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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Doctor Hathern's daughters, by Mary J.
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Title: Doctor Hathern's daughters
       A story of Virginia, in four parts

Author: Mary J. Holmes

Release Date: June 3, 2023 [eBook #70883]

Language: English

Produced by: Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading
             Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DOCTOR HATHERN'S
DAUGHTERS ***





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                                   BY

                          MRS. MARY J. HOLMES.

                   TEMPEST AND SUNSHINE.
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                   DAISY THORNTON.
                   CHATEAU D’OR.
                   QUEENIE HETHERTON.
                   BESSIE’S FORTUNE.
                   MARGUERITE.
                   DARKNESS AND DAYLIGHT.
                   HUGH WORTHINGTON.
                   CAMERON PRIDE.
                   ROSE MATHER.
                   ETHELYN’S MISTAKE.
                   MILBANK.
                   EDNA BROWNING.
                   WEST LAWN.
                   MILDRED.
                   FORREST HOUSE.
                   MADELINE.
                   CHRISTMAS STORIES.
                   GRETCHEN.
                   DR. HATHERN’S DAUGHTERS. (_New._)

 “Mrs. Holmes is a peculiarly pleasant and fascinating writer. Her books
  are always entertaining, and she has the rare faculty of enlisting the
  sympathy and affections of her readers, and of holding their attention
             to her pages with deep and absorbing interest.”


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                                    BY
                       G. W. DILLINGHAM, PUBLISHER
                               SUCCESSOR TO
                     G. W. CARLETON & CO., New York.




                      DOCTOR HATHERN’S DAUGHTERS.
                  _A STORY OF VIRGINIA, IN FOUR PARTS_


                                    BY

                           MRS. MARY J. HOLMES.

                                AUTHOR OF

      “MARGUERITE,” “TEMPEST AND SUNSHINE,” “MILBANK,” “DARKNESS AND
 DAYLIGHT,” “ENGLISH ORPHANS,” “’LENA RIVERS,” “MADELINE,” “MARION GREY,”
   “HUGH WORTHINGTON,” “ETHELYN’S MISTAKE,” “EDNA BROWNING,” “BESSIE’S
                 FORTUNE,” “WEST LAWN,” “GRETCHEN,” ETC.

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                               NEW YORK.
                     _G. W. Dillingham, Publisher_,
                   SUCCESSOR TO G. W. CARLETON & CO.
                               MDCCCXCV.




                          COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY
                          MRS. MARY J. HOLMES.
                         _All Rights Reserved._




                                PREFACE.


In a large, old-fashioned Virginia house, shaded with elms and covered
with climbing roses, honeysuckle and Virginia creepers, two women sat
one June morning, discussing the practicability of writing a story in
four parts and calling it “Dr. Hathern’s Daughters.” One of the
daughters was to write the opening chapters, and was to be followed at
intervals by her friend, whose sobriquet was to be “The Author.” The
story has been written and is now given to the public as the joint
production of Annie Hathern and

                                                             THE AUTHOR.




                               CONTENTS.


                       PART I.—LIFE AT THE ELMS.

                                                        Page
           Preface                                         7
           Chapter
                I. The Daughters                           9
               II. The Boy in Grey and the Boy in Blue    16
              III. After the War                          31
               IV. A Shadow Begins to Fall                45
                V. Something Does Turn Up                 48
               VI. The Shadow Deepens                     55
              VII. The Coming of the Bride                68
             VIII. Mrs. Hathern                           76
               IX. The Upheaval                           88
                X. A Suspicion                            93
               XI. Aunt Martha                            98
              XII. Norah O’Rourke and Julina             103
             XIII. Carl                                  108
              XIV. The Picnic                            117
               XV. Paul                                  124
              XVI. Little Paul                           132


                       PART II.—FANNY AND JACK.

                I. After Five Years                      146
               II. The Fever                             156
              III. The Engagement                        168
               IV. The House that Jack Built             173
                V. Seeing the World                      180
               VI. Furnishing the House that Jack Built  185
              VII. The 25th of November                  197
             VIII. At the Plateau                        202
               IX. The Letter                            210
                X. The Effect                            229


                    PART III.—FAN-AND-ANN AND JACK.

                I. How Lovering Received the News        239
               II. At The Elms                           248
              III. Jack                                  262
               IV. Christmas at The Elms                 275
                V. On the Celtic                         286
               VI. On the Road to London                 301
              VII. At Morley’s                           306
             VIII. Changes in Lovering                   324
               IX. Fanny                                 338
                X. Jack and Annie                        353
               XI. The House of Mourning                 362
              XII. Going Home                            372
             XIII. A Law to Herself                      378
              XIV. Fanny, or Mrs. Errington              388
               XV. The Tenant at the Plateau             403


                        PART IV.—KATY AND CARL.

                I. In the Old World                      410
               II. Madame                                413
              III. At Homburg                            419
               IV. At Monte Carlo                        424
                V. The Concert                           436
               VI. Julina                                447
              VII. Carl and Katy                         455
             VIII. Conclusion                            461




                        DR. HATHERN’S DAUGHTERS.




                        PART I—LIFE AT THE ELMS.




                        CHAPTER I—ANNIE’S STORY.
                             THE DAUGHTERS.


There are three of us, Fanny and Annie (that is myself) and Katy, who is
our half-sister and several years our junior. Her mother, a blue-eyed,
golden-haired little woman from New Orleans, lived only a year after she
came to us, and just before she died she took my sister’s hand and mine,
and putting one of her baby’s between them, said, “Be kind to her as I
would have been kind to you had I lived. God bless you all.”

We were only nine years old, but we accepted the trust as something
sacred, and little Katy, who inherited all of her mother’s marvelous
beauty and sweetness of disposition, never missed a mother’s love and
care, and was the pet and darling of our household. Fanny and I are
twins,—familiarly known as “Fan-and-Ann,”—and as unlike each other as it
is possible for twins to be. Fan, who always passes for the elder, is
half a head taller than I am, and very beautiful, with a stateliness and
imperiousness of manner which would befit a queen, while I am shy and
reticent and small, and only one has ever called me handsome. But his
opinion is more to me than all the world, and so I am content, although
as a young girl, I used sometimes to envy Fan her beauty, and think I
would rather be known as “the pretty and proud Miss Hathern” than “the
plain and good one,” a distinction often made between us, and one which
I knew made me the more popular of the two.

Our home, which was sometimes called “The Elms,” on account of the great
number of elm trees around it, was in the part of Virginia that felt the
shock of the war the most, and when the thunder of artillery was shaking
the hills around Petersburg and the air was black with shot and shell
and the gutters ran red with human blood, Fanny and I, with little Katy
between us, sat with blanched faces listening to the distant roar,—she
thinking of the cause she had so much at heart and feared was lost, and
I of the thousands of homes made desolate by the dreadful war which, it
seemed to me, need never to have been. As we were southern born we
naturally sympathized with the south,—that is, Fanny did,—while our
father, who was born under the shadow of Bunker Hill, and rarely had any
very decided opinions except for peace and good will everywhere,
scarcely knew on which side he did stand. Both were right and both were
wrong, he said, and he opposed secession with all his might, insisting
that there must be some better method of settling the difficulty than by
plunging the nation into a sea of carnage.

He was for “peace at any price,” and held the flag as a sacred thing,
and at last when war was upon us, he reverently laid away in the garret
the one with which we were wont to celebrate the Fourth of July, and
night and morning prayed for both sides,—not that either might be
victorious, but that they might settle the difficulty amicably and go
home.

My mother, whom I can scarcely remember, was a Charlestonian, who
believed in slavery as a divine institution, and was the kindest and
gentlest of mistresses to the few negroes she brought with her to her
Virginia home. For myself I scarcely knew what I did believe, except as
I was swayed by a stronger spirit than my own, and that spirit was
Fan’s. She was an out and out rebel, as we were called, and lamented
that instead of a girl of thirteen she was not a man to join the first
company of volunteers which went from Lovering. Situated as we were,
near the frontier, we were fair prey for the soldiers on both sides, and
they came upon us like the locusts of Egypt and spoiled us almost as
badly as the Egyptians were spoiled by the Israelites, but from neither
north nor south did we ever suffer a personal indignity. This was
largely owing to our father’s incomparable tact in dealing with them. It
seemed to me that he was always watching for them, and when he came in
from the street, or the gate where he spent a great deal of his time, I
could tell to a certainty whether we were to expect a Federal or a
Confederate before he spoke a word. If it were the latter he came to me
and said, “Annie, there are soldiers in town and if they come here, as
they may, stay in your room until they are gone.” If it were the boys in
blue, he went to Fan, but did not tell her to stay in her room. He knew
she would not if he did, and he would say in his most conciliatory way,
“Daughter, I think there are some Federals in the woods, and if they
come here as they may because the house is large and handy, try and be
civil to them, and don’t be afraid.”

“Afraid!” Fan would answer, with a flash in her black eyes. “Do you
think I would be afraid if the entire northern army stood at our door!”

Then she would hurry off to warn the blacks in the kitchen and see that
the coffee and sugar and tea were hidden away, while father walked down
to the gate to receive the foremost of his unwelcome guests. With a
courtly wave of the hand, which he might have borrowed from kings, he
would say, “What can I do for you to-day? I suppose you are hungry, but
we have been visited so often that we have not much left. Still I think
we can give you something; but, gentlemen, I beg of you not to annoy or
frighten my daughters. They are very young and their mother is dead.”

Whether it was what he said, or the way he said it, or both, his wishes
so far as we were concerned were respected, and neither Fanny nor I ever
came near a boy in blue or a boy in grey that he did not touch his cap
to us, and when Fan’s sharp tongue got the better of her, as it often
did, they only laughed, and told her to “dry up,” a bit of slang she did
not then understand and resented hotly as a Yankee insult. They took our
poultry and eggs and fruit and flour and finally all our negroes, except
Phyllis, who had her bundle made up to go, and then found that her love
for “Ole Mas’r” and the young “misseses” was stronger than her love for
freedom.

On one occasion they took Black Beauty, Fan’s riding pony, but sent it
back within a few hours. This was toward the close of the war, when
Virginia was full of Federal troops, and for one day and night our place
was turned into a kind of barracks by a company whose leader, Col.
Errington, occupied our best room and took his meals with us. He was a
tall, handsome man, with a splendid physique and the most polished
manners I ever saw. But there was a cynical look about his mouth and a
cold, hard expression in his grey eyes, which I did not like, while Fan
detested him. She was then a beautiful girl of nearly seventeen, with a
haughty bearing and frankness of speech which amused the northern
officer, to whom she expressed her mind very freely, not only with
regard to his calling, but also with regard to himself. But he took it
all good-humoredly, and when he went away he kissed his hand to her,
while to me he simply bowed.

“The wretch! How dare he!” Fanny said, with a stamp of her foot.

But she watched him until he disappeared from sight in the woods,
through which there was a short cut in the direction of Petersburg. Most
of his men followed him, but a few stragglers lingered behind for the
sake of whatever they could find in the shape of eatables, and when at
last they departed, Phyllis, who had been doing battle with them over a
quantity of butternuts which she claimed as her special property, came
running to the house with the startling information that “one dem blue
coats done took off Miss Fanny’s pony, who kicked and snorted jes ’s if
he knowed ’twas a fetched Yank who had cotched him.”

Rushing to the door we saw the pony going down the lane, or rather
standing in the lane, for he had planted his forefeet firmly on the
ground, and with mulish obstinacy refused to move. A sharp cut from the
whip, however, brought him to terms, and he went galloping off with his
heels in the air quite as often as upon terra firma. I think Fan
followed him bareheaded for nearly a mile, but all her calls and
entreaties were in vain. Black Beauty was gone, and she cried herself
into a headache which lasted until night, when, just as we were sitting
down to supper, Phyllis came near dropping the hot corn cakes she was
putting upon the table in her surprise and delight as she exclaimed,
“Bress de Lord, dar’s Black Beauty now.”

Looking from the window we saw a soldier in blue leading him toward the
house and trying hard to hold him as he minced and pranced and shook his
head in his delight to be home again. In a moment he was at the open
door where he often came to be fed with sugar or cookies and Fan’s arms
were around his neck and she was talking to him as if he was human and
could understand her, while he whinnied in reply and rubbed his head
against her face.

“Col. Errington sent you this with his compliments,” the soldier said,
handing a note to Fan, which was as follows:

  “DEAR MISS HATHERN

  “I have just learned of the abduction of your pony, and am very sorry
  for the anxiety it must have caused you. I am sure it is yours, as you
  ran so far after him, and for that reason I should like to keep him
  for myself. But honor compels me to send him back.

  “Hoping that you will not add the sin of thieving to my other
  enormities and that in the near future we may meet as friends instead
  of foes,

                                          “I am, yours very truly,
                                                  “GEORGE W. ERRINGTON.”

Fan’s first impulse, after reading this, was to tear it up, but she
changed her mind, and I heard her tell Phyllis to give the soldier some
supper, if he wanted it.

“I suppose the tramp is hungry; they always are,” she said,
apologetically, as her eyes wandered across the orchard to the enclosure
on the hillside where, under the pine trees, our boy in grey was lying,
with a boy in blue beside him.

That night I saw Fan put Col. Errington’s note in a little box on our
dressing bureau, where she kept her few trinkets, but his name was not
mentioned between us until after the fall of Richmond, when Jack
Fullerton, our neighbor, who had been in the war and who knew about
Fan’s pony and the officer, whom he teasingly called Fan’s Yankee,
brought a Washington paper in which we read that Col. Errington, who was
so severely wounded at Petersburg, was recovering rapidly and would soon
be able to be moved into his house on Franklin Square.

“I suppose you are very glad that your gallant Colonel is getting well,”
Jack said, and Fan replied, “Of course I am. Do you think me a murderess
that I want any man to die.”

“I thought at one time you would like to exterminate the entire Federal
army,” Jack said, and Fan replied, “So I would, and I have no love for
them now; but can’t a body change some of his views?”

And, truly, Fan’s views were greatly changed from what they were at the
beginning of the war, to which time I must go back for a little and tell
of the boy in grey and the boy in blue, who brought the change and who,
though dead, have much to do with this story.




                         CHAPTER II—AN EPISODE.
                  THE BOY IN GREY AND THE BOY IN BLUE.


I have written of Dr. Hathern’s daughters, but have said nothing of his
son, our brother Charlie, who was four years our senior and little more
than a boy when the war broke out. Too young by far to join the army,
father and I said. But Fan thought differently, and when the clouds of
strife grew darker and denser and there were calls for more recruits she
urged him on until at last he enlisted and we saw him with others march
away on the Monday after the Easter of ’62. How handsome he was in his
new uniform, and how proud we were of him, he was so tall and straight,
with such a sunny smile on his boyish face and in his laughing blue
eyes.

“Bress de boy; he look like Sol’mon in all his best clos’,” Phyllis
said, regarding him admiringly when he put them on, “an’ though I spec’s
I’se a mighty bad un seein’ I’se a nigger and one of Linkum’s folks, I
hope he’ll beat ’em sho’.”

“Beat them! Of course we shall!” Fan said, putting her arms around
Charlie’s neck and laying a hand on the shoulder of Jack Fullerton, who
had also enlisted. “Of course we shall beat them. The Northerners are
all cowards. One or two battles will end the matter and you will come
marching home covered with glory.”

She was talking mostly to Jack, flashing upon him a look from her bright
eyes which would have made a less brave man face the cannon’s mouth.
Jack had been my hero since my earliest remembrance, although I knew
that he preferred Fan, who was tall and fair and comely, while I was
short and dark and homely. It was mainly owing to her influence that he
had enlisted, and he was to dine with us that Easter Day as his father
was dead and his mother, who was an invalid, was away at some springs.
How bright we made the house with the lilies Charlie was so fond of,
saying they made him think of his mother and the angels, and I never see
one now, nor inhale its perfume, that it does not bring Charlie back to
me as he was that last day at home when there were great bowls of them
on the mantels and stands and dinner table, which was loaded with every
delicacy Phyllis could devise. The rooms looked as if decked for a
bridal, but they seemed like a funeral, we were all so sad, except Fan.
She was in the wildest of spirits and talked of the next Easter when the
war would be over, and Charlie with us again, wearing shoulder straps
may be, or at all events covered with honor as a soldier who had done
his duty.

“You are not going to be shot, but to shoot somebody,” she said, patting
him on his back. “And we’ll trim the house up better than it is to-day,
and Phyllis shall make her best plum pudding, and I shall be so proud of
you,” she added, throwing her arms around his neck, and kissing him
lovingly.

The next morning he went away and we saw him marching by to the sound of
the fife and drum, while I cried as if my heart would break, but Fanny
stood upon the horse block by the gate and sent kisses after him until a
turn in the road hid him from our sight. We heard from him often during
the summer, for many men from our county were in the same regiment, and
so, from one and another and from himself word came to us that he was
well and had as yet seen no actual fighting, though very anxious to do
so. Then the tone of his letters changed a little and he was not quite
so ready to fight.

“I tell you what, Fan-and-Ann,” he wrote, “the boys in blue are not such
milksops as you think. I have seen quite a lot of ’em, and they are a
pretty good sort after all, and they gave me tobacco and hard tack and a
newspaper, and said they’d nothing against me personally, but they had
enlisted to lick just such upstarts and were going to do it. I’d smile
to see them.”

“And so would I,” Fan said, with the utmost scorn, “lick us indeed! I
wish I were a man!”

She was growing more bitter every day, and when one evening Phyllis came
to me privately and said there was a half-starved Federal soldier hiding
in the corn-field, I did not dare tell Fan, but went to him with Phyllis
after dark and carried him bread and milk and a blanket to cover him and
an umbrella to shield him from the rain. The third day he went away and
I never heard from him again until the war was over, when I received a
badly written letter, directed wrong side up and signed James Josh, who
thanked me for my kindness which he had never forgotten. I passed the
letter to Fan, who surprised me by saying, “Yes, I knew all about it; I
saw you steal off into the corn-field and saw you feeding that poor
wretch, and only a thought of Charlie and what I’d wish someone to do
for him kept me from giving notice that a Yankee was hiding in our
field. I knew when he went away and saw you and Phyllis coddle him up
with sandwiches and hoe-cake and father’s old coat, and you took me to
task for flirting in front of the house with Jack Fullerton, who was
home on a furlough, when I was really trying to keep him as long as
possible so as to let your James Josh get out of the way.”

Fanny was greatly softened at that time and not much like the fierce,
outspoken girl who kept us up to fever heat during the second year of
the war when the weeks and months dragged so slowly until at last it was
winter and news came of the terrible battle of Fredericksburg, when the
woods were filled with the dead and dying and the river ran red with
blood. Three days after the battle they brought Charlie to us dead, with
a bullet in his side and a look of perfect peace on his young face,
smooth yet and fair as a girl’s. Some of his friends had found him in
the woods, and rather than leave him there had at the risk of their own
lives managed to have him carried across the country until at the close
of the third day he lay in our best room where so many lilies had been
when he went away, but which now echoed to father’s sobs and mine as we
bent over our dead boy. Fan never shed a tear, but in a cold, hard voice
told the men where to put the body, and then with a start, exclaimed,
“What does this mean?” and she pointed to his uniform, which was not the
grey he had worn away, but the blue she so hated, and which was much too
small for him.

“Some thief exchanged with him, for see, there is no hole where the
bullet struck him,” she continued, looking at the coat which was stained
with blood, but whole. “Phyllis, come here,” she went on, while father
and I sat dumb and helpless, “take off that garb of a dog and put his
own clothes on him, his best ones, hanging in his room.”

Phyllis obeyed, and when the soiled and bloody garments lay upon the
floor, Fan said, “give me the tongs, I am going to burn them up.”

Then father arose and reaching out his shaking hands saved the blue
uniform from the flames.

“Wait, Fan,” he said; “there may be something in the pockets which will
tell us whose clothes they are. Remember there are more aching hearts
than ours.”

He was feeling in the trousers pockets where securely pinned in the
bottom of one was the half sheet of paper which we had fastened in the
top of Charlie’s cap because it was too large. The paper was written
over in a scrawly hand which was not Charlie’s, and Fan read it aloud
with the tears streaming down her cheeks, just as mine are falling now,
as I copy it verbatim:

  “DEAR FATHER AND FAN-AND-ANN:

  “I am dying under a tree in the woods with a bullet in me and a boy’s
  cap stuffed into the wound to keep the blood back, while I tell him
  what to write. Lucky Fan-and-Ann thought to put that paper in my cap.
  The boy, who is a Yankee, found me and brought me some water and
  covered me with his coat when I got cold and stuffed his cap into the
  hole and cried over me, and I cried too, and we’ve talked it over and
  are as sorry as we can be—about the war, I mean. I hope I didn’t kill
  anybody and he hopes he didn’t, and his left hand is almost shot away
  and hurts him awful, but he’s going to stick to me till I’m dead. Then
  I’ve told him how to find his way to you and tell you about me, and
  you must take care of him and not let them get him. He don’t want to
  go to prison, and I don’t want to have him, and he’s going to change
  clothes with me so as to look like a confederate. We’ve said the
  Lord’s Prayer together, and Now I lay me, and the Creed, and dearly
  beloved, and everything we could think of and he knows them just as I
  do and I reckon I’m all right with God, only I’d like to die at home.
  It’s getting dark and the boy is tired and I am faint. Kiss little
  Katy for me. I wish I could see you all again.

  “Good-bye, be kind to the boy. Give my respects to Phyllis.

                                                              “CHARLIE.”

This was the letter and I need not say that the blue uniform was not
burned; neither did I know what became of it until after the funeral was
over and I had courage to go into my brother’s room where I found it
hanging on the wall and over it the Stars and Stripes which Fan had
brought from their hiding place and put above the faded blue, from which
the blood stains could not be effaced, although Phyllis had washed it
two or three times. Every day Fan and I went in and looked at it and
cried over it and talked of _The Boy_ and wondered who he was and when,
if ever, he would come.

“What shall you do if he does?” I asked her once, but she only glared at
me like a tiger and I was glad to escape from the scornful gleam of her
eyes.

And thus the weeks glided into months and it was spring again and the
Virginia woods were lovely in their dress of green; the robins were
building their nests in the trees and the lilies we were to lay on
Charlie’s grave at Easter were just breaking into bloom. Father had gone
to visit a patient, Katy was at school, and Fan and I sat by the
dining-room fire when Phyllis came in, and, cautiously shutting the
door, said in a mysterious whisper, “He’s done come.”

“Who has come?” I asked, and Phyllis replied, “The Boy, to be sho’; him
you’re spectin’, honey, Mas’r Charles’s boy, and oh, de Lord, such a bag
of bones, and so scar’t for fear he’ll be took.”

“Where is he?” Fan asked, springing to her feet.

“In my cabin, in course. Whar should he be?” was Phyllis’s answer, and
in a moment Fan and I were on our way to the cabin, the door of which we
could not open.

“Go to the windy behine de cabin, honey,” Phyllis said, puffing after us
like an engine.

We went to the rear window, which was open, and through which Fan darted
like a cat, while I followed almost as quickly. Against the door a most
heterogenous mass of furniture was piled. A table, two wooden chairs, a
wash tub, iron kettle, stewpan, skillet and billet of wood, while a
large nail was driven over the latch.

“What upon earth is this for. I should think you were shutting out an
army,” Fan said, and Phyllis, who had managed to squeeze through the
window, replied, “An’ so I is, de Federate’s army, too. I’se not gwine
to have him took, an’ he beggin’ of me not to; I’ll spill my heart’s
blood first.”

She had seized a big rolling pin which she flourished energetically,
looking as if she might keep a whole regiment at bay.

“Move those things and open that door,” Fan said authoritatively, and
then we turned our attention to the boy, lying on Phyllis’s bed, a mere
skeleton, with masses of light curly hair and great sunken blue eyes
which looked up at us so pitifully as we bent over him.

“You won’t let ’em get me?” he whispered, with a faint smile, “I am so
sick and my head aches so, and my hand is so bad. He said you were good,
but I didn’t know there were two of you; which is Fan-an-Ann?”

Fan and I looked curiously at each other a moment; then, remembering
that Charlie always spoke of us as Fan-an-Ann, and that it was so
written in the letter, we understood his mistake. But it was Fan who
answered, for I could only stand and cry over this wreck of a boy, with
Charlie’s battered clothes upon him, too long and large every way, and
covered with soil and blood stains. What remained of his left hand was
bound in a dirty rag and quivered with pain as it lay on the coarse
blanket.

“What shall we do?” I asked at last, and Fan answered in her imperious
way, which always made one feel small.

“Do! Go to the house and get Charlie’s bed ready, and bring me his
dressing gown and a shirt and drawers from his trunk. This is no time to
cry.”

I knew then that Lee’s entire army could not wrest that boy from Fan,
who helped Phyllis remove his stiff garments and wash the aching limbs,
scarcely larger than sticks, and who herself undid the bandage from the
wounded hand which she bathed so carefully and bound up so skillfully in
the lint and linen which I brought her; then, when all was done, she
wrapped a blanket around him and took him in her own strong arms, not
daring to trust him to Phyllis, who weighed a hundred and eighty and was
apt to stumble. It was curious to see Fan, who had been so bitter
against the north, carrying that Yankee boy up to the house and laying
him on Charlie’s bed, at the foot of which, on the wall, his own uniform
was hanging. He saw it at once, for his eyes seemed to see everything,
and with a smile on his white face, he said, “Why, there’s my old
clothes. They were too small for him but I managed to get them on him as
he told me, and I pinned the letter in his pockets, thinking if he got
to you and I didn’t, you’d know; did you find it?”

“Yes,” Fan answered, “and now tell me why you were so long in coming?”

He was very weak and could only talk at intervals in whispers, as he
replied, “I lost the way and was sick in a negro’s cabin ever so long.
They took as good care of me as they could and hid me away when danger
was near,—sometimes under the bed, and once in the pounding barrel, and
once in the meal chest, where I was nearly smothered.”

“Hid you from what?” Fan asked, and he replied, with a gleam in his blue
eyes, “From the rebels, of course, don’t you know I’m a Yank?”

“Yes; go on and tell us of Charlie,” Fan said, a little sharply, and he
went on very slowly and stopping sometimes with closed eyes, as if he
were asleep.

“I was in the battle,—Fredericksburg, you know. It was awful. ’Twas the
first I had really been in, and I was so scar’t, and wanted to run away,
but couldn’t; when I got over it I guess I was crazy with the roar and
shouts and yells from horses and dying men. Did you ever hear a thousand
men scream in mortal pain?”

Fan shook her head and he continued: “It’s awful, but the horses are the
worst; I hear them now. I shall always hear them till I die.”

He stopped and there came a look upon his face which we feared was
death. But Fan bathed his forehead with eau-de-cologne and moistened his
lips with water until he revived, and said, “Where did I leave off. Oh,
yes, I know; till I die. I got over being scar’t and fought like a
bloodhound and wanted to kill them all. I am sorry now and hope I didn’t
kill any one. Do you think I did?”

Fan did not answer, and he continued: “When it was over, I got separated
from our army somehow and wandered in the woods and cried, my hand ached
so, and I was so cold and hungry. Then I heard somebody crying harder
than I, or groaning like, and I hunted till I found him under a tree,
all bloody and white. I knew he was a boy in grey, but I didn’t care,
nor he either; we was boys together, and I knelt down by him and told
him I was sorry and asked what I could do.”

“‘Write to Fan-an-Ann,’ he said, and I wrote it on a stone, and my hand
hurt me so; we said some prayers together, Our Father, and Now I lay me,
and some more that we made up about forgiving us and going to Heaven;
and he’s all right and was awfully sorry about the war, and so am I, and
when he got took in his head he talked of Easter and the lilies which
you have then, and said he could smell them, and he said a good deal
about Fan-an-Ann. And then I took his head in my lap and kissed him and
he kissed me for his father and for Fan-an-Ann, and he said I was to
tell her he was not afraid, for he was going to his mother, and then he
died—Oh, yes, he said something about little Katy and kissing her. Don’t
cry, it makes me feel so bad,” and opening his great blue eyes he looked
at Fan, down whose face the tears were running like rain, and who,
stooping down, pressed her lips to those of the boy who had kissed our
dying brother.

“Go on,” she said softly, and he went on: “I changed clothes as he told
me and prayed that his folks might find him and bring him to you and
that I might get here, too, and not be taken prisoner, and I have, but
the way was so long and hard and I am so tired and sick and sorry. You
won’t let them get me, sure?”

“Never!” and Fan made me think of some wild animal guarding its young,
as she drew the sheet over the boy, whose mind began to wander and from
whom we could extract but little more and that little was very
unsatisfactory.

It was Fan who talked most with him and who asked him his name.

“My real one, or the one I had with the boys?” he said, and she replied,
“your real one, so I can write to your mother.”

There was a look of cunning in his bright eyes, as he replied, “I hain’t
no mother, except Aunt Martha, and she won’t care, and I don’t want her
to know. I ran away from her and enlisted after a while. I was _Joe_
with the boys, but that ain’t the name they gave me in baptism. Do you
know the Apostles?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I am one of them. Now guess,” he said, and beginning with Matthew
and ending with Paul Fan went over the entire list, but the expression
of the boy’s face never changed in the least; nor did he give any sign
when she spoke his name, if she did speak it.

“Joe will do,” he said. “Aunt Martha has washed her hands of me a good
many times. She was always washing them. She don’t mind whether I am Joe
or an Apostle.”

“But where is your home? Where does Aunt Martha live?” Fan asked, and he
replied, “She don’t live there now.”

Evidently he did not care to talk of his home, which could not have been
a very happy one, judging from what he did say. He called me
_Ann-an-Fan_, while Fan was _Fan-an-Ann_, and his eyes brightened when
she came near him, and he smiled upon her in a way which always brought
the tears.

“You are just as good as northern folks,” he said to her once, “and I am
sorry I came down to lick you; I wish I had something to give you. Where
are my trousers?” Phyllis had washed and ironed the ragged greys and put
back in the pocket everything she found there—a jews-harp, a ball of
twine, some nails, and a pearl handled knife with three blades, two of
which were broken; this with the jews-harp he gave to Fan to remember
him by, he said.

“Carlyle gave me the knife one Christmas, and I gave him a lead pencil.
I couldn’t get anything more, for I hadn’t any money. I’d been bad; I
was always bad, and Aunt Martha wouldn’t give me any,” he said, and when
Fan asked him who Carlyle was, he answered, “Oh, a boy I used to know
and like. If you see him tell him so, and that I have never told that he
took the cake, and wouldn’t if I lived to be a hundred. Aunt Martha
whaled me for it, and my, didn’t she put it on; I was too big to be
thrashed, and I ran away not long after that, and went to a grocery and
then to the war, and she thinks now that I stole the cake!”

This was all we could possibly get from him, and we did not know how
much reliance to put upon it, he was delirious so much of the time.

At first father thought to amputate his hand but finally gave that up.
It was useless to torture him, he said, as he could not last long, and
he did not. It was Monday evening when he came to us and he lingered for
three days, sometimes sleeping quietly and sometimes raving about the
war and Charlie and the long weary road he had traveled to reach us and
Fan-an-Ann and Ann-an-Fan, clinging most to Fan, who watched him day and
night as tenderly as if it had been Charlie instead of one of the race
she had affected to hate. Once he seemed to be at his old home, and in
fear of punishment, for he begged piteously of Aunt Martha to spare him
from something, we could not tell what, and he asked us twice not to let
her find him, saying he would not go back to her. Again he spoke of a
little out of the way town in Maine which Fan wrote down for future
reference. Everything about him was wrapped in mystery except the fact
that he was there with us, the boy who had cared for our dying brother
and for whom we cared to the last. When the morning of Good Friday
dawned he sank into a stupor from which we thought he would never
awaken, but when the church bell rang for service he started up and
opening his eyes said to Fan, “What’s that? Is it Sunday and must I go
to Sunday School? I hain’t my lesson.”

“It is Good Friday,” Fan replied, and he continued: “Oh, yes; Good
Friday, and Easter; I know. We had ’em down in Maine, and the lilies,
too, that he told me about in the woods, and I once spoke a piece. Do
you want to hear it?”

Fan nodded, and raising himself in bed, he began:

                  Softly now the Easter sunlight
                    Falls on Judea’s wooded hills,
                  Shining redly through the tree tops,
                    Lighting up the running rills.

                  While all things in earth and heaven
                    Sing aloud with one acclaim
                  Glory in the highest, Glory,
                    Glory be to Jesus’ name.

“There was a lot more, but I can’t remember how it goes. Carlyle spoke a
piece, too, and did first rate for a little shaver. I taught it to him,
but ’twas hard work, as he’d rather play with Don,—that’s the dog. Tell
him good-bye, and good-bye Fan-an-Ann, and Ann-an-Fan. Queer that
there’s two of you. I don’t believe he knew, but I’ll tell him, and that
they were good to me and didn’t let ’em catch me. Now say ‘Our Father,’
for I am getting sleepy, and it is growing dark.”

It was Fan who said it; I could not speak, for I saw the death pallor
gather on the face of the boy, who repeated with Fan the familiar words.

“That makes it about square with me and Jesus, and I guess that he won’t
turn off a poor boy like me,” he said, and then for a time he was back
again at Fredericksburg, fighting like a little bear; then with Charlie
in the woods singing a low lullaby such as mothers sing to their
restless infants; then in the meal chest and under the bed and in the
pounding barrel, shivering with fear, and at last with Fan-an-Ann, who
he said was a _brick_. Then he seemed to listen intently, and whispered,
“Hark. Don’t you hear the guns? how they bang away; and how red the
river runs; and how fast the men go down! Oh, God, have pity on us all.”

For a moment he lay quiet; then, rousing again, called out triumphantly,
“The war is over; the victory is won; Hurrah for——.” He meant to say
“The boys in blue.” He had said it often in his delirium, but something
in Fan’s eyes checked him, and after looking steadily at her an instant
he raised his right arm in the air and called out in a clear, shrill
voice, “Hurrah for Fan-an-Ann; three cheers and a tiger, too!” then the
hand dropped upon his breast and The Boy was dead.

The neighbors for miles around had heard of him and many had come to us
bringing delicacies and flowers and offering assistance, if it were
needed. The aid Fan declined, but took the flowers and fruit to the boy,
telling him who sent them.

“They are very kind,” he said. “I guess I’m some reconstructed, though I
am a Yank yet and stick to the flag. _Yes, sir!_”

Neither Fan nor I could repress a smile at the energy with which he
asserted his loyalty to his cause, and neither liked him the less for
it. Fan, too, must have been “some reconstructed,” for she cared for him
to the last as tenderly as if he had been her brother, and when he was
dead, she with Phyllis made him ready for the grave, crying over him as
she had not cried when Charlie died. Then her tears would not come, but
now they fell in torrents as she brushed his wavy hair, which had grown
rather long and lay in soft rings about his forehead, giving him the
look of a young girl, rather than a boy, whose age we could not guess.
We cut off two or three of his curls and put them, with the letter he
had written for Charlie, into the pocket of the blue uniform which, with
the grey, we left hanging on the wall in Charlie’s room.

We buried him on Easter day, and he had the largest funeral ever seen in
the neighborhood, for everybody came, and his coffin, over which we hung
the Federal flag, was heaped with lilies, which were afterwards dropped
into his grave. Then we tried to find his friends, but with only Aunt
Martha and Carlyle and the little town in Maine to guide us, it proved a
fruitless task.

Fan wrote to the postmaster of the town in Maine, giving all the
particulars, and after two months or more she received an answer from
the postmaster’s wife, who said that during the first year of the war a
company had gone from an adjoining town and in it was a boy, who gave
his name as Joseph Wilde. He was a comparative stranger in town and had
been for a short time in the employ of a grocer, who spoke very highly
of him. But where he came from no one knew, or if he had any friends.
And that was all we could learn of “The Boy,” whom we buried on the
hillside beside our brother. At the head of his grave is a plain marble
slab, and on it “The Boy, who died Good Friday, 1863.” This was Fan’s
idea, and every Decoration Day after the war was over she used to hang
the Stars and Bars over Charlie’s grave and the Stars and Stripes over
the grave of The Boy, who has slept there now for many a year and will
sleep there until from the North and the South, the East and the West,
the boys in blue and the boys in grey will come together, a vast army,
and what was crooked to them here will be made plain and we, who now see
through a glass darkly, will then see face to face in the light of the
Resurrection morning.




                              CHAPTER III.
                             AFTER THE WAR.


We had done our best to win and had failed. We were conquered, but in
Lovering at least we accepted the situation and rejoiced for the peace
and quiet which came to us with the disappearance of the soldiers from
our soil. Even Fan was glad to go to bed feeling sure that her sleep
would not be disturbed by the tramp of horses’ feet or the clamor of
hungry men for food and shelter. Our little town had been visited so
often by both armies and levied on so frequently for means to carry on
the war that its people were greatly impoverished. Whether it were that
our house was larger and our accommodations generally more ample, or
that our father’s manner of receiving an unwelcome visitor was different
from our neighbors, we seemed to have suffered most. Our horses and cows
and sheep were gone. Our negroes were gone with the exception of
Phyllis, who, after her first attempt to leave, stood firmly by us,
refusing wages after she knew she was free.

Only poor white truck work for pay, and she wasn’t one of them, she
said.

Our timber was damaged for the soldiers had cut down the trees in our
woods for their camp fires, and worst of all our father’s patients were
mostly gone. Belonging to the old school, in which he believed as he did
in his religion, he adhered strictly to his morphine and calomel, and
when a young physician from Richmond opened an office in town, with
little bottles and little pills, and prices to correspond, the people
flocked to him, and father was left with only a few patients and a long
list of uncollectible bills against some of the deserters. Both Fan and
I inclined to homeopathy and urged him to adopt it to some extent, but
he shook his head. He had sat on the fence during the war, he said, and
received only kicks from either side, and now he should stick to his
principles and allopathy if he starved. We did not starve, but we were
at times in great straits. Fan and I made over our old dresses for
ourselves and little Katy, and we brushed and mended father’s clothes,
which, in spite of our care grew more and more threadbare and shabby
until his dress coat was the only garment which was not shiny and had
not more or less darns in it. This he always wore to dinner, partly from
habit, partly to please us, and more I think to please old Phyllis, who
felt that the glory of the family had not quite departed so long as the
swallow tail appeared at dinner, even if it were laid aside the moment
the meal was over. There was no denying the fact that grim poverty was
staring us in the face, and no one felt it more keenly than Phyllis,
who, although she would take nothing from us, offered to hire out for
wages which she would give to us. This we would not allow, and we
struggled on through the summer, raising and selling what we could from
our land, which we all worked together, and living on as little as it
was possible for five people to live upon. Fan suffered the most, she
was so proud and so luxurious in her tastes and so averse to any thing
like economy.

“I’d do anything for money,” she said one day to Jack Fullerton, who was
helping us pick our grapes, which he was to sell for us in Petersburg.

Jack had won his shoulder-straps and was a lieutenant when the war
closed, but he dropped the title with his uniform and was only Jack to
us,—a handsome, honest-hearted young man, whom everybody liked, whom I
adored in secret, and whom Fan worried and teased and flirted with
outrageously. She knew he loved her, and I believed she loved him in
return. But she encouraged him one day and repelled him the next, saying
often in his presence that she should never marry unless the man had
money and it would be useless for one without it to offer himself to
her.

“Then I’d better not do it,” Jack would say, jokingly, with the most
intense love burning in his eyes and sounding in his voice.

“No, you’d better not, if you don’t want me to refuse to speak to you
again,” she would answer, with a laugh and a look which only made him
more in love than ever.

He knew she cared for him, and that it was only the barrier of poverty
which stood between them. And so they joked and quarreled and made up,
and he was with us every day, helping in the garden and yard and at
last with the grapes, of which we had quantities that year. Father was
in Boston, where he had gone on some business which he hoped might
result in a little profit. While there he had, through the influence
of a friend, been called to see a Mrs. Haverleigh, who was very ill.
As her family physician was in Europe she had asked him to attend her
until she was better. To this he had consented and had been gone from
home three or four weeks. Knowing that our grapes must be picked Jack
had offered his services and on a lovely September morning we were all
out by the vines filling the baskets with great purple clusters of
fruit which Jack sometimes cut for us and sometimes Fan, who was in
wild spirits. She had taken her turn at cutting and was sitting half
way up the step-ladder, looking very lovely and picturesque against
the green background, in her old black skirt and scarlet jacket, with
the bright color in her face and her hair blowing around her forehead.
A handsome carriage drawn by a span of fine horses had gone by. Its
occupants,—a gentleman and lady,—seemed to be scanning our house
curiously. We could see the lady distinctly and felt sure she was from
some city, Richmond presumably, and Fan was speculating about her and
wishing she could ride in her carriage, when I heard a step on the
grass, and a tall distinguished-looking man came towards us. In his
citizen’s dress I did not at once recognize him; but Fan did, and,
without coming from her perch, exclaimed, “Col. Errington!”

Then I knew the handsome officer, who had once been our guest and who
now greeted us with the smile I remembered so well, because it had in it
something so cold and patronizing.

“Good afternoon, Colonel,” Fan said to him. “You have come back to see
your conquered enemies, I suppose. We heard of your promotion and of the
bullet wound some of our boys gave you at Petersburg. Was it in your
back?”

She was very saucy, and for an instant a hot color flamed into the
Colonel’s face, and there came into his grey eyes a red look such as I
had seen once or twice when he was quartered upon us and his men
displeased him. But it quickly faded under the spell of Fan’s beauty,
and the light which flashed from her eyes and belied her words.

Laughing good-humoredly, the colonel replied, “Rebellious as ever, I
see; I hoped I might find you reconstructed.”

“Not a bit of it,” Fan said, stepping down from the ladder and running
her fingers through her hair, by which means she left a long mark of
grape juice on her forehead. “We are just as big rebels as ever. You
beat us because you had more men and money, and we were obliged to give
up. It was like a big dog fighting a little dog, which has just as much
courage and more, too, than the big one, but is finally worn out by
strength rather than by skill. Do you see the point?”

“Yes, I see,” he said, “and in Constantinople I have also seen the big
dog, after the fight was over, take the little one in its paws and toss
it up and fondle it as if there had been no bone of contention. I hope
it may be so in this case.”

There was no mistaking the admiration with which the Colonel regarded
Fan. Jack saw it and drew a step nearer to her, while she answered
hotly, “Never! We are not Turks, and only a dog would suffer itself to
be fondled by the hand which had whipped it.” Then she added with a
laugh: “Don’t let us quarrel over spilled milk, but let me present to
you my friend, Lieut. Fullerton, Col. Errington.”

During the skirmish between the Colonel and Fan, I had mentally
contrasted the two men, Jack and the Colonel, between whose ages there
was a difference of several years. Both were tall and erect, with a
bearing which comes only from military discipline. By the majority of
people the Colonel would have been called the finer looking, as he was
the more _distingué_, with his polish and air of fashion and city
breeding. But to me he bore no comparison to Jack Fullerton, with his
honest face and kindly smile and eyes which met yours fearlessly. His
clothes were shabby and country made, it is true; his shoes were worn
and grey, and his hands were not as soft and white as those which the
Colonel had a trick of rubbing together as he talked, and on one of
which a small diamond was shining. But they were helpful hands, ready
always for service both to friend or foe, and in his heart no passions
had ever stirred like those which at times showed themselves on Col.
Errington’s face.

After the introduction the two men, who had fought against each other in
more than one battle, shook hands as cordially as if they had been old
friends and for a few moments chatted together pleasantly. Then, turning
to Fan, the Colonel explained that he had come to Petersburg on business
and that his sister Cornelia, who kept his house in Washington, had
accompanied him. Remembering his visit to our neighborhood a little more
than a year ago, and desirous to see the place again, he had suggested
to his sister that they drive out from Petersburg.

“We started early,” he said, “and have enjoyed ourselves immensely.
Cornie is delighted with your Virginia scenery. She is at the Golden
Horn, and if agreeable to you I will bring her to call.”

Both Fan and I gasped at the thought of so great a lady, as we felt sure
Miss Cornelia Errington must be, coming to call upon us. But we soon
rallied and said we should be pleased to see her, and then to my
amazement Fan added: “We would invite you to lunch if we were going to
have anything but potatoes, green corn, hoe-cake and grapes. We don’t
have very elaborate meals since you Yankees spoiled us.”

The Colonel took no notice of the last remark, but said: “Grapes,
hoe-cake, green corn and baked potatoes, the four things I like best in
all the culinary department, and so does Cornie; we’ll come. To say the
truth I did not much like the looks of the Golden Horn. What time do you
lunch?”

Fan told him, and then extended an invitation to Jack to lunch with us.
But he declined, and I could see a shadow on his face as he walked away
from the house, followed soon by the Colonel, who was going for his
sister.

“Fanny Hathern!” I exclaimed, when we were alone, “are you crazy to ask
those people here when you know we’ve nothing fit to offer them.”

“What is good enough for us is good enough for them,” Fan answered,
proudly, starting for the kitchen and a conference with Phyllis, while I
began to put our rooms in order for the expected visitors.

Cornelia Errington, whom her brother called Cornie, was a very handsome
woman of twenty-eight or thirty, but seemingly as cold as a block of
marble, except when she smiled. Then the whole expression of her face
changed as completely as if she had been another person. She was born in
New York, but had lived many years in Washington, where she
superintended her brother’s house. She was highly accomplished, had
traveled extensively, knew the best people everywhere, and was in every
sense a lady. She met us very graciously, and affected to be delighted
with our rambling old Virginia house; which she said was her ideal of a
planter’s home, with its great airy rooms, wide hall and broad piazzas.

“But my papa ain’t a planter, he’s a doctor and a gentleman,” Katy said.

She had been greatly impressed with the lady’s manner and dress and
diamond rings, and evidently wished to impress her in turn with her
father’s greatness. Drawing Katy to her and stroking her golden hair
Miss Errington replied, “I am sure he is a gentleman, whether he is a
doctor or a farmer, and you are a dear little creature. Was it you I
heard singing in the yard before lunch?”

Katy was always singing and so accustomed were we to it that we seldom
paid much attention, except sometimes to wonder if it were she or the
canary bird in its cage trilling so loud and clear. Now, however, we
remembered to have heard her imitating a mocking bird just before
Phyllis, with her red turban built up five or six inches higher than
usual, announced with a low courtesy that lunch was served. There was in
the room our old piano brought from Charleston by our mother and seldom
used for neither Fan nor I were very musical. Going up to it Miss
Errington ran her fingers up and down the keys in a way which showed
that she was mistress of the instrument.

“Shocking!” she said, involuntarily, then apologetically to Fan, “I beg
your pardon, but with such a voice in embryo as that I heard outside you
ought to have a better piano;” then to Katy, “Sing to me, child,
something, I don’t care what.”

Nothing could suit Katy better. She had often sang alone in school and
Sunday school, and striking her stage attitude, as Fan called it she
sang as I had never heard her sing before, soaring up and up until she
touched high C without the slightest effort or break in her voice.

“You will be a second Patti, you sing just as I have heard she sang when
a child,” Miss Errington said when Katy finished. Then, turning to us,
she continued: “Do you know there is a fortune in that voice. She must
have instruction; the best, too, there is to be had, and one day you
will be proud when she stands before thousands and holds them spellbound
as she has me, even with her simple songs.”

Miss Errington was evidently an enthusiast in music, but Fan cut her
short by saying scornfully, “Do you think a daughter of Dr. Hathern
would ever go on the stage? Never! We have not fallen so low as that,
poor as we are. I’d rather see her dead.”

She was greatly excited, and Miss Errington looked at her wonderingly,
while Katy pulled Fan’s dress and whispered, “What is it? What did I do?
Didn’t I sing well?”

“Yes, too well; never sing again,” Fan answered fiercely, and Katy
replied, half crying, “But I must; I can’t help it; it will come; it
would choke me if I didn’t.”

“Choke, then,” Fan said, while the Colonel, who had listened with an
expression, half cynical and half amused, on his face, now spoke and
said, “Quite a tempest in a teapot over nothing; Cornie is music mad,
and the child certainly has a wonderful voice for one so young.”

Just then a robin flew down upon a sprig of honeysuckle near the window
and began to trill its evening song; quick as thought Katy darted
through the door, and unmindful of Fan’s injunction never to sing again,
began to imitate the bird, which stopped a moment and poising itself
first on one foot and then upon the other looked around for the
fellow-songster it seemed to think was near it.

“I never heard anything like it,” Miss Errington said. “That talent must
be cultivated, but she must not strain her voice while growing. I see no
reason why she should not have as much a night as Patti, or if you
object so to the stage, there are the churches where she could command a
large salary.”

As she spoke her eyes wandered about the room and I felt sure they were
taking an inventory of our faded carpet and worn, old-fashioned
furniture. She seemed to me more and more like a woman accustomed to
dictate and to have her own way, and I could not rid myself of a feeling
that having once seen Katy she would not readily forget her. The songs
outside had ceased by this time; the robin had flown away, and the child
had disappeared. Col. Errington had Fan all to himself at one end of the
piazza to which we had repaired, and I was listening to a dissertation
from Miss Errington on the best method for removing stains and spots
from old carpets and dresses and feeling sure she had seen them in ours
and was taking this way to instruct me. We had heard the whistle of the
mail train from the east, and twenty minutes later Black Beauty went
galloping down the lane at one side of the house with Katy on his back,
bareheaded, with her fair hair blowing in the wind and her face turned
smilingly towards us as she passed. We were expecting a letter from
father and she was going to the Postoffice, as she often did on Black
Beauty, saddleless and sometimes bridleless, for she was a fearless
little rider and Black Beauty the most gentle of beasts.

“See, Cornie, that is the pony I told you about, the one some of my
rascally soldiers stole,” the Colonel said to his sister, who looked
admiringly after the horse and rider, saying, “Upon my word, she sits
the creature well, and without a saddle, too. She has more than one
accomplishment.”

“You will be advising us next to train her for a circus,” Fan said
sarcastically, but Miss Errington did not reply, and went on giving me
good advice until Katy came cantering back, holding a letter in her hand
and reining Beauty up to the side of the piazza.

Springing from his back and handing the letter to me she stood holding
the pony by the mane, while Miss Errington bent forward and began to
examine him with the eye of a connoisseur.

“Really,” she said to her brother, “he is a beauty and no mistake; I
should like him for my own when we go to our place in the country. Is he
yours?” and she looked at me.

I shook my head, and nodded towards Fan, to whom she said, “What will
you take for him?”

“He is not for sale,” Fan answered, decidedly, stepping down by the
horse and winding her arm around his neck.

The brother and sister, so much alike in looks, were also so far alike
in disposition that opposition only increased their determination to
succeed. In this instance Miss Errington was the more earnest of the two
and seemed resolved to carry her point and have Black Beauty whether we
were willing or not, and her brother seconded her wishes. Two hundred
dollars cash down in crisp greenbacks were finally offered, and I shall
never forget the look on Fan’s face as she put it down on Beauty’s neck,
thinking intently, as I well knew, of the many things we needed and
which two hundred dollars would buy. Of our worn furniture generally,
our house, from which the paint was gone, our shutters, unhinged and
loose, and more than all father’s darned and threadbare coats and
shocking hat, and our own dresses, made over so many times. Two hundred
dollars seemed a fortune, and Beauty was only a luxury. Father had his
saddle horse for visiting the few patients who lived beyond walking
distance, and Black Beauty was really more ornamental than useful to us.
This was the train of thought passing through her mind, while I watched
her curiously. Lifting her head at last she said proudly, with great
tears standing on her long lashes, “Next to father, Ann and Katy, I love
Black Beauty better than any living thing. You can see that we are poor
enough, made so by the war,” here her voice began to break, but she
steadied it and went on: “We need many things, but until poverty has a
firmer foothold in our house than it has now I cannot let Black Beauty
go. If a time comes when I must part with him I will let you know; I’d
rather you had him than any one, for I believe you would be kind to
him.”

Taking her arm from the horse’s neck she gave a peculiar whistle,
saying, “Go, Beauty, go.”

He understood her and went prancing down the rear lane towards his
pasture; sometimes with his heels in the air and sometimes his forefeet,
as if giving vent to his delight at having escaped some threatened
danger. I had thought Miss Errington cold and emotionless and was
surprised at the sudden transformation in her manner after this as she
talked to Fan, who was soon herself again, chatting gaily and repeating
ludicrous and exaggerated stories of the Colonel when he was our
unbidden guest and our place full of blue coats.

It was now five o’clock and Phyllis brought in the tea service for our
five o’clock tea, a custom Fan, who was extravagantly fond of tea, had
introduced in imitation of an English family recently come to town and
with whom we were on terms of intimacy. In our low financial state this
seemed to me a useless expenditure, but when I remonstrated Phyllis
silenced me by saying, “Lors, honey, what’s a pinch of tea and dust of
sugar, and don’t I bile de groun’s over in de mornin’ for my breakfast.
Let Miss Fanny ’lone. All de quality in England does it, dat big red
coat at Mass’r Harwood’s say, an’ ain’t we quality, if we is poor.”

So we had our five o’clock tea, in which Jack often joined us, while
other young people sometimes dropped in so that the occasion was usually
a very enjoyable one. This afternoon it was especially so. With the
appearance of the china and silver teapot Fan’s spirits increased. She
liked to be “quality” quite as well as Phyllis, and did the honors
gracefully, serving Miss Errington from a red Dresden cup which had been
one of our mother’s wedding presents, and giving the colonel a royal
Worcester, which belonged to Katy’s mother. Whether it was the pleasure
of being waited upon by Fan, or whether he was really so fond of tea,
the Colonel took so many cups that several “pinches” were added to the
pot, and the next morning I saw a bowl full of grounds on Phyllis’s
kitchen table, but knew by the fresh, pungent odor of old Hyson which
permeated the room that she was indulging in something more than a
“bilin’ over.” After our tea-drinking the carriage came for our guests
who expressed themselves as delighted with their call.

“Come to Washington and I will show you all the sights,” Miss Errington
said to us both; then to me, “Take care of Katy’s voice.”

Just what the Colonel said to Fan I did not hear. He was talking very
low and looking at her with his cold, steely eyes, which kindled as he
looked and brought a hot flush to her face.

“No, no. I don’t think I will,” I heard her say, and that was all.

After he was gone she stood watching the carriage until it was out of
sight; then said to me, “That man had the effrontery to ask me to write
to him, and he squeezed my hand so hard that it aches now; the old
idiot! I am going to wash it.”

Bouncing out of the room she ran into the arms of Jack Fullerton, who
came to say that all the grape baskets at the vines were full and to ask
if there were more to be filled. I am afraid we were rather a shiftless
lot; at least we were told so often enough in the future—coming on
apace. We were certainly thoughtless, and while visiting and
tea-drinking entirely forgot that the baskets must be ready that night
if they went on the early morning train to Richmond. But Jack had not
forgotten, and while I talked to Miss Errington and Fan flirted with the
Colonel, he worked steadily on, occasionally crushing a cluster of the
ripe fruit so hard that the juice spurted over his coat as he caught the
sound of Fan’s rippling laughter and the deep tones of the man whom he
began to dread as his rival. But Fan more than made amends now.

Seizing his arm with both hands and rubbing her cheek against it, she
exclaimed, “You dear old Jack, how good you are to us, doing our work,
while we entertain those people for whom we don’t care a pin; and don’t
you think, he asked me to correspond with him!”

“He did?” Jack said, indignantly, and Fan replied, “Yes, he did, and
he’s forty, if he’s a day.”

She knew he wasn’t forty, but she was trying to appease Jack, whose
brown eyes shone with delight as he looked at her, and who, when he
thought I did not see him, tried to raise her hand to his lips. But she
wrenched it away, and stood back from him, saying laughingly, “No, you
don’t. No man has ever kissed me except father and Charlie and the boy,
and never will until——”

She didn’t say when, but Jack did not seem at all disturbed, and that
night long after I was in bed he sat upon the piazza with her, and I
heard the low murmur of their voices and felt again the old pain in my
heart, and knew that I would give years of my life for the love for
which Fan cared so little.




                  CHAPTER IV.—ANNIE’S STORY CONTINUED.
                        A SHADOW BEGINS TO FALL.


The letter which Katy brought us from the office was from father, who
was still in Boston and attending Mrs. Haverleigh. She was better, he
wrote, but unwilling he should leave her until all danger of a relapse
was past, consequently we need not expect him until the end of a week
when he hoped to bring us a big fee, as his patient was said to be very
wealthy. He did not mention Mr. Haverleigh, but of course there was such
an appendage to Mrs. Haverleigh and he would pay the bill. Then we began
to speculate as to the probable amount and what we should buy with it.
Fan decided upon new boots and gloves; Katy was to have a doll; while I
hoped she might also have music lessons, for aside from her wonderful
voice she had a great fondness for the piano and had already picked out
a few simple tunes which she played with a good deal of expression.
Jack, who was always included in our family councils, as if he were our
brother, laughingly told us not to count our chickens until they were
hatched, and the sequel proved the wisdom of his advice.

At the end of the week father came home, looking fresher and younger and
more erect than when he went away. The trip had done him a great deal of
good. He had met several old friends and made some new ones. When we
inquired for Mrs. Haverleigh he did not seem inclined to talk much of
her, but in answer to Fan’s direct question he told us the amount of his
fee. He had made her so many professional visits and received the usual
city price for each visit; fifty dollars in all. It was not a large sum,
and it went mostly to pay the little household bills which in spite of
our economy accumulated so fast. I gave up the music lessons for Katy,
while Fan called Mr. Haverleigh a stingy old man, as she blacked her
shabby boots and mended her worn gloves.

Sometime in November Jack went into an insurance office in Richmond, and
life at the Elms moved in so monotonous a groove that Fan, who craved
excitement, sometimes wished the war back upon us to keep us from
stagnating. There were one or two letters from Miss Errington, addressed
to me and full of Katy’s future.

Several times the Colonel sent Fan papers and magazines and once he
wrote her a letter which she promptly tore up, and then cried for half a
day. Every week father had a letter from Boston which he answered within
a few days. Once in passing the hall stand where he had laid a letter
while he went to his room for his gloves, I glanced hastily at it and
read, as I supposed, “Mr. Thomas Haverleigh, No. — Beacon St., Boston,
Mass.” Fan would have taken it up and made sure of the direction, but I
only gave it a look and wondered why he was writing to Mr. Haverleigh.
He was a good deal changed these days and he seemed silent and
abstracted and I often saw him looking at us in a wistful way as if
there was something on his mind which he hated to tell us.

“It’s money matters and the miserable bills we owe everywhere that
trouble him,” Fan said, when I spoke of it to her.

“Oh, if I were rich, and could help him; and I can. There is a way.”

“What way?” I asked, and she replied, “I can sell Black Beauty,
or—myself, which is better. Isn’t it sometimes a duty to sacrifice one’s
self for others? I didn’t tell you that Col. Errington proposed to me in
that letter I burned up! Well, he did, in an assured kind of way, as if
he thought I would be overwhelmed with the honor and say yes at once;
then, as if a doubt crept into his mind, he told me to weigh the matter
carefully before answering, for if a favor were once refused him he
never asked for it a second time. I _am_ weighing the matter carefully.
I have not answered his letter. I keep hoping something will turn up. If
it don’t I shall marry the Colonel.”

“And what of Jack?” I asked.

At the mention of his name Fan flushed a little, then replied, “I like
Jack and always shall, but what can he do, hampered with an invalid
mother and only an insurance clerk’s salary. I was never intended for a
poor man’s wife and would rather live at home in poverty with you than
in Jack’s home with his mother and old black Patsey, who was always
running away during the war and only came back after it was over because
she couldn’t do better.”

There was no use arguing with Fan when in this mood, and the subject was
not mentioned again for months. I knew she did not write to Col.
Errington, and she did write occasionally to Jack during the winter,
which passed rather slowly, for Lovering was never very gay at its best,
and the war had left too many aching hearts for us to be very hilarious.
Father, however, seemed in unusually good spirits and I occasionally
heard him whistling or humming softly to himself when he was alone. When
March came round he surprised us one morning saying he was going to
Boston again on some important business which he hoped would result
favorably for us all. He did not tell us what the business was, but when
Fan asked if it had anything to do with Mr. Haverleigh, he answered,
“Not directly; no,” and we said good-bye to him with no suspicion of the
truth. He had bought himself a new suit of clothes, which he greatly
needed, and we were very proud of him when he put them on. We told him
he looked quite the Virginia gentleman again, and Fan came near boxing
Phyllis’s ears when she heard her muttering something about “ole mas’r
savin’ his money to pay his debts instead of scurripen’ roun’ de country
an’ makin’ a fool of hisself.”

“As if our father could make a fool of himself! What does Phyllis mean?”

“I believe he has been speculating,” Fan said to me, “I feel sure
something good is going to turn up, if we wait long enough.”




                     CHAPTER V.—THE AUTHOR’S STORY.
                        SOMETHING DOES TURN UP.


Dr. Hathern had been gone two weeks and in that time had written but one
letter to his daughters. This was addressed to Fanny and in it he said
that the business which had taken him to Boston was progressing
favorably and he should soon feel at liberty to tell what it was and
return home a happier and more prosperous man than when he left it.
Meanwhile his daughters were to enjoy themselves and get whatever was
needed for their comfort. Then he added as if it were an afterthought:

  “By the way, I think it would be well for Phyllis to give the whole
  house a regular overhauling,—housecleaning they call it at the north,
  and I remember when I was a boy that every thorough housekeeper did
  this twice a year,—taking up and beating carpets, washing curtains and
  blankets and paint and floors and putting the furniture out to air. I
  have no doubt southern housekeepers do the same, and it seems to me
  there were some such upheavals which made me very uncomfortable when
  your mother was living; but nothing of the sort has occurred since.
  You were too young when your own mother and Katy’s died to know about
  such things, and Phyllis, who has been in charge so long, has not
  thought of it. Negroes are apt to be slack.

  “Consult Mrs. Fullerton, if you don’t know what to do, and if extra
  help is needed for Phyllis, get it, of course. Tell her to take
  especial pains with my room. I think I have detected a faint musty
  smell in it when the air was damp. This can be remedied by beating the
  carpet thoroughly and letting in a great deal of sunshine. I may have
  kept it shut up too much. You will hear from me again in about two
  weeks and then I shall tell you when to expect me.

                                   “Your loving father,
                                                       “SAMUEL HATHERN.”

This letter Fanny read aloud to Annie, with running comments upon it as
she read.

“Is father growing crazy, or what has got into him to write in such a
strain. _Must_, indeed, in his room! It’s his old boots and shoes and
saddlebags of medicines which he keeps in his closet. House cleaning
twice a year, with everything turned out of the windows! Thinks we have
never had one since mother died! Haven’t we?”

Annie didn’t think they had, and the most she could recall during her
mother’s lifetime was a faint remembrance of bare floors and dirt and
straw and litter, and soap and suds and discomfort generally, with a
scurrying here and there of negroes with Phyllis at the helm; then a
great quiet, with the fireplaces full of green boughs and peonies and
snowballs and herself and Fanny told not to put their little soiled
fingers on the window panes because they had just been washed. This was
very far back, and neither Annie nor Fanny could remember any
housecleaning since so extreme as that. Certainly there had been none
since Katy’s mother died, and Phyllis had managed the household. In
short, as they confessed to each other, they were rather easy-going
young ladies, who, accustomed to many servants before the war, had
fallen into the habit of leaving everything to Phyllis. And that
functionary was very willing to have it left to her, and waited upon
them and petted them and scolded them alternately with all the freedom
of an old and trusty family servant.

In the days of slavery there had been no more valuable negro in Lovering
than herself, and she knew it, and prided herself upon it and the
respectability of her ancestors generally as proven by the fact that
there was not a drop of white blood in her veins.

“I’d be ashamed if there was, and blush for my mother. Black is a good
color, which wears well, and I thank de Lord I am as black as a Guiney
nigger,” she said; but she was equally proud of the fair faces of the
twins and little Katy, whom she loved as if they were her own.

She had nursed them when they were babies; had walked the floor with
them many a night when they were teething or had the colic; had drawn
them miles and miles from cabin to cabin in a baby cart—proud of her
twins and proud of herself as “Mas’r Hathern’s nigger, who was worth
more’n a thousand dollars, and who he wouldn’t sell for nothin’;” she
had closed the eyes of both her mistresses, and prepared them for the
grave. She had comforted the two little motherless girls with cake and
honey and a most wonderful rag doll, and taken the new-born baby, Katy,
to her bosom and bed. She had tried to run away with a part of the
Federal army, but found that she could not, so great was her love for
her master and his family. She was a part of them, or rather they were a
part of her, and after she assumed the entire management of the
household she owned them just as they once owned her, and sometimes
ruled them more rigorously than she had ever been ruled.

In this condition of things it was natural that the young ladies should
settle down into a state of listless dependence, allowing her to do what
she pleased and when she pleased, and giving but little thought to what
was done or left undone, provided they were comfortable and the general
look of the house was neat and tidy. At long intervals she had her times
of “clarin’ up,” when the house was full of brooms and brushes and mops
and clouds of dust and the odor of soap suds. On these occasions, in a
petticoat patched with many colors, which stopped half way between her
knees and her feet and a knit jacket left by one of the soldiers,
Phyllis would march from room to room, rating the young ladies soundly
for the disorderly condition in which she found them, and wondering what
their poor mother would say if she knew how they slatted their things
and left them for her to pick up, when every bone in her old body ached.
But if they tried to help her she spurned their offers disdainfully. She
reckoned she knew what “de quality ought to do, an’ it wan’t for her
young misseses to sile dar white hands, when dar was a big pair of black
ones, made to soil and spin. What did cussed be Canan mean if it wan’t
that the blacks was to sweat an’ slave and have der bad times in dis
world an’ de whites der good, an’ in de nex’ _wise wersa_.”

Phyllis was great on theology and powerful in a prayer meeting, where
she could be heard for nearly a quarter of a mile, when she was moved by
the _sperrit_ to let herself out. Naturally her arguments prevailed when
she brought forward the Bible to prove their validity, and Annie and
Fanny usually succumbed and let her have her way.

Occasionally when she wished to try some fancy dish Fanny made a raid
upon the kitchen, greatly to the discomfiture of Phyllis, who fluttered
like a hen when its brood of chickens is disturbed, while a close
observer might have thought she was fearful of having something
discovered which she wished to hide. But Fanny knew better, and after
the time she found the nutmeg grater in Phyllis’s pocket and the rolling
pin, which had been lost for two or three days, on the floor under the
table, she abandoned the kitchen, and the old negress was left monarch
of all she surveyed.

Now, however, there must be a general cleaning,—a thorough
overhauling,—and Fanny was deputed to notify Phyllis, whom she found
eating her dinner on a stool outside her cabin door, her turban somewhat
awry and her usually good-humored face clouded over as she shoo-ed the
chickens and screamed at the dog, which from an adjoining garden had
strayed into her domains.

“A reg’lar overhaulin’, wid de carpets all up and whaled, an’ de
furniture turned out of do’ to a’r, an’ his room smellin’ of musk,” she
said, when Fanny told what her father had written. “Is Mas’r Hathern
’sinuatin’ that I’m dirty, an’ I sarvin’ him so long an’ faithful? I
wouldn’t have ble’ved it,” and her voice trembled and her head shook
till her turban was displaced and took an upward turn, as it was wont to
do when she was displeased.

It was a saying of the young ladies that they could tell Phyllis’s state
of mind from the height of her turban, and when Fan saw it begin to
lengthen she knew there was a storm brewing, and braced herself to meet
it.

“Who’s to take up dem carpets an’ wallop ’em, and put ’em down again I’d
like to know. Last time I clar’d up I done cotched such a misery in my
back and laigs that I’ve had rheumatis’ ever since, and I didn’t hist up
de carpets nuther.”

Fanny explained that she was to have help, but this only brought out a
snort from the old woman, who went on: “Extra help, as if I was an onery
nigger like old Patsey. An’ for de Lord’s sake whar’s de money to come
from to pay de help? Mas’r can’t pay de bills now, unless he sells me,
an’ sometimes I think I’ll ’vise him to do dat an’ get out of debt.”

“But you are free. We can’t sell you, and wouldn’t if we could; that is
all in the past,” Fanny suggested.

“Dat’s so; more’s de pity,” Phyllis rejoined, and went on to say that
she reckoned she wan’t so old yet that she couldn’t wallop a carpet and
put it down, if her knees were not too stiff and she should do it, too;
and begin the next day; help indeed, when she was ’round.

By this time the Fullerton chickens were on the strawberry patch again
and the Fullerton dog had his nose in the refuse pail, which he finally
upset. But in her excitement Phyllis did not notice it. She was too
intent upon the housecleaning, which was commenced the next morning with
a vengeance, and without the slightest system or order. Every room and
closet from cellar to garret was turned upside down, with carpets up and
furniture out, and not a spot where one could sit and be comfortable.
They ate on the pantry shelf and slept on the floor while the worst of
the pandemonium continued. True to her determination Phyllis _walloped_
the carpets herself and did it so effectually that one of them, the
oldest and most tender was _walloped_ into tatters and could not be used
again. When it came to putting them down Phyllis gave out. Her knees
would not bend, and her back and arms were too lame, while not a negro
was to be found willing to help. Fortunately in this emergency Jack had
an off day, which he spent with Fan-and-Ann, who pressed him into
service. Arrayed in one of Phyllis’s clean turbans and aprons, and armed
with hammer and nails, he attacked the carpets vigorously and with the
help of the young ladies and with a great deal of joking and fun they
were put down as few carpets were ever put down before,—crooked and
puckered, and loose, while Jack had a blood blister on his thumb and
Fanny a bruise on her knuckles, where she struck them with the hammer,
and Annie a headache, which lasted two whole days. But they were down
and seemed very fresh and clean, as did the entire house when Phyllis
was through with it and free to nurse her swollen arms and hands, the
result of so much lifting and carpet beating. The odor of must, if there
had ever been any, had disappeared from the Doctor’s room, with his old
boots and saddlebags. As it was his carpet which had been beaten to
tatters, its place had been supplied with some light, pretty matting
bought at a reduced rate at a forced sale.

“I wish we could afford a new chamber set, too,” Fan said, looking
ruefully at the high post bedstead, with its canopy and valance, and at
the bureau and chairs older than she was, as they had come from the
south with her mother.

But this was out of the question. The family purse was too low. The
chamber set was given up. The post bedstead, with its feather bed, was
made high and soft, and the best white counterpane put upon it. There
were clean covers upon the bureau and square stand, where the Book of
Psalms, which the first Mrs. Hathern had used, was still lying, and with
it a prayer-book which had belonged to Katy’s mother. Fan brought a
pretty pin cushion from her room, with a slipper case and tidy, and when
all was done, called Phyllis to see the effect.

“Mighty fine and invitin’;” Phyllis said, “’pears like you’re expectin’
a bride, te-he-he.”

The laugh had in it a sound of sobbing, rather than of merriment, and
Phyllis’s turban was slightly elongated as she went back to her work.
All her insinuations, however, were lost upon the daughters, who, with
no suspicion of her meaning, sat down to enjoy the quiet and freshness
of their home, daily expecting a letter telling when their father was
coming to enjoy it with them.




                       CHAPTER VI.—ANNIE’S STORY.
                          THE SHADOWS DEEPEN.


After a ten days’ siege the housecleaning came to an end, with no worse
disaster than the entire demolition of one carpet, literally beaten to
death,—the breaking of one or two windows, a caster split off from a
bureau, and a cupboard with dishes in it knocked flat in our attempts to
move it. Phyllis had a “misery” in her back and we were all more or less
afflicted with colds we had caught during the upheaval. But we had a
heap of fun with Jack, who helped us out, and the house was clean, or we
thought it so, and only father’s presence was needed to make us quite
happy again. But he did not come and he didn’t write. Every morning we
said “we shall hear from him to-day,” and every night a fresh
disappointment awaited us, for he neither wrote nor came, and in our
anxiety we were beginning to think of telegraphing to his address in
Boston and inquiring if any thing had happened to him. It was Fan who
suggested this one morning, about a week after the cleaning was over.

“Wait one more day,” I said, “and if we do not hear to-night we’ll
telegraph to-morrow.”

It was now past the middle of April, but the day was cold and cloudy,
and late in the afternoon the rain began to fall, softly at first like a
gentle April shower, but gradually increasing until by the time we heard
the train from the east and Fan started for the office it was a regular
downpour, which beat against the windows and ran in great streams from a
defective eaves-trough over the door. In all lives there are some days
which so impress themselves upon our minds that the minutest detail is
never forgotten, but comes to us over and over again, with the joy or
the sorrow which wrote itself so indelibly upon our memories. Such a day
was this, and as I write I hear again the soughing of the wind through a
great pine tree which stood in a corner of the yard, and the rain
sifting down upon the turf beneath it, and see the blaze from the pine
knots which Phyllis had lighted on the hearth, and as the blaze leaps
up, filling the room with warmth and light I see at my side Katy’s
golden head bent over the picture-book she is reading, while one of her
small white hands rests upon my lap. In the kitchen I hear old Phyllis
crooning a well-known melody, consisting mostly of inquiries as to the
whereabouts of the Hebrew children, as she prepares our evening meal.

During father’s absence we had dispensed with our six o’clock dinner and
contented ourselves with lunch and our five o’clock tea, but this night
I had ordered a substantial supper, with a vague presentiment that
father might surprise us, and I can smell the savory dishes as I smelled
them then and feel the same appetizing sensation which they brought to
me. As the light and heat from the pine knot increased and the flames
went rolling up the chimney in graceful curves, the faces of the dead
looked at me from the blaze,—faces of the boy in grey and the boy in
blue whose graves were on the hillside. That of the boy in blue was the
more distinct, and I saw again the great sunken blue eyes which had
turned to us so wistfully as the pale lips pleaded that we would not
“let them get him,” or “let her find him.” We knew whom he meant by
_them_, and were reasonably sure that the _her_ was the Aunt Martha, for
whom neither Fan nor myself entertained a great amount of respect.

Now, as I watched the fire,—half asleep it may be,—and saw alternately
the faces of my brother and the _boy_, Aunt Martha came also and stood
before me on the hearth,—a tall thin woman of the New England type, with
firm-set lips and hard, unsympathetic eyes, which never softened a whit
when I questioned her of “the boy,” and asked why she had never come to
inquire for him before, and who was the Carlyle he had spoken of so
kindly. Just as she was about to answer me Katy started up exclaiming,
“There she is,” and I awoke to hear the sound of voices outside.—Fan’s
voice, and with it another which always made my heart beat faster,
although it never spoke to me except as a brother might speak to his
sister. Jack had come home that evening and Fan had met him and brought
him with her, and they came in laughing and chatting merrily, and
shaking the rain drops from their umbrellas and wraps.

“How perfectly delightful that fire is,” Fan said, holding one of her
wet boots near it to dry, and bidding Phyllis bring a plate for Jack and
hurry on the supper, as she was nearly famished. “I have a letter from
father,” she continued, as we drew up to the table, “but it will keep
till after tea.”

We were a very merry party, as we always were when Jack was with us, for
he had the happy faculty of knowing how to bring out the best of
everybody. He had been promoted and his salary increased, and he was in
high spirits, as we all were, and not one of us dreamed of what was in
store for us, when, as Jack asked me for his third cup of coffee, Fan,
who had finished her supper, said, “If you are going to drink coffee all
night and don’t mind, I’ll see what father has written.”

She took his letter from her pocket; looked at it very leisurely; opened
it carefully with a knife, as if afraid of spoiling the envelope, and
then began to read it. I was pouring Jack some hot coffee, which Phyllis
had just brought in, and did not look at her until Jack startled me by
saying, “Why, Fan, what is the matter?”

Then I turned to her and saw that her face was nearly as white as the
letter over which her eyes were traveling with lightning speed.

“Fanny, Fanny,” I exclaimed; “what is it? what has happened? Is father
ill, or dead?”

“Neither,” she answered, in a voice very unlike herself. “Neither ill
nor dead, as you mean it; but dead to us. He is to be married to-night
at eight o’clock.”

For a moment everything turned black around me, and I might have fallen
from my chair if Phyllis, who was standing near me, had not put her hand
upon me as she said, “Surmised it all ‘long. I done tol’ you so.”

Neither Fan nor I paid any attention to her then; we were too intent
upon the letter, which Fan at last read aloud and which ran thus:

                                                 “BOSTON, April —, 1866.

  “MY DEAR DAUGHTERS:

  “I am very glad that I can at last tell you something definite with
  regard to the business which brought me to Boston, and which will soon
  be happily completed. You remember the Mrs. Haverleigh whom I attended
  last fall through a dangerous illness? Well, the admiration I
  conceived for her then has since ripened into what, if I were a
  younger man, I should call love.”

“Love!” Fan repeated, scornfully. “Love! and he almost sixty years old.
If he were not my father, I’d call him a fool!”

“No fool so big as an old fool!” came explosively from Phyllis, whose
turban seemed bristling with rage as she spoke out exactly what was in
my mind.

“You here?” Fan said, angrily. “Go away about your business.”

But Phyllis did not budge. She was a part of us. What concerned us
concerned her, and in this crisis she meant to stand by us and learn the
best or worst there was to learn.

“Where was I?” Fan asked, and Jack, who did not look as disturbed as I
thought he ought, suggested, “Love!”

“Oh yes: ‘ripened into love.’ Ripened into fiddlesticks,” Fan said, and
read on:

  “When I left home I was not quite certain as to the result of my
  errand, but I am now. Mrs. Haverleigh has consented to marry me on
  Thursday evening of this week at eight o’clock, and I am writing this
  in the hope it may reach you that evening, and that you will send me
  your congratulations, in spirit at least. Mrs. Haverleigh is a
  remarkable woman,—very fine-looking, and about forty, I imagine,
  although she does not look it. I have never asked her age. She has
  traveled extensively,—is well educated, and belongs to some of the
  best families of New England. Indeed, I believe she traces her
  ancestry back in a direct line to Miles Standish of the Mayflower.”

“I never could bear Standish. What business had he to think of Priscilla
when he had had a Rose?” Fan said, with an upward tilt of her nose.
“Best families in New England! Humbug! as if that made her any better.
Don’t we belong to some of the best families in the south?”

Then she read on:

  “She is a member of several clubs and societies, and has most
  excellent ideas with regard to bringing up children. In this respect
  she will be invaluable in training little Katy, who I think manages
  herself mostly.”

“I don’t want to be trained,” Katy interrupted, with a whimper.

“And you are not going to be trained either,” Fan said, drawing the
child close to her. Then she added:

“Let’s see what other virtue this paragon possesses. Oh, yes:”

  “She is also, an incomparable housekeeper,—thorough in every thing,
  and will relieve you of all care.”

“Hm! I didn’t know we had any care; Phyllis takes all that,” Fan said.

“Dat’s so, honey,” came from Phyllis, who was standing behind her, stiff
as a stake, while Fan continued:

  “She is wealthy, too, and inclined to be very generous with me. She
  knows my circumstances perfectly, and how the war impoverished us, and
  has made over to me more than enough to pay my debts and have
  something left.”

“Very unmanly in father to take her money. I must say I am disappointed
in him in more ways than one,” was Fan’s next remark, before continuing:

  “I do not yet understand why she is willing to leave her handsome
  house in Boston and come to our plain, run-down home, but she is, and
  as soon as possible she will have sent to us a part of her furniture,
  together with her cook and housemaid and probably a coachman. This
  will be a great help to Phyllis, who is getting old, and who, while
  she does well for us, can hardly meet the requirements of a Boston
  housekeeper.”

“For de Lord’s sake, has ole Mas’r done gone perfec’ly daff over dat
widder? Me getting ole! who knows how ole I am? I don’t, nor Mas’r
either. What for dat woman bringin’ white trash down har to boss me? I
not stan’ it!” Phyllis broke in with a flourish of the knives and forks
she had in her hand, one of which flew off at right angles and came near
hitting Jack in the head.

“Got it,” he said laughingly, as he picked up the knife and replaced it
on the table, while Fan turned to Phyllis and said, “You here yet?
Didn’t I tell you to leave long ago?”

“Yes, honey, but I’s har jess de same, an’ I’s gwine to stay, too, an’
spress my ‘pinion of dis yer Massachusetts woman fotchin’ her truck whar
I’s sarved this forty year, an’ never started to run away but onet, when
de sojers tell me de fine stories of freedom. What does I want of
freedom? Nothin’. I’d be sold down de river to-day to sarve you, but I
won’t be,—what you call it,—trampled on by dem whites. No, sir!” and
here she turned to Jack, shaking her fist at him. “No, sir! An’ shoo’s
you bawn, ef dey tries it, dar’ll be wah! Yes, _wah_! Wus than t’other,
an’ dis time it’ll be de Federates an’ not de Fed’s who beats. Bet your
soul on dat. Now I’ve had my say; I’se gwine.”

She nearly shook off her turban, which stood up almost a foot as she
marched out of the room, followed by Jack’s hearty, “Three cheers for
Phyllis! Good for you!”

“Is there more?” I asked, as Phyllis disappeared, and Fan continued:

  “We are going to New York and Washington, and shall reach home in ten
  days or two weeks at the most. Will telegraph you when to expect us. I
  need not ask you to receive your new mother cordially and kindly. As
  ladies and my daughters you can hardly do otherwise. You will love her
  when you know her. I should like you to call her mother, but if you
  feel that you cannot, I shall not insist. Katy, of course, will
  address her as mamma. She has never had a daughter and will take to
  the child at once. She has a son who is now at Andover, but who will
  spend his summer vacation with us. He is fifteen or sixteen,—a fine,
  handsome lad, with all the polish and manner of twenty-five. He seems
  delighted with the prospect of having sisters. He calls you that
  already and is especially desirous to see little Katy, whose
  photograph I have with me and have shown him. He is here this evening
  and sends his love, and says tell you he expects a great deal of
  pleasure with you in the summer. His name is _Carl_. Mrs. Haverleigh,
  also, wishes to be kindly remembered. If you care to write to me,
  direct to Ebbett House, Washington.

                                       “Lovingly your father,
                                                       “SAMUEL HATHERN.”

After the reading of the letter there was silence for a few moments,
broken only by the sound of the rain which was still falling heavily,
the crackling of the pine knots on the hearth and the ticking of the
clock. Glancing up at it at last Fan said, “They were to be married at
eight. There is a difference of time between Boston and Richmond. The
ceremony is over, and we have lost our father.”

Then she began to cry and I cried with her, while Jack tried to comfort
us, telling us to look on the bright side,—that it might not be so bad
after all. We had had one stepmother and loved her, and we might love
another.

“That was very different from a Boston woman, who belongs to clubs and
societies and has views, and all that,” Fan said. “We did love Katy’s
mother. She was like us, and didn’t want to turn the house upside down
with her raging housekeeping, as this woman will. She was easy-going,
and she gave us Katy.”

Putting her arm around the little girl, Fan drew her closely to her with
a gesture as if shielding her from some threatened danger. Assured that
she was not to be _trained_, Katy looked upon the marriage rather
favorably, and smoothing Fan’s hair caressingly, she said, “Don’t cry,
the new mother will be nice, and then there’s brother Carl. I am so glad
for him. I’ve wanted a brother ever since Charlie died, and after you
told me to pray for what I wanted, I did pray, first for a doll that
shut its eyes, and I got it,—then for a hoop, and I got it,—and then for
a boy-brother, and we’ve got him. I get everything I want.”

Katy’s faith in prayer was very strong, and Fan, who had taught her this
faith, could not discourage it now, although wishing that her prayers
had taken some other object than a boy-brother.

That night on our way to bed we stopped for a moment at father’s room,
the door of which stood open. In the winter, when there was no company
in the house, it was really our living room, where most of our evenings
were spent. Our father liked it warm when he came in at night, and there
was always a bright fire on the hearth, with his arm-chair and slippers
on one side, and next it the stand, with his book and paper and
spectacles upon it, for he often read aloud to us, with Katy’s bright
head resting on his knee, while Fan and I sewed, or embroidered, sitting
on the settee rocker opposite him. This was all over now. A stranger had
come between us, who would sit by father’s side while his children
shifted for themselves. Some such thoughts as these were in our minds
when we stepped into the room which we had taken so much pains to make
attractive for his home coming.

“I wish we had let it alone,—_must_ and all,” Fan said. “I am glad we
couldn’t buy a new chamber set. Let her bring her own, as I dare say she
will. I mean to take my pink pin cushion away. I didn’t put it here for
_her_.”

