said, his face brightening at the thought of earning fifty cents and seeing the show at the same time. Half-dollars were not very plentiful with Harold, and he was trying to save enough to buy his grandmother a pair of spectacles, for he had heard her say that she could not thread her needle as readily as she once did, and must have glasses as soon as she had the money to spare. Harold had seen a pair at the drug-store for one dollar, and, without knowing at all whether they would fit his grandmother's eyes or not, had asked the druggist to keep them until he had the required amount. Fifty cents would just make it, and he promised at once that he would come; but in an instant there fell a shadow upon his face as he thought of _Tom_, his tormentor, who worried him so much. 'What is it?' Mrs. Tracy asked, as she detected in him a disposition to reconsider. 'Will Tom be up in the hall?' Harold asked. 'Of course not,' Mrs. Tracy replied. 'He will be in the parlors until ten o'clock, and then he will go to bed. Why do you ask?' 'Because,' Harold answered fearlessly, 'if he was to be there I could not come; he chaffs me so and twits me with being poor and living in a house his uncle gave us.' 'That is very naughty in him, and I will see that he behaves better in future,' said Mrs. Tracy, rather amused than other wise at the boy's frankness. As the mention of the uncle reminded Harold of the telegram, he took it from his pocket and handed it to her. 'Mr. Tracy said I was to bring you this. It's from Mr. Arthur, and he's coming to-night. I'm so glad, and grandma will be, too!' If Mrs. Tracy heard the last of Harold's speech she did not heed it, for she had caught the words that Arthur was coming that night, and, for a moment, she felt giddy and faint, and her hand shook so she could scarcely open the telegram. Arthur had been gone so long and left them in undisputed possession of the park, that she had come to feel as if it belonged to them by right, and she had grown so into a life of ease and luxury, that to give it up now and go back to Langley seemed impossible to her. She could see it all so plainly--the old life of obscurity and toil in the little kitchen where she had eaten her breakfast on winter mornings so near the stove that she could cook her buckwheats on the griddle and transfer them to her own and her husband's plates without leaving her seat. She had been happy, or comparatively so there, she said to herself, because she knew no better. But now she did know better, and she ate her breakfast in an oak-paneled dining-room, with a waitress at her elbow, and her buckwheats hot from a silver dish instead of the smoking griddle. She had a governess for her two boys, Tom and Jack, and a nurse for her little Maude, who, in her ambitious heart, she hoped would one day marry Dick St. Clair, the young heir of Grassy Spring. It never occurred to Dolly that they might possibly remain at the park if Arthur did come home. She felt sure they could not, for Arthur would hardly approve of his brother's stewardship when he came to realize how much it had cost him. They would have to leave, and this party she was giving would be her first and last at Tracy Park. How she wished she had never thought of it, or, having thought of it, that she had omitted from the list those who, she knew, would be obnoxious to the foreign brother, and who had only been invited for the sake of their political influence, which would now be useless, for Frank Tracy as a nobody, with very little money to spend, would not run as well, even in his own party, as Frank Tracy of Tracy Park, with thousands at his command if he chose to take them. 'It is too bad, and I wish we could give up the party,' she said aloud, forgetting in her excitement that Harold was still standing there, gazing curiously at her. 'You here yet? I thought you had gone!' she said, half angrily, as she recovered herself a little and met the boy's wondering eyes. 'Yes'm; but you ain't going to give the party up?' he said, afraid of losing his half-dollar. 'Of course not. How can I, with all the people invited?' she asked, questioningly, and a little less sharply. 'I don't know, unless I get a pony and go round and tell 'em not to come,' Harold suggested, thinking he might earn his fifty cents as easily that way as any other. But, much as Mrs. Tracy wished the party had never been thought of, she could not now abandon it, and declining the services of Harold and his pony, she again bade him go home, with a charge that he should be on time in the evening, adding, as she surveyed him critically: 'If you have no clothes suitable, you can wear some of Tom's. You are about his size.' 'Thank you; I have my meetin' clothes, and do not want Tom's,' was Harold's reply, as he walked away, thinking he would go in rags before he would wear anything which belonged to his enemy, Tom Tracy. The rest of the morning was passed by Mrs. Frank in a most unhappy frame of mind, and she was glad when, at an hour earlier than she had reason to expect him, her husband came home. 'Well, Dolly,' he said, the moment they were alone, 'this is awfully unlucky, the whole business. If Arthur must come home, why couldn't he have written in advance, and not take us by surprise? Looks as if he meant to spring a trap on us, don't it? And if he did, by Jove, he has caught us nicely. It will be somewhat like the prodigal son, who heard the sound of music and dancing, only I don't suppose Arthur has spent his substance in riotous living, with not over nice people; but there is no telling what he has been up to all these years that he has not written to us. Perhaps he is married. He said in his telegram, "Send to meet _us_." What does that mean, if not a wife?' 'A wife! Oh, Frank!' and with a great gasp Dolly sank down upon the lounge near where she was standing, and actually went into the hysterics her husband had prophesied. In reading the telegram she had not noticed the little monosyllable '_us_,' which was now affecting her so powerfully. Of course it meant a wife and possibly children, and her day was surely over at Tracy Park. It was in vain that her husband tried to comfort her, saying that they knew nothing positively, except that Arthur was coming home and somebody was coming with him; it might be a friend, or, what was more likely, it might be a valet; and at all events he was not going to cross Fox River till he reached it, when he might find a bridge across it. But Frank's reasoning did not console his wife, whose hysterical fit was succeeded by a racking headache, which by night was almost unbearable. Strong coffee, aconite, brandy, and belladonna, were all tried without effect. Nothing helped her until she commenced her toilet, when in the excitement of dressing she partly forgot her disquietude, and the pain in her head grew leas. Still she was conscious of a feeling of wretchedness and regret as she sat in her handsome boudoir and felt that it might be for the last time--that on the morrow another would be mistress where she had reigned so long. It was known in the house that Arthur was expected, and some one with him, but no hint had been given of a wife, and Mrs. Tracy had ordered separate rooms prepared for the strangers, who were to arrive on the half-past ten train. How she should manage to keep up and appear natural until that time Mrs. Tracy did not know, and her face and eyes wore an anxious, frightened look, which all her finery could not hide. And still she was really very handsome and striking in her dress of peach blow satin, and the bare arms which had once been more familiar with soap-suds and dishwater than lace and gold bracelets, looked very fair and girlish when at last she descended to the drawing-room and stood waiting for the first ring which would open the party.	{ "id": "15321" }
6	THE COTTAGE IN THE LANE.	It was called thus because it stood at the end of a broad, grassy avenue or lane, which led from the park to the entrance of the grounds of Collingwood, whose chimneys and gables were distinctly visible in the winter when the trees were stripped of their foliage. At the time when Mrs. Crawford took possession of it its color was red, but the storms and rains of eleven summers and winters had washed nearly all the red away; and as Mrs. Crawford had never had the money to spare for its repainting, it would have presented a brown and dingy appearance outwardly, but for the luxurious woodbine, which she had trained with so much care and skill that it covered nearly three sides of the cottage, and made a gorgeous display in the autumn, when the leaves had turned a bright scarlet. Thanks to the thoughtfulness of Arthur Tracy, the cottage was furnished comfortably and even prettily when Mrs. Crawford entered it, and it was from the same kind friend that her resources mostly had come up to the day when, three years after her marriage, Amy Hastings came home to die, bringing with her a little two-year-old boy, whom, she called Harold, for his father. Just where the father was, if indeed he were living, she did not know. He had left her in London six months before, saying he was going over to Paris for a few days, and should be back almost before she had time to miss him. Just before he left her he said to her, playfully: 'Cheer up, _petite_. I have not been quite as regular in my habits as I ought to have been, but London is not the place for a man of my tastes--too many temptations for a fellow like me. When I come back we will go into the country, where you can have a garden, with flowers and chickens, and grow fat and pretty again. You are not much like the girl I married. Good-bye.' He kissed her and the baby, and went whistling down the stairs. She never saw him again, and only heard from him once. Then he was in Paris, and had decided to go for a week to Pau, where he said they were having such fine fox hunts. Weeks went by and he never wrote nor came, and Amy would have been utterly destitute and friendless but for Arthur Tracy, who, when her need was greatest, went to her, telling her that he had never been far from her, but had watched over her vigilantly to see that no harm came to her. When her husband went to Paris he knew it through a detective, and from the same source knew when he went to Pau, where all trace of him had been lost. 'But we are sure to find him again,' he said, encouragingly; 'and meantime I shall see that you do not suffer. As an old friend of your husband, you will allow me to care for you until he is found.' And Amy, who had no alternative, accepted his care, and tried to seem cheerful and brave while waiting for the husband who never came back. At last when all hope of seeing him again was gone, Arthur sent her home to the cottage in the lane, where her mother received her gladly, thanking Heaven that she had her daughter back again. But not for long. Poor Amy's heart was broken. She loved her husband devotedly, and his cruel desertion of her--for she knew now it was that--hurt her more than years of suffering with him could have done. Occasionally she heard from Arthur, who was still busy in search of the delinquent, and who always sent in his letter a substantial proof of his friendship and generosity. And so the weeks and months went by; and then, one day, there came a letter in the well-known handwriting. But it was Mrs. Crawford who opened it and read that Harold Hastings was dead: that Amy was free, and that Arthur Tracy, who through all had loved her just as well as when he first asked her to be his wife, now put the question again, offering to make her the mistress of Tracy Park and surround her with every possible comfort. 'Say yes, darling Amy,' he wrote, 'and we may yet be very happy. I will be a good husband to you and a father to your child, who shall share my fortune as if he were my own. Answer at once, telling me to come, and, before you know it I shall be there to claim you for my wife.' With a low moan, Mrs. Crawford hid her face in her hands and sobbed aloud, for the Amy who might have been the honored wife of Arthur Tracy lay dead in her coffin; and that day they buried her under the November snow, which was falling in great sheets upon the frozen ground. What Arthur felt when he heard the news no one ever knew, for he made no sign to any one, but at once gave orders to Colvin that a costly monument should be placed at her grave, with only this inscription upon it: AMY _Aged_ 23. Of course the low-minded people talked, and Mrs. Crawford knew they did; but her heart was too full of sorrow to care what was said. Her beautiful daughter was dead, and she was alone with the little boy, the child Harold, who had inherited his mother's beauty, with all her lovely traits of character. Had Mrs. Crawford consented, Arthur would have supported him entirely; but she was too proud for that. She would take care of him herself as long as possible, she wrote him, but if, when Harold was older, he chose to educate him, she would offer no objection. And there the matter dropped, and Mrs. Crawford struggled on as best she could, sometimes going out to do plain sewing, sometimes taking it home, sometimes going to people's houses to superintend when they had company, and sometimes selling fruit and flowers from the garden attached to the cottage. But whatever she did, she was always the same quiet, lady-like woman, who commanded the respect of all, and who, poor as she was, was held in high esteem by the better class in Shannondale. Grace Atherton's carriage and that of Edith St. Claire stood oftener before her door than that at Tracy Park; and though the ladies came mostly on business, they found themselves lingering after the business was over to talk with one who, in everything save money, was their equal. Harold was his grandmother's idol. For him she toiled and worked, feeling more than repaid for all she did by his love and devotion to her. And Harold was a noble little fellow, full of manly instincts, and always ready to deny himself for the sake of others. That he and his grandmother were poor he knew, but he had never felt the effects of their poverty, save when Tom Tracy had jeered at him for it, and called him a pauper. There had been one square fight between the two boys, in which Harold had been the victor, with only a torn jacket, while Tom's eye had been black for a week, and Mrs. Tracy had gone to the cottage to complain and insist that Harold should be punished. But when she heard that Dick St. Claire had assisted in the fray, taking Harold's part, and himself dealing Tom the blow which blackened his eye, she changed her tactics, for she did not care to quarrel with Mrs. Arthur St. Claire, of Grassy Spring. Harold and Richard St. Claire, or Dick, as he was familiarly called, were great friends, and if the latter knew there was a difference between himself and the child of poverty he never manifested it, and played far oftener with Harold than with Tom, whose domineering disposition and rough manners were distasteful to him. That Harold would one day be obliged to earn his living, Mrs. Crawford knew, but he was still too young for anything of that kind; and when Grace Atherton, or Mrs. St. Claire offered him money for the errands he sometimes did for them, she steadily refused to let him take it. Had she known of Mrs. Tracy's proposition that he should be present at the party as hall-boy, she would have declined, for though she could go there herself as an employee, she shrank from suffering Harold to do so. That Mrs. Tracy was not a lady, she knew, and in her heart there was always a feeling of superiority to the woman even while she served her, and she was not as sorry, perhaps, as she ought to have been, for the attack of rheumatism which would prevent her from going to the park to take charge of the kitchen during the evening. 'I am sorry to disappoint her, but I am glad not to be there,' she was thinking to herself as she sat in her bright, cheerful kitchen, waiting for Harold, when he burst in upon her, exclaiming: 'Oh, grandma, only think! I am invited to the party, and I told her I'd go, and I am to be there at half-past seven sharp, and to wear my meetin' clothes.' 'Invited to the party! What do you mean? Only grown up people are to be there,' Mrs. Crawford said. 'Yes, I know;' replied Harold, 'but I'm not to be with the _grown-ups_. I'm to stay in the upper hall and tell 'em where to go.' 'Oh, you are to be a _waiter_,' was Mrs. Crawford's rather contemptuous remark, which Harold did not heed in his excitement. 'Yes, I'm to be at the head of the stairs, and somebody else at the bottom; and they are to have fiddlin and dancin'; I've never seen anybody dance; and ice-cream and cake, with something like plaster all over it, and oranges and grapes, and, oh, everything! Dick St. Claire told me; he knows; his mother has had parties, and she's going to-night, and her gown is crimson velvet, with black and white fur in it like our cat, only they don't call it that; and--oh, I forgot--they have had a telegraph, and I took it to Mrs. Tracy, who looked mad and almost cried when she read it, Mr. Arthur Tracy is coming home to-night.' Harold had talked so fast that his grandmother could hardly follow him, but she understood what he said last, and started as if he had struck her a blow. 'Arthur Tracy! Coming home to-night!' she exclaimed. 'Oh, I am so glad, so glad.' 'But Mrs. Tracy did not seem to be, and I guess she wanted to stop the party,' Harold said, repeating as nearly as he could what had passed between him and the lady. Harold was full of the party to which he believed he had been invited, and when in the afternoon Dick St. Claire came to the cottage to play with him, he felt a kind of patronizing pity for his friend who was not to share his honor. 'Perhaps mother will let me come over and help you,' Dick said, 'I know how they do it. You mustn't talk to the people as they come up the stairs, nor even say good-evening, only; '"Ladies will please walk this way, and gentlemen that!" And Dick went through with a pantomime performance for the benefit of Harold, who, when the drill was over, felt himself competent to receive the Queen's guests at the head of the great staircase in Windsor Castle. 'Yes, I know,' he said, '"Ladies this way, and gentlemen that;" but when am I to go down and see the dancing and get some ice-cream?' On this point Dick was doubtful. He did not believe, he said, that waiters ever went down to see the dancing, or to get ice cream, until the party was over, and then they ate it in the kitchen, if there was any left. This was not a cheerful outlook for Harold, whose thoughts were more intent upon cream and dancing than upon showing the people where to go, and it was also the second time the word waiter had been used in connection with what he was expected to do. But Harold was too young to understand that he was not of the party itself. Later on it would come to him fast enough, that he was only a part of the machinery which moved the social engine. Now, he felt like the engine itself, and long before six o'clock he was dressed, and waiting anxiously for his grandmother's permission to start.' 'I'll tell you all about it,' he said to her. 'What they do, and what they say, and what they wear, and if I can, I'll speak to Mr. Arthur Tracy and thank him for mother's grave-stone.' By seven o'clock he was on his way to the park, walking rapidly, and occasionally saying aloud with a gesture of his hand to the right and the left, and a bow almost to the ground. 'Ladies this way,' and 'gentlemen that.' When he reached the house the gas-jets had just been turned up, and every window was ablaze with light from the attic to the basement. 'My eye! ain't it swell!' Harold said to himself, as he stood a moment, looking at the brilliantly lighted rooms. 'Don't I wish I was rich and could burn all that gas, and maybe I shall be. Grandma says Mr. Arthur Tracy was once a poor boy like me; only he had an uncle and I haven't. I've got do earn my money, and I mean to, and sometimes, maybe, I'll have a house us big as this, and just such a party, with a boy up stairs to tell 'em where to go. I wonder now if I'm expected to go into the kitchen door. Of course not, I've got on my Sunday clothes, and am invited to the party. I shall ring,' And he did ring--a sharp, loud ring, which made Mrs. Tracy, who had not yet left her room, start nervously as she wondered who had come so early. 'Old Peterkin, of course. Those whom you care for least always come first.' Peering over the banister Tom Tracy saw Harold when the door was opened, and screaming to his mother at the top of his voice, 'It ain't old Peterkin, mother; it's Hall Hastings, come to the front door,' he ran down the stairs, and confronting the intruder just as he was crossing the threshold, exclaimed: 'Go 'long; go back. You hain't no business ringin' the bell as if you was a gentleman. Go to the kitchen door with the other servants!' With a thrust of the hand he pushed Harold back and was about to shut the door upon him when, with a quick, dextrous movement, Harold darted past him into the hall, saying, as he did so: 'Darn you, Tom Tracy, I won't go to the back kitchen door, and I'm not a servant, and if you call me so again I'll lick you!' How the matter would have ended is doubtful, if Mrs. Tracy had not called from the head of the stairs: 'Thomas! Thomas Tracy! I am ashamed of you! Come to me this minute! And you, boy, go to the kitchen; or, no--now you are here, come up stairs, and I'll tell you what you are to do.' Her directions were much like those of Dick St. Claire, except that she laid more stress upon the fact that he was not to speak to any one familiarly, but was to be in all respects a machine. Just what she meant by that Harold did not know; but he hung his cap on a bracket, and taking his place where she told him to stand, watched her admiringly as she went down the staircase, with her peach-blow satin trailing behind her, and followed, by her husband, who looked and felt anxious and ill at ease. Tom had disappeared, but his younger brother, Jack, who was wholly unlike him, came to Harold's side, and began telling him what quantities of good things there were in the dining-room and pantry, and that his Uncle Arthur was coming home that night, and his mother was so glad, she cried; then, with a spring he mounted upon the banister of the long staircase and slipped swiftly to the bottom. Ascending the stairs almost as quickly as he had gone down, he bade Harold try it with him. 'It's such fun! and mother won't care. I've done it forty times,' he said, as Harold demurred; and then, as the temptation became too strong to be resisted, two boys instead of one rode down the banister and landed in the lower hall, and two pairs of little legs ran nimbly up the stairs just as the door opened and admitted the first arrival.	{ "id": "15321" }
7	THE PARTY.	The invitations had been for half-past seven, and precisely at that hour Peterkin arrived, magnificent in his swallow-tail and white shirt front, where an enormous diamond shone conspicuously. With him came the second Mrs. Peterkin, whose name was Mary Jane, but whom her husband always called _May_ Jane. She was a frail, pale faced little woman, and had once been Grace Atherton's maid, but had married Peterkin for his money. This was her first appearance at a grand party, and in her excitement and timidity she did not hear Harold's thrice repeated words, 'Ladies go that way,' but followed her husband into the gentlemen's dressing-room, where she deposited her wraps, and then, shaking in every limb, descended to the drawing-room, where Peterkin's boisterous laugh was soon heard, as he slapped his host on the shoulder, and said: 'You see, we are here on time, though May Jane said it was too early. But I s'posed half-past seven meant half-past seven and then I wanted a little time to talk up the ropes with you. We are going to run you in, you bet!' and again his coarse laugh thrilled every nerve in Mrs. Tracy's body, and she longed for fresh arrivals to help quiet this vulgar man. Soon they began to come by twos, and threes, and sixes, and Harold was kept busy with his 'Ladies this way, and gentlemen that.' After Mrs. Peterkin had gone down stairs, leaving her wraps in the gentlemen's rooms, Harold, who knew they did not belong there, had carried them to the ladies' room and deposited them upon the bed, just as the girl who was to be in attendance appeared at her post, asked him sharply why he was in there rummaging the ladies' things. 'I'm not rummaging. They are Mrs. Peterkin's. She left them in the other room, and I brought them here,' Harold said, as he returned to the hall, never dreaming that this little circumstance, trivial as it seemed, would be one of the links in the chain of evidence which must for a time overshadow him so darkly. Now, he was eager and excited, and interested in watching the people as they came up the stairs and went down again. With the quick instinct of a bright, intelligent boy, he decided who was accustomed to society and who was not, and leaning over the banister when not on duty, watched them when they entered the drawing-room and were received by Mr. and Mrs. Tracy. Unconsciously he began to imitate them, bowing when they bowed, and saying softly to himself: 'Oh, how do you do? Good evening. Happy to see you. Pleasant to-night. Walk in. Ye-as!' This was the monosyllable with which he finished every sentence, and was the affirmation to the thought in his mind that he, too, would some day go down those stairs and into those parlors as a guest, while some other boy in the upper hall bade the ladies go this way and the gentlemen that. It was after nine when Mr. and Mrs. St. Claire arrived, with Squire Harrington, from Collingwood. Harold had been looking for them, anxious to see the crimson satin trimmed with ermine, of which Dick had told him. Many of the guests he had mentally criticised unsparingly, but Mrs. St. Claire, he knew, was genuine, and his face beamed, when in passing him, she smiled upon him with her sweet, gracious manner, and said, pleasantly: 'Good evening, Harold. I knew you were to be here. Dick told me, and he wanted to come and assist you, but I thought he'd better stay home with Nina.' Up to this time no one had spoken to Harold, and he had spoken to no one except to tell them where to go, but had, as far as possible, followed Mrs. Tracy's injunction to be a machine. But the machine was getting a little tired. It was hard work to stand for two hours or more, and Mrs. Tracy had impressed it upon him that he was not to sit down. But when Mrs. St. Claire came from the dressing-room and stood before him a moment in her crimson satin and pearls, he forgot his weariness and forgot that he was not to talk, and said to her, involuntarily: 'Oh, Mrs. St. Claire, how handsome you look! Handsomer than anybody yet, and different, too, somehow.' Edith knew the compliment was genuine, and she replied: 'Thank you, Harold,' then, laying her hand on the boy's head and parting his soft, brown hair, she said, as she noticed a look of fatigue in his eyes, 'are you not tired, standing so long? Why don't you bring a chair from one of the rooms and sit when you can?' 'She told me to stand,' Harold replied, nodding toward the parlors, from which a strain of music then issued. The dancing had commenced, and Harold's feet and hands beat time to the lively strains of the piano and violin, until he could contain himself no longer. The dancing he must see at all hazards and know what it was like, and when the last guests came up the stairs there was no hall boy there to tell them, 'Ladies this way, gentlemen that,' for Harold was in the thickest of the crowd, standing on a chair so as to look over the heads of those in front of him and see the dancers. But, alas, for poor Harold! He was soon discovered by Mrs. Tracy, who, asking him if he did not know his place better than that, ordered him back to his post, where he was told to stay until the party was over. Wholly unconscious of the nature of his offence, but very sorry that he had offended, Harold went up the stairs, wondering why he could not see the dancing, and how long the party would last. His head was beginning to ache with the glare and gas; his little legs were tired, and he was growing sleepy. Surely he might sit down now, particularly as Mrs. St. Claire had suggested it, and bringing himself a chair from one of the rooms he sat down in a corner of the hall and was soon in a sound sleep, from which, however, he was roused by the sound of Mr. Tracy's voice, as he came up the stairs, followed by a tall, distinguished-looking man, who wore a Spanish cloak wrapped gracefully around him, and a large, broad-brimmed hat drawn down so closely, as to hide his features from view. As he reached the upper landing he raised his head, and Harold, who was now wide awake and standing up, caught a glimpse of a thin, pale face and a pair of keen, black eyes, which seemed for an instant to take everything in; than the head was dropped, and the two men disappeared in a room at the far end of the hall. 'I'll bet that's Mr. Arthur. How grand he is! looks just like a pirate in that cloak and hat,' was Harold's mental comment. Before he had time for further thought, Frank Tracy came from the room and hurried down the stairs to rejoin his guests. Five minutes later and the door at the end of the long hall which communicated with the back staircase and the rear of the house, opened, and a man whom Harold recognized as the expressman from the station appeared with a huge trunk on his shoulder and a large valise in his hand. These he deposited in the stranger's room and then went back for more, until four had been carried in. But when he came with the fifth and largest of all, a hand, white and delicate as a woman's, was thrust from the door-way with an imperative gesture, and a voice with a decided foreign accent exclaimed: 'For heaven's sake, don't bring any more boxes in here. Why, I am positively stumbling over them now. Surely there must be some place in the house for my luggage besides my private apartment.' Then the door was shut with a bang, and Harold heard the sliding of the bolt as Arthur Tracy fastened himself in his room.	{ "id": "15321" }
8	ARTHUR.	All the time that Frank Tracy had been receiving his guests and trying to seem happy and at his ease, his thoughts had been dwelling upon his brother's telegram and the ominous words, 'Send some one to meet us.' How slowly the minutes dragged until it was ten o'clock, and he knew that John had started for the station to meet the dreaded '_us_.' He had told everybody that he was expecting his long-absent brother, and had tried to seem glad on account of it. 'You and he were great friends, I believe,' he said to Squire Harrington. 'Yes, we were friends,' the latter replied; 'but when he lived here my health was such that I did not mingle much in society. I met him, however, in Paris four years ago, and found him very companionable and quite Europeanized in his manner and tastes. He spoke French or German altogether, and might easily have passed for a foreigner. I shall be glad to see him.' 'And so shall I,' chimed in Peterkin, whose voice was like a trumpet and could be heard everywhere. 'A first-rate chap, though we didn't use to hitch very well together. He was all-fired big feelin', and them days Peterkin was nowhere; but circumstances alter cases. He'll be glad to see me now, no doubt;' and with the most satisfied air the half millionaire put his hand as if by accident to his immense diamond pin, and pulling down his swallow-tail, walked away. Frank saw the faint smile of contempt which showed itself in Squire Harrington's face, and his own grew red with shame, but paled almost instantly as the outer door was opened by some one who did not seem to think it necessary to ring; and a stranger, in Spanish cloak and broad-brimmed hat, stepped into the hall. Arthur had come, and was _alone_. The train had been on time, and at just half-past ten the long line of cars stopped before the Shannondale station, where John, the coachman from Tracy Park, was waiting. The night was dark, but by the light from the engine and the office John saw the foreign-looking stranger, who stepped upon the platform, and felt sure it was his man. But there was no one with him, though it seemed as if he were expecting some one to follow him from the car as he stood for a moment waiting. Then, as the train moved on, he turned with a puzzled look upon his face to meet John, who said to him, respectfully: 'Are you Mr. Arthur Tracy?' 'Yes; who are you?' was the not very cordial response. 'Mr. Frank Tracy sent me from the park to fetch you,' John replied. 'I think he expected some one with you. Are you alone?' 'Yes--no, no!' and Arthur's voice indicated growing alarm and uneasiness as he looked rapidly around him, 'Where is she? Didn't you see her? She was with me all the way. Surely she got off when I did. Where can she have gone?' He was greatly excited, and kept peering through the darkness as he talked; while John, a good deal puzzled, looked curiously at him, as if uncertain whether he were in his right mind or not. 'Was there some one with you in the car?' he asked. 'Yes, in the car, and in New York, and on the ship. She was with me all the way,' Mr. Tracy replied. 'It is strange where she is now. Did no one alight from the train when I did?' 'No one,' John answered, more puzzled than ever.... 'I was looking for you, and there was no one else. She may have fallen asleep and been carried by.' 'Yes, probably that is it,' Mr. Tracy said, more cheerfully, 'she was asleep and carried by. She will come back to-morrow.' He seemed quite content with this solution of the mystery, and began to talk of his luggage, which lay upon the platform--a pile so immense that John looked at it in some alarm, knowing that the carriage could never take it all. 'Eight trunks, two portmanteaus, and a hat-box!' he said, aloud, counting the pieces. 'Yes, and a nice sum those rascally agents in New York made me pay for having them come with me,' Arthur rejoined. 'They weighed them all, and charged me a little fortune. I might as well have sent them by express; but I wanted them with me, and here they are. What will you do with them? This is hers,' and he designated a black trunk or box, longer and larger than two ordinary trunks ought to be. 'I can take one of them with the box and portmanteau, and the expressman will take the rest. He is here. Hallo, Brown,' John said, calling to a man in the distance, who came forward, and, on learning what was wanted, begun piling the trunks into his wagon, while Arthur followed John, to the carriage, which he entered, and, sinking into a seat, pulled his broad-brimmed hat over his face and eyes, and sat as motionless as if he had been a stone. For a moment John stood looking at him, wondering what manner of man he was, and thinking, too, of the woman who, he said, had been with him in the train, and who should have alighted with him. At last, remembering suddenly a message his master had given him, he began: 'If you please, sir, Mr. Tracy told me to tell you he was very sorry that he could not come himself to meet you. If he had known that you were coming sooner, he would have done different; but he did not get your telegram till this morning, and then it was too late to stop it. We are having a great break-down to-night.' During the first of these remarks Arthur had given no sign that he heard, but when John spoke of a break-down, he lifted his head quickly, and the great black eyes, which Harold noticed later as peculiar, flashed a look of inquiry upon John, as he said: 'Break-down? What is that!' 'A party--a smasher! Mr. Tracy is running for Congress.' was John's reply. And then over the thin face there crept a ghost of a smile, which, faint as it was, changed the expression wonderfully. 'Oh, a party!' he said. 'Well, I will be a guest, too. I have my dress-suit in some of those trunks. Frank is going to Congress, is he? That's a good joke! Drive on. What are you standing there for?' The carriage door was shut, and, mounting the box, John drove as rapidly toward Tracy Park as the darkness of the night would admit, while the passenger inside sat with his hat over his eyes, and his chin almost touching his breast, as if absorbed in thought, or else not thinking at all. Once, however, he spoke to himself, and said: 'Poor little Gretchen! I wonder how I could have forgotten and left her in the train. What will she do alone in a strange place? But perhaps Heaven will take care of her. She always said so. I wish I had her faith and could believe as she does. Poor little Gretchen!' They had turned into the park by this time, and very soon draw up before the house, from every window of which lights were flashing, while the sounds of music and dancing could be distinctly heard. Something like Frank's idea came into Arthur's mind at the sight. 'It makes me think of the return of the prodigal, only I have not wasted my substance and my father does not come to meet me,' he said, as he descended from the carriage and went up the broad steps to the piazza, on which a few young people were walking, unmindful of the chill night air. 'I need not ring at my own house,' Arthur thought, as he opened the door and stepped into the hall; and thus it was that the first intimation which Frank had of his arrival was when he saw him standing in the midst of a crowd of people, who were gazing curiously at him. 'Arthur!' he exclaimed, rushing forward and taking his brother's hand. 'Welcome home again! I did not hear the carriage, though I was listening for it. I am so glad to see you! Come with me to your room;' and he led the way up stairs to the apartment prepared for the stranger. He had seen at a glance that Arthur was alone, unless, indeed, he had brought a servant who had gone to the side door; and thus relieved from a load of anxiety, he was very cordial in his manner, and began at once to make excuses for the party, repeating in substance what John had already said. 'Yes, I know; that fellow who drove me here told me,' Arthur said, throwing off his coat and hat, and beginning to lave his face, and neck, and hands in the cold water which he turned into the bowl until it was full to the brim, and splashed over the sides as he dashed it upon himself. All this time Frank had not seen his face distinctly, nor did he have an opportunity to do so until the ablutions were ended and Arthur had rubbed himself with, not one towel, but two, until it seemed as if he must have taken off the skin in places. Then he turned, and running his fingers through his luxuriant hair, which had a habit of curling around his forehead as in his boyhood, looked full at his brother, who saw that he was very pale and thin, and that his eyes were unnaturally large and bright, while there was about him an indescribable something which puzzled Frank a little. It was not altogether the air of foreign travel and cultivation which was so perceptible, but a something else--a restlessness and nervousness of speech and manner as he moved about the room, walking rapidly and gesticulating as he walked. 'You are looking thin and tired. Are you not well?' Frank asked. 'Oh, yes, perfectly well,' Arthur replied: 'only this infernal heat in my blood, which keeps me up to fever pitch all the time. I shall have to bathe my face again,' and, turning a second time to the bowl, he began to throw water over his face and hands as he had done before. 'I'd like a bath in ice water,' he said, as he began drying himself with a fresh towel. 'If I remember right, there is no bath-room on this floor, but I can soon have one built. I intend to throw down the wall between this room and the next, and perhaps the next, so as to have a suite.' He was asserting the ownership at once, and Frank had nothing to say, for his brother was master there, and had a right to tear the house down if he chose. The second washing must have cooled him, for there came a change in his manner, and he moved more slowly and spoke with greater deliberation, as he asked some questions about the people below. 'Will you come down by-and-bye,' Frank said, after having made some explanations with regard to his guests. 'No, you will have to excuse me,' Arthur replied. 'I am too tired to encounter old acquaintances or make new. I do not believe I could stand old Peterkin, who you say is a millionaire. I suppose you want his influence; your coachman told me you were running for Congress,' and Arthur laughed the old merry musical laugh which Frank remembered so well: then, suddenly changing his tune, he said: 'When does the next train from the East pass the station?' Frank told him at seven the next morning, and he continued: 'Please send the carriage to meet it. Gretchen will probably be there. She was in the train with me, and should have gotten out when I did, but she must have been asleep and carried by.' 'Gr-gr-gretchen! Who is she?' Frank stammered, while the cold sweat began to run down his back. The 'us' in the telegram did mean something, and mischief, too, to his interests, he felt intuitively. Instantly into Arthur's eyes there stole a look of cunning, and a peculiar smile played round his mouth as he replied: 'She is Gretchen. See that the carriage goes for her, will you?' His voice and manner indicated that he wished the conference ended, and with a great sinking at his heart Frank left the room and returned to his guests and his wife, who had not seen the stranger when he entered the hall, and thus did not know of Arthur's arrival until her husband rejoined her. 'He has come,' he whispered to her, while she whispered back: 'Is he alone?' 'Yes, but somebody is coming to-morrow; I do not know who; Gretchen, he calls her,' was Frank's reply. 'Gretchen!' Mrs. Tracy repeated, in a trembling voice. 'Who is she?' 'I don't know. He merely said she was Gretchen; his daughter, perhaps,' was Frank's answer, which sent the color from his wife's cheeks, and made her so faint and sick that she would have given much to be alone and think over this evil coming upon her the next day in the shape of the mysterious Gretchen. Meantime when left to himself, Arthur changed his mind with regard to going down into the parlors to see his brother's guests, and, unlocking the trunk which held his own wardrobe he took out an evening suit fresh from the hands of a London tailor, and, arraying himself in it, stood for a moment before the glass to see the effect. Everything was faultless, from his neck-tie to his boots; and, opening the door, he went out into the hall, which was empty, except for Harold, who was sitting near the stairs, half asleep again. Most of the guests were in the supper-room, but a few of the younger portion were dancing, and the strains of music were heard with great distinctness in the upper hall. 'Ugh!' Arthur said, with a shiver, as he stopped a moment to listen, while his quick eye took in every detail of the furniture and its arrangement in the hall. 'That violinist ought to be hung--the pianist, too! Don't they know what horrid discord they are making? It brings that heat back. I believe, upon my soul, I shall have to bathe my face again.' Suiting the action to the word, he went back and washed his face for the third time; then returning to the hall, he advanced toward Harold, who was now wide awake and stood up to meet him. As Arthur met the clear-brown eyes fixed so curiously upon him, he stopped suddenly, and put his hand to his head as if trying to recall something; then going a step or two nearer to Harold, he said: 'Well, my little boy, what are you doing up here?' 'Telling the folks which way to go,' was Harold's answer. 'Who are you?' Arthur continued. 'What is your name?' 'Harold Hastings,' was the reply; and instantly there came over the white, thin face, and into the large, bright eyes, an expression which made the boy stand back a little as the tall man came up to him and, laying a hand on his shoulder, said, excitedly: 'Harold Hastings! He was once my friend, or, I thought he was; but I hate him now. And he was your father, and Amy Crawford was your mother? _N'est ce pas? _ Answer me!' 'Yes, sir--yes, sir; but I don't know what you mean by "_na-se par_,"' Harold said, in a frightened voice; and Arthur continued, as he tightened his grasp on his shoulder: 'Don't you know you ought to have been my son, instead of his?' 'Yes, sir--yes, sir; I'll never do so again,' Harold stammered, too much alarmed now to know what he was saying, or of what he was accused. 'No, you never will do it again. I hated your father, and I hate you, and I am going to throw you over the stair railing!' Arthur said, and seizing Harold's coat-collar, he swung him over the banister as if he had been a feather, while the boy struggled and fought, and held onto the rails, until help appeared in the person of Frank Tracy, who came swiftly up the stairs, demanding the cause of what he saw. He had been standing near the drawing-room door, and had caught the sound of his brother's voice and Harold's as if in altercation. Excusing himself from those around him, he hastened to the scene of action in time to save Harold from a broken limb, if not a broken neck. 'What is it? What have you been doing?' he asked the boy, who replied, amid his tears: 'I hain't been doing anything, only minding my business, and he came and asked me who I was, and when I told him, he was going to chuck me over the railing--darn him! I wish I was big; I'd lick him!' Harold's cheeks were flushed, and the great tears glittered in his eyes, as he stood up, brave and defiant, and resentful of the injustice done him. 'Are you mad, Arthur?' Frank said. And whether it was the tone of his voice, or the words he uttered, something produced a wonderful effect upon his brother, whose mood changed at once, and who advanced toward Harold with outstretched hand, saying to him: 'Forgive me, my little man. I think I must have been mad for the instant; there is such a heat in my head, and the crash of that music almost drives me wild. Shall it be peace between us, my boy?' It was next to impossible to resist the influence of Arthur Tracy's smile, and Harold took the offered hand and said, between a sob and a laugh: 'I don't know now why you wanted to throw me down stairs.' 'Nor I, and I will make it up to you some time,' was Arthur's reply, as he took his brother's arm and said: 'Now introduce me to your guests.' The moment the gentlemen disappeared from view Harold's resolution was taken. He was of no use there any longer, as he could see. It was nearly midnight. He was very tired and sleepy, and his head was aching terribly. He could not see the dancing. He had had nothing to eat; he had stood until his legs were ready to drop off, and to crown all a lunatic had tried to throw him over the banister. 'I won't stay here another minute,' he said. And leaving the hall by the rear entrance, and slipping down a back stairway, he was soon in the open air, and running swiftly through the park toward the cottage in the lane. Meanwhile the two brothers had descended to the drawing-room, where Arthur was soon surrounded by his friends and old acquaintances, whom he greeted with that cordiality and friendliness of manner which had made him so popular with those who knew him best. Every trace of excitement had disappeared, and had he been master of ceremonies himself, at whose bidding the guests were there, he could not have been more gracious or affable. Even old Peterkin, when he came into notice, was treated with a consideration which put that worthy man at ease, and set his tongue again in motion. At first he had felt a little overawed by Arthur's elegant appearance, and had whispered to his neighbor: 'That's a swell, and no mistake. I s'pose that's what you call foreign get up. Well, me and ma is goin' to Europe some time, and hang me if I don't put on style when I come home. I'd kind of like to speak to the feller. I wonder if he remember that I was runnin' a boat when he went away?' If Arthur did remember it he showed no sign when Peterkin at last pressed up to him, claiming his attention, as Captain Peterkin, of the _'Liza Ann_, the fastest boat on the canal, and by George, the all-tiredest meanest, too, I guess, he said: 'but them days is past, and the old captain is past with them. I dabbled a little in ile, and if I do say it, I could about buy up the whole canal if I wanted to; but I ain't an atom proud, and I don't forget the old boatin' days, and I've got the old '_Liza Ann_ hauled up inter my back yard as a relict. The children use it for a play-house, but to me it is a--a--what do you call it? a--gol darn it, what is it?' 'Souvenir,' suggested Arthur, vastly amused at this tirade, which had assumed the form of a speech, and drawn a crowd around him. 'Wall, yes; I s'pose that's it, though 'taint exactly what I was trying to think of,' he said. It's a reminder, and keeps down my pride, for when I get to feelin' pretty big, after hearin' myself pointed out as Peterkin the millionaire, I go out to that old boat in the back yard, and says I, '_'Liza Ann_,' says I, 'you and me has took many a trip up and down the canal, with about the wust crew, and the wust hosses, and the wust boys that was ever created, and though you've got a new coat of paint onto you, and can set still all day and do nothing while I can wear the finest broadcloth and set still, too, it won't do for us to forget the pit from which we was dug, and I don't forget it neither, no more than I forgit favors shown when I was not fust cut. You, sir, rode on the _'Liza Ann_ with that crony of yours--Hastings was his name--and you paid me han'some, though I didn't ask nothin'; and ther's your brother--Frank, I call him. I don't forgit that he used to speak to me civil when I was nobody, and now, though I'm a Dimocrat, as everybody knows me knows, and everybody most does know me, for Shannondale allus was my native town, I'm goin' to run him into Congress, if it takes my bottom dollar, and anybody, Republican or Dimocrat; who don't vote him ain't my friend, and must expect to feel the full heft of my--my--' 'Powerful disapprobation,' Arthur said, softly, and Peterkin continued: 'Thank you, sir, that's the word--powerful, sir, powerful, powerful,' and he glowered threateningly at two or three young men in white kids and high shirt collars, who were known to prefer the opposing candidate. Peterkin had finished his harrangue, and was wiping his wet face with his handkerchief, when Arthur, who had listened to him with well-bred attention, said: 'I thank you, Captain Peterkin, for your interest in my brother, who, if he succeeds, will, I am sure, owe his success to your influence, and be grateful in proportion. Perhaps you have a bill you would like him to bring before the House?' 'No,' Peterkin said, with a shake of the head. 'My Bill is a little shaver, eight or nine years old; too young to go from home, but'--and he lowered his voice: a little--'I don't mind saying that if there should be a chance, I'd like the post-office fust-rate. It would be a kind of hist, you know, to see my name in print, Captain Joseph Peterkin, P.M.' Here the conversation ended, and the aspirant for the post-office, who had tired himself out, stepped aside and gave place to others who were anxious to renew their acquaintance with Arthur. It was between one and two o'clock in the morning when the party finally broke up, and, as the Peterkins had been the first to arrive, so they were the last to leave, and Mrs. Peterkin found herself again in the gentlemen's dressing-room, looking after her wraps. But they were not there, and after a vain and anxious search she said to her husband: 'Joe, somebody has stole my things, and 'twas my Indian shawl, too, and gold-headed pin, with the little diamond.' Mrs. Tracy was at once summoned to the scene, and the missing wraps were found in the ladies' room, where Harold had carried them, but the gold-headed shawl-pin was gone and could not be found. Lucy, the girl in attendance, said, when questioned, that she knew nothing of the pin or Mrs. Peterkin's wraps either, except that on first going up to the room after the lady's arrival, she found Harold Hastings fumbling them over, and that she sent him out with a sharp reprimand. Harold was then looked for and could not be found, for he had been at home and in bed for a good two hours. Clearly, then, he knew something of the pin; and Peterkin and his wife said good-night, resolving to see the boy the first thing in the morning, and demand their property. When the Peterkins were gone, Arthur started at once for his room, but stopped at the foot of the stairs and said to his brother: 'Don't forget to have the carriage at the station at seven o'clock. Gretchen is sure to be there.' 'All right,' was Frank's reply. While Mrs. Tracy asked: 'Who is Gretchen?' If Arthur heard her he made no reply, but kept on up the stairs to his room, where they heard him for a long time walking about, opening and shutting windows, locking and unlocking trunks, and occasionally splashing water over his face and hands. 'Your brother is a very elegant-looking man,' Mrs. Tracy said to her husband as she was preparing to retire. 'Quite like a foreigner, but how bright his eyes are, and they look at you sometimes as if they would see through you and know what you were thinking. They almost make me afraid of him.' Frank made no direct reply. In his heart there was an undefined fear which he then could not put into words, and with the remark that he was very tired, he stepped into bed, and was just falling into a quiet sleep when there came a knock upon his door loud enough, it seemed to him, to waken the dead. Starting up he demanded who was there and what was wanted. 'It is I,' Arthur said. 'I thought I smelled gas, and I have been hunting round for it. There is nothing worse to breathe than gas, whether from the furnace, the pipes, or the drain. I hope that is all right.' 'Yes,' Frank answered, a little crossly. 'Had a new one put in two weeks ago.' 'If there's gas in the main sewer it will come up just the same, and I am sure I smell it,' Arthur said. 'I think I shall have all the waste-pipes which connect with the drain cut off. Good-night. Am sorry I disturbed you.' They heard him as he went across the hall to his room, and Frank was settling down again to sleep when there came a second knock, and Arthur said, in a whisper: 'I hope I do not trouble you, but I have decided to go myself to the station to meet Gretchen. She is very timid, and does not speak much English. Good-night once more, and pleasant dreams.' To sleep now was impossible, and both husband and wife turned restlessly on their pillows, Frank wondering what ailed his brother, and Dolly wondering who Gretchen was and how her coming would affect them.	{ "id": "15321" }
