Latter-Day Sweethearts

by Mrs. Burton Harrison

"It's no use, Helen. All the things I long for upon earth would lose their flavor at the cost of ingratitude to him. Even if Posey does believe that she cares most for Clandonald—and if you had heard the words the poor child spoke when she held him, without life, bleeding, against her heart, you would not doubt it—it is not I who can withdraw from my pledge to her."

Helen could not speak. She was thinking of that letter to Mariol, not yet sent. Although she felt now that Glynn meant to keep to his engagement at all costs, she was sure she could never send it; that Mariol's brief mirage of winning her must fade into the desert sands of friendship, if he would be content with that.

During the days that ensued she kept almost altogether with Posey, who was not allowed by her physician to leave her room. And as Helen was in the act of making up her mind to go to Paris to enter as a boarder in the family of a governess of former days, who now gave shelter to art students and girls whose voices were in training for the stage, she received a startling telegram.

It was from her father at Taormina, requiring her presence there without delay. "I am alone and ill," were the magic words that sent her speeding back to him, to find the hapless gentleman deserted by his wife, whose affair with Danielson had ended in guilty flight! Aged, mortified, broken, clinging to Helen in his humiliation, Mr. Carstairs had yet made short work of ridding himself of the unwelcome visitors who had preyed upon his money, while deriding him for a blind old fool not to have seen before the condition of affairs. In the flotsam of the wreck Miss Bleecker, too, floated off, Helen refusing to see her or listen to explanations, and Mr. Carstairs making short work of her prayer to be allowed to remain with poor darling Helen in this awful time.

At last, then, she was again alone with her father, free to cheer and comfort his life with her best endeavors, a new object given to her for daily care and sacred ministration. Mr. Carstairs would not hear of dallying in the hateful spot where his shame had come to him. He insisted that the "Sans Peur" should take them to an English port, whence they might embark immediately for home. And Helen had reluctantly to acknowledge that the only medicine for a wrong and grief like his was a return to the life of great affairs, in which he was signally a leader.

At Liverpool, where she had landed so listlessly the previous autumn, Miss Carstairs received a letter of loving farewell and God-speed from Posey Winstanley at Cannes. The girl could not keep out of her phrases of affection the note of common sense, which made Helen's humiliating experience a subject of ultimate rejoicing by her friends. She was sure that Helen was going home to new happiness, new occupation, a generally broadening horizon. In the continual circling of moderns around this little globe the friends were sure to meet again, "early and often," Posey prayed. She had entirely regained her health, the weather was getting piping hot, Reine des Fées was too dreadfully dull now that dear John Glynn had gone back "for good" to his office in New York; even Lady Campstown had been taken off by Lord Clandonald for a visit to Beaumanoir; and lastly—it was on the cards that Mr. Winstanley and Posey might also soon go to make acquaintance with England in the Spring.

No word of her marriage. While Helen was pondering upon this theme a steward brought her another letter that had been taken out of a later mail-bag. It was a mot d'adieu from Lady Campstown, containing, among other items of information, a statement that Posey's wedding was "indefinitely postponed."

The perennial Miss Bleecker, although smarting still under the contemptuous dismissal given her by Mr. Carstairs at Taormina, was next seen that Spring at Cadenabbia, hanging on, rather miserably, to the skirts of Mrs. Vereker. The two ladies, waiting there for Mr. Vereker (who had been walking barefoot at Brixen, in wet grass), were heard to bicker continually, to the discomfort of all within earshot. In due time they were joined by and accompanied Mr. Vereker to a new cure he had heard of, at a place in Switzerland, where the régime consisted of skim milk and electricity.

The hotel which sheltered the party proved to be situated upon a sylvan hill-top, surrounded by a park stocked with tame deer, with "Verboten" placarded over every spot where one most desired to go. A merry Swiss lad was hired by the management to jodel in an adjacent grove, but there were no visible cows. One beheld, instead, a flock of theatrical sheep, perpetually conducted up and down verdant slopes by a shepherd and a dog. Also, a band of native singers, the men in tweeds and Derby hats, the women in custom-made blouses and gored skirts, who came often to warble disconsolately upon the terrace. There was even a cuckoo sequestered in the woods, of which Miss Bleecker snappishly complained, as a horrid clock, striking all out of order to wake people up at 5 A.M., until some one told her it was the genuine bird of Shakespeare, when she called it a darling little thing.

For a long, long time it rained at this resort, and the guests sat on damp iron chairs in the veranda and looked at where the view had been some weeks before. After that it was grilling hot, and as Mrs. Vereker and Miss Bleecker were obliged to stay on for the completion of Mr. Vereker's treatment, the temper of the party became something too awful for words.