But she left it. I knew she would, as she always subsided into quiet
after a storm. We sat up late that night talking the matter over, and
decided finally to make the best of it for father’s sake and never let
him, nor any one but Jack, know that the new wife was not acceptable. We
couldn’t deceive Phyllis, however, nor console her either, and for two
days she went about the house with the tears dropping from her nose and
running down her cheeks. “It was not so much the missus she ’jected to,”
she said, “though it was bad enough to be sot on and bossed around by a
stranger when she had been fust so long. It was the po’ white trash
comin’ down with their a’rs that she couldn’t stan’, an’ wouldn’t. She’d
run away fust! an’ if they sot the dogs on her she’d drown herself in
the river; then see how ole mas’r’d feel when they brought her home
drownded like a rat!”

Notwithstanding there was nothing to run from Phyllis was always
threatening to run when disturbed or displeased, but had never
contemplated suicide before, and now, in her pity for herself and for us
when she should be fished from the river, limp and dead, she forgot the
new mistress in a measure, and on the second day asked if she hadn’t
better wash the windows again in _master’s_ room. The marriage was
generally known by this time, but no one congratulated us and few spoke
of it at all. Evidently, it did not meet with approbation. Always
perverse and contradictory, this silence on the part of our friends made
Fan angry, and turned the tide in favor of the stranger. “Father had a
right to marry if he chose, and the neighbors were very impudent to
object,” she said, and, greatly to my surprise, she began to evince a
good deal of interest in the coming of Mrs. Hathern. To Katy the new
mother was to be _mamma_, but to us, Mrs. Hathern, and it seemed to me
Fan took special pains to repeat the name as often as possible.

“I am trying to get used to it, but oh, how I hate it all. I’ll not let
people know though,” she said to me, with quivering lips, and then she
broke down and sobbed hysterically, declaring that she’d run away with
Phyllis and drown herself, or marry Col. Errington. She hadn’t answered
his letter yet, but she would that very day.

Possibly she might have done so if the post had not brought us a letter
mailed in Andover and directed in a large boyish hand to “The Misses
Hathern.” It was from Carl, who wrote:

  “DEAR FANNY AND ANNIE AND KATY:

  “I am awfully glad that you are my sisters, and I am going to tell you
  about the wedding. I was there and saw your father endow my mother
  with all his worldly goods and heard her promise to obey him. She
  won’t do it, though, you bet. They mostly never do, I guess, and
  mother least of all. They seem happy as clams; so I suppose old people
  can be in love as well as young. I shouldn’t like mother to know I
  said that. She’d be mad as a hornet. She thinks she’s young, but she
  will be forty next birthday. She is a very handsome woman though. I
  never wanted mother to marry. She has had offers as thick as
  huckleberries, and I kicked at them all until I saw your father, and
  then I gave in and told her that she might. I like him immensely and
  I’m going to like you, especially little Katy, she’s so lovely. Your
  father showed me her photograph, and finally gave it to me, I begged
  so hard. I’ve shown it to the boys, and made them green with envy by
  telling them of the good times I am to have next summer in the
  Virginia woods and hills and in the old house with you. I hate the
  city, and like the country, and always wanted to go south. I was sorry
  I was not old enough to enlist in the army;—not to shoot anybody, but
  to see the country. I suppose you were rebels. Well, that’s right. I
  should have been, too, if I had been born south; but I’m a northerner,
  and yelled myself hoarse when I heard our men were in Richmond. I was
  in the country, and I and a lot more boys stole so many dry-goods
  boxes and barrels and wood for a bonfire that one old copperhead,
  whose chicken coop we took, had us arrested. Between you and I,—you
  and me, I mean,—I don’t believe your father is more than half a reb,
  or he wouldn’t sit so quiet and hear mother rake the south. She’s
  peppery. I said to her it wasn’t good form, and she told me to shut
  up, and I shut! I generally do when she tells me to.

  “I wish you’d write to me. I like girls immensely, and they like me,
  but only one has ever written to me, and that didn’t count. It was
  Julina Smith,—mother’s maid,—two or three years older than I am. I’m
  fifteen. She is rather spoony, and made me a pair of slippers and sent
  them to me with a letter in which she called me ‘Dear Carl,’ and ended
  with ‘Your loving Julina.’ The slippers were well enough, if she
  wanted to give them to me, but the _loving Julina_ was a little too
  much. I tore the letter up, and when I went home and she made eyes at
  me I told her to _dry up_, and she _dried_. I believe mother intends
  taking her to Virginia, and if she does you will have to _set on her_,
  I can tell you.

  “It is nearly class-time and I must stop. I am studying Greek and
  Latin and a lot more stuff, and expect to enter Harvard when I know
  enough. And now, in the words of the divine Julina, or _Julienne_ as
  she’d like to be called, seeing there’s French blood in her,

                                  “Yours lovingly,
                                                      “CARL HAVERLEIGH.”

  “P. S. I guess you’ll like me. Girls generally do, although they say I
  am fickle and pretend a lot I don’t mean. But I mean it at the time. I
  can’t always keep up to concert pitch when the concert is over, nor
  keep smelling a rose after its perfume is gone. Now that sounds rather
  poetical and neat, don’t it?

                                                    “Yours again, CARL.”

This letter, over which we laughed till we cried, helped to turn our
thoughts from the dreaded stepmother to the bright, frank boy, whom we
felt sure we should like, during the concert, at least, and while the
perfume of the rose lasted. Fan read most of the letter to Phyllis, who,
at its commencement, stood with her hands on her hips, her elbows
elevated and her nose in the air. But before its close her nose and
elbows came down and a broad smile broke over her face.

“Bress de boy!” she said. “‘Pears like mas’r Charlie, only in course
’taint to be ’spected he’s so peart-like seein’ he’s from de norf, whar
dey’s all so onery.”

“But, Phyllis,” Fan said, “he is from Boston, and must have a heap of
Boston culture.”

“What’s dat ar?” Phyllis asked, but Fan did not explain, and left
Phyllis wondering if Boston culture was ‘_catchin_’.




                      CHAPTER VII.—AUTHOR’S STORY.
                        THE COMING OF THE BRIDE.


The two weeks which Dr. Hathern had mentioned as the longest possible
time before his return were nearly up, and his daughters were daily
expecting some message from him telling when he would be home. They had
become somewhat accustomed to thoughts of the new mother and the new
order of things she was to inaugurate, and felt that there might be some
compensation.

“It will be rather fine to have a posse of servants,—white ones, too,”
Fan said. “We shall quite outshine the Lovering people with our style.
Coachman,—that means carriage and horses,—cook, maid, besides Phyllis,
who, I suppose, will be the laundress. That will give us all the white
skirts and dresses we want. I dote on white skirts.”

Fan was rather luxurious in her tastes and would have liked nothing
better than fresh white skirts and linen every day, and would have had
them, too, but for her compassion on Phyllis, who usually had a “fetched
misery in her back” on Monday, and a worse one on ironing day, if there
were too many _frillicks_, as she called them, in the wash. The prospect
of new furniture was not, on the whole, displeasing, although they were
greatly attached to the solid old-fashioned things which had belonged to
their mother. Still it would not be out of place to excel their
neighbors, inasmuch as they were what Phyllis termed the “fustest family
in town.” On the whole, they began to feel quite reconciled to the
marriage, and took a good deal of pains to make the house as attractive
as possible for the bride. They had Phyllis’s word that it was as clean
as soap and water and her two hands could make it, and as they never
thought of peering into corners they contented themselves with little
changes here and there, which they thought were artistic.

It was now May and the garden was full of early flowers, with which they
meant to brighten the rooms at the last.

A letter had come from Miss Errington, who had noticed among the
arrivals at the Ebbitt House the names of Dr. Samuel Hathern and wife,
Lovering, Va., and as she knew there was but one Lovering in Virginia,
and but one Dr. Samuel Hathern in Lovering, she felt sure it was their
father with a new wife and had ventured to call.

“They received me in their private parlor,” she wrote, “and I was
charmed with your father. Such a genial, courtly gentleman of the old
school and so proud of his bride. She is a very handsome, well-preserved
woman, and is _au fait_ in everything pertaining to etiquette,—and knows
how to dress perfectly. She has a good deal of Boston manner, and I
should say decided views on most things. I imagine there may be a little
Scotch blood in her, which accounts for a certain accent in her speech.
She seems to be well educated, and, like myself, is very fond of music.
Indeed, she is quite up in that, and, remembering little Katy’s
wonderful voice, I spoke of it and said I hoped she might have every
facility in the way of music. She assured me she would see to it, and
what she says she means; there is no doubt of that. On the whole, you
are to be congratulated on having a superior woman for a stepmother.”

There was a good deal more of irrelevant matter, with one or two
allusions to her brother, who was about going abroad on business. But
over this the sisters passed hastily. Their interest centered in the
mother.

“Scotch descent,—Boston manners and views. I knew she had _views_,” Fan
said, with a toss of her head. “She is woman’s rights and runs an
abolition society, I dare say, or did before the war. Fine musician; I
wish Miss Errington would mind her business about Katy. I wonder what
madam will think of our old rattle-trap of a piano. Very likely she will
bring us a Steinway or a Chickering.”

This letter, instead of reassuring the sisters, made them rather uneasy
with regard to the cultivated woman with views. What would she think of
them, who had scarcely been outside of Lovering, and who knew so little
of the world?

“I reckon I shall hate her, after all,” Fan thought, as she began to
pull herself together and to remember sundry acts of abandon and bits of
slang in which she sometimes indulged and which would be hard to give
up.

Annie, on the contrary, who never shocked anyone, and whom her sister
called a flat iron, or a flat, from her propensity to smooth matters and
make the best of them, began to feel again her old dread of the new
mother and to wonder how one so inferior as herself would impress so
much superiority. The next day there came a telegram from their father,
who was in Richmond and would be home the following evening at six
o’clock. There was also a letter from Jack, who wrote hurriedly:

  “DEAR FAN-AND-ANN. _Veni, vidi, vici._ Brush up your Latin and
  translate, but make it third person, with _she_, instead of first. To
  be brief: I called at the Spotswood this evening, and looking over the
  register, as I often do, saw in your father’s handwriting ‘Dr. Samuel
  Hathern and wife, Lovering, Va.’ In a jiff I sent up my card, and in
  another jiff I was shaking hands with Mrs. Hathern, who received me as
  if I were her son, or brother, and nearly looked me through with those
  eyes of hers which see everything. Whether they are black or blue,
  white or gray, I can’t tell, but I think they are black. You can’t get
  away from them; they follow you like the eyes of some portraits I have
  seen,—my grandmother’s for instance, which hangs in our dining-room. I
  never could steal a lump of sugar or poke my thumb into the honey pot
  because she was always looking at me. Just so with Mrs. Hathern. She
  lights on you and holds you and seems to be going clear down to a
  fellow’s boots and reading his inmost thoughts. She is handsome and
  stylish and had on the best fitting dress I ever saw. Looked as if she
  were run into it. I’ve no doubt she is a blood relation of Miles
  Standish and all the other chaps who came over in the Mayflower. She
  is very dignified but not exactly like our Southern ladies. Maybe it
  is her voice, which is strong and full and decided, and would make you
  jump if you were doing anything bad. To-morrow I am to have the honor
  of driving with her around the town and showing her the nakedness of
  the land, and I assure you it is very naked. I could shed buckets full
  of tears over the ruins of our once fair city, but it’s no good crying
  for spilt milk. Better go to work and get some more. She wishes to go
  first to Libby Prison. Think of it! I a Reb, and she a Fed,
  hob-nobbing in that place. She must have forgotten herself when she
  said to me with so much concern in her voice, ‘I trust you were never
  so unfortunate as to be a prisoner there.’

  “I think even Fan would have been pleased with my dignified manner as
  I replied, ‘Madam, I had the honor to wear the grey, and there was no
  possibility of my being a prisoner in Libby.’

  “‘Oh, I beg your pardon,’ she said, with a look which made me feel
  like a cut-throat and murderer, and as if I ought to have been in
  Libby, or some worse place, all my life.

  “Then her eyes lighted up and a most wonderful smile broke out over
  her face, changing its expression entirely. I think that smile must
  have won your father. It made even me feel kind of so-so,—queer-like,
  you know. He seems very proud and fond of her. Calls her ‘Matty,’ and
  once when she thought I did not hear her she called him ‘Sam’!”

“Disgusting!” Fan exclaimed. “Sam! our father, Dr. Hathern! Sam, indeed!
I knew she was vulgar, with all of her Standish blood. Sam! The idea!”

After this Fan had scarcely patience to finish the letter, which had but
little more in it of the bride.

The next morning the young ladies were up betimes. As a rule they were
not early risers, especially when their father was away. Nine and even
ten o’clock sometimes found them in bed, while Phyllis kept their
breakfast warm and made no signs of protest, unless there was a greater
amount of work than usual and she was very tired. Then to herself she
would call them _onery_ and _shiffless_, and wonder what their poor
mother would say if she knew how no-count they were, lyin’ bed hours
after sun up. The morning after the receipt of the telegram, however,
they were up with the sun and found Phyllis preparing the most
appetizing breakfast she could think of, and occasionally wiping away a
big tear before it dropped from her nose.

“De po’ lambs should have one more meal in peace before the missus
come,” she said, as she served her cream toast and corn muffins and
urged them to eat.

Katy was the only one who did justice to the muffins and toast. Fanny
and Annie could only make a pretense of eating, and when breakfast was
over Fanny said with a hysterical laugh, “I am going to the graves to
tell mother and Charlie and the boy who is coming to-day. I don’t
believe they know.”

A moment later she was walking rapidly across the field to the hillside
cemetery, where she staid for a long time.

What she said to the dead, if anything, no one ever knew. When she came
back there were traces of tears on her face, but otherwise she was calm.

“Do you know,” she said to Annie, “that the boy seems very near to me
this morning. I can see his great blue eyes looking wistfully at me as
they did when he said ‘Don’t let her find me.’ Do as I will, they follow
me as if they wanted to tell me something.”

Annie was accustomed to her sister’s theory that the dead are cognizant
of what interests us, and only shivered a little as she replied, “I am
glad I am not haunted with dead eyes. It is enough to think of the
living ones which Jack says see everything, and will be sure to know if
these rooms are not in order.”

Annie, who was more practical and more housewifely in her instincts than
Fanny, was already at work and had brought from the garden and yard
quantities of flowers,—roses and peonies and snowballs and lilies,—which
lay heaped upon the dining-room table, with every vase and bowl and
available pitcher in the house. Fan’s forte was decoration, and she at
once went to work with a will, fashioning the flowers into bouquets and
whistling as she worked, sometimes Dixie, and sometimes John Brown’s
Body, which last she said was probably the bride’s favorite. If the
boy’s eyes haunted her they acted as a stimulant, urging her on until
the house was full of flowers and odorous with perfume. The last room
visited was Charlie’s, where the uniforms of grey and blue were hanging,
over one the stars and stripes,—over the other, the stars and bars. This
was a sacred spot. Fan never whistled there, nor sung, and she stepped
softly and spoke low as she put the bowl of forget-me-nots on the stand
under the faded coats, where the bloodstains of Charley and the boy were
showing. It seemed to her that many eyes were upon her now, and she
began to feel nervous as she gently patted the pillow over which
Charlie’s head used to lie, and where the boy’s had lain when he shouted
a _tiger_ for her and died.

“Poor boy!” she said to herself, as she left the room, “Had you no
friends, and shall we never know who you were, or where you came from?”

After the early dinner they laid the table for supper, bringing out the
best linen and china and glass, wondering where the mother would choose
to sit that first night. It had been Annie’s prerogative to preside over
the coffee urn. This must, of course, eventually be given up, and might
as well be done first as last. So the Dresden plate, the one pearl
handled knife and fork, both heirlooms from their grandmother, and kept
mostly to look at, were put with the tea-cups and saucers, and the
arm-chair their mother and Katy’s had used was wheeled to its place. For
a moment both Fanny and Annie stood by it with a hand upon it, while
Annie said, “I wonder if mother knows or cares.”

“Knows! Yes,” Fanny replied, “but does not care. In Heaven they neither
marry nor are given in marriage, so, what is it to her if father brings
home as many wives as the Mormons,—four at once, I have heard. It is
only we that care.”

When everything was in readiness the sisters went all over the house,
feeling a kind of pride in it, with its wide hall in the centre, its two
large rooms on either side, and its broad piazza, shaded with
honeysuckles, clematis and woodbine, and a beautiful wild rose or
eglantine, struggling with the three and throwing out masses of color
against the dark leaves of its neighbors. It was an ideal Virginia home,
and the Boston woman, with all her culture and views and advanced ideas
must find it so, the sisters thought as they finished their inspection
and sat down to wait for the train. Katy, who had been as much
interested in the preparations as any one, had made two small bouquets
which she put on her father’s bureau, with a card under each. On one was
scrawled in a child’s almost illegible hand, “For papa, from Katy;” on
the other, “From Katy to Mamma.” She was happy, and in her white dress
and blue sash, with her fair hair falling around her shoulders in soft
curls she made a lovely picture as she flitted from room to room, now
consulting the kitchen clock, now the one in the dining-room and
wondering if they would never come. At last the whistle was heard in the
distance coming nearer and nearer and finally ceasing as the train drew
up to the station. Fifteen minutes passed, seeming to the sisters an
age, and the village ‘bus stopped at the gate, followed by the express
wagon on which were two huge Saratoga trunks, a large valise and a hat
box.

“Ought we go and meet them?” Annie said, in a whisper.

“No,” Fan replied. “It is enough for Katy to go.”

_She_ was running down the walk, and with a glad cry threw herself into
her father’s arms. Then, at a word from him, she gave her hand to the
lady at his side, who stooped and kissed her. It had never yet occurred
to her that every body did not love her and want her, and she held
tightly to the lady on one side and to her father on the other, and so
went hippity-hopping up the walk, telling them that the old cat had six
kittens and the speckled hen thirteen chickens; that the house was
beautiful with roses and things, and she had made two bouquets herself.

It was a very cold, callous heart which could withstand Katy, and Mrs.
Hathern’s face wore a soft and pleased expression as she looked down at
the little girl and then up at the two young ladies who had come out
upon the piazza and whom the doctor presented to her as “My daughters,
Fanny and Annie.”




              CHAPTER VIII.—THE AUTHOR’S STORY CONTINUED.
                             MRS. HATHERN.


She had taught a district school in a small town in Maine,—had been
preceptress in a young ladies’ seminary in Calais,—a music teacher and
organist in Portland,—and the wife and widow of Thomas Haverleigh, of
Bangor, whom she had married mostly for his money, and for the broader
field it would give her. Some years after his death she moved to Boston,
where her restless, energetic nature found full scope in the many clubs
and societies of which she became an active member. Her marriage with
Dr. Hathern was a surprise to her friends, who knew how unlike the two
were to each other. He was gentle, refined, wholly unselfish and rather
weak where decided action was necessary; she strong, determined, and
self-assured, with a will which no one could bend except her son Carl,
and he sometimes failed. There could scarcely have been two people more
unlike and possibly this dissimilarity of disposition was what attracted
each to the other until both believed they were in what the lady called
a middle-aged kind of love. In a letter to a friend she likened it to
the Indian summer, which is often more satisfactory than the fervid heat
of the real summer days. Whether it were Indian summer or June the
doctor did not stop to consider. He was infatuated and only knew that he
was supremely happy and never more so than when he reached home and was
presenting his bride to his daughters. They were nervous and
constrained, but she was wholly at her ease, while her eyes, which Jack
said saw everything, did not belie his statement. They were very large
and black and bright and took the two girls in at a glance, from their
heads to their feet, making them feel rather uncomfortable. Fanny
thought with some uneasiness of two missing buttons on her boots, while
Annie remembered a little rent in her underskirt and wondered if it were
visible.

“I am glad to see you and hope we shall be friends. Which is Fanny, and
which Annie?” Mrs. Hathern said, and her voice seemed to fill the whole
house, it was so distinct and decided, with a tone in it which some
might call an accent, but which Fan-and-Ann pronounced a brogue, when
comparing notes with regard to it.

Had she been a public speaker she could have thrown it into the farthest
corner of the largest hall, but her hearers would not have said it was a
pleasant voice. It was too self-assured and too full of a conviction
that the opinions it expressed were the only opinions worth expressing.

Like most cold impassive natures she was not at all demonstrative and
although quick to see and speak of whatever was wrong, or out of place,
she seldom praised or expressed herself pleased with anything. That she
made no comment was, she thought, a sufficient proof that she did not
disapprove. _Gush_ was especially distasteful to her, and she was glad
not to meet it in her step-daughters.

She knew they must be nervous, but they were ladylike and quiet and
received her kindly. They told her which was Fanny and which Annie,
saying laughingly, “we are better known as _Fan-and-Ann_.” One took her
satchel, the other her shawl, as they led the way into the house and
showed her to her room. Fan, who was watching her closely, saw how
rapidly her eyes traveled from one object to another, lighting finally
upon an immense spider’s web in a corner, which had probably been there
a week, as there were two or three dead flies already in it, and a
freshly captured fourth was making a loud protest against its capture.

“Can I do anything for you?” Fan asked, with a view to draw attention
from the offending web.

“No, thanks, I can get along quite well by myself,” was the reply, and
acting upon the hint the girls left her alone and went to their father,
who was seeing to the baggage, and whom they nearly knocked down as they
seized him around the neck and smothered him with kisses.

“Why—why—why; bless my soul! What’s all this whirlwind for? and crying,
too,” the Doctor said, folding them in his arms and feeling his own eyes
moisten a little.

“We didn’t half tell you how glad we are to have you home, and we don’t
mean to cry,” Fan said; “and we are not going to again; but just this
little minute I can’t help it.”

“Yes, yes; there, there,” the doctor replied, patting first one head and
then the other, “there’s nothing to cry about, I assure you, except for
joy. She’s a very remarkable woman, and the wonder is that she could
care for an old codger like me. We are going to be very happy, all of
us. She has some elegant furniture coming, which will make the old house
quite like a palace. You know you have wanted new furniture a long
time.”

“Oh, father,” Fanny cried. “We would rather have you than all the fine
furniture in the world; but we are going to be good; indeed we are.”

She was hugging him again with her arms around his neck on one side of
him, while Annie’s were on the other, when they were startled with a
call for _Sam_, which came echoing down the hall like the peal of a
clarionet, making the four clinging arms drop suddenly, while the doctor
struggled into an upright position and answered, “Yes, Matty, I am
coming.”

Mrs. Hathern had removed her bonnet and investigated the room, deciding,
with a radical woman’s quickness what changes she would make when her
furniture came; deciding, too, that the windows had not been half washed
and the window stools not at all, judging from the dust and dried leaves
upon them. Then with her umbrella she demolished the big spider’s web
and was proceeding to attack a smaller one in the vicinity of the bell
rope, which she tried with no effect, when Katy came dancing into the
room, her blue eyes showing the admiration she felt for her new mamma,
whose grey dress and steel buttons she began to finger caressingly.

“I like you,” she said and moved by an impulse she could not resist Mrs.
Hathern stooped and kissed the lovely face with something like a real
mother feeling in her heart.

But nothing could change her nature, which was to discipline and mould
whatever needed moulding and disciplining. So, when Katy, wishing to
call attention to her gift of flowers, said to her, “Have you seen my
flowers. I give ’em to you.” She answered promptly, “You mean you gave
them to me. Little girls must learn to use good grammar. Yes, I see
them; they are very pretty, but be careful or you will upset the vase
and spill the water; better run out now, while I make my toilet.”

It was not so much the words as the tone with which they were spoken,
which brought a slight shadow to Katy’s face as she started for the
door, followed by Mrs. Hathern, who looked out into the hall in time to
see the tableau at the farther end.

“Not as emotionless and impassive as I thought,” she said to herself,
understanding it perfectly, and interrupting it with her call for Sam.
She was given to the use of pet names; she had called her first husband
Tom, and knew no reason why she should not call her second Sam. At first
he rather liked it. He had been Sam when a boy, and it made him feel
young again. But when he heard it in the presence of his daughters, it
sounded differently, for he felt their disapproval of it.

“I can’t open my satchel,” she said, when he came to her. “Something is
wrong with the lock, and how can I get some hot water. I have tried the
bell three times with no response.”

In her voice there was something the doctor had not heard before, and,
like Katy, he felt a passing shadow on his spirits, but he hastened to
undo the lock of the satchel and said, apologetically: “Oh, yes, the
bell. I knew the cord was broken. I will see to it at once, and the hot
water, too. I’ll go for Phyllis to fetch it, I haven’t seen her yet.”

He found Phyllis in a mood which could not be described as angelic. She
had spent an hour or so in clearing up her kitchen; had mopped the
floor; shoved into dark corners pots, kettles, skillets and brooms, and
arrayed herself in her red flowered gown and white apron, with her
highest turban on her head. If her master had come alone, she would have
gone with his daughters to greet him, but with a new mistress it was not
to be thought of. “She reckoned she knowed her place,” she said; “whar
she was raised niggers didn’t put on no a’rs. Marster would done fotch
the new Misses to her, in course.” But as time went by and neither
mistress nor master appeared, her wrath began to wax hot and to manifest
itself in her own peculiar way.

“Whar is the use,” she reasoned, “clarin’ up an’ hidin’ things whar I
can’t find ’em, if my lady is too fine to come inter de kitchen. No,
sir! I’ll jess have ’em handy agin.”

Pots and kettles and skillets were brought from their hiding place and
set down promiscuously on the hearth. The broom and mop followed next,
and the duster was aimed at the door behind which it belonged, just
escaping contact with the doctor’s head as he appeared. He had heard
from his daughters of Phyllis’s propensity to throw things when on what
they called a rampage, and concluded she was on one now.

“Ho, Phyllis,” he said in his cheery way. “What’s up, and why haven’t
you come to welcome your new mistress?”

He offered her his hand, which Phyllis grasped firmly.

“I’se mighty glad to see you, Mas’r,” she said, “an’ I’se gwine to do my
duty, but for de dear Lord’s sake whar was de sense for a new Misses. Et
kind of upsots one to think of dem t’others what’s dead an’ gone.”

This was the first real set-back the doctor had received, and it hurt
his pride that his servant should disapprove of what seemed to him so
desirable. But in his usual kind way he soothed the old negress, who
assured him again that she meant to do her duty and _bar_ everything for
his sake and the young misseses. Filling a pitcher with hot water, which
took a few minutes to heat, she followed him to his room, where Mrs.
Hathern stood with a hint of a cloud on her face at the long delay, and
because the pitcher had a broken nose and a suspicion of pot black on
the handle. She prided herself on never losing her temper to the extent
of showing it in her voice or manner. In a quiet, determined way she
could sting with her tongue and smile while she did it. Bowing
graciously to Phyllis she said, “I thought perhaps you had forgotten the
hot water, and I have washed me in cold, but you can leave the pitcher,
and please wipe off that black spot which you probably did not see.”

Phyllis explained, as she rubbed off the pot black, that “de water
bilin’ in de tea kettle was hard as rocks and not fit for ladies to wash
in, an’ she had to blow up the fi’ to heat some soff.” Then, putting the
pitcher down with a thump she bounced out of the room. She had taken
Mrs. Hathern’s measure, and Mrs. Hathern had taken hers, and neither was
very satisfactory.

“She ain’t no mo’ like Miss Carline or Miss Nellie than I’m like Mas’r
General Lee,” she said, and there was a stormy look in her eyes when she
went in at last to wait upon the table, where Mrs. Hathern presided as
easily as if she had all her life sat in the arm-chair she was the third
to occupy.

She was a woman of theories and maxims to which she adhered rigidly.
Among these were, “Early to bed and early to rise,”—“An hour in the
morning is worth two at night,” and so forth. Accordingly, the next
morning at six o’clock she was out upon the piazza looking very cool and
handsome in her gown of lavender and white, open in front to show her
embroidered petticoat as was the fashion of the time. Everything about
her dress and person was spotless, and she impressed one with the idea
that she had just been scrubbed and ironed. Her hair was never out of
place; her collars and cuffs never soiled, or her garments crumpled or
torn. Cleanliness she held next to godliness, and shiftlessness and
untidiness next to sin. Born and reared amid the thrift and energy and
activity of New England, she had no idea of or sympathy with the
happy-go-lucky manner of living in the Hathern family, with Phyllis at
its head. Hearing no stir, and seeing no signs of life in the
dining-room, except a few flies busy with some crumbs left on the cloth
the night before, she found her way to the kitchen, where Phyllis was
very leisurely making preparations for breakfast. Later on, before
presenting herself at the table, she was intending to don her Sunday
apparel, but now, as the morning was very hot, her dress might be
described as decolleté. A faded calico skirt, which scarcely reached her
bare ankles, and a loose, thin sacque which showed all the creases and
curves of her portly figure, comprised her entire make-up as she stood
with her back to the door, stirring her batter for griddle cakes, and
all unconscious of the foe bearing down upon her.

With a warning cough Mrs. Hathern stepped across the threshold, so
startling the old negress that she dropped the egg she was about to
break into the batter.

“Oh, my Lord, how you done skeered me,” she exclaimed, lifting both
hands, in one of which was the dripping spoon. “Does you want anything,
honey?”

Phyllis was very religious, and a leader at the meetings held in some of
the freedmen’s cabins, where pandemonium usually reigned and the Lord
was entreated as if he were deaf, or asleep. She had attended one of
these the previous night, and on her way home had told a crony whom she
met how she had _rassled_ in pra’r, and had asked others to rassel, too,
that she might have grace to do her duty. As a result of her _rassling_
she was in quite a conciliatory frame of mind, and the word _honey_ came
from her involuntarily.

“I am not one of the young ladies, I am Mrs. Hathern,” the latter said,
holding up her dainty skirts as she walked around the broken egg and the
pots and kettles which Phyllis had not yet put away. “What time do you
usually have breakfast?” she asked, and Phyllis replied, “Oh, we ain’t
perticular, mos’ any time when dey gits up,—eight, nine,—sometimes
ten,—jess as happens.”

Mrs. Hathern looked aghast. Such habits as these she was not prepared
for, and she would not allow them either.

“Very well,” she said, “that may have answered in the past; for the
future we will have breakfast in the summer at seven, sharp,—and at
eight in the winter.”

In Phyllis’s astonishment the second egg, which she had brought from the
cupboard, was in danger of following its companion.

“In de Lord’s name, how’s you gwine to git de young ladies up, or
marster, either so airly. Why, it’ll take a hoss team to do it,” she
said, and Mrs. Hathern replied, “I shall see to that, and you will see
to the breakfast until my cook comes, when she will take your place.”

Phyllis bridled at once and her turban began to topple on one side. But
she remembered her duty, and asked, very respectfully, “When is she
comin’?”

“Very soon, I hope, and a housemaid with her,—both capable servants, who
are accustomed to keep everything in order. The sight of your kitchen
would drive them crazy. Do you always cook by a fireplace? Have you no
stove?”

Phyllis snorted,—a sure sign that she was forgetting her duty.

“Stove!” she repeated. “One dem squar’ black things, a burnin’ and
blisterin’ your han’s! No sir! Ole Miss Fullerton done got one before de
wah, and dat fool of a Rache buil’d de fi’ in de oven, an when de smoke
an’ de fi’ bust out, she screeched so dat Mas’r Hathern went over an’
put it out, an’ tole ’em whar to make de fi’. He’s from de norf, whar
all such truck as stoves comes from, an’ he larf fit to split his sides
when he seen de fi’ in de oven. No, sir! No stove for me!”

“Such shiftlessness!” was Mrs. Hathern’s mental comment, as she went
back to the piazza where she found her husband, and sat down to wait for
breakfast with what patience she could command and to think how she
could best change the habits of this “sozzling household.”

That was what she called it in the first letter she wrote her son,
telling him to go at once to her house and expedite the departure of
Norah and Julina. He was also to order the best range in Boston and have
it sent to her immediately, with all necessary furnishing.

“Think of a big fireplace,” she wrote, “with a crane and tin ovens and
pots and kettles and spiders and the water pail, with a gourd on the
top, all in a clutter, and a huge negress, weighing at least two
hundred, standing in the midst, with nothing on but a short petticoat
and loose sacque! That is what I found the first morning when I went to
the kitchen to see if breakfast were ready. We didn’t have it until
eight o’clock, and that was too early for Miss Fanny, who did not appear
until we were nearly through. I have ordered it for seven hereafter. I
cannot begin too soon to change the loose habits the girls have acquired
from having had so many blacks to wait upon them before the war, and
depending wholly upon Phyllis since. She almost breathes for them, and
they let her. To do her justice she looks very respectable when she
comes into the dining-room and she waits at table remarkably well. It is
a very pleasant, roomy house, with wide verandas above and below, broad
hall in the centre, with fireplace in one corner, and doors opening at
either end. But it is greatly run down,—old, faded carpets and rickety
furniture—and in the bedroom I intend for you a broken-legged bureau,
propped up on a brick. We should call this second class at the north,
but they are really among the first people in the town, and don’t seem
to know how dilapidated they are, or if they do they are too proud to
show it. I refer now to the girls. The Doctor admits that things are not
quite as they ought to be. He is a thorough gentleman, and I am more and
more convinced of the wisdom of my choice. Fanny and Annie are bright,
pretty girls, especially Fanny, who is the ruling spirit and mouth-piece
for her sister. Katy, the youngest, is a beauty, but spoiled. I do not
think she knows what restraint is, but I must restrain her, and mould
her as a child should be moulded. She will then make a splendid woman.
The twins are, I fear, beyond my control. Fanny certainly is, and there
is a fire in her black eyes I should not care to rouse. I forgot to tell
you that there is a wide lawn in front of the house, with a long avenue
leading to the street, shaded with elms and maples. The garden is full
of flower beds bordered with old-fashioned box, and there are roses and
honeysuckles and running vines everywhere. In the rear a grassy lane
leads to the woods, which at times during the war were full of soldiers,
both northern and southern. The war still broods like a plague over
Virginia, although I cannot help feeling that some of the people make it
an excuse for what is only the result of years of indolence and
indifference to anything like thrift and energy.”

Carl’s answer to this letter was prompt and characteristic. “I went to
the house,” he wrote, “meeting Julina in the street. She informed me
that Miss O’Rourke was giving a lunch to some of her friends, and had
sent her after oil for the salad. So you see, ‘when the cat’s away the
mice will play.’ Norah seemed as meek as Moses when she saw me, and if a
lunch was in progress she gave no sign of it. Perhaps Julina lied; it’s
like her. Miss O’Rourke informed me that after getting the house ready
for the new tenant, she must visit her grandmother and ‘rest up’ before
going south, and Julina will ‘rest up’ with her. So I don’t know when
you will see their ladyships. What a delightful picture you give of the
Elms. Double piazzas, wide hall, big rooms, avenues, gardens, roses and
woods, to say nothing of pots and kettles and pans and a 200-pounder,
all huddled together in the kitchen, and a bureau propped up with a
brick! I like that. It reminds me of our first visit to the sea shore,
with a cottage full of broken furniture, and so leaky that when it
rained we had to set with washtubs over our heads. What a field you have
in which to exercise your executive ability and love of change; but
don’t go to bossing little Katy, or make her sit in chairs and go to bed
without her supper, as you did me, and don’t introduce that new order of
‘early to bed and early to rise’ until I have had a chance to enjoy the
old easy-going régime you hold in so much contempt. Let the girls sleep,
if they want to. I remember how you used to snake Paul and me out of bed
at the most unearthly hours until he ran away, and I got weakly and the
doctor told you I must have all the sleep I could get. How I hated the
early bird which caught the worm, or rather the worm for getting up to
be caught. I am going to like the girls, and shall probably fall in love
with all three; that’s my way, you know. Perhaps Katy is too young.
Eight isn’t she? while the twins are eighteen. I am nearly sixteen, am
five feet ten and trying to raise a beard. Not an infant, you see.”

This letter was not altogether satisfactory to Mrs. Hathern, whose usual
smooth brow was somewhat wrinkled and whose voice and manner had an
increase of energy and decision when she went back to the posse of
negroes at work in different parts of the house. There was a great
upheaval in progress, which Annie, who was an eye-witness to it in all
its details, will describe in another chapter.




                       CHAPTER IX.—ANNIE’S STORY.
                             THE UPHEAVAL.


My coadjutor, the Author, has told how the new mother came home to us on
a lovely May afternoon, when we had made the old house bright with
flowers and schooled ourselves to receive her as our father’s wife
should be received by his daughters. We had heard she was a remarkable
woman and a handsome woman, and we were not disappointed. She was
handsome, with the brightest and blackest eyes I ever saw,—dark, glossy
hair,—not one of which ever dared get out of place,—brilliant complexion
and regular features, if I except her nose, which inclined upward a
little, and her chin, which receded in proportion as her nose went up.
And she was remarkable, too, and so different from any type of woman we
had ever seen that she took our breath away, and for a few days we were
in a state of collapse and bewilderment. She was a highly educated
woman, bristling all over with views and theories and maxims, one of
which was “never to let the grass grow under her feet, if there was
anything to do.” And she didn’t let it grow, but plunged at once into
the midst of a domestic cyclone, which not only swept away for the time
being all our comfort, but, also, the good opinions we had entertained
of ourselves as housekeepers and young ladies of judgment.

We had never dreamed that we were as shiftless and no account and
dilapidated a set as we came to believe ourselves in the new light shed
upon us and our surroundings. We knew that our furniture was old and our
carpets worn, but we had a pride in and an affection for them because
they had belonged to our mother, and we thought the house was clean, and
we told Mrs. Hathern so when she suggested a regular tear up such as was
customary in New England twice a year. For answer to our assertion that
we had been scrubbed from attic to cellar she smiled a pitying kind of
smile at our ignorance, and rubbing her hand over the top of a door
brought off an amount of black which appalled us. We had never thought
of looking on the top of doors for dirt. But her eyes went everywhere,
and she went with them and wrote against us “weighed in the balance and
found wanting.” Everything was wrong, especially in the kitchen, where,
she said, Norah O’Rourke would not stay a day. Privately, Fan and I
thought she was more than half afraid of Norah O’Rourke, whom she quoted
so constantly and for whom it seemed to us our hitherto quiet house was
turned inside out. Two carpenters were brought into the kitchen, where
an extra window was cut so that Norah O’Rourke could have more light and
air; a new cupboard was built for Norah O’Rourke’s iron utensils, which
Phyllis had kept anywhere, so that they were handy; there was a sink for
Norah O’Rourke’s dish-washing, and stationary tubs for Norah O’Rourke’s
laundrying. The ceiling was whitewashed; the walls painted a light drab
and the floor snuff color, and when everything was in readiness for
Norah O’Rourke, except the range which had not come, that lady’s
quarters were certainly a great improvement upon the dark, dingy room
where Phyllis had reigned supreme so long.

Just what her position in the household was to be when Norah O’Rourke
arrived we did not know, as Mrs. Hathern was reticent on that point.
That she didn’t like Phyllis, and Phyllis didn’t like her, was an
assured fact, but there was as yet no open rupture between them. Mrs.
Hathern was evidently trying to control her temper, while Phyllis was
conscientiously striving to do her duty. I think she _rassled_ in
_pra’r_ at the night meetings a great many times during the toss up,
which extended from the kitchen to the house proper, where, as Fan wrote
to Jack, “The old Harry held high carnival.” Had I then read Jane
Carlyle’s life and letters, as I have since, I should have sympathized
with her fully in her despair and discomposure when her lord came home
full of bile and raised Cain generally. As it was with that house at No.
5 Cheyne Row, so it was with our house under the Elms. Carpets came up,
curtains came down, furniture was banished to the attic to make room for
the new that was coming. Paper was torn from the walls and lay in long
mouldy strips upon the floor. Pails of suds, with mops and brooms and
brushes and four colored women who had been pressed into service in
order to expedite matters, were everywhere, together with plumbers and
painters and upholsterers and paper-hangers brought from Richmond to
assist in the mélee.

In her cambric dress and white apron, which never showed a particle of
soil, and a dainty little cap, with a lavender bow, perched on the top
of her head, Mrs. Hathern moved among her forces like a
brigadier-general, urging them on as they had never been urged before in
their lives. The women, however, baffled her. They were not accustomed
to the Yankee quick step, and if she left one washing a window while she
went to look after another, she was very apt on her return to find the
window washer setting in a rocking chair or rummaging through a bureau
drawer. Dire were the complaints she made about the blacks. She was a
rank abolitionist during the war, she said, but if she had known what a
good-for-nothing race they were, she shouldn’t have troubled herself
about them, and she’d like nothing better now than to thrash them if she
could. But they were free and her _ekles_ one of them told her during a
hot controversy over a window which was washed three times before it
suited.

Had there been nothing except a battle between Boston energy and
Virginia slowness, Fan and I might have enjoyed it, knowing that out of
the confusion order would finally come, but a more serious matter was
daily confronting us in the shape of little Katy’s misdemeanors. We
never knew before that she had any, but now we found that of all
children to get into mischief and tear her clothes she was the worst.
She enjoyed the commotion and was always in the thickest of it.
Naturally she soiled her dress and apron and hands, for which she was
promptly reproved and punished. Sometimes she was made to sit for an
hour or more in a high chair near the bureau in father’s bedroom. For
diversion she was told to commit either the collect for the day, or
several verses in the Bible, beginning with the sermon on the mount, the
number of verses varying according to the heinousness of her offense.
Sometimes, if the rent in her dress were longer and the soil worse than
usual, she was sent to bed and kept there until morning supperless,
unless Phyllis surreptitiously conveyed a paper parcel into her window
by standing on a stool and using a pitchfork. Once, when overcome with
sleep, she fell off the chair and was only saved a hard blow on her head
by the open Bible which fell under it. Then Fan interfered, and holding
the sobbing child in her arms appealed to her father, asking if so much
discipline were necessary.

During the war father had never been quite sure on which side he stood,
and now he was equally undecided, until Mrs. Hathern said, in that cool,
rasping voice, which always irritated me, “My dear, I am sorry to be the
cause of any trouble between you and your daughters, but really you must
decide at once which is to take charge of Katy, Miss Fanny or myself.
The child is a dear little creature, but needs restraining. Sitting in a
chair, or lying in bed, does not hurt her physically. I always corrected
Carl that way, and——”

She stopped suddenly as if she had left some name unsaid, and it seemed
to me that she flushed a little.

Her hand was on father’s arm rubbing a speck of dirt she saw there, as
she waited for his answer.

“Yes, certainly, certainly,” he said, hesitatingly, “Katy is our baby,
and I suppose we have spoiled her; naturally it is a mother’s place to
take charge of her. Be as easy with her as you can, and you, Katy, be
good.”

So Katy was ordered back to the chair until she had committed all the
Blesseds which she did not already know in the sermon on the mount.
There was only one of these and she was soon at liberty, and as she had
the sunniest nature I ever knew she was in a few minutes at her play
again under the Elms, making believe she was in church singing the grand
old Te Deum with that clear, wonderful voice which made the workmen stop
to listen, while Mrs. Hathern said to us, “Miss Errington was right.
Katy has great capabilities. I know something of music myself, and when
my piano comes I shall take her in hand.”

“May the Lord help Katy if the madam takes her in hand more than she has
already done,” Fan said to me when we were alone and she could give vent
to her wrath. “I tell you what it is, father is an imbecile and she is a
tyrant, and I won’t stand it. I’ll marry Col. Errington. You’ll see.”




                  CHAPTER X.—ANNIE’S STORY CONTINUED.
                              A SUSPICION.


It was five weeks since Mrs. Hathern came home, and late June was
queening it over the woods and hills of Lovering, and the lawn and the
garden were full of flowers and beauty. The house, with its new coat of
paint, was quite another place from the one we had known from childhood.
Then it was brown and weather stained; now it was white, with green
blinds, and looked very clean and fresh and cool in the summer sunlight,
with the luxurious vines clinging to its sides and the huge columns of
the piazzas. Inside the change was greater still. Plumbers, painters,
upholsterers, carpenters and negroes had departed. The furniture had
come and we scarcely knew ourselves with our carpets of Brussels and
moquette, our sofas and chairs of brocade and rosewood, our long mirrors
and lace draperies, and, more than all, the costly paintings which in
their Florentine frames adorned the walls of the drawing room and hall.
We were very fine, and our neighbors came in crowds to see and admire
and congratulate us upon our prosperity. Mrs. Hathern had plenty of
money and spent it lavishly upon us all, and there is no doubt that we
were really greatly improved in every way by the introduction of Boston
standards and Boston ways. But on Fan’s part and mine there was always a
regret for the good old easy-going times when things were at haphazard
and we did as we pleased, with no one but Phyllis to dictate to us. She
was still doing her duty, but doing it in a cabin across the back yard.
The range had come and had been set up, and Mrs. Hathern had done her
best to initiate Phyllis into its mysteries. But either she couldn’t or
wouldn’t learn, and in despair she had been allowed to carry her pots
and kettles and skillets and ovens to the cabin, where there was a
fireplace in which she could potter as she pleased, until the arrival of
Miss Norah O’Rourke, who understood the range in all its ramifications.
She was still visiting her grandmother and _resting up_, but she was
expected in a few days, together with Julina, in whom Fan and I felt
considerable interest as the girl who had made love to Carl. He, too,
was expected soon and had sent on a box containing a most heterogenous
collection, which he had called his Lares and Penates,—fishing tackle,
bathing suits, an air-gun, a student’s cap, sporting pictures cut from
sporting papers, old books and photographs, and some handkerchiefs and
gloves which were never bought for him and in which there still lingered
a delicate perfume,—the whole not worth the cost of the express, his
mother said.

But she unpacked them carefully and put them in his room, the
pleasantest bed-chamber in the house and the one we had always used for
guests. This she appropriated without consulting us. Indeed, she had
never consulted us but once and that, with regard to the disposition of
some of the old furniture, the piano and the pictures of our mother and
Katy’s. These last had hung in father’s room, where he could see them
the last thing at night and the first thing in the morning, and we had
prided ourselves upon them because they were fair likenesses of the
sweet-faced women who had once reigned as mistresses at the Elms and
because they were our only oils.

“They may be good likenesses, but they are badly done,—mere daubs,” Mrs.
Hathern said, when calling our attention to them by asking where we
would like to have them put. The space they occupied was wanted for her
own portrait, life-size, taken in Paris and gorgeous in cream satin, low
neck and pearls. “Three Mrs. Hatherns in one husband’s bed-chamber are
too many,” she said, and we agreed with her and removed the daubs to our
own room, where we were sitting when Carl’s box was being unpacked.

Katy was looking on and prattling constantly, while her stepmother
occasionally reproved her for being so curious and asking so many
questions. Something was wanted from below stairs and Mrs. Hathern went
to fetch it, leaving Katy alone. A moment after the child came running
to us with two photographs which she had found in a book. One, the
freshest and newest, was that of a bright, handsome boy of twelve or
thirteen, with a happy, laughing expression in his brown eyes which told
of a sunny disposition and perfect content with life as he found it. The
other was the picture of a boy two or three years older, with something
the same features, but a worried, anxious expression as if life were not
all a holiday. That they were related we were sure, and that one was a
poor relation we felt equally sure.

“Carl,” I said to Fan, indicating the younger face.

“Yes, Carl,” she answered, but her gaze was riveted upon the other,—the
sad, browbeaten face,—whose great wide open blue eyes looked into ours
with a wistful, pleading expression we had seen somewhere and could not
recall. “Who is he, and what makes me feel as if I were looking upon
some body dead?” Fan asked just as the soft swish of Mrs. Hathern’s gown
was heard and she appeared at the door, saying in the low tone which
always made Katy shiver and think of the high chair, “Katy, did you take
two photographs from Carl’s room?”

“Yes, mamma. I wanted to show ’em to Fan and Ann,” Katy said, reaching
her hand to us for them.

I gave mine up, saying as I did so, “This I am sure is Carl. He is a
very handsome boy.”

But Fan kept hers, fascinated by the mournful eyes which held her as the
Ancient Mariner held his unwilling hearer.

“Yes, this is Carl, and he is a handsome boy,” Mrs. Hathern replied,
taking the photograph from me.

“And who is this?” Fan asked, surrendering hers at last.

I did not think of it then, but it came to me afterwards that Mrs.
Hathern’s voice was not quite natural as she replied, “That is Carl’s
cousin Paul, who once lived with us.”

“Where is he now?” was Fan’s next question, and Mrs. Hathern replied, “I
don’t know. I think he is dead. He went to the war, and never came
back.”

She left the room and we were alone, as Katy had already gone. We were
sitting near an open window looking north, and simultaneously our eyes
went across the field to the hillside cemetery where the headstones of
Charlie and The Boy showed white amid the growth of flowering shrubs and
fragrant evergreens; then they came back and confronted each other with
a questioning look of terror and surprise. Fan was the first to speak.
Leaning forward she whispered to me, “Mrs. Hathern is Aunt Martha!”

“Yes,” I said. “She _is_ Aunt Martha,” and I felt myself grow faint and
sick as I said it.

We had conceived such a contempt for the woman whose image had haunted
our dying boy’s pillow that the shock was very great when we learned
that she was with us, a part of us, our father’s wife. We felt more and
more sure of it as we recalled the few words The Boy had dropped with
regard to himself. When we asked his name he had said he was one of the
Apostles, and that was Paul. He had spoken of a Carlyle as younger than
himself.

That was Carl, and there seemed nothing wanting to complete the chain of
evidence except to know Mrs. Hathern’s real name. From the window we saw
father in the lane mounting his horse preparatory to visiting a patient.

Slipping down the back stairs Fan went up to him and after stroking the
horse’s neck a moment said, “By the way, father, what is Mrs. Hathern’s
real name? You call her Matty. Is it Matilda?” “No, child, Martha. I
thought you knew,” was the reply, and in a moment Fan was back again,
pirouetting around the room and beating the air as if she were crazy.

“She is Aunt Martha!” she exclaimed. “I don’t wonder he said he would
never go back to her. How long do you suppose she kept him sitting in
chairs like she does Katy?”

“Until he was glued to them,” I answered, and she continued, “It is
horrible, horrible! I think I hate her. What will she say, I wonder,
when she knows that Paul died here with us? And she shall know it.
Snowdon’s knight never longed more earnestly to stand face to face with
Rhoderic Dhu than I long to tell her The Boy’s story.”




                  CHAPTER XI.—ANNIE’S STORY CONTINUED.
                              AUNT MARTHA.


There were two halls on the upper floor of our house, one long and wide
and running from north to south, the other, shorter and narrower, turned
off at right angles, running east and west. Opening from this hall was
Charlie’s room in which no change had been made since The Boy died.
Three or four times a year Phyllis washed the linen and made the bed up
fresh and clean, while Fan and I swept and dusted the unused chamber,
which had become a kind of Bethel to us. If Mrs. Hathern had attacked it
during the upheaval we were prepared to do battle. But she did not, and
with no suspicion of the danger threatening it we were going down the
narrow hall to an outside piazza when we saw the door open and heard
voices inside, Mrs. Hathern’s and Phyllis’s, the latter pitched high as
if in fierce altercation, and the former low but very determined.
Crossing the threshold we found Phyllis, straightened back with her
hands on her hips, her usual attitude of defiance, and her turban nearly
off her head.

“You can’t have dis yer room,” she was saying. “It’s Mas’r Charlie’s,
and whar the Boy died; dems de berry piller slips he died on; nobody has
done slep here since and neber will till de day of judgment. Thar’s
’nuff oder rooms plenty good for July or any other white truck from de
norf.”

“What is all this?” Fanny asked, addressing Mrs. Hathern, who replied,
“I am glad you have come to teach this insolent negro her place. I am
not accustomed to such opposition from a servant, and cannot allow it. I
am wanting a room for Julina, who will be here in a few days. This suits
me. But when I told Phyllis to clear it up and remove those old soldier
clothes, which are only gathering moths, she refused outright and
commenced a rigmarole about Mas’r Charlie and some _Boy_ which I cannot
comprehend. Perhaps you can enlighten me.”

Turning to Phyllis Fan said, “You can go. I will explain to Mrs.
Hathern.” Then to the latter, “I am sorry that Phyllis should be
disrespectful to you, but she is right about the room. No one can occupy
it. It was my brother Charlie’s and the Boy’s, whose memory is almost as
dear to us as my brother’s. These which you call old clothes were
Charlie’s. You know, perhaps, that he was killed in the war.”

She had crossed the room and was standing by the uniforms of blue and
grey, one with the stars and bars above it, the other with the stars and
stripes. Mrs. Hathern bowed stiffly and said, “I have heard so, yes; but
if he was a confederate how did he happen to wear the blue, too? Did he
turn traitor to his cause?”

Her manner was exasperating, and her words insulting, and I knew by the
fire in Fan’s eyes that she would spare no detail in the story she meant
to tell.

“Traitor! Never!” she answered, hotly. “The blue belonged to the Boy.”

“And who was he? the Boy is so very indefinite,” Mrs. Hathern asked in
the same offensive tone, which made Fan furious.

“I don’t know who he was; not even his name. Let me tell you how he came
to us, blood-stained and worn and frightened, and how we cared for him
till he died, and then you will know why this room is doubly sacred to
us,” Fan said.

“Certainly, if you like; it must be interesting; but please be brief as
possible, as I am in a hurry,” was Mrs. Hathern’s provoking remark, and
seating herself upon the bed, she prepared to listen, with a bored
expression upon her face.

Fan’s blood was up, and the sight of the woman whom she believed to be
Aunt Martha sitting so serene and unconcerned on the bed, where thoughts
of her had terrorized the dying boy, roused her beyond quiet endurance.

“Mrs. Hathern,” she said, “please do not sit there. It hurts me as much
as if you were sitting on the Boy’s grave.”

Mrs. Hathern smiled derisively. “I am very comfortable and not at all
superstitious. So I think I’ll stay, as I am rather tired. I shall not
hurt your Boy,” she said, putting the pillow under her head and leaning
back against the headboard.

I wish I could paint a picture of Fan’s white face and dark gleaming
eyes, as in words more eloquent than I can write she told the story of
the Boy, beginning at Fredericksburg and coming down to the day when he
came to Phyllis’s cabin, bedraggled and worn, with a hunted look in his
eyes and pathetic entreaty in his voice as he begged us sometimes not to
let the soldiers get him, and again not to let his Aunt Martha know
where he was, as he could not go back to her. Fan had taken the boy’s
letter from the blue coat pocket where it was kept and had read it,
while Mrs. Hathern’s face softened as I did not suppose it could soften,
and there was something like moisture in her eyes. But she kept her
place upon the bed until Fan told of the few hints the boy had given of
his antecedents.

“In his delirium,” she said, “he talked of Carlyle, who, I think, was
his cousin,—of a dog whose name was Don,—and of an Aunt Martha, who
could not have been kind to him, he seemed so afraid of her and so
anxious that she should not know where he was. If you could have seen
his poor wasted face and sunken eyes upon the pillow on which you are
lying, you would know why this room is like a grave and why we cannot
let a stranger occupy it.”

At the mention of the wasted face and sunken eyes which had lain upon
the pillow Mrs. Hathern started as if she had been stung, or had felt
the cold touch of the dead face Fan described so vividly. Crossing the
room she put one hand caressingly upon the blue coat, and wiping the
tears from her eyes with the other she said, “I thank you for your
kindness to the northern boy, and shall not forget it. Did you never
learn his name?”

“Never,” Fan replied. “We asked him what it was, and he said he was one
of the Apostles. That is all we know for sure. We advertised and wrote
to the town in Maine which he mentioned in his delirium, but nothing
definite could be learned except that a strange boy calling himself
Joseph Wilde had enlisted in that place early in the war and had not
been heard of since. Charlie called him _the Boy_. We have called him
_the Boy_ ever since, and it is so engraved upon his tombstone. After he
died Phyllis and I cut two or three curls from his head for his friends,
if we ever found them, and I put them in Charlie’s letter. He had soft
brown hair, with a reddish tinge in some lights, and it had grown very
long for a boy. See——?” and she held up the rings of hair which twined
around and clung to her fingers.

“Yes, I see,” Mrs. Hathern said in a trembling voice, and I fancied that
she recoiled from the hair as if it had been a living thing confronting
her with reproaches. “I understand now your feelings with regard to this
room and respect them. It shall not be disturbed. I can find another for
Julina,” she continued; “and now, if you will excuse me, I will go. I
think I hear your father.”

She was herself again, cold, dignified and stiff, but gave no sign that
she was the Aunt Martha we had been anxious to find. We were sure of it,
however, and if anything had been wanting to confirm us in our
suspicions we had it the next morning, which was Sunday. As was our
custom on that day we went after breakfast with flowers to the cemetery,
and found a small bouquet on Charlie’s grave, and on the boy’s a larger
one, while the grass which was long had been trampled down by some one
kneeling or sitting upon it.

“Aunt Martha has been here,” Fan said. “I really think she has something
human about her after all, but I should like her better if she’d say
square out ‘I am Aunt Martha.’ I hate concealments.”

On our return to the house we passed the cabin where Phyllis sat on a
wash-bench in the shade, shelling peas for dinner.

“Mrs. Hathern done got ahead of you,” she said, running her hands
through the peas and letting them drop back into the pan. “She was out
before sun up, pickin’ de flowers, and went holdin’ her white petticoats
mos’ up to her knees cross de lot to de cemetry, whar she went down face
fo’most on de Boy’s grave, an’ when she coined back her eyes was all red
and watery. Like ’nuff she’s some of his kin.”

It was scarcely possible that Phyllis suspected anything. If she did,
she kept it to herself. Neither did Mrs. Hathern give any sign that she
knew aught of the boy, whom, to each other, we began to speak of as
Paul, while she was always Aunt Martha.




                 CHAPTER XII.—ANNIE’S STORY CONTINUED.
                       NORAH O’ROURKE AND JULINA.


A suitable room had been found for Julina very near Norah O’Rourke’s,
and we were anxiously awaiting their arrival, when one evening as we sat
at the tea-table the village ‘bus drove into the yard, loaded on the top
with baggage and filled inside, it seemed to me, with big hats and
feathers and ribbons. Nothing doubting that we were about to be favored
with some of Mrs. Hathern’s grand Boston friends I was wondering if
Phyllis would be equal to the emergency and lamenting that Norah
O’Rourke and Julina were not at their posts, when Mrs. Hathern sprang
up, exclaiming, as she started from the room, “Norah and Julina.” Father
was not at home, and in his absence Phyllis, who was waiting on the
table, felt at liberty to express herself with comparative freedom.

“Oh, my Lord! I s’posed in course ’twas some quality. Look-a-dar, will
you?” she said, as she nodded her high turban at the scene transpiring
outside.

Norah O’Rourke, gorgeous in purple traveling dress, and big brown hat
trimmed with green ribbons and feathers, had alighted, and Mrs. Hathern,
who had never shown herself at all demonstrative, was kissing her, as
she told her how glad she was to see her.

“My Lord, my Lord, that I should live to see Mas’r Hathern’s wife kiss a
white nigger! What will de wah fotch us next!” Phyllis exclaimed, and
setting down the teapot, from which she was filling my cup, she
disappeared in the direction of her cabin, out of sight of what she
considered a familiarity beneath the dignity of Mas’r Hathern’s family.

Full of curiosity Fan and I watched the group with open-eyed wonder,
deciding that Norah O’Rourke was rather a formidable personage, of whom
we might stand in awe, and that Julina was airy and pert, but very
graceful, and dressed in much better taste than her companion. Brought
up as we had been among the negroes, we had never seen a white servant
in our lives and knew nothing of the relation they held to their
employers. That they were more than slaves and less than equals we
supposed, but we were not prepared for the familiarity with which Mrs.
Hathern greeted Norah and Julina. She did not kiss the latter, but she
kept hold of her hand as she conducted them into the house and up to
their rooms, while Norah, in her rich Irish brogue, declared Virginia
the most god-forsaken country she was ever in, and Richmond the most
tumble-down hole, and herself played out generally with her long journey
in cars which Boston wouldn’t put cattle in.

That night they took their supper in the dining-room and Mrs. Hathern
waited upon them, while Phyllis nursed her wrath in her kitchen under
the dogwood trees, where later on I found a great many cooking utensils
thrown around promiscuously,—flatirons, gourds, tin dippers, and
brooms,—a sure sign of the tempest which had been raging in the old
negress’s breast. At that time my sympathies were all with Phyllis, but
in the light of later experience I came to see how unreasonable she was
in her prejudice against both Norah and Julina, who were fair
representatives of their class and who could no more understand the
servility of a born slave like Phyllis than she could understand their
assumption of equality with those they served. For some weeks I detested
Norah for her unmistakable air of _good-as-you_. Then I began to like
her so much that if she had gone away and returned to us I think I might
have kissed her without any hesitancy. She had been recommended to Mrs.
Hathern as honest and trusty and neat and a good cook, with a temper of
her own and a strong disposition to rule the house, all of which
recommendations proved true. She was most trusty and honest and a grand
cook, with a temper as recommended, and she did rule the house, and
ruled it so well and allowed so many privileges that Mrs. Hathern
submitted to the bondage, and by making everything subservient to her
wishes and raising her wages at intervals she had managed to keep her so
long that she had become a part of herself and her ways, as Phyllis was
a part of ourselves and our ways. I never knew before I met Norah
O’Rourke that there could be so much expressed in the creak of a shoe!
Hers always creaked,—sometimes more, sometimes less,—and after a little
I could tell by the sound exactly the mood she was in. If her foot came
down heavy and strong, even Mrs. Hathern avoided her; if the tread was
medium she ventured to issue her orders; but when she had on her felt
slippers, as we designated her softest tread, she was like clay in our
hands, to be moulded at our will. We all stood a little in fear of her,
and father said, laughingly, that he did not dare go into the kitchen
without knocking for permission, if her shoes were noisy. Between her
and Phyllis there was war from the first, and the two were only
restrained from open battles by being kept apart as much as
possible,—Phyllis on her premises under the dogwoods, where she washed
and ironed and bemoaned the change which had come over her master’s
family, and Norah in her domain, where she concocted and served the most
wonderful dishes with the skill of a trained _chef_.

Once Fan ventured to remonstrate with her for her antagonism to Phyllis,
whose many virtues she set forth in glowing colors. Norah’s shoes
creaked ominously as she stamped around the kitchen, while her Irish
dialect, which she never used unless she was excited, came in full play.

“An’ sure,” she said, “you don’t know what ye’s talkin’ about. When I’m
riled, as I am a good part of the time in this haythenish counthry, I’m
spilin’ for a fight, and if I didn’t pitch into that nagur, I should
wallop you all with my _shillalah_ of a tongue.”

After this we let matters take their course, trying occasionally to
smooth Phyllis down, when her plumage was more than usually ruffled. If
she was to be credited, she _rassled_ a good deal in _prar_ for grace to
do her duty and _not_ run away.

“Niggers and Irish wouldn’t mix more’n ile and water,” she said, and of
the two she detested July more than she did Rory O’Rock, the name she
gave to Norah. “Such a’rs,” she said, “axin me to call her Juleen ’case
thar’s a French _axum_ over her eye. What’s dat ar, I’d like to know. I
can’t see nothin’ over her eyes but dem great shaggy brush heaps.
Juleen, indeed! I shall call her _July_, with her black eyes and bar and
face, too. ’Spec she’s some nigger blood in her.”

Julina’s father was plain Tom Smith, of Vermont, but her mother was
French, and from her the girl had inherited many of the characteristics
of the race. She was very slight and would have been very pretty but for
her large teeth, over which her thin lips never quite closed. Dark-eyed,
dark-haired and dark-faced, with a certain airy grace of speech and
manner she looked the French maid fully, especially in the little caps
which she wore so jauntily, but wore unwillingly. They were badges of
servitude, she said, and nothing would induce her to wear them if Mrs.
Hathern did not pay her extra for it. At heart she was a born anarchist,
and although she performed her duties as housemaid thoroughly she hated
them, and let Fan and me know that she did, talking sometimes in English
and sometimes in French, which she had learned from her mother, and
hurled with great volubility at both Norah and Phyllis when engaged in a
spirited encounter.

She made no secret to us of her dislike of Mrs. Hathern, but she adored
Carl, and her eyes lighted up with a strange brilliancy when she spoke
of him. He was expected very soon and no one seemed more anxious for his
coming than Julina, although she took good care not to express herself
in the presence of his mother. Before her she was always respectful and
modest and quiet, but to us she showed herself as she really was, and
talked freely of what she meant to be,—“not a drudge to go and come at
another’s bidding, but a lady, to be served as we were served.” She had
it in her, if her father was a poor farmer in Vermont. She had a good
common-school education. She had tact and common sense. Her mother’s
family were somebody in France, where she meant to go when she had
sufficient money, and then we’d see what she could do.




                 CHAPTER XIII.—ANNIE’S STORY CONTINUED.
                                 CARL.


Notwithstanding what he had said of his anxiety to reach the Elms, he
did not seem to be in a great hurry to do so. He stopped some days in
New York, and again in Washington, and it was two weeks from the time he
left Boston before a telegram came to his mother saying he was in
Richmond and would be with us the next evening. That same day Fan had a
letter from Jack, who wrote: “I was the first to make the acquaintance
of Mrs. Hathern, and am also the first to know her son Carl. He has been
at the Spotswood four days, and I verily believe knows more of the city
than I do. He has been everywhere and seen everything, from Libby
Prison, Castle Thunder and Belle Isle to the fortifications in the
country for miles around. He has the most expensive room in the hotel,
and drives out with a span and a guide and coachman, and myself,
whenever I can find time to go out with him. He has visited the State
House and every store and shop and office in town, and talked politics
and reconstruction with as much assurance as if he were a gray-haired
veteran of fifty instead of a boy of fifteen or sixteen. Everybody knows
him and everybody likes him, especially at the hotel, where he spends
his money so freely. I usually go there every night and look over the
register to see the new arrivals, and when I saw ‘Carlyle Haverleigh,
Boston, Mass.,’ I soon had him by the hand, telling him who I was and
asking what I could do for him. _Do for him!_ Bless your soul, he does
not need anyone to do for him; he is equal to anything; takes care of
and patronizes me; owns the whole south generally, and Richmond and the
Spotswood in particular. And yet he is not in the least offensive in his
patronage. It is just his pleasant, genial, helpful way, which goes to
your heart directly. We call him _Boston_, and laugh at his ‘I guesses’
and ‘carnts’ and ‘sharnts,’ and tell him he ought to be kept under a
glass cover, with his fine clothes and white hands. But he takes it in
perfect good humor and ridicules our ‘I reckons’ and ‘heaps’ and ‘right
smarts,’ and says we wear baggy, ill-made clothes, and talk through our
noses worse than any down-east Yankee he ever met, but admits that we
are a pretty good sort, on the whole, for rebs, and much better, he
presumes, for having been _licked_! Think of it! A Boston cub, right
from the very heart of abolitionism and everything else, talking like
that to old Virginia soldiers, who shake their sides over him. Truly the
world moves, and we move with it, and I am glad we do. I like the boy,
or, perhaps, I should say young man, for he is nearly as tall as I am,
and straight as an Indian, with a proud bearing as if the world were
made for him. He has a frank, ingenuous face, with clear-cut features,
laughing eyes, and a mouth which, if it were a girl’s, would not be bad
to kiss! I rather think it is a kissing mouth, he is so fond of the
girls,—talks to everyone he meets in the hotel, and actually asked Mrs.
Gen. Sands’ daughter Mabel, from South Carolina, to take a walk with
him. She took it and a blowing up, too, from her mother, when she got
home, while he took a worse one for his presumption,—I’m not sure she
didn’t call it impudence,—in proposing such a thing to a southern girl
and a stranger. You should have seen Carl then. I was really proud of
him, he stood up so manly and dignified in the parlor half full of
people and said, ‘I beg your pardon, madam; I meant no harm, I assure
you. It was because she was a southern girl that I asked her. I wanted
to see if she were like Boston girls; she is very much like them,
except, perhaps, more charming, because not quite so stiff. I really did
not intend to be impudent. I couldn’t, you know. Why, I’m a _Bostonian_,
a _Haverleigh_, and a _gentleman_!’

“We all wanted to cheer, and Mrs. Sands most of all. She has been out
driving with him since and taken Mabel with her. What strikes me as very
remarkable about the boy is his freedom from all bad habits. I don’t
believe he has one, unless it is a disposition to spend his money too
freely. He says he owes everything to his mother. There was some bad
blood in the family away back somewhere, and she was as afraid of it as
of a mad dog and watched him as a rat would watch a mouse. When he was
ten years old some college chaps got him to drink and smoke until he was
so deathly sick that they feared he would die. When he got over it his
mother thrashed him so soundly with a rawhide that he declares he has a
mark of one of the welts on his back yet. Then she told him that for
every year until he was twenty-one in which he neither drank, nor
smoked, nor chewed, nor swore, nor lied, she would give him one hundred
dollars over and above the allowance she usually made him. She wanted to
tack on dancing and theatres, he said, but he kicked at that and
promised the rest, and kept his promise, too, until last year, when he
called a girl who lived with them a d—— fool because she would make eyes
at him. Quite to his surprise his mother gave him fifty dollars, saying
it was only half a swear and the girl deserved it.

“His father left a large fortune, the use of which is to be his mother’s
during her lifetime, with the exception of twenty-five thousand dollars
which are to be paid to Carl when he is twenty-one. At his mother’s
death he gets the whole. So, you see, he will some day be a very rich
man and a great catch. Pity he wasn’t older, or you and Annie younger.
He has asked me a great many questions about you; says he always wanted
some sisters, and knows he shall like you,—love, I think he said, but he
is only a boy and I am not jealous. He leaves day after to-morrow and I
shall miss him, for I find myself looking forward to the close of
business hours when I am free to join him and hear his funny and
original remarks about us and our ways which he says are a hundred years
behind Boston.”

This letter did not in the least diminish our desire to see Carl
Haverleigh, in whose coming the whole household was interested. We were
running like clockwork now, with Phyllis as laundress, Norah as cook,
Julina as housemaid, and Boston baked beans and brown bread on Sunday.
We dressed for dinner and dined in courses at six, while father wore his
swallow-tail and Julina waited upon us in her pretty white apron and
cap. Mrs. Hathern’s carriage and horses had come from Boston. We had a
colored coachman from Richmond, who wore a tall hat and brass buttons
and went to sleep on the box while driving us around the neighborhood.
Altogether, we were very high-toned and Bostony, and but for a few
drawbacks might have enjoyed the new order of things immensely. Our
house was handsomely furnished; father’s debts were paid, and had he
chosen he might have dismissed his patients and lived a life of perfect
ease. Mrs. Hathern was very free with her money, and more generous to
Fan and me than we expected or deserved. But there was always a feeling
of restraint in her presence and a hankering for the flesh-pots of
Egypt, when it didn’t matter whether things were in order or not, or we
on time to a minute; and then there was unfortunate Katy, who not only
spent hours in the high chair and in bed for trivial things we had never
dreamed of calling faults, but to whose other trials was added that of
daily music lessons. Mrs. Hathern’s piano, a splendid Steinway, had
come, and the old one which had been our mother’s was moved to make room
for it. Then, following Miss Errington’s advice, she commenced teaching
Katy, who was required to practice every day until her little arms and
hands ached with fatigue. She hated the practice, but liked the singing,
and every morning for half an hour or more the house was filled with
melody as she went up and down the scales, clear and sweet as a bird,
while I listened with pride and Fan with fear of what might be the
result in the future.

There was to be a cessation of the lessons for a few days on account of
Carl’s arrival and because of a grand picnic which was to be held in the
woods near a little waterfall and a fine bit of scenery. Everybody in
town who was anybody was going, and Mrs. Hathern was especially glad
that it was fixed for the day after Carl’s expected arrival, as it would
give her an early opportunity to show her handsome and accomplished son
to her friends and neighbors. I think the New Englander revels in
picnics. Mrs. Hathern was certainly in her element preparing for this
one and for Carl, who was coming at last.

It was a lovely July day,—cool for the season, but with that
deliciousness in the air and deep blue in the sky common to Virginia
summers. Carl’s room was in readiness for him. Julina had swept and
dusted and lingered over it longer than was at all necessary, and there
was a light in the girl’s eyes and an airiness in her movements which
irritated and disgusted us. Mrs. Hathern had hung upon the walls a few
pictures we had not seen before, some of them exquisitely colored
photographs of Venice and others, copies of Pompeiian dancing girls,
who, it seemed to me, might have worn thicker garments and not have been
uncomfortable even in the summer. But I was not up in high art and had
not spent a year and a half abroad, like Mrs. Hathern, who could
contemplate and discuss a Venus de Medicis or Apollo Belvidere as
readily as a block of unhewn marble. There was a head of a Madonna,
which Mrs. Hathern had found in Florence, in Carl’s room, and Norah hung
around its neck a string of beads from Lourdes which had been blessed by
the Pope; “not for keeps,” she said, “but just for a little while to
show him I am glad he is coming.” Phyllis, too, had brought the only
valuable article she possessed,—a handsome bowl of Royal Worcester,
which a Federal soldier had given her in exchange for a peck of apples
and some walnuts. It was stolen, of course, from some desecrated home,
but as Phyllis didn’t know where that home was she had no compunctions
in taking it, and since the war it had stood on a little table at the
head of the bed with her pipes and tobacco and child’s first reader
which she kept there, not because she could read,—we had tried to teach
her and failed,—but because it looked as if she could. She had heard us
talk so much of Carl that she was interested, too, and brought the bowl
full of flowers and set it down by his photograph on the bureau.

The morning was long and the evening was longer, but five o’clock came
at last and the carriage with Mrs. Hathern and father and Katy went to
the station, while Fan and I waited at home upon the piazza, and Julina
went once or twice to the gate and looked anxiously down the street.
Suddenly there was the sound of rapid footsteps and of some one
whistling Dixie at the rear of the hall, and in a moment Carl stood
before us, flushed and expectant and eager. The train, which was usually
late, had been ahead of time and pulled up at the station before the
carriage reached it, for something had happened to the harness and
detained it. Everybody knew Carl was coming, and everyone at the station
knew it was he as he leaped upon the platform in his long linen duster
and straw hat and northern air generally.

“Halloo! Is there anyone here from the Hatherns? I am Carl Haverleigh,”
was his salutation to the station master, who replied that there was not
yet, but undoubtedly would be soon.

“Well, is there a short cut to the house which I can take and surprise
them?” he asked next.

There was one and Carl took it and brought up by Phyllis’s cabin, where
she sat quietly smoking under the dogwood tree after her work was done.
Jack had described us all so minutely that Carl knew in a moment who
Phyllis was, and his cheery “Halloo, Aunt Phyllis. How d’ye,” nearly
threw the old woman off her seat. She did drop her clay pipe, and Carl’s
brown head and her red turban knocked together as both stooped to pick
it up.

“God bless you, Mas’r Carl! I’se jes tolable, thank ye. How d’ye you
’self?” she said, taking her pipe from him and holding his hand, white
as a girl’s, in both her black horny ones.

“Where are the folks?” he asked, and she replied, “Ole Mas’r and Missus
and Katy has done gone for you, but you’ll find de young ladies in the
piazza waitin’ for you. We’s all right glad to see you, Mas’r Carl. Go
right up de path dar.”

Following her directions he came next to the kitchen, where Norah
stopped her preparations for dinner to greet him, while Julina darted
out from some corner and seized him by the hand, her black eyes full of
the delight she felt. But there was no answering gleam in his, and his
“How are you, Julina?” was cold and formal as he hurried on to where we
were sitting. Jack had written “He is nearly as tall as I am,” but in
his long duster he looked taller, and there was such an air of fashion
and maturity about him that for a moment we felt abashed as if in the
presence of a full-grown young man of a different type from any we had
known. This feeling, however, soon passed, for no one could withstand
the cordiality of his manner, or the expression of his frank, handsome
face.

“Halloo,” he cried, “here you are, Fan-and-Ann, and I am Carl.”

He kissed us and whirled us round and told us he was _first rate_,
before we could say a word to him. Then, holding each of us by the hand,
he looked us over curiously and critically.

“You look just as I thought you did. The rest of the folks have gone for
me, I suppose,” he said, releasing our hands, and beginning to remove
his duster, “Won’t mother scold though because I gave her the slip.
Hallo, there they are;” and he darted down the steps to meet the
carriage just entering the yard.

There was a slight cloud on Mrs. Hathern’s face as she alighted and
asked why he did not wait for them.

“Oh, I couldn’t. I was in such a hurry to see my sisters, and here’s
another one,” he said, lifting Katy in his arms and squeezing her until
she was red in the face.

“You are a beauty, and no mistake!” he said, putting her down and
turning to father, towards whom his manner was exceedingly polite and
deferential.

It was strange what a change his coming made in our home. He was so
bright and thoughtful and magnetic that before the evening was over we
felt that we had known him years instead of hours. Jack was a gentleman,
and so were all our male acquaintances, while Col. Errington represented
the highest phase of polish we had ever seen. But Carl was different
from them all, with a difference we felt but could not well define. He
seemed to know the right thing to say and when to say it and how to
bring out the best there was in one. I had never been as well satisfied
with myself as I was after that first evening spent with him, his
flatteries and compliments were so delicate and seemed so earnest. Fan
thought him not altogether genuine and a little too familiar.

“He is too tall to be putting his arm around us so much,” she said when
we were discussing him in the privacy of our room. “I call him a flirt,
and if there was nothing to keep us in mind, he’d forget us in a
week,—but, on the whole, I like him.”




                 CHAPTER XIV.—ANNIE’S STORY CONTINUED.
                              THE PICNIC.


The picnic grounds were seven or eight miles distant, and we were to
start as early as possible so as to avoid the heat of midday. Mrs.
Hathern, whose ambition was to excel in everything, had made great
preparations for an elaborate lunch, which was to be served by Phyllis
and Julina.

Fan said she must have slept in her bonnet, as we found her with it on
when we went down to breakfast. Katy was also ready, and so wild with
excitement and anticipation that she scarcely heard Mrs. Hathern’s oft
repeated warning not to soil her clothes unless she wished to stay at
home. She wanted to show Carl her kittens and puppies and chickens, and
finally took him down to feed the ducks in a little artificial pond or
basin by the side of the lane, where they were assembled in full force,
their quacks growing louder and louder when they saw the little girl
approaching and knew by instinct that she was coming to feed them. It
was great fun throwing them crumbs of bread and watching them as they
swam after and fought over them and then craned up their necks for more.
For a time everything went well and Katy’s white dress was without spot
or blemish, although her boots showed marks of the soft soil around the
basin. Then suddenly, neither she nor Carl knew how, she slipped and
fell in the worst possible place. Her boots and stockings and dress were
covered with mud, spatters of which were on her sash and face and hands,
so that it was a most forlorn-looking child who came to us, crying
bitterly as she held up first one foot and then the other and showed us
her muddy hands.

“I am so sorry! Oh, what will mamma say? and can’t I go?” was the burden
of her cry as we began to wash off the dirt and tried to comfort her.

At that moment Mrs. Hathern, who had heard of Katy’s mishap from Carl,
appeared in the doorway, her face a thunder cloud and her voice
trembling with anger as she said, “You naughty, disobedient child! Why
did you go to the duck pond at all? You know what I told you, and I mean
it, too. I shall send for Julina at once and put you to bed where you
will stay while we are gone.”

“Oh, mamma, mamma; please don’t make me stay at home. I want to go so
much. I didn’t think the bank was so soft, and I wanted to show the big
duck to Carl,” was Katy’s despairing cry, as she stretched her little
hands imploringly toward her stepmother.

But she might as well have pleaded with a rock. Things generally had
gone wrong in the household that morning. Father had been called to an
old patient who lived miles away and was dangerously ill. Consequently,
he could not go with us unless we waited for him an indefinite length of
time. Phyllis had scorched one of the finest table-cloths. Something
ailed the range, and Norah’s corn cakes were spoiled in the baking,
thereby putting her in a state where collision, or even conversation,
with her was not desirable. In looking about Carl’s room to see if
everything was in order, Mrs. Hathern had come across a photograph which
Julina had put behind some books where Carl would be sure to find it if
he ever took up one to read. The girl’s admiration of her handsome son
was not unknown to Mrs. Hathern, who heretofore had thought but little
of it; but this was going too far, and taking the picture to Julina she
tore it into shreds, asking what she meant by such presumption, and
threatening her with instant dismissal if anything of the sort occurred
again. It was in vain that Julina protested that she only wanted to put
something in Carl’s room as all the rest had done,—that she meant
nothing wrong. Mrs. Hathern heard her with scorn, and was so scathing
and bitter that Julina declared her intention of giving up her place and
going home at once. This Mrs. Hathern could not allow. It was well
enough for her to threaten dismissal, but for Julina to forestall her by
going voluntarily was another thing. She was too well trained and too
useful to be given up lightly, and some concession had to be made before
matters were adjusted. Following this came the news that Katy had fallen
into the duck pond, and this was a straw too much. She could conciliate
Julina, because it was for her interest to do so, but towards Katy she
was inexorable, notwithstanding that Fan and I pleaded that for this
once she might be forgiven.

“Beat her, if you will, but let her go,” Fan said. “Think what you are
condemning her to,—a long day in bed, while we are enjoying ourselves;
and she has anticipated it so much. Father would not allow it if he were
here.”

“I am very glad then that he is away, as I should be sorry to have any
serious disagreement with him on the subject of family discipline,” Mrs.
Hathern replied, in that tone which always made us so angry.

With a slight inclination of her head she left the room, and the rattle
of her stiff skirts as she swept down the stairs reminded us of Norah’s
shoes when she was in a tantrum. In a few minutes Julina came in, sullen
and red-eyed, and began to remove Katy’s soiled clothes, while the
little girl cried bitterly with long-drawn, gasping sobs, hard for us to
bear and know that we were powerless to help her. What Julina thought we
could not guess. Her movements were rather jerky and spiteful as she
undressed the child and put her in the little cot, which stood in one
corner of our room. Katy’s tears, however, must have moved her, for, as
she drew the sheet up round her, she said, “It’s awful mean, but I
wouldn’t let her know I cared. Norah will come and sit with you and
bring you some raspberry tarts.”

Then she turned to leave the room, but stopped on the threshold as if a
new idea had suddenly occurred to her.

“Katy,” she said, going back to the cot, “I believe you’ll go yet. I am
going to tell Carl.”

She found him in the side piazza playing with the kittens, and without
softening the matter at all she acquainted him with the facts.

“Where’s mother?” Carl asked, and there was a look on his face like his
mother as he started in quest of her.

She had come up to his room where he found her and as ours was directly
opposite and the doors were open we could not help hearing most of the
conversation.

“Mother,” he began, in a voice I would never have recognized as Carl’s,
“what is this about Katy’s being kept at home and sent to bed because of
an accident?”

“I suppose the young ladies have been complaining to you,” Mrs. Hathern
said, and Carl replied, “I have not seen them since I came from the duck
pond, but I know about Katy, and it’s a burning shame to treat a little
child like that. I remember the hours,—yes, _weeks_, if all the time
were added up,—that Paul and I were kept in bed or on chairs for trivial
offenses. It’s worse than beating, for that is soon over and done with;
Paul said so the time you thrashed him for nothing.”

“Why do you bring up Paul so often?” Mrs. Hathern asked, with what
seemed a tremor in her voice.

“I don’t know, unless it is that he has been in my mind all the morning,
and I keep wondering if he were in this part of the country,” Carl said,
his voice softening as he spoke of Paul, but hardening again as he
continued, “Don’t make Katy run away as Paul did. She was no more to
blame for falling into the mud than I was, nor as much, and by George if
she stays home I shall stay, too, and go to bed; or, no, I’ll sit up and
amuse her.”

Here was a family jar in earnest, and we were thinking of closing our
door so as not to hear any more, when Mrs. Hathern and Carl must have
changed their positions or spoken lower, as we distinguished nothing
more, except disjointed sentences, such as _for this once_, and
_somebody’s sake_—Carl’s, or Paul’s presumably. Then the former crossed
the hall quickly and knocked at our door.

“Hop up, Katy!” he exclaimed, walking up to the cot where Katy had
raised herself on her elbow at the sound of his voice. “You are going,
if you’ll promise never to fall into a frog pond again when you have on
your best clothes. Hurry! the carriage will be round in fifteen minutes.
Here are your shoes; but where the deuce are your stockings?”

Katy was on the floor by this time and we were all helping her dress,
Carl the coolest of the three and showing a deftness and knowledge of
straps and buttons and hooks not common in a boy. She was ready in ten
minutes, her face a little flushed and stained with tears, but shining
with the light of a great and sudden joy, and as the last pin was put in
its place she threw her arms around Carl’s neck and laying her cheek
against his, said to him, “Oh, Carl, I love you so much, and shall love
you forever and ever because you are so good.”

“Perhaps you’d better say something handsome to mother for letting you
go,” Carl said, adding hastily, as he saw Katy’s look of perplexity and
heard his mother on the stairs: “Tell her she’s an angel, or a brick, or
an old darling, or something of that sort.”