9	WHO IS GRETCHEN?	This was the question which Mr. and Mrs. Tracy asked of themselves and each other many times during the hours which intervened between their retiring and rising. But speculate as they might they could reach no satisfactory conclusion, and were obliged to wait for what the morning and the train might bring. The party had been a success, and Frank felt that his election to Congress was almost certain; but of what avail would all this be if he lost his foothold at Tracy Park, as he was sure to do if a woman appeared upon the scene. Both he and his wife had outgrown the life of eleven years ago, and could not go back to it without a struggle, and it is not strange if both wished that the troublesome brother had remained abroad instead of coming home so suddenly and disturbing all their plans. They heard him moving in his room before the clock struck six, and knew he was getting himself in readiness to meet the dreaded Gretchen. Then, long before the carriage came round they heard him in the hall opening the windows and admitting a gust of wind which blew their door open, and when Frank arose to shut it he saw the top of Arthur's broad-brimmed hat disappearing down the stairs. 'I believe he is going to walk to the station; he certainly is crazy,' Frank said to his wife, as they dressed themselves and waited with feverish impatience for the return of the carriage. Arthur did walk to the station, which he reached just as the ticket agent was unlocking the door, and there, with his Spanish cloak wrapped around him, he stalked up and down the long platform for more than an hour, for the train was late, and it was nearer eight than seven when it finally came in sight. Standing side by side Arthur and John looked anxiously for some one to alight, but nobody appeared and the expression of Arthur's face was pitiable as he turned it to John, and said: 'Gretchen did not come. Where do you suppose she is?' 'I am sure I don't know. On the next train, may be,' was John's reply, at which Arthur caught eagerly. 'Yes, the next train, most likely. We will come and meet it; and now drive home as fast as you can. This disappointment has brought that heat to my head, and I must have a bath. But, stop a bit; who is the best carpenter in town?' John told him that Belknap was the best, and Burchard the highest priced. 'I'll see them both,' Arthur said. 'Take me to their houses;' and in the course of half an hour he had interviewed both Burchard and Belknap, and made an appointment with both for the afternoon. Then he was driven back to Tracy Park, where breakfast had been waiting until it was spoiled, and the cook's temper was spoiled, too, and when Frank and Dolly met him at the door, both asked in the same breath: 'Where is she?' 'She was not on this train. She will come on the next. We must go and meet her,' was Arthur's reply, as he passed up the stairs, while Frank and his wife looked wonderingly at each other. The spoiled breakfast was eaten by Mr. and Mrs. Tracy alone, for the children had had theirs and gone to their lessons, and Arthur had said that he never took anything in the morning except a cup of coffee and a roll, and these he wished sent to his room, together with a time-table. After breakfast Mrs. Tracy, who was suffering from a sick headache, declared her inability to sit up a moment longer and returned to her bed, leaving her husband and the servants to bring what order they could out of the confusion reigning everywhere, and nowhere to a greater extent than in Arthur's room, or rather the rooms which he had appropriated to himself, and into which he had had all his numerous boxes and trunks brought, so that he could open them at his leisure. There were more coming by express, he said, boxes which came through the custom-house, for he had brought many valuable things, such as pictures, and statuary, and rugs and inlaid tables and chinas, with which to adorn his home. The house, which was very large, had a wing on either side, while the main building was divided by a wide hall, with three rooms on each side, the middle one being a little smaller than the other two, with each of which it communicated by a door. And it was into this middle room on the second floor Arthur had been put, and which he found quite too small for his use. So he ordered both the doors to be opened and took possession of the suite, pacing them several times, and then measuring their length, and breadth, and height, and the distance between the windows. Then he inspected the wing on that side of the house, and, going into the yard, looked the building over from all points, occasionally marking a few lines on the paper he held in his hand. Before noon every room in the house, except the one where Dolly lay sick with a headache had been visited and examined minutely, while Frank watched him nervously, wondering if he would think they had greatly injured anything, or had expended too much money on furniture. But Arthur was thinking of none of these things, and found fault with nothing except the drain and the gas fixtures, all of which he declared bad, saying that the latter must be changed at once, and that ten pounds of copperas must be bought immediately and put down the drain, and that quantities of chloride of lime and carbolic acid must be placed where there was the least danger of vegetable decomposition. 'I am very sensitive to smells, and afraid of them, too, for they breed malaria and disease of all kinds,' he said to the cook, whose nose and chin both were high in the air, not on account of any obnoxious odor, but because of this unreasonable meddling with what she considered her own affairs. If things were to go on in this way, she said to the house-maid, and if that man was going to poke his nose into drains, and gas-pipes, and kerosene lamps, and bowls of sour milk which she might have forgotten, she should give notice to quit. But when, half an hour later, some boxes and trunks which had come by express were deposited in the back hall, and Arthur, who was superintending them, said to her, as he pointed to a large black trunk, 'I think this has the dress patterns and shawls I brought for you, girls; for though I did not know you personally, I knew that women were always pleased with anything from Paris' her feelings underwent a radical change, and Arthur was free to smell the drain and the gas fixtures as much as he liked. He was very busy, and though always pleasant, and even familiar at times, there was in all he said and did an air of ownership, as if he had assumed the mastership. And he had. Everything was his, and he knew it, and Frank knew it, too, and gave no sign of rebelling when the reins were taken from him by one who seemed to be driving at a break-neck speed. At lunch, while the brothers were together, Arthur announced his intentions in part, but not until Frank, who was anxious to get it off his mind, said to him: 'By the way, I suppose you will be going to the office this afternoon, to see Colvin and look over the books. I believe you will find them straight, and hope you will not think I have spent too much, or drawn too large a salary. It you do, I will--' 'Nonsense!' was Arthur's reply, with a graceful shrug of his shoulders. 'Don't bother about that there is money enough for us both. What I invested in Europe has trebled itself, and more too, and would make me a rich man if I had nothing else. I am always lucky. I played but once at Monte Carlo, just before I came home, and won ten thousand dollars, which I invested in--But no matter; that is a surprise--something for your wife and Gretchen. I have come home to stay. I do not think I am quite what I used to be. I was sick all that time when you heard from me so seldom, and I am not strong yet. I need quite a rest. I have seen the world, and am tired of it, and now I want a house for Gretchen and myself, and you too. I expect you to stay with me as long as we pull together pleasantly and you do not interfere with my plans. I am going to take the three south rooms on the second floor for my own. I shall put folding-doors, or rather a wide arch between two of them, making them almost like one, and these I shall fit up to suit my own taste. In the smaller and middle room, where I slept last night, I shall have a large bow window, with shelves for books in the spaces between and beneath, and by the sides of the windows. I got the idea in a villa a little way out of Florence. Opposite this bow window, on the other side of the room, I shall have niches in the wall and corners for statuary, with shelves for books above and below. I have some beautiful pieces of marble from Florence and Rome. The Venus de Milo, Apollo Belvidere, Nydra and Psyche, and Ruth at the Well. But the crowning glory of this room will be the upper half of the middle window of the bow. This is to be of stained glass, bright but soft colors which harmonize perfectly, two rows on the four sides, and in the centre a lovely picture of Gretchen, also of cathedral glass, and so like her that it seems to speak to me in her soft German tongue. I had it made from a photograph I have of her, and it is very natural--the same sad, sweet smile around the lips which never said an unkind word to any one--the same bright, wavy hair, and eyes of blue, innocent as a child--and Gretchen is little more than that. She is only twenty-one--poor little Gretchen!' and, leaning back in his chair, Arthur seemed to be lost in recollections of the past. Not pleasant, all of them, it would seem, for there was a moisture in his eyes when he at last looked up in response to his brother's questioning. 'Who did you say Gretchen was?' Instantly the expression of the eye changed to one of weariness and caution, as Arthur replied: 'I did not say who she was, but you will soon know. I saw by the time-table that the train which passes here at eleven does not stop, but the three o'clock does, and you will please see that John goes with the carriage. I may be occupied with the carpenters, Burchard and Belknap, who were coming to talk with me about the changes I purpose to make, and which I wish commenced immediately. It is a rule of mine that when I am to do a thing, to do it at once. So I shall employ at least twenty men, and before Christmas everything will be finished, and I will show you rooms worthy of a palace. It is of Gretchen I am thinking, more than of myself. Poor little Gretchen!' Arthur's voice was inexpressibly sad and pitiful as he said 'Poor Gretchen,' while his eyes again grew soft and tender, with a far-away look in them, as if they were seeing things in the past rather than in the future. There was not a particle of sentiment in Frank's nature, and Gretchen was to him an object of dread rather than a romance. So far as he could judge, his brother had no intention of routing him; but a woman in the field would be different, and he should at once lose his vantage-ground. 'You seem to be very fond of Gretchen,' he said, at last. 'Fond!' Arthur replied, 'I should say I am, though the poor child has not much cause to think so. But I am going to atone, and this suite of rooms is for her. I mean to make her a very queen, and dress her in satin and diamonds every day. She has the diamonds. I sent them to her when I wrote to her to join me in Liverpool.' 'And she did join you, I suppose?' Frank said, determined by adroit questioning to learn something of the mysterious Gretchen. 'Yes, she joined me,' was the reply. 'Was she very seasick?' Frank continued. 'Not a minute. She sat by me all the time while I lay in my berth, but she would not let me hold her hand, and if I tried to touch even her hair, she always moved away to the other side of the state-room, where she sat looking at me reproachfully with those soft blue eyes of hers.' 'And she was with you at the Brevoort in New York!' Frank said. 'Yes, with me at Brevoort.' 'And in the train?' 'Yes, and in the train.' 'And you left her there?' 'No; she left herself. She did not follow me out. She went on by mistake, but is sure to come back this afternoon,' Arthur replied, rather excitedly, just as a sharp ring at the bell announced the arrival of Burchard and Belknap, the leading carpenters of the town, with whom he was closeted for the next two hours, and both of whom he finally hired in order to expedite the work he had in hand. At precisely three o'clock the carriage from Tracy Park drew up before the station, awaiting the arrival of the train and Gretchen, but though the former came, the latter did not, and John returned alone, mentally avowing to himself that he would not be sent on a fool's errand a third time; but five o'clock found him there again with the same result. Gretchen did not come, and Arthur's face wore a sad, troubled expression, and looked pale and worn, notwithstanding the many times he bathed it in the coldest water and rubbed it with the coarsest towels. He had unpacked several of his trunks and boxes, and made friends of all she servants by the presents, curious and rare, which he gave them, while Dolly's headache had been wholly cured at sight of the exquisite diamonds which her husband brought to her room and told her were hers, the gift of Arthur, who had bought them in Paris, and who begged her to accept them with his love. The box itself, which was of tortoise shell, lined with blue velvet, was a marvel of beauty, while the pin was a cluster of five diamonds with a larger one in the center, but the ear-rings were solitaires, large and brilliant, and Dolly's delight knew no bounds as she took the dazzling stones in her hands and examined them carefully. Diamond were the jewels of all others which she coveted, but which Frank never felt warranted in buying, and now they were hers, and for a time she forgot even Gretchen, whose arrival, or rather non-arrival, troubled her as much as it did her brother-in-law. Arthur had been very quiet and gentle all the afternoon, showing no sign of the temper he had exhibited the previous night at sight of Harold until about six o'clock, when Tom, his ten-year-old nephew, came rushing into the library, followed by Peterkin, very hot and very red in the face, which he mopped with his yellow silk handkerchief. 'Oh, mother,' Tom began, 'what do you think Harold Hastings has done? He stole Mrs. Peterkin's gold pin last night. It was stuck in her shawl, and she couldn't find it, and Lucy saw him fumbling with the things, and he denies it up hill and down, and Mr. Peterkin is going to arrest him. I guess Dick St. Claire won't think him the nicest boy in town now. The thief! I'd like-- But what he would like was never known, for with a spring Arthur bounded toward him, and seizing him by the coat collar, shook him vigorously, while he exclaimed: 'Coward and liar! Harold Hastings is not a thief! No child of Amy Crawford could ever be a thief, and if you say that again, or even insinuate it to any living being, I'll break every bone in your body. Do you understand?' 'Yes, sir; no sir, I won't; I won't,' Tom gasped, as well as he could, with his head bobbing forward and back so rapidly that his teeth cut into his under lip. 'But _I_ shall,' Peterkin roared. 'I'll have the young dog arrested, too, if he don't own up and give up.' There was a wicked look in Arthur's black eyes, which he fastened upon Peterkin, as he said; 'What does it all mean, sir? Will you please explain?' 'Yes, in double quick time,' replied Peterkin, a little nettled by Arthur's manner, which he could not understand. 'You see, me and Mary Jane was early to the doin's; fust ones, in fact, for when your invite says half past seven it means it, I take it. Wall, we was here on time, and Mary Jane has been on a tear ever since, and says Miss St. Claire nor none of the big bugs didn't come till nine, which I take is imperlite, don't you?' 'Never mind, we are not discussing etiquette. Go on with the pin and the boy,' Arthur said haughtily. 'Mary Jane,' Peterkin continued, 'had a gold-headed shawl pin, with a small diamond in the head--real, too, for I don't b'lieve in shams, and haint sense the day I quit boatin' and hauled ther 'Liza Ann up inter my back yard. Well, she left this pin stickin' in her shawl, and no one up there but this boy of that Crawford gal's, and nobody knows who else.' Something in Arthur's face and manner made Frank think of a tiger about to pounce upon its prey, and he felt himself growing cold with suspense and dread as he watched his brother, while Peterkin continued: 'When Mary Jane came to go home, her things wa'n't there, and the pin was missin'; and Lucy, the girl, said she found the boy pullin' them over by himself, when he had no call to be in there; and, sir, there ain't a lawyer in the United States that would refuse a writ on that evidence, and I'll get one of St. Claire afore to-morrow night. I told 'em so, the widder and the boy, who was as brassy as you please, and faced me down and said he never seen the pin, nor knowed there was one; while she--wall, I swow, if she didn't start round lively for a woman with her leg bandaged up in vinegar and flannel. When I called the brat a thief and said I'd have him arrested, she made for the door and ordered me out--me, Joe Peterkin, of the 'Liza Ann! I'll make her smart, though, wus than the rheumatiz. I'll make her feel the heft--' He did not have time to finish the sentence, for the tiger in Arthur was fully roused, and with a bound toward Peterkin he opened the door, and, in a voice which seemed to fill the room, although it was only a whisper, he said: 'Clown! loafer! puff-ball! Leave my house instantly, and never enter it again until you have apologized to Mrs. Crawford and her grandson for the insult offered them by your vile accusations. If it were not for soiling my hands, I would throw you down the steps,' he continued, as he stood holding the door open, and looking with his flashing eyes and dilated nostrils, as if he were fully equal to anything. Like most men of the boasting sort, Peterkin was a coward, and though he probably had twice the strength of Arthur, he went through the door-way out upon the piazza, where he stopped, and, with a flourish of his fist, denounced the whole Tracy tribe, declaring them but a race of upstarts, no better than he was, and saying he would yet be even with them, and make them feel the heft of his powerful disapprobation. Whatever else he said was not heard, for Arthur shut the door upon him, and returning to the library, where his brother stood, pale, trembling, and anxious for the votes he felt he had lost, he became on the instant as quiet and gentle as a child, and, consulting his watch, said in his natural tone: 'Quarter of seven, and the train is due at half-past. Please tell John to have the carriage ready. I am going myself this time.' Frank opened his lips to protest against it, but something in his brother's manner kept him quiet and submissive. He was no longer master there--unless--unless--he scarcely dared whisper to himself what; but when the carriage went for the fourth time to the station after Gretchen and returned without her, he said to his wife: 'I think Arthur is crazy, and possibly we shall have to shut him up.' 'Yes, I wish you would,' was Dolly's reply, in a tone of relief, for, thus far, Arthur's presence in the house had not added to her comfort. 'Of course he is crazy, and ought to be taken care of before he tears the house down over our heads, or does some dreadful thing.' 'That's so, and I will see St. Claire to-morrow and find out the proper steps to be taken,' said Frank. That night he dreamed of windows with iron bars across them, and strait-jackets, into which he was thrusting his brother, while a face, the loveliest he had ever seen, looked reproachfully at him, with tears in the soft blue eyes, and a pleading pathos in the voice which said words he could not understand, for the language was a strange one to him who only knew his own. With a start Frank awoke, and found his wife sitting up in bed, listening intently to sounds which came from the hall, where some one was evidently moving around. 'Hark!' she said, in a whisper. 'Do you hear that? There's a burglar in the house after my diamonds. What shall I do?' But Frank knew that no burglar ever made the noise this disturber of their rest was making and stepping out of bed he opened the door cautiously, and looking out, saw his brother, wrapped in a long dressing-gown, with a candle in his hand, opening one window after another until the hall was filled with the cold night wind, which swept down the long corridor banging a door at the farther end and setting all the rest to rattling. 'Oh! Frank, is that you?' Arthur said. 'I am sorry I woke you, but I smelled an awful smell somewhere, and traced it to the hall, which you see I am airing; better shut the door or you will take cold. The house is full of malaria.' He was certainly crazy; there could be no doubt of it; and next morning, when Mr. St. Claire entered his office, he found Frank Tracy waiting there to consult him with regard to the legal steps necessary to procure his brother's incarceration in a lunatic asylum. Arthur St. Claire's face wore a grave, troubled look as he listened, for he remembered a time, years before, when he, too, had been interested in the lunatic asylum at Worcester, where a beautiful young girl, his wife, had been confined. She was dead now, and the Florida roses were growing over her grave, but there were many sad, regretful memories connected with her short life, and not the least sad of these were those connected with the asylum. 'If it were to do over again I would not put her there, unless she became dangerous,' he had often said to himself, and he said much the same thing to Frank Tracy with regard to his brother. 'Keep him at home, if possible. Do not place him with a lot of lunatics if you can help it. No proof he is crazy because he smells everything. My wife does the same. Her nose is over the registers half the time in winter to see if any gas is escaping from the furnace. And as to this Gretchen, it is possible there was some woman with him on the ship, or in New York, and he may be a little muddled there. You can inquire at the hotel where he stopped.' This was Mr. St. Claire's advice, and Frank acted upon it, and took immediate steps to ascertain if there had been a lady in company with his brother at the Brevoort House, where he had stopped, or if there had been any one in his company on the ship, which was still lying in the dock at New York. But there no one had been with him. Arthur Tracy alone was registered among the list of passengers, and only Arthur Tracy was on the books at the hotel. He had come alone, and been alone on the sea and at the hotel. Gretchen was a myth, or at least a mystery, though he still persisted that she would arrive with every train from Boston; and for nearly a week they humored him, and the carriage went to meet her, until at last there seemed to dawn upon his mind the possibility of a mistake, and when the carriage had made its twentieth trip for nothing, and Mr. St. Claire, who was standing by him on the platform when the train came up and brought no Gretchen, said to him: 'She did not come.' 'I am afraid she will never come,' he answered, sadly. 'No, she will never come. There has been some mistake. She will never come. Poor little Gretchen!' Then, after a moment he added, but there _is_ a Gretchen, and I wrote to her to join me in Liverpool, and I thought she did and was with me on the ship and in the train, but sometimes, when my head is so hot, I get things mixed, and am not sure but--' and he looked wistfully in his companion's face, while his voice trembled a little. 'Don't let them shut me up; I have a suspicion that they will try it, but it will do no good. I was in an asylum nearly three years near Vienna; went of my own accord, because of that heat in my head.' 'Been in an asylum?' Mr. St. Claire said, wonderingly. 'Yes,' Arthur continued, 'I was only out three months ago. I wrote occasionally to Frank and Gretchen, but did not tell them where I was. They called it a _maison de santé_, and treated me well because I paid well, but the sight of so many crazy people made me worse, and if I had staid I should have been mad as the maddest of them. As it was, I forgot almost everything that ever happened, and fancied I was an Austrian. As soon as I came out I was better, though I was not quite myself till I got to Liverpool. Then things came back to me. Stand by me, St. Claire. I can see I am in the way, and Frank would like to be rid of me; but stand by me, and don't let them do it.' His manner was very pleading, and like one who was in fear of something, and remembering the past when a golden-haired girl had begged him to save her from iron bars and bolts, Mr. St. Claire assured him of his support against any steps which might be taken to prove him mad enough for the asylum. 'But I would not come for Gretchen any more,' he said. 'I would give her a rest. Who is she?' Instantly the old look of cunning came into Arthur's eyes, as he replied: 'She is Gretchen;' and then he walked toward the carriage, while Mr. St. Claire looked curiously after him, and said to himself: 'That fellow is not right, but he is not a subject for a mad house, and I should oppose his being sent there. I do not believe, however, that they will try it on.'	{ "id": "15321" }
10	ARTHUR SETTLES HIMSELF.	They did try it on, but not until after the November election, at which Frank was defeated by a large majority, for Peterkin worked against him and brought all the 'heft of his powerful disapprobation' to bear upon him. Although Frank had had no part in turning him from the door that morning after the party, he had not tried to prevent it by a word, and this the low, brutal man resented, and swearing vengeance upon the whole Tracy tribe, declared his intention to defeat Frank if it cost him half his fortune to do so. And it did cost him at least two thousand dollars, for Frank Tracy was popular with both parties; many of the Democrats voted for him, but the rabble, the scum, those who could be bought on both sides, went against him, even to the Widow Shipley's four sons; and when all was over, Frank found himself defeated by just as many votes as old Peterkin had paid for, not only in Shannondale, but in the adjoining towns, where his money carried 'heft,' as he expressed it. It was a terrible disappointment to Frank and his wife, who had looked forward to enjoying a winter in Washington, where they intended to take a house and enjoy all society had to offer them in the national metropolis. Particularly were they anxious for the change now that Arthur had come home, for it was not altogether pleasant to be ruled where they had so long been rulers, and to see the house turned upside down without the right to protest. 'I can't stand it, and I won't,' Frank said to his wife in the first flush of his bitter disappointment. 'Ever since he came home he has raised Cain generally, with his carpenters, and masons, and painters, and stewing about water-pipes, and sewer-gas, and smells. He's mad as a March hare, and if I can't get rid of him by going to Washington, I'll do it in some other way. You know he is crazy, and so do I, and I'll swear to it on a stack of Bibles as high as the house.' And Frank did swear to it, not on a stack of Bibles, but before two or three physicians and Mr. St. Claire, who, at his solicitation, came to Tracy Park, and were closeted with him for an hour or more, while he related his grievances, asserting finally that he considered his brother dangerous, and did not think his family safe with him, citing as proof that he had on one occasion threatened to kill his son Tom for accusing Harold Hastings of theft. How the matter would have terminated is doubtful, if Arthur himself had not appeared upon the scene, calm, dignified, and courtly in his manner, which insensibly won upon his hearers, as in a few well-chosen and eloquent words, he proceeded to prove that though he might be peculiar in some respects, he was not mad, and that a man might repair his own house, and cut off his own water-pipes, and take up his sewer, and detect a bad smell, and still not be a subject for a lunatic asylum. 'And,' he continued, addressing his brother, 'it ill becomes you to take this course against me--you, who have enriched yourself at my expense, while I have held my peace. Suppose I require you to give an account of all the money which you have considered necessary for your support and salary--would you like to do it? Would the world consider you strictly honorable, or would they call you a lunatic on the subject of money and not responsible for your acts? But I have no wish to harm you. I have money enough, and cannot forget that you are my brother. But molest me, and I shall molest you. If I go to the asylum you will leave Tracy Park. If I am allowed to stay here in peace, you can do so, too--at least, until Gretchen comes, when it will, perhaps, be better for us to separate. Two masters may manage to scramble along in the same house, but two mistresses never can, and Dora and Gretchen would not be congenial. Good morning, gentlemen!' and he bowed himself from the room, leaving Frank covered with confusion and shame as he felt that he was beaten. The physicians did not think it a case in which they were warranted to interfere. Neither could conscientiously sign a certificate which should declare Arthur a lunatic, and their advice to Frank was that he should suffer his brother to have his own way in his own house, and when he felt that he could not bear with his idiosyncracies he could go elsewhere. But it was this going elsewhere which Frank did not fancy; and, after a consultation with his wife, he decided to let matters take their course for a time at least, or until Gretchen came, if she ever did. Arthur's allusion to the sums of money his brother had appropriated to his own use had warned Frank that he was not quite so indifferent or ignorant of his business affairs as he had seemed, and this of itself served to keep him quiet and patient during the confusion which ensued, as walls were torn down, and doors and windows cut, while the house was filled with workmen, and the sound of the hammer and saw was heard from morning till night. It was in the middle of October when Arthur fairly commenced his repairs, but so many men did he employ, and so rapidly was the work pushed on, that the first of January found everything finished and Arthur installed in his suite of rooms, which a prince might have envied, so richly and tastefully were they fitted up. Beautiful pictures and rich tapestry covered the walls in the first room, where the floor was inlaid with colored woods in lovely Mosaic designs, and the centre was covered with a costly Oriental rug, which Arthur had bought at a fabulous price in Paris, where it had once adorned a room in the Tuileries. But the gem of the whole was the library, where the statuary stood in the niches, and where, from the large bow-window at the south, a young girl's face looked upon the scene with an expression of shy surprise and half regret in the soft blue eyes, as if their owner wondered how she came there, and was always thinking of the fields and forests of far-away Germany. For it was decidedly a German face of the higher type, and such as is seldom found among the lower or even middle classes. And yet you instinctively felt that it belonged to the latter, notwithstanding the richness of the dress, from the pearl-embroidered cap set jauntily on the reddish golden hair to the velvet bodice and the satin peasant waist. The hands, small and dimpled like those of a child, were clasped around a prayer-book and a bunch of wild flowers which had evidently just been gathered. It was a marvelously beautiful face, pure and sweet as that of a Madonna, and the workmen involuntarily bowed their heads before it, calling it, not without some reason, a memorial window, for the name Gretchen was under the picture, and one unconsciously found himself looking for the date of birth and death. But only the one word 'Gretchen' was there, with no sign to tell who she was, or where, if living, she was now, or what relation she bore to the strange man who often stood before her whispering to himself: 'Poor little Gretchen! Will you never come?' For a few days after the rooms were completed, they were thrown open to such of Arthur's friends as cared to see them, and the question 'Who is Gretchen?' was often asked, but the answer was always the same: 'She is Gretchen. I am expecting her every day.' But if he were expecting her, he no longer asked that the carriage be sent to meet her. That had been one of the proofs of his insanity as alleged by his brother, and Arthur was sane enough and cunning enough to avoid a repetition of that offence, but he often went himself to the station, when the New York trains were due, for it was from the west rather than the east that he was now looking for her. Frank, who watched him nervously, with all his senses sharpened, guessed what had caused the change and grew more nervous and morbid on the subject of Gretchen than ever. At first his brother, who was greatly averse to going out, had asked him to post his letters; business letters they seemed to be, for they were addressed to business firms in New York, London, and Paris, with all of which Arthur had relations. But one morning when Frank went as usual to his brother's room asking if there was any mail to be taken to the office, Arthur, who was just finishing a letter, replied: 'No, thank you, I will post this myself. I have been writing to Gretchen.' 'Yes, to Gretchen?' Frank said, quickly, as he advanced nearer to the writing desk, hoping to see the address on the envelope. But Arthur must have suspected his motive, for he at once turned over the envelope and kept his hand upon it, while Frank said to him: 'Is she in London now?' 'No; she was never in London,' was the curt reply, and then, turning suddenly, Arthur faced his brother and said: 'Why are you so curious about Gretchen? It is enough for you to know that the is the sweetest, truest little girl that ever lived. When she comes I shall tell you everything, but not before. You have tried to prove me crazy; have said I was full of cranks; perhaps I am, and Gretchen is one of them, but it does not harm you, so leave me in peace, if you wish for peace yourself.' There was a menacing look in Arthur's eyes which Frank did not like, and he retreated from the room, resolved to say no more to him of Gretchen, whose arrival he again began to look for and dread. But Gretchen did not come, or any tidings of her, and Christmas came and went, and the lovely bracelets which Arthur brought from the trunk he said was hers, and into which no one had ever looked but himself, remained unclaimed upon his table, as did the costly inlaid work-box, and the cut-glass bottles with the gold stoppers. All these were to have been Gretchen's Christmas presents; but when she did not come they disappeared from view and were not seen again, while Arthur seemed to be settling into a state of great depression, caring nothing for the outside world, but spending all his time in the lovely rooms he had prepared for himself and one who never came. As far as was possible he continued his foreign habits, having his coffee and rolls at eight in the morning, his breakfast, as he called it, at half-past twelve, and his dinner at half-past six. All these meals were served in his room as elaborately, and with as much ceremony, as if lords and ladies sat at the table instead of one lone man, who never let himself down a particle, but required the utmost subservience and care in the waiting. The finest of linen, and china, and glass, and silver adorned his table, with bits of fanciful crockery gathered here and there in his extended wanderings, and always flowers for a centre-piece--roses mostly, if he could get them--tea roses and Marshal Neils, for Gretchen, he said, was fond of these, and, as she might surprise him at any moment, he wished to be ready for her, and show that he was expecting her. Opposite him, at the end of the table, was always an empty plate with its surroundings, and the curiously-carved chair, which had seen the lion at Lucerne. But no one ever sat in it. No one ever used the decorated plate, or the glass mug at its side, with its twisted handle and the letter 'G.' on the silver cover. Just what this mug was for none of the household knew until Grace Atherton, who had travelled in Europe, and to whom Mrs. Tracy showed it one day when Arthur was out, said: 'Why, it is a beer-mug, such as is used in Germany, though more particularly among the Bavarian Alps and in the Tyrol. This Gretchen is probably a tippler, with a red nose and a double chin. I wish to goodness she would come and satisfy our curiosity.' This wish of Grace's was not shared by Mrs. Tracy, who felt an uneasy sense of relief as the days went on, and the beer-drinking Gretchen did not appear, while Arthur became more and more depressed and remained altogether in his room, seeing no one and holding no intercourse with the outside world. He had returned no calls, and had been but once to the cottage in the lane to see Mrs. Crawford. That interview had been a long and sad one, and when they talked of Amy, whose grave Arthur had visited on his way to the cottage, both had cried together, and Gretchen seemed for the time forgotten. They talked of Amy's husband, who, Arthur said, had died at Monte Carlo; and then he spoke of Amy's son, who was not present, and whom he seemed to have forgotten entirely, for when Mrs. Crawford said to him, 'You saw him on the night of your return home,' he looked at her in a perplexed kind of way, and if trying to recall something which had gone almost entirely from his mind. It was this utter forgetfulness of people and events which was a marked feature of his insanity, if insane he were, and he knew it and struggled against it; and when Mrs. Crawford told him he had seen Harold he tried to recall him, and could not until the boy came in, flushed and excited from a race with Dick St. Claire through the crisp November wind, which had brought a bright color to his cheek and a sparkle to his eye. Then Arthur remembered everything, and something of his old prejudice came back to him, and his manner was a little constrained as he talked to the boy, whose only fault was that Harold Hastings had been his father and that he bore his name. Arthur did not stay long after Harold came in, but said good-morning to Mrs. Crawford and walked slowly away, going again to Amy's grave, and taking from it a few leaves of the ivy which was growing around the monument. And this was all the intercourse he held with Mrs. Crawford, except to send her at Christmas a hundred dollars, which he said was for the boy Harold, to whom he had done an injustice. After this he seldom went out, but gave himself heart and soul to the completion of his rooms, and when they were finished he settled down into the life of a recluse, seeing very few and talking but little, except occasionally to himself, when he seemed to be carrying on a conversation with some unseen visitant, who must have spoken in a foreign tongue or tongues, for sometimes it was French, sometimes Italian, and oftener German, in which he addressed his fancied guest, and neither Frank nor Dolly could understand a word of the strange jargon. On the whole, however, he was very quiet and undemonstrative, and but for the habit of talking to himself and smelling odors where there were none, he would not have seemed very different from many peculiar people who are never suspected of being crazy. If he were still expecting Gretchen, he gave no sign of it, except the place at his table always laid for her, and Frank was beginning to breathe freely, and to look upon his brother's presence in the house as not altogether unbearable, when an event occurred which excited all Shannondale, and for a time made Frank almost as crazy as his brother.	{ "id": "15321" }
11	THE STORM.	The winter since Christmas had been unusually severe, and the oldest inhabitant, of whom there are always many in every town, pronounced the days as they came and went the coldest they had ever known. Ten, twelve, and even fourteen degrees below zero the thermometers marked more than once, while old Peterkin's, which was hung inside the Lizy Ann and always took the lead, went down one morning to seventeen, and all the water-pipes and pumps in town either froze or burst, and Arthur Tracy, who, with his absorption of self, never forgot the poor, sent tons and tons of coal to them, and whispered to himself: 'Poor Gretchen! It is hard for her if she is on the sea in such weather as this. Heaven protect her, poor little Gretchen!' That night when Frank went, as his custom was, to sit a few moments with his brother, he found him on his knees, with his face toward the picture, repeating the prayer for those upon the sea. The next day there was a change for the better, and the next, and the next, until when the last day of February dawned Peterkin's thermometer registered only two, and people began to show themselves in the streets, while the sun tried to break through the grey clouds which shrouded the wintry sky. But this was only temporary, for before noon the mercury fell again to eight below, the wind began to rise, and when the New York train came panting to the station at half-past six, clouds of snow so dense and dark were driving over the hills and along the line of track that nothing could be distinctly seen. It was not until the train had moved on that the station-master, who, half blinded with the sleet, was gathering up the mail-bag, which had been unceremoniously dropped, saw across the track at a little distance from him the figure of a woman who seemed to be trying to examine a paper she held in her hand, while clinging to her skirts and crying piteously was a little child, but whether boy or girl, he could not tell. 'Can I do anything for you?' he said advancing toward the stranger, who, thrusting the paper from sight, caught up the child in her arms, and without word of answer, hurried away in the storm and rapidly-increasing darkness. 'Curis! She must have got off t'other side of the cars. I wonder who she is and where she is goin'. Not fur, I hope, such a night as this. Ugh! the wind is like so many screech owls and almost takes a feller off his feet, the agent said to himself, as he looked after the stranger, and then went back to the light and warmth of his office, where he soon forgot the woman, who, with the child held closely in her arms, walked rapidly on, her eyes strained to their utmost tension as they peered through the darkness and the storm until she reached a gate opening into a grassy road which led through the fields in a straight line to Tracy Park and Collingwood beyond. Carriages seldom traversed this road, but in the summer time the people from Collingwood and Tracy Park frequently walked that way, as it was a much nearer route to town than the main highway. Here the woman stopped, and looking up at the tall arch over the gate, said aloud, as if repeating a lesson learned by heart, 'Leave the car on your right hand; take the road to the right, as I have drawn it on paper; go straight on for a quarter of a mile until you come to a wide iron gate with a tall arch over it. This gate is also at your right. You cannot mistake it.' 'No,' she continued, 'I cannot mistake it. This is the place. We are almost there,' and putting down the child, she tugged with all her strength at the ponderous gate, which she at last succeeded in opening, and resuming her burden, passed through into the field where the snow lay on the ground in great white drifts, while the blinding flakes and cutting sleet from the leaden clouds above, beat pitilessly upon her as she struggled on the wearisome way. And while she toiled on, fighting bravely with the storm, and occasionally speaking a word of encouragement to the little child nestled in her bosom, Arthur Tracy stood at one of the windows in his library, with his white face pressed close against the pane, as he looked anxiously out into the gathering darkness, shuddering involuntarily as the wind came screaming round a corner of the house, bending the tall evergreens until their slender tops almost touched the ground, and then rushing on down the carriage-drive with a shriek like so many demons let loose from the ice-caves of the north, where the winds are supposed to hold high carnival. They were surely holding carnival to-night, and their king was out with all his legions, and as Arthur listened to the roar of the tempest he whispered to himself: 'A wild, wild night for Gretchen to arrive, and her dear little feet and hands will be so cold; but there is warmth and comfort here, and love such as she never dreamed of, poor Gretchen! I will hold her in my arms and chafe her cold fingers and kiss her tired face until she feels that her home-coming is a happy one. It must be almost time,' and he glanced at a small cathedral clock which stood upon the mantel. In the adjoining room the dinner table was as usual laid for two, but one could see that more care than usual had been given to its arrangement, while the roses in the centre were the largest and finest of their kind. In the low, wide grate a bright fire was burning, and Arthur placed a large easy chair before it, and then brought from the library a covered footstool, with a delicate covering of blue and gold. No foot had ever yet profaned this stool with a touch, for it was one of Arthur's specialties, bought at a great price in Algiers; but he brought it now for Gretchen and saw in fancy resting upon it the cold little feet his hands were to rub and warm and caress until life came back to them, and Gretchen's blue eyes smiled upon him and Gretchen's sweet voice said: 'Thank you, Arthur. It is pleasant coming home.' For the last two or three weeks, Arthur had been very quiet and taciturn, but on the morning of this day he had seemed restless and nervous, and his nervousness and excitability increased until a violent headache came on, and Charles, the servant, who attended him, reported to Mrs. Tracy that his midday meal had been untouched and that he really seemed quite ill. Then Frank went to him, and sitting down beside him as he lay upon a couch in the room with Gretchen's picture, said to him, not unkindly: 'Are you sick to-day? What is the matter?' For a few moments Arthur made no reply, but lay with his eyes closed as if he had not heard. Then suddenly rousing himself, he burst out, vehemently: 'Frank, you think me crazy, or you have thought so, and you have based that belief in part on the fact that I am always expecting Gretchen. And so for a long time I have suppressed all mention of her, though I have never ceased to look for her arrival, since--since--well, I may as well tell you the truth. I know now that she could not have been with me on the ship and in the train, although I thought she was. I wrote her to join me in Liverpool, and fancied she did. But my brain must have been a little mixed. She did not come with me, but I wrote to her weeks ago, telling her to come at once, and giving her directions how to find the park if she should arrive at the station and no one there to meet her. She has had more than time to get here, but I have said nothing about sending the carriage for her, as that seemed to annoy you. But to-day, Frank, to-day'--and Arthur's voice grew softer and pleading, and trembled as he went on. 'I dreamed of her last night, and to-day she seems so near to me that more than once I have put out my hand to touch her. Frank, it is not insanity, this presentiment of mine that she is near me, that she is coming to me, or tidings of her; it is mind acting upon mind; her thoughts of me reaching forward and fastening upon my thoughts of her, making a mental bridge on which to see her coming to me. And you will send for her. You will let John go again. Think if she should arrive in this terrible storm and no one there to meet her. You will send this once, and if she is not there I will not trouble you again.' There was something in Arthur's white face which Frank could not resist, and though he had no idea that anything would come of it, he promised that John should go. 'Oh, Frank,' Arthur exclaimed, his face brightening at once, 'you have made me so happy! My headache is quite gone,' and then he began to plan for the dinner, which was to be more elaborate than usual, and served an hour later, so as to give plenty of time for Gretchen to rest and dress herself if she wished to do so. 'And she will when she sees the lovely dress I have for her,' he thought to himself, and after his brother had gone he went to the large closet where he kept the long black trunk which he called Gretchen's, and into which Dolly's curious eyes had never looked, although she longed to know the contents. This Arthur now opened, and had Dolly been there she would have held her breath in wonder at the many beautiful things it contained. Folded in one of the trays, as only a French packer accustomed to the business could have arranged it, was an exquisite dinner-dress of salmon-colored satin, with a brocaded front and jacket of blue and gold, and here and there a knot of duchess lace, which gave it a more airy effect. This Arthur took out carefully and laid upon the bed in his sleeping-apartment, together with every article of the toilet necessary to such a dress, from a lace pocket handkerchief to a pair of pale-blue silk hose, which he kissed reverently as he whispered to himself: 'Dear little feet, which, no doubt, are so cold now in the wretched car; but they will never be cold when once I have them here.' He was talking in German, as he always did when Gretchen was the subject of his thought, and so Dolly, who came to say that some things which he had ordered for dinner were impossible now, could not understand him, but she caught a glimpse of the dress upon the bed, and advanced quickly toward the open door, exclaiming: 'Oh, Arthur, what a lovely gown! Whose--?' But before she completed her question Arthur was upon the threshold and had closed the door, saying as he did so: 'It is Gretchen's. I had it made at Worth's. She is coming to-night, you know.' Dolly had heard from her husband of Arthur's fancy, and though she had no faith in it, she replied: 'Yes, Frank told me you were expecting her again, and I came to say that we cannot get the fish you ordered, for no one can go to town in this storm, and I doubt if we could find it if we did. You will have to skip the fish.' 'All right; all right. Gretchen will be too much excited to care,' Arthur replied, standing with his hand upon the door-knob until Dolly left the room and went to this kitchen, where Frank was interviewing the coachman. He had found that important personage before the fire, bending nearly double and complaining bitterly of a fall he had just had on his way from the stable to the house. According to his statement, the wind had taken him up bodily, and carrying him a dozen rods or so, had set him down heavily upon a stone flowerpot which was left outside in the winter, nearly breaking his back, as he declared. This did not look very promising for the drive to the station, and Frank opened the business hesitatingly, and asked John what he thought of it. 'I think I would not go out in such a storm as this with my back if Queen Victoria was to be there,' John answered gruffly. 'And what would be the use?' he continued. 'I have been to meet that woman, if she is a woman, with the outlandish name, more than fifty times, I'll bet; he don't know what he is talking about when he gets on her track. And s'posin' she does come, she can find somebody to fetch her. She ain't going to walk.' This seemed reasonable; and as Frank's sympathies were with his coachman and horses rather than with Gretchen and his brother, he decided with John that he need not go, but added, laughingly, as he saw the man walk across the floor as well as he ever did on his way to the woodshed: 'Seems to me your broken back has recovered its elasticity very soon.' To this John made no reply except an inaudible growl, and Frank returned to the library, resolving not to go near his brother until after train time, but to let him think that John had gone to the station. At half-past five, however, Arthur sent for him, and said: 'Has he gone? It must be time.' 'Not quite; it is only half-past five. The train does not come until half-past six, and is likely to be late,' was Frank's reply. 'Yes, I know,' Arthur continued, 'but he should be there on time. Tell him to start at once, and take an extra robe with him, and say to Charles that I will have sherry to-night, and champagne, too, and Hamburg grapes, and--' The remainder of his speech was lost on Frank, who was hurrying down the stairs with a guilty feeling in his heart, although he felt that the end justified the means, and that under the circumstances he was justified in deceiving his half-crazy brother. Still he was ill at ease. He had no faith in Arthur's presentiments, and no idea that any one bound for Tracy Park would be on the train that night, but he could not shake off a feeling of anxiety, amounting almost to a dread of some impending calamity, which possibly the sending of John to the station might have averted, and going to a window in the library, he, too, stood looking out into the night, trying not to believe that he was watching for some possible arrival, when, above the storm, he heard the shrill scream of the locomotive as it stopped for a moment and then dashed on into the white snow clouds; trying to believe, too, that he was not glad, as the minutes became a quarter, the quarter a half, and the half three-quarters, until at last he heard the clock strike the half-hour past seven, and nobody had come. 'I shall have to tell Arthur,' he thought, and, with something like hesitancy, he started for his brother's room. Arthur was standing before the fire, with his arm thrown caressingly across the chair where Gretchen was to sit, when Frank opened the door and advanced a step or two across the threshold. 'Has she come? I did not see the carriage. Where is she?' Arthur cried, springing swiftly forward, while his bright, eager eyes darted past his brother to the open door-way and out into the hall. 'No, she has not come. I knew she wouldn't; and it was nonsense to send the horses out such a night as this,' Frank said, sternly, with a mistaken notion that he must speak sharply to the unfortunate man, who, if rightly managed, was gentle as a child. 'Not come! Gretchen not come! There must be some mistake!' Arthur said, all the brightness fading from his face, which seemed to grow pinched and pallid as he turned it piteously toward his brother and continued: 'Not come! Oh, Frank! did John say so? Was no one there? Let me go and question him--there must be a mistake.' He was hurrying toward the door, when Frank caught his arm and detained him, while he said, decidedly: 'No use to see John. Can't you believe me when I tell you no one was there--and I knew there would not be. It was folly to send.' For a moment a pale, haggard face, which looked still more haggard and pale with the firelight flickering over it, confronted Frank steadily; then the lips began to quiver, and the eyelids to twitch, while great tears gathered in Arthur's eyes, until at last, covering his face with his hands, he staggered to the couch, and throwing himself upon it, sobbed convulsively. 'Oh, Gretchen, my darling!' he said. 'I was so sure, and now everything is swept away, and I am left so desolate.' Frank had never seen grief just like this, and, with his conscience pricking him a little for the deception he had practised, he found himself pitying his brother as he had never done before; and when at last the latter cried out loud, he went to him, and laying his hand gently upon his bowed head, said to him, soothingly: 'Don't, Arthur; don't feel so badly. It is terrible to see a man cry as you are crying.' 'No, no; let me cry,' Arthur replied. 'The tears do me good, and my brain would burst without them. It is all on fire, and my head is aching so hard again.' At this moment Charles appeared, asking if his master would have dinner served. But Arthur could not eat, and the table which had been arranged with so much care for Gretchen was cleared away, while Gretchen's chair was moved back from the fire and Gretchen's footstool put in its place, and nothing remained to show that she had been expected except the pretty dress, with its accessories, which lay upon Arthur's bed. These he took care of himself, folding them with trembling hands and tear-wet eyes, as a fond mother folds the clothes her dead child has worn, sorrowing most over the half-worn shoes, so like the dear little feet which will never wear them again. So Arthur sorrowed over the high-heeled slippers, with the blue rosettes and pointed toes, fashionable in Paris at that time. Gretchen had never worn them, it is true, but they seemed so much like her that his tears fell fast as he held them in his hands, and, dropping upon the pure white satin, left a stain upon it. When everything was put away and the long trunk locked again, Arthur went back to the couch and said to his brother, who was still in the room: 'Don't leave me, Frank; at least not yet, till I am more composed. My nerves are dreadfully shaken to-night, and I feel afraid of something, I don't know what. How the wind howls and moans! I never heard it like that but once before, and that was years ago, among the Alps in Switzerland. Then it blew off the roof of the chalet where I was staying, and I heard afterward that Amy died that night. You remember Amy, the girl I loved so well, though not as I love Gretchen. If she had come, I should have told you all about her, but now it does not matter who she is, or where I saw her first, knitting in the sunshine, with the halo on her hair and the blue of the summer skies reflected in her eyes. Oh, Gretchen, my love, my love!' He was talking more to himself than to Frank, who sat beside him until far into the night, while the wild storm raged on and shook the solid house to its very foundations. A tall tree in the yard was uprooted, and a chimney-top came crushing down with a force which threatened to break through the roof. For a moment there was a lull in the tempest, and, raising himself upon his elbow, Arthur listened intently, while he said, in a whisper which made Frank's blood curdle in his veins: 'Hark! there's more abroad to-night than the storm! Something is happening or has happened which affects me. I have heard voices in the wind--Gretchen calling me from far away. Frank, Frank, _did_ you hear that? It was a woman's cry; her voice--Gretchen's. Yes, Gretchen, I am coming!' And with a bound he was at the window, which he opened wide, and leaning far out of it, listened to hear repeated a sound which Frank, too, had heard--a cry like the voice of one in mortal peril calling for help. It might have been the wind, which on the instant swept round the corner in a great gust, driving the snow and sleet into Arthur's face, and making him draw in his body, nearly half of which was leaning from the window as he waited for the strange cry to be repeated. But it did not come again, though Frank, whose nerves were strung to almost as high a tension as his brother's, thought he heard it once above the roar of the tempest, and a vague feeling of disquiet took possession of him as he sat for an hour longer watching his brother and listening to the noise without. Gradually the storm subsided, and when the clock struck one the wind had gone down, the snow had ceased to fall, and the moon was struggling feebly through a rift of dark clouds in the west. After persuading his brother to go to bed, Frank retired to his own room and was soon asleep, unmindful of the tragedy which was being enacted not very far away, where a little child was smiling in its dreams, while the woman beside it was praying for life until her mission should be accomplished.	{ "id": "15321" }
