Doctor Hathern's daughters

by Mary Jane Holmes

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.

---

MRS. MARY J. HOLMES’ NOVELS.

Over a MILLION Sold.

As a writer of domestic stories, which are extremely interesting, Mrs. Mary J. Holmes is unrivalled. Her characters are true to life, quaint, and admirable.

Tempest and Sunshine.

English Orphans.

Homestead on the Hillside.

’Lena Rivers.

Meadow Brook.

Dora Deane.

Cousin Maude.

Marian Grey.

Edith Lyle.

Daisy Thornton.

Chateau D’Or.

Queenie Hetherton.

Darkness and Daylight.

Hugh Worthington.

Cameron Pride.

Rose Mather.

Ethelyn’s Mistake.

Millbank.

Edna Browning.

West Lawn.

Mildred.

Forrest House.

Madeline.

Christmas Stories.

Bessie’s Fortune.

Gretchen.

Marguerite (New).

Price $1.50 per Vol.

AUGUSTA J. EVANS’

Magnificent Novels.

Beulah, $1.75

St. Elmo, $2.00

Inez, $1.75

Macaria, $1.75

Vashti, $200

Infelice. $2.00

At the Mercy or Tiberius, New, $2.00.

“The author’s style is beautiful, chaste, and elegant. Her ideas are clothed in the most fascinating imagery, and her power of delineating character is truly remarkable.”

MARION HARLAND’S

SPLENDID NOVELS.

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.

Price $1.50 per Vol.

“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 to the last page.”

MAY AGNES FLEMING’S

POPULAR NOVELS.

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.

The Midnight Queen (New).

Price $1.50 per Vol.

“Mrs. Fleming’s stories are growing more and more popular every day. Their 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.”

JULIE P. SMITH’S NOVELS.

Widow Goldsmith’s Daughter	$1 50
Chris and Otho	1 50
Ten Old Maids	1 50
Lucy	1 50
His Young Wife	1 50
The Widower	1 50
The Married Belle	1 50
Courting and Farming	1 50
Kiss and be Friends	1 50
Blossom Bud	1 50

JOHN ESTEN COOKE’S NOVELS.

Surry of Eagle’s Nest	$2 00
Fairfax	1 50
Hilt to Hilt	1 50
Out of the Foam	1 50
Hammer and Rapier	1 50
Mohun	1 50

CELIA E. GARDNER’S NOVELS.

Stolen Waters. (In verse)	$1 50
Broken Dreams. Do.	1 50
Compensation. Do.	1 50
A Twisted Skein. Do.	1 50
Tested	1 50
Rich Medway	1 50
A Woman’s Wiles	1 50
Terrace Roses	1 50
Seraph—or Mortal? (New)	1 50

A. S. ROE’S NOVELS.

True to the Last	$1 50
A Long Look Ahead	1 50
The Star and the Cloud	1 50
I’ve Been Thinking	1 50
How could He Help It	1 50
Like and Unlike	1 50
To Love and To Be Loved	1 50
Time and Tide	1 50
Woman Our Angel	1 50
Looking Around	1 50
The Cloud on the Heart	1 50
Resolution	1 50

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 Maroon	1 50
The Headless Horseman	1 50
The Rangers and Regulators	1 50
The White Chief	1 50
The Tiger Hunter	1 50
The Hunter’s Feast	1 50
Wild Life	1 50
Osceola, the Seminole	1 50
The Quadroon	1 50
The White Gauntlet	1 50
Lost Leonore	1 50

POPULAR HAND-BOOKS.

The Habits of Good Society—The nice points of taste and good manners	$1 00
The Art of Conversation—For those who wish to be agreeable talkers	1 00
The Arts of Writing, Reading and Speaking—For Self-Improvement	1 00
Carleton’s Hand-Book of Popular Quotations	1 50
1000 Legal Don’ts—By Ingersoll Lockwood	75
800 Medical Don’ts—By Ferd. C. Valentine, M.D.	75
On the Chafing Dish—By Harriet P. Bailey	50
Pole on Whist	1 00
Draw Poker without a Master	50

POPULAR NOVELS, COMIC BOOKS, ETC.