Usually Katy would have known what to say without prompting, but in her
excitement she seemed to have lost her wits, and running up to Mrs.
Hathern she exclaimed, “I thank you so much, and you are an old darling,
and an old angel and an old brick; Carl said so, didn’t you, Carl?”

It would be difficult to describe the expression of Mrs. Hathern’s face
as she looked at her son, who, she knew was responsible for this
doubtful compliment, and who laughed so long and loud that Fan and I
laughed with him.

“I think you might refrain from teaching Katy slang,” she said, with a
smile she could not repress.

With harmony thus restored we seated ourselves in the carriage and were
driven along the pleasant road and through the shady woods to the picnic
grounds, where most of our friends were already assembled and where Mrs.
Hathern’s good humor soon came back to her with the attention she
received. No one’s lunch was as elaborate as ours, or as daintily
served, for both Phyllis and Julina did their best. Julina’s face was
clouded and scowling, but she moved with a certain airiness and grace
natural to her, and spoke, when she did speak, in the language of a lady
rather than of a servant. Hitherto she had only been seen by our
neighbors when they called and she let them in, but now she was
prominent everywhere and knew she was attracting attention, and her
black eyes shone and flashed, and her color came and went until I began
to think her positively pretty, and said so to Fan, who was also
watching her.

“Dangerous,” was her reply, while Carl, who was standing near and heard
her, added, “Has Satan in her as big as a barn, and intrigue enough to
overthrow an empire. Thinks herself the equal of anybody and means to
prove it some day, and, by George, I believe she will. I hope I shan’t
be one of her victims.”

This scarcely seemed possible, but there swept over me suddenly a most
unaccountable feeling that in some way that dark, slim girl with the
French blood in her veins and the fierce ambition in her heart, might be
a blot on the life of the handsome boy, who was the lion of the picnic
as his mother was the queen. I had never seen her as gracious as she was
that day when she moved among the people as if she had been the hostess
instead of one of them. I think it was Carl’s presence which made her so
different from the cold, precise woman we knew at home. She was very
proud of him and of the attention he received. Everybody wished to know
him and he wanted to know everybody, and before the day was over had
said so many pleasant things and done so many little courteous acts to
both old and young that we were congratulated on all sides for our good
fortune in possessing so delightful a step-brother. Carl was a success.




                  CHAPTER XV.—ANNIE’S STORY CONTINUED.
                                 PAUL.


The next day was Sunday, and after our one o’clock dinner Fan and I
started for the cemetery on the hillside, accompanied by Carl. We had
omitted taking flowers early in the morning, but we had them with us
now, and Carl carried them for us and asked many questions about our
brother as we went slowly across the fields.

“Shot at Fredericksburg,” he said. “That’s where a cousin of mine was
killed, if he were killed at all. We tracked him to that battle, or
thought we did, and have never heard of him since.”

Neither Fan nor I made any reply, and he went on: “He was several years
older than I, but too young to go to the war. He lived with us and I
loved him like a brother, and when I really made up my mind that he was
dead I cried myself sick, and now I am sometimes so lonesome for Paul
that I want to cry just as I did then. It is hard to believe he is dead,
with no proof of it, and every night I pray that he may come back to us,
or that we may know for sure what became of him. You pray, don’t you? I
heard Annie in church this morning, but not a peep from you. I don’t
believe you said the creed.”

He was speaking to Fan, who answered rather shortly, “I prayed so much
for the success of the south during the war, and we failed so utterly
that I have about lost faith in prayer, and have come to think that what
is to be will be, and we can’t help ourselves; so what is the use of
praying? Didn’t the north pray with all their might that their army
might be victors, and didn’t we do the same, and wern’t we just as much
in earnest as you were, and which did the Lord hear?”

“Our side, of course, because we were right, and had the most men and
money. You shouldn’t have been a Reb if you wanted the Lord to hear you.
What could you do against the Lord and such hordes as we had to fight
you with?” Carl said, while Fan tossed her head high in the air, but did
not continue the conversation.

We were in the enclosure now under the pine trees and were laying the
flowers we had brought upon the four graves, our mother’s, Katy’s
mother’s, Charlie’s and The Boy’s. Carl was reading the inscriptions on
the tombstones, first mother’s, then Katy’s mother’s, then Charlie’s,
over which he lingered. “Only nineteen; he would be twenty-three now,
that’s a little older than Paul, if he were living. Halloo! what does
this mean, ‘The Boy, who died Good Friday, 1863.’ That’s a queer
inscription. Who was The Boy?”

“We don’t know,” Fan said, sitting down on an iron chair near the grave
and clasping her hands at the back of her head.

Carl looked at her mystified and curious.

“He was one of your people,” she continued, “and I hated you all, until
he came to us and died, with his hand in mine, hurrahing for me. I
haven’t hated anybody since. Would you like to hear his story?”

“Yes,” Carl said, and leaning upon the stone he listened while Fan told
the story in all its details as only she could tell it.

At its close Carl was down upon the grassy mound, crushing the flowers
we had put there, and sobbing bitterly, “Paul, Paul,—it was Paul! I have
found him at last dead, and I had hoped he might come back to me alive.
Oh, Paul, I am so sorry for everything.”

We were all crying now, and surely over no soldier’s grave, north or
south, east or west, was sadder moan ever made than over that of The Boy
that summer afternoon years and years ago. Whatever of wrong there had
been in Carl’s treatment of Paul it was atoned for, if tears can atone
for a wrong done to the dead. I had never seen a man or boy cry as Carl
cried, with his face upon the grass.

“Don’t,” Fan said at last. “Don’t you remember that he bade us tell you
he liked you?”

“Yes, I know, and it’s that which hurts, and the knowing for sure that
he is dead,” Carl answered, lifting up his head and wiping away his
tears. “I have dreamed so often that he came back that I have almost
made myself believe that he would, and I have planned so many things to
do when he came. Strange, too, that he has been so often in my mind
since I came here. You told me that your woods were often full of
Federal troops, and many times at the picnic I was saying to myself,
‘Was Paul ever here? Did he see this waterfall, or sleep under that big
tree near which they said camp fires were built?’ and now I am by his
grave, and you cared for him when he died. Tell me more, if there is
more to tell.”

There was not much, except to show the letter dictated by Charlie and
written by The Boy. This, with the lock of hair and the knife and
jews-harp Fan had purposely brought with her, meaning to tell the story
to Carl just as she had told it. The writing was a scrawl, for the hand
which wrote it was throbbing with pain, but Carl identified it as Paul’s
by the capitals and the formation of some of the letters. The hair and
jews-harp and knife he remembered perfectly, and cried again as he held
them in his hand.

“If I had been beaten in his place, as I ought to have been he might not
have run away, but I was a coward and a sneak,” he said referring to a
theft of cake which had been charged to Paul and not denied because he
wished to shield his cousin.

The memory of this seemed to hurt Carl the most, and he went over the
incident again and again, ending always with the cry, “If I could only
take it back.” Then he told us briefly what there was to tell of Paul,
whose last name was also Haverleigh, as their fathers had been brothers.
Both Paul’s parents had died when he was young, and he had been, in a
way, adopted by his Aunt Martha, who was very fond of him until the
birth of Carl, when there came a change.

“I suppose my being her own naturally made a difference,” Carl said,
“and I know now there was a difference, although mother might not have
intended any. I was a spoiled child, and Paul was a lively, wide-awake
boy, who, with nothing bad about him, was constantly getting me and
himself into scrapes, which mother, with her strict notions, thought
awful. Sometimes we were sent to bed or set on hard chairs until they
must have ached; I am sure we did. She never inflicted corporal
punishment upon Paul but once, and that was about the cake which she
thought he stole and lied about. So she thrashed him, and he was nearly
as old as I am now. ‘Too big to be licked,’ he said, and ran away. Where
he went at first I do not know, and shall never know now, but after the
war broke out we traced him, or thought we did, to the army as a drummer
boy. Then mother went to Europe for two years, leaving me at school.
When she came home she did try to find him and was almost sure he was at
Fredericksburg, and that is all. Does mother know?” he asked, and Fan
replied, “I have told her the story just as I told it to you. She could
draw her own conclusions.”

For a moment Carl was silent, and then he asked, “Did she give no sign
that she understood?”

“She cried and has put flowers on his grave every Sunday since,” was
Fan’s answer, and Carl continued: “Yes, she knows, and she is
sorry,—more sorry than you think. Mother is a good woman, who means to
do right, but, unfortunately, her ideas run in a groove too narrow and
deep for her to get them out easily. She is Puritanical all
through,—great, great, great and double great something of Miles
Standish and the Mayflower. I don’t care a fig for either, but I love my
mother, and I want you to love her, too. It will be better all round.
She is quick to reciprocate, and isn’t a bad sort by a long shot,—a
little stiff, that’s all; and if she didn’t own up about Paul, it was a
kind of pride which kept her silent. If you told the Aunt Martha part
with half the _vim_ you told it to me, she could have no doubt of your
opinion of her, and it required a good deal of pluck for her to say ‘I
am that woman.’ But she will do it. She’ll tell me Paul is here, and
she’ll tell you that she is Aunt Martha, and propose a big monument for
Paul and Charlie.”

“No, no,” Fan interposed. “We knew your cousin as The Boy, and as such
he must remain. We can have no tall monument here.”

On our return to the house we found Mrs. Hathern sitting on the piazza.
Katy, to whom she had been teaching her duty towards her neighbor, had
fallen asleep with her head on her stepmother’s lap, while Mrs.
Hathern’s hand was lying lightly on the child’s yellow curls. It was a
very pretty picture of domestic happiness, and I began to think that, as
Carl had said, his mother was not a bad sort after all. There was an
anxious, worried look on her face as we came up the steps, on which we
all sat down, as the day was very hot.

“Carl,” she began, with a lump in her throat, “you have been to Paul’s
grave and have heard how kindly he was cared for by Fanny and Annie?”

Carl nodded, and she went on: “It was a shock to me to know that he was
here. You told your sisters, I hope, how we tried to trace him?”

“Yes, I told them everything,” Carl answered, and she continued: “I am
glad you did. I couldn’t tell them when I first knew about it. I simply
couldn’t, and I waited for you to come. I would give a great deal to
have Paul back alive, but as that cannot be, I am glad to know where he
is lying; and if you think best we will have him removed to our family
lot in Mt. Auburn.”

“Never, no, never,” and Fan sprang to her feet. “He is _our Boy_. He
died with us; we buried him; we loved him. He was ours, and we must keep
him here with Charlie.”

“You shall, if you feel like that,” Mrs. Hathern said, “and both Carl
and I are more thankful than we can express for the kindness he received
from you all. I told your father while you were at his grave, and it
affected him greatly. It is strange that our families should be thus
brought together, and I hope that the memory of Paul may be a bond of
sympathy and kindly feeling between us.”

She held out her hand first to Fanny and then to me, and as we took it
we felt that there had already commenced a better understanding between
us than had existed before.

“I told you she would face the music, and for her she did it
handsomely,” Carl said, when we were alone with him. “She knows she was
to blame, and if I were you, I wouldn’t _nag_ her about him any more.”

This he said to Fan, who only answered with a flash of her black eyes.
But we understood what he meant, and Paul was never mentioned by us in
her presence unless she spoke of him first, which she seldom did. A
monument, which should have both his and Charlie’s name upon it, was
suggested by her and vetoed by us all. He came to us as the _Boy_; he
died the _Boy_, and the _Boy_ he must always be to us, a sacred memory,
which united the Hatherns and Haverleighs more closely and proved a bond
of sympathy and friendship between us and our stepmother.

Looking back through a vista of years and turning some blotted pages of
Carl’s life, when temptation got the better of him, I cannot recall a
pleasanter summer than that which he spent with us at the Elms. He was
so bright and suggestive and thoughtful for every one, and so anxious to
please and make the best of everything that he carried sunshine wherever
he went. It was a rare gift he possessed of winning all hearts to him,
and Fan and I learned more than one lesson of forbearance and toleration
from him, although we laughed at him as a prig and should have called
him a _dude_, had the word then been invented.

With the townspeople he was very popular, especially with the young
girls, who seemed suddenly to have grown very fond of Fan and myself,
and who came to our house at all hours of the day. We had not supposed
that Mrs. Hathern cared much for young people, but she was very gracious
to Carl’s friends. She gave us teas on the lawn and lunches on the
piazza, and played for us to dance in the drawing room and planned
excursions for us so that the summer was one long holiday, with Carl as
the central figure.

It was September when he left us for Andover, and there were nearly as
many people at the station to see him off as there used to be when our
soldiers left us for the war. Naturally, after so much pleasant
intercourse we expected a great deal of pleasure from his letters. But
here we were disappointed. He wrote to us often at first, telling us of
his life at Andover, but evincing little interest in the people of
Lovering, who remembered him so kindly and spoke of him so often. Then
his letters grew shorter and less frequent, and when Fan berated him for
it, he gave as an excuse that he was very busy with his studies, trying
to fit himself to enter Harvard the next year.

“But whether I write often, or not at all, you may be sure that you are
always in my mind and that I love you dearly,” he wrote, and signed
himself, “Your loving brother, Carl.”

“Nonsense,” Fan said. “It is a clear case of ‘out of sight, out of
mind.’ He was pleased with us when here, but now we are like names
written on the sands of the sea which the first wave washes away. Carl
is nice, but fickle.”




                 CHAPTER XVI.—ANNIE’S STORY CONTINUED.
                              LITTLE PAUL.


The autumn following Carl’s visit to us passed with little to break the
monotony of our lives. Miss Errington wrote occasionally, full of
solicitude with regard to Katy’s music, which was progressing so rapidly
as to astonish both Fan and myself, and even Mrs. Hathern, who was a
thorough and exacting teacher. Jack wrote often and Fan answered when
she felt like it. She had not yet made up her mind to be the wife of a
poor man, and until she did she could not encourage Jack in his
foolishness. Col. Errington did not write again and his proposal of
marriage remained unanswered.

“I am very well as I am, and quite chummy with Mrs. Hathern, who has
really contributed a great deal to our bodily comfort. I do not want a
change as much as I did, and as long as I have two strings to my bow and
can choose either at any moment, I am content,” she said, and took the
good the gods had provided and laughed over Jack’s love-letters, which
were becoming importunate and impatient as he longed for something to
work for and hope for and keep his courage up.

As for the household, it moved on with a regularity which no one but
Mrs. Hathern could have achieved.

One or two jars there were when Phyllis’s turban was frightfully awry
and Norah’s shoes could be heard all over the house; but, for the most
part, they were on amicable terms and both united in their antipathy to
Julina, who was growing more airy and important every day, and more
disinclined to believe in that portion of the catechism which bade her
to be content with the condition of life to which it had pleased God to
call her. “Who would ever get on in the world if they followed that
injunction?” she said, and what was our democratic government good for
if it didn’t give everyone an equal chance to rise if he had the brain
and will to do so? And she meant to rise. She had once had her fortune
told by a clairvoyant in Boston who predicted that she would some day be
a great lady, with money and influence at her command. This she
communicated confidentially to Fan and me as the secret of her ambition
and belief in the future. And at last there came a rift in the
clouds,—an opening through which she caught a glimpse of the future she
felt so sure of. Her father died suddenly, and the letter which brought
the news enclosed one from an aunt in France inviting Julina, who was
her namesake, to visit her for as long a time as she chose to stay. Here
was her opportunity, and she took it and left us at once, so full of her
aunt’s chateau, which, she said, was not far from Fontainebleau, that
she came near forgetting to mourn for her father, who had never been
much to her.

Two or three weeks later Carl wrote that he had seen her in Boston and
that she was to sail for Havre in a few days. Afterwards he sent us a
list of passengers on a French steamer, and among them was the name
_Mademoiselle Julina Smythe_, who for years passed completely out of our
knowledge and then reappeared in a most unexpected manner.

Christmas came and went, and the winter glided into spring and spring
into the first days of June, when the world,—or, at least, that part
which Lovering represented,—was full of the beauty and brightness and
fragrance of early summer. Never before had our grounds and garden been
as lovely and attractive as they were now. Money and taste can do almost
everything, and Mrs. Hathern had both, and had expended them freely upon
The Elms, which she meant to make the show place in the county. It was
exceedingly pretty now, with its grassy lawn, its urns and baskets of
various designs and sizes, its rustic chairs and stands for books or
work or tea, and its garden full of flowers. After all, it was not a bad
thing that father did when he married Mrs. Haverleigh, who had brought
us so much luxury and to whom we were getting quite reconciled. She had
been so much softer and more companionable since Carl’s visit and our
talk with her of The Boy that I began to like her; while Fan, who was
slow to change her mind, admitted that things might be worse, and if——.
There is nearly always an “if” in every cup of happiness, and ours was
so unlooked-for and seemed so undesirable that for a time we refused to
accept it as dutiful daughters ought to have done. But there was no
alternative; we could not run away, for there was no place to run to,
and after a while we made up our minds to submit as gracefully as we
could to the inevitable.

In due time a trained nurse arrived from Boston, and a few days later
father went in and out of his bed-chamber with an anxious look and
frequent demands on Phyllis, who, in her excitement, forgot to put on
her turban and seemed like one distraught as she hovered between the
kitchen and the sick-room; while Fan and I, with Katy between us, sat
under an elm in the farthest part of the grounds and waited, wondering
what Carl would say when he heard the news. Norah brought us our lunch,
which we ate on the little willow table where we had often had our tea.
Her face was cloudy and her shoes creaked even on the grass, showing us
her opinion of the matter. I remember so well every incident of that
long day,—the glints of sunshine through the trees, the scent of the
flowers, the blue of the sky, the twitter and almost human talk of two
robins teaching their young ones to fly, and, at last, as the evening
wore on and we heard the town clock strike two, Phyllis coming to us
across the lawn, her face all aglow with the news she had to tell.

“You’ve done got a little brudder,” she said, “an’ oh! my Lord, he’s dat
small. I reckon he could wear one of Miss Katy’s doll dresses. Will you
come to the house and I’ll fotch him to you?”

“No, thank you,” Fan said, with a disdainful toss of her head. “I am in
no hurry to see my little brother.”

What Fan did, I generally did, and against my better judgment I, too,
sat still, but asked, “How is Mrs. Hathern?”

“Mighty bad, I s’pecs, by the way old Mas’r looks and that Boston nuss.
She hasn’t seen her baby at all an’ she’s as white as a piece of paper,
and keeps moanin’ like.”

“Do you think she will die?” Fan asked, with a ring in her voice which
reminded me of the days when we were watching by The Boy.

“Oh, de good Lord forbid!” was Phyllis’s ejaculation. “What could we do
with a new bawn baby and the mother dead?”

What, indeed, and why was he sent to us, we asked ourselves, as we sat
watching Phyllis going swiftly across the lawn with Katy in advance.
Katy was happy, and her first exclamation as she sped away from us was,
“Oh, I am so glad, and can I see him now?”

I don’t know how long Fan and I sat discussing the situation, she
threatening to answer Col. Errington’s letter and I proposing to make
the best of what could not be helped. Perhaps it was an hour, perhaps it
was more, when Phyllis appeared again, holding her apron to her eyes
with one hand and beckoning us wildly with the other.

“Mrs. Hathern is done took wus, and has as’t for you,” she said.

In an instant we were on our feet, flying towards the house, Fan, as
usual, outstripping me and thinking with remorse of the bitter things
she had said of the innocent baby, whose plaintive wail we heard as we
entered the hall. In every woman’s heart, be she ever so bad and hard,
there is a motherly instinct which, under certain conditions, will
assert itself. We were neither very hard nor very bad. We were only
rebelling as grown-up daughters sometimes do against the introduction in
their midst of a baby, and especially when that baby is the offspring of
a stepmother. We had not wanted the stepmother, and we didn’t want the
baby; but when its faint cry came to us Fan clutched my arm and
whispered, “Oh, Ann, hear the poor little thing. I hope its mother won’t
die.”

It seemed to me very probable that she would, when I entered her room
and saw her lying there so motionless upon her pillows, with every
particle of her bright color gone from her face, which looked pinched
and haggard and old for a woman of only forty. She had never seemed more
than thirty-five. Her eyes were closed and we might have thought her
asleep, but for a fluttering of the lids and a movement of her hand as
the rustle of our dresses broke the stillness of the room. Katy, who had
been fondling the baby, which a negro woman was caring for in an
adjoining room, had joined us, and when she saw the white face so
changed from what it had been the previous night, when it looked the
picture of health, she ran up to father, who was sitting at the side of
the bed, and cried out, “Oh, papa, what is it? What makes her look so?
Is she very sick?”

A warning sh—— came from the nurse, who was moistening the patient’s
lips with some stimulant; but at the sound of Katy’s voice, Mrs. Hathern
moved slightly and opened the great black eyes of which we had stood so
much in awe. There was nothing to fear from them now, and it seemed to
me there was in them a look of wonderful tenderness and love as they
rested upon the little girl who was bending close to her.

“Katy,” she said, putting her hand upon the curly head which nestled
down beside her as Katy asked again, “Are you very sick, mamma, and do
you know about the baby? We’ve got one in the other room. Old Chloe
brought him this morning, with a heap of clothes. I’m so glad.”

A faint smile showed around Mrs. Hathern’s mouth and her hand pressed
more heavily upon the golden curls.

“Yes, Katy,” she said, very low as if talking were an effort, “I know
about the baby, and I want you to love him and care for him if I should
go away. Will you, Katy?”

Just so, ten years before, Katy’s mother, in that very room, had spoken
to Fan and me, and the scene came back to us so vividly,—the young
mother dying and commending to us the little life which had just begun
and had since grown to be a part of our whole being. Now it was another
mother, and Katy to whom the charge was given, and for a moment I think
we both felt chagrined that we should be forgotten; but only for a
moment. Turning her eyes towards us, they shone with a strange light of
satisfaction as she said, in detached sentences, “Fanny and Annie, I am
glad you have come. I want to tell you it was my way that was in fault,
not my heart, and I am sorry for all that has gone wrong. You like Carl;
try and like my little baby. I know he is not welcome, and when I am
gone he may be still less so; he is not to blame. Perhaps God will take
him with me; if not, be kind to him, for his father’s sake, and—” She
stopped a few moments as if tired out and then resumed, as her eyes
wandered around the room, “Where is Fanny?”

“Here I am,” Fan answered, sitting down upon the edge of the bed and
taking in hers the cold, clammy hand which was moving restlessly. “Here
I am; do you want to tell me something?”

“Yes. About the little baby. Would you object to calling him _Paul
Haverleigh_, after The Boy?”

“No, no; I’d like it,” Fan answered with a choking voice, for, with that
subtle intuition which we cannot define, she felt the dark shadow
stealing into the room and settling upon the features of our stepmother.

“In my wish to do right, I went wrong with Paul. I know it now, and am
sorry. I shall tell him when I see him, and tell him of you. Keep Carl
straight. He has fine instincts, but is easily influenced and may be led
astray if the temptation comes in pleasant guise. If he falls it will be
a woman who lures him on. Keep him as much as possible under your
influence and Annie’s. I wish I might see him again, but—” Here her mind
began to wander. “It’s getting late. Katy ought to go to bed.
Good-night, Katy. I have loved you more than you know.”

She lifted herself up and kissed the bright face bent down to hers, and
then lay back upon her pillow as if utterly exhausted.

“Must I go to bed before the sun is down?” Katy whispered to her father,
who shook his head and held her closely to him.

It was hours yet before the sun would set, and as they dragged slowly on
we watched the dying woman who talked of many things strange to us. Of
her first husband and her early home in Maine, and the school-house
under the hill with the girls and boys she had known and played with
there. They were old men and women now, she said, and their faces were
tired and worn as if life had been hard to bear, and she had so much
wanted to help them in some way. Then she spoke of Paul and we learned
more of him from her ravings than we had known before, and saw more of
the motives and principles which had actuated her conduct. Neither were
bad, but strict almost to severity. Then she talked of Carl and Katy and
father and ourselves, who, she said, did not understand her, but she
never mentioned the little baby so soon to be left motherless. He had
come into her life so recently and his coming had brought her so low
that she seemed to have forgotten him entirely. She grew very quiet at
last and fell asleep, while Fan, who always rose to the occasion, took
her post at the bedside, bidding the nurse take the rest she needed so
much. It was not a long vigil we kept, for as the sun was setting Mrs.
Hathern awoke and began to move her hands over the bedclothes as if in
quest of something.

“Where is it? Do you know?” she said to Fan, who, divining her meaning,
went to the next room where the baby was sleeping in Phyllis’s lap.

Fan had not seen it yet and she scarcely glanced at it now, but she
lifted it very carefully in her arms and brought it to its mother.

“Look,” she said. “It’s the baby.”

Very curiously the sick woman looked first at Fan and then at the child,
but the mist of death had gathered too thickly on her brain for her to
realize the truth. The baby was a puzzle she could not solve.

“Whose is it? Yours?” she asked, putting her hand upon its head.

“No,” Fan answered very gently. “It is your baby,—little Paul. Don’t you
remember?”

There was a struggle between reason and delirium, but the soul was
drifting away too far for any real consciousness or memory. Only the
name of Paul arrested and held it for a moment.

“Little Paul,” she whispered, with a smile. “Yes, he was a pretty boy
when I took him; bigger than this one. Whose did you say it is? And who
are you?”

Her hand still lay on the baby’s head, but her eyes were closed. She was
going fast and Fan knew it, and in an ecstasy of grief and terror held
the baby face close to the white lips and said, “_Mother_, _mother_, it
is your baby. Kiss him once, that I may tell him. It is little Paul.”

She had never before called Mrs. Hathern _mother_, and now it came from
her involuntarily, born of her pity for the dying woman and helpless
child. But it produced a wonderful effect. Quickly the eyes unclosed and
were illumined with a strange light as they beamed upon Fan.

“You called me _mother_,” she said, “and it brings things back to me and
makes me glad. Thank you, Fanny. Hold the baby nearer while I kiss him
for the first and last time. Little Paul, my little Paul.”

She put her arms around the boy, kissed him twice and never spoke again,
although she lived until the early dawn of the next day, and then died
as peacefully as if going to sleep.

It was I who went with father on the long, sad journey to Mt. Auburn,
where the costly monuments and signs of grandeur everywhere were in
striking contrast to the simple cemetery on the hillside where she had
expressed a wish not to be buried; but when the ceremony of interment
was over and we turned away, leaving our dead there alone, I felt that
when my time should come I should far rather lie down under the
whispering pines, within sight of the lights of home, than be left in
that “beautiful city of the dead.” The family monument was tall and
grand, and beside the husband’s name was that of “Paul Haverleigh, who
died in Lovering, Va., March, 1863, aged 18 years.” I did not know
before that it was there, and when I saw it I was conscious of an added
feeling of respect and regret for the woman whose real worth I had,
perhaps, not fully appreciated.

Carl had met us in Albany, so stunned by the shock of his mother’s death
that he scarcely spoke at all, and never asked a question until after
the burial and I was alone with him at the Revere, where we stopped, as
his mother’s house was rented. I do not think he had shed a tear, but
his face was very pale and there were dark circles under his eyes as he
sat down by me and said: “Now, Annie, tell me about it. Why did mother
die? What was the matter?”

I looked at him in some surprise and asked, “Do you really know
nothing?”

“Nothing,” he answered, “except the telegram saying she was dead. I
supposed her perfectly well. She wrote to me last week as usual. It must
have been terribly sudden.”

“It was sudden,” I said. “It was almost like well to-day and dead
to-morrow.”

“But what was it?” he asked, a little impatiently, and I replied, “Carl,
don’t you know there is a little baby at The Elms, your brother and
mine, who cost your mother her life?”

“A baby? Your brother and mine? It is not true,” he exclaimed, springing
to his feet and staring at me as if in some way I were to blame.

“It is true,” I said. “There is a baby at The Elms, born a few hours
before your mother died, and Fan is caring for it. That’s why she didn’t
come. She held it for your mother to kiss before she died. ‘My little
Paul,’ she called it, and those were the last words she ever spoke. ‘My
little Paul.’”

Whether it was the memory of the Paul whose grave was under the Virginia
pines, or the thought of his dying mother kissing her little boy, or
both, I cannot tell; but something unlocked the flood-gates of Carl’s
tears, and laying his head on my shoulder he sobbed bitterly, while I
tried to comfort him.

“Don’t, Annie,” he said, “don’t speak to me; don’t try to stop me. I
must cry. I am so glad to cry. I couldn’t at first for the something
that choked me so, when I heard mother was dead.”

He grew calm at last, and began to talk naturally, inquiring after Fan
and Katy, and Norah and Phyllis, but saying nothing of the baby. Nor
during the few days we stayed in Boston did he ever speak of it of his
own accord. He evinced, however, a good deal of interest in, as well as
knowledge of, business matters, which were necessarily discussed by my
father. By the conditions of the Haverleigh will Carl was now sole heir
of his father’s fortune, which was larger than we had supposed. Knowing
that he had inherited her love for luxury and expenditure, his mother
had purposely kept from him the exact amount of his father’s estate,
which, now that he knew it, filled his mind more than the very small
amount which little Paul was to have by will from his mother. From the
income of her husband’s money Mrs. Hathern had only saved a few
thousands, which were hers to do with as she pleased, and these, by a
will made a few weeks before her death, she had left equally to my
father and their child, should he live; so, while Carl counted his money
by hundreds of thousands, little Paul had scarcely three. My father had
the same and all the furniture which had been taken to The Elms. I do
not think the discrepancy between his fortune and that of his brother
occurred to Carl.

The baby was something wholly unexpected and whose existence he could
not realize. The money was _his_ father’s, not little Paul’s, and he
accepted it as a matter of course, assuming, as it seemed to me, a
slight air of importance as the heir to so much wealth. He was very kind
to us, and very generous during our stay in Boston, paying all our bills
and insisting upon taking us everywhere, or, rather, taking me. Father
had no heart to go, but I was young, and the sights of Boston were new
and wonderful, and I went wherever Carl took me. Sometimes he spoke of
his mother and always with great affection, but he never mentioned Paul
until the day we left when he brought me a silver rattle, which he said
was for “the little shaver,” who, he presumed, would be a lot of bother
to us.

“Indeed, he will not,” I answered, rather hotly, for I was irritated by
his indifference. “He is a dear little thing, and so you will think when
you come to us in July.”

“I don’t believe I shall come,” he said, hesitatingly, and without
looking directly at me.

“Not come!” I repeated. “Oh, Carl, we have anticipated your visit so
much that you must not disappoint us. Your mother wanted us to see a
great deal of you, and Fan and I will do all we can to make you happy.
You said you liked Virginia and us.”

“So I do,” he answered. “I like you immensely, but you see mother’s not
being there will make it so sad, and then a lot of the boys are going to
camp out in the Adirondacks and want me to go with them. It will not
take all summer, though, and, perhaps, I’ll run down for a week or two
at the last; so don’t look so gloomy, sister mine. I do love you and Fan
and Katy dearly, and I did have a grand time at The Elms; but you see
mother is gone, and I like change and new faces,—a new one for every day
of the year, if I could have it. Bad in me, I know; but I was born that
way, and can’t help it.”

He didn’t seem quite like the Carl of the previous year. He was
older,—more mature, more like a young man of twenty-one than a boy of
seventeen. But he kissed me very affectionately at parting, and sent his
love, with a shell comb, to Fanny, a doll for Katy, a red silk
handkerchief for a turban for Phyllis, and a new gown to Norah.

These, with the silver rattle, I brought to our home, which seemed very
desolate without the ruling spirit which had kept us at so high pressure
that, although we had not at first liked it, we missed it, now it was
gone, more than we had thought possible.

“I really don’t know when to go to bed, or get up, or what I ought to do
when I am up,” Fan said, with a half sob as we talked matters over the
night after my return.

She had dismissed the nurse as too expensive an article to keep. She
knew that the money which had been spent so lavishly for us all must
cease with Mrs. Hathern’s death, and when I told her what had been left
to father, she said, “For his sake I wish it might have been more; he is
growing old and his practice is nothing. For ourselves I don’t care. We
learned a good many useful lessons from Mrs. Hathern, and I hope we
shall not fall back into our old slipshod ways. We have certainly gained
something by her coming here,—orderly habits, and _our baby_.”

There was a world of tenderness in her voice as she said “our baby” and
bent over the cradle where he was sleeping. He was so small that I was
half afraid to touch him lest he should break in my hands like some
brittle toy; but Fan took to him naturally, constituting herself his
nurse and exulting over every sign of growing intellect or physical
strength as if she had been his mother. What Carl would think of him was
a question we often asked ourselves as we counted the weeks he was to
spend in the Adirondacks, and then began to look for his coming. But we
looked in vain. Following the Adirondacks was an excursion to the White
Mountains, which lasted so long that at its close only a few days
remained in which to visit us before returning to Andover, and he hardly
thought it would pay to take the long journey for so short a time. He
wrote to us often long chatty letters full of affection and promises to
spend the whole of the next long vacation with us. But the long vacation
came and went and was succeeded by another and another, and still Carl
did not come.




                        PART II.—FANNY AND JACK.




                  CHAPTER I.—ANNIE’S STORY CONTINUED.
                           AFTER FIVE YEARS.


It is a question whether one can truly love more than once. I do not
think a woman can. But men are different and seem capable of many loves.
If anyone doubts this let him recall the number of widows and widowers
among his acquaintance, and see if there are not fifty per cent. more of
the former than of the latter. Three women had called my father husband
and I believe he had loved them all devotedly, but whether it was the
suddenness of the blow, or because he missed the force and energy which
had kept him going, the death of the last Mrs. Hathern crushed him
completely, and made him an old man at once.

“I don’t know what ails me, girls, but since your mother died I don’t
seem to have any life or ambition left. I am like a clock which has run
down and can’t be wound up again,” he would say to us when he came in
from a walk into town or country where he still had a few patients of
the old school.

He had never spoken to us of Mrs. Hathern as our mother while she lived;
but now that she was dead he always mentioned her in that way, and we
humored him, and sometimes called her so ourselves, and petted and made
much of him, and felt that, like him, we were ships without rudders and
didn’t know how to run ourselves. Especially was this the case with
Phyllis, who needed whip and spur to keep her in the harness.

“I ’clars to goodness I don’t know nothin’ now the missus isn’t here to
boss,” she said, as she sat on the bench outside the cabin door, her
feet stretched out in front of her, her hands idly folded on her lap,
her ironing neglected and her irons cooling on the hearth.

Only Norah kept her balance and went steadily on her way, her shoes
creaking a good deal and her sharp tongue often lashing Phyllis when she
got too far out of line. For three or four months Norah staid with us
and then, as it was impossible for us to pay her the wages she had been
receiving, she left us for Boston. But not until she had everything in
what she called “apple pie order,” an expression which, I think, must
belong exclusively to the east, as it was a favorite with Mrs. Hathern,
and I have never heard it elsewhere. Owing to her delicate health Mrs.
Hathern had deferred the spring cleaning, which she intended to take in
hand as soon as her illness was over. But death snatched her away and it
was left for Norah to carry out her plans, which she did with a
vengeance. Everything was turned topsy-turvey, as it had been the year
before when Mrs. Hathern was the presiding genius of brush and broom and
soap suds. There was, however, this difference, there were no carpenters
and masons and plumbers blocking the way, or hired negroes either.
Knowing the low state of our finances Norah did everything herself with
the little help she could extort from Phyllis. That functionary had
taken to violent fits of short breath when there was more than usual to
do. “Physicy,” she called it, and she had it badly now and wheezingly
protested against so much useless cleaning. A little dirt was healthy,
she said, and privately we sympathized with her, and were glad when
Norah told us that we needn’t go through with quite so much in the fall.
Boston folks didn’t as a rule.

“Wash the windows; wipe the fly-specks from the paint; air everything,
and give the rest a lick and a promise and let it go till spring, when
mabby I’ll visit you and see to the annual clean myself,” she said.
Then, as a happy inspiration seized her, she added: “There are a few
things you must see to every day, and as I know you won’t remember ’em
all I’ll write ’em down.”

The result of this was a long document so full of what we were to do and
not to do that I felt dizzy and bewildered as I read it, and then passed
it on to Fan, who, with no fancy for housekeeping, threw it aside. This
morning while looking over a trunk of old papers I came across that
sheet of foolscap, written nearly thirty years ago, yellow with age,
blurred and blotted and wonderful for composition and orthography. There
were tear stains upon it, too, as I re-read it and thought of all which
had happened since the autumnal day when Norah first brought it to me
and asked me to nail it up in the pantry where it could be seen every
day. I will give a few extracts: “Fust and fornenst, don’t let Phyllis
make a pig-sty of my kitchen. I’ve kept it so clane that I can _need
bred_ in it anywhere; don’t let her get pot black all over the table,
and greese on the floor; don’t let her leave the kittles on the range
till they bile dry, specially the Te kittle. Ittle leek, and hev to be
mended, an’t costs money; an’ there an’t no Miss Hathern to pay the
bills now; don’t let her put the wash biler away till she’s wiped it and
the cover dry, or the close will be all iron rust; don’t let her open
all the draffs and pile the cole on till the griddles is red hot, an’
the fire all going up the chimly. Ittle warp ’em an’ spile the range.
Make her hang up the broom, or stand it on end. Ittle last longer. An’
ef I’se you, I wouldn’t use gilt ege chany every day as Miss Hathern
did. You’se them tothers. An’ don’t let Phyllis jab her big black thum
into that mended place on the vegetable dish. Ittle break sure. An’
don’t let her slat her things round everywhere in my nice kitchen. Tell
her Miss Hathern will appear to her some nite if she does. That’ll fetch
her. She’s afraid of spooks.”

All this, and much more, Norah wrote, and I promised to follow her
instructions as well as I could. Then one morning in October the ‘bus
which had brought her to us came to take her away. Lifting the baby from
his cradle she cried over and kissed him and, assuring us that he was
not long for this world, he looked so _pimpin_, she put him back and
said good-bye and went away, while we watched her as far as we could see
her with swelling hearts and tearful eyes, wondering how we should get
on without her.

The next morning I read her instructions to Phyllis. She had moved her
belongings from her cabin into the kitchen, which already began to show
signs of a new administration. Seated upon an inverted wash tub she
listened to my reading with sundry snorts and shakes of her head until
her turban fell off and lay upon the floor.

“For de Lord’s sake, chile, is you that soft to think I can ‘member all
dem things. No, sor; but nebber you mind, honey, I’se no fool, if I is a
brack nigger. I’se kep’ my eyes open more’n you thinks an’ learned a
heap of dem Boston ways. You’ll see; don’t you worry, nor come speerin’
’round de kitchen. Jess stay in de parlor whar ladies belong, an’ I’ll
run de ranch! I’se cap’n now.”

She adjusted her turban, picked up the mop and the broom, put them
together behind the door, where Norah’s sunbonnet used to hang, and
began to bustle about with the activity of a young girl. Norah’s
instructions I pinned up, as I said I should, but they were all lost on
Phyllis except the possibility of Mrs. Hathern’s return if things were
too much mixed; that troubled her. For several nights when we were up
with our baby we saw a light in the cabin where she slept. When
questioned about it she owned to keeping a candle burning “So as to see
de missus if she comes. I’se not gwine to be took unawares, nor be so
unmanneredly as to let her stumble roun’ in de dark.”

“But, Phyllis,” Fan said, “if it is dark she can’t see the litter.”

“Dat’s so, honey, I hain’t thought of dat,” was Phyllis’s rejoinder, and
that night there was no candle burning in Phyllis’s room, but the door
we knew was barricaded and the window nailed down to keep out Norah
quite as much as Mrs. Hathern.

The superstitious old woman had been detected so often by the former in
her little attempts to deceive that she had come to look upon her with a
kind of awe as one gifted with second sight, who might pounce upon her
in bodily shape quite as readily as Mrs. Hathern in ghostly form. With
Norah’s departure the last link was severed which bound us to the new
life, and I am ashamed to confess how quickly and unconsciously we took
up the old one. It was so easy to do it, with Phyllis anticipating all
our wants and encouraging us in our indolence. We breakfasted when we
felt like it; had dinner and supper at all hours, while the kitchen
gradually came to look like anything but a place where Norah could knead
her bread on the floor. Phyllis’s handiwork was everywhere. There was
pot black on the sink, and grease on the floor. Her big black thumb had
_jabbed_ out the broken piece in the vegetable dish, and the hot
tomatoes had been spilled, some on the carpet and some down Fan’s back.
The wash boiler had been discarded for an iron kettle, and was filled
with a variety of articles, conspicuous among which were father’s
boot-jack and blacking brush. The griddles on the range were red most of
the time and began to warp and crack; the kettles burned dry; the tea
kettle leaked and was mended so often that father at last mildly
protested, saying it was cheaper to get a new one, which he could ill
afford as his bill at the hardware store was already a large one. Then I
tried to take the helm. There were a good many battles with Phyllis,
who, however, succumbed so far as to have one day in each week for
_clarin up_, “and the Lord himself couldn’t ax more’n that ef she was
workin’ for him,” she said.

In the midst of all our difficulties our baby was never for a moment
forgotten or neglected. Norah had called him _pimpin_, by which she
meant delicate, and so he was. But he was a beautiful child, with wavy
hair, and eyes a cross between blue and gray, a complexion like wax and
the prettiest ways, which made us all his slaves. It was Fan who devoted
herself to him, while I wrestled with the house. When he began to talk,
her name, or an attempt at it, was the first word he tried to speak. He
had often heard us spoken of as “_Fan-and-Ann_,” and with a quickness
and persistence for which he was remarkable, he caught it and applied it
to her alone. “_Fan-er-nan_” he always called her, while, for some
reason known only to himself, I was _Annie-mother_, although I didn’t
take half the care of him that she did. As soon as we thought he could
understand we told him of his mother, and when he asked us where she was
Fan answered “In Paradise,” and tried to make him repeat the word after
her.

“Oh, my lan!” came derisively from Phyllis, who was within hearing. She
didn’t “b’lieve in ‘dat ar _pair-o’-dice_,’” she said, and when next she
was alone with the little fellow she took him in her lap, gave him a
lump of sugar and said to him, “Don’t you let ’em fool you about dat ar
_pair-o’-dice_. Dar ain’t no sich place. Your mar’s sperrit is in
heaven, and her body in Boston.”

After that he always insisted that his mother had gone to heaven in
Boston. He knew that Carl was in Boston, and saw no reason why his
mother should not be there too. We told him a great deal of Carl, who
became to him a kind of imaginary hero, and whom he always remembered in
his prayers, asking that God would bless “brother Tarl, make him a good
boy, and keep him _straight_.” Mrs. Hathern’s dying injunction had been
“Keep Carl straight,” and as we never saw him Fan hoped a baby’s prayers
might accomplish what we had no means of doing, and taught the words to
Paul. Carl was in Harvard, doing fairly well for a young man of his
means and tastes. He had plenty of money, and was fond of luxury and
“larks,” and sometimes wrote us letters which made our hair stand on
end. It was usually Fan who took up the cudgels and berated him for what
she called his “goings on.” He always answered good-humoredly, telling
her she was too prudish and knew nothing of the world, living as she did
in that out of the way place.

“Not that Lovering isn’t lovely,” he added, “and I’d like nothing better
than to live with you in the charming old home I remember with so much
pleasure.”

He always addressed us as “My dear sisters,” and signed himself, “Your
loving brother.”

“Words,—nothing but words, which are so cheap,” Fan would say
derisively. “If we are so dear, and the old house so charming, why does
he never come near us. I tell you there is something wrong about Carl.
He is fickle and fast.”

I feared so, too; but there was a very warm spot in my heart for Carl,
whom I always defended, while Katy would never hear a word of censure
against him. He was her hero as well as Paul’s, and she would rather he
would be fast than stupid, she said. Just before he was graduated he
sent a most cordial invitation for us all to come east and see him take
his degree.

“I have been in a good many scrapes,” he wrote, “but have managed to
slip out. I always have my lessons and shall come off with some honor,
and I want you here to share it. So, pack up your best clothes. I shall
want my sisters to look well, and some of the Boston girls are stunners.
Bring Phyllis and the baby, and I will quarter you all in my house in
Boston, with Norah to superintend. Did I tell you that I took the house
when the last tenant’s lease expired, and had it refurnished from top to
toe, and put Norah there to keep it for me? Quite a comfortable
bachelor’s home you will find it.”

“Oh, how I’d like to go,” I exclaimed, remembering the pleasant house
looking out upon the Common, and feeling a great desire to see Boston
and Carl again.

But the thing was impossible. It was five years now since Mrs. Hathern
died, and every year we had been growing poorer. Father’s practice was
gone, or nearly so, and the few thousands left him by his wife had been
drawn upon so many times that there was not much now to draw from. The
trip to Boston was not to be thought of, and Fan answered the letter,
declining the invitation.

He was sorry, he wrote in reply, adding that as we were not coming he
should give a swell dinner in his house to his classmates and have a
“high old time.”

As it chanced Jack was in Boston on business and meeting Carl
accidentally was persuaded to be present at the dinner, which surpassed
anything he had ever seen.

“The flowers alone and decorations must have cost hundreds of dollars,”
he wrote to Fan; “and there were dishes whose name I never heard before
and which I never care to taste again. Everyone was in evening dress but
myself, who felt rather countryfied and out of place in my business
clothes. But Carl was the same old kind-hearted boy, and made me feel
perfectly at home and treated me as his honored guest. We sat down at
nine and did not get up till two in the morning. Even then some of them
did not get up at all for they were under the table, and lying round
loose anywhere, and I shouldn’t like to tell Fan how many empty wine
bottles were carried out by the waiters; but this I will say, I turned
my glass down every time, although I know I was thought a milksop for
doing it.”

This was at the time the great temperance crusade was beginning to sweep
over the land, and Fan was head and front of the movement in Lovering.
She had led a band of women into some of the lowest saloons and been
threatened with eggs and brickbats, but had held her own bravely and won
respect and attention where, at first, she met with coarse language and
derisive jeers. Jack’s letter roused her to a pitch of white heat and
she wrote to Carl, asking what his mother would say could she have
looked upon the drunken revel, and if he didn’t think himself about as
mean and low as he well could be for acting so entirely at variance with
his mother’s wishes.

Carl’s reply was good-humored and apologetic. He was a cad, he said, to
break his promise to his mother, but he positively had never been tipsy.

“I suppose, though, I can drink more than most fellows and not be
affected by it,” he wrote. “But that is no excuse, and to prove that I
am in earnest I have taken the pledge and shall keep it, too, as bravely
as Jack Fullerton did that night. I never respected a man more in my
life than I did him, even while chaffing him a little and calling him an
old maid. He is the right kind of stuff, and I don’t see why you don’t
marry him.”

“Carl’s advice is good,” I said. “Why don’t you marry Jack?”

There was an upward turn of Fan’s chin as she answered me—

“Poor, too poor. I can struggle with poverty at home but when I have one
of my own I must have some luxuries. So I’ll wait awhile. I am only
twenty-five, if old Granny Baker did say at the sewing society that ‘it
was time them Hathern girls were married, as they are gettin’ to be old
maids.’ Old maids, indeed! Do I look like one?”

She had never been more beautiful and attractive than she was then in
the full bloom of her womanhood. Jack thought so, too, and often asked
her to be his wife, while she as often answered him in a manner which,
while it did not mean yes, certainly was not a decided no.




                  CHAPTER II.—ANNIE’S STORY CONTINUED.
                               THE FEVER.


That summer our town was visited with typhoid fever in its most
malignant form. Jack’s mother was among the first to take it, and in
their fear of the disease her servants forsook her, and as nurses were
scarce Jack was left alone with her until Fan joined him and together
they cared for her until she died. A week later our father was smitten
with the terrible scourge, which found him an easy prey. He had never
been himself since Mrs. Hathern died, and now it seemed to me as if he
gladly lay down upon the bed from which he was never to rise again.

“I am so tired,—so tired!” he said, as he folded his thin hands like a
child going to sleep, and scarcely moved or spoke again until toward the
last when he asked that we send for Carl. “I want to see him,” he said;
“there’s something very winsome about Carl, and I must talk to him about
the little boy!”

Jack, who had been with us all the time, hiding his own pain to comfort
us, telegraphed to Carl’s address in Boston. It was Norah who replied,
and her answer was so like her that we could not repress a smile as we
read it: “He is scurripin’ around the country, the Lord only knows
where, but I’ll find him,—sure.”

When we told father he said very faintly, “I shall not be here when he
comes, but tell him that I have loved him like a son, and he must avoid
temptation. He is easily lead. Tell him, too, about the boy.”

All the next day and the next we watched for some message from Carl, but
none came. The third day, however, a telegram reached us from Norah
saying, “I’ve run him down at last in Canada.” That evening there was
another from Carl, saying, “Shall start to-morrow morning.”

Oh, how hard our father tried to live until Carl reached us. It was a
fierce struggle between death and an indomitable will, and it was a
question which would conquer. Jack kept up his courage and ours.

“If he left Boston at nine, as he probably did, he is in New York by
this time,” he would say; and, later on, “He is in Washington now, and
will be in Richmond to-morrow morning;” then the line of prevision was
broken and we knew no more until the next day at noon, when there came a
message from Richmond: “Train late. Have just arrived. Will be with you
at four. Carl.”

Fan read it to our father, whose eyes shone for a moment with an eager
light, while his paralyzed tongue tried to speak. But he had drifted too
far away for anything to hold him longer, and when the old clock in the
church tower struck one he was dead. I cannot describe our anguish as we
kissed his cold, white face in the last good-bye, while his eyes, to the
very last, looked so lovingly at us and his pale lips tried to whisper
his farewell. Even now, after many years, my heart throbs with pain as
every incident of that day comes back to me. The warm sunshine, the
scent of the flowers, the song of the robin, the hum of the bees, the
low murmur of voices in the room where the undertaker and his assistants
were at work, Jack going in and out, occasionally consulting us but
mostly doing what he thought best, and later on going with the phaeton
and Black Beauty to meet Carl, while Fan and I sat on the piazza waiting
for him just as we waited years before when he surprised us by coming on
foot across the field and in at the rear door. Now he came more
decorously, with Paul in his lap, one arm around his neck and his curly
head nestling on Carl’s shoulder, while he talked continually. Paul had
gone with Jack to the station, eager to meet his brother; but when a
tall young man, dressed in the height of fashion, stepped upon the
platform and came briskly towards him, he drew back, until Jack said,
“That’s he that’s your brother; go and speak to him.”

Then he ran forward and looking shyly up at the stranger, said, “Is you
my brother Carl? I’m Paul, and papa’s dead and Fan-er-Nan and
Annie-mother and Katy has cried themselves sick.”

With the exception of a few presents at Christmas and an occasional
mention of him in his letters Carl had never evinced any interest in
Paul. But no one could withstand that upturned face and the little hands
held out in welcome, and lifting the child in his arms Carl kissed him
lovingly.

“Yes, I’m Carl,” he said, “and your brother, if you are really Paul;
but, zounds! how you have grown. I have imagined you still a baby. What
a stupid I must be.”

After that the acquaintance progressed rapidly, and the two were on the
best of terms by the time the phaeton drew up to the door and Carl
sprang out to meet us. The same Carl in some respects we had known as a
boy, and in others so very different. Broad-shouldered, perfectly
formed, six feet tall, with a heavy mustache, and an unmistakable _air
distingué_, he impressed us for a moment as he had little Paul, and I
felt half afraid of him. That feeling, however, vanished the moment I
heard his voice, full of sympathy, as he kissed us and said, “I am sorry
that I did not get here sooner. I’d give so much to see him alive once
more. He was the best man I ever knew.”

I was crying and could not answer him. Just what Fan said I do not know,
until I heard her exclaim, “Katy Hathern, why are you here? I told you
not to get up.” Aside from the grief at the loss of our father there was
a terrible fear haunting us lest Katy was coming down with the fever.
For two or three days she had complained of her head, and just after
father died she had been seized with a nervous chill. The doctor, whom
we called at once, had ordered her to bed, and his face was very grave
as he prescribed for her. She had refused to go to bed, saying she was
only tired; but we persuaded her to lie down upon the couch in her room
where I supposed she was until I saw her standing in the doorway, her
eyes unusually bright and a deep flush upon her cheeks. She had been
very small as a child, seeming younger than she really was; but within
the last two or three years she had shot up rapidly, until at fifteen
she was taller than either Fan or myself, with the loveliest face I have
ever seen. Fan was beautiful, with a brilliant, glowing beauty like the
gorgeous flowers of autumn, while Katy was fair as a lily, with a
complexion like the pink-and-white shells fresh from the sea. Her eyes
were large and blue as a bit of summer sky, the heavy brows and long
lashes making them seem darker than they really were. Her hair, once
almost yellow, was now a golden brown, with auburn tints upon it when
seen in certain lights, and fell in curls upon her neck. No stranger
ever looked at Katy once that did not look again, and now, as she
appeared in the doorway, the purity of her complexion heightened by the
black dress she wore, and her lips parted with a smile of welcome to
Carl, it was not surprising that he sprang to his feet exclaiming,
“Great Scott! This can’t be Katy! Why, I’ve always thought of you as a
little girl in pantelets tumbling into the frog pond, and by Jove! I’ve
brought you a _doll_.”

He had both her hands in his and was looking at her with eyes which
seemed to take in every point of beauty and gloat over it as over some
rare treasure found unexpectedly. He had kissed Fan and me, but he did
not kiss Katy. Possibly she saw the glowing fire in his eyes which I
saw, and did not like it, or it might have been the mention of the
_doll_ which put her upon her dignity, and when he stooped as if to kiss
her she drew her head back with a sideways movement natural to her when
surprised or displeased. She was very gracious to him, however, and let
him lead her to a seat while he sat down beside her and talked, to us,
still looking at her as if he would never tire of her fair girlish
beauty. Then suddenly the color left her face, her head began to droop,
and finally rested on his shoulder. She had fainted from her weakness
and over-exertion. It was Carl who carried her up stairs and laid her
upon the bed, from which she did not rise again until the summer was on
the wane and there was a foreshadowing of the September haze upon the
hills and woods of Lovering.

What passed during the next few days after Katy’s faint was very vague
and misty. I seemed like one in a horrible nightmare, my heart torn with
anguish for the living and sorrow for the dead. The latter we buried
with as little ceremony as possible. Letters of sympathy we had in
abundance, but many of our friends were ill and others were too much
afraid of the terrible scourge to come near us when they heard there was
a fresh case in our midst. So, only the clergyman, the bearers, Jack,
Paul, Fan and myself and Phyllis went across the field to the hillside
where, under the pines, we buried our father beside Charlie and The Boy.
Even Carl was not with us. Katy had been delirious from the first and
clung to him as if he were her mother. She knew the moment he left the
room and was only quiet when he sat by her, as he did almost constantly,
scarcely giving himself time to eat or sleep.

“We can’t let Katy die,” he said, and everything which could be done to
save the life so dear to us was done.

We had a trained nurse from Richmond and a physician who came every
other day, while the doctor from Lovering came almost every hour, it
seemed to me. This was Carl’s idea. He had taken the matter in charge
and was spending his money like water. We had a colored woman in the
kitchen to help Phyllis and he would have hired another if we had let
him. Incidentally, we learned that a party of friends were waiting for
him to join them in Montreal. But he telegraphed to them, “My sister is
very ill and I cannot come.” He called her his sister, but his manner
towards her was that of the tenderest of lovers. Many times I saw him
kiss her forehead when she was more than usually restless, and once he
pressed his lips to hers, from which the feverish breath came
scorchingly.

“Are you not afraid?” I asked, and he answered promptly, “Afraid? No.
Nothing about Katy can be infectious, and I would kiss her if I knew I
should have the fever a hundred times.”

We tried in vain to keep Paul from the room. He was perfectly infatuated
with Carl, who, in his absorption, paid little attention to the child.
But that did not matter. Paul was not to be repressed. He would put his
little hands into Carl’s and hold it fast until the young man was
compelled to notice him. By some means unknown to us he had unearthed
the high chair in which Katy had done penance so many times, and
dragging it into the sick-room placed it where it would be most out of
the way. Here he would sit in spite of us, watching Carl as he bent over
the fever-stained face and restless head upon the pillow.

“Does you sink God will let Katy die?” he once asked, as the disease
progressed and the hope in our hearts was nearly gone.

“No, she shall not die!” Carl answered, fiercely, and Paul continued, “I
prays every night and morning that God will make her well. Does you
pray, broder Carl?”

“Oh, Paul, I am too wicked to pray. God wouldn’t hear me, but he will
you. Keep on, and if she lives I’ll give you a much prettier riding pony
than Black Beauty ever was,” Carl said.

After that, when Paul was not in the sick-room, we found him on his
knees at all hours of the day praying that Katy might live.

“And she will, you bet,” he horrified me by saying, as he came from a
dark corner where he had been earning his pony.

“Oh, Paul! Where did you get that dreadful word?” I asked.

It was Fan who explained. That morning as she was entering Katy’s room,
she saw Carl stoop to kiss the sick girl and heard Paul, who was as
usual seated in his high chair, ask “Does you love her very much?”

“You _bet_,” was the answer inadvertently given; then, as he met Fan’s
eyes full of reproach, Carl hastened to say, “I beg your pardon. You see
we fellows use a lot of slang when alone, and it came from me unawares.
I hope that you will excuse me, and that no harm is done.”

He was looking at Paul, who had caught the expression, as he caught
everything out of the common, and who, in spite of our remonstrances,
used it continually until Fan shut him up in the meal room, from which
he emerged penitent and cured.

For weeks Katy hovered between life and death and went so far down the
dark valley that we once thought she had left us forever. But she came
back again, and after a few days it became evident that the crisis was
past and she would live if her strength was sufficient for the struggle.
For days she lay perfectly still with her eyes closed and her face as
white as the pillow her shorn head rested upon. We had cut off her hair
when her fever and delirium were at their height, for it seemed to
trouble her, and she looked like a little child again, with her thin
face and short curls clustering around her forehead. Suddenly one
evening when we thought her sleeping, she opened her eyes and looked
wonderingly at us. Then in a voice so low that we could scarcely hear
her, she said, “What has happened, and why are you all in here, and why
am I in bed? Am I very ill?” Then as her eyes fell upon Carl they
lighted up with something of their old brilliancy, and her voice was
steadier as she said, “Oh, Carl, you here? Yes, I remember now; but it
seems so long ago.”

“Yes, darling, I am here,” Carl said, laying his hand on her white
cheeks, which flushed quickly.

They were scarlet a moment later when Paul, who had climbed upon the
bed, chimed in: “He’s been here ever so long and tissed you, oh so many
times, I seen him, and once he cried when he so’t you was dead, and he’s
goin’ to div me an ittle pony ’cause I prayed so much for God to make
you well. I love Carl, don’t you?”

He had blurted out everything, and I glanced nervously at Carl to see
how he would take it. He only laughed and said something about “Little
pitchers telling all they knew,” and adding, “Why shouldn’t a fellow
kiss his sister if he wants to?”

Instantly Katy’s eyes looked searchingly into his with an expression
which told me that for her had commenced the old, old story, which has
gone on since Adam and Eve first dwelt in Eden, and will go on as long
as there is a tongue to tell it, or an ear to listen to it. But how was
it with Carl, the young man of the world, with unbounded wealth at his
command and his choice of any fair girl in the set to which he belonged?
Did he really care for Katy, except as a brother might care for a sister
as lovely as she was? and if he cared now, was he not of too fickle a
nature to carry her image with him until time had developed her from a
girl of fifteen into a full-grown woman?

Rumors had come to us in various ways of numerous flirtations which
meant nothing to him and were dropped as soon as the first glamour was
worn away and there were fresh fields to glean. From what we had seen of
him we could understand how with his face and voice and manner he had
only to stretch out his hand and gather almost any flower, just to
inhale its sweetness for an hour and then drop it for another. Would he
trifle with our Katy, or was it really only a brother’s affection he was
giving to her? These questions Fan and I asked ourselves many times
during the days of Katy’s convalescence, when Carl was with her so
constantly, and we saw the brightness in her eyes when he came into her
room, bringing fruit and flowers and books to read, but, most of all,
bringing himself. There were drives in the leafy woods as she grew
stronger, and walks to the cemetery on the hill side, where we often saw
them sitting side by side upon the seat under the pines, his arm
sometimes around her waist and her head upon his shoulder.

“Is he making love to her, and shall we let it go on? She is too young,”
Fan would say, and calling Paul she would give him some flowers for the
graves and tell him he might stay as long as he chose.

The chances were that Paul, who always wanted to go where Carl and Katy
went, had already been there and been gotten rid of in some way, but
delighted with his commission he would start across the field to execute
it.

“Halloo, youngster, who told you to come here after I sent you back?”
Carl said to him once, when Katy’s hand lay in his and her eyes were
shining like diamonds.

“Fan-er-Nan send me,” Paul replied. “I’ve bringed flowers for papa’s
grave an’ Charlie’s an’ The Boy’s, an’ my two first mammas, an’ I’m
goin’ to stay.”

A few incidents like this broke up the walks to the cemetery, and, as if
divining our suspicions, Carl’s manner to Katy changed a little and was
more like that of a brother than of a lover. Katy was not one who
carried her thoughts on her face, or talked much of her inner feelings.
She was more reticent and self-contained than either Fan or myself, and
if she noticed a change in Carl she gave no sign of it. But when about
the middle of September he told us one morning at breakfast that he had
letters from Boston requiring his immediate presence there, and that he
must start the next day, her checks where the roses were beginning to
bloom again became a shade paler, and there was a troubled look in her
eyes whenever they rested on Carl. He seemed very cheerful and went
whistling about the house as he made his preparations for his departure.
He had paid every bill contracted during Katy’s illness, had bought a
pretty white pony for Paul as a reward for his prayers, and done many
things for our comfort.

That night,—the last he was to spend with us,—Fan found an opportunity
to speak to him alone, reminding him of his mother’s dying message and
what our father had said of his being easily influenced. With a laugh in
which there was some bitterness, he replied, “Oh, bother, don’t you fear
for me. I’m all right. Lots of us fellows have sprees but we do nothing
bad. I shall sow my wild oats early and settle into a model married man.
You’ll see!”

There was a thought of Katy in Fan’s mind, and she replied, “Not for
years yet; and, Carl, be careful what kind of girls you consort with.
Choose the purest and best. Remember that your mother said, ‘If Carl
falls, it will be a woman that tempts him.’”

Then for the first time Carl showed real irritation.

“Who has been talking to you?” he said. “Has that old cat, Miss
Errington, of Washington, been writing things to you? She was in Boston
last winter and I met her several times. She was visiting in a house
where I often called; there were three pretty girls there and once they
chaffed me before her about a French grisette with whom they said I
corresponded. It was just this way; you remember Julina?”

“Yes,” Fan said.

“Well,” Carl continued, “she wrote me a letter in French. She has been
in Paris five years and must be perfect in the language. She was with
her aunt, Madame Du Bois, who keeps a pension. She addressed me as ‘My
dear Carl,’ and signed herself ‘Your devoted Julina.’ I am so poor a
French scholar that I couldn’t make it all out, and got a fellow to help
me, and by Jove he told of it to these girls as a joke on me, and I was
hectored until I almost hated the name Julina. I didn’t answer her
letter; upon my word I didn’t.”

“I know nothing about Julina and care less,” Fan replied, “but Miss
Errington did write me that you were something of a flirt, and I should
know that if she had not written it.”

Again Carl seemed irritated and answered warmly, “I don’t know what you
mean. Can’t a fellow enjoy himself with a pretty girl who enjoys herself
with him? I like them all, and the one I am with last I like the best.
It is my nature. I can’t help it; but I’d burn my hands to the bone
before I would wrong any girl, or knowingly deceive her. I have given no
woman reason to think my attentions more than those of a friend, and if
she thought so it was her own fault and because she did not understand
me.”

At this moment Katy entered the room. She had heard his last words, and
there was a look of surprise in her eyes for a moment; then they
suddenly hardened and her manner was more like that of a Grande Duchesse
than our simple-hearted Katy as she took the chair he brought her, and
bending over her with his hand on her shoulder stroked her hair and
said, “You look pale, are you tired?”

Leaning her head against the back of the chair Katy closed her eyes as
if she were tired, but really to repress the tears which in her weak
state came so easily. Months after, when Carl’s letters, at first so
long and frequent, had become like angel’s visits, “short and far
between,” she said to me, hesitatingly, “I thought Carl liked me just as
Jack likes Fanny. He never said so, it is true, but he acted it, and I
was pleased and happy. There is something about him which wins you in
spite of yourself. Hypnotism, perhaps. But I am over it now. I know he
does not care for me as I did for him.”

She spoke sadly, and I felt a throb of indignation against Carl, who
had, unwittingly, perhaps, thrown a shadow on Katy’s life. She was young
in years, but old in much which makes mature womanhood, and the
attentions of a man like Carl could not fail to impress her with a
deeper feeling than sisters feel for brothers. He still wrote her
occasionally,—bright, chatty letters, full of protestations of affection
for herself and all of us, and telling her of a life of which she knew
nothing. But he didn’t come again, and he seemed at last to have passed
out of our lives, into which another exciting interest had entered.




                 CHAPTER III.—ANNIE’S STORY CONTINUED.
                            THE ENGAGEMENT.


The winter succeeding father’s death was a hard one for us. Our effort
to economize and still not seem to do so was a struggle, and probably
did not deceive anyone. Jack understood all our needs and straits and
helped us wherever he could,—not in money, but in many ways where a
man’s advice and assistance are invaluable. He was now agent for a large
firm which paid him well, and as he was traveling only a part of the
time we saw a great deal of him, and the evenings when he was not with
us seemed monotonous and long. Sometimes when the days were fine and he
had leisure for it he took long walks with Fan in the woods, and when
they came back I used to notice a brightness in his manner and a look in
Fan’s eyes which I had not seen there before. Christmas week and the one
following he was in town, negotiating a sale for his mother’s house.
When he left it was early on the morning train, and that night, when Fan
and I were alone in our room and she was brushing her glossy hair, she
turned suddenly to me and said, “I have promised to marry Jack. Didn’t
you notice that he looked more like an idiot than usual?”

I was standing by my dressing bureau with my back to her, so that she
could not see the whiteness of my face as I put my hand upon my heart,
where for a moment there was the sharpest pain I had ever known or ever
shall again. I had expected this would come sometime and I thought I was
prepared, but now that it had come, I found myself a weak, wicked woman,
loving a man who was to marry my sister, and who, under no
circumstances, could ever have cared for me. Rallying in a moment and
laughing at her likening him to an idiot, I replied, “You forget I have
not seen him since I left you with him last night in the parlor and went
to bed with a headache. I suppose it was after I came up stairs.”

“Yes,” she nodded, and after a moment went on; “What a great awkward
baby of a fellow he is. Why he almost cried when I consented to marry
him, and went off into a tantrum which frightened me and made me half
wish I hadn’t said yes. I do believe if I were to go back on him now it
would kill him.”

“Go back on him!” I said. “You could never do that. Go back on Jack; the
best and noblest man that ever lived!”

She had drawn her long hair across her face, and through it her black
eyes looked curiously at me as she said, “I believe _you_ are in love
with Jack, or could easily be, and I wish it were you instead of me.
Don’t stare at me as if you thought me a fiend. I like him; sometimes I
think I love him. I dare say I should love him desperately if there were
any danger of losing him, but I can’t help wishing he had more style,
and more money. He is a gentleman, of course, but he has not the manner
of Carl or Col. Errington. Half a dozen times I have been on the point
of accepting the latter. You know his letter is still unanswered; but,
you don’t know that in his letter of sympathy after father died there
was a slip I did not show you. Just four words, “Are you still
considering?” That shows he has remembered all these years, and since we
have had so hard a struggle with poverty my thoughts have more than once
turned to him, or rather to what he could give me.”

“Fan Hathern!” I exclaimed, indignantly. “You are not worthy the love of
a good man like Jack, and I am half tempted to tell him so.”

“I wish you would; but you needn’t knock things over before you do it,”
she answered, with the utmost unconcern, as in my excitement I ran
against the table on which the lamp was standing. “You know the plateau
on the hill where the Ponsonby mansion stood before it was burned?” she
continued. “Well, it is for sale, and Jack is going to buy it and build
a pretty cottage on it with all the modern improvements. He was just
like a boy talking about it. He has more money than I supposed, or will
have, when his mother’s estate is settled, and his salary is good. So we
shall begin housekeeping in fine style for Lovering, but—bah, nothing to
what I would like.”

I was never so angry with Fan in my life as I was that night when she
showed me the heartless side of her, and I staid angry for two or three
days until Jack came with a plan for the cottage he was going to build
on the Ponsonby plateau. Then I forgave her when I saw her eyes light up
as she lifted her face to be kissed and sat down close to him, while
with one arm around her waist he explained the plan to us both. It was
as nearly perfect as could be, especially the square hall with the
fireplace, the deep window seats and the broad staircase, with the
landing where his mother’s tall clock was to stand. There were to be bay
windows and alcoves and verandas, above and below, and a room for Katy,
and Paul, and myself whenever we chose to stay there, which he hoped
would be very often. He _was_ like a boy in his enthusiasm and Fan
caught the spirit, too, and began to furnish the different rooms in a
manner which took my breath away. Jack had thought to use some of his
mother’s furniture, but Fan promptly vetoed the idea. It was too old
fashioned, she said. She must have everything fresh and new, and she
fitted up room after room, one with pink, one with blue, one with red.
Her own, with the bay window overlooking the town and the valley and
hills beyond, was to be of white enameled wood, with touches of gold
here and there, while the window itself was bewildering with its white
silk canopy and fringe of gold, its fleecy curtains and soft cushioned
window stools and chairs.

If Jack had known Fan as well as I did he would have understood that
much of her talk was for effect, that she never expected to have a house
furnished as she was furnishing it in fancy. Unfortunately, he was apt
to take things literally, and as he saw his pocket-book emptied and
himself heavily in debt if he carried out her plans, he gasped a little
and said, “That would be lovely, but I am afraid I can’t afford it all
at first. Sometime we will have it, but now we must cut the garment
according to the cloth.”

Instantly Fan’s face clouded. She lost her interest in the plan, and
nearly lost it in Jack, who was, however, too supremely happy to notice
it. She had promised to be his wife the next Christmas, when the house
which was now on paper would be ready for her, and knowing that he would
sooner die than break his word to her, he believed in and trusted her,
and I never saw any human being more happy than he seemed on the nights
when he used to come to us, bringing so much sunshine with his kindness
and thoughtfulness that the winter did not seem half as long and dreary
as we thought it would be with our father gone. We missed him
everywhere, it is true; but as far as possible Jack filled his place,
planning for us, transacting all our business, and collecting many a
dollar which but for him we could never have recovered. Occasionally we
heard from Carl, who wrote that he was studying law and was as steady as
an old clock. Once Norah wrote asking if Phyllis had done this and that
and presuming she hadn’t. Then she spoke of Carl, of whom she was very
proud. “About the firstest young man in Boston,” she said, “with all the
girls after him. But he don’t seem to hanker in particular for none of
’em. He has a way, though, of makin’ ’em all b’lieve she’s the one. But,
good land, ’taint wuth no girl’s while to set her heart on him. He’s
like a wind-mill, turnin’ and turnin’. He’s stiddy, though, and keeps
middlin’ good hours—for Boston.”

This was encouraging so far as Carl was concerned, but there was a
shadow on Katy’s face, and for several days we missed the music of her
voice as she moved rather dejectedly around the house, apparently
pondering Norah’s words, “Tain’t wuth no girl’s while to set her heart
on Carl.”




                  CHAPTER IV.—ANNIE’S STORY CONTINUED.
                       THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT.


Owing to some defect found in the title to the Ponsonby plateau after
Jack had bargained for it, there was a delay of two or three months and
it was the first of June before the way was clear for him to begin his
new house. As he meant to superintend it himself and work with his own
hands as much as possible there was ample time to finish it before
Christmas, the day appointed for the wedding. After many consultations
and a great deal of walking around the plateau to get the very best
point for views in every direction, it was decided to build the cottage
a little to the north of the spot where the Ponsonby house had stood.
This necessitated a new cellar, and on the morning when the work was to
commence Jack came to us and said, “I wish you’d all come up and see the
first furrow turned. It will be something like laying the corner stone.”

As the day was one of Phyllis’s “clarin’ up” days we were glad to escape
from the discomfort of it, and deciding to have a kind of picnic we took
our lunch with us, and sitting down on a bit of broken wall in the
shadow of a dogwood tree Katy, Paul and I looked on while Fan and Jack
steadied the plow and drove the horses around the ground staked out for
the cellar.

“Don’t this make you think of Romulus and Remus building Rome? I don’t
believe, though, that Jack will kill me if I jump over the wall,” Fan
said, laughingly, as she let go the plow and bounding over the furrow
came up to where we were sitting, flushed with exercise and seemingly
very happy.

When the horses had done all they could and the workmen had taken the
cellar in hand we sat down to our lunch, which was nearly finished when
we heard the sound of voices coming up the hill and a moment after a
gentleman and lady came into view, walking very leisurely, but
quickening their steps when they saw us.

“Colonel and Miss Errington,” Fan exclaimed. “What evil genius sent them
here to-day!”

Was it an evil genius, or good, or was it fate which sent them there? I
often asked myself afterwards, when a great happiness and a great sorrow
followed as the result of their coming.

“Here you are! What a climb, and how tired and hot I am,” Miss Errington
said, as, after shaking hands with us, she dropped down upon the nearest
big stone and began to fan herself.

It was years since we had seen either the Colonel or his sister, but it
did not seem to me that they had changed much. Both were a little
stouter, perhaps, and there were a few white hairs in the Colonel’s
side-whiskers, worn after the English fashion. Otherwise he was the same
tall, elegant man, with a military look and air, and the same cold, hard
expression in his eyes which, as they had always done, softened when
they rested on Fan. Every color became her, but to me she had never been
as handsome as since she had worn black. It toned down her brilliant
color, and made her look more womanly and lovable. That day her dress
was a thin muslin, which showed her white neck and arms, and she had
pinned some white roses at her throat and fastened some in her hair “to
scratch Jack when he tries to kiss me,” she said, but really because she
inwardly chafed against black and wanted some color to relieve it.

The Colonel was very polite to me, and said to Katy, “Upon my soul, how
you have grown!” and “What little shaver is this?” to Paul. Then he took
Fan’s hand and held it much longer than he had held mine, and looked at
her until she shrank from him and moved nearer to Jack. Miss Errington
was explaining that, as they were in Richmond and had not seen us in
years, they had decided to surprise us with a call.

“We drove from the station to the house,” she said, “and found your
factotum, Phyllis, asleep on the front piazza with mop and pails and
broom at her side. It was a work of time to rouse her, but when she was
fairly awake she was profuse in her excuses, saying she was that tired
in her bones that she “had done drapped asleep arsidentally,” and also
that you were all digging the cellar for Mas’r Jack’s and Miss Fanny’s
new house, from which I infer that congratulations are _en règle_, or
are you already married?”

“No, oh no!” Fan exclaimed, while Jack put his hand on her shoulder with
an air of proud ownership and said, “Not yet, but I invite you to our
wedding next Christmas.”

“Christmas! That’s a long way off,” the Colonel rejoined, his manner
changing at once from one of indifference, or disappointment, or both,
to one almost hilarious. I was told that I looked younger than when he
last saw me. Katy was delicately complimented on her wonderful beauty.
Paul was taken up and set upon the highest bit of wall, which he made
believe was a horse, and Fan was reminded of the saucy things she said
to him when he first invaded our house as a Federal officer with his
soldiers, and asked if she hated them all now as much as she did then.

“I should if they came on the same errand,” was her reply, and then
walking slowly around the broken ground the Colonel asked if _that_ was
to be the size of the house?

“Yes, and you’d be surprised to know how much room there will be in it,”
Jack said, beginning eagerly to explain that here was the hall, there
the dining-room, there the library and sitting-room, and “upstairs,
right here, with the bay window, where we get the finest view, our
room,” he added, with a world of love and tenderness on the words _our
room_.

“Ah, yes, I see; all very fine,” the Colonel rejoined, with a look I did
not like, it seemed so like the look a snake might give the bird it
meant to destroy. “And what do you intend to call this Paradise? You
Southerners, like the English, usually have names for your places,” was
his next question, to which Jack replied, “We haven’t thought so far as
that. The people who used to live here called the place The Plateau, but
I’d like something else. Suppose you name it.”

“How would ‘The House that Jack built’ do?” the Colonel said, in an
ironical tone which irritated me, but which was lost sight of by the
rest because of Paul, who, catching the words “The House that Jack
built,” began at once to repeat the rhyme which he knew by heart.

“Bravo, young man!” the Colonel said, patting the child’s head, while
Fan suggested that we return to The Elms, where we could offer a cup of
tea to our guests.

Jack excused himself, as he must stay with his men, and the rest of us
went slowly down the hill, Miss Errington, Katy, Paul and myself in
advance, the Colonel and Fan in the rear, walking very slowly and
engaged in what seemed a very animated conversation. Phyllis had
finished her “clarin’ up,” donned her Sunday dress and turban, and in
anticipation of our return was moulding biscuits for tea. It was served
on the rear porch, where the clematis and honeysuckle shielded us from
the heat of the June sun, and after it was over Miss Errington asked
Katy to sing for her. The song was followed by another and another,
during which the Colonel, who cared little for music, walked up and down
the long piazza with Fan, whose cheeks were very red when she at last
joined us at my call.

Miss Errington was going to Saratoga in August and would like to take
Katy with her if Fan and I were willing. As all important decisions were
usually left to Fan I beckoned her to us. Before she could reply to the
proposition, which Miss Errington repeated, the Colonel interposed,
“That’s a capital idea, but why not invite Miss Fanny also? You can
chaperon two young ladies as well as one, and I am sure she would like
to see something of the north she affects to hate.”

This suggestion was warmly seconded by Miss Errington, while Fan stood
irresolute. I did not think she would accept without seeing Jack, and
was surprised when she said at last, “I should like it so much if Miss
Errington really wants me.”

Miss Errington did want her, and as I was not consulted it was arranged
that Fan and Katy should go to Washington the last week in July and from
there to Saratoga in company with Miss Errington. Nothing had been said
of the Colonel’s going, and when I asked what he meant to do, he
replied, “Oh, stay at home; Saratoga is not to my taste.”

It was later than usual that night when Jack came to us, more tired than
I had ever seen him. He had worked harder than any of his men, he said,
as he leaned back in his chair and asked where Fan was. She was putting
Paul to bed, and it was Katy who told him of the proposed trip.

“Fanny going!” he repeated, his face flushing for a moment, and then
turning paler than before. She had just come in, and going up to him
began to smooth his hair and forehead, saying, “You poor boy, you are
all tired out. You ought not to work so hard. Let those lazy negroes do
it. Yes, I thought I’d go; it is a good chance to see a little of the
world before I settle down into a Joan. You don’t care, do you?”

She was still manipulating his hair, with her face very near to his and
something so coaxing in her voice that a man less in love than Jack
would have yielded to it and granted what she wished.

“I am glad to have you go, if it pleases you,” he said. “Only I thought
you might like to be here and watch the house as it progresses. But
you’ll be back before we get to the rooms.”

“Oh, yes,” she answered very promptly. “I shall be back before you reach
the rooms. It is only for August, and I have always wanted to see
Saratoga.”

“Is the Colonel going?” Jack asked and Fan answered, “No, indeed, and
I’m glad; I think him horrid and so patronizing.”

The fact that the Colonel was not to make one of the party reconciled
Jack to Fan’s absence more than anything else, and in spite of his
fatigue he grew very cheerful and quite like himself as the evening wore
on. That night in our room there was a spirited discussion between Fan
and myself with regard to her proposed trip, I arguing that for Jack’s
sake she should stay at home, and she declaring she would not. It was
the only bit of life she’d ever see, she said, and she meant to take it.
She’d never been beyond the smoke of our chimney, and after she was
married she should of course settle down, just as all the Lovering women
did, into a domestic drudge. Poverty was hateful, and she was glad she
was for once going to know how rich people lived and play rich herself.

The next morning she was very pliable and sweet, and spent half the day
at The Plateau with Jack whom she brought home with her to supper, and
then sat with him alone on the piazza until the clock struck eleven and
old Phyllis appeared on the scene in wonderful night-gear, with a tallow
dip in her hand, saying she “had done hearn sunthin’, and thought mebby
thar was burgles in the house.”




                  CHAPTER V.—ANNIE’S STORY CONTINUED.
                           SEEING THE WORLD.


It was the last week in July when Fan and Katy left us for Washington.
Jack, Paul and I went to the station with them, waving and kissing our
hands to them as long as we could see them standing upon the rear
platform and waving to us. How often now do I recall Fanny as she was
then starting out to see the world. Although twenty-six she scarcely
looked more than twenty, so lightly had the years touched her bright
face and starry eyes, which tears made softer and lovelier as she said
good-bye to us. With wonderful skill and some help from the fashion
plates she had remodeled her wardrobe, adding a little to it as we could
afford, but refusing the money Jack offered her, saying he knew she must
need it and he wanted her to hold her own among the fashionables she was
to meet.

“No, Jackey, dear,” she said, “I can’t take money from you now; but when
I am your wife, it will not be safe to offer it to me. And don’t you
worry, I shall hold my own.”

At first she wrote three times a week to Jack, and her letters were very
satisfactory, judging from his manner after receiving them. To me she
wrote once a week, but it was from Katy that I had the most reliable
information. They had reached Washington safely, and been met by Colonel
and Miss Errington in a superb turnout, with coachman and footman in
livery. The house was more elegant than anything Katy had ever imagined,
and all its appointments of service and servants were perfect, and Fan
adapted herself to everything with the air of a duchess born to the
purple. Both the Colonel and his sister were very kind and had taken
them everywhere in and around Washington, which was a beautiful city,
but so hot that after a week’s sojourn they were glad to leave it for
Saratoga. At the very last moment the Colonel had decided to go with
them. He had said he couldn’t be hired to spend a month in that
frivolous place, but when in the morning they came down to breakfast
there was his baggage with theirs in the hall waiting for the
expressman, and he was in his light traveling suit giving directions.
They were stopping at the United States, where they had a suite of rooms
on the second floor, parlor, three bedrooms, dressing-rooms and
bath-rooms, and were quite the distinguished guests of the house. After
she had been in Saratoga two or three weeks Katy wrote again.

“We know everybody worth knowing and everybody knows us and are very
polite and attentive, notwithstanding our plain black gowns, which
contrast so strongly with the elegant dresses worn morning, noon and
night, any one of which must have cost more than all our simple
wardrobe. There is a story going the rounds that we were very wealthy
before the war,—that being on the frontier we were overrun by both
armies, our house burned, our negroes stolen, and that we lost all we
had. Fan, they say, was a fierce rebel, and with a revolver once kept
Col. Errington and his whole regiment at bay when he tried to quarter
his men upon us. All this fiction seems to make the people think more of
us. Funny, isn’t it? Fan is the belle of the season and more flattered
and complimented and sought after than any young lady here. And you
don’t know how beautiful she is even in her simple black lawn and linen
collar, with her brilliant complexion, her eyes like diamonds and her
smile which brings every man to her feet. You ought to see her sitting
in one of the big chairs on the piazza, or in the hall, surrounded by
half a dozen admirers of all ages from sixteen to sixty. She knows the
right word to say to each one, and keeps them all on the _qui vive_,
while the Colonel, who is always very near, looks on with an expression
which says as plain as words can say, ‘Don’t go too far, gentlemen. It
will do no good.’ His attentions are constant and so delicate and marked
that people begin to associate their names together, and I have been
asked if they were not engaged. I said no, decidedly, and told them
about Jack, whom she is to marry at Christmas. In less than twenty-four
hours, so fast does gossip travel here, I overheard one lady tell
another that the eldest Miss Hathern was engaged to a wealthy Virginia
planter who lived near Richmond.

“‘That splendid girl engaged to a farmer,’ the second lady exclaimed,
and her friend replied, ‘No, a planter.’

“‘Oh, that will do,’ the other said, in a satisfied tone, ‘as if there
were any difference between a planter and a farmer except the spelling.’
Do you see any?