12	THE TRAMP HOUSE.	About midway between the entrance to the park and the Collingwood grounds, and fifty rods or more from the cross-road which the strange woman had taken on the night of the storm, stood a small stone building, which had been used as a school-house until the Shannondale turnpike was built and the cross-road abandoned. After that it was occupied by one poor family after another, until the property of which it was a part came into the hands of the elder Mr. Tracy, who, with his English ideas, thought to make it a lodge and bring the gates of his park down to it. But this he did not do, and the house was left to the mercy of the winds, and the storms, and the boys, until Arthur became master there, and with his artistic taste thought to beautify it a little and turn it to some use. 'I would tear it down,' he said to his neighbor, Mr. St. Claire, who stood with him one day looking at it, 'I would tear it down, and have once or twice given orders to that effect, but as often countermanded them. I do not know that I am exactly superstitious, but I am subject to fancies, or presentiments, or whatever you choose to call those moods which take possession of you and which you cannot shake off, and, singularly enough, one of these fancies is connected with this old hut, and as often as I decide to remove it something tells me not to; and once I actually dreamed that a dead woman's hand clutched me by the arm and bade me leave it alone. A case of "Woodman spare that tree," you see.' And Arthur laughed lightly at his own morbid fancies, but he left the house and planted around it quantities of woodbine, which soon crept up its sides to the chimney-top and made it look like the ivy-covered cottages so common in Ireland. It was the nicest kind of rendezvous for lovers, who frequently availed themselves of its seclusion to whisper their secrets to each other, and it was sometimes used as a dining-room by the people of Shannondale, where in summer they held picnics in the pretty pine grove not far away. But during Arthur's absence it had been suffered to go to decay, for Frank cared little for lovers or picnics, and less for the tramps who often slept there at night, and for whom it came at last to be called the Tramp House. So the winds, and the storms, and the boys did their work upon it unmolested, and when Arthur returned, the door hung upon one hinge, and there was scarcely a whole light of glass in the six windows. 'Better tear the old rookery down. It is of no earthly use except to harbor rats and tramps. I've known two or three to spend the night in it at a time, and once a lot of gipsies quartered themselves here for a week and nearly scared Dolly to death,' Frank said to his brother as they were walking past it a few days after his return, and Arthur was commenting upon its dilapidated appearance. 'Oh, the tramps sleep here, do they?' Arthur said. 'Well, let them. If any poor, homeless wretches want to stay here nights they are very welcome, I am sure, and I will see that the door is rehung and glass put in the windows. May as well make them comfortable.' 'Do as you like,' Frank replied, and there, so far as he was concerned, the matter ended. But while the carpenters were at work at the Park Arthur sent one of them to the old stone house and had the door fixed and glass put in two of the windows, while rude but close shutters were nailed before the others, and then Arthur went himself into the room and pushed a long table which the picnic people had used for their refreshments and the tramps for a bed into a corner, where one sleeping upon it would be more sheltered from the draught. All this seemed nonsense to Frank, who laughingly suggested that Arthur should place in it a stove and a ton of coal for the benefit of his lodgers. But Arthur cared little for his brother's jokes. His natural kindness of heart, which was always seeking another's good, had prompted him to this care for the Tramp House, in which he felt a strange interest, never dreaming that what he was doing would reach forward to the future and influence not only his life but that of many others. The storm which had raged so fiercely around the house in the park had not spared the cottage in the lane, which rocked like a cradle as gust after gust of wind struck it with a force which made every timber quiver, and sent the boy Harold close to his grandmother's side as he asked, tremblingly: 'Do you think we shall be blown away?' The rheumatism from which Mrs. Crawford had been suffering in the fall had troubled her more or less during the entire winter, and now, aggravated by a cold, it was worse than it had ever been before, and on the night of the storm she was suffering intense pain, which was only relieved by the hot poultices which Harold made under her direction and applied to the swollen limb. This kept him up later than usual, and the clock was striking eleven when his grandmother declared herself easier, and bade him go to bed. It was at this hour that Arthur Tracy had fancied he heard the cry for help, and the snow was sweeping past the cottage in great billows of white when Harold went to the window and looked out into the night. In the summer when the leaves were upon the trees the old stone house could not he seen from the cottage, from which it was distant a quarter of a mile or more, but in the winter when the trees were stripped of their foliage it was plainly discernible, and as Harold glanced that way a gleam of light appeared suddenly, as if the door had been opened and the flickering rays of a candle had for a moment shone out into the darkness. Then it disappeared, but not until Harold had cried out: 'Oh, grandma, there's a light in the Tramp House; I saw it plain as day. Somebody is in there.' 'God pity them.' was Mrs. Crawford's reply, though she did not quite credit Harold's statement, or think of it again that night. It was late next morning when Harold awoke to find the sun shining into the room, and without any sign of the terrible storm, except the snow, which lay in great piles everywhere and came almost to the window's edge. But Harold was not afraid of snow, and soon had the walks cleared around the cottage, and when, after breakfast, which he prepared himself, for his grandmother could not step, he was told that a doctor must be had and he must go for him, he did not demur at all, but commenced his preparations at once for the long and wearisome walk. 'Better go through the park,' his grandmother said to him, as he was tying his warm comforter about his ears and putting on his mittens. 'It is a little farther that way, but somebody has broken a path by this time, and the cross-road, which is nearer, must be impassable.' Harold made no reply, but remembering the light he had seen in the Tramp House, resolved within himself to take the cross-road and investigate the mystery. Bidding his grandmother good-by, and telling her he should be back before she had time to miss him, he started on his journey, and was soon plunging through the snow, which, in some places, was up to his armpits, so that his progress was very slow, but by kicking with his feet and throwing out his arms like the paddles of a boat, he managed to get on until he was opposite the Tramp House, which looked like an immense snow-heap, so completely was it covered. Only the chimney and the slanting roof showed any semblance to a house as Harold made his way toward it, still beating the snow with his arms, and thinking it was not quite the fun he had fancied it might be. He was close to the house at last, and stood for a moment looking at it, while a faint thrill of fear stirred in his veins as he remembered to have heard that burglars and thieves sometimes made it their rendezvous after a night's marauding. What if they were there now, and should rush upon him if he ventured to disturb them! 'I don't believe I will try it,' he thought, as he glanced nervously at the door, which was blockaded by a great bank of snow; and he was about to retrace his steps, when a sound met his ear which made him stand still and listen until it was repeated a second time. Then forgetting both burglar and thief, he started forward quickly, and was soon at the door, from which he dug away the snow with a desperate energy, as if working for his life. For the sound was the cry of a little child, frightened and pleading. 'Mah-nee! mah-nee!' it seemed to say; and Harold, thinking it was mamma, answered, cheerily: 'I am coming as fast I can.' Then the crying ceased, and all was still inside, while Harold worked on until enough snow was cleared away to allow of his opening the door about a foot, and through this narrow opening he forced his way into the cold, damp room, where for a moment he could see nothing distinctly, for the sunlight outside had blinded him, and there was but little light inside, owing to the barred and snow-bound windows. Gradually, however, as he became accustomed to the place, he saw upon the long table in the corner where Arthur Tracy had moved it months before, what looked like a human form stretched at full length and lying upon its back, with its white, stony face upturned to the rafters above, and no sound or motion to tell that it still lived. With an exclamation of surprise, Harold sprang forward and laid his hand upon the pale forehead of the woman, but started back as quickly with a cry of horror, for by the touch of the ice-cold flesh he knew the woman was dead. 'Frozen to death!' he whispered, with ashen lips; and then, as something stirred under the gray cloak which partly covered the woman, he conquered his terror and went forward again to the table, over which he bent curiously. Again the cry, which was more like 'mah-nee' now than 'mamma,' met his ear, and, stooping lower, he saw a curly head nestle close to the bosom of the woman, while a little fat white hand was clasping the neck as if for warmth and protection. At this sight all Harold's fear vanished, and, bending down so that his lips almost touched the bright, wavy hair, he said: 'Poor little girl!' --he felt instinctively that it was a girl--'poor little girl! come with me away from this dreadful place!' and he tried to lift up her head, but she drew it away from him, and repeated the piteous cry of 'Mah-nee, mah-nee!' At last, however, as Harold continued to talk to her, the cries ceased, and, cautiously lifting her head, she turned toward him a fat, chubby face and a pair of soft, blue eyes in which the great tears were standing. Then her lips began to quiver in a grieved kind of way, as if the horror of the previous night had stamped itself upon her tender mind and she were asking for sympathy. 'Mah-nee!' she said again, placing one hand on the cold, dead face, and stretching the other toward Harold, who put out his arms to take her. But something resisted all his efforts, and a closer inspection showed him a long, old-fashioned carpet-bag, which enveloped her body from her neck to her feet, and into which she had evidently been put to protect her from the cold. 'Not a bad idea either,' Harold said, as he comprehended the situation; 'and your poor mother gave you the most of her cloak, too, and her shawl,' he continued, as he saw how carefully the child had been wrapped, while the mother, if it were her mother, had paid for her unselfishness with her life. 'What is your name, little girl?' he asked. The child, who had been staring at him while he talked as if he were a lunatic, made no reply until he had her in his arms, when she, too, began to talk in a half-frightened way. Then he looked at her as if she were the lunatic, for never had he heard such speech as hers. 'I do believe you are a Dutchman,' he said, as he wrapped both shawl and cloak around her and started for the door, which he kicked against some time in order to make an opening wide enough to allow of his egress with his burden. When at last they emerged from the cold, dark room into the bright sunshine, the child gave a great cry of delight, and the blue eyes fairly danced with joy as they fell upon the dazzling snow. Then she put both arms around Harold's neck, and nestling her face close to his, kissed him as fondly as if she had known him all her life, while the boy paid her back kiss after kiss as he proceeded slowly toward home. The child was heavy, and the bag and shawl made such an unwieldy bundle that his progress was very slow, and he stopped more than once to rest and take breath, and as often as he stopped the blue eyes would look up enquiringly at him with an expression which made his boyish heart beat faster as he thought what pretty eyes they were and wondered who she was. Once he fell down, and bag and baby rolled in the snow; but only the vigorous kicking of a pair of little legs inside the bag showed that the child disapproved of the proceeding, for she made no sound, and when he picked her up she brushed the snow from his hair, and laughed as if the thing had been done for fun. He reached the cottage at last, and bursting into the room where his grandmother was sitting with her foot in a chair, exclaimed, as he put down the child, who, as she was still enveloped in the bag, stood with difficulty: 'Oh grandma, what do you think? I did see a light in the Tramp House, and there is somebody there--a woman--dead--frozen to death, with nothing over her, for she had given her cloak and shawl to her little girl. I went there. I found her, and brought the baby home in the carpet-bag, and now I must go back to the woman. Oh, it was dreadful to see her white face, and it is so cold there and dark;' and if the horror of what he had seen had just impressed itself upon him, the boy turned pale and faint, and, staggering to a chair, burst into tears. Too much astonished to utter a word, Mrs. Crawford stared at him a moment in a bewildered kind of way, and then when the child, seeing him cry, began also to cry for "Mah-nee," and struggle in the bag, she forgot her lame foot, on which she had not stepped for a week, and going to the little girl, released her from the bag, and taking her upon her lap, began to untie the soft woollen cloak and to chafe the cold fingers, while she questioned her grandson. Having recovered himself somewhat, Harold repeated his story, and asked with a shudder: 'Must I go for her alone? I can't, I can't. I was not afraid with the baby there, but it is so awful, and I never saw any one dead before.' 'Go back alone! Of course not!' his grandmother replied. 'But you must go to the park at once and tell them; go as fast as you can. She may not be dead.' 'Yes, she is,' Harold answered, decidedly. 'I touched her face, and nothing alive could feel like that.' He was buttoning his overcoat preparatory to a fresh start, but before he went he kissed the little girl who was sitting on his grandmother's lap, and who, as she saw him leaving her, began to cry for him and to utter curious sounds unintelligible to them both. But Harold brought her a piece of bread, which she began to devour ravenously, and then he stepped quietly out and was soon breaking through the drifts which lay between the cottage and the park.	{ "id": "15321" }
13	THE WOMAN.	They slept later than usual at the park house that morning, and Frank and his family were just sitting down to breakfast, and Arthur was taking his rolls and coffee in his own room, when John, with a white, scared face, looked in and said: 'Excuse me, Mr. Tracy, but--but something dreadful has happened. There's a woman frozen to death in the Tramp House, with a baby, and Harold Hastings found them, and--but he is here, sir; he will tell you himself;' and he went for the boy, who soon entered the room, followed by every servant in the house. Harold had come upon John first in the stable, and sinking down exhausted upon the hay, had told his story, while the man, John, listened terror-stricken and open-mouthed. Then seeing how weak and tired Harold seemed, and how he sank back upon the hay when he attempted to rise, he took him in his arms, and carrying him to the kitchen, left him there while he went with the news to his master. 'A woman dead in the Tramp House, and a baby!' Frank exclaimed, and for an instant he felt as if he were dying, for there flashed over him a conviction that the woman had come in the train the previous night, and that it was her cry for help which had been borne to him on the winds, and to which he had paid no heed. 'Are you sick? Are you going to faint?' his wife said to him, as she saw how white he grew, and how heavily he leaned back in his chair as Harold related the particulars of his finding the woman and the child. 'I am not going to faint; but it makes me sick and shaky to think of a woman freezing to death so near us that if she had cried for help we might perhaps have heard her,' Frank replied. Then turning to Harold, he continued: 'How did she look? Was she young? Was she pretty? Was she dark or fair?' He almost gasped the last word, as if it choked him, and no one guessed how anxiously he waited for Harold's answer, which did not afford him much relief. 'I don't know; it was so dark in there, and cold, and I was afraid some of the time, and in a hurry. I only know that her nose was long and large, for I touched it when I was trying to get at the little girl, and it was so cold--oh, oh!' And Harold shuddered as if he still felt the icy touch of the dead. 'A long nose and a large one,' Frank said, involuntarily, while a sigh of relief escaped him as he remembered that the nose of the picture in his brother's room was neither long nor large. Still Harold might be mistaken, and though he had no good cause for believing that the woman lying dead in the Tramp House was Gretchen, there was a horrible feeling in his heart, while a lump came into his throat and affected his speech, which was thick and indistinct, as he rose from his chair at last and said to John: 'We have no time to lose. Hitch up the horses to the long sleigh as quick as you can. We must go to the Tramp House after the woman, and send to the village for a doctor, and telegraph to Springfield for the coroner. I suppose there must be an inquest; and, Dolly, see that a room is prepared for the body.' 'Oh, Frank, must it come here? Why not take it to the cottage? The child is there,' Mrs. Tracy said, not because she cared so much for the trouble, but because of her aversion to having the corpse of a stranger in the house, with all that it involved. 'I tell you that woman must come here,' was Frank's decided reply, as he began to make himself ready for the ride. 'Don't tell Arthur yet,' he said, as he left the house and took his seat in the sleigh, which was soon ploughing its way through the snow banks in the direction of the Tramp House. It was Harold who acted as master of ceremonies, for John was nervous and hung back from the half open door, while Frank was too much unstrung to know just what he was doing or saying, as he squeezed through the narrow space and then stood for a moment, snow-blind and dizzy, in the cheerless room. Harold was not afraid now. He had been there before alone, had seen and touched the white face of the corpse, and now, with companionship in its presence, he went fearlessly up to it, followed by Frank, who could scarcely stand, and who laid his hand for support on Harold's shoulder, and then turned curiously and eagerly toward the woman. John had lingered outside, shovelling the snow from the door which he succeeded in opening wide, so that the full, broad sunlight fell upon the face, which was neither young, nor pretty, nor fair, while the hair was black as night. Frank noted all these points at a glance, and could have shouted aloud for joy, so great was the revulsion of his feelings. It was not Gretchen lying there before him, and he was not a murderer, as he had accused himself of being, for she did not come by the train; she had no connection with Tracy Park; she was going somewhere else--to Collingwood, perhaps--when, overcome by the storm and the cold, she had sought shelter for the night in this wretched place. 'I suppose the proper thing to do is to leave her here till the coroner can see her,' he said to John; 'but no train can get through from Springfield to-day, I am sure, and I shall have her taken to the park. Bring me the blankets from the sleigh.' He was very collected now, for a great load was lifted from his mind. 'Had she nothing with her? nothing to cover her?' he asked, as they proceeded to wrap her in the warm blankets, which, had they sooner come, would have saved her life. Harold told him again of the carpet-bag and the cloak and the shawl, which had covered the child, and added, 'That's all; there don't seem to be anything else. Oh, what's this?' and stooping down, he picked up some hard substance which he had kicked against the table. It proved to be one of those olive wood candle sticks, so convenient in travelling, as when not in use, they can be made into a small round box or ball, and take but little room. It contained but the remains of a wax candle, which had burned down into the socket and then gone out. Near by, upon the floor, was a tiny box of matches, with two or three charred ones among them. 'The poor woman must have had a light for at least a portion of the time,' Frank said, as he picked up the box. 'She had, I know she had,' Harold cried, excitedly; 'for I saw it and told grandma so. It was like she had opened the door and let out a big blaze, and then everything was dark, as if the door was shut or the wind had blown the candle out.' 'What time was that, do you think?' Frank asked. 'It must have been about eleven,' Harold replied, 'for I remember hearing the clock strike and grandma's saying I must go to bed, it was so late. I was up with her because her foot was so bad, and I warmed the poultices.' Frank groaned aloud, unmindful of the boy looking so curiously at him, for that was the time when he had heard the sound like a human voice is distress. He had thought it a fancy then communicated to him by his brother's nervousness, but now he was certain it must have been the stranger calling through the storm, in the vain hope that somebody would hear and come. Somebody had heard, but no one had come; and so in the cold and the darkness, with the snow sifting through every crevice and blowing down the wide chimney to the hearth where it made a drift like a grave, she had battled for her own life and that of the child beside her, saving the latter but losing her own. 'If I had only believed it was a cry,' Frank thought, and as he wrapped the body in the blankets and buffalo robe as tenderly and reverently as if the stiffened limbs had belonged to his mother, he saw distinctly before him as if painted upon canvas the driving gale, the inky sky, the half-opened door, through which the sleet was driving, the light behind, and the frantic, freezing woman, screaming for help, while only the winds made answer, and the pitiless storm raged on. This was the picture which Frank was destined to see in his dreams for many and many a night, until the mystery was solved concerning the woman whom they carried to the sleigh, which was driven back to the park house, where, within fifteen or twenty minutes a crowd of anxious, curious people gathered. The messenger sent to town had done his work rapidly and thoroughly, and half the villagers who heard of the tragedy enacted at their very door started at once for Tracy Park. The boy had stopped at the station and told his story there, making the baggage-master feel as if he, too, were a murderer, or at least an accessory. 'If I had only gone after that woman,' he said, as he told of the stranger who had come on the train and gotten off on the side of the car farthest from the depot--'if I had gone after her and made her take a conveyance to where she was going, this would not have happened; but it was so all-fired cold, and the wind was yelling so, and she walked off so fast, as if she knew her own business. So I just minded mine, or rather I didn't, for I never even seen the box, or trunk, which was pitched out helter-skelter, and which I found this morning, all covered up with snow. It was hers, of course, and I shall send it right over there, as it may tell who the poor critter was.' This trunk, which was little more than a strong wooden box with two double locks upon it, was still further secured by a bit of rope wound twice around it and tied in a hard knot. There was no name upon it to tell whose it was, or whence it came, except the name of a German steamer, on which its owner had probably crossed the ocean, and the significant word 'Hold,' showing that it had not been used in the state-room. It had been checked at the Grand Central depot in New York for Shannondale, and the check was still attached to the iron handle when it was put down in the kitchen at Tracy Park, where the utmost excitement prevailed, the servants huddling together with scared faces, and talking in whispers of the terrible thing which had happened, while Mrs. Tracy and the housekeeper, scarcely less excited than the servants, gave their attention to the dead. At the end of the rear hall was a small room, where Frank sometimes received business calls when at home, and there they laid the body, after the physician, who had arrived, declared that life had been extinct for many hours. Seen in the full daylight, she seemed to be at least thirty-five years of age, and her features, though not unpleasing, were coarse and large, especially the nose. Her hair was black, her complexion dark, and the hands, which lay folded upon her bosom, showed marks of toil, for they were rough and unshapely, though smaller in proportion than the other members of her body. Her woollen dress of grayish blue was short and scant; her knit stockings were black and thick, and her leather shoes were designed fur use rather than ornament. A wide white apron was tied around her waist, and she wore a small black and white plaided shawl pinned about her neck. And there she lay, not a pleasant picture to contemplate, helpless and defenceless against the curious eyes bent upon her and the remarks concerning her, as one after another of the villagers came in to look at her and speculate as to who she was or how she came in the Tramp House. Among the crowd was Mr. St. Claire, who gave it as his opinion that she was a Frenchwoman of the lower class, and asked if nothing had been found with her except the clothes she wore. Harold told him of the shawl, and cloak, and carpet-bag which he had carried with the child to the cottage. 'Yes, there is something more--her trunk,' chimed in the baggage-master, who had just entered the room, trembling and breathless. 'Her trunk! Did she come in the cars?' Frank asked, his hands dropping helplessly at his side, and his lips growing pale, as the man replied: 'Yes; last night, on the quarter-past-six from New York; and what is curi's, she got out on the side away from the depot, and I never seen her till the cars went on, when she was lookin' at a paper, and the child cryin' at her feet. I spoke to her, but she did not answer, and snatching up the child, she hurried off, almost on a run. It was storming so I did not see her trunk till this mornin', when I found it on the platform. I wish I had gone after her and made her take a sleigh. If I had she wouldn't now have been dead, and, I swow, I feel as if I had killed her. I wonder why under the sun she turned into the lots, unless she was goin' to Collingwood--' 'Or Tracy Park,' Frank said, involuntarily. 'Were you expecting any one?' Mr. St. Claire asked. Sinking into a chair, Frank replied: 'No, I was not, but Arthur, who has been worse than usual for a few days, has again a fancy that Gretchen is coming. He says now that she was not in the ship with him, but that he has written her to join him here, and yesterday he took it into his head that she would be here last night, and insisted that the carriage be sent to meet her; but John had hurt his back, and as I had no faith in her coming, he did not go. I wish he had; it might have saved this woman's life, although she is not Gretchen.' Frank had made his confession, except so far as deceiving his brother was concerned, and he felt his mind eased a little, though there was still a lump in his throat, and a feeling of disquiet in his heart, with a wish that the dead woman had never crossed his path, and a conviction that he had not yet seen the worst of it. Mr. St. Claire looked at him thoughtfully a moment, and then said: 'I should not accuse myself too much. You could not know that any one would be there, and this woman certainly is not the Gretchen of whom your brother talks so much, and whose picture is in his room. Has he seen her? Does he know of the accident?' 'I have not told him yet. He is not feeling well to-day. Charles says he is still in bed,' was Frank's reply. 'We may find something in her trunk,' Mr. St. Claire continued, 'which will give us a clue to her history. Where do you suppose she kept her key?' No one volunteered an answer, until Harold suggested that if she had a pocket it was probably there, when half a dozen hands or more at once felt for the pocket, which was found at last, and proved to be one of great capacity, and to contain a heterogeneous mass of contents: A purse, in which were two or three small German coins, an English sovereign, and a five dollar green-back; two handkerchiefs, one soiled and coarse, bearing in German text the initials 'N.B.' the other small and fine, bearing the initial 'J.,' also in German text: a pair of scissors, a thimble, a small needle-case, a child's toy, a worn picture-book, printed in Leipsic, a box of pills, some peanuts, some cloves, a piece of candy, a seed cake, a pocket comb, half a biscuit; and at the very bottom, the brass check whose number corresponded with that upon the trunk; also a ring to which were attached three keys, one belonging to the trunk, another evidently to the carpet-bag, while the third, which was very small and straight, must have been used for fastening some box or dressing-case. It was Mr. St. Claire who opened the trunk, from which one of the servants had removed the rope, while Frank sat near still trembling in every limb, and watching anxiously as article after article was taken out and examined, but afforded no satisfaction whatever, or gave any sign by which the stranger might be traced. There was a black alpaca dress and a few coarse garments which must have belonged to the woman. Some of them bore the initials 'N.B.,' some were without a mark, and all were cheap and plain, like the clothes of a servant before her head is turned and she apes her mistress' wardrobe. The child's dresses were of a better quality, and one embroidered petticoat bore the name 'Jerrine,' while the letter 'J.' was upon them all, except a towel of the finest linen, on one corner of which was the letter 'M.' worked with colored floss. 'Jerrine!' Mr. St. Claire repeated, pronouncing it 'Jerreen.' 'That is a French name, and a pretty one. It is the child's, of course.' To this no one replied, and he continued his examination of the trunk until it was quite empty. 'That is all,' he said in a tone of disappointment; and Frank, who had been sitting by and holding some of the things in his lap as they were taken from the trunk, answered, faintly: 'No, here is a book. It was done up in a handkerchief,' and he held up what proved to be a German Bible; but he did not tell that he had found something else, which he had thrust into his pocket when no one was looking at him. What he had found was a photograph, which had slipped from the leaves of the Bible, and at sight of the face, of which he only had a glimpse, every drop of blood seemed to leave his heart and came surging to his brain, making him so giddy and wild that he did not realise what he was doing when he hid away the picture until he could examine it by himself. Once in his pocket he dared not take it out, although he raised his hand two or three times to do so, but was as often deterred by the thought that everybody would think that he had intended to hide it and suspect his motive. So he kept quiet and saw them examine the book, the blank page of which had been torn half off, leaving only the last three letters of what must have been the owner's name, '----ich'--that was all, and might as well not have been there, for any light it shed upon the matter. Opening the book by chance at 1st Corinthians, 2nd chapter, Mr. St. Claire, who could read German much better than he could speak it, saw pencil-marks around the ninth verse, and read aloud: 'Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.' On the margin opposite this verse was written, in a girlish hand: 'Think of me as there when you read this, and do not be sorry.' A lock of soft, golden hair, which might have been cut from a baby's head, and a few faded flowers, which still gave forth a faint perfume like heliotrope, were tied with a bit of thread, and lying between the leaves. And except that the book was full of marked passages, chiefly comforting and conciliatory, there was nothing more to indicate the character of the owner. 'If this Bible were hers, she was a good woman,' Mr. St. Claire said, laying his hand reverently upon the forehead of the dead, while Frank, who saw another meaning between the lines, shook like one in an ague fit, for he did not believe that those hands, so pulseless and cold, had ever traced the words, 'Think of me as there when you read this, and do not be sorry.' She who wrote them might be, and probably was dead, but her grave was far away, and the fact did not at all change the duty which he owed to her and him for whom the message was intended. 'What shall I say to Arthur, and how shall I tell him,' he was wondering to himself, when Mr. St. Claire roused him by saying: 'You seem greatly unstrung by what has happened. I never saw you look so ill.' 'Yes, I feel as if I had murdered her by not sending John to the station,' Frank stammered, glad to offer this as an excuse for his manner, which he knew must seem strange and unnatural. 'You are too sensitive altogether. John might not have seen her, she hurried off so fast, and you have no particular reason to think she was coming here,' Mr. St. Claire said, adding: 'We'd better leave her now. We can do nothing more until the coroner comes, which will hardly be to-day. I hear the roads are all blocked and impassable. Let everything remain in the trunk where he can see them.' Mechanically Mrs. Tracy, who was present, put the different articles into the trunk, leaving the Bible on the top, and then followed her husband from the room. She knew there was more affecting him than the fact that a dead woman was in the house, or that he had not sent John to the station. But what it was she could not guess, unless, and she, too, felt faint and giddy for a moment, as a new idea entered her mind. 'Frank,' she said to him when they were alone for a few moments, 'Arthur had a fancy that Gretchen was coming last night. You do not think this woman is she?' 'Gretchen? No. Don't be a fool, Dolly. Gretchen is fair and young, and the woman is old and black as the ace of spades. Gretchen! No, indeed!' He did not show her the picture he had secreted; he knew she would not approve of the act, and if she had no suspicion with regard to the woman and the child he did not care to share his with her, particularly as it was only a suspicion, and so far as he could judge in his perturbed state of mind, nothing he could do would ever make things sure. His wife seemed to have forgotten the child at the cottage, and he would not bring it to her mind until it was necessary to do so. Just then Charles came to the room and said that his master was very much excited and wished to know the reason for so much commotion in the house, and why so many people were coming and going down and up the avenue. 'I thought it better that you should tell him,' Charles added, and with a sinking heart Frank started for his brother's room. He had not seen him before that day, and now as he looked at him it seemed to him that he had grown older since the previous night, for there were lines about his mouth, and his face was very thin and pale. But his eyes were unusually bright, and his voice rang out clear as a bell as he said: 'What is it, Frank? What has happened that so many people are coming here, banging doors and talking so loud that I heard them here in my room, but I could not distinguish what they said. What's the matter? Any one hurt or dead?' He put the question direct, and Frank gave a direct reply. 'Yes, a woman was found frozen to death in the Tramp House this morning, and was brought here. She is lying in the office at the end of the back hall.' 'A women frozen to death in the Tramp House!' Arthur repeated. 'Then I did hear a cry. Oh, Frank, who is she? Where did she come from?' 'We do not know who she is, or where she came from!' Frank replied, 'Mr. St. Claire thinks she is French. There is nothing about her person to identify her, but I would like you to see her, and--and--' 'I see her! Why should I see her, and shock my nerves more than they are already shocked?' Arthur said, with a decided shake of his head. 'But you must see her,' Frank continued. 'Perhaps you know her. She came last night. She--' Before he could utter another word Arthur was at his side, Frank seizing him by the shoulder with the grip of a giant, demanded, fiercely: 'What do you mean by her coming last night? How did she come? Not by train, for John was there. Frank, there is something you are keeping back. I know it by your face. Tell me the truth. Is it Gretchen dead in this house?' 'No,' Frank answered huskily. 'It is not Gretchen, if that picture is like her, for this woman is very dark and old, and, besides that, has Gretchen a child?' For an instant Arthur stood staring at him, or rather at the space beyond him, as if trying to recall something too distant or too shadowy to assume any tangible form; then bursting into a laugh he said: 'Gretchen a child! That is the best joke I have heard. How should Gretchen have a child? She is little more than one herself, or was when I saw her last. No, Gretchen has no child. Why do you ask?' 'Because,' Frank replied, 'there was a little girl found in the Tramp House with this woman, a girl three or four years old, I judge. She is at the cottage now, where Harold carried her. He found the woman this morning. Will you see her now?' Arthur answered 'no,' decidedly, and then Frank, who knew that he should never again know peace of mind if his brother did not see her, summoned all his courage and said: 'Arthur, you must. I have not told you all. This woman did come by train from New York.' 'Then why did not John see her?' interrupted Arthur. 'He was not there,' Frank replied. 'Forgive me, Arthur, I did not send him as you thought. It was so cold and stormy, and I had no faith in your presentiments, and so--so--' 'And so you lied to me, and I will never trust you again as long as I live, and if this had been Gretchen, I would kill you, where I stand!' Arthur hissed in a whisper, more terrible to hear than louder tones would have been, 'Yes, I will see this woman whose death lies at your door,' he continued, with a gesture that Frank should precede him. Arthur was very calm, and collected, and stern, as he followed to the office where the body lay, covered now from view, but showing terribly distinct through the linen sheet folded over it. 'Remove the covering,' he said, in the tone of a master to his slave, and Frank obeyed. Then bending close to the stiffened form, Arthur examined the face minutely, while Frank looked on alternately between hope and dread, the former of which triumphed as his brother said, quietly: 'Yes, she is French: but I do not know her. I never saw her before. Had she nothing with her to tell who she was?' His mood had passed, and Frank did not hear him now. 'She had a trunk,' he replied. 'Here it is, with her clothes, and the child's, and--a Bible.' 'He said the last slowly, and, taking up the book, opened it as far as possible from the writing on the margin, which might or might not be dangerous. 'It is a German Bible,' he continued, and then Arthur took it quickly from him as if it had been a long-lost friend, turning the worn pages rapidly, but failing to discover the marked passage and the message for some one. The lock of baby hair and the faded flowers caught his attention, and his breath came hard and pantingly, as for a moment he held the little golden tress which seemed almost to twine itself lovingly around his fingers. 'That must be her child's hair. You know I told you there was a little girl found with her. Would you like to see her?' Frank said. 'No, no!' Arthur answered, hastily. 'Let her stay where she is, I don't like children as a rule. You know I can't abide the noise yours sometimes make.' He was leaving the room with the Bible in his hand, but Frank could not suffer that, and he said: 'I suppose all these things must stay here till the coroner sees them; so I will put the Bible where I found it. Arthur gave it up readily enough, and then, as he reached the door, looked back, and said: 'If forty coroners and undertakers come on this business, don't bother me any more. My head buzzes like a bee-hive. See that everything is done decently for the poor woman, and don't let the town bury her. Do it yourself, and send the bill to me. There is room enough on the Tracy lot; put her in a corner.' 'Yes,' Frank answered, standing in the open door and watching him as he went slowly down the long hall and until he heard him going up stairs. Then locking the door, which shut him in with the dead, he took the photograph from his pocket and examined it minutely, feeling no shadow of doubt in his heart that it was Gretchen--if the picture in the window was like her. It was the same face, the same sweet mouth and sunny blue eyes, with curls of reddish-golden hair shading the low brow. The dress was different and more in accordance with that of a girl who belonged to the middle class, but this counted for nothing, and Frank felt himself a thief, and a liar, and a murderer as he stood looking at the lovely face; and debating what he should do. Turning it over he saw on the back a word traced in English letters, in a very uncertain scrawling hand, as if it were the writer's first attempt at English. Spelling it letter by letter he made out what he called 'Wiesbaden,' and knew it was some German town. Did Gretchen live there, he wondered, and how could he find out, and what should he do? He had not yet seen the child at the cottage, but from some things Harold said, he knew she was more like this picture than like the dead woman found with her, and in his heart he felt almost sure who she was, and that his course of duty was plain. He ought to show Arthur the photograph, and tell him his suspicions, and take every possible step to ascertain who the woman was and where she came from. Frank was not a bad man, nor a hard-hearted man, but he was ambitious and weak. He had enjoyed money, and ease, and position long enough to make him unwilling to part with them now, while for his children he was more ambitious than for himself. To see Tom master of Tracy Park was the great desire of his life, and this could not be, if what he feared were proved true. If Arthur had no wife, no child, no will adverse to him, why, then his interest was safe, for no will his brother could now make would be held as valid, and when he died everything would naturally go to him. Of all this Frank thought during the few minutes he staid in the silent room. Then he said to himself: 'I will see the child first. After all I know nothing for certain--can never know anything for certain, and I should be a fool to give up all my children's interests for a fancy, an idea, which may have no foundation. Arthur does not know half the time what he is saying, and might not tell the truth about Gretchen. She may not have been his wife. On the whole, I do not believe she was. He would never have left her if she had been, and if so, this child, if she is Gretchen's, has no right to come between me and mine. No, I shall wait a little while and think, though in the end I mean to do right.' With these specious arguments Frank tried to quiet his conscience, but he could not help feeling that Satan had possession of him, and as he hurried through the hall he said aloud, as if speaking to something seen: 'Go away--go away! I shall do right if I only know what right is. He did not see his brother again that day, or go to the cottage either, but as he was dressing himself next morning he said to his wife: 'That little girl ought to see her mother before she is buried. I shall send for her to-day. The coroner will be here, too. Did I tell you I had a telegram last night? He is coming on the early train.' Mrs. Tracy passed the allusion to the coroner in silence, but of the little girl she said: 'I suppose the child must come to the funeral, but you surely do not mean to keep her? We are not bound to do that because her mother froze to death on our premises.' 'Would you let her go to the poor-house?' Frank asked, but Dolly did not reply. As the breakfast-bell just then rang, no more was said of the little waif until the sleigh was brought to the door, and Frank announced his intention of stopping for the child on his way back from the station, where he was going to meet the coroner.	{ "id": "15321" }
14	LITTLE JERRY.	It was nearly noon when Harold left Tracy Park the previous day and started for home, eager and anxious with regard to the child whom he claimed as his own. He had found her. She was his and he should keep her, he said to himself, and then he wondered how his grandmother had managed with her, and if she had cried for him or for her mother, and as he reached the house he stood still a moment, to listen. But the sounds which met his ear were peals of laughter, mingled with mild, and, as it would seem, unavailing expostulations from his grandmother. Opening the door suddenly he found the child seated at the table in the high chair he used to occupy, and which Mrs. Crawford had brought from the attic, where it was stored. Standing before the child was a dish of bread and milk, of which she had evidently eaten enough, for she was playing with it now, and amusing herself by striking the spoon into the milk, which was splashed over the table, while three or four drops of it were standing on the forehead and nose of the distressed woman, who was vainly trying to take the spoon from the little hand clenching it so firmly. Mrs. Crawford had had a busy and exciting day with her charge, who, active and restless, and playful, kept her on the alert and made her forget in part how lame she was. As she could not put her foot to the floor without great pain, and as she must move about, she adopted the expedient of placing her knee on a chair to the back of which she held, while she hobbled around the room, followed by the child, who, delighted with this novel method of locomotion, put her knee in a low chair, and holding to Mrs. Crawford's skirts, limped after her, imitating her perfectly, even to the groans she sometimes uttered when a twinge sharper than usual ran up her swollen limb. It was fun for the child, but almost death to the woman, who, when she could endure it no longer, sank into a chair, and tried by speaking sharply, to make the little girl understand that she must keep quiet. But when she scolded, baby scolded back, in a language wholly unintelligible, shaking her curly head, and sometimes stamping her foot by way of emphasizing her words. When Mrs. Crawford laughed the child laughed, and when once a pang severer than usual wrung the tears from her eyes, baby looked at her compassionately a moment, while her little face puckered itself into wrinkles as if she too were going to cry; then, putting up her soft hand she wiped the tears from Mrs. Crawford's cheeks, and, climbing into her lap, became as quiet as a kitten. But a touch sufficed to start her up, for she was full of fun and frolic, and her laughing blue eyes, which were of that wide-open kind which see everything, were brimming over with mischief. Once or twice she called out 'Mahnee,' and going to the window, stood on tip-toe looking out, to see if she were coming. But on the whole she seemed happy and content, exploring every nook and corner of the kitchen and examining curiously every article of furniture as if it were quite new to her. Once when Mrs. Crawford was talking earnestly to her, trying to make her understand, she stood for a moment watching and imitating the motion of the lady's lips and the expression of her face; then going up to her she began to examine her mouth and her teeth, as if she would know what manner of machinery it was which produced sounds so new and strange to her. She certainly was a remarkable child for her age, though Mrs. Crawford was puzzled to know just how old she was. She was very small, and, judging from her size, one would have said she was hardly three; but the expression of her face was so mature, and she saw things so quickly and understood so readily, that she must have been older. She was certainly very precocious, with a most inquiring turn of mind, and Mrs. Crawford felt herself greatly interested in her as she watched her active movements and listened to the musical prattle she could not understand. She had examined the carpet-bag, in which were found the articles necessary for an ocean voyage, and little else. Most of these were soiled from use, but there was among them a little clean, white apron, and this Mrs. Crawford put upon the child, after having washed her face and hands and brushed her wavy hair, which had a trick of coiling itself into soft, fluffy curls all over her head. The bread and milk had been given her about twelve o'clock, and the laugh she gave when she saw it showed her appreciation of it quite as much as the eagerness with which she ate it. Her appetite appeased, however, she began to play with it and throw the milk over the table and into Mrs. Crawford's face, just as Harold came in, full of what he had seen at the park, and anxious to see his baby, as he called her. Taking her on his lap and kissing her rosy cheeks, he began to narrate to his grandmother all that had been done, and told her that Mr. St. Claire had given it as his opinion that the woman was French. 'And if so,' he continued, 'baby must be French, too, though she does not look a bit like her mother, who is very dark and not--well, not at all like you or Mrs. St. Claire.' Then he told of the trunk which the baggage-master had taken to the park, and of what it contained. 'The woman's clothes were marked "N.B."' he said, 'and some of the baby's--such a funny name. Mr. St. Claire said it was French, and pronounced "Jerreen," though it is spelled "Jerrine."' 'That is the name of the child's things in the bag,' Mrs. Crawford said. 'Of course it is baby's, then,' Harold replied; 'but, I shall call her Jerry for short, even if it is a boy's name, and so my little lady, I christen you Jerry;' and kissing the forehead, the eyes, the nose, and the chin, he marked the shape of the cross upon the face upturned to his, and named his baby 'Jerry.' Later, when he knew more of the world, he would change the 'y' into 'ie,' but now she was simply Jerry, and when he called her that she laughed and nodded as if the sound were not new to her. She was a beautiful child, with complexion as pure as wax, and eyes which might have borrowed their color from the blue lakes of Italy, or from the skies of England when they are at their brightest. 'I wish she could talk to me. I suppose she must speak French,' he said, as he was trying in vain to make her understand him. 'Don't you know a word I say?' he asked her, and her reply was what sounded to him like 'We, we.' 'That's English,' he cried, delighted with her progress, but when he spoke to her again, her answer was, 'Yah, yah,' which seemed to him so nonsensical that after a few attempts to make her say 'yes,' and to teach her what it meant, he gave up his lesson for the remainder of the day and talked to her by signs and gestures which she seemed to understand. Whatever he did she did, and he saw her more than once imitating his grandmother's motions as well as his own, to the life. Late in the afternoon Mr. St. Claire came to the cottage, curious to see the child, who, at sight of him, retreated behind Harold, and then peered shyly up at him, with a look in her great blue eyes which puzzled him on the instant, as one is frequently puzzled with a likeness to something or somebody he tries in vain to recall. In this instance it was hardly the eyes themselves, but rather the way they looked at him, and the sweep of the long lashes, together with a firm shutting together of the lips, which struck Mr. St. Claire as familiar, and when with a swift movement of her little hand, she swept the mass of golden hair back from her forehead, he would have sworn that he had seen that trick a thousand times, and yet he could not place it. That she was the child of the dead woman he believed, and as the mother was French, so also was she. He had once passed two years in France, and was master of the language; so he spoke to the child in French, but though she seemed to understand him she made no reply, until he said to her: 'Where is your mother, little one?' 'Then she answered, promptly, 'Dead,' but the language was German, not French. 'Ho-ho! You are a little Dutchman,' Mr. St. Claire said, with some surprise in his voice. Then as he noted the purity of her complexion, her fair hair and blue eyes, he said to himself: 'Her father was a German, and probably they lived in Germany, but the mother was certainly French.' His own knowledge of German was very limited, but he could speak it a little, and turning again to the child he managed to say: 'What is your name!' 'Der-ree,' was the reply, and Harold exclaimed: 'That's it; she means Jerry; that's short for the name on her clothes, which you said was pronounced Jereen. I have christened her Jerry, and she is my little girl, ain't you, Jerry!' 'Yah--oui--'ess,' was the answer, and there was a gleam of triumph in the blue eyes which flashed up to Harold for approbation. She had not, of course, understood a word he said, except, indeed her name; but the tone of his voice was interrogatory, and seemed to expect an affirmative answer, which she gave in three languages, emphasizing the ''ess' with a nod of her head, as if greatly pleased with herself. 'Bravo!' Harold shouted. 'She can say yes. I taught her, and I shall have her talking English in a few days as well as I do, shan't I, Jerry?' 'Yah--'ess,' was the reply. Then Mr. St. Claire tried to question her further with regard to herself and her home, but his phraseology was probably at fault, for no satisfactory result was reached beyond the fact that her mother was dead, that her name was Jerry, or Derree, as she called it, and that she had been on a ship with Mah-nee, who did _so_--and she imitated perfectly the motions and contortions of one who is deathly sea-sick. 'I suppose she means her mother by Mah-nee,' said Mr. St. Claire; and when he asked her if it were not so, she answered 'yah,' and ''ess,' as she did to everything, adopting finally the latter word altogether because she saw it pleased Harold. No matter what was the question put to her, her reply was ''ess,' which she repeated quickly, with a prolonged sound on the 's.' When at last Mr. St. Claire took his leave, it was with a strange feeling of interest for the child, whose antecedents must always be shrouded in mystery, and whose future he could not predict. It seemed impossible for Mrs. Crawford to keep her, poor as she was, and as he had no idea that the Tracys would take her, there was no alternative but the poor-house, unless he took her himself and brought her up with his own little five-year-old Nina. He would wait until after the funeral and see, he decided, as he went back to his home at Brier Hill, where his children, Dick and Nina, were eager to hear all he had to tell them of the poor little girl whose mother had been frozen to death. The next morning the sleigh from Tracy Park stopped before the cottage door, and Frank, who had been to meet the coroner, alighted from it. He was pale and haggard as he entered the room where Jerry was playing on the floor with Harold's Maltese kitten. As he came in she looked up at him, and, lifting her hand, swept the hair back from her forehead just as she had done the day before when Mr. St. Claire was there. The peculiar motion had struck the latter as something familiar, though he could not define it; but Frank did, or in his nervous condition he thought he did, and his knees shook so he could hardly stand as he talked with Mrs. Crawford and told her he had come for the child, who ought to be where her mother was until after the funeral.' 'Then she will come back again. You will not keep her. She is mine, ain't you, Jerry?' Harold exclaimed, eagerly; while Jerry, who, with a child's instinct scented danger from Harold's manner and associated that danger with the strange man looking so curiously at her, sprang to her feet, which she stamped vigorously, while she cried, ''ess, 'ess, 'ess,' with her face all in wrinkles, and her blue eyes anything but soft and sunny, as they usually were. In this mood she was not much like Gretchen in the picture, but she was like some one else whom Frank had seen in excited moods, and he grew faint and sick as he watched her, and saw the varying expression of her face and eyes. The way she shook her head at him and flourished her hands was a way he had seen many times and remembered so well, and he felt as if his heart would leap from his throat as he tried to speak to her. A turn of the head, a gesture of the hands, a curve of the eyelashes, a tone in the voice, seemed slight actions on which to base a certainty; but Frank did feel certain, and his brain reeled for a second as his thoughts leaped forward years and years until he was an old man, and he wondered if he could bear it and make no sign. Then, just as he had decided that he could not, the tempter suggested a plan which seemed so feasible and fair that the future, with a secret to guard, did not look so formidable, and to himself he said: 'It is not likely I can ever be positive; and so long as there is a doubt, however small, it would be preposterous to give up what otherwise must come to my children, if not to me; but I will not wrong her more than I can help.' 'Come, little girl, go with me,' he said, in his kindest tones, as he advanced toward her, while Harold went for her cloak and hood. Jerry knew then that she was expected to go with the stranger, and without Harold, and resisted with all her might. Standing behind him, as if safe there, and clinging to his coat, she sobbed piteously, intermingling her sobs with 'Ess, 'ess, 'ess,' the only English word she knew, and which she seemed to think would avail in every emergency. And it did help her now, for Harold pleaded that he might go, too, and when Jerry saw him with his coat and hat, and understood that he was to be her escort, she ceased to sob, and allowing herself to be made ready, was soon in the sleigh, and on her way to Tracy Park.	{ "id": "15321" }