Les Miserables—Translated from the French The only complete edition	$1 50
Stephen Lawrence—By Annie Edwardes	1 50
Susan Fielding Do. Do.	1 50
A Woman of Fashion Do. Do.	1 50
Archie Lovell Do. Do.	1 50
Love [L’Amour]—English Translation from Michelet’s famous French work	1 50
Woman [La Femme]—The Sequel to “L’Amour.” Do. Do.	1 50
Verdant Green—A racy English college story. With 200 comic illustrations	1 50
Doctor Antonio—By Ruffini	1 50
Beatrice Cenci—From the Italian	1 50
Josh Billings. His Complete Writings—With Biography, Steel Portrait, and 100 Ill.	2 00
Artemas Ward. Complete Comic Writings—With Biography, Portrait, and 50 Ill.	1 50
Children’s Fairy Geography—With hundreds of beautiful Illustrations	1 00

All the books on this list are handsomely printed and bound in cloth, sold everywhere, and by mail, postage free, on receipt of price by

G. W. DILLINGHAM, PUBLISHER,

33 West 23d Street, New York.

G. W. DILLINGHAM’S PUBLICATIONS.

Humorous Works and Novels in Paper Cover.

A Naughty Girl’s Diary	$ 50
A Good Boys’ Diary	50
It’s a Way Love Has	25
Mizora—Zarowitch	50
Zarailla—By Beulah	50
The Devil and I	50
Florine	50
Smart Sayings of Children—Paul	1 00
Crazy History of the U. S.	50
Rocks and Shoals—Swisher	50
The Wages of Sin	50
The Evil that Women Do	50
Mrs. Spriggins—Widow Bedott	25
Phemie Frost—Ann S. Stephens	1 50
A Marriage Below Zero—A. Dale	50
An Eerie He and She Do.	50
An Old Maid Kindled Do.	50
A Society Star—Chandos Fulton	50
Our Artist in Spain, etc.—Carleton	1 00
Draw Poker without a Master	25

Miscellaneous Works.

Dawn to Noon—By Violet Fane	$1 50
Constance’s Fate Do.	1 50
The Missing Chord—Lucy Dillingham	1 25
Ronbar—By R. S. Dement	1 50
A Manless World—Yourell	75
Journey to Mars—Pope	1 50
The Dissolution—Dandelyon	1 00
Lion Jack—By P. T. Barnum	50
Jack in the Jungle Do.	1 50
Dick Broadhead Do.	1 50
Red Birds Christmas Story, Holmes	1 00
The Life of Sarah Bernhardt	25
Arctic Travels—By Dr. Hayes	1 50
Flashes from “Ouida”	1 25
The Story of a Day in London	25
Lone Ranch—By Mayne Reid	1 50
The Train Boy—Horatio Alger	1 25
Dan, The Detective—Alger	1 25
Death Blow to Spiritualism	50
The Sale of Mrs. Adral—Costello	50
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
Home Harmonies Do.	1 50
Vesta Vane—By L. King, R.	1 50
Kimball’s Novels—6 vols. Per vol.	1 00
Warwick—M. T. Walworth	1 50
Hotspur Do.	1 50
Lulu Do.	1 50
Stormcliff Do.	1 50
Delaplaine Do.	1 50
Beverly. Do.	1 50
Zahara. Do.	1 50
Led Astray—By Octave Feuillet	50
The Darling of an Empire	1 50
Clip Her Wing, or Let Her Soar	1 50
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
Purple and Fine Linen—Fawcett	1 50
Pauline’s Trial—L. D. Courtney	1 50
Tancredi—Dr. E A. Wood	1 50
Measure for Measure—Stanley	1 50
A Marvelous Coincidence	50
Two Men of the World—Bates	50
A God of Gotham—Bascom	50
Congressman John—MacCarthy	50
So Runs the World Away	50
The Bravest 500 of ’61	3 50
Heart Hungry—Mrs. Westmoreland	1 50
Clifford Troupe. Do.	50
Price of a Life—R. F. Sturgis	1 50
Marston Hall—L. Ella Byrd	1 50
Conquered—By a New Author	1 50
Tales from the Popular Operas	1 50
The Fall of Kilman Kon	1 50
San Miniato—Mrs. C. V. Hamilton	50
All for Her—A Tale of New York	1 50
L’Assommoir—Zola’s great novel	1 00

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].