“That night Fan and I quarrelled for the first time in our lives. She
said that I had no business to tell that she was engaged and spoil her
fun, and I said she had no business to flirt so outrageously with
everybody, and that if she didn’t quit it I’d write to Jack. Then she
began to cry and wish she was dead. She didn’t see why when a glimpse of
the world was given her to enjoy she couldn’t be allowed to enjoy it in
her own way, and if she chose to have a taste of the world, the flesh
and the devil, meaning the Colonel, she didn’t know why I should
interfere. She intended to marry Jack, but she meant to have a good time
first before settling down in dull old Lovering, which she hated. Then
her mood changed and she acknowledged that she was wrong, and that night
she wrote Jack the longest letter she has written since we came here,
and the most loving, I dare say. The next day she was as shy and demure
as a nun, which sent the whole pack after her fiercer than ever, but she
cut them dead and kept close to the Colonel as if for protection, and
drove with him to the lake and didn’t get back until ten o’clock. She
was gone with him again this afternoon, and the people crowded on to the
piazza to see them off in his stylish turnout,—the finest here by far.”

This letter troubled me greatly, and I wondered what Jack would think of
it. I remembered the long letter he had received and how happy he had
looked after it. I had seen him reading it at least three different
times, until I felt sure he must know it by heart. After that her
letters were very short, both to him and to me. She had not time to
write much, she said, she was kept in such a whirl, which grew dizzier
as the season drew near its close. She never mentioned the Colonel, or
any other gentleman in particular, but was loud in her praise of Katy,
whose flowerlike beauty, she said, had turned the heads of half the men
in Saratoga.

“And her voice,” she wrote; “people rave about it as if she were Patti
herself. It seems the Diva sang here once years ago, when she was about
Katy’s age, and a woman who heard her says she likes Katy’s voice better
and that she is far prettier, she is so fair and sweet and unconscious
of her great gift. I have let her sing twice in public for some
charities; they are always getting up something of that sort and levying
on any talent there may be here. Prejudiced as I am against the stage I
was proud of Katy, she was so modest and unaffected, and received the
applause of the people so shyly and sweetly. Miss Errington has a plan
in her mind for keeping Katy in Washington and giving her lessons. She
will probably write you about it. I shall oppose it if there is a
_career_ behind it. I have not yet reached a point where I want my
sister a public character, with her photographs in the shop windows, and
horrid wood-cuts of her in the papers. I intend to have her at The
Plateau a good deal of the time to keep me from stagnating. Just think
of it! Only Jack and me, sitting there alone, admiring each other! Well,
nothing can blot out the remembrance of the good time I am having now
seeing the world, and there is so much to see and enjoy, if one only had
money.

“I hoped at one time Carl might join us. Katy has had a few lines from
him; did she tell you? He has gone with a party to some outlandish place
beyond the Rockies. There are some people here from Boston who know him
well and speak highly of him. They say, however, that he is a little too
much inclined to forget the friends of yesterday for those of to-day. We
know that, don’t we? An uncle on his father’s side has recently died and
left him what we should think a fortune. So he is richer now than ever.
I wish we had an uncle to die and leave us some money. But, alas! if we
ever had an uncle he was dry as dust long ago.

“Miss Errington came in just here and proposed that, instead of going
back to Washington, we take a trip to Quebec and Montreal and Chicago,
returning by way of the Falls and New York, where, she says, I can buy
my wedding trousseau. That last sounds fine, don’t it? I wonder if she
suspects how poor we really are and how little there is for a trousseau.
I don’t believe that, all told, we can get together a hundred dollars
without drawing on the small sum we have in the bank in Richmond, or
selling Black Beauty. It may come to that yet. And what do you think of
the plan? Katy is crazy to go, and I am just as anxious. I see no reason
why we should not, and I have virtually said we would, provided you do
not object too strenuously, and you are too unselfish an old darling to
do that. And so is Jack. How is the dear boy? ‘Working like an ox to get
the nest ready for his bird,’ he wrote me. Oh, Jack, Jack! How good he
is; far too good for me! His letters always make me cry. I feel my
unworthiness so after reading them. I really mean to settle down into
the best and most domestic of wives after I have seen the world.

“A gentleman has sent up for me to drive with him, so good-bye. We shall
leave here within a week.

                                                        “Lovingly, FAN.”




                  CHAPTER VI.—ANNIE’S STORY CONTINUED.
                 FURNISHING THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT.


It was no use to protest against the journey which would keep Fan and
Katy from home four or five weeks longer, and all Jack and I could do
was to make the best of it. Jack looked very sober when we talked it
over together.

“I am glad for her to enjoy herself and see the world, as she calls it,”
he said, smiling sadly; “but I miss her so much. I am always wanting to
ask her advice and know if what I am doing suits her. You will have to
take her place in that respect.”

He was looking so tired and pale that night that even Phyllis noticed it
and asked, “What has done happened to Mas’r Jack; he don’t look so
peart-like as he did? Is he frettin’ for Miss Fanny? She don’t or’to go
to the ends of the airth an’ her the same as merried. No man would bar
it.”

Phyllis and I were thrown so much together for companionship that she
usually told me what she thought.

“‘Pears mos’ like she was never comin’ back,” she said more than once,
and in spite of myself I was haunted by a similar presentiment, which
followed me everywhere, and made me very kind and pitiful towards Jack.

He was working very hard, and with his labor and under his supervision
the house was going up faster than ever a house went up before in
Lovering. The walls were all enclosed and the rooms divided off
according to the plan, which Jack often brought to me, asking if I could
suggest any change. I could not. It was perfect as it was. New houses
were not common in Lovering. This was the first since the war, and to me
it seemed the quintessence of all that was pretty and desirable. Nearly
every day all through September and on into October I went with Paul to
The Plateau to watch the work as it progressed, and to please Jack, who
said that he got on better when I was there,—that I seemed a part of Fan
herself, and if he couldn’t have her I was next best. This might be
called a questionable compliment, but I was grateful for crumbs. I doubt
if Fan on her western tour, which finally extended as far as Colorado
and Salt Lake City, was much happier than I was those long autumn days,
when I sat in a niche in the wall and watched Jack busy with his men, of
whom there were at least a dozen, so anxious was he to surprise Fan when
she came home. How kind and attentive he was, coming often to me and
trying to shield me from the sun if it were too warm, or from the wind
if it blew cold from the woods or hills.

“You don’t know what a comfort it is to have you here,” he said to me
one cool morning in October as he sat down beside me, pulling my shawl
over my shoulder and unconsciously letting his hand rest there a moment
as a brother might have done. “I wish you were going to live with Fanny
and me. We need you to balance our nervousness and excitement, you are
so quiet and self-contained. It will be a happy man who gets you,
Annie.”

“Oh, Jack,” was all I said, as I drew away from him and turned my head
that he might not see the waves of crimson on my face, or hear the loud
beating of my heart as I could hear it.

Not for worlds would I have let him know that the girl he thought so
self-contained and quiet loved him with a love far more enduring than
any which Fan had ever given to him. It was a sin, I knew, or soon would
be, and I fought against it with all my might, only to find it growing
stronger as the days went by and the time drew near when he would be the
husband of my sister. My only resource when his spell was over me was to
talk to him of Fan,—where she was, what she was doing, what she was
seeing, and when she would be home. To all this he responded readily,
especially the coming home, and how he meant to surprise her.

One day in October when I went with Paul to The Plateau he met me with a
beaming face. Some land of his near Richmond, which he had scarcely
thought worth anything, had been bought by a gentleman from the north,
who was going to put two or three houses upon it.

“I feel rich,” he said,—“so rich that I am going to commit the
extravagance of buying lace curtains, the real sort, not shams, a
moquette carpet and upright Steinway for the parlor. That will please
Fanny. She likes moquettes, they tread so softly, and I know she will
like a piano. I heard her say that no house was furnished without one.
Don’t you approve?” he continued, as I did not answer.

A moquette, at the prices they then brought with us, was an
extravagance, while the Steinway was a superfluity. Fan had taken a few
lessons and could play simple music. But she didn’t care for it and
seldom tried the superb instrument which Mrs. Hathern had brought from
Boston. Under these circumstances it seemed to me that the money he must
pay for a Steinway could be better expended, and I said so, giving as a
reason that Fan was not much of a musician.

“Yes, she is,” Jack answered quickly; “I’ve heard her sing Bonny Doon
when she actually brought tears, I was so sorry for the chap who wrote
it. Burns, wasn’t it? That’s my favorite, words and all. And the way
Fanny sang it. I want to hear it again in this room; and Dixie. How she
can rattle that off; and Fisher’s Hornpipe, and Money Musk. They are
worth all the classics in the world, and Bonny Doon is a hundred times
better than the hifalutin things you hear at concerts, when the singer
almost turns black in the face, and wiggles and twists and stands on
tiptoe as if she were going up bodily with her voice, which, when it
gets up as far as it can go ends with a screech like she was in a fit.
No, sir! Give me the good, old-fashioned tunes such as Fan can play.”

Evidently Jack’s taste for music was not cultivated, and I laughed
merrily at his tirade against fashionable singing, and then watched him
as he drummed on the window stool in imitation of playing a piano, and
whistled the air of Bonny Doon. I knew he would buy the moquette and the
Steinway, and said no more to discourage him.

“Now come up to _our_ room,” he said, after he had finished Bonny Doon
and tried a few notes of Suwanee River, another of his favorites.

I followed him up to what was to be his sleeping-room, and which he
never entered without removing his hat as reverently as if it had been a
church. It was a sacred place to him, and the one he meant to make the
most attractive in the house.

“Fanny will sit here a great deal,” he said, “because the view is so
fine, and then she can see me coming up the hill on my way home. I know
just how she will look and can see her now, watching and waiting, and
throwing me kisses. What is that they sing in the prayer meetings?” and
he began to hum,

                “Will anyone then at the beautiful gate,
                Be watching and waiting for me.”

He was very musical that afternoon because he was so happy, and Fan was
very real to him watching by the window as he came up the hill to what
would be Paradise because she was in it. Do the hearts of men like Jack
break more easily when betrayed? I do not know, but I remember thinking
that God would hardly forgive the woman who played false to one who
trusted her as Jack trusted Fan.

“She spoke of having this room all white and gold,” he said, “and I am
going to finish it up in white wood, polished to look like marble with
faint lines of gilt in it. There’s a chamber set in Richmond, part
willow work and part white wood, with scrolls of gold here and there,
and on the headboard a medallion, with the figure of a little girl in
crimson cloak, with the hood brought over her head and looking just as
Fanny looked years ago when a child and I drew her to school on my sled
that winter we had so much snow. The eyes of the girl in the medallion
smile at me just as Fanny’s did when I looked back at her to see how she
liked it. Don’t you remember? You were there, too.”

I did remember very well the day when Fanny had her first sled ride, and
in her new cloak, which was scarlet instead of crimson, looked like a
little queen as she sat on the sled, while I trudged at her side in the
snow, proud of that privilege, and especially proud when, on going up a
hill which was nearly bare, Jack let me help him pull her, and told me I
made a very nice little filly. He had asked Fan to get off in the
steepest place, where the snow had melted and made it muddy, and she had
stormed and kicked and said she wouldn’t, telling him he was her slave
and was to do her bidding. He had been her slave ever since, and I had
trudged beside them and was trudging still, with, God knows, no envy or
bitterness in my heart because of the drudgery, or that Fan was always
preferred before me, but often with the thought of the joy it would be
to be loved by a man like Jack Fullerton.

“Yes, I remember it,” I said, and he continued, “I do want to buy that
set, but if I get the moquette and the Steinway it is beyond my pile at
present, unless—”

He stopped and his face beamed as with a sudden inspiration. He had
taken his watch from his pocket to see what time it was, and was looking
at it intently. It was a stem-winder and very handsome, and Jack was
very proud of it. I suspected what was in his mind, but said nothing,
lest I might be mistaken. As it was getting late and growing rather cool
I left him settling in his mind where the different pieces of furniture
would stand provided he bought the coveted set. Outside in the yard I
found Paul, who had preferred to stay with the workmen while I went
through the rooms with Jack. In climbing over the broken wall he had
fallen upon his back or side and was crying, saying it hurt him to walk.
No bones were broken, nor were any of his limbs sprained that I could
find, and after a while he signified his readiness to go home, limping a
little but utterly refusing the poultice which Phyllis made that night
and which was big enough to encircle his entire body. The next morning
he seemed all right, except for an occasional halt in walking, and I
forgot the incident entirely in the greater interest of
house-furnishing.

A week later Jack, who had been to Richmond, came to me one night and
told me the moquette and piano and lace curtains and chamber set were
bought and paid for, and would be at The Plateau in a few days. Glancing
at his vest I saw that the gold chain was gone, and in its place was a
black ribbon, and then I knew what he had done.

“What time is it, please?” I asked.

Flushing and hesitating he finally drew out a plain silver watch and
held it up to me.

“Yes, I’ve gone and done done it, as Phyllis would say,” he said,
laughingly. “I’ve sold my gold watch and bought me a silver one, which
keeps just as good time. Fan always told me I was too fond of
jewelry,—that my big chain looked flashy. She’ll be pleased with the
black ribbon, and that child in the medallion is so like her. Seems as
if she would speak to me and say ‘Get up, old nigger,’ just as Fan did
the day I drew her on my sled.”

There was no use in protesting, now that the deed was done. So I said
nothing, and after a moment Jack exclaimed, as he put his hand in his
pocket, “By Jove I came near forgetting it; I have a letter for you,
which I found in the office as I came down. It is addressed in Fanny’s
handwriting and mailed in New York. They are so far on their way home,
and must be here soon. I wonder she didn’t write to me, too. What does
she say? It’s a fat one, any way; there’s something in it from Katy
probably,” he continued, as he saw me take out a note and glance at it
before commencing to read the letter.

I knew it was not always safe to read Fan’s letters aloud, and I ran my
eyes hastily over this one, while Jack waited impatiently. The travelers
were in New York at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and Fanny was wild over what
she had seen and was seeing, especially on Broadway, where she had done
a little shopping.

“Such lovely things,” she wrote, “but so expensive, and my purse is so
very small. Why, one suit, such as I want, will take my entire fund. I
have set my heart on a cloth dress, tailor made, which is awfully
stylish, and will do to wear all winter, to mill and to meeting,—to call
in and to receptions,—only there will not be any in Lovering, where the
people have as much as they can do to get enough to eat without throwing
away their money on frivolities. More’s the pity; and how stupid I shall
find it after seeing the world. Don’t be surprised if some day, when you
come up to The Plateau, you find me dangling from a beam in the cellar.
If so, put on my headstone ‘Died of a broken neck, caused by _ennui_.’
But what nonsense. Let’s come to business, at once. I _must_ have more
money, and this is what you are to do, ‘Sell Black Beauty.’

“Oh,” I gasped, with a feeling similar to what I might have felt if she
had said “Sell Phyllis.”

“What is it? What’s the matter?” Jack asked, and without stopping to
think, I replied, “She wants to sell Black Beauty to buy her a
tailor-made gown.” “Sell Black Beauty, her pony! Never!” Jack exclaimed,
while I read on:

“I don’t ride him very often now, and when I am married I shall have
less use for him. He is getting old any way, seventeen or eighteen, and
eating his head off. I am very fond of him, and there’s a big lump in my
throat when I think of parting with him, but that gown is so ravishingly
pretty and so becoming, and I want it so much. Old Mrs. Arthur has asked
me for Black Beauty a number of times. He is just right to amble around
the neighborhood with her on his back or in the phaeton behind him. She
will take good care of him and pet him more than I do. Go and see her,
Annie, and if she’ll give a hundred dollars,—that’s what she offered
last summer,—take it, and send at once before the gown is gone. You
don’t know how swell I feel driving to Arnold’s and Stewart’s and Lord
and Taylor’s in Miss Errington’s handsome carriage, with two black men
in livery, nor how obsequious they are at these places to those who come
in carriages. Do you remember a copy which a Yankee schoolmaster set for
me years ago, and which we thought so funny, ‘Money makes the mare go?’
It is true, and the more money you have the faster the mare goes. ‘Fan
is an idiot!’ I think I hear you say. Perhaps I am, but idiot or not,
sell Black Beauty and send me the money.

“When am I coming home? I really don’t know for sure. In time to be
married, I suppose. Miss Errington suggests that whatever dress-making I
have to do be done in Washington under her supervision and by her
dressmaker, who comes to the house. If I do this I shall, of course,
stay longer than I at first intended. Tell Jack not to fret. He will
have enough of me after we are married. How is the house progressing?
And how is Paul’s lameness? Better, I hope. Miss Errington, to whom I
read your letter, made me very nervous by suggesting that his fall might
result in hip disease. That would be dreadful. Paul a cripple! It can’t
be; Miss Errington is always seeing scare-crows. She is exceedingly
kind, however, and will send a note in this letter asking if she can
keep Katy during the winter and give her every advantage for musical
instruction. I have consented, and you may as well. Katy will of course
go home for Thanksgiving, and Miss Errington has invited herself to
accompany her,—or rather us,—when we come.

“Did I tell you the Colonel was to sail for Europe the 3d of November in
the Celtic? As she will wish to see him off you may expect us the
25th,—three days before Thanksgiving. That is Miss Errington’s plan. She
just came in to give me her note.

                                                      “Lovingly,
                                                                  “FAN.”

“P. S. I shall write Jack to-morrow.”

I read parts of this letter to Jack, skipping what I thought he ought
not to hear. He looked very grave when I finished it, and said, “She is
putting off her coming as long as she can. It is three weeks to the
25th. Does dress-making take so long?”

It took a good while, I told him, although Fan could not have a great
deal to do. Then I spoke of Black Beauty, lamenting that he must be
sold. We have had him so long that he seemed like one of us, with human
instincts and affections.

“Isn’t there some other way of getting that tailor gown, if she must
have it?” I said, looking up at Jack, whose face wore an expression
different from any I had ever seen there.

I thought he consigned the tailor-made gown to perdition, but was not
sure, he spoke so low. What I did understand was that Black Beauty would
not be sold to Mrs. Arthur, and that I was to do nothing about it until
I saw him again. Then he went away, seeming a good deal excited for
Jack, and banged the door so hard behind him that Paul, who had been
sitting very quietly in his high chair, asked “Is Jack mad?”

This reminded me of what Fanny had said of possible hip disease, and I
remembered with a pang that Paul had not played horse on father’s cane
quite as much, or run quite as fast since that fall on The Plateau. When
I questioned him, however, he said he had no pain except once in a while
when he was tired and then “something hurts me here,” and he put his
hand low down on his back. I was not quite reassured, and determined to
consult the village doctor the next time I saw him. Then I read Fan’s
letter again, feeling as if an incubus had dropped from me because the
Colonel was going abroad. Fan had never mentioned him before, but there
had always been in my mind an undefinable feeling of uneasiness as if he
were a dark shadow falling between her and Jack.

It was two days before I saw the latter again and when he came he was in
a very different mood. He had received Fan’s letter of four pages
crossed and so full of love and pretty sayings that if he could he would
have bought her ten tailor-made gowns.

“I was a brute the last time I was here,” he said, “I was so
disappointed that Fanny was not coming sooner. Old Mrs. Arthur can’t
have Black Beauty, for I’ve bought him myself. I can’t part with him.
I’ve had too many plans of riding through the woods and around the
country with Fanny at my side. She never looks better than when on
Beauty’s back. Here is the money.”

He held out a hundred dollar bill, which I was to send at once and ask
no questions as to where he got it. I think he borrowed it and at first
refused to take it, but he overruled my objections, and that night it
was on its way to New York. Four days later an answer came to Jack and
to me. The gown was bought, and Jack was the dearest, most indulgent
fellow in the world, and she was beginning to be very impatient to see
him and all of us. They were going to Washington the next day and in two
weeks were coming home. It was the nicest letter she had written in some
time, and Jack went off whistling to The Plateau, where the house was
nearly completed, so far as masons, carpenters and painters were
concerned. The plastering was dry and the paint nearly so. Phyllis had
cleared up the rubbish, and cleaned the windows and floors, which were
ready for the carpets, which, with the furniture, were standing about
everywhere in boxes and bales. Nearly all Lovering had been over the
house, pronouncing it perfect.

“Wait till it is furnished and we give a house-warming; then see what
you think,” Jack said, as he piloted party after party through all the
rooms but the one which was too sacred for common eyes to see and
comment upon. “Our room,” where the bedstead with the medallion was to
be set up, and Fanny was to be waiting and watching for him as he came
over the hill.

                “Alas, alas, for the dreams which come,
                  And alas for the dreams which go;
                Leaving only an aching heart
                  Crushed with a sudden blow.”




                 CHAPTER VII.—ANNIE’S STORY CONTINUED.
                         THE 25TH OF NOVEMBER.


The beginning of the day was bright and fair, with no cloud in the blue
sky, and the warmth of the Indian summer filled the hazy air. The close
was dark and cold and rainy, and left me a half-crazed woman, scarcely
knowing what I did or said, while Jack was as broken and blighted as
some tall tree which the storm has torn up by the roots and cast
helpless upon the ground. During the last two weeks only short letters
had come to Jack from Fanny, while to me she had written at length,
telling me how glad she was at the prospect of coming home.

“I reckon too much sight-seeing and dissipation have made me nervous, or
bilious, or both,” she wrote. “I am not myself at all, either waking or
sleeping. In fact I don’t sleep. I, who used to drop off the moment my
head touched the pillow, now toss for hours without losing
consciousness, thinking—thinking—of everything, of the past, the
present, and the future, until my brain seems actually broiling. Oh, the
future! Don’t ever get married, Annie. It’s dreadful,—not being quite
certain of anything except that you are not half good enough for the man
who loves and trusts you so fully. I wish Jack were not so good. Wish he
were more like me. There would then be something like equality. But
now,—Annie, did you ever have a horrid nightmare in which you were more
awake than asleep, because you could see and hear and feel, but had no
power to move, although you knew there was something creeping towards
you slowly, surely, with its arms stretched out to enfold you? If you
could cry out the spell would be broken, but you can’t, and you lie
there dead, as it were, waiting for the end you cannot ward off. That is
my condition, and will be until I am under our Virginia skies and
breathing Virginia air at home with you.

“We have fixed upon Monday the 25th for starting, and as we do not reach
Richmond until night you will not see us until Tuesday morning. Shall I
be awake then, I wonder; or, will the creeping shadow have me in its
embrace? Pray for me, Annie. I need it more than you know; why, I
actually feel like asking Phyllis to _rassle in prar_ for me, I am in
such a state. I wish we were coming sooner, but Miss Errington wants to
see her brother off. You know he sails the 23d, and she is going to New
York with him on Friday. If I could, I’d start for Lovering to-morrow.”

This was a part of Fan’s letter. The rest was full of fun and jokes and
anticipations of the Thanksgiving dinner she was to eat at home, with
some directions to Phyllis how to cook it, and one or two allusions to
“the house that Jack built,” and which she knew she should like. She
closed with: “Your wretched sister, who knows how Paul felt when he
wrote to the Romans, chap. 7, verse 15, ‘What I would, that I do not;
but what I hate, that do I.’ If as good a man as Paul whiffled round
like that, what can you expect of a weak, wicked girl like Fan Hathern?”

This letter troubled me a great deal at first. What did it mean? What
could it mean except that as the time drew near Fan shrank from giving
up her girlish life and becoming the wife of Jack Fullerton. If this
were so I had no patience with her. After a little reflection, however,
I concluded that, as she had hinted, too much sight-seeing and
dissipation had unsettled her mind and liver, making her both bilious
and morbid. She would be all right again when once in the quiet,
healthful atmosphere of home; and dismissing all anxiety from my mind, I
began to make preparations for the Thanksgiving dinner at which Miss
Errington and Jack were to be present. In this Phyllis was quite as much
interested as myself. For weeks she had had a turkey fattening in a
little pen, and every time she fed it she informed it how many days more
it had to live before she cut off its head, and how many hours it would
probably take to roast it, information which must have been very
exhilarating to the bird, if it could have understood it. After her
fashion she had cleaned the house, which, borrowing a term which she had
heard from Mrs. Hathern and Norah O’Rourke, was in apple pie order.
“Yankee apple pie, too,” she said, when telling me how much soap and
water she had used. “I only give the kitchen a lick and a promise, as
nobody ’ll meddle thar but myself,” she said.

I expressed my approbation of the cleaning, although I knew that in all
human probability she had not raised a window when she washed it, and
that if Mrs. Hathern could have walked in to investigate she would have
found the dust piled high on the top of the doors where Phyllis had not
thought to look. But Mrs. Hathern was where neither moth nor rust
corrupt, nor dust gathers on the golden walls, and Phyllis was mistress
of the kitchen. The room which father had occupied had not been slept in
since he died, but we arranged it now for Jack, who was to spend the
night of Thanksgiving with us. Carl’s room was to be given to Miss
Errington, and both were in readiness, as was everything else so far as
I knew, and I was looking forward anxiously to the coming Tuesday, when
our house would be filled with the sound of laughter and happy voices.

I had not been feeling very well and was, besides, so busy with my own
affairs that I had not been to The Plateau for a week. I knew Jack was
there early and late, with men and women both, pushing matters as fast
as possible, and that some of the rooms were settled. Sunday he was out
of town, but Monday morning he came to The Elms on his way to The
Plateau, figuratively walking upon air, he was so elated. I think I
never saw a happier light in any eyes than shone in Jack’s, or heard a
more joyful ring in any human voice than there was in his as he bade me
good morning, and added, “They will soon be on their way. Hurrah!”

Catching up Paul he swung him on his shoulder and carried him two or
three times across the wide hall. Then, putting him down and rubbing his
hands together, he continued: “I tell you, Annie, the house is a daisy,
and so she will think. Four of the rooms are settled,—square hall,
dining-room, parlor and _our_ room,—and I am coming round in my buggy
this afternoon to take you up there. I’ve had fires in all the grates to
dry out any dampness, and everything is perfect. The bedrooms and
kitchen and such like are not settled, but they soon will be. I have
ordered a range just like yours and expect it every day, and,—do you
know _who_ is to be the high cockolorum in the kitchen?”

I could not guess, and he continued: “No darkies for me, but the real
article from Yankee land,—Miss Norah O’Rourke! What do you think of
that?”

“Norah,” I exclaimed; “Norah!”

“Yes, Norah,” he replied. “We have had quite a brisk correspondence,
Norah and I. She wrote me three or four weeks ago, confidentially,
saying Carl was tired of keeping up his big establishment in
Boston,—that he was going to rent it and travel. That would throw her
out of a home. Next to Boston she liked The Elms, and would come back,
provided that _lazy, sozzlin’ nigger_ wasn’t here. I think that’s the
way she put it. She couldn’t abide the blacks, with their shiftlessness,
she said, and it wasn’t healthy to be with them. Her temper was never
the sweetest at its best, and they riled her so, slattin’ things round,
and _het_ her blood so hot that she was apt to break out all over with a
kind of rash. I am using her vernacular as far as possible; but to come
to the point. If you hadn’t Phyllis and would dispose of any colored
gentry you might have and wanted her, she would come for a price within
your means. She could afford it, as she had recently got a pension of
eight dollars a month on account of her brother Mike, who was killed at
Gettysburg. I don’t believe she was ever really dependent upon him for
support, and don’t quite understand how she got it. Somebody did some
tall swearing. But that’s not my matter. If I were to swear a blue
streak from here to Washington, I couldn’t get a pension. Was on the
wrong side of the fence. But to proceed. If you had Phyllis, I was to
say nothing. If you hadn’t, I was to ask you if you wanted her. You had
Phyllis. I said nothing, but remembering to have heard Fan say that she
would give more for Norah’s little finger than for Phyllis’s whole body,
so far as order and neatness were concerned, I wrote to Norah, telling
her my prospects and asking her how she would like to live with us.
‘Tip-top,’ she said, and she will be here within a week,—go right into
the house and have it all in readiness from stem to stern by Christmas.
For once I am in luck, and Fan is coming to-morrow. Do you realize it?
To-morrow we shall see her. I can hardly wait. Be ready this afternoon
at two sharp. _Au revoir._”

As he went down the steps two at a time he was singing:

                    “Never morning dawned so gaily,
                    Never sky such radiance wore.”

Alas, alas! I don’t know why I have written these two words, and so
anticipated the denouement. I should not have done it had I not been
nearing the almost tragedy with which the day, which dawned so gaily,
closed.




                 CHAPTER VIII.—ANNIE’S STORY CONTINUED.
                            AT THE PLATEAU.


Precisely at two o’clock Jack was at the door, and a few minutes after
we were driving rapidly through the town toward The Plateau. Jack had
put on his best clothes, as it was a half holiday with him, he said, and
he looked very handsome and animated as he talked constantly of Fanny,
recalling many incidents of her childhood, and trying to decide just
when he made up his mind that she was the one girl in all the world for
him.

“I reckon,” he said, “it was the first time I went off to the war with
my company, and she stood on the horse block throwing kisses to us and
waving a red shawl she had tied to a broom handle. Most of the boys were
in love with her, and I think it was her fierce patriotism which kept
our courage up, when it might otherwise have cooled. I remember once
when we were waiting for a battle to begin, a comrade who stood beside
me said, ‘What are you thinking of, Jack?’ I _was_ thinking of Fan, but
I replied, ‘Nothing; what are you thinking of?’ ‘Nothing,’ was his
answer. Just then there came the opening roar of cannon, with the order
for our company to move on. Simultaneously we both shouted, ‘Hurrah for
the South, and Fanny Hathern.’ The comrade was poor Tom Allen, who was
killed in that battle, and Fan’s name was the last upon his lips. I
never told her, and never shall. I don’t think she cared for him, and I
have sometimes been afraid she did not care for me as I do for her. But
she will. I shall be so kind to her and try to make her so happy that
she must love me after awhile, if she does not at first. I am a sort of
country clown, I suppose, and not at all like the high-toned chaps she
has been consorting with; but I do believe my heart is in the right
place,—that is, my intentions are good.”

He was silent a moment,—then turning towards me he continued: “You know
the best and the worst of me, if anybody does, and I feel like making
you a kind of confessor, or rather confidant, as to how I feel and what
I mean to do. Shall I, Annie-mother?”

This name by which Paul called me Jack had taken up since he had been so
much at The Elms, saying it suited me, I was such a motherly little
woman, with a manner which made everyone confide in and trust me. I
liked the name as used by Paul, to whom I was a kind of mother, but I
did not quite like to have Jack call me thus. It made me feel so much
older than I really was,—older than he, and a great deal older than Fan,
who, Phyllis said, was really my senior by half an hour. I had never
given any sign that it was distasteful to me, nor did I now. I merely
said, “I am sure you have nothing to confess.”

“Well, not exactly that. It is more a confidence as to what I mean to
do,” he said. “I am all strung up to a pitch of nervousness or
exhilaration, and must talk to somebody. This morning when I woke up,
and the sun was just rising over the woods, and I felt so light and
airy, I asked myself what it was? What had happened, or what was going
to happen? Then I remembered that Fanny was coming to-morrow, and that
in just a month she would be my wife. I was so thankful and happy that I
wanted to do something. You know I’m not very religious, like you and
Fan, and I’m not a praying man. I say the prayers in church with the
rest of the people, but half the time I’m thinking of something else,
and once in a while I go to sleep during the Litany. But I am going to
turn over a new leaf, and this morning I went down on my knees and
thanked God for Fanny, and asked that I might make her happy, and that
she might come safely home to me, and I promised to be a better man and
join the church and have family prayers just as your father did, and ask
a blessing at the table as mother did. Fanny will like that, I am sure.
You don’t know how peaceful and quiet I felt after that. Why, it seemed
as if I really had been talking to some one who heard and answered me,
and the future looks so bright that if I were in one of Phyllis’s
_pra’r_ meetings I believe I should shout. I can readily understand how
she works herself up to having the power. I could have it in a little
while.”

We were going up the hill to The Plateau by this time, and in Jack’s
face there was the rapt expression of one who had talked with God as
friend talks with friend, and been made the better for it. The sky,
which in the morning had been so clear, had gradually been growing grey
and overcast, until the sun was hidden from view, and in the west a bank
of clouds was rising rapidly and threatening rain. It was growing
chilly, too, and as a cold breeze came down the hill, Jack urged his
horse on until we came upon the house which looked so pretty and
attractive, with all the debris cleared away and the grounds brought up
somewhat to their former condition when it was the show place of the
town.

“Isn’t it lovely?” Jack said, helping me to alight, and then marching me
round to look at a view we had both seen a thousand times, but which was
always new to him because Fanny’s eyes were to see it daily.

He pointed out the tops of the Blue Ridge in the distance, the valley
through which the river ran, and the opening in the woods through which
the first Federal soldiers who appeared in our midst came marching,
years ago, throwing our little town into wild excitement and alarm.

“I heard you were so frightened that you ran to the attic and hid behind
the chimney, while Fan armed herself with the poker and went into the
street ready to fight, if necessary,” he said.

He frequently made comparisons between Fan and myself, and usually to my
disadvantage. But I did not care, and now I laughed merrily as I
recalled the day when I first heard the Yankees were coming and crawled
behind the chimney, half expecting to be shot. I had not then learned
that there was very little difference between the conduct of the Yankees
and the rebels, and not much to be feared from either. After the view
was exhausted I was taken to see the bit of sodding which had been done
where the ground was torn up,—the shrubs which had been planted and the
flower beds which had been marked out ready for spring. Noticing at last
that I shivered as a gust of wind, damp with coming rain, swept across
The Plateau, Jack said, “Why, you are cold, aren’t you? I do believe
it’s going to rain right away. Go into the house where there is a fire.
I will be there in a few minutes.”

He went whistling to the stable with his horse, while I made my way
alone into the house. Passing through the kitchen I came first to the
dining-room, with its crimson carpet and curtains, its polished oak
table and carved chairs of the same wood, upholstered in dark-green
leather,—its handsome sideboard standing in the niche made for it,—its
china and glass and fancy cups hanging on hooks,—a fashion beginning to
prevail at the north and which Jack had seen in Richmond. There was no
grate in this room, but a deep fireplace, ornamented with the brass
andirons and fender which had belonged to Jack’s mother. On the hearth
some pine knots were laid ready for a fire on the morrow, when the real
mistress came to see her new home. On one side of the room was a pretty
conservatory half full of plants with a hanging basket before two of the
windows. Fanny was fond of flowers and Jack had remembered everything.

“Well, what do you think of it? Have I been too extravagant to suit my
little economical Annie-mother?” he said, coming in just as I had
finished inspecting the room.

I told him it was lovely, but said nothing about extravagance, although
I did wonder where all the money came from. I kept on wondering as I
went from room to room, stopping next in the square hall with its broad
landing, in an angle of which the tall clock was ticking, with a stained
glass window on one side of it and Mrs. Fullerton’s portrait on the
other. The polished floor in this room was bare with the exception of a
few rugs here and there. The deep window seats were cushioned, and a
bright fire was burning in the grate. This had been my favorite room
from the first, it was so unlike in its construction any room I had then
seen, and I was disposed to linger there in the easy chair before the
warm fire. But Jack hurried me on to the parlor,—_the great room_ he
laughingly called it, as he threw open the door. The moquette carpet was
down and so thick and soft that my feet nearly went out of sight as I
trod upon it. Nothing could have been in better taste than the whole
arrangement of the room, from the lace draperies at the windows to the
Steinway in the corner. I had not seen it since it was unpacked, and
anxious to hear its tone I stepped up to open it when Jack laid his hand
on my shoulder and said, “Excuse me, please, but it is a fad of mine
that Fanny’s fingers must be the first to touch the keys. I’ve had it
tuned and know it is in good shape, and to-morrow afternoon, when I
bring Fanny up here, I am going to have her sing and play Home, Sweet
Home, and Bonny Doon, and then, little woman, you may drum away on it
all you please. Of course the room is not quite finished. It looks a
little stiff yet,” he continued, glancing around. “It wants some
jim-cracks and things, which Fanny will see to. An old shawl of hers,
thrown on the back of a chair will change it wonderfully. By George, it
begins to rain. I didn’t think it would come so soon. I am glad I put
Robin in the stable,” he exclaimed, as a few drops pattered against the
windows, “Let’s go now to our room.”

This I knew was the _pièce de résistance_, the grand reserve kept for
the last, and it seemed to me as I followed Jack up the stairs as if he
stepped softly, reverently, as we go to look at the dead. But it was not
much like a death chamber,—that bright room, with its wide bay window,
from which fluted muslin curtains were artistically draped back so as
not to obstruct the view. By the centre window a pretty work-table
stood, with an inlaid work-box on the top ready for use. On one side of
the table a large easy chair, with head and foot rest. On the other side
a low rocker, where Fan was to sit and watch for Jack, and later on sew
and listen while, in the chair opposite, he talked or read to her, or
smoked a little, if she would let him, and he reckoned she would. All
this he explained to me, making me try first Fanny’s chair to get the
view on one side; then his to get the view on the other side, and then
calling my attention to the carpet, a light, pretty ingrain, with a
delicate pattern of roses.

“I wanted to get Brussels,” he said, “but couldn’t quite afford it yet.
We can put down some matting in the summer. Mrs. Maney of Richmond says
that is the correct thing. She helped me a lot. Couldn’t have got along
without her. What do you think of the furniture?”

I said it was prettier than anything I had ever seen, especially the
bedstead, with the medallion and the young girl in the crimson cloak and
hood, looking at me with Fanny’s eyes and Fanny’s smile as I remembered
it when she was a child.

“It is very much like Fanny, and looks as if it could speak to us,” I
said, and Jack, who was regarding it with all his heart in his eyes
replied, “She _is_ speaking to me, and saying, ‘I am coming. I shall be
with you to-morrow,’ God bless her.”

He was almost childish in his happiness, and more like an expectant boy
than a man, and I am glad to remember that for a brief space of time he
was as perfectly happy as it is often given us to be; glad, too, that in
that supreme moment, when all his mighty love was showing in his face
and voice, I had no pang of regret or pain because it was another and
not myself to whom his love was given. Was there, I wonder, no influence
emanating from that room strong enough to reach the girl of whom we both
were thinking so intently, and tell her that this was _her hour_,—the
last in which she would ever be loved by a man as good and true as Jack
Fullerton?

For a moment we stood looking at the picture, and then Jack, who had
spied a bit of dust on a table, took his handkerchief from his pocket to
wipe it off. In doing so his hand came in contact with a letter for me
which he had found in the office and forgotten until this moment.

“I don’t know why I was so stupid. If it had been from Fanny I should
have remembered it, but it is from New York,” he said, as he handed me
the rather bulky letter, which was postmarked New York and directed in a
handwriting I did not at first recognize.

“Who is writing me from New York?” I said, examining the writing
minutely, with a feeling that I had seen it before. Suddenly it came to
me, and I exclaimed “Col. Errington. He was to sail Saturday and this is
mailed Saturday. What can he have written to me, and so much, too?”

Just then word came up that the new range had arrived, and Mr. Fullerton
was wanted to superintend the placing it.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll be there directly;” then to me, “you will
excuse me a moment.”

Then he was gone, and I sat looking at the letter and hesitating to
break the seal.




                  CHAPTER IX.—ANNIE’S STORY CONTINUED.
                              THE LETTER.


There certainly are times in one’s life when there comes a presentiment
of impending evil, and such a time was that when something told me that
the reading of the letter in my lap would not leave me just as it found
me. But there was no thought of Fanny in my mind until I opened it, and
saw that it contained a note directed to Jack in her handwriting, a
little unsteady and crooked, but unmistakably hers. There was a
trembling in my hands, a weakness in my wrists and back, and I felt my
eyes growing hot and dim, as, putting the note on the table, I
resolutely turned to the beginning of the letter and read:

                             “WASHINGTON, NOVEMBER 21ST, 18—. Thursday
                             Evening, after 11 o’clock, with my
                             trunk packed for the journey, and everybody
                             in the house asleep but myself, who
                             feel as if I should never sleep again.

  “DEAR ANNIE,

  “I am writing to you for the last time as Fanny Hathern. When this
  reaches you I shall be on the sea,—going to Europe with Col. Errington
  as his wife!”

If some one had written to me that Fanny was dead, the shock would not
have been so great, although different. Consciousness did not forsake
me, but for a brief space hearing and seeing did, except that rings of
fire danced before my eyes, and in my ears there was a roaring, far-off
noise, as if some one were repeating over and over again “with Col.
Errington as his wife.” I have been told that when one is near drowning,
all the incidents of his life are unrolled before him. I was neither
drowning, nor dying, but I seemed to see at a glance all Fan’s past as
connected with Jack, and her present as connected with Col. Errington,
and I scarcely needed to read her letter to know how it had happened.
When sight and sound came back, I was conscious of a feeling of intense
heat as if I was smothering. I must have air, and dragging myself to the
window I opened it, and with the rain beating upon me, although I did
not feel it, I read the letter through. It was written half in badinage,
half in extenuation, and had in it a ring of pain which told me that
there was enough of the old Fan left to torture the new one with remorse
when she had time to realize what she had done, and to learn the
difference between a heart which beat for her alone, and one which cared
for her only as she ministered to its selfishness and pride.

“Don’t condemn me utterly,” she wrote, “until you read my letter and
know how it has come about, if indeed I can tell you. I believe it has
been coming ever since that day when Col. Errington came to The Elms
with his sister and found us picking grapes. He says it began when he
raided our house with his troops and I talked so saucily to him. I could
have killed him then in my hatred of everything wearing the Federal
uniform. I have at times almost wished I had done so, when I have felt
his meshes closing round me until I had no power to resist. Do you
remember the old geography we studied years ago, when Mr. Allen from the
north was our teacher? There was in it a picture of the so-called
Maelstrom on the coast of Norway, with a ship which had got into the
whirl going down, the faces and hands of the ill-fated passengers
upturned and imploring help, which could not reach them. That picture
had a great fascination for me, especially after Mr. Allen explained it
to us so vividly that I felt my hair prickle at the roots, and could see
it all so distinctly. The pleasure boat full of giddy young people
skirting around the edge of the whirlpool into whose circle they were
being gradually drawn;—sailing pleasantly and smoothly round and round,
each time swifter than before until at last the line was crossed over
which there was no return. Human skill was of no avail. Human aid could
not reach them, and they were drawn on and on, nearer and nearer to the
roaring mass of angry waters into which they entered at last and went
down to the depths below, where, according to his statement the sea
floor is strewed with the wrecks of boats and white with human bones.
This picture was bad enough, but it was worse still when he drew a moral
lesson from it and told us how our little faults, if not overcome would
grow until we could not control them and they would drag us on to the
great Maelstrom of sin into which we would plunge, head first, I think
he said, and go _down_, _down_, _down_,—not to the bottom of the
sea,—but to _hell_,—and he emphasized the last word with a blow on the
table with his big ruler which made me nearly jump out of my skin. I was
scared almost to death, and began to think of all the bad things I had
done, putting beech nuts in Charlie’s bed, and a little mud-turtle in
the pocket of Phyllis’s Sunday gown, calling you a fool, and spitting at
Jack, when he tried to kiss me. I could not sleep for thinking about it,
and finally made Phyllis my confessor and told her of my fear of the
Maelstrom of sin.

“‘Laws, honey,’ she said, stroking my hair, ‘don’t you worry. What’s you
got to do any way with Moll Stroon’s sin? Let her take keer of it
herself. You’se nothin’ to do with it. What was it any way? And who was
Moll Stroon?’

“I laughed till I cried at her mistake, and called her an old idiot, and
didn’t worry any more about Moll Stroon’s sin. I have since read that
the Maelstrom, as we regarded it, is a myth, or at the most a very
narrow strait on the coast of Norway through which the sea pours rapidly
four times a day with the ebb and flow of the tide,—that when it meets a
strong wind from the opposite direction, the water bubbles and boils and
seethes like a cauldron, but nothing is ever drawn into it except
foolish whales who are too big to turn round and go back. Why have I
dwelt so long on this Maelstrom? I don’t know, unless it is to show you
how, ever since I left home, I have been hanging on the verge of a moral
whirlpool, sliding over one circular wave after another until I grew
dizzy and have finally tumbled in. To use a slang phrase, ‘that is about
the size of it.’ Col. Errington says that he never forgot me for a day
after the first time he saw me, and I stood up so bravely and told him
what I thought of him; that when he saw me the second time on the ladder
with grape stains on my face and I as unconcerned about my personal
appearance as if I had been a queen and he my subject, he registered a
vow that if possible he would make me his wife. You know he did write,
offering me his hand. I never answered his letter, and that cooled his
ardor, until he came the third time and found us at The Plateau. The
knowledge that I was engaged to Jack dampened him a little, but he did
not despair, and when he succeeded in getting me to Washington and under
his influence he felt tolerably sure of success, seeing as he did how
fond I was of everything which riches can give. He has never said a word
against Jack. That would have defeated his plan, but in a thousand ways
I cannot describe he has made me feel how wholly unfitted I am to be the
wife of a poor man, and how eminently fitted to shine in a society
different from anything in Lovering. He has made me feel, too, that Jack
is countrified and that after a while I should grow away from him and
perhaps be ashamed of him,—a state of things which would make me
wretched. I know there is more real goodness in Jack’s little finger
than in the Colonel’s whole body and told him so. He only laughed and
said he had no doubt of it, but he believed I would be happier with his
whole body bad as it was than with Jack’s good little finger. If he has
never said anything derogatory of Jack he has of Lovering, which seen
with his eyes and my recent experience of something better seems to me
the dullest place on earth, and one in which I couldn’t possibly live
again. You don’t know anything about it Annie; you who have never been
anywhere except to Boston. Then it was a funeral at which you could not
be very gay. You only saw the usual sights of the city with Carl. You
know nothing of grand hotels, with suites of rooms and obsequious
waiters, who come at your nod, because you belong to the Errington
party,—of fine turnouts with coachmen and footmen in livery, and people
looking admiringly after you;—of elegant houses, such as there are in
New York and Washington, and especially Col. Errington’s, where
everything is the most expensive kind, with hosts of servants to do your
bidding;—of splendid dresses and jewels such as ladies wear to dinners
and receptions; boxes at the opera, and all the pleasant gossip, a
knowledge of these things brings to those who are in the swim. This is
society, and I like it and it has been offered me a good many times in
return for myself, and a good many times I have refused it, but when I
thought the matter settled the Colonel has changed his base of
operations and commenced the siege again. His love-making has never been
open and impetuous like Jack’s, but done persistently and in that
delicate, persuasive way so hard to resist. Neither Miss Errington nor
Katy have a suspicion of it. Indeed, his sister expects to go with him
to New York to-morrow and see him off on Saturday, and she has asked
Katy and me to accompany her. I declined, but I believe Katy intends to
go. I hardly think she will, and I dread the scene in the morning when
they must know the truth.

“I did not decide until this afternoon. I drove with the Colonel this
morning far out into the country. We were gone two or three hours, and
he improved his opportunity, urging every possible reason why I should
not marry Jack and should marry him. In Lovering I would be a nonentity,
darning my husband’s socks and looking after the kitchen to see things
were not wasted. In Washington I would be a leader in society, quoted
and admired, with every wish gratified, and the finest establishment in
the city. He would build a house for me, he said, much handsomer than
the one he now occupies, and he took me around to see the site on one of
the pleasantest and most fashionable avenues. He would have two or three
plans sent to us for approval in Europe, and it could be commenced at
once. As soon as we had the measurements of the rooms I could, if I
liked, order the carpets and rugs, together with the furniture. There
were to be draperies from Paris, pictures and statuary from Rome and
Florence, china and linen from Dresden and England, and bric-a-brac from
everywhere. There was to be a cottage at Newport in the summer,—trips to
Florida in the winter, where, if I liked, he would build a pretty villa
near some one of the many lakes which abound in the southern part of the
state. He knows a spot which will just suit me in Orange County. I think
it was this villa, which he described so vividly, with its broad
piazza,—vine covered and cool,—its palms and magnolias and orange trees
and roses, and fanciful rowboat on the lake, which moved me the most. I
can have you and Paul there. The place will suit you better than the
gayeties of Washington, or Newport, and in imagination I have already
filled the wide piazza of Palmetto Villa with chairs and stools, and a
little round table for books or work, or afternoon tea, and I have put
Paul into a hammock and you into an easy chair, and have with you looked
across the road to Lake Hathern sparkling in the sunlight, and have
inhaled the perfume of orange blossoms and the delicious Florida air,
freighted with the odor of many flowers. And by and by carriages come
out from Orlando, a pretty town close by, with people to call upon us,
English and Americans, and our grounds are bright with the flutter of
gay dresses, and the house is filled with the chatter of small
talk,—admiration of the place, and implied compliments of the beautiful
hostess,—that is I, who carries herself like a duchess, and says to
herself, ‘This is life; I did well not to refuse it.’ Isn’t that a
charming picture? I thought so and began to waver.

“On our return to the house the Colonel found a telegram from the White
Star office, asking if he still wished them to reserve the staterooms he
had looked at when in the city last week. If so, he must let them know
at once, as another party wanted them. He had been so sure that I would
go with him, he said, that he had partially engaged the rooms, and now I
must decide.

“‘Give me an hour,’ I said, and after my lunch I went directly to my
room, pleading a headache, which would keep me from going out with Miss
Errington and Katy, who were to make some purchases for Lovering. I
locked the door, took off my dress, put on a wrapper, let down my hair,
unbuttoned my boots, looked in the glass, and then sat down to weigh the
pro’s and con’s of the situation.

“Do you remember that queer little thing which I once recited at school,
‘The Philosopher’s Scales,’ which were not made to weigh sugar and tea,
but qualities, feelings, thoughts and sense. The first thing he tried,
we are told, was the head of Voltaire pitted against the prayer of the
penitent thief, with the result that the head flew up and the prayer
down. Then

          ‘A lord and a lady went up at full sail,
          When a bee chanced to light in the opposite scale.’

Then at last,

          ‘The whole world was bowled in at the grate,
          With the soul of a beggar to serve for a weight,
          When the scale with the soul in’t so mightily fell,
          That it jerked the philosopher out of his cell!’

“All this recurred to me so vividly this afternoon and keeps repeating
itself over and over in my brain as I sit writing this to you. I am a
little girl again in the old school-house at Lovering. It is Wednesday
afternoon, and outside under the trees several horses are tied, with
here and there a negro in attendance. Inside, the western sun comes
through the windows and lies in great splashes of light on the floor. On
his little perch of a platform Mr. Allen, of Maelstrom notoriety, sits
calling the names of those who are to recite or declaim, his voice
sounding like thunder when he says ‘Fanny Hathern: The Philosopher’s
Scales.’ In her red merino gown and white apron _Fanny Hathern_ walks
from her seat to the platform, the distance seeming a mile, and her
heart thumping like a trip-hammer, as she tries to remember whether it
was the _prayer_ of Voltaire and the _skull_ of the thief, or _vice
versa_. There is company in school that afternoon, the Trustees, of whom
the girl’s father is one, and hence her anxiety to acquit herself
creditably with her scales. You are there and Charlie, and Jack is in
the corner just where the little girl can see him, as she curtsies
straight down and begins, with her eyes fixed on him, for she knows his
lips will try to form the words if she wavers. He has helped her learn
the piece and heard her rehearse it many times, telling her how to
manage her voice, for Jack is a natural orator. The little girl acquits
herself very creditably and goes back to her seat, passing so near to
Jack that she hears distinctly his whispered words, ‘You did it
tip-top.’

“Dear old Jack, who always thought I did everything ‘tip-top,’ and who
brought me the biggest apples he could find in the bin, who put so many
sugar hearts and raisins into my desk, and carried me in his arms across
the puddles of water, when I was afraid of spoiling my new shoes. What
will he think of me now, I wonder? Believe me, Annie, my face is wet
with tears as I recall those far-off days and think of Jack, who would
never serve me as I am serving him. It is raining heavily to-night and
the wind howls at my window with a sound in it like a human sob or
moan,—like Jack’s voice calling to me through the storm, and saying it
is not too late to draw back. There it comes again, the moan,—making me
creep all over, there is something so uncanny in the sound at this hour
of the night. It is _not_ too late to draw back, and I’ll do it, too. If
the Colonel is still up,—if there is a light over or under his door, I
will knock and tell him I have changed my mind, that I cannot break
Jack’s heart—I have been out into the hall and the whole length of it,
treading very cautiously lest Miss Errington or Katy should hear me.
There was no light over or under the Colonel’s door. He was fast asleep,
snoring horribly at intervals, and it was these snores which I mistook
for Jack’s moaning in the wind. I cannot draw back. It is too late. I
believe I am half crazed and don’t know what I am writing, or have
written. I remember I had reached the ‘Philosopher’s Scales’ when I
digressed so widely, so I will return to that point and the time this
afternoon when I sat down to weigh the pro’s and con’s,—the _pro’s_ for
my marrying the Colonel, and the _con’s_ against it. Into the _con_ I
put Jack, young, handsome, true as steel, good every way, with no fault
whatever except that he is poor, knows but little of fashionable society
and cares less, wears old-fashioned coats and slouch hats, with his
trousers in his boots when the roads are muddy. That was Jack, and of
course the _con_ went down with a whack as there was nothing to balance
it. Then I took the Colonel, years older than I am, growing bald on the
top of his head and a little deaf in one ear, with some grey in his hair
and whiskers, and no power to thrill or quicken my pulse when he touches
my hand, as Jack has. Good habits, distinguished looking, remarkably
well preserved, polished manners, perfect knowledge of the world and
every shade of etiquette, and always habited in the last style from his
collar to his boots. That was the Colonel, and I put him into the _pro_
scale, which was up in the air and swung and teetered, but did not make
Jack, who was down, budge an inch. The _con_ was ahead, and I was glad,
but I meant to be fair, and took up Lovering next, asking what besides
Jack and you and Paul it had to offer me in exchange for the world of
society I liked so much. Two or three picnics in the summer when the
people eat their lunch on the ground in the woods, with bugs and ants
crawling over them, and pretend they like it. A few tea parties, where
the talk is mostly of the good times before the war and the bad times
since. Possibly a circus. (By the way, I hear Buffalo Bill is going to
Richmond next spring. If he does, sell your best bonnet and go and see
him and take Paul.) So much for summer dissipation. In the winter it is
a little better. A singing school, amateur theatricals for the churches,
or Y. M. C. A.’s, or W. C. T. U.’s, of which half the people approve and
the other half disapprove. Occasionally a lecture and concert and
travelling play actors, who are second class, or they would not come to
Lovering. The negro revival, which is lively, and the Sewing Society or
Guild once a month, with tea, one kind of cake, no napkins, and gossip.
As Mrs. Jack Fullerton I might in time become President of the Guild and
walk miles to find a place for it to meet; that would perhaps be some
compensation for the dullness of the place, and relieve the ennui of
living alone at The Plateau, with you at the other end of the town.
Think how bored I should be after the novelty of counting my silver and
dishes had worn off. There would be nothing left me to do but to
hob-a-nob with the cook and watch for Jack, who would in time be as
bored as I. That is Lovering life and I put it in the scale with Jack,
expecting that, like the lord and the lady, he would go up at full sail.
He only stirred a very little and looked at me so steadfastly with his
honest, trusting eyes, that I still hoped he would win.

“I must, however, be fair to the Colonel, and I piled on top of him the
trip to Europe, jewels and dresses and travel and a French maid. The new
house and grounds in Washington, the cottage at Newport, Palmetto Villa
in Florida, a box at the opera, horses and carriages, and all the money
I want to spend, with nothing to do except to enjoy it. This settled the
matter and the _pro’s_ went down so fast and the _con_ went up so
swiftly, that Jack and Lovering were thrown out and vanished entirely.
The die was cast, and without a moment’s hesitation I made myself
presentable and went to the library, where I found the Colonel, calm and
cool and polishing his thumb nail with one of those little brushes which
come for that purpose: He has a full set. Rather effeminate, I think. I
did not stop a minute lest my courage should fail, for something was
tugging at my heart, which felt like a lump of ice.

“‘I am going with you to Europe,’ I said, the words half choking me.

“He stopped polishing his thumb nail, and drawing me to him——Well, no
matter what he did, except that it was all very dignified and
circumspect, and not at all like Jack, who nearly ate me up when I
promised to marry him. Poor Jack! I have said that to myself many times
since my interview with the Colonel, which did not last long. I was in a
hurry to get away from him, his hands were so cold and clammy, not at
all like Jack’s. But then he is a man of an entirely different
temperament, and may be just as kind. He was very glad for my decision,
he said, and he trusted I would never regret it; he should certainly try
to make me happy. I didn’t tell him I was regretting it even then.
Disengaging myself from him I went to my room and cried as if my heart
would break. I heard him go out and knew that in a few moments there
would flash across the electric wires to the White Star office in New
York the message ‘Keep the staterooms, Nos. —— and —— for me. G.
Errington.’ The deed was done, and when about five o’clock Miss
Errington and Katy came in from their shopping I was lying on the couch
in my room with a headache which was not feigned. Katy was full of
purchases made for you and Paul and Phyllis and Jack, while Miss
Errington had been busy collecting a few things for her brother’s
comfort on the sea. You know she was intending to go with him to New
York and take Katy with her, and my conscience smote me as I heard her
talking about it and planning that I should not be lonely during her
absence. The Colonel told me to have my trunk packed to-night, taking as
little as possible. I was to say nothing to anyone, but leave it for him
to tell his sister in the morning before I came down to breakfast. Ah
me, how I dread the scorn in her eyes and the surprise in Katy’s when
they know all. Miss Errington is a splendid woman; rather peculiar in
some respects and nearly as determined as her brother when once her mind
is made up. She has been most kind and generous to me and seems to like
me very much. But Katy is her favorite. She has spoken of taking her
abroad. If she is still of this mind, don’t oppose it, although it will
leave you very lonely. Let Katy see the world. She is exceedingly
beautiful, with a face and voice like an angel. She ought to make a
brilliant match, and with Miss Errington to chaperone her, I think she
will, and forget her foolishness about the stage. There is no one in
Lovering for her, but with Miss Errington her chances are many. I
suspect she has a fancy for Carl, but that will never amount to
anything. He scatters too much. I hear of him here and there and
everywhere, sipping sweets from many flowers and caring particularly for
none.

“It is one o’clock in the morning. I have still my note to write to
Jack, a harder task than writing to you, so I will leave this letter and
finish it in New York after the deed is done and I can tell you of the
manner with which the news was received by Miss Errington and Katy.

                                  “Saturday, Nov. 23d, 5th Avenue Hotel,
                                      10 o’clock in the morning.

  “DEAR ANNIE,

  “I have on my traveling gown and jacket,—the tailor-made one, which is
  very becoming, with gilt buttons and braid. On the table is a fur
  lined cloak, with shawls and wraps enough to have warmed even Harry
  Gill, if anything could have thawed that chattering wretch. I feel
  some like him, for my hands and feet are icy cold. But I must finish
  my letter commenced in Washington and tell you of the row we had when
  it was known that I was to marry the Colonel. He told his sister in
  the library before breakfast, when she came in ready for the journey
  she expected to take. At first she refused to believe it, and I was
  sent for to confirm the news. I went with my knees shaking under me
  and in a condition more like Harry Gill than ever. She was white to
  her lips, and her eyes burned like coals of fire as she demanded if
  what she had heard was true.

  “‘Answer her, Fanny. She does not believe me,’ the Colonel said.

  “I was never afraid to speak before, but something in Miss Errington’s
  manner and attitude cowed me completely and I hesitated before
  stammering out that it was true, and I was going to marry her brother.

  “‘If you will excuse me I will leave you to settle it between
  yourselves, as I have something to see to. But don’t be long, there is
  not much time to lose,’ the Colonel said, in his usual suave manner.

  “Bowing politely he disappeared, while his sister stood clutching the
  back of a chair, tall and erect and confronting me like some dreadful
  Nemesis. I knew I deserved the worst that she could say or think of
  me, and cowered before her while she regarded me with unutterable
  disdain.

  “‘Miss Hathern,’ she began, ‘If there were no reason why it should not
  be, I might be glad to receive you as my brother’s wife, but to break
  your engagement with another man so suddenly is monstrous. Have you
  weighed the subject well?’

  “I thought of the Scales, but knew she would not understand that, or
  the Maelstrom either. She was matter of fact and I must answer her in
  the same spirit. As well as I could I tried to explain till she had a
  tolerably fair insight as to the real motives which actuated me.

  “‘I see,’ she said, sarcastically. ‘Because the man is poor you are
  throwing him over and selling yourself for money and freedom. I pity
  you when you waken to know what you have done. My brother is dear to
  me, of course, but I know him, and he will not be a pleasant man for a
  woman of your spirit to live with. Everything in his power must bend
  to his will or break. He may not beat you, although he does his horses
  and dogs, when they disobey, but he will bend you until you have no
  free will of your own, and the time will come when you will long with
  inexpressible longing for the love and tenderness and consideration of
  the man you are discarding.’

  “At this moment Katy came rushing in. She had heard the news from the
  Colonel, and throwing her arms around my neck sobbed hysterically,
  begging me to give it up for all our sakes,—Jack’s, your’s, Paul’s,
  Phyllis’s, father’s and Charlie’s, and I think she mentioned The Boy,
  but am not sure. It was a sin to Jack, she said, and a disgrace to our
  family, and would make me a by-word with every decent person in
  Lovering.

  “Between Katy’s tears and Miss Errington’s scorn I was so limp and
  crushed that I might have given it up if the Colonel had not come to
  my rescue.

  “‘There has been enough of this,’ he said, sternly, ‘come to
  breakfast, time is passing.’

  “He put his arm around me and led me to the dining-room, where we
  breakfasted alone. Katy was upstairs crying and Miss Errington was
  ordering her valise to be taken to her room, as she would not need it
  now. Her brother, who had recovered his composure and was as quiet and
  calm and cool as ever, suggested that she still go with us and take
  Katy. But she declined. Katy, I think, wished to go, and clung to me
  at parting in a way which wholly upset me.

  “‘Remember Jack,’ she whispered to me, ‘have pity on him and give it
  up. It is not too late, and will not be till the very last.’

  “Was there ever a girl more wretched on her wedding day than I was, I
  wonder? Of the journey to New York I can recall very little, except
  that the Colonel was unremitting in his care for my comfort, and that
  once when he spread his rug across my lap I smiled on him and said
  ‘You are very kind.’ Aside from that I hardly spoke, but sat leaning
  back in my chair with my eyes closed, sometimes asleep, for I was
  perfectly exhausted, and sometimes thinking, always the same thought,
  ‘It is not too late yet.’ The words were whispered into my ears
  continually by something which seemed to be sitting on my shoulder and
  croaking, until I was nearly mad. There was, however, a comfort in
  knowing that I could still draw back, and I counted how many hours
  probation were left me before it would be too late. Jack will hardly
  suffer more than I did during that rapid journey, when to everything
  else, was added homesickness for The Elms, and you and the dear old
  life I was throwing away. It was a kind of nightmare, I think, and by
  the time our train was nearing Jersey City I had made up my mind to
  jump from the car the moment we stopped and lose myself in the crowd;
  in short, to run away! The bustle and excitement at the station and
  the hurrying to the boat revived me. The thing on my shoulder stopped
  its croaking, and the Colonel had my arm in his and held my hand
  tightly as if he divined my thoughts. So the newspapers lost an
  exciting paragraph headed ‘Strange disappearance of a bride on her
  wedding day.’

  “When we reached the hotel and were ushered into the suite of rooms
  the Colonel had ordered for us I felt better, and when Mr. and Mrs.
  Darcy, friends of the Colonel, who board at the hotel and whom I had
  met when I stopped there with Miss Errington, came in to see me and
  made much of me as the future Mrs. Errington, I was quite myself, and
  all through dinner, which they took with us and which was served in
  our private parlor, I was in high spirits, too high, I fear, as I saw
  them look curiously at me once or twice, as if wondering whether I
  were quite sane. After dinner the three conferred in low tones, while
  I stood with my back to them looking into the busy street below and
  vaguely wondering if it would break one’s neck to jump from the second
  story to the sidewalk, and if one could so manage as not to land on
  the head of some pedestrian. I heard the Colonel say, ‘As soon as
  possible now. I have dispatched a messenger boy.’ I knew what he meant
  and grew hot and cold again in a minute, while the creature on my
  shoulder began its warning cry, ‘Not too late yet,’ and pressed so
  close to my ears that I fancied it touched my hair with its wings. In
  the car I had thought of Poe’s raven, but now I said to myself, ‘It is
  a bat.’ I have a mortal terror of bats and put up my hand to brush it
  away. But it stayed and clamored louder and louder, while I kept
  trying to brush it off, until Mrs. Darcy came to me and said, ‘There
  is a lock of hair loose on your neck. I think that is what annoys you.
  Let me fix it.’

  “She took out a hairpin and fastened the refractory lock, while I
  wondered if she would see the thing on my shoulder. She didn’t, and I
  began to fear I was losing my mind, and made a great effort to pull
  myself together. There was a knock at the door and the Rev. Mr.
  Gillson came in, book in hand, ready for business. I was presented to
  him, and the Colonel explained as a reason for this seemingly sudden
  marriage that I could not decide to brave the ocean in the winter
  until the night before. The clergyman bowed and looked very
  searchingly at me as I stood in the corner with a face white as a
  corpse. If Mr. and Mrs. Darcy had not been his parishioners he might
  have questioned me, thinking me an unwilling bride. But they were my
  vouchers and Col. Errington was well known to him by reputation. It
  was all right and the ceremony began, while the bat, if bat it were,
  shrieked and fluttered and flapped, until it seemed to me they must
  all hear it. But when the Colonel took the ring, it gave one
  despairing cry, ‘Too late, too late!’ and flew away, leaving me calm
  and quiet, with a strange hallucination of the brain. It was Jack
  putting the ring on my finger,—Jack’s voice, which said, ‘With this
  ring I thee wed, with all my worldly goods I thee endow.’ I smiled as
  I thought how few were his worldly goods, compared to what might have
  been mine, but I was glad that the nightmare was over, the horrid
  dream passed, and I awake again in the old spare room at home with
  Jack at my side. I was very much awake when Mr. and Mrs. Darcy kissed
  me and called me ‘Mrs. Errington,’ while somebody, who was not Jack,
  kissed me and called me his wife. The room at The Elms resolved itself
  into the parlor at the hotel, and Jack was lost to me forever by my
  own act, and I felt like a block of stone as I received the
  congratulations of the clergyman and felt that the Colonel’s eyes were
  upon me.

  “I have read somewhere that in the great crises of one’s life the most
  ridiculous thoughts will sometimes intrude, and there came to me a
  saying I have heard father use so often when I was fretting over some
  disaster, ‘Never cry for spilled milk!’ It helped me wonderfully. I
  had spilled all mine,—a brimming pail, and drowned my heart in doing
  it. I could never undo what I had done, but I could make the best of
  it, and I mean to. I have written you thus fully because I wanted you
  to know that I am not altogether callous, and that I did struggle
  against my fate. A stronger will than mine conquered me. I am Col.
  Errington’s wife and shall be faithful to him, and however my heart
  may ache for the might have been, no one, not even you, shall know it.
  My husband——. I have written the word, and feel better,—is very kind
  and generous. He knows I did not marry him for love, and I think he
  means me to have my price,—_all the money I want_. His wedding present
  is $10,000, to do with as I please. Half of it I shall send to you, as
  I know how low our finances are. He does not object. He thought I
  would do it, he said, and has made arrangements to send it before we
  sail. He has bought me a lovely fur cloak for the voyage, and given me
  two one hundred dollar bills for pin money. More than I ever had in
  all my life. One of the bills I am sending to Jack in payment for what
  he sent me on the pretense of buying Black Beauty. I bought the
  tailor-made gown with it, my wedding gown, which I am wearing now, and
  which I can not bear to think was bought with Jack’s money. Make him
  take it. Tell him it is to buy Black Beauty back, and don’t let him
  hate me. Tell him I did love him dearly and am afraid I do now when to
  do so is a sin. I am another man’s wife, and my husband has come in
  and says I have but little more time, as he wishes to get settled in
  our staterooms before the ship sails. I wonder if I shall throw myself
  into the sea. Perhaps. If you hear of an ‘accidental drowning of the
  lovely young bride of the Hon. George W. Errington,’—that’s the way
  they will word it,—you will know it was not accidental, but keep it to
  yourself.

  “I have not time to read what I have written. If I had I probably
  should not send it. I think I have told you everything in a wild,
  disconnected and perhaps contradictory way, and I have felt
  disconnected and wild as I told it. You may show this letter to Miss
  Errington, who still intends going to The Elms with Katy. Perhaps she
  will feel less hard towards me. You may also tell Jack some things
  that are in it and which I could not write to him. Oh, Jack, oh Annie!
  Good-bye, Good-bye! I put my arms around your necks and kiss you both.
  God bless you. Write to me and tell me about Jack. The Colonel will
  cable from Queenstown. He is getting impatient and to save time has
  directed the envelope for me. Good-bye, again.

                                       “FANNY HATHERN ERRINGTON. Ah me!”




                  CHAPTER X.—ANNIE’S STORY CONTINUED.
                              THE EFFECT.


Fanny’s handwriting was never very legible, and now it was worse than
usual, while her letter was so long and my eyes so blurred with tears
that it took me a long time to read it, and after it was read I leaned
back in my chair shaking from head to foot, with a sense of loss and
shame and pity for us all who must bear the disgrace, for such I felt
Fan’s conduct to be. I pitied her, but not as I did Jack, who was so
full of anticipations of the morrow and so little prepared for the blow
awaiting him. I heard him come whistling up the stairs, two at a time,
and involuntarily put up my hands to ward him off,—to keep him a little
longer from what I knew would be worse than death.

“Hallo!” he said, as he came in. “I didn’t expect to be gone so long,
but those stupid men didn’t seem to understand the range at all, and
I’ll be hanged if I know much more than they do. Mother always used a
fireplace, you know. But I reckon we have got it into shipshape. If not,
Norah can fix it when she comes. Why, Annie, Annie!” he exclaimed
suddenly, struck by my attitude and the expression of my face, “Are you
ill? What has happened? You are as white as a ghost, and the rain
beating in upon you, too.”

He shut the window and continued, as the letter in my lap rustled a
little. “You have had bad news. Is it Carl? Is he ill? Is he dead?”

I shook my head, and he went on: “What is it then? What has happened?”

As he stepped back his eye fell upon the note directed to him, which lay
upon the table. He recognized his name, and the handwriting, and
catching it up, he said, “From Fanny; how did it get here? Did it come
in that letter from New York, which you said was from Col. Errington?”

I nodded and managed to gasp, “Oh Jack, oh Jack! How will you bear it!”

“Bear what?” he asked. “Tell me; the suspense is torture to me. Has
anything happened to Fanny? She isn’t dead or she could not write to
me.”

Summoning all my strength, I answered. “No, Jack, Fanny is not dead. It
is worse than that. She is married to Col. Errington and gone with him
to Europe.”

I have heard Jack tell with a shudder of men at his side in battle
dropping instantly when a ball struck them, but surely no man in the
fiercest battle which ever raged could have fallen more suddenly than
Jack did into the chair nearest to him, where he sat huddled together
like an old man, his mouth open and his glazed eyes looking at me in
dumb despair.

“N-n-no, Annie,” he began at last, with quivering lips and chin and
in a voice I would never have known as his. “N-n-no, Annie. Say it
again. I didn’t hear you right. There’s a roaring in my ears.
Fanny—isn’t—married! My—Fanny, who was to have this room, and watch
for me. N-n-no, Annie, N-no.”

There was a huskiness in his voice which frightened me, and a moan like
one in mortal pain, which made me forget myself in my desire to comfort
him.

“Don’t Jack,” I said, going up to him and rubbing his cold hands and
face, which was not pale but of a greenish hue. “Don’t take it so hard.
She is my sister, but if she were ten times that I should say she is not
worth the anguish you are enduring. She has sold herself for money. She
was married Friday evening in New York and sailed in the Celtic Saturday
afternoon. She had a hard struggle before she decided to do what she has
done. I think she loves you still.”

As I talked the greenish hue left his face and was succeeded by a
deathly pallor, as, reaching out his hand, he said, “Give me her
letter.”

“Yours, you mean,” I said, offering him the note addressed to him.

“No,—yours. I have a right to know all she can say,” he answered, and
his voice was not like the Jack of an hour ago. There was a ring in it
like one who would be obeyed. “I don’t care what she has written to
_me_; to _you_ she would tell the truth. Give me her letter,” he
continued.

I gave it to him and then watched him as he read it rapidly in the
waning light of that dreary November afternoon, with the rain beating
against the windows, and the wind which was beginning to rise howling
around the house, as Fanny said it howled the night she wrote the
letter. It was curious to watch the different expressions of Jack’s face
as his eyes went over the pages. Sometimes his breath came heavily, his
teeth shut tightly together and there were great ridges in his forehead
between his eyes. Again his face softened and his lips quivered and I
knew he was reading the parts where Fan spoke of him. I knew, too, when
he reached the Scales and the weighing process by the throwing up of his
head and the flaring of his nostrils like one under strong excitement.
Once he brought his hand down heavily upon the arm of his chair, and if
I had ever heard him swear I should have suspected that something like
an oath escaped him. Then he read on until he came to the marriage scene
in the hotel, when his whole aspect changed. The hardness was gone and
he shook like one in a chill, although he asked me to open the window
again, saying he could not breathe.

“Oh, Fanny; Fanny, how could you do this to me, who loved and trusted
you so!” he said, and letting the letter drop to the floor and covering
his face with his hands he rocked to and fro and cried as I had never
seen any one cry before, and pray I never may again. And yet he shed no
tears, but sobbed and moaned so pitifully that I went to him again and
laying my arm across his shoulder drew his hot head down upon it as I
would if he had been my brother.

There was then no thought of the love I had borne him so long; it was
only intense pity for the man whose heart I knew was breaking, and whom
I tried to comfort.

“Don’t, Jack; don’t,” I said, brushing back his hair, which was wet with
the great drops of sweat which stood under it and upon his forehead. “I
wish I could comfort you. Oh, I wish I could, but only God can do that.”

Then he started, and looking at me fiercely exclaimed, “Don’t speak to
me of God. I have lost all faith in everything. Didn’t I trust Him, and
wasn’t my heart so full of gratitude this morning for all the good I
thought He had given me! And didn’t I make resolutions for a better
life? Tell me that. And what has come of it? When I was on my knees
thanking Him for Fanny and asking that I might be worthy, she was
another man’s wife, and He gave me no sign, but let me go on in my
fool’s paradise. How could God do that? How could Fanny do it? Oh,
Fanny, Fanny! If you were lying dead here in what was to have been our
bridal chamber it would be happiness compared to this. Don’t speak to
me, Annie. Don’t touch me,” and he pushed me from him. “It seems to
bring Fanny near to me, and I can’t bear it now, when my love for her is
dying so hard. Shut the window, please. I am shivering again.”

I closed the window and then stood looking at him writhing in pain, as
if he were indeed enduring the throes of death. It was growing late and
I roused him at last, pointing to the darkness outside and telling him
that Paul and Phyllis would be waiting anxiously for us.

“Can you get your horse, or shall I?” I asked.

“I’ll go,” he said, getting up and tottering as if he were an old man.

On the table where he had lain it without reading was Fanny’s note to
him, and I put it in my purse with the bill which had been in my letter
and which I had not given him. I heard the buggy at the door, and going
out got in beside him and we started down the hill. It was raining fast
and had grown very dark. If the horse had not been perfectly gentle and
known every turn of the road, we might have met with some disaster, for
the reins hung loosely in Jack’s hands and he seemed to notice nothing.
Once we met a carriage which passed so close to us that the wheels
grazed each other, but Jack paid no attention. Then I took the lines
from him and drove myself, while he sat with his head bent so low that
his chin must have rested upon his chest. Once I spoke to him, but he
did not answer, and when we reached the town I called to a boy on the
walk bidding him to go for a physician and tell him to come at once to
The Elms, adding that Mr. Fullerton had been taken suddenly ill. I had
no intention of having Jack in his present condition go to his
boardinghouse that night. He would be better at The Elms, and after
speaking to the boy I drove rapidly home. There was a bright light in
the dining-room and Paul’s face was pressed against the window pane
watching for me. At the sound of wheels Phyllis hurried to the door,
peering out into the darkness and shading her eyes with her hand.

“For de Lord’s sake, Miss Annie and Mas’r Jack,” she began. “Whar has
you been, and what has happened you? De muffins is all fell flat, an’ de
coffee biled till it’s spiled.”

“Sh-sh,” I said warningly. “Bring a light, and come and help me; Mr.
Fullerton is ill,—very ill, I am afraid.”

She had a candle at the door in a minute and was at my side, as I sprang
to the ground after giving Jack a vigorous shake which roused him a
little.

“Yes. Where are we? At home? All right. I’ll see you to-morrow before
she comes,” he said, putting out his hand and feeling for the lines.

“Jack, you are to stay at The Elms with me,” I said, wondering how I was
to make him get out if he were disposed not to do so.

Just then I heard the tramp of horses’ feet in the avenue and the doctor
came riding up rapidly. He was just starting to visit a patient in the
country when he received my message and came at once to know what had
happened. Between him and Phyllis Jack was gotten into the house, his
weakness and silence so alarming that I was relieved when, as he felt
the warmth of the dining-room, he stretched his hands toward the
light-wood fire and said, “Ah-h, that feels good. I think I must have
taken cold. I am so chilly. I wish somebody would cover up Robin,”
referring to his horse, of which he was very fond. Sinking into the
chair which Phyllis drew close to the hearth, he gave a long sigh,
leaned his head back and closed his eyes, while the doctor looked
curiously at him and then at me.

“He is in a high fever,” he said, “although he seems so cold. How did
the attack come on and what caused it?”

I could not explain then, and answered evasively. “He must stay here
to-night, in father’s room, and the sooner you get him in there the
better,” I said, telling Phyllis to kindle a fire and get the bed ready.
I knew the condition of things better than the doctor, who, for a time,
acted under my orders. At first Jack resisted, saying he must go home as
his landlady would not like it if he kept supper waiting. Then he began
to talk of Scales and Maelstroms, and Fanny, who was coming to-morrow.
We got him quiet at last and into bed where he lay perfectly still, with
his hands folded, his eyes closed and his face white as the pillow it
rested upon.

“I can’t make it out,” the doctor said. “It is not often a young and
strong man like him comes down so suddenly and so fast. Why, there is no
more life in him than in a piece of paper. Looks to me as if he had
received some great mental shock. Can’t account for it in any other
way.”

Reflecting that on the morrow when Miss Errington and Katy came without
Fanny the truth must be told, I replied, “He has had a shock. You know
he was to have been married on Christmas day.”

The doctor nodded, and I went on slowly, with a feeling that my tongue
was very thick.

“This evening I had a letter from Fanny, who has married Col. Errington
and gone to Europe with him.”

The doctor dropped into the chair nearest him almost as quickly as Jack
had dropped when I told the news to him. But he did not speak, for Fanny
was my sister and he would not say what was in his mind. I, however,
relieved him from all embarrassment by saying, “It has quite unnerved
me. It came like a thunderclap. I had no suspicion of it. I think it a
cruel, wicked act.”

“Yes, yes, all of that,” he answered, “and may have serious results.
There are symptoms about Mr. Fullerton which I do not like. He is strong
in everything pertaining to his manhood, but in his nature gentle and
tender and trustful as a woman. The blow has struck him hard. See that
he has his medicine regularly. I will be here early in the morning. Now,
I must go, as I have a patient waiting for me three miles in the
country.”

He went out and I followed him, meeting in the hall with Phyllis, who
was eager in her inquiries for Mas’r Jack and what had “done took him so
suddently.” I told her the truth, and if a negro can turn pale she
certainly did. Throwing up her hands and dropping the cup of milk she
was taking to Paul, who was clamoring for his supper, she staggered
against the door, exclaiming, “Lor’ a ’mighty! What for has Miss Fanny
gone done dat ar mean trick to Mas’r Jack, an’ a disgracin’ de whole of
us. No weddin’,—no nothin’,—an’ sich gossip in de town. Gone to Europe
has she in de big ship?” I nodded and she continued, “May de Lord s——.”
She was going to say “sink de ship,” but changed her mind and added,
“may he make her so sick she’ll heave up Jonah an’ that Cunnel too. I
’members him well fust time he was here, orderin’ dem soldiers roun’ as
if dey was dirt. Jess so he’ll done order Miss Fanny, and sarve her
right.”

A moan from Jack and an imperative call from Paul brought the interview
to an end, and while Phyllis went to the one I hastened to the other,
who was talking rather wildly. This did not greatly surprise me as I
remembered having heard his mother say that whenever anything ailed him,
if it were only the earache, to which as a boy he was subject, it made
him delirious. It was more than earache now, and I tried to quiet him as
he talked disconnectedly of several things, but mostly of Fanny and the
house on The Plateau, and _our room_, wondering if she would like it,
and the medallion on the bedstead which looked so much like her.

“I love her so! I love her so! How can I give her up!” he suddenly
exclaimed, throwing his arms down with great force upon the spread,
while the perspiration rolled down his face, and his eyes glared at me
questioningly and then wandered swiftly around the room.

He wanted to go home, he said; this was no place for him, and Fanny
coming to-morrow. Once he tried to get up, but I kept him back, telling
him to wait till to-morrow, when I hoped he would be better.

“What little dark-faced woman are you, I’d like to know, trying to boss
me?” he said, looking curiously at me, as I kept my arm across his
chest. “You can’t hold a candle to Fanny. Where is she? You go away and
send her here.”

I knew he was not conscious of what he was saying, but in my nervous
condition his words hurt me, and my voice shook as I replied, “Fanny has
not come yet. You didn’t expect her till to-morrow. I am Annie. Don’t
you know me Jack?”

Something in my voice arrested his attention, and looking fixedly at me
he said, “You want to cry, don’t you? Put your head down here and have
it out.” With one hand he drew my head down upon his other hand and kept
it there, while I cried like a child. It was his part to comfort me now,
and he tried to do so, asking why I cried and what had happened.

“Something has, I know; but I can’t remember what it is,” he said. “But
never mind. We’ll meet it bravely together, little Annie-mother, and
Fanny will be here to-morrow.”

That thought comforted him, and many times during the night as I sat by
him he asked if it were to-morrow yet.

“The to-morrow, you know, when _she_ is coming,” he would add, and to
this I could truthfully answer no, even when it was the dawn of the
to-morrow he had anticipated so much and the grey morning was looking in
at the windows.

At an early hour Phyllis came to relieve me, and shivering in every limb
and with my head aching as if it would burst, I crept up to my bed,
where I fell at once into a heavy sleep which lasted for hours. When I
awoke both Phyllis and the doctor were with me. The latter held a
telegram from Katy, saying that she and Miss Errington would come that
day as they had arranged. My first inquiry was for Jack.

“I am afraid he is in for brain fever,” the doctor said. “He has been
working very hard lately, and this, with the wetting he got last night
and the terrible blow have proved more than he can bear. He is apt to be
flighty from pain anyway and is crazy as a loon this morning and is
asking first if it is to-morrow, then for Fanny and then for
Annie-mother. That I reckon is you, but you are better where you are for
a day or so, or I shall have two on my hands, and I fancy Jack will be
about as much as I can manage.”

“Oh, I must get up,” I said, trying to rise, when a sharp pain in the
back of my head pulled me back.

“I told you so,” the doctor said. “You’ve got neuralgia in your neck.
You never changed your wet clothes at all last night, Phyllis says, and
if you don’t look out you’ll have pneumonia and the Lord knows what
else. You must keep quiet.”

I had no choice but to obey, the pain in my neck was so severe, and were
I to try I could not narrate what came with and followed that to-morrow
of which Jack had talked so much and which was ushered in so sadly. This
task devolves upon another.




                               PART III.


FAN-AND-ANN AND JACK.




                       CHAPTER I.—AUTHOR’S STORY.
                    HOW LOVERING RECEIVED THE NEWS.


The news that Fanny Hathern had jilted Jack Fullerton and married Col.
Errington flew like wild-fire and set the little town of Lovering ablaze
with excitement and indignation. The doctor had told it to his wife the
night after his return from The Elms, adding that she’d better keep dark
until she heard it from some other source. But whether she kept dark or
not everybody knew it by ten o’clock the next morning. Women who had not
called upon their neighbors for weeks remembered suddenly that they had
an errand, and were seen hurrying through the streets talking to
everyone they met and then hastening on to other listeners, who in turn
told it to all whom they saw. By twelve o’clock the story had received
the addition that Jack Fullerton was at The Elms raving with brain fever
and likely to die as the result of Col. Errington’s perfidy. Usually it
is the woman who gets the most censure; in this case it was the man,
whom all remembered as the haughty officer who had come into their midst
with his troops and levied upon them for whatever he wished to have. And
now he had put the crowning act to his other misdeeds by running off
with Fanny Hathern and possibly causing Jack Fullerton’s death. There
had hardly been more excitement in town when the news first came that
Sumter had fallen than there was now. Even the men stopped each other to
discuss it, and nowhere were there louder or more indignant voices heard
than just outside a small corner grocery which bore the sign, “Sam
Slayton, dealer in the finest groceries and freshest vegetables this
side of the Potomac.”