15	JERRY AT THE PARK.	And so this is the poor little girl. We'll take her right to the kitchen, where she can get warm,' Mrs. Tracy said, as she met her husband in the hall, with Harold and the mite of a creature wrapped in the foreign looking cloak and hood. 'No, Dolly!' and Frank spoke very decidedly, as Harold was turning in the direction of the kitchen. 'She is going to the nursery, with the other children, and when they have their dinner she shall have hers with them.' 'Ess, 'ess, 'ess,' Jerry said, as if she comprehended that there was a difference of opinion between the man and woman, and that she was on the affirmative side. 'Take her to the nursery! Oh, Frank! she may have something about her which the children will catch,' Mrs. Tracy said, blocking the way as she spoke. But Jerry, who through the half-open door had caught sight of the pretty sitting-room, with its warm carpet and curtains, and cheerful fire, shook her head defiantly at the lady, and brushing past her, went boldly into the room, whose brightness had attracted her. Marching up to the fire, she stood upon the rug and looked about her with evident satisfaction; then glancing at the three who were watching her, she nodded complacently, and said, ''ess, 'ess, 'ess,' while she held her little cold hands to the fire. 'Acts as if she belonged here, doesn't she?' Frank said to his wife, who did not reply, so intent was she upon watching the strange child, who deliberately took off her cloak and hood and tossing them upon the floor, drew a small low chair to the fire, and climbing into it, sat down as composedly as if she were mistress there instead of an intruder. Once she swept the hair back from her forehead with the motion Frank knew so well, and then the lump came into his throat again, and he steadied himself against the mantel, while he looked curiously at the young girl, making herself so much at home and seeming so well pleased with her surroundings. 'Take her to the nursery now. I must see to that coroner,' he said to his wife, adding: 'Harold must go too, or there will be the Old Harry to pay.' ''Ess, 'ess,' came decidedly from the child, who went willingly with Harold, and was soon ushered into the large upper room, which was used as both nursery and school-room, for Mrs. Tracy could not allow her two sons, Tom and Jack, to come in contact with the boys at school; so she kept a governess, a middle-aged spinster, who, glad of a home, and the rather liberal compensation, sat all day in the nursery and bore patiently with Tom's freaks and Jack's dullness: to say nothing of the trouble it was to have the three-year-old Maude toddling about and interfering with everything. 'Hallo!' Tom cried, as his mother came in, followed by Harold and Jerry. 'Hallo, what's up?' And throwing aside the slate on which he had been trying to master the difficulties of a sum in long division, he went toward them, and said: 'Has the coroner come, and can't I go and see the inquest? You said maybe I could if I behaved, and I do, don't I, Miss Howard?' Just then he caught sight of Jerry, and stopping short, exclaimed: 'By Jingo! ain't she pretty! I mean to kiss her.' And he made a movement toward the little face, which looked up so shyly at him. But his mother caught his arm and held him back, as she said, sharply: 'Don't touch her, there is no tolling what you may catch. I wanted her to go to the kitchen, the proper place for her, but your father insisted that she should be brought here. I hope, Miss Howard, you will see that she does not go near the children.' 'Yes, Madam,' Miss Howard replied, 'but I am sure there can be no danger. She looks as clean and sweet as a rose.' Miss Howard was fond of children, and she held out her hand to the little girl, who seemed to have a most wonderful faculty for discriminating between friends and enemies, and who went to her readily, and leaning against her arm, looked curiously at the group of children--at Tom, and Jack, and Maude, the latter of whom wished to go to her, but was restrained by the nurse. The moment the door closed on Mrs. Tracy, Tom walked up to the child, and said: 'I shall kiss her now, anyhow.' But Jerry hid her face, and could not be induced to look up until he had moved away from her. 'Catty as well as pretty,' Tom said. 'I wonder who she is anyway, and how she will like the poor-house?' 'Who said she was going to the poor-house?' Harold exclaimed indignantly. 'Mother said so,' Tom replied. 'I heard her talking to the cook. Where would she go if she did not go to the poor-house? Who would take care of her?' 'I!' Harold answered, and to Miss Howard he seemed to grow older a dozen years, as he stood there with his arms folded and the light of a brave manhood in his brown eyes. 'I shall take care of her. She will live with grandmother and me. I found her, and she is mine.' ''Ess, 'ess, 'ess,' came from Jerry, as she swung one little foot back and forth and looked confidingly at her champion. ' _You_ take care of her!' Tom sneered, with that supercilious air he always assumed toward those he considered his inferiors. Why, you and your grandmother can't take care of yourselves, or you couldn't if it wasn't for Uncle Arthur. Mother says so. You wouldn't have any house to live in if he hadn't given it to you,' Harold's arms were unfolded now and the doubled fists were in his pockets clenching themselves tighter and tighter as he advanced to Tom, who, remembering his black eye, began to back towards the nurse for safety. 'It's a lie, Tom Tracy,' Harold said. 'Mr. Arthur does not take care of us. We do it ourselves, and have for ever so long. He did give us the house, but it ain't for you to twit me of that. Whose house is this, I'd like to know? It isn't yours, nor your father's, and there isn't a thing in it yours. It is all Mr. Arthur's.' 'Wall, we are to be his _hares_--Jack, and Maude, and me. Mother says so,' Tom stammered out, while Jerry, who had been looking intently, first at one boy, and then at the other, called out in her own language: 'Nein, nein, nein,' and struck her hand toward Tom. 'What does she mean by her "Nine, nine, nine,'" he asked of Miss Howard, who replied that she thought it was the German for 'No, no, no,' and that the child probably did not approve of him. Tom knew she did not, and though she was only a baby, be felt chagrined and irritable. Had he dared, he would have struck Harold, who asked him what he meant by being his uncle's _hare. _ But he was afraid of Miss Howard, and remembering it must be time for the inquest, he slipped from the room, whispering fiercely to Harold as he passed him: 'Darn you, Hal Hastings, I'll thrash you yet.' 'Let me know when you are ready, and also when you get to be your uncle's _hare_,' was Harold's taunting reply, as the door closed upon the discomfited Tom. * * * * * The inquest was a mere matter of form, for there was no doubt in any one's mind that the woman had been frozen to death, and she had no friends to complain that due attention had not been paid her. So after a few questions put to Mr. Tracy, and more to Harold, who was summoned from the nursery to tell what he knew, and a look at the cold rigid face, a verdict was rendered of 'Frozen to death.' Then came the question of burial, as to when, and where, and at whose expense. Quite a number of people had assembled and the little room was full. Conspicuous among them was Peterkin, who, having been elected to an office, which necessitated a care for the expenditures of the village, was swelled with importance, and dying for a chance to be heard. When Harold came into the room Jerry was with him. She had refused to let him leave her, and he led her by the hand into the midst of the men, who grew as silent and respectful the moment she appeared as if she had been a woman instead of a little child, who could speak no word of their language, or understand what was said to her. It was her mother lying there dead, and they made way for her as, catching sight of the white face, she uttered a cry of joy, and running up to the body, patted the cold cheeks, while she kept calling 'Mah-nee, Mah-nee,' and saying words unintelligible to all, but full of pathos and love, and child-like coaxing for the inanimate form to rouse itself, and speak to her again. 'Poor little thing,' was said by more than one, and hands went up to eyes unused to tears, for the sight was a touching one--that lovely child bending over the dead face, and imprinting kisses upon it. Harold took her away from the body, and lifting her into a chair, kept by her, as with her arm around his neck, she stood listening to, and watching, and sometimes imitating the gestures of the men around her. It was Peterkin who spoke first; standing back so straight that his immense stomach, with the heavy gold watch-chain hanging across it, seemed to fill the room, he gave his opinion before any one had a chance to express theirs. It was the first time he had been in the house since the morning after the party, when Arthur had turned him from the door. He had vowed vengeance against the Tracys then, and kept his vow by spending two thousand dollars in order to defeat Frank as member of Congress and to get himself elected as one of the village trustees, and now he had come, partly out of curiosity to see the woman, and partly to oppose her being buried by the town, if such a thing were suggested. 'Let them Tracys bury their own dead,' he said to his wife before he left home, and he said it again in substance now, as with a tremendous 'ahem!' he commenced his speech standing close to little Jerry, who never took her eyes from him, but watched him with a face which varied in its expression with every variation in his voice and manner, and reached its climax when he said: 'I don't b'lieve in saddlin' the town with a debt we don't orto pay. Let the Tracys bury their own dead, I say!' ''Ess, 'ess, 'ess,' Jerry chimed in with an emphatic shake of her head with each ''ess,' and a flourish of her hand more threatening than approving toward the speaker, who glanced at her and went on: 'Do you see, gentlemen of the jury, who this cub looks like. I do! and so can you with half an eye. She looks like Arthur Tracy!' Just then Jerry swept back her golden hair, and, opening her eyes, flashed them around the room until they rested by accident upon Frank, who, pale, and faint, and terrified, was leaning against the door-way trying to seem only amused at the tirade which was concluded as follows: 'Yes, Arthur Tracy! Not her skin, perhaps, nor hair, nor her eyes, leastwise not the color, but something I can't describe; and this woman, her mother, you say is a furriner; that may be, but I've seen her afore, or I'm mistaken. She took passage once on the 'Liza Ann, I'm sure on't, and Arthur look passage same day as far as Chester and was as chipper as you please with her. I don't say nothin', nor insinerate nothin', but I won't consent to have the town pay what belongs to the Tracys. Let 'em run their own canoes and funerals, too, I say; and as for this young one with the yaller hair--though where she got that the lord only knows; 'tain't her's,' pointing to the corpse; 'nor 'tain't his'n,' pointing in the direction of Arthur's rooms; 'as for her, I'm opposed to sendin' to the poor-house another pauper.' 'She is not a pauper, and she is not going to the poor-house either,' Harold exclaimed, while Jerry came in with her _nein, nein, nein_, which made the bystanders laugh, as Peterkin went on, addressing himself to Harold: 'You are her champion, hey, and intend to take care of her. Mighty fine, I'm sure, but hadn't you better fetch back May Jane's pin that you took at the party.' 'It is false,' Harold cried. 'I never saw the pin, never!' and the hot tears sprang to his eyes at this unmanly assault. By this time Peterkin, who felt that everybody was against him, was swelling with rage, and seizing Harold by the collar, roared out: 'Do you tell me I lie! You rascal! I'll teach you what belongs to manners!' and he would have struck the boy but for Jerry, who had been watching him as a cat watches a mouse, and who, raising her war-cry of '_nein, nein, nein_,' sprang at him like a little tiger, and by the fierceness of her gestures and the volubility of her German jargon actually compelled him to retreat step by step until she had him outside the door, which she barred with her diminutive person. No one could help laughing at the discomfited giant and the mite of a child facing him so bravely, while she scolded at the top of her voice. Peterkin saw that he was beaten and left the house, vowing vengeance against both Harold and Jerry, if he should ever have it in his power to harm them. When he was gone, Frank, who had recovered his composure during the ludicrous scene, said to those present: 'I would not explain to that brute, but it is not my intention to trouble the town. I have no more idea who this woman is than you have, and I'll swear that Peterkin's vile insinuations with regard to her are false. My brother says he never saw her in his life, and he speaks the truth. She may have been on Peterkin's boat, but I doubt it. She has every appearance of a foreigner, and her child'--here Frank's tongue felt a little thick, but he cleared his throat and went on--'her child speaks a foreign language--German, they tell me. This poor woman died on my--or rather my brother's premises. I have consulted with him, and he thinks as I do, that she should be cared for at our expense. He says, further, that there is room on the Tracy lot; she is to be buried there. I shall attend to it at once, and the funeral will take place to-morrow morning at ten o'clock from this house. What disposition will be made of the child I have not yet decided, but she will _not_ go to the poor-house.' 'Oh, Mr. Tracy,' Harold burst out, 'she is mine. She is to live with grandma and me. You will not take her from me--say you will not?' ' _Vill not_,' Jerry reiterated, imitating as well as she could Harold's last words. For a moment Mr. Tracy looked fixedly at the boy, pleading for a burden which would necessitate toil, and self-denial, and patience of no ordinary kind and never had he despised himself more than he did then, when, believing what he did believe, he said at last: 'I will talk with your grandmother, and see what arrangements we can make. I rather think you have the best right to her. But she must stay here to-night and until after the funeral, when she can go with you, if you like.' To this Harold did not object, and as Jerry seemed very happy and content, he left her, while she was exploring the long drawing-room, and examining curiously the different articles of furniture. As she did not seem disposed to touch anything, she was allowed to go where she liked, although Mrs. Frank remonstrated against her roaming all over the house as if she belonged there, and suggested again that she be sent to the kitchen. But Frank said 'no,' decidedly, and Jerry was left to herself, except as the nurse-girl and Charles looked after her a little. And so it came about that towards evening she found herself in the upper hall, and after making a tour of the rooms, whose doors were open, she came to one whose door was shut--nor could she turn the knob, although she tried with all her might. Doubling her tiny fist, she knocked upon the door, and then, as no one came, kicked against it with her foot, but still with no result. Inside the room, with Gretchen's picture, Arthur sat in his dressing-gown, very nervous and a little inclined to be irritable and captious. He knew there had been an inquest, and that many people had come and gone that day, for he had seen them from his window, and had seen, too, the sleigh, with Frank, and the coroner, and Harold, and a blue hood, drive into the yard. But to the blue hood he never gave a thought, as he was only intent upon the dead woman, whose presence in the house made him so nervous and restless. 'I shall be glad when she is buried. I have been so cold and shaky ever since they brought her here,' he said to Charles, as, with a shiver, he drew his chair nearer to the fire and leaning back wearily in it fixed his eyes upon Gretchen's picture smiling at him from the window, 'Dear little Gretchen,' he said in a whisper, 'you seem so near to me now that I can almost hear your feet at the door, and your voice asking to come in. Hush!' and he started suddenly, as Jerry's kicks made themselves heard even to the room where he sat. 'Hush! Charles, who is that banging at the door? Surely not Maude? They would not let her come up here. Go and see, and send her away.' He had forgotten that he was listening for Gretchen, and when Charles, who had opened the door cautiously and described the intruder, said to him. 'It is that woman's child. Shall I let her in? She is a pretty little thing,' he replied, 'Let her in? No; why should you and why is she allowed to prowl around the house? Tell her to go away.' So Jerry was sent away with a troubled disappointed look in her little face, and as the chill March night came on and the dark shades crept into the room and Gretchen's picture gradually faded from sight in the gathering gloom until it seemed only a confused mixture of lead and glass, Arthur felt colder, and drearier, and more wretched than he had ever felt before. It was a genuine case of homesickness, if one can be homesick who is in his own house, surrounded by every possible comfort and luxury. He was tired, and sick, and disappointed, and his head was aching terribly, while thoughts of the past were crowding his brain where the light of reason seemed struggling to reinstate itself. He was thinking of Gretchen, and longing for her so intensely that once he groaned aloud and whispered to himself: 'Poor Gretchen! I am so sorry for it all. I can see it clearer now, how I left her and did not write, and I don't know where she is, or if she will ever come; and yet, I feel as if she had come, or tidings of her. Perhaps my letter reached her. Perhaps she is on her way. God grant it, and forgive me for all I have made her suffer.' It was very still in the room where Arthur sat, for Charles had gone out, and only the occasional crackling of the coal in the grate and ticking of the clock broke the silence which reigned around him; and at last, soothed into quiet, he fell asleep and dreamed that on his door he heard again the thud of baby feet, while Gretchen's voice was calling to him to let the baby in.	{ "id": "15321" }
16	THE FUNERAL AND AFTER.	Long before ten o'clock, the hour appointed for the funeral, the next morning, people began to gather at the Park House, and the avenue seemed full of them. The news that an unknown woman had been frozen to death in the Tramp House had spread far and wide, awakening in many a curiosity to see the stranger, and discover, if possible, a likeness to some one they might have known. It was strange how many reminiscences were brought to mind by this circumstance of girls who had disappeared years before and were supposed to be dead--or worse. And this woman might be one of them; indeed, Peterkin had said that she was, and they came in crowds to see her, and to see, as well, the inside of the handsome house, of which they had heard so much, especially since Mr. Arthur's return. But in this they were disappointed, for all the front rooms were locked against them, and only the large dining-room, the breakfast-room, the servants' hall, and the little back office were thrown open to the public. In the first of these the corpse was lying in a substantial, handsome coffin, for Frank, who ordered it, would have no other; and when the undertaker suggested a cheaper one would answer just as well, had said, decidedly: 'I mean to bury her decently. Give me this one, and send the bill to me, not to Arthur.' It was _his_ funeral, and, judging from his face, he was burying all his friends, instead of a poor, unknown woman, whose large, coarse features and plain woollen dress looked out of place in that handsome black coffin, with its silver-plated trimmings. Frank had suggested that she should have a white merino shroud, but his wife had overruled him. It was _not_ her funeral, and she had no interest in it, except that it should be over as soon as possible, and the house cleansed from the atmosphere of death. So when her husband asked if the child ought not to have a mourning-dress, she scoffed at him for the suggestion saying she did not like to see children in black anyway, and even if she died herself she should not wish hers to wear it. 'I cannot imagine,' she continued, 'why you have taken so unaccountable a fancy to and interest in these people, especially the child. One would think she belonged to royalty, the fuss you make over her. What are we to do with her to-night? Where is she to sleep?' 'In the nursery,' was his reply; and he saw his wishes carried out and ordered in a crib, which used to be Jack's, and bade the nurse see that she was comfortable. So Jerry was put to bed in the nursery and slept very quietly until about, ten o'clock when she awoke and cried piteously for both 'Man-nee' and 'Ha-roll.' Frank, who was sitting alone in the library, heard the cry, and knew it was not Maude's. Had it been he would not have minded it, for he knew that she would be cared for without his interference. But something in the crying of this little foreign girl stirred him strangely, and after listening to it a few moments he arose, and going softly to the door of the nursery, stood listening until a sharp hush from the nurse girl decided him to enter, and going to the crib he bent over the sobbing child and tried to comfort her. She could not understand him, but the tone of his voice was kind, and when he put his hand on her hot head she took it in hers and held it fast, as if she recognized in him a friend. And Frank as he felt the clasp of the soft, warm fingers, and saw the confiding look in the wide-open eyes, grew faint and cold, and asked himself again, as he had many times that day, _if he could do it_. Jerry was asleep at last, but she sobbed occasionally in her sleep, and there were great tears on her eyelashes, while her fingers clutched Frank's hand tightly as if fearing to let it go. But he managed to disengage it and stealing cautiously from the room went back to the library where he sat late into the night, facing the future and wondering if he could meet it. He had Jerry at the table next morning and saw that she was helped to everything she wanted without any regard to its suitability for her, and when his wife said rather curtly that she never knew that he was so fond of children before, he answered her: 'I am only doing as I would wish some one to do to Maude if she were like this poor little girl.' When, at last, the hour for the funeral arrived he placed her himself upon the high chair close to the coffin, where she sat through the short service, conspicuous in her gray cloak and blue hood, with her golden hair falling on her neck and piled in wavy masses on her forehead, while her bright eyes scanned the crowd curiously as if asking why they were there and why they were all looking so intently at her. More than one kind-hearted woman went up and kissed her, and when, at the close of the services, Mr. Tracy held her in his arms for a last look at her mother, their tears fell fast for the child, so unconscious of the meaning of what was passing around her. 'Isn't she beautiful! Such lovely hair, and eyes, and dazzling complexion!' was said by more than one; and then they speculated as to her future. Would she go to the poor-house? Would Frank Tracy keep her with all his children, or was it true, as they had heard, that Mr. Arthur Tracy was to adopt her at his own? And where was Mr. Arthur? He might, at least, have shown enough respect for the dead woman to come into the room, and they wanted so much to see him, for there was a great deal of curiosity with regard to the lunatic of Tracy Park among the lower class of people who had come to Shannondale during the eleven years of his absence. But Arthur was sick in bed, suffering alternately from chills and a raging fever, which set his brain on fire and made him wilder than usual. He had not slept well during the night. Indeed, he said, he had not slept at all. But this was a common assertion of his, and one to which Charles now paid little heed. 'A man can't snore and not sleep,' was the unanswerable argument with which he refuted the sleepless nights of his master. On this occasion, however, he had heard no snoring, and Arthur's face, seen by the morning light, was a sufficient proof of the wakeful hours he had passed. He, too, had heard the distant crying, and felt instinctively that it was not Maude's. Starting up in bed to listen, he said: 'What's that? Is that child here yet?' 'Yes sir: she is to stay till after the funeral,' was Charles' reply, and Arthur continued: 'Bring me some cotton for my ears. I never can stand that noise. It is a peculiar cry.' The cotton was brought. A window in the hall which had a habit of rattling with every breath of wind was made fast with a bit of shingle whittled out for that purpose, and then Arthur became tolerably quiet until morning, when he began to talk to himself in the German language, which Charles could not understand. But he caught the name Gretchen, and knew she was the subject of the sick man's thoughts. Suddenly turning to his attendant, to whom he always spoke in English, Arthur said: 'The funeral is to-day?' 'Yes, sir, at ten o'clock.' 'Well, lock every door leading up this way, and shut out the gossipping blockheads who will come by hundreds, and, if we would let them, swarm into my room as thick as the frogs were in the houses of the Egyptians. Shut the doors, Charles, and keep them out.' So the doors were shut and bolted, and then Arthur lay listening with that intensity which so quickens one's hearing, that the faintest sounds are distinct at great distances. He heard the trampling footsteps as the people came crowding in, and the tread of horses' feet as sleigh after sleigh drove up the avenue, and once, with a shudder, he said: 'That is the hearse. I am sure of it.' Then all was still, and listen as he might he could not distinguish the faintest sound until the services were over and the people began to leave the house. 'There,' he said, with a sigh of relief; 'it will soon be over. Bring me my clothes, Charles. I am going to get up and see the last of this poor woman. God help her, whoever she was.' He was beginning to feel a great pity for the woman whose coffin they were putting in the hearse, which moved off a few rods, and then stopped until the open sleigh came up, the sleigh in which Frank Tracy sat, muffled in his heavy overcoat, for the day, though bright and sunny, was cold, and a chill March wind was blowing. Dolly had taken refuge in a headache which had prevented her from being present at the funeral and kept her from going to the grave as her husband had wished her to do. So only Harold and Jerry occupied the sleigh with Frank, and these sat opposite him, with their backs to the horses, Jerry in her gray cloak and blue hood showing conspicuously as she came into full view of the window where Arthur stood looking at the procession with a feeling at his heart, as if in some way he were interested in the sad funeral, where there was no mourner, no one who had ever seen or known the deceased, save the little helpless girl, looking around her in perfect unconcern save as she rather liked the stir and all that was going on. They had tied a thin veil over her head to shield her from the cold, and thus her face was not visible to Arthur. But he saw the blue hood and the golden hair on the old gray cloak, and the sight of it moved him mightily, making him hold fast to the window-casing for support, while he stood watching it. Just as far as he could see it his eye followed that hood, and when it disappeared from view, he turned from the window, deathly sick, and tottering back to his bedroom, vomited from sheer nervous excitement. 'Thank Heaven it is over and the rabble gone,' he said, when he became easier. 'Go now and open all the doors and windows to let in the fresh air and out the smell they are sure to have left. Ugh! I get a whiff of it now. Burn some of that aromatic paper; but open the hall windows first.' Charles did as he was ordered, and the wind was soon sweeping through the wide hall, while Arthur's rooms were filled with an odor like the sweet incense burned in the old cathedrals. 'I am very giddy and faint,' Arthur said, when Charles came back to him after his ventilating operation. 'I have looked at the bright snow too long, and there are a thousand rings of fire dancing before my eyes, and in every ring I see a blue hood and veil, with waves of hair like Gretchen's, when she was a child. There is a redder tinge now on Gretchen's hair, because she is older. Wheel me out there, Charles, where I can see her.' Charles obeyed, and moved the light bed-lounge into the library, where his master could feast his eyes upon the sweet face which knew no change, but which always, night and day, smiled upon him the same. The picture had a soothing effect upon Arthur, and he gazed at it now until it began to fade away and lose itself in the blue hood and veil he had seen in the sleigh far down the avenue; and when, a few minutes later, Charles came in to look at him, he found him fast asleep. Meantime the funeral train had reached the cemetery, where the snow was piled in great drifts, and where, in a corner of the Tracy lot, they buried the stranger, with no tear to hallow her grave, and no pang of regret save that she had ever come there, with the mystery and the doubt which must always cling to her memory. Frank Tracy's face was very pale and stern as he held little Jerry in his arms during the committal of the body to the grave, and then bade her take one last look at the box which held her mother. But Jerry, who was growing cold and tired, began to cry, and so Frank took her back to the sleigh, which was driven to the cottage in the lane. Here she felt at home, and drawing to the fire the low rocking chair she had appropriated to herself, was soon supremely happy devouring the ginger cookie which Mrs. Crawford had given her, and in trying to pronounce English words under Harold's teaching. While the children were thus employed, Mr. Tracy was divulging to Mrs. Crawford the object of his visit. He could hardly explain, he said, why he was so deeply interested in the child, except it were that her mother had died on his premises and she seemed to be thrown upon his care. 'I cannot see her go to the poor-house,' he continued, with a trembling in his voice which made Mrs. Crawford wonder a little, as she had never credited him with much sympathy for anything outside his own family. 'I cannot see her go to the poor-house, and I cannot well take her into my family, as we have three children of our own. But I have made up my mind to care for her, and I have come to ask if, for a compensation, you will keep her here?' 'Yes, grandma--say yes!' Harold cried; while Jerry, with her mouth full of cookie, repeated, 'ay 'ess.' 'You see, the children plead for me,' Mr. Tracy said, with a smile at the little girl, whose hand just then swept back the hair from her eyes, which looked steadily at him as he went on: 'While she is young--say, until she is ten years old--I will pay you three dollars a week, and after that more, if necessary. I know you will be kind to her, and that she will be happy here and well brought up. Is it a bargain?' Mrs. Crawford had never seen him so interested in anything and felt somewhat surprised and puzzled, but she expressed her willingness to take the child and do what she could for her. 'It will be a good thing for Harold,' she said, 'as he is in danger of growing selfish here alone with me.' And so Jerry's future was settled, and counting out twelve dollars, Frank handed them to Mrs. Crawford, saying: 'I will pay you for four weeks in advance, as you may need the money, and--and--perhaps--' His face grew very red as he stammered on, 'perhaps it may be as well not to tell how much I pay you. People--or rather--well, Mrs. Tracy might think it strange, and not understand why I feel such an interest in the child. I don't understand it myself.' But he did understand, and his knees were shaking under him as, when the transaction was over, and he was on his way to the Park, he felt that he had sold himself to Satan. 'And yet I know nothing for sure,' he kept repeating to himself. 'Arthur is expecting Gretchen, whoever she may be. He says he has written to her, and he has one of his presentiments that she is coming on the night when this woman arrives, who is no more like the Gretchen he raves about than I am. This woman has a child. He says Gretchen has none, and that he never saw this woman. And yet I find among the things a photograph exactly like the picture in the window, and also like the child, who certainly bears a resemblance to my brother, though no one else, perhaps, would see it. Now, sir,' he appeared to be addressing himself to some person unseen, from whom he shrank, for he drew himself as far as was possible to his side of the sleigh and shivered as he went on: 'Now, sir, is that sufficient proof to warrant me in turning everything topsy-turvy, and making Arthur crazier than he is?' 'Certainly not,' he seemed to hear in reply, either from within or without, he hardly knew which, and he went on: 'I shall try to find out who the woman was, and where she came from; but how am I to do it? how begin? Arthur will not tell me a word about Gretchen, who she is, or what she is to him. Still, I mean to be on the safe side, and do right by the child. Arthur cannot live many years. His nerves will wear him out, if nothing else, and when he does, his money will naturally come to me.' 'Naturally,' his spectral companion replied, and he continued: 'Well, what I intend doing is this: I shall make my will, in which Jerry will share equally with my children, and I shall further draw up a written request that in case I die before my brother, any money which may fall to my children from him shall be shared equally with her. I shall, out of my own private funds, provide for her support and education, until she comes of age, or marries, and if possible, I shall bring about a marriage between her and Tom, who will probably one day be master of Tracy Park. Can anything more be required of me?' 'Nothing,' was the consoling reply; and as the sleigh just then drew up before his door, Frank alighted from it, and said to himself as he ran up the steps: 'I believe I have been riding with the devil, and have made a league with him!' He found the house thoroughly aired and cleansed from all signs of the recent funeral; and when, at one o'clock, he sat down to lunch in the handsome dining-room, and sipped his favorite claret, and ate his foreign preserves, and thought how much comfort and luxury money could buy, he was sure he had done well for himself and his children after him. But, like Bishop Hatto, of Mouse-Tower memory, Frank Tracy never knew real peace of mind from the day he deliberately sold himself to the Evil One for filthy lucre, until the day, years after, when full restitution was made, and, with the sin confessed, he held his head up again, free from the shadow which he did not leave in the sleigh, but which followed him day and night, walking by him when he walked, sitting by him when he sat, and watching by him when he slept, so as to be ready when he woke with the specious argument that he was acting justly and even generously by the little waif, who was like a sunbeam in the cottage in the lane, whom many people went to see, marvelling at her beauty and wondering in vain whose likeness they sometimes saw in her as she frolicked around the house, full of life, and fun, and laughter. Frank made his will, as he promised his shadow he would, but he went to Springfield to have it drawn up, for he knew that Colvin, or any lawyer whom he might employ in Shannondale, would wonder at it. He also wrote out himself what he called his dying request to his children, in case he should die before his brother. In this he stated emphatically his wish that Jerry should have her share of whatever might come to them from the Tracy estate, the same as if she were his own child. 'I have a good and sufficient reason for this,' he wrote in conclusion, 'and I enjoin it upon you to carry out my wishes as readily as you would were I to speak to you from my grave,' This done, Frank felt a little better, and the shadow at his side was not quite as real as it had been before. He put his will and his dying request together in a private drawer with Gretchen's photograph, and the testament with the handwriting in it. He had kept this back when the stranger's trunk was sent to the cottage, thinking that if it were missed and inquired for, he could easily produce it as having been mislaid. At the suggestion of Mr. St. Claire he went to New York, to the office of the German line of steamers, and made inquiries with regard to the passengers who had come on a certain ship at such a time. But nothing could be learned of any woman with a child, and after inserting in several of the New York papers a description of the woman, with a request for any information concerning her which could be given, he returned home, with a feeling that he had done all that could be required of him, and that he might now enjoy himself. He was accordingly kind and even tender to his brother, who for several weeks suffered from low nervous depression, which kept him altogether in his room, to which he refused to admit any one except his attendant and Frank. He had ceased for the time being, to talk of Gretchen, or to expect her, and he never inquired for the child, whose blue hood had so affected him. Once Frank spoke of her to him and told him where she was, and that she was learning to speak English very rapidly, and growing prettier every day. But Arthur did not seem at all interested and only said: 'How can Mrs. Crawford afford to keep the child?' Others than Arthur asked that question, and among them Dolly, who with a woman's quick wit, sharpened by something she accidentally saw, divined the truth, which she wrung at last from her husband. There was a fierce quarrel--almost their first--a sick headache which lasted three days, and a month or more of coldness between the married pair, and then, finding she could accomplish nothing, for Frank was as firm as a rock, Dolly gave up the contest, and tried by economizing in various ways, to save the money which she felt was taken from her children by the little girl, who had become so dear to Mrs. Crawford, that she would not have parted with her had nothing been paid for her keeping.	{ "id": "15321" }
17	"MR. CRAZYMAN, DO YOU WANT SOME CHERRIES?"	More than two years had passed away since the terrible March night when the strange woman was frozen to death in the Tramp House, and her history was still shrouded in mystery. Not a word had been heard concerning her, and her story was gradually being forgotten by the people of Shannondale. Her grave, however, was tolerably well kept, and every Saturday afternoon, in summer time, a few flowers were put upon it by Harold. Not so much for the sake of the dead as for the beautiful child who always accompanied him, laughing, and frolicking, and sometimes dancing around the grave where he told her her mother was buried. As there had been no date on which to fix Jerry's birth, they had called the first day of March her birthday, so that when more than two years later we introduce her to our readers on a hot July morning, she was said to be six years and four months old. In some respects, however, she seemed much older, for there was about her a precocity only found in children who have always associated with people much older than themselves, or into whose lives strange experiences have come. In stature she was very short, though round and plump as a partridge. 'Dutchy,' Mr. Tracy called her, for Mrs. Tracy did not like her, and took no pains to conceal her dislike, though it was based upon nothing except the money which she knew was paid regularly to Mrs. Crawford for the child's maintenance. There could be no reason, she said to her husband, why he should support the child of a tramp, and the woman had been little better, judging from appearances, unless, indeed--and then she told what old Peterkin had said more than once, to the effect that Jerry Crawford, as she was called, was growing to be the image of the Tracys, especially Arthur. 'And if so,' she added, 'you'd better let Arthur take care of her, and save your money for your own children,' To this Frank never replied. He knew better than old Peterkin that Jerry was like the Tracys, or, rather, like his brother, and that it was not so much in the features as in the expression and certain movements of the head and hands, and tones of the voice when she was very much in earnest, and raised it to a higher pitch than usual. She could speak English very well now, and sometimes, when Frank, who was a frequent visitor at the cottage, sat watching her at her play, and listening to her as she talked to herself, as was her constant habit, he could have shut his eyes and sworn it was his brother's voice calling to him from the hay-loft or apple tree where they had played together when boys. Jerry's favorite amusement when alone was to make believe that either herself, or a figure she had made out of a shawl, was a sick woman, lying on a settee which she converted into a bed. Sometimes she was the nurse and took care of the sick woman to whom she always spoke in German, bending fondly over her, and occasionally holding up before her a doll which Mrs. St. Claire had given her, and which she played was the woman's baby. Then she would be the sick woman herself, and trying on the broad frilled cap which had been found in the trunk, would slip under the covering, and laying her head upon the pillow, go through with all the actions of some one very sick, occasionally hugging to her bosom and kissing the doll. Once she enacted the pantomime of dying. Folding her hands together and closing her eyes, her lips moved as if in prayer, for a moment, then stretching out her feet she lay perfectly motionless, with a set expression in the little face which looked so comical under the broad frilled cap. Then, as if it had occurred to her that action was necessary from some one, she exchanged places with the lay figure, and tying the cap upon its head, tucked it carefully in the bed, by which she knelt, and covering her face with her hands imitated perfectly the sobs and moans of a middle-aged person, mingled occasionally with the clearer, softer notes of a child's crying. The first time Frank witnessed this piece of acting was on a Saturday afternoon, when he had come to the cottage as usual to pay his weekly due. Both Mrs. Crawford and Harold were gone, but knowing they would soon return, as it was not their habit to leave Jerry long alone he sat down to wait, while she went back to the corner in the kitchen, which she used as her play-house. 'Somebody is sick and I am taking care of her,' she said to Mr. Tracy, who watched her through the pantomime of the death scene with a feeling, when it was over, that he had seen Gretchen die. There was not a shadow of doubt in his mind that the sick woman was Gretchen, the nurse the stranger found in the Tramp House, and the doll baby the little girl upon whose memory that scene had been indelibly stamped, and who, with her wonderful powers of imitation, could rehearse it in every particular. To herself she always spoke in German, which no one could understand sufficiently to make out what she meant. Once Mr. St. Claire suggested to Frank that he take her to his brother, to whom German was as natural as English, and who might be able to learn something of her antecedents. And Frank had answered that he would do so, knowing the while that nothing could tempt him to bring her and his brother together until all the recollections of her babyhood, if she had any, were obliterated, and she had in part forgotten her own language. His first step in evil doing had to be followed by others until he was so far committed that he could not retrace his steps, and two shadows were with him constantly now, one always reproaching him for what he had done, and the other telling him it was now too late to turn back. He was very fond of Jerry, and on the Saturday afternoon when he sat watching her strange play, noticing how graceful was every movement, and how lovely the constantly varying expression of her face--from concern and anxiety when she was the nurse to distress and pain and then resignation and quietude in death when she took the role of the sick woman--he felt himself moved by some mighty influence to right her at once and put her in her proper place. 'It is more than I can bear. I can't even look Dolly straight in the eye,' he said to his evil shadow, which answered back. 'You know nothing sure. Will you give up your prospects for a photograph and a likeness which may be accidental?' So his conscience was smothered again; but he would question the child, and after her play was over he called her to him and taking her in his lap, kissed the little grave face upon which the shadow of the scene she had been enacting had left its impress. 'Jerry,' he said, 'that lady who just died in the bed with the cap on was your mamma, was it not?' ''Ess,' was Jerry's reply, for she still adhered to her first pronunciation of the word. 'And the other was the nurse?' ''Ess,' Jerry said again; 'Mah-nee.' This was puzzling, for he had always supposed that by 'mah-nee' the child meant 'mam-ma;' but he went on: 'Try to understand me, Jerry; try to think away back before you came in the ship.' ''Ess, I vill,' she said, with a very wise look on her face, while Mr. Tracy continued: 'Had you a papa? Was he there with you?' ' _Nein_,' was the prompt reply, and Mr. Tracy continued: 'Where did your mamma live? Was it in Wiesbaden?' He knew he did not pronounce the word right, and was surprised at the sudden lighting up of the child's eyes as she tried to repeat the name. 'Oo-oo-ee,' she began, with a tremendous effort, but the W mastered her, and she gave it up with a shake of her head. 'I not say dat oo-oo-ee,' she said, and he put the question in another form: 'Where did your mamma die?' 'Tamp House; f'oze to deff,' was now the ready answer, a natural one, too, for she had been taught by Harold that such was the case, and had often gone with him to the house where he found her, and where the old table still stood against the wall. No one picnicked there now, for the place was said to be haunted, and the superstitious ones told each other that on stormy nights, when the wild winds were abroad, lights had been seen in the Tramp House, where a pale-faced woman, with her long, black hair streaming down her back, stood in the door-way, shrieking for help, while the cry of a child mingled with her call. But Harold shared none of these fancies. He was not afraid of the building, and often went there with Jerry, and sitting with her on the table, told her again and again how he had found her mother that wintry morning, and how funny she herself had looked in the old carpet-bag, and so it is not strange that when Mr. Tracy asked her where her mother died, she should answer, 'In the Tramp House,' although she had acted a pantomime whose reality must have taken place under very different circumstances. 'Of course your mother died in the Tramp House, and I have nothing with which to reproach myself. I am altogether too morbid on the subject,' Frank said, and he had decided that he was a pretty good sort of fellow, after all, when at last Mrs. Crawford came in and he paid her for Jerry's board. It was a part of Frank's plan to save the money out of his own personal expenses, so he smoked two cigars less each day and went without claret for dinner, except on Sunday, and never touched champagne, and wore his hats and coats until his wife said they were shabby and insisted upon new ones. In this way he saved more than three dollars a week, but the overplus was laid aside for the time when Jerry must necessarily cost him more because she would be older. In some respects he was doing his duty by the child, who, next to Harold and Mrs. Crawford, whom she called grandma, loved him better than any one else. She always ran to meet him when he came, and sometimes, when he went away, accompanied him down the lane, holding his hand and asking him numberless questions about Tracy Park and about his little girl, and why she never came to see her. Frank could not tell Jerry of his wife's bitter prejudice against her, and that this was the reason why Maude had never been to the cottage or Jerry to the park. But if Jerry had not visited it in person, she was greatly interested in the handsome house and grounds, and the lovely rooms where the crazy man lived. This was Harold's designation of Mr. Arthur--the crazy man--and perhaps of all the things at Tracy Park, Jerry was most desirous to see him and his rooms. Harold, who, on one of the rare occasions when Arthur was out to dine, had been sent to the house on an errand, had gone with Jack into these rooms, which he described minutely to his grandmother and Jerry, dwelling longest upon the beautiful picture in the window. 'Gretchen, he calls it,' he said; and then Jerry, who was listening intently, gave a sudden upward and sidewise turn to her Lead, just as she had done when Mr. Tracy spoke to her of Wiesbaden. 'Detchen,' she repeated, with a little hesitancy. 'Vat the name vas? Say again.' He said it again, and over the child's face there came a puzzled expression, as if she were trying to recall something which baffled all her efforts. But she did not forget the name, and that evening Mrs. Crawford heard her singing to herself, 'Detchen, Detchen, who are you? Detchen, Detchen, where are you?' and she noticed that the doll baby with which Jerry played the most was ever after called 'Detchen,' instead of Maude, as it had been christened when first given to her. Jerry had seen Maude Tracy many times and had admired her greatly, with her pretty white dresses and costly embroideries; and once, at church, when Maude passed near where she was standing, she stood back as far as possible out of the way and held her plain gingham dress aside, as if neither it nor herself had any right to come in close contact with so superior a being. Of the house in the park she knew nothing, except what Harold had told her, and that it was a place to be admired and gazed at breathlessly at a respectful distance. She had never been there since the day of the funeral But she was going at last with Harold, who had permission to gather cherries for his grandmother from some of the many trees which grew upon the place. It was a hot morning in July, and the air seemed thunderous and heavy when she set off on what to her was as important an expedition as is a trip to Europe to an older person. She had wanted to wear her pink gingham dress, the one kept sacred for Sunday, and had even hoped that she might be allowed to display her best straw hat with the blue ribbons and cluster of apple blossoms. She had no doubt that she should go into the house and see the crazy man, and Mrs. Tracy, who she had heard wore silk stockings every day, and she wished to be suitably attired for such honor. But Mrs. Crawford dispelled her air castles by telling her that she was only to go into the side yard where the cherry trees were, and that she must be very quiet, so as not to disturb Mr. Arthur, whose windows looked that way. To wear her pink dress was impossible, as she would get it stained with the juice of the cherries, while the best hat was not for a moment to be thought of. So Jerry submitted to the dark calico frock and high-necked, long-sleeved apron which Mrs. Crawford thought safe and proper for her to wear on a cherry expedition. A clean, white sun-bonnet with a wide cape covered her head and concealed her face when she started from the cottage, with her quart tin pail on her arm; but no sooner was she on the path which led to the park that the obnoxious bonnet was removed and was swinging on her arm, while she was admiring the shadow which, her long, bright curls made in the sunshine as she shook her head from side to side. To tell the truth, our little Jerry was rather vain. Passionately fond of pictures and flowers, and quick to detect everything beautiful both in art and nature, she knew that the little face she sometimes saw in Mrs. Crawford's old-fashioned mirror was pretty, and after the day when Dick St. Claire told her that her hair was 'awful handsome,' she had felt a pride in it and in herself, which all Mrs. Crawford's asseverations that 'Handsome is that handsome does' could not destroy. Maude Tracy's hair was black and straight, and here she felt she had the advantage over her. 'I do hope we shall see her,' she said to Harold, as she danced along, swaying her bonnet and shaking her hair. 'Do you think we shall?' Harold thought it doubtful, and, even if they did, it was not likely she would speak to them, he said. 'Why not?' Jerry asked, and he replied: 'Oh, I suppose they feel big because they are rich and we are poor.' 'But why ain't I rich, too? Why don't I live at the park like Maude, and wear low-necked aprons instead of this old high one?' Jerry asked; but Harold could not tell, and only said: 'Would you rather live at the park than with me?' 'No,' Jerry answered, promptly, stopping short and digging her heel into the soft loam of the path. 'I would not stay anywhere without you; and when I live at the park you will live there, too, and have codfish and tatoe every day.' Strangely enough this was Harold's favorite dish, and, as it was not his grandmother's, his taste was not gratified in that respect as often as he would have liked, hence Jerry's promise of the luxury. Just here, at a sudden turn in the path, they came upon Jack and Maude Tracy playing on a bench under a tree, while the nurse was at a distance either reading or asleep. Harold would have passed them at once, as he knew his grandmother was in a hurry for the cherries, but Jerry had no such intention. Stopping short in front of Maude, she inspected her carefully, from her white dress and bright plaid sash to the string of amber beads around her neck; while, side by side with this picture, she saw herself in her dark calico frock and high-necked apron, with her sun-bonnet and tin pail on her arm. Jerry did not like the contrast, and a lump began to swell in her throat. Then, as a happy thought struck her, she said, with something like exultation in her tone: 'My hair curls and yours don't.' 'No,' Maude answered, slowly--'no it don't curl, but it's black, and yours is yaller.' This was a set back to Jerry, who hated everything yellow, and who had never dreamed of applying that color to her hair. She only knew that Dick St. Claire had called it pretty, but in this new light thrown upon it all her pride vanished, for she recognized like a flash that it might be 'yaller,' and stood there silent and vanquished, until Maude, who in turn had been regarding her attentively, said to her: 'Ain't you Jerry Crawford?' That broke the ice of reserve, and the two little girls were soon talking together familiarly, and Jerry was asking Maude if she wore beads and her best clothes every day. 'Phoo! These ain't my best clothes. I have one gown all brawdery and lace,' was Maude's reply, while Jack, who was standing near, chimed in: 'My father's got lots of money, and so has Uncle Arthur, and when he dies we are going to have it; Tom says so.' Slowly the shadows gathered on Jerry's brow as she said, sadly; 'I wish I had an Uncle Arthur, and could wear beads and a sash every day' Then, as she looked at Harold, her face brightened immediately and she exclaimed. 'But I have Harold and a grandma, and you hain't,' and running up to Harold, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him lovingly, as if to make amends for the momentary repining. 'We must go now,' Harold said, and taking her hand in his, he led her away toward the house, which impressed her with so much awe that as she drew near to it, she held her breath and walked on tiptoe, as if afraid that any sound from her would be sacrilege in that aristocratic atmosphere. 'Oh, isn't it grand, Harold?' Isn't it grand!' she kept repeating, with her mouth full of cherries, after they had reached the trees on which the ripe, red fruit hung so thickly. 'Do you s'pose we shall see the crazy man?' she asked, and Harold replied: 'I don't know. I guess not, unless he comes to the window. Those are his rooms, and that window which looks so ugly outside, is the one with the picture in it,' and he pointed to the south wing, most of the windows of which were open, while against one a long ladder was standing. It had been left there by a workman who had been up on it to fix the hinge of a blind, and who had gone to the village in quest of something he needed, Jerry saw the ladder and its close proximity to the open window, and she thought to herself. 'I mean to fill my pail with cherries, and go up that ladder and take them to him, I wonder if he would bite me?' Suiting the action to the word she stopped eating; and began to pick from the lower limbs as rapidly as possible until her pail was full. 'Pour them into the basket,' Harold called to her from the top of the tree, but Jerry did not heed him. She had seen the tall figure of a man pass before the window, and a pale, thin face had for a moment, looked out, apparently to discover whence the talking came. 'I'm going to take the crazyman some cherries,' she tried, and almost before Harold could protest, she was half way up the ladder, which she climbed with the agility of a little cat. 'Jerry, Jerry! What are you doing!' Harold exclaimed, 'Come back this minute. He doesn't like children; he tried to throw me over the banister once; he will knock you off the ladder; oh, Jerry!' and Harold's voice was almost a sob as he watched the girl going up round after round until the top was reached, and she stood with her flushed, eager face, just on a level with the window so that by standing on tiptoe, she could look into the room. It was Arthur's bedroom, and there was no one in it, but she heard the sound of footsteps in the adjoining apartment, and raising herself as far as possible, and holding up her pail, she called out in a clear, shrill voice; 'Mr. Crazyman, Mr. Crazyman, don't you want some cherries?'	{ "id": "15321" }