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

G. W. Dillingham, Publisher,

33 West 23rd Street, New York.

MAY AGNES FLEMING’S

Popular Novels.

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.

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All handsomely printed and bound in cloth, sold everywhere, and sent by mail, postage free, on receipt of price ($1.50), by

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

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
The White Chief	1 50
The Tiger Hunter	1 50
The Hunter’s Feast	1 50
Wild Life	1 50
Osceola, the Seminole	1 50
The White Gauntlet	1 50
Lost Leonore	1 50

Popular Hand-Books.

The Habits of Good Society—The nice points of taste and good manners	$1 00
The Art of Conversation—For those who wish to be agreeable talkers	1 00
The Arts of Writing, Reading and Speaking—For Self-Improvement	1 00
Carleton’s Hand-Book of Popular Quotations	1 50
Blunders in Educated Circles Corrected—Bowden	75
1000 Legal Don’ts—By Ingersoll Lockwood	75
600 Medical Don’ts—By Ferd. C. Valentine, M.D.	75

Josh Billings.

His Complete Writings—With Biography, Steel Portrait and 100 Illustrations

$2 00

Annie Edwardes’ Novels.

Stephen Lawrence	$1 50
Susan Fielding	1 50
A Woman of Fashion	1 50
Archie Lovell	1 50

Albert Ross’ Novels. (Paper Covers.)

Thou Shalt Not	$0 50
Speaking of Ellen	50
Her Husband’s Friend	50
The Garston Bigamy	50
Thy Neighbor’s Wife	50
Young Miss Giddy	50
Out of Wedlock. (New.)	50
His Private Character	50
In Stella’s Shadow	50
Moulding a Maiden	50
Why I’m Single	50
An Original Sinner	50
Love at Seventy	50

Artemas Ward.

Complete Comic Writings—With Biography, Portrait and 50 Illustrations

$1 50

John Esten Cook’s Novels.

Surry of Eagle’s Nest	$1 50
Fairfax	1 50
Hilt to Hilt	1 50
Beatrice Hallam	1 50
Leather and Silk	1 50
Miss Bonnybel	1 50
Out of the Foam	1 50
Out of the Foam	1 50
Hammer and Rapier	1 50
Mohun	1 50
Captain Ralph	1 50
Col. Ross of Piedmont	1 50
Robert E. Lee	1 50
Stonewall Jackson	1 50

Miscellaneous Works.

On the Chafing Dish—By Harriet P. Bailey	$0 50
New Things To Eat and How To Make Them	50
Philosophers and Actresses—By Houssaye. Steel Portraits, 2 vols.	4 00
Men and Women of 18th Century—By Houssaye. Steel Portraits, 2 vols.	4 00
Fifty Years among Authors, Books and Publishers—By J. C. Derby. 8 vo.	5 00
Children’s Fairy Geography—With hundreds of beautiful illustrations	1 00
An Exile’s Romance—By Arthur Louis	1 50
Laus Veneris, and other Poems—By Algernon Charles Swinburne	1 50
Hawk-eye Sketches—Comic book by “Burlington Hawk-eye Man.” Do.	1 50
The Culprit Fay—Joseph Rodman Drake’s Poem. With 100 illustrations	2 00
Love [L’Amour]—English Translation from Michelet’s famous French work	1 50
Woman [La Femme]—The Sequel to “L’Amour.” Do. Do.	1 50
Verdant Green—A racy English college story. With 200 comic illustrations	1 50
For the Sins of his Youth—By Mrs. Jane Kavanagh	1 50
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

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling.
2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.