Sam was a character. A long, lean, light-haired Yankee from Vermont,
who, three or four years before had come to Lovering and opened a
grocery, with the boast that he was “goin’ to show them Southerners a
thing or two.” He had been in the Federal army and had passed through
Lovering with some of his company, spending the night there and
“painting the town red,” as he expressed it, in the confession he made
when he came back a second time with the intention of settling. He was
young then and out on a big lark and he had it, and stole a hen from
“widder” Simmons’s roost, and some “aigs” from another, and threw a
stone at a boy who called him a mud-sill. It missed the boy and broke a
window light in a tin-shop.

“But lan sakes,” he added, “I was a boy then. I’m a man now, and
different. I’m converted, and have brought money to pay for the hen and
the aigs and the pane of glass. I liked the looks of your pretty little
town among the Virginny hills and thought I’d like to live here, and
when Mirandy,—that’s the girl I’m engaged to, she’s weakly, and
coughs,—and when she said she’d live longer in a milder climate than
Vermont, I thought of Lovering, and here I am, and as soon as I get a
little forehanded, with a house to live in, I shall fetch Mirandy down,
and a better woman you never seen.”

This was what Sam said to the people with whom he had come to live,
never doubting in his simple heart that he should be received into favor
at once. But war prejudices died hard, especially at the south where the
feeling of having been conquered rankled the most and longest. No one
who looked in Sam’s honest face doubted his integrity or good feeling,
but he was from the north,—he had fought against them, and although they
took his cash for the stolen property, and knew that his store was
brighter and cleaner and his groceries better than any in Lovering,
their patronage was slow in coming. For four years he had held his
ground valiantly, with but little more hope of making Mirandy his wife
than when he first started in business. Once when a knot of men were
seated upon the comfortable seats he had himself built on two sides of
his grocery so that “tired folks could rest themselves and see all that
was going on around the four corners,” he held forth feelingly on the
subject, asking why under the sun and moon they didn’t trade with him as
well as to _sit_ on his benches.

“Is it because I fit you? Bless your souls, I buried the ax, handle and
all, the minute the last gun was fired, and I gin the shirt on my back
for a piller for one of your fellows I found dyin’ in the Wilderness,
and I hear his God bless you, just before he died, now. I didn’t blame
him an atom, nor you nuther. If I’d been born south I’d of jined you of
course. As I was from the north I jined the Federal army and would do it
agin; not that I had any spite agin you personally, but for the
flag,—the principle,—not the nigger. Da——! I beg pardon, I don’t swear
now. I took my chances and got stuck into Libby prison, where I didn’t
lead the most luxurious life. But lan, sakes, ’twas the fate of war, and
I never complained, nor said a word but once, and that when a chap
brought me some beef no human could eat. Says I, ‘No you don’t get that
stuff into my stomach. I’m fond of fresh meat, but darned if I’ll eat
maggits.’ He smiled and said low: ‘I don’t blame you. It’s the best I
can do. Our boys up to Chicago are eatin’ _rat_ pies.’ ‘Rats,’ I said,
‘Lord of heavens, give me rats, by the million. They’re dainties to this
vermin.’ ‘You bet,’ he said, and pulled a cracker out of his pocket and
handed me on the sly. I guess he had some tobacker in with it by the
flavor, but I never tasted a better cracker than that. The first
greenback I got after I left Libby I sent to him. He’s up north now, the
best reconstructed reb you ever see,—married my sister and got twin
boys; calls ’em Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln. That’s the way to
do things.”

This speech of Sam’s was received with shouts of laughter and three
cheers for the twins, Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, while one man
ordered half of a codfish and another bought a cigar. Here their
patronage stopped, but it is a long lane which never turns and Sam’s was
destined to turn at last by a few chance words spoken at the right time.

On their way home a knot of men met and seated themselves upon Sam’s
benches, eagerly discussing the news of the morning which was in
everyone’s mouth and greatly exaggerated by this time. Jack was going to
die, and the Colonel had run off with Fanny Hathern against her will.
Whether he had married her or not was a question. Probably not, and dire
was the vengeance declared against him by the workmen gathered near
Sam’s door. Among them sat Sam, a big knife in his hand, and sticking to
it a thin slice of rich cream cheese, which he passed from one to
another, asking if they ever tasted anything better than that, and
telling them Mirandy made it on her father’s farm in Vermont. Among
those who denounced Col. Errington no one was louder than Sam.

“I know him, root and branch,” he said, with a flourish of his cheese
knife. “I was in his regiment part of the time till I got took and shut
up in Libby, and a meaner man never rode a hoss into battle. Brave
enough, but has a temper hard and cruel, and no more feelin’ than a
stun. Cap’n Fullerton is wuth a thousand such men as Col. Errington, and
so Miss Hathern will find to her sorrer. I b’lieve he merried her
though. She ain’t the stuff as would go with him without the ceremony,
but I tell you agin she’s flung overboard a gentleman for as mean and
unprincipled a _cuss_ as ever walked. Smooth and polished outside with
his equals, but inwardly,—what’s that the scripter says about
_inwardly_, I or’to know, but my mem’ry fails me.”

The memories of all the audience failed them, if they had any, and,
besides, they were rather actively dodging the cheese knife which was
flourishing at a great rate as Sam waxed eloquent on the subject of Col.
Errington. They knew Sam had been in his regiment and half expected he
would try to defend him, but he denounced him more hotly than they had
done, and every shred of prejudice, if they really had any, against the
kind-hearted man slipped away. He was a good sort after all, and one of
them remembered that he wanted some plug tobacco and asked if he had any
good.

“Tons of it. Want some?” Sam replied, entering his store and bringing
out the tobacco.

Another man suddenly bethought him that his wife had told him not to
come home without coffee. He had intended getting it at the Red Cross
grocery, where he always traded, but he ordered it of Sam, who, when the
scale showed just a pound, put in a little more.

“Good weight is my rule,” he said, as he tied up the package and
hastened to weigh out another.

The aroma of his Mocha and Java mixed had filled the store, and his
coffee was in great demand, as well as his cheese. Sugar and eggs
followed next, and never had he done so thriving a business in any two
hours as in the half hour which followed his vituperation against Col.
Errington.

“If I keep on this way, I can have Mirandy down next fall,” he thought,
as he counted his gains that night and carried his tin box to the little
room over his grocery where he had slept for the last four years.

While the men talked the matter over in the streets and the post-office
and hotel, and in front of Sam’s store, the women were just as busy. The
friends of the Hatherns,—the upper crust, as they were called by those
who felt themselves to be the _under crust_,—gathered in each other’s
parlors and discussed it quietly, while another class of women and
children, twenty or more, felt irresistibly drawn to the house on The
Plateau. They had seen it a hundred times and some of them had been over
it when it was open to the public, but now that the bride for whom it
was built would never occupy it, it was invested with a new interest,
and after dinner they walked up the hill and around the house, staring
at the windows and roofs and chimneys and wishing they could get in and
see the fine fixings they had heard were there. When they reached the
rear door they saw in it the key which Jack in his excitement had
forgotten to remove. This they looked upon as a special interposition of
Providence in their behalf and one of which they immediately availed
themselves. Wiping their muddy feet carefully upon the mat they filed
into the house which, with no one to restrain them, they examined
curiously and minutely, commenting freely as they went, but for the most
part favorably, upon what they saw, wondering what it all cost and if
Jack could afford it. His mother, they knew, did not leave him much, and
they never supposed he had a great deal laid up. Consequently, he must
have borrowed the money for all this finery, the like of which they did
not believe was to be found in Richmond, no, nor in Washington either.
The bridal chamber attracted them most. Into this they entered very
quietly, speaking as low and stepping as softly as we do when we go into
the chamber of death. It had been the scene of the death of all Jack’s
hopes, and they sat in the chair where he had sat when he read the fatal
letter, and tried the chair in the bay window where Fanny was to sit and
watch for him, and admired the dainty white spread and pillow-shams and
medallion which they mistook for Fanny’s portrait, and some of the more
curious lifted the bedclothes to see what was under them.

“A hair mattress a foot thick, as I live. I reckon that cost a heap,”
one said, while another pronounced it a piece of extravagance, knowing
as she did that “old Miss Fullerton had left five or six good
feather-beds,—geese feathers, too!”

Next to the bridal chamber, the upright Steinway in the parlor below
attracted their attention most, and as they found it unlocked several
fingers were soon drumming on the keys, which Jack had said no hands
should touch until Fanny had played him his favorite airs. Poor Jack!
When the house had been thoroughly inspected and pronounced good enough
for a queen to live in, it was nearly time for the Richmond train. It
was generally known in town that Miss Errington and Katy Hathern were
expected, and the women decided to go round to the station and see if
they came. They had known Katy all her life, and ordinarily would
scarcely have walked half a block out of their way just to see her.
Recent events, however, had made a change, and then they were anxious to
see Miss Errington, who, as sister of the man who had married Fanny
Hathern so hurriedly, was an object of greater curiosity than Katy
herself. Others in Lovering were of the same mind, and at least fifty
people, black and white, of both sexes and all ages, were assembled upon
the platform when the 4 o’clock train came in, stopping farther down
than usual so that the ladies who were in the rear car did not alight in
the midst of the crowd, jostling and pushing each other for a sight of
them.

“There they be; that’s Miss Katy. How tall and pale she looks, and how
becoming that gown is to her, and, yes, that must be Miss Errington. How
proud she looks; stylish, though,” were the remarks which passed from
lip to lip as Katy and her friend stopped for a moment, half bewildered
by the number of people who did not attempt to come nearer, but stood
staring at them.

“There’s Dr. Carter,” Katy exclaimed joyfully, as she saw the doctor
elbowing his way to her.

He had expected something of the kind which had happened, and had come
to meet the ladies in a close carriage which was standing in the rear of
the station.

“Oh, I am so glad, and why are all these people here? What has
happened?” Katy said, as she gave both hands to the doctor.

“Nothing; nothing. Just out for an airing; you know you are a traveled
individual, and they want to see if you have changed,” the doctor said
laughingly, as he took off his hat to Miss Errington, whose satchel his
servant was taking.

Katy understood and her face was scarlet. She was sharing in Fanny’s
notoriety and paying in part the penalty of her wrong-doing. Had Fanny
been there she would have held her head high and walked over the crowd
without seeing it. Katy was of different fibre and shrank from the
curious eyes. But when, as she passed through their midst so many
greeted her with “How d’ye, Miss Katy, glad to see you home again,” she
began to lose the feeling that some blame or disgrace was attaching to
her, and smiled upon them through the tears she could not repress. A
moment more and she, with Miss Errington, was in the carriage and
driving rapidly toward The Elms.




                 CHAPTER II.—AUTHOR’S STORY CONTINUED.
                              AT THE ELMS.


All day Jack had been flighty and talked continually. Sometimes he was
in the war, ready for battle, and was pointing out Col. Errington to his
men. “That’s he,” he would say; “that tall, straight officer on the big
black horse, holding himself as loftily as if he owned every foot of the
south. Spot him, and fire at him and at no one else until you see him
fall.” Again, he was at The Plateau, reading the cruel letter, parts of
which had burned themselves into his brain. “It took Errington and his
money, and the dreary life at Lovering she so much dreaded to tip the
scale and send me flying, after all;” he said to Phyllis, who, half
beside herself, was kept going from the kitchen to him, from him to
Annie, and from Annie back to the kitchen and Paul, who, neglected and
feeling vaguely that something was wrong, was crying for Fan-er-nan to
come and bring him the horse she had promised him in one of her letters.
Fanny’s name Jack never mentioned. It was “she,” or “her,” or, “the
little girl on the headboard,” who, he said, was laughing at his coarse
clothes and country ways, and he asked Phyllis to take her away before
he split the headboard in pieces. He did make an attempt at it, but
Phyllis restrained him, telling him “there wan’t any gal there laughing
at him.” Jack insisted there was, and was threatening to split poor old
Phyllis’s head open if she didn’t put her out, when the doctor came in
for the second time and with him a neighbor who was to stay that day at
least, and longer if necessary. To him Jack at once appealed with regard
to the mocking girl on the headboard, growing so wild and unmanageable
that the bedstead was finally exchanged for a cot which had no
headboard. Then Jack grew quiet, but asked for the little woman,
Annie-mother, who had cried with him and helped him drive home. Where
was she? Had she gone back on him, too, and was it to-morrow, yet? If
so, he must get up, for _she_ was coming and he must go to meet her. On
his flushed face there was an eager look as he said _she_ is coming, but
it faded almost as soon as it came, and was succeeded by one of
inexplicable pain as some wave of memory brought the truth in part to
him.

“What is it I am trying to remember?” he asked. “What was it that
swooped down so suddenly upon me, blotting out everything and making me
doubt even God himself? Annie-mother knows; call her. Tell her _I_ want
her,—Jack Fullerton, late of the —— Regiment of Volunteers.”

But Annie-mother was too ill to go to him. Two or three times she had
tried to rise, and as often had given it up, mastered by the cutting
pain in her right temple and behind her ear. The long time she had sat
by the open window with the cold November rain and wind beating upon
her, had borne fruit in a severe attack of neuralgia, which made it
impossible for her to rise, and she lay listening intently to every
sound below and wondering how Phyllis would get through the day without
her, and wishing that Miss Errington were not coming. Friend after
friend came in offering their services, which seemed to be needed in the
kitchen quite as much as elsewhere, for Phyllis had lost her head with
worriment, as she expressed it.

“I kin woller through with the work,” she said, while the tears rolled
down her black face. “It’s the disgrace to the family I feel the
wust,—the dido Miss Fanny done cut up, and broke Mas’r Jack’s heart
smack in two. I hearn it snap myself. An’ Miss Annie feels een ’most as
bad as if she done it herself, bein’ she’s Miss Fanny’s twin, an’ they
two were boun together like dem ar Simon twins, what you call ’em. Oh,
dat I had died in de wah, or runned away, afore I done got so I dunno my
dish cloth from de han’-towel, an’ uses ’em promiscous, an’ Miss Katy
comin’ to-night, an’ dat ar Miss Errin’ton. I wish to de Lord she’d
staid away.”

This was said to some ladies who were interviewing Phyllis in her
kitchen, which was in wild disorder, while the old woman herself was
wilder, and once as she talked came near seating herself on the range
instead of the stool she was looking for. As a result three or four
negroes were sent to The Elms from as many different houses, and when
the carriage containing Miss Errington and Katy drove up there was a
group of dusky faces peering from the windows of the kitchen, where none
of them knew what to do, and each one was so much in the others’ way and
in Phyllis’s that she had more than once been on the point of sending
them home.

“Oh, de good Lord, thar they is,” she exclaimed, rushing to open the
side door, and throwing her arms around Katy with a force which lifted
her from her feet and nearly squeezed the breath from her body. “Bress
de dear lamb. Who’d of b’lieved you’d ever comed home like dis yer, an’
Mas’r Jack a dyin’, an’ Miss Annie mos’ as bad, an’ me so upsot I do’
know what to do wid company,” she said, with a side glance at Miss
Errington, who understood her at once.

“Don’t call me company,” she said, laying her hand kindly on Phyllis’s
shoulder. “I have come to help; not to be in the way. Show me my room,
and after that I shall wait upon myself, and you, too, if necessary.”

Wholly disarmed and mollified, Phyllis conducted the lady to her room,
and after standing irresolute a while mustered courage to say, “Has you
done hearn from her?”

For a moment Miss Errington’s dark eyes flashed; then she answered
quietly, “I had a line from my brother written on the ship just before
it sailed. She was well then, and happy, he wrote.”

“Happy! May the Lord forgive her. I shouldn’t s’pose she’d sleep o’
nights,” was Phyllis’s retort, as she bounced from the room.

Meanwhile Katy had been busy with Paul, who was asking for Fan-er-nan,
and the horse on wheels with saddle and bridle she was to bring him.

“Fanny won’t come to-day, nor to-morrow, nor for many to-morrows,” Katy
said to him. “She has gone off in a big ship, but I have brought you the
horse, and a heap more toys in my trunk, which the expressman will soon
bring to the house.”

Thus quieted Paul drew his high chair to the window to watch for the
express wagon, while Katy went up to her sister’s room.

“Oh, Katy, Katy,” Annie exclaimed, springing up, unmindful of the pain
which cut her like a knife. Throwing her arms around her sister’s neck,
she sobbed, “I am so glad to have you back, and so sorry, too, for the
sad home coming. We meant to have it so different.”

“I know,” Katy replied, sitting down upon the bed, and passing her hand
soothingly over the right temple where the veins were standing out large
and full.

There was healing in the touch of Katy’s fingers, or excitement had
driven the pain away for the time being, and Annie lay down upon her
pillow quiet and easy.

“Have you heard from her?” she asked, in a whisper, and Katy answered,
“Just a few lines from New York saying she was married Friday night at
the hotel, and had written you full particulars. Miss Errington also had
a note from her brother, written on the Celtic, and brought back in the
tug which accompanied it down the bay. There were notices of the
marriage in the Washington papers and in New York. He sent them, of
course.”

“Tell me what you know, and if you had any suspicion,” Annie said, still
in a whisper, as if the subject were one of she could not speak aloud.

“Not the slightest, and that seems so strange,” Katy replied. “I knew he
admired her; everybody did, and his attentions were rather marked, both
in Saratoga and Washington. She, however, seemed wholly indifferent,
even snubbed him at times, I thought, and made fun of him to me, calling
him Uncle George and bald head, and all that. Still she was not happy,
or at least she was nervous and restless and discontented, and talked of
Lovering as a place one hundred years behind the times, and wondered how
she was ever to be contented here after having seen the world. When
buying her trousseau she was always wishing for more money that it might
be more elaborate. Then she would laugh and say ‘What’s the use of
clothes with nobody to see them but Lovering people,—nowhere to wear
them except to church and the sewing society.’ She never talked this way
before Miss Errington, but was always amiable and seemingly in good
spirits, talking to her of the house on The Plateau and the pleasure it
would be to entertain her there. Toward the last, however, there was a
change. Twice I found her crying, and once she wished herself dead. When
I asked her if she didn’t love Jack, she turned to me fiercely and
replied, ‘Love Jack? Yes, far more than I wish I did. He is the best man
that ever lived, or ever will live. I wish he were not so good.’ I know
now what she meant, but had no suspicion then. Thursday we were to do
our last shopping, but she excused herself, saying her head ached, and
Miss Errington and I went without her. When we came home her head still
ached, but she was in high spirits. I believe she sat up half that night
writing to you and packing her trunk. She only took her best clothes.
The others I have brought home. The Colonel was to leave the next
morning for New York, and his sister and I were going with him. To her
it was a thunderbolt when he said, in his cold, decided way, as if from
what he said there could be no demur, ‘Miss Hathern has at last
consented to be my wife and go with me to Europe. She will accompany me
to New York and we shall be married this evening at the Fifth Avenue
Hotel. You can still go with me if you like, and take Miss Katy, too.’
It was Miss Errington who told me, and I hardly knew her she was so
transformed with surprise and indignation. She couldn’t stand she shook
so, and her face was white as marble as she said ‘It is not that I
object to seeing your sister, my brother’s wife under different
circumstances. It is the sin,—the cruelty to Mr. Fullerton, which I
deplore.’ Nothing could move Fanny from her purpose. She had made up her
mind, and could not unmake it. Oh, Annie, it was terrible when we said
good-bye and I knew she would go. And she looked so beautiful, too,—but
as if carved in stone, as Miss Errington freed her mind. ‘You will
repent this to your dying day,’ she said, and I wish you could have seen
the hard, sneering look in the Colonel’s eyes as he listened. Such a
look would have made me turn back if I were already at the altar. Fanny
may have won a bed of gold, but it will not be one of roses. She loves
Jack. She does not love Col. Errington, and he knows it, and by and by,
when the novelty is gone and the freshness of her beauty begins to wane,
God pity her,—and Jack, poor Jack, tell me about him and how he took
it.”

It was Annie’s turn now to take up the story and tell what the reader
already knows of the scene in the house on The Plateau when Jack learned
the truth and read the letter which Katy now read with streaming eyes.

“Oh, Annie,” she said, when she had finished it. “This is dreadful. How
could she write it, and how could you let Jack see it?”

“He would; I had no choice in the matter,” Annie said, adding that she
still had the note written to him and the hundred dollars sent in her
letter. “I took his note from the table where he had left it unread, and
shall give it to him when he is better. Have you seen him?”

“Not yet, but am going now,” Katy answered, as she arose and left the
room. She found Jack quiet, but greatly changed. The last twenty-four
hours had told fearfully upon him, and his face, though flushed, was
drawn and pinched, and in his eyes there was a hopeless look pitiful to
see.

“Jack, do you know me? I am Katy,” she said, laying her hand upon his
hot forehead, just as she had lain it on Annie’s.

For a moment he regarded her intently, associating her in some way with
the to-morrow he had anticipated so much. Then he smiled faintly and
said, “Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t; it comes and goes; with
something that was to make me very glad. Is it to-morrow, and where is
Annie-mother?”

Katy knew what he meant by to-morrow, as Annie had told her, and she
answered him, “Not to-morrow yet. It is to-day, and Annie has a bad
headache. She will come to you as soon as it is better.”

“All right,” Jack said. “Tell her I am sorry her head aches; so does
mine. I ache all over. Something happened, I can’t think what. It comes
and goes, like a forgotten name you are trying to recall; only it isn’t
a name. I sweat so trying to remember. Annie knows; poor little Annie.
She cried with me, or for me, and the rain fell on us and made me cold,
and it was dark, oh so dark.”

At that moment Paul came running in with the horse in his hand. It had
been packed in Miss Errington’s trunk, and when the baggage came she
took it out at once for the impatient child. He had been told not to go
into the sick-room, but seeing the door open and hearing Katy’s voice he
rushed in with his horse exclaiming, “Look Katy, it’s come. See, Jack,
what Fan-er-nan sent me. She’s gone on a ship.”

Jack caught the name, and starting up exclaimed, “That’s what I have
been trying to remember. It _is_ to-morrow and she has not come. She
will never come. Fanny, Fanny, come to me, come.”

Stretching out his arms as if to embrace some one he fell back upon his
pillow, white and exhausted, while Katy tried to quiet him. It seemed to
her as if Fanny must have heard that cry of anguish which brought both
Phyllis and Miss Errington to the door of the room.

“My brother has much to answer for,” Miss Errington said under her
breath, while Phyllis ejaculated, “May the Lord forgive them!” as she
hurried back to the kitchen and her preparations for supper, which were
greatly retarded by the unsettled condition of her nerves.

“I am that oversot that I don’t know a corn cake from a pone of bread,
and you must s’cuse me if things ain’t jess squar. What with de kitchen,
an’ dem niggers in my way, an’ Miss Annie an’ Mas’r Jack, I loses my
balance;” she said to Miss Errington, who came for hot water with which
to bathe Annie’s head.

“I tell you again not to mind me,” Miss Errington replied. “I can take
care of myself, and cook the dinner for the others, if necessary. I know
how to do everything.”

“You do! That beats all,” Phyllis exclaimed, placing both hands on her
hips and regarding intently the tall, majestic lady, whose proud face,
handsome dress and white, jeweled hands looked as if they had never done
so much as to pick up her own handkerchief.

But her looks belied her. Born and reared in New York City in the midst
of luxury, she was fortunate in having had a mother who required her
daughter to learn to do everything necessary to the comfort of a
household. Orphaned soon after leaving school she had for years presided
over her brother’s house in Washington, and often boasted that if every
servant left her she could prepare her own meals and do whatever there
was to be done, except the washing. She drew the line at that. She had
at first hesitated about coming to The Elms in the present state of
affairs, but urged by Katy, who was greatly attached to her, she had
made up her mind to do so. The loneliness of the house in Washington
would be intolerable, and something told her that she might be of
service at The Elms. She was sure of it when she saw how matters were
and how inefficient Phyllis was, or rather how unequal to the emergency.

“’Tain’t laziness, nor onwillin’ness; de Lord knows I’d lay down and let
’em trample on me, if that would help any. It’s the worrit an’ buzzin’
in my head,” she said, when, after supper she was washing the silver and
china which Miss Errington insisted upon wiping for her. The negroes had
been sent home and Phyllis was alone, when Miss Errington offered her
services.

“You look tired,” she said; and Phyllis was tired, for she had been on
her feet all day, and as soon as her dishes were washed she sank down
into a rocking chair near the range and went fast asleep, in the midst
of pots and kettles and brushes and brooms, which would have elicited
groans of disapproval from Norah O’Rourke and alarming creaks from her
shoes, could she have seen them, under ordinary circumstances when there
was no excuse for the untidiness.

The next morning dawned dark and dreary, with a cold November rain.
Annie, who had slept quietly and late, was so much better that she began
to worry about the kitchen arrangements.

“What did you have for breakfast, and how was it served? Phyllis is
getting old and careless,” she said to Katy, who had brushed her hair,
brought her a clean white dressing jacket and was tidying up the room in
which a bright fire, kindled before Annie was awake, was burning.

“We have not had it yet, but it is ready,” Katy replied, with a ring of
excitement in her voice. “Oat-meal and cream, and steak and muffins and
everything. You are to have yours at once. Come in,” she added, in
response to a knock, or rather a kick upon the door, which was a little
ajar and through which Norah O’Rourke came with a broad smile on her
face and in her hands a big tray loaded with delicacies.

“Norah! Norah! Where did you come from? I am so glad,” Annie exclaimed,
and forgetting the disgust she had felt when she saw Mrs. Hathern
kissing Norah on her first arrival at The Elms she threw her arms around
the woman’s neck and held her close, crying hysterically in her great
joy and relief in seeing her again.

Norah, who had missed the express from Richmond the day before, had come
in the night train, reaching Lovering very early that morning. In his
last letter to her Jack had told her to go at once to The Plateau. As
there was no conveyance at the station she had walked to The Plateau,
and been struck with the desolate appearance of the house, around which
there was no sign of life, although the key was in the door. Entering
she made the tour of the house, noting everything, from the tumbled
appearance of the white spread on the bed in the bridal chamber, where
the women had inspected the hair mattress, to the soiled footprints on
the kitchen floor.

“Where is everybody?” she thought, just as a sound outside attracted her
attention.

Going out, she met a negro who looked as if he might be prowling about
rather than there for any good.

“Lor-a-mighty,” he exclaimed, “How you scar’t me! I didn’t think nobody
was here.”

“Where are the folks? Mr. Fullerton, I mean,” Norah asked, and then
listened wonderingly to the story the negro told.

“Miss Fanny done run off wid anoder man, an’ Mas’r Fullerton gone ravin’
mad wid de fever down to de Elms, and Miss Annie jest as bad, an’ de ole
Harry to pay generally.”

“And the house left alone with the key in the door. That’s
shiftlessness, and accounts for them mud tracks. Some truck has been
here,” Norah said, pocketing the key and starting rapidly for The Elms,
which she reached just as the sun was rising and Phyllis was banging at
the range in her efforts to rekindle the fire which had gone out.

To dump the grate and make a fresh fire was a sore trial to Phyllis, who
had never ceased to long for the old kitchen under the dogwood tree.

“I wish de whole caboose was in Tophet,” she said, when turning round
she saw Norah standing in the door with an expression on her face which
she remembered so well.

Never doubting that it was a ghost the old negress sank down upon the
range, the griddles of which were off, her eyes taking in, as Norah’s
had done, the littered condition of the room.

“I was gwine to clar up to-day; de good Lord knows I was,” she said
apologetically, her hands thrown out to keep Norah off as she advanced
into the room.

“Don’t be a fool, Phyllis,” Norah said. “I’m myself in flesh and blood;
just come in the train. Get off that range before you break it down with
your three hundred pounds of fat. Put in more kindlings and a little
kerosene if you want the fire to burn quick.”

“De Lord be praised! I thought you was a spook,” Phyllis exclaimed, as
she extricated herself from the range and sank panting into a chair with
a shaving or two and some splinters of dry wood adhering to her dress.

Throwing off her bonnet and shawl Norah began to make the fire, which
was soon crackling and blazing and diffusing a genial warmth through the
chilly room, while Phyllis told the story of their troubles.

“Miss Fanny done gone an’ married Col. Errin’ton, an’ Mas’r Jack mighty
bad in ole Mas’r’s room, an’ Miss Annie bad upstairs, an’ company in de
house, an’ herself so oversot an’ ’scouraged that she didn’t know enough
to make a fire or get breakfast either.”

As she talked the tears rolled down her face, and her hands shook as
they rested on her lap.

“You poor old soul!” Norah said, in a tone she had never before used
towards Phyllis, who now broke down entirely, while Norah tried to
comfort her. “You’re tired out; that’s the upshot of the matter,” she
said. “Just sit still where you are, and I’ll get breakfast.”

As she talked she picked up broom and brush and pails and kettles and
skillets and spiders, and put them in their places, and then moved from
the pantry to the range, and from the range back to the pantry, with the
bustling activity of old, while Phyllis sat and watched her, crying
softly, but never offering even a suggestion. The sceptre had passed
from her hands, and she was so tired and worn and felt so keenly the
trouble which had come upon them that it was a relief to have Norah take
her place. The coffee was steaming, the muffins baking, the steak
broiling when Katy appeared, almost as startled as Phyllis had been at
the apparition of Norah tossing with a fork the potato she was warming
in cream.

“Norah! What good angel sent you here just when we need you most?” Katy
cried, as she seized Norah around the waist, feeling all care and
responsibility drop from her, now that Norah was there.

Explanations followed on both sides, Norah telling how she happened to
be there and Katy corroborating the story of Fanny’s marriage with Col.
Errington. For a moment Norah’s shoes creaked threateningly as she
tramped across the floor, kicking a gourd out of her way and dropping
into the vernacular, as she always did when excited.

“Drat the villain,” she said. “An’ sure the Lord will reward him, and
her, too; and what’s his sister afther down here?”

Katy told why she was there, adding that no one could be more indignant
than Miss Errington at her brother’s conduct. Thus mollified Norah
stepped more lightly, and at Katy’s suggestion kindled a fire in Annie’s
room so noiselessly that the girl did not awaken until just before Norah
came with her breakfast. Like Katy, Annie felt the burden of anxiety
with regard to the domestic arrangements slipping from her at sight of
Norah. With her at the helm there could be no jars except as they came
through Phyllis. But she was glad to abdicate in favor of a younger and
stronger person, and received in silence Norah’s rasping remarks which
had to come with regard to the filth which had accumulated in the
kitchen and which nothing would eradicate but strong lye and paint. This
would fail to obliterate the marks of pot black and grease upon the
cooking-table. Nothing but a carpenter’s plane could do that.

For a few days Phyllis submitted to the inconvenience of wading a good
share of the time through the soap suds with which Norah was inundating
the floor, and then, one morning, before anyone was astir, she quietly
removed her special belongings to the cabin she had quitted so
regretfully, and where in the wide fireplace she again kindled her fire
upon the hearth, hung her kettles on the crane, and roasted her potatoes
in the ashes. At her next class-meeting when she told her experience she
recounted among her other _massies_ that “De Lord had fotched her as he
did de chillun of Israel through de sea and landed her in a dry place
whar no water was!”




                 CHAPTER III.—AUTHOR’S STORY CONTINUED.
                                 JACK.


The doctor could not tell at first how ill Jack really was. He had taken
a severe cold and his temperature was very high, but his paroxysms of
delirium were the worst features in the case, as they made him at times
almost uncontrollable. Apparently he was always trying to recall
something in the past which baffled his memory. Again, he would declare
his intention to go to The Plateau. It was no place for him at The Elms,
he said, and he was going away. At such times it required all the tact
and sometimes all the strength of the neighbor who was with him to keep
him in bed. This man who had only come for a day or two, finally
signified his intention to leave, and another must be found to take his
place. In great perplexity of mind as to where to find the proper
person, the doctor was riding slowly past Sam Slayton’s grocery, near
the door of which a knot of idlers was as usual assembled. Reining in
his horse he asked if they knew of any able-bodied man willing to
undertake the task of nursing Mr. Fullerton, or rather of keeping him in
bed.

“He is not dangerously sick,” he said, “but the trouble has upset his
brain and by spells he is crazy as a loon and bound to get up. Some day
he will scare the women folks to death rushing into their midst, quite
_au naturel_ you know.”

The doctor knew a little French and was fond of airing it occasionally.
His hearers understood him, however, but no one spoke until Sam, who had
been revolving the question, said, “I have had some experience in
nussin’. After I got that bullet in me at Gettysburg I was sent to the
con-_val_-escent hospital. When I got better I was detailed to wait on
some of the sick soldiers, who said I done tip-top; most as well, in
fact, as the young gals who used to come in every day and insist on
doing something, if it was only to wash our faces. I’ll bet some of us
had ’em washed a dozen times a day by as many different gals, God bless
’em. Wall, as I was sayin’, I’ll go and see what I can do with the
Cap’n, just to spite that cuss of a Colonel.”

“Can you leave your business?” the doctor asked, feeling that this
strong man, who had something mesmeric and masterful about him, was just
the one he wanted.

“Wall, you see,” Sam replied with a laugh, “my business ain’t no great,
though it picked up a little yesterday and to-day. I can leave it for a
spell, I guess. Or mabby these chaps’ll run it for me; I can trust ’em.”

It was Sam’s nature to trust everybody, and three or four at once
volunteered to see to his grocery, “And we’ll build you up a good
business, too, and not steal more than half the plunder,” they said. As
a result of this Sam left his grocery in charge of his friends, with the
injunction that old Miss Bower, who lost four boys in the war, should
have good measure, and a cent a pound less for her groceries than the
usual price, and that old man Coulter, who lost both his legs at
Antietam was to have his tobacco free, if he didn’t call for it too
often and in too large quantities. The three who received these and
similar orders looked wonderingly at each other, thinking they were just
beginning to know how big and generous a heart there was in this great,
awkward fellow, who was installed in Jack’s sick-room late on
Thanksgiving night.

The day had been a sad one at The Elms. With her New England ideas and
habits Norah had declared there should be at least a cracker pudding and
a chicken pie; it wouldn’t be worth while to give thanks without as much
as that. So, between her efforts at cleaning and scrubbing the floor and
planing the cooking-table, she managed these delicacies; but the turkey,
to whom so many promises of decapitation had been made by Phyllis
remained in his coop, waiting for a future day when the appetites of the
family would be better than they were now.

Paul was the only one who enjoyed the dinner. The others were thinking
sadly how changed was the day from what they had anticipated. Miss
Errington was especially quiet and somber, with the same look on her
face which it had worn since her brother said to her, “I am to marry
Fanny Hathern.” She had gone out that morning after breakfast, and
enquiring her way to the telegraph office had sent a cablegram to her
brother’s address in London. It was directed to Fanny, and read: “The
Elms. Thanksgiving morning. To Mrs. G. W. Errington. Mr. Fullerton is
here, and dangerously ill with brain fever. Recovery doubtful. C.
Errington.”

She knew that she possibly stretched a point in saying “Recovery
doubtful,” although she tried to persuade herself that she did not. A
man as strong and fullblooded as Mr. Fullerton was apt to die when
smitten with fever, she reasoned, and she experienced a kind of pleasure
in thinking how this first news from home would affect her brother’s
wife. “She deserves it, and worse,” she reflected, as she walked back to
The Elms, where she found Annie down stairs.

“I could not stay in bed any longer,” she said, “and I wanted to see
Jack.”

He was lying very quiet and seemed to be asleep when she went in and sat
down beside him. But he soon grew restless, and his eyes, bright with
fever, fixed themselves curiously upon her.

“Annie-mother,” he said, reaching out his hand and taking hers in it, “I
am glad you have come. You almost make me know what I am trying to
remember and can’t. Was it the house on The Plateau, and is Norah up
there? I am sure I have heard her voice, and another strange one. The
house must be full of people. Send them away. They mustn’t know what it
is I can’t recall.” After that his mind began to wander on other
subjects,—mostly debts, which he said he must see to.

“What debts?” Annie asked, but he only replied, “They make my head ache
so. I was never in debt before.”

“I think it was for furnishing his house,” Annie said in a whisper to
Miss Errington, who had stepped to the room for the first time.

Jack saw her and his eyes glared wildly as, clutching Annie’s hand, he
whispered, “Who is that tall woman? Where have I seen her? Looks like a
general in petticoats, and, oh-h, Annie, she is like _him_; send her
away.”

If Miss Errington were a general in petticoats she was not one to
retreat at the first gun fired at her, and going up to Jack she laid her
hand on his forehead, and said in her decided, straight forward way, “I
am his sister, but your friend and Annie’s. I have come to help her and
you. You will let me stay, won’t you?”

His lip quivered, but he did not answer, nor did he try to withdraw from
the touch of her soothing hand. She had conquered him, and she sat by
him a long time, asking him once, when he began to rave about his debts,
how much they were and where they were. Very curtly he told her it was
none of her business, adding that she might find out if she could.

That night Sam Slayton came in his best clothes, plaid vest and red tie,
looking the typical Brother Jonathan, as he said to Jack, “Wall, how are
you, Cap’n? Goin’ to pull through, ain’t you?”

“Pull through what? and who are you?” Jack asked, adding quickly, “Oh, I
know; you’re that Yankee grocer. Pretty good sort of a fellow they say.”

“Thank you, Square,” Sam replied; after that, calling him alternately
the Cap’n and the Square, as the fancy took him.

From the first there was amity between the two. Sam was so original and
good-natured, with so quaint a way of putting things that the humor of
it penetrated Jack’s clouded brain, and more than once, as the evening
wore on, he laughed heartily at something Sam said to him. The next day
there came a trial of strength, Jack declaring he would get up and go
and pay his debts, and Sam telling him he could not. Laying his arm, big
as a sledge hammer, across Jack’s chest he kept him down until he became
perfectly quiet and said, with a laugh, “Licked again; that was always
the way in the war; just as we thought we’d got the upper hand there
came along the lines the rumor they are coming, they are coming, 300,000
more, and, by George, they did come, and when we shot down one, ten took
his place. You were like the bear the old Vikings used to boil and eat
in the morning in the hall of Valhalla, and which at night was alive and
peart as ever and ready to be boiled again. Heard of him, haven’t you?”

Sam didn’t quite think he had, but he knew “We are coming, Father Abram,
three hundred thousand more,” and could sing it, too; should he?

“Yes, go it,” Jack said, and immediately Sam began the famous war song.

                   “We are coming, Father Abram,
                     Three hundred thousand more,
                   From the mountains of New England
                     To the California shore.”

Sam had a rich, full voice, with a note of pathos in it, which made one
forget its slightly nasal twang, and not only Jack but the ladies in the
adjoining room listened breathlessly until the song was ended.

“That’s tip-top,” Jack said. “Made me forget what I am trying to
remember. Give us another. ‘Three cheers for General Lee and the
Southern Army, oh.’ Know it?”

Sam nodded and began again, singing this time with so much feeling that
either because of the music, or because it awakened in his misty brain a
regret for the Lost Cause the tears gathered in his eyes and rolled down
Jack’s cheeks.

“I don’t know why I am crying,” he said apologetically, “unless it’s for
what I can’t remember, or for the boys dead on so many battlefields, and
we went into it so bravely and hopefully, like Sennacherib’s army.”

“Who’s he? I never heard of that general, and I thought I knew ’em all,”
Sam asked, and Jack replied, “Have you never heard of the one hundred
and eighty-five thousand able-bodied men who encamped for the night and
got up in the morning all dead corpses?”

“Jerusalem! You don’t say! That beats all. It must have happened when I
was in Libby. How could they get up if they was dead corpses. I can’t
b’lieve it. That’s one of your rebel yarns,” Sam said.

“Bible truth,” Jack rejoined, with a twinkle in his eyes as if he were
enjoying Sam’s discomfiture. “Now give us something jolly, like Dixie,”
he continued, “or that one about John Brown’s body. I used to hear you
fellows sing it nights when our lines were near each other. Know it?”

“I’d laugh if I didn’t. I know the whole caboodle, both sides,” Sam
said, and for an hour or more the house rang with the old war
melodies,—“Dixie,” “Marching through Georgia,” “My Maryland,” and “John
Brown’s Body,” which last Sam sang with great gusto, especially the part
relating to the apple tree.

This was the last, and Jack, who had listened to all which had gone
before with lively interest began to grow excited, while his face
clouded and his eyes were full of pain.

“Stop that,” he thundered, when the leader of the Southern Confederacy
was threatened with suspension. “No more of that. It brings back what I
have been trying to remember,—_her_. If she were here, she’d hang _you_
to the sour apple tree; oh, Fanny, Fanny.”

It was a bitter cry, like that at The Plateau when the shock first came
upon him. As he had cried then, so he did now, with great, choking sobs,
which brought Miss Errington and Annie and Katy all to his bedside. For
a few minutes he was perfectly conscious and whispered amid his sobs,
“It isn’t manly, I know, but I can’t help it, my head aches so, and I am
so weak. Oh, Fanny, how could you do it.”

It was Annie who succeeded in quieting him, and he at last fell asleep
with one of her hands holding his and the other upon his forehead.

“Little Annie-mother, what should I do without you?” he said, with a
pitiful kind of smile as he looked at her through his tears and then
closed his eyes wearily.

After this there were no more paroxysms of delirium, and he seemed
partially conscious of what was passing around him. He knew Katy was
there, and Miss Errington, whom he still called the general in
petticoats. Every day, and many times a day, Sam sung the war songs,
with every negro melody he could recall. John Brown, however, was
allowed to moulder quietly in the ground, and was never sung again. As
Jack grew stronger he clung more and more to Annie, who always sat with
him when Sam went to see how matters were progressing at the grocery,
where there were three doing business for him, and doing it well, too,
judging from the returns he found in his cash drawer. Miranda seemed a
near possibility, and Sam told Annie about her, and said he hoped she
would call and be kind of sociable when Miranda came. He staid at The
Elms a week or more, and then as Jack was improving and perfectly sane
he returned to his business and Annie took his place as nurse. Fanny’s
name Jack never mentioned, but one day, when he had lain a long time
with his eyes closed and an expression on his face as if he were
intently thinking, he said to Annie suddenly, “Have you heard from—from
them?”

“Yes,” Annie replied. “A cablegram came from Queenstown. They were
safely across, but Fan had been very sick most of the voyage, which was
a rough one. There has also been another from London. It read, ‘How is
Jack?’ and was signed ‘Fanny.’ Miss Errington had cabled her that you
were very ill.”

For a moment Jack was silent and then said, “There was a note for me
which I didn’t read. Do you know what became of it?”

“Yes, I have it,” Annie replied, and going to her room she returned with
it and the hundred dollar bill Fanny had sent in her letter.

Taking the note Jack read it with a white face and hard eyes in which
there was no sign of softening. The bitterness of death was over, and he
could read with comparative calmness what at first would have wrung his
heart with anguish. There was nothing flippant in it, as there had been
in the letter to Annie. There were self-accusations and assertions that,
after what she had seen of the world, she could not endure poverty and
the dull life of Lovering. If Jack were rich she should prefer him to
any man in the world, she said, and she believed she did prefer him now,
notwithstanding what she had done.

“I have always loved you,” she wrote in conclusion, “and I meant to be
true, but a stronger will than my own has mastered me. Don’t despise and
forget me. I couldn’t bear that, and if I am ever very unhappy there
will be a comfort in knowing that you love me still. Forgive me, and
think of me as I used to be in the old days which seem so far away.
Good-bye.

                                                                   FAN.”

As he read this part of the letter Jack’s breath came in gasps, for he
understood the selfishness of the girl who, while not hesitating to
break his heart, still wished to retain his love and keep him loyal to
her. Tearing the note in shreds he handed them to Annie, and said, “Put
them in the fire.”

Raising himself on his elbow he watched them as they crisped and
darkened and disappeared in smoke. Then, as if with them the past had
been blotted out, he lay down again with a different look upon his face
from any Annie had seen there since the day at The Plateau. His love for
Fanny was dying, and the last blow had been given by her note with which
she had meant to bind him to her, in memory, at least.

“Jack,” Annie said, after a moment. “Fan sent this to you in payment for
Black Beauty. She wants him back,” and she handed him the hundred dollar
note.

She had seen him angry before, but was not prepared for the burst of
passion which followed. Throwing the bill from him he exclaimed, “She is
welcome to Black Beauty, and I will have none of _his_ money. Take it
away before I tear it up as I did her note.”

It was in vain that Annie tried to explain and urge him to keep it,
reminding him of the debts he must have incurred in furnishing his house
and which this would help to pay. He would not listen. He had borrowed
money, he said, with which to pay his bills, preferring to have one debt
rather than many. This was due and the bill had perhaps been sent to him
during his illness, but he would never soil his hands with any part of
the money which had bought his promised wife.

“Use it yourself. I give it to you, or Paul, or Katy, as you please,” he
said.

In her heart Annie respected him for his decision and put the bill away
till she could confer with Miss Errington with regard to it. That lady,
who, her brother said, was never happier than when bossing some thing or
some body, was carrying matters with a high hand at The Elms and
managing generally. The bill of which Jack had spoken had been brought
to the house for collection, and the man who held the note and who lived
in Petersburg had said he had great need of the money, but supposed he
must wait until Mr. Fullerton was better. It chanced that Miss Errington
saw him, as Annie was with Jack and Katy was out. For a moment she
reflected, wondering if she dare do it. Then deciding that it was no
more than what she owed Mr. Fullerton for the wrong he had received from
her brother, she paid the debt and closed the transaction. This Annie
told Jack when he spoke of his bill in Petersburg.

“I believe she wishes to give it to you as a kind of atonement for what
her brother has done. She has plenty of money,” she said.

“_Give_ it to me!” Jack repeated angrily. “Does she think me a pauper?
and as to _atonement_, nothing can atone,—certainly not money.”

He spoke bitterly, and rising from his chair, for he was now able to be
up, walked to the window, where he stood looking out upon the dreary
landscape with a face sad and stern.

“Talking of _pay_,” he said, turning suddenly to Annie, “I can never
repay _you_ for all you have been to me in the darkest hours of my life,
and the trouble and care I have brought to you. But I shall never forget
it. As soon as I am able I am going away from Lovering for awhile. I
cannot be here on Christmas day. When I come back I shall be the same
old Jack you used to know, with the past buried so deep that it will
never be unearthed. I shall do nothing with the house at present. I
cannot even go into it, but shall leave it in your care and Norah’s. I
think I shall go to Florida into the sunshine. I have not felt warm
since that day at The Plateau. No matter how high my fever ran I was
conscious of a cold lump like ice at my heart which nothing could melt.
Sometimes when you put your hand on my forehead and when you thought I
was asleep and said ‘Poor Jack,’ it melted a little. God bless you,
Annie. You were to have been my sister. I hold you my sister still,—the
best a man ever had.”

He laid his hand caressingly upon her head as she stood by him, a little
drooping figure, wholly unlike the queenly Fanny in her _personelle_,
but so much truer and nobler in every womanly instinct.

Within a week after this conversation Jack left Lovering for Florida,
under whose sunny skies he hoped to recuperate both in mind and body.
Before going he had a long interview with Miss Errington, of whom he had
seen but little, and for whom he had a natural prejudice. This, however,
wore away as he talked with her. She might be meddlesome and
dictatorial, and was never happier than when attending to some one’s
business, but she was so thoroughly good and kind and so sincere in her
desire to help one out of difficulties that few could withstand her, and
Jack was not one of the few. Pay her he must, but he consented at last
to be her debtor for a time and to borrow more of her if necessary.

“She is a noble woman and I am glad you have her for a friend,” he said
to Annie, when the interview was over. “She must have some of her
brother’s magnetic power to twist me round her fingers as she did. You
can’t do better than to be guided by her.”

One thing, however, she could not persuade Jack to do, and that was to
go into the house at The Plateau.

“No!” he said decidedly, when she urged that there must be a first time,
and it was better to do a disagreeable thing at once, and be done with
it. “I cannot go there now. It would be like looking into my coffin.”

He would not even ride past it when Annie took him out to drive behind
Black Beauty. Too many hopes of happiness were strangled there. “It is a
haunted place to me. Later on, when I come back, I will go through it
with you and see if the ghosts are there still,” he said, when she
suggested driving that way.

Everything pertaining to the grounds and out-buildings was left in the
care of Sam Slayton, who, having won golden laurels in his nursing, was
earning golden dollars in his grocery, which had become very popular
and, as Sam said, was patronized by all the _e-lity_ in town. Annie was
to have the keys of the house and to see that it was kept in order.
Nothing was to be changed; nothing removed. At this point Miss Errington
interfered. It was a shame, she said, to let a fine new Steinway be
ruined by standing unused in a cold house all winter. Far better
negotiate for its return, even at a discount on the price.

The plan commended itself to Jack as sensible, and the instrument, on
which no one had ever played, was returned to the firm from which it
came and the greater portion of the money paid for it refunded. It was
nearly Christmas time when Jack at last left Lovering, broken in health
and spirits, but with a rebound in his sunny, genial nature, which
promised much for him when time and change had healed the wound, which
smarted with a fresh pain when he bade good-bye to his friends at The
Elms, and especially to Annie.

“I don’t know what I shall do without my little Annie-mother,” he said,
with a quiver in his voice as he stooped and kissed her forehead as
reverently as if she had really been his mother instead of a shrinking
girl whose heart throbbed with rapture for a moment, and then beat with
a heavy pain at this first kiss she had ever received from Jack since he
was a boy and they played the old-time games where kissing was a
conspicuous feature and counted for nothing.




                 CHAPTER IV.—AUTHOR’S STORY CONTINUED.
                         CHRISTMAS AT THE ELMS.


The day after Jack left, Annie received a letter from Fanny written at
Morley’s Hotel in London, where they were stopping. It was not very
long, and to Annie, who knew her sister so well, it did not seem at all
in Fanny’s usual bright, witty vein, but rather as if written under
restraint. She had been horribly seasick, she said, and if possible
would rather walk home than cross the ocean again in rough weather. She
had pleasant rooms at the hotel looking out on Trafalgar Square, and was
enjoying the sights of London as much as she could in the fog and rain.
The Colonel had met several acquaintances at the hotel and more outside,
and she had attended a grand dinner in an English family and worn a
lovely dress bought at Peter Robinson’s, but made in Paris. The people
of the house had been very attentive to her, and had told her that her
accent was more English than American. The next night she was going to
hear Patti in full evening dress, also bought at Peter Robinson’s. After
a few days they were to leave London for Paris, where they should stay
until her wardrobe was complete, when they would go on to Nice and Monte
Carlo, and then to Italy, spending the winter either in Florence or
Rome, probably the latter. There were messages of love for Katy and Paul
and Phyllis, but no allusion was made to Jack, or mention of her
husband, except when she spoke of his acquaintances. She was anxious for
a letter from Annie, telling her all the news, and she signed herself
“Fanny.”

Written with a lead pencil between the lines on the first page, and so
fine that they were scarcely legible, were the words, “Oh, Annie, what
would I give to see you and Katy and Paul and the old home just for a
minute! Write me often and _everything_.”

The letter was directed in the Colonel’s handwriting, and his sister had
no doubt that his eye had seen all that was in it, except the pencil
lines inserted in a sentence with which they had no connection. There
was a world of homesickness in the cry, and Miss Errington read the
meaning plainer than Annie did, feeling sure that her brother had
already begun to bend his young wife to his iron will.

“Poor girl! I pity her,” she thought, as she gave the letter back to
Annie. “I shall write to your sister to-day.”

Annie had written ten or twelve days before, and her letter and Fanny’s
had probably crossed each other. She had said nothing of the scene at
The Plateau when Jack first heard the news. “What is done cannot be
undone, and there is no need to try and make her wretched,” she
reasoned. So she merely spoke of Jack’s sudden illness, saying he was at
The Elms and gaining slowly. Then she tried to write naturally about
Katy and Paul and Phyllis and the townspeople, and whatever else she
thought would interest her sister. At the close she said, “Oh, Fan, you
don’t know how I miss you everywhere. When you were away with Miss
Errington it was not so bad, for I thought you were coming back. Now I
know you are not, and I seem to have lost half of myself and am
constantly looking for it. I hope you will be happy. You always wished
to go to Europe, and I think you will enjoy all you are seeing. Katy
sends love and Paul a kiss to ‘Fan-er-nan.’ He was delighted with his
horse. Lovingly, Ann.”

Three days before Christmas there came to The Elms an express package
directed to Fanny. In it were two boxes bearing the name of a New York
firm. One contained a dozen after-dinner coffees of fine Dresden china;
the other a dozen silver forks and four dozen spoons of different sizes,
and a dozen pearl handled knives, Carl’s wedding present to Fanny. They
were very beautiful, but it seemed to Annie like opening two coffins,
and her tears came near staining the satin lining of the boxes as she
bent over them and thought how Fanny’s eyes would have sparkled had she
been there to see them. The same train which brought the package brought
also a letter from Carl written from The Windsor in New York, where he
had been staying for two or three weeks.

“I got tired of loafing in Boston,” he wrote, “and I thought I would try
New York, and, by George, I am tired of that. I must do something or die
of _ennui_. Coming to the wedding will be a little diversion, and after
that I shall either open a corner grocery or go abroad. I have not
decided which. I envy Jack and Fanny being settled and done for. Wish I
were. I have selected at Tiffany’s a wedding present, which I think Fan
will like. I told them to engrave the silver ‘_F. H._’ and the stupid
rascals have left off the ‘_F._,’ and marked them simply ‘_H._’ I expect
to be with you the 23rd, if nothing happens. Very truly, CARL.”

There was a good deal of Carl in this letter, and Katy’s eyes grew very
bright for a moment, as Annie read it, and then took on a cold
expression, which Miss Errington, who was watching her, could not quite
understand. Annie had written to Carl in Boston, telling him there was
to be no wedding, but asking him to spend Christmas with them just the
same. This letter he evidently had not received. He was coming, and they
were all glad, and none more so than Norah. With all his faults there
was not a better man living than Carl, she said, and her face was
radiant as she prepared his favorite dishes. If they couldn’t have a
wedding-feast they should have a dinner that _was_ a dinner, with eight
or ten courses, and in the exuberance of her joy she allowed Phyllis to
stone the raisins for the pudding she was going to send to the table
over a blue flame of-alcohol. Carl’s own room was made ready for him,
and every time he heard the whistle of a Richmond train Paul stationed
himself at the window to watch for the village ’bus which was to bring
his brother from the station. But the trains came and went and brought
neither Carl nor any tidings of him, and every one gave him up but
Norah. She had more faith in him than anyone else, although admitting
that he was never of the same mind two hours at a time.

“But he’s comin’ now. I feel it in my bones,” she said, and made her
preparations for Christmas with as much certainty of his presence as if
he were already there.

It was a dreary Christmas Eve, with dark clouds scudding across the
starless sky and the wind roaring through the tall trees which skirted
the avenue leading from the highway to the house, and the morning was
drearier still. There had been a blizzard on the western prairies, and
it was spending itself on this part of Virginia in a cold, steady rain,
which drove against the windows and found its way under the door into
the hall, where it stood in little puddles until Phyllis swept it out,
letting in more rain as she did so, and shivering with cold as she
closed the door and went into the dining-room where breakfast was upon
the table and where Paul’s was the only happy face. He had found his
stockings full of gifts from Santa Claus, balls and carts and tops and
horns, the last of which he blew vigorously as Phyllis lifted him into
his high chair and fastened on his bib. Annie was pouring the coffee
when Phyllis suddenly exclaimed, “Praise de Lord, thar’s Mas’r Carl now
on de step with his umberill blown t’other side out.”

He did not stop to knock, but sprang into the hall, with the rain
dripping from his Mackintosh and hat, and his umbrella a total wreck.

“Hallo, Hallo, Hallo, all of you,” he said, as Annie and Katy and
Phyllis rushed into the hall to meet him. “This is a nice go for
Christmas and a wedding. Call _this_ the sunny south? I am frozen to my
bones,” he continued, as he divested himself of his wet garments. “Don’t
ask me any questions until I get near a fire and that coffee, which
smells so deliciously. I haven’t had a decent thing to eat since I left
New York and am half famished.”

He was soon by the open fire in the dining-room and drinking the hot
coffee which Annie poured for him.

“I meant to be here yesterday afternoon,” he said, “but was too late for
the train; so I came on at night in a cross between a lumber wagon and a
cattle car. Never slept a wink, but I was bound to get here if I walked.
What time is the ceremony, and where is Fan?” he asked. “Is she staying
in her room until she bursts upon us in all her bridal splendor?”

He looked at Annie, who replied, “You didn’t get my letter?”

“No. What letter? I have been in New York three weeks, and when I left
Boston I didn’t know how long I should be gone, and gave no directions
to have my mail sent to me. My correspondence is not very important
anyway, and I hate to answer letters. What did you write, and where _is_
Fan?”

He asked the question a little anxiously, for something in the faces at
the table surprised him. It was Paul who answered. With a toot upon his
horn and his mouth full of buttered muffins he said, “Fan-er-nan is
mar-yed and gone to Europe.”

“Married and gone to Europe!” Carl repeated. “What do you mean? Married
to whom?”

“To my brother,” Miss Errington said, taking upon herself the task of
explaining, which she did very briefly and without comment.

“Great guns!” Carl exclaimed. “I would not have believed that of Fan.
And so there is to be no wedding after all. That’s too bad, and I nearly
breaking my neck to get here,” he continued, as he rose from the table
and began to walk the floor, talking rapidly and asking many questions
which no one answered. “I tell you what,” he said suddenly, going up to
Katy, who stood by the window looking out into the rain, “it is too bad
to come all this distance without a wedding. We’ll have one yet, if you
say so. I’ll put on my other coat and you your other gown. We’ll send
for the minister, and, presto! it’s done! What do you say?”

There was a grey light in Katy’s eyes and a ring in her voice, although
she tried to laugh, as she replied, “Thank you! I’m not in so great a
hurry.”

There was a good deal of dignity in her manner, and her head was held
high as she stepped back from him and walked into the adjoining room.

“By Jove! Something is up,” Carl said under his breath. He was so
accustomed to have every girl respond to his call that when he met with
a rebuff it surprised him.

Katy had been so soft and yielding and so like wax in his hands when he
was there before that he did not know what to make of her now. She would
thaw of course. She must, for of all the girls he had ever met Katy had
made the strongest impression upon him, and was the one he liked best.
Away from her he could forget her in a measure, but with her again her
spell was upon him, intensified by her coolness, and if she had said so,
he would have probably sent for the minister, donned his other coat and
settled the matter forever. But she didn’t say so, and her manner piqued
and puzzled him. She was very gracious to him, however, when he joined
her in the parlor after a romp with Paul, and there was a look in her
eyes which made him think of the green woods and the mossy banks where
he had sat and talked with her the year before, and watched the color
deepening on her cheeks, and the coy drooping of her eyelids, as he held
her hand in his, or pushed back a stray curl of her hair from her face,
or put his arm around her when there was no other support for her back.
Katy had thought of this, too, and hated herself for the part she had
played in what was more a tragedy, for her, than a comedy to be lightly
forgotten. Not for worlds, however, would she let him know that she had
given more meaning to that summer idyl than he had done, and after her
first show of coldness she was herself again, and laughed and chatted
with him as merrily as ever.

At his request she sang for him, and sang, it seemed to her, as she had
never sung before. He was not at all a critic, or music mad in any
sense, but he listened in wonder as her rich, full voice filled the
house and made him feel hot and cold and faint all at the same time.

“Why, Katy!” he exclaimed, when she was through. “You take a fellow
right off his feet. Why don’t you go upon the stage? The whole world
would ring with your name.”

“I am going,” Katy replied, as she put up her music, and rose from the
stool.

“Never!” Carl exclaimed, so emphatically that Katy looked at him in
wonder.

“What have you against the stage?” she asked, and he replied, “Nothing
against those who are already there, and among whom, I dare say, there
are as many good people in proportion as there are off; but everything
against it for you, and when I said you ought to be there I was merely
in fun. Standing before the people to be criticised and talked about by
the men in the clubs and public places is bad enough, but when you get
behind the scenes and see the freedom which must necessarily exist
there, and when you come in contact with all classes of men who, because
of their talent for acting, or singing, or both, form a part of every
company, and with whom you have no choice except to play, _Bah!_ I
believe I’d rather see you dead than there.”

He was worse than Fanny, and Katy felt some of her castles melting into
air as he talked, for all the fame she had sometimes dreamed of winning
was not worth the loss of Carl’s good opinion.

“Perfect yourself in music,” he continued, “and sing for your friends;
sing in church; sing for charities; sing anywhere except with a troupe.
I couldn’t bear that. Better send for the minister now. It isn’t too
late. What do you say?”

He was standing with his hand on her shoulder, looking at her, while she
returned his gaze unflinchingly as she replied, “Just what I said this
morning. No, thank you. I am not in so great a hurry; and if I were, it
would be the mistake of my life and yours. What you do to-day you forget
or regret to-morrow, and I have my career to consider.”

If Carl had been in the habit of swearing he would have consigned her
_career_ to the lower regions, and in his excitement he might have done
so now if she had not released herself from him, and swept from the
room, leaving him discomfited and uncertain as to whether he had
actually proposed and been rejected, and if it were true that what he
desired to-day he tired of to-morrow.

“By Jove!” he said to himself. “No girl ever flouted me like that. I
know of forty, with their mothers at their backs, who would have gone
for the parson themselves and had him here by this time. I guess
Virginia girls are different from those of Boston; Katy certainly is.
_Career!_ Katy on the stage! Katy in tights,—with glasses leveled at
her! It might come to that sometime, if she sang in opera. I believe I’d
shoot her, or myself, should I live to see the sight. That is Miss
Errington’s work, but I won’t have it, and I’ll propose in _bona fide_
shape and have the thing settled. Katy is too young, perhaps. She can’t
be seventeen yet, but I’ll wait three years. There’s a lot of things I
want to do before I settle down into a steady-going married man. But
I’ll bind Katy and fix that stage business. I wonder if I would get
tired of a three years’ engagement.” On the whole, he concluded that he
would, and as he was not quite ready to marry, he decided to wait awhile
and keep his eyes on Katy until he saw dangerous signs of her _career_,
when he would step in and stop it.

Carl was a curious compound. There was no question that he loved Katy,
but he loved his freedom better, and, on the whole, he was glad that
after his talk with her of the stage she gave him no chance to see her
alone. If she had, her grace and sweetness and beauty would have
influenced him so strongly that he might have proposed in earnest,
and—“been rejected, I believe upon my soul,” he reflected, while
thinking the matter over after his return to Boston.

Before leaving he had a long talk with Annie with regard to Paul, for
whom he had conceived a great liking, and whom he began to think he had
neglected. To this thought he was helped by Norah, who, when he asked
how long she intended staying at The Elms replied, that she didn’t know.
Probably not long, as she knew Miss Annie could not afford to keep her.

“I don’t think her father left much for his daughters,” she said, “and
there is Paul to be taken care of, or he may be a cripple. Have you ever
thought of that?”

He had not, and he didn’t know what she meant. Accustomed all his life
to every luxury, he had not given much thought to the wants of others,
except as they were presented to him. When asked for a subscription to
some charity, as he often was, he gave liberally. When he passed an old
half-clothed man or woman on the corner turning a hand-organ, with “I am
blind” pinned on the breast, he always dropped a coin into the cup, and
would have lavished thousands upon the people of The Elms had it been
suggested to him that they needed it.

“I don’t believe I am so selfish a cad as I am thoughtless,” he said to
Annie.

“You see, I have more than I ought to have, and I have given myself to
spending it, and forgotten that something was due to others besides
charities,—to Paul for instance. He is my half-brother, as well as
yours, and I ought never to have let the whole burden fall on you.”

“It has been no burden,” Annie interposed quickly. “Paul could never be
that.”

“I don’t mean it that way,” Carl answered. “I mean that I ought to help,
and I’m going to. I shall provide for his education and settle something
upon him at once. And what is this Norah has been telling me about his
being a cripple? She talked as if I were a brute.”

In the excitement incident upon Fanny’s marriage, Annie had for the time
being forgotten the fear which had haunted her with regard to Paul, and
which came back to her with a shock when Carl asked about it. She told
him all she knew, saying, however, that she hoped her fears were
groundless, Paul seemed so active and well. Carl’s answer was not
reassuring.

“I have noticed him limping at times,” he said, “and once when I asked
him why he did so he replied, ‘It hurts me here,’ and put his hand on
his back. He must have the best medical advice in Richmond, and if that
does not answer we must take him to New York, and if that fails, I will
take him to Paris. He can be cured there. Don’t look so white and
scared. There may be nothing serious, and if there is, it can be cured.
Suppose you go to Richmond with me and take Paul.”

This was on Sunday, and the next day Carl left The Elms, and Annie and
Paul went with him as far as Richmond,—the little boy delighted with the
first journey he had ever taken in the cars, and Annie’s heart full of
anxiety as to what the doctor’s verdict might be.




                  CHAPTER V.—AUTHOR’S STORY CONTINUED.
                             ON THE CELTIC.


Everything which ingenuity could devise or money buy had been bought and
devised for the two staterooms which Col. Errington had engaged upon the
Celtic, and between which there was only a narrow passage. In the one
which the Colonel called Fanny’s boudoir, and where she was to sit when
it was too cold to be on deck and she did not care to stay in the
saloon, there was a large easy chair and footstool, with soft cushions
and pillows on the couch under the window. There was a basket of
champagne in one corner, with jars of French prunes, preserved ginger
and Albert biscuits in another. There were all the last magazines, with
three or four books on the shelves, and on the washstand a basket of
exquisite flowers filling the room with perfume. When they came on board
the ship the Colonel had only shown Fanny their sleeping-room and had
then hurried her to the deck, where they staid until the ship was moving
down the bay, across which the November wind blew cold and chill. “Now
come and see your parlor,” he said, taking her by the arm and leading
her to No. ——.

It was Fanny’s first knowledge of a steamer, but she readily understood
how infinitely superior this stateroom was to the others, and that she
was indebted to her husband’s forethought for it. In the excitement of
her hasty marriage there had been no chance for love-making, and her
heart was too sore and full of Jack to think of much else. She heard his
voice in the din around her as the passengers and their friends crowded
the deck, and saw his face on the wharf, waving her a good-bye as the
ship moved away and the objects began to grow dim in the distance.

“Oh, Jack, will you never leave me!” she thought, and her hands clasped
each other tightly and the lump in her throat was getting larger than
she could master when the Colonel broke the spell and led her to her
stateroom.

“How do you like it?” he asked, sitting down upon the couch and watching
her as her eyes took in every detail and then filled with tears.

He had asked her to call him George, but she had never done so until
now, when there awoke within her a throb of something more than
gratitude and less than love, and going up to him she put her arms
around his neck and kissed him on his forehead. “Oh, George,” she said,
“it is lovely, and you were so kind to do it all for me. I thank you,
and—and—I am going to be so good, only I must cry now.”

She was sobbing like a child, and he let her cry without protest, and
held her closely to him and gently smoothed her hair. Skilled in reading
faces, he had read hers on the deck and guessed that thoughts of home,
and possibly of Jack, were bringing the pallor around her lips, and the
wistful look of pain into her eyes. Just how much of Jack was in her
thoughts he did not know. She had told him distinctly that she did not
love him, and he had said it was not her love he wanted. It was her
beauty,—herself,—her person. He had all these, and when she put her arms
around his neck and kissed him, calling him George, there swept over him
a possibility of what might be in the future, and in that moment he was
as near loving her as he ever would be in his life. And because of this
love, if it could be called by that name, his jealousy of Jack and every
man who looked at her would be stronger and fiercer and make itself felt
at every point. When he thought she had cried enough, he told her so;
but her tears, once started, could not be easily stopped, and she kept
on until something in his voice and manner, which she could feel but not
define, checked them back; and lifting her head from his shoulder she
said, “I didn’t mean to cry like this, but I couldn’t help it. I am
thinking of Annie and Katy and Paul.”

“Yes, I know; I understand perfectly of what you are thinking, but
crying will not help you. Don’t do it again. It makes your eyes and nose
red, and I want you to look your best for dinner. I must go now and see
if the purser has secured our seats at table, as I told him to do. Dry
your eyes and let me see a bright face when I return; or, would you
prefer to go on deck and wait for me there.”

She chose the latter, feeling that, pretty as the stateroom was, she
should smother in its narrow confines. She wanted air and space in which
to breathe, and strangle, if possible, the lump in her throat, which
pained her so. Her husband brought her beautiful fur-lined cloak, and
fastened it around her neck and tied on her sea hood, which, with its
lining of quilted crimson satin was very becoming to her. “There, you
look like the pictures of Red Riding Hood,” he said, as he passed his
arm around her to steady her, and then led her to the deck. Their chairs
were still inextricably mixed up with a pile of other chairs, so he
found her a sheltered place on the seat near the railing, and throwing a
rug across her lap left her alone with the injunction, “Mind you don’t
cry again.”

“No-o,” she said, with a sob, like a little child trying to keep down
the tears it has been forbidden to shed.

There were many passing and repassing around her,—passengers, sailors
and officers of the ship, each one of whom glanced at the lovely face
slightly upturned to the cool wind which blew so refreshingly across the
burning cheeks. But Fanny saw none of them. Her eyes were with her
thoughts, and they were far away in her Virginia home, with Jack, and
every incident of her life as connected with him. How vivid it all was
to her. The tall boy and the little girl he had carried so often on his
back to school when the mud was deep and she was afraid of soiling her
shoes and dress;—the candy and sugar hearts and kisses with the mottoes
which he had hidden under her desk where she was sure to find them;—the
big red apples he gave her at recess, and his championship generally
when she needed it, as she frequently did,—for with her quick hot temper
she was a good deal of a fighter, and often battled both with the girls
and boys. Later on, when he was a grown young man and she a young lady,
how tender and true he had always been to her,—loving her with an
intensity which she realized now as she had never before. In his last
letter to her, received the day before she had decided to break his
heart, he had poured out his love like a torrent. “My darling,” he wrote
at the close, “you do not know how much I love you, or how glad I am
that I am so soon to see you. Only a few days more and you will be here,
and then in one short month you will be mine. It makes me faint with joy
to think of it. I am not half good enough for you, but if love and
devotion can make a woman happy, you shall be so, my darling, my queen,
my wife that is to be.”

She had burned the letter when she said yes to Col. Errington, but the
last sentences had stamped themselves upon her memory and came back to
her now, each one a stab as she sat there alone, seeing nothing, hearing
nothing, except the regular thud of the machinery, which she knew was
every moment taking her farther and farther away from the old life and
Jack. Yesterday at this time she was free, and could have withdrawn;
now, it was too late. She was bound; she could not go back if she would.
Possibly she would not if she could, so contradictory was her nature. A
life of wealth and luxury looked very attractive to her still, if she
could only have forgotten Jack. But she could not. His face was
everywhere. It looked at her from every wave which broke around the
boat; from every sail, and every angle on the deck where the dark
shadows were gathering as the short November day drew to a close; not
happy and buoyant as she had always seen it, but full of anguish, as she
knew it would be when her letter reached him. “Oh, Jack, Jack!” she said
aloud, as she leaned her head back so that her face was distinctly
visible to the man who stood behind her and whose approach she had not
heard.

Col. Errington had secured the seats he wanted at the Captain’s
table,—had met some New York acquaintances, had been congratulated on
his marriage, whose haste he had explained as he did to the clergyman,
and now he had come to introduce her and take her in to dinner and see
what impression she would make upon his friends. It was not particularly
pleasant for a bridegroom of less than twenty-four hours to hear his
bride repeating the name of his rival as Fanny repeated Jack’s, and for
a moment the Colonel clenched his fists and ground his teeth together,
muttering an oath under his breath. Then,—for he was not all hard,—there
came over him a feeling of pity for the girl who had never pretended to
love him, and whom he had lured from her allegiance to another man by
every art and argument of which he was capable.

“I shall not stand much of this, but for once I don’t mind,” he thought,
and his voice was very pleasant as he said to her, “Fanny, Fanny, have
you been asleep?”

“No, no,” she answered quickly, starting up from her reclining
position,—her face, which had looked so pale, flushing to the color of
the crimson satin lining of her hood; “why did you think me asleep?”

“You were talking aloud; better not give your thoughts to the winds
again,” he replied, rather significantly; then added, “dinner is ready
and I have come for you. Your seat is next to the Captain, and some of
my friends are at the same table. I want to present them to you. That
hood is very becoming to you, but you’d better not wear it to the table.
Give a brush or two to your hair and you are all right.”

They were in their stateroom now and Fanny was divesting herself of her
cloak and hood and giving the few touches to her hair which her husband
had suggested. Her gown of navy blue which Jack’s money had bought
fitted her fine figure admirably; the color had come back to her cheeks
and the sparkle to her eyes, and the Colonel was very proud of her as he
lead her into the dining-room and presented her to the Captain and those
of his friends whose seats were near his own. Gossip on a ship spreads
rapidly, and it had been rumored about so soon that she was the bride of
the elderly man who was so attentive to her. Also, that there was a
romance of some kind connected with the marriage, and many eyes were
directed to her as she took her seat at the table, with the Captain on
her left and her husband on her right. She knew she was attracting
attention, and her spirits began to rise as she talked with the Captain
and those near her to whom she had been introduced. In front of her was
a large bouquet of roses, with a card attached to it bearing her name;
near it was a basket of cut flowers, also bearing her name, both ordered
by the Colonel. In her ignorance of ship usages she fancied they might
be from the Captain, who was so attentive to her, or some other friend
of her husband’s, and she felt almost happy as she buried her face in
the lovely roses, which seemed to add a soft sweetness to her brilliant
beauty.

When dinner was over she went with her husband for a walk upon the deck
until the cold drove them to the saloon, where she was soon the center
of interest to the Colonel’s New York friends, who vied with each other
in paying her attention. Matters were not so bad after all, and it was a
pretty good thing to be the bride of a man as rich and well known as
Col. Errington. Jack and The Elms and Annie and Katy and Paul began to
grow misty and far away from this gay company of polished city people.
But they came back to her when, at a late hour, the party broke up and
the Colonel said he must have a cigar before retiring; but he conducted
Fanny to the door of her stateroom, and telling her he should not be
gone long left her alone with her wretched thoughts, which, as if to
make amends for the respite they had given her, came swarming into her
mind with redoubled force. The stateroom lost its prettiness; the
roaring of the sea reminded her of the wintry wind as it sometimes
howled through the woods and around the house at home when a wild storm
was sweeping over Lovering, and, worse than all, Jack’s eyes were
looking at her again from her wedding ring and the superb solitaire
which guarded it, to the gown his money had paid for and which she was
removing.

“Oh! Jack, Jack,—will your eyes haunt me always?” she whispered,
wringing her hands so hard that the diamond cut into her flesh.

Fanny could scarcely be called a religious person, but every night of
her life since she could remember, except her bridal night, she had said
the Lord’s Prayer, either with Annie, or Katy, or Paul, and now from
force of habit she knelt by her berth, which reminded her of a cupboard
shelf, and began the familiar words. Her voice was choked with sobs, and
when she reached “Forgive us our trespasses,” she said instead, “Forgive
what I have done, and take Jack’s eyes away, or I shall die.” Once in
her berth, which was as comfortable as a berth on a ship can ever be,
Jack’s eyes ceased to haunt her, and she might have fallen asleep if she
had not heard her husband’s step near the door. “I can’t speak to him
to-night,” she thought, with a shiver, and closing her eyes she feigned
sleep so successfully that when, as he called her name and she did not
answer, he cautiously parted the curtains and looked at her, he believed
her asleep, she lay so still, with her hands folded across her breast.
Jack would have kissed her at the risk of waking her. The Colonel only
thought how fair she was and that her beauty was his own, as he dropped
the curtain and went to his couch under the window, where he was soon
sleeping as soundly as if outside the wind was not rising until it blew
a gale, while the steamer rolled and pitched in a manner well calculated
to terrify one not accustomed to the sea.

For awhile Fanny listened to the roar outside and to the noise overhead
as the sailors hurried to and fro. At last when she could bear it no
longer, she called to her husband, “George, George, I am so frightened.
Are we in danger? Do ships ever tip over?”

“Tip over! No. There is no danger. It is only a little spurt of wind. It
will soon pass. Go to sleep, child,” the Colonel answered drowsily, and
his sonorous breathing soon idled the room again.

Fanny could not sleep, and as the wind increased and the ship rolled
more and more she decided that if she must drown it should be with her
clothing on. She got out of her berth and steadying herself by it
reached up for her dress which she had hung upon a hook and which was
swinging out in straight lines, with everything else which could swing.
Heretofore she had only been afraid. Now, however, she was suddenly
conscious of a new sensation so overmastering that she crept back into
her berth, wondering if she were dying, as the cold, clammy feeling
crept from her toes up to the roots of her hair, which seemed in her
nervous imagination to stand on end. As yet there was no other feeling
in her stomach than one of faintness and chill,—but when she raised her
head the nausea was so severe that the Colonel was roused from his sleep
and came at once to her aid.

“Am I dying?” she asked, and he answered with a laugh, “Dying! No. It’s
only seasickness. You will soon be over it.”

All night the retching and nausea continued, and when the grey dawn came
struggling through the porthole Fanny was as limp and white and still as
if she were dead.

The Colonel had called the doctor and stewardess when his remedies
failed, and they had removed her from the berth to the couch under the
window where she would have more air and light. And there she lay,
motionless, for if she stirred so much as a finger or turned her head
the terrible paroxysm seized and shook her until there was scarcely
strength in her to move. It was the worst case he had ever seen, the
doctor said, as the day wore on and she did not improve. He had said
this a good many times when he knew his patients wished to be
exceptions, but he meant it now, and became greatly interested in the
young bride, who puzzled him somewhat. As the seasickness decreased it
was succeeded by a severe pain in the head, with a burning fever, so
that at times she was delirious, and said things the Colonel would have
given much if she had left unsaid. Jack troubled her, or rather his
eyes, which were always looking at her. Many eyes he must have had, as
they were everywhere, and especially upon the wedding ring and the
solitaire. Here they blinded her if her hand lay outside the sheet. If
she covered it up, she saw them still;—not as distinctly, but saw them
looking at her, sometimes mockingly, but oftener reproachfully and full
of pain.

“Jack, Jack, go away!” she would say imploringly, and once, when the
Colonel was standing by her, she slipped the rings from her finger and
handing them to him said, “His eyes are on them all the time. Take them
away, and perhaps I shan’t see them so often.”

The Colonel took the rings and put them in his vest pocket, with a
feeling that he was beginning to reap in some small measure what he had
sown. It did not take long for his friends to know about the mysterious
Jack whose eyes haunted his wife, and one lady, bolder and more curious
than the others, asked him, “Who is Jack? Her brother?”

“He is not her brother,” was the curt reply, and the gleam in the
Colonel’s eyes warned the lady not to pursue the subject.

“Curse him!” the Colonel said to himself, as he went up on deck and in
the face of a fierce north-easter walked back and forth for half an hour
or more, his hands in his pockets and his head bent down as if to break
the force of the wind which beat so furiously upon him, but which he
didn’t feel at all.

A hurricane would scarcely have moved him, so bitter were his thoughts
and so deeply wounded his pride. He knew the ways of a ship and how the
passengers, shut up within themselves, hailed anything like gossip and
made the most of it, and he knew they were discussing his affairs and
building up theories with regard to the Jack whose eyes sat on his
wife’s pillow,—on the door,—on the window,—and lastly on her wedding
ring, which she had discarded. A few had been in to see her and what
they had not heard the stewardess had told, and every possible
conclusion was drawn with regard to the matter. All this he guessed as
he walked the deck cursing his rival, who, far away, was seeing Fanny’s
face just as she saw his, for this was on Tuesday night, when Jack was
at his worst.

“Curse him, and her, too, for loving a poor country fellow like that in
preference to _me_,” the Colonel said, and the emphasis on the _me_ told
how infinitely superior he though himself to Jack Fullerton and people
like him.

Accustomed all his life to deference and preference on account of his
wealth and family and distinguished appearance, he could not understand
how a man like Jack should be preferred to himself. In love in its
purest, truest sense he did not believe. It was a vealy sensation at its
best, fit only for the very young. Mature people knew better than to
indulge in it. The happiest marriages were marriages of convenience or
advancement, where for value received an equivalent was paid and the
bargain a fair one.

That he had not married before was his own fault. There was scarcely a
young woman of his acquaintance, either in Washington or New York, who
would not have thought twice before refusing Col. Errington, and he knew
it. Had it not been for his sister’s presence in his household he might
perhaps have married earlier, but aside from their little disagreements
she had made him so comfortable that he had never seriously considered
matrimony until little Fanny Hathern stood up so fearlessly and scorned
him to his face with all his troops behind him. He had never forgotten
her, and had always cherished a vague belief that she would some day be
his wife. When at last he made up his mind in earnest, he resolved that
nothing should stand in his way. He never asked himself if he loved her.
She would make a fine centre for his surroundings. She was bright and
spirited and beautiful and he wanted her, and had won her against the
odds of another suitor to whom she was pledged, and her wedding day only
a month in the distance. For Jack and what he might feel he did not care
at all. He was a man and would get over it, and possibly marry the other
twin,—the little brown-eyed woman whom he scarcely remembered, except
that she was small and quiet and gentle and far better suited to Jack
than Fanny with her piquancy and dash. It had been a fair bargain, he
thought; money and position _versus_ youth and beauty. He meant to
fulfill his part and give her everything his wife ought to have. Why
shouldn’t she fulfill her part, too, and be satisfied? Why should she
hanker so after that fellow, calling his name as he heard her call it on
the deck,—talking of him continually in her delirium,—seeing his eyes
everywhere until he himself began to have a creepy feeling and see them,
too. He had been as near loving her as he could love any one when she
kissed him in their stateroom and called him George, and that increased
his anger. Jealousy and mortified pride were torturing him about equally
as he strode on in the face of the wind, which increased more and more,
until a sudden lurch of the ship sent him into the midst of a pile of
chairs and brought his walk to a close.

With what sounded like an oath he struggled to his feet and descended to
the saloon, where a number of his friends were sitting, mostly ladies,
and all discussing the mysterious Jack. He did not hear a word they
said, but he knew at a glance the purport of their conversation, and a
hot, angry flash showed on his face for a moment. Then, on the instant,
he became his olden self,—the easy, courteous gentleman,—and when his
wife’s illness was alluded to, he spoke of her with great concern and
apparent affection.

The world should never know by any act of his of the rage in his heart
when he thought of Jack. Outwardly he would be the most devoted of
husbands, paying Fanny every possible attention. Alone with her, when
the world could not take note;—— Well, he hadn’t made up his mind what
he would do if this nonsense continued. The past could not be helped,
and she was not responsible for the secret she had betrayed to so many,
but in the future it must be different.

When at last he went to his stateroom he found her lying much as she did
that first night when she feigned sleep that he might not speak to her.
She was not feigning now. Her breath was regular and natural, and there
was a faint color in her cheeks which had grown thinner within the last
few days. Her hands were folded on her breast as they had been that
first night and he noticed more than he had ever done before how white
and small they were, and noted, too, with a pang, the absence of the
wedding ring still reposing in his vest pocket. When would she wear it
again? Would she ask for it, or would he have to offer it to her?

“Never! I’ll be —— first,” he said aloud, with so much vehemence that
Fanny stirred in her sleep,—moved her head a little, and with a smile
said, “What did you say, Jack?”

“I am not Jack. I’m your husband,” he answered savagely, and in a moment
Fanny’s eyes opened and looked at him questioningly. Then she said, “Oh,
George, is it you? I dreamed I was at home and somebody was swearing.”

“I know you were dreaming of home,” he replied, which made Fanny’s eyes
open wider and shine with a kind of reddish light, as they often did
when she was surprised and perplexed.

Was he angry, and why? and had she talked in her sleep? She didn’t know,
and she continued to look at him so appealingly, that he felt his wrath
giving way and a sensation of something like pity taking its place.

“You are better,” he said, and sitting down beside her told her whatever
he thought would interest her and that they were not very far from
Queenstown. “I shall cable from there to my sister, who, I suppose, is
at The Elms,” he said.

“What day is it?” Fanny asked, and he replied, “Sunday. We ought to be
at Queenstown this afternoon, but the rough weather has kept us back. We
shall see Ireland to-morrow.”

“Sunday;—yes;” Fanny said, remembering that everything was known in
Lovering by this time, and wondering how Jack took it.