18	ARTHUR AND JERRY.	Arthur had passed a restless night. Indeed all his nights were restless, but this one had been especially so. Thoughts of Gretchen had troubled him in his dreams, and two or three times he had started up to listen, thinking that he heard her calling to him from a distance. He had dreamed also of the blue hood seen that day of the funereal, now more than two years ago, and of the child who had come knocking at his door, first with her hands and then with her feet, but whom he had refused to admit. He had never seen her since, and had never inquired for her of his own accord. Two or three times his brother had spoken of her in a casual way, telling him once that she was with Mrs. Crawford. Arthur had then asked how she could afford to keep her, and Frank had made no reply. But the second time when he spoke of Jerry, and Arthur, more interested in Mrs. Crawford than in her, had asked the same question, Frank had said: 'She cannot afford it, I pay her three dollars a week.' For a moment Arthur looked inquiringly at him; then he said: 'You are a good fellow after all, even if you did deceive me about sending John for Gretchen. Tell Colvin, when Christmas comes, to give Mrs. Crawford a hundred dollars for me.' After this Mrs. Crawford and her affairs passed completely out of Arthur's mind. He never went to the cottage, or near it. He never went anywhere, in fact, but lived the life of a recluse, growing thinner, and paler, and more reticent every day, talking now but seldom of Gretchen, though he never arose in the morning or retired at night without kissing her picture and murmuring to it some words of tenderness in German. He had measured the length of his three rooms and dressing-room, and found them to be nearly one hundred feet, or six rods do that by passing back and forth twenty-five times he would walk almost a mile. Regularly each morning, when it was not too cold or stormy, he would throw open his windows and take his daily exercise, which was but a poor substitute for what might be had in the fresh air outside, but was nevertheless much better than nothing. On this particular morning, when Harold and Jerry were at the park, he was taking his walk as usual, though very slowly, for he felt weak and sick, and, oh, so inexpressibly lonely and desolate that it seemed to him he would gladly lie down and die. 'If I thought Gretchen were dead, nothing would seem so desirable to me as the grave, for then there would be nothing to live for,' he was saying to himself, when the sound of voices outside attracted his attention, and going to the window, he saw the children, Harold in the top of the tree, and Jerry at the foot, with her white sun-bonnet shading her face. Recognizing Harold, he guessed who the little girl was, and a strange feeling of interest stirred in his heart for her, as he said: 'Poor little waif! I wonder where she came from, or what will become of her?' 'Then resuming his walk, he forgot all about the little waif, until startled by a voice which rang, clear and bell-like, through the rooms: 'Mr. Crazyman! Mr. Crazyman! don't you want some cherries?' It was not so much the words as something in the tone, the foreign accent, the ring like a voice he never could forget, and which the previous night had called to him in his dreams. And now it was calling again--not in his sleep, but in reality, for he knew he was awake--calling from the adjoining room, which no one could enter without his knowledge. Mentally weak as he was, and apt to be superstitious, his limbs shook, and his heart beat faster than its wont, as he went toward his sleeping-apartment, from which the voice came again a little louder and more peremptory: 'Mr. Crazyman! where are you? I've brought you some cherries!' He had reached the door by this time, and saw the pail on the broad window-ledge where Jerry had put it, and to which she was clinging, with her white sun-bonnet just in view. 'Oh, Gretchen! how did you get here?' he said, bounding across the floor, with no thought of Jerry in his mind, no thought of any one but Gretchen, whom he was constantly expecting to come, though not exactly in this way. 'I climbed the ladder to fetch you some cherries, and I'm standing on the toppest stick,' Jerry said, craning her neck until her bonnet fell back, disclosing to view her beautiful face flushed with excitement, and her bright, wavy hair, which, moist with perspiration, clung in masses of round curls to her head and forehead. 'Great Heaven!' Arthur exclaimed, as he stood staring at the wide-open blue eyes confronting him so steadily. 'Who are you, and where did you come from?' 'I'm Jerry, and I comed from the carpet-bag in the Tramp House. Take me in, won't you?' Jerry said; and, mechanically leaning from the window, Arthur took her in, while Harold from below looked on, horror-struck with fear as to what the result might be if Jerry were left any time alone with a madman who did not like children. 'He may kill her; I must tell the folks,' he said; and, going round to the side door, he entered, without knocking, and asked for Mrs. Tracy. But she was not at home, and so he told the servants of Jerry's danger, and begged them to go to her rescue. 'Pshaw, he won't hurt her. Charles will come pretty soon, and I'll send him up. Don't look so scared; he is harmless,' the cook said to Harold, who, in a wild state of nervous fear, went back to the cherry trees, where he could listen and hear the first scream which should proclaim Jerry's danger. But none came, and could he have looked into the room, where Jerry sat, or rather stood, he would have been amazed. As Arthur lifted Jerry through the window, and put her down upon the floor, he said to her: 'Take off that bonnet and let me look at you.' She obeyed and stood before him with all her wealth of hair tumbling about her glowing face, and an eager, questioning expression in her blue eyes, which looked at him so fearlessly. Arthur knew perfectly well who she was, but something about her so dazed and bewildered him that for a moment he could not speak, but stared at her with the hungry, wistful look of one longing for something just within his reach, but still unattainable. 'Do you like me?' Jerry asked at last. 'Like you?' he replied. 'Yes. Why did you not come to me sooner?' And, stooping, he kissed the cherry-stained mouth as he had never kissed a child before. Sitting down upon the lounge, he took her in his lap and said to her again: 'Who are you, and where did you come from? I know your name is Jerry, which is a strange one for a girl, and I know you live with Mrs. Crawford, but before that night where did you live? Where did you come from?' 'Out of the carpet-bag in the Tramp House. I told you that once,' Jerry said. 'Harold found me. I am his little girl. He is out in the cherry tree, and said I must not come up, because you were crazy and would hurt me. You won't hurt me, will you? And be you crazy?' 'Hurt you? No,' he answered, as he parted the rings of her hair from her low brow. 'I don't know whether I am crazy or not They say so, and perhaps I am, when my head is full of bumble-bees.' 'Oh--h!' Jerry gasped, drawing back from him. 'Can they get out? And will they sting?' Arthur burst into a merry laugh, the first he had known since he came back to Shannondale. Jerry was doing him good. There was something very soothing in the touch of the little warm hands he held in his, and something puzzling and fascinating, too, in the face of the child. He did not think of a likeness to any one; he only knew that he felt drawn toward her in a most unaccountable manner, and found himself wondering greatly who she was. 'Harold told me there were pictures and marble people up here with nothing on, and everything, and that's why I comed--that and to bring you some cherries. I like pictures. Can I see them?' Jerry said. 'Yes, you shall see them,' Arthur replied; and he led her into the room where Gretchen's picture looked at them from the window. 'Oh, my!' Jerry exclaimed, with bated breath, 'Ain't she lovely! Is she God's sister?' and folding her hands together, she stood before the picture as reverently as a devout Catholic stands before a Madonna. It was some time since Jerry had spoken a word of German, but as she stood before Gretchen's picture old memories seemed to revive, and with them the German word for _pretty_, which she involuntarily spoke aloud. Low as was the utterance, it caught Arthur's ear, and grasping her shoulder, he said: 'What was that? What did you say, and where did you learn it?' His manner frightened her; perhaps the bumble-bees were coming out, and she drew back from him, forgetting entirely what she had said. 'It was a German word,' he continued, 'and the accent is German, too; can you speak it.' Unconsciously as he talked, he dropped into that language, and Jerry listened intently, with a strained look on her face, as if trying to recall something which came and went, but went more than it came, if that could be. 'I talked that once,' she said, 'when I lived with mamma; but she is dead. Harold found her, and I put flowers on her grave.' Half the time she was speaking in German, or trying to, and Arthur listened in amazement, while his interest in her deepened every moment, as he took her through the rooms and showed her 'the marble people with nothing on them,' and the beautiful pictures which adorned his walls. 'How would you like to come and be my little girl?' he asked her at last, when, remembering Harold and the cherries, she told him she must go, and started toward the window as if she would make her egress as she had come in. 'Can Harold come, too? I can't leave Harold,' she said Then, as she caught sight of him still standing at a distance, gazing curiously up at the window through which she had disappeared, she called out, 'Yes Harold; I'm coming. I have seen him and everything, and he did not hurt me. Good-bye!' and she turned toward Arthur with a little nod. Then, before he could stop her, she sprang out upon the ladder, and went down faster than she had come up, leaving the pail of cherries upon the window-sill, and leaving, too, in Arthur's breast a tumult of emotions which he could not define. That night, when Frank, who had heard in much alarm of Jerry's visit to his brother, went up to see him, he found him more cheerful and natural than he had seen him in weeks. As Frank expected, his first words were of the little girl who had come to him through the window and left him the cherries, of which he said he had eaten so many that he feared they might make him sick. What did Frank know of the child? What had he learned of her history? Of course he had made enquiries everywhere? It was just in the twilight, before the gas was lighted, and so Arthur did not see how his brother's face flamed at first and then grew white as he recapitulated what the reader already knows, dwelling at length upon the enquiries he had made in New York, all of which had been fruitless. There was the name Jerrine on the child's clothing, he said and the initials 'N.B.' on that of her mother, who was evidently French, although she must have come from Germany.' 'Yes,' Arthur replied, 'the child is a German, and interests me greatly. Her face and something in her voice has haunted me all the afternoon. Was there nothing in that trunk or the carpet-bag which would be a clue?' 'Nothing,' Frank replied, although it seemed to him it was the shadow speaking for him, or at least putting the lie into his mouth. There were articles of clothing, all very plain, and a picture book printed at Leipsic, I can get that for you if you like, though it tells nothing unless it he that the mother lived in Leipsic.' Frank talked very rapidly, and laid so much stress on Leipsic, that Arthur got an idea that Jerry had actually come from there, just as his brother meant he should, and he began to speak of the town and recall all he knew of it. 'I was never there but once,' he said, 'for although I spent a great deal of time in Germany, it was mostly in Heidleberg and Wiesbaden. Oh, that is lovely,--Wiesbaden--and nights now, when I cannot sleep, I fancy that I am there again, in the lovely park, and hear the music of the band, and see the crowds of people strolling through the grounds, and I am there with them, though apart from the rest, just where a narrow path turns off from a bridge, and a seat is half hidden from view behind the thick shrubberies. There I sit again with Gretchen, and feel her hand in mine and her dear head on my arm. Oh, Gretchen--' There was a sob now in his voice, and he seemed to be talking to himself rather than to his brother, who said to him: 'Gretchen lived in Wiesbaden, then?' 'Yes; but for heaven's sake pronounce it with a V, and not a W, and in two syllables instead of three,' Arthur answered, pettishly, his ear offended as it always was with a discordant sound or mispronounciation. 'Veesbaden, then,' Frank repeated, understanding now why Jerry had stumbled over the name when he once spoke it to her. Clearly she had come from Wiesbaden, where Gretchen had lived, and where he believed she had died, though he did not tell Arthur so; he merely said: 'Gretchen was your sweetheart, I suppose?' But Arthur did not reply; he never replied to direct questions as to who Gretchen was, but after a moment's silence, he said: 'You speak of her as something past. Do you believe she is dead?' 'Yes, I do,' was Frank's decided answer. You have never told me who she was, though I have my own opinion on the subject, and I know that you loved her very much, and if she loved you so much--' 'She did--she did; she loved me more--far more than I deserved,' was Arthur's vehement interruption. 'Well, then,' Frank continued, 'if she did, and were living, she would have come to you, or answered your letters, or sent you some messenger.' Frank's voice trembled here, and be seemed to see again the cold, still face of the dead woman, whose lips, could they have spoken, might have unlocked the mystery and brought a message from Gretchen' 'True, true,' Arthur replied. 'She would have come or written. How long is it since I came home?' 'Four years next October,' Frank said. 'Four years;' Arthur went on, 'is it so long as that? And it, was then more than three years since I had seen her. Everything was blotted out from my mind from the time that I entered that accursed _maison de santé_ until I found myself in Paris. I am afraid she _is_ dead.' Just then Charles came in with lights and the chocolate his master always took before retiring, and so Frank said good-night, and went out upon the broad piazza, hoping the night air would cool his heated brow, or that the laughter and prattle of Jack and Maude, who were frolicking on the gravel walk, would drown the voice of the shadow which said to him: 'But for the number of years he says it is since he saw Gretchen, there could be no doubt, and you would be the biggest rascal living. As it is, you need not distress yourself--Jerry is nothing to him; and if she were, you have gone too far now to go back. People would never respect you again. And then there is Maude. You cannot disgrace her.' No, he could not disgrace his darling Maude, who, as if guessing that he was thinking of her, came up the steps to his side, and seating herself upon his lap, pushed the hair from his forehead with her soft fingers, and kissed him lovingly as she was wont to do. 'My beautiful Maude,' he thought, for he knew she would be beautiful, with her black hair, and starry eyes, and brilliant complexion, and he loved her with all the strength of his nature. To see her grow into womanhood, admired and sought after by everyone, was the desire of his heart, and as he believed that money was necessary to the perfect fulfilment of his desire, for her sake he would carry his secret to the grave. 'Are you sick, papa?' Maude asked, looking into his pale face, on which the moon shone brightly. 'No, pet,' he answered, 'only tired. I am thinking of little Jerry Crawford. She was here this afternoon,' 'Yes, I saw her in the park with Harold. Isn't he handsome, papa? and such a nice boy! so different from Tom,' said Maude, and then she went on: 'Jerry is pretty too; prettier than I am; her hair curls and mine doesn't, but her dress is so ugly--that old high apron and calico gown. What makes her so poor and me so rich?' Mr. Tracy groaned inwardly, as he replied: 'You are not rich, my child.' 'Oh, yes, I am,' Maude said, 'I heard mamma tell Mrs. Brinsmade so. She said Uncle Arthur was worth a million, and when he died we should have it all, because he could not make a will if he wanted to, and he had no children of his own,' Although little more than seven years old, Maude Tracy was very knowing and precocious in some respects, and, like her brother Tom, had heard so much from her mother and others of their prospective wealth, that she understood the situation far better than she ought, and was already counting on the thousands waiting for her when her uncle died. And yet Maude Tracy had in her nature qualities which were to ripen into a noble womanhood. Truthful and generous, her instincts of right and wrong were very keen, and young as she was she had no respect for anything like deception or trickery. This her father knew, and his bitterest pang of remorse came from this thought, 'What would Maude say if she knew?' And it was more for her sake he was sinning than for his own or that of any other. She was so pretty, or would be when grown to young ladyhood, and the adornments which money could bring would so well become her. 'Maude,' he said at last, 'how would you like to change places with Jerry? That is, let her come here and live, while we go away and be poor; not quite as she is, but like many people.' 'And not wear a sash, and beads, and buttoned boots every day?' Maude interrupted him quickly. 'I should not like it at all. Why, Jerry dresses herself, and wipes the dishes, and wears those big aprons all the time. No, I don't want to be poor;' and as if something in her father's mind had communicated itself to her, she raised her head from his shoulder and looked beseechingly at him. 'Nor shall you be poor, if I can help it,' he said; 'but you must be very kind to Jerry, and never let her feel that you are richer than she. Do you understand?' 'I think I do,' Maude answered, adding as she kissed him fondly: 'And now I s'pose I must go, for there is Hetty come for me; so, good-night, you dearest, best papa in the world.' He knew that she believed in him fully; that should he confess his fault she would understand it, and lose faith in him. He would bear the burden, he said to himself. There should be no more repining or looking back, Maude must never know; and so Jerry's chance was lost. The next morning Arthur awoke with a racking headache. He was accustomed to it, it is true; but this one was particularly severe. 'It's the cherries; no wonder; a quart of those sour things would turn upside down any stomach,' Charles said, as he glanced at the empty tin pail which was adorning an inlaid table, and then suggested a dose of ipecac as a means of dislodging the offending cherries. But Arthur declined the medicine. His stomach was well enough, he said. It was his head which ached, and nothing would help that like the touch of the cool little hands he had held in his the previous day. Charles must go for Jerry--go at once, for he wanted her, and as when Arthur wanted a thing he wanted it immediately, Charles was soon on his way to the cottage in the lane, where he found the little girl under a tall lilac bush, busy with the mud pies she was making, and talking to herself, partly in English and partly in broken German, which she had resumed since visiting the park. 'Seemed like something I had dreamed, when he talked like that, and I could almost do it myself,' she said to Harold when describing the particulars of her interview with Mr. Tracy, and her tongue fell naturally into the language of her babyhood. On hearing Charles' errand, her delight was unbounded. 'Iss. You'll let me go,' she cried, as she stood before Mrs. Crawford, with the mud-spots on her hands and face; 'and you'll let me wear my best gown now, and my white apron with the shoulder-straps, and my morocco shoes, because this visiting.' As Mrs. Crawford could see no objection to the plan, Jerry was soon dressed, and on her way to the Park House, which seemed to her to be a very palace, and until the day before a place to be looked upon with awe, and admired breathlessly at a distance. Indeed, she had sometimes, when passing near the house, walked on tiptoe, as if on sacred ground, and held back her humble dress lest it should harm a shrub or vine by contact. But matters now were changed. She had been there, and was going there again by special invitation from the master, and she tripped along airily with a sense of dignity and importance unusual in one so young. Mrs. Tracy, who seldom troubled herself with her brother-in-law's affairs, knew nothing of his having sent for Jerry, and was surprised when she saw her coming up the walk with Charles, whose manner indicated that he knew perfectly what he was about. She had heard of Jerry's visit on the previous day, and had wondered what Arthur could find in that child to interest him, when he would never allow Maude in his room. She knew nothing of the shadow which night and day was nearer to her husband than she was herself, but she did not fancy Jerry, because of the three dollars a week, which she felt was so much taken from herself. Why they should be burdened with the support of the child, just because her mother happened to be found dead upon their premises, she could not understand. Had Jerry been older, she might, she said, have taken her into the kitchen as maid of all work, for Dolly had reached a point where she liked a great many servants in the household, and prided herself upon employing more help than either Grace Atherton or Edith St. Claire. Only that morning she had spoken to her husband of Jerry, and asked him how long he proposed to support her. 'Just as long as I have a dollar of my own, and she needs it,' was his reply, as he left the room, slamming the door behind him and leaving her to think him almost as crazy as his brother. Thus it was not in a very quiet frame of mind that she went out upon the cool, broad piazza, and, taking one of the large willow chairs standing there, began to rock back and forth and wonder what had so changed her husband, making him silent and absent-minded, and even irritable at times, as he had been that morning. Was there insanity in his veins as well as in his brother's, and would her children inherit--her darling Maude, of whom she was so proud, and who, she hoped, would some day be the richest heiress in the county and marry Dick St. Claire, if, indeed, she did not look even higher? It was at this point in her soliloquy that she saw Jerry coming up the walk, her face glowing with excitement and her manner one of freedom and assurance. Ascending the steps, Jerry nodded and smiled at the lady, whose expression was not very inviting, and who, to the child's remark, 'I've comed again,' answered, icily: 'I see you have. Seems to me you come pretty often.' Turning to Charles, Mrs. Tracy continued: 'Why is she here again so soon? What does she want?' Quick to detect and interpret the meaning of the tones of a voice, and hearing disapprobation in Mrs. Tracy's, Jerry's face was shadowed at once, and she looked up entreatingly at Charles, who said: 'Mr. Tracy sent me for her. She was with him yesterday, and he will have her again to-day.' Then Jerry's face brightened, and she chimed in: 'Iss, I'm visiting, I'm invited, and I'm going to stay to eat.' Mrs. Tracy dared not interfere with Arthur, even if he took Jerry to live there altogether, and, with a bend of her head, she signified to Charles that the conference was ended. 'Come, Jerry,' Charles said; but Jerry held back a moment, and asked: 'Where's Maude?' If Mrs. Tracy heard, she did not reply, and Jerry followed on after Charles through the hall and up the broad staircase to the darkened room where Arthur lay, suffering intense pain in the head, and moaning occasionally. But he heard the patter of the little feet, for he was listening for it, and when Jerry entered his room he raised himself upon his elbow, and reaching the other hand toward her, said: 'So you have come again, little Jerry; or, perhaps I should call you little _Cherry_, considering how you first came to me. Would you like that name?' 'Iss,' was Jerry's reply, in the quick, half-lisping way which made the monosyllable so attractive. 'Well, then, Cherry,' Arthur continued, 'take off that bonnet, and open the blind behind me so I can see your face. Then bring that stool and sit where I can look at you while you rub my head with your hands. It aches enough to split, and I believe the bumble bees are swarming; but they can't get out, and if they could, they are the white-faced kind, which never sting.' Jerry knew all about white-faced bumble-bees, for Harold had caught them for her, and with this fear removed, she did as Arthur bade her, and was soon seated at his side, rubbing his forehead, where the blue veins were standing out full and round, and smoothing his hair caressingly with her fingers, which seemed to have in them a healing power, for the pain and heat grew less under their touch, and, after a while Arthur fell into a quiet sleep. When he awoke, after half an hour or so, it was with a delicious sense of rest and freedom from pain. Jerry had dropped the shades to shut out the sunlight, and was walking on tiptoe round the room, arranging the furniture and talking to herself in whispers, as she usually did when playing alone. 'Jerry,' Arthur said to her, and she was at his side in a moment, 'you are an enchantress. The ache is all gone from my head, charmed away by your hands. Now, come and sit by me again, and tell me all you know of yourself before Harold found you. Where did you live? What was your mother's name? Try and recall all you can.' Jerry, however, could tell him very little besides the Tramp House, and the carpet-bag, and Harold letting her fall in the snow. Of the cold and the suffering she could recall nothing, or of the journey from New York in the cars. She did remember something about the ship, and her mother's seasickness, but where she lived before she went to the ship she could not tell. It was a big town, she thought, and there was music there, and a garden, and somebody sick. That was all. Everything else was gone entirely, except now and then when vague glimpses of something in the past bewildered and perplexed her. Her pantomime of the dying woman and the child had not been repeated for more than a year, for now her acting always took the form of the tragedy in the Tramp House, with herself in the carpet-bag and a lay figure dead beside her. But gradually, as Arthur questioned her, the old memories began to come back and shape themselves in her mind, and he said at last: 'It was like this--playin' you was a sick lady and I was your nurse. I can't think of her name, I guess I'll call her Manny. And there must be a baby; that's me, only I can't think of my name.' 'Call it Jerry, then,' Arthur suggested, both interested and amused, though he did not quite understand what she meant. But he was passive in her hands, and submitted to have a big handkerchief put over his head for a cap, to hold on his arm the baby she improvised from a sofa-cushion of costly plush, around which she arranged as a dress an expensive tablespread, tied with the rich cord and tassel of his dressing-gown. 'You must cry a great deal,' she said, 'and pray a great deal, and kiss the baby a great deal, and I must scold you some for crying so much, and shake the baby some in the kitchen for making a noise, because, you know, the baby can walk and talk, and is me, only I can't be both at a time.' She was not very clear in her explanations, but Arthur began to have a dim perception of her meaning, and did what she bade him do, and rather enjoyed having his face and hands washed with a wet rag, and his hair brushed and _turled_, as she called it, even though the fingers which _turled_ it sometimes made suspicious journeyings to her mouth. He cried when she told him to cry; he coughed when she told him to cough; he kissed the baby when she told him to kiss it; he took medicine from the tin pail in the form of the cherry juice left there, and did not have to make believe that it sickened him, as she said he must, for that was a reality. But when she told him he must die, but pray first, he demurred, and asked what he should say. Jerry hesitated a little. She knew that her prayers were 'Our Father,' and 'Now I lay me,' but it seemed to her that a person dying should say something else, and at last she replied: 'I can't think what she did say, only a lot about _him_. There was a _him_ somewhere, and I guess he was naughty, so pray for _him_, and the baby--that's me--and tell Manny she must take me to Mecky,' 'To whom?' Arthur asked, and she replied: 'To Mecky, where he was, don't you know?' Arthur did not know, but he prayed for _him_, saying what she bade him say--a mixture half English, half German. 'There now, you are dead,' she said at last, as she closed his eyes and folded his hand upon his chest, 'You are dead, and mustn't stir nor breathe, no matter how awful we cry, Man-nee and I.' Kneeling down beside him, she began to cry so like that of two persons that if Arthur had not known to the contrary, he would have sworn there were two beside him, a woman and a child, the voice of the one shrill and clear, and young, and frightened, the other older, and harsher, and stronger, and both blending together in a most astonishing manner. 'With a little practice she would make a wonderful ventriloquist,' Arthur thought, as he watched her flitting about the room, talking to unseen people and giving orders with regard to himself. Once Frank had witnessed a pantomine very similar to this, only then the play had ended with the death, while now there was the burial, and when Arthur moved a little and asked if he might get up, she laid her hand quickly on his mouth, with a peremptory 'hush! you are dead and we must bury you.' But here Jerry's memory failed her, and the funeral which followed was an imitation of the one which had left the Park House three years before, and which Arthur had watched from his window. Frank was there, and his wife, and Peterkin, and Jerry imitated the voices of them all, and when someone bade her kiss her mother she stooped and kissed Arthur's forehead, and said: 'Good-bye, mamma,' then throwing a thin tidy over his face, she continued, 'Now, I am going to shut the coffin,' and as she worked at the corners, as if driving down the screws, Arthur felt as if he were actually being shut out from life, and light, and the world. To one of his superstitious tendencies the whole was terribly real, and when at last she told him he was buried, and the folks had come back, and he could get up, the sweat was standing upon his face and hands in great drops, and he felt that he had in very truth been present at the obsequies of some one, whose death had made an impression so strong upon Jerry's mind that time had not erased it. There was in his heart no thought of Gretchen, as there had been in Frank's when he was a spectator at the play. He had no cause for suspicion, and thought only of the child whose restlessness and activity were something appalling to him. 'Now, what shall we play next?' she asked, as he sat white and trembling in his chair. 'Oh, nothing, nothing,' he groaned, 'I cannot stand any more now.' 'Well, then, you sit still, and I'll clean house; it needs it badly. Such mud as that boy brings in I never saw, and I'm so lame, too!' Jerry responded, and Arthur recognized Mrs. Crawford, whose tidiness and cleanliness were proverbial, and for the next half hour he watched the little actress as she limped around the room exactly as Mrs. Crawford limped with her rheumatism, sweeping, dusting, and scolding a little, both to Harold and Jerry, the latter of whom once retorted: 'I would not be so cross as that if I had forty rheumatisses in my laigs, would you, Harold?' But Harold only answered, softly: 'Hush, Jerry I you should not speak so to grandmamma, and she so good to us both, when we haven't any mother.' Arthur would have laughed, so perfect was the imitation of voice and gesture, but at the mention of Harold's mother there came into his mind a vision of sweet Amy Crawford, who had been his first love, and for whose son he had really done so little. 'Jerry,' he said, 'I guess you have cleaned house long enough. Wash your hands and come to me.' She obeyed him, and looking into his face, said: 'Now, what? can you play cat's cradle or casino?' 'No; I want to talk to you of Harold. You love him very much?' 'Oh, a hundred bushels--him and grandma, too.' 'And he is very kind to you?' 'Yes, I guess he is. He never talks back, and I am awful sometimes, and once I spit at him, and struck him; but I was so sorry and cried all night, and offered to give him my best doll 'cause it was the plaything I loved most, and I went without my piece of pie so he could have two pieces if he wanted,' Jerry said, her voice trembling as she made this confession, which gave Arthur a better insight into her real character than he had had before. Hasty, impulsive, repentant, generous, and very affectionate, he felt sure she was, and he continued; 'Does Harold go to school?' 'Yes; and I too--to the district; but I hate it!' Jerry replied. 'Why hate it?' Arthur asked. 'What is the matter with the district school?' 'Oh, it smells awful there sometimes when it is hot,' Jerry replied with an upward turn to her nose. 'And the boys are so mean, some of them. Bill Peterkin goes there and I can't bear him, he plagues me so. Wants to kiss me. A-a-h, and says I am to be his wife, and he has got warts on his thumb!' Jerry's face was sufficiently indicative of the disgust she felt for Bill Peterkin with his warts, and leaning back in his chair, Arthur laughed heartily, as he said: 'And you do not like Bill Peterkin? Well, what boys do you like?' 'Harold and Dick St. Claire,' was the prompt response, and Arthur continued: 'What would you have in place of the district school?' 'A governess,' was Jerry's answer. 'Nina St. Claire has one, and Ann Eliza Peterkin has one, and Maude Tracy has one.' Here Jerry stopped suddenly, as if struck with a new idea. 'Why, Maude is your little girl, isn't she? You are her rich uncle, and she is to have all your money when you die. I wish I was your little girl.' She spoke the last very sadly, and something in the expression of her face brought Gretchen to Arthur's mind, and his voice was choked as he said to her: 'I'd give half my fortune if you were my little girl.' Then laying his hand on her bright hair, he questioned her adroitly of her life at the cottage, finding that it was a very happy one, and that she had never known want, although Mrs. Crawford was unable to work as she once had done, and was largely dependent upon the price for Jerry's board, which Frank paid regularly. Of this, however, Jerry did not speak. She only said: 'Harold works in the furnace, and in folks' gardens, and does lots of things for everybody, and once Bill Peterkin twitted him because he goes to Mrs. Baker's sometimes after stuff for the pig, and Harold cried, and I got up early the next morning and went after it myself and drew the cart home. After that grandma wouldn't let Harold go for any more, so I s'pose the pig will not weigh as much, I'm sorry, for I like sausage, don't you?' Arthur hated it, but he did not tell her so, and she went on. 'Harold studies awful hard, and wants to go to college. He is trying to learn Latin and recites to Dick St. Claire; but grandma says it is up-hill business. Oh, if I's only rich I'd give it all to Harold, and he should get learning like Dick. Maybe I can work some time and earn some money. I wish I could.' Arthur did not speak for a long time, but sat looking at the child whose face now wore an old and troubled look. In his mind he was revolving a plan which, with, his usual precipitancy, he resolved to carry into effect at once. But he said nothing of it to Jerry, whose attention was diverted by the entrance of Charles and the preparations for luncheon, which on the little girl's account, was served with more care than usual. Jerry, who had a great liking for everything luxurious, had taken tea once or twice at Grassy Spring with Nina St. Claire, and had been greatly impressed with the appointments of the table, prizing them more even than the dainties for her to eat. But what she had seen there seemed as nothing compared to this round Swiss table, with its colored glass and rare china, no two pieces of which were alike. 'Oh, it is just like a dream!' she cried, as she watched Charles' movement and saw that there were two places laid. 'Am I to sit down with you?' she said in an awe-struck voice, 'and in that lovely chair? I am glad I wore my best gown. It won't dirty the chair a bit.' But she took her pocket handkerchief and covered over the satin cushion before she dared seat herself in the chair, which had once been brought out for Gretchen, and in which she now sat down, dropping her head and shutting her eyes a moment Then, as she heard no sound, she looked up wonderingly, and asked: 'Ain't you going to say "for Christ's Sake?" grandma does.' Arthur's face was a study with its mixed expression of surprise, amusement, and self-reproach. He never prayed except it were in some ejaculatory sentences wrung from him in his sore need, and the thought of asking a blessing on his food had never occurred to him. But Jerry was persistent. 'You must say "for Christ's sake,"' she continued, and, with his weak brain all in a muddle, Arthur began what he meant to be a brief thanksgiving, but which stretched itself into a lengthy prayer, fall of the past and of Gretchen, whom he seemed to be addressing rather than his Maker. For a while Jerry listened reverently; then she looked up and moved uneasily in the chair, and at last when the prayer had continued for at least five minutes, she burst out impulsively: 'Oh, dear, do say "amen." I am so hungry!' That broke the spell, and with a start Arthur came to himself, and said: 'Think you, Jerry, praying is a new business for me, and I do believe I should have gone on forever if you had not stopped me. Now, what will you have?' He helped her to whatever she liked best, but could eat scarcely anything himself. It was sufficient for him to watch Jerry sitting there in Gretchen's chair and using Gretchen's plate, which every day for so many years had been laid for her. Gretchen had not come. She would never come, he feared, but with Jerry he did not feel half as desolate as when alone, with only his morbid fancies for company. And he must have her there, at least a portion of the time. His mind was made up on that point, and when about four o'clock, Jerry said to him: 'I want to go now. Grandma said I was to be home by five,' she replied: 'Yes, I am going with you. I wish to see your grandmother. I am going to drive you in the phaeton. How would you like that?' Her dancing eyes told him how she would like it, and Charles was sent to the stable with an order to have the little pony phaeton brought round as soon as possible as he was going for a drive.	{ "id": "15321" }
19	ARTHUR'S PLAN	'Why, the madam is going to drive, too, and I've come to harness; there'll be a row somewhere,' John said. 'Can't help it,' Charles replied, 'Mr. Arthur wants the phaeton, and will have it for all of Madam.' 'Yes, I s'p'o' so. Wall, I'll go and tell her,' was John's rejoinder, as he started for the house, where Mrs. Tracy was just drawing on her long driving gloves, and admiring her new hat and feather before the glass. Dolly looked almost as young, and far prettier, than when the came to the park, eleven years before. A life of luxury suited her. She had learned to take things easily, and the old woman with the basket might now come every day to her kitchen door without her knowing it. She aped Mrs. Atherton of Brier Hill, in everything, and had the satisfaction of knowing that she was on all occasions quite as stylish-looking and well-dressed as that aristocratic lady whom she called her intimate friend. She had also grown very proud and very exclusive in her ideas, and when poor Mrs. Peterkin, who was growing, too, with _her_ million, ventured to call at the park, the call was returned with a card which Doily's coachman left at the door. Since the night of her party, and the election which followed when Frank was defeated, she had ignored the Peterkins, and laughed at what she called their vulgar imitation of people above them, and when she heard that Mary Jane hail hired a governess for her two children, Bill and Ann Eliza, she scoffed at the airs assumed by _come-up_ people, and wondered if Mrs. Peterkin had forgotten that she was one of Grace Atherton's hired girls. Dolly had certainly forgotten the Langley life, and was to all intents and purposes the great lady of the park, who held herself aloof from the common herd, and taught her children to do the same. She had seen Jerry enter the house that morning with a feeling of disapprobation, which had not diminished as the day wore on and still the child staid, and what was worse, Maude was not sent for to join her. 'Not that I would have allowed it, if she had been,' she said to herself, for she did not wish her daughter intimate with one of whose antecedents nothing was known, but Arthur might at least have invited her. He had never noticed her children much, and this she deeply resented. Maude, who knew of Jerry's presence in the house had cried to go in and play with her, but Mrs. Tracy had refused, and promised as an equivalent a drive in the phaeton around the town. And it was for this drive Dolly was preparing herself, when John came with the message that she could not have the phaeton, as Mr. Arthur was going to take Jerry home in it. Usually Arthur's slightest wish was a law in the household, for that was Frank's order; but on this occasion Dolly felt herself justified in rebelling. 'Not have the phaeton! That's smart, I must say,' she exclaimed. 'Can't that child walk home, I'd like to know? Tell Mr. Tracy Maude has had the promise of a drive all day, and I am ready, with my things on. Ask him to take the Victoria; he never drives.' All this in substance was repeated to Arthur, who answered, quietly: 'Let Mrs. Tracy take the victoria. I prefer the phaeton myself.' That settled it, and in few moments Jerry was seated at Arthur's side, and skimming along through the park, and out upon the highway which skirted the river for miles. 'This is not going home, and grandma will scold,' Jerry said. 'Never mind the grandma--I will make it right with her. I am going to show you the country,' Arthur replied, as he chirruped to the fleet pony who seemed to fly along the smooth road. No one who saw the tall, elegant-looking man, who sat so erect, and handled the reins so skilfully, would ever have suspected him of insanity, and more than one stopped to gaze after him and the little girl whose face, with the golden hair blowing about it, looked out from the white sun bonnet with so joyous an expression. On the homeward route they met the victoria, with John upon the box, and Mrs. Tracy and Maude inside. 'There's Maude! Hallo, Maude--see me! I'm riding!' Jerry called out, cheerily, while Maude answered back: 'Hallo, Jerry!' But Mrs. Tracy gave no sign of recognition, and only rebuked her daughter for her vulgarity in saying 'Hallo,' which was second class and low. 'Then Nina St. Claire is second class and low, for she says "Hallo,"' was Maude's reply, to which her mother had no answer. Meanwhile the phaeton was going swiftly on toward the cottage, which it reached a few minutes after the furnace whistle blew for six, and Harold, who had been working there, came up the lane. There were soiled spots on his hands and on his face, and his clothes showed marks of toil, all of which Arthur noted, while he was explaining to Mrs. Crawford that he had taken Jerry for a drive, and kept her beyond the prescribed hour. Then, turning to Harold, he said: 'And so you work in the furnace?' 'Yes, sir, during vacation, when I can get a job there,' Harold answered, and Mr. Tracy continued: 'How much do you get a day?' 'Fifty cents in dull times,' was the reply, and Arthur went on: 'Fifty cents from seven in the morning to six at night, and board yourself. A magnificent sum truly. Pray, how do you manage to spend so much? You must be getting rich.' The words were sarcastic, but the tone belied the words, and Harold was about to speak, when his grandmother interrupted him, and said, 'What he does not spend for us he puts aside. He is trying to save enough to go to the High School, but it's slow work. I can do but little myself, and it all falls upon Harold.' 'But I like it, grandma. I like to work for you and Jerry, and I have almost twenty dollars saved,' Harold said, 'and in a year or two I can go away to school, and work somewhere for my board. Lots of boys do that.' Arthur was hitching his pony to the fence, while a new idea was dawning in his mind. 'Fifty cents a day,' he said to himself, 'and he has twenty dollars saved, and thinks himself rich. Why, I've spent more than that on one bottle of wine, and here is this boy, Amy's son, wanting an education, and working to support his grandmother like a common laborer. I believe I _am_ crazy.' He was in the cottage by this time--in the clean, cool kitchen where the supper table was laid with its plain fair, most unlike the costly viands which daily loaded his board. 'Don't wait for me, Harold must be hungry,' he said, adding quickly: 'Or stay, if you will permit me, I will take a cup of tea with you. The drive has given me an appetite, and your tea smells very inviting.' It was a great honor to have Arthur Tracy at her table, and Mrs. Crawford felt it as such, and was very sorry, too, that she had nothing better to offer him than bread and butter and radishes, with milk, and a dish of cold beans, and chopped beets, and a piece of apple pie saved for Harold from dinner. But she made him welcome, and Jerry, delighted to return the hospitality she had received, brought him a clean plate and cup and saucer, and asked if she might get the best sugar-bowl and the white sugar. Then, remembering the beautiful flowers which had adorned the table at Tracy Park, she ran out and gathering a bunch of June pinks, put them in a little glass by his plate. When all was ready and they had taken their seats at the table, Mrs. Crawford closed her eyes reverently and asked the accustomed blessing which in that house preceded every meal. Jerry's amen was a good deal louder and more emphatic than usual, while she nodded her head to Arthur, with an expression which he understood to mean, 'You know now what you ought to say, instead of that long prayer,' and he nodded back that he did so understand it. Arthur enjoyed the supper immensely, or pretended that he did. He ate three slices of bread and butter; he drank three cups of tea; he even tried the beans and the beets, but declined the radishes, which, he said, would give him the nightmare. When supper was over and the table cleared away, he still showed no signs of going, but asking Mrs. Crawford to take a seat near him, he plunged at once into the business which had brought him there, and which, since he had seen Harold in his working-dress and heard what he was trying to do, had grown to be of a two-fold nature. He was very lonely, he said, and all the elegance and luxuriousness of his handsome house failed to give him pleasure or to make him forget the past. He wanted some one to love who would love him in return, and the little taste he had had of Jerry's society had made him wish for more, and he must have her with him a part at least of every day. 'In short,' he said, 'I should like to undertake her education myself until she is older, when I shall see that she has the proper finishing. She tells me she hates the district school, with Bill Peterkin and his warts--' 'Trying to kiss me,' Jerry interrupted, as open-eyed and open-mouthed, she stood, with her hand on his shoulder, listening to him. 'Yes, trying to kiss you, though I do not blame him much for that,' Arthur said, with a smile, and then continued: 'She is ambitious enough to want a governess like Ann Eliza Peterkin and my brother's daughter, but I am better than a dozen governesses. I can teach her all the rudiments of an English education, with French and German, and Latin, too, if she likes; and my plan is, that she come to me every day except Saturdays and Sundays--come at ten in the morning, get her lessons and her lunch with me, and return home at four in the afternoon. Would you like it, Cherry?' 'Oh-h-oh!' was all the answer Jerry could make for a moment, but her cheeks were scarlet, and tears of joy stood in her eyes, until she glanced at Harold; then all the brightness faded from her face, for how could she accept this great good and leave him to drudge and toil alone? 'What is it, Cherry?' Mr. Tracy asked; and, with a half sob, she replied: 'I can't go without Harold. If I get learning, he must get learning, too,' and leaving Arthur, the crossed over to the boy, and putting her arm around him, looked up at him with a look which in after years he would have given half his life to win. She was a little girl now and did not care if he did know how much she loved him, and that for him she would sacrifice everything. But in this case the sacrifice was not required, for Arthur hastened to say: 'I shall not forget Harold. I have something better in store for him than reciting his lessons to me. When the High School opens in September, he is going there, and if he does well he shall go to Andover in time, and perhaps to Harvard. It will all depend upon himself, and how he improves his opportunities. What! crying? Don't you like it?' Arthur asked, as he saw the great tears gathering in Harold's eyes and rolling down his cheeks. 'Yes, oh, yes; but it don't seem real, and--and--I guess it makes me kind of sick,' Harold gasped, as, freeing himself from Jerry's encircling arm, he hurried from the room, to think over this great and unexpected joy which had come so suddenly to him. With his naturally refined tastes and instincts the dirty furnace work had not been pleasant to him, and he had shrunk with inexpressible loathing from the swill cart and the other menial duties he had been obliged to perform for the sake of those he loved. How to get an education was the problem he was earnestly trying to solve, and lo! it was now solved for him. For a moment the suddenness of the thing overcame him, and he sat down upon a table in the yard, faint and bewildered, while Arthur made his plan clear to Mrs. Crawford, saying that what he meant to do was partly for Jerry's sake and partly for the sake of the young girl who had been his early love. 'I always intended to take care of you,' he said; 'but things go from my mind, and I forget the past as completely as if it had never been. But this will stay by me, for I shall have Cherry as a reminder, and if I am in danger of forgetting she will jog my memory.' Fur a moment Mrs. Crawford could not speak, so great was her surprise and joy that the good she had thought unattainable was to be Harold's at last. And yet something in her proud, sensitive nature rebelled against receiving so much from a stranger, even if that stranger were Arthur Tracy. It seemed like charity, she said, when at last she spoke at all. But Arthur overruled her with that persuasive way he had of converting people to his views; and when at last he left the cottage it was with the understanding that Jerry should commence her lessons with him the first week in September, and that Harold should enter the High School in Shannondale when it opened in the autumn.	{ "id": "15321" }
20	THE WORKING OF ARTHUR'S PLAN.	As Arthur was wholly uncommunicative with regard to his affairs, and as Mrs. Crawford kept her own counsel, and bade Harold and Jerry do the same, the Tracys knew nothing whatever of the plan until the September morning when Jerry presented herself at the park house, and was met in the door-way by Mrs. Frank, who was just going out. Very few could have resisted the bright little face, so full of childish happiness, or the clear, assured voice, which said so cheerily: 'Good-morning, Mrs. Tracy. I'm come to school.' But, prejudiced as she was against the girl, Mrs. Tracy could resist any thing, and she answered, haughtily; 'Come to school! What do you mean? This is not a school-house, and if you have any errand here, go round to the other door. Only company come in here.' 'But I'm company. I'm going to get learning; he told me to come,' Jerry answered, flushed and eager, and altogether sure of her right to be there. Before Mrs. Frank could reply, a voice, distinct and authoritative, and to which she always yielded, called from the top of the stairway inside: 'Mrs. Tracy, if that is Jerry to whom you are talking, send her up at once. I am waiting for her.' Jerry did not mean the nod she gave the lady as she passed her to be disrespectful, but Mrs. Frank felt it as such, and went to her own room in a most perturbed state of mind, for which she could find no vent until her husband came in, when she stated the case to him, and asked if he knew what it meant. But Frank was as ignorant as herself, and could not enlighten her until that night, after he had seen his brother, and heard from him what he was intending to do. 'God bless you, Arthur. You don't know how happy you have made me,' Frank said, feeling on the instant that a great burden was lifted from his mind. Jerry was to be educated and cared for, and would probably receive all that the world would naturally concede to her if the truth were known. He believed, or thought he did, that Gretchen had never been his brother's wife, though to believe so seemed an insult to the original of the sweet face which looked at him from the window every time he entered his brother's room. Jerry was a great trouble to him, and he would not have liked to confess to any one how constantly she was in his mind, or how many plans he had devised in order to atone for the wrong he knew he was doing her. And now his brother had taken her off his hands, and she was to be cared for and receive the education which would fit her to earn her own livelihood, and make her future life respectable. No particular harm was done her after all, and he might now enjoy himself, and cast his morbid fancies to the winds, he reflected, as he went whistling to his wife's apartment, and told her what he had heard. For a moment Dolly was speechless with astonishment, and when at last she opened her lips, her husband silenced her with that voice and manner of which she was beginning to be afraid. It was none of their business, he said, what Arthur did in his own house, provided they were not molested, and if he chose to turn schoolmaster, he had a right to do so. For his part, he was glad of it, as it saved him the expense of Jerry's education, for if Arthur had not taken it in hand, he should; and Dolly was to keep quiet and let the child come and go in peace. After delivering himself of these sentiments, Frank went away, leaving his wife to wonder, as she had done more than once, if he, too, were not a little crazy, like his brother. But, she said no mare about Jerry's coming there, except to suggest that she might at least come in at the side door instead of the front, especially on muddy days when she was liable to soil the costly carpets. And Jerry, who cared but little how she entered the house, if she only got in, came through the kitchen after the second day, and wiped her feet upon the mat; and once, when her shoes were worse than usual, took them off, lest they should leave a track. It is not our intention to linger over the first few months of Jerry's school days at Tracy Park, but rather to hasten on to the summer four years after her introduction to Tracy Park as Arthur's pupil. During all that time he had never once seemed to grow weary of the task he had imposed upon himself, but, on the contrary, his interest had daily deepened in the child who developed so rapidly under his training that he sometimes looked at her in astonishment, marvelling more and more who she was and from whom she had inherited her wonderful memory and power to grasp points which are usually far beyond the comprehension of a child of ten, or even twelve, and which Maude Tracy could no more have mastered than her brother, the stupid Jack. His intellect had not grown with his body, and when at thirteen he was asked the question, 'If there are five peaches on the table, and Tom eats three of them, how many will there be left?' he answered, promptly: 'None, 'cause Tom would eat them all.' In this reply there was a shrewdness which poor Jack never intended, and the laugh which followed his answer confused and bewildered him. There was a tutor now at Tracy Park for Jack, but Maude had been transferred to Arthur's care. This was wholly due to Jerry, who alone could have induced him to let Maude share her instruction. Arthur did not care for Maude. She was dull, he said, and would never learn her lessons. But Jerry coaxed so hard that Arthur consented at last, and when Jerry had been with him about three years, Maude became his pupil, and that of Jerry as well, for nearly every day when the lessons were over the two little girls might have been seen sitting together under the trees in the park, or in some corner of the house, Maude puzzled, and perplexed, and worried, and Jerry anxious, decided, and peremptory, as she went over and over again with what was so clear to her and so hazy to her friend. 'Oh, dear me, suz, what does ail you?' she said, one day, with a stamp of her foot, after she had tried in vain to make Maude see through a simple sum in long division. 'Can't you remember first to divide, second multiply, third subtract, and fourth bring down?' 'No, I can't. I can't remember anything, and if I could, how do I know what to divide or what to bring down? I am stupid, and shall never know anything,' was Maude's sobbing reply, as she covered her face with her slate. Maude's tears always moved Jerry, who tried to reassure the weeping girl with the assurance that perhaps, if she tried very hard, she might some time know enough to teach a district school. This was the height of Jerry's ambition, to teach a district school and board around; but Maude's aspirations were different. She was rich. She was to be a belle and wear diamonds and satins like her mother; and so it did not matter so much whether she understood long division or not, though it did hurt her a little to be so far outstripped by Jerry, who was younger than herself. To Arthur, Jerry was a constant delight and surprise, and nothing astonished or pleased him more than the avidity with which she took up German. This language was like play to her, and by the time she was ten years old she spoke, and read, and wrote it almost as well as Arthur himself. 'It takes me back somewhere, I can't tell where,' she said to him; 'and I seem to be somebody else than Jerry Crawford, and I hear music and see people, and a pale face is close to me, and I get all confused trying to remember things which come and go.' Only once after her first day at the park had she enacted the pantomime of the sick woman and the nurse, and then she had done it at Arthur's request. But it was not quite as thrilling as at first; the _him_ for whom the dying woman had prayed was omitted, and the whole was mixed with the Tramp House, and the carpet-bag, and Harold, who was now a youth of seventeen, and a student at the high school in Shannondale, where he was making as rapid progress in his studies as Jerry was at the park. But Harold's life was not as serene and happy as Jerry's, for it was not pleasant for him to hear, as he often did, that he was a charity student, supported by Arthur Tracy. Such remarks were very galling to the high-spirited boy, and he was constantly revolving all manner of schemes by which he could earn money and cease to be dependent. All through the summer vacations, which were long ones, he worked at whatever he could find to do, sometimes in people's gardens, sometimes on their lawns, but oftener in the hay-fields, where he earned the most. Here Jerry was not infrequently his companion. She liked to rake hay, she said; it came natural to her, and she had no doubt she inherited the taste from her mother, who had probably worked in the fields in Germany. One afternoon, when Jerry knew that Harold was busy in one of Mr. Tracy's meadows, she started to join him, for he had complained of a headache at home, and had expressed a fear that he might not be able to finish the task he had imposed upon himself. The road to the field was by the Tramp House, which looked so cool and quiet, with its thick covering of woodbine and ivy over it, that Jerry turned aside for a moment to look into the room which had so great a fascination for her, and where she spent so much time. Indeed, she seldom passed near it without going in for a moment and standing by the old table which had once held her and her dead mother. Things came back to her there, she said, and she could almost give a name to the pale-faced woman who haunted her so often. As she entered the damp, dark place now, she started, with an exclamation of surprise, which was echoed by another, as Frank Tracy sprang up and confronted her. It was not often that he entered the Tramp House, and he would not have confessed to any one his superstitious dread of it, or that, when he did visit it, he always had a feeling that the dead woman found there years ago would start up to accuse him of his deceit and hypocrisy. Could he have had his way he would have pulled the building down, but it was not his, and when he suggested it to Arthur, as he sometimes did, the latter opposed it, saying latterly, since Jerry had been so much to him: 'No, no, Frank; let it stand. I like it, because but for it Jerry might have perished with her mother, and I should not have had her with me.' So the Tramp House stood, and grew damper and mustier each year, as the moss and ivy gathered on the walls outside, and the dust and cobwebs gathered on the walls within. These, however, Jerry was careful to brush away, for she had a play house in one corner, and a little work-bench and chair, and she often sat there alone and talked to herself, and the woman dead so long ago, and to others whose faces were dim and shadowy, but whom she had felt sure she had known. Very frequently she went through the process of cleaning up, as she called it, and her object in stopping there now was, in part, to see if it did not need her care again. 'Oh, Mr. Tracy! are you here! How you scared me? I thought it was a tramp!' she said, as he came toward her. 'Do you come here often?' he asked, as he offered her his hand. 