Poppea of the Post-Office

by Mabel Osgood Wright

One day Mr. Esterbrook had suggested that they two should leave the carriage, walk back to the entrance gate and take a stage or a horse-car home. How Poppea had enjoyed it. There had been enough wind to ripple the water of the reservoir, and the gulls were flying over it, preparing to bed down for the night as they did on Moosatuck. Another time, the ladies always being interested in everything concerning the good of the city, had driven across the park and out the west side of it to see where the building of the Museum of Natural History was to be located, the laying of the corner-stone by President Grant having been set for the following June. Continuing on over poorly paved streets or muddy roadways that ran between partly decayed country houses, or the shanties of squatter settlements, they came within sight of the Hudson, making their way northward through Manhattanville and Bloomingdale to a hill called Claremont, where there was a place of refreshment in an old farm-house.

The sight of the glorious river sweeping down between the high walls of the palisades, with shadowy suggestion of headlands and mountains, made the young girl's breath come quick and short. She could not keep her eyes from the window and she spoke either in monosyllables or kept silent. Could she, might she go out on the bank and see, not through the glass, and feel the wind that was bending the old tulip trees with the rattling seed cups?

Alas, no; it was a place of public entertainment where one, especially a young lady, must be very careful to do nothing unusual. So, though Miss Emmy looked as though she would not only have encouraged Poppea in her desire but gone with her if it had not been so cruelly windy, they turned their backs on the wonderful panorama, while Patrick sought an easier, if less picturesque, way home.

He, in fact, scowled upon the whole trip to such an extent that it was not repeated. The horses, used to half a dozen miles at most, had sweated unduly; the rim of one of the newly painted wheels had sunk between two cobbles and become badly scratched, while Patrick himself had been jolted to such an extent that he had been obliged, in order to keep his seat, to adapt himself to circumstances and do something more than sit on the box and hold the reins, a new condition which raised his ire. It may be said with truth that the tyrannical family coachman of the old régime in New York was the logical and fitting ancestor of the arbitrary chauffeur of to-day. The first, however, having only the "lame horse" plea as his weapon; the other, any one of an endless series of complicated intestinal diseases concealed in the corpulent tonneau.

Thus, after the first week, Poppea's exercise was limited to the correct walk for girls of her age, up or down Fifth Avenue to Washington Square, or with Nora for attendant, dressed in the neat garb of a city maid, down Twenty-third Street and eastward to Gramercy Park, a key to which exclusive enclosure had been given to the Misses Felton by one of their many friends in the surrounding houses. She often looked longingly at the girls of her own age who walked in groups of twos and threes, chatting vivaciously, the maid following far enough away to be out of sight if not out of mind. At home she had never felt lonely. Now, for the first time, she realized that she had no real girl companions of her own age.

This particular afternoon when she stood between the curtains, a hand on each, looking alternately out into the square and then down the length of the three great rooms, divided by marble columns, their size further magnified by the vistas seen in the pier and mantel mirrors, she felt like some wild thing at bay. The ladies had gone in the carriage to Staten Island to visit a distant relative who was ill, taking Nora with them. Mr. Esterbrook had lunched as usual at his club, the Union League, only a few blocks further up the avenue, it having been his considerate custom to leave the house to the ladies and their friends at mid-day ever since luncheon had taken the place of early dinner.

Poppea tried to open first a front and then a back window to get a breath of air, but without success. She was too wise now to refresh herself by sitting on the outer doorstep, since the doing of it, during the first week, had brought a very decided remonstrance from the usually sympathetic Miss Emmy.

For a minute she was minded to get her hat and join the children in the square; then some street musicians with harp and violins struck up before the next house, riveting her attention. The playing was spirited and the time good, though imperfect as to technique. The pent-up energy in Poppea began to surge and sway her body to the music. Stepping from the recessed window before the long mirror, where there was a space clear of furniture, she began to dance, not with set steps or calculated gestures, merely letting the music lead her.

When she finally stopped, head forward, a sort of half-mocking courtesy to the looking-glass, laughing,—her good temper restored,—she was startled to see a reflection besides her own, that of a young man of perhaps eight and twenty, of medium height, clean shaven at a time when this was uncommon, immaculate as to clothes, having an air of being perfectly at ease in unusual surroundings that Poppea noticed even in her confusion.

Caleb had ushered him through the sliding door unthinkingly, for the colored servitor was standing transfixed, one hand raised in warning, saying in the brief time that it took Poppea to prepare for flight:—