The seasickness and fever were gone. She was only weak from their
effects, but quite herself mentally. She knew that she had dreamed of
home and Jack, and wondered if she had talked of him, but dared not ask.
Lifting up her hand to push her hair from her forehead she noticed the
absence of her rings, and looking at the Colonel with a smile she
extended the ringless hand to him and asked, “Where are they? I seem to
remember something about their worrying me. Did I take them off?”

“Yes; you said there were eyes in them looking at you all the time. They
are here. Do you want them again?” he replied, and held them up before
her.

“Why, yes,” she said. “Of course I want them. How it would look for me
to be passing as your wife with no wedding ring; put it on, please.”

It does not take much to soothe a man if he cares at all for a woman,
and in a way the Colonel did care for Fanny very much, and the touch of
her hand on his and the light which shone in her beautiful eyes fired
the flame again, and he held her hand for a moment before he put the
rings in their place; then, stooping over her, he kissed her on her
forehead.

The next day they reached Queenstown and a cablegram that they were safe
was sent to The Elms. Once he thought to stop at Queenstown and make the
remainder of the journey overland; but Fanny was very comfortable now;
the sea was comparatively calm and they kept on to Liverpool, which they
reached the eleventh day out from New York. He would like to have gone
directly to London, but Fanny was too utterly exhausted to allow of it.
She was almost as helpless as a little child, and a porter carried her
in his arms to the carriage in which she was driven to the North Western
Hotel. Here two or three days were spent until her strength came back
and she could walk across the room without a feeling that the floor was
rising up to meet her. It was Saturday before she was quite equal to the
journey. Then, securing a first class compartment all to himself, the
Colonel started on the second stage of his rather stormy honeymoon.




                              CHAPTER VI.
                         ON THE ROAD TO LONDON.


He was very attentive to Fanny during the rapid journey from Liverpool
to London. Fearful lest she should take cold, as the day was raw and
misty, he wrapped her fur-lined cloak around her,—made her put her feet
upon the hot water jugs,—gave her the whole of one side of the
compartment, himself taking the other, although he detested riding
backwards. Removing the arms of the seats on her side he arranged the
rugs and pillows so she could lie down when she was tired. Then, seating
himself in his corner opposite, he unfolded his newspaper, pretending to
read although he really was for the most of the time furtively watching
his wife and wondering of what she was thinking, and if all the luxury
and comfort with which he tried to surround her were as nothing when
compared to the lover she had given up for him. When they entered the
carriage she had sunk down wearily into the softly cushioned seat,—had
thanked him with a bright smile for his care, and then looked out upon
the people hurrying up and down the platform in quest of places, and
wondering a little who would come in with them and why they didn’t come.
Once the anxious face of a young English girl looked in at the window
and in a relieved voice called out, “Here mam-ma; here are plenty of
seats.” But the door did not yield to her touch. It was locked and the
Colonel’s quiet “Engaged for an invalid,” sent her on down the long line
of carriages destined for the St. Pancras Station in London. The English
girl was followed by a tall, strikingly handsome woman of twenty-eight
or thirty, wrapped in rich furs, and accompanied by a little withered
old man, who was talking French and gesticulating wildly with both
hands. As the lady was the taller of the two, it was she who glanced in
at the window, with the question “_Ya t’il des places ici,—oui, oui_,”
and she pulled at the handle of the door. “_Mon Dieu_,” was her next
exclamation, but whether elicited by the unyielding door and the
Colonel’s “Engaged, madame,” or Fanny’s face, on which her great black
eyes rested for a moment as if fascinated, was uncertain.

She moved on and the little old man waddled after her, while Fanny put
her head from the window to look again at the woman whose face had
struck her as one she had seen before.

It was not possible, though, as she had never known a real French woman,
such as this unquestionably was.

“Why is the door fastened, keeping everybody out?” she asked, and the
Colonel replied, “I don’t care to travel with Tom, Dick and Harry. I
have engaged the whole compartment.”

That one could do this was new to Fanny, and she sank back into her seat
with a feeling of dismay at the prospect of being shut up alone with her
husband for three or four hours. She was beginning to be a little afraid
of him. Not for anything he had done, but for something in the tone of
his voice and the expression of his eyes, which seemed to be looking at
her constantly until they made her almost as nervous as Jack’s had done
when she was ill. When the train left the station and the Colonel
resumed his paper she felt relieved, and began to look with curiosity
and interest upon the lanes and hedges and gardens and houses they were
passing so rapidly, and which, under the wintry sky, had none of the
freshness and greenness she had associated with England. Gradually she
became conscious that, instead of reading, her husband was watching her
over the top of his paper, with something hard and cruel in his eyes
which she could not understand. She knew nothing of what she had said in
her delirium, or how bare she had laid her love and longing for Jack,
and did not dream of the fierce jealousy and hatred of his rival filling
her husband’s mind and making him see _Jack_ written all over her face
just as she had seen his eyes everywhere when the fever was upon her. At
last, tired of the dreary landscape, and more tired of the scrutiny she
could not fathom, she lay down among the cushions and rugs and fell into
a dreamless sleep from which she did not fully rouse until they were
entering the suburbs of London. Once, when they were stopping at a large
town she was conscious that her husband said “Engaged” to some one, and
of hearing the hum of disappointed voices outside. Again, she knew that
a rug was thrown over her, and a window shade adjusted so as to shield
her from any cold air which might find its way to her. He was certainly
kind and she felt grateful for it, and when at last she was fully awake
and sitting up, she gave him a smile so bright and beaming that he felt
his pulse quicken, and the blue demons which had taken possession of him
were less blue and tantalizing.

“I have had a splendid sleep. Where are we now?” she said, pushing the
curtain away from the window which was covered with dirty splashes of
rain.

“In London,” he replied, and Fanny became alert and interested in a
moment.

To see London had been the dream of her life and one she had never
expected to be realized. Now, she was here, and the outlook was dreary
enough, with the yellow fog hanging low over the city,—the gas jets
dimly shining through it,—the pools of water in the streets,—and the
dirty streams mixed with coal dust and cinders falling from the roofs of
the houses. All her old homesickness came back, and she felt utterly
desolate and as if she wanted to be near someone. Taking her seat by her
husband and leaning her head on his shoulder she said, “Oh, George, this
is dreadful. London is ten times worse than New York ever thought of
being.”

“It is a deuced nasty day, but it will not always be foggy,” he replied,
as he busied himself with getting his bags and bundles together.

“No, it will not always be foggy, nor shall I always feel as I do now,”
Fanny thought, and the natural hopefulness of her nature began to assert
itself.

She was quite cheerful by the time the train ran into the St. Pancras
Station and began to unload its passengers.

As she alighted from the carriage she ran against and nearly knocked
down the little Frenchman, who was evidently trying to soothe and quiet
his wife, if she were his wife. Her back was towards Fanny, who saw only
the outline of her figure, and the coils of yellow hair under her hat.
She was talking loudly and evidently greatly enraged, but as she spoke
in French Fanny could not understand her. There was no more doubt that
she was a virago than there was that the little man was the most patient
and henpecked husband in the world. In response to Fanny’s, “I beg your
pardon, sir,” as she ran against him, he took off his hat and said in
broken English, “I you ask pardon, too, mademoiselle, to be so in your
way.”

Then turning towards the lady, “Madame quite—_fache_; madame, you
see,—_voiture_, so full _des Americaines, et des enfants_.”

At the sound of his voice, madame turned and Fanny met again the great
black, flashing eyes, with dark rings under them and a dusky look
generally, such as brush and pencil and belladonna give to eyes where
art has been at work. They were, however, quickly withdrawn, as if the
lady were ashamed that she had been heard, and while Fanny, puzzled
again, was trying to think if she could ever have seen those eyes
before, she hurried away with the little man following her.

“Were they quarreling?” Fanny asked, and the Colonel, who understood
French perfectly, replied, “I think she was angry because the
compartment she was in was full of children and Americans, whom she
evidently does not like.”

“Oh,” Fanny said, “you ought to have let her in with us. She interests
me somehow, and the old gentleman is lovely. I reckon it is good pious
work to live with Madame. I think he crossed himself once when she was
blowing him. See, there they are now,” and she pointed to the couple
entering a hansom at no great distance from them.

The lady was giving directions to the driver, who bowed assent, closed
the little trap door and drove away. Calling another hansom the Colonel
bade the man take them to Morley’s Hotel. It is a long way from St.
Pancras to Morley’s, and before the hotel was reached all the street
lamps were lighted, looking like so many tapers in the thick fog which
had settled everywhere and was almost as penetrating as rain. Damp to
her skin, tired and cold and homesick, Fanny was driven along the gloomy
streets, which seemed interminable.

“We shall soon be there now,” the Colonel said, as he saw how she
drooped, and felt her leaning against him.

A few moments later they turned into Trafalgar Square and she heard the
splash of the fountains and saw dimly the outlines of the huge lions
guarding the place.

“Here we are,” the Colonel said, as they drew up before the hotel, from
the windows of which cheerful lights were gleaming, while two or three
lackeys in uniform came hurrying out to meet them.




                 CHAPTER VII.—AUTHOR’S STORY CONTINUED.
                              AT MORLEY’S.


The Colonel had telegraphed for a suite of rooms on the second floor
looking out upon the Square, and he found them ready for him. A cheerful
fire in the salon, another in the bedroom, with every candle lighted in
the chandelier and in the candelabra upon the mantle. Divesting herself
quickly of her wet wrappings Fanny took an easy chair before the fire,
towards which she held her cold hands, while she said, “This is
delightful; the rooms are lovely, and I am so glad to be here.”

For a time she was glad. Jack and the old life had nothing to offer like
this luxurious apartment, with the warmth and the light, and a little
later on the waiter asking when Madame would have dinner served.

“Now,—at once,” the Colonel answered for her, saying, when the man had
gone, “We dine in here. I have no fancy for _table d’hôtes_ with all the
canaille and bourgeois round me. One can’t be too careful in Europe as
to his acquaintances.”

Fanny, who was very social in her nature and liked to see people,
preferred, as a rule, to mingle with them, but to-night she was so tired
that she was glad to dine by themselves, and she felt a thrill of
satisfaction that she was able to do so without counting the cost. Once,
when quite a young girl, she had gone to the Spotswood in Richmond, with
her father, who was not feeling well and to whom she had suggested that
he have his dinner in his room.

“No, daughter; there would be an extra charge and I cannot afford it,”
he had said.

She was very poor then;—she was rich now, and need not mind expense. It
was a good thing to be rich, and she felt glad and content as she
nestled down in the easy chair and felt its soft folds about her and the
glow of the fire on her face and watched the two waiters laying the
table for dinner, with cut glass and silver and the finest of linen, and
a vase of flowers in the centre.

“If father were only here to share it with me,” she thought, recalling
the many straits to which poverty had reduced them. “If he could share
it with me,—or Annie,—or Katy,—or—Jack!”

The last name sent her blood rushing so hotly through her veins that she
moved away from the fire as if it scorched her. She did not mean to be
disloyal to her husband, and it did not occur to her that she was as she
began to wonder how she should feel if it were Jack whom she heard
stepping around so briskly in the dressing-room, making himself ready
for dinner. She could see just how he would look lounging easily up to
her with a smile on his face and in his laughing eyes which had never
rested upon her except with love and tenderness. It was not Jack, but a
tall, stern, dignified man, who emerged from the dressing-room just as
the soup was put upon the table, and led her to her seat. The dinner was
excellent and well served, and Fanny, who was hungry for the first time
since her marriage, enjoyed it with a keen relish of a healthy appetite.
She was young and hopeful and elastic in her temperament, and as her
spirits rose she laughed and joked until her face, which had lost
something of its freshness during her illness, grew bright and
sparkling, and her husband thought with pride how beautiful she was and
almost forgave her for the _eyes_ which had troubled her so on
shipboard. They had gone through all the courses and the black coffee
had been brought in. This the Colonel took by the fire, while Fanny
still sat at the table sipping hers and occasionally tasting a Hamburg
grape. The waiter had just gone out when there was a knock at the door
and a servant entered bringing a cablegram upon a silver salver. It came
several days ago, he said, and the clerk at the office had forgotten to
give it to the gentleman when he registered.

Naturally the Colonel put out his hand to take it when the waiter said
quietly, “If you please, it is for the lady.”

“For me!” Fanny exclaimed in surprise. “Who can have telegraphed to me?”

Taking the message in her hand she read the address aloud:—“Mrs. Geo. W.
Errington, Morley’s Hotel, London, Eng.”

It was the first time she had seen her new name in writing, and it gave
her a peculiar sensation as she studied it for a moment.

“It’s a cablegram from home and may have bad news. Open it,” the Colonel
said, and instantly Fanny’s fingers were tearing at the envelope and she
was reading the message: “The Elms, Thanksgiving morning. To Mrs. G. W.
Errington. Mr. Fullerton is here and very ill with brain fever. Recovery
doubtful. C. Errington.”

For a moment everything in the room swam before Fanny’s eyes, but she
neither spoke nor stirred until the Colonel, alarmed at the whiteness of
her face, came to her side and asked “What is it?” She gave him the
cablegram which he read aloud and then said, “That’s bad. A fever is
likely to go hard with a man of Mr. Fullerton’s temperament.”

The next moment he repented his words, calling himself a brute, partly
for his thoughtlessness and more for the vindictive feeling which had
prompted it.

“Oh, Jack! I have killed you,” Fanny cried, stretching out her hands,
and then lying back in her chair in a dead faint, the first she had ever
had in her life.

It was one thing to give Jack up voluntarily, and know that somewhere in
the world he was still alive, remembering and loving her, as she
believed he would, and another thing to think of him as dead,—gone out
of her life forever,—murdered by her. That was the way she put it, and
murderess was the word in her mind when she cried out, “Oh, Jack, I have
killed you.” She had no doubt as to the cause of his illness. He had
received her letter, enclosed in Annie’s, and been stricken down at once
in the old home where he had expected to make her his wife and where
both Miss Errington and Katy were now. When Thanksgiving came on the
_Celtic_ she was too ill to know or care what day it was, and she had
not thought of it since. But she remembered now all the bright
anticipations of that day of which both Annie and Jack had written to
her,—the dinner they were to have and for which Phyllis was making so
great preparations, and after dinner the walk or drive to “Our house on
The Plateau.” This last was the burden of Jack’s letter to her, and now
she was another man’s wife, and Jack was dying, or dead. All her work,
and she was as surely a murderess as if with her hand she had killed
him. It takes some time to tell all this, but it scarcely took Fanny a
second to think it, so rapid were her thoughts and conclusions before
she became unconscious. The Colonel had seen death in many phases on the
battlefield, but no face had ever affected him like this, which was so
still and white with a grieved expression around the mouth pitiful to
see. He was glad he was alone with her, and when he heard the servant
coming to clear the table he called to him to wait until he got Madame
to her room, as she was ill. Taking her in his arms he carried her to
their sleeping-room, loosened her dress, laid her upon the bed, and then
applied every restorative which came to his mind, water, cologne,
camphor, bay rum and ammonia, with no effect whatever for a time, and he
began to wonder if it were possible for her to die upon his hands. At
last, however, after what seemed to him an interminable length of time,
she recovered and asked in some surprise what had happened, and why her
hair and dress were so wet and why she was on the bed.

“You had a cablegram and fainted,” the Colonel explained, and then it
came to her.

“Yes, I know,” she said, with a sob. “Jack is dead, and I killed him.”

“Humbug!” the Colonel answered, sternly. “He is not dead. If he were my
sister would have cabled again. This message was sent several days ago.
Brain fever runs its course quickly. He is better by this time. Don’t
make another scene. Restrain yourself. I am not fond of high tragedy,
especially when the hero is another man. I have had enough of it.”

Fanny had never heard him speak like this, and her heart stood still a
moment and her breath came in short gasps, as she watched him putting
the bottles of camphor and cologne and bay rum in their places and saw
how pale he was and how his hands trembled. Something like pity for him
was in her heart, but a stronger feeling overmastered it. She must know
if Jack were living.

“George,” she said, her voice compelling him to go to her against his
will. “George,” she continued, looking up at him with eyes which held
his, much as he wished to withdraw them, “I am sorry for it all, but I
must know if Jack is alive, and you must cable to your sister to-night,
if possible,—to-morrow, sure.”

Mentally the Colonel swore he wouldn’t, but Fanny’s face conquered, and
the message “How is Jack?” which his sister received was sent by him
with Fanny’s name appended. The next two days were not very merry ones
to either the Colonel or Fanny. _She_ sat silent and shivered by the
fire, counting the hours as they went by, and every time there was a
knock at the door starting up in hopes that the word which meant life or
death had come. _He_ spent many hours in the smoking and reading room
trying to divert his mind from what weighed upon him almost as heavily
as it did upon Fanny. Again, he took long walks through the damp and
fog, cursing his folly in marrying a girl who loved another as he now
knew Fanny loved Jack, and trying to arrange his future. She was his
wife. Nothing could undo that, and he did not know that he wanted it
undone. He could still be very proud of her, if she would behave herself
and not go pining and puling after another man, and this she should do.
He was resolved upon that. Whether Jack lived or died she was to seem to
forget him and be loyal to himself outwardly, whatever she might feel.
She had married him for money. She should have it in full measure, and
return to him an equivalent in obedience to his will. No one had ever
thwarted that with impunity, and his wife should not be the first to do
it. It seemed to him he had walked over nearly half of London when he
came to this conclusion and began to feel that he was tired. Hailing a
hansom he was driven to the hotel where he found his sister’s second
cablegram, which he took at once to his wife. She was sitting just as he
had left her hours before, wrapped in a shawl before the fire, with a
hopeless look upon her face, which made him angry, and also sorry for
her as he handed her the envelope and watched her as she tore it open
and read, “He is better.”

He had never dreamed that a face could change as hers did in an instant.

“George, George,” she exclaimed. “He is better; he will live; and I am
not a murderess. I am so glad; so glad.”

She was not chilly now. The shawl was thrown aside, and it was her own
suggestion that they should dine below with the other guests rather than
in their private salon as they had done heretofore.

“Now that I do not feel the mark of Cain on my forehead I want to see
people. I have been mewed up here long enough,” she said; and the
Colonel assented, although in his present state of mind he cared little
where he took his dinner.

He asked for a table apart by himself and to it he conducted his wife,
whose grace and beauty could not fail to attract attention, and who
talked with him as airily as if there were no sore spot in her heart
which would never quite cease to throb with a dull pain when memory’s
fingers touched it. At some little distance from them, at a table by
themselves, sat the Frenchman and his wife, the little man bowing and
throwing out his hand very politely to Fanny, while saying something to
the lady whose back was to them, and who never moved from her rather
stiff position. She was elaborately and elegantly attired, evidently for
the opera. Her dress, V-shaped before and behind, showed a part of her
white, plump neck, on which a few short golden curls were falling from
the coil arranged above them.

“Look, George; there’s the little old man and his wife; I wonder who
they are,” Fanny said, and the Colonel replied, “They are registered
‘Monsieur and Madame Felix, Paris.’ The clerk says they come here often
and that he is very rich. I imagine she is a terror, as I overheard her
giving him Hail Columbia for something. I couldn’t tell what, but
fancied it was about _you_, and that he either wanted her to call at our
door and inquire, or send you some flowers. He remembered seeing you at
the station and had taken the great liberty, he called it, to ask for
you, and seemed concerned when I told him that you were not well and
were keeping your room. She affects a great deal of hauteur and reserve,
but is a magnificent looking woman,—very Frenchy, with her dark eyes and
yellow hair. I thought at first it might be a wig, but it isn’t; it is
all her own, growing on her head. I had a glimpse of her in the hall one
day, hurrying to her room, in a crimson silk dressing-gown, with all
that hair hanging down her back below her waist. She knew I saw her and
actually smiled upon me, showing a set of very white, even teeth and a
pair of brilliant eyes.”

Cold and passionless as the Colonel seemed he never saw a beautiful
woman that he did not at once take in every point of her beauty from her
head to her feet, and as the French lady, who had excited Fanny’s
curiosity, was beautiful, or certainly very attractive, he waxed so
eloquent over her that some women might have been jealous. But Fanny
scarcely heard him. She was thinking of the cablegram which had relieved
her anxiety for Jack, and of the long letter she meant to write to Annie
that night. The Colonel was going to the opera and had asked her to
accompany him, but she did not feel quite strong enough. So he left her
alone and she began her letter, telling of her fearful seasickness and
homesickness, and her remorse and pain when she received the news that
Jack was dangerously ill; struck down, she was sure, by her act.

“If he had died I should never have known another moment’s peace of
mind, for I should have known I was the cause of his death,” she wrote.
“But, thank God he is better, and there has been a little song of joy in
my heart ever since I heard it. The world could never be the same to me
with Jack gone from it.”

As she began to feel tired she did not finish the letter, but left it
open on the writing desk, intending to finish it in the morning. She did
not hear her husband when he came in, nor knew that her letter had
caught his eye at once, with Jack’s name occurring so often on the page
open in view that he had stopped and unconsciously at first read a few
lines. Ordinarily he would have held another’s letter sacred, but now
with his anger and jealousy aroused he took up this and read it with
wrath and disgust. The next morning when Fanny awoke she found her
husband up and dressed and standing by the bedside looking at her.
Opening her eyes drowsily, and smiling up at him, she said, “Have I
overslept? What time is it, please?”

He did not answer her, but instead held up her letter which he had read
again with more bitterness than on the previous night.

“Fanny,” he began, and his voice was full of concentrated anger and
determination, “this nonsense must be stopped. I have had enough of it.
You are my wife. I cannot control your thoughts, but I can your actions,
and I will not have you writing home such sentimental trash as this
about seasickness and homesickness, as if you were the most wretched
woman in the world. If you were so fond of Jack, why under Heavens did
you take _me_,—and having taken me why do you prove faithless to your
marriage vows by clinging so to _him_. This letter will _not_ go for my
sister or your adorable Jack to exult over, saying we are both reaping
our just deserts.”

He tore the letter in shreds, which he threw into the fire. For a moment
Fanny was speechless, then all her spirit and temper rose and her eyes
were like two volcanoes, emitting spits of flame, as she said, “Do you
call yourself a gentleman, and is it usual for gentlemen to read their
wives’ letters as you have read mine?”

The taunt stung him, but he would not apologize, although he winced
under the blaze of her eyes and the lash of her tongue. For a moment he
let her have her own way and say what she chose; then buckled on his
armor, which she could no more resist than she could strike her head
against a wall hoping to move it. The fire in her black eyes was more
than matched by the steely hardness of his, as he met her impetuous
reproaches with words spoken very slowly and very low, but which left
her vanquished and him master of the field and of her. It was a terrible
battle, southern fire against northern coolness, and the latter
conquered. Henceforth Fanny would go when he told her to go, come when
he told her to come, do what he bade her do.

“But thank God I can _think_ what I please and of whom I please, and you
cannot help yourself,” was her last defiant fling, as she dressed
herself hurriedly and sat down to the breakfast which was served in
their parlor and had waited some time while the matrimonial difference
was settled.

Hot as was Fanny’s temper there was nothing sullen or vindictive in her
nature, while the Colonel prided himself upon never striking a
superfluous blow after the nail was driven in. If he was fierce in war
he could be generous in peace, and if the waiter who served them that
morning had been questioned upon the subject, he would have reported
them as examples of conjugal harmony and affection. Madame, he might
have said, was rather quiet, with a bright red spot on either cheek,
while _Milor_ was very attentive to her, urging her to eat, and planning
where he was to take her that day. First, shopping. He had met several
friends the night before, both English and American, all of whom were
coming to call. He had an invitation to dinner the next day but one at
the house of an English lady, who had spent a part of a winter in
Washington and been entertained by him and his sister. She had just
heard he was in London and hoped he would accept her invitation, if it
were rather late to give it. He also had tickets to hear Patti, and was
to occupy a box with Lady _Hyer_, an American, who had married an earl.
This necessitated a suitable outfit, and all the morning was spent at
Marshall & Snelgrove’s and Peter Robinson’s, deep in the mysteries of
silks and velvets and laces, as shown and recommended by the saleswoman
and pronounced upon by the Colonel, who proved a connoisseur in matters
of dress, and without really seeming to do so decided on every purchased
article. Surrounded by so much elegance and receiving so much attention
and deference, Fanny’s spirits rose. The scene of the morning, though
rankling a little, was partially forgotten in the glamour of the dinner
and evening dresses which were finally decided upon and were very
becoming to her. The corsage of both was high, notwithstanding that the
saleswoman had pleaded for something different.

“Madam’s neck was so white and smooth that it was a pity to cover it
even with lace,” she said, while Fanny’s choice was the same as hers,
but that did not matter. The Colonel knew her neck was smooth and fair,
but it was for him only. No other man should look upon it, and he vetoed
the low necks, but yielded to the short sleeves, which would only leave
bare her arms, over which the saleswoman went into ecstasies.

All that evening and a part of the next day boxes of dry goods of
various kinds kept coming to the Colonel’s apartments, which looked like
some gay bazaar with Fanny in the midst, excited and seemingly happy and
oblivious of all that had gone before, except occasionally when a sigh,
or a sudden pressure of her hand upon her heart told that she remembered
and was exercising her right to think her own thoughts untrammeled by
anyone. The Colonel was very suave and gracious, enjoying her enthusiasm
and smiling upon her as upon a wayward but conquered child. On the night
of the dinner party, as she stood before him, radiant and lovely, and
asked what he thought of her, he answered, “I think you will be the most
beautiful woman there, after I have made a few additions to your toilet.
Look here,” and pulling her down beside him, he laid in her lap a pair
of exquisite diamond earrings, the stones large and white and clear, and
showing their value by their brilliancy and depth. He fastened them in
her ears himself, and then clasped around her wrists a pair of superb
bracelets, scarcely less expensive than the diamonds.

“Oh, George,” she said, as she stood up and saw in the mirror the flash
of the precious stones which enhanced her beauty, “Oh, George, you are
kind, and I thank you so much, and I mean to be good.”

The last words were spoken with a half sob as she put her arms around
his neck. She didn’t kiss him. The memory of the bitter words he had
said to her was too fresh in her mind for that. But she was grateful and
pleased, and as the Colonel had predicted, she was by far the most
beautiful woman in Mrs. Harcourt’s drawing room and received the most
attention. There was nothing like _gaucherie_ in Fanny’s manner. She
conformed readily to the atmosphere around her, and the English, usually
so critical where Americans are concerned, forgot to criticise and found
her wholly charming and let her know they did. Never in her life had she
been so flattered and admired, and never had she been more sparkling and
said brighter, wittier things in a ladylike way than now. She had found
her place in society at last; the one she had dreamed of but never
thought to attain, and for the time she was happy, drinking the brimming
cup, and the past was blotted out. She had often said to herself, “It is
good to be rich and somebody,” and she said it now with great unction as
the people crowded around her and vied with each other in paying her
homage. Among them was Lady Hyer, who, proud of her countrywoman,
invited her with her husband to spend the Christmas holidays at her
house in Surrey, where she was to entertain a large party.

“Oh, I should like it so much, if my husband thinks best,” Fanny said,
her eyes dancing with delight as she anticipated the pleasures of a
visit in an English country house where she knew she would be the queen.

Yes, it was good to be rich and somebody, and as the Colonel, although
non-committal on the subject, seemed to favor the plan, she felt sure
that she should go, and began to think of other dresses which would be
necessary if a week were spent at Grey Gables, Lady Hyer’s country seat.
She might perhaps have gone there if it had not been for the undue
attentions of Tom Hyer, Lord Hyer’s younger brother, who made no attempt
to conceal his admiration, and who, when the gentlemen were left alone
with their cigars, urged the Colonel to accept his sister-in-law’s
invitation.

“You’ll meet no end of swell people there and in the neighborhood,” he
said. “Cream of society, and madame will be in the swim at once, don’t
you know: The Prince occasionally visits at some of the houses, and, by
Jove, I heard he was coming this winter. If so, Lou, that’s Lady Hyer,
will nab him if she can; and let him once see madame, her success is
sure, don’t you know.”

“Yes, I know,” the Colonel replied, bowing stiffly and longing to thrash
the cad who thought that the notice of the Prince could add to his
wife’s reputation.

On the contrary it would detract from it, and he wanted to tell him so.
But the shallow young man would not have understood him, if he had. He
had finished his cigar and joined the ladies, and when the Colonel
returned to the drawing room he found him seated by Fanny and filling
her ears with the gay times she would have at Grey Gables, where he
hoped to meet her again. But the festivities of Grey Gables and its
neighborhood, with the Prince of Wales as a possible central figure,
were not for Fanny, and when she asked her husband why he declined the
invitation, he answered curtly, “Because I choose to do so.”

Two days after the dinner party Fanny wrote another letter to her sister
very different from the first. There was no regret in it for what she
had done,—no mention of homesickness, or Jack; nothing, in short, that
the most jealous and exacting husband could not read. She offered it to
the Colonel when it was finished, but he declined, saying in much the
same tone a father might adopt towards a child who had been punished for
some misdemeanor, “I think I can trust you now that you know what my
wishes are. I will direct it for you, if you like.”

Fanny handed him the envelope, and while he was addressing it added the
few words which embodied so much love and longing for news from home and
Jack and told Miss Errington that the bending process had begun as she
had predicted it would begin. There were one or two more dinners with
lunches and calls and drives, and then the Colonel began to talk of the
continent and Paris. There he intended finding a maid for Fanny and a
valet for himself. Both were necessary adjuncts and would add to his
importance, he thought. To Fanny the idea of a maid was very pleasing,
but she preferred one who spoke her own language as well as French.

“If I could only find Julina Smith, I should like it,” she said, “and I
think she would be glad to see me. I suppose, though, she is married by
this time, or is too fine a person to be a maid. But she might know of
some one who would be trusty, which is a great thing to be considered.
Her aunt, whose name was Du Bois, kept a French pension, and Julina
lived with her. Perhaps Madame Felix might know the place, as she lives
in Paris. I wish I dared ask her. I know she is here yet, but she avoids
me as if I were the plague.”

For answer to this the Colonel laughed derisively at the idea of
consulting Madame Felix with regard to a _pension_. There were ways of
finding Du Bois and Julina, too, if necessary, he said, without
interviewing Madame, who never heard of either. He, too, knew that she
was still in the hotel, although he seldom saw her. The little old man
was ill and she took her meals in her room with him. Occasionally,
however, the Colonel came upon her walking up and down the hall as if
for exercise. At such times she always gave him a nod of recognition,
with a lighting up of her eyes which interested him more than he cared
to confess. She was very aristocratic in her feelings and very exclusive
he was sure, and this did not at all detract from his desire to know
her. Meeting her in the hall the day after his conversation with Fanny
he lifted his hat a little more deferentially than usual, and begging
her pardon for the liberty, ventured to inquire for her husband who he
had heard was ill.

Instantly Madame’s fine eyes became humid, and her voice full of pathos,
as she replied that Monsieur, although better, was still too ill to
continue their journey to Paris where she so desired to be, or rather to
Passy, where they had a chateau full of servants waiting impatiently for
them.

The Colonel was naturally very much concerned about Monsieur and very
sorry for Madame, who was most artistically dressed and looked very
handsome as she stood in the shadow with her back to the light. The
Colonel knew that she was artificial and Frenchy through and through,
but she attracted him as she did every man, and he went on to speak of
the weather and Paris, where he was soon going, and then he rather
awkwardly dragged in Julina Smith and the Du Bois Pension, which his
wife was anxious to find. It was hardly probable, but just possible that
Madame, who knew Paris so well, might have heard of the Du Bois Pension
and could direct him to it. Not that he expected to stop there, or at
any other pension. He was going to the Grand, he hastened to say, as
even in the shadow he saw the light kindling in Madame’s eyes and
mistook its meaning. His wife was very anxious to get on the track of
Julina Smith, who had once lived in her family, and might be of some
service to her in selecting a maid.

For an instant Madame Felix was silent; then, with an outward gesture of
her hand, as if thrusting from her something obnoxious, she said in a
hard, sarcastic tone, “Monsieur the Colonel does me great honor to
enquire of me for the Du Bois Pension and Julina Smith, but I know
neither one nor the other, I never kept an intelligence office. Good
morning, Monsieur.”

With a haughty shrug of her shoulders she swept down the hall, leaving
the Colonel discomfitted and abashed, and a good deal ashamed of
himself. What should a superb creature like Madame Felix know of Du Bois
and Julina Smith, and what a fool he had been to speak of them to her
and incur her contempt. He did not tell Fanny of his adventure, which he
knew was prompted not so much by a desire to learn of Julina Smith’s
whereabouts as to talk with Madame, who had rebuffed him as he deserved.
The little old man, as Fanny always called Monsieur, must have recovered
strength rapidly, for the next morning, when the Colonel went to the
office he found him sitting there wrapped in furs and shawls, waiting
for the carriage which was to take him to the Victoria Station. Putting
out his wrinkled, withered hand, he bade him good morning cheerily. He
was feeling better, he said, and as Madame had suddenly taken it into
her head to go home, they were going, as far as Paris at least. He had
an incurable and painful disease, and should probably never see England
or Monsieur again, he said; but he spoke very cheerfully, as if the next
world would be quite as pleasant as he had found this. Then he inquired
for Fanny and sent his best compliments to her.

“She has a bonny face, which interests me,” he said. “She has smiled
pleasantly upon me. I like her. I thank her. Tell her so. If I live, and
you stay long in Paris, come to the Hotel Felix in Passy. _Au revoir_,
Monsieur. Here is Madame.”

She came bustling in, muffled to her chin in her wraps and followed by
her maid and her husband’s valet, who took possession of his master and
almost carried him to the carriage outside. Madame’s adieus were
politely made, but she did not second her husband’s invitation to Passy,
or inquire for Fanny. She had not forgiven him for Du Bois and Julina
Smith, but her hauteur relaxed a little when he conducted her to the
carriage and stood with uncovered head as it drove away. Three days
later he followed in the same direction, and for a time fades from our
canvas and is lost sight of in the mazes of Continental travel.




                CHAPTER VIII.—AUTHOR’S STORY CONTINUED.
                          CHANGES IN LOVERING.


Two years had passed since Annie sat with Jack in “our room” at The
Plateau and read the letter which came so near wrecking his life, and
now it was the day before Thanksgiving and she was alone in the great
silent house. Katy, Paul and Jack were all gone, and only the memory of
what had been was left to keep her company. It was nearly six months
since Katy left for Europe with Miss Errington, who had had the young
girl with her much of the time since Fanny’s marriage and had given her
the best musical instruction in Washington. Miss Errington, who had no
particular prejudice against the stage, and who believed that a pure
good woman could be as good and pure there as elsewhere, had not at
first discouraged Katy’s leaning towards it. This was before she knew
her well and understood how simple-hearted and innocent and trustful she
was; believing everyone to be what he seemed, and how she recoiled from
every thing like deception or sham or unpleasant familiarity. Such a
girl was not fitted for the stage, where she must at times come in
contact with much that would shock her refined and sensitive nature. And
when Miss Errington came to understand this she changed her tactics and
very quietly threw her influence the other way. But the seed had been
sown and Katy never listened to a prima donna that she did not feel a
desire to stand in her place and see what she could do towards moving
the crowd as Nilsson and others moved it. For the theatre and its plays
she did not care. The opera was her ambition, and she believed she could
fill the largest house in the world and scarcely feel the effort.
Several times she had sung at receptions, and once in public with other
amateurs for some charitable object, and as she heard the bursts of
applause which greeted her, and received the quantities of flowers
thrown at her feet, she thought, “If this is what it is to be a public
singer it must be delightful.” Then she remembered Carl’s words, “I
would rather see you dead than on the stage.”

Fan had said the same, but her saying was not quite like Carl’s. “And
yet he is nothing to me that I should care for his opinion,” she
thought, knowing the while that she did care, and that the most
thunderous applause that ever shook the Grand Opera House in Paris, or
Berlin, or Naples, would be nothing to her if Carl’s approval were
withheld. She had met him once or twice during her winter in Washington,
and his attentions had been so loverlike that Miss Errington had said to
her, “Carl Haverleigh will propose to you if he has a chance.”

“I shall not give it to him; for if I did and accepted him he would
forget me in a month,” was Katy’s answer.

She still remembered the rambles in the woods and the talks beneath the
pines in the hillside cemetery, at home, when he had looked and acted
love, if he had not spoken it, and she remembered, too, his words to
Annie, accidentally overheard, “If any girl thinks my attentions to her
more than those of a friend it is because she does not understand me.”

She did understand him, she thought, and as she had treated him on
Thanksgiving day at the Elms, when he had proposed sending for the
clergyman and having a wedding after all, so she treated him
now,—pleasantly, familiarly, but never giving him an opportunity of
being alone with her. He came to New York to see her off, when with Miss
Errington and Norah, who accompanied them as maid, she started for
Europe. Owing to some misapprehension with regard to the sailing of the
steamer he only reached it in time to see her for a few moments, and
that with a crowd of people surging around them. Just at the last, when
the command for “all ashore who are going ashore” was given, he said, “I
hear you are to study music in Berlin, and with Marchesi in Paris. Is
that so?”

“Possibly,” she replied, and he continued: “Have you still career on the
brain?”

Something in his tone irritated her, and she answered promptly, “Yes.”

“Then, good-bye,” he said, and taking her hand he wrung it hard and left
her.

There were hundreds of people upon the wharf and hundreds upon the ship
as it moved away, but Carl saw only one,—a tall, slender girl, in a
sailor hat with a blue veil twisted around it, who waved to him until
the boat swung out into the river and she was lost to view. Annie’s
good-bye had been said at home, where she was left alone with Paul and
Jack.

Over the latter a change was gradually coming. It is often the case that
when God takes one blessing from us he gives us another in its place,
and this was verified with Jack. He had lost Fanny, and the loss for a
time crushed him bodily and mentally, blotting all the sunshine of his
life and leaving him without hope or courage or faith in anything. Then
reaction came with renewed health and vigor, and he woke to the fact
that God was not the cruel master he had thought him when his hour was
at its worst. There was still something left to live for. Old interests
began to come back—in the people around him and in his business. The
latter was prospering greatly. Stocks in which he had invested were
rising in value. Lands which he had thrown upon the market with little
hope of sale were in demand, as were also his services as agent for a
large commercial house which paid him double the salary he had before
received. This necessarily took him a great deal from Lovering, which he
still called his home, although he had rooms in Richmond and St. Louis,
where a part of his time was spent. The house on The Plateau remained
unsold and closed,—not for lack of purchasers, as several offers had
been made him for it, but he declined them all. “Some time, perhaps, I
shall sell it, but not now. I am not ready to part with it yet,” he
would say, and clung to it with a persistency which surprised his
friends, and none more so than Annie. To her it seemed like a tomb, with
its barred doors and closed shutters and air of loneliness around it.
She still kept the keys, and every week or two went up and opened it to
let in the air and see that all was safe. Everything was there as it had
been two years ago, except the piano, which Miss Errington had insisted
upon having returned. The chair in which Fanny was to sit and watch for
Jack stood in the bay window with the table and the work-box upon it.
The medallion, so like Fanny as a child, still smiled on Annie whenever
she entered the room. Every time Jack came to town, whether for a longer
or shorter stay, he went to The Plateau, sometimes staying hours and
sometimes only minutes, as the fancy took him. What he thought or felt
as he sat or walked through the rooms, where so many hopes had been born
and died, no one ever knew, for he gave no sign except that his face,
when he left the place, was sad, as our faces are when we come from the
graves of our dead. But this was wearing away. His step was growing more
elastic, his voice more cheery, and his whole manner more like himself.
“He is getting over it,” people said, and were glad and rejoiced with
him in his recovered spirits and increasing prosperity. His home proper
in Lovering was now at the hotel, where his room was fitted up with some
of his mother’s furniture, but he spent most of his time at The Elms
with Annie. He did not call her Annie-mother now, or often call her
anything, or talk as much to her as he used to do. And she was content
to sit with him in silence, satisfied to have him with her and glad that
he was in a more healthful state of mind. Fanny’s name was never
mentioned by him, or to him by any one, and, for all he knew, she might
have been dead and buried.

The last Annie heard from her she was in Paris with her husband, who was
suffering from rheumatism and malaria, contracted either in Rome or on
the Riviera, and which was so severe as to confine him to his room and
chair. In her last letter, written in October, Fanny had said, “We are
coming home as soon as George can make up his mind to bear the journey
from Paris to Havre.” After this Annie knew nothing more of her except
the little she heard from Paul, who had been in Paris with Carl three
months or more. The physician in Richmond, to whom he had been taken by
Annie, had made light of his lameness, saying it would wear off in time.
But it did not wear off, and after Katy’s departure it increased so
rapidly that Annie felt constrained to write the truth to Carl and ask
what she was to do. As if anxious to make amends for any former neglect
or forgetfulness, Carl had written very often to Paul since his last
visit to The Elms, and had sent him many packages, containing sometimes
money, sometimes books and toys, or whatever else he thought would
please him. And now, on the receipt of Annie’s letter, he came at once
full of concern, which deepened when he saw the child’s worn face and
the slight limp he could not conceal. There was a rapid journey to
Philadelphia, another to New York, and a third to Boston, with
consultations in each city with the best surgeons and with the same
verdict,—hip disease in its incipient stage. Each one consulted was sure
he could effect a cure, and each also admitted that probably better
medical aid could be had in Paris than elsewhere.

“Then to Paris we will go,” Carl said to Annie on his return to The
Elms; “and you will go with us.”

But Annie shook her head. She had a mortal terror of the sea which she
could not overcome. To save Paul’s life she would cross it, but hardly
otherwise. Fanny was in Paris; Katy was somewhere in Europe with Miss
Errington and Norah, and would undoubtedly go to Paris if necessary.
“With Fanny and Katy both there you will not need me, and somebody must
stay and keep the home fire burning for the rest to come back to when
they are tired of wandering,” she said, conscious as she said it of
another reason of which she could not speak.

Aside from her dread of the long journey and her terror of the sea was a
growing feeling that she could not leave Jack. No word of love for her
had ever passed his lips, but something told her that over the grave in
his heart new hopes were springing, the tendrils of which were reaching
towards herself. When he last started on his journey west, which was to
last for a longer time than usual, he had thrown his arm across her
shoulders as he stood talking to her in the hall before bidding her
good-bye. Looking up in his face she had seen something in it she never
saw before and which made her drop her eyes and hang her head.

“God bless you, Annie,” he said, putting his hand under her chin and
turning her face up to his again, “God bless you for all you were to me
in the dark days which are brightening now so fast that I see the past
only through a mist, and that is rapidly lifting. Good-bye.”

He stooped and kissed her on her forehead and was gone, but his kiss
still burned where he had imprinted it, and she saw the look in his eyes
and heard his voice speaking to her as he had never spoken before. So
when Carl came and asked her to go to Europe, she shrank from it with a
feeling that she could not.

“I know I am selfish,” she said, “and it breaks my heart to have Paul go
without me, but indeed I cannot go.”

After this Carl did not urge her, but began to look around for some
reliable man with whom he could trust Paul at all times and in all
places. This point Paul settled himself. At the time when Sam Slayton
had been caring for Jack at The Elms a great friendship had sprung up
between the little boy and the man, and this had increased as time wore
on. Almost every day found Paul at the corner grocery, where he
sometimes waited upon customers, but oftener sat upon the counter
talking to Sam, who said of him to his friends that he was “the cutest
little cuss he ever saw;” while Paul in turn worshiped him as the best
man in the world, excepting Carl and Jack. When Miranda came, as she did
in due time, the intimacy was not interrupted, but rather increased; for
in her loneliness and longing for the five brothers she had left in
Vermont, Miranda took at once to the little boy, whose prattle amused
her so much. For a year the visits to Miranda continued, and then one
morning there were streamers of crape on the doors of the house and
grocery, and Miranda and her own little boy were coffined and ready for
the journey back to her grave among her native hills. This happened
while Paul was in New York with Carl, and on his return he found his
friend alone, and crying like a child as he talked of his dead wife and
baby.

“I’m broken all to smash,” he said, “and have got to go away from here,
where every pound of sugar and every quart of vinegar reminds me of
Miranda and the little shaver I was goin’ to call for you, if Miss Annie
was willin’.”

This made Paul feel at once related to the baby which had looked only a
few minutes upon the world before it died, and altogether akin to the
bereaved man whose rough hand he held between his small white ones,
patting and rubbing it in token of sympathy. When told that Paul was
going to Europe Sam began to cry again.

“I wish to lan’ I could go, too, and look after you and the Square,” he
said. “I’d be as faithful as a dog, an’ I can’t stay here with these
things hauntin’ me and makin’ me think of her.”

As a result of this, Sam Slayton was hired by Carl to go with him to
Europe and care for Paul.

“Not a high-toned valet,” Carl said to Annie; “but I like the fellow,
and can trust him, and he has promised to be a little more choice in his
language, and the slang phrases which Paul is apt to adopt.”

Sam rented his corner grocery, bought a new suit of clothes, went to the
hills of Vermont and said good-bye to Miranda; and then he joined Carl
and Paul in New York, and with them sailed away to Europe, shocking Carl
sometimes with his broad Yankee dialect, but proving the most faithful
and loyal servant a man ever had, and, when it was necessary, the most
efficient of nurses.

With Paul gone and Jack still away, Annie was very lonely. Carl had, in
a delicate way, made everything as easy for her as possible, depositing
to her account what seemed to her a large sum in a Richmond bank where
she kept her small funds. He had also insisted that a young girl should
be hired, and as Phyllis approved the plan, a bright mulatto named
Rachel was installed in the house as maid, though really she waited upon
Phyllis more than upon Annie. But she was young and full of life, and
sang as she worked, and often brought Annie bits of gossip from the
outside world, which kept her from stagnating. Paul’s letters were a
great comfort to her. He had early learned to write a childish irregular
hand, and every week there came a letter from him, sometimes longer,
sometimes shorter, but very dear to the Annie-mother, who he wished
could be with him and see all he was seeing. He was under treatment,
with the prospect that he would be cured in a little while, and this was
comforting. He was at the Grand Hotel in Paris, where they talked the
queerest talk he ever heard. Even the children spoke French, and he was
going to learn it, too,—and Sam, at whom everybody looked so funny,
especially the English, who sometimes laughed at him. But Sam didn’t
care a _su-mar-kee_ for one of them, and Paul didn’t care a _su-mar-kee_
either. Sam was just as nice as he could be, and had learned every ’bus
line in Paris, and knew that _couplet_ did not mean a place, as he had
first thought it did, trying in vain to go there, and hunting all over
the map of the city to find it. He hadn’t seen Katy, and didn’t know
when he should. She had been to the _North Pole_ to see the sun
rise,—then to Stockholm and Russia, and was now in Berlin and was going
to Egypt in the winter. _Fan-er-nan_ was in Switzerland, but was coming
to Paris by and by. All this was in his first letter.

Later on he wrote: “They’ve put me in a plaster jacket and it hurts me
some; but I try not to cry, and Sam takes me in a chair along the
boulevards and down to the Palais Royal, and everywhere, and yells like
a panther at the cabmen when he wants to cross the street and they are
aiming at us. ‘Git back, you scallywags, don’t you see the little boy is
lame?’ he says, and they _git_ every time. You ought to hear him try to
talk French. He can say ‘_Ong-tray_’ and _Com-bee-ang_, and _Petty
garsong_,’ and some more words, and screams when he talks to the people,
and they scream at him. I am learning French and teaching English to a
nice lady, and this is how it happened. I was sitting in my chair in the
court with Sam and my French primer, when there came up to me a very
handsome lady with great black eyes and yellow hair and rosy cheeks,
which Sam said were painted, but I don’t believe it. She put her hand on
my head and said something I couldn’t understand. I knew it was French
and answered, ‘_I nee parl paw French_’—I had learned so much from my
primer—and was very proud when the lady laughed and said, ‘_Tray
be-ang_;’ she meant very good, or very well. Then she tried Sam, but he
shook his head and said, ‘_Nix cum arouse_,’ at which she stared
awfully. She staid until Carl came up. He didn’t know her and she didn’t
know him, but she bowed and he bowed, and they talked some, and Carl
made her understand what ailed me. She looked real sorry, and put her
hand on my head again and kissed me and went away. I saw her at dinner,
where she sat near us, dressed oh! so beautiful, and everybody looked at
her, and she didn’t care.

“Carl said she was Madame Felix, and the little fussy-looking old
gentleman with her was her husband, and was ill; that’s why he looked so
yellow and shut his lips so hard as if he didn’t feel well. I like him,
and so does Sam. He came to me after dinner and talked English very bad,
but I understood him. Madame _Julee_ he calls her, wants me to teach her
English words and she will teach me French. Carl is willing, and every
morning now she comes to me and tells me French and I tell her English,
which she pronounces sometimes real good, as if she knew it before,—then
awfully, and I laugh, and she laughs, and Carl laughs. He is always with
us, learning French with me and teaching her English, too. Sam sits and
listens and catches on, he says. I’ve thought sometimes Carl wanted him
to go away, but he won’t. He don’t like Madame. He says she makes eyes
at Carl, and once, when he saw her talking and laughing with him, he
said, ‘What tarnal fools.’ I told Carl, and he was mad.

“Sam is going to learn French as fast as he can so as to know what Carl
and Madame Julee say to each other, but I am not to tell. I said I
wouldn’t, though I don’t see why Carl shouldn’t know that Sam can
understand. Do you?”

In Paul’s last letter he wrote: “The little old man, Monsieur Felix, has
gone to his chateau in Passy. Madame asked Carl and me to go, too, and
we wanted to, but Sam looked like a thunder cloud, and had some high
words with Carl, and said how was I to be treated in Passy. So we didn’t
go, nor Madame either. The little man told her to stay if she wanted to,
and she staid. She told Carl it was so lonesome in Passy,—_treest_, I
think she said, and the housekeeper and servants would take good care of
Monsieur, and she could not bear to be shut up in a sick-room with
camphire and odor-cologne and nerves; it made her head ache. And Carl
said he didn’t much blame her and should miss her awful. I am getting to
understand pretty well and faster than Sam, and made this out, but
didn’t tell him, he hates Madame so.

“My plaster jacket hurts me sometimes and I cry, but Sam is so good, and
says if I bear it like a man I will one day be tall and straight like
Carl. He is splendid, and I’d bear anything to be like him. We get on
beautiful in French, and Madame beautiful in English. Queer, how well
she pronounces at times. I told her so, and she said I was not to tell
Carl, because he’d think if she pronounced well once she might always,
and she is pretty bad when he is with us. Two secrets I have now,—her’s
and Sam’s,—and they make my head ache. Madame has taken me to drive two
or three times, and once she had a box at the Opera and took Carl and
me. Oh, it was beautiful,—the house and everything, except the ballet. I
didn’t like that,—the girls’ dresses were so short and thin, and they
whirled so fast and threw their feet so high that I didn’t dare look at
them much till I heard everybody cheer, Carl and Madame with the rest.
Carl looked at them through an opera glass, although he was pretty near
the stage. I had heard Fan-er-nan say something about Katy going on the
stage, and I whispered to Carl, “Would Katy do like that?”

“‘God forbid!’ he said, and turned white, and I said I’d get right down
on the floor and hide if she did.

“Madame laughed,—seems as if she understands all I say. She was splendid
that night,—nothing on her neck but diamonds, which glittered so in the
light. Ever so many glasses were aimed at her, and she liked it. After
the opera we went for supper to _Bean-yon’s_, an awful dear place. But
Carl didn’t mind. He ordered everything Madame wanted and a bottle of
wine. But he didn’t drink. He’d promised his sisters not to, he said.
Madame shrugged her shoulders and drank to the health of his sisters. I
was so tired I fell asleep in my chair, and when they tried to wake me
up they couldn’t. So they sent for Sam, who carried me home in his arms.
It isn’t far from _Bean-yon’s_ to the hotel. I slept late next morning,
and when I woke Sam was cross as a bear,—not to me, but at Carl, who had
gone to Passy with Madame to call on Monsieur. Sam slatted things round
and said he wished to Cain that Katy or Fan-er-nan would come and stop
it. I asked him ‘Stop what?’ and he said, ‘Stop your asking questions.’

“Sam is funny. Carl has come back and Madame hasn’t. I guess the little
old man is pretty sick. I miss Madame and so does Carl, but Fan-er-Nan
will be here soon.”

In his next letter Paul wrote: “Fan-er-Nan is here, and such a great
lady. Not like Madame,—stiller, prouder, whiter,—I can’t tell you what.
‘Big swell, but cold as a snowball. I knew it would be so,’ Sam said;
but she isn’t cold to me. She took me in her arms and hugged and kissed
me and sobbed like, but didn’t shed any tears. I told her not to feel so
bad,—my back was getting well. She hugged me harder, and said, ‘There
are worse things than backs.’

“What did she mean? Sam heard her, and after she went out he said, ‘The
cuss!’

“He didn’t mean Fan-er-Nan, for I asked him; and he didn’t mean Madame,
for she isn’t here. She was away. I tried my hand at a letter, half
French, half English, and told her to hurry up and see Fan-er-Nan, and
she wrote to Carl she couldn’t come, Monsieur was so ill. Fan-er-Nan has
a maid and talks French as well as Madame, but she is so——I don’t know
what,—like something bottled up. Sam says she dresses lovely,—not like
Madame exactly, plainer, but in a way you know is first class.

“I have seen the Colonel, and oh my, I don’t wonder Fan-er-Nan seems so
still. Why, he’s _old_, and his foot is all swelled up, and lies out on
a cushion, and he has a crutch, and scowls when he talks. He was nice to
me, but I didn’t stay long and was glad to get out of the room. They are
going home before long. I suppose I shall want to go with them. But I
must get straight first, and I like Paris and Carl, he is so kind to me,
and when I tell him I am a bother, he says, ‘Oh, Paul, you don’t know
all you are to me, you and Sam both.’ He calls me his good angel, and
Sam his watch-dog. Queer, isn’t it?”

Paul’s letters troubled Annie. Who was this French woman, and why was
Carl so interested in her? At last she decided to ask him about her. She
was owing him a letter and would write that night, she thought, as she
sat waiting for her supper to be served. Since she had been alone she
had abandoned the massive mahogany table which Mrs. Hathern had brought
from Boston, and taken her meals upon the little round table which had
been her mother’s. This now stood by her near the fire, for the day had
been cold, and as it drew to a close the wind began to rise, making it
colder still. Dark clouds were scudding across the sky, and as the sun
went down the rain began to fall, reminding Annie of that day two years
ago when she had brought Jack from The Plateau more dead than alive, and
Fanny had been on the sea. Where was Jack now, and where was Fanny? and
would she come to Lovering after her return? Paul had said she was
coming home soon. Perhaps she was there now and had not written.

The train which used to pass through Lovering at four o’clock now came
at quarter past five, and Annie heard the whistle and wondered if there
would be a letter for her. She would send Rachel after supper to
inquire, she thought, just as a rapid step came on to the piazza and
some one entered the side hall. The dining-room door was thrown open,
and starting to her feet Annie stood face to face with Fanny.




                 CHAPTER IX.—AUTHOR’S STORY CONTINUED.
                                 FANNY.


She had been driven from the station to the head of the avenue where she
alighted, telling the driver she would walk to the house. Seeing no
light except the one in the dining-room she had entered that way, and in
a moment had Annie in her arms crying like a child for joy. Fanny didn’t
cry. It was a long time since any tears had come to soften the hardness
of her eyes. But there was a choking in her throat as she felt Annie’s
arms around her neck and took in all the old familiar objects,—the
carpet she remembered so well,—the clock on the mantel,—the wood fire on
the hearth,—the tall andirons,—the fender,—the round table with the
simple meal upon it,—and Annie herself, grown younger instead of older,
and so plump and round and fair that people called her handsome, with
her sweet face, her soft brown eyes and hair and the bright color on her
cheeks.

“Why, Annie,” Fan said at last, turning her round so that the fire-light
fell fully upon her. “How lovely you are, and how young. I might almost
pass for your mother, I am so old and have lived so many years since I
saw you. I believe that we are both twenty-eight, and that is not so
very ancient, but I feel a hundred.”

She was taking off her hat and sealskin sack and gloves, and stood at
last revealed to Annie an elegant woman in every respect, with fashion
and style and travel and wealth written all over her from the way she
spoke and wore her hair to the tip of her French boot which she held up
to the fire. Paul had said of her that she was still and white. She was
more than that, and seemed to Annie for a time like a marble statue,
talking and moving by machinery, with no will of her own. But she began
at last to thaw, shaken into something like the Fan of old by Phyllis,
who, hearing she was there, came rushing in and taking her in her arms
nearly squeezed the life out of her.

“Honey, honey,” she said, while the tears ran down her cheeks, “I thanks
my Heavenly Father dat dese ole eyes has lived to see de comin’ of de
glory of de Lord. Dat’s de song we sing in meetin’, and you’s de glory,
shoo’, so gran’ and fine. Oh, glory, glory, glory, hallelujah,
hallelujah, Amen!”

Then Fan’s old laugh rang through the room, as she said, “Don’t have the
power, Phyllis, for pity’s sake. It will take more than Annie and me to
drag you out. Better bring me some hot coffee and a plate, so I can have
my supper with Annie.”

This brought Phyllis from the skies down to the commonplace, and
lamenting that she hadn’t known her chile was comin’ so as to have had
something fit for her, she bustled in and out, bringing everything
eatable there was in the house, and then waiting upon the young ladies.
Rachel, she said, was well ’nuff for common, but she reckoned nobody was
gwine to wait on Miss Errin’ton but herself.

At the mention of that name Fanny shivered and put down the cup of
coffee she was drinking.

“Call me Miss Fanny while I am here as you used to do,” she said, and
laying her head back in her chair she closed her eyes, while there
passed before her in rapid review all that had happened since she was
Miss Fanny and sat with Annie as she was sitting now with Phyllis
attending her.

She had neither been beaten nor sworn at, nor had things thrown at her,
as she knew some wives had; the Colonel was too much of a gentleman to
do that, but she had been moulded and disciplined and thwarted until it
seemed to her she had but little will power left. Just how her husband
had subjugated her so completely she could not tell, but subjugated she
was, doing as a rule only what he bade her do, and going only where he
bade her go. For a time after leaving Paris he had been very proud to
see her admired and sought after and had taken her everywhere. Thoughts
of Jack ceased to trouble him. He supposed Fanny still thought of him,
but she was perfectly exemplary as his wife, and seemed to care little
for the attention she received, and he was quite content. Then, for no
fault of hers, he suddenly conceived a most violent jealousy of every
man who looked at her, or rather at whom she looked, and began to
curtail her liberty, telling her where she could go and where she
couldn’t. At Monte Carlo, where they spent several weeks, he took her
with him once into the roulette rooms, which interested her greatly. She
had no thought of playing, but she liked to watch the others. As there
were some friends with her she did not always keep by her husband, but
went from room to room, animated and excited and wholly oblivious to the
many who looked admiringly after her, commenting on her beauty and
graceful carriage and wondering who she was. But the Colonel saw it all,
and for a short time enjoyed it. Then, as he mixed with the crowd, he
overheard some one say, “Is it possible that stern, oldish-looking man,
with the bald head and scowl between his eyes, is that lovely girl’s
husband? I pity her, and him too. She’s a high-stepper.”

“That’s so,” was the reply of a second man, who seemed loaded with
information. “They say she had another lover whom she jilted for money
and who died. Quite a little romance, which will undoubtedly end in
another. Those eyes of hers don’t look at a fellow for nothing. They
actually talk. See, they are resting pityingly on that poor devil who is
losing his money so fast, and now they are laughing up into the face of
that Russian who has spoken to her. Her old cove of a husband needs to
watch her.”

The Colonel heard no more. He was boiling with rage, and would have
liked to knock down the man who called his wife a high-stepper, and the
other one who called him an old cove and predicted a second romance.
Evidently he had allowed his high-stepper too much latitude when men
commented on her like this, but he’d stop it now. Ten minutes later
Fanny was told it was time to leave.

“Oh please, George, not yet,” she said. “I like it here so much, and it
is not late.”

For answer he drew her arm in his and walked away, telling her it was no
place for her, with her propensity to attract attention. She was too
gushing, he said,—too demonstrative, pitying one man and smiling on
another and getting herself talked about. Thereafter he wished her to be
more quiet and reserved and keep her gush and smiles for him. She did
not know what he meant or to what he referred, but she grew quiet and
reserved and cold, and people called her proud and haughty, not knowing
that her heart was dead within her, and that every natural emotion was
kept down, with every semblance of affection for or interest in
anything. But if her fetters were strong they were golden. She had all
the money she wanted until it palled upon her, and sometimes when
driving in her luxurious carriage she envied the peasant woman whom she
saw in the street, knowing that she could do as she liked, with no one
to question her. After the Colonel’s lameness came on it was better. She
had more liberty, because she took it, and went where she pleased. She
never tried to deceive him, but told him where she had been, what she
had done, and whom she had seen. He knew he could trust her and always
believed her. Once she told him of a young Englishman who had only seen
him in his chair with her walking beside him, and who asked her when she
met him again how her father was. With a savage imprecation against the
young man, whom he called a fool, the Colonel cursed the fate which
deprived him of the use of his feet and was fast changing his once erect
and military figure into that of a bent old man. He would go back to
America and hide himself in his own house, he said, and Fanny did not
object. Two years of travel and seeing the world had satisfied her, and
she was glad when the day of sailing came, although she dreaded the
voyage. Fortunately, she was not sick, but the Colonel was and kept his
berth most of the time.

Since his marriage nothing had been said of the cottage at Newport, or
of Palmetto Villa in Florida, and the grand house which had been planned
before they went abroad still remained on paper only. With his jealousy
and morbid state of mind the Colonel’s enthusiasm had cooled. It was
better to have his Washington house built when he could see to it, he
said, and Fanny acquiesced, as she did in everything. So they went back
to the old house on Lafayette Square, and as the Colonel took possession
again of his rooms, with every comfort and convenience at his command,
he seemed happier than he had been since he left them two years before.
Fanny was very kind to him, and had been so ever since his first attack
of rheumatism which disabled him from walking, and here, in Washington,
she was especially attentive, for her heart was expanding with joy as
she thought how near she was to the dear old home which she meant to
visit, whether he were willing or not.

Much of all this she told to Annie when, after the table was cleared and
the lamp put upon it, she sat on a stool with her head lying in her
sister’s lap like a tired child which has come to its mother to rest.
And Annie listened with the tears sometimes running down her cheeks as
she caressed the beautiful head and smoothed the glossy coils of hair,
her heart aching as she detected in them more than one thread of silver
which was there before its time.

“I believe I told you in my letter that if I were unhappy no one should
ever know it,” Fanny said, in conclusion, “but here, alone with you, it
came out before I thought. Don’t suppose, though, it has been all bad,
for it has not. I have enjoyed the foreign travel, of course, and I have
been nice to George and he has been nice to me a good deal of the time.
We have had our spats as, I dare say, all married people do. I have
always felt like a slave, though, with an exacting master over me, and
only liberty to think what I pleased. He couldn’t help that, and I told
him so in the hottest battle we ever had. My thoughts are my own, and
that is about all of myself I can call mine. The rest of me belongs to
him. When I remember how high-tempered and self-willed I used to be, I
can’t see how he has done it. But he has. I am like a spirited horse
broken to the harness, stopping when its driver says ‘whoa,’ and
starting when he says ‘get up.’ It is better now,—a good deal
better,—and if I could forget I should really be quite contented. But
oh, the forgetting! I didn’t ask him if I could come. I told him I was
coming to spend Thanksgiving with you, and when he said ‘Going to see
your old lover, Jack, I suppose,’ I answered, ‘I do not know that he is
there. If he is, I shall see him; yes.’ Then I came, but can only stay
over to-morrow. I must go back next day. I promised I would.”

In all she had told of her married life she had not spoken of Jack until
now, and at the mention of his name Annie felt the blood rushing through
her veins, and her hands pressed very heavily upon Fanny’s head which
moved a little as for an easier position, so that a part of the white
face was visible in the fire-light playing over it. For a while there
was perfect silence in the room, and then Fanny asked very low, “Where
is he?”

Annie told her where he was and how long he had been gone, and that she
expected him now at any time, as he had written that he might spend
Thanksgiving with her.

“That would be jolly,” Fanny said, sitting up a moment with her hands
clasped around her knees and her eyes looking steadily into the fire.
“Annie,” she said at last, putting her head again in Annie’s lap, “you
never told me _how_ he took it, or what he said. I only know he was very
ill, and suppose I made him so. Tell me all about it,—where he heard it,
and when, and how he looked. I want to know everything.”

“Oh, Fan,—no, no!” Annie replied. “You couldn’t bear it.”

“Yes I can. I have borne worse things than that. Tell me everything.
Maybe it will make me cry. I haven’t cried in more than a year; not
since I was ill in Naples and dreamed I was a child again, and Jack came
and put his cool hand on my hot forehead and said ‘Poor little Fan, does
it hurt very bad?’ just as he did twenty years ago when I fell from the
swing in the barn and raised a great lump on my head. I was so glad to
see him, and when I woke and found _he_ wasn’t there,—that it was George
sitting by the window, and old Marcella trying to coax into a blaze a
smoky fire, I cried under the bedclothes till the tear cistern ran dry.
There has been nothing in it since, and my eyes feel so hot at times
that I’d like a real thunder-storm. Tell me what he said and did.”

Annie told her everything, sparing no detail and dwelling at length upon
Jack’s happiness in showing her all he had done for his promised bride
and his eager anticipations of the morrow when he expected her. Then she
told of the letter,—its effect upon herself and its worse effect on
him,—of his anguish as he read it,—his despairing cry which rang through
the room in which so many hopes had been centered,—his distraught manner
as they drove home through the rain,—his illness,—his loss of faith in
God, and his gradual recovery. Fanny’s face was hidden and Annie could
not tell whether she cried or not. She only knew that she never stirred,
but lay like one asleep or dead, until she repeated Jack’s words which
had burned themselves into her memory.

“Say it again, Annie. I didn’t hear you right. There’s a roaring in my
ears. Fanny—isn’t—married;—my Fanny,—who was to have this room,—and
watch for me. No-o, Annie. No-o.”

Then Fanny shook like a leaf, and one hand slid down at her side into
the light in which the costly jewels,—diamonds and rubies and
emeralds,—shone like eyes of fire. Then she was still again,—so still
that after the story was ended Annie began to wonder at her silence and
tried to lift up the face in her lap. It was ghastly white, and the long
heavy lashes which lay upon it brought out more clearly the dark circles
under the eyes. Fanny had fainted for the second time in her life. It
did not take long to restore her to consciousness. With the first dash
of water in her face she opened her eyes and gasped; then, realizing
what had happened, she shook the drops from her hair and forehead and
said with a laugh, “You needn’t drown me. I was a great deal worse than
this at the hotel when I thought Jack was going to die.” Then her eyes
grew so large and black that Annie looked at her in wonder. “It was
terrible,” she said, “and I am not worth all that pain. I could faint,
but I can’t cry; I wish I could. Poor Jack. You say he is over it now?”

“I think so,” Annie answered, with a thought of the kiss he had left on
her forehead at parting.

“Does he seem as he used to?”

“Very much.”

“Does he go to church?”

“He didn’t for awhile; he does now.”

“What does he say of me?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“No, never.”

“Do you mean he never speaks my name?” and there were red spots in
Fanny’s eyes and redder ones on her cheeks.

“No, he never speaks your name,” was Annie’s reply; and Fanny continued,
“And the house on The Plateau,—built for me. What has he done with
that?”

“Kept it,” Annie replied, while the red spots left Fanny’s eyes and
cheeks and there was an exultant ring in her voice as she said, “Then he
has not forgotten me. Oh, Annie, it has always been a comfort to believe
that, bad as I am, Jack still loved me. It has kept me from many things
I might have done. Col. Errington does not know how much of my loyalty
to him he owes to my faith in Jack. But for that I might have defied him
and been the veriest flirt in Europe. There were chances enough. I had
only to look at a man to bring him to me. But I seldom looked,—partly to
keep at peace with my husband, but more for Jack. Do you think he will
come to-morrow?”

Annie hardly thought he would, or she should have heard from him to that
effect.

“I feel that he will,” Fanny said with conviction. “I hope he will. To
see him again,—to hear his voice, and know he didn’t hate me would send
me back a better and happier woman to my cage, every bar of which is
golden, but they hurt me just the same when I beat my wings against
them.”

Annie did not reply. She couldn’t say that she hoped Jack would come.
She had hoped so when the day loomed before her long and lonely, but now
it was different, and the sight of Fanny might bring back the olden love
and leave her stranded just as the goal she longed for was within her
grasp.

It was late that night before the sisters went to their rooms, and later
still before Annie could sleep. Fanny slept soundly,—“like a top,” she
said next morning, when she went down to the tempting breakfast Phyllis
had prepared.

“You looks pearter and more like Miss Fanny,” the old negress said, as
she bustled around the table, while Annie, too, noticed the change.

There was color in Fanny’s cheeks and her eyes shone like stars, as she
went around the house, changing things a little, and wherever she went
leaving a more artistic finish than she found. Annie questioned her with
regard to Paul and Carl, and then spoke of the French woman, asking if
Fanny saw her.

“I saw her in London two years ago,—not in Paris,” Fanny said. “She was
in Passy with her husband, but I heard of her from Paul and Sam. By the
way, Carl never did a better thing than when he took that Yankee with
him. He’s a curiosity to the foreigners, but faithful as the sun. He
doesn’t like Madame Felix. He says she’s a sham and neglects her husband
shamefully,—that the old man is dying, and that if he does she’ll ‘set
her cap for Carl.’ That was the way he put it. But she’ll not succeed.
She is not a lady, and though Carl may like to talk with her, as he does
with every handsome woman, he’ll never go further than that.”

“Is she so very pretty?” Annie asked, and Fanny replied,

“Pretty is not the term to apply to her, any more than _petite_. She is
stout,—weighing at least a hundred and seventy; but her figure and dress
are so perfect that you forget her size. She has large black eyes and
yellowish hair,—a peculiar combination, but Frenchy,—fine teeth, high
color, which she owes as much to powder and paint as to nature, but it’s
well put on, and deceives the men. There is something about her which
attracts them, too. She even won upon George,—or tried to. Me she
ignored and avoided. She reminded me of somebody, I could not tell whom,
and Sam said the same. He will keep watch of her, and Katy will be in
the field by and by. From her pure lovely face Carl could never look the
second time at Madame.”

Then they talked of Katy and Miss Errington, neither of whom Fanny saw
in Europe,—and of the people in Lovering,—and the morning passed and the
two o’clock dinner was served, and Jack did not come, and Fanny’s
spirits began to fall a little. When dinner was over she said to Annie,
“You told me you had the key to the house. Give it to me, please. I am
going there.”

Annie gave it to her and she was soon on her way to The Plateau, taking
a circuitous path through the woods so as to avoid the villagers. It was
dark when she came back, and the lamp was lighted in the dining-room,
where Annie was sitting with the tea-table beside her. Fanny’s eyes were
very red as she knelt before the fire and held her cold hands to the
blaze.

“I have cried at last,” she said, with quivering lips and choking voice,
and that was all the reference she made then to that visit to the house
where God alone saw the anguish of her soul as she went through the
silent rooms, with a feeling that it was her own grave over which she
was walking.

It was in the upper room she lingered longest,—“Our Room;”—Annie’s
description had been concise and she knew the chair where Jack had sat
when he read her letter, and she saw him there in fancy and heard his
pitiful cry, “Fanny isn’t married;—my Fanny! No-o, Annie, no-o.”

She went to the bay window and sat down by the table where she was to
have waited and watched for Jack as he came up the hill, while from
every part of the room came the wailing cry, “No-o, Annie, no-o.”

The windows,—the doors,—the ceiling,—the walls,—all; caught it up and
sent it back to her, until it seemed as if her brain were on fire.

“I must cry or die,” she said, stretching out her hands and fanning
herself with them for more air.

Then rising up she threw herself upon what was to have been her bridal
bed and lay there a crushed, remorseful woman, hiding her face among the
pillows whose softness had a kind of healing in their touch, bringing
tears at last,—blessed tears,—which fell like rivers and cooled her
burning fever. She had wanted a thunder-storm, and she had it. The tear
cistern, empty so long, was filled and refilled as often as it
overflowed. The dainty pillow-shams with her initial upon them were
crumpled and soiled and lay at last in a heap under her head, while the
little girl in the medallion looked smilingly down upon her, mocking her
misery. When her tears were spent and the choking in her throat was gone
she rose up, and laying her hands caressingly upon every article in the
room, as if in farewell, went down stairs and out into the darkness,
locking the door behind her and saying as she did so, “Good-bye, home
which was to have been mine. I was not worthy of you. Good-bye.”

Then she went swiftly through the woods, reaching home just as Annie was
beginning to feel anxious about her.

“I have been through purgatory and feel all scorched and blackened with
its flames, but purified and better somehow,” she said, as she rose from
her kneeling posture before the fire and, taking her seat by the
tea-table, she began to talk and laugh as merrily as if she had really
been through purgatory and was entering Paradise.

Some comment which she made about the knife she held reminded Annie of
the wedding present Carl had sent to her two years before. She had
written Fanny about it, asking if she should send it to Washington, and
Fanny had replied, “Keep it until I come home.” Bidding Phyllis bring
the boxes Annie opened them, disclosing the contents to her sister,
whose surprise and delight were unbounded.

“They are exquisite,” she said, “but our house in Washington is full of
silver and china. These were meant for Fanny Fullerton, not for Fanny
Errington. The silver is marked “H.” Keep them for yourself when you
marry, if you ever do.”

The spot upon her forehead which Jack had kissed burned so at the
mention of her marrying that Annie felt as if her sister must see it,
and she put up her hand to cover the place. All day she had half
expected Jack and hoped he would come. Better that he should see Fanny
and know that he is cured before he commits himself again, she thought,
as she watched her sister with a feeling that if she had lost some of
her girlish beauty and vivacity, she had gained in grace and an
indescribable something which would distinguish her from hundreds of
women.

But Jack did not come, and Fanny left the next morning without seeing
him. Annie urged her to stay longer, but she replied, “I promised and
must keep my word like that old chap Romulus, or Remus or Regulus, which
was it, who went back to Carthage and was rolled in a barrel full of
spikes. I shan’t be rolled in a barrel. On the contrary, George will be
glad to see me. I’m nice to him most of the time. He says I bandage his
foot better than Clary,—that’s his man,—and I read to him by the hour,
and brush his hair, and am really quite a pattern wife. When I can’t
stand it any longer and he swears awfully,—not at me,—he never does
that,—but at Clary and his foot, I go off by myself and say some big
words and make faces and look at my diamonds and read some slips cut
from papers about the beautiful and accomplished Mrs. Errington, and
feel better.”

She talked as if she were wholly heartless, but Annie knew her gayety
was feigned and pitied her intensely.

“When George is better I mean to have you come to Washington and see how
grand I am,” Fanny said, when dressing for her journey. “I knew a good
many people there as Miss Hathern, and as Mrs. Errington I shall know
more, and can introduce you to the best society. So when I send for you,
come.”

She was very bright and cheerful at breakfast, which was eaten by
lamplight, for in order to connect with the Washington train she must
leave Lovering at an early hour and then wait in Richmond until nine
o’clock or later.

“I don’t mind it at all,” she said, when Annie expressed her regret at
the delay, and as she tied on her bonnet she began to hum a strain of an
opera, keeping time to it with her head.

Was she then so glad to go back, Annie wondered. The truth came out at
last.

“I have a presentiment that I shall see Jack in Richmond while I am
waiting. I am almost sure of it. Oh, Annie, you don’t know what it will
be to me just to hear his voice once more,” she said, and then with a
good-bye kiss she was gone and Annie was alone again.




                  CHAPTER X.—AUTHOR’S STORY CONTINUED.
                            JACK AND ANNIE.


Jack had hoped to spend Thanksgiving with Annie, but had been detained a
day longer than he anticipated, and did not reach Richmond until
Thanksgiving night. He had come from the west and stopped in Washington
the very day that Fanny left for Lovering. He did not know that she had
returned from Europe until he overheard two men in the office of the
hotel speaking of the Colonel, who, they said, was in a very critical
condition, as there was danger at any moment that his rheumatism might
attack his heart.

“He will leave a handsome young widow behind him,” one said, while the
other nodded and replied, “She’ll console herself readily enough with
the lover she jilted. You knew about that, didn’t you?”

The man questioned didn’t know, and his friend began at once to tell the
story. But Jack didn’t wait to hear it, and leaving the hotel he walked
rapidly through street after street, excited and angry that Fanny’s name
should be thus bandied about in public. His love for her was gone, but
he could not forget what she had been to him, and it was dreadful to
hear her spoken of in that way. As he walked there came over him a
desire to see where she lived. It did not take long to find the place,
and standing on the opposite side of the street he looked curiously at
the great silent house, in which no light was shining except in the hall
and from the upper windows of a corner room where the Colonel sat
groaning with pain and cursing himself for an idiot that he had let
Fanny go even for a day. No one cared for him as she did, and he missed
her more than he had thought it possible.

“I’ve been a brute a good many times, but I mean to do better when she
comes back. I don’t suppose, though; I can ever make her love me.
Confound that Fullerton; I wonder where he is,” he was thinking, just as
the electric bell pealed through the house and kept on ringing, as they
sometimes do, until the housemaid, who hurried to the door, stopped it.

“Who the devil is that greenhorn ringing like that?” the Colonel said,
as every whiz of the bell rasped his nerves afresh.

It was Jack. From seeing the house there had come to him a desire to see
Fanny.

“Nothing can better assure her that I am all over it than calling upon
her,” he thought, as he crossed the street and touched the electric
button.

Mrs. Errington was not at home the maid said, and with a half feeling of
relief that she was not, Jack gave the girl his card and left.

“Who was it?” the Colonel asked from the open door of his room.

The maid brought him the card.

“John D. Fullerton, Lovering, Va.,” the Colonel read, consigning Jack at
once to the lower regions, together with his aching foot which, at the
sight of his rival’s name, he had lifted high in the air, with the
result of a sharper twinge than any he had experienced. “What brought
him here, I wonder?” he thought, feeling glad that Fanny was not at home
and gladder still that she probably would not see Jack at Lovering.

Meanwhile Jack went to his hotel and the next day parted for Richmond,
reaching it too late for the train to Lovering. Once he thought to
telegraph Annie; then decided to surprise her on Friday. It was
necessary to see his employers, whose office on the third floor
commanded a view in the distance of the plain across which, about
half-past nine on Friday morning, the Washington train was speeding on
its way with Fanny in it. While waiting at the station she had looked
into the gentlemen’s room and walked through several streets, hoping
that chance might throw Jack in her way if he were in the city, and
feeling greatly disappointed that she did not find him. Returning to the
station she finally took her seat in the car which was to carry her to
her husband, a happier woman than when she left him,—happier because she
believed, after what Annie had told her, that Jack loved her still, and
this lightened every dark spot in her life. She might have changed her
mind could she have read his thoughts as he sat awaiting the arrival of
one of the firm and watching her train as it disappeared from view. He
had no suspicion that she was in it, but he was thinking of her and his
call at her house, and was glad that with his thoughts of her now there
was neither bitterness nor regret for the past. Once she had filled his
heart so completely that he would have given his life for her, but she
had gone from it, leaving it empty and ready for another occupant. Just
when it came to him that _Annie_ was the sweetest and dearest and
loveliest little woman in all the world he could not tell. But it had
come, and it seemed to him that he had always loved her,—not as he did
Fanny, but that she had always been necessary to him,—that when Fanny’s
beauty and teasing coquetry were stirring him to the very depths,
Annie’s gentleness had acted as a counter irritant, soothing and
quieting him and bringing out the best there was in him. It was weeks
since he had seen her, but he had carried her image with him as she was
that night he parted from her and kissed her on the forehead. Something
in her eyes had made him think that he was more to her, perhaps, than
the brother he had called himself, and all through his travels in
Colorado and Utah and Texas he had been revolving in his mind the
expediency of asking her to be his wife, and had built many castles for
the future which began to look fair and bright to him again, with Annie
as his guiding-star.

“I shall see her to-night and settle it,” he thought, while he watched
Fanny’s train until the last wreath of smoke disappeared in the distant
woods.

He could better afford to marry now than he could two years ago, when
nearly everything he had was expended upon his house, which he had
finally decided to sell. His business over he started for Lovering,
which he reached at the same hour Fanny had on the day of her arrival.
His first thought was to go at once to The Elms. Then he concluded to
wait until later when Annie was sure to be alone. Something, he scarcely
knew what, prompted him to take The Plateau on his way. Possibly it was
to see if there still lingered in his heart any feeling of regret that
the hopes which once clustered around the spot had been so cruelly
blighted. He reached it about dark and as he walked around it, it seemed
to him more than ever like a tomb in which a part of his life was
buried. He always kept one key with him, while Annie had the other.
Entering the house at last he went through the rooms one after another
until he came to the bridal chamber. Even here there was no longing in
his heart for the woman who had so cruelly betrayed him. It was there
his love for her had received its death blow, and he looked around him
as we look at the grave of a friend years after the friend was buried
there. Suddenly he started as his eyes became accustomed to the dim
light. The bed was tumbled,—the pillows were displaced,—the shams were
crumpled. Somebody had lain there,—not quietly, but restlessly, as if in
pain, or great excitement. Who was it, and how did they get in? He
examined every door and window below. Everything was secure, and in some
perplexity he left the place and walked rapidly to The Elms. Again there
was a bright fire on the hearth in the dining-room, with the round
tea-table before it, and again Annie was sitting beside it, very pretty
in her brown dress, the shade of her eyes and hair. Rachel had brought
her a half-opened rose, which had grown on a bush Phyllis had been
tending in her kitchen, and Annie had fastened it on her bosom, thereby
adding to the brightness of her appearance. She had spent a lonely day
with Fanny gone and no message from Jack, who was probably still far
away. Rachel had brought in her supper and she had dismissed the girl,
preferring to be alone. She was not hungry, and was sitting with her
feet on the fender and her hands clasped behind her head and looking
into the fire so intent upon her thoughts that she did not hear the
opening or closing of the door, nor the step on the floor as Jack crept
up very cautiously until he stood looking down upon her partially
upturned face as her head rested on the back of her chair. It was a very
fair face,—a pure, honest, innocent face, where nothing unwomanly had
ever written a line. It was just the face a good man would like to kiss,
and Jack did kiss it, not once but many times, as he stooped over her
and put his big warm hands under her chin and drew her nearer to him.

With a cry she bounded to her feet and looked at him with crimson cheeks
and a light in her face such as he had never seen in Fanny’s face when
she was the kindest to him.

“Oh, Jack, how did you get in and I not hear you?” she said, and then
her eyes fell under something she saw in his and understood.

He held her hand and had one arm around her when Rachel came in to clear
the table. The girl was young and knew the signs, and hurried out with
the tea things, telling Phyllis that “Mas’r Jack had done come and was
sparkin’ Miss Annie, who snugged up to him as if she liked it!”

“In course she likes it, and I thanks de good Lord who has brung it to
pass on account of my rasslin’ so much in prar that it might come,”
Phyllis said, never doubting that she had been instrumental in moving
the Almighty to bring about what she so much desired. “Don’t you go
anigh, nor make a speck of noise, for dis is a solemn occasion,” she
said to Rachel, restraining her in every way and herself walking in her
stocking feet lest she should disturb the couple, who would scarcely
have heard a cannon had it been fired in the lane.

Leading Annie to the couch where he could hold her in his arms better
than if she sat in one chair and he in another, Jack told his love in a
straightforward way and asked her to be his wife.

“I cannot offer you the same kind of love I gave to Fanny,” he said.
“That began in my boyhood and was like the fruit which ripens early,
with a blight upon it. You know how it died, but not how dead it is, or
how another more healthful love has sprung up for the dear little girl
who was always better suited to me than Fanny. Don’t speak yet,” he
continued, as he saw Annie about to protest. “I have had time to think
it over among the Rockies;—on the plains and prairies of the west and
under the southern skies. The past has always been with me, and I have
never for a moment forgotten what Fanny was to have been to me. If I had
not lost my faith in God I should have prayed to die, but I had made
myself believe that if there were a God He did not care for me, and I
was not willing to go unbidden into His presence. Always in my darkest
moments I seemed to see _you_, pitying and comforting me as you did that
dreadful night. At first your face was shadowy,—then it began to clear,
until now it stands out before me as the dearest, sweetest face in the
world. Sweetest because of the truth and goodness showing in every
feature, and dearest because it is the face of my wife that is to be.”

He was taking things for granted and kissing the face he thought so
sweet, until it was as red as the rose which Annie wore and which became
fearfully crumpled as the love-making went on.