'Yes, pretty often. I like it, because mother died here, and sometimes I feel as if she would make it known to me here who she was. I talk to her and ask her to tell me, but she never has. Oh, don't you wish she would?' Frank shuddered involuntarily, for to have Jerry told who she really was, was the last thing he could desire, but as a criminal is said always to talk about the crime he has committed and is hiding, so Frank, when with Jerry, felt impelled to talk with her of the past and what she could remember of it. Seating himself upon the bench with her at his side, he said: 'And you really believe the woman found here was your mother?' 'Why, yes. Don't you? Who was my mother, if she wasn't?' and Jerry's eyes opened wide as he looked at him. 'I don't know, I am sure. Does my brother talk of Gretchen now?' was the abrupt reply. 'Yes, at times,' Jerry answered: 'and yesterday, after I sang him a little German song, which he taught me, he had them pretty bad--the bees in his head, I mean: that is what he calls it when things are mixed; and he says he is going to write to her, or her friends.' 'Write to her! I thought he had given that up. I thought he--Did he say, "Write to her friends?"' Frank gasped as he felt himself grow cold and sick with this threatened danger. Arthur had seemed so quiet and happy with Jerry, and had said so little of Gretchen, that Frank had grown quite easy in his mind, and the black shadow of fear did not trouble him quite so much as formerly. But now it was over him again, and grew in intensity as he questioned the child. 'Have you ever tried to find out who Gretchen is?' he asked at last. 'No,' she replied, 'but I guess she is his wife.' 'Yes,' Frank said, falteringly, 'his wife; and where do you think she lived?' 'Oh, I know that. In Wiesbaden. He told me so once, and it seems as if I had been there, too, when he talked about it, and I hear the music and see the flowers, and a white-faced woman is with me, not at all like mother, who, they say, was ugly and dark; black as a nigger, Tom told me once, when he was mad. Was she black?' Mr. Tracy made no reply to this, but said, suddenly: 'Jerry, do you like me well enough to do me a favor, a great favor?' 'Why, yes, I guess I do. I like you very much, though not as well as I do Harold and Mr. Arthur. What do you want?' was Jerry's answer. After hesitating a moment, Mr. Tracy began: 'There are certain reasons why I ought to know if my brother writes to Gretchen, or her friends, or any one in Germany, especially Wiesbaden. A letter of that kind might do me a great deal of harm; if he should write to any one in Germany, you would, perhaps, he asked to post the letter, as he never goes to town?' He said this interrogatively, and Jerry answered him promptly: 'I think he would give it to me.' 'Yes, well; Jerry, can you keep a secret, and never tell any one what I am saying to you?' was Frank's next remark, to which Jerry responded: 'I think I should tell Harold, and, perhaps, Mr. Arthur.' 'No, no, no, Jerry, never!' and Frank laid his hand half menacingly upon the little girl's shoulder. 'I have been kind to you, have paid your board to Mrs. Crawford ever since you have been there--' He felt how mean it was to say this, and do not at all resent Jerry's quick reply: 'Yes, but Mrs. Peterkin says you do not pay enough.' 'Perhaps not,' he continued, 'but if Mrs. Crawford is satisfied, it matters little what Mrs. Peterkin thinks. Jerry, you _must_ do this for me,' he went on rapidly, as his fears kept growing. 'You must never tell anyone of our conversation, and if my brother writes that letter soon, or at any time, you must bring it to me. Will you do it? Great harm would come if it were sent--harm to me, and harm to Maude, and--' 'To Maude!' Jerry replied. 'I would do anything for Maude. Yes, I will bring the letter to you if he writes one. You are sure it would be right for me to do so?' Frank had touched the right cord when he mentioned his daughter's name, for during these years of close companionship the two little girls had learned to love each other devotedly, though naturally Jerry's was the stronger and less selfish attachment of the two. To her Maude was a queen who had a right to tyrannize over and command her if she pleased; and as the tyranny was never very severe, and was usually followed by some generous act of contrition, she did not mind it at all, and was always ready to make up and be friends whenever it suited the capricious little lady. 'Yes, I will do it for Maude,' she said again; but there was a troubled look on her face, and a feeling in her heart as if, in some way, she was false to Arthur in thus consenting to his brother's wishes. But, she reflected, Arthur was crazy, so people said, and she herself knew better than anyone else of his many fanciful vagaries, which, at times, took the form of actual insanity. For weeks he would seem perfectly rational, and then suddenly his mood would change, and he would talk strange things to himself and the child, who was now so necessary to him, and who alone had a soothing influence over him. Only the day before, as Jerry had told Frank, Arthur had been unusually excited, after listening to a simple air which he had taught to her, and which, at his request, she sang to him after Maude had gone out and left them alone. 'I could swear you were Gretchen, singing to me in the twilight, and across the meadow comes the tinkle of the bells where the cows and goats are feeding,' he said to her, as he paced up and down the room.' Then, stopping suddenly, he went up to her, and pushing her soft, wavy hair from her forehead, looking long and earnestly into her face. 'Cherry,' he said at last, using the pet name he often gave her, 'you _are_ some like Gretchen as she must have been when of your age. Oh, if you only were hers and mine! But there was no child; and yet--and yet--' He seemed to be thinking intently for a moment, and then going to a drawer in his writing desk, which Jerry had never seen open before, he took out a worn, yellow letter, and ran his eye rapidly over it until he found a certain paragraph, which he bade Jerry read. The paragraph was as follows: 'I have something to tell you when you come, which I am sure will make you as glad as I am.' Jerry read it aloud slowly, for the handwriting was cramped and irregular, and then looked up questioningly to Arthur, who said to her: 'What do you think she meant by the something which would make me glad as she was?' 'I don't know,' Jerry answered him. 'Who wrote it? Gretchen?' 'Yes, Gretchen; it is her last letter to me, and I never went back to see what she meant, for the bees were bad in my head and I forgot everything, even Gretchen herself. Poor little Gretchen! What was the idea which came to me like a flash of lightning, in regard to this letter, when I heard you sing? It is gone, and I cannot recall it.' There was a worried, anxious look on his face as he put the letter away, and went on talking to himself of Gretchen, saying he was going to write her again, or her friends, and find out what she meant. The next day Jerry met Frank in the Tramp House, as we have described, and gave him the promise to bring him any letter directed to Germany which Arthur might entrust to her. But the promise weighed heavily upon her as she walked slowly on towards the field where Harold was at work, and where she found him resting for a moment under the shadow of a wide-spreading butternut. He looked tired and pale, and there were great drops of sweat upon his white forehead, and an expression on his face which Jerry did not understand. Harold was not in a very happy frame of mind. Naturally cheerful and hopeful, it was not often that he gave way to fits of despondency, or repining at his humble lot, so different from that of the boys of his own age, with whom he came in daily contact, both at school and in the town. Dick St. Claire, his most intimate friend, always treated him as if he were fully his equal, and often stood between him and the remarks which boys made thoughtlessly, and which, while they mean so little, wound to the quick such sensitive natures as Harold's. But not even Dick St. Claire could keep Tom Tracy in check. With each succeeding year he grew more and more supercilious and unbearable, pluming himself upon his position as a Tracy of Tracy Park, and this wealth he was to inherit from his Uncle Arthur. For the last year he had been at Andover, where he had formed a new set of acquaintances, one of whom was spending the vacation with him. This was young Fred Raymond, whose home was at Red Stone Hall, in Kentucky, and whose parents were in Europe. Between the two youths there was but little similarity of taste or disposition, for young Raymond represented all that was noble and true, and though proud of his State and proud of his name, never assumed the slightest superiority over those whom the world considered his inferiors. He was Tom's room-mate, and hence the intimacy between them which had resulted in Fred's accepting the invitation to Tracy Park. If anything had been wanting to complete Tom's estimate of his own importance this visit of the Kentuckian would have done it. All his former friends were cut except Dick St. Claire, while Harold was as much ignored as if he had never existed. Tom did not even see him or recognize him with so much as a look, but passed him by as he would any common day laborer whom he might chance to meet. All through the summer days, while Harold was working until every bone in his body ached, Tom and his friend were enjoying themselves in hunting, fishing, driving, or rowing, or lounging under the trees in the shady lawns. That afternoon when Jerry joined him in the hayfield, Tom and the Kentuckian had passed him in their fanciful hunting-suits with their dogs and guns, but though Harold was within a few yards of them, Tom affected not to see him, and kept his head turned the other way, as if intent upon some object in the distance. Leaning upon his rake, Harold watched them out of sight, with a choking sensation in his throat as he wondered if it would always be thus with him, and if the day would never come when he, too, could know what leisure meant, with no thought for the morrow's bread. 'I am Tom's superior in everything but money, and yet he treats me like a dog,' he said, as he seated himself upon the grass, where he sat fanning himself with his straw hat. When Jerry appeared in view he brightened at once, for in all the world there was not anything half so sweet and lovely to him as the little blue-eyed girl who seated herself beside him, and, nestling close to him, laid her curly head upon his arm. 'I've come to help you rake the hay,' she said, 'for grandma told me you had a headache at noon, and couldn't eat your huckleberry pie. I am awfully sorry, Harold, but I ate it myself, it looked so good, instead of saving it for your supper. It was nasty and mean in me, and I hope it will make me sick.' But Harold told her he did not care for the pie, and would rather that she would eat it if she liked it. Then he questioned her of the park house and of Arthur; asking if the bees were often in his head now, or had she driven them out. 'No, I guess I haven't. They were awful yesterday and to-day,' Jerry replied. 'He was talking of Gretchen all the time. I wonder who she was. Sometimes I look at her until it seems to me I have seen her or something like her, a paler face with sadder eyes. How he must have loved her, better than you or I could ever love anybody; don't you think so?' Harold hesitated a moment, and then replied: 'I don't know, but it seems to me I love you as much as a man could ever love another.' 'Phoo! Of course you do; but that's boy love; that isn't like when you are old enough to have a beau!' and Jerry laughed merrily, as she sprang up, and, taking Harold's rake, began to toss the hay about rapidly, bidding him sit still and see how fast she could work in his place. Harold was very tired, and his head was aching badly, so for a time he sat still, watching the graceful movements of the beautiful child, who, it seemed to him, was slipping away from him. Constant intercourse with a polished man like Arthur Tracy had not been without its effect upon her, and there was about her an air which with strangers would have placed her at once above the ordinary level of simple country girls. This Harold had been the first to detect, and though he rejoiced at Jerry's good fortune, there was always with him a dread lest she should grow beyond him, and that he should lose the girl he loved so much. 'What if she should think me a clown and a clodhopper, as Tom Tracy does?' he said to himself, as he watched her raking up the hay faster, and quite as well as he could have done himself. 'I believe I should want to die.' It was impossible that Jerry should have guessed the nature of Harold's thoughts, but once, as she passed near him, she dropped her rake, and going up to him, wiped his forehead with her apron, and, kissing him fondly, said to him: 'Poor, tired boy, is your head awful? You look as if you wanted to vomit? Do you?' 'No, Jerry,' Harold answered, laughingly. 'I am not as bad as that. I was only thinking and wishing that I were rich and could sometime give you and grandma a home as handsome as Tracy Park. How would you like it?' 'First-rate, if you were there,' Jerry replied; 'but if you were not I shouldn't like it at all. I never mean to live anywhere without you; because, you know, I am your little girl, the one you found in the carpet-bag, and I love you more than all the world, and will love and stand by you forever and ever, amen!' She said the last so abruptly, and it sounded so oddly, that Harold burst into a laugh, and taking up the rake she had dropped, began his work again, declaring that the headache was gone, and that he was a great deal better. 'Forever and ever, amen!' The words kept repeating themselves over and over in Harold's mind as he walked homeward in the gathering twilight with Jerry hip-pi-ty-hopping at his side, her hand in his, and her tongue running rapidly, as it usually did when with him. She would 'love and stand by him forever and ever, amen!' It was a singular remark for a child, and in after years, when his sky was the blackest, the words would come back to the man Harold like so many stabs as he whispered in his anguish: 'She has forgotten her promise to "stand by me forever and ever, amen!"'	{ "id": "15321" }
21	MRS. TRACY'S DIAMONDS.	Mrs. Tracy was going to have a party--not a general one, like that which she gave when our readers first knew her, and Harold Hastings stood at the head of the stairs and bade 'the ladies go this way and the gentlemen that.' Since Dolly had become so exclusive and a leader of fashion, she had ignored general parties and limited her invitations to a select few, which, on this occasion, numbered about sixty or seventy. But the entertainment was prepared as elaborately as if hundreds had been expected, and the hostess was radiant in satin and lace, and diamonds, as she received her guests and did the honors of the occasion. The September night was soft and warm, and the grounds were lighted up, while quite a crowd collected near the house to hear the music and watch the proceedings. Mrs. Tracy would have liked to have had Jerry in the upper hall, where Harold had once stood. 'It would help to keep the child in her place,' she thought, 'for she is getting to feel herself of quite too much consequence, with so much attention from Arthur.' But her husband promptly vetoed the proposition, saying that when Jerry Crawford came to the park house to an entertainment it would be as a guest, and not as a waiter. So a colored boy stood in the upper hall, and a colored boy stood in the lower hall, and there were colored waiters everywhere, and Dolly had never been happier or prouder in her life: for Governor Markham and his wife, from Iowa, were there, and a judge's wife from Springfield--all guests of Grace Atherton, and, in consequence, bidden to the party. Another remarkable feature of the evening was the presence of Arthur in the parlors. He had known both Governor Markham and his wife, Ethelyn Grant, and had been present at their wedding, and it was mostly on their account that he had consented to join in the festivities. Jerry, it is true, had done a great deal toward persuading him to go down, repeating, in her own peculiar way, what she had heard people say with regard to his seclusion from society. 'You just make a hermit of yourself,' she said, 'cooped up here all the time. I don't wonder folks say you are crazy. It is enough to make anybody crazy, to stay in one or two rooms and see nobody but Charles and me. Just dress yourself in your best clothes and go down and be somebody, and don't talk of Gretchen all the time! I am tired of it, and so is everybody. Give her a rest for one evening, and show the people how nice you can be if you only have a mind to.' Jerry delivered this speech with her hands on her hips, and with all the air of a woman of fifty; while Arthur laughed immoderately, and promised her to do his best not to disgrace her, and to appear as if he were not crazy. Jerry's anxiety was somewhat like that of a mother for a child whose ability she doubts; and, after her supper was over she took her way to the park house to see that Arthur was dressed properly for the occasion. 'It would be like him to go without his neck-tie and wear his every-day boots,' she thought. But she found him as faultlessly gotten up as he well could be in his old-fashioned evening dress, which sat rather loosely upon him, for he had grown thinner with each succeeding year. Jerry thought him splendid, and watched him admiringly as if he left the room and started for the parlors, with her last injunction ringing in her ears: 'Not a word out of your head about Gretchen, but try and act as if you were not crazy.' 'I'll do it, Cherry. Don't you worry,' he said to her, with a little reassuring nod, as he descended the stairs. And he kept his promise well. There was no word out of his head about Gretchen, and no one ignorant of the fact would ever have suspected that his mind was unsettled as he moved among the guests, talking to one another with that pleasant, courtly manner so natural to him. A very close observer, however, might have seen his eyes dilate and even flash with some sudden emotion when his brother's wife passed him and her brilliant diamonds, his gift, sparkled in the bright gaslight. The setting was rather peculiar, but Mrs. Tracy liked it for the peculiarity, and had never had it changed. She was very proud of her diamonds, they were so large and clear, and she had the satisfaction of knowing that there were no finer, if as fine, in town. She seemed to know, too, just in what light to place herself in order to show them to the best advantage, and at times the gleams of fire from them were wonderful, and once Arthur put his hand before his eyes as she passed him, and muttering something to himself moved quickly to another part of the room. This was late in the evening, and soon after he excused himself to those around him, saying it was not often that he dissipated like this, and as he was growing tired he must say good-night. The next morning Charles found him looking very pale and worn, with a bad pain in his head. He had rested badly, he said, and would have his coffee in bed, after which Charles was to leave him alone and not come back until he rang for him, as he might possibly fall asleep. It was very late that morning when the family breakfasted, and as they lingered around the table, discussing the events of the previous night, it was after eleven o'clock when at last Mrs. Tracy went up to her room. As she ascended the stairs to the upper hall, she caught a glimpse of Harold disappearing through a door at the lower end of the hall, evidently with the intention of going down the back stairway and making his exit from the house by the rear door, rather than the front. Mrs. Tracy knew that he was sometimes sent by his grandmother on some errand to Arthur, and giving no further thought to the matter went on to her own room, which her maid had put in order. All the paraphernalia of last night's toilet were put away, diamonds and all. Contrary to her usual custom, for she was very careful of her diamonds, and very much afraid they would be stolen, she had left them in their box on her dressing bureau. But they were not there now. Sarah, who knew where she kept them, had put them away, of course, and she gave them no more thought until three days later, when she received an invitation to a lunch party at Brier Hill. 'I shall wear my dark blue satin and diamonds,' she said to her maid, who was dressing her hair, but the diamonds, when looked for, were not in their usual place. Sarah had not put them away, nor in fact had she seen them at all, for they were not upon the bureau when she went to arrange her mistress' room the morning after the party. The diamonds were gone, nor could any amount of searching bring them to light. And they looked everywhere, in every box and drawer and corner, and Mrs. Tracy grew cold and sick and faint, and finally broke down in a fit of crying, as she explained to her husband that her beautiful diamonds were stolen. She called it that, now, and the whole household was roused and questioned as to when and where each had last seen the missing jewels. But no one had seen them since they were in the lady's ears, and she knew she had left them upon her bureau when she went down to breakfast. She was positive of that. No one had been in the room, or that part of the house, except Tom, Fred Raymond, Charles and Sarah. Of these the first two were not to be thought of for a moment, while the last two had been in the family for years, and were above suspicion. Clearly, then, it was some one from outside, who had watched his or her portunity and come in. Had any one been seen about the house at that hour? Yes, Charles remembered having met Harold Hastings coming out of the rear door; 'but,' he added, 'I would sooner suspect myself than him.' And this was the verdict of all except Mrs. Tracy, who now recalled the fact that she, too, had seen Harold 'sneaking through the door as if he did not wish to be seen.' That was the way she expressed herself, and her manner had in it more meaning even than her words. 'What was Harold doing in the house? What was his errand? Does any one know?' she asked, but no one volunteered any information until Charles suggested that he probably came on some errand to Mr. Arthur; he would inquire, he said, and he went at once to his master's room. Arthur was sitting by his writing-desk, busy with a letter, and did not turn, his head when Charles asked if he remembered whether Harold Hastings had been to his room the morning after the party. 'No, I have not seen him for more than a week,' was the reply. 'But he must have been here that morning,' Charles continued. 'Try and think.' 'I tell you no one was here. I am not quite demented yet. Now go. Don't you see you are interrupting me?' was Arthur's rather savage response, and without having gained any satisfactory information Charles returned to the group anxiously awaiting him: '_Well_?' was Mrs. Tracy's sharp interrogatory, to which Charles responded: 'He does not remember what happened that morning; but that is not strange. He was very tired and unusually excited after the party, and when he is that way he does not remember anything. Harold might have been there a dozen times and he would forget it.' 'Bring the boy, then. He will know what he was doing here,' was Mrs. Tracy's next peremptory remark, and her husband said to her, reproachfully: 'Surely you do not intend to charge him with the theft?' 'I charge no one with the theft until it is proven on him; but I must see the boy and know what he was doing here. I never liked this free running in and out of those people in the lane. I always knew something would come of it,' Mrs. Tracy said, and Charles was despatched for Harold. He found him mowing the lawn for a gentleman whose premises joined Tracy Park, and without any explanation told him that he was wanted immediately at the park house. 'But it is noon,' Harold said, glancing up at the sun. 'And there is Jerry coming to call me to dinner.' 'No; better come at once. Jerry can go with you, if she likes,' Charles said, feeling intuitively that in the little girl Harold would find a champion. Harold left his lawn mower, and explaining to Jerry, who had come up to him, that he had been summoned to the park house, whither she could accompany him if she chose, he started with her and Charles, whom he questioned as to what was wanted with him. 'Were you in the park house the morning after the party? That would be Wednesday,' Charles asked. 'Yes, I went to see Mr. Arthur Tracy, but could get no answer to my knock,' Harold promptly replied, while his face flushed scarlet, and he seemed annoyed at something. He could not explain to Charles his motive in going to see Arthur, as, now that the first burst of indignation was over, he felt half ashamed of it himself. On the afternoon of the day of the party he had been at Grassy Spring, helping Mrs. St. Claire with her flowers, and after his work was done he had gone with Dick into the billiard-room, where they found Tom Tracy and his friend, young Raymond. They had come over for a game, and the four boys were soon busily engaged in the contest. Harold, who had often played with Dick and was something of an expert, proved himself the most skilful of them all, greatly to the chagrin of Tom, who had not recognized him even by a nod. Dick, on the contrary, had introduced him to Fred Raymond with as much ceremony as if he had been the Governor's son, instead of the boy who sometimes worked in his mother's flower garden. And the Kentuckian had taken him by the hand and greeted him cordially, with a familiar: 'How d'ye do, Hastings? Glad to make your acquaintance' There was nothing snobbish about Fred Raymond, whose every instinct was gentlemanly and kind, and Harold felt at ease with him at once, and all through the game appeared at his best, and quite as well bred as either of his companions. When the play was over Dick excused himself a moment, as he wished to speak with his father, who was about driving to town. As he stayed away longer than he had intended doing, Tom grew restless and angry, too, that Fred should treat Harold Hastings as an equal, for the two had at once entered into conversation, comparing notes with regard to their standing in school and discussing the merits of Cicero and Virgil, the latter of which Harold had just commenced. 'We can't wait here all day for Dick,' Tom said. 'Let us go out and look at the pictures.' So they went down the stairs to a long hall, in which many pictures were hanging--some family portraits and others, copies of the old masters which Mr. St. Claire had brought from abroad. Near one of the portraits Fred lingered a long time, commenting upon its beauty, and the resemblance he saw in it to little Nina St. Claire, the daughter of the house, and whose aunt the original had been. The portrait was not far from the stairway which led to the billiard-room, and Harold, who had remained behind, and was listlessly knocking the balls, could not help hearing all they said: 'By the way, who is that Hastings? I don't think I have seen him before; he is a right clever chap,' Fred Raymond said. Tom replied, in that sneering, contemptuous tone which Harold knew so well, and which always made his blood boil and his fingers tingle with a desire to knock the speaker down: 'Oh, that's Hal Hastings, a poor boy, who does chores for us and the St. Claires. His grandmother used to work at the park house, and so uncle Arthur pays for his schooling, and Hal allows it, which I think right small in him. I wouldn't be a charity student, anyway, if I never knew anything. Besides that, what's the use of education to chaps like him. Better stay as he was born. I don't believe in educating the masses, do you?' Of himself Tom could never have thought of all this, but he had heard it from his mother, who frequently used the expression 'not to elevate the masses,' forgetting that she was once herself a part of the mass which she would now keep down. Just what Fred said in reply Harold did not hear. There was a ringing in his ears, and he felt as if every drop of blood in his body was rushing to his head as he sat down, dizzy and bewildered, and smarting cruelly under the wound he had received this time. He had more than once been taunted with his poverty and dependence upon Mr. Tracy, but the taunts had never hurt him so before, and he could have cried out in his pain as he thought of Tom's words, and knew that in himself there was the making of a far nobler manhood than Tom Tracy would ever know. Was poverty, which one could not help, so terrible a disgrace, an insuperable barrier to elevation, and was it mean and small in him to accept his education from a man on whom he had no claim? Possibly; and if so, the state of things should not continue. He would go to Arthur Tracy, thank him for all he had done, and tell him he could receive no more from him; that if he had an education, he must get it himself by the work of his own hands, and thus be beholden to no one. Full of this resolution, he went down the stairs and out into the open air, which cooled his hot head a little, though it was still throbbing terribly as he went through the leafy woods toward home. In the lane he saw Jerry coming toward him, with her sun-bonnet hanging down her back and her soft, curly hair blowing around her forehead. The moment she saw him she knew something was the matter, and, hastening her steps to run, asked him what had happened, and why he looked so white and mad. Harold was sure of sympathy from Jerry, and he told her his story, which roused her to a high pitch of indignation. 'The miserable, nasty, sneaking Tom!' she said, stopping short and emphasizing each adjective with a stamp of her foot as if she were trampling upon the offending Tom. 'I wish I had heard him. I'd have scratched his eyes out! talking of you as if you were dirt! I hate him, and I told him so the other day, and spit at him when he tried to kiss me.' 'Kiss you! Tom Tracy kiss you!' Harold exclaimed, forgetting his own grief in this insult to Jerry; for it seemed to him little less than profanity for lips like Tom Tracy's to touch his little Jerry. 'No, he didn't, but he tried, right before that boy from Kentucky; but I wriggled away from him, and bit him, too, and he called me a cat, and said he guessed I wouldn't mind if _you_ or Dick St. Claire tried to kiss me, and I shouldn't; but I'll fight _him_ and Bill Peterkin every time. I wonder why all the boys want to kiss me so much!' 'I expect it is because you have just the sweetest mouth in the world,' Harold said, stooping down and kissing the lips which seemed made for that use alone. This little episode had helped somewhat to quiet Harold's state of mind, but did not change his resolve to speak to Mr. Tracy, and tell him that he could not receive any more favors from his hands. He would, however, wait until to-morrow, as Jerry bade him to. 'You will worry him so that he will be crazier than a loon at the party,' she said, and so Harold waited, but started for the park the next morning as soon as he thought Mr. Tracy would see him. He had rung at the door of the rear hall, but as no one heard him he ventured in, as he had sometimes done before, when sent for Jerry if it rained, and ascending the stairs to the upper hall, knocked two or three times at Arthur's door, first gently, and then louder as there came no response. 'He cannot be there, and I must come again,' he thought as he retraced his steps, reaching the door at the lower end of the hall just as Mrs. Tracy came up the broad staircase on her way to her room. As that day wore on, and the next, and the next, Harold began to care less for Tom's insult, and to think that possibly he had been hasty in his determination to decline Arthur's assistance, especially as he meant to pay back every dollar when he was a man. He would at all events wait a little, he thought, and so had made no further effort to see Mr. Tracy, when Charles found him, and told he was wanted at the park house.	{ "id": "15321" }
22	SEARCHING FOR THE DIAMONDS.	They went directly to Mrs. Tracy's room, where they found that lady in a much higher fever of excitement than when she first discovered her loss. All the household had assembled in the hall and in her room, except Arthur, who sat in his library, occasionally stopping to listen to the sound of the many voices, and to wonder why there was much noise. Tom was there with his friend, Fred Raymond, anxiously awaiting the arrival of Harold, whose face wore a look of wonder and perplexity which deepened into utter amazement as Mrs. Tracy angrily demanded of him what his business was in the hall on Wednesday morning when she saw him sneaking through the door. 'Where had you been, and did you see my diamonds? Somebody has stolen them,' she said, while Harold gazed at her in utter astonishment. 'Somebody stolen your diamonds!' he repeated, without the shadow of an idea that she could in any way connect him with a theft; nor would the idea have come to him at all, if Tom had not said to him with a sneer: 'Better own up, Hal, and restore the property. It is your easiest way out of it.' Then he comprehended, and had Tom knocked him senseless the effect could not have been greater. With lips as white as ashes and fists tightly clenched, he stood, shaking like a leaf and staring helplessly, first at one and then at another, unable to speak until his eyes fell on Jerry, whose face was a study. She had thrown her head forward and on one side, and was looking intently at Tom Tracy, while her blue eyes flashed fire, and her whole attitude was like that of a tiger ready to pounce upon its prey. And when Harold said faintly, 'Ask Jerry; she knows,' she did pounce upon Tom, not bodily, but with her tongue, pouring out her words so rapidly and mingling with them so much German that it was almost impossible to understand all she said. 'You miserable, good-for-nothing, nasty fellow,' she began. 'Do you dare accuse Harold of stealing! Stealing! You, who are not fit to tie his shoes! And do you want to know why he was here that morning? I can tell you; but no, I won't tell _you_! I won't speak to you! I'll never speak to you again; and if you try to kiss me as you did the other day, I'll--I'll scratch out every single one of your eyes! _You_ twit Harold for being poor, and call him a charity! What are you but a charity yourself, I'd like to know! Is this your house? No, sir! It is Mr. Arthur's! Everything is Mr. Arthur's, and if you don't quit being so mean to Harold I'll tell him every single nasty thing I know about you! Then see what he will do!' As Jerry warmed with her subject, every look, every gesture, and every tone of her voice was like Arthur's, and Frank watched with a fascination which made him forget everything else, until she turned suddenly to him, and in her own peculiar style and language told him why Harold had come to the park house that morning when the diamonds were missing. 'I advised him to come,' she said, with all the air of a grown woman, 'and I said I'd stand by him, and I will, forever and ever, amen!' The words dropped from her lips the more maturely, perhaps, because she had used them once before with reference to the humiliated boy, to whose pale, set face there came a smile as he heard them again, and stretching out his hand he laid it on Jerry's curly head with a caressing motion which told plainer than words could have done of his affection for and trust in her. What more Jerry might have said was prevented by the appearance of a new actor upon the scene in the person of Arthur himself. He had borne the noise and confusion as long as he could, and then had rung for Charles to enquire what it meant. But Charles was too much absorbed with other matters to heed the bell, though it rang three times sharply and loudly. At last, as no one came, and the bustle outside grew louder, and Jerry's voice was distinctly heard, excited and angry, Arthur started to see for himself what had happened. 'Oh, Mr. Arthur,' Jerry cried, as she caught sight of him coming down the hall, 'I was just going after you, to come and turn Tom out of doors, and everybody else who says that Harold took Mrs. Tracy's diamonds. She has lost them, and Tom--' But here she was interrupted by Tom himself, who, always afraid of his uncle, and now more afraid than ever because of the fiery gleam in his eyes, stammered out that he had not accused Harold, nor any one; that he only knew the diamonds were gone and could not have gone without help. 'Do you mean those stones your mother flashed in my eyes that night? Serves her right if she has lost them,' Arthur said, without manifesting the slightest interest or concern in the matter. But when Jerry began her story, which she told rapidly in German, he became excited at once, and his manner was that of a maniac, as he turned fiercely upon Tom, denouncing him as a coward and a liar, and threatening to turn him out of the house if he dared harbor such a suspicion against Harold Hastings. 'I'll turn you all into the street,' he continued, 'if you are not careful, and bring Harold and Jerry here to live; then see if I can have peace. Diamonds, indeed! what has a poor man's wife to do with diamonds? Gretchen's diamonds, too! If they are lost, search the house, but never accuse Harold again.' At this paint Arthur wandered off into German, which no one could understand except Jerry, who stood, holding fast to his arm, her face flushed and triumphant at Harold's victory and Tom's defeat; but as the tirade in German went on, she started suddenly forward, and with clasped hands and staring eyes stood confronting Arthur until he had ceased speaking, and with a wave of his hand signified that he was through and his audience dismissed. Jerry, however, did not move, but stood regarding him with a frightened, questioning expression in her face, which was lost upon the spectators, who were too much interested in the all-absorbing topic to notice anyone particularly. Tom was the first to go away, and his example was followed by all the servants, except Charles, who succeeded in getting his master back to his room and quieting him somewhat, though he kept talking to himself of diamonds, and Paris, and Gretchen, who, he said, should not he wronged. 'I am sorry, Harold, that this thing has happened. I have no idea that you know anything of the matter. I would as soon suspect my own son,' Frank said to Harold, as he was leaving the house. With this grain of comfort, the boy went slowly home, humiliated and cut to the heart with the indignity put upon him; while Jerry walked silently at his side, never speaking a word until they were nearly home, when she said, suddenly: 'I know where the diamonds are, but I shan't tell now while there is such a fuss;' but Harold was too much absorbed in his own thoughts to pay much attention to the remark, although it recurred to him years after, when the diamonds came up to confront him again. It did not take long for the whole town to know of Mrs. Tracy's loss. The papers were full of it. The neighbors talked of it constantly, and two detectives were employed to work the matter up and discover the thief, if possible. A thorough search was also made at the park house. Every servant was examined and cross-examined, and all their trunks and boxes searched; every nook and corner and room was gone through in the most systematic order, even to Arthur's apartments. This last was merely done as a matter of form, and to let the indignant servant see that no partiality was shown, the polite officers explained to Arthur, who at first refused to let them in, but who finally opened the door himself, and bade them go where they liked. Half hidden among the cushions of the sofa from which Arthur had arisen when he let the officers in and to which he returned again, was Jerry, her face pale to her lips and her eyes like the eyes of some haunted animal, when she saw the policemen cross the threshold. After her return home the previous day she had been unusually taciturn and had taken no part in the conversation relative to the missing diamonds, but just before going to bed she said to Harold: 'What will they do with the one who took the diamonds, if they find him?' 'Send him to state prison,' Harold answered. 'And what do they do to them in state prison?' Jerry continued. 'Cut their hair off; make them eat bread and water and mush, and sleep on a board, and work awful hard,' was Harold's reply, given at random and without the least suspicion why the question had been asked. Jerry said no more, but the next morning she started for the park house, which she knew was to be searched, and going to Mr. Arthur's room looked him wistfully in the face as she asked in a whisper: 'Are they found?' 'Found! What found?' he said, as if all recollection of the missing jewels had passed entirely from his mind. 'The diamonds; Mrs. Tracy's diamonds; the ones you gave her,' was Jerry's answer. For a moment, Arthur looked perplexed and bewildered and confused, and seemed trying to recall something which would not come at his bidding. 'I don't know anything about it,' he said at last. 'I don't seem to think of anything, my head is so thick with all the noise there was here yesterday and the tumult this morning. Search-warrants, Charles says, and two strange men driving up so early. Who are they, Jerry?' 'Police, come to search the house; search everybody and everything. Ain't you afraid?' Jerry said. 'Afraid? No: why should I be afraid? Why, child, how white you are, and what makes you tremble so? You didn't take the diamonds,' was Arthur's response, as he drew the little girl close to him and looked into her pallid face. 'Mr. Arthur,' Jerry began, very low, as if afraid of being heard, 'if I should give Maude something for her very own, and she should accept and keep it a good while, and then some day I should take it from her, when she did not know it, and hide it, and not give it up, would that be stealing?' 'Certainly. Why do you ask?' Jerry did not say why she asked, but put the same question to him she had put to Harold: 'If they find the one who took the diamonds will they send him to state prison?' 'Undoubtedly. They ought to.' 'And cut off his hair?' She was threading Arthur's luxuriant locks caressingly, and almost pityingly, with her fingers as she asked the last question, to which he replied, shortly: 'Yes.' 'And make him eat bread and water and mush?' 'Yes; I believe so.' 'And sleep on a board?' 'Yes, or something as bad.' 'And make him work awful hard until his hands are blistered?' Now she had in hers Arthur's hands, soft and white as a woman's, and seemed to be calculating how much hard work it would take to blister hands like these. 'Yes, work till his hands drop off,' Arthur said. With a shudder, she continued: 'I could not bear it: could you?' 'Bear it? No; I should die in a week. Why, what does ail you? You are shaking like a leaf. What are you afraid of?' 'I don't know; only state prison seems so terrible, and they are looking everywhere. What if they should come in here?' 'Come in here? Impossible, unless they break the door down,' Arthur replied; and then Jerry said to him: 'If they do, suppose you lie down and let me cover you with the afghan and cushions?' 'But I don't want to lie down and be smothered with cushions,' Arthur returned, puzzled, and wondering at the excitement of the child, who nestled close to his side and held fast to his hand, as if she were guarding him, or expected him to guard her, while the examination went on outside, and the frightened and angry servants submitted to having their boxes and trunks examined. At last footsteps were heard on the stairs and the sound of strange voices, mingled with that of Frank, who was protesting against his brother's rooms being entered. 'You will lose every servant you have if we do not serve all alike,' was the answer. Then Frank knocked at his brother's door and asked admittance. 'We must do it to pacify the servants,' he said, as Arthur refused, bidding him go about him business. After a little further expostulation Arthur arose, and, unlocking the door, bade them enter and look as long as they pleased and where they pleased. It was a mere matter of form, for not a drawer or box was disturbed; but Jerry's breath came in gasps, and her eyes were like saucers, as she watched the men moving from place to place, and then looked timidly at Arthur to see how he was taking it. He took it very coolly, and when it was over and the men were about to leave, he bade them come again as often as they liked; they would always find him there ready to receive them, but the diamonds--_nix_. This last he said in a low tone as he turned to Jerry, who, the moment they were alone and he had seated himself beside her, put her head on his arm and burst into a hysterical fit of crying. 'Why, Cherry, what is it? Why are you crying so?' he asked, in much concern. 'Oh, I don't know,' the sobbed; 'only I was so scared all the time they were in the room. What if they had found them! What if they should think that--that--_I_ took them, and should send me to prison, and cut off my hair: and make me eat bread and water and mush, which I hate!' Arthur looked at her a moment, and then with a view to comfort her, said, laughingly: 'They would not send you to prison, for I would go in your stead.' 'Would you? Could you? I mean could somebody go for another somebody, if they wanted to ever go much?' Jerry asked, eagerly, as she lifted her tear-stained face to Arthur's. Without clearly understanding her meaning, and with only a wish to quiet her, Arthur answered, at random: 'Certainly. Have you never heard of people who gave life for another's? So, why not be a substitute, and go to prison, if necessary?' 'Yes,' Jerry answered, with a long-drawn breath, and the cloud lifted a little from her face. After a moment, however, she asked, abruptly: 'Suppose the one who took the diamonds will not give them up, and somebody else knows where they are, ought that somebody else tell?' 'Certainly, or be an accessory to the crime,' was Arthur's reply. Jerry did not at all know what an accessory was, but it had an awful sound to her, and she asked: 'What do they do to an accessory? Punish her--him, I mean--just the same?' 'Yes, of course,' Arthur said, scarcely heeding what she was asking him, and never dreaming of the wild fancy which had taken possession of her. That one could go to prison in another's stead, and that an accessory would be punished equally with the criminal, were the two ideas distinct in her mind when she at last arose to go, saying to Arthur, as she stood in the door: 'You are sure you are not afraid to have them come here again, if they take it into their heads to do so?' 'Not in the least; they can search my rooms every day and welcome, if they like,' was Arthur's reply. 'Well, that beats me!' Jerry said aloud to herself, with a nod for every word, as she went down the stairs and started for home, taking the Tramp House on her way. 'I guess I'll go in there and think about it,' she said, and entering the deserted building, she sat down upon the bench and began to wonder if she _could do it_, if worst came to worst, as it might. 'Yes, I could for him, and I'll never tell; I'll be that thing he said, and a substitute, too, if I can,' she thought, 'though I guess it would kill me. Oh, I hope I shan't have to do it! I mean to say a prayer about it, anyway.' And kneeling down in the damp, dark room, Jerry prayed, first, that it might never be found out, and second, that if it were she might not be called to account as an accessory, but might have the courage to be the substitute, and stand by him forever and ever, amen!' 'I may as well begin to practice, and see if I can bear it,' she thought, as she walked slowly home, where she astonished Mrs. Crawford by asking her to make some mush for dinner. 'Mush! Why, child, I thought you hated it' Mrs. Crawford exclaimed. 'I did hate it,' Jerry replied, 'but I want it now real bad. Make it for me, please. Harold likes it, don't you, Hally?' Harold did like it very much; and so the mush was made, and Jerry forced herself to swallow it in great gulps, and made up her mind that she could not stand that any way. She preferred bread and water. So, for supper she took bread and water and nothing else, and went up to bed us unhappy and nervous as a healthy, growing child well could be. She had tried the mush, and the bread and water, and now she meant to try the shorn head, which was the hardest of all, for she had a pride in her hair, which so many had told her was beautiful. Standing before her little glass, with the lamp beside her, she looked at it admiringly for a while, turning her head from side to side to see the bright ringlets glisten; then, with an unsteady hand the severed, one by one, the shining tresses, on which her tears fell like rain as she gathered them in a paper and put them away, wondering if the prison shears would cut closer or shorter, and wondering if it would make any difference that she was only a substitute, or at most an accessory. It was a strange idea which had taken possession of her, and a senseless one, but it was terribly real to her, and that little shorn head represented as noble and complete a sacrifice as was ever made by older and wiser people. There was no hard board to sleep upon, and so she took the floor, with a pillow under her head and a blanket over her, wondering the while if this were not a more luxurious couch than convicts, who had stolen diamonds, were accustomed to have. 'Why, Jerry, what have you done?' and 'Oh, Jerry, how you look!' were the ejaculatory remarks which greeted her next morning, when she went down to her breakfast of bread and water, for she would take nothing else. 'Why did you do it?' Mrs. Crawford asked a little angry and a good deal astonished; but Jerry only answered at first with her tears, as Harold jeered at her forlorn appearance and called her a picked chicken. 'Maude's hair is short, and all the girls', and mine was always in my eyes and snarled awfully,' she said at last, and this was all the excuse she would give for what she had done; while for her persisting in a bread and water diet she would give no reason for three or four days. Then she said to Harold, suddenly: 'You told me that the one who stole the diamonds would have to eat bread and water and have his head shaved, and I am trying to see how it would seem--am playing that I am the man, and in prison; but I find it very hard, I don't believe I can stand it. Oh, Harold, do you think they will ever find the diamonds? I am so tired and hungry, and the blackberry pie we had for dinner did look so good!' 'Jerry,' Harold exclaimed, in amazement, and but dimly comprehending her real meaning, 'you are crazy, to be playing you are a convict! And is that what you have been doing?' 'Ye-es,' Jerry sobbed; 'but I can't bear it, and I hope they will not find him,' 'Him! Who?' Harold asked. 'The one who took the diamonds,' she replied. 'And I hope they will. He ought to be found and punished. Think what harm he has done to me by letting them accuse me,' Harold answered, indignantly. 'No, no, Hally,' Jerry replied. 'No one accused you but Tom, and he is meaner than dirt; and if they did think you took them, and if you had to go, I should not let you; I should go in your place. I could do it for you and Mr. Arthur, but for no one else. Oh, I hope they will never find them.' She put her hands to her head, and looked so white and faint that Harold was alarmed, and took her at once to his mother, who, scarcely less frightened than himself, made her lie down, and brought her a piece of toast and a cup of milk, which revived her a little. But the strain upon her nerves for the last few days, and the fasting on bread and water proved too much for the child, who for a week or more lay up in her little room, burning with fever, and talking strange things at intervals, of diamonds, and state prison, and accessories, and substitutes, the last of which she said she was, assuring some one to whom she seemed to be talking that she would never tell, never! Every day Arthur came and sat for an hour by her bed, and held her hot hands in his, and listened to her talk, and marvelled at her shorn head, which he did not like. Whatever he said to her was spoken in German, and as she answered in the same tongue, no one understood what they said to each other, though Harold, who understood a few German words, knew that she was talking of the diamonds, and the prison, and the substitute. 'I shall _never_ tell!' she said to Arthur, 'and I shall go! I can bear it better than you. It is not that which makes my headache so. It's--oh, Mr. Arthur, I thought you so good, and I am so sorry about the diamonds--Mrs. Tracy was so proud of them. Can't you contrive to get them back to her? I could, if you would let me. I am thinking all the time how to do it, and never let her know, and the back of my head aches so when I think.' Arthur could not guess what she really meant, except that the lost diamonds troubled her, and that she wished Mrs. Tracy to have them. Occasionally his brows would knit together, and he seemed trying to recall something which perplexed him, and which her words had evidently suggested to his mind. 'Cherry,' he said to her one day when he came as usual, and her first eager question was, 'Have they found them?' 'Jerry, try and understand me. Do you know where the diamonds are?' Instantly into Jerry's eyes there came a scared look, but she answered, unhesitatingly: 'Yes, don't you?' 'No,' was the prompt reply; 'though it seems to me I did know, but there has been so much talk about them, and you are so sick, that everything has gone from my head, and the bees are stinging me frightfully. Where are the diamonds?' But by this time Jerry was in the prison, sleeping on a board and eating bread and mush, and Arthur failed to get any satisfaction from her. Indeed, they were two crazy ones talking together, with little or no meaning in what they said. Only this Arthur gathered--that Jerry would be happy if 'Mrs. Tracy had her diamonds again and did not know how they came to her. When this dawned upon him he laughed aloud, and kissing her hot cheek, said to her: 'I see; I know, and I'll do it. Wait till I come again. It was ten o'clock in the morning when he left Mrs. Crawford's house; there was a train which passed the station at half-past ten, bound for New York, and without returning to the park, Arthur took the train, sending word to his brother not to expect him home until the next day, and not to be alarmed on his account, as he was going to New York and would take care of himself. Why he had gone Frank could not guess, and he waited in much anxiety for his return. It was evening when he came home, seeming perfectly composed and well, but giving no reason for his sudden journey to the city. His first inquiry was for Jerry, and his second, if anything had been heard of the diamonds. On being answered in the negative, he remarked: 'Those rascally detectives are bunglers, and oftentimes would rather let the culprit escape than catch him. I doubt if you ever see the jewels again. But no matter; it will all come right. Tell your wife not to fret,' The next morning when Mrs. Tracy went to her room after breakfast she was astonished to find upon her dressing bureau a velvet box with Tiffany's name upon it, and inside an exquisite set of diamonds; not as fine as those she had lost, or quite as large, but white, and clear, and sparkling as she took them in her hand with a cry of delight, and ran with them to her husband. Both knew from whence they came, and both went at once to Arthur, who, to his sister-in-law's profuse expressions of gratitude, replied indifferently: 'Don't bother me with thanks; it worries me. I bought them to please the little girl, who talks about them all the time. She will yet well now, I am going to tell her.' He found Jerry better, and perfectly sane. She was very glad to see him, though she seemed somewhat constrained, and shrank from him a little, when he sat down beside her. Her first rational question had been for him, and her second for the diamonds; were they found, and if not, were they still looking for them. 'No, they have not found them,' Harold had said, 'and the officers are still hunting for the thief, while the papers are full of the reward offered to any one who will return them. Five hundred dollars now, for Mr. Arthur has added two hundred to the first sum. He has quite waked up to the matter. You know he seemed very indifferent at first.' 'Mr. Arthur offered two hundred more!' Jerry exclaimed. 'Well, that beats me!' This was Mrs. Crawford's favorite expression, which Jerry had caught, as she did most of the peculiarities in speech and manner of those about her. 'Two hundred dollars! He must be crazy.' 'Of course he is. He don't know what he does or says half the time, and especially since you have been sick,' Harold said. 'Sick!' Jerry repeated, quickly. 'Have I been sick, and is that why I am in bed so late? I thought you had come in to wake me up, and I was glad, for I have had horrid dreams.' Harold told her she had been in bed since the day of the investigation, when she came from the park house with a dreadful headache. 'And you've been crazy, too, as a loon,' he continued, 'and talked the queerest things about state prison, and hard boards, and bread and water, and accessories, and substitutes, and so on. Seemed as if you thought you were a felon, and a body would have supposed that you had either taken the diamonds yourself or else knew who did, the way you went on by spells.' 'Oh, Harold!' Jerry gasped, while her face grew spotted and the perspiration came out upon her forehead. 'Did I speak anybody's name?' 'No,' Harold replied. 'I could not make you do that. I asked you ever so many times if you knew who took the diamonds, and you said "Yes," but when I asked who it was, you always answered, "Don't you wish you knew?" and that was all I could get out of you. Mr. Arthur was here every day, and sometimes twice a day, but you spoke German to him. Still I knew it was about the diamonds, for I understood that word. He was not here yesterday at all. There, hark! I do believe he is coming now. Don't you know who is said to be near when you are talking about him?' And, with a laugh, Harold left the room just as Arthur entered it. 'Well, Cherry,' he said to her, as he drew a chair to her bedside, 'Mrs. Crawford tells me the bees are out of your head this morning, and I am glad. I have some good news for you. Mrs. Tracy has some diamonds, and is the happiest woman in town.' Jerry had not noticed his exact words, and only understood that Mrs. Tracy had found her diamonds. 'Oh, Mr. Arthur, I am so glad!' the cried; and springing up in bed, she threw both arms around his neck and held him fast, while she sobbed hysterically. 'There, there, child! Cherry, let go. You throttle me. You are pulling my neck-tie all askew, and my head spins like a top,' Arthur said, as he unclasped the clinging arms and put the little girl back upon her pillow, where she lay for a moment, pale and exhausted, with the light of a great joy shining in her eyes. 'Did she know where they came from? how did you manage it? Are you sure she did not suspect!' she asked. 'I put them on her dressing-bureau while she was at breakfast,' he replied, 'and when she came up there they were--large solitaire ear-rings and a bar with five stones, not quite as large or as fine as the ones she lost, but the best I could find at Tiffany's. Why, Jerry, what is the matter? You do not look glad a bit. I thought you wanted me to give them to her surreptitiously, and I did,' he continued, as the expression of Jerry's face changed to one of blank dismay and disappointment, and the tears gathered in her eyes. 'I did--I do,' she said; 'but I meant, not new ones, but her very own--the ones you gave her.' For a moment Arthur sat looking at her with a perplexed and troubled expression, as if wondering what she could mean, and why he had so utterly failed to please her; then he said, slowly: 'The ones I gave her? You make my head swim trying to remember, and the bumble-bees are black-faced, instead of white, and stinging me dreadfully. I wish you would say nothing more of the diamonds. It worries me, and makes me feel as if I were in a nightmare, and I know nothing of them.' Raising herself on her elbow and pointing her finger toward him in a half beseeching, half threatening way, Jerry said: 'As true as you live and breathe, and hope not to be hung and choked to death, don't you know where they are?' This was the oath which Jerry's companions were in the habit of administering to each other in matters of doubt, and she now put it to Arthur as the strongest she knew. 'Of course not,' he answered, with a little irritation in his tone. 'What ails you, Cherry? Are you crazy, like myself? Struggle against it. Don't let the bees get into your brain and swarm and buzz until you forget everything. You ought to remember; you do things you ought not to do. It is terrible to be crazy and half conscious of it all the time--conscious that no one believes what you say or holds you responsible for what you do.' 'Don't they?' Jerry asked, eagerly, for she knew the meaning of the word 'responsible.' 'If a crazy man or woman took the diamonds, and then forgot, and did not tell, and it was ever found out, wouldn't they be punished?' 'Certainly not,' was the reassuring reply, 'Don't you know how many murders are committed and the murderer is not hung, because they say he is crazy?' In a moment the cloud lifted from Jerry's face, which grew so bright that Arthur noticed the change, and said to her: 'You are better now, I see, and I must go before I undo it all. Good-bye, and never say diamonds to me again; it gets me all in a--m a--well, a French pickle--mixed, you know.' He kissed her tenderly, and promising to take her for a drive as soon as she was able, went out and left her alone, wondering why it was that his having given the diamonds to his sister-in-law had failed in its effect upon her, and upon himself, too. For a long time after he was gone Jerry lay thinking with her eyes closed, so that if Harold or her grandmother came in they would think her asleep. Mr. Arthur was certainly crazy at times--very crazy. She could swear to that, and so could many others. And if a crazy man was not responsible for his acts, then he was not, and the law would not touch him; but with regard to the accessory, she was not sure. If that individual were not crazy, why, then he or she might be punished; and as the taste she had had of bread and water, and hard boards, in the shape of the floor, was not very satisfactory, and as Mrs. Tracy had other diamonds in the place of the lost ones, she finally determined to keep her own counsel and never tell what she had heard Arthur say that morning when the theft was discovered and he had talked so fast in German to her and to himself. If she had known where the diamonds were she might have managed to return them to their owner. But she did not know, and her better course was to keep quiet, hoping that in time Mr. Arthur himself would remember and make restitution; for that he had forgotten and was sincere in saying that he knew nothing of them she was certain, and her faith in him, which for a little time had been shaken, was restored. With this load lifted from her mind Jerry's recovery was rapid, and when the autumnal suns were just beginning to tinge the woodbine on the Tramp House and the maples in the park woods with scarlet, she took her accustomed seat in Arthur's room and commenced her lessons again with Maude, who had missed her sadly and who would have gone to see her every day during her sickness if her mother had permitted it.	{ "id": "15321" }
