"Hot air!" murmured Phœbe.
"But while they were rattling over the Brooklyn Bridge, another man was following them in another cab—a Wall-street broker with barrels of cash. He was Raymond Leslie, and a real good man. He'd seen Rosebud get into the cab with Paul Howard, who he knew for a villain for fair. They had a terrible rumpus, but Raymond Leslie rescued her and took her to her aunt's house. It turned out that he was the gentleman-friend of Little Rosebud's cousin Ida, the very place they were going to. But, riding along in the cab, he fell in love with Little Rosebud, and then he was in a terrible pickle because he was promised to Ida. Little Rosebud's relations lived real grand, and her aunt was real nice to her until she saw she had hooked on to Ida's gentleman-friend; then they put her to work in the kitchen and treated her terrible. Oh, I tell you she had a time of it, for fair. Her aunt was awful proud and wicked, and after while, when she found that Raymond Leslie was going to marry Little Rosebud even if they did make a servant of her, she hired Paul Howard to drug her and carry her off to an insane-asylum that he ran up in Westchester County. It was in a lonesome place, and was full of girls that he had loved only to grow tired of and cast off, and this was the easiest way to get rid of them and keep them from spoiling his sport. Once a girl was in love with Paul Howard, she loved him till death. He just fascinated women like a snake does a bird, and he was hot stuff as long as he lasted, but the minute he got tired of you he was a demon of cruelty.
"He did everything he could, when he got Little Rosebud here, to get her under his power. He tried his dirty best to poison her food, but Little Rosebud was foxy and wouldn't touch a bite of anything, but just sat in her cell and watched the broiled chicken and fried oysters, and all the other good things they sent to tempt her, turn to a dark-purplish hue. One night she escaped disguised in the turnkey's daughter's dress. Her name was Dora Gray, and Paul Howard had blasted her life too, but she worshiped him something awful, all the same-ee. Dora Gray gave Little Rosebud a lovely dark-red rose that was soaked with deadly poison, so that if you touched it to the lips of a person, the person would drop dead. She told Little Rosebud to protect herself with it if they chased her. But she didn't get a chance to see whether it would work or not, for when she heard them coming back of her after while with the bloodhounds barking, she dropped with terror down flat on her stummick. She had suffered so much she couldn't stand anything more. The doctors said she was dead when they picked her up, and they buried her and stuck a little white slab on her grave, with 'Rosebud, aged sixteen' on it."
"Hot air!" from the irrepressible Phœbe.
I felt that courtesy required I should agree upon that point, and I did so, conservatively, venturing to ask the name of the author.
Mrs. Smith mentioned the name of a well-known writer of trashy fiction and added, "Didn't you never read none of her books?"
My negative surprised her. Then Phœbe asked:
"Did you ever read 'Daphne Vernon; or, A Coronet of Shame'?"
"No, I haven't read them, either," I replied.