“Oh, Jack,” Annie said, when at last she could get a chance, “Oh, Jack,
you frighten me so, and Fanny was here yesterday, and left this morning.
I don’t quite believe she would like to have you say all this to me. She
is happier in knowing that you remember her.”

“I do remember her,” Jack replied. “I think of her every day,—but that
has nothing to do with my love for you. She has gone out of my life as
completely as if she were dead. Why shouldn’t she? What have I to do
with a married woman? You say she has been here? Tell me about it.”

Very briefly Annie told him of Fanny’s visit, saying that she left that
morning.

“Then she must have been in the train I watched till it was out of
sight. I should like to have seen her. She is a very grand lady by this
time, I suppose,” Jack said, and then told of his call at the house in
Washington, speaking as indifferently as he would have spoken of an
ordinary acquaintance. There could be no more doubt that the old love
was dead than that the new was in all its freshness and vigor and would
not be denied.

“You have not answered me yet,” Jack said at last. “I want to hear you
say you love me, and I shall know it is as true as the everlasting
hills.”

“Oh, Jack,” Annie said. “If you are perfectly sure you want me, I will
be your wife. I believe I have loved you all my life.”

He had his arms around her again and was showering kisses upon her face,
when Rachel, curious to know how matters were progressing, peered
cautiously in and then tiptoed back to the kitchen, her eyes like
saucers as she said, “He’s gone done it, sho’; he’s squeezin’ her,—oh,
my. Lem’ me show you,” and she experimented on Phyllis, who shook her
off, saying, “Git ’long wid ye. Dat ar’ no way to do it. When I’se young
an’ Josiah came cross de hemp fields courtin’ me, he got on his knees,
an’ I done sot in his lap, an’ oh, my Lor’, de good times till he took
de cholera an’ died an’ lef’ me a widdy.”

“Oh, dat’s long ’go. We’s more refined sense de wah, and spark
different,—more like white uns,” Rachel replied, with the air of one who
was skilled in love-making as practiced “sense de wah.”

It was late that night before Jack left The Elms. He had so much to say,
and his love kept growing so fast for the quiet little girl, who was
content to sit with her head upon his arm and her hand in his and listen
while he told her over and over again how dear she was to him, and
planned their future. Fortune was favoring him in many ways, and
although he might never be rich he should be able to surround her with
every comfort and relieve her of all care.

“Would you like to live at The Plateau?” he asked, and Annie answered
quickly, “No, no; not there. I might get jealous of Fanny. Let us stay
here where I was born, and keep the dear old home for them all to come
to, Paul and Katy and Carl. I can’t help thinking he will yet be one of
us,—and Fanny, too. Something tells me she’ll come by and by.”

Just what Jack thought of Fanny’s coming he did not say, but he planned
with Annie to sell the house on The Plateau with all its belongings to a
gentleman from Richmond who had spoken of buying it. He urged a speedy
marriage,—the sooner the better,—although it would be hard to tear
himself away for the long trips he might have to take at intervals for
several months and possibly a year. But Annie said “No; we must wait
till you are through traveling. I could not bear to have you leave me
alone after I was your wife. And then I want Katy and Paul here when we
are married. Let us say next Thanksgiving. I shall not be quite an old
maid then. I am only twenty-eight now.”

She laughed merrily as she glanced up at him with a look which reminded
him of Fanny, it was so bright and coquettish. Was that why he kissed
her so passionately? He didn’t think so. He believed every spark of his
old love dead, or he would not have talked of a new. Annie was not as
beautiful as Fanny, but she was very lovely in her mature womanhood, and
would never fatigue and worry and bewilder him as Fanny had done in her
varying moods. He was supremely happy, and when alone that night in his
room at the hotel he knelt down for the first time since the morning two
years before when he had made so many good resolves, and thanked God in
so many words for taking Fanny from him and giving him Annie instead.




                 CHAPTER XI.—AUTHOR’S STORY CONTINUED.
                         THE HOUSE OF MOURNING.


                                          “WASHINGTON, January 6th, 187—

  “To Miss Annie Hathern, Lovering, Va.

  “Col. Errington died last night. Come at once.

                                                                “FANNY.”

This telegram was brought to Annie one morning just after Jack had left
her for Richmond. For a moment everything around her was chaos, as she
sat with the message in her hands trying to collect her thoughts, which
turned into a strange channel. Col. Errington was dead. Fanny was free,
and loved Jack as well, or better, than she ever did. And Jack? What of
him? Now that the barrier was removed, would his first great love
revive, kindled again into flame by his pity for Fanny, and the wiles
she would surely practice upon him, given the chance?

“No, oh no!” Annie said at last. “It is unjust to Jack and a wrong to
Fanny.”

Then as she read again the “Come at once,” she began to plan for her
journey, the first she had ever taken alone. It was too late to go that
day, and she must take the early train the next morning and wait in
Richmond as Fanny had done.

“I shall telegraph Jack to meet me there,” she thought, wondering how he
would look when she told him Col. Errington was dead.

The little jealous stab would intrude in spite of her, and when, the
next morning, summoned by the telegram he had received from her the day
before, Jack met her at the station, she told him the news in a breath.

“Oh, Jack, Col. Errington is dead. Fanny is a widow and has sent for
me,” she gasped, and then looked up at him, much as a criminal in the
dock looks at the judge when receiving sentence.

But what she feared she might see was not there. Jack was startled, but
not greatly surprised, as he recalled what he had heard of the Colonel’s
condition in Washington. The words “Fanny is a widow” made no other
impression than to present her to his mind as sorrowful and alone. He
knew nothing of her married life, but supposed she had been
comparatively happy, inasmuch as she had her heart’s desire,—money.
Naturally, she was very desolate now in the first stages of her grief,
and in his great kind heart he was sorry for her, but more sorry for the
timid girl clinging so closely to him as she asked many questions about
her journey,—must she change cars and did he think they would run off
the track, and what should she do when she got there if there was no one
to meet her. He told her that she did not change cars,—that the train
would not run off the track, and there would be some one to meet her if,
as she said, she had telegraphed that she was coming. Then he made her
sit down while he went for her ticket, and when he came back to her he
held up _two_, instead of one.

“Jack,” she exclaimed, “_are_ you going with me?”

“Yes, little woman. I thought it would please you,” he replied, taking
her arm to lead her to the train.

She was very glad, and still the little stab would intrude, as she
wondered how much he was actuated by a wish to see Fanny again, and how
much by a desire to please her. The train was a slow one and this day it
was unusually slow, so that it was late when it drew into the station in
Washington. Half the way at least Jack had sat with his arm partly
around her, and once, overcome with fatigue, she had fallen asleep, and
when she awoke had found her head lying on his shoulder.

“Oh-h, excuse me. What must the people think?” she said, blushing
crimson, as if guilty of an indiscretion. Jack laughed and answered,
“They’ll think you are my wife or sweetheart, and who cares if they do?
Put your head down again. You look tired.”

But Annie sat bolt upright the rest of the way, and as far from Jack as
she could get. When they reached Washington he took her to the
waiting-room, while he went to look for the Errington carriage, if it
were there. With a little inquiry he found it,—a very grand turnout,
with its shining black horses and shining harness and shining driver in
livery, who said he was sent for Miss Hathern.

“Come on; it’s all right,” Jack said to Annie, leading her to the
carriage and seeing her inside. Then, greatly to her surprise, he put
himself half way in and kissed her, saying, “Good-bye, darling. Write me
to-morrow, and don’t stay longer than you can help.”

“But, Jack, arn’t you going with me?” Annie cried, and he replied, “Why,
no. I only came to see you safely here and shall go back to-night. The
train leaves in half an hour. If I could be of any service to Fanny I’d
go, of course; but she has plenty to help her. Give her my kind regards,
and say I am sorry for her. Good-bye.”

He kissed her again, closed the door, and motioned the coachman to drive
on.

                  *       *       *       *       *

“Mrs. Errington wishes me to bring you to her directly,” the maid said
to Annie, who, cold and tired and bewildered by the elegance and
grandeur which met her eyes on every side, followed on up the wide
stairway to the room where Fanny sat, her face very pale and her eyes
very large and bright, but with no particular semblance of grief, except
the closed shutters and the deep black border on the handkerchief she
held in her hand.

“Annie, I am so glad you have come at last. Adam was gone so long I was
afraid there might have been an accident, and you all alone and not
accustomed to traveling,” she said, holding out her arms and only half
rising from her chair.

“The train was late, but I was not alone. Jack came with me,” Annie
replied, and instantly Fanny’s whole demeanor changed.

In her own house, and a widow just bereaved, she had not at first seemed
just as she did in Lovering with the old familiar objects around her and
her head in Annie’s lap. She was a grander, more dignified lady, as
befitted her surroundings, and Annie had noticed it and thought it quite
appropriate. But at the mention of Jack she was Fanny again, and
springing up exclaimed, “Jack came with you! How kind in him. Where is
he? Why didn’t he come here at once?”

Annie explained that he only came because she was timid and
foolish,—that he was going back that night, and had sent his kind
regards to Fanny and said he was sorry for her.

“He is _not_ going back to-night if there is time to reach him. I want
to see him. It is perfectly proper for him to come here,—the only male
friend I have in the world, and just like a brother,” Fanny said, her
hands shaking with excitement as she touched the bell and summoned her
maid, Marie.

Adam was ordered to return to the station as fast as possible,—find the
gentleman who came with Miss Hathern and bring him to the house.

Meanwhile, Annie had removed her hat and cloak and drawn up to the fire
in the grate.

“You are cold,” Fanny said, “and hungry, too. Dinner will be served as
soon as Jack gets here, and I shall be so glad to have some one at the
table with me. I have scarcely eaten since—George—died.” She hesitated a
little and then went on steadily, “It was very sudden at the last and I
was sorry when I saw him dead and knew how he wanted to live.” Annie
looked at her quickly, and she continued, “I know you think me hard, but
there is no need for me to pretend to be heartbroken with you, who know
everything. There was no real affection between George and me, although
we were getting on better of late, and since my visit to Lovering we
have been very friendly and familiar, kissing each other every morning
and every night. He was glad to see me when I came home, and only said
one mean thing. Jack called,—perhaps you know,—and left his card. George
showed it to me and said, ‘I dare say you’d rather have missed your
visit home than him.’ I replied, ‘A great deal rather.’ He didn’t swear
at me, but he did at his foot and went on to say, ‘You may have a chance
soon to get your old lover back, if the doctor is right in his
diagnosis. He says there is danger of this confounded rheumatism
attacking my heart if I allow myself to get excited as I do at times. I
was swearing pretty loud at Clary and my face was purple, I suppose. So
the easiest way to get rid of me is to worry and annoy me and rouse me
up.’

“I was very angry, but did not say a word. There was something in his
face I had not seen there before. A change for the worse and it deepened
every day as the disease crept up to the region of his heart. I was as
kind to him as I could be, and he wanted me with him all the time. Once
after I had read to him an hour and brushed his hair, he put both his
poor swollen hands up to my face and said, ‘You are very good to me,
Fanny, and I have cared more for you than you thought. I have been hard
and mean, but when I get well we will begin again.’

“That touched me more than anything he had ever done, and I said I had
been mean, too, and kissed him, and I am so glad to remember it now he
is dead. It was awfully sudden at the last. He seemed better and wanted
to go down to dinner with me, and asked me to put on one of my pretty
dresses from Worth’s and let him see me in it. I did so and walked back
and forth in his room, while he commented and admired. Then I went to
dinner and was nearly through when Marie came running in and told me he
was dying. I reached him in time for just one look from his eyes, and
such a look, as if he wanted to tell me something. Then he was gone. I
wish it had been different with us and that I could feel as a widow
ought to feel. But I can’t. There is a lump in my throat when I think of
George, and I have been in and looked at his dead face many times, and
staid there once half an hour trying to get up a widow’s feeling. I am
sorry that I did not make him happier, but I can’t cry, and don’t want
to. I shall enact all the proprieties,—wind myself in crape and wear a
widow’s cap, which will be horridly unbecoming, and shall hanker after
all my new Paris gowns I was to wear this winter, and which are of no
use to me now. Hark! Isn’t that the carriage I heard? I wonder if Jack
came.”

She ran to the window to look out. Jack did not come. Adam had reached
the station just as the train for Richmond had gone, and, greatly
disappointed, Fanny went with Annie to dinner, which was served as Annie
had never seen a dinner served before, for Fanny exacted her pound of
flesh and never omitted any ceremony, although she dined alone. She had
married for money and position and style, and she made the most of them,
finding in them some compensation for the emptiness of her domestic
life. For the dead man in his costly casket she had no love. He had
thwarted her at every point and kept her down, and now that the iron
hand was withdrawn she could not help a feeling of relief, although
sorry for all that had been unpleasant between them as man and wife. He
had been far more in fault than she, but now that he was gone she could
recall many a time when she might have done differently and provoked him
less. But he was dead, and she was not going to wear her life out with
regrets for what could not be helped, she said to Annie, when, after
dinner was served, she sat again in her room and talked first of George
and then of Jack, and quite as much of the latter as of the former.
Twice Annie opened her lips to tell her of her engagement, but each time
something Fanny said checked her. “I’ll wait,” she thought, with an
uneasy feeling that such news might affect Fanny more than the death of
her husband.

The funeral was private, and Fanny, wound in crape, as she said she
should be, looked the embodiment of grief, and felt a sharp pang of pain
and remorse when her husband was carried from the house he would never
enter again. It was hers now with everything pertaining to it, for she
was sole heir to all his large fortune. The family lawyer told her this
and read her the will when all the paraphernalia of death were removed,
the blinds opened, and the wintry sun was shining brightly into the
handsome rooms. The will was made while Fanny was in Lovering, and when
she heard it and knew that everything was hers unconditionally she
covered her face with her hands and cried.

“It was so kind in him,” she said to Annie when they were alone. “I
didn’t expect it, and I don’t deserve it.” Then she began to plan what
she would do with so much money. Annie was to have some, and Katy and
Paul, and Jack, if he would take it. Did Annie think he would? “No,
never; don’t insult him that way,” Annie exclaimed so energetically that
Fanny looked at her in surprise, but with no suspicion of the truth.

Again and many times thereafter Annie tried to tell her, but as often as
she tried something held her back. A little shadow was darkening her
horizon, and it increased as the days went on and she gained a clearer
insight to Fanny’s real feelings. She was a model widow, doing
everything she ought to do, secluding herself from the world, seeing
very few who called, wearing her weeds with a tolerably good grace,
except the cap, and talking a good deal of George, but far more of Jack.
And Annie, listening to her, felt herself grow sick with a morbid fear
as she thought “she loves him, and—perhaps—perhaps—now that she is free,
his love for her will come again, and I shall be left desolate.”

More than one fierce battle the brave little woman fought with herself
when alone in her room. If Jack turned to Fanny could she bear it and
make no sign, she asked herself over and over again, while her heart
ached as if the thing she so much dreaded had come to pass. In her
calmer moments she could remember how wholly Jack seemed to love her
now, and that gave her comfort and hope. “But if he is mistaken,—if as
time passes and he meets Fanny, as he must, and falls again under the
spell of her beauty, I shall know it and give him up,” she thought.
“Better so than share a divided heart. That I could not bear. I’ll not
tell Fanny of our engagement yet. I’ll give Jack a chance and trust him
until I see some sign.”

There was a long letter from Jack the next day, full of love and
tenderness, with a kind message for Fanny, who fortunately did not hear
the postman and thus knew nothing of the letter which Annie read and hid
in her bosom like a guilty thing, blushing when her sister looked at her
and turning away as if afraid her treasure might be snatched from her.
Fanny had no suspicion. She only thought how pretty Annie was growing in
her old age, as she laughingly called their twenty-eight years. Once she
led her to the glass and said, “See how much younger you look than I do,
especially in this disfiguring cap. I won’t wear it,” and she tossed the
offending head-gear upon the bed. Even without it there seemed a
disparity of years between them, for over Annie’s face no stormy
passions had ever swept like those which had written faint lines about
Fanny’s eyes and mouth and frosted some threads of her hair just where
it showed the most. Annie’s was soft and brown and glossy as a child’s,
and the light in her eyes was steadfast and clear and always the same,
except when she thought of losing Jack. Then it grew suddenly misty with
the tears she kept forcing back.

Several times as the weeks went by Fanny wondered why Jack didn’t write,
and once she suggested writing to him and inviting him to come to
Washington and accompany Annie home when she was ready to go. But Annie
saw through the ruse and dissuaded her from it, saying she felt quite
equal to making the journey alone. She had received several letters from
Jack and had always been fortunate enough to take them directly from the
postman or Marie, and Fanny, who staid a great deal in her room knew
nothing of them. On the whole, Annie’s life in Washington was not very
hilarious. She took several drives, visited the Capitol, the Treasury,
the Patent Office and Smithsonian, and attended a reception at the White
House, and received a few calls. But the ladies who came in velvets and
furs and carriages were not like the people of Lovering, who ran in
informally morning or evening or at any time. She missed the familiarity
and friendliness of her home life, and after staying six weeks with her
sister she announced her intention of going back to Lovering.

At first Fanny objected, then suddenly changed her mind and seemed
rather to accelerate her sister’s departure than to retard it. Annie had
told her of Jack’s intention to sell the house on The Plateau, and that
had troubled her.

“Tell him not to do it. Maybe I shall live there yet,” she had said more
than once, and on the morning when Annie left her she referred to it
again, adding, as she kissed Annie good-bye, “If I find this big house
too ghostly I shall come home. You may see me at any time. Give my love
to all the people, and—yes,—to Jack, too. Why not? Tell him I think him
mean never to have sent me any message, except the one you brought me
the night you came. He might at least have sent me a card of sympathy
for the sake of Auld Lang Syne.”

She didn’t look as if she needed much sympathy, as she stood in her
black gown, tall and graceful, with a healthful light in her eyes, a
smile on her lips, and color in her cheeks to which the roses were
coming back; and it was this picture of her which Annie carried in her
mind as the train moved out of Washington and on into the rather
desolate Virginia country through which the road to Richmond passes.




                 CHAPTER XII.—AUTHOR’S STORY CONTINUED.
                              GOING HOME.


“I don’t want to be a great lady in society. I’d rather live all my life
in plain Lovering,” Annie thought as she reviewed the incidents of her
visit, and then her mind turned upon Jack, who was getting impatient for
her return. She knew he was in Richmond and was wondering if he would
meet her, when the cars suddenly stopped. Something was the matter with
the engine which could not be remedied at once. They were near
Fredericksburg and a few of the passengers walked to that place, but
Annie kept her seat, varying the monotony occasionally by short
excursions into the woods. It was three hours before they were ready to
start and then they moved but slowly. All hope of connecting with the
Lovering train was given up, and Annie was beginning to feel very
desolate and to wonder what she should do in a strange city and alone,
when they stopped again for water. She was cold and hungry, and there
were tears in her eyes as she looked out upon the darkening landscape
and thought of Jack and wished he was with her. Leaning her elbow on the
window stool she was about to indulge in a good cry when somebody came
up behind her, put both hands on her shoulders, joined them together
under her chin, drew her face upwards and backwards and kissed her!

“I knew you by the little red wing on your brown hat,” the somebody
said, and Jack was sitting beside her.

He had a few hours off, he explained, and had come to meet her, knowing
that the train stopped for water at this station, where he had waited
during what seemed a little eternity.

“I knew you’d be hungry and I foraged round till I found a sandwich, a
fried cake and some apples,” he continued, putting a paper parcel in her
lap and getting possession of one of her hands.

She was not cold any more, or very hungry either, although she managed
to make way with a sandwich and part of a fried cake whose age she could
not well guess.

Jack was with her. He had come to meet her. His face was close to
hers,—his arm was around her notwithstanding that she told him people
were looking on, just as she had told him on their journey up.

“Let them look,” he said, glancing around. “There’s nobody behind us but
an old man, and two old women, and a young one who would like to be in
your place.”

Then he asked her about her stay in Washington and made some inquiries
about Fanny as naturally as if she had been the most ordinary
acquaintance. It was eight o’clock when they reached Richmond and Jack
took Annie for the night to a friend of his. The next afternoon he
accompanied her to Lovering, where Phyllis was ready for her. Jack had
telegraphed that Annie was coming, and the old negress stood in the
door, a new turban on her head, and her face shining as she welcomed her
mistress home.

“Oh, it is so good to be here,” Annie said, as she let Phyllis remove
her cloak and hat and then sank into the easy chair before the fire.

The round table was brought out again for supper with the best silver
and china, and Phyllis waited and repeated all the gossip of the town,
while Annie listened with more interest than she had felt for anything
since she left home. Lovering was the place to live in and Fanny was
welcome to her grandeur and the society of which she thought so much. By
and by Jack came in and then it was heaven with him beside her, talking
of their future with almost as much enthusiasm as he had once talked to
her of that to-morrow which had never dawned for him. He was going north
soon on a tour which might be extended into three or four months. This
was to be the last, for when he returned his place was to be filled by
another man and he was to become partner in the firm and open a branch
of the business in Lovering.

“Then we shall be married. There is no reason why we should wait any
longer,” he said, kissing the face resting upon his shoulder as he
talked. “I thought I was sure to sell the house on The Plateau, but the
man has changed his mind. Someone else, however, will want it,” he said.

Annie was silent for a moment, and then she said, “Fanny bade me tell
you not to sell it.”

“Why! What possible interest can she have in it?” Jack asked in some
surprise, and Annie replied “She said she might live there yet.”

“_Fanny_ live at The Plateau! Impossible! What does she mean? Didn’t you
tell her of our engagement?” Jack said.

“No,” Annie answered falteringly.

“Why not?” Jack demanded in surprise.

Hesitating a little Annie replied, “I hardly know. I tried to tell her
two or three times, but something always stopped me, Jack,” and Annie
began to finger the buttons on his coat, counting them to herself as she
did so, “I do not believe Fanny ever cared very much for her husband.”

“I never supposed she did, but what has that to do with your not telling
her?” Jack said, imprisoning the hand fingering his buttons.

Annie had not intended letting him know of the foolish fancy which had
possessed her, but she could not very well help it now, and she
continued: “She did care for you very much, and you for her, and if you
were to see her, now that she is free, you might—perhaps—Oh, Jack,—you
might care for her more than for me!”

Annie’s voice was not at all steady, and so low that Jack bent down to
listen until his face touched hers. He heard her though and understood
her perfectly.

“Annie,” he said, “Is it possible you do not know how dead is my love
for Fanny,—dead and buried, and the ground above its grave stamped down
so hard that it can never rise again. Don’t let that trouble you.
Fanny’s freedom is nothing to me. _She_ is nothing to me except a
memory,—and your sister,—my sister, too, by and by. Is my little girl
satisfied on that score?”

She was more than satisfied, and the next morning began a letter to
Fanny in which she meant to tell of her engagement. Then, moved by some
unaccountable impulse, she tore the letter up and wrote another, in
which there was no word of Jack. At the end of two weeks Jack left for
his last trip. Before going, however, he heard from the real estate
agent in Richmond who had charge of his house on The Plateau that some
one wished to buy it and had offered more than the price at which it was
held. “Will you sell it?” he wrote. Jack’s answer was in the
affirmative, and within a few days the house on The Plateau had passed
from his possession into that of a Mr. Emery, whose instructions were
that the keys should remain where they were, and that Jack should see
that the place was properly cared for until such time as the owner came
to claim his property. Just when that would be the agent did not know,
nor did Jack particularly care. The house was off his hands, and he had
in its stead a sum of money much larger than he had ever thought to
realize from it. One key was to be left with Annie, as it always had
been,—the other Jack kept, and together they went through the house the
day before Jack started for the north. If Jack felt any regret for the
past he did not manifest it, and stood apparently unmoved in _Our Room_
and looked at the medallion smiling upon him and said how much it was
like what Fanny was years ago. And he sat in the bay window where he was
to have sat with Fanny and talked of the fine view to be had from it as
unconcernedly as if he had not once felt all hope dying out from his
future and leaving it black as night. It was very bright now, as with
Annie at his side he gave one last look at the house which he had built,
and then left it with no wish that things were otherwise.

The next day he went away and Annie was alone, but not lonely. She was
too happy for that, and there were too many bright anticipations of the
future when Jack should return. There were frequent letters from him
full of the tender words a woman likes to hear from the man she loves.
There were letters also from Katy and Miss Errington, who were in Egypt
when the news of the Colonel’s death reached them. Letters, too, from
Paul, who was still in Paris and improving rapidly.

“The poor little old Monsieur is dead,” he wrote. “Had a cancer which
made Madame so sick that she staid a heap in Paris at the hotel with us.
Sam understands a good deal now, and says she said some of the flattest
things to Carl about a lonely life and _trist_ and _ah—me_, or
something. Sam remembers the words and hunts them up in the dictionary,
where he cannot always find them on account of the _tense_, you know.
Then he asks somebody what they mean. Carl went to little Monsieur’s
funeral. She sent for him, and Sam said, ‘I tell you I’m _fachey_ about
it.’ I think he meant _mad_, and unknown to Carl he went, too, and saw
the doings. It was an awful big funeral, and a grand chateau, and Madame
was all in black and hystericky and leaned on Carl, who, Sam said,
looked as if he wished she wouldn’t. She is here now, and her heart is
broken all to pieces with no one in the world to comfort her. Carl tries
all he can, and sits with her a good deal, and once they drove out to
the Bois and Sam said he should give Carl a piece of his mind. He did
give it to him, and asked him what the folks would say if they knew he
was flirting with an old French widow. Carl was mad and told Sam he was
getting out of his place; but he don’t sit with her now so much, and
says he shall leave Paris as soon as it is safe for me to go, and Sam
says he is going to ferret out _who_ the woman is, as he don’t believe
she’s first class.”

There was also a letter from Sam himself, containing nearly every French
word or phrase which he had picked up. There was a good deal about the
“widder with yeller hair” who was trying to make a fool of Carl, and
Annie was entreated to write him on the subject. But she thought it
wiser not to interfere. She had faith in Carl, and did not believe that
a woman such as Madame was described to be could hold him long or do him
material harm.

Every week there came a deep black-bordered letter from Fanny, who was
very lonely, and reviled the practice of shutting one’s self up like a
nun because a friend was dead.

“If anybody needs fresh air,” she wrote, “and glimpses of the world and
diversion it is the mourner, sitting behind closed doors, when there is
so much that is bright and gay outside, and I tell you I shall not stand
it much longer, Grundy or no Grundy. I am like a bird shut up in a cage
and longing for the green woods it can see but not reach. I will reach
them, however. There are times when we should be a law to ourselves, and
that is what I am going to do.”




                CHAPTER XIII.—AUTHOR’S STORY CONTINUED.
                           A LAW TO HERSELF.


Three weeks after the receipt of this letter Annie had been up to the
house on The Plateau, which was still untenanted, nor did anyone know
when the new proprietor would take possession. Money had been forwarded
with a request that if Mr. Fullerton were not there Miss Hathern would
see that the house and grounds were kept in perfect order, as the owner
might arrive at any time. Some flowering shrubs and choice plants were
also sent, with the message that Annie could arrange them as she liked.
Mr. Emery could trust Miss Hathern’s taste from what he had heard of
her. No mention had ever been made of Mrs. Emery, who, if she existed,
was more of a myth than her husband. In Jack’s absence Annie had
attended to everything, and the grounds at The Plateau were very
beautiful in the warmth of the May sunshine as she went over them that
afternoon, thinking what a lovely spot it was and how happy one might be
there. For herself, she preferred her old home at The Elms. That needed
painting and renovating, but Jack had said to her when she proposed
attacking it, “Wait, and we will fix it together. There are several
improvements I have in mind which I know you will like.”

On her return from The Plateau Annie took the path through the woods,
coming up to the house from the lane and past the old negro quarters to
the dining-room door, where the expressman was unloading four immense
trunks,—one a huge Saratoga, the others less pretentious and covered
with foreign placards. Her first thought was that Katy had come, but the
tall woman in black, with a veil which came nearly to her feet, was not
Katy, but Fanny, who was giving directions and making herself quite at
home.

“Why Fan,” Annie exclaimed, “where did you come from?”

“Washington. Where do you suppose?” Fanny replied, following her trunks
up stairs to the room she had taken for herself.

Removing her bonnet and fanning herself with it, she said, “I’ve come to
spend the summer. I hope you are glad to see me.”

“Of course I am,” Annie replied, and she continued, “I staid in that
great lonesome house until I couldn’t stand it another minute. You have
no idea what it is to be a fashionable widow, hedged round with custom.
Can’t go anywhere or do anything without shocking the world. If I were
poor with a lot of children and had to work for their living and mine, I
should get out among people and see things and forget myself. But I am
rich, and must follow the fashion or be talked about as heartless. It is
dreadful moping at home until every room seems haunted, and you fancy
you hear ghost steps on the stairs and behind you and beside you and
everywhere, until you feel it would be a relief to hear George swearing
again at Clary, or even at yourself, if he had been in the habit of
doing so. I could not endure it, so I packed up and came home, where I
can rest and do as I please, and wear what I please. I am so tired of
this heavy veil, which pulls my head back, and gives me a feeling as if
George were stepping on my gown and tripping me up.”

As she talked she was removing the veil, which she threw upon the bed
saying, “There, I am done with that. I can mourn just as well under a
short one which does not jerk my head and make it ache. Once I thought
I’d bring Marie, then I changed my mind. What do I want of a French maid
here? I shall be glad to wait upon myself and you, too. Why, I believe
I’d like to go into the kitchen and help Phyllis scrub and wash. It
would be a change from having so many servants, with all the show and
ceremony I once thought so fine, and which as Mrs. Errington, of
Washington, I must keep up. Bah! _Husks_, the whole of it! I’m like the
prodigal son come home again, with this difference, he came
empty-handed, while I come rich, with no elder brother to be jealous.
And I am so glad to be here,—to be Fan Hathern again. I wish they would
call me that. Will the neighbors come to see me, do you think? And where
is Jack?”

With that question Fanny sounded the key note of her real reason for
coming home. She had been bored to death in Washington and very lonely
in the midst of her splendor. She was naturally very social and would
have liked her house full of company. To be a widow in deep mourning,
just bereaved, with all the restraints it implied, was intolerable,
especially as she knew that at heart she was not the mourner she seemed
to be. Had it been Jack for whom the crape was worn all the world would
have lost its brightness, and her widow’s weeds would have but poorly
told of her desolation. But Jack was alive, and she believed cared for
her still. She had treated him shamefully, and it was quite _en règle_
that she should make the first advances towards a renewal of their
former friendship. She had never cared much for conventionalities. She
was a law unto herself, and if she chose to go to Lovering she had a
right to do so, and there was no one to object. She meant to be very
circumspect and not give the people food for gossip. George had been
dead six months;—these would soon stretch into a year, and then——; she
did not put into words what then,—but she had no doubt of it, and never
had the future looked so bright to her as on her journey to Lovering,
during which she was constantly assuring herself that there was no
impropriety in what she was doing, and that if by reason of it she saw
Jack at intervals and kept herself in his mind it was but the natural
sequence of things.

There had been several days of rain and mist, but this had passed and
the sun was shining bright and warm, and Fanny had never seen the house
and grounds look pleasanter or more attractive than they did that
afternoon when she drove down the avenue and began to feel a slight
misgiving as to what Annie would say to her coming so unceremoniously
and taking possession. Annie’s welcome was reassuring, and Fanny’s
spirits expanded wonderfully in the atmosphere and freedom of home, and
she felt the burden of society’s restraints slipping away from her. She
had hoped that Jack might be in town and that she should see him that
night, and in fancy she had gone over many times what she should say to
him and what he would say to her. There would naturally be a little
constraint on his side at first, but that would soon wear off and he
would be the Jack of old in all except loverlike attentions. These she
did not expect or desire at once. “I am not entirely lost to all sense
of propriety,” she was thinking when Annie came upon her, and for awhile
turned her thoughts in another channel.

To her question “Where is Jack?” Annie replied by telling her of his
long trip which might last some weeks longer, or might be soon ended.
The day was not quite as bright after that and Fanny’s face was clouded
a little, but it soon cleared, and the next morning, save for her weeds
and the absence of bright color from her face, she was the same
light-hearted girl who used to flit about the house, ruling it with her
imperious ways, but doing it so prettily that no one cared for the
ruling. In less than twenty-four hours she was mistress, and Annie
yielded to her and was glad to have her there, and the neighbors called
and made much of her and she returned their calls and wore her short
veil when she felt like it and when she didn’t she left it off, and was
as little like a disconsolate widow as it was possible for one to be. In
the house on The Plateau she was greatly interested, asking many
questions about Mr. Emery none of which Annie could answer. She did not
even know where he lived. She spent the money he sent for improvements
to the best of her ability, and Fanny for the most part approved of what
she had done. A few changes in some of the shrubbery she would suggest
if the place were hers, she said, and as it was not too late to make
them they were made, with the result of a better general effect. The
Plateau had a great fascination for Fanny, who went there very often,
sometimes staying for hours and sometimes just walking up to it for
exercise, she said. One day about the last of July she was gone longer
than usual and when she came back she seemed in unusually high spirits,
and sitting down to the piano which she had not touched before began to
sing Bonny Doon, Jack’s favorite, which she was to have played for him
in the home she had destroyed.

“Where do you suppose Jack is?” she asked, as she rose from the piano.
Then, before Annie could answer, she continued: “I have half a mind to
write him and tell him to hurry, as I want to see him. Do you think it
would be improper?”

“It would depend upon your motive,” Annie replied very quietly, and
Fanny answered quickly, “I don’t know that I have any motive, except an
inexpressible longing to see him and to know what he thinks of me.
Annie,” and Fanny grew very serious and breathed quickly as she went on:
“I love Jack just as well as I ever did, and I want him to know it.”

“Would you write it to him?” Annie asked, with a calmness which
surprised herself.

“Why, no,—not exactly that; but something that would give him a
suspicion of the truth. You think it unwomanly, I can see by your face,”
she continued, and Annie replied, “_I_ would not do it for worlds, and
your husband so recently dead.”

“I tell you _that_ does not count. Ours is an exceptional case,” Fanny
said, with some asperity in tone and manner; “and how often must I say
that I do not care for conventionalities. I am a law to myself.”

“I don’t believe I’d take the law into my hands in that way,” Annie
said, resolving now to tell her sister what she wished she had told her
before.

A caller interrupted her, and when the lady left Fanny also disappeared
and did not return for an hour or more. Then her face had an anxious
expression such as it sometimes used to wear during the war when word
came to town that a company of soldiers was in the woods, or on the
distant plain. Supper was waiting for her, laid on the back piazza where
she liked to have it when the evening was warm, as it was now. But she
had no appetite. The orange shortcake, with its rich cream, which
Phyllis had made expressly for her, was scarcely touched. She was tired
and had a headache, she said, and very soon after sunset went to her
room. Annie knew, however, that she was not in bed, as she heard her
walking back and forth across the floor for a long time, occasionally
stopping for a few moments and then beginning again as if too restless
to keep still. When at last, at an earlier hour than usual, Annie went
to her room, the walking had ceased, but there was a light shining over
Fanny’s door showing that she had not retired. It was a glorious night,
with the moon at its full and the air sweet with the scent of flowers
and the pines from the woods. Throwing on a dressing-gown Annie had just
sat down by the window to enjoy the beauty of the scene, when there was
a tap on her door and Fanny came in habited for bed, with a shawl thrown
around her shoulders and her long hair falling down her back. Annie had
extinguished the lamp, but the moon filled the room with light and
showed plainly the whiteness of Fanny’s face and the drawn look about
her mouth.

“What ails you, Fan? What has happened?” Annie asked.

Bringing a chair close to the window beside her sister, Fanny replied,
“_This_ has happened. I am an idiot,—a bold, shameless woman, who in
being a law to herself has made a fool of herself. I have written to
Jack,—not exactly a love letter, although it meant that, and he will
take it as such. What am I to do?”

Annie was too much surprised at first to reply; then she said, “You
have—written—a love letter to Jack!”

“Yes, I have,—or equivalent to that. I think it was Satan tempted me,
and now he is laughing at me for the scrape he got me into,” Fanny said.
“I have been considering it for some time, arguing that there could be
no harm in it, and this afternoon I took pen, ink and paper with me to
The Plateau and wrote it _there_, in the window where I was to watch for
him. I said more than I meant to when I began,—put it stronger, I
mean,—and offered him half or all of my money, if he wanted it. I think
the old Harry must have driven me on, I was so anxious to finish it and
get it posted. I directed to care of the firm he is with in Richmond. On
my way home I dropped it in the letter box, and was so happy that, as
you will remember, I sat down and sang Bonny Doon because Jack liked it,
and what I had done seemed to bring him nearer to me. Then to see what
you would think of me I finessed a little and suggested writing to him.
You disapproved and I was angry and thought you a prude, and half
suspected you had designs on Jack yourself. That was the meanest part of
it. While Mrs. Carter was calling I kept thinking what I had done and it
didn’t look to me as it had at first. I saw with your eyes, and
something told me Jack might see it that way, too. The fear kept growing
until I was nearly wild, and thought Mrs. Carter would never be done
telling what good and bright children she had and be gone. I had thought
of a way out of my dilemma, if I were not too late and that woman did
not stay forever. She did stay and I was too late. I went to the post
office and said I’d like to withdraw the letter I posted two hours ago.
The mail was gone, the postmaster said, and grinned at me impertinently,
I thought, as if he knew what letter I meant and thought it queer that I
should write to Jack. I know my face was scarlet and it has burned ever
since. Do you think he will despise me?”

Fanny’s voice was choked with tears as she made her confession, and then
putting her head in Annie’s lap cried like a child. She had done a
foolish thing, driven on to do it by an impulse she did not try to
resist and which impelled her to write more than she had at first
intended. Jack was told how she had suffered for her treachery to him
and how, through all her suffering, it had been a comfort to believe
that he still cared for her, and that without such belief she should
have died.

“Perhaps it is unwomanly in me to write this,” she said, “but I cannot
help it, and I am longing for the time when I shall see you again. I
shall know by your face if you still care for me or not. If not, call me
‘Mrs. Errington,’ if you do care, call me ‘Fanny,’ when you first meet
me, and I shall understand.”

Then she spoke of her money,—more than she could ever use,—and said
nothing would please her better than to give or loan a portion of it to
him, if he wished to use it in his business. She closed by signing
herself “Yours as always. Fanny.”

It was a letter that any man would understand, and Fanny’s regret at
having sent it was so bitter that Annie tried to comfort her by saying
that as Jack was constantly moving from place to place he might not get
it, especially if, as was possible, he came home sooner than he had
expected to when he left. This was a straw, but Fanny clung to it while
Annie debated in her mind whether to tell of her engagement as she ought
to have done long before.

“I believe it would kill her to tell her now,” she thought. “I’ll wait
and possibly—”

Here the little sting, which she had thought gone forever made itself
felt. Possibly, when Jack knew from Fanny herself that she loved him,
and when he saw her again he might regret he was bound to her, and
then?—

She could not answer any more than she could say to Fanny, “Jack belongs
to me.”

“You are cold,” she said at last as she saw Fanny shiver and draw her
shawl closer around her. “Go to bed and trust Jack, who will do right,
whatever happens.”

“But the shame of it,—the shame of it. You would never have done it,”
Fanny answered, as she rose slowly and kissing Annie good-night went to
her room.

Neither of the sisters slept much, and Annie the least. Regret that she
had not told Fanny of her engagement when she was in Washington, and a
morbid dread of the possible future, kept her awake long after midnight,
and both she and Fanny were tired and white when at a later hour than
usual they met at the breakfast table. As usual Fanny was the first to
rally. She had dreamed that Jack came upon her unexpectedly at The
Plateau and found her in her chair by the window, not watching for him,
as she did not expect him, and had no thought he was near until he came
behind her and kissed her, saying ‘Fanny!’ in the old-time voice, which
sent through her such a thrill of ecstasy that she awoke and had not
slept since. This she told to Annie, her face glowing with excitement,
while Annie made no reply.

“I know what you think,” Fanny said. “You don’t believe Jack will be
quite so ready to respond as all that, but something tells me he will.”

Her feeling of shame was wearing away, and in a few days she was as gay
as ever, and Annie often heard her humming Bonny Doon, and once she
tried Dixie, which Jack had said she rattled off so fast. The weather
now was very hot and sultry, but the sultriest, hottest day found her at
The Plateau, which one would have thought she owned from her interest in
it. She would not acknowledge that she believed in dreams, but the one
in which Jack figured so largely had made a strong impression upon her,
filling her with a presentiment that it would come true, and at The
Plateau, too. Every day she went there and sat in the bay window of _our
room_, sometimes reading, sometimes half-dozing, and always with a
thought of Jack coming up behind her and saying softly, not ‘Mrs.
Errington,’ but ‘Fanny,’—a word which would mean all heaven to her.




                 CHAPTER XIV.—AUTHOR’S STORY CONTINUED.
                        FANNY OR MRS. ERRINGTON.


It was in Boston that Jack received Fanny’s letter, together with one
from Annie, which had followed him from Montreal. He recognized Fanny’s
handwriting and wondered why she was writing to him. Annie’s letter was
of the most importance, and he read it two or three times and kissed her
name when he finished it and said aloud “My Annie, my wife that is to
be. I shall see you very soon.”

It did not occur to him that there was in it a little note of pain
scarcely perceptible to one who did not hold the key, but still there,
for Annie’s heart had been sore when she wrote it. Easily affected by
the atmosphere around her she could not help being more or less moved by
Fanny’s oft repeated assertion that Jack would forgive her everything
and that they would meet on the old footing, and when she looked at the
brilliant woman lovelier now than she had ever been, for to her beauty
of face and person was added a grace and elegance which she had lacked
in her girlhood, she said to herself, “How can he be insensible to her?”

And this affected her spirits when she wrote to Jack, who was quite
oblivious of it all.

“Now for Fanny’s letter,” he said, when Annie’s had been put away, and
breaking the seal he read it with many and strange emotions, the most
prominent of which was surprise that it should have been written.

Then, as he remembered how impulsive Fanny was, acting usually on the
spur of the moment and repenting afterwards, he understood better, but
was sorry, for her words awoke no answering response in his heart. The
chords which had once thrilled to her slightest touch were stilled
forever, and nothing she could do would stir them into life again. She
had tried to be guarded, asking only for his friendship as she had it
when they were girl and boy together, but he read between the lines and
saw the love offered to him and the feeling of assurance that it would
be accepted. Some men would have rejoiced to return in part the pain
they had been made to suffer, but Jack never harbored malice.

“Poor Fan, I am sorry for you,” he said, “but it is too late; my love
for you can no more be resurrected than The Boy you wept over years ago.
I am your friend always, but never your lover again.”

Then he began to wonder how he should meet her, and to wish she were not
at The Elms, and why Annie had not told her, as she ought to have done.
Fanny’s offer of money he resented, although knowing it was well meant.
“Money, always _money_, as if that were all,—but, thank God, I do not
need it, and if I did, I’d starve before I’d touch a dollar which came
this way,” he thought, and without reading the letter a second time he
tore it in pieces which he burned in the gas and then blew the ashes
away with his breath.

Poor Fanny, singing snatches of Bonny Doon,—putting aside all regret for
what she had done, and making herself believe that in a general way her
dream would come true. She had had it three times,—not always the same
in detail, but the same in substance, and it must come true. It did not
occur to her that this was the natural result of dwelling upon it so
constantly and having it in her mind before falling asleep. It was a
sign for good and she grew brighter every day, and every day went to The
Plateau near train time and sat in the willow chair and watched and
waited for Jack, with a feeling that he would certainly come.

And he did come, but not by train. He had business in Petersburg, and
after it was transacted drove to Lovering. The road led past The
Plateau, and as he had not seen the place for some time he dismissed the
carriage which had brought him from Petersburg and walked up the hill to
The Plateau. The rear door stood open, and with no thought that Fanny
was there, but a hope that he might find Annie, he went in. There was no
one below stairs, but on a table in the parlor lay a white scarf which
he recognized as Annie’s. She was there, of course, and he went up the
stairs whistling as he went and calling softly, “Annie, my darling,
where are you? Don’t you hear me coming?”

No one answered, for Fanny was asleep. She had sat in the bay window two
hours or more reading and thinking, until, overcome by the heat and
lulled by the drone of insects outside and the gentle soughing of the
wind through the two tall pines which stood in the grounds, her book had
dropped into her lap, one hand had fallen at her side, and her head lay
back upon her chair, with her face turned a little to one side. Had she
posed for a month she could not have selected a more graceful attitude
in which to be found by a lover than this in which Jack found her. He
saw her as he crossed the threshold, and still thinking it to be Annie
went very cautiously towards her, starting as he came close to her and
drawing a long breath. That head was not Annie’s. Her hair was
brown;—this was much darker. Neither was that hand Annie’s. Hers was
smaller and not quite so white as this one, which he had kissed so many
times and for which he had bought a wedding ring, now put away forever.
There was another on the hand,—a broad band of gold, guarded by a costly
solitaire, which, as a ray of sunlight struck it, blinked up at him with
glints of color as if it had been a human eye asking what he did there.
He knew this was Fanny, and he came very near speaking her name. Then
remembering the construction she would put upon it he restrained
himself, and stepping in front of her stood for a moment looking at her
as she slept, and noticing what changes had been wrought in her since he
last saw her on the platform of the car, waving good-bye to him. She
was, if possible, more beautiful now than then,—with a kind of patrician
beauty he felt but could not define. Her figure had lost some of its
girlish symmetry, but had gained in a greater fullness of outline,
partly the result of nature and partly owing to the skill of French
dress-making. He had never seen her asleep before, and had not realized
how long and heavy were the dark lashes resting on her cheeks. He saw
them now, and saw, too, the incipient lines around her mouth and eyes
and the few threads of silver in her hair, and was conscious of a
sensation such as we feel when we see a lovely rose begin to loose its
freshness.

For a full minute he stood looking at her with no stir in his heart, or
longing for possession. And he was glad it was so. If there had been a
regret for the past, or a desire for the future, he would have felt
himself disloyal to Annie. But there was none. She was only a beautiful
woman, of whose unconsciousness he was taking an undue advantage. It was
time to waken her, and he involuntarily gave a whistle with which he
used to notify her of his presence on the piazza when he was a boy and
she a girl like the picture in the medallion. The sound awoke her
instantly and fully, and starting up she looked at him with eyes in
which her whole soul was showing, but in which there was no surprise.
Her dream had come true. Jack was there! _Her_ Jack, with the same
handsome face and honest eyes she remembered so well and with something
more,—something which contact with the world had brought to him. She had
called him countrified many a time, and made fun of his coats and pants
and shabby hats, but Col. Errington’s clothes had never fitted better
nor been worn with more grace than Jack’s were now. There was, however,
nothing of the dude about him. He was simply a well-dressed man after
the fashion of the city rather than the country. And Fanny saw it at a
glance and was glad.

“Jack!” she said, stretching her hands to him and forgetting for an
instant what was to have been the password between them, if he had
received her letter.

_He_ had not forgotten, and taking her hands and smiling upon her, as he
would have smiled upon any friend not seen for a long time, he said in
his old teasing way, “Well, Sleeping Beauty, the beast took you
unawares. I hope I did not frighten you.”

He was perfectly self-possessed, with something about him, aside from
his clothes, which Fanny had never seen before. As a girl she had
asserted her superiority over him, as she did over everyone, and in his
blind love he had submitted to her will and confessed himself an
ignoramus whom she was to teach. Now he was a man to be respected and
feared, rather than dictated to and taught.

Old Phyllis had been wont to say, when she saw Jack’s perfect obedience
to Fan’s slightest whim, “I clar for’t, Miss Fanny done tote Mas’r Jack
roun’ by de nose shameful.” That time was past. He had opinions of his
own, and after they had talked together a few minutes Fanny realized the
change and began to feel that Jack might be the ruling spirit now. He
had called her neither Fanny, nor Mrs. Errington. Evidently he had not
received her letter, and she was glad, for with this changed Jack beside
her she began to feel all her shame and regret for having sent it
returning to her. This Jack would hardly receive it as the old Jack
would have done. He might think her unwomanly and immodest, and her
hands worked nervously together as she talked on indifferent subjects,
scarcely looking at him, or, if she did, blushing painfully and letting
her eyes fall at once. She never dreamed it would be so hard to talk
with Jack as she found it. She had thought that all she had to do was to
see him,—to smile upon him in the witching way she knew so well, and
then their former relations would be at once re-established. Now he was
there with her, in the house which was to have been hers,—in the room
where she was to wait and watch for him, and she was more ill at ease
and constrained than she had ever been in her life.

“It is the letter which makes me so cowardly, and which he must never
read,” she thought, and after a moment she said with a gasp, “Ja-ack.”

“Yes,” he answered, as she did not go on at once.

“Ja-ack,—I sent you a letter ten days ago. I hope you did not receive
it.”

“No?” Jack said, more as an interrogative than an assertion.

But Fanny understood the latter, and went on more cheerfully; “I am so
glad. Promise me that if you do receive it, as you may some time, you
will bring it to me unopened and unread.”

She was looking at him entreatingly, waiting for his reply, which came
quickly:

“If your letter ever comes to me I will surely bring it to you unread.”

Unconsciously he had laid a little emphasis on the _if_,—or there was
something in his face or voice which told Fan the truth.

“Jack,” she began again, and this time in a tremor of distress, “_did_
you get my letter?”

With her eyes confronting him as they were Jack had no choice left him.

“Yes,” he replied.

“Oh, Jack, what must you think of me?” Fanny cried, covering her face
with her hands, while the tears trickled through her fingers and fell
upon her black dress. “I don’t know why I did it,” she went on rapidly,
“only I longed to let you know how I hated myself for the wrong I did
you, and for which I have paid more dearly than you know. I could not
help writing the letter after I began to think about it, and I hurried
to get it off, and when Annie expressed her disapprobation I was angry.”

“Did Annie know you wrote it?” Jack asked in some surprise, and Fanny
replied, “Not until it was posted. Something she said opened my eyes to
what I had done. It was like waking from a dream, and I went to the
office to withdraw it, but it was gone. After awhile I was glad I had
sent it, or at least not sorry, and I made myself believe that you would
call me Fanny when we met in token of perfect forgiveness and was happy
in the thought. I wrote it here in this room,—in this window, where I
was to wait and watch for you. You see I know it all. I made Annie tell
me everything, and if my heart had not been dried and seared it would
have broken for you,—_Jack, for you_.” There was a sound in her voice as
she said “For you, Jack; for you,” which would have stirred Jack
mightily and made him take her in his arms, if the past and Annie had
not stood between them.

“I came up here into this room,” she continued, “and on my knees
expiated my sin, if anguish and tears can do it. I had not cried in so
long that I thought I should never cry again. That was before George
died. I never loved him; he knew I never did, but I was faithful to him,
and he said I was kind. He left me all his money,—so much more than I
can manage or know what to do with and I wanted you to have some of
it,—wanted you to forgive me and take it from me.”

In her excitement she had laid her heart more bare than she had done in
her letter. Jack had understood that;—he understood her now and pitied
her for the pain he must inflict. At the mention of money his face
clouded and his voice was harder than it would otherwise have been, as
he said, “How much you mistake me, if you think I could take your
money,—_his_ money. You mean it kindly, I know, and so far I thank you.
I am not as poor now as I was when you shrank from sharing my poverty,
and if I were, you must see that I should accept nothing from you. I do
forgive you, Fanny. It is impossible that I should feel otherwise than
kindly to one who was so much to me once that the whole world was full
of her, and I had no thought of anything which was not connected with
her.”

Fanny was not crying now, but listening with her head upon the table
where his arm was resting while he toyed with a fancy paper-knife, the
last article he had bought for her. He had found it in Richmond and
brought it to the room the morning of the day her letter came. He was
thinking of this and of everything connected with that time. Perhaps
this was why he spoke so plainly. He did not mean to wound her
unnecessarily, but he did mean to remove from her mind all hope that
things could ever be again between them as they had been.

“You have no idea,” he said, “of my happiness that day when I brought
Annie here. It was as if all Heaven had come down to make its abode in
this room where the blow fell, and I felt as if my blood were leaving me
drop by drop until I was one great block of ice. Heavens, how cold I
was, and I never was warm again until the Florida sun shone on me as I
sat on the sand at noon, with my head uncovered, hoping the iceberg
would thaw.”

Fanny was now sitting bolt upright, her eyes growing larger and blacker
until, as Jack went on, she felt her blood oozing away drop by drop and
leaving her the iceberg Jack was describing. She was warm enough later
on, as Jack continued: “I have never felt unkindly towards you, Fanny,
and had you come into this room that night and asked me to forgive you
and spoken to me and looked at me as you have looked and spoken now, I
have no doubt I should have taken you back, I loved you so much. Even
now you stand to me in a different relation from any woman in the world,
for you embody the memory of something in my early manhood which was
very sweet. I would go through fire and water to serve you, but the past
is dead. You have been the wife of another man, and I shall soon be the
husband of another woman.”

Fanny’s face was spotted, but it turned as white as the bit of muslin
she wore at her throat when Jack added, “Annie is to be my wife.”

“Annie! And she never told me!” Fanny gasped. “I’ll never forgive her,
never!”

Jack knew she would, for it was not her nature to harbor malice against
anyone, and especially against Annie, who was a part of herself. But the
blow had struck her hard. She was so sure of winning Jack that she had
never thought of a possible rival, and that rival Annie. Now, however,
she began to read backward and to see what in her blindness she had not
seen before. For a few minutes resentment against Annie was uppermost in
her mind. “She should have told me; it would have saved me all this
shame,” she said. And mentally Jack agreed with her, although he would
not say so, lest he should seem to be blaming Annie. But he was sorry
for Fanny. All her hopes were dead. Jack was gone from her past recall,
and the world looked very desolate stretching on into the future year
after year, while she walked in it alone. Then with a great effort she
controlled herself and, smiling at Jack through her tears, she said,
“Never was there a woman more abased and crushed than I am, but I shall
not die. I am too plucky for that. If you wanted revenge you have had
it. I think we are quits, and now I am going home to have it out with
Annie, and that will end it. Don’t come with me. Wait till evening when
the storm will be over. My tantrums never lasted long, you know.”

The next moment she was gone, and Jack saw her taking the path through
the woods to The Elms. “Annie is somewhat to blame, but I hope Fan won’t
scratch her eyes out,” he thought, as he started for the village in
another direction. There was no danger of that although Fanny was very
indignant, and rushing into the house like a cyclone she plunged at once
into the fray. It was nearly supper time, and Annie was in her room
making some changes in her toilet when Fanny came in banging the door
behind her and standing with her back to it as she told in part what had
transpired at The Plateau.

“Were you engaged when I came home at Thanksgiving?” she asked, and
Annie answered “No.”

“Were you engaged when you came to Washington?”

“Yes.”

“Then, why didn’t you tell me, and not let me prate about Jack as I did,
showing how much I cared for him?”

“Just because you did show me how much you cared for him,” Annie
replied, roused at last to defend herself. “I tried to tell you two or
three times in Washington, but could not. It did not seem just the thing
to parade my happiness before you then, and tell you I had won the lover
you jilted and whom I was sure you hoped to win back.”

Annie was speaking very plainly, and without looking at Fan went on:
“There was another reason,—a stronger one. I knew how Jack had loved
you, and jealousy, perhaps, or some other ignoble feeling, whispered to
me that now you were free, he might turn to you again, and this has been
the mainspring of my silence, which I regret exceedingly. I might have
written it to you, and did begin one or two letters, but tore them up,
saying to myself, “I’ll give Jack a chance to see her, and if after that
he wavers ever so little towards me I shall know it and give him up.” I
could not share a divided love. I must have all of Jack, or none. When
you came home you were full of him and so sure of him that I could not
tell you. If I had known you were going to write to him as you did, I
should have mustered courage and stopped it. I did not know until it was
too late, and, like a coward, I waited to let Jack decide for himself.”

“Which he has with a vengeance,” Fanny interposed. “You ought to have
heard him talk to me till I could have crept on my knees out of his
sight, I felt so small and ashamed. It was kind, perhaps, to take such
heroic measures to cure me, but not like the old Jack whom I could twist
around my little finger. He isn’t that Jack at all. I couldn’t twist him
now. I should be afraid of him. I was afraid of him, as I sat listening
to him, but never respected him so much in my life. I have had one man
of whom I stood in fear. I don’t want another. You are welcome to him.
He would have come home with me, but I told him to wait till I’d had it
out with you. I’ve had it out. It’s the only mean thing I ever knew you
do, but I forgive you and hope you will be happy. Of course you will,
but Jack will be the master. I shouldn’t like that. You will. If I were
you I would take off that brown thing which is so unbecoming. Put on a
white gown this hot night. You are lovely in white. Jack is coming, and
you want to look your best.”

Fan’s anger and resentment were wearing off. She had played her game and
lost it, and as she had once said in an emergency, there was no use
crying for spilled milk, she wouldn’t cry now. Jack was still Jack, and
Annie was Annie, and she could not afford to quarrel with them. They
were engaged, and she would do what she could to further their
happiness, and would begin by improving Annie’s personal appearance. The
brown gown annoyed her, and she made Annie put on a white one and fixed
her hair more as she wore her own and fastened a rose at her neck and
kissed her, saying as she held her off for inspection, “All you need is
a little style to make you a beauty, but just as you are any man might
be proud of you and glad that you were his. Jack is, I know. I believe I
hear him. He has come early. Go down and have the first cooing over
before I get there. Tell him the eagle has not harmed his dove. Go.”

She pushed Annie from the room, and then falling upon the bed, with her
face down and her hands clinched, she lay there a long time, fighting
the hardest battle of her life, while below stairs the cooing went on
and Annie was nestled in Jack’s arms, with her head upon his breast,
while he chided her for not having told Fanny and saved her from so much
mortification. But he covered her mouth with kisses while he chided, and
she knew he was not angry. “We must be married very soon now,” he said
energetically, as if afraid that Fanny might carry him off bodily if he
waited. He had nothing, however, to fear from Fanny, who, having fought
her fight and conquered, was quite herself when she at last came down to
the supper which had waited so long that Phyllis’s turban stood higher
than Fanny had seen it before since she came home. Fanny had made Annie
as attractive as possible, and then had twisted her own hair into a
fashion very unbecoming to her. She had not worn her widow’s cap since
she came to Lovering, but she brought out one now, and perching it on
the top of her head surveyed herself in the mirror with a grim kind of
satisfaction. She could scarcely have told why she did this, unless it
were from some Quixotic idea not to overshadow Annie in Jack’s eyes. She
did not yet understand how wholly she had lost his love and how
absolutely Annie had won it. Jack was not much given to noticing one’s
dress unless it were very pronounced. He had thought Annie uncommonly
pretty when he came suddenly upon her watering a lily by the door, but
he did not think of associating her prettiness with her dress or the
arrangement of her hair. She was Annie,—his Annie,—whom he had not seen
for weeks, and he kept her at his side until Phyllis asked if they was
“never gwine to be done wid dat ar an’ come to supper.”

With the sound of Phyllis’s voice there came also the soft trail of
Fanny’s long dress on the stairs. There was a good deal of dignity in
her manner as she entered the room and took her seat at the table,
meeting with a smile Annie’s look of surprise at the cap on her head and
the way in which she had twisted her hair back from her high forehead.

“Lord save us, what has de chile done to alter her like dat ar,” came
from under Phyllis’s breath, while even Jack wondered what had changed
her so, and finally-attributed it to the cap, which seemed so out of
place on her.

Fanny did most of the talking, and when supper was over went to her
room, leaving Jack and Annie alone, as she knew they wished to be. She
was not one to do anything by the halves. She had given Jack up to her
sister and she meant to make the best of it, and as to her the best
seemed to be to remove herself from their way she very soon found
Lovering quite too hot for comfort, and decided to go to the White
Sulphur Springs with Marie.

“Maybe I shall come to see you married, and maybe I shall not,” she said
to Annie. “I can’t tell how I shall feel. If I do come you may think I
have a good deal of inward and spiritual grace. I ought to have
something to sustain me, for between you and Jack I have been pounded to
a pummice. Even George would be satisfied, if he knew. Poor George! he
wasn’t the worst man in the world.”

She was getting up quite a little sentiment for her husband’s memory and
talked of him a good deal, especially to Jack, during the last days of
her stay in Lovering, and she persisted in wearing her cap and twisting
her hair in a fashion which Annie thought horrid. Once at the Springs,
however, there was a change. The cap disappeared,—the hair came back to
its usual becoming style; there were narrow bands of white at the neck
and wrists of her black dresses, and among the guests there was no one
half so much admired and sought after as the beautiful Mrs. George
Errington of Washington.




                 CHAPTER XV.—AUTHOR’S STORY CONTINUED.
                       THE TENANT AT THE PLATEAU.


Jack had decided that his marriage should take place some time in
October, and soon after Fanny left he made arrangements whereby he could
leave his business for a while and join the party in Europe for the
winter. Nothing could please Annie better, and she immediately wrote to
Fanny asking if she would go with them.

“Not if I know myself,” was her prompt reply, “and you are crazy to ask
it. A real honeymoon in Europe, such as your’s and Jack’s will be, must
be delightful, but you ought to be alone. Think of me,—Jack’s first
love,—stalking along with you! No, thank you. And don’t think I am
eating my heart out with disappointment. I am not. I felt stunned at
first to find myself so completely stranded, but there is a good deal
left for me to enjoy yet. It is something to be admired and complimented
and sought after as I am here, even if they are simpletons, or
fortune-hunters, who do it. The wedding is the 20th of October, is it?
Well, I have decided to come and do the honors, and I am going to bring
you a diamond pin and earrings, and make over to you Carl’s present to
me three years ago. He meant it for Jack’s wife, and Jack’s wife shall
have it. Give him my love, dear old boy. Don’t be jealous. He is a dear
old boy, and you are sure to be happy with him. Going on the Celtic, are
you? We went on the Celtic, and our stateroom, where Jack’s eyes haunted
me so, was No —. Funny if you should get it.”

                  *       *       *       *       *

“Jack,” Annie said, the first time she saw him after the receipt of this
letter, “have you engaged our stateroom on the Celtic?”

“Yes.”

“What is the number?”

“No —.”

“Oh, Jack, can’t you change it?”

“Change it! They told me it was one of the best rooms on the ship. Why
should I change it?”

“I don’t know,” Annie said, holding Jack’s hand and rubbing her head
against his coat sleeve, “I don’t know,—only that’s the room Fanny had
when you haunted her so with your eyes. Maybe the Colonel will haunt
me.”

“Humbug! If he does I’ll pitch him overboard. Don’t go to being nervous,
little woman,” Jack replied, swinging her up in his arms as if she had
been a child, and kissing her till she struggled away from him.

That day Jack received a letter saying that Mr. Emery had sold the house
on The Plateau to a lady,—a widow,—who would probably take possession
about the first of October. As she might arrive unexpectedly, she would
be obliged if Mr. Fullerton would leave the key of the house with the
station master where she could get it at once. “A lady and a widow,”
Annie said, her interest and curiosity piqued and increased by the fact
that neither the name nor whereabouts of the stranger was given.
Everything pertaining to The Plateau was as much a mystery as ever, but
busied with her preparations for her wedding and journey abroad Annie
forgot The Plateau, until one morning when Jack came in and told her
that the lady of The Plateau had come on the early train from Richmond.
He had not seen her, but some of the villagers had and described her as
in deep mourning, with a thick veil over her face, hiding her features
from view. A stalwart negro, who seemed to be her factotum, had gotten
the key from the station master, and called a carriage into which he put
his lady and a white girl, presumably her maid. Besides the big negro
there were three more servants in the party and they were now domiciled
at The Plateau. This was exciting, and the excitement was further
increased by the rumor circulated by some black who had been to The
Plateau to the effect that the servants were all a stuck-up lot of city
negroes,—that the big one was a _butler_, and the white one spoke some
foreign gibberish and wore a cap.

“Who can the lady be?” Annie wondered, and when, the next day, Jack
proposed a drive past The Plateau she assented readily, hoping she might
get a glimpse of the stranger.

It was a warm afternoon, and as they drove slowly up the hill they
noticed that every window of the house was open, while the servants
seemed to be busy going in and out. A box of flowers stood in the bay
window of _our room_, and near it a bird’s cage was hanging, showing
that the owner had appropriated the chamber to herself.

“There she is,” Annie said, as the figure of a tall woman passed before
the window and was gone before Jack had a view of her.

“Who do you suppose she is?” Annie asked, and in the next breath
exclaimed, “Jack, what are you doing? You certainly are not going to
call!”

“I certainly am,” he replied, turning into the grounds, while Annie
continued to expostulate.

“But, Jack, it’s so soon. What will she think? I haven’t any cards, and
you do not even know her name.”

“We will learn it, then,” Jack said, springing from the buggy and
helping Annie to alight.

They went to the front door, where Jack was going to enter unannounced.

“Are you crazy?” Annie said, giving a pull to the bell, which echoed
through the whole house and brought at once the white maid who spoke the
foreign tongue.

“_Marie! Marie!_ How came you here?” Annie gasped, beginning to
understand and looking enquiringly at Jack, whose face told her that he
knew whom they had come to see.

“Tell your mistress that Miss Hathern and Mr. Fullerton are here,” he
said, and with a bow the girl departed, meeting her mistress on the
stairs and saying something to her in French.

The next moment Fanny was in the room, half laughing and half crying as
she tried to explain.

“I did not want the place sold to strangers, and bought it myself, or
had Mr. Emery do it for me. I have owned it all the time.”

With Jack present she could not say that when she bought it she had a
hope that she might some day live there a portion of the year with him.
She had taken a great fancy to the house the first time she saw it, and
had anticipated the day when as Jack’s wife she could give it to him and
say “We will still live here, and you shall see me from the window
waiting and watching as you come over the hill.” That dream was ended,
but she would keep the place as the sepulchre of her hopes and Jack’s,
and when she was tired of Washington, as she was often likely to be, she
would come to The Plateau as to a kind of Retreat, where she could rest
and be near her old home. Mr. Emery had bought the place in his own name
and then conveyed it to her, and she had furnished the means with which
to keep it up, and had put it in Annie’s care and Jack’s until she chose
to appear as the real proprietor. A good deal of this she told to Annie
and Jack, the latter of whom understood what she omitted.

“And here I am,” she added, with a smile which belied a pain in her
heart if there were any. “I’ve come for the wedding and can be mistress
of ceremonies, and have brought Annie the loveliest gown, cream satin,
and veil and orange wreath. You will be married in church,” she
continued, as she saw Annie about to protest. “I know you meant to have
a quiet, poky thing at home, with gingerbread and lemonade, but my
sister shall have a wedding that is a wedding, and one which will make
the people stare. You certainly ought to let me have my way in this.”

There was no use combatting Fan when she was as much in earnest as she
was now, and Annie did not try, but yielded to her in everything.

The next two weeks were busy and exciting ones in Lovering, where the
people gossiped and commented, and messages were sent every day over the
wires to Richmond and Petersburg, and Fanny drove about the town; to the
caterer’s, the florist’s’ and The Elms, where Annie’s dress was making
by a modiste from Richmond.

“Now you look like a bride. Full dress becomes you,” Fanny said, when at
last Annie stood ready for her bridal, the creamy satin falling in soft
folds around her slight figure, which gathered height from the length of
the train.

The diamonds Fanny had brought lay in their case upon the bureau, and on
Annie’s neck were strings of exquisite pearls which Fanny had fastened
there, saying “They are more like you than the diamonds, which will do
for other occasions.” Fanny was spending her money like water and Annie
was not the only one who benefited by it. Grand as she was in her bridal
robes, Phyllis in her way was grander still and far more conscious of
herself.

Fanny had not only bought her a wonderful turban of crimson and orange,
but also a black silk dress with a short train. A negro in silk was
something which Lovering had not reached with all its strides towards
freedom, and some of the people disapproved and said so privately, while
the blacks were loud in their denunciations, saying “Phyllis was nuffin
but a nigger, if she did war silk.”

Phyllis held her own and carried herself as if she owned the house and
the church and the rector and the whole business, and walked like a
duchess behind the bridal party under the canopies which Fanny had
ordered from Richmond. The like had never been seen in Lovering, and a
crowd of whites and blacks gathered at the church around the _tent_, as
they called it, discussing the guests as they arrived. Nothing could
exceed the beauty of the house and grounds that night. There was no
moon, but there were Chinese lanterns and lamps and torches everywhere,
making it almost as light as day outside, while inside it was like a
great garden of flowers, wagon loads of which had been sent from
Petersburg, together with a brass band which at intervals played on the
wide piazza, around which hundreds of lookers on were assembled. It was
an affair not soon to be forgotten, and to this day the stranger in
Lovering is sometimes told by the blacks of the grand doings when Miss
Annie Hathern was married to “Mas’r Fullerton, him as has been to
congress twict sense, and is the firstest man here;” of the band and the
_tents_ and lanterns and fireworks and the _canterer_ from Richmond, and
of old Phyllis’s silk gown in which she felt so big. More blacks than
Phyllis have worn silk in the reconstructed south, but she was the
pioneer in Lovering and fully realized the _éclat_ of her position,
making a most imposing figure as she moved among the staff of trained
servants which filled the kitchen that night and with whom she had more
than one fierce battle.

What Fanny felt no one could guess. She seemed very happy as she did the
honors of the house, her black dress in sharp contrast to the creamy
satin of the bride who looked so lovely and young as she stood by her
husband’s side and received the congratulations of her friends. This was
on Wednesday, and as they were to sail on Saturday the bridal pair left
The Elms the next morning amid the cheers and good wishes of the crowd
of people assembled to see them off. Fanny was not with them. She had
said good-bye at the house and then been driven to The Plateau, where,
alone in her room, with her face buried in her hands, she rocked to and
fro, moaning to herself, “Oh, Annie,—oh, Jack. It is very hard to bear.
I am glad you are happy; but how desolate your going has left me and how
dreary life is to me now.”




                                PART IV.
                             KATY AND CARL.




                       CHAPTER I.—ANNIE’S STORY.
                           IN THE OLD WORLD.


When I first awoke at Langham’s in London and looked from my window the
fog was so thick that I could see nothing but the gas jets flickering
faintly in the gloom, seeming not much larger than the smallest taper.
It was what the English call beastly weather and a very _narsty_ day,
for a cold, drizzling rain was falling and adding to the general
discomfort, but to me it was glorious sunshine, and has been ever since
the night Jack made me his wife. What a grand wedding we had, and how
the people must have gossiped about the expenditure,—the canopies,—the
carpets,—the caterers,—the flowers,—the lanterns and lights and music
which made the place fairyland, in the midst of which I walked like one
in a dream, knowing only that Jack was by my side,—that the people were
calling me by his name,—and that I was perfectly happy. Occasionally I
caught a glimpse in a mirror of a little brown-haired woman, gorgeous in
satin and pearls and lace, with a fleecy veil sweeping the floor as she
walked, and was conscious of wondering who she was, and thinking she was
rather pretty, though not like Fan, the queen of the evening.

How wonderfully beautiful her face was, beaming everywhere and always
with that smile, the brightest I have ever seen. Poor Fan! I pitied her
the next morning when she said good-bye to me. The roses were gone from
her cheeks, and her eyes were so sad as she kissed me and said “God
bless you, Annie, and bring you safely back.” Then she turned to Jack
and involuntarily put up her lips. He kissed her and I was glad. There
can be no jealousy of her now. Jack is mine, and I say it over and over
to myself so many times. Mine,—my Jack, who grows dearer to me every
day. If there are storms on the sea I do not know it from experience,
for the ocean was like a lake and our crossing like a dream. We had the
same stateroom where Fanny suffered so much, but although Jack’s eyes
were on me a good share of the time when I was awake they did not
trouble me, and I always smiled back at them when I met their gaze.

We did not go to Morley’s, but to the Langham instead, although the
former is the more central of the two. I think the fact that Col.
Errington stopped there decided Jack against it. He never speaks of the
man and very seldom of Fanny, who has left The Plateau and gone back to
Washington. I think we saw everything in London, even to the Queen and
the Princess; and we went everywhere,—not to dinners and receptions as
Fanny did, for we knew no one, but to every place of interest of which I
had ever heard. And it was such a delight to see things with Jack,
although I think I tired him out, as I used occasionally to hear him
groan and see him put his hand on his back as if it ached when I
suggested Mad. Tussaud’s, or the theatre, in the evening after we had
been out all day. In the museum he was specially listless, saying life
was not long enough to see all there was there, and he used frequently
to sit down and tell me he would rest while I examined the coins and
stones and things for which he did not care a red. But at the Tower and
the Abbey and St. Paul’s he was wide-awake, and knew so much more about
the old dead kings and queens and people buried there that I felt myself
quite an ignoramus beside him.

We staid in London two weeks, and with the exception of the first few
days the weather was as clear and fine as it is at home in November. We
had letters of congratulation from Miss Errington and Katy, who were in
Berlin, and were to join us later in southern France or Italy. Katy had
sung twice at parlor concerts and had received overtures for a public
engagement at a high price if she would take it. But she declined,
actuated, as I afterwards learned, by the remembrance of Carl’s last
words to her, implying that she must choose between his good opinion and
her Career. She had an aptitude for foreign languages, and before going
abroad had studied French, Italian and German, and had applied herself
so assiduously to them since that she could render almost any song in
the language of the country, her English accent only adding piquancy to
her singing. Had she been sure of Carl she might have gone upon the
stage, knowing that with her innate purity and sense of propriety she
could have maintained her integrity of character against all odds and
resisted temptation in every form. But Carl’s “Then good-bye” was always
present with her, much as she tried to put it from her and to tell
herself that he was nothing to her, and she nothing to him, and might,
if she chose, be a law unto herself.

Carl had staid in Paris until Paul’s cure was assured, if care were
exercised for the next few years. Then he started suddenly for
Switzerland, where, in Lucerne, he met Katy, who, with Miss Errington,
was at the same hotel, the Schweitzerhof. She was undeniably glad to see
him, and her eyes told him so and brought back all the love he had ever
felt for her. There were walks under the chestnuts which skirt the
lovely lake,—trips up the Rigi and Pilatus, with excursions into the
country. Katy’s loveliness had expanded and deepened like the rose when
the morning dew lies upon it. And Carl had drank in her beauty and
sweetness eagerly, like one thirsting for something pure and good and a
better life than he had known, but as often as he opened his lips to say
the words he wanted to, she seemed to know it and either managed to
withdraw herself from him, or to talk of something else until a third
party joined them. She had never forgotten the summer which meant so
much to her and so little to him, and had also heard rumors of the
French widow, which she resented, and held herself from him in such a
manner that love-making was impossible. She had given up her Career for
him, or thought she had, and his record must be as spotless as her own
and he as single-hearted as herself, if she ever accepted him, and when
at last she left Lucerne his words of love were still unspoken and she
seemed as far from him as ever.




                      CHAPTER II.—AUTHOR’S STORY.
                                MADAME.


By some chance the train which took Katy and Miss Errington away brought
Madame Felix, greatly surprised and delighted to meet Monsieur
Haverleigh and _le petit garçon_, who she had no idea were in Lucerne.
All this she said in very broken English for the benefit of Sam Slayton,
who confided to Paul that Madame was an infernal liar and more dangerous
than ever. Possibly Carl thought so too. It was such a change from Katy
to this woman who, by her delicate flattery and tacit appeal for
sympathy, had fascinated and controlled him against his better judgment.
He had left Paris without letting her know where he was going, and had
breathed freer when the Jura mountains divided him from her. When with
her she absorbed him entirely and held him with cords he could neither
understand nor loosen. Away from her, he could rebel against her
influence and the ownership of him which her manner implied. He was her
_good American friend_,—her _adviser_,—her _brother_, since she lost her
dear Felix, whose name she never mentioned without her handkerchief
going to her eyes in token of her sorrow.

At the Grand Hotel where she had spent much of her time since her
husband’s death she had been sitting one evening with Carl in the court
near some English people, a part of whose conversation they overheard as
it related to themselves. “She has him sure,—more’s the pity;—her
husband hasn’t been dead so very long;—he don’t look quite the chap to
be roped in by a widow older than himself,” were the disjointed
sentences Carl caught, and which Madame with all her ignorance of
English understood. Carl flushed angrily and was about to move away
when, with a shrug of her shoulders, Madame laid her hand on his arm and
detained him, saying, “Stay where you are. I will go, if either; it is I
they aim at, these nasty English. I hate them;—not to understand that we
are friends, nothing more. Absurd to think different, and I so much
older than you;—many years,—two, three, four perhaps. I am twenty-seven,
and you? You are quite a boy compared to me.”

Carl did not reply. He knew she would never see thirty again, and he did
not fancy being called a boy.

“I will go to Passy and bury myself, if it annoys you to be friends with
me. Shall I?” she continued.

Carl told her he didn’t care a _sou_ for the English or what they
thought, and she was not to go to Passy on his account. She did go,
however, the next day,—called there suddenly on business which took her
to Marseilles. Left to himself Carl began to think, and as a result of
the thinking he packed his trunks and left Paris without leaving his
address at the hotel, an act for which Sam gave special thanksgiving and
dropped a piece of money on the plate at St. Eustace’s, where he was in
the habit of going to hear the music. If Carl hoped to be rid of Madame
in this way he was mistaken, for she found his address at his banker’s
and started at once for Lucerne.

“I believe she is the devil,” he said to himself when he saw her alight
from the railway carriage, affecting a pretty air of invalidism as she
came towards him.

She had been ill in Marseilles, she said, and her physician had ordered
her to Switzerland for a change of air, “and here you are, at the
Schweitzerhof, I suppose. All the swells go there. I was once there a
month with dear Felix, but now,—” she hesitated a moment and then went
on: “I did not write you the nature of the business which took me so
suddenly to Passy and Marseilles. I knew your good heart would be so
sorry for me. Felix was not as rich as I supposed. He has a brother to
whom he owed a great deal of money and who had a mortgage on the
chateau. He is there now, and I,—I am poor. I must go to the Cygne,
where it is cheaper.”

She said all this very rapidly, with a tear or two on her eyelashes,
which might have dropped on her nose, if she had ever done so unbecoming
and vulgar a thing as to let a tear stand upon that organ. She had the
rare faculty to cry just when she wanted to, and also to keep her tears
where they would do the most effective work. Naturally she did not go to
the Cygne, but to the Schweitzerhof, and took a parlor and bedroom and
seemed anything but poor. She was, however, very quiet, and mixed but
little with any of the guests, except Carl. Over him she speedily
resumed her influence to some extent. She was so bright and original and
said such amusing things, and always made him feel at his best with her
delicate flattery, which seemed so sincere that he could not resist her.

“Katy stands on so high a plane of puritanism that I can’t touch her
with a ten-foot pole. I always feel like a cad with her, while with
Julie I am satisfied and believe myself a pretty good fellow,” he
thought, and drifted again into an atmosphere he knew was unhealthy and
one which he would not like Katy to breathe.

Of himself he would not have told Julie that Katy had been there; but
Madame heard of her from Paul, who was full of Katy, so beautiful, he
said, and Carl loved her so much and sat with her under the chestnuts
and rowed on the lake, and everything. Others than Paul talked of the
lovely American who had sung for them one night in the parlor as no one
had ever sung in Lucerne before. Every guest in the house had come in to
hear her, while a crowd had gathered outside to listen. Madame smiled
sweetly as she heard all this, but there was fierce jealousy in her
heart of this young girl who had come between her and Carl. He might
never marry her, she knew, but she would bind him to her with one of
those Platonic friendships which French women delight in, and which
would remove Katy from her path almost as effectually as marriage would
have done.

“American women are so prudish,” she thought, “and cannot understand
that a man and woman can be everything to each other and still be
perfectly correct. Once let Katy believe there is something between us
not quite _au fait_, and I have nothing to fear from her.”

Still Katy troubled her, and she felt an irresistible desire to talk of
her to Carl, but always on the assumption that she was his sister and
nothing more.

“They tell me your sister is very beautiful and sings divinely. I wish I
might have seen her. You must be proud of her,” she said to him, and he
answered, “She is beautiful, and I am proud of her.”

Madame understood at once that he would rather not discuss Katy with
her, and her eyes shone for a moment with a dangerous light, as she said
next, “You must love her very much?”

To this Carl made no answer, and Madame continued: “She was very young,
I believe, when your mother went to The Elms, was she not?”

“Yes, very young,” Carl replied, wondering vaguely how Madame knew so
much about The Elms as she sometimes seemed to know.

“Paul has told her a great deal, I dare say,” he thought, and then, at a
sudden turn of Madame’s head and a lifting of her eyelids there came to
him a misty kind of feeling, such as he had several times experienced,
that somewhere he had seen just such a poise of the head and heard just
such purring tones as belonged to Madame Felix.

He had never spoken to her about it, but now, glad of anything which
would turn the conversation away from Katy, he asked abruptly if she
were ever in America.

“In America!” she answered with great energy. “_Mon dieu! Jamais!_
America, Monsieur?—nothing could tempt me to cross the sea. I die upon
the Channel. Why do you think I have been in America?”

“Because you remind me of some one I must have seen,” he said, “and just
now when you were talking of Katy I could almost think who it was.”

“Impossible that you could have seen me. Impossible!” and Madame shook
her head very decidedly, but said no more of Katy, either then or
afterwards.

Carl was going to Homburg from Lucerne, and when he told Madame of his
intention she declared it to be the very place where she was expecting
to go, hoping the waters would do her good and where she knew of an
inexpensive _pension_.

“I must retrench now,” she said. “Nearly every letter I get brings worse
news than the one before with regard to my fortune, which I thought so
large. I really ought not to have staid at this hotel, and but for the
accident of meeting you should not.”

Carl understood her, and with his usual generosity offered to pay her
bills, and when she declined with horror from putting herself in so
questionable a position, especially as she had no Felix to protect her,
he felt almost as if he had insulted her and promptly asked her pardon,
offering as a loan what her self-respect would not allow her to take as
a gift. This she accepted, and a week later found her in Homburg,
whither Carl had preceded her by a few days.




                 CHAPTER III.—AUTHOR’S STORY CONTINUED.
                              AT HOMBURG.


Carl had expected Madame to go when he did, but with a very pretty
throwing up of her hands and a shrug of her shoulders she had exclaimed
“Mon dieu, Monsieur, if all the world were as unsuspicious as you what a
delight to live. But there are more vile English than those we met in
Paris. Homburg is full of them, and I must be discreet. Should we go
together they might talk, and I owe it to Felix’s memory to avoid the
very appearance of anything like an understanding. You will go first,
and I shall follow. There can be no harm in that.”

For the life of him Carl could see no harm in their traveling on the
same train, while going purposely at different times looked as if there
were something to conceal, and, so far as he was concerned, there was
nothing. But he acquiesced and left her in Lucerne, promising to look at
the inexpensive _pension_ she named, and to engage a room for her if it
were not too second-classy and he thought she could endure it. She hated
_pensions_. She had staid in one or two after the Commune when the
French aristocracy fled for their lives. She detested them then, but
must get accustomed to them now in her changed circumstances, she said,
and remembering this Carl found the inexpensive _pension_ too
second-classy to suit Madame, for whom rooms were engaged at the ——
Hotel, which enjoyed the prestige of having the Princess Christian dine
in its garden every night, accompanied occasionally by her brother the
Prince of Wales. There was at first a pretense on Madame’s part of
protesting that she must not take the rooms. She could not afford it,
but Carl quieted her with another loan and the matter was finally
amicably adjusted.

It was astonishing to Carl how many people Madame knew at Homburg.
Friends of other and happier days, she said, as she presented them to
him. Some of them had titles, some seemed very well-bred, while others
were rather seedy, Carl thought. They all paid homage to Madame, who
soon had a little court around her and forgot to weep for Felix as much
as she had done. As an American Carl felt himself the equal of anyone,
and still in his heart there was a kind of respect for rank and
aristocracy which made him overlook any little idiosyncracies of manner
and action in Madame’s friends. It was this same feeling which had drawn
him more closely to Madame herself. He knew that Monsieur Felix’s family
was good, and without saying it in so many words Madame had insinuated
that hers was equally as good. If he had ever doubted this he believed
it in Homburg, where she knew so many titled people, and he was not a
little proud to be one of her set. Sam suspected them of being sharpers,
especially after he found how much time they spent with cards in
Madame’s private parlor. Carl was usually with them a looker-on at
first. He had never played for money in his life, and for a few days his
New England training and the memory of his mother restrained him. Then
Julie persuaded him to take a hand with her just for once.

“The stakes are not very high and I nearly always win, and Count de
Varré is ill to-night,” she said, and Carl sat down and won and gave his
winnings to Madame.