23	ARTHUR'S LETTER.	Two weeks had passed since Jerry's return to her lessons, and people had ceased to talk of the missing diamonds, although the offered reward of $500 was still in the weekly papers, and a detective still had the matter in charge, without, however, achieving the slightest success. No one had ever been suspected, and the thief, whoever he was, must have been an expert, and managed the affair with the most consummate skill. Now that she had another set, Mrs. Tracy was content, and peace and quiet reigned in the household, except so far as Arthur was concerned. He was restless and nervous, and given to fits of abstraction, which sometimes made him forget the two little girls, one of whom watched him narrowly; and once when they were alone and he seemed unusually absorbed in thought, she asked him if he were trying to think of something. 'Yes,' he said, looking up quickly and eagerly; 'that is it. I am trying to remember something which, it seems to me, I ought to remember; but I cannot, and the more I try, the farther it gets from me. Do you know what it is?' Jerry hesitated a moment, and then she asked: 'Is it the diamonds?' 'Diamonds! No. What diamonds? Didn't I tell you never to say diamonds to me again? I am tired of it,' he said, and in his eyes there was a gleam which Jerry had never seen there before when they rested upon her. It made her afraid, and she answered, meekly: 'Then I cannot help you to remember.' 'Of course not. No one can,' Arthur replied, in a softened tone. 'It is something long ago, and has to do with Gretchen.' Then suddenly brightening, as if that name had been the key to unlock his misty brain, he added; 'I have it; I know; it has come to me at last! Gretchen always sets me right. I wrote her a letter long ago--a year, it seems to me--and it has never been posted. Strange that I should forget that; but something came up--I can't tell what--and drove it from my mind.' As he talked he was opening and looking in the drawer which Jerry had never seen but once before, and that when he took from it the letter in German, a paragraph of which he had bidden her read. 'Here it is!' he said, joyfully, as he took out a sealed envelope and held it up to Jerry. 'This is the letter which you must post to-day. I can trust it to you.' He gave her the letter, which she took with a beating heart and a sense of shame and regret as she remembered her pledge to Mr. Frank Tracy. She had promised to take him any letter which Mr. Arthur might intrust to her care, and if she took this one from Arthur she must keep her word. 'Oh, I can't do it--I can't! It would be mean to Mr. Arthur,' she thought; and returning him the letter, she said: 'Please post it yourself; then you will be sure, and I might lose it, or forget. I am careless sometimes. Don't ask me to take it.' She was pleading with her might; but Arthur paid no heed, and only laughed at her fears. 'I know you will not forget, and I'd rather trust you than Charles. Surely, you will not refuse to do so small a favor for me?' 'No,' she said, at last, as she put the letter in her pocket, with the thought that, after all, there might be no harm in showing it to Mr. Frank, who, of course, merely wished to see it, and would not think of keeping it. But she did not know Frank Tracy or guess how great was his anxiety lest any message should ever reach a friend of Gretchen, if friend there were living. She found him in the room he called his office, where the dead woman had lain in her coffin, and where he often sat alone thinking of the day when the inquest was held, and when he took his first step in the downward road, which had led him so far that now it seemed impossible to turn back, even had he wished to do so, as he sometimes did. 'If I had never secreted the photograph, or the book with the handwriting, if I had shown them to Arthur, everything would have been so different, and I should have been free,' he was thinking, when Jerry knocked timidly at the door, rousing him from his reverie, and making him start with a nameless tsar which was always haunting him. 'Oh, Jerry, it is you,' he said, as the little girl crossed the threshold, and shutting the door, stood with her back against it, and her hands behind her. 'What is it?' he asked, as he saw her hesitating. With a quick, jerky movement of the head, which set in motion the little rings of hair, now growing so fast, and brought his brother to his mind, Jerry replied: 'I came to tell you that Mr. Arthur has written the letter.' 'What letter?' Frank asked, for the moment forgetting the conversation he had held with the child in the Tramp House. 'The one I promised to bring you to show you--the one to Germany,' was Jerry's answer. And then Frank remembered at once what, in the excitement of the diamond theft, had passed from his mind. 'Yes, yes, I know; give it to me,' he said, advancing rapidly toward her, and putting out his hand. 'When did he write it? Give it to me, please.' 'But not to keep,' Jerry said, struck by something in his face and manner which, it seemed to her, meant danger to the letter. 'Let me see it,' he continued. And rather reluctantly Jerry handed him a bulky letter, the direction of which covered nearly the whole of one side of the envelope. Very nervously Frank scanned the address, which might as well have been in the Fiji language for any idea it conveyed to him. 'To whom is it directed? I cannot read German,' he said 'I don't know,' Jerry replied. 'I have not looked at it, and would rather not.' 'Why, what a little prude you are;' and Frank laughed uneasily. 'What possible harm is there in reading an address? The postmaster has to do it, and any one who took it to the office would do it if he could.' This sounded reasonable enough, and standing beside him, while he held the letter a little way from her, Jerry read the address in German first, then, as he said to her: 'I don't understand that lingo, put it into English,' she read again: 'To Marguerite Heinrich, if living, and if dead to any of her friends; or to the postmaster at Wiesbaden, Germany. If not delivered within two months, return to Arthur Tracy, Tracy Park, Shannondale, Mass., U.S.A.' 'Marguerite--Marguerite Heinrich!' Frank repeated, 'That is not Gretchen. The letter is not to her.' 'I guess it is,' Jerry replied. 'He told me once that Gretchen was a pet name for Marguerite.' 'Yes,' Frank returned, with a sigh, as this little crumb of hope was swept away, while to himself he added: 'At all events it is not Marguerite Tracy, and that makes me less a scoundrel than I should otherwise be. If he had written a little more it would have run over to the other side of the envelope. Any one would know he was crazy,' he continued, with a sickly attempt at a smile, while Jerry stood waiting to take the letter from him. He knew she was waiting, and said to her, as he put it in his pocket: 'Thank you for bringing this to me. It is probably some nonsense which ought not to go, even if the sending it would do no harm, as it certainly would.' Until then Jerry had not realised that he did not mean the letter to go at all. She had remembered her promise to take it to him, and forgotten that he had said it must not be sent lest it should do harm to Maude. But it all came back to her now, and her tears fell like rain as she stood for a moment irresolute. But loyalty to Arthur conquered every other feeling. Surely he would not suffer any wrong to come to his own brother and niece. The letter was harmless, and must go. 'Give it to me, please. You do not mean to keep it?' she said, at last, in a tone and manner she might have borrowed from Arthur himself, it was so like him when on his dignity. And Frank felt it, and knew that he had more than a child to deal with, and must use duplicity if he would succeed. So he said to her quietly and naturally: 'Why, how excited you are! Do you think I intend to keep the letter? It is as safe with me as with you. It is true that when I talked with you in the Tramp House I thought that it must not be sent, but I have changed my mind since then, and do not care. I am going to the office, and will take it myself. John is saddling my horse now, and if I hurry I shall be in time for the western mail. Good-bye, and do not look so worried. Do you take me for a villain?' He was leaving the room as he talked, and before he had finished he was in the hall and near the outer door, leaving Jerry stupefied, and perplexed, and only half reassured. 'If I had not sold myself to Satan before, I have now, for sure; and still I did not actually tell her that I would post it, though it amounted to that,' Frank thought, as he galloped through the park toward the highway which led to the town. Once he took the letter from his pocket and examined it again, wishing so much that he knew its contents. 'If I could read German, I believe I am bad enough now to open it; but I can't, and I dare not take it to any one who can,' he said, as he put it again in his pocket, half resolving to post it and take the chances of its ever reaching Gretchen's friends, or any one who had known her. 'I'll see how I feel when I get inside,' he thought, as he dismounted from his horse before the door of the post-office. The mail was just in, and the little room was full of people waiting for it to be distributed; and Frank waited with them, leaning against the wall, with his head bent down, and beating his boot with his riding-whip. 'I must decide soon,' he thought, when a voice not far from him caught his ear, and glancing from under his hat, he saw Peterkin coming in, portly and pompous, and with him a dapper little man, who, in the days of the 'Liza Ann, had been a driver for the boat, but who now, like his former employer, was a millionaire, and wore a thousand-dollar diamond ring. To him Peterkin was saying: 'There, that's him--that's Frank Tracy, the biggest swell in town--lives in that handsome place I was telling you about.' Strange that words like these from a man like old Peterkin should have inflated Frank's pride; but he was weak in many points; and though he detested Peterkin, it gratified him to be pointed out to strangers as a swell who lived in a fine house, and with the puff of vanity came the reflection that, as Frank Tracy of some other place than Tracy Park, with all its appliances of wealth, he would not be a swell whom strangers cared to see, and Jerry's chance was lost again. 'Here is your mail, Mr. Tracy,' the postmistress said; and stepping forward, Frank took his letters from her, just as Peterkin slapped him on the shoulder, and, with a familiarity which made Frank want to knock him down, called out: 'Hallo, Tracy! Just the feller I wanted to see. Let me introduce you to Mr. Bijah Jones, from Pennsylvany; used to drive hosses for me in the days I ain't ashamed of, by a long shot. He's bought him a place out from Philadelphy, and wants to lay it out _à la--à la_--dumbed if I know the word, but like them old chaps' gardens in Europe, and I told him of Tracy Park, which beats everything holler in this part of the country. Will you let us go over it and take a survey?' 'Certainly; go where you like,' Frank said, struggling to reach the door; but Peterkin button-holed him and held him fast, while he continued: 'I say, Tracy, heard anything from them diamonds?' 'Nothing,' was the reply. 'Didn't hunt in the right quarter,' Peterkin continued, 'leastwise didn't foller it up, or you'd a found 'em without so much advertisin'.' 'What do you mean?' Frank asked. 'Oh, nothin',' Peterkin replied; 'only them diamonds never went off without hands, and them hands ain't a thousand miles from the park.' 'Perhaps not,' Frank answered, mechanically, more intent upon getting away than upon what Peterkin was saying. He longed to be in the open air, and as he mounted his horse, he said, as if speaking to some one near him: 'Well, old fellow, I've done it again, and sunk myself still lower. You are bound to get me now some day, unless I have a death-bed repentance and confess everything. The thief was forgiven at the last hour, why not I?' The black shadow which Frank felt sure was beside him, did not answer, though he could have sworn that he heard a chuckle as he rode on, fast and far, until his horse was tired and he was tired, too. Then he began to retrace his steps, so slowly that it was dark when, he reached the village, and took the road which led by the gate through which the woman had passed to her death on the night of the storm. It was the shortest route to the park, and he intended to take it. As he drew near to the gate, it seemed to him that there was something on the wide post nearest the fence which had not been there in the afternoon when he rode by--something dark, and large, and peculiar in shape, and motionless as a stone. He was not by nature a coward, and once he had no belief in ghosts or supernatural appearances, but now he did not know what he believed, and this object, whose outline, seen against, the western sky, where a little dim light was lingering, seemed almost like that of a human form, made his heart beat faster than its wont, and he involuntarily checked his horse, just as a clear, shrill voice called out: 'Mr. Tracy, is that you? I have waited so long, and I'm so cold sitting here. Did you post the letter?' It was Jerry who, after he had left her in his office, had been seized with an indefinable terror lest he might not post the letter after all. It seemed wrong to doubt him, and she did not really think that she did doubt him; still she would feel happier if she knew, and after supper was over she started along the grassy road until she reached the gate. Here she waited a long time, and then, as Mr. Tracy did not appear, she walked up and down the lane until the sun was down and the ground began to feel so damp and cold that she finally climbed up to the top of the gate-post, which was very broad, and where, on her way to town, she had frequently sat for a while. It was very cold and tiresome waiting there, and she was beginning to get impatient and to wonder if it could be possible that he had gone home by some other road, when she heard the sound of a horse's hoofs and felt sure he was coming. 'Why, Jerry, how you frightened me!' Frank said, as he reined his horse close up to her. 'Jump down and get up behind me. I will take you home.' She obeyed, and with the agility of a little cat, got down from the gate-post and on to the horse's back, putting both arms around Frank's waist to keep herself steady, for the big horse took long steps, and she felt a little afraid. 'Did you post the letter?' she asked again, as they left the gate behind them and struck into the lane. To lie now was easy enough, and Frank answered without hesitation: 'Of course. Did you think I would forget it?' 'No,' Jerry answered. 'I knew you would not. I only wanted to be sure, because he trusted it to me, and not to have sent it would have been mean, and a sneak, and a lie, and a steal. Don't you think so?' She emphasized the 'steal,' and the 'lie,' and the 'sneak,' and the 'mean,' with a kick that made the horse jump a little and quicken his steps. 'Yes,' Frank assented; it would be all she affirmed, and more too, and the man who could do such a thing was wholly unworthy the respect of any one, and ought to be punished to the full extent of the law. 'That's so,' Jerry said, with another emphatic kick and a slight tightening of her arm around the conscience-stricken man, who wondered if he should ever reach the cottage and be free from the clasp of those arms, which seemed to him like bands of fire burning to his soul. 'I'd never speak to him again,' Jerry continued, 'and Mr. Arthur wouldn't either. He is so right-up, and hates a trick. I don't believe, either, that any harm will come to Maude from that letter, as you said. If there does, and Mr. Arthur can fix it, he will, I know, for I shall ask him, and he once told me he would do anything for me, because I look as he thinks Gretchen must have looked when she was a little girl like me.' They had reached the cottage by this time, where they found Harold in the yard looking up and down the lane for Jerry, whose protracted absence at that hour had caused them some anxiety, even though they were accustomed to her long rambles by herself and frequent absences from home. It was not an unusual thing for her to linger in the Tramp House, even after dark, talking to herself, and Gretchen, and Mah-nee, and her mother and a sick woman, whose face was far back in the past. She was there now, Harold supposed, and this belief was confirmed when Mr. Tracy said to him: 'You see I have picked up your little girl and brought her home. Jump down, Jerry, and good-night to you.' She was on the ground in an instant, and he was soon galloping toward home, saying to himself: 'I don't believe I can even have a death-bed repentance now. I have told too many lies for that, and more than all, must go on lying to the end. I have sold my soul for a life of luxury, which after all is very pleasant,' he continued, as he drew near the house, which was brilliantly lighted up, while through the long windows of the drawing-room he could see the table, with its silver and glass and flowers, and the cheerful blaze upon the hearth of the fire-place, which Dolly had persuaded Arthur to have built. There was every kind of bric-a-brac on the tall mantel, and Frank saw it as he passed, and saw the colored man moving slowly about the room after the manner of a well-trained servant who understands his business. There was company staying in the house, Mr. and Mrs. Raymond, from Kentucky, father and mother to Fred; and Mr. and Mrs. St. Claire, and Grace Atherton, and Squire Harrington had been invited to dinner, and were already in the dining-room when Frank entered it after a hasty toilet. He had been out in the country and ridden further than he had intended, he said by way of apology, as he greeted his guests, and then took Mrs. Raymond into dinner, which, with the exception of the soup and fish, was served from side tables. This was Dolly's last new kink, as Frank called it, and Dolly was very fine, in claret velvet, with her new diamonds, which were greatly admired, Grace Atherton declaring that she liked them quite as well as the stolen ones, whose setting was rather _passé. _ 'That is just why I liked them so, because they were old-fashioned; it made them look like heir-looms, and showed that one had always had a family,' Dolly said. Grace Atherton shrugged her still plump shoulders just a little, and thought of the first call she ever made upon Dolly, when she entered through the kitchen and the lady entertained her in her working-apron! Dolly did not look now as if she had ever seen a working-apron, and was very bright and talkative, and entertaining, and all the more so because of her husband's silence. He was given to moods, and sometimes aggravated his wife to desperation when he left all the conversation to her. 'Do talk,' she would say to him when they were alone. 'Do talk to people and not sit so glum, with that great wrinkle between your eyes as if you were mad at something; and do laugh, too, when anybody tells anything worth laughing at, and not leave it all to me. Why, I actually giggle at times until I feel like a fool, while you never smile or act as if you heard a word. Look at me occasionally, and when I elevate my eyebrows--_so_--brace up and say something, if it isn't so cunning.' This _elevating of the eyebrows_ and _bracing up_ were matters of frequent occurrence, as Frank grew more and more silent and abstracted, and now after he had sat through a funny story told by Mr. St. Claire and had not even smiled, or given any sign that he heard it, he suddenly caught Dolly's eye and saw that both eyebrows, and nose, and chin were up as marks of unusual disapprobation, for how could she guess of what he was thinking as he sat with his head bent down, and his eyes seemingly half shut. But they came open wide enough, and his head was high enough when he saw Dolly's frown; and turning to Mrs. Raymond he began to talk rapidly and at random. She had just returned from Germany, where she had left her daughter, Marion, in school, and Frank asked her of the country, and if she had visited Wiesbaden, and had there met or heard of anyone by the name of Marguerite Heinrich. Mrs. Raymond had spent some months in Wiesbaden, for it was there her daughter was at school, and she was very enthusiastic in her praises of the beautiful town. But she had never seen or heard of Marguerite Heinrich, or of anyone by the name of Heinrich. 'Marguerite Heinrich?' Dolly repeated. 'Who in the world is she--and where did you know her?' 'I never did know her. I have only heard of her,' Frank replied, again lapsing into a silence from which he did not rouse again. He was thinking of the letter hidden away with the photograph and the book--of the lies he had told since his deception began, and now sure it was that he had sinned beyond forgiveness. When he was a boy he had often listened, with the blood curdling in his veins, to a story his grandmother told him with sundry embellishments, for he was not well versed in German literature, of a man--Foster it seemed to him was the name--who sold his soul to the devil in consideration that for a certain number of years he was to have every pleasure the world could give. It had been very pleasant listening to the recital of the fine things the man enjoyed, for Satan kept his promise well; but the boy's hair had stood on end as the story neared its close, and he heard how, when the probation was ended, the devil came for his victim down the wide-mouthed chimney, scattering bricks and fire-brands over the floor, as he carried the trembling soul out in the blackness of the stormy night. Strangely enough this story came back to him now, and notwithstanding the horror of the thing he laughed aloud as he glanced up at the tall oak fire-place, wondering if it would be that way he would one day go with his master, and seeing in fancy Dolly's dismay when the tea-cups, and saucers, and vases, and plaques, came tumbling to the floor as he disappeared from sight in a blue flame, which smelled of brimstone. It was a loud, unnatural laugh, but fortunately for him it came just as Grace Atherton had set the guests in a roar with what she was saying of the Peterkin's final struggle to enter society, and so it passed unnoticed by most of them. But that night in the privacy of his room, where Dolly delivered most of her lectures, she again upbraided him with his taciturnity, telling him that he never laughed but once, and then it sounded more like a groan than a laugh. 'You have hit the nail on the head this time, for it was a groan,' Frank said, as he plunged into bed; and Dolly, as she undressed herself deliberately, and this time put her diamonds carefully away, little dreamed what was passing in the mind of the man, who, all through the long hours of the night, lay awake, seldom stirring lest he should disturb her, but repeating over and over to himself, the words: 'Lost now forever and ever, but if Maude is happy I can bear it.'	{ "id": "15321" }
24	JERRIE--NINE YEARS LATER.	She spelled her name with an _ie_ now, instead of a _y._ She was nineteen years old; she had been a student at Vassar for four years, together with Nina St. Claire and Ann Eliza Peterkin, and in July was to be graduated with the highest honors of her class. In her childhood, when we knew her as little Jerry, she had been very small, but at the age of twelve she suddenly shot up like an arrow, and had you first seen her, with her back to you, you might have said she was very tall, but had you waited till she turned her face toward you, or walked across the floor, you would have thought that if an eighth of an inch were taken from her height it would spoil her splendidly developed form. Her school companions called her the Princess, she was so tall and straight, and graceful in every movement, with that sweet graciousness of manner which won all hearts to her and made her a general favorite. Whether she spelled her name with an _ie_ or a _y_ and stood five feet six or four feet five, she was the same Jerry who had defended Harold against Tom Tracy, and been ready to go to prison, if need be, for Mr. Arthur. Frank, unselfish, truthful, and original, she had been as a child, with perhaps a little too much pride in her hair, which she hid once cut off to see how it would seem, and she was original, and truthful, and unselfish now, with a pardonable pride in her luxuriant tresses, which lay in waves upon her finely-shaped head and glistened in the sunlight like satin of a golden hue. But nothing could spoil Jerrie, not even the adulation of her friends or the looking-glass which told her she was beautiful, just as Nina St. Claire told her every day. 'Yes; I am not blind, and I know that I am rather good-looking,' she once said to Nina, 'and I am glad, for, as a rule, people like pretty things better than ugly ones, but I am not an idiot to think that looks are everything, and I don't believe I am very vain. I used to be though, when a child, but Harold gave me so many lectures upon vanity that I should not do credit to his teachings were I now to be proud of what I did not do myself.' 'But Harold thinks you are beautiful,' Nina replied. 'He does? I did not know that. When did he say so?' Jerrie asked; with kindling eyes and a quick, sideways turn of her head, of which she had a habit when startled by some sudden emotion. 'He said so last vacation, when we were home, and I had that little musicale, and you played and sang so divinely, and wore that dress of baby-blue which Mr. Arthur gave you, with the blush-rose, in your belt.' Nina said; 'I was so proud of you and so was mamma and Mrs. Atherton. You remember there were some New Yorkers there who were visiting Mrs. Grace, and I was glad for them to know that we had some talent, and some beauty, too, in the country; and Harold was proud, too. I don't think he ever took his eyes off you from the time you sat down to the piano until you left it, and when I said to him, "Doesn't she sing like an angel, and isn't the lovely?" he replied: "I think my sister Jerry has the loveliest face I ever saw, and that blue dress is very becoming to her."' 'Wasn't that rather a stiff speech to make about his _sister_?' Jerry said, with a slight emphasis upon the last word, as she walked away, leaving Nina to wonder if she were displeased. Evidently not, for a few minutes later she heard her whistling softly the air 'He promised to buy me a knot of blue ribbon to tie up my bonny brown hair,' and could she have looked into Jerry's room she would have seen her standing before the mirror examining the face which Harold had said was the loveliest he had ever seen. Others had said the same, and their sayings had been repeated to her. Billy Peterkin, and Tom Tracy, and Dick St. Claire, and even Fred Raymond, from Kentucky, who was supposed to be devoted to Nina. But Jerry cared little for the compliments of either Fred or Dick, while those of Tom she scorned and those of Billy she ridiculed. One word of commendation from Harold was worth more to her than the praises of the whole world besides. But Harold had always been chary of his commendations, and was rather more given to reproof than praise, which did not altogether suit the young lady. As Jerry had grown older, and merged from childhood into womanhood, a change had come over both the girl and boy, a change which Jerry discovered first, awaking suddenly one day to find that the brother and sister delusion was ended, and Harold stood to her in an entirely new relation. Just when the change had commenced she could not tell. She only knew that it had come, and that she was not quite so happy as she had been in the days when she called Harold her brother, and kissed him whenever she felt like it, which was very often, for she was naturally affectionate, and showed her affection to those she loved. She was seventeen when the dream came--the old, old story which transformed her from a romping, a rather gushing child, into a woman more quiet and more dignified, especially with Harold, who missed and mourned in secret for the playful loving ways which had been so pleasant to him, even if he did not always make a return. Though capable of loving quite as devotedly and unselfishly as Jerry, he was not demonstrative, while a natural shyness and depreciation of himself made him afraid to tell in words just what or how much he did feel. He would rather show it by acts; and never was brother tenderer or kinder toward a sister than he was to Jerry, whose changed mood he could not understand. And so there gradually arose between them a little cloud, which both felt, and neither could exactly define. Arthur had kept his promise well with regard to Jerry, who had passed from him to Vassar, and he would have kept it with Harold, if the latter had permitted it. But the boy's pride and independence had asserted themselves at last. He had accepted the course at Andover, and one year at Harvard, on condition that he should be allowed to pay Arthur back all he had received as soon as he was able to do it. As he entered Harvard in advance, he was a junior when he decided to care for himself, and during the remainder of his college course, which, of course, was longer than usual, he struggled on, doing what he could during the summer vacation--teaching school for months at a time--and in the college reducing his expenses by acting as proctor, and compelling obedience to the rules of the institution. Even the few who were aware of his limited means, and his efforts to increase them, had to acknowledge, as he stood before the multitude, delivering the valedictory, and exciting thunders of applause by his graceful gestures and thrilling eloquence, that he was not only an orator, but every inch a gentleman. His fellow students who saw him then, and listened entranced to his clear, well-trained voice, thought not of Harold's threadbare coat and shining old-fashioned pants, which were so conspicuous as he pursued his studies in the class-room, but which were now concealed by the gown he wore over them. They saw only the large, dark eyes, the finely chiseled features, and the manly form. But as they listened to the burning words which showed so much clear, deep thought, they said to each other: 'The young man has a future before him. Such eloquence as that could move the world, and rouse or quiet the wildest mob that ever surged through the streets of mad Paris.' Jerry was there, and saw and heard. And when Harold's speech was over, and the building was shaking with applause, and flowers were falling around him like rain, she, too, stood up and cheered so loudly that a Boston lady, who sat in front of her, and who thought any outward show of feeling vulgar and ill-bred, turned and looked at her wonderingly and reprovingly. But in her excitement Jerry did not see the disapprobation in the cold, proud eyes. She saw only what she mistook for enquiry, and she answered eagerly: 'That's Harold--that's my brother! Oh, I am so proud of him!' And leaning forward so that a curl of her bright hair touched the Boston woman's bonnet, she threw the bunch of pond lilies which she had herself gathered that day on the river at home, before the sun was up, and while the white petals were still folded in sleep. For Jerry had come down on the early train to see Harold graduated, and Maude had found her in the crowd and sat beside her, almost as pleased and happy as herself to see Harold thus acquit himself. Maude's roses had been bought at a florist's in Boston at a fabulous price, for they were the choicest and rarest in market. Harold had seen both the roses and the lilies long before they fell at his feet. It was a fancy, perhaps, but it seemed to him that it sweet perfume from the latter reached him with the brightness of Jerry's eyes. He knew just where the lilies came from, for he had often waded out to the green bed when the water was low to get them for Jerry; and all the time he was speaking there was in his heart a thought of the old home, and the woods, and the river, and the tall tree on the bank, with the bench beneath, and on it the girl, whose upturned, eager face he saw above the sea of heads confronting him. Jerrie's approval was worth more to the young man than that of all the rest; for he knew that, though she would be very lenient toward him, she was a keen and discriminating critic, and would detect a weakness which many an older person would fail to see. But she was satisfied--he was sure of that; and if there had been in his mind any doubt it would have been swept away when, after the exercises were over, and he stood receiving the congratulations of his friends, she worked her way through the crowd and threw her arms around his neck, kissing him fondly, and bursting into a flood of tears as she told him how proud she was of him. The eyes of half his classmates were upon him, and though Harold felt a thrill of keen delight run through his veins at the touch of Jerrie's lips, he would a little rather she had waited until they were alone. 'There, there, Jerrie, that will do!' he whispered, as he unclasped her arms, and put her gently from him, though he still held her hand. 'Don't you see they are all looking at us.' With a sudden, jerk Jerrie withdrew her hand from his and stepped back into the crowd, her heart beating wildly, and her cheeks burning with shame, as she thought what she had done and how it must have mortified Harold. Maude was speaking to him now--Maude with her bright black eyes and brilliant color. But she was neither crying nor strangling him with kisses. She was shaking hands with him very decorously, and telling him how pleased and glad she was. And in his hand he held her roses, which he occasionally smelled as he listened, and smiled upon her with that peculiar smile of his which made him so attractive. But the lilies were nowhere to be seen; and when, an hour later, all the baskets and bouquets bearing his name were piled together, the lilies were not there. 'He has thrown them away! He did not care for them at all, and I might as well have staid in bed as to have gotten up at four o'clock and risked my neck to get them. He likes Maude and her roses better than he does me,' Jerrie thought, with a swelling heart and all through the journey home--for they returned that night--she was very quiet and tactiturn, letting Maude do all the talking, and saying when asked why she was so still, that her head was aching, and that she was too tired and sleepy to talk. That was the last time for years that Jerrie put her arms around Harold's neck, or touched her lips to his; for it had come to her like a blow how much he was to her, and, as she believed, how little she was to him. 'Maude is preferred to me--I see it now so plainly; he likes me well enough, but he loves _her_--I saw it in the way he looked at her that time I mortified him so dreadfully with my _gush_,' she thought; and although of all her girl friends, not even excepting Nina St. Claire, Maude was the nearest and dearest, she was half-glad when a week or two later, Maude said good-bye to her, and with her mother sailed away to Europe, where she remained for more than a year and a half. During her absence the two girls corresponded regularly, and Jerrie never failed to write whatever she thought would please her friend to hear of Harold; and when at last Maude returned, and wrote to Jerrie of failing health, and wakeful nights, and lonely days, and her longing for the time when Jerrie would be home, and be with her, and read to her, or recite bits of poetry, as she had been wont to do, Jerrie trampled every jealous, selfish thought under her feet, and in her letters to Harold urged him to see Maude as often as possible, and read to her whenever she wished him to do so. 'You have such a splendid voice, and read so well,' she wrote, 'that it will rest her just to listen to you, and will keep her from being so lonely; so offer your services if she does not ask for them--that's a good boy.' Then, as she remembered how weak Maude was, mentally, she thought: 'He never can be happy with her as she is now. A girl who cannot do a sum in simple fractions, and who, when abroad, thought only of Rome as a good place in which to buy sashes and ribbons, and who asked me in a letter to tell her who all those Caesars were, and what the Forum was for, is not the wife for a man like Harold, and however much he might love her at first he would be sure to tire of her after a while, unless he can bring her up. Possibly he can.' Resuming her pen, she wrote: 'Don't give her all sentimental poetry and love trash, but something solid--something historical, which she can remember and talk about with you.' In his third letter to Jerrie, after the receipt of her instructions, Harold wrote as follows: 'I have offered my services as reader, and tried the solid on Maude as you advised--have read her fifty pages of Grote's History of Greece; but when I got as far as Homeric Theogony, she looked piteously at me, while with Hesiod and Orpheus she was hopelessly bewildered, and by the time I reached the extra Hellenic religion she was fast asleep! I do not believe her mind is strong enough to grapple with those old Greek chaps; at all events they worry her, and tire her more than they rest. So I have abandoned the gods and come down to common people, and am reading to her Tennyson's poems. Have read the May Queen four times, until I do believe she knows it by heart. She has a great liking for the last portion of it, especially the lines: "I shall not forget you, mother: I shall hear you when you pass, With your feet above my head In the long and pleasant grass." 'I saw her cry one day when I read that to her. Poor little Maude! She is very frail, but no one seems to think her in danger, she has so brilliant a color, and always seems so bright.' Jerrie read this letter two or three times, and each time with an increased sense of comfort. No man who really loved a girl could speak of her mental weakness to another as Harold had spoken of Maude's to her, and it might be after all that he merely thought of her as a friend, whom he had always known. So the cloud was lifted in part, and she only felt a greater anxiety for Maude's health, which as the spring advanced, grew stronger, so that it was almost certain that she would come to Vassar in the summer and see her friend graduated. Such was the state of affairs when Nina repeated to Jerrie what Harold had said to her at the musicale the previous winter. All day long there was a note of gladness in Jerrie's heart which manifested itself in snatches of song, and low, warbling, whistled notes, which sounded more as if they came from a canary's than from a human throat. Jerrie did _not_ chew gum, but she whistled, and the teachers who reproved her most for what they called a boyish trick, always listened intently, when the clear, musical notes, now soft and low, now loud and shrill, were heard outside, or in the building. 'Whistling Jerrie,' the girls sometimes called her, but she rather liked the name, and whistled on whenever she felt like it. And it was a very joyous, happy song she trilled, as she thought of Harold's compliment, and wished she might wear at commencement the dress of baby-blue which he had admired, for Harold would, of course, be there to see and hear, and as, when he wrote his valedictory two years before there had been in every line a thought of her, so in her essay, which was peculiarly German in its method and handling, thoughts of Harold had been closely interwoven. She knew she should receive a surfeit of applause--she always did; but if Harold's were wanting the whole thing would be a failure. So she wrote him twice a week, urging him to come, and he always replied that nothing but necessity would keep him from doing so.	{ "id": "15321" }
25	THE TWO FACES IN THE MIRROR.	Toward the last of May Arthur came to Vassar, bringing with him the graduating dress which he had bought in New York, with Maude as his adviser. He had Jerrie at the hotel to spend Saturday and Sunday with him, and took her to drive and to shop, and then in the evening asked her to put on her finery, that he might see how it looked. 'I shall not come to hear you spout out your erudition,' he said, 'for I detest crowds, with the dreadful smell of the rooms. I have gotten the park house tolerably free from odors, though the cook's drain is terrible at times, and I shall have brimstone burned in the cellar once a week. But what was I saying? Oh, I know--I shall not be here at commencement, and I wish to see if my Cherry is likely to look as well as any of them.' So Jerrie left him alone while she donned the white dress, which fell in soft, fluffy folds around her feet, and fitted her superb figure perfectly. She knew how well it became her, and sure of Arthur's approbation, went back to the parlor, where she had left him. Arthur was standing with his back to the door when she came in, and going up to him, she said: 'Here I am in all my gewgaws. Do you think I shall pass muster?' She spoke in German, as she always did to him, and when he turned quickly, there was a startled look on his face, as he said: 'Oh, Cherry, it's you! I thought for a moment it was Gretchen speaking to me. Just so she used to come in with her light footstep and soft voice, so much like yours. Where is she, Cherry, that she never comes nor writes? Where is Gretchen now?' His chin quivered as he talked, and there was a moisture in his eyes, bent so fondly upon the young girl beside him. He was worn with the fatigue and excitement of his journey and the long drive he had taken, and Jerrie knew that whenever he was tired his mind was weaker and wandered more thin usual. So she tried to quiet and divert him by calling his attention to her dress, and asking how he liked it. 'It is lovely,' he said, examining the lace and the soft flounces. 'It is the prettiest Maude and I could find. You know, she was with me, and helped me select it. Yes, it's lovely, and so are you, Cherry, with Gretchen's eyes and hair, and smile, and that one dimple in your cheek. She used to wear soft, white dresses, and in this you are enough like her to be her daughter.' They were standing side by side before a long mirror, she taller for a woman than he was for a man, so that her face was almost in a range with his, as he stooped a little forward. Glancing into the mirror at the two faces so near to each other, Jerrie saw something which for an instant made her cold and sick, and set every nerve to quivering as she stepped suddenly back, looking first at the man's face and then at her own in the mirror. It was gone now, the look which had so startled her, but it had certainly been there--a likeness between the two faces--and she had seen it plainer than she had ever seen any resemblance between herself and the picture. Gretchen had blue eyes, and fair hair, and fair complexion, and so had she, and so had hundreds of German girls, and all Arthur had ever said to her had never brought to her mind a thought like the two faces in the mirror. _What if it were so? _ That was the thought which had flashed like lightning through her brain, making her so weak that she grasped Arthur's arm to steady herself as she tried to speak composedly. 'You are white as your dress,' he said. 'It is this confounded hot room; let us sit nearer the window.' They sat down together on a sofa, and taking up a newspaper, Arthur fanned Jerrie gently, while she said to him: 'Do you really think I look like Gretchen?' 'Yes; except that you are taller. You might be her daughter.' 'Had she--had Gretchen a daughter?' was Jerrie's next question, put hesitatingly. 'None that I ever heard of,' Arthur replied. 'Why do you ask that?' 'And her name when a girl was Marguerite Heinrich, was it not?' Jerrie went on. 'Yes. Who told you that?' Arthur said. 'I saw it on a letter which you gave me to post years ago, when I was a child,' Jerrie replied. 'You never received an answer to that letter, did you?' 'What letter did you post for me to Marguerite Heinrich? I don't know what you mean,' Arthur said, the old worried look settling upon his face, which always came there when he was trying to recall something he ought to remember. As he grew older he seemed to be annoyed when told of things he had forgotten, and as the letter had evidently gone entirely from his mind, Jerrie said no more of it. _She_ remembered it well; and never dreaming that it had not been posted, she had watched a long time for an answer, which never came. Gretchen was dead; that was settled in her mind. But who was she? With the words, 'What if it were so?' still buzzing in her brain, the answer to this question was of vital importance to her, and after a moment, she continued, as if she had all the time been talking of Gretchen: 'She was Marguerite Heinrich when a girl in Wiesbaden, but she had another name afterward, when she was married.' 'You are talking of something you know nothing about. Can't you let Gretchen alone?' Arthur said, petulantly, and springing up he began to pace the room in a state of great excitement, while Jerrie sat motionless, with a white, stony look on her face and a far off look in her eyes, as if she were seeing in a vision things she could not retain, they passed to rapidly before her, and were so hazy and indistinct. The likeness she had seen in the glass was gone now. She was not like Arthur at all; it was madness in her to have thought so. And she was not like Gretchen either. Her mother was lying under the little pine tree which she and Harold had planted above the lonely grave. Her mother had been dark, and coarse, and bony, and a peasant woman--so Ann Eliza Peterkin, who had heard it from her father, had told her once, when angry with her, and Harold, when sorely pressed, had admitted as much to her. 'Dark, with large, hard hands,' he had said; and Jerrie with the great tears shining in her eyes, had answered, indignantly: 'But hard and black as they were, they always touched _me_ gently and tenderly, and sometimes I believe I can remember just how lovingly and carefully they wrapped the old cloak around me to keep me warm. Dear mother, what do I care how black she was, and coarse. She was mine, and gave her life for me.' This was when Jerrie was a child, and now that she was older she was seeking to put away this woman with the dark face and the coarse hands, and substitute in her place a fairer, sweeter face, with hands like wax and features like a Madonna. But only for a few moments, and then the wild dream vanished, and the sad, pale face, the low voice, the music, the trees, the flowers, the sick-room, the death-bed, the woman who died, and the woman who served, all went out together into the darkness, and she was Jerrie Crawford again, wearing her commencement dress to please the man still pacing the floor abstractedly, and paying no heed to her when she went out to change her dress for the blue muslin she bud worn through the day. When she returned to the parlor she found him seated at the tea-table, which had been laid during her absence. Taking her seat opposite to him, she made his tea, and buttered his toast, and chatted, and laughed until she succeeded in bringing back a quiet expression to the face which bore no likeness now to her own, but looked pale and haggard as it always did after any excitement. He was talking of the commencement exercises, and regretting that he could not be present. 'I may not be home,' he said. 'And if I am. I shall not come. Crowds kill me, and smells kill me, and we are sure to have both. I wish I had a different nose, but it is as it was made, and I think I detect some bad odor in here, don't you?' Jerrie, who knew from experience that the better way was to humor his fancy, said she did smell something; perhaps it was the carpet, or the curtains, both of which were new. 'Very likely, and in that case the smell is a clean one,' he replied, and began again to speak of commencement. 'Harold is sure to be here,' he said, 'and he is better than forty old coves like me. It is astonishing what a fancy I have taken to that young man. I don't see a fault in him, except that he is too infernally proud. Think of his refusing to take any more money from me unless I would accept his note promising to pay it all back in time--just as if he ever can, or will.' 'Indeed he will,' Jerrie exclaimed, rousing at once in Harold's defence. 'He will pay every dollar, and I shall help him.' 'You!' and Arthur laughed, merrily, 'How will you help him, I'd like to know.' 'I shall teach school, or give music lessons, or do both to earn something for grandmother,' Jerrie answered, quickly. 'And I shall help Harold, and shall pay Mr. Frank all he gave grandmother for my board. I know just how much it is. Three dollars a week from the time I was four years old until I was sixteen and came here to school--almost two thousand dollars; a big sum, I know, but I shall pay it. You will see,' she went on rapidly and earnestly; as she saw the amused look on Arthur's face, and felt that he was laughing at her. 'You are going to pay my brother to the uttermost farthing, but what of me? Am I to be left in the cold?' he asked, as he arose from the table and seated himself upon the sofa near the window. 'I expect to be your debtor all my life,' Jerrie said, as went over to him and laid her soft, white arms around his neck. 'I can never pay you for all you have done for me, never. I can only love you, which I do so dearly, as the kindest and best of men.' She was stooping over him now; and putting up his hands Arthur drew her close to him, so that the two faces were again plainly reflected, side by side in the mirror opposite--the man's gentle and tender as a woman's, the girl's flushed, and eager, and excited as she caught a second time the likeness which had made her cold and faint when she first saw it, and which made her faint again as she clasped her hands tightly together, and leaning a little forward, looked earnestly at the faces in the mirror, while she listened to what Arthur was saying. 'You owe me nothing, Cherry; the indebtedness is all on my side, and has been since the day when a little white sun-bonnet showed itself at my window, and a clear, ringing voice, which I can hear yet, said to me, "Mr. Crazyman, don't you want some cherries?" You don't know how much of life and sunshine you brought me with the cherries. My sky was very black those days, and but for you I am certain that I should long ere this have been what you called me--a crazy man for sure, locked up behind bars and bolts. My little Cherry has been all the world to me; and though she is very grand, and tall, and stately now, I love to remember her as the child in the sun-bonnet, clinging to the ladder, and talking to the lunatic inside. That would make a fine picture, and it I were an artist I would paint it some day. Perhaps Maude will. Poor little Maude! Did I tell you that while she was absent she dabbled in water-colors? and now she has what she calls a studio, where she perpetrates the most atrocious daubs you ever saw. Poor Maude! She is weak in the upper story, but is, on the whole, a nice girl, and very pretty, too, with her black eyes, and brilliant color, and kittenish ways. I did not care for her once, but we are great friends now, and she is a comfort to me in your absence. I am afraid, though, that she is not long for this world. Everything tires her, and she has grown so thin that a breath might blow her away. I think it would kill Frank to lose her. His life is bound up in hers; and he once said to me, either that he had sold, or would sell, his soul for her. What do you suppose he meant?' Jerrie did not reply. The likeness in the mirror had disappeared as Arthur grew more in earnest, and she listened more intently to what he was saying of Maude, every word as he went on a blow from which she shrank as from some physical pain. 'Yes,' Arthur continued, 'Maude is weak, mentally and physically, though I believe she is trying hard to improve her wind, or rather, that young man, Harold, is trying to improve it for her. He is at the house nearly everyday, or she is at the cottage. But, hold on! I wasn't to tell, and I haven't told--only he reads to her, sometimes outside when the weather will admit, but oftener in her _studio_, where she talks to him of art, and where I once saw him giving her a sitting while she tried to sketch his face. A caricature, I called it, ridiculing it so much that she put it away unfinished, and is now at work on some water-lilies he brought her, and which are really very good. Mrs. Tracy is not pleased with Harold's visits, and I once overheard her saying to Maude, "Why do you encourage the attentions of that young man? why do you run after him so, down there every day?" Hold on, again! What a tattler I am! Why don't I stick to Dolly, who said, "You certainly do not care for him. He hasn't a cent to his name, nor any family and has even worked in Peterkin's furnace." What Maude replied I do not know, I only heard Dolly bang the door hard as she left the room, so I suppose the answer was not a pleasing one. Dolly is a grand lady and would not like her daughter to marry an ordinary man like Harold.' 'No,' Jerrie said, slowly, as if speaking were an effort. 'N-no; and you think Harold likes Maude very much?' 'Likes her? Yes. Why shouldn't he like a girl as pretty as she is, especially when she meets him more than half way?' Arthur replied, and Jerrie continued in the same measured tone: 'Ye-es, and you think he would marry her if her mother would permit it?' 'He is not at all likely to do that,' Arthur answered, quickly, 'A man seldom marries a woman who throws herself at his head and lets him see how much she cares for him, and Maude is doing just that. She cannot conceal anything. I tell you, Cherry, if the time ever comes when you love somebody better than all the world beside, don't let him know until he speaks for himself. Don't be lightly won. Better be shy and cold, than demonstrative and gushing, like Maude. Gretchen was shy as a fawn, and after I told her I loved her she would not believe it possible. But, child, you look fagged and tired. It is time you were in bed. I have talked you nearly to death.' 'I am not tired,' Jerrie said, 'and I want to know what it is about Maude's going to the cottage, which you must not tell me. Is she there very, very often, and does Harold like to have her come, and is that throwing herself at his head, as you call it?' She had her arm around his neck in a coaxing kind of way, and Arthur smoothed the soft white hand resting on his coat-collar, as he answered, laughingly: 'Mother Eve herself. You would have eaten the apple, too, had you been Mrs. Adam. No, no, I shall not tell any secrets. You must wait and see for yourself. And now you must go, for I am tired myself.' She said good-night, and went to her room, but not to sleep at once, because of the tumult of emotions which had been roused by what Arthur had told her of Maude and Harold. 'I don't believe now that I really meant him to make love to her when I asked him to amuse her,' she whispered to herself, as she dashed away two great tear-drops from her cheeks. Then, after a moment, she continued: 'But they shall never know. No one shall ever know that I care, for I don't, or I am not going to. Harold is my brother, and I shall love Maude as my sister, and I will do all I can to make her more like what Harold's wife should be. She is beautiful, and good, and sweet, and true, and with money and position can do far more for him than I could--I, the daughter of a peasant woman, the child of the carpet bag; and yet--' Here Jerrie's hands beat the air excitedly as she recalled the wild fancy which had twice taken possession of her that night, and which had been born of that likeness seen in the mirror. Many times since she had passed from childhood to womanhood had she speculated upon the mystery which enshrouded her, while one recollection after another of past events flitted through her brain, only to bewilder her awhile and then to disappear into oblivion. But never before had she been affected as she was that night when the possibility of what might be nearly drove her wild. 'Oh, if that were so,' she said, 'I could help Harold, and I'd give everything to him and make him my king, as he is worthy to be. There is something far back,' she continued 'something different from the woman who died at my side. That face which haunts me so often was a reality somewhere. It has kissed me and called me darling, and I saw the life fade out of it--saw it cold and dead. I know I did, and sometime, when I have paid that debt to Mr. Frank Tracy, and have helped Harold, and made grandmother comfortable, I'll go to Germany, to Wiesbaden and everywhere, and clear the mystery, if possible; and if mother was a peasant girl, with hands coarse and hard, and black from labor in the field, then, I, too, will be a peasant girl, and marry a peasant lad, and draw his potatoes home in a cart, while he trudges at my side.' At this picture of herself Jerrie laughed out loud, and while trying to think how it would seem to draw potatoes in a cart, after having dug them, she fell asleep and dreamed of Maude and Harold, and studios and lilies, and a face which was a caricature, as Arthur had said, and which, when at a late hour she awoke, proved to be that of the chambermaid, whom Arthur had sent to rouse her, as he was waiting for his breakfast.	{ "id": "15321" }
26	MAUDE'S LETTER.	TRACY PARK, June ----, 18--. 'My darling Jerrie:--I wish I could send you a whiff of the delicious air I am breathing this morning from the roses under my window and the pond-lilies which Harold brought me about an hour ago. Don't you think he was up before the sun, and went out upon the river to get them for me because he knows how fond I am of them, and I told him yesterday that they always made me think of you, they are an sweet, and pure, and fair. I wish you could have seen him, or, rather, have heard his voice and seen the look in his eyes, as he said: "Yes; Jerrie is the lily and you are the rose; you set each other off admirably. I am glad you are so good friends." 'Harold thinks the world of you, Jerrie, and were you his own sister, I am sure he could not love you better than he does. How handsome he has grown since I went away. I always thought him splendid-looking, but he is more than that now; so tall and straight, with his head set on his shoulders in such an aristocratic kind of way, and then his eyes, which look at you so--well, I don't know how they do look at you, but they are eyes you would trust and never be afraid of anything bad behind them. Uncle Arthur says his mother was lovely, and that his father was one of the handsomest men of his time, but I am certain that Harold looks better than either of them, and has inherited the good qualities of both, without a single bad one. He is so nice and gentlemanly, and has such a kind, courteous way of saying and doing things. Fred Raymond--who, you know, is so sweet on Nina St. Clair--says that if Harold had all the blood of a hundred kings in his veins he could not be more courtly or dignified in his manner than he is, and that is a great deal for a Kentuckian to say. Fred is now at Grassy Spring, visiting Dick St. Claire, and will stay until Nina comes home. I wish Harold was rich, and if I had money of my own, I believe I'd give it to him, only he wouldn't take it, he is so awfully proud, and afraid somebody will help him; and yet I respect him for the pride, which has made him teach school, and do everything he could find to do in order to go through college the last two years and pay his own way. But I did not like it a bit when I heard he had accepted a situation in Peterkin's furnace. I know he had good wages, but it is dreadful to think of Harold under such a man, even if Billy is there. When I told Uncle Arthur he laughed, and said: "Honor and shame from no condition rise." I wonder what he meant? I asked Tom, and he said I was a fool. 'Weren't you proud of Harold, though, the day he graduated? What an oration that was! and how the building shook with applause when he came on and when he went off! And do you remember the expression of his face when he picked up the bouquet of roses I threw him, and looked over where we sat? I thought he touched his lips to them, but was not sure. Do you remember? He is studying law now all the time he can get in Judge St. Claire's office, but he comes to read to me for an hour or more nearly every day. He came of his own accord, too. I did not ask him, or even hint, as Tom says I do, when I want anything; and sometimes I half think he is trying to drive something into my head, or was, when he began to read to me about those old Greeks, Hesiod, or Herod, I don't know which, and Theogony--that's rather a pretty name, don't you think so? But I could not stand the Greeks. My mind is too weak to be impressed by anything Grecian, unless it is the Grecian bend. You tried it until you were discouraged and gave it up, telling me I was the stupidest idiot you ever saw! That was the time we had the a spelling-school in the Tramp House, and you were the teacher, and Harold chose me first, and I spelled biscuit "bisket!" Do you remember how I cried? and when you told me nobody would ever like me unless I knew something, Harold said. "Don't talk like that, Jerrie; those who know the least are frequently liked the best." 'What a comfort those words have been to me; and especially at the time when I failed so utterly in examination at Vassar and had to give it up. Oh, Jerrie, you do not know how mortified I was over that failure, to think I knew so little; and the worst of it is I can't learn, or understand; or remember, and it makes my head ache so to try. I am sorry most on father's account, he is so proud of me and would like to see me take the lead in everything. Poor father! he is growing old so fast. Why, his hair is white as snow, and he sometimes talks to himself just as Uncle Arthur does. I wonder what ails him that he never smiles or seems interested in anything except when I am smoothing his hair or sitting on his knee; then he brightens up and calls me his pet and darling, and talks queer kind of talk, I think. He asks me if I am glad I live at Tracy Park--if I like the pretty things he buys me, and if I should be as happy if I were poor--not real poor, you know, but as we were at Langley before I was born. I went there with him a few weeks ago for the first time; and oh, my goodness gracious! such a poky little house, with the stairs going right up in the room, and such a tiny, stuffy bedroom! I tried to fancy mamma's scent bottles, and brushes, and combs, and the box for polishing her nails, transported to that room, and her in there with Rosalie dressing her hair. It made me laugh till I cried, and I think papa did actually cry, for he sat down upon the stairs and turned his head away, and when he looked up his eyes were all wet and red, with such a sorry look in them that I went straight up and kissed him, and asked him playfully if he was crying for the old days when he lived in that house and sold codfish in the store. ' "Yes, Maude," he said. "I believe I'd give the remainder of my life if I could be put back right here as I was when your uncle Arthur's letter came and turned my head. Oh, if the years and everything could be blotted out!" 'What do you suppose he meant? I was frightened, and did not say a word until he asked me those questions I told you about; did I like pretty things? did I like to live at Tracy Park, and could I bear to be poor and live in the Langley house? I just told him, 'No, I should not like to live in Langley, that I did like living at Tracy Park, and did like the pretty things which money bought.' ' "Then I ought to be content, if my beautiful Maude is so," he said, and the tired look on his face lifted a little. 'He calls me beautiful so often. But I don't see it, do you? Of course you don't. You think me too black, and small, and thin, and so I am. Harold never told me I was pretty, and--I tell this in confidence, and you must never breathe it to any one--I have tried to wring a compliment from him so many times, but it's no use, I can't do it, he never understands anything, though he does sometimes say, when he brings me a bright rose: "Wear it, Maude; it will become your style." 'He never says you are pretty, either, and that is strange, for I think you have the loveliest and sweetest face I ever saw, except Gretchen's in the picture, you look like her; I saw it so plainly two years ago, when you were here one evening, and I spoke of it to father. Who was she, I wonder? Uncle Arthur does not talk much of her now, though I believe he kisses her every night and morning. How much he thinks of you, and how much he has talked of _Cherry_ since his visit to you in May. I am so glad you liked the dress, he was so anxious about it. Did he say any thing to you of a trip to California? He took us quite by surprise two weeks ago by telling us he was going. He wanted to see the Yosemite Valley before he died, he said, and June was the time to see it. So he started off with Charles about ten days ago, and the house seems like a tomb without him. 'If I can, I shall come and see you graduate with the other Vassars, though I shall be ashamed to be seen where I failed so utterly. I might have known I should, for I haven't about me a single quality which would entitle me to be a Vassar, unless it is my fondness for _gum_. Do you really chew an awful lot there, or is it a fib? How learned you and Nina will be, and how you will cast me in the shade, making me seem stupider than ever. I did try very hard to learn to speak German when I was abroad with mamma, for father wished it particularly; but I could not do it, and gave it up. I have not a capacity for anything, except to love and suffer and sacrifice for those I love. Do you know, it sometimes frightens me to think how devotedly I could love some one. Not a girl, but a man--a lover--a husband, who loved me. Why, I would give my life for him, and bear any kind of torture if it would add to his happiness. But why write this nonsense to you, who never acted as if you cared an atom for any boy, not even Dick St. Claire, who used to give you sugar hearts and call you his little wife. _Entre nous_ (who says I do not know two French words?) mamma would like to make a match between Dick and me, but she never will--never! Dick is nice, and I like him, but not that way. Poor mamma! How much she thinks of money and position! I tell her she ought to have a photograph of the old Langley House hung up in her room to keep her in mind of her former condition. Just now she has the craze to hammer brass and paint in water-colors, and goes over to Mrs. Atherton's to take lessons. Don't you think that Mrs. Peterkin--_May Jane_--had like aspirations with mamma, and wanted to join the class; but the teacher found that she had as many pupils as she could attend to, and so May Jane is left out in the cold. But Mr. Peterkin says, 'By George, my wife shall have 'complishments if money can buy em!' And so, I suppose, she will. What strides those Peterkins have taken, to be sure, and what a big house he has built with such a funny name. --"_Le Batteau_", which, as he pronounces it, sounds like _Lubber-too_! It is just finished, and they have moved into it. I have not been there, but Tom has, and he says it fairly glitters, it is so gorgeous, and looks inside like those chariots which come with circuses. 'You ought to hear Peterkin talk about his '_Ann Lizy_, who, he says, "is to Vassar, gettin schoolin' with the big bugs, and when she comes _hum_ he is goin' to get her a hoss and cart for her own, and a maid, and a vally, too, if she wants one." Well, there are some bigger fools in the world than I am, and that's a comfort. As for Billy, he stammers worse, if possible, than he used to when he told us we were "pl-p-plaguey mean to pl-pl-plague Ann Lizy so;" but I guess I will let him burst upon you in all the magnificence of his summer attire--his almost white clothes, short coat, tight pants, pointed shoes, and stove-pipe hat to make him look taller. He comes here occasionally to see Tom, and always talks of you. I do believe you might be Mrs. Billy Peterkin and live at _Lubber-too_, if you wanted; but, really, Billy is very kind to Harold, who gets twice as much wages in the office, when he writes there, as he would if it were not for Billy. 'Tom is home, doing nothing, but taking his ease and aping an English swell. You know he was with mamma and me in England, and since his return has effected everything English, and looks quite like the _dude_ of the period. He, too, seems interested in your return; and I don't know but you might be mistress of Tracy Park, if you could fancy the incumbrance. Dick St. Claire is going to Vassar to see you and Nina graduate; and Harold, too, if he possibly can. He is very busy just now with something he must finish, and perhaps he cannot be there. Tom is going, and Fred Raymond, and Billy Peterkin--quite a turn-out from Shannondale. 'I can hardly wait to see you. Only think, it is almost two years since I said good-bye; for we went to Europe just after Harold was graduated, and your last Christmas holidays were over before we came home. 'What a long letter I have written you, and have not told you a word of my health, about which you inquired so particularly. Did Uncle Arthur tell you anything? I wish he had not, for it worries me to have people look, and act, and talk as if I were sick, when I am not. If I had not a pain in my side, and a tickling cough, which keeps me awake nights and makes me sweat until my hair is wet, I should be perfectly strong; and but for the pain and the weariness, I feel as well as I ever did; and I go out nearly every day, and I don't want to die and leave my beautiful home, and father, and mother, and you, and--everybody I love. I am too young to die. I cannot die. 'Oh, Jerrie, I am glad you are coming home! You will do me good, just as Harold does. He is so strong every way, and so kind I can't begin to tell you what he has been to me since I came home in March--more than a friend--more than a brother. I do not see why you never fell in love with him, thought I suppose it is living with him always, as you have, and looking upon him as a brother. 'And now I must say good-bye, for I am getting tired and must rest. I was at the cottage this morning, and Harold is coming here this afternoon to read Tennyson's "May Queen" to me. He has read it a dozen times, but I am never tired of it, although it makes me cry to think of that grave in the long grass, with little Alice in it, cold and dead, listening for those she loved to come and weep over her. You know, she says to her mother: '"I shall hear you when you pass, With your feet above me, in the long and pleasant grass." 'Oh, Jerrie, if it should be--you know what I mean; if there should come a time when people say to each other, "Maude Tracy is dead!" you'll come often, won't you, and think of me always as the friend, who, weak and stupid as she was, loved you dearly--dearly. 'Now, good-bye again. Harold has just come in, and says, "Remember me to Jerrie, and tell her I shall hope to see her graduated, but do not know, I am so busy." 'Truly and lovingly, 'MAUDE TRACY.' 'P.S.--Tom has come in, and says, "Give my love to Jerrie." 'P.S. No. 2. --Dick St. Claire and Fred Raymond are here, and both send their regards. 'P.S. No. 3. --If you will believe me, Billy Peterkin is here, nibbling his little cane, and says, "Present my compliments to Miss Crawford." 'Just think of it. Five, or, rather, four young men--for Tom don't count--for me to entertain. But I can do it, and rather like it, too, though they all tire me, except Harold.' Jerrie read this letter, which was received a few days before commencement, two or three times, and each time she read it, the little ache in her heart kept growing larger, until at last it was actual pain, and covering her face with her hands, she cried like a child. 'It is Maude I am crying for,' she kept saying to herself. 'I know she is worse than they have told me. She is going to die, and I am mean to grudge her Harold's love, if that will make her happier. Why does she go to the cottage so often, I wonder? Is it to see him? He would not like me to do that. He was chagrined when I kissed him at Harvard. But, then, he does not love me, and he does Maude; but he _must_ see me graduate. I'll write and tell him so. That, surely, will not be "throwing myself at his head;"' and seizing her pen, Jerrie wrote, rapidly and excitedly: 'DEAR HAROLD: I have just heard from Maude, who says there is a possibility that you will not come to Vassar; but I shall be so disappointed if you do not. I would rather have you here than all the wise old heads in the State. So come without fail, no matter what you are doing. I can't imagine anything which should keep you. Tell grandma I am longing to be home, and keep thinking just how cool and nice the kitchen looks, with the hop-vine over the door; but she will I have to raise the roof soon, for I do believe I've grown an inch since last winter and am in danger of knocking my brains out in those low rooms. 'Good-bye till I see you. 'JERRIE.'	{ "id": "15321" }
27	'HE COMETH NOT,' SHE SAID.	The _she_ was Jerrie, who, the night before commencement, was shaking hands with Dick St. Claire, Fred Raymond, Tom Tracy, and Billy Peterkin, all of whom had arrived on the evening train, and after dinner had come to pay their respects to the young ladies from Shannondale. The _he_ way Harold, for whom Jerrie asked at once. 'Where is Harold? Is he coming in the morning?' she said, as she stood, tall, and straight, and queen-like, before the four young men, who glanced at each other with a significance in their looks, which she did not understand. It was Dick St. Claire who took it upon himself to explain. 'No, Hal is not coming,' he said, 'and he is awfully cut up about it. He thought he might manage it until yesterday when he found it impossible to do so. You see, he has taken a job which must be done at a certain time.' 'Taken a job!' Jerrie repeated. 'What job? What do you mean?' and her blue eyes flashed upon each of the young men, falling last upon Tom Tracy, as if she expected him to answer, which he did in the half sneering, half satirical tone which made her hate him and long to box his ears. 'Why, it's a sort of carpenter's job,' he said; 'and I heard his hammer going this morning before sunrise, for I was up early for once and out in the park. Sounded as if he were shingling a roof, and that's work, you know, which must be done in fair weather. It might rain and spoil the plastering.' 'Thank you,' Jerrie answered, curtly. 'Harold is shingling a roof, and cannot come. But where is Maude? Is she shingling a roof, too?' 'Yes, b-b-by Jove. You've h-hit it. Maude's sh-shingling a roof, too: the b-best joke out,' Billy Peterkin chimed in, glad of an opportunity to join in the conversation, and so get some attention from Jerrie. He was a little man, only four feet five with heels, and he wore the light clothes of which Maude had written, and a stove-pipe hat, and dove colored gloves, and carried a little cane, which he constantly nibbled at, when he was not beating his little boot with it. But he was good-natured and inoffensive and kind-hearted, with nothing low or mean in his nature; and Jerrie, who looked as if she could have picked him up and thrown him over the house, liked him far better than she did the 'elegant Tom,' as she had nicknamed him, who stood six feet without heels, and who knew exactly what shade of color to choose, from his neck-tie to his hose, which were always silk of the finest quality. Tom was faultlessly gotten up, and he knew it, and carried himself as if he knew it, and knew, too, that he was Tom Tracy, the future heir of Tracy Park, if he were fortunate enough to outlive both his uncle and his father. Jerrie had disliked him when he was a boy and she disliked him now, and turning her back upon him pretended to be interested in 'little Billy,' as she was in the habit of calling him; he was so short and she was so tall. He was speaking of Harold, and he said: 'It's a dused shame he co-couldn't come, b-but he sent some money by Dick to buy you a b-basket in New York, and by George, we've got you a st-stunner down to the h-hotel; only I'm a-a-fraid it'll be w-wilted some b-before to-morrow. 'Yes,' Dick said, coming forward, 'I should not have told you now, if Billy had not let it out; Hal did give me some money to buy a basket of flowers for you; the very best I could find, he said, and I got a big one; but I'm afraid it was not very fresh, for it begins to look wilted now. You must blame Tom, though; he pretends to be up in flowers, and advised my getting this one in New York, because it was so handsome and cheap.' 'Oh, it is all right,' Tom drawled, in that affected voice he had adopted since his return from Europe. 'It was the best, any way, we could get for the money. Hal, you know, isn't very flush in the pocket.' It was a mean speech to make, and all Tom's audience felt it to be so, while Jerry crimsoned with resentment and answered hotly: 'Faded or not, I shall care more for Harold's flowers than for all the rest which may be given me.' This was not very encouraging to three at least of the young men who were intending to make the finest floral offering they could find, to the girl whom in their secret hearts they admired more than any girl they had ever seen, and who, had she made the slightest sign, might have been installed at Grassy Spring, or Tracy Park, or Le Bateau, within less than a month. But Jerry had never made a sign, and had laughed and chatted and flirted with them all, not excepting Tom, who had long ago dropped his supercilious air of superiority and patronage when talking with her, and treated her with a gentleness and consideration almost lover-like. Horribly jealous of Harold, whom he still felt infinitely above, although he did not now often openly show it, he had encouraged the visits of the latter to Tracy Park, and by jokes and hints and innuendoes had fed the flame which he knew was burning in his sister's heart. 'There will be a jolly row when mother finds it out,' he said to Maude one day; 'for you know she holds her head a great deal higher than Hal Hastings, who isn't the chap I'd choose for a brother-in-law. But if you like him, all right. Stick to him, and I'll stand by you to the death.' This was to Maude; while to his mother, when, she complained that Harold came there quite too often, and that Maude was running after him too much, he said: 'Nonsense, mother! let Maude alone. She knows what she is about, and would not wipe her shoes on Hal Hastings, much less marry him. She is lonely without Nina and Jerry, and not strong enough to read much herself, and Hal amuses her; that's all. I know. I have talked with her. I am keeping watch, and the moment I see any indications of love-making on either side I will give you warning, and together we will put my fine chap in his proper place in a jiffy.' Tom was a young man now of twenty-seven, tall, and finely-formed, with all his mother's good looks, and his Uncle Arthur's courtliness of manner when he felt that his companions were worthy of his notice, but proud, and arrogant, and self-asserting with his inferiors, or those whom he thought such. He had never overcome his unwarrantable dislike of Harold, whom he considered far beneath him; but Harold was too popular to be openly treated with contempt, and so there was a show of friendship and civility between them, without any real liking on either side. Tom could not tell just when he began to look upon Jerrie as the loveliest girl he had ever seen, and to contemplate the feasibility of making her Mrs. Tom Tracy. His admiration for her had been of slow growth, for she was worse than a nobody--a child of the Tramp House, of whose antecedents nothing was known, while he was a Tracy, of Tracy Park, whom a duchess might be proud to wed. But he had succumbed at last to Jerrie's beauty, and sprightliness, and originality, and now his love for her had become the absorbing passion of his life, and he would have made her his wife at any moment, in the face of all his mother's opposition. By some subtle intuition, he felt that Harold was his rival, though he could not fathom the nature of Harold's feeling for Jerrie, so carefully did the latter conceal it. 'He must regard her as something more than a sister,' he thought; 'he cannot see her every day without loving her, and by-and-by he will tell her so, and then my cake is dough. If I can only get him committed to Maude while Jerrie is away, my way is clear, for I am quite sure she does not care for Dick, and she would be a fool not to take Tracy Park if she could get it. And why shouldn't Hal love Maude? She is pretty, and sweet, and winning, and will some day be an heiress. Hal may thank his stars to get her, though I hate him as I do poison.' It was Tom who had insisted that Harold's basket should be bought in New York, where there was a better chance, he said, and he had himself selected flowers which he knew were not fresh, and would be still worse twenty-four hours later. 'Why don't you get yours here, if it is the be-best place?' Will Peterkin had asked him, and he replied: 'Oh, we can't be bothered with more than one basket in the train. I can find something there.' He did not say what he intended to find, or that baskets were quite too common for him. But after leaving the young ladies in the evening, he went to a florist's and ordered for Jerrie a book of white daisies, with a rack of purple pansies for it to rest upon. 'That will certainly be unique, and show her that I have taste,' he thought. For Nina a bouquet was sufficient, while for Ann Eliza Peterkin he ordered nothing. Tom could be lavish of his money where his own interest was concerned, but where he had no interest he was stingy and even mean, and so poor little red-haired Ann Eliza, who would have prized a leaf from him more than all the florist's garden from another, was to get nothing from him. 'What business has old Peterkin's daughter to graduate with ladies, any way?' he thought, and he looked on with a sneer, while Billy ordered five baskets, one of which was to be of white roses, with a heart of blue forget-me-nots in the centre. 'What, under heaven, are you going to do with five baskets?' he asked; but Billy was non committal, for he would not own that three were intended for Jerrie, whom he wished to carry off the palm so far as flowers were concerned. And she did; for of all the young ladies who the next day passed in review before the multitude, no one attracted so much attention or received so much praise as Jerrie. For clearness of reasoning, depth of thought, and purity of language, her essay, though a little too metaphysical, perhaps, was accounted the best, and listened to with rapt attention. And when the musical voice ceased, and the young girl, who had never looked more beautiful than she did then, with the sparkle in her eyes and the flush on her cheeks, bowed to the audience, bouquets of flowers fell around her like hailstones, while basket after basket was handed up to her, Tom Tracy's book showing conspicuously from the rest and attracting unusual admiration. But, alas for poor Harold's gift! Dick had watered it the last thing before going to bed and the first thing in the morning, but the flowers were limp and faded, and gave forth a sickly odor, while the leaves of the roses were dropping off, and only the size, which was immense, remained to tell what it once had been. But Jerrie singled it out from all the rest, and held it in her hands until the exercises were over; and that night, at a reception given to the graduates, she wore in her bosom two faded pink roses, the only ones she could make hold together, and which Nina told her smelled a little old. But Jerrie did not care. They were Harold's roses, which he had sent to her, and she prized them more than all the rest she had received. At little Billy's _heart_ she had laughed till she cried, and then had given it to a young girl, not a graduate, who admired it exceedingly. Tom's book she knew was exquisite, and placed it with others, and thanked him for it, and told him it was lovely, and then gave it to Ann Eliza, whose offerings had been so few. A bouquet from Dick St. Claire and Fred Raymond, a basket from her brother, and one more from _herself_, were all, and the little red-haired girl, who, with her heavy gold chain and locket, and diamond ear-rings, and three bracelets, and five finger-rings, had looked like a jeweller's shop, felt aggrieved and neglected, and Jerrie found her sobbing in her room as if her heart was broken. 'Only four snipping things,' she said, 'and you had twenty-five, and mother will be so disappointed, and father too, when he knows just how few I got. I wish I was popular like you.' 'Never mind,' Jerrie said, cheerfully. 'It was only a happen so--my getting so many. You are just as nice as I am, and I'll give you part of mine to take home to your mother. I can never carry them all. I should have to charter a car,' and in a few moments six of Jerrie's baskets were transferred to Ann Eliza's room, including Tom Tracy's book. 'Oh, I can't take that, Ann Eliza said; he didn't mean it for me; he didn't give me anything, and I--I--' Here she began to sob again, and laying her hand pityingly upon the bowed head, Jerrie said: 'Yes, I know; I understand. Something from Tom Tracy would have pleased you more than from anyone; but listen to me, Annie. Tom is not worth your tears.' 'Don't you care for him?' the girl asked, lifting her head suddenly. 'Not a particle, as you mean. You have nothing to fear from me,' Jerrie replied. This was a grain of comfort to the girl who had been weak enough to waste her affections upon Tom Tracy, and who, fearing Jerrie was a rival, was weak enough to hope that with her out of the way she might eventually succeed in bringing him to her feet, for she knew his fondness for money, and knew, too, that she should in all probability be one day the heiress to a million. So great was her infatuation for the man who had never shown her the slightest attention, that even his flowers, though second-hand, and not intended for her, were everything to her, and when she packed her trunk that night she put them carefully away in many wrappings of paper, to be brought out at home in the privacy of her own room, and kept as long as the least beauty or perfume remained. It was a merry party which the New York train carried to Shannondale the next day, and Jerrie was the merriest and gayest of them all, bandying jokes and jests, and coquetting pretty equally with the young men, until neither Tom, nor Dick, nor Billy quite knew what he was doing or saying. But always in her gayest moods, when her eyes were brightest and her wit the keenest, there was in Jerrie's heart a thought of Harold, who had so disappointed her, and a wonder as to the nature of the _job_ which had been of sufficient importance to keep him from Vassar. 'Shingling a roof, and Maude is helping him,' Billy said, 'I wonder what he meant?' she was thinking, when she heard Ann Eliza cry out, that the towers of 'Le Bateau' were visible. As she had not seen that wonderful structure since its completion, she arose from her seat, and going to the window, looked out upon the massive pile in the distance, looking, with its turrets, and towers, and round projections, like some old castle rather than a home where people could live and be happy. 'It is very grand,' she said to Ann Eliza; and Billy, who was leaning toward her, replied: 'Yes, too grand for a Pe-Peterkin. It wants you, there, Jerrie, as its m-m-master-p-p-piece, and, by Jove, you can b-be there, too, if you will!' No one heard this attempt at an offer but Jerrie, who, with a saucy toss of the head, replied, laughingly: 'Thank you, Billy. I'll think of it, and let you know when I make up my mind to come. Just now I prefer the cottage in the lane to any spot on earth. Oh, here, we are at the station,' she cried, as the train shot round a curve and Shannondale was reached. There was a scrambling for bundles, and flowers, and wraps. Fred Raymond gathering up Nina's, while Dick, and Tom, and Billy, almost fought over Jerrie's, and poor little Ann Eliza would have carried hers alone if Jerrie had not helped her.	{ "id": "15321" }
28	IN SHANNONDALE.	Nine years of change in Shannondale, and the green hill-side, which stretched from the common down to the river where, when our story opened, sheep and cows were feeding in the pasture land, is thickly covered with houses of every kind of architecture, from the Mansard roof to the Queen Anne style, just coming into fashion, while the meadow lands are dotted over with the small houses of the men who work in the large furnace, or manufactory, which Peterkin had bought and enlarged, as a monument, he said, and where he sometimes employed as many as four hundred men, and had set up a whistle which could be heard for miles and miles, and nearly blew off the chimney-tops when it sounded in the morning at six o'clock, it was so loud and shrill. A screecher, Peterkin called it, and he always listened with a smile of pride and satisfaction on his face when he heard the first indications of its blowing, and knew that four hundred men were quickening their stops on account of it, lest they should be a few minutes late and have their wages docked. Peterkin counted two millions now, and boasted the finest, or at least, the most expensive house in the county, not even excepting Tracy Park, which still held its own for solidity and old-fashioned dignity, and was the show place to the strangers visiting in Shannondale. When Peterkin made $20,000 in one day from some speculation in stocks, he said to Mr. St. Claire, who was now a judge, and with whom he pretended to be on terms of great familiarity: 'I say, judge, I'm goin' to build a buster, and whip the crowd. I've lived about long enough in that little nine-by-ten hole, and I'll be dumbed if I don't show 'em what I can do. I'll have towers, and bay-windows, and piazzers, with checkered work all 'round 'em, and a preservatory, and all kinds of new fangled doin's. May Jane and Ann 'Liza want that Queen Anny style, but I tell 'em no such squatty things for me. They can have all the little winder panes and stained glass, cart loads on't, if they want; but I'll have the rooms big and high, so a feller won't bump his head. Yes, _sir_! I'm in for a smasher!' And he built 'a smasher' on the site of the old house, behind which the 'Liza Ann,' or what there was left of it, was lying; and when the house was done, and furnished with the most gaudy and expensive furniture he could find in Boston and New York, he said it had just as good a right to a name as any body. There was Tracy Park, and Grassy Springs, and Brier Hill, and Collingwood, and he'd be dumbed if he'd be outdone by any of 'em. 'He'd like to call it 'Liza Ann,' he said to Arthur, whom he met one day in the park, and to whom he began to talk of his new house. 'He'd like to call it 'Liza Ann, after the old boat, for that craft was the beginnin' of his bein' any body; but May Jane and Ann 'Liza wouldn't hear to it. They wanted some new-frangled foreign name; could Mr. Tracy suggest something?' 'How would "_Le Bateau_" do? It is the French for "the boat," and might cover your difficulty,' Arthur said, without a thought that his suggestion would be adopted. But it was, immediately. 'That's jest the checker. 'Liza Ann with a new name, _Lub--lub_--what d'ye call her?' Peterkin said, and Arthur replied: '_Le Bateau_.' 'Yes, yes--_Lubber-toe_; that'll suit May Jane tip-top. Beats all what high notions she's got! Why, I don't s'pose she any more remembers that she used to wash Miss Atherton's stun steps than you remember somethin' that never happened. Do you?' Arthur thought very likely that she did not, and Peterkin went on: 'You say it means a boat in French; _canal_, do you s'pose?' Arthur did not think it mattered what boat, and Peterkin continued: '_Lubber-toe_! Sounds droll, but I like it, I'll see an engraver to-day but how do you spell the plaguy thing!' Arthur wrote it on a slip of paper, which he handed Peterkin, who began slowly: _L-e le, b-a-t-bat; le-bat_. Why, what in thunder! That ain't _Lubbertoe_. 'Tain't nothin'!' With an amused smile Arthur explained that the pronunciation of French words had very little to do with the way they were spelled; then, very carefully pronouncing the name several times, and making Peterkin repeat it after him, he said good-bye, and walked away, thinking to himself: 'There are bigger lunatics outside the asylum than I am, but it is not possible the fool will adopt that name.' But the fool did. May Jane approved, and Billy did not care, provided his father would pronounce it right, and so in less than a week, '_Le Bateau_' was on Peterkin's door-plate, and on the two gate-posts of the entrance to his grounds, and May Jane's visiting cards bore the words: 'Mrs. Peterkin. Le Bateau. Fridays.' She had her _days_ now, like Mrs. Atherton, and Mrs. St. Claire, and Mrs. Tracy, and had her butler, too, and her maid, and her carriage; and after the house was furnished, and furnished in style which reminded one of a theatre, it was so gorgeous and gay, Peterkin concluded to have a _coat of arms_ for his carriage; and remembering how Arthur had helped him in a former dilemma he sought him again and told him his trouble. 'That _Lubber-too_ (he called it _too_ now) 'went down like hot cakes, and was just the thing,' he said, 'and now I want some picter for my carriage door to kinder mark me, and show who I am. You know what I mean.' Arthur thought a _puff-ball_ would represent Peterkin better than anything else, but he replied: 'Yes, I know. You want a coat of arms, which shall suggest your early days--' 'When I was a flounderin' to get up--jess so,' Peterkin interrupted him. 'You've hit it, square. Now I'd like a picter of the Lizy Ann, as she was, but May Jane won't hear to't. What do you say, square?' Arthur tingled to his finger tips at this familiarity from a man whom he detested, and whom he would like to turn from his door, but the man was in his house and in his private room, tilting back in a delicate Swiss chair, which Arthur expected every moment to see broken to pieces, and which finally did go down with a crash as the burly figure settled itself a little more firmly upon the frail thing. 'I'll be dumbed if I hain't, broke it all to shivers!' the terrified Peterkin exclaimed, as he struggled to his feet, and looked with dismay upon the _débris_. 'What's the damage?' he continued, taking out his pocket-book and ostentatiously showing a fifty-dollar bill. 'Money cannot replace the chair, which once adorned the _salon_ of Madame De Stael,' Arthur said, 'Put up your purse, but for Heaven's sake, never again tip back in your chair. It is a vulgar trick, of which no gentleman would be guilty.' Ordinarily, Peterkin would have resented language like this, but he was just now too anxious to curry favor with Arthur to show any anger, and he answered, meekly: 'That's so, square. 'Tain't good manners, and I know it, as well as the next one. I'm awful sorry about the chair, and think mebby I could get it mended. I'd like to try.' 'Never mind the chair,' Arthur said, with an impatient gesture. 'Try another and a stronger one, and let's go back to business. You want a painted panel for your carriage. How will this do?' and he rapidly sketched a green, pleasant meadow, with a canal running through it, and on the canal a boat, drawn by one horse, which a barefoot, elfish-looking boy was driving. 'I swow, square, you're a trump, you be,' Peterkin exclaimed, slapping him on the back, 'You've hit it to a dot. That's the 'Lizy Ann, and that there boy is Bije Jones, drivin the old spavin hoss. You or'to hev _me_ somewhere in sight, cussin' the hands as I generally was, and May Jane on deck, hangin' her clothes to dry. Could you manage that?' Arthur thought he could, but suggested that Mrs. Peterkin might not like to be made so conspicuous. 'Possibly she will not like this drawing at all. She may think it too suggestive of other days.' 'That's so,' Peterkin assented, a little sadly; 'and if she don't take to it, the old Harry can't make her. She used to be the meekest of wives them days she dried her clothes on the 'Lizy Ann, but she don't knock under wuth a cent sense we riz in the world, and Ann Lizy is wus than her mother. But I'll show this to the old woman and let you know.' May Jane did not approve, neither did Billy. No use, they said, to flaunt the canal, horse, driver, and all in people's faces; and so the discomfited Peterkin went to Arthur again and told him, 'the fat was all in the fire, and May Jane on a rampage.' 'Try again, squire; but give us some kind of water and craft.' So Arthur good-humoredly changed the canal into a gracefully flowing river, in a bend of which, in the distance, there was just visible a boat, which was a cross between a gondola and one of those little dangerous things so common on the lakes of Wisconsin. Standing in the bow of the boat, with folded arms, as if calmly contemplating the scenery, was the figure of a man--suppositively Peterkin--who swore 'he'd keep this picter in spite of 'em;' and as his wife did not seriously object, the sketch was transferred in oil to a pannel and inserted in the carriage, which, when drawn by two shining bays and driven by a colored man in long coat and tall hat, with Peterkin sitting back in it with all the pride and pompousness of a two-millionaire, and May Jane at his side, covered with diamonds, attracted general attention and comment. Billy seldom patronized the carriage, but frequently rode beside it, talking to his mother, of whom he was very fond, and taking off his hat to every person he met, whether old or young, rich or poor. 'Billy is an idiot, but very kind-hearted,' people said of him, and in truth he was popular with everybody, especially with the men in his father's employ, who all went to him for favors, or for an increase of wages; for if Billy had any business it was in his father's office, where he pretended to look after matters and keep the books straight. Such had been the growth of Peterkin during the past nine years. 'He had got clean to the front,' he said, 'and was hob-nobbin' with Squire Harrenton, and Judge St. Claire, and the Tracys,' all of whom shrugged their shoulders and laughed at him in secret, but treated him civilly to his face, for, deny it as we may, money has a mighty power, and will open many a door which nothing else could move. 'Coarse and ignorant as a horse, but not so bad after all' was what people said of him now; and in fact Peterkin had improved and softened a good deal with the accession of wealth. Nobody gave so largely, or lavishly either, to everything, as he did, while to his employees he was always generous and considerate. Once he thought to join the church, thinking that would add to his respectability; but when talked with by his clergyman he showed himself so lamentably deficient in every necessary qualification that he was advised to wait a while, which he did; but he rented the most expensive pew he could find, and carried the largest prayer-book of any one, and read the loudest, stumbling over the words frightfully, and kept his head down the longest, so long, indeed, that he once went to sleep, and had quite a little nap before his wife nudged him and told him to get up. 'Good Lord deliver us!' Was his ejaculation, as he sprang to his feet, and, adjusting his glasses, looked fiercely round at the amused congregation. So far as money and display were concerned, the St. Claires and Mrs. Atherton had not kept up with Peterkin. On the contrary, as he grew into society they gradually withdrew, until at last Dolly Tracy had it all her own way and looked upon herself as the lady _par excellence_ of the town. She had been to Europe. She had seen the queen; she had had some dresses made at Worth's; she had picked up a few French words which she used on all occasions, with but little regard to their appropriateness. She had decorated a tea set, and was as unlike the Dolly Tracy, who once did her own work and ate griddle cakes from her own kitchen stove, as a person well could be. Everything had gone well with her, and scarcely a sorrow had touched her, for though poor, stupid Jack had slept for five years in the Tracy lot with only the woman of the Tramp House for company, he was so near an imbecile when he died that his death was a blessing rather than otherwise. Tom, with his fine figure, his fastidious tastes, and aristocratic notions, was the apple of her eye, and _tout à fait au fait_, she said, when her French fever was at its height and she wished to impress her hearers with her knowledge of the language; while, except for her ill-health, and the bad taste she manifested in her liking for Harold's society, Maude was _tout à fait au fait_, too. She had no dread of Gretchen, now; even Arthur had ceased to talk of her, and was as a rule very quiet and contented. Only her husband troubled her, for with the passing years his silence and abstraction had increased, until now it was nothing remarkable for him to go days without speaking to any one unless he were first spoken to. His hair was white as snow, and made him look years older than he really was; while the habit he had of always walking with his head down, and a stoop in his shoulders, added to his apparent years. During the time Maude was in Europe he grew old very fast, for Maude was all that made life endurable. To see her in her young beauty, flitting about the house and grounds like a bright bird, whose nest is high up in some sheltered spot where the storms never come, was some compensation for what he had done; but when she was gone there came over him such a sense of loneliness and desolation that at times he feared lest he should become crazier than his brother, who really appeared to be improving, although the strange forgetfulness of past events still clung to and increased upon him. He did not now remember ever to have said that Gretchen was with him in the ship or on the train, or that he had sent the carriage so many times to meet her; and when be spoke of her, which he seldom did to any one except to Jerrie, it was as of one who had died years ago. Occasionally, in the winter, when a wild storm was raging like that which had shaken the house and bent the evergreens the night Jerrie came, he would tie a knot of crape upon the picture, but would give no reason for it when questioned except to say, 'Can't you see it is a badge of mourning?' For a week or more it would remain there, and then he would put it carefully away, to be again brought out when the night was wild and stormy. It was during Maude's absence that the two brothers became more intimate than they had been before since Arthur first came home, and it happened in this wise. Every day, for months after Maude and his wife went away, Frank spent hours alone in his private room, sometimes doing nothing, but oftener looking at the photograph of Gretchen, and the Bible with the marked passages and the handwriting around it. Then he would take out the letter about which Jerrie had been so anxious, and examine it carefully, studying the address, which he knew by heart, and beginning at last to arrange the letters in alphabetical order as far as he could, and try to imitate them. It was a difficult process, but little by little, with the assistance of a German text book of Maude's which he found, he learned the alphabet, and began to form words, then to put them together, and then to read. Gradually the work began to have a great fascination for him, and he went to Arthur one day and asked for some assistance. 'Never too old to learn,' he said, 'and as the house is like a tomb without Maude, I have actually taken up German, but find it up-hill business without a teacher. Will you help me?' 'To be sure, to be sure,' Arthur cried, brightening up at once, and bringing out on the instant such a pile of books as appalled Frank and made him wish to withdraw his proposition. But Arthur was eager, and persistent, and patient, and had never respected his brother one half as much as when he was stammering over the German pronunciation, which he could not well master. But he learned to read with a tolerable degree of fluency, and to speak a little, too, while he could understand nearly all Arthur said to him. 'Do you think I could get along in Germany?' he asked his brother, one day. 'Certainly you could,' Arthur replied. Do you think of going there? If you do, go to Wiesbaden, and inquire for Gretchen--how she died, and where she was buried. I should have gone long ago only I dreaded the ocean voyage so confoundedly, and then I forget so badly. When are you going?' 'Oh, I don't know--I don't know as ever,' Frank answered quickly; and yet in his heart there was the firm resolve to go to Wiesbaden and hunt up Marguerite Heinrich's friends, if possible. 'And if I find them, and find my suspicions correct, what shall I do then?' he asked himself over and over again; and once made answer to his question: 'I will either make restitution, or drown myself in the Rhine.' Jerrie was a constant source of misery to Frank, and yet when she was at home he was always managing to have her at the park house, where he could see her, and watch her, as she moved like a young queen though the handsome rooms, or frolicked with Maude upon the lawn. 'She is surely Gretchen's daughter, and Arthur's, too,' he would say to himself, as he, too, detected in her face the likeness to his brother, which had so startled Jerrie in the mirror. He was always exceedingly kind to her, and almost as proud of her success at Vassar as Arthur himself; and on the day when she was expected home he went two or three times to the cottage in the lane, carrying fruit and flowers, and even offering things more substantial, which, however, were promptly declined by Mrs. Crawford, who had signified her intention to take nothing more for Jerrie's board. 'The girl pays for herself, or will,' she said, 'and it is Harold's wish and mine to be independent.' But she accepted the fruit and the flowers and wondered a little to see Frank so excited, and nervous, and anxious that every thing should be done to make Jerrie's final home-coming as pleasant as possible. It was a lovely July afternoon when the young ladies from Vassar were expected, but the train was half an hour late, and the carriage from Grassy Spring and the carriage from Le Bateau had waited so long that both coachmen were asleep upon their respective boxes, when at last the whistle was heard among the hills telling that the cars were coming. The Tracy carriage was not there, though twenty minutes before train time Maude had come down in the victoria, and on learning of the delay had been driven rapidly to the cottage in the lane, from which she had not returned when at last the cars stopped before the station and the young people alighted upon the platform, which, with their luggage, seemed at once to be full. 'Your checks, miss,' the coachman from Grassy Spring said to Nina, as he touched his hat regretfully to her, and his words were repeated to Ann Eliza by the servant from Le Bateau. But Jerrie held hers in her hand with a rueful look of disappointment on her face as she looked in vain for Harold or Maude to greet her. For a single moment the difference between her position and that of Nina and Ann Eliza struck her like a blow, and she thought to herself: 'For them everything, for me nothing.' Then she rallied, and passing her checks to the baggage master, said to him: 'If there is a boy here with a cart or a wheelbarrow, let him take my trunks, otherwise send them by express. I see there is no one to meet me.' 'Yes'm, but they's comin',' the man replied, with a significant nod in the direction where a cloud of dust was visible, as the Tracy victoria came rapidly up to the station, with Maude and Harold in it. The former was standing up and waving her parasol to the party upon the platform, while, almost before the carriage stopped, Harold sprang out, and had both of Jerrie's hands in his, and held them, as he told her how glad he was to welcome her home again. He looked tired and flurried, and did not seem quite himself, but there could be no doubt that he was glad, for the gladness shone in his eyes and in his face, and Jerrie felt it in the warm clasp of his hands, which she noticed with a pang were brown, and calloused, and bruised in some places as if they had of late been used to harder toil than usual. But she had not much time for thought before Maude's arms were around her neck and Maude was standing on tiptoe and drawing down her face which she covered with kisses; and, between laughing and crying, exclaimed: 'You darling old Jerrie, how glad I am to see you again! and how tall and grand you have grown! Why, I don't much more than come to your shoulder. See, Harold, how Jerrie outshines me,' and she lifted her sparkling face to Harold, who looked down at her as a brother might have looked at an only sister of whom he was very fond. How pretty and piquant she was with her brilliant complexion and her black eyes, and how stylish she looked in the Paris gown of embroidered linen, which fitted her perfectly, and the big hat, which turned up just enough on the side to give her a saucy, coquettish air, as she flitted from one to another, kissing Nina twice, Ann Eliza once, and shaking hands with all the young men except Tom, who put his in his pockets out of her way. He could not stand Maude's gush, he said, and he watched her with a half-sneering smile as she tiptoed around, for it always seemed as if she walked upon her toes, courtesying as she walked. 'I meant to have been here before the train,' she said to Jerrie, 'and I was here about an hour ago; but when I found the cars were late I drove over to tell Harold, as time with him was everything. How we did drive, though, when we heard the whistle. Come, jump in,' she continued, as she herself stepped into the victoria. 'Jump in, and I will take you home in a jiffy. It won't hurt Hal to walk, although he is awful tired.' 'But I would rather walk; take Harold, if he is so tired,' Jerrie said, in a tone she did not quite intend. 'Oh, Jerrie,' Harold exclaimed, in a low, pained voice, 'I am not tired, let us both walk,' and going to Maude he said something to her which Jerrie could not hear, except the words, 'Don't you think it better so?' 'Of course I do; it was stupid in me not to see it before,' was Maude's reply, as she laid her hand on Harold's arm where it rested a moment, while she said her good-byes. And Jerrie saw the little, ungloved hand touching Harold so familiarly, and thought how small, and white and thin it was, with the full, blue veins showing so distinctly upon it, and then she looked more closely at Maude herself, and saw with a pang how tired and sick she looked in spite of the bright color in her cheeks which came and went so fast. There was a pallor about her lips and about her nose, while her ears were almost transparent, and her neck was so small that Jerrie felt she could have clasped it with one hand. 'Maude,' she cried, pressing close to the young girl, as Harold stepped aside, 'Maude, are you sick? You are so pale everywhere except your cheeks, which are like roses.' 'No, no,' Maude answered quickly, as if she did not like the question. 'Not sick a bit, only a little tired. We have been at work real hard, Hal and I; but he will tell you about it, and now good-bye again, for I must go, I shall be round in the morning. Good-bye. Oh, Tom, I forgot! We have company to dinner to-night--a Mr. and Mrs. Hart, who are friends of Mrs. Atherton, and have just returned from Germany, bringing Fred's sister, Marian, with them. She has been abroad at school for years, and is very nice. I ought to have told Fred and Nina. How stupid in me! But they will find their invitations when they get home. Now hop in, quick, and don't tear my flounces. You are so awkward.' 'I suppose Hal never tears your flounces,' Tom said, as he took his seat beside his sister, and gave Jerrie a look which sent the blood in great waves to her face and neck, for it seemed to imply that he understood the case and supposed she did too. The St. Claire carriage had driven away with Nina and Dick, and Fred, and the carriage from Le Bateau had gone, too, when at last Jerrie and Harold started down the road and along the highway to the gate through which the strange woman had once passed with the baby Jerrie in her arms. The baby was a young woman now, tall and erect, with her head set high as she walked silently by Harold's side, until the gate was reached and they passed into the shaded lane, where they were hidden from the sight of anyone upon the main road leading to the park house. Then stopping suddenly, she faced squarely toward her companion, and said: 'Why didn't you come to commencement? Tom Tracy said you were shingling a roof, and Billy Peterkin said Maude was helping you.'	{ "id": "15321" }

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