Then he tried his hand again and won till Madame had quite a little sum
at her command. Naturally social, Carl found Madame’s friends very
agreeable and amusing, especially the ladies, one of whom was young and
unmarried, while the other was a widow and a baroness and took snuff and
talked loud and wore big diamonds. They all made much of Carl, whose
fortune rumor, as usual, had doubled. Every night they played, sometimes
in one private salon, sometimes in another,—and Carl frequently was one
of the party. When he played with Madame he usually won, not very
much,—but still won,—and when he played against her, he lost,—sometimes
heavy sums, which made him shiver a little when next day he gave his
cheque for the amount, and all the time Sam Slayton watched them as
closely as if he had been a detective.

One night they met in Carl’s salon, Madame playing with Count de Varré
and the old baroness with Carl, who lost, but kept on playing until Sam,
who had persisted in staying in the room and at a little distance had
been watching the game closely, suddenly exclaimed, as he caught Carl’s
arm, and prevented him from putting down a certain card, “Great
Jerusalem, don’t you know they are all in league and fleecing you? I
learned a trick or two in the army, but never thought to see it
practiced among decent people.”

Madame, the only one who understood Sam, nearly fainted, while the Count
sprang to his feet, demanding angrily the cause of the disturbance and
why this boor of a fellow was allowed with gentlemen, and what he had
said.

“He said you were cheating at cards, and by George I believe he spoke
the truth,” Carl answered, the mists suddenly clearing from his moral
perceptions and showing him the danger he was in.

The scene which followed was rather lively, the Count denying the charge
and hurling angry invectives against Sam, who, not comprehending a word,
met them with Yankee coolness and indifference, but stood his ground
manfully and showed _how_ the cheating was done, while Madame protested
that if there had been cheating she was not a party to it, and begged
Carl to believe her, and became at last so violently hysterical that,
whether he believed her or not, he made a pretense of doing so.

“It was as plain as the nose on your face,” Sam said in describing it to
Carl. “I can’t say that Madame cheated, but the others did and gave
information across the table in the most barefaced way. I told you they
was sharpers.”

Carl began to think so too. Possibly Madame was innocent. He was
inclined to think she was, but it was a very questionable kind of people
to whom she had introduced him, and he resolved to break away from his
Homburg associates,—cleanse himself from their atmosphere,—and then find
Katy, confess everything to her, and sue for the love for which he was
beginning to long so intensely. To leave Madame, however, was not so
easy to do. Since the episode in his room she had been very despondent,
and while affecting to be indignant at the Count, had clung more and
more to Carl, and always spoke of going when and where he went as a
matter of course. In this respect an accident favored him. He was not
very fond of early rising, and seldom joined the crowds which went to
the Springs before breakfast. He had been there once with Madame, who
never missed a morning, and once with Paul, who went to see the Prince
of Wales, and who, when he saw him, exclaimed “Why, Carl, he’s only a
man with a white dog and gray clothes like Sam’s,”—a remark which
greatly amused those who heard and understood it. After that Carl staid
in bed and left Paul to go alone with Sam to see the Prince and his
white dog.

One morning as he was waiting for them to return and wondering why they
were so late Sam came rushing into his room, exclaiming, “Hurrah, now’s
your time to cut and run! Madame has broken her ankle and will not walk
for weeks. We had a great time getting her to the hotel. Took me and the
Count and two lords, and all hands. I tell you, she’s solid!”

It seemed that in going to the Springs for her eight glasses of water,
Madame had somehow slipped and broken her ankle in two places and was
brought to her room at the hotel in great agony. It was impossible not
to be sorry for her and for a day or two Carl staid by her, seeing that
she had every attention and comfort. Then he announced his intention to
leave Homburg, which had become so distasteful to him that he hated
himself for being there and was anxious to get away. Just where he was
going he did not know, but he had Copenhagen in mind, with Stockholm
afterwards, and possibly St. Petersburg and Moscow and Warsaw, if it
were not too late. Madame’s ankle would keep her a prisoner for some
time in Homburg, and the trip he contemplated was far too expensive for
her to undertake. She could not follow him, and he felt as if a great
weight had been lifted from him and left him a free man as the train
took him away from Homburg and the people whose influence had been so
pernicious. He would like to have joined Katy, but did not think himself
worthy yet to stand in her presence and meet the glance of her innocent
blue eye.

“I must be washed and boiled and ironed first,” he thought, and after a
few days’ stay at Frankfort, where Sam affected to live in constant
expectancy of seeing Madame come hobbling in on crutches, they left for
Copenhagen.




                       CHAPTER IV.—ANNIE’S STORY.
                            AT MONTE CARLO.


All this happened in the summer and early autumn before Jack and I went
to London and from thence to Paris, where the brightness and beauty of
the gay city astonished and bewildered me. I did not know that anything
could be as beautiful as its boulevards, its parks, its late flowers and
fountains, and crowds of happy-looking people seen everywhere. Its shop
windows were a constant delight, and Jack could scarcely get me away
from them. Had we staid in Paris long I should have developed a great
passion for dress. As it was I began to want everything I saw, until I
inquired the price, when my ardor cooled a little. I was never tired of
the picture galleries, or the Bois de Boulogne, or the Champs d’Elysées,
or the Avenue de l’Opéra, on which our hotel looked, or of counting the
number of white or gray horses seen in a day, and which sometimes
amounted to a thousand.

The weather was cold, but crisp and dry,—the trees were leafless and the
grass dead, but I did not mind it at all, and would like to have staid
in Paris all winter, but for Jack, who wanted to move on.

Carl, who had been to St. Petersburg and Moscow was now in Berlin, while
Katy and Miss Errington were in Monte Carlo, and urged us to join them.

“We are not here for play,” Katy wrote, “although there is a great
fascination in watching it and the people, and when you see how easily
money is sometimes won you are tempted to try your luck. But I have not
done so, and shall not. I should be ashamed to look Paul in the face (I
knew she meant Carl), if I had played with the men and women who nightly
crowded the Casino. We are not in a hotel, but in a lovely villa which
Miss Errington has rented. She is not strong,—is very tired with travel,
and the air here suits her, while the town suits me. It is the loveliest
spot in all the world, and like a garden every where, while the sea is a
constant delight. Do come and join us. We have plenty of room and the
weather is soft and warm as October at home. Norah isn’t with us, but is
coming soon. She found some cousins in Germany and wanted to _rest up_
awhile with them. We miss her more than I can tell. She is so efficient
and faithful. I doubt, though, if she gets along amicably with the
servants here, and her shoes will undoubtedly creak some at their way of
doing things. I am getting to be quite a gossip, or at least very
curious about my neighbors, and so suspicious too. So many seem to be
under a cloud. If you see a beautiful woman driving in a beautiful
carriage, behind beautiful horses, with a young man beside her, and ask
who she is, the chances are that the person you interrogate shrugs her
shoulders and says, ‘She is Lady _So-and-so_, separated from her
husband, and the young man beside her is Lord _Somebody_, who owns the
fine turnout and the villa she lives in and the diamonds she wears.’

“Then you feel disgusted and ashamed of your sex, but go to the Casino
just the same to watch the play, and the haggish old women, with their
black bags, in which they keep their gold and silver, and the young
women, fair English and American girls, sitting side by side with
blear-eyed roués whom they sometimes touch in their feverish haste to
gather up what they have gained, and put down more. Then, in spite of
yourself, you look about till you find Lady _So-and-so_, painted and
powdered, with the young man who owns the horses and carriage and
diamonds and her, standing behind her while she stakes _his_ money as
coolly as if it were her own. By and by a friend, who knows everybody,
calls your attention to a gray-haired man in the crowd and tells you it
is Earl _So-and-so_, husband of the painted woman playing so recklessly.
While you are hurrying to look at him you stumble upon another
celebrity, who tried to kill himself and failed, and is now at the table
again, with the perspiration rolling down his face and despair showing
in his eyes. To-morrow he may finish the work he began a week ago, and
there will be a fresh grave in that enclosure of suicides on the
hillside.

“Miss Errington laughs at me, I get so excited, and interested in it
all, particularly in our next-door neighbors, who occupy the grand villa
which stands so close to ours that I can see all they do, and often hear
what they say. It is a very gay party, of French and Germans; several
gentlemen and three ladies, one of whom interests me greatly and seems
to be the central figure. She is all in black, except when she wears a
rose or some other flower to relieve her sombre dress. Her eyes are
black, her eyebrows heavy, her color brilliant and her hair golden and
wavy. She is slightly lame, and in the morning sits a good deal on the
verandah on our side just where from my window I can see her distinctly,
or could until she caught me looking at her through a glass. Impertinent
in me, I know, but she fascinates me somehow with her complexion and
hair and eyes. Maybe she didn’t see me, but she spoke to our cook that
day and asked her who we were and since that she has sat further away
with her back to me and her long hair rippling down to her waist as if
she were drying it. She goes to the Casino every night, and once when I
stood watching her she stopped suddenly and left her seat. People tell
me that old habitues are superstitious and will not play if strangers
are looking at them.

“You must come soon and help me attend to my neighbors’ business. Miss
Errington is no good at all, and only laughs at my excitement, but she,
too, says, tell you to hurry. We need a man with us to keep us from
being talked about, as two lone women whom nobody knows.”

After the receipt of this letter I was crazy to reach Monte Carlo and
see Lady _So-and-so_, who was separated from her husband, and the Earl
from whom she was separated, and the haggish old women with black bags,
and the man who had tried to kill himself, and all the other
questionable people of the place. Jack made no objection to leaving
Paris, and in three days we were at Monte Carlo, said to be the
loveliest and wickedest place in the world. I saw only the loveliness at
first; and from the moment I began to climb the steep steps from the
station to the terrace above I was one exclamation point of delight, and
when I reached Miss Errington’s villa, which looked out upon the sea and
the Casino and Park in front, I was speechless with wonder that anything
could be so fair as the scene around me. Miss Errington’s villa was
small, but exceedingly pretty, and stood on the same grounds with what
we called The Grand Villa, while ours was _La Petite_.

It was late in the afternoon when we arrived, and I had just time to
freshen myself a little before dinner was served. Katy had given us her
room, which was larger than the guest chamber, and while making my
toilet I was constantly glancing from the windows toward the Grand
Villa, the piazza of which seemed to be full of people in evening dress,
and the sound of their voices was distinctly heard. Conspicuous among
their light costumes was a soft, black, fleecy dress, the train of which
reached far behind the lady who wore it, and whose face I could not see,
as her back was towards me. I could, however, distinguish masses of
golden hair piled high on the top of her head, with one or two curls
falling gracefully in her neck.

“That is Katy’s Madame,” I said, as I tried to get a glimpse of her
face, while Jack chaffed me for my curiosity.

Evidently it was a large dinner party assembled at the villa, and we saw
them filing into the salon and seating themselves at the long table
loaded with silver and cut glass and flowers. Then the shades were
dropped, and hid them from our sight, but we could hear their merry
laughter, louder it seemed to me and coarser than that of real gentlemen
and ladies.

“I do not believe they are real,” Katy said. “They are shams,—even if
they have titles among them. Their _chef_ told ours that Count de Varré
rents the villa and they picnic together. The woman in black is Madame
Felix. Paul has written me something about her. What do you know of
her?”

I replied by repeating at length all I had heard of her. “I should not
be greatly surprised if Carl joined the party later. He was at Homburg
with some of them,” I said, and repented my words the next moment, Katy
turned so pale and looked so distressed.

“Carl consorting with such people and Paul with him; and you knew it and
did not stop it!” she exclaimed, and in her eyes, blue as they were,
there was a look like Fan when her blood was at fever heat and her eyes
at their blackest with red spots in them.

“What could I do?” I asked. “Paul is beyond my control when with Carl,
and I do not believe he has been harmed. She has evidently been very
kind to him and he likes her.”

“Yes, I remember. I understand perfectly why she is kind to Paul,” Katy
replied, and I could hear her foot tap impatiently under the table, as
she grew more and more like Fan. “If Carl comes to that villa with Paul,
I’ll never speak to him again,” she added.

She was greatly excited and her excitement continued until dinner was
over and we were on our way to the Casino. The party from the Grand
Villa were just ahead of us,—Madame, with her black train thrown over
her arm, showing clouds of white lace and muslin underwear, while the
man who, Katy said, was Count de Varré, walked beside her, occasionally
putting his hand on her shoulder when she limped more than usual. We
purposely held back that they might enter before us; “and get well under
way before Madame spies me,” Katy said, a trifle viciously for her. “The
last time I was here I went in when she did, and you should have seen
the great black eyes she leveled at me for an instant, and then with a
half shrug walked away. She didn’t play that night while I was there. I
believe she thinks I am her evil genius.”

We were in the Casino by this time and I wanted to look about me a
little, but Katy hurried us on to the play-rooms, ablaze with light and
splendor and people gathered from all parts of the globe,—French,
Germans, Russians, Italians, English and Americans,—young and old,
beauties and belles, wrinkled hags and fair, innocent looking girls, who
had staked their first five francs stealthily, as if ashamed to do
it,—their second, if they won, with more assurance,—their third, with
still more, until at last every afternoon and evening, Sunday not
excepted, found them there, sitting between and jostled by men to whom
at home they would consider it a degradation to speak, or be near. At
one table sat an old, shrivelled woman, playing heavily, but so blind
and deaf and demented that she did not always know whether she had lost
or won, until her maid, who stood behind her, told her, and raked the
gold into her bag. At another table was a young man; an American, just
married, and also playing heavily, but losing as heavily, while his
girl-wife beside him looked on with tearful eyes and an occasional
remonstrance as she saw what was perhaps their all melting away so fast.
It was wonderful, and bewildering, and intoxicating, and as I went from
table to table and heard above the hum of voices the constant sing-song
of the croupiers “_Faite le jeu; le jeu est fait_,” and looked at the
players and saw how rapidly the gold and silver changed hands, I could
understand how strong was the temptation to try one’s luck when only
five francs was the stake and there was no possible chance for cheating
or being cheated.

“Would you like to risk a dollar?” Jack said, to try the strength of my
principles.

“No, indeed,” I replied, just as Katy pulled my sleeve and whispered,
“There they are,—the party from the Grand Villa,—all at the same table.
Madame has her back to us. You and Jack go round where you can see her
without letting her know you are watching her. By and by I’ll come and
hypnotize her so she’ll quit playing. You’ll see!”

We left Katy and went round to the other side of the table, getting as
near to it as possible and, without seeming to watch Madame, scanned her
curiously. She was handsome, with that voluptuous kind of beauty so many
men admire. She was quite tall and stout, but her figure was so perfect
that one forgot her size entirely. I knew that she owed much of her
brilliant color to art, but it was art perfected, as was the shading
under her eyes which two or three times swept the crowd in front of her
as if in quest of someone. I might have been mistaken, but I thought
there was a look of relief in them as if the one they feared to see was
not there. Once she smiled and spoke to the man beside her, Count de
Varré, showing a dimple in one cheek and a set of very white even teeth.
Her chief attraction, however, was in her golden hair which contrasted
so strongly with her eyes and eyebrows. It was certainly a strange freak
of nature,—that hair and those eyes,—and I said so to Jack, and asked
him what he thought of her.

“She is striking, certainly,” he said, “and just the kind of woman to
please some men,—Carl, for example; but she is not my style, and by
George, I believe I’ve seen her before.”

“That is hardly possible,” I replied, “inasmuch as she is a born French
woman.”

“How do you know she is a born French woman,” he asked, and I rejoined,
“I don’t know for sure, but have taken it for granted. When Paul first
met her she could not speak English. Don’t you remember he wrote that he
was teaching her?”

“English or no English, I have seen that woman before, or some one like
her,” Jack said.

He was good at remembering faces, while I was not good at all, and still
I, too, was beginning to think that I had seen Madame, when Katy came up
and said, “Now let me have your place, while you step aside, and see how
soon I can make her uncomfortable.”

I stepped aside, standing a little to the right of Katy, whose face I
could not see. But I saw Madame who, after a little, began to fidget in
her chair and cast frequent glances across the table to where Katy
stood, not looking at her all the time, but making it sufficiently
manifest that she was watching her. Strangely, too, Madame began to
lose. This made her more nervous than ever, and at last, folding her
hands in a despairing kind of way, she said something to the man beside
her. Following the direction of her eyes he saw Katy and at once came
round to her. Bowing low he begged a thousand pardons, but did she speak
French or English?

“Both,” she said, and he continued, rubbing his hands and bowing all the
time, “So sorry, but Madame Felix, the lady in black, is not well,—is
nervous,—and it affects her much to have Mademoiselle look at her with
those eyes, which,—pardon,—if I were not a stranger I should
compliment.”

Something in the eyes warned him not to compliment them, and he went on:
“She loses courage; she loses money. In short, will Mademoiselle be so
very good to go to some other table and watch somebody else. Am very
sorry to ask it?”

“Certainly I will,” Katy said, turning her back upon Madame, who
recovered her composure and began to play again.

Jack and I were watching her now almost as intently as Katy had done and
with a more startling effect. Evidently she had not been aware of our
presence before, and now when she saw us she seemed for a moment
spellbound and stared at me as if I had been some unexpected apparition
confronting her. Then she looked at Jack, who, I have always insisted,
bowed slightly. He says he didn’t, but confesses to a half smile which
so disconcerted her that she turned pale and, leaning back in her chair,
whispered to the Count and left her seat.

“You are worse than Katy,” Jack said, with what sounded like a low
whistle as he saw her going to another table as far from us as possible.

“I told you I would rout her,” Katy said, as she joined us, while Jack
declared it was I who did it. “She actually turned green when she saw
Annie,” he said. “Who the dickens can she be?”

“A miserable scheming woman,” Katy answered, and I knew she was thinking
of Carl and his connection with Madame.

I was getting tired of the play-rooms and we went outside into the
vestibule where we sat down so near the entrance to the little opera
that we could hear the music distinctly. I did not care to go in that
night, preferring to sit where I was and see the people pass and repass.
After a moment Katy said, “There is something I want to tell you and may
as well do it here. I am going to sing in public to-morrow night.”

“Sing in Monte Carlo,—in the Casino!” I exclaimed, and Katy replied, “In
Monte Carlo, yes; but not in the Casino. There is a grand salon at the
—— Hotel capable of seating two or three hundred, and they are willing
to give from two to five dollars to hear me sing, or rather, to be more
modest, to the cause for which I am to sing.”

“And what is that?” I asked in a tone which made Katy look closely at me
as she replied, “You have some of Fan’s prejudice against the stage, I
see. Well, this isn’t the stage exactly, although there is to be a
temporary one, I believe. Haven’t you heard of that little town near
here which has been visited with pestilence and earthquakes and lastly
by a fire until it is half a ruin and the people sleep in the fields?
The concert is for their benefit, gotten up and engineered by an English
earl and his lady. So, you see, it is in every way _en règle_. All
amateurs, except the tenor and the contralto, whose voices harmonize
perfectly with mine. They are husband and wife and highly respectable.
The other performers are English. I am the only American, and the
drawing card!”

“What do they know of you?” I asked, and she replied, “I sang in Berlin
and in Nice and once here. The Earl heard me in Berlin and Nice, too,
and insisted upon my taking part here as prima donna. Now you have it in
a nutshell, except that the rush for tickets increased and the prices
went up when it was known that I was to sing.”

“Don’t you dread it?” I asked, and with a merry laugh she answered,
“Dread it? No. I anticipate it. I know I can sing. I sometimes feel as
if I could fill the whole world when I get my voice under control, and
how I should like to try the Grand Opera House in Paris. I sang twice in
Berlin in a concert hall to crowded houses. Just before I was to go on
my heart beat like a big drum, but the moment I was on the stage and saw
the people and they saw me and began to cheer, I forgot everything but
my own voice to which I was listening, and which carried me back to the
robins I used to imitate in the garden and woods at home, and it seemed
to me that I was a big robin making my throat move just as they used to
do when they sat in the jasmine and honeysuckle and sang to me in the
morning. I imitated them then; I can do it better now. You will see. You
don’t know how the people applauded and encored until I was tired of
coming out, and when the concert was over they nearly broke through the
floor, and so many came forward to congratulate me,—the Earl and his
lady with the rest. The next day I was deluged with cards and calls and
flowers, and had I chosen I might have commenced a career then and
there, I had so many overtures for engagements with real stage people. I
am glad I am to sing to-morrow night, and that you and Jack are to hear
me. Fan said she’d rather see me dead than on the stage. Carl said so,
too, but God gave me my voice. Why shouldn’t I use it?”

“You should, for all good objects, but don’t go in for a Career,” I
said.

“You are as bad as the rest of them; all are against me,—even Jack,”
Katy rejoined, glancing up at Jack, who had listened but said nothing,
except to ask if we were not ready to go home.

Miss Errington, who had not been with us at the Casino, was waiting for
us in the salon and there were lights at the Grand Villa, showing that
some of its occupants had returned. It was Madame and the Count, Miss
Errington told us, adding that they had come back sometime ago, and
that, judging from the sound of Madame’s voice, she was either excited
or ill.

“She’s seen the evil eye again,” Katy said, recounting her experience
with the lady, while Jack whistled just as he had done at the Casino,
and was promptly reproved by me for his ill-manners in whistling before
people.

“Don’t you remember that girl we used to have?” I said, “what was her
name,—_Julina Smith_. She used to whistle until Mrs. Hathern heard her
and nearly took her head off.”

“What made you think of her?” Jack asked, and I replied, “I don’t know.
She happened to come into my mind,” and there the conversation ceased.




                  CHAPTER V.—ANNIE’S STORY CONTINUED.
                              THE CONCERT.


The next day I saw that great preparations were making for the concert
to be given in the grand salon, and heard from Miss Errington that much
interest was felt by the Americans and English because Katy was to sing.
Several times the Earl came to our villa to consult with her, and once
the Italian tenor and contralto came and practiced one or two pieces,
and Katy went with the Earl to the hotel to see just where she was to
stand and where enter. Taken altogether, there seemed to be quite a
professional air about it all which I didn’t quite like, and I said so
to Jack, who answered “Oh, let Katy sing, if she wants to. It won’t hurt
her.”

“But what will Fan and Carl say? I wish he were here,” I continued,
whereupon Jack was more provoking than ever, and replied, “I don’t think
Carl need say much after his racket with Madame!” and then he whistled
again in what I thought a very exasperating way and told him so, from
which it will be seen that we were getting quite like married people.

For answer he laughed and said “_Nous verrons_,” about the only French
he had picked up, and I heard him laughing in his dressing-room where he
was making his toilet for the evening. We went early to the salon, but
early as we were the party from the Grand Villa were there before us,
all except Madame, who was probably enjoying herself at play,
undisturbed by Katy, or myself. We were not far from the front and could
not see who entered behind us, but we knew the salon was filling fast
and that some were standing near the door. Behind the curtain of the
improvised stage shadowy figures were flitting, and we caught
occasionally the sound of suppressed voices evidently giving orders.
Jack had gone to the villa, after my fan which I had forgotten, and I
had fought one or two battles over his chair and was longing for him to
return and wondering why he was gone so long, when he came tearing in. I
can use no other expression than _tear_, he was so excited and warm, as
if he had been running. “By George,” he said, handing me my fan and
sinking into his seat, “It’s the best joke I ever knew.”

“What’s the best joke? Are you crazy, Jack?” I asked, as he seemed about
to roar.

Then he pulled himself together and answered quite soberly, “You wished
Carl were here, and he _is_ here,—in this hotel,—or was; came on the
evening train. I glanced at the register and saw his name, and Paul’s
and Sam’s. Norah is here, too, at the villa; came on the same train, but
could not have known Carl was in it, as she said nothing of having seen
him.”

“Norah! I am so glad,” Miss Errington said, while I exclaimed, “Carl and
Paul! Then, they must be in the salon. Look, Jack, and find them.”

He did look, and saying “_Nix_,” sat down again, and continued: “Carl is
undoubtedly in the Casino by this time cheek-by-jowl with Madame. She
passed the villa with her maid while Norah and I were standing on the
piazza. I got one flash of her black eyes in the moonlight. She looked
rather haggard, I thought, in spite of the color on her cheeks. I don’t
believe she half likes our proximity to her.”

Then he laughed and was about to say more when I warned him to stop, as
the orchestra had ceased playing and the curtain was going up.
Everything which could be done to make the stage attractive and like a
private parlor had been done. The furniture was of the daintiest kind
and most artistically arranged; the lights were shaded just right, and
there were flowers and potted plants everywhere, with a whole forest of
palms, tall ferns and azaleas at the rear, where the singers were to
enter.

The first on the programme was a quartette sung in Italian, and mildly
cheered. Then a violin solo played by the Earl,—also mildly cheered,
with a faint attempt at an encore. “Stupid,” I whispered to Jack, who
did not seem to be listening at all. Once, when there was a commotion
near the door he turned his head and then said to me in a whisper, “That
Yankee has just come in with Paul. He’ll have a good time getting a
seat.”

I asked Jack to bring Paul to me, for I was longing for a sight of his
face, and wanted to see what effect the sight of Katy would have upon
him. But Jack said that was impossible.

“Are you sure Carl is not with him?” I asked, and he replied, “Yes,
sure. He is probably at the Casino.”

And he was! Since leaving Berlin he had traveled slowly from place to
place,—not quite certain whether he was sufficiently scrubbed and boiled
and ironed to join the girl whom he felt a great desire to see. He had
heard of her triumphs in Berlin from some friends who were at the
concert, and for a moment had set his teeth together hard that she
should thus go against his known wishes.

Then he thought, “Who or what am I that I should raise so high a
standard for her, and have so low a one for myself? If she sings every
day in the week I want her, and mean to have her.”

Of Madame he frequently thought;—sometimes with disgust, when he
remembered Homburg, and again kindly and charitably as one who was not
to blame for being a French woman, with all the instincts of her class.
She had amused and interested him, and shown that she cared for him, and
no young man is wholly insensible to the preference of a handsome woman.
Just where she was he did not know, but fancied she was at Cannes. Of
Katy’s whereabouts he knew as little as of Madame’s, but had an
impression that she might be in Monte Carlo, as in her last letter to
Paul she had spoken of going there. If so, he knew Jack and I must be
with her, as we were to join her in southern France, and with a hope to
find her and us he had come on the evening train.

As our names were not on the hotel register he decided to look for us in
the Casino,—the resort of the most of Monte Carlo’s visitors. Paul knew
he could not enter the play-rooms, but was anxious to see the place.
Taking him and Sam with him Carl left them to look about in the
vestibule, while he slowly made the circuit of the rooms. Not finding
us, or anyone he knew, he decided to enquire at the different hotels and
was about to leave when he came upon Madame who was so heartily glad to
see him that for a time he was glad to see her. She was thinner than
when he left her in Homburg, with something quiet and subdued in her
manner, and a shade of anxiety in her face which softened and toned down
her striking beauty.

“Is in straits again I dare say,” Carl thought, resolving if she were he
would not come to the rescue.

But Madame soon undeceived him. She had had splendid luck as a rule at
the tables, and, best of all, her brother-in-law in Passy had been very
generous and made over to her more of the estate than she had hoped for.

“I feel quite rich again,” she said, “and can pay you what you have
loaned me.”

At this Carl laughed. She was welcome to all he had advanced to her, he
said, as he took a seat beside her at one of the tables, more to see her
play than to play himself. After a little, however, the fever seized
him, and he was about to put down his first piece of gold when there
came an unexpected diversion in the shape of a young boy, whose English
voice rang out shrill and clear above the hum of the room and startled
every player there.

“Carl, Carl, come quick! Katy is singing at the hotel, and the people
are yelling like mad. Come on.”

It was Paul, bareheaded and breathless, as he grasped Carl’s hand before
the gold was upon the table. In an instant Carl was on his feet,
electrified by the news Paul brought and by the sight of him in those
rooms so rigidly forbidden to all under twenty-one. Close behind him was
an official, but before he could seize the child Carl interposed and led
him into the vestibule, where he met Sam who had come in hot pursuit of
the boy. Paul and Sam had looked about the Casino until they were tired
and had then returned to the hotel, where they heard of the concert in
progress, but not who the singers were. Paul, who was very fond of
music, begged to go in, and securing a ticket Sam managed to find
standing-room for himself at the rear of the salon, where, putting Paul
upon the window seat so that he could see over the heads of the people,
he stood, little dreaming of the surprise which awaited him. The
quartette was finished and the solo, and then there fell a great hush of
expectancy as the people studied their programs and waited during what
seemed to me an eternity, I was so nervous and excited.

Would Katy fail? Would she mind that sea of heads, or care for the eyes
and glasses so soon to be leveled at her? I didn’t know, and I felt as
if I should scream if the suspense were not soon ended. There was a stir
among the palms and azaleas, and something which sounded like a long
breath ran through the audience, as a tall slim girl walked easily and
gracefully to the front of the stage, where she stood, acknowledging the
cheers which greeted her as composedly as if she had been at home and
about to sing a ballad to me. She was very lovely in her simple white
gown, with neither paint nor powder on her face. Her fair hair was
twisted into a loose coil at the back of her head and kept in place by a
long gold pin, her only ornament, if I except the bunch of roses
fastened in her bosom. Nor did she need anything to set off the
matchless beauty of her face and the light which shone in her eyes as
they swept the house in one swift glance until they fell upon Jack and
me. Then she began singing to _us_,—I was sure,—with a thought of home
in her heart,—singing in a language I could not understand, but the
music of which made me grow faint as a great joy sometimes affects us. I
could feel the stillness of the people, which continued for a brief
instant after she finished; then, there was a perfect hail-storm of
cheers and flowers, which she received with the same composure which had
characterized her singing.

It was at this point that Paul had started in quest of Carl. He had been
very quiet, Sam said, through the quartette and solo, and was beginning
to yawn when Katy appeared.

“Oh-h!” he began aloud, when Sam put his hand over his mouth to stop
him.

Then putting his arms around Sam’s neck and nearly strangling him Paul
whispered, “Is it she? Is it Katy? It is! It is!”

Shaking like a leaf he listened till the song was over and then, before
Sam knew what he was doing, he sprang from the window stool and started
for the Casino to find Carl. Fortunately for him a party was just
entering the rooms, and taking advantage of the open door he shot
through it under the nose of the astonished official, who put out his
arm to detain him. But Paul was off like the wind, darting from point to
point until he found Carl and startled him with the news that Katy was
singing at the hotel and the people were yelling like mad.

Madame was white to her lips as she watched Carl going from the room and
knew that he was going from her forever,—the only man she had ever
really cared for. Then she turned to her game with nerveless fingers
which could hardly hold the gold which she lost as fast as she put it
down.

Meanwhile Carl was hurrying to the hotel, questioning Paul as he went,
but getting no very satisfactory replies. Katy was singing and the house
was full, was all Paul could say. Carl had fancied it a little parlor
entertainment, but when he saw the crowd filling the salon and all the
scenic effect of stage accessories, he thought to himself, “Katy has
commenced her _Career_,” and a sting like the cut of a knife ran through
him for an instant, with a feeling that he had lost her. With some
difficulty he made his way to a window, where, with Paul again on the
stool, he waited while an English girl wailed through some sentimental
trash about “Kissing me quick if you love me.” Then there was another
hush, reminding me of the stillness said to brood in the air before the
coming of a cyclone. I believe I could have heard a pin drop, and I did
hear the beating of my heart and leaned over on Jack just as the palms
and azaleas stirred again, and the tall slim girl in the white dress
stood before us a second time, her cheeks flushed with excitement and
her face beautiful as the faces of the angels whose pictures we
sometimes see. Two or three curls had escaped from the coil at the back
of her head and fallen down upon her neck. These she tossed back with a
graceful motion, putting up her hands to fasten them in their place as
readily and naturally as if she had been in her dressing-room at home.
She was wholly unconventional, and this was one of her great charms as
she stood there, her eyes again sweeping the house, but failing to take
in the group by the window watching her so eagerly, Paul only restrained
from calling out to her by Carl’s warning “sh-sh,” spoken very low. If
she had seen them and known Carl was there she might not have sung as
she did,—clearer, sweeter than before,—going up and up without a break
until she reached a point from which it seemed as if her voice could go
no farther, and there it staid and warbled and trilled with perfect ease
like the robins she used to imitate. And I was sure she saw and heard
them, and that The Elms and evergreens and woods were full of them
singing to her of Virginia and home, and she hated to leave them. But
with an easy movement she slid down at last from the dizzy heights to
which she had carried us, and with a bow her song was ended.

If the applause was great before it was thunderous now, and she stood as
if wondering what it all was for. Then suddenly it subsided,—stopped by
the same shrill, penetrating voice which had so startled the players in
the Casino. Paul had nearly tumbled off the window stool with his
stamping, and as soon as there was a lull he called out “Hurrah, Katy!
That was splendid, and we are all here, Carl and Sam and _me_. Look!”

Three-fourths of the audience were English and Americans, who understood
him, and all turned towards the window where the little fellow’s hands
were still in the air clapping his approval. Then the cheers broke forth
again, louder than before, and this time almost as much for Paul as for
Katy. She was as white as her dress, and it seemed to me had scarcely
strength to leave the stage. In response to the protracted calls for her
reappearance she only came in front of the palms and bowed. She was not
down to sing again, but when the program was finished some of the
English, who knew she was a southern girl, sent up a request for a negro
song, such as was sung before the war. This everyone seconded and Katy
came again, looking now like a water-lily she was so pale, as she stood
for a moment wondering what to sing.

“I hope it will be Old Kentucky Home,” I whispered to Jack, and as if my
wish had been communicated to her she began it at once, without any
accompaniment, filling the room with the old-time melody I had so often
heard as a child in the hemp fields and cabins at home, but which had
never sounded as it did now when Katy sang it with so much feeling and
pathos.

This time I feared the people would break through the floor, and was
told that the proprietor did look in alarmed at the noise. One more song
was asked for and this time it was Swannee River which she chose,
changing the words of the last two lines of each verse into

                  “Oh, how my heart is growing weary,
                  Far from my old Virginia home!”

There was now a difference in her singing which I was quick to detect.
It was just as sweet and full, but she was tired and her voice showed
it, and was like the homesick cry of a child longing to lie down and
rest in the sunshine and beside the running brooks of its distant home.
And the people who knew she was from Virginia understood it, and there
was scarcely a dry eye in the house when she finished. I was crying
outright, while Paul by the window was sobbing on Carl’s neck,—“Less go
home; it’s a heap nicer than here.”

It was over at last. The people were hurrying out,—some to try their
luck at the Casino before the doors closed, and all talking of the girl
who had so delighted them. As soon as he could Jack brought Carl and
Paul to me, and we made our way across the stage in quest of Katy. She
had already gone to the villa, where we found her, limp and exhausted,
lying upon a couch with Norah ministering to her and piles of flowers
around her, tributes to her genius,—bouquets, baskets, horse-shoes,
harps,—everything, except pillows and crosses, which would have made the
room look more like a funeral than it did. With a shout Paul threw
himself upon Katy, nearly strangling her with hugs, and saying, “Oh,
Katy, how you _did_ sing! It made me think of the angels first, and then
I got sick at my stomach, didn’t I Carl?”

Miss Errington, Jack and I had all congratulated Katy and kissed her,
when Carl came up. At sight of him she started to rise, but he put her
gently back, saying, “Stay where you are and rest. You sang splendidly,
Katy. I was proud of you,” and then he, too, kissed her on her forehead.
A wonderful light shone in Katy’s eyes as she looked up at him; the tire
all left her face, which was bright with smiles and blushes as she
declared she was not fatigued at all.

“Just for a moment when Paul hurrahed and I knew he was there I did feel
as if I should drop, it was so sudden,” she said, “but after that I was
all right, and when I sang the Swannee River I was at home with the
negroes, and a part of the time falling into the duck pond with Carl
fishing me out.”

“You were!” Carl exclaimed, bending over her until his face almost
touched hers; “that’s exactly where I was,—there and in the woods after
you were ill.”

He had somehow gotten possession of her hand and kept it until it was
wanted to repress Paul, who, on the other side of the couch, was hugging
and kissing her at intervals as the fancy took him. We were a very happy
family, and sat talking together until Norah, the only sensible one
among us, insisted that Katy must go to bed.

“There’s another day comin’, and it’s to-morrow now,” she said, pointing
to the clock which was striking one.

Sam had been in to see us, and in his characteristic way had expressed
his approval of Katy’s singing. The foreign lingo he didn’t understand,
he said, but the tune was tip-top, while Kentucky Home and Swanny River
took the cake, and made him think of Mirandy and the little baby who
died, and he snummed if he could keep from crying.

Carl, Paul and Sam went back to their hotel and the lights were soon out
in the little villa. In the Grand Villa, however, there was one shining
in Madame’s room, and I could see her in full undress, moving rapidly
about as if packing her trunks.

“I believe she is going away,” I said to Jack, who gave his little
tantalizing whistle, and replied, “Shouldn’t wonder!”




                  CHAPTER VI.—ANNIE’S STORY CONTINUED.
                                JULINA.


Immediately after breakfast the next morning Carl and Paul joined us,
and as the day was unusually warm for the season we all sat in the
verandah looking towards the Casino in one direction and the Grand Villa
to the left. At this end of the piazza a large screen was standing, put
there to shut us from the eyes of our neighbors, when they were sitting
out as they often did. They were late this morning like ourselves, and
if Madame were leaving it could not be until afternoon as the express
train both ways had passed. Norah was everywhere present, and her shoes,
which were new, creaked frightfully, showing an excited state of mind,
although she was in high spirits and talked continually when near us.
She had tried her luck at the roulette table the previous night, she
said, and lost more than she won, but she didn’t care. She saw the
people and they saw her, and she guessed some of them were not greatly
pleased to renew her acquaintance. We were wondering what she meant,
when we saw Madame come out and sit down with her back to us at the
farthest end of the long piazza. Before seating herself, however, she
glanced furtively around as if to assure herself that she was not
observed. Our position was such that through a space between the screen
and the side of the villa we could see her without ourselves being seen.
I was the nearest to the screen and was looking at her when I heard a
very decided “Ah-hem!” twice repeated as if to attract attention, and
leaning forward I saw that Norah had crossed our part of the grounds and
was standing on those of the Grand Villa, evidently _Ah-hem-ming_ to the
woman in the distance, who sat as immovable as a stone. When the coughs
did not prevail, Norah called out, “Halloo!—halloo! How are you this
morning?”

Jack whistled, while Katy and I looked aghast at each other. “Say, why
don’t you speak to an old friend?” came next from Norah, and then Madame
partly turned and said, “If you are talking to me, it’s no use. I
understand little English.”

Jack whistled again, and Carl, who was sitting close to Katy, rose to
his feet and took a step forward as if to stop Norah’s impertinence, but
her next remark kept him motionless as it did the rest of us. Norah had
picked up enough French to understand Madame, and straightening herself
back she answered: “The Lord save us! Born in _Vermont_, and can’t speak
English! That’s too much, but you don’t cheat me. We worked together in
Miss Haverleigh’s kitchen too long for me not to know _Julina Smith_, in
spite of your painted hair. I heard of you from your Cousin Jane, who is
in a hotel in Dresden, where my sister is cook. She told me you’re a
great lady and all that, but I didn’t spose you’d refuse to speak to me
and say you didn’t know English. That’s nonsense. Come and see the folks
from Virginny. They’re all here but Miss Fanny.”

We were all outside the screen now, and standing upon the grass—except
Miss Errington, who had no special interest in the matter, and Carl,
who, at the mention of Julina Smith, had dropped into his chair, where
he sat while we went out to meet our former maid. She was very pale as
she rose up and faced us, with the look of a hunted animal, which has
been run down and sees no way of escape. She had played her game and
lost, and now she made the best of it and came towards us at once,
moving slowly as if in pain. Paul had always been fond of her, and when
he saw who she was he ran forward with a shout.

“Oh, Madame, Madame, I’m so glad,” he said, and threw himself into her
arms.

This seemed to reassure her. Kissing the little boy she held him by the
hand and came up to us, as far from the Grand Villa as possible. She was
very pale and the dark rings under her eyes were not works of art, but
the result of anxiety and loss of sleep. She spoke very low, but every
word was distinct and in perfect English.

“Yes, I am, or was, Julina Smith,” she began, “and I have worked in Mrs.
Haverleigh’s kitchen with Norah, but society would recognize me as your
equal now, and it is your boast in America that one can rise if he has
the will to do it. I had the will, and I have risen. When I came to
France my aunt had sold what I called her chateau near Fontainebleau and
was keeping a Pension in Paris. She gave me advantages and I profited by
them. We had the best of people, mostly French, and among them Monsieur
Felix. He was much older than I and very rich, or I thought him so. He
was a good man,—not very deep,—but good. He loved me and married me,
thinking me wholly French and that my name was Julie Du Bois. He never
knew I was born in America, or could speak English. If he had he
wouldn’t have cared, he was so fond and proud of me, but he might have
told of it and that I wished to prevent. My aunt died. I had no
relations left in Paris to betray me,—no relatives this side of the
water, except Jane, who is only a second cousin, and I went to work to
lose all traces of my former self. Partly as a disguise, and partly
because I thought it would give me a more striking appearance, I
bleached my hair. You remember my teeth. No one could forget them. I had
them extracted and went for a new set to a famous American dentist. He
did his best for me, and when I gained in flesh, as I soon did, the
metamorphose was complete, and deceived even those who had been at my
aunt’s Pension and knew me as the young girl who sometimes played for
them to dance. These I did not often meet. I avoided everyone I had ever
known, in my morbid fear of being recognized. My husband’s family is a
good one, and as his wife I was somebody and I enjoyed it and passed for
a lady,—as I think I am.”

She smiled bitterly here, and then went on: “When I first saw this dear
little boy,” and she passed her hand caressingly over Paul’s head, “I
was drawn to him at once, and my affection for him was not feigned. I
was glad to see Carl again and afraid he would know me, but he didn’t. I
sometimes thought his man Sam suspected me and knew he did not like me.
He lived in the same town with my father when I was a girl.”

“Jerusalem! I told you so,” came energetically from Sam, who had come
from the hotel and seeing us standing together had joined us in time to
hear a part of what Madame was saying.

To him she gave a look of scorn, as one quite beneath her, and then went
on, a little stammeringly now, for she had reached the hardest part of
her story, and her eyes went over and beyond us to the piazza where
Carl’s boots were visible as he sat motionless, but listening to every
word.

“I was glad to see Carl,” she said again, speaking as if something were
choking her. “I always liked him as a boy, although he was very
proud,—so proud that had he known I was Julina, my changed position as
Madame Felix would hardly have atoned for the fact that I once served
his mother. I am a woman and human, and it was a gratification to know
that I could interest and attract him and I tried my best to do it, with
what success he can tell you. But,” and here she fixed her eyes on Katy,
“I never found him anything but a true, honorable man, whom any good
girl might trust. I think I amused him, but he was not of my kind. His
New England training unfitted him for my set and he broke away from us.
Better for him that he did, although we lead a very happy life as a
rule. I am half French by birth and all French by nature and habit.
Bohemian French, too, and like it. The life suits me. It couldn’t suit
Carl. There is too much Puritan there. He is happier with you, and there
is no reason why you should not take him as readily as if he had never
known me. I saw your sister in London two years ago and avoided her. I
did not know you were my neighbor here until I learned your name. I had
no fear you would recognize me. You were too young when I knew you, but
you troubled me greatly in the Casino, though not as much as you did”;
and now she addressed me: “I did not know you were in Europe, and when I
saw you and Mr. Fullerton I felt that my time had come. I was sure of it
when I heard Norah’s voice last night as I passed on my way to the
Casino and saw her later in the rooms. I might deceive everyone else,
but Norah never.”

“That’s as sure as you’re born,” came from Norah, and Madame went on: “I
meant to leave this morning, but the rest of my party go to-morrow and I
waited. I am glad I did. Glad I have told you all, and you may not
believe me, but I am so glad to see you again, and I wish we were
friends, but that we can never be.”

“Why not?” Katy said, going over to the woman and offering her hand.

Madame’s confession and what she said of Carl had wiped out all her
animosity, and she felt only pity for the woman who had been so
humiliated.

“Oh, Katy, Katy!” Madame exclaimed, bursting into tears and throwing her
arms around Katy’s neck. “I do not deserve this from you. God bless you,
and make you happy. Carl is worthy of you, even if he has been soiled a
little by contact with me. It is only a speck which your love will wipe
out. I tried to make him care for me but could not. He was never more to
me than a friend.”

All this she said very low, as she continued to cry.

There was a stir at the end of the long piazza of the Grand Villa. The
Count had come out and was looking curiously in our direction. In a
moment Madame was herself,—erect and dignified and speaking in a
whisper.

“We leave to-morrow. It is not necessary that my party should know
everything or anything. They despise the _bourgeois_; they would despise
Julina Smith. They think I come from a good old Norman family, now
extinct. Let them continue to think so. I shall tell them I had met some
of you before. I know what to say;—trust me, and—good-bye.”

She wrung Katy’s hand, kissed Paul and went across the lawn and piazza
to where the Count stood waiting for her. What she told him we never
knew,—something satisfactory, no doubt, as he was driving with her that
afternoon, and in the evening we saw him by her side at the gaming table
in the Casino. But we didn’t disturb or go near her. Early the next
morning piles of baggage left the Grand Villa, and we were up in time to
see Madame’s black bonnet disappearing through the shrubbery as she went
down to the station.

“Good riddance to her. I don’t believe in her, for all of her tears and
fine words. Not speak English indeed!” came from Norah as she watched
her.

Norah had stopped for awhile in Dresden where she had some relatives,
and among them a cousin employed in a hotel where Jane Du Bois was also
an employee. This girl, who could speak English, was very friendly with
Norah, and when she heard she was from America made many inquiries about
the country to which she had some thought of emigrating, and where, she
said, she once had some relatives,—Smiths,—who lived in —— Vermont. Did
Norah know them?

“I knew a Julina Smith from that place years ago,” Norah replied,
whereupon it came out that Julina and Jane were second cousins, but had
never met.

Jane had heard, though, of Julina’s fine marriage with Monsieur Felix of
Passy, and that she was now a grand lady, ignoring the few relatives she
had left and living in great splendor until her husband died. Where she
was now, Jane neither knew nor cared. Norah, too, was quite indifferent
to the whereabouts of her former associate and never dreamed of finding
her at Monte Carlo. She had met Jack on the piazza as he was returning
for my fan, and the two were talking together when Madame passed on her
way to the Casino. She was a woman to be noticed anywhere and Norah
looked curiously and rather admiringly at her as she drew near. In
Jack’s mind there had always been a strong suspicion as to Madame’s
identity. Surely he had seen her before, and if so Norah might help him
to solve the mystery. He was not, however, prepared for what followed
when to her question “Who is that lady coming?” he replied “Madame Julie
Felix. Do you know her?”

Madame was close to them and the moonlight shone full on her face and
eyes, which flashed for a moment on Norah and were quickly withdrawn.

“I’d smile if I didn’t know Julina Smith!” Norah exclaimed. “I heard she
was Madame Felix and a great lady. Well, I’d of known them eyes in the
dark.”

“_Eureka!_ I thought so,” Jack said, hurrying in for the fan and making
no further conversation with Norah with regard to Madame.

When left alone Norah was not quite so sure as she had been. “But I’ll
satisfy myself,” she thought. “It would be like Julina to masquerade
this way and not let them know who she was.”

She accordingly went to the Casino and satisfied herself that Madame was
Julina. Of her intimacy with Carl she knew nothing, or in her wrath she
might have exposed her at the table. In her mind Julina was only passing
as a great lady whom it would be her pleasure to unmask, which she did
effectually.

“Madame Felix!” she repeated at intervals through the day. “To think it
should come true what she said about being rich, with diamonds, and a
tail to her gown a yard long, and she not lettin’ on who she was. We are
well to be rid of her.”

We all thought so, too, and breathed freer with the doors and windows of
the Grand Villa closed, although I missed the excitement of watching its
inmates and half wished we might have seen more of Julina.




                 CHAPTER VII.—ANNIE’S STORY CONTINUED.
                             CARL AND KATY.


Carl had been indignant at Norah when she first called out to Madame,
but the moment he heard the name Julina Smith he felt, as he afterwards
told Katy, as if a feather could have knocked him down. Everything
connected with her, recurred to him and he knew it was Julina before she
acknowledged it and came forward to meet us. I think she wanted to see
him; but he did not join us, and he spent most of the day at the hotel
in his room, seeing no one except Sam, who felicitated himself upon the
fact that he had always mistrusted Madame.

“But I never thought of Julina,—the lyenist girl there was in town,” he
said;—“with airs enough to sink a ship. Why, she’d deceive the very
elect.”

This was to Carl, who made no reply. He was very sore on the subject of
Madame, who had duped him so completely, and did not care to discuss
her. That evening he dined with us, and was very quiet all through the
dinner, during which no allusion was made to Madame. Katy and I had
already talked her over by ourselves.

“I hated her at first,” Katy said, “but when I saw her standing there so
brave under the lash of Norah’s tongue, telling us all about it, and
knew how hard it must be for her to do it, I was sorry for her, and I
forgave her everything, even to Carl. It was splendid in her to
exonerate him as she did. Of course he was only her friend.”

I was glad Katy took this view of it and watched eagerly for the
denouement of the drama I felt sure was to come. The day Madame left,
Carl and Jack and Paul and Sam went on an excursion to the country and
did not return until time for dinner. The night was cool for Monte
Carlo, and after dinner we all gathered around the fire which had been
kindled in the salon, except Katy, who was on the piazza with Carl. He
had come from the hotel and was walking up and down with her in the
moonlight, which was at its full that night, making the town almost as
light as day. At last he came in for a warm cloak which he put around
her and then made her sit down in a reclining chair adjusted to such an
angle that when she leaned back in it, as she soon did, the moonlight
fell upon her face, showing plainly every change in its expression as he
talked to her. He had drawn another and lower chair to her side, and
sitting down by her took one of her hands in his and held it while he
went over every incident of his life which he thought at all crooked,
and dwelling longest on his intimacy with Madame Felix, as that was the
episode he most deplored and of which he was most ashamed.

“I cannot account for the influence she had over me,” he said. “If I
believed in mesmerism I should say it was that, but I don’t.
Consequently it must have been my own weakness and love of flattery, for
she did flatter me and amuse me, and, fool that I was, I was really
proud of her notice, believing in her blue blood and connection with the
old aristocracy of which she so modestly hinted, and all the time she
was Julina Smith and I didn’t guess it. You don’t know how I hate
myself.”

With her head thrown back on the chair rest,—and her eyes closed, Katy
listened with the moonlight falling on her face, from whose expression
Carl could form no conclusion as to her thoughts until, as he grew more
and more condemnatory of himself, she started up and with a girl’s
perversity began to defend Madame.

“I don’t think her so bad,” she said. “She liked you when you were a boy
and wrote you a love letter,—Annie has told me about it,—and you snubbed
her awfully. Afterwards you met as equals and you were pleased with her,
as you are with every handsome woman, and she is handsome if she does
bleach her hair, and I am not certain but it improves her. It is
certainly striking. She was kind to Paul and kind to you, and being
French and full of intrigue it is natural that she would want to see if
she could do with the man what she couldn’t with the boy,—attract him.
She succeeded because you thought her Madame Felix, with blue blood in
her veins. She is no worse now that you know she is Julina Smith with
Yankee blood instead of blue, and I don’t think it a bit nice for you to
throw stones at her after she exonerated you from everything as she
did.”

Katy had made her speech and lay back again in her chair with her eyes
on Carl who had listened to her amazed. If she could thus excuse and
defend Madame, would she not also overlook his own shortcomings. She had
been very gracious to him since he came to Monte Carlo, and especially
since Madame declared herself as Julina, and something in her eyes
emboldened him to put his face down close to hers, while he poured out
words of love which must be answered.

“Why don’t you speak to me?” he said at last, and Katy replied, “How can
I when you are stopping my mouth with kisses. Let me sit up, please.”

Raising herself in her chair, and smoothing her hair which was a good
deal tumbled, she said, “What about _my Career_? You saw me on the stage
the other night. Would you rather have seen me dead than there? Would
you be willing to see me in more public places,—real opera houses,—if I
were your wife? Wouldn’t you mind being known only as my husband,
waiting for me at home, or, worse yet, waiting for me behind the scenes,
where pandemonium reigns and if there is anything bad in the actors it
comes out? Would you like to read how divinely I sang or danced,—it
might come to that, you know? And my picture would be in the shop
windows and in the papers with the horrid cuts we sometimes see there.
Do you love me well enough to stand all this?”

She was looking intently at him as she talked, and Carl writhed at the
picture she drew of him as the husband of a prima donna. Was that frail
young girl worth the humiliation he should be called upon to endure at
times, if she persisted in her Career? Was his love for her strong
enough to overbalance every thing? As Fanny once had weighed her love
for Jack against money and position, so he now weighed his love for Katy
against her Career, and Katy conquered.

“Yes, my darling,” he said, drawing her face to him until it was hidden
from the moonlight and nearly smothered on his bosom, “I love you so
much that forty Careers shall not stand in my way, if you will take me.
Sing in public if you want to, and I will wait at home, or in the
green-room, or out doors, or anywhere, and when I hear the shouts of
applause I shall comfort myself with thinking, ‘Applaud her all you
like, the more the better. You can’t spoil her. To you she is the great
singer, but she is _my wife_!’”

I wonder if Carl thought himself a hero when he said that. Katy did.
Disengaging herself from him she lifted up her face which, either from
the moonlight or the pallor which had settled upon it, made Carl think
that just so the faces of the glorified dead must look when entering
Paradise.

“Carl,” she said, and her lips quivered and the tears stood in her eyes,
“I have heard you. Now, listen to me. I have dreamed so much of a
Career, in which I know I should succeed and in which I should be
comparatively happy. I like the excitement,—the sight of the people,—the
applause,—the flowers,—and most of all I like to sing; but, Carl, I have
learned that there is something better than all this, and that is love
such as you offer me. Wait a minute,”—and she drew back as he was about
to take her in his arms. “Hear me through before you squeeze my breath
out of me again. You have conceded everything. Do you think I will
accept the sacrifice and make no return? No, Carl. I am not ashamed to
say that I love you so much that I am willing to give up my Career for
you. If I didn’t love you and should never marry it would be different;
a married woman has no business on the stage unless her husband is
there, too,—and I don’t think you have the slightest aptitude for it.
You could only sit in the audience or wait in the green-room, or if we
traveled on our own hook, as the Hathern-Haverleigh troupe, you might
take the money and tickets at the door. How would you like that?”

Carl did not reply, and she went on: “I don’t want you at the door
selling tickets, or in the green-room, or with the audience, or anywhere
except with me, and I with you. Are you satisfied?”

Each had offered a great sacrifice to the other and there was perfect
trust and love between them, and when the moon, which for a moment had
been hidden by a cloud, came out again it shone on two faces so close to
each other that they almost seemed but one.

“My darling, my darling!” was all Carl said, or had time to say, for the
clock was striking twelve, and the people were swarming out of the
Casino and coming, some of them, past our villa on their way home.

Jack had been asleep a long time, but I was awake and waiting for Katy,
who, I feared, might take cold, sitting so long in the night air. Was
there ever a girl cold, I wonder, from sitting with her lover? Katy
surely was not, judging from her crimson cheeks and hot hands when I
joined her in the hall. I heard her as she came up the stairs and
stopped at my door, whispering very low, “Annie, Annie, are you awake?”

I knew what she wanted, and remembering how I had longed for some
sympathetic ear to listen to my happiness when Jack proposed to me, I
slipped on my dressing-gown and bed-shoes and went out to her.

“Oh, Annie,” she began, as we sat down together. “I am so glad that I
could not sleep till I had told some one. I am to give up all thought of
the stage and marry Carl. I don’t see why I have kept him off so long
when I have always loved him since I fell into the duck pond, and he has
loved me,—I am sure of it now,—no matter where he was, or with whom;
there was never a moment that his heart was not ready to open for me if
I would come into it. He said so, and I believe it. I know the worst
there is to know, and it is not bad for a young man like him. A little
fickle, with escapades and flirtations which meant nothing, because he
always saw my face everywhere and it kept him from falling. He said so.
And then,—Julina! He takes that most to heart because he was so
deceived, and he really was pleased with her. He said so. And I don’t
care. She’s a handsome woman, who knows just how to make a young man
like her. And I don’t blame her much either. He snubbed her awfully when
he was a boy, and when she met him on equal terms it was natural that
she, being French and steeped in art, should try to be even with him. I
hated her at first, but when she stood up before us and confessed I
forgave her everything. Paul likes her and she likes him. There must be
something good about her, but she can never move Carl again. He said
so.”

Katy’s “He said so” was very frequent, showing how implicit was her
faith in Carl, and because _he said so_ there could be no appeal. For an
hour we talked, or rather Katy did, while I sat in a huddle trying to
follow her and keep warm. Then as the clock struck one there came two
peremptory calls from either end of the hall,—one from Miss Errington
for Katy, and one from Jack for me. I think Katy would willingly have
sat up all night telling what _he said_, but Jack’s assertion that
unless I came at once he was coming for me, broke up the conference,
until after breakfast, when Carl came to be congratulated and accepted
as Katy’s promised husband.




                 CHAPTER VIII.—ANNIE’S STORY CONTINUED.
                              CONCLUSION.


It was a happy winter we spent in Florence and Rome and Sorrento, going
in the early spring to Venice and the Lakes, and later on to Paris. Here
there were four delightful weeks, and I wanted to stay longer, but Carl
hurried us on to London, where he was to be married. We all urged him to
wait until we were home at The Elms, but he said No,—he had waited long
enough; and so one morning in early June there was a very quiet wedding
in —— church, with only a few personal friends present, and Katy was
Mrs. Carl Haverleigh. There was a wedding breakfast at the Grand, where
we were stopping, and where on our return from church we found a letter
and package from Julina,—now the Countess de Varré! Fortune had favored
her again. The brother-in-law had died and left her a good share of the
money he had taken from her. The chateau at Passy was hers once more,
where she was living with the Count and very happy, as a titled lady.
Accompanying her letter was an individual tea set of exquisite china,
with gold lined spoons and sugar tongs and silver tray,—her wedding gift
to Katy and Carl conjointly, with a hope that sometimes when they were
using it they would think of one who was not so bad as to American eyes
she might seem to be. Katy was pleased, but Carl did not express
himself, and I do not think he has ever yet taken a cup of tea from the
pretty set which stands on Katy’s little tea-table in Boston and is
greatly admired.

It was the middle of July when we reached New York and found Fanny
waiting for us on the dock, and insisting upon our going with her to the
cottage she had rented at Newport. It was too hot for either Virginia or
Washington, she said, and she carried her point so far as Carl and Katy
and Miss Errington were concerned. Jack said he must go home to his
business, and I, of course, went with him, taking Paul, who was
beginning to droop with travel and excitement. It was a lovely summer
day when we drove up the avenue to our home, where Phyllis and many of
our neighbors greeted us with a warmth which told us that nowhere in the
world were there truer friends than in Lovering.

“And nowhere so pleasant a home,” I said, as I went all over the house,
happy as a child to be back again among the Virginia hills with her blue
sky over my head and the breath of the woods and pines upon my cheek.

It was better than Newport, where Katy was a great belle and where Fan
had more than one offer of marriage, which she promptly declined. She
was on the best of terms with her sister-in-law, and when the season was
over the two went together to the house in Washington. Carl and Katy
came to us and staid all through the autumn and were joined at
Thanksgiving by Fan and Miss Errington. What a day that was,—and dinner,
too, which Phyllis thought she superintended, although the real head was
Norah, who had come with Katy, but who for once was careful of the old
negress’ feelings and humored her fancies.

Towards the close of dinner Katy said, “We have no wine, but water will
do as well. Let us drink to the health of the Countess de Varré.”

“Good,” Carl said, and we drank to her health and amused ourselves with
reminiscences of her when she was Julina Smith and served us as our
maid.

Phyllis had received the news of her advancement with a snort and a
dangerous topple of her turban. She had never liked the girl, and when,
as she chanced to be in the room, we drank her health, she exclaimed,
“Oh, my Lord, my Lord! Ef I couldn’t drink suffin better’n July, I’d go
dry a spell.”

It is many years since that day and many more since most of the
incidents of this story took place. Jack and I are quite old people now,
or the younger generation think us so. I am forty-seven, and have a
double chin. Jack calls me a roly-poly, while a boy, who stands six feet
and has eyes like Jack, says I waddle like a duck when I walk, but am
the sweetest and jolliest little mother in the world. Jack is
fifty-three and getting grey and stout, and is a fine type of the
well-conditioned southern gentleman,—not too much pressed with business,
but still with enough to do. He has been to Congress twice and there is
talk of sending him as a State Senator next year. One winter we took a
house in Washington, and I staid there with Jack and saw all I ever care
to see of fashionable society. Fanny was on the top wave, and as Katy
was with us a part of the time we were made much of and went
everywhere,—sometimes to three different places in one night, and by the
close of the long term I was quite worn out and glad to get back to the
old home under The Elms, with only Phyllis and a bright mulatto girl to
look after instead of the crew I had in Washington, who stole my
handkerchiefs and collars and Jack’s socks and wore my black silk dress
to one of their carousals, and who always hoped to die if they had done
anything of the sort when charged with the offense.

The tall boy, with eyes like Jack, is our first-born,—our son Hathern,
who is nearly seventeen, and preparing for Yale. My choice is for some
other college, but only Yale will suit him and we have yielded, his
father telling him, however, that if he thought to join in all the
sports which have sometimes made the students of Yale a by-word as well
as a terror to the towns they visited, he would be mistaken, as he had
no money to spend that way,—“and without money,” he added, “you can’t be
_in it_.”

Hathern, who is a splendid specimen of young manhood and fond of
athletic sports of all kinds, looked rather blue until Fan came from
Washington and he took her for a drive. That night he confided to his
sisters that aunt Fan was a brick! That he intended to stand well in all
his classes and with his teachers and to be graduated with honor, and
never drink a drop of anything stronger than water, _but_—he was also
going to be _in it_; and with the enthusiasm of a girlhood which sees
more to admire in an athlete than in a student, the sisters agreed that
Aunt Fan _was_ a brick,—that the cold water and standing well in classes
and graduating with honor was all right, but the athletics were more
fun, and it was worth some knocks and scratches and bruises, and even a
broken bone now and then, to be _in it_.

These girls, who are fourteen, are twins, named Fan and Ann, and very
much like the originals, except that Fan is not quite as handsome or as
tall as her aunt, and Ann is taller and handsomer than her mother.
Otherwise, they are much like the girls introduced in the first chapter
of this story, and often, when I see them flitting through the house and
grounds, doing the things Fan and I used to do,—saying the things we
used to say, in voices much like ours,—the years of my life roll back
and I am young as they are, with as little care or thought for the
future. Then Jack comes in and calls me Annie-mother, a name he resumed
the day he brought Hathern to me and said, “Would you like to see our
boy?” and I am myself again,—a matron-mother of forty-seven, but feeling
scarcely older than when I was a girl like my Fan and Ann.

Fanny, as I call her now, to distinguish her from my daughter, is a
beautiful woman still, and she knows it and the world knows it, and had
she chosen she might have married a General or a Judge or an
ex-Governor, or have used her large fortune to build up the impoverished
estate of an Englishman with a title. But she would have none of them.
“I am very happy as I am,” she says, and I think she is. She is more
quiet and dignified than she used to be and strangers call her proud.
But to me she is the same Fan as ever,—a part of myself,—while to Jack I
think she is really a sister whom he honors and consults in some matters
more than he does me. She comes and goes as she pleases. Is sometimes in
Washington,—sometimes in Newport, sometimes in Florida, where the
Hathern villa is a reality, sometimes at The Plateau,—and once she spent
eighteen months in Europe with Paul, whom, in a way, she has adopted. He
is now twenty-seven, with a refined, delicate face and an air of languor
about him caused by his weak back, which has always troubled him more or
less. He is a graduate of Yale, and when Hathern decided to go there he
began to question him as to what he did, but soon gave it up, saying
Paul was no good. He didn’t know about anything but rules and books and
professors and wasn’t _in it_ at all! When he chooses he stops with us,
or with Katy, but is most with Fanny, who needs him more than we do.
“Our room” at The Plateau has been given to him and fitted up as a kind
of study, or den, where he spends a great deal of his time with his
books. He is something of a scientist and goes into every _ism_ and
_ology_ and _osophy_ of the day. Just now he has taken up microbes and
is studying their habits, if they have any, and he writes long articles
for Reviews, in which he tries to interest Fan and Hathern and the
twins, and sometimes myself, but generally fails, as they are too deep
for us.

There is one, however, who always listens and applauds, although it is
doubtful whether he understands a word, and that is Sam Slayton, Fan’s
factotum, who takes care of The Plateau when she is there and takes care
of it when she is not, and makes more at it than he did in his grocery.
He has never married again, but every year he goes to Vermont to visit
Mirandy’s grave and mourn. During the mourning he wears a tall hat with
a band of crape around it, and on his return to The Plateau puts it away
carefully until the period comes again. As it is the hat he wore on his
wedding trip it is somewhat out of date, but he does not mind it and
felt greatly insulted when last winter some one wanted to borrow it for
Uriah Heep to wear at a Dickens Carnival given for the Y. M. C. A.’s in
Lovering.

Miss Errington is often with us. The twins call her Aunt Cornie, and
think almost as much of her as of their stately Aunt Fanny. Some
meddling person has told them of that chapter in Fan’s life and their
father’s which was almost a tragedy and I do not think they have quite
forgiven her for her part in it, although each has said to me that she
would rather have me for her mother than Auntie Fan, who is so grand and
cold. Fan has made her will and left her money to Paul and my children,
with a proviso for Katy’s should any be born to her. As yet Carl and
Katy are childless, but very, very happy with each other. They travel a
great deal and when at home their handsome new house on Commonwealth
Avenue in Boston is usually filled with guests and Katy makes a charming
hostess and Carl a delightful host. In most respects he is the same
genial, handsome Carl we knew as a boy, with something about him which
makes everyone his friend. He still admires a pretty face when he sees
it, and discusses its points with Katy, but always winds up by saying,
“But by Jove, she can’t hold a candle to you, the most beautiful woman I
ever saw, and the older you grow the handsomer you are.”

I think Carl is right, and that, if possible, Katy is lovelier in her
maturity than when she was a girl. Paul worships her; Hathern worships
her; the twins worship her; we all worship her, and yet she is not
spoiled. She was a sweet, unselfish, loving child, and is a loving,
unselfish woman. If she has ever regretted the Career she gave up for
Carl, she has made no sign, and seems to find her greatest happiness
with him. Occasionally, when she is in Lovering she sings in our pretty
Concert Hall and everybody comes to hear her, but never have I heard her
sing as she sang at Monte Carlo, or seen upon her face the expression I
saw there after she knew Carl was in the audience listening to her. Now,
when she sings in Lovering he is to all intents and purposes stage
manager, adjusting the lights and the piano, and the curtain, and then
sitting behind the scenes and applauding her with the rest. Once when
she seemed to have excelled herself and the hall rang like the salon in
Monte Carlo, he said to her after it was over, “Upon my soul, Katy, I
believe you’d have made your mark if you had gone on with your Career.
How would you like to begin it now?”

For an instant there was a look on Katy’s face which made me think of a
war-horse scenting the battle. Then it faded and she shook her head
saying, “Too late, my voice will crack pretty soon,—or _wobble_ as
Hathern says old Mrs. Mosier’s does when she tries to sing high. I am
content as I am and perfectly happy with you.” What answer Carl made I
do not know, for I discreetly left the room just as he took her in his
arms. Carl is rather demonstrative, and the twins say that if Katy could
have been squeezed and kissed to death she would have died long ago.
Norah runs the house in Commonwealth Avenue and runs Carl and Katy, too;
but as she allows them a good many privileges, and is wholly faithful to
their interests, they do not mind it, and in most matters let her have
her way.

Phyllis is very old,—how old she does not know,—but she is wholly
disabled from taking charge of the kitchen, where a younger woman is
installed as cook, with Phyllis as nominal superintendent. Only in this
way can I hope for peace. The instructions which Norah left so many
years ago have been found and tacked up over the sink, and are held up
as iron rules to the patient, much enduring Sarah, who says, “I ’specs
we mus’ let the ole woman have her way, or think she has it; but, Lord
bless you, I has to cheat her. I can read writin’ an’ she can’t, an’ I
reads it wrong a heap o’times, an’ when she gits too high I done tell
her I’m follerin’ Norah O’Rock’s ’structions, an’ she comes down like a
lam’. I knows how to manage her.”

The house under The Elms has been enlarged and improved and is, I think,
an ideal country home, although Hathern and the twins would like a
square hall and a tower and many projections here and there, and
porcelain bath-tubs and electric lights,—and a big fortune to keep it
all up, their father says, his solid sense always coming to the front
when the young blood gets rampant. Hathern has his horse and wheel, and
the twins have each her riding pony,—presents from Fan, who usually
gives them what they want, if it is feasible and proper. Black Beauty
died years ago and was buried in the woods behind The Plateau, with Fan
and Paul as mourners.

And now the story winds to a close. It was commenced in June, the month
of roses, when the south wind blew softly through the doors of the wide
hall, and on the lawn outside there was the sound of young voices in the
tennis court, where Paul and Hathern and the twins were playing. Jack
was away on business, and Phyllis was sitting under the dogwood tree
watching the play and sympathizing equally with both sides. She is
sitting there now asleep in the sunshine, but the tennis court is silent
and the twins’ ponies and Hathern’s horse stand in the lane with their
noses on the gate looking towards the house as if asking why they are
not taking their usual canter through the woods or over the smooth
turnpike. Jack is again away on business as he was a year ago, and I am
alone, for Fanny and Carl and Katy, who are here, have gone with the
young people to the town hall, which is filled with flowers and ferns
and evergreens. It is Memorial Day, when, north and south, east and
west, the graves of our soldiers will be decorated by the loving hands
of many who were not born until after the war and to whom that time is
only a dark page of history nearly blotted out.

Others there are, however, whose hearts will ache with the old pain as
they think of the loved ones who, whether their cause were right or
wrong, gave their lives for it and died on the battlefield. Boxes of
rare flowers, ordered by Fanny, have come from Washington, and few
graves will be more beautiful than the two where Charlie and The Boy are
lying. Hathern and the twins have taken the Stars and Stripes and the
Stars and Bars from the faded uniforms of grey and blue, where they have
hung so long, and carried them to the little cemetery across the field.
From where I sit I can see them side by side waving in the breeze and
occasionally touching each other as if in friendly greeting. Through the
open doors of the wide hall where I am writing the wind blows in and the
wind blows out as it did a year ago, breathing of peace in the land. In
the distance I hear the sound of martial music, and know that the
procession has formed and will soon be marching down the street, and I
wonder if I shall have time to finish my story before it passes The
Elms. With the first beat of the drum Phyllis rouses from her sleep
under the dogwood tree, and coming to me says, “It seems mighty like de
wah, but thank God dat is over and gone.”

The procession is in sight. Hathern is carrying the tattered flag, and
Paul is walking by his side, laden with flowers. They have stopped
opposite the hillside cemetery. They are decorating the graves of
Charlie and The Boy. My eyes are full of tears, and I cannot write any
more.


                                THE END.

------------------------------------------------------------------------


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 The New Adam and Eve—Todd                                            50
 Bottom Facts in Spiritualism                                       1 50
 The Mystery of Central Park—Bly                                      50
 Debatable Land—R. Dale Owen                                        2 00
 Threading My Way      Do.                                          1 50
 Princess Nourmahal—Geo. Sand                                       1 50
 Galgano’s Wooing—Stebbins                                          1 25
 Stories about Doctors—Jeffreson                                    1 50
 Stories about Lawyers—    Do.                                      1 50


                         Miscellaneous Novels.

 Doctor Antonio—By Ruffini                                         $1 50
 Beatrice Cenci—From the Italian                                    1 50
 The Story of Mary                                                  1 50
 Madame—By Frank Lee Benedict                                       1 50
 A Late Remorse        Do.                                          1 50
 Hammer and Anvil      Do.                                          1 50
 Her Friend Laurence   Do.                                          1 50
 Mignonnette—By Sangrée                                             1 00
 Jessica—By Mrs. W. H. White                                        1 50
 Women of To-day       Do.                                          1 50
 The Baroness—Joaquin Miller                                        1 50
 One Fair Woman        Do.                                          1 50
 The Burnhams—Mrs. G E. Stewart                                     2 00
 Eugene Ridgewood—Paul James                                        1 50
 Braxton’s Bar—R. M. Daggett                                        1 50
 Miss Beck—By Tilbury Holt                                          1 50
 A Wayward Life                                                     1 00
 Winning Winds—Emerson                                              1 50
 The Fallen Pillar Saint—Best                                       1 25
 An Errand Girl—Johnson                                             1 50
 Ask Her, Man! Ask Her!                                             1 50
 Hidden Power—T. H. Tibbles                                         1 50
 Parson Thorne—E. M. Buckingham                                     1 50
 Errors—By Ruth Carter                                              1 50
 The Abbess of Jouarre—Renan                                        1 00
 Bulwer’s Letters to His Wife                                       2 00
 Sense—A serious book. Pomeroy                                      1 50
 Gold Dust                 Do.                                      1 50
 Our Saturday Nights       Do.                                      1 50
 Nonsense—A comic book    Do.                                       1 50
 Brick-dust.    Do.        Do.                                        50
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 Nina’s Peril—By Mrs. Miller                                        1 50
 Marguerite’s Journal—For Girls                                     1 50
 Orpheus C. Kerr—Four vols. in one                                  2 00
 Spell-Bound—Alexander Dumas                                          75
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 Measure for Measure—Stanley                                        1 50
 A Marvelous Coincidence                                              50
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 Conquered—By a New Author                                          1 50
 Tales from the Popular Operas                                      1 50
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                      Mrs. Mary J. Holmes’ Works.


                         TEMPEST AND SUNSHINE.
                         ENGLISH ORPHANS.
                         HOMESTEAD ON HILLSIDE.
                         ’LENA RIVERS.
                         MEADOW BROOK.
                         DORA DEANE.
                         COUSIN MAUDE.
                         MARIAN GREY.
                         EDITH LYLE.
                         DAISY THORNTON.
                         CHATEAU D’OR.
                         QUEENIE HETHERTON.
                         BESSIE’S FORTUNE.
                         MARGUERITE. (_New._)
                         DARKNESS AND DAYLIGHT.
                         HUGH WORTHINGTON.
                         CAMERON PRIDE.
                         ROSE MATHER.
                         ETHELYN’S MISTAKE
                         MILBANK.
                         EDNA BROWNING.
                         WEST LAWN.
                         MILDRED.
                         FOREST HOUSE.
                         MADELINE.
                         CHRISTMAS STORIES.
                         GRETCHEN.


                         OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.

“Mrs. Holmes’ stories are universally read. Her admirers are numberless.
She is in many respects without a rival in the world of fiction. Her
characters are always life-like, and she makes them talk and act like
human beings, subject to the same emotions, swayed by the same passions,
and actuated by the same motives which are common among men and women of
every-day existence. Mrs. Holmes is very happy in portraying domestic
life. Old and young peruse her stories with great delight, for she
writes in a style that all can comprehend.”—_New York Weekly._

=The North American Review=, vol. 81, page 557, says of Mrs. Mary J.
Holmes’ novel “English Orphans”:—“With this novel of Mrs. Holmes’ we
have been charmed, and so have a pretty numerous circle of
discriminating readers to whom we have lent it. The characterization is
exquisite, especially so far as concerns rural and village life, of
which there are some pictures that deserve to be hung up in perpetual
memory of types of humanity fast becoming extinct. The dialogues are
generally brief, pointed, and appropriate. The plot seems simple, so
easily and naturally is it developed and consummated. Moreover, the
story thus gracefully constructed and written, inculcates without
obtruding, not only pure Christian morality in general, but, with
especial point and power, the dependence of true success on character,
and of true respectability on merit.”

“Mrs. Holmes’ stories are all of a domestic character, and their
interest, therefore, is not so intense as if they were more highly
seasoned with sensationalism, but it is of a healthy and abiding
character. The interest in her tales begins at once, and is maintained
to the close. Her sentiments are so sound, her sympathies so warm and
ready, and her knowledge of manners, character, and the varied incidents
of ordinary life is so thorough, that she would find it difficult to
write any other than an excellent tale if she were to try it.”—_Boston
Banner._

☞ The volumes are all handsomely printed and bound in cloth, sold
everywhere, and sent by mail, _postage free_, on receipt of price [$1.50
each].

[Illustration: logo]

                      G. W. DILLINGHAM, Publisher,
                  _Successor to G. W. CARLETON & CO._,
                        33 W. 23D ST., NEW YORK.




                           AUGUSTA J. EVANS’

                          MAGNIFICENT NOVELS.


 BEULAH,                                                           $1.75
 ST. ELMO,                                                          2.00
 INEZ,                                                              1.75
 MACARIA,                                                           1.75
 VASHTI,                                                            2.00
 INFELICE,                                                          2.00
 AT THE MERCY OF TIBERIUS,                                          2.00


                A Prominent Critic says of these Novels:

“The author’s style is beautiful, chaste, and elegant. Her ideals are
clothed in the most fascinating imagery, and her power of delineating
character is truly remarkable. One of the marked and striking
characteristics of each and all her works is the purity of sentiment
which pervades every line, every page, and every chapter.”

                  *       *       *       *       *

All handsomely printed and bound in cloth, sold everywhere, and sent by
mail, postage free, on receipt of price, by

[Illustration: logo]

                      G. W. DILLINGHAM, PUBLISHER,
                     33 West 23rd Street, New York.




                          MAY AGNES FLEMING’S

                            Popular Novels.


[Illustration: logo]

 The following is a list of the Novels by the Author of “GUY EARLSCOURT’S
                                  WIFE.”

                      SILENT AND TRUE.
                      A WONDERFUL WOMAN.
                      A TERRIBLE SECRET.
                      NORINE’S REVENGE.
                      A MAD MARRIAGE.
                      ONE NIGHT’S MYSTERY.
                      KATE DANTON.
                      GUY EARLSCOURT’S WIFE.
                      HEIR OF CHARLTON.
                      CARRIED BY STORM.
                      LOST FOR A WOMAN.
                      A WIFE’S TRAGEDY.
                      A CHANGED HEART.
                      PRIDE AND PASSION.
                      SHARING HER CRIME.
                      A WRONGED WIFE.
                      MAUDE PERCY’S SECRET.
                      THE ACTRESS’ DAUGHTER.
                      THE QUEEN OF THE ISLE (New).

These vols. can be had at any bookstore in the cloth bound library
edition. Price $1.50.

 “Mrs. Fleming’s stories are growing more and more popular every day. The
   delineations of character, life-like conversations, flashes of wit,
   constantly varying scenes, and deeply interesting plots, combine to
     place their author in the very first rank of Modern Novelists.”




                            MARION HARLAND’S

                            SPLENDID NOVELS.

         The following is a list of the Novels by the Author of
                                “ALONE.”


                          Alone.
                          Hidden Path.
                          Moss Side.
                          Nemesis.
                          Miriam.
                          Sunny Bank.
                          Ruby’s Husband.
                          At Last.
                          My Little Love.
                          Phemie’s Temptation.
                          The Empty Heart.
                          From My Youth Up.
                          Helen Gardner.
                          Husbands and Homes.
                          Jessamine.
                          True as Steel.

   These vols. can be had at any bookstore in the clothbound library
                         edition. Price, $1.50.

                  *       *       *       *       *

  “It is a strong proof of Marion Harland’s ability, that she has been
  able, for such a length of time, to retain her hold upon the public.
  The secret of her success is that her books are truly
  excellent.”—_Phila. Times._

  “Marion Harland understands the art of constructing a plot which will
  gain the attention of the reader at the beginning, and keep up the
  interest unbroken to the last page.”—_Phila. Telegram._

  “Marion Harland is very popular because she is natural and chaste. She
  is welcome to the home circle because she is imbued with the holiest
  principles. She arranges her plots with great skill, and developes
  them with language commendable for purity and earnestness of
  expression.”—_Lockport Union._

  “As a writer of fiction, Marion Harland has attained a wide and
  well-earned reputation. Her novels are of surpassing excellence and
  interest.”—_Home Journal._

                  *       *       *       *       *

All handsomely printed and bound in cloth, sold everywhere, and sent by
mail, postage free, on receipt of price ($1.50), by

[Illustration: logo]

                      G. W. DILLINGHAM, PUBLISHER,
                     33 West 23rd Street, New York.




                          POPULAR & NEW BOOKS.

                      _“NEW YORK WEEKLY” SERIES._

Messrs. Street & Smith, publishers of _The New York Weekly_, having been
requested by their readers to issue some of their best and most popular
Stories in Book Form, have consented, and have now made arrangements for
such publications with the well-known New York House of


                      G. W. DILLINGHAM, Publisher.

            _The volumes already published are as follows_:

      =Thrown on the World.=—A Novel, by BERTHA M. CLAY.
      =Peerless Cathleen.=—A Novel, by CORA AGNEW.
      =Faithful Margaret.=—A Novel, by ANNIE ASHMORE.
      =Nick Whiffles.=—A Novel, by DR. J. H. ROBINSON.
      =Lady Leonora.=—A Novel, by CARRIE CONKLIN.
      =Charity Grinder Papers.=—By MARY KYLE DALLAS.
      =A Bitter Atonement.=—A Novel, by BERTHA M. CLAY.
      =A Wife’s Tragedy=—A Novel, by MAY AGNES FLEMING.
      =Curse of Everleigh.=—By HELEN CORWIN PIERCE.
      =Love Works Wonders.=—A Novel, by BERTHA M. CLAY.
      =Evelyn’s Folly.=—A Novel, by BERTHA M. CLAY.
      =A Changed Heart=—A Novel, by MAY AGNES FLEMING.
      =Lady Damer’s Secret.=—A Novel, by BERTHA M. CLAY.
      =A Woman’s Temptation.=—A Novel, by BERTHA M. CLAY.
      =Brownie’s Triumph.=—A Novel, by Mrs. GEORGIE SHELDON.
      =A Wronged Wife=—A Novel, by MAY AGNES FLEMING.
      =Pride and Passion=—A Novel, by MAY AGNES FLEMING.
      =Repented at Leisure=—A Novel, by BERTHA M. CLAY.
      =Forsaken Bride.=—A Novel, by Mrs. GEORGIE SHELDON.
      =Between Two Loves=—A Novel, by BERTHA M. CLAY.
      =His Other Wife.=—A Novel, by ROSE ASHLEIGH.
      =Earle Wayne’s Nobility.=—By Mrs. GEORGIE SHELDON.
      =A Struggle For a Ring.=—A Novel, by BERTHA M. CLAY.
      =Lost—A Pearle.=—By Mrs. GEORGIE SHELDON.
      =Maude Percy’s Secret=—A Novel, by MAY AGNES FLEMING.
      =The Actress’ Daughter= (New)—A Novel, by MAY AGNES FLEMING.
      =Young Mrs. Charnleigh.=—A Novel, by T. W. HANSHEW.
      =Earl’s Atonement.=—A Novel, by BERTHA M. CLAY.
      =Put Asunder.=—A Novel, by BERTHA M. CLAY.
      =A Woman’s Web.=—By ROSE ASHLEIGH.
      =Beyond Pardon=—A Novel, by BERTHA M. CLAY.
      =Stella Rosevelt.=—A Novel, by Mrs. GEORGIE SHELDON.

☞ Sold by Booksellers everywhere—and sent by mail, _postage free_, on
receipt of price, $1.50 each, by

[Illustration: logo]

                      G. W. DILLINGHAM, Publisher.
                  (SUCCESSOR TO G. W. CARLETON & CO.)
                  33 West Twenty-third St., New York.




                   _G. W. DILLINGHAM’S PUBLICATIONS._


                      Captain Mayne Reid’s Works.

 The Scalp Hunters                                                 $1 50
 The Rifle Rangers                                                  1 50
 The War Trail                                                      1 50
 The Wood Rangers                                                   1 50
 The Wild Huntress                                                  1 50
 The Headless Horseman                                              1 50
 The Rangers and Regulators                                         1 50
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 Carleton’s Hand-Book of Popular Quotations                         1 50
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 His Complete Writings—With Biography, Steel Portrait and 100
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 Mal Moulée—A splendid novel, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox                1 00
 Birds of a Feather Flock Together—By Edward A. Sothern, the actor  1 50
 O’er Rail and Cross-ties with Gripsack—By Geo. L. Marshall         1 50
 Legends of the Centures—By Victor Hugo                             1 50

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES


 1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
      spelling.
 2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.

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